You're just not getting what Donn is trying to explain so let me put it in simpler common everyday terms. For years and years I'm sure you've heard that people should drink 8 to 10 glasses of water daily. At an average of 10oz per glass we are talking 80 to 120oz of water a day. To be more precise to your specific weight it's half your weight in in oz of water so at 200 lbs we are talking 100oz and you weren't anywhere near that not even combining the junk drink with the water you were drinking. Now this daily recommended standard is for everyday consumtion IN ADDITION TO FOOD from which the body also gets a good bit more additional fluids making what you did way below what a person should be consuming every day by ANY common every day standard.
The really scary part of what you did as I said in another post is that there is no way in hell that in a relatively short period of 2 months +/- that the 97 lbs you lost were all from fat. It's scary and alarming to even imagine what part of that was muscle and vital organ tissue. The human body is very resilient and can survive many "hardships". The key words here are "survive" and "hardships" which by any stretch of the imagination does not equate to any thing to do with ANY healthy standard. None of what is being discussed here is rocket science. Just plain ole common sense without even getting into scientific or holistic well documented studies of years of supervised fasting.
Given the very simple common sense of the above without even getting into any dangers connected with known studies and documented harmful effects of the chemicals you were ingesting as the sole source of nutrition for 65 days you should consider yourself lucky that you did not suffer any "apparent harm" for now. What you did was extreme and dangerous, no 2 ways about it. So again consider yourself very lucky that you had the constitution and did not have any unknow health issues and you SURVIVED the ordeal and ABUSE you put your body through. The preceeding is a relative statement cuase they jury is still out and will be for a good long time which could even entail years from now.
Ok so what's done is done. So let's move on and address some very basic things. It's a fact that you're metabolism is going to be shot to hell from 65days of "starvation". This will entail a couple of common sense things, one is going to be your refedding and taking it extremely easy in bringing your digestive system back on track. It you go back to your old habits you not only can you cause harm and have problems with digestion but any weight you lost will come back gangbusters. Two your intestinal flora or beneficial bacteria in your gut has been depleated so you need to replenish/rebuild and do some probiotics. My favorite is Kefir with contains many strains of beneficial bacteria that can actually colonize in your gut. You will have to get some regular exercise to bring the metabolism back in the most effecient manner. Since you prolly lost a good bit of muscle tissue the best thing will be to include resistance or weight training. The preceeding is just very basic stuff if you are smart and realise how lucky you are and the very pressing need rebuld your health you will do some research and find a nutritional program that resonates for you and really stick to it to minimze and repair any harm you may have done from your extreme and dangerous actions.
You were NOT water fasting you were consuming studied and well documented JUNK CHEMICALS which the body had to process and deal with keeping your digestive system active and not allowing it to go fasting mode but STARVATION MODE where the body starts using muscle and vital organ tissue for energy. HUGE HUUUUUUGE difference.
100oz of water is not anywhere remotely near anything that would constitute "water intoxication". It is a very well studied and known standard that for optimal health people should drink half their body weght in oz of H2O. Do a little research into "The Water Cure"
I believe that there is a forum for it here on Curezone
Many people that do the Master Cleanse which is not water fasting and technically a mono fast will drink a gallon or water a day in addition to the 60 to 120 oz of lemonade on a regular basis. The main deal is that when one is fasting it helps keep the toxins moving out of the system. Personally I can't do that much and function in my everyday activities cause I would be peeing constantly but I will easily consume 60 to 90 oz in addition to my 60 to 90 oz of lemonade daily. I have done 10+ 40 day fasts over the last 6-7 years with exemplenary results.
That "might" apply if you had been in actual fasting mode and even then it's very questionable because part of the fasting process the body is cleansing and eliminating toxins and water is needed to be the vehicle to carry the toxins out of the system otherwise you can have an accumulation of toxins causing a Herxheimer reaction from toxin overload being reabsorbed into the system because there is not enough water consumed to eliminate them.
I could be wrong but I have a suspicion that all this stuff you are stating is all after the fact and things that you just looked up in the last couple of days to have come backs on the forum. What makes me suspect that the most is that if you had originally spent as much time as you are spending now with these pseudo factoids and had done any actual research on real fasting pre this starvation ordeal you would have never used this junk food with known harmful chemical crap to fast for 65 days. If I'm wrong then I apologize but otherwise if I am correct and you are honest with yourself the only one you are fooling here is you cause this water thing you are harping on is but one small aspect of the insanity of starving yourself on a junk food drink for 65 days!!!. Even if you were right about the water it is still starvation and very dangerous were a good portion of the weight you lost came from muscle and vital organ tissue. Any fasting for more that a couple of weeks without research, preparation and or supervision is a dangerous thing making 65 days of junk food drink fast extremely dangerous and irresponsible.
Move on. As I said before what's done is done. Your focus right now needs to be on damage control on your refeeding, getting some probiotics to repopulate the beneficial bacteria in your gut to normalize your digestion and researching balanced whole food nutrition. Many folks report good results from the "Blood Type Diet" by Dr. D'Adamo Check that out and see if it floats your boat.
No question about it whatsover about the obesity factor. The principal way to address it in a way that you will not cause yourself damage is and will always be through balanced QUALITY nutrition and exercise.Obesity is NOT about weight, It is a HEALTH issue.
Given that the obesity epidemic in this country is not so much caused by over eating but by the garbage and nutritionally devoid processed junk food people are consuming, fasting can play a key role to help obese folks by detoxing the system to allow it to operate more efficiently but it is NOT the key factor in the actual weight loss itself. You don't solve the problem by taking one of the very well known junk chemicals that is partly responsible for the obesity epidemic and consume that for 65 days!!! It's like trying to put out a fire with gasoline!!!
What you are speaking of is clinical "survival" terms where there is a demarcation point by where eminent damage has already occured whether we are talking dehydration or starvation. By holistic and optimal health standards the term is used differently and it is more loosely defined by a point where the body starts depleating other vital resources and affecting optimal healthy functions other than a demarcation between fat and muscle loss though it also applies just not as academicaly ridgid as defined by the AMA.
I have no interest whatsoever to get into any kind of debate between what is defined by AMA academia and alternative holistic medicine. Since this website is an alternative healing site I assume or maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part, that as a medical student you have an interest in alternative practices so I would like to invite you to do some research and read some of the better known proponents of fasting like Dr Fuhrman and Shelton both of whom have done extensive documented studies on fasting and suprevised thousands of fasters.