Mostly fat and protein but also more alcohol and carbs than I am used to.
I have kicked off the clock on a longer fast. I fully expect to break it tomorrow, but I might hold longer, especially as I will have to tell you if I packed it in.
I am not using the support thread for reasons. I may explore them tomorrow - or later today, I guess. Or I may not.
Right now I can't imagine ever eating again. π
Night folks!
Edit: added a photo of the food!
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Subtle_badger
16Kg IF 72hrs
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Going OK so far. I'm only just 20 hours into the fast, and last nights meal was so big I think I am still processing it. I am not hungry yet.
The meal was incredibly yummy, sort of 1970 cordon bleu. And so much that I got a call asking me to come for dinner tonight to help clear left overs. But I think eating like that two days in a row would have derailed me.
Oohhh looks interesting Subtle_badger. Hope you don't have too much of a headache!
I felt the need for a stiff whisky last night myself for some reason, haven't thought of alcohol for weeks, but I enjoyed my whisky - though why whisky I have no idea, it is defo not my tipple!. A bit of what I fancied did me good I suppose!
I'm on the downhill run. I originally intended to do a 72 hour fast, but that would have me breaking my fast at midnight π€ͺ So I now plan to break it after midday today - unless I feel brilliant, and move it to 8am tomorrow. I think 60 hours is probably good enough for first multiday fast.
Saturday was an extremely quiet day. I woke very early - that's normally for me after drinking - but luckily got back to sleep eventually and slept to nearly 11. After a morning in bed, I pottered around the house and then went for my daily walk, about 10km. I felt really fine, but I need to emphasise I ate a lot on Friday night, I think I may have not be in an actual fasted state until Sunday sometime.
Saturday night I had bad insomnia. I was still awake 3am. I tried reading, but eventually resorted to YouTube. Yeah, I know, blue light makes insomnia worse. I also had heartburn, which is unusual for me so I googled "fasting and heartburn" and it's a thing. Thinking about food makes it worse, as your stomach creates acid in preparation for the food that isn't coming. So guess what I watched on YouTube? Yup, cooking videos. So blue light, a lay in that morning, quiet day, self-induced heartburn and fasting: I think they all contributed to the insomnia. I woke up at 7, so only about 4 hours sleep. I didn't manage to get back to sleep.
Sunday I was meeting a friend for a cycle ride. I started the day with a cup of instant coffee and a mug of chicken bone broth. I was very sluggish when I set off but not really suffering. I didn't want to tell her I was fasting, because obviously if fasting is ruining your day, stop doing it! I complained to her about my lack of sleep to explaining my sluggishness. She suggested curtailing our planned ride, I said I was OK so she had to confess she had shoulder pain, so we agreed to do a shorter ride. I resolved if I didn't perk up, I would raid my stash of high fat snacks I had with me.
But there was no need! I switched to fat burning, and just felt good. We stopped for coffee at the 15 minute mark, at a nice cafe from a small chain. While I ordered our coffees, I was staring lustfully at the bacon and sausage baps being prepared, but I was OK with my Americano. A gentle pootle to a second coffee (think of the calories saved just by not having lattes!) and we parted company. I did some window shopping then headed back to my bike.
I use Google Fit, and one of the goals it sets is 150 "heart minutes" per week, starting Sunday. It beeped me to tell me I only 39 minutes left to hit the goal. "Heart minutes" are any time you are moving at a pace greater than a brisk walk. I was about 20 minutes from home, so took a longer route home so I cycled about 40km and completed my weekly movement goal in a day when I hadn't eaten anything for more than 40 hours!
I am always a slow cyclist, and yesterday I was probably slower than usual. Everyone passed me like I wasn't moving. But I felt I had endless energy. I regret spending so long pottering around the shops; I should have used the time to see how far I could ride. I didn't feel like riding into the night, especially with trains not running so a bonk would have left me stranded.
Last night I only slept 5 hours, but it didn't feel desperate, and I feel fine now. Note: I have very poor sleep hygiene. Insomnia is my constant companion.
Feeling fine right now, but I haven't done anything this morning that taxes me.
Waist is unchanged π‘, and I won't share weight yet as I am pretty sure I was dehydrated this morning when I hopped on the scales. I will see what it settles back to. Also my scales died on Friday, and they were a bit random. I bought new ones on my Saturday walk which are consistent so I don't really have a base line.
