[anthonyb]

I think it depends on how much glucose and carbohydrates you're getting in your diet. Your body needs a minimum level to survive (eg. for brain function) and if it doesn't get it, it converts fat. So if you're on a low carb diet, but getting at least that bare minimum, you won't get ketosis. Something like that, anyway.

You were the one who started it:

> your body is finally getting rid of some stuff it should have gotten rid of

Sounds like woo-woo toxin theory to me. There are fat-soluble toxins, but I doubt they'd be enough to make you sick or smell bad.

[beagle3]

> I think it depends on how much glucose and carbohydrates you're getting in your diet.

Let me rephrase the question, as apparently it wasn't clear:

Most instances of fasting (specific time + specific instance) do not get acetone breath at all.

Some instances of fasting do get acetone breath, but if they do, it's usually only for a couple of days near the beginning of the fast (usually starting around 2nd day and ending before the 4th day), even if the fast goes on for 3 weeks.

Your explanation does not seem to make this dichotomy possible - it seems to imply an all-or-nothing situation (for a specific instance). Can you extend your description to accommodate this observation? [Note: based on personally collected set of anecdotes - I couldn't find any rigorous collection of this data]

> Sounds like woo-woo toxin theory to me.

I specifically avoided "toxins" in this reply (but not in others) because toxin theory is not well defined, and can thus easily be ridiculed to death. If you define it more properly, (e.g. caffeine "detox"), it is exactly as described, it does make you feel sick. Technically, caffeine is poisonous (as is alcohol) - it's just that in small doses, we as a specie seem to like the effect it produces.

[anthonyb]

I'm not sure what you mean by an "instance", but there will likely be variations in how quickly people respond to metabolism, and also depends on what you're eating during the fast.

One possible mechanism is that the muscles of the people fasting are more able (either through genes or exercise) to burning fat, meaning that you need to convert less fat into glucose. I'm not a biochemist (I've mainly read Good calories, bad calories plus various primal/low carb blogs) but it seems pretty straightforward (fat -> fatty acids -> acetyl-CoA -> ketones): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis

Feeling sick on a caffeine detox is likely to just be withdrawal, and/or the "low-carb flu".

[beagle3]

> I'm not sure what you mean by an "instance"

I defined it earlier: specific person, at a specific fasting period (by which I meant contiguous period).

> also depends on what you're eating during the fast.

I don't think we're talking about the same thing. "fast" says "what you're eating" is nothing.

[anthonyb]

Eating nothing for three weeks?! That's stupid and dangerous.

You're putting your life at risk from heart attack and kidney and liver failure (and other people's, judging from your comments in this thread).

[beagle3]

> Eating nothing for three weeks?! That's stupid and dangerous.

To quote other people on this thread - "citation needed". I've done this more than once, actually, and I know others who do too.

Yes, I have eaten essentially nothing for three weeks. No, I wasn't putting my life at risk of anything, though you may believe what you want -- did you notice that I'm not the only one who posted about long fasts? You just assumed everyone was eating, but we use "fast" literally, not as a codeword for "calorie restriction".

Although I had the references to support that it's healthy, I did do bloodwork a couple of times through, and at the end, it was -- in fact -- much, much improved. For example, my B12 levels went from -2 sigma to +2 sigma. (If this sounds impossible to you, read the wikipedia entry about B12 - the general "knowledge", even among doctors, about B12 is unbelievably incorrect).

My doctor, who is a reasonably open minded MD, looked at the results and said "just make sure you start eating when you are feeling hungry". That happened 21 days after I started. He wasn't worried after looking at my bloodwork.

If you're healthy at the beginning, irreversible damage starts around day 40 (but is very swift at that point). There are quite a few people in India who do 30 days every year for religious reasons, and suffer no ill effects -- and have been doing this for centuries.

[Jd]

Given what you've said here, I highly suspect you do long-term fasting within some sort of "yogic" context. I personally suspect that many of the potentially negative outcomes of dietary depravation are mitigated when in a positive environment (i.e. lots of nature / with good energies) complemented with certain types of yogic practices. There is also a long tradition of long "fasts" within Chinese qigong traditions, and the supposition is usually that a body attuned via various practices can feed off of the environmental energies (e.g. the sun, the mountain) without needing nutrients of other sorts. The technical aspect of some of these things is a bit beyond me, both because it is 'esoteric' and doesn't fit into any model of Western science that I know of (with the potential exception of Paracelsusians).

Along these lines, I'm curious what sort of environment you or the other people you know do their long fasts in (i.e. if there is a checklist of sorts).

[anthonyb]

Your b12 will be up because your body is cannibalising its tissues to stay alive. That's your liver, kidneys, etc. and it doesn't mean that you're healthier.

Given that you don't know that, and earlier on you didn't know what ketosis is, I'll take your dietary advice with a large grain of salt...