What 5 days of fasting feels like

 

Not long ago I wrote about fasting basics and some more detailed approach, here, but it occurs to me that there's another dimension that's harder to describe.  Fasting is a unique experience.  It's hard to just describe what hunger is like, once you acclimate, and the form changes.

Of course this has nothing to do with the theme of why to fast, and not all that much with how to do it, but it does overlap with that.  That earlier post was on the latter, and it's hard to pin down what research says, and not as reliable to convey hearsay or first person accounts of benefits.  I think I'm mentally clearer as a result of the practice, for example, but who knows how to place that.  Maybe I'm not, at all.  Maybe ramping up exercise or improving diet caused that, and there is no connection.  Or maybe I lose my mental faculties and don't know it.

So let's run through some parts of what it's like to fast instead, which will cover before and after acclimation.  I'm only having the latter experience now, because I've fasted for at least two months so far, in total.  

I try to fast 4 times a year, at 5 days each, and I'm on day 5 just now, not so many hours away from wrapping it up, at 4 days and maybe 19 hours.  I "call it" early because I fast from one dinner time to the one 5 days later, so for me it works better to "only" fast for 4 days and 22 hours or so, and if it works out to 20 or 21 that's fine too.  Otherwise I'd have to eat that first meal not so long before sleeping, which wouldn't be ideal.  I usually end up drinking milk after dinner the day before a fast, the last food to clear.

Reading back through those last ideas one might think that 5 days of fasting should really be 5 days and 6 nights, so really 5 1/2 days as clock time goes.  Maybe I will try breaking a fast the next morning instead at some point.  The mental pressure of fasting for "only" 5 days is already a bit to get through, though.

Fasting experience themes

Hunger:  the main factor, maybe.  Early on, for the first 2 or 3 trials, your body is shocked by the experience, and hunger is intense.  Physical cravings are coupled with what people call "food noise," repeating thoughts of eating.  Your body releases plenty of ghrelin, a hunger related hormone, so you keep producing digestive fluids, and experience stomach gas and discomfort.  Or at least that's my guess for why it feels like that.

After 4 or 5 fasts the experience completely changes, and that high degree of hunger largely drops out.  But you're still hungry.  It just takes on a feeling of emptiness, that runs in the background, so that if you smell food you really want it, but so that you can go a few hours without thinking about having not eaten.

One might naturally consider what they could drink to lessen the hunger experience (eating doesn't apply; pretty much no one ever eats paper or some other calorie deficient input).  It's normal for people to drink coffee, tea, or herb tea, and some drink diet sodas.  

I've had one diet soda in the past 5 days, a diet Strawberry Cream Pepsi.  It doesn't seem to change much, but I don't drink much of that.  I've had tea every day, and herb tea 3 of the days.  This time I started in on some pandan leaf and roselle tea I bought not so long ago, along with lemongrass tea, that I didn't get to.  All of those are common types in Thailand.  I don't use stevia to sweeten any of it, but I could.  

Related to the tea I usually drink shou pu'er or aged white tea, because they're easy on your stomach, but I also had some hei cha (Fu zhuan) and relatively oxidized sheng pu'er.  It would be nice to drink coffee but I'm not acclimated to drinking my coffee black, and that my hurt your stomach.  

I think it helps most to drink a tisane that you tend to drink a lot of, perhaps mostly because it boosts hydration input.  I can drink three 16 ounce mugs of chrysanthemum, and that adds well over a quart / liter to my daily fluid intake.  It's best to try to drink 3 liters of water a day, if you can, but that's a lot to get down.  You need to supplement quite a bit of salts (sodium, potassium, and magnesium; there's more on that in the earlier post), and I'm always struggling to get the intake amount right, and to work through salt water tasting awful, even in a diluted form.

Special hunger triggers:  I need to go to grocery store every time I fast because I let my food supply run out, and need to re-up it, usually on the last day.  Sometimes chance will have me visiting a market or restaurant with others I happen to be with.  In one sense it's not so bad, but in another it is.  Sometimes I'll cook for other people, and that is a different level of exposure.  Your digestive system can seem to turn back on, even when you just smell food.  

At worst that will lead you back to the earlier phase of stomach growling, that you tend to only experience early in fasting trials.  I just went grocery shopping on day 4, taking my mother-in-law to a store, and it was a little like that.  But even that level of exposure you acclimate to.  Cooking not so much.

Stress:  this is the other part of the experience of hunger.  It feels like an extra underlying stress, to me not completely unlike what extreme jet lag feels like.  If your normal stress baseline isn't bad it's no problem, but when other stressors enter in it can be too intense.  It's not hard to be productive when you fast, and that deserves it's own section, the extra mental clarity.  Even walking a lot or light exercise is fine.  But getting it all to balance requires a bit of extra attention.  

For me if other stressors add up too much I'll stop the fast.  The last example that comes to mind is too harsh to cite here, but even if work gets unusually busy it might throw it all off.

Other side effects (dizziness, low energy level, sleepiness):  this probably varies a lot by person, so what any one has to say wouldn't apply broadly.  But I'll include it.  In those first 3 or 4 fasts these negative factors were a lot more to deal with, especially the first two.  That's why I recommend people try period eating first (20-22 hour fasts), then 24, and build up.  I might feel a little dizzy a couple times a day.  Getting electrolyte balance (intake) dialed in offsets a lot of it, but your body seems to also need to adjust to a new range of experience.  If you fasted every other month you might stay well-adjusted to it, but if you let 3 or 4 months go between fasts you might end up adjusting again.

I don't really feel low energy level now, which is strange.  I've been walking 10,000 steps a day for all of the 5 days.  Typically I don't try to do much with losing weight, fasting for other reasons, but since I've climbed to 81 kg (178 pounds), up from 74 kg (163) I'd like to get that to drop again.  My blood pressure has been running high, and it might help.  I've been swimming a lot over the past year, and keep on adding a little extra muscle, so it's not that much fat gain, but it's some.

Lots of other potential side effects could be concerning.  If my electrolyte balance runs low I'll feel mild cramping, mostly in my calves, and that's not good.  That leads back into a longer and off-topic discussion about how hard it is to dial in an optimum electrolyte intake (sodium, potassium, and magnesium).  It should be easy, figuring out how much you need by trial and error, mixing up a diluted batch of that with water, then drinking that over the day (and taking magnesium by pill / tablet, because you need much less).  It's not so simple.  Some of that is probably user error, that I make it harder than it needs to be.  I'm back to just drinking some salt mix a few times a day, mixing it up without measuring it out per day, not using that more standard approach (standard within "fasting circles").  

This Reddit group is what I experience of that online discussion; it all requires some interpretation, and some extreme views come up, but that's normal for social media.  Note that the high end of their fasting wiki recommended electrolyte intake range is an awful lot of salt (or had been; per this following citation it's the opposite now); I have no idea how that could work out.

I take that back; in the past that wiki recommended a high end range of at least 3 grams each of sodium and potassium, and now it's a fraction of that.  There was a "snake juice" recipe for that daily mix for people to drink, and they've deleted that.  Lots of people had complained the high end was way too high, or maybe even the relative average, and maybe moderation staff changed on the page, and the guidance opinions they wanted to share with them.

This is the second version of that advice in two days; I cited it from yesterday (Feb. 15) and it was completely different.  Just keep in mind it's a rough guideline, not a final answer.  Individual requirements and tolerance for dosages would vary.  

One part that was interesting, in past versions of advice there in the r/fasting Electrolytes 101 wiki page, was that you can use either sodium chloride or baking soda, (sodium bicarbonate), and that food grade epsom salts can be used for magnesium input.  There is endless discussion there on what is the best magnesium compound form to supplement.  Maybe glycinate is recommended most, but I use magnesium oxide, because it's cheaper.  The concern is laxative effect.  Magnesium that is absorbed too quickly will cause that, so the compound form matters.  That's what laxatives often are (like milk of magnesia).

mental clarity, positive side effects:  mental clarity is about it for positive changes in the short term.  Even that comes and goes.  There are flashes where I can really get a lot done, and see complicated themes much clearer than I normally would.  My subconscious mind is also in on it; my dreams have picked up a really novel clarity and complexity over the last 3 nights (the first night I had eating hours prior).  

In one dream I dreamt I had accidentally broken the fast by eating, then woke up to realize it was a dream, but woke up in another dream where I experienced that.  I had an interesting exchange about child rearing practices with a fictional character in one last night.  I suppose the waking clarity is more meaningful and impactful.

I think the clarity extends to be a main positive effect from the fasting.  Maybe I'm also experiencing some aging effects less, but this is where it gets hazy.  My hair has returned to mostly colored since taking it up; I've lost the few grey hairs I had, except for very few around my temples, less than 10.  It's strange seeing a hair that's two colors, that had been grey and returned to brown, but I've experienced that.  I'm 57; I really should have greying hair now.  I don't care much about the aesthetic side, since I'm married, and it just doesn't matter, but it's an interesting change.

a visa renewal selfie from last month; you can see some grey hair

More on the vague side, I think that I have more energy when I run now, from greater "metabolic flexibility," or ability to use fat as an energy source.  Who knows; it would be easy to imagine that.  Or training experience tends to change in those kinds of ways over time. 

I think for many a main positive effect is a reduction of "food noise," and an ability to manage diet better.  My diet was pretty good to start out with, and I never snack that much, but I've used the fasts as resets, to make minor positive adjustment.  I keep going back to eating ice cream, and some chocolate, but the overall balance shifts.  It's much harder in the US than in Thailand; when Ben and Jerry's is on sale what can you do?  

I eat more fruit and vegetables than just about anyone now, and prefer that basis for my diet.  I eat some meat, to keep up protein intake, to adjust for exercising a good bit, but I eat nuts as a snack, a good bit of eggs and dairy, and use soy or pea protein shakes as a supplement.  

All that is a bit beside the point; the idea is that it's easier to improve your diet and change habits after a reset, of sorts.  For me I can only make minor changes each time, and if I try to shift too much after a fast it won't work.

risk:  I don't think much about this, but it's worth considering.  What could go wrong?  If your electrolytes get too far out of balance then lots of things could, up to and including having a heart attack.  It's important to get that dialed in as fast as possible, and probably gradually acclimating to fasting makes sense, even though it's more common for people to get the idea to try 3 to 7 days from an online video, and just go for it.  

The problem I do experience with dizziness could be much worse.  In the past 5 days I've stood up and felt light dizziness two or three times, which is pretty moderate.  It's something to keep an eye on.

The main risk is that if you ingest a lot of electrolytes at one time then you will experience diarrhea, even if you haven't eaten in days.  It's that "don't trust a fart" theme.  Then that carries over to "re-feeding;" if you eat low quality food to re-start eating you'll experience that for a couple of days.  

I've only tested that once though, and that was my experience.  I usually eat a burger and fries for a first meal, which sounds pretty low quality, but if you use good ground beef or pork (we don't eat beef much in Thailand), good bread, fresh potatoes or sweet potatoes for the fries, and some vegetables (tomato and spinach, usually), then it's not low quality food.  Of course most people who fast use an even more sensible approach, and eat different things in stages.  

Later editing note:  I ate a burger and fries again, yesterday, and my body digested it in 4 hours or so.  Maybe because I was still hungry and ate some yogurt, a little chocolate, and a bowl of cereal some hours later?  Or maybe looking forward to ending the fast too much prompted more rapid digestion.  What works would always vary by individual anyway.  The riskier "refeeding" cases relate to much longer fasts, well over a week in duration.  Then just winging it wouldn't be safe.

talking about fasting:  this is a bonus tangent; that pretty much already covers fasting experience.  In fasting circles people usually recommend keeping fasting experience a secret, especially during fasts.  Some people react negatively, of course.  In one online story an HR department told the person to start eating, not to fast.  People can be judgmental.  I don't talk much about it, but I don't avoid it either.  If people have problems with accepting someone else not eating, or a life practice they see as absurd, and probably harmful, then that's on them.

You can never really fully explain it.  People can only experiment with fasting and make of it what they do, for themselves, and that would vary by person.  It wouldn't be for everyone.  For some the negative side effects would be a complete deal-breaker.  For others acclimation, that I've been describing, might never seem to happen, even though it's my guess that within 4 or 5 trials most people would see negative aspects reduce.  And then a more primary point, for many there just wouldn't be any point to it, if they're not trying to lose weight, and see the health benefits as possible but not a given, and perhaps unlikely to occur.

I first tried out fasting, as an adult, because I met a guy who claimed he did it for spiritual reasons.  That's not entirely right; in an earlier life phase we would do multi-day juice fasts as some sort of cleanse / detox.  It made more sense in that life context.  I fasted for the very first time at the age of 10 or 11, passing 24 hours, but not fasting to my goal, 36 hours, or one complete day and night after waking.  I don't remember why I did that.  

Then I "fasted" a lot cutting weight as a wrestler in high school; I would go as long without eating as I needed to in order to make a competition weight.  Our team was really strong, and I didn't have the experience to be above average (I wrestled for 2 years), so I had to slot in at varsity wherever I could beat the other guys competing.  Good times!

So not eating for weight loss could work, and those other reasons may or may not be appealing.

Fasting basics, and a bit more on background and approach

this picture has food in it, but relaxing in nature with tea could be helpful while fasting

I mentioned that fasting may have improved my health in relation to aging aspects in a Reddit thread, and in a second comment covered basics on how to fast.  It all works as a great summary of the topic.  

Let's start with the first part, what seemed to improve as a result of fasting practice:

I'm really also pursuing health instead of avoiding aspects related to aging, or longevity related "biohacking." But I tried out fasting awhile back (maybe 2 1/2 years ago), and it seemed to make a difference. Now I try to fast for 5 days at a time 4 times per year.

It's hard pushing that to the next level for description, listing out likely benefits. I think I'm a little mentally clearer, and my energy level seems more stable, especially when running. That second part is a reference to metabolic flexibility; people are said to be able to use fat energy better when they routinely experience ketosis.

It's possible that it is offsetting other aging effects, but not in a way I can clearly link and justify. The few grey hairs I had mostly returned to being colored. That could've been for some other reason though; I exercised more around the same time, adjusted diet, and added a bit of supplementation to help with exercise recovery. My health checkup blood markers have all improved somewhat, but I'd expect exercise to be related to that.

Then someone asked about the details, in the form of these questions:

Curious about your fasting. Water only? For how long? How do you transition back to food?

My answer ran a bit long, since it seemed I could cover a few other basics, beyond those three questions:

Past 3 days you really need to supplement electrolytes, but that's it, sodium, potassium, and magnesium. People who fast often tend to drink things with no calories, and I drink tea or herb teas / tisanes, and sometimes a diet soda, but not often. I've never heard of anyone trying to eat something solid with no calories; that's not typical fasting. People avoid eating a single calorie, even though eating 10 to 20 might not re-trigger digestion response.

I try to fast 4 times a year for 5 days at a time. There's no clear reason for why 5 days at once or 20 days per year would be optimum; people sort out what they think will work on their own. Autophagy, a recycling process for inactive cells or damaged cellular material, is said to peak at or after 48 hours, but autophagy routinely happens to some extent, and that kind of hearsay input is only so reliable.

Transitioning back to food is a lot more difficult when you fast for 2 or 3 weeks, instead of 5 to 7 days. You can still get it wrong fasting for 5 days, but that has only happened to me once. I would normally eat a burger and fries to resume eating, but a natural version of it, using quality meat (pork; I live in Thailand and we don't eat much beef here), decent bread, home-made fries, often from sweet potatoes, and vegetables, spinach and tomato.

I once quit early for some reason and ate McDonald's food instead, thinking it would also work, but it didn't, and it took a couple of days to get past severe diarrhea. Beyond that, not eating fast food or junk, which is kind of common sense, people advise to avoid sugar. Probably moderating fiber right away would be as well, although you can eat a normal amount of it.

One benefit of fasting that may not be so intuitive is that it changes your relationship with food. The habitual eating, or "food noise," drops out. Not on the first couple of fasts, but eventually it does. You can reset to a better diet. You can only make so much change at one time, or it won't stick, but over the course of a few fasts you could completely reset what you eat and your related eating habits, and it wouldn't seem nearly as difficult as making extreme changes while still eating.

One potential negative, depending on how people see it, is that I think my metabolism might have slowed slightly, that I eat a little less and maintain the same body weight. I've gained weight in the last 2 1/2 years, but I've been exercising a lot, and I think it's mostly muscle weight. People discuss a risk of losing muscle mass during fasts but I'm certain that I don't. 5 days isn't that long a time period, and my body would have access to protein in my digestive system the first day.

To make it easier people recommend switching to a very low carbohydrate diet for a couple of days prior to the fast. Not necessarily to enter ketosis, but that is the general idea. An extreme version of that would be to not eat any carbs at all for 4 to 5 days, and you might enter ketosis then. If you are already using only fat and protein for energy, and mostly fat, it should be easier to switch to using body fat, in theory.

Later on you really do seem to take on greater "metabolic flexibility," an ability to use different energy sources, or at least it seems to me that I never feel any energy issues when I run, which I attribute to this. I'll run for 12 km for routine outings (3 times every 8 or 9 days) and energy level is never an issue, even though I'm 57, and everything works a little less effectively at this age.

And that's most of it.  I could add a little about what tea I tend to drink, given this is a tea blog, but that doesn't run long, because most types seem not to work well.  I can drink shou / shu pu'er, and sometimes go with aged white tea.  I would guess that some forms of hei cha would also be fine, and I've had positive results experimenting with that, but it would depend on the type.  Harsher Liu Bao wouldn't work at all, and milder Fu zhuan would probably be fine.

I think herb teas / tisanes are even more flexible, that few of those would upset your stomach.  I experience great results from drinking those, but I think it might be mostly because I'll brew a couple of rounds of a large mug of one, and drinking an extra liter of water is probably helpful.  You really should drink at least 3 liters a day while fasting, more than it feels natural to drink, and a full gallon (around 4 liters) is more the optimum people recommend.  Your body is said to use a lot of water by processing energy through ketosis.  

Again all of this is hearsay, which can only be confirmed so effectively through experimentation.  But I can notice that if I don't drink a lot of water I suffer negative effects, and that it takes a lot of electrolyte input to seem to balance that factor.  It's on the order of 1 to 2 grams per day of both sodium and potassium; an awful lot.  You don't need that much magnesium; maybe 400 mg.  All of this isn't dosing recommendations, and I suspect what works best for people would vary by a lot of factors, like body size, local climate (if they're sweating), rate of metabolism, energy use, and so on.  

Some people probably become very inactive while fasting, even though it works well for me to walk a good bit while not eating.  It's relaxing, and it takes my mind off not eating.  My thinking is that light activity helps over the first couple of days to switch over to full ketosis, so I'm not going through that adjustment period for three days, which seems to be the normal time-frame.  I've experimented with running while fasting, and that's fine, I can, but I suspect recovery is impacted, taking in no protein for days.  So I've never really pushed it, never running too far.  Maybe only 2+ miles / 4 km to test it out?

From there other factors seem vague.  People might try to do more meditation, to lean into a more spiritual side of the experience, or at least to offset anxiety that might come from the mild underlying stress of not eating.  I first fasted based on someone telling me that they fast for spiritual purposes, to replicate what yogis and Jesus experienced.  Maybe there's something to all of that.  It's a profound feeling experience.  I can't do it justice by description, and it takes a few fasting trials for the early stress to settle out, and for hunger experience to subside, so that you get on to experiencing different dimensions of it.

Then people might discuss how to deal with that stress and the "intrusive thoughts" part better, food noise.  All of that just varies by person, and largely drops out with more exposure, again after a few fasts.  Hunger experience really is extreme and novel the first 2 or 3 times.  I don't mean the psychological expectation either; your body is unfamiliar with the process, and doesn't know to drop the hunger trigger in the same way.  Put another way, in physiological terms, you seem to produce a lot more ghrelin in those early trials, and your digestion response doesn't slow down at all, instead increasing, but later on it's the opposite, and you don't think of food much, or hear your stomach growl, and experience gas, and so on. 

I guess one last part I didn't cover is that I recommend people start with no more than 24 hours duration.  Of course I didn't; I tried to start with 5 days, and then failed after three, when I noticed that you experience severe symptoms from not supplementing electrolytes, like trouble sleeping, muscle cramps, and what seem to be heart palpitations, an irregular heartbeat.  But it would probably be so much easier to do a couple of 24 hour fasts, then a couple of 48 hour versions, then 3 days, then 4, and so on.  I've never made it much past 5; a different form of acclimation seems to apply to go beyond that.  I'm sure with a few trials it would be fine, but for me 5 days covers what I'm pursuing, hopefully triggering an autophagy / health maintenance response.

Two more tangents

I could probably keep considering extra tangents at length.  I've participated in discussions of fasting practice and experience in a Reddit sub for a few years now (where there is a good electrolytes wiki reference), r/fasting, so parts keep coming up.  I'll stop at two last points, the first related to the input of artificial sweeteners.  Are those ok?  

People are in two different camps related to that.  One group thinks that those could potentially trigger an insulin release, which would be a bad thing, and that at a minimum their purpose in fasting is to avoid chemical inputs.  As an example, some people think taking a multivitamin makes a lot of sense, since you are skipping ingesting all nutrition, and others see it as a sort of cleanse function to keep intake of everything to an absolute minimum.  

No one really knows if there is a negative effect from drinking a diet soda, or sweetening tea with stevia or aspartame.  I mean related to fasting, but I guess there is also a broader concern about these things.  I've drank nearly a dozen artificially sweetened drinks over the last 2 1/2 years while fasting and notice no negative effects.  That's not much of a sample size, and the opposite of a well-controlled review process.

