“Lose weight without dieting!” In a culture that is obsessed with diet and weight loss, headlines like this immediately catch our eye. Most of these are fads, just like the diets they pledge to avoid, except for the latest trend—fasting. Fitness articles and health gurus are now proclaiming the power of fasting to help lose weight. That fasting has incredible health benefits should not surprise us as Catholics. These cutting-edge scientists are really just regurgitating what the humblest of monks in the 6th and 7th Centuries already knew—that the spiritual benefits of fasting spill over to the body. What they don’t recognize however is why this is so. And in truth, neither do most of us.
This maxim that spiritual benefits of certain acts like fasting can spill over into the body is important for us to grasp. Not only does it witness to our hylomorphism, but more to the point it sheds light on the fact that acts of virtue are good for the whole person. We tend to see virtue as “a spiritual thing” that really only leads to frustration of our bodily powers. But properly understood virtues perfect our powers and restore the soul as rightful governor of the body, enabling us to more fully enjoy our freedom.
Fasting, Virtue and Freedom
An example might help us see the truth in something we may unconsciously already know. All things being equal, a man who is patient is also a man whose blood pressure is lower than a man’s who isn’t patient. The reason we don’t grasp it at first is because conquering a vice like anger is very difficult at the beginning and, rather than calming the body, can have the opposite effect. The man not schooled in patience is going to be further frustrated by the fact that he is holding back his frustration. It can be downright painful in proportion to our viciousness. So painful in fact that modern psychology tells us it is unhealthy repression. In truth, pain is vice leaving the body. But once the virtue matures in us, its fruits are felt in the body. And like the fruit from a mature tree, it brings us pleasure, a pleasure that will be reinforced in the body.
At this point the reader may feel they have become victim to a little “bait and switch.” We started out talking about fasting but somehow moved to virtue, using the example of patience. The analogy was made because most of us don’t fast and most of us don’t realize that fasting is a virtue. Fasting as a virtue means, that when habitually cultivated, it actually perfects our nature. Put another way, we will never be perfect unless we fast. Thus St. Thomas Aquinas says that fasting is a precept of the natural law.
Fasting is a virtue because it perfects our will power especially with respect to our concupiscible appetites. Recall that the concupiscible appetite or emotions are those that draw us to bodily goods like eating and sex. Because these pleasures are so closely related, fasting not only governs our use of food but also, St. Thomas Aquinas says, is the guardian of chastity. When we can habitually control our desire for food which is an absolute necessity, we can control the other desires of the flesh which are not. Once our powers of eating are controlled by the will, we actually enjoy it more—we are able to feast without splurging and experience true joy. In other words, eating becomes not just a bodily act but an act of the whole person. We come to eat the right things, in the right way at the right time and thus increase our pleasure. So too with the other powers of the flesh when the virtue of fasting comes full bloom.
Those experienced in fasting will develop a power of will that enables it to choose independent of the desires of the flesh. Until that experience comes we should expect it to be hard and expect to fail. The untrained body will rail hard against the spirit that attempts to bridle it. But like a man trying to train a horse and not necessarily break it, it is always better to start at a level that is parallel to our starting point. A bread and water fast for someone who does not fast will only lead to failure. Instead begin by fasting at each meal, making one small sacrifice (leaving a bite on the plate, no salt, eating what is before you, etc.) each time you come to the table.
Additional Benefits of Fasting
Our intellectual powers also are perfected through fasting. St. Thomas says that fasting enables the mind to “arise more freely to the contemplation of heavenly things.” What he means by this is that through fasting our minds are freed from the day to day clutter that inhibits us most of the time. Again anyone who has dabbled in fasting knows that all you can think about at first is how hungry you are. But as time goes on you gain greater control over your thoughts and are no longer as concerned with the needs of the body. Your body may be saying “I’m starving” but the will is telling it “stop whining, you are not starving.” Eventually the will wins out and the body relents; creating a calmer atmosphere for thought. Those schooled in fasting all can attest to a certain clarity in thinking that is not there when they are not fasting, but the habit of raising their minds above the humdrum remains even after fasting is over.
St. Thomas adds a third reason why we should fast and that is to satisfy for sins. Catholics are well aware of the penitential value of fasting, or at least they ought to be. But there is a related point that is worth examining because it goes to the heart of sacrifice in general. Which is more pleasing to God, a fast that is hard or a fast that is easy? I don’t mean hard or easy in the sense of rigor but more in how freely (without interior resistance) we are able to accomplish it. Most of us would say that a sacrifice that is hard is more pleasing. But that is not true. The greater the person’s virtue, the greater their freedom in making the offering. The person who does not yet have the virtue of fasting goes back and forth but the person with the virtue sets their will on fasting and never deviates. The latter offers a greater sacrifice even if the rigor of the former is greater.
Want to lose weight without dieting? Not just body weight, but also the dead weight of the vices of the “old man” (c.f Romans 6:6). There is no better way than to develop a virtuous life of moderation that includes the virtue of fasting. Like all the virtues fasting is hard at first, but with maturity it produces sweet fruits that are more enjoyable than the palatable pleasures passed up. Why not begin today?