What I learned After 50 Days Without Eating Food

Yes, you read that right. As of this moment, I haven’t eaten for 53 days. There are many reasons why I chose to do this, which I will get into below, but the one thing I can say for sure is, the experience has not even come close to what I expected.

But first I must caution you not to try this at home. If you’re thinking of doing an extended fast PLEASE do your research first, and ease into it. You should also know that the way you break your fast is equally as important. Many P.O.W.s (prisoners of war) have died after returning from concentration camps because they ate too much food too quickly, so this is not something to be taken lightly.

Why I Started This Fast

To be totally honest, I’ve always wanted to embark on a “serious” fast. I had tried a 3-day and 7-day juice fast in the past, and although they were challenging, I felt I needed to go a little deeper. I’m also working on a CE documentary called Psyched Out that is about how everything we’re told about psychedelics may be wrong. (If you’re interested in learning more, click here to sign up to be notified when it’s released).

In the process of making this film I started exploring other ways to reach altered states of consciousness and fasting kept popping up, so I started interviewing people about fasting and the experiences they’d had, and found myself increasingly fascinated by the topic, not to mention all the religious references to fasting and experiences those seekers encountered while out in isolation on long fasting expeditions. Many people use these types of fasts as a healing mechanism but for me it was out of sheer curiosity.

“Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness.“

-Hippocrates, M.D., 460-377 B.C., Father of Western Medicine


My Experience

So I was ready to start, not knowing what to expect but open to any and all possibilities. I expected to feel lethargic and irritable (as I did on my 7-day juice fast a few years back), but it was quite the opposite. In the first week I felt amazing, and as the days went by I just felt better and better.

In the second or third week I started feeling aches and pains in my body, but I had read somewhere in the group that people claimed that old injuries would start to heal, and when I focused on where the pain was coming from (my middle toe and right hip flexor), I quickly realized these were old sports injuries, and within a few days the pain had subsided.

I think the theory goes something like this: when you start saving all the energy used to digest food it starts getting diverted to other places like brain function and healing. I’m not sure how to verify this scientifically but I can say that I felt it for sure!

“Instead of using medicine, rather, fast a day.”
– Plutarch

“The best of all medicines are rest and fasting”

– Benjamin Franklin

I still thought about food A LOT in the first three weeks. I was really contemplating how I would eat and what I would eat when I was done, and this would go on almost all day every day. I started to see what an addiction food was and slowly began to realize we don’t need to eat as much food as we do. We are responding more to cravings than a true need for food.

I know this is a very bold statement, and I’m planning to write an entire article about it and another short episode, but I compare it to when people say they need a cigarette or are dying for a cigarette — they are not going to die but really want it to the point that they will feel withdrawal. If we have been eating a certain way for many years, of course we will feel like that too. I’m not sure how to explain it, but you can see how close a link there is to food and emotions. As you stop eating, these emotions and cravings begin to disappear.

I started to experience a type of mental clarity that can be best described as what I saw in the movie Limitless starring Bradley Cooper. I was able to easily make difficult decisions and my intuition and creativity were operating on a whole new level altogether. I could sleep less (approximately five hours a night) but maintain an incredible focus on my work for extended periods throughout the day. I was reading books at an astonishing rate and am learning new things daily. For example, I learned how to edit videos in a single day, and this was something I had wanted to do for years but never got around to actually doing. (See my The Way Within video at the bottom of this article.) I also had a to-do list that seemed to have an ongoing list of things I would never get around to and yet managed to tackle in its entirety during this time.

More Than a Physical Cleansing

On day 40, I passed a two-foot-long worm (Or at least something that closely resembled one see pic below). It was either a rope or a tape worm, but I’m not an expert so I’m not going to guess. I also show a video of the worm at the end of the video attached below. This happened after I embarked on a 72 hour dry fast followed by a lemon and water enema. It felt amazing and I know almost every single one of us, especially those of us who eat meat and dairy, has parasites of some sort, and they literally suck your energy. Every time I would pass a few more buggers I would feel better and better. I also recently completed a 4 day dry fast (no food or water) and again something long and worm like came out with the enema (see pic on link)

HoratioTarr wrote:

Syl wrote:

If you are healthy just eat when you feel like eating.

Diets don't work, not that I have ever been on one, but I think depriving yourself of food would just make you want it more.

I love food....I just don't eat it every few hours.

I don't think diets work long term.    I've yo yo'd most of my life.  I've been 8 stone and I've been 13 stone.   It gets harder as you get older.   I think too, that as you get older, you need to consider your face rather than your arse.   Nothing worse than a slim bit of stuff turning around and having the wrinkled visage of a 90 year old.   Too skinny in later life is usually haggard in the face.