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

(PJ) #902

Experiencing more graph envy over here. Competitive keto graphing! lol

Fasting is easy for me, I tell my body when it’s time to stop, tell me in no uncertain terms. I’ll be minding my own business, not hungry, though obsessed with food mentally of course, and then suddenly I feel BAD in capitals, then it’s time to stop. Not sure what invokes this. Last time that hit at 14 days and I’d really hoped to go longer, but I have an agreement with my body that we’ll be partners in all this.

Seems to me your fat loss is going well.

(Karim Wassef) #903

Day 9 -

I’ve been waking up feeling “full” - almost like I had eaten a big dinner the night before. It’s ok but a little unusual. I don’t remember this from the last fasts.

I’m also very “itchy” all over. My skin is probably getting recycled as I use the protein in it. It may be in my head but my midsection, chest and upper back experience this the most. It may be that I’m not working those areas enough and the surface volume is shrinking.

Being on airplanes for hours may have aggravated this yesterday but it’s been creeping up over the last week.

Unfortunately, the results this morning were not very good.

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In one day, the scale registered a muscle mass drop equal to almost the 8 days prior combined with a very small change in fat mass.

First let me say that I have two scales - one in TX and another in NJ where I work. They should be identical… during the weekday, I use the NJ scale and during the weekends (and Monday this week), I use the TX scale. The abrupt change may be due to the different scales even though they’re the exact same make and model. It’s not perfect, but carrying a digital scale through security twice a week was starting to cause undue stress :smiley:

I’ll post the complete data and graphs tonight

(Karim Wassef) #904

It’s going well and my mental clarity is coming back in focus. I need to force more activity in my day to keep the “fridge door open” and drive my body to continue to get more energy from my reserves vs. reducing my metabolism.

Last year, I hit a wall at 19 days even though I still had more bf% to lose and I attribute that to my inability to access the reserves. I need a plan to do better this time.

Well - halfway through almost :slight_smile:

(Doug) #905

Good stuff, Karim - it’s fascinating to see the numbers progress.

As I recall, you figured a little less than 1/2 lb. per day fat loss during your fast last year.

My real question is how much water is lost (or gained), in our various tissues. I don’t advocate dry-fasting, nor have ever done it myself, but there things are much easier to keep track of. One YouTube guy did a longer dry fast, and weighed all his urine. His claim, which is a frequent one, was that “this proves dry-fasting is miraculous, results in much greater fat loss,” etc.

It’s almost always the case that people forget about the insensible water loss - water loss through the skin and via exhalation. It averages 700-800 grams per day. He started about 190 lbs., and figuring 1/2 lb. per day of fat loss, plus weight lost as urine, plus the insensible water loss at 1.6 lbs. per day - the numbers worked out almost exactly to his final weight.

In reality, things may not be that simple - there are other considerations. If lean mass is being lost, it has to be accounted for. If water is going into fat tissue to replace lost fat, same deal. (And heck, there’s stuff like after 20 days one has lost about 1/2 lb. in shed skin cells. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:) It seems to me that scans and scales can’t accurately handle the hydration changes.

My own experience while fasting, drinking water and black coffee, and supplementing with salt, is that I still lose a lot of water weight. I wonder how much we’re left guessing…

(PJ) #906

My body would be seriously pissed off at me if I deprived it of water at ANY time but especially while fasting. I’ve seen that on youtube also… not for me.

Karim what do you suppose causes this sort of ‘hitting the wall’ during fasting? Insufficient amounts of exercise? Low minerals/electrolytes?

Maybe fat adaptation is a spectrum not a toggle switch. I have vastly improved mine, but maybe it only works at 100% for so long…?

(Karim Wassef) #907

My suspicion is that older layers of fat are poorly vascularized… no easy access to those fat layers. The body needs a network of blood vessels to access those deeper recesses.

Cancer, for example, has a unique ability to drive the generation of blood vessels around it to gain access to massive resources of oxygen and glucose to grow exponentially compared to normal cells.

The opposite is true for old deposits of fat. The body economize and there’s no reason to create pathways where no access has been needed for years.

The question is how to change this… how do I motivate my body to grow new pathways into the older fat layers to gain access? More angiogenesis… Exercise usually does that (heavy weights maybe more than cardio). Sleep helps. Thermal stress (sauna). Cold stress (ice baths, cold showers). UV exposure…

(Karim Wassef) #908

Has anyone used a urine tester to check for nitrogen or protein ?

The idea is to track it as a signal of increased muscle catabolism.

(PJ) #909

Interesting, I didn’t know that was on the consumer market now.

I’m lipedemic, a mystery condition (that affects 10-11% of the female population, so rather huge presence for a mystery condition!) they don’t even teach it in medical school but it was made official in 1940 at Mayo.

Fat cells store and don’t release, and exercise and food (even keto even starving) have little to no effect on it. (Gary Taubes in his book Good Calories Bad Calories had a photo of a woman who was clearly extreme lipedemic – emaciated on the top half and quite fat on the bottom half. He used it as an example of the point that fat is hormonally regulated because it’s not like the lower half of this woman ate too much and moved too little compared to the top half.)

