I Drank ONLY Water for 5 Days. Here’s Why, What Happened, and Why I LOVED It

I didn’t eat or drink anything except water for 5 days. Twice.

Yes, I did a 5-day fast.

You might be thinking: Why the hell would you do that? I could never!”

Oh, but you could.

Your relationship with food is, well, a relationship. What you eat and when you eat are determined by the habits you’ve developed in that relationship. And most of us have developed those habits through conditioning and have done it without realizing it. And some of those habits are bad.

Why do you always eat lunch at noon? Are you actually hungry, or do you just eat because a clock has two arrows pointing at a 12?

Why do you eat dinner when you do?

What do you eat?

Why are your portions that size?

Why do you eat that at that time?

Do you eat breakfast? Why?

Do you have to eat every 4 hours or you are “starving” if you don’t?

Are you paying attention to what you’re eating?

How fast or slow?

Do you chew enough?

Do you eat the same things at the same time as all the people around you? Have you ever stopped to think that you, and your unique biochemistry and needs, might be different?

When was the last time you actually missed a meal?

This last question really hit me. I’ve noticed that people can’t miss a single meal without thinking they are “starving” or “super hungry” It completely throws a wrench in people’s day.

You see, most of us have no clue what our relationship is with food or even our own hunger. We were raised a certain way and conditioned to eat at specific times of the day, hungry or not.

The truth is, most of us aren’t actually “hungry” all the times that we eat; we’ve just conditioned ourselves to eat and snack at those times. And, most importantly, humans haven’t evolved to eat as much, and as often, as we currently do.

Human’s Evolved to Fast

You are a product of millions of years of evolution. Yes, you, the one staring at the boundless screen in front of you. And that is amazing.

Around 2 million years ago, humans spread to Eurasia and evolved into different human species. 500,000 years ago, the Neanderthal came about. 300,000 years ago, “Man, fire, good.” 200,000 years ago, the first Homo sapiens evolved. 12,000 years ago, the Agricultural Revolution began. Today, abundance beyond our wildest dreams.

What does that have to do with a 5-day fast, though? Well, for millions of years, human biology didn’t evolve to eat five times a day — to sit and hammer down a slice of pizza, while staring at a screen, then smash a piece of cake and a diet soda to wash it all down night after night. And, oh yea, a beer as well. Please, and thank you. Oh yeah, gotta snack on some junk food in a bit as well, thank you very much.

Even more, for 190,000 years, our hunter and gatherer ancestors were out there learning what plants wouldn’t kill them and then trying to eat them before they rotted, and killing things…with sticks! Now, you can kill a burger with an app on your phone and 10 bucks.

No, in fact, it is only very recently, that most of the world isn’t suffering from famine and starvation. This is all relatively new for us.

But evolution hasn’t caught up. We aren’t ready for all of this abundance. Your mind wants to scarf down all those calories because evolution doesn’t give a shit if you get fat. It just wants energy.

The Quick and Dirty Science of Water Fasting

This is where water fasting comes in.

Will it save your life and have you live to 150? I have no fucking clue. I’m just a dude on the internet who likes to experiment with things.

But science seems to think so.

Here are the bodily basics:

Your body exists in two states: fed or fasting.

There is a signaling protein called mTOR in the body and its job is to balance the body’s need to grow and reproduce with the nutrients available.

When fed, mTOR goes into growth mode and tells the body to produce new proteins and cell division — the ultimate goal, like for any organism, reproduction.

When nutrients are minimal (fasting), mTOR “turns off” and the body goes into “cleaning” mode. Basically, mTOR chills the fuck out for a minute.

mTOR is now recognized as a major driver of aging. It is activated when nutrients enter the body. When mTOR is activated, the body continues its natural growth process.¹

Sounds good.

Well, kind of.

But the problem arises when mTOR is constantly activated and running its growth processes, not allowing our bodies to, conversely, run through its natural “cleaning” process.

