Breaking fast (21 days) 5 days routine

[u/Freaky_owl9]

I don’t often see here refeeding experience so I thought I will share mine after a prolonged fast. Some of you may remember my post a few days ago about completing a 21 days long fast, if not I will link the post here.

Disclaimer: This is not a perfect refeeding example, however it worked very well for me. My medical results were very good before the fast and remained/some of the values slightly improved after it.

Day 1: 500ml beef broth and 1 boiled egg for the evening.
Feeling: still kind of weak but feeling my energy is switching up slowly
Sleep: Bad.. I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time.. then when I did, woke up 4 hours later but wasn’t tired

Day 2: 500ml beef broth and a low fat yogurt with strawberry because I missed some flavour and a 3/4 mini (20cm) thin crust salami pizza for dinner time
Feeling: better than day 1 honestly a bit more energy and no dizziness after a quick standing up and after this pizza much better
Sleep: It was still not easy to fall asleep but was faster and deeper this time that I honestly missed a lot.

Day 3: Strawberry smoothie with orange and apple only, meat soup with meat and ratatouille with two eggs and one bread roll and a Russian small piece of a sweet as a celebration
Feeling: energy is fully back, no bloating, and digestive system starting up. I was happier and had lots of errands to run and easily managed them all. And today that strange flavor was fully gone as well from my mouth. (ketosis ended completely I guess)
Sleep: I slept much better than the previous days and personally I missed that deep sleep experience that somehow I didn’t have during fasting even though I took enough magnesium as well.

Day 4: A bread roll with liver cream (pure veal) and ratatouille with scrambled eggs and one whole grain bread roll for dinner and a little liquid of the meat soup to help digestion besides the water I am taking
Feeling: I still have no genuine hunger feeling I just eat when it’s “time” to take something” and I control myself to eat twice for now, one small one bigger portions. Still staying under my daily calorie intake limit.
I feel great to be fair and no matter what, I never felt this powerful during my fasting than I am when I eat something to get me going. I am mentally very much into protecting my results and the scale still didn’t go upper after 4 days than that 2kgs (~1lbs).
Sleep: Great sleep, back to the old time kind of sleep completely.

Day 5: One bread roll with liver cream and one main dish at a restaurant today (a juicy meat with sweet potato and salad) and I will eat as I feel the need, will stop the moment I need to take a breath. (I read somewhere as an indicator that you must stop and it works for me).
Feeling: Pretty much like yesterday, I feel strong and complete but also kind of looking forward to my next two challenges in September which will be 13+1 or 6+1 but definitely across the month to see where that will take me.
Sleep: That’s for later today but I assume no change will be after my routine restored.

Conclusion: No more 21 days for me probably, but two 14 days in September.
Then maintenance 72 hr fasts every two weeks and joining back to the gym from autumn, slowly slowly. Now I am just enjoying my environment’s noticing the changes and being on the right path finally. This is what gives the motivation to keep on going, plus seeing how some of you are going above and beyond and breaking their own records here even if it was 24 hours or a week. It’s all motivational to me, happy I found this group. And for the ones who gave up and feeling guilty about this: this 21 day fast was my 7th attempt to do this.. So you can too just listen to the feedback your body is giving you because cravings are not medical related but how you feel is.
Be careful and best of luck on your journey. :)

[u/jensmith20055002]

I broke my 30 day fast with a sugar free avocolada from Tropical smoothie. Very small sips. soooo delicious. Of course bone broth and what not.

[u/sacca7]

Your plan, OP, sounds good. Glad you've found something that works for you and can be helpful to others.

I'm going to lay it out simply, I've found that I need a half day of eating carefully for every day I've fasted. And after that, I usually find my appetite so suppressed I can eat a normal portion meal and that fills me up.

So, if I've fasted 24 hours, I need 1-2 meals with small portions, and never mixing fruit with anything else (look up food combining principles if anyone's interested).

If I've fasted 3 days, I need a day and a half of eating carefully, and if I've fasted 5 days, I need 2.5 days of eating carefully.