Kidney Test and the Food-Free Diet

Last Wednesday I got the results back on a kidney test and my results were worse. At least according to my PA. She wants me to eat less protein & less sodium. Since I need to be on low-carb to control my diabetes and I’m sure my very conventional PA presumes that everyone needs to be low-fat, that adds up to a food-free diet. Luckily I already have a couple books about that diet.

I have ‘The Complete Guide to Fasting’ by Dr. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore, and ‘The Obesity Code’ by Dr. Jason Fung. Dr. Fung is a nephrologist (kidney doctor) and if fasting (or low-carb) were deadly for people with kidney disease, I assume he would know it. Perhaps be in jail for killing patients by now.

I ordered another of Dr. Fung’s books, ‘The Diabetes Code,’ which I intend to read cover-to-cover repeatedly even though Dr. Fung doesn’t write as well when he doesn’t have Jimmy Moore as a co-author. I also ordered 2 books on kidney disease and low-protein diets, both written by doctors. I need information!

Low-protein shouldn’t be THAT hard for people on the LCHF eating plan. Even though commercial sources brag about the grams of protein in meal bars and meal ‘shakes,’ our way-of-eating is supposed to be MODERATE protein. Because our clever bodies can turn protein into glucose. Also, protein intake can raise your insulin levels even if you eat it without carby foods— and that can make insulin resistance worse.

I have had fun calculating how many grams of protein I can be allowed on this new diet madness. First, I had to convert my weight from pounds into kilograms. Since I’m still hoping to lose weight and I don’t want to get in an eating pattern that I will have to make more restrictive soon, I used 160 for my current weight even though I’m at 182 at last check.

That’s about 73 kilograms. So at a .3 grams of protein per kilogram I can have about 22 grams of protein, and at .6 grams of protein per day that comes to 43 grams of protein. So my target is between 22 and 43 grams of protein per day. (Though my protein-needed amount is 50 grams per day I calculated.) I ordered a book of food counts that includes the protein & sodium counts to help with that. I also wanted to look for an app for my phone that did food counts, but I cannot find the darn thing at the moment— even though I put St. Anthony of Padua on the job! (Update: found it when the phone rang. Downloaded Carb Manager app and started using it.)

So— my current intermittent fasting plan calls for reducing my eating opportunities to one meal a day, with plenty of fluids in between time, and perhaps a bulletproof beverage to help me overcome hunger (which counts as a ‘meal.’ I’m going to replace my morning bulletproof coffee with a cup of hot bone broth (recommended by Dr. Jason Fung) and later a black coffee (with cinnamon & turmeric added.) 

It’s doable, and I haven’t been badly hungry so far. Just slight hunger pangs which can be ignored or defeated with a glass of water, tea or black coffee. My blood sugars are better— 101 this morning— and today I had a 123/72 blood pressure which is a big improvement. Plus according to my Ketonix I’m in moderate ketosis. 

So— good health and good low-carbing to you,

from 

Nissa Annakindt and her ‘unhappy’ kidneys

"Are You Still Fasting?"

I must admit I have not been doing the level of fasting I had been doing before my stroke last February. While in the hospital, a rehab center, and an anti-Catholic homeless shelter (while my plumbing was being fixed) I did a lot of fasting because I was served institutional meals with high-carb elements in them. I ate what little I could and did without.

When I came home my appetite came back and I felt deprived because of the long stint of mostly do-not-eat institutional food. And when I tried morning fasting I tended to have afternoon carb binges. 

I am trying to get back into fasting today, it being a Friday in Lent after all. I am allowing myself 2 coffees-with-MCT oil today and hoping to go for nothing else. If I feel massive temptation for a carb binge, though, I will eat a little something like some canned tuna. 

The problem with fasting is that a lot of people think it is all about skipping ‘calories’ and that we all should be counting and reducing our ‘calories.’ But we on Keto * Low-Carb should know better than that. Studies have shown that a 1000 calorie diet has radically different effects when the calories are from fat or protein mostly instead of from carbohydrates. Calories don’t count. Deprivation and hunger are not good things. 

On Keto * Low-Carb fasting ideally happens because we aren’t experiencing hunger when we are in ketosis. If you are an older person or have long-term insulin resistance problems, lowering carbs alone won’t give you ‘fast weight loss’ or even any weight loss. But ketosis makes it easy to do some fasting and adding a bit of hunger-free fasting to your eating plan can help you lose a few pounds even if you have plateaued on your Keto * Low-Carb eating plan.

I think it was Dr. Jason Fung who said ‘when you fast, fast, when you feast, feast.’ A little fasting in a ketogenic life means that you can feast on your allowed foods without worry. You become in control, not the food. 

But learn to listen to your body. I’ve found that ‘white-knuckle’ fasting-with-hunger just leads me to give in to the temptation of a carb-binge. So if I start feeling hunger, I eat something. Even when I was planning on fasting. Eating a bit of low-or-zero carb food can derail a carb binge before it starts. Many of us make a point of not getting hungry so we are less tempted. Less tempted is good!

On Twitter? Please follow me there: https://twitter.com/nissaamaskatoj

How I learned to Control my T2 Diabetic Blood Sugars

I learned that I was diabetic because my mother is thrifty. She was and is ‘addicted’ to constant doctor visits, and she does what she is told. When she had a bad cholesterol reading, she obediently went on a statin drug— and promptly got full-blown diabetes. 

She controlled her diabetes with pills, got bad low-fat-based nutritional advice, and learned to test her blood sugar every morning with a blood sugar meter. When her ‘health-care provider’s’ corporation moved the patients on to a different brand of blood sugar meter, she gave me her old one because, as someone who grew up during the Great Depression, she wasn’t going to take a thing that was worth money and throw it away.

I tested my blood sugar one day just for kicks— it was over 300. Scary! So I went to mom’s ‘health-care provider,’ a nurse-practitioner, and she put me on Metformin— one of the few diabetes pills that doesn’t make you gain weight.

I had already learned about low-carb living, since I’d bought copies of various Atkins diet book from St. Vincent de Paul thrift shops. I KNEW that my weight problem already showed that my body had a problem handling carbohydrates. 

As a child I had read a REALLY old home medical book my mother had, that had two or three whole chapters about diabetes, which was very keen on the discovery of insulin injections which was new when the writer was younger. I learned that diabetes was a disease where you had to ‘give up sugar forever.’ As I grew older and learned about Atkins and low-carb, I knew that carbs in general were the problem, not just sugar and not just ‘added sugar.’

The Metformin did bring my blood sugars down. I tested my blood sugars about 3 times a day when I was ‘being good.’ I was mostly eating less carbs, but my father had recently died and so I felt I had to go out to eat with my mom a lot. We do not have fancy restaurants where we live; going out to eat meant eating hamburgers, fried chicken or a fish fry. Carb city!

I got a second blood sugar pill added. In time I realized that the only way to get good blood sugar readings was to be on strict keto as well as taking the pills. Which I mostly did.

I had a bad kidney test, and was sent to a series of nephrologists (kidney specialists.) After a lot of angst, my most recent and least competent kidney doctor took me off all meds— she said that the Metformin probably damaged my kidneys. She also said that no diet change would help my kidneys, and that I needed to prepare to go on dialysis. 

I was scared to go off my meds, but I found that going off, while staying on strict low-carb/keto, made no difference. My blood sugar was controlled by my diet, not the presence or absence of pills. And my kidney tests improved when I was strict with my diet. My kidney doctor didn’t believe that result, though my ‘health-care provider’ (physician assistant) did notice that. So I let that particular kidney doctor go though I kept the ‘health-care provider’ (because I’m on Medicaid, I can only change ‘health-care providers’ once a year, and they won’t tell me when.)

