[Video transcript]
Hey everyone, Dr. Derek here. We are almost there! Thanks for hanging in with us. This is another video in our fasting series and today we're going to talk about some of the common concerns that people have during fasting.
Common Fasting Concerns
Number one concern is hunger. Obviously, when we don't eat we get hungry. This is why we try to build your toolbox with some tools of things that can actually suppress appetite a little bit. These are things like: coffee, black tea, green tea, cinnamon, and cinnamon tea these are compounds that actually have the capacity to drop our appetite. The other thing to know is that appetite comes in these ebbs and flows, in these waves, and know that yeah, it may feel unbearable at this particular moment but it will pass. This is another reason why staying busy during a fast can be very helpful. Hunger is okay, though—know that! I feel hungry when I do fasts, all of my patients feel hungry when they do a fast, so it's not an abnormal feeling. But it but it can be really challenging to navigate. This is why one of the things we emphasize leading into a fast is a low carbohydrate diet. This tends to stabilize blood sugar and help reduce the severity of those hunger pangs.
Lightheadedness during Fasting
Another common concern can be: dizziness—feeling a little bit lightheaded. Make sure you stay hydrated and make sure you add in some bone broth or a little bit of extra salt into your daily routine. Whether that's into the into your water or into bone broth, a lot of times that dizziness is related with a bigger fluctuation in sodium in your diet. You've been eating, generally, regular food: some animal proteins and plants and have had a higher salt intake. Then, all of a sudden, you stop doing that and the salt intake drops significantly. Your body has the ability to regulate this, it just can take a little bit of time to navigate that. Another possibility can be if you are on blood pressure medication. If your blood pressure is dropping too low, that can cause dizziness. This is why I always encourage people who are doing fasting to work with a doctor—especially if they're on medication, because these are things that we need to be paying attention to.
What is causing headaches?
Another common concern is: headaches. Almost across the board I hear this from people—generally around day two or three. Sometimes this has to do with caffeine withdrawal. If they are normally a relatively heavy coffee drinker or tea drinker and they cut back or eliminate it. Because that's how they want to do their fast, the caffeine withdrawal can do that. Sugar withdrawals seem to be able to do that as well, and these headaches generally speaking. will decrease in severity and eventually stop as the fast is elongated. Just like we talked about before with the dizziness and the fluctuation of salt and sodium intake can also be responsible for this. So adding some bone broth or a little bit of salt into our daily routine can be helpful.
Constipation from not eating: what’s that all about?
Another concern some people have during fast, especially the more elongated fast, can be constipation. Some of this is simply because we're actually putting significantly less into the bowels. We haven't been eating any food, and so there's a lot less to eliminate if you're not experiencing any discomfort at all (abdominal discomfort or feel like there's straining), then generally speaking you're doing okay. If there's a problem once you start breaking the fast, this is where sometimes increasing the amount of fiber and our diet and making sure again we stay very hydrated can be very helpful. Last but not least that will certainly pitch making sure that you have a doc on your team who understands fasting because constipation can be a bigger symptom of other metabolic problems sometimes. Microbiome problems, gut problems, so there may be other issues at hand.
Okay, here come the Muscle Cramps
Muscle cramps are another common complaint that you may get, and these generally have to do with magnesium and magnesium content in our diet. So there's a drop-off of magnesium as well when we do, especially these elongated, fasts. I personally will feel muscle achy generally during a three or four day long fast, and I find that at day three and day four, I'm probably most achy. I think this has a lot to do with one of the things that we talked about: cell autophagy. Autophagy being the recycling of old cells, and it starts to peak day three or day four. This can actually cause a little bit of muscle soreness and muscle aching which is a little bit different than muscle cramps—which have much more to do with magnesium. So, often we’ll recommend some supplemental magnesium or this is where things like Epsom salt baths can be helpful.
Will Fasting Make me Tired?
Another common complaint is is fatigue or tiredness. It generally happens at the beginning stages of fasting in day one/day two where we're starting to adapt to this lack of caloric input. Usually we will notice fatigue will lift later in extended fasts.
So those are some of the common concerns that I hear about from my patients. If you have your own questions concerns:
Make sure to ask your own your doc about them—especially if you're going to start implementing short or longer fasts.
If you have any comments over tips and tricks that you have please leave us a comment on social media, we’d be happy to hear them.
Thanks for tuning in to our fasting video series. I hope that you found these videos informative/helpful. If there's anything that we left out that, or missed that you wanted some commentary on please let us know. We're happy to fill in some of those blanks, and I hope that this information gets you more comfortable with the idea of utilizing fasting as a therapeutic tool in your toolbox for your health, and your well-being.