Re: Vitamins and Minerals while Fasting

Hi there Olivia,

A hearty welcome to you!  Your fame preceeds you ;)  I am really happy to see you here.  I believe it was actually me who referred you to this forum in your youtube posts. 

Before i say anything else, everybody here believes in the benefits of fasting including long fasts and your back to back 40 day fasts were an amazing accomplishment, indeed of iron will.  The collective concern here is that there is a point at which it becomes dangerous and nobody wants to see you get hurt.   I personally don't believe you are crazy and as well i can relate to your immense commitment to God.  But i also believe that if you read the fasting literature that is out there (Shelton [who fasted 40,000 patients] Fuhrman, Bragg and others), you wouldn't likely engage in 3 back to back 40 day fasts.  It follows that the people here who have read such literature would encourage you to count your blessings after 2 of them and give yourself a chance to rebuild your nutritional stores.  With all of that said, you are your own person, you will make your own decisions and i genuinely wish you every blessing in whatever you decide. 

In  regards to supplementing, i believe the advice you get in this forum will all revolve around that which all of the fasting literature teaches... which in the words of chrisb1 is that "vitamins interfere with the fasting process and interrupt ketosis".  and quite simply are not beneficial to a fast.  

Olivia: "Is there another way to keep my energy levels up and lightheadedness away while still maintaining the integrity of the water fast?

"While it says "three times a day", I sometimes take them as many as six, if the fatigue is becoming too great. Obviously, this is one of the worst things about the fast, though it is no where near as bad as the energy loss and fainting would be without them."

"So, you see my dilemma. I was hoping someone here would have a better idea of what to do or take to keep my energy at normal levels, without having to take so many pills."

I am curious how you came to believe that your energy levels are higher with these supplements and that they reduce light headedness.  Did you fast for a while without them?  Even so, low energy levels and light headedness are very common symptoms, especially early in a fast when high levels of toxins have been stirred up in the blood and haven't been eliminated yet.  Once a faster gets past this phase, energy levels become higher and light headedness is greatly reduced.   I appreciate that you believe you are given more energy by these supplements, but i respectfully believe that if you didn't take them, you would find yourself with higher energy levels... and it would resolve the issue of nausia they are causing. 

So you won't have to wait as long to get some information from chrisb1, i found one of his posts on this topic.

A post by chris on the subject of supplementing in a fast: 

"I am not familiar with the case of the woman who fasted for 92 days and who you said took electrolytes throughout. No hunger present either apparently.

I think each case has to be assessed and dealt with individually, and where no experience of hunger means that ketosis was doing its job of suppressing it.

It is known that electrolytes by themselves if taken on a fast will have very little if any benefit, as they rely on the addition of vitamins and other co-factors, and where the body's stores of vitamins within the Liver and elsewhere should suffice on a prolonged fast of anywhere between 30 to 50 days, as deficiencies of this type do not occur..................

Shelton: 
"We have no means of knowing how much of a reserve store of vitamins the body possesses, nor do we know where all of these reserves are stored; still less do we know about how much of these vitamins are lost to the body during a fast. All of this is as unknown to Kellogg and to the writer as to the reader, but we may be sure of one thing:--namely, these stores are sufficient to outlast the most prolonged fast.
We know that scurvy and beri-beri never develop on a fast. We know that rickets is positively benefited by fasting. Kellogg overlooks an important difference between fasting and a polished rice diet--namely, that, whereas, in both, the body is deprived of its daily supply of vitamins, fasting makes little if any demand upon its vitamin reserves, while the polished rice diet rapidly consumes these......................
"Vitamin deficient diets compel the body to consume its vitamin stores; but we do not know that the body is forced to consume these stores in living off its own internal resources. We cannot say positively that these reserve stores do not contain the vitamins necessary to their utilization. We only know that pathological conditions attributed to "avitaminosis" do not develop as a result of prolonged fasting. Since there are no such injuries, they do not require adequate compensation"...................
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020127shelton.III/020127.ch18.htm

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However, to say that there was no starvation in this woman is highly speculative and conjectural as the consumption of any external nutrients acts in much the same way as a diet, and fools the body into thinking it is still in "eating mode"; so instead of living exclusively from internal food reserves and allowing the body itself to "economize" its internal resources, the body is expecting nutrition from outside, and this is the danger as to how deficiencies can arise and quite easily occur.

This is a complicated subject if you haven't surmised that already! and where I would never recommend any supplements on a fast for this reason, as the body will conserve ALL of its nutrients via a lowered metabolism and a conservation effort by the body in prolonging life; whereas in contrast someone who feeds externally via supplements or any other means, usually means a more rapid consumption of these vital nutritional elements from their food reserves and the risk of starvation is brought forward much sooner than would otherwise be the case.
I also believe that the combination of vitamins and minerals she is taking has replenished those supplies, but will more rapidly utilize the other nutrients such as amino acids and essential fatty acids than would not have occurred if no supplements had been taken.

Unless this woman was medically-examined thoroughly after her 92 day fast, then no one can say with any certainty as to whether starvation damage has occurred or not."

Again Olivia, it is great to see you in this forum and i wish you the best in whatever you decide. 

Mighty Sun Tzu