Fasting Forum (pt.3): My Fasting Experience / Q&a — Shane Idleman

Fasting as a Desire for God

The funny thing is people think I used to, I've always been healthy, I've always focused on health. Actually, I didn't. My mother did a great job of promoting health, but once I left the home, what was it?

Alcohol and fast food, right? Cinnamon roll and coffee was breakfast and Taco Bell was lunch. So my past may someday catch up with me, okay? So I don't want to ever have something and people say, oh, see, see, health doesn't pay off.

No, my 30 years of hell, living like hell is probably what caught up to me. And we all die at some point. So it's not about utopia. It's not about perfect health. It's not trying to live 180 years old.

It's about glorifying God in what we do. So let me talk about this. This is my 22-day fast that happened. Let me tell you about an analogy first that you might remember from some time ago. If you ever to lose a child in the mall, right?

You're going to lose a child in the mall, but actually, let me back up. You're going to eat, now it sets the stage. You're going to eat and then you have your three-year-old and you're going to eat and you realize the three-year-old isn't with you.

Are you still going to go eat? No. But some of you are saying yes. What's wrong with you? No, of course you're not. Because why? The hunger to find your child, the desire to find your child is greater than your desire for food.

That's all fasting is. So the first week, I already explained this to you, I ate a very clean diet. The first few days went into water only and then had the toothache, dealt with that. And then by week two, my weight had dropped about six pounds and the toothache hit.

But I found that worship was, I started crying during worship, the word of God came alive. Prayer requests, I wanted to pray with boldness and I could change, I could feel the spiritual results of fasting and starving the body.

The Spiritual and Physical Struggles of Fasting

But again, many Christians are surprised that they are not on a constant spiritual high when fasting. If somebody is just going to fast forward to this last message, I would encourage you to listen to both of them if you share this with others because there's so much other stuff prior to this.

So you're not going to be on a constant spiritual high. And that's why we quit. Many people quit. Shane, I don't feel good. This isn't working. That's not what you told me about. This doesn't feel beneficial.

I feel like I'm sick. I'm not closer to God. I'm farther away from God. Guess what? That's normal. That's called feelings. I feel moody. I feel hungry. I feel grumpy. I don't want to be around God. That is normal to go through and I felt that up until the second week.

Then week three, by week three, I dropped eight more pounds. I think I dropped 15 pounds over the whole 22-day process. And I'm not focusing on weight. I don't think people should focus on weight. I'm only listing it so people can see the effects of fasting.

And the question comes up on this, what about, I'm skinny, I can't fast. There's tons of studies of people fasting, yeah, they lost weight. But after the fast, they actually gained back more weight and a healthy weight because the body cleaned itself and detoxed.

Because being skinny and malnourished can be a sign of toxic burden as well. So yeah, you might fast, lose some weight, you don't want to, but in the end result, you will gain some back and even more.

Water-Only Fasting and Physical Recovery

So this is when I, week three was when I finally got off coffee. I dropped another eight pounds. I was going into nine days water only. It's when I was given the antibiotics to take, but I opted not to take those.

And again, I don't want to explain all that. But by the end of this week, the pain was gone in my tooth. And although I don't know what the future holds, at least everything was starting to feel better.

And by this third week, water only, I wasn't that hungry. I could have definitely eaten, but I was strong. I felt satisfied. I was preaching. Many of you didn't know it, but I was preaching on this ninth day about two weeks ago, three weeks ago or so.

And when you eat, oh, I'm sorry, I should have said this. After you start eating again, you will gain weight back. Don't freak out. That's the whole idea. So I've lost 15, right, in this whole thing. I've gained back about eight of that, right in the middle.

That's kind of what the goal should be. And again, it's not about weight. I'm just telling you how the body works. Now remember, fasting is not starving. Hunger does not keep increasing every day. And some people say that you should stay busy.

Others say rest. I'm a proponent of rest. So I had a lot of rest, as much as I could, but I also tried to stay busy. If it was a matter of caving in, like I come home and, whew, there's that organic beef from Costco.

