156 Hour Extended Fast - Results and Lessons Learned 

Congrats on reaching the finish line!

When I was 360 bs, fasting was easy. I fasted through Lent by only eating on Sundays. So six days fast, one day re-feed. Rinse and repeat from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday. I heard (after I did it) that it wasn't necessarily "advisable" to do it that way. I also did it at 250-ish lbs. But after getting under 200 lbs, it's not so easy to do extended fasts anymore. Like you, I felt hunger when I was no longer morbidly obese. I feel like I'd need some extra-super motivation, and yes, if I could be alone for a week, that would definitely help. Now all I feel like I can manage is 24 hours. Good for you for keeping it up!

I can't share any fasting comparisons, but I've got a sympathetic plumbing story. We have a rental property we're rehabbing to sell, and last week my husband tightened up the bolts at the base of the only toilet in the house because he thought was a little wobbly. The next day, there was a crack in the porcelain, and a few hours later, it broke right in two. Needless to say, we made our own emergency trip to Home Depot! 😮

Thanks for sharing this journey and the metrics from the fast. Great learning experience for me!

feeling cold is very normal while fasting for me, regardless of the length. I've always heard the body is reverting its energy to autophagy instead. Then when you start eating again, temp goes back to normal.

Extended fast in March: lost 10 lbs 1 week after refeed: gained 4 lbs 2 weeks after refeed: lost 5 lbs! yes, while eating! now in June, I have maintained all 11 lbs lost! Just keeping steady!🤩 so it may be interesting to hear your 2 week postmortem to see if you also balance out after the initial refeed gain???

I am just having my last bite and starting my newest fast at 6 pm. My longest was 40 days. Quite the experience. Looking forward to this open-ended one. I will keep you posted on this upcoming fast. TO BE CONTINUED...

Looking good Steve. A before and after (face) pic would have been nice. :-)

Hi Steve. Thank you for this first update. To be honest, and PLEASE do not take offense, but the term “post mortem” kind of guts me as my husband has been gone for a little over 3 months. It will be 4 months on my birthday July 20th, 2 days after his birthday. He would have been 71. And he took good care of his health in the way we were taught. Which wasn’t always the best. And what was great about him is we did Keto together! He never complained. He had esophageal cancer which was diagnosed later-and fought the good fight and was supposed to have a better outcome. I have to give him kudos because he accepted everything and was very grateful. I’m only writing this to give you some understanding of how that word can be ugly. Just my opinion more than likely due to my circumstances. It could be “lessons learned” or even “breakdown” of my fast. I feel like I should erase this whole response but I won’t because I respect you too much. If that term works for you then have at it. I’m really interested in your results. I still eat lousy because cooking for one after 48 years sucks to put it bluntly. Chinese take out tonight, lol. That being said, watching your videos are pushing me one step further to eat what is healthiest for me. You are amazing with all these numbers and everything you track. So please accept my apologies if I’ve offended you. That was not my intention. I think your results after such a long fast will uplift many. I hope your journey back into eating goes smoothly. And by the way, there was not TMI in this video. You kept it real and that’s what we want. Well done! 😊

Great data collection Steve 👍

Always interesting to hear your experiences. Thanks, Steve.

I rarely fast more than Omad and 24 hrs. So this was practice for me. I made it 36 hr. I’ll do another this week too. I will try to work on my fasting. I really enjoyed this information. Thanks.

Even though it’s not the theme of this video, chuckling about the garbage disposal situation. Back to the fast though thanks for all insights.

Maaaan! Not eating a whole week. I have no idea if I can do that. I would just sit here and be sorry for myself. I would not have enough chores to distract myself. The cold feeling I know. After my weight loss surgery, when I lost a lot of weight fast, I got very cold. I mean being able to hike in 95 degrees weather without breaking a sweat cold. I wore a flannel shirt all Summer. This year (summer) is the first time my "side effect" is gone. I called it my super power and miss it. After 6 years I started to sweat again.

Kitchen sinks are a total pain, just because they hide behind the deep sink that blocks access. Usually a special wrench is required. Well done!

Thank you for the detailed fasting summary. Laying on my back while trying to remove a facet that has been in place for who knows how long is no fun.

I'm in the middle of an unplanned fast. Will be 30+ hrs when that July 4th 🥩 steak hits my belly tomorrow. It kinda happened by accident this time. The last thing I ate was a ribeye & overate a touch...so my body told me to fast today. When I plan a fast, I struggle. I can't believe you fasted so long with stomach grumbles & cravings. 🎉. I fasted thru boiling a rotisserie chicken for 3 hrs (for broth/meat) and my husband frying 🥓 bacon. 😮 Ketone power.

I have been doing intermittent fasting for two years. I made my first 24 hour fast. Yay! Now I need to start moving forward with longer fasts.

