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Trying to decide whether to continue a fast throughout a high pressure week

I have done a few 7-10 day fasts and many 2-5 day fasts before. Starting tomorrow, I have performances every few days for the next week (I am a classical musician in grad school). The first few are relatively low pressure, the last is very high pressure. I am currently 42 hours into a fast, and trying to decide whether to continue for the next week and a half, or break the fast tonight. I know that if I break the fast now, I probably should not fast again until after the last performance, because of memory-lapse issues that I tend to get while going into ketosis.

Here are the reasons I am fasting:

  1. Hopefully, the clearheadedness of extended fasts will help me perform better

  2. I have terrible performance nerves. Almost nothing seems to have helped, so I am seeing if any of the calm associated with fasting could possibly help.

  3. A lot of things happened to me when I was younger that are painful to remember. I sometimes go through periods of the memories being extremely present in the front of my brain. It makes me feel terrible rage and shame, which makes it hard to go on stage. I am going through one of those periods now. Fasting often reduces the visceral impact of these memories, and makes the emotions easier to control. I am hoping that, at least by the last performance (10+ days into the fast) I will have returned to a manageable equilibrium.

Reasons not to fast:

  1. I have never performed fasted before, it is very common for musicians to eat a banana right before going on stage even. I have no idea what my reflexes will be like.

  2. I am still in the transitional state of the fast right now, and I have no idea how long it will last. I have low energy, which could improve by tomorrow, but also could worsen. I have a lot of work to do, to keep everything in shape for the next week, so cannot afford to rest much.

  3. I am a bit depressed. Eating won’t change this, of course, but it does provide a moment of rest, and having a full stomach makes it easier to ignore.

Sorry, this is very long haha. I am just not sure what to do anymore. Does anyone have any opinion/advice/related anecdote on what I should do? If I do not break the fast, I will have performances at roughly 62 hrs, 110 hrs, 9 days, and 11 days into the fast. I am male, 26, 5’6, 130 lbs, taking electrolytes, some minor health issues, but not flaring up at the moment.

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Answer

Sounds like you are psyching yourself into quitting the fast by making it into the problem that it doesn’t need to be.

I had a 4-hour mental health assessment as part of sorting out evening mental fog (which thank God is was in the morning). On those 4 hours they screen for the common cognitive degenerative conditions as well as giving you a full blown IQ test. Well as luck would have it I had it done on day 4 of a fast. Long story short, cognitive speaking a fast state has no effect in your ability to perform. My IQ still scored at the usual high level it did ages ago.

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