An experiment with fasting

Mrs has been reading The Complete Guide to Fasting by Dr. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore. I thought I'd give it a read.

It's very repetitive, and fairly evangelistic - but if you can look past that, there's a lot of sense behind it. Fasting (voluntarily) as opposed to starvation (outside your control) looks like a useful tool in maintaining good health. In particular it looks to be very helpful when combined with a good LCHF (low carbohydrate, high fat) diet.

Whilst you can live for a surprising amount of time without food (the book cites one medically supervised case of over 380 days!), you don't last long without liquid. I've been restricting myself to water and black coffee, however for longer fasts bone broth is recommended to top up vitamins and minerals. The body becomes remarkably good at recycling so you need far less of a top-up than you may think.

Fasting can be for any period - we all fast multiple times per day starting with the last mouthful of our last meal, but we don't fast for very long. As we're driven to continual snacking (mustn't let those energy levels drop!) the longest period between eating is usually over night.

I tend to eat at around 8pm, and since going (mainly) LCHF I've preferred to get out and run in the morning at the weekend before breakfast - just with a cup of black coffee. Often I wouldn't eat until early afternoon, so that's a voluntary fast of 14 hours. This is good to promote fat burning, but there are greater (and additional) benefits from giving it a bit longer.

Give it a read if you're interested

I went for 24 hours last week, from dinner one evening to dinner the next evening, and found it fairly easy. This week I thought I'd try for a 36-hour fast from dinner Sunday night through to breakfast this morning.

Although my stomach sounded like an Icelandic mud spring when I went to sleep last night, I woke up this morning feeling mighty-fine, and not at all hungry. In fact, I feel very focussed, energetic, and even a little euphoric. I decided not to bother with breakfast and went for a run around the block instead. I'm planning to eat at dinner this evening - I'm going for a longer run tomorrow and would prefer not to pass out and fall in the Thames (low risk, but better safe than sorry). So that will be a 48-hour fast.

I'm probably finding it relatively easy as I've been largely LCHF since the end of 2012. My body is used to being carb-restricted and burning stored fat. I wonder how hard it would be to go a week? The book describes some health benefits of fasting for a week per year which I won't repeat here, but I'm intrigued.

I am what I eat

I mentioned in my slightly cathartic last post that I'd lost control a bit (a lot) on the weight front. Let's look at that a bit more closely.

Last year when I moved to LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) eating I lost a lot of weight (around 6kg) rather dramatically - this is expected and is very well recorded.

Absolute carb intake against weight for Nov & Dec 2012 - Christmas is where it started to break!

I was logging everything I ate and drank. I was keeping relatively close to my self-assigned target macro nutrient profile of 75% calories from fat, 20% from protein, and 5% from carbohydrate (note that there isn't an absolute calorie target - this isn't a "calorie counting" plan).

Macro nutrient split by % - no crazy carb binges at all, but a lift at Christmas has an impact

The decline continued until just after Christmas. I decided I needed a break from hyper-focus on logging every mouthful (I was taking a general break from being quite so analytical about food, training, exercise), and reckoned I was settled in enough to LCHF to "freewheel" (after all, they say you can eat as much as you like, right?).

There's also a well recorded phenomenon of weight gain on an LCHF diet plan if you over-ride (accidentally, or on purpose) you satiety signals. That is, you (continue to) over-eat. The reason you can "eat as much as you like" and not need to calorie count on LCHF is because the high caloric density foods give you a good clear "I've eaten enough" signal at the right time, and you listen to it.

It is possible to ignore that signal. I think I do, mainly unconsciously but occasionally as a result of a bad decision - particularly on the few days I've committed wilful "carbicide" courtesy of Dominos (and the fastest way to gain weight is the worst of all worlds, high fat, high carb, high protein, high calories - way too much of everything!).

My weight whilst "Freewheeling" from Jan to mid April 2013 - Argh! Stop climbing!

It's nothing to do with exercise - I was actually getting marginally more exercise into Q1 2013 than I was at the end of 2012, but was gaining weight. Why? 

I decided to start logging my food again on Saturday, and it was instantly apparent what the problem was. The caloric density of my meals was far far higher than I though. Here are some examples:

LCHF "cooked breakfast" - 571 calories

LCHF "lunch salad" - 712 calories

LCHF "yoghurt snack" - 592 calories

The macro split isn't too bad - there are just way more calories than I was accounting for. Compare that with what my previous low fat, high protein diet used to give me.

A typical lunch from last year - it's no wonder I was on 4-6 additional snacks per day!

The problem was that I was augmenting these meals with occasional other (high fat) snacks, and - importantly - a full cooked dinner (all be it still on the LCHF theme). Over the last few weeks I lost a lot of control and was enjoying a nice big slice of cake from the coffee shop with my coffee at work, and even caught myself making a couple of slices of toast with peanut butter at work (it was lovely, but I felt terrible afterwards). High everything.

During this fortnight I was feeling more and more ill in my stomach, like there was a toxic buildup. I didn't feel actively sick apart from once or twice, and there weren't any problems with, er, "waste", I just felt terrible. Bloated, laden, heavy (feeling heavy as well as being heavier). I felt like the handbag on the constipation commercial where the troubled lady just keeps on ramming food in (I had a brief look for it on the YouTubes but I don't want to end up being followed around by constipation ads so I stopped).

I also don't think it's any coincidence that I have had a sore throat and heavy cold over the last week, the first trace of illness I've had since going LCHF in November (and I always have a cold at Christmas/New Year). I certainly made the right call last Saturday to restore some greater awareness.

My first day of logging again.

On my first day of logging I hardly ate anything compared to recent weeks. Ignore the "-61" in red - that's a hangover from last year where I had WLR set on a daily calorie target deficit of 500 calories under that which I should need to maintain my weight. Looking at calories only is a flawed approach, but you can't ignore them all together. That's what I've learned this year.

A real eye opener as to how little I needed to eat to reach these numbers. And Saturday I felt much better, and the day after that, better still (apart from the cold, which I'm only really just shaking off now).

I'll stay on alert for a couple of weeks and see what happens to the weight graph. Since Saturday (5 days) it's already dropped by 1.3kg. I'm astounded I shot up to 86.7kg, almost around 9kg heavier than my minimum before Christmas - that was only three and a half months ago!

So, since I hit the reset button on Saturday I've felt much better. And you know what? I've been more productive at work, my brain is quicker and more useful, and I'm feeling positive - hmm, just the feelings I discussed the first time I went LCHF. No coincidence.

Look after yourself, eat well - you are what you eat.

Diary of a wanna-be fat burner: Week 2

Two weeks into the high fat/low carbohydrate experiment, and I have to say on the whole I've felt pretty good.

My previous macro-nutrient split target

Although I had a target previously it was more of a pointer than anything I actively ate to. I knew it was there, but I didn't consult my progress during the day and think "Hmm, I should have some more protein" or anything like that.

New macro-nutrient split target

I'm pretty much spot-on this now. Comparing my mix from before I started this experiment until now it's actually the most stable nutrient mix I've ever had by a considerable margin.

At the start of the week I had a couple of days where I really couldn't get out of bed, but once I'd got up I found I had plenty of energy. On a few occasions I get light headed when I get up quickly, but that's a well recorded effect during adaptation.

Exercise continues to be no problem. There's an odd feeling when I first start, when cycling legs feel "fizzy" for a few moments, a bit like they're totally empty of fuel and are about to stop working (ever cycle sprinted up a steep hill? or hit the wall/bonked?). However after a few moments they're fine again. No real loss of power evident from the commuting I've done, but hard to tell without going for a longer ride. I'm planning on putting in a 90-120 minute ride tomorrow while Mrs is running a half marathon in Richmond Park.

I did have a very fast and hard energy crash on Sunday afternoon. It came on so quickly I found myself falling asleep waiting for web pages to load! I soon came out of it though after a short walk. I expect there's going to be a couple of events like this as although I'm clearly burning fat now, I expect there is considerable optimisation required to become really efficient.

At work I've felt good and alert, the occasional feelings of hunger but they go very quickly. Dropping to a lunch and just a couple of snacks during work hours is handy - less to carry than on my carb heavy days where I was almost permanently snacking! In particularly I don't have an afternoon slump any more. That was quite crushing at times and probably led to the growing habit of a 4pm chocolate bar (not the right solution, only encourages the yo-yoing of insulin levels).

Where my fuel comes from - my nutrition changed on the 10th as is very clear

I made a mess of Thursday evening - we went out and I poorly judged my wine intake. Got to 52g carbs for the day which is still considered low, however I was very hungry the next morning. I really didn't enjoy the carby craving, but it wore off towards the afternoon thankfully. I hadn't been hungry like that for a few weeks - it's a bit like having a hangover when you haven't had one for a long time. Unpleasant.

Absolute carbohydrate intake - can you guess when I started low-carb? :)

Apart from last Thursday I've kept under 50g/day every day. In the literature this is considered a "very low carbohydrate diet" and should be within the range to properly adapt to a fat-burning metabolism.

One thing that's definitely helped me, and you should certainly get into this habit too if you're interested in trying this, is that I am used to meticulously logging every single thing I eat and drink. Even the cup of tea I'm drinking now (1.7g carbohydrate) makes a big difference when your targets are so low. I've used Weight Loss Resources for a long time, and highly recommend it - regardless of if you're losing weight or not.

In studies that have been done the vast majority of people mis-report, under-report, or flat out lie about what they're eating when asked to keep a diary. Buy some scales, weigh everything, and keep yourself honest - it's definitely worth it.

Diary of a wanna-be fat burner: Days 5-7

Day 5: Wednesday 14th November

A little harder to get going this morning as I was fast asleep when my alarm went off. Soon perked up though, with a portion of lovely Bulletproof Coffee and the surprise of being a whole kilogram lighter than yesterday. It's impossible to lose weight from fat at this rate, indeed the maximum advised rate is about 1kg (2.2lb) per week, so clearly I was releasing some retained fluid or have further depleted my glycogen store. My full glycogen stores will weigh around 1kg (varies according to weight and other factors), but there's water you lose at the same time.

If you adopt the Atkins diet which is similar in profile to what I'm doing, rapid weight loss during the adaptation phase is one known effect. This invariable leads to cries from the dieter of "Yay! It's working! I lost 10lb in 2 weeks on the Atkins diet!" - in fact as shown on their website that's one of the primary selling points.

This rate of loss is, of course, unsustainable. You only have a certain amount of glycogen and fluid to lose (though there will be some fat loss too during this period), and once that's gone the diet "fails" (rate of loss becomes comes much reduced) and the yo-yo dieter goes back to their normal dietary habits, and "piles the weight back on" (restocks glycogen, fluids, and probably some fat too). They haven't waited long enough to properly adapt.

I'm not aiming for rapid weight loss, I want some amount of controlled loss but the priority is metabolic change. I feel It's important for me to maintain a strong and regular exercise ethic during this process. I'm trying not to be in a high calorie deficit during this phase (though I am taking in fewer calories than I have been in recent weeks).

Bulletproof Coffee

I was very hungry this morning - but it's hard to tell if it's genuine. I had a yoghurt snack at 09:30, and bacon and egg with some cherry tomatoes at 10:45. Quite different to yesterday where I wasn't at all hungry until lunch time.

In the evening, we had our first attempt at having a meal out, going to one of our favourite local places, the Light House in Wimbledon. It is possible, but some self control, and careful choosing of menu items is required.

 

Pork Belly with crackling, hold the mash, add broccoli and spinach side dish

If your starter comes with toast, like my chicken liver pâté did, hide it in the bread (which you, of course, aren't eating).

Toast in the bread, obviously

....and even with all this yum, I came in at only 32.1g carbohydrate for the day. And we had wine. And I had a Gin and Tonic.


Day 6: Thursday 15th November

Weirdest. Hangover. Ever. Awoke with a banging headache and expected a day of sluggishness and a feeling of guilt for not being able to focus on my work tasks properly (standard hangover modus operandi)  - but the headache cleared in minutes after I got up and downed a bulletproof coffee. I did feel a bit tired (probably as a result of poor quality sleep), but not energy-crashingly so like I would expect to be. I ate on-plan through the day and didn't experience the usual hangover carb-cravings in the slightest (I need toast! And a bacon and egg roll! And a lardy lunch! And a Snickers!).

I was scheduled for a long and serious meeting in the afternoon. Conventionally, this is where I'd have had a big slump and really struggled to stay attentive, the 1pm to 3pm danger zone (probably as a result of a massive slump following an insulin spike resulting from a carb-laden lunch) - but this simply didn't happen. I felt alert and focussed the whole way through - I have done for the whole day, in fact. I fully approve of this experience!

In the evening I had a run scheduled - "Run until it hurts" the Doctor said (more on my knee later). First time running on this plan and only my third run in a fortnight so I was a bit creaky but felt pretty good. I wasn't going very fast, just under 25 minutes for 5km, but my energy levels seemed to be normal. I'm starting to feel a bit weird, like I'm hardly eating any carbs, but I'm not getting tired or being unable to do physical things - where is this energy coming from? Am I metabolising fat already? I did feel a little weak towards the end but that might be as a result of my knee starting to hurt. I'm looking forward to an experimental long run at some point soon.


Day 7: Friday 16th November

My weight continues to evaporate - I was 81.8kg this morning (actually 81.75kg but I always round up), much closer to the "around 80kg" that I'd be happy with. As previously explained, this isn't a weight-loss initiative, but it's a perfectly acceptable side effect! When I started day 1 last Saturday I weighed in at 84.3kg.

I've been feeling more and more alert as the week has progressed. I'm finding it hard to believe that i'm getting through almost the entire morning, including a cycle commute of a reasonable intensity (mid-to upper HR zone 1), with nothing other than a cup of coffee (all be it a 376 calorie one with 41.2g of fat in it).

I'm starting to wonder if my dropping ability to really focus and make good progress on things at work in recent months was as a result of diet? Could it be that simple? I had got well into the habit of having two breakfasts in the morning. This was as a result of a normally fairly heavy morning training load, but as the training load dropped off at the end of the season my breakfasts didn't - quite the opposite. Recently I'd been having peanut butter in porridge in the morning, and then cereal and a banana when I got in - even on the days when I got the tube in. That's clearly excessive.

A genuine typical first few hours of the day - this was October 22nd

By 10:30 I'd consumed 719 calories including 100.8g of carbohydrate.

I'm continuing to feel more alert, more mentally agile, and more focussed and constructive. How much of this is genuine versus psychosomatic? I'm thinking a large percentage is for real. I hadn't read or heard anywhere about a change of mental state and therefore wasn't looking for it.

Mrs mentioned this evening that she'd seen a few articles about the effect of a high fat/low carbohydrate diet on the brain, so I'm definitely going to take a look at that - I'll let you know what I find!

Diary of a wanna-be fat burner: Days 1-4

I'm going to try and train my body to burn fat as a sustainable fuel source rather than carbs. I'll talk about the science in a later post, but for now here is my experience over the first four days.


Day 1: Saturday 10th November

Obviously there isn't much to report in the way of changes today - you can eat whatever you want (within reason) for a day and bounce back happily. What felt a bit weird was what I was eating - high fat, as low carb as possible (maximum 50g/day), and minimal protein. Bacon, eggs, cheese, mayonnaise, bring it on - and then plenty of dark green leafed things to top up iron and vitamin C.

parkrun was very frustrating as my knee pain returned (see my previous post). I resolved to Get Something Done About It, but there was nothing I could do at the weekend. As a result I was in a fair bit of pain during the afternoon. The novelty of lots of butter and cheese was fun though :)

Dinner was fillet steak with lettuce, walnut, and sauce (can't remember what went into it)

We bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate yesterday's news of my acceptance onto the Unogwaja Challenge. We both found we got giggly-drunk really very quickly! I sobered up equally fast, Mrs stayed tipsy until she fell asleep (which explains why she had a hangover the next day and I didn't) - we agreed it was more like we'd had the whole bottle each than just half.

With this nutrition profile you can drink alcohol but it needs to have as little sugar in it as possible - the driest white wine you can find, or purest spirit (whisk(e)y, vodka, gin all fine). Remember you might be taking low-carb drinks, but there are still calories to consider - and if you need a mixer go for something sugar free like diet coke or soda/mineral water. It didn't get that out of control, we'll save that level of craziness for another time.


Day 2: Sunday 11th November

It all felt a bit restrictive today. I spent a lot of the day feeling negative, "I can't eat bread, I can't eat cereal, I can't eat bloody anything" - and you can't get much more negative than "I can't". I felt a bit frustrated as a result, but tried to think about the good things. Bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast with full fat cream in the egg was gorgeous.

Breakfast - and yes, it looks like I eat tomatoes now

Constrained to the sofa I felt very lethargic and my still painful knee was depressing me. Mrs went out for a run and I wanted nothing more than to go with her.

I cracked at about 16:30 and went for a session on the spin bike at the gym. I managed about 40 minutes before giving in. 10 minutes warm up, 10 minutes at +20 cadence, 10 at -20, then a 10 minute cool down that I got bored during so did some distinctly non-cool-down-esque 30 second sprints. Felt better for sweating a bit. Resolved to continue the experiment. Onwards and upwards!

I bought "Why We Get Fat (And What To Do About It) by Gary Taubes" on Kindle. This is the book Mrs has been reading, and, alongside my chattering about various excellent nutrition interviews on the Marathon Talk (iTunes) and Talk Ultra (iTunes) podcasts, inspired her to give this a go (she's three days ahead of me). This book is relatively light, there's a deeper one she's working through that goes a lot further into the biochemistry "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living: An Expert Guide to Making the Life-Saving Benefits of Carbohydrate Restriction Sustainable and Enjoyable, by Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek" and one neither of us have got to yet, "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance by RD, Jeff S. Volek PhD and PhD, Stephen D. Phinney MD". I'll write something on these books when I've read them.

Mrs served a perfectly roasted chicken for dinner - life is good! As a bit of an evening snack experiment we tried mashing some peanut butter in cocoa powder, and rolling it in desiccated coconut - dab it in some xylitol and: Yum! Peanut Butter Balls! Mrs vowed to experiment further.


Day 3: Monday 12th November

Feeling a bit zombiefied at work all day, oddly easier to focus than it has been in the past though. Saw Skyfall (amazing, go see it NOW!) in the evening and felt fully alert all the way through. Conventionally, I usually have a slump during movies, usually in the crap slow middle bit, but not today. Of course, I also usually have popcorn, some sweets, or something high-carb like beer before hand. We had some peanut butter and celery as a snack, that was amusing. When we got home I still wasn't hungry, so I just had a couple of strips of some new streaky bacon we got, and a boiled egg and a touch of mayonnaise.

In general, I felt slow today, and easily outmanoeuvred in conversation (not my usual position). There were no highs or lows though. I didn't do any training today, probably for the best.


Day 4: Tuesday 13th November

I slept amazingly well last night - I actually felt like I had buckets of energy when I woke up, and I haven't felt that for a while. There are various reasons for this, I'm not sure that any one is specifically to blame.  Now the mornings are dark it's always harder to get going, plus with Mrs off work at the moment she isn't in a hurry to get up either, and I've had a few more beers in the last week or two than I have recently.

Breakfast was my first day on Bulletproof Coffee. This is simply a large mug of black filter coffee with 50g of unsalted butter dissolved into it, and then blended. Yup, you heard it - butter in coffee. It felt weird knowing what I was drinking, but tasted lovely - like a buttery milkshake.

First day commuting on the bike this week and I was expecting to feel weak, but felt fine, totally normal. I powered up Charing Cross Road (medium length gentle incline) with no problems. Into work and straight into a 2 hour meeting and... I didn't get hungry at all. I had a coffee at about 9:30, but that was it. Normally I'm crying out for "second breakfast" by now. I finally had a small snack at about 11am - the first solid food of the day.

I feel sharper today, more on the ball, quicker to think. In fact, I'm feeling a bit hyper! I'm getting some good work done, including some annoying jobs I'd been putting off.

I felt a bit peckish in the afternoon so ate 40g of cheese dipped in marmite - it feels mentally very disconcerting for that to be an OK thing to snack on, it's hard to let go of the messages that have been drummed into you all your life - eat more fruit; fat is bad; cheese is fatty - avoid; you need carbs, protein and some fat in every meal.

I really wish I could run - I'd be very interested to know if all this energy I'm feeling is real and accessible. As it was I put the hammer down on the ride home. It felt like I was a little sluggish to spin up my legs but once I was there I didn't experience any shortage of power, and I felt like I could have gone on for significantly longer than the 45 minutes it took me to get home.

Dinner - salmon fillet with courgettes in a carbonara style sauce of cheese, egg, bacon, and cream

Whatsmore, Mrs had made some more amazing balls - this time with whiskey in! Double Yum!

I'll update with the rest of the week's experiences at the weekend...