What I learned from 96 hours without food

In case you missed my previous email, yesterday I completed 96 hours of fasting.

During that time I had no food and no drinks other than water. And because I'm slightly crazy about pushing myself, I was also detoxing from technology a bit - very minimal time on my devices.

And what an... interesting experience it was.

It definitely wasn't fun or comfortable.

In fact, I felt bored out of my mind a lot of the time.

I learned how important the role that food plays in my day-to-day is. It actually brings quite a bit of joy, pleasure, and is a central part of each and every day. When you aren't eating for a while, it leaves a "gap," and then on top of that, having lower blood sugar levels just makes ya more tired and less interested in things - at least in my experience.

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So I frankly felt under-stimulated for a lot of the experience.

But within that discomfort, unsurprisingly, were a few gifts:

For one, I had a lot of time and space to just sit with myself and reflect. Thought about life, business, love, and my journey overall quite a bit. And I had some solid reflections. It's funny what comes up when you purposely remove the noise and just let your mind do its thing. Most of these aren't things that feel relevant to share here, but it was good.

Secondly, it was a borderline spiritual experience of cultivating discipline.

On day 3, I started having STRONG cravings for food. Not because my body actually needed it, but because I was so bored and my brain just wanted to reach out for something that would give it a bump of stimulation and some relief... and on top of that, the end was in sight, and the thought of "well if I broke it early, I've still accomplished something awesome..." was starting to creep in.

But I didn't do that.

I pushed through until evening, went to bed early, and woke up feeling relatively refreshed and was able to push through until the end. Found myself very happy with myself for not breaking it earlier than I'd planned.

On to the last gift:

Physically, I feel recharged. I can tell my body is still recovering and recalibrating to a degree, but nonetheless - certain inflammation markers are already down, my sinuses feel clearer, my digestion has already improved, and the contrast of going from deprived to full and the effect that has on the mind and body is pretty profound. And the true physical benefits should stack up over the days to come, as I continue refeeding mindfully and my body naturally uses those building blocks to facilitate the healing process that was started while fasting.

Anyways, not sure where else I'm going with this but thought I'd share my experience.

Would I recommend it?

Not necessarily, because it frankly ain't fun, but... if you feel called towards it, sure. Granted, this isn't med advice and you should do your own research, as always.

But what I DO, wholeheartedly, recommend:

Push yourself to do hard things. Living in excessive comfort means you aren't growing, and are most likely allowing certain problems to fester as you pursue pleasure and comfort instead. Growth occurs through resistance and challenges, and sometimes those things just occur naturally, but if you want to really skyrocket your growth as a man, then you need to learn how to intentionally seek out discomfort.

I've rarely learned anything deeply valuable while things were going perfectly smooth.

Problem is, a lot of guys are so buried in their escapism patterns that whenever they start feeling some discomfort, especially emotionally, their brain instantly sends signals that they should load up their favorite tube site, social media, or whatever else. And that escapism pattern can undermine your growth unlike anything else.

As men, we need to learn how to endure discomfort with maturity, head-on.

And if you're been struggling with the escapism of porn (and other vices potentially, too) then I'm here to help.

In the near future, this isn't going to be as available as it typically has been because of a major project I have going on, which I alluded to yesterday.

Download the BeFree App today and start building the discipline to face discomfort rather than escape it.