Dread's Progress Thread - Extended Fasting & Carnivore

zerocarb
fasting
extendedfast

(Chris) #1

Hey everyone! I’m new to the forum, been a listener for a few months now, and an on/off ketoer for the past 7 years. Fasting was the last piece of the puzzle that has finally freed me from my bodyfat prison. Well, I have fashioned a hook to reach for the key to my cell, but the door is not fully open yet.

Disclaimer: Not a doctor, not a health professional, also fairly unprofessional. If you ask me for advice I’ll try to answer, but I’m not responsible if you hurt yourself, I can’t advise anyone to do what I’m doing, because this is very new territory for a lot of folks and it’s not something to take lightly at all. If you have any reservations about fasting, don’t do it.

I have been tracking my progress on Reddit from week to week, but to honest the feedback there is mixed. I have people telling me to break my fast with fruit juice or Soylent or other crap, important information is downvoted, and the sole moderator is a complete absentee and a vegan to boot (no offense buddy).

My recent history, progress, etc. in a nutshell: Met my wife 9 years ago and my wonderful stepson. I was skinny, small amount of muscle, and aged 25. From then to 2011 I was on a slow train to fatness, being so content with the fantastic company I now keep. During this time I began training powerlifting in an effort to gain muscle and strength, and went on a bulk from 180 to 200, eating everything in sight. I got up to 200 and decided…to cut…maybe later though. In 2011, my wife and I became pregnant with my daughter. Together we feasted on Chef Boyardee and ginger ale for 9 months. 100 lb wife gained 20lbs, and so did daddy-to-be. I had stopped going to the gym and given in.

During the next 6 years I held a few gym memberships in our different housing locations, but the diet was always lazy. Despite my knowledge of how keto worked something wasn’t clicking. I let myself get off the wagon and stayed off for a couple years.

To now. I had been listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast and, I think it as Robb Wolf who was being interviewed, but they had mentioned fasting. I immediately started looking for fasting podcasts, which was where I found Fasting Talk, 2 Keto Dudes, and a few others.

I was 235 last year, and over about 3 months of fasting and OMAD (but not watching what I ate), I dropped down to 195 and kept it there. This was before reading about extended fasting, when all I knew about was IF or leangains from previous reading.

My coworkers complained I wasn’t eating enough and starting feeding me (f@#$%@#$k). I went along with it to shut them up. So then after Christmas 2016, I decided to try OMAD / keto again. Every day at work I ate 6 or 7 sausage links, a pile of cheddar, and a giant kale shake with celery, cucumbers, garlic, ginger, and blueberries. It was gross, tasted like grass. I lost another 25 pounds though in about 4 weeks. It was now time to try out extended fasting, and I went a whole 48 hours. It’s been about 10 weeks since that first fast, and each week I’ve done 3-5 days during the week and feasted on the weekend.

To date now, I’ve gone from 235 to 150 in total, and I feel like a new man. My wife is incredibly supportive of my choices and her reactions to my body going through this change have been incredibly positive.

Some things I’ve noted: resting HR, working HR and BP have all dramatically dropped. I’ve lost a great amount of body fat from my extremities, most of the stubborn fat is in my trunk (gut, love handles). My hair looks better, my facial hair looks more even, I have more of a libido, and more energy overall. I don’t hurt. Not that I was hurting much before, but losing all that fat has just made me feel great.

Now, I have cut all plants from my diet and follow strict zero carb on my eating days, consisting primarily of steaks and burgers, extremely rare, with sides of egg, cheese, butter, or bacon.

PURPOSE OF THIS THREAD - now that we’re caught up on history, why am I here, writing this spammy-@ss thread? I would like to track my individual fasts in one spot, in one thread. Each day or when I feel like it (often, promises), I’ll pop in and update. This can include feasting days as well, or workouts, or what have you. I’d like it for my own personal accountability, but also I think it’d be good for others to see someone doing short extended fasts weekly and though I’m not a doctor or any kind of expert, maybe I can help someone else with a question or help them hold themselves accountable.

SO, HOW DO YOU FAST, DREAD?

Water, primarily. I do tend to do black coffee, between 1 and 4 cups daily. I’m trying to cut down but it’s one of the last of my vices and it’s a bit of a comfort.

I carry a pink salt grinder and 2-3 liters of water in nalgene bottles with me. I also have a handful of potassium tablets in case I am not feeling well and increasing salt has not worked.

Now, I’m not being monitored by a doctor, so I have to play all this by ear, if I really start feeling bad, I’ll eat. No fast is more important than my health.

As far as physical training, I do bodyweight stuff right now, keeping it simple. I have shown interest in kettlebells though, so I might actually grab one or two and see how I like it.

Every morning before I take a shower or do anything, I strip down and get on the scale. I do this not because I care so much about my weight, but I wanted to see what it does throughout the week under the same circumstances each day. Right now I’m pretty much stuck around 150 so my uneducated guess is that this is close to my “natural” weight.

My coworkers know I fast, only because I can’t shut up about it, I’m like a vegan. Don’t worry I’ll tell you. So far they haven’t gotten in the way.

I try to plan any chores or anything active (even video games) for when I’m fasting, but there’s a possibility I can maintain fasted energy while feasting zero carb. It seems like I have completely fat-adapted as I can eat a cupcake and a few hours later I’m tasting acetone again. Yesterday was the first full fast day after starting zero carb, and I had no problem at all vs. strict keto with vegetables (fiber).

Anyway, I’m at work so I want to truncate this early. I’ll reserve the next few posts in case I need something at the top, and from them on the format will just be me adding a reply every time I check in. I am going for daily at the minimum, which I’m good at sticking with. Some updates may be from the night before as I am a night owl, so sometimes I’ll have multiple replies in a day.

PLEASE - feel free to comment and ask questions. This is somewhat new territory for me but I love talking about it and helping others.


Should KF have a "Journal" forum?
Dread's Carnivore Muscle Thread
(Chris) #2

reserved!


(Chris) #3

also reserved!


(Chris) #4

Okay, first update. Today I’m 38 hours into this week’s fast. I ate steak and burgers all weekend and had a great time. I have not had any electrolyte issues so far, but I’m watching my coffee and water intake just to make sure.

Morning weight: 151.6

Coffee: 1 cup, grande pike place roast, black

Supplements: Just a quarter tsp of pink so far

How do you feel? Just fine. Energy is ramping up, hunger is not really an issue though I’m constantly thinking about this weekend. It’s my birthday and I’m planning to feast on fish and steak, and maybe some of my own birthday cake. I’ve been a little lax on the weekends so I really want this to be the last sweet thing I ingest for a long time.


(Chris) #5

7/12: I was expecting to fast through tomorrow but I am going to break early this week. Tomorrow is my birthday and I caught wind there’s birthday steak involved, so I’ll eat a lunch today to make sure my digestive system is up to it and plan on going nuts tonight.

Weight this morning: 150.2 (fasted, upon waking, pre shower, post urination, as always).

Observation today: I look better in the mirror than in photos. Which I’ll post soon because I like attention. I will wait until my wife can take those for me though, mirror selfies don’t agree with me.


#6

Welcome to the forum. You have a great story to share.


(Chris) #7

Thanks, irishred, I appreciate that.


#8

Do you have any glucose or ketone readings to share? How do you like that fasting app? It looks pretty cool.


(Chris) #9

I don’t have any readings, unfortunately. I have a glucometer for my cat (Colossus is Type I), have to read the instructions and see if it’s actually usable on humans. I will find that out probably tomorrow night.

Ketones I don’t really have a reliable way of testing, aside from ketostix but I have to assume at this point that I’m not dumping ketones into my urine.

The app is, eh. It’s the best we on Android have right now I think. It’s called FastTrac, someone on reddit.com/r/fasting paid a developer to have it made and then went dark. It’s got a really ugly UI, and the export only downloads a spreadsheet, it doesn’t sync with Google Drive or anything. But it seems to work for now. :slight_smile:

Edit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fastracapp&hl=en


#10

I usually start dumping and sweating more when I’m fasting more than 3 days. But yeah, they are useless if you’re interested in an actual level measurement.


(Chris) #11

I do want to clarify, I had a falling out with my doc about 10 years ago, and was healthy-ish-enough back then that I just backburnered all routine healthcare for myself. Then I lost my job, and started working at a startup 4 years ago, and we just got healthcare this year so I am planning to have bloodwork done by the pros soon. I’m not gonna share my diet right away but we’ll see.


(Chris) #12

I promise to post more recent before pics throughout this effort. Thing is, I don’t like a lot of my photos when I’m fat, so I don’t take as many. I think I was about 210-220 in these pics, and again I apologize for their age. I have a few recent ones I can pull up, but these are the only nudes.

Here’s a couple from 2011 that my wife took, as she had just gotten pregnant and I was planning to “cut”.

And here’s one from last night, wife was not with me so you can trash this photographer all you want.


#13

Wow. Great job. Your progress is inspiring. Since you didn’t mention it, is it save to assume you’re not tracking calories or macros?


