I Didn’t Eat For 7 Days

Austin, dim the lights. Let's reenact the night before last. I'm in the bed. My hands get really cold, ice cold, both of them. And then my feet. I get out of the bed. I grope for some socks. It's better. I warm up. And not too long after— Rebecca, Rebecca, I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I'm thinking I'm gonna have to go to the hospital. I'm sitting up like this. I can feel my heart racing in my chest like I just ran a sprint, and I think I'm gonna die. Rebecca comes over here. She hold my hands. And what did you say?

It's gonna be okay.

I thought, dang, it's gonna be okay. I guess I'm gonna die here in my bed. I guess I'd rather die here than in my hospital bed. But as soon as she grabbed my hands, my heart started slowing down, didn't it? Yeah. And my breathing started becoming normal.

You were always breathing normal.

So what was that? Was that my first ever panic attack?

Probably.

Or was that related to the fasting?

I don't know, I don't know, cuz you're not— I mean, maybe it was a panic attack. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just dehydration and you just felt like you couldn't breathe.

Yeah. Well, if it dissipates within 30 minutes, likely a panic attack.

It dissipated in a lot less than 30 minutes.

Because those can be symptoms of fasting too. Um, the cold extremities, you know, your blood is— you're in this starvation mode and your blood is moving into your organs. It's going into this panic mode.

The thing that keeps me not afraid is that lots of people do this.

Yeah. And apparently 6-7 days is the— when your body then goes into cruise control. Yeah, I think it's easy. Yeah, we'll see. 176. I was 190 7 and a half days ago. That's 2 pounds a day for a week. My SI joint pain is gone. The stiffness in my back from chronic inflammation is so much less. The psoriasis seems about the same, but one thing I've noticed— I itch it. What?

I was nestled in the hay, it just came out.

Oh, okay. They were a little worried about a, uh, a piglet. Well, there's one reason for the pole barn right here outside our bedroom door. See the mama pig? See her little piglets? She's got 6. So far all of them have stayed alive.

She's such a— in 2 or 3 days, like, she came over and she was looking at them.

And mark it on your calendar when they were born. But here's the thing, before this fast, I would itch it. Itching is not good, makes it worse, scabs it up, spreads it. I think I'm no doctor, um, this is from my experience. In my experience, it's just getting bigger and bigger. That is the determining factor. I can tell you I feel better, uh, with my back and joint, but I can't show you. The psoriasis clears or it doesn't, and I go until it clears or 40 days, whichever comes first. Hope it ain't gonna be 40 days.

I bet it's gonna be 16.

In my heart I'm feeling like 14, but that would just be a miracle, wouldn't it? From what I understand, glycogen stores are for sure gone. I'm starting to burn ketones. 72 hours, I was starting to burn, uh, regenerate stem cells. So I'm just going to continue doing that. It's going to take some time, right? Belly was rumbling. People don't talk about how hard this is. I've got a sore throat. That can come from the acid reflux from no food. It can come from dehydration. It can come from, uh, it can come from a detox. Yeah, diarrhea, just a little bit. Panic attacks. Just the overall sheer frightening discomfort kind of feel. The tears. I've cried twice. Once because I was sorry. This was bad. She was telling me— I asked her something, she looked it up, was reading it to me. And I got on my phone, but the beautiful one was talking to me. When I apologized for that, I cried.

She was like, it's okay, you're emotional.

And then, you know what, do people talk about the emotional demons you're gonna face? The, the discoveries of your relationship with food? And then, yeah.

Got a lot happening. There's a lot going on. This is fast and furious.

You lose 14 pounds in a, in a week, just don't eat.

No, it's not. Well, I don't think you should fast to lose weight. I think you should fast to, uh, other things. I think there should be other reasons for fasting because quick weight loss is not healthy. Like, that's not why you're doing it. It is a side effect of it. But you're doing it because you have crazy symptoms that you're just ready to be done with.

Yeah, we're out here getting light in our eyes. Normally I'm jumping on chores, but it's better to be in a state of rest during a fast. But I am a father of 5, a husband to 1, a father of 5.

Husband to 1? What are you, husband to 3?

A farmer to— what, how many animals do we have?

A lot. A farmer to a lot.

A farmer to a lot. So rest is—

2, 4, 10 pigs.

Yeah, they say you should be in a restful state, but 60 chickens. It's also probably good to move. I mean, you would just wither away, wouldn't you? There— I've heard two things.

You need to move.