Great job, Steve! And, continued thanks for sharing your experience. I am just past hour 20 on my first ever extended fast. BG was 107 at the start, Ketones were 0.2. At hour 18 when I checked BG was 100 and Ketones were 1.0 -- 5.5 on the Keto Mojo GKI Ketosis. It's early, so no hunger or cravings at all so far. I worked in a 3-mile slow walk, right at one hour for 3 miles, this morning. I mixed up my first batch of SK-recommended "Snake Juice" and I had a hard time with it. Not sure I can drink two liters of that a day. Maybe it is an acquired taste, so I will keep trying, but for today I switched back to LMNT to make sure I get my electrolytes. I am going to try to head to bed early this evening -- I usually go to bed around 11:00 -- to take my mind off of being hungry. My BP is normally a little on the high side of ok (probably because I've still got a good bit of weight to lose) but all day today it has been in the low 120s over the low 80s. Will hit the scale and the tape measure tomorrow morning to check on mass improvements. Cheers! (toasting your success with LMNT raspberry)

Great job Steve from Serious Ketones!! 6.7 is awesome. I appreciate the encouragement to get back on the fast. It’s been about five months and I should do a 3+ day fast to get going again. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the update and detailed information. Best wishes on your continued success and health. I just had this thought: May the odds be ever in your favor! Live long and prosper! And may The Force be with you, always. Hope you reach your health goals and live a long and healthy life. You've been an inspiration for all of us. When it comes to gum, I'd say chew it, and spit out all the juices if your in doubt.

Wow, congratulations on completing your extended fast!

Finishing my 96 hour fast in about 7 hours. Feel good. Lost about 9 pounds. Been on carnivore for 2 weeks prior to the fast. Going to hop back on all meat for another 6 weeks before another 5 day fast in August.

This is an enjoyable, informative narrative of your fasting experience. I'm a first time visitor to this channel, and I'm impressed! Thanks! I'll be back for another segment.

You look better than I’ve ever seen you! And I don’t mean that in a negative way…. You look so happy and healthy and younger!!!

I appreciate and admire your consistent data collection! I collect biometrics consistently for about 8 hours and then get sidetracked because the breeze blows 😆 I look forward to seeing your next postmortem.

Nicely done, sir. 👍

Congrats on the successful fast 🥳

Great job!

Clean the garbage disposal by putting a chopped up lemon or half an orange (chopped up) in. Citric acid.... Yea Steve, good job! I can't fast! I can OMAD tho. GFGF burger, avocado, bacon w/fried egg on top has been my go to recently. My son thinks I'm nuts! 😂

We run all of our citrus peels through the garbage disposal to freshen it up. Never tried the pods.

Thank you

Way to go Steve!

Always cold when I fast. Thank you so much for all the info. Love the way you track everything

Amazing detail. I admire your organization skills. Very informative. And I always wondered what men did "in that situation". Thanks. 👌🏼😂

Congratulations! Nice job. I wasn't able to join, but I'm glad you put these videos in a playlist for when my wife goes on vacation.

Great job on the fast.

This channel rocks, so much useful information. Awesome work, Stevie!

Watching your vids on the fast was very interesting. Thx for filming this and sharing it with us.

Congrats! Very impressive.

Steve, I admire your ability to stick to it!!

Congratulations you made it yay ❤️🇨🇦🐕

Fantastic fast and terrific report back!!!! I'm currently doing 72 hrs. Just for the heck of it. Edited to say I felt inspired by you to get back on a 72hr again. I usually do it once a year. ADF is my jam because it's only 1 day of not eating

Wonderful results.

Hi Steve! I did a 60 day water only fast. Lost 20 lbs. Had a lot of revelations.

❤️🎉 Great job! I only made it 48 hours of the 72 I wanted to do. I am going to try again this weekend.

Great job! You’ve encouraged me to try this after our July 4 bbq. Hubby will be gone until Sunday evening, which should give me about a 70 hour fast. I’m working on a task list now.

Fantastic results and so productive

So interesting! Great results. Thank you for sharing.

WOW great info thanks Steve

Just watched the fasting video with the marathon runner, maybe following an outline would make for more organized content, but I enjoyed the smooth way you segwayed, referring to "a teaser"

Great metrics, Steve. I was concerned with your ketones and I'm glad they peaked at 6.7; else, you'd be having a conversation with your PCP regarding diabetic ketoacidosis. Congrats, Steve.

