There was no Aug thread, so I am creating this one for SEPT. No matter how you are fasting this is the place to post about your successes, hassles, failures, and anything else related to fast, no matter the length.
I’ll go over to the last I/E thread and post a link to here.
I had several OMAD days in September but then I got into 2MAD (or 3MAD or 4MAD but most meals are tiny then) with smallish meals… And they got bigger so I will try to go back to OMAD soon. It’s not so easy with my SO on holiday for some reason.
OMAD has many benefits and I seem to be able to do it for longer if I focus a lil bit 
Most of my 2MAD days had a smallish eating window too as I normally have lunch at 3pm and dinner at 6pm. Now that my SO is on holiday, lunch is earlier and I am wilder anyway.
I am looking forward to next week when things hopefully go back to where they should. I will try to push for EF in the near future if possible. I wonder which day is best for that, maybe Tuesday, after some nice meaty OMAD dinner on Monday. I need a big meal so it must be OMAD and OMAD lunch is trickier for me especially if I want it to be big.
In short: no change (except the promising OMAD periods I had earlier) but I keep trying!
Yeah. As a retiree with a working spouse, I must admit I sometimes look forward to Mondays. 
New guy here.
I’m 67 and lost a little over a hundred pounds at a safe rate of about 2 lb a week. Did it by eliminating individual food that raised my blood glucose over 125 coupled with 30 to 45 minutes a day of walking.
I’m okay with my weight now. My bmi is in the high normal range. But my final hurdle is fat around my midsection. Both visceral and subcutaneous.
The only time I ever went over 12 hours without eating was when I was sick with the flu or other respiratory illness.
This past Tues at 8 pm I decided to try a 24-hour fast. Nothing but water tea coffee and sugar free electrolyte packets. At 8:00 p.m. Wednesday night (last night) I felt okay and my blood glucose wasn’t too low. It was 78 at bedtime, so I decided to go for 36 hours. Woke up at 7:30 a.m. today and my blood glucose was 66 so I didn’t push it.
I broke the fast with 4 oz of kefir and a tablespoon of soaked chia seeds. An hour and a half later my blood glucose was back up to 74.
After I downed the chia and kefir I used one of those urine strips and it indicated 15mg/dL ketones. For lunch around 2pm I ate a can of mackerel and also a small serving of riced cauliflower with two tablespoons EVOO, some garlic powder, and ginger powder. Also added two tablespoons of milled flaxseed.
Checked my ketones at 4 pm and the strip indicated 40mg/dL which the color chart on the strip container label says “moderate”.
A few questions I have moving forward.
Is 40mg/dL ok ? (From what I gather the urine strips aren’t all that accurate)
Assuming I don’t knock myself out of ketosis by my food choices, how long do I have to remain in ketosis to become fat adapted ?
My foods I plan to continue eating :
Wild caught Alaska salmon
Canned mackerel (chub, not King)
Canned kippers (herring)
Celery
Steamed tomatoes
Rice cauliflower
Steamed broccoli
Steamed brussel sprouts
Eggs (soft boiled or cooked in grass-fed butter)
EVOO and avacado oil ( high quality of each)
Organic MCT OIL ( For a pre exercise supplement )
Milled flaxseed
Chia seeds (soaked until they gel)
Artichokes
4% cottage cheese with no additives
Moderate quantities of hard cheeses
Non-flavored/unsweetened almond milk for my pea protein shake (Garden of Life brand)
Smuckers natural peanut butter
Kefir
Explore brand edamame spaghetti ( lowest net carb pasta I can find and it’s very nutrient dense)
100 dark chocolate ( no added sugar)
Any of those foods a no no for keto ?
I take moderate amounts of suppliments. B complex, D3, K2 mk7, and a couple of others.
Any of those foods a no no for keto ?
Tia
Edit to add: I devised a way to keep my blood glucose and weight in check. Before I eat a meal I checked my blood glucose and if it’s not in the low 80s or less I don’t eat until it is.
Is it okay to continue that while in ketosis ?
Hey, welcome! You seem to be on top of all of this, great job.
How long it takes to get fat adapted may depend on what you were eating before. What would you estimate your former net carbs per day to be? The things on your list all seem reasonable. We typically suggest under 20 carbs per day to maintain ketosis, which will work for most people.
