We decided on a seven-day fast — somewhere between Hendrick’s experience and Mosley’s recommendation. The plan was to go a full week without eating or drinking anything except water.
Our preparation was pretty minimal. I would keep a journal in which I would record my weight, blood pressure, activities and, several times a day, just note how I was feeling.
Our weeklong fast was a little unusual as we also engaged in strenuous exercise every day. Sometimes a little too strenuous: one day we did a 14km (8.6 mile) trek through Alpine snow at a place called the Rodenecker Alm near Italy’s border with Austria. This was almost four hours of climbing and descending after three days of total fasting, and it left us quite exhausted and sore. But the odd thing was that to both of us it actually felt easier in this fasting state than it would have under normal conditions. So one does indeed seem to have a lot of physical energy while fasting, as Mosley has argued.
First of all, every single one of the seven days felt exactly the same: mornings were completely fine and I felt pretty much as I normally do until about lunchtime. I tried to pack in any work, especially work that required mental concentration, into this period of each day. After midday, I became a little fidgety and found it hard to concentrate on anything. I had much more than usual amounts of physical energy and did all kinds of household chores happily, such as defrosting and cleaning the refrigerator one afternoon (anyone who knows me will testify that this is highly unusual behaviour). But my mind flitted from one thing to the next, and my reactions were slowed down very noticeably by evening. If my wife asked me a question, it took about five seconds for it to register and another five before I could formulate and deliver a reply. In fact, I became decidedly cognitively impaired: one day after taking a shower and shaving, I applied aftershave lotion to my face and noticed that it didn’t have the mild sting it usually does. That is when I realised I had not actually shaved. I just thought I had.
So the days were hazy at times, but very bearable. Not so the evenings. By far the worse time was between 6pm and 10pm in the evenings. It was in this window every day that my wife and I both felt a physical and mental unease resulting in great difficulty in just passing the time. We tried to watch TV or movies but it was hard, and the evening seemed strangely empty.
n fact, the biggest surprise was just how much more time we had on our hands. I was struck by how much of the day I normally spend attending to my digestive needs: thinking about what I would have for lunch or dinner; shopping for groceries (which we do almost daily); cooking — in my case, elaborate Pakistani meals most evenings; then actually eating, washing dishes, cleaning up, even moving one’s bowels. Eliminating the simple act of eating frees up much more time than you’d think.
I experienced a phenomenal increase in physical energy but at the expense of a lack of mental concentration.
So what about the medical benefits? In the end, both throughout and after the fast, my blood pressure remained at exactly the same, slightly elevated level it had been before I started. So much for controlling it by fasting, at least for me. I lost 11lbs (5kg) over the week and gained 7lbs (3kg) back within three days. The other significant thing I noticed, as many others have too, was the reduction of libido to absolutely nothing. I had no sexual thoughts all week,
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