The Fast Lane
Today I am fasting as an experiment within the PN Women's Coaching programme. We have these experiment days occasionally, and I was pretty sure this one was going to be very difficult for me. I love to eat, and like many people, feeling hungry can be a really scary thing. We think we need (sometimes to the point of obsession) snacks and "emergency" plans for having food available all the time. Many, if not most of our social activities, revolve around food or involve food at some point (post-game, post-meeting, post-shopping trip). Sometimes we're even taught that we should eat NOW in case we might get hungry LATER, when in fact most of us could easily go a day or two without eating and have no ill effects (barring any medical condition or disordered eating, of course). We treat hunger like an emergency, and that's not a good thing.
When you look around you'll see how food (and even the idea of food) penetrates so many waking moments of our day. We talk about the food that we recently ate, we talk about meals we're planning in the future, favourite restaurants, favourite dishes, favourite snacks, etc. According to Statista.com, spending on food advertising in the US reached upwards of $190 BILLION in 2016. It appears in places you wouldn't even notice, but that our subconscious mind picks up quite easily. The manipulation of children and teens in this way has been the topic of many recent debates, but I digress.
Given the fact that food is pushed at us from all sides all the time, it's no wonder that it feels difficult to go without it, even for a short period. We have become so out of tune with our bodies that many of us don't honestly know what real hunger even feels like. Or satiety. We don't allow ourselves to go long enough between meals or to understand what reasonable portion sizes actually are, and so it becomes a vicious feasting cycle. I'm no exception to this rule, as I have struggled for many years to hear and understand my body's signals and messages. It is a learning process, and experiments like this one are great teachers.
Today's experiment is amazing so far. It's now just about bedtime and I feel incredibly energetic. I had a cup of coffee this morning and am sipping on some herbal tea I put together (fasting to me means no solid food and no actual caloric intake), and I feel amazing. I have felt some growling in my stomach, and I'm just watching and listening to it as a passive observer. This is a huge accomplishment for me. Seriously. I also realised as the day went on just how much of a habit food has become for me. I do my best not to eat if I'm not hungry, which is why many mornings I don't eat breakfast. Some days my body wants it and some days it doesn't. Since I've conquered that task, now I'm looking at the whole day.
When I got home from my yoga class today, my stomach started growling the minute I got in the door. I had planned ahead for this, so had a full water bottle sitting on the desk in my studio and immediately went over to it and had a long drink. Hunger pangs gone. Even after 30 minutes, they didn't come back. It makes me wonder how much of our "hunger" is related to habits or routines, and whether we could help ourselves cut back by just changing one link in that chain. That's another PN lesson (it's like they know this stuff!) that has been very helpful. We are creatures of habit and our brains love habits, in whatever form they take.
As I mentioned already, among other things, this experiment is designed to show us what real hunger actually feels like. In the past, I have done 7- and or 10-day fasts without any trouble at all and felt amazing. Not to say it was easy, but my mindset was such that I knew it was a good thing for my body, and even though the third day was hell I always made it through with flying colours. Without exception, I felt amazing afterwards. So why is it that lately the idea of fasting puts me into a panic?
Part of it has to do with practice and part of it has to do my own insecurity around food and what it means to me. One thing I have discovered through this coaching process is that I am an emotional eater. Understanding that helps to dig down to the deep ugliness of the emotions I feel when I try to reduce my intake or to fast. And now that I am fairly isolated day to day, with too much time to think, emotional eating habits can rear their ugly head if I'm not careful. Often, the desire to eat when I feel any kind of emotion can be quite strong. But today I decided to approach it from a different place. Today's experiment actually started last night.
Before going to bed last night I told myself over and over I was excited about today. I told myself that I'm excited about this day because I get a break from thinking about what to cook, my body gets a break from having to digest all the food I shove at it, and I can take today to relax and do the things I enjoy doing simply for the sake of enjoyment. When I woke up this morning I told myself again that not only is this an exciting day, but also this is going to be a great day because I get to choose to do something outside of my comfort zone. I get to do something that I know will be very good for my body. And I can make the day enjoyable by staying busy with things that are just for me.
Some people think that fasting is dangerous, but generally speaking, our bodies can survive for a while without food, without any ill effects (barring, as I said earlier, a medical condition or disordered eating). And there are plenty of research studies to back this up. So fasting for 24 hours is NO BIG DEAL. Although technically, my fast is longer than 24 hours since I last ate at dinner last night (Wednesday), and won't eat again at least until breakfast tomorrow (Friday). But I know that this won't do my body any harm and I'm feeling really great. No, seriously, REALLY great. I've had some hunger pangs, but they seem to go away after 5 or 10 minutes, and it has been no problem to just sit through them.
I think the most exciting thing about today is being able to once again recognise what hunger really feels like. It's easy to forget that since people tend to eat for many reasons other than hunger. Reasons like: it's noon, it's dinner time, I'm supposed to eat breakfast because it's the most important meal of the day, we're celebrating because it's the big game, because I'm bored, I'm emotional, I'm craving this and I'm just going to eat it, because it's the holidays (and I'll diet afterwards), and on and on. We often have a fear of missing out (aka FOMO). But missing out on what? That's a rhetorical question, by the way, as I also struggle with this.
The truth is, we live in a society where food is not only available, it is plentiful. It's there whenever we want (or don't want) it, for the most part. Whether it's nutritious or whether we're eating to help our body is the bigger issue, not whether we'll end up with a few hunger pangs or a little bit of discomfort. Want to know a secret? Hunger is NOT an emergency (yes, another PN gem)!
I'm confident that I'm going to wake up tomorrow feeling pretty energetic and happy that I made it through my fasting day. It also will be nice to have proven to myself once again that control of what goes into my body is mine and mine alone. I don't need to eat at some arbitrary hour on the clock or because some food company tells me I should just so that they can sell their product. It feels very enlightening and it feels really good. It's nice to be back in control of my own body because I've let other factors make my decisions for me for far too long.
Try fasting for a day (or half a day, or skip one meal) and tell me what you notice!
Have a health of a day,
Juli