My Keto/Fasting journey

I fully understand calories are important. It's extremely frustrating since I meticulously count my calories and weigh my food only to be doubted and called a liar. Can someone tell me where my count went wrong in the meal I posted a few days ago? That is my typical consumption on an OMAD day. When I eat two meals a day add another 300 calories. And I do round up.

I realize the math doesn't work out and it tilts the hell out of me. But all I can do is keep on going and ignore the psychos.

But my main passion right now is fasting and I still have a lot to learn there. But I have dived head first into the rabbithole that is fasting. Started with a few youtubes. Thensone online articles. Now I am reading books and listening to podcasts. I really think fasting may be the missing link (for me anyway). I really like it and it has lots of benefits but like I said I am still learning.

I always thought it was my activity levels and calories burned rather than calorie intake. I can accurately count the calories I eat but not really the calories I burn. I have to think my fitbit greatly overstated it.

I am very active though and moving all time. My numbers from last week which are very typical for me.

This one?
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/85/he...

Yugo,

Prob. I think my main issue is that this is so completely insane. If we take a look at a low effort 10 mile walk for a man of 230ish lbs, we walk away with a 1200ish calorie figure. This is based on how efficient humans are at moving their bodies. The science of this is pretty sound. If we assume something like ~2000 is the supposed maintenance calories being claimed, that would leave ~800ish calories for BMR and other activity.

We could also suppose that he only burns something like 700 calories on his 10 mile walk because OP has evolved to the point where he is as efficient as a bicycle with his walking. Which would then leave us ~1300 calories for everything else.

Even if we steel man his position, it is completely absurd. You can assume he has mechanical efficiency of the gods. Literally as efficient as an engineered piece of equipment to help us travel. And the numbers still don't add up.

This is the same thing that we'll see when we go through a BMR calc. We can start breaking down the segments into organ utilization and we're at a point where he literally would need to shut down his liver for half the day to get the math to math. The thing is that basic biology provides us with a floor for many of these things. You don't magically become the world's most efficient walker by an order of magnitude in a similar way that you suddenly can extract more energy out of meals than they literally provide.

On the flip side, you can certainly expend vastly more calories than expected through NEAT, climate issues, poor calorie absorption, etc.

So yeah, this specific "I'm a special snowflake and secretly an alien" instead of having the same exact problem every single person who claims to count calories and doesn't lose weight is rage inducing. Purportedly most of these people are atleast of average intelligence, but the level of self-reflection in the obese + diet failure community is absurd. They all somehow ignore the massive body of scientific evidence and pretend that they have superhuman abilities despite numerous studies being done showing that when you put people on low cal diets, they lose a lot of weight.

That being said, if I believed this diet was being followed, it would be potentially life threatening. He's on a long term 1000 calories a day unsupervised? lol okay. gl not developing material health issues on that. And this is aside from the insanity of the fasting. Maybe if you were a 40kg elderly asian woman that would be doable.

Hmmm? Looks like psychodouche is still replying? You are on IGNORE dude. Go haunt somebody else. I'm telling MY story and if you don't like it don't read it! I have no interest in arguing with psychos on the internet.

Anyway time for weekly weigh in. UHG!

4/25 221.4
5/2 217.4 (-4)
5/9 216.4 (-1)

One pound? Hey it's progress! But you can shove your calorie math up your ass! I had a fairly active week and fitbit tells me I burned 26,120 calories. I ate 9000. And that is rounding up. Even if I made a mistake (I didn't) and it was 10,000 (it wasn't) I shoulda lost 4+ pounds. Even if I ate 15K (and trust me it was 9000) I shoulda lost more than I did.

For whatever reason I am resistant to losing weight. On the other hand I feel great and my clothes feel better and I am regaining lost belt notches. Just gotta keep moving forward!

Also as I spiral down the fasting rabbithole I am learning more and more. I found out yesterday all of my extensive fasting has been "dirty". Especially my intemittent fasts. My drinking of my morning Diet soda and all of the flavored waters I drank through the day are not the correct way to do it. Water only! Not even the electrolyte flavored water I would sip on all day and night. Every time that sweetness (even zero calorie sweetness) hits your tounge it cause an insulin spike as your body thinks you are eating or ingesting calories. So right now I am on my first "clean" fast since I started fasting back in March. Can only have that stuff in my eating window. Not sure how much it will matter but just maybe next weeks weigh in will improve?

