Starting a seven day fast!

fasting
(Rebecca) #1

I have had a weekend away of eating and drinking and even eating a meal off plan, I had planned to and I am going to start my fast tonight. My last meal finished at 8:10pm and I am attempting a one week water fast! The longest I have gone is sixty five hours! I am excited to get past the 72hour mark and reap the benefits! I’m going to supplement with salt on the tongue and my normal magnesium and potassium! Encouragement and suggestions appreciated!

(Tim) #2

My current recommendation is 2 teaspoons 1/4 at a time every 2 to 3 hours. Maybe up to 3 teaspoons if you have a physically demanding job or are exercising a lot. On/under the tongue just like you said.

What’s normal for you? I know a lot of people are magnesium deficient and should be supplementing it, but I think most people don’t actually need nearly as much potassium as they think. Increasing the salt intake really puts the kidneys on their game for reclaiming potassium. But that’s just my opinion, based on my experience and chatting with others. I think most people just have a salt problem.

Other than that, right on! Long fasts are the best. Keep us posted on your progress.

(What The Fast?!) #3

Hey Jorge! Do you mean teaspoons? 2 Tablespoons is 6 teaspoons, which is about 2.5-3x the suggested sodium dose of 3-5000mg sodium.

(Tim) #4

Yes! Typo, my bad! Out on my mobile returning a U-Haul. Will fix it when I’m home. Good catch!

EDIT: Fixed it.

(What The Fast?!) #5

@Bex_katherine

(Tim) #6

Megan Ramos actually recommended double that on the most recent guest podcast she was a guest on. Two teaspoons was her recommendation.

Between that and ‘The Salt Fix’ episode of 2 keto dudes I’m more worried about people not getting enough salt than a little too much, especially while fasting.

(What The Fast?!) #7

Yep, 1 tsp = about 2300 mg sodium, so 2 tsp’s is just under 5,000mg. I was saying that if people were to eat two TABLESPOONS of salt, that would be 6 tsp’s, so 13,800mg of sodium.

(Tim) #8

So we’ve got conflicting information here. Maybe it’s best to get terms straight. I’m talking about Table Salt not just Sodium. Maybe that’s the conflict?

But the first google result for Teaspoons to Milligrams says:

One teaspoon of table salt converted to milligram equals to 5,687.50 mg. How many milligrams of table salt are in 1 teaspoon? The answer is: The change of 1 tsp ( teaspoon ) unit in a table salt measure equals = into 5,687.50 mg ( milligram ) as per the equivalent measure and for the same table salt type.

And I just went to my kitchen scale and measured 3 different leveled off teaspoons of salt and came up with 5.7 grams on the nose exactly every time.

If you’re talking about pure sodium I don’t think that’s a very useful measurement as sodium is so highly reactive as to not exist in its elemental form in nature.

So I’m not really sure where you’re getting this 2300mg number from.

(What The Fast?!) #9

There’s a lot of confusion on this, I agree. 2300mg of sodium per 1 tsp of salt. The recommended sodium intake for keto is 3-5000, you can get that through salt pills or just measuring out table salt. (I use a combination of the two.)
For clarity:

(Tim) #10

Ok, but what I’m saying is Megan Ramos recommended 2 teaspoons of actual table salt.

I was recommending salt, not sodium.

I think recommending things in terms of sodium is a bit weird, and not very useful. You can’t ever get just sodium, it’s always bound to something, usually chlorine if humans are ingesting it. It’s a distinction without a difference as it’s literally impossible to ingest sodium.

Also, we’re talking about table salt here. The LD50 is in excess of 3 grams per kg of body weight and the ‘antidote’ is water. A little extra is fine.

(What The Fast?!) #11

I was agreeing that two teaspoons is correct. You originally mentioned two Tablespoons. That’s 3 times the recommended two teaspoons. You corrected it to two teaspoons and we are all good. We are saying the same thing. :slight_smile:

I only referenced sodium to make sure you knew it was supposed to be two teaspoons of salt, not two tablespoons. It’s a big difference.

(Tim) #12

Yeah, mea culpa on the tablespoon typo.

I just tend to think people supplement way too little salt, especially while fasting. Which is nuts because it’s one of the most important and least dangerous things you can supplement with.

It also has very wide reaching affects on other bodily functions if you’re deficient in it.

(What The Fast?!) #13

I totally agree! That’s why I started taking the salt pills. I realized that it was way easier to do that than to measure out the 2 tsp of salt each morning. It’s also super easy for fasting, I just take one very time I get a new bottle of water!

(Cody) #14

Forgive my keto ignorance, but what exactly does fasting help with? I know that I can probably Google it, and get some generic answer somewhere, but having someone explain it would most likely be the better alternative.

#15

How’s the fast going? I’ve just finished day 6 of a 7 day fast.

(Cathrine Helle) #16

I’m by no means an expert, but I would suggest you search for dr. Fungs videos and interviews on Youtube. I’ll attach a link to one that I think is nice to start with :slight_smile: The short version is that fasting does not (unlike calorie restricted diets) reduce the basal metabolic rate in the body. It also promotes autophagy that cleans up junk protein, and can reset your immune system.

(Rebecca) #17

I’m currently 39 hours in and feeling really good. My story is that I’m 25 (26 in 2 weeks) but I grew up very overweight, at 5"11 by the time I was 18 I was 350lbs. Obesity and diabetes runs in my family, heck, my mom took a ton of insulin when pregnant with me. When I was 19 I lost weight through diet and exercise, approximately 190lbs over two years. The last 30-40lbs through solid calorie restriction. This is the weight I gained back, now rewind to January 2016 when I decided to lose it, again calorie restriction and exercise, the last 10lbs I discovered keto. It was amazing but since I have gained back all the weight. I test ketones, and I have gained the weight back eating keto just indulgently, as soon As I stopped tracking I started to gain. My hope with fasting is I can change my metabolism, improve it, with periods of fasting and feasting. I’ll say I have done periods of 60 hour or 48 hour fasts and still maintained my gaining trajectory. I had four days ofeasting and now I’m praying 10 days ofasting will be the right step in getting my body back to where I want it and improving my metabolism.

(Rebecca) #18

I feel awesome @danbot5000 not feeling any overt differences, I’m going to be very interested to see how I feel after 72 hours as I have never made it that long, haha I’m hoping it gets even easier. Honestly I really miss food but mostly that’s just psychological. How are you feeling? What’s your experience been?