How Much Weight Will I Lose on a 3 Day Water Fast?

I did a 72 hour fast but not for weight loss. Although, I weighed myself because 'how much weight will I lose on a 3-day water fast' is an actually searched keyword phrase on Google.

The bottom line is that I lost 6.2lbs and sinched up nicely on my waistline.

Hello and welcome, here is the rest of the story.

One night I'm drinking and I order sweet and sour pork at 1:30 am. The next day I'm feeling pretty awful and my farts stink so bad even my dogs have to leave the room.

I do intermittent fasting (IF) mostly 16-18 hours of fasting and 6-8 hours of eating. I started because my friend was doing it and talking about it endlessly.

The benefits of the 18 hour fast are that you can eat 12,000 calories worth of pizza/burgers/chips/chocolate/dog biscuits and you feel like shit after... but, by 12 pm the next day, you feel amazing again.

You don't lose weight. BUT, you don't gain weight either. Also, you can pound IPA's 3 nights a week followed by a 20 hour fast and you're literally living your best life.

All at once, I had a brilliant idea. Why not counteract my despicable behavior with a 72 hour fast?

After all, I heard the 72 hour fast actually raises your white blood cell count.

With the seed planted I plowed through 3lbs of pasta and set off on my fast.

Day 1: fast starts (6:38 pm)

Day one was pretty freaking good. By midnight I could feel my abs poking through. It was hard to fall asleep. I stayed up until 2 am feeling my new abs coming to the surface. The next morning I was still feeling hell ya!

I was working, writing, and crushing it.

I felt freaking amazing until about 3 pm when I decided to walk the dogs. We got halfway around a 6,000 step loop when fatigue set in. I was hungry, dizzy, and started walking at half pace.

Fudge, I thought my fast was over. We passed Triplo O's and I was drooling more than a Saint Bernard.

Somehow I resisted. I thought, let's just do it for the blog. I pretty much crawled home and downed 3 glasses of water. Surprisingly, that helped.

Note to self: we get over 20% of our water intake from food. If you're fasting remember to DRINK MORE WATER

6 pm rolled around and I was back to visualizing my 25-year-old self's abs in the mirror. It was GAME on.

Day 2: feeling great

I didn't weigh myself because I didn't want to be disappointed. You know, sometimes you go to extremes, you feel good but you hop on the scale and you went up 2 pounds! If that happened, I knew I would just say fudge it to the entire plan.

Fasting Research: at some point, you have to question what you're doing; you Google it. Here are some apparent reasons to fast:

1. Fat Loss: No calories = body still needs resources. Carbs & glucose are short-lived so we’re left with fat and muscle. It’s counterproductive for your body to consume muscle mass, so your body instead guzzles fat, and old, dysfunctional cells. In men, the body even ramps up HGH production to prevent muscle loss. Sounds good to me!
2. Ketosis: As you enter survival mode, your body begins to produce ketones by breaking down fat stores. These serve as a kind of backup battery of energy in addition to glucose. Many people report higher energy levels, mental sharpness, and general wellbeing once they’ve adjusted. I had my moments but they were short-lived.
3. Anti-Inflammatory: Inflammation is part of your body’s natural healing process, but can be damaging. By decreasing the count of suspect cells in the blood (called monocytes), fasting has been shown to reduce inflammation in the body. I can't vouch for this one.
4. Steady Blood Sugar: Since fasting pushes your body to prefer fat over carbs or glucose, insulin production decreases. Over time, your body becomes more sensitive to insulin, which can lead to more stable blood sugar and fewer crashes. Hmmmmm, didn't notice any improvements.
5. Neurological Disease Protection: Reducing excessive inflammation, and optimizing neuron health, fasting has been shown to reduce or prevent the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Dementia. I don't remember anything.
6. Autophagy: This is the only one I really cared about. Supposedly it happens after 24 hours of fasting. When your body fasts it begins an evolutionary process known as autophagy (literally meaning cellular self-eating). Your body removes old, dysfunctional, potentially cancerous cells, and recycles them for cell repair and cleaning.
7. Longevity: Through some magical combination of benefits, along with a lower risk of many diseases, (or some mechanism we don’t understand yet) fasting is one of the most promising frontiers towards living a longer and healthier life.
8. Lack of studies: Apparently they've done lots of studies on animals and not lots on humans which seems ridiculous. It's probably just the fast-food industry trying to cover up something.

Exercising was a bad idea so in the evening my wife and I binge-watched Jennifer Aniston's (Morning Show) on Apple TV. The first season was pretty good. They follow real-life stories like the #metoo movement and the big ass fires in Malibu in 2019. Season 2 starts at Covid time so I'm curious to know how they handle the disease (because you know anybody who speaks out is banned from the airways). I'm guessing they are going to try and protect the government's stance and I'm going to hate the show soon.

Hopefully, I'm wrong.

Day 3- pulling for the finish line

I had a horrible night's sleep. I don't know if it was to do with the fasting but I've had a bit of an earache, and it went off in the night. I slept for 2 hours. My throat was sore, I was hungry. In the early AM I ran over to the walk-in clinic and the doctor told me I have something like a diaper rash in my ear canal. He gives me some steroid drops and they start working right away.

I had a few hours of good feelings during the day, but around 4 pm shit hit the fan. I was hungry and feeling light-headed. I talked to my friend who's basically a fasting expert. He told me to drink saltwater so I downed a glass of high-quality pink salt.

It was 4:30 pm, my online class was about to start. I couldn't even think properly. I was hot then cold then hot then dizzy. Time went by slower than detention in 6th grade. I was out of it. At 6:30 pm I heated up some chicken bone broth. It was soooooo tasty.

Class ended at 7 pm, Jody Lea had food ready, some kind of a sweet chicken and rice. I ate 3 plates, a digestive biscuit, half a croissant, and 1/3rd slice of tiramisu from a kickass little bakery called Gateau de Henry.

I still felt rough. I filled both ears with steroid drops, sat on the couch, and by 8:30 pm I was out cold.

The following day I'm back in the saddle and ready for another challenge!

To sum it up, this fasting journey was a tough finish, but it was also good for mental health and a sense of accomplishment. Personally, I think I'm going to stick to 48-hour fasts from now on.

Jentezen Franklin said it best, "Fasting is not just a physical discipline; it can be a spiritual feast."

Very best,

Devin Bisanz