April 2026 Intermitten/Extended Fasting All Welcome

#24

Thanks Doug. This is great stuff to read and learn from.

(Bob M) #25

Those are good. I forgot they had skin. Do they have bones too?

(KM) #26

They do indeed.

(KM) #27

:woman_shrugging:t2:.

There’s really no way I’m going to eat nothing but sardines, and not be in pretty deep ketosis.

#28

Today someone said my face looked “thin”. Waking blood glucose 5.2mmol/L and blood ketones 1.3mmol/L = GKI of 4.

It feels like I am a newby. In that I am getting into a nice level of ketosis where my mood is good, I do not have cravings (or hunger), and I instinctively want to be physically active. Enjoying this reboot and trip down nutritional ketosis memory lane.

This afternoon my fasting numbers before OMAD sardine meal to finish April were: blood glucose 3.8 mmol/L and blood ketones 2.2 mmol/L resulting in a GKI of 1.72. I feel an overall coolness including inside my head. This small burst of fasting-mimicking eating has sparked some curiosity in me for variations of ketogenic dietary n=1 play in this arena.

Fasting mimicking protein and nutrient eating for 72 hours deep nutritional ketosis that has metabolic benefits that last for months
#29

Fair enough. Can’t argue with a strong response.

(Bob M) #30

That blood glucose is about 68 in US units. That’s pretty low. I rarely get that low, only overnight (which I’m not sure is really true, but that’s what my CGM says) or if I’ve been fasting a few days.

I think I’m going to try a multi-day “normal” fast next week, but after that, I may try a shorter-duration sardine fast.

I see some containers of sardines from Costco in my closet, and also some other canned fish.

(KM) #31

Just a “hack”, according to AI you can swallow sardine bones whole, no danger, and still get the calcium. I hate their texture so just pulled the spines, did a fast down the hatch with water, and then had nice “clean” fillets. Really wish I’d discovered this on Monday! I end my fast tomorrow morning and I’ve had enough sardines for a while.

#32

I don’t even remember how I ate sardines, with or without spines :smiley: Knowing myself, I took them out if it was easy and not if it was more tiresome than eating them…
The next time I am near a big supermarket chain (in a few weeks?), I will look at sardines! I wouldn’t do a sardine fast but eating a tin now and then doesn’t sound bad if I can avoid the bad oils. Maybe the tinned fish situation improved here since I looked at it last time.
No fat fast this week, it just couldn’t happen, too much lovely protein to eat… And too many TMAD days. But if I could do it without problems, it would be helpful to have some super high protein (in percentages) days followed by a fat fast day… I definitely will experiment a bit. Experiments are fun, I try to find my limits and may be more happy with what I normally have…

I really would love some mackerel in brine or good oil… But we will see what I can find.
For a mere “protein day”, I don’t need expensive fish (all fish is expensive to me. I have better options. but I do like variety).

(KM) #33

Well, so this time I got the back pain about 3 hours after breaking my fast.:woman_shrugging:t2:. Other than that all is well. 5 days.

#34

I broke my fast with an omelette, then a few hours later a ribeye cooked in duck fat and I went into AFib. I used plenty of salt. I was supplementing magnesium. I added more salt and magnesium and a dose of ketone ester. It still took about 12 hours to settle. I didn’t drop out of nutritional ketosis >1.0mmol/L.

So that relapse, back pain or AFib, is a great learning moment. I’m going to link it to something I heard cardiologist Dr. William Davis say, AFib can be due to sudden lipopolysaccharide (LPS) peak in the blood stream.

Fast bacterial die-off, especially in the small intestine, will result in LPS absorption and that LPS toxic blood peak/ trigger. What causes a sudden change in intestinal gut biota? - a sudden diet change.

Both our problems flared on that diet change at the end of the fasting mimicking sardine diet.

I did have loose stools as a biological signal the episode was ending. That can happen with dosing magnesium to gut tolerance laxative effect. But ‘the squirts’ is always a good sign. Now, I wonder if it is in part due to dumping dead gut bacteria, and maybe some bacterial cell breakdown toxins as well.

Note for @VirginiaEdie, I had no oxalate dumping symptoms concurrently. But that could also add to the complexity.

(When people say back pain, I think of Klebsiella sp. bacterial cell wall LPS, as that bacteria’s breakdown products trigger an immune memory inflammatory response to human spinal backbone cartilage.)

I went back to OMAD with one sardine and egg bowl = mixed one can of fish in olive oil with three soft boiled eggs, two tablespoons ACV, 1 tblsp MCT, and a forkful of fermented sauerkraut all mixed together. That took me back into deeper ketosis and a GKI of 3, and my hear rate was steady at between 50 to 60.

Then there was a family birthday dinner. I tried. I ate only meats and cheeses, drank water, there were some anchovies in olive oil and lemon juice, for mains I had steak from the grill, hot smoked salmon. The chefs are Italian so the cooking oil was olive oil. All went well until my niece’s 21st birthday special cake… just one bite. Within a few hours Iwas in AFib again. Food change flare up.

Today, all day my heart rate has varied between 52 and 156, a zigzag every few minutes. It’s not strictly AFib, it’s probably a new form of heart arrhythmia. But it stops me in my tracks. I’ll get to work on the electrolytes etc in the home treatment protocol.

But I had to make this note.

Fasting mimicking protein and nutrient eating for 72 hours deep nutritional ketosis that has metabolic benefits that last for months
(KM) #35

Could you expand on that? It sounds like such a good fit for my fasting back pain issue.

#36

Hi KB

I wrote about it recently here:

In 2019 I wrote about it here:

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/ankylosing-spondylitis/76710/7?u=frankobear

(Edith) #37

Is it possible that as a result of eating after a fast, you irritated your vagus nerve? I have seen mention online that irritation of the vagal nerve (eating a big meal mentioned as a potential irritant) can cause A-fib.

#38

Thanks for the sign post Edith :+1:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094715922000290

#39

We did some shopping. One supermarket had no sardines, the other had it in sunflower oil only. Sigh. Typical. So no sardines for me.

And even my fav (normally) lean pork cut (pork loin. not super lean but lean with a cute fat layer on top, perfect for roasting) has problems. It’s INSANELY fatty lately, I need to cut off half the whole thing to make scratchings and lard. I have so much lard now and I barely use any! :frowning:
The lean(er) parts are quite awesome though. And meaty scratchings are always blissful. I just can’t use the lard quickly enough. I want the old lean stuff back. I will be choosy next time, maybe not all of them are so fatty.

I do OMAD on and off now and want fat fast days too. It was planned for yesterday but I didn’t desired 90% fat, it happens even to me. Maybe my leaner meat eating made my fat fast skills worse…? I hope not, it’s bad enough that low-carb seriously damaged my fasting skills.

#40

Lard is awesome to cook a mix of chicken livers and onions, if you can tolerate them.

#41

Yes, that’s great, it’s my number one way to use up some lard (without bread) but chicken liver is too nutritious, I barely ever can eat it and that uses it up way too slowly.
I am thinking about frying cabbage and cucchini, not great for my fat-loss plans but if I am super careful and eat it with really lean pork and resist the siren song of everything else… Yeah, like that has any chance but moderation is key!

But I do planning now! And THEN mess it up a little. This is the most I can do.

By the way, I like liver without onions, I had to try it as I brought back meat for carnivore. I don’t really mix plants with meat (first I only cooked vegetarian food for decades and then I tried to stay close to carnivore and lost interest in vegs) but yep, lately it happens. I do like onions and may or may not eat them with my chicken liver. Usually some milk or cream is enough but chicken liver isn’t particularly bitter anyway. So onion is optional, I use some if I already have it in my fridge. By the way, is it normal that my fried onion lasted for 8-10 days in the fridge? (Then I put it into the freezer, to be safe.) Combined sugar and fat power?

About the lard… I can use up a decent amount if I make seitan (vegans would be shocked I suppose but I have learned making it after my carnivore escapades, not at all during my vegetarian times. lard is my secret ingredient) and that’s good for fat-loss… I prefer better protein sources but as I can’t buy lean meat now and barely used vital gluten lately… It has a chance. And anyway, I can feed it to my SO. Neither of us know about gluten being harmful for us, we did a gluten free year once (wasn’t hard on either of us) and nothing happened. That was a nice time, no bread temptation ever…

But I do try to buy some pork thigh or whatever it is called in English. It is almost always lean. Too lean for simple frying but I have recipes.

(Bob M) #42

I don’t use much lard or tallow, mainly because I don’t sear much.

I was gong to fast this week, but I caught covid. It’s not great.

Will see what happens next week.

#43

I hope you will get better soon!

I do my best to eat only dinner. Today I got really hungry and ate a tiny lunch, good enough. I have only a problem if I eat without hunger as it is my wont but not so much lately, yay!
And I keep dreaming about skipping a whole day, of course. It will happen eventually I suppose. I am not even ready for it mentally now and I get hungry too.