In simple terms, many people are always eating and eating too much so their body doesn’t get a break for a minute to do some damn house cleaning.

mTor and Autophagy

When fasting, mTOR gets “turned down”, stopping the pro-growth and pro-aging effects that mTOR is responsible for. Simultaneously, the body kicks up a process called autophagy, which means “self-eating” or “self-devouring”.

Well, that sounds terrifying!

Actually, it’s quite the opposite. It is the body’s miracle process of “cleaning” and “recycling” old and damaged cells.

Imagine driving your old car for 15 years, then deciding to store it away for 5 days, walking out one morning, and seeing that you’ve got a brand new car!

Not a bad deal, huh?

Is this what a 5-day water fast will do for you? Again, no fucking clue. Just a guy on the internet.

Here’s a Little More Science on Water Fasting

When our bodies run low on nutrients (Re: fasting, caloric restriction), it produces an enzyme called AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). AMPK seeks out energy by telling the mitochondria (Re: high school science) to “find more energy”. So, the mitochondria produce more mitochondria through a process called mitochondria biogenesis. New mitochondria equals happy you. The mitochondria help the cells produce ATP, the cellular energy currency. Also, AMPK tells the liver to release energy stored in fat cells (Re: ketone bodies, ketosis). When your body burns ketones, this makes for some interesting happenings that you might have heard about: increased clarity and focus, more energy, weight loss, burning visceral fat, and so on.

At the same time F0X0, the cellular repair gene that has been implicated in healthy aging and longevity, gets activated.

And activating a gene involved in anti-aging and longevity…Umm, yes, I’ll have one of those please, and thank you.

What the Science Says About the Benefits of Fasting

I like science.

But, Science doesn’t know everything.

But science seems to think that fasting has some serious upside. And also some downsides.

In fact, the jury is still out on a lot of it.

Dr. Jason Fung, in all of his books (The Cancer Code, The Diabetes Code, The Obesity Code, Life in the Fasting Lane), argues pretty much the same thing: fasting can lower insulin levels, prevent insulin resistance, and reverse type-2 diabetes and obesity.

Actually, all of the books on fasting or water fasting claim it is the “cure-all”.

But is it?

I know the main draw to fasting, for many people, is weight loss. This benefit seems quite obvious: the fewer calories you eat equals a caloric deficit over time equals weight loss. And not carrying around excess weight and putting your body under undue stress is a very, very good thing. Although, I did lose about 8 pounds over the 5-day fast (and I am a modest 150 pounds on average), I certainly wasn’t in it for the weight loss.

So why do it?

Fasting Might Help You Live Longer (Maybe)

Longevity.

As previously mentioned, autophagy is enticing. Not only are the “cellular cleaning” benefits involved, but fluctuating autophagic activity (switching between autophagy and non-autophagy states) was also found in animal trials to indicate anti-aging effects. This same study indicated that not reducing autophagy might be implicated in aging.²

In short, exercising your “autophagy muscle” seems like a good idea.

You know all that cool stuff about mTOR being “shut down” and autophagy we just learned, well, coffee might have those same effects.³ Not bad. Not bad at all.

Intermittent Fasting might improve the component composition of cardiometabolic risk factors, including weight, waist circumference, fat mass, BMI, blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting insulin, and insulin resistance when compared to a control group diet.⁴

Intermittent Fasting “may provide a significant metabolic benefit by improving glycemic control, insulin resistance, and adipokine concentration with a reduction of BMI in adults.”⁵

The above studies focused on Intermittent Fasting, and the same results appear to crossover into prolonged fasts, like water fasting and a 5-day fast.

Can Fasting Help With Illness?

Suffering from chronic pain, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, or any other chronic inflammatory disease? Water fasting might help.⁶

Fasting can reduce IGF-1 (we don’t want that elevated all the time), increase ketone bodies, increase BDNF (“miracle grow” for your brain), reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, boost/reset immune function, help with arthritis and hypertension, increase synaptic plasticity and neurogenesis (basically, forming new, awesome neurons in your brain), reduce neurodegeneration and may reduce cancer incidence, act as a preventative measure and even a cancer treatment.⁷

On BDNF specifically, lower levels of BDNF are being linked to depression and that “decreased levels of BDNF are associated with neurodegenerative diseases with neuronal loss, such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and Huntington’s disease.” Low levels of BDNF have been linked to people with depressive symptoms in several studies.⁸ So yeah, probably going to want to keep those BDNF levels up and it appears caloric restriction, fasting, and exercise play a role.

