LONGECITY

I decided to post my fasting log for those who is interested in observing a 10 day water-only fast. The theme is repair and renew. I welcome your questions

Height 173 cm, initial weight 62.6 kg -- 5'8" 138 lbs -- BMI 21

This is a bit higher than my norm. I fattened myself up, because I planned to do a 3-week fast and wanted to make sure that I had enough resources. But now I am not certain if I last that long. I will see when 10 days are up.

Today is DAY 2

weight 136 lbs (-2)
BG 82 mg/dL = 4.56 mmol/L,

So far nothing interesting to report. I feel fine. Did not go out and did not exercise. Tomorrow is supposed to be the first ketosis day. That's when real fun begins.

Excellent! Good luck! I'm interested in your report.

Good luck. I'd like to try this myself but worried that I would lose too much weight.

Wow 10 days! You are braver than I am. at my body weight I need a feast over fast anyway

where does 10 days come from? why not 100 days? why not 1,000 days ? all the intermittent fast studies ive seen are only ~2 days.

Thanks for reporting about your fast. I have been considering a little fasting, not only for the known benefits, but it fits in well with the evolved paleo lifestyle. I am worried I will not be able to function too well at work though. Lack of food can give me periodic headaches.

Very interesting!
Will you ingest nothing other than water? (no supplemental vitamins, minerals, amino acids etc.)
Please report on your mood aswell.
I'm interested in fasting, as most research encourages intermittent fasts, but if people report feeling anywhere near "utterly miserable and misanthropic" I'll stay far away from it.

Will you exercise meanwhile? If so, what kind? Seeing as strenuous exercise could be extremely detrimental and induce a lot of catabolism.
Edited by chung_pao, 04 March 2013 - 07:48 PM.

glglgl

Curious to know how often you do a lengthy fast like this? Personally I've started doing 24 hours once every 2 weeks and was planning to go for a longer one like once a year.

If you drink nothing but water for ten days, wouldn't you risk getting too low on electrolytes? Seems like you'd want to get a little na/k/mg/ca with that water.

Wow I did not expect such enthusiasm about my little fast This is encouraging.

First my report for the day and then I will answer your questions.

DAY 3
8:00 Weight 134 lbs (-2, -4), BG 85 mg/dL = 4.72 mmol/L (-?! I know)

16:00 BG 79 = 4.38

did not go for a walk and did not exercise.

Ketosis was postponed till tomorrow (I hope). This is very strange and I don't know what this means. I suspect c60oo may have something to do with it. On my very recent 4 day fast the same thing happened; I did not get into ketosis until the morning of the 4th day. But it has always been on the 3rd. Maybe this is due to high cortisol -? I did drank black coffee in the morning. in theory, this stimulates adrenals which can rise BG. This is very strange and is not normal.

So, the take home message for people interested in the process is that we go into ketosis once liver glycogen dips low enough, and this depends on the glycogen stores at the onset of the fast. For a normal person, liver glycogen lasts a day or two. For me, it has always been ~48 h from the last meal.


Now your questions.

@niner re electrolytes, you're absolutely right. That's why I add some salts to my water and which they are depends on what I crave at the moment. In the last 3 days I was drinking plain boiled water from our well with ~0.5g of MgCl2 per ~300mL. I love the taste. Later on, I will add sea salt or maybe even KCl, but that would be way later. I also have an extensive collection of various mineral waters which I keep for the second week of the fast. I generally go by what tastes good.


@Nootropic Cat: I often fast 1-4 and rarely even 5 days, but longer than a week no more than twice a year.


@chung_pao: In the first couple of days I still take some vitamins and drink black coffee in the morning. Once I start fasting, I usually exercise more, but I felt lazy in the last couple of days and it's very windy out, which I dislike. Once ketosis starts, I start seriously craving oxygen and cold, which gets me out and running at least couple times a day. Moderate exercise is very beneficial during a fast. For example, on the 4th day of my previous fast, I felt weak with BG 49 (=2.7), so I went out for a brisk walk and returned an hour later energized, with BG 61 (=3.38), which confirmed my subjective impression that phys. activity during a fast feels like a meal. I would not say that I loose much muscle.

Actually, lack of phys. activity will get one to loose muscle even while eating (look up studies about prolonged bed rest). So, lying around while fasting is definitely detrimental in this regard.


@Mind: they key is habituating yourself to fasting gradually, but consistently, say, 24h fast once a week, which you may start with 16h and gradually extend to 36h.


@prophets: why 10 days? Well, I wanted 21 but will settle for 10. Will see.

It takes 2-3 weeks just to arrive to a new point of homeostasis (according to the studies, the average is 17 days). Here is the breakdown: the first 2 days go for depleting liver glycogen; then ~7 days to get to intermediate state of ketosis, where your brain starts getting about 1/3 of its energy from ketones. Then another week to deepen the ketosis, when the brain starts getting 2/3 of its energy from ketones. After that, according to the studies, the level of ketones, glucose and other parameters stays even for the duration of the fast. All the magic of fasting happens then. I have not been there yet and would like to experience it.

It's getting long. Thank you all for your support and interest. I hope you will find my experience useful.

@prophets: why 10 days? Well, I wanted 21 but will settle for 10. Will see.

It takes 2-3 weeks just to arrive to a new point of homeostasis (according to the studies, the average is 17 days). Here is the breakdown: the first 2 days go for depleting liver glycogen; then ~7 days to get to intermediate state of ketosis, where your brain starts getting about 1/3 of its energy from ketones. Then another week to deepen the ketosis, when the brain starts getting 2/3 of its energy from ketones. After that, according to the studies, the level of ketones, glucose and other parameters stays even for the duration of the fast. All the magic of fasting happens then. I have not been there yet and would like to experience it.

I guess I fail to see the logic of of completely fasting beyond a couple days. Why only water? If you want to enter a state of ketosis why do it purely through starvation? Why not just fast for a couple days but then maintain some basic level of nutrient intake therafter? You can still be protein and carb restricted. Just do a ketogenic diet.
Edited by prophets, 05 March 2013 - 01:21 AM.

I guess I fail to see the logic of of completely fasting beyond a couple days. Why only water? If you want to enter a state of ketosis why do it purely through starvation? Why not just fast for a couple days but then maintain some basic level of nutrient intake therafter? You can still be protein and carb restricted. Just do a ketogenic diet.

This is because you base your idea about fasting and what it does entirely on rodent studies. I wrote about the differences between rodent and human metabolism and am tired of repeating the same thing. The bottom line is that CR rodents actually fasts in between feedings.

It is true that ketogenic diet was invented to allow epileptic children to maintain the basic metabolism of a fast indefinitely. But there are substantial differences between a fast and even the most stringent ketogenic diet. For example, the level of ketosis is 5-7 mmol/L at ~2 weeks fast, while on a ketogenic diet, 3 mmol/L is considered a lot, and, if I remember correctly, Atkins dieters rarely go beyond 2 mmol/L. The other example is insulin; it rises after meals on a ketogenic diet. Etc, etc.

The other thing is, people loose weight or maybe feel better on a ketogenic diet, but I don't recall anyone bragging that they rejuvenated on it or cured a chronic condition. Fasting does that. I do not know a better method of maintaining good health and staying young.

I recall there was a woman on youtube who fasted 40 days several times (!! I know). Seeing those videos is very instructive. She looks horrible towards the end of her fasts. But couple of years later, after she recovered, she looks simply stunning, young, with glowing skin and pregnant (I'm not sure, she fasted because she could not conceive -?). In the end she looks 10-15 years younger than when she started.

This is because you base your idea about fasting and what it does entirely on rodent studies. I wrote about the differences between rodent and human metabolism and am tired of repeating the same thing. The bottom line is that CR rodents actually fasts in between feedings.

Not really, it's based on human studies. Had a conference call w/ a scientist @ NIH a couple weeks ago. He advocated this diet routine as the best method of repair/renewal. Said it had the best clinical evidence in terms of insulin sensitivity, amyloid clearance, and all biomarkers they examined vs. EOF (every other day feeding) and constant CR. I also asked him the same question - why not 1 day, why not 5 days, why not 3 days? etc. Said two days is what they have the best data on and this is his life's work (studying hormesis and eating patterns).

Sympathetic to your desire to not rewrite something. I just wrote a lengthy response and my browser crashed (not rewriting it all) -- can you give me a link on this rodent vs. human metabolism discussion? Not really surprising to me that rodents enter fasting inbetween feeding. But I don't see how that equates to 10 days.

Not aware of any clinical data that says 10 days is a good idea. Humans are built for periods of stress and recovery. 10 days of zero calorie intake, is not what humans are designed for really. Think just eating leafy green vegetables or something minimal during periods of stress/fasting is a far more intelligent approach to the issue. At a certain point you are not stressing your body in a positive manner, you are over doing it and causing permanent organ damage.

I recall there was a woman on youtube who fasted 40 days several times (!! I know). Seeing those videos is very instructive. She looks horrible towards the end of her fasts. But couple of years later, after she recovered, she looks simply stunning, young, with glowing skin and pregnant (I'm not sure, she fasted because she could not conceive -?). In the end she looks 10-15 years younger than when she started.

Buyer beware. Lot of the crap on youtube is simply that. Crap. Wouldn't believe anything there unless it is backed up by science. Some random person doing something on youtube should not be the genesis of intelligent eating decisions. Otherwise I'd probably be like these two.
Edited by prophets, 05 March 2013 - 06:45 AM.

... Had a conference call w/ a scientist @ NIH a couple weeks ago. He advocated this diet routine as the best method of repair/renewal.

This diet was popularized by a documentary discussed now on a neighboring CR thread. To my knowledge, there is not much info on this method other than studies of obese people, who invariably improve all their health parameters following whatever method of weight loss. As for the prolonged fasting among healthy people of normal weight, there is nothing. But, as the article you linked above reminds, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

A prolonged fast is very different from any form of 'fasting' that actually includes daily eating. Take these two examples not achievable on an intermittent fast:

1. having done a 2-3 week long fast, one can skip a trip to a dental hygienist -- Towards the end of the second week, the translucent calculi that may be formed on front teeth are cleared, and heavier buildup on molars takes another week. The calculi simply come off in sheets and teeth become sparkling white without scaling or harsh chemicals.

2. older fasters claim that 'age spots' fade away -- The proposed mechanism: lipofuscin is dissolved by acetone, one of the ketones, filtered from the blood by the liver and cleared from the body with the infamous 'black bile'.

Sympathetic to your desire to not rewrite something. I just wrote a lengthy response and my browser crashed (not rewriting it all) -- can you give me a link on this rodent vs. human metabolism discussion? Not really surprising to me that rodents enter fasting inbetween feeding. But I don't see how that equates to 10 days

Sure, first is this paper: Caloric restriction in C57BL/6J mice mimics therapeutic fasting in humans

And this thread http://www.longecity...on-incorrectly/

At a certain point you are not stressing your body in a positive manner, you are over doing it and causing permanent organ damage.

Surely, fasting is a powerful method that must be approached with care, but this statement is just a reflection of fear of something one does not know much about. But I assure you, fasting is learnable . It's not a rocket science, even though there is much to know. It involves more than just not eating for a stretch.
Edited by xEva, 05 March 2013 - 08:56 PM.

Day 3 update: I transitioned to ketosis about 8 PM last night. Usually I sleep through it, so this was the first time in a while that I had a chance to observe it. My heart rate went up and a strong pulse ensued in the abdomen. Then my breathing changed to deep and thorough exhales. I caught the fruity smell of acetone in my breath and felt the familiar sour taste in the mouth. Then there was hot flash and I felt nauseous. At this point some people throw up, which is a common side effect to glucagon. I opened the windows, but it was not enough and I went out on the balcony to cool off. Soon the nausea subsided and I felt very restless. Since we live in the woods with nowhere to go after dark, I washed the floors.