Thank you, Morgan. I'm leaving for a couple hours, right? So I would stay busy because that was going to knock me off course. So I did that. I stayed busy, but I rested as much as I could. At one point in the fast, I heard that magnesium citrate was good for cleaning the intestinal tract.

Thank you, Tony. But I ended up getting sick on it. Like I felt really sick. It wasn't good. So I ate. I had a cup of raw, a cup of almond milk and a few nuts, and I felt better right after that. And again, a perfectionist would say, see?

See? You messed up. Well, I'm not going to let that little 300 calories mess me up. And I had to actually preach in the morning as well because we had a luncheon in the afternoon. So by then, it's coming to the end of the fast.

Breaking the Fast and Learning Its Limits

Let me see where the point was. Oh, yeah. Then I finally broke the fast on the 22nd day. Here's how I knew. As I was driving right over that hill, I had tremendous peace that it's over. It's over. I felt great.

I'm like, God, I can start eating again. Oh, my Lord. I texted Morgan. I was so happy. I was so happy looking forward to vegetables and hummus. That's how happy I was. But I felt a sense of accomplishment.

There was great peace. I'm done. And I think that God will show you when you're done with the fast, you don't have to push and push and push. So again, I went 14 days of water out of 22 days. Nine of those were in a row.

I dropped about 15 pounds. And I thought of Herbert Shelton's quote at this point. He said, when a man learns his limitations in food consumption and he respects these, he will remain well. If he returns to coffee, tobacco, alcohol, poison soft drinks, and overworks and has late hours, unventilated bedrooms, and slothful living and overeating, he will cause the disease to return.

He's wrote an incredible book, Herbert Shelton. It was one of the most recognized fasting books. And I can get the title for you. I don't have it on hand. I think even 50 years ago, it was very good. It's a medical book.

See, medical books, it's not pie-in-the-sky stuff. This is doctors and different people. So here's what I'm going to tell you. I'm going to leave you with these seven points that I learned from this.

Eating Less and Choosing Whole Foods

What I do now. The less we eat, the better. The less we eat, the better. Try to stop when satisfied rather than full, amen? That's a hard one though, right? Because we want more and more. So just stop when satisfied.

Number two, I personally lean toward a plant-based, whole foods approach because of the effects on the body. But I will have a little bit of raw dairy or organic meat or eggs, organic eggs now and then.

I'm not an advocate of one way or the other. But I do know this, that the cost of, have you ever priced raw dairy or organic meat? I mean, not everybody can afford that every day. So I would rather err on the side of a lot of vegetables and plant-based foods and organic in that area because it's still cheaper than meat.

But I don't, I'm not against meat. Here's why. In 1 Timothy 4, 3, 4, Paul said, in the last days deceiving spirits will command people to abstain from certain foods, foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving.

So if God in Genesis says, now I've given you all the things to eat, including meat, that I believe in moderation, I believe it has to be clean. You see people in the Himalayas eating raw dairy and meat and living to be long.

You see people in other villages and tribes that are all plant-based, no cavities in their teeth, live to be 120, working still at 100 years old. So you have both. The key is, I think, with forks over knives, paleo, ketogenic diet, all these different things is they get people on clean, God-given food.

That's why they succeed. But I don't believe, because if I say, yeah, you should eat meat, well, then here comes sausage in the morning, here comes bacon on my BLT, here comes a whole bunch of chicken and a steak later.

That's way too much. I'm talking about four ounces of meat a day is what I would have, the size of a fist, or fish, or some eggs. So it's moderation. Be careful in this area. But the ketogenic diet that's really popular has benefits as well.

It's high meat, high dairy, high fats, and low carbohydrates to get the body in that fat-burning state. I would just encourage you to research that. People say it's too expensive, right? Well, so is addiction, poor health, and illness.

Prioritizing Food Choices Over Addictions

And this cracks me up, because I see people spend at least $200 a month on Starbucks. Right? Or this. I can save you all your money right there in your addiction. You stop your addiction, you'll have money for good food.

Think about it. Starbucks, and we stop to get our candy bar. There's five, six bucks right there. And then Burger King, McDonald's. So we spend $20, $30 a day. We have the money. It's just about prioritizing.

