Yes bundling up and drinking hot water sounds good. However, I drive a cab at night and I do bundle up during the winter but customers frequently roll down the windows and rain, snow, sleet are uncontrollable variables.
I have not felt this good in years. I sleep soundly and have no irritations associated with Bladder Cancer. These symptoms are involuntary. I learned as an Emergency Medical Technician years ago that symptoms are the body's natural way of telling you something is wrong. Well, my body is not sending me any messages right now except that without any symptoms that my body is in good health.
I've fasted and survived it, it is cancer which is new to me.
However, I am fortunate among many who are not open minded enough to even consider fasting.
Is it ironic that religions show followers fasting? Yet because their own faith that they can attain this state and resist temptation is weak then they never try fasting at least in Christianity.
Muslims fast but the extent to which they are able to eat at sunset? Hindus, appear to fast for holidays. Of their fasting practices I would like to know more.
In the weeks of the fast to come I must somehow put food out of my mind. I know I will not be psychically hungry but the preoccupation of thoughts of food I feel must be meditated out of mind.
I suppose I could try Transcendental Meditation daily to strengthen my resistance. I have a book on it which I have not read for awhile.
As an afterthought, my middle name is Anthony. Carman in Italian means song.

qualquun,
thank you for your reply to my post.

I shall address each of your concerns in turn, and I do empathize with your situation, and those like you who have shared a similar experience of fasting.

#1. How do I feel about someone with a history of an eating disorder and fasting? How does that person know if they are actually doing it for health or spiritual reasons, or if they are just fueling their past eating disorder?

A. My own opinion coincides with the consensus of opinion from health professionals in that anyone with an ED should NOT fast.
By definition an ED is an unhealthy condition (disorder) that predisposes that individual to go without food for psychological/psychiatric reasons and is ultimately an involuntary act.
Water-only-fasting on the other hand can, and is mostly, a voluntary act for any individual with specific goals such as weightloss, detox, health-improvement and disease eradication.
So it is therefore the eating-history and past-behavior of that individual that determines their reasons for food-abstention.
Also, before anyone undertakes a water-only-fast as a conscious effort for reasons given in the last paragraph, it would be advisable to truly understand those reasons and refrain from doing so until such time as they have resolved their disorder, if they have one.


#2. "I don't understand how people can fast for 40 days and feel refreshed, yet people with a fairly new eating disorder don't eat for 12 days and pass out and have to go to the hospital. A lot of times people who are fasting for 40 days also have eaten very little in preparation for the fast. A lot of times there is no difference in the calories consumed for the past month. Why does the person with an ED pass out and nearly die but the person who is fasting for spiritual/health reasons feels BETTER and has no problems with their vitals, etc.?"

A. To understand #2, the distinction lies within their psychological/psychiatric make-up.
I know of real-life accounts/events of people who were stranded at sea after being shipwrecked, and after only a few days without food/water thought they would die of starvation and actually did, despite their internal food reserves being plentiful: autosuggestion and the Mind play a powerful role in any abstention from food and water.
It is also the experience of the many (including myself of 25 and then 30 days) that a voluntary fast of anywhere up to 40 days and beyond only results in a profound benefit to the body and the Mind.
I am not aware of any cases within the annals of fasting literature that have resulted in an ED, but if there are any, they are extremely rare. Is this a case of the chicken "before" or "after" the egg? Does fasting result in an ED? or does the ED result in the reasons for fasting? I think the latter would be much nearer to the truth.

#3. It is well known that any repeated cycle of fasting and then binging is extremely detrimental to health; fasting advocates would not endorse this approach. Shelton spoke of the need to "control" the post-fast eating habits of anyone who had undertaken a lengthy fast as more harm than good will be the end result. I too had this problem: the urge to overeat and gorge on food, but by sheer willpower and logic I managed to refrain from doing so. These can be the dangers of unsupervised fasting, which does not occur if supervised in an environment accompanied with other like-minded fasters.

Bingeing on foods with little if any nutritional value will keep your body in a state of hunger, but if fed with low-calorie and nutrient-dense foods, the body becomes satisfied nutritionally: your hunger-appestat in the Brain is then "switched off" and no longer remains an issue.


#4. I am positive that my initial attempts at fasting are what started my obsession and my eating disorder.

A/ I would think it far more likely that the cause of your obsession and ED was in the way you broke your fast and the lifeless non-nutritional foods that you used in doing so. I feel certain that if you had used foods that were nutrient-dense then this could have easily been avoided.


#5. How is it that some people, even people who have done a lot of research on fasting and its positive effects, end up with an eating disorder because of their attempts while others end up with better health? Clearly positive outcome has happened, I won't deny that...but there have DEFINITELY been instances on here where people have either begun or fueled an eating disorder by fasting. YOU can't deny that one.

A. For reasons given above: the type of food used in breaking and living on after the fast was broken, but I think it is much more often the case, that those with an ED sought out this forum first for support, rather than the fast resulting in an ED.


#6. How do you differentiate? I don't know if I have ever fasted properly. Even if I prepared myself those few times, it always had some sick underlying ED flair to it. I don't know if I could ever do it right. I would be afraid of the cycle repeating again. I never felt that feeling of being clear-minded and healthy, I always just felt like "haha I am not eating and they are...I'm so superior. I'm going to be skinny. I'm going to be pure. I have control. I do not need food ever ever again." I don't know if I ever really thought I would go into the fast for spirituality of physical health, or if it was always for weight reasons. I wasn't overweight. I didn't need to lose weight, but that always became the ultimate reason. People always mention their weight loss whether that's the reason or not...how is it that others don't become obsessed with the weight loss while I did?

A. #6 is unfortunately a revelation of an ED (sorry to be so blunt), but if I were in your shoes I would adhere to an organic plant-based diet for several months and satisfy your body with the nutrients it is craving for and so desperately needs.
Just forget about fasting or attempting another one, until your ED is resolved.
Eat only according to appetite, no matter the time of day: listen to your body first and foremost. What is it telling you? I for example only eat one or two small meals per day, and rarely eat breakfast at the traditional time. My first meal of the day is at lunchtime consisting of fruit with my main meal in the evening, with an alternate starch meal one evening and a protein meal the next evening. I am also of a healthy weight and neither lose or gain it, unless I choose to. It all depends on your calorific expenditure: less calories burnt equals less input of calories; more calories burnt equals a demand for more calories consumed. There is a balance.
My advice to you would be to balance your physiological needs: moderate daily exercise, wholesome food according to appetite and appetite only, keep warm, breathe fresh air deeply everyday and outdoor living (weather permitting), judicious whole-body sunbathing, clean purified water according to thirst, plenty of rest and sleep, supportive friends and family, a positive outlook on life.

Forget what you have read and learnt about Anorexia Nervosa, it is only a label. Do some intense research on Natural Hygiene, which will lead you into ever better physical and then psychological health.
In several months time you can thank me then as your life will have been transformed beyond recognition if you practice its principles diligently.

Live life as it is meant to be lived: this is what Nature and God intended for each and everyone of us.

Chrisb1.