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Looked this thread up, as I've begun a rare 2-day fast for myself. I'm already pretty fit, so it's not for that, but for a film role I'm in, and I wanted to fast and become a bit more gaunt in the face just prior to filming.
Dude, I'm hungry. Any tips for an otherwise very healthy person to contend with the psychological effects of hunger?
WWJD? LOL, sorry. Meditate maybe. I will say that the first two days of an extended fast are the absolute worst and you will never feel this crappy again. You have now added strength to your character.
Anyway, I'm glad you revived this b/c now I get to talk about my experiences with a 21 day fast. Still have cancer, still doing holistic, still no growth of tumor, so I decided to go on the long one. I wrote out an entire list of all of my health concerns at the beginning, and apparently I forgot a few and only remembered them when they corrected. First of all I had a major sinus infection when I began the fast but that was gone in 48 hours and my sinuses were so clear that for once I only noticed how good it felt to breathe out of my nose. Had a big toenail with fungus that had been there for years and I can't say it's healed but it detached from my toe and is getting ready to fall off where I have no doubt that it will grow in healthy. All of my anxiety, depression, and stress disappeared during the time of the fast and though I often get lonely and I spent a great deal of time alone during the fast, I never got lonely--not much anyway.
But the second to the best part--I have very unbalanced hormones and way too much estrogen which was not good for the cancer b/c it's 98% estrogen receptor positive, which means all that extra estrogen feeds it. I'm 56 and still not in menopause--well I wasn't before the fast. Now I'm over a month late to start my period and having all kinds of hot flashes and I'm thrilled lol--I'm surely the only woman in the history of womankind to love hot flashes but it's time dammit and I didn't want to take the anti-hormonals. And. . . the tumor is smaller by a noticeable bit. It's shrinking, slowly, but it is shrinking.
So this is the short list of benefits that I got. One disappointment was that the spiritual benefits weren't all that obvious and I was hoping for some of those but I tend to not be very spiritual in general, though I would like to be more so--one of these days I might be able to sit still for an entire meditation session. Oh, and my weight stabilized at 17 lbs lower than it was at the start of the fast. I had begun to gain weight but now it is now holding at this weight and I feel really good and people tell me that I look great, even those who didn't know about the fast. The best thing? It's free, unless you have to take time off from work to do it.
Stepka this is amazing! I hope to perform a few experiments using animal models and fasting - I think it is very plausible that starvation is a natural state that may have had important health benefits, but now for most industrialized nations its pretty non-existent. I am curious though - what do you actually do to fast? Is it nothing but water during fast days?
Stepka this is amazing! I hope to perform a few experiments using animal models and fasting - I think it is very plausible that starvation is a natural state that may have had important health benefits, but now for most industrialized nations its pretty non-existent. I am curious though - what do you actually do to fast? Is it nothing but water during fast days?
I did do mostly just water, but when I ran my idea by my holistic doc, he said that if I get super weak I could take a little bone broth or vegetable broth and I did do that about 3 of my days. Also there were times when I had a little herbal tea, but nothing with calories. I've also heard that you have to be careful about doing anything with too much protein during a fast since that can be dangerous. I forgot which study it was, but there were some fasters who only had a protein supplement during a fast and some of them died--this is a caveat to those who are afraid to lose muscle so they only do protein. Don't. The truth is that you only lose a little muscle directly due to the fast. You also lose some b/c you are not supposed to exercise and believe me, you do not feel like moving and it's not good to force yourself to. Anyway, there is an evolutionary reason why you don't lose much muscle--muscles are essential to your survival (think heart is a muscle) and fat is not. Basically your body will throw all non-essentials out before it takes the muscle--things such as fat, bacteria, viruses, tumors/benign and malignant, etc.
So yes I think you are onto something that this is natural. Animals tend to stop eating when they aren't feeling well and I think we're the only species to force ourselves to eat when we're sick. I know that if I start to get sick this winter with cold or flu, I'm going to stop eating for a couple of days and see what happens.
Anyway, the idea behind a complete water fast is that digestion uses up a lot of energy, even of juice it does, so if you stop consuming any nutrients your body will throw all of its energy into healing. Fasting is also another way to do calorie restriction, so that is another avenue to explore. Apparently CR is the only dietary regime that has been proven to extend life--probably has something to do with keeping the insulin level low. I'm so glad you are doing this and would love to hear what you find out with your studies.
Thank you stepka for the very clear response - and I think your understanding of what is happening is pretty much right on. A process called autophagy occurs within starving cells whereby poorly formed / non-functional proteins are broken down into their amino acid components to resupply the creation of new proteins. A similar process occurs for whole cells as recent research that I've seen posted here, and elsewhere, indicates our immune system becomes streamlined so to speak from fasting. This makes perfect sense to me, probably why we get sore throats and nausea to discourage us from eating during illness. So two more quick questions on it - is 3 days exactly that? e.g. start without eating breakfast and continue for that day, the next and the next, the on the fourth day start eating again? And how do you come off the fast? I assume its not just steak and eggs for breakfast?
Rowan - I promise I won't be going to the pet store to pick up some mice I am a researcher at a large University so my future animal studies will go through a rigorous review to ensure the health and quality of life of the animals during the study. It is something we take very seriously to ensure there is no unnecessary suffering of the animals during the studies. I have no experiments in fasting in animals at the moment, but I believe there is a lot of therapeutic potential in fasting and for the most part, it is not very well understood.
Last edited by Sciameriken; 08-07-2015 at 11:05 AM..
Reason: forgot an article :D
So two more quick questions on it - is 3 days exactly that? e.g. start without eating breakfast and continue for that day, the next and the next, the on the fourth day start eating again? And how do you come off the fast? I assume its not just steak and eggs for breakfast?
Yes, that's how I'd do a 3 day--easier to measure that way. Others go by how many hours and for them a 3 day fast would be exactly 72 hours. Just remember folks, a 2-3 day fast is the most difficult b/c one you get past that, it's so much easier not to eat. I do remember that I took quite an interest in pinterest during that time though--collecting healthy recipes mainly.
As for coming off--you are correct Sci--you do not want to overdo it and that's another potentially fatal mistake you could make. You must go back slowly. I may have gone too fast but I started with fresh vegetable juice the 1st day, that plus mushroom broth the second day, then added fruit on the 3rd day and for that whole first week. I have had a little meat since then but not much--I had already made up my mind to segue into the Blood type diet--word out on the holistic street is that it is very useful for chronic health problems and for cancer. I'm blood type A, and we are the natural vegetarians. I can have a little fish but I don't care much for it so trying to get my protein in other ways. A couple of weeks after I finished the fast I went to live and work in an organic vegetarian community for 2 weeks and I ate what they ate and there was not an overabundance of food so it was perfect and I felt and feel great.
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