130: The Power Of Fasting

In our consumption-based modern lifestyle, we run a great danger of becoming desensitized to the very things we want and enjoy because of their ease of availability. For thousands of years, mankind has utilized the Power of Fasting to place a space between pleasures so that appetite and, more importantly, appreciation can develop. Without fasting we have no discipline, no sensitivity and no ability to discover the extraordinary hidden in plain sight.

Transcript

This is episode 130,

The Power of Fasting.

My name is Tudor Alexander and this is the Dance of Life podcast.

Every week my goal is to inspire you to take action towards what you love,

Live a transformed life and enjoy the journey there.

Are you ready?

Let's go.

Welcome to the show everybody.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Happy Friday or whatever day this happens to find you.

I hope you're having an amazing day because you should be.

At the end of the day you live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world,

At least if you live in the United States.

But if you're listening to this across the globe somewhere else,

I'm sure that wherever you are in general it is a great place to be.

You know,

I was often talking about in the last couple of weeks about just appreciation and gratitude.

I've got this book coming out called The Gratitude Map and it's really been in my life obviously because I've been writing about it,

Talking about it.

I'm in the Daily Gratitude Practice Facebook group all the time.

And so I've really honed my awareness to just things that I wasn't paying attention to before.

You know,

We had that episode on making a reverse gratitude list,

Which was basically making a list of the things that you don't have that you're grateful for.

Like I'm glad that I don't have to walk to get water or to wash my clothes every day,

You know,

Those kinds of things.

So ultimately really embrace where you're at.

Regardless if you're having a crummy day today,

I hope that that's going to resolve itself,

Whatever it is.

But take this as a great reminder to look at the things you do have and also make a list of the things you're glad you don't have.

You know,

On today's topic,

We're talking about the power of fasting.

And in my life,

Fasting has really made,

I'm going to give you some stories that have been really life-changing for me.

But the power of fasting has really come into my life and I want to share that with you because I think if employed in the right way,

It can make a phenomenal difference.

And for me,

I'm just getting started,

I feel,

In this area.

And the book I'm writing or that I wrote,

It's out,

Gratitude Map,

You can check it out.

I mean,

I'm not going to launch it until September 1st.

You've heard me mention this kind of talking about it here and there.

If you want to check it out,

You can go to the website.

I have a,

Actually you can get three free audio lessons and a free PDF workbook,

Just literally if you enter your email there,

You can get all that stuff and then it'll also tell you about the book.

And the book is free.

It's a free,

You just pay for shipping and there's other stuff you can have with it.

Anyway,

In the book,

I write about daily habits of gratitude.

That's one of the things that's in there.

There's a ton of stuff in there about obstacles to gratitude,

How to have effective relationships.

But one of the habits,

The last habit,

The 12th habit,

I have 12 in there,

Is fasting.

You know,

And I didn't get a chance to really,

The book itself,

There's a lot of stuff crammed into it.

I literally wanted to make the most comprehensive gratitude book I possibly could.

And because of that,

It turned out to be pretty vague.

I think it's like total about 290,

300 pages long,

Which it sounds intimidating,

But honestly,

It's a super easy read.

I've got illustrations in there.

There's a lot of stories.

It's really fun.

I'm very proud of it.

But the point is,

You know,

With trying to pack all those things,

I've got eight obstacles I talk about a gratitude.

I've got 12,

You know,

Effective habits to do and strategies on how to implement them.

I've got strategies for building relationships with gratitude,

All that kind of stuff.

So it's hard to fit everything and still make it a relatively trim book.

So fasting,

Because it's been such a big part in my life,

Especially lately,

I felt like,

Okay,

You know,

The book was good,

But I still want to do more justice on this.

You know,

So I thought I'd record an episode because I've had some really powerful experiences.

But you know,

Fasting,

I'll give you guys a quote that I found with this,

You know,

And it'll set some mood for what we want to talk in this episode.

And this was from Herman Hesse who wrote the Siddhartha about the Buddha.

So it goes something like this.

Everyone can perform magic.

Everyone can reach his goals if he is able to think,

If he is able to wait,

If he is able to fast.

Now you can substitute he with she,

Obviously,

This was written a little while ago.

But the point is that fasting has power to it.

And it's an interesting idea because we,

In the consumption based lifestyle we live today,

Which is also very progress oriented and growth and achievement,

We don't think of fasting,

Which is not doing anything,

Right?

It's not something you do.

It's something you don't do.

You don't eat or you don't consume media or whatever you're fasting from.

We don't think of that as something that can improve our productivity,

That can improve our achievements,

Our success,

All these kinds of things.

It's very counterintuitive.

But I've learned,

Especially in the last year of really focusing on this book and gratitude and stuff is to really focus or to see the value in things that are not obvious.

We look at things that are obvious like,

Okay,

I want to be successful.

So I'm going to learn more strategies.

I'm going to get more.

You see the Facebook ads,

I see them all the time.

All the internet gurus,

They got their seven guides to getting three clients a day and doing this,

Doing that.

And sure,

Some of those things are useful.

They're strategies.

They're things you have to do.

So there's more pushing,

More growth.

It's the same kind of stuff.

The point is that you can really benefit from employing something totally different that's not obvious.

Fasting is not something that's like a strategy,

Right?

In some sense,

I guess it is in the sense like if you use intermittent fasting or you have a specific way that you're trying to do it.

But fasting itself is really just restriction.

It's what you don't do.

And that can be very difficult in its own thing.

Especially for me,

I can relate.

If someone tells me,

Hey,

You need to go earn $100,

000 or you need to go bench press like 300 pounds in a year or something like that.

Like,

Okay,

Yeah,

Let me knock this out.

Putting more is much easier for me,

At least it has been,

Than doing less.

That sounds like silly.

But for some people it is.

And for some people it's the other way around.

For some people,

They naturally do less in the sense that they're in tune with their energy in a sense like they don't overcommit.

So for them,

Let's say what's not natural is to put more,

Is to go and be super intense,

Is to be over exerting themselves.

So it doesn't matter.

Everybody's a certain way and it's about learning about your opposite.

I talk about that a lot,

Which is the opposite instinct.

What is the opposite to who you are naturally and what can you gain from understanding that?

And fasting,

For me especially,

Was the opposite,

Like it's what I don't have to do.

That's way harder for me.

So with fasting,

Why it's important?

Why it's important for your life?

Because again,

We live in a consumption-based lifestyle.

And I'm not just talking about food.

Food is a manifestation of that value,

But we consume sex,

Politics,

Media,

Stimulants,

Information,

Like we're constantly consuming.

That's what the economy is based on.

And that's not,

I'm not bashing on capitalism.

If it wasn't for capitalism,

You wouldn't be listening to this podcast.

I wouldn't be able to sell a book,

Have all these kinds of things,

Courses,

Online courses.

Capitalism is great,

But it's all about having both,

Remember a balance between two things.

And when something is too much in one direction,

Eventually it's going to create an issue.

Right?

So the problem with too much consumption,

Too much focus on growth and consumption and consuming and constantly moving through things is simply,

From our physiological point of view,

We get desensitized.

In my book,

One of the Obstacles,

I told you there's eight,

One of them is called desensitization.

Like literally you get desensitized to life.

You get habituated.

That's a mental process that happens.

And why that's important is first off,

Gratitude is the key to life,

To be fulfilled in life.

We know that.

Talked about that many times.

Well one of the parts to gratitude is your senses,

Your sensitivity,

Your sensuality.

I'm not talking about sexuality here,

But being sensual,

Like being in tune with your senses more than just what you see because seeing is easy in a sense,

Right?

You know,

We don't have to do much with that,

But like touching,

Smelling,

Taste,

You know,

How often do you actually taste your food or are you just gobbling it down so you can go back to your work?

We get desensitized.

And why is it important to have sensitivity?

Ultimately what that does is it makes you efficient with your information.

Smelling is information.

When you touch something,

What you're actually experiencing is the electrical impulses of that going against your fingers and then your brain is interpreting that in a particular way.

Is it hot?

Is it warm?

Is there texture?

You know,

Whatever.

So it's information.

Now if you're very sensitive,

Like you take a sommelier for example,

And when they drink wine they smell it,

They have the ability to extract massive amount of pleasure,

Massive amount of pleasure,

An entire experience that they literally could write a book from that one taste of wine,

Which is fascinating because for me,

Let's say for example,

I don't have that sensitivity training.

You and I may not be wine sommeliers and you know,

We'll drink wine and that's it.

Like there's nothing to write home about.

And that's sad in a sense,

You know.

It's sad because imagine if your whole life was like that,

If you could extract that amount of pleasure from just doing very little,

That's what being efficient is about.

That's why being in tune with your senses is important because it improves the quality of your life.

So you get a lot for very little.

On the inverse of that,

When you're desensitized,

When you constantly are putting stimulants in your body and more salt,

More caffeine,

More sugar,

More this,

More that,

You need a lot to get very little.

That go a long ways.

And not only is that inefficient,

But it takes a toll on your body.

It takes a toll on your mind and ultimately it takes a toll on the planet.

This is not sustainable.

This level of inefficiency as a human being,

If you're inefficient,

Right,

That's not sustainable because your body will eventually get disease.

It'll get an injury,

That kind of thing.

You eat too much sugar and fried food all day,

You're gonna get a heart attack or you're gonna get diabetes.

It's just a natural consequence.

It kicks in as a compensation to the imbalance of eating all that stuff.

Well,

Everything works the same way.

The planet,

Imagine the human beings are all cells,

Just like you have a ton of cells in your body.

The planet is one organism.

And what we're doing as far as our values and consumption is not sustainable.

This is not about environmentalism,

This is not about capitalism.

It's just about finding the balance between how can we keep growth and innovation and pushing ourselves because that's part of life too,

Is to achieve.

That's what part of this podcast is.

I talk about creating a life you love.

It's about pursuing your passions and dreams and you should do that.

But the other balance,

To balance that out,

You need also to employ in your process,

In your life,

The other side of it,

Which is stillness,

Which is fasting,

All these things that I talk about so that you have a dynamic life,

You have a comprehensive,

Well-balanced life.

And I don't mean balanced like it's not going anywhere because that's an important thing to maybe distinguish too.

Balance is not having the scales even,

By the way.

They're not moving if they're even.

Balance means dynamic balance,

Means things are moving.

So you have to be imbalanced to move.

If I'm going to walk,

I eventually fall off balance forward and I start moving.

So that's not what that means when you say balance.

Balance is about having things that are moving in your life.

You're progressing,

You're achieving,

That's a habit.

Then you have another habit that you work in there,

Like five minutes of stillness every day,

Like intermittent fasting or not eating until 6 p.

M.

On one day of the week to kind of make you more grateful,

Whatever.

I'll give you some examples in this episode.

But the point is that what that does is it rehabilitates your senses.

And when fasting provides that space for appetite to begin again,

Then suddenly we appreciate things more.

I can tell you when I tell you some stories in this episode with fasting,

But it really makes you present to a lot of things,

Especially other people's problems like world hunger.

Like I know what it's like to be really hungry every day after doing some of these fasts.

And it's not fun.

And when you actually experience that,

You're like,

Man,

I have a whole new appreciation for those kinds of things.

Now imagine if everybody had that appreciation,

Would we overindulge?

Would we overconsume?

And the market is what determines the economy.

It's not capitalism that's a problem.

Capitalism is great.

It is our values as a collective society because if we employed fasting,

If we employed stillness,

We wouldn't crave,

I can guarantee you,

We wouldn't crave 80% of the crap that's being put out there by fast food restaurants.

The market wouldn't reward that.

So then they would have to change and everybody would collectively evolve.

So that's what this is about.

It's about the bigger picture,

Starting with the little picture,

Which is your own individual life.

So fasting is really,

Really important.

And one more thing too is that you can think of fasting in a lot of different ways.

There's a book I read a long time ago in college,

But it kind of turned me onto this interesting idea called The Financial Fast.

And it was written by a guy named Jeff Yeager and it's called The Ultimate Cheapskate's Guide to True Riches.

Really,

Really good book.

At the time,

My motivation wasn't to do all this like personal growth stuff.

At the time I was in college,

I was literally looking to save money.

So I found this book on,

Oh,

Okay,

You know,

Let me see how I can save more money.

But he brought up an idea in there that I remembered forever,

Which was the idea that you can fast financially from something.

