Category: fasting

In the last few weeks I have done quite a bit of fasting. Feb. 22 I started some alternate day fasting then most recently completed a 4 day fast.

Fasting starting from February 22 – March 6th, 2020.

1. 66 hours then 2 days of eating
2. 41 hours then 1 day of eating
3. 39 hours then 1 day of eating
4. 36 hours then 1 day of eating then…
5. 97 hours (4 days of no food)

279 hours over 2 weeks

Why did I do this?

To help heal injuries namely my knee and shoulder. I tore my knee close to 10-11 weeks ago and the shoulder was probably from November when I did that last judo competition.

I received some damage in that one in my shoulder and eye.

I think my knee is getting better, but shoulder is really sluggish.

I often eat within an 8 hour window. And the longest fast I’ve done prior to this was 3 days (83 hours) in San Fran.

Anyways WHY FAST?

People fast for different reasons like to:

• lower inflammation
• improve metabolism
• promote cell turnover
• decrease your risk of cancer
• improve your immune system
• increase your life span (if done regularly)
• lose weight (but it will come back if you don’t change your eating habits)
• improve cognitive function (decreases chances of or symptoms of Alzheimers)

But I did this mainly to help heal injuries.

Because…

1. It increases stem cells (24, 48, 72 hour+ fasts have all proven to increase stem cell regeneration in different systems in the body).
2. It increases growth hormone (1 day, 5 days or more will send your daily GH levels up higher than if you were eating, but lowers IGF-1.)

And some other things…

More details on those in my course named Healiscus. That’s about how to heal your knees if you injured them and (especially a torn meniscus).

Anyways…

After that 66 hour fast I felt some improvement in my knee.

In the past since 2015 I’ve done a handful of fasts around 66-81 hours, one day a week fasts, and for the last year+ eating usually within a 4-8 hour window.

The 4 day fast (97 hours)

This is the longest fast I have done so far, previously it was 83 hours.

So I had been doing an alternate day fast (which probably made it a little more difficult to do) and kept reading about the benefits of a 5 day fast or fasting mimicking diet. I was going for 5 days, but didn’t make it as you’ll see below.

I didn’t eat on Sunday and then I ate on Monday and stopped around 9pm. I was planning on just the alt day fast but, decided to push.

A little further…

Day 1

Rode my bike down the river towards the south of Sawara-ku and then up the mountain to Bozu waterfall (13km). Felt ok.

Never realized it was that far, but it’s mostly a nice ride if you go down Muromi river as there is a bike path along the river.

The last part of it was up hill so with one speed bike I was walking. I almost turned around several times, but kept saying let’s go a little further.

Needed a dose of nature.

Saw a quirky house and a cool little bamboo forest.

Most of the mountains in Fukuoka are covered in Cedar trees that look like they were planted.

Saw signs of Kanayama, Mt. which was 6km and another for Bozu falls which was 1 km so I went that way.

Here’s a picture.

Here’s another…

But I think cause I had been doing this alternate day fasting I was feeling a little hungrier and lower energy than I normally would on a 24 hour fast.

I didn’t eat but I drank green tea.

Day 2

Today was low energy. All day I have felt low energy. Noises were loud and people annoying.

I didn’t drink green tea which also might have had an effect. I didn’t get a headache though which is a typically caffeine withdrawal side effect.

I went for a few walks down the river and out once looking for lactase and then a little hike to a temple on a hill which is nearby and less than 1/2 mile or so.

Lied down a bunch.

Felt dizzy and wobbly at times.

Day 3

Now it’s like 62 hours into a fast. Been up for an hour, feel o.k. It’s sunny. I’ll probably go out for a walk and do some yoga first.

Yoga was somewhat more difficult than usual. Thinking about the foods I want to eat. Thinking of walking to the store to get some green tea.

Then drinking it maybe decaffeinating it. If you let the tea soak a bit (some say for a minute) then dump it out and then infuse it again it will have less caffeine. The first infusion has the most caffeine.

