FEED Your FIRE Through FASTING - Fasting Post 1
One of the greatest disciplinary superpowers any Fighter (Thats you my g, you are alive so you are FIGHTING) could have!
WHAT IT DO FIGHTERS!? First & foremost I want us all to take a moment to be grateful for being here. Grateful for the opportunity to be connecting with each other & for the blessing of being alive today.
THANK YOU GOD!
Todays business? FASTING! Fasting, much like breath & meditation and all other topics I talk about could truly be talked about with thousands on thousands of words. For the sake of you & the sake of me we are gonna keep it simple today.
This is a topic that in the future will get much more extensive writing, similarly to the other topics I am incredibly passionate about. Today? I wanted to talk a bit about WHY I fast regularly (hint: for me, it isn’t about health primarily) & a bit about my intro to fasting!
Most would probably assume I am going to start talking extensively about the gut microbiome or body fat, metabolic health etc. But that really isn’t what drew me to fasting & it isn’t the main reason why I fast.
I got my introduction to fasting pretty inadvertently. My start came through wrestling. In high school & college both I always had to cut a ton of weight to make my weight classes. Often times having to lose anywhere from 10-18 pounds a week was nothing new to me.
When I was younger, I had no knowledge at all about health or nutrition or even really optimal performance for competing. I just ate whatever, slept however and just trained as stupidly hard as I possibly could every day. It worked for a long time, but it surely didn’t help me get to the highest level I could possibly go. It is what it is, such as all things of our past (bars! write that down).
With the above being said, you can imagine how I went about cutting my weight a lot of times. I crash dieted, starved myself, dehydrated myself, spit into cups, ran in layers in the winter (often times for hours just to get a few ounces of weight off), wore sauna suits and looked like this:
I would often times go days without eating, maybe two days at a time no water. Fasting right? HAHAHAHAHA NO! I mean, technically, yes okay yes off the technicality.
It should be VERY clear & obvious that I do not recommend doing the above activities.
Seriously, ever. Even to professional fighters or high level international style wrestlers. If you are maintaining proper nutrition, sleep/recovery, water intake, training output, etc. you DO NOT need to cut weight like that.
I can’t even count on two hands the amount of times that due to improper weight management/weight cutting I was ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTED wrestling a SCRUB first round of a tournament. It makes sense, you’ve completely exhausted yourself (no food, no energy, no water, poor sleep due to hunger & dehydration) & had like two hours to replenish (two hour weigh in) OF COURSE YOU FEEL LIKE GARBAGE!
Yes, my background gave me an introduction to fasting & I would say that because of my background it has been “easier” for me to rationalize/get into fasting. That being said, the above activities are not what fasting is, nor what it is meant to be.
Fasting is a practice as old as we are. It is prevalent in a lot of major religions & is a tenet of MANY cultures. For a lot of these people the fasting is done for spiritual purposes primarily with the health benefits really being a “side effect” of a positive life practice.
The ancients & the gurus of old also knew though that fasting served as a way to regulate the body by purging it of excess. You regulate & cultivate the body, you regulate & cultivate the mind and spirit. A clean body, a “pure body”, allows one to better think “clear thoughts” & thus live more in accordance with the path that has been set specifically for them.
I did not start fasting for the health benefits. I fasted for the spiritual benefits. I fast every Saturday. What day you choose to fast or when you choose to fast or whatever, that’s up to you. For me, Saturday is the day of the week that I was born on. This is my born day. Saturday is highly associated with cultivation. On Saturday’s, I cultivate the fires and the light in my stomach. I feast on the strength and the light that my Creator & my Creator alone is able to provide me.
When I found fasting I was in a period of time in my life where all I could see was darkness. The mud around me was drowning me and the Light that is life was barely permissible through the murkiness of the waters that were killing me. I was tough, mentally I was tough, I always have been because I’ve needed to be. But I needed something more. Something more to pull me from the depths that myself & life had dug for me. I needed more & more discipline. For me, I am the version of myself that I love the most when I am a disciplined man. What I needed was something that could help build more love for myself and for the simple act of being here & living. Fasting, now that builds discipline.
It is not easy for most people to go with even missing one meal. This is because we live in a society that is built on overeating (& overbreathing) and indulgence. Just like Pavlov would teach, we too are not immune to conditioning.
Most of us only eat three meals a day because we have been taught to. It is all we have ever known. But if your level of activity does not match the amount of food eaten then what happens? That food just be chilling. It leads to excess in the body. The body becomes burdened, which then starts to burden the mind.
NOW! I know we did not talk about specific health benefits, but that wasn’t the purpose for today. The purpose for this one are the non health benefits, what really drew me to this practice. If you want to know how fasting can help heal your gut health, how fasting can increase your energy, help build you immune system, allow you to breathe better, etc. then you’re gonna have to tune into the future ;)
BENEFITS I NOTICE:
RESILIENCY - This is the most important aspect of fasting to me. Building resiliency of the mind, body and spirit. You have to WILLINGLY go without eating for that period of time you have chosen. That is not easy for the average person. This “simple” act makes you tougher EACH AND EVERY TIME you participate. The same reason why I do the cold primarily. Resiliency. When things get very difficult in life, which they will, they always do, these types of practices help us get through the hard times.
DISCIPLINE - Saturday. I fast EVERY Saturday (either from Sunset Friday to Sunset Saturday or to Sunrise on Sunday.) I will continue doing this until I leave this Earth. Every Saturday. Circumstances may come up that require me to eat on a Saturday. Maybe I am competing on Saturday and need to make sure that I am at optimal levels. Okay that is fine, you fast some other day out of the week on that day. See? Discipline. It STILL happens. EVERY WEEK, no matter what. You show up for yourself like this, how much harder can it be to show up and be disciplined in other areas of your life?
CLARITY - I fast for clarity. There is a lot going on in the world today. There is a lot going on in the world all days. You are no different. Each day you are presented with new obstacles, new challenges to go against & new sets of “problems”. When I fast it helps me to see between the lines of what is real and what isn’t. What matters and what does not truly matter. It works as a reset at times almost. Maybe the week has been overwhelming, or maybe it has been easy. Either way, we have our day each week where we fast and recharge. I set my day up around it too. I make sure that on Saturday’s I have some nice nature to go be in or I have some type of hike or something. GO BE OUTSIDE! GET THAT CLARITY!!!!
Obviously, I could turn this article from a ten minute read into a three hour read if I continue, but I will save that for the future installments.
I AM NOT telling you to fast. I AM, however, telling you that it would be beneficial to you to learn more about this ancient practice! We all can use more discipline in our lives and definitely can use more clarity. We live in a world where it is easy to be deceived if you do not have a gut to fall back on to trust. So train your gut, train your mind and your spirit. Be TOUGH Anons!
I appreciate you taking your time on this Monday to take STEPS to improve not only your life but the lives of those who come after you. Your mission is ESSENTIAL to this world even if no one but you understands it. So walk towards it proudly and unbothered, for it is for you to achieve anyways.
THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS!
BowTiedFighter (Beast Monk)