Benefits of the Daniel Fast
This year started in a life-changing way — and it’s all because of the Daniel fast. I’ve struggled with discipline for so long, especially dealing with food and my faith. This was the perfect way to practice discipline with both of those things and really get closer to God. I won’t lie and say it was easy, because it was not. But, we made it!
When I first decided to go through with the fast, I asked my husband to join me. After explaining what the fast consisted of, he hit me with a smooth “no”. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do it unless he joined me because 1) the temptation would be too much and 2) I wasn’t about to cook for me and him. After discussing it further and placing more emphasis on the spiritual component of the fast, he decided that we should do this together.
My friend and *perfect client* as she calls herself started posting about the fast on Instagram and inviting people to join her, so I decided it was our time to make the sacrifice and strengthen our faith. Our goals this year are big and scary — being that God isn’t a genie, we weren’t about to just ask ask ask and sit back waiting for a yes. I’ll let you in on a little secret… vegetables and I don’t get along. That was part of the reason why I was hesitant about this; I literally didn’t know what I was going to eat. This was also a matter of getting out of my own head and finally eating like an adult lol.
Overall, we feel so much better in terms of our faith and our bodies. It feels like we cleansed ourselves of so much bad food and bad habits. We’re not completely transformed, as that takes time and more work, but our minds are renewed. There are things that life will throw our way and I feel like we’ll deal with them better. Prayer is our first option, not our last resort — we learned to trust God no matter what and have big faith and big expectations.
DANIEL FAST WEEK ONE:
DEVOTIONAL + PRAYER
My husband was off from work on the first day of our fast, so I didn’t have to get up with our son. I went into our closet and did day one of our devotional and prayed. It was amazing! I’m not a morning person and even though I have an early alarm, I don’t really get up. Deep down I knew it would be tough to get up before my son and spend quiet time with God, but I tried. The devotional is amazing and serves as a great guide for the fast.
FOOD
I spent a lot of time on Pinterest before we started the fast and saved quite a bit of fast-friendly meals. One of my favorite dishes was this vegan thai greens + beans curry; I swear I probably cooked this 3 times that week because of how hungry we felt. We ate it with brown jasmine rice from Trader Joe’s [seriously, it’s the best brown rice ever].
TEMPTATIONS
Truth is, we weren’t really that tempted during the first week. As you can imagine, this gave us quite a bit of confidence lol. We were strong and remained close to God whenever we felt angry or annoyed at everyday life things. The only time I felt very hungry and a bit moody was late at night. I stay up late to work and that was pretty tough.
DANIEL FAST WEEK TWO:
DEVOTIONAL + PRAYER
By week two, I wasn’t spending as much time in the closet while reading my Bible and praying. I sort of got lost in day to day things and felt very overwhelmed with work, so I was working at all hours of the night. This led to me waking up as late as possible because I was just exhausted. I still kept up with my reading and I feel like I prayed a million times every day, but I wasn’t giving God that dedicated closet time… so that bothered me quite a bit.
FOOD
The start of week two was a bit rough. I tried working out Monday morning and felt super nauseous and dizzy for the rest of the day. It’s insane how much my body was dependent on meat and dairy for energy and I was not able to keep going with the workouts. Although I felt good on a regular day and super light, what I was eating definitely impacted how much energy I had to do more strenuous things like working out.
TEMPTATIONS
I wasn’t really tempted during this week until we went out of town to visit my in-laws. Being out of town meant I couldn’t stick with our everyday structure and cook the way I had been doing. For the first 2 days, we had food from home that we packed so it wasn’t too bad. I won’t lie… watching everyone else eat what they wanted to was a little hard, but we got through it. After our food ran out, we resorted to eating at Fresh Kitchen [which is delicious] and just choosing things that fit within the fast.
DANIEL FAST WEEK THREE:
DEVOTIONAL + PRAYER
We finished week 3 strong! I was adamant about sticking with my devotional and not missing any days. One of the days in week 3 I almost missed the devotional, but caught up right before midnight. I knew I could just catch up the next day, but I wanted to make sure this was a priority for me. I wanted this fast to teach me discipline.
FOOD
This week was super busy and I felt like we had the same meal over and over. I knew we were so close to the finish line, so I got a little lazy with the food. There was a lot of snacking and a lot of praying for patience and for God to help get us through… and He did!
TEMPTATIONS
This was the hardest week ever — the temptations were REAL. It was like I was counting down the minutes until I was done so I can have some “regular” food as I kept calling it. Although I loved how I felt on the fast and wanted to incorporate some of the meals into my regular diet, I was dying for a burger and pizza lol. Terrible! But, I’m proud of us for sticking with it and not giving in to my temptations.
