I do a short fast 1-2 times a year and this isn’t far off. Hunger day 1 and 2 but by day 3 you’re full of energy. I wouldn’t break it with a juice box though, I like to do an Apple. Stick to whole foods and healthy fats.
In boarding school one of my best friends was from Turkey, and I joined him for Ramadan. I actually had a lot of fun, we’d hoard food from the cafeteria throughout the day in his room, then hang out all night.
I’d never do it on my own, especially because I have no connection to the religion, but I’m still glad I participated.
At first I was like idgf what people do. But then my mate told me every Ramadan doctors and nurses collapse while on the job due to Ramadan.
Just imagine telling some kid “sorry your mum died, but the nurse fucked up the medicine because she was incredibly dehydrated because some guy that lived in a tent 2000 years ago commanded it”.
They should have to use their holiday days. Or just do their fucking job.
Yeah they’re not supposed to be fasting. Anyone who has even the slightest physical reason is excused. The poor, the ill, the old, the young, the pregnant, the required workers like doctors, police, fire, power line guys, etc …
If doctors and nurses are fasting it’s because they want to and if they’re passing out then they should be taking immediate steps to rectify that because they now fall into the ill category.
I personally think it’s the worst way to fast. In the end, you can still eat a lot of unhealthy stuff in the morning and in the evening (timing differs, easier in winter) while you can’t drink any water during the day. Especially the latter part should just be a no go criteria for most people. Especially if you exercise physically in summer. Just completely whack in my opinion.
If the Christian way of fasting makes sense can be debated. But at least it raises no health concerns.
Anyone who has to do outside work is absolutely allowed to eat and drink water during the day. You wouldn’t go work in your garden, but construction workers are not fasting.
No kidding. I’ve been malnourished before. There’s a moment after taking vitamins and having a meal when it feels like the best drug ever. Better than dilaudid. Better than cocaine. Better than an orgasm. Apparently, according to my previous sexual partners and what I I’ve seen in pornos, I tend to have way more intense and longer lasting orgasms than most males. Still, the feeling of getting nutrients in my bloodstream after starving felt better than that…for about 20-30 mins! I was seriously just rubbing my skin and stretching my muscles, looking like I was in pure ecstasy. Imagine the peak of orgasm for 20-30 mins long. If that feeling could be turned into a drug, it would be the most addictive drug ever known.
I do intermittent fasting (apparently, wasn’t aware of the concept until a friend of mine was describing it as there new diet plan and I was like “Damn, I’ve been doing that for years”) and usually feel like shit after I eat. Not sure they’re related though it might be that I just have a shitty digestive system.
A non-underweight and otherwise healthy adult can forego food for a week without issue, it’s not that big a deal. We would never have survived evolution if we couldn’t do that.
Exercise puts stress on your body. Not a problem for most people, but can still put people in danger if preexisting conditions exist.
The thing about stress is that complete lack of it is a stress all of its own. Aside from psychological stress, that is, that one is wholly superfluous.
My ex only found out she had diabetes because she ate a bunch of candy and slipped into a short coma (like 4 hours) so I would assume the opposite is possible.
That’s not how any of that works: Insulin tells fat cells to leech sugar out of the blood and convert it into fat. Type 1 diabetes means you can’t produce insulin (it’s an autoimmune disorder attacking the cells producing it), type 2 means that your fat cells have seen so much insulin that they dial down their response to it, to the point where you cannot produce enough to regulate your blood sugar.
In any case taking insulin while fasting will only make you keel over faster as you’ll deplete the little sugar that’s left in your blood, and also actively hinder the reverse (fat to sugar) pipeline.
Diabetics can fast and type 2 can even be reversed like that but you absolutely need a doctor to take regular blood tests. Type 1s don’t want to they’re happy if they get at least a bit of body fat onto them.
Type 1 diabetics can’t put on fat without insulin injections. I already explained why, if you don’t believe me open any random textbook on metabolism.
