DEC 2025 IF/EX Fasting

#16

No expert here I was getting cramps for months like yourself at nigh in bed. I am on Ketogenic diet eat loads of meat and loaded up with sea salt no more cramps. good luck

(Bob M) #17

I thought that too, but:

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https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2010/05000/Reflex_Inhibition_of_Electrically_Induced_Muscle.15.aspx

That is, pickle juice stopped cramps almost immediately, which means it’s likely not an electrolyte issue. I have experienced this myself, where I had a leg cramp at night,came down to the fridge and drank pickle juice, and the cramp immediately stopped.

One problem with this is that there are probably different reasons for cramps. For instance, I theorize that higher levels of magnesium might actually cause or exacerbate cramps. I say this because sometimes when I take magnesium a lot, I get cramps, which is the opposite of what most believe. I also theorize that working the body out in different ways can cause them, e.g., starting to jog when you haven’t been jogging in a while, suddenly doing a ton of work on the house where you’re going up and down stairs a ton.

I theorize there’s some balance in electrolytes, and if you throw that off, you’re more likely to get cramps. I have no idea how to test that, though.

But I have found that increasing my salt intake (mainly through LMNT) helps.

But I get leg cramps too infrequently to determine what the cause and solution are.

(Bob M) #18

Day 3 morning: BS = 85, ketones = 1.3
Day 3 evening: BS = 72, ketones = 3.0
Day 4 morning: BS = 69, ketones = 3.0
Day 4, evening: BS = 56, ketones = 5.3 (lowest blood sugar, highest ketones I’ve ever seen)
Day 5, morning: BS = 66, ketones = 3.8

I have a left bundle branch block, which means there’s an error in my heart function so that the right side of the heart and the left side aren’t “linked” as well as they could be. I’m on Jardiance, which lowers blood sugar (you pee it out) and also – some believe – causes ketones to be used more by the heart and possibly higher ketones. I did not really see the latter until now. The last time I did a 4.5 day fast, the highest ketones I got was over 2 after 4.5 days. Don’t think the evening ketones were that high, either. So age and/or Jardiance seems to be causing higher ketones and lower blood sugar for this fast.

The last two nights, I had to get up initially for nocturia, but then did not have to that much. I did have a harder time getting to sleep (note: I normally go to sleep in minutes, so “harder” means like 5-10 minutes), and then I woke up at around 2-3 am and it took me a little while to get back to sleep. I also woke up later than normal.

Still used two LMNT packets in the day. That did seem to help. (Note: I think you could probably easily recreate these with salt, no salt, and some source of magnesium, but my wife bought a lot of these, so I’m using them.)

I learned that my glucose monitor has a light that changes color. It turns from green to red under 70. And my app warned me that the last 3 readings were under 70.

Will (attempt to) ease into eating today. Liquid, egg, smaller amount of food… We’ll see what happens.

(Central Florida Bob ) #19

At first, I was surprised they compared pickle juice to deionized water, since that’s not conductive while salt water is. If you’re trying to distinguish pickle juice from “plain old saltwater”, deionized water is the opposite of that. The lead in (first paragraph) implies all they wanted to show was that pickle juice did something, so maybe comparing it to something they’re sure couldn’t have an effect was the way to go.

I had the worst night of cramps I can recall - in terms of frequency and spread across both legs. I was up roughly three times, roughly every three hours after going to bed. The final time I put a full teaspoon of NaCl and half tsp of KCl into a 12 oz glass of water. It was close to 7AM and I didn’t sleep well after that, but I didn’t get cramps, either.

For the last 10 days, I’ve been on antibiotics for a UTI, and it’s possible that affects things other than just killing off the bacteria. Took my last one last night, so experiments (AKA spearmints) will continue.

(Bob M) #20

Yeah, drugs will affect things. It’s hard to know. Did you go to the bathroom more with the antibiotics?

Yeah, that’s a weird, but interesting study.

(Central Florida Bob ) #21

Perhaps strangely, I used the bathroom less. At least, it seemed that way - I didn’t keep records before or during.

It is kind of interesting that the effect was so fast - 35 seconds. I could have used that last night. Maybe I’ll go get a jar of pickles.

(KM) #22

Interesting about the pickle juice! Mine come and go - cramps, not pickles, that is - I really haven’t pinpointed any good reason either. They seem to go hand in hand with nocturia for me, which I link to higher ketone levels … So maybe it’s a ketone-driven dehydration??

