Insights From My Monthly 72 Hours Water-Only Fasts
Kicking Autophagy, MTOR, and achieving metabolic flexibility against my metabolic syndrome with insights from my CGM values and fasting.
I have been known to be a digital person, to enjoy the two extremes ends of the behavioral spectrum. While I will talk about my disordered behavior in another post, my attempt today would be to convince you how very normal, and actually feasible is a monthly 3-day fast.
My regular once a month routine of 3 days fasting since July 2020
What is a 3-day water fast, and why bother?
Since the end of 2018, my interest has been piqued in the area of longevity and healthspan. I discovered an intellectual hero of mine that goes by the name of Peter Attia; check out his Joe Rogan interview excerpt here. Amongst the many things that peter recommends, fasting features as one of them. Also, several doctors have talked about the great benefits of fasting, like Jason Fung, and including some of my favorite Medium bloggers like (this person ). In short, there is increasing evidence that fasting has lots of longevity benefits and vital for metabolic health. However, why I chose to do it are as follows:
1. I don’t have an eating disorder, but I definitely have disordered eating
I can eat crazy amounts of food in one single setting and have always struggled not to do so. Fasting is just one of the strategies to keep me away from my indulgences and a sound reminder that I don’t really need to eat so much. These fasts made me realize that the act of feeling hungry is actually more of a psychological need than really a physical need.
2. Fasting promotes autophagy through activation/inactivation of proteins in the mTOR-nutrient pathway
The 2016 Nobel Prize of Medicine was awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi for his elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of autophagy. Autophagy literally means self-eating is an amazing way for cells to recycle or degrade molecules and maintain cellular homeostasis. While I am in no way an expert in this matter, and whilst, indeed, autophagy assays have not yet been developed in humans, it is highly believed that fasting can be a potent tool for promoting autophagy. Please check out this and this to learn more about autophagy, fasting, and mTOR.
3. All diseases of abundance run rife in my entire family: you name it, and we have it
Heart disease, cancer, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular. Sadly, but truthfully, my family`s diet is optimized to get all these diseases. A high refined carb diet doubled up with the sweetest of soft drinks followed by the mightiest desserts. Through my monthly fasting and my intermittent OMAD fasts, I hope that I can minimize, delay, or even prevent my incidence of these diseases whilst enjoying the food that my beloved aunties prepare.
4. I am genetically insulin resistant
I recently had a Euglycemic clamp, and they found out that I tend to lie more on the insulin-resistant end of the population. While this does not mean anything yet, it can profoundly impact my incidence of diabetes when I age.
5. I am tethered to food if I don’t have structured eating.
As I said before, I love food more than anything. Check out my IG to find out the nice food that Singapore offers. But more importantly, I realize that a lot of the things I do, revolve around my meal plans: how I rest, when I exercise, when I take my naps, and even the kind of coding I do. Fasting gives me this unusual freedom to do what I want when I want it.
6. Fasting allows ketosis and metabolic flexibility
While autophagy cannot be detected yet, it is pretty obvious that fasting is probably one of the best ways to get you into ketosis. You will see my ketosis levels after 48 hours of fasting. In very simple terms, I allow my body`s ability to use different fuel sources. Instead of glucose/glycogen depleting fuel, my body tends to thrive on fatty acids after 2 days of fasting, similar to those who swear by the keto diet.
7. Mastery over oneself
I tend to be extremely competitive internally. Some people call it dealing with your demons, but I just call it talking to my idiot-self. One of my favorite podcasters always says that suffering is important for creation. Fasting, I dare say, might be one of the best non-destructive ways to allow yourself to suffer beautifully.
8. Need to lose weight
One way to combat my insulin resistance is to lower my percentage of body fat. Fasting has helped me achieve this goal while allowing me periods of indulgences and binging.
How to do it?
As its name suggests, my water-only fasts involve 3 days of drinking only water. Some people recommend including electrolytes such as broths of sodium & potassium, but from my past fasts so far, I don’t think it is necessary. The rest of my routines are all the same, including sleep, exercise & my daily activities.
