If you’re a woman, you’re going to want to know about this 72 hour fast protocol before you start your fast.
Boy, do I wish I knew about this 72 hour fast protocol before I started my 3 day fast as a woman, but I learned my lesson and now I get to share it with you so you don’t make the same mistakes I did!
In this post, I will be going over the 72 hour fast protocol for women, the benefits of 72 hour fast, 72 hour fast stages, what to eat after a 72 hour fast, how to break a 72 hour fast, and most importantly, what you need to know as a woman in order to conquer this fast!
After reading this post, you’ll feel confident and ready to do a 72-hour fast and experience all of its great benefits. Let’s get started!
This post is all about the best 72 hour fast protocol for women.
72 Hour Fast Protocol For Women
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Benefits of 72 Hour Fast
Before you start this 72 hour fast protocol, you might be wondering why you should even go on a 72 hour fast? What are the benefits?
Here are all of the amazing benefits you gain by doing this fast:
- Metal clarity
- Fat loss
- Resets digestive system
- Reduce inflammation
- Autophagy
- Delays aging process
- Improved spatial learning and memory
- Increase in human growth hormones
Pretty awesome, right?!
One of the main things that motivated me to do this fast was the autophagy, and if you don’t know what that is don’t worry I’ll explain it below.
What Is Autophagy?
If you’re like me and didn’t know what autophagy was before fasting, don’t worry! I’m gonna break it down for you.
Autophagy is when the body cleans out old, damaged cells. This is super cool because it can prevent diseases, such as cancer!
Our body goes through autophagy all the time, but when you fast for 72 hours, autophagy is at an all time high, which is why it can be super powerful in preventing disease.
This analogy helped me understand:
You clean your house frequently by sweeping, wiping down the counters, etc., but every once in a while, you do a deep clean and clean your fridge, oven, washing machine, carpets, couch, and other places in your home that don’t get cleaned every day. This is what fasting is. It is a deep cleanse of the body that we normally don’t receive on a daily basis.
72 Hour Fast Stages
What are the stages of the 72 hour fast? What does your body do during that time period?
During the first 4 hours of the fast, your body is still digesting the food you ate. Insulin is secreted to use up the glucose in your bloodstream and store any excess in your cells.
4-16 hours into the fast, your body is using up that stored glucose, or glycogen, for energy. Once that runs out, your body will switch to burning fat and ketones, which usually happens around hour 16.
During this time, your growth hormones surge. Growth hormones are responsible for cell reproduction and regeneration, so this is a very healing process!
From 16-24 hours, autophagy and fat burning increase dramatically. You’ve used up all your glycogen, and now you’re transitioning to using fat as fuel.
When you’re 24-72 hours into the fast, you’re in the ketosis stage. Your body is splitting fat cells to release energy to function and your body starts to strip unwanted fat.
This is also the time when people notice their energy and mental clarity improve because the brain is producing a chemical called brain-derived nootropic factor (BDNF). This helps increase the production of brain neurons and can improve long-term memory, coordination, and learning.
This is why researchers believe fasting can help prevent Alzheimer’s disease. How cool is that?!
At the 72 hour mark, autophagy is at an all-time high, so a lot of people like to extend their fast to 4 days to continue healing and detoxing their bodies.
I was definitely ready to break my fast at this point, so I did not extend my fast.😂 Maybe one day though.
How To Break A 72 Hour Fast
I know you probably want to eat everything in sight, but you have to be very strategic about how you break the 72 hour fast.
You don’t want to ruin all of your hard work and eat foods with a lot of sugar, fiber, and spices.
The best way to break this fast is to sip on some bone broth and gently introduce your digestive system to food.
Remember, your digestive system has been on vacation for the last 3 days, so you wanna go slow.
What To Eat After A 72 Hour Fast
After you’ve broken your fast with some bone broth, you can start introducing solid foods!
Anything that is high in protein will be beneficial, such as eggs and meat.
You can also try yogurt, fruit, kimchi, saurkrout, and pickles.
Having a meal that is very high in protein, good fats, and probiotics is crucial so your glucose does not have a huge spike.
How To Do A 72 Fast If You’re A Woman
It’s so so SO important to note that the 72 hour fast may not be right for all women.
We are on a 28 day hormone cycle, so if you fast at the wrong time during your cycle, it could make your fasting experience very unpleasant (like mine was🫠).
It is best to do the 72 hour fast the first 1-12 days of your cycle, also known as the follicular phase. This is when your hormones are at their most optimal.
I made the mistake of doing this fast at the very end of my cycle, so my 3 day fasting journey was complete torture. I still made it through and felt amazing once I was done, but I did not have an enjoyable experience (more on this below).
Ashley’s 72 Hour Fast Experience
I’ll take you through each day of my 72 hour fast so you can see what it was like for me as a woman who did not do this at the optimal time in my cycle.
Day 1
The first day was ROUGH.
I was so weak, I started getting chills, and I was insanely hungry.
I felt extremely tired and had absolutely no motivation or energy to do anything.
It kind of felt like I had a fever, but I didn’t have a fever if that makes sense.😅
I have done a 24 hour fast before and it wasn’t hard, so I know that it was extra hard due to my cycle ending, but I didn’t know this at the time.
Day 2
I woke up feeling pretty crappy still, and I wanted to cave so badly, but I didn’t! I went for a walk instead, and that helped me so much to get out of the house.
I started to feel more hopeful and positive that I could get through this fast.
I also had a new sense of appreciation for food.
Food is something I took for granted and don’t always enjoy, but I want to be better about that.
I started writing down fun new meal ideas and getting excited about cooking and creating!
I still had chills, which was annoying. I also noticed I no longer needed deodorant.😱
In the afternoon and evening, I felt very pessimistic and down. Things that normally don’t upset me really upset me, and I felt very sad overall, so it was not a good end to the day.
Day 3
I immediately woke up to my period. I was so happy that it was the last day, and I had gotten this far despite how hard it’s been.
I still felt rough, especially since my period started and I had some cramping. I felt weak and fatigued, but the excitement of eating food later and the pride I felt for getting this far kept me in a good mood!
How I Broke My Fast
Like I mentioned earlier, the key is to GO SLOW, so I started with some bone broth from Kettle and Fire. Then I had a pickle.
After about 30 minutes, I had some watermelon. After about 45 minutes to an hour, I had a piece of bacon.
20-30 minutes later, I finally had my first meal! I had BBQ chicken pizza and homemade mint chip ice cream. It was sooo delicious if I do say so myself😂
Conclusion And Final Thoughts
Once I broke my fast, I felt amazing. My mood was stable, my head felt clearer, my digestion felt great, and overall, I did feel like my body desperately needed that reset.
Humans have been fasting since our existence, so deciding to do this fast was common sense for me. We have not always had access to food 24/7 like we do now.
I believe we were not meant to eat regularly for our entire lives. It is good for us to take breaks every now and then. It’s like a vacation for our bodies, just like we take vacations from work!
I also believe in making yourself uncomfortable. Most people nowadays don’t want to feel uncomfortable. They want to sit and avoid any experience that would cause them discomfort.
This is detrimental to our health, and we will never grow or feel better if we do not push ourselves.
Doing this fast really brought me outside of my comfort zone in all aspects of my physical and mental health, but by the time it was over, it was so worth it, and I felt so much better than I did before I started the fast.
Overall, this was a very intense but healing process for me. I know not everyone will agree that this is healthy, and that’s okay. I can only speak from my experience and tell you what I learned, so you can decide for yourself if this fast is right for you!
This post was all about the best 72 hour fast protocol for women.
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The Ultimate Animal Based Diet Food List: What To Eat Daily And What To Avoid Completely
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References:
Hillery, Fiona. (2024, December 30). 5 Benefits of a 3 Day Water Fast. Higher Dose. https://higherdose.com/blogs/the-high-life-blog/5-benefits-of-water-fasting-for-72-hours?srsltid=AfmBOoq7p6grrMbvNiGwi610ygKLi4PsPDaphDiqnh-IzB5ITVDOz_vB
Shields, Dr. Alexis. A Comprehensive Guide to Fasting. Dr. Alexis Shields. https://dralexisshields.com/guide-to-fasting
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