In the first long fast in the Church year, in order to spend it with benefit for your spirit, soul and body, it is important to remember the very essence of fasting, its essential components and main fruits.
Artist: Alexander Alyoshin
The essence of fasting
In essence, 
St. Seraphim on Fasting and Guarding the MindHoly people did not begin a strict fast suddenly; they gradually, little-by-little made themselves capable of being satisfied with the poorest foods.
“>fasting is a special time established by the Church for Christians to work hard on our salvation for Christ’s sake.
The time of fasting differs from the rest of the Church year in intensity and a greater amount of ascetic work.
The content of the fast
Working on self-improvement during a fasting period involves intensified threefold spiritual, mental and bodily work, since man is threefold and consists of the spirit, the soul and the body.1
Spiritual labor includes, firstly, thorough studying Divine Revelation, through which God addresses man; secondly, attentive prayer, through which Christians respond to God by getting into spiritual contact with Him; thirdly, regular, systematic participation in the sacraments of confession and Communion, which by the grace of God unite every Christian with Christ; fourthly, exercising in sobriety, or spiritual discernment, through which the Christian learns to distinguish thoughts that come into his mind by their source and consequences, rejecting evil ones and accepting good ones; fifthly, charitable acts, which show love for God and your neighbor in practice.
Through all these ways and means the believer becomes open to receiving or acquiring the grace of God that sanctifies him and is poured out through the spirit on his soul and body, making him a temple of the Holy Spirit, giving him strength to resist sin and follow the righteous path of serving God and his neighbor.2
Mental labor presupposes, on the one hand, the saturation and filling of the mind with kind and pious thoughts, the will—with good desires, emotions—with pure and holy feelings; on the other hand, the abstinence of the mind from false and vain ideas, the will—from sinful and worldly desires, and the emotions—from bad and evil feelings and impressions.
The bodily labor is expressed in subordination of the body to the soul and the spirit, which, in turn, obey God and fulfill His will. For this purpose the body gets weaker, thinner and lighter through abstaining from animal products, sometimes through hunger, avoiding sensual pleasures (the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes (cf. 1 Jn. 2:16)), physical ascetic exercises (bows, prostrations), physical labor, and patient endurance of illness and suffering.
Thanks to all these mental and bodily ways and means the Christian is freed from the power of this world, from addictions and attachments to a futile earthly existence for the sake of the love of God, according to the Gospel words:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world (1 Jn. 2:15–16).
Thus, during the fast the faithful make efforts to heal themselves in the image and likeness of God, restoring the original hierarchy of the whole human being: his spirit, soul and body—united, ordered, filled with and sanctified by the grace of God.3
The hierarchy of the fast
In fasting, as at all other times, the spiritual must be put first, the mental second, and the bodily third. Fasting is, first of all, spiritual labor, then mental efforts, and only then is it bodily abstinence.
It is unacceptable to reduce fasting exclusively to bodily abstinence, ignoring its spiritual and mental components, preferring bodily abstinence to mental and spiritual work. The lower, bodily component of fasting should always be subordinate to the higher ones—the mental and the spiritual.
If the spiritual and the mental components of fasting are always unchangeable and obligatory for all believers, then the bodily one is relative and variable, since it depends on the age, physical health and capabilities of the human body.
Young and adult healthy people can keep physical fast in full, strictly and according to the Typicon. For other categories of the faithful the Church provides various forms of relaxation of the bodily fast, which depend on the age and medical condition of every individual. For example, people suffering from serious illness, when there is a real threat to their health, are fully exempt from abstaining from non-fasting food. Instead, they patiently endure suffering and sorrows.
Therefore, according to the Apostle Paul,
Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him… He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks (Rom. 14; 3, 6).
Freedom of fasting
When fasting is reduced exclusively to bodily abstinence, it loses its positive content, turning into a list of prohibitions, into an endless “thou shalt not” and heavy burdens and grievous to be borne (Mt. 23:4). When fasting is observed as a spiritual, mental and bodily feat—that is, it retains its full meaning, then the spiritual and mental “you can” is given top priority, which makes fasting a “spiritual spring”.4
Fasting is not about restriction and lack of freedom, as many perceive it, but about the ample opportunity to get to know the Truth and the freedom that stems from this knowledge.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (Jn. 8:31-32).
True, during the fast the body and the soul restrict themselves, but it is done only in order to give full freedom to the spirit and the fundamental powers of the soul.
The motivation of fasting
In order for fasting to be genuine and salvific, all this spiritual, mental and bodily work must be performed for Christ’s sake. It means that the only motivation of the Christian must be the desire to please the Lord, the striving to fulfill His will and the determination to become absolutely like Him in his way of life.5
You should not observe the fast for yourself, for someone or something else, but solely for the sake of the Lord. Otherwise, it is a substitute for fasting, a falsification and distortion, when formally, outwardly, it seems to be observed, but in essence it is not.
Distortions of fasting
Unfortunately, for many people fasting is often distorted into a diet or (not so often, but for some) into a means of “ascetic” self–affirmation and vanity. As a result, it ceases to be a way of saving the Christian’s soul and a path leading to the Heavenly Kingdom, turning into a mere vain earthly pursuit.
True fasting should fulfill the function of moving the Christian away from this world, and not attaching him to worldly vanity. The latter happens when we subordinate fasting to our earthly interests—cleansing the body, losing weight, saving money, the desire to impress others, etc.
In many ways, thanks to fasting Christians fulfill Christ’s call to be in the world, but not of the world (cf. Jn. 15:19). Fasting focuses all the attention of the believer on what the Holy Fathers called Divine contemplation and knowledge of God—in other words, a longing for the Kingdom of God.
The fruits of fasting
When fasting is observed properly, then by the grace of God the passions of 
On Battling PrideGod is our life, our strength, our Judge!
“>pride, 
St. John Cassian’s Institutes: On VaingloryHow our seventh combat is against the spirit of vainglory, and what its nature is.”>vainglory, self-justification, 
Judging: How to War With ItIf we take a look at ourselves and try to see our own inclinations, then we can easily see that we already have a steady habit formed of judging.”>judging and self-will are rooted out from the Christian, and instead of them the virtues of humility, meekness, repentance and obedience take root. Fasting is meant for us to be a time of struggle against sinful habits and of the development and affirmation of pious ones.
These virtues are true, genuine fruits of fasting. If there are no such fruits, it means that fasting has been useless for the person, and some serious mistakes have been made during its observation.
A spiritual self-examination
So, in order for fasting to be saving and fruitful, at its beginning every believer should conduct a spiritual self-examination by answering the following questions:
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What is the essence of fasting?
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What are its main components?
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What are their order and correlation?
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Who and what should we keep the fast for?
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What are the main tasks and the ultimate aim of fasting?
By answering these questions truthfully and honestly, we will be able to work our salvation consciously, soberly, responsibly, properly and fruitfully during the joyful time of fasting.6