fasting

  On 9/12/2011 at 4:46 PM, keltoi said:

i still can't think of any good reason to do this.

 

I read some article a while back that stated that fasting for 1 day every month or 2 months was linked with lower levels of heart disease.

apparently intermittent fasting can be beneficial to one's health.

Hey good luck man. I think you'll be just fine for a few weeks. I still fast intermittently too, often for just 24 hours, sometimes more.

Just FYI though taking fasting to extremes doesn't seem to provide much of any benefit over fasting intermittently for smaller periods. That's in the context of health though. The experience can be cool though regardless.. do you start to feel very calm and focused further in? Mental clarify is a common feeling..

 

If you're interested, probably the most profound thing about fasting is autophagy, of which there are different types. Autophagic systems are engaged by exercise too. I don't think it's quite the same as fasted autophagy though. In essence fasting induces varying degrees of self-digestion that serves as a clearing house for cellular junk and damaged goods.

What I want to know is whether fasting when you're sick might actually be more effective than attempting to eat food. I don't think lack of energy is a concern when sick as the body store's a fucking ton of it to keep us alive, even if you're skinny. What i'm interested in are the immunological affects of autophagy.. I know for one some autophagic pathways regulate cell proliferation... could these same pathways serve to rid us of pathogens?

Could it be why dogs often don't eat when they're sick?

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:38 AM, fiznuthian said:

do you start to feel very calm and focused further in?

calm somewhat & focused definitely, whenever I go on one for an extended period I find I get really into comsuming & producing art (not sure if that's one of the beneficial side effects or if I just need something to distract me from the hungries)

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:23 AM, chassis said:

 

 

  On 9/12/2011 at 4:46 PM, keltoi said:

i still can't think of any good reason to do this.

I read some article a while back that stated that fasting for 1 day every month or 2 months was linked with lower levels of heart disease.

 

 

So does proper diet and exercise. I honestly don't understand how people can fast and be active at the same time. Every day of my life consists of so much activity that I think I'd start to get incredibly weak and my muscles would start ultra-deteriorating. Fuck that.

Since about 2 years ago, I have fasted from time to time. Not sure how to structure this, but I'm going to combine my experiences with some advice. Don't mistake any of it for real medical advice. Talk with your doctor, don't sue me if you die, etc. There is such a thing as juice fasting if you want to ease into it, and intermittent fasting is preferable to long periods.

 

The longest I have fasted is 30 days, which was close to 2 years ago. Nothing but tap water for a whole month. This was also one of the earliest attempts, maybe the third or fourth. Before that, I hadn't gone longer than 3-5 days. These days I rarely go beyond 5 days. I did a couple of five day fasts during last summer, one two-week fast last autumn, and a one week fast early last month.

 

Why do I do them? At first, I did it for spiritual and self-understanding purposes (very good idea) and weight loss (very, very bad idea). But I wanted to develop a more healthy relationship with food and have some self-cleansing. It also seemed like one of those crazy, put yourself to the test kind of things.

 

When I started, I didn't eat healthily or regularly, it was rather random and I would have larger meals than necessary. My fasting attempts were equally haphazard, unprepared and I did not know at all what to expect. It all began one day when I simply didn't have food. I had never considered fasting before and I found it kind of odd that this was not only something you could do, but something that people did. The only thing I had to go on was a site that said it was possible to get by on water (or juice) for longer periods if you had excess weight and were careful.

 

The second, equally important problem about the first attempts was that I didn't meditate at all. Trying to fast without being somewhat experienced with, or at the very least, learning to practice meditation, is almost entirely futile. This is primarily a matter of mental self control and awareness. Without having a meditation practice to fall back on, and a strengthened mind from such a practice, you are going to be thrown about by the storms that arise in your consciousness.

 

These days, I do it for one reason: To get back into that zone. It's addictive. There is no way to explain it. There is so much more to it than enduring hunger pangs - there is such a thing as learning to ride a fast. Done right, it is a spiritual experience, combined with a complete clarity and perspective on life. There are ways to maintain energy levels that defy everything you've ever known about food intake. If you ever get past the initial plateau, you are likely not going to fast just once. Even if you break it earlier than you planned, you're going to want to do it again.

 

Anyway, this wasn't so simple in the beginning. My perspective and experience of fasting has changed a lot, but I'm writing this part with the first attempts in mind, and trying to describe the process of the 30 day fast.

 

Basically, the first 2 days are pure hell.

 

The hard thing about entering a fast isn't the hunger pangs. They don't come as much as you'd think. They might be sparked by something as simple as a food commercial (no TV for the first days or you will go crazy), or a smell. But they go away as soon as you get distracted and calm down. The worst thing about fasting is the restlessness combined with fatigue. You have to do something but you can't find the energy to do it, and you don't know what it is you want to do. You can't really rest. You can't sleep more than a couple of hours. And when you do sleep, you dream fucked up shit, and towards the morning it's always something about food. So you get up, and you are fatigued, but you are also restless. There is a risk that this gets really bad, and you will basically end up shaking in your bed. That is, if you don't practice meditation. If you do, there will be no risk of that.

 

By the 3rd day, it is likely that things will mellow out and the first moments of euphoria will start to set in. There will still be a blend of hunger pangs and that awful restlessness.

 

Around day 5 this will change. Now you are not going to want to eat. It will not happen unless you are coerced by some social circumstance, and even then you will hesitate. This has been the case every single time I have broken a fast since then.

 

A risk at this point is stiff leg muscles. I have experienced it very often. That restlessness dissipates into a mild, barely perceptible tension. It's very important to deal with it, to do some simple stretching exercises and yoga.

 

By the end of the first week, you'll likely have your first black ground-coffee shit. You can massage your lower stomach to aid this process. You also get a very weak voice and find it difficult to stand up. Walking is not a problem because it keeps the blood flowing, but just standing still, like in the shower, gets messy.

 

When the first week passes, the euphoria intensifies by insane amounts; you enter that other zone. It is so hard to describe. I remember this period of my life as one of the clearest memories ever. It's like inhabiting pure, empty space. If you are a fan of ambient music, you are going to be in heaven. You become ridiculously happy from doing basic cleaning chores. If you have ever been on a psychedelic and marvelled at your hands for hours, that's what it feels like. There are fluctuations, but the hunger pangs and the restlessness become rare. If you've been using nicotine to get by so far, that need will fade away. What happens now is that you become a lot calmer and can sleep for 12 hours.

 

The first thing that hits you around this time is how psychological hunger is. It is a reaction of some type of unease, and then you feel hunger, and you go and fix that. When the psychological component disappears, which it does during fasting, you don't feel hungry. Stuff like food commercials don't bother you, rather it seems like a distant world of alien people and their crazy urges.

 

The third week was mostly a chore as I remember it. I wanted to feel "normal" again, but I kept waking up and it's the same god damn unbelievable lightness. I wasn't prepared for it and not very clear-headed at the time. If you brush your teeth at this point, there's a risk of throwing up. I couldn't stand for longer periods without nearly blacking out. The restlessness would come back in forms, like, I would look up and plan all kinds of exotic recipes. It wasn't so much about getting to eat it but fantasizing about cooking all these crazy meals.

 

Instead of the hunger pangs, there will be weird cravings. It's something that happens only on the tongue, not the stomach. Salt is the key one in my experience. I got weird cravings for stuff like anchovies. Some fasters recommend types of mineral water with sodium.

 

Anyway, towards the end of the 30 day fast I had lost a considerable amount of weight. Nobody recognized me. Now you might think this would be a really sexy thing to do about those love handles, but you look like a pale junkie. My eyelids, and the whole area around them, were all but completely black. I started getting weird rashes around my back and neck, which was the main reason I broke the fast. The first thing I ate, after 2 days of juice, was a red apple. It was the most delicious thing I ever tasted. After that it was a light mix of those crazy recipes that I had been planning. And then I would fall asleep. It happens if you eat after the 5 day mark.

 

And sure enough, I gained some of that weight back after a couple of months. It isn't true that your body swells up, but you have to be careful with your food intake. If you eat healthy, it shouldn't be something to worry about.

 

Anyway, that was the 30 day one. Since then, whenever I have fasted, I have focused mostly on learning to ride the fast rather than trying to bear through it.

 

This involves preparation, which means a very light diet and juice before you begin fasting.

 

Second, meditation and lots of it. If you are able to maintain one-pointed concentration, samadhi, throughout the day, you are not going to have any problems. Hunger and restlessness goes away by the first day - there will be one big hurdle, one dragon, if you deal with it right away you will not have to deal with it for the remainder of the fast. Keep it up and your energy levels will go up - this is the craziest thing. During recent fasts I would go out and take very long, blissful walks, even in the winter. You don't get that weak voice, rather it becomes booming and clear. The main deal is getting completely past that first hurdle, not trying to fight it by ignoring it because it will keep coming back with a vengeance. But when you practice it, you understand that it is a psychological thing that sparks the physical sensations, and you learn to control it.

 

That's about it, really. But if you are careless, the slightest thing can upset samadhi. So that's why I emphasize it, because that is the whole key to making fasting a meaningful and enjoyable experience. Otherwise it's just going to be a fight against these tremendous urges, and you are not going to want to do that.

 

Also, the period of breaking the fast is the most important one. You can't gorge. Exercise will be very helpful. I exercise a lot when I do eat. I have not experienced loss of muscle mass during fasting, apart from the 30 day one. But nowadays I follow a yoga schedule during fasting.

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:38 AM, fiznuthian said:

Could it be why dogs often don't eat when they're sick?

Many animals don't eat when they get sick. They just lie down in the forest and don't move until they heal. I strongly believe that you're onto something here. Edited February 22, 2013 by chimera slot mom

I started eating more recently, and losing more weight. Weird.

  On 2/22/2013 at 1:31 AM, drukqs said:

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:23 AM, chassis said:

 

  On 9/12/2011 at 4:46 PM, keltoi said:

i still can't think of any good reason to do this.

I read some article a while back that stated that fasting for 1 day every month or 2 months was linked with lower levels of heart disease.

 

So does proper diet and exercise. I honestly don't understand how people can fast and be active at the same time. Every day of my life consists of so much activity that I think I'd start to get incredibly weak and my muscles would start ultra-deteriorating. Fuck that.

 

Interestingly, and I am sure the others here who have fasted a bit can back me up, fasting does the exact opposite.

Usually about 16-20 hours in I start to feel noticeably energetic and limber. So much so that I very much prefer running and working out on no food.

Last week I went for a 3 hour mountain bike ride on some pretty tough trails. I hadn't eaten any food in 20 something hours, just water. I felt pretty awesome and very good condition. I ended up having a rough time coming back on to food because I wasn't able to find a limit on the trails... in all honestly it was probably too much but during the ride I just wouldn't fatigue at all

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:33 AM, fiznuthian said:

 

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 1:31 AM, drukqs said:

 

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:23 AM, chassis said:

 

 

  On 9/12/2011 at 4:46 PM, keltoi said:

i still can't think of any good reason to do this.

I read some article a while back that stated that fasting for 1 day every month or 2 months was linked with lower levels of heart disease.

 

 

So does proper diet and exercise. I honestly don't understand how people can fast and be active at the same time. Every day of my life consists of so much activity that I think I'd start to get incredibly weak and my muscles would start ultra-deteriorating. Fuck that.

 

 

Interestingly, and I am sure the others here who have fasted a bit can back me up, fasting does the exact opposite.

Usually about 16-20 hours in I start to feel noticeably energetic and limber. So much so that I very much prefer running and working out on no food.

Last week I went for a 3 hour mountain bike ride on some pretty tough trails. I hadn't eaten any food in 20 something hours, just water. I felt pretty awesome and very good condition. I ended up having a rough time coming back on to food because I wasn't able to find a limit on the trails... in all honestly it was probably too much but during the ride I just wouldn't fatigue at all

 

 

Hm. When I don't have food for a while I notice i get really fatigued and tired. It may be because I'm growing as well, but the other day I ran 6 miles and by noon I had only eaten about 500 calories, which is more than I had expended, and on top of that, I had biked 4 miles to school as I do every day, and then biked back, the last mile of which is a real bitch of a hill. Its worth noting that I ride fast and hard and I let no one pass me. I don't bike for pleasure, and I never have. Either way, by the time 2 o clock rolled around I was feeling fucking awful and shitty. I'm in no way new to working out either, so its not being out of shape, if you think that's what it is. I've run a half marathon, lol.

 

How did this end up as a rant?

  On 2/22/2013 at 2:48 AM, chimera slot mom said:

 

Since about 2 years ago, I have fasted from time to time. Not sure how to structure this, but I'm going to combine my experiences with some advice. Don't mistake any of it for real medical advice. Talk with your doctor, don't sue me if you die, etc. There is such a thing as juice fasting if you want to ease into it, and intermittent fasting is preferable to long periods.

 

The longest I have fasted is 30 days, which was close to 2 years ago. Nothing but tap water for a whole month. This was also one of the earliest attempts, maybe the third or fourth. Before that, I hadn't gone longer than 3-5 days. These days I rarely go beyond 5 days. I did a couple of five day fasts during last summer, one two-week fast last autumn, and a one week fast early last month.

 

Why do I do them? At first, I did it for spiritual and self-understanding purposes (very good idea) and weight loss (very, very bad idea). But I wanted to develop a more healthy relationship with food and have some self-cleansing. It also seemed like one of those crazy, put yourself to the test kind of things.

 

When I started, I didn't eat healthily or regularly, it was rather random and I would have larger meals than necessary. My fasting attempts were equally haphazard, unprepared and I did not know at all what to expect. It all began one day when I simply didn't have food. I had never considered fasting before and I found it kind of odd that this was not only something you could do, but something that people did. The only thing I had to go on was a site that said it was possible to get by on water (or juice) for longer periods if you had excess weight and were careful.

 

The second, equally important problem about the first attempts was that I didn't meditate at all. Trying to fast without being somewhat experienced with, or at the very least, learning to practice meditation, is almost entirely futile. This is primarily a matter of mental self control and awareness. Without having a meditation practice to fall back on, and a strengthened mind from such a practice, you are going to be thrown about by the storms that arise in your consciousness.

