I Tried Water Fasting, Intermittent Fasting, and Caloric Reduction to See Which Diet Worked Best

Here’s how I found a balanced approach between eating and fasting.

Photo by Jennifer Schmidt on Unsplash

I am a fairly healthy person. I don’t follow a rigorous exercise routine or a particular diet chart. But I do indulge in some sort of physical workout every other day, and I’m also mindful of my caloric intake (at least that was the case until the lockdown started).

During the initial month of the lockdown, I really didn’t care much about what I ate or my physical activity. I enjoyed my ‘new normal’ life. All I did was binge-watch series, eat, and work. I did things that required minimal movement.

I totally forgot that I was getting married in about 8 months’ time.

This struck me when my wedding dress designer called me to talk about the fitting date. The call happened during late May and I weighed 4.8 kgs (10.6 pounds approximately) more than what I weighed during my first appointment back in November 2019.

With just 6 months left for my wedding, I had to find a way to lose this weight as fast as possible.

After extensive research, I found three weight-loss trends that the internet vouched by:

• Water Fasting
• Intermittent Fast
• Caloric Restriction/Reduction

Doing a 5-day ‘Water Fast’

Water fasting is a type of fasting in which you only drink water.

This fast pushes your mental and physical limits and is an extreme test of your will power.

The logistics:

On a water fast, I drank water, flavored tea, and electrolyte juice (as recommended by my nutritionist). Although it is recommended to avoid the use of toiletries (soap, toothpaste, and lotions during the fast) because these products can leach through your skin and be metabolized by the body. I did bathe, brush, and use lotion throughout my fasting period.

I began my fast on May 20th,2020 at 4:00 pm after a pretty heavy lunch.

The cons:

1. Cravings and Monotony

Throughout my fasting period, I kept thinking about food.

The first two days were the worst, I had intense cravings and really bad mood swings. I would literally spend hours scrolling through pictures of food and watch food recipes on YouTube. I would even sniff food to make myself feel better.

By the third day I felt better, my hunger had disappeared. I did feel hungry for sometime around lunch hours, but that was it. But this phase was the beginning of another problem ‘extra time’.

All the time I used thinking about what to cook, cooking time, and eating time, was just extra time and I really didn’t know what to do with it.

Life without food felt more monotonous. Whether you have realized it or not, we all use food to break up our day. And with a lockdown in place and no food, I felt less motivated to even get up.

2. Dizziness

You need gas to run your car, it’s the same for your body. When you don’t eat, your body feels tired.

Though I had bouts of high energy, during which I got most of my physically intense activities done, mostly I felt lethargic. I felt so dizzy that I just wanted to sit on my couch. I would even feel dizzy each time I stood up.

3. Sleepless nights

Throughout the fast, I had problems sleeping. I wasn’t able to sleep for more than 3 hours straight at night.

The pros:

There were some amazing benefits too despite the bad. After the initial 2 days which were the worst for me, the next 3 days were different.

1. Clarity and No Anxiety

Though my body felt tired my brain was sharp. I could focus on a task without my mind getting deviated. Words came quickly, I could easily write 3000 words a day without feeling burned out. I also noticed my anxiety had reduced. I felt calm and at ease most of the time. This calmness and focus remained for about a week post my fasting.

2. Weight loss around my stomach

This was a definite perk. Though I only lost 0.9 kgs (2 pounds). I saw a drastic change in how my stomach looked. My stomach felt firmer. And I also didn’t have gastric issues during the fasting period.

3. Desire to eat more vegetables

I broke my fast with vegetable soup on the 6th day. But I didn’t feel hungry until the 7th day that was 27th May. On 27th I started feeling really hungry and had a big bowl of salad. I didn’t have the desire to eat meat for about 2 weeks. I also didn’t feel like eating fried food, it seemed like my body was analyzing what was good for me and wanted to feel light.

After a 20 day break and 3.9 kgs to lose, I started my next diet

Trying Intermittent Fasting (IF) for 1 Month

Intermittent fasting involves a cycle of periods of fasting and eating. It is not something unusual and perhaps many of us have been unknowingly doing it. The goal of IF is simply to allow the body to use stored fat for energy leading to weight loss.

There are different styles of IF, but the bases of each are the number of hours spend fasting.

My nutritionist recommended a 16:8 type, where you fast for 16 hours and eat within an 8-hour window.

I started intermittent fasting on the 15th of June and continued until the 18th of July.

Here’s how I did it:

I fasted from 11:00 pm to 3:00 pm every day. Lunch is the most important meal for me, so I wanted to incorporate it.

My first meal would be around 3:00 pm, there were days when I ate a little early or a little late too. But I tried to do at least 15 hours of fasting. And I followed this with tea and snacks at 6:00 pm and dinner at around 10:00 pm.

