Note: This page is a work in progress. If I’ve missed anything or if you have any questions, comment at the bottom, or send me an email. In time I want this to be a comprehensive one-stop page to answer all questions for people interested in prolonged fasting.
Fasting is when you don’t eat any food/calories for a certain period of time. You only drink water and supplement with electrolytes.
Learning how to employ a fasting regimen in your life is an almost guaranteed way to achieve and maintain perfect physical health, which includes basically guaranteeing you’ll never get cancer or any other serious disease for as long as you live. There are many stories of people who were diagnosed with terminal cancer, or any other number of serious diseases, who completely healed themselves with a regimen of prolonged fasting. Use the yandex search engine to find them as the mainstream engines don’t want these kinds of stories spreading. And prevention is much easier than reversing disease.
Fasting is the easiest, cheapest way to achieve and maintain your dream weight and body fat percentage. And it’s better than free – you save money not eating for periods, and on preventing future health crises. You don’t need pills and medications and all the rest of it. You just need to stop eating sometimes and let your body do what it knows how to do, which is to heal everything that needs to be healed.
When you stop eating for 2+ days and your body gets a break from digesting all of the food you’ve been piling into it, it has the opportunity to redirect its attention and energy to healing everything that needs to be healed, and you don’t have to do a single thing other than not eat. You don’t even have to know what’s wrong in your body. Just fast, and your body fixes everything.
The sicker and fatter you are, the more and longer you’ll need to fast to heal. At first it will be strange, and probably a little difficult. But once you get a couple fasts under your belt, you’ll know from experience that what I say (from experience) is true. You’ll feel your body healing itself. Your inflammation will disappear. Brain fog gone. Fat melts away. Anxiety gone. Everything improves! All you have to do is fast.
I’ll explain everything I’ve learned over the years, I’ll summarize some of the science behind it, and provide resources so you can do your own research and figure out how fasting can fit into and improve your life.
Important: You should absolutely not do a prolonged fast if you are pregnant or lactating, underweight, have a history of eating disorder, have type 1 diabetes or are on insulin/glucose, have a history of gout, or have advanced kidney/heart/liver disease. Speak with a naturopath if one of these is the case.
My Experience
I learned of intermittent fasting many years ago, which is basically eating all of your day’s food in a short window, within 4-8 hours, and not eating outside of that window. The 3 meals-per-day idea is such complete horseshit. It makes me angry.
When your body is constantly digesting food 24/7, you simply cannot achieve anything close to peak or optimal physical health. Period. We were not designed to eat that way!
So I’ve been intermittent fasting in some form or another for probably over ten years. But I learned of prolonged fasting I believe in 2021? Years ago anyway, and I did a couple 48 hour fasts, and it was fine. But nothing profound.
I did my first 7 day water fast a few years back, and the results were truly profound. I just felt my body healing years of bullshit that I had never given it the opportunity to heal because I was eating all day every day. Days 5-6-7 of that fast, not to get too graphic, but I was still having bowel movements, to my surprise, although nothing solid of course. But what I smelled in the bathroom on those days was exactly like chemical waste. Just a toxic chemical smell, and I knew that my body, all on its own, was getting rid of decades of toxins that were stored in my gut. And I was elated – I didn’t want anything that smelled like that to be in my body, and now it wasn’t. And I felt physically amazing afterward, better than I ever remembered feeling. From the end of that 7 day fast to present, I have committed to doing them at least once each quarter, and I know on a deep level that this practice will completely prevent me from getting cancer, or any other kind of serious disease, for the rest of my life. Prolonged fasts are truly a cheat code in this human life.
If you stop eating for a while, your body has the time and energy to heal everything that needs to heal. Our bodies are fucking amazing! Just get out of the way for a bit, yeah?
As I write this, I’m on day 13 of a 14 day water fast. I’ll edit this all in the future, but just wanted to get this written since I’m posting on TikTok daily during this fast. The difference between a 7 day fast and a 14 day one is not much to be honest. After around day 3 the physical hunger disappears, which is very strange to experience. It’s simply a mental battle against the desire to eat, but there’s no need to eat, if that makes sense. Honestly I’m not sure I’m interested in doing another 14 day fast in the future unless I get fat/sloppy again, which I’m not planning on ever letting happen. The difference between 7 and 14 days is really nothing profound, just extended/increased benefits of the 7 day fast. Fat burning, mental clarity, reduced inflammation, etc. If you’re extremely overweight, you can fast for much longer since your body has tons of stored energy on it, and it’s obviously best to get rid of all of it until you’re at a very healthy, sexy weight. This can be done all in one long fast, or by breaking it down over a year or whatever you want.
