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Why would you think that? Do you really think all your metabolism is so fragile that a single missed meal would set it on a different course? Your body burns a

by beagle3 10y ago

Why would you think that? Do you really think all your metabolism is so fragile that a single missed meal would set it on a different course? Your body burns alcohol first, then carbs and finally fat. When you fast, you only have the last one - but you likely have enough of it for a few days (likely close to a month) before your body needs to break down muscle and convert it to carbs for fuel (gluconeogensis). It may not feel very good in the first few days, you will need a lot more electrolytes, and it will take a few days before your body is doing it perfectly; fasting puts you into ketosis, with all that entails. When I fast, I make sure to exercise more than usual, and especially cover all muscle groups (which I don't religiously do when exercising for fun). It is my experience that my body will keep muscles i use, but not keep those I don't. YMMV. Also, listen to your body but do not extrapolate; the first two days of full fast may seem impossible, and if you extrapolate them to a full week may seem like certain death or madness; but after 48 hours or so, there's a phase change. I stop when I start feeling hungry - usually after a week or so, but once or twice after a month.

shanusmagnus 10y ago
You've fasted for a month once or twice, do I read that right? Did you do any kind of write-up about it, a blog, anything? Very interested in your experiences.
- SteveCoast 10y ago
  Not OP, but FYI people do this all the time on /r/fasting on reddit.
- bjterry 10y ago
  You may be interested in this case study of a man who underwent a 382-day medically supervised water fast. He lost 276 lb (from 456 to 180 lb). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/
- beagle3 10y ago
  Indeed - and another handful of week-to-three fasts. No, I did not do any write-up. /r/fasting and /r/keto will probably satisfy your curiosity, but I will mention the following which are not entirely common (or not commonly described): . my B12 normalized from "very low, needs supplements monthly" which it had been in for 6-7 years at that point, to "slightly above normal without any supplement", and is still there some 20 years later. . libido went away for the fast, but came back later . felt perfect, exercised, etc, but friend observed that I was moving much more economically - e.g. that I was lifting my feet only about 2mm above ground while walking. I didn't notice that until he did.
usaphp 10y ago
> I stop when I start feeling hungry - usually after a week or so, but once or twice after a month. So first 5 days of your fast you don't feel hungry at all? What was the reason you started to fast? I just wonder if there is any benefit of it for someone who eats healthy food, has no extra weight and good energy levels? It seems like most of these researchers are focused on already sick people and don't provide any data on healthy individuals, unless I am missing something, I don't see a reason to "reset" my immune system since it seems to be working fine.
- SteveCoast 10y ago
  Most people feel worst around day 2/3 when transitioning from glycogen to ketosis, after that you feel great. Why should you fast if you eat healthy and have no extra weight? Two reasons: 1) What most people think is healthy is killing them. Even if someone eats paleo or keto, which are much closer to our ideal diet than anything else, they will still do things like eat a corn-fed steak. Corn-fed meat and fish is low in omega-3 and high in omega-6 and both of these things are very bad for you (omega-3 deficiency is the root dietary cause of depression as just one example). Yet, people think "I'm eating healthy". 2) Metabolically challenged cells are a definition of cancer cells. When doctors think your cancer may be metastatic they give you a PET scan. A PET scan measures the emission of positrons out of some radioactive glucose you're given. The glucose is disproportionately taken up by cancer cells for a couple of reasons, one is that they can't process ketones. Then they show you cool pictures of where the positron-emitting glucose is in your body, which is where the tumors are. If you fast, your glucose is low and those cells don't survive since there is no glucose. See 'Cancer as a Metabolic Disease' by Seyfried. [warning: The above is not medical orthodoxy, but then medical orthodoxy hasn't made any progress on cancer in ~60 years]
  - usaphp 10y ago
    Thanks for the answer. In the first reason to fast you are saying that people don't get omega 3 from corn fed steak. But when you fast you don't get that either? How is that a reason to fast then? I just feel like most people going into fasting because they have some health issue and try to fix it by doing fasting (I am not saying it does not work for them), I am trying to find someone who did not feel any problems and started fasting out of curiosity and see how it benefited them. It's like having a bucket of water, when you eat it gets filled , then your body uses some of the water for energy. If you don't overeat the level of water in the bucket is always at the same, when you consistently overeat it overflows. When you fast - you can use the excess water you stored while overeating, it might be ok first couple years, but as since you are now eating less and your body uses water from a bucket more then you add to it - could it be that you will end up with an empty bucket at one point?
beaconstudios 10y ago
> but you likely have enough of it for a few days (likely close to a month) before your body needs to break down muscle and convert it to carbs for fuel (gluconeogensis). That's not actually true, from my understanding. The body burns more fat than muscle, but muscle will still be burned if you are at a caloric deficit. I'd need to do some research to provide you with a good citation but this is something I've read about on multiple occasions while researching the keto diet (which I'm on currently).
- ZeroFries 10y ago
  Are you sure its muscle, and not a loss of LBM due to water/glycogen?
darthmaule2 10y ago
> you will need a lot more electrolytes How do you get those electrolytes if you are fasting?
- SteveCoast 10y ago
  The typical way is some sort of homemade bone broth, since store-bought broth is usually just colored water. Some people will use zero calorie sports nutrition drinks or some kind of magnesium and/or sodium pill (since it's not just NaCl you're losing when fasting).
- beagle3 10y ago
  I added a quarter of a teaspoon of salt to water everyday, and took some magnesium pills every few days. Did not supplement potassium, though common sense says I should have.
fpoling 10y ago
Ray Cronies, the author of hypothermics.com , did 24 day fast while properly measuring what body uses for fuel. It turned out that it was only fat with no any significant muscle loss. This matches from what I read experience of people doing even longer fasts for medical reasons. The moment when body runs out of fat reserves happens after about 40-60 days of fasting when one starts to feel very strong or even uncontrollable hunger.

by beagle3 10y ago

shanusmagnus 10y ago

You've fasted for a month once or twice, do I read that right? Did you do any kind of write-up about it, a blog, anything? Very interested in your experiences.

