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Extended waterfasting is amazing folks. It's the simplest way to A) lose weight B) improve your metabolism C) increase your longevity D) help with various probl

by fouc 7y ago

Extended waterfasting is amazing folks. It's the simplest way to A) lose weight B) improve your metabolism C) increase your longevity D) help with various problems (like acne, hemorrhoids, etc). Warning: May not be safe for those with a BMI lower than 20. Fasting gives the chance for the body to engage in autophagy which is the breakdown of old or broken cells into their components and reused to repair the body. Fasting takes you to a state of ketosis, where your body switches to fat-burning for fuel. Note that it takes 2 weeks for the muscles to fully adapt to using fuel as the source, so athletic performance will decline for that period. Depending on how fat-adapted you are, it can take anywhere from 3 to 5 days to get past the point of hunger & cravings. It becomes much easier to maintain the fast after that. That means for most people, day 2 or day 3 are the hardest days in the transition. Warning: if you stop at the hard point of the fast after multiple attempts, it will get progressively harder to stick to it and get through (as that will train the body's hormone for cravings to peak at that time).

aembleton 7y ago
What is extended waterfasting? What do you do?
- fouc 7y ago
  Basically don't consume any food or calories at all, for more than 3 days. Mostly just drink water. Tea or coffee is allowed but no sugar or milk. And take the water with some electrolytes. Can be a bit of table salt, or get more complicated by adding other salts like magnesium, potassium, etc. For a fast longer than a week, it is also good to have bone broth which brings in some extra nutrients like phosphorous.
eridius 7y ago
Extended waterfasting is dangerous. If you're going to go more than 3 days on even a sub-1000Cal/day diet, please have medical supervision.
- beagle3 7y ago
  [citation needed]
  - eridius 7y ago
    Ingesting nothing but water for days on end being unhealthy really shouldn't need a citation, but if you really want one, go ask your local doctor.
    - beagle3 7y ago
      Having done a >20-day fast myself, multiple times, knowing a few others who have, researching the medical evidence AND discussing this with more than one local doctor, I can confidently say: You have no idea what you are talking about.
      - eridius 7y ago
        That's funny, because I've talked with doctors who oversee medically-managed weight loss programs professionally, and they made it very clear that even just doing 960Cal/day for 3+ days warranted medical supervision. This is also why stuff like Optifast requires a prescription, because it's not safe to do this kind of thing without oversight. The fact that you've done it really has no bearing on whether it's actually healthy, and I'm going to go ahead and assume that the doctors you spoke to said the equivalent of "it won't kill you but I don't recommend it".
        beagle3 7y ago
        Well, the doctors you asked had a vested interest, they are unlikely to say “we are mostly useless”, so I can just as easily discard that. See how easy it is to maintain one’s belief without evidence? There is actually a lot of evidence saying anything up to about 40 days on water is fine for a healthy person, although beyond 50 days there is rapid and irreversible damage. There are whole populations who used to live on 800kcal/days for years. And for the record, my family doctor’s reply was “just make sure you start eating if you feel any ill effects, don’t go more than a month” - when I came to see him after about a week inquiring if my loss of appetite was something I should be worried about (because thinking and looking at food made me NOT want it, but I was feeling perfect - even better than perfect). From your response you are likely uninterested, but reading the work of Valter Longo on fasting would probably enrich you. Also, there’s a huge difference between reducing intake (to e.g. 900 of 500 kcal) which leaves most people hungry and irritated, and going down to essentially zero, which - past the 50 hour mark or so - does not. The doctors you consulted likely have no experience at all with the latter regime in which the body functions completely differently, and which seems like a natural “can’t find food right now” mode.

by fouc 7y ago

aembleton 7y ago

What is extended waterfasting? What do you do?

fouc 7y ago
Basically don't consume any food or calories at all, for more than 3 days. Mostly just drink water. Tea or coffee is allowed but no sugar or milk. And take the water with some electrolytes. Can be a bit of table salt, or get more complicated by adding other salts like magnesium, potassium, etc. For a fast longer than a week, it is also good to have bone broth which brings in some extra nutrients like phosphorous.

eridius 7y ago

Extended waterfasting is dangerous. If you're going to go more than 3 days on even a sub-1000Cal/day diet, please have medical supervision.

beagle3 7y ago
[citation needed]
- eridius 7y ago
  Ingesting nothing but water for days on end being unhealthy really shouldn't need a citation, but if you really want one, go ask your local doctor.
  - beagle3 7y ago
    Having done a >20-day fast myself, multiple times, knowing a few others who have, researching the medical evidence AND discussing this with more than one local doctor, I can confidently say: You have no idea what you are talking about.
    - eridius 7y ago
      That's funny, because I've talked with doctors who oversee medically-managed weight loss programs professionally, and they made it very clear that even just doing 960Cal/day for 3+ days warranted medical supervision. This is also why stuff like Optifast requires a prescription, because it's not safe to do this kind of thing without oversight. The fact that you've done it really has no bearing on whether it's actually healthy, and I'm going to go ahead and assume that the doctors you spoke to said the equivalent of "it won't kill you but I don't recommend it".
      - beagle3 7y ago
        Well, the doctors you asked had a vested interest, they are unlikely to say “we are mostly useless”, so I can just as easily discard that. See how easy it is to maintain one’s belief without evidence? There is actually a lot of evidence saying anything up to about 40 days on water is fine for a healthy person, although beyond 50 days there is rapid and irreversible damage. There are whole populations who used to live on 800kcal/days for years. And for the record, my family doctor’s reply was “just make sure you start eating if you feel any ill effects, don’t go more than a month” - when I came to see him after about a week inquiring if my loss of appetite was something I should be worried about (because thinking and looking at food made me NOT want it, but I was feeling perfect - even better than perfect). From your response you are likely uninterested, but reading the work of Valter Longo on fasting would probably enrich you. Also, there’s a huge difference between reducing intake (to e.g. 900 of 500 kcal) which leaves most people hungry and irritated, and going down to essentially zero, which - past the 50 hour mark or so - does not. The doctors you consulted likely have no experience at all with the latter regime in which the body functions completely differently, and which seems like a natural “can’t find food right now” mode.