Allegedly there is something slightly different about the fat but it’s not clear what. But the thing is, that while it accrues, it doesn’t die at the normal time (the cells) like it should, and the cell membranes appear to have issues, making it all a big inflamed swamp, which then pulls in more fat cells and water for cooling, which then builds fibrous structures for support, which… well you see the cycle there. So god only knows how long I’ve been carrying around some of the fat on my body.

Taubes also had examples in his book of rodents who had literally starved and died of organ failure but their body had ‘spared’ their fat – they were obese internally. So there’s got to be some issue of why we don’t get to our fat when we need it, and maybe you’re right and that’s the ‘wall’ when fasting.

I might do another fast and, if the BAD hits me, do a major dosing of ketones just to see what happens, see if it makes me feel abruptly better. But that didn’t hit until two weeks in last time. That was eight months ago. I haven’t fasted longer than three days and once a week, since then.

(Karim Wassef) #910

and that’s the start of how we grow new blood vessels when cells signal that they’re suffocating…

(Karim Wassef) #911

I was aware of the condition but didn’t remember what it was called or that you’re suffering from it.

That paper points to some potential treatments like theophylline which is used for COPD too.

The paper also points that lipid transport has a significant component of lymph draining, not just vascular access. They recommend compression and drainage to move the fat around… that actually aligns with my experience using waist compression to reduce loose skin around my midsection - maybe it was also working on the fat underneath.

(Karim Wassef) #912

interesting link between diabetes and VEGF-B

I think another layer of lipid metabolism relates to accessibility of deposits whether through vascular or lymphatic systems. Exercise may actually be effective because it is creating pathways for lipid mobility?

damnit!! the kooks who wore extreme victorian waist cinchers (forgot what those were called) and used the weird 1970s fat vibrating machines… could they have been on to something?? noooooo

(Karim Wassef) #913

Day 9 final

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Did legs and biceps/triceps today… and UV…

Came back totally exhausted … hope tomorrow’s results are better :smiley:

(PJ) #914

I have a VibePlate. A 30x48 inch platform with vertical vibrating motion (2mm only) and >1 ton weight limit. They use these things for rehab on race horses even, and many other things. I have another thread on the forum all about it and the topic. When I started using this (best friend bought it for me some time after my heart surgery) it helped a great deal with lymph, esp. as I could hardly walk at the time so was uber-sedentary.

So yes… there’s probably something to it :rofl:

(Karim Wassef) #915

I have no idea about this stuff - but sharing here for public opinion…

(Bunny) #916

Wow the one with Cheryl Scoledge “How I Lost 6 Dress Sizes” is incredible, it appears Lipedema is the result of autoimmunity (highly inflammatory) issues from a severely leaky gut; the food your eating is going directly into the blood stream without being properly digested and just from that happening white blood cells are going places they should not? I also see they are claiming hyaluronic acid (bone broth, Japanese potatos) is causing damage also but that’s what helps seal off a leaky gut which sounds suspicious?

If she added high quality resistant starch and things like purple potato’s to her diet she would thicken the gut lining and disable her gut permeability and thus autoimmunity and resolve the problem once and for all in my opinion.

This gal eats one (1) scallop (as stated in her presentation and re-tested her theory several times on herself?) and gains 6 pounds overnight… like wow, that is definitely inflammation of adipose tissue. Eats some egg yolks and gains a half pound over-night?

As I have said before, that resistant starch is like battle armor for your gut lining, it’s really sad she does not know that?

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(PJ) #917

I have never before heard any relationship of that to leaky gut. It is present even in teens, it reacts pretty clearly to major hormonal events, and it is present in people who do not show any other sign of leaky gut. (I was lipedemic even when very young, but showed zero sign of leaky gut until I was 35.) So I am really skeptical about that. One of the key issues is a problem with the cell membrane of the adipose cells. Not sure how that relates to leaky gut. Maybe it’s one of those things where you can look up any symptom and discover 1.2 million things that cause this symptom lol. Generally anything that helps reduce inflammation and increase lymph flow is positive.

My friend with L had a good reduction in the ‘jodhpur thighs’ with serrapeptase as a lot of it is fibrous growth and forms in the edema (which is not just water) and it breaks that down.

Sadly there is really no way to tell easily what is edema, lipedemic fat, other fat, fibrous structures to support that water/weight/fat, etc.

(Bunny) #918

Hope Karim’s thread is not being Bunnied to death but are you finding things that may work PJ?

What is interesting about serrapeptase is that it goes after dead non-living tissue and is the enzyme from the saliva of silk worms.

Could be combination of genetics, hormonal imbalances like you said.

