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

[OldDoug]

Or maybe my fat loss is just demonstrating regression to the mean ~0.7lbs per day?

If you end up averaging 0.7 lbs. per day, that’s great, Karim. It’s good that you’re going to include the information while refeeding - it will be very interesting to see where things end up. I’m guessing the fat loss average will dip below 0.7 lbs, but represent an enormously successful fast.

[Karim_Wassef]

If I’m losing ~0.7lb of fat a day, that’s around 0.7x3500 ~ 2400cal/day which sounds about right for me.

This is my last non-eating evening. Tomorrow I plan to break my fast around this time.

[Karim_Wassef]

another n=1 extended fast…

43 days… makes me look like a wimp for stopping at 19.

[Karim_Wassef]

family n=1 for 30 days

[Karim_Wassef]

Updated post-fast re-feed

I’m adding pumpkin and sunflower seeds to add some balance to the amino acid profile.

[Karim_Wassef]

Day 19

Overall I feel good.

Hunger - very low
Calmness - high
Mental Clarity - very high
Energy - low
Happy - very low

pm - no idea why my ketones would drop so hard just before I break my fast. Could it be that just the expectation of eating again would “inform” my hormones?

[Karim_Wassef]

I suspected that my sleep last night was poor and maybe that caused my GKI increase… but it was quite good…

I’ll leave it as a mystery for now…

[Karim_Wassef]

Broke my fast at 4:30pm and will OMAD again.

pea protein “soup” (more like porridge it was so thick) + sautteed asparagus/portobello

I’ll measure again in a bit and see what the effects are.

[RightNOW]

It comes down to this: I’m unhappy and tired… and I don’t know how to change it.

Let me ask you Karim: if your body really wanted you to eat, because it had become too low on something it needed for whatever reason, what do you think it would do, to tell you? I think it did.

Refeed looks great!!

[Karim_Wassef]

So before my “break - fast” meal, my glucose was 64 and ketones were 5.3. That’s a GKI of 0.67
After a couple of hours, my glucose rose to 72 and ketones dropped slightly to 5.1. GKI of 0.78

Here’s the macro composition: 62g Fat, 126g Protein, 11g carbs. That’s 50% fat, 46% protein and 4% fat with a total of 1100 calories and 0.9g of protein per lb of lean mass.

First, I’m pleased to see that the massive intake of protein only raised my glucose by 8 and barely dropped my ketones. Overall - this gives me confidence that this will work. I’m feeling VERY full and I have to admit that the 126g of pea protein powder (in vegan broth) was VERY hard to swallow. I will have to find ways to spice it up with hot peppers, seaweed, etc…

I also expected that my digestive system would revolt but there were no ill effects. So far so good.

I expect my metabolism to be running someone around 2x that, so I would predict that my fat loss rate would drop from 0.7lb per day to 0.35lb per day… I’ll continue on this plan for a few days and see if this holds true.

[RightNOW]

I found this graph interesting - hopefully the video should link right to it –

The next couple minutes of the vid shows that plant protein (wheat or soy) vs. animal protein (egg or whey) had a major diff in muscle and esp fat.

[Karim_Wassef]

I totally agree that animal protein is better.

However, I have the vegan dietary restriction for another 5 weeks before I can get back to my eggs and ribeye

I’m planning on going for a dozen eggs a day to aggressively beat down my myostatin with the yolk.

https://www.fasebj.org/doi/abs/10.1096/fasebj.29.1_supplement.819.1

Not sure where to get fertilized eggs though… need to make friends with local farmers

I’m going to back that up with sulforaphane from broccoli sprouts too.

Sulforaphane causes a major epigenetic repression of myostatin in porcine...

and then lift as heavy as my joints will let me.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4271642/

I picket pea protein powder because it’s the best of the plant based proteins

[Karim_Wassef]

Day 1 of post-feeding.

I feel good. No digestive distress.
The feeling of “unhappy” is gone and I feel very full.

Hunger - zero
Calmness - high
Mental Clarity - very high
Energy - average
Happy - average

[Ehamil42]

It’s strange, but every time I end a fast I feel somewhat “unhappy”. Not what I would describe as depressed. Just not emotionally optimal. Enough to notice, but not enough to be concerned about. It’s hard to explain.

[Karim_Wassef]

Day 2. I’ve gained about 5lbs back but not sure if I’ve stabilized or not. Ketones are unfortunately crashing even though I’ve been at 15g carbs or less and about 1000 calories.

So adaptable…

I’ll post the data in a bit.

[Meerkatsandy]

I could be mistaken, of course, but lower ketone numbers aren’t bad, it also means that your body is using ketones, so there aren’t many traveling around in your bloodstream - as they are produced, they are also used.
Maybe such high numbers don’t really offer any advantage over the number that your body would show if you ate a normal ketogenic diet? You can’t fast forever, you would eventually die of starvation, so higher ketone numbers could only be beneficial for a short amount of time?
I’ve been following Ilana Rose, as well, she ate some chocolate and her ketones remained high or the number rose even higher (I forget, apologies) - it could mean that the chocolate had no effect OR her body stopped using ketones and this was the excess of unused, dumped, ketones traveling around in her bloodstream.

[Karim_Wassef]

Unfortunately for me, lower ketones correlate with slower fat usage when I eat.

Ketones measured are part of a formula with “ketones from food“ and “ketones from body fat” adding and then energy usage subtracting… so it’s hard to tell what’s what. And ketones from body fat may be triggered by some foods for “some people”.

I also don’t feel the energy, clarity or satiety with lower ketones.

Case in point… I indulged today with 17g of carbs and my ketones dropped and glucose rose… I still expect to lose some body fat but I’m hungry again.

It’s ridiculous that I’m more hungry now than I was after fasting for 19 days… but there it is. Hormones are more powerful than logic. They don’t listen to common sense- they follow biology and mine says “there’s carby food somewhere here, dummy! Go get some now!”

Every body is unique in the levels that trigger these effects. I’ve learned mine by collecting massive amounts of data.

Others are clearly luckier than I am. Somewhere in my ancestry, someone survived a multi month fast and lived to pass on whatever genes made that possible. That super survival is now a health hazard (unless we experience that again ).

[Karim_Wassef]

Oh… the carbs were mostly from a delicious bit of onion in my asparagus+portobello sauté… I regret nothing!

But still the hunger is so bad, it’s keeping me from sleeping…

[Karim_Wassef]

I also did the math above and based on my available fat, I had a reserve of weeks of fat to go before I’d “starve”… and by starving, I would be under 15% body fat… so not even then. Fat is very energy dense.

I ended with 38lbs of fat and 138lbs of not fat. So I could go down to 21lbs and be perfectly fine. That’s 17lbs “in the tank” to go. At 0.7lbs/day, I have 24 days in me… so weeks of high ketones squandered.

Anyway, I’m traveling so I’m going to fast with only 3 vegan bouillon and 120g of pea protein for the amino acids and see how that works out. That comes out to 19g of fat, 1.5g of carbs, 103g of protein. It’s less than 600 calories but should be more satisfying and keep me in decent keto without more muscle loss.

Only the data will tell.

[Meerkatsandy]

It is very interesting, that even such a low number of carbs sets off such a strong hunger sensation.
Then again, hunger is very mysterious to me - I have noticed 3 different types of hunger: actual hunger, psychological hunger, and thirsty-hungry. Maybe you are hungry because your body is missing something, even transiently, and it responds as hunger?

I ate mushrooms and asparagus yesterday as well, so I completely agree about not regretting anything!