How and Why I Extended My Weekly 44 Hour Food-free Period To One-hundred and Sixty-eight Hours by James Stephen Du Bois What I Learned During the Third 24 Hour Period
Foreword
My apologies are sincere to anyone who has been waiting for this episode of my adventures in fasting. “Life happens,” is the phrase that comes to mind when I think of what to say regarding the long delay in getting this installment published. Unfortunately, I can’t promise to be any more prompt with the next edition. Please know that this project never leaves my mind or to-do-list. I want you to see what happens next too!
How and Why I Extended My Weekly 44 Hour Food-free Period To One-hundred and Sixty-eight Hours
by
James Stephen Du Bois
What I Learned During the Third 24 Hour Period
7:30 am, December 16, 2021
At 8 am, it’ll be 60 hours since I chewed up and swallowed my last morsel. That’s 52 to 56 hours since my stomach has emptied. I’m already 1/2 way through my 3rd/24 hour food-free period. My weight is 124.4 pounds. I’m still losing and expect to continue to do so. I’d be lying if I claimed I wasn’t a little anxious about being a 5’ 10” adult human male well under 130 pounds, yet I remain committed to tearing down my old, rusty, decrepit physical structure before building up my new, bright, strong, healthy one. My body is undergoing a self-cleaning and I am the better for it.
Let’s see where I am on the Body Mass Index. From the CDC website and its Adult BMI Calculator:
“Height: 5 feet, 10 inches
”Weight: 124.4 pounds
”Your BMI is 17.8, indicating your weight is in the Underweight category for adults of your height.
”For your height, a healthy weight range would be from 129 to 174 pounds.” (CDC)
I’m not worried about my numbers and where they fit in the weight-range categories. Dr Fung counsels that a lot of the weight that we lose when we are food-free is water weight anyway, and that the water, and its weight, will return when we begin eating again. Why? Aside from the fact that the natural, unprocessed food we eat is composed mostly of water, it is because insulin is triggered when we feed.
One of the myriad things insulin does, in addition to signaling the body to store energy in the form of fat, is to cause the body to retain water. When we are food-free our insulin levels drop. This starts a process that allows our bodies to burn our fat stores for fuel. Inconveniently, our body releases our water when insulin is ebbing. So, it’s important to replace your water stores while indulging in a food-free period. When we begin feeding again our insulin levels rise and we start retaining fat and water again.
Having not eaten for a couple of days now, my insulin level is low, and therefore, I’m not retaining water. My last eight-hour sleep session was interrupted four times due to my insistent bladder. I’m feeling a little weak this morning, which reminds me that there is another important reason for me to keep drinking water while fasting and that is to keep my low blood pressure within reasonable bounds. I’ll hydrate and see if that helps my strength and energy level.
10:00 am, Dec. 16th:
Back from my morning walk. Awake. Alert. Ready for a work session. Energy level as good as normal. The water ingestion and activity got me feeling stronger. Ketones at 12-14 out of 16. That means that less protein is being turned into sugar and burned (Gluconeogenesis) and more fat is being transformed into ketones and being burned (Ketosis).
2:00 pm, Dec. 16th:
I accomplished a lot of work in my studio. I’m feeling energetic enough to write this afternoon. My mind is offering suggestion after suggestion on what topics I need to cover to properly illustrate my points.
When a wave of concern washes over me about being food-free even longer, I remember Dr. Jamnadas’ counseling,
“You have plenty of protein in your body.
“You have at least a month’s worth of vitamins in your body.
“Did you know I have 40 days of fat energy in me?
“I have about 50,000 calories stored inside of me, that can be used, but I have to unlock those calories in the form of fat.” (J) Dr. Jamnadas is not a fat man, yet he has all of these reserves. So do we.
How do we unlock those calories and all of that energy? We must stop eating for awhile and live off of the fat we’ve accumulated in and on our bodies. That’s why it’s there, to be consumed. Fat is not just an adornment. If thinking about being food-free for more than a few hours is overwhelming for you, remember you can get started more slowly by simply giving up carbohydrates. Your body will seek out your fat when there is no sugar left to be burned.
During this food-free period I am limiting my consumption to fresh-squeezed lemon juice in water and a small amount of, so-called, pink Himalayan salt. Generally, thanks to my old friend Dr. Bieler, I eschew salt other than the naturally-occurring sodium in the food I eat. When I need extra sodium for my electrolyte balance (see below) I use Himalayan salt, valuable for the traces of trace minerals needed for the electrical connections in our bodies and almost every other function. When I am low on essential minerals, that is, when I’m having leg cramps, I’ve been taking a little supplemental salt. I believe it should be used only in small amounts and never as a condiment. More on that a little later, but first:
What are electrolytes and why are they important?
