Hi Everyone - this is my first post and I’m still figuring things out here, so my apologies if it’s already been covered.
I’m transitioning back into keto after a year long hiatus. I’ve had good luck with fasting in the past to help get me started (last time was 15 days water). This time around I feel very tired and emotional - kind of sad and depressed, and very unmotivated. I honestly just want to go to bed. Does anybody have experience with this?
Your glycogen stores should be depleted and you should be in ketosis, so why not transition to strict keto and try to fast later when it is easier?
Also - have you been taking any elctrolytes with your water? If you take some salt and feel better - take some more!
I agree with Janie, and get those electrolytes in =). Best wishes with getting back on track, welcome back!
At 3 days you are probably in ketosis. As noted, your symptoms are due mostly to carb withdrawal - but also inability to utilize ketones for fuel. Apparently, your year-long hiatus has reset your metabolism and you are not utilizing ketones or fatty acids yet. The weakness and lethargy you feel are due to the drawdown of glycogen and having nothing much to replace it with. Consuming significant doses of table salt (sodium), no salt (potassium) and epsom salt (magnesium) might help (there are other sources of these minerals).
There is no real need to keep fasting longer than another day to complete the glycogen burn. Unless you are a very muscular person, most of your glycogen is probably already gone. If dosing with the electrolytes helps you feel better, I’d say continue your fast until tomorrow. If the electrolytes don’t help, then I suggest ending the water fast and convert to a ‘fat fast’ by consuming a few hundred calories of fat. This would be 2-300 calories ingested slowly over a couple hours. If you are a coffee drinker, this could be a couple cups of coffee with whipping cream and/or MCT oil or powder.
If your lethargy does not improve somewhat, then just start keto again tomorrow, easing back into food slowly for a few days until you start to feel more energetic. The last thing you want to do now is start throwing up.
Thank you, Michael - that is very helpful! I may try the “fat fast”. Would this mean 2-300 calories of fat per day? How long would somebody normally do this?
This is a good explanation and description.
My only caveat is because you’re feeling weak ease into it slowly to give your body time to accept and metabolize whatever you give. Don’t jump into it or you may just throw up everything and/or get diarrhea.
“Don’t jump into it or you may just throw up everything and/or get diarrhea.”
Yikes - don’t want that! I’ll be careful 
I am on day 19 of a water only fast. A few years ago I completed a 28 day water only fast. I can relate to your issues on some level, but for me, patience and trust in your body, the history, and the science are vital to your process.
For those who are telling you to begin eating electrolytes, fat, or whatever, just say NO. Your body is not resting from digestion if you consume food, doing its normal regenerative processes, it is dealing with the food or whatever you are feeding with, electrolytes or whatever.
If it is not water, your body is digesting it, and you’re not fasting.
FYI: I’ve only recently learned to understand the impact high carb foods have on my appetite, so I do not expect to have to do this ever again.
Wow, Robert, 19 days is amazing. How many days are you planning to go? I wish you the best =) and am in awe, I don’t think that I could ever do that long.
I don’t think I’ll go to 28 days like my last water only fast. I’ll likely stop this weekend. The past few days I’ve been waiting patiently for the last bit of tummy fat to go away, so I am sure when it is gone I’ll start on a fluids only period of 3-5 days to get my system geared for food next week.
By the way, I met someone a few weeks ago who lost 140 pounds over 18 months, and I saw someone in the middle of a 180 day water only fast, he was on day 151 of his water only fast. The key for me has to visualize your body using the fuel you’ve been putting into your body for a long time prior to the fast. When I feel hunger, I literally say to myself, that is my by using the fuel/fat I’ve stored in my body already, so hunger is an affirmation my process is working.
Good luck!
Wow. I am not ambitious enough to do that myself, but I wish you the best =). I Fast, all the time, but I am doing this atm from IDM and Dr. Jason Fung:
I do it for 44 hours instead of the 42 though, because I have been doing 20:4 IF TMAD plan since June and I like to continue that for eating days.
I couldn’t do this. I have to take minerals, as otherwise I get cramps and the like. That may be due to having to take beta blockers, which are diuretics, but I always take extra minerals when fasting.
CTVIGGEN:
You’re taking on this on a water only fast? Water only is a fast, anything else is…something else…
Like what, the Water and Pills Fast? If you have to take medications, you have to take them, even if you’re fasting.
Who told you that? Water fast is water only. If it is not water only, all you’re doing is changing your food intake, with very few of the benefits of a fast.
Nobody “told” me that. If someone wants to do a water fast but needs drugs for, say, cancer each morning they are still doing a water fast even if they have to swallow a pill. I’m not saying eat food, I’m saying you can take your prescribed meds, WITH WATER. You’re taking it quite literally.
Well, hey - water means water, right? 
