I Didn’t Eat for 3 Days - Farm Fast

La la let, la la let me be free.

Well, with camera, 189. Uh, so how many cameras are actually on you? That's not good, 123. Doc wants to see my fasting glucose, which would be morning reading, at under 100.

Should I make lemonade instead of hot chocolate?

Um, I can tell you want to make lemonade.

Do you think the boys would like lemonade?

If that's what you want to make, that's just the way they like it. I'm not surprised after that epic cheat meal last night. It was a birthday. Shot my glucose up to like 162. Definitely carbohydrate intolerant. Not too bad. I'm a 2. I thought it would be way worse. You're burning mostly fat. The best I've been is a 1. Let's see how training brings it down. Exercise usually brings it down. Brought it down 20 points. 108. Day 1, it's all I get. Water. Well, plus some minerals. Utah Sea Minerals, tablespoon of ReMag magnesium, tablespoon of ReMight. I believe this is mostly potassium.

It has potassium in it, but it is a— it's all minerals.

It's all the things. All the things. 13 hours into my fast right now. Love bananas. I can totally handle the banana. Not hungry yet. Usually don't get hungry until about 10. So ask for all the bananas and the peanut butter you want right now, Henry. Do a 1 24-hour fast, at least 24 or 36 hours weekly after the party. Oh, you think I should do it every week?

Well, I feel like you should do it every week, but I also think that we're— where I think you're just trying to figure out until we can get the root cause figured out and dealt with We're just trying to figure out how to keep your blood sugar more stable just in general. But then like last night, obviously, like, I think that participating in the party is very important.

Yeah.

And, and so, you know, it's gonna wreck your blood sugar numbers for I don't know how long. I think— uh-oh, that was a bad one.

Okay, time out. Let's get him happy. He's not gonna let you talk. Turn it into pork.

I just think that we're in a collecting data stage, so I think this will be good for you to for sure get your numbers stable after the party. So I think, yeah, I definitely think it's a good thing. And like on day 2 and 3, you can drink broth, which has nutrients in it and stuff like that.

So if you didn't know, there's all kinds of benefits in fasting, but one is certainly pretty much guaranteed to bring down that glucose level. I'm getting out of here, and thankfully I actually have to get out of here quick. The drywall guy for our homestead house remodel called. They're coming, they're coming! Dinner is just being served. That's gonna be me. Get me out of this temptation now! Bidding went good, we got a good price. I got an idea. I'll just save one of those chicken pieces till the very end. I got an idea. Save me one of those chicken pieces for Monday. Will it still be good? Yeah, we'll freeze it. All right, I'm happy. I can do delayed gratification. Save that one for me, it's so big.

I will save it.

That'll be Monday lunch.

Save that one for me, it's so big.

That's what you said. Why don't you try it?

I did the carnivore diet.

I haven't eaten in 24 hours, y'all. What's the longest you went without eating? Oh, I can eat broth tomorrow. That's right.

I put it down.

3-4 hours maybe when I was sick. I know, when you're sick you don't want it yet. Y'all are gonna have some cake. I gotta go on a walk. Y'all enjoy that cake. Hungry? Yes. Tired? Not yet. From my experience, The tiredness comes in a little bit on day 2, which is tomorrow, and a lot on day 3. But I got this. There's chicken Parmesan at the end of this. My knees didn't get nearly as crickety on that one. Okay, good. No evidence of cake anywhere. Let's see what 24 hours fasting can do.

Day 1. All day, look at the trends, been down.

Trending down. I wonder what my fasting glucose is after 36 hours no food. I feel pretty good.

What you doing?

Uh, checking my bowel. Speaking of bowels, that was kind of wild. I don't need to get into the details there. It got very low about 3 AM, about 70. That's the goal, under 100 fasting glucose. Love fried cabbage and eggs. Rebecca has to eat an hour after waking. Thankfully, in the mornings I'm not hungry. Even now, just don't ask me to make eggs at 10 AM. Oh, this is looking a lot more tempting than it was 2 hours ago. Let's hurry up and get it put away. Told the kids I would do their morning domestics if they did the chores this morning. You harvesting the smolts?

Yep.

