The FastDay Forum

I enjoyed this article that first appeared in the literary magazine, Harper's in May 2012. Not specific to intermittent fasting, the author covers some of the history of fasting experiments and research, as well as documenting his own experience with a longer fast. I found it entertaining reading on my fast day and found myself thankful I'm only fasting one day at a time! The only way I get through one day is knowing "it's only a day!"

http://www.scribd.com/doc/95722979/Star ... y-to-Vigor

Interesting and entertaining. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the link. Good article.

[carorees]

I really enjoyed the article. I was particularly struck by the author's comment that for every condition for which fasting had been used as a cure, when a drug was invented to treat the condition the fasting cure was dropped! I also liked Gandhi's advice to fasters: when you feel hungry drink some water and dismiss thoughts of food from your mind. The observations about the ability to do steady but not high intensity exercise once in ketosis were also interesting.

Thank you so much for posting!

Thank you very much, fitfunk. This is a terrific article, well written (in a delightful style reminiscent of Shelton, Sinclair, et al. without becoming incomprehensible) and highly informative.

I've been devouring literature on fasting in general, much of it old enough to be in the public domain and available free online. It's refreshing to read a more contemporary piece that carries on in the same tradition. Fascinating, too, that for hundreds of years those experienced with fasting have complained about the medical establishment's rejection of therapeutic fasting, to the point of claiming that more than a few days without food leads to starvation. Perhaps the work of Valter Longo and others will start to change that.

Great article, thanks for posting it

Fitfunk, I found that really interesting - thanks for posting the link. Fascinating that he didn't regain the weight, despite only having 'one shot' at resetting his appetite after a singular, long fast. As we fast for shorter periods more frequently, I think we have longer to adjust to eating less food on non fast days.

Also interesting to see further discussion about why fasting isn't talked about more and remains a taboo.

As a fairly well tuned in adult in my mid thirties, who reads voraciously, I am astonished that I'd never heard of fasting until reading Steve Jobs biography over Chritsmas past. I had previously been under the widespread disillusion that humans would drop dead after about 10 days with no food and many fewer days with no water.

I am beginning to subscribe to the slightly sinister view that fasting isn't good business in our capitalist society and am fairly open to the very sinister implication that it is actively discouraged by those with financial gain in mind. It's incredibly depressing to think that charities, those concerned with children's health and organisations dealing with terminal disease might actually be surpressing something that could help people because it doesn't carry a high price. I sincerely hope it is a case of incompetence rathef than competence if fasting really has the curative potential described. Otherwise it would very much erode my faith in humanity.

I can't say I'm tempted to try such a long fast, but I've undertaken two 60 hour fasts since starting 5:2 in January 2013 (I water fast rather than consuming 500 cals on fast days) and I'm toying with the idea of doing another one in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks again for the link!

Thank you fitfunk for posting this article.
It made for fascinating reading, exciting and depressing in equal amounts.

On a light note, one trick i think i'll try to take from the article is applying the "click x" Sounds so simple it just might work.
Hey, if it's good enough for Ghandi!!!!

Thanks for posting this Fitfunk.

It's brilliantly written, entertaining and interesting, albeit slightly worrying, if the cancer charities and drug companies are ignoring the results! Hopefully, with the Genesis project research going on in this country and the fact that we have the NHS, rather than just private medical care, any good results from fasting trials should be better received or am I just being naive?