Re: Breaking 7 day fast.
I say this not to discourage you, but in the hopes of helping to prevent you from feeling discouraged within about a week or two. In a 7 day water fast, i would expect you (at your weight) to lose perhaps .6
pounds per day of mostly stored fat, which comes out to about 4 "real" pounds. If you walked for an hour a day i would put that number at 5 real pounds.
In my best estimate, of your 16
pounds lost, about 11-12 of it was water weight and a couple of other things that will surely return (intestinal contents once you begin eating again and a slight amount of weight for the depleted glycogen stores in your muscles to name a couple). The large amount of water weight we lose in a fast is the result of the elimination of sodium as the sodium causes us to retain water, both the normal levels and in some cases in the form of "excess water retention".
If your water retention was excessive and you moderate the sodium in your system, you wouldn't gain all 11-12
pounds back, but in a 7 day fast for me it has been very common to lose that much water and get it all back within about a week or two of eating.
Now for the good news. You did an amazing thing for your body, it is cleaner, healthier, rejuvenated and super charged. You may have staved off illness. It is a chance for a fresh, pure start... a chance to eliminate bad habits and start new ones. The sky is bluer, the sound of the birds chirping is sweeter. And on top of all that, and a long list of other amazing benefits, you have lost 4-5 real pounds.