Sounds like a plan ronja. And it's always better to have a buddy :) I feel like I really need the support. There's not much acceptance of ketogenic diets and fasting yet in the UK and I get sick of defending it. It's been great to have you and kfunk on my team. Kfunk - whole 30 and shorter fasts aound like they might just be your thing. You can do it. I feel really good for doing this and not because of the weight loss, I know I've turned on autophagy and pulled fat from my liver by fasting so I've decreased my risk of cancer and diabetes. Fasting is a great tool. If you can commit to shorter fasts more often then go for it.

MrsMcsMuffins also thank you so much for information on how to do keto without counting carbs all the time :) I signed up for Cronometer and I intend to just log my food for few days to see how I compare to what is expected, and how many carbs does my current diet actually contain. I have now decided to add 2 extra weeks of whole30 and then try to introduce dairy to see if I can do keto. I have no intention of re-introducing gluten or any other meal group really, but dairy would be nice on keto. I will see. We now seem to have chatting on two or three difrerent threads so I apologize if I am replying to something that had been said elsewhere :D

Hi ronja, lots of people do keto without dairy but I would really struggle with that! I love my cream and cheese. They make everything taste so good and makes it really easy to get my fat in.
Cronometer will really help - always sorts me out when I feel like I'm going off track..
Hoping kfunk will chime in soon and let us know how she's holding up. Hour 65 for me here...I'm going for 72 and will do this once a month. I've never had so many compliments and people telling me I look great as I have in these last 3 days. I'll be breaking my fast a 6pm with a few walnuts and 2 squares of 85% dark chocolate to avoid any issues then an hour or so later if I'm feeling good I'm going to have chicken and veg swimming in butter :D

muffins and ronja I wanted to check in really quick and give an update. I had to break the fast 43 hours in. My headache turned into a migraine and I couldn't work with my nausea. I ended up laying down on my lunch break and when that didn't help I had some trail mix from the vending machine. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep that down because my migraine was awful. I came home from work and vomited again. I would have made it if not for that, and I will be trying again. I am upset that it wasn't the hunger that forced me to eat, but I realized late last night that I had neglected to take my anxiety medicine for a couple days and I was likely suffering symptoms of withdrawal from that and my symptoms had little to do with the fast itself.

muffins wow!!! You are amazing!! You must have felt so great zipping up those jeans!! I will likely join you on your next one since I figured out that I was feeling so awful because of my meds and not the fast! I am excited to start whole 30 and then after that I am going to start keto, I think it will be a good Segway to keto!!

ronja I am excited to join you in the future!! I plan on starting whole 30 very soon. I need to go grocery shopping to make sure that I am prepared and today we have a funeral and will be busy with that so I am not sure that I will make it!

Hi kfunk - good to hear from you. I'm glad you worked out what was making you ill. You've got to feel well to fast and I'm sure whole 30 will be a good way in for that. I'm on hour 68 now and will be breaking my fast soon. Looking forward to it now :)

I did it! 72 full hours - yay! And honestly I can report that a skin tag I had on my ribs is GONE - disappeared!! So I know I induced autophagy and it worked. I'm definitely going to do 72 hours once a month now. I broke my fast 2 hours ago with some walnuts and a square of dark chocolate as planned and I feel fine so going to tuck into a proper dinner now. Would love to keep up with you ladies and support each other. It's been great :)

MrsMcsMuffins wow, congratulations!!! It's an amazing achievement and you're an inspiration to me. :cheer2::cheer2::cheer2:

I bet you didn't imagine you could do 72 hours of fasting, and here you are, a winner :) I'll be very happy to stay in touch!

kfunk6113 really sorry to hear about your migrain. They're horrible!! But it's good that you realized what caused it and can avoid the trigger in future! I think you've done great job with your fast and you can try again after few days. If you plan to transition to Whole30, I would give it at least 7 to 10 days for your body to adjust before you start fasting too. BTW I've recently learnt that IF isn't recommended on Whole30, as such a radical change of eating is already stress enough for body and there shouldn't be added any more stress by introducing fast. I've been fasting for some time now so fasting wasn't new to me, so I'm going to carry on fasting evne on whole30, but if I were you, I would give it some thoughts before deciding what exactly you're going to do.

muffins you did amazingly!! I will probably join you next month :D

I ended up losing about 3 lbs. in all, and I am anxious to see if it sticks! If it does, than I am almost out of the 180's!!

ronja Thank you!! Thank you for letting me know that fasting isn't recommended on whole 30! I think my plan will be to do one more fast and then break the fast and start whole 30, that gives me some time to read up on it as well. I have been unbelievably busy the past couple weeks!

muffins that is amazing hearing about your skintag disappearing!! I am so happy this worked out so nicely for you!!