Like I said, this thread was made for you. We should probably just let the man log how he wants to log and if he really wants advice then Guy maybe can handle it in a manner that is...a bit softer.

Good Stuff ITT... since exercise is not an issue for you, have you thought about integrating Interval Training into your regiment?

Have you cut out all alcohol?

Yes. This year I have added more health club visits as well as doing more stuff at home (rowing machine, kettle bells, dumb bells etc.). And 1 to 1.5 hours of my walking each day entails me wearing a 20lb weight vest.

Booze? I have a few pops on Friday but that is it. Never during the week unless I am on vacation. I will be on vacation most of June so that will involve more alcohol. But I am going to stay hard core until my June trips. Then very likely go off the rails for a couple of weeks and then jump right back on the horse.

then it appears that you are replaced fat body weight with more dense muscle body weight.
checking lbs is fine, but it's not an accurate measure of fitness.

My main issue is that it's just garden variety delusion, as opposed to the high tier performance art that was the bearmarkets thread. RIP in peace, sweet prince of tallow.

Yugo,

My tilt is done. I've said my piece. So it goes.

Monte,

Agreed.

Time to finish watching Highschool DxD.

As I delve deeper into fasting literature I am learning more and more. I really wish there were more experienced fasters here to bounce thoughts and ideas off of. There are almost infinite approaches to it, especially once you customize it like I have. The schedule I plan to use this week:

Sat - 2 hour eating window
Sun - One meal
Mon - 2 to 4 hour eating window
Tue - One meal
Wed - 2 to 4 hour eating window
Thur - Fast day
Fri - Up day (feast day)

One of the things it is advised to do is mix it up a little. The past 5 weeks Monday was a fast day. I moved it both to change it up a little and to be followed by Up day. Up day is when you eat normally with no prescribed eating window although I typically still use a window albeit longer. It's recomended to have an up day after a down (fast) day. Except when doing a 72 hour where you ease into eating a little slower.

I say that variance is key to anything... normalizing something makes that thing susceptible to issues with diversity, specially when the body is concerned. the body learns and adapts, and you want to keep diversity and adaptability at the forefront.

its that way with Weight and endurance training and it's just as important in game play/poker.

Just closed my eating window for the day. Tomorrow is my "fast day" this week so I don't plan on eating again until some time on Friday morning. I always get a little apprehensive going into these 24 hour plus fasts but so far they have been real easy.

I think my body is finally really adjusting to keto and I am seeing ketosis levels this week I typically only see from those 24+ hour fasts. Maybe the fact that this is my first week "clean" fasting meaning nothing but water (no zero cal sweeteners) is helping boost my ketosis? Anyway feel great and my body is definitely changing. I can feel it in all of my clothes and I started measuring myself and I am seeing real results there.

The idea of really putting significant effort into helping somebody who does not already regularly go to the gym to lift without me telling them to and cannot mentally bear the thought of preparing chicken breast (or any other protein source) for 1-3 days in advance hurts me in the balls. Same reason someone like me can't teach lower than 10th grade.

I am probably the only other person that fasts regularly on this forum. (because I am old)
I am not an expert at all, so no advice from me. I just watch lots of videos on fasting and
do what works.

I am all into autophagy:, cell regeneration, reduced inflammation, longevity: All benefits of fasting.

It does not matter that much anymore (fasting for wt loss) because if I am 160 or 170,
it is not noticeable (with clothes on) and I am not trying to impress anyone.
If I have my shirt off, my wife would tell me to put a shirt on.

I only post my stuff here to 'kind of' keep myself accountable.
I will generally eat less if I have to post how many calories I ate each day.
From what I believe, my #1 leak is undercounting calories that I eat.
What I post is probably 10% light on calories.
My #2 leak is eating when I am bored. My best defense is going to sleep early.
when I fail a 36h fast it is usually at, 24h mark, 10pm sitting at my computer,
watching brain melting videos trying to relax.

Yes! I'm old too 😀 I started to get interested in fasting for weight loss but now am super excited about all the other benefits. The more I do it and learn about it to more I wonder why everyone doesn't do it. It seems like a magical way to stay healthy. It really has become a way of life for me.

What kind of fasting do you generally do? I am going pretty hard core right now but plan on experimenting with a bunch of different approaches and see what I like best. Right now my favorite would be a 2-4 hour eating window. I have surprised myself at how easily I have adapted to going long stretches of time without eating.

