New member - Signed up to share extended fast experience - Starting today

(Cam) #1

Hi i’m Cam.

As the title says, i am going to start an extended fast today and I just want to share it with like minded people as I generally get bad feedback when talking about it with friends, family and colleagues.

The longest i have fasted is 6 days but this was almost 9 months ago and i haven’t really fasted since.

I am expecting to hit the wall because when I was fasting and building up to my 6 day fast i hit it wall on day 2 of a fast, then 3 on the next fast and then not at all on the 6 day fast. It will be interesting to see if i am back to square one after 9 months of no fasting.

There was no real reason for me to break my 6 day fast and i regret it now, so i plan to go longer this time.

I am 30 years old and 130kg (286lb) which is pretty nuts considering my normal weight was always 85-90kg (187-198 lb).
I actually put on the weight from an initially healthy activity. I was working as a bouncer and i decided to bulk up. I went to the gym 6x a week doing weight and i was eating 6 whole chicken breasts, veggies and 1kg (2.2lb) of brown rice every day across 6 meals which is huge and was so hard to eat.
I ended up putting on a lot of muscle while staying surprisingly lean. Ended up getting up to 115kg (253lb) while probably 15-20% bf over the course of about a year and all was well.

Then i left the security job and stopped going to the gym regularly but carried on with the bad eating habits. Before i bulked up i would eat 2-3 times a day and after the bulk i was eating 6x a day. I wasn’t doing the massive amount of rice or chicken anymore but my appetite was huge as you can probably imagine.
I would go to the gym once or twice a week just to justify to myself that i can eat lots to maintain my muscle.

Fast forward 3 years and I am the fattest i have ever been at the aforementioned 130kg (286lb) and it is negatively effecting my life. I suddenly suck at basketball because i can’t jump or get up and down the court at any decent speed, i wear out straight away and it’s that bad that i’m not even playing the upcoming season despite being one of the better players in the league before the weight gain which is sad.

Sorry about the wall of text and thanks for your interest!

Cam

(Lisa ) #2

Hi Cam. Welcome!
I’m on day 2 of a water fast.
Re the negative opinions…all I can say is the first rule of fasting is the same as Fight Club :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
I continue exercising while fasting, although I feel a drop in performance day 4-6 which improves after that. Sometimes high intensity exercise makes me really hungry. Also, I have found that when I have cream/fat/sweeteners my appetite ramps up so I try to avoid those unless I need a bit of fat to get through. No shame in stopping if your body isn’t playing along!
Best of luck, I’ll be watching this thread.
Lisa

(Carl Keller) #3

HI and welcome Cam.

People who eat the SAD and are addicted to 4-5 meals per day get easily offended by th F[spoiler]ast[/spoiler]-word.

Not sure if you have tried keto before or ever been fat adapted, but I will tell you that if you have and if you are (fat adapted), fasting is easy peasy. When fat adapted and fasting, our body knows how to tap into body fat for fuel so our metabolism does not suffer, our hunger is mostly an afterthought and every day is normal except the fact that we are not eating. This is the safest way to fast. If not fat adapted we will be telling our body that starvation is upon us and the body’s response is to slow everything down to conserve fat. This is what it feels like to hit the wall.

So once the starvation period is over, our lower metabolism means we need to eat less than before we started starving, in order to gain weight. Yes you can lose weight doing EF, without being fat adapted but there is a much easier, healthier and more lasting way to go about it.

(Cam) #4

Hey Lisa.
Nice work with your water fast, how are you feeling on day 2?
Thanks for the tip with the exercise, i think i’ll go for regular strolls during the fast. Nothing crazy.
I will see how the body goes haha. The 3 day fast that i hit the wall on i just lay in bed for 30-40 mins and then i suddenly had huge energy and needed to get up and do something. My ketones had gone up by about 2mmol almost instantly which was cool. I broke it after that, but i wanted to see what would happen if i tried to push through.

Thank you and best of luck to you too!
Cam.

