That link no longer works, as the thread has been removed. Here is my post:

Doreen, Forum Founder

These guidelines make sense, thanks.

I just wanted to say thank you to Jey100,Teaser,GRB5111, for all the helpful information you all have given me in the past. It has made my LCHF journey a little easier, and even though my positive results and not forth coming, I will be patient and endure.

Thomas1951

Jeanie,
Thanks for this info. I was trying to do IF yesterday and found myself feezing. I just assumed my office was cold, but no one else seemed that cold. I had some pork rinds as that was the only thing available. I warmed right up! Back when I was IF'ing more frequently, I was cold at work all the time. Again I thought it was the office, but maybe it was really just me! I will pay more attention now.

I read your post,and added broth and CO to my 2 day fast...and then I lost nothing! I was really bummed. I continued to google feeling cold while fasting. I found several sites where they said that when you are fasting, your blood circulates more around your vital organs, in order to provide them with nourishment. That leaves less blood flowing to your extremities, which can make you feel cold. Next week I will try fasting again and just add a sweater! Wish I knew for sure...don't want to lower my metabolism, but it also seemed ridiculous that I would fast for 2 days and not lose at all. Oh--one other thing could have done that--the broth I drank had msg, and in my readings I found that msg is a super high insulin stimulator. So, that was a bad choice for me.

Lauri, please read Doreen's post above, #241. Maybe consider longer eating Windows on a fasting day or alternate/random days of eating 3 full typical LC meals to prevent lowering REE. I get very cold at times and use it as a sign to have a double salted broth and then if not enough, to eat. My fasting is very random now, more really Dr Westman's "eat when hungry" plan.


Thomas, if you are saying that you followed the fasting you had planned in your previous posts, and have lost no weight nor had any improvements in your FBG, my only advice would be as I wrote before. Either see a new doctor at the VA, or if possible, one privately, and show him exactly what you have been doing with your meal timing and foods and the BG results. Rule out a fluid imbalance caused by infections, or thyroid, pancreas, endocrine issues, maybe change medications ....anything that may be preventing at least some weight loss (still 294?) and improved glucose control.

Good advice. Also, Lauri--you do have to consider that you've already successfully lost a lot more weight than what you're trying to lose. Being at a reduced body weight will make things slow down, for most people. Dr. Fung's protocols can probably help with that, but I don't know if they can remove it completely. I know myself, within a fairly narrow weight range--if I'm at 170 pounds, fasting for a day is easy, but if I'm down around 154 pounds--then I'm more likely to be lethargic, maybe cold, probably hungry, and also more prone to binges coming out of a fast. In myself, at least when it comes to weight regulation, I've come to the conclusion that the leaner I am, the less aggressive my fasts should be. Admittedly I don't always follow my own understanding.

If you look at calorie restriction approaches to weight loss--you can find any number of blog posts where some personal trainer/fitness guru will tell you that as you lose weight, your metabolism slows--and then they'll tell you to recalculate your metabolic rate, and restrict your calories more and more strictly, until you reach goal. This is a reasonable approach for a bodybuilder in his twenties, on steroids, who needs to get down to five or six percent bodyfat to compete. Except for the part about it being reasonable.

The major problem here of course, is that becoming more and more aggressive as you become lighter might be effective for further weight loss--but maybe you're just coiling the springs of the body's hormonal etc. machinery that drives rebound, once you return to a more moderate approach. The argument against the idea of starvation mode I see most often put forward is that no matter how slow the metabolism gets, you can always undereat to a point below what the body's capable of lowering its metabolism to. True enough--but also very true that at some point, the trade off just isn't worth it. I think low carb and intermittent fasting do push the envelope--the lower insulin levels allowing readier access, perhaps, and use of fat for energy at a lower level of body fat stores, but I don't think that's an immunity as such, all it takes is a couple of days of SAD meals and you're liable to feel as deprived as you would have if you'd lost the weight through white-knuckled calorie restriction.

