ex_acv_fast review: "water" fasted 6 days, new record

🧊Baby it's cold inside🧊

I have so many questions about this AI-generated image

A little over a year ago, I fasted for 5 days, twice. As I noted in that report, I used to fast a ton when I first got into keto. But I didn’t find it particularly useful for losing weight or anything else.

Instead, I view fasting mostly as a diagnostic: if you’re metabolically healthy, and you don’t have excessively low body fat, you should be able to easily fast a couple of days.

I still have plenty of body fat on me: around 60-65lbs, and according to estimated adipose flux, I should be getting around 2,000kcal/day just from that.

Since it had been over a year since my 5-day fasts, I was wondering if I could fast longer now. I weighed almost the same.

Curiously, I hadn’t even been hungry the entire 5 days last time - but in the evening of day 5, it went from “not hungry at all, I can do this all month long!” to “must drive to the store IMMEDIATELY, can’t sleep at all!” in a matter of hours.

What made me repeat the fast?

Given that I view it mostly as a diagnostic, I wanted to know if my metabolism had improved - would I be able to fast for longer?

I had another year of avoiding linoleic acid under my belt. According to Modern PUFA Theory, excess linoleic acid stored in adipose tissue is THE cause of modern diseases and broken fuel partitioning.

Additionally, ever since discovering vinegar, I’d wondered if supplementing it would make fasting easier. The vinegar seemed to “unlock” more of my body fat on ex150, helping me lose a lot of weight and break through my previous plateau. Would it do the same on a fast?

Hence I embarked on another fast recently. Like the last time, I didn’t set out for the fast to be a specific number of days - I was just going to stop eating, and see how long I could go.

Water/diet soda/energy drink fast

It was sort of a water fast in that I only consumed non-caloric drinks. Mostly diet soda and some energy drinks. I forced down a cup of black coffee once or twice, but I just HATE coffee without heavy cream.

“Food boredom” is a huge issue for me on fasts, much more so than hunger. I just end up drinking tons of diet soda to taste SOMETHING.

I don’t know if this is my body attempting to get nutrients from the faux sweetness of the diet soda or a flavor/psychological/hedonic thing?

Last time I really leaned into the energy drinks, but this time I tried limiting them to 2-3 a day. I suspected that the caffeine starts hitting harder after a few days of fasting, and that this might’ve caused my sleep trouble last time.

6 days

Long story short, I stopped after 6 days this time! It wasn’t actually even as drastic, I could’ve probably gone another day at least. I slept pretty well the last night, if maybe not amazing. Let’s call it 85%. But nothing like last time.

The only real effect I felt was extreme lack of thermogenesis. I was cold the last 2 days. All day long. So very, very cold.

I’m talking sitting in a heated room with a wool sweater, wool hat, and a puffy down jacket. I slept with a wool sweater & wool hat, under 2 blankets. In my heated bedroom.

Pretty crazy stuff. Maybe I should fast in the summer next time.

Luckily I didn’t catch a cold, I’m pretty sure my immune system would’ve been pretty down-regulated.

Energy wise, I felt fine, not low-energy or lethargic besides being cold all the time. I went for walks most days.

Besides the thermogenesis issue, the reason I stopped was - Christmas. I suppose I’m not as autistic as I’d like to believe. But after my family made seed oil-free Christmas food, I had a hard time saying no.. plus I was so, SO cold.

Weight loss? Not impressive

I mentioned above that I never seemed to lose serious weight no matter how hard I fasted. This happened again.

I did lose a bunch of weight quickly, but given how fasting is zero-carb, near zero-salt (energy drinks/diet soda have some), zero-fiber, and zero-protein, even the water weight loss is not particularly impressive.

Compared to the last few days of the previous diet, I barely lost 3lbs. I didn’t even get back to my previous low of 209lbs. And, obviously, I regained it all pretty much immediately.

There might be some therapeutic benefits to fasting, but I’m not aware of them. I certainly don’t seem to sustainably lose ANY fat doing it.

But as a diagnostic to be doing once in a while, I think it’s fine. I was able to go a day longer than last time, and had it been the summer and no Christmas meals had been scheduled, I might’ve gone another day.

Notes

Day 1

Slightly rumbly stomach after 1.5 day swampy refeed

Feeling pretty cold, wearing wool sweater & down jacket in my heated room lol [weird how this started on DAY 1]

Day 3

So far pretty easy. Got hunger pangs a few times but not bad. Mostly bored lol, want to drink energy drinks/diet soda all day long.

Had black coffee but it’s still disgusting

Day 4

Still pretty unspectacular. Some stomach rumbling but it tends to go away quickly.

Really pronounced “food boredom” or whatever, want to drink energy drinks/diet soda just to taste SOMETHING

Drank pretty crazy amounts of diet soda today. 2 monsters, 7 cans of coke zero, big bottle of dr pepper zero

Otherwise super easy, zero hunger as of yet

Day 5

After waking up, thought about food a lot lol

Not that hungry, not exactly salivating at foods even when at the store (to buy more energy drinks)

But definitely getting REALLY bored w/o food, sort of wishing the fast was already over so I could have some cream lol

Feeling kinda cold in the afternoon, wearing sweater & jacket in a heated room again

Feeling a bit wired in the later afternoon, beginning of the end?

Day 6

Well.. this is a first. 6 days is an all time record I think?

Had absolutely no hunger/appetite on day 5. Felt a bit wired in the evening but it went away, might be heightened caffeine sensitivity?

Felt like sleep was maybe somewhat suboptimal, but still got 7h or so and feeling pretty rested

Thermogenesis is really low now. Went outside in a wool sweater, a puffy jacket, and a rain jacket on top, barely kept warm even though it’s not THAT cold. Usually I can’t wear those 2 jackets on top of each other without burning up.

Tried measuring glucose, got 2 errors in a row; maybe blood too cold? lol

Comical contrast in thermogenesis before/after refeeding

On the last day of the fast, even with wool sweater, puffy down jacket & rain jacket on top wearing gloves, I was freezing when outside for only 5min. It wasn’t even THAT cold.

After the refeed, a 45min walk in even colder temps (below freezing) w/o the down jacket and w/o gloves, I wasn’t feeling cold at all. I actually sat on a park bench in sub-freezing temps and just took in the landscape. I could tell that it was cold, it just didn’t bother me. My body had regained the ability to heat itself.

Very strange, but it was an interesting contrast in experiences.

Conclusion

Was the extra day of fasting enabled by the ACV, or because I’d been depleting my adipose linoleic acid for another year? Or just limiting my caffeine intake to 2-3 energy drinks this time? Who knows.

Either way, I wasn’t magically able to fast 30 days or anything like that. So I’d say nothing substantial changed in my ability to fast. There was improvement (5 days → 6 days) but it was marginal, and could’ve easily been caused just by limiting my caffeine intake.

Some people swear by fasting, but I just don’t ever seem to have success with it. Maybe it helps deplete adipose linoleic acid if you do it more regularly, but in terms of pure weight loss (not even fat loss) it’s not that impressive for me.

Next up: ex_bread+butter

That’s right, I’m doing my first ever swampy trial! After 90% fat (ex150) and 90% carbs (ex_plainrice) both worked well for me, I’d been curious about low-protein swamping for a long time.

Remember my Swamp Visualizer?

There’s nothing in the swamp besides the Standard American Diet, and that’s high-sugar, high-PUFA, and high-protein (16%).

It seems that health-conscious people rarely swamp. The Croissant Diet by FireInABottle.net is one of the only ones I know. Even Peaters tend to eat relatively low-fat, if not very low fat.

But the Croissant Diet is not particularly or explicitly low-protein. I have been doing low-PUFA/normal to high protein refeeds for a long time now, and as of last year, they were also swampy. I could tell from the refeeds that this was NOT working for me. It’s very easy for me to put on a pound of fat PER DAY on a swampy, high-protein, high-sugar diet. (Think butter cookies and butter croissants w/ cheese and roast beef.)

Yet I hadn’t seen anyone try a really low-protein diet that was swampy. It should actually be easier than low-protein high-starch, because you can dilute the high protein content of starch (typically ~10%) by adding the fat.

Plus, bread & butter was just too funny a diet not to try it eventually. Of course, I’m doing seed oil-free, non-fortified bread only, sourdough and similar fancy stuff.

The plan is to run it for 30 days, except maybe I’ll quit if I gain too much fat too rapidly. Then again, my friend John has me convinced that yo-yo dieting is actually great for depleting your adipose linoleic acid.. so we’ll see.

Wish me luck!