Fasting tips?

[Walilamdzi]

I'm thinking of doing a water fast to see how long I can, has anyone tried this, or have any tips?

 

[Cubashii]

Like see how long you can go without water? Or drinking nothing but water?

 

[Walilamdzi]

Not eating, just drinking water.

 

[Jen Erik]

If you have the time, start out with manageable fasts:
12 hours
16 hours
24 hours
48 hours

and so on. It's worked well for me, but I don't go beyond 48 hours.

 

[uiop]

I eat only once a day (out of habit), so I'm not sure if that counts as fasting. Been losing a ton of weight though

EDIT: Can I ask what is the purpose of this?

 

[Walilamdzi]

@uiop I'm not sure really, I'm just curious to see how it affects me and if I can do it. I was thinking of including teas as well as water, without milk.

 

[TheDevilsAngel]

I feel going without food for few days make me feel somewhat i control and light.....its kinda cool when the weight starts falling off...thats my opinion tips i would give you are try not think about food i wouldn't over do on water because it makes me feel sick when im full of water and every day it gets a bit easier to not eat

Id did this as sort of game for myself how long could i go and how i could lose weight really quick and for the control to know im in control not my body

 

[Walilamdzi]

@Rallyon How long did you manage for?

 

[TheDevilsAngel]

Like 5 days on the sixth i decided to have one meal a day....the fasting days i spent alot of time in bed first two/three days i had energy wel i felt quite light then i got weak and my mouth was very dry i slept alot...when i got up and saw how i looked i new there was not much fat left i was definitely losin weight some days u lose a bit then u might stay the same for day and its frustrating dont know why but i was enjoying seen the scales go down... I did have a feast before i started to fast thou.....

 

[NextSummer]

The president of "right to die" federation died this way, she decribed it as "hell": https://www.worldrtd.net/it/news/right-die-campaigner-jean-davies-86-starved-herself-death

These review comments are helpful about "fasting to death" as well

Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

 

[Dead beat dad]

I'm thinking of doing a water fast to see how long I can, has anyone tried this, or have any tips?

In a former life I used to have to cut weight for fights and I did it with a sensible diet, hard training, but in the final weeks I used to do some serious weight manipulation using water overload and cut.
I can honestly say even though I looked like Bruce Lee, I felt absolute shit, starvation and dehydration are horrible feeling.
I don't if this helps in the slightest, but in my experience if you're doing this for the lolz, maybe take it super steady and follow a progression.
Good luck
DBD

 

[Divine Trinity]

I'm thinking of doing a water fast to see how long I can, has anyone tried this, or have any tips?

I've starved for a few days at time (involuntary), but same difference. Here's some tips:

1.) About a week before the first day, stop eating meat or consuming any dairy or processed foods. Including refined oils, sugar (refined fructose or sucrose), or anything else not in it's natural whole form. These "things" stick or rot in your digestive system for days-weeks after eating it. This will help prevent hunger pains, though it might take longer than 1 week to 100% prevent. Lentils, Kale, rice, apples, sweet potatoes, carrots, etc.

2.) Don't exercise or exert any unnecessary energy. I doubt this needs to be explained.

3.) Very important, take vitamins while you're fasting. I couldn't in my case, but since you can plan ahead, do it. Vitamins of course are not a substitute for food, but will help prevent some problems in the future.

4.) Drink water more than usual. No sweeteners, sugar makes you hungry. Water satiates your stomach and lessens cravings for food.

5.) When breaking the fast, start off eating the same stuff you had following #1. for about 3-5 days, then you can resume normal eating habits. (though you're better off sticking to the plants anyways).

I've gone about 6-8 days without food before, though I rarely am able to eat my fill. The worst time is the first 2-3 hours after you missed a meal, and when you start feeling anemic and light-headed. You should stop if the last part happens.

 

[weargon]

I've starved for a few days at time (involuntary), but same difference. Here's some tips:

1.) About a week before the first day, stop eating meat or consuming any dairy or processed foods. Including refined oils, sugar (refined fructose or sucrose), or anything else not in it's natural whole form. These "things" stick or rot in your digestive system for days-weeks after eating it. This will help prevent hunger pains, though it might take longer than 1 week to 100% prevent. Lentils, Kale, rice, apples, sweet potatoes, carrots, etc.

2.) Don't exercise or exert any unnecessary energy. I doubt this needs to be explained.

3.) Very important, take vitamins while you're fasting. I couldn't in my case, but since you can plan ahead, do it. Vitamins of course are not a substitute for food, but will help prevent some problems in the future.

4.) Drink water more than usual. No sweeteners, sugar makes you hungry. Water satiates your stomach and lessens cravings for food.

5.) When breaking the fast, start off eating the same stuff you had following #1. for about 3-5 days, then you can resume normal eating habits. (though you're better off sticking to the plants anyways).

I've gone about 6-8 days without food before, though I rarely am able to eat my fill. The worst time is the first 2-3 hours after you missed a meal, and when you start feeling anemic and light-headed. You should stop if the last part happens.

