Five days is not a failure. Its more than I have managed lately (rolling 48s then finished a 70 last night). Id love to do a five sun to friday next week! I found 3 days a mental struggle so I know how hard you worked to get to 5!
My original comment got messed up so here’s a summary:
First off, be proud of five days. It’s not easy. :)
My trick: I’m bad at not eating when at home. Stay out doing things you like that aren’t too physically demanding (library, movie, relax at a park, etc.) until it’s nearly time to go to bed. Try to get tired enough that you just wanna go to sleep when you get home.
It’ll also make day 5 seem more like a treat when it approaches.
And of course drink shit tons of water, maybe with some salt. And if it’s still hard, make a modification. Add broth into the routine or something. Whatever makes it happen is worth it. :)
I see that as a success! You should be proud of yourself! I recently tried my first extended fast. Tried for 7 days, made it to 5. Had to listen to my body and break my fast. I was not feeling well. I’m super proud I made it to day 5 and you should be too.
What are you “failing” with? Are we talking pancakes and potato chips, or eggs and cottage cheese. I say, if you’re going for longer fasts and struggling, have a light keto day and get back on board. Fasting is hard, takes diligence and mental focus. Is there a way to limit food exposure, or clear the foods you’re weak with out of the house? Just some ideas I’ve used to help me. I’ve just done two days of low calorie keto as a start for a planned 28 days fast. I really think it helps. And your misses aren’t failures, they’re learning experiences from which you gain data. Use that data to grow. HTH. Good luck.
i’ll say have as last meal red meat, barbecue, no sauces, salads, asparagus only olive oil and salt.
day 5 try a homemade bone broth, with quality bones
also go for something that keep you busy at meal time, movie, theatre
before starting your fast empty the fridge, pantry etc no more food at home
buy some really expensive tea with the money you saved from fasting
do an ice bath
walk in the woods
We have about 4-5 days of circulating electrolytes and that’s where almost everyone ends their fast. Took me 6-8 times to get past this point. More electrolytes! If my mouth gets even a little dry I need more. Hope this helps…
It is much better to be comfortable at doing 5s then to push yourself too far and not want to fast again! I run two 48s a week and have found that to be my happy place on fasting. Congratulations on being able to pull 5s!
2 hours ago was my 120th hour fasting, first 4 days were really really easy, 5th day, man I want to eat! I’m going to sleep in a few hours so I’ll push thru. Monday afternoon I’ll finish my 7th day, my best tip I can give, keep busy. Drink lots of water, I do 3 - 4 liters a day, maybe try sparkling water with magnesium, I find it better than just normal water.
Realise that 5+ day fasts are not for you and settle into a rolling 72hr fasting regime. Rolling 72’s week after week after week, will bag you a lot more fasted days and weight loss over the course of a few months than a 5+ day fast….followed by a fortnight rebuilding motivation to start another 5+ day slog…another 5+ day…another fortnight motivation building….
Eat low carb/keto on the refeed days and you pretty much stay in ketosis for the duration and you get all the autophagy you could want. Within a week of rolling fasts you’ll have deprogrammed your Ghrelin Hunger hormone surges at your old meal times greatly reducing cravings and making the rolling fasts a doddle to keep going. Something that doesn’t happen with a 5+ day fast thats then followed by a week or two of eating that quickly reprogrammes the Ghrelin surges so the next 5 day is effectively starting from scratch again wrt Ghrelin suppression.
I honestly don’t know why so many people think they have to do multi-week fasts when shorter duration rolling fasts are so much better in nearly every way. Its rare that you’ll achieve the same or higher number of fasted days over the period of a couple of months with multi-weeks versus rolling 72hr fasts.
So for example, its likely that someone who manages a 21 day fast probably wont manage several back to back. In all likelihood they’ll need nearly a month to rebuild motivation to start another. So in a 2 month window they might achieve 21-30 fasted days. However someone doing rolling 72’s like I do (which the way I do it is 72hrs between maintenance calorie OMAD refeeds so 2 whole skipped days worth of calories) is only eating every third day and will likely be able to keep the rolling cycle going week after week for months on end and so in a 2 month window of say 61 days, they’ve fasted 2/3rds of those days meaning a total of 40 fasted days in that 2 month window (as opposed to 21-30)…….and the next meal is never more than 2 days away instead of stretches of 3 weeks at a time….and they didn’t need to be anal about electrolytes….and they didn’t need to worry about refeeding syndrome.
Even of one didn’t have a tonne of weight to lose that required several months to lose it. Say one only wanted to lose 15LB for example and based on ones TDEE one calculated that it would take a 21 day fast to achieve that loss. One might say to oneself why not do the whole 21 days in one go to get it over with as quick as possible. Well a rolling 72’er will only take 10 days longer to bag those 21 fasted days and you are virtually guaranteed to be able to do it first try. It just takes a failure or two part way through a 21 day with a few days spent rebuilding motivation to restart and bang…its taken you longer than the rolling 72’er to bag your 21 fasted days for your 15LB weight-loss goal.