People have had varying results with foods manipulated to be lower in carbs, like the edamame pasta. For some it’s perfect, others … Well I’m not precisely sure what happens, but apparently resistant starch can get digested further down the gut and throw your levels off, although you will probably see less of a glucose spike. Figuring out what things do to you is part of the journey!
The urine sticks can be inaccurate, yes. They will expire and after that they can give really wonky results. They will register a higher concentration of ketones if you are dehydrated. 40 is fine, it’s likely to decrease with time as your body adapts - especially in urine, which measures the discarded ketones your body made in excess. If you want to be accurate you really need something like a keto mojo (blood measure), but as long as your diet contains few carbs, I’m not sure the precise number matters all that much unless you are using ketosis medicinally.
I have not heard of basing your meal time on whether or not you hit a certain glucose number. That’s interesting (and very disciplined!). It actually makes a great deal of sense to me, I can’t think of a reason to stop doing it.
Best of luck to you, I hope you come back often to report your progress and participate in the community!
Just an aside, you may get more responses if you put your query in the keto chat or newbie forum or just do a quick hello and guide people to this post, the fasting forum is somewhat specialized and I think a lot of people don’t look here.
Thanks for the reply kib !
After I posted last night I did a search to see what safe levels of urine ketone were and the first couple of articles gave the levels in mmol and after I converted my 40 mg/dL to mmol, which was 2.2 mmol. This morning it shows 15 mg/dL. I’ll take it.
A couple of the articles said that was too high for a diabetic. I don’t know whether to call myself diabetic or not. I was pre-diabetic and taking metformin for a few years and one day my a1c indicated I was in the full type two range. Iirc it was 6.9.
My doctor mentioned insulin and I told him to give me 3 months. He asked what I was going to do in 3 months and I told him I was going to start eating better and exercising.
Why he did not have me checking my blood glucose with a meter I can’t say but when I left the office I bought a meter and started checking my blood sugar. I checked it as soon as I got back in my vehicle and it was 139. I had been fasting for 14 hours or so at that point because I knew he was going to do blood work that day.
Took me about 3 months to get my fasting blood glucose below 100 but it’s been averaging in the low 90’s for 4 years now. The foods I listed above are pretty much what I’ve been eating during all that time and I stopped taking metformin about 3 years ago. I do take berberine, but only 4-5 grams total per week.
So since my blood glucose has been fine for years now I don’t know if I’m considered diabetic or not.
The day my doctor told me I was in the type 2 range I was on 7 medications. 3 for hypertension, ventolin for COPD, metformin 1500 mg/day, a statin, and flonase. Today I’m down to two. The flonase and 5mg rosuvastatin. My lipid panels have been fine since I lost all my weight and started eating right. I just take the rosuvastatin every other day to keep my doctor happy. He was seeing me every 3 months during my weight loss journey and I actually quit taking the statin for 3 months and my lipid panel came back fine. I only take it now because I do eat a lot of organic pastured eggs.
As far as total carbs I’ve been eating around 50 or less before my fast. I’m going to cut it to 10 or 15 and stay in ketosis hopefully.
I’m not a doctor or a chemist, but this is my understanding of ketone levels. The fear is ketoacidosis. This is a condition in which your glucose becomes very high and you are not producing the insulin to manage it, typical of type 1 diabetes. Your body is starving because it cannot access all that glucose even though it’s poisoning you, so it starts over producing ketones in a desperate attempt to feed you, causing an extreme spike in ketone level. In other words, both glucose and ketone levels are through the roof at the same time. I do not think ketoacidosis is a reasonable fear for people who produce insulin, even if they are insulin resistant.
I applaud your efforts to avoid insulin. Jacking up insulin levels because you are insulin resistant will make the problem worse. If you trusted a messenger to put your paycheck in the bank (get glucose out of your bloodstream into your cells), and it wasn’t happening, would you tell that company they needed more messengers to break down the bank doors (more insulin), which would probably result in even bigger locks on those doors, or would you try to obtain a key to the bank door (less insulin resistance).
Insulin injection is a last ditch solution for people who are not producing insulin. Becoming more insulin sensitive, which should happen on a low-carb diet, is truly the way to go unless you are or have become physiologically incapable of producing insulin at all.