What to Expect Day by Day
You can certainly dive right into a 7 day fast, but it might be better to start small. Go without eating from dinner to dinner for 24 hours. Easy. Then try a 2 or 3 day fast. Then 5. Then 7. Etc. Or just dive in. Most people start small though, and it’s a good idea. Once you do your first 7 day fast, you’ll realize how easy 2-5 day fasts actually can be.
This is a broad, generalized overview of what to expect day by day on a 7 day water fast. You’ll notice benefits from the beginning, but in my experience, they compound as you get closer to 7 days. And now having a 14 day water fast under my belt, the benefits of a 7 day fast just increase the longer you go. Fat absolutely melts off of your body. Bloating is gone within 1-2 days. Inflammation is completely nonexistent. Mental and spiritual clarity peaks and peaks and peaks. For me, the real key is getting past 3 days, at which point all physical need to eat disappears, and you need only battle the mental desire to eat.
I hear a lot of people talking about how they love doing 72 hour fasts. That’s great, but I’m thinking, “Dude, that’s the hard part! Why not go longer when you’ve already endured the worst of it? And you’re missing out on the most profound benefits by stopping after 3 days!” Days 4-7 are really easy as long as you know about electrolytes, which I’ll keep repeating forever.
Day 1
Your body burns glycogen (stored sugar), you urinate more and drop a few pounds of water. You’ll be hungry around your usual meal times, but the hunger passes especially if you take a pinch of salt with water, or take some electrolytes. Day 1 is typically the toughest as far as the physical need for food goes – meaning the experience of your body asking you to eat some food. It’s breaking the habit of eating all the time.
Day 2
Glycogen mostly gone, body starts metabolizing stored fat and producing ketones, which are a superior form of energy to glucose. Ketones “burn” cleaner – you have more energy, a clearer mind, all things good. This is the basis for the “ketogenic” diet you’ve probably heard of which basically means low or zero carbs and sugar, high fat and protein. This form of metabolism is how our bodies were designed to function best. At this point, hunger comes in waves, and salt and/or electrolytes will vastly reduce any kind of discomfort when hunger or anything else undesirable manifests.
Day 3
Ketosis “clicks” – ketones are now your main fuel, and your body gets better at sparing muscle. Hunger pangs reduce, mind clears, breath might be gross, you will probably feel cooler (body temp). This is around the time when your body starts really honing in on healing. Since it doesn’t have to expend any energy on digesting food, it redirects its efforts to autophagy – clearing out damaged/bad cells. Basically, your body starts putting all of its energy into healing. You’ll notice vastly reduced if not eliminated inflammation, and inflammation is the underlying cause of many or most physical ailments.
In my experience, day 3 is the most difficult – my desire to eat is high, I’m still getting used to ketosis, my mood wavers quite a bit. I’ve abandoned several intended 7 day fasts on day 3. As I’ll continue to say because it cannot be overstated: taking electrolytes immediately upon noticing any discomfort will help massively within 20 minutes.
Day 4
This is the beginning of the good stuff. The physical sensation of needing to eat is gone which is something that’s hard to believe until you experience it. Only the mental desire to eat remains (which can actually be stronger than the physical need to eat – you’ll see). The bloat is gone, inflammation gone, head is clear, mood is great, you just feel light in body, mind, and spirit. And this only amplifies in the coming days. Dream activity is vivid and you remember more of your dreams. You sleep deeper and more restfully. Keep taking those electrolytes.
Day 5
Your body is really going deep into fat metabolism and is pulling more from visceral fat, and reducing visceral fat is just an incredible improvement for physical health. Your body is becoming more sensitive to insulin. Clothes are noticeably looser, food cravings fade, bowel movements are still happening but basically just a little bit of liquid. It may smell horrible, like chemical waste – this is great. Your body is finally clearing out decades of gunk and toxins that have been clogging your digestive system. You’ll notice gurgling in your digestive system – that’s Migrating Motor Complex (MMC), which are contractions that run through your stomach and small intestine. These contractions push residual fluid, mucus, and bacteria down into the colon to be excreted. There are lots of toxins in this gunk, which is why it may smell like chemical waste. Better out than in!
Important: This is around the length of fast where you have to be very careful about breaking the fast. If you were to eat a big fatty sugary meal at this point, you could actually die. Do plenty of research before embarking on a 5+ day water fast.
