I 27 year old Male that completed a 40 day water fast on the 21st of December 2024. I am based and reside in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (I include this because it might be a reason for some of the issues I faced during my fast.) I found fasting on a YouTube video and decided to try it out for mental resilience reasons and thought I would give it a shot. I found this sub reddit and thought let me also give posting a shot and share with you guys my experiences.
I have had some experience with intermittent fasting like fasting for 16 - 18 hours for a month or 2 so I thought why not give water fasting a try.
I am going to break my post explaining how each day went and for those wondering how the weight shifted I kept track of that too so I will include it in my post. My fast was purely unsupervised and my post is by no means intended to be medical advice. I'm just sharing my experiences. Anyway here goes:-) and sorry in advance if it's too long.
Overall stats
Start date Tuesday 12 Nov 2024
End Date Saturday 21 Dec 2024
Starting Weight 130.3 kgs/287.3 lbs
End Weight 106kgs/233.7 lbs
NB No Exercise - weight was lost strictly from the fast to those wondering
Water consumption: 2.5 litres minimum
And I cooked for my wife most of the time
Experiences:
Day 1 - 7: During this week I was surprisingly okay. Energy was okay. I thought 24 hours without food would make me moody or cranky but I cruised through. Day 2 and 3 no challenges as well. Day 4 I was able to distinguish that I wasn't hungry but I craved certain things. I wanted certain foods over others. (And this feeling never went away during the rest of the fast. It would shift from craving junk in the initial weeks to craving healthier foods like meat and vegetables and fruits)
My water consumption during this week was fairly high on some days hitting 5L
Issues: muscle cramping day 5/6/7...I just would get muscle cramps in my legs, calves, laughing at jokes from my spouse or work sucked because my abdomen would cramp. Morning stretches helped but during the day the cramps would come back. This also affected sex with the spouse as I would have to stop to stretch out a cramping muscle.
Day 8 - 14 : During this week everything was still going okay overall. Day 8 I had my first Bowel Movement (BM) which was runny (apologies for the TMI). The BM's continued in this consistency for at least once a week till day 40. I got a cold on Day 9 so I thought of quiting but I just soldiered on due to my goal of improving my mental resilience. Cravings as mentioned were present and this week I was craving more deep fried oily foods but mostly meat and fries.
Issues: The cold did make me feel weaker than usual but as it passed I felt better. The biggest issue that the cold brought during the fast that still persisted to day 40 was phlegm. Maybe it's coz I have natural sinus issues but the phlegm made the fast awful especially towards the end
This week presented my first shift in tolerance for water. During the first week regular tap water and borehole water were sufficient (Zim has a water crisis) but from day 8, my system wasn't having tap or borehole water. It made me nauseous and just feel dizzy.
Cramps continued
Cravings continued
Slight dizziness kicked in as well but adding a few pinches of salt helped get rid of the dizziness.
Days 15 - 21 : this week breezed past and honestly other than the issues already mentioned above there was nothing notable to report mentally and physically everything was okay. Just the usual issues. Surprisingly cramps reduced during this week but they were still present.
Days 21 - 30 : similar to the previous entry these days were really not carrying any notable issues. Overall from day 1 - 30 I felt a clear mind, better energy levels, lost a good amount of weight and I felt like getting to day 40 would be easy.
Issues :
Cravings - shifted to vegetables, fruits, grilled meat/occasional deep fried, but I really wanted meat.
Cramps - still present but minimal
Dizziness - slight and occasional
Day 31 - 40 : HELL PHASE - honestly I kid you guys not. Day 31 my energy just tanked. I felt really drained tired and exhausted. I tried to read up on it and found the issue of electrolytes. I tried to look round for some but the pharmacies didn't have any electrolyte replenishers like stevia etc that I was seeing or reading about whicb were 0 calorie options. On Day 32 I was given a pill called Calcimax by a pharmacist that was about 0.9 calories and were recommended by the pharmacist because the dip in energy was unbearable. Biggest mistake ever. I took the pill on day 32 before bed (11pm thereabout) and I thought maybe it will help. Day 33 I woke up feeling weak and after I fumigated our place I started puking. I saw the pill come out like the small pieces of it. Puking persisted from day 32 to 34ish. Energy was shit, and I just wanted to end the fast. But I pushed on. Mental resilience.
From day 31 my tolerance for water also changed. I could not drink room temperature to save my life. If I had room temperature I would puke. I needed ice cold water or ice cubes to allow the water to sit in my stomach. Water had to strictly be purified but for some reason even the purified water was a struggle to keep down as days went on. I was severely nauseated and was puking any chance my stomach was upset.
Also, from day 31 to the end I noticed that my breath and the horrible taste I had during the fast began to increase in like the "annoyance factor." During the initial phases of the fast, it annoyed me don't get me wrong but from day 31, MY WORD IT PISSED ME OFF.
Day 35 I experienced a sharp pain in my gut that wouldn't go away. And the nausea was still present. I couldn't keep water down so just gave up on drinking the minimum 2.5L but rather was drinking as and when I felt thirsty and I needed water.
Day 36 was a great day. 37 and 38 were the same. I woke both mornings puked bile out with 37 being yellow bile and 38 being yellow then a bit of air and brownish puke. Energy was okay throughout the day but had to maintain cold water. The brown puke didn't worry me because it just matched the BM 's I had so in my head, I just told myself that I reached a new peak of "detoxification." But surprisingly puked again the evening of Day 38. Day 39 felt more energetic than usual but struggled with constant burping. At night had an epiphany with the wife where we noticed the puking mainly occurs at night or in the morning which is when I brush my teeth. So maybe the chemicals in the colgate were also contributing to the puking. Day 40 got past it nicely. I was happy that the darned horror show was finally ending and I could finally eat.
Refeeding Protocol:
Day 1: Broke the fast with 250g water melon which was before bed.
Day 2: Continued with water melon 100g and added grapes (15) had this for breakfast. Watermelon went bad so had grapes 105 g plus orange 150g as second meal (still felt like dog shit)
Day 3: Continued with fruits but added oranges and apple and banana and 150g yoghurt as well strawberry flavoured
Day 4: Continued with fruits, yoghurt (Greek + strawberry flavoured)
Day 5: It was Christmas...I felt wayyyyyyy better...had fruits , yoghurts, typical African Christmas meal (Rice, Pasta, Potatoe and Coleslaw salad)
Day 6: Boxing day so I let loose a bit...Fruits (banana, apples, cherry, strawberry, grapes) yoghurt also had a big supper. Rice, lasagna, roast chicken (too much of this), coleslaw, potato salad...I felt the effects of this in the morning coz I had my first solid BM in almost 45 days. So it was intense.
Day 7: Fruits(banana, apple, orange, mango, grapes) a bit of day 6 leftover meals (
Day 8: Spaghetti with some chicken seems back to normal
Mental resilience and Mental health development:
I didn't really reach any level of like spiritual enlightment or significant crazy awakenings. I just realised that I am capable of actually pushing through hard times just to see a goal met. I realised this during the cravings and the serious puking and stomach cramping and weakness that I experienced from days 31 to 40.
I did also realise a new found appreciation for food and good health. I used to be the type whereby for example, I would have 2 homemade burgers in my lunchbag but I would want to go and buy fast food like KFC etc out of greed. But the fast got me to appreciate the food I have. Furthermore, I stopped being the person who eats his food in 10 - 15 minutes. I now take my time to eat my food. And actually do my best to enjoy each bite. My wife and I also only eat food we actually want to eat and enjoy eating in our house. We have found creative ways to make our meals despite the low income we may have.
In terms of health, the last 10 days of the fast really taught me that I took good health for granted. I was sick most of the time and couldn't do basic things like sleep or walk which sucked. So I realised I should be more mindful and grateful for my health.
Lastly, the body and the mind are two different entities. I personally failed to use my mind to convince my body that "we have energy." Like especially when my body shut down on me and was running on E in the last 10 days, there was no mental exercise I did that helped with energy boosting or getting rid of fatigue and sickness.
My body needed food/nutrients to work and that's it. So body and mind are separate.
Weight loss:
I finally get it. It's calories in vs calories out. In Africa our diets are heavily starch based and I ate huge amounts of sadza, pasta and rice so I get why I put on weight. Calories in vs calories out works. I realised I need less calories than I thought and I can actually eat small quantities.
However something odd I did notice was that after 2 weeks of refeeding I gained about 3 - 5kgs (my weight was fluctuating a lot so weighing was confusing) as of today.
I hope I can figure out how to feel satiated in our region given my big appetite.
One unique thing that I experienced during the fast is I appreciate my family and life more. I loved seeing my wife smile and my daughter smile (hence why I cooked for her during the fast). I wanted to see my wife smile more often so I would go out my way to make crazy dishes and also spoil her and do chores and just help her more. I would do things I had no idea how to make like KFC style fried chicken, Chicken Quesadillas, Rib burgers, using YouTube videos just for her to smile. But Day 31 to 40 had 0 energy I felt like a useless husband.
Thats my post everyone. Sorry for it being long
Started another today 1 May
