I failed again!

I might sound like a broken clock by now but, here I am again, telling about another failure of post-fast maintenance.
In defense of what happened though I can say that, every fast experience, teaches me something about my body and how things work for me and my weight management.
What I realized is that after a prolonged fast my body goes into a famine-mode for about 3 weeks, after that food does not have the same appeal as the first three weeks. I guess it’s just a normal reaction after so many days abstaining from food. Makes sense though.
In 30 days of combined Dry and Water Fast I did not lose much, in terms of weight, but I was definitely feeling better than when I started. Chances were that when October started my mind just got hit with the fact that my parents were leaving the country to go back to Italy, leaving me here alone again. I didn’t handle the reality very well, I must admit; so I recall spending 3 days in bed crying and eating junk food. They say food is comfort but I wasn’t feeling better though….quite the opposite; my shrunk stomach was hurting me so much when I was eating those huge meals, and the excessive amount of sugar. In any case I kept on eating, and crying, and eating, till my stomach was not shrunk anymore and started to dilating… disproportionately!
To add more reasons to me giving up on controlling the amount of food eating, was an awful experience I went through during a long-weekend trip with a….ex-friend. Well we went out of town and let’s just say I came back home taking a coach-bus, what a jerk – you never know people till you travel together; that’s why I love solo-vacation! Anyhow, the whole situation really impacted my feelings, I felt hurt by his rude manners and words, and although he was clearly a moron, I could not deny myself of more food-comfort to relief some of the stress caused by this negative experience. And my weight and inches skyrocketed!
These past couple of months were not great for me, lots of stress combined with my ex breaking up with me, my parents moving out, their trip, long weekend nightmares, boring working days, lack of money, loneliness; well this combined to my famine-state after Fast made me gain back and more whatever I lost during the 30 days of my combined Dry/Water Fast.
What can I do? I tried to do a self-analysis of what happened, but does it really matter? Will I learn from my mistakes and don’t do it again? Most probably not….so I gave up on this too.
I do have the intention on starting soon a new Combined Dry / Water Fast, I’m aiming for tomorrow, which is November 1^st, 2017 – I got some chocolates today since is Halloween.
I have to say that lately I’m not craving food much as my usual, I think the past 30-Day Water Fast was great in terms of healing. The first 3 weeks after breaking a Fast are very critical, the body really craves for food like crazy, so imposing an extremely rigid maintenance protocol is crucial in those days, after 3 weeks or so, things get better….well at least this is what I experienced.
One thing I’m looking forward from the Fast is, not only my general well-being and the weight loss, but the reduced amount of sleep hours needed. I know that it was a concern for me initially, but now I’m enjoying watching TV in bed and working on my loom, so I usually fall asleep at midnight and in the morning I have hard time to wake up; I know it does sound as a contradiction but it is not!
Keeping a journal while fasting is very important, either on an online blog, YouTube videos, on paper, whatever works for you is ok, but those words will help you in the future; share your motivations, your feelings, how you reached your goal, how you felt when the Ketosis was fading away all the food cravings, leaving only the so desired mental clarity; all those words would help you in the future if you ever need it again. They did for me.

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!