I will have fasted for 40 days, come December 24th, unless I break it before then. I think it is highly unlikely that I will end up as a bag of skin, bones and fat, but if I do I will certainly let this forum know.
By the way my current % muscle is 24.3% at 103Kg which is the equivalent of 23.6Kg mass of muscle. I do actually expect to lose a bit of muscle as I drop down in weight if I do a prolonged fast because my skeleton will no longer have to support so much weight, so I won't be worried about that.
Okay. Ketones are not an evil! They are actually what the body survives on when it has no outside source of food. This is the case in fat-burning when doing aerobic or anaerobic exercise just the same as it is during long term fasting. The liver runs out of glycogens which are it's energy source while we are eating enough food to supply the body's needs. When we exercise vigorously enough the energy supplied by the sugars we have been eating are depleted, then the Free Fatty Acids from our fat cells are transferred to the liver where they are used to create ketones which provide energy for our body's needs after what is in our blood is used up. This is a temporary condition during fat-burning exercise but a permanent condition when we abstain from food. The ketones are what our body lives on. Fats are our body's stores. They have no other function. Muscles are used by our body for many things, including some rather vital ones like keeping the heart pumping for example- they are NOT broken down during a fast before fat stores are, that's just not how it works. If our body is using muscle tissue to live off before using the fat stores that are there for that very purpose then something is going wrong.
I know I did not lose muscle mass for the reason that I stated. I was doing strenuous exercise for the whole fast, several times a week for at least two hours at a time plus my full time job. I don't know if you have done any type of martial arts but especially for advanced training one of the goals of each class is to totally exhaust yourself constantly so that you train your body and mind to give it's absolute best under the toughest physical conditions. If there was any reduction in my strength I would have certainly noticed it having been using my muscles and pushing them to exhaustion continually during my fast. Ask any body builder, the mass of your muscles is behind the power that lifts the weight. If you lose muscle mass you lose strength and I did not.
On the contrary, I can say right now with absolute surety that in recent times I have been running further while fasting and in particular in regards to muscle growth I have noticed this in my stomach while fasting. I do sets of crunches with an upper body workout to exhaustion every other day, and despite not eating the amount of crunches is rising, indicating muscle growth. My muscles are not cannibalising each other, they are being created by autolysis, which is a natural function of any body. I'm not suggesting for a moment that everyone should do this, it is something I am experimenting with, and something I need to do for myself. However the fact that it is being done is proof that it can be done.
The best thing you can do to prove this to yourself is try fasting for a short time and see the benefits of it for yourself. You will find no shortage of negatives flying about regarding fasting, it is ignored at best and treated as dangerous at worst by the Mainstream, but if you dig deep enough you can find the truth about it, and the easiest way to prove it for yourself is to try it for periods that even the Mainstream doesn't think of as dangerous first.
It can be very hard to go against what everyone around you seems to believe. And the first steps are often the hardest of all.
Not every source makes that statement. Chris has already given you links and is far better at quoting sources than I am. However, I am always researching and currently reading about this right now.
You said you were concerned about suffering anemia during a fast. Here is an excerpt from a free online book by Doctor Shelton:
"Normal blood contains from 4,500,000 to 5,000,000 and as high as 6,000,000 in healthy young men, red cells per cu. mm. and 3,000 to 10,500, with a probable average of 5,000 to 7,000 white cells per cu. mm.
Dr. Eales' blood was examined June 20, 1907, the first day of his fast, by Dr. P. G. Hurford, House Physician to Washington University Hospital, St. Louis. It showed the following:
Leucocytes 5,300 per cubic millimeter.
Erethrocytes 4,900,000 per cubic millimeter.
Hemoglobin 90%.
A blood test was again made on July 3, the 14th day of his fast, by Dr. S. B. Strong, House Physician, Cook Gouty Hospital, which showed:
Leucocytes 7,000 per cu. mm.
Erethrocytes 5,528,000 per cu. mm.
Hemoglobin 90%.
It will be noted that the blood has materially improved on the fast.
A third examination of Dr. Eale's blood made by Dr. R. A. Jettis, of Centralia, Ill., on August 2, showed:
Leucocytes 7,328 per cu. mm.
Erethrocytes 5,870,000 per cu. mm.
Hemoglobin 90%.
A further improvement in the condition of his blood is here seen.
