24 fasting. What to drink?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #21

If you’ve been eating a ketogenically low level of carbohydrate for more than a couple of days, you are in ketosis. What takes longer is something we call “fat-adaptation.” This is a period during which the muscles re-activate biochemical pathways involved in fatty-acid metabolism, pathways that get shut down on a high-glucose (i.e., carbohydrate) diet. Mitochondrial healing also often needs to take place during this time, as well, since it is easy for the mitochondria to become damaged by having to metabolise too much sugar. Ketosis begins as soon as you run out of glycogen, the storage form of glucose in the muscles and liver. I know of no way to hasten fat-adaptation.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #22

Many artificial sweeteners have an effect on people’s insulin, but the effect of different sweeteners is different for different people. If one spikes your insulin, chances are that there is another that does not.

(Kirk Wolak) #23

PaulL,
I am convinced that MOVEMENT (long walks) helps assist this.
Especially while fasting. It forces the liver to create more ketones for energy at a faster rate.

I can push my ketones up with 10-12 miles of fasted walking. This would be after 24 hrs of fasting.
Typically 36hrs fasted (one full day of skipping food).

In the beginning, the mileage was lower. I think this is a great way to gauge fat adaptation.
Can my body create ketones, on demand, while I move… A whole different level is while someone is running or doing HIIT, but that’s a long time after this.

I’ve done 28 miles fasted. Had to take caffeine to keep my BP from crashing… It’s been 2yrs now, and I consider myself pretty fat adapted. I use MOVEMENT to compensate for bad decisions, and to recover my ketosis faster in general… Funny how this whole approach changes the way you think.

(Mindy Rees) #24

Thank you for the information! I am still somewhat new to this. I did start walking a couple miles every other day, so I am hoping it helps. I chase a 4 year old all day…you would think that helps lol! Do you have any suggestions on what to drink to make the hunger go away?

(Kirk Wolak) #25

Knowledge is the best thing to drink for the hunger!

Honestly, we are taught to surf the hunger. It is driven from Grehlin, which is a timed response based on previous eating patterns. It typically lasts about 30 minutes.

When you feel hunger (Lucky you), Think this “OMG, my body just called. It’s telling me…
If I don’t eat within 30 minutes… It’s going to start FEASTING on my BELLY FAT!”

I would then say “Dear Body, Sorry I can’t answer your call right now. While I am gone, PLEASE have a HUGE BUFFET of belly fat. Have as much as you want! There are NO RAINY days in my future, so no need to leave any behind…”

If you change what that feeling means, and have fun with it. IT REALLY HELPS.
Then, get busy. Honestly, I would vacuum, do the dishes, pickup part of the house. (I work out of the house), or go for a walk. But I would IMMERSE myself for 20 minutes or so, and when I was coming out of it, I would notice how little hunger I was feeling, and I DID NOT give in.

This gave me REAL power. It literally changed the meaning from a “Negative” (Deprivation), to a “Positive” (Attaining my goal of burning belly fat)!

Please give it a try. It takes about 3-5 times of doing this. To build that muscle, and the confidence. Realizing Hunger comes in Waves, and you Just have to Surf it… (Naturally thin people are really good at this, like my wife. I never knew how much she managed herself until I offered her a taste of my BPC, and she said no, she is not eating for 4hrs, and it will OPEN her appetite before she is ready!)

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #26

Or instead of increasing ketogenesis, it could cause the body to lower the metabolic rate.

Juggling with intake and expenditure is an unwieldy lever with which to manipulate the body. I was just listening to the Dudes’ podcast #141, in which Dr. Phinney discusses (among many other things) an experiment he did in which participants ate an 800-calorie starvation diet. Half the participants did no exercise, and their energy expenditure dropped about 300 calories during the initial week of no exercise for anyone and thereafter remained unchanged. The other half of the participants also dropped their energy expenditure by 300 calories during the first week, but by the end of the five weeks of exercise, their energy expenditure had dropped a further 25%. Apparently, the body’s reaction to stimuli is more complex than may be expected at first glance.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #27

Great thinking! :+1:

(Kirk Wolak) #28

I remember a study of Nurses like this.
But it was LONG TERM (30 days) of Starvation diet, 2 groups, etc. Maybe the same study.

The trick here is to do this on the 2nd day of fasting… In my case to re-establish my target numbers to not have to fast for 4 days to get to the same ketone/glucose levels…

But you have a VALID POINT… Our bodies are COMPLICATED Machines with many pathways and ways to handle things. It’s WHY a Calorie CANNOT be a Calorie (To all people, in all situations across all times and metabolisms).

Great point. But I think NOT eating is different from starvation diet (Fung), especially short term.
Another point. In the beginning, a SIMPLE mile of walking would WIPE ME OUT. I had to work up. It took MONTHS to get to 12.5 Miles and I failed my first attempt at 26.2 at about 24.5 miles, as my BP dropped to like 85/55 and I was getting tunnel vision… INTERESTING NOTE: Every time that happened, over the next few days, I felt AMAZING, like my body got to a new level (Maybe it was just PANIC Energy, LOL)…

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #29

That’s very interesting. Now I’m thinking about our ancestors. It’s 40K years ago and three months into a Pleistocene winter, yes there were seasons during the Pleistocene but each was 20-30°C colder than now, even in the tropics. It’s a month since the tribe finished feasting on the last mastodon kill. Everyone is in ketosis and eating their body fat. Everyone but the oldest, the sickly and the weak are probably good for another month before things get dicey and folks start dying. The young men go out every day and often days on end scouring miles of steppe and tundra searching for another mastodon or maybe a mammoth if they get lucky. It would be very helpful if the longer it took to find that next meal required less and less expenditure of energy over time to do so. Everyone’s chances of survival are better.

Just a thought.

(Brian) #30

24 hours is not that long. Just do water. If you’re like me, you like a little bit of lemon in your water. I don’t think there is enough in that little bit of lemon to matter. No sweetener of any kind required. But water, definitely.

I tend to avoid coffee while fasting as I like a little coffee with my heavy cream and butter as well as some flavored stevia type sweeteners. It’s still extremely restricted but I just don’t look at it like fasting at that point cause I’m taking in the cream and butter. But hey, to each their own.

Good luck! :slight_smile: