September 11, 2023
Update:
I totally didn’t make it. I did about 22 hours, but I was exhausted and had no energy. When I don’t eat I start to get dizzy and lightheaded at times as well. Will I try it again? Maybe. Only time will tell.
I saw this video a few months back, and it came back up in the YouTube suggestions so I’m going for it.
Stats
My weight might include 1 lb. or so of food. I plan on drinking coffee and tea, which I researched and should be cool to do, and water.
For breakfast my wife made French Toast. I’ve probably had 3-4 cups of coffee today. For lunch we had home made pizza and fried eggplant slices. For dinner we ate pork with sweet gravy and green beans. Aside from that I’ve had at least 90 oz. of water. I drank a glass of horchata with dinner. I also had 2-3 snickerdoodle bars that I made yesterday.
My hope is that my journey basically follows the video – I’m hoping to get a reset, clear my head more than anything, and come out of the fast in 72 or so hours feeling better. At the end of 72 hours I might eat some chicken broth, beans, or soup.
I’ve thought about fasts in the past, but never really committed to anything. I’ve tried to intermittent fast in my own way, basically skip breakfast and try to stop eating after dinner, but nothing too official. 3-4 years ago I very crudely tried a keto diet as well, but it was rough and I didn’t continue it.
In general I think I eat pretty healthy. We make 95% of our own meals, with exceptions being frozen meals from Trader Joes that we have once in a while, and we maybe eat out once or twice a month, and we typically eat fast food as a snack and not a full meal – usually a taco or two from Taco Bell, and occasionally my wife and I will get Jack in the Box for lunch.
I could probably stand to drink more water and less coffee. I also have a pretty bad sweet tooth, I’ll kill a bag of candy maybe once a week or so, and if there are sweets in the house I’ll for sure eat more than I should. I also love beer, so if I can I’ll have a couple tall boys at the end of the day.
We’re currently in the process of paying off debt, so we’ve been extremely lean with our budget, so I haven’t been drinking beer at all, and I expect to drink a lot less in the coming months. I expect to eat a lot less candy as well.
A huge factor in my life is (lack of) sleep. We have a 4 year old and a 9 month old in the house, so part of my routine is waking up in the morning to relieve my wife of baby duties so that she can get some sleep. I usually get up around 5am at the latest, but often I’ll wake up around 3 or 4am, and sometimes as early as 2am. Usually the baby will fall asleep, and I’ll go back to sleep too, but sometimes I’ll be up for an hour or more before I can get back to sleep.
I have been running since July of 2021. I got a vasectomy in April, and since then my running has been infrequent and much shorter in distance. This year I hit my goal of running a half marathon in distance non stop, but after the procedure I’ve been wiped out after a mile or two. This could be because of the weather, but I’m not 100% sure. I’ve been looking into recovery methods, etc. For whatever reason I’ve had a bear of a time optimizing my runs and pushing myself. Randomly a few weeks ago my wife and I decided to go for a run together, and following her pace really helped me. Last week I took the same route and kept about the same pace – about 9 minutes per mile – and I was able to run 16 miles in 3 sessions, which was a huge morale boost for me. To put it in perspective, I ran 520 miles last year, and I’m at 208 so far this year – which isn’t awesome, but I’m hoping to be able to use my new strategy to push myself a lot further.
While I doubt fasting will help with sleep quality, I am hopeful that it will give me a reset and maybe even aid in my physical recover. I’m also hoping that I will gain more mental and physical discipline.
In the morning
I watched this video about preparing for a fast, but I didn’t find it very helpful and stopped it about halfway.
As of this morning I weigh 193.1 lbs. – which is absolutely insane to me. This is around how much I normally weight, but this is almost a 4 lb. difference from last night. I read that it’s supposed to be a hydration thing, but damn.
So far I’ve had a cup of coffee and almost 40 ounces of water. I’ll try to keep track of my water intake, and I plan on having a cup of coffee in the morning and a cup of tea in the evening. I’m not supposed to, but I’m going to try to go for a run tomorrow – possibly 5+ miles.