Topic: Fasting

[BlackLight]

Anyone do it? I don't think I've ever intentionally gone a full day without eating in my life. Last night, I decided to give it a whirl, and now I'm at Hour 23. I downloaded Zero to my phone, and I'm going to see how long I can push it with nothing but Smartwater (for the electrolytes).

[BlackLight]

Hour 48 - awful headache for most of Day 2. Hunger much worse today than yesterday, but I half-expected this. I've been an accidental intermittent faster for years, so going most of a day without eating is no sweat, but right around Hour 30, my body was all like, "Dude, wtf?"

People say Day 3 is like, "Holy God, this feels amazing! I will never sully my temple with caloric trash agayn!" So, we'll see.

[Prime]

Might I ask why you're fasting? Weight-loss? Or other?

[BlackLight]

Might I ask why you're fasting? Weight-loss? Or other?

Pretty much all of the above. I like the idea of testing myself this way. There have been some reasonably well documented reports of how managed autophagy is good for you, as well as cleaning out your system. I also need to drop some weight, and wanted to use a prolonged fast as an on-ramp to that. It's difficult for me to go from a terrible diet to a good one in a single day - nutritious food just seems so unappealing coming on the heels of a diet of tasty junkfood. My hope is that a long fast can be a thorough palate cleanser. Also I've heard it reduces "inflammation," but you'd be surprised how difficult it is to get a clear understanding of what that is.

Anyway, Day 3 is in the books. As anticipated, a much easier ride - headache barely noticeable and hunger cravings greatly reduced. Tomorrow will be my first day back at work since I started.

[BlackLight]

Day 4 - easiest day yet. Felt a food trigger when I was coming home from work, as this is the time I typically eat something, but I powered through.

[Prime]

I jumped on the keto bandwagon, and I lost 100 lbs on the nose in 8 months. Zero exercise. The thing I like about it is you really don't have to give up a lot of the tasty stuff.

Cut out the starches - pasta, bread, regular pizza, potatoes, etc. You want pizza? Cauliflower crust pizzas are really good. Love burgers? Cut out the bun.

There's all kinds of little switches you can make like that to adjust and still have foods you love.

One of my staff has done the fasting thing, but he does the intermittent fast. He eats for one hour a day and that's it. It seems to have worked well, although he exercises a bunch too.

[BlackLight]

Day 5 - started out kinda rough, but smoothed out mid-day. One interesting quirk - I ate little but junkfood leading up to the start of this, but for some reason, the food I'm fixating on now for my first wheel whenever this thing is over is a Chicken Caesar Salad.


Onward.

[dam skippy]

I've faster, 2 days at most for spiritual reasons. Hang in there. 

[Beer_Baron]

During the first 6 weeks or so of lockdown, I was essentially intermittent fasting. But it was mainly because I went from a bodybuilding diet, 4 days a week at the gym and 1 or 2 days snowboarding so I was burning a lot of calories. Then once the ski hill and the gym closed, my metabolism was in high gear but my caloric output dropped off a high cliff. So after a few days of isolating and not exercising, my appetite basically disappeared and I was eating one meal per day, or occasionally not even a proper meal.
But now that I'm back to work full time, and I've returned to a more stable sleeping schedule, it's really hard to skip any meals because of the physical nature of my job.

[BlackLight]

Day 6 - I ordered some supplements for Sodium, Potassium, and Magnesium off Amazon. The water I'm drinking claims to have these electrolytes included, but from what I gather, not nearly enough for what my body would need if I were trying at all.

I looked it up, the longest water fast on record was 382 days, by a guy back in 1965-66. He lost 276 lbs in that span. I'll weigh myself tomorrow night and see what the damage is, with one week in the books.

[BlackLight]

168 hours down. Tipped the scales 17 lbs lighter than I did a week ago. And that's with about 8-9 lbs of excess hair on my head (LA County just gave the all-clear to re-open barbershops).


Everyone's saying the first meal out of a fast should be bone broth.

[BlackLight]

Day 9 - odd side effect of extended water fasting - there's a gross white film coating my tongue. Supposedly this is associated with bad breath that smells like acetone, but I can't smell my own breath, so I don't know if that tracks.

[BlackLight]

Day 12 - Had my first helping of water with sodium/potassium solution. Four sips and I was dry-heaving into a nearby trashcan. I hope I can build up a tolerance to this.

[BlackLight]

Day 14 weigh in - lost 8 pounds last week, 25 in total.

[BlackLight]

Day 15 - TMI alert - if anyone was ever wondering how long undigested food can sit inside your system before being expelled, the answer is at least two weeks.

[BlackLight]

Day 19 - Started taking a multivitamin. Dealing with brutal dry-mouth when I wake up in the morning. Also chronic heartburn. Bleh.

[BlackLight]

Day 21 - Lost another 5 lbs in the past week, 30 lbs total.


The heartburn has largely gone away, I think the multi-vitamin helped.

[BlackLight]

Day 25 - went to the gym. Did cardio, chest and biceps. Haven't lifted in forever, so anticipating debilitating soreness in the next few days.

[BlackLight]

Day 28 - Down eight more pounds this week, 38 in total.

Starting to think about shutting this down, maybe converting to Alternate Day Fasting. The last couple days have been a little rough. The salt water continues to give me problems - dry-heaving and puking up water/stomach bile is arguably worse than puking up real food. Will see how this goes. I may give the fast another week to really set my plans and figure how much liberty I want to give myself on feed days.

[BlackLight]

So the water fast is officially done - 721 hours (just over 30 days) later. I heated up some beef broth in my brand new saucepan on my brand new hotplate. Decided I just couldn't keep up trying to down salt water on a daily basis to get my electrolytes, and I was starting to feel pretty wonky. Will see if I can keep it going with a broth fast - I have chicken broth at the ready for tomorrow - the beef broth was pretty good.

[Prime]

That is pretty incredible. I don't know how you do it.

[BlackLight]

That is pretty incredible. I don't know how you do it.

Jerry Seinfeld has a great quote - he said it on a Stern interview years ago. Basically, it comes down to finding the tortures in life that you're comfortable with. And mastery comes from finding out what they are, and working within them. And it's different for all of us.

For whatever reason, I appear mentally predisposed to endure privation. By contrast, eating a moderate, sensible, healthy diet, day after day, is extremely difficult.

[BlackLight]

Day 35 - Down another 6 pounds this past week, 44 in total.

[Horsehead]

cray cray

[BlackLight]

Day 42 - Down another 8 lbs, 52 in total.