TN50#27, Let’s Talk About Fasting No. 2, 05 July 2021
Hi Team,
Happy Monday and welcome to The Next 50 #27.
First of all, I hope you all had an amazing 4th of July in the most amazing country this modern world has ever seen! Second, I am much more at ease writing an entry about a 5-Day Fast Mimicking Diet (FMD) that I just finished vs. writing about it on Day 1 of the FMD, like last week. If you are lost go back and read last week’s TN50#26 to catch up, this is number 2 of 2 entries on the PROLON Fast Mimicking Diet.
To recap, here are some of the benefits you can expect to achieve with a PROLON FMD.
- Cellular Renewal – Your body goes into heavy duty recycle mode (autophagy) as part of its emergency response procedures.
- Enhanced mental clarity and performance – You think better, and we can all use that.
- Fat focused weight loss.
Here are some interesting observations from my FMD last week.
- Toward the end of day 1 I weighed in 3 lbs. lighter than I estimated at 158.8 (best practice is to check weight the day before you start the fast, I forgot.) I started day 1 with a Murph and 25-minute sauna, this may have contributed to the lighter than expected weight, but I don’t know.
- I began feeling my 5-Day FMD Chill on day 2 of my FMD on this iteration. Generally, I am not a cold natured person, when I have done the 5 Day FMDs in the past, I usually have a constant chill by day 4, I experienced that constant chill 2 days earlier on this one.
- Sleep was a mixed bag: good night 1, bad night 2, good night 3, bad night 4 and good night 5. I hit my all-time OURA ring low heart rate (HR) and average HR on night 5, 37 bpm for the low, with an all-night average of 40 bpm.
- I generally felt like I had a lot of mental clarity and focus when I had things to do that required focus this past week, this ebbed and flowed on days following a poor night of sleep.
- I was not physically hungry during the FMD, but mentally there were times that I was very interested in eating normal food. Two things I did that were new on this effort were: going to the movies, “man I wanted some popcorn!” and going out to dinner with the family, “everything smelled amazing!” Oddly enough, these were not the primary times I really wanted to eat on my normal protocol.
- I felt under-powered physically during this FMD in a way I don’t recall in the past, especially on the days following a poor night of sleep.
- Weigh In Day 6, 154.6, roughly 4 lbs. lighter than my last 5-Day FMD final weight, and about 9 lbs. lighter than I normally weigh.
- Day 6 is supposed to be a gentle transition day back toward your normal eating protocol but my Saturday, 03 July, included going to an evening 4th of July party so let’s just say it wasn’t the normal transition day.
My two friends who joined me on this adventure hit some pretty great numbers on sleep and weight as well, then immediately loaded an airplane and headed to Central America for a well-deserved vacation with the family. I have 2 other friends who are all in for their first FMDs in the very near future.
For the rest of you, when was the last time you did something hard? Don’t wait to long, regardless of what that next “hard thing” might be!
As always, I would love it if you shared your thoughts on this (side note: I have a goal of answering every email I get on these entries going forward) and please share this with your tribe if you think it would be useful..
Have a good one, Alex
2022 Murph Count: 7