Will be trying a 3 day fast this month. Like you, planning it out to not be around a lot of food. Thanks for the ideas, plan and inspiration

I used to be able to fast. I would do 4-5 days successfully. A couple of times a year. Unfortunately at 70, I developed type 2 diabetes. Bummer. Just turned 73. Diabetes was huge on my Mom’s side of the family. So many relatives deceased and currently living have diabetes. I’m actually healthier now because I eat a very low carb diet/ketoish diet. And exercise every day. My doctor kept insisting I try intermittent fasting to help with my A1c. So I did. Nope, fasting I’ve discovered, for me, raises my blood sugar. My A1c went up ^^^ after 3 months of intermittent fasting. I now know I have to eat within an hour of waking up, or my body does a glucose dump. So kudos to you and others who can fast. It resets the body, removes toxins and has many health benefits.

The cold feeling may be coming from the thyroid slowing down from the fasting

It's cool that you share all the specifics on results so we kinda have an idea of what to expect for extended fast. Not sure if I could do 6 or 7 days but I think I would start with a three day fast? Thanks...for sharing! (said in Steve voice lol)

Starting a multi-day fast tomorrow, no hard number but going to try for at least 7 days

I generally find that it takes about a week for me to see final weight results after a fast. I usually have a big initial drop (which is exciting), then the weight comes back up (which is discouraging), then it drops back to somewhere in the middle. So I've learned to temper my expectations a bit. Thanks for sharing your results. I've done maybe 10 of the 3-day fasts, plus shorter ones, and 1 5-day fast. Am now interested in trying a longer one. I'll be interested to see where you are after a week. I would never have thought I could fast even 24 hours, much less multiple days. I credit the low-carb diet with making it possible. I always get cold during fasts too. I watched a Jesse Chappus interview with Dr Alam Goldhammer about fasting (up to 40 days). Although I didn't agree with anything the guest said about food choices, he did have some interesting tidbits about fasting. I do believe our bodies are miraculous in being able to heal many things, if we give them a chance to. Thanks for sharing.

Go Steve!!! Congrats on making it through!!! I had to have two sinks fixed also, kitchen & bathroom sinks were leaking, I have no idea how long though I also had two stopped drains in both bathtubs…go fig… As for fasting I think you need some extra fat on your body to go a week without food, which I don’t have…lol I’m 114 lbs and size 3 jeans, but I do OMAD with a little treat everyday, and I’m very happy with the results 😊 Thanks for sharing Steve…happy eating…hope you have a great 4th of July 🇺🇸

Last week was first time fasting more 24 hrs. Was downright cold trying to sleep the first night. Here in AZ, I actually turned the AC down (increased target temp to 79), cut off the ceiling fan and pulled up the covers. WHAT? Good to hear that this is not unusual.

Do you take iodine? It is supposed to help with circulation and feeling cold - in addition to being needed in every cell in the body for the iodine-potassium port in each cell wall.

I always feel cold while fasting. Jason Fung states that is due to continued insulin resistance.

So impressed. I could not. I don’t have the will power. I would say the diarrhea may have been from the epson salts if you drank large volumes of your snake juice. Unsure if magnesium malate would be gentler on the stomach.

I don't fast but I am going to try after watching your videos. I think that after a fast I will feel like you, I will want to eat meat and cheese, no croissant, bread or whatever, just meat, yogurt and cheese

Thanks for sharing. After I had a5 day fast all I wanted was salmon and broccoli. I listened to my body and eased into it. Right now I could use a ribeye. Except it’s only 103 outside and the grill isn’t hooked up. As for the plumbing . It always snowballs into a problem. When we moved here now to septic systems. We were told to use RIDX faithfully. After a few months of calling out the plumber for a main drain clean several times, I asked the plumber if using Rid X kept him employed. He chuckled and said yes. I told him sorry but our “plumbing dates “ have to stop. So I stopped using the RIDX No more plumbing issues. I also just got rid of our garbage disposal since we never used it anyway, it too gave us problems when used. TFS Steve.

I need to go back to my fasting. However it's hard in carnivore. Trying to prime first for a week or two.

I haven't done any extended fasting for almost four years now. Got tired of: 1. ALWAYS being hungry the entire fast (like you on this one) and 2. Always gaining almost all the weight lost over five days on the two day weekend, even though I stayed strict keto and did not over eat. Both of those issues happened EVERY time and I just got sick of it. BTW, I always get cold when fasting -- not always the first night, but definitely by the second one.

