"Fasting" as a CBT tool.

"Active Fasting" is a CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) reframing tool of "Therapeutic Psychogenics" that changes how we experience abstinence of eating and compulsive overeating between the planned meals of a structured habit pattern of eating.

With active fasting, we think of the period of abstinence as an important activity (devotion to health in a holistic way similar to religious fasts), burning fat and calories, instead of eating and storing them. We think of it as a satisfying experience of accomplishment and progress instead of a period of deprivation, suffering and nothingness.

Food addicts often fall into a habit of eating as an activity that provides pleasure and meaning when we get home, often eating all night that can add up to thousands of calories. There was a time where I thought, "If I can't eat what I feel like, when I feel like it, what's the use?" It was as if the freedom to eat was what I lived for, the reason for it all. When I contemplated not eating between meals, not snacking, it shook me, and I would white-knuckle it for a while, and usually break down. I could not live my evenings with that nothingness.

But when the periods between meals became "fasting" in order to achieve my hearts desire of a healthy weight, burning calories and fat, I was able to sustain abstinence until the next meal I had planned. I substituted the gratification of snacking and grazing for the gratification of fasting and burning fat. I was able to delay the gratification from eating until the next meal.

CBT is a form of therapy derived from the observation that the way we think causes the way we feel. If we can change the way we think about a situation or experience, we can change the way we feel about it, and our feelings have a powerful influence on our behavior and "will power".

"Active Fasting" is cited by clients as one of the most important and helpful of the Therapeutic Psychogenic techniques they learn about and use.