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Fasting


mightyboosh
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Does anyone ever do a non-religious food fast for a day or two? I do now and again as I am today. I've read it is good for a normally healthy body now and again.

I usually do if I've pigged out the previous day. 

I still drink my normal 10 100 coffees during the day. 

That reminds me, I've recently started using a coffee creamer with them and it's rapidly becoming a must when I make one. It can't be good for the body because it tastes too good to be healthy.

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1 hour ago, mightyboosh said:

Does anyone ever do a non-religious food fast for a day or two? I do now and again as I am today. I've read it is good for a normally healthy body now and again.

 

In my opinion: the biggest benefit gained from a fast is autophagy.  Autophagy is induced by reduced or insufficient intake of nutrients.  That leads to cells creating membranes that seek out damaged or dead cells and uses them for energy to create new cells.  It is a cleanse of sorts but should not be put in the same category as "juice cleanses" or "kale cleanses" or whatever other nonsense cleanse is being promoted today

 

Autophagy also should not be confused with being in a catabolic state where "muscle starts to eat itself."  Autophagy is simply a matter of the body recycling damaged cells and using existing protein parts to build new and functional proteins.

 

Autophagy and and reduced inflammation are great reasons to consider the occasional fast.

 

As for my personal experience: I pretty much stay on an intermittent fasting schedule in which I have a 6-8 hour window in which I eat.  I'm not on a diet per se, I've just found that to be the schedule that works best for me.  The amount that I eat during that window fluctuates from day-to-day.  On days where I eat very little, usually following a day where I have consumed more calories than normal, my energy levels are good and I feel like it gives my system a chance to regulate itself.  At the risk of sharing too much information, it is not uncommon for me to poop more on days when I eat very little but drink a lot of water.  It's not a bad idea to flush things out from time-to-time.

 

All that being said...experiment and tune in to your body.  A nutrition plan that is perfect for me may be awful for someone else.  

 

One closing note: ask yourself why you are considering a fast.  If it is for genuine health benefits, I think a prolonged fast 2-3 times a year is a good thing.  If you're doing it for weight loss, I would advise against fasting.  Fasting for weight loss has a way of reinforcing a bad relationship with food that only prolongs the downward spiral of unhealthy eating habits.

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  • 6 months later...

I try to fast every day for at least 16 hours although I am currently relaxing that for the early days of my quit.  I am looking forward to doing multi-day fasts again.  I'm afraid to do it while I'm on the patch.  Likewise, I was afraid to do them while I was smoking.  However, during my previous two-year quit, I did quite a few multi-day fasts, my longest being five days.  I can do up to three days pretty easily but after that, it gets more difficult.

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