tl;dr: Over the past three months, I’ve shed 4 stones. This is a per­sonal account of my jour­ney to a fit­ter body and bet­ter health, achieved in a sur­pris­ingly short time. This infor­ma­tion is not intended to pros­e­ly­tize, please con­sult a doc­tor and read the dis­claimer at the end of this post. If you decide to skip a meal, con­sider donat­ing the value of that meal to feed the hun­gry, at Let’s Not Do Lunch or at the World Food Pro­gramme.

The end of the line

I could hardly believe what I was look­ing at. There it was, start­ing right at me. I could no longer ignore, deny, or post-rationalize what I already knew as the dig­i­tal evi­dence stared me down and waved its mer­ci­less accusatory fin­ger at me. This marked the end of the line for me, three months ago to the day.

Let me rewind a little.

My friends and I had just returned from an over­whelm­ingly fun and unex­pect­edly glut­to­nous week­end in the Florida Keys. It wasn’t nec­es­sar­ily our inten­tion to gorge on food, but we man­aged to turn a great idea — “Let’s hold our annual SxSE (South by South­east) shindig in Key West” — into a con­ve­nient excuse to par­tic­i­pate in a three-day orgy of food and drink. We kicked off the week­end on Fri­day with a cre­ative and deli­ciously rich, choco­laty con­coc­tion at Bet­ter Than Sex dessert lounge, which, by the way, almost lives up to its name, and fin­ished with a big order of spareribs at Porky’s Bay­side BBQ on our way back home on Sun­day. Sure, we had a lot of fun besides eat­ing and I did make a valiant effort to burn off the excess calo­ries with a good bike ride around the island, but in hind­sight, our var­i­ous deli­cious but rich meals stood out most for me. For a fuller retelling of our week­end, here is a good account and col­lec­tion of pho­tos.

So as I sat on my couch at home star­ing at my friends’ new albums on Face­book, I was taken aback, shocked, and hor­ri­fied by what I saw. Those of you who know me will rec­og­nize me in these pho­tos. Was that really me? Is that what I look like? How did my mir­ror lie so much to me for so long? Did I not notice the weight creep­ing on? What about all that daily bik­ing I had done over the past four months, for nearly an hour a day — what did I have to show for that?

The high water mark for my weight was also an emo­tional low point for my spirit.

After metic­u­lously untag­ging myself from the offend­ing pic­tures, I shut down the lap­top and turned on Net­flix, hop­ing to dis­tract myself.

Reboot­ing the system

“One telling sta­tis­tic is that the aver­age weight of an adult in the United States has increased by about twenty-six pounds between 1960 and the present. Clearly, this is not due to genetic changes in the pop­u­la­tion. Rather, it’s mostly a result of the con­certed effort of these cor­po­ra­tions to pro­duce food and drink, served in large por­tions, that max­i­mally acti­vate the plea­sure cir­cuit and thereby con­tribute to overeat­ing.” ~David J. Lin­den, “The Com­pass of Pleasure”

By some inge­nious if slightly creepy and syn­chro­nous design, Net­flix divined my state of mind and sug­gested a doc­u­men­tary: “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.” Wow, that’s exactly how I felt .. well, the Fat and Sick part, not the rest. Of course I watched it. This is the story of an Aussie who spends two months dri­ving around the US “juic­ing” his way back to health with fruits, sal­ads, and veg­eta­bles. Along the way, he meets a trucker who looks to be twice as heavy as he is, who then pro­ceeds to juice his own way back to health. The doc­u­men­tary is very compelling.

I watched the movie twice and started juic­ing the very next morn­ing. I had bought a juicer years ago which I hadn’t really put it to use. Luck­ily I had some leafy greens, pep­pers, and car­rots in the fridge, which made for a bizarre tast­ing break­fast. I was so eager to get started that I didn’t bother to look up  a recipe.

