Surviving My First 24-Hour Fast 

I had decided I wanted to try a 24-hour fast. No food, no drinks (besides water) for 24 hours straight. “I’ve put my mind and body through worse, this won’t be that bad,” I foolishly told myself.

For a week, I had been planning what the perfect day to do it would be. But then I realized, there will never be a perfect day for it. So, I decided to start after my next meal.

There are many benefits to fasting, such as, burning fat, resetting your body, and an increase in stem cell production and gut healing, among others. There are also physiological and mental benefits. That’s what I was after.

After going 23 plus years of eating around the same time every day, would I be able to change my habits that easily? Or would I cave and give in to temptations? I was about to find out.

My last meal was 6:30 Sunday night. I wouldn’t eat again until 6:30 Monday night.

Morning

The morning went as normal as any other to start. By 8:30 AM, I was hungry. Since that is normally when I eat breakfast, that was too be expected.

The biggest surprise was when I had my first meeting of the day at 8:45 AM. After talking for a little while I noticed my mouth was dry. I had only taken a sip of water all morning. Where I normally drink a whole bottle of water with breakfast, I had almost none today. Upon realizing this, I had to chug water. One of the most important parts of a fast is to consume a great deal of water. Since your body is not taking in food, it is really important to drink more than your normal amount of water.

By 9:30, my hunger subdued and eating was off my mind for a few hours.

It really made me reconsider the “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” motto. Three meals a day could easily become two a day if you eliminate breakfast. To me, it is the least needed meal. And who decided three meals a day is the correct amount anyway?

Afternoon

“Lunchtime” is when things got interesting for me. I normally eat lunch around 12:30. But without the need for eating lunch, I worked right through that time. On a normal day, I am aware that it’s getting close to 12:30, I wrap up what I am doing for work and go eat. Then after lunch, I have to figure out where I left off and what I still need to do.

Without a structure and schedule based upon when I would eat, I was not as concerned with the time and surprisingly more productive…

Until 2 in the afternoon. That is when my body let me know I should eat. I started to become very hungry and my body was wondering why I skipped lunch. While the hunger wasn’t terrible, I did start thinking about dinner and how exciting it would be to eat.

By 4, I was struggling. Productivity was starting to slow. 21.5 hours without eating, I was almost there, but the only thing on my mind was food. This made it worse and I would catch myself glancing at the clock every five minutes. I was feeling sluggish and distracted for a little while. Had I not had food on my mind, the time would have passed much faster.

Breaking the Fast

Finally, 6:30 came. I finished making my dinner and could now enjoy eating again. Sadly, I made a rookie mistake. I consumed a huge dinner as my first meal to break my fast. The best strategy is to break your fast with a small meal first, or else your body will be shocked.

Unfortunately, the next day, I ate poorly. Maybe it was because of how much I didn’t eat the day of the fast, or maybe it was the lack of sugar. But all that work to “cleanse” my body, partially down the drain.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the 24-hour fast went great and I’m glad I did it. I never thought I’d willingly want to give up eating for an extended time period. It was a good experience and showed that I don’t need to plan my day around when and what I will eat.

There will definitely be more fasts ahead in my future. For my next one, I’m going to try working out towards the end of the 24 hours to see how my body reacts. Eventually, I want to push past the 24-hour fast and get myself to a 36-hour fast.

For those interested in their first fast, just remember, drink plenty of water and eat an early dinner the night before so you aren’t suffering too much by the 23rd hour. And read this guide for any first-time intermittent fasters.