The other subject is perhaps the trickiest part of fasting, getting electrolytes sorted out (beyond not eating when you are hungry).  This problem comes in a few parts:  

-how much sodium, potassium and magnesium do you need?

-does it matter which compounds provide those, and which are optimum?

-what is the best intake form (eg. in a drink solution, should that be flavored, what can you take in a pill form, or what won't work in that form)?

-how frequently should you ingest it, or put another way, what dose can you tolerate at one time?

1.  (amount of electrolytes):  The wiki reference in the r/fasting sub provides input on this, but the high end of the suggested range there is awfully high (many grams of both sodium and potassium).  People need to experiment and sort out what works for them.  I've already mentioned a general range, about 1 to 2 grams each of sodium and potassium, and about 400 mg of magnesium per day.  That's not advice, not even offered as a starting point, just mention of the general range.  It's a lot.

Later editing note:  they updated that page (here), and deleted that whole section recommending both an input range for electrolytes and how to mix a batch of "snake juice" to drink over the day.  What they have replaced it with doesn't give much of a recommendation:

That citation is about diet (eating food), not really tied to fasting (it mentions food twice).  That citation is from editing yesterday (Feb. 15, 2026) and today the advice is different again:

It keeps improving.  I would take any advice with a grain of salt, so in a sense it doesn't matter that the page has shown three different forms of input, perhaps over as many months.

One thing to keep in mind is that you are trying to ingest a certain dosage of sodium (for example), not necessarily sodium chloride.  The chloride part may work out to be essential, for all I know, but it's necessary to keep straight that calculating input of sodium, and the others, requires some way to account for the other part of the salt compound, what that contributes to weight (dose).  

2. (which compounds to take):  for sodium it's down to sodium chloride (table salt) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).  I don't like the taste of baking soda in a salt solution, so I only use table salt.  For potassium the main form you run across is potassium chloride, so that's what I use, but it's not the only form.  You can buy it as a table salt replacement in grocery stores; I've bought it in Wal-Mart in the US and Tops in Thailand.  It costs almost nothing, and works well as a supplement to balance out your electrolyte input when you aren't fasting.

Then magnesium is where things get complicated.  I use magnesium oxide, because it's the cheapest, but people recommend different versions, or recommend avoiding different versions.  Over and over people say one compound has a strong laxative effect and another is relatively optimum, it just might not match which they prefer.  It would work to look up discussions in that group (sub) to use as input, maybe as a sort of voting process, going with what people tend to say the most.  Using a search function in any social media group is an extreme step, but it would work.

3.  (best intake form):  you can just take magnesium as a pill; that dose is so low that it wouldn't be a problem.  It might be nice if you could take it in the morning and then a couple of hours before bed, because it's said to support sleep.  

The other two, sodium and potassium, are harder.  The standard approach is to make up a solution of quite a bit of water and those salts and drink that throughout the day.  It seems to work well for me to treat that as a meal, to drink some at breakfast, lunch, and dinner time, and some in the evening.  Too much at one time causes a strong laxative effect, but breaking it into four parts offsets that.

People tend to not mention other tricks or approaches very much.  Since you don't eat anything there's no way to couple it with food, and it would make limited sense to drink a very salty version of coffee or tea.  I've mixed it with tisanes before, and that's promising, but it's too much extra work.  If you use a base flavor tisane and dried citrus rind, and a little sweetener (stevia, some chemical form, whatever) it is a bit like gatorade.  You need to keep drinking a lot of water to help process it, and support energy use from fat through ketosis.  Experimenting with what works for you seems critical.

4.  (maximum electrolyte dose at one time):  Again you'd need to experiment to sort this out.  I'm sure that ingesting a gram each of sodium and potassium at one time would go badly, for almost anyone, so you need to break it up into at least 3 different intakes, and 4 might work better, or others might prefer a half dozen.  

You might think a laxative effect wouldn't be possible, after 3 or 4 days without eating, but you would be wrong.  Apparently your body continues to release a limited amount of digestive fluid, which may drop with acclimation, so you can experience multiple very odd, liquid bowel movements over a 5 day period.  Ingesting a lot of salt / electrolyte at one time triggers that.  Not just magnesium either; the other two can have that effect.

In general my stomach feels better than one would expect; I have few problems or issues.  If I were to drink green tea or black coffee maybe that wouldn't be true.  I've had no problems with any tisanes, so it doesn't work to recommend which work best.

Conclusions

All of this went a little light on the benefits part, but I think that would vary by person, and my input would seem like claims that I really can't support.  Did it offset aging effects?  It seems so, but who knows.  Do I experience more metabolic flexibility, more energy while running due to more efficient fat use?  The same.  And mental clarity is the same; maybe that improved, but it's hard to identify, and impossible to be clear on causes.

I also skipped over lots of negative effects that occur in those first few trials.  Beyond being desperately hungry I experienced energy level fluctuations, sleepiness, dizziness, trouble focusing, and boredom.  I would go with my wife to a market or restaurant and that really heightened the desire to eat.  By the 4th or 5th fast all of that was moderate, and by the 10th or 12th I wouldn't be reminded that I was even fasting many times in a day.

There are periods of mental clarity and productivity that happen, after some exposure, that are also hard to describe.  At times I can get 6 hours worth of creative work done in an hour.  It's hard to focus or channel that; it happens when it happens.  It's possible to stay busier than normal, over the entire fast, but past a certain stress level it all seems to crash.  It adds some underlying stress, so you have to be careful.  You don't need to moderate the demands on your time and productivity, but you can't push it too far either.

Four-day fasting update; cooking while fasting, home-made Gatorade

I posted about a recent planned 5 day fast in a Reddit fasting sub, cut short to 4 days, which I'll also share here as an update.  The part about making a variation of Gatorade to make the electrolytes more pleasant (sodium and potassium salts) was interesting to me.

It's not a new theme, trying out tisane blends during fasting, but this worked better than earlier attempts. I used lime from the garden, about a quarter of a normal size lime worth, since they were tiny, and stevia for sweetness, along with a bit of jasmine green tea. Then I mixed some of the nasty salt water I've been drinking with that, and it was fine, actually delicious. I drank most of that salt water the normal way though, just working through it.

they're an unusual variation of a lime, maybe even a small type of orange

The first and second days were easier than ever, with less experience of hunger than before. Really that was true of the 3rd through 5th fasts, just in a different sense. Energy level and productivity at work didn't seem disrupted at all (I started on a Thursday, so the crux would be over the weekend). On-site office work ran late on Friday, and I didn't get out until 7, and it was fine.

There isn't much for approach or hacks to pass on. I drank electrolytes without monitoring amounts over the first two days, which is not ideal, just mixing some Less Salt and salt into water a few times a day, and taking magnesium capsules. It's better to figure out how much sodium, potassium, and magnesium intake works for you and mix up a daily drink mix, it's just easier to carry a bit of salt to work than the liquid. I had a calf cramp in the night after the second day; I was probably a little low on potassium, so I went back to a measured approach the next morning.

For me the middle range of electrolytes seems to work out, based on the sodium and potassium recommendations in that Reddit fasting sub reference, just over 2 grams each, with sodium slightly higher. For magnesium taking a supplement pill in the morning and evening seems to work well, adding up to more than they recommend there, but not a crazy amount.

