Day 5, cycle 1, phase 3 (adaptive)
Gained 6.4lbs of “not-me” with water and food flux on last night’s refeed.
So 1.02 GKI which is pretty good after a refeed last night. That’s the power of a keto refeed.
In fact, my ketones are continuing to go up…
I have to admit that it’s hard to remain in control after a refeed and I felt that going up in carbs would be ok, but the effect of staying at 20g post fasting looks good and I still feel pretty good.
24hrs to DEXA/RMR
I just love this stuff… this one shows how different cells become brain, muscle, etc… gene silencing. It’s awesome
Nick - Here’s a contrarian view of metabolic rate
I think that having a dynamic cyclic metabolic rate is still healthier than a slow one.
Also @Ilana_Rose since we talked about this before… 
Midday 54G, 3.6K so 0.83GKI… so definitely need to eat more to get in shape for my DEXA RMR tomorrow.
I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s contrarian; I agree with a lot of it. I dislike agreeing with him because it seems like he barely understands wtf he’s talking about. Come to think of it though, maybe he and I have that in common too…
Agreed. A scalable RMR seems like a handy adaptation to me.
Day 6, cycle 1, phase 3 - eating day
Heading in for the DEXA scan and right at 183 (home scale) again. I’m nothing if not consistent.
1.7GKI so still in the target range.
So DEXA was ok… dropped 0.1% bf but only because I gained over 1lb of lean mass… no fat loss at all.
RMR also unchanged at ~2000 with 2700 at my activity level.
I am surprised given that I mostly did 5:2 fasting and I’ve been lifting much more consistently.
Even if my calories on refeed days were 3000, that’s 9000 a week or an average of ~1300 a day. With a burn rate of 2700, that’s a daily deficit of 1400. I don’t do much caloric but I don’t see how I can gain 1lb of muscle and not lose any fat with three weeks of 1400 calorie daily deficit.
Math not computing… need to think more about it.
Maybe my refeeds are 6000 a day? That’s really hard vegan and my measures can be that off. But even if I was off by 2x, that would put my daily deficit at 2700-2600 = 100… so still should be using my own fat for the delta.
Not really seeing cyclic fasting as working for me. My ketones have mostly been over 1 consistently while fasting and feeding… so that points to burning my own fat, but the end results point to the opposite.
Maybe it’s the vegan effect? Pea protein powder?
Maybe it’s the Leucine?
The Leucine is part of why I think I was able to add a lb of muscle in three weeks… but I don’t know if it reduces burning my own fat… but then where else would the energy come from while fasting for days and lifting.
Going to go tabulate and get some sun.
Oh and visceral fat went from 1.02 to 1.56lb… ?
So cyclic fasting added visceral fat?
As a mathematician I can’t believe I am going to say this. Maybe it’s not about the math (eek)
As a living organism with a physical body trying to constantly reach a balance perhaps your body has gotten more efficient at conserving your stored fat? A lot more efficient. I know one of your goals with your cyclic experiments is to keep your body from getting complacent but perhaps it is out-smarting you?
I do believe in self-experimentation but there are so many things in our body that effect us and we cannot track everything and the interactions are so complex. For instance it’s spring, perhaps your testosterone levels have changed in the past couple of months and that is a contributing factor. Of course I am just wildly guessing but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.
And of course we have to deal with the limits of the machines we depend on for measurements. Perhaps the strength of the DEXA is to track longer term changes, month by month or ever quarter by quarter. Perhaps the machine will never be ‘good’ at catching shorter term changes.
You have probably thought of all of this yourself, You sound very thoughtful about your experiments and I really appreciate that you are doing and sharing all of this.
The Dexa could be wrong. Changes that small are well within it’s margin of error . It’s equally possible you lost 1lb of muscle and gained 2lbs of fat. Dexa is not necessarily able to the difference.
If you did 2 DEXA’s back to back in the same session, the numbers would come back different.
doubting the best resource for body composition I have may be satisfying in the short term, but I still need some data source to measure the results of the experiments.
I’ve been reading about the error sources for DEXA and food is a big one. I was fasted in all tests, but fasting and refeeding can change the mass of food flux.
Unfortunately, that error would usually bias towards more lean mass (that’s how water and food shows up apparently).
