[MightySunTzu]

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Originally Posted by SarahJaynee

I'll be watching this thread so my wishes are with you Mightsuntzu!
Great post Gingko!

Thank you SarahJaynee, i will keep the thread updated. You have done some fasting as well? And yes, Ginkgo's post was quite decent

Originally Posted by ginkgo

Keep us posted on this every few days on this thread. Starvation starts when fasting ends. Fasting ends with true hunger. You already know this so it was for the other poster.

Yes, when fasting to completion it is quite essential to recognize the symptoms of a completed fast! From what i have read and otherwise heard, "a return of true hunger" is quite overwhelming and unmistakable. I want to experience it in the same way another person might want to climb Mount Everest.

This girl (kelly jones)fasted and encountered it in day 23. She describes the feeling in the first 2 minutes of her youtube video: YouTube - day21-24 of 30day water fast...

This is one post that graphically describes it as well... from somebody who has both read plenty of information on the subject and indeed experienced a return of genuine hunger himself. After fasting 25 days without it (and curing lieukemia i might add), he had a 40 day refeeding period and then fasted another 30 days before experiencing it. Re: Question about true hunger. at Fasting: Water Fast Support Forum

And some exerps from Shelton on the subject:

[(Breaking the Fast with the genuine return of Natural Hunger) Shelton.

The Breath, which during all or most of the fast has been offensive, becomes sweet and clean.
The Tongue becomes clean. The thick coating which remained on it throughout most of the fast vanishes.
The Temperature, which may have been sub-normal or above normal, returns to exactly normal, where it remains.
The Pulse becomes normal in time and rhythm.
The Skin reactions and other reactions become normal.
The Bad Taste in the mouth ceases.
Salivary Secretion becomes normal.
The Eyes become bright and eye sight improves.
The Excreta loses its odor. The Urine becomes light.

The primary indication that the fast is to be broken is the return of hunger; all the other indications are secondary. Often one or more of these secondary signs are absent when hunger returns, but one should not refrain from breaking the fast when there is an unmistakable demand for food, merely because the tongue, for example, is not clean. Inasmuch as all the signs do not invariably appear in each case, do not hesitate to break the fast when hunger returns.][/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

My website on fasting has quotes by 19 different MDs on fasting plus a quote about fasting by the New England Journal of Medicine. I will fetch the quote about starvation beginning.

I have seen these quotes before. They are nice. Here is a link: Fasting The Ultimate Diet

Might you post your website on fasting too? I should like to have a peek

Originally Posted by ginkgo

[My site has a psychiatrist (all are MDs)(Dr Alan Cott) that has a best selling book on fasting.

I have actually read his book and in spite of the cheesy, exploitative title it is very good . Haha, that title: "FASTING: The Ultimate Diet: LOSE UP TO 5 POUNDS ON A ONE DAY FAST". If i remember correctly, he explains in the book about the 5 pounds in one day nonsense in the title, paraphrased: "oh yeah, of course it's mostly water weight, but i got you to buy the book, didn't i?".

I also read his 2nd book on the subject which is called "Fasting: A way of life". A much better title .

Originally Posted by ginkgo

He says that the fatter someone is, the less their metabolism slows down while fasting..

This makes perfect sense.

And whatever slowing takes place does so gradually and consistently. While the level to which metabolism slows will certainly vary from person to person, I believe i read that (in general) within 7 days it has slowed by about 10% and within 21 days it has slowed by about 20% and won't get much slower than this as the percentage of decrease becomes smaller and smaller each day. As long as we refeed with this reduced metabolism in mind, we can keep ourselves out of fat gain trouble.

Dr Fuhrman, M.D. had a broken foot and the doctors said he would never skate again. He fasted for 42 days and went back to pro skating.[/QUOTE]

... and he went on to become an M.D. with an emphasis on fasting. He wrote a good book called "Fasting and Eating For Health". He later embraced a 2nd emphasis which is nutrition and wrote a book called "Eat to Live". Did you know that Fuhrman fasted under Shelton's supervision... as did 40,000 other people?

Originally Posted by ginkgo

Fuhrman never fasts anyone more than 50 days in case you have not reached true hunger by then. Of course with him, people want to get back to their daily living and they pay him over $100 a day to be at his place and be supervised by him on Fasting.

I'm going to take it day by day. If i get to 30 days before encountering a return to genuine hunger, there is a very good chance i will break the fast soon thereafter... and hopefully catch "genuine hunger" the next time... unless i seek and find some expert supervision by that time (which i doubt ). But if i get to 30 days and i'm still feeling great, i will likely continue a day at a time, paying careful attention to what my body is telling me. If genuine hunger is to take 50 days (which is typical as i understand it), i will likely do it over 2 fasts with a 3 month refeeding period in between. Optimal health is the highest of all priorities herein. I'm not the least bit interested in running out of any essential nutrients... but i would truly delight in achieving genuine hunger before 30 days go by .

Originally Posted by ginkgo

[I have fasted for 22 days and did not reach true hunger. My body wanted me to fast longer. I did it that long since many Christians do it for spiritual reasons and do it for 21 days so I beat all of them. .

A most compelling and original reason to fast 22 days . I wasn't aware that many Christians pursued a 21 day goal. In any case, I wish you well with that chip .

Originally Posted by ginkgo

Whether someone gains the weight back or not depends on what they do after the fast. But that is the same anytime, right?

My sentiments exactly... as well as my experience. And don't get me wrong. Allow oneself to embrace bad eating habits after a fast and one can gain back all the fat and then some. Healthy eating habits post-fast are essential and this discipline should be formulated and cemented in the fasters heart and mind during the fast. Even better is to allow oneself to be trained through the fast to better appreciate natural foods, something the fast will indeed do for you... and to not anhilate the positive results of this training by returning to bad stuff (ie: refined sugar and other empty calories). Also it is very important for a faster to keep in mind that there will be a lot of temporary water loss (could be 10-20 pounds depending on the individual and the duration) and this weight will return within 2-3 weeks. A faster must not go into a panic when (s)he is gaining back a pound each day. Know it, embrace it, expect it. You didn't really believe you lost 20 pounds of fat in 7 days, right?

Originally Posted by ginkgo

[Here is the quote about starvation: "Hereward Carrington, M.D.

Originally Posted by ginkgo

wrote a book called Vitality, Fasting and Nutrition. He says 'fasting is a scientific method of ridding the system of diseased tissues, and morbid matter, and is invariably accompanied by beneficial results....The whole secret is this: fasting commences with the omission of the first meal and ends with the return of natural hunger, while starvation only begins with the return of natural hunger and terminates in death.' Natural hunger is the body saying that it is time to stop the fast since it is all clean."

Indeed, the body is not starving when fasting. It is actually feasting on its own fat stores, generally (but with exceptions) an ample supply of fuel for 30 days or longer. A fast is an exceptionally "muscle sparing activity". Fat is burned as fuel (once ketosis sets in which is usually on day 2 or 3), and protein is sparingly used only for the minimal amount of glucose the brain requires to function. If the fat were to get down to an exceptionally low level, the body only then would be forced to switch to muscle as its fuel source... and this highly undesirable state would constitute true starvation. But as demonstrated above, the body would send an unmistakably powerful signal when this point has been reached, allowing it to be avoided.