I have incredible motivation.
I never met my Grandfather on my Father’s side. He died of Diabetes
and my Grandfather on my Mothers side lived to his late 70s was on kidney dialysis and chose not to continue the dialysis because my grandmother died and he stopped his dialysis.
Really he died of a broken heart.
I understand all that. But these facts were known for years and never motivated you before.
I know this sounds harsh… but there really is no emergency that you have to fast for a month. You just have to change your eating habits for good. Lots more scary than not eating and honestly - harder. Not eating means you don’t have to make decisions or shop differently.
But you will after the month is over.
It seems to me that you are going about this backwards. Fasting will be much easier if you do so after you are fat-adapted. Use your incredible motivation to change your eating behavior first. That’s what got you in the state you are in.
Not eating is an extreme solution that puts your metabolism at risk for long term damage. Eating keto will correct hormonal problems, form new good habits, promote healing and not compromise your metabolism when it becomes ready for extended fasting. IMHO, if you want to better your health you should start on the foundation first and work your way up. If engineers went about constructing buildings like this, it would not be surprising if their efforts came crashing down.
I started at 275 now about 218 but was down to a low of 211.
I did it very simply. Walk, walk walk and walk some more. Did Keto with mild calorie restriction (cue the hate) but it worked for me.
I read Dr Bernstein’s books on diabetes which were my biggest help.
I don’t take insulin and my A1C was nowhere near yours but I got that under control. Fasting doesn’t work for me, I can’t control myself after. It was much easier to eat but just eat less.
Fortunately for me at the time my health care provider had a program to help lose weight. I saw a doc who was strictly for weight loss, was cool with Keto as it worked so well for me. Maybe you’d be lucky enough to have a program like that available. It was motivating knowing there’d be a weigh in every month.
The most motivating thing for me was my feet and eyesight, I like them and want to keep them.
You can do this, you really can!
Good luck!
@ Fatguy
I think fasting is wonderful and amazing, an incredible tool for health. But it’s not a long-term solution, so I would use this wonderful new motivation to establish a way of eating that will really work for you. Once that’s established, by all means you can use fasting (alternate-day fasting, or even something like 5:2, both of which will give you terrific results). Many people even kick-start things with a fast, but then they transition into keto.
But in any case, if you do go for a long fast right out of the gate, please come back and keep posting.
One thing that really jumped out to me: I realize that you’re fat now but if you don’t want that to be your identity, I would use a different name. It doesn’t have to be “skinny guy” but it could just be something else that you really do identify with, a name that transcends your current state, that reflects something you’re interested in or proud of, a name that will stay with you as you get leaner and more healthy.
Good luck to you!
You can’t change your health in one day. I am not saying you don’t need to get to work immediately, you do! Switch to a ridgid keto way of eating as a means to lower your A1C. Try to add some mild exercise like a daily walk. Then as you settle in to fat adaption start reducing your feeding window. After that move into IF and EF. By this time you should be seeing results on lowering your A1c. Good luck on your new journey.
your body is not a dumb machine. Fasting is very healthy, but you need to train your body to fast.
The body reacts negatively to extreme sustained shock.
The best path is to go very gradually. Here’s what worked for me:
first week keto,
second week keto+IMF,
third week keto+OMAD,
fourth week keto+OMAD+skip Friday,
fifth week keto+OMAD+skip Thur&Friday,
sixth week keto+OMAD+skip Wed-Friday,
seventh week keto+OMAD+skip weekdays …
once you can really get there, then consider sustained extended fasting
this gave my body time to adjust and reduced hunger cravings.
I agree with you for 72 hours if fat adapted. Any longer and eating keto is easier than fasting for me. Eat one big ass keto meal a day, you will lose a ton of weight.
I sent you a PM as well Mel. He may not have seen your message since the notifications aren’t working right now.
Love the name lmao. I think starting off with a fast is fine. I only managed to go 2 days before starting keto and I’ve went 2 weeks after and could have went longer but I don’t think you need to go that long and I probably won’t do it again. For me when I fast now if I fast 2-3 days I will eat for 1 day. 4-7 days I will eat for 2-3. Everyone is different you need to find out what works for you. But it does take some time. Be patient and stick to it. It does work
I have a strong recommendation. Don’t do a long term extended fast until you are fat adapted. Why? Because there are limits to how much body fat your body can metabolise, and it is generally below your normal calorie requirement until you are very fat adapted. Richard has talked about this and worked through some data on the fat metabolism limits. It is new science, and there is no data for fat adapted folks, but this is worth thinking about in your situation.
If you go on a long term extended fast without being very fat adapted you will harm your metabolism ie your body will learn to live off a much lower level of calorie usage as it will use only what it has available from body fat.
My other strong recommendation is to fast, but do alternate day fasting, and on the feed days, eat keto. I think this will be as effective (if not more) than a pure extended fast. Use your motivation to do ADF for a long period of time. I think you would succeed if you did this.
Bets of luck.
Hugggggs. I’m sorry. Facing mortality is something I contemplate a lot. As best as you can, try not to stress because that’s poisonous to your body. Find your zen and there’s a lot of good people on here that will be encouraging to you.
I agree with your advice not to do a long-term fast until you are fat adapted. If someone goes on an extended fast without being fat adapted, they will get fat-adapted doing it. But the process of getting there will suck. Getting fat-adapted through keto before fasting of any kind is going to make it a whole lot easier (lowered appetite, fewer or no cravings), and you may see greater benefits since you don’t have to burn through a whole lot of glucose from carbs in your system every time you start a fast.
IDM says they occasionally put very ill patients on extended fasts immediately (and note that these patients are being closely supervised by the clinic). But generally they recommend getting into fasting more gradually, so that people build their fasting “muscle.” They also recommend a keto-type diet, but say that it isn’t required. Dr. Fung says one of the reasons he started having his patients fast instead of putting them on a very low carb diet was that it was too complicated for many of them. Their studies and others haven’t been done on fat-adapted patients and show that fasting under these conditions doesn’t harm the metabolism, unlike calorie restricted diets.
@fatguy, sorry to hear about your state.
Virta Health and Dr Westman’s clinic at Duke University are getting fantastic results reversing type II diabetes. The figures are staggering and would blow the mind off most (very uniformed) doctors.
The best protocol is the ketogenetic diet. Eat below 20 grams Total Carbs.
Basically a normal sized steak with veggies. Or bacon and eggs. Fish and avocado with cheese. It’s very easy once you get the hang of it.
I highly encourage you to research YouTube vids by Drs Westman, Phinney, Volek … There are many others but these are at the forefront of research and practice.
They also have very prescriptive lists of foods - things which you can and cannot eat. Especially in the first few weeks, I found these lists great.
You should see better T2D results in a couple of days! That is pretty darn fast isn’t it.
Take care.
I suspect another “I’ll fast until the weight is gone” bites the dust.
He had good advice - just chose to ignore it. He can always start again on keto is he chooses.
Yeah - it’s pretty hard indeed to go in “cold” and do a really long fast. Lots of good comments above.
It was the same for me - my doctor said I’d finally made it to Type 2 diabetic status (two years ago). It scared me, and I fasted for 4.5 days and scoured the internet for information - turned out that it’s not necessarily a one-way street to increasing drugs, insulin injections, worsening health, amputations and death.
My A1C went from 7.3 to 5.7 in four months, and this was with very imperfect ketogenic eating and some fasting. Since then I’ve still been inconsistent and sometimes totally just give in and eat and drink whatever. Fasting does get easier over time and with practice. One still never knows how a given fast will be, however.
There’s always the next fast, though - and anything we do is better than doing nothing. I hope you don’t get too discouraged.
Welcome back to the board! I agree with this poster, I think you need to not have a knee jerk reaction and do this with discipline and control. Keto is a LIFESTYLE change. It is not a diet. Fasting is a tool not a diet either. Simply not eating to lose 50 pounds is not sound advice.
I have lost almost 40 pounds since December doing keto, it can work for you. Give it a try, eat lots of fat to stay full and learn first and foremost why you overeat the bad stuff in the first place. I was doing a lot of emotional eating and I have literally had to go to therapy to figure this stuff out. Good luck and KCKO!