I am sorry for all the writing at the beginning, I wanted to add it for those who my be interested. Simply scroll down to get to the results if you are not interested.
I also attached a pdf at the end if anyone wanted to download it and read it later.
My Story
I guess I will start with a brief background on myself. I am 43 years old and went keto the beginning of November 2015, so I am about to be 15 months in. Like most of us, I would guess, I did it for health reasons not simply to lose weight. I was diagnosed with genetic hypertriglyceridemia when I was 18 at which time my triglycerides were around 890 yet my cholesterol was normal. I was told to watch alcohol and avoid fat. Like most 18 year old I said ok and then did whatever the hell I wanted.
Fast forwarded to about 2007 when I was 33 I had my blood tested again. At that time I was in the best shape since I was in high school and my diet was better than it had been in years. Just a note, I am a wildland firefighter and at that time I was a member of an initial attack helicopter firefighting crew. I exercised every day and throughout the summer I was hiking up and down mountains fighting forest fires. My weight was about 180 (I am 6 feet tall) and while I was eating better I still was a carboholic (did not know any better.) Ok, back to the blood work at 33, my triglycerides fell to the 400’s. Still bad but better then at 18.
In 2010 I was promoted to management position that no longer required me to be as physical as before though I still traveled for many months out of the year managing a giant firefighting helicopter. By 2015 my weight was up to 211 pounds, I was eating a ridiculous amounts of carbs and boy did I enjoy IPA’s. I went to a doctor in October of 2015 to get a checkup because I was getting old and had not seen one since my last blood test when I was 33, about 9 years prior. I had my blood work done and the results stunned me. My triglycerides were 1200 and my cholesterol was high. My doctor put me on a statin then proceeded to tell me that due to the genetic aspect my triglycerides would never be normal, even on the statin. I tried to tell her I had lowered them significantly in the past by exercise and diet (the diet part was flawed I know that now) and that I think I could do it again. She told me, this is a quote, “I have marathon runners who eat rocks with this condition and they are not normal.” Having the personality I do I took this as a challenge and started doing research. I kept finding articles and studies about carbs and triglycerides, bought some books, watched some videos and accidently found keto. Over the following several months I dropped 55 pounds and the last blood test I took my triglycerides were 146, technically in the normal range. My doctor was in shock asked me what I did, told her keto and she said keep doing it and let me stop taking the statin (YAY DOCTOR.) I was supposed to have my blood work done in July of 2016 but instead ended up spending 160 nights away from home on fires and worked 1200 hours of overtime. I will have them checked again next month.
While on the road last summer I still followed keto and checked ketones about once a week to confirm I was in ketosis. I ended up gaining back about 25 pounds. I have some theories on why. I am sure I had high cortisol levels from the stress of the work, long hours, traveling, high adrenalin and sleeping 4-6 hours a night. From the beginning of my keto journey until the start of the fire season I regularly was doing 24 hour intermittent fasting. During the fire season this changed to a 16-8 eating schedule (I have always rarely ate breakfast.) Even though I was still intermittently fasting and staying in ketosis I think I was eating too much and at times possibly too much protein, and there was that cortisol thing.
The n=1 Experiment
Now to my n=1 experiment. I Have done an 8 day heavy whipping cream fast (only in my coffee over several hours in the morning), that was easy but have not tried an extended no food fast the entire time I have been keto. I also wanted to see what effects caffeine and aspartame have on my body. Additionally I want to get my weight back down to what it was before the 2016 fire season.
I did take my vitamin/mineral supplements. I am not going to get into what the supplements are at this time but they do account for around 36 calories due to 4g of fat in the fish oil and one other.
When I woke up in the morning I weighed myself, took my blood pressure and pulse rate and blood glucose and ketones. Mid-day I measured my blood glucose. Then in the evening I measured both my glucose and ketones once again.
Using my Garmin Fenix 3 super watch I also documented the deep sleep I was getting each night, steps I took throughout the day along with active calories burned. I paid attention to these numbers just to see if there may be any correlation with glucose/ketone levels and weight loss. Also I thought it may be interesting to see if the fast potentially affected deep sleep.
I drank my normal amount of coffee, French roast with nothing added (36-48 ounces) and increased the amount of diet coke I drank. I probably was drinking 6-10 12oz cans a day, starting after I finished my coffee. Please no lectures on the ill effects of diet coke, I know them all. I felt the more I drank the better chance to see if they affected glucose, ketosis, hunger and weight loss. I did drink caffeine free Diet Coke after 5pm.
If I could afford the test strips I would have taken more ketone readings throughout the day.
The last meal I had before I began my fast was a keto omelet at 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning. The evening before I had a keto dinner and several Jack and Diet Cokes. I did take a baseline morning glucose/ketone reading to see what they were after the previous two weeks of my normal keto eating. I broke the fast the following Sunday with a keto dinner at 7pm. The fast ended up being 7.3 days.
36 hours into the fast I dealt with hunger pains but made it through. Day 6 was kind rough but not due to hunger. I had odd stomach pain, almost like constipation but there was nothing in me. I also felt like my quadriceps were trying to cramp. I had not supplemented sodium the entire fast and decided to ride out the remaining 36 hours or so without doing so in order to not comprise the data I was collecting.
Day seven was better but still not as easy as days 1-5.
Something else I wanted to do was see if I could eat a meal without refeeding and see how my body would react. So after 7+ days fasted the first thing I ate was a full meal. I had no issues other than feeling stuffed.
Now for the data and what I took from it.
Weight
I ended up losing 11.8 pounds over the 7 days period. While weight loss did occur every day you can see from the second graph how much I lost fluctuated every day until I hit day six and seven were it leveled out at 1 pound.