Great summary! I really appreciated the detail is pickle juice to help with pro-biotics as per sauerkraut etc? You've done so well! Would you like me to try to add your long fast to your badge?
I think all the hipster blogs about pickles and pickle juice that inspired me are using unpasteurised pickles full of probiotics, but mine was from a shelf stable English supermarket brand. I only got salty and sour and a temporary illusion of fullness. Which are all worthwhile.
As I just said in the other thread: I did it about 6-12 hours at a time. I gave myself permission to break the fast at any time - except, not on first hunger pang but if it didn't get better. I had allowed food with me at all times, and I wasn't too strict on zero calorie drinks. You might surprise yourself in what you can do.
"Real" fermented pickles are made by brining cucumber. The sour taste comes from lactic acid produced by lactobacillus; so the left over water is full of probiotics, so drinking it - if you enjoy the taste - is very healthy. However, pickles made with vinegar have no probiotics. It's just salty vinegar, so drinking it is just weird.
π I am weird.
Note: I live near a Whole Foods, and found a fermented pickle in their fridge. It only costs a little less than twice as much as the Mrs Elswood. And I do mean only, as soaking a bunch of cucumbers in vinegar and adding yellow food dye E101 (they would be grey otherwise) must be a lot cheaper than making a perishable traditional product with a limited shelf life. Note also that Waitrose sells pickles in the fridge, but they are made the same way as Mrs Elswood (except they use turmeric for colour) and contain no probiotics - and are much more expensive.
π±thank goodness for your explanation!! I have a bog standard bottle of pickles in the fridge... I will NOT be drinking from that now I understand the difference! π
Oh, that's what I have been drinking. I just need to understand it's a tasty (to me) salty vinegar and not a health elixir.
I only worked out the difference yesterday, and found the better alternative. I have an unopened jar of Mrs Elswood in my fridge, so will use that up first.
Thanks for clarifying that but I can honestly say that I won't be reaching for the pickle jar in my fridge, whatever the juice may consist of! You are one very tough cookie (sugar free of course) π How do you recognise when your body enters fat burning mode? Are you just not hungry? I did a three mile walk on Sunday (pretty good for me, I'm building up!) and hadn't eaten since the evening before and I feel much better for exercising like that.
I don't know about fat burning mode. My weight and waist has been stuck for a month, so if I have been in fat burning mode (I guess I must have been) then the fat I have been burning is mostly from my diet not my belly.
But I believe it kicks off after around 12 hours, and is intensified by exercise so my guess would be you would have been solidly in the zone on your walk.
I got hungry regularly but fleetingly during my fast, even though I must have been mostly burning fat. I don't know what that means hormone-wise, but it makes sense evolutionarily; if we stopped getting hungry once we have been fasting for a little while, what motivation would be have to ever eat again? Finding food is much harder work and more dangerous than staying in a cave or up a tree. Without hunger motivating us, why would we bother to eat?
Update: tummy is on the fritz. Nothing serious, just weird. I won't TMI about the bathroom (except I had to get up twice in the night π²), but it's also rumbling like crazy right now and my waist is a couple of centimetres larger, so I think I may be bloated. Note I don't feel bloated, I feel fine. I am back on my 18:6 (or at least skipping breakfast) but I am feeling hungrier than I normally do at this time of day. The good thing is, though I of course weigh more than I did before ending the fast, it looks like my weight has dropped a couple of kg. I will see if that settles down.
A couple of hours after the yogurt I had an egg+cheddar+olives. Maybe not the best food, but it's what I had with me; it was my emergency pack from Sunday. Dinner was a pork chop and low carb cauliflower cheese.
There maybe better foods to break a fast with π
Edited to add "ending", otherwise it reads like I put on weight by not eating anything!
One other weird thing I noticed. On Saturday (as I say) I bought a new scale. The cheapest electronic scale at Argos of a good brand was a body analyser. I know that's nonsense, at least I hope it is because it's saying I am 38.8% fat π€―
But the interesting thing is what happened on Monday morning, 54 hours fasted. The BF analysis reported an error. The only other time it did this was when I was wearing socks. My suspicion is that I was so dehydrated I didn't register as human skin. I tried it twice in a row, but didn't go back after I had hydrated.
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