So post cold-packs: 38G and 7.2K, so 0.29GKI.
That’s probably my lowest GKI ever. I’ll go back and compare it to my last 12 day fast to be sure.
It’s amazing how much impact cold has. I got a second set of cold packs so I can alternate while one is in the freezer.
decided to show the trend for glucose and ketones too - hope it helps make sense of things
and here’s the mass loss:
). I know autophagy is explictly the consumption of old unproductive cells (including lean mass), but I was hoping that my lifting would help mitigate some of it. I don’t see loose skin the way I did losing weight on keto, and I do see more muscle definition - not enough muscle mass yet. I know that’s a long term effect extending weeks out, but still uneasy…
Assuming the first 4 lbs of lean and 4 lbs of fat are really just clearing out digestive matter and water loss, it’s really 6 lbs of fat and 2 lbs of lean. That makes a lot more sense for 8 days… 0.75 lbs of fat per day (checks out with my RMR) and 0.25 lbs per day of lean (no explanation… 
)
I also see that my fat loss looks to be reducing day over day, but I’m ok with that. fat loss comes in waves for me. It’ll look like it’s slowing down for a few days and then I’ll get a flush and the remainder that’s been stored as water will self correct. That’s why I prefer the averages over longer windows of time.
Open to any ideas or suggestions… ok, going to lift now.
Starting the lift with 41G and 7.9K so still at 0.29GKI. Should be interesting.
Ended the lift at 57G and 5.8K so up to 0.55GKI. So this is my usual post-workout effect. I guess I wasn’t sneaky enough trying to trick my body… cold packs next…
Post cold-packs… 45G and 6.3K so back down to 0.4GKI. Cold seems to have a pattern of driving glucose down and ketones up so far…
This is so fun to watch! Thanks for all the updates.
I remember from other threads you being focused on tightening up loose skin and you mention it above as well. Do you have a way to measure this? (photos, I would think, would be most helpful). I’ll bet that with a before (I mean after weight loss but before this recent feast/fast), a post-fast, and then another 3 months out you’ll see some nice changes.
Thanks. I can’t find a good loose skin measure other than visual impressions.
Ok- ending the night with 55G and 6.6K so 0.46 GKI. It’s getting a little boring at the end of day 9. Hitting 7.9K was a little exciting but My mood is a little off. Started out good but got a low wife calmness score at night’s end.
Of course she did bring up the fact that I shouldn’t be so harsh on my carb addicted mother because she tried keto for a day but “it was so hard…”. Come on !!! - if that’s not picking an argument! To be clear, being harsh amounted to telling my daughter that her grandma’s diet is not healthy and will likely cause premature disease. Apparently the truth is harsh. I love my mom but the truth is the truth.
Women usually good at this let your wife search your body.
look for dark spots getting smaller or skin getting silky smooth as indicator for autophagy.
At the end of the experement we need a summery report.
[TRIGGER WARNING 
- do not read this post if you are squeamish]
Last night was absolutely terrible and so was this morning (day 10).
I try to get 8hrs I’d sleep but last night, I spent 4 hours with dull aching pain in my lower abdomen. It went from my waist down to my knees and felt like I was very slowly disintegrating from the inside out. In my legs, it felt like my bones were hurting… I even got up and started doing squats to get some blood flow. Didn’t help.
Finally fell asleep exhausted and woke up 4 hrs later for work. The ache had diminished but it was replaced with weakness and nausea with a little dizziness. I usually attribute this to sodium or potassium deficiency but I had loaded up the night before with a lot of salt and water.
Now for the disgusting bit - urine was very frothy this morning and I literally had to hold my head against the cabinet to stop myself from kealing over. I think it’s the lack of sleep, but I pushed on. Morning shower was rough with the ache returning again. I haven’t have a bowel movement since day 3 (7 days ago), and this ache wasn’t what I would usually associate with it. It wasn’t diarrhea and it wasn’t constipation either. It was soft wet stool that wasn’t painful but achy. It had a distinctly plasticky smell - almost artificial or industrial. It didn’t smell like normal stool. I understand clearing out toxins but this didn’t happen the last time I did a 12 day fast. - told you it was going to get disgusting but in the interest of science and group learning, I decided to share anyway.