“Electrolytes are essential minerals—like sodium, calcium, and potassium—that are vital to many key functions in the body.” (CSO)
“Electrolytes are essential for basic life functioning, such as maintaining electrical neutrality in cells, generating and conducting action potentials in the nerves and muscles. Sodium, potassium, and chloride are the significant electrolytes along with magnesium, calcium, phosphate, and bicarbonates. Electrolytes come from our food and fluids.
“These electrolytes can have an imbalance, leading to either high or low levels. High or low levels of electrolytes disrupt normal bodily functions and can lead to even life-threatening complications. This article reviews the basic physiology of electrolytes and their abnormalities, and the consequences of electrolyte imbalance.” Here is a link to the complete article: (NIH)
I Don’t Eat Salt Often, But When I Do It’s Pink and It’s from Pakistan
The last couple of days I have had a trace of salt once or twice a day to dampen my leg cramps. They have not been cured by all of the water I ‘m drinking to drown ghrelin and overcome my low-insulin-induced low blood pressure. There is magnesium in the Himalayan sea salt, which, according to Dr. J. will help relax leg cramps. However, not enough sometimes. When my cramps come on consecutive nights I have been taking an Epsom salt bath which is chock full of magnesium and it helps.
We choose the Himalayan sea salt when we use salt because it has been locked inside a mountain in Afghanistan for 250 million years and is free of the micro plastics and pollution that plague so many sea salts.
It also contains the 84 elements found in the sea from which we sprang, or out of which we dragged ourselves. Approximately 2% of the pink salt is composed of these micro-nutrients. As a matter of fact, the reason it is pink is due to the traces of iron oxide in it.
“Today, Himalayan salt is mined from Salt Mines in Pakistan, located near the foothills of the Himalayas. It is extracted from the mines by hand, “ (SVS)
250 million years (give or take a century or ten) is how long it takes Earth to make one orbit, with its Solar System siblings, around the whole Milky Way Galaxy. This pink salt has been waiting all of that time to spark a little electricity in my body. Amazing. I only use supplemental salt when I need it and only two cases come to mind in my experience: when I have leg cramps and when my blood pressure is too low. Believe it or not I found this as a recommendation from the Mayo Clinic for low blood pressure:
“Use more salt. Experts usually recommend limiting salt (sodium) because it can raise blood pressure, sometimes dramatically. For people with low blood pressure, however, that can be a good thing. But too much sodium can lead to heart failure, especially in older adults. So it's important to check with a health care provider before increasing salt.” (MAYO)
I believe that sprinkling table salt on food is almost sacrilegious, certainly a bad idea, contrary to what the jaded-tongued judges on the food networks have to say. Please stay with me for a moment in the face of this heresy. My recommendation is to take extra salt, meaning other than the organic sodium in the foods you are eating, only as a supplement. Keep it away from your food and you will experience (after withdrawal) subtle flavors you never knew were there. Your food will surprise you with its natural sweetness. When I got away from salting my food almost a dozen years ago, I discovered the real taste of the food I was eating and it was and continues to be delicious. You will be so surprised to taste the saltiness of a celery stick or lemon wedge when you’ve lost your table salt habit.
Giving up salting my food wasn’t easy though, it took me longer to get over my salt habit than my sugar addiction. I hadn’t realized that I had been a salt junky. Ruled by my taste buds. Now I use only enough salt to stop leg cramps and INCREASE my blood pressure. Our bodies need sodium and chloride, but not in the reckless quantities our processed foods deliver them. You must decide how much and from what source you will obtain your micro-nutrients. Broccoli, carrots, celery and chard are bountiful sources of the naturally occurring sodium that our bodies require. I eat them every day that I eat.
In addition to a little Himalayan salt I have been taking Vitamin D3. Why do we need Vitamin D?
From the National Institute of Health re: Vitamin D:
“Vitamin D is necessary for the health of every cell in your body. Yet, vitamin D deficiency has reached epidemic proportions. Overall, vitamin D influences more than 200 genes, each of which has the propensity to become impaired without adequate vitamin D. According to a number of studies, vitamin D deficiency can result in many diseases and conditions, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, depression, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancers of the breast, prostate, and colon.
