Extended fasting while gaining lean body mass

fasting
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(John Somsky aka KetoGrinder) #1

There is, as always, some controversy around extended fasts. Particularly that you extended fasts will cause you to lose muscle. The studies that show concerning results were all with people that were not fat adapted from keto and were already lean. Those of us with adequate fat stores haven’t been tested.

So I thought I’d post the results of my n=1 experiment. During February I fasted for a total of 554 hours (about 23 days) with my longest fast of about 12 days.

FASTS

Fast Begins Fast Ends Fast Hours Total Fast Hours Total Fast Days
1/31/18 7:31 PM 2/3/18 11:38 AM 64:07 64:07 2.67
2/4/18 9:20 PM 2/7/18 12:36 PM 63:16 127:23 5.31
2/7/18 8:09 PM 2/9/18 6:46 PM 46:37 174:00 7.25
2/10/18 8:55 PM 2/23/18 6:34 PM 309:39 483:39 20.15
2/25/18 8:23 PM 2/28/18 6:55 PM 70:32 554:11 23.09

I also took a dexa scan before and after the month to see the effect on my body.
Ok here is the final update for Fasting February. One thing I noticed between March 1 and March 2 I gained 7 pounds. I was a little bit disappointed, however I’m feeling better after getting my Dexa scan results.

DEXA SCAN RESULTS

Date Weight (lbs) % Body Fat Fat Tissue (lbs) Lean Tissue (lbs) BMC Visceral Fat (lbs)
31-Jan-2018 260.20 37.70 98.10 154.50 7.60 6.97
7-Mar-2018 254.40 33.40 85.10 161.90 7.50 5.94

Over “Fasting February” I lost 13 pounds of fat. Given that I fasted for 23 days this is in line with Dr. Fung’s estimate of 1/2 pound of fat lost per day of fasting. 1 pound of that fat was visceral fat, which is the most detrimental to your health. I also gained 7.4 pounds of lean body mass during the month.

It should be noted that I’ve been doing strength training since the beginning of December and I continued that practice throughout February. So I don’t know how the results would have changed if I had been more sedentary.

So anyone that says it is impossible to gain lean body mass while fasting is just wrong. Of course more studies would be useful. Maybe because I’m still sitting with over 80 pounds of fat, that makes extended fasts possible. Maybe there is some genetic differences. But in any case I think it’s clear we don’t know all of the answers and given all of the benefits that fasting appears to produce it’s high time we have some high quality studies.

(Troy) #2

Great info and results
Congrats!
Thanks for posting

(Scott Telfer) #3

Facinating, thank you for sharing :blush: great results

(Candy Lind) #4

What kind of protocol/tools? Any special program?

(John Somsky aka KetoGrinder) #5

Just simple stuff. Body weight squats, side lunges, and push ups. I also used exercise bands to do a rowing motion and overhead press. I also added in walking, elliptical or recumbent stepper between strength days.

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #6

Loving your results and good to know you are doing basic strength/resistance work to help get there.

KCFO

(Joe) #7

Wow interesting and awesome! In wonder if the lean tissue was from diet or autophagy and recycling. Thanks for sharing!

(charlie3) #8

Nice work and I’m sure your results are valid. If the body couldn’t rebuild and strengthen organs during stressful times weakness would show up quickly. Your body weight exercise are not so punishing. Probably your experiment is not done formally very often because the strength training community is insecure about their muscle mass and loves their carbs and protien shakes too much.

I’m going in a similar diirection right now, calorie deficit plus strength training and cardio plus I typically walk 10,000 steps at work. Differences are I have a free weight home gym that I’m back using after years of neglect and I started with far far fewer pounds to lose. I don’t need to “lose weight” by conventional standards. I want to be very lean and have some muscle mass to compliment that. My calorie deficit averages 400-500 per day. I skip meals and hope for half a pound a week of fat loss. My daily calories consumed are about my BMR so any weight loss comes from activity and exercise which is typically 500 per day and tends too be increasing as I get more fit and adapted to exerrcise. The 10,000 steps appear to burn more calories than the formal exercise. In my younger training days I could never get truely lean because of the low fat/high carb advice of those days. Doing the reverse, keto, makes fat loss effortless for me because it’s so easy to ignore hunger signals.

I suspect the contribution of exercise to fat loss is that it discouurages the metabolism from slowing down. I also suspect the exercise dividend benefits from both cardio and lifting and everybody should be doing both forever.