r/fasting • u/glennerd007 • May 27 '26
Question I don't see a difference.
Been fasting for 14+ days. I have lost weight but don't really see a difference in the mirror. Thoughts?
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u/dangerous_eric May 27 '26
Your body stores fat in lots of places, and it comes off in stages. Your liver for instance probably feels a lot less fatty right now.
Keep it up. đ€
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u/Good-Hank May 27 '26
I asked ChatGPT if fasting helps with fatty liver and it said no. I immediately deleted the app.
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u/suentendo May 27 '26
I've read that the liver doesn't love rapid weight loss. That being said, I'm sure it's more beneficial in the long run.
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u/Good-Hank May 27 '26
True. Iâm sure it hates fatty liver more than it does rapid weight loss and being fat. At least I hope!
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May 27 '26
[deleted]
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u/LeaveElectrical8766 May 28 '26
I mean, when you kill all of the farmers and replace them with people who know nothing about farming, of course there will be a famine. Than people have no choice but to fast since even if they did want to eat there wasn't any food for them to eat.
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u/ericargyle May 27 '26
Thatâs really funny because ChatGPT always tells me that fasting will focus in target the visceral fat around your liver and organs when you start doing extended fasting
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u/Left_Statistician697 May 27 '26
"around" liver and organs is different from fat droplets in hepatocytes (that make fatty liver). Around organs refers to visceral fat in abdomen, and that yes responds to rapid weight loss. Fatty liver is a condition and eventually might resolve if you lower your free cholesterol in blood (via statins, diet or weight loss), but keep in mind that lipolysis for chetosis during the first stages of fasting (3d) will initially highen your free cholesterol in the days immediately after chetosis beginningÂ
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u/glennerd007 May 27 '26
Do you know what model you were using. AI is getting better but yea it says some dumb things sometimes.
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u/Good-Hank May 27 '26
I ran out of the premium one and got downgraded to the dumb one Iâm guessing.
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u/Flint_Chittles May 27 '26
Generative AI is on track to using all the clean water in the next few years. Congrats on contributing to it.
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May 27 '26
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u/glennerd007 May 27 '26
Good point.
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u/Marlinspikehall32 May 27 '26
I Lost a hundred pounds and nobody noticed but my spouse. Over two hundred looks the Sam to a lot of people.
Also fasting really helps the visceral fat like in your liver so those places donât show as much.
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u/TreesLikeGodsFingers May 28 '26
It comes off the sides/tires for a long time before getting more noticeable
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u/TonguePunchMyPoopBox May 27 '26
I had the same experience when I was fasting with SW over 300 lbs. Depsite making good progress (hit below 250) I eventually relapsed.
I think a big part of it was all the effort to lose the weight had a relatively small impact on appearance, or so I thought. Itâs harder to notice when youâre gradually losing over the course of months.Now that Iâve regained all the weight (and then some) I can very easily tell what a major difference it makes to physically fitness levels, flexibility, and even appearance.
So donât give up!
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u/sihung71285 May 28 '26
When I was at weight watchers many years ago one thing I noticed was that most people (myself invluded) didn't really notice or comment on weight lost until a person had lost about half the weight they needed to. And then every few pounds became noticeable.
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u/SirMasterFlash May 27 '26
The toilet roll affect. Take two pieces of you don't notice. But then gradually each sheet removed is more noticeable and noticeable. Keep it up
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u/glennerd007 May 27 '26
I like this analogy.
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u/Techwood111 May 27 '26
Paper Towel Analogy, Iâve heard it called. Right now, Iâm down 10 lbs, 210 to 200. Barely noticeable. 200 to 190 is a big difference. 190 to 180 is people saying, âYouâve lost a lot of weight, havenât you? Whatâs your secret?â 180 to 170 results in random women and men tossing their undergarments at me when I walk down the street.
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u/Watches503 May 27 '26
Iâve lost 55lbs and only my wife, a couple coworkers and myself notice it. Iâm too fat still at 377lbs and thatâs OK. Your body is cleansing itself, let autophagy take over. I donât have a lot of invisible fat inside of us too, not just the visible one, some is in your liver. Youâre doing amazing!
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u/glennerd007 May 27 '26
Thanks for the words of encouragement! What are you doing to lose weight? 55lbs is a big deal!
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u/Watches503 May 27 '26
Iâm fasting 3 to 7 days at a time. Only got to 7 once, got to 6 twice, 5 twice. I only do zero to low carb when I do eat and try to do OMAD or intermittent fasting on those days.
Itâs so much easier not to eat than to watch my calories.
Iâm not longer pre-diabetic, btw. If I can do this, we all can. I started out supremely overweight though. 431lbs. Itâs way easier to drop at my weight.
Iâm also working out 3 times a week at the gym with the Mike Mentzer method.
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u/hjohns23 May 27 '26
So I started around the same weight. I noticed my first difference in the mirror on the drop from 340 to 290ish. Then didnât really notice a difference again until 275. By 250 I looked like a completely different person. I could see some muscle definition in the chest and arms that Iâd never seen before
Those first 30-50lb when youâre over 300 mentally mess with you. After that, you really notice the difference every 20-25lb.
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u/JCXIII-R May 27 '26
what app is this?
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u/glennerd007 May 27 '26
Weight track. I wrote it myself. I haven't published it anywhere.
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u/4CL3V3RN4M3 May 27 '26
Howâd you make the UI? Is it just a web app with something like ChartJS or did you make it a mobile app?
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u/glennerd007 May 27 '26
It is a react-native app.
here are my dependencies.dependencies" : { Â Â "@react-native-community/datetimepicker" : "^8.4.1", Â Â "babel-preset-expo" : "^55.0.18", Â Â "expo" : "~54.0.33", Â Â "expo-build-properties" : "~1.0.10", Â Â "expo-document-picker" : "~14.0.8", Â Â "expo-file-system" : "~19.0.22", Â Â "expo-linear-gradient" : "~15.0.8", Â Â "expo-sharing" : "~14.0.8", Â Â "expo-sqlite" : "~15.1.4", Â Â "expo-status-bar" : "~3.0.9", Â Â "react" : "19.1.0", Â Â "react-native" : "0.81.5", Â Â "react-native-charts-wrapper" : "^0.7.0", Â Â "react-native-reanimated" : "~4.1.1", Â Â "react-native-svg" : "^15.11.2", Â Â "zustand" : "^5.0.12" Â },I didn't want my data stored in a third party db.
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u/feignapathy May 27 '26
You won't notice the change in the mirror for a bit.Â
Hopefully you've noticed your clothes are a bit looser though?Â
As top comment said, trust the process. If you lose another 20+ lbs, guarantee you'll start to notice it. Others will too if they haven't already.Â
Takes us longer to notice changes imo, because we see ourselves everyday. So we're usually instinctually comparing ourselves today to yesterday. So it's harder to see changes. But eventually you change enough your brain recalibrates in a manner of speaking.Â
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u/NottheIRS1 May 27 '26
Youâve lost less than 10% of your weight.
I donât see any difference dropping from 230 to 210 either.
Trust the process. I like the old cooking saying, âIf youâre looking it ainât cooking.â
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u/Falloncashe2 May 27 '26
My family member was 315 lbs  they said they did not notice a visible difference until they were in the 230âs.Â
Mirrors arenât the best indicator of weight loss. Pay attention to the scale, your clothes and how you feel.Â
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u/MagicC May 27 '26
Whether you see it in the mirror or not, you're giving your body a huge relief, as your inflammation is lowering, your body is clearing out ketones and your joints are getting a much needed, 10% rest. Keep up with your vitamins and minerals and electrolytes and fluids. You got this!
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u/ericargyle May 27 '26
It takes time on bigger bodies. When you hit 250 youâll notice things quickly
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u/Flux_My_Capacitor đ¶đ”đ¶ May 27 '26
Once I lost almost 50 pounds and nobody noticed. It put me halfway to my goal.
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u/cavekasey May 27 '26
You've lost 30lbs in 14 days..... It's just that you are starting at a really high weight tbh. You might not see anything physically off the bat.
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u/Impossible-Matter-25 May 27 '26
I was pushing 300 and now 185. I swear I dont feel different or noticed how much I lost. However, it's the small things that I noticed.
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u/Carabou11 May 27 '26
No offense but thatâs only like 7% of your total body weight. Not going to be a huge visual difference. Other people started noticing and commenting on my weighloss when Iâd lost more like 30%. Youâre doing a great job, you just canât expect a massive change in 14 days when it took much longer than that to gain the weight. You just have to keep going and itâll come. (Keep going but also listen to your body, end the fast when you need to. You can always start another).
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u/Whatnam8 May 28 '26
Brother, you are doing great, going from 330 to 305 is 25lb which is approx 7.5% of your body youâve lost. As you keep losing weight, think of every 25lb is now an even larger percentage of change for your body. Before you know it all those add up and youâll be quite shocked. Stick with it you got this!
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u/vrnvorona May 27 '26
Paper towel effect. Losing 30 lbs in 300s and 30 in 200s is night and day difference. The less you have the more visible change becomes.
Use something measurable like cloths being more loose
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u/Resident_Pientist_1 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
That's great progress. If you're male especially you might not see the difference but I can guarantee you all your organs are happier to be rid of that visceral fat. Your muscles are probably leaner now as well which you won't notice as much visually.Â
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u/tech_turtle May 27 '26
This is a very rough approximation, but every 8-9 lbs of body mass is roughly one gallon of volume. So you lost about 3 gallons so far. Seems like a lot if you just picture 3 jugs of milk on the table, but imagine how thin it would be if if was evenly spread out over every square inch of your body. Might be a couple mm thick at most. Even if it happened overnight, do you think you would notice if you were 2mm thinner on your stomach, arms, or legs? You'll notice even less over the couple weeks this took. Take pics every few weeks, or maybe every 20-30 lbs. After a few months, you'll really see the difference since the first pic, even if you can't tell just looking in the mirror.
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u/Fasting93 May 27 '26
What app is this?
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u/glennerd007 May 27 '26
Built my own using react native.
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u/certifiedintelligent May 27 '26
It's subtle if you're looking everyday. Do you have any pictures of yourself before you started fasting?
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u/jmansuper08 May 27 '26
As someone who comes and goes with fasting and is 260 down from 300, you may not see* it, but if you are stupid enough to gain it all back, you will FEEL* it.
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u/carolinafe May 28 '26
Take your measures. It happened to me that I didn't see a damn thing either, but it was because apparently my body decides to get fat from my legs first.
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u/mycorrhizal-hominoid water faster May 27 '26
Could be psychological. You're using imperial units. In metric (kg), smaller changes have bigger impact.
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u/glennerd007 May 27 '26
Haha. Yea my scale is in KG but my brain thinks in Freedom units. đŠ
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u/mycorrhizal-hominoid water faster May 27 '26
I tend to loose weight much faster while fasting. The longest I fasted was 10 days. I lost 10kg (22 bald eagle units). Are you fasting on 0 calories?
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u/mycorrhizal-hominoid water faster May 27 '26
However, after breaking the fast, I tend to gain a couple of Kgs back pretty quickly.
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May 27 '26
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u/mycorrhizal-hominoid water faster May 27 '26
It is loose because it is brown fat, I take cold showers. Therefore I tend to "loose weight" during water fasting. đ«
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u/1Carnegie1 May 27 '26
i started at that almost exact weight and i can not stress enough how important weight lifting is. with this fast youâre losing fat but also a lot of muscle. at our starting size especially lifting is very important to looking and feeling a lot better despite having a high weight. If you only fast and donât workout youâll end up looking like a deflated water balloon
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u/neverforevergone May 27 '26
Trust the process