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Comment by outlace | Hacker News Reader

Well it happened. I had critically low phosphate which is the hallmark of refeeding syndrome.

And it’s not necessarily an absolute deficiency in electrolytes, it’s that when you break a fast with a carb rich meal, it drives the electrolytes into the cells so there is deficiency of electrolytes in the blood even if total body amount is normal.

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I have fasted first significant periods for 5+ years and many times I’ve broken fasts with extremely carb heavy meals. I also participate in a number of fasting social networks (both on and offline). I am just saying you might want to investigate this further as a (relatively) short 48 hour fast, broken with a carb heavy meal, should not have led to what you are describing. Something seems very unique about this and shouldn’t act as a deterrent to others. For you personally, if it is related to the fast, you might want to try Snake Juice [0] which you can make at home and keeps your electrolytes up without the sugar of Gatorade and others.

For anyone interested, Dr Jason Fung’s book [1] is an excellent primer on how to fast safely. On reddit /r/fasting and /r/intermittentfasting and /r/fastingscience are great resources for more info.

[0] For 2L water: 1tsp potassium chloride (NoSalt / SaltFree) 1/2tsp Himalayan pink salt 1tsp sodium bicarbonate (Red Mill. Not processed Arm & Hammer) 1/2tsp magnesium sulphate (Epsom Salt. West Point. Must be Food Grade)

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32670670

I think I was fasting too often. I was literally fasting every other day, zero calories only water and black coffee. I probably was slowly losing total body electrolytes.

But I didnt mention this to deter people from fasting, just to be careful. If that fiasco didnt happen to me I'd still be fasting as I felt amazing while fasting. My dad is still doing it for more than a year after I recommended it to him

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