Fasting for jet lag?

(Kristin Rogers) #1

Hi,
I have been keto for a few months (this time, not my first rodeo, etc). I have done a few 3-4 day fasts, and am going to be traveling next week to Italy (yay!)
I am West coast US, so it’s a 9 hour time difference. I am wondering if anyone here has used fasting to ameliorate hey lag symptoms?
My husband went to Beijing and fasted the day before and last day of how trip and that was very helpful for him, but wanted to get more data points.
I am considering fasting for 2-3 days before the trip, and then breaking the fast with breakfast in Europe. But I’m not sure how that will impact the jet lag mechanism that fasting should help.
Any thoughts are appreciated!

#2

I’ve done it flying from the west coast to France, and it worked like a charm! No jet lag at all.
You don’t need to go 2-3 days beforehand though – just time the start of your fast so that you break it at a regular meal time in the new place:
http://www.netlib.org/misc/jet-lag-diet

(Kristin Rogers) #3

Did you do the full protocol in that link? I assume not since it advocates some high carb ‘feasting’ as part of a 4 day lead up.
Honestly, part of the motivation for the 2-3 days fasting is that there is likely to be some ‘feasting’ when in Italy and wanted to offset that in advance.

(Lori Calhoun) #4

Thanks for this info. I am doing the same thing in June, and HATE the lag when I get there.

(Lori Calhoun) #5

Thank for this question…!! I was wanting to know the same thing!

#6

Nah that was just to give you a link to jumpstart further research if you wanted. I just did the “time your first meal to be at the meal time in your destination” + 24 hours … so with Nice being 9 hours ahead, and my flight arriving in the late afternoon, I figured if destination dinner was 5pm, that would be 8am my local time, so I had breakfast the day before I left and then had a ~33 hour fast.
I don’t recall what time my return flight was, but I used the same strategy.

Some more links: