How fasting changed their lives: ten remarkable transformations

What if something as simple as not eating for a while could change far more than your weight?

People who practice fasting have reported some remarkable transformations.

Some lost weight they had struggled with for years. Others improved their blood sugar enough to stop taking insulin. Some experienced relief from psoriasis, arthritis, and chronic pain. Others discovered renewed energy, clearer thinking, greater emotional stability, or freedom from habits they had previously struggled to control.

Across medical case reports, clinical studies, interviews, personal diaries, and online communities, people have described improvements involving:

• Excess weight and abdominal fat
• Insulin resistance and blood glucose control
• Reduced dependence on diabetes medications
• High blood pressure and metabolic-health markers
• Fatty liver disease
• Psoriasis and persistent skin inflammation
• Rheumatoid arthritis pain and joint stiffness
• Chronic inflammation and physical discomfort
• Low energy and persistent fatigue
• Brain fog and difficulty concentrating
• Anxiety and repetitive negative thinking
• Stress and emotional reactivity
• Mental clutter and overthinking
• A desire for greater inner peace
• Emotional eating and constant food cravings
• The feeling of being controlled by hunger
• Habitual snacking and unconscious eating
• Confidence and personal discipline
• Greater awareness of thoughts and feelings
• A renewed sense of spiritual connection
• Feeling stuck in unproductive routines
• A desire to reassess life’s priorities
• The confidence gained from completing a personal challenge
• A more deliberate relationship with food and everyday life

Some of these improvements have been measured in medical studies. Others come from people describing changes they experienced themselves.

For this article, we’re interested in the people—not fasting as a collection of metabolic pathways, but as something that can make a meaningful difference in someone’s actual life.

Here are ten particularly interesting stories.

Transformations in physical health

1. Gin Stephens: losing eighty pounds and finally leaving dieting behind

Gin Stephens had spent years trying to lose weight through the familiar cycle of starting a diet, losing some weight, and eventually starting over. In 2014, she returned to intermittent fasting, shifting her focus from what she ate to when.

She settled into a five-hour daily eating window, typically starting in the afternoon. The result: roughly eighty pounds lost and kept off for years. More importantly, she found a routine she could sustain without constant rules or elaborate programs. Meals became enjoyable again within a predictable schedule.

Stephens has described changing food preferences, greater freedom around eating, and a lifestyle she expected to continue indefinitely. She later became an author and podcast host helping others explore intermittent fasting.

What began as another weight-loss attempt became a simpler, more sustainable relationship with food.

2. Three Toronto patients: from daily insulin to managing without it

In 2018, Canadian physicians reported on three men with type 2 diabetes who had taken insulin for years. Each entered a medically supervised intermittent-fasting program with repeated 24-hour fasts, dietary education, and glucose monitoring.

Within eighteen days, all three had discontinued insulin—one after just five days. Two also stopped their other diabetes medications; the third substantially reduced his. Glucose control improved, and all lost weight and reduced waist circumference. All three tolerated the fasting well, and one reported more energy and fewer cravings.

The study was small, but the outcomes were clear: three people with longstanding type 2 diabetes experienced changes significant enough for their clinicians to stop insulin.

Fasting altered their medical treatment, not just how they felt.

3. A 47-year-old man: twenty-eight years of psoriasis, then a remarkable improvement

For twenty-eight years, one man lived with severe plaque psoriasis affecting his abdomen, arms, thighs, and nails. Symptoms included thick scaly plaques, itching, bleeding, joint pain, and limited movement. Conventional treatments had not provided lasting relief.

He undertook a thirteen-day medically supervised fasting program at California’s TrueNorth Health Center. A published case report documented substantial improvement in his plaques during the intervention, supported by photographs before, after, and at follow-up. Pain from nail-bed psoriasis and arthritis also eased.

He continued a whole-plant-food diet afterward. Two months later, his lesions kept improving and no new plaques appeared. Notably, he had already tried a plant-based diet with little effect; the major change followed the fast.

A 2025 randomized trial later found favourable results when sixteen-hour intermittent fasting was added to conventional psoriasis treatment, suggesting cases like this are worth further study.

4. Eddie Orso: when years of arthritis pain disappeared during a fast

Portland musician Eddie Orso was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2012. Pain progressively affected his hands, elbows, knees, and other joints—especially problematic for someone who relied on physical coordination.

He tried a seven-day water fast. Around Day 3, the joint pain vanished. He completed the full seven days. Symptoms returned when he resumed eating, but the experience shifted his outlook: for the first time, he had lived several days without the pain he had come to expect.

Orso began exploring how food and lifestyle influenced his symptoms and made further dietary and exercise changes. He now reports substantially less pain than in his worst years.

