Well, things deteriorated quickly at the 21 hour mark. I felt terribly nauseated, weak and dizzy. Feeding was hard because of the nausea; took me hours to ingest a bit of ham. Went to bed thinking: never doing this again! I slept well though, and this morning, I feel fine. So I don't know, I need to think about this.
There are lots and lots of yoga studios in my neighbourhood. I used to do yoga regularly, I don't know why I stopped. Now I do the meditation while walking by the ocean. It is heaven.
Thanks for all your help, Janet.

No home insulin test (sadly) Had it done a few times whenever I have a regular blood panel done and ask Dr Westman to interprete. Sorry you didn't feel well, maybe ease into it like Liz.

The series goes on, and on, but this one is what we all wanted to know more about. The Insulin Index!

http://intensivedietarymanagement.com/insulin-index/

A couple of years ago I experimented with water fasting. My first 24 hour fast was awful. I woke up at one o'clock in the morning, all nauseous--ended up throwing up yellowish-green bile.

I was eating very high fat at the time. I think it's sort of a circadian thing--my body expected some fat to be coming in, so my guess is that there was an inappropriate production of bile through the day, something like that. It only happened that first time.

Euww, teaser...well this is not a water fast. CO, homemade broth, salt, coffee with cream, tea, etc all allowed in the fasting period, and I am doing the protocol with dinner every day. Maybe if Danielle had extra broth or something the first day and eased into it, the nausea could have been avoided? Takes a few days to figure what works, but his patient resources have many tips.

This insulin index blog post is throwing in so many variables, fiber, fermentation, etc! I like how he keeps his options, and mind, open to aspects beyond these limited indexes.

I wonder if he is more open to alternate ideas being Chinese. He still has a bit of a Chinese accent (I think) on top of his Canadian accent - perhaps he was treated both with Western and Eastern medicines while growing up.

I read the most recent post yesterday waiting for the ferry and had this thought: It all sounds so complicated! but it makes perfect sense. Obesity is a complicated issue, no one seems to have the exact same reaction to their set of foods. It's a complicated issue demanding a complicated set of solutions. For some fasting may be the key, others it may be what foods they eat or don't. I love that he is NOT trying to reduce it to one thing - such as carbs (not that I don't feel that carbs play the largest role in my weight gain and that of others on the this board, but it makes sense that there are other factors to be addressed as well).

So….with guests and various meetings around meals, I've not fasted since Wednesday. I've also gained 3.6 lbs, if I'm calculating correctly. I've not been totally LC, have been eating a bit off plan with various social events. I feel certain 80% is water and will fall off as rapidly as it glommed on to me.

However, I'm anticipating my next fast and thinking…is the fast essential for me? Like Danielle, I find it difficult (though not perhaps to quite the same degree, or maybe I just bailed on the idea more quickly the first couple of times). I know going without snacks is important (essential?) for me if I want to lose weight. I understand the principle of shortening the eating window and having a longer overnight fasting period. I also discovered that I feel better at the gym on an empty stomach. What I'm thinking is that I'll skip breakfast MWThF when I have morning gym classes, substituting 1 T coconut oil or a strip of bacon. I'll then eat breakfast at lunch with no snack and a normal dinner. I plan to try that for a week, starting tomorrow. And I'll eat to satisfy appetite, usually 1500-1700 calories, on the other days.

I have arrived at the same conclusion, Liz: is it essential for me? However, it is too early for me to quit altogether. I have only tried once.
Teaser, our experience is very similar. I too am on a high fat diet, and it works well for me, even though I have lost my gallbladder.
Circadian rhythm is an interesting idea.

Anyway, I am going to do something similar to Liz, skip breakfast on alternate days, and stick to the no snack rule. I keep calories a bit lower, between 1000 and 1200, and half that on 'fast' days. I think it is enough for me, being a 66 year old sedentary woman.

I was going to fast today, but I forgot! I thought about it halfway through breakfast. Is it my subconscious protesting, you think? lol.

Going to his site now to read that new post, and more of those patients tips. Thanks Janet.

Wow. Interesting about the Insulin index idea. Thank you.

I completed four 36 hour fasts: Sun, Tues, Thurs, Sun. In general, they went ok though I felt pretty weak and lightheaded in the last one. I haven't been sleeping very well either until I upped my carbs considerably yesterday. Usually insomnia is the main reason I don't stay very low carb, along with dry eyes and I suspect ill effects to my thyroid which is pretty messed up with nodules and such already.

I wish I knew how much or even if fasting is reducing my insulin resistance. Short of a test, how do we know?

I've been having much increased arthritis pain since I've been doing this fasting, at least I assume it's arthritis, and I can't figure out if it's related and if it is why it would be. It worsened when I started drinking the broth and the teas so tomorrow I am doing neither, just coconut oil and lemon juice. If I only fast 24 hours, it should seem like a breeze compared to the 36 since it is the last 12 that have been toughest.

I've been taking the 2 TB vinegar before bed and find it does drop my morning blood sugars.

Have no clue why joint pain would increase. Especially not with just broth and tea...broth is supposedly great for joints! You wrote that you wanted to do 36 hour fasts for faster weight loss, but if I had those side effects, I would certainly have abandoned that idea quickly. Did you add back any Resistant starch or starchy veg? PGX? It may be the mental aspect of knowing you have at least one meal everyday as much as you want, that makes the alternate day 24 hour fast easy for me. Maybe see how you feel doing that first? I have actually slept better after a large dinner with more fiber veg, some lentils, and berries for dessert.

I'm taking a slow, see how it goes, no effort approach to this experiment. I had a large buffet lunch yesterday so for the first time today, will try a 30 hour fast to dinner. If I don't feel OK this afternoon, you can bet I'll eat food. Whimpy. I think before trying a 36 hour fast the 24 hour everyday option would be more doable for me.

FASTING: FAQs

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Grant Schofield has a video where he shows glucose and insulin responses for various foods. He showed a food such as lentils as having a lower response compared to more refined carbohydrates. In non-insulin-resistant people. But in insulin resistant types, lentils looked no better than "bad" carbs in the insulin response.

I sort of wonder what the insulin score for a group of type II diabetics would look like for beef vs. carbohydrate foods. It's possible that a normal insulin response for beef is similar to the insulin response to oatmeal as shown in the graph in Dr. Fung's post in healthy people, but that in glucose-intolerant types, the responses to the two foods diverge.

I also wonder about the context of a low-carb diet. Eat protein, increase glucagon as well as insulin... these two antagonize each other. The effect of glucagon on blood glucose will depend partly on glycogen storage in the liver. Just more studies that need doing, I guess.

Only the weakness and lightheadedness were down to the fast, and only when I was taking a fairly long walk, I probably should have said, so you may be right about the water. The other symptoms are characteristic of me on a Bernstein-type regimen which is why I don't follow it.

I mostly wanted to do a 36 hour fast as a challenge the first time, especially when I was feeling so motivated as I know that will wane as time goes on. After I did the first one, then there seemed no reason no to do another and another as I was still motivated. I'm actually pretty proud of myself for it, whether it accelerates my weight loss or not, though I did lose 3.8 lbs last week. 24 hr is undoubtedly more sustainable in the long run though.

I take potato starch with my probiotics every day but haven't hauled out my PGX supps yet. I tried a diet plan one time that advised 45 grams of fiber every day, and it did work, but hard to do without eating either a lot of food, or bran. Speaking of, I actually bought some chia bran a while back but haven't known what to do with it, short of mixing it in water and choking it down. I got it from Nuts.com where sadly, its appeal to some people apparently is that it's low fat.

I've been enjoying reading through this thread. I keep thinking I should try IF - it sounds so doable and yet I never seem to be able to stick to it. The idea of being able to have dinner every night sounds good, and might make it more manageable.

I live near my son and daughter-in-law and we often have dinner together. My son is *rabidly* opposed to IF. His dad was down visiting sometime in the last year (he is very fit, thin and healthy) and casually mentioned that he had been reading some stuff about the benefits of the 5/2 diet, and my son just about jumped down his throat with a list of all the scientific reasons he'd read that showed IF is really bad for your health.

Call me a coward, but I just didn't want to decline a dinner invitation by saying "sorry, I'm fasting tonight". So now, if I follow this plan, if I'm invited to dinner I'd have no reason to decline, .

I'm currently on vacation in the wilds of very rural Canada, so watching videos is out of the question here. I don't have an internet connection to support it. And the stores here are pretty basic. Something like ACV would definitely be too frou-frou for stores to carry. Just plain white vinegar here!

I've tried reading some of the stuff on the blog - but don't find it indexed well - and lots of the stuff seems to be video oriented. (disclaimer - even when I DO have decent internet I HATE watching videos and much prefer to read).

Oh, I also have no scale that works up here either. But maybe I will try to see about fasting tomorrow. I have no bone broths here either, but I do have cream and CO and cinnamon and coffee. I've been drinking hibiscus tea every day lately as it really seems to help with my BP, but always looking for more arrows for my quiver.

I was sad to say he says no artificial sweeteners on his food lists though. It's only the occasional sweet treat that had enabled me to stay mostly LC for the last 8 years and maintain my 100-pound weight loss for the last 5 (though of course I'm still stalled with at least another 100 to go <sigh>). Every time I've tried to give up AS I last 3-6 weeks and them the cravings get so bad I go on a wild carb binge and consume a half gallon of ice cream in a sitting, or some such.

And being in Canada I just stocked up on my favorite AS - liquid Sugar Twin (cyclamates) which I bootleg back into the US every year. It's my fave AS and would probably be the only one I use except it's illegal to sell in the US, so I try to buy enough each summer to last me through the year if I use sparingly. Last summer I was upset as not one single grocery store carried it and I came home empty-handed - my one shot for the year gone. But this summer I found it again so stocked up!

No AS on fast days is certainly doable. I hate sweeteners in coffee and tea, but no AS ever has always been a big "diet fail" for me.

I wish his blog was a little better indexed so I could more easily see the articles worth reading, though I've been trying to pick through some of the topics that sound of interest - but a lot of them lead me to unviewable videos.