Some say caffeine may interfere with some of the effects of fasting and others don’t. Some studies say green tea promotes autophagy, yet I don’t know about the stem cells and growth hormone.

Although a quick Google search shows autophagy helps stem cells.

And that’s what I am after. Yesterday was no green tea. Today we’ll see.

So we got some tea, and I decaf’d it pouring off maybe 70% of the caffeine so they say. I feel slightly more crisp or sharp.

I feel better.

So I learned that if you fast and you normally drink tea or coffee then if you want to do a water fast then the best thing to do would be to cut out your caffeine intake a few days before you food fast otherwise you are going to have 2 shocks to your system.

Or just drink it.

The other thing I have been doing the last 2 days is a lot of massage with my aluminum bottle (kinda like a foam roller) and tennis ball.

These are very neglected.

Things I should be doing way more often. I realized all the effin’ pain I have locked up in my legs. Muscular tightness, pain and imbalances.

After a few sessions I feel like I am walking different.

I feel like I got some things done today. I wrote quite a bit. I’ve been working on a new ebook. And I updated some other stuff on ESLinsider.

The feeling I’ve had is somewhat of an aversion towards people noises etc. Kinda like how I usually feel, LOL, but a little more extreme.

Kinda like when you are sick or I was also reminded of psilocybin mushrooms – how I felt averse to people, but without the paranoia.

Now it’s 10:47pm and I feel o.k. Not struggling or feeling very weak. Going to get off line here soon and sit in my little DIY sauna I made with a small electric heater and the built in heater in my room and a tarp.

Yes, it’s kinda ghetto.

But works o.k. not quite hot enough actually a third heater would be better. See you tomorrow.

Oh I forgot to say I noticed I have a bit of acne which is surprising as I haven’t eaten in 73 hours. Some suggest it might be the hormones in fat since I am now running on fat.

Glycogen gets burned off most say in around 24 hours.

Day 4

Today started at 3:00am. I woke up at 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep. It was very cold. So I browsed the internet a bit and tried to go back to sleep, but didn’t work.

Was it the caffeine from yesterday?

Maybe partly. So I decided to go for a walk. And I hiked up Atago temple and a took a picture about 10 minutes before sunrise.

Going to write a bit, drink tea and then probably take a nap.

I tried and we dozed for about 10 minutes and then that was that. Did a little yoga, a sweat, a little work, and some massage.

Also got some buckwheat tea. It’s quite nice. It tastes a little like genmaicha with that roasted rice flavor, but there is no green tea in it. I like it.

Flavor.

MMM…

And no caffeine.

That’s good.

Because I need some sleep.

Felt very annoyed with people today when I went to the store. I wonder is it some sort of intuition or is it just hunger? I saw some guy say on Reddit that he felt more intuitive while fasting.

Hmm, I wondered, but was skeptical.

I feel definitely more irritable. I have no desire to talk to people or be near them. It’s 3:31 and it’s been about 91 hours. This is the farthest I have been.

Still shooting for tomorrow night 9pm. That will be 5 days.

And then we eat.

Food sounds orgasmic. Yet, I am kinda o.k. now. Stomach is fine.

It’s 9pm and I took a nap for a few hours. Less than 24 hours to go. 96 hours completed. Feeling kinda ill.

Day 5

I was intending on fasting today, but last night I started to feel very sick. I tried meditating and couldn’t really do it. I couldn’t maintain my focus.

I felt nauseous and I couldn’t sleep. I noticed whenever I have a bad night of sleep during a fast it makes it much more likely that I will break that fast the next day.

Could have been caffeine in the tea from the day before because I drank some later in the day even though I ‘decaffed’ it.

So at about 10pm (97 hours) I was craving salt and I took a handful of spirulina and then I made a soup with: nori, wakame, spinach, shiitake mushrooms, fresh parsley, salt, pepper, MCT oil and olive oil.

It was very delicious.

But I had to take it slow as I was afraid of throwing it up.

Fortunately I didn’t. And then a little while later, I made a stir fry with chicken, eggs, some of those same vegetables and nori.

