10 day water fast log

[lasti]

Originally Posted by aabbcc

My response isn't scientific, merely based on my own experience.

I have done small water fasts [2 or 3 days], and I find them very helpful for reducing junk food cravings. I normally eat a healthy low-fat vegan diet, but occasionally I fall off the wagon. I am an emotional eater and I will eat all kinds of crap when I am stressed or unhappy. Water fasting makes it so much easier for me to get back on track again.

That's interesting. Have you noticed any other effects on your well-being?

[LostJohnny]

Originally Posted by drummbellina

I can't believe you're all congratulating him! I read the post with my mouth hanging open - the dude's heart went irregular and he fainted for goodness sake! Surely that's not good??

Lucky he wasn't in the pool.

And sleeping behind a dumpster? Yeah, well done...

Hear Hear!

Intuitively I don't think fasting is a good idea and the more I read this story the more my suspicion is confirmed.

[Barcs]

It's really different for every person though. I've heard a few bad stories, but I've heard significantly more positive ones. This person did not thoroughly research his fasting and as a result, messed some things up. This is no real surprise. I don't think everyone should fast at all. You need to listen to your body above all else.

[mncz]

Originally Posted by lasti

For me fasting is just a big riddle. Why not just eating healthy in the first place?

If body is viewed as a self renewing biomachine, then fast is the time when the machine gets rest from its everyday work and can take its time to fix things that have been neglected due to everyday work overload. Think about it: most of the food you put in your mouth takes between 30 minutes and 4 hours to get processed completely. Most people eat at least once each 3 hours. It means that most of the time your organ systems are busy dealing with food intake, which leaves them no resources to perform renewing, cleaning and other duties. Of course, our body is great when it comes to multitasking, but even that has its limits.

When you fast, body does just that: it cleanses and renews the organ systems. It has time, space and energy to do so, since it is not busy with food processing. The effects of this cleansing and renewing, of course, can be widely varied according to how much toxins you have collected in your colons and fat tissues.

Due to these reasons yoga, which I find amazingly advanced when it comes to understanding how human body functions, recommends to eat three times a day, every 8 hours, which leaves 4 hours after each meal for the body to rest, cleanse and repair. It also recommends to consider the size of your stomach when eating. For average person the natural (as opposed to stretched due to regular overeating) size of stomach is roughly equal to the size of both your palms put together in a form of bowl. Thus in one meal you should not consume more solid food than fits in your palms.

So how many people eat this way that would allow the body for optimum care and renewal? And this is where fasting comes in: it is sort of like general apartment cleaning. It is more tiresome and perhaps not as effective than just keeping things tidy every day, but it is better than nothing.

[Fullcrum]

Food takes a variable time depending on what you ate. Fruit can pass out of the stomach anywhere from 30 mins. - 1 hr. while saturated fat and meat can takes several hours. Definitely more than four.

But if you're raw vegan I guess there's nothing to worry about.

[Lupe]

Another thing - i was sleeping behind a dumpster the whole time cause i'm cheap and bought a 170$ bus ticket across canada that i had to wait for a week to use..so i was pretty cold and lonely throughout the whole fast. Next time i'll do it in a comfortable place with friends around, and stay warm and dry.

did u have some sort of blanket to stay warm? did u take measures to not freeze to death?

[seanner689]

Man, you really brought this thread back?? Must have been searching through the archives .

The thing that never made sense to me is that if you're eating 2000cal for example and spend (2000 minus X)calories digesting that food, you have X calories left for moving, living, and healing the body.

If you eat nothing, you actually have to break down energy within your body for anything you want to do. So if you fast, you'd have to break down X calories within your body just to be able to go about your daily day, and then after that your body is somehow going to say "hmmm, maybe i should further deplete my evolutionary safety net of fat reserves to repair this bum knee that I 'never had energy to fix' when I had a constant influx of calories"?

People who fast don't have extra energy from not having to digest food, they are often staying at home, resting and avoiding strenuous activities. From everything I read on these forums, your body encourages as little energy expenditure as possible while fasting; to spend extra energy going around curing random ailments doesn't make sense.

I'll propose an alternate, equally kooky idea:

When you're fasting, your body can't fix any of its ailing parts ... no energy. It stops sending pain signals because it doesn't want your body to think that those parts need fixing.

[bluedragon]

Is there any way to fast in a less dramatic way - for example, not eat for half a day? Or fast for 1 day only, from time to time? - would that have any effect? How about eating 3 bananas in the morning and then nothing else?
I really love the feeling when I don't eat for 6-8 hours when I'm at the university or out in the city, and I get such a heightened state of awareness and clarity. But I don't want to have to deal with any severe negative consequences, so I'd like to keep it short.

