How and Why I Extended My Weekly 44 Hour Food-free Period To One-hundred Sixty-eight Hours/What I Learned During the Sixth and Seventh 24 Hour Periods by James Stephen Du Bois

The longer I live, the better I feel. That’s my mantra.

What I Learned During the Sixth and Seventh 24-hour Periods

(For previous episodes go to: https://www.oregondudrops.com/du-blog/my-168-hour-food-free-period-in-december-2021 )

Day 6

Saturday, December 18, 2021, 7:30 pm to Sunday, December 19, 2021, 7:30 pm

Saturday, Dec. 18th, 2021, 8:30 pm:
121 hours since my last bite, the first hour into day six.

After hours of researching, writing and editing this afternoon and evening I have entered my 6th consecutive 24-hour food-free period. During my studying today I did become sleepy at times, especially around my traditional nap time of 2 pm, but I never dropped all the way off, and after twenty to thirty minutes I became alert again.

I am going to start working in my Oregon Du Drops’ studio again tomorrow morning and then do my research again in the afternoon. Reading about what is happening in my body during a food-free period, as I am experiencing it, is fascinating, and an appropriate use of this time.

Analysis is one of my strategies for occupying myself and distracting from any stomach grumblings, which, incidentally, have been non-existent for quite some time now. I can’t remember a single ghrelin episode during day five. This cessation of the pangs of the hunger hormone was promised by both Dr. Fung (F) and Dr. Jamnadas (J). I am very pleased about that, yet I’m disappointed with the amount of energy I don’t have. They didn't guarantee it, but the doctors each have suggested I might have more. Time for a night’s deep sleep.

Sunday, Dec. 19th, 2021, 6:00 am:
130.5 hours since my last bite

I went to bed planning my activities for today and awoke unable to conceive of completing them. I’ll tell you plainly what happened to me after 130 hours. I got my ass kicked. I am a bit shocked by just how pusillanimous I feel. It exhausts me just to roll over in bed. I need to stay in the sheets as I’m as weak as a newborn fawn trying to stand for the first time.

I did get up and make myself a salt cocktail hoping it would help my electrolytes, in case that is my problem: 1/2 tsp pink Himalayan sea salt, 1/2 tsp magnesium salt, 1 oz. water, 1/2 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice.

If I understand Dr. Nicole correctly, this “setback” may be me cleaning out my deepest poisons (N). Dr. Jamnadas says this is when the cancer cells and the old and weak cells die. I didn’t expect the feebleness and malaise. Silly me. Dr. J. didn’t mention I would be physically effected by the cancer cells dying. Is part of the sickness accompanying chemo-therapy, the body’s own reaction to dying cells? I have lots of questions waiting to be answered. Back to bed.

Sunday, Dec. 19th, 2021, 11:00 am:
I am not experiencing any nausea, simply enervation. I cannot summon any strength. Where is all of the energy I had those first five days? I am not going to try and stay up. I’m not going to try and do anything except let my body have it’s way. I think it wants an Epsom salt bath and another nap.

Sunday, Dec. 19th, 2021, 2:00 pm:
After a nap I feel a little better but I can’t say exactly how, maybe a little more energy. I can only sit in my chair and wait for my energy to come back.


Sunday, Dec. 19th, 2021, 3:30 pm:
I’m back in the tub with a head full of ideas, but an energy level around 15% of normal. It’s an effort to lift a limb. 5.63 days! and boy, are my arms tired. I am giving myself this entire day to nap and tub and nap and tub and let my internal workings do their healing.

I’ve stripped my body down, literally, to bare bones in order to rebuild from scratch. You know what investors say when they buy a fixer-upper that’s got potential, “It’s got good bones.” Well that is what I am currently left with to rebuild upon, my good bones.

For fifty-nine of my seventy-one years I pumped sugar into my bloodstream from the unnatural infant formula recommended by medical professionals, that I was fed as a newborn, to the irresistible cookies my loving wife made for me until we realized, eleven years ago what a recipe of poison they were.

That’s fifty-nine years save the thirteen years I chose to metabolize alcohol in my liver, processed there the same as sugar. Sugar, however, creates all of the dregs and poisons of the fermentation process in our bodies leaving our liver to deal with what the distillery filters from the process when they produce alcohol. Sugar is an addictive poison. When I freed myself from sugar and carbohydrates, long after I freed it from alcohol, my body started working better. I could breath through my nose all of the time now. I stopped getting colds and allergy symptoms. There are so many reasons to eschew sugar, but that is not what this post is about. Sorry, for the digression.


Sunday, Dec. 19th, 2021, 4:00 pm:
I dragged myself out of the tub. My urine is straw colored. I’m drinking more water, not that I’m dehydrated, this water is going to, hopefully, build up my blood pressure. Now to bed.

