I’m almost 48 hours into a 90 hour dry fast. I did a 28 day water fast back in January and a few shorter ones after that….up to 16 days. On the January water fast, I didn’t do much exercise because I was under the impression it would be extremely difficult. I did lots of exercise when I did my 16 day fast in March and I achieved much better fat and weight loss. Exercise was not a problem at all. Now with this being my first prolonged dry fast, I figured I’d give exercise a try and see how it goes. So far, even fairly intense exercise (biking at 600 cal/hr, P90x yoga, and weight lifting) while dry fasting has been pretty simple. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that I haven’t been getting the usual hunger pangs which normally come at meal times that I always experienced in the first 3-4 days of water fasting. Going without hunger is an incredible plus for me. After the 90 hours, I plan on transitioning into an extended water fast, perhaps up to 21 days total. I may add another 72-96 hour dry fast into the mix next week. For the record, I’m 54 yo. I imagine it’s probably even easier for a younger person to do this.
In between fasting, I’ve been experimenting with carnivore, which I’ve been loving.
Carnivore and dry fasting seem to work well together, indeed.
My best water fasts have only gone to 7 days, so I am curious–how does it feel to fast for practically a whole month? Any interesting findings from doing a water fast that long?
Regarding the exercise; sounds great that you are able to do it despite dry fasting, however it´s not usually something people are able to do unless perhaps experienced dry fasters doing (for them) not that intense workouts.
First of all you risk using more water than you can produce; normally the body can only create about 1 liter of water from the air and fat cells. So if the workout consumes water or even if it´s just very hot outside one could end up dangerously low (you should get warning signs in that case ofc). Second; if it´s intense cardio for instance it´s very hard to keep the mouth closed above a certain level when the work gets anaerobic. Then one would also lose water from inside the mouth which could be very unpleasent when it gets dry as sahara + additionally total amount of water lost. Third; some people can get very fatigue from the detoxification and processes in the body which is actually the main goals during prolonged dry fasting. Not the fatigue of course :P
Would be interesting to hear how it progresses. 48 hours in the body may not even have used up all resources and felt the need to start producing water yet. But it´s usually around there, and then a lot of ppl feel like crap until 72 hours or even a day longer depending on how easily the body can transit to using fat for water/energy.
For the record - I am 38yo and sounds like I had a lot tougher time during my dry fasts :) Day 1-2 has been OK hydration- and energy-wise but usually feel some hunger and hard to sleep which leads to a bit of fatigue. Day 2-3 usually the worst in energy, after that a lot of detox-symtoms, dry mouth and well I wouldn´t be up for workouts.