My First Ever 24-Hour Fast

Mount Humphries as seen from Antelope Hill.  My wife and I may climb it in a few months.  The Peak is 12,633 ft above sea level.

I just finished my first 24-hour fast.  It wasn’t bad.

Melanie Thomassian’s recent review of fasting was my motivation to give it a try.

I drank all the water and black coffee I wanted—that still qualifies as a fast in my view.  The closest I’d come in the past to a prolonged fast would be a gastrointestinal disorder involving nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.  It’s easy to avoid food when you know it’s going to make you sick!

I didn’t experience any weakness, dizziness, lack of concentration or any other adverse effects, except possibly for some mild irritability.  The latter may instead have been due to my frustration with my work schedule.  I had misread my schedule and thought I had the day off.  Turns out I had to work a 12-hour shift after all.  I wasn’t happy about having to go in to the hospital.

Out of the 24 hours of fasting, I slept for 7.5 hours and worked a very busy shift for 12.  That helped keep my mind off food.  Craving for food didn’t start until the last two hours.

Another thing that may have helped me was that I usually eat less than the 130 grams a day of carbohydrate that your average dietitian says we need.  I eat more like 80–100 grams of digestible carb.  I’ve been as low as 20–30 grams for months on end.  So my metabolism is already geared up for living off energy from ketones and for producing blood glucose from body proteins and glycerol  (a product of body fat breakdown).

I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again, but I’m glad I did it once.

—Steve