Hi Olivia,

A quick bit about me, I am not a doctor, I have no medical qualifications, I came here in late 2007 when I weighted 260 pounds and I am now under 160 with a target of 130. I did this by a combination of fasting and eating healthily. I discovered that healthy eating can reverse things like heart disease and cancer. Therefore I have now changed my eating habits completely, and expect to live past 100 in good health, god willing.

When I first came here there were some very helpful people, chrisb1 was knowledgeable and there are lots of new people here now that give good advice, too numerous to mention so I won't favour anyone. I was very nervous on my first fast, so I read up a lot, asked lots of questions.

Standard Fasting Advice

Now about fasting. I'll tell you how convention says a fast should be conducted. Healthy eating beforehand (for me this means a mainly plant based diet - I'll give you some links at the end). Then start fasting, drinking only pure distilled water (but I use filtered tap water). Carry on for as long as you want, it is recomended that people do not fast for more that 10 days without supervision, but some here do 20, 30 or 40. You should also rest as much as you can apart from walking to keep the crculatory system going, and maybe take light exercise if you feel like it. Sunshine is also good for you, get lots of it.

After a few days your body will produce go into ketosis and produce ketones. This is the standard fasting mode, where you don't feel hunger. Your body is now running from its reserves.

You may suffer healing crises which are periods of difficulty, and many people get food cravings, but it's not real hunger. You'll also feel light headed and dizzy when you get up, this is because your blood pressure is reduced. You can resolve that by sitting down again, or staying still until it pases. Core body temperature also drops slightly.

During the fast you shouldn't take anything such as vitamins and in most cases no medication.

Fasting to Completion

This is a special case of fasting. If you run out of reserves, your white tongue will turn pink and you will come out of ketosis. You will feel genuine hunger which is often felt from the throat. It is sustained hunger, and does not go away. You should not fast past this point, as your body is out of the reserves needed to run your essential systems.

Hair Loss

You may experience things such as hair loss first, as far as I can see this is called telogen effluvium. Sorry the link is about anorexia, but it is the trichological association, the truth is that is far more common than fasting for health and that is where it most occurs. But I believe this can happen on a normal fast as well, before return to hunger. Chrisb1 may know more about this. Here is an old thread with the problem illustrated with a photo of the hair loss. From what I have read though the hair grows back the same, not thicker, though it may give that impression because the thinning was gradual.

When I was a forum moderator I was very concerned when I saw people losing hair, especially when fasting for weight loss, and I am sure I upset a few people. Now I am not I don't feel so responsible for making sure the rules are complied with, now I guess I'll let people do what they want, but I feel sad when they risk or harm their health needlesly. But I personally would not fast so far as to lose my hair as I think that is pushing the boat out too far. I guess I am just too vain!

Starvation

I know it is possible to go past the point of true hunger because in the UK we had a political prisoner who fasted and died. He did not fast for quite as long as you but didn't eat for short periods either. I was concerned when I looked through your videos and could see that persistent hunger seemed to have set in some time ago, So the big question is - was it  genuine hunger? If the answer is yes, I would strongly advise you to start eating right away.

Refeeding

On completion of the fast, you should be very careful how to break it, and refeed on soft watery fruit such as watermelons, oranges etc. Build up gradually to eating. The recommended period of refeeding before fasting again is at least the length of the fast that you did or intend to do. For weight loss, I tended to do 10-15 day fasts as these could fit in with social events. My refeeding periods were often considerably longer.

During the fast you shouldn't take anything such as vitamins and in most cases no medication.

Electrolyte Supplements

A recent and yet unscreened documentary about a 55 day water fast called Facing the Fat seems to imply that extended fasting can be done with Glaceau Smart Water. Glaceau (Energy Brands) is owned by Coca Cola, and is said to contain electrolytes. I think the film is probably sponsored by Glaceau as they stand to gain revenue from the film, however I was sceptical.

Then #111692 pointed out that Curzone user Cartypel did a 92 day fast supplemented by her own made up electrolyte solution. Here is her fasting blog and she discusses it in this post fast entry:

"After about 60 days of water fasting I began to feel some real muscle weakness and feared I might be low on potassium. At that point I began using electrolyte enriched water. I had been drinking Smartwater off and on and was disappointed to discover it hardly had any potassium in it. I don't know what I was expecting, but I decided I needed to make my own bottled water with electrolytes. Using potassium chloride salt substitute, iodized table salt and a liquid magnesium calcium supplement I mixed my own water. I mixed the RDA for each into a 12oz water bottle and made sure I drank one every 3 days. I know, only 1/3 the actual RDA, but I figured my metabolism had slowed so much by then that 1/3 the RDA would be more than adequate. I felt more normal after the electrolytes, well, normal for fasting. Normal meaning that nearing the end of the fast I had to rest at least once during an hour's time. I wasn't sleeping very much at night, but I felt like sleeping often during the last 30 days."

In that above entry she also mentions that she did not think the Glaceau product was adequate, and felt like sunbathing, that was probably a good instinct. She also mentions the electrolyte mix in a previous entry:

"Thanks to Ayehasherayeh I was able to supplement electolytes adequately and continued my fast to the end of August!"

I found user Ayehasherayeh who introduced the idea in this post and a few later ones. It is some food supplement called Chloride. Eventually in this post catyrpel remarks

"Thanks to you I have been able to extend my fast indefinitely!!!!!! YAY!"

Now, I don't think indefinately means for ever, but if this is possible I would say it's getting into the realms of technical fasting. In scuba diving you can artificially extend your dive time by using mixed gases such as tri-mix or nitrox, which for example may have less of the larger moleculed nitrogen that causes "the bends", but to do that is complex and requires computers and a good knowledge of diving. This is collectively termed as "technical diving". So if it is possible to cheat nature and extend a fast in this way, I think people need to be very careful. It may interfere with the body's natural protection devices that tell a person when to end a fast (true hunger).

Quite frankly I don't know if it works, but obviously these two think it does.

I prefer to keep it simple, I can't see any need to cheat nature and extend a fast, although this would be fantastic knowledge in times of famine if it works.

Your Personal Fast

The exceptional and unusual things about your fast(s) are as follows

• Very long. Normally a fast of 30 - 40 days is considered more than enough
• Taking vitamins. Normally not done, possibly this may confuse the digestive system
• Short breaks. Normally the refeeding time should be as long as or longer than the fast
• Sustained hunger. This is what I find most worrying. Perhaps you could tell us more about that.
• Refeeding diet not good. Your body will need good micro and macronutrients. You won't get this in processed food.

Links

Fasting: Free fasting books here (Shelton) and here (Alan Cott). Also see Dr Fuhrman "Fasting and Eating for Health" (Not free - towards bottom of page)

Eating: Dr Fuhrman, John McDougall, Caldwell Esseltsyn, T Colin Campbell, John Robbins and also check out Vegsource where you will find more names like these, and of course there's processed people, the rave diet and the wellness forum... the list is plentiful if you know where to look.

Fasting Doctors and Clinics: True North, Dr Fuhrman

My view is that if you do all that good work by fasting, you should stick with it by eating nutritiously.

I hope this helps

Steve

[EDIT]

After Chrisb1 posted about genuine hunger, I edited the above to remove the emphasis on a sensation from the throat.