Hello, forum! I have fasted weekly 24 to 48 hours for some years (not every week but frequently) and started reading this forum just a few months ago.
I really love the positive attitude the forum takes to fasting. Elsewhere in the world it seems I hear fearfulness abt. fasting, evident in many different kinds of ideas that people put out... which unfortunately gets inside me until I work through it. I think you CAN fast safely. I think I have a lot of "baggage" about fasting. I think that it would help me to put out my thoughts to others and seek the truth. I know that I am attracted to fasting as a healing modality, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. I feel this deep desire to fast. The forum is a helpful place to get positive about fasting and work through my fears. I think there is a big difference between being fearful and being aware of a need to be gentle with yourself generally. And I think -- on this topic of gentleness -- fasting itself is one of the gentlest things anyone could do.
I don't know why I started out with all that. My real question is, does anyone out there take short fasts? I would like to learn to fast for longer periods by building up to them. Right now my goal is a five-to-ten-day fast. That might be long enough for me -- it might be the longest fast I would ever need to take. I would like to be able to take a 5-to-ten-day fast 4 times a year, as Paul Bragg writes about doing. On my own I just haven't been able to take longer fasts. There are various reasons for this. I'm a "food addict" (though I have developed a certain amount of control, and am thin... see next paragraph) and it takes a lot of focus for me to fast successfully. I figure I just have not had the necessary support or focus. I aim for a five/ten-day fast since that is what I feel comfortable doing at my current body size (I'm a "low weight" faster). I have read of fasting healing "skinny" people as well as overweight. I KNOW that every time I fast I feel better and am less "food-addicted!" I used to be a little overweight, then got on a food plan and lost and have kept off 20 pounds for 11 years. I love my body as it is now and has been (with minor fluctuations). But I still turn to food every day to mood-alter and this has consequences.

My health is not what it should be, and fasting seems to be the cure. I am interested in references I have found in this forum to an Iodine support forum; and to Liver cleanse forums and other things. I know that my bowels don't quite work as they should... when they do, I feel great... I am looking into starting Iodine supplementation, since I am sure I have low thyroid function... I am interested in addressing any imbalances... but fasting seems to be the center of and key to my healing. I feel that this abstinence from my "drug of choice," food, is the most direct way of addressing the problem (i.e., the anxiety, "befogged" feeling, lack of kinesthetic balance (which a fast on one occasion totally cured but which returned after I went back to eating [and seeking a "food high"])

Besides the fear, what holds me back is the "misery" of fasting. This is a really hard problem. I am really emotionally attached to eating. In my fasts I have a couple of times (I've taken several 3-4 day fasts in my life) achieved a state of feeling better and feeling willing to stop this endless tendency to mood-fix or get high on food. ... Does anyone identify with feeling just miserable without the ritual of eating? This is really the biggest problem for me. When I fast I am acutely aware of (or acutely PERCEIVE) an emptiness in my life -- or, a loneliness. I know that my life has a purpose, and I am engaged in some ways... but when I am "detoxing" I sometimes feel overwhelmingly lost... I think fundamentally I am writing to this forum to try to connect with people, and from there to connect to a greater awareness of my life's purpose. I think I am looking for some kind of foundation. However, I would be so glad just (I say "just" though it is no minor thing) to achieve physical healing and freedom from the "food-addicted" state (which, again, a fast I took once did deliver me from; but which I slid back into after starting to eat again).
Anyway, this is my post. Does anyone identify with me in my situation? I feel at a disadvantage in some ways to very overweight people, because allopathic doctors and even naturopaths would be more open to fasting as a solution for overweight people than for thin people... yet I think fasting is profoundly not about losing weight, ironically... but about healing... that weight loss is a nice side-effect for overweight people... but that the thin can and do benefit also! ... Fasting, and my own body, are still very mysterious to me... I just want to post this to publish my commitment to learning how I may become well.
P.S. I originally logged on today because I am trying to do a fast right now... I want to make it 54 hours. I have achieved, recently, some 48+-hour fasts. As I say, I fast every week or 10 days or every 2 weeks. I struggle to refrain from eating a lot at once following my fasts. Sharing about this with others helps a lot!
.... Right now I have just over 24 hours to go to make a 54-hour fast. I just want to last through the bad physical feelings that usually come on, and not be scared by them unnecessarily. It is such a short fast compared with some of the fasts I read about here, so I take encouragement from everyone! But even 24 hours is a long (long, long) time for me to fast! I don't know if I am going to make this fast... I have posted before on this forum about having a goal of 54 hours. I got back a post which unfortunately made me feel discouraged (because it seemed sort of fearful about thin people fasting... there develops in the current public discourse, I feel, an unhelpful fixation on vitamin deficiencies, and which wants to attribute my food-addict-type cravings to actual needs... there seems to be a reluctance to validate the idea of "food addiction" in the first place, especially in thin people. This "in-validation" is NOT helpful, I feel! Besides, I have NEVER been found [my interest in Iodine notwithstanding] to have ANY deficiencies!) I think I just need to KEEP posting and not give up. This seems like such a complex subject. But I have to stay committed, to come to some truth that works for me!! I just want to keep sharing about my attempts to build up to a 5-day/up to 10-day fast. Love to everyone, Lauray

P.S. Maybe I need to make a separate post for my feelings, the feelings and experience I have been having today while fasting, so I will do that later if I can.