Dry Fasting Experiment - Radical Autophagy - Day 3
Written January, 26th, 2024:
In this article, I post some of my thoughts on Dry Fasting or Radical Autophagy as an exploration. My plan is to continue to post as I progress down the journey. I hope this is helpful and thought provoking.
Could Dry Fasting be a missing piece for many dealing with Chronic health conditions?Today’s post is about my 4 Day Dry Fasting Experiment
Today is Day 5 of no solid food Day 3 of Dry Fasting (no water no nothing). Radical Autophagy. I started this journey in response to lingering gut, fatigue, and sleep challenges. On one level, I have made a ton of progress in my journey out of severe, gut, fatigue, and sleep challenges. My best energy days were amazing. Same with Sleep and gut, but it wasn’t always repeatable despite my best efforts. I eat a super clean paleo/carnivore ish diet, take the best supplements, and have many of the best gadgets.
A recent research effort around how Urolithin A can support improvements in Autophagy / Mitophagy really got my attention. What if poor autophagy/mitophagy was the rate limiting factor keeping myself and a lot of clients from getting well?
Why do some people do “everything” or “many” things really well from diet, breath work, sauna, cold plunge, and they like me, still struggle to have sufficient “adaptive reserve” or “metabolic flexibility” to just enjoy life.
One of my clients has been on a 17 year lyme and mold journey where he does A LOT of things really well. Clean diet, cold plunge, takes the latest supplements, does Ozone, acupuncture, bio-magnetic therapy, NuCalm combined with Centropix PEMA and BioPhoton therapy with me, take CellCore, CBD, inositol, GABA, L-Theanine, but still really struggles at times with debilitating anxiety and overall low adaptive reserve.
Conversely, one of my massage practitioner friends recently came over and I did an abbreviated BioResonance scan with my CellCore test vials. She was “Full” of healing opportunities as we would call them in FDN land, she went weak in every category, Lyme, candida, parasites, metals, and pesticides. And yet, she has no health complaints, fatigue or resiliency issues. She had way more going on than my above client and yet had no major health complaints. What gives?
My hypothesis is that chron/complex patients who have plateaued have some sort of autophagy pile up. An Autophagy graveyard of sorts where a build up weak senescent cells, mitochondria, emotional triggers, identities (I am a lyme’y, for example), virus fragments, toxins, bugs, etc. And this is like trying play ball on field where there is a stream of tipped over chairs and tables.
Could it be in these chron/complex plateau cases where we suggest more anti bug/parasite/binders have reached their limit because “the pool is not draining sufficiently”? Even with liver, kidney, lymph and drainage support, maybe that is not enough to get meaningful Autophagy / Mitophagy going?
And that is where Dry Fating comes in. Or at least it could be a missing tool and piece of the puzzle for clients. As I read how Urolithin A could help with Autophagy et al, it reminded me of some dry fasting research and experiment I had done back in the Spring of this year. I had read a couple of books on Dry Fasting and did a 3 day Dry Fasting stint and found it powerful.
Dry Fasting, according to Russian Dr Filonov, is the most powerful autophagy/mitophagy mechanism we have. Autophagy or “self eating or “digesting” is the process where the body becomes it’s own furnace and “burns up” bugs, parasites, virus, senescent cells and mitochondria. It also cleans out our cellular water where a lot of memories are stored. The body keeps the score, but what if dry fasting is a way to hit a deeper reset button on the many “insults” we accumulate over time?
Our ancestors had frequent periods of food and water depravation. Yet many of our chron/complex folks are eating super clean - but not experiencing periods of depravation. The movement to cold plunges, sauna, breath-work, are all efforts to break up “death by familiarity”. We need challenges or our systems become stagnant. And I think dry fasting could be a missing piece of the puzzle.
Per above, I am on Day 5 no solid food, Day 3 of a dry fast. I did a TON of liver and colon prep and then 3 days before the start of the dry fast, I drank nothing but raw goat milk (and some store bought A2 milk). Liver prep included using lots of CellCore Tudca, KL Support, Lymph Active, and Drainage Activator.
Colon support was Para 1, 2, 3, 4, Bowel Mover and OxyPowder (Magnesium Oxides) (and boy does it work!) Short version, there was not much of anything in my digestive system by the start of the dry fast.
Hunger has not been a problem. Thirst on the other hand, has been pretty rough, especially yesterday afternoon and evening. Today is better. But still a very dry mouth.
Energy has been okay. Can do walks and I find typing this all out very therapeutic. But no major exertion feels possible. Lots of naps. I try reading. Watching videos.
Let me bring this post in for a landing. Per functional health first principals, it is never just one thing. And there are no silver bullets. And we always need to know when to Zoom in and Zoom out. To step back and look at the whole patient and apply our best practices.
I have heard of folks who have done (3) 9 day - yes 9 - sometimes even 11 day fasts. And while most report super positive experiences, some start to have a relapse of symptoms over time. Fasting is a tool. A very powerful tool, but we always have to zoom out and support the whole client. They might need some additional trauma support, or viral cleaning.
One of the stacks I am exploring would be Dry Fasting + Psilocybin (or Ketamine) to clear out my cellular trash and memories/traumas. And there are all kinds of things I think that could augment fasting such as Urolithin A, BPC-157/Thymosin Alpha (peptides), Nicotine for clearing virus’ and more.
My hope is to build out 3 to 4 day maybe 5 day dry fasting protocols augmented with other biohacks so other can do this stuff at home. I see this as building a fasting muscle over time; start with 1 day. Then 3. Then 5 day. Augment with supportive things that ramp up Autophagy/Mitophagy.
In closing, I hope this post is a thought provoking first pass on Dry Fasting and Radical Autophagy. Thanks for reading, just tapping this out while I chill on the couch has been super therapeutic. Seeing and being scene is also a huge part of helping ourselves and our clients heal, so thanks for reading! it’s really great to share it publicaly. Will be sure to share more on Dry Fasting as my journey and research unfolds.
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