intro

I try to water fast every saturday. Thus I stop eating around 17:00 on friday and don't begin eating again until sunday around 13:00 for a fasting period of 44 hours. The primary reason why I do this is to encourage cell autophagy enabling my body to clear out cancerous and otherwise damaged cells. Secondly I do it to let me eat in a caloric surplus every other day of the week without gaining weight. Thirdly.. well, we'll get to that at the end. Jo-jo dieting in the sense that you eat in a surplus one day but then have to eat at a deficit for the next two days to make up for it.. it's never worked for me. Due to my chronic insomnia that began in my teenage years my sleep goes from bad to catastrophic when I'm in a deficit. Thus eating at a surplus for 6 days, which makes my sleep substantially better, and then a single night of deficit is much preferable.

average week

During a normal week I require an intake of roughly 3000 calories per day in order to maintain my weight with my current level of exercise. Unfortunately that simply isn't quite enough to enable me to grow muscle mass nor recover. This wouldn't be a problem if I was on steroids but since I'm not and I'm pushing dangerously close to being nearer 50 than 40.. I needed some way to let me eat more on a daily basis without gaining weight (since bulking and cutting is a young man's game). Thus I increase my caloric intake on mon-fri and sundays to between 3300 and 3600 calories per day, with saturdays being at 0 calories. This evens out nicely. Let's me build muscle mass and have solid sleep for at least 6 out of every 7 days. Being in a prolonged deficit, even if it's only 100-200 calories will disrupt my sleep. The basic formula is 3000 * 6 = 18000 total calories per 7 day period. 18000 / 7 = 2571 calories per day. I maintain weight at 3000 calories, enabling me to eat an additional 429 calories on 6 of the 7 days. Thus I consume roughly 3500 calories per day, except for saturdays, and I do not gain any weight. My body is in a caloric surplus for 6 days out every week, spurring muscle growth induced from lifting weights. If I ever want to gain weight it's dead simple, just skip fasting on saturday for a few weeks. I always get someone commenting on how I'm "ruining my weight lifting" by not eating tons of protein the day after lifting on fridays. This is, of course, nonsense. I have no doubt that your muscle building is reduced, but your muscles will get repaired even while fasting since your body prioritizes it. When in a deficit of protein it will mass-produce HGH in order to protect your lean body mass and recycle damaged or unnecessary cells in order to get the amino acids required to repair your muscle mass. This is important for the final part of this post, keep it in mind.

fat fasting

Some saturdays I simply cannot water fast though. It might have been an unusually stressful week. My body might be too banged up from lifting weights mon-fri. Maybe I slept terribly from friday to saturday. Whatever the reason, I just don't have it in me to do a water fast. What I do then is something I refer to as fat fasting, namely I will only consume liquid fat and optionally some carbs. But never any protein. The main driver of autophagy is the absence of protein since excess protein is the signal to rebuild. Whenever I water fast I get a sort of head pressure and an odd feeling in my teeth, or gums rather. It's not unpleasant and I've learned that it's a signal that I'm in deep ketosis (as in 2+ mmol). Whenever I fat fast I get that exact same feeling. Can I say for certain that I'm getting the same benefits as full on water fast? No, of course not. But there's several studies out concerning fasting mimicing diets and they seem to corroborate my own findings. On a fat fast I will consume melted butter with salt, heavy whipping cream and honey. I never consume more than 50g of carbs during a fat fast, usually sticking to 25g. While heavy whipping cream does contain a small amount of protein it's so miniscule that it simply won't matter, compared to cells sloughing off and being recycled into amino-acids the amount of protein I get from the cream is a non-issue. Generally I do not have to worry about gaining weight even if I add fat on the saturday since whenever I feel like I can't water fast I've used up too many calories during the week. But if I want to make sure I don't gain weight I reduce the amount of calories on sunday by whatever I eat on the saturday. A day of eating when water fasting might be; 25g of butter 150g of heavy whipping cream 25g of honey 10g of flaxseed oil (for the ALA) =85g fat, 3g protein, 24g carbs, ~850 calories I'd eat this once or twice a day depending on my needs for the day. The fat will keep me going and push me into the same deep state of ketosis, as evidenced from the head pressure and feeling in my gums which exactly mirror what I feel when water fasting. But my sleep won't be disrupted if I eat one of those portions right before bed.