Oh the ignorance....

1. If meat rots in your digestive for weeks, then you're dead, or awaiting surgery in a hospital hooked up to IV lines. Don't spread that quakery.
2. You can do whatever you want on a fast. Sure you might feel tired. Maybe you might need to take some electrolytes. But what do you think cavemen did when they went through long periods without food? Sit around and conserve energy? They were out hunting food!
3. Your body is pretty good at recycling vitamins and minerals when fasting. Unless you have some previous balance issues of some sort you'll be fine. Just take some nu-salt or whatever it's called, lots of fasting people like it, I believe it has potassium and electrolytes to help if you start to feel weird. Do more reading on it, I never had to take it so I didn't explore it as much but I know someone who loves it during fasts and says it makes them feel much better. It's all about just seeing how your body reacts, but it's not as life threatening or serious as everyone thinks.
4. You can eat whatever the hell you want when you break a fast. You seem to be forgetting how versatile the human body is. It's not a Mercedes that calls for 93 octane gas all the time.

There's a lot of misinformed people like Divine Trinity who have been fed lots of scare mongering click bait over the years from pseudo health experts. Everyone is forgetting the most basic things about fasting:

Your body is the product of 100,000s of years of evolution. Could be 200,000 could be more. During that period, people didn't have Walmart and McDonalds around every corner. Fasting was a natural and involuntary aspect of life. Our bodies are quite well adapt to it. The longest record fast was a Finnish man who went for 382 days without anything more than basic nutrients/vitamins and just occasional observation from medical professionals. Your body can almost survive off of fat indefinitely, that's what it's there for, we're extremely good at storing it because it's a great feature to have when you can't find food.

It's not as scary or difficult as most people think. It's not rocket science. You eat, then you don't eat for a while, then you eat again.

You can work all you want and even exercise all you want. Your muscles aren't going to disappear (unless you're seriously in a famine and ran out of fat supplies, your body isn't stupid to start using up muscle before fat). In fact you'll feel more energetic during a fast because the lazy caveman that didn't go out and seek food during periods without it, didn't reproduce as often as the one who did. It's been shown that adrenal and metabolism levels can increase from 4-12% during prolonged fasts.

Also when your body breaks down fat, the byproducts are water and co2. You exhale both of them. Some desert animals use this specifically to survive for very long periods without water. You actually breathe out and evaporate about 1-3 lb of water (forgot the exact number, you get the point) per day. So water weight can fluctuate a lot. I've literally observed this many times from loosing 1-2 lb or so over the course of the day without once having gone to the bathroom or having done anything too physical or hot that made me sweat.

And the whole meat rotting in your intestines, that's a lot of bs people spout to either promote or justify taking cleanse products that make you have explosive diarrhea and weird shaped poo that makes you think it was there for years. Having stuff get stuck and rott in your intestines is a very rare and serious condition that requires hospitalized care. None of us walk around with random food hanging around for weeks in our intestines.

 

[Jessica-]

Not eating, just drinking water.

Have done a 21-day water fast. The first 2-3 days were the toughest, I just kept drinking water when I got hungry. As you go further into the fast, the body will adjust accordingly and you wouldn't feel much hunger. Just make sure you stock up on loads of mineral water.

 

[weargon]

Have done a 21-day water fast. The first 2-3 days were the toughest, I just kept drinking water when I got hungry. As you go further into the fast, the body will adjust accordingly and you wouldn't feel much hunger. Just make sure you stock up on loads of mineral water.

Mineral water has meaningless amounts of minerals in it. I spent too much time reading about it after people foolishly told me I'm going to mess up my body from drinking distilled water. Just drink water and take some nu-salt or salt or whatever fasting people recommend.

Good job on the fast though! 21 days is a lot of will power and resisting temptation lol.

I've done 4 days before. Felt fantastic the whole entire time. I do really well with fasts but my kryptonite is alcohol. The minute a customer/friend cracks open beers or vodka, it's over lol.

 

[Jessica-]

Mineral water has meaningless amounts of minerals in it.

Not sure about this, you may be right but the retreat I went to advised strongly against distilled water as it is supposed to increase the body's acidity. We were only allowed to drink mineral water, don't really know if it's necessary.

I did feel good most of the time esp towards the end. And breaking the fast was the best feeling in the world.

 

[weargon]

It's not just fasting. If you avoid music for a month, everything sounds amazing. And so on.

From what I've gathered, the body regulates it's own ph balance. There are obviously things you can do that can effect it, by a slight amount. But the body will correct it, and if it could not, then we'd all be dying of all sorts of small diet mishaps due to the fragile nature of our PH balance. Just like our core temperature. Most of the ph balance diets have been debunked and lack evidence. So something as minor as distilled vs mineral definitely can't have an effect.

All this talk is making me want to do another fast. Pretty good for finances too haha.

 

[Divine Trinity]

Oh the ignorance....

