Examining Emotional Eating Through Fasting

For too many of us, beginning when we were children, food was often used to soothe, comfort, reward, and console. Now as adults we have automated the reflex to eat when we feel bored, angry, depressed, anxious, stressed, or frustrated, or when we have emotional needs that are not being met. In the short term, this coping mechanism can be very effective, but if we rely on it too often, it can seem to be a nearly impossible habit to break — especially for people who struggle with their weight.

Learning how to balance our emotional relationship with food though the practice of a weekly fast is beneficial to long-term success with healthy eating and living.

People don't always know how to identify their emotional needs — or how to get those needs met once they have been identified. For example people are often prepared to admit that they eat out of boredom. If boredom is truly the eating trigger, then caloric consumption will obviously never fill that need. What is going unfulfilled might be the need for activity which means that a more suitable alternative might be taking a walk, reading a book, or doing some activity around the house. These are perfect choices if one is truly bored.

However, it is also easy at times to inaccurately identify true needs or trigger. With further analysis people often realize that boredom is really just loneliness in disguise. If you are experiencing loneliness, then none of the activities listed above will fulfill the true need, which is companionship, or at a minimum, contact with other people. Therefore, calling a friend, going out and people watching, or taking a walk to visit some neighbors would be better choices than activities like reading a book or straightening the house.

The better you get at identifying your "true need" in the moment, the better chance you have of identifying the most effective coping strategy to fulfill that need.

Of course, many people have difficulty identifying and understanding their emotional needs. Sometimes it takes practice to better understand and integrate your emotional experiences, as opposed to trying to ignore them or stuff them away with food. Here are some strategies that may help. This is the general framework for the practice of mindfulness.

Practice Emotional Awareness

Connect. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. Breathe comfortably, taking gentle and full breaths. Tune in to your body and focus on the sensations you are experiencing. Allow your stomach to rise, and then your chest. Notice your inhalation flowing past the tip of your nose and filling your lungs. Turn your attention to how your body feels in the moment without judging or interpreting. Just focus on the moment.

Observe.When you are relaxed and feeling in tune with yourself, ask yourself the following kinds of questions: What's going on? What am I sensing? What am I feeling? What am I thinking? Try to do this while maintaining the relaxation generated in the previous step.

Evaluate. Continuing in this relaxed state, think about the answers to the questions you have just posed, and based on those answers, try to tune in to your true needs.

Keep in mind that you can do this at any time throughout the day. It only takes a moment or two.

Cope in the Moment

Expressing your emotions may seem strange if you're the kind of person who is not used to "indulging" yourself by getting emotional, but it is a positive and essential part of a healthy, balanced life. There are times when emotional expression involves letting yourself cry when you are sad, or sharing your feelings with someone close to you — maybe one of your supporters. Writing in your journal is another great way to express your feelings. Exercise, or another physical activity, such as taking a walk or dancing, may also relieve emotional tension. And finally, stress management techniques, like deep breathing and meditation exercises, are excellent tools.

Pinpoint the Trigger

In addition to trying to learn as much as you can about your emotional state in the moment, it is important to identify emotional triggers. Think about what triggered your desire to eat: Was it a specific event or a conflict? A memory? Did you have a distressing thought or series of thoughts? When you pinpoint the trigger, analyze why it had that effect on you and how you might respond to it differently, without resorting to food.

Confront the Situation

Ask yourself if you need to eat. If the answer is no, then try to figure out what it is you really need. Perhaps you need to take a break from whatever you're doing and relax. Maybe you need some cheering up. It could be affection you crave, or positive affirmation. It could be the need for resolution or closure. Then again, maybe the issue is deeper than that and requires you to improve your assertiveness skills or set better boundaries. If the problem seems too big for you to handle on your own, consider seeking the help of a professional, such as a psychologist or other qualified therapist.

Consider the Alternatives

There are alternatives to emotional eating. Fall back on any other positive the coping skills you've developed in your life. Plan the steps you can take to change, accept, or cope with the emotional and unplanned eating urges you're experiencing. And work toward developing a healthy emotional state.

