What Happens If You Eat NOTHING for 3 Days

Discover What Happens to Your Body When You Stop Eating For 3 Days. Fasting has many benefits that may extend far further than just the 16 hour fasting window attributed to typical intermittent fasting plans.

"After about 6-10 hours without food, most of the leftover carbohydrates from your previous meals will be used up for fuel. As a response your pancreas will secrete glucagon, a hormone, that makes your body release the stored glucose from your liver and your muscles. Your hunger hormone ghrelin will rise making you feel hungry. After 10 hours your pituitary gland will boost the production of Human Growth Hormone which will help delay muscle loss much longer than most people think. Your body temperature may also drop and you'll start feeling colder than usual. After 16 hours your body will become more reliant on burning fat for energy and ketone production will increase. At around this time, autophagy will kick in which is a process where your body will recycle any junk it finds such as damaged proteins, bacteria, or dysfunctional cells. This boosts immunity and reduces inflammation. 24 to 32 hours in your body will run out of glycogen and become entirely reliant on its own fat stores for energy while reducing protein breakdown rates substantially to spare muscle tissue. About 48 hours in you'll experience improvements in your mood, alertness, and tranquility. After 3 days of fasting, muscle catabolism becomes an actual issue and nutrient deficiencies may slowly start to emerge."

After you eat a meal, food is broken down into simpler molecules and used as fuel so your body can function properly. An organ in the abdomen known as the pancreas produces insulin which is a hormone that helps your cells absorb the glucose found in the bloodstream after a meal. Dietary fat, on the other hand, is broken down into fatty acids which are used by the body for energy as well as for many different biological processes like testosterone production for example. Excess fatty acids are converted back to triglycerides and then most of those triglycerides are stored in adipose tissue otherwise known as body fat.

Meanwhile, excess carbohydrates from that meal will first get converted into glycogen which is a string of glucose molecules that can be stored and used later. Glycogen is mostly stored in the liver and your muscles. Since there's a biological limit to how much glycogen a person can store, once that limit is reached the rest of the excess energy is converted into triglycerides and once again stored as adipose tissue. This is the routine process that our bodies go through when we eat throughout the day. But what would happen if you were to totally stop eating for 3 days?

Well after about 6-10 hours of fasting, most of the leftover glucose that's still circulating in your bloodstream will be used for fuel. Since your body is not receiving any new nutrients, it has to start using its own glycogen reserves to fuel itself. It's at that point that the pancreas secretes glucagon. Glucagon is not the same as glycogen or glucose. It's actually a hormone, and one of its jobs is to signal your body to release glycogen and fatty acids. Also if your last meal was low in carbohydrates your body may start producing ketones as an energy source within this early stage of fasting. Ketones are chemicals produced by the liver when fat cells are converted into fatty acids. So in general during those first 6 hours, your blood glucose levels will start to elevate and then they'll gradually decline. Meanwhile, your ketone levels, will do pretty much the opposite. They'll gradually rise, especially after approximately the 10th hour of fasting. (1)

Now before you ever hit that 10th-hour mark, if you’re accustomed to eating three meals per day or you regularly eat a high-carb diet you'll probably experience hunger and low energy levels. The hunger you feel isn't only due to being low on calories. In fact it's largely tied to your circadian rythm. Your body has gotten into a pattern and now expects food at the certain times of the day that you normally eat. This is due to the hunger hormone ghrelin, which has the effect of stimulating your appetite when it's released. So if you stop eating studies show that ghrelin will spike automatically around the times of the day that you typically have your meals which usually would be breakfast, lunch, and dinner (1) and that spike will make you feel hungry. (1) If you continue fasting, these hunger pangs will subside after about 2 hours, and your body will naturally adapt to a new meal frequency over time.

After fasting for at least 10 hours your body will also start to increase the levels of a hormone produced by the pituitary gland called Human Growth Hormone otherwise known as (HGH). Fasting can actually increase HGH just as much as exercise, stress, or hypoglycemia. (2) HGH plays an important role in the fasting process because it's associated with enhanced muscle repair, exercise...

[GravityTransformation]

References:
1. During the first few hours of fasting your blood glucose levels will start to elevate and then they'll gradually decline. Meanwhile, your ketone levels will gradually rise.
See Fig 1C

2. Fasting for at least 10 hours is proven to increase Human Growth Hormone (HGH) levels just as effectively as exercise, stress, and very low blood sugar, also known as hypoglycemia.

3. HGH, a hormone produced by the pituitary gland, plays a major role in muscle growth, exercise performance, body composition, cell repair, metabolism, immunity system, and recovery from injury and disease.

4. A small study of nine men discovered that fasting for just two days increased HGH production by five times.

5. After 12-16 hours, the body switches to burning more and more fat tissues compared to carbs.

6. During the month of Ramadan, there is a great improvement in weight management, digestion, and cholesterol levels.

7. In addition, some studies indicate a significant decrease in inflammation markers associated with cardiovascular disease risk factors such as homocysteine, C-reactive protein (CRP), and total cholesterol TC/HDL ratio.