As Type 1 diabetic to lose weight all you need to do is stop insulin and live your life, sooner or later all the fat will be gone: Under normal circumstances we’re always burning a little, regaining a little, as Type 1s can’t gain without injections you’d only lose.
On the flipside doctors will try to make sure that Type 1s do have enough fat on them to survive for a while, mortality rate before insulin was discovered was insanely high: Eat something and lose consciousness because your blood sugar is too high, don’t eat enough and you’ll starve sooner than later, hard to strike a balance there without any help from modern medicine.
As Type 2 it’s not really harder to lose weight than as a non-diabetic, thing is though people who become type 2s generally have lifestyle (and/or other) issues that brought them there in the first place. Correlation, not causation.
Yeah but you can’t go without insulin… Even if you don’t eat anything your body still needs insulin Sure if you’re starving yourself you lose weight but that is not really the point
That’s not true bro. You can manage your basal rate and not eat for a week. Trust me. Type 1. Almost three decades. There’s been two points in my life where I couldn’t hold down water, and had to be intubated after a few days.
The body’s metabolic rate and capability of storing and converting sugar is different for every person. Some people actually struggle to maintain a healthy weight because they can lose it too quickly, and it’s often a stigma for bodybuilders and fighting sport athletes. Some people’s metabolic rate is so efficient that they would bottom out on blood sugar by day 2 and risk becoming comatose, and if they were to eat something like 12 bananas in that state then their natural insulin levels would send their blood sugar through the roof with risk of going into shock.
For most people it’s good to very slowly and very carefully ease into new eating habits, stopping changes before it becomes dangerous. For example, water fasting for a day every week for a couple of weeks is fine, and if you’re comfortable you can add another day. Jumping straight into a long fast with no minerals or grain breads/crackers is dangerous.
I actually recommend that people choose a high oil diet over a high sugar diet in case they only eat once a day, because while it can potentially send blood sugar up for an extended period of time that also means it has the benefit of a slow release of energy over time compared to sugar which raises it quickly for a short period of time.
A general rule of thumb is that you can go 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food and 3 minutes without oxygen.
You would not die of fasting for three days unless you’re severely diabetic and had a hypoglycemic shock, as long as you hydrate properly.
If you were stuck in a desert though, sweating your ass off, and only had purified water (and in this hypothetical you’re on a planet which has 80-hour days so there’s no cool nights in between), you would probably die.
But of a lack of electrolytes, not hunger. Sodium is a critical electrolyte that, along with potassium and chloride, helps to deliver water to your body’s cells.
So with a few of those single-use salt bags from McD you’d be fine.
I’m a supply-core NCO (in the reserve tho) and my job was literally keeping soldiers fighting fit. We went over a lot of things related to things like these.
Barring any severe medical conditions, people can fast 3 days with water.
But remembering electrolytes is important. During the summer, we’d add a spoon of salt to every 30l water jug, to prevent the troops from dehydrating. Still, despite that, going for a piss got aptly nicknamed “tossing syrup”, as the piss had a consistency of maple syrup, more or less. (I lost 10kg in my first two weeks of basic training, which was in July. A hot July.)
Fast for 20 hours, eat for 4, then do whatever I want 1 day a week. I’ve lost 50 pounds and kept it off for 8 years. Any time I start to creep back up, I’ll start fasting again. Magic.
What OP is referring to is intermittent fasting. In a 24 hour day, you don’t eat or fast for x # hours and then allow yourself a time window of y # hours where you are allowed to eat. In OP’s case, they are fasting for 20 hours and allow themselves a 4 hour time period per day where they can eat. It helps with a calorie deficit by limiting when you can eat, rather than mindless eating throughout the day. It can be a helpful tool for some.
But once I was going to an all you can eat meat place after work so I had a small breakfast and drank water in bulk through the day or your stomach closes. I felt full the next day haha.
It’s kinda hard to eat loads if you haven’t eaten for a while.
It’s possible to do, but harder than it seems. Especially if you add in requirements like getting a few cups of green veggies and a 100g of protein. That shit will fill you up fast!