Day 6
You’re just cruising at this point. Hunger is low or nonexistent, your body is running cool and efficient. You’re calm and focused. Nothing hurts. Your body continues to heal anything that needs to be healed. It’s a lean, mean machine and you’re just chillin’. Your gut microbiome is returning to a properly balanced state if your diet prior to the fast was less than ideal. You’ll notice that any anxiety you may have had before is completely gone. It’s a subtle thing until you consciously focus on it – “Holy shit, I feel so incredibly calm and relaxed!”
Day 7
More of the same, you’ve leaned out to a degree that’s impossible not to see. You feel light. Life seems to flow effortlessly. You have more clarity about everything, about life itself. The greatest benefit of the fast may now seem to you to be the spiritual insights you’ve received even though the physical and mental benefits have been profound.
Not eating for a full week in this modern era is a true accomplishment, a real test of your mental fortitude. And this accomplishment, this level of discipline, will leak into every other aspect of your life. When you see the dessert menu, or that bowl of candy, it becomes a lot, lot easier just to say “Nah I’m good” after you’ve done a 7 day water fast. It becomes a lot easier to ignore that text from your scumbag ex. Easier to say, “Yeah I’ll just clean the sink up before I go to bed instead of leaving it to the morning.”
And once you’ve done a single 7 day fast, doing 3-5 day fasts in the future is an absolute cakewalk. If you’re reading these words, take this as your sign to do it. Schedule a week in the future when you’re actually gonna do it, and watch your entire life improve in ways you cannot currently even imagine.
“Won’t I lose tons of muscle?”
After a couple days of not eating, your human growth hormone (HGH) levels skyrocket, and this helps preserve muscle. On a long fast, yes, you will lose a little muscle. But it will come back basically immediately after the fast. It’s not even something you should concern yourself with. Don’t worry about it. Your body is pulling energy from all of your stored fat. And the more fat you have, the longer you can fast. I heard of an extremely obese man who went over a year without eating a single calorie. There are many such stories.
And the beauty of fasting for fat loss is that, more than any other way, your skin actually tightens so if you have a ton of fat to lose, you won’t have anywhere near the amount of loose skin you’d have if you lost the fat in some other way. I don’t know why, but it’s something to do with hormones…or something…but it is a thing that many long-term fasters have experienced and spoken about.
How to Break a Fast
Once you’re around 4-5 days of a water fast, you have to be very careful how you start eating again, how you break the fast. There’s this thing called refeeding syndrome, where reintroducing lots of food into a digestive system that is inactive can trigger massive swings of electrolytes and glucose, potentially leading to death.
This is how I break all of my long fasts:
- Start by sipping heated bone broth with a little lemon juice added.
- One hour later, do the same thing, bone broth with lemon juice.
- One hour later, eat a couple scrambled eggs, monitor how I’m feeling.
- Eat some fermented food (sauerkraut, kimchi, pickled whatever) – this helps repopulate your gut microbiome, which has largely been reset during a long fast.
- One or two hours later, more eggs or a can of sardines, more fermented food.
- Eat a bit of fruit, a bit more protein, but keep the portions small.
That’s it in a nutshell. Pay attention to your body, take it very slow, avoid very fatty foods and avoid carbs. For a 7 day fast, I’m usually just careful on day 1, then back to normal on day 2. For longer fasts, take more time easing back into eating. Just be reasonable.
Summary: keep it small, low-fat, low-fiber, and protein-first so you don’t shock your gut or a big insulin shift.
Other foods you can use instead of eggs and sardines are greek yogurt, white fish, and basically any non-dense protein (steaks are too dense at first for ex) that is low in fat. Keep fruits low in sugar and fiber. Good ones are papaya, honeydew melon, and cantaloup.
Important note: You’ve just accomplished something great and lost a lot of fat and improved your health in a major way in a short period of time. Don’t make the mistake I have made several times and just go back to your old ways after the fast. Use the accomplishment as a turning point in your life, and be more mindful of your diet and your lifestyle going forward, so that when someone you haven’t seen in a long time sees you and says, “Holy shit you look amazing! What’d you do?” You can talk about your prolonged fast, and how it was the turning point in your level of physical health, and how effortlessly you maintain health now.
Advice for Beginners
Important: If at any point you are in serious pain or are experiencing anything very concerning, stop immediately and ease back into eating. Speak with a naturopath or a fasting expert and try again with help and supervision. Use your discernment.
DO YOUR FIRST PROLONGED FAST WITH FRIENDS!
I did my first 7 day fast with two friends (out of state) and we had a text thread and commiserated all day every day, and encouraged each other when one of us wanted to quit. Without that text thread, none of us would have completed the full 7 days.