So meaning like you take a week and you just don't spend any money on anything.

No going out,

No luxury purchases,

No random.

Like if you're in the grocery aisle,

I mean,

You're not going to spend anything that week.

So unless you absolutely need to spend money on a bill or anything like that,

Then you don't spend money.

And that restriction,

Not being able to spend your own money really gets you present to the value not only of the money that you have and the things that you do have,

But it forces you to use the stuff that you have at home.

Like for food,

For example,

If you have a ton of stuff in your pantry,

How often do we just leave stuff there that we don't use?

And we kind of just forget about it because we're in the habit of being wasteful of like,

Oh,

I feel like going to the store,

So I'm going to be impulsive and go to the store.

Like,

Well,

Wait a minute,

What about the discipline of using what you already have,

Which helps you appreciate it?

You know,

So that's what the financial fast does.

So check that book out.

It's actually really interesting.

It's been around a long time now.

So anyway,

My own story with fasting goes something like this.

You know,

I'm sharing this about my life in the sense that I'm hoping that you can resonate with this in some way.

But the ultimate lesson is that fasting has power to trim your life up,

To build fulfillment appreciation and to free you from some negative habits.

At least that's what I found in my own experience.

You know,

I've had some real weird digestive problems in the last two years,

Let's put them that way.

And long story short,

You know,

I have a reason to believe,

Okay,

That there's some history in my life or a lot of digestive concerns.

It's always little,

You know,

It's nothing serious.

But the point is,

Is that I couldn't nail down what the heck is,

What's going on.

I would get indigestion,

I would get bloating,

Gas,

Like literally everything that I hate.

And I dealt with this for literally two years,

I'm finally starting to put the pieces together and understand the digestive system on a much deeper level and to gain so much awareness and appreciation for things and little tweaks to my lifestyle that I never thought of,

But yet they're so important.

And in this quest of rebuilding my health,

Rebuilding my digestive system,

I found a book by a guy named Dr.

Valter Longo called The Longevity Diet.

And he talks about the power of fasting,

Which is basically,

You know,

He did a ton of research,

Very good book,

Highly recommend it.

And he started with cancer patients and basically he had them do a water only fast for three days and then do chemotherapy.

And he noticed that the results were huge,

That the fasting put the body under some sort of protective shell,

Let's put it this way,

Because the body goes into this mode apparently.

The body senses that there's scarcity of resources and so there's a trigger to deal with that from evolution and to kind of save resources.

So it gets into this conservation mode,

You know,

Like safe mode for your computer.

And the problem is the cancer cells,

Not a problem,

But I mean the good thing is that the cancer cells don't,

Because they're irregular cells,

They don't have that programming.

So they keep growing and growing.

So they don't have this little shield.

And so when the chemo goes,

Now it's like having targeted chemo.

And so he noticed the people who were fasting before the chemo had huge differently results.

So this was very powerful,

You know,

So they kept doing research and anyway,

Long story short that they created this program called Prolon.

Prolon is a fasting mimicking diet.

So it's basically a very reduced,

You buy it and it's like 250 bucks for five days.

It's a five day,

It's already pre-made meals.

They're like little soups and powders and I mean,

It's very minimal.

But what it does is it triggers your body in this fasting state,

You know.

And so what that does is it heals your digestive tract,

It heals your digestive system and it helps to reboot your system.

And if you're healthy,

He says about do it twice a year,

Anywhere from,

You know,

Once a month for really critical cases to once every three months,

Once every six months.

So really highly recommend it.

But the first time I did it was brutal,

Man.

And I've done some fasting.

I mean,

As a kid,

We were very religious and you know,

For Lent,

We used to,

I'm Eastern Orthodox,

You know,

And so we would kind of not eat dairy or meat.

But we would still eat.

You know,

I never like,

I restricted things that I ate as a kid,

But I never restricted calories.

This is very important because the difference is I may have restricted my eating in terms of like,

Okay,

I'm not gonna eat meat for 40 days.

But if I'm hungry,

I'm gonna go snack on something.

And this is very important because the hunger is what brings you to the present moment with fasting.

Like literally there's a physiological sensation that says,

Hey,

Hey,

Hey,

Like it's tapping you on the side of your temple constantly.

