4 day fast/3 day eat on a weekly basis. Is it healthy?

#1

Please comment on the topic. I have been doing it for a month now. My concern is that I can’t eat enough during eat days and I’m concerned if I can get enough protein and potassium. I take salt, Vit D and magnesium during fast days. Have evolved into this regime from two meals a day. I’m comfortable doing it but I’m concerned with possible malnutrition. I’ve lost a total of 75 pounds in 8 months and would like to lose an additional 40 pounds by the end of Dec 2021.

(Michael) #3

Welcome to the forums Haji. What are you eating when feasting that makes you think you are not getting enough protein/potassium? Are you also low carb/keto when eating?
Many people fast for extended periods on just water, some on electrolytes and some with bone broth or low calories. I went all out and bought a number of chemicals to replace electrolytes cleanly when I water only fast. I ordered KCl (“no salt” in US stores), tricalcium phosphate, disodium phosphate, magnesium aspartate, thiamine and zinc picolinate pure powders. After buying all those, I decided they probably mostly are not really necessary at all and I wasted a fair amount of money. Having said that, I will use them up slowly, and find the calcium phosphate to be one I use the most as I am not eating any dairy when feasting. NOTE: You can poison yourself with too much potassium and calcium, so do not take supplements for these two blindly.
In terms of 3/4 or 4/3 split, I have read that people have done it with great success, so if you can feast enough the plan itself seems doable. I have not tried a split like that, but I have considered it. I would hope that you are eating progressively more on feasting days, or at LEAST as much as you had the previous week. Feasting is more important than fasting, ironically, when it comes to fasting, and eating progressively less calories would be a detrimental way to fast.

#4

If you can’t eat enough then it’s clearly not healthy. How much do you eat and what? Protein is very important, too little and you definitely loses more than minimal muscles (losing weight already tends to do that, it’s logical and keto can’t help if you don’t use them as much as before when they had to carry a bigger weight) but not everyone knows how much is little or enough - and we can’t even possibly know it exactly, of course.
I would make sure I eat enough protein at least. I find eating much protein ridiculously easy (actually, I can’t avoid that) and I don’t even use much lean protein… But it’s quite possible that your food satiates you too much after your slightly long fasts, I experienced something similar (but I never did EF regularly)… I probably could fight it with not very satiating food or many meals on eating days…
Did you try to change your food choices, timing, something to allow you to eat more?

#5

Thanks for your response. I break my diet with home made bone broth and 1 hour later I eat normal food. I consume 5 eggs on my eat days and some fish because beef gives me constipation. I make vegetable omelette with my eggs and then I’m so full I can’t eat anything else. I also do 40 miles of walking per week. On my not eat days I take vitamin D, fish oil, zinc and magnesium and vitamin C. I am going to add multi vitamin to the bunch soon.

#6

Thanks for your response. I break my diet with home made bone broth and 1 hour later I eat normal food. I consume 5 eggs on my eat days and some fish because beef gives me constipation. I make vegetable omelette with my eggs and then I’m so full I can’t eat anything else. I also do 40 miles of walking per week. On my not eat days I take vitamin D, fish oil, zinc and magnesium and vitamin C. I am going to add multi vitamin to the bunch

(Central Florida Bob ) #7

I’ve been doing it for the last few months, and have done it for several months before this, so my guess is it’s healthy. You don’t talk about feeling bad in any way, so I assume you’re just asking to make sure you’re not trending towards getting sick. As Shinita says, emphasize protein when you eat, and averaged over a week, I think it’s hard to get too much protein.

I broke my fasting routine for one week to get my annual blood labs (fasting can make lab results look odd because you’re being compared to people who eat typical diets), and those labs were very good, so no indications of bad health coming.

#8

Your eating day menu sounds a pretty small meal on a 2MAD day for me (with a significantly bigger second one) and indeed, it’s very little (even if I don’t know the type and amount of fish, it’s hardly is anywhere near enough). If you add lots of fat, that helps with calories but not with the protein and micronutrients…

But I don’t know anything about you. People’s protein and minimal energy need where they don’t starve yet differ… It still seems little especially that you plan to do it for long.
I would include some high-cal day once in a while at least but I easily can boost my calories with the right items so it’s easy for me.

