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Have you ever tried fasting and it was just too hard for you?
There are times when fasting is not simply a matter of will power -- there are physiological factors that can hinder a person's ability to fast. I discovered this by accident and I will share my "journey" and findings with you. But please be aware that the physiological factors that affected me might be different from the factors that effect you. Let me start with a little background.
I had a rich and successful history of fasting and then suddenly I got to the point where it became too hard for me to fast any more. I could not understand how my will power and discipline to fast seemed to melt away after my past fasting successes.
God had called me to a lot of long fasts (mostly three weeks at a time, but also some 31 day and 40 day fasts). Then God changed my fasting assignment. I went through a season where God called me to a lifestyle of prayer and fasting. I was to fast two days a week (three days every third week) but I was not to do any long fasts. I found these shorter fasts harder because you don't get past the hunger in a 2 day fast, but after a few days on a longer fast, you aren't hungry anymore. This lifestyle of fasting and prayer went on for a little over a year, and God taught me a lot of very valuable things about discipline and obedience during it. It was a very valuable and precious time in my life.
Then God told me to stop fasting for a season -- I was not allowed to fast at all for about a year. I did not understand why He did that at first. There were times when His mandate not to fast at all was difficult, like when my church called a corporate fast. I believe I was the only one in the church who could not participate in it. And it was hard for me because there were all sorts of encouragements about the fast from the pulpit, as well as frequent fasting testimonies from people at church. I began to feel like everyone in the church thought I was really unspiritual and undisciplined because I did not join in on the church-wide fast. I wanted to tell them about my multiple long fasts and about my "lifestyle" of fasting and prayer that lasted over a year. But God would not let me mention it. So I found myself having to obey God to eat while everyone fasted -- and that was hard for me. I don't think they meant to pressure me, but I felt peer pressure nonetheless. I wanted to join in the fast and be part of the group. Also, I loved the church and I was in agreement with what they were fasting for -- revival for our city.
At the end of the corporate fast, God explained to me why He did not allow me to participate -- that He wanted to establish His Lordship over all aspects of my fasting -- which included not fasting when He told me not to as well as fasting when He told me to. That was an eye-opener for me.
After a year, God lifted the "no fasting" restriction. Then I would fast and pray from time to time, especially when I felt I needed to hear clearly from God on some issue or when I wanted to draw closer to Him. Most of my "free will" fasts where relatively short -- 3 or 4 days. Occasionally God would call me to a longer fast. And of course, when God called me to do that, I did.
About the spring of 2002, I had elective surgery. I had misunderstood the doctor about the recovery period, or I probably would have elected not to have the optional surgery. It left my neck and jaw so sore that I could not eat very well. The only things I could eat were really soft foods ... ice cream and pudding and things like that. So that is what I "lived" on for about a month following surgery. I had hypoglycemic tendencies that I'd controlled by diet for years, carefully controlling my intake of sugars and sweets. But that was all forgotten between the medication (that clouded my thinking) and my inability to eat solid foods. As a result, I gained a lot of weight from that surgery.
But, even worse, my physiology seemed to change so that I was hungry all of the time -- so intently hungry that I just could not control it. I did not realize that my body had gotten into a state of sugar and carbohydrate toxin and that was what effected my cravings. So I ate the wrong foods which made the hunger and cravings even worse. I craved high carbohydrate things because they were fast energy. I found myself famished only 2 hours after I ate. (I don't mean minor hunger pain, I mean a sensation of intense hunger.) My eating got totally out of control and I gained a lot of weight -- over 30 lb. in a year. I lived on things like baked potatoes, bread, Ritz crackers, cookies, ice cream, etc., more than on healthy food. I had this uncontrollable craving for sweets and found myself consuming a lot of them each day.
Along with this problem, I found that I could not fast any more. I did not understand what was going on. I had been able to do all sorts of fasting in the past, long fasts, frequent short fasts, intermittent short fasts for a special purpose, etc. Suddenly I did not seem to have the will power to fast any more and I could not understand it.
One time I decided to do a 40 day fast to get my eating and weight under control. I believe that the fast would put my eating back under His lordship and restore my lost discipline. I started the fast and it was sheer willpower. About ten days into the fast, God spoke to me and told me to stop fasting. My hearing was pretty good at this point, so I knew it was God. I was disappointed that He would not let me fast to get my eating back under His lordship, but I obeyed Him and stopped the fast.
Then He told me to go check out the Atkins diet -- and even at that increased clarity of hearing from the fast, I questioned whether or not that was really God. I had always been taught that Atkins was a dangerous fad diet that was best avoided. I double-checked my hearing and God seemed to really be saying that. So I went to the Atkins web site and began to research their diet. To my amazement, their web site was a wealth of information about the diet itself, medical research, and many other helpful pieces of information. Their diet did not sound as harmful as I'd always been told it was. I decided I would try it for two weeks (their recommended trial period, which they call "induction").
I started the diet after spending about 5 days praying about it. I had a large omelet for breakfast (6 eggs and a bit of cheese), and nothing else. To my amazement, I was not hungry afterwards. I spent the day reading articles from their www site and getting to understand the diet better, and I lost track of time. The next thing I knew, it was 4 PM. I was not hungry, but I forced myself to eat some turkey because I had found an article telling us not to go more than 6 hours between meals, whether we were hungry or not. The hunger was gone and so were the cravings for sweets. These things had been induced by overdosing on carbohydrates and sweets. When I stopped doing that, the hunger and cravings went away.
Once these physiological things were under control, fasting (at the Lord's direction) became doable again. I had thought that my inability to fast was strictly a will power thing, but it wasn't. It was physiological factors acting on my body and giving me intense cravings that were just too hard for me to ignore.
One of the Atkins articles was titled "Blood-Sugar Symptom Questionnaire." It talked about blood-sugar stress causing some of the symptoms I had experienced. Another article titled "Is This You?" talked about "hypoglycemic" symptoms (and how their diet could help you control it). Some of the hypoglycemia symptoms include:
I could really relate to this particular subset of symptoms. It was a relief to find out that they were symptoms of a physiological problem instead of some type of character fault or spiritual weakness. These symptoms are controllable by diet, and when I controlled them, they stopped affecting me.
I am NOT suggesting that you have hypoglycemia nor that you should try the Atkins diet. (It happened to work really good for my particular physiology/problem, but it might not be what is right for you.) What I am suggesting is that if you find fasting unbearably hard, you might want to investigate to see of there is some physiological reason for this. And if there is, then deal with that physiological factor so it doesn't interfere any more.
I am not a dietitian or doctor, so I don't know what to suggest as all of the possible physiological factors here. The insatiable hunger from too much sugar/carbohydrates is not an uncommon problem, but carbohydrates are not the only thing that might make it almost physically unbearable for you to fast. If you suspect that some physiological factor is operating in your life, then see your doctor or a dietitian or maybe start by doing some research on the www. Don't let some physiological factor sabotage your ability to fast and pray or to cause your regular eating to be out of control.