Sorting hunger during fasts is like untangling knots.

I'm on day 3 of 5. It is fascinating to watch where my hunger is coming from. I mean; physiologically speaking you don't get any hungrier, and I will say that 99% of your triggers are based on your habits, good or bad. For instance earlier I was able to learn that most of my snacking at work came out of boredom; I would go find me a 'healthy' snack every time I needed a mental break. During my fasts those were like bee stings, zinging me left and right all afternoon. I sorted out that knot by getting rid of work snacking outside of my fasts. They were not needed and were in fact counter productive all around. Another annoying knot to untangle was getting home from work after a long day. Dinner was a bit problematic because that's not a bad habit, that's just a habit I don't particularly want to get rid of. There is a cell tower about 10 minutes form my home. When I see it I start thinking about all the things I want to accomplish through fasts; weight, health markers, discipline, and how important that is for me. That makes me happy. When I get home and get a hunger hit I go back to that happy mental track; little by little that happy feeling is becoming more important than satisfying an emotional hunger. My goal is to make fasting as effortlessly as it can be.

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I agree, it’s all crazy what we experience during a fast

Without food, I become a workout machine for some reason, idk why but I just wanna train all the time, I have no idea how my body can sustain that but it does and even seem to like it

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When my psychological food triggers arise I just grab my love handles and tell my body to eat. There’s plenty of energy right there 😂😂 May not be healthy lol. Also I have a tattoo on my arm of a lotus flower that symbolizes my mom, I’m not a spiritual person at all but I find that focusing on it keeps me on track. And reminds me how far I’ve gone in this fasting journey. And it fades.

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I agree, I like observing myself and changing things around to see how things are affected. (This makes looking at weight loss more like a scientific experiment and less an emotional one. If I don’t lose weight I change up my control groups. I’m not a failure, it’s just an experiment. Try it, it’s more fun than beating yourself up!) But I love to see what my brain has taught itself. Whenever I sit down to read a book, I instantly feel the need to eat something because I want to be “cozy” and my brain decided that I can only achieve maximum comfort with food. I can’t even imagine how many pointless things I’ve eaten while reading, but I’ve done it since I was a teenager. I’ve been playing around with adding music or candles to re-wire that part of my brain. It’s crazy to think about how many things our brain signals to us are things that we “need” that can be changed!

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I find the psychological side to it endlessly fascinating. You really start to notice all the reflexive habits to do with food. Oftentimes, when doing something associated with eating, I will feel a sudden jolt to get up and grab some food.

Deconditioning yourself and choosing your actions deliberately rather than following strange compulsions is a huge benefit of fasting that I believe goes beyond physical health.

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I’ve made it through the last 85 hours by using grounding techniques. This one I learned from Reddit is great if you’re feeling anxious or panicky but also helps if you just need to ground or occupy your mind. Cravings can get intense in the early days of a fast so I like to do the panic de escalation thing that also helps with intrusive thoughts.

You look around for 5 things you can see, 5 things you can touch, 5 things you can smell, and so on. Repeat if needed.

Another thing I learned recently from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is to count to ten. Tell yourself you can endure it for at least ten seconds, count and then if you still have to endure it, count off ten more. Eventually you’ll get through.