Intervention: Day 14, 332 hours, 307 lbs, BMI 44.0

This is the last day of the fast. Officially I’m going to end it at 11:00 am as this would be exactly 14 days. Couldn’t get to sleep much past 1:30 am last night and was up again this morning at 5:30. Cramps have not gone away and seem to have gotten worse so I’m going to ride out the next 4 hours and then start my post fast. I tried some diluted lemon juice and a quick diet soda swig last night but it really did not seem to help.

As a side note: I find it interesting that on nights I sleep 6 hours or more I have more weight loss the following day. Was expecting to be closer to 305 today but I guess my fat cells are still holding onto some water, but I’m really not in the mood to wait out 2 more days for it to release. The lemon juice and soda may also have been interfering with fat metabolism so it could be a combination of factors. I’m really disappointed that I couldn’t get to at least 300 lbs, even if I didn’t make it to 500 hours, but the cramps are winning out at this point.

I hadn’t bothered to do deep research on post-fasting as much as I would like. So I’m sort of jumping into this based on a number of articles I’ve read that are similar to this one at All About Fasting. Although fruits seem to be at the top of a number of people’s list in terms of something easy to digest to start with, there are a number of common recommendations that seem to be fairly consistent. For example, the longer the fast the more time you should take to ease yourself back into eating regular food. Soft vegetables (like carrots) and bone broth seem to be a common theme in most recommendations.

I’ve seen people on YouTube, however, break a fast with a relatively decent sized portion of fruit.

Here is the approach I’m going to be taking:

1. Right now my electrolytes are likely to be completely out of whack. So as this has been a decent duration fast, I’m going to be 3 days reintroducing foods starting with something to help rebalance the electrolytes;
2. While getting directly back into raw vegetables sounds good on the surface, I know from my time working in a hospital that patients requiring a soft diet will more typically require either minced portions (i.e. foods that have essentially been through a meat grinder) or baby food. While it may not be a steak dinner, and it is going to look REALLY silly going through the checkout counter, baby food and some bone broth is probably my best bet for today even though it is a bit higher in fat and sugar than other alternatives;
3. My calculated intake based on what I weigh right now is about 2500 cal. I’m going to build up to this over the next 4 days starting at approximately 1250, 1700, 2250, 2500 for each of the next four days respectively.
4. I don’t want to shock my system with fruit right out of the gate. That would be similar to me hitting McDonald’s for lunch. Fruit is going to be converted directly to glucose and spike my insulin levels which is the last thing I want coming off a fast. So while most fast-breaking regimes seem to favour fruit, for the next several days I’m actually going to be limiting my fruit intake.
5. Tomorrow will be more steamed vegetables, eggs, cheese, and broth.
6. Friday will likely include an avocado salad, eggs (wrap), yogurt, and salmon. This will be the first day I’m introducing carbs (i.e. wheat), but I’m going to keep it to a minimum level.

I’ve had two cravings in my head since about day 3 for what I want to eat when I came off the water fast: an avocado salad, and an omelet.

The big challenge over the next two days is trying to stay in ketosis. While I can easily bump the calories up to 2200-2500, I don’t have a proper keto nutritional plan created. The next three days while I’m breaking the fast on re-integrating food stuffs, I’ll be researching keto meal plan options, and then hitting the store on Saturday to start into that phase of my intervention.

Notwithstanding the back pain and severe cramping I’m going through right now, I would definitely do this again. I don’t think I would ever attempt a 14 day, or longer, fast unless I was forced into the position of having to do one. It has given me a new perspective on things and I’ve found out a lot of things about how my body works (or doesn’t work in some cases).

If I were to do this again I would set between 7 and 10 days at most. I know some people have ‘easily’ gotten to 28 and 30-day fasts. It seems like it should be easy from the way the videos are cut but it is truly not. Your body goes through some intense changes during the process both physically and emotionally. My hat is off to those that push through to 4 and 5 weeks doing something like this. It is really not as easy as it looks.