The surprisingly shocking and equally amazing things I learned from going 19 days without food: Part 2

Apparently, the other results of fasting come after the fast.

In a previous article, I wrote the first part of the things I learned from going without food for 19 days. I continue with the second part here.

I spent the morning of the first Saturday after my fast ended, cleaning my house and doing some laundry. Normally, I would be completely exhausted after it, with my body aching all over. This time, I did not feel it at all. It just dawned on me in the late afternoon as I walked to get some supplies that I was neither sleepy nor tired after all that work; which is normally the case. This has been the sustained reality one month later. The other things I learned and results continue.

5. Food loses its grip over you.

Before the fast, I had never known how powerful food really is. Eating food is just about the most consistent aspect of our lives. We expect to eat almost as certainly as we expect night and day to happen. So even without thinking about it, we pattern our lives around food: thinking about it, picking it, preparing it, serving it, eating it, doing the dishes, and then storing it away when it is left over.

While this was mentioned in the church’s supporting literature to guide the fast, it all came alive as I began to experience it. Suddenly, when food was not there, there seemed to be so much time available. Obviously, my experience as a single person who lives alone is different from say, a parent who has to prepare meals for the members of the family who are not fasting. In my case, I had so much time freed up.

That is with regard to time spent on activities related to preparing food for eating.

There is, however, another aspect to food losing its grip over you: the dependence on it. Normally what happens is, when you are hungry or when you feel like eating food, you go on right ahead and get you something to eat. You put everything aside just so that you can eat something. The same thing with snacks- there is a way we pick out food without putting much thought to it.

During the fast, I found that the urge to consume food gradually decreased until it disappeared completely. By day 13, I could look at food and feel nothing. I genuinely did not have any interest in eating. Reaching this day is what carried me on through the rest of the fast. Since I did not have any interest in eating anymore, I was not struggling as much as in the beginning.

6. You reap the benefits of a social media break

Because the fast was combined with a 21 day abstinence from social media, the social media break itself came with its own advantages. For me, staying away from my phone alone, was enough. Much as I wanted to stay away from WhatsApp too, I could not do so as I had people with whom WhatsApp was the only means of communication available.

7. You learn to appropriate a strength outside of your own

I know for sure that I was not “alone” in this fast. I know me too well. There is just no way I could have pulled that fast off, alone. It definitely helped that it was January, I was broke, and the weight I had put on within a year was alarming. I had to do something about it and was there a more timely occasion? But then there was God too. God is how I was not alone. Like I said, I know me too well.

8. The spiritual rewards are joyously unspeakable (yet)

Finally, it was a spiritual fast, and not a diet. The dietary aspect is easy to talk about and share because it can be done by anybody for its obvious physical benefits. The spiritual aspect was equally exciting and there is ALOT to say about it. It is yet an incomplete story that will be told in its own time. Otherwise, that’s it. That’s what I learned.

Feel like you are up to the challenge of a 21 day fast? Have you done it before? What was your experience? Feel free to share in the comments.

Regards, Anna ❤️