(Chris) #14

Wow. Great job. Your progress is inspiring. Since you didn’t mention it, is it save to assume you’re not tracking calories or macros?

Thank you so much. I’ve never been called inspiring before!

You have a great question there, MelTar. The answer is 1000% nope. I’m on board with what Dr. Fung says, in that calories in / calories out is an oversimplification, and instead I want my body to focus on regulating its hormones (and letting the damned hormones worry about calories). I’m way too lazy for all that. As far as macros, I’m kind of just going by ear. I’m not tracking, but at least trying to use mindfulness and keep fat high enough. Zero carb isn’t always about maintaining ketosis, but I figure since I fast so often I should hopefully maintain fat adaptation (hence, n=1, this is an experiment!).

Besides, they determine calorie count in foods by burning it and displacing water (Dread, citation needed here). I can’t get behind that logic, there’s no fire inside me except the burning rage deep down below that keeps me moving forward.

One thing that has helped me is actually the zero carb misnomer itself. Meat, water, salt. In the past I’ve allowed ketchup or bbq sauce, or pretty much anything as long as the carb count was at a certain level. I now feel this was part of what held me back.

Another thing that’s extremely helpful is eating boring, at least for me. I have a large mental load at home and work and the last thing I want to spend time or effort on is grocery shopping which is already time consuming just in taking the trip. If I eat boring, the same stuff almost every day, I lighten that load significantly. I no longer seek a colorful plate, just a meaty one or an empty one.

Anyway, I have another update for today:

Still no word on this supposed birthday dinner yet, I went ahead and broke my fast in a bang for your buck way. I went for the lunch special at the Chinese Buffet down the street.

2 plates: large pile of pot roast meat, 2 filets of tilapia in butter on each.

Today’s Experiment

Poo talk ahead. Stop reading.

Warned ya.

Today’s experiment is to see if this meat causes explosive diarrhea. In the past I’ve broken fast with nuts, fatty salads and the like. Last week was eggs drowned in butter and came up dry.

It’s my belief that paleolithic man evolved from his near-ape predecessor to hunt and eat ruminant meat. I believe that our digestive system is specifically designed to process and digest animal products much moreso than plant or fiber products. What I hope to prove is that it’s the plant matter and fiber causing the gastrointestinal explosion, and that the advice that gets thrown around on reddit might be bunk for me at least (others, hopefully).

So, if I don’t spray ass in the next couple hours, is it proved? Correlation at least? Need more data. More testing. I wish I could speed up time so I can get more fasts done and broken already!


(Chris) #15

Experiment failed. I didn’t get the result I was hoping for. However I’ll note there was no discomfort.


#16

I think maybe our microbiomes have been altered significantly, both as a species and as individuals, and there are (literally) billions of tiny reasons for digestive issues with specific foods.

I also eat boring. I am not known for my recipes. :smile:


(Chris) #17

Yeah, let’s just say no matter what I make, it gets salted heavily…hahaha


(Chris) #18

7/13 - Oh hey, happy birthday me! My google assistant surprised me this morning when I was reviewing my meetings and the weather, and she sang happy birthday, beautifully I might add, in the car.

Co-workers forced cake on me, didn’t have much choice.

Weight this morning: 149.2

I’m loving that I actually lose weight after a feast day / days.


(Chris) #19

Weight: 148.0 today.

We’re having steak for dinner tonight, birthday steak. Was up until 1 am with the wife making a shopping list.


(Chris) #20

Feast day #3 (?). I’m beginning to lose track. Today the inlaws are coming up. Wife made a massive shopping list and I ran with it and now we have 2 pounds of leftover steak from last night and 7 pounds of raw hamburger in the fridge. I guess I can eat all of it.

Probably not gonna. :smiley:

Weight this morning: 149.4

EDIT: After Dinner

I made 9 1/3 lb burgers for the family + MIL. Served 4, refrigerated 5. Made 4 1/2 to 3/4 lb burgers for me and ate 2. I’m fat and uncomfortable right now, ate a little too much for my stomach’s elasticity. Gonna relax and veg out the rest of the night in prep for (hopefully) starting another fast tomorrow. No more damn celebrating, no more damn cake, no more damn ice cream it’s slowing me up! Damn it!

OH! Also this morning while I was sitting around in my spandex undies, I kind of had a chance to pinch my skin all over and really look at where my fat is being stubborn. It’s really all trunk, but I have some to lose on the fronts of my thighs, even more on the backs, and then the rest is my belly and obliques. I fully believe if I move forward with a serious attitude I can get this gone and be where I want to be aesthetically. Or at least to a real starting point.