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

(Karim Wassef) #261

I am sore. I decided to work out shoulders more than usual and I feel it today.

Side feels better. More of a diffuse pain there now.

(Karim Wassef) #262

Decided to retest and my #%**^# scale gave me completely different mass ratios. The weight is the same (lost 0.6lbs) but now it says that I’ve lost 0.7lbs fat and gained 0.1lbs lean… so frustrating.

We’ll see this afternoon. Current view is 168.4lbs at 19.5% bf.

(Karim Wassef) #263

Morning blood 58G, 7.1K, 0.45GKI. Little higher than my usual 55 & 6.5 but I’d say that’s fasting normal.

(Doug) #264

Karim, you nailed it - looking at the owner’s manual online, for “HI” readings, it says, “Your meter has determined that your blood ketone result is higher than 8.0 mmol/L, or there may be a problem with the test strip.”

Thanks again for this project, and for being willing to push yourself. It will be great to see the new DEXA scan results.

(Karim Wassef) #265

Dry fasting is a different kind of hard for me. After 29 days of normal fasting, I wouldn’t think it would be so difficult but it is.

I’m exhausted and weak. My mind is clear and I’m calm, but I feel like a much older version of myself… like I’m 80. I move slowly, deliberately… conserving every bit of energy. Even my breath is slower… the soreness from my very active day yesterday is compounding things.

I’m not sure if it’s the lack of hydration or salts - but it’s sonething I have to do more often to train my body to go without.

I’m going to break the dry fast at 13 hours and drink some water and take some salt.

(Karim Wassef) #266

Ok. Bad news but it’s all part of the learning…

According to DEXA, my weight loss was 20lbs of lean and 5lbs fat. It seems ridiculous because it’s not what I see in the mirror, but that’s the data. The result is that my bf% increased from 24.9% to 25.4%… I’ll post the results in detail later.

The predicted RMR is 1662 and measured is 1675… down from ~ 2400. Seems extreme also. I’ll post that too.

I’m disappointed but that’s why I wanted the test… To decide if I should continue on to phase 2 fasting or make a change.

At this point, I may need to add enough protein to offset the loss. If I am losing 1lb of lean mass a day, I probably need to intake 1lb of protein to stay flat. How to do that without an insulin spike and without compromising fat burning? I’m not sure. I have to think it through.

(Windmill Tilter) #267

I’m really bummed for you. That sucks.

Also, I’m not sure I believe the DEXA. It’s counting all of the water that you’ve lost as lean mass. Even so, it’s a smaller amount of fat lost than I would have imagined possible, and that should be reasonably accurate. I’m really puzzled.

The RMR drop to 1662 is really disappointing as well. I would have expected 1800-1900. People who fast frequently react differently than those who are fasting for the first time. RMR drops of 400kcal happen in the first day of fasting every single time to my friend Neil over at the IDM. On the bright side, it pops right back up 400kcal/day when he refeeds. Hopefully yours will pop right back up to.

(Doug) #268

Totally agree. I have to believe that 9+ lbs. of fat are gone. I think that going long enough to get back to the initial conditions - so perhaps a few days of eating? - would alter the scan results a good bit. The change in water balance has to be the biggest confounding factor, right? One does wonder.

Karim, this sounds like a perfect description of having the fuel tank run low. Metabolic slowdown fits. My first fast ever was in 1983, coming in “cold” from a carb-heavy diet, and after 6 days I felt just like that.

(Karim Wassef) #269

So I’m going to change phase 2. I’m going to add three days of eating Fri, Sat, Sun followed by four days of fasting.

So this ends Phase 1 at 19 continuous days… I need to recalibrate my scale data to align with the DEXA better.

As far as the diet for the eating days, I’m going to stick to basic vegan keto and OMAD.

(Karim Wassef) #270

So here’s how I broke my fast…
started with a cup of nuts: macadamia, pecan, almonds and pumpkin seeds
main was sauteed onions, portobello, and asparagus
side was avocada with lime juice, pink salt and extra virgin olive oil + pickled olives
ended with the same cup of nuts …

I measured 50G and 7.5K before.
I’ll do the math on macros later - I just needed a minor feast for now.
I’ll remeasure in an hour or so.

