Consecutive four-day fast needed for repair?

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Consecutive four-day fast needed for repair?

This topic contains 3 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by  simcoeluv 9 years, 5 months ago.

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  • I know 5/2 will reduce weight. But will it do all those wonderful health and longevity corrections? Valter Longo wrote it takes four days to activate the repair, “flushing out” body mechanism. He advises healthy persons to do it every 3-6 months. I’m confused. M.M. got good medical results from 5/2. Intuition tells me 5/2 is better if you’re relatively healthy but want to lose some weight and get the medical markers down. Any comments?

    Hi Boho and welcome:

    5:2 is excellent for weight loss. Along with weight loss comes lower cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure. However, Dr. M’s one man, 5 week experiment on himself does not constitute a clinical trial.

    All trials to date indicate a person needs at least a 4 or 4+ day water fast to get the ‘other health benefits’ from fasting. The initial mouse studies on fasting were on a 16:8 schedule and were used in the 8 Hour Diet book as scientific evidence of ‘other benefits’ from short term fasting. However, 16 hours of not eating for a mouse equals about a 4 day water fast for a human. Although 16:8 had been around on blogs for some time before the book, the 8 Hour Diet book popularized the ‘eating window’ diets. They soon faded as people found there was no weight loss magic in eating during an eating window (it just mattered how much they ate during the window, however long), but have enjoyed a resurgence after the 5:2 success as different forms of intermittent fasting.

    Dr. Longo has been marketing ‘fasting mimicking’ diet food for those that don’t believe they can fast for four or more days (his is for five), but a recent newspaper article gave a ‘rough’ five day diet that is supposed to work like Dr. Longo’s. There is a ‘Fast Mimicking Diet’ thread on this site somewhere.

    If you ever do a 4 day water fast, you will recognize that the body goes through some very potent ‘changes’ that do not begin to show up until the second or third day – and then get much more noticeable. Nothing like this occurs during a short fast measured in a few hours.

    This is a 5:2 intermittent fasting site, but more and more people are starting to take notice of the clinical evidence showing the benefits of longer term fasting. If you look around the site, you will find quite a bit of information.

    Here is a thread giving most of the basics of 5:2. In the posts, it also contains some information on longer term fasting: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-basics-for-newbies-your-questions-answered/. The recent news of the fasting mimicking diet includes a study which will lead to other clinical studies of some importance concerning longer term fasting. A link to that study is on the Mimicking thread mentioned above.

    Good Luck!

    Thank you very much Simcoeluv. I will start off with a 4-day 500 calorie fast. I am 77, 5’6″ and 158 pounds and want to get to 148. After the 4-day I’ll go 5/2. With this wonderful plan I’m sure it won’t take long to get to 148. I’m reluctant to do 4-day absolute. I did a 7-day absolute 20 years ago and saw no special result. I suspect 4-day absolute is not a good idea at my age. But if cholesterol, trigs and b/p also come down that relates to longevity. It will be fascinating to see what future research finds. Although we should not make science a god. Look how Americans were bamboozled by the low-fat craze for 50 years.

    Hi Boho:

    Well, it is up to you , but I would “work up to it” by starting with two non consecutive diet days and seeing how your body responds. Most newbies find it hard to do two days in a row, much less four.

    Good Luck!

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