60 Hours Without Food: What Triggered Me

Waking up at 1 AM September 2nd in pain, just laying there. Austin, start dimming the lights. I'm gonna mimic what it may have looked like, uh, me laying at 1 AM. Yeah, if I can't lay down without pain, there's no escape. This is bad. Austin, start, uh, Cueing up the lights to more to this natural light. But in the morning, it's like this. It was on the toilet. I thanked my body profusely for speaking so loudly and clearly to me. I thanked my body even though it was hurting me. I think did, because clearly I had fasted earlier, a 36-hour fast. I came off of that at the supper before this 1:00 AM wake-up call, and after eating, pain just came rushing back in. Inflammation. Something I ate, and I have the power to change it. Thank you, mid-back pain. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, lower back pain. Thank you, inner thigh psoriasis. Oh, one more. Thank you, shoulder. Where am I? Can reach it? Thank you, shoulder. I love you. I appreciate you. Thank you, pain. That was 60 hours since my last fast.

Hmm. Hmm.

Okay, look at this walking. I don't get up like an old man. Austin, roll that clip from the other day where I was sitting at the kitchen table that I got up just terrible. This is how I'm getting up today, like a 40-year-old. Now the shoulder's still got some work. I'm not gonna wait on that. I'm not gonna necessarily wait on that. I am gonna wait up on the psoriasis. I like the psoriasis because it's a visual. Even Rebecca can look at it and say, "Yes, it's better," or, "No, it's not." There's no trying to figure out if the pain's easing, you know, is it better than yesterday, is it not, blah, blah, blah. He's gonna get those milk jars clean for our milk processing today. We've got roast in the oven, or not roast, but beef bones. Let's do the daily. I'm asking Grok, what are the benefits of fasting at the 60-hour mark? Before we get into that, the footage of getting this bone broth ready, which hopefully will be my re-entered— refeeding. And hopefully, God forbid, it's beef. Hopefully not. Lemon water and salt for electrolyte, although at room temperature. Although I think the lemon may be Not a true fast. I'm gonna resort to my original OG DIY electrolyte henceforth. What do you have?

Beers.

Nice.

They're dead.

Oh good. Eat up.

This one's for the eyeball.

1, 2, 3. Yes. Did you do the eggs?

Yeah, we only got 2 cuz I got them yesterday. Okay, this morning is a different morning. I'm in my vehicle as opposed to on the homestead, um, but I am going to take, um, something to be fixed. So many years ago, Justin and I saved for a hyperbaric chamber for him. He had gone to like a local place that had a hyperbaric chamber, so it's a soft-sided hyperbaric chamber, and, um, it was just like, it's like 2 and a half hours to go do the thing, do the chamber, and then come home because, you know, we live far out. And, um, it was just too much, and it did seem to be helping him, so we saved up and purchased a hyperbaric chamber. And then when we we were moving all around, we stored it, and then Hurricane Helene happened, and the container that it was stored in became part of the flood. It started, uh, moving, so the oxygenator wouldn't turn on, and the compressors are broken. Hoping that this gentleman who works on these things can help us.

According to Grok, autophagy from about 48— starting about 48 to 72 hours of fasting— autophagy is a process where cells recycle damaged components, promoting repair and potentially reducing the risk of disease like cancer and neurodegeneration. This is often cited as a key benefit of extended fasts, with animal studies showing links to increased longevity and brain health through mechanisms like nerve cell generation and microbiome diversity. Okay, do you have enough jars now?

Yeah.

Okay, good deal. Let's go do it. Secondly, deep ketosis and increased fat oxidation. By 60 hours, the body typically fully shifts from using glucose to ketone bodies, which is produced from fat for energy, leading to sustained ketosis. I'm in ketosis. I'm in ketosis. We hear about that. What is that? I don't know, but it's good. I'm in ketosis. This boosts fat burning and fat oxidation, peaking around 51 hours and staying elevated, which can aid weight loss by reducing fat mass up to 10 to 11%. That may explain why I've lost 5 pounds. I was 190. I've lost 5 pounds in just 60 hours, just 2 and a half days. 5 pounds. Ketosis is also linked to improved mental clarity, reduced hunger, and stable energy levels as, as the fast progress countering initial fatigue. Even though I'm weak, I'll say I'm weak, I'm energetic. And I haven't been in clarity. I wrote this vlog last night. It's been a long time since I wrote a vlog, and I'm enjoying this more of a filmmaking storytelling process than just, uh, capture this, capture that purpose. You need help getting that off? See, our, uh, this makes our butter, and this lid is just destroyed. This needs— these need to be tightened up too when you get a chance. So you got to get them. Aha! Either we make the hole big enough to encapsulate the sleeve, or we somehow get this sleeve off too. You want me to try that WD-40? You could. You have to— well, that's in our food. If you can find that green one, that's more eco. Yesterday's milk. Getting the cream off of it. A metal lid! Heck yeah! Heck yeah, that's good. I wonder if it's hitting the bottom. Do it like this. No, there's no way that's gonna hit the bottom. No, that's not hitting the bottom. Okay, it's just from that. That fell off the counter once and this is a little crooked.

So when Justin got sick in 2012 It was hard to watch a 30— early 30, like 33, I think he was. It was hard to watch a 33-year-old man go from extremely active, feeling great, to in extreme pain. And you would have given anything for him, you know, to Mewow. We have tried so many things just for him to have a normal existence. And when I say normal, like pain-free. When he got sick, we were actually enclosing in, so, you know, the way our house used to be, everything was under the roof. We just had to buy the lumber and do the walls and all of that, you know, like finish the space, not necessarily like you know, do all these other things. And so when we added our dining room on, that's when he got ill. It was, um, September. That brings me to this, to this morning where I'm trying to help him heal. We tried to fix it ourselves and it's above our pay grade. We've changed. We like, you know, looked online and this is what the problem— this is what the internet is saying to do. So we like changed out some things and it's still not working. And then so this is the next step in helping him. I've never seen him like this, motivated like he is. Um, I think just the whole connection to the food, it— we've never had it like it was on Monday night. I've never seen it like that, and I think that it was always delayed, and so it being like immediate was like a huge light bulb. I mean, we knew food, food is fuel. You cannot put diesel in a gasoline engine.

Before we get into the third point, I've got to cook He-Man. This is a roast. If you're going to be gone all day, this is the meal to do. And by the way, it's not lost on me that we grill our own food and I can't eat it. That's, that's a bit of a bummer. It's a bit of a bummer. It's a huge— it's, it's a huge bummer. One more. That's okay, we've got plenty of fat to make more. Lily's cooking their special meal tomorrow. Friday night fun night. We're going to the fair, so we're gonna have fair food but make it at home. Hamburgers. Hopefully I can do this even though this is frozen. Oh yeah, that's what I want to hear. That's what I want to hear. Let's just brown it on all sides. Also making a taco chili from leftovers last night. Mexican rice, Mexican ground beef. Put a little of our homemade sauce in there and some homemade broth. The third benefit is hormone changes, including growth hormone. What does that mean? Extended fasting can dramatically boost human growth hormone up to 10 times higher than 37 to 40 hours, with effects likely persisting for intensifying beyond 60 hours. Human growth hormone supports metabolism, muscle preservation, motivation and fat loss. Other benefits include lowering insulin, dropping significantly after 72 hours, and elevating glucogen, which helps regulate blood sugar. And my blood sugar is being more and more regulated. This from our walk the other day.

