The FastDay Forum

Is it wise to fast when you're body weight is 130 pounds? I'm 21 and 5'11" and I'm not sure if fasting is a good idea for me but I really want to cleanse myself through fasting unless there is a better way for me to do this without fasting.

ABSOLUTELY NOT! Your BMI is only 18.

Don't listen to any ridiculous people selling you on some "cleanse". You have a liver. It cleanses your blood for you, for free, without fasting.

Fasting is completely inappropriate for someone with a weight/BMI as low as yours.

I agree of course @tracieknits but its made me think..
If you're slim like @lozkaepora and with a very Low BMI, but you want to get all the health benefits of fast and repair...how can you go about getting them? X

My take is that it would be OK to fast as long as you do not lose weight; in other words if you do 5:2 make sure you eat enough on your normal days to maintain. Same if you do 16/8 or Fast-5. I have been doing Fast-5 for 2.5 years, 2 of those maintaining and I am 5 lbs heavier than my lowest weight now.

If you are determined to do this, I would only do it under the supervision of a doctor.

But since the reason to do it is a "cleanse", I'm saying don't bother. Cleanses are just a new age fad, and not an actual real thing.

Thanks for all your feedback, I'm going to try the 5:2 and make sure that I get more than enough to eat when I eat. It sure is hard to relate with people when you have a ridiculously high metabolism. If I start feeling ill I'll obviously stop and cleanse in other ways, I forgot this isn't the kind of blog to talk about that kind of stuff

I think you'd be better off just fasting one day a week. At your lovely weight you certainly don't need to lose any more weight and fasting just once a week is used by many of us (who get there) for maintaining their new weight. I would try that first if I was you!
Bean

This may be of interest @lozkaepora.

http://avery-books.tumblr.com/post/107612431373/wahls-fudge. The Wahls diet is followed by Dr Wahls herself to combat her MS. She found that some of her patients were losing too much weight on it, so she came up with this fudge recipe for them.

Can I ask what you need to cleanse yourself of? You also mention you have a fast metabolism,does that mean you eat a lot but still lose weight? What is an average eating day for you? If it's OK to ask

That diet sounds interesting @Barbarita I winder if it's any good for,people with ME since the two conditions are pretty similar. As for the fudge recipe - I'm allergic to nuts so can't eat coconut - doh! Mind you, I'm not in the camp of people needing to gain weight - not yet!
Bean

I'll just chime in here and say that perhaps one or two days a week where you eat "cleansing" foods, perhaps delay eating, could work without stringent calorie reductions.

I was as skinny in my late teens; 5' 8" and 98lbs, so I can relate to the ultraslim perspective. (I actually went on a Jack LaLanne--remember him?--diet to GAIN weight.) I used to pray Make me look like a girl...be careful what you ask for!

Before 5.2 I did a food combining thing; it was great, just too hard to do long term. However...my favorite thing about it was the rule of "eat only fruit (well, black coffee or tea was allowed, or I wouldn't have been able to do it) before noon." Mind you, that means NO yogurt or granola or anything else. I still do that sometimes, especially if I feel a cold threatening.

One of the "problems" I had when very thin (also remembering this is 40+ years ago, when we didn't know much about nutrition/health) was I ate a lot of junk; given I didn't need to worry about my weight, hey ho, chips and ice cream etc! But a bout of hypoglycemia in my early 20's led me to learn more about diet, and over the years I educated myself. So even skinnies can't get away with eating junk, it's not just the scale that shows the effects of poor diet.

So this is my way of suggesting that you change your diet more so than fasting...though as I said above, I think there are ways you can adapt 5.2 to your needs without making yourself ill...or freaking out this forum! Please understand that any reaction is out of concern for your health and well-being; we do want to support you in any healthful endeavor.

Suggestions: Eat only fruit before noon most days a week (maybe exception on a brunch out, for example). For guidance, Google "only fruit before noon" (careful, don't fall down the rabbit hole!). A couple-three days a week, delay your first meal of the day till at least noon, experimenting with going as late as you can. I fast Mon & Thurs, and have only black coffee and plain green tea (and water, of course) till 4pm, when I have a cup of veggie broth; I generally have a "snack" 6pmish (ff greek with fruit this time of year, sometimes a couple of eggs, or a small salad), then dinner 9pm or so. And try eating as healthy as possible. Many of us on the forum have eaten pretty darn healthy but since it didn't result in weight loss (not your issue), we had to branch out from there.

You should only need to "cleanse" if you do drugs or eat a lot of crap. While I'm really into alternative medicine, I do think that most of the cleansing stuff is bunk. Though hot lemon water in the morning isn't a bad thing...

Dr Wahls does not mention ME/CFS specifically in her book "The Wahls Protocol", @nursebean, just generally talks about autoimmune diseases. But it appears that some sufferers are trying her diet, with varied results http://www.healthrising.org/blog/2013/12/26/minding-mitochondria-terry-wahls-brain-repair-regiment-return-health. This page includes her earlier talk on Mitochondria, and as always the Comments are interesting

@lozkaepora: Hi - I'm 5'11" and 136 lbs and male (but old). I fasted in 2013 to get to this weight but am not really able to fast now due to my exercise and activities. I tend to take a similar approach to barbarita - defer meals, skip breakfast, exercise before eating etc to get the benefits of longer periods without food but still eat loads to ensure I maintain weight. Have returned to meat-eating and ensure sufficient fat intake, using carby foods to replace energy after workouts rather than 'carbo loading' before them. No harm in trying the odd fast just for the experience though... Good luck!

Pete

Fasting is really not a wise idea. Why not be a vegan? You can still achieve your goal in a healthy diet.

I often find myself talking about my little brother's workout regime. A few years ago he was 70 kg (roughly 154 pounds) @ 5'10" and he felt that he was "getting fat" (lol). What he did was cut back on most carbs and ate mainly protein and fiber. Within 8 months he lost 20 pounds, which is ridiculous because he wasn't even fat to begin with. He said that he didn't feel any healthier by fasting after that. He was constantly hungry and not getting the proper nutrients.

In other words - I wouldn't recommend it at such a low body weight; It's overkill.