Quite a few of you have reached out to me by phone or in your comments to express your concerns that what I am doing is risky. Thank you for the love and concern. **What I keep hearing is that I will not be able to achieve my swimming goals without the benefit of food. **
I shared with all of you that I am working with a world class expert on nutrition, fitness and pain. What I did not share, is that I have worked with him for two and a half years in an attempt to move my health into one of my top three focus areas.
Chris has helped me lose over 120 cumulative pounds (not his fault that a lot of them I gained back, as I have a pattern of ghosting him after big gains). Let's just say he has been patient with me.
Chris taught me how to eat clean, healed two significant chronic sports injuries from my past, helped me through multiple random ailments, and saved me from knee surgery recently.
Deciding to recommend a 40-day water fast came after much trial and error. Despite best efforts and approaches that work for most other people, we have not been able to eliminate the visceral fat that surrounds my gut,. This is my biggest health risk.
Since opinions and advice are always free flowing when it comes to health, I am going to share his extremely educated answer on how a person can still exercise while on a fast.
"One of the biggest misconceptions in the world is that food is what gives us the energy we need to sustain our energy levels throughout the day. When we look deeper, as far back as human beings have been alive, there have always been periods of feast and famine. So, how did Cro-Magnon man stay alive when there wasn't enough food around?
The fact of the matter is that 80% of our energy is produced in our Mitochondria by the Krebs Cycle, that is dictated by the oxygen we are breathing. So, our main source of fuel is oxygen, just breathing, and being converted into energy by the Mitochondria. The other 20% comes from the food we eat, and more importantly, the type of food we eat.
If you have a garbage diet, you are not going to have very high performance. If you eat a clean diet, you are going to have higher performance when you exercise. It is really determined by what you eat that gives you the extra energy. Take notice of people that are doing water only fasts for 3 to 40 days. Nobody dies! Nobody is bed ridden every day during their fast. What the lion's share of water fasters talk about is how much better they consistently feel. Why? Because as you clean up the entire rest of the body from all the garbage that has been accumulated from a bad diet (which is what a water fast primarily accomplishes), the Mitochondria works better so that the 80% we just discussed is optimal.
You were likely at half that optimization prior to a fast. So, when you include a healthy food source post fast, now you get the performance side. You get to go run a marathon, become more athletic, maybe became a cross fitter or weightlifter, or an NFL player or UFC fighter or whatever.
Food does not give you energy. Food is for performance and for feeling good. Eric doesn't need to feel good right now. He needs to heal his gut. He doesn't need high performance either cause he is taking his time to swim each long lap in his fitness challenge. He is not trying to be Michael Phelps and do laps for time.
It is the Mitochondria and Oxygen where we get 80% of our energy supply from. Thus, Eric has what he needs to take this fitness challenge on. He may not complete it, but trying won't hurt him. His amazing weight loss (21 pounds in just 8 days water fasting) is an additional benefit but not our primary focus."
I appreciate all the concern and advice, but I have chosen to listen to this man. He has already worked wonders with my body. I want to see this through. If he thinks it will work, I am going to give it my best effort.
On a fun note, I have been timing my laps. I take two minutes and twenty seconds to complete one lap in my monstrous pool. So, to achieve my goal of 35 laps it will take me at least an hour seventeen to do all of them. Since I will undoubtedly need breaks, it is likely to take up to two hours. I like math! More to come....today I did four laps. Five await me tomorrow. Down twenty-one pounds after eight days of fasting. So far, so good.
