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

[Don_Q]

Here’s a half baked idea I’ll throw out there. I recall reading somewhere that people often die of starvation before they exhaust their fat stores. That seemed odd to me. What if the reason is because of glucose. The brain still wants it’s 40g a day. Converting fat to glucose is inefficient relative to protein (from a yield perspective). What if as body fat declines, the proportion of lean mass catabolized increases not for caloric needs (RMR regulation), but because the current metabolism of the fat isn’t yielding glucose at a fast enough rate to keep the brain at .5g/hr? Like I said, it’s a half baked idea.

Consider the table below. Look how little glucose is available to a lean man from his fat stores from glycerol. At the rate of 40g a day, the man would be dead in 21 days (833g potential glucose/40g per day brain requirement). More interesting is that the proportion of glucose available from protein vs fat (glycerol) is very different for the lean vs the obese. The lean man has a ratio of 13.86, and the obese man has a ratio of 3.44. The lean man’s ratio of available glucose from protein/fat is 4x higher than the obese mans. In starvation, we see protein catabolism is 4x higher for lean subjects vs obese ones. (not saying that proves anything, but it’s interesting).

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/j.1550-8528.1999.tb00720.x

So my thought is this, what would happen if you ate a tablespoon of glucose over the course of a day (10g in each liter of water)? That’s 40g of glucose. What would the body do with it? We know it will try to prevent it from going into muscles because the body is actively trying to prevent hypoglycemia. The body becomes very effective at conserving glucose for the brain in starvation. If you introduced a small, exogenous source of glucose would the body downregulate protein catabolism? Would the presence of a surplus of glucose send a signal to stop making glucose from muscle? Again, I barely understand this stuff, but I thought I’d throw it out there if only in hopes of an explanation as to why it wouldn’t work as effectively as leucine.

On second thought, it’s not so much of a half baked idea, as it is a question lol.

[Karim_Wassef]

Interesting ideas! I need some time to digest them.

Day 14 woohoo. Even though I’m taking Leucine in higher doses, I’m still counting not eating as fasting

I overslept today… nearly 12 hours! Haven’t checked my blood levels yet but I feel good.

Urine was darker and frothy… not my usual. My skin feels very “tight”… like my skin is too small for me or I’m too big for my skin? Maybe I’m bloated with water and salt - I feel very “full” but I haven’t changed anything except for the extra 3.2g of Leucine yesterday and I’m on the 14th day of fasting.

[Mel_Simpson]

I did a 36-hour dry fast which I found easy because I really hate drinking water. I still wonder how good this is for our bodies. There is only one study out there that talks about dry fasting and its results and the results are positive. Have you or anyone else seen any other studies or any other positive effects of dry fasting. I would do it again but I want to make sure that it is in fact a good way to do fasting.

[Karim_Wassef]

I don’t really know much about dry fasting. I’ve only done it for short periods, so I’m learning too. There’s a whole thread on here dedicated to it though.

[Karim_Wassef]

ok … Day 14 results - very unusual but I’m not discouraged. In fact, I think it’s good.

First, the daily mass change and blood:

FAT MASS GAIN?

So this is the first day where my weight, fat mass and body fat% has gone back up… during a fast… after 14 days! This along with a decline of 0.2 lbs of lean mass too.

My first reaction was “REALLY?” … ok… it was more foul mouthed than that… then I had a minute to think about it and I think this is very good.

Hear me out:

There are different ways that the body deals with fat and different kinds of “deep fat” stores. The easily accessible fat is the stuff that it knows is part of normal fluctuations. With my 3 day fasts and my recent intentional weight gain to prepare for this EF, my body has a pretty large store of these fat cells that it doesn’t expect will last for a long window of time. It’s more like “easy access” fat and when the lipids run out, it allows the cell to collapse quickly.

The other kind of fat cell is the “deep storage” fat. This is the stuff that the body is convinced it will need again and will instead fill with water in order to retain it’s physical form. Water is heavier than fat and will actually read as “fat gain”. This only happens when the body has exhausted all the “easy access” fat stores and has to go deeper. Coincidentally, this happens on my 14th day of fasting = two days longer than my longest historical EF. It takes the body a couple of days to adjust and the body has an amazingly long memory… it still remembers my fast for months ago!

