What happens if you drink only water as a liquid for 30 days?

The first day

Lying down is the key to success

In 2021, Japanese biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi received the Nobel Prize in Medicine, having proven that the cells of the human body are able to cleanse themselves during short-term fasting

On my first morning at TrueNorth Wellness Center, the only water fasting clinic approved by the American medical community, Dr. Michael Kleiper came to visit me. Tall, slender, gray-haired: he is either 75 years old and incredibly well preserved, or 30 and has gone gray early. Or maybe the fact is that he is a virtuoso of water fasting? Be that as it may, in this clinic I only meet healthy, handsome doctors with perfect bodies and glowing skin: living proof that the water diet does work. So when Kleiper walks into my room smiling, I begin to believe that we can stop global warming, wars, aging and everything that once seemed like a necessary evil. I’ll return home as a babbling baby, and we’ll see if my wife wants to babysit me.

Water fasting is not a juice fast or a water fast with honey, lemon and red pepper; All detox diets require the consumption of calories, and no matter how healthy their effect may be, this cannot be called true fasting. Dr. Kleiper and his colleagues argue that their course is not just a radical remedy for weight loss and solving digestive problems, but a kind of panacea that will ultimately lead to the complete improvement of the human species. Without food, the body will begin to get rid of toxins, cleanse itself and recover. Opponents of this approach, like my wife, consider fasting to be a sophisticated form of masochism, turning a person into a wretched dystrophic person who begs for help in a tiny voice.

Dr. Kleiper explains the rules of conduct in the clinic. Firstly, you cannot leave the territory: you can get lost and starve somewhere. “You see, without food a person loses orientation in space. So it’s better to stay horizontal all week. There are a lot of great films in your room, watch something.” Secondly, no toothpaste, moisturizing lotions or creams. Thirdly, you can't shower. "Because you'll probably slip and hurt your head."

Dr. Kleiper checks my blood pressure: 125 over 80. “Okay for your age.” And I’m 50. He listens to my chest and declares that my heart is also in perfect order. Then he takes my blood. When the doctor leaves, I go out into the yard to sit in the sun, waiting for hunger to grab me by the throat. There are those who are undergoing a clinical course in healthy eating wandering around, but I recognize my fellow sufferers from afar. The water-starved people hold on to the walls of the clinic, with their eyes down on the floor, and very slowly climb the stairs.

There are no pools (though some call TrueNorth a next-generation spa), and the setting is more like a research facility. Every day in the assembly hall there are lectures on proper nutrition, seminars on diet planning, and the chambers are filled with DVDs with documentaries about healthy lifestyle. The local cinema is showing blockbusters from the world of detox. Today is the premiere of a creepy film called “The Pleasure Trap.” It's about why we eat, eat, and eat some more, and why it's harmful to health. Salt, sugar and fats, combined with chemical additives, make us as intoxicated as cocaine. As a result, the deranged brain releases deadly doses of dopamine into the body, to which we become accustomed. And then we demand it again and again, thereby killing ourselves. The end of the film.

That evening, I lock myself in my room, make a smoothie from distilled water, and turn on a cooking show. Corn dogs, muffins, caramelized pecans, molecular tangerine. How much I love to overeat! I fly to Spain specifically to eat churros, paella and Agua de Valencia. But it’s better to put all this out of your head at least for a while. And if possible - for the whole week.

You will get rid of fat

Drinking water regularly for 30 days will give your body the opportunity to deal with toxins and waste. As a result, your body will become cleaner and belly fat will disappear. Water also reduces appetite and hunger, so over time your portions will naturally decrease, and the weight loss will be dealt from that side as well. Doctors advise drinking 1-2 glasses of water before meals to train yourself to eat less.

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Second day

What would Gandhi do in my place?

When I called the clinic to make an appointment, one of the nurses warned me about the difficulties of water fasting. Like, this is an intense experience full of negative emotions, but if you manage to overcome everything, you will be grateful.

On the second day I wake up at four in the morning in a bad mood. I get out of bed, go to the toilet, lie down again, look out the window, turn on the TV, but I feel bad. It's dark and cold outside.

When there is no need to digest food, the body produces a lot of energy that has nowhere to go.

I try to do push-ups, but I hit my chin on the floor after the first attempt. After drinking a glass of water, I go to weigh myself. Since yesterday, three kilograms have disappeared somewhere. And then I feel: something happened to the air.

Guests of the clinic are asked not to wear cosmetics - fasting people quickly develop a heightened sense of smell. In the morning this is too obvious to me: I can smell the smells a kilometer away, like vampires - blood. Someone at the end of the street is whisking eggs to make an omelet, adding cream and herbs. The oil sizzles in the pan, and when the eggs are poured into it, the smell floats down the street and into my window. Gandhi said: “Chew your water thoroughly.” I think about this when I'm trying to curb my hunger. Water pours past the mouth. I never thought that the thought of sun-dried tomatoes and cheese sticks would give me an erection.

We meet Dr. Kleiper at lunch. On his plate is a giant piece of red fish. There is a glass of water on mine. According to Kleiper, many of the most common diseases—diabetes, hypertension, some heart disease, asthma, arthritis, autoimmune diseases—are the result of overnutrition, not undernutrition. “They used to be called diseases of kings because only the rich could afford fatty foods,” says the doctor, cutting into a velvety matte trout. – The peasants did not have diabetes. Of course, this was before the era of cheap sausages, canned corn and so on. Toxins contained in chemical additives poison the liver and kidneys.”

But how can you do without nutrients completely? Some doctors argue that fasting is a counterproductive way of detoxifying, robbing the body of the substances it needs to effectively cleanse itself. However, the human body is well prepared to consume small amounts of nutrients. “Our bodies are fat stores,” Kleiper says and slaps his butt, “located in the butt and belly areas. This was done in case one day food disappears from our lives.”

But relying only on internal fat reserves has its drawbacks, of course. Namely (as of the second day of the hunger strike): dizziness, an oppressive feeling of the emptiness of life, which cannot be filled with a glass of water. But my enthusiasm hasn’t waned yet - I can already imagine how I’ll pounce on cheesecake in five days. I don't have diabetes, I don't fast to lose weight. I was an athlete in school and now that I'm 50, everything hurts. Damaged knee, neck problems, numb toes. In principle, I wouldn’t mind losing a couple of kilograms, but I’m starving to get rid of chronic pain.

One morning in 2011, I woke up with stabbing pain in my forearms; there was a feeling that they were being burned with fire. At the hospital they gave me morphine, but one injection did not bring the slightest relief. After the second and third injections I moaned a little less. In the end, the pain subsided only after taking hydromorphone (it is ten times more powerful than morphine). Then there were other doctors and other hospitals, where I was eventually diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease in which the nerves that give strength to the arms begin to dry out. There is no cure, just a bunch of pills to quell the pain. My life turned into hell: monstrous doses of steroids, anticonvulsants for neuropathic pain, and a lot of beer, ice cream and chocolate to somehow brighten up a dull existence.

How to get out of fasting?

The exit from fasting should be gradual. It's best to start with liquid or soft raw foods , such as fresh juices. It's good if it's food that doesn't have a strong taste, like pomegranate or grapefruit.

In the initial periods of withdrawal, the body begins to reactivate the digestive mechanisms, and therefore if one immediately attacks the “heavy artillery” in the form of rich borscht or shish kebab, then there will only be harm to the body.

As a rule, returning to a normal diet should last as long as the period of life without food. Therefore, if a person fasted for a week, then the transition to a regular diet will also last about a week. The first 1-2 days will be spent drinking freshly squeezed juices.

The next few days will consist of a diet of raw cabbage and carrot salad, because these foods do not have a strong taste that can have a shocking effect on the body.

Then you can slowly introduce a few more foods into your diet, for example:

1. boiled beets,
2. baked pumpkin
3. simple bread.

There are several options for breaking fasting, which can be found in the works:

• Bragg fields,
• Gennady Malakhov,
• Yuri Nikolaev
• Goltis.

It is worth familiarizing yourself with the theory in more detail before you start refusing food for several days. Then you will know exactly what to do in various unforeseen circumstances.

Day three

Bed, toilet, melancholy

Bli-i-i-in... Life without food is Egyptian darkness, headaches and endless bursts of energy. I can't sleep, I can't read. My wife calls and asks how life is in the pioneer camp for starving people, whether I died or not. I'm alive, but I spend my days like in a mental hospital. I constantly go small: even if the diet does not lead to anything, Kegel exercises will not be in vain. I didn't plan to lie in bed so much; if you can't sleep or have sex in it, it turns into a slightly softer variety of sex. You lie in the middle of the room and wonder when the nurse will come and find my shrunken corpse here.

Your heart will be stronger

Drinking the right amount of water eliminates the risk of a heart attack because it thins the blood and lowers blood pressure. One glass of water an hour before bedtime is an excellent prevention of heart attack. This will help the heart deliver oxygenated blood to the organs. According to scientific research, people who drink more than five glasses of water a day have a 41% lower risk of dying from a heart attack compared to those who drink less than two glasses of water.

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Day five

Salt desert

I lost five and a half kilograms. Doctors say that it is mostly the water that has gone away. Why the hell do we carry so much water with us? Hearing my question, Dr. Kleiper rejoices at the chance to give his signature lecture, “Salt: The Protagonist of the Food Apocalypse.” “When we consume too much of it,” the doctor begins, “we drink more water. Due to excess fluid, the epithelial tissue of the walls of blood vessels swells, reducing the clearance between them, and this leads to an increase in blood pressure.” I haven’t yet told him about my wife: she always carries a bag of sea salt with her, which she sprinkles on all our food, even caramel ice cream.

You will become more creative and think better

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A Human Neuroscience Journal study shows that if you drink only water for 30 days, your brain will begin to respond to external stimuli faster, you will become smarter and faster. Why? To work effectively, it needs a lot of oxygen, and water in this sense is an ideal “supplier”. Scientists even give specific numbers - 8-10 glasses of water a day will improve cognitive function by 30%!

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Day six

Almost died of hunger, but then rose up

On the last day of the hunger strike, I slept for the first time - I got out of bed at five in the morning - but I felt great. Kleiper told me that at least once in your life you need to undergo a water fast. “At least for 21 days, and even better – for 30.” Now I'm starting to understand what's going on. When the hunger went away and the weakness went away, I felt my body change. I lost seven kilograms, my knee and nerves stopped hurting. My fingers curl, there are no pimples on my face, and my eyes sparkle like they've been photoshopped. Kleiper comes into the room again to discuss my nutrition plan after discharge.

The effect of the water six-day is easy to kill with one cheeseburger.

The next morning I have to make myself a watermelon-celery smoothie and have a couple of grapes and a slice of melon for lunch. Then we discuss how I will eat at home and - ideally - for the rest of my life. Starvation torture should not have turned me into a fashion model. Its main task is to prepare my body for a plant-based diet. No more processed food or animal meat (even if they grew up in my backyard). Having rebooted my body, I must try not to mess it up over the next week. Most people would rather die than eat healthy.

Consequences

Each type of food refusal has a positive effect on dopamine, the pleasure hormone. As a result, after properly exiting fasting, you can begin to enjoy food more.

Depending on the number of days spent without food, several effects can be distinguished:

• If you don’t eat anything during the day and drink only plain clean water, then the process of autophagy starts in the body: the body begins to “eat itself”, processing dead cells. Also, a one-day refusal from the usual diet creates a little stress for the body, which has a positive effect on the immune system.
• If you don’t touch food for two or three days, the body receives an even bigger shake-up for the immune system, the activity of phagocytes in the fight against pathogenic bacteria increases, excess sodium is eliminated and swelling decreases.
• If you don’t eat anything for a week and drink only water, then significant acidification of the body (“acidosis”) occurs, and the body switches even more to endogenous (“internal”) nutrition. In this regard, you may experience intoxication, nausea, weakness and dizziness.
• If you don’t eat anything for a month and continue to drink only water without any impurities (tea, coffee, juices, etc.), then after about a week an “acidotic crisis” may occur. It is characterized by an improvement in well-being, the appearance of vigor, and the disappearance of negative symptoms from the previous stage. It is worth noting that it is sometimes possible to alternate between a normal, cheerful state and a feeling of weakness and nausea.

