Hello fellow fasters!

I wanted to create this post to give some of you a little insight about my fasting experience so far. Hopefully it will give you some motivation as well.

Long story short, 13 days ago my DEXA scan revealed that I have around 29% bodyfat, and I was shocked (26yo F here, 5ft 4). So I decided to try out fasting as an aggressive (and yet sustainable) fatloss tool, in order to drop as much bodyfat as possible until my flight home from Canada in mid december, while still trying to enjoy my last few weeks in this wonderful country.

Thus, my approach to fasting is pretty fluid: I fast when I am alone, and eat when I am invited to lunch or dinner. This has resulted in a longest fast of about 100 hours, and multiple 48 hour fasts.

I find that the more I fast, the easier it gets. And yet, I get the feeling that going longer in one fast, rather than doing multiple shorter ones, would benefit me more mentally, because 48h is too short for me to really let go of all the thoughts about food. During my 100 hour fast my mind was much clearer and more free after the 60h mark, I would say. So I encourage everyone to try longer fasts, if you feel up for it.

The benefits of 48h, on the other hand, is that you don't really need to watch your electrolytes. I just add some salt and no-salt to my coffee or tea in the morning and feel great. Even working out is possible as usual, my lifts are even getting better (I squat and deadlift 120lbs now, the goal is to go beyond my body weight, which is currently around 143lbs). Also, the reward of food is always just around the corner, so I don't feel deprived. When I eat, I try to have a keto/ OMAD approach and eat a high fat/high protein meal with around 1800 kcal (so I eat at maintanance on my eating days).

In general, fasting saves me so much time and money, and already for those benefits I would like to incorporate it more in my life. Concerning the results so far, I do not have a scale, so I just take measurements. My waist and lovehandles have decreased about an inch so far, and I can start seeing some results in the mirror as well. Also, I feel very healthy in general, and it seems to me that my muscle soreness heals much quicker after workouts, which I would attribute to autophagy perhaps.

The single downside I can identify is my still lingering tendency to overeat once my fast has ended, to the point where my stomach feels unfomfortable. This is why I still use an OMAD approach on my eating days, shortening my eating window as much as possible, so that I don't continue to eat despite feeling full, just because I love eating.

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These are my insights so far. Thanks for reading and happy fasting!