I did an 18 day water only fast in early March. The first 3 days were tough but it got easy after that. I eased back into food after it ended.

I did it to jump start my next weight loss push of the last 25-30 pounds by mid July for a total of 100 lb lost in 16 months; from 273-274 down to 175
[Reply]

Yea I remember when I used to think this exact same thing too.

Around the time I hit 39, during that exact year for sure, I started putting on weight so I adjusted my diet the same way I always had previously, and had always worked. Nothing happened, didn't lose a pound.

Had to start counting calories and that's when I started running.
[Reply]

WHAT A GREAT IDEA!
[Reply]

That's some impressive weight loss.

I do have to say, though, that ADF is nothing like long term fasting. I'm not real fond of even saying the "fasting" part of ADF because people's eyes instantly glaze over, thinking you are talking about starving yourself.

The original version of this was called the "Johnson Up day, Down Day Diet" (JUDDD) and there is a newer version called the Every Other Day Diet. I like those better as they describe it better. You diet one day and eat over TDEE the next. Repeat. Simple.
[Reply]

That’s crazy, man. Good luck!
[Reply]

impressive.
[Reply]

SR is the most inspiring poster!
[Reply]

That's very sweet of you to say. Thanks you've made my day.
[Reply]

fantastic! That’s a lot of work. Great effort and results. :-)
[Reply]

Did sprints, Bear crawls, Lubges and squats with my 25 pound vest on. Went the whole liberty memorial lawn that workout was a bitch!
[Reply]

Thanks for all the kind words of congratulation.

On a side note, after just 2 days of going into a water fast with days of decaf coffee only along with the water, your digestive system pretty much stops and you no longer have bowel movements. 14 days not a single one. I was pretty scared I was making a mistake and going to have problems but it work out. :-)
[Reply]

I did something yesterday I haven't done in.....uhhhh......no idea the last time. Play 9 holes of golf but I walked it, bag on my back. Not sure I could have made it last year doing that, but felt good to get in an "extra" exercise during the week.
[Reply]

I stuck with my 500 calories yesterday but didn't drop much. I'm at 218.2 lbs like after the last down day. However, I have started pounding water as my lips were getting super dry and cracked. Happens every time I diet so I think it may have something to do with being dehydrated.
[Reply]

What do you eat on a 500 calorie day?
[Reply]

Interesting topic of conversation here. I would like to share some of my experiences and I hope others can learn from my mistakes because man the last 3 weeks have been very frustrating for me with respect to fat loss because of carb overload and lack of calorie counting. I had a mental lapse in regards to those things. Its understandable and eh it happens. My goal right now is refocus back and get to where I need to be. Ive made some strides in losing weight. I was 240lbs before and got down to 225lbs in 3 months. Not bad.

Im currently at 225lbs and would like to get down to 190lbs. My goal is to not only lose 35lbs but to maximize fat loss. Its not just about losing weight, I honestly hate it when I hear that. Its more about what kind of weight are you losing? Are those 35lbs you’re losing all fat?? Or is most of it fat and some of it muscle?

I want good quality with respect to weight loss by losing mostly fat and sacrificing the least amount of muscle tissue as possible. Very hard to do but up for the challenge!

Anyway, for the last 3 weeks I’ve been stepping on the scale like crazy. I’ve noticed that my weight keeps fluctuating back and forth. I jump from 225lbs to 234lbs! And then go from 234lbs back to 225lbs. What I realized is all this weight fluctuation is result of my own body holding onto water.

See, I went through a period of 3 weeks where I had 1-2 days per week during those 3 weeks where I carb loaded so much to the point where I’d put on 9 pounds.

For some of you folks that don’t know this, please be aware that whenever you ingest carbohydrates, it gets stored as glycogen in both our muscles and liver. Aka the bodies energy reserves. All glycogen is, is a bunch of glucose molecules linked together in chains. In order for our bodies to do that, it needs water! Now, when our bodies expend energy, it taps into our reserves and breaks down the glycogen as its primary source of fuel. And also releases water when doing this.

Predominantly our bodies love to burn sugars for energy. It actually burns a bit of everything but predominantly sugars. Anyway, if you overload on carbs, you’re basically telling your body okay here is enough supply of energy for the week and your body thinks , “great! I have my favourite energy source and don’t have to tap into fat to burn for energy!”

So, with that being said, i did some calculations and figured out why I haven’t been losing weight (burning fat) in the past 3 weeks.

This is good info for some of you folks to know. Anyway, did you know you could figure out how many grams of carbohydrate you ate the previous day (for your cheat day or cheat meal) based on the amount of water weight you gained and from there you could figure out why it is an obstacle in preventing you from burning fat?

Here goes, I’ll use myself as an example:

I was 234lbs on Monday morning, this friday morning Im 225lbs. Im back to my regular weight again, scale hasn’t moved less than 225lbs, I don’t expect it to right away.

Take 234lbs minus it from 225lbs and thats 9 pounds of water weight!

Every pound of water weight is equal to 16 oz. 1 oz is equal to 28.35 grams. Why is it important to convert ounces to grams? Because with every gram of carbohydrate that you ingest, as a rule of thumb, you store 4 grams of water.

So if you do the conversions 9 pounds x 16 oz = 144 ounces of water retained. 144 oz of water x 28.35 grams = 4082.4 grams of water stored

From there I could figure out how many carbs I ate during my cheat day. Take 4082.4/4 (because 1 gram of carbs again holds 4 ounces of water)=1020.6 grams of carbohydrates eaten the previous day. How many calories is this? 1020.6 x 4=4082.4

Calories and grams of water stored are the same! Pretty much an equal ratio of 1:1.

How long does it take in general for our bodies to get rid of these excess calories and/or excess glycogen storage? It depends and varies from individual to individual. But lets say on average if a person is dieting according to their regimen everyday and getting decent amount of physcial activity where he or she burns 500-700 calories per week, okay? Thats literally a whole week it takes to burn off those excess calories. And I went through this for 3 straight cycles where I’d eat clean for 6 days and then stuff myself with carbs on a sunday only to get back to square 1 the next Saturday.

So now that Ive figured this out, its no wonder I wasn’t burning any fat because I was positioning my body to be in an energy balance rather than deficit and didn’t put it into a position where it had a limited supply of glycogen and didn’t opt for other sources of fuel to burn like fat.

Anyway for the next month, no more carb overloads. Strict dieting. I will put myself into an energy deficit and force my body to burn fat as a source of energy by limiting glycogen supply.

I learned:-) im happy and ready to take on this issue.
[Reply]