My first year or so of eating a well formulated ketogenic diet had many positive outcomes. Weight loss, reversal of osteoporosis and injuries among other things. I actually gained weight but this was muscle due to a vigorous resistance training program. I know this because of my ongoing Dexascan tests. Long term time on KETO will of course slow down the fat loss. Of course things can be done to aid this, One could drop the level of fat one eats and choose instead to get the energy from the body.
As I have stated earlier I am fasting to help my wife achieve her goals and to drop bodyweight to make my local cardiologist feel better about what I am doing. He wins so few arguments with me I didn’t have the heart to show him his evidence about bodyweight ignored the levels of muscle mass and longevity studies even though he agreed that sarcopenia is a serious issue to be avoided. Why he can’t see the contradiction in those two disparate thoughts is in itself fascinating. But I let him have a win and decided to drop some weight.
A different approach is through fasting schedules. For a few years my favorite type of fast was the Extended Fast or EF. 4-10 days. I met these with excitement and dedication. I changed my physique quite a bit on these fasts as well as repaired a great amount of tissue through autophagy and apoptosis. It is true that I have no proof of that, only correlation but my osteoporosis reversal is quite remarkable, to say nothing of my spinal disk herniations fading into oblivion.
This post isn’t about that however. It is about a new fasting regimen I adopted to help my wife through a stall. It is popular with the Jason Fung crew , IDM and The Fasting Method. It is called an alternative day fast (ADF). The idea is to not eat for 36-42 hours thus allowing your insulin to drop while not altering ones metabolism negatively. I’ll get more into this later but the idea is to finish dinner about 7 or 8 PM. When you awaken you’ll have anywhere from 6-12 hours fasted already. I quit at 8. I awaken, have black coffee and go to work. After work I exercise and then I shower and get ready for bed, watching a bit of telly and playing with my dog Sugar. By 8 o’clock the next morning I’ll have my 36 hours. I can keep going till noon to get 40 or I can break and start eating. Usually I have heavy whip cream in my coffee until lunch. This does not impact my insulin as high but does give my body exogenous energy.
We started December 1 2020 with a break for Christmas and New Year’s Day. My wife had great results and she found it much easier to do 36 hours. Her compliance was far greater switching it up like that. I on the other hand dislike starting and stopping.
I especially didn’t like not eating during Packer games. Instead I got creative. I began a 2 X 2 routine. I would start fasting Sunday night and fast all of Monday and Tuesday, breaking and starting again Wednesday.
Then full fast of Thursday and Friday allowing me to then enjoy the weekend with cream in my coffee, reading and meals. What was astonishing to me was I lost almost twice as much and felt less deprived. I was very eager to see my scale on the second morning!!
More important to the fasting is the FEASTING. My level of activity is very high, even for an old man like myself. My eating days are full of good hearty meals and the occasional grazing. My 2 average calories on eating days has been 5,000 but my daily average is 2300 on an ADF schedule and 2100 on an 2×2 schedule.
More important to the fasting is the FEASTING. My level of activity is very high, even for an old man like myself. My eating days are full of good hearty meals and the occasional grazing. My 2 average calories on eating days has been 5,000 but my daily average is 2300 on an ADF schedule and 2100 on an 2×2 schedule. Yet the 2×2 schedule allowed me to feel more satiated and fully enjoy my unstructured time on weekends.
2×2 weekly average
In SIXTY DAYS time I lost 17.2 pounds. But when directly comparing the two types of fasts the 2 x 2 kicked ADF ass even though I ate more on eating days. Following a 2 x 2 schedule I lost almost twice the amount of weight, enjoyed the relaxed weekends and felt pretty fresh during my workouts. I am going to continue the 2 x 2 and my wife is joining me. At the end of the month we will have new Dexascans to make sure the weight loss is primarily fat loss.
I will mention for the last 6 months I lost a total of 32 pounds. This was not a good thing. Much of it was muscle loss due to my stress over my now deceased buy, Herakles. I was rather shocked in November to see I gained ten pounds of fat and lost 12 pounds of muscle. I can describe later why that muscle loss was glucagon and water but it still was a shock. More so the fat gain. Even when you are KETO AF stress will curtail your progress.
Keto Police 