Short, multi-day fasting experiment

[Snowman]

As med school looms nearer and nearer, I still need to test one more cognitive enhancement tool. I've heard that, after two or three days of fasting, some people experience pretty substantial cognitive benefits once they get into ketosis. I have no interest of maintaining 24/7 ketosis, but it might be valuable, around exam time, to give myself a little boost for a day or two.

Background: Male, 25 years old, 155 lbs. Have been doing intermittent fasting for the last 2-3 years. This mostly consists of skipping breakfast and timing my lunch so I get 16-18 hours without food. I think the longest I've gone without food was about 36 hours, but that was just once, and on accident. It wasn't really a big deal, though.

Intent of experiment: To discern the cognitive benefits of multi-day fasting, and develop a reproducible timeline for those benefits, in order to employ similar fasting techniques in times of high cognitive demand.

Parameters: Little to no calorie intake for 3-5 days. I know you can get a fasting response by only eating a little food (200-700 calories, depending on who you talk to), but that just sounds like it would make things complicated. I'm a simple guy. I plan on consuming water, coffee, tea, and maybe some kind of broth here and there. I will do this for 3-5 days. I say 3-5 days because, if I feel awesome halfway through day 2, and it continues into day 3, that gives me about a day and a half of benefit, which is probably good enough. On the other hand, if I can't get where I want in 5 days, then it ain't worth the trouble.

I do plan on training during this time, but I'll be altering routine a little. Instead of my normal training (see my log here), I'll just be doing some walking and some heavier stuff with long rest periods. Which, to be honest, is not that different from what I normally do. Just a little more "extreme" (lower intensity aerobic work, and shorter, higher intensity strength training).

Day 0
Pretty normal day. No breakfast, lunch around 12:30, then a big dinner. I was with some friends, so dinner (normally done by 8:30 or so) wasn't really finished until 10-ish. Also had a few beers. I went for a low intensity (MAF) run in the afternoon.

Day 1
What I did:
Tea in the morning. Coffee at noon. Water throughout the day. I had one M&M due to social pressure (I didn't want to insult someone offering me food), but I'm pretty sure it won't wreck my experiment. Didn't exercise today because I wanted to have an easy start, and I was also pretty busy the whole day.
How I felt:
Normal. I didn't really notice any difference in energy or hunger until it was dinner time. Then it was more a desire for the ritual of sitting down and having a family dinner. I'm not gonna lie, though, during the late afternoon, I was definitely having some food thoughts. No hunger, no cravings, no change in energy levels or ability to focus.

 

[LoriLifts]

Have you heard Cole Robinson? He's a power lifter that advocates multi day fasting.

He's got a lot of really good fasting videos on youtube. I don't want to link to his videos because they contain a lot of swearing.

If you google Snake Diet Cole Robinson, they'll pop up. Lots of good info. He's funny too, if you don't mind the swearing...

Good luck with your experiment!

 

[Phil12]

Will be interested in hearing how you feel over the next few days. This is something that has interested me for a long time but I haven't gotten around to actually trying.

 

[Snowman]

Day 2
What I did
Green tea with turmeric/ginger tea in the morning, and re-steeped the same stuff in the afternoon. In the evening I had a savory spice tea, which is to say that I took a bunch of stuff out of my cupboard (salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, basil, lemon juice) and made tea out of it. The rest of the time I just drank water. I also walked a few miles and did a few grease the groove lifts, but I kept the exertion pretty low.

How I felt
Pretty normal, until around 4 pm. Around 4 I definitely felt a big drop in my energy levels, and I actually got hungry. After about 2-3 hours I perked up a little, and did fine until I went to bed. Still no keto-tastic cognitive benefits, buuut I'm still early in the process.

This lines up with what I've read from a lot of peoples experiences, that somewhere around day 2 or 3 is when they just feel like garbage, then the good things start to happen. We'll see. I will say, I'm doing two things that, according to some people, are big no-no's. One is that I'm not sleeping as much as I can, mainly because I have 1.5 year old little boy, and he hasn't learned how to make himself breakfast. The second is that I'm drinking tap water, and not being super anal about replacing my electrolytes. Part of my mentality is that, seeing as fasting is a physiological "program" that's been around for hundreds of thousands of years, it should be pretty tolerant to various conditions. Part of my requirement for it to be something that I use in the future is that I better be able to reap most of the benefits with sub-optimal sleep and fueling, because that's pretty much the only kind of situation I'll ever be in. If I have to be perfectly dialed in for it to be helpful, that's a little like having a cancer curing drug that only works on 34 year old men from Reno who can squat at least 400 pounds and have a golden retriever.

