Fasting - Tips and Advice Please

I'd say that your building up to longer fasts by intermittent fasting is probably a good idea.
Dont know what meds you are on but if there is any risk of hypos then maybe try and stop taking them before you start the fasting.
I heartily recommend it as a very useful tool in the toolbox. I have IF'd since diagnosis and have done extended (up to 7 days) although not for a while. I found that the 45-50 hour mark was the hardest so maybe try and go over that threshold when you are sleeping..if at all possible. I usually have coffee with cream, tea with lactofree milk and some kind of all liquid soup either consomme or a reconstituted stock cube with some added butter on longer fasts and have never managed a water only (too addicted to caffeine). Check out the fasting sub forum although there hasn't been a lot of activity there recently.
Hope that helps a bit... oh yeah and don't forget



















don't eat!

When I started the low carb stuff it was easy for me to do 16/8 as I wasnt a great breakfast person in any case. I stopped eating at 7pm and then went for the 16 hrs with no problem, I then went into one meal a day (OMAD) for a few days and found that reasonably easy. I have now done two 48 hr stretches which I actually enjoyed. The effect was amazing I was buzzin! I did water only .... however it does worry me a little beacuse I actually dont think Im eating enough, I dont seem to need much food as my body is not hungry. The last 48 hrs I am slightly forcing myself to eat twice a day. Im not enjoying it to be honest.

This has been my experience, hopefully you will enjoy it.

Like @bulkbiker says....... dont eat and you will be successful ha ha ha

I do 16/8 most days and find it manageable, drinking black coffee and water till lunchtime.

When I've done the one meal a day (evening meal only), I kept going throughout the day with bone broth, tea, coffee and water. Surprisingly I didn't need to stuff my face when it came to dinnertime. I ate about the same as usual. The first couple of days were tough, but it got a lot easier.

Hi @xfieldok i have mixed intermittent fasting in with keto eating ie Under 20 g of carb. I did a whole month of 23/1 ie one meal a day only and that month only had water, black tea and black coffee as well as my main meal as keen to burn my own fat at that stage and lose weight which I did! My biggest problem was that I was still on Metformin 2 x a day at the time and also away from home and this resulted in a very unhappy bowel! I did try and ring surgery but very difficult to talk to anyone so made decision to come off mets as bgs were getting very low anyway! I felt I had no choice and haven’t looked back since. Never went back on Metformin as next hbaca1 the following month was 33 and dn said I didn’t need them. Not that I’m recommending you or anyone else comes off without advice just pointing out that for me fasting and Metformin didn’t go together! It may be if I’d had cream with my coffee or something it wouldn’t have been a problem but I don’t know. I had had digestive issues when started met so I’m probably quite sensitive to this.
After first month moved to 18/6 most days and one or two days a week 23/1.
Now I don’t fast beyond a daily gap after an early dinner and up to a late breakfast as I’m at my ideal weight and bgs good I do however stick to a low carb keto way of eating below 30g of carb a day.
Good idea to take it bit by bit and see how comfortable you feel most importantly I didn’t feel hungry partly I think because I was eating keto. I’ve never done a longer fast as my other fasts were producing results I wanted.

xfieldok said:

Thanks everyone you have been really helpful. I found the fasting forum after I posted this!

Meds are propranolol for migraines, which I want to stop. Amlodipine for high blood pressure. I take these in the morning after food. After main meal it's 4 Metformin and a diabetic multi vitamin.

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My blood pressure normalised on LCHF and fasting I have heard anecdotally that people following a ketogenic diet have great success with controlling migraines too. Could be a fasting keto win-win for you.

xfieldok said:

Thanks everyone you have been really helpful. I found the fasting forum after I posted this!

Meds are propranolol for migraines, which I want to stop. Amlodipine for high blood pressure. I take these in the morning after food. After main meal it's 4 Metformin and a diabetic multi vitamin.

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I came off my blood pressure meds quite quickly after losing weight - three stone - after keto and fasting. My blood pressure is now on average 116/75 it was 165/85 on average. Hope it’s helpful for you too good luck with your plans.

xfieldok said:

I'm doing a lot of reading and seriously looking at fasting when I return from m holiday towards the end of April.

As I take meds morning and teatime, I will have to clear this with my DN first. As I understand it, you can take bone broth, perhaps meds could be taken at the same time.

I intend to start 16:8 first and work up to 24/36 and see how I get on.

Anybody got any tips to help me along? I would be grateful to hear of the experience of others. And don't say "don't eat"!

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I've got very limited experience of fasting. I may have been lucky but the first time I tried it I ate in the morning then had nothing till the next morning, and didn't find it as hard as I expected. There were definite waves of hunger and light-headedness but they came and went.

Lots of water and peppermint tea helped.

One thing to consider is the last food you have before fasting. Mine was a good mixture of fat and protein with not too many carbs, which may have helped limit the hunger. Also relatively small and 600 cals - not sure if meal size effects hunger levels afterwards?

Also, I have to say I'm glad I didn't do it while I was at work on account of the lightheadedness, so timing is something to consider.

xfieldok said:

Meds are propranolol for migraines, which I want to stop.

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bulkbiker said:

My blood pressure normalised on LCHF and fasting I have heard anecdotally that people following a ketogenic diet have great success with controlling migraines too.

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Agree with the advice given above. I was initially wary of trying it - years of chronic migraines (I was treating about 6-8 a month on diagnosis) which were often triggered by not eating (or so I thought) put me off. Once I’d been eating very low carb/keto for a while, I gave it a whirl, suffered no ill effects and gradually ramped up.

Now I rarely eat breakfast and frequently eat one meal a day - have done two separate 2 week long stints.

My migraines have vanished - last medication taken for them was in July last year and nothing more than a mild headache since. I hope you get similar results.

I'd recommend fasting. I started with 16:8 (skipping breakfast in my case) for a week, then progressed to one meal a day (evening meal only which is what I'm doing most days) and then tried a three day water fast over the Easter Bank Holiday (from 9pm on Good Friday through to 7pm on Easter Monday).

Felt really good for doing it, blood sugar readings were very good (in the 5s and 4s) and felt on a real high for most of last week.

Tips from me would be to make sure that you keep weel hydrated and that you monitor your blood sugar, especially if you're on medication (I'm on one Metformin tablet per day which I take with my evening meal, but stopped taking it whilst I was on the extended fast).