Thank you ladies. It'd be great to do it again next month. I can't wait :D ...Ok, maybe I can wait, 72 hours was hardcore... I will definitely be keeping in touch though. We've got to cheer each other on :cheer2:

Btw kfunk - 3lbs is awesomr!

kfunk I tend to "gain" about half of what I had lost on fast the following day. Even if I try to make sure I drink a lot, there always seems to be some gain in the day after fast. But that's me and you may be different. Out of 180, wow! I wish I was that far on my journey, but nope...I have so much yet to lose!

I'm listening to a talk by Dr. Jason Fung on fasting right now and you all might be interested- he speaks about autophagy at 18 minutes in.

http://highintensityhealth.com/167-j...-for-fat-loss/

Hi EagleRiverDee - I love Jason Fung. There's a man who is not afraid to come out and call a spade a spade... if only more doctors had his courage and his thirst for knowledge. Thank you for the link. I'll take a look before bed.

ronja I ate a bit lighter today but didn't drink nearly enough water, so that might mean I gain it all back, we will see! I will be so happy when I am out of the 170's, I haven't been there in 16 years!! You are doing such a great job and will be there in no time, especially the way time flies!!

dee Thank you for posting that link!! I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing, but I did fast forward to the 18 minute mark and really liked what he had to say!

muffins thank you so much for letting me join in, it was a pleasure and I am excited for next time!

EagleRiverDee I love that man, he makes so much sense. Although sometimes I'm afraid he oversimplifies things to get his point across but he was definitely the person who made me consider fasting in the first place.

I'm in for a fast tomorrow, either 24 hours or 36, depending on how I feel. Does anyone care to join me? :)

I love his no-nonsense approach. I didn't find him until after I read this thread, I was already interested in IF but had never heard of autophagy. It was the term autophagy that led me to Dr. Fung. Since then I've begun reading his blog and watching his videos. He does possibly oversimplify things, but I like the way he presents things where any person can understand it, you don't have to be a doctor. And I like how he'll say things like, "The body isn't that stupid." and such to knock down some of the myths going against fasting.

I know, he is brilliant :) And his results with treating diabetes are so impressive. The whole fasting thing just goes stright against everything we had been told about dieting, five meals a day, never to starve...just watching his videos helped me in a way - now when I overeat, I just happily skip a meal or two after that. Before I heard him, I always thought that I MUST eat, because you know, you can't skip meals, or your body will go into starvation mode . I now listen to my hunger feelings much more and I lost my fear of being hungry. Plus fasting is suprisingly easy when you are low on carbs to start with....

I will log my fasting progress here if you all don't mind! I ate my last meal just an hour ago, around 8 pm Thursday. I would like to fast until Saturday 8 am, but if I can't (not sure how fasting will go with my sinus infection and all that), I will have diner Friday around 8 again, making it close to 24 hours.

I'm entertaining the thought of going even longer but I don't know! 36 hours should be enough...well...I will see!

ronja Good luck with your fast tomorrow!! How is your daughter doing?

Well hello there, bumping up this thread!
Anyone interested in a prolonged fast? I have just re-introduced keto and I'm in the process of getting over the keto flu, but once I'm firmly settled I want to practice regular fasting. Since I'm not breastfeeding anymore (yay me!) I now feel like I could try 48 hours or something close to that to start with. It would be great to share the fun with someone!

Hi Ronja!

This thread sent me down a rabbit hole, for certain. So I researched autophagy, and as a result ran across Dr. Jason Fung, and dietdoctor.com and idmprogram.com and the ketogenic diet and I have read so much and learned so much in the past 6 months, thanks to this thread. I hit goal weight, I have practiced intermittent fasting intermittently (ha). Sometimes I'm great at doing daily 18 hour fasts, sometimes not so great. I've never done anything longer than 20 hours though. I do want to work up to 24 hour fasts (once daily eating). Not sure on the longer fasts. I am a firm believer in the health benefits of fasting and autophagy, for sure, though.

Hi EagleRiverDee. I was reading your posts about Intermittent Fasting and Autophagy, and I would like to hear more about your experiences with it, such as how much weight you lost doing it, how often you did it, for example, how many times per week, or did you do it every day for a certain number of days. Also, did you eat low carb while doing it when you did eat. I am interested in it but I have a hard time doing it for longer than 24 hours and for 2 or more days in a row. I have read so much from Dr Fung and I just realized I have his Guide to Fasting on my Kindle, but I'd like to hear actual experiences from someone who has done it and was successful with it.

My experience began with an illness, I developed a gut dysbiosis that made it painful to eat and I began eating once a day as a result. So the intermittent fasting didn't begin as an intentional thing, but rather as a result of being sick. At first I didn't cut carbs at all and ate quite a few- I ate "healthy" by the prevailing wisdom (meaning it wasn't actually healthy at all, but I really didn't know that at the time) and so my diet contained a lot of carbs just like the food pyramid said it should. Edit to add: I suppose by virtue of only eating once per day I did actually cut carbs- the carbs I'd have eaten in the other two meals. But there was nothing intentional about it. About 5 months after I got sick, we finally figured out I had serious sensitivities to salycilates and histamine foods which shrank my diet - for several weeks I literally ate nothing but lamb, rice and pears. So still high carb because of the rice and pears. My diet expanded from there to more foods but still a lot of carbs at the time. At this point I'd lost about 35 lbs strictly with the addition of IF by virtue of eating one meal daily. I began at this point to transition to a lower carb/paleo/primal type diet. Not keto, but keeping my carbs 150g a day or lower. I knew at this point that <100g a day is the weight loss sweet spot (as per Mark Sisson and his Primal Blueprint model), and on many days I was under 100g. I have lost, in total in the past 24 months, 70 lbs. Half of that with IF, the other half with the addition of low carb. I dabble with a ketogenic diet right now, but I have to be honest and say that I'm still more paleo/primal level with my carbs than I am keto. Some days I'm very low, others I'm not. But I do feel fat adapted, as I can easily fast for 18-20 hours and while I will get hungry I don't get "hangry" or feel dizzy or anything. I do IF about 5 days a week using an 18/6 schedule, essentially skipping breakfast and just having lunch and dinner within 6 hours of each other. I often take weekends off and eat breakfast, but I still strive to keep my carbs to a single meal at dinner so that I only seriously spike my insulin levels once per day. This weekend, however, I continued to IF because I recently found out that not only did I have a high A1C, I also have fatty liver, meaning I'm definitely insulin resistant. I'm sure this is a holdover from before and that I've been recovering from this all along. I might well have been diabetic prior to the weight loss. But my goal is to completely reverse my insulin resistance, to completely reverse my fatty liver, and to drop my A1C below 5.0. (It was 5.7 about 4 months ago so still too high). FWIW, while I know that longer fasts are good, I've never done one longer than 20 hours (barring the time when I was so sick). I prefer to do daily short (16 hr) fasts, personally, at least for now although I do know that it takes a number of hours just to enter autophagy and that the longer you fast the more autophagy you get. I may get to the point where I do the 24 hour fasts routinely. Reading Dr. Jason Fung, he tends to eat a single meal daily on work days and fasts the rest of the time, taking weekends off. I may work my way up to that. If I don't see my A1C drop to the level I want, I'll have more incentive to do the longer fasts. I am very motivated to not allow myself to progress to diabetes. I also do believe in the "leangains" paradigm of IF where IF actually helps with strength training and I want to remain functionally fit as I age (I am now 45) and of course autophagy has health benefits but also there's the vanity aspect of autophagy helping take care of loose skin. I don't have much but I do have a little. It's only evident when I'm in plank pose because my looser skin in my stomach hangs down, but I'd love to get rid of that. :) And I still have a bit of a fat roll on my stomach and the extra padding on my bum and thighs and wouldn't mind shrinking that some too.

I think in your case, maybe do baby steps which is kind of what I did. Start with shorter daily fasts. Even limiting yourself to just 3 meals in a 12 hour window at least is better than people eating 6 meals a day in a 16 hour window the way conventional "wisdom" often recommends these days. But you could then work up to 14 hours a day, then to 16. And I've read some literature that has actually recommended that women not go beyond 16 hours. I don't know if I fully buy it, but I just think if we listen to our bodies we'll figure out what works best for us individually.

Thanks for the very thorough and informative post, EagleRiverDee. I can see that you actually fell into this by accident and found that it was beneficial to you. I do play around with a form of IF. 2 meals a day. I don't eat breakfast as soon as I get up, but closer to 9-11 AM. No lunch, and dinner is around 4 PM. I do however, still struggle with evening snacking, so I don't get as long a fast as I would be if I was only eating my meals. I would like to gradually work up to some longer fasts, like OMAD, or maybe even longer, but I get resistance from DH.

In 2011, I had emergency surgery after which I was allowed no food for 6 days, and when they broke the fast it was with broth, jello and soup for 2 days. That was when I realized that after the struggle of the first 2 days it got so much easier to not have food. But it was medically supervised, with them checking blood work daily, and I don't think I would attempt that on my own. I think if I can control my night time snacking I can start with a 7-8 hour window and decrease it gradually. I am reading Dr Fung's Complete Guide to Fasting. I just read the part where he said you can be very flexible. You don't have to have a set schedule, but just fast when it fits into your life, so I think that's what I will aim for.

Once again, thanks. Your post was good information.