I always wanted to know how to do this. In an effort to grow what we eat and eat what we grow, we need to harvest the smalls. I've been giving it to the pigs, but I want to know how you do it to where it won't rot.

I'm just gonna keep it in the fridge.

Oh, is there a way to rinse it to get the broth out of it?

Probably. I need to look it up. I feel like there might be like a way to, um, put it in water Ah, and then you let it— yeah, and then you let it get cold and then harvest it off.

Look, if you have to buy smaltz, how much was that, like $30?

No, for like 6 of them it was like $60, so it's like $10 a jar probably. Wow.

I'm trying to change my go-to mentality of, oh my gosh, I'm starving, to, oh, This is healing. This is good for me. This is something good, although it's not comfortable. I noticed that a lot of health things that are good for you are terribly uncomfortable. Like cold plunge. Awful. Sauna. You're burning up. Food in moderation. Oh, so miserable. Fasting. I'm starving. Weight training. Working out. It's the epitome of uncomfortable. Bad is good. Bad is good. Cheers! Day 2, I can have chicken broth. It's from the land. Now we're making sweet tea. Saturday is our rest day. That is both difficult and easy for fasting. Difficult in the sense that I'm sort of bored and I feel the hunger. It's better to have something—

I eat when I'm bored.

Exactly. And that's why it's difficult to fast when you're bored. The good though is we're chill and we're rested and my body needs rest when it's fasting. Tomorrow will be interesting because it's a work day. It's a Sunday seed day. I broke the track litter.

You broke the track litter? Did you just say that?

Why?

And then I fixed it.

Oh, okay.

The tread came off.

Oh my gosh.

Really?

Put it back on. Look at you. All right, you're killing me, Smalls. 30 times that birthday meal comes around.

I can't help it. We got the chicken in the oven. We got this.

But don't eat my piece, right?

Oh yeah, we got your piece in there.

Oh look, I put my name on it.

Oh, you put your name on it.

So there's no mistake. Okay.

Nobody says, oh, here's a piece of chicken.

She's getting me through this. I know somebody's gonna get that. You know how mad I would be? I still can't believe someone ate it! I mean, look, I left a note and everything.

We have Thanksgiving this coming week, and then 2 weeks after that is Jonah's birthday, which we'll have that meal again.

Yeah.

So it's coming again.

I think I'll just fast 1 day after that. I would already be eating again.

I think.

One day is easy compared to two days.

You— I said one day. You're the one who did the three days.

Going three days.

You're the one who did that. I didn't suggest that.

Three days.

Like 36-hour fast, because you know you stop eating.

And then I had to go see that Dana White thing. When I left the event on Saturday night, I started fasting. And here's a picture of me Saturday night, uh, when I left. I just got done this morning, uh, so Saturday to Wednesday. And here are the pictures of me this morning. All right, let's get some broth going.

Well, you're only allowed to have broth twice, they said, but you can have this many times.

Who's they said? We're making this up now. This is the Farm Fest. I'm gonna have all the broth I want. Oh my, I see somebody got into the shredder. It looks delicious. Parmesan cheese. Coming. How come you're picking the noodles out and eating those and leaving the meat behind? I'd be killing that with some pork rinds right now. You're supposed to take them twice. She's got me perfect amino—

8 essential amino acids. Well, it has 8 amino acids in it. See, read the side.

This is dinner in a broth. As far as lowering blood sugar this fast, He's crushing it, trending down. My average is 84 in the last 24 hours. Our trainer has found you a possible horse. Yeah, it's 4 hours away. We messaged them. It's 14 hands, which is the size we were looking for.

8, and it's a gilder.

8, so it's not going to be astronomical in price.

2 feet.

It's mid, mid, mid-age.

Yeah, it can jump 2 feet.

Oh, they say it could jump 2 feet. So that means it's trained in English?

Yeah, it can jump 2 feet high.

You are a grump in the morning. There it is, riding English. Yeah, and then it also shows not bunking and kicking.

The horses I had when I was a kid, all the time before jumps and kicked.

We've messaged them, they have responded with a price, so that means it's not sold. But that maybe— we may mean we're going to Georgia today, like 4 hours away. What was the trainer's one concern?

That she could outgrow it. Oh, here's it.

But that girl's pretty tall. I know, it can be 2 or 3 years till it's that tall. Yes, maybe 4.

I agree. I want one. I'll always tell them like 16, and we'll just resell them.

And she already has business ideas.

Horse lessons.

Uh, you would give horse lessons?

Yes.

So then you would need 2 horses.

I don't need more than 2 horses. I only need like 5 horses.

Not at first, Mama.

When I'm—

when I'm gonna have a panic attack. Last day of fast. Not hungry anymore, but tired. Definitely tired. It's gonna be a slow day. 74. I've been under 74 all night. Like, I'm under the—

oh, oh, that's not good. No, you don't want to be under 70. Okay, like, that's even really bad right there.

I've been there since at least midnight. Like, you don't want to get below 50.

No, 54 is severe.

And I've gotten down to like 60.

54 is severe.

You guys go get the stuff ready for chores. I'm gonna heat up some broth and I'll join you. We're gonna call Holly.

Leave a message and roll tide.

Hey Holly, Justin Rhodes here. My wife messaged you on Facebook. Her name is Rebecca Rhodes. We're interested in Jess Peachy. Gonna get me through the rest of the day. —to supper. I'll have a chicken— how about a chicken soup for supper? You gotta start easing back into it. I can't just go for the chicken parmesan after a 72-hour fast. Can't do today, but Tuesday. So I am trying to tack down a time for Tuesday. Oh good, okay, that's better, right? We can think about it for a couple days.

We can also maybe like get up, get out of here by 8, get there at noon, like get home at at like a normal time, you know?

Yeah, why don't you just throw it at her to say, can you do lunchtime? Noon? One kid on the track loader covering a water line, another kid on the mini X establishing, uh, access roads. It's Sunday seed day, so it's project day. I find myself in this new situation They don't really want to do the project with me. They want their independence and they want to do their own project. I'm okay with that. It's sad and happy at the same time. It's really weird. I haven't eaten in over 60 hours and I feel amazing. Last night I even told myself, don't worry about working tomorrow on this pig port.

There's maintenance. Like, what is the horse's maintenance? And so I asked, and the lady said that he would have to do his hocks yearly. And I told her— and so then I said to Leslie, I have no idea what that means. So Leslie said that doing hocks is where they give an injection yearly into his leg, I guess, um, which Leslie's actually surprised at him only being 8 years old. I don't know, I feel like we should just let it ride out and see what happens.

Yeah, I don't like that. It's ironic. This is when I would need— I put all this time and effort into training these kids to work, and then they become teenagers, they want independence, they're off somewhere. I could really use a teenager right now. 3 more to go, and I'm feeling it. Tired. All right, come on, 3 more, 3 more. Thought I'd work this afternoon too out here. Nope, nope. I've got some writing I can do for the Homestead Builds book. I think I'll work on that this afternoon. I know it looks like I'm zooming about in that time lapse. I assure you I'm not. I'm going about this fast. I want to keep going. This is going really well. All we lack is braces on the side, roofing, and then we're sides. So, but I got, I got time this week for morning projects. We're gonna get the pigs in here this week. Lord willing, the creek don't rise. Got you some tomatoes. Oh really? Yeah. That's the end of it. Are we choosing Christmas card? We're choosing the one we're gonna send. Christmas cards and electrical. Oh my Rebecca, for the remodel. Gideon's data for meals. Gideon, you, you ought to come in here. You got to do something, Gideon. Come on. So that means I need to be in charge. This isn't tempting for me anymore. Day 3, you're not so much hungry, you're tired. I'm so tired. It's more about, hey, I just want to sit down. I just got to hang in there 6 more hours, so it's going to be pretty chill afternoon. Sun's out, it's hot, sunbathe, HBOT, which is hyperbaric chamber. 82, and the broth and just getting moving and just going about my day has got me back into the normal range. 4 hours to food. Back to H-bot was good. Good. Uh, it's a lot easier sitting and working than doing physical work. I know. Well, it's almost over.

It's gonna be over soon. Just know that. Yeah. You're doing good. It's good to do a fast. Fasting is good.

My body likes fasting. And also I realized if I just walk after a meal, I get a spike way back under control.

