Experiences with FMD/multi-day fasts

[floramaria]

Last may I started doing these 120 hour fasting cycles within every 14 days. Didn't have the sleep issues. After 6 or so cycles (I've now done 11), I would start yawning around 8 PM, put on my amber glasses and go to bed around nine, so something in the cycles seems to have reset my circadian rhythm. Likewise, my gut has been screwed up for at least 13 years. This is despite eating 50-60 g fiber daily and all sorts of prebiotics and probiotic. After each cycle, my gut has gotten better. It is not perfect, but dramatically better than when I started.

Hey there Tincup! This whole thread is really fascinating. I am only doing long overnight fasting at this point, but might consider a multi-day fast sometime, since it has been remarkably easy to reduce my "feeding window". The circadian rhythms reboot and the improvement in gut health are compelling reasons to try.

[Tincup]

Hey there Tincup! This whole thread is really fascinating. I am only doing long overnight fasting at this point, but might consider a multi-day fast sometime, since it has been remarkably easy to reduce my "feeding window". The circadian rhythms reboot and the improvement in gut health are compelling reasons to try.

Posted this in another forum for an update:

So at this point, I've water fasted 120 consecutive hours out of every 14 days for 11 cycles since 1 May. I am intentionally weight stable when viewed from the first day of a cycle to the first day of the next.

Just did a DEXA scan on Saturday. My BMI is 24 and my body fat was about 16%. I'm 62 and I'm in the 1st percentile for my age for all limbs and my trunk for body fat. Also have a T score of 0 (meaning my bone mass is the mean for 30 year old men). Most would think my diet is low protein. I also continue to increase my load and time under load on a "super slow to failure" workout I do on the 5th day of the fast. Did one of these when my serum glucose was 31 mg/dL (1.7 mmol/L) and serum ketones at 6.

The most interesting result from this fasting is that my gut which has been screwed up for many years under all types of diets incrementally improves after each fasting cycle. It is now close to optimal. Also my circadian rhythm seemed to reset. Lastly, my lifelong autoimmune conditions improved about 80-85% when I went on Gundry's plan several years ago. The fasting has improved this even more, to about 95%. I'm guessing all are related to the gut biome getting reset somehow.

[SusanJ]

Hey Tin, the gut reset is what I notice even after a 24 hour fast. For me, I think it's related to histamine. The gut releases a lot of histamine in the process of digestion. Histamine is a signaling molecule that also ramps up the immune system. So anytime I can reduce histamine loads, I'm better off, including much more clear headed (hence the theory about histamine).

One also sees confirmation of improvement of RA patients in fasting studies - patients improve, but then return to symptoms when they start eating again. But none of the studies I'm aware of looked at long-term benefit of repeated fasts. So, there's where I'm heading for my N=1.

Eventually I'll try a longer fast, but I have to get my BMI up first. Fung and Moore say don't do extended fasts if your BMI is under 20, so I have a weight goal to reach before I get to the multi-day fast. In the meantime, once a week, I'll do a 24 hour fast because I can recover my weight enough in a week to not drop too low.

Great discussion everyone!

[NewRon]

Hmmm....Doc just rang.

My LDL has increased from 3.5 (135) to 4.4 (170) over the course of two weeks, 5 days of which were on the Prolon diet.

HDL stayed at 1.33 (51) and trigs dropped to 0.7 (62).

White blood cells and neutrophils dropped too, from a slightly low level to even lower but I think that's a feature of the diet.

LDL rise is confusing, though.

More details when I get the full results.

[Stavia]

Hmmm....Doc just rang.

My LDL has increased from 3.5 (135) to 4.4 (170) over the course of two weeks, 5 days of which were on the Prolon diet.

HDL stayed at 1.33 (51) and trigs dropped to 0.7 (62).

White blood cells and neutrophils dropped too, from a slightly low level to even lower but I think that's a feature of the diet.

LDL rise is confusing, though.

More details when I get the full results.