Day 7

Sunday, December 19, 2021, 7:30 pm to Monday, December 20, 2021, 7:30 pm

Sunday, Dec. 19th, 2021, 8:15 pm
I got up after my nap, took my vital sign readings AND celebrated completing day 6 and entering day 7. Six full days food-free! 6/7 of the way there!
Average of three blood pressure readings: 112 over 64.3
Average of three pulse readings: 61.3 BPM.
Urine Color: light straw. Ketone reading: Off the chart! Purple, 16+.
Weight: 120.8. BMI 17.6. (normal range: 18.5 - 24.9)

Sunday, Dec. 19th, 2021, 9:00 pm:
In the tub again. I find it easier to get up and sit down now than I did earlier, but I have no stamina. I’ll be going right back to bed after tubbing.

As I look at my shriveled body lying in the tub before me, I can imagine someone looking at a picture of me in this state and thinking, “That fellow looks like he is starving.” Lest you be concerned about my mental state, I want to assure you that this extended food-free period is not pathological. It isn’t an anorexic episode, or me suffering body image issues. It is about ridding myself of as many toxins and cancer cells as possible, and recycling what used-up cell parts my body can.

This seven-day fast was not taken on as a lark. This is serious business. This process I am undertaking is about overcoming a genetic predisposition to having rampant cancer, which killed my father, his father and mother, his sister and her daughter (in her twenties). I intend to overcome my gene pool’s predilection for cancer just like I overcame its inclination toward alcoholism.

A work of caution:
I recommend that you do not attempt such a lengthy food-free period without months of preparation, without working your way up to it. It’s just like physical training, one step at a time. Intermittent fasting leads to eating just one meal a day which leads to skipping food for a whole day.

Successful two-day trials can lead to three- and four-day ones. As your confidence that your body knows what it is doing builds, you can extend your fasts. However, without such preparation as described above, you stand to gain nothing for your efforts but nausea, headache, enervation and a whole lot of hurt. Too much detoxification too fast leads to sickness. I encourage you to engage the links to my other posts on this and other related subjects listed at the end of this article.

Many people recommend a doctor’s supervision on such a long fast. I consulted many highly qualified and experienced doctors’ lectures and essays and have become convinced I am doing the right thing for me. If anything ultimately convinced me, it was that I’ve heard at least three doctors advise in almost the same exact words, “You must take charge of your own health. We’re swamped.”

Your health is your responsibility. I encourage you to do your own research. I am documenting my own experience and, admittedly, incomplete research (new findings all of the time). Feel free to use this material as a launching pad for your own flight.

I am looking forward to eating again, not because I’m hungry, ghrelin has been totally suppressed, but because I’m looking forward to building my body back up again, and maybe even increasing my musculature a bit. I have the body of a runner/swimmer and am looking forward to seeing what I can add on to it. I’m going to use the machines at a fitness center nearby and the guidance of the biggest guy I know, who happens to be a champion wrestler, to help replace my lost flabby mass with fresh, strong, firm muscles. I do not have delusions of grandeur, but I am going to get this 71 year old body into the best shape it can be.

As I’m getting so close to my goal of being food-free for a week I’m reflecting on why I’m living seven whole days without the pleasure of a meal. Why did I do it? What’s in it for anyone else? I’ll tell you what’s in it, the free health benefits elaborated below. In addition to better health, as you progress, you’ll benefit financially too, by not buying carbohydrates. And, the savings just keep on coming! If you continue down this path, you’ll save money by skipping one meal a week, then more money by eating only one meal a day. As you continue this exercise, a one-day fast will save you the cost of three meals and snacks. You can save the cost of nine meals and snacks, if you get to the point that you skip three days in a row.

By the time you are saving money from successfully not eating four and five day’s worth of groceries you’ll be eligible for a seven day fast twice a year. Maybe with all of the money you save not eating you could travel to an exotic location to conduct your fasts. But, finances aren’t the real reason I undertook this extended food-free period. In fact, money doesn’t even appear in the top ten reasons. It could be number eleven though, when one considers the savings from having few to no medical bills.

The Top Ten Reasons That I Have Eschewed Food for a Whole Week

The Number One Reason I Undertook a Seven Day Food-free Period:
To Reduce My Chances of Getting Cancer

At the present time, along with the rest of my body, my brain is burning ketones for fuel. There’s little to no more glucose left in my system for my brain to burn, nor is there any sugar to consume for any of the cancer cells my body may have left. Dr. Jamnadas declares,“Lifetime cancer risk lowered by 70% by doing a 7-day water fast. Cells that die off during the fast are the cancer cells. The glucose they are dependent upon is just not there.” (J)

With cancer so ubiquitous in my genetics, you might understand why finding a way to eradicate cancer cells from my body might excite me. Separately, the thought that my body and yours may have the ability to turn off genes that have a predisposition to cancer, and express other genes that offer a world of possibilities, simply by not eating so much, so often, is thrilling to me, especially considering the gene pool from which I wriggled. These revolutionary ideas inspire me and light the way.

