APRIL 2019 IF/EF Chat ALL WELCOME

(Herb Martin) #61

Thx, that’s basically what I have been making for cheap electrolyte since about 2010, but never thought of it as “keto” since I was using it for rehydration at boxing practice and other high intensity (e.g., sweaty) workouts.

I frequently use sugar-free Crystal Lite in it since I am not a purist about artificial sweeteners etc.

When boxing I was exchanging as much as 2 gallons of water in under 2 hours (16 lbs) on a daily basis. I can afford commercial electrolyte solution but 8 quarts of it starts to add up daily, and if I make it myself then I control what’s in it – and can tune the flavor better.

For fasting, I don’t guzzle much so flavor only needs to be acceptable, but for boxing, I needed to put away a quart or so BEFORE training and down a total of at least 1 gallon (8 lbs) by a few minutes after finishing. That’s a lot of fluid to push if it isn’t tasty (and cheap. :slight_smile: )

I would weigh pre/post & measure fluid intake, drink 8 lbs worth, and be down 8 lbs at just about every practice during the summer months in a gym without air conditioning which is how I know there was a 2-gallon/16-lb exchange.

Without that electrolyte replacement, my blood pressure would go through the floor and so would I :slight_smile:

And if you try to replace that much with empty water the cramps are beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. (Whole body cramps, cramps on extensor and flexors of same limbs so you can’t stretch either without shortening the opposing muscle.)

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #62

Jennifer

The latest episode with Dr. Paul Mason is about gut, IBS, wheat and more. Might want to give a listen if you haven’t. Don’t know if you have listened to Dr Mason before but he is one of my favorites. Very good at explaining things well.

(Jennifer) #63

I haven’t listened yet. I’ll check it out. Gut health research is so confusing.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #64

I’m at 43+ hrs. This morning was a slight challenge because I am chalked full of admin work (year end, new year goals, yada yada…) I hate admin work but it is necessary. I’m technical and manage technical people and processes. I write code, I configure ~400 web sites. (188 in production).

Fasting when writing program code is a breeze. Not so when planning 6 weeks of admin work. But now that I am past the noon hour I’ll probably get better and better. So far evenings have been the 2nd easiest. Sleeping is the easiest.

I’m hunting for at least 70 hrs. Trying for 72. Wish me luck. I endeavor to persevere.

(Tamela Robinette) #65

I’m reaaaallllyyy starting to think about food now so definitely going to break at 66 hours which is two more hours. My stomach is making very loud noises Haha. I’m very proud of myself for this as my longest fast prior was 42 hours. Not sure I’ll do many more attempts past 42 as I don’t have much more to lose. We will see what comes off in the end and how much more I have to go to determine how I will proceed.

(Robert Desrochers) #66

Had a great day so far feel excellent I believe I washed out a lot of salt and mineral
I went out and. got some pink Himalayan salt and some bragg’s Apple cider vinegar an some lemons a little of this an that seemed to do the trick
I found a new to fasting post on here with good info
Bob

(Herb Martin) #67

Tamela, this post is for everyone and you’ve probably already broken your fast but here’s an idea people might consider:

When you’re feeling healthy but also like you must eat, another choice is to technically break a water fast VERY LIGHTLY and then just keep going.

The obvious choice is something like Bone Broth you have made ahead to use for refeeding transitioning at the end of the fast.

When Dr. Boz was helping her mother fight off cancer they were actually using a 1/4 cup twice a day I believe, but the limits and frequency can be your own.

It’s pretty easy to sneak out another few hours, another day, or many days by doing a bit of this or that which won’t take your ketones down much.

You can even use something like commercial chicken broth without noodles or filter them out (commercial bone broth stinks) etc.

Something MCT Medium Chain Triglycerides with sweetener you like to use can use can be mixed in water to make a SMALL ‘shake’ which will go right into your hepatic vein portal without passing through much of your intestines – the point is that STOP hunger quickly because it is immediately absorbed. (I’m told.) Of course you mix a few ounces, not a 32 oz monster.

Even a bit of heavy cream in your coffee or shake or something is perhaps more effective than stopping a fast you are otherwise ENJOYING and where you are healthy and gaining benefit.

With care, you could probably take a 4-7 ketone reading and keep it at 2-5 without much effort and your fast might not even notice but you would be a lot more comfortable.

This isn’t weakness if you do what is truly right for you and it probably makes sense for anyone at any number of days or even weeks if it helps reach the person’s own goals.

I quit at 2 weeks last time mostly because I was bored, but this idea might get me to 3 or more, or even back to 2 weeks THIS TIME.