NewRon, LDL increase whilst fasting is predictable. Mine went up from 3.5 to about 5.5mmol/l within 5 days on a Longo-type fast. Started rising on day 3. It's temporary. I'm not sure of the mechanism. Tincup explained it on our long fasting thread that I cant find cos Im on my phone.

http://cholesterolcode.com/the-fasting-disaster/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10539776

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[Stavia]

viewtopic.php?t=2735

here you go NewRon. Our inaugural fasting thread

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[circular]

Hey Tin, the gut reset is what I notice even after a 24 hour fast. For me, I think it's related to histamine. The gut releases a lot of histamine in the process of digestion. Histamine is a signaling molecule that also ramps up the immune system. So anytime I can reduce histamine loads, I'm better off, including much more clear headed (hence the theory about histamine).

One also sees confirmation of improvement of RA patients in fasting studies - patients improve, but then return to symptoms when they start eating again. But none of the studies I'm aware of looked at long-term benefit of repeated fasts. So, there's where I'm heading for my N=1.

Eventually I'll try a longer fast, but I have to get my BMI up first. Fung and Moore say don't do extended fasts if your BMI is under 20, so I have a weight goal to reach before I get to the multi-day fast. In the meantime, once a week, I'll do a 24 hour fast because I can recover my weight enough in a week to not drop too low.

Great discussion everyone!

Susan, so interesting on so many fronts I relate to! I don't have RA but my mom does and I have some elevated genetic risk for it so I pretty much think like I have it. I've been contemplating monthly 24 hr fasts, but weekly hadn't occurred to me. You're the first I've heard someone doing it and finding it worthwhile. Does your productivity drop during the fast? I think you're more keto than me these days which has an influence. I'm scheduled to go keto again tomorrow after a blood draw on my current diet, so maybe I'll finally start with at least a monthly 24-hour fast and see what happens.

Any benefit for tinnitus? That is such a stubborn one.

[Tincup]

Any benefit for tinnitus? That is such a stubborn one.

Not yet for me.

I was hoping the whole shrink/rebuild with stem cells might help. However fasting a mouse for 2 days results in a 20% body weight loss vs. maybe a couple % when I do a 5 day fast. I wonder if fasts have to be much longer to upregulate stem cells. Guido Kroemer said fasting a mouse much longer than 2 days can result in death. My sense is Valter Longo treats the humans much more gently than the mice & humans may not get the same benefit.

[SusanJ]

I don't see productivity drops, but I tend to do more physical stuff (house cleaning, yard work) to distract me. Haven't tried to do any intense brain work. 24 hours is quite doable. I haven't done once per week yet - it's been irregular so far. But plan to start this weekly and see if its doable with regards to maintaining weight and how I feel. But so far, I just feel better (which I attribute to less inflammation).

Tinnitus, hmm, haven't noticed anything major. But I'll pay attention in the next few weeks and see what happens.

[Sandy57]

Tin impressive stuff, especially bone mass. Two things of note. Please be very careful about exercising to failure with a blood glucose of 31. Even with high ketones at the end of a fast. I am sure Gundry would not approve of that. In fact I would be shocked if he did. Do you know of Lyle McDonald? Several books, expert on keto, expert on most things diet and exercise. He is fine with depletion exercise at the end of 16 hours in his cyclic diets, but never during long water only fasts. Heart muscle is taking a hit along with the other organs that are shrinking. Rhythm changes are notorious, at this point. I know you take a lot of electrolytes, especially magnesium, but conduction changes can occur easily. None of my business, and you are a beast no doubt about it, but please don't overdue during this time period.

Another point and you already addressed it somewhat; do you believe any of the positive changes are actually from stem cells? Or from just giving your gut some quality time off. Very interesting to me. I agree your health (gain) benefits are from the gut improvement. Finally, Dr G got you to 85%, then long fasts 95%. Do you think you could have achieved the same results with other hacks like : laser therapy, light therapy, saunas, prebiotics, probiotics, Eastern medicine modalities, herbs, and finally fecal microbiota transplants. Great job George, keep the data flowing like the engineer you are. Nobody better for hard data than engineers in my opinion.

Frank