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I have been thinking about doing a 3-7 day water fast.
Does anyone here have any experience doing something like this?
I have done three extended fasts in the last five years. I'll give a quick overview below. If anyone is interested in more details, please let me know and I'll create a full-on effort post.
Note: All of these fasts were 'proper' fasts, i.e. zero calories were consumed during the fast. I drank water (with electrolytes added), black coffee, tea and zero-calorie soft drinks throughout. Nothing else. The main purpose of fasting in each case was weight loss.
Fast 1: 26 days, of which the last 7 days were not only zero calorie, but also zero liquids! Yes, I know that sounds unbelievable, but it's true. I lost 18kg during the fast.
Fast 2: 40 days. Lost about 20kg during this fast.
Fast 3: 75 days. This was by far the most successful fast. Not only did I lose 30kg, but I kept it off for the better part of a year.
In my experience, fasting absolutely works. I had plenty of energy for ordinary activities, such as work, hobbies, etc. The physical part is not hard and I very rarely 'felt hungry'. The hard part was psychological.
To sum up, if you are significantly overweight then zero-calorie fasting is surprisingly easy, but your mind will fuck with you. The most important stage is the post-fast period, when you need to muster your forces to keep from sliding back into your old habits that made you fat in the first place. My third fast (which ran from May to July 2023) resulted in me hitting my target weight and keeping it off until the end of the year. Unfortunately, since the start of 2024 I have started gaining weight again (about 12 kg so far) and will probably be doing another fast again soon. If so, I will document it here.
May I ask what pur BMI/fat percentage was before the fast(s)?
Also how did you do refeeding?
For more context: I am a man, 1m85 tall (6'1") with a medium build. At the start of my third fast I was 58 years old and weighed 109.2kg (241 lbs). After 75 days I had lost 30.1kg (66 lbs) and weighed 79.1kg (174 lbs). At that weight I look healthy and slim, but not 'skinny'. I have no idea what the BMI or fat percentages are. The vast majority of weight lost was clearly fat. I assume some muscle was lost too, but I don't care about that since if you are 30kg overweight your number one priority should be losing all that blubber.
Re refeeding: I did not do refeeds during the fast. As I said in my original post, this was a zero-calorie fast. I consumed zero calories during the entire 75-day period. After the fast ended, I started eating very cautiously: bouillon, broth, salads, very small portions of meat and vegetables.
As you can imagine, after not eating for 75 days your stomach 'shrinks' and it does not take much food to feel full. At this stage, the main concern is not to let yourself slide back into the habit of overeating.
Thanks for your reply and your experiences!
BMI is short for Body Mass Index. Its your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters. In your case 109.2/(1.85^2)=31.91
BMI is medical screening tool used to categorize people by the healthyness of their body weight. 18.5-25 is normal/healthy weight, 25-30 is overweight, 30-35 is obesity, and so on. Your most recent fast took you from obesity (31.91) to normal/healthy weight (23.11).
Body fat percentage is literally what it sounds like, the percentage of the body that is fat. There are plenty of ways to measure this and most half decent modern digital scales can give you a reasonable estimate. Some people prefer this to BMI, as it can be more accurate if you have an unusual body or if you're competing in certain sports.
Thanks for the information. Sorry, I wasn't clear in my reply: I know what the concepts of BMI and body fat percentage are, I just hadn't calculated them for myself. :) In any case, thanks for doing the calculations for me. If you want any more information about my experience with fasting, feel free to ask!
Man, I thought it was a bit strange that someone wouldn't know what BMI is but who am I to judge? Rereading your post I know realise that you wrote "I have no idea what *the* BMI or fat percentages are." rather than "I have no idea what BMI or fat percentages are."
...
As for the fast I think I'm mostly ready to roll for when my wife and kids are going to stay with her parents at their countryside home for a week in a couple of weeks. It seems like it will be easier to do this when I'm not having to cook meals for the family that I don't get to eat ;)
Yes, it is much easier of you don't have to cook meals for the family. I live on my own, but have shared custody of my young daughter, so I did have to cook for her when she was with me, but it was doable. Having to cook daily for a family would be much harder.
The two key pieces of advice I would give are 1) keep yourself very busy, ideally doing real things in real life, and 2) stay off the Internet, since it is easy to start going on recipe sites, watching food videos, etc.
By the way, the first time I did a fast, my goal was not to do 10 days or 20 days, it was to do 2 days. Then after 2 days, I realised that it wasn't that difficult, so I decided to add an extra day, and then I added anther day and so on.
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I have been doing it couple of times. Not a big deal if you stay hydrated. The first 72 hours are hard. After that it is bearable. The refeeding is the only challenging part.
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I did seven days a few years ago. Supplemented with some electrolyte water and IIRC two fish oil capsules per day. Days 1-3 were easy. Day 4 I felt like I was dying and considered going to the hospital. Days 5-7 I was basically functional but just wanted to be lying down all the time. Spent those days making exhaustive lists of all the things I wanted to eat. Couldn't think of anything but food.
Lost about 22 pounds, of which I think maybe half were actual bodyweight. Hopefully not too much of that was muscle.
That sounds like pretty extreme weight loss. How much did you drink?
Well I was starting from about 250 pounds. Drank a lot of water throughout. But a lot of that loss was water weight (from glycogen storage) and a few pounds was probably just gut chaff.
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I've done proper water fasts twice now. I wouldn't recommend doing anything less than 5 days because the switching cost from glucose to full ketose is the hardest part.
The last one was 10 in total but only 7 of those was water only. The last three days I've supplemented with broth.
For me I'm unable to participate in activities that require physical energy while I'm in the mode but mental energy is high throughout.
You can greatly accelerate the process of burning up your glucose with a workout or even a long walk. I like a roughly three hour hike with moderate elevation gain.
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Have you only consumed water or have you supplemented with anything and/or allowed yourself things like tea/coffee?
Only water. I usually drink mate tea once per day but when doing those fasts, I also quit that aspect of my life.
I've read that one shouldn't do unsupervised fasts for more than 7-10 days, so that's why I did the last one with 7 days only water and days of broth as supplementation.
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I've been doing a spring equinox 2 day water fast, for a couple years. What are you looking to know?
Just general tips and information. When I looked online I encountered either a lot of woo or seemingly extreme caution and didn't want to wade through that.
What I'm looking for is a bit of reset and to jump start losing some weight, as well as just seeing if I can do it, but I don't want to make it unnecessarily hard or hurt myself.
As far as I've understood it, it should be safe unless you malnourished and if you slowly ease back into eating solid food afterwards.
No major/irreversible problems among my group. Hunger fades or at least becomes significantly more like food obsession than suffering after about a day. About the same time you'll usually get bad/off breathe smell (see ketosis breathe). You'll need a lot more water than you expect, food provides water both by being wet and by the fact carbohydrates produce water when used. I think it is a pretty good way to lose some weight in terms of willpower in to pounds out, but don't be surprised/disappointed when you gain half of it back again pretty quick. The lower salt levels cause you to retain less water so you'll gain that back when you get some salt. My friends have described reduced anxiety/less racing thoughts but I haven't noticed personally. I think while fasting their ADHD gets worse though.
As far as risks, if you usually have low blood pressure it can cause lightheadedness and if it is particularly bad probably fainting and possibly worse. In any case I'd avoid situations where your life depends on your physicality. One person's body didn't like the lack of salt and they had some bloody stool and diarrhea, but supplementing magnesium fixed it for them.
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Why the spring equinox?
Setting up alternative holidays with my friend group that doesn't pull people away from family. In spring we do a fast and then everyone brings a dish or two to enjoy together
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