@LoriLifts I looked up a few of Cole Robinson's videos last night. He's very, um, enthusiastic haha, but I really do like his no-nonsense approach to fasting. One thing that I'm inclined to agree with him about is that we all tend to develop a habit of eating more often than we need to. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, within reason. Eating every couple hours will cause issues, but eating every couple days probably isn't necessary, even for people trying to lose weight. He makes good points about primarily operating in a fasted state, although I think that people who are already pretty lean shouldn't take that too far. After this, I might have to stop taking lunch so seriously, though. I mean, I like lunch, but damn, it took me 42 hours before I even had real hunger. I had gotten into the habit of getting worried if I didn't eat by about the 18 hour mark, but I usually wasn't actually hungry by then, I was just afraid that I was going to get hungry soon. I could probably save myself a few hours a week if I didn't have to prep and eat lunch. Even if I don't get the results I want from this experiment, I think I'll still learn a lot of worthwhile information about myself.

 

[LoriLifts]

Look at you, you're doing great!

I'm a big fan of fasting and have done many different variations.

I've done a couple multi-day fasts. The easier ones were when I added some some salt to water once a day (like crazy Cole Robinson's "snake juice"). My biggest problem with the longer fasts was boredom!

Keep on truckin'!

PS...one of the best tips I received was about hunger pangs. Many people think that once you experience hunger pangs, they'll intensify exponentially as time goes by. Hunger pangs actually arrive in waves. You'll feel them for a few minutes (sometimes it feels like hours), then they recede. Poof! No more hunger pangs! At least for a little while...

 

[Snowman]

Day 3
What I did:
Green tea in the morning. Water throughout the day. Walked a few miles.

How I felt:
In the morning I felt pretty normal mentally, but definitely more lethargic physically. By late afternoon, the lethargy had grown. I was very tired, not really motivated to do anything, my focus was poor, and I noticed I was just a little on the depressed/irritable side of things. By that evening, I just plain felt crummy. At that point, I decided to terminate the experiment with some sauerkraut, an egg, and half a slice of bacon. I really wanted some sugar and wine, but I figured I'd better give my gut at least another day to recover before I hit it with that .

The reason I ended the fast at day 3 (I really expected to be close it out on day 4), was because the whole goal of the fast was increased productivity and cognition. Between my lull during day 2, and my downward slide at the end of day 3, I can't imagine the pay off at the end would be enough to compensate for the hit in productivity and cognition in the beginning.

I would still consider it a very positive experience. Mainly because it was a good check on how long I could last before I really experienced performance limiting hunger symptoms (42 hours in this case). Also, it was a good reality check, in that I now know where I stand and how efficient my body is at utilizing it's own resources.

As I mentioned before, the issues with sleep and electrolyte replenishment (or lack thereof, in both cases), could certainly have been a factor. My walks, while not strenuous at all, were still in the heat, so that may have had an impact on my Na/K balance.

I'm still not done with fasting as a possible performance enhancer. I might have to do a Fri-Sun fast every few weeks to get my body more used to it. I'll certainly play around with adding some sodium and potassium to tap water, to see if that makes things go a little more smoothly. I think my sleep is just gonna have to be what it is. If, after a few more tries, I still can't get into the zone within three days, then I'll probably lose interest.

Many people think that once you experience hunger pangs, they'll intensify exponentially as time goes by. Hunger pangs actually arrive in waves. You'll feel them for a few minutes (sometimes it feels like hours), then they recede. Poof! No more hunger pangs! At least for a little while.

I definitely noticed this. It took until the evening of day 2 for any feelings of hunger to actually settle in and intensify, and then it was just for a couple hours. By the end of day 3, though, the hunger (and associated feelings) were there for about four hours before I finally decided to break the fast, at which point they slowly dissipated.