There are other things than beef and fish, I almost never eat either. I eat much pork and some turkey. And 7-8 eggs a day and I still need a significant amount of meat per day to get enough protein (I overdo it but my over 1 pound meat and my eggs hardly would be enough if I had only 3 eating days a week. I am not sure about the bare minimum but I like to be safe. and there are the micronutrients…).

#9

That’s correct. I don’t feel bad at all doing what I am doing. I was comfortable NOT eating since I was a kid and it never bothered me. It’s just possible malnutrition which concerns me. Believe me I would love to eat more protein but then I feel sick when I try to eat more than what I currently eat. My protein mainly comes from pasture raised eggs, bacon, bone broth and some fish. All that combined hardly gives me 75 grams of protein on eat days which is only 3 days a week. Having said that through I don’t count possible protein intake from mushroom and other vegetables. I have increased the high potassium vegetables lately to compensate for possible potassium deficiency. I can get lots of protein from protein powder but according to Dr. Fung and others I better stick to whole food. Especially that my initial motivation for starting this journey was reversing pre-diabetes condition.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #10

I successfully reversed pre-diabetes (I was actually diabetic, just not diagnosed) without fasting, simply by eating a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. If you enjoy fasting, then do so, by all means, but don’t feel that it is required.

#11

Thanks for your response. I really don’t “enjoy” fasting but I’m comfortable with it. I believe I’ve reversed pre-diabetes at this point. I look at extended fasting as an additional tool helping me get rid of the last 40 pounds and reach my desired weight goal and then live with a 2Mad/low carb/exercise life style. That’s the plan.

(Edith) #12

Just a few thoughts:

  1. You may feel fine now, but over time, if you are not getting enough protein, vitamins, and minerals, you will drawn down your body stores. Once that happens, you may not be feeling so fine.

  2. Forty pounds in just a few months is a lot. The initial weight usually comes off much faster than the final weight. Keto is about healing, fasting a lot and then not eating enough to get all the nutrients you need may not only negate the healing process but slow down your metabolism.

I heard an interview with Megan Ramos a year or so ago about mixing things up to" keep your body guessing." Unfortunately, I could not find the podcast. You may want to consider something like that.

Congratulations on your initial 75 pound weight loss!

#13

Thanks, I will try to eat more essential nutrients on eat days unti I get rid of all the excess fat then I turn to 2Mad low carb with occasional extended fasting for healing purposes.

(Tracy Lewis) #14

I did that for a few months… lost crazy amounts of weight and felt amazing but it did start to have some negative hormonal effects on me ( starting having irregular cycles) so I had to stop for a while. I dont know if it was that or the rapid weight loss that did it but i have since scaled it back to 3 or 4 23 hour fasts per week (1 keto meal a day) and keto the rest of the week… still losing weight just not as fast. Still feel great and no negative side effects. Then once every month or so I do a 3 or 4 day fast to get the full autophogy benefits… listen to your body. If its working for you, great! but dont be afraid to scale it back and lose weight at a healthier pace if needed. Everyone is different and we learn as we go. Best of luck!!

#15

Thank you Tracy! I’m happy you see results even when you have scaled back. It’s working so well for me. 80 lbs down as we speak. Feel focused and well in the long fasts and so happy starting it again when my 3 day eating window comes to an end. I’m learning to listen more and more to my body. Have also listened to many many people on YouTube but I can tell two people have been of greatest help so far and they’re Jason Fung and Mark Sisson.

(BuckRimfire) #16

What is your age and do you do any exercise other than walking, particularly resistance training?

I am far, far from an expert, but a four-day fast every week sounds like a lot, particularly if you are struggling to eat enough protein on the eat days. You REALLY don’t want to lose muscle mass just in the pursuit of rapid weight loss! For most people, rebuilding muscle is not easy. I lost a lot of muscle from my legs five years ago due to hip surgery and associated inactivity, and still haven’t got it back. Upped my weight training a few months ago and still barely creeping up in strength.

