I’ve read loads of info and obviously know how too do it for 18-24 hours and dealing with the pangs but it gets muddy if I want to fast longer. Can anyone give me some tried and tested advice on how too go longer? Ideally I’d like to get up to about five days if possible. I know there’s info on this sub but that doesn’t make much sense to me either. Please help!
Hi! I admire your desire to go 5 days but out of experience, I’d advise you to do OMAD instead, combined with increasing your step count to around 10k to 15k steps daily, the weight will melt off plus you can actually keep it off.
Cheers.
Here’s one that might help jumpstart things
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Eat 2-3 in the afternoon the day before as your last meal. Sleep in the next day if you can (or otherwise rest without stirring up your energy too much). Hey - you’re almost at 24 hours already. The psychological boost might help you work through the discomfort of hunger until you get used to that feeling and realize it’s not such a big deal
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Otherwise sip water, take a few gulps when hungry, tap out when you’re at your limit, and then try again soon after. Remember that this is a practiced skill that you need to develop and become good at. Be ok if it takes repeated attempts to get up to 5 days. And be especially ok if you realize there’s something else you find that works better for you and your goals (like rolling fasts or an intermittent style)
My best advice is to start with two weeks of serious keto or at the very least very seriously limit refined carbs. So much easier to start with some short fasts like OMAD. A week of OMAD with your eating window in the evening… then just muscle through skipping the evening meal. Go to bed. You’ll be at 36 hours without having to think about it. If you’re hungry, keep your mind busy. Go for a walk, read a book, do some work, etc. Once you pass 24 hours, it’s much easier to extend further. My personal introduction to fasting started pretty much as I outlined above. By the end of one month, I was doing one 72 hour fast a week, with OMAD in between except for one cheat day and trying to avoid carbs as much as possible. Have found having a ton of carbs makes it much more difficult to start another fast. I lost over 35 lbs doing this… I maintained this for two years just by watching the scale and doing OMAD when it started to creep up. Recently fell off the wagon over a weeklong vacation and subsequent weeks and gained about 15 back since I wasn’t watching the scale. Buckled down and started again with a week of keto and got right back into my fasts and am nearly back to where I was. I expect to be there in another two weeks after which I want to keep it going and lose another 10 which would put me squarely in normal BMI territory. The longest I’ve done is 7 days, but it really wiped me out and personally it felt like too much.
You can start by fasting on any low-calorie liquids for a few days, tea, coffee, protein shakes (I use Vega complete - 140 calories), sparkling water, water, almond milk, or broth.
I’ve been fasting twice a year for a very long time because growing up, my family used to fast regularly for health reasons. Sometimes when I can’t get into my water/tea fast, I just do a liquid fast for a few days to ease myself into the actual fast.