5 replies to this topic

[Rosanna]

Hi everyone

 

I read recently that a 12 - 16 hour overnight fast on a fairly regular basis can aid longevity.  I've given someone the article, but I will reference it later.  It's something to do with ketones having a chance to be released into the blood.

 

Well along with that and hearing Dr Sinclair say that the feeling of hunger is an important part in surtuin activation, I decided that I'd try and go 12 hours overnight without food (instead of my usual 9 - 10).  Sure enough I actually began to feel hungry.  I usually eat breakfast for energy but long before I feel any hunger.

 

All good I thought, until 4pm today when I suddenly found I was in what I would call a unhealthy hungry state....weak, a bit shaky, etc.  So, I decided to cook dinner early, instead of snack on less than healthy food.

 

The problem, every time I attempt to cut on calories, even just slightly, is that sooner or later, even eating a meal doesn't solve the gnawing feeling in my stomach.  I'm not starving, but it's like I'm damaging the stomach lining possibly.  And if I go to bed ignoring this, I wake up in the night with my heart skipping beats (though i've been told I have a normal echocardiogram and stress test).  So, to stop the gnawing, I've just eaten a bag of crisps, as I'm all out of food tonight and have to shop tomorrow......so, that and chocolate, it ends up being less healthy.

 

I won't ramble on, but anyone else had similar experiences and have a way of dealing with this.  Will my stomach adapt?  Going for 12 hours was no problem, it's what happens later on.  Thanks.

[zorba990]

Just my two cents. Fix your stomach first with Phoschol, manuka honey, monolaurin, DGL, etc. Stomach irritation is probably causing the skipped beats through vagus nerve irritation. Check for magnesium, chromium, potassium, and other deficiencies and fix that (Spectracell). Also make sure your teeth and gums are healthy or else cleaning up your digestion will be for naught.

[Rosanna]

zorba990,  thanks for your information.  I thought it would be stomach irritation, it's just on rare occasions it's a delayed reaction, like a day later, but can always be traced back to having gone without food in some way (not any major way).  I will ask my doctor to check for deficiences.

 

On the subject of teeth.  It is a sore subject atm.  I've avoided the dentist.  It's a long story, not worth repeating here, but it's a ptsd reaction to something.  I have a tooth that has broken away in the back of my mouth and I need to get the dentist to remove it.  I've got an appointment but at the last one I couldn't go through with it....and I know I have to do it because this sort of thing can damage the heart.

 

I'm interested if anyone knows what other problems it can cause (that might help me on the day when I go to get it removed!)  Thanks.  

Edited by Rosanna, 02 February 2018 - 11:07 AM.

[sthira]

The problem, every time I attempt to cut on calories, even just slightly, is that sooner or later, even eating a meal doesn't solve the gnawing feeling in my stomach. I'm not starving, but it's like I'm damaging the stomach lining possibly. And if I go to bed ignoring this, I wake up in the night with my heart skipping beats (though i've been told I have a normal echocardiogram and stress test). So, to stop the gnawing, I've just eaten a bag of crisps, as I'm all out of food tonight and have to shop tomorrow......so, that and chocolate, it ends up being less healthy.

I won't ramble on, but anyone else had similar experiences and have a way of dealing with this. Will my stomach adapt? Going for 12 hours was no problem, it's what happens later on. Thanks.

Just my opinion here, but I've fasted a lot and view it as a practice similar to learning other skills. A practice not a perfect. Corny, I know... But for me that practice means extending the time between meals before embarking on longer fasting journeys. Like, ten hours between meals this week for a few days, and depending on how that goes maybe 16 hours between meals a few times, and so forth.

The impediments to lengthening each fast seem more psychological than physiological to me. Natural selection gifted us with innate ways to survive long periods with inadequate nutrition. We switch from burning sugar to burning fat, for example, when stressed by a few days of eating little or nothing. It's a beautiful adaptation, I think, and maybe analogous to how the sleep process works. We sleep, we rejuvenate; we fast, we get a little better. Then we resume a healthy eating pattern before taking on another self-imposed fast.

So if you're otherwise generally healthy, I'd view the discomforts of fasting as possibly related to acquiring a new habit. If fasting is good for us, then it seems worthwhile to learn it and practice it. I document the experiences, weigh and measure food after refeeding, and fasting has become a new tool in the toolbox against aging for me. But hey, I seriously doubt fasting may extend longevity, but it might just be healthy.

How much fasting and how often?

About your heart and fasting, there are some mouse studies showing fasting might not be so great for the heart so you'll have to weigh mouse studies with your inner judge. But to my knowledge no controlled human clinical trials have indicated fasting isn't good or bad for your heart, but maybe more human studies will one day materialize . I'd like to see more human studies on fasting. Valter Longo's fasting mimicking work is encouraging (for cancer patients) and since he's published a recent book he's all over YouTube right now. Longo was one of Roy Walford's students, and Roy Walford was involved in Biosphere 2: https://academic.oup...7/6/B211/564317

Edited by sthira, 03 February 2018 - 12:20 PM.

[sthira]

About your heart and fasting, there are some mouse studies showing fasting might not be so great for the heart so you'll have to weigh mouse studies with your inner judge. But to my knowledge no controlled human clinical trials have indicated fasting isn't good or bad for your heart, but maybe more human studies will one day materialize

Well, there's this:

https://www.scienced...80202123836.htm

"Crash diets can cause a transient deterioration in heart function, according to research presented today at CMR 2018.1 Patients with heart disease should seek medical advice before adopting a very low calorie diet.

...

"This study used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate the impact of a very low calorie diet on heart function and the distribution of fat in the abdomen, liver, and heart muscle.

"The study included 21 obese volunteers. The average age was 52 years, average body mass index (BMI) was 37 kg/m2, and six were men. Participants consumed a very low calorie diet of 600 to 800 kcal per day for eight weeks. MRI was performed at the start of the study and after one and eight weeks."

[QuestforLife]

I'm almost certain you're just not used to it yet. I started off doing 12 hour fasts overnight and I can remember finding it quite hard to being with. Now i just do it automatically and 4 days a week i extend the fast to 15-18 hours and i'm pretty much used to that too. Don't worry about absolutely stuffing yourself once you do break your fast, you'll still get the benefits of all that time not eating.