If you haven’t seen a friend or family member for the better part of a decade, the assumption is that when you meet, you’ll notice that you’ve both added a pound (or five) for each year of absence. If you didn’t gain weight in the meantime, relatives ask you bluntly, “How do you stay so thin? You do not eat? For a growing number of people taken with the intermittent fasting fadThe short answer is yes, in fact, that’s how they “stay so thin.”
It’s not like people who do intermittent fasting never to eat. It’s just that the new word for skipping meals is “fasting.” In the secular world, intermittent fasting is pursued primarily for its health benefits, and those who practice it are often more than willing to share their enthusiasm. What is your feeding window? How long was your longest fast? How much more energy do they have? Do they fit into his high school jeans? You may not have asked, but you will likely get the answers to these questions and more.
scientific research on the possible benefits and drawbacks of fasting is available and includes decades of findings. These may not be persuasive to many people, however abstract and disembodied the data may be. Much of health is individual, not captured by longitudinal studies of unidentified masses. But after hearing from one enthusiast, why wouldn’t people be convinced to try intermittent fasting?
Sure, it may not work for you, but it has worked remarkably well for many people who rave about it. People who have struggled for decades to lose weight find a sustainable lifestyle where they can enjoy food without losing control. People with migraines and brain fog find relief. What do you have to lose by not eating at regular intervals and see what happens?
Many sensible adults think they have a lot to lose. Your metabolism will be screwed up! They will get fat! They will be hypoglycemic! The maladaptive food culture in a libertine society of overabundance has convinced people that the normal human condition is to eat every hour on the hour, bordering on diabetic stupor. This may sound harsh, but we seem blind to the fact that two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese. In such a nation, we have managed to convince ourselves that we will suffer from the loss of a meal here or there. For most people, that is not true.
For the individual, it may seem that steadily gaining weight throughout life and veering into an early grave is the only way. Fasting is a choice that proves reality. People who fast regularly show that we don’t have to continue down the path of least resistance.
To be successful in fasting, no one should be foolish enough to embark on a 72-hour fast during which they feel queasy and end up bingeing on pizza and donuts, wallowing in a sea of shame, self-loathing, and general emotional dysregulation. Such a path is emblematic of the “diet culture” that the fat acceptance movement criticizes. This is the idiocy that people point to when they firmly proclaim, “Diets don’t work.”
Instead, one should follow the advice of many people who have successfully modified their lifestyles. The advice is very often the same: start small. Fasting can begin with the act of refraining from eating after dinner. The simple elimination of a bedtime snack follows a different course from the norm in a nation with a gluttonous excess of food. If someone can consistently refuse bedtime snacking, that habit becomes part of who they are. No longer do you need to make a decision every night: Do I dip into a pint of ice cream or eat a carrot stick? Or, the most likely scenario: I eat all the carrot sticks, am left unsatisfied, and then eat most of a pint of ice cream? For the person who fasts regularly, with practice, there is no longer any need to make a decision.
And here lies the excellence of fasting: the simplicity. Instead of constantly deciding between the variety of foods permanently available, some nutritious, some toxic, people can rediscover hunger and its purpose. Fasting can be a way of tidying up our relationship with food. Through the practice of intermittent fasting, people can discover the spiritual heritage of fasting. as Suzan Sammons observed:
I have now come to better understand the spiritual giants who lived a life of fasting, such as Saint Anthony of the Desert. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard for him, but I don’t think he felt as bad as I did. I imagine he felt free, more like me now. Properly used, fasting can end your over-reliance on food. For someone like me who used to be afraid of skipping breakfast, it’s really liberating to know that need to eat.
How encouraging it is that, in the absence of meaningful external motivation in a society that increasingly celebrates ill health, the human spirit rebels. People from all walks of life are rediscovering the wisdom of fasting and feasting, the rhythms of the days and the year.
Where is the Church? It seems unthinkable that an article on fasting addresses the cultural phenomenon and only as an afterthought addresses the spiritual dimension. However, given the current situation guidelines Established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, it’s no wonder the faithful Catholic is more likely to discover fasting at the local health food store or chiropractor’s office than by living the liturgical year with Mother Church.
The nonsense of trying to analyze exactly what constitutes “a full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together do not equal a full meal” really pulls the rug out from under serious Catholics who try to mortify the flesh and focus on the real thing. real. . For some, the minimum fasting requirement is a way to eat enough to be dissatisfied and obsessed with food throughout the day. As many people are finding, there is a better way.
No one will force you to fast. The Church has been dispensed from this function in the United States. If you are pregnant or nursing, hypoglycemic or sick, if fasting makes you irritable and unpleasant: don’t do it. But it is still a lifestyle worth trying, part of the wisdom of the ages that we have parted ways with in so many areas of community life. Fasting is not a golden ticket to heaven, and weight loss is not guaranteed, although if practiced consistently, it is likely to happen. To the disgruntled activist who made it this far, let’s be explicit: being thin is not synonymous with being holy.
If, heaven forbid, the food shortage rumors pan out, intermittent fasting becomes mandatory. Exercise freedom while it lasts and try intermittent fasting today. As others have wisely advised: start small. But start now.
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Source: www.crisismagazine.com