Personal 5 Day Water Fast - Benefits and Tips for Beginners

This Personal 5 Day Water Fast is a journal along with the benefits that come from fasting along with some tips for beginners. Fasting has long historical significance when it comes to our health and well-being and so I decided it was high time to try a longer water fast.

5-Day Water Fast

Now I am sure that most of you probably think that I have fallen off my rocker. 

5 days of fasting for most people would definitely seem like a crazy idea but not for someone like me who enjoys testing certain health theories as well giving myself some mental challenges.

If you have been following me for some time, you have most likely seen my  Stages of Fasting blog as well Fasting and Brain Health.  If you haven't please make sure you check out those posts to get a deeper understanding of the benefits of fasting.

So, now the question is why do a 5 day water fast? 

Well, there are several reasons.

First of all, I have been feeling "bloated" every morning when I get out of bed. My feet and hands are swelling more than usual and I just feel like I am in need of a good "clean out".

Secondly, ever since I gained some Covid weight, I have really been struggling to get it off. I have been eating really well and just thought that a 5 day water fast may help to hit my "reset" button.

Lastly, I recently celebrated my 45ht birthday and realized that I have not done any major fasting for over 2 years! I use to fast regularly and when Covid hit, "life" seemed to get hard over night and I just did not have the mental energy to try fasting.

What are the Benefits of Fasting?

1. Great for the Liver

The liver’s primary function is clearing the body of toxins, and anything you put into your body gets filtered through your liver. Now, consider the fact that most of the foods that you eat contain all sorts of artificial chemicals and natural compounds like pesticides, salts, sugars, vitamins, minerals, MSG, dextrose… Okay, not all of those we’ve listed are technically bad – but they all filter through the liver.

Do you realize what kind of large-scale pounding your liver takes on a daily basis? Even if you live a healthy life, your liver could still be taking the strain.

Fasting can be great for the liver; when your body isn’t being bombarded with salts, colorants, sugars, alcohol, and artificial chemicals, it gets a chance to rest – and your body gets a chance to process all of the harmful chemicals.

2. Heart Health

Fasting forces your body to slow down, and gives your body a chance to get rid of all of the toxins it has accumulated. When you are able to reset your body by fasting, you basically give your body an entirely new start when you begin eating again – and this time, start by eating healthier, more natural foods.

3. Colon Health

All of the foods you eat will directly accumulate in your colon, and your colon could be the reason why you are feeling tired, lethargic, and generally unhealthy. There are plenty of things that could affect the colon: For example, plenty of foods can block up your system and leave you feeling bloated and constipated; other foods can literally “scrape” your insides and cause small internal fissures.

Fasting gives your colon a chance to go back to basics: When you fast, you manage to clear the toxins out of your body – and the waste out of your colon. And you will be extremely surprised at just how much of a difference this can make to your overall health.

4. Promote Autophagy

Autophagy is a cellular process in which parts of cells break down for later reuse. Autophagy is critical for maintaining proper cell function, and it also helps defend cells in the body. Autophagy plays an important role in preventing and treating cancer.

Several studies in mice suggest that autophagy may prevent cancer. These studies show how lack of autophagy leads to lower levels of tumor-suppressing genes.

While lower autophagy may enable initial tumor formation, it is not solely responsible for malignant tumor growth or spread.

Have I convinced you yet?  If you are still on the fence, maybe after reading my posts on my own personal experiment, I will have you convinced!

P.S. Make sure that if you do decide to fast that you check with your doctor first.  Although fasting has numerous benefits, it can also have some negative impacts depending on your health in the first place.

Hourly Fasting Benefits

1. 12 hours of fasting, your body begins to enter the Metabolic State and begins to run out of glycogen
2. At around the 18th hour of fasting, your body will switch to using fat as its primary food source and therefore begin to create ketones
3. 24 hours of fasting is when the magic starts and your body starts to clean up all the waste inside each cell
4. At the 48 hour mark, we see an increase in growth hormone levels. This is important as higher levels of growth hormone are shown to have anti-aging properties.
5. When the 54 hours of fasting is achieved, your insulin levels drop to their lowest point.
6. Day 3 (or the 72 hours mark) is when the body begins to generate new immune cells.
7. After 96 hours, intestinal STEM cells begin to be produced in the gut. These stem cells are the body's raw materials — cells from which all other cells with specialized functions are generated. This helps the healing of the gut by hitting the reset button of the microbiome. Autophagy is starting to come down. Human growth hormone will start dropping a little bit at this point.
8. By the 120 th hour (or 5 days), you have maxed out your stem cell production, have increased your immune function, have protected your body against malignat tumor grown, neurodegenerative disease and last but not least, have increased your overall longevity and life-span.

Understanding Prolonged versus Intermittent Fasting

Now, it is important to note that prolonged fasting is quite different from intermittent fasting.

Intermittent fasting describes a way of fasting within the day, where you essentially extend your overnight fast by a few hours to elicit a hormonal response.

While this type of fasting is great for weight management, it may not really achieve the health responses we are going to be talking about today with prolonged fasting.

Understanding Autophagy

The best way to think of this phase is to see it as if you had to burn items from your house to stay warm.  First, you would take all the odd pieces of papers, magazines and very unimportant objects to fuel the fire. That is precisely what your body is doing.  Easy to access energy goes first such as glycogen.

In a more scientific approach, autophagy is a process by which a cell breaks down and destroys old, damaged, or abnormal proteins and other substances in its cytoplasm (the fluid inside a cell). These old and damaged cells can go "rogue" and produce all kinds of diseases, including cancer.

The more often your cells go through stages of autophagy (which occurs during times of fasting when glucose levels drop and ketones rise), the cleaner your internal system becomes.

Also, as your good "healthy" cells are undergoing autophagy, they form a protective barrier around their outer membrane. "Dumb" cells such as cancer, do not know how to do this. This allows your immune cells to recognize the copycat looking "dumb" cells and attack them.

Why measure glucose, ketones and GKI

The glucose ketone index (GKI) helps you understand the relationship between your glucose and ketone levels and the overall state of your metabolic health.

For those with metabolic problems, it is crucial to keep your metabolic health in good condition. Although GKI can be useful for anyone monitoring their glucose/ketone levels for therapeutic or dietary purposes, it is especially important for those struggling with chronic health conditions like diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and insulin resistance.

In the study “Therapeutic benefit of combining calorie-restricted ketogenic diet and glutamine targeting in late-stage experimental glioblastoma”, researchers found that low GKI values were correlated to a decrease in tumor size (Mukherjee et al., 2019).

As mentioned above, GKI can be helpful for those looking to achieve weight loss and therapeutic wellness. GKI helps with monitoring their current progress by keeping track of both glucose and ketone levels.

• GKI > 9: You have not reached ketosis.
• GKI 6-9: You are at a low level of ketosis that is ideal for weight/fat loss and overall wellness.
• GKI 3-6: You are at a moderate level of ketosis that is ideal for those diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, etc.
• GKI < 3: This is a therapeutic ketosis level that is ideal for those who with chronic health conditions like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, or Parkinson’s disease.

Water fasting is the quickest way to the lowest possible GKI numbers and an easy way to measure how your body is reacting to the fast.

I used a keto meter by KetoMojo meter to test my glucose, ketones and GKI.

Day #1 - Sunday

Truth be told, I had some food left in the fridge that needed to eat. Not wanting to throw it away, I decided to finish off the last of it and start my fast around 11 am.

Since this is the first day of my fast, I have plenty of energy to burn. 

By exercising the first day of a fast, you use up a large quantity of your stored glycogen.  On average, we store about 2200 calories of glycogen. 

In order to get the benefits from fasting, our bodies need to be in a state of ketosis.  Ketosis will only occur after your stored glycogen has been depleted.  Long exercise sessions in the absence of food deplete the glycogen stores. 

Since I only had to work in the morning, I decided to run to the gym to help to deplete my glycogen stores.

Keto Mojo Meter Reads:

Day #2 - Monday

Today was expected to be a little more challenging.  Day #2 has always been the most challenging for me whenever I fast.

I got up at my usual 4:30 am time, had a cup of coffee and headed out for a nice 70 minute walk. I headed off to work and worked a full 10 hour day.

Keeping busy is definitely beneficial but by the end of the day, I was pretty tired. Lately, I have been following a OMAD (one meal a day) diet which is sort of like a treat at the end of a busy long work day so instead, I treated myself to a couple of chapters of a book and some television watching.

Although I had a great night sleep Sunday night, Istill got a little tired around the 3 pm hour. Overall, not really hungry but missing the joy that goes along with the "taste" of food.

Keto Mojo Meter Reads:

 Day #3 - Tuesday

Once again, I had a great night of sleep!  I woke up feeling refreshed and not overly hungry.  I got up at my regular time and once again, had my coffee and headed out for 5 mile walk.

As always, I got my usual 10 am and 1 pm hunger pangs that lasted about 1 minute and then went away.  Hunger has still not really been an issue for me as I fast.  I realize that I eat more out of boredom than true hunger.

Keto Mojo Meter Reads:

Day #4 - Wednesday

From several of the blogs that I have read, this is when the magic starts to happen.  I woke up feeling really good and felt pretty good all day.  I am no longer hungry but mentally miss the taste of food.  I am sleeping well but still get tired by the end of the day. 

I got up and once again, and decided not to push through a spin class and instead went for my 70 minute walk.

Despite having done a long wald as well as worke a 10 hour day on my feet, I am surprisingly not overly tired. However, knowing that I getting close to the end of my goal may be helping with my energy!

Keto Mojo Meter Reads:

Day #5 - Thursday

Once again, I had a great night's sleep and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to start my day. By the time I got to work, I was feeling a little light-headed. Not sure if it was a lack of hydration or an electrolyte imbalance but I drank a ton of water and decided to supplement with 2 Medi-Lyte tablets to ensure that my electrolytes were in check.

Feeling better, I typically walk or run (I decided that walking would be better during this fast) 5 miles to meet Mr. Grumbles at the gym. My walk was DEFINITELY slower, partially due to fasting but also due to the fact that the temperature was 93 degrees F!!!

Keto Mojo Meter Reads:

5 Day Water Fast Final Thoughts

In my opinion, fasting for 5 days was not any harder than a 2-3 day fast. The worse part of all fasts is the initial 48 hours. Once you get through the first 2 days, you will definitely crave the taste of food but not actual hunger.

I just ordered a ProLon 5-Day Fasting Mimicking Kit and am going to compare the two methods of fasting. ProLon is the first and only clinically tested, doctor recommended fasting meal program that includes anywhere from 700-1100 calories a day which may be easier for some people to handle than a pure water fast.

Tips for Water Fasting

Since I have been a regular when it comes to water fasting, I decided to include some tips and tricks for beginners or for advanced fasters that want to try to take on a longer fast.

• Pick the right time to start - This is a crucial point as you have to make sure that your calendar is COMPLETELY clear for 5 days. I am by no means saying that you can not work but I will say that keeping social obligations while fasting is EXTREMELY difficult since almost all social things involve food and/or drinks!
• Watch the time of the month - This point is only for my female readers but I can say that I have started fasts around my period and it is the WORSE idea ever! Cravings and crankiness are already at all time high so having enough willpower to overcome those while not eating ANYTHING is just plain cruel!
• Drink Coffee or Tea - Some people will argue that drinking coffee or tea during a water fast defeats the purpose of fasting but I tend to disagree. There are virtually no calories in black coffee or tea so drinking either or these will not affect your overall GKI.
• Add some flavour - Again, I am sure that some "orthodox" fasters will be cringing right now reading this but again, I would much rather someone add a squeeze of lemon or lime to their water if it is all that is needed to not give up. By Day #2 of fasting, your mouth gets REALLY tired of just water and your taste buds start to taste all the toxins you are releasing. Although the release of the toxins is great, the taste is not! Try brushing your teeth more often but again, if you are needing a little taste to keep on going, then I think the gain outweighs the tiny (about 10 calories) that the added lemon or lime adds.
• Take some supplements - When I first started with intermittent fasting and now that I do OMAD (one meal a day), I sometimes will use a natural appetite suppressant to help me get through my fasting time. My favourite brand is GOLO Release which contains 7 plant-based ingredients and 3 minerals. The pills only contain natural ingredients and do not contain any sugar, carbs, fats or proteins and therefore will not affect the fast. It may simply be a placebo, but if I take this supplement, my cravings are much more manageable.
• Eat a pickle spear - I saved this one tip last as I am absolutely sure that some people will be sending me some comments about how this is not truly a water fast if you eat a slice of pickle. A natural organic sliced pickle contains about 5 calories and a nice does of salt. The taste is unbelievably satisfying and I am pretty sure that you will stop at just one spear. Not only does this satisfy the craving for some "taste" during a water fast but it also helps to replenish the electrolytes lost while water fasting. Once again, I believe that overall, adding an odd pickle spear every so often when fasting will NOT undue the water fasting benefits. In my opinion, if eating a pickle spear allows you to complete the fast, then EAT THE PICKLE!:-)

Not everyone who fasts will agree with everything I say or suggest and I am ok with that. Life is full of opinions and I respect each and everyone one. However, I am such a believer in fasting that maybe these little "cheats" will help you take the plunge and actually try a longer fast!

Stay tuned for my 7-day water fast that I will start on August 5th, 2022! If anyone cares to join me, send me an email at [email protected] or message me @mycrashtestlife we can hold each other accountable!