Going without food for a few more hours, or even a couple of days, isn't extreme. It won't kill you, and in fact, it helps you see more clearly.

TRANSCRIPT
The serene places fasting can take us

Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G. My name is Guyomar, and today I’d like to tell you about the places that fasting can take us. I didn’t grow up fasting, but I was always aware that it was something that people around me did for religious reasons. The most memorable example I have is of my Muslim friends fasting during Ramadan. I know that they had a feast every day with their family, with their close friends, but nonetheless, it was an all-day fast without water, as well as without food. I had a few Catholic friends as well who fasted, though it was a lot less common. You know, for Lent, they would usually give up something but it wouldn’t be a full-on fast.

A couple of years ago, I became interested in fasting and in the idea that we don’t need to eat so frequently. If you’ve lived in the United States, you know that people are constantly pushing food on you. If you have a meeting, it’s sometimes a lunch meeting. Even if it’s not a lunch meeting, there’ll be snacks. There’ll be pizza, there’ll be cookies, there’ll be donuts…It’s become common, for example, for students to eat during class, during lecture, sometimes even during discussion classes, as if it’s completely normal, because “Oh, I’m hungry, I have to eat now!” I’ve read a number of articles and books that push back against this culture of constantly eating and that argue that it’s not at all necessary. So, I’ve done fasts in the past, you know, three-day fasts, two-day more frequently, but recently I started fasting daily for sixteen hours.

I think it’s one of the easier fasts you can do. Basically, you don’t eat for sixteen hours, so, for example, I’ve just had dinner and I won’t eat until lunch time. And you eat everything that you normally would in an 8-hour window. People have different approaches to how they do it. I do two meals per day. I know other people, some people do one meal a day only. Anyway, when you speak to a lot of people about fasting, they think that it’s starving yourself, that you’re depriving yourself of food, of essential nutrients, that you’re doing something extreme and crazy, when it’s not at all crazy. I know that in college, for example, if I didn’t feel hungry, I just didn’t eat breakfast. If I didn’t get into the habit of snacking mid-morning, of not waiting until a meal, I was fine.

I’ve been fasting daily for a while now, and I think that I actually feel clearer-headed, more concentrated, more focused than when I was having three meals a day, snacks here and there. I feel much calmer, much more stable and able to focus than when I was constantly having a snack whenever I felt like it – and most of the time, I don’t have cravings. I don’t feel that I absolutely need to go and eat something. It’s quite amazing actually, how the more you eat, the more you feel like you need to eat constantly, and the less frequently you eat – over time, you know, I think within a week or maybe a couple of weeks – those feelings subside, and you realize that you’re not hungry and that what you’re doing is fine, and that you’re not going to die if you don’t eat until after class. 

I just wanted to share that with you. I wanted to push back against the idea that we have to eat all the time, that we have to listen to our body, and eat whenever we’re hungry. I don’t agree with that at all. I don’t think that what I’m doing is extreme at all. I feel good. I feel less focused on food. And I feel stable – you know, in a neutral mood – and able to focus on my language acquisition and stories. Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say today. Thanks for listening. Bye!

The serene places fasting can take us (click here for the transcript)

Do you already speak English but want to improve your comprehension of the spoken language and fluency? Have you always loved good books, compelling narratives, and deep conversations? Then, you're in the right place. Here, I'll tell you stories, real stories from my own life, from those of friends, and even from the world of fiction, in clear, slightly simplified English. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad or strange, the stories will always be memorable. My goal is to help you acquire English and enjoy the process, by providing you with compelling "comprehensible input." Ideally, you'll want to spend more time with the language because listening to these stories will bring you pleasure.