I only drank that one tisane the whole time, that one I thought of as a variation of Gatorade, but perhaps it wasn't that close.  Some people would avoid anything but water and the salts, to really lean into the detox theme, but to me drinking some tisane / herb tea is fine, surely not all that impactful or toxic.  It's a helpful way to be able to experience "eating" something, to settle your stomach, and it helps with reminding you to stay hydrated, versus drinking liters of plain water a day.

For tea I drank shou pu'er in the morning on the first three days, a bit of green tea and tisanes at work the second day, and aged white tea, shou mei, on the last day.  Not lots of any of those teas either; one Western brewing round's worth of shou I split over two days of brewing.

I can do light exercise while fasting, and walked about 3km / 1 1/2 miles as part of a commute on the second day.  In general I limit jogging to 2 miles, nowhere near a routine run, but I was so busy with other things that I didn't run.

I cooked during the fast; that was odd.  On two different days too, making up food to bring to a set of cousins who are in poor health.  I made chicken and dumpling soup, home-made meatballs and spaghetti, and lots of steamed vegetables.  

I ended up going to a grocery store two days in a row, and a bakery on one of them; it's as well to not be around food that much, if it works out not to.  I cooked so much that my mother-in-law and I can eat that for a few days too.  Of course it increased my hunger level some, and I think my stomach producing more digestive fluids came with another odd side effect the next day, as something to expel.  Fasting can be strange like that though, the odd extra body function here or there.

It went great.  The main story line, to me, was being able to stay ridiculously busy and productive while not eating for four days, and feeling mostly normal while doing it.

Why even fast?  I've covered all that in a half dozen earlier update posts.  It's not to lose weight; I didn't weigh myself, and we don't have a scale at our house.  There are lots of likely health benefits, especially related to reducing diabetes risk, eliminating fat content in internal organs, and between them, and offsetting cancer and other risks, through the process of autophagy, your body recycling and using inactive cells for an energy source.  I'm not absolutely convinced it works as promoted, because accounts of all that seem to stop short of research findings about that process, but it probably is quite healthy for you.

It also works as a diet reset.  My diet is pretty good, so there's only so much change to be made, but I think that's probably the main potential benefit for most people.  You can easily recognize when eating habits only relate to triggers, or habitual patterns, and it stands out when genuine hunger cues drive the process instead.  

You are hungry the whole time during a multi-day fast, to an extent, but it's a different form of hunger, more just feeling empty, and I'm talking more about relationship with foods and eating than just that one part.  Fasting helps you reset approach to diet, and eating habits, in ways that are hard to describe.  Or you can go right back to eating junk all the time, but it gives you that short window of opportunity to make a limited amount of changes.

I think fasting helps with my mental clarity, but that part can be vague, and people might seem to experience whatever they expect to.  When people describe how pleasant fasting can be, experiencing unusual clarity and euphoria, I can't really relate to all that, but I think I am slightly clearer mentally as a result, afterwards and even during the fast.

back to my normal diet!  jk; this place is new in Bangkok.

the latest theme is travel; I'll get back to that

Trying out a 7 day fast, settling for 5 days

 

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.

Potential fasting health benefits; normalizing fasting practice

 

The last post about fasting experience settled in on "why?," never fully resolving that, and I'll only repeat that theme a bit here, extending it to two different directions.

The main answer in the past has been "to experiment."  Of course most people fast to lose weight, but my own body weight seems strongly inclined to return to the previous level (about 74 kg or 165 pounds), and since that's reasonable I don't try to adjust that.  Maybe I should shift back to more like 71 kg / 160, and will at some point.

After 20 days of experience of not eating that initial experimentation phase is kind of done; so what's next?  Any answer would relate to potential or expected health benefits, so lets summarize that, after placing why I'm trying to communicate this.

I would like to share these ideas to make the option to practice fasting open to more people.  I don't need to validate what I'm doing, to get others to join in so it makes it seem like it really does make sense.  For the most part I don't care what other people do, or think.  Related to helping other people I make an exception, and then if I can I do.  So I guess all this is a claim that I buy into the health benefits?  I'm a bit skeptical, but otherwise I do.

On to potential benefits.

Fasting may enable metabolic flexibility.  This would allow someone to use body fat energy more effectively, which could apply well to exercise, not just to not eating, although I guess also to being able to skip lunch.  I do seem to experience improved energy level on longer runs.  

I last tested out running four miles on day 4 of a fast, so completely into ketosis, with glycogen reserves long since expended, and that went ok.  I was experiencing minor knee soreness (so probably shouldn't have even ran that), so I didn't try out a longer test.

Fasting reduces insulin resistance:  This actually seems to work; it seems more clearly documented as an actual positive effect.  For people at risk of developing adult onset diabetes--which is a significant risk for me; both of my grandmothers and one uncle developed that--they can reduce that risk through fasting, moderating body weight, and reducing high levels of intake of carbohydrates, especially refined sugars. 

There's nothing necessarily dangerous about all refined sugar intake, per my understanding (which is not necessarily well-informed), it's that it's easy to bump that to very high levels, and then actual risk does come up.  Drinking 32 ounces of soda relates to about 100 grams of sugar consumption, at around 336 calories, or one sixth of a normal day's dietary caloric intake.  That's like eating 6 1/2 apples; which would take longer to digest for all that fiber, even if you could eat that many.  Risk also relates to that being empty of any other nutrient content, to that potentially adding to a positive caloric balance (more taken in than used), and to problems with your body handling the related blood sugar.  Conversion to body fat can occur, and some other negative side effects, and to developed insulin resistance.  

It's probably better to moderate body weight and mind dietary inputs than to use fasting to offset impacts of being overweight and eating a bad diet.  Or doing both is an option.  Maintaining significant muscle mass also helps (not like bodybuilders, I mean average or more than average), for different reasons, especially since muscle tissue stores glycogen (reserve energy), but I don't want to write out too many tangents in this.

Fasting may reduce visceral body fat.  There are tests for this sort of thing, so I could be documenting this (my actual proportion of body fat by location), but I'm not.  The idea is that fat in or between organs is used first when fasting, and that first change is not at all just a cosmetic concern.  Liver function should improve as a direct result of regular fasting, if fat deposits in the liver were an issue to begin with.  How often is that relevant though?  Who knows.  Blood compound markers would show that, but I'm not minding those, and missed my last annual health check at work due to being out of the country then.  

I can add that I've put on about 3 kgs (6 1/2 pounds) over the last two years and my waist size was a little larger a year ago, and then bumping running volume and perhaps fasting dropped it back to where it had been.  Thinking it through storing visceral fat in the form of what is in between internal organs may or may not be a bad thing, but it seems clearer that storing fat within your liver is a problem.

More mental clarity, reduced aging effects:  hard to say about these kinds of changes.  I feel ok, probably a little clearer, but that's hard to track.  Maybe I do have slightly less grey hair than a year ago, which is odd.  I can even sometimes see eyebrow hair change from white to brown again, since those being two colors stands out more--hard to place that.  I've been running more since then too, really keeping up with sleep, exercising a lot more, and my diet has improved a bit.  

And I've ramped up intake of goji berries as a daily supplement; that might've helped.  I finished a kg I bought in mid-June recently, so I seem to be consuming 350 grams or so per month, just over 10 grams a day, a good bit.  Why?  My thinking was that I try to eat a lot of fruit but don't get to that every day, and I definitely can put 10 grams or so of dried berries in hot water and then consume the infusion and fruit, every day, regardless of what I happen to be eating that day.  Supposedly one compound in those offsets aging impact, but even if it's the nutrients in them that are healthy instead that also works.

