Experiment: Water Fasting (again)
After the last water fasting in Sep 2017 (8 years ago), I decided to repeat the experiment and see the effects.
Protocol
Water fasting protocol is super simple. Drink water, don’t eat, for 3 days (72h). Additionally I had black coffee and electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium). Carefully avoided any food/supplement that could break the fast.
Just because we like to experiment, my wife and I started to do a 48h fasting (Mon-Wed). This is the first 72h to see how it goes.
What about the moon thing?
9 years ago I waited for the New Moon to start fasting. It’s an easy way to track when to do it, and there are a few other reasons from Hinduism…
Brahmins (and many other Hindus) observe a fast on the new moon day called Amavasya, for a mix of spiritual, ancestral, and practical reasons. Sometimes they do it on a Full Moon as well.
This time, I just started on a Monday and will break fast on the Full Moon. Will take a note for next time and compare the results.
Fasting, first 24h
Since we’ve been doing 48h fasting for 2 weeks, the first day is easy. Just keep yourself mentally busy, drink water, the day flies. Specially now that work has been intense.
Second day
Second day was ok, twice hunger waves if I remember correctly, some water with electrolytes and it goes away. Still busy, so that helps.
At the end of the day we went for a 5km walk, to the beach because it’s quite warm in Amsterdam this time of the year. Stayed there for like 1h, came back home around 9pm. On the way back, was a bit tough. Felt a bit like keto flu, a slight headache and pain behind the eyes, wasn’t talkative at all. I think it was ketosis kicking in hard.
Third day
Woke up feeling great, measured ketones (3.4mmol/L) and glucose (3.7mmol/L) with a Keto-Mojo meter and just confirmed that I’m in deep ketosis, so probably that’s what I felt yesterday. Had water with electrolytes and a black coffee, ready to rock and roll.
Feeling a bit of pain in joints, like knees. Also a bit dizzy when stand up suddenly, what I think is that in long fastings, you gotta lay low and do less… at least that’s my assumption. When I got in deep ketosis eating normally in the past, nothing like that, so I assume is the body redirecting energy and preserving as much as possible.
Breaking it
We’re about to break the fast now. 72h and a bit. Bone broth, chicken and egg. Basically a soup. In about 1h, meat.
Very different than the other two times where I ate veggies. Let’s see the effects. The first time, around 32 years ago, I tried to chug a bunch of carrots and was not good at all. Previous time started with cucumbers and avocado, was fine. Now, let’s see what happens when we focus in protein to go back.
Results
I lost around 2kg in this fasting. 3 days is easy. Next week, I’ll try 3 and a half days (84h) to prepare for a 5 day fast (120h). I’m really curious to see what happens then.
Just thinking that on that week, I’ll have to take it slow, read, work less and gentle walks. But who knows, might be totally different than that!
This time I walked 10km on the first day and 5km on the third. Couldn’t think on doing more than that.
Next steps
✅ 3 days after 8 years. I’m thinking about doing a long water fast (5 days) but for that I’ll prepare a bit. Idea is to fast for a few days every week, walk those days, and the others run and lift weights. Just want to see what happens, and probably won’t do it for long because I don’t need to loose a lot of weight.
This experiment is closed.