Thursday 21 September 2017

25:5 Diet - a log, and some comments on frequency

Herewith, an update on intermittent fasting, with examples!

MONDAY

72.5kg, 14.7% fat.

Breakfast.
A glass of water with psyllium husk. Large soy latte, so far it's a usual day except I've cut out the coconut oil that I usually add to my coffee.

Lunchtime (skipped)
Drinking green tea. Not hungry yet, but having trouble concentrating. I've been eating carbs for the few days prior to fast - possibly this makes the transition to fasting a bit harder to deal with. Might check that next time.

Teatime.
8pm - konjac noodles and ratatouille. Konjac noodles have virtually no calories but plenty of fibre to feed my gut bacteria. Eggplant, capsicum, onion, zucchini and tomato in ratatouille - all very ow calorie, main contribution from olive oil. I'd say not more than 400-500 Cal today. Adding a multivitamin and mineral supplement to help avoid possibilities for deficiencies.
9:30pm feeling mentally tired.

TUESDAY

71.3kg, 14.1% fat.

Breakfast.
 A glass of water with psyllium husk. Large soy latte. Feeling quite fine, not really hungry. 11am getting pretty hungry now. Green tea helps suppress it. Feeling mentally pretty sharp.

Lunch (skipped). Green tea.

Didn't check ketones yesterday, but fairly deeply into ketosis this afternoon.

Dinner - same as yesterday, plus the multivitamin and a few scrapes of romano cheese. Some thawed mixed berries for desert.

WEDNESDAY

70.7kg, 13.7% fat. Starting to feel cold easily.

Breakfast.
Water and psyllium husk. Large soy latte.

Lunch. (2pm) - starting to get noticeably weak now. Dinner is going to be a bit tricky this evening due to kids activities and hunger is getting a bit distracting so I'll eat now. Ratatoille and konjac noodles again (one pack, rather than 2). Plus a spoon of tzatziki dip for some variation in flavour.

Dinner (8pm) - a bit more ratatouille (all gone now!) - no noodles. 125g blueberries, and a passionfruit. Not really feeling hungry much now. Ketones are 4 mmol/L in my urine, I'm talking a lot (usually happens to me in ketosis).

THURSDAY

70.2kg, 13.5% fat.

Had a bit of a rough night last night. Just wasn't sleepy at all, didn't fall asleep for what seemed like several hours. This tends to happen near the end of the fast, I put it down to higher levels of ketones. Feeling enthusiastic this morning, not hungry at all.

Breakfast: Psyllium husk and water, large soy latte.

Lunch: skipped, green tea. Not hungry.

5:30pm Urine ketones up to 8 mmol/L, feeling a bit spaced out. Getting hungry again, had some more psyllium husk.

Dinner: 100g of cooked white rice (~130 Cal), stir fried green veg, cauliflower. An orange, some blueberries. No sure of calorie count but vegetables are mostly not very significant. Fat from the stir fry might be a couple of hundred Cal (maybe 10-20g maximum). Almost certainly around 500 Cal for the day.

FRIDAY

69.7kg, 13.1% fat. Woohoo! Eating tonight! I remark upon this every time I fast, but by the time I get to the last 2 days I have effectively stopped feeling hungry and could quite easily continue (which could quickly become dangerous). Food starts to taste really, really good. Plain white rice: delicious! Some flakes of plain, raw, rolled oats? Wow, so tasty who would have thought?

Breakfast: usual psyllium husk and water, a large soy latte

Lunch: skipped, green tea all afternoon

4pm 69.4kg 13.0% fat

Afternoon tea - fast broken! Sourdough toast with lashings of peanut butter and avocado... ahhh....

GENERAL COMMENTS

The original research work was 5 days over a 4 week period, but it's hard to know what is optimal.
If I stretch this to more-or-less 6 weeks, then ending the five day fast can be made to line up with druid holy days: the solstices, equinoxes and those in-between dates that mark transitions to or from periods of rapid change in day length.

I might have to rename it to my "40:5" diet  :-)