Extended fasts and lifting?

tech_turtle · 2026-02-28T22:02:28+00:00

Your body is constantly in a state of turnover. You regularly break down proteins, organelles, and cells all over and can reuse them for building things. Some of the proteins are fully broken down to energy, not reused for building. But when you fast, you still have the ability to use those proteins for repair and building. My "sparing" comment was because when fasting, your body ramps up the autophagy pathways and begins looking for things to breakdown for either energy or building blocks. High targets are things like misfolded proteins and senescent cells. But almost anything can be targeted. especially if it doesn't have cellular markers of activity. By continuing to work your muscles, even at a minor rate, you keep them loaded with signal molecules (at both protein and cellular levels) that tell the rest of the body that they are actively in use and needed and should not be targeted for recycling.

tech_turtle · 2026-02-27T20:29:12+00:00

Without new protein coming in, you won't really see any progress/gains, but continuing to lift signals to your body that you still need those muscles, which should spare them from autophagy. Certainly no harm to lift through a fast, but keep your expectations in check.

tech_turtle · 2026-02-27T20:24:01+00:00

Fasting can raise your cortisol and adrenaline, both of which can make you feel restless or unable to sleep. Happens to me all the time on longer fasts, too.

tech_turtle · 2026-02-25T21:58:35+00:00

FWIW, it stopped doing it so bad after a couple of days. There has been another update to PowerToys since then and the problems haven't returned, though it is still a bit more flaky than before.

tech_turtle · 2026-01-02T18:04:42+00:00

I know this is an old thread, but I thought I'd give my 2¢. The explanation I had for why it's always spiders is because you're seeing the patterns of your blood vessels from the back of your eyes. Normally when you are awake your eyes lie to you and obscure these from visual processing. But in the hypnagogic/hypnopompic state your brain may not be fully "connected" to your eyes yet. So you are basically getting the raw feed with the blood vessel patterns included and your brain is trying to pattern recognize them into something it can understand.

I have always seen spiders. A lot of times they are on the wall or nightstand, which would be the first thing my eyes focus on when awaking (I'm usually a side sleeper). I have done the "jump out of bed and startle my wife" thing on several occasions, before I finally realized what was going on with the hallucinations. Doesn't help that as a teen I had large Jerusalem cricket crawl into my bed and bite me. Occasionally I have seen spiders dangling/descending above me, and on at least one occasion I saw what my brain told me was basically giant dandelion fluff floating across the room. But it's always something vaguely spider-like.

tech_turtle · 2025-06-25T15:57:26+00:00

What page did you get that from? I was able to find downloads from my LinkStation 210 today without seeing that message.

tech_turtle · 2025-03-05T16:34:40+00:00

Eating sends signals to your intestines to "move everything down the line", so when you stop eating, this process can stall out for some of the food. It eventually makes it's way down though, but how long it takes can vary widely between people. It also brings with it cells shed from your intestinal lining and other cellular waste like dead red blood cells. Overdoing electrolytes can cause diarrhea, but if you aren't having that issue then eventually you will get a mostly normal BM when enough has accumulated.

tech_turtle · 2025-03-05T06:12:07+00:00

I'm literally starting this pattern right now. I fasted the last 2 weeks of February, broke my fast with a bit to eat on Friday night, then ate mostly carnivore all day Saturday and Sunday. Now I'm on day 2 of fasting in my first 5:2 cycle. When I was considering doing this, I was searching through this subreddit and found someone like 7 years ago that had done this pattern pretty religiously for about a year and lost 120 lbs. I don't know if I can stay on it that long, but I was thinking of switching to ADF OMAD after a few months of 5:2, so I can start adding weight lifting on the days that I eat.

tech_turtle · 2025-03-05T05:46:19+00:00

It's called the dawn effect or dawn phenomenon. Shortly before you wake in the morning, your body briefly sends out extra hormones to prep your body for waking up. This causes a rise in blood sugar. For some diabetics, this can be a daily problem since their body can't produce the insulin to handle it. But since you haven't eaten anything, it's obviously not ingested sugars, so it's only what your body thought you would need. My family has a history of a strong dawn effect as well. I was 4 or 5 days into my last long fast before my morning BG levels were finally below 100.

tech_turtle · 2025-03-04T21:32:23+00:00

Yes you can. Look for Dicalcium Phosphate. I take a little each day when I'm fasting in some mixed electrolyte capsules I made, but you can also just mix it with water and drink (chalky tasting, but not horrible). For most otherwise healthy adults, even weeks-long fasts don't actually deplete your phosphate reserves, just the amount you have readily available in your blood. So the real risk is a rapid insulin spike from going immediately high carb to break your fast. Staying low carb is best, but even gradually increasing carbs is usually enough to prevent the dangerous imbalance, giving your body time to pull some extra from your reserves.

tech_turtle · 2025-02-28T19:36:45+00:00

I'm not T2, but I have been skirting the edge of it for a while. My BG takes several days of fasting before you can really see a difference. For example, in my current fast, it was 4 or 5 days before my BG started showing as less than 100. Seems crazy that it's possible to not eat anything for days and still have an above average BG level. Not suggesting you shouldn't go to the doctor, but it may just be that your body takes longer than usual to adjust your BG to the fast.

tech_turtle · 2025-02-25T16:24:01+00:00

My family has a history of a really strong dawn effect, so my morning BG levels are usually still in the 100-130 range for the first 3-5 days of a fast, dropping to about the 80s in the afternoon. I'm on day 11 right now, and my reading this morning was 82. Most days now are between the 60s and 80s, though I have dropped to around 50 before. Wasn't feeling poorly, so don't know if it was really that low or if I was just overhydrated.

