Why would anyone want to fast? It is such an odd concept.  The idea of intentionally not eating food for several days seems quite irrational and misguided.  That’s something I certainly thought before I fasted for four days last week.  Now that I have, I want to share this experience with you – not as a moral victory lap, but as a way to inform and inspire you on what I think is the most pressing issue of the day: your true health.

The human body is an amazing organism capable of enduring great hardship and periods of famine.  For those of us living in the abundance of modern life, we can only imagine what it is like to endure the biological and physiological effects of going without. Quite the opposite, we are more likely faced with the overabundance of calories and the degenerative effects that brings.

What Motivated Me to Fast?
I have never personally known hunger. Any time I have wanted or needed food, I had it growing up.  While there have been lean months here and there in my adult life, I have eaten when I wanted to eat. This is something I have taken mostly for granted, but certainly appreciate more after helping lead two separate national hunger awareness and action campaigns.  But that’s not why I decided to fast.

Over the past few years, my wife and I have taken greater personal ownership of our health and well-being.  Instead of waiting for crisis to strike, we are proactively building and sustaining the vitality needed to live a high quality life for many decades to come.  This new belief system can be inconvenient and challenging especially when surrounded by a culture that defaults to the quick fixes.  Why bother exercising, eating healthy, and consulting with wellness professionals when you can just take a pill to relieve the symptom?

A Dose of Reality
It was my wife who inspired me to fast.  She is the more disciplined half of this marriage.  That’s true in most every regard but especially so when it comes to food.  I am the Epicurean, the Foodie, a lover of fried dough, barbecue aficionado, and someone who has an obsessive attachment to desserts and sweet treats.  This strong attachment to food has been one of my endearing qualities and my Achilles’ heel.  Quite the double-edged sword.

I have a clock ticking in my head every time I indulge.  My mind goes straight back almost eight years ago to the memory of waiting for the phone call from my mom to find out how my dad was doing after his emergency sextuplet heart by-pass surgery.  And he isn’t the only member of that family tree branch with heart health challenges.  What I know now is that genetics only plays a part in health – its senior partner is the collection of habits we adopt and maintain.  These habits, like the entourage surrounding a politician or celebrity, are what pull out the good and bad from these genes.

For the record, my dad is doing better now than he could’ve ever imagined.  He has completely changed his ways. While always a relatively healthy guy, he hasn’t eaten ice cream since.  Thanks to my wife’s encouragement, he became a vegetarian.  Yoga and meditation are as central to his daily routine as is his regular exercise and healthy eating. And it shows – he’s the same weight now as when he was a lightweight wrestler in high school.  Not bad for a medical doctor and active player within the medical establishment.

A Spontaneously Well-Informed Decision
One can only travel down that neuronal pathway so many times before the decision needs to be made: deep denial or intentional action.  After gorging on Ben & Jerry’s ice cream on a Saturday night, I decided the next day it was time for action.  My first objective: break my obsessive attachment to food.  And what better way to do that then going without eating for a few days.

While this decision was somewhat spontaneous, it was well informed.  My wife is the consummate researcher and meticulous when it comes to following regimens.  She had fasted a couple times with success and had been delicately nudging me to try it.  With her as my safety net, I jumped off the ledge striking the cavalier swan dive pose.

The Fast Begins
The first day was easy.  My last meal was a bowl of hot-air popped popcorn while watching the World Cup championship game.  Then it was water and liquids.  Monday, I was drinking water and tea while plowing through meetings in the city.  By dinner time, my body began to send the first series of alarms and bells.

Now, if you’ve never fasted and eat the standard American diet, you need to know that you’re going to hit a wall of pain, discomfort, and other symptoms.  The common wisdom is that your body is fighting your decision and you need to heed its warnings.  Actually, this is your body’s way of thanking you.  For the first time in a long time, you have given your body the time and space to take out the cellular garbage that’s been piling up all over the place.

Keep in mind, food is a drug.  Each morsel we eat is filled with a pharmacological concoction.  Unfortunately, the food we mostly eat is devoid of nutritive value and is instead filled with a melange of toxic elements that confuse and distract the body.  For most of us, we’re eating foods and drinking beverages that excite and stress the body on a persistent, subconscious level.  It’s like a raging dance club rattling the floors and walls of your home all day and night.

Useful Knowledge
Fortunately, you can use this knowledge to your advantage.  Some foods hurt you, while other foods help you.  In general terms, fruits help clean out your cells and vegetables help repair and restore them.  For the first 48 hours of my fast, I used fruit to my advantage.  Twice, I ate some raspberries to help take the edge of the detoxification happening by helping flush those toxins faster.  While technically that’s not fasting, it was something this food addict needed to break through the wall.

Rest is another friend and ally.  When fasting, your body can refocus the energy it usually uses to digest food (or, more accurately, attempt to) and devote attention to what I consider to be a major Spring cleaning of the body.  Cat naps, early bed times, and pacing yourself throughout the day will do you very well.

Water is vital. As you learned in school, the body is mostly water.  It’s what brings nutrients into the cell and takes garbage out of the cell.  Without water, your body’s systems can’t work.  ”When in doubt, drink water,” is my mantra.

