Sounds like you’re doing great!
Lots of people compare building your fasting muscle to building regular muscles. It can be easier to work your way up, but by bit, rather than all at once.
For example, after doing IF for 2 months, I tried twice to do a 72 hour fast, but couldn’t. BUT, those efforts made it easy to do ADF (your 36 hour fast).
I’ve been doing that for a month and tried a 7 day fast. I only made it 4.5 days, but it was a massive leap for me.
Oh, also, if you eat lower carb, it makes fasting easier. I’m not saying you gotta go full keto, but if your last meal before fasting is full of rice, bread, and potatoes, expect to struggle hard
I was on 36 or 40 hours when halfway midnight my stomach started to hurt and grumbling to a point it’s affecting my sleep.
I had really bad reaction on 24-36th hours too. Feverish, brain fog, even turning my head around was so straining. My neck felt swollen and warm.
End up the next day I went and bought a fresh coconut and ate an orange.
Then this morning I had half a papaya.
Now it seems all normal again. ;)
Is there no one else in your family who can cook?
Up until 72 I get periods where it feels harder. Some of that is boredom/habit. It’s dead at work so I had more time to notice how I was feeling yesterday. I’m 40hrs in. This fast I was more mindful of what I ate and I had a lower carb few days leading up to it. I also ate more fat. I’ve also given up coffee. This time feels easier.
I did cook last time. It made it much harder. If your kids are older can they help with meals? Being a single parent is so hard. Maybe try to prep as much as possible before hand. Freeze meals so they only need to be heated.
My longest fast is quite long, 80 daysI have also done several shorter fast, in fact, I just broke my 5-day fast.
In my experience, the toughest is around 20h mark, also the second tough one is around 40 hours. It gets easier after that.
I do OMAD, and eat dinner every day. Lost 50 lbs in 6 months and have maintained 4 years.
I do EFs occasionally, for autophagy benefit.
Omad quickly becomes normal eating. No hunger. No physical symptoms like headache and brain fog. It just not that unusual for us (humans) to only eat once a day. During evolution eating one big meal every day world have been times of plenty. Very normal. Again - our body just gets used to it.
I love living and eating this way. I won’t go back to frequent eating ever. I consider this life enhancing. Not restriction.
For weight loss OMAD gives a very predictable pattern. It’s the new normal.