Laboratory investigators have reported an increase in the red cells of healthy fasters with a decrease in white cells. In anemia, fasting often results in an increase in the number of red blood corpuscles to more than twice their former number, with a concomitant decrease in the number of white blood cells. In a talk in Chicago a few years ago, Dr. Tilden said: "Cases of pernicious anemia taken off their food will double their blood count in one week." Dr. Weger reports a case of anemia in which a 12 days' fast resulted in an increase of the number of red cells from 1,500,000, to 3,000,000; hemoglobin increased fifty percent, and white cells were reduced from 37,000 to 14,000."
It will also give you a second professional and informed opinion about whether muscle is digested in preference to fat stores which are there for that purpose. You will find more on that page and others that specifically cover your questions.
If Mainstream doctors refuse to study people who fast correctly they can only ever produce guesses and lies in their textbooks. I don't suggest that anyone fasts for 30 days, but I am happy to offer my support and advice to those who choose to fast for themselves. Unfortunately as you make quite clear there is plenty of misinformation out there, and some of it manages to find it's way in here too. I am not here to hide my experiences or to sit by and watch others post anti fasting scare propaganda on here without commenting back. I am here to share my experiences and support others who genuinely want to experience fasting and want to learn more about it as I do.
Read the links given and let me know what you think.
First of all I never know how long my fasts are going to be until they are over. So I never actually set an amount of days. There are too many things that can and have gotten in the way of completing long fasts. If I could book into a fasting retreat and avoid all other responsibilities for a set period of time that might be different, but most of us I think have to keep functioning and working etc and that often requires some sacrifice in the fasting process, I know it has for me.
But suggesting a fast to anyone is something for a health practitioner to do, which I am not. I am just someone who has benefited from fasting and is happy to share my experience with others who choose to try it. Fasting is very much about healing yourself and becoming your own doctor. How people conduct their fasts will be an individual matter depending on many factors, their health, their lifestyle etc. To just tell someone it's okay to go and fast for 30 days is ignoring a lot of factors that may well have a bearing on the outcome of such a fast. It is important for us all to realise that we do have our lives in our hands, and I would never say it was safe for anyone to fast because we all have to make that decision for ourselves. It is a responsibility we must each take on ourselves after careful consideration. As long as the Mainstream ignores Fasting many of us are on our own. That's why support forums like this one are so important.
Um, it is my engineering background and common sense that tells me I won't need as much muscle if I am half my body weight not any text books or other sources. But just to clarify, I am not particularly worried about ANYTHING.
You also say: "Is every other source lying when they said fasting will not result in burning fat off and just muscle tissue?"
Unfortunately this tells me that you have a closed mind, and you are not really able to logically argue your point. You are only seeing what you believe to be true, just as you earlier mis-read starvation for fasting. You are not looking at the stuff that Chrisb1 has referred to, because you don't believe it.
By the way if you read my earlier posts, you will see that a month ago I would have agreed with you. Now however I am enlightened, and that is a one way journey.
I am probably a lot older than you. It may take you 20 or 30 years to realise that not all you see in text books is true, and understand fully why that is so. As I mentioned you quoted "starvation" in your earlier post, and then applied it to a fasting situation because you thought that is what it meant. Do you think this is a mistake that others may have made when writing articles, or mis-quoted when referring to those original articles because they didn't know the difference? Also, there are commercial reasons why fasting is not mainstream in today's consumer society. You can sell diet foods, how can you sell a fast, in an empty box? Who would be held responsible if your average person didn't read the instructions and decided to "cheat" and snack out every evening, thus making themselves seriously ill? But to your credit you are asking questions, though are the purpose of these questions to find out information about fasting, or to convince yourself that fasting is dangerous and will result in muscle and bone loss?
You are also talking about doing a fast yourself, quite a long one at that. Commendable, I think many of the earlier scientists used themselves as guinea pigs when developing drugs etc. However, I would say to you, convince yourself that fasting is safe before you embark upon this journey, that is what I did. Or do a short one first, so you know what to expect. Why? Well partly for your own reassurance, but also can you imagine trying to get support from this forum if you think your bones are going to disintegrate and your muscles whither away?!
Also if you do a fast, get a body fat measuring scale so you can see what's going on.
Cowgirlbebop
fasting will not break down protein until the latter stages, and until the fasting period has finished and the starvation period begins. The body feeds on its internal food reserves, which mostly include fat and other deposits.