It takes practice to identify your true needs and emotional triggers; but with a regular weekly fasting practice you will get better and better at it, allowing you to be able to apply all of these skills in the moment and lead a healthier life.

Connecting at the Threshold

Along with drinking at least sixty-four ounces of distilled, purified or filtered water and breaking the fast in a healthy and safe way, mindfulness is an essential component of our fasting. Being in each moment fully, just as it is, with compassion and without judgment, helps us to see the true perfection in all things and the truth that there is nothing but Now. We cannot fix what is past, nor can we move beyond today to some more appealing future. When we understand this, we are able to access the present moment and use for all of its inherent advantages, knowing that the answer to the critical question, the insight we've been searching for and the grace we know to be available to us, all exist in the Now.

Fasting is a particularly opportune time to practice mindfulness. While fasting we are so much more aware of our physical selves; experiencing the body as it goes from full to a gentle emptiness. So it is a natural transition to train the spotlight of that awareness on each moment of the day. Although this is a simple practice to perform, the difficulty comes in remembering to do it. We spend so much of our day focused on the past or worried about the future that it rarely, if ever, occurs to us that the gift of the present moment – the encouraging smile of the one sitting across from us or the kindness of our neighbor – is there as the answer to the prayer we've been praying for so long.

When I am having a particularly difficult time staying in the moment I do what my husband and I have termed the "threshold practice." Mindfulness practitioners all over the world have some version of this practice that they employ in an effort to stay present. It requires only that I drop into the Now each time I cross a threshold in my home. If my telephone rings and I have to go to the kitchen to answer it, I make sure that when I move through the doorway from the living room to the kitchen I am fully aware of my breath, movements, and state of mind. This has been a revealing practice in that I have caught myself being a million miles away from the spot in which I am standing, feeling anxious or melancholy, frustrated or even overly excited. Crossing that threshold allows me to reconnect with the present moment, to just be walking to the telephone. Just breathing in a normal measured pace. Just being in the safe space of my home where nothing is happening except that I am moving towards the steady ring.

Practicing in this way keeps the stress at bay, keeps me available and responsive (as opposed to reactive) when my presence or attention is suddenly needed elsewhere. It regularly leads me towards a calm where I can hear what needs to be done or said next, so I error in word and deed less frequently.

Jon Kabat-Zinn writes about his own version of the threshold practice in his seminal book on Mindfulness entitled "Wherever You Go, There You Are."

"Try to use ordinary repetitive occasions in your own house as invitations to practice mindfulness. Going to the front door, answering the telephone, seeking out someone else in the house to speak with, going to the bathroom, getting the laundry our of the dryer, going to the refrigerator, can all be occasions to slow down and be in touch with the present moment. Notice the inner feelings which push you towards the telephone or doorbell on the first ring. Why does your response time have to be so fast that it pulls you out of the life you were living in the preceding moment? Can these transitions become more graceful? Can you be more where you find yourself, all the time…..Can you make your entire day as it unfolds into an occasion to be present or to bring yourself back to the present over and over again?"

The influence of one who fasts

"All of the vitality and energy I have comes to me because my body is purified by fasting."

-Ghandi

Walking mile after mile in village after village in 1930's India, Gandhi, father of the Indian Independence Movement, gave people courage and hope that a better life was coming to them. Leading a resistance firmly founded in ahimsa - total non-violence - his internal strength was so powerful that weak people felt strong after seeing him and hearing his timeless wisdom. He offered his unlimited strength to both the discouraged and the sick. He brought light and love to so many who knew only darkness.

The fasting journey

This journey we are on is a miraculous one, where the days yield knowing and the nights bless with beauty.

What has uncontrolled hunger forced you to do?

“When a person has nothing to eat, fasting is the smartest thing he could do. When, for example, Siddhartha hadn't learned to fast, he would have to accept any kind of service before this day is up, whether it may be with you or wherever, because hunger would force him to do so. But like this, Siddhartha can wait calmly, he knows no impatience, he knows no emergency, for a long time he can allow hunger to besiege him and can laugh about it. This, sir, is what fasting is good for."

