So I've been posting in the intermittent fasting thread, but thought I'd start a new thread on my self-experimentation while multi-day fasting. I purchased a blood testing meter that tests for both ketones and blood glucose levels. This is much more accurate testing on blood rather than urnine as level of water consumption among other things can give false positive and negative reading or influence them.
I started my mutli-day fast with the ending of my meal last Wednesday evening (2FEB16). I recieved my meter Thursday and did my first ketone test Thursday eveninng at 9:30 pm and recorded a level of 1.9 which is within the optimal fat burning mode of 1.6 to 3.0.
Before going to bed, I had two drinks with vodka and Fresca, believing that as alcohol isn't processed the same, it wouldn't affect my blood glucose levels and thus no ketone level impact. I found I was dead wrong and the next morning, my ketone test showed 0.7 or essentially no fat burning. By that evening ketones had risen back to 2.6.
No alcohol Friday night and Saturday mornings reading was up again to 3.6 - a little on the high side, but a ketone test with the urine test only showed moderate levels being expelled. The difference being consumed for energy. For Saturday evening through today, my levels have been more consistent between 2.2 and 2.8. Sunday night I recieved my glucose test strips and began mointoring blood glucose. One of the concerns of fasting in general is the lack of glucose to feed red blood cells and specific brain cells. Normal adult fasting levels of glucose (in this case fasting meaning 12 hours after a meal like doctors make you do before blood tests) is 70-100. Sunday night I tested at 72. Monday's two test came in at 94 and 75. This mornings test was at 75 as well, so my glucose is in the normal range giving sufficent fuel for those cells that can only use glucose.
When I started fasting, my resting heart rate was around 62 bpm. As I've gone through the fast period, it has declined steadily and todays is at 57. I have continued to walk and do light to moderate exercise while fasting and exceeding the step goal of 10k per day.
So based on my research into fasting and IF, my self-experimentation in as far as I can test, bears out the results. BTW, as I get back in shape I was only up to about 10 pushups without stopping, but yesterday I was able to do 20 after a previous set of 10, so no loss in strength. I have no real hunger. I do have dry mouth alot, but the thought hit me yesterday that siliva is secreated as part of the digestive process. I've been drinking around 80 oz of water a day, so the dry mouth must be contributed to having nothing to digest, so thus no siliva. I tested that by getting some sugar free altoids mini's and sucking on one every so often and at 1 or 2 an hour, the dry mouth disappeared. My glucose test shows no significant increase in blood glucose as a result of the sugar free mints.
I will continue to post the results of my fasting here. This will extend into IF when I break this fast and return to every other day fasting. I'm super curious how my body will respond to ADF and if I've effective trained my body to switch back and forth between the two. UCLA's Longevity Institute has found that periodic fasting (defined as 3-4, 5 day fasts per year) has a significant impact on disease such as alzhiemer and Parkinsons. They have developed a fast mimicking diet that uses high fat and 800 calories per day that give the same results. I intend on conducting a pure water, coffee, tea, bone broth fast every quarter in addition to my ADF.
Stay tuned!
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