“Yet, maintaining an optimal level of vitamin D can improve your immune system function and prevent many diseases, including colds and flu, cancer, and “autoimmune” diseases. Plus, an optimal level of vitamin D can improve your mood, regulate insulin, support heart and lung function, protect your brain from toxic chemicals, and may help reduce pain in people with chronic pain conditions.” (NIH)
Being that there is not much sunlight (sunlight triggers the body’s own production of vitamin D) making its way through the clouds this time of the year, coupled with the fact that I just don’t go outside for more than an hour 3 or 4 times a week this season, I need to supplement this vitamin for optimal health. I haven’t felt any difference yet. I started taking 25mcg each day about 6 months ago. That’s when I became aware of vitamin D’s fundamental roles in our gene expression and immune response.
Vitamin D and Himalayan Sea salt are the only supplements we take.
5 pm, Dec. 16th:
Sixty-nine hours since my last bite; sixty-one to sixty-five hours since my stomach emptied completely.
At this time on a regular night I would be mid-bite consuming my once-a-day meal. I am not missing it tonight. Ghrelin has growled, maybe four times today, and quickly subsided. Dr. Fung is correct. The “appetite hormone” does rise less and less.
Staying busy, writing about being food-free and drinking as much water as I want are three of my five tactics to inspire and support an extended food-free period. The other two are watching doctors’ videos on metabolic issues and participating in exercise.
At 8 pm I will have made it 3 days since my last bite. Seventy-two hours is 42.85714% of the way to 168, my intended target. Both Dr.s Fung and Jamnadas say the second and third days are the hardest for most people. Dr. Jamnadas says that people on the fourth and fifth day want to play tennis. I look forward to tomorrow. I do not see a day of struggle ahead. I look forward to what happens next in my body. What metabolic changes will occur next?
I am physically tired from the day’s labors. At this point it is 6:33 pm and I’m going to copy some notes I took from a Dr. Fung video and call it a day. Maybe I’ll report my blood pressure and ketone reading. We’ll see.
Quotes from Dr. Jason Fung, Nephrologist, “Intermittent Fasting (Complete Guide to Fasting)”
“We say Insulin inhibits lipolysis [fat burning].”
“When you eat, insulin goes up telling the body to store energy. You store energy in 2 ways: as sugar, which is glycogen in your liver and when that’s full you store body fat.”
“When you don’t eat, your insulin levels fall, falling insulin levels give information to the body that nothing is coming in, ‘We need to start pulling out these calories that we stored away.’”
“What makes day 2 so difficult [day three for some, according to Dr. J.] is that Ghrelin peaks on day 2. If you quit your fast on day 2 or 3 you won’t get the maximum benefit of fasting [being food-free] and you go thru the ghrelin ordeal. Hunger diminishes over time. So, if you’re in day 2 saying, ‘Im never gonna make it,’ and quit, you’re not going to get the benefit.”
“By day 5 the hunger is gone. You’re feeding off of your own body fat. You’ve got lots of energy, feeling,’ I can do this forever!’ So, why would you stop at day 2?”
“Average weight loss is 1/2 a pound a day. On a 6 day fast: 3 pounds of fat loss. You’ll also have 3-4 pounds of water loss. That comes right back.”
“1 pound of fat = 3,500 calories. If you normally eat 1,800 calories, that’s 2 full days of fasting for 1 pound of weight loss. If you have 100 pounds to lose, you could really go 200 days to lose all that fat. Even I don’t recommend people going that long.” (DRF)
7:30 pm, Thursday, Dec. 16th:
I made it to 72 hours since my last bite. Normally, I would be looking forward to eating tomorrow at 3:30 pm to break my monthly eighty-four hour food-free period, however Dr. Fung’s material strengthens my resolve to pursue another food-free day. Plus, at 72 hours stem cells start to be distributed for growing brand-spanking new body parts. I don’t want to miss that!
Ketones at 14 out of 16. So, I guess I’m burning primarily fat, not muscle (protein). My blood pressure and pulse are low, but in the healthy range. 90 over 59 for the BP (normal is 120 over 80) and pulse of 67 BPM. This is typical for me in the last 6 months. On November 27th my readings were 77 over 53 with a healthy pulse of 70 BPM and no more than an 18 hour food-free period was involved.
9:00 pm, Thursday, Dec. 16th:
Time for bed. I’m expecting to get up occasionally during the night to relieve bladder pressure because of the low insulin level in my blood. You may have noticed that there has been but one mention of hunger in this whole post. What little I’ve felt today has been satisfied by gulps of lemon-water. Good night.
If you still have an interest, watch for my next installment, Day 4, by mid-September. Thank you for reading this far.
Check out these related articles
A First Step on a Journey of a Thousand Meals
The Foods We Eat and the Recipe We Make
A Prelude to Fasting
My 168 Hour Food-free Period in December 2021
How and Why I Extended My Weekly Forty-four Hour Food-free Period To One-hundred and Sixty-eight Hours