Fasting: the ultimate cure-all

[Aleksandr]

So after @gbolduev made this post

"
being bald is a mutation, at one point in your life you got to the point of missing some nutrient that the body had to mutate the organ, not the skin, but some organ. So now basically you live in the mutated state and it is a compensatory state. meaning shaky. this is what aging is , a mutation. to me it is unbalanced and not a healthy state . person will always need to compensate for it.

the only antimutate therapy I know is fasting and extreme fasting not some 10 days worthless stuff. LIke 100 days, or 50 days, after that you are reborn.

fasting is anti mutation thing. that is what RPF does not get. If you tell me your hair wont grow back after series of 50-100 days fasts. I would say NO WAY. It will. And you will look like you are in high school . Peat says that fasting breaks down heart, spleen kidney. Great, that is what I want. I want to fast to the point when fasting starts breaking down organs. Only then it works. All this 5- 10 day fasts to me are worthless and waste of time. Plus you need to be in the ocean while fasting, since body take what it needs to rebuild."


It got me thinking about my own leanness and reluctance to fast. What are you saying gbold, tht what matters most is that protein and organs are being eaten in order to cause them to rebuild minus the mutations???

If so, then i understand a 40 day waterfast for someone who is 30kg overweight. The first month is probably just burning off pure fat, anyway? @mattyb

If im starting at an already lean 12.5% bodyfat, surely i dont have to fast as long? Like im sure it would only take maybe 7 days and my fat is already gone and im already burning protein and organs at this point.

So the 30kg overweight person:
30 days burning fat, then 10 days of protein / organ burning is 40 days of fasting.

For me at 12.5% bodyfat:
10 days (if that) burning fat, then 30 days of protein / organ burning? Is this how it works??

So basically not all fasts are created equal, i would get 3x the duration burning protein and organs, if i did the full 40 days?
Thus for the same kind of health benefit as a 30kg overweight person, i could just fast for 17 days, Since we both still get 10 days protein/ organ burning?

Ive totally guesstimated most of this stuff, but you get the theory / point im trying to make here hopefully. What do you think gbold, matty?

 

[Aflac94]

Interesting point. I don’t have much body fat to lose either. Wondering if I need to put on some to fast or if your logic is sound. Going shorter would be easier. Sounds too good to be true though

 

[mattyb]

So let's assume you are going to lose 0.3kg per day on a water fast (0.3 is kind of on the low end, but whatever, probably works out to something like that given metabolism slows down the deeper into the fast you get). Protein is catabolized to synthesize glucose at about a rate of ~25g/day in prolonged starvation (compared to about 75g/day in acute fasting). This leaves about 0.275kg needing to come from other places. Some of that will be water, minerals, etc. - let's assume half for the sake of simplicity (I don't know the answer to this one off the top of my head). This leaves about 0.13kg/day of actual fat loss.

So let's assume you are a 75kg male at 12.5% BF. This means you have 10kg of fat (it.s 9.4kg, but lets say 10kg to keep it simple). You can go as low as about 4% before things start getting shaky. Assuming you lose 0.3kg per day, over 40 days you will get down to 63kg. In that time you lose about 5kg of fat. So in that time you will lose only half of your fat stores, leaving you at a body fat of about 6% which isn't too low (3-4% is when things start getting really shaky).

They say a healthy 70kg man has enough caloric content to survive with no food for 1 to 3 months (depending on the person). So these calculations above are about right for this. A 40 day fast would be just about right near the maximum of what you could handle at 75kg with 12.5% bodyfat.

And the thing is, these rates of protein and fat metabolism during fasting don't really change depending on what weight the person is. An obese person just has more of both protein and fat to metabolize, so they can fast for much longer.

 

[mattyb]

Oh yeah, and keep in mind that these calculations assume almost no physical activity of any kind (essentially bed rest). If you throw activity into the mix this speeds everything up.

 

[mattyb]

And one last thought. You also have to consider that even though only a small amount of protein is broken down for energy, many other structures are broken down and reconstituted.

 

[Aleksandr]

Great thanks for shedding some light Matty!!