Fasting may offset cancer

This is a big one, and this tangent runs longer than I intended, since I've been reviewing this subject a good bit lately, just not necessarily in a focused form.  

I have no idea if fasting does really offset cancer risk or assist with resolution, but many, many sources claim that both do occur.  I can't sort out which potential claims work or don't work, or when and how they apply.  From catching a bit of cancer experience related Youtube content--which I'll say more about here--cancer cells do consume a lot of blood sugar, so that a main way of tracking growth of such tissue is to just monitor where the most is being consumed in the body (after you ingest some radioactive sugar; kind of a strange process).  I'm not really caught up on what my cells are using for an energy source right now (it's day 2 of a fast, as I write the first draft, long before posting this), but of course my carbohydrate intake is over, for now.  I'll probably be "in ketosis" later today, whatever that means.  

Autophagy is said to occur during fasting (and it really does, but exactly what that means is harder to pin down).  At a minimum your body consumes internal body fat (of course; how else could you stay alive, since only using muscle tissue as an energy source would make less sense), and it may recycle all sorts of damaged cells.  It's a complicated subject though, one that's hard to sort out.

Someone could easily turn up a lot of content saying that fasting really does offset cancer risk (this is an interesting example), or support treatment / resolution, but how good any of those sources are would be hard to settle.  Cancer isn't just one thing, and experiences would vary, and a topic like that naturally relates to a lot of people repeating what they want to be true, filtering their own reference source input.  A lot of light medical advice looks more solid than it might really be, and a source citing other sources isn't clearly well-grounded until you also evaluate those.  That linked video reference cites a lot of research background, but even for those kinds of sources you need to be careful; you might read only about studies supporting some claim, when conclusions from other studies also reject that connection.

Those cancer related accounts come from running across a Youtube channel about someone experiencing cancer, Paul in Perth, and then the Youtube algorithm showing me plenty more of that since that's how it works.  If you watch one channel about puppies, even if you're not subscribed to it, you'll see lots more of that in your feed there.  It can be a little depressing, watching people talk about dying, but for the most part those stories are about being hopeful and positive when things are dark for them.  To me those people tend to be more inspiring than any other accounts of any subjects.

In a comment I asked Paul in Perth if he could use fasting for cancer resolution and he said that it could have potentially helped at an earlier stage, but for his disease being so far progressed negative effects related to recovery from chemo treatments made it relatively unsuitable (per his understanding, related to his own condition and type of cancer).  

I just saw a video of a guy literally at the end, Daryl, saying that he was signing off since he would die within a day or two, and he was much more positive and upbeat than almost any movie review content.  He showed a box / urn he picked out, shook it, and said "this is light; I guess I'm not in there yet."  A 16 year old girl, who goes by So Fia, ended a long series of posts about her struggle focused entirely on the positive, about her love of life, and appreciation for what she had.  She was so much stronger, braver, and more wise than any other "healthy" influencer type I've ever seen.  The main message is usually one of hope and optimism, about appreciation for life, not fear of death.

None of this related to fasting, to be clear.  None of them even tried it out as a form of partial resolution, although there surely are videos out there about people who did feel fasting helped them, which again would be hard to evaluate, or people trying it and not noticing any positive difference.  

Should those people have tried it out?  I have no idea.  According to health claims within "fasting circles" of course they should have, but personally I can't place that.  There is no clear cause and effect for why they developed cancer, or why others experienced miracle recoveries that they did not, some related to fasting and many more not (the first guy I mentioned a video channel for is still alive; the other two are not).  

In many cases people link cancer experience to high carbohydrate diets (back to hearsay input from cancer patients, to be clear).  Discussion of treatment experimentation comes up more related to keto-oriented diets (more than fasting, I suppose, at least per limited and random sampling).  That's not intended as a claim that generality or that resolution practice is effective, I'm referencing their understanding.  In looking up those video links this content creator thinks his cancer stemmed from a vitamin D deficiency, oxidative stress (from multiple inputs), from alcohol exposure, and a high carbohydrate diet.  Who knows; maybe those were the main causes, surely along with genetics.  

I've skipped including links to people claiming fasting helped them resolve cancer experiences here; even a post focused on that topic would be taking on a lot.  I'd also be careful of trusting what seem to be very well grounded but light information sources online linking fasting with cancer prevention or resolution, of which there are many.  It can seem that if one source might be valid or could be questionable that 10 taken together must be reliable, but many people make videos citing the same studies on mice that may or may not mean a lot related to actual human experience.  They might be generating that content with a slightly different spin mostly to draw viewership, without really turning up any new insights, or in some cases even without reviewing more grounded sources.

Why would I embrace fasting as a means to potentially offset a risk that's not necessarily high for me, when it's hard to clearly determine the linkage that it even works (beyond a lot of claims floating around)?  One partial answer is that I'm discussing potential reduced risk of dying, at a cost of not eating sometimes.  I've spent roughly 20 days fasting over the past year (25, after editing this; I just finished another 5 day fast), and the main cost or impact was increased hunger and reduced clarity and energy level over that time.  All of that was much more moderate in the last fast, and hunger is much more of a non-issue this time too.  People actually claim that fasting improves mental clarity, but what I mean here is that energy level fluctuations have an impact, especially in the first 3 or 4 trials.

Another partial answer is that reduced cancer risk isn't really the main benefit people associate with fasting, beyond weight loss, and it's not necessarily a main reason I'm doing it.  Supposedly--as mentioned--it offsets effects of aging, increases mental clarity (when it's not offsetting it), reduces visceral fat levels and impact, and offsets risks from insulin resistance, lowering risk of diabetes.  Autophagy is another subject I won't really get into here, closely linked to potentially reduced cancer risk, which I've covered more in the past.

Why wouldn't people fast then?  There seems to be a lot of potential benefit, and most people could use to lose a few pounds.  Let's address that separately.  

Why not fast?  Normalizing fasting practice.

In discussing that in a health related thread someone commented "that sounds like complete torture."  There's that; hunger experience is profound over the first few trials.  It's so negative that exposure to a consistent problematic condition like that works as a mindfulness tool, a way of experiencing the present moment differently.

In light of that it would be natural for people not to fast if they aren't sold on any of these benefits, if they have no clear reason to.  I'm only going to mention it to set it aside here but it's hard to be certain any of these claims completely work.  What someone considers good evidence would shift what any individual review would turn up.  If it's only to find documented research of multiple independent findings then maybe that would be possible, but you would still need to interpret what a number of narrow studies really mean in actual practice.

If finding a couple of dozen "health expert" claims and personal experience accounts is enough then that would be an easy bar to clear.  I'm a bit skeptical by nature, so I tend to arrive at probabilities related to what I think is accurate, not necessarily even trying to sort out the final facts of the matter.

Some people might actually regard fasting as posing health risks, although anyone unfamiliar with the subject also couldn't be clear on what those are.  Vitamin deficiency, stomach problems?  The second is mentioned more, when you tell people you practice fasting (per my experience, at least).  

