WHAT IS A 4 DAY FAST?
The 4-day water fast is when you eat nothing for four days. It’s simple, really, because you don’t have to worry about what meal to eat, or what beverage to drink.
The beverage of choice is water.
I like to drink water only when I’m thirsty while doing a 4-day fast. I don’t find it necessary to have 8 glasses of water a day while doing this type of fast.
Many people think that you have to stay hydrated when doing a long fast, but I have found that I don’t need as much water.
I have been doing 4-day fasts once a month for many years now. Each time I do it, it gets easier and easier.
WHAT DO YOU EAT/DRINK?
Some people like to drink coffee or tea when doing a long fast. Some people drink fruit juices. Others drink water like me.
If you want to incorporate any of these things into your long fast, you can do it. Make it up however you want and stick to it. No one can tell you you’re doing it wrong, and if they do, just remind them that you can fast any way you want.
Really, that’s the truth.
The beauty of doing intermittent fasting and long fasts is that you can make up your own rules. I follow my own rules. I don’t have to answer to anyone. I just do it the way I like and that’s it.
I know people who drink coffee while fasting, and for them, it’s perfectly fine. It’s not as big a deal as people make it out to be. Do what you want when you create a fast.
It’s better to be a happy faster, than not fast at all.
WHY DO A 4 DAY FAST?
The reason I do a 4-day fast is to detox my body. We get so many toxins through our food, the air we breathe, and water we drink every day.
When I fast I experience body detox. It helps fix problems in my system and promotes cell regeneration. That means that my good cells deliberately target my bad cells and fix them. That’s called autophagy.
Sometimes after the Christmas holidays, you feel bloated. You’ve eaten a lot of goodies and you just don’t feel well. Maybe too much turkey. That’s the perfect time to do a long fast.
I like to say I’m setting my body straight.
HOW CAN IT HELP DETOX?
Anytime you introduce something good to your body, you get a healing crisis. This healing crisis is called a herxheimer reaction.
Your body will get worse before it gets better with anything good you introduced into the body. Even when you start taking antibiotics you experience a herxheimer reaction.
If you start drinking kombucha tea, for example, your body may revolt. You’re putting good probiotics into your digestive system, so it goes into overload.
I remember when I started using magnesium oil spray. It’s good for you, but my body revolted. I got tiny little red bumps all over my body that looked like measles because it was too much for my system.
Too much of a good thing backfires sometimes.
It’s that reaction that causes detox. However, once our bodies adjust to the detox, we feel a whole lot better. The stored-up chemicals in our bodies leave our system and make us feel renewed.
HOW TO START
The way I start with my 4-day fast is the night before, I eat supper. I use my intermittent fasting app to record my custom fast. That helps me keep track.
The app I use is called the Zero app. I highly recommend that one because it is so easy to use, and visually it looks amazing.
Once I start my 4-day fast, I try to keep busy. When I’m busy I don’t think about eating. I find that at the end of my day, if I can just take a nice warm bath and go to bed, it loops into a new day quickly.
Day one is difficult because I miss eating. I know that if I keep going I will eventually forget about food. And that’s the truth. As time passes by I do forget about the food. I don’t even have any hunger pains, but not until after day two.
Day two is brutal. I usually call it my heavy detox day because it is. In the morning I wake up with a headache and a white tongue, indicating a herxheimer reaction has taken place. That means my body is detoxing all of the bad chemicals in the body.
I end day two with a long hot Epson salt bath and go to bed, thankful to be done the day. Day two is notoriously always like this.
So, if you do any kind of long fast, watch out for day two.
Day three is completely different than day two. I don’t have a headache when I wake up, and I don’t have as much detoxing on my tongue. I still brush it to get off the excess white film from regular detox but it’s nowhere near like day two.
I get a sudden burst of energy on day three, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. In fact, I feel supercharged. I feel like superwoman. I feel invincible like I could accomplish anything.