1. If meat rots in your digestive for weeks, then you're dead, or awaiting surgery in a hospital hooked up to IV lines. Don't spread that quakery.
2. You can do whatever you want on a fast. Sure you might feel tired. Maybe you might need to take some electrolytes. But what do you think cavemen did when they went through long periods without food? Sit around and conserve energy? They were out hunting food!
3. Your body is pretty good at recycling vitamins and minerals when fasting. Unless you have some previous balance issues of some sort you'll be fine. Just take some nu-salt or whatever it's called, lots of fasting people like it, I believe it has potassium and electrolytes to help if you start to feel weird. Do more reading on it, I never had to take it so I didn't explore it as much but I know someone who loves it during fasts and says it makes them feel much better. It's all about just seeing how your body reacts, but it's not as life threatening or serious as everyone thinks.
4. You can eat whatever the hell you want when you break a fast. You seem to be forgetting how versatile the human body is. It's not a Mercedes that calls for 93 octane gas all the time.

There's a lot of misinformed people like Divine Trinity who have been fed lots of scare mongering click bait over the years from pseudo health experts. Everyone is forgetting the most basic things about fasting:

Your body is the product of 100,000s of years of evolution. Could be 200,000 could be more. During that period, people didn't have Walmart and McDonalds around every corner. Fasting was a natural and involuntary aspect of life. Our bodies are quite well adapt to it. The longest record fast was a Finnish man who went for 382 days without anything more than basic nutrients/vitamins and just occasional observation from medical professionals. Your body can almost survive off of fat indefinitely, that's what it's there for, we're extremely good at storing it because it's a great feature to have when you can't find food.

It's not as scary or difficult as most people think. It's not rocket science. You eat, then you don't eat for a while, then you eat again.

You can work all you want and even exercise all you want. Your muscles aren't going to disappear (unless you're seriously in a famine and ran out of fat supplies, your body isn't stupid to start using up muscle before fat). In fact you'll feel more energetic during a fast because the lazy caveman that didn't go out and seek food during periods without it, didn't reproduce as often as the one who did. It's been shown that adrenal and metabolism levels can increase from 4-12% during prolonged fasts.

Also when your body breaks down fat, the byproducts are water and co2. You exhale both of them. Some desert animals use this specifically to survive for very long periods without water. You actually breathe out and evaporate about 1-3 lb of water (forgot the exact number, you get the point) per day. So water weight can fluctuate a lot. I've literally observed this many times from loosing 1-2 lb or so over the course of the day without once having gone to the bathroom or having done anything too physical or hot that made me sweat.

And the whole meat rotting in your intestines, that's a lot of bs people spout to either promote or justify taking cleanse products that make you have explosive diarrhea and weird shaped poo that makes you think it was there for years. Having stuff get stuck and rott in your intestines is a very rare and serious condition that requires hospitalized care. None of us walk around with random food hanging around for weeks in our intestines.

The proper word is fermenting, which essentially means rotting. There's a reason why constipation and hemorrhoids are common in western countries.

idk the person's health record, or how long they plan on doing it, it'd be irresponsible not to recommend supplements or a transitioning phase. Not everyone is a healthy 20 year old male.

Hunter-gatherers, or as you say "cavemen", relied more on gathering than hunting. The hunting party was a small number of men, who often ate vegetation while waiting/tracking. People didn't just starve for days on end, except in regions that snow or tundras. Of those 200k years, most of it was spent in central Africa, a tropical climate abundant with resources.

Hunter-gatherers also didn't brush their teeth, sanitize their hands, or wipe feces off their ass.

"cleanse" or "detox" scams don't work because we have a liver and kidneys. Though adding unnecessary stress to either one is ill-advised. Whatever can't be handled by them, isn't going to be fixed with lemon juice or whatever they're selling.

Edit: Malnutrition was/is a large problem, famines was more often from natural disasters or tribal wars. Also, I never said it "gets stuck" I said rot; "to undergo decomposition from the action of bacteria or fungi".

I've been hospitalized for shit literally rotting in my guts, for prolonged periods of time. the body doesn't have digestive enzymes or high enough stomach acid concentration to digest meat, a minority retain lactose for dairy in adulthood, enzymes for meat are absent in humans so it's largely inefficiently processed by bacteria in the micro biome. I have the literature to back this up.

 

[weargon]

I think maybe that's why I'm good at fasting. Most of my background is of Siberian origin lol. But I'm certainly no healthy 20 year old male.

Touche about the shit, teeth, or hand cleaning. You have a point. People did live much shorter lifespans.

Ah, I'm sorry to hear about being hospitalized for it. I take back the harshness in my original post after seeing your points. I guess you do have first hand experience and some things to back it up. But in that case, what's with all the keto or the extreme carnivore diet people? They literally switch to eating nothing but meat, and while I'm sure it's not the healthiest diet, the fact that they don't drop dead is already a bit contradictory to the meat rotting in the gut part. I'm not a big proponent of either of those diets, but curious what you make of them.

Am I the only one here corrupt enough that sometimes when browsing the forum it almost looks like this thread is called Fisting Tips?