I read “Dr. Atkins Diabetes Revolution” when it came out, and the two books by Dr. Richard Bernstein, “Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution” and “The Diabetes Diet.” Both were very helpful in getting me to get my diabetes under control through diet. I noticed, though, as I grew older the low-carb diet I had been doing for years took longer to take effect when I restarted after going off the diet. Carb binges did more damage, and had longer lasting effects. Just a part of getting older.

The final piece of the puzzle was when I read Dr. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore’s “The Complete Guide to Fasting.” Fasting brought down bad blood sugar numbers quicker than keto alone. And when I started fasting, already being in ketosis, the fasting was easy. In fact, on a keto diet I often skipped mealtime without thinking about it, if I was already busy with something. 

If you have been diagnosed with T2 diabetes, I hope you will learn to control your blood sugar with your (low-carb, ketogenic) diet instead of with pills that only work for a few years for most people. (My mom, in spite of her carb-filled diet, still gets fairly good blood sugars because of her two diabetes drugs— and since she is 91, I’m hoping the drugs will continue to work for the rest of her life.)

If you are lucky enough, you can find a doctor or a nutritionist who regularly encourages patients to eat low-carb. Ask your current ‘health-care provider’ if they know of someone like this. If no luck, ask your friends if they know of anyone. There are even online lists of keto-oriented doctors and medical people. Look it up, there may be someone good you can get to.

I didn’t have such luck. All the doctors and medical people in my area are part of the same big medical corporation and they don’t seem to have or allow keto-oriented dissenters. So I had to work on learning all about keto for myself through books and podcasts. I did notice that once I lost weight and got better blood sugar numbers on a diet that doctors discouraged me from following, they encouraged me to stick with it.

Warm fasting fluids for winter

It’s getting to be wintery— we’ve had our first snow up in Michigan’s upper peninsula— and it’s time to winterize our fasting practices. At least if you live somewhere in this hemisphere with cold winters.

I normally drink my distilled water at room temperature. I’ve read things that cold fluids like ice water may not be that great for us. It certainly isn’t great to drink a glass of ice water on a winter day! I have come to prefer room temperature water. But it’s a little on the cold side, especially on a cold morning in a relatively cool house (I keep my thermostat low to save home heating money), when I have to go out and do cold-weather chores that day.

The first thing we can do is drink heated distilled water. I have an electric tea kettle— it’s a replacement for a coffee maker I used to heat tea water which just wore out, in part due to using hard water (well water) for years in it. My tea kettle very much prefers my current distilled water from my water distiller. When I was a teen and lived in San Jose California, I knew a neighbor family who were Chinese-Americans, and they were big believers in drinking warm or hot water. I babysat for them once or twice a week for years, and it rubbed off on me. You can just heat your water as if for tea, and drink it like tea. I personally wait for 2 minutes or so before drinking hot tea or hot water. Since water fasting is purer fasting, adding hot/warm water as a fasting fluid warms up your insides without making you feel like you are not ‘really’ fasting. (Below: an electric tea kettle similar to mine.)

Tea is a great warm fasting fluid for most of us. I’ve read it suppresses the appetite a little. A lot of people assume that green tea is the only ‘healthy’ tea, because there was a famous study that showed health benefits for green tea extract. But there are other studies that show benefits for black tea, and Chinese studies that show benefits for pu-erh tea. They haven’t studied white tea yet, but it’s from the same plant and is probably mostly like green tea, only more so. There are drawbacks, though. I’ve read that tea may raise insulin levels— or is that blood sugar? And there is the oxalate issue— if you are watching oxalates, tea is one source you might have to give up. (I gave up spinach and almond products and rhubarb instead.) (Below: my favorite brand of pu-erh tea.)

Coffee. You can learn to drink black coffee. I got started drinking coffee with a few drops of liquid stevia sweetener in it, And reduced the number of sweetener drops over time. I also added a teaspoon of heavy whipping cream to the coffee. But this morning I drank a cup of black coffee and lived. Like tea, coffee can suppress your hunger. So when you are fasting and have hunger pangs, a cup of coffee or tea may stop that. 

Home-made bone broth. Yes, you can drink bone broth during fasting. There are a very few calories in a cup of bone broth, but it is worth the calories to get the benefits of bone broth. A cup of hot bone broth feels more like you’ve had a meal. If you are doing a fast of 24 hours or more, you can have cups of bone broth at your normal meal hours and you might feel less deprived. 

Herb tisanes (herbal ‘tea’). I drink Stash brand peppermint tea and ‘spice dragon red chai’ which has cinnamon, rooibos, ginger and clove, and I also have some home-harvested stinging nettle tea, since I have lots of stinging nettle all over my yard. These are a decent change of pace, and are caffeine-free, and so one can drink them in the afternoon or evening without causing sleepless nights.

I have read that when people are fasting, they may feel the cold more. If you experience that, it could be a signal that warm fasting fluids are something you need more of. At least, you could give them a try. (I also recommend wearing warm sweaters in the house rather than overheating your house.) 

 Above is the brand of home water distiller that I use. I am quite pleased with it and it's easy to clean with apple cider vinegar, and it makes great distilled water.

#FastingMonday is better than #MeatlessMonday because: lower in carbs

The “plant-based diet” movement wants everyone to have #MeatlessMonday because they feel if they force a bit of vegetarianism on us, we will get hooked. Not just get fatter and unhealthier as I did when I was a vegetarian.

But what happens when the typical eater goes meatless? This is what happened when I did as a teenager: I skipped the meat main dish and ate larger portions of whatever non-meat dishes we had. Mostly, that means CARBS. And increasing the carbs means increasing the health problems.

Reason of the Day: Fasting is Lower in Carbs than “Meatlessness”

Have you ever heard of the “Diseases of Civilization?” These are the diseases that are rare or non-existant among tribal peoples eating their traditional tribal diet. Like, for example, the Pima Indians of the American Southwest. The Pima Indians were a slim, fit people. But then settlers settled down near them and hunted the game they would have hunted. And so the Pima Indians had to add “civilized” food to their diet. Mostly biscuits made from flour. And the Pima Indians became notable for obesity and a high rate of diabetes. All because of a massive increase in refined carbohydrates in their diet.

Fasting is the ultimate low-carb diet. There are zero carbs— or near zero when you resort to some of the allowed fasting fluids like home-made bone broth or having a touch of butter or MCT oil in your coffee, tea or broth. 

On the other hand, if you go meatless only on the vegetarians’ #MeatlessMonday, you will be eating quite a load of carbs. If you are cutting back on carbs on normal days, you will be eating a massive carb load if you eat the recommended vegetarian dishes. And if you are truly low carb and eat a typical #MeatlessMonday slew of meals, the carbs, including sugars, you take in will be enough to give you symptoms. I tend to fall asleep in the afternoons when I pig out on carbs, and get headaches and have very low energy.

Don’t Let #MeatlessMonday happen to you!

Fasting is so much better for you! It controls blood sugars in diabetics, helps with weight loss, and helps in the prevention of many diseases. See “The Complete Guide to Fasting” for more information.

#FastingMondays can be easy to do. Just, when you get up in the morning have a big glass of (distilled) water. After that, you can have other fasting fluids as desired: black coffee, plain tea, herbal tisanes (‘herb tea’), and home-made bone broth. This last requires some advanced planning, however. But bone broth is so good for you it is worth the trouble to make it regularly!

When you feel a hunger pang, try a drink of a fasting fluid. Tea and coffee sometimes make you unhungry. But sometimes we mistake thirst for hunger, so just a glass of water might do the trick. 

Hunger comes in waves. Distract yourself by doing something, and by the time you are finished, the hunger will likely be gone.

#FastingMonday does not need to be an all-day fast if you are new to fasting. Fast until lunchtime this time, fast until suppertime the next time, and before long you will manage a full all-day fast on Mondays.

A ketogenic diet is better for your health than ‘Meatlessness,’ and if you are on a keto diet, you may have skipped meals already without meaning to, because you are just not hungry when your body is in ketosis. If fasting on #FastingMonday is too hard for you now, get on a healthy ketogenic diet (like original Atkins at Induction level) and after your body adapts to fat burning, try fasting again. (You can do the ketogenic diet as a vegetarian, there is a book coming out about it, but it may be more expensive and require more processed food, and be harder on the global food supply.)

