Yes, good summary of my thoughts and feelings as well! It is true that I may have felt like this before, but it does seem different this time. I have been doing this for four months, pretty much lazy keto, and that in itself is already more than anything else I have been able to do!
Thanks Madeleine, those are some good observations. Itās true that changes have to come slowly and gradually or they wonāt stick. The white-knuckling of the sodium was my Achilles heel during this fast. Couldnāt make it work! Resistance!
And I know that I have been able to make changes, such as shifting from sugar to stevia to ditching stevia in my coffee to HWC. That was a major major shift. So maybe that will come with salt, tooā¦ Will have to think about how I can work on that. One thought is to make my own broth and supplement that with sodium - that way I know what the ingredients are.
Iāve always loved the idea of ānew normalā since I think that homeostasis is such a strong force for us both psychologically and physiologically. So: making a small shift - or maybe not small but somehow manageable, something that doesnāt make our system freak out - and then letting ourselves get used to that until it becomes normal - and then making another manageable change, and so on.
I wonder whether a lot of what folks consider a frustrating stall is actually a really nice chance to get used to what the body feels like @ 20/40/80 lbs lighter, to feel what kind of movement that invites, and to allow oneās self-image to catch up to reality.
Some folks do really well with major change, and I think thatās probably more common after something big - a scary diagnosis, an outside crisis - but in many cases I think it invites a lot of resistance on levels that we canāt always understand logically.
Anyway, congratulations on your fast and on knowing when to break it!
Congratulations on your 7-day fast!
Well done for breaking it off when you didnāt feel good as well.
Many people, Jimmy Moore included, talk about the āfasting muscleā and I really believe that it is something that needs to be trained. You listened to your body and did what you needed to: your next fasting attempt will be different and you will be better prepared with this experience!
Congratulations again!!!
Thatās a good plan in one way because you know there arenāt any additives mucking up who-knows-what. OTOH, homemade broth involves some guesswork as to protein and fat content. I would look at the nutritional info on some commercial bone broths as a starting point, or thereās an analysis of various home-made broths here: http://www.alive.com/health/bone-broth-analysis-reader-research/
Are you going to do a followup on the weight regain after breaking your fast? There will be water, gut, and some tissue rebuilding after the autophagy.
Congratulations on a full week of fasting! Amazing in my eyes 
Look forward to see how your journey evolves.
Good points re bone broth!
Yes, I am tracking changes daily and will post a summary probably this weekend!
Thanks everyone for your support and input. Invaluable!
Update 1 week post-fast
Thanks, first of all, to this great community of people for sharing all their experiences and thoughts!
The numbers below show pretty much what I was expecting. I returned to my regular lazy keto eating: everything under the sun from steak to chicken wings to eggs and greens and HWC. The weight went up for a few days and now seems to have stabilized.
Ketones went down and varied based on what I ate. Last night I had nearly half a bottle of white wine so ketones were pretty low - .6 - this morning.
How was the fast overall?
I am not sure if I like the more extended fasting where I need to supplement for salt, i.e. after a few days. It takes up too much of my time because there is resistance to it. Now, mind you, I do believe this can get better over time, just as I now think of a 1, 2 or 3 day fast as pretty easy! Not in the beginning! The only way to overcome is to do it!
While the physiology of fasting was not a problem, not eating affected my psychology in interesting ways. I thought a lot about food, more than I wanted to. Scouring recipes, scouring for new gadgets and equipment. I bought a sous vide water circulator and an ice cream maker. Itās fine in the grand scheme of things but I think I will classify them as āunder duressā purchases. I think I have been successful in lazy keto by not making things too complicated and by not trying to compensate by having keto inspired ice cream or bread equivalents, etc. For now I have pushed the ice cream maker far away and will use it sometime in the future when I feel on more solid ground weight and health wise.
Workwise, I felt super distracted by my fast. I know some people say they get clarity and focus. Not me. Because most of my work is self-motivated, I seem to have opted for lingering in the food section of my brain. Also the week after the fast took more energy thinking about food (and less on work) than I had hoped. I am still happy I did a full week fast!
Moving Forward:
For now I am going back to lazy keto, some flexible IF (I mostly donāt eat breakfast and have 3 TBSP HWC in coffee - will also do additional IF if it works with the household overall), weighing myself once a week, very little measuring of glucose and ketones, and eating like I have previously. I have been fortunate that my weight has gone down steadily and I am quietly aiming for onederland, a weight I havenāt been at since, I believe, the 1990ās. There will be physiological and psychological resistance from having defended the higher weight for decades. Trying to keep my eyes on the big trend down and not worrying about the small zags. KCKO!
The Big Picture
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"Smaller pictures"
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This is my favorite post of the day. Iām doing hot yoga tonight, but itās a feasting day. Iāll still try and summon my inner goddess!
First of all, congratulations. Great stuff. I appreciate you posting all this.
Seems that you had a similar situation to what Iām experience. Iām on day 5 of a 7 day fast. Iāve pretty well fat adapted after eating a strict keto diet for a good while.
Iām surprised that I have lost so much weight during the fast (10 pounds in 4-5 days so far) which is similar to what you experienced. Iām 6ā2 and about 195. Given that I already had deleted glycogen reserves (and the water that comes with it) from being keto adapted along, I was expecting weight gain to approximate just fat loss of around .5 lb to 1 lb per day. So Iām wondering where the āotherā 7 lbs of weight loss has come from? Other water in the body? Muscle?
Curious to hear anyoneās thoughts on this.
When you stop fasting you will most likely see some of those lbs. come back on, our muscles grab onto glycogen every chance they get. That is the main reason we see the bounces up and down during any weight loss program. It is less with keto/lchf, but it still happens to most of us.
Dr. Fung has mentioned in several podcasts and his book that you can expect .5 lb loss per day on a good fasting session. That is pretty much the result I get from any fasting I do.
Thanks very much! Makes sense. It seems like if the weight lost during a fast, we should expect that only a 1/3 to 1/2 of it is ārealā weight loss or fat loss. And good tip with the Dr. Fung reference. Iāve watched nearly every video is his and heās excellent.
Even apart from fasting, Iāve noticed that my weight on a keto diet looks and feels different than the same weight on a ānon ketoā diet which makes sense for the reasons you mention. If I weigh 190 on a keto diet, itās about the same as if I weighed 200 on a non keto diet in terms of belly fat and various measurements. Just goes to show how weight is such an imperfect measurement given the fluctuations of water weight, which makes sense if water is 60% of our total weight.
Can I have my supplements while Iām fasting ? Water fasting i mean ! Like vitamin d and my magnesium b6 and melatonin ?!?
Sure, there are many different forms of fasts. You can track with or without and see how it goes. Let us know!
