Fasting Questions 2


(Jon H ) #1

I had a couple questions for you experience folks who are familiar with fasting.

  1. Does it make a difference to fast for 7 days vs 21? Or a much larger number?
  2. Can you only do longer-fasts (7 days+) if you have fat? Personally, I am bone thin.
  3. Last time I fasted for 24 hours after my appetite cut down a third or fourth, Is that normal & healthy?

I appreciate your time, thank you.


(KM) #2

Hi, and welcome to the forums.

I see from your other post that you are a teenager. I’m wondering what you’re hoping to accomplish with such a long fast. You are already very thin, so hopefully it’s not about weight loss.

I often wish I could go back and take care of my body from such an early point. You have a unique opportunity to optimize your health for life, while your body is still building itself, and it seems to be important to you now, which is wonderful.

I am not a doctor, but the needs of a young body are different. Unfortunately, teen years are also a time when eating disorders that can affect your long term health are more likely to form. I think you would be much smarter to focus on putting the right stuff in, rather than keeping nutrients out.

I’m older, a small person of healthy weight for my size but without a lot of extra padding. I’ve done a lot of dumb s*** to my body over time, and I understand the emotional temptation to try a long fast, but I don’t think it would be wise for my body, so I try to create other physical and spiritual practices that feel cleansing and renewing. I definitely wouldn’t consider a three week fast if I was already ‘bone thin’, even one week doesn’t seem appropriate.

A ketogenic diet can lead to lower appetite, so yes, that’s normal. Whether to go with it or avoid calorie deficit is up for debate, but a calorie deficit can lead to metabolic slowdown, which most people agree is not a good thing.

Please be kind to yourself! I’m hoping you feel comfortable to share some of your ideas and personal health journey here. There is a lot of good info here … And some pretty nice people, too. :slightly_smiling_face:


(Bob M) #3

If you’re thin, fasting might not be that beneficial. If you’re looking for something like higher ketones, you can get that through eating keto, at least if you’re relatively new to keto.

If I was thin and young, I’d concentrate more on exercise like body weight training to build muscle, while eating a good diet. If you handle carbs well, that could be lower carb and not keto, paleo (no dairy), etc.


(Chuck) #4

Listen I intermittent fasting. Meaning that I have a 16 hour window each day that I don’t consume any calories. I can drink unsweetened tea or water in that time. I don’t drink coffee. I eat 2 meals in my 8 hour window of eating and I will snack on nuts. I don’t do keto forsay, I do a moderately low carb diet. I don’t eat bread or anything with wheat. I don’t eat processed food, or fast food or drink soft drinks not even zero calorie soft drinks. I have one cup of unsweetened cranberry juice with my supplements. I don’t eat after 6pm or before 10am. I eat after 10am when I feel like I am ready to eat. My first meal is normally a smoothie that I created from heavy cream, almond milk, fresh baby spinach, avocado, mixed berries and protein powder. My afternoon meal is a normal meal that my wife fixes. We seldom eat out, even when traveling we take our own RV and eat at our home away from home. I am 77 never hospitalized and my worst illness has been the flu. And no my weight isn’t perfect by my doctor’s charts but it is stable and seems to be perfect by my body’s standards. My blood pressure is normal, and my labs are great.


#5

I wouldn’t do even 7 days when thin. (Okay, I wouldn’t do it anyway, the occasional 2-3 days sounds perfect as I don’t want to lose muscle and it’s very much unavoidable if one doesn’t consume anything for several days, no matter what some delusional people may think… it may be not super much and it may come back but no thanks. Once I stopped a fat fast after 1.5 days because I got paranoid about my muscles…)
I understand people have different priorities and I don’t bat an eye if I hear about 7 day fast goals. But it’s only right if you feel okay and, say, a truly underweight person won’t feel okay even for this pretty short while. IDK about naturally thin people and I don’t even see you so no idea what you can pull off. Some slim people easily fast for several days while some others can’t do 24 hours without some visible extra fat mass so there is a significant personal diversity.

21 days sounds very much to me. I know many people pulled it off and with the right fat mass, over 1 year happened without problem too but still… We do need nutrients and the longer the fast, the more problematic it can get. And returning to eating needs more and more carefulness. If I don’t eat for 3-5 days, I can just eat whatever afterwards, not everyone can but even I would need to be very careful after 3 weeks I am pretty sure. Maybe following my body would help, maybe not, who knows? I don’t ever plan to go near that far.

What is your goal, why would you do this far when you don’t even have fat to use up? Your muscles would be in way bigger danger than mine would be as I have plenty of extra fat and my body would use them only for other purposes, not getting energy…

I am not knowledgeable enough about longer fasts but your case sounds potentially dangerous.

Seconded! Muscles are pretty and useful. They may help even when one looks too thin - unless if it’s due to barely eating as needing even more energy doesn’t help with that. Except if one gets hungry from exercise…


(Jon H ) #6

I appreciate it. I definitely do not have an eating disorder. What I would hope to accomplish would be the cleansing of my body, cleaning out of waste accumulated from all the garbage I ate, but also having my b body work for efficiently.


(Jon H ) #7

Well I hope to accomplish a more efficient body, cleansing, and similar benefits you see religious leaders get when they for example go for 40 day fasts.