Starting a #3DayCancerPreventionFast

Lisa and I have become convinced that a monthly three-day water-only fast is a prudent health maintenance strategy, based on the metabolic theory of cancer.

We know there are no guarantees it will prevent cancer, but the risk of doing any harm is essentially zero.

That doesn’t mean we necessarily look forward to it.

We had designated today as the start for our next #3DayCancerPreventionFast, and as we were getting ready to drive to church in Rochester, Lisa asked if we might listen to something on the way that would help with motivation.

This video from Prof. Thomas Seyfried from just a few months ago was a nearly perfect fit for our 45-minute commute, and it reminded us of the “Why?” behind our decision:

Once we arrived in Rochester, this morning’s service was a special blessing for us, as two of our grandchildren were baptized.

That illustrated the real “Why?” of our monthly 3-day fasts.

What you see above are half of our grandchildren: we have 13 on the outside, with another grandson due in March.

Lisa and I have decided we want to take what a friend calls, “The path of least regret.” We want to do whatever is reasonably in our power to stay healthy so we can be involved in the lives of our sons and daughters, their children and hopefully even their grandchildren.

We want to be there for as many more of these events as we can.

That makes the short-term sacrifice of an extended fast totally worth it if there’s a reasonable basis to think it might prevent cancer.

So on the way home, for just a little extra nudge, we listened to most of another video featuring Prof. Seyfried:

When we got back to Austin, we enjoyed a delightful celebration dinner with the baptized boy’s family, after which Lisa started her 72-hour timer at 1 p.m.

I decided to add one more highly ketogenic meal in the late afternoon, and started my timer at 4:30 p.m.

An hour after that meal my blood glucose was 85 mg/dL and ketones were 0.6 mmol/L, which put me just barely out of GKI ketosis with an index of 9.4.

But as I write this with just under 68 hours left in my fast, here are my latest glucose and ketone measures:

It’s good to be already in GKI ketosis, and I’m heading to bed so I can get up early tomorrow for a workout to jump start autophagy and hopefully accelerate progress toward the 1.0 GKI target.

As we continue our #3DayCancerPreventionFast I hope you’ll follow along as I share observations on FacebookTwitter  and LinkedIn.

I’ll also write a daily recap post here that you can receive if you subscribe by email.

Check out My Health Journey for the full story of our health improvements, and my #BodyBabySteps for an approach to how I would do it if I were starting today, based on what I’ve learned.

Author: Lee Aase

Husband of one, father of six, grandfather of 15. Chancellor Emeritus, SMUG. Emeritus staff of Mayo Clinic. Founder of HELPcare and Administrator for HELPcare Clinic.

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