Fasting day

This topic contains 17 replies, has 5 voices, and was last updated by  bigbooty 7 years, 9 months ago.

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  • Which is more effective, eating the 5-600 calories or nothing at all on the fasting days?

    Hi pj:

    You will get different answers on the question. You will lose a bit more weight eating nothing because you will be cutting an additional 1000 or more calories out of your diet each week. I also believe you will ‘learn’ more about eating and weight maintenance if you water fast on diet days, but everyone has their own opinion on that.

    Here are some tips: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-basics-for-newbies-your-questions-answered/

    Good Luck!

    Thanks,
    I just wondered whether my body would go into ‘Starvation’ mode if I didn’t eat at all for the 24 hrs.

    Hi pj:

    There is no such thing as ‘starvation mode’ – it is a myth. See the FAQ about it, above, or read Dr. M’s take on it here: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/food-thought-fast-day-starvation-mode/

    Good Luck!

    Thanks,
    Actually I’m not concerned with the weight loss as I’m not overweight, more the longer term health benefits re. insulin sensitivity & IGF-1 level.

    Hi again,
    Just for your info. from the 20th April to 24th May my IGF-1 went from 158ng/ml to 126.6ng/ml.
    However my cholesterol went from 7.1mmol/L to 8.1mmol/L over the same time! In addition my INR went from around 2.2 to 1.3. I have had to increase my anticoagulant dose from 4mg/day to 5mg/day to bring it back over 2.

    Regards

    Peter

    On a fasting day, I like to drink buttered coffee with 1 tablespoon of grass fed butter, and 2 tablespoons of MTC oil, all put in a high speed blender. It seems to vaporize hunger pretty rapidly and give me even energy and focus, and makes the fast easy. Because there is no protein in the drink or carbohydrates, it won’t affect blood insulin, but it does make me feel great. In the USA this is called “bulletproof coffee”.

    The lipid profile from grass fed butter is a bit different from ordinary butter from cow factories because grass is the natural food from cows, so it is better for you. And MCTs (medium chain triglycerides) is the preferred energy source for the brain.

    There are skeptics, but if you actually try it, you’ll know right away that it really does work as promised.

    Triglycerides used by the brain? Glucose is the preferred energy substrate. When glucose levels are low triglycerides are converted by the liver into glycerol (and then glucose) and fatty acids. The onset of ketosis. Fatty acids can be used by most cells directly but not the brain. Ketone bodies are produced from fatty acids and this is able to cross the blood brain barrier and be used by the brain as the energy substrate (along with glucose).

    If there is any injury to the brain, it immediately locks it down and switches to MTCs even if there is available glucose. Furthermore, MTCs can pretty dramatically reverse Alzheimer’s disease because for some reason glucose can’t easily get into the brain even though it doesn’t require insulin in in the brain.

    https://youtu.be/_9INyTTXfR0

    sorry MCTs, not MTCs

    My understanding is that the only two substrates that can be utilised by the brain are ketone bodies (BHB) and glucose. Granted ketone bodies are derived from triglycerides by breaking it down into glycerol and fatty acids. The fatty acids are then converted into ketone bodies which can then be used by the brain. This happens prior to crossing the blood brain barrier. In the absence of significant levels of glucose the brain will use a majority of ketone bodies as its energy substrate. Without watching the hour long video how far into the video does the doctor say that MTCs are used by the brain? Does she actually say this? Or does she say MTCs are converted into ketone bodies and then used by the brain?

    You have to treat everything in internet land with a degree of caution as a lot of the information is wrong or partially true. Can you point me to a scientific paper (in a reputable journal) that states triglycerides can be used directly by the brain rather than a youtube clip.

    I agree I read so
    Much stuff on the internet written as fact and being in the medical profession it amazes me !

    bigbooty: you’re right about the ketone bodies, but checking my biochem text, it is also true that the MCTs can bypass some of the systems in order to quickly get into mitochondria of the liver cells quickly to be converted to ketone bodies. It’s like fructose in the sense that it has to go through teh liver, so you would not want to overwhelm your liver, so it’s probably better to consumer it during a short term fast. So they do have to pass through the liver. So this means that those ketone bodies can be supplied quickly since normally you’d need to be in a fasting state for several days to supply enough ketone bodies for the brain to switch over to ketone bodies for fuel.

    But Dr. Attia also made the point that I just learned today that your body does not have the enzymes to store MCTs, so it has to either immediately use it as energy, or discard it.

    Without getting heavy into biochem or physiology though, I just find that it totally kills my appetite for hours and seems to give me an even burn of energy that I never got with sugar/cream coffee, or even black coffee.

