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> This is way WAY too much water, especially if you're drinking anything on top of it. Shoot for 2.5 to 3.5 liters a day maximum. If you do this for any prolonged period of time, or multiple weeks in a row, you're going to have issues.

Source? Or what kind of issues? I average 5~8 l on a normal day and have been for years. The few times I've had my values checked they were mostly fine, apart from the lab being hassled by the huge sample they got for my 24h urine. Naturally I have a bit higher salt intake than most.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

Beware of hyponatremia - you're aware of your salt intake, sure, but it's not just salts in blood that are important!

Hyponatremia can also remain asymptomatic for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia#Acute_versus_chro...

It sounds as though your high intake of water _works for you_ but anecdata does not mean it wouldn't become a health issue for somebody else. Especially if they only do this when fasting and 5-8L isn't their regular intake.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318619#how-much-is...

In theory you could drink slightly under 24 litres a day (assuming you never slept haha) - but your kidneys would have to be working in top form to excrete that 0.8 to 1 litres per hour.

The danger appears to be chugging large quantities of water every couple of hours, which I imagine fasting newbies are more likely to consider to get that "full" feeling

Of course everyone's body is different so you may be fine but 5~8 l for an average person migt be too much. For me personally it might seem crazy looking back to my high school years where I reguralry drank less than 1 litre on days with no physical activities, but I know I was fine back then and was not thirsty.

General advice I have seen is to drink when thirsty and more on hot days, or drink so much that your urine is slightly yellow but not all transparent. Drinking too much water flushes out more minerals from your body. A woman have died after drinking too much water for a contest [0], but that is of course an extremen example. It can happend though.

[0] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/drank-too-much-wa...

> Source?

A mountain of personal experience fasting for extended periods of time. Back of the envelope, over 200 days in the last 3-ish years.

If your salt intake is higher than normal, and you don’t fast for extended periods of time, it’s not applicable.

In general everything about fasting becomes difficult when your electrolytes get outta whack. It’s been my experience that almost everyone who’s otherwise healthy, with ample access to food, and no experience fasting will confuse their body screaming ‘I need salt’ with ‘I’m thirsty’ —- In the developed world we almost never experience the former.

Too much water is just as bad as not enough.

It's funny how electrolytes are still ignored or overlooked by the fasting and keto communities. This meme of doing a "water fast" is bullshit, IMO, and people need to stop talking about it because chugging water doesn't help when fasting unless you're actually dehydrated. Drinking water just causes the body to urinate out more electrolytes, which is exactly what you don't want on a fast. Most people on HN could easily not drink any water for a couple of fasting days, and they'll realize just how overrated water is as a necessity for daily health. Your fat cells, your muscle cells, your glycogen stores, all have metabolic water in them. There's no reason to take in excess water unless you are running low on metabolic water, in which case your body will actually scream for water.

> It's funny how electrolytes are still ignored or overlooked by the fasting and keto communities.

I see you've never visited /r/keto on reddit, then... It is very much pounded by the regulars, and in every guide they recommend. IIRC, /r/fasting is also aware (though not as pedantic about reminding everyone).

Which communities are you referring to?

Fasting I'm not sure, but maybe we've been frequenting different keto communities?

Daily supplementing magnesium/potassium/nacl seems to be part of the standard routine from what I've seen and it commonly comes up on the /r/keto and /r/ketogains.

Agree wholeheartedly.

We’re all bound by the inexorable grip of diffusion, and there’s only so much our kidneys can do to stem the exodus.

Quite miraculous little hunks of tissue though.

So I usually hit 1L as I wake up. I am always dehyrdated when I wake up. I usually crush out another 2-3 litres across the rest of the day. With tea I suspect that it pushed me upwards of another litre. If I work out I'll usually have another waterbottle worth. This is basically what I would do normally.

The word “ketosis” gets thrown around a lot. It’s a physiological state that’s objectively quite hard to enter. I would ask, are you quantifying if you are “in ketosis” or not at any point during your fast, and if so how? Or is this just a gut feeling?

> It’s a physiological state that’s objectively quite hard to enter.

No, it isn't. The human body developed to bounce in and out of ketosis all the time. It's only hard to enter if you are always in a fed state and rarely in a fasted state. When you're fasting, it's not particularly hard to get back into ketosis in the same day, although it can take 24 to 48 hours for someone who isn't getting even light exercise. That's still way, way faster than the weeks it can take to get into ketosis on keto. (unless maybe you want to eat mostly protein and little fat, which is miserable)

I speak from extensive experience. A few weeks ago, after a 72 hour fast, I chowed on a pile of salmon sushi, measured my ketones throughout the day with ketone test strips, and was back in dark purple by the end of the night. Though normally it takes until the next morning for ketones to start showing up in my urine again, I believe it happened much faster because I was walking a lot that day. That was impossible to do back when I was just eating strict keto macros.

Anyone who doesn't believe me should try themselves by doing a few 72 hour fasts and refeeding on high protein, moderate carbs. They'd be surprised that it doesn't take an unreasonable amount of time to get back into ketosis. It's a perspective changer because it shows that occasionally eating carbs socially isn't the end of the world, because you'll be back in fat burning mode within a day or so.

So you can objectively track when your “bouncing” in and out of ketosis, like say for instance the way your heart beat changes ?

urine test strips only measure acetoacetate. Urinary ketones often correlate poorly with serum levels because of variability in excretion of ketones by the kidney, influence of hydration status, and renal function. (Wikipedia - I’m being a bit lazy).