So, perversely, this fat mass gain is exactly what I needed to see to mark the transition… If it’s true, then in a couple of days, I expect a large water flush once my body accepts that this is not a temporary state. I hope it happens before the DEXA scan on Friday so I can get a more accurate measure.

I originally thought that it might be associated with my Leucine cycle (I now it sounds like anabolic cycling). I think the blood results still show a very high ketone to glucose ratio, and I think the lipid oxidation is still very high and I’m in heavy ketosis - in fact, I think it’s actually accelerating my real fat loss. I’m going to use the term “lipid oxidation” to differentiate it from fat mass loss since the two are now disjointed.

LEUCINE:

Back to the Leucine test results - basically, the body operates on hormonal markers and the amino acid signalling “could” trigger the body to turn anabolic and turn off autophagy, even in a fasted state. I don’t have any scientific papers that show that the hormonal signaling results in different reactions in muscle vs. skin vs. fat. That’s actually part of this experiment - I had no resources so I’m trying this to learn my n=1. My GKI shows that the Leucine is having almost no effect on my ketones and glucose. Waking up at 55G and 6.1K is pretty much where I was before the cycling.

So today, I’m doing it again, but I’m going to add 1g of Carnitine with each cycle too!

ANTI-OXIDANTS

I am concerned with the use of specific amino acids in higher doses. This is the kind of thing that triggers cancer in lab mice (in much much higher doses). This doesn’t happen when eating normal foods because the combination of chemicals in natural foods seem to offset any individual effects of any one amino acid. I’m including anti-oxidants to try and offset this. This is a completely separate path of supplementation, but I think it’s prudent. Here’s what I’m using: Resveratrol, NAC (N-acetyl cysteine), and NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide). I take Niacin supplements anyway and that’s a precursor for a lot of these anti-oxidants too. I also take CoQ10 and use PQQ (Pyrroloquinoline Quinone ) for mitochondrial health.

These supplements are part of a separate line of investigation that precedes this fast and that I think is becoming more important as I start to dig deeper into these amino acid cycles. I am in no way recommending any of this. I’m just sharing it so others can hopefully benefit.

PROJECTIONS

So - on to the rest of the data update. I’m going to keep the projections as they are and just plot the new actual data to show how the two compare.

You may notice that the projections are a little different today, but I didn’t use the latest updated results. I found a small math error and went back to correct it.

GKI

And here’s the G, K, and GKI updated…

I’m still gelling over Nick and Doug’s ideas… more to come on that too.

[Karim_Wassef]

0.8g Leucine + 1.0g Carnitine + ice packs
Leucine Cycle 1 - 55G, 6.1K, 0.50GKI -> 58G, 5.9K, 0.55GKI
3 hrs, 0.8g Leucine + 1.0g Carnitine + ice packs + weightlifting
Leucine Cycle 2 - 58G, 5.9K, 0.55GKI -> TBD

[Karim_Wassef]

Doug - I think the caloric content of the supplements is quite low, but the hormonal impact is potentially high. For example, the body has a choice, during a fast, to consume 0.8lbs of fat and 0.5lbs of lean mass for energy each day (that’s actually what it looked to be doing)… OR if could choose to consume 0lbs of fat and 1.5lbs of lean mass… The redistribution of energy sources is a function of hormones.

So, I think the amino acids and how they regulate hormone signalling and where they have these effects is unknown (to the level of detail I need).

I’m hoping that the Leucine upregulates mToR in muscles and the Carnitine reduces the threshold for lipid oxidation. Then the weightlifting creates demand side upregulation of anabolic signalling in muscles. And then the ice creates demand side upregulation of catabolic signalling in abdominal fat.

I know this is the search for the holy grail of physical recomposition. I think fasting creates a clean slate for evaluating what the body’s response it to these signals.

So - time to weightlift

[Karim_Wassef]

With enough GKI data since I became fast-adapted, I wanted to look at the distribution. This is to establish a baseline as time progresses.

So basically, I’m hovering between 0.4 and 0.6 with an average of 0.5 now.

[Karim_Wassef]

WARNING - TRIGGER ALERT
If you’re squeamish, please skip this reply

I hadn’t expected this so soon, but another BM but more diarrhea like (aka wet). I think this may be part of the water flush. I hadn’t expected it so soon, but it’s an interesting event. Again - “plastic” smell.

Unlike the last time, I don’t have before and after data so we’ll have to wait till tomorrow to see what effect, if any, it has.

If I’m sharing too much, please let me know and I’ll tone it back. I’m doing it all… for science.
END - TRIGGER ALERT

[Don_Q]

So this is the first day where my weight, fat mass and body fat% has gone back up … during a fast… after 14 days! This along with a decline of 0.2 lbs of lean mass too.

The biggest challenge with BIA scales is that the algorithm assumes that your hydration level is average, and that it assumes that you’re eating 60% of your daily calories from carbohydrates, and that you eat a normal amount of salt. To derive the equations for the BIA scale, they took a few thousand SAD subjects, did a bit of linear regression, and called it a day. Compared to that cohort, you might as well be a space alien.

Basically, none of the tissue in your body is even remotely similar to the tested cohort from an impedance standpoint. The most important factor in BIA algorithm accuracy is hydration level. This deep into your fast, your levels of H20 are 15lbs lower than an average person with your normal height and weight. You also consume significantly more electrolytes than the average person (which is smart!).

I’m not saying this because I don’t think you know this, I’m just wondering how the two variables of hydration vs salt intake might be influencing the fat/muscle readings. If I’m a betting man, I think you lost .6lbs of fat yesterday.

The Pitfalls of Bodyfat “Measurement”, Part 4: Bioelectrical Impedance (BIA)

[OldDoug]

I know this is the search for the holy grail of physical recomposition. I think fasting creates a clean slate for evaluating what the body’s response it to these signals.

I hear you, Karim - and I think that regardless, you’re going to be happy with where you end up.

I think the caloric content of the supplements is quite low, but the hormonal impact is potentially high.

Agreed - I’d expect essentially zero effect on GKI, but it could really effect autophagy, due to the potency of leucine, there - further stretching the already tenuous connection between GKI and autophagy.

The mix of fat and non-fat matter that the body uses while fasting is indeed a question. I think it’s fairly well settled that as we get leaner, the mix includes a higher percentage of “lean mass” - and I’m pretty sure it has to, or suffer a meaningful calorie deficit.

As far as using up muscle - I continue to think this is a mostly groundless worry. Not saying it’s truly at zero, and obviously at some point the body will start “eating” muscle rather than just die. I’ll be interested to see what you think when you’re done - was any muscle lost, or not?

Angus Barbieri went from 456 lbs. to 180 over 382 days of fasting. He probably did lose at least a little bit of muscle - even if not moving much, 456 lbs is some fairly stout weight to be hefting. But he was still pretty darn “normal” at 180 lbs. Subjective on my part - yet I see a lot of people fasting for 21 or 30 or 40 days, and some are concerned about muscle loss in the beginning, but once they finish and start eating again and go a few days with normal hydration, I never see complaints or even just mentions of actually having had lost muscle.

[Karim_Wassef]

I agree. I just assume that the scale is directionally correct after a few days of adjusting. The idea is that the trend is reasonable, even if the data is not accurate.

But … hydration is one datapoint I actually don’t track. It’s on my scale app, but not the health app I download data from.

So I went back and decided to manually capture it and it’s very interesting!

It doesn’t look like a lot of change when you look at hydration % (2.5% change), but when you look at water mass, it’s dropped around 10 lbs of water - most of that happened in the first 4 days of adaptation. More interestingly, the hydration and water mass seems to have leveled off recently…

It looks like phases of adjustment and then levels of fasting…

Days 1, 2, 3 adaptation to the fast
Days 4, 5, 6 first level of fasting
Days 7, 8, 9 second level of fasting
Days 10, 11 second adaptation event
Days 11, 12, 13, 14 third level of fasting

Also, large changes in BF% readings do correspond to the largest changes in hydration. That may be artificial (due to the scale miscalculating bf%)… I can’t really tell.