I had weighed myself before jumping in the shower (post urine) as is my standard protocol. The results are very weird… I’ll continue in the next post so other squeamish readers can see that part.
Do you add any organic lemon juice to your water? Maybe you should, because with the strictness of your protocol, you run the risk of kidney stones. Drinking lemon juice has enzymes in it that keep the stones at bay.
Day 8
21.7% (bf%)
177.6 lb (total)
139.1 lb (lean)
38.5 lb (fat)
4.7 (morning ketones) -> 6.2 (night)
57 (morning glucose) -> 52 (night)
Day 9
21.6% (bf%)
177.0 lb (total)
138.8 lb (lean)
38.2 lb (fat)
6.3 (morning ketones) -> 6.6 (night)
57 (morning glucose) -> 55 (night)
Day 10 first reading
21.0% (bf%)
174.4 lb (total)
137.8 lb (lean)
36.6 lb (fat)
Day 10 second reading (30min later)
20.7% (bf%)
173.2 lb (total)
137.3 lb (lean)
35.8 lb (fat)
6.2 (morning ketones) -> ? (night)
55 (morning glucose) -> ? (night)
So! The first reading showed a loss of 2.6 lb with 1 lb lean and 1.6 lbs fat for a bf% reduction of -0.6%. That seems like an excessive lean mass loss for 24hrs, especially since I’m in the fasted steady state phase (or think I am). This is the first reading pre-bowel movement.
The second reading (post-BM) shows another big change of another 1.2lbs with 0.8lbs being fat and 0.4lbs lean. That’s “interesting” since that’s basically the mass lost and composition just due to the BM. First - I think that’s substantial given that I’ve been fasting for 10 days now and that’s a lot of internal junk that needed to be purged. I can only guess that part of this is gut microbiome that is being starved out along with remnant fiber ? That’s the mass of an internal organ! To put it in context, a hunan heart is only 0.7lbs. I have no explanation - just observations.
My diet leading up to the fast was a lot of rib-eye steak, eggs, bacon, liver, avocado, ghee, olive oil, fish and macadamia. Not sure if that helps someone decipher this.
Overall, the total loss is 3.8 lbs in one day with 1.4 lbs lean and 2.4 lbs fat.
Since the beginning, my weight has gone from 193.2 with 48.3 fat to 173.2 with 35.8 fat. So that’s the 20 lbs loss with 12.5 lbs fat loss mark on the morning of the 10th day. We’ll ignore that 10lbs of it was probably via elimination or water flushes 
Ketones and glucose holding steady with mid 6s and mid 50s… so steady state fasting looks to be on track.
I hope I didn’t turn anyone off with the detail. This was an ordeal and I thought that documenting it might help others who choose to fast for longer periods also.
I have had kidney stones before, they were the result of dehydration and oxalates (damn dirty veggies). I don’t add lemon juice but I use ACV in my coffee.
Lemon juice has carbs too 
It’s one of my “carb sins” while not fasting.
No. But I tolerate it. I add a partial teaspoon of raw cacao powder which is so bitter that it breaks the sourness of the ACV and blends the more mild bitterness but intense taste of the coffee. Salt likewise helps mask the conflicting harshness, so I add a teaspoonful of salt. Then a splash of MCT and Stevia gives it a little texture and sweetness and there it is - my palatable coffee drink.
It lowers glucose, increases metabolism and fat oxidation and fires up the old thermogenesis…
I argued with myself about the fiber in the cacao and the fat in the MCT. Finally, I almost convinced myself that neither contributed net calories and they actually promoted mitochondrial health and propagation while accelerating endogenous fat oxidation… then I called myself a food addicted non-faster and stormed out. Eventually, I reconciled and agreed to go along with it… (thats self deprecating humor in case I’m misunderstood).
