[procrj]

Originally Posted by balenoed_

These doesn't suit IF I guess. Almonds instead of cashews would help I think. Banana certainly not if you want the carbs to be low. Correct me if I am wrong.

IF and Keto diet are different.IF is all about insulin levels and not triggering a spike, while keto diets force your body to burn fat using a different set of stimulants. Might sound the same but are different because of the difference in approach. During my intake period, I don't restrict the kind of food I eat. I do try and maintain a decent balance of P:F:C but I do indulge in a slice of cake or chaat or pakoda when I feel like. Whereas in a keto diet, all of the above would be taboo.

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by procrj

IF and Keto diet are different.IF is all about insulin levels and not triggering a spike, while keto diets force your body to burn fat using a different set of stimulants. Might sound the same but are different because of the difference in approach. During my intake period, I don't restrict the kind of food I eat. I do try and maintain a decent balance of P:F:C but I do indulge in a slice of cake or chaat or pakoda when I feel like. Whereas in a keto diet, all of the above would be taboo.

IF also forces your body to use ketones instead of glucose. Glucose comes from food, ketones from fat cells. No food, no glucose, fat cells are converted to ketones to burn. This is why most people don’t die rather immediately from fasting.

Keto works on the same principle, because the carbs are glucose. Cut the carbs, cut the glucose, fat cells are converted to ketones to burn. Hence called a keto diet.

Fun fact: our brain prefers ketones to glucose as a source of fuel. Unfortunately glucose is the path of least resistance, and thus we FORCE the brain to use glucose rather than ketones. Evolutionarily, we are built to burn ketones and not glucose to survive.

[graaja]

Originally Posted by balenoed_

These doesn't suit IF I guess. Almonds instead of cashews would help I think. Banana certainly not if you want the carbs to be low. Correct me if I am wrong.

IF is about when you eat and LCHF or Keto is about what you eat. IF with regular food (at least cutting sugar completely) itself gives great benefits of autophagy which helps in slowing down aging and weight control. In this method, you could lose lot of weight initially, but getting rid of that last layer of belly fat would be a problem.

A combination of IF and LCHF or Keto is the next level where your body is totally programmed to use fat as fuel and hence results in quicker weight loss. This method with strength training can help in getting rid of that last layer of belly fat.

Originally Posted by Red Liner

Fun fact: our brain prefers ketones to glucose as a source of fuel. Unfortunately glucose is the path of least resistance, and thus we FORCE the brain to use glucose rather than ketones. Evolutionarily, we are built to burn ketones and not glucose to survive.

Golden words. One of the first comments I receive from my friends when I talk about Keto is that brain needs glucose and you would lose cognitive functions if you get into ketosis. I try to explain them that brain can use two pathways to get energy - glucose and ketones, ketones being the primary pathway. But with our carb rich food, we have deprogrammed the brain from using ketones. It takes just a few weeks to get the brain into this mode. But being an engineer, I mostly fail convincing them

Another fact about ketones and brain:
In Alzheimer's, the glucose pathway for energy in the brain fails. This leads to brain cells not getting energy which leads to the disease. However, the ketone pathway is intact. That is why when these patients are made to follow keto, they show good improvement. There are many research going on this topic of using ketosis to treat Alzheimer's.

[balenoed_]

Originally Posted by balenoed_

A question on IF timings:

I have been following 16:8 strictly for the past 2 months with a fasting time slot of 9pm to 1pm. It has been going well. I would like to change the fasting time slot to say 5pm to 9am, so that I can include breakfast and skip dinner; Just for a change.

Quoting my own post.

This change is not working out - moving fasting hours to 5pm to 9am. Simply because I am not able to start fasting at 5pm as I have to still be awake for another good 5-6 hours until bed time. Couldn't control and I tend to munch something or the other till night. So I switched backed to my old timings 9pm to 1pm which was going strict and fine for the past 2 months. Now I realize why it is preferred to have dinner and skip break fast in IF.

[laluks]

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. It's an opportunity.

1000Kms on foot, trimmed some fat, Its been good so far. And the feeling, priceless.
Statistics




Showoff time


Next target depends on Lockdown 4.0.

PS: Ours is a private estate with almost 2 kms of road network inside with guidelines from RWA.

[graaja]

Originally Posted by laluks

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. It's an opportunity.

That is some serious mileage and weight loss

Its great to see you put lock down to some good use!

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by graaja

That is a fantastic streak you got going there!
...
I would highly suggest you add regular strength training to your schedule. A combination of fasting and strength training is the best way to get that shredded body with healthy lean muscle mass.

