100-Hour Fast: What Happens To Your Body?! (4 Day Timeline)

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]So, what happens in your body if you don't eat food for 100 hours? Well, 100 hours is basically 4 days and 4 hours.

[00:00:06]And in today's video, I'm going to go through the timeline and break down exactly what's happening at each critical time period. I know this sounds crazy to go 100 hours without food, but we actually have tons of stored body fat that we can use for energy, including visceral fat that's around our organs.

[00:00:25]That's literally there for the only The only purpose we that we have visceral fat is dangerous visceral fat that releases inflammatory compounds is is just in case we end up in a period of famine, which was actually quite common for our ancient ancestors. They would have encountered times fairly regularly where they would go 100 hours or sometimes more with little to no food.

[00:00:48]So, our body's actually built to handle this. Now, let's talk about what's happening here hour by hour. And then at the end of this video, I'm going to answer the most frequently asked questions I get on how to fast, what do you consume before you fast, what can you consume while you're fasting, all those questions that you're probably already thinking. But let's start. Hours 1 to 12. Not a whole lot is going on other than you're completing your digestion of the meal you had. And you're also doing a full liver detox cycle. I I say this is like the minimal amount of fasting that you should be doing each day, okay? Meaning that if you finish dinner by 6:00 or 7:00 p.m., you should always every day fast until 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. the next day. The only exceptions would be infants, babies, pregnant women. Other than that, really we should all be doing about a 12-hour overnight fast so we can get that full liver detox cycle. Now, between hours 12 to 14 while we're fasting, this is when insulin starts to drop. And insulin is your fat storage hormone.

[00:01:53]Once insulin starts to drop and gets below a certain threshold, the body starts burning up glycogen, which is basically your stored sugar in your muscles.

[00:02:04]And you also store that in your liver.

[00:02:06]And that will also result, as you're burning glycogen, it's going to result in a loss of water that's stored with the glycogen. So, as you start to burn off this stored sugar, you also lose water. So, you actually wake up and you actually feel like you're a little bit lighter, and you are. That's cuz your body got rid of some of that water and glycogen. You really haven't dove into deep fat burning yet. But now we get into hours 14 to 16. This is when insulin continues to drop, and the body starts burning stored body fat for fuel, including visceral fat that's around our organs.

[00:02:38]During that process of burning fat, the body begins to make ketones, which are water-soluble molecules that can cross the blood-brain barrier. You see, most of the Most of the cells in our body can run off of fatty acids, but we can't get fatty acids across the the blood-brain barrier. That's why the liver will make ketones, which cross the blood-brain barrier, and they have really profound benefits for brain health. Now, hours 16 to 18 in the fast.

[00:03:08]At this point, you start feeling more mentally alert. As those ketone levels rise, they cross the blood-brain barrier. That's where they reduce brain inflammation, and they also stimulate something called BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which strengthens neuronal connections. They also have an increase in energy, and that's due to counterregulatory hormones being elevated. These hormones are the opposite of insulin. Remember, insulin puts sugar into the cells, so it lowers our blood sugar, stops fat burning. The counterregulatory hormones, they actually increase blood sugar, right?

[00:03:45]And on top of that, they also increase fat burning. That's things like cortisol, adrenaline, glucagon, and human growth hormone. They all start to rise, and you feel energetic and mentally alert. Now, hours 18 to 20. You begin ramping up something called autophagy, which means self-eating. So, the body actually starts breaking down old, damaged proteins. That's going to include things like senescent cells. We call these zombie cells, damaged mitochondria, and your body's going to break down visceral fat, that inflammatory fat that's around your organs. Now, autophagy is going to reach the peak between hours 48, so roughly 2 days in, to 96 hours. But you start getting some some pretty good amount of autophagy around that 18 to 20-hour range.

[00:04:37]And then it just continues to go up and up and peak between 48 and 96 hours. Now, I talked about zombie cells. It's really important we get rid of these because these are these damaged cells that release inflammatory proteins that poison the cells around them. We need to get rid of them in order to age successfully. The more zombie cells we we have built up in our system, the faster we age. It accelerates the aging process of all of our organ systems in our body.

[00:05:07]Now, how do we get rid of them?

[00:05:08]Autophagy. That is the answer to get rid of these zombie cells, and that's what happens when we're undergoing this sort of fast. So, at the 20 to 24-hour mark, that's when we know we start getting healing of the intestinal lining. So, our intestinal cells turn over quickly.

[00:05:22]Every 3 to 5 days, we have an entirely new intestinal lining.

