I (and the couple of people I know who have also experimented with fasting) have found it to be a highly trainable skill. Doing a raw 36-hour fast after never having fasted before may be miserable; but doing the same fast after two weeks of 16-8 intermittent fasting will probably be no big deal.
Before I started intermittent fasting, I’d done a few 30-hour fasts, and all of them got very difficult towards the end. I would get headaches, feel very fatigued, and not really be able to function from hours 22-30. When I started IF, the first week was quite tough. I’d have similar symptoms as the fasting window was ending: headaches, trouble focusing. But then right around the two week mark, things changed. The symptoms went away, and the hunger became a much more “passive” feeling. Rather than hunger directly causing discomfort, the hunger now feels more like a “notification”. Just my body saying “hey, just so you know, we haven’t eaten for a while”, rather than it saying “you’re going to die if you don’t eat right this moment”. This change has been persistent, even during periods where I’ve stopped IF.
Both of the two others I’ve seen try IF have reported something similar, that the first few weeks are tough, but then the character of hunger itself starts to change. Today, I can go 24 hours without eating fairly trivially, ie without much distraction or performance decreases from hunger.
Going 36 will still be a challenge, but some pre-training may make it easier! Of course you may be specifically trying to test your willpower, in which case making it easier may be counter productive. Either way, this seems like a cool idea for a secular holiday. Best of luck!
I’ll offer up my own fasting advice as well:
I (and the couple of people I know who have also experimented with fasting) have found it to be a highly trainable skill. Doing a raw 36-hour fast after never having fasted before may be miserable; but doing the same fast after two weeks of 16-8 intermittent fasting will probably be no big deal.
Before I started intermittent fasting, I’d done a few 30-hour fasts, and all of them got very difficult towards the end. I would get headaches, feel very fatigued, and not really be able to function from hours 22-30. When I started IF, the first week was quite tough. I’d have similar symptoms as the fasting window was ending: headaches, trouble focusing. But then right around the two week mark, things changed. The symptoms went away, and the hunger became a much more “passive” feeling. Rather than hunger directly causing discomfort, the hunger now feels more like a “notification”. Just my body saying “hey, just so you know, we haven’t eaten for a while”, rather than it saying “you’re going to die if you don’t eat right this moment”. This change has been persistent, even during periods where I’ve stopped IF.
Both of the two others I’ve seen try IF have reported something similar, that the first few weeks are tough, but then the character of hunger itself starts to change. Today, I can go 24 hours without eating fairly trivially, ie without much distraction or performance decreases from hunger.
Going 36 will still be a challenge, but some pre-training may make it easier! Of course you may be specifically trying to test your willpower, in which case making it easier may be counter productive. Either way, this seems like a cool idea for a secular holiday. Best of luck!
This was my experience as well. Fasting started out pretty hard to me but eventually moved to regular 84 hour fasts for a while.