On not eating, while riding.

Sydney to Geelong, ferry across the Bass Strait, into Tasmania. Days one to nine of a thirty-day fast. The reasons, the risks, and the line.

The petrol station is the one outside Goulburn that has the bain-marie pies under the red heat lamp at eleven in the morning. Day three. Black coffee in a paper cup, an electrolyte sachet stirred into a water bottle, the strange clarity of being underfed and over-caffeinated. The pie smell, which on day one would have ended the experiment, registers now as information rather than temptation. Not yet, anyway.

The experiment, plainly stated: thirty days, no food. Water, black coffee, plain tea, sugar-free electrolytes. Begun on the morning I left Sydney for the Spirit of Tasmania at Geelong, so the fast and the trip start the same day and finish, more or less, on the same day. Documented as I go. I am not a doctor. I am not recommending this. I am writing down what I did and what it felt like.

The reasons, in the order they actually came to me. The first was a city-habits reset — the late-night cheese, the snack drawer, the half-conscious eating that had become part of the day’s scaffolding. The pattern had got automatic enough that breaking it through willpower in the kitchen was no longer working. The road, and an empty pannier, would force the issue.

The second was autophagy — the body’s housekeeping process that ramps up somewhere around the third or fourth day of an extended fast, where cells start recycling their own damaged components for fuel. The science is real, the long-term effects are still being sorted out, and the wellness internet has done it no favours by overselling it. I am naming it because it’s a real reason, not because it’s a guarantee.

The third is the longevity argument. I would like to be a kick-arse hundred-year-old. Not a frail one. The evidence on caloric restriction and intermittent fasting in long-lived populations is suggestive enough to take seriously, even if it’s not yet settled. The fourth is the relationship with food itself — what hunger actually feels like when it’s undressed and not immediately answered. Most of what we call hunger, it turns out, is something else. The fifth is discipline as an end in itself; the practice of holding a line you have drawn for yourself, in the face of every reason to step over it. The sixth, and probably the most honest, is curiosity. The body is a system. This is an experiment on the system.

I am not recommending this. I am documenting it.

The risks, named flatly, because pretending they aren’t there would be dishonest. Muscle fatigue is real and measurable from about day five. Blood pressure drops, sometimes fast, when you stand up. Reaction time slows; a split-second matters on dirt; on a Himalayan in the wet on a forest track that matters more than usual. Combining a thirty-day fast with adventure motorcycling is unequivocally adding risk on top of risk. The safety stance I set for myself before leaving was simple: monitor closely, write down how I feel each morning, and pull the pin the moment it stops feeling safe. Not negotiate with the pin. Pull it. The fast is not worth a hospital visit. Putting that on the page so the reader knows.

The first nine days, in texture. Day one was easy in the way the first day of anything is easy — novelty does the work. Day two the headache came in around three in the afternoon and stayed until I drank an extra litre of water with salt. Day three the hunger came in waves, not lines — ghrelin spikes, the body chemically asking, and then forgetting, and then asking again about an hour later. Day four was the hardest. A genuine low. Cold hands, dull head, a long flat hour outside Yass where I considered ending the experiment, and then didn’t, and then ate nothing, and then felt better.

By day six the head was clear in a way I had not felt in years. Not energetic. Clear. The mental noise that I had assumed was just the noise of being alive turned out to be the noise of digestion plus blood-sugar plus caffeine cycles, and most of it had quietened. Day seven I dreamt about toast in unembarrassing detail. Day eight, nothing notable. Day nine, the one I’m writing this on, the body has settled into the fact that food is not coming and has stopped asking as often.

The riding observation is the one I did not expect. The body uses fewer cycles on digestion when there is nothing to digest, and the head, in turn, is quieter. Quieter is not always better. Quieter can be slower — reaction time on the gravel needs honest attention, and I have backed off the speed I would normally ride at by maybe ten per cent. But on the long flat stretches, the sustained focus on the road is easier than it has ever been. The road becomes the only thing.

The slow turn is hunger as a teacher. What hunger turns out to tell you, when you listen to it for nine days instead of answering it in nine minutes, is mostly how much of what you were eating you didn’t actually need. The drawer was a habit. The cheese was a habit. The 11pm bowl of something was a habit. The body, given the chance, sorts its own list. It is a less negotiable list than I expected.

I will write the second half when the second half is done. The disclaimer stands. I am not recommending this. I am documenting it. If you are thinking about doing something like this, talk to a doctor first, and do not combine it with anything that requires a split-second.

The kettle boiled. The cup got hot water in it and nothing else. The sun came up over the highway.

A written companion to I stopped eating for thirty days while riding across Australia — Episode 6 on the Motorcycle Seat Wisdom YouTube channel.