Simple Self Experimentation

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How are you doing? Did you break the fast?
I decided to go for a couple days starting Sunday. I have been eating so badly the last couple weeks that I feel like I could really use some resetting and being not fixated on food for a couple days. Hope you are doing well!
 
Hey Bianca.

Yeah I broke the fast with vegetable juice. Have had some watermelon and a couple of soups since but just taking it really easy. Will try my hand at some solid vegetables tonight and then I have a bunch of seafood for tomorrow to slowly bring the protein back in. Sunday will shock the system a bit but I think I'll be ready for it. No hassles so far.

I see you had a rough day today. Hope you're being gentle with yourself! I have 2 little psychological tricks you might be interested in:

1. If I'm feeling grumpy/angry/anything negative that might ordinarily make me seek solace in food, I really exaggerate it, tell myself I'm not grumpy enough and my problems are the worst in the entire world. That quickly makes them seem ridiculous, makes me smile and simmers me down.

2. When hunger comes up, rather than satisfy it straight away, I like to just feel what exactly the sensation is that I call hunger and become comfortable with it. If that feeling were there all day, would it really bother me? What's so bad about it? How hungry can I get - let's make it as extreme as possible and see if it actually feels that bad. I got to test this a lot early on the fast recently but after the first maybe 3-4 days, it just stopped having any power.

Anyway little bit of food for thought. Good luck with whatever path you choose!
 
Hi Holloway,

your two tricks are great! I will use them. About to start a 7 day water fast. I have to do it. My eating has been so out of control and bad and I had my last meal today around 2pm. 4 hours later, I start to be hungry again and planing a water fast when not hungry is easy but I need to get through the first 3-4 days. Omg, but I have done 6 days before, so I can do it again.
Did you do any exercise?

How are you doing now?

Wish you best luck for tomorrow.


Bianca
 
I've got a big lunch today (we're in very different time zones) but this morning weighed in at 82.7kg, which is only 0.6 up from the end of the fast, not as big a bounce as I expected from refeeding. I'm expecting a spike after today but then my diet will be fine again. To avoid freaking myself out, I won't weigh myself tomorrow - will do the final check in about a week and hopefully have kept almost all of the weight off.

Re exercise: I did my usual golf and beach walking/running thing. Nothing really changed in that regard. Although it is only moderate intensity at best. And even then a couple of days I took off when I wasn't sure about a heavy heart beat and later twitchy calves that might have developed into cramps.

If you're going longer than 3 days, take some electrolytes. Something with at least sodium and potassium in it, magnesium would be a bonus too if you ever get cramps. I aimed for about 1.5g of sodium and 0.5g of potassium per day. But your body is the best guide for that. Unusually fast heart beat or dizziness that doesn't go away quickly means take more. If you feel a cramp developing and aren't taking magnesium, I found epsom salts the best. I don't have a bath - just filled up my bin and put my legs in.

In my case, I think my body switched into ketosis fairly quickly and could have stayed there for another week or so because I had a lot of fat to lose. Just visually - most of the weight lost was around my belly, a little in the face but most of the rest looks basically the same. If I had muscle loss, I haven't noticed it on the golf course and can't see it visually.

In your case, I assume you have a LOT less belly fat to lose. So an extended fast like mine might be risky because your body would likely switch energy sources at some point, and burning muscle isn't good for anyone. 7 days should be fine but you probably have to be a bit more careful than me and be willing to pull out early if your body says so.

That said, enjoy it! It's just a fun little experiment with your body after all. Those 2 psychological tricks above helped me be a bit more light hearted about the whole thing and treat it more as a game than something really serious/important.
 
Hi Holloway,

How did your brunch go? I hope you enjoyed it. I would not weight myself the next day- as you said!
I will start tomorrow/today as my boyfriend asked me to start during the work week so that we can have lunch together on the weekend (today). After about 24hours of not eating I agreed way too fast. But I went running for 1.5hours today to burn it off and I will fast tomorrow and aim for the entire week stopping on Saturday or Sunday.
It should be okay. I want to loose about 4 pounds until we fly to hawaii on Tuesday next week so that I feel comfortable wearing a bikini.
I know it won't be easy and I already had my up and downs in this 24hour period.
I have to work tomorrow and I will not take any creditcards or cash with me, so that at any point I get the urge to break the fast, I simply can't.
The 'hunger' i felt today was not that bad, it was as you said- manageable- and most of the fasting obstacles come from the mind.

I try to walk at least 10 000 steps and if I feel like more, I will do it. I know it gets me into ketosis faster and I will feel better soon. I read the book from Herbert Shelton about fasting and it is so wonderful as it is really detailed and it helped so many people with beating their diseases. So, not only from the weight loss perspective- I really want to get the health benefits that come with fasting. I suffer from gastritis since years and it is pretty bad when my eating is bad. I am on medication since a long time and if I forget once, I can feel it. I know that letting my stomach rest a few days will be a really good thing to do.

