the water fast: reflections

This is my reaction when people ask me about the fast:

In Summary

So it’s been about a week since I’ve been off the water fast.

Some quick observations:

- Water fast did not cure my incessant hunger

o Regained all weight lost within 1 week

o Fat percentage has large fluctuations

- Strength & Stamina = unaffected

Mental Reflection

Wow. When I say it was one of the most mentally taxing weeks of my life, I truly mean it. You are constantly engaged in an internal strife and I really didn’t come to that realization until after I was done with the fast. This past week, I have been able to return to a pretty regular eating routine and I guess I truly did not realize how much time, effort, and energy it truly takes out of our days. I personally tend to eat majority home cooked meals, so for those of you who eat out frequently, it may be slightly different.

During my break from food, I had a multitude of cravings, and unfortunately, I began to write down a list of everything I wanted when I got back off the fast. RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT DO THIS. This was awful. I had built up such a long list of things I was craving, I ended up ordering things online that I did not truly intend to eat, but they arrived at my doorstep, so therefore I was tempted to eat them. (Fun fact – one order was screwed up, so they sent me extra cookies, fortunately, I have stayed strong and refrained from eating the last one.)

Downsides

Having had this week to reflect on how the lack of food affected me and contrasting it with having the food I did, I noticed not only did I feel fine without consuming food, the majority of the time I felt better without consuming food. I think there are multiple reasons for this:

1. Having been essentially starved for five days, the mind naturally wants to eat

much more than it should. Therefore, almost anytime I ate what I would

consider a normally sized meal, I would have a delayed reaction of feeling full,

this would result in feeling bloated after almost every meal.

2. Having not had food for five days, stomach enzymes are in low quantities,

therefore food sensitivity is elevated. This is pretty evident in wide fluctuations

in fat percentage. Last night, I was sitting at 6.8% body fat, this morning I was at

7.0%, since eating today, I'm up to 7.5%. This has been a pattern this whole week

since being off the fast, I'm not sure how much longer this will persist, but I do

know that my fluctuations pre-fast were not nearly this drastic. Stay tuned.

3. Having not made decisions on what to eat for five days, I was overly

conscious of what I was eating, therefore, the majority of the time, I would feel

as though I was not eating healthy, thereby negatively impacting my

perception of how healthy/unhealthy I was actually eating. To put it plainly, I

was overly critical of my dietary choices. This led to my feeling unhappy with

myself – not healthy.

Moving forward, I think these "downsides" will gradually dissipate, so I'm not too worried. Especially with the upcoming 75 Hard Phase 1, I think I will be in a good place to start having "recovered" from the water fast.

Upsides

Having said all this, there are definitely some upsides that I am still feeling from the water fast.

1. Overall confidence is up

a. I feel like I can do anything now if I set my mind to it

2. Body fat percentage is still sub 7.6%

a. As of Saturday evening, I was at 6.8%

3. I feel motivated to take better care of my body in general

a. Although there is an internal strife between what is and what isn’t “too

much,” I think my general consensus is that I want to make cleaner

and more health-conscious decisions in my everyday life.

Other Notes

Surprisingly, strength and stamina stayed largely the same post-fast. I ran 4 miles on Sunday (Day 7 from beginning of fast) and still managed to keep the time under 30 minutes (this is my typical benchmark – I don’t regularly record mile times). I was truly anticipating losing a little bit of strength due to lack of protein in my system for nearly a week. I thought my muscles would begin to slightly break down by the end of the fast. I ended up proving myself wrong. The Friday before the fast began, I hit a one-rep max on bench press at 260 lbs. This Friday, what would be the 12th day from the start of the fast, I matched that same feat. So, suffice it to say, I don't think I lost any significant amount of strength. You can see the wild fluctuations over the past couple weeks below.

Day 14: 9:32 pm

178.6 lbs

7.5% body fat

48.9% muscle mass

Day 13: 8:42 pm

180.2 lbs

6.8% body fat

49.1% muscle mass

Day 5: 7:37 pm

166.6 lbs

5.1% body fat

48.9% muscle mass

Day 0

179.0 lbs.

7.6% body fat

49.6% muscle mass

What's next?

Tomorrow, I will start the 75 Hard Phase 1, a 30 day recharge of the 75 Hard. This challenge has a few stipulations.

1. No alcohol

2. Two 45 Minute workouts daily (one outside)

3. 10 pages non-fiction reading daily (excludes school reading)

4. Strict diet w/o cheat days

5. 1 gallon water daily

6. Cold Showers

7. 10 minute "visualizations" daily

8. 3 "Power List" tasks daily

9. Progress photos daily

I will go into greater depth in the coming days. As for my diet, I will be adhering to the Mediterranean Intermittent Fasting Diet while also conducting two 24 hour fasts weekly. I know this sounds intense, but I will go into greater detail about why this makes sense given my circumstances.

If you want to learn a little more about it before my next post, check this out.