8. Ketones production accelerated as blood sugar levels are low and glycogen reserves are depleted.

9. Inflammation exponentially decreases and there is a huge spike in HGH and Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

10. Several factors upregulate autophagy, including caloric restriction and starvation as well as increased levels of GH and BDNF

11. This process has therapeutic benefits for both your lifespan and the aging process.

12. Men will experience a 4-fold greater increase than women in plasma-free fatty acids.
See Figure 1 C

13. Headaches are also more frequent by the first day of fasting and can persist, regardless of hydration.

14. Ghrelin levels, which signal hunger, continue to rise, despite studies showing no subjective increase in hunger.

15. A clinical study suggests that “this increase in ghrelin levels might be another mechanism that stimulates HGH release.

16. “accepted as beneficial due to its role in eliminating 'toxic assets' and promoting cell viability"

17. All the data shows that fasting can improve cognitive deficits, neuroinflammation, memory, and learning.

18. Moreover, a 2015 study’s finding suggests that fasting upregulated BDNF by approximately 3.5-fold

19. “improvements in mood, alertness, and tranquility”.

20. After 3 days of fasting the processes of disease reversal, autophagy, and cancer protection that were explained continue at a deeper level, and HGH levels increase by 300%.

21. There is also evidence that the body starts creating hematopoietic stem cells which are new cells that regenerate the organism

22. Ketones are produced in greater quantities during the first few days of fasting, and after the fifth day, the levels are more or less neutralized. The rate of weight loss also slows down, with a maximum of 0.9 kg lost per day in the first few days of fasting.
See figures

23. The body is still avoiding protein catabolism and muscle breakdown as ketone levels rise and take over as the primary energy source.

24. But, after the third day, a study demonstrates that the glutamine concentration in skeletal muscles falls by 34%.

25. Negative potassium and nitrogen balances worsen after the third day.

26. Most studies have been conducted on animals, and it remains to be seen whether all the benefits would be the same in humans.

27. "calorie restriction and intermittent fasting help maintain a healthy brain"
See figure one

[sonylic]

After 3 months of fasting, you'll feel like you're in heaven, because you literally will be in heaven

[John-cwno]

This was greatly appreciated as I have four days until payday

[russellpeffer]

What a lot of people don't realize is hunger comes and goes. If you wait it out, it'll subside. It'll come back again. But it comes and goes

[vegainlifestyle]

Best food i ever tasted was an Avocado with some garlic, a bit of lemon, salt and pepper. First thing I ate after 8 days of fasting. Tasted like heaven.

[evilnineteen]

Ive been fasting for over 20 years and I am 44 and look like I am 25. My grandfather taught me to do this and he lived to be 106 years old. When he passed the doctors had no idea why he died becaise his body was still healthy. The night before he died he told all of his family that he wouldnt be here tomorrow. I believe he had such control over his body that when he didnt want to live anymore he passed on his own will. I will continue to live this way for the rest of my life. Im never tired and have almost unlimited stamina. I eat what i want only in moderation. I wake up feeling great every day. I fast for 12 to 14 hours every day and once a week i do a 24 hour fast. Humans are not meant to eat all day. Eat to live, do not live to eat.

[dannyjang]

I've been fasting for 36 min and feeling great.

[jacquereeves]

I'm currently on a 5 day fast. I do these often and smells, clarity and intuned with your body happen after day 3 for me all the time I love it. I listen to my fasting meditations and lectures and make sure I'm not around unbalanced individuals. It is beautiful

[ArikaChennelle]

Praying & fasting... amazing combo & breakthroughs! 🙏🏽❤️✝️

[HMBRTOABLE]

Honestly, I love the feeling of being so hungry that you have an appetite for anything. You appreciate food a hell of a lot more too.

[MOEMUGGY]

On the 4th day of a water fast, and I can hear someone fold a piece of bread from across the room, and I can literally smell the sugar in an unopened can of soda. I feel like I can walk through walls, and bend matter with my mind. No joke.

[justsawu]

Bro…you’re literally the only person alive that keeps it real about the weight loss game. I can say I speak for all of us when I say you’re appreciated for not making us buy a coffe mug to get the information you’re willing to give

[kvyxupe]

words of encouragement, just wanted to tell you all that GOD loves you all soooo much and with GOD you can do all things. ALways keep GOD in your life and watch how your life will change.

[joshuamedina]

I can only go 24 hours without food so far, any longer than that and i will eat whatever is in front of me.

[RedHoodFH]

Easiest way to do this is eat dinner around 7, and then just don't eat anything until 11am the next day, just drink water. There's your 16 hour fast right there

[rmijqki]

Currently Fasting in Ramadhan Alhumdulilah, i feel so energetic these days, i have observed lots of good changes in my body,

[martin]

I eat every other day, and sometimes ill do an entire weekend. Never more than that. My workouts suffer at that point. The human body doesnt need as much as we think we do. Remember, starving used to be the norm WHILE doing intense physical labor. If you work in an office, theres literally no reason you need to est every single day. I do it for both mental and physical health, but i also do it in honor of the humans that came before me. They accomplished much more than me while having much less. Respect.

[musicsansnotes]

I started fasting a few weeks ago. I fast for about 14 hours and now, my A1C has dropped. Meaning I am pre-diabetic not full on diabetic. It works.

[deadliftordie]

There are people who had late stage cancer who have cured themselves by fasting for 15-30 days and then doing keto. It's pretty amazing and yes they have been published in medical journals and peer reviewed.

[evadiva]

I fasted for 4straight days without food and water, I didn't feel anything no dizziness, nor tiredness, my only food was praise and prayers.