Human beings, like lions, tigers and bears, are meat-eaters. There is no scientific proof that any meat-eating species can suddenly evolve the ability to eat a meatless diet and thrive. So out-tough the #MeatlessMonday crowd by taking the concept to the next level: #FastingMonday! 

Atkins Diet Creep: Why Atkins may have stopped working for you

The Atkins diet has helped many people, likely saving many lives. But when some people, advocating for a shiny new diet, list their old failed diets, they list Atkins among them.

Of course some of these people probably just ignored the fact that the Atkins diet is not meant to be temporary, but a way of life, and quit. But there are are other reasons why some people think of Atkins as just another diet failure.

The first is what I call ‘diet creep’ and it can happen on any eating plan. If the diet wants you to weigh or measure certain foods, you do it faithfully for a while, and then you eyeball it. You may start eating a little more of that limited food. And then, a month later, your ‘eyeballing’ adds a little more to the amount. So you are ‘cheating’ on the diet without being aware of it. Think of the Atkins restriction of only allowing 4 teaspoons of cream per day. If you stop measuring and start just pouring in a bit of cream, you exceed your total. Or you follow a low-carb recipe that has more cream in it than you are allowed, and perhaps you still put cream in your coffee.

Another source of ‘diet creep’ is built in to the Atkins diet: it’s the levels. You start off in Induction, which is about 10 grams of carbs (which you don’t have to count.) Then, level by level, you add 5 to 8 grams of carbohydrate per level, and you stay on the level a week (or more.) Dr. Atkins wants you to continue to test for ketosis with urine strips (the only ketone testing available at the time.) As long as you remained in ketosis, you would lose weight.

Then, when you hit your goal weight, you would add a little more carbs for your maintenance diet, so you got out of ketosis. And then you went on for years.

Only you would get older, and your body would need to revert to a lower carb level. Or else you went off the diet, went back on, but ate nuts and lower-carb fruits because you remembering eating that on Atkins, and so you were at too high a carb level and you weren’t in ketosis so you were hungry and had strong food cravings and were miserable, and so you either overate carbs and thought you were still doing Atkins, you cheated frequently, or you quit altogether.

A third reason is the fact that your body adapts to any weight loss diet, even a sound low-carb program like Atkins. If you were on Atkins and didn’t lose enough weight, there were things you could have done to make it work better:

1. Go back on strict Induction (of Original Atkins, ideally) with no Atkins bars or products and no ‘Net Carbs.’ Measure your salads. Be sure and eat meat with enough fat in it. Get back to the basic meat-plus-salad meals of the Atkins approach and don’t eat low-carb brownies and cakes, and foods full of almond and coconut flours or more cream or cheese than you are allowed in a day. Only gradually add back more carbs to go on higher levels.
2. Try the Atkins ‘fat fast’ diet. There are two cookbooks for this diet by Dana Carpender, ‘Fat Fast Cookbook’ and ‘Fat Fast Cookbook 2'. It’s only a temporary diet but it helps many. You can even go on and off the ‘fat fast’ diet— each week have a few days on it, and then eat your normal low-carb meals.
3. Try real fasting for longer or shorter periods. Jimmy Moore and Dr. Jason Fung have a book, ‘The Complete Guide to Fasting,’ that will help. Fasting has helped me with my weight and my blood sugars.
4. If you cheat regularly, quit. If you look forward to a weekly cheat every week, find a special low-carb recipe that will help. I like the Coco Cocoa Fat Bombs from the ‘Fat Fast Cookbook.’ You might also try those low-carb brownies and other low-carb goodies as a weekly not-quite-cheat.
5. What about trying the Carnivore diet— a meat only diet— for a while? We know humans can live by meat alone because some did, like the Eskimos of the past, and some Arctic explorers who adopted the Eskimo diet while exploring. Later, experiments were done in a controlled environment on a meat-only diet and the men involved not only survived but thrived. I haven't read any modern books on a Carnivore diet yet, I found 'The Carnivore's Manifesto' on Amazon and might buy it when I have money (after this winter. Home heating is an issue.)

Whether you call it the Atkins diet, or a low-carb diet, or ‘the’ ketogenic diet, these eating lifestyles won’t work for a lifetime of better health unless you actually follow them for a lifetime. Don’t give up the tried and true for a shiny new diet that may not be based on good science. Go back to basics, tweak your diet based on newer research and new knowledge, but stick with it. 

‘Required reading’ for Atkins & low carb dieters:

I used to read a chapter of the original Atkins book every morning to keep me inspired, until I knew the book’s whole contents. It’s what many recovering alcoholics do with their AA Blue Book. I also switch off to other sound low-carb books and listen to Jimmy Moore podcasts.

90 days on Keto and Fasting: Results--- 35 pounds and controlled blood sugar

Today I celebrate day 90 of being on a strict low-carb ketogenic diet. I've had some good results both over the 90 days, and in my previous low-carb diet.

I have lost 35 pounds in the 90 days, which brings my total weight lost by low-carb keto to 89 pounds. I was mostly on lowcarb before, but less strict, and didn't do fasting other than skipping breakfast most days.

My BMI has gone down from 32.0 on day 10 of keto, to 27.0 this morning, which means I am no longer obese, just 'overweight.'

As a Type 2 diabetic, it was bad blood sugars that drove me to strict keto and fasting. I had a 336 blood sugar on day 1 of the current keto regime. I had a 84 yesterday, and was up to 99 this morning.

I am currently on a No-Breakfast Plan experiment, where I don't start eating until lunchtime. I'm also currently on the third day of a three-day fast. Or maybe a four-day fast. We'll see where I am tomorrow morning.

My blood pressure has been high, and while previously a low-carb diet lowered it without help, it hasn't helped much. I decided to try taking some good kind of garlic capsules. I found one kind which was allicin powder, the active ingredient in garlic, Buy Naturally bioactive Mega Allicin. My blood pressure has gone down slightly since I started to take it. I may add a cinnamon capsule--- I have used Cinnulin in the past--- and see if that helps even more.

No-Breakfast Plan experiment
The problem with this experiment as an experiment is that I was already mostly not a morning eater. And then I decided I had to do a 3 day fast, so any results will be a part of that. I think if I experiment again I might experiment on eating breakfasts, and see what that does. Anyway, I will report on the results at the official end of the experiment on Monday.

Controlling T2 Diabetes with Fasting

I was a diabetic for a short while when my ‘health care provider’ said my kidney test was bad and I would have to go to a specialist. In fact, when she told me what not-so-close town the specialist was in (because of Medicaid), I tried to tell her how difficult it would be to get there, but she said if I didn’t go somehow I might be reported to adult protective services and they would put me in a home. [Which is absurd. They don’t have homes even for people who need it. A person like me with a Mensa level IQ and Asperger Syndrome would never be put in a home no matter who reported her. And one is allowed to refuse medical treatment in this country— it’s a right.]

Anyway, I went to a good kidney doctor, and when she got fired from the medical business in question I got a far worse kidney doctor. And the worse one said the meds I was on were bad for my kidneys so I had to quit them. The only medication I could take for my diabetes was insulin, and neither the kidney doctor nor my ‘health care provider’ was in any big hurry to get me on insulin.

I found that my keto diet, when I kept to it, controlled my diabetes as well as the drugs anyway. But either way, my blood sugars still weren’t great. I got readings like 150 and 175, which was better than what I got when I was not on keto or meds, but not what I wanted.

Then I learned about Dr. Jason Fung’s approach. He got started recommending fasting to his patients because some of them just wouldn’t understand what he meant when he told them about the keto diet. He’d say they can’t have bread, so they ate pita bread or flatbread. They showed him food diaries filled with pasta and regular pizzas. And so he had the idea to try fasting— which is zero carb, zero calorie and zero fat. 