Yeos physiology...please refer back to my post re losses in starvation......
Try telling the people who survived the concentration camps during the second world war, that the only tissue they lost was water and muscle!!!! and this was to the point of starvation!!! when they were just skin and bone!!
You are also confusing and interchanging two words that are completely different states of inanition...........
Fasting is Not Starving
You are also only quoting from mainstream sources from people who have very little or no experience of the fasting state.
This chap supervised over 60,000 fasts of varying lengths, and brought them back to health..............
I have personally undergone two lengthy fasts of 25 days and then 30 days a few months later with extreme benefit from both.
Please do more "legitimate" research before you quote anything else, as it could be misleading and act as a possible deterrent to others on this forum who would otherwise benefit.
You body will lose muscle not matter what if you are not using it. There is a simple reason why, muscle requires a lot of energy to sustain, so they body in its infinite wisdom slowly degrades muscle if your not using it, cause it assumes you don't need it. This happens if your fasting or not.
Also in switching to ketosis, yes, you lose a small amount of muscle right away. But after that, it's all about the fat. Your body is smarter than to burn muscle instead of fat. Fat is worth more energy per cubic inch than muscle. Muscle for the most part is the last resort when it comes to catabolism. Your body, again in it's infinite wisdom keeps muscle because from an evolutionary standpoint, why would you get rid of muscle if you need it to get more food? If you eliminated muscle first then fat, you wouldn't have the muscle to move all that fat you still got around to aquire more food!
Also! The reason why exercising and gaining muscle "eats up" fat is a little complicated, but also simple. As I said, muscle requires a lot of energy to sustain, in everyday life your everyday food gives your muscle the energy it needs. More muscle, more calories you body burns ALL DAY. Ususally if your working out (if your doing this for weight loss) your diet wont change, or will get better. So now your consuming 2000 calories a day but your body wants 2500 or more to keep it at a level body weight. So obviously your body has to find those 500 calories some place else! It takes them from fat.
Okay so if your not working out, and you are fasting, how does your body sustain all that muscle? Obviously you need your 2000 calories from some place, it takes it from fat. But as I said before, if your not using your muscle your body doesn't want to waste energy so it kills off some, lowering your caloric intake to 1900-1800-1700 and so on as time goes on. It's not the fasting that is reducing muscle, it is everyday catabolism.
Okay so, I know that my thoughts are all over the place, so here is the gist, muscle loss is not due to fasting, but is due to sedintary life style. Fasting burns fat to get the energy it needs to keep going. Muscle is a terrible source of energy but is useful to survive so thats why the body waits to use it for energy last.
All of my information is pretty much taken from body building websites.
I pretty much agree with this, that's one reason I believe that exercising should be continued or even begun while fasting according the ability and energy of the faster. It not only allows the body to clearly see the muscles as useful but will burn fat directly for energy also.
The only point I would challenge is the immediate cannibalism of any muscle tissue. I have studied body building literature also and spent several years in gyms building muscles also. I have found that a short break of a matter of weeks will result in little if any loss of strength, any longer and yes the muscles will start to shrink and your strength will suffer. Just like we are finding with eating- we do that more than we should, and exercise is the same- the body won't remove the muscle we've needed for years simply because we aren't using them for a few days. It takes a little bit longer than that, and Shelton agreed from his experience here which shows that the majority of fasters he supervised actually gained in strength significantly in the first 20 days or so. Something that could not happen if muscle mass was lost.
Yes Fonty, I think bluedisc is basically right as well. (Been away for a couple of days and have been out of it a little).
Muscle tissue does not atrophy while fasting ie...waste away or become useless.
There are many many cases of fasters who have gone for 40 to 60 or more days with mostly bed rest when seriously ill, and have been able to regain their health and rebuild muscular strength & tone post fast.
There is absolutely no doubt about that.
You are also right fonty in that this (sort of) hibernation in complete physiological rest will make it easier post fast, if you have the energy while doing so, to keep your muscles toned with exercise, depending on the degree of enervation (if any) of the patient. For those of us who are fortunate to have a strong constitution (which I don't) then exercise would be very beneficial during the fast I am certain.
This was true in my own case where I needed absolute rest during my first 25 day fast.
Couldn't agree with you more Fonty about fasters gaining in strength up to about the first 20 days or so...Dr Tanner is a great case in point during his first 40 day fast.
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