Last Saturday I finished my six days water-only fast.
There were no religious aspects and no health aspects associated with it.
Background: My food habits aren’t particularly bad unless I am deeply engrossed in a project and skip meals but even then I don’t gravitate towards the usual off the shelf food products. I adhere to a low-fat plant-based diet, skip products that have preservatives in them, take minimal sugar except for a one-off slice of cake once in a while. I cook at home so I can modulate the quality of the ingredients and can check the amount of oil. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have deep-fried potato snack at all, I do, but let’s say once a month. Sometimes I tend to deviate from the pattern and end up consuming ready to cook ramen, potato chips, and ciders. With the high-pressure job and long working hours, I could observe my body needed help. With some time at hand, I decided to test the water-only fast again but this time instead of three days, it will be six.
Prior Experience: Back when I used to live in Chicago in 2014, I had a three-day water-only fast. It wasn’t easy but the interference from other humans made it more difficult. I should have remembered the lesson.
My Fasting Days: The first day was easy and I kept myself busy with reading, writing. The second day I could hear my stomach every now and then as if a baby is crying for food, I kept on drinking water. Rest of the days I didn’t have any bowel movement and my body started producing bile which would rise up in my oesophagus and I had a bitter feeling in my mouth. It was easy to manage by drinking more water. I felt quite tired on the third and fourth day. I got tired while taking a shower and had to stop to gain my breath. Meanwhile, I read a few articles on other people’s experiences with water fast and mine weren’t entirely tangential to theirs. The fifth day I felt fine, I went for Sauna and was immensely tired, I spent the day in bed and watched Netflix, stared at the ceiling, took naps. The final day was easier than expected and I went out to purchase some fruits and vegan milk.
The fun stuff: To make things interesting I drank the water in various vessels – cups, saucers, mason jar, wine glass, water bottle and a couple of times even in a plate. I played with thermodynamics as well by heating and cooling the water at various temperature. I gulped it down, swallowed it, sipped it like expensive liquor, ingurgitated it, and quaffed it. Well, it was water. What was I expecting? Usual dihydrogen oxide.
On one of the day, I dreamt a fish is chasing me in a park and the other day that I am back in school and my Maths exam is the very next day and I don’t even know what differential and integral calculus are. Quite terrifying from my perspective.
The hiccup: From my previous experience I knew that if I told people they will tell me that I should seek mental help. I realised it but I already had told a few people. A couple of them checked on me once or twice in a mocking tone, one of them made it about (them)selves. I was told that I am having a quarter/mid-life crisis and instead of fasting I should buy a sports car. People are strange, they firmly believe that everyone they know is the extension of their egos and would end up doing as they would do. I could even imagine them forcing tube of food down my throat.
So, a lesson for next time(if there is) – don’t tell anyone anything if you want to be left alone.
Results: I woke up Saturday morning with a call in which two people who knew about it said X number of things to me. I remained calm but later examined the conversation, Thanks to the inductive effect of Dostoevsky’s ‘Notes from Underground’. It took me a while to regain my composure, and I felt much calmer. On a few days, I even stopped work to listen to sounds of house wren sitting on London Oak’s branches outside my apartment.
My first meal was a smoothie made of oats, bananas, and dates and I took a long time in finishing it. With every gulp, I tried to taste the ingredient and the texture it brought.
Overall, I don’t quite know yet what did I gain from the water fast but there were moments of utter calmness which I believe were nice.
Icons taken from: www.flaticon.com
Que sais-je? 