The Tale of Two Fasts

For over twenty years, a humble lawyer by the name of Mahatma Gandhi led campaigns for the independence of India from the British Empire. He would dress in a loincloth traditionally worn by the poor, and only ate vegetables because he did not believe in killing animals for food. He would protest by walking in long marches; it has been calculated that he walked an average of ten miles a day during this twenty-year period, or the equivalent of walking around the earth twice. One of the most effective ways of protesting was threatening to fast to his own death, and he did this seventeen times; his longest fast was twenty-one days. In a world where protesting is so commonly violent, the conviction of a humble man to fast himself to death as an act of nonviolent resistance had a major impact. In part because of his leadership and action, India received its independence from England on August 15, 1947.

Independence, however, was not the end of Gandhi’s work. India was home to several different religious groups, including Hindus and Muslims, between which there was friction. As part of the Indian Independence Act, England separated India into two countries, India and Pakistan, with India meant for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims. 

Unfortunately, establishing countries by religion placed the religious minorities living in these countries in a difficult situation, and shortly after the establishment of independence there were local uprisings and riots. Hindus were massacred in Pakistan, and Muslims were killed in Calcutta and Delhi. Gandhi called for moral responsibility, asking the government as well as religious groups to stop the fighting and to protect the religious minorities in both countries. Unfortunately, the death toll continued to rise.

Finally, in January 1948, Gandhi announced he would fast until his death or until “peace is restored to Delhi and a Muslim can walk around in the city all by himself.” After a meal of goat’s milk, vegetables, and fruit juice, he began his fast in New Delhi. He was now seventy-seven years old and his 5-foot, 5-inch frame weighed only about 100 pounds. Determined, with a shawl wrapped around his frail body, he emerged from his room each night to pray and to speak to the crowds, his voice low and almost inaudible. By the third day he was visibly much weaker. An American reporter who visited him while he was sleeping on his cot noted that his face showed signs of suffering. By day 5 his doctors were gravely concerned for his health, but Gandhi’s willpower remained strong. The people of Delphi, as well as people throughout the world were shaken and moved by this man who would starve himself to death to uphold his beliefs. On the sixth day, leaders from the Hindu, and Muslim communities gathered with government leaders and signed a pledge to abide by Gandhi’s demand, and Gandhi, weak but triumphant, ended his fast

Seventeen years later and thousands of miles away, a twenty-seven-year-old man by the name of Angus Barbieri checked into a hospital in Dundee, Scotland, to lose weight. For several years, he had worked in a fish-and-chip shop owned by his father and had progressively gained weight, reaching just over 450 pounds on the day of his admission. He was interested in a relatively new approach that was being used to treat obesity, which was to fast for several weeks. Previous individuals had even fasted for as long as 100 days according to a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in.the previous year.

Angus was allowed tea, coffee, and water along with vitamins, but was restricted from eating or drinking anything with calories. Although the initial plan was to fast for “only” a few weeks, he did so well that the fast continued month after month, until he had passed more than a year without having any food. Amazingly, he did this without developing any symptoms. During this time, he lost 275 pounds—so much weight that his original pants could now hold three individuals of his newly attained size. Triumphant, he broke the fast with a single boiled egg and some bread and butter. Over the following years he was able to maintain a weight less than 200 pounds and he went on to live twenty-five more years and raise a family.

Both of these tales together tell an important story about survival with the power of fat. When we do not eat, we have to rely on the food we store in our tissues: our fat, primarily, though some energy is provided by the carbohydrates we store in our liver, muscles, and other tissues, called glycogen. Gandhi had almost no fat, so fasting for 5 days almost killed him, whereas Angus was able to fast for 382 days as an outpatient without a problem. Ironically, one of the reasons Gandhi could be so persuasive politically was that he had minimal fat stores…if he had been fat, the impact of his fasting would have been lost.

The take home message here is that fat provides the fuel we need to survive when food is not available. The more fat we have, the longer we can survive without food. Fasting is an effective tool that can be used daily when trying to lose weight. The key is defining fasting and feeding windows each day that provide at least ten to twelve consecutive fasting hours. The best place to start would be to either eat breakfast later each day or to avoid snacking after dinner to complete a twelve hour fast. With practice, it becomes easier to extend the fasting window which provides additional weight loss benefits by allowing our body to burn more fat for fuel. As a Health Coach, I have found it is much easier to help clients focus on "when" they eat as opposed to "what" they eat...and it is a much more effective way to lose weight.