Day 3 of Fast

More restless sleep, more muscle cramping.

1. 0600  --  260.4lbs - 120/73 

This was the lightest I have been since November.... 2017...  That was extremely motivating!

With the help of a little more bone broth (90 calories I made it to the 72 hour mark). So all of 170 calories in 3 days. Broke my fast proper with a visit to a Vietnamese Pho place (so more bone broth! But this stuff was so much better).

Overall impressions? I can do this, and I think I can do this for longer (I can't believe I am writing this but I would be interested in doing a 7 day fast sometime in the future). I might even be able to incorporate back in my exercise into this (I think in particular in the beginning, as an effort to burn out the sugar in the bloodstream and speed the transition to ketosis). I really wasn't crazy hungry and things were busy enough.  I think this would be easier without kids (because they need things like food and it is hard to be around food when doing this). I definitely wouldn't do another 3 day where it goes over weekend (though with this being a drill weekend I was away and busy).  I really didn't feel as off as I expected, a pleasant surprise.

After re-feeding and a full cycle of meals, 48 hours after that weight I was 265.8, which was still better than a when I started.

Day 2

Restless sleep (but somehow a Fitbit sleep score of 78 on 7:26 of sleep). Some Crazy more muscle cramping, I was in a meeting and had 3-4 muscles all messing with me at the same time.

1. 0700  --  263.9lbs - 133/87 69bpm
2. 1230 --  Still feeling mostly fine other than the cramping issue. Amazingly my stomach is not crying out right now for food as I expected/feared. Coffee and an electrolyte mix (I really like this one, Ultima Replenisher Electrolyte Hydration Powder, Grape ) have kept me going, will probably switch to macha tea in the afternoon to ease the caffeine load. 40 hours in  
3. 1600  --  265.9lbs
4. 2137  -- 264.8lb

I broke down a touch (though it depends where you read if it was ok) and had a package of bone broth in the evening. So all of 80 calories in more than 2 days.

Day 1

Last food was at roughly 1900 last night.  Slept poorly but there is something about the taco's we had for dinner that doesn't settle well (massive acidity in stomach.. I am trying different variations to find what is causing it, onions just got excluded). Overall this will be the easy day, at least until 1800 or so, because that is normally when I break a 24 (ish) hour fast.  60bpm resting heart rate.

1. 0800  --  268.6lbs - 44 waist
2. 1600  --  267lbs - 44 waist.  129/98 67bpm

Only odd effect so far has been some cramping. That and some grumbling from my stomach.... But I have been prone to cramping for a long time so I cannot blame this (yet).....

I started with this which got me into 24 hour fasts:

Eat Stop Eat: Intermittent Fasting for Health and Weight Loss

Then I moved to my reference for this:
The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended


Note: Today I had a physical. Then I had to take our sick cat Legend in.Who the vet not so subtly told me needs to be put down, there is no return to normal (pain free) for him. FML, I almost broke this thing before it started since I _really_ wanted a drink after that news...

Not quite dead (but I may feel like it in a few days)

Going to use this to sort of live blog my new experiment, trying a longer fast. I have been doing a number of short 20-24 hour fasts for several months now (minus travel, holidays and extreme stress times). So given the fact that I may have to be taped this weekend (but no PT test) I figured it would be chance to maybe lose an inch or so from the waist and try to extend my to (*gulp*) 72 hours. I already had to fast for both my annual physical as well as my annual Army physical, so why not combine them.
I have been reading so many good things about the benefits of extended fasting that I am kind of interested to see how it goes. Not horribly excited, but interested to see how it goes.  I predict that Thursday night will be the worst because my body is used to eating after a 24 hour fast and isn't going to be happy.

The 24 hour (ish) Fasting Experiment

I like experimenting with various ways to try to lose weight.  I am in the Army National Guard and at this point don't want to get kicked out for my weight, as I will have just completed 14 years of service at the end of this month.

Over the years I have tried Adkin's, Keto, Intermittent Fasting(IF), etc. I like the science behind fasting but honestly, I find IF burdensome as, while it claims to be intermittent in practice most people do it 5-7 days a week. I actually like breakfast (even after my time in AFG where it was my dinner for 6 months) so I was never good at following a consistent IF plan. Then early last month I found some references to a book, "Eat, Stop, Eat," (by Brad Pilon) that intrigued me. Basically the book breaks down to just trying to go for 24 hours 2x a week (for those of us who are overweight... so America as a whole, then if you get really close you can drop to 1x week). I love that the book has something like 20 page of scientific citations at the end. And even besides fat loss there are additional health benefits to a 24 hour fast that made it an easy sell to me.  

So the basic numbers when I started the first fast on 13FEB19:

Weight: 275.1 lbs

RHR: 62 bpm

After 3 full weeks of 2x Fasting for 24hrs (08MAR19):

Weight: 265.2 lbs

RHR: 55 bpm

Interesting note, you can see my RHR spike during drill(1-3MAR)....  I was less than good going to the gym (only 2-3 time a week) during this period, but because I have a record APFT coming up, I need to get moving on that.

I also had a checkup on 28FEB19 and I will need to have some more blood work done in 3 months, so that should have some interesting nuggets. (one desire of this trip is to not need BP meds anymore)

I will check back in next month to see how things are going.  I find that while I am hungry, I don't feel tempted to cheat.  During these fast periods I try to be as strict as I can be, developing a taste for black (but with fake sugar) coffee and lots of water. I generally break the fast with some probiotics (fermented garlic, sauerkraut, plus maybe some kefir) and carrots/hummis.