The 5 Shocking Results of a 72 Hour Water Fast — And Why You Must Do This For Gut Health

These are my 3-day results!

One of things that make us desire travel in Asia is the food. Anthony Bourdain (RIP) really showed us some great eats from amazing cultures. From delicious cheap street food, incredible drinks, and interesting deserts there is so much variety, especially when living in Asia. The food is just so different, and it’s exciting.

But experiencing and eating the delicious food comes the hard truth that there is a very likely chance that you will get sick from a food-borne illness and infested with parasites.

Exciting and delicious street food is one of the best things about traveling!

When you live in these countries sometimes you begin to see and know way too much. Living in Asia has the power to transform the most avid meat lover into a vegetarian.

If you’ve ever walked down the streets of the markets of Vietnam and saw the meat sitting out on tables in 90 degree temperatures, watched a street vendor washing dishes on the side of the road, saw worms coming out of an uncooked salmon patty you are about to make for dinner, or looked at roasted animals in the shape of a dog or cat being carved up then you know what I’m talking about and it shouldn’t come as a surprise the likeliness of contracting parasites and getting food poisoning.

While traveling, you can do your best to prevent sickness and parasites by not eating the street food, not drinking iced drinks when it’s in triple digit heat, not eat the fruit plates, or never order a salad.

There’s an entire list of what you shouldn’t eat to prevent getting sick, but even taking those precautions and holding back on your experience will still not be fool proof.

My Story of Bali Belly and Why I Decided To Water Fast For 72 Hours

I’ve lived abroad a total of around 5 years of my life overseas moving away from Kansas. I’ve had my fair share of gut issues, but nothing like what I experienced after traveling to Bali.

Most expatriates will say they just plan on getting sick from time to time, it’s just apart of the life. While this sucks, I’m with them on this. While I try to be smart about how I choose my food, I *try* my best to not think about it too much.

You will absolutely start thinking about it, though, when you’re laying in bed sweating with a high fever and unable to move except to the bathroom for four days. This was my experience in Bali within the first week of arrival, which the illness I contracted is called “Bali Belly”.

It has a name because it is a normal occurrence in travelers to Bali. I don’t know what I ate to contract it, but my only guesses are from the protein shake that had ice in it or the delicious corn that I bought from a street vendor. I’d put more money on the corn…

I spent a total of 60 days in Bali, and got sick an additional time. I left Bali and headed to Thailand, and carried with me the Bali belly that continued to give me pain.

I had developed a bloated belly to the size of cantaloupe, it hurt to touch, and I was never regular. If I ate anything, I would have pain — the common symptoms of leaky gut.

I dealt with these issues for awhile, hoping they would eventually go away. I have a pretty good tolerance for pain. But when I discovered two extremely long parasites in my stool, this had me running to the hospital in Bangkok.

The doctor prescribed some medication that was supposed to “kill everything” along with some inflammatories. Weeks later after finishing the medication, I still had the pain and decided I needed to do some type of detox because obviously there was still something inside my stomach that was causing this inflammation.

I started looking up detoxes for parasites, and they all had ingredients I didn’t know how to get such as wormwood. Then I came across a few stories on “starving parasites” through fasting which recommended a water fast for 3–5 days. I decided I was going to give it a go, because all I needed for that detox was willpower and water. Check.

I was only trying this water fast to have better gut health which did ultimately happen — but I experienced more.

Here are the results that I experienced during the 72 hours of not eating and only drinking a minimal amount of water when I set out to starve parasites in my belly.

The Five Shocking Results Of My 72-Hour Water Fast

Full disclaimer, this is not written from a medical perspective but rather just recounting what I experienced in both body and mind.

1. My Stomach Began To Hurt Less Immediately: I noticed this within day one of not eating. As I mentioned earlier, each time I ate anything, I usually would experience some pain in my stomach and have to run to the bathroom. So this was expected — no food, no pain. I look at this as we are giving our gut a chance to do it’s job with what it’s got going on right now, and clean without making it do additional work with newly ingested specimens.
2. I Regained My Willpower With Food: If you’ve ever had a dramatic weight loss transformation like I have, then it becomes a little disheartening when you attempt to go on diets later on and keep failing. The pattern of failure gets you down, and this was a bit of an internal battle I was having before the fast as I was finding it hard to make good choices while traveling.
   While I was continuing to make the conscious choice to not eat on this fast, I had a peaceful brain filled with winning reinforcement. I began to feel an increase in my mental toughness.
3. I Began To See More Clearly: Towards the end of day 2, I began to see more clearly and found it bizarre! Everything looked a bit more crisp, and I was squinting less. Since my prk surgery 10 years ago, my eyesight has began to drop off and so this was really exciting for me. (If you have experienced prk surgery, then you know I am not looking forward to redoing it) I never imagined a fast would impact my sight.
4. Extreme Focus: I was able to think so clearly, and able to really focus in on each of the tasks I set out to do with ease. Another surprising result, as I was prepared to just lie in bed watching netflix because of brain fog. I experienced the opposite — mental clarity!
5. My Belly Was Flat Again, And I Was Regular Again: My belly went down quickly. It started off at the cantaloupe, day 2 it went to a grapefruit and on day 3, I was seeing my abs and more definition. When I broke my fast, going to the bathroom was much more regular.

Summary

I am happy to report that after doing this fast about a month ago, my stomach feels much better and is no longer bloated or tender to touch. I will continue to take other measures to clean out my system regularly while seeing gut health specialists on a 90 day basis while living in Asia.

I’m not claiming this will be everyone’s results, but I definitely stand by encouraging you to try it out. Especially if you are living in a foreign countries, and are experiencing some common gut issues.