First Written: 23-Feb-2023 | Thu

So my roommate did a 38-hour fast.

He was on a road trip to Florida, and just didn’t want to stop driving, so he decided to not eat any food.

38 hours. That’s a good sized fast.

Naturally, I had to one up him.

So You Fasted Just to Win A Bet?

I don’t love that I have an obsessive and overwhelmingly competitive nature, but alas, what can ya do?

Something inside of me takes control and I can’t shake the feeling – I have to compete and I’m going to win (even though most the time I don’t)

’36 hours?’ I thought to myself… ‘I could do better’

2 day fast here we come.

Back it Up

Somewhere along the grapevine I’d heard of the rumored benefits:

Decreased inflammation. Increased insulin sensitivity. Less muscle atrophy. A general cleaning of the bad stuff in the body (whatever that means).

“Fasting is good for you” they say

Who am I kidding, I knew very little of the science going in to it but all I needed to put me over was the nagging of the roughed up southern farmer’s voice in my head yawling at me:

"ISS GUD FUHR YUH"

The fast sounded like a fun challenge and I’d never done it before… I figured, why not?

Success = Opportunity + Preparation

Rather Opportunity = Lack of Preparation

I was going up for a solo camping trip (who am I kidding, I drove 2 hours up a mountain and set up a hammock) near Mt. Elbert in Colorado. I had a few days off from school, but all my friends were busy being lame (actually enjoying their summers?) so I shed my single tear of loneliness and hopped in the blue Hyundai Accent and was on my way.

I’m what you could call the spontaneous type.

Is that really just code for lack of planning? Certainly. Would life be simpler if I just planned? Most certainly. Will I continue to procrastinate and ultimate never come up with a plan and let life take me wherever it desires? Mostest certainly.

I despise planning. I would rather go to sleep as an ice cube than take the time to check the weather and bring appropriate clothes (ok not actually but I find myself sleeping cold more often than I’d like… figuratively speaking of course)

So… Spontaneity.

Wherever the winds take me.

So I Start My Mini Camping Trip

You know that whole ‘lack of planning thing’? Right, well I got up the mountain and realized I didn’t have… basic survival items.

I got to where I planned to sleep (again, just a spot on the side of the road) and realized I didn’t have the fuel for the camping stove. The fuel. The fueellll. Like the thing you need to cook food? Like the most important tool right behind the actual food? Yeah I didn’t bring it. No matches either. Unfortunately I also don’t know how to spark rocks together so that was out the window too.

The raw chicken and sausages weren’t too happy with me. I wasn’t too happy with them either. The only other food in the cooler was a honey crisp apple and a handful of Wheat Things.

The Wheat Thins weren’t really going to cut it… so hey, guess I was going to fast 🙁

It was an unfortunate (and uncomfortable) start, but hey, it was an opportunity to do what I had been wanting to for a little while.

It was an opportunity to fast.

How the Heck Was It? (Started Fast at 2 PM)

That rest of that day, dude?

Painful.

All I wanted to do, literally all I wanted to do, was eat some snacks. Those salty-sweet crackers were sounding pretty dang scrumptious. Mmmmm, a nice juicy, sweet, honeycrisp apple? Must be delicious.

I was so god damn hungry. I hadn’t mentally prepared to go hungry… and I was hunnngggrrry.

I had eaten a late breakfast, no lunch, and it was around 6 pm or so – I had been so excited to eat that Spicy Italian sausage I had brought only to realize that I was going to be going hungry for 2 more days.

Food.
Italian Sausage.
Scrambled Eggs.
Cholula.

*stomach growls*

Melted cheddar.
Buttery toast.
Mmmmmmmm.

That’s all that was circulating through my brain for a full 24 hours.

I made it to the PM of that first night and as the sun was going down I crawled in to my hammocked sleeping bag. I had nothing to do and wasn’t quite tired yet so all I thought about was food.

There were no friends, no reception, no entertainment – There were no distractions from the aching in my stomach. I was hungry and tired. I wanted to eat.