I remem­ber those first days well. I looked for juice bars in Miami, which are few and far between, and would drive miles dur­ing lunch to buy two juices. They were tasty, but gone in a few sips. I did this for three days, then switched to water. Yes, water.

While on my juice fast — or feast, rather, as the juices are really refresh­ing — I was read­ing all I could about fast­ing. Some of the resources I came across sug­gested to alter­nate juic­ing with water days. That is, once you’ve “cleansed” your sys­tem through juic­ing, you can eas­ily and safely spend some days on a water fast. That’s exactly what I did, with an ini­tial goal of 5 days.

Let’s be clear

I am not a doc­tor or a nutri­tion­ist and I am not post­ing this to pros­e­ly­tize. I am shar­ing a per­sonal account of my own pro­foundly pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence fol­low­ing a reg­i­men of fast­ing and eat­ing a plant-based diet. The infor­ma­tion in this post is not intended to be med­ical advice or instruc­tions for med­ical diag­no­sis or treat­ment. Always con­sult your physi­cian before mak­ing any dra­matic changes to your diet and lifestyle. For some peo­ple, this kind of reg­i­men may be dan­ger­ous to their health. Not get­ting enough nutri­ents dur­ing pro­longed fast­ing diets may lead to dan­ger­ous symp­toms. Peo­ple with dia­betes or women who are preg­nant or breast­feed­ing or those with chronic dis­eases should not fast.

Exer­cis­ing mind over matter

 “Let your­self be open and life will be eas­ier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrink­able. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unno­ticed.” ~Buddha

When I tell peo­ple about my expe­ri­ence, they like to con­clude that I fol­lowed a “cold turkey” approach: one moment I was eat­ing and the next I had stopped eat­ing, for­ever. But that’s not quite how it hap­pened. I had noticed I had gained a lot of weight over time, because my scale told me so, because my par­ents dropped not-so-subtle hints, and because my clos­est friends would nee­dle me. I knew I had to do some­thing about it one day, but kept putting it off as I pri­or­i­tized other areas of my life, mostly work and pro­fes­sional activities.

When I did start the water fast, I did so grad­u­ally by juic­ing first for a num­ber of days. Had I gone straight from eat­ing a dozen spareribs at Porky’s to fast­ing for 21 days … well … I would not have made it through the first day. My body would have rebelled by dri­ving me to the near­est source of food and my mind would have done noth­ing about it. Juic­ing for three days was key to com­plet­ing a pro­longed fast.

So I ended up fast­ing exclu­sively on water for 21 days. I ini­tially set out to fast for 5 days, then 10, then 21. As I reached each stage, I felt bet­ter and bet­ter. By day 3 I no longer felt hun­gry, by day 5 I no longer felt the occa­sional but infre­quent nau­sea, and from day 10 to 21 it was smooth and plea­sur­able sailing.

I dis­cov­ered that fast­ing is a voy­age of dis­cov­ery larger than just the weight loss alone. Because eat­ing is such an impor­tant part of our lives, the nihilism of our mod­ern way of eat­ing is an affir­ma­tion of self. So much of our daily lives is ded­i­cated to food, between gro­cery shop­ping, cook­ing, dri­ving to restau­rants, and eat­ing. So much of our body’s energy is spent on digest­ing the food we eat. For some peo­ple, so much men­tal effort is spent obsess­ing about their body image. When you remove these things, your choices in life are laid bare: how you spend your time, who you keep com­pany with, what you do … When you fig­ure out the direct link between the food you eat and your body, so much else in life becomes crys­tal clear.

What helped me most was to set­tle into a daily rou­tine. I found myself wak­ing up well before dawn, at which point I would put on some light clothes and go for a long walk. It’s refresh­ing to be up when every­one is still sleep­ing, when few cars are on the road, when cats and owls peer at you through the dark­ness, and when you can hear the wind rustling the leaves. Of great­est value was tak­ing the time to med­i­tate for about 20 min­utes after the morn­ing walk. This morn­ing rou­tine nour­ished my senses, cleared my mind, and rein­forced my will.

