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


(Karim Wassef) #302

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 :smiley:

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.


(Little Miss Scare-All) #303

Go to bed!


(Karim Wassef) #304

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) :smiley:


(Windmill Tilter) #305

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:

  1. GKI over 3 for at least a few days
  2. Satiety signals normalized for a few days

(Windmill Tilter) #306

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.


(Karim Wassef) #307

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.

:smiley:


(Karim Wassef) #308

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


(Karim Wassef) #309

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)…


(Karim Wassef) #310

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.


(Mel Simpson) #311

Why do you want to be out of autophagy?


(Karim Wassef) #312

My DEXA showed that my lean mass loss was 3 x the fat loss and I didn’t see the improvement in loose skin that I was looking for. Even if it was 50/50, autophagy was moving way too fast and not where I was looking for it.

I did lose 1/3 of my visceral fat so that is GREAT… but my primary objectives haven’t been achieved.

Phase 2 of the fast is a 4-3 cyclical fast with mon-tue-wed-thu fasted and then fri-sat-sun re-feeding OMAD focused on essential amino acids with minimal insulin spike.


(Karim Wassef) #313

Here’s the view after re-feeding post-phase 1 fast:

So - less than halfway through… ketones lowering and GKI rising, but still bouncing under 1

Ketones definitely dropping and glucose slowly rising… but still:

Pre-dinner today I got to 80G, 2.3K, 1.93GKI.
Post-dinner today I got to 67G, 4.2K, 0.89GKI.

This was surprising given the protein and carbs intake… but there it is. The body is unwilling to quickly shift gears and the data shows it.

I’ve debated whether to move on to phase 2 immediately or take a week of eating in between. If I could see GKI consistently above 1, I would have a lot more confidence in fasting 3 days a week as planned. It’s just not happening, so I’m going to eat every day of this week.

After fasting for so long, it’s actually a bit of a chore… both for myself and for my body. It’s liberating to fast and I’m going to miss it for a bit. I also have to admit that a carnivore eating vegan is a task of self discipline. I know it’s temporary but it is not a pleasure.

I went back to look at my historical GKI over the last 6 months or so, to gain some perspective:

I find that it’s actually quite difficult for me to nail the 1-3 range consistently.

Long term fasting gets me under 1
Feasting gets me over 12 (the chart is clipped at 12 so higher numbers don’t mess up the range I care about)

Discussed it with my wife and her view is that I have a bit of an “intense” personality. I do what I do with tremendous passion and sometimes, that means that the middle ground is very hard to achieve. I seek balance, but I seem to achieve it best by cycling the extremes instead of settling in the middle.

Back to the data… it does seem that the most successful middle ground is with 3/4 (3 fasting days, 4 feeding days) per week. This was carnivore feeding, and I clearly over-feast when meat is around. My conclusion is that the 3/4 is probably right, but I need to be cautious around the feasting and balance it with much more physical activity.


(Karim Wassef) #314

Third day of continuous gains … up 4lbs more to 181 lbs.

That basically means that I’ve gone from a low of 168 to 181. That’s +13lbs in 3 days in a straight line.

Morning was 73G, 4.2K, 0.97GKI. Still in deep keto/edge of autophagy… so I don’t necessarily think the weight gain is in fat fill. It’s probably massive rehydration but 13lbs is a lot.

The original loss was 193 to 181, so about 12lbs and that was likely all water too. So this may be the end state if it stabilizes at 181lbs.


(Windmill Tilter) #315

Wow! I’d say the missus has been successful in her refeeding mission. :+1::+1::+1:

I’m guessing if you took the Dexa today, you’re mysteriously have “regained” ~10lbs of lean mass. :yum:


(Karim Wassef) #316

She is good at feeding … that’s how I … (never mind) :smiley:

I am looking to get the test again this week, maybe Thursday. It’s another $150 but I think the last test after 19 days of fasting and no rehydration was not meaningful. Wish I had delayed it but then I wouldn’t have known when to stop the phase 1 fast.

My conclusion is that out of the 25lbs “lost”, around 13lbs was food and water = not me. The real net change is 12lbs over 19 days. The missing element is the composition of the 12lbs.


(Omar) #317

this is amazing

you can watch the scale going up.


(Karim Wassef) #318

The funny thing is that my clothes don’t feel any different. Where is all that mass going?


(Karim Wassef) #319

(Karim Wassef) #320

I am continuously thirsty. I cannot drink enough… very unusual. I used to force myself to drink while fasting but now I can’t drink enough. Also very warm.


(Mel Simpson) #321

Fascinating Karim!
Can’t wait for the next update