I took a full week and half off from any extended fasts while on my period. I’m ready to hit the grindstone again and go for a full 96 hours! So far, my record is 72. However, I’m really not looking forward to cooking for my family and fasting for this long. I can’t punt it off because of kids. Last time, I served (homemade) pizza for everyday because it’s such little work and it’s the only thing my family will tolerate multiple days in a row. But that’s not really setting a great example. Does anyone have any recommendations?
Please don’t tell me to suck it up and just cook without eating. I’ve done EF before and managed. I’m just looking for recipe or food hack suggestions to make this process more doable.
Sheet pan meals like chicken sausage and peppers where you aren’t spending a lot of time in the kitchen and it’s not sitting on the stove where you can see it might be good. If you can prep anything that needs to be cut during your last eating window before the fast might also help. I make and deliver lasagnas to people who sign up through this website, when I’m off work on Wednesdays I make my sauce which takes all day and it’s so tempting to have some outside of my eating window. I can’t sit in the living room/anywhere where I can’t shut the door to keep the smell out. Mentally having a door or a floor between myself and the food cooking means more of a decision to break the fast than the autopilot temptation to keep on “tasting” it. It’s tough and I’ve never done a 72 or 96 hour fast so I imagine it’s even more tempting but physical distance away from the food where your sense of smell isn’t constantly coaxing you to break it helps me!
I’m not sure I have suggestions but just came here to say that this would be really difficult and no one should be telling you to “suck it up.” I can only do this because I live alone and don’t have to see (or especially smell) other peoples’ food, but also I can’t cook without licking spoons or tasting etc. You might find more responses in r/fasting. A lot of people do not know about r/womenfasting!
The easiest thing for me to make while fasting is anything baked so for ex. When fasting for awhile I’ll make baked chicken breast with baked sweet potato, potato, carrots (really any veggies) for my family. The reason being I don’t have to stand there and cook it while smelling the food I can just chuck it in the oven and ask someone to check if it’s ready if I’m too tired to get up! The only work it needs is cutting the veggies, tossing them in a bowl with some seasoning and laying it out on a tray! It usually takes about 15 mins of prepping and then about 20-30 mins baking! I use this recipe but swap the thighs for breast since usually I have that in the freezer (Recipe)Also tacos are SUPER easy! Make chicken or ground beef with seasoning and then they can wrap it in tortilla bread. The only work needed is making the beef or chicken and then I cut up toppings for tacos so like in a bowl I’ll put diced tomatoes, in another green onion, in another some lettuce and everyone can build their own taco! (Recipe)
Hope these help! :)
Maybe you could prep a slow cooker meal in advance? I have a bunch in my freezer, let it thaw over night, stick it in the slow cooker 6-8 hr before dinner depending on the recipe. Then serve with rice or tortilla depending on the recipe.
You could do a salad bar. It’s just chopping up veggies, maybe some deli meat, and hard boiled eggs. We did this a lot growing up especially in the summer time when it was hot since it didn’t require any heat (boiled eggs were made in advance).
there’s a diff between wanting flavour and wanting food. if you’re like me and you just want the flavour not the food, you can try literally just sucking on a piece of food as u go along with cooking. or just eating a bit of sauce (if you’re not doing a completely clean fast)
Other than that it really depends on what you like to eat and what makes you hungry. For me it’s meat and seafood, but if you’re okay with that, things like a meat with steamed veggies is easy and fast and nutritious and you can’t sneak eat it when it’s raw. Taco’s too, they’re fun. Or costco has frozen gourmet food you can pop into the oven and serve with no work, like french onion soups and chicken stuffed with cheese and broccoli.
What about prepping everything (lasagna, bagged sheet pan meals, etc) before you start an extended fast? Then you can fridge or freeze, pop in the oven or microwave, and go drink mint tea somewhere with no smells while they eat. Would this work?