Interesting but he was a bit of a whiny faced cunt towards the end. And fixated on calorie deficit. Fasting can be hard. If you don’t like doing hard things in life, don’t do them. Simple. No matter what your views or opinions are in life, you’ll always find someone ont’ tinterpipe that backs you up 100%. And quite the opposite too
I’ve been playing with fasting on and off for a few years now. Started easy, one day, then two, then three. Did loads of Monday to Wednesday three dayers, then pushed to 5 days, then a week, and later ten days. After four or five days it’s like taking speed; by day eight I was flying. So much more time in the day, no shopping, no cooking, no slobbing on the couch with a full belly for hours afterwards. Sooo much more time in the day to get shit done and the energy to do it to boot. After the 10 day fast I thought, this is a piece of piss, so I went straight for a 20 dayer. Same story, after day five it just got easier and easier. So then I figured, fuggit, let’s find jesus and go for the holy grail of a 40 dayer. That one started like before, easy up to day 30 but that was about the peak and it went downhill after that and by day 35 or 36 I really began to struggle. I was too invested to quit tho and wanted to push myself to reach the goal I'd set. The last couple of days were pretty bad... Few things / caveats. I have always taken salts & minerals, some say you shouldn't to really stress the body but I get hellacious cramping if I don't. I do have tea with the tiniest splash of milk and black coffee. Drink loads and loads and loads of water all day every day. Do moderate exercise but ramping down the longer the fast. Refeeding - this one you have to be careful with, the longer the fast the slower and gentler you need to refeed: Rule fo thumb is a slow start ramping up gently for 50% the duration of the fast. For anything up to a week I ignore this but 10 days or more, I find it's quite important. Gentle refeed and it should be low carb, don't overload your system with carbs especially in the beginning. I find if I ignore this I have serious digestive issues for a few days which I'll not describe here... Also it may sound like I'm going from one fast to another in quick succession, not so, I've not done a big fast since my 40 dayer two years ago, keeping it to 2 to 5 days now and again, but generally I give a lot of time between fasts - the longer the fast the longer between them. I find I can do a 2-3 days fast every week without issues if I want to. I usually do a longer fast when I’ve been eating rubbish and poisoning myself with carbs, to detox and get back into keto. It’s much harder to start a fast straight off carbs, so if you’re new, go low-carb first to get into ketosis, which is where you will end up on the fast anyway. I’ve been doing LCHF, keto, and carnivore on and off for about 13-14 years now, so my body switches gears easily these days and I don't find it difficult fasting off the bat. The best thing I find about fasting is it's a diet I can do anywhere and take with me everywhere. We have evolved for 2M years without eating 3-5 times a day, perhaps more like 3-5 times a week, think about it.
He’s the chap I mentioned a few posts/pages back. And you’re bang on about finding some to suit your ‘narrative’ on the web. I’m not going to bother with fasting but am going to get into the habit (I avoided the word routine on purpose) of eating when I’m hungry.
Oh wow!! You is the fasting Master!! 40 days? When you say it got tough after 30 days, did it occur to you that you might be actually dying? 40 days is seriously hard core. I know people survive such timeframes lost at sea but I wouldn’t fancy my chances. Five days was more than enough for me… And you’re correct, the human being isn’t supposed to have 3 meals a day. Going a few days without food is not an issue.
Nah I was far from it, you don't get into the dying stage until you run out of body fat and then muscle, and I have / had have (yep I'm a yoyo) plenty of body fat. I am far from the master, plenty of much more hard core people than me do it and a lot of them say when you get to this really sickly stage it's a big upheaval of the body properly detoxing itself and pushing out the crap stored for years in the fat cells, and you really really should push through - I didn't know it at the time, and tbf not sure I could have pushed through at that point. I had a chat with Tallis Barker a few weeks after the fast and he said to do pure 100% water fasting and you reach this detox stage much earlier in a fast so might still have the mentality to push through it... Dunno tho as mentioned, every time I go more than a day or two without salt & minerals I just get the worst cramping everywhere from fingers & thumbs, upper abs, and upper leg cramps in the middle iof the night that have me virtually screaming.... I have not done a long fast in over two years, the 40 dayer being the last one (edit that was a lie checking my records I did a 12 dayer 18 months ago) so that might tell its own story haha and these days I prefer 1-3 days, and more often just strict ketovore instead when on a mission.
I’ve done intermittent when I was young and lean, stop at 8pm start at 12 the next day. Worked well but I was cycling 12 miles a day on commute then 30-60 on the weekends. My weight has gone to pot, so moved to 36 hour fasts once a week, 4 weeks in a row so far and have shed 5kg. Can be hard just on water, but does feel like a refresh, at the end of the fast I don’t feel hungry anymore and just have a small bacon and egg sandwich.
It’s the (lack of a) cup of tea and biscuit after walking the dogs that did my nut in. A glass of water just wasn’t doing it for me. My hunger pangs came and went. Nothing crazy, but I noticed it more after exercise.
Seriously I take my hat off to you............I am trying to monitor and control my calorie intake but fuck me it's hard!
So if 10 people were adrift in a life raft, the big fat bugger would survive longest. And then get to eat the skinny buggers that had already carked it. Doesn’t seem fair at all!
Just take the fact that they have shrunk to half their original size over the past 10 years as some small consolation
Ive just been a bit more concious about what im eating....ive not eaten a biscuit for about 5 weeks now. Dont snack in the evenings. Have one day on the weekend when i relax a bit, (bar of chocolate and other rubbish) - on the flipside, i walk 2 - 3 miles every day at lunchtime without fail, 30 mins of exercise in the morning first thing, push ups, sit ups, squats etc etc...this is the longest ive managed in one hit not lost any weight but gained about 4-5" smaller on my waist... Edit: i will say that when december/xmas comes all bets are off..im eating everything...
