In order to show you how to truly do a three-day water fasts, I figured why not just document
one and take you through the process with me.
So, let's go through this.
But before we get started, I'm Dr. Nick Zyrowski and I started my holistic health practice
in order to help you take control of your health naturally, because true health only
comes naturally.
I do a three day water fasts about every other month so this is going to land me about six
three-day water fast per year.
Now, a lot of people ask me, “How do I determine if I want to do a two-day, three-day, four-day,
or even beyond that like a seven-day water fast?”
And the truth is the three-day works really well for me, and it's because my schedule
is very busy.
I'm seeing patients morning till night.
I need to stay energized.
I need to stay focused.
And when you start getting up into the higher day fasts, what happens is it becomes more
difficult, because you need more downtime, you need more rest.
Of course, if you're pushing yourself very physically, during that time, it can even
be a little bit detrimental to your health.
So, you have to be really careful with this.
So, three days, I fit right into that category where it works well for me.
Without further ado, let's jump into my fast.
So here we are day one of the water fast, super exciting.
There's a lot of people doing this a big group of thousands of people.
And the thing is it's exciting for me is I am not the only one doing it this time.
I've done dozens of water fasts, you know, just going solo on them.
And it's always easier to do it as a group.
So that's exciting to have you here.
Now it's day one.
So, what can we expect so far?
Well, so far, not a whole lot of anything.
I mean, really, for most people, they're going to be burning through their glycogen store
unless you are following a keto diet prior to this.
So, you're burning through those glycogen stores, you're still cruising pretty good.
We want to make sure that we're drinking adequate water.
Remember, because we're not eating now, a lot of people tend to not drink enough water.
They're not eating so they don't drink water.
So, make sure you're drinking adequate water, make sure you're drinking a good spring water,
a distilled water, a good filtered water.
We want to make sure we're drinking a good pure water at this point as we're cleansing
our body.
Now, the other thing that we want to look out for at this point is that we're probably
going to have some mind games played with us.
I woke up this morning, my kids or kids are eating breakfast and I thought to myself,
“Oh my gosh, I'm starving.”
And I'm like, wait, no, I'm not.
I intermittent fast anyway.
This shouldn't even be a thing, but it's already hitting me.
And then my clinic is packed between a bunch of really great restaurants and every time
I walk outside, that's all I smell is food.
So anyway, long story short, not a whole lot happening at this point, but some mind games,
some mental stuff.
We got to stay mentally tough right now.
So, you know, work on that mental fortitude, that mental toughness, and then also make
sure that you're drinking adequate water, and then I'll just document more stuff as
we go throughout the day.
Doing a water fast is a great way to go in and hit that reset button in your diet and
lifestyle.
I mean, let's face it.
We all start to develop some bad habits that we don't want to do and then we can fast and
it helps clean all of those up.
Now if you're somebody who's coming off of a really poor diet though when you go into
a fast, it will make the fast tougher.
You'll have a lot more blood sugar instability, cravings, headaches, extreme fatigue.
Whereas if you go into a fast and you're following a good low carb diet, you're sugar free, and
you've already cut caffeine out, it's going to be far easier for you.
Boom!
So, we are at the end of day one of the water fast.
I'm personally feeling pretty good, a little bit fatigued long day's work, a lot of moving
and grooving and no nutrition all day.
So just plain old water.
But overall feeling pretty good.
There's been a lot of people have been telling me they've been having some headaches, not
feeling too hot.
Sometimes people are getting a little bit of nausea.
These are withdrawal symptoms.
So, if you are someone who is eating a lot of carbs, sugar, and caffeine prior to this
fast, and you're going right into this fast and cutting all of it out, you're going to
feel pretty terrible.
It's just the way it is.
The best thing you can do honestly, is just get yourself, you know, laying down, get some
rest, go to sleep in the morning, you'll wake up and you'll feel pretty darn good.
This is a real deal.
This is this is a real deal fasting.
I mean, you're going to see all these different companies out there and these gurus on the
internet doing fasts, and somehow they always find a way that the products that they offer
are somehow acceptable during the fast and so I've seen it all.
Actually I've been watching a whole bunch of people do these fasting challenges.
I mean, they're doing amino acids, they're doing MCT oil, they're doing collagen.
It’s typically all the products that they sell, they allow for - coffee, I mean, you
name it.
But the truth is, if you're doing a water fast, I mean, and you want to do a true fast,
it's just with water.
Now, I'm not a huge fan of taking supplementation while fasting.
Everything has a time and a place, but I think that while we're fasting, we should just let
our body do what it needs to do.
