48-hour Fasting

[Siim Land]

How many of you are doing fasting?

I've been doing 14-16 hours of intermittent fasting every day for 5 years now. I also do at least one 24-hour fast a week and occasional 48-hour ones. 

The benefits of fasting are quite amazing.

• Autophagy - self-digestion that cleans accumulated waste and repairs cells on the mitochondrial level. Also, it's needed for healthy brain cells.
• Longevity - in mice, fasting increases life span. There have been also experimental studies about rejuvenescence, which is basically reversing an organism from adulthood into its embryotic state. Possible effects on humans as well.
• Growth Hormone - the Holy Grail of longevity and leanness. It increases by an astonishing 1300-2000%. It helps to build muscle, lose fat and also makes your skin clean, smooth and less wrinkled.
• Ketosis - while fasting you increase the production of ketone bodies by 5-fold. You become a fat burning machine, which has more to do with mitochondrial density and energy levels, instead of losing weight. Because of that you won't be burning muscle while fasting either. In fact, you reduce muscle catabolism to a bare minimum.
• Increased metabolism - fasting doesn't lead  to a metabolic crash. It actually speeds it up by 3-14%. 
• Protection against tumors and cancer - in mice, intermittent fasting leads to cellular suicide of cancer cells, while protecting normal cells. This happens because of when in ketosis, there's no sugar for disease  to feed upon and they starve. Not definite evidence that fasting could potentially cure cancer, but it definitely will increase your resistance to it.

The benefits of fasting will be even more profound after the initial 36 hours. Autophagy revs up exponentially especially after this mark. I would recommend people do a 48 hour fast at least a few times a year. I just recently finished one of mine. I didn't even get hungry or lose muscle. In fact, I feel like I set the perfect environment for enhanced recovery, because of triggering these anabolic hormones.

If you want to know how to survive a 48 hour fast, then you can read my blog post with my 2 day fast formula.

Anyway, what's your relationship with fasting? Intermittent fasting is very popular, but what about several day fasts?

[Jelly_Shades]

I've been planning to fast for a week after reading up on it. I have some odd digestion related flukes, and my symptoms don't seem to match any sort of defined digestion diseases and doesn't even fall within the IBS category and have been trying to fix it for years, but nothing has worked. Maybe fasting will. Is 48 hours the longest you've fasted?

[Siim Land]

@Jelly_Shades I think fasting will definitely benefit your situation. Your gut will be completely cleared and if you drink only water, your entire organism will be cleansed. Although ,the most beneficial adaptations occur right at about 48 hours. I've gone 3 days max.

[Paul EMD]

@Siim Land Hey very interesting post, great motivation for fasting! I'd be really interested in doing intermittent fasting as well. What's your meal schedule usually? 

Thanks!

Edited August 11, 2016 by Paul EMD

[Siim Land]

@Paul EMD I'm doing about 15-17 hours of fasting daily. About 2 times a week I go for 24

[Richard Alpert]

I sometimes skip breakfast and have 15 hour fast. my body doesnt work that well in the morning and for me it is not a problem not to eat in the first few hours of the morning. But if i workout in the morning i have to eat after that, or the workout is pointless.

I have been planning to do 1-2 day fast maybe every once a month / once a 2 month