Some of them are faster than others.
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Do you fast?
- Thread starter Penumbra
- Start date
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Agreed, Psycho... (Why does it sound so odd saying that, LOL.)
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Most men get that.
Poor critters can't control themselves...
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Well, I think because we are so conditioned, that when we say that, the conditioned mind or ego kicks in and doesn't want to allow that.
lostwanderingsoul
Well-Known Member
Doesn't the Catholic church say that when you are fasting you can eat one large meal and two small meals a day? Using that definition of fasting, millions of starving people in third world countries are fasting their whole lives.
Cool! Wait, are you saying I had a positive influence on somebody?
Strangely, I've actually found it easier to gain weight while practicing periodic fasting.
A few years ago I started weight training again after a long hiatus and I gained 10 lbs in about as many weeks, but at the end of it my body fat percentage was under 6%.
I've been training off and on most of my life and I know that gaining 10 pounds in 10 weeks is pretty unusual (even taking "muscle-memory" and hydration into account). One thing that I was doing differently that time around was that I was fasting once a week most weeks for anywhere from 36 to 50 hours.
Apparently, some research has shown that fasting boosts growth hormone production (and I'm convinced):
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?...ved=0ahUKEwivwIKVlMXPAhVC9YMKHY87ApcQgQMIGjAA
Overall health and to stave off old age for as long as I can.
Whiterain
Get me off of this planet
Working a day job makes dedicated fasting slightly impossible. I made it 14 days on protein shakes once and 4 days on water only.
I usually skip breakfast now, only recently crashing again to having a breakfast food.
As far as fasting benefits, prolonged fasting puts you in a really heightened serene mode, I call it "Hunting" mode, others say it's from detoxing and "enlightened" mode.
I say it's a mode your brain engages intensifying your senses because you're starving. My vision, smell, hearing and general physical energy is incredible in this, everything is bleak, crisp and serene.
Check this guy out,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUGQbIRBCXmcj65b3qxNXzg
This lady went 120 days,
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL52CFD735D7B5734E
She gets totally delirious, but she's aware, It's quite the laugh. A breakthrough happens to many people, including me... God starts talking to you, it's great.
So I reached enlightenment after a Psychotic Break in 14 days fasting. I'm super saiyan.
I usually skip breakfast now, only recently crashing again to having a breakfast food.
As far as fasting benefits, prolonged fasting puts you in a really heightened serene mode, I call it "Hunting" mode, others say it's from detoxing and "enlightened" mode.
I say it's a mode your brain engages intensifying your senses because you're starving. My vision, smell, hearing and general physical energy is incredible in this, everything is bleak, crisp and serene.
Check this guy out,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUGQbIRBCXmcj65b3qxNXzg
This lady went 120 days,
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL52CFD735D7B5734E
She gets totally delirious, but she's aware, It's quite the laugh. A breakthrough happens to many people, including me... God starts talking to you, it's great.
So I reached enlightenment after a Psychotic Break in 14 days fasting. I'm super saiyan.
I fast, for religious reasons. Same as the Muslims (pretty much). No eating, drinking, sexual relations, smoking between dawn and sunset every day during the 9th month of the lunar year (Ramadhan). My experiences with it are on the whole pretty positive. I'd basically echo Whiterain here - hunting mode, plus a certain serenity - has it about right. Of course, there are always days when you feel a bit dry of the throat (especially if it's the middle of the summer and the days are longer), or a little peckish, but what I find really helps is getting in the right frame of mind beforehand (having the intention to fast, and some focus on why I am doing it).
Fasting for us is not just for religious or healthy reasons, it's also for social reasons. I know this sounds weird, but this is how it is in my beliefs.
Hints:
Putting ourselves in someone's shoes makes us have an idea of how they feel.
Being restrained from doing something that's right in front of us, makes us appreciate it more.
Hints:
Putting ourselves in someone's shoes makes us have an idea of how they feel.
Being restrained from doing something that's right in front of us, makes us appreciate it more.
GoodbyeDave
Well-Known Member
No, they say one normal meal and two snacks that are each less than half a normal meal. That sounds like fasting to me! It's not a competition: it's supposed to be denying yourself what you normally have, not having less than anyone else.
My religion does not involve fasting, of course, since we do not regard the body as something to reject or pleasure as something to avoid. Now feasting — that's a different question!
lostwanderingsoul
Well-Known Member
Well it still sounds to me like most people in third world countries are fasting everyday because they are lucky to have one large meal and two snacks. Fasting should mean going without food of any kind.
Yup. ^-^Cool! Wait, are you saying I had a positive influence on somebody?
You're right about that, from what I've researched. Short fasts boost growth hormones dramatically, which benefits both the body and the brain.
Some bodybuilders or other people looking for Adonis-like physiques do intermittent fasts now because it allows them to cut fat while preserving or even improving muscle. There's a fasting sweet-spot where the body burns fat but doesn't touch muscle, which you seem to be hitting a lot with your 36-50 hour fasts.
The thing for me, though, is that I'm not too into building muscle weight. I already have a lot of muscle tone, and a borderline underweight BMI, so I'm cautious about losing fat. I don't have a big appetite so when I fast, I usually don't make it up the next day with extra food even if I kind of try to. So I have to be a bit careful with calorie deficits. Going to low body fat percentages for a man usually looks and feels pretty good for them all around, but for a woman it can be kind of a mixed thing. Like, any fat I lose is likely to make my cheek bones stick out more, or come off of my hips or breasts. And I'm flat-chested enough to begin with; I gotta preserve what I do have. -_-
So currently, I'm doing maybe a 20-24 hour fast each week. Any more than that seems counter to my goals a bit.
