I’m wondering about adding dry fasting (DF) to my water fasting(WF) schedule. I’m doing a fairly advanced WF right now, so obviously I can’t DF to the same level just starting out, so if I’m doing a zero food day, can I do like 16:8 DF? So like drinking water during 8 hours but still not eating. Can I do that every day regardless of whether I eat or not?
Your wiki says to start slow. What’s the recommended slowness of working your way up? Like in WF, if I wanted to ease into it, I would spend 1-2 weeks each on 16:8, 18:6, 20:4, OMAD, ADF, and so on in that order. Does DF need to be that slow? Slower?
Your wiki also mention some baking soda to help protect the kidneys. At what length of fast does that become necessary/helpful?
I’ve accidentally DF before, when I’m WF and forget to drink all day, and when I start eating I get an ache in my lower back (I assume it’s my kidneys being mad about something?), but if I start drinking water a few hours before I start eating, I’m fine. What’s the deal with that?
I’m young and healthy, so I’m more interested in DF as preventative than as curative. What sort of schedule is suitable for this? I know you can’t be precise because you don’t know me blah blah blah. I’m just looking for a starting place and general guidance. Would X hours every day be best? Multi-day every week/month/year?
Thanks.
I had 3 years experience before starting my first dry fast. My first dry fast was not intentional. It was suppose to be a water fast but because I was so busy at work, I forgot to drink water. By the time I realized it, it was 6pm. I felt ok so went to bed at pm. That was my first dry fast experience and felt good. My longest has been 5 days. However, it took a few baby steps for me to actually reach the 5 day dry fast goal. Key word here is baby steps.
I’m in a similar boat to you. I’ve started experimenting with DF in the last couple weeks while listening to my body. I’ve been doing 16-20 hour dry fasts multiple times a week (I’m grouping liquid consumption into my daily intermittent fasting window now), and I haven’t noticed anything negative so far. I did one 48 hour dry fast, and didn’t notice much of concern either. I monitored my pulse throughout the fast to make sure my resting heart rate wasn’t weirdly elevated or anything. My thought process is that if I ease into it, my body will become more efficient with it. I’ve heard that your cells have to be tuned and/or rebuilt with better water conservation in mind, and that seems to make sense to me.
For maintenance, I’ve seen suggested schedule of 36 hours weekly, 3 days monthly, and 5 days annually. When I do 36 hours, I stop eating after dinner, don’t eat the following day, and wait until lunchtime the next day to eat again. I break with an electrolyte drink. (I like LMNT but pink salt in water also works well.) A light lunch will be about an hour later.
Regarding your back aches, I’m guessing that you’ve found what your body wants in refeeding, drink water for a few hours before eating.