(Cam) #5

Hi thanks Carl.

I agree, it was like they were offended… weird!

I haven’t done strict keto before for any decent period of time, only a few days here and there to see what the meals were like. If this is too hard i will take your advice and start with keto until fat adapted.

Thanks mate.
Cam.

(Urmi) #6

I’m also fasting today, but not for as long. I’m planning a 42hr fast, but I’m not even sure if I’m fat adapted. I’ve done a couple 24hr fasts over the last few weeks, and this is my 2nd 42-hr one. If you do ever feel hungry over the fast, does that mean you’re not fat adapted?? I can work through my hunger, but I can’t lie and say I’m not hungry for dinner right now… barely 5 weeks in, it’s this too soon to fast?

(Carl Keller) #7

When I was fat adapted and tried my first 48 hour fast I did battle hunger but it wasn’t a physical hunger. It was clock hunger. Around dinner time, my main meal of the day, the desire and expectation to eat was the most difficult but I knew it was just in mind because a few hours after that time passed, the feeling of hunger passed and I was totally fine. It wasn’t like my stomach was growling (it hardly ever does these days)

Hard to say really. If you start feeling physical hunger at times you don’t normally eat, if you start getting cold hands and feet and/or if you start feeling like crap, then these are signs of starvation and you should stop your fast. I don’t see it as a big deal if these symptoms start showing and you immediately bail out of the fast. But doing it repeatedly might screw up your metabolism.

(Urmi) #8

Ha!! That’s probably because you were fat adapted!! My tummy be grumbling like whoa right now LOL… maybe that’s a sign I’m not. Who knows. I’m at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my self-experimentation with keto. #goingforit

(Cam) #9

Sorry that i haven’t updated yet. The start of my fast was delayed a bit.

I am 27 hours in to the fast with no issues. Haven’t been hungry at all, just stomach rumbling on and off.

Going to bed in a couple of hours so i’ll wake up 36-37 hours through the fast. Will be interesting to see if there is any hunger on day 2 before disappearing on day 3 like it normally does.

(Windmill Tilter) #10

I’ve been doing periodic 3-4 day fasts for about 2 years now, and I resisted keto right up until this month. Now that I’ve been doing keto for a little while, I can tell you that it’s already making fasting easier and more enjoyable.

Based on your weight lifting experience, you know what over-training does to your body and that it’s unsustainable. I’m starting to think that doing frequent extended fasting while not fat adapted is a bit like over-training the “fasting muscle” folks here talk about. It can be done for a while through force of will, but you’re body will always get the final word in that particular tug-of-war. That was my experience anyway.

I did about 8-10 three day fasts over the course of 4 months two years back, and then I woke up one day to find I was still 40lbs from my goal weight, but unable to fast. I tried restarting quite a few times, but it was like would just hit the wall within 24hrs and I just couldn’t do it.

If you’re going to be doing extended fasts on a consistent basis, consider trying keto. An easy way to do it will be to come off an EF and just keep carbs under 20g a day. You’ll already be in ketosis provided that the fast extends past the 48hr mark. If you give keto 3 weeks, and you mix in a couple easy 2-3 day fasts, you might be surprised by the difference it makes.

Just my 2 cents. I’ll be pulling for you either way. Good luck!

(Cam) #11

Thank you for taking the time to write about your fasting experience. You have a very good point about forcing yourself through a bad period when switching to ketones after a couple of days of fasting. It does seem pretty silly to have that rough patch each time when i could just be in ketosis to start with before the fast.

You have given me something to think about!

Thanks for the advice and encouragement.

(Lisa ) #12

Hi Cam, how are you going?
I agree with the above sentiments about staying keto for a period of time before fasting - makes it much easier. I finished my 5 days yesterday as planned, had a small refeed, but haven’t had anything today as I am not hungry. I do occasionally get head hunger, but I stay busy and it goes away pretty quickly. If I feel genuinely weak and lousy then I will eat. I think with time it gets easier to tell. Good luck.