Fasting for wellness, not weight loss


(Michelle) #1

Hello -

I so desperately want to do an extended fast for autophagy, HGH increase and overall wellness. I am not obese, I don’t have IR or T2D, and I don’t have a ton of weight to lose (about 10 lbs of fat). I regularly do IF - about 16/8 or 17/7 or something around there. Eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full basically.

I am having a really tough time with longer fasts. I assume it’s due to low bodyfat %. Has anyone with a lower BF% tried an extended fast? Or eating only fat to sustain your fast? Any tips/tricks you can give provide?


(Jennifer) #2

I would look into fat fasting. You just need to eliminate protein for autophage to kick in. With low body fat, I would be afraid of losing muscle mass with fasting too often.

Good luck!


(Todd Allen) #3

You might check out Valter Longo’s “fasting mimicking diet”. I don’t remember the exact numbers but he has been testing 5 days of fairly low calorie, 800-1000 calorie/day I think with very low protein and believes it provides most of the benefits of true fasting. The diet he pushes was still fairly high carb. Further restricting carbs or maybe replacing most of the carb with fat would hopefully do the same thing. From what I understand restricting the protein is key as that is the primary signal to the body to switch from a growth based mode to a recycling and repair mode.


(Oliver) #4

Sorry, this thread is already a bit old, but I experienced myself, that fasting with low body fat (~10%).is hard. I did only water and coffee for 44 hours, but my hand felt cold (even though it is summer) and I felt like crap. Until I discovered, that you can only get around 31.4 kcal per pound of fat per day. So I was literally living on only 450 kcal per day. When I’m fasting now, I do a fat fast (coconut oil and/or mct oil into coffee, or butter straight) whenever I feel weak. So you can get the positive effects from fasting plus autophagy (when you fast long enough).
Hope that helps.


(Tim W) #5

Oliver,

I fast for long periods at 8-12% body fat and deal with cold hands/overall cold as well.

I’m trying something new, iodine.

After reading an “OLD” (circa 1990) diet book that basically said to eat a keto diet, even though they didn’t realize it, I came across a paragraph discussing a lack of iodine and how it could cause cold extremities, dry skin and a few other issues that I suffer from.

So, I went to the pantry and checked, the salt that we normally use, no iodine, the sea salt we use, no iodine, lite salt, no iodine… hmmmmmmm

Considering the fact that I’ve been doing IF and long term fasting (4-15 days at a time) for over a year, I could have “used up” any iodine stored in the body and am running a deficit over time.

So, I now take an iodine supplement each morning along with my keto aid. I’m going to keep doing so up to and throughout the 20 day fast my wife and I have coming up, should have some good data on the hypothesis that my cold hands were due to lack of iodine (it was BAD, my hands would turn white from the restricted blood flow if I went outside in the cold…).


(Brian Walters) #6

Im 4 days in on a 5 day fast and I am probably under 10% body fat.

My hands are pretty cold as well, and I am just slightly lethargic, nothing too bad.

I am going to try the iodine supplements, thanks for the advice


(Oliver) #7

Thank you, I’m going to find some iodine. Need to look up, where to find iodined salt here in Europe. :wink:


(Jennifer) #8

Look for Lugol’s iodine. I try to do a couple drops of iodine in water every day.


(Oliver) #9

Thank you, @birddog27


(KCKO, KCFO) #10

Have you used Richard’s calculator and read the blog on why fasting is easier for some people. It is very helpful.

Once I got down to the normal range for my height I found it harder to do longer fasts, 24 or so, still not a problem but going for several days can be challenging now. I am currently doing the July Zornfast, and I have had 3-5 macadamia nuts to help me over the rough spots. Once I had those, I was good to go again, I getting to the 36 hr. marker without any further issues.

Good luck with finding what works for you. It does vary a lot.


July 2018 IF / EF chat ALL WELCOME
July 2018 ZornFast
(Diane) #11

@collaroygal

Just found this post. Thanks for the link to Richard’s blog and calculator! Very helpful.