Furthermore, increased sugar consumption resulted in a “significant increment in the risk of depression.”⁹¹⁰¹¹ Don’t shoot the messenger.

Fasting has been associated with the body’s activation of SIRT1 activity and SIRT1 activity is linked to a whole host of benefits:

The relationships between SIRT1 and age were investigated in the previous studies related to interaction of lifespan elongation and calorie restriction which is thought as an enhancer for SIRT1 activity. Most of these studies showed that calorie intake restriction innervates the extension of life by the inducement of defense of cells against to free radicals and toxins for attenuation of apoptosis or amelioration of cell repair which are desired factors in aging. That means, altered SIRT1 expression and activity is thought to be a potent way to keep the cells and organs properly functioning for longer times.¹²

Yeah, I’ll take me some of that, please.

Planarian Flatworms and Immortality

Planarian flatworms really put me over the top. Studies showed that fasting increased the percentage of stem cells with long telomeres and increased maximum telomere length.¹³

What does that mean: well, stem cells are like the “Holy Grail” of cells. They are magic. The more we have and the more active they are, the better. And telomeres are little protective caps at the end of our DNA, like the little plastic “cap” on the end of a shoelace. Apparently, those telomere “caps” shorten as we age.

So the planarian study showed that not only did they get more magic stem cells, but they also lengthened the telomeres.

And that made the planarians “immortal.”

What Is the Internet Saying About Water Fasting

Fuck the internet!

Okay, okay. I know, relax, Scott.

But that comes out of frustration, obviously, but also out of love.

I love the fact that we have access to all of the information that has ever existed, ever. But at the same time, it feels impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff — to find the truth.

I’ve written about my frustration with the food and nutrition “noise” here, and how we know relatively little with absolute certainty and anyone telling you otherwise is a liar, or even worse, a crazy person.

That’s the truth, we just don’t know.

And the same goes for fasting.

Not eating for a 5-day fast and only drinking water could be the Fountain of Youth. Or, it could be destroying people. You could die while fasting, or even more surprisingly, when re-feeding after your fast.

We. Just. Don’t. Know.

What Some People Say About Fasting

Some people on the internet are saying to take a daily multivitamin or a Vitamin B supplement. While others are saying that it cancels the benefits.

People are saying that coffee doesn’t break your fast. Nor green tea. Not even bone broth. Some are saying they do.

Others say to take an electrolyte supplement. Some say don’t.

Some people say to exercise normally. While some say don’t exercise at all.

Drink 10L of water to “flush the toxins!” Yeah, not gonna do that.

Some say prepare a few days in advance and eat a no/low carb meal as your last meal. Yeah, Nah, didn’t do that.

It’s all annoyingly confusing.

So don’t listen to me, and certainly not anyone out there telling you that they have the perfect “answer”, fasting supplement, or fasting method.

For all we know, it could all turn upside down in the next three years.

And that’s what I’ve learned when doing these self-experiments in food and nutrition, or anything really: most of the information is just repeated, clickbait garbage. And even the best of it is still supported with science that was cherry-picked to fit a narrative.

You just have to simplify things and trust yourself—your gut instincts—and trust that you know what’s best for you and that you’ll figure it out on your own.

So do you.

Do your own research, of course.

Talk to your doctor or medical professional and see what might work for you.

I Know I Just Told You Not to Listen to Me, so Don’t, but Here’s What I Did for My 5-Day Fast

Warning! Warning! Dear reader, I don’t want you to die while water fasting. Or ever, really. Well, at least not until you’ve lived such a full and beautiful life that you are ready to go in peace. So please, remember this is not advice telling you what to do or any sort of medical or nutritional advice. I am not in any way qualified to do anything of the sort. I am, truly, just a health nut who tries things out on himself because they are fun and challenging, and then shares them for entertainment purposes only. A 5 DAY FAST IS NOT A JOKE!