[00:05:27]And studies have found that stem cell activation. So, stem cells are these young uh stress-resilient cells that uh that are really high-functioning. And we want good stem cell activation. Well, studies have found that stem cell activation occurs around the 20 to 24-hour mark of the fast. So, really powerful.

[00:05:48]And there's a study, it's fasting activates fatty acid oxidation to enhance intestinal stem cell function during homeostasis and aging, that was done where they actually showed this stem cell formation in the intestines.

[00:06:02]Now, let's continue. 24 to 36 to 48 hours.

[00:06:06]Here you get deeper fat burning. So, as you go beyond one full day, you're getting deeper fat burning. In particular, you start to run primarily on your own visceral fat. So, like I talked about that fat that surrounds your liver, your pancreas, your heart.

[00:06:24]This is great fuel for your body. That's unnecessary fat. The only use for that fat is to have it as a reserve for times of famine, like when you're fasting. So, you're burning through that visceral fat, reducing inflammation in your body.

[00:06:38]Now, at 48 hours, roughly 2 days in, you get a full dopamine reset. Well, what is dopamine? Dopamine is a feel-good neurotransmitter. It's a reward neurotransmitter. It's what makes us feel good. When you go and you eat chocolate or candy or, you know, sugar, anything anything with sugar, or anything that really tastes good, you get a dopamine boost. When you accomplish a goal, you get a dopamine boost. Okay, dopamine is a great neurotransmitter, but oftentimes when we're eating all the time throughout the day, we actually do we actually develop dopamine resistance. So, we actually wear down our dopamine receptors. When we go 48 hours without food, because food is such a big stimulus going 48 hours without food actually resets our dopamine receptors, and we get better sensitivity. So, only a small amount of flavor now in the food that we consume will stimulate the feel-good dopamine receptors. That will reduce cravings, and will reduce the need for highly palatable processed foods, and we'll start to really enjoy natural foods at even higher level.

[00:07:45]72 hours into the fast. This is where we get immune system regeneration.

[00:07:51]You see, damaged immune cells, right?

[00:07:53]Senescent immune cells, they're they're a marked risk factor for chronic inflammatory condition. They're called immunosenescence, right? When we get a build-up of these damaged immune cells, and again, big risk factor. The more immunosenescence we have, the higher the rate of chronic inflammatory conditions, autoimmune disease, and cancer. So, we get this full immune system reset at 3 days. Now, what happens at 4 days? If we keep that fast going, we get a surge in stem cells throughout the body. In particular, the slower healing areas, like your joints, you get improved collagen production, improved muscle and joint function, improved organ system function. In fact, a lot of people start noticing random pain in their joints at roughly 4 to 5 days into this fast. That is the autophagy, so the breakdown of the old, damaged scar tissue that's in there, and then the regeneration of stem cells that are actually healing [snorts] that region. Now, remember I talked about 20 to 24-hour fast, how that helps stimulate the stem cells in your gut?

[00:08:57]That's because your gut, your intestinal cells, are they're fast-replicating cells. They turn over, you know, every 3 to 5 days, whereas your cartilage tissue is very slow-replicating. And that's why it takes literally 4 days before we start regenerating stem cells in the cartilage tissue. So, we need to get a longer fast for regenerating stem cells in the cartilage, you know, into our joints, things like that. But it's pretty amazing what happens when we do that.

[00:09:28]So, hopefully you guys are motivated to get started on a fast like this. It can be literally life-changing. Now, I get some of the most frequently asked questions, and I'm going to go through that in in in just a second.

[00:09:39]But I want you to know, fasting is not something you need to be afraid of. All of our ancestors did it. They didn't have refrigerators, they didn't have pantries. They were dependent upon a good hunt or a good harvest. And they couldn't predict that. And there were definitely times where they didn't have a successful hunt, they didn't have a successful harvest, and they would have to go days with little sometimes they would have some food, but just a little bit, and often times they would have no food, and they would undergo this regularly, and it was kind of a seasonal cleansing that their body would undergo.

[00:10:07]In today's society, we have to be intentional about it. We have to actually think about it cuz we have food. Food is so prevalent. It's so available, which is a beautiful thing, but we have to be intentional about doing stuff that our ancestors just did based on, you know, their their geography and the times that they were living in. Now, let's talk about some of the most common questions I get. Number one is, "What can I drink while I'm fasting?" Right? That's a common question. And so, what can you drink?