Congrats on completing your fast an being able to eat again. The diarrhea seems to be a curious side-effect. I've been deprived of food for a week and did not notice that symptom. I'm wondering if your large dose of Magnesium could have contributed to that, or if the withdrawal of dairy might have contributed. I can only imagine that a Wisconsinite without access to dairy might have severe withdrawal symptoms. 😜

Congratulations! I have questions for you and if the answers can be found in other videos, feel free to direct me! I had not been viewing your fasting videos because I was just recovering from a bout of covid, and decided to wait for your results. My husband is traveling for work one week in August and I thought I would give fasting a try. I do plan to go back and watch your prep videos a week or so prior. That said, my questions. How often each day did you have electrolytes or are the amounts you noted in this video what you did the past ‘per day’? Second, is there a specific brand you recommend (my favorite is unflavored LMNT - I hate flavored drinks of any kind ….unless its a grapefruit martini). 😄 On that note, wondering if you had that vodka gimlet after you ended your fast?? Or do I need to wait for the refeed video? My longest fast to date has only been one day. Did you ease into fasting incrementally in the past? Not looking for you to tell me what to do because of the youtube police, but looking for what you had done previously. Also, I literally burst out laughing at the Homer Simpson face. 🤣

Wow, pretty great results. Steve, how are you so tan? I still glow in the dark over here in MN... Maybe the some Irish heritage. So you have 2 more on your honey wagon, er honey do list. Pretty good!

My brain tells me to fast in the winter, the summer is for working hard and feasting, I usually do my 5 day fast in January. I always feel a spike in energy about 6 weeks after a long fast.

did you experience any fasting-induced changes to skin? nails? scalp? hair-loss? did they resolve right away after refeed? or resolve a while after? or still lingering?

👍

Steve, any idea why the BP spiked in the middle of the fast or any reason you researched which could cause this? Also, I feel your pain re: plumbing issues - seems replacing parts is continual 😂

I’m always cold when I fast, even just 1 day. Yes, I live in western Canada, but I’m still cold on warm summer days. For the D, I only use salt and potassium in the day then magnesium at bedtime. It’s the magnesium that sends me running all day.

I think fasting gets harder the less fat you have in your body. At least this is how I experienced it. When I was super overweight. I started intermittent fasting and extended fasts later and it wasn’t too difficult and like Steve said the hunger went away and almost never came back, however now that’s not the case, the max I can do is 3 days and then the hunger comes in full swing and cravings just hit one after the other. The feeling cold is normal and goes away within a day of refeeding

Well done...you look great! Thanks for the update. Just so you know, magnesium is a natural laxative, so that might have contributed to the diarrhea. I wonder if your exercising might have triggered the hunger pains you weren't expecting.

Dont say postmortem. Well anyway, I practice extended fasting from a well fed ketogenic state. 3 to 5 days every 6 weeks or so. My wife and I eat one meal a day. We have been mostly keto since 1998. OMAD carnivore last 2 years. You covered sleep which is good. Its amazing how jacked up we get in a fasted state and then sleep great. If you dont feel really good as you described, it is time to stop. We fast mainly for autophagy.

How often do you do the prolonged fast?

The ketone numbers are interesting. The highest I have gotten in the past was 4.7 mmol/L (wasn’t doing an extended fast or anything special) and these numbers were out of the ordinary. I remember wondering at what point would I be transitioning in to ketoacidosis and if I should pull the rip cord. Unfortunately in the next day or two my appendix perforated so I’m not sure if that was the cause of my rising ketones.

I’m about to conclude a 10 day fast. The cotton mouth is real.

I understand you are from Wisconsin do you know the definition of postmortem?

Did the gimlet craving coincide with the plumbing project...quite common 😊

Your being cold may be a sign that your thyroid is acting up. You may need to take some iodine and selenium.If the sides of your neck at front are sore, thats a sign too.

I don't understand the blood glucose measurements; isn't 90 quite high?

No magnesium maybe?. Better than constipation, but i guess it depends on which side of this one is on.

Wonderful results! Thanks for sharing. That is an odd craving. I wonder if hormone fluctuations triggered it. Or maybe you're pregnant 🤣🤣

So do you even have the big D if it is just a 1 day fast? and it had always been that way for you all 5 years of fasting? how interesting! I have had a very different experience... the first 3 years of keto & fasting, including regular 1 day fasts, a few 3 day fasts and 1 5 day fast had zero big D! ZERO! not during and not following. I never knew fasting could cause this problem. THEN everything changed on my very first 7 day fast. The Big D appeared on Day 4 and staid around until 1 or 2 days of refeeding. It really scared me. Didn't understand what was wrong. then ever since then, ANY length of fast , even just 24hrs, means the big D almost as soon as I break my fast or sometimes it holds off a couple hours. Last week I was so excited to go to bed on a reseeding day with no big D! celebration ended the following day when it still showed up. doh! I'm still searching for a plausible explanation of why this changed for me. I have recorded your electrolyte #'s and will go see how that compares to mine... and see if that leads to any clues???? It would be such a relief if it is really that simple!

I wonder if you also need some iodine.

Your title makes it sound you died after an extended fast.

Taking the electrolytes may have been what led to your hunger 😮

I can tell by your face leaning out

ProTip…find a good plumber.