• I drank ONLY water. Nothing else (other than a few dashes of sea salt or a twist of Pink Himalayan after my walks).
• I drank nothing else — after my research, I am fully convinced that any calorie, even black coffee, which has “almost no calories”, still has calories and therefore will activate mTOR, thus breaking the fast. (Remember, you are either in a fed or fasting state. There is no grey area. In my opinion.)
• Coffee, tea, bone breath BREAK YOUR FAST. If you are fasting for weight loss, this is a different story. But for the anti-aging and longevity benefits I’ve discussed, they break it (again, in my opinion).
• Eat NOTHING. Sounds so simple, but I feel, somehow, people out there will botch this up or complicate it.
• Drink as much water as you need. There is no hard and fast rule. I drank a bit more than I usually do: 6–700ml when I woke up, then about 3L throughout the day. I carry my water bottle with me everywhere and sip throughout the day, regardless.
• Supplementation is not necessary. But it might be for some people. For me, again, I feel the ingredients in the supplements would affect my goals (re: autophagy, stem cell activation, BDNF, “cleaning”, reboot, etc.)
• Electrolytes are not necessary. I obsessed over this one and dug into the advice online — after looking at all the electrolytes and their ingredient labels and added sugars, yeah, that would break your fast instantly. There were some fasting salts I found, but too expensive and, again, not necessary. Your body is amazing at keeping homeostasis and your sodium, potassium, calcium, chloride, phosphate, and magnesium will stay in check (this is why you re-feed slowly, so as not to deplete electrolytes in your bloodstream too quickly or even damage your cells. We will look at that later).
• Those ancestors of ours that we talked about, the ones that killed huge animals with sticks…yeah, went a few days without needing to take the newest “fasting supplement” and were just fine.
• Exercise lightly. Light exercise can help you burn your glycogen stores in the liver and put you in ketosis quicker. You won’t be eating for 5 days — so don’t be an idiot and go lifting or running a marathon. That’s dumb. Walk a few miles each day. I did about 2–3 miles a day and listened to an audiobook.
• Eat whatever you want before the fast. But note that a heavy-carb meal might make the transition from glucose to ketones a bit “rougher” and longer (re: headache and hunger).
• Sleep as much as you need. I slept more than usual, as expected, and averaged about 9.5 hours. No naps.
• Re-feed slowly. Kind of. I’ll get to that later.
• Here’s my logic: if I am going to do a 5-day fast with absolutely no food, I’m going to simplify. Simply everything. Just water. Noting else. Walking. Sleep. The rest goes as usual. Why would I not eat food for 5 days and fuss over what coffee might do, or tea, or a multivitamin — I just simplified and cut them out. Water and a little salt after my walks. Done.

The Breakdown of the 5-Day Fast

11 Hours In: 5:00 am “usual” wakeup and 1-hour walk on the treadmill (it was freezing and snowy outside).

18 Hours In: About the time I would usually be breaking my fast anyway. Started to get a mild caffeine-withdrawal headache (if your body has to go through withdrawal from something, it makes me question it…).

18–22 Hours In: Massive caffeine-withdrawal headache. Eyeballs hurt.

24 Hours In: Turned down a Holiday dinner gathering because it would have been too difficult to sit there. Realized “It’s all in your head.”

36 Hours In: Slept surprisingly well. Woke up a 6:00 am, but went back to sleep. The “old voice” that told me not to get up and that I could sleep in came back, and truthfully, I didn’t have the willpower to fight it off.

38 Hours In: Finally got up, but was feeling lethargic. Managed to “go through the motions” of my morning routine, lifted weights and felt great afterward. Got the necessary work done.

40 Hours In: Was feeling really, really good, however, not 100% my energetic self. Thoughts of food started to creep in: What will I eat at the end of this? Hmmmm… Read Jason Fung’s The Complete Guide to Fasting.

