My Personal Conclusions About Fasting

I am a long time lurker, and also a long time faster, and I decided that it was time to post my experiences with fasting, for what they are worth to others here.

First, I have done numerous extended Water Fasts (9 days, 12 days and most recently 14 days) over the past few years. I have long been an intermittent faster (a day, two days once a week, here and there) over my adult life.

I am a religious person, so there is an ascetic quality to fasting I like, and have in fact fasted for religious purposes too, as a mortification of the body, as penance, to try and deal with an issue “by prayer and fasting,” etc. I have to say that the religious motivation can be a good one, so if you are someone who has this perspective, you might consider it to aid you. Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days, surely I can do five….

These experiences have taught me the following basics that you might want to consider if you are entering into a water only fast. Some of this repeats things others have also said, so what I am saying here is I agree with them. Some of it I don’t know if I have really seen on here in several years of reading on and off, but it’s my own experience, and represents what I do, so if it is helpful to you, take what works and if it doesn’t, leave the rest. These are my opinions only of what I have concluded of what works for me and what does not.

1) how much weight you can lose--Here is my formula, after all my fasts, for a fairly average sized person: for fasts under 30 days, 1 pound a day, plus about 3-5 more pounds, which for me I think is the digestive waste you are getting rid of and not replacing with new food. You don’t lose it steady, more like 2 pounds a day at first, and at the end, it’s more like ½ pound a day, but it averages out to 1 pound a day. Not bad for “not” doing anything. I personally think there might be better easier ways to lose weight (like raw food, nutritarian approach, Eat for Life, Dr. Fuhrman, that kind of agenda). But fasting is a no brainer—you accomplish the goal by NOT doing something (eating).

2) Don’t even try to fast if you have social engagements/eating is the heart of your social life. I am single, so can control my home environment (i.e. have no food in my house when I fast). I also can only do it when I have nothing on the calendar that requires eating. So much of what we do is centered around food. If you are going on a fast, I highly suggest you live like a monk and don’t go out, because people will harass you, and it will certainly tempt you. Also, I have found when you fast, you just can’t tell anybody. They will not understand, they will argue with you, they will be scared for you, etc. Who needs the aggravation? Just be quiet about it, and don’t socialize.

3) Water. Make sure you drink a lot of water (I drink at least 2 liters a day as a regular sized person). The thing that really is dangerous in my view about fasting is that you can totally mess up your electrolytes (potassium and sodium in particular, which are the keys to your nerves working, including the autonomic nerves that keep your heart going). I have had problems fasting before because I think I have gotten depleted of essential electrolytes, but I think I found my solution: water with electrolytes in it (water you can buy that is enhanced with electrolytes). I drank a liter of this every day during my most recent 14 day fasts and other water for the other liter(s) I need, and really, other than being tired when I did anything physically stressful (climb up 100 subway stairs, for example) I basically felt good/normal. Or, if you start to feel a little funny, you might try a pinch of salt (sodium) in some water, and/or have some potassium tablets on hand and take one and see if you feel better, otherwise, this is not something you mess with. Signs of electrolyte imbalance/depletion include lightheadedness, spaciness, palpitations, and muscle twitching/cramping. I have had all these symptoms in a mild form, what I believe was the beginning of electrolyte depletion/imbalance, but the enhanced electrolyte water helped me a lot on all this, avoiding it all together on the last fast. This is the one part of fasting you can’t screw around with. Electrolyte imbalance/depletion can lead to cardiac arrhythmia, and even sudden cardiac death if not treated (electrolytes replenished and the correct balance restored). Don’t ever let it go that far.

4) Bowels—I don’t see this posted about much, but I always take a laxative or use laxative tea before I start a fast, because I don’t want my bowel to have some putrifying remnants of food in it for two or more weeks. My experience is that you either have no BMs for the entire fast, or maybe one near the start, and any in between tend to be mostly bile (disgusting). Not very pleasant all around, but one of my favorite things about fasting is the physical feeling of lightness of not having any food in my system weighing me down. I am very happy with this sensation. Also, I tend to have difficult digestion (heartburn, and painful peristalsis as the food moves through my intestinal tract, etc.) so for x number of days to have nothing going on down there, I am a very happy person. A nice side benefit of fasting.

5) Your mouth—how disgusting the metallic taste in your mouth is from fasting, and the coated tongue you get, I can’t even say. It is the one thing that makes fasting really hard for me because I have a keen sense of taste, and it about drives me crazy. I scrap my tongue, use mouthwash, chew sugarless gum, but really very little masks it. You just have to endure. And I am really not even that toxic, having lived pretty clean for some time (punctuated by periods of reversions to the Standard American Diet), and have never smoked, or taken any meds, etc., so don’t know why I would be so toxed up that my tongue is so awful every fast and still never actually clears up once and for all. Yuck.

6) Exercise—I basically do not have sufficient energy to exercise while fasting. I can do my daily activities most days (I work in a big city, at a desk job more or less), but extra expenditure of energy I can’t really do. So don’t think you can fast, and run five or six miles a day. That is the recipe for electrolyte depletion that can lead to disaster, in my opinion. There are some days of a fast where all I can do is work, and at night have to lay on the couch because that is all I can do. I think there are two things—fasting, and working out, and they are not the same thing and should not be conducted at the same time. Fasting is a period of rest, where you give the body a chance to heal itself. Strenuous exercise also has its place in building and strengthening the body, but I think that belongs to another phase of your health plan/recovery, not during the fasting phase.

7) Refeeding—This is where I make my mistake every time. I am acsetic like a monk, eating nothing for 14 days, and as soon as you break the fast, you want to eat everything, good and bad for you. You must be more vigilant after the fast than even during it. Believe me, if you break your fast with a restaurant meal, you will wish you hadn’t. It is a shock to the digestive system, you will want to die, really. The food will just sit there in your stomach for hours as your system tries to start up and digest again, and you will be in misery. DON’T DO THIS. Break the fast with only juice, or vegetable broth (clear) for several days. You will not regret it.

Also, you will gain weight back, at least five pounds, like instantly. My fast this past summer, I gained 7 pounds in 36 hours, and I was mortified, because I had fasted at least 10 days, 10 days of suffering, to lose that 7 pounds, and then just drinking some juice, eating some grapes, then a slice a wheat toast, etc. and it was all GONE in a flash. You will gain weight. How you “refeed” will determine how MUCH you regain.

8) fasting as a long term weight solution—I think fasting does in fact slow down your metabolism, and as such is probably not the best solution for weight loss. If it is step one of a longer term program for you to get your eating on track (step 1 fast to get control, step 2 eat “clean” i.e. juicing, or raw foodism, or vegetarianism, or at least no Sugar and no processed junk) it might be a good start. I think overall, your body does say, hey what is she doing to us, oh she is STARVING us, and it starts to conserve. That is why you go from losing 1-2 pounds to ½ a pound in about 10 days of fasting in my experience. The body is trying to conserve, once solidly in a fasting state. And it does not bounce back from that very quickly. If you do that over a lifetime, you can mess yourself up. You need another answer long term, but fasting is good short term I think.

Peace and happy fasting to all!

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