You're so lucky! My mom only makes seed-free cakes now after lots of convincing, and even then it's mainly because the taste is so much better with actual butter vs seed oil-fortified margarine.
Actual food still has a ton of seed oils, though. :(
Bread and butter is weirdly dull. *Toast* and butter on the other hand.... yum... garlic puree goes well also, if you can find the type without seed oils.
Interesting with the thermogenesis. I have a bit of an issue with that when I go into a (3-day) fast from a carb heavy diet, especially when I don't move enough throughout. (sedentary job and all that)
I don't experience those issues (not even in winter) when I do it from a carb-light diet.
Or when I do some moderate activity (walking for an hr+ etc).
And when I measured, when I do low carb diet for a while, and then go fasting, my blood ketones go up relatively fast (and glucose drops decently to the low end of normal range -- below 3.9 mmol/L at 3d mark).
But when I do it from the higher carb state, I can still stay at 6.5 mmol/L on day one, and around 5.0 mmol/L even after 3 days+, and feel cold often-ish.
If I was a betting man, I'd wager a modest sum on the diet drinks fucking up your hormones, keeping your glucose higher, ketones somewhat lower, and thus your body saving up on non-essentials (heat) because of that.
But also, I'd be interested to see your blood glucose and blood ketones (it's like a buck a strip, so within budget?) or CGM + blood ketones at some regular intervals... it might fill in some of the gaps.
Also, for the taste you can go for green / black / herbal teas. Last I measured (with CGM), they weren't messing up my glucose during fasts.
In any case, I'm inclined to try the ACV on my next prolonged fast. It never occured to me (d'oh!) that I can do that even when not eating.
I did measure my glucose, and it was usually 70mg/dL (3.9mmol/L) up to 78 once during the fast. I didn't measure ketones this time.
You are right that this time I didn't enter the fast from keto, like I usually do, but from a carb-heavy (and protein-heavy) refeed. So that could've played a part for sure.
I did go for walks most days, but not usually longer than 1h, although a few times it was longer than that. Usually more like 45min I'd say.
I've actually measured energy drinks/diet soda impact on my glucose, and even doing so many energy drinks in 45min that I got the shakes (easily 1g of caffeine in 45min) my glucose barely went up.
I'd expect you to mostly reset after the first walk to "not cold", and pretty much stay there. But I'm comparing to my baseline, and I don't have the 10kg swings post refeed like you do.
Re the posts: holy moly, how can you have blood sugar so great, and not be as thin as a whistle? I wonder. Because my sugar is f'ed up (compared to yours), and I was thinking that's the root cause for my "can't go the rest of the way" issues. Hmm.
As for energy drinks vs glucose: yeah, I'm not sure about what it messes up, but my study of 1 says that it does make a difference. Same reason why I don't do sweet-like stuff during fasts (not even flavored rooibos), somehow it messes me up, leading to more (perceived) hunger, more cold... altogether more misery.
I'm so glad you keep this news up, it gives me hope and cheers me up in my own weight loss. I'm attempting to use a homebrewed version of Roy Taylor's protocol for reversing type 2 diabetes, and you make it all seem fun.
Currently pretty much no exercise, unless you could leisurely walks. I once lifted almost every day for about a year straight, but didn't lose any more fat (or, seemingly, gained any muscle) but maybe the volume was too low. I only did 1 set of 1 exercise each day.
In the past I've exercised more, but never for more than a couple months because it usually resulted in absurd fat gain (20-30lbs in a few months) or injury.
I was doing super low volume though, probably not enough to get much of a stimulus. I tried higher volume, but quickly got what I'd now call "protein hunger" which, at the time, I obviously didn't want to give in to. Instead of adding protein, and possibly gaining fat back, I reduced my training volume to extremely low levels.
Now that I'm more ok with regaining a couple (dozen lol) pounds for an experiment, I might try it again. But since gaining muscle takes a bunch of time, I wonder how much fat I'd have to gain to see any actual muscle growth lol.
I must say, about the bread & butter and the insulin-sensitizing effect of short-chain(or medium chain) fatty acids creating a similar obesogenic effect to pufas. It's been done pretty reliably in mice in spite of a low pufa diet. With humans, we do have those Polynesian coconut cultures. Ones who consume higher amount of coconut are fatter than the ones consuming less(also <4% pufa, supposedly). The only ideas about actual amounts come from a mouse study, and it's something like 27% kcal as butter(also <4% pufa). That's lots. Even the traditional French ate ~18%. A keto diet probably makes all this irrelevant by drastically reducing insulin signaling. But with carbs, there is now another fat storage mechanism, in addition to the pufas in adipose. Be forewarned :)
Yea, my refeeds for sure have had this effect. But the refeeds were also typically high in protein and lately sugar (butter cookies and chocolate).
I would not be surprised at all if I gained at least some weight on the bread+butter. But so far it's way more satiating than the higher protein and sugar refeeds at least, although not quite as drastic as cement-truck satiety from pure heavy cream.
But sort of like plain rice, it's surprisingly delicious and yet surprisingly satiating at the same time!
Are you not worried about muscle being broken down for protein during fasting? Though I suppose just a few days won't have a big effect. (And being in ketosis seems to reduce protein requirements?)
I would guess that bread&butter will get too boring after a few days, but I'm very curious to see how far you will be able to go.
I'm not very worried. Like you said, it's just a few days. Also I stop pretty much immediately when I notice anything feeling off. If you were to "willpower through" hunger for days on end, yea, I could see losing some muscle.
If my body isn't showing any hunger signals yet, I interpret that as a signal that I'm not burning muscle yet.
If you think bread & butter is boring, I'll have you know I've done an entire month of plain white rice before ;)
I think fasting usually helps for people who have messed up digestion. Another diagnostic point (for me at least) is if you feel better while fasting, something is outta wack. Sounds like you have great digestion though!
That's an interesting diagnostic point. I have great digestion on the heavy cream diet, but e.g. recently eating bread & butter, it was much worse. On potatoes, it's terrible! I can't seem to digest them at all.
Thought about my family today after looking at pictures when my parents and family in general were 20 years younger and LEAN..
Everyone has gotten obese and very sick all eat a bunch of seed oils, welp.
Even my stepsister has gotten quite big and keeps increasing her weight, and she likewise gulps down seed oils like no other, argh.
Also the whole coldness thing was a mechanism I exploited when I was ultra lean and fasting a bunch. I'd go from suffering in a heatwave to being totally comfortable instead.
Hell yeah, I'm excited for the bread and butter! I've been interested in seeing you test the swamp theory for a long time! Make sure to let us know what type/brand of butter and bread and if it's salted or unsalted.
It's fancy sourdough and similar "ancestral" type bread from a fancy bakery. I think they put (some) salt into the dough. Most is whole grain and very brown in color and the texture is solid, not like the spongy/squishy texture of most regular commercial bread.
The salt content is sort of a confounder but unless I grind & make all my own bread, probably hard to avoid :(
> But after my family made seed oil-free Christmas food
Yes, they can be very sneaky like that....
I felt like I had to reward them for going out of their way to adapt my silly beliefs :)
You're so lucky! My mom only makes seed-free cakes now after lots of convincing, and even then it's mainly because the taste is so much better with actual butter vs seed oil-fortified margarine.
Actual food still has a ton of seed oils, though. :(
Bread and butter is weirdly dull. *Toast* and butter on the other hand.... yum... garlic puree goes well also, if you can find the type without seed oils.
Only a few days in, but so far I still love it lol.
You can just dice/squeeze garlic and melt butter into it and have a delicious spread on your toast.
Concur, the best type of garlic puree is actually what comes out of a garlic press.
Yesss!!! This guy garlics!
Interesting with the thermogenesis. I have a bit of an issue with that when I go into a (3-day) fast from a carb heavy diet, especially when I don't move enough throughout. (sedentary job and all that)
I don't experience those issues (not even in winter) when I do it from a carb-light diet.
Or when I do some moderate activity (walking for an hr+ etc).
And when I measured, when I do low carb diet for a while, and then go fasting, my blood ketones go up relatively fast (and glucose drops decently to the low end of normal range -- below 3.9 mmol/L at 3d mark).
But when I do it from the higher carb state, I can still stay at 6.5 mmol/L on day one, and around 5.0 mmol/L even after 3 days+, and feel cold often-ish.
If I was a betting man, I'd wager a modest sum on the diet drinks fucking up your hormones, keeping your glucose higher, ketones somewhat lower, and thus your body saving up on non-essentials (heat) because of that.
But also, I'd be interested to see your blood glucose and blood ketones (it's like a buck a strip, so within budget?) or CGM + blood ketones at some regular intervals... it might fill in some of the gaps.
Also, for the taste you can go for green / black / herbal teas. Last I measured (with CGM), they weren't messing up my glucose during fasts.
In any case, I'm inclined to try the ACV on my next prolonged fast. It never occured to me (d'oh!) that I can do that even when not eating.
I did measure my glucose, and it was usually 70mg/dL (3.9mmol/L) up to 78 once during the fast. I didn't measure ketones this time.
You are right that this time I didn't enter the fast from keto, like I usually do, but from a carb-heavy (and protein-heavy) refeed. So that could've played a part for sure.
I did go for walks most days, but not usually longer than 1h, although a few times it was longer than that. Usually more like 45min I'd say.
I've done plenty of CGM/ketone measuring in the past, check out https://www.exfatloss.com/p/goodbye-cgm or https://www.exfatloss.com/p/im-more-ketarded-than-you-receipts.
I've actually measured energy drinks/diet soda impact on my glucose, and even doing so many energy drinks in 45min that I got the shakes (easily 1g of caffeine in 45min) my glucose barely went up.
OK, this is interesting.
I'd expect you to mostly reset after the first walk to "not cold", and pretty much stay there. But I'm comparing to my baseline, and I don't have the 10kg swings post refeed like you do.
Re the posts: holy moly, how can you have blood sugar so great, and not be as thin as a whistle? I wonder. Because my sugar is f'ed up (compared to yours), and I was thinking that's the root cause for my "can't go the rest of the way" issues. Hmm.
As for energy drinks vs glucose: yeah, I'm not sure about what it messes up, but my study of 1 says that it does make a difference. Same reason why I don't do sweet-like stuff during fasts (not even flavored rooibos), somehow it messes me up, leading to more (perceived) hunger, more cold... altogether more misery.
That’s my chocolate diet essentially….
The swampy low protein, you mean? Yea it seems like an under-explored space of the macronutrient triangle :) Can't wait for your book to come out!
Heavy cream with chocolate and coffee goes so hard.
Very!
I'm so glad you keep this news up, it gives me hope and cheers me up in my own weight loss. I'm attempting to use a homebrewed version of Roy Taylor's protocol for reversing type 2 diabetes, and you make it all seem fun.
It is fun :) If we're going to be experimenting a lot with food, might as well have fun!
What’s your exercise regime? How does it interact with your fat loss?
Currently pretty much no exercise, unless you could leisurely walks. I once lifted almost every day for about a year straight, but didn't lose any more fat (or, seemingly, gained any muscle) but maybe the volume was too low. I only did 1 set of 1 exercise each day.
In the past I've exercised more, but never for more than a couple months because it usually resulted in absurd fat gain (20-30lbs in a few months) or injury.
> I only did 1 set of 1 exercise each day.
Did you do it to failure?
Yes
Dang that's so odd! Sorry it didn't seem to give you any more muscle. :(
I once did full body workouts daily 3 years and had massive gains really rapidly, though I am young so your experience will be different, sadly.
It's also not the most optimal workout option either, but I didn't know that at the time. :D
I was doing super low volume though, probably not enough to get much of a stimulus. I tried higher volume, but quickly got what I'd now call "protein hunger" which, at the time, I obviously didn't want to give in to. Instead of adding protein, and possibly gaining fat back, I reduced my training volume to extremely low levels.
Now that I'm more ok with regaining a couple (dozen lol) pounds for an experiment, I might try it again. But since gaining muscle takes a bunch of time, I wonder how much fat I'd have to gain to see any actual muscle growth lol.
Ah yeah, that could explain it^^
I'd track your PRa for the experiment as that's a way quicker way to spot if you're advancing at least, or stalled and not improving anything.
I must say, about the bread & butter and the insulin-sensitizing effect of short-chain(or medium chain) fatty acids creating a similar obesogenic effect to pufas. It's been done pretty reliably in mice in spite of a low pufa diet. With humans, we do have those Polynesian coconut cultures. Ones who consume higher amount of coconut are fatter than the ones consuming less(also <4% pufa, supposedly). The only ideas about actual amounts come from a mouse study, and it's something like 27% kcal as butter(also <4% pufa). That's lots. Even the traditional French ate ~18%. A keto diet probably makes all this irrelevant by drastically reducing insulin signaling. But with carbs, there is now another fat storage mechanism, in addition to the pufas in adipose. Be forewarned :)
Yea, my refeeds for sure have had this effect. But the refeeds were also typically high in protein and lately sugar (butter cookies and chocolate).
I would not be surprised at all if I gained at least some weight on the bread+butter. But so far it's way more satiating than the higher protein and sugar refeeds at least, although not quite as drastic as cement-truck satiety from pure heavy cream.
But sort of like plain rice, it's surprisingly delicious and yet surprisingly satiating at the same time!
Nice work! I’m excited for bread and butter. I always love a good couple of slices of buttered sourdough toast…
Yup it sure is delicious! It's WAY more delicious than the white rice. Then again that's probably expected with the swamping vs. not..
Are you not worried about muscle being broken down for protein during fasting? Though I suppose just a few days won't have a big effect. (And being in ketosis seems to reduce protein requirements?)
I would guess that bread&butter will get too boring after a few days, but I'm very curious to see how far you will be able to go.
I'm not very worried. Like you said, it's just a few days. Also I stop pretty much immediately when I notice anything feeling off. If you were to "willpower through" hunger for days on end, yea, I could see losing some muscle.
If my body isn't showing any hunger signals yet, I interpret that as a signal that I'm not burning muscle yet.
If you think bread & butter is boring, I'll have you know I've done an entire month of plain white rice before ;)
I'll have you know I've done an entire month of plain white rice before ;)
Oh, right. Nevermind then! :)
I’ve done 3-4 day fasts in the past and definitely lost muscle. But I’m quite lean.
I think fasting usually helps for people who have messed up digestion. Another diagnostic point (for me at least) is if you feel better while fasting, something is outta wack. Sounds like you have great digestion though!
That's an interesting diagnostic point. I have great digestion on the heavy cream diet, but e.g. recently eating bread & butter, it was much worse. On potatoes, it's terrible! I can't seem to digest them at all.
> Modern PUFA Theory
Thought about my family today after looking at pictures when my parents and family in general were 20 years younger and LEAN..
Everyone has gotten obese and very sick all eat a bunch of seed oils, welp.
Even my stepsister has gotten quite big and keeps increasing her weight, and she likewise gulps down seed oils like no other, argh.
Also the whole coldness thing was a mechanism I exploited when I was ultra lean and fasting a bunch. I'd go from suffering in a heatwave to being totally comfortable instead.
Yea it's heartbreaking to watch people :(
Hell yeah, I'm excited for the bread and butter! I've been interested in seeing you test the swamp theory for a long time! Make sure to let us know what type/brand of butter and bread and if it's salted or unsalted.
It's fancy sourdough and similar "ancestral" type bread from a fancy bakery. I think they put (some) salt into the dough. Most is whole grain and very brown in color and the texture is solid, not like the spongy/squishy texture of most regular commercial bread.
The salt content is sort of a confounder but unless I grind & make all my own bread, probably hard to avoid :(