12 hours in on first fast in 30 years!

(Jane Srygley) #1

I used to be a Mormon so from ages 18-25ish I did a dry fast for 24 hours once a month. I tolerated it fine, but I was a lot younger then.

Here I am at age 56 and I am anxious about this. I have a lot of food anxiety from a half century of dieting (my mother put me on my first diet when I was 3yo) and have had many experiences when I restricted food on one day and binged the next.

I have been doing the keto thing for about a month steadily. Even though I’m only 12 hours into this fast, I have hunger pangs (I woke up 4 hours ago and usually would have eaten about 400 calories already) and a headache… but I’ve had a headache for a few days since I almost entirely stopped eating sweetened foods, so it may not be due to the fast yet.

Just looking for a little encouragement and support as I try to make it through to tomorrow morning! Thanks :sparkling_heart:

(Doug) #2

Hi Jane. :slightly_smiling_face: It takes some getting used to, and your body is noticing the empty stomach and the small intestine where most of the stuff has moved on. The second half of the first day is tough for a lot of people, but the body does ‘learn’ from it - for most, fasting gets substantially easier with practice. Good luck. :+1:

#3

Good luck, and like Doug said, it does take time to get used to. … Some folks like to work their way up to this, by simply doing some IF (intermittent fasting) so if you, say, eat an evening meal around 6pm & then skip breakfast the next day and eat around Noon, this puts 18 hrs. between meals. So if you do this for a while, you might soon find that you’re not hungry sometimes when Lunch comes around, so you simply hold off and then eat in the evening say 5 or 6pm. This then puts 24 hrs. between meals and is basically considered OMAD. (One Meal A Day) … Some, myself included, find that OMAD provides the best results for weight loss, but everyone is different. But there are a lot of folks who agree OMAD does indeed provide good results. But it’s also often said it’s not recommended doing OMAD constantly, and you should change this up from time to time. For me, I do mostly OMAD during the weekdays and TMAD (Two Meals A Day) on weekends. But I also throw in some TMAD during some weeks, to keep things changed up and to keep the body guessing. The thing I find best is to not do anything scheduled, since the body can adjust and get used to any type of eating patterns, and of course this only really works when you don’t snack or take in anything that spikes your insulin. This is the main thing that IF & EF does so well and allows that long time-frame without spiking your insulin.

(hottie turned hag) #4

@AuntJane girl you can so do it. Check out the monthly faster’s thread, for June.
I’d never fasted in my entire life. Was a typical 3X day eater, always.

When I started keto Aug 2017 I was shaped like a sad potato; had gained much weight postmenopause X 3yr (had never been fat prior to :neutral_face:); started eating once/24h and the weight fell off with the quickness. Eating a ton at one meal worked great for me (this isn’t for everyone, however) and I then was able to go 48h often, and 72h maybe 10 or so times.

I kept this up until recently, am near goal weight (110) and now am having difficulty fasting beyond the 24h but that is only past few months-ish.

Hours 33-36 and 40-44 were the hardest for me. The rest of the time hunger was absent or mild.

Many more and better fasters on here than me for sure; just adding my small experience and some cute birds to encourage you :baby_chick: :penguin: :bird:

(Jane Srygley) #5

Honey I doubt you have any fat left for your body to eat after 24 hours LOL Thanks so much for the encouragement and great job!!!

(Jane Srygley) #6

Does the headache go away??? It’s only been 15 hours now and I’m feeling loopy… I’m doing about 1/4 teaspoon salt with my water and have done that about 5 or 6 times already today. The headache is manageable when I’m sitting down but throbs when I get up and move around.

(Central Florida Bob ) #7

There’s always that conflict between telling yourself “I can do this!” and your body fighting back.

Besides salt water, which usually helps, I find a cup of hot tea can help. I will have a non-caffeinated herbal tea (Celestial Seasonings) when I’d ordinarily have lunch and my body seems to think that means I’ve eaten. And I’m not gonna lie, sometimes I just keep myself as busy as I can to not think about eating.

You can do this!

(Jane Srygley) #8

That’s a little freaky Bob because it’s my normal lunchtime and I’m drinking herbal tea!!! :scream::scream::scream:

(Doug) #9

It’s often hard to nail down the cause of a headache, and that makes a difference. There’s an International Classification of Headache Disorders that includes a “fasting headache” - these may not quit during fasting and can take a few days to stop after resuming eating.

You said yours throbs when you move around - I’m no expert but this sounds more like low blood sugar to me, and I read this just now: “Hypoglycemia-induced headaches have a pulsating quality while fasting headaches do not.”

That’s from this site: https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-fasting-can-cause-a-headache-1719448

It can take a while to get the body switched over to running well while fasting, i.e. getting 'fat-adpated," etc. One month of ketogenic eating - you may have further gains to come there. Perhaps there’s more hope for headache relief here - if you are getting low blood sugar (enough to cause the headache) then if your body gets more used to fasting and to maintaining blood sugar levels, it may help.

#10

There’s also 'Hunger Headaches themselves which anyone can get, regardless of being Keto, or simply eating SAD. So this could be in part a collective with Fasting itself as you mention, Doug? And if I’m not mistaken, they also don’t go away instantaneously either once one has eaten something?

Ran a quick search and shows this…

HH

(Jane Srygley) #11

Update: 17.5 hours… OMG!!! I agree with @OldDoug that it probably is a low blood sugar headache as it happens when I get up and walk around. I’m really going to take it easy tonight. I normally take metformin and didn’t take it last night or this morning. I am really hoping this WOE will get me off metformin for good! Thanks for all the responses :sparkling_heart:

(Central Florida Bob ) #12

So how’d you do?

The important part isn’t if you made your goal, it’s how well you learned.

(Jane Srygley) #13

I made it to 24 hours and called it a win :smile: I felt really amazing the next day, kind of stoned while I was doing it, but it was a good feeling–very peaceful and meditative. If that’s typical, I get why people do it for religious/spiritual reasons. I lost one pound and now that pound is back, but I’m really trying to work into a routine with keto and fasting so I’m trying not to get discouraged by slow or non-existent weight loss. I decided to do this for my health. Losing weight is necessary for me to feel better and be healthier IMHO but I need to get into a routine with this and I’m still trying to find my way.

Thanks for asking :blush:

(Central Florida Bob ) #14

Absolutely a win! Congrats.

The weight going up/down with fasting is a frustrating thing. I’ve been doing alternate day fasts for a month now. I did the same last year from mid-June through November. I fast Sun, Tues, Thurs and eat M,W,F,Sat. Along the way, I decided that I’d save aggravation by taking my weight on the middle day of the fasts as my weight for the week. It wasn’t always true, but most of the time, I’d start at my high weight on Sunday morning (12 hours into a fast) and lowest weight on the last morning fasted, Friday morning at hour 38. So I took my Wednesday morning weight as the result.

Last month, I got one of those Renpho scales talked about under the Exercise topic and haven’t been able to resist playing with it almost every day. Naturally, that caused a stall. :roll_eyes: Despite fasting three days every week, biking about 45 miles a week (3 days) and lifting weights the other 3 days/week, I hadn’t lost an ounce since my first Sunday weight on May 26th - that I could swear to.

So I did the KCKO approach. Crossing my fingers that may have changed. This Sunday’s weight was two pounds below last Sunday’s.

(Jane Srygley) #15

Thanks Bob! The what??? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: