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Friday, October 12, 2018

The 36h Fast


36 hours has been my longest fast to date.

I'm not sure I will push it further - I might.  It went fantastically well.

I Gots Energy!

I feel fantastic.  I have energy, I'm not tired.  I'm not hungry. My mood is great.

Sure there were a few dips during the 36h, and the odd hunger pang - but I have dips every day, and odd hunger pangs. 

In fact I would say my hunger was less than between meals on a regular eating day!  And way less than when I try to reduce calories. I think that's what makes fasting so appealing (and, frankly, bizarre).

I did something to make it a bit crazier - I ran 15km at the 22h mark of the fast, on just water.  Well, technically, lemon juice and water with a bit of salt... to each one's own!  No calories, though, which is the main point.

I was slower than I'd have been fully carb'd up carrying a bottle of Gatorade - no question. But I did it, and didn't feel bad.  I've done a few fasted runs leading up to this, so I figure it's my body adapting.  In studies fat-adapted athletes were able to metabolize 2.5 times as much fat as high carb athletes.

Fat For Fuel

Fat is not as efficient of a fuel - true. 

Fat is not already in your muscle like muscle glycogen is - true.

But there's a whoooolllle lot of it.  If one turns to ultra-endurance then fat is going to be a big part of how you get to the end.  Better learn to burn it for fuel!

Weight

I'm down about 8 pounds since September (some I'm sure is water/etc!) as of this morning, 36h fasted.  Even unfasted I'm down ~4 pounds, so some of it is definitely real weight loss.

Going to keep on it!  Feels like I finally hit on something that works.

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