Characteristic signs of exiting the fasting regime: the complete disappearance of plaque from the tongue and the appearance of a “wolfish” appetite, which cannot be compared with the usual desire to eat.

Day seven

Life after discharge

Back in the world of hot dogs, eight pounds lighter, I drink a smoothie for an hour. Feeling something other than water in my mouth, I feel like my mind is going crazy. Calories pierce the body like lightning. It takes a couple of days before I start to feel really hungry. Upon meeting me, Kleiper takes my blood pressure. The previous indicators of 125 over 80 changed to 95 over 69. “These are the indicators of a teenager,” the doctor comments.

At home, I incredulously pick at the scrambled eggs that my wife cooked. I had a hard time convincing her not to pour maple syrup on her eggs. I now look at salt as a terrible poison. The butter seems too oily and the chocolate, even the licorice, had to be thrown in the trash. Why did I eat all this? It's all because of cooking shows and toothpaste commercials: they always show how teeth shine after coffee, wine and cakes, and I get an appetite. In the office I fly up the stairs and don’t stop to breathe on the stairs. Soon I start eating solid foods again and the arthritis does not return. But now I think about him even more often. It’s hard for me to believe that the pain has really subsided and I can calmly join my wife in Zumba.

What if fasting simply scared the body and only temporarily made it forget about the pain?

The week following my return, everyone in the office went crazy. I don’t understand how, in a team of 14 people, four could be born one after another. Chocolate cakes, sushi, burgers, wine and cupcakes are constantly flashing on the tables. But now, before I eat anything, I began to think about the consequences for the body. Will it benefit him or not? Buy crumbly cottage cheese to make your bones stronger and your muscles more elastic? Or banana pudding to keep you shaking like you're on ecstasy for an hour?

There is a deep chasm between the real world—at least the one I live in—and the world of the Spartan plant-based diet. If I rented an apartment alone, went grocery shopping, cooked only for myself... In short, if I had no personal life, I would get hooked on the diet prepared at the clinic without hesitation. I agree, this looks like an excuse and an attempt to denigrate my sweet-toothed wife and drunkard friends.

Yes, that's probably true.

The material was first published on the website in June 2018.

Brief Introduction

Fluid is necessary for our body. It is a fact. With normal hydration, blood flow and digestion are normalized, tissues receive the necessary nutrients in a timely manner and in sufficient quantities, the risk of stones in the kidneys and gall bladder is significantly reduced, and the condition of the skin improves.

We all understand that water is good for us. But often we drink something else instead: coffee, soda, juices. It tastes better! During her experiment, Ileana gave up all other liquids in her diet for a week in favor of pure water, which she decided to drink 2 liters per day. Find out what happened.

Significantly accelerated metabolism

Numerous studies confirm that regular daily consumption of sufficient amounts of water stimulates the body's metabolic processes. Drinking a glass of water immediately after waking up can increase your metabolic rate by 24%.

Water has a wonderful effect on the human body. It improves immunity, increases mental performance, and also allows a person to remain young, active and healthy for a long time. In just a month of regularly drinking enough water every day, you can achieve amazing results without changing your diet or doing additional exercise.

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Rules for a strict water diet

When considering losing weight on the water, you should not make hard starts. First, try to remove harmful foods from your usual diet, gradually switching to a fruit and vegetable menu. The best time to carry out a water diet is summer vacation or weekends.

Since due to the increased amount of daily fluid volume, a person will run to the potty more often. And the volume of water consumed these days for an adult can be from two to three liters. At the same time, it is advisable to drink it in small portions, through a straw and preferably warm.

You should exit the fast diet carefully. To do this, you need to gradually introduce light foods like:

• Vegetable decoctions;
• Low-fat kefir;
• Baked apples;
• Herbal teas;
• Mashed potatoes;
• Soaked prunes;
• Steamed chicken cutlets.

If this diet seems overwhelming to you, then try the water diet for the lazy. You can find out how it is done in the following video.