Same for me. I like the benefits of autophagy, giving digestion a rest, boosting natural growth hormones for brain and body, research showing longevity improvements for animals, research showing improved health markers in humans, being kinda ripped without much effort, etc.Overall health and to stave off old age for as long as I can.
Have you ever experimented with a ketogenic diet?
When a person fasts, they use up their body's small (100g or so) liver glucose reserves, and when they run out, the brain starts running on ketones instead of glucose, which causes reduced appetite, and various types of mood elevation or mental clarity. Ketones are kinda superior all-around to glucose as brain fuel. Usually the switch happens 48-72 hours into a fast.
A ketogenic diet, though, maintains the ketones indefinitely by keeping carbs under 40g a day or so while eating enough calories from protein and fat to maintain body weight and health. The person's brain keeps running on ketones, and evidence suggests that the body treats it like a pseudo-fast, granting some of the benefits of fasting, indefinitely. Some athletes use it permanently or for periods of time, as well as some seizure-patients and other specific groups.
Yeah I sometimes skip breakfast. I rarely have an appetite in the morning. I've gone periods where I regularly skipped breakfast, and periods where I just have one egg for breakfast. Or a protein bar.
After 48-72 hours on a fast, the brain starts running on high levels of ketones instead of glucose, which suppress appetite, and often elevate mood or improve mental clarity.
The first 48 hours can be tough because the brain doesn't have quite enough glutose, but ketones are still pretty low, so they feel hungry and irritable. Once ketones come fully online, the faster feels pretty good. ^-^
Hunting mode is probably a pretty accurate description, seeing as how any early human who reaches that point would be seeking out food pretty intensely, and the body and brain would greatly benefit from increased alertness.
I hope that if people do fasts for really long periods of time like that, they have some medical supervision.
When people say "intermittent fasting" these days, they usually mean this (although the name is kind of misleading): http://jamesclear.com/the-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting
I've been doing this for quite some time too, although it wasn't by intention, It's just a routine I kind of fell into because it suited my schedule, and because I don't usually get hungry until mid to late afternoon anyway. Was happy to hear that it's actually supposed to be beneficial.
Most days I have my first meal between 3 and 4 pm, and my last one somewhere around 10 or 11 PM. So typically I go from 16 to 18 hours a day without eating anything except possibly a piece of fruit. I really like the idea that one of the best things you can do for yourself is literally nothing.
Usually on my fast days I spend the whole day with my feet up reading a book, getting an 100% day off, inside and out.
It's nice to be able to be an absolute bum for a day and still feel like you're accomplishing something important.
Wow! Thanks for the information. This is the first I've heard of this. I'm already doing very low carbs along with high protein, but I've been pretty much indifferent to my fat intake. I just took a quick look after Googling "ketogenic diet" and I think I'll try some kind of customized version of it ( not too keen on giving up fruit and legumes though).
I've seen a few types of intermittent fasting descriptions. A common one is the 16 hour fast followed by 8 hours of eating cycle, like what James Clear's article talks about and what you do. Others have advocated a 24 hour fast once or twice a week, going from, say, 2pm on a Tuesday to 2pm on a Wednesday, or something. So you still eat every day but have this occasional big gap. That's a bit closer to what I sometimes do.When people say "intermittent fasting" these days, they usually mean this (although the name is kind of misleading): http://jamesclear.com/the-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting
I've been doing this for quite some time too, although it wasn't by intention, It's just a routine I kind of fell into because it suited my schedule, and because I don't usually get hungry until mid to late afternoon anyway. Was happy to hear that it's actually supposed to be beneficial.
I really like the idea that one of the best things you can do for yourself is literally nothing.
Usually on my fast days I spend the whole day with my feet up reading a book, getting an 100% day off, inside and out.
It's nice to be able to be an absolute bum for a day and still feel like you're accomplishing something important.
Both of those probably work pretty well. I'm like you where I don't have much appetite in the morning. So I'll occasionally do a 16 hour fast without thinking about it, or I'll more intentionally do a 20+ hour one.
Either way, it gives the body a chance to let insulin levels go to low fasting levels for a while, so the body can more effectively burn fat, while also getting the growth hormones, autophagy, and that sort of thing coming online for a bit.
Sounds like you're rockin' it.
There are some versions that are cyclical, so the person has carbs on one day a week (often for a workout), and then goes into ketosis for the rest of the week. People who burn more energy can generally re-enter ketosis fairly quickly with that method, because they clear out their glycogen reserves fast.
I've also seen people doing seasonal ketosis- going deep into ketosis for the fall/winter and then coming out of it by consuming more fruits and other carbs in the spring/summer. That would be hypothesized to be a more ancestral type of approach and wouldn't permanently eliminate anyone's favorite foods.
Another option that you might like is to just extend the benefits of your fasts with extra days of a ketogenic diet. So let's say you do one of your 40+ hour fasts (and thus start to enter ketosis), but when it comes time to break the fast, instead of going back to your normal routine right away, you eat ketogenically (very low carb) for a few more days to keep those ketone levels high and keep some of the various fasting benefits going without continuing the calorie deficit. And then after that, when you get a legume/fruit craving or something, you come out of ketosis by eating what you want.