Since 2011 I have been fasting off and on, usually when my weight goes up and feel crappy I do some fasting. In the past my fasts were very typical 16-18 hours 3-4 days of the week. I had good results in this method and it was very easy to eat in that large non fasting window period, like all things I stop doing it after awhile and start eating more. Around 2013 I read a great book called “Eat Stop Eat” by Brad P., this book explained how to fast for 24 hours a few days of the week and eat like regular on the non fasting days. I really liked the logical information on various subjects mainly the insulin, growth hormone, and even muscle maintenance.
Basically you cannot lose weight if you are high in insulin or taking it, so people with type 1 diabetes taking insulin are in an endless loop of fat storage worsening their condition, but making doctors and big pharma rich. Your insulin rises after you eat and because people eat all the time they are always in storage mode basically then the insulin they secrete is not as effective due to loss of sensitivity, fasting restores this. An early fasting lesson was taught to me while I was in my 20s, back then I didn’t think anything of this but many guys at work fasted for Ramadan. I would go out and eat with them at night and they would eat like crazy then fast during the daylight. All of them were much older than me and everyone of them lost so much weight during that time, later in life remembered how they fasted and was intrigued more.
So a few times in the past I explored fasting even longer for 24-43 hours, which was my best until last week when I did 48 hours. I have always had borderline high blood pressure even when I was skinny and in my 20s, I think its stress and anger issues internalized for some of it. Most is due to some belly fat from my poor travelers diet, I could never be hugely obese because with just a few pounds 20-40 extra I get very pathetic health wise. Most current belief is fasting for 36-72 hours is superior than short intermittent fasts, but much harder to do so I would start with lower duration fasts. at first. There’s this neat process called Autophagy and it starts deeper into a fast past 24 hours they say, look it up its very interesting.
Now I’m older and have to watch things much closer and my best overall health strategy is water fasting 36-48 hours at least, slowly adding more hours each week I fast. Typically fast all week and eat a decent meal and start up a new fast right after. The greatest benefits for me seem to sky rocket after 30+ hours, if I workout I get this started a bit faster. Yes you can workout when fasted, its actually the best time to since your body is full of growth hormone which also releases fat into the blood stream for energy. Anyway I was browsing the latest info and came across this very good video that hit nearly all the notes except how and why you will not lose muscle when fasting, that you can read about in “Eat Stop Eat”.
You’ll notice how this doctor explains many of the negative rumors are just not true, when we get sick we fast for a reason it heals us. I believe this all to be true because of my own years of fasting practice. My blood pressure goes normal, I lose weight very fast, everything basically falls in place. All I do is buy a huge case of water and drink that during my fasts, you can also have black coffee but I like to rid of caffeine too just during my fasts. Just drink water, after 30+ hours you might get a headache/cramps if you do add a pinch of salt to your water. This is all standard info, but I parrot what works for me.
Check out this amazing video.