Does anybody Fast? For health or religious reasons, etc.?

[Huntn]

Thanks for all of the replies, everyone, and for sharing your experiences.

I'm a few pounds heavier than I ought to be and I have a much easier time abstaining from food than counting calories and fat. Everything that I "can" eat while dieting leaves me unsatisfied and leads to a borderline binge-eating experience.

Anyhow, I've been doing water only since New Years Day (at 7:30pm) and its been not completely awful, but definitely an exercise in will power.

Day 1 was mostly annoying and slightly novel.
Day 2 I had ZERO energy and my hunger pangs were bad, accompanied by one of the worst (non-migraine) headaches of my entire life (I credit that to the lack of caffeine)
Day 3 was a little easier, hunger was less severe, but I still absolutely want a greasy fatty extra cheeseburger, lol
Going into Day 4, we shall see.

I'm doing this to experiment with a different type of weight loss (followed by intermittent fasting a couple times a week), and to try to "cleanse" my system.
I know that the vast majority of weight loss at this point is water--and that makes total sense because I'm completely addicted to salt... I'd salt my salt, given the chance.

anyhow, at 5'8" I was at 172, and today I'm at 164.2.

I've read of the ketosis and its very intriguing, I'm just wondering if I'll ever go into that phase.
I think I'm going to go for a total goal of 5 days (and maybe longer if my both my body and brain thinks they can keep going)

My theory is that if I endure this fast, then when I ease into eating again my stomach will have shrunk, thereby feeling full quicker than normal, and reducing caloric/fat intake. At that same time, I'm hoping I can stick to a healthier diet in general.

Just remember you are trying to achieve a lifestyle change, as in what do you do after the fast?

When I went to the USNavy’s SERE School (Survival Escape and evasion) course, we went 3-5 days with little, then no food. What I remember was that my available energy was drastically cut, but I never felt severe hunger pains, not like I imagined in advance it would feel like. But in that environment, there was no food to tempt me.

 

[RedKite]

It’s not for me. I do recall a very very long time ago at school.... some classmates were fasting for a charity event. They ended up collapsing! It was nothing serious but since then I’ve never really wanted to fast for any reason. I can’t see the point but then again I’m not religious in the slightest. Whatever floats your boat just so long that you don’t force kids into it.

 

[Falhófnir]

Only when I'm ill enough I physically can't keep anything down!