How food addiction jeopardizes my Water Fast

A lot of people that struggle with extra weight (me included) very often don't eat for hunger but rather for emotional reasons. Sometimes those reasons are unknown to ourselves altogether and we just eat because food is joy, it's a reward that we deeply need, makes feel us better, loved. But food it's at the same time culprit of our troubles. It's a vicious circle that we can never get off from, there's no brain switch that would say: that's it. I had enough of you; I want to have willpower on my food intake. Unfortunately, this is a lost war that only good prolonged, extremely prolonged habits can win.

Food is my enemy and my love; I can't control my feelings when dealing with it. Yesterday I had a real pure Binge Eating episode, planned and executed perfectly. I did not have this type of episode since a while now; yes I was often overeating but never planning my binges, at least not in the past few months.

I'm thinking that the reason could be due to the refined sugar and carbs I had in the past 2/3 weeks. I had non-raw-vegan food in few occasions, including m&m's at the movie theatre and English muffins from McDonald's once I felt already screwing up everything I had achieved in the past months. Shame on me!

In these days I'm trying and trying to start a new Water Fast, and oh man how difficult is, I never had so many problems starting a Fast; sure the first 3/4 days are tough but I always came around to do it somehow. This time seems everything so hard and my belly now looks like an 8-months pregnancy! I have that moment where I hate my body.

Temptations are always around, the desire of food is always there, I'm hungry and frustrated, I have anxiety, I sleep very badly at night and nothing fits me properly now. I look so ugly and old in the mirror.

One thing that often influences me negatively with my fast is meeting people; in particular my boyfriend….that is always hungry! When he asks me to go eat something I feel bad to say no, that I'm fasting, because I know he likes to eat a lot and me too anyway, so I give up on my discipline and eat with him, happily.

But today I feel more motivated, the pictures I took of my huge belly yesterday are a great motivation; the way my face looks with all this extra fat is convincing me on stick on my fast. I also saw my ex for a coffee yesterday evening and he did not believe the fact that I did a 24 day Water Fast and he acknowledged my fat and extra weight, I know he is a jerk, he's always been like that….he likes skinny women and I'm not here to judge him, but – believe it or not – this offensive look and comment kind of helped me to find a good motivation to stick to my Fast today.

One thing I'm worried about though, this afternoon I'm going to see my parents and spend 2 days with them; I really hope they won't make me eat the usual junk food or forcing me to eat something and break again the fast. I really need to pass these first few days; once I'm in ketosis things will be easier. Also my boyfriend is already thinking on celebrating my new job in the coming week, going out in a restaurant of my choice and to have some fun together. I hope he'll understand that I finally started my Water Fast and we just need to postpone the dinner of few days; it should not be a big deal.

Trying to Fast again with no success

So I'm back again here struggling on starting a new prolonged Water Fast, ideally I would like to do a 14-Day Water Fast. The reason I am aiming to this number is because I think I will need at least 2 weeks to lose all the fat I gained back after my last fast done before my trip to Italy.

I gained all back, I'm not over 60 Kg yet but I can see from my body that whatever I have on is just fat, since I'm not going to the gym in a while I have no muscles anymore. I went for a run 3/4 times in the morning, when I was in Italy, but just for 20/30 minutes….better than nothing sure but not enough to build muscles. I might need to go back on my gym regiment or these Fasts are going to break down all my left over shapes!

I gained my pounds back because of the amount of stress I'm getting at work; seriously this job is killing me inside and out. I'm desperately trying to change but it's not easy to find a good job. Before leaving for my vacation I was very motivated, I had found a great company that asked me to come multiple times for interviews, giving me great feedbacks. This gave me great motivation also to keep on going with my Water Fast, until the last few days before my trip, when they decided not to pursue my candidature for the role, that was very disappointing since I kind of pictured myself already leaving this hell where I'm in every day!

This is the first time in my life where I don't want to wake up in the morning knowing that I have to come to work. I think nobody should ever feel in this way for a job….this is not a happy place. The way I feel every day is affecting my behaviour towards my entire life, my relationship with food and also my relationship with others. I feel depressed, very often I would like just to go home and cry. I don't have anyone I can talk to and that understands my situation. I told everything to a couple of friends but I realized that after talking few times they are tired to listen to my complaints; which is totally understandable, I've been dealing with these struggles since 6 months now, anyone would get bored to listen to me, myself included…!

In the mornings I have strong anxiety, the Water Fast usually helps me a lot with my anxiety, but it takes at least 5/7 Days to really start to feel the benefits of the Fast, and the first days are normally the toughest one. I started last Thursday fasting then after 3 days of being diligent I gave up on some food at a local pizzeria with my boyfriend. I was definitely hungry but being in company and going out didn't help my discipline.

It takes so little to gain weight back, I spent yesterday eating and today I had a huge lunch, although skipped breakfast and planning on starting a real Fast. I want to be successful this time, I know the level of stress is high but eating and gaining weight makes me only more miserable and it gets my mind so foggy. Being on a lower weight helps a lot my mood, my self-esteem, my anxiety, I can control my food better because I'm more motivated, even my gym routine improves.

I want to try to start an IF regiment once I get to the desired weight, I'm thinking that even just 56Kg as a start would be perfect, and then anything less can be achieved with IF or the gym. But first I need to get rid of this fat I have accumulated to my belly. I'm wondering if even the stress can be a reason why I'm often bloated…I don't know. I just hope to find the strengths on keep on going with my Water Fast. Wish me luck!