Yeah, I suppose if you have the willpower to go through with it you’re probably gonna do it the right way and not just get a huge plate of Chinese food
Sometimes I do just eat a huge plate of Chinese food, but I’ll feel really gross after. It’s like my body knows it needs the best food so I’m always craving green veggies and nuts
I think they’re saying they’re on a pendulum swinging between comfort/ discomfort. Low blood sugar sucks man. I don’t know how they do it. I have a fast metabolism, and hypoglycemic. I’m a little jealous these guys can even DO this.
At the root, it means reverting to unhealthy habits/unhealthy eating. People would rather “blame the diet” but it’s 100% a behavioral issue. Understandable that some people have trouble facing this fact.
The way I see it, it’s a good path to being able to move with less consequences to your joints. A bit like sugar free fizzy drinks? Are they good for you? No but if you can get to a healthier weight and then work from there they are a means to an end.
Yoyo is more of a consistency issue imo. Calories in calories out is all of it. If you are yo yoing weight you are changing something at each end. I have always had that issue on diets until IF because life happens and you lose routine. With if I just dont eat unless I know its time, and my stomach is small so I fill up quicker. I bounced 230-270 for a decade. Now maintaining 190-200 and thats mostly water weight bouncing.
I started fasting thanks to my childhood hero’s unintended advice. I’d seen him around all the time but never managed to talk to him as a kid. Even after he’d improved, he was still frequently blue but became elated at the mere mention of fasting. He could go on about it for ages, bragging and joking.
All the friends in the world couldn’t break his unhealthy lifestyle, but they certainly tried. His best friend Miles in particular tried everything to get him to eat well, but concern can’t overcome inertia, only aid you in doing so.
The 90s were a rough time for him and I sincerely believe that fasting saved his life. I caught a glimpse of him back then standing on the sidewalk with a hotdog in each hand, chili dripping off his face, belly distended and groaning like a ship losing rivets, surrounded by worried faces. His eyes shot open as he finally overcame inertia. He said to no one in particular the words that changed my paunchy little life. “Gotta go fast.”
That would be about the point where your body runs out of natural electrolyte stores. Eating is more than calories, we constantly consume small amounts of electrolytes, vitamins, minerals, etc, all calorie-neutral things that are exceptionally vital to your body functioning right. Once those levels get wack, weird shit starts to happen.
It’s why dieting is less about “stop eating” and more about “eat less but choose small amounts of very nutrient dense (NOT calorie dense) foods”.
Can attest. I feel a little high after 24 hours or so on a water fast too, tingly and spaced, it’s an enjoyable way to safely lose weight.
Still plenty of energy of I have anything to do, but I can zone out watching tv all day and lose another half pound, or go for a long walk and goodbye a pound that day.
Hyponatremia ends up killing marathon runners pretty commonly, more often than heart attacks but to be fair I wouldn’t expect marathon runners to have a lot of the associated risk factors.
It’s easy to avoid though. Simply put a few grains of salt into your water.
In the army, as a supply-core nco, that was a must, especially in the summer. A spoon of salt for every jug. I’m gonna refrain from putting the ratios here, because I don’t want anyone to go necking salt because of me. Normally we get enough salt from food, so I’m afraid of some trendy would-be healthy kids starting to add a bunch of salt into their water bottles even when they don’t do any sweating, thinking it’s healthy for them.
With IM I don’t really get to that energetic sweet spot.
It’s more like 24h+ into the fast than in the 16-20 range.
That’s when you’re still somewhat hungry.
Cooking after some 30 hours of fasting is amazing. Everything smells fucking amazing and makes you salivate. People go in for healthy diets usually I think but I just feast.
One time made this amazing deer bolognese sauce, simmered it for ages. Spaghetti, fresh parmeesian (hehe) and a salad of nice fresh tomatoes and some other goodies. A nice beer on top of that.
Mmmm-mmmm-mmm.
Got to do that at home though, since usually that slaps the digestive tract awake and I have to run to the bathroom.
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