{"id":4320,"date":"2024-02-06T02:08:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T02:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4320"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:27","slug":"fasting-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4320","title":{"rendered":"FASTING DAY 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some interest on the subject of fasting has been expressed recently in my church so I plan to make it the topic of our first Lenten Bible study &#8211; on Ash Wednesday next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have been fasting weekly for over two years and I believe it is a useful practice and spiritually beneficial even though my practice is not much more than skipping breakfast and delaying lunch until 3:00 pm.\u00a0I have also done some intermittent fasting and I have &#8220;given up something for Lent&#8221; just about every year for decades now, but I don&#8217;t know if I have fasted a full day since I was in seminary.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since I want to include information on strict biblical fasting in our study,\u00a0I thought I would do a 3 day fast this week for the experience and for the sake of teaching.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here are some reflections on Day 1:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>Last night, though I wasn&#8217;t very hungry, I knew I wouldn&#8217;t be eating today and so I found myself binging almost uncontrollably. It started with relatively healthy food and ended with cookies and chocolate. I felt kinda gross afterward.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>I decided that while I refrain from food I would also refrain from all drinks but water (because that seems more biblical). It was strange not starting the day with coffee, but I am not one who is addicted to caffeine so it was not a huge sacrifice.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>So &#8230; I drank much more water today than I typically do &#8211; and that has to be beneficial to my health.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>My weight this morning came in at 195.8, which is a little higher than my norm. Probably the result of binging last night and some extra water weight. I ended the day at 193.2, which is about my norm.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>An evening trip to Aldi was a lot quicker than usual because I wasn&#8217;t looking for anything for myself to snack on &#8211; I just stuck to the trash bags, dog treats, and bacon on my list. In and out.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>I was reminded today of two major trends in my daily approach to food: 1) I eat <i><b>often <\/b><\/i>and 2) I mostly eat to entertain my taste buds, not to nourish my body.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>Hunger pangs were not a major issue. They come and go &#8211; and they remind me to drink water. I had a bit of a headache in the afternoon, but that might be due to disrupted sleep patterns over the last few nights.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We will see how tomorrow goes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some interest on the subject of fasting has been expressed recently in my church so I plan to make it the topic of our first Lenten Bible study &#8211; on Ash Wednesday next week.\u00a0 I have been fasting weekly for over two years and I believe it is a useful practice and spiritually beneficial even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4321,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4320\/revisions\/4321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}