48 Hours In: Surprisingly, not hungry at all. But I just wanted to taste food. Water was getting boring. Realized that the best way to fast is just to simplify it. People overcomplicate these things, especially in the Health Space.

65 Hours In: HALF WAY! Certain I am in Ketosis now — feeling excellent! Feeling the best I’ve felt so far, although, woke up a bit lethargic but moved my body with yoga and stretching then took a cold shower and was beaming. Went grocery shopping for when I start eating again. Wasn’t as bad as I thought being in the supermarket — in fact, I was more “tuned in” to what was on the shelves and what I wanted to put in my body moving forward. Again, realized it is a mental game.

72 Hours In: Still feeling great. Decent energy, but missing the taste of food. Spent some time thinking about what I would eat to break my fast.

90 Hours In: Feeling fantastic this morning. Went for a 1-hour walk outside. Ran errands and even got a haircut! Was super “dialed in” and although it was difficult to be with people while they were eating, I knew I’d be fine. Drinking about 3–4L of water and adding salt to it has been really helpful. Just like life, it’s all in your head. Not insanely energetic like I usually am, but still feel awesome.

95 Hours In: Used free time to go deep down the fasting rabbit hole to research the details about the potential benefits. Then made a video about it, and shared it on social media. Thinking to myself: Maybe I don’t have to eat as much all the time as I have been. Maybe I should put food in my body that my body thrives on.

98 Hours In: Family Holiday gathering was extremely difficult to watch everyone eat and miss some yummy desserts. Timing Matters!

115 Hours In: Slept poorly. Body temperature was running hot. Was thinking about food a lot yesterday. Surprised and happy I made it the 5 days and it didn’t feel that bad looking back. Hungry and ready to eat. MUST STAY BUSY…but don’t make the work too challenging. Deep Work was a bit of a struggle at times

120 Hours and 6 Minutes In: Mission accomplished!

(Surprising) Results of the 5-Day Water Fast

• The first thing that comes to mind is timing. Timing matters. I had the “brilliant” idea to fast the last five days of the year so I could “start the New Year fresh”. Yeah, bad idea. Don’t fast right around the Holidays unless you want to watch your family eat a Holiday feast right in front of you and have them ask you if “you want any” and you have to repeat in your head “I’m not hungry, I’m not hungry,” over and over again. Not cool, Scott. Not. Cool.
• Another aspect of time is that you get a tremendous amount of time back. Literally and figuratively. It’s hard to explain but you get the obvious time back from not having to shop, prep, cook, eat, clean, but also, you get this psychological slowing of time — leading to feeling that there is more time. It’s trippy. I felt like I had so much more time in the day — it was psychologically hard to process — almost like I had too much time. Maybe that, or it felt like time had slowed.
• Next is clarity and focus. This hype is so-so, as far as I could tell. I was clear and focused, but nothing insanely out of the ordinary. If anything, I was distracted by occasional waves of hunger or just thinking about what I would eat when the 5 day fast was up. Especially when not busy. Yes, running on ketones is great, but only for a very short time. Evolutionarily that makes sense — ketones as fuel as a biological process were created to give our ancestors extreme focus, power, and energy when they were really starving, and only for a short time. Say, enough time to go hunt and kill a wild boar that was spotted in the brush, not sit and stare at a computer screen for 8 hours. Don’t always believe the hype.
• Energy: I’m not sure what everyone on the internet is talking about. I didn’t have some superhuman amount of energy. I mean, yeah, I was fine overall, but not super energetic. In fact, I was a little less energetic than normal. No food for 5 days, people! What do you expect?! Stop listening to crazy people on the internet who tell you ridiculous things like “You’ll be more focused and productive and full of energy than you’ve ever been in your life.” Not true. Not true at all.
• We’ve obviously gotta talk about hunger. You will be hungry. Especially in the beginning. Don’t let anyone tell you it is easy. It’s not. You will want to eat. Don’t. Surprisingly, it comes in “waves” and isn’t as bad as you’d expect. But, it is a “thing” you have to deal with.
• The first meal(s) after your fast will taste like the first time you’ve ever eaten. Savor it.
• The “Keto Flu” that happens to some people when their body switches from burning glucose to burning fat stores didn’t happen to me. I was fine.
• I was noticeably colder. My cold showers in the morning were very, very hard. I assumed my body was conserving energy, but the air felt colder those five days.
• Restless sleep could happen on some nights. Your body is going through a process. You’ll adapt.
• Muscle soreness, especially in the legs. This happened to me in the first round of five days I did. In the second round, I started adding salt to my water at times throughout the day. No leg soreness.
• It’s lonely. This one surprised me. Our lives revolve around food. A lot. It’s a way we connect with others. We eat together and enjoy meals together. Plus, all that extra time you get back from not eating is hard to spend with people while they are eating. You probably don’t want to put yourself in that situation.
• Most people will have no clue what the hell you are doing and won’t be able to process the fact that you aren’t eating anything for five days. Don’t try to explain it to them. Save your energy.
• Stay busy! (This one is so important.)
• It’s all in your head (this one will make sense when you finish — it’s empowering).

