Tuesday - afternoon
Experienced some pretty good fatigue today, I forgot to take my sea salt this morning. Makes a huge difference when you are water only fasting.
To explain a prolonged fast on water only (versus other types of fasts where you are still eating calories but limiting yourself to certain foods or not eating certain foods for religious purposes), will take a minute. I have done extensive research on this subject over the years and I find nothing harmful about water only fasting at all. Neither do the scientists writing the journals, the health care sites writing about the benefits of fasting and other resources.
There are side effects of course. The most notable one is keto flu. This occurs on the keto diet when you first start it if you haven't prepared yourself for it, but it can also happen when you are on a prolonged water fast for your body goes into ketosis regardless. The first time I tried keto, I was flat on my back for 10 days. It was pretty bad and had many of the same symptoms of the flu. You can experience weakness, fatigue, dizziness - well you get the picture.
The benefits, however, are amazing. Joint inflammation will be greatly reduced. Insulin resistance goes way down, this is a huge benefit for diabetics but anyone trying to lose weight. Heart health and blood pressure are improved. After around day 3, you go into autophagy, which is recycling and cellular cleansing process, you can just look it up more than I want to go into here. After I think 4 days stem cells are, well I'll copy and paste a little info here:
Immune System Reboot: Prolonged fasting (typically 48–72 hours) breaks down older, damaged white blood cells. This depletion triggers hematopoietic stem cells to generate a new, healthy immune system. [1, 2, 3, 4]Intestinal Regeneration: Research from MIT News indicates that while a 24-hour fast forces intestinal stem cells to burn fatty acids instead of carbohydrates, it is the refeeding phase after the fast that sparks a massive surge in regenerative capacity. [1, \Blood Stem Cell Rejuvenation: According to Columbia University Irving Medical Center, fasting-refeeding cycles can reset the metabolism of aging blood stem cells, making them function almost as efficiently as young stem cells. [1]I can't get rid of the dots now lol. Whatever, it gives you an idea of what can happen in your system when you are fasting and stem cells are affected. It has also been shown that if you are going to receive chemotherapy for a cancer condition, a prolonged fast before you get the chemo will aid cellular degradation and keep your immune system at healthier levels. You can also grow new brain cells, amazingly enough. Remember, this is prolonged fasting I am referring to here, not intermittent fasting. There are more beneficial side effects but of course you are going to drop weight. You can't help it, your body runs out of glucose and it starts feeding on your fat for energy. Bypassing the stomach altogether and giving it a break from eating as well. Although I have no intention of doing this, I have read testimony from several people over the years who went on a month long fast and noted that at the 21st day, their vision clear up to 20-20. It actually fixed their vision somehow. No, I am going to just try to make it to tomorrow night and then if I feel like I can do it, go another day and if that happens, another and then quite on night 5. Fasting basically gives your body a chance to start fixing itself, plain and simple. Doctors don't want to tell you this stuff because they live off of you coming in there and getting endless prescriptions and checkups and pharmaceutical companies want you taking their drugs forever. They want to treat the symptoms, they don't want to fix the problems which most of those pills can never do. This guy here is the ultimate in fasting knowledge, this is just one of many videos he has on youtube, if you are interested in learning more, this guy and Dr. Berg - you can look him up he has a ton of videos on it as well and they are both doctors - will give you the lowdown of fasting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw8wMELZ5dI