The good and bad parts
Good parts :
1. I feel like superman with real control over myself
There is something weird about being part of a fast. People tend to ask you why you are not eating and just describing the fast gives you a certain sense of self-confidence, achievement, and control over yourself
2. First two days are really good- incredible mental clarity and deep concentration
As reported by many people, the fast mental clarity aspect is very good. There is no dip of energy and the first day of my fast is generally the best. I would be super productive generally and go long hours of deep concentration with minimal rest. It tends to be less on the 2nd day of the fast, but I would say the hunger pangs don’t really last that long.
3. Not tethered to food — Extra time to finish all my work — 4 hours additional per day
It looks like on my fasting days, I tend to have a 28 hour day. I wonder what Martin Heidegger`s Time and Being would say about this.
4. Weight loss
Finally, weight loss is very noticeable but whether that is just water weight is a different issue. But seeing myself go from 81.2 kg to 77.4 kg in 3 days is amazing.
Bad parts
1. As from day 2, craving food
The worst part is that any video you look at seems to have food as a background. Even though I always tell myself it will just make my fasts harder, I still end up wasting hours looking at random food videos
2. Lethargy and hunger as from day 2 with a manageable but uncomfortable headache
It is common for me to feel lethargic at the end of day 2 and not wanting to do anything. The 48–72hour period is sometimes filled with chills and slight light-headedness, but that is also very intermittent. It is generally quite manageable, and I have done moderate to heavy workouts during them.
My CGM results for the 3 days
As per what I felt, it looks like the uncomfortable feeling comes from the lack of glucose. But this is really no reason to be alarmed. After two days, my glycogen level is used up, and my body is using fats as fuel to survive on metabolizing B-hydroxybutyrate. I will leave that for another post but note that this is not to be alarmed especially if you are a normal healthy individual. In fact, I would dare say this is one of the ways to get you into ketosis without a keto diet. Other people have reported the same things like this one.
Bigger picture
I have comfortably lost 10 kg for the past year, combined with my monthly fasts and my experiments with intermittent fasting OMAD (One Meal A Day) Fast. My intention for this year is to lose 10 more kg at the end of 2021. The end goal is to lower fat percentage without affecting my muscle mass. I am currently at 25% body fat and hope to be around 15% at the end of 2021. Since last year, my medical reports, lipids, and cholesterol levels have vastly improved. I intend to have some blood work at least twice a year ad make sure that my fasts are being positively constructive than destructive.
What would I do differently?
Not overeat- The sense of achievement always ends up with me going crazy with my food. While I don’t regret it at all, my gut definitely does, and I end up having hour-long hiccups. Just a show of my indulgence is below. It is generally recommended that you go slow, starting with a small shake and slowly increasing your nutritional intake. As I said before, I can`t be blamed; I have disordered eating.
Indulgences that spike my glucose after 3 days. Delightful to the mouth but definitely not the best way to break a fast.
Low carb meal — Many people have recommended going keto into a fast, it helps with the dizziness, and some people even say that you don’t feel the fast if you do it this way.
Suggestions if you are doing your first 72 hour fasts?
Do check out this post by Stephanie Estima. I simply loved her way of explaining, and I got started with it. It`s meant to allow your body to acclimatize to the calorie restriction slowly. Start small from 16 hours to OMADS and finally 72 hours.
Read the works of Jason Fung and the following book/audiobook to learn more about the benefits and logistics of fasting.
Caveat:
Finally please note that it is okay to stop if you don’t feel like it, you can always do it again, and getting halfway there is much better than not trying at all. Finally, this post is only meant to share with you my experience. In no way, would I want you to believe that I am an expert but rather a steward of this idea. This post is for general information purposes only and not intended for medical advice or treatment. You can find me on Instagram and facebook with the fb id here & here and leave me a feedback on my posts.