A Second Reason I Undertook a Seven Day Food-free Period:
To Clean Out My Body’s Garage, Attic, Basement and Closets; Getting at the Cobwebs, Dust, the Sticky Stuff Under the Refrigerator, Behind the Toilet and Even the Windows.

Our bodies’ processes of cleaning and refurbishing every one of our trillions of cells, while we do nothing but not eat, are simply miraculous. Rejuvenation is a real thing! These remarkable mechanisms have only recently been uncovered by researchers in this century, so it’s rare for anyone to know about them.

Scientific breakthroughs take decades to accomplish and scores of years to reach the ears of those in the masses who even care to understand. Do you know what the Higgs boson is? This so-called God-particle (I’ll leave it to you to find out why it is so nicknamed) was discovered in 2012. That’s ten years ago. It was first theoretically proposed in 1964. News of this discovery still hasn’t trickled down to the general public. Do you think autophagy, gluconeogenesis and ketogenesis have a shot at becoming common terms? I don’t think so, not in the near future anyway. For some reason you have or are becoming aware of them. I hope the following information serves you well.

Let’s see what Dr. Jamnadas says about the rejuvenation process I spoke about just above. The term for the process whereby our cells recycle themselves is Autophagy. “Autophagy starts at about 18 hours and maxes out in 3 days (72 hours). When you are nutrient deficient like this, the body…turns on Autophagy.
“So what autophagy does is that it takes your cells, the cell has a lipoprotein membrane around it and there are all the intracellular organelles in it, but in the course of time those cellular organelles become redundant, there is protein lying around. Wherever there is work there is going to be garbage. So they are old intracellular organelles and some proteinaceous materials that are just lying around in the cytoplasm. So, the body says, ‘I need energy. I need to recycle.’ So the first thing it does is, the cell stays alive and it takes these intracellular organelles, breaks them down, packages them into the lysosome and digests it, breaks it down into its pieces…and exports it out of the cell. Once it’s exported into the blood stream the bloodstream says ‘Ha ha I’ve got some new building blocks now and the body reutilizes that…You recycle your mitochondria as well.” (Dr. J. at 30 minutes)

A Third Reason I Undertook a Seven Day Food-free Period:
To Burn Fat For Fuel (Ketosis)

Dr. Jamnadas informs us that, “After a seven day fast, 70% of the energy utilization of the brain is through keytones And the brain likes it.And there are even studies that show that when the brain utilizes the keytones it’s a cleaner burn.” (J)

Socrates was asked why he fasted. This teacher of Aristotle, the teacher of Plato replied, “I fast for mental clarity.” If it was good enough for Socrates and his students, I’m thinking, “What do I have to lose?”

Here’s a little test of your mental clarity. In a calm state, sit comfortably in a chair and slowly count your breaths. Can you calmly follow one-hundred of them without your mind losing count and your attention wandering or being led off in a different direction, perhaps several directions? Can you make it to 50 breaths without hyperventilating to get there and losing your count along the way? 20 breaths?

You can judge your own mental clarity. You can improve it by burning a high grade fuel. After 156 hours of fasting I was burning ketones for a good portion of my brain power and was able to keep my focus all the way to one-hundred breaths twice in a row. See how you do after a heavy meal, or now under the influence of what you just ate.

A Fourth Reason I Undertook a Seven Day Food-free Period:
To Increase My Body’s Production of Human Growth Hormone

Who doesn’t want the rejuvenating power of HGH? I’m told that athletes pay big money for Human Growth Hormone for its supposed strength benefits. Dr. Jamnadas says that such people are wasting their money cause it doesn’t work when introduced from the outside, yet after thirty hours of being food-free our body produces it for free.
From Dr. J.:
“It was a two day fast in the study, a two day fast produced a 2,000% increased HGH in a man and 1,300% in a woman. So it is the best way to boost your Human Growth Hormone. Now why would we want to boost HGH? Because Human Growth Hormone is the hormone that keeps you young. It’s the hormone that keeps your skin better, replaces the dead parts better, your muscles grow, your muscles actually grow. So you do ten reps you are going to put on more muscle than if your growth hormone is low…12 to 24 hour fast to get the full benefit of growth hormone.” (J)


