Fasting thread

Clete

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My longest fast is six days, which I've done twice, in a row. Meaning I went 13 days only eating one of those days. Six days fast, eat, and then another six day fast before eating again. 12 days of fasting and one day of eating.

But I have plenty of fat to burn. You're not going to be able to do this if you just have like six percent body fat. You'll hurt yourself. But if you've got 20, 25 or more percent body fat, you should be able to do this too, eventually, working your way up to it. As I say it's mostly mental. Once you come to see your superfluous fat as stored meals, then you'll rationally conclude that therefore, I just don't have to eat rn. Like, for a while. Like there's zero reason for me to eat with this many meals stored up.

Unless you're lifting. https://theologyonline.com/threads/lifting-thread.58394/
Lifting and fasting, I've found, do NOT go together. You have to pick one or the other, which is fine, just so long as you're eating enough when you're lifting, so that you get stronger and or build muscle (which is why you're lifting in the first place, which makes sense). I couldn't make a weekly program of fasting and lifting, I just progressively lost strength this way, which is the opposite of what I want as an outcome for lifting.

So instead I go through different periods, periods of getting stronger (which lasts for more than a week straight), and periods of reducing fat. When I'm reducing fat I'm not lifting (at least not heavily, but usually just not at all). And when I'm lifting, hopefully I'm eating enough to be getting fat. That's what I've found correlates with getting stronger quicker, is eating enough to gain weight, while lifting weights.

Fasting preserves your muscles, which is why I'm trying this strategy to change my body composition, which means basically what percent body fat, and what percent lean mass.

Ask me anything lol
I'm FAR AWAY from being any sort of expert on this topic and so maybe you can tell me whether what I've heard is right or wrong but what I've heard is that if you're one who likes to work out and lift weights then you need to make sure that you keep up a good intake of minerals while you're fasting. In short, take supplements of some sort with some water during your fast and maybe add a bit of salt to your water so as to give your muscles the chemistry they need to function properly.
 

Idolater

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I'm FAR AWAY from being any sort of expert on this topic and so maybe you can tell me whether what I've heard is right or wrong but what I've heard is that if you're one who likes to work out and lift weights then you need to make sure that you keep up a good intake of minerals while you're fasting. In short, take supplements of some sort with some water during your fast and maybe add a bit of salt to your water so as to give your muscles the chemistry they need to function properly.
At some point you do have to watch your electrolytes, basically iow salt. I eat savory pickles occasionally, which are basically zero calories, but they do give you something to munch on, plus salt. (Other people who are way more into fasting than me mix up drinks with salt and minerals to ensure they never have any deficiency problem.) I personally have never experienced any problems from low electrolytes, but I have heard of people who have, and I've heard a lot more people concerned about it.

fyi the longest c. water fast on record is over one year. That fellow did regularly eat salt, vitamins and minerals, all under his doctor's observation and advice.

Also I don't think it's particularly for folks lifting weights, but just general good body function that you need sufficient electrolytes for.
 

Idolater

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At the end of the 13 days, how much weight did you lose?
c. 9.3% of my starting body weight.

But bear in mind, that some big piece of that is water weight, which occurs because when you fast, your insulin drops to basically zero, and insulin retains water. So you lose a lot of water weight.

(Full disclosure I do eat c. five grams of creatine a day when I c. water fast now, specifically because I want my cells to retain more water all other things being equal----thought being, cells work better when hydrated. So, for health.)
 

chrysostom

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Fasting is a good thing. We need to do it everyday. The goal is to not eat or drink at least 16 hours each day. More is better. This gives the gut time to clean up the place.
 

Idolater

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And for old people, if you can't lift your body weight ten times in a row off the floor (just for one example), then that lack of strength should concern you FAR more than your body fat percentage. Being strong is a way larger lever in your life expectancy than not being too fat is.
 

Idolater

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This video scared me away from fasting any more since I am over 50.
Mr. Lex Fridman and Mr. Devon Larratt were chatting one time and Mr. Larratt mentioned something interesting.

Now Mr. Larratt isn't an expert in any field (unlike Mr. Fridman who is an expert in computers, logical machines and computation) ... except arm wrestling. In arm wrestling he is an expert, he's so good that he has beaten such men as Mr. Eddie Hall, Mr. Brian Shaw, and a fellow who unironically goes by the name "Thor" lol. (These are some of the strongest men in the world----Larratt is not, but he is an expert in arm wrestling.)

But what Larratt said was something like this: If you believe in your diet, then it will work for you.

This assumes that you can do it (that you can do what you believe in). If you can do it, and you believe in it, then it will work for you, is basically what Larratt said. He was referring to a study I think, that he had heard about (he's not an MD or PhD).

But what fasting does is gives you more freedom to change both what you believe in, and what you're able to do. It teaches you how to be more flexible and self-controlled, so that you can craft your diet for the rest of your life, into something good for you, something you can do forever, and something you really believe in.

