Reflections on a Three-Day Fast
As we prepared to wrap up our June editorial focus on fasting, and realizing that we would be closing Tuesday with an introduction to the #3DayCancerPreventionFast, Lisa and I decided do a three-day fast this week and share some tips and observations you might find interesting and helpful.
Tip #1: Start your fast with a low-carbohydrate meal.
We officially started the 72-hour timer at 7:22 p.m. Sunday evening, after having feasted on a large chef salad featuring chicken and hard-boiled eggs, along with lettuce, red peppers, avocados, parmesan cheese, roasted sliced almonds and this poppy-seed dressing.
I think I had six or seven hard-boiled eggs on my salad, and you'll note that none of the ingredients listed are high in carbs. When I tested my glucose and ketone levels before bed Sunday night using the Keto-Mojo meter, my ketones were at 0.4 mmol/L, which is just slightly below the generally recognized level for nutritional ketosis, 0.5 mmol/L.
I've done these three-day fasts at least 10 times, and they're much easier when I begin in fat-burning mode: I'm just not as hungry. I also get to deeper levels of ketosis more quickly than I do when my last pre-fast meal is high in carbs.
Tip #2: Exercise to Deplete Your Glycogen Stores
This time I ran a couple of miles Monday after work, not quite 24 hours into the fast. Ideally I would have done this Monday morning, perhaps 12 hours into the fast, to accelerate the plunge into deeper ketosis.
The idea behind somewhat vigorous exercise at the start of the fast is that your liver and muscles store a finite amount of energy as glycogen, the sugar-based fuel for your body. By exercising in a way that depletes glycogen, you force your body to begin burning fat sooner.
Tip #3: Stay Busy
It's much easier to not eat if you're actively distracted. I started Monday morning with a round of golf, and then ran and used the sauna after work, when I otherwise would have been eating dinner. On Tuesday evening Lisa and I drove to Rochester for our grandson's baseball game. Staying on the move like that was helpful, because we were away from home where we would normally be eating at that time.
One complicating factor: there was a food truck at the game, which some of our family members also in attendance enjoyed. Tempting but not unbearably so.
Tip #4: Stay Hydrated and Maintain Electrolyte Balance
As you burn through the glycogen and go deeper into ketosis, your kidneys increase urine excretion along with dissolved electrolytes such as sodium, magnesium and potassium. I regularly take magnesium supplements (one in the morning and another before bed), but I increase the dosage during an extended fast. I also use LMNT electrolyte packets in my water at least once a day.
Tip #5: Ensure Effectiveness by Measuring Your GKI
We recommend the Keto-Mojo meter, and have an affiliate relationship through which you can save on purchase of your meter and first batch of test strips.
You can sync your meter to the Keto-Mojo app on your smart phone, and it automatically calculates your Glucose Ketone Index (GKI), which measures the depth of your ketosis.
Your body won't produce significant ketones as long as your blood glucose levels are high. The GKI is the ratio of glucose in your blood divided by the ketone levels. A GKI of 6-9 is considered a low level of therapeutic ketosis. A moderate level is 3 to 5.9, and lower than 3 is high-level ketosis.
Ideally with a three-day fast I like to maintain my GKI at 1 or lower for at least 24 hours. This is based on my understanding from Professor Thomas Seyfried that cancer cells are unable to use ketones for fuel, so by greatly reducing blood glucose and elevating ketones I put stress on any cancer cells in my body, making it easier for my immune system to eliminate them.
If you want to save on your purchase of a Keto-Mojo meter and support HELPcare Foundation at the same time, use this discount store link.
Observations from this Fast
We weren't hungry. Because we are accustomed to eating within a 4-6 hour window each day, and because we started with a low-carb meal, we never really experienced hunger or cravings during this fast. We felt empty, and food was appealing, but that emptiness was actually pleasant, because it reminded us of what we were accomplishing.
Starting the fast with a lower GKI would have been helpful. Lisa and I eat low-carb most of the time, but we had stepped off the wagon with Pizza on Friday night. Our decision to do the three-day fast was kind of spur-of-the moment, so we only had a couple of days of low-carb eating before we started this time. Ideally we would have been on a keto diet for three days before beginning the fast. We would have gotten our GKI below 1 sooner.
We drank only water, black coffee and LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte supplement that contains sodium, potassium and magnesium (see Tip #4 above.) Note that we also stock and sell LMNT at HELPcare Clinic.
We broke our fast with a low-carb, ketogenic meal to continue the benefit. By eating low-carb we avoided a rise in glucose and maintained deep ketosis until this morning, and my GKI was 1.4. By noon today my GKI will have been below 3 for 48 hours.
Here was my fast breaker:
It's important not to have a large, high-carb meal after an extended fast, to avoid wild electrolyte swings. Eating a ketogenic meal is the safest way to break your fast.
Closing Thoughts
We're not recommending that everyone should do a fast of this length, but we hope sharing this at least encourages you to consider some of the less-intense versions of fasting.
Fasting has been a normal part of human life for millennia. Our western diet in the last couple of generations is what's abnormal and unhealthy.
Fasting is just one element of HELP: The Health, Energy & Longevity Plan. I hope you'll request your free copy and also access our free HELPcare Coach eLearning course.
If you want more personalized help in lifestyle changes to improve your metabolic health, we offer HELPcare Coach services either separately or as part of HELPcare Clinic membership.
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Every worthwhile thing in life is hard before it is easy, but the biggest reason for that is fear / apprehension about the unknown. It is very important to remember that virtually every American adult carries 2-3 days of energy as glycogen (the body’s starch, a source of glucose) and, even among quite thin persons, at least a couple weeks of energy as fat. Each pound of fat contains approximately 4,100 Calories of energy. It is an extremely rar person whose activity level is intense enough to require even 3,000 Calories per day. Therefore, most American adults could “easily” manage fasts that are even much longer than 3 days if getting sufficient water, vitamins and electrolyte minerals. The 3 day fast is simply a good periodic practice to enhance health in so many ways! HELPcare can help you succeed!
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