Dry Fasting for 11 Days: Insanity or Ultimate Healing?

Testing the limits of human survival to reverse chronic illness.

I wouldn’t call myself high-maintenance, but let’s just say I travel with my own pillow. And it has a silk pillowcase. That I got on GOOP. So, it might strike some of you—particularly those of you who know me personally—as somewhere between incongruous and batshit crazy that I’m about to embark on a month-long dry fasting retreat at an off-season resort in Montenegro that doesn’t accept credit cards.

There’s a lot to unpack here. For you and me both.

For starters, where, even, IS Montenegro? I had to google it. Oh, right. There it is. Nestled between Serbia, Albania, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Cool. Got it. (😬)

Next: Dry fasting. What does that mean? Let me break it down. No food. No water. For days. Many days. Somewhere between nine and eleven, depending on how things go.

I can already hear the collective gasp. “But that’s impossible! You’ll die without water in three days!” Except… no, I won’t. Because I recently completed a three-day dry fast, and—spoiler alert— here I am.

That said, three days is one thing. Nine to eleven is another. Which is why, this Saturday, I’m traveling from NYC to Buljarica (which is not on my iphone weather app) to join 29 other people in a supervised dry fasting retreat overseen by a doctor. And not just any doctor. The doctor of dry fasting: the great Dr. Sergei Filinov.

But wait. There’s more. It’s not all masochistic self-denial. Beyond the fasting part, we’ll all be walking 10 kilometers a day, practicing yoga and meditation, getting therapeutic body treatments (you have to pay extra for leeches), writing in our gratitude journals, and attending lectures on deep healing in this new (to me) but very old-fashioned modality. And when I say “very old,” we’re talking Moses, Mohammed, Buddha. 

We’re also talking about Michelle Slater—a very modern practitioner of dry fasting—whose book, Starving to Heal in Siberia, changed my life this past December.

Like Michelle, I have late-stage Lyme disease. But, as anyone with autoimmune disorders knows, one diagnosis is never enough. No, we like to collect them like Pokémon cards from healthcare hell—gut issues, neurological symptoms, brain fog, immune dysfunction, chemical sensitivities, vertigo, chronic fatigue. The layers upon layers of Lyme-related disorders could fill a crock pot. (I’m already hungry and I haven’t even started packing yet!).

For me, the final health insult that forced me to this radical protocol was Meniere’s disease. If you’ve never heard of it—good for you. If you have, I’m so, so sorry. It’s like your inner ear decides to rebel against your existence, causing violent spinning, uncontrollable vomiting, hearing loss, and full-body meltdowns. It strikes without warning, like epilepsy. It’s like being drunk, poisoned, and thrown into a washing machine at the same time.

By this past December, my entire life had disintegrated. Career? Gone. Social life? Nonexistent. Sanity? Questionable. Bank account? Drained from thousands and thousands of dollars spent on uninsured treatments—none of which worked.

Then, I found Michelle’s book.

“This woman cured herself,” I told my husband, turning through the pages of her book like they were on fire. “She didn’t just treat her symptoms. She cured herself. Like, no more Lyme. No more anything.”

For the first time in years, I felt something foreign: hope.

Hope that I wouldn’t need any more IVs, supplements, protocols, experimental treatments. Hope that I could heal without going bankrupt. Hope that the answer to my health nightmare was, paradoxically, doing absolutely nothing.

The more I researched, the more convinced I became. Dry fasting, I learned, isn’t just about starvation. When the body is deprived of food and water, it triggers an extreme survival mechanism called autophagy—where your body starts breaking down its own damaged and diseased cells. It’s like a deep-clean for your insides, Marie Kondo-ing out all the diseased junk that not only doesn’t spark joy, it destroys it.

 I looked at my husband. We were both thinking the same thing. Could I actually do this?

I adore food. Cherish my morning latte. Strive for those eight glasses of water a day. My husband and I savor long meals together, enjoying wine, conversation. I’ve never even made it through Yom Kippur without cheating with a cup of coffee. When you dry-fast, you can’t even brush your teeth.

It sounded impossible but I was desperate. So, I did what any desperate person does: I reasoned with myself. My thought process: Let’s say I do the fasts… the three consecutive fasts it took Michelle Slater to be cured… and let’s say they’re excruciating. Let’s say it takes me three—even four months of suffering before I get through it all. Do four terrible months matter if they mean that the rest of my life could be spent in good health?

We all know the answer to that.

But reason alone didn’t get me to sign away my rights to food and water for the better part of a month. My husband and I did our due diligence. We researched the doctor leading the retreat—he’s legitimate. We read testimonials from past participants—many of whom reversed severe illnesses. Then, my husband found the Montenegro retreat.

“In fact,” he said, “you can do two retreats, back-to-back.”

I didn’t hesitate. I signed up. I paid the deposit. And then—boom. The plot thickened.

To go on the retreat, I’d have to complete a 25-day cleanse first. This included a five-day water fast and a three-day dry fast and enough coffee enemas to send a rhino to outerspace. If I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t be allowed to go.

I panicked. It all seemed impossible. But then… I did it. One step at a time. A lot of coffee was spilled, but that’s for another post. The bottom line is that I amazed myself with each accomplished goal.

And now, here I am. Packing my duffle bag. Preparing to board a plane to Montenegro. And yes, my pillow and its silk pillowcase are coming with me.

Why? Because hope is a powerful motivator. So is the promise of a future without illness.

If I make it through this, I will earn the title health warrior. I will earn back my life and the pleasures I have lost. I will show my two children that when everything is taken from you, the only thing left is to keep going until you find your way through.

But this? This is just pep talk. To keep me motivated. Which is all I’ve got right now. So, I’m sticking to it.

Follow me on this journey. I’ll be writing as many missives from the field as both time and my lack of food will allow. Millions of people suffer from chronic autoimmune disease, or love someone who does. Who knows? There may be lessons in my journey for you, too.

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