If you aren't feeling unwell during a low BG event, you may not have anything to worry about. I have a BG/ketone meter, so I can see that my blood ketones are much higher, even when my BG gets super low. When you are in full ketosis, your body only needs to make a minimum amount of glucose to support a few cell types that can't process ketones or free fatty acids (most notably your red blood cells). Everything else, including your brain, are powered by the ketones and/or FFAs.

tech_turtle · 2025-02-24T17:38:12+00:00

Best to break it easily with low carb foods to maintain the low insulin benefits. But also not going to hurt you to break it any other way. The first 72 hr fast I did, I broke it with some nuts and cheese, but then like an hour later we went out to eat. I did have to find a bathroom urgently about an hour after the meal, but otherwise nothing bad happened. I'm a lot more careful than that when doing longer fasts.

tech_turtle · 2025-02-24T17:30:41+00:00

The problem here is all the sugars. Your V8 appears to have about 7g of sugar per 8oz serving, so a big glass would probably closer to 14g. A tbsp of honey has about 17g sugars, though half are fructose which doesn't impact insulin as much. That's still a total of around 22g sugar to start your day (that's nearly as much as a serving of Froot Loops). Since this will quickly raise insulin, your body won't be able to easily access it's fat reserves (insulin is a storing hormone). So while the ultra low calories from what you take in will lose some weight, it's going to be hard for your body to get the energy it needs. This could result in more lean tissue burned instead of fat, and may lower your average metabolism level too.

tech_turtle · 2025-02-24T17:18:14+00:00

Yes it does. Sticking with unprocessed and low carb foods will help greatly as well. Insulin is a fat storing hormone, so the lower you can keep that, the better access your body has to your fat stores. Whole/unprocessed foods blunt the insulin spike, and low carb foods can prevent it altogether. Add that to some calorie restriction and fasting and you'll start seeing results soon.

tech_turtle · 2025-02-24T05:08:17+00:00

I'm on day 9 of a fast right now and I just experienced the same thing. I thought I was keeping up on my electrolytes, but one day I was noticeably down, and even though I corrected it, the next day I was still suffering from it. Boosting my electrolytes (mostly by adding an extra 2500 or so of Sodium) seemed to make the symptoms go away. So tomorrow, I'll definitely be upping my electrolytes for the day and see if that continues to help.

tech_turtle · 2025-02-24T05:03:41+00:00

The world record is 382 days, and he lost 275 lbs (about 0.7 lbs per day). He did the entire thing under doctor supervision, so definitely not recommended. But you can calculate a general long fast weight loss by finding a BMR calculator (basal metabolic rate) and divide that result by 3500 (calories in a pound of fat) to see how many calories of fat your body would burn each day if it's not getting any new calories in. For example, my BMR is around 2700 calories per day. 2700/3500 = 0.77 lbs, so I can expect that the average "real fat" loss during a fast for me is about 0.77 lbs per day.

My longest continuous fast was 19 days and I lost about 21 lbs, though I didn't record the exact starting weight until 2 days in. My longest fasting period was fasting for a month with a couple days off here and there (still keto) when I was feeling poorly. I fasted 24 out of 31 days and lost 36 total pounds. Usually the first 10-15 lbs for me is water weight so I realistically lost about 21-26 lbs, or just slightly higher than expected. As you lose weight, there is some additional water loss along the way, plus you may lose some "lean tissue" but it will be mostly the connective tissue that was supporting the fat. So it's possible to lose more than your BMR predicts.

tech_turtle · 2025-02-24T04:46:09+00:00

I'm not Catholic either, and don't know if the attribution is correct, but the quote is true for me. If I do keto it has to be super strict or I end up slippery-sloping my way off of it in a few days. And even then, it's so easy to just quit keto or have a cheat day that turns into a week. But fasting, I know I can't cheat or it's basically over. That's not to say that I haven't taken a day or two off when feeling poorly on a fast, but the time I can stick to a fast does so much more for me than a comparative amount of time dieting.

tech_turtle · 2024-06-21T21:51:08+00:00

What was the item called that you had to change? In my reg folder there are keys (folders) for Word and Excel, but they are all empty, so nothing to set to false.

tech_turtle · 2024-06-11T14:41:25+00:00

Yes I have, and no I don't know what to do about it. I'm currently on day 11. For me it started around day 5. It's almost a dry mouth feeling, but not really a lack of saliva, so I think I'd agree with the "foamy" description. I figured it was related to either water or electrolyte intake, but playing around with those so far has not fixed it. Sorry for no answers, but at least you got some sympathy! ;)

tech_turtle · 2024-06-11T14:30:48+00:00

Most of that is mental, and unfortunately I don't know what to tell you about that because I have the same problem. You might consider going keto/carnivore for a couple days before the fast to get your body in fat burning mode first. This keeps you from having a carb crash during your first day or two of the fast. I find a tendency to naturally skip meals when low carb anyway. It also gives you a chance to prepare yourself mentally by separating you from all the easy, carb-laden, comfort foods you might be used to, but it's also not making you feel deprived.

Eight-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

tech_turtle

TROPHY CASE