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

[Karim_Wassef]

one day of fasting and already down to a GKI of 1.15

here is the GKI marking the fasted vs eating days

and then looking at GKI and weight

and a closeup of weight vs. fasting

[Karim_Wassef]

Day 3, week 7, phase 3 - fasting day

7lbs of flux. I always say that the scale data in meaningless but wow… it’s 3 weeks of cyclical data and I have no idea what it means…

Anyone else make anything of it?

[primal.peanut]

The shape of your graph looks similar to mine from my cyclic 144-hour fasts. What I do is just look at the weight change week over week at the end of the fasting period, and as long as that’s decreasing I consider that a success! In your case it looks like that is indeed happening. I’ll also compare my weight at the end of the feasting period week-over-week, which generally matches whatever is happening with my fasted weight, but I don’t consider that as important.

[Karim_Wassef]

Why do you look at the lower thresholds and not the peaks?

[primal.peanut]

I find the peaks vary a lot more, depending on what I eat. I figure most of it is just water and food that will come back off during the first few days of the fast. My totally not scientific assumption is that the amount of extra “stuff” (water, food) in me at the end of the fasting period will be much more constant from week to week, so that’s what I focus on.

[Karim_Wassef]

Do you measure your glucose and ketones?

I’m starting to think that I should fast/feed as a response to GKI … if under 1.0 for 24hrs, then eat… if over 2.0 for 24hrs, then fast.

Let’s call it an “adaptive cyclic fast” ACF1,2

[primal.peanut]

No, I haven’t been measuring blood markers. Tempted to start, but not all that thrilled about the idea of poking myself on a regular basis!

I like your idea of using GKI to decide whether to feast or fast. That could be a really interesting experiment.

[Don_Q]

I like your idea of using GKI to decide whether to feast or fast. That could be a really interesting experiment.

Agreed! That’s a really interesting idea @Karim_Wassef. I’m curious how that would progress. Would it turn into alternate day fasting, or would there be hormone driven patterns that emerge such that you wound up doing 2FA:1FE or something else.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone doing anything like this but it makes a lot of sense. I don’t love blood tests, but this idea is interesting enough that I’d consider picking up a Keto Mojo.

[Karim_Wassef]

It’s a classic feedback loop but applied to a way of fasting

I’m a scientist after all…

[Karim_Wassef]

It would be amazing to correlate GKI and RMR over time… just saying

[Karim_Wassef]

interesting, especially the bit at the end about HMB

A Review of the Effects of Leucine Metabolite (β-Hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate)...

[cervyn]

but this idea is interesting enough that I’d consider picking up a Keto Mojo

Agree! (well I already have one) I would consider doing this for a period of time this summer. Now I am wondering if I would an evening or morning GKI measurement … perhaps do AM for 1 month then PM for second month.

I wonder if I would find not knowing ahead of time whether I will be eating stressful. Also how would I manage family celebrations or work stuff where I feel obliged to eat… so many interesting things to consider.

[Karim_Wassef]

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

[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”