-excerpt from Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

The Power of Collective Energy

I recently received an email from one of the FastGirls congratulating me on the growth of the group. Although I did reply with happy thanks, I want to recognize before the collective, that what we see happening is the power of each of these women coming together in diligent practice. We are creating energy through our regular commitment to fast, which is bursting outward like wild, colorful sparks.

Every time we meet the day with the intention to fast, we are saying to the universe, to ourselves, and to those near and dear to us that we intend to live mindfully. We intend to walk in a space that is always full of presence and care. When we fast we are showing God how grateful we are for an opportunity to express gratitude and welcome towards whatever shows up, knowing that we will remain luminous and secure.

I feel blessed to be able to benefit from the positive collective will of so many women. We are seeing all around us that the work of women is of great importance in our society. While others are breaking barriers in politics and science, education and business, we are setting a precedent for women all over the country and indeed around the world, that says, knowing yourself from the inside out, being able to access and act upon that which is in our highest interest, is a direct route to knowing God and collecting our bounty. 

So congratulations FastGirls, for planting seeds and cultivating a space that has already yielded fields of plenty; for us, the women we share this planet with and even those yet to be born.

"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them." 

Matt. 18:20

Fasting, Old School Style (Really Old School!)

The Essenes, authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, advocated fasting to purify themselves and commune with God. This was one of their primary healing methods. The Essene Gospel of Peace, transcribed by Edmond Bordeaux Szekely from the third-century Aramaic manuscript, suggests that Satan, his evil spirits, and his plagues will be cast out of our being by fasting and prayer. The Essenes believed that disease came from Satan (they claimed that it took three days without food to starve Satan) and from sins upon our body—the temple, which must be purified for God to reside there. To bring God into our life more completely, we would fast on water and "go to the waters (stream, lake) and find a hollow reed, insert it in our rear ends and flush the evils from our bowels."

Now that's time-tested, natural healing you can believe in.

Looking for an Honest Mirror? Try Fasting.

Read one person's account of wading through the unpredictable emotional terrain of a fasted mind and body. The writer talks with great candor about the unrelenting light that was shed on the darkest parts of his self during a 40 day fast. 

One of the things I have come to find I dislike about fasting is how predictable it is. There is nothing surprising in it. Those who fast a lot talk about how it causes your emotions to all come to the surface, so the thoughts you would normally suppress come full blown. The thoughts that would normally just think, come out as words and the thoughts and words that would normally just end there, come out as actions. I would like to think I was different, but really, no. Everything seems to come to the surface and yes, it is only day 8, over the next days I have no idea what is going to happen, what mess is going to come out. Because the truth is there is a lot of anger buried in me, a lot of condescending thoughts, a lot of filth, a whole lot of real honest human mess....

And it is not just the harsh emotions that come out, it is not just the sort of human relation mess that surfaces, it is all my emotions. Fasting shows no partiality. So now I find myself a mess of tears and realizing that I am not really good at this, I am not particularly ready for any of this. I think when it comes right down to it this whole fasting thing just digs up all my fears, my inadequacies, the fast that I might not love God enough, or be trendy enough, or smart enough, or passionate enough or spiritual enough, or motivated enough or whatever enough to actually fit in here. Maybe I love the world too much, maybe I want to have a wife too much or kids too much or to matter too much. Maybe I am not cut out for hiddenness or tenderness or the fasted lifestyle.

Read the entire entry here:

Porch and Alter: The Emotional Mess of Fasting

Something to contemplate this Labor Day weekend

Excerpt from Dr. Herbert M. Shelton's "Natural Hygiene: Man's Pristine Way of Life"

Chapter 21 "Does Fasting Cure Disease?"

If "disease" is a process of cure, does fasting cure "disease?" If there are no cures for "disease," if "disease" does not need to be cured, is fasting a cure?