We've done so many different diets that I think it's, you know, like we would see a new practitioner or a new doctor and they would be like, oh, we're going to change your diet and you're going to be better in 3 months. I'm not— I don't know how many people said that to us. Over these last 13 years. Not so much in the last 6, mainly because I'm like, we have data prior to this that tells me this is not going to change it. But, um, like, we have been on all sorts of crazy diets, like all sorts of crazy diets. It's— and it's not even like we're eating eating junk. Like, we're eating whole foods. We're not eating fast food. We're not eating, um, processed foods. Like, we're making food at home, food that we grew. It's just a journey. We're all on a journey, and this is our journey. And so that's why we're sharing. I hope that you can see that we're coming from a place of just hoping to help somebody maybe feel less alone. We felt really alone a lot of times. Not that our friends are not great, because they are, and they're caring and loving, but it's just hard when you're the weirdos. You're the ones who are always like having to bring your own food because you can't participate in the food that everybody everybody's eating because for whatever reason it's not, um, safe for you to eat, you know? Like, I remember when Justin— it was trying to remember what year it was, but it was probably 2013. We started seeing a doctor in Raleigh, and we were driving all the way to Raleigh. It was 4 hours. We had to spend the night in Raleigh just to see this doctor. And, um, he was like, oh, you gotta stop this, you gotta stop that. And so, you know, we stopped eating all these things. And like, um, Justin and I got into an argument about it because like I was the cook, I was the grocery store person, and like he was like saying there was like all these things we couldn't eat now, and I was just overwhelmed because I was like, um, it just felt intense because he was hurting so badly and we were like desperate to make him feel better, but also like we, we had kids and like there's a lot of overwhelm. And so, you know, he was like, I want to do this. And it just eventually came to a head, and he was just like, I can control what goes into my mouth. I cannot control what's happening to my body. Like, I'm not in control with my body, but I can control what I put into my mouth. And I think when he said that, I was like, okay, that's where he's coming from. You know, he's It's not a place of like, uh, of malice. He's literally just wanting to feel better, which of course I support. So, you know, we made the transition slowly. Um, at that point it was when we were going gluten-free. We've done a lot of diets in between now and then. And none of them seem to move the needle, but for whatever reason, this time, like, Justin had a reaction pretty much immediately, and we could pinpoint it back to that. You know what, he's passed it before, and he's done all these things, and it's just never been as clear. As it was on Monday night. Okay, I got the oxygenator fixed. That was only— it only took like an hour. It's great. I am headed out now. He was very helpful and kind. One thing that vlogging does is it shows you who you are. And so one thing that I feel like I would like to work on personally is that I would like to notice the beauty more. And so I recorded that shot. It was just so gorgeous this morning. It was absolutely beautiful. It rained earlier, and now there's like fog on the mountains, and the clouds are breaking, and it's just beautiful. And so I want to try to be more noticing of these things. And so I hope that I can share that on the vlog with you guys and the things that I see, just point that out because I think that it's an area that I could grow in is just noticing it even more.

On the way to a dentist, that's why we were frantic to get out there, make the lunch, make the supper. And get the broth going. The fourth thing is we're really getting into intense decrease of inflammation. There's evidence that stem cells are gonna start regenerating at this stage. These reasons just keep me motivated. I'm going the distance. I'm going the distance. The longest I've ever gone before is 5 days. Tonight will be 3 days. I got this. Picnic. I gotta show you guys this— our homemade sour cream. Oh my gosh, thick and smooth. Oh, we never— we never need to buy sour cream ever again. How'd the stew turn out?

Fabulous.

You have to be the messenger, I can't taste it. Is it good? It's a round roast.

Yeah, it's good.

Okay, also, how was the Mexican chili? The kids took 2 or 3 helpings.

Oh yeah, that was so good.

You guys really liked it? Did you really like it, Lily?

Apparently he had to—

do you like it, Lily?

Because I was the last to get the dentist.

Yeah, because guess what? Guess what was in that chili?

Sour cream.

Well, that sour cream helped. Which is amazing. What else? Meat scraps. Oh no, it wasn't the whole thing.

Are you serious?

But there were some in there. It's awesome, isn't it? Oh, it's awesome.

They're not even— he likes it. Eating that in again?

Yes, you are. All it is is this, and I'm making you more. We're taking the meat off of this bone and putting it in—

How much meat?

You chopped it up real small, didn't you? Okay, down. Yeah, and it was, it was one— it was a 2 cup— it was a cup, 1 cup.

That's not bad. That was great.

Thank you. Wonderful job. Thank you. Thank you. Good job, Henry. That's part of the battle, is just learning to change our ways and our diet to eat what we grow every day.