 

These days, I do it for one reason: To get back into that zone. It's addictive. There is no way to explain it. There is so much more to it than enduring hunger pangs - there is such a thing as learning to ride a fast. Done right, it is a spiritual experience, combined with a complete clarity and perspective on life. There are ways to maintain energy levels that defy everything you've ever known about food intake. If you ever get past the initial plateau, you are likely not going to fast just once. Even if you break it earlier than you planned, you're going to want to do it again.

 

Anyway, this wasn't so simple in the beginning. My perspective and experience of fasting has changed a lot, but I'm writing this part with the first attempts in mind, and trying to describe the process of the 30 day fast.

 

Basically, the first 2 days are pure hell.

 

The hard thing about entering a fast isn't the hunger pangs. They don't come as much as you'd think. They might be sparked by something as simple as a food commercial (no TV for the first days or you will go crazy), or a smell. But they go away as soon as you get distracted and calm down. The worst thing about fasting is the restlessness combined with fatigue. You have to do something but you can't find the energy to do it, and you don't know what it is you want to do. You can't really rest. You can't sleep more than a couple of hours. And when you do sleep, you dream fucked up shit, and towards the morning it's always something about food. So you get up, and you are fatigued, but you are also restless. There is a risk that this gets really bad, and you will basically end up shaking in your bed. That is, if you don't practice meditation. If you do, there will be no risk of that.

 

By the 3rd day, it is likely that things will mellow out and the first moments of euphoria will start to set in. There will still be a blend of hunger pangs and that awful restlessness.

 

Around day 5 this will change. Now you are not going to want to eat. It will not happen unless you are coerced by some social circumstance, and even then you will hesitate. This has been the case every single time I have broken a fast since then.

 

A risk at this point is stiff leg muscles. I have experienced it very often. That restlessness dissipates into a mild, barely perceptible tension. It's very important to deal with it, to do some simple stretching exercises and yoga.

 

By the end of the first week, you'll likely have your first black ground-coffee shit. You can massage your lower stomach to aid this process. You also get a very weak voice and find it difficult to stand up. Walking is not a problem because it keeps the blood flowing, but just standing still, like in the shower, gets messy.

 

When the first week passes, the euphoria intensifies by insane amounts; you enter that other zone. It is so hard to describe. I remember this period of my life as one of the clearest memories ever. It's like inhabiting pure, empty space. If you are a fan of ambient music, you are going to be in heaven. You become ridiculously happy from doing basic cleaning chores. If you have ever been on a psychedelic and marvelled at your hands for hours, that's what it feels like. There are fluctuations, but the hunger pangs and the restlessness become rare. If you've been using nicotine to get by so far, that need will fade away. What happens now is that you become a lot calmer and can sleep for 12 hours.

 

The first thing that hits you around this time is how psychological hunger is. It is a reaction of some type of unease, and then you feel hunger, and you go and fix that. When the psychological component disappears, which it does during fasting, you don't feel hungry. Stuff like food commercials don't bother you, rather it seems like a distant world of alien people and their crazy urges.

 

The third week was mostly a chore as I remember it. I wanted to feel "normal" again, but I kept waking up and it's the same god damn unbelievable lightness. I wasn't prepared for it and not very clear-headed at the time. If you brush your teeth at this point, there's a risk of throwing up. I couldn't stand for longer periods without nearly blacking out. The restlessness would come back in forms, like, I would look up and plan all kinds of exotic recipes. It wasn't so much about getting to eat it but fantasizing about cooking all these crazy meals.

 

Instead of the hunger pangs, there will be weird cravings. It's something that happens only on the tongue, not the stomach. Salt is the key one in my experience. I got weird cravings for stuff like anchovies. Some fasters recommend types of mineral water with sodium.

 

Anyway, towards the end of the 30 day fast I had lost a considerable amount of weight. Nobody recognized me. Now you might think this would be a really sexy thing to do about those love handles, but you look like a pale junkie. My eyelids, and the whole area around them, were all but completely black. I started getting weird rashes around my back and neck, which was the main reason I broke the fast. The first thing I ate, after 2 days of juice, was a red apple. It was the most delicious thing I ever tasted. After that it was a light mix of those crazy recipes that I had been planning. And then I would fall asleep. It happens if you eat after the 5 day mark.

 

And sure enough, I gained some of that weight back after a couple of months. It isn't true that your body swells up, but you have to be careful with your food intake. If you eat healthy, it shouldn't be something to worry about.

 

Anyway, that was the 30 day one. Since then, whenever I have fasted, I have focused mostly on learning to ride the fast rather than trying to bear through it.

 

This involves preparation, which means a very light diet and juice before you begin fasting.

 

Second, meditation and lots of it. If you are able to maintain one-pointed concentration, samadhi, throughout the day, you are not going to have any problems. Hunger and restlessness goes away by the first day - there will be one big hurdle, one dragon, if you deal with it right away you will not have to deal with it for the remainder of the fast. Keep it up and your energy levels will go up - this is the craziest thing. During recent fasts I would go out and take very long, blissful walks, even in the winter. You don't get that weak voice, rather it becomes booming and clear. The main deal is getting completely past that first hurdle, not trying to fight it by ignoring it because it will keep coming back with a vengeance. But when you practice it, you understand that it is a psychological thing that sparks the physical sensations, and you learn to control it.

 

That's about it, really. But if you are careless, the slightest thing can upset samadhi. So that's why I emphasize it, because that is the whole key to making fasting a meaningful and enjoyable experience. Otherwise it's just going to be a fight against these tremendous urges, and you are not going to want to do that.

 

Also, the period of breaking the fast is the most important one. You can't gorge. Exercise will be very helpful. I exercise a lot when I do eat. I have not experienced loss of muscle mass during fasting, apart from the 30 day one. But nowadays I follow a yoga schedule during fasting.

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:38 AM, fiznuthian said:

Could it be why dogs often don't eat when they're sick?

Many animals don't eat when they get sick. They just lie down in the forest and don't move until they heal. I strongly believe that you're onto something here.

 

Wow, thanks for that report of your experience. So the euphoria thing is definitely real, that's for sure. It seems to vary between people how long, how strong, and when the feeling hits. For me the buzz clicks in pretty early on and gets stronger with time. I really don't have much experience with fasting for longer than a few days, and just don't feel its necessary for many people. You probably feel the same way now right?

 

It's funny you mention the black shit.. Also definitely a common thing. No doubt the gut's microbiota change significantly when they run out of energy to feed on.

 

I have to wonder if maybe the weakness, change in voice, lethargy, and weird sleeplessness was something else? I worry that people doing longer fasts may have a preexisting nutrient deficiency that is exacerbated by the fast. Or maybe something else entirely..

While feeling really weird and having strange symptoms happens to some people, there's many others who endure the longer fasts and report they felt nothing different at all beyond the hunger pangs and psychological sensations.

Nonetheless, the body seems to have many ways of dealing with lack of damn near anything and adjusts accordingly.. electrolytes for example. Gatorade would like people to think it's a bigger issue than it really is. Your 30 day experience is a testament to our ability to survive and thrive without damn near anything.

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:49 AM, drukqs said:

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:33 AM, fiznuthian said:

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 1:31 AM, drukqs said:

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:23 AM, chassis said:

 

  On 9/12/2011 at 4:46 PM, keltoi said:

i still can't think of any good reason to do this.

I read some article a while back that stated that fasting for 1 day every month or 2 months was linked with lower levels of heart disease.

 

So does proper diet and exercise. I honestly don't understand how people can fast and be active at the same time. Every day of my life consists of so much activity that I think I'd start to get incredibly weak and my muscles would start ultra-deteriorating. Fuck that.

 

Interestingly, and I am sure the others here who have fasted a bit can back me up, fasting does the exact opposite.

Usually about 16-20 hours in I start to feel noticeably energetic and limber. So much so that I very much prefer running and working out on no food.

Last week I went for a 3 hour mountain bike ride on some pretty tough trails. I hadn't eaten any food in 20 something hours, just water. I felt pretty awesome and very good condition. I ended up having a rough time coming back on to food because I wasn't able to find a limit on the trails... in all honestly it was probably too much but during the ride I just wouldn't fatigue at all

 

Hm. When I don't have food for a while I notice i get really fatigued and tired. It may be because I'm growing as well, but the other day I ran 6 miles and by noon I had only eaten about 500 calories, which is more than I had expended, and on top of that, I had biked 4 miles to school as I do every day, and then biked back, the last mile of which is a real bitch of a hill. Its worth noting that I ride fast and hard and I let no one pass me. I don't bike for pleasure, and I never have. Either way, by the time 2 o clock rolled around I was feeling fucking awful and shitty. I'm in no way new to working out either, so its not being out of shape, if you think that's what it is. I've run a half marathon, lol.

 

How did this end up as a rant?

 

Ah.. The woes of carbohydrate metabolism. You do eat carbs regularly correct?

There's advantages to carbs, I eat lots myself, but allowing your body to utilize fatty acids almost exclusively can be beneficial. Perhaps thats why I so effortlessly drop into fasts anymore? It doesn't seem hard at all and I simply never feel hypoglycemic anymore, no fatigue, no nothing.

Have you ever tried eating low-carb? How'd it go?

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:59 AM, fiznuthian said:

 

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:49 AM, drukqs said:

 

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:33 AM, fiznuthian said:

 

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 1:31 AM, drukqs said:

 

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:23 AM, chassis said:

 

 

  On 9/12/2011 at 4:46 PM, keltoi said:

i still can't think of any good reason to do this.

I read some article a while back that stated that fasting for 1 day every month or 2 months was linked with lower levels of heart disease.

 

 

So does proper diet and exercise. I honestly don't understand how people can fast and be active at the same time. Every day of my life consists of so much activity that I think I'd start to get incredibly weak and my muscles would start ultra-deteriorating. Fuck that.

 

 

Interestingly, and I am sure the others here who have fasted a bit can back me up, fasting does the exact opposite.

Usually about 16-20 hours in I start to feel noticeably energetic and limber. So much so that I very much prefer running and working out on no food.

Last week I went for a 3 hour mountain bike ride on some pretty tough trails. I hadn't eaten any food in 20 something hours, just water. I felt pretty awesome and very good condition. I ended up having a rough time coming back on to food because I wasn't able to find a limit on the trails... in all honestly it was probably too much but during the ride I just wouldn't fatigue at all

 

 

Hm. When I don't have food for a while I notice i get really fatigued and tired. It may be because I'm growing as well, but the other day I ran 6 miles and by noon I had only eaten about 500 calories, which is more than I had expended, and on top of that, I had biked 4 miles to school as I do every day, and then biked back, the last mile of which is a real bitch of a hill. Its worth noting that I ride fast and hard and I let no one pass me. I don't bike for pleasure, and I never have. Either way, by the time 2 o clock rolled around I was feeling fucking awful and shitty. I'm in no way new to working out either, so its not being out of shape, if you think that's what it is. I've run a half marathon, lol.

 

How did this end up as a rant?

 

 

Ah.. The woes of carbohydrate metabolism. You do eat carbs regularly correct?

There's advantages to carbs, I eat lots myself, but allowing your body to utilize fatty acids almost exclusively can be beneficial. Perhaps thats why I so effortlessly drop into fasts anymore? It doesn't seem hard at all and I simply never feel hypoglycemic anymore, no fatigue, no nothing.

Have you ever tried eating low-carb? How'd it go?

 

 

My diet is high protein, nearly 70-100g a day, and I rarely consume carbs that don't have some sort of protein value to them. My carbohydrate levels are not above normal, they hover just around normal, sometimes lower than normal, but the difference is that I have protein to balance it out. I also eat almonds regularly. I get many types of protein throughout the day from soy to almond to fish to greek yogurt.

 

I once tried to induce ketosis before my half marathon and that week I lost about 5 to 10 pounds, but I lost a shit ton of strength. I can't stand losing muscle strength since I have to work so hard to get it in the first place, so... yeah.

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:54 AM, fiznuthian said:

Wow, thanks for that report of your experience. So the euphoria thing is definitely real, that's for sure. It seems to vary between people how long, how strong, and when the feeling hits. For me the buzz clicks in pretty early on and gets stronger with time. I really don't have much experience with fasting for longer than a few days, and just don't feel its necessary for many people. You probably feel the same way now right?

I would agree. Just a few days is more than enough. There is no point to anything longer than a week, unless you want to see how far you can push yourself... or are preparing for life as a POW.

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:54 AM, fiznuthian said:

It's funny you mention the black shit.. Also definitely a common thing. No doubt the gut's microbiota change significantly when they run out of energy to feed on.

Most definitely. This is arguably part of the detox process. Another thing I forgot to mention is that you get an acidy breath and some kind of mucus covers your tongue unless you drink a lot of water. Your sinuses clear out completely, your sense of smell goes through the roof. I could swear at times I was able to smell people on the other side of the street.

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:54 AM, fiznuthian said:

I have to wonder if maybe the weakness, change in voice, lethargy, and weird sleeplessness was something else? I worry that people doing longer fasts may have a preexisting nutrient deficiency that is exacerbated by the fast. Or maybe something else entirely..

While feeling really weird and having strange symptoms happens to some people, there's many others who endure the longer fasts and report they felt nothing different at all beyond the hunger pangs and psychological sensations.

The way I've had it explained is that this depends on your initial metabolism. If it is reasonably high, you are going to suffer worse effects as your system enters shock. If your metabolism is low to begin with, you are going to have little to no impact.

 

I would venture to say that these types of symptoms are tightly knit to the level of anxiety or apprehension that you have in relation to the whole experience, just like in an emergency survival situation. My recent fasts, while shorter, have had none of these severe effects (I remember one lasting about 3-5 days that had quite severe effects so it's not just a matter of an extended period of time), rather, I have mostly experienced that increased focus and energy boost that you have mentioned earlier. But my approach is entirely different from those days. The argument could be made that the body has adapted to the posibility of this type of condition, but I find that the psychological state directly correlates with the physiological effect.

 

I analyzed a lot of these occurances in my later fasting attempts, and for instance, I noticed that the voice thing came up when I felt incapable of dealing with the world around me in my state - as if I subconsciously projected an instruction of lacking energy, which lead to an extreme conservation mode. When I learnt to focus my attention in the right way, it disappeared.

 

One thing I'm really curious about is if the rash thing would appear again after an extended period, without the same level of apprehension and anxiety that I experienced during that time.

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:54 AM, fiznuthian said:

Nonetheless, the body seems to have many ways of dealing with lack of damn near anything and adjusts accordingly.. electrolytes for example. Gatorade would like people to think it's a bigger issue than it really is. Your 30 day experience is a testament to our ability to survive and thrive without damn near anything.

Yes, it's truly amazing to experience something like that first hand. If nothing else, I have gained an enormous amount of trust in my body's capacity.

nice post CSM

 

12 hours in now. I generally go 16+ hours without eating even when I'm not fasting so it will probably be a while before I notice any effects

There was a really good Horizon doc about this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lxyzc

 

 

"There is now evidence suggesting that IGF-1 levels can be lowered by what you eat. Studies on calorie restrictors suggest that eating less helps, but it is not enough. As well as cutting calories you have to cut your protein intake. Not entirely - that would be a very bad idea. It's about sticking to recommended guidelines, something most of us fail to do. The reason seems to be that when our bodies no longer have access to food they switch from "growth mode" to "repair mode"."

"I stuck to this diet for 5 weeks, during which time I lost nearly a stone and my blood markers, like IGF-1, glucose and cholesterol, improved. If I can sustain that, it will greatly reduce my risk of contracting age-related diseases like cancer and diabetes."

 

The health benefits of intermittent fasting are so marked the presenter decides to continue with it after the show's experiment is over.

  On 2/22/2013 at 2:48 AM, chimera slot mom said:

 

Since about 2 years ago, I have fasted from time to time. Not sure how to structure this, but I'm going to combine my experiences with some advice. Don't mistake any of it for real medical advice. Talk with your doctor, don't sue me if you die, etc. There is such a thing as juice fasting if you want to ease into it, and intermittent fasting is preferable to long periods.

 

The longest I have fasted is 30 days, which was close to 2 years ago. Nothing but tap water for a whole month. This was also one of the earliest attempts, maybe the third or fourth. Before that, I hadn't gone longer than 3-5 days. These days I rarely go beyond 5 days. I did a couple of five day fasts during last summer, one two-week fast last autumn, and a one week fast early last month.

 

Why do I do them? At first, I did it for spiritual and self-understanding purposes (very good idea) and weight loss (very, very bad idea). But I wanted to develop a more healthy relationship with food and have some self-cleansing. It also seemed like one of those crazy, put yourself to the test kind of things.

 

When I started, I didn't eat healthily or regularly, it was rather random and I would have larger meals than necessary. My fasting attempts were equally haphazard, unprepared and I did not know at all what to expect. It all began one day when I simply didn't have food. I had never considered fasting before and I found it kind of odd that this was not only something you could do, but something that people did. The only thing I had to go on was a site that said it was possible to get by on water (or juice) for longer periods if you had excess weight and were careful.

 

The second, equally important problem about the first attempts was that I didn't meditate at all. Trying to fast without being somewhat experienced with, or at the very least, learning to practice meditation, is almost entirely futile. This is primarily a matter of mental self control and awareness. Without having a meditation practice to fall back on, and a strengthened mind from such a practice, you are going to be thrown about by the storms that arise in your consciousness.

 

These days, I do it for one reason: To get back into that zone. It's addictive. There is no way to explain it. There is so much more to it than enduring hunger pangs - there is such a thing as learning to ride a fast. Done right, it is a spiritual experience, combined with a complete clarity and perspective on life. There are ways to maintain energy levels that defy everything you've ever known about food intake. If you ever get past the initial plateau, you are likely not going to fast just once. Even if you break it earlier than you planned, you're going to want to do it again.

 

Anyway, this wasn't so simple in the beginning. My perspective and experience of fasting has changed a lot, but I'm writing this part with the first attempts in mind, and trying to describe the process of the 30 day fast.

 

Basically, the first 2 days are pure hell.

 

The hard thing about entering a fast isn't the hunger pangs. They don't come as much as you'd think. They might be sparked by something as simple as a food commercial (no TV for the first days or you will go crazy), or a smell. But they go away as soon as you get distracted and calm down. The worst thing about fasting is the restlessness combined with fatigue. You have to do something but you can't find the energy to do it, and you don't know what it is you want to do. You can't really rest. You can't sleep more than a couple of hours. And when you do sleep, you dream fucked up shit, and towards the morning it's always something about food. So you get up, and you are fatigued, but you are also restless. There is a risk that this gets really bad, and you will basically end up shaking in your bed. That is, if you don't practice meditation. If you do, there will be no risk of that.

 

By the 3rd day, it is likely that things will mellow out and the first moments of euphoria will start to set in. There will still be a blend of hunger pangs and that awful restlessness.

 

Around day 5 this will change. Now you are not going to want to eat. It will not happen unless you are coerced by some social circumstance, and even then you will hesitate. This has been the case every single time I have broken a fast since then.

 

A risk at this point is stiff leg muscles. I have experienced it very often. That restlessness dissipates into a mild, barely perceptible tension. It's very important to deal with it, to do some simple stretching exercises and yoga.

 

By the end of the first week, you'll likely have your first black ground-coffee shit. You can massage your lower stomach to aid this process. You also get a very weak voice and find it difficult to stand up. Walking is not a problem because it keeps the blood flowing, but just standing still, like in the shower, gets messy.

 

When the first week passes, the euphoria intensifies by insane amounts; you enter that other zone. It is so hard to describe. I remember this period of my life as one of the clearest memories ever. It's like inhabiting pure, empty space. If you are a fan of ambient music, you are going to be in heaven. You become ridiculously happy from doing basic cleaning chores. If you have ever been on a psychedelic and marvelled at your hands for hours, that's what it feels like. There are fluctuations, but the hunger pangs and the restlessness become rare. If you've been using nicotine to get by so far, that need will fade away. What happens now is that you become a lot calmer and can sleep for 12 hours.

 

The first thing that hits you around this time is how psychological hunger is. It is a reaction of some type of unease, and then you feel hunger, and you go and fix that. When the psychological component disappears, which it does during fasting, you don't feel hungry. Stuff like food commercials don't bother you, rather it seems like a distant world of alien people and their crazy urges.

 

The third week was mostly a chore as I remember it. I wanted to feel "normal" again, but I kept waking up and it's the same god damn unbelievable lightness. I wasn't prepared for it and not very clear-headed at the time. If you brush your teeth at this point, there's a risk of throwing up. I couldn't stand for longer periods without nearly blacking out. The restlessness would come back in forms, like, I would look up and plan all kinds of exotic recipes. It wasn't so much about getting to eat it but fantasizing about cooking all these crazy meals.

 

Instead of the hunger pangs, there will be weird cravings. It's something that happens only on the tongue, not the stomach. Salt is the key one in my experience. I got weird cravings for stuff like anchovies. Some fasters recommend types of mineral water with sodium.

