Fast notes

Completion of three-day fast

I completed my three day fast last Thursday, and, as I recall from last time, the third day was much easier than the second. My main mistake was not carrying a huge bottle of water around with me the entire time. I drank tea several times during the first two days and it made me feel better each time, but I think the issue may have just been dehydration in general. Having something in the belly to keep the stomach from grumbling helped as well.

In general, I believe that I was in much worse condition when I started this fast. I’ve been drinking a lot of sugary drinks lately, and was probably closer to ketosis that I have been recently, so the problems I had those first two days were likely accountable to that factor.

Breaking my fast in the evening this time seems like it may have been a better for me in some respects, but I think I may try to time it for breakfast the next fast since it’s probably easier to finish the last few hours while sleeping instead of going the entire day and trying to kill those last few hours while preparing for the first meal in three days. In my case it was Pad Thai, dumplings and rolls, followed by everything I could get my hands on for the following hours. I’ve been scaling back into my time-restricted fasting schedule, and am going back on my regular 11AM-8PM schedule starting now.

100 days alcohol-free

Thursday was also 100 days alcohol-free for me, which is probably something that hasn’t happened since I was a teenager. I don’t know if this means I’m a teetotaler now or what. At this point it’s not about drinking so much as it is about spending my money on alcohol. It’s not like I threw out my liquor and wine — I still have a couple unopened bottles sitting on the hutch that I’m saving, but at this point the habit of not drinking has its own momentum. And although I haven’t thought about it too much, being on caffeine and staying up late working on code or whatever is a much better feeling the next morning than staying up drinking.

Fast notes

So we are almost 44 hours through our 72 hour fast, or about 60% of the way. I’ve been struggling a bit today, but I don’t think I’m feeling as bad as I did yesterday. I was very cranky and weak yesterday, but I don’t know how much of that was just due to the weather and the fact that my kids were being extremely obnoxious.

One thing weird happened this morning to me that is worth noting. When I was in the shower this morning and closed my eyes, I saw an afterimage. I stared at it, still with my eyes closed, and it took on a very distinctive shape, and became very vivid. But the strangest thing about it was that it retained its position in space as I moved my eyes around. Normally, when looking at an afterimage in physical space, it seems to move as the eyes move, but this did not. And the pure distinctiveness of the image was very remarkable. I could see it and look at it. I opened my eyes and closed them a few times to see what happened, and the effect persisted for some time.

Now, I’m pretty sure that no, I wasn’t having a stroke, but I was still pretty jarring. Some research suggests that afterimages are formed in the brain, not in the eyes, so what I experienced doesn’t make me think that there’s something wrong.

Other than that, I’ve been trying to keep my belly full with water. I had a couple energy drinks yesterday, which was a mistake; I had some heart pounding after the second one yesterday afternoon. Today I just had tea and coffee and things seem OK. Heart pounding after getting up or going up stairs seems to be similar to what I experienced last time. I had 500mg of melanin before bed last night and slept well, I’ll do the same tonight.

I don’t remember how I managed to do this last time with the kids around. I think I may have done it during the weekend. Part of my crankiness last night was due to the fact that my kids wouldn’t stay at the table and kept getting up or trying to bring food into the living room, which they know is against the rules. I understand why Dr. Peter Attia doesn’t like to fast around his kids. Nothing is more annoying than a small child crying that they’re starving less than two hours after you’ve served them dinner.

Thoughts on completing a three day fast.

So there’s been a lot of talk about the benefits of fasting. I’ve been doing time-restricted fasting for serveral months now just as part of my regular diet. I usually don’t eat until after 11AM, except on Sundays when family comes over for breakfast. I’ve been wanting to do a longer, 3-day water fast for some time, and after a 24-hour water fast a week ago, I decided to start a full 3-day one earlier this week.

My last meal on Wednesday was some chicken wings and mixed nuts for lunch around noon. Probably not the best meal, but to be honest my decision to go ahead with the 3-day was a bit unplanned. I had been thinking about it for some time, so I did manage to prepare. I picked up some magnesium supplements, and some melanin to go with the L-theanine. Since fasting can cause the autonomous nervous system to ramp up, I wanted some things to help calm me down so that I could sleep at night.

Day one wasn’t too bad, ignoring my stomach wasn’t too difficult to do. Day two was a bit more rough. I tried to stay active, and did some yard work, but I could tell I had real low energy. I needed lots of breaks. The bit of hedge trimming I did after noon into the third day was absolutely brutal. I was miserable.

The morning on day three wasn’t too bad, and before I broke fast I tried to do my standard 30-minutes of daily meditation, but it was hard. I knew it was the only thing standing between me and my lunch, and all I could manage was to lay on the floor prone for that time until the bell rang.

I broke with some tree nuts, pistachios, walnuts, and the like, as well as a deli chicken sandwich wrap. It was DELICIOUS. I’ve been pigging out all day today: huge Thai dinner; ice cream for desert; and a bag of popcorn earlier. I’ll have a big breakfast tomorrow and then it’s back to usual.

I plan on doing these 3-day water fasts at the 3 and 6 month mark. I heard that the long-term changes really go into effect after the third time, and I want to see if this has any impact on my chronic cholesterol issues.