It was great.

Then some milk, blueberries, and ground peanuts.

Bit by bit I started feeling better.

I slept o.k.

Woke up a few times once at 3am and had a little milk and berries.

And this morning I went and got some good grano padano cheese. I got a craving for it last night.

I felt a little weak riding my bike and I had to go a few miles down a noisy busy road to get it. The local places don’t have good cheese like that.

In Japan and everywhere else I have lived in Asia you’ve got limited options for good cheese.

And then for breakfast I had:

• Grano padano
• Matcha
• Blueberries and walnuts in milk
• A grapefruit (tis the season here for white grapefruit, mmm)
• Ground peanuts
• Cacao and stevia

Yum, looking forward to more food today. Fasting gives you an amazing appreciation for food. It’s like that saying…

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Another benefit of fasting

This is purely subjective. People do fast for spiritual reasons, but I think an extended fast can give you some insight on your problems.

I did a Google search for:

spiritual benefits of fasting

Then I got a whole page of results with titles “god” this and “god” that. So to get rid of results that you don’t want to see you put a “-” in front of the word like “-god”.

So I did.

And then got a bunch of “allah” listings, so I put a “-allah”. Searched again and that got rid of the “allah” results.

Like this:

I guess to some people spirituality is synonymous with “religion” although most of those people (with a fixed mentality) would never call it “religion”.

Anyways one thing I realized is that for a prolonged fast it would be best to be somewhere tranquil. Kind of similar for psilocybin.

Not the kind of thing you want to do in a busy place. I don’t think so.

I found people and noises to be annoying.

I found myself crossing the street to avoid people.

Lately I really enjoy watching the ducks. There are lots of different kinds of sea birds in Fukuoka that are nearby and that I see everyday.

But I have a new appreciation for ducks.

And in Fukuoka there seems to be different kinds of ducks.

Ducks can fly, swim, go under water, walk a bit and they’re cute especially when they stick their heads under water and their butts up in the air^^.

And I wondered about the ducks life as I watch them float out on the sea. What are they tuned into?

And speaking of search results…

I found this to be funny.

If you start doing a lot of research into fasting then you are likely to find Valter Longo who is well known for his research on fasting and cancer and his 5 day ‘fasting mimicking’ diet (calorie restriction).

So I did a search with his name and at the bottom of the page looked at the search results which I found to be funny.

Searches related to are search queries that are based on what people are searching for. And I thought the “valter longo wife” and “valter longo married” were funny.

Why were people searching for that?

HAHAHA.

Ian’s over and out.

Feeling better.

Shoulder, legs and knee. The combination of massage and fasting have me feeling rejuvenated.

I have tried many different diets and in this video I go over which ones I have done and which ones made me lose weight.

Vegetarian (10 years) 00:58
Vegan 03:27
The ketogenic diet 03:58
The Plant Paradox diet 05:14
The Warrior diet 08:46
Various fasting & time restricted feeding diets 09:40
My current diet and feeding schedule 11:30
KEY MESSAGE if you want to lose weight 16:08

And I wasn’t actually trying to lose weight, but that’s what happened. My intention for trying the different diets was to optimize my body and get in the best shape possible.

I think they all affected my current diet which is 95% vegetarian and that’s just my natural diet.

I was a strict vegetarian for 10 years (about 20-30 years old). In that time I didn’t eat any meat. And for much of that time I didn’t eat eggs either.

Periodically I have tried vegan diets and cutting out the dairy and eggs. But honestly I didn’t notice any changes.

I did the ketogenic diet for 6 months. It was difficult to transition to and it took like a month or so. I might have lost a bit of weight initially, but when I came off of it I weighed the same as when I went on it.

I didn’t notice any difference in performance after I had been on it for a few months either.

I tried the Plant Paradox diet too and I didn’t really notice too much of a change. However, I think I did cut back on eating night shade vegetables. I didn’t eat that many but I don’t eat any more now.

I never had problems with them.

There are foods like that.

