The Science of Fasting

Forget to write about this, but I did the fasting mimicking diet, which is basically a 5 day semi-fast, where you eat about 1200 calories the first day and then 700 calories for the next 4 days, with a specific set of macros. I'm lazy so I bought a kit from Prolon to do it. Supposedly you get some of the same benefits of fasting (autophagy) while still being able to eat some. I was curious b/c the last time I did a long fast I started getting jaundice and had to cut it short and wanted to see if this would work.

It was pretty easy to follow, basically it was like a fruit and nut bar in the morning and then soup for lunch and dinner. I didn't feel any hunger until the evening of the 4th day and again the evening of the 5th day. So it was pretty easy to follow. I still was able to ride my bike into work and do some light exercise. I never got a burst of energy though, and I did get pretty tired in the evenings. I lost about 10 pounds over the 5 days, of which I think 6 pounds was water weight... 2 days later I had recovered all but 4 pounds that I had lost, and I've kept those 4 pounds off. I also never got jaundice this go around... my eyes did start looking cloudy so I upped my water intake and that seemed to help clear it up.

I'm probably going to do it again 3 more times this summer and see if it can help me get my weight down and manage my cholosterol.

We'll see.