(Karim Wassef) #271

I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve been in therapeutic autophagy (GKI < 1) so the consumption of lean mass is probably not bad… My body has been consuming bad or old or unnecessary tissue… If I had cancer, that would be the goal.

But for phase 2, I’m going to retool to keep GKI between 1 and 3 — targeting 2. My next DEXA is in 3 weeks so we’ll see what that does.

So - Phase 2 rules (so far)
Purpose - maintain or increase lean mass & reducing fat mass
3 days eating vegan keto OMAD, 4 days fasting
GKI between 1 and 3, Ketones above 1.5, Glucose under 80

In case anyone is wondering “why vegan”… I’m a fasting/carnivore 310 days out of the year… For spiritual reasons, I choose to be vegan for 55 around lent. Also, there is no better way to be thankful and appreciative of the bone-in ribeye than to choose to go without for a couple of months :smiley:

(Omar) #272

I would think priority need to be given to high quality protein synchronized with exercise to force the weight gain into the mussels.

hi score of ketones should not be priority but still remain within the ketogenic diet. I would not mind being on the low side if ketones if protein does that which is a controversy anyway.

(Cindy ) #273

I’m disappointed for you on the Dexa results. Please take care.

(Windmill Tilter) #274

Seems like a good approach to phase 2. I love that you’re switching from carnivore to vegan OMAD. You’re full of surprises lol. I didn’t see that one coming! :yum:

I think as a species we are too comfortable, and should seek challenge, discomfort and growth, but there are limits. I have a lot of respect for your will, and for what you were able to do, and I know perfectly well you’re unlikely to listen to me, but I think a 2 week refeed is the reset your metabolism needs prior to phase 2.

I’m genuinely concerned that you are about to pit your will against 2 million years of evolution on the verge of fighting back. If losing 10lbs-20lbs of lean mass in 19 days was just your metabolism warming up for a fight, I seriously do not want to see it pull out the big guns. Hear me out.

When my friend Neil over at the IDM was having negative symptoms after 5 months of serial fasting, he went on vacation for about 2 weeks and just ate ad libitum. When he came back, it like his metabolism had somehow “reset” and jumped from 1800kcal/day to 2400kcal/day and has remained stable for weeks. It was incredible. He’s been doing 2Feast:5Fast with an elevated and stable metabolism ever since. Here is a study that sheds some light on why 2 weeks is the magic number:

You’ve just asked a whole heck of a lot of your body over the last 3 weeks. You don’t know exactly what hormonal switches have been thrown at this point. Your body has 2 million years of practice preparing for a famine like you just went through, and it’s ramping up for war. Let’s recap what DEXA just told you:

-You only lost 5lbs of fat in 19 days of fasting (unexpected, contrary to goals)
-You body preferentially targeted lean mass (unexpected, contrary to goals)
-You lost somewhere between 10lbs-20lbs of lean mass (unexpected, contrary to goals)
-Your RMR crashed more than I have ever seen in fasting studies or N=1 experiments (unexpected)

Those are the highly visible things from the 2 tests. There are probably a hundred other unexpected things that have happened metabolically you haven’t tested for. The majority of them may be contrary to your goals.

If all it takes is 2 weeks to take your body off of war footing, I think its worth it. Again, I’m not trying to discourage you, I just want to see you succeed in your goals, and in this experiment.

I hope you will at least read the study and consider the reset. I’ll shut up now.

(Little Miss Scare-All) #275

Awwwwww huggggs. Im sorry that the results were a bit of a letdown. But I know that you’re a smart guy with the ability to get to where he wants, and you will get what you want one way or another.

(Karim Wassef) #276

Thanks guys. I appreciate the support.

I’m not discouraged, just disappointed. But in science, all data is good. This only educates and heightens my understanding of my body. It allows me to get better every day. :smiley:

By the way, I fundamentally believe that the best path to growth is through failure! And this is a nice big fat failure… now the growth part comes from the learning and I need to invest my time and energy into that.

Will report my finding as soon as I can.

