Water Fasting Mistakes I'd Avoid
I did a seven-day water fast and filmed it. The video did about 1.8 million views. What the video doesn't really cover is how much I got wrong — and one of those things is dangerous enough that I'd feel bad not writing it down.
1. Not talking to a doctor first
I didn't. I should have. I got lucky that nothing went wrong, and "I got lucky" is a terrible foundation for a health decision. A basic conversation and a blood panel would have cost me an afternoon.
2. Breaking the fast wrong — the dangerous one
This is the mistake that can actually kill people, and almost nobody making fasting content talks about it.
It's called refeeding syndrome. After an extended fast, eating a large meal causes a sudden insulin spike that pulls phosphate, potassium and magnesium rapidly out of your bloodstream into your cells. Those electrolytes run your heart. Drop them fast enough and you get cardiac failure, seizures, or death. This is a documented condition treated in hospitals, not a wellness-blog exaggeration.
The correct way to come off an extended fast is slowly — small portions of simple, low-carbohydrate food, spread over several days, ideally with medical supervision. The instinct after seven days is to eat an enormous meal. That instinct is the single most dangerous part of the whole thing.
3. Ignoring electrolytes entirely
I drank water. Just water. That's the definition of a water fast, but it also means you're flushing sodium, potassium and magnesium with nothing replacing them, and most of the misery of days two through four traces back to that. The headaches, the cramping, the head-rush when you stand up — a lot of that is electrolyte depletion, not "detox."
Many people doing extended fasts under supervision take electrolytes for exactly this reason. I didn't, and I felt it.
4. Trying to train
I attempted a normal workout on day two. It was a bad idea. With blood pressure that low, lifting anything heavy puts you one head-rush away from dropping a weight on yourself. Light walking was fine. Everything else was ego.
5. Scheduling it during a normal week
I fasted through regular life — filming, editing, being around people. Days two and three made me genuinely irritable and slow, and I was making decisions in that state that I'd normally make sharp. If you're going to do something like this, do it during a week where nothing is riding on your judgment.
6. Not sleeping enough going in
Sleep gets worse during an extended fast, not better — I was waking up at 3am from about day four onward. Starting the week already short on sleep compounded everything. Going in rested would have made the whole thing meaningfully easier.
7. Treating the before-and-after as the point
The photos are what made the video spread, and they're the least honest part of the whole experiment. Most of what comes off in seven days is water and the contents of your digestive tract, and most of it returns within a week of eating normally. I wrote about that in detail in the results breakdown.
If I did it again, I'd frame it from the start as what it actually was — an experiment in what hunger feels like when you stop negotiating with it — instead of anything to do with a scale.
The short version
- See a doctor first. Not optional.
- Breaking the fast is the dangerous part, not the fast.
- Electrolytes explain most of the suffering.
- Don't train. Walk.
- Don't do it during a week that matters.
- The photos lie, and everyone knows it except the people looking at them.
The full seven days, filmed: the video covers refeeding syndrome at the 13:09 mark if you want to skip straight to it.
Keep reading
- What Happens to Your Body During a 7 Day Water Fast — the day-by-day account
- 7 Day Water Fast Results: Before and After — what actually came off
I'm a YouTuber in Charleston, South Carolina. Every mistake on this list is one I actually made — I filmed the whole fast, and the video has been watched over 1.8 million times. More about me.
Subscribe on YouTube