Has anyone here done water fasting before?

[ThomasK]

I'm on day 11 and supplementing electrolytes, multivitamin. Yes to artificial sweeteners, Coke Zero and coffee. For me, up to 100kcal a days are ok anyways. Still try to be close to 0. Instant broth is awesome.

3-4g sodium, 200-400mg of Magnesium and 800mg Potassium a day.

Intended benefits: weight loss, health, spiritual stuff.

Current weight 92kg at 185cm, goal weight 75-80kg. Will keep going until either I just can't anymore or until I reached my goal weight.

Aiming for 10-15k steps a day, weather allowing.

Hope you all have a great day.

[origami_itto]

I have done up to a week on a liquid diet. Broth and tea and coffee and water. It gets easier after the first day or two. I should give that a shot maybe this summer. What are the good times of year for it?

[everything]

day 11 of only broth, tea, coffee ,water, Coke Zero? maybe i've done 1-2 days, not on purpose (when feeling ill). you know the exact NA, MG, K from the electrolytes/vitamin? how do all the steps (and brain and body and life in general) feel on such limited/zero calories?

[Doc Stier]

I have done 30 day water fasts three times in the past. The first one in 1969 was followed by an additional 30 days taking only fruit juices, vegetable juices and herbal teas, for a total of 60 days without solid foods.

The internal cleansing effects, physiological strengthening effects, and spiritual insight effects were incredibly beneficial in many ways.

I have usually done a water fast twice each week since then to date, as well as a three day weekend water fast at the equinox and solstice dates four times per year. It's all good!

[Giles]

Wishing you all the best for the health/cleansing aspects and the spiritual. A fine undertaking! But I'd be cautious when it comes to your goals for weight loss. There's loads of studies and research which make clear that in almost all cases where you 'starve yourself', body weight will fairly quickly bounce back (or even increase a little) once you finish fasting and start eating more or less normally again. Or also consuming alcohol. It's the famous yo-yo effect: your Stone Age body thinks that the hard times of shortage or famine are over and that it needs to process all the calories it can get to regain its previous weight - before the next time of shortage comes round again. Long-term calorie reduction - by eating less in general and/or permanently reducing high-calorie foodstuffs and beverages - seems to be the only method that achieves sustainable weight loss results. Which is a bummer because it can feel really tiresome, or so I hear. (Nature has been kind to me in this respect, my metabolism doesn't produce the classic 'middle-age spread' that many get hit by).

[wayne hansen]

I have never really heard of fasting for weight loss
Like Doc I did 24 days with apple carrot and celery juice
It was part of our noi gung training we continued until our tongue was clear
We also refrained from sex for 120 days leading into it

[Trick]

coca cola and coffee when fasting, is that really a good idea ? and also artificial sweetener sound malplaced.
wouldnt it be a good idea to ”cleance” any coffein cravings out of the system during fasting period ?

[Dmitri]

Heh... When I read "water fasting", I presumed "water-only fasting", old-school, like what my dad once did for 26 days (about 4 decades ago)... No supplements, juices, etc. (or at least so he claimed But he definitely lost a ton of weight, bags under eyes, slowed reaction time, etc.)

Anyway, just saw this in my news feed and thought it might be relevant here, FWIW:
https://theceliacmd.com/fasting-mimicki ... s-it-work/

[ThomasK]

Hey all,

I just broke my fast. Today was day 14. It sucks to fast when it's 10 degrees celsius outside, not fun. Plus, family unexpectedly brought food back with them from vacation. Couldn't let that go bad.

Broke it with sausage and some cookies. No troubles, except for big thirst for some hours. Body is going back to storing carbs and with carbs, water. So drinking more is okay. Yes I did help myself to some treats today haha. Food is such a sensual pleasure to consume and it also feels nice to have a full stomach. The boredom can really get ya at some days.

I'm going to give it another shot, aiming at 30-40 days, when it gets warmer. At least a nice constant 18 degrees celsius feels right. Else it's just a pain. Plus, you also don't want it to be too hot because of sweating, electrolyte loss. So either very early or very late summer would be best imo for a longer fast. Intermittment fasting and OMAD are pretty easy.

Yes, it was only instant broth, water, coffee, flavored zero cal drinks. Chewing gum too. Tea and some fisherman's friend and the likes. You would need some kind of way to deal with bad breath.

The energetic and emotional cleansing reached crisis levels at times, so it's no joke. Better be prepared to change when doing a fast. You do feel sharper and more aware, generally. That can make things more intense.

Doing weekly fasting of 1-2 days is a really great tool.

Big benefit of fasting is restoring hormonal balance and reversing cell's insulin resistance.

