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I rather disagree with that short fasting time. The only real hard day is the first one; so just doing two days is a 'bad deal' I find, you get most of the inco

I rather disagree with that short fasting time. The only real hard day is the first one; so just doing two days is a 'bad deal' I find, you get most of the inconvenient (the first day), and very little in terms of benefits. By the second day you are no longer hungry anyway, so why stop? Perhaps there's lots of research telling you otherwise, but in my case, if I switch my body and mindset into 'fast' mode, I do it fully. The reason I prefer fasting vs any other calories reducing diets is that it's /binary/ and I don't have to count silly calories. I think a good 'short' fast is 3 days, and up to 5 in my case, simply because I can fit it into a working week and have a fantastic meal on the friday evening. The other thing to note is that the 3 and 4th days (might just be me!) I get a 'mental high' that is quite interesting. Everything seems sharper for a while. Of course this is just my opinion, trust the doctors, they've been telling us lies for 40 years about diet and nutrition -- I'm sure /this/ time around they know what they are doing ;-) [sorry for the sarcasm guys]

criddell 10y ago
You only eat on the weekend? Seriously? Socially, how does that work for you? I get a lot of enjoyment cooking and eating with my family every night. Do you do any strenuous exercise during the week?
- buserror 10y ago
  Well I also enjoy cooking (a lot!), thus the need to 'reset' sometime. What I hate is counting calories, with the fasting I can pretty much eat as much as I like without having to worry, and when I feel I've done a bit too much of that, I fast and 'reset'. With the years, I actually don't need it that much/that hard because it seems to have helped quite a bit with the amount of food I eat /anyway/ but I can still eat my way into a 32 ounce steak and not feel bad about it :-) As far as family goes, when I fast, I go to my mancave during meals and do some tinkering so 1) they don't feel bad and 2) I don't smell anything! Seriously, with just a little bit of preparation, it's surprisingly easy...
  - curiousDog 10y ago
    How do you work? Are you able to write good quality code while fasting?
    - buserror 10y ago
      Yes, most definitely -- as mentioned you stop being hungry anyway, and you get a bit of a 'high' as well, perhaps due to the typical drowsiness of digestion not being there... My pet theory is that we evolved it, as hunter gatherers we probably had to develop a way to sharpen the senses in case the family/group was running out of food. Ie the Next Hunt can't fail. I think it's a cute idea. Very likely completely baseless :-)
      - josh64 10y ago
        I love that idea too! I'm going to believe that's the case
  - harshreality 10y ago
    You still haven't said unambiguously how often you do this. You implied you can do it once a month, but didn't say if that's empirically roughly how often you fast. Exercise... workouts... you haven't mentioned these at all, other than sport shooting which certainly requires some exertion but is not a workout workout. No workouts during fasts? No regular workouts at all? Also, fruit juice is not exactly zero calories. You should figure out how many calories you're consuming. There's a big difference between "I'm not eating solid food but I drink juice and coffee to keep myself functional" and "I drink water for 5 days."
    - buserror 10y ago
      There is no real timeline for me to do it, it mostly depends if I feel bloated or not. So for example I hadn't done one in about 3 months, but I rather coincidently started one yesterday... It's always a mix of thinking I could 'use' one, and having nothing in the calendar that might interfere (social eating and stuff) AND having nothing spectacular in the fridge needing eating. So, I'd say I'd do one every two months. I don't /workout/ these days, not as a workout might be seen anyway, I do some weights and so on, but more for tone than 'work'. And I don't do heavy cardio or anything like that. I do a lot of walking, and yeah -- shooting is surprisingly exerting: Lifting/shifting a ~4Kg gun around about 200 times with enough speed and precision is a bit of a workout! On a 'training day' I'll do that more like ~450 times. Thats a few repetitions :-) I /used/ to workout a lot, and for a little while I did fast AND workout, but ultimately the workout seemed a little bit pointless, especially if you work out for controlling weight. It's a LOT harder to burn energy than to take it in, so my conclusion was to fast, instead. The workout regime over the years has lead to quite a few injuries as well, and as I get older, I'm now paying for that. I'm built more like a rugbyman than a ballet dancer, so all the years of squash, running, weighted abs and so on leads to weak kneejoints, hips starting to play up a bit etc.
