Fasting: A Path To Mental And Physical Transcendence - Phil Sanderson (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of Phil Sanderson’s talk titled “Fasting: A Path To Mental And Physical Transcendence” at TEDxBeaconStreet 2015 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, my name is Phil Sanderson and I’m going to talk today about my philosophy on fasting. So have you ever been stressed out about bad internet connectivity? We all have. You don’t have to be embarrassed about having first world problems. The bottom line is we live in a first world society.

We’ve got plenty of running water, food, and a lot of first world luxuries. But what if we took away some of these first world luxuries? I think it’d be helpful because the accumulation of our first world problems plus the daily stresses that we go through tend to clutter our minds and make it hard for us to advance as humans and reach our full potential.

And how do we reach our full potential? Well, Maslow outlined these needs, the five hierarchy of needs in the 1940s, which need to be completed sequentially in order to achieve self-actualization or our true potential.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

So the first level of needs is physiological. First we need food, water, air, shelter, and so forth. Then we need security, financial security, personal health security, and so forth. The next level is social. We need to show love and feel a sense of belonging in our community.

And then we need a sense of self-esteem, need to be respected by others to reach the top of the pyramid. So as you can see, we need to satisfy these physiological needs first and also to survive. But what if we took away one of these physiological needs in order to give ourselves a perspective on the whole pyramid to reach the top?

The Concept of Fasting

It’s not realistic to take away water and air for that long of a period of time. And sure, we could sleep below the highway and go to work the next day, taking away shelter, but that’s too hard. It’s just not realistic. But we can take away food.

And I think that fasting for an extended period of time can give us a perspective on what we need to self-actualize and be the best person that we can be. Now fasting is not a new concept. It’s been used for thousands of years among religions, right? Think about Jews and Yom Kippur.

Historical and Cultural Significance of Fasting

They fast for atonement. Muslims did the same thing in Ramadan, also to show their devotion to Allah. And Buddhists fast as well for a sense of heightened enlightenment.

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Fasting has also been used for political protests. Think of Gandhi. And more recently, it’s been used for medical purposes to help treat cancer and Alzheimer’s and other types of illnesses. So from religions to medical purposes, fasting has been used to reach a heightened state of appreciation. I do the same thing for fasting.

My Fasting Routine

So every year, I fast for seven days. I don’t eat any food. I go through a master cleanse, and the master cleanse has been around for 75 years. It’s a recipe which consists of water, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup.

I drink as much of it as I can, and I get about 600 calories a day. And also, as the name suggests, it’s got cleansing purposes. But I eat a lot of food. I work out an hour and a half a day, and as was mentioned, I run ultramarathons.

Reasons for Fasting

So when I’m training for an ultra, I’m burning about 3,000 to 4,000 calories a day. So not eating for a week is really, really hard. But I do it for three main reasons. One, for the sense of accomplishment. Finishing an ultramarathon is like finishing a race.

I also hit the reset button on all my bad eating habits. So we all have them. It puts it all in perspective. And finally, I reach a heightened state of mental and physical acuteness and awareness.

Preparation for Fasting

Now to be able to do this, I set myself up for success. So I make sure I’m not traveling for the week. You really can’t travel with liquids, and it’s too hard. You have to have these around you at all times.

I also reduce my physical exertion to about 20 minutes of cardio a day. Then I start on a Monday, so that I finish on a Saturday and a Sunday, because you’re not 100% there in the last few days, to be honest. And I’m a venture capitalist, as was mentioned, and I don’t want to be making bad business decisions with other people’s money.

Fasting Strategy

Also, I try to avoid packing my schedule with business breakfast, lunches, and dinners. It’s hard to avoid, but I try that. What’s really important, I make sure I can phone a friend. I do it with a friend so that we can rely on each other during the hard times and tough periods.

And then finally, I make as much of the solution as I can in advance, so there’s no excuse for not drinking. So then I start my fast. Day one is clearly the hardest, and many of us have fasted in the past.

