Fasting- Update

I broke my fast this evening out of necessity after the 72 hour mark. My husband and I decided I’d simply lost too much weight, and I wasn’t large to start with, being a fairly muscular 5’9 and 140ish pounds. I absolutely could have gone two more days on just water and coconut water, but it was his decision that I stop this evening and have a meal, so I did.

I began my fast technically Sunday evening, although all I had to eat on Sunday was about half a scrambled egg, a spoonful each of quinoa salad and hummus, and a small cup of mixed greens and protein powder. I got through Monday and Tuesday with just pinches of salt in water, feeling absolutely fine. This morning I branched out with some of my greens in water, I had a small cup of basically plain coffee with some MCT oil and a tiny pinch of keto creamer, and then coconut water all morning and afternoon. This evening I was still feeling fine, but my husband, upon hugging me, told me that five-day fasts were for severely overweight or severely unhealthy people, and that in his research, autophagy maxes out at 72 hours, and just because I CAN do something, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily healthy for me to do so. And he’s correct.

This little experiment was interesting. Mentally I was absolutely prepared for two more days. It really is mind over matter when you decide to do something. I can easily push through the first two days like a breeze when I do fasts- it doesn’t even faze me anymore. I suppose this proves that I could starve myself to death if I really willed it, which just goes to show how much mental willpower I’ve developed in a house full of food, while cooking dinners for my husband.

I guess the wrap-up is this- a three day fast is great for anyone, I think, once per year, with a few 24-48 hour fasts thrown in annually for good measure, especially after a big holiday like Christmas. But if you’re working out 3 days per week and not a pound overweight, more than 3 days and you start to wither a bit. I found this out so that now you know.

Blog post on mindset and willpower coming Sunday!