I'd meant to fast again before Eye and the kids come back for Christmas, and weighing 2 kg more than normal when I last checked that encouraged me to try longer. I thought that I might have been able to stabilize my weight back a bit lower, 72 or 73 kg instead of the normal 74, if I return to a lighter diet the first week. I haven't weighed myself in the past 7 days (there is no scale at the house); I'll never know how it changed.
It didn't work, adding two extra days. Nothing too unusual came up, but I think I didn't get electrolyte supplementation right, which I'll say more about here. I started not feeling well 4 days in, then worse on day 5, and quit.
Again it was about potential health benefits, more than losing weight. I just saw a news story about Dana White, the UFC (fighting) president claiming fasting reduces cancer risk by 70%. I'm not sure about that but it may reduce risk. There's a chance that I'm experiencing reduced aging effects related to fasting for 26 days in the last year (30 after this, really in just over 12 months). My hair seems to be less grey, down from Keo counting 8 hairs to seemingly even less, and I may be gaining hair back in a pronounced bald spot. The aesthetics makes no difference to me but related to general better health that would be relevant.
I had been using an easy, familiar cycle of fasting Thursday to Monday, related to the first day being easy, and that only including Friday as a work-day where I'm a bit hungry. Days 4 and 5 were always easy. I planned a whole work-week a bit off this time, M to F, then to see how days 6 and 7 go on the weekend. Day by day notes tell the story.
Day 1: almost no hunger this time, but mental clarity was a bit off. In the evening I walked 45 minutes to go get the cats special food they're now hooked on, with the oldest basically living on fish, and ran 40 minutes as well, a 4+ mile route at the usual 6 minutes per km. It's odd mixing those two units; my phone app is on km, and it seemed like most readers might relate to "freedom units."
The theory was to spend out glycogen reserves, so instead of doing the ketosis transition between day 2 and 3 to get that over with on day 2. Oddly running feels about the same, with or without eating; my "metabolic flexibility" is pretty good. That's true for days into fasting now too.
Day 2: again not much for hunger, although the general off feeling started in. I tried out drinking an aged sheng to see if that would work (a 19 year old version), related to someone commenting about that specific tea I also owned online. It's not like drinking young sheng, which would be painful on an empty stomach, but it's not a good idea. I'll stick to shu pu'er and aged white, maybe adding a roasted Wuyi Yancha when I want to mix it up, but that's pushing it too.
People discussing fasting mention an experience of greater mental clarity; I don't get that. Usually by day 4 I'm back to normal, maybe even slightly clearer, but for me days 1 to 3 are a bit off. On day 2 that relates to hunger, and on day 3 typically energy level fluctuation.
I'll see if that plan to rush the energy source change-over shifts more issues from day 3 to day 2 and tomorrow I'm fine. I'm not hungry at all today; it's strange. If I see food it sounds ok but it's not like before, when I would crave it. I didn't hide anything from myself, so I'm walking past peanuts and raisins, and see yogurt in the refrigerator, where I keep the cup I drink water from.
I did a bit of laundry; my energy level isn't too far off. Even if I feel somewhat normal I want take it easy for a few days to get the most out of the extra rest.
Day 3: That energy level disruption really did seem to kick in yesterday, and I'm not back to normal early today either. Hunger hasn't been bad at all; I don't think about not eating much. I think that if I can stay a bit busy today and tomorrow I'll notice it less, and then it should just seem normal, probably shifting to less impactful tomorrow.
I've drank tisanes twice already, more than I typically do for the 5 days, mixing some chrysanthemum into a late round of the shu I had with breakfast on the first day, then drinking some mixed gooseberry, lemongrass, and monkfruit seed tisane yesterday evening. I wrote these notes before I got to it but I drank rosemary brewed as a tisane later in day 3.
Mentally the idea of fasting for an entire week, including an entire work-week, feels a little more daunting. That time-span includes the US Thanksgiving--tomorrow--but I probably wasn't going to observe that anyway, living alone, with less access to turkey to make it myself, living in Bangkok where it's a normal work-day. Maybe I'll do some sort of make-up meal next week.
Day 4: the end of day 3 was a bit rough yesterday, and today I feel much better. I went to work on-site, which is slightly more demanding, doing a commute, then being there in-person, and walking by quite a bit of food. It's funny how your sense of smell for food increases so much when you are fasting; I swear that I could smell the neighbors eating McDonald's yesterday. In prior fasts the smell of most foods wasn't as bad as food versions that I ended up craving, but I'm feeling the gap now, and seeing or smelling any food reminds me of the fasting status. I suppose that's still an improvement, that I don't think of it unless something reminds me.
It's Thanksgiving today, back in the US. I told two Thai co-workers that and they had no idea what that means. You can try to find turkey dinners but you won't just walk by a place serving that, so it's not something anyone would notice. For living alone now I wasn't going to try to cook all that anyway. It was a little extreme just drinking salt water instead of eating anything.
I'm sick of the salt water. Even for closing in on 30 days of fasting, in just over a year, that only ever seems so natural, and I keep adjusting how much I drink in relation to plain water, or the timing, or to an extent even the dosage. Per a r/fasting Reddit sub reference you should be ingesting something like 3 grams of both sodium chloride and potassium chloride, which is a lot. There's no way to know if that's way too much or the right amount. It's impossible to know how fasting changes normal daily intake requirements for electrolytes. Per some references being in ketosis increases sodium demands, which are ordinarily around 1500 mg per day, so going up to 2 or 3 grams might make sense.