You should move your muscles and that preserves your muscles. But I've also heard if you're really active, your body starts eating your muscles and So here, this is for energy.

This is what I think. I think that you should continue to move and not be, uh, sedentary. Yeah, but you shouldn't be like running, working out.

I don't— I, I've cut out farm projects. I'm having to trust the kids. Lily's in charge of the sheep, but she doesn't mind because that means her horses get to follow the cows. We're trying to decide if we should if I should be sunning during this. I've kind of not— I've done it a couple times. And if I should cold plunge—

I don't know about cold plunging. I think we need to look at that, but it sounds like cold plunging is good for you in some regards. I don't think too much cold plunging anyways. Yeah, but I don't know. Yeah, I'm not 100% on that.

We're gonna lighten our eyes first thing in the morning. Circadian rhythm and Cold exposure.

Yeah, I'm getting cold exposure right now. Are you cold? Yeah, it was cold this morning. It was 62 in our house when I checked it after we'd been awake for probably 30 or 40 minutes.

Our heat pump went out in the night. Well, no, last— yesterday with the power.

The power, it blew the fuse.

7 and a half days into my fast. We got a lot to talk about. This is a record. This is crazy. I feel nuts. Uh, I'm going till I heal. You ready to do chores on this cold day, huh? Yeah? Well, your boots are down into the shed.

How are you gonna get those?

Oh good, okay, good. Well, life goes on. Family's got to eat. All our farm animals got to eat. Uh, I'm gonna eat one day. This is almost easier not knowing when it ends because then I don't look forward to the ending. As weird as that sounds, there is some misery in, oh my God, I got 3 days left. Should I be lifting this heavy stuff? I'm giving some to the chickens and I'm like, wait, I should film this.

Look at this.

Will mama let me see these 2-day-old babies? Where's the sixth one? Is it okay? You okay? You crippled? Did you get right over? Sometimes moms lay on them. When they have this many, they don't care for them too much. Oh, it's cold this morning. It must be low 40s. Mom will get back over here and warm them up. Pig gut update. I haven't eaten much of it, and I don't see much fly activity. I think it's too cold. We'll see. It needs to be pretty warm to have vigorous fly activity. Well, why do I mention the flies? Well, flies lay their larvae, those become maggots, they, they eat on that, and then the chickens eat on that. It's a free protein. Wait, look at that reach. Okay. Okay, okay. I did not expect— well, maybe I should have, but I didn't think about my shoulder. It's dislocated. We're in recovery. It's taking forever. I thought just time and PT would heal it, but where you have pain, you have inflammation, and fasting will address that. And yesterday I had a breakthrough, I think. Maybe not. Well, at least it's not as painful. I just don't have the movement. Are you laughing at me, Becky? I think this one's better. When you have pain, you have inflammation. When you're any overweight, there's inflammation. I'm learning that that— this— there, 10% of your fat is visceral fat, and that's gaining at your organs. And that's— it works like a tumor and can cause all kinds of health issues. So if I've lost 14 pounds, I've lost a pound and a half of visceral fat. Oh, I did it. Oh yeah, look at that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not a doctor. I'm not advising you to do this. This is my story. But I will say this, personally, doesn't want anybody to look at me and say, oh, Justin, he has to go to the extreme. He had Lyme. He has He has the co-infection Bartonella. He— blah blah blah. No. If you're any overweight or you are in any pain, they say even if you're healthy you should fast a week every year and 12 days every day. I'm so tired.

Get the boys in here.

This is not a restful state.

No, it's not. You cannot be doing this. Stop doing it.

I'm dreaming about eating this marten, this, uh, beef butter, I call it.

This marten.