Like wheat. I never noticed any problems from eating wheat, but I have read a lot of negative stuff about it so I rarely eat bread or pasta.

These days for carbs I eat mostly sweet potatoes and bit of rice flour in this kind of pancake that I often make with sesame flour, egg, cinnamon and sometimes raisins.

I have done different kinds of fasts too. I started with the Warrior Diet and that took off some weight, but I didn’t stick with it for very long as it was tough.

Then I did occasional long term fasts 2-3+ days which help stimulate autophagy.

And then for a long time (like a year or more) I did once a week fasting for 21-24 hours. It might have been good, but it didn’t take off weight.

Then I would also frequently not eat in the morning and do time restricted feeding.

So what really worked?

That takes me to where I am now. Fukuoka, Japan. I decided I would try some fasting and training while in a fasted state.

What do I do?

I get up, drink tea and work on my website for a few hours and then I ride my bike to jiu-jitsu which is 6km from my house. Then I train jiu-jitsu for 1-2 hours and then ride to Japanese class. Two days a week I also do a simple body weight workout usually after jiu-jitsu or sometimes after class.

After Japanese class I ride my bike home.

When I get home it’s somewhere between 4 and 5 and then that’s when I start cooking and eating. Then I’ll eat a lot of food between then and say 10pm at night.

I do that probably about 4 days a week or so.

So the bottom line is that I exercise in a fasted state. I don’t eat anything until much off my daily physical work at least is done.

It’s not that hard.

It’s the hardest in the morning sometimes when I am at home. But after I start riding my bike, doing jiu-jitsu and going to class I am usually not thinking about food.

But…

Yes, I am excited to go home and eat.

Tea helps me too. I drink matcha early in the morning and then rooibus, barley tea and sometimes others.

Anyways. I am just sharing on what I noticed to take weight off from me. My waist line feels a little tighter and there is less fat. I never had much fat to begin with, but more than what I have now.

Maybe 5-10 lbs as I used to weigh about 158, but the other day when I weighed myself I was 68.5 kg with my gi on in the morning and they say you weigh less in the morning.

Fasting makes you really appreciate food. I think this was my second or third 3 day fast.

This time I drank ginger and astragalus tea in the morning, water and a little plain mineral water. So for some it’s not that strict of a fast, but it was pretty good for me.

Anyways…

The first day was like normal. I stopped eating at 4:30 on Saturday which is not that unusual. Usually I will stop on Sat. somewhere between 6-8pm and then not eat until 6-7pm on Sunday. But this time I decided I’d go longer.

The first day was a bit harder than the second day. I felt pretty good on the second day. So good that I even went to Jiujitsu and by then I hadn’t eaten anything in like 50 hours.

I kinda wanted to see how I would do. I did surprisingly well. In fact I felt rather euphoric and happy. I had plenty of energy and I didn’t pass out or anything. I might have been slightly weaker, but it wasn’t too noticeable to me.

I even felt great after class. I was wide awake, but.

The problem came when I stayed online writing past 11pm which is like the magic time to get off for me. If I stay on longer than that then it’s pretty likely I am going to mess my sleep up.

I was right.

I hardly slept.

I kept thinking that if I ate something I would fall asleep. I slept like maybe 1-2 hours. So I woke up not feeling so good. I couldn’t sleep so around 4-5am I just got up and started working online.

I took a short nap in the afternoon and just wasn’t feeling so good. It was then when I decided what is the point of all this????

So I ate a little.

I was hoping for 5 days, but…

Fasting is good for autophagy. Something like when your body starts eating itself, but not muscle or anything I think it’s like dead cells.

• Fasting is supposed to help healing.
• Fasting for 3-5 days is supposed to stimulate stem cell growth when you start eating again.
• It’s good for your immune system.
• Fasting is supposed to help increase growth hormone.

Some people do some intermittent fasting before working out.

Your body can burn fat for energy.

It’s pretty cool. I feel good. Thumbs up for fasting ;-).

I fasted for 2 plus days and this is what happened…