References:

[1] “…Because estrogen doesn’t accumulate in your blood. It accumulates and hides in your tissue, where it does its damage. Studies, such as the one below, show that tissue concentrations of estrogen are often 50+ times higher than in the blood.(https://www.forefronthealth.com/hypothyroidism-and-estrogen/) The endogenous concentration of estradiol and estrone in normal human postmenopausal endometrium. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6513559 “The mean E2 concentration in tissue was 420 pg/g, 50 times higher than in plasma and the E1 concentration of 270 pg/g was 9 times higher.” This is a common mistake my clients make all the time. They send me their lab work claiming that their estrogen is “low”. Then I look at the 10+ symptoms that all scream “estrogen dominance”, and we have to come to grips with reality. This is also why Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is so dangerous. Think of the millions of women being pumped full of estrogen when their tissue concentrations are already extremely high. Think of the number of women that have died due to HRT without anyone knowing it. It’s real and it’s scary…and it’s ruining your thyroid and immune system in more ways than one. …” …More

[2] Artichoke Extract Capsules from Artichoke Leaf Standardized with Over 7mg of Cynarin A Great Source for Glucuronic Acid Content to Support Optimal Digestive Health and Estrogen Metabolism …More

[3] Research published in both the Journal of Cellular Physiology and Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity found that polyphenolic extracts from the edible parts of artichokes “induce apoptosis and decrease the invasive potential of the human breast cancer cell line MDA-MB231.” …” …More

[4] “…Glucuronic acid is a sugar acid derived from glucose, with its sixth carbon atom oxidized to a carboxylic acid. … there are two anomers of glucuronic acid, α- and β-form. In β-D-glucuronic acid the C-1 hydroxy group is on the same side of the pyranose ring as the carboxyl group. In the free sugar acid, the β-form is prevalent (~64%), whereas in the organism, the α-form UDP-α-D-glucuronic acid (UDPGA) predominates. …” …More

[5] “…The hyaluronic acids (HA) are a class of macromolecular proteoglycans characterized by a highly polymerized chain of glucuronic acid and N-acetylglucosamine units bonded to protein. They exist in nature as a hydrated gel, usually closely associated with other tissue components such as chrondroitin sulfate. …” …More

[6] What is Going on under the Skin in Lipedema? Normal fat cells are organized into groups called “fat lobules” that slide past one another under the skin along thin fibrils, so fat feels soft and smooth when the skin is pressed down. Investigators in Europe hypothesize that lipedema results from the accumulation of fat cells that have become very large in size (hypertrophied). These large fat cells stimulate production and recruitment of a molecule that can be several thousands of sugars (carbohydrates) long called “hyaluronic acid.” This long sugar structure is found naturally in all living organisms and binds water. The increase in hyaluronic acid and water gives the lipedema fat a stiff quality similar to gelatin, and the legs begin to feel heavy. The fat lobules that normally slide past each other on thin fibrils round-up in their geloid environment. Hyaluronic acid and other molecules attract inflammatory white blood cells to the fat that produce damaging substances that injure the fat lobules, blood and lymphatic vessels, and other structures. As a result, the blood vessels break easily causing bruising. The lymphatic vessels, which initially pump more frequently in lipedema, start to fail and can swell. This process can eventually lead to the lymphatic vessels leaking, which allows more water to collect around the fat cells – causing the lipedema tissue to become heavy. The body tries to repair, filling in inflamed areas with a scar around the outside of the rounded fat lobules allowing them to be felt as small beads through the skin. The pain of lipedema most likely results from nerves being damaged in the tissue as well as pressure on the nerves from excess trapped water. …” …More

[7] “…Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a natural and linear polymer composed of repeating disaccharide units of β-1, 3- N -acetyl glucosamine and β-1, 4-glucuronic acid with a molecular weight up to 6 million Daltons. With excellent viscoelasticity, high moisture retention capacity, and high biocompatibility, HA finds a wide-range of applications in medicine, cosmetics, and nutraceuticals. …” …More

(Karim Wassef) #919

Day 10

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Still feeling tired from my gym efforts + only slept 4 hours. I was both tired and unable to sleep with a lot of available energy but little will to do anything with it. :smiley:

The water weight is mostly gone so this is probably a better view of fat loss. At ~185lbs, I’m still ~15lbs from my record adult weight of ~160lbs and ~15lbs from my starting point of this fast. I would like to say that I’m halfway but that’s not entirely true… the initial weight lost was a lot of water and that means that the remaining weight is much more energy dense.

I think I can make it through another 20 days… or I might quit today… :laughing:

Encouragement!

EDIT - I’m coming back to this post a couple of days later as I realized that I was off in my math above. I was 15lbs in but 25lbs from my lowest adult weight so more like 1/3 of the way there if not less. Just shows how much further I should be able to take this if I can focus my will.

(PJ) #920

I’m a fan of letting the body tell me when it’s time to be done. I fast while I’m feeling good about it. When I start feeling notably bad, I stop.

I think it’d be harder in your situation with working outside the home, wife and kids, and so on. Living alone and working from home makes everything easy here.

Do you have a normal amount of water you tend to drop when you fast, to be pretty clear that 15# is it? If that’s the case, then I think you’re right and from now is when you can really see whatever loss isn’t fat, on the scale.

(PJ) #921

Maybe we should move it to my journal instead. :slight_smile: Thanks for the info!

I stopped my focus on L as I had a different focus of just surviving and recovering from the heart issues for a long time. And because at a certain point of edema and fat one really doesn’t know how much of the issue is that vs. other. I re-began serra not long ago though in case it helps.