Nick - I will read it and I understand your position. I am ALWAYS open to other points of view… :smiley:

(Doug) #277

Karim, you have a good attitude about all this, but I have to say that “failure” is far too strong of a word. :slightly_smiling_face: I think the future will show your results to be better than they may now appear.

#278

Karim, I’m bummed for you on the results, but I love your attitude. [Also, I do wonder about the dexa accuracy. It seems like it should more or less correspond to what you’re seeing in the mirror…]

(Karim Wassef) #279

Thanks. I’ve thought about the accuracy of the DEXA results too… but I will say that the RMR data is what convinced me that it’s, at least, directionally correct. I will admit that RMR has its own problems because the first test was when I was eating carnivore at 6000 cals/day and the second was fasting 19 days… clearly, that will bias the results. I would love to have a daily RMR… but I just can’t sink that much capital $$$ into something my wife so strongly disagrees with… for “happiness” reasons… :smiley:

ok… so the results are interesting. Here’s the basic summary. I’ll publish the details later.

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So, the results were not at all uniform. The arms had the least change and a decent ration of fat to lean loss… and I have been very focused on arms. The trunk was equal loss % of fat and lean and this is where I can see a LOT of belly fat loss (4 lbs probably). The trunk lean loss was massive at 12 lbs but I think this is probably where there’s some bias due to still having food in the gut during the first test. I was fasting that day, but there was some ribeye in there. I’d say a nice big portion of that lean loss was probably “not me”. If I could go back, I’d have done a DEXA and RMR on day 4 of the fast to really get like for like comparisons.

But - the big change was legs. And this is where I have to confess, in all humility, that I’ve been cheating leg days… yes… (head down in shame)… I was “tired” on leg days and would have a lot of work to do and (insert other excuses here)… so my squats were infrequent and weak when I did them… and the results show it.

The lean vs. fat loss in legs is amazingly bad! Almost no fat loss and 6lbs (13% of my leg lean mass) lost in 19 days! It really speaks to the body’s amazing ability to optimize. Basically, here’s a muscle group that’s been around since my fat days at 255lbs and now I’m 170lbs and not doing squats. Every day, that muscle consumes energy and returns very little back in benefit. It does an internal optimization (does the return on investment) and figures out that jettisoning this muscle is acceptable. It would reduce the take rate on energy and keep me going without digging into the fat reserves deeper than it needs to.

It’s kind of like a rocket ship that jettisons unnecessary parts to preserve fuel and go longer so it can survive the mission.

So - it was my fault… The one thing I decided to be lazy about… the body basically latched on to and slashed! Ok - squats are not optional.

Then I took this one step further and decided to see what would happen if I had not been so lazy and if the legs ratio of lean to fat burning matched the 30% in other parts… That would have moved around 1.5lbs from lean to fat loss. The result would have been an overall bf% of 24.3% which would have been better, but nowhere near the 19.5% I was seeing from my worthless “smart scale”.

So here’s my conclusion (so far)… extended fasting beyond a week are awesome for autophagy and longevity, but not for body recomposition. Basically, the bf% isn’t moving much but I feel healthier and lighter.

I’ve also given this a lot more thought now and I think my original conclusion of the ketone “wall” is justified by this result. It’s just a LOT more extreme than I thought. Back when I started seeing ketones about 5, my body basically couldn’t pull more fatty acids because of the “ketone wall” feedback. I actually pushed it into muscle breakdown by not bringing my ketones back in range.

There are two ways to do that… low intensity cardio to consume ketones or eating enough protein to rebalance and raise my GKI above 1. I didn’t do either (until very recently).

So my phase 2 targets still make sense.

More to come

(Karim Wassef) #280

Here’s the full data in case I missed anything

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One really good improvement is the loss of visceral fat that went from 1.9 to 1.3. That’s 1/3 of the visceral fat gone. That is awesome for long term metabolic disease remission.

Also… “other” is the difference between the individual body sections and the totals that DEXA provided. I have no idea what’s there, but it didn’t really change much. I’m assuming it’s organs, etc…

I added the “Non-Fat” to represent bone+lean.