The fast was not the final solution, but the moment that convinced him a different physical experience was possible.

Transformations in energy and peace of mind

5. Amanda Swaine: getting her daily energy back

Amanda Swaine worked in nutrition and studied stress and ageing, yet struggled with low energy and unwanted weight gain. She experimented with intermittent fasting. The early days brought hunger and fatigue, but she persisted and found an approach that suited her.

The change she valued most was not weight loss but energy—both physical and mental. She also reported fewer sugar cravings and the end of habitual snacking.

Consistent energy can make work easier, exercise more appealing, and ordinary demands less draining.

Swaine’s experience shows that people often start fasting for weight loss and discover that feeling better throughout the day matters more.

6. Jeanette Winterson: rediscovering energy, clarity, and peace

British novelist Jeanette Winterson was exhausted—travelling, finishing a book, supporting a seriously ill friend, preparing for marriage, and carrying heavy personal stress. She chose an eleven-day supervised modified fast in Germany.

The first three days were hard. On Day 4, she woke cheerful, clear-headed, and energetic. For the rest of the fast, she enjoyed long walks, reading, and concentration without the hunger she had expected. Cholesterol dropped from 7.9 to 6.2 mmol/L and persistent foot pain disappeared.

The deeper shift was psychological. Freed from shopping, cooking, eating, and cleaning up, she had time to think, read, and reflect. She experienced a profound sense of well-being and peace.

Winterson later returned to fasting and wrote about it again years afterward, treating it as a way to step back from ordinary pressures and recover a calmer state of mind.

Transformations in thoughts, habits, and self-control

7. Lisa Evers: escaping the constant noise around food

Lisa Evers, a former kindergarten teacher from Ontario, had long struggled with body image and digestive issues. Food occupied a great deal of mental space—tied to habits, self-judgment, and constant management.

She began intermittent fasting mainly for health reasons. What surprised her was the reduction in “food noise.” She no longer negotiated endlessly with herself about eating.

That mental space led her to examine patterns around body image, perfectionism, and self-worth, and eventually to leave teaching for writing children’s books and supporting others with intermittent fasting.

Evers described learning to trust herself more and loosen all-or-nothing thinking.

Reducing decisions around food created room to reconsider other parts of life as well.

8. A 24-hour faster: when repetitive negative thoughts finally quieted

In March 2022, an anonymous Reddit user described ongoing anxiety, panic, and obsessive repetitive thoughts that persisted even with medication. After trying breathing methods and cold exposure, they attempted a twenty-four-hour fast.

On a personal ten-point scale, their usual anxiety sat at six or seven with medication and ten without. After the fast, it dropped to roughly one.

The quiet was unexpected enough that they asked the fasting community whether others had similar experiences; many reported greater calm and mental control while fasting.

This was a personal account, not a clinical study. Still, for someone whose thoughts had felt inescapable, discovering that such quiet was possible proved meaningful.

Transformations in purpose and personal confidence

9. Bill MacLeod: fasting as a way to recalibrate his life

While serving on a church pastoral staff facing a difficult decision, Bill MacLeod felt deeply burdened. After a planned day of fasting and prayer, he continued into a forty-day modified fast of juices and liquids. He spent the time in prayer, reflection, and reading.

He reported greater clarity, fewer distractions, and the ability to see solutions he had previously missed. In a 2024 interview, he described how extended fasting helped him focus on spiritual questions and make important decisions.

He continued the practice for more than two decades, linking it to personal renewal and the eventual shape of the ministry he later led.

For MacLeod, fasting did not remove responsibilities; it changed how he approached them. He stepped away from food and returned with clearer priorities.

10. Daniel Bourke: discovering that he could do something difficult

Daniel Bourke had researched fasting and tried shorter eating windows but had never done a multi-day fast. Nervous about hunger, work performance, and difficulty, he decided the only way to know was to try.

In 2019, he completed a four-day fast, tracking weight, blood glucose, activities, and subjective notes. Much of what he had feared proved less dramatic.

He continued working and daily routines, though energy and comfort fluctuated. He also noticed how meals functioned as social time, breaks, and familiar rituals.

Afterward, he undertook further three- and five-day experiments.

The real gain was direct experience: moving from wondering whether he could do something difficult to knowing what happened when he tried.

What these transformations tell us

These ten people turned to fasting for different reasons—weight, diabetes control, psoriasis, arthritis pain, energy, exhaustion, food noise, anxiety, spiritual clarity, or simple curiosity.

None needed exactly the same outcome.

Success appeared as numbers on a scale or lab report for some; for others, it was the absence of pain, steadier energy, a quieter mind, or a stronger sense of self-control.

They used ordinary intermittent fasting, modified fasting, or extended water-only fasts. No single duration explains every result.