protein restriction

This falls under the "I believe this to be true, but I don't want to recommend it to other people. Yet." Namely being in a state of protein deficiency will force your body to recycle cells it does not need in order to break them down for amino-acid so it can repair itself. Combine this with the massive burst of HGH your body produces while fasting and you've got the perfect storm for recycling loose skin and anything else unwanted that is primarily comprised of protein. The general consensus when losing weight is "focus on protein to reduce loose skin." This is wrong. Entirely wrong. Look at the absolute flood of posts by people who have lost weight in just this way, making sure they match their body's protein needs, and ended up with loose, saggy skin. Now look at at the people who have lost weight through starvation and how they're just skin and bones.. but the skin is taut, not an inch of it is loose. This is because when your body does not get a sufficient amount of protein it will recycle unnecessary skin through autophagy so it can mobilize amino-acids to repair more important tissue. Next look at people who lost their weight by fasting, their skin is exactly the same only they haven't lost their muscle mass. This is because fasting, unlike starvation, is temporary by definition. Thus the body's natural way of protecting itself, by releasing 5 times as much HGH for instance, spares lean body mass and thus your contractile tissue. I've lost a lot of weight, 63 kilos in fact, which at the time was close to half my body weight. This was a life changing episode and I cannot in words describe just how much better my life became. Through an absolute fluke I did it by using the original 80% fat, 15% protein, 5% carb ketogenic diet. Not the new modified ketogenic diet that prioritizes protein. Thus I ended up with much, much less loose skin than other people I know who lost similar amounts of weight. When I then began weight lifting again I filled out most body parts rather nicely but I do still have a few problem areas. Sure, I can go under the knife, get it nipped, tucked and pulled taut. And I might, I'm not opposed to the notion of plastic surgery, but there's just not a lot to correct. So I decided that I won't until I hit 45, instead I'll try protein restriction while weight lifting and then this combined water / fat fast every saturday. It seems to be working. I don't have enough loose skin to be able to measure it but in my own highly critical view it is definitely receding. There's two major drawbacks to the fat fasting approach I outlined above. Honey will stop gluconeogenesis, this is something I advocate for people following regular ketogenic diets. Why in heaven's name would you want your body to break down perfectly fine amino acids into glucose when you can just eat some more carbs and achieve the same result? Silly. But in this case where we literally want our body to consume itself then gluconeogensis is a key player. Secondly any protein and any carbs will drastically lessen the fasting effect and thus fat metabolism. This is fine if your goal is purely protein restriction and you have the willpower to just tough it out. But if you want to make it easier for yourself.. stick to butter and pure oils (like mct, coconut, olive, etc). Skipping the protein and carbs will make satiety much easier to achieve. One word of warning, I wouldn't do this if you do not do resistance training. Without the signal to repair stronger your body will see no use for your lean body mass and might start consuming it in equal quantities as the unwanted sources of protein, ie loose skin. I would also change my training program to attempt to hit as many muscle groups as possible every single day, to the extent it's possible. This will make sure your entire body is screaming to be repaired, and repaired stronger, and thus lessen the risk of your muscles being recycled into amino-acids. If you do not have any excess skin then of course, make protein a priority or your body will turn on itself and start consuming lean body mass. But just like having body fat is stored energy, having excess skin is stored protein. In both cases the reserves will not be utilized until your body is forced to, when you're deficient in either calories or protein. I aim for less than 100g of protein a day, generally cycling between 80 and 110. This isn't an adequate amount of protein for my body's needs, thus it will be forced to recycle itself. I will keep this post updated as the years roll on.