Dr. Fung has his diabetic patients do 36 hour fasts, and sometimes starts severe diabetics on a 7 to 14 day fast. (Read more about it in the Complete Guide to Fasting by Jimmy Moore & Dr. Jason Fung.) I was too chicken to do fasts as long as that— even though I was already on keto and knew keto makes you less hungry so you can easily skip a meal. 

I started with the No-Breakfast Plan— skipping breakfast to extend my overnight fasting by a few hours. I’d known about this since I read the book ‘Fit for Life,’ though I did not think the author of that book was basing his recommendations on science. And after a while I was able to extend this into ’24-hour’ fasting.

Now, really ’24-hour’ fasting should be called 23.5 hour fasting, because you eat supper every day. So if you are on Metformin, you can still take it with a meal every day— though with fasting in your life, you and your doctor or ‘health care provider’ should reduce the dose of any meds you take. You don’t want to be getting too-low blood sugars every day and still have to take meds that will send them still lower!

After I could do 23.5 hour fasting I went on to 36 hour fasting, and then I did a 5 day fast. And then another 5 day fast. And it wasn’t scary! Day 2 was kind of hard, but since Dr Fung allows plain tea and black coffee and home-made bone broth as fasting fluids, I got through and the end of the fast was easier. In fact on my first 5 day fast I could have gone longer, except that I had bought some delicious smoked salmon at a distant grocery store and I wanted some. Which is OK. Fasting isn’t an endurance contest!

When I added some fasting to my life, my blood sugar numbers went under 100, and sometimes as low as 82. I was becoming like a non-diabetic! Of course, the longer I went without a full-day fast, the higher my numbers began to creep. Dr. Jason Fung recommends his patients fast 3 days a week, regular. This can be alternate day fasting, or you can do them all in a bunch. I’m thinking of doing mine all in a bunch on Monday through Wednesday, but when I’m ravenously hungry on Mondays, I don’t do fasting that day, except for the No-Breakfast Plan. 

My belief is that when you are feeling overly hungry, or ill, or stressed with unusual stresses like a visit from the mother-in-law, that’s not the best day to fast. You can always fast a different day. And you can always fast for several shorter periods instead of a long fast. 

How does fasting help? Type 2 diabetes happens because of insulin resistance. Your body overreacts to foods— particularly high-carbohydrate foods— by making more insulin than you need. You may get low-blood-sugar symptoms from this. In time your body starts ignoring some of the insulin. So your body makes even more extra insulin. In time you get higher than normal blood sugars, not because you lack insulin, like a Type 1 diabetic, but in spite of your high insulin levels. 

When you don’t eat, your body isn’t signaled to make insulin, so your insulin levels go down. Since you are not eating food, your blood sugars go down. Your body starts switching over to a state called ketosis, if you are not in ketosis because of a ketodiet. (Ketosis is not the same thing as ketoacidosis, a dangerous state that Type 1 diabetics can get that features high ketones and high blood sugars.) Fasting, in effect, makes your diabetic body act less diabetic. Ketodiet plus fasting can make some diabetics into recovering diabetics and ex-diabetics, though they have to keep on doing the keto and fasting!

What about weight loss? I was on a plateau on my Atkins/keto diet for some time when I developed diabetes, and frankly I no longer expected weight loss. I just wanted better blood sugars without going on insulin, which I knew would cause weight gain and make things worse. But fasting plus strict keto started the weight loss again and I am now probably twenty pounds less than my plateau weight, and down to 172 from my lifetime high of 255. I’ve purchased smaller jeans and discovered I need the next smaller size to fit well! Since losing weight of itself is supposed to help T2 diabetes, this is a good thing. 

The main thing I have to say to other Type 2 diabetics out there is don’t despair. Don’t feel you have no hope. Your diabetes can be improved, and you can do things yourself to improve it. 

Of course, if you are on meds, you will have to see your doctor to adjust them. If you aren’t on meds yet, and you are just going to start with ketodiet and with the No-Breakfast Plan and perhaps 23.5 hour fasting, your doctor will probably be OK with it. Once you get some results, he may be reconciled to it. Or you can possibly switch to a more keto-and-fasting friendly doctor. If you have a doctor that says no-no-no, ask for the scientific motivation behind his answer. If he has none, if he doesn’t know about Dr. Jason Fung’s book and won’t read it when you tell him, if he just says fasting is bad because if you keep it up forever you will die, that’s not the right doctor for you. If, however, he points out that you have some rare condition that he believes will not be helped by fasting, ask if just keto is OK, or just keto plus the No-Breakfast Plan. If you can’t do the whole 5 day or 7 day fasting thing, you can do it in increments.  

Beginning the No-Breakfast Plan Experiment

Today I begin my official No-Breakfast Plan experiment! Now, I've been doing the no-breakfast thing on and off because I've heard it recommended in various health books including 'Fit for Life' by Harvey Diamond--- though Diamond lets you drink fruit juice while you are doing morning 'fasting.'

Lately though I've been eating breakfast more to keep me on track with my ketodiet. And since I've been doing longer fasting, if I was hungry in the mornings, I ate. I've also allowed myself more fasting fluids, including bulletproof beverages and bone broth, in the morning fasting, and I am experimenting with leaving these calorie-containing beverages OUT.

My Baseline Readings:
Blood sugar: 82 (good reading)
Weight: 178.4 (up a little)
Blood Pressure: 146/99 (Not good, but usual for me.)

My blog readers (should I have any at this moment) are welcome to join me in this experiment. Since I know that there are a lot of people, unlike me, who never skip breakfast and who are not on ketogenic diets, I know that it will be easier for me than for these people.  Feel free to comment about your own experiences with the No-Breakfast Plan on this blog. More information on this experiment is to be found in the previous blog post here.

It is important to remember that the No-Breakfast Plan is not about eating fewer calories in the day, or about punishing yourself for eating 'too many' calories. As you learn more about ketodiet and healthy lifestyle you will learn of research that clearly shows that calories don't count as much as the kind of foods you eat, and that low-calorie diets are ineffective for weight loss, slow the metabolism and lead to regaining more weight than the dieter lost.

What the No-Breakfast Plan is about is this: you are extending your nightly fasting period by a few hours. Your body has a few more hours relief from dealing with food. If you have Insulin Resistance, your body needs a break from producing excess insulin and having too much insulin in the body. It has some of the benefits of longer periods of fasting, but even those opposed to fasting don't reckon that skipping breakfast is going to cause people to die.

The Great No-Breakfast Plan Experiment

The No-Breakfast Plan: it’s easy and saves time and money, but will it help you lose weight? Control your blood sugar? The only way to know is to give it a fair try, and I’m planning to do 2 weeks of strict No-Breakfast Plan eating. Yes, this means I’m going to be skipping longer fasting for a while. If the No-Breakfast Plan interests you, you are fully welcome to try it out and report on your results as a comment on this blog. 

In order for the test to mean anything, there have to be ground rules, and they have to be followed. By me, anyway. If you have never done fasting, or the No-Breakfast Plan, or a low-carb or keto diet before, you might modify the rules a little to help you comply. 

Rules for KetoNissa:

1. In the evenings, write down the hour of the last food taken. Ideally, that will be supper, but if I am hungry and want something else, even bone broth or a bullet-proof beverage, even a sugar-free cough drop, it must be written down.
2. A cup of distilled water in the morning will be the first beverage taken.
3. Plain tea and/or black coffee are allowed during the morning No-Breakfast Plan. Nothing else, not even bone broth or a bulletproof or semi-bulletproof beverage. I need the caffeine in the morning because I’ve had a lot of chronic fatigue lately, even on strict keto. You may not need or want it.
4. First meal of the day— the break-the-fast meal— cannot be earlier than 11 am. Noon is actually the preferred time, and 1pm or so is the latest I want to go without eating. I am not doing full days of fasting until this experiment is over. 
5. During the eating period of the day, eating at meals is to be preferred over snacking. All food must be allowed food on a keto diet. Snacking must be only when there is hunger, and bone broth or bulletproof beverages is to be preferred over any other snack item.

Rules for other participants

1. You do not have to follow a keto diet plan if you prefer not to. It is preferred that you follow a diet that you believe to be healthy in some way.
2. If you are on meds particularly, consult with your doctor about any modification. Remember that things you read on a blog are not medical advice, and certainly not medical advice tailored for you.
3. Do not substitute juice or fruit for distilled water in the mornings. Juices and fruits contain calories and carbs— not what you want on a No-Breakfast Plan.
4. If you feel horrible on the No-Breakfast Plan, or constantly hungry, eat a little something. You can always try the next day to hold out until later. 
5. It is probably not best to start a keto diet for the first time and start the No-Breakfast Plan as well. When you adapt to the keto, the No-Breakfast Plan is easier.

Remember: the No-Breakfast Plan is not about cutting calories! You may well eat just as many calories in your eating period as you would if you ate breakfast as well. You may even eat more, if you are being strict about getting low-carb real food for your meals. 

The No-Breakfast Plan works because it helps with Insulin Resistance. Most obese people actually make too much insulin— even the ones that are Type 2 diabetics. It’s just that their bodies no longer pay attention to the insulin. Since extra insulin is bad for you in many ways, it’s better not to trigger the body to keep making more insulin. Cutting down your eating opportunities— by the No-Breakfast Plan, by not snacking or eating fewer and better snacks— is one way to cut down on the unneeded insulin your body may be making.

Normally, times of fasting actually make people a bit more energized and alert. Some people find that that studying in the morning before any meal is eaten helps them remember what they study, while studying in the evening after a heavy meal makes them retain less information. Remember: the No-Breakfast Plan is something you do to make yourself feel better! It’s not a self-punishment for bad eating habits, and should not be painful or hard to do. 

I am starting the No-Breakfast Plan Experiment next Monday, September 10th. I will update my blog readers about the experiment's results on this blog.

"Can you have fruit juice on the No-Breakfast Plan?"

Fruit juice for breakfast on the No-Breakfast Plan? Or even whole fruit? Since fruits and fruit juices are full of (natural) sugars, and in the case of juice, fast-acting sugars, it’s fairly plain that they will stimulate your insulin response and your hunger. 

But it’s understandable that some people think that fruit juice is allowed on the No-Breakfast Plan. Paul C. Bragg, in ‘The Miracle of Fasting,’ speaks of the No-Breakfast Plan but then says it allows fruit. The Diamonds in ‘Fit for Life’ say the body isn’t ready for food in the mornings, but allow fruit (which is a food) during breakfast hours. Ori Hofmekler in ‘The Warrior Diet’ wants you to divide up your day into fasting and feasting periods— but allows juices, fruit and vegetable, during ‘fasting.’

This is wrong. Fasting is not eating, though drinking water is allowed. Some fasting experts also allow certain calorie/carb-free beverages, like tea, coffee, and herbal tisanes (‘herb tea.’) But others reject that. And adding food— especially a carb-filled food that diabetics should not be having— to a fast is breaking the fast.

There is no such thing as juice fasting. “Health nuts” and the manufacturers of high-end juicing machines have been talking about ‘juice fasting’ for years, but a juice diet is not fasting. It does not have the benefits of true fasting. There are people who because of health issues (like diabetes) cannot go on a juice diet, but who can fast (once a doctor adjusts their medications.)

The No-Breakfast Plan is about fasting. It’s beginner-level fasting for just a short time during the day. Since daily hormonal changes make people the least hungry at breakfast time, and the most hungry in the evenings at supper time, the No-Breakfast Plan takes advantage of this to let you fast at the easiest time of day. 

Fruit is a problem. Early humans didn’t have the kind of specially bred, sweet and tasty fruits available. They certainly didn’t have them year-round at the grocery store. So humans are not adapted to be fruit eaters or fruitarians. Dr. Richard K. Bernstein, author of ‘Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution’ and ‘The Diabetes Diet’, who is a Type 1 diabetic, has not eaten any fruit for decades. He eats a low-carb diet, which along with his insulin controls his diabetes. His example shows that you don’t need fruit to live.

Fasting, including the No-Breakfast Plan, gives your body a break. When you are eating, your body has to produce insulin— maybe too much insulin, if you have Insulin Resistance as so many of us do. Your body has to digest the food— three times a day, or more if you eat snacks. And your mind has to plan meals, and perhaps cook and clean up after them. On the No-Breakfast Plan, your body gets a daily break from these things in the morning. 

Fruit eating is not fasting. Eating fruit breaks your fast, and takes you off the true No-Breakfast Plan into some fruit-eating plan. Now, your body may be in good enough shape that you can eat a little fruit from your own garden, in season. But not while you are fasting! Eating while fasting is like having sex during celibacy or committing murders while ‘respecting all life.’ A contradiction in terms. 

What the No-Breakfast Plan is. It is extending the natural fasting we do every night while we are asleep. There is no law that compels us to start eating at 7 or 8 in the morning. There is no law that insists that you must have 3 large meals every day. At some periods of history two meals were the norm, anyway. When you are on the No-Breakfast Plan, in the mornings you drink water. Perhaps pure distilled water. And you may have certain calorie/carb-free beverages such as tea, coffee and herbal tisanes. 

On longer fasts many people need a little home-made bone broth to help them through it. Dr. Jason Fung even allows people to add a bit of cream or MCT oil to a beverage to help them get through. But on the No-Breakfast Plan, it’s best not to make use of the broth unless you have persistent hunger that will drive you to eat before the appropriate time. (If you are very new to the No-Breakfast Plan, you might plan on consuming broth in the mornings at first, and stopping it when you are used to morning fasting.)

The No-Breakfast Plan can help you get started doing longer, more intense fasts, and has benefits of its own when you don’t do longer fasting, but it’s important to gain real fasting knowledge to do it correctly. The Complete Guide to Fasting by Dr. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore is perhaps the best source of information— please consider reading it.  

Recommended books for the No-Breakfast Plan:

Note that the Dewey book is very old-fashioned and not up-to-date or based on modern research. But it's interesting from a historical perspective. 

Fasting: Day 4 of 7?

Today I am on the fourth day of a fast which may go for as many as 7 days. My blood sugar was 78mg/dL this morning— lower than the norm of 84mg/dL. Lower-than-84 blood sugars are normal when fasting, and I understand are OK when you are not having low-blood-sugar symptoms as a result. 

Between my previous fasts and my keto lifestyle, I had to buy some new clothes, only size XL (1X) after having had to buy 2X clothes before. (Since I shopped a lot at thrift shops, I also had some 3X clothes, if they were cute and not too baggy.) But I noticed my new XL shorts were big on me, and so I’ve recently purchased some items in size L. They all fit!  Bad news is, since I’m on disability for my Autism Spectrum Disorder, I can’t afford to run out and replace all my new XL clothes with L size clothes— not when I’m on track to possibly fit in M size clothes soon! (I have not been so slim since my high-school-hell years.)

I must point out that fasting is not about quick-weight-loss. Quick-weight-loss is a crock. It only leads to quick-weight-regain. The keto-and-fasting approach is about making lifelong changes that will provide long-term health improvements. It may make you lose weight, and lose weight easily, but it’s not about quickly becoming slim-and-‘sexy.’ 

My last 5 day fast— my first fast of that length— started impulsively, when I realized I was not hungry, and not in the mood to cook any food that day. My non-hunger pretty much lasted the first 2 days of the fast. Day 3, I had some hunger, but not enough to make me seriously think of eating something. Days 4 and 5 were easier.

This fast was more intentional. I had a few blood sugar readings which were way better than my previous, not-doing-strict-keto ones, but not as good as the ones just after my last 5 day fast. I had a bit more hunger in the first three days as I had last time.

While water-only fasting is the gold standard of fasting, Dr. Jason Fung allows plain tea and black coffee while fasting, allows home-made bone broth, and allows 1 cup of ‘bulletproof’ beverage per day— in one part of the book, suggesting that the ‘bulletproof’ additions to the beverage be kept down to a lower level than in normal ‘bulletproof’ beverages.

I have made use of a lot of broth during this fasting period. I schedule my broth drinking at my mealtimes, I don’t wait to determine if I am really that hungry before I consume it. (As the fast goes on, if my hunger remains gone, I will try to skip some of the broth helpings.) 

I am doing a ‘mini-cheat’ on Dr. Fung’s instructions. He specifies home-made bone broth, and I do have some on hand, but don’t want to use it all up too quickly— being on disability, the ingredients for bone broth are hard to afford sometimes. So I used canned broth, broth powder, and even dashi powder (I have plans to get the fixings for home-made dashi, a kind of fish broth from Japan, very soon.) I’m trying to have at least 1 cup of authentic, home-made bone broth every day, though.

I also am drinking tea regularly, as well as some cups of peppermint tisane (‘herb tea’) in the evenings. I’m feeling fairly well, though I don’t have the energy boost I experienced on my last fast. I’ve experienced chronic fatigue for probably over a decade, so I’m not surprised, but I hope that the combo of regular fasting and keto lifestyle will help me overcome this problem.

Spiritual benefits

As a Christian (Catholic variety) I know that the Bible commends fasting, and that Jesus both did it and advised it. But I’m not sure that fasting done to help your health has full spiritual benefits. But, just in case, I am dedicating my current fasting to the conversion of sinners (God can pick which ones) and to the Holy Souls. I don’t really feel especially spiritual, and perhaps during a future fast I may add daily spiritual practices like going to daily Mass (or watching it on EWTN television) and more daily prayer and Bible reading/spiritual reading.

Selling out?

You may have noticed that I now have Amazon affiliate links on this blog. Is that a sell-out? Well, perhaps. But I’ve noticed a lot of other keto blogs have advertising to the point of making the blog hard to read. I don’t want to do anything like that. But it’s really hard living on SSI disability, and not being able to get things fixed like the plumbing and the electrical outlet to my stove (my stove hasn’t worked for years because of it.) If a few kind people buy through my links sometimes, it would really help. But if you are not so inclined, just ignore the links. I don’t mind. I write this blog because I want to help others who struggle with some of the same issues I’ve been faced with, not because I think I can ‘monetize’ this blog and live high of the hog. (Which reminds me, I need to buy more bacon.) 

The Complete Guide to Fasting by Jimmy Moore & Dr. Jason Fung

If you fast, you really should read this book. It gives you all the scientific information you need to fast properly and not get led astray into unhealthy practices.

Kettle & Fire Bone Broth, Chicken & Beef

OK, this is not 'home-made' bone broth. But it does look pretty good as a substitute. You might try it.

Preparing your body to start fasting

When I was young, I was really bad at fasting. I had a book or two about fasting, but as I remember, I never did even a one-day fast with any success. I just couldn't put up with being hungry.

Now, at a much later stage of my life, I have even managed a 5-day fast. And the first day or two of that fast was completely hunger-free! The remaining days, there was slight hunger, but not enough to compel me to eat something.

I am not successful every time I try to fast, though. When I have nagging hunger that can't be dealt with or ignored, I cut a planned fast short. I'm not getting some sort of diet brownie points by being hungry and miserable! When my body tells me it wants food, I listen, and provide healthy real-food that is consistent with my keto diet.

There are steps in preparing your body to fast. My early-in-life attempts at fasting failed because I didn't know about any of these steps. If you want to fast, you should try these steps first.

1. Go on Keto for 2-4 weeks before attempting fasting. When you are on strict keto, your hunger goes away, and you often find yourself skipping a meal or two without meaning to. When Jimmy Moore had his Fasting Talk podcast, he often asked his guests about whether they had been skipping meals in an unplanned way on keto before they tried fasting.

2. Track your overnight fasting. What time do you normally stop eating for the day? After supper? After an evening snack? After a 3am snack? Don't judge yourself, just write it down. And at what time do you first eat in the morning (or at noon or afternoon?) As you continue on keto, this might change just because you don't feel as hungry.

3. Try intermittent fasting in the form of the No-Breakfast Plan. Odds are that you are the least hungry in the mornings, anyway. And likely you do little socializing over breakfast. If you do, you can always have a cup of herb tisane (herb "tea") or coffee with the family at breakfast time. NOTE: If you are ravenously hungry in the morning, eat something. Maybe delay that eating something a little if this is a daily problem, but when your body is demanding food, give it something keto.

4. Try narrower eating windows. An eating window is the period of the day when you normally allow yourself to eat. The No-Breakfast Plan gives you a longer fasting period each day. You can try switching from 11 am lunch to 12 noon, and then to 1pm or even 2pm. When you have done that for a while, you might try the ultimate in intermittent fasting--- the one-meal-a-day plan, which is usually supper (the evening meal.) I first tried this after attempts to fast longer. Since I kept being hungry, I added a good keto supper to the meal plan.

5. Try a longer fast when you don't feel like eating. My successful 5-day fast started on a hot day when I just did not feel like bothering with cooking and eating things. That was a signal that both my body and mind were in a mood to take a break from regular meals. It wasn't until lunchtime on the first fasting day that I even decided I was on a fast day, and it wasn't until the second morning that I decided I was going to try to extend my fast more than one day. I was ready for that fast, and so it worked for me.

Fasting isn't about fast-fast-fast weight loss. It is for your general health. It is about taking control of yourself. Every hour you fast, you are showing yourself that you don't have to eat constantly to feel good. In fact, eating too often puts your body to extra work with all that digesting. And if you have an insulin resistance problem, each eating session triggers more insulin release which makes you fatter.

Who should not fast: Dr. Jason Fung says that you should not fast if you are clinically underweight, if you are dealing with anorexia (and are probably underweight) if you are pregnant or nursing (for women), if you are a child under 18. Patients on meds, especially diabetes meds, need to discuss their planned fast with their doctors to get their meds reduced during the fast. (I was lucky, my incompetent nephrologist took me off all meds, said I could only be on insulin, and never bothered to prescribe the insulin. So I didn't have to ask permission to fast or negotiate to lower meds.)

Doctor Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore's book, The Complete Guide to Fasting, is the best fasting book I have found.
My oldest fasting book is Paul C. Bragg's The Miracle of Fasting. I haven't read it in years. Since the author wasn't a doctor, the book is mostly of historical interest, but you might be interested.
The above links are affiliate links, which means, though you pay no more, I get a tiny commission when someone buys through the links. Since I am on disability and can't afford to get plumbing and electrical repairs, every bit of help is gratefully accepted. Thank you!

Decaffeinate your favorite tea at home

Tea--- which is made from the plant Camellia sinensis--- is a useful drink on the ketogenic diet. Plain tea is allowed even as a fasting fluid--- which means, if you are on the 'no-breakfast' plan, you can sit down to the family breakfast table and have a cup while the others eat. You can also use tea as the basis for a 'bulletproof' beverage by adding butter or MCT oil and heavy cream.

Herb teas are not true teas, and the tea-like drink made from peppermint leaves or chamomile flowers is a tisane, not a tea.

There are different forms of the tea plant. Regular tea or black tea is processed and oxidized to a greater extent than other tea. It has the most caffeine of any kind of tea. Pu-ehr tea (my favorite) is a kind of tea which has been aged, and is from older tea plants, and is similar to black tea in caffeine content. Oolong tea is less oxidized, has less caffeine, and a milder flavor. Green tea is not subject to the oxidation process and has less caffeine than either black tea or oolong. White tea is made of baby tea leaves and has even less caffeine than green tea. [Red tea, or rooibos, is not from the tea plant at all and is a caffeine-free tisane.]

