The fasting journal · matched to fast day 49
Day 49. The Scale Goes Up on Purpose
It is Friday under the trees and John is in a good mood. Gnome in one hand, weekend on the horizon and a number on the scale that would scare anyone who has not been following along. He leads with it on purpose.
Numbers first. 181.6 pounds this morning. That is 2.6 pounds up overnight and the biggest single day move of the refeed. Total change is 47.0 pounds in 49 days from the 228.6 start on August 1. BMI 27.5, body fat 29.4 percent, muscle 38.0 percent, 1929 calories burned.
The gain is the headline
Weight gain. Yes, we expect to go up in weight.
That is the whole tone of the update. No alarm, no excuses. Four days ago the water fast ended on day 45 and since then the story has been broth, a settling stomach and a scale that barely moved. Today it moved. Up 2.6 in one night on nothing but a bowl of beef broth.
Where the weight is actually going
This is happening because my body is now holding on to the water. My organs are restarting to take form. They are holding on to the water. The liver is creating glycogen. It is storing everything. It is getting ready to do the things it needs to do to take in food.
That is John’s plain version and it holds up. A body that spent 45 days on water ran its storage down to the floor. The moment food signals return, the first job is refilling. Glycogen goes back into the liver and glycogen does not travel alone. It binds water. MedlinePlus describes fluid and electrolyte balance as something the body regulates constantly and a refeed is that system swinging from drain to fill. The broth itself is a few cups of liquid. The 2.6 pounds is the warehouse restocking.
Where it stops
We expect the weight gain to go up and level off somewhere around 185 pounds to about 190 pounds.
He says it the way he said the fast would end when his body told him to. A range, not a promise. The rebound is front loaded, water and glycogen first and then the curve flattens. Even at 190 he would sit almost 40 pounds under his August 1 start. He has watched this movie before on his earlier long fast. The line jumps, the line flattens, the line tells the truth.
The strip hits zero
Yesterday the pad read 0.5 and he called it hardly traceable. This morning it finally reads zero.
Cleveland Clinic frames the refeed window as the stretch where the body moves off fat burning and back onto food. The strip has now filmed that handoff end to end. Sixteen for weeks. Sixteen through the first broth. Then 0.5. Then zero. The ketosis chapter of this project is officially closed and it closed exactly the way the plan said it would.
Broth through the weekend
Meanwhile I still keep taking broth. That has not changed. I will continue all the way through the weekend.
One small bowl a day, same as day 46. Soft vegetables are still the next rung and they wait until his stomach and his doctor say go. The monthly bloodwork continues. Happy Friday, he says, we made it past another week. Then he lets everyone go enjoy the weekend.
The count
Day 49 of the 90 day calendar. The eating back up phase is doing what it was designed to do and the scale going up is part of the design. If the jump surprised you, start with why the fast ended on day 46 and the whole picture snaps into place.
Forty one days left on the calendar. Bye for now.
Quick answers
Why does the scale jump in the first days of refeeding?
Because the first thing a starved body restocks is not fat. It is water and glycogen. John's version from the day 49 video is that his organs are restarting, they are holding on to the water and his liver is creating glycogen and storing everything. MedlinePlus describes how tightly the body manages its fluid and electrolyte balance and a refeed is exactly the moment that system swings. Food coming back tells the body it can refill the stores it drained over 45 days of water. Those stores weigh something. A 2.6 pound overnight jump on one bowl of broth is not a bowl of broth. It is water going back where it belongs.
Where does John expect his weight to level off after the refeed?
Somewhere around 185 to 190 pounds. That is his own estimate from the day 49 video and he gives it while calling the current jump expected. The logic is that the rebound is front loaded. Water and glycogen come back fast in the first stretch and then the curve flattens once the tanks are full. He started at 228.6 pounds on August 1 and stood at 181.6 on day 49. Even the top of that range would keep him roughly 40 pounds below his start. The number to watch is not any single morning. It is where the line goes flat.
What does a ketone reading of zero mean four days into a refeed?
It means the refeed is working. John's strip read 16 on the last fasting days, held at 16 through two days of broth, dropped to 0.5 on day 48 and hit zero on day 49. Cleveland Clinic describes refeeding as the stretch where the body shifts off fat metabolism and back onto incoming food. The strip is simply watching that handoff happen. Zero would be bad news on day 30 of a water fast. On day 49, four days after the fast ended, it is the expected end of the ketosis chapter. Nothing failed. The chapter closed on schedule.
Is refeed weight gain the fat coming back?
Not in the first days. What comes back first is water bound up with the glycogen the liver is rebuilding, plus the ordinary weight of food and fluid moving through a digestive system that was empty for weeks. John is eating one small bowl of beef broth a day, which is nowhere near enough surplus to rebuild fat quickly. That is why he talks about the gain like a weather report. He watched the same rebound after his earlier long fast, his doctor follows the bloodwork monthly and his plan is unchanged. Broth through the weekend. Then soft vegetables. Then the slow ladder back to meals.