#757. The Daniel Fast.

I don’t know if a fast can be considered “hot,” but dang, that Daniel Fast is on fire.

It kind of feels like saying a book of the Bible is blowing up. Like out of nowhere Joel is getting ridiculous buzz. But it’s true. The Daniel Fast is like the Lady Gaga of fasts right now. Non stop hits. I’m not sure if it is competing against other fasts but if it is, game over. Game over Daniel Fast.

I haven’t done it yet but it seems pretty simple. It’s a fast where you attempt to mirror the type of diet Daniel ate in the Bible. I might try it at some point, I’m thinking about it, but before I do, I have a few questions now that I’ve had friends abstain from sugar and meat and other things for a few weeks.

1. Is it bad that I really look forward to people who tweet about the fast?

I know the Bible says we’re not supposed to tell people about our fasts. There’s a verse that says if you do that, you get the praise of men, not the reward of God. But hear me out, in addition to the praise of men, you also get the retweet of Jon. I will retweet a really good Daniel Fast tweet. So if you want to tell me about your fast, please do. I am dead serious when I say that I am following Carlos Whitaker’s Daniel Fast updates like an episode of Lost. That dude is the real deal and I find myself caught up in the drama of it all. Is he going to cave while on the road promoting his album? Is he really microwaving brown tofu in Oklahoma? Will Jelly Belly jelly beans be his undoing? I am not lying when I say I am down with Daniel Fast tweets.

2. Is there no lobster?

There’s a mural at a church I used to go to. In the painting, a misshapen, kind of lumpy faced Daniel figure is shot blocking a lobster that someone is offering him. For the longest time, this led me to believe that mainly, Daniel had to abstain from lobster. Which I’m kind of already doing. So shoot me straight, if I don’t eat lobster and hey, I’ll even throw in snow crab legs, can I be named some sort of honorary Daniel Fast member? Kind of like how they give famous people honorary degrees at colleges if they come do the commencement speech?

3. Until there’s a lion pit involved I refuse to officially recognize your Daniel Fast.

You didn’t eat candy bars for a whole month? Whoa, let me capture that right here with my invisible typewriter. (Chief Wiggum reference.) I’ll admit that I don’t know all the details of the Daniel Fast because sometimes, Google won’t finish my thoughts when I type them and it’s just exhausting to type whole words. But the standard Daniel Fast doesn’t sound that hard. Spend the night in a lion pit and we’ll talk. Jump in with some big cats and we’ll get down to business my friend.

4. Are you at all interested in my Jonah Fast?

It’s like the Daniel Fast except you go inside the belly of a fish and don’t eat anything for a few days. And then when you come out, you’re kind of a jerk and you hate Ninevah. Sounds great right? (I was not able to get a big fish, so we’re going to use catfish. And you can’t get your whole body in a catfish so you’ll just use your arm. And now I’ve invented the sport of noodling.)

5. Will I get hit by lightning if I accuse the Daniel Fast of jumping the shark?

Can a fast jump the shark? I mean, let’s be honest, it’s not like there’s a verse in Daniel that says, “here’s how to do the Daniel Fast.” So I don’t feel like we’d be called heretics if we said the fast had jumped the shark. It’s not Biblical. And I’m not saying it has yet, but it’s teetering my friend. It is teetering.

6. Can you use a microwave?

OK fine, you don’t want to jump into a lion pit. I can understand that. But what about the microwave, can you honestly say that you’re really on a Daniel Fast if you’re microwaving your food? I’m not going to lie, I haven’t studied Daniel that closely so if he had a microwave, if there’s a verse that says, “Thus Daniel nukethed thou foodeth” then please, accept my apology. But otherwise, if you try to do a Daniel Fast with a microwave or blender, I just don’t feel like it counts.

My wife and I will probably do the fast at some point in the future. We did the South Beach diet once and other than a ricotta dish that was passed off as “dessert,” it was a pretty good experience.

But now I’ve compared a fast to a diet, which can’t be good. I need to stop right now.

Have you done the Daniel Fast?

Has anyone you know done it?

Have you ever fasted?