The urgency and panic I was feeling from this little fast seems suddenly was so small and insignificant. When minutes ago, it was my entire world. And I had the revelation that all the chaos and anxiety and stress we feel as humans in our daily lives exists because we are so focused on things that don’t really matter. I’m not saying bills and all the shit we have to deal with daily isn’t real. But we blow it up. We drown it in, and lose ourselves. If we gain the ability to sit through things, no matter how uncomfortable, long enough to find our breath and core, they won’t have the power over us like we allow them to. We will be free. And that’s how I feel in this very moment. Completely free and clear. Did my hunger go away? Of course not. But it’s no longer the center of my world. I am. It’s peripheral.

My first 24 hour fast and what I learned from it

“Few people today think of their eating habits as being spiritually significant. Especially in a society where food is plentiful and relatively cheap, it is so easy to get in the habit of eating in a self-centered, indulgent way that is not healthy spiritually or physically. The more deeply ingrained the habit of satisfying our taste buds and stomachs becomes, the weaker we become in our ability to resist other self-centered, indulgent desires. That makes it harder to put the needs of others before our own or to control what we say or do for the sake of others.”

—Fr. Philip LeMasters, Fasting for Fulfillment

“Remember that, in the Biblical narrative, humanity’s estrangement from God is first manifested in relation to food.  Our unruly appetite is a prime example of our enslavement to our own desires, of our addiction to getting what we want when and how we want it.”

—Fr. Philip LeMasters, Fasting for Fulfillment

“It is not food or good conditions in life that secure good health. It is a saintly life, the life of Christ. I know hermits who fasted with the greatest austerity and were never ill. You’re not in danger of coming to any harm by fasting…To do this, however, you need to have faith. Otherwise you will feel empty and nauseous and have a craving for food. Fasting is also a matter of faith…When you have love for things divine, you can fast with pleasure and everything is easy; otherwise everything would seem impossibly difficult.”

—St. Porphyrios

“Even the little variety which I used was a yielding to the demands of appetite, and not of health. Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.”

—Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Some people can happily eat a simple planned meal every day of the same things with measured portions, but find eating moderately from a variety of things impossible.  Other people would find the planned, portioned meals unbearably difficult, but would not have difficulty eating a variety of things moderately.”

—Mary S. Ford, Glory and Honor: Orthodox Christian Resources on Marriage

The passion of self-love suggests to the monk that he should have pity on his body and in the name of its proper care and governance should take food more often than is fitting; for in this way self-love will lead him on step by step to fall into the pit of self-indulgence. On the other hand, self-love prompts those who are not monks to fulfill the body’s desires at once.

—St Maximos the Confessor, Four Hundred Texts on Love

We don’t deserve to compete spiritually if we are conquered even in fleshly contests and beaten in our struggle with our stomachs.

—John Cassian