Please help! Day 16...what happens when you cheat?

Hello. A little about me and my fasting experience thus far: I am new to posting on this forum, but not new to reading all of the wonderful posts. I am on day 16 of my water only fast. It started out as a 3 day fast to try to kick my Sugar cravings and reset my tastedbuds so that I could start on an anti-candida diet. I did a 10 day master cleanse last year and did not come off of it correctly, I binged very badly and have eaten very badly ever since. I have gained about 20 pounds in the past 10 months and my candida is out of control.

I didn't know anything about Water Fasting when I started this and was only planning on going for 3 days, but the more that I read (especially on this forum), the more it appealed to me and I decided to do a longer fast with no exact end day in mind. I would love to fast to completion but am just taking it one day at a time and listening to my body. I am hoping to weaken my candida greatly so that when I start the re-feeding process and start on anti-fungals, I can kill it off.

While on this fast, for the most part I have fealt great! I have 3 young kids, ages 2, 4 and 6 and I have had plenty of energy to keep up with them and keep up with my daily mom and wife duties most days. Days 9 and 10 were HORRIBLE, I felt awful all day those two days. I was ver weak and dizzy, I had a horrible headache, my legs were throbbing and I was very nauseated. My wonderful husband gave me a massage on the evening of day 10, I slept great that night and I have felt fantastic ever since!

My only real complaint is that my food cravings have been intense every day. It doesn't help that I have to prepare meals for my family all day long. Some days I crave really healthy foods but most days I still crave sweets really badly. I had hoped that after 15 days the sweet cravings would be gone, but they are definitely not.

So here is my dilema that I hope some of you experienced fasters can way in on. I had been able to fight my cravings up until yestereday and for some reason last night when I was making dinner, I just cracked! It started with just a little taste of yogurt, then a taste of fruit, then a taste of this and that. I probably ended up eating about 1 to 1.5 cups worth of food. My stomach fealt awful and I felt SO guilty after coming so far. My little binge only lasted about an hour...until about 3:00 in the morning when I couldn't sleep and I did the same thing, about 1 to 1.5 cups worth of food and no it wasn't healthy food. Of course when I woke up this morning my cravings were stronger than ever and once again I caved in on a little snacking.

Why is this happening now? Shouldn't I be over this part of it at day 16?? I am wondering if part of it is due to the fact that I am in the middle of my menstrual cycle, which is a time when my cravings are always really strong.

So, I am getting ready to do a salt water flush to flush all of the junk out of me and get my digestive tract nice and clean again. In case you are wondering, no, I have not been doing those or enemas on this fast, I just feel that it will help me to avoid the cravings if I know my system is clean and back on the right track. My question is this: How has this slip up affected my fast? How long will it take my body to get back into ketosis? Are the next 3 days going to be as bad as the first 3?

Over the past 16 days, I have had many questions come up that I have been able to find answers to by searching the forum, but just cannot find an answer to this one. I am not ready to end my fast, for one I know that I am still extremely toxic and for two I have learned that quite possibly the most important part of a fast is in how you eat coming off of it. I don't want to come off of this fast the wrong way like I did with the Master Cleanse. Ideally I would like to continue to fast either to completion or at least until I am confident that I can control myself and my cravings when coming off of it, and I proved to myself last night that I am definitely not there yet!

There are some wonderful, knowledgeable people on this forum, I hope to get some feedback on this so that I don't feel like I have completely blown it. Thank you for taking the time to read this and thanks in advance for your input. Tweet