Laurie, you are an inch and a half taller than I am, and, starting at 184, the place I'd gotten after 3 years of SAD type "dieting", I'm now, nearly 3 more years later, just below 155.

One of the things that this WOE teaches us, I think, no matter how much we have to lose, is patience. Stupid patience! Who likes patience! We want to see constant progress, and when we don't, we want to tweak things to speed them up.

But maybe the slowing down in your weight loss, and the other issues, are your body yelling at you to knock it off. As both Janet and teaser say, we just don't know what's going on inside. But the symptoms you are noting, if they are resolved by eating, seem to point to maybe too much fasting, don't they?

One of the good things about that whole patience deal is that, if we learn to practice it, the weight loss will happen while we're not, necessarily, looking.

If I celebrate the smallest sized pants I've ever worn, and stop moaning about the continuing pooch of my belly, I will lose a pound over the course of a month, and not really notice it, even though I'm weighing daily. It feels so glacially slow that it's nearly imperceptible. But it happens, nevertheless.

Give your body and your metabolism enough to work with, and you can keep feeling wonderful as you continue to lose.

Absolutely avoid MSG! I find that when I eat food "closer to the source" it seems to agree with me more.

This slowing as we near our goal is very very common. And there's no end of things people have tried to speed it up. But the body is adjusting to a newer, smaller, size, and all that it entails.

Patience, as MickiSue suggests, is often what works the best.

This is also a time to work on health issues; which can absolutely stand in your way.

I found the chart and the idea of FDE's really interesting. I suppose we each could plot a chart for our optimal results based on our own FDE. At the moment I only fast 2-3 times a week with an eating window of about 1 hour (sometimes 3 hours if I need a bite of avo to break the fast before I make dinner), but I can figure out my FDE given the math from the chart.

Thanks again for the great links!

Kat

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction if this topic has been covered here or on Dr Fung's website.

Protein turnover is going on constantly and I was taught (admittedly a long time ago!), that lean tissue would be broken down to release essential amino acids during fasting so that protein synthesis of essential proteins could continue. This would likely result in loss of lean muscle mass. Yet, Dr Fung categorically states that this does not happen.

I have been unable to find a convincing explanation for why/how muscle mass would be preserved while fasting, even in the presence of growth hormone.

Thomas - Janet hits on all the usual suspects here, and it's likely there's some underlying issue that is hindering your efforts. Certain medications such as beta blockers for blood pressure can conflict with weight loss attempts, for example. It's time for you to reach out to someone to do a deeper dive here and hopefully find a root cause. Let us know how you progress with this. Good luck!

You absolutely will lose some lean mass during a fast. Growth hormone and ketosis may help to minimize this, by encouraging oxidation of fat vs. glucose or protein, but they don't eliminate it. But the hormonal response to fasting also encourages the body to regain lean mass on refeeding.

https://intensivedietarymanagement....asting-part-14/



Sometimes Dr. Fung might not make it absolutely clear that during the fast itself, he's talking about a decrease in net protein oxidation/breakdown rather than a total shutdown, but where he goes into greater detail he does make this point.




I have seen online articles that claim this, that the body will be forced to break down massive amounts of protein to produce glucose.




If this was the only thing somebody read or heard from Dr. Fung, especially the red, I can see how they could get the impression that he's saying people won't lose lean mass during a fast. The point here is that with single day fasts, or with condensed eating window type daily fasting, the protocol as a whole, as long as it includes enough protein/energy on average when you include both the feeding and the fasting time periods, loss of lean mass is no worse than it would be with a three (or even six) square meals type diet plan, and might even actually be better.

And fasting might certainly be better than purposeful calorie restriction, which is what I believe is your message. Points are well taken as fasting appears to have the ability to limit loss of lean mass, not prevent.

Thank you, Teaser. My job is to read scientific manuscripts and so am inclined to take all statements very literally - I need to keep in mind that Dr Fung is simplifying the science. However, I think I would be concerned about lean tissue loss if I were doing the extended day fasting protocols.

That is a good way of looking at it.

Thanks again.