[00:10:34]Well, you can drink herbal tea, you can drink water, you can even take like some salts and put it in your water or um you know, unflavored electrolytes, right? If you're doing anything with flavoring, it could boost dopamine and also boost insulin levels, and you may not get the same benefits from the fast. It also may make fasting harder. If insulin rises because you consume something with stevia in it, uh that could drive your blood sugar down, which could cause more of a stress response in your body and cause more cravings and make fasting harder. So, I recommend drinking water. You can put some salts in your water for electrolytes. You can do like a unsweetened magnesium or unsweetened electrolytes if you want. You can do lemon water or apple cider vinegar water. Those do not break your fast.

[00:11:22]They actually help improve the fasting uh experience. You can do herbal teas.

[00:11:27]And and you could also do black coffee as long as it doesn't increase cravings.

[00:11:32]Doing a little bit of black coffee can be totally fine, but if you notice an increase in cravings when you do that, then you should avoid the coffee. But other than that, it should be totally fine. Doesn't break a fast. What supplements or medications should you take? Really, you don't need to take any supplements or medications. Now, depending on what health condition you have, you should always talk to your doctor about coming off of medications, all right? So, if you're on high blood pressure medications, your blood pressure will drop as you undergo this fast. You should talk to your doctor about how to modify these medications.

[00:12:06]If you're on blood sugar medications, like if you're diabetic, you should absolutely have a conversation with your doctor about it cuz your blood sugar will drop as you undergo this fast. It's important to modulate and and and make modifications to those medications if you're doing that. If you have any health condition, you should obviously be talking with your practitioner about it um and about what supplements or medications are necessary. In general, you don't need to take any supplements.

[00:12:30]What could be beneficial maybe a binder, like uh zeolite or fulvic humic acids.

[00:12:35]Those can be really helpful. Charcoal.

[00:12:37]That can be helpful for grabbing toxins that are being released. So, taking a binder, magnesium can be helpful especially for keeping your bowels moving well. Electrolytes in general can be really really helpful.

[00:12:49]Adaptogenic herbs, things like ashwagandha, um tulsi or holy basil, things like reishi, cordyceps. Those can all be very helpful as well. You can take adaptogens, which you might just notice that your brain feels better, that it's easier to fast when you're doing it. So, those could be beneficial, but don't take any medications that are nutrients.

[00:13:10]Like don't take zinc, don't take vitamin D, you don't need digestive enzymes, you don't need probiotics, you don't need B vitamins, right? Or anything like that.

[00:13:20]That will actually impact negatively impact what you're trying to accomplish on the fast. So, I wouldn't recommend doing that. Now, what should I eat before I begin this fast? This is actually really important. You want to make sure you're consuming a blood sugar stabilizing uh diet, right? And in general, blood sugar stabilizing meals a few days before you fast. So, prioritize getting a lot of protein, let's say 30 to 50 g or more of protein, lots of healthy fats from things like extra virgin olive oil, avocados, making sure we're getting a lot of good healthy fats, proteins, colorful fruits and vegetables, so we get stable blood sugar before we head into a fast. If you eat like a big bowl of ice cream or, you know, a bag of chips before you fast, it is going to be really hard to fast because basically your blood sugar's all over the place, your insulin's all over the place. It's going to be hard for your body to get into fat burning mode, and therefore you're going to be in this kind of metabolic prison, right? Where you're not you don't have enough sugar on board cuz you're not eating to to to provide enough fuel, but you're also not able to tap into fat burning because you have high insulin because you ate this highly insulinogenic, highly processed meal before you started fasting. So, eat some blood sugar stabilizing meals before you begin fasting. Now, what do you eat when you finish the fast? This is probably just as important as what you eat before you do it.

[00:14:43]After about 2 days of fasting, 48 hours, your digestive system stop basically shuts down. It stops producing digestive juices. So, you want to wake it up carefully. And so, I recommend consuming things like bone broth or a protein shake or vegetable juice when you first break the fast. Don't break the fast with a big steak. Wait a day or so, and just consume protein shakes, consume steamed vegetables.

[00:15:10]Um you can consume again, I said protein shakes. I uh you can consume bone broth is a a really good one. Or really well-cooked soup can be really helpful as well. You want things that are really easy to digest. Vegetables and meat that's really broken down well. Consume that. Protein shakes, of course. So, you can slowly wake up your digestive system, and that will really help with having any unwanted symptoms after the fast. So, again, hopefully this has been really helpful for you guys. It's amazing what can happen in your body when you do an extended fast like this, and hopefully you're inspired to consider doing something along these lines. It could be absolutely life-changing. And if you know anybody that you care about that's that's thinking about doing something like this, share this video with them. Of course, check out drjockers.com where we have the best articles and infographics on every major health topic. So, be sure to check that out. Subscribe to our YouTube channel or our podcast, wherever you're listening to this, and be sure to share it with somebody you know and you care about. We'll see you in a future video training. Be blessed.