Nice work on documenting the process @ron-coleman and the research you are doing into the science behind fasting is great.
Can I suggest a nuance in the charts … it’s probably less interesting now what the dates were that each event happened but rather how many days into the fast that happened. I find I am mentally converting dates to “days of fast” when reading your chart 
This is a truly inspirational thread. Seriously, you are making me want to do an extended fast!
@richard it just so happened to work out that I started fasting on 1 March, and Lent began on 1 March, so for the first 31 days I can just use the day of the month! I will add a day-of-fast and see how I can incorporate that into the graphs as well!
Thanks for the suggestion!
One of the reasons I am doing this fast is to teach myself to control what I eat. I was snacking, on keto friendly foods, way too much since Christmas and had put on 15 pounds! It was like I couldn’t help myself.
So learning to say no, and continuing on with this fast is really helping get my mind in shape. They say it takes 30 days to develop a new habit and I am 24 days into that so I hope to have much better control when I am finished!
Please, step on up, I have 23 days to go, want to join me?
As requested by @MableSyrup here is a couple of before pictures of me, the first from Nov 2013 and the second is Mar 1, 2017, the first day of my fast.
looking great Ron 
Thanks for such informative posts and being a pillar for extended fasting!!
Day 24 and 567 hours fasted on water, coffee, bone broth, electrolytes, and occasional heavy cream. I am feeling great and have lots going on, the broth is on the stove and the house smells wonderful! Here are my numbers for today:
I made a slight change to the graphs as someone suggested that I show the ‘day of fast’ in the horizontal axis as opposed to the date. Makes it easier for data geeks to understand quickly!
Not much to say about my numbers, I didn’t lose any weight overnight but I have dropped 3.4 lbs in the two days prior so my body probably needed a rest. I have had days before with zero weight loss and even slight gains. To me, I am now down 21.6 lbs from where I started the fast and I am not complaining.
My glucose has come back up a bit to 75mg/dl but that could be because I have been a bit more active. It seems that through activity and exercise that the liver will generate a bit more glucose to help with fuel without raising insulin so my glucose is up a tad. Ketones are very therapeutic and indicate that I am burning mostly fat, via ketones, as my fuel. The glucose/ketone index, GKI, is still < 1 which is a very healthy level as my body is going through autophagy, rebuilding itself: eliminating worn out cells and building new ones in their place. Oh, this wonderful human body is truly a marvel, feed it and treat it the way it likes and it even repairs itself!
Today is day 24 of my journey which means I am past the half-way point! It is all downhill from here. I feel like I have been coasting along for the last couple of weeks as there are no cravings or other physical urges to eat as I progress. That inner voice is starting to sound like a teenager “I’m bored!” Not eating day in and day out can be boring but I do have a lot more time on my hands. I do make a point to sit down each evening with my wife as she is eating. I usually have a cup of broth while she eats.
I have been following along with the Bacon Experiment where Dan Quibell ate 2 lbs of bacon each day for 30 days and lost about 20 pounds. 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. Do I want to do either in the future?
Right now 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! I was considering doing either one of those challenges in the months after my fast but I don’t know. Maybe just doing zero carbs will be a good challenge for me. That way I could have a nice variety of meats and fats and just avoid the carbohydrates.
Boredom brings up the idea of what I am going to do, or how am I going to eat, when I finish this fast or even when I get to my desired weight? The problem with diets is that I have always looked at them as short term strategy to get to where I want to be. When finished I would always go back to eating the way I had before, and made me gain all of the weight, and so the diet failed overall as it wasn’t a way of eating (WOE) that I would want to continue for any length of time.
With the low carbohydrate high fat (LCHF) WOE I have found that I can easily do this for the rest of my life! I haven’t had bread since early July 2015 and although I can look at it, even remember how it tastes, and easily make the decision that I don’t want any of it. Walking through the bakery always smells good but knowing the adverse effects bread have on my body, because I am insulin resistant and therefore carbohydrate insensitive (don’t handle carbs well), I can avoid bread just like a person with celiac disease would need to avoid it.
Eating is always more mental than anything else. We decide what we are going to eat and what we are not. For those who are still carb burners (eaters) they have a problem that sugar, especially the fructose component, is highly addictive. Yes, as bad as cocaine and heroin! And sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. When a carb eater looks for food they are drawn to the processed carbs like the basket of bread or chips on the table as these products turn into sugar very quickly. I used to empty the bread or tortilla chip baskets very easily before my meal arrived, now, I don’t need them or touch them! It is much harder for those addicted to carbs to make a smart choice on what to eat.
Way yo go Ron! Thanks for sharing. I love the new format of you graphs. Be strong in those mental games!
Was just talking to a friend about the mental games of fasting today
I do a lot of “I feel I still want it in 15 min or 1/2 hrs then I can have it” and then I get distracted doing some work or something and forget for several hours. By the time I want something again I can usually have some water, still or sparkling, or BPC or broth, and feel totally satisfied with it. You can play this game with yourself for days lol! It is so mental.
I am too much of a ‘Yes’ man so I need to learn to be more stiff necked. Maybe these 7+ weeks will help! 
Just completing day 6 myself. Day 4 is always the hardest. Having @Brenda’s keto-aid along with tea and pickle juice. Haven’t had to break out the beef broth yet. Tested blood ketones this morning - 4.6 - oh wow! Down 7 pounds. Since I’m below my goal weight I only loose by fasting. I normally rebound 3 pounds. I can defiantly go many more days. My longest fast was 27 days. Being fat adapted makes it so much easier. When I do break my fast I eat some pili nuts and a while later a soft boiled egg with butter and pink salt.
Suggestion: there should be a “Classics” forum where threads like this end up. All the best KF stuff could be moved/copied in there for easy reference.
I never thought to have pickle juice for my sodium, I love the stuff. Congratulations on getting through your day 4 experience, keep it up.
I haven’t tried pili nuts, I’m hooked on macadamia nuts but would love to try them. Maybe I’ll order them for when I break my fast.
Thanks for the refeeding idea as well!
Day 25 and 584 hours fasted on water, coffee, bone broth, electrolytes, and occasional heavy cream. I have a busy weekend coming up and I am ready for it! Yup, one of those days where I actually gained a bit of weight! Probably just water. Here are my numbers for today:
I am taking ample packets of the Jigsaw Health Electrolyte Supreme with me along with the little bags of salt that I keep in my pocket. The bags are actually meant to hold pills so they are fairly small and easily hold 2 teaspoons of salt for me. May have to search out decent decaf coffee during the day! My broth is still simmering and should be done this evening and ready for canning.
Yesterday I talked about how addictive sugar is and how all carbohydrates turn into sugar through digestion. Because of this addiction many people are incessantly hungry and go for any junk food or bread or whatever to feed that need for sugar. The food may not be sweet but remember anything made with flour, sugar, grains, cereals, and starchy vegetables turn into sugar and are absorbed very quickly in our body. So, how can we break this addiction? It is not easy, as with any addiction, but it can be done.
I did it in July 2015 and was surprised how each day the cravings gradually fell off until, about a week later, there were no significant urges to go grab a loaf of bread. It is like the mental games my body is playing on me now during the fast with “Hey, a nice juicy steak would be great, especially with melted butter!” I just have to say no as I still have plenty of fat to live on for more than the next 22 days!
But, if you give up carbs what is there to eat? Lots, believe me! The first thing we must is get over the fat phobia that has been drilled into our heads since the ‘70s. That statement ‘artery-clogging saturated fat’ is incorrect in all forms of it. There has never been a study that confirmed the hypothesis that saturated fat raises cholesterol and cholesterol causes heart disease. In fact, all of the studies showed just the opposite!
Take the French paradox as an example. People in France eat twice the fat as Americans and have about 1/3 the rate of heart attacks!
The key is to eat ‘healthy’ fats which are mostly from animal products like lard, butter, duck fat, beef tallow, bacon grease, coconut oil, and olive oil. These are the healthiest fats! The vegetable oils are actually not healthy as they cause inflammation in our bodies. There are 2 essential fatty acids, nutrients we must have but our bodies do not make: Omega-3 and Omega-6 polyunsaturated fats.
Omega-6 fats are known to cause inflammation in larger quantities while omega-3 oils fight inflammation. A nice pair! Looking at this is seems that if we have a 1:1 ratio, 1 part omega-6 to 1 part omega-3, then the inflammation is controlled very nicely for us. The problem is that in vegetable oils they have a very large omega-6 to omega-3 ratio: corn oil, 57:1; sunflower oil, 71:1; cottonseed oil, 108:1; safflower oil, 14:1; canola oil, 2:1. So all of these oils will tend to cause inflammation when consumed.
A teaspoon of olive oil has enough omega-6 and omega-3 oils to last you for almost a week so there is no reason to consume large amounts of them. All fats have all 3 types of fat; saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated, the difference is how much of the unstable polyunsaturated fat is there. So here is the same list: corn oil, 58%; sunflower oil, 72%; cottonseed oil, 55%; safflower oil, 15%; canola oil, 32%.
Now we can compare these to the polyunsaturated component in ‘healthy’ fats: olive oil, 10%; lard, 10%; butter, 4%; coconut oil, 2%. So, if you could reduce your inflammation by just changing your cooking oil would it be worth it for you?
Tomorrow I will talk about all of the really tasty food you get to eat! Remember, fat is where all the flavor is, if you look at a low-fat product it will taste like the packaging unless they add loads of sugar to make it taste good. I will get my flavor from fat any day!