This is gonna be the good stuff in the broth. If we don't get this in the oven before chiropractor, then we just don't get in the oven. Just seems right, this beef. But I've been listening to the Diarrhea CEO. There was a fasting expert on there, I forgot his name, but he was all about vegetarianism and lifestyle and not even salt, oil, of course sugar. I agree with him on that one. There's smart people on both sides. In my heart, when I come off of this, the first thing I'm gonna do is bone broth. Beef broth too, not chicken broth or lamb. And that's what my heart's doing. And funny, I'm fantasizing about an 80/20 ground burger, you know, a nice fatty burger. It would be happy with, with just that. Not vegetables, not plant-based. So I'm keeping an open mind though. If I come off of this and start eating broth and my muscle soreness comes back, joint pain comes back, it's like, oh shit. Sometimes I wonder if these people have religious affiliations. Maybe they're Seventh-day Adventists or something like that, and then their religion drives their core of where they're coming from. They're, they're trying to make health fit into this religious box that they have. I don't have any of that except maybe pork. I'm sort of doubting it. I'm not sure if that's God's heart for us, but pork will be a while. So will chicken cuz it's just so grain-fed. We'll know real soon after I heal, intro things, cuz Broth is coming first and then a meaty, a really well-cooked meaty broth. Gap-style diet. This is precious. Give me a food service tray for this. This is precious. Oh my God, I cannot wait. Oh my God, what am I gonna do if it's beef? Because I could live on— if I could only eat one food and one food only the rest of my life, it would be beef. Oh. I do not have time to start it before we go, but we'll let it fall out. Oh my. Well, nothing. The kitchen's a wreck. I'm just talking to the vlog. She's ready. She, she's always on it, buddy. Nothing serious, it's just shifting duties. Normally kids have rotate domestic duties. Power company's here. Digging a trench. We got a new line coming in to our house. It went— hey, Henry, where's your coat from this morning? Remember I told you to take it off and put it back in the house? Where is it? How much wood chips we have now, Papa? We only need about— let's stack it to the roof— 4 more truckloads. That's it. That'll get us through the winter. They were picking up these wood chips, which are crucial for our farm because they're deep bedding for the animals. They mix their poop in there and then we get compost. Well, not only did diaper for them. It's a, uh, we get compost. They were shoveling this in near to where they practice. It's free wood chips. And tell them what happened. The guy came up, the guy who's been dumping them there came up and said, do you need wood chips? Then he gave me his card. Yeah, let's call him on the way to the chiropractor. It's in my pocket. I wouldn't lose that. It's family chiropractor, bro. No, we're all leaving in 40 minutes. Thank you, Henry. Should we just stop y'all's chiropractor service? No, no, I like y'all. Well, then let's go. I don't want to go. It's not cheap. It's not cheap. So you're old enough to decide. If you don't want it, we ain't doing it. I've changed my role with them. They're now my partners, these two men. Consequences are different. Threatened to be fired all the time. Well, I can fire you, partner. Definitely. That's what I'm gonna start threatening. Supposed to taking away your phone, it's gonna fire you. You've always been saying you're gonna fire us. We pay them because, hey, we make money with these videos and this content and they're part of it. We pay them. Oh, it smells so good. This makes me even happier than a big old load of hay. Well, about the same. Except this was free and hay is very expensive. That wasn't that bad. 20 minutes to load it, 20 minutes to unload it. This is how you regeneratively farm, which is healthy farm. The most healthiest animals, planetary animals, are going to be the most healthiest food for you to eat. When they're stationary, they have to be on deep bedding. So if the chickens are in the same spot, if the pigs are in the same spot, or the cows— deep bedding. Deep bedding. There's no other choice. They're on deep bedding or they're moving regularly. They're kind of taking over the physical aspects of the farm. Don't need to be completely sedentary, but I need to be in a restful state. I'll go work on the kitchen. I'll go do their domestic duties. They're boring under the ground with this thing. It's a weapon. Let's say what we can do to support our body's overall health Do you like the full breakdown? So I'll just take a picture of— show me the meats again.

So this—

so they have the food test at the chiropractor. Show me food sensitivities. Show me some of the sauces. Oh, banana. Why? So hard in carbs, potassium. All right, pineapples. Show me your meat. Oh, look. Oh yes, please. Please, I'm gonna take this seriously. Let's please hope that's me. You are so low on all the meats.

And then for good luck, I'll be so happy if that's the case.

I would quit everything but meats. I would be miserable if it was anything else. If those meats are high and everything's low, I'm upset. Hey, did you see her beef scores and her fish scores? All in the zeros.

And then cow's milk was just the one, but did you see what was under cow's milk? Very low under goat's milk. Oh no.

Oh God, she is not saying this. You're not saying this. I'm about to get emotional if you're gonna start making us get goat. So have you— you've done this food sensitivity test and you have psoriasis. Did you, uh, find that when you obeyed the food sensitivity test it helped?

It took a little time, I think, for my body to detox a bit. But, um, and I also did a lot of supplementation to try and start repairing gut biome. But now when I have foods that I'm sensitive to, like, it's— the reaction's pretty— it was pretty apparent. Like, it verifies definitely sensitive.

All right, I'm glad this is a prick and not a blood draw because—

absolutely—

would you even be able to get a blood draw? I could get you, right? Because I haven't eaten in 7 days.

As long as you're hydrating well, we can get some blood. So big stick. That is the only drawback about doing the finger. It's got to be a big stick.

Hmm, it didn't hurt too bad.

All right, so we're going to fill up some of these circles here.

My hands are cold, so they don't have a whole lot of blood in them. Nobody's freaking out. Gotta get the blood into them organs.

Doing okay?

Yeah.

Finger not too sore?

Nope. How in the world do they figure out from blood what you— I have food sensitivities.

The science is above me.

Oh, okay.

All right, that's a better Dr. Jen question. I do know from my own experience it was, it was really accurate.

Well, that's what matters. If you, if you listen to what it said and it made you feel better, absolutely. If you started restricting the foods it said you were sensitive to and you started feeling better, that's what counts. It is. I hope it's not meat. Eggs, that'd be the second priority, and then dairy.

For me, it was much the meat and then the potatoes and the dairy. I was like, oh, please, you can be anything else you want to be, just don't take it. Don't take those. Lynn was worried. She almost didn't do it because she was worried it was going to be chocolate for her. Oh, he was very concerned. Chocolate or coffee?

Luckily no.

Or coffee. That was a big visit at the chiropractor. We mentioned the fast, we mentioned thinking if there's something in my fuel food that's not sitting right. And they have a food sensitive— they did the food sensitivity test.

It's actually the one that I would have wanted you to do anyway. I was like all for it. If Justin wanted it, I was— I'm supportive.

So I think it'll be good for the For the— our experience, for the vlog, for the— Well— experiment we're doing.

I think it'll be good for you to see on paper if it's moderate or above, you shouldn't eat it.

Wow. In one week, I hope to God my test looks like Tanya's.

I know, it didn't look that bad.

I feel like I could give up anything but beef and eggs.

And milk. Dairy.

I could even give up dairy. Really? As sucky as that would be. That would be the third one. That's tough.

Beef would be the—

Favored eggs and dairy.

I don't want to—

why did you do so good on the carnivore diet, Papa?

What do you mean, why did he do so good?

He did pretty good. I did. I helped. I feel like when I was strict carnivore for months, it did help. Oh my gosh, put it back kind of nice. Missed the gutter line and everything. There you go, Henry. My, um Do I believe in this test enough that if it comes back with meats being inflammatory, do I believe in it enough that I actually wouldn't refeed first thing on broth? I don't know.

I think that would depend upon—

I don't know, because what would we do? Vegetable broth? Come on, you have to buy that. You have to grow that. It's so unnatural to have a garden. Gardens don't just happen.

Well, and vegetable broth doesn't have the—

it just can't be. It just can't be sustainable.

That vegetable broth does not have the nutrition. I mean, I don't think it would all come back. I don't know. We're gonna see.

We'll see. That's the good thing about the, the thing is we're gonna see. Yeah, I don't trust it enough to not let broth be my first right attempt at food, right? And we'll see what my body says after I eat. We'll soon know if it's beef because after 3 days of broth or whatever, however many days it's going to be, then it's going to be beef broth, boiled beef. Yeah, and we'll know, we'll know right away. Broth's gonna have to wait. Sun's out, right?

When we got home. Where is the marshmallow?

Ah, what's this?

Marshmallows this weekend.

Cousins are visiting from Nebraska.

We're definitely not gonna run out of marshmallows because I made a ton. I did a double, I did a triple, quadruple batch.

Wow. All right, it smells delicious in here. You are always the great, a great host and the life of the party. PT time. Haven't been in a while because we had that virus. Back from PT. I was better. I couldn't believe I was doing 20 pounds like that. Why am I 20 pounds? Where's that strength coming from? Hey, look who's riding! Look at that cowboy.

He says he doesn't want to sell Blaze.

Oh, I bet he's your horse, isn't he?

Yeah.

He's your horse. Well, we don't— we have 3 too many horses. Enjoy it for me, babe. Taco Tuesday. I think if it weren't for this raging sore throat, I'd be in better spirits. Plus I crashed this afternoon. Maybe you should go lay down. Maybe I will, but then it makes me think about this. It makes me feel this throat. Oh. I guess I could lay down and try to watch something. Nature's greatest pain medicine: distraction. I do feel like my psoriasis is abating, so that gives me great hope. This may not go on forever.

She'll be eating by next week.

All right, happy day.