    If its working for you it cant be “wrong”. I started my weight loss journey in Feb 2015. I didn’t discovery 5:2 until October of that year. After 2 weeks of doing 5:2 I decided to make my fast days water only. In fact I found it easier to do that counting calories. I used to do 2 consecutive water fast days, so about 60 hours of water fasting. In March I reached my goal weight and since then have been in maintenance mode 6:1 water fast. I like data, its an occupation hazard for me. So I have been monitoring my blood glucose and ketone bodies. Initially it would take the full 60 hours before I was just entering ketosis (about 0.3-0.5 mmol/L). I now flip over into ketosis at the end of 24 hours (about 0.6-0.8mmol). Towards the end when I was still doing 2 consecutive days my ketone levels where about 1.3-2.0mmol at the end of 60 hours. So your liver does get better at ramping up gluconeogenesis and ketone production the longer you have been doing fasts. Which makes sense. The longer you do something the better you get at it.

    I now find fasting ridiculously easy. Im able to do work, ride my bike, don’t get headaches etc., which sort of worries me slightly as I now have to be mindful and eat enough to maintain my weight. Yes Ive read a lot of Peter Attia’s blogs. Comes across as a very genuine person. As does Jason Fung if you have not read/youtubed any of his stuff.

    Yes, I really like your references. I’ve read Dr. Fung’s book, and watched of of his videos, and read a lot of his blog. He really filled in some missing pieces of the puzzle for me. I had regained a lot of weight that I lost 6 years ago because I didn’t fix my insulin receptors, didn’t know about the importance of IF or meal timing. And now I think that diet drinks messed with my brain’s metabolic regulation somehow. If it messed with my appetite more than about 140 calories a day or so, I’d have quickly been in real trouble. So I left those diet drinks behind because I’m not sure of their effect.

    I also read a lot from Peter Attia, and I like his work.

    Butter Bob Briggs on YouTube makes really good videos, since he has applied the work of Dr. Fung to shrink from 300 lbs to very lean, so it’s good to hear it from a practitioner.

    Although I’m not eating any refined carbs or sugar, I haven’t bothered to determine my exact level of carb intake from veggies, or my ketone levels. Maybe that’s the next step?

    I did 8 – 24 hr fasts over 2 weeks, but 24 hours into a fast, I have zero hunger, so I might as well continue. It does get easier because I know someone who only ate once a day for the past 35 years or so. And he never thought of it as any big deal.

    This year though, I was 4 months in on weight loss before I discovered Dr. Fung’s book, so most of my 60 lbs off was done without knowledge of meal timing and IF. I only started it in May, but I got the message loud and clear and now I’m committed to continue doing that long term.

    What Dr. Lustig and Dr. Fung have not made razor clear to me is the relationship between liver insulin resistance and insulin resistance of the rest of the body. So I’m still not clear as to why some people have liver insulin resistance but are not fat.

    With regards to the last question Im not really sure. Don’t know enough about it to comment. With regards eating and weight gain my guess is that different people respond differently to the same foods. I think Peter Attia and his wife are good examples of this. His wife can eat simple carbs and is naturally thin. Peter on the other hand can not have carbs, or at least he has to be very selective with his carbs. They have to be locked up in veggies and salads. So the same foods will illicit different responses in different people.

    I used to be able to tolerate any carb when I was young and be ultra lean, but something happened and poisoned my system, probably sugar overload such that after that I became insulin resistant but it was decades before I understood what had actually happened. Now I’m wondering to what degree I can restore insulin sensitivity, and if I can ever become as I was as a teenager.

    I’m impressed that now my BP is 93/55, which is pretty much the ideal of ideal for someone 60. It only took 5 months to improve it to that from pre-hypertensive. So perhaps insulin receptors can be fully restored with enough intermittent fasting?

    Unless you have a specific medical condition I see no reason why you cant reverse insulin resistance. I know this has been the case for me. My fasting BG (and by inference my insulin levels) are now lower. The other thing that happens with a routine of fasting is that as your body goes through autophagy (autophagy is occurring all the time) the cells that are least adapted to utilising ketones as an energy substrate are killed off first (in an orderly fashion) and when replaced they are replaced by cells that are able to better utilise ketones. This is a natural progression. So with time you become “keto adapted”. I think Attia covers this in one of his blogs. I now find water fasting easy and I think this is one of the reasons why. My cells are able to utilise ketones with ease. My liver is able to process fats with ease. It has taken a full 8-9 months for me to get to this point but Im convinced this is what has happened.

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