So I've got all this written down if you want. There's a lot more to it, like what I would eat for lunch or dinner, different things. So Susie has that. If you want it, I'm just giving it to you to help.

I don't want to get obsessive about it, but if people want, well, what about this? What about this? So I'm just doing it to help. Of course, number three, I avoid sugar if possible, except for yesterday, I didn't.

Today, I don't think I did either, maybe. But you avoid it when possible. You consume more good fats. Remember essential fatty acids, omega -3s, omega -6s. The reason they're called essential is your body actually needs them.

So these low-fat diets, you've got to be careful because your body needs good avocados, nuts, certain types of oils, coconut, and different things. Consider intermittent fasting when possible. That's going maybe 16 hours without eating, letting the body cleanse itself.

Spiritual Health as the Priority

But number five, spiritual health is the priority. It sets the stage for the rest of the day. Begin with spiritual health and end with spiritual health. They are the bookmarks, and then the eating goes in between.

And then have the right perspective. It's not about a perfect physique. It's about what goes on in the inside. Listen, I gave up my goal for having abs a long time ago. Everything that was up here is now down here.

But the goal is, what's going on in the inside of the body is more important than the outside. I used to supervise 150 personal trainers, and most of them stopped by Taco Bell, they shot up steroids, and they got drunk on the weekends.

But they look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? A lot of genetics, I think, played a lot in that as well. So did testosterone, propionate, ethanate, and ciponate, right there. They're injecting a lot of things.

So it's really about what's going on inside. As you move forward, number seven, the final thing, don't allow a step back to become a setback. Very few people eat perfectly. However, they learn to make more right decisions than wrong ones, and they eventually develop a healthier, more energetic lifestyle.

The only difference, I heard this this week, did you know the only difference between a white belt and karate and a black belt, the only difference is the black belt never gave up. Isn't that true? That's the only difference.

Only difference. So that was the main gist of that final message. It was the shortest one. I would encourage you to go back and listen to the other two. But I'm going to see if there's any, Susie, you want to text any messages?

Questions About Protein and a Normal Diet

If there's any questions, if not, if there's a quick question, I can answer it. You know, if you ask me it, I can answer it, I just have to repeat it because there's no microphone. It has to be a very quick, a very quick question, kind of in a nutshell.

Anyone have a quick one based on everything we just talked about? Throw up your hand and I will answer it. No questions? I did a good job then. Rick Carr. Normal diet. But yep, that's a good question.

Normal diet, how much protein do I eat? It's so hard because a person, it depends on, and I hate to throw out things because a person does that. Like for example, if I don't eat a lot of carbohydrates, when I was in construction, I had to eat a lot of carbohydrates because I was burning that fuel.

And if you're exercising, you're working out, the protein needs are going to be higher. If you're a man, what's your weight, what are you trying to accomplish? But personally, I'll probably try to take in 30, 40 protein and 30 fat, 30 carbohydrates.

I know people don't always agree. But I don't weigh things on a scale, I don't look at the percentage. I just try to eat what's God given, how God made it, and that usually doesn't involve chips and crackers.

Defining Sugar and Practicing Moderation

But I have chips and crackers, but it's about making more right choices than wrong choices. So, does that answer your question? Okay, anybody else? Okay, you first. When you're talking about sugar. Sugar.

Yes, good point. When you're talking about sugar. Well, that's a good point. What do you do with sugar? When I'm talking about sugar is what I'm talking about is refined sugar. Something like honey, God created.

You have all the enzymes, you have the perfect, actually they say that raw milk and honey are the perfect foods. Funny, when we were reading the Bible, I'm going to give you a land flowing with milk and honey.

So, I'm not against honey in the right forms, but you can research honey. Sometimes they cut it. I don't know if you know what cutting it means. It means they put a whole bunch of junk in it that's not good.

If you have to go for dark, organic, maybe local. But I would do honey and also fruit. I'll eat a pound of fruit easily. Papayas, strawberries, berries. Unless I'm doing like a ketogenic approach. If you guys have questions, Tony's going to be available too.

He knows a lot more actually on this than I do. It's more of a ketogenic approach where you limit fruit, you limit carbohydrates because you want your body to be in a fat burning mode. If I'm taking a lot of fruit, that's going to be fructose, that's going to be my energy.

It's not going to go to the fat as fuel. But sometimes I don't think Christians need to worry too much about, this is more fun for the numbers guys, but as Christians I think we just need to eat what God has given us and moderation is really a biblical principle.

Do things moderately. If a person's having tons of strawberries, a whole bunch of orange juice, and tons of papaya, watermelon, pineapple, they might be taking in a lot more sugar than they should. Refined sugar is where all the good things are stripped away from it.

It's refined and processed in a factory. I think there's, I don't want to misquote, but there's about 80 different names right now for sugar. 80 different names. If you look at the syrups, this, the syrups, that.

Evaluating Decaffeinated Coffee and Tea

So I would stick with honey, organic honey, and fruit. Even fructose. It can be altered though too. So just be careful. But yeah, you can enjoy those things God's given to us for enjoyment. Go ahead. How do I feel about decaf coffee and tea?

That's a good question. Well it depends how they are decaffeinated. Some of the times decaffeination occurs through chemical processing. So you have to make sure that it's done through water decaffeination.

But if you can get decaf organic coffee, then they remove a lot of the chemicals if it's done through water processing. Because see, they use chemicals to make it decaffeinate, and then you have the chemicals in the coffee.

And coffee and tea are sprayed with pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides. Sometimes seven different types of pesticides that leave from the tea or those coffee beans go directly into your cup. They're not washed.

So we're taking a lot of those in. So personally, me having a decaf coffee is like me having an O'Doul's beer. It'll stimulate that desire for it. But I think that's a much wiser choice. If you could get organic decaf coffee.

I actually have organic decaf green tea. I mean, I don't want to make life miserable. Come on guys, you know. Organic black tea as well. But I would look at how they decaffeinate it. I forget what it's called.

Water cooled or water something, water filtered. And then make sure it's organic because you're avoiding all the chemicals. I think the last I read, blueberries from wherever you get them have seven different types of pesticides sprayed on them.

So washing them over water isn't always going to do it. Personally, I know this might be gross, but I'd rather just flick a little worm off my apple from the tree than have tons of chemicals sprayed on it.

A wax where you can't even get to it. And all the apples look exactly the same. What does that mean? That's GMO, that's genetically modified organisms where these things have been modified. Your carrots should look funny.

A tomato should be out of shape. I mean, that's how God creates. Have you ever had organic fruit from a tree? Oh, cherry trees. I mean, that's how God created it. So it's good, it should be enjoyed. But I think we just have to start using a lot more wisdom.

Fasting and Migraines in a Teenager

Let me see. Oh, I got a text here for a question. Oh, gosh, there's a lot here. You guys are coming in. If you need to leave, I understand. I'm just going to let the camera roll. Fifteen-year-old suffers from migraines when missing a meal.

She is conflicted about fasting message. What should you tell her? You know what, that's a really good question because I would have to, or she could actually talk to Tony. You have to look at what the current diet consists of because are the headaches being caused because when you stop food, you're stopping also the chemicals that your body's addicted to, the caffeine, the sugar.

So when you stop that, you're going to get tremendous amounts of headaches. Especially if you go off caffeine, your head's going to be pounding. So I would have to look at her diet and see why the diet is maybe causing the migraines.

Electrolytes, Medical Supervision, and Extended Fasts

So it might not be the fasting. It might be the detoxing that's causing that. So you can talk to me or Tony afterwards. That's what I would tell her. Test for low electrolytes, salt. How do you prevent this from happening during an extended fast?

Believe it or not, the body has actually stored vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes into the cells of the body. So as you're fasting, these reserves are pulled from the body and allowed to be used during the fast.

However, I do recommend if you want to take vitamins or minerals or electrolytes, there's some water out there that has that in there. You can take some in tablet form. I would say a short fast of a week or two.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. But if you're going three or four weeks, I recommend medical supervision at that point. But I can get my blood work done. Now I can read my blood work. I can test my own vitals and kind of learn through all that.