The Fasting Experience: Days 1-3

You know what it feels like. During breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you have huge hunger pains, and your body’s saying, feed me. I’m hungry, and it hurts. But by day two, I’m hitting my stride.

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I feel really good. I’ve been drinking throughout the day, and I have a very strong sense of my body and what it needs and my metabolism. This is intensely felt when I go to bed on the second night. I lie down to go to sleep, and I can literally feel my metabolism settling down into my body, and I’m at peace.

The Fasting Experience: Days 3-5

It’s the best sleep I have all year.

On the third day in the morning, when I wake up, I’m not hungry at all. I take a shower. I get dressed. I brush my teeth. And all of a sudden, I can feel a switch go off in my body out of nowhere, and it says, I need fuel. I need calories. And then I start to drink.

I know exactly what my body needs and when. Speaking of bodily functions, I go to the bathroom all day. You can’t avoid it. I’m drinking two to three gallons a day.

But one time during the fast, I’ll go number two, and that’s when all the junk that sits in my intestines gets flushed out of my body, and that’s part of the cleanse. On day four and five, I have some rough parts. It gets really, really hard. When I don’t drink enough in advance, I bonk, which is an athletic term for just getting lightheaded and low sugar, and at those points, I just need to recover and start drinking.

Challenges During the Fast

I get headaches, and the back of my throat is killing me because of the acidity of the lemon juice. That’s why I swap in some lime juice, which is less acidic. But usually during those days, I’ll call a friend and say, “I’m done. It’s been five days. I’m out. I can’t do it anymore. This hurts.”

And my friend tells me what I already know and what I need to hear, which is “Keep going. You can do this. You’ll be happy that you did,” which is really helpful. Also, on day six, I’m starting to really feel the hurt of seeing food and especially smelling food.

Social Challenges of Fasting

I can’t avoid business lunches in my industry. I’ll go to a fancy restaurant. Some of the eating chicken cordon bleu and lobster salad, and I’ll be there with my Nalgene bottle of yellow and brown solution and just drinking away, and people are laughing at me. And people are saying, “What day are you on?”

And this is a pretty widely spread use, the master cleanse. And then when I go into day seven, I feel great. I mean, I mentioned feeling physically aware of my entire body, but I have a mental acuteness that’s unlike anything else.

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The Final Days and Benefits

I’m aware of everything around me. It’s a real state of enlightenment. I’m actually sad it’s about to end at that point. I also lose a lot of weight.

I’ve lost about 10 pounds at that point, which I don’t really have, but you know, the fast burns muscle, but first fat and muscle and then, and then tissue. So you really, I can’t go beyond 10 days. Some people do this for 30 days, seven days is right for me.

Breaking the Fast

And it’s an incredible feeling of spirituality that I have. I feel that going into the eighth day and on that day, I have a breakfast typical for me. We have chicken. So I have eggs from my chickens.

I live in Marin County, so it’s a California thing. We have turkey bacon, and then I’ll have some toast and I will appreciate every morsel that goes into my mouth. It’s an incredible, it’s the best meal I ever have.

Long-term Effects

And I know my body needs food and I need to feed my body and I know when I need to eat food. And I have that feeling for the next two to three months, I don’t snack or graze like I normally do. I’ll walk by our snack room or Starbucks and say, “I don’t need food right now. I don’t need that snack of chocolate.”

And um, and it’s super helpful to have that attunedness in my body. So last year I spoke about the BHAG or Big Hairy Audacious Goal of running a hundred mile race on no training using entrepreneurial principles. You can find that on my blog at sfvc.com, but that’s a pretty unrealistic goal to be honest.

Conclusion

Right? I mean, who can run a hundred mile race who really wants to? I admit I’m a little crazy to do it, but I love doing that. But fasting is something that we can all do and it can change our lives.

You know, every year I fast for seven days. It’s incredibly hard, but I reached a heightened state of physical, mental, and spiritual awareness. And fasting is a regular part of my diet of personal growth and it can be for yours as well.

Fasting: A Path To Mental And Physical Transcendence – Phil Sanderson (Transcript)