Re: question for chrisb1
A huge variable is not just how much fat someone has, but how much water they retain. For example, people with a high sodium diet could be retaining a tremendous amount of water, whereas people with a low sodium diet will have less retained and therefore less to lose when sodium is discontinued. Many other factors effect water retention as well. I really think that when people lose five pounds the first couple of days, one or two pounds might be fat, but the rest is water. While larger people will lose fat faster than skinnier people - they wont lose it *that* fast.
I completely agree with this and believe furthermore that in many cases, perhaps the vast majority, most of the weight we lose in a fast is temporary water loss... even in people such as myself who avoid foods with added sodium. In my 36 day fast i lost 39 pounds, but 14 days later 20 of these 39 pounds were back on my body, eating lightly. This is very much what i anticipated and in this case looked forward to with open arms, having experienced the same repeatedly over many fasts.
Eating lightly, is there even the most remote possibility that the vast majority of these 20 pounds were anything but water? I definately burned a nice amount of fat too and in proportioning my body size downward and with water making up a certain percentage of our bodies, probably a certain amount of "permanant" water loss, but i do estimate that about 20-24 pounds of the 39 was temporary water loss.
Very strangely though in the face of abundant personal evidence that has me entirely convinced in the "50% or more is temporary water loss theory" including weight logs pre, mid and post fast... documenting fast after fast after fast tons of weight that disappeared in the first 7 days with much slower losses thereforth, and extremely fast weight gain immediately upon breaking the fast (about a pound per day) with light eating, leveling off after about 2-3 weeks.
I never seem to see this distinction of water vs. fat loss made in the fasting literature but to me personally it seems more blatantly and sensationally obvious than anything else i have ever experienced : ). Does anybody by chance have any links with informative on this? :).
Would love to see Chris' perspective on this too.