Fasting and Other Extremes

When I am doing well emotionally, I find myself easily excited about new projects or programs, eager to experiment on myself, and optimistic about the future and what it will bring. Apparently, that is now. Because I found myself listening to a podcast about fasting and eating a whole foods vegan diet and thinking about how that used to make me feel healthy and that was when I was in the best shape of my life. And why not add an even more extreme version of control over my body and do a daily sixteen-hour fast and possibly longer fasts throughout the year? Why not?

Because that is not good for me.

I admit, I tried it for about thirty hours. I didn’t like it.

I was reminded (negatively) of the Mormon practice of fasting once each month on Sunday. I tried very hard to make fasting part of a spiritual practice. And sometimes it worked. But for most of my life, fasting was imposed on me from outside and felt like a judgment each time I failed yet again to complete the twenty-four hour fast that included fasting from water.

I excuse myself sometimes from this by saying that I exercise too much and too intensely to be able to fast. Or that I’m too old for this. Or that there is something wrong with my metabolism that makes my blood sugar go wonky when I fast (no, I don’t have any evidence of this, please humor me briefly). I used to say that if I had been one of the Mormon pioneers, I would surely have died crossing the plains. I would not have managed on very little food and I would probably have died giving birth without medical intervention.

People used to give me a funny look when I said this because, well, I seemed pretty tough for a small-sized woman. After all, didn’t I do Ironman competitions where I ate very little? Didn’t I train for them regularly? Didn’t I actually give birth to five children without medical intervention (actually, it was only three of them—the other two were hospital births). And sure, fine, I probably wouldn’t have died. I might have just wished that I did.

I have a penchant for extremes. They appeal to my inner perfectionist. Who is also my inner masochist. I don’t like being hungry anymore than other people do, but I might enjoy feeling superior to other people more. And that is one thing veganism gave me, that sense of being a little better. Or maybe I just felt so bad about myself that I needed something extra to make me feel a normal amount of good about myself.

One thing I have learned after leaving Mormonism is that the great lie of many unhealthy groups is the idea that “the same path” is good for everyone. I believed for so long that God had the same plan for all of us, that the “rules” were the same, and that meant that we could all rely on the leaders of the group to tell us what those rules were. (Except that men and women had different rules—or did they?)

I think the reality is that we all have to find our own paths. I am not all that pleased about this because it seems a lot of work. The older I get, the less I want to do that work. But also the more skeptical I am about anyone who tells me that they found “the answer.” There is no one answer. There is only what works for me or for you for the limited time frame that we are able to figure a small thing out for a little while.

So, if you fast, I’m glad that it works for you. I don’t think I’m going to try it again any time soon. And to be fair, I didn’t try all that hard this time, either. I felt hungry for maybe forty-five minutes before I gave in and told myself that actually, I didn’t want to be that extreme again. I have lived an extreme life for way too long and while there are advantages in the “strait and narrow path,” I think I will let other people have those advantages for now.

I live a dissolute and hedonist life. I do not fast. I am selfish. I live my own way and while I do listen to other people and consider their ideas, I don’t lay much credence in anyone’s “authority” over anyone but themselves. I am going to continue to drink alcohol pretty rarely, but without guilt (maybe once a month a half glass of wine). I am going to continue to eat desserts because they make me a little happier to be alive. I am going to continue to eat high fructose corn syrup on occasion even though it is the end of civilization. I am going to eat meat when I want to. I am going to enjoy making my own food sometimes and other times enjoy eating out. I am trying to live a life of moderation at last.