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Has anyone successfully done a 72h fast? It seems rather difficult... Did it get easier as time went on? Did you take medical advice beforehand?

• niemal_dev 3y ago
  The primary concern would be one of electrolytes: sodium, potassium and magnesium. Each person is different of course and he should consult his doctor before engaging into a water fast.
• tekla 3y ago
  Its not hard, first day sucks. Gets easier. No. You can go a week easily without food.
  • abfan1127 3y ago
    what was your activity level fasting for a week? Heavy fitness? heavy mental workloads?
    • tekla 3y ago
      Just a 5k during the mornings. Maybe some light lifting. Just drank some coffee beforehand.
    • toss1 3y ago
      Moderate activity, running, body-weight exercises, etc. are ok. I once made the mistake of doing a heavy leg-weight workout (I was an internationally ranked alpine ski racer at the time) on day-3 of a fast. It went great but the bonk afterwards was waayy more interesting than i bargained for - treading the line of unconsciousness and had to break it e12hrs early. Would definitely recommend zero instead of once, even if it seems to go well at the time.
• zemvpferreira 3y ago
  I've fasted up to 5 days. It's an interesting experience but I wouldn't recommend it. The only really interesting thing to say about it is that by day 3 I had entered the calmest period of my life. I'm prone to depression and anxiety, have meditated extensively, weaned off coffee...whatever you can think of apart from hard drugs I have done. Never felt so at peace looking at a wall for hours, total absence of intruding thoughts. Just immersed in a warm pool of grey space. Only stopped at 5 days because it was affecting my sex life. I know people who have fasted for a month, no big deal once you get going.
• ebiester 3y ago
  I did it in my late teenage years, alongside many 24-48 hour religiously-motivated fasts. (In this case, they were water-only.) 24 hours isn't two bad. The second 24 hours is awful. That's when the headaches come. The third 24 hours your body starts stabilizing and it's pretty doable from there. Friends who went longer said it gets bad again in the second week.
• mnw21cam 3y ago
  The record is 392 days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast
• thunkle 3y ago
  I get tachycardia if I don't consume lots of salt throughout starting at 48 hours. I also have insomnia the first night regardless. It gets easier every time because you know what to expect and how to mitigate it.
• Almondsetat 3y ago
  We can go even a month or more without food, why would 3 days be a big deal?
  • peddling-brink 3y ago
    It’s not terribly intuitive that something that takes 30 days to kill you should be attempted for 10% of that. You wouldn’t take 10% the lethal dose of cyanide. Clearly fasting for extended periods can be done safely, but it’s not unreasonable to ask the question.
    • woleium 3y ago
      there is some evidence that very low doses of radiation are in fact positive, and there is also the (conflicting) alcohol evidence we keep hearing.
      • Almondsetat 3y ago
        There is no "conflicting alcohol evidence". Our body can handle at most 1 alcoholic unit per day (otherwise we would get alcohol poisoning from fruits fermenting during digestion). Problem is: it's easier to not start drinking alltogether than being super careful about the quantities you ingest. Therefore the advice is indeed that it's simply bad and you should not have any.
        • woleium 3y ago
          Oh, absolutely. don’t start drinking for the health benefits! I meant that there seems to be a never ending “one glass of wine is good for you” vs “all alcohol is bad”, with the former probably from alcohol lobby funded research, i guess.
• cosmic_quanta 3y ago
  I found the first 18h were hard, but after it felt perfectly natural.
• lokimedes 3y ago
  Last week I did a 5 day Prolon fast. It is intended to provide the mentioned benefits, while still eating around 800 calories daily. For someone 6ft 3in / 240lb that seemed like it would make me hungry, but it was never a problem. It is highly recommended.
• aerophilic 3y ago
  In Graduate school I fasted for a week. It was deliberate as a cleansing activity for myself. Before this I had never really did any extensive fasting. To directly answer your question, I didn’t talk to a doctor ahead of time, but I did make sure to drink lots of water during that period. I remember the hardest day was day 2. For the first day, you “feel” hungry as your body is accustomed to eating, but it is day 2 you are genuinely hungry. However, per the article, after about the third day you simply don’t notice yourself being as hungry anymore. I noticed then (and notice now when I fast) positive effects on mood, and ironically energy. The only drawback I have noticed is that the first meal after a fast, especially if a large carbohydrate based one, seems to have outsized effects on drowsiness.
  • woleium 3y ago
    The body uses a lot of energy processing food, so once you are in keto and not processing then you should in theory have a burst of energy. This sort of makes sense from a hunter gatherer survival selection pressure too.
• brodouevencode 3y ago
  I've done multiple 3 day, multiple 5 day, and two 10 day fasts. The only intake in these was water and electrolyte stacks, and in one of the 10 days there was bone broth taken 2-3 times per day. All of these were self-induced without medical oversight, and the impetus was weight loss and testing myself. To keep the take-aways short, here's what I found: 1. Do not attempt to do any sort of exercises that require real exertion (slow walking is fine) while doing fasting of any kind, and I would (given my experience with ketogenic diets) extend this to keto as well, especially when lifting weights. Despite what some liars and/or freaks will tell you, you cannot be fasted or ketogenic and maintain quality performance. 2. The 3 days are probably fine if you do them with a couple of months in between if you have other goals you're working on (like building muscle). Doing them every week will minimize any other fitness goals that you may have. 3. The 5 days and over left me feeling tired, but the tiredness would come in hard waves. For instance it was not uncommon to want to immediately fall asleep at random hours of the day only to feel wide awake at 2am the next day. Just being hungry messes with your sleep, and I suspect (but have not confirmed) that it probably messes with your circadian rhythm. 4. I lost more cumulative weight running two 3-day fasts than I did with one 10-day fast. This was confirmed against both of my 10-days. Most will attribute this to water weight, however in the +5-6 days after the fast ended I was still lighter with the cumulatives. 5. There were only a couple of times where I got that euphoric feeling that many claim to get, and that was only in the first two fasts I did. All subsequent fasts did not produce this. 6. In the last 5-day+ fast I did I experienced some weird neuropathy in both legs and hands, despite being fully hydrated and taking electrolytes. I immediately broke fast and felt better and have not experienced any neuropathy since. 7. I no longer do long term fasts, instead opting for intermittent fasting (16:8) daily for several reasons, coupled with not eating bread or pasta. This seems to have much better and more sustainable results.
• globallyunique 3y ago
  Yeap, I would say the first 72 hours of any fast are the roughest for me. Electrolights and sparking water made the big difference for me. Green tea earlier in the day helped too as caffeine curbs some hunger. Overall I’ve only been able to do longer fasts when OOO as my cognitive motivation is so low the first few days. Keeping just with tv shows / exercise / nerding out also makes a big difference when OOO and not noticing being hungry cause of work stress and reflexively wanting a snack as motivation to do more work.