I love soccer. For over 20 years I ran an adult co-ed soccer league simply because I wanted to play and nobody else was providing an opportunity. In 2023 my cleats that I loved were finally shredding, I was hesitant to purchase a new pair because at my age I didn’t know how many more seasons I would be playing, and thought in 2024 I would just use my son’s cleats that he no longer used. Over the course of several weeks of playing, my feet started getting sore. His cleats were very thin on the bottom padding to keep the shoes light, and every pounding step would impact the bottom of my feet from the cleats pushing upward. By the end of the season, I had developed neuromas in both of my feet. It was fine to walk, but running was painful and bending my feet to squat doing yard work or kneeling to pray with my feet bent or even straight with backward pressure on them quickly got unbearable.

I went to the doctor and got cortisone shots in my feet and later was convinced I needed orthotics in my shoes to take the pressure off my feet and let them heal. I got remarried during this time frame as the pain was going on and my wife got me going to the gym for a body pump class. I couldn’t do some of the class exercises the normal way because of this and it was mildly frustrating to have a new chronic pain.

I have a friend who had IBS and a couple years ago cured it with a 14 day water fast. I was amazed by that and wondered about the body’s ability to heal from fasting. When we put food into our bodies for energy, our bodies know what to do to break down that food and process the proteins, fats, and carbs, in the best way it can from the “fuel”/food we give it. When we don’t feed our bodies, what do they do?

I discovered some videos on YouTube about extended water fasting and how after so many hours, your body goes into autophagy where your body starts repairing itself and cleaning things up. It’s like a cafeteria that is open 24/7 never has time to go mop the floor and clean up, but if they can shut down for a time, they can do some cleaning. The body does this with autophagy and the effects really kick in by day 3, including production of stem cells that go to wherever your body needs them.. Every day after that, the body continues it’s cleanup of “messes” including bad cells and issues that don’t align with normal healthy functions.

I also heard about a study in China that compared two groups of people during a 14 day water fast. The study showed that people who fasted while taking a small prebiotic dose, weren’t as hungry as people who didn’t. They were feeding the gut bacteria so they didn’t send “hangry” signals to the brain to give them food.

Most importantly, the Lord seems to have sanctioned fasting as a way to improve your health in Isaiah 58. From the Isaiah Institute Translation:

So, my wife and I decided we would try this out. We would do a 5 day water fast because we had a trip planned to leave for in 7 days from when we were starting. We weren’t sure how this would go but we would end so thought we would give ourselves 1 full day of normal eating before leaving on the trip.

We decided we would just get an electrolyte powder to add to our water to ensure we were getting salt and other minerals and we would drink plenty of water.

The first day was like a normal fast Sunday of 24 hours. At the end of 24 hours though, your body typically expects food. It’s like your little gut buddies are saying, “not this again. Well, we will be patient because the overload is coming…” Then it doesn’t. Day 2 is a little harder hungry-wise, but then it settles down and you actually lose hunger as you move forward. For both my wife and I, day 5 was the absolute best day of the 5. We both woke up energized and feeling better than the other days. I was actually disappointed we were stopping that day because I wanted to see how it would be to go further and if this clarity and energy would continue.

One really interesting thing was after 2 days of fasting, when you go to sleep, your temperature regulation is off. I was way colder than normal. I’ve done a couple of fasts before that were 2-3 days and I hadn’t recognized this but on a longer fast, at night, I saw that I wasn’t fueling my body and my body was just burning through the energy reserves and I needed extra heat to stay comfortable.

So what were the results?

Even though we were doing this for health reasons, we definitely took advantage of the time to fast to do so with a few purposes in mind. We felt closer to God and mentally I felt more in tune and clear headed.

A mild and annoying cough I had had for over a year disappeared on day 5 and never returned. I probably got it from Covid or something but it was absolutely a relief to have it be gone.

The neuromas on my feet…gone. I still feel like I have some odd strength issue when I try to curl my toes, but the pain in my feet disappeared.

Yes, of course there was weight loss, but all of it came back relatively quickly after fasting so this is definitely not a weight loss method, but it was a very effective method that proved the Lord right when he said in fasting, healing speedily appears. I do not know what other health benefits happened from this but I’m sure my body got a little bit of an upgrade.

If you want to study this further in the scriptures, in Scripture Notes, open a search panel and filter (click filter, select All, uncheck non-scripture and apocryphal texts) this search:

health* or heal*

There are different kinds of healing the Lord intends to bring to us. One is individual, another is national when we covenant as a people. For example:

2 Chron. 7:14. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

The opposite is true as well. In Isaiah 6 we see the loss of healing comes from shutting out the Lord.

10. Make the heart of these people grow fat; dull their ears and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand in their heart, and repent, and be healed.

There are many principles of health besides fasting as well. In Doctrine & Covenants 89 we read this promise which ends with a definite word “shall” and not just “may.”

18. And all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones;

Obedience does bring blessings, though when we are in a health crisis we sometimes have a difficult time understanding the Lord’s timing. We all have lessons to learn from adversity. Jesus suffered all things. Our suffering is a small subset of his. Enduring well doesn’t mean a lack of obstacles along the way.

Disclaimer: I’m not your doctor and I’m not telling you to do this to solve your health issues. Please consult your doctor if you feel the desire to try this (although we didn’t consult ours, we just asked the master physician and confirmed this would be beneficial for us. The fruits of the experience show it was but I do not accept legal liability for you trying this out. :))

P.S. For more information on extended fasting, here’s a couple of videos below you can watch or just search “extended fasting” or “5-day fast” on Youtube. I’m not necessarily endorsing these channels, I just found these videos helpful.

P.S.S. I did purchase new cleats. :)