I’m rapidly turning into a fasting bore. I get these enthusiasms and tend to learn as much as I can about the subject in hand. Thus far, over three weeks, I’ve fasted for a total of 7 days while eating less than I supposedly require for my BMR in between times. And when I say fasting I mean no solid food at all. There is confusion about this what with restricting calories being called fasting – basically promulgated by diet salesmen to create the illusion that by following a certain diet you are 'fasting', when you're not.
The day before yesterday I went for an 8 mile walk with my girlfriend and felt light and energetic. This should be no surprise because I’ve lost a weight equivalent to 4 to 5 bags of sugar. Carry that weight in a bumbag around your waist and see how you feel. But of course the weight is not all, because the fat is living tissue your heart needs to pump blood around. Fasting is good.
Various people offering their cautions ‘oh my god you’re not eating, you’ll die’ I’ve ignored while learning the realities. I now know that muscle wasting and starvation mode are bullshit, but I’ve talked about that before. The people for whom fasting would be a problem in the UK are those who are struggling to eat. Most don’t. Those with health problems otherwise should be cautious, but it would probably do them good. Type 2 diabetics would certainly benefit from it, since it seems this malady is curable with fasting.
I’ve now confirmed my earlier thoughts on keto sticks: they only tell you that you have one of three ketones in your urine, and only because you are not burning them up. Playing ‘my strip is more purple than yours’ is a mug’s game. They give an indication in the first few weeks while your body is trying to get a handle on what the hell is happening to it and until you become ‘fat adapted’, whereupon you’re burning up the ketones, so they won’t be in your urine.
But fasting doesn’t just shed the pounds. Besides reducing insulin resistance there’s that thing called autophagy. It’s a misty goal people aim for and I’ve now learned more about it. It is your cells chucking out or recycling stuff that isn’t working so well. It is something your body tends to be lax on when you’ve got a gut full of burger and chips. You need to go into ketosis and stay in it for a while for autophagy to get going. Protein, specifically one called leucine, knocks you out of autophagy. And it only takes a little. So if you do 5/2 eating 500 to 600Kcals you can lose weight, but forget about ketosis and autophagy. 5/2 is not fasting, it’s dieting. If you want those you have to eat no protein at all for a couple of days. Or perhaps you can take your calories from a cup of olive oil. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Now, at the end of week four of fasting I’ve run through and averaged my weights over that period. My average from the two weeks before I started was 189.8lbs. After four weeks the average is now 180.4lbs, so 9.4lbs lost. As noted before, I intend to continue this as a lifestyle – foregoing food for two days a week but, once down to a weight I want to maintain, increasing my eating on non-fasting days.
The day before yesterday I went for an 8 mile walk with my girlfriend and felt light and energetic. This should be no surprise because I’ve lost a weight equivalent to 4 to 5 bags of sugar. Carry that weight in a bumbag around your waist and see how you feel. But of course the weight is not all, because the fat is living tissue your heart needs to pump blood around. Fasting is good.
Various people offering their cautions ‘oh my god you’re not eating, you’ll die’ I’ve ignored while learning the realities. I now know that muscle wasting and starvation mode are bullshit, but I’ve talked about that before. The people for whom fasting would be a problem in the UK are those who are struggling to eat. Most don’t. Those with health problems otherwise should be cautious, but it would probably do them good. Type 2 diabetics would certainly benefit from it, since it seems this malady is curable with fasting.
I’ve now confirmed my earlier thoughts on keto sticks: they only tell you that you have one of three ketones in your urine, and only because you are not burning them up. Playing ‘my strip is more purple than yours’ is a mug’s game. They give an indication in the first few weeks while your body is trying to get a handle on what the hell is happening to it and until you become ‘fat adapted’, whereupon you’re burning up the ketones, so they won’t be in your urine.
But fasting doesn’t just shed the pounds. Besides reducing insulin resistance there’s that thing called autophagy. It’s a misty goal people aim for and I’ve now learned more about it. It is your cells chucking out or recycling stuff that isn’t working so well. It is something your body tends to be lax on when you’ve got a gut full of burger and chips. You need to go into ketosis and stay in it for a while for autophagy to get going. Protein, specifically one called leucine, knocks you out of autophagy. And it only takes a little. So if you do 5/2 eating 500 to 600Kcals you can lose weight, but forget about ketosis and autophagy. 5/2 is not fasting, it’s dieting. If you want those you have to eat no protein at all for a couple of days. Or perhaps you can take your calories from a cup of olive oil. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Now, at the end of week four of fasting I’ve run through and averaged my weights over that period. My average from the two weeks before I started was 189.8lbs. After four weeks the average is now 180.4lbs, so 9.4lbs lost. As noted before, I intend to continue this as a lifestyle – foregoing food for two days a week but, once down to a weight I want to maintain, increasing my eating on non-fasting days.
1 comment:
Hi Neal,
Have you noticed any moments of better clarity through fasting?
Paul
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