What if I told you that I had a program, or a magic pill, that could save you time, money, and stress, all while helping you lose weight and improving your health?

You’d probably think I’m as crazy as the folks on late night infomercials.

Fortunately, this is not an infomercial, and I’m not a crazy person. (At least I don’t think so 🙂 ).

I do, however, want to discuss this “magic pill.” It legitimately does everything I mentioned above. It’s an ancient practice that seems pretty crazy, but is actually far more commonplace than one might think.

So what is the magic pill you ask?

Fasting.

Fasting is an ancient practice that involves voluntarily going without food for a period of time. There are many types of fasting including intermittent fasting, alternate day fasting, extended fasting, and many more.

***Disclaimer: I’m not a physician, and I am not here to formally recommend that you fast. I’m just sharing my experience with the practice. ***

As with any health topic, there are conflicting studies about fasting and whether or not its healthy for you. Fasting is a somewhat controversial practice.

Different people have different physical, chemical, and biological makeups, so what works for some people might not work for you and vice versa.

Personally, I’ve been doing intermittent fasting off and on for a few years now. I recently decided to try prolonged fasting (5-7 days) once per quarter, and I’ve really enjoyed it. In my experience, I’ve found spiritual, physical, and financial benefits that have me thinking I’ll make fasting a regular practice moving forward.

If you’re interested in learning more about the spiritual or health benefits of fasting, take some time to research some of the recent studies on the topic. It really is fascinating stuff, and worth a read even if you don’t plan to fast at all.

Since this is a financial blog that discusses my financial journey, I’m going to focus on the financial aspect of fasting. However, know that I’ve experienced tremendous spiritual and health benefits as well. I may write about those another time.

Alright, so let’s do a quick analysis of the financial benefits of this “magic pill.” This isn’t exact, but I just want to give you an idea of how fasting could affect your wallet. Fortunately, unlike other health fads, this one doesn’t cost you a thing. It actually saves you money! Let’s take a look:

Conventionally, people eat three meals per day: Breakfast, lunch and dinner. This equates to 21 meals per week.

In researching this article I’ve found where the conservative average cost of a meal at home is approximately $4.00 and the conservative average meal that you’d eat at a restaurant is $12.50. These figures are based on nationwide averages.

Let’s say that you’re on the go quite a bit, and that you eat out and at home roughly equally. You’d spend on average $8.25 per meal. At 21 meals per week, you’d be averaging $173.25 per week.

If, like an average person, you eat 3 meals a day, then you would eat 1092 meals in one year. Let’s say you decide to incorporate some fasting habits and stop eating breakfast. Immediately you’d be down to eating a total of 728 meals per year. With more serious intermittent fasting, let’s say you eat at least 1 meal per day, and eat 2 meals per day approximately 50% of the time. If you average 11 meals per week, (7 lunches and 4 dinners), then you end up at 572 meals per year. Using the $8.25 cost per meal figure, the numbers work out like this:

As you can see, not eating breakfast saves you up to $3,000 dollars per year on its own. Adding in some intermittent or alternate day fasting, and you save up to $4,300 per year!

In this example, Fasting could lead to $30,000 – $40,000 dollars of savings within 10 years! Not to mention the compounding interest that you’d get by investing that savings into the stock market.

I realize that this isn’t rocket science. If you eat fewer meals, you’ll spend less money. I also realize that my calculations aren’t perfectly scientific. There are some mitigating factors that might make your costs be higher even though you would be eating fewer meals. An average of $8.25 per meal might be way more or way less than your average cost per meal.

All things considered, I just wanted to show you how intentional fasting can be a strategy for financial well being – along with the spiritual and physical benefits that are more commonly discussed.

What about you? Have you ever fasted? Do you incorporate it into your lifestyle? How has it benefitted you? Let me know in the comments!