I’m still fairly new to fasting and have only recently established the alternate day fasting habit. I have always had issues controlling my intake even on keto (admittedly I probably wouldn’t have that issue on carnivore, but I’m not going there for reasons… not yet anyhow), but I notice that fasting is making me a lot more panicky than usual around food and I just want to eat all the time when I’m not fasting now. I don’t know if any of you have experienced that…? I feel like a lot of posts come from people who have zero trouble controlling intake so I don’t know if anyone can relate… but it seems to be all or nothing. I have fasted successfully for up to 76 hours but LIMITING my intake on an eating day seems almost impossible… I do stick to keto-friendly foods but that’s the best I can say about it.
Overeating when not fasting
I think you need to feast after fasting. I think it’d be a mistake to not do so. I will sometimes even eat three “meals” after fasting. I normally eat two meals per day when not fasting.
Now, if you think that your eating is out of control after fasting, that might be an issue. Is it a mental thing (“I have to eat!”)? Or is it actual hunger? It might take a while to figure this out.
I have noticed that since moving to two meals a day, while trying to still fast 36+ hours at times, and increasing my over all exercise, the amount I have to eat until I’m full is sometimes shocking, even to me.
I totally after a 2 day fall off the wagon about feeling panicky around the food…I have never actually done heroin thankfully but I think that was what drug addicts experience it was very scary and I was at the point where I thought I was not going to be able to stop this, I am going to eat until I am right back where I started…it was a hopeless and truly helpless feeling that I would rather avoid, I prefer the head held high, kicking some keto butt, changing my life for the better feelings honestly…dont be too hard on yourself sis, it is NEVER too late to get back on track…best of luck!
I fast a lot - mostly EF (2-3 days) - and have the same issue with non-fasting days. For me its mostly mental - when Im away at work, I fast, when home I eat. On my last work day, or on my way home, I am constantly thinking about what I’m gonna eat - even though I am not hungry. I eat so much - my tummy hurts. I look forward to the next fast to get rid of the bloated super-over-full feeling.
All this while remaining hard keto, almost carnivore.
I addressed this recently by using the following steps.
sweeteners - eliminate
grazing - avoid the trap of “the eating window is open so a little 0 carb (fill in the blank) will not hurt”
keto treats - eliminate - Lily’s chocolate, Rebel ice cream, Keto cheesecake
Eat substantial carnivore meals - mostly beef & pork with occasional chicken wings.
Those steps got me going again - from a 16 month stall / 20lb bounce
Ahhhhhh is all I can say but I get it 
If panicky you aren’t there just yet. Whether it be body or mind. Truly.
Stop the fasting for a bit. Let your mind and body relax in true form. Just eat your foods you have on plan and tackle other things as you become stronger thru holding that plan.
This is very true: Comparison is the thief of joy.
You are comparing your journey to others and not following the path you need.
DO FOR YOU. ON WHAT IT TAKES FOR YOU to succeed.
when we get tons of info on the good of this or that, yea sounds fine, but we might not be there in our journey. When we attempt that other stuff we are finding failure…that failure is just a simple notice from the universe we are not there yet in our journey. Or our journey has changed in some way! That is ok
So listen
You are changing everything for the better. Following that health path you want. No need to take it on all in one fell swoop. Bob and weave thru life as you need personally at all times.
Our journey constantly changes. We had control. We had success. We had good things, but at some point if anything changes, we must find our new paths. What works today for us!! If we do that we never fail
So make it all about you. What you need in a day to do the best for yourself…you will change down the road and when that happens little by little you will feel BIG control in those changes cause you are right where you need to be to accept those changes.
I hope some of that helps. We all wander and take from others and learn and more, but while advice is wonderful, we are all not on that same timeline in our journeys. I see great advice listed as a thing that will come my way if I do for me and let it happen as I need, then I might easily find myself there and ready to accept that advice.
Comparison IS THE theif of joy and can be routed in a lot of our failures we feel thru life. I been there, I get it
I say one thing…out of all I typed…DO FOR YOU and WHAT YOU NEED to handle big eating changes. Keep that focus on what you personally need at all times and if you keep it all within plan all the time, you will move into a more controlled long term future of only good stuff for ya!!!
I so appreciate everyone’s comments. Thank you 
That really resonates with me, thank you. I was planning on fasting tomorrow and I think maybe I’ll hold off and just really hone in on what I need to do on my eating days. I have yet to get my eating days under control even without fasting, so especially since I’m getting so panicky right now, maybe that is a signal that I’m moving a bit too fast for myself emotionally. It’s so frustrating because I know my body needs this… needs the keto, needs the fasting… but getting the rest of me to cooperate is sure as fuck not easy.
Same. I did a 3 month experiment this past winter/spring where I did three days of fasting followed by 2 or 3 days of feasting on a continuous basis. I found that I averaged around 3000kcal on my feasting days. To be fair though, I always did a Body by Science weightlifting workout an hour prior to breaking my 84hr fast, so that may have skewed things. Here is my chart. If you click on the picture it will enlarge for legibility. Some of the eating days were nuts. The red dots/lines at the bottom represent calories eaten as measured on the right Y axis. Yes some of those days were over 5000kcals. Not a typo…
I always ate to satiety though no matter what. It turned out ok. My weight is the blue line as measured in pounds on the left Y axis. Here’s my chart through April during that experiment.
I missed this line the first time I read your post. If food makes you feel panicky after fasting, thats probably not a good thing.
It’s possible fasting isn’t a good fit for you right now. I’m definitely not an expert on the subject though. All I can say is do what feels comfortable, and be patient with yourself. Keto and fasting shouldn’t be difficult or anxiety inducing. It’s a marathon not a sprint…
I agree with @Don_Q - the “panicky” statement sounds a lot like you are nurturing a disordered eating pattern.
Going back to strict keto - eating fat to satiety (which may feel like a lot at the beginning) and letting the meal skipping happen naturally as the length of time before hunger arrives after a good keto meal increases to most of a day might be best.
Forcing fasting starts to feel like a real burden when your feasting erases your losses. You hold on to the feeling of success with that low number on the scale on the last hour of the fast but, it really just leads to a roller coaster ride - just about always arriving back at the same spot after a few ups and down.
What @Don_Q @Fangs @RobC says. Stop fasting for a month or two. Get more in touch with hunger. Practice IF and get solid at skipping a meal.
Let the goal be better health. The weight will do what is right for your body.
You’ve got this.
I’ve done many, many fasts of 36+ hours, 3-5.5 days. I’ve never once panicked about food. I did not start fasting until I’d been low carb for about 1.5 years, though.
I think that panicking is not right. I agree with everyone else that you might want to back off fasting.
I, however, disagree about fat. I don’t think fat is filling (other than high saturated fat foods, like cocoa butter). I personally like higher protein.
I don’t get filled up on fat, saturated or not. I always feel like I need MORE and fullness is only temporary.
I appreciate everyone’s feedback so much thank you I decided to fast today after all. I feel calm while fasting and panicky when I eat, so go figure that one out LOL. No, honestly, I have food anxiety like crazy and this is one of the reasons I was afraid I couldn’t fast, but I actually seem to do really well at it… and I know my body benefits, so I’ve decided to give a lot of thought to how to make my eating days work better while I’m fasting and CALM. I’ve decided to incorporate more meat protein, for one thing, as I’m sure feeling vaguely unsatisfied all day long has a lot to do with my perpetual hunger. Thanks again!
You might rethink saturated fat. There is a theory that saturated fat causes your fat cells to be insulin resistant, meaning your hunger should go away or lessen. I’ve been testing this, by trying to eat saturated fat, and it does seem to work. I haven’t tried it long enough, though.
Also, all natural sources of fat have a mixture of saturated and unsaturated (MUFAs and PUFAs) fat. So, when I say I’m trying to eat more saturated fat, I’m choosing things like cocoa butter and shea butter, and even regular butter, each of which is higher in saturated fat, but also has other fats.
When I was doing a lot of extended fasting, I found “boring keto” extremely helpful. Basically, you pick a handful of foods, and that’s what you eat every day. For months.
It’s hard to have anxiety about food choice when there’s only 6 things to pick from, and you’re bored to death of all of them. No need to count carbs or calories. Every food is “safe” because you’re so bored with it you won’t eat a single bite that deep, visceral, true hunger doesn’t compel you to. In my case I ate hamburger, herring, eggs, bratwurst, avocado, butter, and broccoli for 95% of my calories over 3 months. That’s it.
