If I'd known how easy weight loss is

[itslikecakesbutitsnotcakes]

I'm both annoyed and utterly elated.

I'm approaching 50. Obese at 5ft 6 at 97kg (15st 3). I've tried every diet under the sun in the past 20 years and usually given up. I'm a perfectionist so the slightest slip makes me give up. Plateaus and stalls made me lose motivation. My DH cooks and he's like a rake so he'd oblige with diet foods but would lose more weight than me and have to supplement with biscuits and piles of plain carbs so I'd feel bad and stop. Always failed.
I even tried Saxenda. Had no impact at all.
My problem is overeating and over drinking as a habit not for hunger. Even when dieting it was all too easy to think 'one glass of wine won't harm oh and a bit more won't either', 'that was a healthy meal, there's more left in the pan that won't harm' 'ohh I'm hungry, a big hunk of cheese is fine and these nuts and ham... its low carb', 'I've been good all week, let's have a pizza on Saturday'. The self talk was sabotaging.
Anyway, cutting to the chase, the past two and half weeks I have been water fasting and it's been nothing short of miraculous.
-lost 10kg (20lbs so a stone and half)
-energy through the roof, sluggishness and lethargy gone
-brain fog gone
-skin glowing
-bloating gone
-trousers that didn't fit me two weeks ago are now hanging off
-arthritis and bunions in feet pain have massively reduced.
The big thing for me is it takes away the opportunity to self sabotage, no worrying over what to eat and buying and cooking special food, wondering what substitutes for potatoes etc the choice is gone so food and alcohol doesn't enter my head. It's so easy. Once the difficulty of the first few days has gone I honestly want to continue as I feel so amazing.
I start my fast at 10pm Friday and go 90 hours without food. So that takes me to dinner time Thursday. This week I'm going to to go to Friday dinner time so about 115 hours and nearly 5 days.
At weekends I eat one meal a day. Usually dinner and ensure it's low carb but have a few glasses of wine too and start all over again Sunday night. I check I'm in ketosis continually and I continue to lose weight over the weekend.
It's definitely not for everyone but works an absolute dream for me and my personality type and my particular type of addiction to food. Lots of people will think it unhealthy or dangerous but there's planet of peer reviewed quality literature on the huge benefits that long term fasting brings. It's also been a godsend on my alcohol intake that was reaching terrifying levels and certainly becoming an addiction.

I'm elated that this is having such an amazing effect but annoyed I've wasted so much time on crap diets and thousands on injections.

What utterly, utterly DANGEROUS advice. Reported

And here's me thinking I was doing well just slightly cutting back of the amount of food I eat in a day!

What you are doing is madness OP, and it won't end well unless you start eating more, for all the reasons others have mentioned.

I've moved my body to using fat not food as its energy source. There is more than enough energy stored for it to use!

You just need to Google water fasting to understand that it has multiple benefits (Google autophagy). I have eaten in a disordered way for 30 years and this has solved it for me. Continuing the eating and drinking the way I was is far more dangerous

Fasting has been going on for centuries for health and religious reasons more recently and our bodies are set up to use fat reserves in times of starvation.

I said this isn't for everyone. This is a method that overcomes my own personal psychological challenges with food. Not having to make choices and no thinking about food is easier for me. I'll do it for the next few weeks and likely move to intermittent fasting

No food at all for 90 hours. I take electrolytes in water everyday (magnesium, potassium, salt, bicarb) to keep cell balance in check and some multivitamins.

I work in a full time senior role. If anything it has made me more effective at my job

I would be totally miserable not eating for 90 hours. I would also be divorced very quickly.

Life is just too short.

You are not a healthy young man doing a highly reduced calorie fast as a one off medical experiment or a once a year religious thing.

You are a near menopausal woman who is starving herself. You are losing muscle at twice the rate you are losing fat and sadly you will probably not regain this muscle. You are also losing bone and will never recover it.

This is not perfectionism, this is obsessive.

I mean you haven't invented the wheel....eat nothing, lose weight. This is not brand new information.

But I have heard some people say how good fasting makes them feel.... although when I watch the news and they report on famines and food shortages, funnily enough the people aren't full of energy, glowing and loving it.

@itslikecakesbutitsnotcakes I water fast too and understand where you are coming from, it’s very freeing mentally and gives me a sense of calm and a boost or feeling of reset if you like.

I usually do 3 days or sometimes just 2 days. I do this twice a year. I have read there are more benefits in doing 5 days but haven’t tried this myself. I am mid 50s, retired and plan my water fasts when I don’t have to do much or ideally any driving, kids aren’t home from university etc. I look forward to it. I make sure I go for a walk every day but otherwise I rest a lot. I am 5ft 6 and weigh between 8st 10 and 9st. I first water fasted to lose weight quickly, I was almost 12 stone at the time. I maintain easily.

Now you have lost 20lbs I would suggest you think about switching to a less extreme 48 hours water fasting (given you are working full time) and don’t over eat on your other days. Have you considered one meal a day on the other days?

Also how you break your water fast is important. You really aren’t advised to dive into a big carb heavy meal with wine! Please read up on this. You should be having a bone broth or steamed, steamed fish and gently ease back in. Try 48 hour water fast, 48 hours broth and steamed veg, 48 hours chicken, pulses, veg and then maybe 48 hour water fast again. Weight loss will still be excellent.

I'm doing intermittent fasting and the weight is dropping off even though I stop doing it when it's time for my periods . Then start again after my periods. I do 18 hour fasts sometimes even 19 20 hour fasts and my skin has cleared up and I have lost 2 stones since July . I would recommend you ease urself into less hours as its not sustainable for doing such long hours. You will end up binge eating and putting it all back on .

Is it half term again?

Is it that time of year again when massive twats start posting about it being half term because they are so desperate to express their horror at anything that is different to their norm?

Congratulations you’ve swapped one form
of eating disorder for another. Get help and don’t encourage others to do the same starvation as you.

I hope your not driving after starving yourself for 4 days, you could cause an accident. Stupid and dangerous

Long fasts, such as 90 hours, make you lose fat but also bone density. It is easy to regain fat but almost impossible to regain lost bone.

I'd rather be a bit fat, sorry

Sorry OP you aren’t losing just fat you are losing muscle too, any diet that is this restrictive does not act kindly towards what mass comes off your body - it will be both fat and muscle. I can’t imagine it would be safe for you to do most forms of exercise with such little nutrition so say goodbye to your muscle mass in old age, you might lose weight this way but you are increasing your risk of falls and fractures. The reason weight loss is meant to be slow and steady and combined with exercise is so that it doesn’t rapidly decimate your muscle and bones with poor nutrition and deficiencies

There’s no point being slim but frail is there?

Well done! I'm a fan of fasting, and IF too.