[Karim_Wassef]

True. I would like to imagine that carrying around all that weight is akin to weightlifting for years and I’d like to keep some of the benefit of that hard work

[Karim_Wassef]

more on the Leucine:

0.8g Leucine + 1.0g Carnitine + ice packs
Leucine Cycle 1 - 55G, 6.1K, 0.50GKI -> 58G, 5.9K, 0.55GKI
3 hrs, 0.8g Leucine + 1.0g Carnitine + ice packs + weightlifting
Leucine Cycle 2 - 58G, 5.9K, 0.55GKI -> 57G, 6.4K, 0.49GKI
3 hrs, 0.8g Leucine + 1.0g Carnitine + ice packs + weightlifting
Leucine Cycle 2 - 57G, 6.4K, 0.55GKI -> ?

Interesting result since lifting using diminishes my ketones… but this time, the combination of supplements, ice packs and lifting seems to have increased it.

[Karim_Wassef]

Something is bothering me about the hydration measure… why would hydration increase during a fast?

Shouldn’t it go down due to reduced insulin causing a flush of water and electrolytes?

I am very diligent about salts and water, so maybe I’m overdoing it? Not sure…

[Karim_Wassef]

Here’s a half baked idea I’ll throw out there. I recall reading somewhere that people often die of starvation before they exhaust their fat stores. That seemed odd to me.

Me too. I’ve actually never heard that. I don’t think that can actually happen outside of disease?

What if the reason is because of glucose. The brain still wants it’s 40g a day. Converting fat to glucose is inefficient relative to protein (from a yield perspective). What if as body fat declines, the proportion of lean mass catabolized increases not for caloric needs (RMR regulation), but because the current metabolism of the fat isn’t yielding glucose at a fast enough rate to keep the brain at .5g/hr? Like I said, it’s a half baked idea.

I did ask for any ideas… all ideas are good until they’re proven to not be good.
I think Dr. Fung’s analogy is this: “why would you store up firewood for a cold day, only to chop up your fine furniture when you need to make a fire?”. This is where I think ketones aggressively spare muscle and organ catabolism. Building new protein is much more expensive than storing new fat.

I can’t comment on the efficiency of gluconeogenesis from fat vs. protein… but I think the body is also conservative when it comes to the cost of rebuilding once the fasting event is over. It will resort more to protein only if it feels that starvation is imminent? I don’t think that happens above 12% body fat?

Consider the table below. Look how little glucose is available to a lean man from his fat stores from glycerol. At the rate of 40g a day, the man would be dead in 21 days (833g potential glucose/40g per day brain requirement). More interesting is that the proportion of glucose available from protein vs fat (glycerol) is very different for the lean vs the obese. The lean man has a ratio of 13.86, and the obese man has a ratio of 3.44. The lean man’s ratio of available glucose from protein/fat is 4x higher than the obese mans. In starvation, we see protein catabolism is 4x higher for lean subjects vs obese ones. (not saying that proves anything, but it’s interesting).

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/j.1550-8528.1999.tb00720.x

So I think the difference between lean and fat catabolism is hormonal. There are too many variables unknown here. It may be that ketone levels drop as fat % reduces and their protective benefits diminish?

Also, the data must have some interesting confounding variables given that two of the datapoints show similar “energy from protein” at substantially different body fat %.
BF% = 35% === Energy from Protein = 18%
BF% = 10% === Energy from Protein = 18%

Similarly, there are two datapoints with similar body fat % with different Energy from Protein.
BF% = 10% === Energy from Protein = 18%
BF% = 10% === Energy from Protein = 25%

I realize that scientists want to establish simple fits that line up with their theories… but this is how Ancel Keys ended up deceiving the scientific community.

Also - this data may be representative of the normal response without any external influence like amino acids to regulate hormonal response. If anything, I think it reinforces that we need something along with fasting to align the body’s preferred energy source.

