I’m planning to do my first 3-day water fast during a “deload” week March 4. So I figured I’d start a thread posting how it goes.
My goal is autophagy (versus fasting for weight loss). For my fast, I’m debating if I should do
- Strict water (and salt as needed). This of course is the least debatable approach.
- Allow black coffee. Supposedly coffee can accelerate autophagy. I’m thinking that since I’m already in ketosis, I could skip coffee without issue.
- Include vitamins (I take a ton of vitamins and herbs, lol) and supplements (creatine, beta alanine, hmb, betaine). I’m pretty obsessed with making sure I always take my supps every day. I’ll at least have to skip the fat-soluble vitamins, since they won’t be absorbed.
I follow a lot of biohacking folks on social media, and they seem to be all over the map. Some say anything < 50 calories won’t knock you out of a fast. Others say that coffee and supplements have phyochemicals that the liver has to process.
I’m thinking I should just go strict with just water; it seems to be the safest bet.
Anyway, any of y’all done a multi-day fast? If not, join me…it’ll be fun 
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4 days of fasting…DONE! First time ever trying a multi-day fast. I was only going to do 3 days, but after a huge Brazilian barbecue dinner on Saturday, I decided to start my fast a day early (Monday instead of Tuesday).
Here’s my results:
- Restrictions: No caloric intake. Only water, salt, and black coffee. I wanted to forego caffeine, but the lack of sleep hit hard. So I had to incorporate black coffee into my regimen. Plus there are studies that show caffeine accelerates autophagy (which is a goal of fasting).
- Sleep: Crappy every single night. Had trouble falling asleep for about 2-3 hours after going to bed. Folks report how great their sleep is when extended fasting. Not me though :P. However, this was a particularly stressful week for me, which may have been a factor. My stupid Oura Ring sleep tracker died on the first day of the fast; so I didn’t get any hard sleep numbers
- Energy: Pretty low, but I 100% attribute this to lack of sleep.
- Mental Clarity: I had full mental clarity throughout the week.
- Mood: I was stressed all week, carrying over from last week. Can’t attribute that to fasting.
- Hunger: Really not bad. I learned that food is really a boredom pacifier for the most part. My hungriest times were the second day (which a lot of folks agree), and the last night (knowing I’m going to eat the next morning)
- Blood pressure: Went up over the first 2 days. Peaked at 145/95 or something. Then “bottomed out” at 130/83. Still not great. Leads me to believe that my BP is more related to stress than food (salt, alcohol, potential inflammatory/allergic foods)
- Ketones: Peaked at 4.7 this morning before I ate
- Blood Sugar: 60 this morning before I ate. Lowest I’ve ever seen it.
- Weight: Started 169.6, Finished 163.6. Most of this is water and GI mass, of course. Folks typically lose .5-.75 lb per day in true body mass. My goal wasn’t weight loss.
My first meal after fasting: 3 scrambled eggs, butter, and guacamole, along with a kale/berry smoothie. I was the least hungry of all days this morning, and actually thought about skipping breakfast.
Over all, I think it was a good experience, and I plan to do a 3-day fast on my de-load weeks (once every 5 weeks). If I start to lose strength and muscle mass (I really shouldn’t), I’ll make adjustments. So many studies show the benefits of fasting, too.
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I 100% agree on the eating from boredom. I did keto and 18/6 - 20/4 last year for about 6 months and after about a few days I noticed that the hunger wasn’t bad at all. Started keto OMAD a couple weeks ago and made the mistake of telling a couple people at work that I only ate a big ass kale and spinach salad and half pound of ground beef with ALL the fat/drippings over 6 scrambled eggs with cheese and pico. He looked at me like a had a penis growing out of the side of my head, priceless. Meanwhile I look down and that dude had a belly that looked 8 months pregnant.
I may try a 48 hour fast sometime in the near future. OMAD really isn’t hard at all. I’ve found that after a while your body learns when to expect food. Right now I only get hungry about an hour before my OMAD. Anyhow, good job…
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lolol!
Do you do OMAD when you lift? I only do OMAD on my rest days, otherwise 17/7 on my lifting days.
As for 48 hours. You might as well take it to 3 days. The second day is the hardest. The 3rd day is when it really starts to get easy (not just me saying it; it’s the “consensus” of lots of folks). On day 5 when I broke my fast, I had no desire to eat that morning…it was weird!
I do a lighter weight/higher rep on Saturday and Sunday and open up on the fasting to around a 4 hour eating window. Then I do a higher weight full body on Wednesday and stay full OMAD during the week. Most of my workouts are fasted. Sucks getting old, haha.
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I just finished my second 4-day fast. This time I recorded numbers on it…
I used my Oura Ring to monitor my sleep during the fast. Honestly, I’m a little disappointed with the results, especially HRV.
- Heart Rate Variability went up a little (which is good), but it’s still pretty low, which sucks.
- Resting heart rate and respiratory rate went down since my body isn’t working as hard. Plus it is going into a preservation state with a slightly lower metabolism during the fast.
- Folks rave about how their deep sleep time goes way up. Not for me
- Total sleep wasn’t really impacted (my first fast it got worse).
My blood numbers looked phenomenal this morning!
- Glucose: 3.8 mmol/L (68 mg/dl)
- Ketones: 4.5 mmol/L
Weight dropped from 172.4 to 165.2. Of course, most of that is water weight and undigested mass in my GI tract. Also, my weight was a couple pounds high when I started, likely due to inflammation of some sort, which immediately fell off after the first day.
That will be my last 4-day fast. I was supposed to do 3, but I felt like I had extra inflammation that I needed to eliminate; so I threw in that extra day. I will only be doing 3-day now on my de-load weeks.
Oura Stats
(It’s a long image, vertically. You’ll probably have to download/save the image to really see the full image in detail)
End Fast Ketones
End Fast Glucose (68 mg/dl)
BREAK…FAST! 
It was very interesting to read your entire report. I’m thinking of doing the same. I’ll keep an eye on you. 
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