So I’m 56 years old, 5’4” and weigh approximately 137 pounds. I just had elective eye surgery which mandated two weeks away from the gym/lifting/mountain biking etc…I decided to use this downtime to change up my eating, keto with an emphasis on fish as my protein and more fat. I thought my diet was keto friendly with a lot of bacon eggs and avocado but I also ate dark chocolate at night and occasionally guacamole and chips from our favorite Mexican restaurant. Maybe a glass or two of wine socially on weekends. I came across The Longevity Diet by Valter Longo where I learned about cell autophagy. So for health reasons (even though there’s nothing wrong with me healthwise) I decided I would do a 48 hour water fast followed by a three day- 24 hour fast. It may not be using the right terms but basically I ate just dinner for three days. I’m not sure if that counts since I still had coffee in the morning each day with a very little bit of my vegan chocolate protein powder for taste which is sweetened with Stevia and a teaspoon of coconut oil x 2 cups. I broke this fast with a super greens shake for two days and I have now completed another 3 of these 3 day 24 hour fasts…9 days with a day break adding in a morning shake ( maybe because of the coffee with the coconut/protein powder I should call it 12/12?). The morning of surgery which could’ve just been from the start of anabiotics and some water weight I weighed 141.6 pounds. Today, 16 days later I am 127.0. The keto Mojo is reading high ketosis. I am definitely smaller everywhere, but I didn’t think to take measurements, but I am wondering how much was water how much is muscle and how much is fat? My scale at home reads 16% body fat and now it’s reading 13.4%. (It’s likely not correct being a home scale, but relative) So I’m happy about the smaller frame and less bulk, no hunger issues, but because this 12/12 program with AM coffee and only dinner is SO EASY, how long is it safe to keep up? I feel like maybe I should add the plant based shake for energy more often…but when? With the coffee or mid day? Do I keep it up this intermittent fasting till hit my goal weight of 123? Every 3 days? Every other day? I definitely noticed I was weaker at the gym, But I’m OK with the trade off of weighing less, I just don’t want to lose too much muscle (I do CrossFit and finished 101st worldwide in their masters online qualifier and I’m a former Spartan obstacle course race age group world champion to at least give you an idea that I’m already very fit). I just don’t want to slow my BMR. From what I’ve read about autophagy and the pathways with AMPK, mTor, and insulin I should be safe but I am wondering if I’m getting too compulsive obsessive with the fasting, maybe losing weight too quickly which could spell disaster later. Just Looking for some reassurances that my energy will return that I’m on the right path. Again I don’t eat sweets I don’t really care about carbs other than the ones I get from complex starches like vegetables and legumes. Thank you for reading in your responses will be greatly appreciated.
Water weight/Muscle vs Fat Loss
It all depends on your caloric and nutritional intake when you do eat between fasts. Ideally it should be around or even a bit higher than your expenditure to rebuild after wasting down dysfunctional cells/tissues during fasting. Fasting and underfeeding is a surefire way to lost muscle and lower BMR
You certainly lost water weight but fat as well. Fasting (longer term) is the quickest way to ketosis and forces your body to become fat adapted pretty quick, otherwise you would die. So I imagine some of that weight was stored fat. How much muscle is difficult to say. I have seen some people do long term fasting with no muscle loss, but muscle does need protein to rebuild and repair and would eventually be canabolized by habitual fasting without refeeding. The awesome thing to me are the studies done that found that intermittent fasting and fasted workouts actually increase human growth hormone. It’s a bit counter intuitive but a study in mice showed that mice who went on a 18-6 IF protocol increased overall muscle mass compared to mice who didn’t, and no the mice weren’t working out haha. I just do IF daily and fasted workouts and it’s worked amazing for me. I think long term fasting is more of a therapeutic exercise with deep ketosis and autophagy, but not necessary for fat burning and keeping lean muscle mass.
This is very helpful so on your workout days you skip breakfast and then eat lunch and dinner and then fast through the following 16 hours? And then on your non-workout days do you eat three meals or two meals plus a snack? I imagine I did lose muscle and I’m probably not eating enough protein. Can of tuna at night plus a little bit in the protein powder in my coffee probably isn’t enough to support these muscles but I was feeling I was getting a little too much protein. My BUN level pre-surgery was high and they say it’s tied to various things including dehydration, HIIT workouts and too much protein in the diet. I’ll apply to me. So maybe I needed to get some of that excess protein out of the way. I had a terrible lower back pain the first day of the fast.