And that forces you to have a conversation with yourself.

And in the beginning,

It's not pretty,

You know,

Because it's like,

What are you doing?

Why are you doing this?

Go eat.

Why are you being stupid?

You know,

This,

You know,

You need to eat,

You need to eat.

Like it's that constant chatter in your mind and it's negative self-talk.

Just wanting to quit.

Like it's a very powerful situation.

And why I say that is because if you can withstand it,

You can train yourself out of it,

Then you're building that mental fortitude to continue through other life's problems too.

Because other life's problems are the same way,

Right?

When the going gets rough,

You know,

The rough get going or the tough get going,

Right?

So in the sense that when life gets hard,

Naturally those same thoughts,

That same little chatter of,

Hey,

This hurts,

You should quit,

Maybe you should stop,

It's not safe,

Maybe you should find something easier,

That kind of stuff.

It's the same thing.

So fasting is a way to kind of trigger that and bring it out.

And you know,

That inner demon that's hiding there until suffering arises and then you can talk to it,

You know,

And say,

No,

It's okay,

I got this.

Don't you worry about it.

I know you're worried,

But we're going to be good.

We're going to be good.

I'm so grateful that I'm alive and reframe it constantly.

So you know,

I got into this Pro-Lon thing.

I did it once and it was brutal.

You know,

I'm not going to lie.

I mean,

The first time was brutal.

And you know,

I mean,

By the third day,

I did it for five days,

600 calories a day approximately.

Yeah,

You don't get much.

I mean,

It's tough,

Especially the first time.

You're not used to it.

You don't know what to expect and you just cannot wait.

Like by the fifth day,

I was just like,

Oh my God,

I cannot wait for this to be done.

But you know,

The last two days were actually easy.

It was the third day that was the hardest.

And I noticed these negative thoughts just literally welling to the surface about wanting to quit,

About all kinds of,

I was just negative that day,

Pissed off.

I literally felt like I was purging like negative emotions by letting the body just heal.

And I'll tell you what though,

The interesting thing is after I did the fast,

I felt totally different.

My digestion was better,

How I kind of processed everything was much better.

And ultimately it made a big difference.

And I did another fast a couple of weeks ago.

It was a water only,

Actually,

I mean,

It was kind of two days.

One day I just ate almonds like literally three times a day and that was it.

Then the next day after that,

I did a water only fast for a full day.

And that was something else.

I mean,

I've got friends actually who fast water only for several days at a time.

And like,

Man,

You guys are pros.

Water only fast for a day was rough stuff.

Now again,

Make sure you're healthy,

Like only do your research before fasting,

Work with a doctor.

But I can tell you that that was even more profound.

That water only fast was like,

With the Prolon,

When I had these little soups and powders and I would pour them out and eat them,

It's like,

Man,

That was like the best food in the world,

So grateful to have that.

And when I was on this water only fast,

I'm like,

Man,

Even Prolon would be like a king's ransom right now.

So,

It makes you so appreciative of so many things.

And I talked about luxury problems in the last couple of episodes that I had.

And if you remember,

Luxury problems are these problems that we have that we have the luxury of having them,

Right?

So I look at fasting,

For example,

Like there's people that are dying of world hunger,

Like they don't have a choice,

They have to fast.

And I'm sitting here like buying my deluxe designer fasting kit and I get to do that and blog about it.

Like,

Come on,

What are you complaining about?

So I was very grateful.

I'm like,

Man,

I'm so grateful that I have the support,

I'm safe.

I can choose to do this as a lifestyle choice.

It's not something that's forced upon me.

What am I complaining about?

So thank goodness that I can do that.

But I really noticed a change of awareness and the fascinating thing to me was the water only fast,

When I did it,

When I finished it,

It totally reboot my system.

Because I'll tell you one thing,

Your circadian rhythm starts when you wake up in the morning and you eat.

So your body goes,

Oh,

Bing,

Okay.

This is a cycle now.

And I had been going to bed late,

I had been going to bed at like two in the morning.

I noticed also that I would have trouble sleeping and all this stuff.

And what I started to realize was that I was eating too late.

I was eating,

I would get a little hungry at night.

I was like,

Oh,

Let me have a little snack before I go to bed.

It's fine.

And it's not fine.

You need space.

Everything needs space.

Like music,

Think about music for a second.

Everything is the same way.

And so I love metaphors,

You'll hear me use them often.

When you hear music,

What makes the music is not the sound.

It is the space in between.

So think about that one for a second.

We don't think of the space in between because it's not obvious.

But just like a tree,

When you look at it,

It's the roots underneath that support it,

To draw in the nutrition that create what you see.

The non-obvious creates the obvious.

The space creates the timing.

Different space creates whether it's slow or fast or clicky or long,

Whatever.

So you need space to create music.

In the same way,

You need space.

Everything needs space.

Space is nothing,

Right?

So in that sense,

It's very non-obvious.

But everything needs space.

You know,

A good relationship,

People need space between each other so they can go refresh and reaffirm their individuality.

If they're too much all the time with each other,

You're going to get sick of each other and you get burned out.

That's an imbalance,

You know.

So with your digestive system,

Which is the core of your life,

I mean,

It's so important.

The more I learn about digestion,

It's like everything goes back to your gut.

Everything goes back to your gut.

You got to do the research.

I mean,

Everything's about digestion.

You have good digestion,

Everything else will work out.

And one of the things that I had a bad habit of,

And I'm sure you can relate to this,

Is I would eat.

I would eat late,

You know,

Whether I'm going out,

Let's say,

I don't go out that often,

But let's say I do like,

Oh yeah,

Let me hit up Filiberto's or some,

You know,

Like a Mexican food place and just have a nice heavy meal before I go to bed.

Like that is terrible.

It is absolutely terrible for you.

And eventually it caught up to me,

You know,

And I'm glad that the issues I had weren't super serious.

I mean,

They were frustrating and they pushed me to change and to kind of explore,

But you know,

It catches up to you eventually because your body needs to rest.

Your colon,

You know,

When it's getting food through it,

Like it's getting scratched up,

It's working,

It's contracting,

It's doing its thing.

Like it needs time to heal,

Especially if you're eating a lot of spicy food,

A lot of crappy food,

You know,

Like it needs time to heal,

You know.

So that time is about three to four hours before you go to bed and the time that you sleep,

Which is,

You know,

Six to eight hours.

So you need a good 12 hours,

Which is what?

Half of your day.

Well,

Guess what?

Look at your clock.

Half of the day you're active and eating and using it,

Half of the day you're not.

Yin and yang.

One is absent,

One is active and obvious.

So you got balance in your life,

You know?

So the point is this whole intermittent fasting thing,

One of the decisions that I took on from reading that book and from doing these fasts,

One of the rules I set in my life is I'm not going to eat,

You know,

Like within a 12 hour window.

That's what he says.

You don't need to do it like within a six hour window.

Like he said,

The research doesn't really support any huge benefits for that.

But if you can eat your food within 12 hours,

You know,

A day,

Like let's say you wake up at eight and eat no later than eight.

And let's say you eat your breakfast at eight thirty in the morning,

Don't eat later than eight p.

M.

That day.

And if you go to bed like at eleven,

You know,

Eleven thirty,

That's good.

Don't have a snack or anything like a ten thirty.

Like don't do that.

You know,

So you let your body develop appetite and guess what?

In the morning,

You're going to be hungry again and you get to break the fast.

That's what breakfast stands for,

Breaking the fast.

And you get to experience the joy of taste,

Of flavor.

You know,

I have soaked almonds every morning and just soak them overnight and peel the skin off because it's healthier that way.

And they taste actually quite different.

Soaked almonds,

Some manuka honey in the morning,

You know,

And some maybe some water with a little apple cider vinegar.

And it's like it's absolutely delicious.

You know,

It sounds like a super boring breakfast maybe.

But when you wake up hungry and your taste is ready to absorb a meal,

Like it's a totally different experience.

So we create that through fasting.

Now,

Fasting can be like this intermittent fasting or it can be a longer period of time.

And to go back to the circadian rhythm thing,

After I did my water only fast,

You know,

I woke up at like 530 the next day because I mean,

It was rough,

Man.

You know,

I was like,

You know,

That's it,

I'm eating.