I’m not arguing against fasting, or low carb diets. I’m making the point that ketosis isn’t as easy to “bounce” into as people think (though it doesn’t mean there are not benefits from fasting or low carb diets).

Your urine isn't going to show acetoacetate unless you're in ketosis. You're not supposed to use ketones to test accurate levels. It's to give you an idea of what's going on. There's no way your strips are going to show purple if your body isn't producing ketones for energy transport. The exact level doesn't even matter that much because what shows up in the urine is excess. Sure, acetoacetate is not the only ketone, but it doesn't just get created within the body for no reason. If you are fasted and you eat a bunch of ice cream, your ketone strip test will plummet to showing no signs of ketones at all. If you are fasted and you eat a fatty steak, at best you might see a slight decrease because of protein intake. This is consistent and easy to reproduce. I've repeated this test dozens of times. Carb and sugar heavy food plummets urine ketone levels and keto macros don't. Your body isn't going to produce an appreciable level of ketones when it's got simple carbs ready to go, which is because the body is going to prefer glucose every time it's given a choice.

And yes, you do bounce in and out of ketosis when you fast long enough, and it really doesn't take that long. Once you've expended your glycogen and you've digested all your food, your body doesn't have a choice but to dig in to fat stores. Depending on how much glycogen you have stored, what you've eaten, and how long it's been since you've eaten, getting into ketosis becomes ridiculously easy because the energy your body uses has to come from somewhere. You don't need to measure ketones to have confidence in this. It's well studied. If someone thinks that ketosis is hard to enter, I doubt they've gone more than a day without food. Once you get used to fasting for longer than 48 hours, it becomes obvious when your body is out of glycogen.

I suspect what the keto community calls "fat adapted" is basically that "easily bouncing in and out" state -- which some people reach easily, and some take weeks or months to achieve on keto. (but as far as I know, takes at most 3 days to achieve while fasting)

I am not sure if I have the correct understanding, so correct me if i am wrong.

Ketosis is not some magical mind state.

When all glucose and glycogen reserves are exhausted, body will start producing energy by burning fat reserves. To do so it needs to produce ketones. When low or glucose body will gradually start switching to ketosis to supplement energy needs and eventually fully switching to ketosis and only way of producing energy.

When glucose is available it will be used as primary 'fuel' source again.

That is a reason why after fasting its important to ease in the cards and sugars.

That's a reason, but likely not the only reason. There are likely reasons relating to regulation of other digestion processes that slow down to a halt while fasting.

Coming up from a fast and eating a lot of food quickly may cause refeeding syndrome - regardless of whether it is carbs or protein/fat.

Switching back to carbs from pure fat or pure protein is not dangerous in the same way, AFAIK (but I'm not a doctor).

> and if so how?

I use ketosis strips (Ketostix). You pee on them, and they tell you. Totally worth the 5$ they cost.

I'm happy in full ketosis, or no ketosis at all, but the "half-way" ketosis state is just pure torture.

The strips let me know how good I'm doing, so if things deviate a bit, e.g. because one day I ate ""too many carbs"", I notice quickly, and auto-correct.

Been my experience that these vary widely depending on hydration levels. Also I’ve heard/read, and I’m not sure how accurate this is, you can think of ketones in urine as ‘overflow’ and thus aren’t always an accurate portrayal of how much your body is producing.

On top of that, your body gets more efficient at using ketones as an energy source over time so your urine ‘overflow’ can spike at various points just because your body consumes less ketones for it’s energy needs. All of that is latent knowledge from random reading over the last 4 or so years, so grain of salt and all that.

How easy is the blood testing?

This ^

Literally testing my blood, with a medical device.

Can you recommend one from your experience? I'm in the market for one. (Preferably one that doesn't need prescription)

Abbot Precision Xtra is the most accurate, unfortunately the strips are expensive to the tune of 3 to 4 USD per strip if you get them new. NovaMax is also decent, though I’ve found it to be not quite as consistent or accurate.

Thanks!

Individual here for you to talk to. "On my 60 day fast"... Mate - you are in the big leagues compared to me. For us mere mortals smelling meat cooking while I'm hungry kills me . As for salt, I do have salt now. Found out the hard way. Your mileage may vary.

> As for salt, I do have salt now. Found out the hard way.

So did I, it’s a lesson I won’t forget.

Sorry, but curiosity forces me to ask.

How did you remain alive on a 60 day fast? I've never heard of that aside from maybe gurus in India or something.

While these aren't common, they aren't as uncommon as you think.

A famous long one is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast ; But from memory reading studies about it ages ago (mostly examining religious fasters in India), an average non-overweight person can easily do 40 days water fasts without any irreversible damage. Somewhere between 40-50 days, the body would start to digest the nervous system for energy and that's irreversible (and leads to death within days if the fast continues). But if fat stores are available - as in the case of Angus Barbieri above - it can go for much, much longer.

You don't need to have 'magical' powers to do it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast

I was much fatter than I am now. If you’re curious email me (in my profile) and I can share my spreadsheet with notes.

You did not eat anything for 60 days? 0 calories?

I heard people doing it for 14 days for fasting purposes and I am pretty sure that most people can do it for 30-40 days and not die, but 60 sounds pretty long

True zero cal, water/salt only, for the first 30, and too much water and not enough salt as I later found out.

From days 31 to 60 I allowed the occasional magnesium, potassium and multivitamin.

No coffee, no tea, just water.

Are you saying salt is needed or should be avoided?

salt is necessary to regulate water levels in cells. Without enough salt your cells will start dying- Hyponatremia.