A really extended fast: going for 46-days!

[Cat]

This is 8 ounce easy to drink pickle juice https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015TIBVMS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apis_1490438920511

[MableSyrup]

I’m from San Francisco, where everyone is ma’am

[Brenda]

Also there is currently the 30-day Steak Challenge on the KetogenicForums where a couple of ladies are eating nothing but steak for 30 days.

This would be me.

either one sounds enticing as I love both bacon and steak but, really thinking about it; either one would be just as boring as not eating as I am now!

Trust me, my man, it is. Boring as hell. I wanted to scream the first week, but like you, I have settled into a routine now and am sailing along. Interesting that I have lost roughly half the amount of weight you have in nearly the same amount of time. But I am eating. Today is day 27 for me and I’ve lost (wait, I just woke up, let me go weigh myself…)
8.5 pounds total so far @ron-coleman

[Brenda]

@carl
If you don’t interview this man for a podcast I will be sorely disappointed.
He is nothing short of amazing, plus, he knows his shit! Reading his posts on nutrition is like taking a refresher course on the ketogenic diet.
I love it!
Thank you @ron-coleman

I want to copy/paste/save all his info so I can refer back to it…

Oh wait

[Brenda]

^^^I am making reference to the fact that wonderful information like this would be lost on facebook.

I love the forum.

As long as @ron-coleman leaves his experiment up (and he will) it will always be here to reference and search. Thank you for all your work Ron. You are a fasting ☆ROCKSTAR☆

[Jeff_Norton]

Oh wow, Ron! Great info, good data to present to my Doc, and fantastic inspiration to a noob like myself. Reading along, I’ve gotten several new ideas, and an update to my keto schema.

[ron-coleman]

Day 26 and 623 hours fasted on water, coffee, bone broth, electrolytes, and occasional heavy cream. Wow, what a busy weekend! Other than sleeping I think I was home for 30 minutes Saturday and 45 minutes today—and I feel great! Probably just water. Here are my numbers for today:

I knew I would be busy on Saturday as I had a church conference going on and so I actually did most of the update on Friday and sent it out early Saturday morning after taking my readings. Now it is almost 9 PM and I am just getting to today’s post, sorry for the delay.

As Dr. Jason Fung likes to say about fasting you don’t have to do anything, it is an exercise in not doing things like shopping for food, preparing meals, eating, and cleaning up afterward. The conference had over 4,000 people and plenty of venues for food: a food court and about 7 food trucks. The lines were very long and I didn’t have to wait in any! I did stop by a pretzel cart to get a bottle of water and there was no line there. I got to shop at the speaker’s tables and when my wife and son had their food I went to be with them as they ate.

All right, I’ve told you all about the things that you don’t eat on a LCHF diet and now I want to talk about all of the great foods you can eat. Let’s start with breakfast: omelets, eggs of any kind, bacon, sausage, ham, eggs benedict, low carb cauliflower hash browns, keto pancakes, breakfast tapas (with meats, cheeses, and nuts), and even a low carb porridge just for starters! I usually stick with eggs cooked in butter with 4 or 5 slices of bacon; that can hold me most of the day!

Lunch is again easy; my favorite, especially eating out, is a bacon cheeseburger with no bun and extra bacon and cheese. Use a knife and fork and it is delicious! A small green side salad with bleu cheese dressing is a great side. Oh yeah, lettuce, tomato, onions, and pickles are all allowed! Basically almost any sandwich can be ordered without the bread as long as they omit any sweet sauces as well.

Dinner again is unlimited as you can eat most proteins, cheese, and whole vegetables. I like a grilled salmon with steamed or grilled asparagus and extra melted on the butter for dipping the asparagus in. Steaks are always good as well but we need variety. Other proteins include roasts, pork chops, smoked pork, grilled chicken (with the skin on), and grilled or blackened seafood of all sorts. Whole vegetables like roasted Brussel sprouts, steamed broccoli, boiled cabbage, or a nice spinach salad.

So there are tons of great, healthy foods available for you all while dropping weight and improving your health. A great list of recipes can be found at DietDoctor.com. You can also Google LCHF recipes or keto recipes or just about any combination and find thousands of suggestions. Another place you can look is YouTube and I like Cooking Keto with Kristie as a good place to start you ketogenic cooking.

I will be travelling this week, I leave Monday for the Washington DC area and a 4-hour presentation on Tuesday. I am going to visit my granddaughters Thursday-Sunday so I keep up with my measurements except for my weight when away from home as a few weeks ago.

I will continue my posts on both of my trips as it really helps to keep me going. I remember Jimmy Moore saying that he can’t travel while fasting because travelling is too stressful. As a seasoned traveler with 1.5 million miles I find fast to be a stress-free way to travel.

[ron-coleman]

Day 27 and 632 hours fasted on water, coffee, bone broth, electrolytes, and occasional heavy cream. Here is a quick peek at my numbers this morning before I head to the airport. I will work on the rest of my usual update and post it later. Here are my numbers for today:

My weight seems to have leveled off but I think it is starting to move down again. I had about ¾ cup of heavy cream yesterday, I usually have a ½ cup per day, and between the slight bump in glucose and the weight going back down I don’t know what to think about it. I will stick with the ½ cup or less for the next couple of days and see what happens.

[Barbara_Greenwood]

I confess I have dipped in and out of your thread rather than followed every detail. Mainly, I confess I am in awe of someone doing this!

I wanted to follow up on one point, though - you’ve said a couple of times that starvation mode only happens when BMI reaches 7% - are you sure you aren’t confusing BMI with body fat%? At a BMI of 7 I would weight 44lb, and I don’t think that is compatible with life.

If it is actually 7% I’d like to know if that’s the same for men and women - I’m assuming not. Not that I will ever be remotely near that myself…

[ron-coleman]

Day 27 of fast update: Made it to Atlanta with a 2-hour layover so I have time to finish my update. I was talking to someone this morning and they asked if I get hungry and I said “No, I don’t!” Reflecting on that it is really crazy that I can go on day in and day out and just do things without needing a nap or anything to eat. Who would have thought!

This morning I said that my weight has stalled but that is not a priority but I am tracking the numbers so I was wondering why. Well, in listening to Megan Ramos, she likes to say “Switch it up” do something different! I have tried to be very consistent with this fast to the point that I do have heavy cream in my coffee everyday somewhere around 400-600 calories. I am wondering if this is too consistent.

So, starting this afternoon, I am going to cut the cream out for a day or two and see if that changes things. I will still keep up with my electrolytes and salt but do more a closer to zero calorie diet to see if that changes. I did have 1 Starbuck’s venti decaf Americano with heavy cream this morning so that was 250-300 calories and I am stopping for a few days. We’ll see what happens—stand by!

I am travelling so no new weight tomorrow but will have one on Wednesday, the day after.

[ron-coleman]

Yes, my mistake! Thank you for correcting me on that!

[carl]

@ron-coleman we gave you a shout-out on the show this week! Keep rockin!

[ron-coleman]

Thank you guys, much appreciated!

[ZackF]

Keep on keeping on. You’re doing fabulous.

[chris.coote]

Well deserved shout out!

[davidvincent]

how do you fast and eat heavy cream and broth? whats your calorie intake daily?

[ron-coleman]

@davidvincent: A fast is defined as you want to define it, water fast is just one type and is the most basic. There are egg fasts, fat fasts, bacon fasts, even steak fasts done on a regular basis.

I chose to fast on certain items only knowing that it would not be zero carb but targeting foods that would not raise my insulin. As I have said in my updates I usually have 2 coffees a day with heavy cream which turns out to be about 400 calories a day: 1/4 cup of cream in a cup of coffee makes it 210 calories; coffee=10 calories, 2oz cream=200 calories.

Broth is something that is highly recommended for extended fasts as it contains may natural vitamins and minerals that are essential. due to the extended period I am fasting I am allowing broth for the benefits it gives. I make my own broth and I have seen calorie estimates in the 10-40 calorie per cup range depending on how much fat is left in the broth.

[ron-coleman]

Day 28 and 658 hours fasted on water, coffee, bone broth, electrolytes, and occasional heavy cream. On the road today so carrying over the weight. I have to do a 4-hour presentation and I am pumped and ready! Here are my numbers for today:

As I said yesterday, I am switching it up a bit today and not having any heavy cream for the next few days. Let’s see if there is any difference in my numbers from that! I might expect my glucose to drop a little and even the ketones as I have been having fat which gets burned so I may have had excess ketones and that is why the numbers are well over 4 mmol/l.

I had a relative ask me the other day if I get hungry and the answer to that is not really. I think I am hungry but there is no stomach growling or any other physical signs. If I wait a few minutes, sometimes just 2 or 3, the thought goes away. Of course I am still keeping my salt up as well as my electrolytes and that helps with any hunger.

I still find it amazing that I can go along each and every day not needing, or wanting, to eat. I mean honestly, I can be looking at some of the great ketogenic recipes and pictures people post for things like beef stroganoff, Italian meatballs, herb crusted chicken, chicken parmigiana, bacon cheeseburgers, eggs all ways, bacon, and of course steaks, and think “Oh, that would be good” but I can easily say I am continuing with my fast and go on my way. I have many more years after the fast to enjoy all of the great food that is out there!

Someone else asked how I can call this a fast when I am having heavy cream and broth: “isn’t there calories?” I explained that a fast is how you define it and what you will allow yourself to have. There are egg fasts, bacon fasts i.e. The Bacon Experiment, water fasts—the most basic, and even steak fasts. Even many religions have rules that modify their fasts to certain quantities, or types foods, or time of day so their practitioners don’t have to go even a full day without anything.

That is the beauty of fasting, the flexibility of it! Think of it this way: If you don’t like to cook, you can fast; if you don’t like to shop, you can fast; if you don’t like to wash dishes, you can fast; if you are short on funds, you can fast; if you want to improve your health without going to see a doctor, you can fast!

[Cat]

I’m on day 10 and going strong. Think I have reaped the health benefits but I’m hesitant to stop as long as weight is going down. I know I rebound 3 pounds. Go Ron!

[ron-coleman]

Day 29 and 690 hours fasted on water, coffee, bone broth, electrolytes, and occasional heavy cream. Got home late last night, or early this morning depending on how you want to look at it. I did have a few challenges in the airport but I stayed committed and am still on my fast! Here are my numbers for today:

I made it to the airport 2 hours before my flight, which is real early for me as I prefer just 1 hour before, and come to find out that my 5:05 flight had been cancelled and I was rescheduled on a 7:15. No problems, you only win if you get there safely so I took it in stride. The Ronald Reagan (Washington National) airport doesn’t have many sit down restaurants inside of security and I decided to get a table at the one in my concourse so I could get some work done while waiting.

Oh, the temptation as people around me were ordering burgers and steaks. The worse part was a woman I was facing, at the next table, ordered my all-time favorite: onion rings. These were battered and that turned me off a bit but she broke them in half so I could smell them and the aroma jumped up and said “Take me, I’m yours!” My stomach even pretended to growl a little which really surprised me. Thankfully, I was able to steel my nerves and mind and put my nose into my computer and work. Success for another day!

I did not take any heavy cream yesterday and only had 1 cup the day before instead of the usual 2 as I am trying to see what happens to my numbers if I cut out the cream. The results are in: my weight moved down after being steady for almost a week! My blood glucose and blood ketones both rose a bit.

Because the fast is keeping my glucose very low my body is burning mostly fat for fuel. The only source of glucose I have is from my liver that produces about 250g of glucose per day through a process called gluconeogenesis. (gluco- = glucose; neo- = new; genesis = create) The liver breaks down triglycerides, which are made up of a glycerol molecule and 3 fatty acid molecules. It then uses the glycerol to form the new glucose.

Most cells in the body will burn either glucose or ketones (fat) for fuel and most cells prefer the fat actually! Of the cells that will only use glucose most are in the brain where about 120 of the 600 calories the brain uses each day must be in the form of glucose; the other 480 calories can be from the ketones. As I have said before, out bodies are amazing machines that have all the processes necessary to survive in good times and bad. This is how our species has lasted for over 2.5 million years through feast and famine. No, and I repeat: No, the body does not shut down if you reduce your calories or even not eat. It gives you more energy and spares the muscles you need so you can go find food.

The heavy cream I was taking amounted to about 200 calories per cup of coffee (1/4 cup of cream) and my body was burning that fat in addition to my body fat for fuel. Because I stopped taking those calories it seems that I produced more glucose (74mg/dl on average in the last week and 82mg/dl today) and ketones (4.7mmol/l on average in the last week and 5.4mmol/l today.) My body sensed the reduction in ingested fuel and immediately ramped up the fuel production so I could survive.

I was a bit sloppy with my electrolytes and sodium intake yesterday and I could tell as about half way through my 4-hour workshop my legs started to feel a bit wobbly. Fortunately, lunch had arrived and we took a break so everyone could grab their meal. I took almost a half teaspoon of salt and drank a bottle of water, by the time everyone had their food I was ready to begin talking again and my legs were back to normal. A few people asked me if I was going to eat and I told them there wasn’t enough time as there was a lot of material and I would start up again once everyone was seated.

Heading out of town tomorrow, Thursday, for a weekend with our granddaughters in Clarksville, TN. As usual, I will not have my scale so I will not update my weight again until Monday. I will be tracking my blood glucose and blood ketones every day and will get some type of an update posted as well.