I’m 178cm tall and weigh 55.8kg (5’10 and 123lbs) and am interested in dry fasting for my spirit. My digestion and apetite are not great, which contributes to me being underweight, and I thought perhaps fasting could let my digestive system rest and rejuvenate.
However, I’m afraid of losing even more weight and taking very long to gain it back. What are your thoughts? If you think fasting is a good idea, then for how long?
Thank you.
Your low appetite is a great advantage. Try eating Omad. 23-1 fast. If you lose too much weight go back, if you don’t stick to it or do more. Sometimes being underweight is due to a damaged gut. Fasting heals the gut.
I wouldn’t recommend dry fasting considering you don’t have a big appetite and are underweight but don’t want to lose it. You lose a lot of weight dry fasting, but most of it does return - however it might not in your case given that you don’t have much of an appetite. The digestive rest you speak about is usually associated with how most people overeat and thus the digestive system is always overloaded, not underfed
What’s your day to day diet like? I’m your height but weigh 80kg, and I’m somewhat lean.
Do not consider fasting at this point, you are chronically and dangerously underweight and with the limited context we have, you may also have eating disorders that may or may not be diagnosed.
Seek medical attention IMO. Your body probably thinks it’s in a fasting/fasted state. Be careful.
My take: do not fast but have periods of time where you don’t drink fluids or limit them drastically, like 24h (or 36h) then drink normally during 24h (respectively 12h). You may have naturally reduced appetite during the restricted periods and increased during the rest of the time.
You could also supplement with minerals that are probably involved in the fluid restriction response of the body: namely boron, copper, zinc and manganese (there might be more). They might allow your body to sustain this response and allow the detoxification to happen.
I am pretty sure impaired detoxification is a cause of digestive and metabolic issues (i.e. diabetes, cancer and degenerative diseases).
Fluid restriction might increase detoxification (because like calorie restriction, it boosts Reactive Oxygen Species which is the first step to trigger detoxification pathways) which is made possible by enzymes using these minerals.
For example, manganese is included in the MnSOD enzyme, which is an enzyme that neutralizes Reactive Oxygen Species in the mitochondria, and seems to activate detoxification.
In an animal model of aging:
>The data suggest that MnSOD up-regulation and a retrograde signal of reactive oxygen species from the mitochondria normally function as an intermediate step in the extension of lifespan caused by reduced insulin-like signaling in various species. The results implicate a species-conserved net of coordinated genes that affect the rate of senescence by modulating energetic efficiency, purine biosynthesis, apoptotic pathways, endocrine signals, and the detoxification and excretion of metabolites.