Slept with opened window ~13C. Woke up feeling euphoric and light in the whole body.

DAY 4

9:00 weight 132 lbs (-2, -6), BG 80 = 4.4, ketones 40

That BG is unusually high for me at this point in the fast. It's worrisome but the good thing about it that there was no weakness. Went for a walk (~ 5 miles) in the middle of the day. Returning uphill was tough and when I got up after a short rest, I felt lightheaded. This was the clue to start adding salt to my water.

Came home and was not up to doing much for the rest of the day.

16:00 BG 69 = 3.83, ketones ~60.

Now the hypomania that I often experience in the beginning of the fast subsided and I feel calm with a tint of indifference. Have difficulty concentrating and keep hitting wrong keys. This will pass.

2. older fasters claim that 'age spots' fade away -- The proposed mechanism: lipofuscin is dissolved by acetone, one of the ketones, filtered from the blood by the liver and cleared from the body with the infamous 'black bile'.

If age spots do fade away from fasting, I doubt very much that this is the mechanism. If your body had a high enough acetone concentration to act as a decent solvent, you'd be dead. There must be something else going on.

2. older fasters claim that 'age spots' fade away -- The proposed mechanism: lipofuscin is dissolved by acetone, one of the ketones, filtered from the blood by the liver and cleared from the body with the infamous 'black bile'.

If age spots do fade away from fasting, I doubt very much that this is the mechanism. If your body had a high enough acetone concentration to act as a decent solvent, you'd be dead. There must be something else going on.

Spoken like a true chemist. What mechanism do you propose?

The fact is that the body has high ketone concentration during the fast and at those levels they have high penetration into various tissues and cells themselves. The other fact is that 'black bile' is produced during the fast, on and off, and many fasters report a correlation between releasing this bile, feeling awful in the process, then much better, following which many report acquiring a 'peach complexion'.

Why do you think that acetone is toxic? A recently discovered pathway uses it to make glucose. Acetone is a friend, like the rest of them ketones

Acetone is your pal until you get a high enough concentration to dissolve gunk. Then it's not so friendly. I don't have a mechanism, but it's not likely to be based on a simple physical phenomenon. It's probably going to be something a lot more sophisticated, assuming it happens as is claimed. Maybe cells with a lot of lipofuscin are being preferentially killed. Kind of like hyper-autophagy...

Acetone is your pal until you get a high enough concentration to dissolve gunk. Then it's not so friendly. I don't have a mechanism, but it's not likely to be based on a simple physical phenomenon. It's probably going to be something a lot more sophisticated, assuming it happens as is claimed. Maybe cells with a lot of lipofuscin are being preferentially killed. Kind of like hyper-autophagy...

Hmm I was about to relinquish this idea, but this swayed me back on track.

So it is not acetone but the gunk it dissolves which is unfriendly, right? If so, 'clinical observations' confirm my original idea. Here is why.

When the gunk gets dissolved and starts floating around, fasters have all symptoms of toxicity. Regarding these symptoms, one very important rule of fasting applies. It is: Do not break the fast on a bad note but wait out for an improvement in condition and only then break the fast.

The idea is that while the gunk is floating around awaiting its clearance by the liver and kidneys, eating at this point will turn the tide and send it back into the cells.

DAY 5

9:00 weight 130 lbs (-2, -8), BG 58 = 3.2, ketones 80

Slept well. Was a bit slow and spaced out in the morning but picked up the pace later on.

Went for a jog in the afternoon (~2 miles) but was slow going uphill and the seeper was the hill, the slower I crawled, gasping for oxygen. Exhaling deeply and thoroughly helped getting more O2 on the following inhale.

