Trying a 40 day water fast, does anyone have any experience?

[Nannie18]

Im doing a 30 day water fast and Im also bipolar but I take a different perscription than what your takin, but I hope everything goes smoothly with you and your fast, but would you please inform if you think that if anything goes wrong and you think it could be due to your bipolar condition to keep me updated lol thanks alot

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by evrgrn3

Greetings,

I am an open minded person...really, I am -- as esoteric and holistic as I think the next person. Could someone help me understand the health benefits of a water only fast for 40 days?

Are there not necessary nutrients and even proteins that the body needs? Would this not be uber-extreme?

Thank you to who ever educates me :-)

Are you very fat or very thin? Are you dying of something or have bad angina? Do you need to earn some extra money. Ben Franklin says that a penny saved is a penny earned!

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by ken nubo

I tried water fasting for two days, and I almost died.

Good luck on your attempt

A woman ate an apple and almost died. Enough said? Not hardly. The hospital saved her. The apple had too much pesticide. Do you know what fasting is? Do you think that it is dehydrating yourself by not drinking water. What did the doctor say? I saw 2 women wearing the same outfit and I almost died. But I did not go to the doctor. People have died while eating. Does that mean that you should not eat-- like choking to death on a piece of meat so the eating actually killed them.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by Chap

Regardless of what celebrity doctors say, this is a very bad idea, I encourage everyone even considering this to google water poisoning. If you wish to lose weight, nothing natural other than a good HEALTHY diet and exercise shall work in eliminating it. I know it is disappointing, especially when we are groomed and accustomed to instant and easy everything but this is how things work.

There shall always be tempting offers just as there shall always be cheats, it is better that you lose money than both that and your health, in order to prop up their bank balances. Look throughout the annals of history, especially celebrity history, all sorts of quacks and loony professionals have made their quick buck and then vanished Yet how many cults have the myriads of actors joined; how many diets have had their time; and how many people are fooled yet again and again, always working towards the short term, and encouraged so long as they spend.

Don't do it, it really is not worth it. Malnutrition can cause problems, if you get through this ridiculous diet, then it might get you on the rebound when you take your first bite of readily accessible processed food. There is a reason why the UN do not give malnourished kids Hershey bars.

A gallon of water is approx 4.5 litres, a healthy adult male is recommended to drink between 1.5-3(and even that is too much) litres.

Water intoxication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BBC NEWS: Woman died from 'too much water'

Drinking too much water has nothing to do with fasting. People who are fasting consume a lot less water than people that are eating.

[moises del mar]

i have practiced various types of fasting and recommend the strict water fast. i am currently on day 26 of a 40 day fast. in our culture, many people are only puppets who regurgitate what the media or advertisements say. there are only a very few situations where a 40 day water fast is hazardous to your health, mainly if you have anemia. please read this link for the almost innumerable benefits to water fasting:
The Health Benefits of Water Fasting by Stephen Harrod Buhner

i must say, that being a heavy smoker and a junk food eater are issues that should be dealt with before water fasting. let me put it like this. water fasting is great for health, but it is more like a graduate school technique where quitting smoking and laying of soft drinks and junk food is elementary. you could very well use the fast to quit smoking. let me be clear, taking medicine and smoking during a water fast is hazardous to your house. water fasting has been known to cure depression. while i'm not going to tell anyone to go off medicine because of the possible implications, i can say that i was on meds for a while, but i found that the difficulties i was having was more a result of my lifestyle and decisions that anything else. water fasting should be done without medicine, without smoking, and for the right reasons.

i lift weights and desire to be at a heavier weight. i maintain low percentage of body fat (under 10%) even when i get up to 195 pounds. i have currently lost 45 pounds but feel great. water fasting is a great exercise, but more than anything it will give you mental and spiritual clarity. you will begin to see the unimportant things in life as unimportant. and likewise, you will begin to see with clarity the things that are and should b eimportant. also, i notice a large increase in sensitivity to almost all senses.

i don't want to discourage you from doing this, but i cannot say how bad for your body it is when you smoke while fasting. all those carcinogens are they only thing going into your body. not good. get the full cleansing effect and quit smoking.

[Andrew Brunelle]

I would say to go for it, but if you are on medication it may be risky. Also, 40 days is a hell of a long time. I wouldn't ever do a water fast for that long unless I had some serious medical problems or was morbidly obese. I would recommend building up to longer and longer fasts, and always listening to your body. It will tell you when to break the fast. Don't keep going out of puritanism or because you need to meet your quota. Stop the fast when you feel real hunger again. You should also be monitored by a health practitioner for such a long fast, preferably one who specializes in fasting.

[joyfulgrowth]

I may have missed something, but the last trace I found of him on this forum (using the search function) was a post in April 2008, 12 days into his water fast.

[ginkgo]

It looks like the guy who started this 40 day fast had his last post on this thread only 8 days after he started the fast. A few months ago a woman started a 40 day fast and stopped posting after less than a week. When fasting, you should take it one day at a time.

[fountainAtlas]

This may highlight one of the issues with all types of trails. We, the general forum reading public, tend to notice the success only. He may have gotten bored or maybe the water fast was not a good idea for him.


-FountainAtlas

[foxyshadis]

Originally Posted by Andrew Brunelle

I would recommend building up to longer and longer fasts, and always listening to your body. It will tell you when to break the fast. Don't keep going out of puritanism or because you need to meet your quota. Stop the fast when you feel real hunger again.

Unfortunately, that's not true. When you consciously ignore hunger for several days to a week straight, you'll begin to unconsciously ignore it, and the hunger simply won't come back until you will it to. (This applies to many habits; that's how you can break yourself of almost anything with enough willpower. The brain is both wonderful and dangerous.) Instead, you'll experience a kind of euphoria as you become weaker, due to the body's overproduction of BHB & GHB plus adrenaline and dopamine compensating for the lack of nutrients, which also further suppresses appetite. Some people fast specifically to enter this state.

Note that I'm not down on fasts, I'm just explaining why you should always have another person physically present to verify that your view of your condition matches reality. It is completely possible to die or fall comatose believing that you're getting healthier. Don't be that guy that gives fasters a bad name.

Originally Posted by ginkgo

Drinking too much water has nothing to do with fasting. People who are fasting consume a lot less water than people that are eating.

They are one and the same. Think about it logically: You piss & sweat out vitamins, minerals, and proteins along with all of the toxins, but you only replenish them with water. If you take a 100% water fast too far, rather than occasionally replenishing the basic vitamins, you can end up with water toxicity and malnutrition. It is not something you can feel or detect without invasive tests. By minimizing the water intake you can prevent this, and thirst is much more difficult to shut off than hunger, so you're less likely to accidentally fall ill of thirst. Again, this is something a supervising person can help you with.

Note that I'm not a medical professional in any way. I know some things, I demand scientific explanations for effects, and I try to keep in mind how easy it is to delude myself, that's all.