I'm Back and It's Bad

#21

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.

#22

@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.

#23

220 yet?

(Jane) #24

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.

(Doug) #25

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.

(Jill F.) #26

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!