Three-days fasting
I took fasting seriously after watching Dr. Pradip Jamnadas lectures. He outlines the health benefits of fasting in a simple way, and his advice is supported by clinical evidence. The main reason why I looked into this in the first place was because I used to get hangry quite easily. As I wanted to get rid of this aspect of my personality that I refused to see as immutable, I've been experimenting with fasting for the last year.
The first step was simple: skipping breakfast every Monday. That's it. Honestly, it was hard, I felt really grumpy all the morning. Black coffee is allowed during fasting, which definitely helped. I did that for a month or so, then, once I was getting comfortable, I added Wednesdays. Later, Fridays went in as well. I skipped breakfast thrice a week for a while and continued to level up. Today, I only have a light breakfast on the weekends and nothing before lunchtime during the work week. At some point, 24-hrs-fasting periods were thrown into the mix. That's how I've been building up my tolerance to feeling hungry, and I feel great about it.
Here is the crucial part of the experiment: after I every little step, I never go back. After that first Monday I skipped breakfast, I've never had breakfast on Mondays anymore.
I refer to this approach as radical incrementalism—a term I most likely read somewhere. The incremental part means that the first step should be attainable, it may be challenging, but you must be 100% confident you can do it. The same rule applies for the subsequent (baby) steps. The innovation comes from the radical aspect of it, which means that once you introduce a small change, from that point on, it is permanent. Period. No exceptions. It becomes a non-negotiable aspect of your life.
So, the next step is a three-days fasting—the can I've been kicking down the road for a while. As I've decided to postpone my alcohol-free period a couple of weeks. I'm going to start this long fasting period today.
At the moment of writing this, I'm done with dinner and the kitchen is clean. The next 72 hours are going to be ... interesting.