To decaf your own tea, simply steep the tea leaves or tea bag for 30 - 45 seconds and discard/reuse the 'tea' from that steeping, which will contain 80% of the caffeine. Then make your cup of tea from the leaves/tea bag.

I reuse my tea bags, as my paternal grandmother did before me. I use regular tea bags, not decaffeinated by the process above, in the morning when I need some waking up. In the afternoon and evening, I use the tea bags I used earlier in the day, which by now have little caffeine. This way an excess of caffeine does not disturb my sleep.

The steep water from home decaffeinating can be allowed to cool and used to water plants. It can also be diluted with more water and put in the cats' water dish.

Dear readers old and new, how has your ketogenic diet been going over the past weekend? Have you seen any great benefits, or are you just hanging on at this point? My blood sugars have been going up a little from my 5-day fasting period, which I guess is normal, but it disappoints me just the same!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have a book at my home called Lose Weight with Green Tea by Patricia Rouner.  I didn't lose any weight from it, but the author shared a lot of scientific studies about the benefits of all the forms of tea. If you are a tea lover you can learn a lot from this book!

My favorite kind of tea is Prince of Peace brand Pu-ehr tea. It has an earthy flavor, which I came to love after I grew used to it. My niece Brianna got me a couple of boxes of it for Christmas, but I'm out right now. Sad, sad, sad! But I will soon buy more.

Yes, the links below are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through the links, you will NOT have to pay any more, but I will get a small commission which will be a big help to me, so THANK YOU if you choose to buy through them. 

Dealing with hunger on my 5-day fast

I’m currently on day 5 of a 5 day fast, and I must admit I haven’t been particularly hungry. I had no hunger on day 1, and the hunger I’ve had since then has been mild— not like the hunger I get a couple hours after eating carbs, when I’m ravenous for more carbs. My fasting tips are below.

Start by being on keto:

I was on day 25 of restarting strict keto when I began this fast. I had gotten over any initial ‘keto flu’ symptoms and was feeling fine and energetic (which is rare for me.) I started the fast when lunchtime rolled around, I hadn’t eaten, wasn’t hungry, and didn’t want to bother with cooking. I know Dr. Jason Fung starts off his diabetic patients with a prolonged fast, but without doing keto first I just couldn’t manage that.

Minimize temptation:

When I was cheating on my keto way-of-life, I often drove to the local dollar store every day and came home with carb-laden food (or non-food.) And of course when I bought a family-sized bag of barbecue potato chips, it was gone by the end of the day. Even though my family consists of cats who aren’t interested in potato chips and couldn’t get the clips off the bag if they did. Now if I came home with barbecue-flavor mice….

I didn’t go anywhere the first three days of fasting, and so wasn’t tempted to buy junk. The fourth day I went to Menominee, MI (30 miles) to visit my 91-year-old mother, and also to go to Jack’s Market of Menominee, where I could buy Kerrygold butter, miracle noodles, and smoked salmon. (They didn’t have any frozen duck, so I’m going to go get one in Trenary, MI.) 

I was a lot hungrier when I was in Menominee, because normally while I am there I get to eat stuff that I can’t get back home on the farm. But the hunger wasn’t that bad, as I have said.

Anti-hunger measures:

What do you do when you feel hunger pangs? Here are my methods. 

1. Get busy. Preferably away from the kitchen. I did a lot of cleaning in my garage, while listening to a Jimmy Moore podcast.
2. Drink water. You need to stay hydrated while fasting. And if you stay busy you may forget to drink.
3. Drink plain tea (or coffee.) Dr. Jason Fung allows plain tea or black coffee as a fasting fluid. The tea seems to suppress my hunger. I don’t know about coffee since I don’t drink it.
4. Drink a cup of home-made bone broth. (If you don’t have any, try Broth of Life dehyrated, organic bone broth. Use 2 teaspoons per cup, Dr. Jason Fung allows home-made bone broth as a fasting fluid. It’s actually better fasting if you DON’T resort to bone broth, but experienced, regular fasters tend to quit their use of bone broth while fasting naturally, as their bodies adapt. 
5. Semi-bulletproof beverage. When the hunger pangs are hard to ignore, Dr. Fung allows a bulletproof beverage, though discourages a FULLY bulletproof beverage. On days 3 and 4 of my current fast, I had a ‘semi-bulletproof’ beverage with 1/2 T MCT oil and 1/2 T heavy cream. Once it was in tea, and once in bone broth. The bone broth had 1/4  tsp. Himalayan pink salt added. 

My favorite MCT oil (Amazon affiliate link.)

Blood sugar results:

If you are diabetic you may be interested in what my blood sugars have been doing, before strict keto, during strict keto, and while fasting. Here are my results:

Cheating on my keto: 329, 277, 500, 186, 261

During strict keto, before fasting: 184, 187, 170, 201, 127

During my 5-day fast: 102, 94, 111, 91, 97

I should note that I did some fasting before I started the current fast, and my strict-keto readings are before I did any 24 hour or longer fasts. 

Have you tried fasting yet? How was your experience? Are there things you will do next time to prepare yourself for fasting? Share your experiences!

Disclaimer: 

I am not a medical doctor or dietician, and nothing in this blog should be construed to contain medical or dietary advice. Check with your own doctor before making any changes. Preferably, with a doctor that knows about the benefits of keto and fasting. In addition, know that if you are on diabetes meds, you MUST, MUST, MUST consult with your doctor before fasting, since you will need to reduce your meds.

Losing 67 lbs on Keto, Fasting day 3

Yesterday I walked into the feed mill to buy chicken feed, and ahead of me in line there was a woman who probably weighed something like 320 pounds at least. She said something about having lost 5 pounds though she wanted to lose 200.

And something occurred to me. She probably looked at me and saw a not-so-fat person who probably wouldn't understand her weight struggles and would judge her for them. Because I'm not as fat as I used to be.

My peak weight was 255 lbs, or around that. I didn't weight myself much at my peak weight. I took the weight off first through low-carb, down to the 220 to 210 range, and there I plateaued.

Keto took me down to the 190 range, and now on my current fast, I found I weighed 188. I have not broke below 190 in years, maybe since I was in high school.

Sometimes it's hard to remember I'm not so fat anymore. I was buying 2X clothing for years, and now I am tossing it for XL sizes. I just had to order some new pants from Haband company because I was running out of jeans that fit and that hadn't been ripped by my cat, Eleanor. (She's got neurological problems and digs claws in when she jumps in my lap so she won't fall, and ripped a hole in my favorite properly-fitting jeans that expanded until the jeans had to be discarded.)

Fasting, Day 3
I have only recently done a fast that lasted 40 hours, and now I'm on a fast that has gone in to the third day. Dr. Jason Fung, author of The Complete Guide to Fasting (see sidebar, BUY THE BOOK!) allows home-made bone broth as a fasting fluid, and I had one cup the first day and two the second.

I felt no hunger the first day, which is why I fasted in the first place, and a little the second. When I feel a little hunger, I drink some tea and wait a while and the hunger passes. The bone broth helps, but I don't want to drink it too often because home-made bone broth has some fat in it and so some calories.

I have done my HeavyHands walking all three days, and actually felt more energetic than I had been. I have had chronic fatigue for years, and the keto diet helps some, but not as much as a fasting day helps. My blood sugars have been 94 and 111. And I'm getting caught up on dishwashing since I'm not dirtying new ones! (I don't have a working dishwasher.)

My New Facebook Group
Some of my author friends have been starting Facebook groups instead of author pages because Facebook pages are no longer very useful. I've decided to start a Facebook group for this blog, and will be posting new blog posts from this blog there.

I'm still working on setting the group up, but if you want to join, the group is at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/583596832037760/

I'm not good at fasting yet

Recently I went back on strict Keto after a time period of regular daily cheating with carb-foods. Last Thursday was my 14th day on strict keto, and on impulse I decided to make it a fasting day. 

