Achievement Unlocked: 100 Hour Fast in 2025

I accomplished something impressive and perhaps a little foolhardy last week. I fasted from food from Saturday night until Wednesday night. It wasn’t my intention to fast for so long, but I just kept feeling like I could do a little more. I had been watching videos on the benefits of fasting, and I decided that I wanted to incorporate it into my health regimen. My initial intention was to fast from Saturday dinner until Sunday dinner. I love food, and I reasoned that would be the easiest means of going 24 hours without any sustenance. Afterall, I’d be asleep for a 3rd of that time.

I awoke Sunday morning, skipped breakfast, went to church, went to the gym, showered, came home, and started on my laundry. By that time, it was after 4:00 PM, so I was only a few hours away from the 24 hour mark, but my stomach had acclimated to the hunger pains. By the time, 7:00 PM rolled around, I felt fine. Then I reasoned that if I skipped dinner, went to bed, and broke my fast with breakfast Monday morning, I would have made it 36 hours.

Why would I care to make it to 36 hours? One of the ways I motivated myself while I was fasting was to watch more videos on its benefits. I forget the specific order in which they supposedly activate, but at 24 hours, you’ve given your digestive system a break and allowed it to recover from continually being taxed. Especially in America, where people just eat constantly, our digestive organs never get a break to fully heal. However, at 36 hours, my body would supposedly release Human Growth Hormone, which would help me build muscle and burn fat. I felt fine enough to go to sleep without dinner, so that’s what I did.

I woke up Monday feeling just as fine as when I went to bed. Yeah, I was hungry, but the feeling was very minimal, so I figured that I could wait to break my fast until dinner that night. Then, I would have made it 48 hours, at which point my body would have entered ketosis, and I would be burning my fat stores for energy.

I got through my workday and went to the gym and just lifted some weights. I fully intended to eat dinner afterwards, but after I finished my Monday workout, I felt good enough to do my squats, which I do on Tuesday. Then I felt decent enough to do some cardio on the KrankCycle, again, something I usually do on Tuesday. With most of my Tuesday work out done, and my hunger wasn’t so discomforting as to keep me from going to sleep that night, I decided to skip dinner. I would break my fast on Tuesday. I figured I could almost certainly make it until dinner, especially considering I only had to do a few weight lifting exercises that evening after work. Besides, it’s one thing to get into ketosis, but I wanted to stay in ketosis for a little while to actually use some of my visceral fat for energy.

Tuesday, or day 3, was more challenging, but not for the reasons I would have expected. I wanted to eat, but I didn’t feel the need for sustenance. Instead, I wanted to eat for the pleasure of it. It didn’t help that for whatever reason, my YouTube feed decided to start showing me videos of recipes. I spent a huge chunk of that day copying recipes into my flash drive. I was anticipating eating pizza casseroles, air fried hotdogs, oatmeal omelets, and peanut butter chocolate protein bars, among various other concoctions. I made it to dinner time that night, and I still felt decent enough to go to bed without it. Why would I want to? Well, supposedly after three days of fasting, your body starts producing stem cells.

I woke up Wednesday morning, and I was hungry. I didn’t want to eat out of pleasure or boredom; my stomach was almost audibly telling me, “I appreciate the vacation, but you need to eat, Dummy.” I was decisive on making it until dinner time that night, though. If I could wait until 7:00 PM, I would have lasted 4 days, 96 hours, but if I could last until 11:00 PM, I would have made it 100 hours with no solid food. Wednesday was my evening off from the gym, so I wasn’t concerned about exhausting myself with a workout when I had no energy. I also experienced a little relief when I miraculously had to make a bowel movement around midafternoon. I was also a little concerned that my body still had solid waste in it from Saturday. I figured I had expelled everything as of Monday evening.

I made it home and tried to distract myself by playing Rocket League. I gutted out the final couple of hours, until about 11:00 PM. I even waited a little longer because I didn’t quite remember at what time I ate dinner on Saturday, but it couldn’t have been past 7:20 PM. All the information I had gathered on fasting had advised on not breaking a fast with a large, heavy meal. I decided to make some grits. I took FOREVER for the broth to boil, and just as long for the grits to cool. I broke my fast at around 11:30 PM, and those grits were probably the best tasting meal I’ve ever had. After the grits, I let myself eat a bowl of Cheerios, and then a half bowl of Cheerios. At that, I made myself stop.

I was still hungry, but it was a full hunger. Like, I knew that the feeling was going to dissipate, and just knowing that made the feeling inconsequential. I went to bed, then resumed my normal eating routine on Thursday. I certainly would not recommend jumping into a 100 hour fast as an initiation into the process, but the experience has granted me some insights I’m going to take with through the rest of my life.

1. Food is for fuel, not for fun. I snack too much, and not out of hunger. I realized that so many times when I went to my pantry to find something to pop in my mouth, I was doing so our of boredom. I’m not going to give up snacks, but I’m definitely not going to consume them out of ennui.

2. No more distractions. So often when I eat, I’ll do so while watching a video or a TV show. Distracting myself with some sort of media while I eat is probably why I don’t feel fully satiated once I’m finished. From now on, I want to focus on enjoying my food when I eat.

3. I can skip dinner. I’ve messed up my sleep schedule by refusing to skip dinner. I’ll get back from the gym usually close to 11:00 PM, and I won’t skip dinner for fear of my hunger making sleeping difficult. I’ll reheat whatever I meal prepped over the weekend, eat it while watching YouTube (see number 2 above), then dally about to let my food digest before I do my oral hygiene routine for the evening. I never get to bed before midnight, usually well after. Consequently, I wake up late, show up to work late (thankfully, my office location allows me to sneak in without being noticed), then stay late to compensate. I’ll then get to the gym later than intended, which causes me to arrive home later than I should have. I’ll then eat another late dinner, and the cycle perpetuates itself. From now on, I’m simply going to skip dinner on (most) nights I go to the gym. That said, if I get home by 10:00 PM, I’ll probably eat something, even if it’s just a bowl of cereal or a PB&J sandwich.

4. I’m going to keep doing this. I don’t expect to ever do another 100 hour fast, but I would like to do a 24 hour fast every week, and a 48 hour fast every month. Hopefully, this fosters some weight loss, but even if it doesn’t, I’m sure that I’ll at least be healthier.