Just thought i'd share my experiences with water fasting (I only drink water with salt and a little bit of coffee in the morning).
I started writing but it turned into something that resembled a novel lol, i'll just break it down like this instead;
Attempt 1: This was around two years ago. I managed to go 24h and it went "ok". I did not like it much at all. It was so terrible to wait out those last 6 hours or so, just thinking of food. I didn't think it was for me, too much like torture.
Attempt 2: A month ago. I only managed 20h then again it was this awful waiting out period where i just feel so terribly hungry. I decided to give up because it annoyed the hell out of me and i wanted to focus on something else than being hungry and doing nothing because i was too hungry to care about anything.
Attempt 3: A few days later. I managed 24h, still quite hard and with intense hunger, but it came in waves. Drinking water (with a bit of Himalayan salt) each time a hunger wave came on really helped.
I was thinking "how does some people go for a week doing this, it seems pretty insane, maybe something eventually changes." I started to realize that it's like everything else, you need to train. Why would someone stop with bench press after just one or two attempts "Ok so I tried 100kg and i was terrible at it, other people can do it but not me, i'm out." That's not how things usually works.
Attempt 4: The hunger feelings are now more familiar, they don't seem to alarm the body and mind in the same way, like it has realized it's ok and it's normal. I get a feeling that i'm getting better at it and this motivates me a lot. 24h was no bigger problem.
Attempt 5. I decided to try 48h. The first 24h were now pretty easy. Day 2 starts off great, but later in the day i feel weak, i feel dumb, too. I was going to measure something and I struggled with it more than i should have. Short term memory seemed affected too. Didn't like that at all, and it also wasn't what i had read about feeling "clear headed" or even "smart" into the fasting. I managed 40h, immense cravings for carbohydrates afterwards, did not help the least to eat a giant omelette with tons of protein, I ate a lot of junk after that.
Attempt 6: (current). 52h in now. This has been ridiculously easy. Especially these last hours. No hint of hunger. I have a ton of energy. I went for a 1h walk, it felt great. I had a period a few hours ago where it felt like i had just drank 2 cups of strong coffee. I feel really clear headed. Mood is great and overall i must say that mood has been elevated a lot during all my fasting periods. It's one of the things that has kept me motivated because i sometimes struggle with depression, on fasting it's like its blocking all those feelings completely. I've even tried triggering bad/depressive feelings and they don't get to me (like today something really shitty happened politically in Sweden, and these things always gets to me). I think this has to do with dopamine release or something, because i'm more motivated than normal and overall my psyche feel stronger somehow.
All in all i've lost around 5kg (11 lbs) from fasting. I have slight overweight, if i can lose 15kg in total i will look really fit.
What are your experiences with fasting and e.g mood? I was expecting to get cranky, but no, quite the opposite. I would say fasting is very different from just restricting calories (which i've obviously tried too). I like this way better (though the first tries can be hard).
Some things i've learned (please feel free to add your own experiences)
1. Don't expect to be good at it from the very start, it's like everything else, you need practice and it gets way better.
2. Try to sync hunger waves with gulping down huge chunks of water, it will kill it off almost until the next hunger wave comes on. So yes, be at least a little bit conservative about when you drink, take small sips and then big when feeling hungry. Seems to work.
3. Have something that occupies the mind and makes you really involved to suppress hunger. Personally I play a certain computer game which i find very involving.
Edited by MKultra, 11 January 2019 - 11:08 PM.