u/PlatformMindless7764

Ok so i made it. 72 hours, nothing but water, black coffee, and electrolytes. Here is everything i tracked immediately after breaking the fast before eating anything.

inbody scale: body fat 22.8% (down from 24.1%), skeletal muscle mass 42.6kg (down from 43.2kg), visceral fat level 4 (unchanged). Scale weight down 3.1kg total.

The muscle loss number is the one i was most anxious about and honestly it is less bad than i expected. 0.6kg is not nothing but given that i was completely sedentary for 72 hours and eating zero protein i was bracing for worse.

Fasting glucose at hour 72: 61 mg/dL. Lowest it got. Felt fine surprisingly, no dizziness or brain fog at that point.

Ketones at hour 72: 3.8 mmol/L. Hit meaningful ketosis around hour 18 which was faster than i expected.

HRV: dropped to 51 by day two then came back up to 58 by the end of day three. Interesting pattern.

Energy and mental clarity: day one was rough, day two genuinely surprising, day three felt almost normal. The mental clarity thing people talk about kicked in around hour 36 and it was real.

Breaking the fast with bone broth right now. Will post the 72 hour refeeding scan when i have it.

I finally decided to stop reading about extended fasting and just do it. 72 hours starting tuesday. Fully terrified, very committed.

Before i start i wanted to document everything properly because going into something like this without baselines feels like a waste of a perfectly good experiment.

Here is what i tracked this morning:

inbody scale: body fat 24.1%, skeletal muscle mass 43.2kg, visceral fat level 4. The main thing i want to track is what actually gets lost during the fast and whether the muscle loss fear is as bad as people say or just gym bro mythology.

Fasting glucose: 84 mg/dL. Will be tracking this every 12 hours during the fast with my CGM.

Ketones: 0.2 mmol/L at baseline. Curious how fast these climb and at what hour i actually hit meaningful ketosis.

HRV: 62 on my garmin this morning. Tracking daily throughout.

Energy and mental clarity: scoring both on a simple scale every morning and evening. Fully aware this is subjective but i want something to compare against.

Will be stepping on the scale immediately after breaking the fast and then again at 72 hours post refeeding to see what actually came back and what stayed off.

Has anyone here done an extended fast with proper tracking before and after? Really want to know if the muscle loss numbers are as bad as the anecdotes suggest or whether the data tells a different story.

Will post the full results here when it is done.

I want to preface this by saying I'm not anti-medication and I'm not dismissing anyone's experience with antidepressants. They genuinely save lives and for a lot of people they're necessary. That's not what this is about.

What I keep coming back to is this: there's a growing body of research showing that for mild,to,moderate depression specifically, regular exercise, sleep regulation, dietary changes, and structured therapy produce outcomes that are comparable to SSRIs. Some studies put them neck and neck. A few even show lifestyle interventions pulling ahead in long-term follow-up.

Yet the default pathway in most healthcare systems is still: you show up, describe your symptoms, leave with a prescription. The lifestyle conversation, if it happens at all, is an afterthought.

And I get the practical reasons. A 15 minute GP appointment isn't enough time to redesign someone's habits. Medication is fast, scalable, and for a lot of patients it provides enough relief to function. The system isn't built for nuance.

But here's what bothers me. We've gradually shifted the framing of depression so far toward a chemical imbalance narrative, which the research has actually walked back considerably, that people come in already expecting a pill. They've been pre-sold the solution before the consultation even starts.

Meanwhile "have you tried exercising more" has become a meme. A punchline. Something you say to dismiss someone. Which means a genuinely effective intervention now carries a stigma because it sounds dismissive, even when it isn't.

I went through a period of pretty significant low mood a few years back. My doctor offered SSRIs almost immediately. I asked if we could try structured changes first, sleep schedule, cutting alcohol, daily walks, therapy. She was supportive but I could tell it wasn't the expected path. Six months later I was in a better place than I'd been in years. No medication. I'm not saying that's the answer for everyone. I'm saying I was almost nudged away from it before I even tried.

So the question I keep sitting with is: are we medicating a lifestyle problem at scale? And if even a portion of mild depression cases could be addressed through intervention rather than prescription, what does it say about a system that defaults the other way?

Not looking for a fight. Genuinely want to hear from people on both sides, those who found medication essential, those who went a different route, and anyone who's thought seriously about how we ended up here.

Japanese scientists created a synthetic analog of Vitamin K2, that in fact combines both K2 and Vitamin A, and it is showing promise for neurodegenerative diseases. They are currently exploring its usage for both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. This orally bioactive compound has been shown to restore damaged neuronal cells.