Homemade Bone Broth and Organic Alternatives

But your body can store. It's not like two days later, out of electrolytes. It's actually stored in the cells for future use. Suggested research on homemade bone broth. Yes, that's really good. But you don't have time to prepare it.

Suggest alternatives. Yes, Dr. Axe has good bone broth as well. Or there's organic bone broth you can buy in the whole eatery or Trader Joe's. It's organic bone broth. Bone broth is from the bone. They allow bones of the animals and different things to soak.

And it becomes this fluid that is very high in electrolytes and very beneficial for you in regard to vitamins and minerals. So you can find organic bone broth. I think it's about $3 for a little four-cup serving of it.

Preparing for a Fast by Breaking Addictions

Would you suggest fasting from a certain food first to start or all food? I would suggest getting off of the addictions first. Because here's why fasting is so hard for me sometimes. Okay, I'm going to start, right?

That means I'm going off of sugar. I'm going off of coffee. I'm going off of meat. I'm going off of processed foods. I'm going off of Krispy Kreme all at the same time. There's going to be hell to pay for that.

So you wean off of those things. But you could. Okay, this week I'm going to wean off of meat and dairy and sugar. I'm going to get just clean eating for this week. And you'll see that's hard. But your body starts to adjust.

If you can go from getting off of all the addictions into clean eating, limited eating, eating maybe just after lunch and dinner, and then go right into fasting, it's ten times easier. I think we make it much more harder than it should be because of the addictions.

Maintaining Spiritual Focus During Work

Trouble staying in a spiritual state of mind during work days. Me too. How do we continue fasting when we continue to work? How do we continue fasting when we continue to work? Well, I think what this person means is it's hard to stay in a spiritual state, right?

In the Word of God, worshipping, you have to go and you have to work. And moods come into play. You get moody. You get stressful. So I focus on the end result, not what I'm going through. Focus on the reward, not the challenge.

And knowing that when Jesus came out of the wilderness after 40 days of power, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we don't know how he felt some of that time. We don't know how people felt because it's not recorded in the Bible.

So try not to trust feelings because God honors the fast. Even when I did the seven-day fast in August, right then is when Fox News called. Why is Fox News going to call me to fly to New York? I didn't feel spiritually high that seven days.

It was miserable, actually, a couple of those days. There's valleys and there's mountaintop experience. You feel tremendous love. Lord, I could fast for the rest of my life, right? I could keep fasting and then six hours later, like, I hate this.

This stinks. And you go through these highs and lows. So I think God blesses the heart that stays obedient and you still work and you still go there knowing you're not on a spiritual high, knowing you're actually detoxing the body.

And any time I feel this way, I'd say, Lord, you know the prayer request. I pray for this. I pray for that. I pray for a lot of you at the church for health, for illnesses. For your marriages, for your children.

Blood Pressure Medication During Fasting

And you just take the time and you pray. And it begins to become a time of prayer. Should blood pressure meds be taken while fasting? That's why I recommend medical supervision when you can. The problem with that is blood pressure medication.

It goes into your blood and actually causes whether it's statin drugs or whether it's blood thinners or whether it slows down the heart rate a little bit. The medication does that but guess what fasting also does?

Fasting lowers your blood pressure quite a bit. I've seen numbers the diastolic and the bottom and the top number drop like a person was 180 to 120 over 120 and then they dropped then they were 120 over 75 in a month.

But you have to be careful because your blood pressure medication is lowering your blood pressure and fasting is lowering it so you could be over-medicating. So that's why it'd be good to go to a doctor maybe get a blood pressure machine they can monitor you and they can tell you okay here's a number and you kind of monitor you wean off and let the medical supervision take place but I wouldn't just have anybody just stop it.

You know, you have to use wisdom. Check with your doctor have medical supervision say and here's what you have to tell them you'll say, I am fasting would you do this? They'll say, I'm thinking of fasting what do you think?

Say, oh no, you'll die. They'll say, no, you'll die there's no research supporting that that's not good for you here take these drugs that's good for you all drugs are toxic you have to realize that now some are needed some are needed all drugs are toxic though but that's the answer versus looking at how the body is healed on its own.