Oddly people who eat continuously throughout the day would actually routinely experience stomach problems, and I never do, because I eat moderate amounts of foods almost entirely as three meals.  That was true before I tried out fasting too though.  I'm unfamiliar with what it's like to regularly experience an upset stomach, constipation, diarrhea, bloating, or any problems with digesting food.  By "regularly" I mean that I might eat something that speeds up my digestion process once a year, or every other year, or that makes me even sicker every half dozen years.  That's not bad for eating a broad mix of local foods in Bangkok.  The rest I essentially never experience.  Some vegetables, legumes and beans, or high protein foods cause gas; that range of experience is familiar, especially as a former long-term vegetarian.

Fasting hasn't caused me any noticeable stomach problems, in those 25 days.  I get hungry, but not like during the first three trials.  That relates more to an empty feeling than other types of discomfort.  Really empty; it's hard to describe.  As of writing an initial draft of this, on day 2 of 5, I could go for most of an hour without being reminded that I am fasting, and the next day maybe even longer, but that's not to say that I felt no negative side effects.  I was hungry, with a low energy level, but I might not notice either for awhile if I'm busy, or even watching a video.

In bodybuilding circles rapid fat loss is very desirable, but muscle tissue loss is a serious concern, so fasting can be applied, but only in limited forms and contexts.  One of the main intros to this subject, that partly led me to explore fasting practices, was from one longevity related "biohacker" bringing it up, and one bodybuilder (Leo and Longevity and "Vigorous Steve," who isn't as far out there as his Youtuber brand name implies, but a little maybe).  

Steve used fasting to rapidly resolve fatty liver disease, even though applying a fasting mimicking diet for weeks cost him plenty of muscle mass loss.  Most of that muscle came back fast, and it seemed the very real health risk caused him to reconsider even trying to be as massive again (the 250 pound or up range, I think).  Leo explored fasting as he did many longevity related pursuits.  Steve feels absolutely certain that fasting does definitely reduce visceral body fat, from experiencing that, and perhaps Leo's direct experiential claims are harder to evaluate.

Most people in a Reddit fasting sub-forum I follow practice fasting mainly to lose weight, which makes sense.  It's a somewhat radical approach, but it should work.  Often people either struggle to make it through 24 hours there or else really swing for the fence and go straight to attempting 21 day fasts, which I see as unnecessarily difficult and risky.  With more exposure people seem to settle on alternating fasting and eating, on a 2 or 3 day cycle, which they might refer to as "rolling 72s," the hour duration.  Since the benefit of autophagy is said to "kick in" after 2 days I would think using a 3 day cycle might be better than 2.  Or 4 would work; for me the second day is hardest in terms of hunger and the third is most disruptive for experienced energy level.  

Few people would be familiar with how fasting isn't as unpleasant an experience after repeated exposure.  I can compare it to how running can definitely seem distinctly unpleasant prior to more exposure than most people would ever experience, and then it's kind of pleasant, even addictive.  I think fasting ends up being more neutral, not so difficult, and definitely not pleasant, but just normal over time.  

Maybe level of discomfort can be comparable to when you get 5 or 6 hours sleep instead of 8 (which I don't do; I need my sleep, and I put my time in with sleep deprivation working night shifts when younger and raising young kids after that).  For many people that's a normal trade-off, a way to go through life, so that eventually they wouldn't even notice feeling a bit hazy and off, after their body adjusts to it.  At this point I'd much rather not eat for a day or two than try to function on 5 hours sleep.

My take on fasting benefits

I've really not been clear on how many benefits I buy into here, or which I seem to directly experience.  That only works so well because the largest scale benefits you can't pin down, like reducing cancer or diabetes risk.  Maybe I'm mentally clearer, but that's really hard to track too.  So many things factor into that.  My experience of digestion can't improve because I've never had problems, but it hasn't worsened.  

Resetting my diet to a somewhat healthier form has definitely happened, but oddly I was eating a really healthy diet a year ago, before a first trial.  There were a few snacks to shift to a healthier form, and I could've dialed in generally healthy food intake to a level that may be a bit extreme, and did so.  I think all of that has supported taking my running habit a lot further over the past year, but again inputs and outcomes are complicated.  I know that I've ran between 15 and 20 miles a week for all this year, but I can't trace that directly back to diet improvement; maybe I could've did the same eating worse instead of better.  I feel like it helped my energy level when running, the metabolic flexibility theme, but who knows.  

It's too bad I skipped my annual health check-up last year, due to being out of the country when my company conducts those, and probably will again this year; that would be a good way to track some change, potentially, and undergoing that is a good idea in general.

Fasting has changed how I experience an urge to snack between meals, which was always somewhat limited.  I had switched from eating a bit of chocolate--or potato chips, if they were around--to some mixed nuts between meals around a year ago, and after fasting I tend to snack as a habit even less.  Fasting highlights how much of that practice relates to immediate triggers, like seeing something, or to boredom, and it can become more normal to drop out both cycles.

In conclusion...

Fasting is an option?  But then it always was.  

I've taken up and set aside a lot of atypical practices over the course of my life, and it's interesting considering why others don't do those things, or when maybe more will, or I guess in some cases to what extent I'm making any sense at all.  I was a vegetarian for 17 years, which I ended about a dozen years ago, due to not putting the right effort in to get it to balance, and experiencing immune system problems.  Since then it has become a lot more mainstream.  

I was into rock climbing in the early 90s, and thought this is so cool it will have to "take off," not noticing that it being gear intensive and difficult would probably prevent that (and has).  I explored Buddhism for many years, but then I always knew that was for my own reasons, that there was never going to be broad uptake.  This being a tea blog of course that pattern applies to that beverage choice too.

Fasting will probably never really have its day as a broad trend, at least not in the immediate future.  People only need to skip breakfast and lunch to see why it's not a standard option; you get hungry.  That gets worse on day two, even if it's much diminished on a third or fourth fasting experience.  "Biohacking" is much more approachable; taking a lot of supplements and drugs.  I get it.  I'm not on that page myself but I get it.

I reset to a healthier diet but it's still based on normal food

Adapting to running in heat, related to training in Bangkok

my local running route, a track around the nearby Royal palace

I saw a text content post about how to approach running in heat recently, from a favorite Youtube video channel source, Believe in the Run, with that post here.  

Their advice was all pretty standard stuff, but definitely good advice, about running in clothing that wicks moisture well, wearing light colors, running in the morning or evening to miss the hottest time of day, wetting clothing or a hat (which makes all the difference for desert hiking), and even running in the rain.  Other points were perhaps less practical but still worth considering, like trying to run in the shade.  There's a sidewalk beside the running or biking track where I run and I do switch over sometimes if one part is better shaded, which varies based on direction of the sun.

that sidewalk under repair (left) has been mostly completed since

I've written status updates about my training, last about running longer distances in Honolulu a couple of months ago, bumping my local route from 7 km to 12.  Heat wasn't much of an issue there; it could get up to 88 F or so (31 C), but with generally lower humidity and an ever-present breeze even running in the mid-day sun felt fine.

From running in Bangkok I had some ideas to add to that Believe in the Run content I mentioned, commented there as follows:

I've been running in Bangkok, as hot and humid as anywhere, and a couple of extra points come to mind. You need to stay on top of electrolyte replacement, not just after a run, but as a supplement routine based on estimated extra demand. Heat can be treated as another conditioned tolerance, like running at altitude, so adding exposure to the hottest times can help, just in moderation, building up. Easing pace helps, but you condition to an amount of exposure, with distance and time going together. 