To us there are not twenty thousand "diseases," but many local states growing out of a common systemic derangement. We do not seek to cure "disease," but to remove the causes of impairment and to afford the sick organism every natural or hygienic advantage that will facilitate its own spontaneous return to biological and physiological normality.

Does nature cure vomiting, or does she use vomiting as a means of ejecting unwanted materials from the stomach? Does the body cure coughing, or is coughing a vital act by which irritants and obstructions are expelled from the respiratory tract? Does diarrhea need to be cured, or is diarrhea a process by which obnoxious materials are rushed out of the digestive tract? Does nature cure inflammation, or is inflammation a repairative and defensive process by which broken bones are knit, lacerated flesh is healed and foreign bodies are removed from the flesh? Is there a need to cure fever, or is fever part of the body's own healing activities? Does not coughing automatically and spontaneously cease when there is no longer any need for it? Does not diarrhea cease when it has freed the digestive tract of all offensive materials? Does not inflammation subside when the bone has knit or the wound healed? What is there to cure about the various processes of the body that are collectively labeled disease?

Is it not obvious that if fasting suppressed vomiting, diarrhea, coughing, inflammation, fever, and the other symptoms that make up disease, it would be as evil as drugging? To call fasting "the fasting cure," the "hunger cure" or the "abstinence cure," as many have done, is to place it in a false light, unless, of course, we understand by cure what it originally meant--care. Fasting is part of the rational care of the sick body, it does not cure disease, as the word cure is now commonly used.

What say you?

Will fasting make me more beautiful?

(Photo: Liya Kebede and her daughter Raee)

According to women who practice the art of fasting, it can:

make your hair healthier

your skin clearer

your body tighter

your teeth stronger

your belly flatter

your waist trimmer

your butt firmer

your nails stronger 

your eyes brighter

your breath sweeter

your 'sissy' fresher

your mind sharper

your gifts clearer

your senses keener

But despite these claims, fasting's greatest gift is that it allows you to recognize your present and inherent beauty. inside and out.

Fasting doesn't actually CURE anything

BEFORE  &  AFTER

(Fasting facilitates a clean up effort, kinda like this)

Fasting does not cure disease. Yet what it allows for is nothing short of miraculous. In a nutshell, fasting enables the body the rest and energy it requires in order to heal itself; the only way true healing can take place. When the body ceases to exert the enormous amounts of energy required to masticate, digest, metabolize and eliminate wastes from the food we put into our systems, that reserved energy is immediately redirected, accelerating the healing process.

The body's newly freed up digestive energy is reassigned to take up internal housecleaning; giving a performance that is not possible when the body has spent all of its energy processing the "foods" that are typically consumed in the Standard American Diet. 

As a first order of business, this redirected energy allows the organs of elimination an opportunity to catch up with their work. The body begins the task of emptying the digestive tract, getting rid of bacteria and waste born from partially digested or completely indigestible food. As a next order of business, imbalances in the body’s chemistry, which can cause serious issues such as diabetes, thyroid disease osteoporosis and depression, are addressed. Continuous fasting helps to re-establish these important balances by facilitating immunity booting cell, tissue and organ repair. Abnormal growths, tumors, damaged tissue and fat is mercifully re-absorbed as fuel to keep all of this hard work going. 

Does this not qualify fasting as the best, most efficient "medicine" on the market? We think so.

Happy Healing.

The Way God Intended: Looking at Fasting in Nature

In Persia, there exists a variety of sheep called fat-tailed sheep, that has an enormous tail made up of fat and other stored food elements. During seasons of plenty the sheep stores up large quantities of food in its tail--prize specimens often developing such heavy tails that their owners provide them with small carts which are placed under the tails and fastened to prevent the tails from dragging the ground. When pasturage becomes scarce the sheep draw upon the food reserves stored in their tails for nutriment. This is a literal example of "cutting off the tail of a hungry dog and feeding it to him."

Testimonies: Fasting for infertility

This is a common experience of a couple. Five years have lapsed after their marriage, but they do not have the joy of a child. Both were keen about it and very cautiously avoided the use of contraceptives. They had hoped for a child but it was in vain.

