For the life of me, please tell me how to fast!

#21

Thank you for this thread, i had the same problem as you Zimon. Earlier tries have just lead me into troubles and cravings. But i did a 24h fast 10 days ago, more or less by chance, and was suprised about the ease of it. Now im having another go, im 28 hour in, planning to make it around 50 hours. This is absolutely doable :grinning: Training the fasting muscle…

Ive been living keto for 15 months, have lost 40 pounds, have been stalled for 8 months, and still have 40 pounds to go.

I think, like Richard, ive run into my insulin, and only fasting, and KCKO will budge this over time.
Meanwhile, i love to live without hunger and With Peace of mind. Going off Keto, and returning to the emotional rollercoster of carb-hell, will never be an option.

How do you eat inbetween fasting? Do you make up for it, or just keto to satiety like normal?

(German Ketonian) #22

Thanks for the interest in this! I am on a fairly strict keto diet, usually hitting 85-90% fat @ around 3000 kcals per day. This has not really changed after fasting. I do not try to make up for anything, meaning that I will not be eating 6000 kcals even though I now fasted for 42 hours.

There is a positive and a negative side to my current status. On the plus side, I am lean and insulin sensitive, which means I cannot really screw up by breaking fast, health-wise. On the down side, my relatively lean status paired with my insulin sensivity seems to make fasting really hard for me. Moments where the hunger really subsides are seldom - my body constantly pushes me to eat. I definitely have to train my fasting muscles. One exception was the meal I has around a week ago, where I ate around 6500+ kcals and could fast without the hunger.

The second issue is that I have to use an app and count calories, because I really do not have any satiety signals. I can literally eat 500g of butter or drink a liter of olive oil without even noticing. Also, my relationship with food is messed up due to my former eating disorder (anorexia nervosa). Ketogenic eating has allowed me to overcome a good deal of it, since I no longer “think” in calories but can listen to my body a little bit better. Very slowly, some satiety signals are coming back, but I still have a long way to go.

That said, fasting is not a means for me to lose weight (obviously), but a therapeutic means to change my relationship with food. Food has always been my key reward, ultimately culminating in obsession over it. I want to find pleasure in other things and fasting helps my do that to some extent, by forcing me to break the cycle of daily food reward. And keto on its own is not powerful enough for that to happen, because I love the ketogenic food.

#23

Yes, since keto I naturally eat two times a day in an 6-8h window, when i eat, i eat til i feel satisfied. So i think ill just do as normal inbetween fasts. I plan maybe doing a 24h - 50h fast every 10 days or so? Do you think this is too much? I worrie a little about getting caught up in fasting, to the point where i start pushing myself for the wrong reasons.:face_with_hand_over_mouth: And get to feel that its not good enough if i dont.

I also had distorted eating, i think actually due to carbs, it was overeating, and feeling compelled to eat, in an addict like manor. And in the past year i have healed from this 90% due to cutting away the carbs and finding that wonderful Peace of mind. But 10% still lingered, the idea of staying completely away from carbs at all times, seemed by experience impossible, and so regularly i would sabotage with a binge of something or other. Two months ago i found OA.org, and their 12 step program, it fitted my need perfectly. So now i can keto without sabotaging myself anymore.

I like your approach to healing your reward-system by fasting. Maybe the strong hunger in your fast is becouse you dont have excess fat to loose? Would supplementing some fat on your fast screw your reward-system?

(icky) #24

I agree with this 1000000%

Not just cos it’s not necessary to “be a hero”.

But you want EVERY fast to be a really positive experience for your brain and your body, so that they go away from each fast saying “Wow, that was cool - let’s do that again soon!”

If you push yourself too hard during fasting, you’ll “teach” your body and brain that fasting is uncomfortable/ not nice.

(Vegantoketo 2018) #25

Thank u so much for your honest message. I have same struggles like you.