Pushing thru the Wall
Knowing all that isn’t what got me thru the wall of pain and discomfort.  At about the 36-hour mark, I was on the verge of breaking the fast.  In fact, I pulled vegetables out of the fridge with the intention of steaming them for dinner.  Calmly and even-handedly, my wife talked me down from the ledge.  She pulled out a book on eating healthy that had a very insightful section on what happens during a fast and why it’s important for your long-term vitality to push thru it.  Without that well-timed piece of information, I would have bailed.  Instead, I pushed thru and went to sleep early that night.

Waking up on the third morning of my fast, I emerged from the Sturm und Drang of the first 48 hours. I had a clarity of mind and and a calming of the body that I hadn’t remembered experiencing before.  My energy levels were back to a fully functioning level – although different in nature.  It was like the flow inside my body had reversed.  Instead of energy coming from my digestive track to the rest of my body, it was emanating from the rest of body and working backwards.

Some Serious S#!T
I started that third day with a tweet about my new found energy.  Bob Knorpp replied with encouragement to drink lots of glasses of salt water throughout the third day.  The advice came with a cautionary note to be near the bathroom, as the brine solution would speed the cellular transfer (read: your bowels will do their job very well).  He spoke the truth.

Now, I realize it’s not polite to talk about what happens to you in the bathroom.  But, common wisdom and polite conversation is not your friend or ally.  In fact, it is a major contributor to the ignorance most people have about their health.  As Howard Stern is fond of asking thin guests, do you poo every day?  Urine and poo are necessary and to be encouraged.  They are one of your best indicators of health.  So get over your squeamishness and Victorian demureness, or just keep living in the dark and label me as some nut job freak.  Either way is fine with me.

As the Calm Washed Over Me
Because my energy levels stayed up all day, I took my son swimming at our local YMCA pool.  Floating in the cool water of the evening, I can best describe the way I felt as clean and calm.  Imagine the sensation of being on a wide open field covered in snow – the silence and peace washing over you.  No longer was my body being jolted around by the constant thumping and pulsing of that nightclub dance scene.  It was still and at peace.

Probably the hardest parts of my day during the fast were those meals where I had to watch my wife and son eat – followed closely by buying some grocery items for them.  Opening the refrigerator and pantry stocked with food (all healthy and nutritive) was the closest I’ve come to knowing an infinitesimal whiff of what Tantalus felt.

I decided to end my fast at the most appropriate time of the day: breakfast. Yes, the word comes from the idea of breaking your nightly fast.  My emotions were mixed about it.  I had lasted 12 hours longer than originally intended (early on in the fast, I set my goal as 72 hours) and was certainly missing the feeling of a full belly.  Interestingly, I was obsessed not with sweets.  Instead, I was madly hungry for an avocado.

The Home Stretch
The last night was more difficult than I had imagined.  My body had entered a brand new level of Spring cleaning.  The flow from the rest of the body back to the digestive system began to flush out deeply embedded toxins.  Unlike the first 48 hours of feverish, coma-like sleep, I tossed and turned uncomfortably – first in bed and then on the living room couch so as to not disturb my wife’s sleep.  Had I not had client deliverables and project milestones to meet the rest of the week, I might have stayed on the fast to keep rooting these toxins out.  What I ended up doing was resolve to fast on a regular basis and achieve that end goal thru repetition and consistency.

My re-entry into the world of eating started slowly and deliberately.  A carton of strawberries eaten with great patience and enjoyment.  An hour later, I ate a bowl of stove-cooked steel cut oatmeal.  Lunch was romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and an entire avocado.  More fruit for an afternoon snack.  Lentil soup, a tortilla, a romaine salad, mixed nuts, and another entire avocado.  All of these morsels enjoyed and appreciated lovingly.

My Personal Reset
Prior to my fast, I had the pernicious habit of eating my meals like a Great White shark in frenzy.  Since, I have slowed down, savoring each bite and experiencing the flavors unfold in my mouth.  Yes, I have had a sweet treat or two, but my evening cravings for carbs have subsided.  Probably most interesting is that I can actually miss and even delay my meals without a chemical cascade of alarm bells going off.

Do what you will with what you have just read.  I’m not sitting up on my high horse looking down on you.  I’m just one man walking on a path I believe will help me enjoy my life better.  A fast is not a panacea.  It is a step in a lifelong journey for me.

For anyone interested in learning more about healthier eating, I recommend reading “Eat to Live” by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. And, the section I read about fasting can be found in “The Live Food Factor” by Susan Schenck.  So it’s clear, I won’t make any money from you buying these books.

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Scott Henderson is managing principal of CauseShift, a team of strategists who help clients provoke, connect, and market. He has led shifts for a variety of organizations, including P&G, UNICEF, and wecanendthis.com, a yearlong, multi-partner initiative to spark innovation and engage more people in the cause of ending hunger in America. Scott is a regular keynote speaker and publisher of rallythecause.com

Tagged in: cleansing, fasting, food is a drug, foodie, health, personal reset, well-being