Trying to read everything I can about autophagy and fasting for the purpose of skin tightening. I’ve read many of your testimonials, so it certainly seems like it works, and hopefully is possible for me! What I’m wondering is, what do you think is the mechanism that really gets skin tightening going? As far as I can tell, I will have the best luck with it with an extended fast, and especially eating little to no protein. My current “fast” consists having cream in my coffee and very occasional bites of some almonds or piece of cheese. For the last 3-4 days my Ketones have been above 4 and my GKI below 1.0. My goal is really weight loss, but will certainly take all the other benefits. I still have about 12 more lbs to go before taking a break. Is there anything I could be doing to help with the skin tightening? As far as exercise, I try to get in 4-5 miles a day of walking, which can be hilly around here. But last time I signed up for a barre class while fasting like this, I had to leave early…just too much and got super nauseous.
Autophagy for skin tightening
Dr. Fung and Megan Ramos seem to be the most versed on this topic, but if you’ve been reading up on this I’m sure you’ve heard of their work.
Not sure where the lines are in all contexts, but just remember there are essential amino acids you’ll need to replace through protein consumption at some point.
Search through the fasting threads here and look online for Jason Fung giving interviews on the topic. Then you can start planning some water fasts. Good luck, and check in on the fasting forums for tips and encouragement!
Months in, when my weight loss was dramatic, I had rather flappy skin. I mused about the matter here. That was over a year ago. My skin has drawn in since then.
While I do intermittent fasting, I do not, and unless I’m getting a colonoscopy, I will not do extended fasting. I argue that the best approach is the most simple: don’t try to game it, just be patient and enjoy your new culinary lifestyle. Skin tightening will come.
Slower weight loss is not only easier on the system, but it allows for autophagy to keep the skin reasonably tight as we go.
I have an abdominal scar from the correction of an umbilical hernia. The actual break in the muscles was quite small, but the surgeon felt it necessary to give me a nine-inch scar to take up the loose skin. If only I’d known about keto and autophagy at the time, I might still have a belly button!
In any case, as I lose fat, the ends of the scar tend to stick out for a bit (the surgeon calls them “dog-ears”), but then as the skin tightens up again, they go back to lying flat. I never lost weight fast enough for loose skin to be all that noticeable, but it has been intriguing to watch my bodily processes at work.
Well, for better or for worse, extended fasts are what work for me. I’ve tried every other day fasting. And more intermittent fasting. With me, it’s either feast or famine. And famine, it turns out, is rather easy for me, once I’m on a roll. And I get highly motivated with my meter and numbers.
I did read from Siim Land, whom I just discovered, that he believes that if people lose the loose skin, it’s because certain processes kicks in more elastic in our skin. So he’s saying something different - it’s not about autophagy eating extra skin cells, it’s about our skin getting more elastic.
Personaly, I suspect it’s probably both. I believe his point was about the replacement of old collagen by autophagy. Or certainly that is part of the process, even if it’s not the whole story.
I’ve gone through the same thought exercises on my fasting thread.
My experience was not linear during my 19 day extended fast. Towards the end, it actually looked like the loose skin was much worse, but my post-fast DEXA actually showed a lot of lean mass loss.
However, after the refeeding, the DEXA results changed dramatically with most of the error being an inflated lean mass loss and underestimated fat loss.
In the end, it does look tighter, but only after the refeeding where I suspect the rebuilding of new tissue did correct.
My learnings:
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Either DEXA is very inaccurate when in an immediate post fasted state, or my digestive organs shrank substantially during the extended fast and needed a week to rebuild… or both.
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During the fast, things look much worse as the body economizes. Post-feeding, it will be better and tighter.
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You will lose some non-loose skin lean mass unless you use it. I would weightlift every group but skipped out on leg days so I saw fat loss everywhere except legs where I lost lean mass. If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it during an EF.
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My metabolism didn’t really suffer. If bounced back on a healthy refeeding.
I’m done with phase 1 = 3 week fast + 1 week feed.
Now starting phase 2 = 4 day fast + 3 day feast per week x 4 weeks.
The hope is that I can compare the EF to the CF (cyclic fasting) and draw some conclusions on the 4 variables I care about: fat loss, lean mass gain, loose skin loss, and metabolism maintenance.
Just wanted to comment on the most important aspect of fasting. Salts are vital as you continue to pee out salts and aren’t taking any in.
Im confused about you eating during a fast. That means you are no longer fasting. But pickles or salty olives would assist you better. Exercising with insufficient salts would definitely overwhelm you.
Anyone who experienced keto flu or symptoms, increase your salts! If it’s a salt issue you will feel better in minutes.
Headache
Blood pressure drop
Dizziness
Heart palpitations
Cramps
Insomnia
Exhaustion