Now I am awaiting for what Russians call with the French word crise. It happens around 7th-10th day and marks the moment when the brain switches to getting 30% of its energy from ketones. The dynamics of the process are the following:

The liver continues to produce ketones at a constant rate throughout the fast. In the meantime, peripheral muscles begin to feed exclusively on FFAs, ignoring both glucose and ketones. This allows the level of ketones in plasma to rise steadily. When it reaches ~3 mmol/L, they easily penetrate into the brain. While this is happening, the plasma pH keeps on dropping, making the fasters miserable in reverse proportion to their body's buffering capacity. Besides the carbonate ion, O2 in erythrocytes happens to be the best buffer for falling pH, making one even hungrier for oxygen.

As the days pass, this drop in the plasma pH crescendos making the faster feel more and more miserable, until, finally, the switch happens. Within half an hour it is as if the sky clears and fine weather ensues. Passage through this metabolic hump is called the crise.

The healthy, metabolically fit people hardly feel the crise but still can judge that they are past this hurdle by monitoring their daily weight loss. It suddenly drops in half, which reflect the fact that less protein is needed to be catabolized to make glucose for the brain.

Subjectively, at this point, most people feel very well. They are not hungry and are full of energy, both mental and physical, and feel fully rested after only 4-5h of sleep. Most very much enjoy this week and the freedom it brings from the need to eat and associated hustles. ..until the next crise..
Edited by xEva, 07 March 2013 - 02:19 AM.

Acetone is your pal until you get a high enough concentration to dissolve gunk. Then it's not so friendly. I don't have a mechanism, but it's not likely to be based on a simple physical phenomenon. It's probably going to be something a lot more sophisticated, assuming it happens as is claimed. Maybe cells with a lot of lipofuscin are being preferentially killed. Kind of like hyper-autophagy...

Hmm I was about to relinquish this idea, but this swayed me back on track.

So it is not acetone but the gunk it dissolves which is unfriendly, right? If so, 'clinical observations' confirm my original idea. Here is why.

When the gunk gets dissolved and starts floating around, fasters have all symptoms of toxicity. Regarding these symptoms, one very important rule of fasting applies. It is: Do not break the fast on a bad note but wait out for an improvement in condition and only then break the fast.

The idea is that while the gunk is floating around awaiting its clearance by the liver and kidneys, eating at this point will turn the tide and send it back into the cells.

Well, that's not really what I meant. I wasn't being very clear. The concentration of acetone in the plasma is only a few millimolar. That's not high enough to dissolve anything that wouldn't already dissolve in water. If the acetone concentration WERE high enough to dissolve gunk, then it would be high enough to kill you. So I really don't think that lipofuscin is being dissolved. If cells that contained a lot of lipofuscin were preferentially killed, perhaps that would lead to some symptoms of toxicity, although there are probably a lot of other ways that could happen. If you did manage to break loose some lipofuscin, I suppose that macrophages might consume it, which would lead to a macrophage with lipofuscin stuck in it. Is it possible that free lipofuscin could make its way to the bile and get out through the GI tract? I don't know. Maybe.

Thank you niner! The other point against acetone in this is that the 'black bile' looks very much like meconium (newborn's first poop) which starts forming during the second trimester of gestation. To my knowledge, the fetus is not in ketosis (until right after birth), so acetone should not play role in it.

But lipofuscin does form even in a fetus. The old wiki article on meconium, which I researched because of its uncanny similarity with 'black bile', the existence of which the official medicine denies, cited some papers about copper and lipofuscin -- which was later removed, perhaps because it was still controversial. But I had a hunch that it was right on the money.

The official take on meconium is that it consists of "materials ingested during the time the infant spends in the uterus: intestinal epithelial cells, mucus, amniotic fluid, bile, and water". But this is an old theory which has not been proven. I think that, at least in part, it is the result of metabolic processes that involve remodeling and apoptosis, similar to what goes on during a fast => thus the similarity in the output.

The thing is, having read everything available on the net in English and Russian about fasting, I have not seen even one paper ever mentioning what goes on during the fast in the human intestinal tract (except some early Russian research, which is not accessible directly but only from second hands, due to the lack of Russian equivalent of pubmed). I don't know why Americans, who studied fasting in such a detail as far as plasma and urine constituents were concerned, never looked into what is being dumped into the intestinal tract. Perhaps they considered it an unpleasant subject? But they were doctors, for godssake. That the official medicine still denies the existence of 'black bile' shows how little we still know and understand about fasting. ..but it's getting late..

I think I have too active of a lifestyle for a 10 day or longer fast. I am already thin. I would have to take vacation or I wouldn't have to think or move too much. Also, as an older person, I wouldn't want to stress my body to the point where I was losing kg's of muscle, organs, and bone. From what I have read, the regenerative capabilities of the body decline with age (I think this is indisputable science at this point). I would be worried that I would be more frail after the fast and I wouldn't be able to regain/rebuild critical parts of my body. Also, I am skeptical of the oft-described super regenerative abilities of extreme fasting. If it was so super, then I would tend to think more people of the world would be doing it and living to 100, 200, 300. I mean, if a long fast regenerated the body completely, we would never age. People would have discovered this thousands of years ago, right?

Don't get me wrong, I know that some fasting is beneficial and I would like to get it into my routine, but extreme fasting as a method of life extension seems a little risky.
Edited by Mind, 07 March 2013 - 06:21 PM.

Mind, most Russians fast while maintaining their regular schedules and women continue to cook for their families (yes Russian families are more traditional than in the US). The key is to start gradually, from 24-36h a week and then do longer fasts once in a while. Fasting is easier when you're busy with routine work. It's hard when you sit home doing nothing, conserving your energy. Then thoughts about food become overwhelming.

Regarding your age, I though that you were in your 40s. That's generally the time when people start fasting with the goal of improving their health. Fasting can cure many chronic conditions.

The fasting method I follow was developed in Russia by a psychiatrist Dr Yuri Nikolayev, who worked at the Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry in the 1970s. He started by fasting mental patients and in the process it was noticed that many of their concurrent health issues were also cured or improved. This led to the development of a larger fasting ward where with time, over the years, the MDs perfected the method and treated reportedly ~10,000 people with a variety of ailments.

I got interested in fasting when I saw a documentary about this fasting clinic. It was very impressive. Nowadays the work started by Dr. Nikolayev continues in several fasting clinics throughout Russia where trained MDs employ his method to threat many incurable chronic diseases like, say, sarcoidosis.

So, fasting rejuvenates because it rids the body of various ailments. I understand that for a person who has not had a chance to study the subject it is very unclear and maybe even incomprehensible how not eating for a stretch can cure anything. Later on, I am planning to do a write up on what I learned about this.


Now, regarding your fear that you will be emaciated after a fast, you're absolutely right. And the longer the fast the more you'll be emaciated. That's a given. That's why the method developed by Nikolayev is called.. ..it's not easily translatable, but it includes 2 terms with the basic meaning 'fasting and refeeding'. Fasting itself is only a half of the method, and I must say that it is the easiest half. The other half is careful habituation to your regular (or a new) diet, whatever it may be. According to the method, this refeeding phase should last at least as long as the fast itself, better longer.

Your fear that you will loose kgs of muscle, organs and bone on a 10 day fast is unjustified. You will loose fat and a bit of muscle. The liver will become a bit smaller -- and healthier. That's about it. Bodybuilders who fasts report that after the fast they regrow lost muscle with ease. Maintaining your workout routine at 1/2 to 3/4 intensity makes fasting easier and preserves muscle mass.

On the Russian fasting forum that I frequent (golodanie.su) there are 3 very prominent regulars who make a good example. All are men, one in his late 40s, one in mid 50s, and the other in late 60s. They fast regularly and long (3 weeks for them is a short fast). They look very good for their age and are in great shape.

The older man, a professor of material science in Irkutsk university, alternates his fasting days between several miles long runs and pumping iron in the gym. He started both fasting and exercising ~7 years ago, because he realized that unless he did something about his health, his future seemed bleak. He started with 10 min runs and gradually extended them by 5 min increments per month. He was similarly cautious building up his fasting routine.

The man in his 50s, started fasting in his 40s, because he was very sick, almost an invalid, with a bouquet of severe health conditions. His method also consisted of physical activity, fasts and careful diet. Now he is healthy, very active and looks good.

The man in his late 40s fasts mostly for vanity and fitness. He had no serious health issues. He too is a bodybuilder.

Now, will they live to 200? I am not sure they will live to a 100. Fasting gives them fitness and health.

However, these examples do not mean that fasting is for everyone. I believe there is a reason why we're drawn to certain things, while others leave us indifferent. If fasting interests you, it may be good for you. If not, then maybe not. Trust your instinct
Edited by xEva, 08 March 2013 - 04:09 AM.

DAY 6

8:00 Wt 128 (-2, -10), BG did not measure, ketones 80+

Woke up feeling fantastic, strong and clearheaded, which changed in the middle of the day to mental fog and nasty mood. Feel pressure building up in the liver. Vision is down.

Great stuff, xEva! I'm enjoying your writing and supporting your fast. I, too, have an interest in fasting, and some experience. My longest was a ten-day like you're doing now. Last year I fasted a total of 87 days -- mostly a few days a week, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter depending on how I felt. It is a wonderful, powerful, transformative practice. This year I've fasted much less than previous years because I've intensified a vigorous yoga practice, and I'm feeling pretty strong and good right now. I need fuel. I'll resume a fasting practice when the time's right again, and I feel like you're exactly right on in your comments about following your own internal motivations and curiosities.

I wish a thousand happy thoughts and blessings, and a continued success to you and your fast!

Are you on a complete fast or do you keep your supplements? Planned on fasting for some time. You kind of motivated me, and I'm on day 4 now, but don't plan to do much longer.
Curcumin and Res are supposed to promote autophagy. I normally take creatine and continued to do so, it helped me with the weakness.

Thanks for documenting this. You've inspired me. I have three consecutive days off next week. I'm going to fast durring them as my job is quite physical. I already eat a ketogenic diet and I've been measuring blood ketones. They are always .4 mmol in the morning and go up to ~2 in the evening, after my meal (whether I've worked or not). I have three test strips left so I will use those durring the fast. I'm curious to see how high they'll go. I'll measure my urine ketones as well.


My urine ketone results went to trace levels long ago so I stopped measuring. Urine strips measure acetoacetate while blood ketones measure Beta-hydroxybutyrate. Two things happen when you're in ketosis long term. The kidneys lessen excretion of them while the muscle cells start converting acetoacetate into beta-hydroxybutyrate. The book The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living, explains this:

As noted in Chapter 1, nutritional ketosis is defined by serum ketones ranging from 0.5 up to 5 mM, depending on the amounts of dietary carbohydrate and protein consumed. In most people, the combined intake of 100 grams of carbohydrate and 100 grams of protein will drive serum ketones well below 0.5 mM. While there is nothing magical about having circulating ketones above this threshold level, it does have the practical value of providing the brain with a virtually limitless, fat-derived fuel source. This alternative fuel is eminently more sustainable, particularly in the insulin resistant or carbohydrate intolerant individual.

Within a few days of starting on carbohydrate restriction, most people begin excreting ketones in their urine. This occurs before serum ketones have risen to their stable adapted level because un-adapted renal tubules actively secrete beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate into the urine. This is the same pathway that clears other organic acids like uric acid, vitamin C, and penicillin from the serum.

Meanwhile, the body is undergoing a complex set of adaptations in ketone metabolism[99]. Beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate are made in the liver in about equal proportions, and both are initially promptly oxidized by muscle. But over a matter of weeks, the muscles stop using these ketones for fuel. Instead, muscle cells take up acetoacetate, reduce it to beta-hydroxybutyrate, and return it back into the circulation. Thus after a few weeks, the predominant form in the circulation is beta-hydroxybutyrate, which also happens to be the ketone preferred by brain cells (as an aside, the strips that test for ketones in the urine detect the presence of acetoacetate, not beta-hydroxybutyrate). The result of this process of keto-adaptation is an elegantly choreographed shuttle of fuel from fat cells to liver to muscle to brain.