That variety is part of what makes the practice interesting: a relatively simple change in an ordinary behaviour can touch many areas of life.

Research continues to examine the physiological effects, and people keep experimenting. Personal stories keep revealing benefits that do not always fit neatly into standard medical measurements.

We do not need to answer every biological question before recognizing how meaningful some of these experiences have been.

Conclusion: sometimes a simple change leads somewhere unexpected

Fasting begins with an ordinary decision: for a period of time, you do not eat—or you eat considerably less.

The idea is simple.

Yet people have used it to transform bodies, improve health markers, regain energy, find peace or clarity, and learn something useful about themselves.

The most encouraging part of these stories is not that fasting guarantees results.

It is that people sometimes discover improvements they were not even seeking.

Gin Stephens wanted to lose weight and found a sustainable lifestyle.

Jeanette Winterson wanted relief from exhaustion and found a calmer state she returned to.

Lisa Evers changed when she ate and eventually reconsidered how she wanted to live.

Daniel Bourke began with curiosity and ended with direct experience.

Meaningful change does not always require a complicated beginning.

Sometimes it starts with a simple experiment—or with deciding not to eat lunch.

Research and references

Physical health transformations

1. Li, Natalie. Is This the ‘Fast’ Track to Better Health and Wellbeing? Institute for Optimum Nutrition. Interview with Gin Stephens. https://www.ion.ac.uk/articles/intermittent-fasting-gin-stephens

2. Furmli, Suleiman et al. (2018). Therapeutic Use of Intermittent Fasting for People With Type 2 Diabetes as an Alternative to Insulin. BMJ Case Reports. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6194375/

3. Bonjour, Matthieu et al. (2021). Prolonged Water-Only Fasting Followed by an Exclusively Whole-Plant-Food Diet in the Management of Severe Plaque Psoriasis: A Case Report. Journal of Dermatology & Clinical Research. https://www.jscimedcentral.com/journal-article-info/Journal-of%c2%a0Dermatology%c2%a0and-Clinical-Research/Prolonged-Water-only-Fasting-Followed-by-an-Exclusively-Whole-Plant-Food-Diet-in-the-Management-of-Severe-Plaque-Psoriasis:-A-Case-Report-11067

4. Neema, Shekhar et al. (2025). Efficacy of Intermittent Fasting in the Management of Chronic Plaque Psoriasis: A Phase IIb Clinical Trial. Indian Dermatology Online Journal. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12088499/

5. Paddison, Clint. Becoming Pain Free With Rheumatoid Arthritis. Interview with Eddie Orso. https://www.rheumatoidsolutions.com/becoming-pain-free-with-rheumatoid-arthritis-2/

6. Kjeldsen-Kragh, J. et al. (1991). Controlled Trial of Fasting and One-Year Vegetarian Diet in Rheumatoid Arthritis. The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/0140-6736(91)91770-U

Energy, mental well-being, and self-control

7. Institute for Optimum Nutrition. What Is Intermittent Fasting? Interview with Amanda Swaine about energy, cravings, and adopting intermittent fasting. https://www.ion.ac.uk/graduate-stories/amanda-swaine

8. Winterson, Jeanette (2015). Jeanette Winterson: Why I Fasted for 11 Days. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/11/jeanette-winterson-why-i-fasted-11-days

9. Winterson, Jeanette (2024). Our Bodies Are Incredible. That’s Why I Believe in the Power of Extended Fasting. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/03/extended-fasting-jeanette-winterson

10. Stephens, Gin (2025). Episode 468: Lisa Evers. Intermittent Fasting Stories. https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/episode-468-lisa-evers/id1440334876?i=1000710388090

11. Reddit, r/intermittentfasting (2022). How Fasting Has Affected My Anxiety in a Positive Way. First-person account of reduced anxiety and repetitive thinking during fasting. https://www.reddit.com/r/intermittentfasting/comments/thkw1m/

Spiritual and personal transformations

12. Berding, Kenneth (2024). Extended Fasting: An Interview With Bill MacLeod. Biola University, The Good Book Blog. https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2024/extended-fasting-an-interview-with-bill-macleod

13. Bourke, Daniel (2019). I Didn’t Eat Food for 4 Days, Here’s What Happened. Personal fasting experiment and diary. https://www.mrdbourke.com/4-day-fast/

14. Bourke, Daniel (2021). I Didn’t Eat Food for 3 Days, Here’s What Happened. His later fasts, including a five-day fast in 2020. https://www.mrdbourke.com/3-day-fast/

Medical note

This series is educational journalism, not personalized medical advice or a protocol for extended fasting. Prolonged fasting can have serious risks, particularly with chronic illness, certain medications, malnutrition, or abnormal electrolytes, and warrants professional medical supervision.