Hello everyone. I’m a 57-year-old man living in the UK and am new to the forum but not to fasting or keto. I love this place, it’s such an amazing resource of inspiration, information and support. I must thank you all for being here and for the organisers who keep it running smoothly. How many of you here have announced on a forum with great enthusiasm and very little experience or self-knowledge, that you’re about to embark on this wonderful (usually very ambitious) programme of fasting which is going to be great for all kinds of reasons, only to have to admit defeat long before the desired goal? I know I have - and many times too. In fact, rather than return to admit defeat to the rest of the group, I’ve just disappeared for a while and reappeared when you think they might have forgotten. He, he, he, well, we learn eventually to make haste slowly and also learn to set more realistic goals. I have since taken to announcing my fasts only when I’ve completed them - which for some reason, has resulted in me completing more of them. For a number of health reasons, (among them osteoarthritis from an old hip injury), I am in the process of devising a low carb fasting routine that I can rotate and live with permanently. Yesterday I completed a three day fast which was great. I wonder if other people have a routine that they can cycle through in the same way? I imagine that most people find the demands of work life and family a little too pressing for that, but my situation is a little different so I’m able to manage more regularity. I wish all of you the very best in your journey to realising your keto/fasting goals. 
May 2018 IF/EF chat - all welcome
Welcome! I may be different but I don’t mind if the fasts I plan come to fruition or I stop short. If I plan for 4 days and only make it 18 hours I honestly don’t care, it doesn’t feel like defeat to me. I fast weekly, usually, starting Saturday night, through all of Sunday and usually break on Monday at dinner, or Tuesday, or Wednesday depending how I feel. Any fasting is beneficial! This has to work for me for a lifetime so there’s no need making it harder with expectations and disappointment.
Doesn’t bother me particularly either @LizinLowell. Nice if I can do it, but if I feel really bad it’s not worth it.
Last week’s three day fast never came to fruition. Turns out PMS makes fasting harder for me… so far anyway. Broke it Friday night and ate through the weekend. I went off the wagon pretty hard yesterday because my daughter baked. No details on the what, but it wasn’t even meant for me but I could not stop. Then I felt like shit this morning and so I didn’t even get in an IF for today - I had to get in some fat and protein to stabilize my symptoms.
I’m not planning an EF this week, but I am planning to do my normal coffee, then lunch and dinner daily while I get used to my new CPAP machine that is out for delivery today.
For some clarity, for me it basically worked out to:
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Eating carbs, more or less no level of insulin, glipizide and metformin can get me to a stable, truly normal blood sugar.
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Eating close to zero carb with glipizide and metformin gets me true normal blood sugars, but they’re somewhat unstable - I tend to get (never lift threathening, as yet) hypos.
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Eating zero carb with just metfomin gets me a BS that tends to stabilize around 140 most of the day, with a dawn phenomenon of the surprisingly specific 184
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Fasting vastly speeds up improvements, and seems to, as indicated, reduce my insulin resistance.
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Protein matters. If I stay at an average of 50 or so grams a day, it keeps my blood sugar, even on glipizide, averaging around 100. There haven’t been any visible negative effects to keeping my protein that low. On the flipside, that blood sugar reaction doesn’t really scale - blood sugar doesn’t KEEP increasing as I add protein. Presumably the 50 gram level is enough to not supply gluconeogenesis.
So I think I can get to true normal with just metformin. I also think it’s likely to take a while.
But in general, I’ve slowly titrated off stuff. Right now, I am experimenting with using half the dose of Glipizide I was on, which seems to be working fairly well.
That sounds like you know where you need to go which is good. I’m so used to running in the 70’s to 80’s that if I was at the 180’s I would feel like I was dying!
I have a constant battle to keep mine balanced, and most of the time it ends up being not enough salt. When I first started keto, I was supplementing too much potassium and got into trouble with it. I still have trouble getting and keeping enough water in my system, as well.
As has been said before, the good thing about a fast is that if it goes badly you can just end it and try again later. KCKO, KCFO.
My 5-day fast has started out rocky when I thought it would be easy-peasy because I ate so frigging much yesterday. I just broke down and made a BPC in hopes I can pull it together this afternoon and keep going. My stomach has other things than fasting in mind. 
There are days - and weeks - like that. Thanks for the “no details” - everything I ate yesterday was keto-friendly, but there was just WAY too much of it. I need to stick with this fast and get my mind out of the food gutter. How about we both just KCKO? 
I’ll be doing a random fast tomorrow just because I feel like it. Minimum 36 hours I reckon.
I had a wonderful Mother’s Day refeed. So today, it is back on fasting for 3 days, then refeed again. I am praying this helps me get below 200. So far I am stuck in a vicious loop. Lose the weight through fasting, gain it back during refeed. Seems like the only way to get it off and keep it off is to do a very long EF and I just don’t think I have it in me. I need to get through at least a 10 days EF to really get down to where i need to be for this phase. Is it EVER possible to keep fasted weight off? Seems like no matter how keto I remain, how sensible I am with my eating, those stubborn kids just come back (it’s like they are hiding somewhere just waiting to pop back up.) Anyone else got tips for keeping off your fasted weight WITHOUT the need to back to back EF? =0)
I don’t know if you have a Aldi near you, but they have an excellent organic bone broth for only $2.99. Sometimes, I forget about bone broth as a crutch. It can be used somewhat liberally to help you through those first few days. It seems like when I eat like a pig before a fast, I wake up my metabolism and my appetite and i am super hungry. Bone Broth and keto aid help quite a bit.
If you are fasting for autophagy then please disregard.
Amen sister! I use to care very much if I couldn’t hold a fast. I would really get down on my self. Now I could give two fudges if I keep a schedule or not. If I am hungry, I eat. Here is the big picture, if I graph my progress, even if it is slower than I would like, even if I seem to be going in circles, I can clearly see fasting slowly but surly reducing my set weight. Meaning ultimately…it’s working. Now it may take 6 years to get to goal if I keep up this pace, but I do see progress. So if I were to have a breakdown and start eating carbage again, it would take quite a bit longer to put the weight back on than it did in the past. My body is starting to get comfortable around these lower numbers and resistance to higher weight is starting to occur.
Thank you Liz. You know your answer was just the kind of answer I would have given to someone else had I read it. It’s amazing just how blind we can be to seeing something when it applies to us. It is of course a far better attitude not to view it as a failure and to just get right back on track, wiser. And yes any fasting is beneficial. Thank you for the reminder. I will be less hard, less perfectionist with my happy fasting. Thank you.
Dang, Dawn, that is rough… If you’re staying keto when you start eating again, then it just plain does not seem like you should be gaining back weight, as far as fat lost. I wish I had some “magic” to tell you, but I really don’t know, here. Water - of course, we all know the deal there, but if you lose a couple pounds of fat in a 4 day fast (or 1.5 lbs on a 3 day fast) then if that fat comes back fairly fast while eating keto it seems “magical” to me the wrong way - it’s just really confounding. “Set point theory,” and/or still insulin resistant…?
[quote=“Goal179, post:295, topic:39529”]
I don’t know if you have a Aldi near you, but they have an excellent organic bone broth … [/quote]
I don’t - wish I did! However, I have a nice stockpile of bone broth in my freezer, and a new batch in the bottom of my fridge.
Eventually that’s my goal. Right now, I’d settle for struggling my way through a 5-day “whatever it takes fast.” 