(Brian) #23

Not a lot of cramps, maybe on occasion, but usually with something unusual (interrupted normal eating pattern, unusual activity of some kind, that sort of thing). But I do love pickle juice. It’s not like I drink it every day but finishing off the juice at the bottom of a jar of dills (homemade, no added sugar) is a treat for me. :slight_smile:

(Central Florida Bob ) #24

I came here to add that last night I didn’t have any calf cramps. I have a sore spot on my right calf, back of the calf, the “big roundish muscle”, where the muscle and the tendons there meet. That started after my bad cramps yesterday and might be a small muscle tear. I added salt water yesterday like I had done overnight before sunrise on the 12th.

(Bob M) #25

A tear would suck.

I wonder if the pickle juice affects the brain/nerves somehow to stop the cramp, but doesn’t affect the underlying problem? That is, it can help an individual cramp, but not prevent other cramps?

(Bob M) #26

I love pickles, but don’t have them at home that much. So, when I get most cramps – and I don’t get them that often – I generally don’t have pickle juice. I happened to have it when I did get a lower leg cramp at night and “ran” down and drank the pickle juice.

When I do have pickles, I try to drink the juice whenever I think about it.

Around 10am on day 4, I drank some hot turkey stock. I waited over an hour, then had a single “sandwich” of two types of deli meat, red onion, and mustard. (I was planning on an egg, but I guess my wife ate all the hardboiled ones we had.) I waited at least an hour, then had yogurt with collagen peptides, some nuts, and creatine. I did have to go to the bathroom once, but reentry was remarkably mellow.

Day 4, evening, immediately after eating my “fourth” meal: BS 77, ketones 3.2

Day 4, morning: BS 101 (back to my normal); ketones 2.3 (way higher than normal).

(Bean) #27

I haven’t been fasting because my carpal tunnel becomes painful when I approach 48 hours. It happened three times before I believed it. Now I’m wondering if electrolytes might play a role? Fasting is really helpful for arthritis. Maybe I should try a 48 hour fast and mind my electrolytes a little better?

(Central Florida Bob ) #28

They’re like a cut in coming in lots of different sizes and shapes. Also like a cut, big ones suck, tiny ones are “meh.” I notice it’s less obvious today.

Hard to know if it was even a tear and not from being over 71. :wink:

(Bob M) #29

@beannoise That’s really difficult to know. You’d have to try it. I found that some pains I had in my shoulder and other locations got better during fasting, though that might be because I didn’t exercise.

@CFLBob My wife had a cramp in a weird place, and pickle juice also helped resolve it. May have to have a constant supply of pickles :wink: Yeah, it’s difficult to know once we start getting older.

(Bean) #30

Yes! I know it helps my RA. The carpal tunnel thing is weird, though. You’re right. I just need to try it and see.

(B Creighton) #31

The first week of Dec, I did great, but last week I fell off the wagon a little with some pre-Christmas gifts and cheating, so December is a bit disappointing. However, my BF is still 24.1% and subQ is still 20.9 while my lean mass is up 0.7 lbs for December, and my whole body weight is up about 1.4 lbs while my skeletal muscle mass is down that same amount. I attribute that to a loss of glycogen and water weight in the muscle off my 4 pound spike over Thanksgiving - in other words it was expected. So, anyway it’s a success as far as my goal of gaining muscle while not gaining or even losing fat while doing so.
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I am stoked to announce that for the first time, I seem to have struck upon the right combination to gain weight and muscle while losing fat - or at least not gaining it. It is true that I felt my first year of keto was successful at losing fat while gaining muscle, but overall it was during a loss of weight. I have never been able to gain weight while losing fat at the same time… until now(or maybe when I was 16)!! I feel like little Anakin Skywalker to finally be able to announce “It’s working! It’s working!” after piecing together all these various parts and methods. Now for the win and defeating that evil Sebulba!! I will probably be somewhat bad over Christmas, but hope that with my new tweeks I can at least not gain any fat, and be able to return to my fat loss in January.

#32

That’s great, congrats! :smiley:

Work in the kitchen (new floor and big chaos) very successfully took my mind off food, it wasn’t enough for skipping lunch but I managed it today, quite easily! :slight_smile: OMAD this far and it’s past 1am. And I am hungry :frowning: I only went to bed hungry once (that I remember. I was starving a bit at some point but I don’t remember serious hunger. my body is a hedonist too, flawy like me but still. if there is no way to eat, why to get hungry? or something) and I pretty much made sure it never happens again but I really don’t want to eat. Oh well. (I had a creamy coffee but of course, it did nothing to my hunger. Only food helps, after all - or sleep, possibly. Sleep increases my satiation but if I am very hungry, maybe I wake a bit hungry…? My current hunger is definitely annoying, WAY higher than it was at 3pm or 6pm, right before eating. It’s pretty normal for me, it’s hard to get very hungry when well-fasted and not even a day passed since my last meal).

