Just started

(Frank) #1

I just finished day one of a 7 day sardine diet.
Then I will fast 7 days.
Then I will be lost as to whats next…
lol

(Allie) #2
(Alec) #3

Frank

  1. Welcome! :clap::clap::clap::+1:
  2. Any particular reason for choosing sardines? :joy:
  3. Have you fasted before… 7 days is a long fast. Do you know what you’re doing?
  4. What’s next (if you want to do keto) is very simple: eat only a maximum of 20g of carbs per day, the rest of your food should be protein and fat. It’s very easy to do, and it works. The link that Allie provided above has lots of great keto recipes to try.
    Cheers
    Alec
(Megan) #4

Hi Frank, welcome to the forum.

What is your reason for deciding to start a ketogenic way of eating? Is it connected to why you are doing such an extreme start to it? My 1st reaction on reading your plan for your 1st 14 days was “What the hell? Why?!” But maybe there is a why…

#5

Why? And how much do you eat a day? And why? :upside_down_face:

(Frank) #6

Thanks.
I’ll give it a read…

(Doug) #7

Welcome, Frank. Sounds good - you are really jumping into things.

(Frank) #8

Hi to all and thanks for the reply’s.

I saw a YouTube from Dr Boz.

Sardines. I love them.

I’ve never fasted before except when sick.

The reason is because I saw my younger brother after about 9 years.

He told me he had type 2 and was rather large.

I have some symptoms of type 2 and I’m not gonna chance it.

I started to feel like eating all the time and I was suffering from severe insomnia.

I’m gonna sardine it for 7 days at least.

I might amend the water fast down to three days.

Again thanks for the input.

It’s either swim or sink now.

28 hours in now and no problems with hunger at all.

Yet.

Lol

(Frank) #9

I’m just sick of eating sweets and junk food. For three days in a row I got Wendy’s hamburgers. Two with fries.
I was drinking at leST 3/4 of a gallon of milk a day.
Just real bad eating.
So, as I am not getting any younger I decided to change.
I recently had the dreaded Cow-19 and didnt eat a thing for a week, and barely anything for a month.
Then Wendy’s got in the way and BAM.
What I miss most at 28 hours in is Milk.
I think after the sardine part I will go almond milk.
Pretty expensive but who cares.

(Frank) #10

No food for 28 hours so far.
Type 2 symptoms drove me to this.
And insatiable eating…

(Frank) #11

Thanks for the support Doug.
Easy so far.
The good thing is I’m not a huge sweets fan.
I’ve always been meat and potatoes.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #12

Welcome!

You might want to wait a bit before starting fasting. The reason is simply that there is an adaptation period at the beginning of a ketogenic diet, during which the skeletal muscles have to readapt to metabolising fatty acids, after years of metabolising glucose. (Also, the glucose does some damage that the cells have to heal from.) If you should find it difficult to fast, during these initial six to eight weeks, don’t give up on the idea, simply wait until it comes more easily. If, at some point you find yourself skipping meals accidentally, because you forgot to eat, that’s a great point at which to start fasting.

(Alec) #13

Frank
I would recommend that you do this… don’t go too bold to start with. Do something that you can repeat again and again and be comfortable doing again and again, week in week out.

I would start with a day (or 2 or 3 if you really want to), and then build up. I did 2 42 hour fasts a week for over a year, and it worked beautifully. Try to develop a routine you can stick to.

Best of luck! Let us know how you go.
Cheers
Alec

#14

Since you are getting some ideas from Dr Boz videos, you may want to pick up her Keto Continuum book. She doesn’t recommend fasting until you’ve been keto for several weeks. She recommends people slowly advance along the continuum. Her highest level in the continuum is doing 72-hour fasts (and only for 8 weeks at a time) and not until you have worked your way up through the lower levels. I believe she wrote that doing 72-hour fasts before you have shifted your chemistry might actually be harmful. And she doesn’t recommend longer fasts.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #15

Certainly a fast longer than 72 hours ought to be approached with caution, and preferably under medical supervision. Even Dr. Jason Fung, the fasting advocate, recommends that.

(Doug) #16

I think doctors are often erring on the side of caution. Especially with ‘broadcast messages,’ they don’t want to advise long fasts. But - while there are big differences between Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3, after that not much changes - the effects just get better, deeper, more profound. So IMO, 4, 5, 7 days isn’t that much different than 3. If a person can do 3 days with no big problems, then longer ones shouldn’t be a problem at all.

We’re all different and have different experiences. That said, the day I got a call from my doctor’s office saying I had (finally) made it to full-fledged Type 2 diabetes status, I started fasting and went 4.5 days. Only chickened out because it was Sunday night and I was afraid of feeling weak (or something) at work. This was coming from a high-carb diet, and it was no problem. During that fast, I found Jason Fung’s blog and that’s what led me to this forum.

#17

IDK what problems do you think… I definitely would worry about my metabolism later now. Back then, when I still did high-carb so my fasting abilities were way better (IDK why but I found this connection, the lower my carbs, the worse I get at fasts), I could do 5 days and not any more (I got hungry. but with zero sodium, it’s better I stopped anyway. no one taught me about electrolytes).
Now I can’t do a single day. Theoretically of if I had a very serious reason, I could, obviously… But without that, by my own will? Doesn’t happen.

(Doug) #18

Some people have a very hard time beginning fasting. It makes sense that if one is used to eating a lot of carbohydrates, then switching to one’s own fat might be a big shock. It didn’t matter at all to me, but I was used to eating just one meal a day, often - I’m guessing that may have helped.

Metabolism - when fasting it drops off a little, but most of that is because you’re not digesting any food. I’ve done about 40 fasts of 3 days or longer, the longest being 12 days, and while every fast is different, I’ve never had to struggle severely to keep going. They all end because of some commitment or social thing where I’m going to eat, or just because that was the plan. There have also been times where I just quit after 3 days (for example) when I planned to do 5 or 6. Just ‘was not feeling it’ then. It’s not a problem to quit early; there will be more fasts ahead and plenty of time overall.

I will say that while it’s common to have trouble getting through 18 hours - at that point the body is really realizing that the pipeline is empty. Many people time things so that occurs while they sleep. And the second day is tough for a lot of people to. As a generalization, once a longer fast is completed, it makes later, shorter fasts seem really easy. Or not - every fast is different.

#19

And just to be a little more clear, I’m not sure Dr Boz is actually against long fasts in general, so when I say “she doesn’t recommend them” I just mean that her books and videos don’t mention trying to go beyond that amount of time. It may be she’s playing it safe for people with no supervision or maybe that’s the length where you get the most bang for your fasting buck. And her books add all the usual cautions that if you are taking blood pressure or diabetes medications then you must get a doctor on board first to help you reduce the dosages when you fast.

For the really long fasts people have to think about things like refeeding syndrome, so it makes sense to be a little cautious and not get started on extra long fasts until you have researched it well or have some supervision.

(Frank) #20

I’ve never been big on sweets.
Always meat, potatoes, rice.
Even when I was young, I never was Mr. Candy.
What concerns me about what you said was if I skip a meal.
I usually don’t eat unless I am hungry.
Do I have to eat at the same time?
Do I need to have three meals?
Sometimes I only eat once a day.
But, it started to get to the point where I had hunger like crazy all the time.
I was worried I was on the way to type 2.