Thanks.

Thats the plan gradually. My stint with weight training has not been as consistent as it has been with running now. But once normalcy returns, I may gradually get back to weight training. Only issue being my desire to run a full marathon before I turn 40.

I dont think that I will be able to justify both given my current commitments and challenges with rapid performance improvement due to running in fasted state. But I have started some very basic body weight excercises now and hope to transit into weight training + running slowly.

[balenoed_]

Trying to understand a bit on the IF + LCHF + Muscle building and how it can go along.

Say for eg: I would like to gain some muscle mass and do the work outs in the morning. But after that I am not feeding anything (especially proteins) to the body until I break my fast at 1 pm or so. So won't the muscles be starving until then? Does'nt it need some protein pumping as soon as the work out is done? Also if I have to supplement with some Whey or something, will it hamper my IF-LCHF diet. Can I safely assume that these protein powders (Whey, I am looking at) does not absolutely contain or have only very minimum levels of sugar or carbs that does not affects the diet plans?

[graaja]

Originally Posted by balenoed_

Trying to understand a bit on the IF + LCHF + Muscle building and how it can go along.

Say for eg: I would like to gain some muscle mass and do the work outs in the morning. But after that I am not feeding anything (especially proteins) to the body until I break my fast at 1 pm or so. So won't the muscles be starving until then? Does'nt it need some protein pumping as soon as the work out is done? Also if I have to supplement with some Whey or something, will it hamper my IF-LCHF diet. Can I safely assume that these protein powders (Whey, I am looking at) does not absolutely contain or have only very minimum levels of sugar or carbs that does not affects the diet plans?

From what I have read in a few articles about IF and weight training, it is a myth that you need to take protein as soon as you finish your workout to provide protein for muscle growth. It should be fine if you eat within a two or three hours of your workout. So you can time your workout close to the end of your fasting hours.

Having said that you still have to listen to your body. If you do not have the energy levels for a good performance (even after a few days of acclimatization), then you may be well off lifting weights in your eating window. There are tons of videos on Youtube on the topic of strength training in fasted state.

Regarding supplements, yes, there are protein supplements which have zero sugar and are keto compliant. If you use these supplements, you need not worry about your LCHF diet getting affected.

[NPV]

From my journey so far - some experiences, learnings and updates from lockdown times
For almost 2 decades I was a regularly irregular morning walker on weekdays - though I followed some discipline and had some will power/determination, my work and travel schedules would come in the way and sheer laziness and boredom sometimes would take over and there would be short breaks for few days and sometimes this would even extend to weeks or a couple of months even making it more like "Intermittent Walking"! Some days I would just push myself to go out and walk. Though I had a treadmill at home, I'd prefer to walk outdoors on the roads nearby and since I like to avoid traffic and crowds it was always early around 5am.

My Low Carbs & IF journey started about 18 months or so ago and initially I completely stopped exercise to see if it really works.

In September 2019, after several months into LCHF + IF, I started exercise again this time with the treadmill. Didn't last long since the DC motor went bust and then I discovered a local park where I was a regular since November. Cut to early March this year, injured my leg in a fall and a week later the park shut down due to lockdown.

I'm mentioning all this because lockdown times have taught me some lessons and brought about a big change in attitude and approach on the exercise/activity front:
1. Adaptability - so what if the park isn't an option anymore ? With lot of apprehensions I tried using the building's terrace and got used to it in few days and was even able to pick up speed though the edges of the building aren't particularly long

2. Discipline & Flexibility - these 2 can be contradictory sometimes! Earlier, it was an early morning walk/exercise routine or none! With lockdown came Work From Home and more work and the schedules changed. I found that I could manage to squeeze in 2 blocks of 30-45 minutes or a longer one in the mornings for the walk on the terrace. Now, during the last 40 days or so I'm able to walk ~90 or more minutes each day doing about 7.5-10Km. I'm enjoying the walk now and don't have to push myself, it just happens every day and I have the flexibility to choose the time based on schedules and it's not just weekdays anymore, this routine is every day. This helps a lot since Work From Home, unlike working from the office means lot more time spent sitting in front of the computer, sometimes at a stretch.

Pre-lockdown, I used to clock about 6-7k steps with the exercise routine at the park and then the schedules at office would make sure I had at least 10-14k steps by end of the day (it helps to have the cafeteria and rest rooms far away from the desk). Now, I get about 10-12k steps with the walking alone and then an additional 2-4k thru the day.

[graaja]

Yesterday, I started with a 48 hour fast, my 2nd such fast. Today, decided to extend it to a 72 hour fast. Started the fast at 2:30PM on 25th May, and will continue till 2:30PM on 28th May. Having black coffee, and green tea, and a couple of glasses of lime juice with a teaspoon of salt. Purists would avoid having lemon juice. But i use a very small piece of lemon to make the taste of salt bearable. I use the Zero Fasting app to track the fast. The app shows the state of the body at various stages of the fast. Upto 16 hours, it was "catabolic". After 16 hours till 24 hours, it was "fat burn". After 24 hours, it is showing "ketosis". I am expecting it to show "autophagy" at some time tomorrow.



30 hours into the fast, I measured my blood glucose and ketone levels. Glucose is slightly elevated at 95 mg/dL and ketones at 0.8 mmol/L.




Body is already in nutritional ketosis. This means it has started converting fat into ketones for energy. The higher glucose level is expected too. This is because the insulin levels have dropped to almost zero and the body is pulling out the last of the glycogen reserves from the liver and also due to counter regulating hormones like glucagon, and cortisol becoming active.

Feeling a little tired. This is because body is just transitioning into burning fat as fuel. Once the transition is complete, I should feel energetic for the next two days. I will provide one update tomorrow and another after the end of fast.

Sharing a couple of very interesting videos on the physiology of prolonged fasting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wb-XexfkEY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DghrZNUP5vo

[deepfreak15]

Originally Posted by graaja

Yesterday, I started with a 48 hour fast, my 2nd such fast.

Woah that is insane. All the best. How does this impact/benefit your triathlon training? Isn't it counterintuitive?

[graaja]

Originally Posted by deepfreak15

Woah that is insane. All the best. How does this impact/benefit your triathlon training? Isn't it counterintuitive?

Thank you for the kind words

Actually, this benefits my Triathlon. In long distance endurance events like Triathlon or marathon running, it is advantageous to be able to burn fat as fuel. The reason is that we have a big store of fat (more than 40000 calories), but a very limited storage of glucose (about 2000 calories max). Fasting and low carb eating will get the athletes fat adapted so that they can perform longer without having to refuel. For those short bursts of effort where body will need glucose, it will use from the glycogen stores.

As I did strict keto and fasting, I am fairly fat adapted and I can work for long hours without having any need for food. For example, I worked 6 hours in the field wielding a brush cutter in fasted state with just water and black coffee for fuel. And did not feel any tiredness at all.

A couple of years before, I could not even have imagined this. I used to constantly take gels and electrolytes during my long runs and cycling sessions and used to get fatigued very soon if I did not consume carbs during workouts.

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by graaja

Yesterday, I started with a 48 hour fast, my 2nd such fast.

Wow Graaja! This is simply great.

I want to try a 48 hour fast as well. The longest I did so far was a 24 hr fast couple of weeks back. I did not feel any compelling hunger for food other than the mental aspect.

I think things could be a bit different with a longer fast. Do you have any recommendations other than the electrolyte supplementation? Does it make sense to first try an intermediate duration like 36 before going to 48?

[graaja]

Originally Posted by vibbs

Wow Graaja! This is simply great.

I want to try a 48 hour fast as well. The longest I did so far was a 24 hr fast couple of weeks back. I did not feel any compelling hunger for food other than the mental aspect.

I think things could be a bit different with a longer fast. Do you have any recommendations other than the electrolyte supplementation? Does it make sense to first try an intermediate duration like 36 before going to 48?

Thank you

I think there is not much difference between a 36 hour and 48 hour fast. Once you cross that 24 to 26 hour threshold and the body gets into ketosis, you just will feel like it is easy. In fact, during my first 48 hour fast, I was feeling quite strong at 48 hours that I was thinking about continuing the fast. Just stopped as I was not mentally prepared. So, setting the target is more important I guess. If you have done a 24 hour fast, then I would say go for the 48 hours.

Other than supplements, one thing to consider is how you break your fast. Do not break the fast with a big meal loaded with carbs. Have a light snack like a handful of peanuts or a couple of eggs scrambled. Once the body ramps up the digestive system, have your main meal, say after 30 minutes or an hour. Even in this meal, keep the carbs low so that you don't get a sudden insulin spike. After this you can get back to your regular diet. Having said that for a 48 hour fast, it may not be that critical.

PS: I would like to add one more point. Before doing a 36 or 48 hour fast, it would be good to do a few 20+ hour fasts twice or thrice a week for a couple of weeks. That will prepare the body for the longer fasts, I believe. Before I did my first 48 hour fast, I had developed the habit of doing at least two OMADs a week, for a few weeks.