Thanks Doug. Yes, I agree that it is healthier. Losing 1/3 of my visceral fats and potentially getting a rebound in organ size and correction for food and hydration - overall, it’s not as bad as it looked.
Appreciate the support! I am a very optimistic person by nature, but also very realistic with myself - plan A didn’t work… move on to plan B. 
Thank you Dena! I’m very tenacious (wife goggles = stubborn)…
I’m glad I went through with it and I hope that the learning will help other people too. I think understanding the difference between autophagy and fat loss by ketosis is really valuable. I will rebound and I appreciate the support.
I’ll continue the thread so I can share whatever comes next - success or failure. I do it all for science… and abs. 
One of the things that I’ve heard is common after an extended fast is rapid fat regain. Your rock bottom GKI may give an indication as to why. Right now, your body seems to be still consuming bodyfat and at a similar rate as when you were fasting! My bet is that your body is converting dietary protein for repair material, and dietary fats into body fat so that it doesn’t have to interrupt it’s catabolic homeostasis.
How the heck it does that is anybody’s guess, but it’s fascinating! I’ve never seen the GKI from someone coming off of a 19 day fast and it’s totally unexpected.
I’d say a bare minimum for halting the refeed is when your GKI gets up above 2 and stays there for a couple of days. Right now you’re still “fasting” even though you’re eating food!
Yes… I expected a pretty fast rebound, but I guess 19 days is hard to overturn in 19 hours. “Body memory” is harsh. I actually think the fasting chill is a really good indication, by the way.
I expected to feel warm as soon as I ate, and it did get a little better, but not really warm. I think that the two will return together - higher GKI and body warmth. We will see.
Wife is really set on the eggplant today!
Amount Per 1 cup, cubes (82 g)
Total Fat 0.1 g
Total Carbohydrate 4.8 g
Dietary fiber 2.5 g
Sugar 2.9 g
Protein 0.8 g
If that doesn’t kick me out of it… she also got berries 
That liver glycogen is going to get refilled - she’s “tenacious” too and feels that feeding me is part of her godgiven duty… her redemption cometh!
ok. looking ahead. Here’s what the DEXA shows (as it is)
so I was losing (on average) 0.25lbs per day in fat and 0.91lbs per day lean (ignoring errors and corrections).
To compensate, I would need to add back ~ 1lb of protein per day. This seems excessive.
My usual math is 0.7g / lb of lean mass ~ 0.7 x 130lb ~ 90g per day. That’s only 0.2lbs per day.
Eating 2x this nominal rate might make sense for muscle growth, but 5x… that doesn’t compute.
Also, to blunt the insulin response, I would need to have sufficient fats around it. Assuming 30% protein to fat ratio to remain ketogenic, that would align to ~ 90g protein (360 cal) + 210g fat (1890 cal) ~ 2250 cal per day. That would align with the moderately active RMR data for breakeven.
So that should be a reasonable compensation and still be ketogenic in composition. The idea is to use this macro build up for the refeeding days.
The second part is the composition of the protein. I want to make sure I get the 9 essential amino acids, not just Leucine, in the 90g per day. The first three are the branch chain amino acids, and the top one is leucine (https://aminoacidsguide.com) - I followed each with my simple view (please correct if I’m off):
leucine - helps in regulating the blood-sugar levels, promotes the growth and the recovery of muscle and bone tissues, as well as the production of the growth hormone. This amino acid is also known for preventing the breakdown of muscle proteins caused by injury or stress = builds muscle
isoleucine - able to increase endurance and to help heal muscle tissue, boosts up the energy levels and to assist the body in recovering from strenuous physical activity. = energy, endurance
valine - smooth muscle “nervous” system and cognitive functioning, prevents the breakdown of muscle, because it supplies the muscles with an extra glucose responsible for the energy production during physical activity = prevents muscle loss, mental function
histidine - keeping a normal pH of 7 in the body by shuttling protons to maintain an acid/base balance in tissue and blood, vital in hemoglobin (blood), regulate and to utilize essential trace elements like iron, copper, molybdenum, zinc, and manganese, essential in forming numerous metal-bearing enzymes and compounds, such as the antioxidant super oxide dismutase = oxidation protection, acid balance
lysine- building block for all proteins in your body, calcium absorption, building muscle protein, trauma recovery, helps produce hormones, enzymes, and antibodies = strong bones & muscles
methionine - produces other important molecules, involved in the production of cysteine, the other sulfur-containing amino acid used to build proteins in the body, intermediate in the biosynthesis of different phospholipids, important in single-carbon metabolism and helps the detoxification in the liver. = detoxification, metabolism, longevity
phenylalanine - produces other proteins, coded for by DNA, precursor for tyrosine, the monoamine neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine (noradrenaline), and epinephrine (adrenaline), and the skin pigment melanin. = mental alertness, memory, mood, appetite suppression
threonine - supports the human immune system by helping in the production of antibodies, central nervous, cardiovascular, liver, production of collagen, elastin, and muscle tissue, building strong bones & teeth = immune system, skin, hair, muscle, bone
tryptophan - supports production of enzymes, structural proteins, serotonin, melatonin, and the neurotransmitters, pain perception, sleep, temperature, blood pressure, possible mediator of central fatigue = nervous system, energy
The next step is to find adequate vegan sources and to align it all to the 90g I need… 
I have no idea if this is useful to anyone else, but if I’m learning… I’m sharing…
One pound is positively parsimonious. I gather you missed my steak mountain dinner post last night. I think I hurt myself on my first day of carnivore. It’s more complicated than it looks. 
I forgot about that part. Vegetarian would be tricky, but 1lb of vegan protein is a little hard to wrap my head around. Can vegans eat plankton? Whale’s seem to do pretty well, but they’ve got the grill for it. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Thanks for the beautiful mountain of meat! I’ll definitely get there in May but the next 30 days will still be vegan.
So I didn’t get to measure immediately after eating my massive dinner of eggplant, poblano peppers (she snuck them in), onions, tahini, garlic, seaweed, avocados, asparagus, mushrooms, EVOO, pickled olives, pickled lemons followed by a bowl of almonds, pumpkin seed, and macadamia… it’s a lot of food. I’m eating until I feel very very full.
But I quickly fell asleep. It was a pretty intense exhaustion too… like my body needed to do something and had to put me out of it while it worked. Yes… it’s weird, but I do anthropomorphize my body… which is weird, since it’s a human body, but it’s not my consciousness… ok ok… back to the topic.
After I fell into this deep 3hr sleep, I woke up and immediately measured… and got this very disappointing outcome:
Before = 57G, 6.4K, 0.49GKI
After = 60G, 7.2K, 0.46GKI
I was hoping that I had a bit more glucose increase and ketone reduction in the interim and this is the post-protein use state… but it seems counter intuitive to eat so much and lower my GKI. But then again, I’m not in a normal metabolic state. I’ve been taking it easy but I might have to do some heavy lifting to make sure I’m not just refilling my fat.
I might have to make that coconut cream berry smoothie after all to kick myself out of deep autophagy and into normal ketosis again.
I’m also eating all this while not hungry at all. There is no hunger signaling at all so it’s actually “work” to consume so much.
I’m even eating things not in my normal food sheet so I have to add it all in before I can get my macros, but I’m pretty sure I’m over 20g carbs.
here’s today so far:
It’s much harder to break 2000 calories on vegan and I’ve already pushed to 33g of carbs, mostly from onions! 
I need more protein and less carbs. 42g of protein is half of what I need.
Here’s the macro view (in grams, not calories)
To get above 90g protein vegan, I had to go to a vegan protein broth and a lot more pumpkin seed. I hate the broth since it’s processed, but I didn’t want to go another day with insufficient protein. Hopefully, it’ll be enough to reset me.
yes - 71g of carbs…
way out of my comfort zone but I’ll see where that gets me.
ok. Ending the night at 68G, 4.9K, 0.77GKI… so it’s working… slowly…
Hopefully I can get back to a GKI of 1+ tomorrow morning and get Ketones back between 1.5 and 3.0
… stayed up a little later and got to 79G and 3.8K, 1.15GKI. I am feeling overstuffed (not a veggie person, so this is harder than it seems) but glad to be out of deep autophagy.
The good part is that the amount of fiber I’ve consumed in the last two days will likely convert to butyrate short chain fatty acids and feed me for the next few days
That doesn’t really show up in my macro math since I discount fiber carbs, but they’re basically fat “to be”.
How do I feel? Very very thirsty and not cold. Digestion takes up a lot of water and I can’t keep up - constantly drinking.
ok… sources of the 9 essential amino acids:
Sources of Leucine: cheese, soybeans, beef, pork, chicken, pumpkin, seeds, nuts, peas, tuna, seafood, beans, whey protein, plant proteins, etc.
Sources of Lysine: eggs, meat, poultry, beans, peas, cheese, chia seeds, spirulina, parsley, avocados, almonds, cashews, whey protein.
Sources of Methionine: meat, fish, cheese, dairy, beans, seeds, chia seeds, brazil nuts, oats, wheat, figs, whole grain rice, beans, legumes, onions, and cacao.
Sources of Phenylalanine: milk and dairy, meat, fish, chicken, eggs, spirulina, seaweed, pumpkin, beans, rice, avocado, almonds, peanuts, quinoa, figs, raisins, leafy greens, most berries, olives, and seeds.
Sources of threonine: lean meat, cheese, nuts, seeds, lentils, watercress and spirulina, pumpkin, leafy greens, hemp seeds, chia seeds, soybeans, almonds, avocados, figs, raisins, and quinoa.
Sources of tryptophan: chocolate, milk, cheese, turkey, red meat, yogurt, eggs, fish, poultry, chickpeas, almonds, sunflower seed, pepitas, spirulina, bananas, and peanuts.
Sources of valine include: cheese, red meat, chicken, pork, nuts, beans, spinach, legumes, broccoli, seeds, chia seeds, whole grains, figs, avocado, apples, blueberries, cranberries, oranges, and apricots.
Sources of Histidine: red meat, cheese, white meat and poultry, seafood, soybeans, beans, legumes, chia seeds, buckwheat, potatoes.
So here’s my takeaway list of keto vegan options (bolded above too):
pumpkin seeds
macadamia
seaweed
chia seeds
avocados
almonds
brazil nuts
cacao
onions - not really keto, but ok
olives
chickpeas (hummus)
sunflower seeds
broccoli sprouts
sesame (tahini)
or I can just have a rib-eye, eggs and bacon and be done with it… (in May)
That’s good to see! Apart from the novelty, one good thing about a vegan refeed is that it’s moderate carb by necessity unless you eat processed stuff. I think that’s raising your GKI faster than a sub 20g/day carb refeed. The vegan MCHF approach does have a downside as well though I think. Your body is desperately seeking to return the “normal” homeostasis it’s been programmed for over the past 7 months of carnivore. That’s not what it’s getting though. You have a gut biome that was severely stressed by fasting, and it is optimized for carnivore, and now it’s getting slammed with veggies and fiber. That’s a huge stress all by itself. I’m sure it’ll be fine, but if things get weird: consider eating a ribeye.
You mentioned that your satiety signals aren’t working again yet. I’m not sure I would minimize that. They’ll probably come back and be normal in a few days, but don’t take it for granted. The first rule of keto is “Don’t fuck with your satiety signals”. People forget that one, and they think it’s “eat to satiety” but it’s not. Eating to satiety isn’t terribly useful on keto when they’re broken; it’s like following a broken compass. Consider waiting for satiety signals to normalize before proceeding to phase 2.
I think 2 good indicators for phase 2 would be:
Do you have an apple/polar/fitbit watch? One of the things that we’ve been experimenting with over at the IDM clinic is heart rate variability. There is a whole science around “heart rate variability” that’s really interesting. It’s used for sleep evaluation, but more recently people have been using it evaluate exercise recovery. Athletes use it to ride that razor thin line between maximal training and overtraining. It’s really interesting!
Basically, you get a baseline at your normal state, then after you workout, you wait for your HRV to hit baseline again. That means you’re fully recovered. Fasting has a massive impact on heart rate, so we’re playing around with it. Look at this chart from Neil over at IDM. Look at how his average daily heart rate varies over the course of a fast. It’s the yellow line, and it’s measured on the Y axis. It’s pretty incredible!
I know you’re a data junkie like us, and it might be interesting to plot it against GKI. I’m not aware of anybody who has done that before, but I bet it would be absolutely fascinating. I suspect that GKI, heart rate, and HRV are intertwined. I don’t think anybody is even studying it.
My satiety / hunger signaling has actually been minimal since I lost most of my weight on keto early last year. I rarely got really hungry since I run on ketones and my body knows how to make them very quickly now.
On carnivore, it was actually the same as it is now… no real hunger … to put it in perspective: three years ago, as a carboholic, I would get hangry if I missed lunch. I couldn’t even function or work. I would literally be exhausted and still hungry after eating so I’d need to take a daily nap mid-day to recover from eating. So I know what hunger is really like.
This is much better. I get to mentally decide what I need, when I need it, and what’s in it. Ketones basically make it so the hunger signals are more a mode of internal communications than an addict’s need… and I like that much better.
I did research heart rate variability. I don’t have a way of tracking it, but it’s very interesting.
I have a weird way of tracking my body’s state - inflammation. When I’m fasted, it all goes away. When I eat, in a couple of days, it returns. I had mentioned that I have a partially torn bicep and the inflammation there goes away when I fast and returns when I’ve fully “re-fed”. Not the best tracker but it works.
I think GKI is a good one too. I do plan to continue tracking it.
A third one is digestive health and my gut is working very well. I was worried about this one given the length of the fast but it took me less than 24 hours for things to “go” again and it’s been daily ever since.
The fourth one is the fasting chills. I don’t have a way of quantifying it but if I could go back, I would have use temperature pads on fingertips maybe… anyway, this thermogenesis and blood redirection effect seems to tie in very well with my fasted vs fed states.
Remember how I said that I stayed cold even after eating, and even after 36 hours of eating… yup, my GKI wasn’t budging. But once I had turned the switch off, I finally felt warm again… corresponding to a GKI over 1.
The good news is that I can stay in ketosis, be at GKI above 1, lose fat and not have fasting chills. That is excellent!
I’m feeling great today. I’ll update the numbers soon
This morning, 69G,4K, 0.96GKI so just under 1, but close. I’ll call it “in range”.
I ended the fast at 168.4 lbs and this morning I was at 178.4 lbs … 10 lbs in 2 days! That’s basically the water and food weight and I have to say that this is pretty impressive… One BM later and down 1 lb to 177.4 lbs… so food and water are major con-founders indeed.
I am seriously considering another scan next Friday and to eat this whole week while trying to stay in the keto range (GKI<3)…
Pre-dinner today I got to 80G, 2.3K, 1.93GKI.
So definitely out of the fast now. I needed to eat lunch to get there and now with another feeding, I expect I’ll be close to 3 GKI tonight and can go back to OMAD.
