Any tips for a Newbie Faster wanting a natural fast?

(Brandon Schultz) #1

Broke a 48 hour fast last night. I had no idea what I was doing on day one. This is because I had IF fasted before, but never did a prolonged fast.

It was more of an intuitive eating thing – after 7 weeks of eating keto, I just don’t feel as hungry anymore and I wanted to really kickstart my health in general and be more mindful in general about food.

I had ghee in my morning coffee and bone broth in the evening of my first day. Bone broth just made me hungrier ( felt like a mistake) Day 2 was just water and tea. I broke the fast after 48hrs with a delicious keto meal that my mom (trying out Keto) got inspired to cook. and some plain yogurt that I added fresh blueberries and erythritol too , yum!

Yet I regretted ( in a small way) breaking the fast. Since breaking I am just now on just tea and lemon water, thinking about adding in some apple cider vinegar to water once a day.

Not sure if that qualifies technically as a water fast, but it intuitively feels right. I don’t want to take any manufactured and processed electrolytes, but I also need to function as well.

I am going for 72 hours this time – but seeing how it goes and listening to my body.

Any thoughts, experiences, or advice?

especially curious about the wisdom of workouts in a fasted state for a newbie faster.

thanks.

(Laurie) #2

I don’t know about “wisdom,” but this is my experience: A month or two ago I tried twice-weekly 44-hour fasts–two days minus my 4-hour eating window. For example, I’d eat between 6 and 10 pm on Monday, eat nothing on Tuesday, then break my fast at 6 pm on Wednesday. I felt good, not really hungry at all. The only time I noticed a difference was during exercise.

On Tuesdays I felt normal during my afternoon workout, which is not surprising, since as far as my body was concerned this was my usual pre-meal workout. But on Wednesdays (Day 2 of fast) I felt a bit weak while exercising, like I shouldn’t be exercising. I felt I had to choose between workout and fast. I chose the workout. Maybe in the spring (when the winter blahs are over) I can get back into fasting.

Good luck!

(Susan) #3

Pinches of salt under your tongue throughout the day helps a lot.

(Carl Keller) #4

I think it’s amazing how keto can allow us to go days without eating and not being overly hungry and not seeing our metabolism suffer. My experience with 2-3 day fasts were mainly to see if I could do it and to show me that I have full control over what and when I eat. What I did notice on the 3rd day was sort of a natural buzz where I had all this amazing energy and I was zooming all over the place.

Extended fasting is great for people who want to use this as a tool to try to and lose a lot of fat and/or to reverse T2D or pre-diabetic conditions. Longer fasts can even induce autophagy which is a cellular self-cleansing process that breaks down and recycles damaged molecules and cellular organelles.

Try Thomas DeLauer on YT. He does a lot of videos about this sort of thing:

(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja ) #5

You sound like you are close to fat adaption.
If your focus is weight loss, you can start reducing your dietary fat intake and let your body fat provide the energy your body needs to fuel itself. Fasting during fat adaption is the easiest and best way to lose weight in my opinion.