It’s actually not a bad concoction. I also take cold showers when I get the fasted chills and go for ice baths on the weekends… what’s a slightly weird coffee drink compared to that?
The most important question in all of that is…are you feeling better?
I’ve been reading your thread, but haven’t responded because it’s a fasting topic and something you’ve obviously want to do. But honestly…it’s been a bit like driving by a train wreck to me. There’s a reason doctors say “STOP fasting if you don’t feel well.” Yes, the human body can survive fasting, but that’s what fasting is…a survival mechanism. The energy and mental clarity is an evolutionary adaptation so that you can go out and hunt/capture food…not continue fasting for longer and longer periods.
So I worry that, with all of the physical stresses you’re subjecting yourself to (ice baths, cold packs, saunas, lifting, etc), you’re doing more damage to yourself than good…and maybe you won’t even recognize that damage because you’re intentionally trying to force your body into autophagy and focusing on numbers in a sort of “pseudo-science” of n=1.
Your wife isn’t on board with your extended fasting and yet you do it anyway. She’s even giving you low calmness scores. I wonder if she’s trying to tell you something in a similar way (truth is the truth) you commented on your mother’s health and you’re just not hearing it.
If this is totally out of line, any mods, feel free to delete it. But please, Karim, if you’re not feeling GOOD doing this (and not just good in a “pushing through” mental sort of way, because many destructive habits feel good while being crap), maybe you need to modify what you’re doing?
I feel great now and I felt great yesterday until the evening. I had a rough 12 hours as my body purged something that needed to be purged.
I know this is coming from a place of caring, but I’m feeling fine. I’ve gone longer before and I know what I can handle.
If I stopped every time things felt bad, I’d never weightlift. I wouldn’t have spent a decade at university or had kids for that matter 
I fundamentally don’t believe that life is about being comfortable. It’s about finding purpose and meaning and that only comes from challenging myself and exceeding my own expectations. If I’m comfortable for too long, something is wrong. Just my philosophy.
It may look like a wreck to you but it’s an amazing act of self-regeneration to me. The Phoenix must die into ashes to be reborn.
Glad to hear it! I did re-read your posts and couldn’t find an update on how you felt, so I’m glad to know it was just temporary.
Yes. Post-BM, I immediately felt better. I have to say that extended fasting seems to be the only way I get my body to purge these decades old toxins. Maybe it happened more slowly under keto, but I know when it happens on an EF.
It’s literally like having a disease lift and it feels awesome afterwards. I still have no explanation on the magnitude of the event. Losing 3.8 lbs in one day with 2.4 lbs fat and 1.4 lbs lean is extreme, even for me.
For perspective, a newborn baby is ~ 7 lbs… so Wow.
My lowest recorded weight was 162.6 lbs set Dec 24th 2018 with 18.4% bf (29.9 fat and 132.7 lean). The gym machine recorded me at 17% bf (for the record). When I got there, it had taken me 10 days of fasting to get from 173 to 163.
That was my longest fast to date at 12 days. That means this Friday, I will tie with that fast. Every day after that will be a new personal best and that should reinvigorate me even more. It’s exciting again.
So next week (maybe next Sunday March 24th 2019) should get me to break my personal lowest weight record but hopefully with more muscle mass this time. Basically less than 29.9 lbs of fat with more than 132.7 lbs of lean… less than 18.4% bf. that’s the target. (& with a lot less loose skin).
I have my CAC test planned for this Friday 3/15 and my DEXA the following Friday 3/22. That should help me recalibrate and figure out where I’m headed. That will be the end of phase 1 with 21 days fasting.