- lkrubner 10y ago
  I agree, the social aspect is difficult. Going out with friends limits the times when I can fast. For long fasts, of more than 3 days, finding the time is difficult. I am only able to do 2 or 3 long fasts each year, because I only find time away from friends on rare occasions. If I had a family then I assume my fasting would be limited to once a year retreats of some kind. Still, even once a year, I think there are great health benefits to long fasts. If you can go 10 or more days without food, surely that gives the body the chance to break down and absorb a lot of damaged cells that otherwise might be kept around?
  - buserror 10y ago
    Personally, for the social aspect, I'm just quite open about it -- I just try not to go to the pub/restaurant etc but if the topic comes up, I just claim I'm becoming a shaolin monk and currently working on my kung-fu. Try that with a serious face :-)
z92 10y ago
How much do you eat on a fasting day? You don't go zero calorie intake, or do you?
- buserror 10y ago
  You don't eat. At all. Nothing. It's not that hard really, as mentioned, the first day is a bit hard, but after that you are no longer hungry anyway.. I have sometime a glass of fruit juice in the morning, coffee, and water. The trick is to try to 'plan' ahead. Don't stock up on nice food, only do that on the friday!
  - andrei_says_ 10y ago
    How does your body react to the fruit juice?
  - soperj 10y ago
    That's not 0 calories though.
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    Fruit juice is a ton of sugar, it's the same as eating.
- lkrubner 10y ago
  Personally, I think the maximum health benefit comes from zero calories. I'm able to function and work fairly well for the first 7 days. It's (typically) on day 8 that I start to feel weak and/or sick. I've gone to a twelfth day, and by then I feel like I have the flu. Which is interesting, because it taught something about a flu. I always thought a flu did direct damage, but now I think the worst thing about the flu is the interruption of the production of normal proteins that my body needs. And exactly the same thing must happen after 7 days without food -- the body is increasingly unable to make necessary proteins. It is interesting to me how much the feeling of a long fast resembles a flu.
  - fredsir 10y ago
andai 10y ago
I can relate to that "high". I'm not sure about the science behind this but my best guess is that it's like the opposite of the drowsy feeling you get after a big meal: You aren't spending energy on digestion, and the whole body and brain "wake up" and become alert, because, well, you need to be alert so you can survive and get more food! haha
- derefr 10y ago
  Also: • you've probably entirely emptied out everything in your intestines+colon by then; • you've possibly starved your intestinal microbiome enough that it's stopped excreting any metabolic byproducts; • you've probably starved any bacteria hanging out in your mouth/sinuses/tonsils/adenoids, and so breathing + drinking water + saliva has finally had a chance to actually get rid of those; • any of the inflammatory compounds that get into your bloodstream from your food, have been removed, so your total tissue inflammation is lower than it ever is otherwise (like being on corticosteroids, sort of); • since your liver/kidneys aren't dealing with a constant stream of input, they can 1. clean themselves for a change, and 2. clean "lower-priority" stuff out of your blood; • and once they've done that, now they can just shut down and stop spending energy or consuming metabolites. Presuming you're also drinking a normal amount of water, • your blood pH and O2 sat. are likely maintained much more closely than they are when you eat food, which allows your organs and your immune system to function slightly more optimally.
  - jasim 10y ago
    Are these personal observations, or empirically established facts? For example - would liver and kidneys actually shut down when they don't have any work to do?
    - derefr 10y ago
