One of the main pieces of my current keto lifestyle is the intermittent fasting that I am doing. I fast on a 16/8 interval. What does that mean? It means I only eat within an 8-hour window each day, then fast for the remaining 16 hours.
Right now, I generally start my fast between 7:00 PM and 7:30 PM daily. I fast from 11:00 AM to 11:30 AM the next morning. So, my eating window is from 11:00/11:30 until 7:00/7:30. Basically, I eat lunch and dinner, maybe some mid-afternoon snacks, then dinner. Nothing after dinner.
This fasting interval helped me years ago, when I tried to lose weight. The previous issue was that I was only counting calories and not paying attention to my macronutrients—fat, carbs, and protein.
Now that I am following a fairly strict keto lifestyle, I track macronutrients and eat within the 16/8 fasting window. It has proven itself in the results. I am down 33 lbs since I started keto. I am feeling better and moving better than I have in months.
There have been a couple of occasions when I went well beyond my fasting breakpoint—going without food until 12:00 PM or even 12:30 PM. Life gets busy, I am involved in a project, and I forget to eat. The other day, while I was out driving around, I again went past my fasting break time.
Since I was in the car, I couldn't just grab a bite; I had no food with me. So I began to wonder, how long could I go? I have read about the medical benefits of longer fasting periods. There are 24hr, 36hr, and even 72hr water fasts that are supposed to be great for the body.
I also began to consider all the places in the Bible where people used fasting as a way of prayer and worship of God. My favorite story of fasting is in Daniel 10:
In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. {Dan 10:2 ESV}
I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks. {Dan 10:3 ESV}
On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river (that is, the Tigris) {Dan 10:4 ESV}
I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. {Dan 10:5 ESV}
Then he said to me, "Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words." {Dan 10:12 ESV}
Daniel fasted for 21 days to lament the vision he had. Later, an angel of the Lord appeared and told Daniel that God had heard his prayers and recognized his humility through fasting. This was enough for God to send the angel to Daniel to help interpret the vision.
Fasting, along with prayer, is a way to humbly and obediently petition God for answers. What does this have to do with me? I have been struggling to understand what direction my career path should take. I believe that by adding some fasting to my prayers, I might get the answers I seek.
So we come to yesterday. I decided to see how far I could push my fast. It turns out I made it 22 hours, breaking the fast at 5:30 PM. I could have gone the whole 24 hours, but dinner was ready at 5:30, so I ate.
Now that I know I can make it a full 24 hours, I am considering fasting once a week to honor God, show obedience, and humbly ask for guidance for my career path. This challenge is something I strongly want to undertake. The only decision left is what day to pick.
Does this sound crazy? Would you ever consider fasting for health reasons or spiritual reasons? I'd love to hear your story.
—Daniel