7 day dry fast complete - lessons learned.

I just completeed my first phoenix protocol 7 day (soft) dry fast. It was a humbling experience made me appreciate water in a way I never thought of. I lost 27 pounds in that time frame (186 down to 159, I’m 5’10) but will probably regain 7-10 of those pounds in water weight as I rehydrate/refeed. For context I’ve done several water fasts before up to 7 days, so my experience isn’t necessarily the same as someone going in dry, no pun intended.

My personal experience was pretty much like this:

• Day 1&2: Overall easy. Felt like no effort at all, much easier than the cranky start phases of a water fast. Took an extra warm shower here and there if I felt a little uncomfortable, but nothing too difficult in my experience

• Day 3: As all my glycogen is run out, I start to feel the dryness. The dry mouth, the rough throat, loss in about 5% of baseline energy. I tried to keep my activity levels to a minimum but this was the first day I couldn’t complete my P90x yoga session without pause. Took an epson salt hot bath, but was woozy for a few minutes afterwards, but overstill not much worse than those day 2-3 wet fasts.

• Day 4: Overall the same as day 3, but where it got different was at night. Insomia kicked in heavy. My eyes were super sensitive to light, what is normally “dark” in my bedroom seemed way too bright, had to cover my eyes with cloth to even be able to try to sleep. Then the cortisol spikes and heat-ups kept me up from 10pm-4am. Probably my body both fighting things inside me with little fevors and also trying to force me to go find food and water. Got only 3 hours of sleep.

• Day 5: Energy dropped 25% from baseline. But honestly wasn’t feeling the usual malaise I knew form staying up too much in college cramming for exams or staying out to late with friend, was still refreshed. Was able to go in for the one day of work I had planned and was functional, albeit noticeably slower than my normal. This night I did not get more than 1 hour of sleep. Was mentally excruciating, even took a cool shower to try and freshen up at 3am, but to little avail.

• Day 6: Experience was nearly identical to Day 5, just with another 5% drop in energy feeling. I was mentally slower those, tripping up on my words occasionally but still functioning for going out, talking with friends, and doing some work at home. Water contact did become like a heavensent during this. Splashing my face with water or any time I took a shower (up to 5 a day at this point) was sublime every time like getting that first drink of water after a marathon. This was the worse night with sleep, no matter what I did I couldn’t get comfortable. To make matter worse (TMI) I could physically feel stool inside me that was just stuck at a junction close to my colon that was just making me feel upset. I didn’t have a douche or enema tool, so I just had to suffer until the next day. Will definitely need one of those for next dry fast.

• Day 7: pretty much the same as day 6, horrible non-existent sleep with the stool issue at night, broke fast about 6 hours early at 3am just to get liquids in me to remove it, and then slept like a baby for 5 hours after doing my break protocol (coconut water, baking soda water, topo chico + tangy tangerine)

Probably the most interesting part of it all was how often I would physically feel tingles and sensations at the sites of old injuries. Where I had a fall, broke my arm and pelvis in the past, really bad muscle cramps, even the side of my head where I had a side-splitting headache doing my first water fast years ago without electrolyte. It was like my body was touching up on the stuff they never fully healed.

Outside of the last 3 nights and the colon issues, this was probably easier than every 7 day wet fast I’ve had. The results were phenomenal for the short time span, and just taken occasional showers made it 100% comfortable through every daytime period with enough energy to keep functioning normally.

I probably won’t do another dry fast for a year, but I learned some lessons, I just don’t know how to deal with the insomnia. Unlike what August Dunning has talked about I could not ONCE nap throughout the day, always had nervous energy, and couldn’t stay still for that long to get into actual sleep during the day. Cool showers, cool fans, even a fancy self-cooling japanese blanket I got from a friend didn’t help me to leave the threshold of the waking state.

If I could figure out how to overcome the insomnia bit (and buy an enema tool) I feel like I could do this yearly for the rest of my life. But I might want to pack on some fat to be safe, it really flew off me fast, I don’t want to put myself in too low of a fat state. Interested to see how the whole stem cell and immune system regeneration goes in the weeks to come. Nothing super noticeable here at the start of day 8 other than a place I pulled a hip muscle years ago in Judo no longer feeling tight at all when it was consistently in the past.