Often the most powerful approach of a doctor to help heal is nothing. Fasting is an ancient healing modality linked to every religion and culture across the globe. Animals do it when they’re sick for the same reasons humans should. Our body has an innate healing intelligence.
The benefits we discuss below generally require a five-day water fast or a five-day fasting-mimicking diet. Although the benefits of shorter fasting, or intermittent fasting, are still good, the body transitions into fat-adaptation usually around day three. So, give it five whole days.
Water Fast day 1.
- If you’ve prepared for a 5-day water fast, then day one generally is relatively easy.
- Before taking on a five day fast, it’s a good idea to get into intermittent fasting, as well as diet variation that will incorporate 24-hour fasts into your regular eating cycles.
- Sleep on day 1 is typically better than normal since your body is not dividing its energy between digesting and the other functions that happen while you sleep.
Water Fast day 2
- bouts of ‘hanger’, no matter how much preparation you have done.
- This is a result of your blood glucose levels dropping and your ketone levels rising.
- This is the hallmark of a fast: the shift into fat-adaptation, whereby the body is burning fat (ketones) for fuel instead of sugar (glucose).
- Body is used to glucose for sugar, brain especially reliant on these sugars for rapid fuel. Second day can bear some brain fog and mild mood swings or energy dips.
- Day 2 is generally the hardest day as your body transitions into ketosis. By the end of day 2, if you can get by, you’ll make it all 5.
- The sleep of night 2 probably the most disturbed out of all 5 days since the body is under the stress, hormone cortisol, of low-glucose without having fully transitioned into ketosis.
Water Fast day 3
- Brain adapting to burning ketones, thinking more clearly than ever because ketones burn clean.
- This clarity is one of the largest benefits of the fast; there is very little waste of this fuel source.
- These deep benefits of high ketone levels, which include clarity but also immune-boosting, gut healing, and more, require a high dose of ketones that simply isn’t available on a ‘keto diet’.
- By the end of day 3, your body may start to get cold. Keep warm! Water Fast day 4
- Most people experience major autophagy, whereby body eats out ‘bad’ cells (senescent cells) first, to use for energy and survival during a fasted state.
- These cells are inflammatory, sluggish, and essentially old or damaged, which are then replaced by a surge of fresh stem cells once you re-feed post-fast.
- Today you should feel on top of the world, and around day 4 you should feel like you are capable and wanting to fast ‘forever’.
Water Fast day 5
- Stem cell rise is peaking. Today when you break the fast it’s crucial to do so properly.
- go slowly by eating very soft, easily digestible foods such as berries, soft avocados, and veggies that are steamed or blended.
- A little coconut oil or olive oil can be good as well, but consume just a little bit at a time.
Beneficial to wait few days before adding meat back into your diet. Your digestive system has just rested for a very long time and needs time to adapt back to processing food again.
I use charcoal during the fast to absorb toxins, without an effective binding agent like this, there’s always the risk of re-toxification. Fasting Strategy for Detoxification & Longevity