Alcohol is a no no for me either way. Better of without it. People are different when it comes to gaining back the weight. Some do, some don't. Caloric restriction isn't the whole picture, it also matters in what forms the calories come in and timing also plays a role.

I wouldn't do juice fasting, as it's just drinking sugar. Depends on which juice and how much. My tongue was mostly stained from coffee and fisherman's. I did notice some changes in the skin tho.

From experience, I can now say that I can easily do 3-4 days of fasting without electrolytes. The fatigue mostly comes from us modern day peeps having a high salt diet most of the time, and then when you switch to no salt it throws everything out of whack. Sodiumchloride, i.e. table salt, is the master electrolyte of the body. All other salts are regulated by it.

Water weight will come back on over the next few days. I guess I have lost about 3kgs of fat. I'm aware that I have to make changes to my diet to keep progressing and am doing so.

I think it was a good experience. It especially made evident the emotional bonds one might have to food. I really underestimated that part.

When I quite caffein, I become a zombie for at least 3 days. Didn't have time for that. But I did notice that I started liking weaker and weaker coffee over time. Empty stomach doesn't like roasted beans high in acidity.

[everything]

14 days is astounding to me. welcome back to the real world. hope the fast and the after-fast have been super healthy.

It was part of our noi gung training we continued until our tongue was clear

this part about the tongue is fascinating for this case and in general to me. think my tongue has slowly gotten clearer from more or less TLDR adding vegetables, reducing sugars, drinking electrolyte water, taking digestion supplements, and having a longer very moderate daily "fast" (eat from about 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. instead of 8:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.), but it is not totally clear. from a TCM (and subjective feeling) pov, think it's improving but still needs further improvement.

oh - thomas - notice any change on the tongue by chance?

[Dmitri]

drinking electrolyte water

Just drink normal water and let electrolytes come from food. Saves money and plastic. (I would also drop the supplements, but... Baby steps... )

[everything]

definitely. the "stack" is rather expensive but decreasing over time. "food as medicine" is the best.

[Doc Stier]

When I read "water fasting", I presumed "water-only fasting"... No supplements, juices, etc.

Exactly. A true water fast means water only, without consuming anything which stimulates the digestive process. If you are drinking fruit juices, veggie juices or herbal teas, it is a liquid diet, not a fast.

Before starting a water fast of more than a few days, it's best to stop eating heavy foods which are the difficult to digest, like meats of any kind, for at least a week prior to fasting. Conversely, immediately following a longer water fast, solid foods should gradually be reintroduced starting with easily digested foods over several days time, before adding heavier foods back into the daily dietary intake.

This process makes the water fast easier, more comfortable, and more productive, while also avoiding any digestive discomfort after the fast is finished. Just saying.

[ThomasK]

everything - my tongue did get a lot of white coating on day 8 or 9 that cleared up mostly over the next 3-4 days. i was a bit shocked to see that in the mirror and at first thought it was some kind of funghus / yeast bc maybe the fasting decreased my immune system. but now everything's back to normal. i dont track my tongue visuals, I'm also not really a follower of TCM. hey maybe we should team up and create a herbal formula with some food colouring in it that seemingly produces the most optimal tongue appeal? lol

electrolyte water can definitely be useful, just depends on what you're doing. personally when i had a side job as pool lifeguard and it got like 35 celsius here i drank at least half a liter of chicken bone broth before work. that helped a lot. one time i was doing manual labor on an assembly line. whole day basically consisted of lifting 20kg racks. on one summer day i drank like 6l of water and still didnt feel hydrated. possibly close to water poisoning lol. so yeah, normal water sometimes just isnt enough. same for endurance sports. which i'm not a fan of.

also, electrolytes arent that expensive yup.

anything that helps people improve their health is okay in my books. i dont get hung up on true/untrue water fasting. most of the benefits come from keeping your kcals below 500 a day for prolonged periods, with possibly some more magic happening the closer you are to 0. but it all helps.

also i didnt really hear much about easing into a fast by not eating meat or heavy foods. the opposite actually. better to do keto diet for at least 3 days so the transition from burning carbs to fats and associated changes in salt level etc are easier to manage.

refeeding syndrome mostly comes from not having proper salt levels and then eating too much. if you supplement electrolytes you're mostly safe from that. still not the best idea to eat very much very heavy as a first meal. i read a fasting account of one trucker doing 60 days of fasting and then breaking it with 2 burgers and 3 hot dogs. so after that i'm not really all that worried lol. but you'll probably get a stomach ache and diarrhea.

some people also say that they're doing much better without any electrolytes. i think it varies from person to person, but it can't hurt to have some on hand.

[wayne hansen]

The person guiding my fast was my Kung fu teacher
He was also a doctor of TCM a chiro and osteo
He checked my health daily
He told me short fasts did not clear the system but just bought toxins into the blood