Also, seeing it as an experiment is the best. For my last 6 day fast, I used to measure my blood ketones and glucose level every day and I could see that I went into ketosis on day 4. It was going very quickly once I get traces of ketones in my blood. This day was the worst, but after that it was a lot better. I assume that it happened on day 4 because I was eating very badly before the fast and that did cost me for sure one day. This is not the case now. So, I assume if I do some workout, I might be in ketosis on Tuesday or latest Wednesday. I am a bit excited :)
 
Oh so you really know what you are doing! I was just making it up on the fly and only tracking the scale.

You'll lose more than 4 pounds for sure.

Lunch was good - I couldn't eat as much as usual and felt really tired after. But I got to chat a bit about the fast with people I know for the first time so that was interesting. Most people seem to think it would be much harder than it actually is. And a couple I saw a few weeks ago were shocked about how different I looked.

Good luck with it! Don't resist the hunger too much, you're going to be exposed to food anyway, if anything encourage it and feel it out. I'm sure it will help not just with the fast but going forward as well. It's really not such a bad feeling on its own. Constantly trying to push it away gives it most of its strength.
 
Final update 1 week on: 85.0kg

I've eaten pretty badly since Sunday but the bounce of 3kg is about what was expected. Settled around 5kg lower than I started.

I think it's a strategy I'll use again next year, possibly for longer. After refeeding, everything except my waist looks basically the same so I think it's targeting a handy area for long term health. I haven't noticed any muscle loss either visually or experientially, although I didn't track it.

Tentative conclusions from the 2 experiments:

1. Counting calories is pointless and achieves nothing. What makes up the calories is what matters.
2. Water fasting is an effective method for weight loss.
 
thanks for the documentation on your fasting experiment. it gave me something to compare with since we are the same height (i just recently discovered that i've shrank nearly an inch over the years now being 65 years old) and fighting a weight gain in about the same range.

i am currently on a daily intermittent fast, usually in the 4/20 to 6/18 range. the best i can figure my loss from 90kg to 85kg took 34 days and i am currently just under that. over the past few weeks i have noticed a slight slowdown in weight loss, but just within the past two or three days i have upped my morning exercise, walking more and joining the Y yesterday (after walking the ~mile there.) i have a good feeling about this to regain a faster pace.

i was impressed at your being able to keep ice cream on hand. recently i have had some snacks available but i have to believe that fasting, even for the short spells i do, has really altered my "hunger" feelings and i pretty much ignore them even though i know they are too handy at times. if/ when i do feel hungry it is oddly about 3-4 hours after i have stopped eating and generally goes away to the point that the following morning i never feel hungry often having to remind myself to start eating around 11-noon. usually a simple glass of water is enough for any hunger pang to subside. if it wasn't for meds that i need to take with food, i have often felt like going 24+ hours to see what it would be like.

i hope you can find a sustaining diet. frankly i'd be a little pissed at a 7lb (sometimes imperial measurements are psychologically more effective than metric :)) "rebound". my current mini-goal is 183lbs (83kg) and i'm hoping to hit that around Christmas... if i can just ho-ho-hold the eggnog!

i will totally concur that fasting is effective in weight loss, though it is sad that so much misinformation has been spread about it. almost everyone i talk with is convinced that fasting will severely decrease muscle mass. frankly from being on my intermittent fasting schedule for over 3 months now, i'm even more convinced that THIS is normal and people in general just eat so much more daily than is necessary. when i get to where i want to stay at for a sustainable weight i will likely expand my eating window to perhaps 8/16 with an additional meal, but except for the rare occasion, i doubt if i will ever eat as much as i used to. of course i'm retired and not in landscaping, construction or have a similar physical occupation.
 
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The 7lb rebound is apparently just the inevitable rebuilding of the glucose wall and water weight going back on. Knowing that going in helped, otherwise it would have annoyed me. I lost so much at the start of the fast it was always unrealistic to expect it to stay off.

I could try what you're doing now. I basically only eat in about a 6 hour window naturally anyway so it should be easy enough to self-enforce. Unfortunately it tends to be at night which I don't think helps but one step at a time!

It's good we're in roughly the same spot height and weight wise, albeit with a generation between us. What works for one of us will probably work for the other and vice versa. If you need to take meds with food - I wonder if there are some fasting alternatives you could try like a soup or juice fast or even the fast mimicking diet which all involve some food but very little?

My experiment was very unscientific and muscle loss wasn't tracked but I'd be surprised if I experienced much if at all. I'm 5kg (11lbs) down, all my golf shots go exactly the same distance as before and I can't see or feel any difference in strength.

During the next month I'll put weight on guaranteed. That's just the nature of the holidays with family/friends for me. I'm happy to plan for that and enjoy it rather than try to cut down during that period. But it's good to know I have a few tools at my disposal to lose it quickly again next year. 85kg feels too big still - I'm eyeing off 75 (165lbs) as the goal for next year. I think that's about ideal for me. Another decent water fast and a regular restricted eating window might just be the trick - we'll see!

Good luck with it - you've earned some eggnog!
 
from what i've gathered the most popular intermittent fast is in the 8/16 hour range. i can see how this could work well for the 9-5 working crowd. start your eating day at noon with your "breakfast" while everyone else is having their second fill=up of the day, aka lunch. then have your last meal of the day as dinner. you can massage the 8/16 by varying the stop time. eat an early dinner and you can fall back to a more effective 6/18 schedule. the most important thing and the hardest for me was to not snack in the evening after your dinner time ends. now i tend to not even think about it, but at first it was constantly on my mind at night. not that i was even very hungry, it was just something i was so used to doing.

one problem i have been seeing within the past month... i don't think my old skin is keeping up fast enough. if i twist my arm a bit i see an amount of wrinkling i'm sure wasn't there this past summer. i can also easily bunch up the skin on my legs. i'm sure it will eventually get better. i'm certain i have heard that old skin loses some if its elasticity. i'm also approaching a weight i probably haven't seen in about 25 years. have to admit though, as far as problems this is way down the list of my concerns.

your final goal sounds good. i have found that giving myself mini-goals is very effective. i just thought today that where i am now would have likely seemed impossible just 6 months ago, but smaller steps are goals that i can knock off in less than a month. not making them too tough is even more encouraging. so far i have been meeting all of them and exceeding most.

again, good luck.
 
My eating timetable is very different. My first meal is usually around 7:30-8pm and last is usually around 12:30-1am. It's still about a 5 hour window but I'm not sure it's as healthy. It's also not a deliberate strategy to eat at those times, just what comes naturally. But I sleep from about 6am to 1pm which is unusual too.

That extra skin hanging around isn't ideal. Might be best to slow down the rate of weight loss so the skin catches up? I'm not sure.

Mini goals are good but given the next month is going to go the wrong way for me, I prefer to think macro right now!
 
that sounds like what my schedule was one summer when i tried working 2nd shift, 5pm-midnight, with Prudential data processing, a job i lucked into for a steady summer gig while in HS and college. i have to say it was the worst for exactly what you mention. i thought at first i could get home after midnight, go to bed and everything else would be normal, but i discovered my body didn't like that, i wound up staying up until dawn and never saw the light of day much.

i'm not sure if eating times vs sleep is a factor, but what i do try to do is if i exercise, it is at the end of my fasting day, not after eating. i believe this is the more effective way to burn fat. oh yeah, and make sure your daily morning walk doesn't end at a pub... :)
 
I don't think it's so much eating times vs sleep as eating at night just causing different and generally more significant insulin responses compared with eating during the day. It's something my doctor has brought up in the past - that weight gain is likely, purely due to eating at night, where the identical menu during the day would have less effect.

But it just suits my hunger patterns better. I never get hungry during the day. Anyway, I've started making sure to only eat within a 6 hour window - basically just reinforcing my natural tendencies but being more deliberate about it. We'll see how it goes. For now it's all at night - switching that to day might be something to work on for next year.
 
hello again... wondered how you're doing, but noticed you haven't posted in a while. i decided to try a multi-day fast. last week i skipped a single day of eating to see what that was like, but 3 days ago i started a longer fast. i'm about 65 hours in and things are going well. i believe my normal intermittent fasting helped ease into this and i have yet to experience any hunger.

what worries me a bit is your exit. most times i''ve read about it, people seem to break fasts "when their body lets them know". since you seem to have stopped on a set schedule, i still wonder what this feeling of exiting will be like. i know it's rediculous to think about, but i have this slight fear of never being hungry again.
 
Hey - Merry Christmas!

Hope the fast is going well. I can't imagine trying it at this time of year. I broke the fast because I knew I had a big social meal coming up at a set time so I needed my body to be ready to handle that. I'm sure if I'd waited for my body to give me signs it would have been much later.

The hunger won't come back until you eat again. Then it will return to normal fairly quickly. It's not a concern.
 
thanks for the reply... i actually had a call from someone to meet for lunch yesterday, so i ended the fast at 85 hours. i wasn't all that hungry after my first meal, but this morning i had a few pieces of shortbread to celebrate Christmas (and the fact i saw my first weigh-in < 25 BMI) and i'm paying for that sugar rush just about now... :)

Merry Christmas!
 
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