 

Anyway, towards the end of the 30 day fast I had lost a considerable amount of weight. Nobody recognized me. Now you might think this would be a really sexy thing to do about those love handles, but you look like a pale junkie. My eyelids, and the whole area around them, were all but completely black. I started getting weird rashes around my back and neck, which was the main reason I broke the fast. The first thing I ate, after 2 days of juice, was a red apple. It was the most delicious thing I ever tasted. After that it was a light mix of those crazy recipes that I had been planning. And then I would fall asleep. It happens if you eat after the 5 day mark.

 

And sure enough, I gained some of that weight back after a couple of months. It isn't true that your body swells up, but you have to be careful with your food intake. If you eat healthy, it shouldn't be something to worry about.

 

Anyway, that was the 30 day one. Since then, whenever I have fasted, I have focused mostly on learning to ride the fast rather than trying to bear through it.

 

This involves preparation, which means a very light diet and juice before you begin fasting.

 

Second, meditation and lots of it. If you are able to maintain one-pointed concentration, samadhi, throughout the day, you are not going to have any problems. Hunger and restlessness goes away by the first day - there will be one big hurdle, one dragon, if you deal with it right away you will not have to deal with it for the remainder of the fast. Keep it up and your energy levels will go up - this is the craziest thing. During recent fasts I would go out and take very long, blissful walks, even in the winter. You don't get that weak voice, rather it becomes booming and clear. The main deal is getting completely past that first hurdle, not trying to fight it by ignoring it because it will keep coming back with a vengeance. But when you practice it, you understand that it is a psychological thing that sparks the physical sensations, and you learn to control it.

 

That's about it, really. But if you are careless, the slightest thing can upset samadhi. So that's why I emphasize it, because that is the whole key to making fasting a meaningful and enjoyable experience. Otherwise it's just going to be a fight against these tremendous urges, and you are not going to want to do that.

 

Also, the period of breaking the fast is the most important one. You can't gorge. Exercise will be very helpful. I exercise a lot when I do eat. I have not experienced loss of muscle mass during fasting, apart from the 30 day one. But nowadays I follow a yoga schedule during fasting.

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:38 AM, fiznuthian said:

Could it be why dogs often don't eat when they're sick?

Many animals don't eat when they get sick. They just lie down in the forest and don't move until they heal. I strongly believe that you're onto something here.

 

holy shitting christ man.

 

fasting like that obviously isn't condusive with going to work and being able to perform as expected, socialising and maintaining relationships, etc. sounds all consuming, completely selfish and somewhat pointless to me, although i respect the spiritual, meditative attraction. this extreme fasting might be good for your spirituality and meditative chops but surely cannot be good for your body? i mean it's breaking down isn't it... you're actually in the process of dying? fuck. that. and be careful.

i go on a three day fast about once a month when i have a busy weekend. getting a munch afterwards is strangely unsatisfying.

  On 2/22/2013 at 3:33 AM, fiznuthian said:

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 1:31 AM, drukqs said:

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:23 AM, chassis said:

 

  On 9/12/2011 at 4:46 PM, keltoi said:

i still can't think of any good reason to do this.

I read some article a while back that stated that fasting for 1 day every month or 2 months was linked with lower levels of heart disease.

 

So does proper diet and exercise. I honestly don't understand how people can fast and be active at the same time. Every day of my life consists of so much activity that I think I'd start to get incredibly weak and my muscles would start ultra-deteriorating. Fuck that.

 

Interestingly, and I am sure the others here who have fasted a bit can back me up, fasting does the exact opposite.

Usually about 16-20 hours in I start to feel noticeably energetic and limber. So much so that I very much prefer running and working out on no food.

Last week I went for a 3 hour mountain bike ride on some pretty tough trails. I hadn't eaten any food in 20 something hours, just water. I felt pretty awesome and very good condition. I ended up having a rough time coming back on to food because I wasn't able to find a limit on the trails... in all honestly it was probably too much but during the ride I just wouldn't fatigue at all

 

Digestion of food takes blood away from other parts of the body. I notice that my exercise sessions are more productive when I haven't eaten in several hours.

I could go an active day without food and feel great but if I have any caffeine all bets are off

 

edit: and if I try and do any art after several hours of not eating/digesting the creative juices can really flow hard, not because of a break in routine as someone said earlier but because of a really obvious chemical change in the brain but once again if there is any caffeine involved i unravel onto the floor like a spilled penguin

Edited February 22, 2013 by RadarJammer

Thought thread was going to be about farting, D-

The only time I fasted was during the one random year I attended a Catholic private school. (long story -

) It was something everyone did before Lent ended I think, for 24 hours. I had soup and maybe a pop tart (I had to snack on something) - I can't remember but in retrospect it was just kinda lame. I'm sure living off like honey and water as a reclusive monk is enlightening but any religious fasting as a member of modern society just seems like a fast-track to grumpiness.

 

I will say this, in the last year my wife and I have cut back tremendously on how much we eat by doing the following:

 

1. way less meat, way more vegetables

2. snacking on fruit or non-junk food often throughout the day and making main meals smaller

3. drinking (i.e. water or juice or coffee) instead of resorting to temptations of vending machines and the cafeteria at our workplace

4. eating smaller portions and stopping as soon as I think I'm about to be full - this was the hardest but gradually I got to the point where I no longer have to tell myself to stop eating but now I actually feel full faster than in the past.

 

It's partly dietary and partly economical. To break away from living month-to-month in regards to bills/rent we're budgeting hardcore. We also moved to a place without a microwave which has cut back on a lot of easy and quick and unhealthy meals.

Edited February 22, 2013 by joshuatx

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:05 PM, westhead said:

There was a really good Horizon doc about this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lxyzc

 

 

"There is now evidence suggesting that IGF-1 levels can be lowered by what you eat. Studies on calorie restrictors suggest that eating less helps, but it is not enough. As well as cutting calories you have to cut your protein intake. Not entirely - that would be a very bad idea. It's about sticking to recommended guidelines, something most of us fail to do. The reason seems to be that when our bodies no longer have access to food they switch from "growth mode" to "repair mode"."

"I stuck to this diet for 5 weeks, during which time I lost nearly a stone and my blood markers, like IGF-1, glucose and cholesterol, improved. If I can sustain that, it will greatly reduce my risk of contracting age-related diseases like cancer and diabetes."

 

The health benefits of intermittent fasting are so marked the presenter decides to continue with it after the show's experiment is over.

 

How awesome! Seems the information is spreading...

The idea that you do not have to eat all of the time, and that the feelings you experience when not is something that Americans in particular will struggle with if ever.. It's a concept so foreign to most all of us.

 

Interestingly lots if not most of the rigorous research originates from Ramadan traditions and it's been collecting for decades now. To the point that you would find it difficult to dispute that fasting has no benefit. Like that presenter you mention, the experience is why a lot of people tried it and then continued. Strange considering the sensations aren't exactly pleasant at first, right?

