Day 1 (24 hours) into my fast

This is my personal experience on a long-term fast.

The first 24 hours of my fast

I have decided to fast in order to cure the asthmatic symptoms that I feel during the night or when I try to sleep. This blog will document my experience.

Fasting disclaimer

This fasting journal (and the journal entries that are to follow) is not intended to be used as medical advice. I am simply sharing my personal experiences and results when it comes to fasting. I strongly advise that you do your research and consult your medical practitioner before making lifestyle changes of any sort.

Check out my experience with fasting

Previous fasts

I used to practice intermittent fasting every day (for over a year) until a few months ago. I wasn't able to eat enough calories to support my muscle-building goals, so I went back to eating from the time that I woke up. I did a 36 hour fast 2 months ago when I quit smoking. 

I attempted to do a long fast two weeks ago, but I became extremely hungry at the end of day 2 (44.5 hours into my fast). I ended the fast because it didn't feel right and I am a firm believer of listening to my body.

I will never push my body further than a certain limit. It's hard to explain, but I could feel that my body couldn't go further at the time. I have been eating normally since then.

Learn to listen to what your body needs.

Fasting to quit smoking

I mentioned that I fasted to quit smoking in my previous point - and it worked like a charm. I struggled to quit smoking for over 10 years. I discovered that fasting resets the dopamine receptors in your brain - and I know that dopamine is what makes nicotine addictive. I wanted to see if fasting would reset the same dopamine receptors that nicotine triggers.

I had my last cigarette on Friday night before I went to bed. I planned to avoid smoking and eating at the same time from the time that I got up on Saturday morning. I was hungry and craved a cigarette, but it wasn't as bad as it would have been if I wasn't fasting (I have tried quitting smoking many, many times before. If there's one person who knows how bad smoking is for you, it's me).

The hunger seemed to distract my body or brain from the fact that it wasn't getting any nicotine. It has never been so easy to go without cigarettes. It took will power, but it was actually doable.

I wanted to fast for three days, but I felt so dizzy and my blood pressure dropped so low on the 36th hour that I decided to break my fast. I haven't had a cigarette since (and I don't crave one at all now). It's been two months.

I investigate the power of fasting.

How much weight can you lose on a 24 hour fast?

I weighed 73.5 kg (162 pounds) right after my last meal yesterday. I weighed 70 kg (154.3 pounds) exactly 24 hours afterwards. I therefore lost 3.5 kg (7.7 pounds) of weight from my 24 hour fast. I'd say that only 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of this is actually fat mass. The rest was food and water weight.

Remember that I was still full of food at the beginning because I weighed myself right after my last meal. When insulin goes down, you lose a lot of water weight on a fast as well.

I lost more weight than the average person for a variety of reasons. Firstly, my insulin and blood pressure is generally low (so it is easy for me to lose weight very quickly). It is easy to drop water weight for people with low blood pressure.

I am already very fat adapted so my body goes into ketosis (a state of using fat for energy) quite quickly. This is because I exercise a lot, used to practice intermittent fasting and I don't eat a lot of processed food or artificial sweeteners. I eat lots of whole fruit and vegetables (which increase your body's ability to lose weight).

My metabolism (the rate at which I burn calories for energy) is also very high because of the fact that I exercise on an average of twice a day. I also increase my metabolism through heat training.

My greater muscle mass cost more calories to maintain.

These factors greatly increase the rate at which I burn fat on a fast (and every other day in general).

Most people would have to wait a few days before their bodies completely switch over to fat metabolism for energy.

One of my clients loses about 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of weight per day of fasting (3 kg on 3 consecutive fasting days), but gains about half of that after the fast. The general consensus is that you can lose about a pound of fat per day with fasting.

This is how you lose weight.

I don't fast for weight loss

There is no doubt that fasting helps you to lose weight. That's what fat is there for - times when there is no food available. I know of people who lose a lot of weight through fasting (much like my client, who prefers the fasting method to other methods that she's tried over the last few years).

I personally find exercise to help me the most when I want to lose weight. This exercise plan, for example, can burn a lot of fat in a short period of time.

I am fasting for a completely different reason:

Fasting does more than burn fat.

Fasting to cure allergies and asthma

There is a surprising amount of evidence that fasting can cure allergies and other autoimmune diseases like eczema and asthma. 

I've been having breathing problems at night. My goal is to fast until the respiratory problems go away completely. This YouTube documentary covers fasting clinics that use fasting to heal diseases like allergies and asthma.

According to the video, 10-15% of people with asthma are completely cured after a single session of long-term fasting. Other people are cured after a secondary session, third session and other lifestyle changes.

They showed an x-ray of lungs with asthma before and after fasting. The lung's cells were full of histamine at the beginning. They were completely healed after fasting.

It has only been 24-25 hours of fasting at the time of writing this article, and I can already feel a noticeable change on my allergies. I usually start sneezing from the second half of the day because there is a lot of dust around me. I go into a sneezing fit whenever somebody uses the vacuum cleaner in the same room as me.

I haven't sneezed yet today, and I did not need to take antihistamines yet (which I have been taking every day for the last few weeks).

This lady explains that your body starts to heal itself from 12 hours after your last meal, and that inflammation starts to drop at about 24 hours. 

Inflammation is the cause of allergies, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.

Follow my journey.

Why fasting cures allergies and asthma

My personal theory is that our bodies were meant to go through times of feast and famine (when where there is plenty of food and when there isn't any food at all). Technology has allowed us to live in a state of constant food availability.

There are certain bodily functions that can only happen in the absence of food because digestion takes a lot of energy. 

Cells focus on multiplication in the presence of nutrition. They focus on preservation and self-cleaning in the absence of nutrition. 

When we don't eat, this energy can go to other functions like cleaning up cells, killing off immune cells that are deformed and therefore are too active, repairing cellular damage, etc.

When we don't go without food for too long, our bodies never have time to clean themselves out and this leads to too much inflammation.

This, as I have already said, is my personal theory (although this point is backed up by doctors and researchers that I've linked to in the last three hyperlinks).

We were made to be hungry from time to time. When we don't experience hunger, our bodies start to fall apart. It is a natural, biological process.

Balance is very important.

My fasting experiment

I am going to do a long-term fast in order to see whether it will clear up my breathing problems and allergies. I will share my experiences in a day-to-day blog entry on this website. Follow my Twitter account for news on the next update. Stay Strong!

Check out the results of my second day of fasting.
See the results of my third day of fasting.
Here are the results of my fourth day of fasting.
Here are the effects 24 hours after I end my water fast.

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