There's one unique feel to learn to recognize, the early stage of heat stroke. It's not unlike normal fatigue but not the same. Your energy level might not drop that much, and breathing speed up a little, but beyond those you can feel when it's enough. Running relaxed helps tolerance.

From seeing videos about this topic recently (it's the peak of the Northern latitudes summer) I've been considering the subject, which really hit home moving from Honolulu to Bangkok again a bit over a month ago.  For the first two weeks I was just re-acclimating to the heat, conditioning to be able to run here again, building up tolerance and distance.  To some extent that's ongoing; lots of days I'll quit after 4 miles (6 km), instead of running the usual 6+ miles / 10 km, if I'm out in mid-day and the heat is getting to me.

Of course for people tracking heart rate--which I don't do, even though that makes sense--there's a decent chance that heat stress would spike that, so it would be easy to see when the effect is kicking in.  I still think it would be best to monitor internal feel, since how you react to heat stress as an input seems to vary a good bit outing to outing.  Heart rate monitoring alone might not protect you, and noticing impact in other ways could help.

When I was younger I would hike in the desert in Utah on vacation when it would get up to 115 F (46 C); the rules and effect is different during hiking, when it's much easier to moderate intensity.  You could carry large bottles or jugs of water frozen, to drink cold water, and to carry a cool pack, I just didn't because I was camping on those outings, of course without bringing a freezer.  That Believe in the Run article mentioned that trick, that you can bring ice, and it can cool you through body contact through a pocket.

It's a lot more of a balancing act when running than when hiking.  Intuitively running slower would help, but it only helps so much, and you have to be acclimated for that to work in Bangkok heat and humidity.  It's a relatively cool and cloudy day outside now and it's 90 F, for example, 32 C, and if it happened to be sunny it would've been more like 35 C in mid-afternoon, on towards upper 90s.  Checking the next day it's now 86 F at 9 AM (30 C), with the daytime low above the 25 C (78 F) version of room temperature here, even though it's the rainy season, not hot out by local standards.

it is nice running that route at sunset, when it works out like that

my old Diamondhead loop (Honolulu) route at sunset; a bit nicer

I run when it fits my schedule, versus a cool time of the day, and it's odd how often that's at noon, on a lunch break.  I'm not a morning person so before work is out, and I can't run right after eating, so evening time gets limited by dinner plans.  When you have kids your schedule just isn't your own to dictate, period, and what everyone else is doing factors in.

So what else did I miss in that comment?  It's a bit of a false parallel comparing heat training to altitude conditioning, even though in part that works.  Extra red blood cells aren't going to help you, and there's a limit to your body acclimating to operate at a higher internal temperature.  "Running relaxed" is a funny subject theme, one I was just considering out on my last run.  You can shift how your body reacts to the experience with practice, slowing breathing pace and reducing internal tension, even without cutting pace.  

There wasn't that much "how to" in those comments.  It would help to not run "out and back" routes when time or distance exposure issues aren't clearly determined; it would seem odd to run half of an 8 mile route here and end up taking a taxi back.  I run two versions of local repeating long loops so it doesn't come up, here.

Replacing electrolytes becomes critical when it's hot; there's a lot more about levels and approach to get to.  That's familiar ground from dabbling in fasting over the past year, and something that I've just seen an interesting reference for in a Reddit running group post, here:

...some people have done some research to see what electrolytes the average person loses in sweat.  SaltStick claims:

"The average persons sweats a salt ratio of 220 Sodium to 63 Potassium to 16 Calcium to 8 Magnesium."

That's a ratio of:

Magnesium: 1x; Calcium: 2x; Potassium: 7.875x; Sodium: 27.5x

That goes on to compare a large number of electrolyte supplements, and I suppose many drink versions, based on those forms of replacement being universally accepted in running circles.  A Reddit fasting sub reference takes a different approach, and explains daily requirements and varying approaches for using other mineral replacement forms, for example using potassium based salt substitute mixed with water.  In fasting circles people focus only on replacing sodium, potassium, and magnesium, generally, but a friend once mentioned that calcium level falling out of balance with those others could be a problem.

To me it makes more sense to try to guess about extra demand and add that back into your diet gradually, day to day, than to try to immediately replace an estimate of exactly what a long run just expended.  I take magnesium and calcium as supplement pills, and use a potassium based salt replacement, at times drinking that and salt mixed into water, after longer outings.  Using that approach your electrolyte levels can stay a bit high, beyond that periodic dip, but as long as you drink plenty of water overshooting intake wouldn't be a problem, because your kidneys could keep removing the excess.  Staying very hydrated is critical anyway; I try to gradually restore water balance over each day as well, versus drinking a lot just before or during a run.  I do try to consider when I'm going to run and drink half a liter or so of extra water a half an hour before an outing, just to be on the safe side.  

Even though I'm often running 10 km (6 miles) in extreme heat and humidity I don't drink water while out; I hydrate before going out and drink immediately after.  That's about as far as I think that approach would work, under those conditions; for quite long runs drinking water while running would be necessary, and adding electrolyte supplements.  Per following running social media content, like that Youtube channel, lots of runners tend to love adding extra products and gear to their routines, varying drinks and energy gels, or more recently a "legionnaire's hat" for extra shade around your neck.  I'm definitely in the other group, not buying or collecting any extra stuff or using much for supplements.  I've developed a running shoe habit; that's about it.

another favorite running channel, Kofuzi's

missing my new addition and favorite pair; this includes my son and daughter's shoes

my favorite shoes, ACIS Novablast 3, but I really like the New Balance 1080 too

One important part of adapting to running in the heat is liking it.  If you absolutely hate the experience it would be natural to avoid it, and it all would never click.  Relaxing would be harder.  In discussing heat acclimation, in travel or expat threads, I often mention that a big part of adapting to heat, in general, is to keep experiencing it.  Living out all of your daily routine in cold air conditioning will then relate to struggling with the change when you go outside.  Going for a walk is perfect light contact, or working outside, or just being exposed to indoor natural temperatures.  It's crazy to me how so many of the aspects of daily life that we've dropped out seem relatively ideal for maintaining good body mobility, activities like hanging out laundry to dry.

It can help to reset AC temps higher, which would also save on a utility bill, setting that to 26 to 28 C here instead of 22 (closer to 80 than 70 F).  For many that would defeat the purpose; my wife (who is Thai) would much rather sleep at 22 C than 26 (closer to 70 than 80 F), and for her limiting cooling to 25 already is a compromise.

How would someone develop a love for being really hot, which is almost objectively a negative state of being?  I don't see it as so different than adjusting to the experience of running, which doesn't come naturally to most people.  You can walk first, then run slowly, and later even higher levels of exertion become pleasant, on some level, and then you crave it (in general, or maybe even when it's hot).  No one craves running in the mid 30s C / mid 90s F, in high humidity, when the early phase of heat stroke experience enters in before long, but it can normalize as an internal experience, more than it might seem possible.  

Just as that higher degree of exertion, just the running, feels unpleasant without acclimation if you never experience heat exposure in any positive context of course it's going to seem bad.  Outdoor childhood play can lead to acclimation early on, but it would be harder to identify with later on.  For the longest time my Thai family was happy that I didn't die on runs out on hot afternoons; it's also a cultural convention here in Bangkok that you should avoid the heat.  Only in a few cases did I experience hitting a wall on runs, experiencing part of what they were concerned about, significant physical distress.

where we live in Honolulu, from Diamondhead; lots of nice running routes