It sounds kind of dumb and restrictive, but real magic happens when you are bored with food, and it no longer serves as a source of entertainment and quick dopamine hits. You basically only eat when you’re actually hungry. You stop getting the “false” hunger signals that were really always about your body asking for dopamine/sugar, not food. That was my experience.
I still ate tons of food on the 12 days a month that I was eating, but I always had confidence that the hunger sensation I was feeling was “real”. It also saved me a ton of time, because I would cook most of my food on Sunday in one giant batch. I’d put 5lbs of hamburger in the dutch oven, a dozen brats in the oven and I was done. No thinking about recipes, or food choices. All my options were in the fridge, cooked in the plainest way possible, and boring as hell for the rest of the week.
Anyways, that’s what I did, and it was helpful for me. I don’t doubt that you will find something that works for you, and it will probably something totally different. Just thought I’d put the idea out there as an option.
P.S. I find Tara Brach’s guided meditations unbelievably helpful in dealing with stress and anxiety. Even a lout like me was perfectly capable of mindfulness when she’s narrating. All of her lectures and meditations are free to download from her website. Another great resource is Dr. Jon Kabatt Zinn. He wrote a book called “Full Catastrophe Living” and runs a clinic near Boston that uses mindfulness meditation to treat chronic stress and anxiety. Both these folks have been really helpful for me.
I just mentioned last night on the December fasting thread that i was going to practice some mindfulness. When I was burned out from work a few years ago, mental health sent me to take some courses. One of them was mindfulness. I have incorporated that into my life daily. It helps immensely with my scattered internal dialogue and worry and stress. Any time my mind wanders to a subject I find upsetting I redirect it to a focal point or a mantra. I have a sort of macabre/funny one that I am using when I start stressing about my upcoming trip to Bali and Australia. (I don’t like airports, flying or crowds). I just keep repeating “I have insurance and my daughter can use the money.” I get a humorous sense of relief and my mind moves to other things.
Protein and fat from it are key to health for sure. Under eating protein is bad. Our bodies do know it
best of luck, find your center, your calm. You will. I think we feel pressured by ourselves for ‘success now on goals’ and sometimes we need to cut ourselves a break. You got this!
@AuntJane @ctviggen I’m the same way. When i first got into low-carb in general I was following a lot of Dave Asprey’s “Bulletproof” recommendations, including the coffee.
He claimed that a BP coffee in the morning would satisfy and keep you full for 6-7 hours and sometimes all day. That never worked for me - if I had BPC at 6:30, I’d be hungry by 10:30 reliably. This was true even for a 600+ kcal coffee (2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp MCT).
On the other hand, eating OMAD lunch with sufficient protein (120+g), I’m good until the next day.
I really like that! We teach mindfulness (among other things) to our clients where I work as an addictions counselor. One thing I come back to OFTEN is “I have no control over that.” Never thought of that as a “centering mantra” but I think that basically covers it!
I definitely use food for the “dopamine hit.” I think I have to realize that if I can get by without it on a fasting day, I can manage on an eating day as well. Thanks also for the suggestions re mindfulness.
Yes for sure! I have an extremely difficult time with intermittent fasting (16:8 etc) and especially since I follow Dr. Fung, I feel like I’m always “doing it wrong” on eating days if I eat all day, even if I eat a reasonable amount… so thanks
BPC lasts me 2 hours, tops. I don’t know how you manage to ingest 120g of protein in one sitting, but that just might work for me! Thanks!
You are all fabulous, incidentally Thanks so much for your helpful and non-judgmental responses!
I’m really boring with my OMAD lunch. Today (and most days) I had/have:
2 cups lean ground beef in a creamy sauce with salsa or hot sauce
4 oz string cheese
Protein shake with 60g whey, 1 oz MCT, 1 oz heavy cream
2 boiled eggs
1 oz almond butter
I estimate it as about 2500-2700 kcal. M / 44yo / 5’11" / 175-180 lbs.
(I do feel full now!)
Thanks! Just want to say I’m impressed that you can keep it to just 1 oz almond butter cuz I can eat a jar in one sitting. I’d still need more protein though 