[dimastopel]

Thanks! Dark leafy greens make total sense, but why sauna is good before the fast? Also how long and how frequent your fasts usually are? 5 days 4 times a year as Dr Longo suggests or something else? BTW I did FMD twice and the feel of hunger doesn't go away. I also suspect this happens because of the constant food intake.

[bodhibyte]

I had a recent flare up of my condition and sauna helps to alleviate the symptoms and shorten the duration. Water fasting also helps and this is the first time I have tried sauna before fasting. Perhaps coincidentally, this is the water-fast I've felt the best on. I don't fully understand the underlying mechanisms but there's some amazing research on how hyperthermic conditioning initiates a whole cascade of physiological adaptations which are partially mediated by heat-shock proteins, increase of growth hormone, and improving insulin sensitivity. For more information on benefits of hyperthermic conditioning, see:

1. https://tim.blog/2014/04/10/saunas-hyperthermic-conditioning...

From the article above:

Just a few of the physiological adaptations that occur are:

Improved cardiovascular mechanisms and lower heart rate.

Lower core body temperature during workload (surprise!)

Higher sweat rate and sweat sensitivity as a function of increased thermoregulatory control.

Increased blood flow to skeletal muscle (known as muscle perfusion) and other tissues.

Reduced rate of glycogen depletion due to improved muscle perfusion.

Increased red blood cell count (likely via erythropoietin).

Increased efficiency of oxygen transport to muscles.

Here are some related videos:

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWKBsh7YTXQ

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHOlM-wlNjM

As for duration, 3 to 5 days, though from now on I'm likely to do minimum 5 days fasts as after reviewing Dr Longo's research the immune benefits and increased autophagy appear to really kick in on the 4th and 5th days. Frequency, I would say I average 3 to 4 times a year. This frequency just happens to coincide with Dr Longo's recommendation as I only more recently came across his research.

Thanks for sharing that you also noticed that the hunger doesn't go away on Prolon.

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[dimastopel]

Thank you for the elaborated answer!