Comments by entropism
  1. 1

    Hi Rhonda. As a fellow scientist, I really appreciate your approach and find it so incredibly valuable. I think you are on track to be a more technical version of Science Friday. I am so happy that you are doing this.

    Apologies if this has been addressed before, but I can’t seem to find an answer. I am a middle aged mountain athlete, which basically works out to mountaineering and trail running in the summer, and indoor rock climbing and skiing in the winter. I acquire a fair number of injuries and I’m always looking for ways to optimize healing. What I find so curious is that my friends who are elite athletes all seem to heal much more quickly than normal.

    I became interested in FMD for its injury healing potential. I ran it twice, and both times experienced healing of nagging tendinitis or even sprains. I tried a 72 hour water fast, and didn’t experience the same benefit, suggesting that the prolonged fast is necessary to stimulate the kind of authphagy I needed. So far so good.

    I am wondering, though, how to operationalize FMD or 5 day water fasts with my training schedule. I can’t train while fasting, and the period of time immediately after fasting seems like it would be a vulnerable time, with tissue broken down and the immune system diminished due to autophagy. Do you have any thoughts on this? And just how much time does an athlete really need to recover from a prolonged fast?

    Thank you for your thoughts! I understand you may not have all the answers, and I respect that when you don’t, you say so. If you could point me in the right direction, I’d appreciate it.