If you don’t have any friends or family willing to fast with you, then start posting yourself on social media. That’s what I did with this 14 day fast, posted daily to TikTok (and I’ve never posted anything on social media like that before). If I hadn’t done that, I would have 100% absolutely no doubt found several very legitimate and reasonable excuses not to have gone the full 14 days.
The point is, find some way to keep yourself accountable. Don’t underestimate the mental battle you’re embarking on.
ELECTROLYTES!!!
Whether it’s hunger, lightheadedness, lack of energy, bad mood, cravings, whatever, the cure is ELECTROLYTES. I didn’t know this my first few prolonged fasts and they were way, way more difficult than they had to be. Electrolytes are a true cheat code to prolonged fasts, and honestly just daily diet/nutrition in general.
On long fasts I’ll have anywhere from 2 to 5 electrolyte packs/scoops per day. Usually I’ll have a big jug with a couple packets in it and sip or sometimes swig if I’m feeling off.
Make sure your electrolyte packs to NOT have sugar or dextrose. Ideally the unflavored ones are best, but I love the flavored ones, so that’s what I use.
These are my two favorite brands:
LMNT
Re-Lyte
You don’t need premade electrolytes, you can use a high quality salt (Celtic Sea Salt is the best imo), but the packets have magnesium and potassium as well, which helps a lot. Or you can make your own concoctions. Below is “Snake Juice” by Cole Robinson, an absolute fasting OG.
Snake Diet site: https://snakediet.com/
You may also find it helpful to take magnesium during a prolonged fast. I usually take two of Clive’s capsules before bed during a fast. He has the best magnesium in existence: Clive DeCarle
Pre-Fast Diet
If you eat a lot of sugar and carbs, the first few days of a water fast are gonna be painful, period. If you’re willing to deal with it, great. If you want to make the first few days easier, for a week or two before your fast, cut down on the sugar and carbs. Ideally do either a keto or a carnivore diet so you can get rid of your stored glycogen before you start the fast. If you’re in ketosis before the prolonged fast, you don’t have to endure the uncomfortable shift your body makes from using glycogen to using ketones for energy.
Eating well, no sugar, low carbs, high fat and protein leading into a fast makes the beginning (the only hard part) much, much easier. Just an FYI.
Use the Fast as a Turning Point in Your Life
You can use a prolonged fast as a turning point for your entire life. There is pre-fast you, and post-fast you. Life as a human on Earth can be difficult. But in absolutely any single moment, we as humans have the POWER to completely change our lives. All it takes is a firm decision. That’s it.
All of the turning points in my life have begun with taking my physical health seriously. All of the hard times have correlated with poor physical health. The two are related, and when you improve one, you improve the other necessarily.
When my diet is shit and I’m feeling sloppy and bloated, my mind does not work properly, and my emotions are imbalanced. It is impossible for a human to be of sound mind and have full mastery over his emotional state if he has a fat, shitty body. I’ve been on both sides. If you are overweight, you owe it to yourself to experience what it’s like to have a mind functioning at its peak. Everything gets way, way better!
And instead of having a strict diet and exercise regimen for a long, long period of time, all you have to do is get on a decent fasting regimen! You don’t have to be super strict about your diet if you only eat one meal per day, or if you do regular prolonged fasts (e.g. not eating Mondays and Tuesdays). You don’t even have to exercise at all! And you can achieve and maintain a really great bodyweight. It’s stupidly simple. All it takes is a little research, and the determination to do it and stick to it.
Resources
There are tons of fasting resources out there. The practice is gaining popularity and for good cause. Dr. Berg has a great YouTube channel, but basically just search whatever your favored platform is, and take everything with a grain of salt. Use your discernment.
If someone is saying prolonged fasts are unhealthy, or is fear mongering about it, that is not someone you should ever listen to again about anything at all.
Above it all, when you’re on a prolonged fast, you are more connected to who and what you really are. Your Eternal Self. You strengthen your connection to Source.
God speed, my friend.
*And again, if you have any questions or see that I missed something important, please comment below or send me an email. Thanks!*
Disclaimer: This is medical advice: do lots of research and then do a prolonged fast (unless you are in one of the do-not-fast groups at the top of the page). This is literally the best medical advice you’ve ever received in your entire life. If someone wants to sue me for not using the extremely boring and stupid “medical disclaimer”, I dare you to sue me. That said, don’t be an idiot. You are responsible for all of the choices you make in your life. If you’re underweight and do a long fast, you are an idiot. If you have no experience and do a long fast with no research and break the fast by eating a huge meal and you die, you were an idiot. Don’t be an idiot.
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