      I was intentionally using sloppy non-clinical language. :) "Shut down" in the sense that the liver specifically is full of xenometabolizing enzymes, and those enzymes get replaced by the densely-packed mitochondria in liver cells as they get used up, requiring nutrients to feed said mitochondria. If those enzymes are consumed at a slower rate, those mitochondria consume your body's nutrient stores more slowly.
BurningFrog 10y ago
I tried to work while fasting, but while I feel good and am perfectly able to have conversations, my brain doesn't work nearly as well when I try to think focused or solve hard problems. So I stopped doing that.
- mxschumacher 10y ago
  For how long did you fast or when did you notice a decline in mental ability?
  - BurningFrog 10y ago
    I've done up to 7 days. This was probably a 3-5 day fast. I didn't notice any decline until I tried to solve a programming problem, and the part of my brain that normally jumps in and figures the hard stuff out just wasn't there. It's an odd feeling.
    - saiya-jin 10y ago
      easy - brain works on carbs. no carbs, not much work done beyond necessary survival tasks.
    - cableshaft 10y ago
      I can concur. Used to do long fasts when I was in high school, so tried doing it again in the past couple of years, and suddenly I couldn't function at work. That being said, I've successfully gone 18-24 hours without eating multiple times without any real noticeable detrimental effects on my ability to concentrate on programming or get work done, especially if I time it so I stop eating at 6pm one day and start eating again after 12pm the next day.
stevecalifornia 10y ago
This guy is describing an eating disorder-- Anorexia Nervosa specifically. Do not start doing what he is describing and put yourself on a similar path.
- buserror 10y ago
  Heh, actually that's one of the few message on HN that wants me to start the message with 'LOL' because I actually did! I'm french, I cook, I eat, and drink in pretty reasonable amount, and I'm a muscular 90Kg - with a flat belly, thanks to the fasting. Last saturday I ate a 32 ounces steak in one sitting... Now that's some sort of Anorexia I had never heard of before! I do feel very bad for people who actually have anorexia, but please, don't insult them throwing these claims around.
  - stevecalifornia 10y ago
    Excessive fasting followed by binge-eating is literally the description of an eating disorder. I know for certain I won't be able to convince you of it because you already said you don't trust doctors-- but if I can get one person in here to not go down this path then it was worth the time.
    - buserror 10y ago
      You can't actually /binge eat/ after a fast. You can eat a lot, but you will still eat less than an usual day anyway, you can't possibly eat as much as you've missed, it's impossible. As I mentioned before, I actually eat quite a bit less /in general/ than I used to a few years back. So nope, you haven't convinced me, far from it. My family is happy, my doctor is happy, and more importantly, I'm happy. You can safely go back to inventing disorders, I personally hope that the stories on this particular topic will convince a few more people to stop trusting the likes of you.
    - Kiro 10y ago
      Dude, just stop it. This has nothing to do with anorexia.
    - 10y ago
Florin_Andrei 10y ago
> The other thing to note is that the 3 and 4th days (might just be me!) I get a 'mental high' that is quite interesting. Everything seems sharper for a while. That's very commonly reported, actually. And I would say it lasts longer than that. I'm pretty sure this is a major reason why fasting is a common practice associated with meditation techniques, traditionally.
mmel 10y ago
I found the same, I've done numerous week long fasts, I think the longest was 10 days, and the first 1 or 2 days are the toughest. After that my body would stop craving, and I'd stop thinking about food altogether. I've heard that when you get to the "other side" of a fast, that is, you actually begin starving, that hunger returns with an intensity that is incredibly hard to ignore. The other thing I realised by fasting is how incredibly social the act of eating is.
mirekrusin 10y ago
...also "(...) prolonged fasting cycles -- periods of no food for two to four days at a time over the course of six months -- kill older and damaged immune cells and generate new ones (...)" [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8831739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8831739
gukov 10y ago
That's about when the body enters the ketosis state and the brain starts getting energy again, this time from burning fat.

