I did an 8 day fast. Yes you read that correctly.
I learned about taking control of my health with fasting, from my brother Benj. I've always had pretty bad allergies and hay fever, and one potential benefit of an extended fast is that it resets your immune system. So I thought I would try it out to see if it helped with my allergies or anything else.
The first day I ate an avocado, and the second day half an avocado, to kind of ease into the fast. So I technically had only 6 days of no calories, and 8 days of very low calories.
I didn't find it really too difficult to not eat, but the biggest downside was that I was somewhat weak/sluggish/low energy a lot of the time. That would supposedly not have been as bad if my body was more "fat adjusted", i.e. more used to using fat as energy instead of carbs, if I had been on a lower carb diet before starting the fast.
Other observations:
- I lost 14.4 pounds (!). Benj says it will probably snap back partially, since a lot of the loss is from glycogen in the muscles (or something?).
- My sleep wasn't too bad, surprisingly. I was expecting it to be harder to sleep with no food.
- I swam laps every day. Sarah didn't think that was a good idea, but that was actually the only time in the day that I had much energy, while I was swimming.
- I had a fair amount of heartburn. I tried an antacid pill one day, but I didn't want to do too much of that in case it disrupted my immune system reset.
- Sarah was very bothered by the ketogenic smell of my breath. She said I smelled like fingernail polish remover. I didn't notice it myself.
- I haven't seen too big of an improvement in the hay fever since I finished the fast. Hopefully there are other latent benefits.