At times, it felt like the pas­sage of time itself slowed down, espe­cially dur­ing my early morn­ing walks. Even as time slowed down, issues unrav­eled, my moti­va­tions became clear, and I gained new insights about myself and about others.

Chal­lengers and skep­tics abound

Fast­ing is right­fully intended to be a per­sonal jour­ney not to be shared with the world at large. How­ever, peo­ple will invari­ably find out. Along the way I met a lot of skep­ti­cism and just enough encour­age­ment to keep me going. Nine out of ten peo­ple were flat out against my deci­sion to fast, some­times adamantly so. The hand­ful that sup­ported me made it easier.

Eat­ing is social. So many busi­ness and social inter­ac­tions occur over meals and it makes peo­ple uncom­fort­able to be around some­one who’s fast­ing. The only solu­tions are to come up with a great excuse, to be upfront about fast­ing, or to cut down on lunch and din­ner dates. This is just a minor chal­lenge to fasting.

Most peo­ple, includ­ing clos­est friends and fam­ily, try to dis­cour­age their loved ones from fast­ing. It turns out that some­times the peo­ple who are clos­est to you are not always the most wel­com­ing of dra­matic change. They love you as you are and dras­tic change can be threat­en­ing. More impor­tantly, eat­ing is one of the most sig­nif­i­cant and time con­sum­ing phys­i­cal activ­i­ties in our lives, along with sleep­ing and breath­ing. Most peo­ple have been eat­ing three times daily since they were born. How can you pos­si­bly con­vince them that it’s good to take a break once in a while? It goes against every­thing they’ve always known.

The food indus­try cer­tainly doesn’t want you to fast. Turn on the TV and you’ll be encour­aged to eat all sorts of food at all sorts of places. One thing that stood out for me dur­ing the fast was the preva­lence of restau­rants in our cities and along our high­ways. They are lit­er­ally every­where. They are so omnipresent that we take them for granted. Another thing: except for the very high-end estab­lish­ments, have you ever noticed how the waiter comes around every 5 sec­onds to ask “Is every­thing alright?” You might be engaged in the deep­est and most pro­found con­ver­sa­tion of your life, and yet there’s the waiter request­ing con­fir­ma­tion that you do indeed know how to eat. It almost seems like they are ready to spoon-feed you should you require assis­tance. Food is every­where and the food indus­try will make sure we eat it.

The med­ical indus­try and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal firms are also not to keen on pro­mot­ing fasts, for obvi­ous rea­sons. To his credit, my fam­ily doc­tor was not too fazed when I told him about it and he took it in stride. Dur­ing the fast, my cho­les­terol level shot up, but within a month of return­ing to food, the lev­els were bet­ter than they had ever been before and I was handed a clean bill of health. Despite your doctor’s poten­tial skep­ti­cism, do not attempt a fast with­out con­sult­ing one first, as there are many things that could go wrong.

Incep­tion

“Noth­ing in the world is more flex­i­ble and yield­ing than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can with­stand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flex­i­ble over­come the adamant, the yield­ing over­come the force­ful. Every­one knows this, but no one can do it.”  ~Lao Tzu

I lost a ton of weight, about a quar­ter of my body weight and what seems like half my body mass. Beyond that, I felt many addi­tional ben­e­fits, includ­ing more energy, health­ier skin, clearer eyes, bet­ter sleep, and improved diges­tion. My gums improved, much to my dentist’s delight. My sinuses cleared up. I feel less tense. These are per­ma­nent and unex­pected improvements.

I tuned into a cer­tain syn­chronic­ity around me. Was it always there? With­out a doubt. I hardly noticed it before.

How can drink­ing noth­ing but dis­tilled water for 21 days accom­plish this? I took no vit­a­mins, no med­ica­tion, or any­thing else.

