Hello! Long-ish post ahead. I'm a rambler. Sorry!
TLDR: How do I tell my psychiatrist that I wanna start doing extended water fasts without making him think that I'm developing an eating disorder?
30F | 165cm | SW/CW 84kg | GW 60kg
First off, I wanted to mention that I've been lurking for a bit and learning so much from everyone in this community. This place is really neat and I'm thankful it's here while I prepare for my journey of bettering my health!
Onto my main concern. I will be seeing my psychiatrist tomorrow and don't know how to tell him that I want to start fasting to help with weight loss and managing blood sugar levels.
For context, I am currently taking psychiatric medication. So before I do any sort of fasting, I want to be responsible and try to work with my psychiatrist to see if my prescription would cause complications and if any changes need to be made. Cursory research tells me that it mostly seems fine for IF and OMAD, but I eventually want to do extended fasts and indications on my meds state that it might cause nausea if taken on an empty stomach.
My worry is that, because of my history of self-harm (though I haven't done anything in 10 years), my psychiatrist might immediately flag me for disordered eating and not listen to what I have to say. At worst, he might send me to the ER.
I assure you I intend to do this as safely as possible, gradually working up from IF to OMAD to longer fasts while staying on top of my electrolytes and micronutrients, but I'm not sure if he'll believe me or just think I'm out of my mind. I also unfortunately live in a third-world country where doctors can be a little heavy-handed and really old school, so I have a gut feeling that my psychiatrist might not listen to me.
So I wanted to ask for advice on how to approach this with my psychiatrist. Should I just not bring it up? Should I prepare a bunch of legitimate research to show him? I might be overthinking this 😕 but I'd really appreciate any help.