I’m still digesting the data (ha ha )… puns aren’t always my forte… I’ll post when I find an easier way to share it graphically.
ok. DEXA results. I put it in the context of the previous data. I hope it’s easy to understand
I decided to break up the legs and trunk into more detail (upper/lower)
So the good news is that all the squats have been reversing the lean mass loss in my legs and glutes. I’ve also lost a lot of fat from my legs. Who says localized fat loss can’t be done??there too.
the not so good news is that despite being in a caloric deficit, I haven’t lost any fat. In fact, I’ve gained it in my upper trunk (chest/back) and a little over my arms, glutes, and abs.
The overall effect is that I gained 1.2 lbs lean in my legs and glutes and lost 0.6 lbs fat… but gained 0.6 lbs fat in my upper body and lost 0.1 lbs lean there also.
So fat lost = fat gained… and a net 1.1 lbs lean gain. I got my recomposition, but not how I expected.
I still don’t understand the total energy equation… how can 21 days with 13 days of fasting and 8 days of eating 2000-3000 calories yield zero fat loss… while lifting 4-5 days a week on average?
I am pleased that I’m gaining the muscle mass… but still confused that the fat needle didn’t move at all.
And an admission… I did focus on squats and really didn’t feel like doing my core… but wow !@#$&%@ it… is my body so efficient that it won’t cut me any slack at all? The deadlifts should have helped, even if I was ignoring abs and back.
I guess the learning here is that whatever you don’t use, the body will get rid of… hence the loss in lean mass in the ab/lower back region. So full body is necessary - constantly.
The visceral fat increase of 0.5 lb is exactly the total fat gained in the trunk… so that’s really curious.
No fructose in my diet. Ketones high… so insulin should be low, except for the Leucine effect that should be transitory. Pea protein has no carbs and is my primary source of protein now.
https://blog.bulletproof.com/how-to-lose-visceral-fat/
I have been under a lot more stress, but I was coping with it - I thought I was
there may something to the testosterone - stress - sleep issue:
Yes.
I add a teaspoon of MCT and tablespoon of ACV to my coffee and take salts - pink salt, potassium, magnesium, iodine, zinc/copper. The only non-mineral is CoQ10 for its mitochondrial benefits.
I do take 4g of Leucine and 1g of Carnitine after working out.
There are three explanations I see:
I went back and counted the days between the two DEXA scans. It was 22 days (tested Friday and Saturday) and I ate for 4 weekends of 3 days each.
22 days * 2700 cal / day - 12 days * X cal / day = 0 (no fat loss)
I realize the 2700 cal / day is not real, but it’s an average. So the average calories needed on a refeed day would have to be close to X ~ 5000 calories for that math to work.
That’s really difficult to imagine given the vegan + keto restriction… and hence why I hate calorie counting.
If I work it the other way and assume that my maximum calorie estimate of 3000 is right, then my metabolic rate would have to be a lot lower:
22 days * Y cal / day - 12 days * 3000 cal / day = 0 (no fat loss).
That would mean that my metabolic rate was Y ~ 1650 calories per day. Given that I was weightlifting, I would have had to be asleep the rest of the time to get there?
But frankly - that seems to be the only explanation. The fasting is reducing my metabolic rate down to where the 3000 calorie refeeds offset my caloric need.
So metabolism down to 1600 x 22 days, calorie intake on refeed at 3000 x 12 days = net zero fat loss.
Also - stress, sleep, and testosterone are probably not working in my favor reducing my metabolic rate and increasing my visceral fat. At this point, it seems that the cyclic fasting was a waste of time for fat loss - there are other benefits but not fat loss.
Any ideas?
After the frustration this morning, I didn’t feel like working out … and ate a little more than I was planning to… but still didn’t get to 2000 calories. I had a couple of choczero dark bars too… yes - that’s frustration eating and I’m not immune to it.
Broke my carb threshold going to 30g… and quickly got to 100G and 0.9K = 6.2GKI … wow, that was fast given that this morning started at 78G and 2.6K = 1.7GKI. I really am carb intolerant. LOL
So tomorrow will be a fasting day - still going adaptive fasting for phase 3.
But next Saturday, I’m going to stop fasting completely except for OMAD and transition from vegan to carnivore… Just like I did heading into vegan, I’ll plan and share my daily plan in a bit.
Here’s my post-fasting feasting plan ~ 3000 cal per day
I highlighted the non-carni exceptions I’m willing to make. This represents protein at 1.3g / lb of lean mass but will keep me under 20g.
Interesting that the carb contribution is primarily from the eggs, livers, and oysters.
We’ve seen the result of the extended fasting… next, non-fasting carnivore … no excuses at the gym now. 