Oh yeah, and keep in mind that these calculations assume almost no physical activity of any kind (essentially bed rest). If you throw activity into the mix this speeds everything up.

Do you recommend exercise during the fast? Something vigorous like a tennis match... or something much gentler like swimming or walking?

 

[Aleksandr]

And one last thought. You also have to consider that even though only a small amount of protein is broken down for energy, many other structures are broken down and reconstituted.

What do you mean by this? Organs?

 

[ballheadbuddha]

So let's assume you are going to lose 0.3kg per day on a water fast (0.3 is kind of on the low end, but whatever, probably works out to something like that given metabolism slows down the deeper into the fast you get). Protein is catabolized to synthesize glucose at about a rate of ~25g/day in prolonged starvation (compared to about 75g/day in acute fasting). This leaves about 0.275kg needing to come from other places. Some of that will be water, minerals, etc. - let's assume half for the sake of simplicity (I don't know the answer to this one off the top of my head). This leaves about 0.13kg/day of actual fat loss.

So let's assume you are a 75kg male at 12.5% BF. This means you have 10kg of fat (it.s 9.4kg, but lets say 10kg to keep it simple). You can go as low as about 4% before things start getting shaky. Assuming you lose 0.3kg per day, over 40 days you will get down to 63kg. In that time you lose about 5kg of fat. So in that time you will lose only half of your fat stores, leaving you at a body fat of about 6% which isn't too low (3-4% is when things start getting really shaky).

They say a healthy 70kg man has enough caloric content to survive with no food for 1 to 3 months (depending on the person). So these calculations above are about right for this. A 40 day fast would be just about right near the maximum of what you could handle at 75kg with 12.5% bodyfat.

And the thing is, these rates of protein and fat metabolism during fasting don't really change depending on what weight the person is. An obese person just has more of both protein and fat to metabolize, so they can fast for much longer.

What about for 65kg, 8-10%BF ?

 

[mattyb]

What about for 65kg, 8-10%BF ?

10% of 65kg is 6.5kg. Lets say you lose 0.13kg/day of fat. It would take you about 20 days to lose 2.5kg of fat and 3kg of other stuff, which would put you at around a BF% of 6%. So maybe 20 days. At 8% it's even less, the math isn't hard to figure out if you want to know.

 

[ballheadbuddha]

10% of 65kg is 6.5kg. Lets say you lose 0.13kg/day of fat. It would take you about 20 days to lose 2.5kg of fat and 3kg of other stuff, which would put you at around a BF% of 6%. So maybe 20 days. At 8% it's even less, the math isn't hard to figure out if you want to know.

I got it, but tell me something, what would be the main goal of fasting?

 

[mattyb]

I got it, but tell me something, what would be the main goal of fasting?

This isn't a good question because it depends on the purpose you're doing it for and the type of fast you're doing.

For some people it's about upregulating mitophagy, for others it's about rebalancing mineralcorticoid function, for others it's about autophagy. Totally depends on the situation.

 

[Shadow]

Total Offtopic question, but I dont want to creato a new topic about it so...

@mattyb you work in a sleep clinic right? I want to know if you have seen something that happens to me since post ssri. I can only sleep like 5-6h daily, if I try to go back to sleep after waking, when Im on that state of almost sleeping, I wake up with heart racing a little bit, like a mild panic attack. Wtf is this? I used to sleep 10-12h, could sleep every time,what can this be, something with cortisol?

 

[Namelk]

@mattyb
mattyb, I weigh 76 kg, I have about 12% of body fat, and 1.65 of height, I practice heavy bodybuilding have 5 years
I am an accutane sufferer, do you think that how many days of fasting would be good for "healing" or resensitizing my body, can I continue to practice bodybuilding moderate or only aerobic exercises in fasting? and can I fast only on water without taking any mineral? because there is no ocean in my city, if I have to take something during please tell me what to drink, thank you.

 

[Namelk]

@mattyb I'm taking finasteride now based on accutane cures, I've been taking it for 28 days with virtually no effect, just my hair that falls a little, and now I'm taking it again and I'm going to take it for 25 days, same thing, my hair that falls only, I do not feel anything different