It’s on day three that I can get an enormous amount of work done. Heck, I can run a marathon on day three without even getting tired.
They call this the fasting high. Some people experience it on different days and different ways, but for me, it’s day three and it’s incredible. It isn’t just some of the time for me it’s every time I do a long fast. My day three is always the same.
I am woman, hear me roar!
My day four is a repeat of day three, but not as supercharged. I still feel a boost of energy but it’s different. There’s an element of, enough is enough. My body knows it’s had enough of fasting and misses food.
But I persevere through the day because I know I’m going to be rewarded at the end of it. I get to eat!
When I get home from work, I break my fast with ground flax. That holds all my food in that I’m about to eat, so it doesn’t go in one end and out the other.
Once I take my flax, I can literally eat anything I want. You don’t have to baby your system by drinking juices and liquids and soups. I eat a full balanced meal, and sometimes even go out to have a treat.
As long as I have my ground-up flax, I can eat anything I want. My dormant digestive system starts up again by spitting and sputtering for a short period of time and then works normal once again.
HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU DO IT?
As I said, I do along fasts once a month. I call it my detox fast and usually do it after a vacation or holiday.
Usually, a vacation is filled with a food-fest of sorts. That’s what’s good about vacations. You get to have barbecues and treats that you don’t normally have. But because of that, I need to reset my body afterward.
That’s when and why I do a long fast.
Some people do long fasts once every six months, or even once every year. Really, it’s up to you. If you feel you need it only once every six months, then do that. If you feel you need it every month as I do, then do that.
One thing I would caution is don’t do it more than once a month. I think that it can become too extreme if you do it more than that. You don’t want to put your body in a state of malnutrition.
I also wouldn’t want to do more than four days for a long fast. I feel four days is the right amount of time, at least for me. Anything longer I would feel it to be unnecessary. I can achieve all the benefits of a long fast with just four days, so why would I want to do it longer?
I know people do longer fasts than four days, and that’s fine for them, but for me, I like the four-day fast. It fits me perfectly.
We’re all different, and what works for me might not work for you though, so be aware of that. Figure out what works for you and stick to it.
SYMPTOMS EXPERIENCED
In short form, I will list the set of symptoms I experience while on a long fast.
- Weakness
- Boost of energy
- White tongue
- The feeling of being cold
- Hot Flashes
- Hunger pains
- No hunger pains
- Headache
- Insomnia
- Good night’s sleep
- Diarrhea
- Better bowel movements
- No bowel movements
- Fasting High
- No bloating
- Zero inflammation
- No brain fog
- Clarity
I realize some of the symptoms contradict each other, and that’s okay. It just means that not every day is the same when you do a long fast.
Depending on what day I’m on in the fast, I experience different symptoms.
BENEFITS
The benefits of long fasts are huge. They are the same benefits that intermittent fasters experience or any ketogenic dieter experiences.
Those rewards come in the way of better health. The benefits of ketosis will show up in your skin. It will reduce acne, eczema, and many other skin ailments.
I used to suffer from terrible eyelid eczema, but not anymore. Since achieving ketosis on a regular basis I have not had one bout of eczema.
Ketosis also benefits the heart. It reduces heart disease, high blood pressure, normalizes blood sugar, and lowers cholesterol. It benefits those with diabetes and prevents it as well. It also prevents Alzheimer’s.
Ketosis benefits your cells as well. It promotes cell regeneration through autophagy and increases the human growth hormone. It acts as a fountain of youth, by restoring wrinkles and giving you a healthy glow.
There are so many benefits to achieving ketosis that it’s hard to mention them all. Every body is different and reacts differently while in ketosis, but generally speaking the majority experience the same health benefits according to Harvard studies. I’ll link the study below.
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For further information, go to the Hungry Old Lady Youtube channel by clicking on the video at the end. I hope you enjoyed this article and consider living an intermittent fasting lifestyle.
