Weight gain after intermittent fasting...?

This is a question for those who intermittent fast... Do you see a gain (no matter how small) on your non-fasting days? I'm pretty worried that all that I've lost has been water, so I'm afraid to stop fasting, lol. I started three days ago (today is my third day), and so far I "lost" 0.9lbs on the first day (21hr water fast) and 1.4lbs as of this morning (18hr water fast), so a total of 2.5lbs. I can't believe this is real weight, so I have a very real fear that it will just be there again after my first day of 'normal' eating. I have eaten everyday (as per the IF and ESE schedule), and have just completed a 24hr water fast today. My plan was to eat regular meals on the weekends and fast during the week (using the 20/4 plan), but I don't want to gain on the weekends. What should I do? Any help will be greatly appreciated, but please (and I mean this is the nicest way possible) don't post up a response about starvation mode and all that... I'm really not interested. I know what I am doing

I lost like 22lbs on IF, had a bad week gained back like 3. You shouldn't be so preoccupied with the scale that much. I am not sure what the 20/4 plan is? 20hr fast, 4hrs feeding?!?!?! The way to do this is be gradual about it, What is "normal eating?" That's is what I don't understand, multiple times a day? Not fasting doing a full day fast?

IIf you stick your caloric numbers, you'll be fine, multiple times a day, or one meal.

What you're doing is really bad for your body. If you lose weight, you might look good but your body will be struggling to survive if you do this for any extended period of time. And yeah you'll gain it all back once you return to normal eating which eventually you'll have to do because you cant live on a diet like that.

Normal eating as in breakfast, lunch and dinner. The 20/4 plan is 20hrs fasting, 4 hours eating. I am obessed with the scale, lol. How did you use IF? How many days a week? How many hours at a time?

Well, my theory on it... One meal a day will lead to indigestion, i learned the hard way. What I was doing at first was... eating once a day... around 1500 calories for 2 days of just protein trying to be under 100grams of carbs. On day 3, i'd just let loose, eat whatever I wanted... So this is a 3 day cycle pretty much.

day1 and 2: under 100grams of carbs a day
day3: whatever i wanted... of course with in reason. If I wanted to eat ice cream, I wouldn't go out and eat an entire thing of ben and jerries, I probably could have, but I didn't want to risk it. I'd Just eat half of it, if that... just to replace the glyocgen in the muscle...

The diet was... pretty crazy, it used zigzagging your calories AND your carbs, plus a form of CKD(cycled ketosis) with a IF style of eating. The top techniques in bodybuilding to reduce bodyfat ALL AT ONCE. I worked out like for one week out of that month... because of school finals and I injured my back, I still lost a lot of weight. I am not surei f you're familiar with ketosis, in summary ketosis is when your muscles run out of glyocgen(carbs) and uses fat and proteins as fuel. This is the point of the entire 2 days of being under 100grams of carbs. I thought to myself "maybe I just THINK i am in ketosis, and I am not... maybe I need a longer time without carbs." I got some ketosis sticks, and I was right...

I didn't think it was a good idea to be zigzagging just starting out... your metabolism needs to find equilibrium. My body doesn't know what a "normal" caloric intake for me was. We all eat different amount of calories every day if we don't keep track of them. One day I might eat 2500, another day I might eat 4000, another day maybe 1500... High amount of calories increases insulin which can store fat. So if I eat "2000 calories one day" then eat "1500" the next, my body can see it as a "caloric reduction" what if i eat 1800 calories the next day??? Is this a caloric reduction of 2000 calories? or is it a caloric surplus from 1500??? Your body can be confused and store bodyfat... I decided not to zigzagg my calories for a while.

I want to get the maximum performance out of my body eventually. I know a reduce caloric diet won't help me grow to my maximum limit. I thought to myself "what if you do a zigzag with you calories... but in terms of exercise?" Exercise is also a caloric deficit. This way I can keep my calories high... so it can rebuild my muscles at the maximum pace. The tricky thing would be to... manage carbs... to have my muscles full of enough glyocgen for performance and not put on bodyfat... this is a bit tricky...

I thought to myself "well... later on down the road what I have to do is eat at my AMR and tweak my macro nutrients so I don't put on weight or lose weight once I am at my goal weight" As I mentioned I wasn't sure if I was in ketosis, I talked to a few people... the entire ketosis thing is pretty much the "atkins" diet... I went to the source, the atkins diet, see what it recommends, and how they go about getting in to ketosis. With the atkins diet... you reduce your carbs to below 20grams a day... for 2 weeks. then slowly increase them by 5grams a week till you stop losing weight... from that point you cut back 10grams of carbs to start losing weight again untill you hit your goal weight.

This is the answer I was looking for to achieve top performance. I just eat at the carb levels I need to eat to not lose weight or gain weight, this will imply my muscles are full of glyocgen, if i start to lose weight with a lot of exercise, I can increase my carbs a little, so I can always have a perfect balance.

A buddy of mine is doing what I call "reverse ketosis" he's very lean. He's eating at his carbs, and "slowly' lowering them. I am doing the opposite, I reduce my carbs big time and i slowly increase them, our end results will be the same.

So in summary, I am doing the atkins diet, eating in a IF fashion... I eat 1500-2000 calories between 4pm and 8pm. Keeping carbs under 20grams right now...

To the people who say this is bad. We're not doing "long term fasting" fasting gets rid of toxins from the body, which is healthy. This is why doctors recommend it for caner patients sometimes, to clean all the junk out of them. The style of fasting we do also increases growth hormone that perseveres muscle tissue, and burns fat. This method of eating provides a lot more health benefits than the "standard recommendation."

Love this Also, thanks for the summary of what you have been doing! It's quite different to what I'm doing. I try to keep my carbs under 120g (way higher than yours!) but usually keep them under 100g. I haven't been getting indigestion, but I don't eat a lot at once; it's more like grazing during my eating window. I don't worry too much about the cals (as much as I can), as long as they are under X amount (ie, I don't eat unless I am hungry regardless of cals) Your diet takes in too many factors for me right now, lol. I can handle calories, fibre, carbs, sugar, fat and protein... And that's it If I added in the stuff you track I'd go insane! That being said though, good for you! It's obviously working well for you

For you just keep doing what you're doing. Actually what messed me up that one week was being greedy with weight loss, pushing things to the extreme, it just lead to binging for 3 days. haha

You have to keep in mind "IF" is a life style... if you want to eat in the "standard" format during the weekend that's fine. Just try to eventually take that out. If you continue to lose weight with 120g of carbs a day that's good. If weight loss stops, lower them to below 100... and see how that works for you