Don't Look Down on Deprivation

Wikipedia says:

Fasting for religious and spiritual reasons has been a part of human custom since pre-history. It is mentioned in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testament, the Qur'an, the Mahabharata, and the Upanishads. Fasting is also practiced in many other religious traditions and spiritual practices.

People ask me- “why would you want to willingly deprive yourself of life’s pleasures?” They are usually referring to eating any type of food that I’d like, or being able to enjoy beer, wine, and hard liquor.

The first time I dieted, I couldn’t provide them with an adequate answer other than I’m preparing for my show. Achieving a goal was more important to me than any fleeting worldly pleasure. In fact that is still probably true. This time around, however, I look forward to an experience that totally caught me by surprise last time.

My friend Zack is what I’d call a soulful dude. What I mean by that is that at any given moment you can see him working something out in his mind. His eyes are running across the ground in front of him, or he’s engaging me in a debate about some of life’s peculiarities. He never accepts something as is, and relishes peeling back the layers.

Well after he had a major life changing event, Zack decided that he would become a vegetarian for a while. I though it was an odd reaction. But being one step ahead of me in thinking, I realized he was using it to achieve a different type of mental clarity.

When you’re fasting like I am, your senses become heightened. The other night I was snuggled up watching a movie, and an actress took a sip of wine mid conversation. It was probably a 2 second scene. While my girl didn’t pick up on it, I swear I could smell the fruity notes of the wine, and feel the sensation of the tannins hit my tongue. Even the way the glass would feel in my hand is something all too familiar to me. At first the cravings are a nagging annoyance, but then, and I cant say how it happens, something clicks. When you eat an extremely clean diet you have a sense of mental clarity that to me is hard to duplicate. You are instantly connected to your biorhythm, and feel hyperaware.

I believe that when people take on fad diets and immediately dump them after 2 days, or 2 weeks, the sense of accomplishment, of saying “I will be better than the cravings of my body” that is lost by quitting is far more disappointing than the perpetuation of old habits that sparked the diet in the first place. Perhaps subconsciously they were craving this clarity to see beyond themselves.

Luckily I have a cheat meal built in to my diet. 1 meal, out of the 42 I will eat in a given week, will basically be anything that I want. Pizza. Spaghetti. McDonalds. Dessert. Whatever. When you have been fasting all week, this rewarding food is amazing! Life Altering! The complexity of the food does quite a number on your pallet. And because you have fasted all week, you savor it that much more.

It doesn’t need to be food, but try abstaining from something you truly enjoy for 1 week. TV. Myspace. Shopping. Coffee. The computer. Heck Even sleeping in. I guarantee you will experience noticeable, tangible differences in your countenance and your being. Because remember: winners do what losers refuse to do!