How do those self-help meetings go? “Hi, I’m Bob and I have a problem?”
Due to life forcing a routine I’ve been following for year to be dropped, my maintenance seems to need to be rearranged. I have a Renpho “smart scale” that tells weight, lean body mass, % bodyfat and a whole bunch of stuff all compiled in spreadsheets that go back to 2019.
My weight has been stuck in a narrow range that’s higher than I’d prefer it to be - about 213 +/- a couple of pounds. I’m 6’ tall (or used to be) and the best I’ve been in the last decade was about 200, I have never gotten to my goal weight of 190. For completeness, I started at 260 in 2015.
Since the start of this year, I’ve alternated between a one day/week fast (about 40 hours from last meal to “break fast”) and doing OMAD on that one day. I have fewer side effects (diarrhea) with OMAD.
The biggest change forced by the medical issues is that I’m doing less exercise. I’m still trying to figure out the ways to get back to a better weight, if I should fast more or do OMAD more or just what. My Keto level on maintenance is around 30 grams/day. I’m more Ketovore than plain Keto. Very little “wretched green stuff” (my wife’s favorite expression), veggies are hardly ever anything other than a salad once or twice/week, and broccoli at the same dose. Once a week, I’ll make a tomato sauce.
I’ll consider everything except magic spells.
Hi Hugh,
First of all my congratulations on all your hard work and discipline!! IMO, these are the most important parts of your quest for better health.
I have been on an extremely similar journey as you. I followed a different path as I’m on a pretty strict carnivore diet. But I’m not a dietary zealot and I’m just happy that you are getting towards where you need to be. If what you are doing delivers the desired results, you are doing what is right for you. Keep it up!!!
There are additional of blood tests that I would recommend. I am not a medical professional so, as always, work with one on this. But make sure they use these tests in their practice first. If your clinician does not have any expertise with these then you could be wasting your time and money.
I have been getting the High Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein test (HS-CRP), a full metabolite panel, Vitamin D3 test, Folate and B-12 tests and fasting serum Insulin test.
The HS-CRP and fasting insulin (along with the normal fasting glucose) tests are critical in determining your T2 diabetes risk. the CRP test measures systemic inflammation. The minimum score possible is 0.3 and the "normal: range is something like 1.0 - 3.0 (link). Mine has been in the 0.3 to 0.5 range for at least two years.
The fasting insulin + fasting glucose test values are using in calculating your HOMA-IR score… In general the lower the HOMA-IR value, the better (link).
If you have a relatively high HS-CRP and HOMA-IR scores, you are at risk for several health issues (T2 Diabetes, Cardiovascular disease, Stroke, general metabolic issues, etc).
If your doctor does not understand and/or will not use this stuff, you need to get another doctor. It isn’t easy, it took me over 2 years to find one.
Wishing you great health,
Chuck
Thanks Chuck, I’ll look into those tests.
I’m in the hunt for a doctor right now myself. My doctor that kept an eye on me throughout my weight loss effort was a good doctor but he left and went to a different outfit and it was in his contract he couldn’t tell anybody where he was going.
@kib
Thanks for explaining the ketoacidosis condition.
My blood glucose levels have dropped since my fast. My current 14 day avg is 90 but my past 7 day avg is 84. That’s approximately a 6.6% decrease. So I think I’m ok. (I check my blood glucose 4-5 times per day)
I feel fine and have no symptoms of ketoacidosis after a quick search. I’ll have to take a look but I think the day I started my fast last Tuesday I weighed 170.5 lb. I always weigh myself in the morning after I have a bowel movement which is usually within the first half hour of getting out of bed.
This morning I weighed 165.5. it’s possible some of that is water weight but I’m certain I’m not dehydrated. I’m greatly increased my water consumption with electrolytes as well. And my urine isn’t dark.
My lowest weight during my weight loss journey was 156 iirc. I doubt that I’ll ever see that again because I’m currently focused on increasing my muscle percentage, or at least slow down muscle loss because of my age.
One big plus since I fasted is my leg cramps at night have subsided. Not sure if it’s the ketones of the electrolyte powder I’ve been using since my fast, but I suspect it’s the electrolytes.