GAINZZZ: Fast Friday

I should have been clear about this in the last post: All the escalations of the 16:8 (or 14:10, or 18:6 daily) restricted time eating windows are unnecessary. It might have seemed like too much of a commitment, talking about multiday fasts. But multiday fasts are only something you could add, if you plateau or just wanted to try them.

The intermittent fasting regime (which isn't really fasting -- it's just skipping breakfast and post-dinner snacks, really) of restricting eating windows to 10, 8, or 6 hours a day will keep most people either losing weight or at least not gaining any.

I'm at day 4 of a fast, which is a mark I haven't hit before. Supposedly it's to become easy sometime between today and tomorrow. Today isn't bad, exactly, but man, when I see food -- even a stupid carrot -- I really want to eat it.

Have you ever craved a carrot? I just did.

Then I craved seeds.

I was making broccoli sprouts, finally, after watching Rhonda Patrick explain them to Joe Rogan (at about minute 32:00)). They're anti-inflamamatory and supposedly also might have nootropic benefits.

(I've been trying to find a legit nootropic since I saw Limitless. So far, nuthin'. Well, coffee. But the word's been out on that for quite a few years.)

Anyway, I had these stupid little seeds -- not even nearly sprouted yet -- on my fingertips and immediately wanted to stick them in my mouth and eat them. And they're not even food yet.

Assuming it does get easy in the next 24 hours, that means I can keep this going for longer. Not sure how long I'd keep it going, as longer fasts (more than three days) start to carry risks. Stuff like your electrolytes getting all out of balance and having a heart attack and dying, or experiencing serious problems when you start eating again. (Refeeding syndrome and refeeding edema -- they're ugly and dangerous.)

Those problems can be avoided, The Internet tells me, by re-introducing food slowly -- first watered down juice, then some light fruit, then some chicken broth -- over the course of three days.

Which seems like a real pain in the ass. If I get seriously hungry, can I depend on my willpower to stick with vegetable broth for a couple of days?

Ah well, we'll see. I haven't even actually crossed into the duration where that really becomes a concern. But I'm going to be crossing into that must-refeed-slowly point sometime tomorrow.

Oddly enough -- haven't lost that much weight yet. Couple of pounds, maybe three. (I figure these are mostly real pounds lost, though, as I've probably already lost all the expected water-weight loss from being on a ketogenic diet for a while.) Scale says bodyfat dropped by half a percent. Eh, it's something.

I've been pretty active and weightlifted on weightlifting days. I don't expect to GAINZZZ any muscle during this fast but I hope that stimulating muscle growth will at least stop LOZZEZZZ. (And, by boosting HGH to spare muscle, drive the body to burn more fat instead of muscle.)

I was able to hit the weights I was programmed to hit (I'm following Rippetoe/Stronglifts where you add 5 pounds (or 10 pounds for deadlifts) for each session. But I did have to take longer between each set to recover -- no glycogen in the muscles, i guess. And I'm still on embarrassingly low weights -- I don't know if this would work for anyone lifting serious weight. Someone working with higher weight would probably have to just do a bit less than customary. Basically just stick with a just-stay-in-the-game sort of program, rather than actually trying to set new personal records.

Energy is pretty high. I got a case of weird manic energy yesterday. Not good energy, but manic energy. A lot of it. I was jumping around from task to task (short-term memory not keeping me on one task at a time) and talking to myself as I just busied myself almost randomly.

I had a bit of bone broth to stop that (this isn't a strict water fast; I drink some bone broth and sometimes have BCAA's or a half serving of powdered greens (high nutrient powdered vegetable matter) in water. On weightlifting days I also had 8-10 grams of cassein protein.

So not a strict, absolute water fast, but calorie-wise, about 150 calories or less a day.

Overall I feel fine. A little hungry, but not ravenously or distractingly so (unless I think about it or see delicious, succulent carrots). Energy pretty good. Focus... a bit scattered, to be honest. I have the physical energy for busywork but not the mental focus for any kind of real thinking.

I think (hope?) that will pass in the next 24 hours.

If it doesn't, I guess I'll just stop this in the next couple of days.

So far, no feeling of intense clarity. Kinda pretty much the opposite. My brain feels active, but not directed.

The lack of the promised benefits might just be due to the fact that I'm not following the strict water-only protocol. Maybe those benefits are just delayed a bit. I dunno.

So that's my GAINZZZ -- kind of minor, but I did manage to finally beat Day 3 of fasting and move on to Day 4. Kept to my workout schedule.

Anyone got any GAINZZZ to report?

posted by Ace at 07:26 PM

| Access Comments