| | Water Fasting

Still losing weight despite a pause in fasting?

Hi guys. I’m a little confused. I’ve been doing mostly rolling 72 fasts with OMAD since December now. I started at approx 240lbs and I’m now 211lbs. I noticed last month my weight loss was pretty slow given the methods I was using to fast and I couldn’t work out why. For the past 2 weeks I’ve been unwell with Covid and have been eating normally without fasting. I would say more OMAD rather than 3 meals a day but definitely not fasting fully. More in the sense that my husband has offered me foods such as pasta or McDonald’s and I’ve accepted it because I’ve been feeling bad. I weighed myself 4 days ago expecting the worst and was surprised to see I had gone down from 219lbs to 215lbs. Today (I’m back to fasting and have been for 48 hours now) I’m now down to 211lbs. Could it be that my brief pause in fasting has restarted my weight loss? I’m so confused. Anyone else experience anything similar? Thanks.

Answer

When you lose fat, water fills those emptied fat cells for a while. Water weighs more than fat, and it can take up to a week for your body to release that water. Remember that a large glass of water can weigh almost a pound, so minor variations in your weight shouldn’t concern you.

Keep doing what you have proven works for you. I weigh daily, but I expect the numbers to jump around a bit. I’m mainly concerned with the week-to-week trend which tells me how I’m really doing.

Answer

I have definitely seen a number of anecdotal stories of people who have a carb blip for a day or two, but afterwards it breaks a stall. You don’t seem to be alone. There seems to be something to throwing in a day off plan to confuse the metabolism. As long as it doesn’t snowball into a month… I have been down that slippery slope.

Answer

They made a study on it. Where they were basically starving group of people for a prolonged time and at some point they gave them carbs rich re-feed. It turned out that at some point weight loss slowed down drastically, however after huge meal weight loss accelerated. They concluded that when you don’t provide calories, your body is more likely to hold whatever is there to ensure survival. Re-feed on the other hand sends a signal to your body that it is safe to release the water/fat it’s been holding to. I personally find breaks in diet/ fasting routines to be a great mood improving tool.

Answer

A lot of people think you lose weight from fasting because your eating fewer calories. This is wrong. While people do lose weight when they are eating less, the benefits of fasting come from improved hormone function and insulin sensitivity.

You were doing rolling 72s, which is pretty extensive. Your body was cleaning up damages cells through autophagy and breaking down dead cells through apoptosis. This improved your insulin sensitivity. So, even when you went back on a higher calorie diet you continued to lose weight.