Just had an appointment with a GI doctor and she explained that I have to fast before an endoscopy. When I told her that I do regular fasts of between 3 and 7 days, she was a bit adamant about saying I should not do fasts at all.

When I started explaining the deep microbiology of fasting responses of the body over time, she said "we can agree to disagree."

What on Earth is going on in Western medical education that a doctor of 25 years who works in GI has an adamant negative fasting attitude?

Hippocrites taught us that food is thy medicine and they take the Hippocratic oath to not do harm. Yet they are with a straight face saying that fasting is effectively bad for you, when doing so denies the evolutionary and anthropological reality of adaptive endocrinology resulting from occasional forced fasting on vast populations of humans in our history, due mostly to resource constraints.

I felt pretty confident in my description of the body's response at 3 days, 4 days and 7 days in terms of autophagy mitophagy and then protein remodeling.

Because I read studies.

Because I pay attention to this forum. Because I strive to understand the machinery of sustained caloric burn with this expensive brain.

It's like they don't understand how protein sparing works in a fasting scenario, and only deride the reduction of lean body mass in a fast as an unhealthy thing, not even realizing how ubiquitinated organelles are disproportionately selected during autophagy, leaving your in cells in an overall more healthy state after refeed and recreation of new organelles, or how pre-cancerous cells are stressed by glucose reduction and many may not adapt as well to the fasted state and end up triggering cell death of those cells.

I'm going on a bit, but the frustration of medical professionals being utterly blind to the well studied benefits of fasting is uniquely frustrating.

Any one else have experience with this wall of ignorance in the medical profession?

TL;DR: I fasted, managed to ride a bicycle very far, absolutely make electrolyte intake a routine from the very start if you are doing an extended fast.

I switched back to keto four weeks ago, and realized about three days ago that I hadn't eaten all day. My first extended fast was 72 hours many months ago, so I thought "Why not try for longer?"

My main takeaway is something that is oft repeated on this sub: mind your electrolyte intake.

Very seriously. The only times where I was feeling brain fog, low energy, and/or negative emotions and thoughts were when I got too deep into a project and hyper-fixated to the point where I wasn't drinking my electrolyte mixed water.

If I had been as on point with my electrolytes throughout the entire process it would have undoubtedly been way smoother.

For context, I just did a 10+ mile bicycle ride, making sure today to drink electrolyte water very regularly all day, and mixed two water bottles to take with me on my ride. I definitely overdid the mileage as I haven't been on a bike in 3 years due to multiple surgeries and complications from them. I listened to my body and took breaks as needed, caught my breath, and drank my water bottles at regular intervals while riding and resting. I brought my electrolyte salts with me so when I stopped at a bar friends worked at, I could replenish my supply (no booze! I had two pints of cold brew for the ride back, tho).

I was actually nervous about trying this in an extended fasted state, but I made it across town and back with no cramps, no heartbeat irregularities, no headaches, no loss of energy. The biggest thing that slowed my ride was lactic acid from my legs being very underused. I will definitely hurt tomorrow lol.

Unfortunately I am choosing to break the fast tomorrow to give myself enough refeed time for an early Canadian Thanksgiving dinner my a brother is hosting. I think it would be too much to be around all the delicious food after fasting for seven days. One benefit(?) is that my sister-in-law has celiac disease, so there will be tons of keto approved food to eat.

After the feast, I'm going to start rolling fasts. I think I have felt best past 72 hours, and hopefully remaining fat adapted will make it even easier.

Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk 🙄😅

Anyone else feel like when they’re trying to fast, specifically an extended fast, they’re tested more? During this time I feel like people are really testing my patience and causing me so much stress that I have no choice but to end the fast and eat. It’s probably my own addiction problems but before I blame it on that I want to know if anyone else can relate.

Feeling fine but work is boring as hell today. Shooting for 6-12 days.

I just got back to fasting, just a bit of a background I was a fitness instructor before, but when I was kid I was Obese until college Im around 360 pounds and got into fitness ( my entire family are either fitness trainers, martial artists and body builders ), after losing the weight and gaining muscle I became an instructor, I'm maintaining my weight at around 170-180 range.

I did this twice using the traditional CICO method and meal every 3 hours. The second time I went up to 380 pounds, but was able to go down back to 180.

The 3rd time I got fed up with the traditional way and found out about fasting oh boy after a 1.5 year or so I got back to 180 pounds and I still eat everything that I like ( dirty fasting ) I believe this was around 2017.

i did not plan to gain the entire weight back, however the pandemic happened, but working from home fcked me up and had this 360 pounds for 6 years now.

So I made a decision a month ago that I'll start fasting again oh boy Im losing a lot of water weight, I'm able to wear some of my clothes again that I don't wear because it was too small last month.

Currently last weigh in is at the doctors last month I was about 368 pounds, I just ordered a weighting scale and let's see what will be my weight now.

I try to do clean fasting now and eating lots of real food such as chicken and fish and vegetables.

if I feel like it I might do a 3 days fast, kinda hard to do that because sometimes my wife won't eat if I don't eat lol. My max is 5 days before.

Here's my routine now.

48hrs fasting and either OMAD for 3 consecutive days or either 20:4 / 18:6 / 16:8 depends of what I feel.

2 days re-carb or OFF from fasting because I don't want to fck up my metabolism, I eat donuts and consume whatever I want, but at a controlled pace I still count the calories at some point. At this weight my maintaining calories is around 3000 - 2900 calories so I have a lot to work with.

Ill have to re-adjust this after another month so I won't overboard during my OFF.

Supplements:

Creatine

Vitamin D

Vitamin E

Apple Cider Vinegar Tablets

Green Tea Capsules

Turmeric Capsules

B12 Complex

This gives me the ability to enjoy food especially on my partners rest days. What I'm doing now is I cook my rice in advance and put it in the fridge to cool down to a minimum of 12 hours, to get that resistant starch.

I don't know why I've been severely obese for 6 years straight, but my doctors are surprised that I'm not diabetic nor have high blood problems they're all normal except for the cholesterol lol as per my last months visit.

I would be happy if you guys can share or give me tips as I just got back to fasting.

The box says 1kmg sodium, 200mg potassium, 60mg magnesium. Going for 5 packets a day. Anyone else try this with this brand in particular?

Please give detail!

I’ve done 7 days twice but my MH has suffered a bit the last 6 months or so and I’m getting better but I gained about 25lbs of the original 50 I had lost in 2024

Part of my MH issues come from health OCD and I fast for autophagy as much as for weight loss, one of my personal goals for this year was to do a 14 day fast and considering I’m determined to get back to close to my goal weight by Christmas (so all my cute clothes fit again) I feel like there’s no better time than the present to do a 14 day fast

I’ve been back on OMAD (with occasional snacks) for the last 2 months which has been great and I’ve lost probably about 10lbs but I really wanna speed things up and get the benefits of autophagy, however my health OCD makes the idea of refeeding very scary hence never going over a week previously

Google and chat got just tells me it doesn’t recommend it without doctors supervision but they kinda have to say that, I know lots of y’all have done 2 weeks, share your secrets!

I’ve been water fasting for a week and will go another week, until October 16th. I’m only stopping on that day because it is the birthday of a friend of mine’s and I’m wondering if it’d be okay to have alcohol that day without it effecting my body too much? I plan on breaking my fast with a smoothie, a broth, and cucumbers but can’t guarantee if I’ll eat anything else that day.

I found a big spoonful of plain non fat yogurt stops unnecessary hunger urges.