A friend of me is distancing himself from me, because he thinks I’m “hurting myself” by fasting.
Why are people so scared and so ignorant of fasting? This is not a critique of my friend merely a question of people in general.
I think a large part of it is programming and conditioning from a young age. Also how ingrained food and celebratory eating rituals are within almost all cultures. Must be a hard one to deprogram from especially if you’ve never had any noticeable problems from what you eat or any big reason to not eat and fast.
Another aspect could be how much people are addicted to food without even realizing it and when you start doing some serious fasting it can trigger people deep down and then the subconscious defense mechanisms start up. Maybe not the best example but kinda like when 2 friends are addicted to drugs and one decides to quit cold turkey but the other one doesn’t want to quit so the one who still wants to do drugs may belittle the ambitions of the one trying to go sober in attempt to keep him doing drugs because deep down the drug addicts ego is threatened with the possibility of losing his drug buddy who is moving onto better things and also losing more justification to keep living how they’re living
The nonsense propaganda attacking fasting coming from the mainstream medical and pharmaceutical industry doesn’t help either
To add to the other points made… I think another reason is many people assume the feeling of hunger continues to build the longer the fast. They think the hunger they get when going 16 hours would be like 1/3rd of what you must feel at 48 hours. To see someone else going days without eating, let alone drinking as well, they are convinced that is some form of self torture.
I think it’s also got to do with commercial influence on our culture in general. Agriculture, food and everything related to it move huge amounts of money. In turn, eating too much without a break makes us sick, feeding a good part of the medical and pharmaceutical industries. That’s without even counting in the diet industry, that isn’t small.
You’re never going to get widespread cultural acceptance of fasting in these conditions; when was the last time you saw fasting being mentioned in a positive context on TV? My guess is never.
Honestly, a few years ago I thought that fasting is the most stupid dietary recommendation ever… Why:
Because people are so addicted to food. When you fast it makes them question if maybe abstaining from food is actually healthy and could benefit them and they just don’t want to face that. At least that’s one of the reasons people get frustrated when you say your fasting. I’m addicted to food to some degree, but fasting is so healthy I found a healthy addiction to fasting. It’s crazy to think some people have lived their whole life eating every single day, 3 squares, not a day off. I did until I was 23
It’s funny, they’ll accept eating a large pizza and drinking 2 liters of sugary soda in one sitting and then with a straight face say fasting is unhealthy.
Sometimes, people leave us and that ends up being a true blessing.
This is your journey, your life. You get to choose what’s best for you.
This person sounds like they have serious boundary issues and probably has their own emotional issues around food, such as eating to deal with stress or to avoid feeling “negative” emotions.
Bless them, let them go, and maybe they’ll come back to you with healthier boundaries and a healthier relationship with food.