Some questions on refeeding (rejuicing), weight loss, etc

Hi all,
I am new to this forum, although have browsed it a bit over the last couple months. I'm currently on Day 5 of my third water fast; I did two fasts back in October: 3 and 7 days. My main source of guidance is Stephen Buhner's wonderful "Transformational Fasting," which goes far beyond just the physical aspect of it, but I also have the Fung book, and have researched a ton on the internet - so I know the basics.

My reasons for fasting include weight loss, psoriasis, and some emotional/spiritual stuff, which I won't go into here. I have a few questions that I haven't found direct answers to, that I hope to get clarity on.

I am planning to do juice only for 2-3 days on refeeding, before moving to fruits, veggies, and a whole foods healthy diet. With regards to this, I have a couple questions:

1. How to minimize weight gain post-fasting? I understand the basics - conscious and slow refeeding,and healthy Diet and lifestyle after. But I'm wondering if there are any tips to keeping that weight gain below 5 lbs or so.

2. Another question, related: Will I gain or lose weight while switching to juices and out of ketosis? I plan on doing a mixture of fruit and green vegetable juices. I can't seem to find any info on this. I know some weight is gained through refeeding, but if I do 2-3 days of juice only, I'm hoping I'll lose another pound or two. The reason I ask, is that I'm trying to plot out potential weight loss, which will determine when I end the water fast.

A third question:

3. I was really, really tempted by food on the nights of Days 2-4, and almost caved (but didn't!). Thankfully I feel a lot less tempted today! A question that arose is let's say I had caved and eaten moderately - what i really craved was tuna and gluten-free crackers, or possibly stewed apples - and then immediately went back on water-only. Would ketosis take another 3 days to get going again, or would it restart more quickly? By the way, I think I was in ketosis sometime in Day 2, as that is when I started getting the "ketones taste" in my mouth. Or is this not recommended?

I read something on FastingConnection by Dr Andre Kruger ("The Fast Doctor") about having a 10-day window after a Water Fast in which you can easily re-activate the "fasting metabolism." This has also led me to think that I'd like to include a 24-hour fast one day a week for the rest of my life (I have been playing with intermittent fasting already...I was at 250 lbs back in May or so, and lost 30 lbs in about three months, before plateauing at 220ish for a month or two, then moving on to water fasting).

As for my results so far, I've lost 11.6 lbs in four days, going from 213.2 to 201.6, losing 2.2 - 3.4 lbs each day. My ultimate goal weight is to get below 180 (I'm a 6' male, medium build), but I don't foresee doing that on this fast. I want to be back to a regular diet no later than December 21, so that I can bake and enjoy holiday cookies with my girls. I'd really like to do 10 days total, which will get me below 190, so that when I refeed I will hopefully stay below 195 or so. I'm OK losing the last 15+ lbs the old fashioned way. All tolled, I've lost about 50 pounds since July - so I'm quite pleased. Only another 20-25 to go!

As for my psoriasis, it has lightened a bit but not significantly changed. It has improved significantly since taking better care of myself, but there are still some rather stubborn patches. I'm guessing that I'd really need to do more like 10+ days to see major clearing, but we will see. I am also hoping that going onto a very clean whole foods diet will help with this; I am fairly certain the major triggers are dairy, sugar, alcohol, and wheat, and possibly nightshades, so I plan on minimizing those. But I'm hoping that 7-10 days of Water Fasting will help heal up the gut.

I may have more questions, but that's plenty for now. Tweet