The young woman had consulted a doctor but was told that her infertility was permanent. Her father-in-law was informed by someone about the usefulness of fasting and that it may help to an extent. Therefore, he contacted a physician knowledgeable about fasting.

The woman asked him, "Can fasting help me getting a child?" The physician explained to her that there are many reasons for infertility which is of various types. Some types of infertility can be remedied by fasting while in some others, fasting does not bring any benefit. After knowing her problem, she was told, "Yes you will be able to conceive after the fasting."

Her fasting started. It lasted for some weeks and were completed without any trouble. Luckily, she became pregnant after sometime and later she gave birth to a handsome healthy son.

Over the years, thousands of childless women who suffered an agonizing life on that account have given birth to a son or a daughter. Some of them had menstrual problems. They suffered from excessive bleeding and had to remain in bed due to severe pain. The vascular balance of the uterus was disturbed due to clots in the blood, cuts in the breasts and such other symptoms. This resulted in the burning sensation and swelling in the uterus. The blood vessels became weak.

In the second type of infertility, a woman suffers from metritis. This causes swelling in the walls of uterus and oozing of the fluids is affected by it. It is either more or less. Thus, due to the ejection of the acid, the ova perish.

The patient can be very easily freed from the disease in the above condition. Much improvement can be seen after a long physical and mental rest. Though some types of infertility cannot be cured at all, those cases where the infertility is not natural but is because of some special condition, can be fully cured. All hindrances to the conception can be removed by fasting. Therefore, fasting is a boon for such women.

Some women become pregnant but cannot hold the fetus till the time of her delivery. They have miscarriages because of some debility. But fasting offers them good health so that they can give birth to fully grown healthy babies. After cleansing the body and excreting the toxins and nourishing themselves with healthy food, these women can avoid the miscarriages.

I know of a surprising incident about a woman who had 6 miscarriages. With only ten days of fasting and restricted diet she was helped in her conception. She had a normal delivery and she gave birth to a healthy baby.

The period of fasting for infertile women can sometimes be long, depending on their specific problems. Sometimes, it can be a short one also. Another woman had no child after a married life of ten years. She had not used any contraceptive. She had a severe pain at the time of her menstrual cycle. She took traditional medicines as sedatives at that time.

Fasting for about ten days was enough to cure menstrual irregularity and other related problems. She became pregnant sometime after her fasts were over. She gave birth to a son in due course. Another woman had conceived after a few short term fasts. She was also barren for ten years.

Natural infertility among people-men and women-is rare, and fasting offers no hope in such cases. If infertility is due to some disease or other physical drawback, fasting can be very helpful.

Source: http://www.healthguidance.org/authors/371/Krishan-Bakhru

The Buchinger Clinic on NPR

The Buchinger clinic in Germany provides a safe and luxurious space where people come and pay thousands of dollars to.....fast!

All Things Considered, November 21, 2007 · At a clinic high in the hills above Lake Constance in southern Germany, people pay thousands of dollars a week to not eat. The Buchinger Clinic is famous for promoting fasting as a cure-all.

The clinic's chief doctor, Christian Kuhn, says fasting naturally leads people to focus inward and opens them to what he calls "spiritual nutrition" — what people really need, he says, to heal or change their lives.


Check it out. See what you think.

Buchinger Clinic
Buchinger Clinic On NPR

Critical Mission: Getting the Mucous Out

Of all the benefits of fasting, clearing the body of disease promoting mucous (in excess of protective levels) is one of the most significant. For many of us who regularly eat the Standard American Diet, we are living in a constant state of disease as mucous clogs up the entire piping system of the body. Whether the illness is actively manifesting itself in the form of a virus, reproductive, respiratory or autoimmune disease, or simply perched on a dangerous precipice, waiting only for the clock to strike the appropriate hour before showing its face, the levels of mucus in our bodies and the amounts of mucous promoting food that we consume, leave us in an extremely vulnerable position when it comes to the preservation of our health.