criddell 10y ago

You only eat on the weekend? Seriously? Socially, how does that work for you? I get a lot of enjoyment cooking and eating with my family every night. Do you do any strenuous exercise during the week?

buserror 10y ago
Well I also enjoy cooking (a lot!), thus the need to 'reset' sometime. What I hate is counting calories, with the fasting I can pretty much eat as much as I like without having to worry, and when I feel I've done a bit too much of that, I fast and 'reset'. With the years, I actually don't need it that much/that hard because it seems to have helped quite a bit with the amount of food I eat /anyway/ but I can still eat my way into a 32 ounce steak and not feel bad about it :-) As far as family goes, when I fast, I go to my mancave during meals and do some tinkering so 1) they don't feel bad and 2) I don't smell anything! Seriously, with just a little bit of preparation, it's surprisingly easy...
- curiousDog 10y ago
  How do you work? Are you able to write good quality code while fasting?
  - buserror 10y ago
    Yes, most definitely -- as mentioned you stop being hungry anyway, and you get a bit of a 'high' as well, perhaps due to the typical drowsiness of digestion not being there... My pet theory is that we evolved it, as hunter gatherers we probably had to develop a way to sharpen the senses in case the family/group was running out of food. Ie the Next Hunt can't fail. I think it's a cute idea. Very likely completely baseless :-)
    - josh64 10y ago
      I love that idea too! I'm going to believe that's the case
- harshreality 10y ago
  You still haven't said unambiguously how often you do this. You implied you can do it once a month, but didn't say if that's empirically roughly how often you fast. Exercise... workouts... you haven't mentioned these at all, other than sport shooting which certainly requires some exertion but is not a workout workout. No workouts during fasts? No regular workouts at all? Also, fruit juice is not exactly zero calories. You should figure out how many calories you're consuming. There's a big difference between "I'm not eating solid food but I drink juice and coffee to keep myself functional" and "I drink water for 5 days."
  - buserror 10y ago
    There is no real timeline for me to do it, it mostly depends if I feel bloated or not. So for example I hadn't done one in about 3 months, but I rather coincidently started one yesterday... It's always a mix of thinking I could 'use' one, and having nothing in the calendar that might interfere (social eating and stuff) AND having nothing spectacular in the fridge needing eating. So, I'd say I'd do one every two months. I don't /workout/ these days, not as a workout might be seen anyway, I do some weights and so on, but more for tone than 'work'. And I don't do heavy cardio or anything like that. I do a lot of walking, and yeah -- shooting is surprisingly exerting: Lifting/shifting a ~4Kg gun around about 200 times with enough speed and precision is a bit of a workout! On a 'training day' I'll do that more like ~450 times. Thats a few repetitions :-) I /used/ to workout a lot, and for a little while I did fast AND workout, but ultimately the workout seemed a little bit pointless, especially if you work out for controlling weight. It's a LOT harder to burn energy than to take it in, so my conclusion was to fast, instead. The workout regime over the years has lead to quite a few injuries as well, and as I get older, I'm now paying for that. I'm built more like a rugbyman than a ballet dancer, so all the years of squash, running, weighted abs and so on leads to weak kneejoints, hips starting to play up a bit etc.
lkrubner 10y ago
I agree, the social aspect is difficult. Going out with friends limits the times when I can fast. For long fasts, of more than 3 days, finding the time is difficult. I am only able to do 2 or 3 long fasts each year, because I only find time away from friends on rare occasions. If I had a family then I assume my fasting would be limited to once a year retreats of some kind. Still, even once a year, I think there are great health benefits to long fasts. If you can go 10 or more days without food, surely that gives the body the chance to break down and absorb a lot of damaged cells that otherwise might be kept around?
- buserror 10y ago
  Personally, for the social aspect, I'm just quite open about it -- I just try not to go to the pub/restaurant etc but if the topic comes up, I just claim I'm becoming a shaolin monk and currently working on my kung-fu. Try that with a serious face :-)

z92 10y ago

How much do you eat on a fasting day? You don't go zero calorie intake, or do you?

buserror 10y ago
You don't eat. At all. Nothing. It's not that hard really, as mentioned, the first day is a bit hard, but after that you are no longer hungry anyway.. I have sometime a glass of fruit juice in the morning, coffee, and water. The trick is to try to 'plan' ahead. Don't stock up on nice food, only do that on the friday!
- andrei_says_ 10y ago
  How does your body react to the fruit juice?
- soperj 10y ago
  That's not 0 calories though.
- gnaritas 10y ago
  Fruit juice is a ton of sugar, it's the same as eating.
lkrubner 10y ago
Personally, I think the maximum health benefit comes from zero calories. I'm able to function and work fairly well for the first 7 days. It's (typically) on day 8 that I start to feel weak and/or sick. I've gone to a twelfth day, and by then I feel like I have the flu. Which is interesting, because it taught something about a flu. I always thought a flu did direct damage, but now I think the worst thing about the flu is the interruption of the production of normal proteins that my body needs. And exactly the same thing must happen after 7 days without food -- the body is increasingly unable to make necessary proteins. It is interesting to me how much the feeling of a long fast resembles a flu.
- fredsir 10y ago

andai 10y ago

I can relate to that "high". I'm not sure about the science behind this but my best guess is that it's like the opposite of the drowsy feeling you get after a big meal: You aren't spending energy on digestion, and the whole body and brain "wake up" and become alert, because, well, you need to be alert so you can survive and get more food! haha