I think I did break down some muscle and it’s easy to get caught up in the fasting and forget the refeeding part. All of me seems proportionally smaller including my quads. There still plenty of definition so I feel that there’s fat loss in there as well.
No not really, the fastest way to fat adaption is a healthy body(not in need of any of the repair at the cellular level), ketones(fat adaption trigger) , and low insulin(allows cells to use fat). You would die if your body did not have GNG the process of ketosis supports that as well but it converts your cells to start using fat which takes some time for anyone who is not readily fat adapted. I will admit that ketones are almost always higher on a fast, for most but without your cellular health or low insulin it can still be a tough ride.
That said diving into a fast without being fat adapted or even keto adapted can be a challenge if not dangerous depending upon your health.
It would really depend more upon if you were ketogenic before you started to fast. If you are that athletic it is not uncommon to store fat in your muscles. So you may have accessed some of that fat(and loss of tone), be mindful at your fat level you only have a couple days of fat under normal circumstances, and if you are athletic even less. The thing is that if you drop your BG too low GNG will kick in, if you don’t have substrate to use it will start to break down you tissue. Ketosis is only so quick, and if you have not been ketogenic long or have a liver that is not a peak production(keto adapted) you need the energy from some where.
So I’ve checked my blood glucose several times and it’s running around 87 midmorning several hours after my coffee but before a meal. I don’t know what the other acronym is GNG, sorry.
Gluconeogenisis the livers process to make blood glucose, if your BG is stable through out the day and your carb intake is lower than 50g but ideally 20g for more than a couple days you will be in ketosis, and have problably depleted gylcogen stores as well.
Thank you. I started tracking my macros and it was running around 30 g of carbs because of the vegetables I was eating (2 cups) but today I got it under 20 g.
personal opinion, but most people who start keto loose some lean body mass, mainly I think that most people don’t allow autophagy to kick in to enough extent ever because we are always eating. My first fast (which was way too soon) I woke up the next morning and urine smelled like swamp water and was all sorts of cool looking. To the best of my knowledge that was the first time I had gone more than 24 hours without eating in more than a decade.
IF(intermittent fasting) which what you were doing, fasting less than 24 hours or eating in a window like 18:6 speeds all those processes up. I lost around 6% give or take in the first month based on subjective numbers using questionable tools. I would say I have seen epidemiology studies more accurate, claiming 56% of statistics are made up.
My point is your body would eventually start using fat to fuel vital organs during a long fast, just theoretically, not saying anyone should jump into a really long fast. Fasting will absolutely get you into ketosis the fastest, just not the smartest approach for long term success and health. Many people fast and enter ketosis who aren’t even on a keto diet
Fasting and keto are not mutually exclusive, but I don’t think anyone who fasts more than 48 hours is not in keto, unless they are really messed up in the metabolism and I would hate to be them.
I skip breakfast everyday and do my workouts fasted, then eat maybe an hr later. HGH will continue to be produced until you break the fast generally. You really don’t need a ton of protein to build muscle in my opinion, of course depending on your size. I just follow the standard 20% protein and that works for me. I usually get 90-110g and I’m 175lbs. It’s worth trying but like anything here, it’s person to person. I feel amazing doing my workouts fasted!
Your muscles will also look smaller even if you don’t lose actual muscle tissue because of all the water you lose initially. I know keto body builders who will eat carbs before shoots and competition to get that full look. I personally like the long, lean muscle tone that comes with losing the water bloat and lowering BF % through keto and IF
I think it looks like everything is going well for you. Being weaker in the gym is totally normal. After your become adapted to keto, some of it will come back. To be honest though, fat isn’t the best fuel for explosive workouts. I found that I am still improving on strength, but when I went keto I couldn’t do as much heavy work for as long before my muscles burn out. Keto isn’t best at everything and glycogen being its stored in the muscle, is just better for explosive movement. I have seen studies that fat adapted athletes can improve endurance but that it had no affect on speed. Burning fat for fuel has tons of benefits but being a better athlete isn’t one of them. On the positive, you won’t be doing the long term damage that sugar burner athletes are sustaining so unless you plan on going pro, it’s a nice trade off😉
I like the leaner look as well! Well the OMAD (in addition to my AM coffee) has been working almost too well. I hit 125.2 today after a 16 hour fast. Well I was eating a ketogenic diet with just fish at night I did decide to re-feed today with bacon eggs and avocado for lunch. I just felt that I was getting a little too lean and now I’m worried about looking a little wrinkly in the face.