A simple test of the amount of mucous in our systems can be had as we pay attention to the number of times we reach for a tissue to blow or wipe our noses or clear our throats. Or maybe you have a slow postnasal drip which moves down the back of your throat into your sinus cavity. This storage of toxic mucous begins to accumulate in the body from birth. It is the product of undigested and uneliminated unnatural food substances. Mucous is found not only in the nose, throat and lungs but throughout the entire 30 feet of our gastrointestinal tract which begins at the mouth and extends to the rectum. It's overpopulation in the system is the cause of many diseases, the most deadly of which is pneumonia.

One thing we can do fast day (and every other day as well) to further aid the body in reducing the amount of mucous in the system is to add fresh lemon juice to our distilled, purified or filtered water. This can be done by squeezing juice directly from the lemon into a glass of water or preparing a pitcher of water with lemons slices soaked in it. If this prepared method works best for you, the pitcher can be refilled with water as long as the lemons continue to float. The pitcher should preferably be glass and not plastic. Chemicals used to create plastics leach into the water, contributing to the levels of toxicity in our system.

As you drink the water, especially on fast day, you will find that it is literally pulling the mucous from the body. This can be seen most obviously by the increased need to spit it out but mucous is also being removed through the more typical eliminative functions as well.

Mucous producing foods:

All Dairy Products

All Meat

Wheat

Sugar

Bananas

Processed Foods

Saturated Fats

Food for the Soul: Controlling Our Tongues

"If we cannot control our appetites and hold to a simple fast, how can we eventually overcome the temptation to judge and condemn others and succeed at the formidable task of controlling our tongues"

-Bishop Chrysostomos

Original photograph of a Sioux Indian Fasting. The photo is by Curtis, and was taken in 1907. The image is captioned, "Fasting".

Fasting Linked to Mormon's Healthy Hearts

Mormons Have Less Heart Disease Due to Monthly Fasting Says Study
Report to American Heart Association says people who skip meals better off

Nov. 6, 2007 - Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS or Mormons) have lower rates of heart disease than other Americans and a new study of older people indicates it may be linked to their religious practice of skipping food for one day a month. The Mormon religion also prohibits smoking and it was previously assumed this was the reason they enjoyed healthier hearts.

“People who fast seem to receive a heart-protective benefit, and this appeared to also hold true in non-LDS people who fast as part of a health-conscious lifestyle,” said Benjamin D. Horne, Ph.D., M.P.H., study author and director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at Intermountain Medical Center and adjunct assistant professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The Gift of Goodbye

Often when one even thinks about the idea of fasting, apprehension descends like autumn nightfall. Many of us have spent so much time cultivating an intimate or oppositional relationship with food, that the idea of letting go, even for a day, is too terrifying to contemplate.

Below is a poem that I first heard while on a seven-day silent meditation retreat. It spoke to those contracted places inside of myself where I hold on, often for dear life, to things, attitudes and positions that I know are no longer serving me. Hearing this poem gave me courage and wings.

Adios

It is a good word, rolling off the tongue
no matter what language you were born with,
Use it. Learn where it begins,
the small alphabet of departure,
how long it takes to think of it,
then say, then be heard.

Marry it. More than any golden ring,
it shines, it shines.
Wear it on every finger
till your hands dance,
touching everything easily,
letting everything, easily, go.

Strap it to your back like wings.
Or a kite-tail. The stream of air behind a jet.
If you are known for anything,
let it be the way you rise out of sight
when your work is finished.

Think of things that linger: leaves,
cartons and napkins, the damp smell of mold.

Think of things that disappear.

Think of what you love best,
what brings tears into your eyes.

Something that said adios to you
before you knew what it meant
or how long it was for.

Explain little, the word explains itself.
Later perhaps. Lessons following lessons,
like silence following sound.


~Naomi Shihab Nye
from Words Under the Words

Fasting in the Christian faith

"Fasting is not an end in itself; it is a means by which we can worship the Lord and submit ourselves in humility to him. We don't make God love us any more than He already does if we fast, or if we fast longer. Fasting invites God into the problem. Then in the strength of God, victory is possible."

-Elmer L. Towns