derefr 10y ago
Also: • you've probably entirely emptied out everything in your intestines+colon by then; • you've possibly starved your intestinal microbiome enough that it's stopped excreting any metabolic byproducts; • you've probably starved any bacteria hanging out in your mouth/sinuses/tonsils/adenoids, and so breathing + drinking water + saliva has finally had a chance to actually get rid of those; • any of the inflammatory compounds that get into your bloodstream from your food, have been removed, so your total tissue inflammation is lower than it ever is otherwise (like being on corticosteroids, sort of); • since your liver/kidneys aren't dealing with a constant stream of input, they can 1. clean themselves for a change, and 2. clean "lower-priority" stuff out of your blood; • and once they've done that, now they can just shut down and stop spending energy or consuming metabolites. Presuming you're also drinking a normal amount of water, • your blood pH and O2 sat. are likely maintained much more closely than they are when you eat food, which allows your organs and your immune system to function slightly more optimally.
- jasim 10y ago
  Are these personal observations, or empirically established facts? For example - would liver and kidneys actually shut down when they don't have any work to do?
  - derefr 10y ago
    I was intentionally using sloppy non-clinical language. :) "Shut down" in the sense that the liver specifically is full of xenometabolizing enzymes, and those enzymes get replaced by the densely-packed mitochondria in liver cells as they get used up, requiring nutrients to feed said mitochondria. If those enzymes are consumed at a slower rate, those mitochondria consume your body's nutrient stores more slowly.

BurningFrog 10y ago

I tried to work while fasting, but while I feel good and am perfectly able to have conversations, my brain doesn't work nearly as well when I try to think focused or solve hard problems. So I stopped doing that.

mxschumacher 10y ago
For how long did you fast or when did you notice a decline in mental ability?
- BurningFrog 10y ago
  I've done up to 7 days. This was probably a 3-5 day fast. I didn't notice any decline until I tried to solve a programming problem, and the part of my brain that normally jumps in and figures the hard stuff out just wasn't there. It's an odd feeling.
  - saiya-jin 10y ago
    easy - brain works on carbs. no carbs, not much work done beyond necessary survival tasks.
  - cableshaft 10y ago
    I can concur. Used to do long fasts when I was in high school, so tried doing it again in the past couple of years, and suddenly I couldn't function at work. That being said, I've successfully gone 18-24 hours without eating multiple times without any real noticeable detrimental effects on my ability to concentrate on programming or get work done, especially if I time it so I stop eating at 6pm one day and start eating again after 12pm the next day.

stevecalifornia 10y ago

This guy is describing an eating disorder-- Anorexia Nervosa specifically. Do not start doing what he is describing and put yourself on a similar path.

buserror 10y ago
Heh, actually that's one of the few message on HN that wants me to start the message with 'LOL' because I actually did! I'm french, I cook, I eat, and drink in pretty reasonable amount, and I'm a muscular 90Kg - with a flat belly, thanks to the fasting. Last saturday I ate a 32 ounces steak in one sitting... Now that's some sort of Anorexia I had never heard of before! I do feel very bad for people who actually have anorexia, but please, don't insult them throwing these claims around.
- stevecalifornia 10y ago
  Excessive fasting followed by binge-eating is literally the description of an eating disorder. I know for certain I won't be able to convince you of it because you already said you don't trust doctors-- but if I can get one person in here to not go down this path then it was worth the time.
  - buserror 10y ago
    You can't actually /binge eat/ after a fast. You can eat a lot, but you will still eat less than an usual day anyway, you can't possibly eat as much as you've missed, it's impossible. As I mentioned before, I actually eat quite a bit less /in general/ than I used to a few years back. So nope, you haven't convinced me, far from it. My family is happy, my doctor is happy, and more importantly, I'm happy. You can safely go back to inventing disorders, I personally hope that the stories on this particular topic will convince a few more people to stop trusting the likes of you.
  - Kiro 10y ago
    Dude, just stop it. This has nothing to do with anorexia.
  - 10y ago

Florin_Andrei 10y ago

> The other thing to note is that the 3 and 4th days (might just be me!) I get a 'mental high' that is quite interesting. Everything seems sharper for a while. That's very commonly reported, actually. And I would say it lasts longer than that. I'm pretty sure this is a major reason why fasting is a common practice associated with meditation techniques, traditionally.

mmel 10y ago

I found the same, I've done numerous week long fasts, I think the longest was 10 days, and the first 1 or 2 days are the toughest. After that my body would stop craving, and I'd stop thinking about food altogether. I've heard that when you get to the "other side" of a fast, that is, you actually begin starving, that hunger returns with an intensity that is incredibly hard to ignore. The other thing I realised by fasting is how incredibly social the act of eating is.

mirekrusin 10y ago

...also "(...) prolonged fasting cycles -- periods of no food for two to four days at a time over the course of six months -- kill older and damaged immune cells and generate new ones (...)" [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8831739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8831739

gukov 10y ago

That's about when the body enters the ketosis state and the brain starts getting energy again, this time from burning fat.