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Three Day Fast

Dillinger

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,209
Location
London
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Celery.
Hi,

I'm doing a 3 day fast (from Friday to Sunday) because I'm interested by the study mentioned below and because I occasionally like a challenge and have not ever done that before.

Any thoughts?

Alas it looks like in the study the participants did multiple 2-3 days fasting over 6 months and I may be too lazy to do that, but if nothing else it will kick start ketosis for me on my low-carb approach.

Best

Soon to be a shadow of the man I used to be,

Dillinger

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...enerate-entire-immune-system-study-finds.html
 
This isn't much of a reply really, but here goes. I have done a few 3 day fasts before (I love them, no cooking, no washing up, marvellous). I did them in an effort to lose weight. They didn't work in that respect, so I have banned myself from these now. However, my immune system used to be dreadful, I always caught every bug around and spent more of the time with chest/throat infections than I spent being well. One Winter/Spring I had 7 months of chest infections, one after the other. My immune system is heaps better now, I had put this down solely to having a better diet nowadays. However I have just looked at some of my old diaries and I did my first fast that Summer followed by at least 2 others the next year. This Spring my husband and two sons had dreadful colds and insisted on sneezing all over me and cuddling me too, I felt a little tired and lethargic for a couple days, which may have been my immune system working, but I did not catch the cold.

So maybe this does work but it could be just coincidence in my case. Sorry, that's all I have, but if it does work for protection against viruses and does essentially regenerate the immune system, then could it have further implications for someone with an autoimmune condition? Interesting.
 
It's worth a go if you believe that the 3 day fast will do your health some good, however it goes without saying that you need to be careful with your insulin doses whilst not eating.
 
I'll be interested to see how successful this is in kickstarting ketosis. I'm starting a ketogenic diet again next week with the intention of making it a permanent lifestyle change, and if a 3-day fast is the best way for me to start off then I'll go for it
 
Bloody hell; this is harder than it looks! When I said 'three day fast' what I really meant was 'half a day fast' - right?!
 
lol, i can only fast when I'm really ill (with the runs) id have to be ill to not eat, good luck though

....just lie and pretend you did it in a couple of days
 
Dillinger said:
Bloody hell; this is harder than it looks! When I said 'three day fast' what I really meant was 'half a day fast' - right?!
Click to expand...
No, you meant 3 days! Just stop thinking about food and drink water!
 
Dillinger said:
Bloody hell; this is harder than it looks! When I said 'three day fast' what I really meant was 'half a day fast' - right?!
Click to expand...



Rather you than me Dillinger...............3 days without food
 
I've just done about a day and a half fast - requirement for a medical procedure.

However I think that I am probably keto-adapted if not in permanent ketosis, so I am assuming that I started munching on stored fats without much problem.
By the end I wasn't really hungry and found it difficult to eat much, but I am rolling along same as usual now.
No tiredness or loss of energy.

If the sole aim is to get into ketosis then why not have a couple of days on just eggs, cheese and butter?
That was my diet for the 1.5 days before the fast and I found that very easy to do.
Eggs scrambled in butter in the morning, cheese omelette in the evening.
Mmmmmmmm.
 
You need to do something to stop thinking about fasting I used to do a fast for Oxfam every year , nominally 24 hours but nearer 36 by the time I got home. We were based at St James's Piccadilly and I can't remember it being hard but that's because we were young and found plenty of silly ways to collect money from the Christmas shoppers.

I can understand your thoughts about kick starting ketosis but agree that you need to take a great deal of care.
I did find a paper about the safety of prolonged fasting in T1 . It was safe and 2/3 out of 56 subjects succeeded The others stopped because of hyper/hypo but significant dose adjustments were needed.( Unfortunately only an abstract, fast was >24hours) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17367310

Apart from the ketosis 'thing'. I don't see what you are trying to achieve; we replace our white cells regularly anyway and normally have a full complement, the numbers are in fact increased when we have complications .http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14693992
This is the opposite to people who have undergone cancer treatment who have decreased numbers)

It isn't known what the mechanism is that signals the T cells to 'attack' beta cells.
http://www.ncsu.edu/research/results/vol9n1/12.html
 
Ok, to hell with this. I've finished my fast! I'll continue as a fat fast but I've just eaten some mozzarella.

Tougher than it looks this...

Dillinger
 
Dillinger said:
Ok, to hell with this. I've finished my fast! I'll continue as a fat fast but I've just eaten some mozzarella.

Tougher than it looks this...

Dillinger
Click to expand...
Um yes......I forgot to mention that I tried and failed a few times before I managed to do it, sorry! The only reason I managed it in the end was because I was so desperate to lose weight and not become diabetic..........
 
Dana Carpender has a recipe book called "Fat Fast", so maybe you could get that? It was part of the original Atkins diet plan for breaking through plateaus, I believe.

I recently did alternate day 36 hour fast for about 3 weeks and didn't find it too hard at all - I was really surprised that it wasn't harder than it turned out to be. That said, I had to take a break because of a house guest and am finding it really hard to get the motivation to go back to it. I think I might have to try the 5:2 version next. I was trying to follow the Dr Jason Fung plan for intermittent fasting.

I think being fat adapted from the LCHF for the past 2 years probably had a lot to do with the ease of it - I imagine it would be pretty much like low carb "flu" effects if you went at it straight from a HCLF diet. I'm pretty much fasting from around 3.30pm to 7.00am most days anyway, so I guess that's another version of intermittent fasting.

I'm not losing any scale or tape measure weight, so it's pretty frustrating. I just have to hope it's doing good things for my remaining visceral fat.
 
Sorry to be lazy but is there a thread about the ketogenic diet? Thanks in advance


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 
peacetrain said:
Sorry to be lazy but is there a thread about the ketogenic diet? Thanks in advance


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
Click to expand...
Almost any very low carb diet is also a ketogenic diet. Very low calorie diets are also usually ketogenic as well - the Optifast diet is specifically marketed as being a ketogenic diet. Some people are more scientific about it than others, like @borofergie and his thread about the new ketone breath monitor he invested in - some use ketostix to measure urine ketones; others use blood ketone strips.
 
Thanks for that.

Is it advisable to test urine?


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did he ever post about how he got on with he's new testing equipment? id forgotten about that
 
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