It was starting to get dark out though and I managed to fall asleep.

I had started the fast around lunch time the previous day, so by the time I woke up I had already locked in 18 hours. 6 more hours and I’d last the first day.

25th Hour

2:01 PM officially brings us to Day 2 of the fast. How’d it go?
Chilling

I don’t know what wizardry was cast upon my stomach that night before I fell asleep but I was chilling.

It’s like I wasn’t even hungry.

Like so easy.

I knew I was going to be hungry. I knew I didn’t have any substantial food to eat. I knew it was going to suck. I expected pain and misery.

The whole day I knew I wasn’t going to eat so there was no expectation for food.

There was no expectation.

That’s what made it so survivable. By 3 PM I was past the point of no return, going to finish the fast, and I was barely even hungry.

Mt. Evans

I had read some of my book, packed up my hammock, walked down to the car, and drove up the 14er, Mt. Evans, in the afternoon. The drive was beautiful.

Above the tree line it was chilly. At the top of the mountain there were what looked like real life demon goats looking like aliens. 14,000 feet up!! They looked like the ‘dragon’ from that movie The NeverEnding Story. They were freaky. It was so surreal that for a few hours while the sun was setting I had totally forgotten that I was even fasting.

(If you get the chance to go to Mt. Evans in Colorado I highly recommend. The sunset was beautiful too)

It was getting dark so I drove down the mountain a bit and set up the hammock in some rocks with a gorgeous outlook of the valley. It was a relaxing day and I read my book as I fell asleep, totally having forgotten about food.

Day 3 – 40th hour

I woke up in the mountains in a hammock and knew I was in the final stretch of my fast. I had lasted the first half day, then a whole day, and all I had left was the final 8 hours until 2 PM.

This third day was feeling pretty similar to the 2nd and really wasn’t that bad at all. I was feeling alright so figured – Hey, why not screw this thing up!?

It Went South

My buddy had recommended a place called St. Mary’s Glacier that had good reviews so I grabbed my stuff and headed over. It was a bit of a hike, but supposed to be gorgeous. Plus, on a fast, by myself in the middle of Colorado wilderness what could go wrong?

It wasn’t a crazy hike, but I got bit light headed and didn’t feel 100% (pretty sure I was dehydrated). I was alone with no cell reception and I hadn’t eaten any food so I decided to turn around before things got worse.
(But I did get to see a big ass moose 🙂 )

The way the logistics worked out I drove back home and ended up going a few hours over my 48 hour fast. It ended up being about 54 hours.

I got back home and cooked me up a nice Italian sausage, eggs and potatoes only to find out I could only eat about half because my stomach shrunk.

(Mildly graphic detail – my first poop was not solid)

Overall, fasting though?
I recommend.

If not even for the physical it was a fun challenge and reminded me how much fun it is to eat good food!

Things I Learned

1) 90% of the difficult things we do are all expectation. The lower we set our expectations the happier we’ll be. Sounds pretty dismal, but I actually find it liberating. I don’t mean low expectations for everything, no just things we can’t control. If we have no power over them, having low expectations just makes life more bearable

2) We rely on food more than we think strictly as a feel good or comfort substance even if we’re not actually hungry

3) Most of life is mental more than physical

4) We get a lot of our water from our food – I found myself quite dehydrated and needed to drink way more to stay hydrated

5) Remember to pack a camping stove

Final Thoughts

It was slightly harder to concentrate when reading, because there was still that linger of no food.

Any time I try a challenge like this they have varying degrees outside of my comfort zone. I notice that especially if none of my friends have done the ‘challenge’ or difficult or scary thing it’s so much harder mentally. The challenge feels uncharted and quite difficult. But after it’s over I’ll often talk to someone who has done an even harder challenge (my aunt fasted for 5 days) and it puts everything back in perspective making me realize how much the self-talk influences us.

If we can train ourselves to do difficult things, and choose to do them, other problems in our lives seem to be more bearable.

We’re training ourselves to be more resilient and take on bigger and better challenges.