Why I Did a 5-Day Fast and Why I Loved It

For me, it’s easy. I’m healthy and active, and just the idea of reaping some benefits of water fasting like improved mood, memory, and learning, along with the speculation of living longer and healthier and all I have to do is not eat for a few days…yea, I’m going to try it out.

We eat way too much! I’m talking to you America. You should be ashamed. After living abroad for almost 15 years, there is no place that has the portion sizes that we have, or that eats as often as we do. It’s constant. Or even the individual aspect of “this is MY plate of food and that is YOUR plate of food and I’m not going to share.” It’s weird. And it’s not good.

And we spend much more time with food than we think we do. At least for me. Hours shopping, prepping, cooking, eating, cleaning. It’s wild.

It’s nice to change the perception you have around food: how much you eat, what you eat, and when you eat.

Time to break up that unhealthy relationship you have with food and start again.

The Subtle Art of Re-feeding After a 5-Day Fast

When you start eating again, you should have a sip of bone broth, then wait 10.33 hours, then have a piece of lettuce at 4:19 pm, then a half of a half of a peanut…

NOT!

Okay, I’ll be serious. Re-feeding isn’t a joke and people have died from complications resulting from the body’s sudden shift in electrolytes, called re-feeding syndrome.¹⁴

During your fast, your body moves electrolytes (in this case we are concerned with phosphorus) from the cells into the circulating bloodstream when it realizes there is no more food coming in. It does this to regulate circulating serum-electrolyte levels.

Then, when you eat again after 5 days, insulin gets released into the bloodstream which opens up the cells again. All of a sudden, all of those electrolytes in the blood will get sucked back into the cell via osmosis and potentially damage the cell, especially if you go eating processed foods loaded with things like sodium. Even worse, your blood-serum-electrolyte level which was already low now just got even lower — electrolytes were rapidly taken out of the bloodstream depleting electrolyte levels even further — mainly phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, and thiamine. This could leave you fatally deficient. And you don’t want to just go pumping electrolytes in either. It’s strategic. So plan accordingly.

The cut-off appears to be around 5 days of no food where these complications arise and with extremely malnourished people.

This is also why you don’t want to consume carbs right after breaking your fast. The spike in insulin can cause problems. Also, your body requires thiamine to metabolize carbohydrates. And guess what? Your body is already low in thiamine because you just went 5 days with NO FOOD and using what little you have left to metabolize a huge pizza will zap your thiamine stores leading to possible thiamine deficiency.¹⁵

What to Eat to Break Your Fast

Eat a small portion of lean protein: sockeye salmon, chicken, pork.

Fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi are perfect to re-populate the gut with probiotics.

Don’t eat raw veggies for the first 24 hours.

Cooked veggies are great.

Fruits can wait. Mostly.

Nuts might be hard for your gut to break down.

High-fibrous foods could be harder to digest.

