72 Hour Fast - Part 3

71 hours, 58 minutes into my 72 hour fast: I sat at the dinner table, my plate of food steaming in front of me. I didn't know how my stomach would take food, so I decided to start with small, easy to digest foods: Olives, raisins, grapes, assorted nuts, steamed broccoli and some salsa for dipping. I had some chicken prepared and ready to go on the grill, but I was going to give that another hour or so.

Sitting in my chair, I leaned over and inhaled deeply. When you don't eat for a long period of time, your sense of smell intensifies. I had gone to a grocery store earlier that day, and it was intoxicating. Walking into the store was like walking into a brick wall. I was inundated with smell, I just stopped and stood in the entrance, eyes closed, taking it all in. Charlie did the shopping, and I just ran from display to display, leaning over and inhaling deep.

I had two minutes left in my fast, and I spent it with my eyes closed, lost in smell. My phone hit midnight, and I began to eat. I was unsure how my stomach would accept food, so I wanted to take it slow. I ate my dinner nut by nut, raisin by raisin, olive by olive. It took me about an hour to finish my plate, but I enjoyed every bite of food to its fullest. I'd let the grapes sit in my mouth for up to a full minute, absorbing the taste, before biting just enough to let the juice leak out into my mouth. I'd finish cleaving the grape in half, and let the two halves wander around my mouth, saturating my taste buds with flavor. The broccoli dissolved in my mouth, and when ever something was dipped in the salsa my tongue was overwhelmed by the sensation. As I neared the end of my dinner, I grilled a chicken breast. I cleaned my plate of the first course just as the chicken finished, and I probably spent thirty minutes on the single filleted breast of chicken.

I learned a lot from my fast, but not all of it I can put into words. A good deal of it was just learning more about my body, becoming closer and more in tune with it.

The first and most obvious thing I learned was that I can go three days with only water without radically modifying my daily schedule. I led and participated in a parkour conditioning session, I juggled, I biked to and from campus several times, and I led a Taekwondo class. I got an average amount of sleep each night and only took one nap.

The more important thing I learned was how the body reacts to food deprivation. I kind of assumed that the first day would suck, and that it would just keep getting worse. The first day did suck, but the second and third day was actually very easy. I was telling people that it was “disappointingly easy.” After the body realizes it isn't getting food, something happens and you just stop feeling hungry.

Rating my hunger on a scale of 1 to 10, this is how I would break down the days:

Day 1:
Constant hunger (average): 4
# of hunger pangs: 15-20
Severity of hunger pangs: 7-8

Day 2:
Constant hunger (average): 2
# of hunger pangs: 2-5
Severity of hunger pangs: 5

Day 3:
Constant Hunger (average): 1
# of hunger pangs: 0
Severity of hunger pangs: N/A

So you can see, by the third day my hunger was really just background noise that could be easily turned off. Really, by the second day it was just background noise. The hunger pangs of Day #2 came typically around meal times, which I think was more mental and habit-driven than hunger driven. So really, my 72 hour fast was pretty easy once I got past the first day.

Upon later research, I found out that complete fasting isn't the best way to experience hunger. I could have made it a LOT harder for myself if I had waited most of the first day, and then had three almonds for dinner. The second day, had a strawberry for breakfast and then maybe a single bite of chicken for dinner. The third day could have been a half dozen raisins and a peanut for breakfast and then a bite of a banana for lunch.

Basically what happens is that in Scenario #1 (what I did), after about 24 hours your body realizes it isn't going to be getting any food (for whatever reason) and it just hunkers down. Your metabolism slows to a crawl and you start turning to fat, muscle, and other sources of stored energy instead of utilizing energy from food currently being digested. In Scenario #2, Charles explains that your body is constantly being given small amounts of food to digest. This forces it to continuously be switching metabolic pathways from a highly catabolic state to an increase in metabolism to utilize that energy as soon as possible. You end up confusing your body by cutting it short of its energy needs, but still taunting it with some small morsels of food. It is a highly mental side effect though, essentially toying with your desires.

I didn't notice many side effects (besides hunger, ha ha). The two primary ones I did notice was temperature and emotional control. In short, I got cold. Really, really, cold. Like, “two pairs of pants, a t-shirt, a zip up hoodie, a sweat shirt, a jacket, and a comforter wrapped around me” cold. Not all the time, and that was definitely the worst time, but I did get cold a lot easier, more often, and more intensely than everyone else around me. It didn't help that during my fast was the first really big cold spell in Rochester. Poor timing, I suppose. The other side effect was a some loss of emotional control. Especially towards the end of the second day and the third day, I started getting a bit short and snarky with people. Some events took place Friday morning that left me pretty depressed, but after a few days of food in my stomach I felt a bit more stable. I don't think I would have taken it so poorly had I been eating.

It may have taken me a while to write this post, but I did talk to a few people about the experience once I had finished. My friend Courtney told me about something she did once – she went into the woods, by herself, with only water, a tarp, a sleeping bag, and a candle. She fasted for 48 hours while completely alone. I would like to do some modification of this, perhaps this summer. Get enough water for 5 days and some material to protect me from the elements. Probably some method of starting a fire. I'd go into the woods, alone, far enough where I wouldn't come across anyone, and then just stay there until I felt it was time to come out. The one thing I didn't experience during my fast was focus. I was very distracted by a lot of different things, especially during the third day. Sitting, with absolutely nothing to distract me, for an indeterminate amount of time, sounds like a very different, almost spiritual, experience to me.

I'll let you know when I do this. In the mean time, I definitely learned a lot from this experience. Technique is obviously a very important part of parkour training, but I feel like to be a complete and well rounded traceur you should strive to experience as much as you can. I plan on doing a few other types of deprivation training over the next few months, so look out for those posts.

72 Hour Fast

My name is Zachary Cohn, and I have never been hungry.

I don't think I've ever gone more than 18 hours without food. Even during religious holidays when fasting was encouraged, it was only sun-up to sun-down (and I'd sneak food throughout the day anyway). I've wanted to eat before, my stomach has told me it was empty and needed more food to sustain it. Even right now, my stomach is growling a bit, even though I ate less than 2 hours ago.

Food is actually a fairly significant part of my life. I eat healthy and I love to cook. I pride myself on having never drank a soda. My roommates and I regularly cook our own dinners, ranging from calzones (made from scratch!) to oven-baked chicken with a homemade alfredo sauce. We eat healthy, and we eat a LOT.

I live in an upper-middle class household where there have always been cans in the cabinet, apples on the table, and milk in the refrigerator. I've made enough money so if I'm out, I don't have to deliberate and decide if I can afford to eat out somewhere or if I should just hold out and wait until I get home. Food has always been an arm's reach away.

I was sitting in class last week when my stomach growled and I decided I was hungry. This time though, for some reason, I thought about my last thought. "I am hungry." Four hours before, I had eaten a 3 egg omelet with cheese, turkey, and peppers. There was no way I was "hungry" again. This is when I realized that I've never truly been hungry. Starving children in Africa, to use the cliche, have gone days without food. People tortured in POW Camps have been deprived of food for days at a time.

Running out of peanut butter and jelly that morning suddenly seemed like not as big of a deal.

That's when I made my decision. I was going to fast. Not for any religious reason. Not for health or weight loss or purification. Just to see if I can do it. To see if I have the willpower to not eat for a full 72 hours.

I hope this will do a few things for me.

First, I think it will ultimately be satisfying. My training for Parkour goes beyond simply running and vaulting over stuff. I train Parkour so I can be ready for anything that happens. Parkour alone won't do this, which is why I do a variety of activities (Parkour, martial arts, rock climbing, lifting, slacklining, even swing dance and juggling). When called upon to act, I want the ability to perform and meet the demands of the situation. If the situation is not having food available... I want to know what it feels like. I want to be ready.

Side note - I'm interested in deprivation training. In the coming months, I hope to spend a full 24 hours with various disabilities. I want to go one day without sight, another without thumbs, with only my non-dominant hand, and without my lower body. But for the next 72 hours, I'll be going without food.

Second, I think this will allow me to control my desire to eat better. A lot of times I find myself eating just because there's food around, or because i have nothing else to do, or because it's "that time of day" when I usually eat and I feel obligated to eat. I want to break that habit. This will hopefully give me a frame of reference. Which leads into the next reason...

Two point Five, this will also be a test of willpower. I am not removing food from my life, I am just not consuming it. I will be around food fairly often. I will be going to the dining hall with friends, I will be eating dinner with my roommates, perhaps even cooking food with them. Being around food, but not eating, will probably be the hardest part of all. Several people have said it would be cooler if I went into a jungle or into the desert and did this... but at that point eating is simply not an option. In my case, eating IS an option, and yet I choose not to eat.

Third, I want to know hunger. It's an experience that most people in society never know. zNo one I interact with knows, has ever known, or will ever know hunger. I'm not kidding myself, three days is nothing. People can go 15, 20 days without food. I'm not willing to sacrifice and damage my body to that intensity, but I feel like this will at least be a taste of what true hunger feels like. To really understand what I mean, please read this short story (it's 7 paragraphs, and it does an excellent job describing what I'm talking about).

Because of these reasons, because I consider this experiment "training," I'm not going to be changing my daily routine. In fact, I'm going to become more strict. I am going to wake up and get up when my alarm goes off. I will continue biking to and from school each day. I am going to get to every class on time. I am going to get to work on time. I will also be attending the activities I usually participate in those evenings. Wednesday is juggling night, Thursday is swing dance, and Friday is Taekwondo (although this one I teach in, so I won't be actively participating in all of the drills). I will not be eating a huge dinner tonight, just my normal meal. I'm not going to prepare for this at all, I want it to be as though eating was suddenly no longer an option, yet I had to continue on as normal, as if I was fighting in a war and we ran out of rations (although slightly less intense).

I'm publicizing this for a few reasons. I hope I make other people to think about hunger. I don't necessarily want everyone to join me in my fast or in a fast of their own, but I do want people to recognize that they probably have never truly been hungry in their life.

I've posted a link on Digg to my Twitter, where I will be making regular updates about how I'm feeling. I hope this will help the information get out, but I also hope this will hold me publicly accountable and be added incentive to stick to it.

I'll be updating twitter pretty often, and on Saturday, after my fast is over, I will be posting here again with all the twitter updates, and a "wrap up" summarizing how it went and what I learned.