[Some Random Loser]

I'm actualy going to be doing a "30 day raw psuedo-fast" which involves only eating fruits and vegetables "only when I'm hungry". It will be interesting because on one hand, I can eat as much of these foods as I want. On the other hand, in my experience, when only eating these, I tend not to eat much, and lose my appetite for them for hours, having overall caloric intake quite low. I've also found that I can easily lose interest in eating altogether when eating just these, and feel like lying down all the time... or alternatively I'll begin to have cravings for cooked food, and yet have no hunger for fruits of veggies.

So what I'm expecting is a lot of periods of non-eating, anywhere from several hours to a day or two, but the fruits and veggies will keep an outflow going through my bowel, and provide helpful nutrients while being minimally taxing on my system. I plan to eat only 1 specific veg or fruit at a time, and keep a good amount of time in between different ones, to further ease digestion.

So as soon as my sex energy trial is finished, I will begin this raw psuedo-fast trial, which will keep track of all my food intake with nutrition data as well, from nutritiondata.com, day by day. Might be entertaining

[MightySunTzu]

Originally Posted by seanner689

The thing that never made sense to me is that if you're eating 2000cal for example and spend (2000 minus X)calories digesting that food, you have X calories left for moving, living, and healing the body.

If you eat nothing, you actually have to break down energy within your body for anything you want to do. So if you fast, you'd have to break down X calories within your body just to be able to go about your daily day, and then after that your body is somehow going to say "hmmm, maybe i should further deplete my evolutionary safety net of fat reserves to repair this bum knee that I 'never had energy to fix' when I had a constant influx of calories"?

Greetings, Greetings Seanner,

I see what you are saying... it seems counter-intuitive to believe that with no energy intake our body actually becomes better able to heal itself.

But nevertheless, i believe that's actually the way it works. Digestion is a massive undertaking within our bodies and the more we are digesting, the less energy we have left over for cleansing and healing. The energy derived by burning stored body fat, without any of the digestive efforts is the secret. A very big part of what a fast does is enable us (by not expending 80-90% of our energy digesting) to eliminate a ton of toxins within our body. The elimination of these toxins brings about unspeakable benefits:

Benefits of Fasting

Mental clarity is improved and brain fog is lifted.
Rapid, safe weight loss is achieved without flabbiness
The nervous system is balanced
Energy level and sensory perception is increased. The longer the fast, the bigger increase in energy and vitality. You normally need less sleep.
Organs are revitalized
Cellular biochemistry is harmonized
The skin becomes silky, soft, and sensitive
There is greater ease of movement
Breathing becomes fuller, freer and deeper
The digestive system is rejuvenated and becomes more effective; the peristaltic action of the intestines (the cause of a natural bowel movement) is stronger after fasting.
Fasting retrains your tasting sense back to more healthy food as acute sensitivity is restored.
Fasting can increase confidence in our ability to have control over our lives and our appetite, and that our body is self-regulating and a self-healing organism capable or establishing balance when given the possibility to do so.
Normal metabolic and cell oxygenation are restored.
Detoxification - as soon as the body realizes that it's fasting it will begin to eliminate those things that cause disease, such as fat cells, arterial cholesterol plaques, mucus, tumors, stored up worries and emotions.

from: Fasting

Originally Posted by seanner689

People who fast don't have extra energy from not having to digest food, they are often staying at home, resting and avoiding strenuous activities. From everything I read on these forums, your body encourages as little energy expenditure as possible while fasting; to spend extra energy going around curing random ailments doesn't make sense.

I'll propose an alternate, equally kooky idea:

When you're fasting, your body can't fix any of its ailing parts ... no energy. It stops sending pain signals because it doesn't want your body to think that those parts need fixing.

haha, yes this sounds a bit kooky .

Aches and pains that disappear during the fast are not just a temporary mirage that re-appear once we begin to re-feed. These symptoms do not return until we re-toxify our bodies... if that is the unfortunate route we choose to take.

As another point of debate against the "disabled pain centers theory", in my last fast, i bumped my shin against an open drawer. It would have been really nice had my pain sensors not been working, but alas this was not the case. It stung like a mother.

It is true that we don't have the extra energy during a fast to lift weights or do 50 yard sprints but we do have the energy to cleanse... and our bodies devote themselves in near entirety to this function... and this cleansing leads to healing.

[mysticmadness]

Dude fasting is no cure. it kills your body metabolism.

[MightySunTzu]

Originally Posted by *************

Dude fasting is no cure. it kills your body metabolism.

kills it, hey? while i will agree that it slows it down - temporarily - it is so worth it for the rejuvenating benefits. A recent 10 day water fast actually jump started me into a great nutrition and exercise program in which i am continuing to lose about 2 pounds per week, so whatever slowing of the metabolism i have experienced, it has not stopped me from continuing to burn fat while adding muscle.

have you ever actually read any information on fasting written by experts in the field or experienced it for yourself? I wouldn't say it seems so.