Weekly weigh in

4/25 221.4
5/2 217.4 (-4)
5/9 216.4 (-1)
5/16 215.2 (-1.2)

More progress! But the scale is still depressingly stubborn. Was my first week "clean" fasting which means water only and none of those flavored zero calorie waters. I think the clean fasting helped me stay in higher and longer periods of ketosis as this week my ketosis was higher than ever. Scale didn't seem to care about that though? Actually had an excellent week by eating correctly and lots of activity. Will post my numbers Sunday when fitbits week ends.

On the plus side I started measuring myself last week and I took an inch off of my waist and .5 inch off of my thigh. All of my clothes feel/fit better and I feel great so my body is definitely changing for the better. I just have to keep trudging forward and doing the right things and eventually the scale will catch up.

Next week I am gonna mix it up again and try the aggressive 4:3 method of fasting. This means you eat normal for 4 days and fast for 3 (seperate) days. I think I like time restricted eating better but who knows? Maybe I will enjoy this method and get better/different results. I am still in the learning and experimentation phase of this journey. I started keto last August and didn't really start doing it right until February. I started fasting in March and this week was my first week of "clean" fasting. So in a way this was my first week. On the 4:3 I plan to have Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday as my fasting days. There are 2 ways to approach the fasting days. Pure fast (how I plan to do it) or modified which means you can eat one <500 calorie meal. I honestly think a pure fast is easier. Eating one small meal would only want to make me eat more.

Anyway I'll let you know how it all goes next week. I may adjust the plan on the fly if I need to.

mf,

Last I checked all of those had nothing to do with fasting and everything to do with reduced caloric consumption. The research in the area is minimal but I'm not aware of an isocaloric controlled study suggesting anything remotely in that direction.

I did IF for over a decade. It was just my preferred way of eating. And I still do it most days. My last meal was 16 hrs ago and I won't eat for a couple more. (Normally did 18/6 or 20/4) Just what came naturally to me. But there is a lot of nonsense in the space which almost always boil down to: eating less. Alan Aragon has published research on this and is an expert in the space. Check out his research or interviews or whatever you prefer.

I also fast regularly. For me it had nothing to do with weight loss. It was more about health/autophagy/reducing inflammation and it also was a better fit with my lifestyle. What I do now (and it's been about 4 years so far), is one meal a day (usually a one hour timeframe of eating), and I skip one day of eating per week. So, I'm eating 6 meals per week, and basically doing a 23 hour fast each day, and once a week I do a 47 hour fast. Then, maybe once a month or so, I'll usually mix in a 71 hour fast (and have also done one or two 95 hour fasts as well). I'm also far from an expert. I just try to listen to my body and do what feels best for me.

My fasting is irregular. I try to do it once per week, but anything can throw it off. My fasts are just water/coffee and usually 36-40h. ie. Start on Thursday evening at say 10pm and eat no solids on Friday, just water and coffee. I eat on Saturday at 10am, or as late as 2pm. I usually only fast longer once per year at easter OR if anyone in my fasting whatsapp group is trying to fast longer.

My blog is currently just walking and photos of my lunches. Once in a while I throw in whatever interesting is going on.

That sounds pretty close to what I am trying to do right now. And although I started doing it mostly for weight loss I am getting very excited about all of the other potential health benefits like autophagy and longevity. I never realized how easy it is to postpone eating until I actually trained myself to do it.

Just wondering, outside of your weekly 36-40ish hour fast are you using an IF eating window on the other days? Are those lunches your only meals on those other days?

Last week's numbers. Once again they don't make much sense to me. I was very controlled in my eating and my activity was above average. I have to believe that fitbit greatly overstated my calorie burn.

Weekly weigh in

4/25 221.4
5/2 217.4 (-4)
5/9 216.4 (-1)
5/16 215.2 (-1.2)
5/23 213.6 (-1.6)

More progress! I am resigned to the fact that the scale is gonna move a lot slower than I would like. My measurements were again very positive taking one more inch off of my waist. So my body is changing for the positive.

The 4:3 fast this week went very smoothly and turned out being a lot easier than I was expecting with 3 40+ hour fasts in the same week. I am really happy at how well I seem to be adapting to a fasting lifestyle. And this was only my second week of clean fasting so my body is still adapting to that as well. Clean fasts are very important to keep insulin levels from constantly spiking.

This week I am gonna change things up again so my body doesn't get into a rut. This week I just plan to do OMAD (one meal per day) with no extended fast. But then the following week I plan to do my monthly 72 hour fast which would be my third 72. Gonna try to do one of those at the beginning of each month.