If all goes well, then phase two can begin without breaking my fast. That’ll stretch from March 25th to April 28th. That’s 35 days fasting. Not sure I can do it or if I’ll be able to stitch them together for a total of 56 days… but the only way to get there is one day at a time!
Don’t lose faith in me, guys.
I’m at 44G and 6.2K so 0.39GKI… the ketones certainly seem to be pegged to 6.2 for a while now. That’s probably the new normal for now. Getting some fasted chills with the low glucose but a little movement seems to alleviate it. Can’t take an ice bath at work unfortunately.
Afternoon reading was 46G and 8.0K so 0.32GKI… this makes sense since I would usually sauna or UV, both of which consume a lot of ketones for some reason. And, not to disappoint my ever-alert body monitor, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. 
My last 12 day EF highest ketones was 7.3 so hitting 8.0 after 10 days is interesting. I interpret it as a dynamic response to being more demanding. Also, I don’t think GKI is pseudo-science (n=1). The results are uniquely mine but in the absence of a home insulin and glucagon test kit, this is the best approximation to my metabolic state. It’s also been the most consistent predictor of my metabolic rate and body fat trend and is supported by recent research.
Then ice packs later tonight to let my ketones built up again (haven’t quite figured why that one generates instead of consumes ketones).
I will add that my mood is fine and I’m calm, but I find myself having to slow myself down. I’m not impatient, but my mind is going faster than my environment and I wish everything could go faster. I watch you-tubes at 2x and sometimes two at a time (one with volume, one without) to absorb more content faster. I’m reading and analyzing faster. I can’t even sit at my desk and need to stand and even do squats just to burn off the excess energy.
I didn’t get to lift today, but i keep flexing my muscles in pseudo exercises. My legs feel like they want to go for a marathon run.
I can see how this would be invaluable to a survivor mode hunter. People assume that fasting means sitting in the shade and resting. It’s absolutely not. It’s an amazing abundance of raw primal energy combined with extreme attentiveness and mental acuity. It is amazing.
Ok… day 11
Day 9
21.6% (bf%)
177.0 lb (total)
138.8 lb (lean)
38.2 lb (fat)
6.3 (morning ketones) -> 6.6 (night)
57 (morning glucose) -> 55 (night)
Day 10
20.7% (bf%)
173.2 lb (total)
137.3 lb (lean)
35.9 lb (fat) - corrected
6.2 (morning ketones) -> 6.4 (night)
55 (morning glucose) -> 43 (night)
Day 11
20.5% (bf%)
171.6 lb (total)
136.4 lb (lean)
35.2 lb (fat)
5.8 (morning ketones) -> ? (night)
45 (morning glucose) -> ? (night)
This is the first day with a morning glucose in the 40s, so that’s new. Lower ketones so I expect that’s really my body going into optimization mode - realizing I don’t need that much energy to get things done in the morning.
Down another 1.6 lbs but the mix is bad with 0.9 lbs lean and 0.7 lbs fat. It’s certainly achieving the goal of tightening skin but I don’t see a complimentary increase in muscle gains. Muscles also look very deflated given the reduced glycogen and hydration. I can’t seem to take in enough salt even though I set an alarm to take 1/3 tsp each hour, more when I’m lifting.
Also feeling weaker today even though energy is high - I’m planning on an extended lifting session today to push myself and create more demand. If I don’t see a reversal of this trend, I’m planning on increasing my Leucine supplement.
I realize that this thread is a bit on data overload (I overshare ). But I’m open to any feedback on the lean mass loss.
~4 lbs lean mass loss. I think that water loss from tissues can account for this, or more. The real truth will be after the fast ends and you’ve gone a few days while eating enough to maintain weight, i.e. roughly matching your intake with your metabolism.
~23 lbs overall weight loss. This is a little more than I’d have expected. My gut feeling, which may be entirely worthless, is that you’re in a good place - your body doesn’t feel the need to hold onto ‘stuff’ in general, so some excellent detoxifying is going on.