Glucose, Ketones and GKI
I added the mmol/L for my foreign friends who are used to seeing those numbers. Glucose did what I expected it to do. It fell for the first three days before essentially leveling out and staying around 55-65 mg/dL (3-3.5 mmol/L). I was happy with my glucose numbers. I do not believe caffeine or aspartame had any effect.
My ketones are usually around 2 mmol/L in the morning. They dramatically shot up as the fast proceeded. I believe the AM Ketone reading on day 5 may have been from a faulty ketone strip. I will discuss this more at the end in my findings. My PM glucose reading were steady throughout the fast at around 3.5 mmol/L while my ketones essentially continued to rise.
My AM Glucose Ketone Index (GKI) quickly fell into therapeutic ranges by day 2 and stayed there the rest of the fast. My PM GKI was at therapeutic levels from day and hovered around 0.5.
Blood Pressure and Pulse
There was nothing special to note about my blood pressure. It stayed in the 120/(60-80) the entire fast. When I was running regularly and 20 or so pounds lighter it was consistently 110/60 when I woke in the morning. I would like to get it to return to those levels. Though I cannot complain about how it is now.
My morning pulse I found interesting. It consistently fell for the first 4 days of the fast then suddenly shot up on day 5. When I weighed less and was running my morning pulse was consistently between 60-70. I am not happy with my pulse but do not blame the fast for these numbers.
Deep Sleep
Deep sleep I found very interesting. My deep sleep improved through from day 2 through 5 before taking a significant decline. I am cannot say with any certainty that the fast was responsible, though I think it warrants some more future testing. It would be great to know if I could improve the quality of my sleep via fasting.
Breaking the Fast
The following two graphics is the meal I used to break my fast. I ate it at around hour 175 or about 7.3 days. This meal will be a part of my next n=1 7 day experiment which I will explain in later.
As you can see I ate a very keto and VERY delicious dinner. This meal was the first thing I ate and finished it over a 15 minute period. I suffered no ill effects, only a full and happy belly. I took the macros for the ribeye from my fitness pal so forgive me if some of you have different numbers. The butter, macadamia nuts and garlic came from the labels on the product. The broccoli was from my fitness pal as well, though I subtracted the fiber from the carb count. The avocado numbers I retrieved from the USDA website and ensured I had them right for the size of the HAAS avocado I was eating, I subtracted the fiber from the avocados carbs as well. I also drank a diet coke with my dinner.
Out of curiosity I did a 4 hour blood glucose response curve test with readings every 30 minutes. Since I had a ketone reading from about 30 minutes before I ate I also took one at the 4 hour mark. Here are those numbers. I took my first glucose reading at the 30 minute mark after I swallowed my first bite of food.
My glucose shot up about 25 points by the hour mark then leveled off. I believe the 120 minute reading was from a bad glucose strip (I will discuss this in my findings), though I very well could be wrong. At 150 minutes it was back to around 87 and stayed in that general area till my last reading at the 4 hour mark. My ketones fell from 7.5 mmol/L to 6.2 mmol/L.
I was very happy with these results. I remained very much in ketosis and my glucose stayed in the “normal fasted” range (70-100). My am Glucose the following day was back down to 63 mg/dL and my ketones were at 5.9 mmol/L.
Things I Discovered (Or at least think I may have)
• There can be faulty strips (glucose or ketones). I have the control solutions and tested the lot, it was ok. One more than one occasion (from the same lot) I would get a crazy reading, like glucose jumping from a consistent number, say 65 to suddenly 87. I tested again immediately and the number was back to the mid 60’s. One reading had my glucose in the 30’s which I knew could not be right, tested it again and it was back in the range I expected it to be. I think for some reason the lot of strips I was using just had some bad apples in the bunch. A new box of 100 should be arriving any day. I only had this issue once or twice with the ketone strips. SO, if you get a reading that you do not think is right test again, it may be the stip.
• I do not believe aspartame or caffeine have much of an effect on me. I am not saying they do not potentially raise my insulin a bit, but all of my glucose and ketone levels were in the ranges I would expect for my body (I am not a diabetic, or insulin resistant. I was showing the signs of metabolic syndrome and well on my way when I started keto). Also aspartame did not make me hungry what so ever.
• If you look at my numbers a lot of odd things happened to me on Day 5 and day six I was not feeling all that well (not hunger). I think with my body and already being pretty lean it may be smarter to 5 day (5 consecutive 24 hour periods of fasting), maybe eat dinner on a Sunday night and then again on Friday night. I felt the best and believe I saw the most benefits the first 5 days.
• I will also not hesitate to drink bone broth or some other sodium supplement during the fast if I feel the need. I understand this may have helped on day 6 of my seven day fast or if I wanted to do longer fasts, but again, I am pretty lean and am unsure the need to fast much longer. I believe Dr. Fung has spoken about this.
• I noticed a dramatic increase in deep sleep over the first 5 days of my fast and am very curious to see if this occurs in future fasts. It is one metric other than weight loss that may appear to be directly related to fasting.
• As expected I had ample energy and felt great (except for day 6) of my fast.
Currently I am in the middle of a 7 day 24h intermittent fast. The meal I ate to break my 7 day no food fast I am going to eat every night for seven days at approximately the same time of day. The same food, the same macros and collect all the same data. I am very interested to see what kind of results I will get eating one very keto meal a day for 7 days.
I encourage anyone who has the desire to look at my data to do so and let me know what you think. I may have missed or misinterpreted something.
barts-7day-fast.pdf (493.5 KB)