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

(Karim Wassef) #602

Post gym 67G, 5.0K = 0.74GKI

So dropped 1.2K but I feel better.

Thinking of upping my daily intake over the weekend to 3000 … basically 1.5x my original

20g carbs ~ 80 cal (3%)
140g protein ~ 560 cal (27%)
160g fat ~ 1440 cal (70%)

That’s a lot of plants but I feel the need to offset my fasting to maintain lean mass and RMR.

DEXA on Monday … I feel like I’m a kid cramming for an exam…

Well… technically I’ve been studying my butt off for two weeks but as test day comes, that healthy anxiety builds :smiley:

I loved school… I know, weird

(Karim Wassef) #603

Hey!!! Thread broke 600 posts!!!

Woohoo… man, I sure can talk a lot.

(Karim Wassef) #604

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/659610/

CONCLUSIONS: (a) Infusion of exogenous leucine in prolonged fasting results in a decline in plasma levels of other amino acids, improvement in nitrogen balance and unchanged excretion of 3-methylhistidine, thus suggesting stimulation of muscle protein synthesis, (b) leucine infusion also reduces glucose production and to an even greater extent, glucose consumption, thereby raising blood glucose concentration; and © the rise in plasma leucine in early starvation results primarily from a decrease in leucine clearance which drops progressively during starvation.

(Doug) #605

Karim, good job keeping after this. :slightly_smiling_face: I want to try it for myself.

(Karim Wassef) #606

Thanks. I felt good after the 9 day refeed post-phase 1 and even the first cycle of phase 2… but after a total of ~ 39 days of cycling extended fasts, I’m starting to hit a wall… fasting fatigue.

I think I’m also discouraged by the mediocre outcome compared to the exaggerated expectations that my “smart scale” results were projecting. Not hitting 12% this month.

All in all, I did make measurable positive progress on many fronts. My best expectation is that I hit 21.5% on the Monday DEXA.

But unless this weekend really revitalizes me, I’m not sure I can keep it up… that would cap this fasting cycle at phase 2 with a total of 42 days and 30 of those days fasted.

We will see… busting through walls is something I like to do but I need to find a deeper motivation…

(Doug) #607

Definitely a thing for many of us. :smile: – I did a whole 4 days this week and feel “worn out” even though it was almost pathetically easy and never even the most remote hint of ‘real hunger.’ Your physiology is almost surely playing a part while for me I think it’s just the old psychological crap.

(Karim Wassef) #608

Hit 45G, 6.4K = 0.39 GKI … definitely can’t fast for 4+ days and stay in the 1-3 range. Even if I choose to continue the fast, it will be a 4 day eating, 3 day fasting…

(Windmill Tilter) #609

You should consider making a leucine wiki with all the research you’ve gathered on leucine during extended fasts. There are a lots of people who could benefit. Retaining lean mass is no small thing, especially during fasting like many of us do. I know I’d read it!

(Windmill Tilter) #610

I’ve been thinking about fasting burnout a lot over the last couple of days. It’s an unwieldy term. I like your turn of phrase “fasting fatigue” better. I’m a sucker for alliteration.

I’m definitely feeling the fasting fatigue myself. The more I’ve been thinking about it, the more I’ve been thinking about parallels to satiety. I’ve been eating to satiety on faith for the last few months even when the calorie counts rose to alarming levels (over 5000kcals :flushed:). So far my body hasn’t steered me wrong. I’m wondering if continuing to fast after it has ceased to be effortless, is kind of like ignoring satiety signals when I’m hungry. I think it might be.

I don’t really know. I do know that I feel more run down than usual even during my refeeds, and it feels like my recovery from weightlifting isn’t what it used to be. I’m tempted to drop both until I really want to do them again. The only thing stopping me is the fear that I won’t be able to start again. That probably sounds dumb, but there it is.

(Karim Wassef) #611

the good news is that OMAD + KETO is actually a reasonably good maintenance state for the fasting diet.

It’s strange, but when I fast, I sometimes “miss” eating… and when I eat, I miss fasting…

I think that it’s like going on vacation. You can take a couple of weeks, but eventually… you get an itch to do more and you can’t wait to get back to doing something new and productive.

Nature is nothing if not constantly changing and we should be too. It’s why fasting and feasting works so well. It plays to the natural ebb and flow of natural systems.

(PJ) #612

This was kinda my conclusion as well. The body’s talking to us if we just listen.

(b) leucine infusion also reduces glucose production and to an even greater extent, glucose consumption, thereby raising blood glucose concentration

OK this part I’m not real clear on. I think I can get reducing production. What exactly does reducing consumption mean, and what would increasing concentration mean, I mean both literally and ‘the results’ of both of those, do you know?

Also after I thought about your earlier post, I have a quibble:

My caution around Leucine is because of the upregulation of mToR which would be bad for cancer. I think it can be great as long as it’s intermittent…

I don’t know many people who eat once or twice a day who are keto (let alone weight lifters or athletes) who do not end up ingesting quite a bit of protein hence leucine every day and often they’d make that ratio at every meal.

Although in searching I found this nifty chart which does make it seem like dairy and protein powder have way more than beef and chicken. (Whey has way more, pun alert)

Edited: beef and pork. For some weird reason fowl isn’t on here

XdQdsz5.png966×447 47 KB

(PJ) #613

ALSO, here is an interesting view, I have no agree/disagree with it because I have no clue on the topic, but I found it an interesting perspective on the topic. Maybe this is only an issue for bodybuilders in a build (vs cut) mode? This is from the same post the above leucine thing came from btw.

excerpts of excerpts from
https://insidegame.ch/blog/2017/how-much-protein-should-athletes-be-having/

When it comes to protein timing, an even distribution throughout the day is the most important strategy you could ever use. We do this to protect ourselves from what is known as the Fractional Breakdown Rate (FBR), and we also do this to support what is known as the Fractional Synthetic Rate (FSR).

