Today was an awesome day. I ran a ton of errands, steamed cleaned a carpet and moved furniture around. Despite all the activity I didn’t feel hungry once. Not bad 5 days into my 7-day fast.
Day 4 of My 7-Day Fasting Challenge
Day 4 of my 7-Day Fasting Challenge is winding down, and I am a bundle of energy. I’ve been running around my house going from chore to chore for about 10 hours. I took a “quick” break for social media and 30 minutes later I start crashing.
No problem.
I just moved to the next project. BAM! Energy levels come roaring back.
As for hunger, well, I’m just have no interest in food. Oh sure there were a few small rumbles, but they went a way as fast as they came. Heck, I was working in my kitchen about 5 feet from my refrigerator and I had no urge to eat.
My hunger is just gone. Sweet!
Checking Ketosis
Right before bed I decided to test my ketone levels. I just had too. I used two different strips — one I got from CVS and another that was sent to me by One Health to test. I’ll do a review of One Health’s ketone strips next week. However, I say they have one immediate advantage over the ones I currently use — length! When you have to pass the sticks through a urine stream, having a long stick is awesome.
Anyway, last night the strips showed that I was excreting trace amounts of ketones. By morning the strips showed I was releasing small amounts (1.5 mmol/L). A few hours later the amount increased to “moderate” levels or 4.0 mmol/L.
Using Ketosis To Protect Cells
So I am fat burning mode and loving it. The added benefit is that ketones protect our cells from cancer. In his presentation at the 2017 Low Carb Down Under conference, Dr. Gary Fettke talks about how things like protein and fatty acids serve as building blocks for cancer (glucose is the fuel), but are not readily available. So Cancer basically poaches them from nearby cells.
That’s where ketones come in. When you are burning fat for fuel instead of glucose, the ketone bodies act to protect healthy cells. So not only does it stop cancer from stealing from healthy cells, ketones also starves cancer cells. Pretty Awesome.
Check out the video for yourself.
7-Day Fasting Challenge: Day 2
Today was rough. I had no energy and just wanted to sleep. I ended up canceling the morning workout with my trainer. My gas tank was on empty. That was probably a good decision. Why?
Right on time, they Day 2 hunger pangs started at noon and seemed to never let up.
When I do extended fasts, Day 2 is always the hardest. I assume it’s because my body is basically crossing The Rubicon — switching from glucose to fat burning. I attempted 7-day fasts before and it’s always Day 2 that made me cry uncle (and eat a steak). Which is why I like to stay super busy.
For Day 2 I planned to paint the trim in my living room as a way to take my mind off the fact I’m not eating. However, that fickle finger of fate stepped in.
Instead I checked on mom and to be there for her first in-home physical therapy session. Mom’s recover is way more important than home decorating and stomach rumbling. Still, other than sitting in a chair and asking a couple of questions, I wasn’t terribly busy.
Which means my body did it’s best to break me.
I didn’t give in. Despite feeling exhausted, ravenous…and cranky.
Exhausted because I didn’t get a good nights sleep. Again, I’m assuming that’s because my body is burning up the last bits of glucose.
Ravenous because, well that’s obvious. I’m fasting.
The crankiness surprised me. When I’m hungry, apparently I get ticked off easily. It didn’t help the drive home was horrible. A 10 minute drive took well over 40 minutes. Now I hate sitting in traffic. Today I was apoplectic.
To make things worse, the angrier I got, my hunger increased proportionately. No amount of water could satisfy my stomach. I suspect that cortisol may have been raging. So I was just making myself hungrier.
Once I realized I was sabotaging my own fast, I started calming down. Sure enough, the hunger became more manageable.
I’m hoping that Day 3 will go a lot smoother than today.
Week Long Fast: Day 1
As you know, I’m a big believer in the healing power of fasting to kick cancer’s sorry ass. Well it’s that time of the year where I do another week-long fast to help shed any pre-cancerous cells.
I’m wrapping up day 1 of my 7-day fast. Although I started the day with a ton of energy, it’s nearly 9:00 pm and I’m exhausted. That’s how I like it.
Normally I’m much more prepared going into a fast. But my mother’s hospitalization saw that I went into the fast by the seat of my pants.
All you can do is roll with it.
This morning, no bone broth. No bullet coffee. No water (UGH!). I just left for mom’s place. Clearly I forgot about the fast. So I just sucked it up, picked up black coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, and headed over to mom’s to help her out.
Now before you fasting purist out there say anything, I’m not doing a water fast. I’m following Dr. Jason Fung’s guides on extended fasting. However, my fall fast will be water only.
The good news was I stayed busy all day. Meaning not a lot of time to think about the food I wasn’t eating. If you want to fast successfully, keeping busy is the key. Time just flies by. Oh sure the occasional stomach growling wave hits. But when you are busy it’s easy to ride that wave. Besides, it only lasts 10 minutes at a time.
The bad news was I was so busy I forgot to drink enough water. Thankfully it didn’t lead to a headache. However, the hunger pangs hit when I got the bright idea to make her some chili for the week.
Yep. I cooked on day 1 of my extended fast.
Not too bright. But I didn’t eat one bite…not even to see if it needed seasoning.
All in all, that is pretty awesome.
I’m so ready for Day 2.
Healing My Body With A Week Long Fast
I’m kicking off the new year with a 7-Day Fasting Challenge as a way to heal my body. Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhoto.net and phasinphoto.
I’m ringing in the New Year with a week-long fast. Crazy? Not really. I’m a believer in fasting and it’s many benefits like: lipolysis, boosting mental capacity, reducing insulin resistance, and resetting your set weight point.
Intermittent fasting helped me rediscover what it feels like to be satiated by stablizing the hormone leptin (the hormone signals the brain that you’re full).
However, the big driver behind this 7-day fast is autophagy – the cellular cleansing process. According to Dr. Jason Fung, autophagy is the “body’s mechanism of getting rid of all the broken down old cell machinery (organelles, proteins and cell membranes).”
Now all cells in our body are programmed to die after a certain number of divisions. That’s apoptosis. Autophagy takes place at the sub-cellular level. Basically only parts of a cell need to be purged and replaced. Dr. Fung compares this to replacing car parts rather than the whole care.
Fasting not only stimulates autophagy (clearing out the bad), but it increases growth hormone so our body can produce new cell parts. Double bonus! Read More