Fasting or Exercising

extendedfast
(Hui Xiong) #21

I appreciate your perspective man. That’s really informative. I’ve seen people talk about fasting during the week and eating on the weekends but maybe they aren’t completely cutting out solids.

I felt rather healthy for the time when I did it, but then I was warned off from doing it by my mentors. I am not sure that they understand the new science as well as the new predicament of modern people, which is even more sedentary than years past. I also experienced excruciating constipation, which is a problem that is fixable.

I was able to workout once a week, run for 5 K, 6 machines, 30 reps each. I teach at a local school. The kids are quite intense and managing them was no cake walk. But believe it or not, fasting made them more manageable. It is almost as if they picked up on my own discipline, calmness and non-reactivity. I was able to get off with 5 hours of sleep. The number of hours of sleep I needed was reducing as well, which may be the due to the mitochondrial efficiency going up.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #22

I would suppose so. Even Dr. Jason Fung, the fasting advocate, wants people fasting longer than three or four days at a time to consult a physician, however.

Peter Ballerstedt, the agronomist and soil conservation expert, is adamant that the environmental impact of monocropping is very bad for the soil, causing nutrient degradation and erosion. His hypothesis (shared by other experts, such as Alan Savory and Joel Salatin) is that since grasslands and ruminants evolved together, they both need each other in order to be truly healthy. He points out that, while nutrient degradation can be counteracted by fertilising (though with obvious environmental effects, since synthetic fertilisers are made from fossil fuels), the erosion is hard to counteract when the soil is broken up for crop farming (not to mention the fact that while there are still vast amounts of agricultural land still available, the amount of land suitable for growing crops is limited). Ballerstedt also points out that tilling the earth itself causes many animals to suffer, by destroying their habitats and killing many of them outright in the machinery.

(UsedToBeT2D) #23

You are starving yourself. That’s not Keto.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #24

The Deep Dive™

(Bob M) #25

If you only have 10 pounds to lose, that’s not a lot. And what you’re suggesting, to me, is too much fasting, not enough feasting.

I fasted so much that I got cold. Some amount of being cold is normal, but I was getting so cold I couldn’t touch my hands to myself. I thought it was a bad thyroid, so I tried iodine, but that had its own issues. Looking back, my body probably shut down and lowered my BMR (basal metabolic rate) to protect itself.

I’m back to fasting, but much less. Only one 36 hour fast per week, and maybe a 4.5 day fast, once a quarter or 2-3 times per year.

(Bob M) #26

Also, while I think fasting does help with weight loss, and in fact I reached my lowest weight while fasting, I think the real benefit to it is lower insulin levels. It’s hard to lower insulin eating as I do (relatively low(er) fat), and fasting does that. The lowest insulin level I got was after 4.5 days of fasting. I also think there’s more repair with fasting than with eating, though of course low carb/keto helps with some repair.

(Joey) #27

I’ll note that the rules of kashrut as they pertain to animal slaughter were determined by talmudic scholars to be how one goes about minimizing tzar baalei chai.

As such, kosher meat is far more “humanely” sourced than what otherwise comes off the modern industrial meat production line. And kosher meat from pasture/open-grazed animals would seem to be the most humane + healthy combination as a source of protein.

If by “looking for humane options for meat” you meat non-animal sources? Then I’d caution you to look carefully at the nutritional composition of recent offerings of plant-based fake meat. FWIW, these are the opposite of keto (i.e., massive carbs).

Finally, I would suggest that - if you are embracing a biblical basis for your eating choices - consider that the animal sacrifices in the temple were steeped deeply in a carnivorous eating style. And the choicest offerings of all? … it was the burnt fat. Take a page from your scrolls, if you will :wink:

Best wishes on your journey :vulcan_salute:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #28

@Hui_Xiong You may find this of interest:

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #29

My one criticism is of the phrasing of that first sentence: they can’t possibly know that calorie restriction promotes human longevity, because the studies to show that have not been done, nor can they be done. What they can say is that calorie restriction has been shown to be helpful in other species, such as euplanaria, rats, and mice. But we know that the human metabolism is close to unique among mammals (given that only human beings seem to be able to enter ketosis easily, and well before the end-stages of starvation), so generalising from animal models is quite risky.

Now, it does seem to be true that, whatever the benefits of fasting and calorie restriction may be, a ketogenic diet appears to provide them, as well. I would be cautious, however, about assuming that those apparent benefits are the things that actually promote longevity in human beings. They might very well do so, but it would be very difficult to distentangle the causes enough to show exactly what is going on. Diet is clearly implicated in longevity, given cases like that of the Plains Indians of the U.S., who were known to be extremely long-lived as a society (those who survived the infectious diseases of childhood routinely lived to be over one hundred), before they adopted the white man’s diet. But how can we be sure precisely what elements of the diet are problematic and what elements are beneficial? We have started to get and idea, but we are a long way from understanding the complete story.

Generalising from incomplete data is always risky. Dr. Ron Rosedale gave a talk at a Low-Carb Down Under event quite a few years ago now, in which he recommended eating the bare minimum of protein, to avoid activating mTOR, because mTOR seemed to encourage ageing in cells. We now have a much more nuanced understanding of how mTOR operates and of the effects of protein intake on the body, and researchers are no longer concerned that activating mTOR will ispo facto shorten our lifespan.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #30

There appears to be a lot of research going on about human aging, what causes it and what to do or what can be done to avoid the physical and mental deterioration that commonly accompanies it. It also seems clear that eating a ketogenic diet - or for those who won’t or can’t, taking exogenous ketone supplements - is being examined very seriously as a route to not only increased longevity but a reduction in physical and mental deterioration as well. It may very well be that research into keto as it relates to ameliorating the undesirable effects of aging may in fact work to help change the current diet paradigm. Maybe.

(Allie) #31

ALWAYS pay attention to your body and eat when you feel bad!