So my thought is this, what would happen if you ate a tablespoon of glucose over the course of a day (10g in each liter of water)? That’s 40g of glucose. What would the body do with it? We know it will try to prevent it from going into muscles because the body is actively trying to prevent hypoglycemia. The body becomes very effective at conserving glucose for the brain in starvation. If you introduced a small, exogenous source of glucose would the body downregulate protein catabolism? Would the presence of a surplus of glucose send a signal to stop making glucose from muscle? Again, I barely understand this stuff, but I thought I’d throw it out there if only in hopes of an explanation as to why it wouldn’t work as effectively as leucine.

On second thought, it’s not so much of a half baked idea, as it is a question lol.

Ok! My disdain with glucose as a food aside, the idea of using exogenous glucose to diminish the need for gluconeogenesis is interesting. It would make sense - assuming that the hormonal response aligns with the expectation that the body would only use that glucose to fuel the energy and that it wouldn’t trigger insulin.

Frankly, I am much more comfortable adding amino acids vs. adding glucose… both could be converted to blood glucose, but the insulin glucagon fasting hormone response of amino acids is better understood and the conversion of amino acids to either muscle or glucose to feed the brain would work out fine… adding glucose is like playing with gasoline in my view - too dangerous, even for me…

[Karim_Wassef]

more on the Leucine:

0.8g Leucine + 1.0g Carnitine + ice packs
Leucine Cycle 1 - 55G, 6.1K, 0.50GKI -> 58G, 5.9K, 0.55GKI
3 hrs, 0.8g Leucine + 1.0g Carnitine + ice packs + weightlifting
Leucine Cycle 2 - 58G, 5.9K, 0.55GKI -> 57G, 6.4K, 0.49GKI
3 hrs, 0.8g Leucine + 1.0g Carnitine
Leucine Cycle 3 - 57G, 6.4K, 0.55GKI -> 55G, 6.7K, 0.46GKI
0.8g Leucine + 1.0g Carnitine

So the amino acid supplements seem to be increasing ketones and glucose… or at least not effecting them. But I feel a lot more energetic - and the fasting chills are substantially reduced. I feel really really good. I have no hunger. My stomach makes some weird gurgly sounds every once in a while, but zero sensation of hunger or desire to eat. This is true even when I cook for others or sit down while they eat.

I even watch cooking YouTube vids to get some ideas for the feasting window… prep work… but no temptation at all.

I don’t feel “full” like I did this morning, but I don’t feel empty either…

So… starting week 3 tomorrow and I’m going to try the 3 hours AA cycle (amino acid) with 0.8g Leucine and 1.0g Carnitine… 6am, 9am, noon, 3pm, 6pm, 9pm so that’s 4.8g Leucine and 6.0g Carnitine daily.

Every new day is a personal best and it feels awesome. Thank you all for your ideas and support.

[Mel_Simpson]

Looking forward to seeing your results.
How is your skin doing? Body and face?

[Karim_Wassef]

I’ll provide a detailed update later today but I thought I’d just share some thoughts so far:

It’s the 15th day of this fast and I woke up late again. My body feels starved for sleep… I just need much more of it.

I also woke up very hungry. I’m pretty sure it’s the Leucine supplementation but my stomach was growling louder than my alarm clock.

I’ll check and post the data but roughly speaking: weight went up by 1.2 lbs with 0.8 lean and 0.4 fat. Clearly, it’s a lot of water weight. I’m pretty sure this is a reversal of what happened when I started the fast and lost a ton of water.

Good news is that regaining that water mass feels quite good. Not sure if it’s blood volume, glycogen or intracellular fluid but it feels good. No fasting chills. Also, some of the loose skin & wrinkles disappeared as I hydrated. I don’t have that sunken “15 day fasted” look!

My glucose is still low <60 & ketones high >5.5. I decided to hold off on the Leucine every three hours until this afternoon. So… one dose in the morning so far, then another around 6:30 pm. Then a third one in the evening.

It sounds strange but I feel good gaining weight while fasting. Definitely a hormone regulating effect.

[Mel_Simpson]

How is your wife doing??
Can’t wait for the next update. In case you’re interested I’m at 21.5 hours now. Hoping to do 72!!
Not sure if I could do what you’re doing. It sure is interesting to read your posts.