Eggs and dairy? Maybe wait a day or two.

For about 48 hours, avoid grains, gluten, and casein protein as they can damage the gut mucosal layer releasing Lipopolysaccharides into the bloodstream (we don’t like those).

MCT oil could be a good way to get some easy fuel as it bypasses normal digestive processes and goes straight to to liver to be burned as ketones — the calories will stop the fast and give you energy. But you also might shit your pants. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. (And NO I didn’t find out the hard way. Or maybe I did. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. What happened isn’t important. Stop judging me.)

Don’t Overthink How to Break Your Fast

So with all of that said, just eat food, and you’ll be fine. Do what our ancestors did: eat what you find to eat.

Anything more than 5 days, I would take more precautions. Anything less than 5 days, just eat. (Again, not a doctor.)

No hard and fast rules here other than you’ll probably want to avoid the obvious garbage and not binge. That should be obvious.

You just went 5 days with no food. Take it easy on yourself.

Would I Do It Again

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: I would plan a little better next time. And since I am already an intermittent fast-er naturally (breakfast never sat well with me, even as a kid), I would aim to go a little further knowing what I know now. Maybe 7 days.

My second time doing the 5-day fast was much better than my first time — adding the salt to my water really did help the leg soreness, and therefore, my sleep, and therefore, everything else.

The benefits of just eating fewer calories in general seem blindingly overwhelming to me, and I’ll keep doing what I’m doing because I feel incredible when I do these “experiments” as well as for a while after.

I’ve experimented with Keto for 30 days, and that just wasn’t sustainable for me. Aiming for a 3 or 5-day fast is much more manageable than any other “diet” or eating plan, for me, and I assume, others as well. I just simply like to eat healthy foods and then fast once in a while to reap the apparent benefits that are inherent in fasting.

But again, not a doctor.

What I Ate After My 5-Day Fast

• 2 hours before 120 hours, I took a 500mg Magnesium Glycinate supplement.
• 45 minutes before, I had 500ml of water, salt, and Ceylon cinnamon (which helps control cortisol levels as well as the insulin spike from the upcoming meal).
• First bite: Seaweed Snacks (for iodine replenishment) and it tasted fucking amazing!
• Half an orange (helps with carb absorption from the rice noodles that are coming soon). Also tasted amazing.
• Sockeye salmon seasoned with lemon, turmeric, and black pepper. Again, tasted amazing.
• Bone broth soup with gluten-free rice noodles with ginger, green onions, and cilantro, with a dash of Apple Cider Vinegar added to the broth (great for gut mucosal healing, re-introduction of those electrolytes that you need, and a high-glycemic food to start mTOR, replace glycogen stores and prevent further muscle loss — normally this wouldn’t be ideal to eat high-glycemic carbs but helpers like cinnamon, lemon, ginger, and ACV lower the insulin spike). Tasted…you already know!
• I treat the 5-day Water Fast like a very, very tough workout and want to replenish my body with protein and carbs like I would after strenuous exercise.
• If the carbs worry you, I’ve replaced the rice noodles with Shirataki, or “Wonder Noodles”, which have zero carbs in them. So no major insulin spike.
• About 2 hours later, I ate again: Some salt and peppered air-fried chicken. Some Shirataki noodles with a grass-fed beef pasta sauce on top. Oh yeah, and a few shrimp on the side. Super Yummy.

Should You Plan How to Break Your Fast?

I did plan it out, but honestly, I don’t think what you eat after your fast matters much. Why? Because, just as we started this article ages ago, you are a Homo sapien with millions of years of evolution on your side. You’ve evolved to survive. Even though you didn’t evolve to sit and hammer down a slice of pizza while staring at a screen, then smash a piece of cake, a diet soda, and a beer to wash it all down, followed by a tub of ice cream and some chips after a 5-day fast…it won’t kill you.

Probably.

Hopefully.

Yeah, nah, you’ll be fine.

Just fine.

Maybe.

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1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7102936/ ↩︎
2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16874025/ ↩︎
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4111762/ ↩︎
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