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Thought I would weigh in as I have a personal interest and history with fasting. I once fasted for 25 days on nothing but water. I biked to class and work dai

Thought I would weigh in as I have a personal interest and history with fasting. I once fasted for 25 days on nothing but water. I biked to class and work daily during the fast. After a couple days, hunger cravings disappeared. After two weeks I began to gain a mental clarity that I had not encountered before. I would get a head rush when I stood up too quickly after about 15'r days, but this was remedied by taking a deep breath beforehand. You begin to see and think of things differently when you find that you have given up an activity like eating that is so fundamental to human existence. I lost about 30 pounds (196-166) but almost immediately gained 15 back when I started eating again. I still remember how amazing a strawberry tasted the first time I ate after 25 days. I found a new appreciation for all types of foods I had never enjoyed before Infasted. It was a monumental experience in my life. There are some commenters claiming different things about fasting, but the body is a miraculous thing and it can go quite some time without food. I plan to complete a 40 day fast along the lines of the Pythagoreans, Buddha, Jesus, and the ancient Egyptian Schools. I do not, however, recommend this for everyone. An average person should have no problems with a prolonged fast, but there are no guarantees that you do not have some dormant medical issue. I went about my fast rather naively with no medical supervision, and though I had no negative consequences, I can not recommend my actions to others for obvious reasons. I am merely sharing my personal experience. In a more relevant note to the article, I have found that fasting always makes me recover from an illness more quickly. If I have a cold or any other trivial illness I always fast and recover fairly quickly, again N=1. But I did come to the conclusions of this idea after extensive research into the benefits of fasting.

mipapage 12y ago
I did quite the same for 15 days and had many of the same results. Like anything, until you do it you don't really get the magnitude of the results, in my case like yours also monumental. I drink a lot of coffee; when fasting I remember that I though differently, less hurried, more clear, and wondered what the field of design would be like without stimulants.
shanusmagnus 12y ago
The mental clarity you mention is interesting. Did you by any chance do stuff during that stretch that would give a more objective mental performance -- meaning, was there a quantitative way for you to evaluate your 'mental clarity'? I ask because I've water-fasted for two days on several occasions, and I've always broken because the mental handicap was just too much, and I've had work to do.[1] In particular, I've found that writing code and writing research papers is almost impossible on day 2. However, I've wondered if either a) pushing through it, or b) keto-adapting beforehand might prevent the mental slowness. I know a superstar scientist who claims that he thinks better in ketosis, so presumably the mechanism for pushing through it would be to get to the point of keto-adaptation. [1] Well, that's kind of a copout. I could always do it while on vacation or something. So mental handicap + willpower.
- justinpaulson 12y ago
  I would say that day 2 is probably the hardest day. Day 3 was when I really started to feel almost normal, I lost cravings for food I mean. The craving and mental occupation of hunger is really distracting the first couple of days. After that you can focus more on your normal tasks without the constant nagging reminder that you are fasting. In fact, after about 12 days someone offered me a cookie at work and I almost took it and started eating it because it just completely skipped my mind that I had been fasting. I finally caught myself right before I started to eat it, but the hunger was so far gone from me that I wasn't mouth-wateringly rabid about eating a cookie, it was just like "sure, I'll take one" without a thought about it. So, I would probably say pushing through to at least day 3 or 4 would be worthwhile. If you steal feel handicapped after those days then it probably isn't for you. I wish I had done some sort of quantitative test to see if this was beneficial. I was taking 3 summer classes and working 20-30 hours at a pizza place (yes, hand making pizza all day at Shakespeare's Pizza in Columbia, MO while I was fasting.) And I did well in the classes, but I wouldn't say they were the most challenging classes as far as math and science, it was two philosophy classes and one theoretical physics writing class that was a lot more theoretical than practical application and calculation. Perhaps next time I will take some sort of mental performance tests at each week interval and see if there is marked improvement or detriment.

mipapage 12y ago

I did quite the same for 15 days and had many of the same results. Like anything, until you do it you don't really get the magnitude of the results, in my case like yours also monumental. I drink a lot of coffee; when fasting I remember that I though differently, less hurried, more clear, and wondered what the field of design would be like without stimulants.

shanusmagnus 12y ago

The mental clarity you mention is interesting. Did you by any chance do stuff during that stretch that would give a more objective mental performance -- meaning, was there a quantitative way for you to evaluate your 'mental clarity'? I ask because I've water-fasted for two days on several occasions, and I've always broken because the mental handicap was just too much, and I've had work to do.[1] In particular, I've found that writing code and writing research papers is almost impossible on day 2. However, I've wondered if either a) pushing through it, or b) keto-adapting beforehand might prevent the mental slowness. I know a superstar scientist who claims that he thinks better in ketosis, so presumably the mechanism for pushing through it would be to get to the point of keto-adaptation. [1] Well, that's kind of a copout. I could always do it while on vacation or something. So mental handicap + willpower.

justinpaulson 12y ago
I would say that day 2 is probably the hardest day. Day 3 was when I really started to feel almost normal, I lost cravings for food I mean. The craving and mental occupation of hunger is really distracting the first couple of days. After that you can focus more on your normal tasks without the constant nagging reminder that you are fasting. In fact, after about 12 days someone offered me a cookie at work and I almost took it and started eating it because it just completely skipped my mind that I had been fasting. I finally caught myself right before I started to eat it, but the hunger was so far gone from me that I wasn't mouth-wateringly rabid about eating a cookie, it was just like "sure, I'll take one" without a thought about it. So, I would probably say pushing through to at least day 3 or 4 would be worthwhile. If you steal feel handicapped after those days then it probably isn't for you. I wish I had done some sort of quantitative test to see if this was beneficial. I was taking 3 summer classes and working 20-30 hours at a pizza place (yes, hand making pizza all day at Shakespeare's Pizza in Columbia, MO while I was fasting.) And I did well in the classes, but I wouldn't say they were the most challenging classes as far as math and science, it was two philosophy classes and one theoretical physics writing class that was a lot more theoretical than practical application and calculation. Perhaps next time I will take some sort of mental performance tests at each week interval and see if there is marked improvement or detriment.