SHORT DAY BY DAY BREAKDOWN

I stopped eating at 3 PM on Friday, 10th of August 2018.

My last meal was around 2000 calories with eggs, bacon, cheese and some sour cream with coconut flakes.

You might want to prepare your body with more easily digestible foods, but since I ate a very low-carb meal and I was already in ketosis, I knew hunger won’t be that bad.

Day 1 – Saturday

3:00 PM: At this point, 24 hours have passed.

Usually, I recommend not having a “stay-at-home-all-day” during the first or even the next days, since it’s easier to fast while being busier with other things. On that day I actually traveled to another city so it was easier, but that 2000 calorie meal was going to keep me full until the end of the day on Friday.

On Saturday, I did drink 3 cups of coffee in total.

I split them at around 8 AM, 1 PM and 4 PM.

I also added a tea at around 7 PM.

It may have been a little late for the coffee and I usually don’t recommend drinking caffeine so late into the day, but fasting is a mental warfare, and anything that keeps your momentum going, as far as satisfaction goes, is welcomed.

Day 2 – Sunday

3:00 PM: Now there are already 2 full days of fasting, meaning 48 hours.

That morning I went to the gym and worked most of my muscles. I knew this was probably the only time I’d go to the gym during the fasting period and I wanted to be sure my body will remember that I still need those precious muscles and that it needs to spare them in case it wants to get some energy from the body.

Due to the exercise, I did feel a spike in hunger later in the day.

Willpower is your best friend at this point, but I also met with my cup of coffee 3 times during that day, so I had another ally as well.

Day 3 – Monday

8:00 AM: I was traveling again back to my hometown. Fortunately, this always helps when fasting, to keep your mind busy with other things.

3:00 PM: 72 hours / 3 days have passed and I was thinking of breaking the fast.

Not so much about the feeling that I had, but I felt it was enough.

After that, I remembered my last experience from my birthday, when I started the fast on the 3rd of August and finished it on the 6th of August, with many keto desserts. It was not a nice experience, especially since I already felt uncomfortable from the moment I started with the first few dishes, which were probably a little higher in carbs and in overall quantity.

With that in mind and the fact that I had some things to do on Thursday, I said to myself I could wait for another day, just to be sure.

7:00 PM: Now I felt that this was the longest fast I ever did.

It was clear that my body wanted some outside source of energy. I knew it had enough body fat to use, although I was seeing it decreasing. I was sore from the workout on Sunday so it was pretty clear that the body wanted some nutrients to recover.

Since I knew the difference between 3 or 4 days wasn’t that much for my body anyway, I did push for it, mostly because it was a mental game anyway.

I consumed 3 cups of coffee starting at 7 PM and finished the day with a cup of tea at around 8 PM.

Because I felt light headed and tired at one point during the day, I consumed some salt with added potassium as well (for electrolytes). I mixed it with water and that was all.

I ended the day as I always do, with Magnesium.

Day 4 – Tuesday

6:00 AM: This is when I woke up and continued writing on this post, I knew I had to keep myself busy and at the same time, I find writing great content the easiest in the morning, when I’m all alone and I can only concentrate on the words and the person who is going to read this, which yeah, it’s you.

9:30 PM: Made a cup of coffee. If you like coffee you know this is one of those moments in the day where you associate a good feeling.

11:30 AM: Went out to get several things done.

This is when I went shopping as well, to get some of my “fast-breaking” foods.

Mainly lemons and organ meats. 2 cans of sardines also snuch into my basket.

Lemons to kick-start the digestive system and prepare it for eating again.

Organ meats because they are packed with nutrients, and of course, the essential complete protein.

Sardines because they are among the kings of omega 3.

2:30 PM: Made the pre-meal drink. Really tasty to be honest.

It was made out of just 3 ingredients, with 1 optional one just because I had it:

1/2 lemon juice

cinnamon

salt

liquid stevia – totally optional and I added it just to make sure it might taste better

3:00 PM: Finally, eating time.

I made 6 scrambled eggs and that was basically all for this meal. I did add some butter, just to make sure my body got some extra calories and wouldn’t complain later that I didn’t refeed it properly.

After the last experience, I wasn’t going to risk anything. Eggs are easy to digest and there wasn’t any way I was going to mess this up.

To add some gut help and anti-inflammatory bonus, I took a probiotic + an omega 3 supplement.

Didn’t feel anything in particular after this meal.

8:00 PM: Time for the real nutrient dense refeed.

It was a lot of meat because that’s what I usually eat for getting my nutrients on a daily basis.

The main reason is how easy it is on my digestive system. Most keto foods are actually very easy to digest for our body because we eliminate most of the possible threats to our gut.

Personally, I am gluten and lactose intolerant, so you can imagine how efficient I am at digesting most carbohydrates and sugars in general.

I put on my plate around 200g of pork liver and 150g of pork heart.

Just so it wasn’t extremely protein heavy, I added some fat as well. It helps with slowing down the digestion and balancing the protein to fat ratio.

The 3 healthy fat choices I picked were butter, coconut paste, and olive oil .

After I ate half of the meat, I remembered I have 100% organic tomatoes in my fridge, so I took one and added it to the plate. Unless you have a problem eating foods from the nightshade family, they are a good choice for some extra healthy nutrients.

Below you can see an image of my plate. Remember that I’m not good at taking pictures or at timing. You can clearly see how I took a picture half-way during the meal, from a lousy angle, with a less than perfect focus and with the fork and knife around.

With some feedback, I might get better at doing this, but hey, at least you can see how it looks and maybe it gives you an idea or two of how you could incorporate a refeed if you’re ever thinking about doing a prolonged fast.

The main reason why this time the refeed went so well is that I actually did my research and made a plan.