Atomic Fasting (James Clear's advice for better habits)
Modern psychology is not the answer to our spiritual ailment, but it can give us clarity about the nature of the beast.
More than once since launching The Benedict Challenge, I've felt like exactly the kind of Pharisee toward whom Jesus directs his criticisms:
“They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” Matt. 23:4
I've laid out a difficult program – a template for advancing incrementally but rapidly towards One Meal a Day fasting. And when I ask myself if I've followed it in the way I ask others to, I have to admit that the answer is no.
The biggest area in which I've failed is my decision to allow myself caffeine – against the better judgment of my past experiences of "white-knuckling," which left me fatigued and with a bad taste in my mouth regarding fasting.
Coffee and tea certainly make it easier to power through the work day and forget about hunger signals. But they also put the body into an excessive state of alertness—one people usually associate with adrenaline but which is, in fact, more related to cortisol.
I've found myself going to sleep later and waking up more tired.
The other area I've fallen down is in not snacking between meals. On standard days, when I've been nominally eating two meals (lunch around 1pm and dinner around 6pm), I've found it difficult to exercise willpower once the initial "seal is broken." Once you pop, you just can't stop, they say…
If you read the last installment on hunger or the whole book, you'll be familiar with why that's the case from a physiological point of view.
Today's installment examines the question from a psychological perspective, borrowing a few key ideas from James Clear's popular self-help book Atomic Habits.
I'll let the post below speak for itself, but I'll make one comment for those who are adhering to the program but finding, like me, that it feels unkeepable at times. If you are failing to observe the rule (fasting window, plus no snacking), or relying on too much caffeine to make it to your eating window, you might want to pause at the current level. This week has been 18:6 – 18 hours fasting and 6 hours of eating. It's important to listen to your body and not push yourself too hard too fast. Sustainability is key to long-term success.
Doing this will still prepare you for the final week of OMAD, leading up to the final Black Fast before Easter.
I have realized that there is a big difference between going from 3 meals to 2 meals, and 2 to 1. In the next edition, I will change the structure to start off more gradually. A gentler approach in the beginning may help more people stick with the program and achieve their goals.
Also a reminder that since today is Friday, you can join the weekly check-in call tonight at 5 pm PT. These have been a real blessing for me, and I hope, for others on the calls. You don't have to struggle alone!
Lastly, this is the final regular chapter of the book. Next week, I will start to mix it up and post on other topics, including the subject of my next book - How to Cook a Quarter Cow (A Guide to Buying and Preparing Beef in Bulk) - co-authored with my wife Emma. Stay tuned!
And now, here's a sample of Chapter 6 of The Benedict Challenge, on keeping habits.
SMALL HABITS; LARGE REWARDS
“Whoever is faithful in small matters will be faithful in large ones.”
– Luke 16:10
The popularity of self-help books points to two common assumptions about modern people:
We need help.
No one is coming to help us.
Ergo: we must help ourselves.
Since the decline of the fasting tradition within Catholicism, even those who profess obedience to the Church find themselves with no practical guiding authority or rule when it comes to fasting. In a way, this is a blessing. It means that our sacrifice will be voluntary rather than coerced.
In his own time, Jesus rebuked the religious authorities for their legalism. The Pharisees were so focused on following the letter of the law that they neglected its spirit.
“Follow Jesus, not rules” is a popular Protestant slogan that could be applied to both the Pharisees and certain elements of the Catholic Church when it becomes obsessed with rules to the exclusion of pursuing genuine holiness.
On one level, this critique has merit. We must always consider whether we are fasting as a humble sacrifice or a prideful accomplishment—checking a box on the holiness scorecard.
Yet, on another level, the lack of a clearly-written rule makes our challenge of recovering the ancient fasting tradition much more difficult. Imagine that your doctor required that you fast before a life-saving procedure to maximize the odds of success—you could go a day without food easily. Yet when there’s no authority telling us what to do, we find every excuse to yield to the first temptation.
One way to think about a rule is as a box or container that constricts our freedom. The late Benedictine monk Adalbert de Vogüé, however, suggests a different guiding image. A rule, he says, is like a stake that upholds a plant:
“Does not every Christian and every religious have a permanent need of a rule that arouses, directs, and supports their efforts as a stake directs and upholds the plant?”
De Vogüé connects the rise of Protestant critiques of Catholic tradition—and the disappearance of external norms—with the abandonment of fasting itself. Figures like Martin Luther and John Calvin were so concerned about the potential misuse and insincerity of fasting that they decided to abandon the practice altogether. Catholics were not far behind. Rather than fasting for Lent, we give up chocolate or Netflix.
“The absence of any serious set of laws calling Christians to fast,” writes de Vogüé, “is not one of the least deficiencies of the post-conciliar church amid the rediscovery of so many riches.”
Today, the stake upholding and directing our behavior is gone. No one from the Church is monitoring our behavior or enforcing the rules—especially when it comes to the old fasting rules. We are left to stitch together our new discipline from the tattered remnants of tradition.
Of course, in addition to these remains, we have new self-help gurus who are eager to fill the vacuum in self-discipline with their own frameworks and rules on everything from fasting to habit formation to productivity. Within this self-help genre, there is much fluff and nonsense. However, modern psychology also offers some valuable gems and insights that can assist us in establishing a sustainable rule of fasting.
The Parable of the Seven Spirits
Whenever I read an inspiring and motivational program for self-improvement, I often think of the parable of the house swept clean.
The Pharisees are questioning Jesus, asking him for a “sign” that he is the Messiah. He sternly tells them no sign will be given them and instead answers them with a somewhat cryptic cautionary tale:
“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”
At the risk of over-secularizing, I like to think of the impure spirits, or demons, as bad habits. They are destructive patterns of behavior over which we exercise little control.
Have you ever found, upon adopting a new practice or “life hack”—say, journaling or a new diet—that you begin to experience some beneficial results? Maybe some newfound freedom. For a while, it seems like you are winning the battle against our demons.
However, unless your new practice becomes rooted within you at the level of your identity, these habits rarely stick. Worse, the false sense of security and progress can cause the pendulum to swing back, and swing back hard.
“I’ve been so good lately,” you say to yourself, “I deserve a little indulgence.”
Before you know it, you’re eating ice cream straight out of the pint.
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