SteveCoast 10y ago
Not OP, but FYI people do this all the time on /r/fasting on reddit.
bjterry 10y ago
You may be interested in this case study of a man who underwent a 382-day medically supervised water fast. He lost 276 lb (from 456 to 180 lb). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/
beagle3 10y ago
Indeed - and another handful of week-to-three fasts. No, I did not do any write-up. /r/fasting and /r/keto will probably satisfy your curiosity, but I will mention the following which are not entirely common (or not commonly described): . my B12 normalized from "very low, needs supplements monthly" which it had been in for 6-7 years at that point, to "slightly above normal without any supplement", and is still there some 20 years later. . libido went away for the fast, but came back later . felt perfect, exercised, etc, but friend observed that I was moving much more economically - e.g. that I was lifting my feet only about 2mm above ground while walking. I didn't notice that until he did.

usaphp 10y ago

> I stop when I start feeling hungry - usually after a week or so, but once or twice after a month. So first 5 days of your fast you don't feel hungry at all? What was the reason you started to fast? I just wonder if there is any benefit of it for someone who eats healthy food, has no extra weight and good energy levels? It seems like most of these researchers are focused on already sick people and don't provide any data on healthy individuals, unless I am missing something, I don't see a reason to "reset" my immune system since it seems to be working fine.

SteveCoast 10y ago
Most people feel worst around day 2/3 when transitioning from glycogen to ketosis, after that you feel great. Why should you fast if you eat healthy and have no extra weight? Two reasons: 1) What most people think is healthy is killing them. Even if someone eats paleo or keto, which are much closer to our ideal diet than anything else, they will still do things like eat a corn-fed steak. Corn-fed meat and fish is low in omega-3 and high in omega-6 and both of these things are very bad for you (omega-3 deficiency is the root dietary cause of depression as just one example). Yet, people think "I'm eating healthy". 2) Metabolically challenged cells are a definition of cancer cells. When doctors think your cancer may be metastatic they give you a PET scan. A PET scan measures the emission of positrons out of some radioactive glucose you're given. The glucose is disproportionately taken up by cancer cells for a couple of reasons, one is that they can't process ketones. Then they show you cool pictures of where the positron-emitting glucose is in your body, which is where the tumors are. If you fast, your glucose is low and those cells don't survive since there is no glucose. See 'Cancer as a Metabolic Disease' by Seyfried. [warning: The above is not medical orthodoxy, but then medical orthodoxy hasn't made any progress on cancer in ~60 years]
- usaphp 10y ago
  Thanks for the answer. In the first reason to fast you are saying that people don't get omega 3 from corn fed steak. But when you fast you don't get that either? How is that a reason to fast then? I just feel like most people going into fasting because they have some health issue and try to fix it by doing fasting (I am not saying it does not work for them), I am trying to find someone who did not feel any problems and started fasting out of curiosity and see how it benefited them. It's like having a bucket of water, when you eat it gets filled , then your body uses some of the water for energy. If you don't overeat the level of water in the bucket is always at the same, when you consistently overeat it overflows. When you fast - you can use the excess water you stored while overeating, it might be ok first couple years, but as since you are now eating less and your body uses water from a bucket more then you add to it - could it be that you will end up with an empty bucket at one point?

beaconstudios 10y ago

> but you likely have enough of it for a few days (likely close to a month) before your body needs to break down muscle and convert it to carbs for fuel (gluconeogensis). That's not actually true, from my understanding. The body burns more fat than muscle, but muscle will still be burned if you are at a caloric deficit. I'd need to do some research to provide you with a good citation but this is something I've read about on multiple occasions while researching the keto diet (which I'm on currently).

ZeroFries 10y ago
Are you sure its muscle, and not a loss of LBM due to water/glycogen?

darthmaule2 10y ago

> you will need a lot more electrolytes How do you get those electrolytes if you are fasting?

SteveCoast 10y ago
The typical way is some sort of homemade bone broth, since store-bought broth is usually just colored water. Some people will use zero calorie sports nutrition drinks or some kind of magnesium and/or sodium pill (since it's not just NaCl you're losing when fasting).
beagle3 10y ago
I added a quarter of a teaspoon of salt to water everyday, and took some magnesium pills every few days. Did not supplement potassium, though common sense says I should have.

fpoling 10y ago

Ray Cronies, the author of hypothermics.com , did 24 day fast while properly measuring what body uses for fuel. It turned out that it was only fat with no any significant muscle loss. This matches from what I read experience of people doing even longer fasts for medical reasons. The moment when body runs out of fat reserves happens after about 40-60 days of fasting when one starts to feel very strong or even uncontrollable hunger.