Haven’t tracked but probably ate too little, hence the hunger. Satiation is easy lately and I had zero appetite anyway and my mind was elsewhere. It’s odd to swap to “eating almost as much as possible” from “eating as little as possible” when I start OMAD again… And I even ate after satiation (as I got satiated with so very tiny food and unfulfilled plans).
So, low-cal OMAD day (I have zero idea about my macros. very low carbs but that’s it. probably low fat low protein - compared to my normal, at least). I expect early hunger tomorrow but hunger is so fun and new now that I am willing to push :slight_smile: I barely was hungry lately and it always feel off when it lasts for long. Hunger is something I must experience IMO. Not everyone think so I am aware and I understand no hunger ever may work for some but I prefer hunger now and then (once a day if possible). Not too bad hunger, though. This current one is strong and I can’t forget about it but it’s not painful (I barely ever had that kind. if I don’t eat for a while, I enter ketosis and lose the ability for bad hunger I suppose…).

I have leveled up, I write abolut hunger here, not food :slight_smile: It is an interesting topic. I finally went and googled what is hunger pangs and pain is, I never fully understood it. I remember my worst hunger feelings but different people surely feel different and PAINful hunger isn’t something I ever got often (maybe because I overate epically every day and when not, I still ate when I got even near to any kind of hunger but still. most people seem to get hungry quicker and being satiated until a late lunch is probably odd for many but I always had it. if I had no breakfast. breakfast made me hungry frequently but any meal make me hungry frequently except an OMAD one. both timing and mealsize is important).
So I googled about hunger. Oh, ravenous, I eat anything level… Well that’s nasty, it’s not normal for me. I am very hungry but can choose not to eat let alone anything :smiley: I know I had such a state at some point, still very rarely but it’s hard to imagine that now. I have standards, you see and losing all control… Nope. Maybe I am used to certain rules as I had some all my life. I clearly remember the long time and extreme circumstances I needed to break my vegetarianism 2 times. There was no other option in the first time (and I still refused meat pieces) and it was the Perfect Food in the second. Or vice versa, I don’t really remember. Yep my top fav food was meat as a vegetarian, I just never ate it and it was easy as I never could get that kind normally.
Oh I started to write about food again… But it helps when hungry. Seeing or smelling is the opposite but thinking about it… Mmmm. Food joy. :upside_down_face:

Okay I think I can go to bed and try sleeping now. Writing here helped mentally. Only truly painful hunger and complete inability of sleep may make me eat something but I don’t wanna :frowning: I feel fine enough right now so let’s hope it will be enough. I really like pushing me a bit now. As I did the opposite for so very long. And that’s not nice. I need some serious fasting too.

(Hugh Walter Jennings) #33

Broke a 39 hour fast @7pm tonight. I wanted to go 48 but my blood glucose had dropped to 65. Felt fine but I didn’t want to push it. 1.3 GKI pre meal.

Ate 1cup mixed veggies with avacado oil, ground flax seed, and pepper. 8 oz soy milk and a half can of mackerel. Guessing around 8-10 net carbs max. Didn’t count the fiber in the flax when estimating the net carbs.

1 hour post meal blood glucose is 88. I’ll check it again 2 hours post meal. Either way it’s my only meal today.

Next time I fast that long and my blood glucose drops below 70, I’ll break the fast with 8 oz of soy milk. That’s only 5 net carbs.

The plan moving forward is no carbs at all until my blood glucose drops < 75

Didn’t weigh myself yesterday but this morning at the 26-hour mark I lost 1.9 lbs. Smart scale says my body water was up .3% so it probably wasn’t water weight. Also body fat percentage as well as subcutaneous fat percentage was down as well.

Gave my pea protein shake powder away. Just recently found out it could contain lead and arsenic. Plus it’s super processed.

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #34

Well I have been doing a lot of changing up between OMAD and 2MAD. I had added a few lbs but today, I am only 1 lb. over my goal weight, so I am happy with the results of the last couple of months.

I do find myself moving more and more into 0 cab territory to get the best results. I had been closer to 20-30 g. per day. Lately that has gone down a lot. Mostly lettuce, celery, some berries are my sources of carbs.

Wishing everyone here much success in your goals for the coming New Year. Let’s all make it a good one. :clinking_glasses::fireworks:

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #35

Time for a new thread. Let’s keep it going over here: JAN 2026 IF/EX Fasting