The 2-Day Fast
Recently there has sprung up a fad called the 5:2 Diet. The two-day fast is not to be confused with that.
About a month ago I was asked by a few people about this 5:2 Diet, and it sounded a lot like my own special fasting strategy.
But it wasn’t.
The 5:2 Diet is some adapted version made for weaklings where you are “allowed” to eat 500-600 calories a day for two days of the week and then eat completely normally for the other five days.
So, it’s not fasting, it’s just calorie restriction, and it’s vastly inferior to my 2-day fasting strategy for reasons the following reasons:
The 2-Day Fast is a great exercise for Breaking out of Homeostasis.
The 2-Day Fast usually gives you a natural high.
The 2-Day Fast gets you ripped pretty damn fast.
The 2-Day Fast is a 40-48 hour period where you don’t consume more than circa 50 calories at a time to avoid the activation of the digestive system.
Eating Dulls the Mind
In the our bodies we have something called the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). The ANS has to do with being active and doing stuff, the PNS has to do with resting and conserving energy.
Your body can only activate one of these systems at a time. Guess which system most people spend the majority of their time being in?
- The PNS.
When you eat you are activating the PNS and it puts your body in a state of “rest-and-digest” that makes you mentally lazy and demotivated – just like a grazing cow!
The 2-Day Fast will snap you out of that trance in a major way.
The 2-Day Fast as a Way to Break out of Homeostasis
Longer period of fasting – just like physical exercise – are great ways to BOOH because feedback comes quickly and it’s very easy to see how your brain and body will try to fool you into quitting. It’s all good practice because it’s so damn predictable.
When you do it a few times you know exactly what’s happening beforehand so you can more easily brace yourself against it.
Fasting involves an easily observable plateau during which you’ll experience an initial hunger and a hormonal urge to eat in order to keep you in homeostasis.
This hunger-plateau is hard for most people because they trust in the feedback from their brain and body too much. They believe everything they experience – and this feedback is telling them to eat quickly or something dangerous is going to happen.
Seriously, brace yourself for this oncoming barrage of negative emotions and strange voices in your head telling you to stop what you’re doing.
These are the lies your brain and body tell you to keep itself in homeostasis.
However, it’s only temporary and it will drop away very quickly once you break the hunger-plateau.
The 2-Day Fast as a Way to get Naturally High
When you don’t eat for a while (for me usually after 20 hours) your ghrelin levels will increase and this gives your brain surges of dopamine which makes you more curious and improves learning and memory.
This makes reading or studying great activities to undertake while doing a 2-Day Fast.
I once sat and read for over 24 hours straight reading a book about Napoleon only with the exception of bathroom breaks.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as immersed into a book as I was then.
Two things usually happen to me once I get through the hunger-plateau:
The most notable one being that I experience an increase in cognitive and introspective abilities somewhere around the 20-hour mark after beginning the fast. This is accompanied by slight shivers as I slowly begin to get a bit colder and get a constant tingling of energy in the head. These things remain with me throughout the rest of the fast.
Following this, I start getting into an incredibly deep state of focus. I can literally feel my brain flex. My brain is now in an activated state for many hours to come. This feels very euphoric. It’s hard to describe it to someone who hasn’t experienced it. It’s like being curious about everything.
This is likely the ghrelin-induced dopamine high kicking in.
The 2-Day Fast as a Way to get Ripped
This one is a no-brainer.
If you don’t eat for 40-48 hours that’s a lot of time you spend in fat-burning mode (ketosis) reducing your amount of body fat.
I dropped from 77 kilos to 70 kilos in a couple of months by using this strategy, but then I stopped it because it was too effective and I got scared of losing more weight.
I still use it occasionally but not from a weight-loss standpoint.
I might go on a 2-Day Fast if I am super busy and need to get things done, or as a practice to break out of homeostasis and make sure my willpower stays strong.
Action Plan: Here’s what you Do
Depending on how strong your willpower is it’s going to be more or less easy to do the fast.
To make it easier you can:
Drink plenty of water mixed with glutamine.
I cannot recommend drinking glutamine on a daily basis strongly enough. Even if you’re not fasting.
I randomly found out that glutamine makes longer times of fasting much easier without losing out on the beneficial effects. Just make sure you don’t go over 50 calories at a time.
Glutamine will not activate your digestive system because it is absorbed before that.
Glutamine is awesome for getting a healthier stomach and to recover from injuries or sicknesses. I used to have candida albicans and my gut would swell up big time and get gassy, but that’s for another post. Glutamine definitely played a big part in curing that.
Drink coffee or tea however much you feel like.
Coffee in combination with the ghrelin-induced dopamine high that hits after around 20 hours gets you into a state of fanatical focus and single-mindedness.
Summary: Breaking it Down
The 2-Day Fast is great because it’s:
Good practice for making a lasting decision and practicing your willpower.
Good exercise to learn more about your body’s devious mechanisms to maintain homeostasis. If you can do 2 day fasts you will become a lot better at breaking out of homeostasis because you will become better at detecting ways that your brain will try to fool you by means of rationalizations and excuses for WHY YOU SHOULD EAT – and go against your decision.
Often yields a natural high that makes you feel very clear-headed, focused, and overall awesome. It helps you keep focused much longer and it allows for a higher degree of immersion that food breaks usually ruin otherwise. I recommend reading or studying during this period as your ability to learn is improved.
It helps you burn fat by switching on ketosis instead of glycolysis.
It’s very freeing to find that you don’t really have to eat all the time. It breaks the cycle of incessant stimulation.
To make it the 2-Day Fast easier:
Drink about 5g of glutamine every 3-5 hours.
Drink coffee or tea. They both suppress hunger and do not contain any calories.
You will easily notice if you break your fast by consuming too many calories, because then your stomach will start to growl and you will feel the need to start eating – you will get hungry again. Your brain will stop being clearheaded and will start thinking about food instead.
On working out:
I often break my 40-48h fast by drinking some coffee, creatine, glutamine, and heading to the gym. I usually lift for about an hour, then I tend to find myself getting tired.
Some people may not feel comfortable doing this, but ultimately it all comes down to self-experimentation. So it’s up for you to try it, but I wouldn’t recommend doing extended cardio.
What’s your take on longer periods of fasting than IF (16-24h), have you tried it?
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