… the body is constantly breaking itself down and rebuilding itself again. Meaning, your muscles are breaking down and repairing themselves every single day, whether you train or not. This is known as Protein Turnover.

The FBR measures the rate at which you are losing body protein (catabolism), whereas the FSR measures the rate at which you are adding protein to the body (anabolism).

…muscle growth doesn’t occur solely within the few hours post-workout. Muscle growth is a 24 hour a day process and depending on the volume and intensity of your last workout, you could be feeding your muscle tissue with amino acids for the purpose of growth for up to 4 days.

And since the actual process of training is catabolic (gotta break tissue down to send the signals for it to build back up stronger), you now have both the FBR and FSR running at the same time, 24hrs a day. So if we go an extended period of time without a meal, the FBR will exceed the FSR and you will lose lean body mass.

This is also why post-workout only protein doesn’t mean anything to me. If muscle building only occurred post-workout, then concentrating only on the post-workout period would be a smart thing to do. But the research tells us FBR and FSR rates are active for up to 4 days after a workout, meaning you need protein throughout the entire day, not just post-workout.

The muscle growth process operates 24 hours a day and is amino acid driven so the best strategy you can adopt is to supply your body with amino acids for as much of the day as you possibly can to support the FSR and fight the FBR.

(Karim Wassef) #614

Eating foods high in Leucine is different that supplementing with Leucine in isolation.

When scientists intentionally want to give a lab animal cancer, they usually pick one amino acid and it usually wrecks them.

Natural foods have a self balancing effect - amino acid combinations, essential fatty acids… it’s a beautiful thing.

When I’m fasting and take Leucine, I’m actually doing the most unnatural thing - and given that Leucine is the most potent mToR triggering anabolic essential branch chain amino acid… I just think it’s prudent to take is slow…

Taking Leucine while eating other things might be more prudent…

On the mechanism for Leucine reducing glucose generation and glucose consumption … this is actually fascinating. I started studying Leucine metabolism but thought it was way too dry for this thread… I sometimes feel like it’s a total snooze fest compared to the cooler threads (nerd complex :joy:)…

and it’s amazing how it makes energy, CoQ, AcetylCoA, and ketones… this is a super-ketogenic promoting process… it’s basically creating this massive bias to ketone use and ketone generation.

(PJ) #615

That’s what I meant initially if I didn’t say. It would be a meal with plenty of protein. Just a few grams extra leucine added to the mix.

I find all this stuff fascinating.

Just because people don’t reply to a post or three doesn’t mean they’re not interested in what they’re reading. :smile:

(Karim Wassef) #616

So… I totally disagree with their conclusion, even though a lot of the facts are right.

The evidence in the papers I’m reading is that protein synthesis, once triggered by food, can continue for 24hrs. In fact, the contrast between fasting and then eating once a day is key to building muscle and losing fat… You need the catabolic and anabolic to go back and forth… we just don’t know the right frequency and duration just yet.

Like tuning a radio to get the right signal to connect to our genetic optimum.

(Karim Wassef) #617

ok… you asked for it…

skip 2 mins in to get to the goodies

(PJ) #618

Hang on I’m watching the other video I understand only three words out of 10 in right now :rofl:

(Karim Wassef) #619

I started to feel cold and decided to check… 33G, 6.1K = 0.3 GKI

That’s pretty extreme for 4 days away from a big refeed and it’s my lowest glucose reading ever… talk about confirmation of Leucine’s effects on blood glucose.

Tomorrow evening, I break this fast cycle and I plan to refeed to 3120 calories x 3 feedings with plenty of protein and Leucine.

30g carbs ~ 120 cal (3%)
210g protein ~ 840 cal (27%)
240g fat ~ 2160 cal (70%)

I’m gonna ACE that DEXA test on Monday :smiley:

(PJ) #620

LOL! It’s a TEST! That alone would make me prone to want to game it for the highest result. :smiley: (I always loved tests. Is that weird.)

OK, mTOR video is interesting. But “reduce protein and/or this amino and nothing grows as much including your cancer, brain plaques and so on” (my simplified interp of that) is surely an intermediate level of knowledge on science’s path to figuring this out. (Useful; in treatment in particular; but to me only slightly divergent from the line of thinking where we cut off breasts to avoid them getting cancer. Oy.)

To me, if we eat protein, but we do not get enough of the amino/s needed for actually synthesizing it into lean mass, then it seems like we’ve lost much of the point of eating it at all. Especially since we’re breaking it down constantly by nature. (Never mind adding intentionally breaking it down with exercise.)

I can imagine a value of having none of that for a bit, the sine wave of sorts between add/remove, but that takes me back to the Fasting Mimicking Diet guy (the pescatarian who hates saturated fat and meat and whose meal plan looks like a diabetes within 90 days all while starving, disaster for me personally) who basically removes most protein esp. animal and dairy during the fast. Maybe part of the point of that is removal of leucine’s effects.

(I agree the topic does indirectly emphasize the need for regular autophagy though, since regular ongoing mTOR activation might mean more growing-when-they’re-bad cells need cleaning out.)

(PJ) #621

So… if aminos have about 24 hours to do whatever they’re gonna do… and calories as a whole can be added/averaged to the week… is there a general length of time in which lipids or carbs are active?