So for some time I've been wrestling with the decision on how to proceed, how to eat, how often to eat, how often to splurge, what should my goals be, etc. After going round on this for weeks I think I had an epiphany on Friday night which gave me the direction.

I had a very rough time sleeping Friday night. It was day 2 of my weekly 71 hour water fast. For the past 16 weeks I have been doing weekly water fasts of either 47 or 71 hour duration. For the past year now I have made it a point to try to listen to the signals from my body. Well on Friday I figured out that the signal my body was sending was "enough with the fasting already". Increasingly I had been feeling more urges to eat, more cravings. This culminated to a head on Friday night when I could not get food out of my mind. I kept waking and immediately started thinking about food, I even had dreams of eating. Earlier before going to bed I was browsing recipe sites and had all these
ideas swirling in my mind of tasty things to prepare. I even briefly thought about getting up and making something to eat in the middle of the night. It was then when it came to me what I needed to do next, find a balance, and bring harmony to my life. Find a way to eat and exercise which feels good in terms of body and mind, because I did not have that at the moment.
I decided that the first step to finding this balance would be to end the weekly water fast days and go to a basic daily OMAD. It was like as soon as I made this mental decision I became more calm and relaxed, and fell asleep.

I have read a lot about fasting and when the topic of how long a person can fast comes up they often say that your body will tell you when to eat. Before starving you will get an unmistakably strong hunger. On my extended fasts I never reached that point, having broken them for emotional reasons. Even though I was not doing an extended fast on Friday, the only way I can explain the recent strong hunger obsession was that it was based on an accumulated deficit. Perhaps I was progressively running myself down from an excessive amount of fasting, and my body finally started to send out that unmistakable signal.

So that is it. For the time being in my next phase I'm going to eat every day but still only once.
I'm going to diversify my meal plans, try some new things.
My goals on the physical side will be to reduce body fat % and waist size, increase fitness, probably still losing a little weight but that is not a primary goal. But what I will also do is to seek a nice balance, to feel good mentally, physically and to enjoy food again daily in the right proportion to my mental and physical goals. As time passes I will throw in some extra eating during the day, a splurge if you will. Even a an occasional feast day at some point. But I'm going to go step by step. Once I feel I have that balance and stability I will take the next step.

I will still work in some extended fasting into my life, maybe 2-3 times per year for 5-6 days. I do think there are benefits. But I'm going to have my fasting days all clumped together and not every week like I have been. The idea will be like the OMAD plan "do it and be done with it"
Just like I don't eat throughout the day I'm not going to fast all the time either. When I do I will do it and be done with it all at once. I don't regret having followed the path I did these last 4 months with weekly water fasts, it's just that it's time for me to move on.

Sorry for the wordy post. I just mainly wanted to note how a simple decision to eat every day has brought on a feeling of immediate calmness over me.