 

[LoriLifts]

Sounds like it was a very good learning experience.
Congratulations on choosing bacon and eggs over sugar and wine (at least for now)!

 

[Harry Westgate]

PS...one of the best tips I received was about hunger pangs. Many people think that once you experience hunger pangs, they'll intensify exponentially as time goes by. Hunger pangs actually arrive in waves. You'll feel them for a few minutes (sometimes it feels like hours), then they recede. Poof! No more hunger pangs! At least for a little while...

This is so true. Give it a short while and the pangs will go away.

I also like Ori Hofmekler's advice if you get super hungry or crave bad food...

Do 30-60sec of intense exercise, be it push ups, a sprint, shadowboxing with weights. You'll find the hunger sort of disappears. Notice how at the very end of a workout you're not really that hungry? It takes more like 30 minutes or so for the hunger to really set in.

Ori explains it better than me, but the stress hormones released through exercise basically act as an appetite suppressant.

I would personally add that this strategy should maybe be a last resort, as I can see it leading to exercise-addiction or massive undereating in some people, but definitely worth a try if you can't sleep because you're thinking about pizza...

 

[JeffC]

You call it Fasting, I call it Anorexia. Not eating is not a diet. I do not understand how not eating could lead to anything but being weak and tired.

Fasting confuses me. How can one live, work , and train on an empty stomach and be any sort of functional human.

To each, his own, but why intentionally deplete yourself?

 

[Harry Westgate]

@Geoff Chafe while I don't quite see the merit in multi-day fasts, please don't dismiss the various forms of intermittent fasting.

Read the Warrior Diet by Ori Hofmekler. The WD isn't even about 'fasting' but rather 'undereating' (not eating a huge amount during the day).

I personally follow the WD and have had huge success of getting lean with it in the past. I'd even go as far as to say that Ori is to getting lean as Pavel is to getting strong.

I'd also add that many people I've mentioned IF/WD to tell me I'm starving myself... Okay, so going a few hours without a full meal with the intention of having a big meal at the end of the day (IF/WD) is the same as wasting away due to severe malnutrition (starving)? Yeah, good one. Funny how the people who tell me that fail to have physiques or strength to aspire to*****.

Please though, read The Warrior Diet, it's a great book. Read the book, don't watch YouTube videos about it; most think that the WD is a 20/4 IF template because they do a quick Google and don't look at the details. Not quite. Not even close really.

As for depleting oneself - put it this way, when do you feel more up for doing anything physical, right after a big meal or right after an apple? That's an oversimplification, but the idea is that large amounts of food make you sluggish after, and less keen on the idea of doing any work.


*****Edited to say that's not aimed at you Geoff, just the people who have said to my face that Warrior Diet/IF = starving. Said people are usually in no kind of shape, as they're unwilling to leave their comfort zone. They'd probably even say that S&S is overtraining because you do it nearly every day. See the parallels?

 

[Wesker11]

You call it Fasting, I call it Anorexia. Not eating is not a diet. I do not understand how not eating could lead to a thing but being weak and tired.

Fasting confuses me. How can one live, work , and train on an empty stomach and be any sort of functional human.

To each, his own, but why intentionally deplete yourself?

Where did he mention diet in his first post? His goal was not to lose weight, but cognition improvement as there are many benefits to fasting. Training on an empty stomach is easy once you get used to it and you know the difference between hunger and "real" hunger.

I recently did an experimental 3 day fast as well. My goal was not weight loss, but cognition and oxygen uptake. I had a pretty similar response to Snowman. It wasn't the hunger that got me, it was the plain lack of energy that hit me on day 3. I had ambitions of a 3 day fast every month, but after a month hit I just didn't have time over the weekend to take that energy hit on day 3, lol. I do hope to do it again in the near future. I am hoping it gets easier the more you do it.

My 3 day fast was a little different as I did it Tim Ferris style. BCAA's, Exogenous ketones, MCT powder in coffee, 3 tablespoons of coconut oil throughout the day and plenty of salt and lime water. I was still dead on day 3 lol. I had all the energy in the world through the entirety of day 1 however. On day 2 my activities included, martial arts class, full workout, 2 hours at the range(golf), walked the dogs, and still felt fine in the evening......then day 3 hit lol.

