2nd of December 2021
The other day, when I was watching YouTube, I got randomly recommended a video about a guy who didn't eat for 10 days. Suddenly I became very interested in nutrition and after doing some research I decided to do it myself. I don't know if I will manage not to eat for 10 days but honestly even a 5-day-long fast can give you pretty satisfying results. It's also a good way of testing my willpower and learning more about my body.
On Wednesday at 11PM I ate my last meal and since then I've only drunk water. I'll be updating this post every day with my thoughts.
I had a rather busy day so luckily I didn't have much time to think about food. I was a little hungry but much less than I had expected. Maybe it's because I drank a lot of water. Other than that, my morale was high and I was feeling confident and happy about myself.
I woke up before 10 o'clock, about 30 minutes before my alarm, which is weird because I had gone to sleep at about 2 AM. I was kind of glad because I felt well-rested and everything seemed to be fine. However I was missing coffee a lot. I had decided not to drink anything but water during this fast and I'm going to stick to my plan for as long as I can. I will drink black coffee or tea if not drinking one or another would result in me giving in and breaking my fast completely - with food.
I didn't have classes today so all I did was work for about 5 hours. I was starting to feel the effects of not eating anything. I had trouble focusing, felt sleepy, constantly needed additional stimulation and the weather wasn't helping as well - it was raining all day so I couldn't even go out and take a walk. But in retrospect I don't think I would have even gone out, had the weather been better. I felt too tired and didn't have energy to do anything. The mere thought of doing push-ups, which I had planned on doing during the fast, made me feel completely exhausted. At around 5PM I was seriously considering breaking the fast. In the end, luckily, I didn't do it
After finishing my work for the day I took a nap. I turned out to be quite long, considering I woke up at after 10PM. With nothing to do, being tired and craving to feel a taste of literally anything in my mouth (water gets kind of boring after 2 days), I decided to watch one of my favourite TV series on Netflix and basically just chill until I get sleepy again so that I can go to sleep.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow, I hope I'll be more energetic and my body will finally realize that the food is not gonna come anytime soon and it should stop releasing the hunger hormones.
And one more thing - I literally feel empty. I've never had that feeling before. It's like there is a hole in my stomach filled with void.
The night before I had gone to sleep quite late, so today I woke up at 1PM. All things considered though, I felt rather well and had more energy than the day before. I managed to take a 2-kilometre walk to a supermarket. However on the way back I started feeling exhausted and by the time I got home, all I wanted to do was lie in bed and do nothing.
I didn't get hungry during the day. I kept craving food but it wasn't because of the hunger. It was just
because I wanted to feel something other than water in my mouth. I miss tasting things.
Today was also the
first day
when I supplemented baking soda to prevent heartburn which I started getting the night before. Other than that,
every day I drink a glass of water with one teaspoon of salt to help keep my electrolyte levels high.
To summarize, today was better than yesterday and I hope tomorrow I will feel even better
I got a horrible nosebleed during the night. On my way to the bathroom I left a lot of bloodstains which could probably look quite suspicious when taken out of context. I don't know what caused the nosebleed, it was either the fast or me dreaming about nose picking and actually doing it subconsciously in real life.
During the day I felt rather well and had quite a lot of energy compared to the previous days. Walking to a supermarket was as tiring as the day before but after returning home I somehow regained my energy, did the vacuuming and dressed up a Christmas tree. I was happy and didn't get hungry at all. I still craved food but it's because I like eating in general and I miss the taste.
I've been drinking water with salt and with baking soda to avoid getting electrolyte deficiency. I also decided to break the fast on Saturday morning because the refeeding process can take a few days and I don't want to do it during the week - I have classes at the uni and I work part-time. This means that by the time I break my fast, I will have fasted for 9 - 9.5 days which I consider to be a good result.
I had a huge problem falling asleep. I didn't sleep until 5AM and only then I could get some shut eye. Not for long though, as I had to wake up 4 hours later to attend classes at the university. As far as I know it's perfectly normal not to be able to fall asleep and it's related to evolution. When starved, our bodies try to keep us awake so that we can have the energy and focus to hunt for food.
The rest of the day was both good and bad. Despite having to attend classes, I had much more energy than on the previous days. However when I finally got home at 6PM I suddenly lost my energy and had to take a nap. Still, I managed to survive the first part of the day without being overwhelmingly tired.
When it comes to hunger, I had none. But I missed food a lot and I kept remembering all the awesome dishes I had used to eat in the past which made the whole fasting process kind of harder.
In the evening I couldn't get my feet to get warm. I was cold in general. I was considering having some tea but at the same time my plan for this fast was to hold off with drinking tea and coffee for as long as I can, so in the end I didn't do it. I managed to get a tad warmer after drinking water with salt and then, half an hour later, water with baking soda.
I'm considering breaking the fast one day earlier, on Friday. It will give me more time to properly refeed myself over the weekend. I'm still not sure so I guess I'll see how it goes in the upcoming days. I'm already proud of myself for having made it to day 5. Good job, Matt!
As always, I couldn't fall asleep until 5 or 6 in the morning. I woke up quite early but I felt really good. I didn't have any classes today so I only worked for a couple of hours at my part time job. For the first time since I started the fast I was able to focus and not get distracted every 5 minutes. Overall this day so far has been the best of them all. I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
I only got two hours of sleep because I had to wake up early for my morning classes at the university and I couldn't fall asleep until 6AM. The rest of the day was rather fine, I had enough energy do to everything I had to do and I didn't feel any hunger. Which doesn't mean I didn't want to eat. I miss food badly.
I also noticed that I am much more emotional, maybe my hormones are going crazy. Also, after lengthy research I decided to break the fast on Friday morning. This is my first time fasting and I have no idea how my body will react to the refeeding process and I want to give myself a lot of time time over the weekend to do it properly.
I barely slept. I almost decided not to attend my morning class, though I managed to somehow get over the tiredness and get myself to the university. After returning home I got a rather uncomfortable stomachache and decided to break the fast. Better to be safe than sorry and end up in a hospital in a foreign country or even pass out while living alone. The refeeding process began.
The first thing I ate was a single carrot. I felt full after eating it. After half an hour I ate scrambled eggs. Waited another half an hour and had the scrambled eggs again but I added bacon and ketchup.
A few more hours have passed and that was when my self control ended. I ate a bag of pistachios and a bag of Doritos. Luckily my stomach handled everything perfectly well and I didn't get diarrhea nor I had any pains.
This concludes my first water fast. It was 7 days and 14 hours long. I lost 0.55 stone (3.5kg, 7.7 pounds). In the upcoming days I will post a more detailed summary and more statistics, including the weight I will have gained back.