One Month Without Food
On the night of September 30, Hayley Ryczek and her husband went out to one of their favorite restaurants, where Ryczek sunk her teeth into a sizzling ribeye steak. When she came to the last bite, she savored it; it would be the last she would eat for a month.
The next day, Ryczek, a cookbook author and lifestyle blogger who lives near Pittsburgh, would embark on a 31-day “water fast,” during which she would consume only water, tea, seltzer, lemon juice, vitamin pills, and occasionally broth.
On the first day, she went on a six-mile hike, and the next, she prepared a spread of food for a church party. “Pretty much all day I wasn’t tempted to eat,” she wrote, “only dying for a big glass of sangria!” (She resisted; booze wasn’t part of the plan.)
If Ryczek was going to diet, she would go all the way. “I’m one of those people who set their sights on the best of the best,” she told me recently. “If you