  On 2/22/2013 at 5:42 PM, joshuatx said:

The only time I fasted was during the one random year I attended a Catholic private school. (long story -

  Reveal hidden contents

I was a military brat between moves and my parents wanted me and my siblings to go somewhere with well-regarded academics and have an uninterrupted school year. It was a bit illuminating - I grew up protestant and ironically I would score better on tests/quizzes on religious studies tests. I thought transubstantiation was absurd. Another chapter in my path to my irreligious beliefs now.

) It was something everyone did before Lent ended I think, for 24 hours. I had soup and maybe a pop tart (I had to snack on something) - I can't remember but in retrospect it was just kinda lame. I'm sure living off like honey and water as a reclusive monk is enlightening but any religious fasting as a member of modern society just seems like a fast-track to grumpiness.

 

I will say this, in the last year my wife and I have cut back tremendously on how much we eat by doing the following:

 

1. way less meat, way more vegetables

2. snacking on fruit or non-junk food often throughout the day and making main meals smaller

3. drinking (i.e. water or juice or coffee) instead of resorting to temptations of vending machines and the cafeteria at our workplace

4. eating smaller portions and stopping as soon as I think I'm about to be full - this was the hardest but gradually I got to the point where I no longer have to tell myself to stop eating but now I actually feel full faster than in the past.

 

It's partly dietary and partly economical. To break away from living month-to-month in regards to bills/rent we're budgeting hardcore. We also moved to a place without a microwave which has cut back on a lot of easy and quick and unhealthy meals.

 

Hey fasting aside that still sounds like you got a good thing going. I adore meat personally, but replacing some with veggies and fruits can be really helpful

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:51 PM, keltoi said:

 

  On 2/22/2013 at 2:48 AM, chimera slot mom said:

 

Since about 2 years ago, I have fasted from time to time. Not sure how to structure this, but I'm going to combine my experiences with some advice. Don't mistake any of it for real medical advice. Talk with your doctor, don't sue me if you die, etc. There is such a thing as juice fasting if you want to ease into it, and intermittent fasting is preferable to long periods.

 

The longest I have fasted is 30 days, which was close to 2 years ago. Nothing but tap water for a whole month. This was also one of the earliest attempts, maybe the third or fourth. Before that, I hadn't gone longer than 3-5 days. These days I rarely go beyond 5 days. I did a couple of five day fasts during last summer, one two-week fast last autumn, and a one week fast early last month.

 

Why do I do them? At first, I did it for spiritual and self-understanding purposes (very good idea) and weight loss (very, very bad idea). But I wanted to develop a more healthy relationship with food and have some self-cleansing. It also seemed like one of those crazy, put yourself to the test kind of things.

 

When I started, I didn't eat healthily or regularly, it was rather random and I would have larger meals than necessary. My fasting attempts were equally haphazard, unprepared and I did not know at all what to expect. It all began one day when I simply didn't have food. I had never considered fasting before and I found it kind of odd that this was not only something you could do, but something that people did. The only thing I had to go on was a site that said it was possible to get by on water (or juice) for longer periods if you had excess weight and were careful.

 

The second, equally important problem about the first attempts was that I didn't meditate at all. Trying to fast without being somewhat experienced with, or at the very least, learning to practice meditation, is almost entirely futile. This is primarily a matter of mental self control and awareness. Without having a meditation practice to fall back on, and a strengthened mind from such a practice, you are going to be thrown about by the storms that arise in your consciousness.

 

These days, I do it for one reason: To get back into that zone. It's addictive. There is no way to explain it. There is so much more to it than enduring hunger pangs - there is such a thing as learning to ride a fast. Done right, it is a spiritual experience, combined with a complete clarity and perspective on life. There are ways to maintain energy levels that defy everything you've ever known about food intake. If you ever get past the initial plateau, you are likely not going to fast just once. Even if you break it earlier than you planned, you're going to want to do it again.

 

Anyway, this wasn't so simple in the beginning. My perspective and experience of fasting has changed a lot, but I'm writing this part with the first attempts in mind, and trying to describe the process of the 30 day fast.

 

Basically, the first 2 days are pure hell.

 

The hard thing about entering a fast isn't the hunger pangs. They don't come as much as you'd think. They might be sparked by something as simple as a food commercial (no TV for the first days or you will go crazy), or a smell. But they go away as soon as you get distracted and calm down. The worst thing about fasting is the restlessness combined with fatigue. You have to do something but you can't find the energy to do it, and you don't know what it is you want to do. You can't really rest. You can't sleep more than a couple of hours. And when you do sleep, you dream fucked up shit, and towards the morning it's always something about food. So you get up, and you are fatigued, but you are also restless. There is a risk that this gets really bad, and you will basically end up shaking in your bed. That is, if you don't practice meditation. If you do, there will be no risk of that.

 

By the 3rd day, it is likely that things will mellow out and the first moments of euphoria will start to set in. There will still be a blend of hunger pangs and that awful restlessness.

 

Around day 5 this will change. Now you are not going to want to eat. It will not happen unless you are coerced by some social circumstance, and even then you will hesitate. This has been the case every single time I have broken a fast since then.

 

A risk at this point is stiff leg muscles. I have experienced it very often. That restlessness dissipates into a mild, barely perceptible tension. It's very important to deal with it, to do some simple stretching exercises and yoga.

 

By the end of the first week, you'll likely have your first black ground-coffee shit. You can massage your lower stomach to aid this process. You also get a very weak voice and find it difficult to stand up. Walking is not a problem because it keeps the blood flowing, but just standing still, like in the shower, gets messy.

 

When the first week passes, the euphoria intensifies by insane amounts; you enter that other zone. It is so hard to describe. I remember this period of my life as one of the clearest memories ever. It's like inhabiting pure, empty space. If you are a fan of ambient music, you are going to be in heaven. You become ridiculously happy from doing basic cleaning chores. If you have ever been on a psychedelic and marvelled at your hands for hours, that's what it feels like. There are fluctuations, but the hunger pangs and the restlessness become rare. If you've been using nicotine to get by so far, that need will fade away. What happens now is that you become a lot calmer and can sleep for 12 hours.

 

The first thing that hits you around this time is how psychological hunger is. It is a reaction of some type of unease, and then you feel hunger, and you go and fix that. When the psychological component disappears, which it does during fasting, you don't feel hungry. Stuff like food commercials don't bother you, rather it seems like a distant world of alien people and their crazy urges.

 

The third week was mostly a chore as I remember it. I wanted to feel "normal" again, but I kept waking up and it's the same god damn unbelievable lightness. I wasn't prepared for it and not very clear-headed at the time. If you brush your teeth at this point, there's a risk of throwing up. I couldn't stand for longer periods without nearly blacking out. The restlessness would come back in forms, like, I would look up and plan all kinds of exotic recipes. It wasn't so much about getting to eat it but fantasizing about cooking all these crazy meals.

 

Instead of the hunger pangs, there will be weird cravings. It's something that happens only on the tongue, not the stomach. Salt is the key one in my experience. I got weird cravings for stuff like anchovies. Some fasters recommend types of mineral water with sodium.

