Husband wants to fast

[ICaughtTonsillitisFromAFriendsKid]

My husband is slim. He's 5'11 and not more than 11 stone.

He's sent me a YouTube video about what happens to your body when you fast for 44 days (David Blaine did this) and says he wants to do it. I don't know if he means the full 44 days or a bit less.

Wtf! Based on a quick Google it will lead to headaches and worse.

He's a great husband in every other aspect but this has frightened me.

I'm not sure what to do. I feel dreadful enough with tonsillitis I can't handle more stress.

David Blaine is a crazy man who thinks it’s a good idea to hang out inside ice cubes and suspend himself in a Perspex box over the river Thames for over a month.

This is not who your husband should be taking dietary advice from.

You aren't missing anything. Think about it for a few minutes. Why would your body eat the bad things and leave the good behind. Answer - it doesn't. It will eat whats available, both the good and the bad.

I highly recommend the podcast Maintenance Phase. You will never go on a fad diet again.

If he does that he will probably end needing you to do everything

Indeed. And take 44 days off work. It's ridiculous.

If he does it, he will probably last a few days maximum in reality. I wouldn’t worry too much about this.

Read some of the research on autophagy.

If you feel there is an eating disorder then obviously proceed with caution and get him to a GP/help, but it seems there isn't (he's slim through physical work, eats ok, has sweet treats). So I'd say to him fine do as you wish but don't expect me to pick up any slack because you are feeling headachy, weak or whatever due to not taking nutrients on board especially with DCs.

Blueblell · Today 09:44
If he does that he will probably end needing you to do everything

Exactly! David Blaine was a stunt man; that was his job. And this stunt was part of his job. He also wasn’t already slim at the start. And he wasn’t a married man with 2 children under 5.

While I think it highly unlikely DH will go ahead with this, if he did, he wouldn’t be able to work and he certainly wouldn’t be helping with the children. OP would also probably end up looking after him. It sounds like an attempt to opt out of responsibility and family life.

David Blaine had medics on standby. He had a lot of nasty symptoms. When he came out of the box he was given an ECG for expected damage around the heart, and oxygen. Doctors talked about his risk of refeeding syndrome. He lost 16kg while sitting in a box - not using up calories doing manual labour or even normal household tasks.

I would be seriously concerned if my partner declared that they wanted to harm themself to that extent.

I wouldn’t worry, he’s unlikely to get past a few days…

I fast regularly but certainly wouldn't recommend 44 days, I do intermittent fasting, 18 hrs a day for 3 days a week but I do the majority of the fast early evening and overnight.
A family member tried fasting for two weeks as an experiment, he likes to try different things, pushing his body to extremes, he said by the middle of week 2 he was practically hallucinating, spaced out, wasn't sure what was real, in a dream world, weak, could barely walk or function.
He said never again.
I really wouldn't recommend it.

Forgot to mention that when I started fasting I got terrible headaches, I now counteract them by using calorie free electrolytes, one scoop in a litre of water.
You can buy calorie free electrolytes from amazon.

Why does he want to?
It seems a very attention seeking and bizarre thing to suggest. It puts him firmly at the centre of the household as your whole family life will now revolve around his fasting. You will be left picking up the slack and dealing with the side effects.
Is he prone to being self centred?

I would leave him to it.If it starts to impact family life you can let him know.In reality he is unlikely to complete 6 weeks. I would think about how it would work meals wise for you and the tinies and discuss that with him but otherwise , he is an adult, see how it goes.

Is there any specific reasons "headaches" seem to be your worst concern when your DH is planning to fast for 44 days?

This is a caveat I’ve never encountered before 😂

Well you never know!

im not sure what he means by ‘fast’? As in no food at all?
it sounds deeply unhealthy to me. Eating sweet things doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an eating disorder. Intermittent fasting doesn’t involve being in calorie deficit for long periods of time

I'm a fan of fasting, when it's done correctly. I think it can do some people a lot of good. I would NOT jump from 5:2 to a 44 day fast - that's absolutely nuts.

I highly doubt he'd manage it anyway. I'm not saying that to be a prick, but for most people the 3 day mark is a wall. 44 days is almost unheard of in many circles. When you hear about fasting experiences that go on for weeks, it's almost always someone who is very experienced in fasting. They also don't usually have young children to look after and a physical job to keep up...

i do a 3 day fast every month (for the health benefits) and have no problems holding down my (very senior, stressful) job. My husband wouldn’t dream of even thinking of having an opinion on it because it has fuck all impact on him.

Fasting with appropriate guidelines is far from unhealthy. Lots and lots of benefits come from giving the digestive system a break.

i do 16:8 or 18:6 every day. And a 3 day water fast every month.

I don’t eat crap when I do eat.

Never been healthier.

Consider this: hunger strikers tend to start dying from day 46.

People saying fasting can be healthy - sure, intermittent fasting can be.

Be aware of re feeding syndrome which can be v dangerous. I don’t think prolonged fasting is healthy - especially without medical checks/tests.

Is your husband normally a twat? Is this just the latest in the line of completely knob things he does?

Personally I don't think more than a day or so for someone who doesn't have any particular health reason to.