We should allow for our genetic potential to activate the healing processes that exist
like autophagy and allow for these functions to play out without interference.
A lot of people ask me about medication.
Should I be taking medication while fasting?
And the truth is, is that you have to talk to your doctor about the medication that you're
on and then of course what you're trying to do with this fasting because if you're on
a certain medication, it can very much Let's be altered by you not eating for multiple
days.
So, you have to work with your managing doctor in order to basically walk through this process.
It's not good to go into the fast without talking to them and it certainly is not good
to just stop them all together.
You really need to talk to your doctor about this and they will have the proper answers
for you.
Now let's go ahead and take a look at where my blood sugar is in my ketones.
Now going into this fast I was not on the ketogenic diet, so I was not in the state
of ketosis.
What we're seeing here is my blood sugar is stabilized at a good level, and my ketones
are actually starting to rise.
Now, everybody's numbers will be different here.
That's very important to understand.
Some people will say, “Well, what is certain categories are my numbers supposed to be in?”
Well, when you are somebody who has insulin resistance, for instance, you'll typically
see that your blood sugar remains higher and your ketones remain lower.
If you're somebody who's maybe on a ketogenic diet prior to starting this fast, you're going
to see your ketones go higher and your blood sugar be lower than what mine is.
And so, it really all depends on your current state of health as to where you'll be in this
whole process.
And we'll see how mine progresses as we move forward.
Boom!
So here we are day two and two are fast, and I'm feeling pretty good.
Woke up with lots of energy, lots of mental clarity - I'm happy about that.
On day two, you'll typically see that your eyes become brighter white, you'll start to
see that your complexion clears up.
If you had rashes on your body, you'll notice that these rashes start to go away.
And the reason that this happens is because your gut health improves, and a lot of these
gut health issues that people are facing today are causing a lot of skin issues.
And so that starts to reverse itself.
You'll also see typically that your teeth become a brighter white and that you have
more energy.
And at any time, if you don't have energy during the whole fast or you feel a little
bit groggy, remember that the remedy is sleep in rest, we have to remember that.
Waking up with a headache, and if you're waking up with a headache, that means that you did
not drink enough water yesterday.
Okay, as I mentioned yesterday, as we are not eating, we tend to not drink water.
So, make sure that you are purposely trying to drink more water so that you're getting
sufficient hydration.
Otherwise, you will give yourself a massive headache, and with all the withdrawal symptoms
that you may already be having, you don't want to also have the issue of dehydration.
So, make sure you're getting enough water.
Other people were complaining that they're getting some muscle cramping last night.
That also is an issue of not getting enough water, but it is also an issue of a lack of
electrolytes.
So, make sure that you grab something like some simple pink salt, you can just literally
shake some in your mouth and wash it down or another way I like to drink it as you shake
them into a hot cup of water, mix it up, and it tastes almost like a broth.
And you can drink that.
But the pink salt is loaded with like 80 trace minerals, lots of electrolytes, make sure
that you get this in, because it'll really help you out.
The third thing I want to talk about is there's some people who are waking up and they tested
their ketone levels or blood sugar levels and they still haven't even hit ketosis or
even dropped their blood sugar very low.
And it's a really interesting concept because I talk about this all the time.
When we talk about fasting, a lot of people give you ranges of like when your glycogen
stores - those are your sugar stores - when your glycogen stores burn out.
And we always get these ranges in as if it's so simple, but it's more complex than that
because if you're someone who's in the state of ketosis prior to entering this, and obviously,
you'll be in ketosis, you're eating a healthy diet, you'll be in ketosis.
If you're someone who has a high sugar, high carb diet, you will likely not be in ketosis
yet, and you probably could have not even dropped your blood sugar that low.
Now, the other thing is that if you are someone who is insulin resistant, then you are probably
still going to struggle getting into ketosis, and it can take a long time.
It's all about how your body's working, how your physiology is, how much glycogen storage
you have in your body.
I mean, there's a lot of factors involved in that, that we have to take into consideration.
A lot of times when people go into these fasts, they try to prove how tough they are.
And they do this by going to the gym and crushing weights and going for a long-distance run.
It is not what is important during your fast.
When you're fasting, I recommend focusing on healing the body and self-care.
A lot of times when I'm fasting, I'll be throwing in a lot of different self-care modalities
in order to improve my health because this whole process is about healing.
So, let's go ahead now and take a look at my blood.
Let's see what my blood sugar is doing and my ketone level is doing on the morning of
day three.
As we can see here, my blood sugar dropped around 24 points compared to the morning prior,
which is completely fine and normal.
