Fasting

2020-08-19

If you are curious why I fast and/or what my fasting day looks like, I’d encourage you to read my blogpost Why Do I fast?.  To read previous blog posts about my fasting experiences click here.

Monday January 6, 2014

I currently work as a server, and on this day I was working a daytime shift in Banff.  Going into the day I knew this fasting experience would be challenging since I would not have eaten anything prior to work, I could not eat or drink at all during my shift, and I would be around food all day!

During my shift for the sake of curiosity, I decided to have my own meals scorecard.  It consisted of a tick for each meal I served and another tick for meals that were completely finished and/or put in a to go container.  This is something I had never done before.  At the end of my shift nearly two-thirds of the food I served had some of it thrown into the garbage.  And in some of the instances a LOT of food went straight into the garbage.

I had many recurring thoughts during the day:

1. It truly bothers me the amount of food that gets wasted by people not finishing their meals and/or getting the leftovers wrapped to take home.
2. Why do some people order so much food when they aren’t very hungry?
3. Why does no one seem at all guilty about getting food thrown out?
4. The amount of packaging that goes into wrapping up restaurant food to take home.

I always do my best to not judge people that I’m serving.  On this day it seemed that I had so many meals where people ate maybe half of their meal and I threw out the rest.  Was it Murphy’s Law or the Universe’s way of highlighting this lesson for me?  Either way it was difficult for me to not judge people leaving so much food on their plate and getting it thrown out, not getting it wrapped up, and not feeling at all guilty about it…during which time I was very hungry and thirsty!  More importantly, it made me ponder the amount of food waste.  Instead of focusing on other people, I chose to focus on what I can do moving forward.  While embarrassing to admit, I do sometimes throw out food from my fridge that went bad, or items in my freezer that were not eaten in time and had freezer burn.  At the time of writing this blog post I have had much less food waste at home, and I intend to keep continuously improving in this area moving forward.

A friend of mine takes her own container with her to certain restaurants when she knows there’s a good chance that she’ll not finish her entire meal.  If she has leftover food on her plate she simply puts it into her container.  I love how no additional packaging is needed.  I don’t eat out very often, however I intend to follow her lead in this area and do the same.

Being a server puts me in a somewhat precarious position since my tips and the restaurant’s revenue are based on the amount of food and drinks we sell.  If a table orders a bunch of food their cheque is higher and I’ll more than likely get a bigger tip.  Regardless of how much food they actually eat or not…  That being said, since this fasting day I have been increasingly honest with tables when they order a lot of food.  While I have no idea how much a person will eat, I do know that I can better educate them on the portion sizes.  And this often results in a better dining experience, which can lead to possibly a repeat visit and/or a bigger tip for myself.  I know that whether or not a customer feels guilty or not about some of their meal getting thrown into the garbage is totally up to them.  It is not my place to question their apparent lack of feelings and I have let that go.

After my daytime serving shift I went to a friend’s potluck dinner.  A relative of hers was in this area for a few days visiting, and she hosted a get together with friends in the Canmore area.  Everything at the dinner was really tasty so I ate a very good supper.  When I got home I had a few snacks since I wanted to spend some time at the potluck talking and not simply eating!  I felt very grateful for my friend inviting me to the potluck and the variety of good food that was there.

Tuesday January 7, 2014

I connected with various people on this day, both virtually and in person.  In every interaction I felt very present with each person, even more so than normal.  I approached every situation with an attitude of gratitude for the person and for being in this place at this time.  During one conversation, a friend suggested that we have a scheduled talk biweekly moving forward to support each other with various targets that we’re working towards.  I consider him to be a mentor for me in so many ways.  So of course I answered his unexpected suggestion with a resounding yes!  He was also very supportive of me writing about my monthly fasting experiences, and he challenged me to post about each future fast day within one week of the date.  To be honest at the time of writing I am in catch up mode to ensure that this post is done, and that the February 6 post comes out on or before February 13!

The recurring theme of January 7 for me was that there are a number of people who love me and want to support me.  This is not something that I’ve always had in my adult life, and I am truly grateful that each of them are in my life.  I’m also grateful that they often see me as who I’ll become, not who I presently am.  Their vision of me is often bigger than what I have, and I have a big vision!