why?
are you hungry?
is your body telling you it needs food or is your body telling you it needs salt/electrolytes?
just like getting hung up on scale numbersā¦we can get hung up on āhours fastedā numbers and not listen to what our bodies are actually telling us
@JesS90 the cycling isnāt always a good fit for everyone: it can lead to a transgression/punishment cycle that isnāt good for long term sustainability of the lifestyle
Havenāt thought about that. But yeah, I guess food alone wonāt fix underlying behavior patterns.
Since this is the first cycle I did, Iām going to see if this was just āitās a special occasion, I can have treatsā-thinking or if thereās more to work on.
Using it to fry things in? Or how else do you include it? Iām envisioning eating by the spoonfuls!!!
I will be making bacon mayo later this week!
Iāve seen several people referring to cold fingers as a cue to end a fast. Iāve never heard that before. Can you explain?
There is some speculation that its a sign that metabolism is slowing because warmth/temp regulation to the fingers and toes is the first to go when energy consumption is slowed.
However Iāve also seen that salt can help, or that you can push through it, etc so I guess it depends on the person. for me it was paired with worsening mood and anxiety (also signs of slowed metabolism) so I took it as a sign and stopped.
Yes, cold fingers is a common symptom during a fast! I just completed a 46-day fast and I was cold most of the time.
I used extra salt, like 2-2.5 teaspoons a day, to help alleviate the symptoms but was still cold. I did wear sweats during the day and even put an extra blanket on the bed at night for comfort. Exercise often helped to generate more heat so I went for frequent walks as I work from home and live in Florida.
I pushed through the chills but have seen many others who decided not to. It is something to be aware of and is not, it itself, a danger sign in your fast. The Fasting Talk podcast addresses this in a couple of episodes if you want to hear it from some experts.
Yeah Iām new to fasting so trying to take it slow. Carl though I think is more experienced but it might just be experimentation.
Iād love to get one of those breath monitors that measures BMR but I donāt think they make home versionsā¦ lol
Ultimately you have to go with your gut on when to stop not any one particular sign.
The one time I made bacon grease mayo it didnāt turn out very good. It was great right when I made it but after it chilled, it lost all flavor except the bacon grease. It wasnāt much different from eating bacon grease with a spoon. Any one else have this happen?
@Lueloff wellā¦ I do sometimes eat it neat out the jar LOL. 
Iāve also started adding it to baked goods for additional fat as well as cooking more with it. Iāve increased my use of it in making like a bacon fat broth and soups. Like this week, I added about 2oz in the chili I made.
I donāt know what you put in it, but I do know that no matter what mayo you make it can end up tasting like straight bland fat if itās not seasoned enough. For a plain mayo, I rely on salt, paprika, mustard powder, lime (or lemon juice), and red wine vinegar (or acv). No matter if I make baconnaise or regular mayo, I try different flavor - chili lime, Old Bay and so on.
One of the things Iām looking into in my own n=1 experience with fasting is where iodine fits in. If youāre supplementing with iodized salt this may be a non-issue for you. My last extended fast, I ended up very cold and feeling crappy, so I ended the fast early, and it appears given some testing I had done that the cold in my case may have been driven by low triiodothyronine (T3), which Iām thinking may have in turn been driven by low iodine. When I fast, I do supplement salt, but neither of the salts that I have on hand at the moment contain iodine, so given that Iād fasted for 5 days, itās possible that I did not have sufficient iodine to allow the thyroid to do its job.
I offer this, not as medical advice, but as my n=1 experience and thoughts on that experience based on the correlation between my symptoms (cold, feeling crappy, and lower HR) and those of hypothyroid.
Once I started eating again, I felt fine, but Iām making it a point to get more iodine in, though as with most things, thereās a sweet spot, and not 100% agreement on exactly where that sweet spot is.
Just another potential piece of the puzzle to consider while fasting.
You say that like itās a bad thing. 
Hmmā¦that gives me an idea. I made some keto Mounds bars the other day, using 100% cacao bar melted with Lilyās chocolate chips as the base layer. But that layer was still pretty hard once cooled. Maybe if I added some bacon nectar, it would soften up the final product a bit, and add a hint of lovely bacon flavor. Not sure how well thatād go with the coconut, but still worth trying, I think.
@devhammer it would go well. Iām Charmaine Blyss and I support this endeavor! 
I started putting the bacon fat in stuff because I somehow ended up with this abundance of fat because I wasnāt using it up like I had been initially. So when I made some keto ācornbreadā this week, I put it in there. I tried a piece with peanut butter and my keto raspberry syrup, and you know what? It was delicious!
So yeah, use the bacon fat in some keto sweets. After all people love chocolate covered bacon, so itāll define work. Aaaaand, something I havenāt done in a long time was sautĆ©e raw almonds in bacon fatā¦ thatās ~really~ tasty.
Fun part of fasting is freeing up my lunch break to read. LOL
Fasting is a game changer.
It is estimated that iodine, like magnesium is deficient for many people, if not most, at least in the US. Lack of iodine depletes energy, increases anxiety and mood disorders, makes us cold, and much, much more. This is a subject worth learning about.