In the kidney, this process of keto-adaptation is also complex. Over time, urine ketone excretion drops off, perhaps to conserve a valuable energy substrate (although urine ketone excretion never amounts to very many wasted calories). This decline in urine ketones happens over the same time-course that renal uric acid clearance returns to normal (discussed below) and thus may represent an adaptation in kidney organic acid metabolism in response to sustained carbohydrate restriction.

Granted, it's in the context of a ketogenic diet and not fasting but you are still spilling high levels of acetoacetate in your urine which would indicate that at least your kidneys and muscle cells have not adapted to ketosis.
Edited by Chupo, 09 March 2013 - 03:45 AM.

sthira, thank you very much for your encouragement and support. I wish more people shared their experience with fasting so that we could learn from each other.


okok, I take supplements going into the fast and also the first few days before I transition to ketosis. I take resveratrol starting a day or two before the fast and also first two days. I do not take it otherwise. From my experience it appears to help me breaking into a fast. Going into a fast I also take ALCAR, often but not always methylen blue, PQQ, enzymes and various vitamins -- whatever pops into my eyes. I never take anything regularly. I often take B complex and C and the rest I take if I think that I need it. This time, on the first day, I also took a swig of c60oo.

Once I transition to ketosis, I take only activated charcoal and later on a tiny dose of B complex. I started taking B complex yesterday (day 6). I think I should have taken it earlier. I am planning to continue taking Bs and also electrolytes, which I take in the form of various mineral waters. I vary them as I go, according to what tastes right at the moment.

Activated charcoal allows me to cut corners and cheat on the Nikolayev method. I learned the trick last year from some advanced Russian fasters. They take Enterosgel, which is a Ukranian-made silica-based adsorbent, not available in the US.

Taking an adsorbent allows one to skip daily enemas, which every faster is always on a lookout to find an excuse not to do, lol. Enemas are an integral part of the Nikolayev method (in fact, the method calls for 2 a day, AM and PM). The thing is, lotsa bile is released at the onset of ketosis, and much of it is toxic (this is regular, not 'black bile' which appears later into the fast). Taking an adsorbent or charcoal, like I do, makes a huge difference. Otherwise, without enemas, the toxic stuff collects in the transverse colon and, with time, begins to be re-absorbed into plasma with water that you drink. First it gives you a nasty headache and fatigue, darkens the urine, and then proceeds into rapid heartbeat and finally, worst of all, inability to sleep. The enema (or colonic) provides a prompt cure to all this. But! an adsorbent prevents toxins from getting into the bloodstream in the first place


Chupo, I just saw your post. What brand of keto meter do you use? I played with one 2 years ago and it was not very reliable, but it was the cheapest that I could find. At 3 bucks a pop I could afford it during one fast only. How much is yours per strip?

Playing with the keto meter, I found that my level of ketones pretty much followed what Owen and Cahill reported back in 1970s. My beta-hydroxybutyrate went to 3 mmol/L at about day 4 and shoot to 5-6 mmol/L in the second week (I fasted for 12 days then). But I found that the rise of aceto-acetate in urine followed beta-hydroxybutyrate in plasma pretty closely. The studies say that the level of ketones in urine reflect their level in plasma 4-6 hours earlier. My experience, albeit limited, was in agreement with this.
Edited by xEva, 09 March 2013 - 04:29 AM.

xEva, My blood ketone monitor is the Precision Extra. I got it from Amazon. It came with glucose test strips but not ketone test strips. The ketone test strips are expensive (4 bucks a pop in the U.S.) but was able to get them for half that price by ordering from Canada. http://www.universal...es Test Strips/