Q&A with Author Derek Ralston About His Latest Book: Transformational Fasting

I’m excited to announce the release of my book, Transformational Fasting: Reconnect with Yourself, Get Healthy, and Find Your Purpose, in both print and eBook format. To learn more, sign up for free sample chapters of the book at TransformationalFasting.Com or you can go directly to Amazon and other online book retailers to purchase it.

Today I had the chance to sit down and talk about Transformational Fasting with Joanna Chan—here’s the full recording and transcript.

Q&A Transcript

Hi! I’m Joanna Chan, and today we’re going to be talking with Derek Ralston about his new book, Transformational Fasting: Reconnect with Yourself, Get Healthy, and Find Your Purpose.

Derek, congrats on releasing your book—I found Transformational Fasting to be a refreshing change of pace from the popular narrative of fasting for fitness only. I foresee this book serving as a no-nonsense guide for readers interested in fasting for personal transformation.

Thanks so much, I’m glad you enjoyed it!

Let’s jump right in with the questions. What inspired you to write this book?

Four years ago, my reality came unglued—my long-term relationship came to an end, and I was laid off from my job at nearly the same time. I wasn’t sure what to do next, and I needed a bridge to the next phase of my life as a way to work through things and get to the other side. I decided to walk the Camino de Santiago, which is a 500-mile pilgrimage across Spain. I had an amazing experience, and when I returned from the trip, I felt more connected and human than I had before. I slowly reintegrated with day-to-day life and realized that, to keep that sense of connection I had felt, I would need a practice that mimicked going on a journey like my pilgrimage. That’s when I discovered transformational fasting.

I’ve been experimenting with transformational fasting ever since then. After a four-day fast earlier this year, I felt a surge of creative energy that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I started writing a blog post about my experiences, and ended up having much more to say than could fit into a single post. So I decided to write a book instead.

I’m really excited for this book to get out into the world, as I think it can help a lot of people out there… People who are already doing intermittent fasting, yoga, and meditation… And are seeking a deeper transformation. Especially anyone that’s out there feeling disconnected from themselves or stuck in life. If even one person reads this book and it changes their life for the better, it was worth writing.

Wow, that’s quite the journey you went on to get to this point. Can you tell us more about your book?

When I think about transformational fasting, the Spiderman quote comes to mind, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Fasting—especially multi-day fasting—is a powerful healing practice, and with that power comes great responsibility. So you need to approach it with careful planning and consideration of the risks involved. This book walks you through all the steps and potential risks, and even has a checklist to make sure you don’t forget something as you plan for you fast.

At its core, the book is a guide for using fasting to transform your life. It’s a book I would’ve liked to have when I first learned about fasting. I’ve pulled together lots of ideas from my own fasting experiences and research, as well as mindfulness practices and training that I’ve found to be synergistic with fasting. It also pays homage to my three favorite books and authors: The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl.

While the book covers all types of fasts, it focuses primarily on transformational fasting, which is when you go on a fast of three days or longer with an intention of transformation in the physical, emotional, and spiritual parts of yourself. The book starts with a general overview of fasting, what’s going on in the body, what to look out for, and some of my learnings from early transformational fasts. Next, it tells you exactly how to prepare for your own first transformational fast in an intentional way. Then it tells you how to fast consciously, and how to spend your time during the fast. And finally, it tells you how to break your fast, reflect, and reintegrate into the world.

I love that Spiderman quote, and The Four Agreements is also one of my favorite books. Moving on to our next question—what did you learn when writing the book?

I’ve been practicing transformational fasting for the last four years, so a lot of the learnings were captured during my previous transformational fasts, and research I did around those.

One of the most interesting things I learned while researching this book was around the Native American tradition of a vision quest. Steven Foster’s book, Vision Quest, goes very deep into this topic. Essentially, this is a rite of passage where a young man goes alone into nature and fasts for four days and nights, for the purpose of seeking out a vision. During my own fasting experiments, I didn’t actually go on a vision quest in nature, but I would love to someday. Instead, I mimicked some of the rituals I learned about in my home space.

Oh wow, going on a vision quest could be very exciting but also scary since you would be alone in nature during that time. For the next question, I’m really curious about what surprised you the most while writing this book?

One of the things I learned when writing the book was just how uncommon it is for someone to go on a multi-day fast in our modern world. Any time I mentioned my experiments with fasts of three days or longer to friends or family, people were amazed, and maybe a bit intimidated. This is where my book can help, as an accessible guide for those new to going on multi-day fasts. Fasting is a very powerful tool, and it helps to do your homework and plan out your time before going on a longer fast.

I hear you there, I’ve gotten a similar response from friends and family after completing my first three-day fast. Okay next question—what does the book’s title mean?

The title is Transformational Fasting. It means to fast with the intention of transforming your life. The subtitle is Reconnect with Yourself, Get Healthy, and Find Your Purpose.

Reconnect with Yourself refers to the emotional healing of fasting. For example, maybe you use food to make negative feelings go away. Fasting is an opportunity to see what lies beyond those feelings.

Get Healthy is about the physical healing aspect of fasting. For example, if you have any illnesses that are troubling you, or weight you would like to lose, fasting can help in those areas.

And finally, Find Your Purpose is about the spiritual healing of fasting. For example, maybe you’d like to identify your higher purpose and begin taking steps toward fulfilling it. Fasting can help in this area too.

Thanks for breaking that down, I can tell a lot of thought went into the book’s title. For our last question, I’m curious to know—what will you write about next?

Honestly, I have no idea what I’ll write about next. I wasn’t even planning to write this book, so we’ll see!

Thanks so much for the chat, Derek!

These were great questions, thank you!

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