Typically I’m a 5 day faster. It can be very challenging but rewarding. I typically lose 2 pounds a day with that scheme.
Recently my significant other has shown an interest in trying longer fasts with me (hallelujah!) but understandably wanted to ease into it so we tried a new approach together.
- we started fasting Sunday night and fasted all daytime Monday then ate Monday night as training wheels lol :)
- fasted all of Tuesday and daytime Wednesday then ate Wednesday night (last night)
- we will now fast all of today/Thursday and daytime Friday, then eat Friday night
- we will fast all of Saturday and daytime Sunday then eat Sunday night
What’s shocking to me is that we are only **on day 4 of this new regimen and I’m down 10 pounds** (some is water weight I know) which is actually **more than I would have normally lost if I had been fasting this whole time** which totally blows my mind. I don’t actually understand how that’s possible to be honest. But hey I’ll take it.
Curious - Has anyone experienced something similar?
The only downside I see is missing out on more autophagy benefits. That said, I’m hoping next week we may begin to stretch the fasting periods from 48 hours to 72 and so on.
Answer
Autophagy is always happening to some degree. It peaks at 72 hours but if you are giving your body time off from digesting and supporting it with nutrient dense whole foods it will perform all the tasks it needs to.