Yeah, but what about the spike from Josiah's birthday?

162? I don't think you got it under control. Yeah, I'm not— I don't plan on doing that every day.

I'm— yeah, no, I plan on staying under 50 grams, literally a very special event. Yeah, I will say this, that shouldn't wreck your A1C. Right? You know, like—

A cheat meal here and there?

Yeah, doing it once, once a month or— I'm hoping that we find out what's wrong with you. Yeah. And then we can get to the root cause of what's causing the glucose spikes because you can't not eat. Sure, your blood sugar is great when you're not eating. Yeah, that's not sustainable.

Becca made me a chicken soup. She just boiled some chicken and then diced it up nicely. I've really been— I'm gonna iron these leftover hamburgers. Oh yeah, I don't know if that's a thing, but I'm gonna dice it up. 4 minutes and it would have been 3 full days. Now I probably didn't stop eating until 5:30.

Wow, it's been very close. It's been very close.

In summary, we got the glucose down.

We did. What was it? Let's check it right now.

Um, so now we're starting fresh. We even got it down too low. 77.

Oh, you did go too low today.

It's been too long before I sip from eating. I've been putting this liquid salt in there.

Yeah, it says right here, how to use recipes, you use 4 teaspoons equals 1 teaspoon of salt. So 4 teaspoons of this equals 1 teaspoon.

So I've just been going— boiling the meat because it's a lot easier to digest, and my digestive system hasn't been working for 3 days. So I gotta ease into things. No parmesan chicken for me tonight. Manana. Oh look, we forgot the schmaltz. We mixed our spices with olive oil. We could have melted the schmaltz and mixed the spices with that. We gotta get in the habit. We're changing habits. It takes some time. Yeah, that olive oil probably came from Greece. Supposed to. The schmaltz came from across the street, right where we raised our chickens. Turn over a new leaf. I might have just tossed these to Winnie, but we're going to save the bones from this and do a broth. I'm going to start drinking broth instead of tea. I like tea so much better, but broth is so much better for me. And how much is that tea? You got 100 for $17?

Yeah, so is that 17 17 cents.

I think we're gonna pick our battles, and tea is not gonna be one of them.

On the other hand, it's very expensive. Yes.

All right, let's see how this meat soup is. Oh man, I'm into it. You know what a good thing about a fast is? It makes you appreciate anything, even if it's just a plain meat soup. Okay, morning weigh-in after— get rid of these harsh lights. There we go. 178.2. 3 things I learned from this fast. What was I in the beginning? 184. So I lost like 5, 6 pounds in 3 days. So it's definitely a weight loss boost. Secondly, I would say it did phenomenal for— Secondly, it did phenomenal— I don't know what it did to my brain. It did phenomenal in lowering my blood glucose. Brain. Did something to my brain. Third part— I'm just kidding. I don't know what's going on here. The third part would be I probably went too long because my glucose numbers got too low. Maybe that's what's going on with my brain. So I'm happy to be out and eating. I'm happy to know these things. We are further and further in my health journey. For— I just turned 45. This is the year I heal. This year, my 46th birthday, I'm running Bearwallow Beast, a 3-mile 5K uphill the whole time. That's the goal. Let's do it. One step closer. A checkup at my doctor for a BMI index.

We are doing, uh, InBody test. It sends a harmless electrical current through your body and measures the resistance, um, so we can tell your body fat percentage and your lean muscle. So it's not a BMI?

It's— no, BMI is a body mass index.

That's just a mathematical calculation from your height and weight. 71 inches, 5'11"? Does that sound right?

Yeah, I like to round up to 6 foot. Apparently she wants to know.

Go ahead and pick up the handles, and then you put your thumbs on the little silver part, and then you can move your arms out.

That's all you need to do.

14.8. Yeah, that's super. 14.8. Gratitude.

Your total weight is here, 180.3. You're made up of 112.9 pounds of water, 40.8 pounds of dry lean mass, which includes your muscles and, um, 26.6 pounds of fat, which translates to 14.8% body fat, which is, you know, very healthy. Solid musculature.

And that's what working out—

you need to lose zero weight. All right. And or gain any lean muscle, you're just right.

All that kettlebelling, all that farm work, it's paying off.