I'm not feeling mental pressure about the fast, too much, but the extended planned time does seem to add extra weight. At least hunger isn't so bad, or energy and mental clarity, which is all normal for day 4. I don't feel close to energetic enough to go for a run.
Day 5: I feel fine as of the morning; energy level might be a little lower than usual but otherwise quite normal. Hunger experience isn't an issue at all; all that seems to drop off after day 3, unless you go to where food is, like I did yesterday. I visited a mall to pick up protein powder for later and walked by lots of grilled foods, ice cream, bakeries, Thai snacks, Japanese restaurants; on and on. It wasn't so bad but it does trigger extra hunger.
The 5 day routine had felt really normalized, by the 4th time doing it. This doesn't. Oddly electrolyte replacement doesn't go as well as the last two trials. A slightly increased amount seemed like way too much two days ago, as if I couldn't keep up with water input, and I've had trouble getting a balance back. I'm not certain that the Reddit fasting sub's recommendation page for inputs isn't too high; they recommend about 3 grams each of sodium and potassium, at the middle of the range they specify.
Maybe you really do need a ton of salts to continue with ketosis energy processing, or maybe not nearly that much. Drinking a lot of water is probably a good thing, to help your body sort out whatever conditions you put it through, but I couldn't seem to get thirst and indirect effect of drinking salt water to balance. I cut it back to less than usual yesterday (well under 3 grams of each, closer to 2) and that might be an ok maintenance level. Magnesium is easier; I take two tablets / capsules of 400 mg per day, since only taking one seems to result in negative effects, mostly sleep disruption.
Day 5 update (evening): I wasn't feeling well and ended the fast. A mild sore throat yesterday continued on to today, and energy level issues got worse throughout the day. Something seemed off related to electrolyte intake; it was getting harder and harder to force myself to drink any of that salt-water mix, even though I went lighter on it yesterday, and only made it through half of a pre-measured amount in the evening today.
I tried going out for a walk after work, and that went ok, so it wasn't energy availability that was an issue, just feeling a bit off. More than seemed appropriate, I guess; someone should feel unusual after not eating for 5 days, but since this was a 5th time doing that the range is somewhat familiar.
I'll cover what I think happened in conclusions, but maybe I'll never really know. It feels a little disappointing quitting early, but 5 days is a lot, and with things seemingly going worse and worse the next two days were likely to just be enduring more and more.
Conclusions:
I think a main problem related to electrolyte input variations. This part is a little awkward to share, me getting that wrong, but communicating about the experiences doesn't work with covering all of it.
Before I was sort of carefully measuring out relatively specific amounts of sodium and potassium based on recommendations from that Reddit fasting sub I keep mentioning, making a mix with water to drink periodically throughout the day. I don't remember exactly where I tried to be in that recommended range every time in the past; somewhere in the middle, not on the low or high side, but I was probably varying it some since I didn't log it, or any such thing.
In the past I was "measuring" teaspoon amounts using a non-standard measuring spoon, since I've been doing these fasts when my wife is in Honolulu, planning them around that, and I didn't think we had measuring spoons. We don't bake; they don't in Thailand, and we've only ever had a toaster oven, and that's the only time you tend to use those. I found where she kept them though, and I think earlier estimates of amounts were lower than measured amounts. I was going for between 2.5 gram and 3 grams of both sodium and potassium per day, at the lower end of what that reference recommended.
Still sounds like a lot, doesn't it? It seems that 1.5 grams of sodium is standard for a normal diet, and then ketosis adds extra requirements (maybe; so it seems). Standard daily requirement for potassium is either 3.6 grams or 4.7, depending on the reference you use. Surely no one is getting anywhere near that from a typical diet; on the high side that's eating a dozen bananas. No need to go too far with details here but it's clear from several experiences that if you ingest a lot of sodium and potassium at one time that will have a laxative effect, not only the magnesium input, which is better known. It's counterintuitive that your digestive system would contain enough for a laxative to work 2 or 3 days after eating, but it does, I guess an odd mix of bile, stomach acid, and whatever other digestive fluids.
It seemed like I ingested more salts than I tolerated well in the middle of that week, and couldn't get back to an equilibrium. I had been drinking tisanes in the evenings the first couple of days, and adding quite a bit of extra water intake may have made a difference. I drank plenty of plain water with the salt water, again not measuring total daily intake though, but at some point it seemed to not balance, and I developed an aversion to the taste of it, beyond it normally seeming gross.
Shifting to attempt 7 days made a lot more difference than I expected. Mentally it seemed a lot harder; days 2 or 3 just weren't that close to it all coming to an end, not halfway through yet. Fasting for one whole work-week is a lot. It was much easier doing Thursday and Friday before, then during a weekend, with the first day not impacted at all. Hunger wasn't an issue, and energy level and mental clarity really weren't problematic either, so it wasn't really so bad for work output disruption, but it adds a limited extra degree of mental stress.
Related to the electrolytes the first and last day of a fast matter less, because you carry over a decent balance on day 1, and plan to get that from food in a meal at the end of the day the last, so for a 5 day span it needs to balance well for only 3 days. I suppose that's why I probably had moved from the lower side of that recommended range to their recommended middle, to not accidentally fall behind (that was their lower limit threshold; I mean before I stayed in the "minimal" range). I had ran a couple of times during the last fast, which would reduce salts in your body a lot, along with the hotter weather then drawing them out.
I wanted to have the experience of a longer fast version, a week, as a reference for the broader understanding of the process, but I might just stick to 5 days and call it good, probably not trying it again until next year anyway.
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