We can see that my blood sugar monitor is saying please treat because we have a problem
here, but I know that I'm fasting and that's why my blood sugar is doing that so I'm okay.
Now my ketones have went up and landed me into the state of ketosis.
So that's also good.
I think that I probably went into ketosis around the day prior around noon.
So shortly after I had taken the first blood sample of day two, I went into ketosis, probably
about four hours later.
So everything's looking really good and on point so I'm going to keep moving forward.
All right, it is day three of the water fast and day three has been a little bit uneventful
or hasn't been that much going on.
I did not sleep good last night.
I will say that.
I didn't sleep good last night, woke up not very energized, felt better as the day is
going on.
Just drinking water, going to break the fast which I'm ecstatic about.
As I've done countless fasts over the past 10 years to one thing I can tell you is there's
no rhyme or reason as to why some nights I sleep really great in other nights I sleep
horribly.
The one thing that's typically steady across the board is that I require less sleep while
I'm fasting.
While that is the case for me, there are many people who require more sleep, so you have
to really listen to your body here.
I've been doing the vitamin C flush now basically starting to buffer vitamin C, which is really
important if you want to cleanse your colon out and really get that immune boosting benefit
and also the different electrolytes that it has to offer.
So, the buffer vitamin C I've been doing for about two hours now and that's going well.
With the vitamin C flush, this is something that I throw into my fast sometimes and other
times I don't.
It truly depends on how I'm feeling, but it is not a requirement of my three-day water
fast.
Now the reason I came up with this process is because I've dealt with gastrointestinal
issues before and many of my patients deal with them currently and continually, so one
of the things that we'll do this whole process in order to offer a couple benefits.
First of all, it's going to add in a lot of electrolytes, which is going to be beneficial
during this fast and time.
The other thing that you're going to get is the immune boosting benefits that vitamin
C has to offer.
But most importantly in the real reason we're doing it is in order to really sweep the colon
of bacterial overgrowth of yeast and candida overgrowth as well.
When you do this vitamin C flush process, it basically is going to induce you having
to go to the bathroom and it acts as a good colon cleanse.
Now if you want to learn more about this, I will put a link in the description.
I have a whole video where I break down how to do a vitamin C flush while fasting.
Okay, this is how I'm going to be breaking my fast right here.
We got a bone broth vegetable-based soup right here, which is going to be amazing.
And then I also have probiotic kimchi right here.
And then of course, some sauerkraut as well.
The professor of mine in my doctoral program that taught the nutrition courses loved fasting.
He has a fasting clinic and he learned from some of the real OGs of fasting - guys like
Paul Bragg, Herbert Shelton - and the thing that he always taught us is that the most
important part of the fast is breaking the fast.
Now as I look around the internet, I see people documenting their multiple-day fast and they're
breaking it with pizzas and a bunch of junk food, I just shake my head in disbelief, but
I want you guys to have the proper methods.
So, what I do is I always break it with like a bone broth-based soup.
So, you're going to get all the benefits that gut healing benefits that the bone broth has
to offer.
You're going to have the veggies in there which are soft and they're going to be light
and easily digested.
So, we want to make sure that we're eating a light meal here.
And so, the bone broth soup is one of my favorite ways to go.
Now, the other thing I throw in is probiotic rich foods.
We're going to find things like kimchi and sauerkraut as you saw.
Now, people who don't have dairy sensitivities, you can even add in things like some yogurt,
you can add in some cheeses as well.
They have lots of enzymes and probiotics in them as well.
So, if we do that vitamin C flush and we kind of like sweep out the colon, then we add in
these good probiotics, it’s highly beneficial.
Over the next couple of days, I'll have people even adding some kombucha.
We want to make sure we find a low sugar kombucha, but if we get a huge array of probiotics,
it's so beneficial for making us have a really stable microbiome and move forward with of
course, less gut issues.
Now after my fast typically what I do is I go right on to the ketogenic diet and I'll
stay onto it for several weeks after.
As far as duration, it just depends on what my body feels that it needs and what's sustainable
for me.
And as you can see, as I went through this process, this is a therapeutic process for
me.
A lot of people go into fasting, they're really not sure why they're doing it.
They heard they could lose some weight, they heard it was the cool, trendy thing to do,
but what we want to do is use it as a healing tool for our bodies.
So, use it as a therapeutic process.
Listen to your body.
And if you want to see me critique some other people doing their fast go ahead and watch
this video right here.
People who have these inflammatory conditions live their best life when they do intermittent
fasting on a regular basis or they constantly throw in a several day water fast every single
month.