Hi Babsie_66
I’ve just started on the diet and have completed 2 fast days, I actually came on this forum to ask the same question, I find that my heart races every so often during the day, it doesn’t seem to relate to anything I am doing. Let me know what the doctor says. I don’t think it would be anything serious but it would be good to know.
Regards,GJ1

Well first of all, congratulations on a fabulous weight loss, this obviously works and I’m looking forward to getting on the scales on Friday morning to see my first week’s results.
I’m pleased there is nothing wrong with regard to your palpitations and I’ll monitor mine tomorrow to see how it goes. It does make sense about the body being under stress so I won’t worry too much about it. I’m going to the doctor in a couple of weeks about something else, so if it’s still a problem I’ll talk to her then, but thanks for alleviating my initial concerns.

How much more weight are you planning to lose?
I’m doing my first ‘at work’ fast day tomorrow so hopefully my brain will stay engaged for the whole day and I won’t fall asleep at my desk!

I am so relieved to read these posts! I am suffering very nasty, prolonged palpitations on fasting days. I’m trying to increase my water intake and think that fasting for 24 hours is perhaps too much of a shock to the system and I should revert to Michael Mosley’s method of small breakfast after 12 hours and then small supper after another 12 hours. My heart races and feels like it’s beating out of sequence, through my ribs, all over the shop for upto 2 hours. One particularly scary night, they lasted all night. I thought I would have to go to A&E. I thought fasting was good for you!!

I have what I thought were palpitations. My doctor said it’s a pre-beat and not dangerous. He went into a long explanation of what it is that I didn’t really understand but pretended to so I wouldn’t look like a complete dunce to him.

Bronx

I’ve always had the odd extra beat but noticed they were becoming more frequent on fast days. I was drinking several cups of green tea on fast days and wondered if this may be contributing. I didn’t realise that green tea contains a fair amount of caffeine and can trigger palpitations. I have since started manually decaffing my tea and palpitations much less frequent now.

Gotta echo the folks who are saying have it checked out by your doctor!

My husband started with palpitations in his 20s and ended up with episodes that felt like heart attacks. They weren’t actually, but they were sufficient to put him into arrhythmias at regular intervals in his 40s and 50s. Think Emergency Rooms and those everybody-stand-back!-paddles. Happily, it was eventually resolved with a number of ablations (permanently knocking out nerves that misfired causing the episodes). He’s well into his 60s and he’s outlived his mother, father and brother who all had cardiac issues because he’s had good support and interventions before things got out of hand.

There are benign random arrhythmias but, even so, it’s good for your doctor to have a baseline look at how your heart functions to monitor changes that may (may!) become more problematical.

Meanwhile, there are electrolyte supplements that could be helpful in providing the essential minerals your heart needs. Especially since, if you’re drinking a lot more water while intermittent fasting, you’re diluting the electrolytes provided by a normal balance diet.

Hi,

I am not a Doctor but I read this on this web site and it may be your answer. This is the important bit although it concerns insomnia it may be relevant to heart palpitations. I also suffer when I have eventually dropped off only to wake with my heart ” racing” . I have rightly or wrongly put this down to the hormone resulting in a “flight” response! Everything calms down when I think I am not under attack and I go back to sleep!

“One common side effect of fasting is insomnia. It does not affect everyone, but certainly quite a few.
In shorthand, one reason is because fasting increases norepinephrine levels in the body and one side effect of heightened norepinephrine levels is insomnia. The hormone also increases alertness (‘my mind just wouldn’t stop working’), speeds up the heart rate, pumps glucose into the bloodstream and is the basis of the ‘fight or flight’ response.
Looking back, this makes sense. If in the olden days a person was unsuccessful in their hunt for food and was hungry, it would make sense for the body to become more alert, get more energy and be better able to find and catch something to eat.”

I hope this helps as the benefits of 5:2 are more than the occasional issue.

Soon after I started the 5:2 fasting I too began to suffer from heart palpitations on and the day after my fast. I would experience everything from a racing heart to the typical missed beat. I tried many things to ease these palpitations and nothing seemed to help. They got so bad at times I eventually had to stop fasting. Frustrated, I went to see my doctor who as it turns out happens to fast himself.

He recommended that on my fast days I increase the calorie count by another 400 (300 for women), take a 400mg supplement of magnesium, and drink coconut water which is loaded with natural electrolytes. This combination has completely stopped my palpitations and I’m back in the game. You’ll still get plenty of benefits when increasing your calorie count by a couple hundred. You could try starting here, then experiment with the calorie count to see how your body reacts. You could also try a 250mg magnesium and see if that works but 400 works for me. I hope this helps others out there.