I’m contemplating going on a three day normal fast for religious reasons, but I’ve never done one before. So if you’ve have, I need your help. Can you tell me what to expect / do? Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
There is no good reason to fast, ever. Your body requires food. Any religion that requires you to engage in fundamentally unhealthy practices is idiotic.
Nothing is requiring me to do this, I’m choosing to do it on my own.
Define ‘fasting.’ I define it as refraining from eating or drinking, but different groups define it differently.
I participated in one day of fasting for Ramadan. From sun up to sun down in September a few years back I didn’t eat or drink anything. I got a little hungry and a little thirsty but it wasn’t all that bad. I cannot imagine being able to go 72 hours without a drop of water. I can imagine going that long without food but it’d be exceedingly unpleasant.
My advice would be to drink water. Also, at the very least, drink some broth.
Actually, you can go quite a while without food. I don’t think there is anything “fundamentally unhealthy” about fasting. Here’s an interesting articleabout alternate day fasting and the possible benefits thereof.
As GilaB said, it’s unclear what “fasting” means here. 3 days of Ramadan-type fasting where you can eat and drink before dawn and after dark shouldn’t be very difficult or dangerous for a healthy person. 3 days straight without food would probably be quite difficult, and I’d think 3 days without food or water would be quite dangerous.
Of course, all this is IMHO and IANAD.
Fasting causes altered states of consciousness. It makes you feel trippy and contempletive if you do it long enough. It’s sometimes done as an attempt to bring “visions,” or to feel closer to God. It really sharpens the senses. Healthy isn’t really the point. Altering consciousness is the point (though, of course, it can become ritualized and softened enough so as to lose the original point).
My advice to the OP, drink lots of fluids. Juice, water, tea. Avoid pop, or anything with high fructose corn syrup, since that’s actually dehydrating and has no nutritive value.
Three days isn’t that bad. You’ll get hungry, but not gut gnawingly hungry. I did a week once. That was pretty stupid.
Word of warning: you’ll probably get the runs when you start eating again.
I think we’re seeing a really wide range of definition of fasting here. What you’re describing sounds more like a liquid diet with sufficient calories, though not enough nutrients (essential aa’s, vitamins, etc) to work as a sustainable diet.
I’m also not sure what you mean when you say that HFCS has “no nutritive value”. If someone has no other source of calories because they are not eating, HFCS has plenty of nutritive value - it provides the sugars which keep your body out of starvation mode. And if you are drinking as much water as you want, who cares if it’s dehydrating?
You’ll have to define fasting–where I come from it often means no food or drink, which is why we don’t do it for three days.
I would advise working up to that amount of time. If you’re going to have liquids, try 24 hours and see how you do.
I’m not talking about a liquid diet. I’m talking about just staying hydrated, A lot of people who fast like to drink watered juice. Whatever nutritive value that has is pretty minimal, but it feels better in the stomach than water alone.
As for HFCS, if you want to argue that it’s nutritive, I won’t argue with you, but I can say from experience that nothing else in your stomach but pop will make you feel pretty crappy.
don’t have anything at all,! if god wants you to starve to death he’ll take you… otherwise you’ll be ok… 
Are you planning to include water in this fast? Will you be working?
Sorry for not including a definition of fasting. In my pea brain, there was only one kind. Heh. But for the purposes of this thread, I’ll still be able to have water and broth. Nothing else though. And yes, I’ll be working.
Thanks for the responses so far. Glad to know a few Dopers have been there before me.
My only experience with fasting was last month before a medical procedure. I was on a clear liquid fast for over 24 hours.
Despite the fact that I took in over 1000 calories of juice and broth, I felt like I was dying without solid food. It was awful.
I’ve never gone longer than a day, though. I hear after the first day it’s not so bad. Somehow though I don’t think it would get better for me since I was weak, lightheaded, shaking, nauseated, with cramping muscles, shooting pains in my stomach, and a headache, after only 15 hours. It’s probably worse for me than for some because I am skinny with a fast metabolism and need a lot of food just to maintain my weight.
Ugh. I hope I never have to do that again.
I fast each year on Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av, although that’s only one day at a time (well, 25 hours). The best advice I ever received was to wean yourself off foods containing a lot of salt, sugar and especially caffeine and alcohol for about 7-10 days beforehand, and eat a lot of whole grains and unprocessed foods. Your body will have a much easier time, and you’ll definitely have fewer headaches and stomachaches, if you don’t go immediately cold turkey. Same for getting back on foods afterward, don’t go straight for the crisps and the rum & coke!
I don’t think anyone should fast unless it’s for a medical procedure. But if you must you should probably do it when you’re not working. You don’t know how your body will react, it’s hard to concentrate when you’re hungry and what if you get light-headed and faint while driving to or from work? And if you don’t drive would you really want to pass out on public transportation?
If you’ll be working, I would definitely start with 24 hours and see how it goes. Headaches are pretty common, and you shouldn’t go that long and try to work at the same time right off.
When I fast for a day at a time, I have about a half-cup of coffee in the morning in order to avoid caffeine withdrawal. Otherwise, sips of water throughout the day keep my tummy from grumbling. I find I can wait out the hunger response and it subsides.
Honestly, I can’t understand the OMG! reaction to skipping meals for a day. In this modern world we take in far far far far more calories than we need on a daily basis. Ramping down for a day only restores a little balance.
I find that a normal 3 meal a day diet “stretches out” the stomach and that leads to intense hunger the next couple of days. You basically have a big flappy balloon in your tummy and it wants filled. If you steadily reduce your intake for a few days the stomach shrinks back down, which eliminates a lot of hunger response and allows you to feel full with less intake.
All that said, IMHO going for a 3 day fast, without a LOT of upfront practice is just not that wise.
Out of curiosity, why will you be working and fasting at the same time if you’re doing it for religious purposes? Will work not let you off? And is this a particular holiday or something you’ve chosen to do on your own?
For what it’s worth, I fasted a couple of years for Yom Kippur for all the wrong reasons (I was anorexic at the time, so it wasn’t any particular religious motivation that had me fasting - only half my family is Jewish anyway - but seeing if I could do it; it was pretty ridiculous). Anyway, that’s a fast with no food or water from before sundown to after the next sundown. I found myself extremely tired and my tongue felt like sandpaper. I didn’t have any other experience besides hunger and thirst, but, like I said, I didn’t exactly do it to obtain such an experience. I’m sure that belief and intent have a lot to do with what you get out of a fast.
I have fasted many times, for a day at a time, when I was younger. What this entails is water only for most of the day. sometime during the day you go to the temple and get blessed and get some “holy food”, a banana, or an apple, blessd by the gods. At the very end of the day you break your fast with that holy food, but you don’t eat anything else until the morning.
I’ve never fasted for three days in a row and that definitely sounds like a lot to me.
It’s totally different, though, to fast as a teenager than as an adult. The times I did it were from between fifteen to about 22, when I quit altogether. I’ve never done it since and see no reason to do it…if I was married to a Hindu I would still fast for Karva Chouth but my SO hardly knows what it is so nothing.