Electrolytes and Fasting - How much do we need?

Electrolytes are minerals in human body that have an electric charge. Sodium, Calcium, Magnesium and Potassium are all electrolytes.
Levels of electrolytes in the body can become too low or too high. That can happen when the amount of water in the body changes, causing dehydration or over hydration.

• Potassium recommendation is around 4700 mg per day.
• Magnesium intake for males should be between 330-350 mg per day, and females should intake about 255-265 mg per day.
• Calcium is essential; the suggested intake is 800 mg per day for both males and females.
• For both males and females it is recommended to keep Sodium intake below 2,000 mg.

Fortunately, strict water-fasting is associated with very few and rare complications and the fast is well tolerated in most cases, but I read somewhere that after 3+ weeks there have been reported cases of low electrolytes levels, but often can depends on the before-Fasting diet rather than the Fast itself. In this matter seems that Dry Fasting is actually safer than Water Fasting when comes on preserving healthy electrolytes levels. These are all my thoughts but be sure to do some researches if you suspect a imbalance on your electrolytes.

 

Bone Broth Fast - Day #1 will I keep going with it?

Today is my first day of an anomalous fast that I decided to try: a bone broth fast. I started to drink chicken bone broth today, only that and some water – occasionally with lemon. I heard so many amazing things about the bone broth, how the collagen helps the skin, what great pack of essential amino acids it has, great for joints, for the health of skin, hair and nails and the list goes on and on. So I decided to give it a try for at least 4 days, however just one day into it I'm not sure I want to keep on going for another 3 days. The reason why I don't feel going forward with this fast is mostly due to the large amount of sodium contained in the bone broth. I bought the broth in a local restaurant nearby, I thought I would save some money and it would be more natural than the store-bought one. It is extremely salty though, especially for me that I'm not used to salt anymore with a Raw Vegan diet. I also don't feel very comfortable going back on having animal products, even if it's just the broth of it. My main reason for choosing to try this fast was also because I was reading online and watching YouTube videos mentioning that it can be very beneficial to fight the Candida Albicans, now here I have my serious doubts that it can do anything to the Candida in just only 4 days but I guess doesn't hurt to try after all. Today I'm working from home so I didn't mind having a warm broth as meals during the day but I might not bring it with me tomorrow in the office, I will have a cup in the morning here as "breakfast" and continue my day drinking only water.

One thing that I'm already noticing is that I really look puffy now, most likely due to the high amount of sodium in the broth. I hope drinking plenty of water will help me release a bit of the puffiness in the next few hours. Doing a bone broth is definitely easier than a regular Water Fast, I didn't feel any hunger so far, I don't feel tired; apparently another good thing of a bone broth fast is that there should not be any muscle loss while fasting – because of the high protein content. It's been not even 24 hours in this fast so I really cannot say much, I guess in few days I should have a better picture, if I will keep on doing it. I'm definitely thinking on continuing with a Water Fast once I enter in a good ketosis.

I was going through my old posts, while I was Water Fasting and I felt missing those feelings, I gained weight in the past weeks, if I don't have a meal plan I usually tend to binge and some days I can't really discipline myself on portion control. Right now I feel almost depressed, I looked at myself in the mirror and I saw again that desperate girl fighting for her weight loss in so many crazy ways, so tenaciously and always with scarce results. Sometimes I think that this is just my life, dealing every single day with what I can eat, what not and how to amend on my bad food choices. Some days the only thing I want is sweets, bananas and lots of nuts, peanuts, I want to stuff myself with food full of fatty things, healthy yes but not conform to my diet life style. Some days I think I'm a lost cause and I should just surrender to my weaknesses.

HCG diet - VLCD #43 Bad Drink choices and off-protocol breakfast

I registered a small loss this morning, only 200gr but a loss is a loss, if I could stabilize my losses on only 200gr each day, I'll be happy with that till the end of this round! Definitely it's been an extremely slow round for me, wondering if my body is getting used to this very low calories diet regiment after 43 days, hopefully not - because going back to healthy Calories number will be very tough otherwise.

This morning, for breakfast, I ate something off the protocol; I had a boiled egg, a small amount of mozzarella cheese and very small amount of grapes, in addition to 1/4 of an apple. With the cream in my coffees and the rest of food that I planned to eat for lunch, I'm basically already done with my 500 calories daily limit. I will not eat my protein portion tonight, hopefully during the day I can burn most of what I had out of the HCG food list.

Tomorrow I have my first Kung-Fu class and I want to take some supplements that could help me boost my energy without fainting for two minutes run. I feel fine I have to say, never weak as I was on the Dr. Bernstein Diet, however I am aware that my body is still not receiving enough calories to maintain an exercise routine without consequences. I guess I'll see tomorrow how I feel during and after the class, but my hopes are that I will have no issues so I can keep going and burn some extra calories for better results.

Oddly enough but I can't manage to get into Ketosis in these past days, I don't know what else I should do really. I know that the Ketostix might not be accurate, since I'm drinking so many liquids during the day, but this was always the case, even during my first round on HCG. Maybe all this almond milk is affecting my ketosis; yesterday I was reading the label and the sodium content is very high, just wondering if this could be the cause of all my water retention. I also had 3 coffees with cream today, which I usually never do – but my mood is good, I'm excited for my new position at work coming soon so, when I'm excited, I tend to eat more, drink bad stuff too! I should force myself to do a day off from coffees or decaf to get detoxed of all these processed drinks. Will I ever be able to do it? Be strong! You can do it!