My wife is doing really well – so proud of her – though she is taking about 2 oz of bone broth a couple of times per day, now at about 43 hours on her first go.

There’s a good chance she would have stopped at 36 hours (or before) without this ‘booster.’

She’s feeling good and finds this little treat delicious and satisfying beyond any reasonable expectation.

(Tamela Robinette) #68

Thank you. Very good to know for the next time around. Maybe I can get through a 5 day next time with your tips. This was my 1st three day, though I didn’t quite make it a full 3 days.

(Herb Martin) #69

Congratulations!!! (close to 3 days is very cool and it’s more than you have done before so that is always a big achievement.)

You are helping me too, because this is encouraging me to think about how to get my Carol or myself over a rough patch.

“Purity of following the rules” is not our real goal – certainly not mine. We aren’t trying to break records for Guinness or to win wagers, but rather working to improve our health and fitness.

Truthfully if I could figure out a sneaky way to lose 40 lbs safely without any diet I’d be on board in a heart beat.

So if boosting a fast extends the beneficial time or effect, I could not care less that it’s not a “true water fast” or some other artificial restriction.

I want the most effective AND the easiest results available – I’ll suffer a bit for better results but realistically things that are too hard, or even that are just too annoying, aren’t likely to become life-style changes.

That’s part of what I love about the carnivore diet – it’s so darn easy and enjoyable.

For me it began with, “try it for 30 days, you can stand on your head for 30 days”, and never even bothered to worry about when the 30 days was up – just kept going and that was 9 months ago this week – plus it led to fasting.

Best of all, full carnivore made fasting trivial for me to start and stick to for many days right from the beginning, plus it gave me a ‘safe’ place to fall back to when each fast ended.

For decades I’ve used keto to lose weight, and always maintained a pseudo-keto mindset even when I was eating atrociously (I wouldn’t eat a gratuitous carb because I wouldn’t waste it on anything less than my favorites like ice cream.)

But always on keto I was planning or scheduling “getting finished” with the idea of loosening the restrictions.

Carnivore doesn’t work like that for me – and not for many of my carnivore friends on Twitter etc.

Even with fewer choices, it’s paradoxically easier to maintain carnivore – I just have no desire to stop it at all.

I don’t understand this fully, but suppose that part of it is that it’s so easy and with ZERO identifiable carbs there is nothing to kick off the insulin cycle badly. (To be clear, protein does invoke an insulin response, just not as sharply or as large as carbs.)

This idea of cycling between carnivore, extended fasting, keto, and all sorts of flexible time-restricted feeding and intermittent fasts is amazingly powerful and I’ve only begun to explore it the last 6 weeks.

(I’ve spent almost 2/3 of that fasting. 29 of 45 days)

Gosh, I wished I knew this stuff in 1978 when we first started using Keto and mega-vitamins successfully. I really think it would have fixed 90% my unsuccessful issues with it.

We honestly thought fasting was dangerous, that it didn’t work much better than keto, and that fructose & complex carbs were good food (when you weren’t trying to lose weight at least.)

Of course, we had no effective Internet and certainly no YouTube or forums like this, Facebook, and Twitter. (And we were early online and Internet adopters. By '82 we were using online forums regularly but they were very limited, modem dial-up BBS systems, and I was fully on the Internet by 91 but there were NO web sites: Gopher protocol was an advanced technology then.)

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #70

48+ hrs now on my journey to ~72 hrs. Today was a little more challenging because the work I was doing was a bit boring. But I tend to do better in the evening and once I go to sleep I’m fine.

So on to day 3.

I measured my BG and BHB and got okay values. My insulin resistance is better though I have had better BG at about the same fasted time once before. But all in all, this is progress. I will probably measure tomorrow near the end of the fast. I hope to lose 2 lbs this week total.

I’m a few weeks away from no longer being obese.

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#71

Way to go, Eric. :+1: … Decided I’m going to go ahead and start another small Fast myself, starting after tonight’s meal, that was just over an hour ago. Was thinking about this the other day, and think I will start just doing a 120 hr. Fast every three months or so, but also want to try and put in some 48 and 72 hr. Fast here and there throughout the weeks in between. … For a time, I was only doing 4 and 5 day Fast, but the 2 to 3 day Fast is something I want to incorporate into the mix more often, with the longer fast more spaced out in duration. … This will allow for proper Fasting and enjoying some great meals.

First off… welcome Tanya. :slight_smile: Glad to hear of your success so far and sounds like you’re doing great. But yes, it can indeed be addicting at times, and I too have fallen into this as well. (Nothing wrong with that, and be assured, we are not alone in this. :slight_smile: But for me, I just miss a good meal from time to time.) So I try to make sure to Feast as much as I Fast, which makes for a good balance. Both are important.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #72

Thanks Dave.
My biggest problems recently are the logistics of timing. Not so much the hunger or other physical manifestations.

I wrestling with the uncertainty of when I can break my fast tomorrow. I have the food I need but my wife is coming in on amtrak at 4:45pm and that train can be on-time or many hours late. If it is late and I know it is late I can break my fast and wait but what if my stomach does not agree with me? Or I can just go to Thursday morning maybe. My wife has asked, for now, that I not fast longer than 72 hrs and that would violate my agreement with her. I’m nothing without living up to my agreements.

Or I break fast at 66 hrs. That would still be good but not goal.

She is concerned about me because I have had bypass surgery many years ago. A recent nuclear stress test, 98% accurate, shows me clear. So much so that my retiring cardiologist is baffled. I won’t go into it other that I may have had artery scarring from german measles when I was young that clogged up.

#73

Quite understandable. - If it were me, I would simply break at 66 hrs. That’s not far off from your 72, and they all add up as well. And as you know, I’m a big advocate of changing things up. So I know you said it’s not your goal, but it’s still beneficial, and you could always throw another Fast in a few days later. … It’s one of the reasons I really do want to incorporate some smaller Fast in, instead of only doing longer ones. I enjoy both, but as I’ve stated, anything under 48 hrs. I don’t worry about breaking a Fast.

(Tamela Robinette) #74

Eric I broke at 66 hours and I’m having bathroom issues. No pain but it’s misery. How do you break your fast? If you break your fast and you’re at the train station do you have to stay near the loo? This is bad :persevere:

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #75

Robinette

I usually break fast with bone broth with most of the fat removed. Then I wait 20 to 40 mins and add some green olives. But I was going to try a small green salad with olive oil as @Digital_Dave suggested. If that goes okay then some pork rinds in sour cream then more regular food. Might be ground beef that I can thaw out.

I’m almost certain I will break my fast in the morning. Too much discussion of disasters today here and on FB has me worried. I’ve only had problems once and that day I had sauerkraut that was the strongest I have ever had.

I’ve had good weight loss so far and my stomach has softened a lot. Finally most of the other fat on my body is gone. now to focus on the adipose fat. AKA belly. Plus I got my Boz Ratio to 46 and GKI to 2.6 today. For me those are good ratios.

(Tamela Robinette) #76

It sounds like to me bone broth is the go to. I saw some beef bones in a local grocery store yesterday. I should of bought them. I’ve never made bone broth. There’s a 1st time for everything. That’s great on your numbers! Keep up the good work!

#77

Just for the record and additional info…

I usually lose just as much weight when I’m eating OMAD, as I do whilst Fasting. So for me, Fasting is more for the pleasure of doing it, the way it makes me feel and as well as possibly autophagy of course.

This is also why I only water Fast. But as I’ve said, this also gets me away from all flavors in general, which makes everything taste so much better afterwards. … If it’s helpful to anyone, from everything I’ve read, watched, listened to, etc. - One of the things I recall, was the suggestion to not go overboard with protein intake when going into a Fast. Moderate portions, but not overdoing it. (similar to not overdoing fat intake normally, when you want your fat to be used instead) … It was said to be because it can help with loose skin, being skin is protein, the body can then use this when it searches for protein during fasting. (I hope I’m relaying this information properly, and sorry I don’t have the pertinent data presently to provide it, or I would.) But it made sense to me and is why I may have a decent meal beforehand, but make sure I don’t just load up on all proteins, since most of my plates resemble Carnivore sometimes.

Also, I’m a big advocate of changing things up to keep the body guessing and not letting it get used to any one regimen. This is one of the biggest things I’ve been doing since the beginning, and I’m a firm believer that this is very beneficial. … So whether it’s how many meals I eat a day, or the time in which I eat, how long I fast, etc. I think keeping all this constantly changing plays a big role in Keto for me.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #78

Search youtube for keto bone broth. It takes a long time in a crock pot or a few hour in an insta-pot or pressure cooker. Roast the bones ahead of time in the oven and add a few ounces of vinegar to the water. This couple seems to have good info https://youtu.be/JTwJRqDd2lU

Good Luck

(Tamela Robinette) #79

Thank you! We have an instapot! I have to refeed for a few days before attempting another fast which will give me time to make some broth.

#80

I’ve actually never had bone broth myself. Read a lot of folks speaking about it, but never had it. … V’s even spoken about making some, but we haven’t done it as of yet. Maybe because I’ve never been a soup person? But she is, so she will probably try some before me. :slight_smile: