Karim's Extended Fast Tracker - come along for the ride

[cervyn]

f you measure, I recommend doing it more than once a day. It really varies a lot

yep I know. so would you base your decision to fast the next day based on an average of your readings the day before?

I’ll be honest. It is very unlikely for me that I would measure many times in one day for many days in a row. My drive to experiment and collect data is not that fervent. That is why I appreciate you and others who do it!

But it seems silly to only measure once on a non-fasting day and basing your decision on whether to fast the next day on that. …unless perhaps 2 hours post pran… My goal would need to be gather useful data for me but also make easy enough that I am willing to do it. Well I have weeks to mull it over, I won’t be attempting it until mid June at the earliest.

[Karim_Wassef]

Then I would measure at noon

[Karim_Wassef]

Ending the night at 68G and 3.3K = 1.1 GKI

I was planning to fast tomorrow but I’m concerned about DEXA on Saturday with only one refeed on Friday.

I think I’ll wait and see. If I go below 1 by 6pm, then I’ll break my fast.

[Karim_Wassef]

Day 4, week 7, phase 3 - fasting day

1.3 GKI so still in the sweet spot.

Last week, I dropped into autophagy very quickly with an intense spike into high ketones. It was faster than the first week of cyclic fasting.

This week, it seems to be the opposite. Very gradual ramp in ketones and staying just north of 1 GKI. I suspect the heavy protein loading in the last refeed with the pea protein soups is blunting the effect of the extended fasting, especially with my heavy lifting and Leucine supplementation.

Here’s average daily ketones:

Since my concern was lean mass loss, this is kind of what I was hoping for… but we have to wait till Saturday’s DEXA for confirmation.

With so many changes, the scale is not helpful… more of a distraction.

[Karim_Wassef]

ok… got below 1.0 GKI and decided to break my week fast today (~3 days = 72 hrs).

Here’s how I broke the fast:

so much of my carbs come from onions and lime, but two small avocados can be a lot too

I’m hoping that this refeed will make my Saturday DEXA more correct.

[Karim_Wassef]

so phase 3 is going to be “ADAPTIVE”

[Karim_Wassef]

Ending the day at 67G, 3.4K, 1.1GKI

So keeping the carbs close to 20g (compared to my sloppy 30g refeed last weekend) is definitely keeping me in the “zone”

[Karim_Wassef]

Day 5, cycle 1, phase 3 (adaptive)

Gained 6.4lbs of “not-me” with water and food flux on last night’s refeed.

So 1.02 GKI which is pretty good after a refeed last night. That’s the power of a keto refeed.

In fact, my ketones are continuing to go up…

I have to admit that it’s hard to remain in control after a refeed and I felt that going up in carbs would be ok, but the effect of staying at 20g post fasting looks good and I still feel pretty good.

24hrs to DEXA/RMR

[Karim_Wassef]

I just love this stuff… this one shows how different cells become brain, muscle, etc… gene silencing. It’s awesome

[Karim_Wassef]

Nick - Here’s a contrarian view of metabolic rate

I think that having a dynamic cyclic metabolic rate is still healthier than a slow one.

Also @Ilana_Rose since we talked about this before…

[Karim_Wassef]

Midday 54G, 3.6K so 0.83GKI… so definitely need to eat more to get in shape for my DEXA RMR tomorrow.

[Don_Q]

Nick - Here’s a contrarian view of metabolic rate

I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s contrarian; I agree with a lot of it. I dislike agreeing with him because it seems like he barely understands wtf he’s talking about. Come to think of it though, maybe he and I have that in common too…

I think that having a dynamic cyclic metabolic rate is still healthier than a slow one.

Agreed. A scalable RMR seems like a handy adaptation to me.

[Karim_Wassef]

10hrs to DEXA… tomorrow morning at 9:30am

[Karim_Wassef]

Day 6, cycle 1, phase 3 - eating day

Heading in for the DEXA scan and right at 183 (home scale) again. I’m nothing if not consistent.

1.7GKI so still in the target range.

[Karim_Wassef]

So DEXA was ok… dropped 0.1% bf but only because I gained over 1lb of lean mass… no fat loss at all.

RMR also unchanged at ~2000 with 2700 at my activity level.

I am surprised given that I mostly did 5:2 fasting and I’ve been lifting much more consistently.

Even if my calories on refeed days were 3000, that’s 9000 a week or an average of ~1300 a day. With a burn rate of 2700, that’s a daily deficit of 1400. I don’t do much caloric but I don’t see how I can gain 1lb of muscle and not lose any fat with three weeks of 1400 calorie daily deficit.

Math not computing… need to think more about it.

Maybe my refeeds are 6000 a day? That’s really hard vegan and my measures can be that off. But even if I was off by 2x, that would put my daily deficit at 2700-2600 = 100… so still should be using my own fat for the delta.

Not really seeing cyclic fasting as working for me. My ketones have mostly been over 1 consistently while fasting and feeding… so that points to burning my own fat, but the end results point to the opposite.

Maybe it’s the vegan effect? Pea protein powder?

Maybe it’s the Leucine?

The Leucine is part of why I think I was able to add a lb of muscle in three weeks… but I don’t know if it reduces burning my own fat… but then where else would the energy come from while fasting for days and lifting.

Going to go tabulate and get some sun.

[Karim_Wassef]

Oh and visceral fat went from 1.02 to 1.56lb… ?

So cyclic fasting added visceral fat?

[cervyn]

Math not computing… need to think more about it.

As a mathematician I can’t believe I am going to say this. Maybe it’s not about the math (eek)

As a living organism with a physical body trying to constantly reach a balance perhaps your body has gotten more efficient at conserving your stored fat? A lot more efficient. I know one of your goals with your cyclic experiments is to keep your body from getting complacent but perhaps it is out-smarting you?

I do believe in self-experimentation but there are so many things in our body that effect us and we cannot track everything and the interactions are so complex. For instance it’s spring, perhaps your testosterone levels have changed in the past couple of months and that is a contributing factor. Of course I am just wildly guessing but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.
And of course we have to deal with the limits of the machines we depend on for measurements. Perhaps the strength of the DEXA is to track longer term changes, month by month or ever quarter by quarter. Perhaps the machine will never be ‘good’ at catching shorter term changes.

You have probably thought of all of this yourself, You sound very thoughtful about your experiments and I really appreciate that you are doing and sharing all of this.

[Don_Q]

Math not computing… need to think more about it

The Dexa could be wrong. Changes that small are well within it’s margin of error . It’s equally possible you lost 1lb of muscle and gained 2lbs of fat. Dexa is not necessarily able to the difference.

If you did 2 DEXA’s back to back in the same session, the numbers would come back different.

[Karim_Wassef]

doubting the best resource for body composition I have may be satisfying in the short term, but I still need some data source to measure the results of the experiments.

I’ve been reading about the error sources for DEXA and food is a big one. I was fasted in all tests, but fasting and refeeding can change the mass of food flux.

Unfortunately, that error would usually bias towards more lean mass (that’s how water and food shows up apparently).

I’m still digesting the data (ha ha )… puns aren’t always my forte… I’ll post when I find an easier way to share it graphically.

[Karim_Wassef]

ok. DEXA results. I put it in the context of the previous data. I hope it’s easy to understand

I decided to break up the legs and trunk into more detail (upper/lower)