I went without solid food for 72h and here’s what it was like

Hey lovelies,

After two 14-hour workdays and six days of being stuck in bed with a cold and a massive headache, I’m finally going to tell you about how I ACTUALLY COMPLETED the fasting challenge that I wrote about in my last post (and I really need to work on blogging more consistently).

Being that the original idea of World Vision Austria was to go without food and donate the saved money, I set myself two simple rules at the beginning:

1.  No solid food.

2. No spending money.

Of course, contrary to all the recommendations to eat light and avoid carbs and meat three or four days before a fast, I ate a big Sunday brunch right before starting, because I am a rebel (and also because I live for brunch). I had prosciutto and melon, cheese, hummus, croissants, Nutella, the whole thing. So I was content and pretty stuffed when I started on my little adventure. And this is how the following 72 hours went…

5h in: This is easy. I’m not even hungry! I can totally do this. I am ready to rock!

6h in: I follow too many food bloggers on Instagram. Wow. I think now is when I would normally have dinner. But I can totally do this.

In between hours 6 and 8, I did some dishes, a bit of general tidying up, and baked a loaf of banana bread for the office since my bananas were looking dangerously spotty and I hate throwing away food. Of course, this was an awful idea, because my apartment is pretty small and the smell of banana-chocolate-chip yumminess spread EVERYWHERE rather quickly.

8h in: Starting to feel hungry. Smell not helping. Tea. Tea is amazing.

On Sunday evening, I went to sleep pretty early (around 10) and not feeling too hungry. This lasted for a while. Actually, maybe because of the huge brunch I had had on Sunday, the first 24 hours really weren’t so bad except for a few hunger pangs.

19h in: This is great. I can totally do this. I am a winner. Yes!

Right around the time I hit 24 hours on Monday afternoon, I started hallucinating all sorts of food smells. It didn’t help that my colleagues were cooking a big team lunch for everyone. I may or may not have had an oddly sexual daydream about a Big Mac and fries.

24h in: I miss chewing.

25h in: Write some syntax. Yes. I can do that. With the numbers. And the variables. And the variables and the numbers. Yep. Why is my screen blurry? Someone should clean my screen.

27h in: There is a chocolate bunny in the drawer next to my desk. I am not allowed to eat the chocolate bunny. Not today, not tomorrow. Life without chocolate is so sad and empty.

On Monday evening, I was going to sort through the piles of paper on my desk and maybe my closet. Unfortunately, I felt extremely drained (and oddly, a little drunk - I assume this was lightheadedness), which got in the way of my plans. Instead, I broke my second rule by spending €1.49 on a pot of cream, and made some vegetable cream soup from a bag of carrots and some frozen broccoli.

(Sometimes I find vegetables in my fridge. I am convinced that somewhere in a parallel universe, there is a version of me that goes for runs on weekday mornings and makes mason jar salads, and she sneaks them in)

I proceeded to eat three bowls in a row and it was the best thing on the planet. I then went to bed at nine fifteen with a headache and a stabbing pain in my stomach, but it took me an hour to fall asleep.

Tuesday was more or less a blur. I didn’t get out of bed until 8 (snow in March? Really?), I felt dizzy, lightheaded, and just awful overall, with the exception of what I think were a few hunger highs. Work was a bit of a nightmare since my cognitive functioning was noticeably impaired. I’m normally quick on the uptake and generally a very fast-paced person, but I was suddenly having trouble registering what people were even saying to me, forget about reacting appropriately. Throughout the day, I had two glasses of mango juice, the leftover vegetable soup, a diet coke and a huge mug of hot chocolate.

45h in: I’m tired. Very tired. I slept for 10h. Why am I tired?

48h in: I think I’m drunk. Oh my god this is funny. I’m drunk and I didn’t even drink. Ok SHHHH Damita, no one can know you’re drunk at the office.

52h in: I am literally so fucking hungry and I could just eat because no one reads my blog anyway. Seriously, no one would know. But NO, because for once in my life I would just like to finish something I started and reach a goal I set myself.

54h in: I LOVE HOT CHOCOLATE IT IS THE NECTAR OF THE GODS

Wednesday morning seemed to go on forever. I had a hot chocolate around 10 but honestly, the last two hours of the fast still seemed like an absolute eternity.

I finally broke my fast at around 1:20 pm on Wednesday - did I have a light salad or some yoghurt as recommended to ease my stomach back in? Not so much. 

I had this amazing plate of nom instead. #notevensorry

In total, over the course of 72 hours and not counting water and tea, I drank:

- about 1.5 liters of juice
- about 1.5 liters of vegetable cream soup
- a bottle of diet coke
- a few sips of yoghurt vanilla drink (some weird milky concoction I had a bottle of in the fridge – as hungry as I was, I didn’t finish it, because yuck)
- 700mL of milk with cocoa powder

And I ate:

NOTHING!

I spent a total of €1.49 on food and drinks (we get free drinks at the office, thank god).

And most importantly, I made the donation of €15 to World Vision Austria.

Did it work? 

Well, I felt more grateful to have food around and readily available – for a few hours. The day after, I got sucked right back in to my daily life and my first world problems. Gratitude really is something you need to practice actively. I also didn't really get more done - I may have saved time, but I felt too sluggish and exhausted to move in that time.

But I did learn two things.

The first lesson I took from this is that if I try something with the aim of then writing about it, I will actually follow through. People find their motivation in very different things, and I don’t think I would’ve finished the full 72 hours in a million years if I hadn’t known I wanted to blog about it. But knowing this was going to be a blog post, I thought “I went without food for 26.5 hours and then inhaled a burger” just wouldn’t make for as catchy a title.

The second thing I learned is that my body is more resilient than I think it is. Hunger is not an emergency and even though I felt dizzy, and slow, and sick, and in pain (yet surprisingly alert and less tired after day 2), I made it through. It was nice to be reminded of my own strength.

Would I do it again?

The fast worked nicely to reset my eating habits, I feel less hungry and have actually eaten an uncharacteristic amount of fruit and veg since ending it. Not only would I want to do it again, but I would like to try water & tea only (no other liquids) and see what would happen – probably an even worse feeling of inebriation at the office.