It may be a dumb question since you can just take electrolytes while fasting but did someone here ever tried fasting without electrolytes?
Besides risks, the experience would be pretty uncomfortable. Your cortisol will ramp up, give you a very edgy and uncomfortable alertness, increased stress, rapid heart rate, anxiety, heightened vigilance, and insomnia. Similar to drinking way too much coffee in terms of negative effects. Some describe this as an evolutionary stimulus to get up, go out, and find food (and salt).
Drinking water normally while fasting and not replenishing electrolytes is a very bad idea and should be avoided
This doctor has been running one of the largest (if not the largest) fasting clinics in the world since the 70’s (20k+ patients) and they don’t supplement with electrolytes on 40 day fasts! Even the water they use is distilled/contains no electrolytes.
I have a very, very hard time believing the leading researchers in the field, with a mountain of data and experience behind them would just willy-nilly gloss over electrolyte supplementation for no reason if it actually was of benefit, if not a risk to not do so.
The caveat here is that their fasts are obviously done in a clinical setting where they can monitor patient’s blood on a regular basis. He talks in the video for example about potassium, and if it gets too low they won’t supplement, they will just terminate the protocol and modify it for the patient.
IMO there’s a lot of unsubstantiated regurgitation going on from people watching YouTube videos by self-professed gurus, but I take the whole “You HAVE to supplement” advice with a grain of salt, no pun intended.
Just my 2 cents.
Don’t. Do. It.
And for the first 2-3 days if you experience fatigue dizziness headache or any uncomfortable feelings it’s a definite sign you need more water, sodium, magnesium and potassium.
If this is your first time fasting for this long or in general please see a doctor and get your bloods checked. It’s unsafe for some people and you need to look at any deficiencies you might have already. There is no reason you should want to be doing that to yourself in my opinion.
Hope this helps! Please see a doc.. again. Very important.
I did a week of OMAD with no electrolyte top up, because I’d run out and didn’t get a chance to get new magnesium etc. I had 3 days of blinding headaches before I finally connected the dots and went to the shop. It was not fun!