Preparing your body to start fasting

When I was young, I was really bad at fasting. I had a book or two about fasting, but as I remember, I never did even a one-day fast with any success. I just couldn't put up with being hungry.

Now, at a much later stage of my life, I have even managed a 5-day fast. And the first day or two of that fast was completely hunger-free! The remaining days, there was slight hunger, but not enough to compel me to eat something.

I am not successful every time I try to fast, though. When I have nagging hunger that can't be dealt with or ignored, I cut a planned fast short. I'm not getting some sort of diet brownie points by being hungry and miserable! When my body tells me it wants food, I listen, and provide healthy real-food that is consistent with my keto diet.

There are steps in preparing your body to fast. My early-in-life attempts at fasting failed because I didn't know about any of these steps. If you want to fast, you should try these steps first.

1. Go on Keto for 2-4 weeks before attempting fasting. When you are on strict keto, your hunger goes away, and you often find yourself skipping a meal or two without meaning to. When Jimmy Moore had his Fasting Talk podcast, he often asked his guests about whether they had been skipping meals in an unplanned way on keto before they tried fasting.

2. Track your overnight fasting. What time do you normally stop eating for the day? After supper? After an evening snack? After a 3am snack? Don't judge yourself, just write it down. And at what time do you first eat in the morning (or at noon or afternoon?) As you continue on keto, this might change just because you don't feel as hungry.

3. Try intermittent fasting in the form of the No-Breakfast Plan. Odds are that you are the least hungry in the mornings, anyway. And likely you do little socializing over breakfast. If you do, you can always have a cup of herb tisane (herb "tea") or coffee with the family at breakfast time. NOTE: If you are ravenously hungry in the morning, eat something. Maybe delay that eating something a little if this is a daily problem, but when your body is demanding food, give it something keto.

4. Try narrower eating windows. An eating window is the period of the day when you normally allow yourself to eat. The No-Breakfast Plan gives you a longer fasting period each day. You can try switching from 11 am lunch to 12 noon, and then to 1pm or even 2pm. When you have done that for a while, you might try the ultimate in intermittent fasting--- the one-meal-a-day plan, which is usually supper (the evening meal.) I first tried this after attempts to fast longer. Since I kept being hungry, I added a good keto supper to the meal plan.

5. Try a longer fast when you don't feel like eating. My successful 5-day fast started on a hot day when I just did not feel like bothering with cooking and eating things. That was a signal that both my body and mind were in a mood to take a break from regular meals. It wasn't until lunchtime on the first fasting day that I even decided I was on a fast day, and it wasn't until the second morning that I decided I was going to try to extend my fast more than one day. I was ready for that fast, and so it worked for me.

Fasting isn't about fast-fast-fast weight loss. It is for your general health. It is about taking control of yourself. Every hour you fast, you are showing yourself that you don't have to eat constantly to feel good. In fact, eating too often puts your body to extra work with all that digesting. And if you have an insulin resistance problem, each eating session triggers more insulin release which makes you fatter.

Who should not fast: Dr. Jason Fung says that you should not fast if you are clinically underweight, if you are dealing with anorexia (and are probably underweight) if you are pregnant or nursing (for women), if you are a child under 18. Patients on meds, especially diabetes meds, need to discuss their planned fast with their doctors to get their meds reduced during the fast. (I was lucky, my incompetent nephrologist took me off all meds, said I could only be on insulin, and never bothered to prescribe the insulin. So I didn't have to ask permission to fast or negotiate to lower meds.)

Doctor Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore's book, The Complete Guide to Fasting, is the best fasting book I have found.
My oldest fasting book is Paul C. Bragg's The Miracle of Fasting. I haven't read it in years. Since the author wasn't a doctor, the book is mostly of historical interest, but you might be interested.
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