For the last three weeks I've been participating in a Daniel Fast. This Fast is besed on two fasts recorded in the book of Daniel in the Bible. It basically comes down to a vegan diet while also prohibiting all processed/added sugar and nothing but pure water to drink. They also want you to only eat whole grains. It was specifically for spiritual reasons. I wanted to build my relationship with God. Someone on this site asked me to share some of my experiences with them on this Fast and so I thought I'd write a short blog.
My bigget recommendaation for anyone considering doing this is to you put a few non-food restrictions into place as well to keep your focus on the spiritual side of things. I heard that if a fast is not for spiritual reasons than it is really just a diet. For me I restricted all TV to only the weekends and I restricted my time on Face Book and Diet Bet. I chose a Bible study I wanted to do and that is what I did in place of watching TV at night. I also began journaling my prayers. I find that I pray more if I am writing it down then just saying it.
It also helps to have someone either doing it with you or who at least knows you're doing it so that they can help keep you accountable. If no one knows you are doing this then it would be too easy to "slip" here and there and eat something you are not supposed to eat.
Another recommendation is to limit the hours that you eat. For me, for two of the weeks I ate only between the hours of 9 AM and 6 PM. Again, this just made it seem more "fast like" to me. There is no limit to the amount of food you eat but as the author of the book "The Daniel Fast" said, remember, it IS a fast.
On the diet side of things I did continue counting calories. With brown rice and natural peanut butter and nuts and other things like that that are healthy but not necessrily calorie friendly it really could be easy to eat many more calories than you think. I kept to my normal calorie limit which was 1350 although I did eat less than that at times just becaue I wasn't hungry.
I will definitely be doing this again later in the year. It served to refocus me in a few areas and it definitely helped me to focus on my relationship with God which for me was the whole reason why I did it.