Spent 90 days testing supplements with actual before/after blood work instead of guessing.

Most supplements are placebo. These weren't:

**Tongkat Ali** — Increased total testosterone 287→420 ng/dL (documented via LabCorp)

**Magnesium Glycinate** — Cortisol dropped from 18.5→8.2 µg/dL (measured via saliva test)

**Bacopa Monnieri** — Memory tests improved 23% in 8 weeks (tracked via Dual N-Back app)

**Pine Bark Extract + L-Citrulline** — Improved blood flow visibly (pulse was steadier)

**Phosphatidylserine** — Sleep quality improved + morning cortisol normalized

**What didn't work:**

- Ashwagandha (no measurable change in stress markers)

- Most vitamin D supplements (needed higher doses than recommended)

- Generic "energy" blends (tested, no effect on glucose stability)

**The pattern:** Most supplements need 6-8 weeks to show up in blood work. Most people quit at 2 weeks.

If you're considering supplements, get baseline labs first. Then retest after 60-90 days. Otherwise you're just guessing.

Happy to answer questions about protocols or testing.

The supplement industry is massive and everyone seems to be taking something, especially lately, collagen, magnesium, vitamin D, the list never ends.

But I can't help feeling like most of what people buy in a tub or a pill, you could just get from eating actual whole foods. A balanced diet should technically cover most of it, right?

I get that there are cases where supplementing makes sense, but for the average person who eats reasonably well, is it actually necessary or are we just convinced we need it?

Would love to hear both sides, are you team supplements or team whole foods?

Hey.

i’ve being working out for 6 year. I started at home with light exercises, mostly in the morning before work.

I started go to the gym but as an autistic girl, I feel bad within the 6pm crow.

So I have to choose between 6am or 8:30pm / sleep at 10pm. In both cases, for som reasons, I can eat before but not after, €D restrictions...

In the morning I usually feel stiff and I have to rush before work but I eat the frog first, at night I have more time but I know it’s not the best for cortisol and all. My goals are just to stay lean but to gain strength over time

what the best/ less worst scenario ? thank you and thank to not judge my weird eating habits <3

Been seeing peptides everywhere lately and genuinely can't tell what's real. Every forum has people swearing by them but also a bunch of sketchy suppliers and zero regulation, so how do you even know what you're actually buying.

Like even if peptides work in theory, how do you know the thing you ordered isn't underdosed or just completely fake? Is there a way to actually vet a supplier or is it just vibes and reputation?

Not against trying something if there's a real case for it but this space feels like the wild west and I don't know who to trust. People who have actually tested this stuff, how did you figure out what was legit?

I've been doing this for a few months now mostly because I read somewhere that it helps with bloating and blood sugar and honestly I can't tell if I actually feel better or if i just think I do. Did anyone see results? Should I continue?

I've been thinking about trying journaling for my anxiety for a while now but i keep putting it off because I can't tell if it actually works or if it just feels like something that should work.

Sometimes the idea of writing everything out sounds relieving and other times it sounds like i'd just be staring at all my problems on paper for 20 minutes and feeling worse.

Please drop your honest experiences below because I need to know if it's actually worth committing to

Let’s be honest here, social media constantly pushes new wellness habits that are supposed to completely change your life, like obsessing over protein, walking 10k steps a day, cold plunges, supplements, etc… but some of them honestly just don’t work.

Curious what trendy habits people think are actually overrated or lowkey a scam.

Background

Work from home. About a month ago my tailbone just started hurting out of nowhere, no injury, nothing. Just woke up one day and it was there and wouldn't go away. Sitting hurt, standing up hurt, shifting around every five minutes trying to find a position that didn't suck.

What I tried first

Folded up a hoodie, sat on a regular cushion, ignored it and hoped it would pass. None of it did anything.

The experiment

Caved and ordered a coccyx cutout pillow. The ugly ones. Used it every single day for a week and tracked how things felt.

Results

Day 1, noticeable difference already. The cutout keeps your tailbone from making contact with anything so the pressure just disappears.
By the end of the week the pain was mostly gone.
Still using it now and haven't looked back.

Verdict

Didn't expect it to actually work but it did. Not a fun experiment to run involuntarily but if you're already dealing with random tailbone pain, this is the move.

I am not very curious about this, if you had experience please let me know. Upon my desire to get better in shape, not only exercising and clean diet, water in-take is also very very very much important. So I have not bought the BIIIIIIIG water jugs that has the timeline or time frame thing...But I guess that does kind of forces you to drink at a certain time? has anyone done it? FYI....I did order mine lol lets see how it goes.