My 3-Day Water Fasting Experience

I have fasted for several years now, in varying degrees, but never a prolonged fast like this one. It’s something that kept coming up every time I would start researching some of the issues I was having. One, is being in the state of menopause. I am lucky that I don’t experience hot flashes or food cravings or even mood swings, however, I have gained the dreaded belly weight and even my doctor shrugs his shoulders on that one. I eat a very strict diet and I work out regularly. A prolonged fast would give my body a new set point for my body weight and hormones like insulin. Secondly, I have been wanting to do a deep-down detox to rid my body of infections and the like. Thirdly, with the issues I’ve had with possible melanoma, a prolonged fast would definitely help my body rid circulating cancer cells while re-growing new stem cells all together.

HOW I PREPARED FOR MY 3-DAY WATER FAST.

The weekend before my fast, I did a green tea detox. I drank lots of organic green tea to flush out my system as best as I could. I worked out strong to get in a really good muscle burn and sweat to help detox further.

I intermittent fasted on Monday and Tuesday and combined that with a Keto diet to prepare my body. I normally go to yoga class on Tuesday evening, but I stayed home to take a mental health day as I call it, to help prepare my mind for the upcoming three days with no food.

My 3-Day Water Fast Experience

Day 1

I started my fast on a Tuesday evening about 6 p.m.. I used the overnight hours to help give me a boost to my days. And I knew I didn’t want to be fasting on the weekend.

Waking up the next day, it was business as usual. Getting ready for work, preparing lunches, and so on. The only difference was i didn’t have my morning coffee and the only thing I prepared for my lunch bag was four big bottles of water. I add a few shakes of Himalayan pink sea salt for the minerals to help me avoid getting leg cramps.

I felt pretty good during the day. I was surprised to not have a caffeine withdrawal headache. I usually get those a couple of hours after not getting my coffee in. It’s my opinion that the amount of water I was drinking was possibly flushing my system, so I didn’t feel the headache. I didn’t feel all that hungry. Drinking the water really helps to deter that.

When I came home from work, I was exhausted. I didn’t feel so tired when I was moving but as soon as I sat down to relax, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I ended up going to bed for the night at 6:15 p.m. I was surprised I slept through the night. I mean clear through the night. No tossing and turning. I can’t even remember the last time I slept that good. So it was, on to day two.

Day 2

The second day started out the same way as the first. I’m used to fasting, so I just went along doing my thing. Today was definitely a little harder but not as hard as I was thinking it was going to be. I noticed when sitting at lunch with the girls at work that their heated-up lunches smelled amazing. Not because I have been food deprived, but because my senses seemed really heightened. The scent was just so clear. I would get hunger pangs here and there, but it really wasn’t that bad. I think maybe because I’m used to fasting.

I finished my day at work but by the afternoon, I started getting a headache. It was around my forehead, moving down my eyes a bit. Then, my left cheek bone area and jaw began hurting. Maybe not so ironically, I have a bad tooth that I’m trying to heal on the left side. I think personally that this was my body cleaning out the junk and infectious stuff in that area.

Again, I was tired like the day before and was in bed for the night by 6:15 p.m., and slept through the night the same as the night before. In fact, I woke up a little bit late having snoozed my alarm one too many times! Finally, it was day 3.

Day 3

I woke up on day three really excited that I made it this far. I was excited. I weighed myself to check my progress. I lost another five pounds. I had lost 6 pounds from the previous two weeks from intermittent fasting combined with a Keto diet. So, it was a total of 11 pounds so far.

Coming down after my shower, I began feeling very weak. I’ve felt this weakness before. It was like a low blood sugar feeling. I figured maybe my body was now working on my organs and hormones. I went to work as usual, even though I knew I wasn’t feeling all that great. I felt hungrier today.

By my 10 a.m. break, I was feeling very weak with dizzy spells coming and going. I began shaking. These felt like hunger shakes. I ended up leaving work before lunch because I felt like my body was done with the fasting. I went home and prepared to break my fast.

I made a cup of organic green tea. Then I made some homemade vegetable soup. All kinds of veggies and good stuff go into my soup. I was so hungry now.

I broke my fast at 1 p.m., just five hours short of the full three days. (I’m still counting it as three days though.) I had one bowl of soup that I made full of lots of good veggies and spices and a couple of sips of my green tea and I could literally hear and feel the liquid and veggies moving through my intestines. I immediately had to run to the bathroom. (T.M.I. I know. Sorry about that.) This is one of the things I love so much about fasting. It cleans you out like nothing else!

I made it a point to eat slowly. I had four small bowls of soup the rest of the day and still kept drinking lots of water. I felt my energy flow back and honestly, I felt incredible already.

What I noticed after the fast.

My taste buds were very different. The coffee that I always had before did not taste the same at all. It wasn’t that good. I had some walnuts and they didn’t taste the same way either. In the opposite way, I had a salad with strawberries and blueberries, and they tasted incredible!

I was also surprised that I didn’t get any leg cramps at all. I usually get them just with intermittent fasting. I noticed that my bad teeth on the left side, had less plaque on them. Sounds gross I know but I have these two teeth that somehow always get plaque built up and I struggle to keep ahead of it no matter what I do. Many dentists have told me it’s just my metabolism. I don’t have this same experience with just intermittent fasting. Seems to me that the prolonged fasting is pretty powerful stuff!

I noticed the next few days after that my hunger level was up. I mean, you would expect that, right? You go three days without eating any food and you’re gonna be hungry. What I feel is a better explanation, though, is maybe my body has a new set point for calorie burning, which is what I wanted. A “set point” is the weight in which our bodies like to be at. It’s the weight you maintain. For so many of us, when we lose weight, we gain it back shortly thereafter, even more usually. This happens because our body is trying to maintain its set point. Fasting is believed to reset that set point.

Would I do it again?

I absolutely would! Though the third day got a little rough, I think it would get better with more practice. I seriously believe the benefits of prolonged fasting are superior to anything else.