I don't care.

I'm going to start my day at 530.

And I've wanted to wake up early for a long time,

You know,

But I never really had the motivation.

My circadian,

I wasn't sleeping right.

Like,

I don't know.

It just,

It was difficult.

It was difficult.

It wasn't easy.

But something about this fast,

This water only fast that I did for a day,

I woke up at 530,

I started my day.

And then literally every day after that,

I've been waking up at 530 and doing my stuff.

And it's been absolutely amazing.

Like I feel,

I feel great,

You know,

So I'm going to definitely incorporate fasting as a regular practice in my life.

Obviously,

Because I'm writing about it too.

I mean,

I've fasted before,

But not,

I've not been as conscious and mindful as I am now about it,

But it is a huge,

It's been a huge source of gratitude for me,

A huge source of appreciation and health too and power.

You know,

You get recharged.

It's weird.

You know,

I had a ton of energy.

Even when I was fast,

Like at first you get hungry,

You go through that wall of suffering and wanting to quit.

But when you talk yourself out of that,

When you get out of that,

When you disconnect your emotions,

You find that there's a lot of energy there.

The body,

There's a lot more to energy than food,

I'll tell you that.

In fact,

Most of the time,

Food doesn't provide it.

That's a myth by the way,

Is that food is your main source of energy.

It's not.

You have micronutrients,

You have breathing.

Let's put that number one,

Breathing,

Water,

Your alignment,

How you're standing up.

You know,

If you're slouched over and your posture is poor or whatever,

You're going to,

You know,

Impact your blood flow and that's going to impact your energy.

Blood flow is another one,

Circulation.

If you're laying down and relaxed,

You're not going to have that much energy but if you're jumping up and down,

Get some of that blood pressure increasing,

Suddenly you're going to find a different source of energy.

So,

You have all these different sources of energy.

They have nothing to do with food.

And you know,

We turn to food when we are hungry right away,

When we are depressed or sad.

Right?

When you eat from an emotional experience.

You know,

So fasting allows you to address those things.

Whatever it is to you,

Whatever your mind,

However it reacts emotionally,

What are the problems that come up?

Because they're the same every single time.

Every time you have a problem,

Whether it's in,

You know,

Doing a fast or whether a relationship or in business or at school,

Whatever,

The mind that's chattering and the things it says are usually the same.

You'll find it's the same pattern,

Same type of blaming,

Same type of anger.

If you're a person that responds with anger,

You're going to get angry.

If you're a person that responds with sadness or depression,

You're going to get sad.

If you're a person that responds with worry,

You're going to get worried.

Let's say you fast and usually you're worry wart at school,

You're going to start worrying,

Oh my god,

Am I going to,

You know,

Die?

Am I going to get dehydrated?

Am I going to get this?

If you're a person that gets angry when you're,

Let's say,

At school or work and you're getting angry for all kinds of stuff,

When you fast,

That anger is going to come up and face you.

It's going to,

You're going to get angry at,

You know,

Everything and people around you,

Like you're going to get hangry,

Right?

So it's the same pattern and fasting is a conscious choice to bring that pattern up and deal with it and develop the important skills of patience and process and appreciation.

You know,

That's really what it's about.

It's appreciation.

You know,

Having that sensitivity because you need sensitivity for a good life,

You need sensitivity for gratitude and gratitude is the key for life.

So remember that fasting is the space that we need in between all this progress and achievement and consumption,

Which in and of itself is not a bad thing.

I'm very grateful to live in the wealthiest country in the world.

Every time we do,

You know,

The Pledge of Allegiance or,

You know,

The National Anthem,

You know,

My eyes well up in tears because I love what the United States stands for.

I'm not talking about politics here.

I'm not talking about any governments that are currently in going on.

I'm talking about the idea of the United States.

You know,

The idea of a free country to where you can pursue what you love to pursue.

That's beautiful to me,

You know,

And I think that's amazing.

But alongside with that,

I think that,

You know,

It's a human system that we've put in play with all this stuff and it's gotten to one side to be very extreme.

Our values as a society are too much in the direction of consumption and it's not healthy.

It's not healthy for you as an individual.

It's not healthy for your success long term and it's not healthy for the planet.

So fasting is the gateway to recovering that health,

To recovering that gratitude and to strengthening your mind.

So hope you've enjoyed this episode.

Let me know what you think of fasting,

You know,

And if you do go on a fast,

Obviously do your research,

Make sure you're,

You know,

Well equipped to do that.

The Prolon is all planned out for you.

If you want to go looking at,

I think it's like Prolon fasting,

Mimicking diet.

Com or something like that.

You can look it up.

It's spelled P-R-O-L-O-N,

Very,

Very interesting program.

Very cool.

They actually come with a nurse advisor too.

So if you buy it,

Then they'll have somebody call you and you can talk to them about any concerns.

But it's a very interesting process.

And if you do,

Let's say you do and keep a journal,

Keep a journal while you're doing it.

Notice what comes up because I can guarantee you the same problems that you deal with,

They're going to come up when you're fasting.

That's what it's for.

That's why there's a spiritual component to it.

And share what you learn.

Share that in the Daily Gratitude Practice Facebook group.

You know,

Share what you find a new appreciation for,

Share your lessons and check it out.

It's a free group to join.

Just check it out and share what your experience was.

I'm really curious to,

I'll be in there.

I'm in there every day and let us know.

You know,

It's always an insightful experience to see what others find.

So thank you so much for listening.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode.

Use the power of fasting,

Be patient,

Use the power of space.

So here's my takeaway for this episode.

In our consumption based modern lifestyle,

We run a great danger of becoming desensitized to the very things we want and enjoy because of their ease of availability.

For thousands of years,

Mankind has utilized the power of fasting to place a space between pleasures so that appetite and more importantly,

Appreciation can develop.

Without fasting,

We have no discipline,

No sensitivity and no ability to discover the extraordinary hidden in plain sight.

Employ them this powerful tool,

Whether it's a financial fast,

Food fast,

Media fast or fast from people on a regular basis to not only rediscover yourself,

But to reclaim your desire for what matters most in life.

For more episodes and weekly content,

Stay connected at danceoflife.

Com.

Reviews

Excellent, thankyou.

This is a great discussion about fasting and I completely relate to the deep and significant life lessons learned through fasting.

Thank you! I have been fasting 36 hours weekly for three weeks. I am experiencing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual benefits. Thank you explaining why I am gaining strength from this practice. I am grateful you are sharing your gifts with the world!♥️🙏🏻♥️

Started intermittant fasting recently and was surprised at its impact on me, especially gratitude for food when I could eat it. Loved your podcast and for the help it offered me in reframing things. I do hope the 'fast' from many things we take for granted brought about by restrictions due to Covid-19 has a positive impact globally on those societies that consume too much. 🙏

I can't emphasize enough on how awesome this was. Thank you so much

Very good and insightful!!

This was great thank you for sharing your thoughts, suggestions and experiences.

I’m in Day 4 of an attempt at 21 day water/herbal tea fast! I was strong first two days, cracked and ate on day 3! Day 4 is going good so far! Listening to this helped distract me for another 40 min and gave me new motivations!

Ps. Love your voice!

Great podcast! I have been seriously fasting for the last 10 weeks. Some 18/6, some. 25 hour. I initially started fasting for weight loss but I also have occasional digestive issues. Since I started I can't tell you how great I feel! Lighter, no bloating, no heartburn. I have boucoup energy and my workouts keep getting better. I highly recommend fasting whenever you can. Slow but sure it gets easier.
Love the idea of financial fasting! Wish I could get the spouse to do that. Lol. Thank you for this talk. Helps me on my fasting journey.

This podcast gave me a different angle to fasting. I fast for health reasons - now I’ll be more mindful of gratitude and discipline. Thank you thank you 🙏

Great talk! So much to consider and to appreciate. Thanks for your contribution! Namaste 🙏♥️☀️

Great share. I am a big believer in fasting. Try to do 16 hours or more everyday but it’s usually 5-6 days a week. I also cured addictions with the Master Cleanse and have Juice, water, media, and complain fasted. I like the way you compare and contrast the over achievement mentality to the act of restricting yourself. Which can also be a motivating factor in fasting as most over achiever fasters would agree;). Very insightful. I enjoyed it very much.