I didn’t skip my morning coffee. Rice was my highest source of carbohydrates and I had it at least once every day.

Throughout the fasting period, I had restaurant cooked food only four times. I also kept a watch on my caloric intake and made sure I didn’t cross 1300 calories. Which is my average calorie intake even when I’m not on any diet. I used an application called ‘HealthifyMe’ to keep track of the calories consumed.

The pros:

1. Steady energy levels

Unlike water fasting, I felt way at ease with intermittent fasting. I wasn’t dizzy nor did I get constant headaches. My body didn’t feel tired, I was physically active and I was also able to concentrate. I didn’t feel overly alert or sharp like I did during my water fasting.

2. I didn’t feel angry

With intermittent fasting, I felt comfortable since day 1.

I didn’t experience drastic mood swings or sleeplessness. Intermittent fasting didn’t affect my daily routine. On a normal day I would have a light breakfast at around 10:00 am and now I was skipping it.

As food was still part of my life I could enjoy cooking and eating and didn’t have to forcefully refocus on other activities.

The cons:

1. Minimal weight lose

I lost about 0.5 kgs (1 pound)only. I weighed 57 kgs (125.6 pounds) when I started IF and I weighed 56.5 kgs (124.5 pounds) after one month of following this routine.

2. Metallic taste

My mouth developed a metallic taste within a few days of starting this diet. Drinking water and eating acidic fruits felt horrible. My breath also started to have a funky smell, forcing me to brush frequently.

With 4 months left and about 3.5 kgs (7.7 pounds) to lose. I gave caloric reduction, another internet hot trend a try.

Simply “Eating Less”

I thought this would be the easiest diet plan to follow after having fasted for 7 days, but it didn’t take long to prove otherwise.

Eating less or caloric reduction means reducing the average daily caloric intake without causing malnutrition.

There are several calculators available online that can help assist how many calories you should be consuming based on your gender, age, weight, activity, most of these calculators are based on Mifflin-St. Jeor equation.

And according to the calculator to have 0.5kgs weight loss per week I had to cut my calorie intake to 989 calories/day.

Once I had calculated my calorie intake, I created three meal plans so that I didn’t have constantly keep a check. Egg, banana, apple, and milk tea were staples.

I started this diet on the 1st of August and continued until the 3rd of September.

The cons:

1. Extremely stressed

Keeping a check on how much you eat and drink is tedious. The numbers kept me on my toes.

I didn’t enjoy any meal, and I was constantly hungry. I felt depressed all the time. I couldn’t concentrate on anything except think of food. Constant hunger made it difficult for me to control my anger. I didn’t like being touched and I was constantly irritable.

2. Urge to pee

I couldn’t stop peeing. Though I only drank about 2 liters (67.8 ounces) of water, I ended up going to the washroom like 12–15 times a day. I felt dehydrated.

3. Hairfall

After one week of following this diet, I started to notice heavy hair fall and it got worse through the month.

I can not say if this happened due to the constant change of diet plans or stress-induced from eating less or nutrition deficiency.

4. Bloating

I felt constantly bloated. My stomach was swollen and I had an irregular bowel movement.

The pros:

1. Weight lose

I lost 1.5 kgs (3.3 pounds). And I haven’t put on any weight since I ended this diet on 3rd September either.

Final Thoughts

Your diet should include a lifestyle change that you can adapt to.

A water fast is not for everyone. You need to make sure you are medically fit to fast.

I had consulted my doctors before starting this fast and throughout the 7 days, I was home. The lockdown was an added advantage as I didn’t have to think about household chores, my family helped me with it.

But completing the fast wasn’t easy. Though I wasn’t hungry, I had a desire to eat each time I saw food.

I had an irregular bowel movement for about 10 days even after I completed my fast. Reintroducing solid food wasn’t a smooth sail, I had indigestion and I felt nauseous while eating.

But this fast was an eye-opener to me. It helped me restore my faith in self-control.

Intermittent Fasting (My Personal Favorite)

Though I didn’t lose much weight, I felt most relaxed. It didn’t feel like a burden and on the other hand, was easy to incorporate into my current lifestyle.

Caloric Reduction

Eating less did not work for me. The stress and depressed feeling that I had during that period isn’t something I would want to go through.

In the end, after trying all the three different weight loss methods I feel intermittent fasting worked the best for me.

Note: I tried this during lockdown hence I didn’t have to drive to any place. Brain fog is a side effect of intermittent fasting that many have claimed to have faced. So it is advisable to not drive until your body adapts to the diet.

If you are considering trying intermittent fasting. I would also suggest to first to get your health checked to know if it’s ok for you to fast for extended periods. And start small and then experiment by increasing your fasting time to find what best suits you.