It's a discipline, a tool, and I want to thank you for introducing me to fasting, Jefferson. I have learned a lot. :e4e:
 
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Idolater

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So what's the gist of the video?
What specifically is scaring you?
Cortisol-to-DHA ratio might get too high, which might throw off the anabolism (tissue building) to catabolism (tissue consuming) ratio detrimentally. That's what I gathered anyway, but I only watched it through once.

(I still think that a good diet and weight lifting program is the answer to ageing related muscle wasting (muscle catabolized into amino acids), rather than not fasting.)
 

Jefferson

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Cortisol-to-DHA ratio might get too high, which might throw off the anabolism (tissue building) to catabolism (tissue consuming) ratio detrimentally.
Yes, but studies show that the bodies of younger people are able to handle it. People over 50, not so much.
That's what I gathered anyway, but I only watched it through once.
Yeah, he has an accent, talks rapidly, does not put things in layman's terms. Those 3 things combined required me to listen to it 3 times.
(I still think that a good diet and weight lifting program is the answer to ageing related muscle wasting (muscle catabolized into amino acids), rather than not fasting.)
They did not mention any study that included weight training combined with fasting among older people. I'd like to see that.
 

Clete

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This video scared me away from fasting any more since I am over 50.

Do you suppose that God had it mind that people would need to eat three meals a day in order to be healthy past 50 years of age (i.e. or whatever age ancient peoples arrived at the equivalent level of physical maturity)?

I don't think so! Eating one meal a day is not going to cause you to waste away and that's basically all intermittent fasting is. Indeed, eating one meal a day would be pretty hard core intermittent fasting. Most talk about eating two meals that are about about six hours apart. Surely going from three down to two meals a day isn't going to cause major health issues in any healthy person, no matter what their age.

Now, if you're talking about long term fasting then that might be a different story but I know of no one who advocates doing even a three day fast more than once a month and most suggest doing it only once or twice a year.

Of course, people can always take something too far. There's all kinds of people who have posted videos about their 7 day fast and the winner of the latest season of the television show "Alone" won the show by not eating at all for 78 days, which is obviously extreme and couldn't possibly be healthy for anyone, whether they were over 50 or not.
 

Jefferson

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Are you talking about intermittent fasting?
To me fasting doesn't begin until after 24 hours. The definition of fasting among the fasting health gurus is fasting begins as soon as you stop eating. If you finished eating dinner 5 minutes ago, then you have been fasting for 5 minutes.
 

Jefferson

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Do you suppose that God had it mind that people would need to eat three meals a day in order to be healthy past 50 years of age (i.e. or whatever age ancient peoples arrived at the equivalent level of physical maturity)?
Ancient people engaged in daily manual labor, unlike our sedentary, television-watching, couch-potato sloths. So it's likely the muscles of ancient peoples would not waste away from eating only one meal per day. Maybe mine wouldn't either since I exercise 7 days a week. As I mentioned to Idolater, I'd like to see a study on that.
 

Idolater

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To me fasting doesn't begin until after 24 hours. The definition of fasting among the fasting health gurus is fasting begins as soon as you stop eating. If you finished eating dinner 5 minutes ago, then you have been fasting for 5 minutes.
Mr. Huberman's been careful to point out the difference between fasting and what he calls something like "the fasted state" (which he contrast with the "fed" state). It's focusing on blood, because if you finished eating five minutes ago your blood will still be in some kind of fed state for many hours afterward. So a fasted state takes hours to appear, for most people it's overnight while they sleep for multiple hours. That's why the first meal is called "break-fast."
 

Idolater

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Ancient people engaged in daily manual labor, unlike our sedentary, television-watching, couch-potato sloths. So it's likely the muscles of ancient peoples would not waste away from eating only one meal per day. Maybe mine wouldn't either since I exercise 7 days a week. As I mentioned to Idolater, I'd like to see a study on that.
And weight lifting (strength training, c. muscle building) is just a question of how many repetitions of the exercise can you do before you have to quit because it's too difficult to do another. It's why simply walking all by itself isn't enough to promote longevity (as far as I understand), because most everybody can walk all day, which basically might as well mean "infinite" reps, which means it can't count as weight lifting.

Same goes for anyone who could jog all day without quitting.

It has to be hard enough that you can't do it all day.

Then it can count as weight lifting.
 

Jefferson

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Mr. Huberman's been careful to point out the difference between fasting and what he calls something like "the fasted state" (which he contrast with the "fed" state). It's focusing on blood, because if you finished eating five minutes ago your blood will still be in some kind of fed state for many hours afterward. So a fasted state takes hours to appear, for most people it's overnight while they sleep for multiple hours. That's why the first meal is called "break-fast."
Yeah, every time I did a 24 hour fast I always counted the first hour from when I woke up in the morning. All the health gurus would say it was 36 hours. It never made sense to me.
 
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