 

Anyway, towards the end of the 30 day fast I had lost a considerable amount of weight. Nobody recognized me. Now you might think this would be a really sexy thing to do about those love handles, but you look like a pale junkie. My eyelids, and the whole area around them, were all but completely black. I started getting weird rashes around my back and neck, which was the main reason I broke the fast. The first thing I ate, after 2 days of juice, was a red apple. It was the most delicious thing I ever tasted. After that it was a light mix of those crazy recipes that I had been planning. And then I would fall asleep. It happens if you eat after the 5 day mark.

 

And sure enough, I gained some of that weight back after a couple of months. It isn't true that your body swells up, but you have to be careful with your food intake. If you eat healthy, it shouldn't be something to worry about.

 

Anyway, that was the 30 day one. Since then, whenever I have fasted, I have focused mostly on learning to ride the fast rather than trying to bear through it.

 

This involves preparation, which means a very light diet and juice before you begin fasting.

 

Second, meditation and lots of it. If you are able to maintain one-pointed concentration, samadhi, throughout the day, you are not going to have any problems. Hunger and restlessness goes away by the first day - there will be one big hurdle, one dragon, if you deal with it right away you will not have to deal with it for the remainder of the fast. Keep it up and your energy levels will go up - this is the craziest thing. During recent fasts I would go out and take very long, blissful walks, even in the winter. You don't get that weak voice, rather it becomes booming and clear. The main deal is getting completely past that first hurdle, not trying to fight it by ignoring it because it will keep coming back with a vengeance. But when you practice it, you understand that it is a psychological thing that sparks the physical sensations, and you learn to control it.

 

That's about it, really. But if you are careless, the slightest thing can upset samadhi. So that's why I emphasize it, because that is the whole key to making fasting a meaningful and enjoyable experience. Otherwise it's just going to be a fight against these tremendous urges, and you are not going to want to do that.

 

Also, the period of breaking the fast is the most important one. You can't gorge. Exercise will be very helpful. I exercise a lot when I do eat. I have not experienced loss of muscle mass during fasting, apart from the 30 day one. But nowadays I follow a yoga schedule during fasting.

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:38 AM, fiznuthian said:

Could it be why dogs often don't eat when they're sick?

Many animals don't eat when they get sick. They just lie down in the forest and don't move until they heal. I strongly believe that you're onto something here.

 

holy shitting christ man.

 

fasting like that obviously isn't condusive with going to work and being able to perform as expected, socialising and maintaining relationships, etc. sounds all consuming, completely selfish and somewhat pointless to me, although i respect the spiritual, meditative attraction. this extreme fasting might be good for your spirituality and meditative chops but surely cannot be good for your body? i mean it's breaking down isn't it... you're actually in the process of dying? fuck. that. and be careful.

 

Well see here's the thing.. yes the experience can be psychological.. and in that respect I totally agree it's probably not work safe to some extent. But then there's a lot of people out there who fast for a long time and nothing much really happens besides feeling a bit mental (in a good way imo).

 

Thankfully any significant harm from fasting takes a while.. I would say 30 days is approaching that limit at the extreme - just plain water, no food. A lot of the time will be spent burning fat. Using muscles induces sparing, so it's possibly to maintain your muscle mass for quite a while. But eventually faty-acids will run out and proteins will be the main source of energy. Unfortunately this means now you're losing muscle quickly.

Thing is, the body has no problem turning proteins into other things.. it's a normal daily occurance in fact. So during this level of self-digestion you're pretty much okay.

 

It's the period after that which gets shitty... your organs will become a source of anything you require. At this point you better fucking eat, and you better do it very, very carefully.

Edited February 22, 2013 by fiznuthian

30 days without food sounds like madness, you must be a pretty strange guy.

  On 2/22/2013 at 12:51 PM, keltoi said:

holy shitting christ man.

 

fasting like that obviously isn't condusive with going to work and being able to perform as expected, socialising and maintaining relationships, etc. sounds all consuming, completely selfish and somewhat pointless to me, although i respect the spiritual, meditative attraction. this extreme fasting might be good for your spirituality and meditative chops but surely cannot be good for your body? i mean it's breaking down isn't it... you're actually in the process of dying? fuck. that. and be careful.

I would agree that that a longer fast is not conducive at all to a work environment or schedule, but there are people who do shorter juice fasts and work. This goes for white-collar type jobs of course, physically demanding work should not be combined with this type of activity at all. I'll save you the details and simply say that at the time, I had the time.

 

I don't understand the idea of selfishness, although it is a self-absorbed process, it is a way of using the ego to overpower the ego. My opinion is that the kind of perspective that you get on fundamental aspects of living like time, identity and priorities is something that doesn't really fit under the umbrella term of spirituality, nor is it selfish. It's not necessarily in a psychedelic "I can see forever" type of thing, but a perspective that is deeply sobering. While the possible harm of a longer fast is easily exaggerated unless you have a medical condition, the truth is that you are always in the process of dying, and coming to terms with that can be a very powerful experience. These types of insights have had a lasting effect on deeply rooted conceptions that I've had for most of my life, and has influenced the way I handle my relationships. So I don't consider that a selfish thing, much like I wouldn't consider going on a retreat selfish. I believe that many people need periods of something of that kind in order to be able to live well.

 

With that said, a short fast is not detrimental to a schedule or social contacts, if you are somewhat experienced and know how to focus your energy. There's a lot of that hiding underneath. Of course, I admit that there is an extreme in "going there", towards the edge and discovering your limits, but what scares me even more is that there are people who go through their whole lives without ever really getting in touch with that (there are many ways to do this and I don't specifically condone fasting over other methods). Like, when I was younger I used to be afraid that my heart would stop suddenly stop beating. Those small anxieties and fears disappear after something like this. As long as it is voluntary and done with the appropriate care, it can be a very useful learning-experience in my opinion.

  On 2/22/2013 at 11:13 PM, fiznuthian said:

Well see here's the thing.. yes the experience can be psychological.. and in that respect I totally agree it's probably not work safe to some extent. But then there's a lot of people out there who fast for a long time and nothing much really happens besides feeling a bit mental (in a good way imo).

 

Thankfully any significant harm from fasting takes a while.. I would say 30 days is approaching that limit at the extreme - just plain water, no food. A lot of the time will be spent burning fat. Using muscles induces sparing, so it's possibly to maintain your muscle mass for quite a while. But eventually faty-acids will run out and proteins will be the main source of energy. Unfortunately this means now you're losing muscle quickly.

Thing is, the body has no problem turning proteins into other things.. it's a normal daily occurance in fact. So during this level of self-digestion you're pretty much okay.

 

It's the period after that which gets shitty... your organs will become a source of anything you require. At this point you better fucking eat, and you better do it very, very carefully.

I would say that you are approaching shaky territory when the body runs out of fatty-acids and only has muscle to turn to, and you should have broken the fast long before then. What Christian Bale did for The Machinist was absolutely insane. I know some really skinny people over the web that do long fasts, but they are very experienced. Conversely, there are fasters with the excess weight to spare who have gone as long as 60 days without a problem. But as far as I know, they have consulted with doctors throughout the process.

  On 2/22/2013 at 11:17 PM, messiaen said:

30 days without food sounds like madness, you must be a pretty strange guy.

Quite possibly.