I have had little success in the past with fasting for 24 hours or more. I just got too hungry, and broke the fast short of the goal. But this time it went more easily. After days of strict keto with no carb-cheating, I didn’t have a big appetite any more. I was surprised at how hunger-free the day was.

Dr. Jason Fung, in ‘The Complete Guide to Fasting,’ allows home-made bone broth as an allowed fasting fluid. I happened to have some home-made bone broth in the freezer, so I thawed it out at heated up 2 cups, one at breakfast-time, one at lunch-time. I would have allowed myself a third serving near supper-time, but I wasn’t hungry and wasn’t in the mood to bother with it.

In previous attempts to fast, about 2 to three pm was my temptation time. I told myself I was so good fasting so far, I really deserved to get myself a little something to eat. Usually a little something meant potato chips or some other carb-poison. This time, I continued not feeling hungry throughout the day, into the evening, and even until the next morning.

I was even tempted to continue the fast during the next day, but decided to break the fast anyway since I could always start a fast again on another day. The next day’s results on my blood sugar was a 110, which contrasts to the 127s I had been getting before the fast, and the readings in the 200s I had been getting on my frequent-cheat routine. Blood sugars stayed lower in the following days when I was back on strict keto.

Another thing that helped was listening to an old episode from Jimmy Moore’s former podcast, ‘Fasting Talk.’ I downloaded a lot of podcasts from that series and it helped inspire me to stick with the fasting. But, as I’ve said, this time the fasting wasn’t any effort, and it was a relief not to have to do the chores of cooking for myself and cleaning up after. 

I think my frequent days of doing intermittent fasting, or ‘the no-breakfast plan’ was a big help. I was going 18-20 hours without food on a regular basis. Though when I went back on strict keto I did eat keto breakfasts, often a ‘bulletproof hot chocolate.’ 

Since I did not plan the fast, I hadn’t written down, for the Wednesday before my fasting Thursday, what time I quit eating for the day. I estimated it as about 6pm. When I added up the fasting time, it came to something like five minutes short of 40 hours of fasting. And all this without hunger or any desires for food!

I’m writing this now on Thursday the 12th of July, and I am once again beginning a fast. I felt good enough to do a long walk this morning (and got caught in a rainstorm I didn’t know was predicted), and I’m pretty confident I can keep fasting through today and perhaps through Friday as well. I can always eat the shrimp I planned to make for Friday on Saturday instead.

What about you, (the reader, assuming I have some/one)? Have you tried a full fasting day yet? How did it go?

Warning: If you are on diabetes meds, you MUST consult your doctor before going keto OR before fasting. You will probably need to reduce those meds. (I was lucky, my kidney doctor took me off all meds and said I could only use insulin, but never prescribed the insulin. So I’ve been using keto/fasting to sub for my diabetes meds.) 

My No-Breakfast Plan

I first came across the idea of a no-breakfast plan in a book called, I think, 'Fit for Life.' Much of the advice in the book wasn't good, but ever after I read it I felt free to skip breakfast if I wasn't hungry or was too busy to be hungry.

And then recently I read of the idea of Intermittent Fasting. Which can be the same thing as the no-breakfast plan. And I've been doing it most days ever since.

I have read many things about the benefits of IF, but there is one thing they don't mention: it saves money. By going from 3 meals to 2, you can save on your food purchases. Since ketogenic diet food is often pricey, and you can't pick some up at the local food bank, this will help you support your healthy living plan even if you are low-income.

Also, it saves the stress of making breakfast, eating breakfast, and cleaning up after breakfast. It really feels like you have less work to do.

Intermittent Fasting is not some new fad. The book illustrated above was written in 1900. I've picked up my own copy from Amazon.com --- it's available as a reprint, or from ManyBook.net for free in ebook form.

By sticking to Intermittent Fasting until lunchtime, and eating keto when I do eat, I've lowered my blood sugar from scary-high to almost normal. I've gone into ketosis, as I can see when I test my ketone level using my Ketonix breath ketone meter. And I've lost 6 pounds in about a week.

Contrast this to keto-alone. A couple years ago, I was doing keto every day, and my nephrologist was fussing at me because I wasn't losing weight. I tried to explain that since I was post-menopausal and diabetic, weight loss had become much harder. She thought that was just some lame excuse. I don't think she knew anything about diet other than to fuss at people who hadn't lost weight when she told them to.

She also responded to me saying I was doing low-carb by handing me a sheet for the 'DASH' diet and told me it was government-approved. She was an immigrant, maybe in India saying 'government-approved' would make people eager to switch diets. I did try to follow DASH a little but my blood sugar went up since it was a diet which provided no help in dealing with the actual problem of diabetes--- carbs.

So--- Intermittent Fasting works for me. And I now have enough energy in the mornings that I can keep busy and not miss having breakfast.

When I eat at my mom's house, she worries if I don't have breakfast. So, I make a cup of tea for breakfast. This seems to reassure her.

Tea also works when I am doing intermittent fasting at home. The ritual of making a cup of tea in the morning is soothing. A good replacement for the breakfast habit. And it seems to control my appetite. If I am feeling hungry in the morning and have a cup of tea, I feel very little hunger afterward, or the hunger goes away altogether.

I have to point out that I'm talking about plain tea. No milk, no sugar, no artificial sweeteners. That may be hard for people who are used to taking their tea with additives. But I've been drinking plain tea all my life, the way my mom and grandmother always did. You can not only endure it, you can come to prefer it that way.

What if your first morning of Intermittent Fasting is too hard, and you eat something by 9 am? Well, don't worry. Maybe the next day you can hold out until 9:30 or 10 or 11. I initially set 'lunchtime' at 11 but I'm trying to shift to 12 currently. Intermittent Fasting gets easier the longer you do it. I've gone to 2pm before eating some days without getting crazed with hunger.

Broth of Life -- bone broth from a powder

I love bone broth, and I know it's good for me. I can even have a cup of bone broth when I'm fasting (according to The Complete Book of Fasting.) I really try to have a cup of bone broth every day.

But--- making a batch at home takes two days. And it's hard to buy soup bones around here. And sometimes, as in last year when I was sick for about a month, I just can't do it.

When I was visiting Bob Martin's blog I saw an ad for Broth of Life dehydrated organic bone broth. I went to Amazon.com to purchase it. And saw it was 31.99 for a 1.6 ounce jar. But I bought it anyway, in the chicken broth. You can also get lamb or beef broth.

When I got it home and made my first cup, it was bland and watery, even though I added Himalayan pink salt (1/4 teaspoon.) And the powder did not dissolve all the way. So--- I read the directions. It said one teaspoon of the broth powder to 100 ml of water. So I tried measuring the water.

100 ml isn't much. I poured out 200 ml and turned  the measuring cup around to find it was only 3/4 of a cup. So I guess 1 teaspoon is not enough for a full cup.

Because of the undissolved powder bits this morning I soaked the broth powder in the water for 15 minutes, then heated in the microwave. Even though I stirred a lot, there were still a few undissolved bits. Tomorrow I think that I will soak it in HOT water for 15 minutes and see how this goes. But the 1/4 cup of salt was the right amount. A little less than the sodium amount in grocery store broth powder. But it tasted salty enough.

Even so, Broth of Life has its place. What if I get sick again? The broth powder is expensive but at least it isn't too much of a trial to make a cup of broth with it.

I think homemade bone broth is better, though. I just used up the last quart of bone broth I had in my freezer so it's time to make more.  But when I run out of my Broth of Life I'm sure I will buy another jar of it.

NOTE: it is recommended by many authorities, when you are first going on keto or on Atkins Induction, or when you are fasting, if you don't feel that great (keto flu) you should drink a cup of broth. But grocery store broth powder is dreadful, full of additives you don't want. Better to get Broth of Life, or make your own.