A Different Kind of Fast

After a lifetime of hating her body and struggling with diets, Maria Riley recognized she was called to fast from something other than food.

From my earliest memories, I have always hated my body. I have three brothers, and between soccer, cross country, and general tomfoolery, fat refused to stick on their bodies. My female figure, on the other hand, could always be described as “curvy.”

When I hit middle school, I no longer used my brothers as my measuring stick. Instead, my eyes found comparison to the other girls in my school. Not all of them—only the ones who were skinnier than me. It wasn’t hard to find those.

I enviously spied their slim figures when we changed for P.E. class. They wore sports bras exclusively for modesty and style, because few of them had anything that needed to be supported. I desperately tried to find a way to discreetly contain the painful bounce when running was required in class.

This mentality followed me as I grew. For so long the lie I told myself and believed with my whole heart is that I had to be like them to be accepted. I thought I had to change to be good enough. I thought my size was a mistake, and I spent all my energy hating the way I looked and trying to find the magic recipe to fix me.

For too many years (well into adulthood and motherhood), I fell prey to the cycle of bingeing and restricting. I would begin by withholding food in a desperate attempt to slim down. My diet would consist of salad and grilled chicken, vegetables, and maybe a cup of soup. During this time, I would pat myself on the back thinking how “good” I was eating.

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Fast forward a few days and I hadn’t dropped ten pounds magically. My resolve to eat “good” would falter. When my body became desperate enough for adequate sustenance, I would devour everything in sight. These binges left me feeling awful. I have since learned that this is actually a form of bulimia nervosa.

While this disordered eating persisted for years, it was infrequent enough for me to ignore the problem. Yet one of the biggest triggers for me was when our church mandated a fast.

In the Catholic Church, two days a year are designated as days of fasting: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. On these days, healthy (and not pregnant) 18–to-59-year-olds abstain from meat and can eat only one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal.

I have always followed the fasting rule. In theory, I was being a faithful Catholic. In practice, fasting on Ash Wednesday gave my disordered brain permission to binge the day before and the day after. The day of fasting was a day of restriction, and true to my eating disorder, the surrounding days became days of gluttony.

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Several months ago, I came across Erin McCole Cupp’s program, Filled with Good: Theology of the Body for Food Addicts. (Actually, I came across her program long before that, but I wasn’t ready to admit that I was a food addict myself. That required a level of humility I needed time to ease into.) I learned so much from Filled with Good, not the least of which is the understanding of my disordered eating. What I came to understand is that I am not a healthy 18–to-59-year-old. I am not well. Because of my eating disorder, I am actually exempt from fasting.

But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t fast at all. Instead, for Ash Wednesday this year, I embarked on a technological fast. I didn’t write. I didn’t check my email. I didn’t stream TV. I didn’t scroll through social media. I used my phone for one thing only—phone calls. My laptop stayed closed.

Not surprisingly, this fast challenged me immensely, but it also opened the door for God. Instead of picking up my phone, I picked up my Bible. Instead of turning on the TV, I had a conversation with my loved ones. When I abstained from technology, I let God in.

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In the past, I secretly enjoyed days of fasting because it could help my dreams of weight loss. I never recognized that it actually caused more harm because of my pre-and-post binge sessions. This year was the first year that I didn’t overeat the day before or after Ash Wednesday. The Divine Physician wants to heal me, and by using the discipline of fasting in a healthy way for me, I allow Him to do just that.