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As someone with extensive experience fasting, some thoughts. > My goal is to get into Ketosis before the water fast begins. This is great, it's much easier to
by TimSchumann 6y ago
As someone with extensive experience fasting, some thoughts.
> My goal is to get into Ketosis before the water fast begins.
This is great, it's much easier to start a fast when you're in ketosis.
> I keep my water intake high during the week, attempting to drink between 4-7 litres of water per day.
This is way WAY too much water, especially if you're drinking anything on top of it. Shoot for 2.5 to 3.5 liters a day maximum. If you do this for any prolonged period of time, or multiple weeks in a row, you're going to have issues.
> This is why the fasting once per week doesn't work for me. I think it is just repetitive torture every week with minimal fat burning and quite a disruption to normal socializing.
Yeah, that's because you're doing it wrong. I'm on week 4 of 5/2 (fasting/eating) and it's sustainable. So long as I don't eat pure junk on my 2 days, it's not even that bad for the first 24 hours. I have one friend who maintained this schedule for a year and a half, and another who's been at 96+ hour fasts for over a year now.
> Cooking whilst mid-fast is torture
I didn't find that to be the case. I cooked for my girlfriend plenty on my 60 day fast. Wasn't that big of a deal. Didn't start until after the 2nd week though, so that may have something to do with it. I guess I can see it on shorter fasts if you're not adapted though.
> "Threw some salt in my water, feel a fair bit better after that might do this once a day."
Yeah... this individual and I need to have a talk about that. This guy says he's 75kg, drinking 4 to 7kg of water a day, for 3 to 5 days, without _ANY_ salt to speak of. The average human is 55 to 60% water by weight. Do you have any idea how hard that is on your kidneys? Or what it does to your salinity levels?
- Legogris 6y ago> This is way WAY too much water, especially if you're drinking anything on top of it. Shoot for 2.5 to 3.5 liters a day maximum. If you do this for any prolonged period of time, or multiple weeks in a row, you're going to have issues. Source? Or what kind of issues? I average 5~8 l on a normal day and have been for years. The few times I've had my values checked they were mostly fine, apart from the lab being hassled by the huge sample they got for my 24h urine. Naturally I have a bit higher salt intake than most.
- TimSchumann 6y ago> Source? A mountain of personal experience fasting for extended periods of time. Back of the envelope, over 200 days in the last 3-ish years. If your salt intake is higher than normal, and you don’t fast for extended periods of time, it’s not applicable. In general everything about fasting becomes difficult when your electrolytes get outta whack. It’s been my experience that almost everyone who’s otherwise healthy, with ample access to food, and no experience fasting will confuse their body screaming ‘I need salt’ with ‘I’m thirsty’ —- In the developed world we almost never experience the former. Too much water is just as bad as not enough.
- ravenstine 6y agoIt's funny how electrolytes are still ignored or overlooked by the fasting and keto communities. This meme of doing a "water fast" is bullshit, IMO, and people need to stop talking about it because chugging water doesn't help when fasting unless you're actually dehydrated. Drinking water just causes the body to urinate out more electrolytes, which is exactly what you don't want on a fast. Most people on HN could easily not drink any water for a couple of fasting days, and they'll realize just how overrated water is as a necessity for daily health. Your fat cells, your muscle cells, your glycogen stores, all have metabolic water in them. There's no reason to take in excess water unless you are running low on metabolic water, in which case your body will actually scream for water.
- Legogris 6y agoFasting I'm not sure, but maybe we've been frequenting different keto communities? Daily supplementing magnesium/potassium/nacl seems to be part of the standard routine from what I've seen and it commonly comes up on the /r/keto and /r/ketogains.
- TimSchumann 6y agoAgree wholeheartedly. We’re all bound by the inexorable grip of diffusion, and there’s only so much our kidneys can do to stem the exodus. Quite miraculous little hunks of tissue though.
- sebmellen 6y agoSorry, but curiosity forces me to ask. How did you remain alive on a 60 day fast? I've never heard of that aside from maybe gurus in India or something.
- me_me_me 6y agoYou don't need to have 'magical' powers to do it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast
- TimSchumann 6y agoI was much fatter than I am now. If you’re curious email me (in my profile) and I can share my spreadsheet with notes.
- mhaberl 6y agoYou did not eat anything for 60 days? 0 calories? I heard people doing it for 14 days for fasting purposes and I am pretty sure that most people can do it for 30-40 days and not die, but 60 sounds pretty long
- TimSchumann 6y agoTrue zero cal, water/salt only, for the first 30, and too much water and not enough salt as I later found out. From days 31 to 60 I allowed the occasional magnesium, potassium and multivitamin. No coffee, no tea, just water.
- beagle3 6y agoWhile these aren't common, they aren't as uncommon as you think. A famous long one is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast ; But from memory reading studies about it ages ago (mostly examining religious fasters in India), an average non-overweight person can easily do 40 days water fasts without any irreversible damage. Somewhere between 40-50 days, the body would start to digest the nervous system for energy and that's irreversible (and leads to death within days if the fast continues). But if fat stores are available - as in the case of Angus Barbieri above - it can go for much, much longer.
- tkdubs 6y agoIndividual here for you to talk to. "On my 60 day fast"... Mate - you are in the big leagues compared to me. For us mere mortals smelling meat cooking while I'm hungry kills me . As for salt, I do have salt now. Found out the hard way. Your mileage may vary.
- TimSchumann 6y ago> As for salt, I do have salt now. Found out the hard way. So did I, it’s a lesson I won’t forget.
- 1_over_n 6y agoThe word “ketosis” gets thrown around a lot. It’s a physiological state that’s objectively quite hard to enter. I would ask, are you quantifying if you are “in ketosis” or not at any point during your fast, and if so how? Or is this just a gut feeling?
- fluffything 6y ago> and if so how? I use ketosis strips (Ketostix). You pee on them, and they tell you. Totally worth the 5$ they cost. I'm happy in full ketosis, or no ketosis at all, but the "half-way" ketosis state is just pure torture. The strips let me know how good I'm doing, so if things deviate a bit, e.g. because one day I ate ""too many carbs"", I notice quickly, and auto-correct.
- TimSchumann 6y agoBeen my experience that these vary widely depending on hydration levels. Also I’ve heard/read, and I’m not sure how accurate this is, you can think of ketones in urine as ‘overflow’ and thus aren’t always an accurate portrayal of how much your body is producing. On top of that, your body gets more efficient at using ketones as an energy source over time so your urine ‘overflow’ can spike at various points just because your body consumes less ketones for it’s energy needs. All of that is latent knowledge from random reading over the last 4 or so years, so grain of salt and all that.
- 1_over_n 6y agoThis ^
- fluffything 6y agoHow easy is the blood testing?
- TimSchumann 6y agoLiterally testing my blood, with a medical device.
- Kiro 6y agoAre you saying salt is needed or should be avoided?
- me_me_me 6y agosalt is necessary to regulate water levels in cells. Without enough salt your cells will start dying- Hyponatremia.