 

[offwidth]

As with many of our pursuits... it usually gets distilled down to our actions being aligned with our goals if we want to see 'results' (whatever those might happen to be)
One needs to fuel their engine. They also need to carry their engine.

 

[LukeV]

I would expect the physical and mental responses to multi-day fasting to change with experience. Maybe the beneficial effects you're seeking will come second or third time, once your body has got over the initial shocks. I found that with low carb dieting. The first time I went into ketosis was ghastly but that experience of keto flu has never been repeated. Take a few days off and try it again and let us know how you go

 

[Snowman]

why intentionally deplete yourself?

FOR SCIENCE!!!!

But really, for the purported cognitive benefits. I'm starting medical school in a week and a half, and anything that allows me to understand/retain information more effectively is something I can use to leverage more family time.

I've also been doing intermittent fasting in some form or another, for 2 or 3 years now. Mostly for convenience. Eating fewer, larger meals is more efficient than multiple, smaller ones, and assuming your energy levels remain high and you don't lose muscle mass (that part's important), then there's really no reason not to.

I do not understand how not eating could lead to a thing but being weak and tired

Well, I feel like I can safely say this is simply due to a choice not to look into it. Fasting is one of the most thoroughly researched health and longevity methods out there, and I think it's safe to assume that we all have internet here. The vast majority of the research (short term, long term, and observational) indicates that there is a moderate to substantial benefit to periodically restricting food intake (within reason). This makes sense from an ancestral view point. How many hunter gatherer societies enjoyed a constant flow of food? It would make sense that we have some good physiological mechanisms for safely dealing with a decrease in food, even mechanisms that can make us better at certain things when food is scarce. I would argue that not going more that six waking hours without eating for decades on end is very unnatural. Obviously, I'm coming at this from the perspective of health, not performance. I know you're an accomplished strength athlete, and anything that diminishes one's ability to carry a substantial amount of muscle mass is going to be seen as a negative, for good reason. However, I'm not saying that everyone should play around with fasting. Simply that it can be useful within certain contexts, such as health and longevity.

How can one live, work , and train on an empty stomach and be any sort of functional human.

The same way you can stand beneath a quarter ton barbell and not get crushed. You've turned on the right genetic switches enough times that your body has become very good at something. Your muscle, bones, connective tissue, and nerves are all very "abnormal" (which I mean in the best possible way). I would like to point out, again, that I was in a healthy, functional physical and mental state until over 40 hours had elapsed. It took no willpower whatsoever not to eat, because I've flipped certain genetic switches enough times that my body was fine. Until it wasn't . Kind of like the first time someone does a 10 minute snatch test. Some people would experience very negative symptoms within 15 hours of cutting food intake, whereas some people could go a week without any negative long term consequences.

I do agree that it's not healthy to obsess about your diet. I prefer eating my macros over counting them . During an experiment, or test, being a little anal is to be expected. However, I think the majority of our time should be spend enjoying our food. In my case, I do some experimentation here and ther, so that when I'm on "autopilot" I can get a good mix of efficiency, health, and pleasure out of my food.

Take a few days off and try it again and let us know how you go

Haha more than a few days . I think a multi day fast is the is dietary equivalent of a 20 rep squat workout. It might take a while before I'm up for it again. That being said, I do plan on trying it 2-3 more times before I give up on it. It may be that I need to "flip the switches" a few more times before I get the results I want.

 

[Kenny Croxdale]

You call it Fasting, I call it Anorexia. Not eating is not a diet. I do not understand how not eating could lead to anything but being weak and tired.

Fasting confuses me. How can one live, work , and train on an empty stomach and be any sort of functional human.

To each, his own, but why intentionally deplete yourself?

Lack of Knowledge

1) You have invested NO time in examining the research and empirical data on this.

2) You have NO practical experience.

As You Correctly Stated...

"I don't understand..."

Take Home Message

It's impossible to understand ANYTHING you don't know anything about.

As Alwyn Cosgrove said, "No one ever got dumbber from reading a book (articles)."