A Fifth Reason I Undertook a Seven Day Food-free Period:
To Grow New Brain Cells

Who couldn’t use a few million more brain cells? They start growing after you haven’t eaten for twenty-four hours. Again, from Dr. Jamnadas: “There is another thing that happens when you fast. You produce something called BDNF (brain derived neurotropic factor) So what happens is that your body parts are producing a hormone that goes to your brain and tells your brain, “Switch on,” and you actually make new brain cells. You actually make new brain cells. Show me a drug that will make new brain cells. In a fasting situation you are actually making new brain cells, because nature wants to teach you, 'This is how you got into this situation. Learn from it. Remember it. Now go out and get another kill.' It (fasting) makes you better. It makes your brain better.” (J)

A Sixth Reason I Undertook a Seven Day Food-free Period:
To Reset My Biome

Having a healthy gut is fundamental to digestion. Four days in (96 hours) your stomach is changing its environment for the betterment of your body and your life. The best studies have been done on mice and “fasting increases microbial diversity, reduced inflammation and increased production of beneficial microbial compounds known as short chain fatty acids. (I)

A Seventh Reason I Undertook a Seven Day Food-free Period:
To Refresh My Liver

The liver filters the body’s toxins. Giving it a break from incoming material allows it to better deal with the overload it is already contending with. It takes from six to twelve hours from the time you take your last bite until your stomach is done with your meal and empty again. For your last meal to get through your liver and colon, up to thirty-six hours may elapse. Keep those numbers in mind when deciding how long to go food-free. You are not actually food-free while you are still processing what you ate twelve hours ago.

An Eighth Reason I Undertook a Seven Day Food-free Period:
To Rid My Body of the Toxins Stored in its Deep Recesses for Decades

I believe this process is the reason why I felt so debilitated yesterday and why I’m a slug today; the release of toxins that hadn’t been uncovered in previous fasts. They were let loose in my blood stream and I’ve felt worthless with no energy to spend ever since.

A Ninth Reason I Undertook a Seven Day Food-free Period:
To Build My Body Back up on a Strong Foundation

As Dr. Fung suggests, it is not smart to build a new edifice on a crumbling foundation. The old, crumbling and weak material must be cleared away if the new structure is to last. (F)

A Tenth Reason I Undertook a Seven Day Food-free Period:
To Increase the Quality, Not Just the Quantity of the Decades I Have Left

“The longer I live, the better I feel,” is my mantra. Taking care of our bodies, minds and spirits is essential to remaining active, conscious, and truly alive.

All of these topics are addressed in detail in my previous posts, a link to the first of which is listed at the top of this one. I’m convinced that I’m healthier than I would have been otherwise by living food-free for extended periods of time. I feel so much better than I did while eating three squares a day filled with carbohydrates. There is no comparison. And, I don’t even miss the cookies that I used to need to survive.

Sunday, Dec. 19th, 2021, 10:24 pm:

147 hours! since my last bite! Six days and three hours. I think, “Come on 168, hurry!” Then I think, “Critical work is being done throughout my body. Give it every minute of every hour to do its job.”

Sunday, Dec. 19th, 2021, 10:45 pm:

Out from the tub, after soaking an hour. I licked a little Himalayan salt from the palm of my hand for repelling leg and foot cramps that have been periodically scrunching up those parts of mine. My blood pressure average is: 77 over 47, incredibly low. That’s probably part of my sluggishness. Maybe the Himalayan salt will help. Pulse perfect at: 71. To bed by 11:00 pm


Monday, December 20th, 2021, 3 am:
120.4 lb. Straw colored urine.
Back to bed


Monday, December 20th, 10:30 am
159 hrs of freedom from food
Salt cocktail for leg cramps.
Urine light yellow.
Sat in my chair with very low energy.

Monday, December 20th, 2:00 pm
A new low weight for my adult life: 119.6, BMI 17.4 (1.1 point below normal)
Straw colored urine
I drank another salt cocktail in the interest of raising my blood pressure and getting some energy. I could not resist another nap after I prepared veggies for my fast-breaking soup.

Monday, December 20th, 5:00 pm
I got up from my nap at 4:30 pm and stirred the heated soup I’ve been making to break my extended food-free period later at 7:30 pm.
Blood Pressure Average: 77 over 44! (120 over 80 is normal)
Corresponding Pulse Average: 62.6.

Monday, December 20th, 7:30 pm
I made it to 168 Hours!!! Seven full days!
Time to re-feed smartly. I know that doing so will replenish me with energy.

More on breaking my fast and the soup I made to do so in my next post on this topic. I will explain how I began introducing food back into my system, but for now we’ve had enough material to digest. Thank you for reading this far. Check out the information in the following footnotes, if you want to dive deeper.

F : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqZsS03dlPk

I : ”https://insight.microba.com/blog/what-science-says-about-intermittent-fasting-and-the-gut-microbiome/


J : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuOvn4UqznU


N : https://drnicole.com/what-happens-to-your-body-while-fasting-hour-by-hour-benefits-of-fasting/