The conventional recommendations for protein intake are considered by many to be too low, and it sounds like you may be struggling to reach even that low amount averaged over the week. How many grams of protein are you eating per week? If you’re not getting enough protein on the eat days to make up for what you’re missing on the fast days, I’d be concerned. And, it’s pretty standard to read that one can only absorb about 50 grams of protein per meal (not sure if everyone agrees on that, though!) so that would make it even more challenging…

I was just listening to an MD geriatrician say that for older people, getting 1 gram per pound of “target” body weight per day is ideal. So, figure out what your weight in pounds would be if you had a BMI of 20 and that would be the grams of protein goal. It’s a lot of protein! For me, that would be about 20 or 21 eggs! I don’t get that much except on the happy days when I go wild and eat over a pound of beef for dinner. (I usually have 50-60 grams of protein at breakfast, then often don’t get much between then and dinner.)

Some people say that resistance training during fasting helps prevent muscle loss. Not sure how well that’s been tested or if it was tested with as much fasting as you are doing. If you don’t want to go to the gym, you might try doing body-weight squats or “sumo squats” to see how many it takes to reach fatigue. If you can do them all day without fatiguing (kidding, I mean more than a couple dozen reps) you could try holding any convenient heavy object or wearing a backpack filled with some water bottles, cans of food, whatever. Probably a good idea to look up low-carb fitness advice from someone better than me, though.

I don’t want to put a damper on your fantastic weight loss, but just wondering if being a little more patient wouldn’t be safer…

#17

It’s not particularly much protein from my viewpoint but indeed, most of us don’t use only eggs for it :smiley: I love my eggs but after 8-10 it gets boring even for me. Other protein sources help.
And it may be many eggs but only a cute slab of meat for a hungry carnivore… And of course, one can eat it in many little meals if that works for them.
One can even drink protein, I did that a lot lately (eggs in my coffee).

#18

Thank you for your detailed response. I appreciate the time you put to answer my question. My lean body mass at 20 BMI should be around 140 lbs. if I really try hard I could get 140 gr of protein on my eat days (not easy though). I do lots of walking and pullin/pushing. Genetically I’m lower body muscular so I’m getting more and more muscle definition on my lower body which I enjoy. At this point I’m so fat adapted that I feel even greater on my fast days than eat days to the point that I wait for my fast days! In the past 3 months I’ve lost 11 pounds a month without miss. My food is mostly fat and protein. On day one and two of my eat days after I break my fast (with home made bone broth) my body demands eating but on day three and four I can only eat twice like my body says NO to food. I eat a long of spinach and mushrooms with my egg, cheese, salmon, bacon … to make up for potassium deficiency due to 4 day fasts. I also eat good amounts of 85% dark chocolate after meals. I try to minimize red meat consumption because it gives me constipation and constipation gives me diverticulitis attack (not fun). I’ve tackled constipation mainly with consumption of fiber through avocados, spinach and mushrooms. That’s pretty much it. I also avoid consumption of protein powder. Per Dr Fung it raises your insulin level and not helpful. In one of Dr. Fung videos he was talking about a man who had lost good amounts of fat by 3 day fasting 4 day eating.

20 eggs seem mission impossible to me but I eat 5-6 on my eat days. I also consume some blanched almond powder. On my eat days I sometimes eat one or max 2 kiwis. My cooking oil was olive oil but now I’ve switched to unrefined coconut oil.

I hope that I can reach to 150 pounds by December January. Then I will eat twice a day and start resistance training and other joyful activities. Again I feel great fasting and do it with no problem but I’m not sure about possible muscle loss in the process.

Some additional information here that I have low metabolism as I am extremely sensitive to coffee and a medium cup of coffee even at 11:00 AM gives me insomnia so easily and I’ve recently learned through Primal Blueprint that people sensitive to coffee have slow metabolism.

(Edith) #19

Hum….I find that very interesting. I used to not be able to handle caffeine at all. Even caffeine only in the morning affected my sleep at night. Lately, that doesn’t seem to be a problem. I wonder if my metabolism has improved? Of course if it had, I would be able to lose those last 5 pounds. Lol.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #20

I go in cycles with that. As a young man, I could have a cup of coffee before going to bed and sleep soundly. In my thirties and forties, I couldn’t sleep if I drank anything caffeinated after about 4:30 p.m. Lately, I haven’t noticed any trouble with caffeine in the evening, until the last month or two, and I’m beginning to wonder if I need to start restricting my caffeine again.

(Edith) #21

Maybe I’m so sleep deprived from my night time hot flashes :hot_face:, I just don’t notice the caffeine’s effect. I guess that could be a cycle.:grinning: