Coming off a five day - suggestions?

(karen) #1

Just came off a 5 day fast. I wasn’t keto when I started it, had a regular dinner on Sunday night, and then went on an almost literally “water only” fast - black coffee with a little stevia, and sometimes some lemon or mint in my water, bits of salt as I went along. Just now broke the fast with some warmed coconut milk. I thought I had broth on hand but I was wrong so I tried that instead, so far so good. We’ll see how I feel in a few hours. I will be doing a somewhat reduced calorie keto from now until I’m ready for the next fast.

I’m looking for some tips for next time around. I lost what is to me an absolutely amazing 9 pounds (started at 136.8, ended at 127.6). In five days! I don’t think I’ve ever lost 9 pounds in a month, let alone less than a week. I realize I must have been holding a lot of water, no one loses that much fat, but I still look a lot better, so here’s to water loss!

My big problem was that I was SO tired the entire time. I didn’t sleep well and I felt spacey and dizzy starting on day 2. - I’d read somewhere beforehand that some people can’t even drive when they fast and thought that was ridiculous, but I definitely couldn’t drive! I’ve been shuffling around like a 95 year old woman with head trauma all week. I will admit it’s been a very stressful week, emotionally, my mother’s gotten word from her doctors that she likely has pancreatic cancer and I’ve been fighting with her bank - fighting on her behalf always makes me a lot more emotional than dealing with my own life.

So next time I’ll be in ketosis when I start. Or on a keto diet, at any rate. And hopefully not as stressed. Maybe that will make this easier. Anyone got any suggestions for keeping up the good results but feeling a bit more like a normal person? Does anyone take melatonin to help them sleep while on a fast? I was trying to go without any otc meds or other supplements, maybe that was a bad idea.

(Kaiden) #2

I just came off a 4.5 day fast myself. The one thing I’d change from what I actually did is to brew up some kratom tea. While I was fasting, it was just salt and water, and I managed joint pain with aspirin if it came up. But as soon as I started eating again… well, not literally, more like six hours later… horrible diarrhea.

(Robert C) #3

Hi Kib!

If you jump from a non-keto diet into fasting you can expect to drag a bit. This probably will not happen the next time if you stay keto between fasts. But, the other common reason to feel that way is not enough salt - don’t forget to have salt every day you fast (i.e. don’t wait to have salt until you feel blah and need it, have it to avoid feeling blah). So maybe double or triple your “bits of salt”.

As for sleep in particular - during fasting you usually do not need much sleep and for some reason your body will not let you get it. I drop an hour or two while fasting but still wake up feeling okay. I personally would not start taking any sleep supplements - they only help sleep onset (if at all) and you will still wake up earlier (maybe feeling a bit blah from them).

Based on everything I have read, your plan “I will be doing a somewhat reduced calorie keto from now until I’m ready for the next fast.” is a mistake. What seems to be the consensus here is that you want to keep a good amount of calories coming in while doing keto between fasts to avoid slowing metabolism. Keto will give you the protective effect of not adding (but instead pretty much just maintaining) your body fat level. But, when you fast next, your body will demand that higher rate of calorie burn so will pull fat from your own body faster. As well, keep in mind that you are in the refeed phase - after a 5-day fast your body needs to do a little rebuilding (based on your description you probably had a good amount of autophagy happening) - another reason not to skimp between fasts.

(Kaiden) #4

I plateaued out through most of 2017 from that sort of advice. Perhaps I misapplied it, but it was still a major problem in my life.

I prefer to pretend the fast never happened and go back to normal eating, which for me is one meal a day, fairly low calorie, fairly low protein. I use a HiGi station to measure (estimate) lean body mass, and I don’t appear to be losing much. LBM is still at 155 pounds after a 5-day fast

(karen) #5

Hey, thanks! I drank the coconut milk, and then made myself a soup with broth, chard, lots of olive oil and a couple of shrimp. Got a great night’s sleep and woke up this morning with a total of 10 pounds lost. (Still can’t believe that!) And I’m not draggy today, at least not yet. Lovely. I’d like your opinion on this. I have the opportunity to do another 5 day fast starting on Monday - it’s much easier when I’m by myself, which will be the case - so it would be 5 fasting, 2 not fasting, 5 fasting or possibly fast-mimicking. Do you think it’s more beneficial to ‘feast’ in between, or can I just maintain a modified fast (say, 5-600 calories a day) over the weekend?

  • I’m doing this for weight loss but primarily from having read up on the immune system and regenerative benefits of fasting. Hopefully undoing a bit of damage and avoiding some of those “western diet diseases.” I’m only 5’ tall, so weight around 115-120 would be healthy, I think.
(karen) #6

Hi!

I had some joint and back pain too, at night. It wasn’t horrible, just annoying. Maybe I always do and I just don’t notice because I’m usually sleeping, not lying there like a flopping fish, haha. I was nervous about aspirin because it can be harsh on an empty stomach, so I just let it run its course.

I had the coconut milk and then later made myself a soup with chard, broth, lots of olive oil and a couple of shrimp. I had a few moments of queasiness and acid but no ‘disaster pants’, but my husband always says I could eat shoe leather and grass if I wanted, I definitely don’t have a sensitive stomach. And I got a great night’s sleep and woke up feeling much much better.

I figured with the amount of weight I lost I must have been in ketosis and burning fat, but the way my body perked up with real food, I’m wondering if it’s not “good” at ketosis, a little concerned it might have been using up muscle so it could go on burning glucose (glycogen, gulatimine, glutamate, whatever sugar it is that protein converts into). I’m considering buying some ketosticks so I can get an idea of what’s going on.

(Robert C) #7

I am not an expert and I am only answering as I think Megan Ramos and Jason Fung would answer.

Their message is fast when you are fasting and feast when you are feasting.
Both messages are to avoid metabolic slowdown.

When you are fasting you should eat as close to zero as you can - bone broth and that is about it.
You want your body to get the message that nothing is coming so it will burn its own fat, up growth hormone (to protect muscle loss and prepare to find food) and become hyper-vigilant (looking for food opportunities) which also generally makes the brain happy.

When you are feasting you want to get a bunch of calories - maybe a little more than you think you burn in a day, in a keto fashion.
You want your body to be sure there is plenty of food around and keep the metabolism going at a good rate so that as soon as you fast again, it will pull the same high amount of calories away from your mid-section.

If you restrict calories between 2 five-day fasts you might be hurting your long term goal of weight loss in two ways:

  1. You will send the message to your body that there is food around, but not much, so it might slow down its metabolism, movement etc. to try to meet this new scarce food level.
  2. You will be taking a big risk that you will lose your five-day-fast-starting-Monday opportunity to fast because your body might rebel - you could basically freak out because you have not eaten to true satiety for so long.

This is what I am doing as an example (200 lb. male - I was 215 on May 1):

  • I am finishing up a 14-day water fast on Monday.
  • Then I am moving to eating 2 big keto meals (1000 calories minimum each) every 12 hours (i.e. breakfast and dinner) starting with Monday dinner and ending Friday with dinner.
  • Then entering another 6-day water fast (similar to you, because it fits my schedule).

(For me water fast is water and coffee daily with bone broth one or two evenings during the fast if I feel I really need it.)

The big refeed period is also a great time to do a heavier workout (if you are in to that sort of thing).
You have a very elevated growth hormone level and plenty of clean calories to rebuild what you tore apart through fasting/autophagy. (The idea here is not just to lose weight but also sculpt a little to make the clothes look good.)

(karen) #8

Thanks Rob. Have you read/heard that bone broth might not be the greatest for ketogenesis, it contains a lot of glutamine which can be converted by the liver to glucose? At least that’s how I think it goes. There is SO much info out there and it’s hard to know what’s true, but I’ve been avoiding it. Which is sad, because it’s so yummy and I imagine it would be delicious during / coming off of a fast.

(Robert C) #9

I use 8 oz of the “Kettle & Fire” beef bone broth which as 7 grams of protein, 2 grams of carbs and lists itself at 30 calories. Even if all of the protein was glutamine and even if it was all converted to glucose, it still would be too small an amount to offset the benefits provided by the nutrients (and practical experience agrees with this, it is not home made with a lot of thickness - it is more like a brown tea).

I have never dug that deep into the pros and cons of bone broth. I have it because (trusted source) Dr. Jason Fung says it is healthy, increases compliance and can help ward of the (admittedly unlikely) possibility of refeeding syndrome.

(karen) #10

Another new word for me. Refeeding syndrome?

(Robert C) #11

It is a very rare condition where some (usually very underweight) people can have severe problems when they start to refeed after long fasts or very low calorie levels for long periods of time (think prisoners of war). You can look up the details on the internet of what the consequences are but, Dr. Jason Fung says that because of the risk of refeeding syndrome - they tend to keep fasts down to less than 14 days (per his book "The Complete Guide to Fasting ").