Hey everyone, been lurking for a long time, but I'm on my first real long term fast and decided to post. I'm not a stranger to OMAD, and have regularly done one to three day fasts and have completed five day fasts before.
I started this fast in not the best way, I had a tamal for my meal one day, forgot to eat the next day and just thought let's keep going, and surprisingly, it worked a lot better than the times I went in intentionally trying to fast for days.
My general experience:
* hunger isn't really a thing in this fast, which is unusual (it was in the earlier fasts, and I tried to quelch it with water, and sugar free tea and coffee).
* In all of these days, all I've had besides water (and mineral supplements sublingually when I needed it) was two cups of pure black coffee. This is a surprising change because I used to regularly drink at least 3 a day
* I had nausea a few times, but I credited this to not drinking enough water because when I upped my water intake the nausea stopped (I aim for (2-3L per day)
* I didn't expect acid reflux/weird feeling in the back of my throat
* I'm fatigued, but not tired: I have to sit down to rest way more often (even doing regular things like walking up the stairwell to my apartment), however, I also don't need sleep as much and am not tired when I go to bed (usually I am the type to fall asleep when my head hits the pillow and it's not happening)
* the boredom is real. It's so hard to do things with people that don't include food, so social life kinda sucks right now (also there's major stigma in fasting, so I don't bring it up). Tomorrow there is an event for animals going on I would have NO issue going to otherwise, but it's also going to be a cocktail hour... I've downloaded a ton of books from my library and am cleaning my apartment
* my thoughts and mind seem clearer
In terms of weight loss, the progress hasn't been much. I should have measured my hips/waist/thighs/etc before, but I didn't (again this was a spontaneous choice of fast). I don't weigh myself because that's not an effective measurement for me (I'm female and weight fluctuates a lot due to hormones involving the menstrual cycle), but my clothes feel loser, and there's a change in my face and chest, but not much in the parts I need to lose in (hips, thighs, arms, butt). Clothes feel looser but I haven't lost much, not even a clothing size's worth (this was surprising).
Ideally I plan to continue to 30 days (but not longer than that) for both the challenge and the weight loss.
So, in the end, I am asking those of you with long term fasting experience:
* is there any way to stop that acidity feeling in my throat?
* how can I mitigate the fatigue?
* (women especially) what are your experiences with dropping dress sizes with long term water fasts?
Answer
Awesome work.
Just curious how much weight you lost?
I take it your female which probably accounts for the slower weight loss. Sucks but men probably lose weight 30% faster than women and I think people who are more obese also lose faster when fasting. A 300lb person would easily lose 1 lb a day over 12 days but for a 200lb person the loss will be a lot slower.
Answer
Am a woman here, I do the typical 30 day fasting in the month of Ramadan (current).
I do a 16 hour water and food fast. I’ve found that any weight lost with water fasts is immediately gained after fasting (my weight fluctuates fast). If I don’t watch myself I usually gain weight after fasting!
EDIT: I hit “add comment” too soon, haha. If you want to avoid the water weight gain after the water fast, I’ve actually found that drinking MORE water after fasting helps!
EDIT 2: Read your post again. I’ve actually gone through my fasting with a lot more energy than usual because I’ve been eating a much better breakfast (at 3AM, before sunrise). I usually have oatmeal with fruit, a cup of yoghurt, two dates, and a lot of water, which gives me more energy while fasting. I think the 2 cups of coffee might be giving you the acid feeling (I get the same when I drink coffee) so while fasting, try sticking to water and sugar-free herbal and green teas.