Kenny Croxdale

 

[Steve Freides]

@Geoff Chafe, I look at the Warrior Diet as training for my insulin response system. That may not be the medically correct term but I think you can understand the concept. Getting stronger requires moving heavy things; becoming less dependent on regular feedings requires undereating sometimes. One could think of a multi-day fast as being like a competition is to a lifter, I suppose - I've never done it and have no need to, but the idea makes sense to me.

JMO.

-S-

 

[JeffC]

Lack of Knowledge

1) You have invested NO time in examining the research and empirical data on this.

2) You have NO practical experience.

As You Correctly Stated...

"I don't understand..."

Take Home Message

It's impossible to understand ANYTHING you don't know anything about.

As Alwyn Cosgrove said, "No one ever got dumbber from reading a book (articles)."

Kenny Croxdale

I could not agree with you more.

I have no interest in not eating, and have no interest in learning how not to eat.

I work a physical and stressful job, have kids, pets, and responsibilities, enjoy an active lifestyle, eat a lot of high quality food, and love strength training. I cannot function in my life without food.

I have Fat. Could I lose 20-30lbs, sure. Have I lost that amount of weight before, yes. Do I want to deprive my self no. Am I Fat, probably to others. I am healthy, happy and adapted to my life. I competed in a weight class sport for 10+years which forces you to do unhealthy things and I disliked the obsessive weight cycle. I have plenty of practical experience not eating to make a weigh in.

If lifting stuff and sitting was what I did not eating would work.

 

[Snowman]

This is a bit of a tangent, but since it's my thread I guess I'll do what I want . I read this article a while ago, and it makes some good points, and it's also just a fun read for anyone interested in, shall we say, nutritional history.

How the Mid-Victorians Worked, Ate and Died

The authors argue that, because the Mid-Victorians expended 1.5 to 2 times as many calories as most of us do today, they could eat more food, which meant a much higher nutrient intake (not to mention they dodged various pathologies related to being sedentary). It's a pretty detailed paper, but it's enough like reading a history book that I think it's quite manageable. The abstract has the main points, though.

The reason I bring this up is

If lifting stuff and sitting was what I did not eating would work.

I think this is pretty dead on. Although many cultures where fasting or periodic starvation is prevalent have produced healthy people by the boat load, I doubt too many Mid-Victorians were doing much fasting (beyond a few days a year for religious reasons), and they were still very healthy. They worked their butts off and ate large quantities of real food. Now that I'm transitioning from a labor based job (paving) back to school, it takes a conscious effort to simply walk a couple miles and do some snatches each day. My total energy needs are pretty low, and I have no problem providing for them on just one or two meals a day, and narrowing my focus to one or two meals helps me ensure that those meals are made up of real, nutritious food.

 

[Snowman]

To add a little bit of anecdotal support from my handful of summers spent paving, the rate of diet related disease is, to me, surprisingly low. I say that because most of my co-workers got significant portions of their food from gas stations, in the form of fried food and/or processed carbohydrate. Not to mention a daily liter or two of pop, energy drinks, and "sports drinks". Yet, a fat paver is almost unheard of. Although many of the guys carried a little bit of a gut (and I'm sure they had some sub-clinical characteristics of metabolic dysfunction), they were still usually fairly lean and fit into their 40's, despite a diet that would have made an office worker morbidly obese by 30. It would appear that shoveling and raking asphalt for 10+ hours a day can act as a buffer between poor diet and poor health...

 

[Wesker11]

I could not agree with you more.

I have no interest in not eating, and have no interest in learning how not to eat.

I work a physical and stressful job, have kids, pets, and responsibilities, enjoy an active lifestyle, eat a lot of high quality food, and love strength training. I cannot function in my life without food.

I have Fat. Could I lose 20-30lbs, sure. Have I lost that amount of weight before, yes. Do I want to deprive my self no. Am I Fat, probably to others. I am healthy, happy and adapted to my life. I competed in a weight class sport for 10+years which forces you to do unhealthy things and I disliked the obsessive weight cycle. I have plenty of practical experience not eating to make a weigh in.

If lifting stuff and sitting was what I did not eating would work.

Just to be clear, it is not your activity level that would make fasting difficult for you. It is stress and lack of sleep.