
Features of a successful therapeutic fast of 382 days' duration (1973) - ayanai
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/
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jerrycruncher
I recently finished a forty day, forty night water fast and while I wouldn't
recommend anyone do it, it was effective. At the end I was down roughly
40lbs/18kg, around five of which came back relatively quickly as my body began
retaining water.

I supplemented sodium and magnesium during the fast (which is essential), but
otherwise only consumed water. During my first few days of re-feeding, I also
supplemented sodium diphosphate to avoid hypophosphatemia - which is really
only a problem when slamming carbs after an extended fast, but I wanted to be
careful.

The most interesting thing for me was that after the first couple days (I've
done shorter duration fasts ranging from one to five days intermittently for a
few years), my desire to eat was entirely mental - the physical pangs had
gone. After about the tenth day I was simply not hungry, at all.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
What was the effect on your sleep like? Do you still need your normal 8 hours?

Also could you maintain a normal libido? My wife won't let me do fasts because
it impacts our sex life too much. But I wonder if I would break through after
a couple days and get things back to normal in that department.

~~~
jerrycruncher
Sleep-wise, it took me some time to fall asleep during the first couple days.
After which, my mind calmed considerably and I slept normally for the rest of
the fast.

Libido-wise, I couldn't tell you. My sex-drive has been abnormally low for my
entire life. Your wife's suspicion would seem to make sense. 'The Science of
Fasting' \- a movie available on Amazon Prime - goes into some detail about
the metabolic changes a body undergoes during the process. It would make sense
that reproductive urges would diminish during a time when one's body was
focused on conservation.

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fb03
Fasting was a nice tool for me to break my food addiction. I didn't use it
specifically to lose weight but to change my mindset around food.

The mindset change for me was basically what I believe most overweight people
suffer from: To start eating so much and so often that they forget what
'hunger' really is.

With that change, now knowing for real when I'm hungry and when I just 'want
to eat', my weight started to drop naturally, and in 3 years (slow descent,
which was good as well for other reasons __) I ended up losing 50 kg, going
from a "morbidly obese" BMI to a now healthy "slightly overweight" :-)

 __Losing weight slowly meant 2 good things to me:

1- the mind changed, so now I'm simply unable to get back to that weight, I
can't eat so much, all my portion sizes were slashed and I can do that while
eating normally - no fad diets or crazy restrictions. yes I eat pizza with a
coke sometimes, I just don't eat a whole pizza anymore :) That level of
control and balance was what I was striving for, because I think that's
durable. I knew I could lose weight by being angry and brute forcing it for 6
months, but I don't believe I'd be able to keep the weight down without a
proper mindset break.

2- losing weight slowly also meant I don't have heaps of loose skin, I didn't
need plastic surgery or anything and besides still being a bit chubby, I can
take my shirt off just fine without getting strange looks :-) I know people
that lost the same 50 kg in 6 months through insane diets and overexerting
themselves at the gym and their skin just couldn't shrink as fast as they lost
weight, they have these folds which usually give away you 'lost too much
weight'. I'm proud I don't have these features!

TL;DR: Change your mindset around food, your body will follow. Don't
bruteforce it when you're angry, you're just gonna have a temporary weight
loss like you probably have and tried countless times if you come from a fat
background/upbringing. o/

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srge
I did fast for 5 days once. Also did 2 and 3 days. The most surprising thing
is that you get back the sense of smell.

It’s very curious but fasting improves your smell a lot and I am not the only
one to observe this phenomenon.

Maybe it’s an old biological mechanism to make it easier to find food? In any
case it’s pretty impressive.

~~~
mnort
I've observed this too

Seems possible it is inflammation related

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fasj82
Why is this a bad idea, supposing you are fat enough to do it?

~~~
dokument
You can't live off of just fat.

Also, you are a collection of organisms that work together to keep "you"
alive. Punishing your gut bacteria/etc just because you can is not healthy.

~~~
killjoywashere
> You can't live off of just fat.

He had electrolyte maintenance and periodic monitoring. Fasting is a
remarkable component of the cure for all sorts of things.

> Punishing your gut bacteria/etc just because you can is not healthy.

Your gut bacteria don't care. They exit as poop and the remainders will be
selected for survival, not "punishment". How does one "punish" bacteria? What
does that even mean?

~~~
ribosometronome
I do not think he was speaking literally, suggesting that the fellow was
taking his naughty gut bacteria out and spanking them but rather suggesting
that long fasts could disrupt the balance of your gut flora and cause issues
when you start a natural diet and start feeding a different ecosystem of
bacteria.

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kody
Can anyone recommend a good book on the subject of fasting? My (admittedly
shallow) exploration of the subject tends to lead to pseudoscience/bro
science.

~~~
jerrycruncher
Dr Jason Fung's "The Complete Guide to Fasting"

You can get most of the same information from his online output, for free. I
found this video especially interesting:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-
Fk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk)

~~~
kody
Thanks! This looks like a good start.

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mnort
the comments in the health posts on hacker news are always a fun read

~~~
jandrese
We already had the "simple, just lick some vomit afterward" post, so there's
really nowhere else for this thread to go.