Our bod­ies hold deep mys­ter­ies and the cura­tive power of fast­ing is cer­tainly a pow­er­ful mys­tery. Yet, the sub­ject of fast­ing is taboo. Go figure.

Break­ing the fast

My fast was going so well that I delayed the break by another day; I fasted for 22 days and approached my first meal with some appre­hen­sion. As impor­tant as fast­ing is break­ing the fast. There is an abun­dance of advice on how to do this, but the main prin­ci­ple is to ease your­self back into eat­ing. Ide­ally, a fast is fol­lowed by many days of juic­ing, fol­lowed by fruits, then veg­eta­bles, then other foods.

It should be fairly obvi­ous that eat­ing a burger after a fast ranks among the worst things you can do to your body. It’s very unlikely to hap­pen, because after an extended fast you crave health­ier foods. Water has a neu­tral pH bal­ance of 7.0. After spend­ing many weeks on water, the body reaches a less acidic home­o­sta­tic bal­ance and the diges­tive enzymes change. Meat and poul­try are acidic foods which the body is less pre­pared to deal with after a fast.

In my case I juiced first and then ate a light meal of brown rice and veg­eta­bles. That proved too much and I paid for it with strong intesti­nal pain some hours later. Les­son learned. Sub­se­quent meals were thank­fully unevent­ful. I took the oppor­tu­nity to switch to a vegan diet and have immensely enjoyed new tastes I was unac­cus­tomed to before. I can­not imag­ine return­ing to the way I used to eat.

Rinse and repeat

After this first fast, I ate for three weeks and then went through a 10-day fast. This time, the fast was a breeze, with­out any unease or hunger. Three more weeks of eat­ing and I’ve just now bro­ken my third fast, of 7 days. This one was rel­a­tively easy as well, although I did crave a return to my vegan diet.

It’s funny how on the first few days of my first fast I craved a pep­per­oni pizza or a burger, and on my last fast I craved veg­eta­bles and fruit. What’s going on? As it turns out, the stom­ach con­tains neu­rons which com­mu­ni­cate back to the brain (see Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can):

Tech­ni­cally known as the enteric ner­vous sys­tem, the sec­ond brain con­sists of sheaths of neu­rons embed­ded in the walls of the long tube of our gut, or ali­men­tary canal … The sec­ond brain con­tains some 100 mil­lion neu­rons, more than in either the spinal cord or the periph­eral ner­vous system.

This mul­ti­tude of neu­rons in the enteric ner­vous sys­tem enables us to “feel” the inner world of our gut and its contents.

Sci­en­tists were shocked to learn that about 90 per­cent of the fibers in the pri­mary vis­ceral nerve, the vagus, carry infor­ma­tion from the gut to the brain and not the other way around.

It’s no sur­prise my stom­ach is ask­ing me to make food choices which are very dif­fer­ent, even dia­met­ri­cally opposed, from how I used to eat. I lost all appetite for ham­bugers, late-night pep­per­oni piz­zas, and spareribs.

A new day, a new way

“By per­sist­ing in your path, though you for­feit the lit­tle, you gain the great.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Just three months ago, I was par­a­lyzed by dejec­tion as I faced that fel­low look­ing back at me in the pho­tos my friends uploaded.

I revis­ited those pic­tures for the first time today. I now com­mis­er­ate with that fellow.

There is hope.

There is a way.

And it is so worth fol­low­ing that path.

Octo­ber 17^th is World Hunger Day. If you fol­low a fast or skip meals, please con­sider donat­ing the value of a meal to Let’s Not Do Lunch or to the World Food Pro­gramme.

Dis­claimer

If you think you may have a med­ical emer­gency, call your doc­tor or your emer­gency num­ber, (911 in the United States) immediately:

If you would like to know more about fast­ing, here is a use­ful start­ing point.

Have you ever fasted for any length of time? I would love to hear your expe­ri­ences, both neg­a­tive and positive.