Dude! I Don't Want to Go Hunting! Waking up at 4 am on a Water Fast

During my research I read about all these people needing little to no sleep while water fasting. Some reported waking up totally refreshed and ready to take on the world after only 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Now this got me pretty excited! What will I do with all that extra time on my hands? I know! I'm going to learn Mandarin. I'm going to write a book. I'm going reorganize my closet and throw away all my fat clothes.

But then reality set in. Yup, sure enough I'd wake up around 4 am every morning, but definitely not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I felt more like a dump truck just drove over me. I'd spend the next couple of hours listening to the Complete Guide to Fasting on audiobook, until I'd finally drift off to sleep for another couple of hours. This persisted for a whole week after I broke my fast. But why? Why not sleep like a baby when fasting? Why not sleep like a baby after? I just didn't get it.

Then I listened to Matthew Walker (I highly recommend his book, Why We Sleep) on Joe Rogan and he discussed how during a fast we are actually missing out on crucial REM sleep and we'll be woken up in the middle of the night and nudged to go hunt for food. Aha! The light bulbs went on. Makes perfect sense! But what if you don't want to go hunting in the middle of the night and you don't want to raid your fridge either? What's a girl to do? I guess it's back to the audiobooks for me.

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How to Break a Water Fast

As always there's quite a bit of conflicting information out there about how to break a fast. One thing everyone agrees on is that the fast needs to broken slowly and gently. You also need several days to go back to eating normally. For example, if you do a 7 day fast, you need about 3 days of refeeding. On a 10 day fast, you'll need 4-5 days and so on. How you break the fast will make or break the whole experience. If you go right back to your old way of eating, you can easily negate all the benefits of your fast. One school of thought insists on breaking the fast with fruit, more specifically watermelon and then lots of veggies and more fruit. Since my goal is to remain in ketosis, I will be taking a different approach. I will be eating protein, fat and some low-carb veggies, bone broth and lots of water. I would also recommend abstaining from alcohol for at least a few days so you're not overburdening your liver. Listen to your body. Don't force the food if yo...

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The Aging Games

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