How to Check Your Progress at Week 5

It’s time to check in on your measurements and assess how you’re doing. You should be feeling great by now regardless, but tracking real results still matters. If you’re not seeing the progress you hoped for, go back to your tracker and take a closer look at what you’re eating.

Is Too Much Protein Affecting Ketosis?

Start with protein. If you’re eating too much, some of it can convert to glucose and pull you out of ketosis. Next, check your daily carbs. Are you consistently under 50 grams? That’s enough to maintain ketosis for most people, but you may need less. Try dropping it by 5 grams and give it a full week before adjusting further. If you’re consistently under 25 grams and protein isn’t the issue, your total calorie intake is likely a bit high.

Should You Count Calories on Keto?

The theory says you shouldn’t need to count calories, but as mentioned earlier, most of us have a broken appestat that needs time to heal, and it needs support until it does. Look at your average daily calories. If you’re eating around 2,200, try dropping to 2,000 for a week, then another 200 if you still don’t see movement. The easiest way to cut 200 calories is by trimming fat slightly, since it’s so calorie-dense that small changes go a long way. One ounce of macadamia nuts, for example, is enough on its own. Small reductions across a few items usually won’t register as hunger at all. Keep in mind, a lot of what feels like hunger is really your brain reacting to eating less volume than you’re used to, not genuine physical need. You’re eating far more nutrient-dense food now, so you’re likely getting enough without realizing it.

What If You’re Insulin Resistant?

Some people are more insulin resistant than others. If that’s you, staying consistent with tracking and adjusting will improve your insulin resistance over time, and the weight loss will follow. There’s also a way to help speed that process along, covered toward the end of next week’s lesson on therapeutic fasting.

How to Start Intermittent Fasting for Real

Last week introduced the concept and benefits of intermittent fasting, with room to experiment a little. This week, it’s time to actually put it into practice. For some, this takes longer, mainly depending on how attached your brain is to the idea of eating three times a day. By this point, you should be far enough into adaptation that constant hunger isn’t driving you anymore.

When I started, I pushed my first meal to around 11am. I caught myself watching the clock for 11 to arrive, then realized I wasn’t actually hungry, just used to eating breakfast out of habit. Once I recognized that, the urge disappeared, and I’d find myself at noon thinking, “I should probably get lunch,” rather than feeling driven to eat.

Before long, I could easily go until 2pm, with my last meal always finishing before 8pm. Effectively, I settled into eating twice a day, and even then, the evening meal is usually closer to a snack. If I need something later, I keep it to fat only, a fat bomb, keto coffee, or tea with heavy cream. Speaking of which, having coffee or tea with butter or heavy cream in the morning doesn’t appear to interrupt the benefits of intermittent fasting.

Then, every now and then I will go a full 24 hours without eating (often without actually planning it) and so, that day, I just eat once.b It’s quite amazing to realize quite how easy it is and quite how beneficial it is.

For a lot of us, Intermittent Fasting is really just reverting to a more natural cycle of eating, just as we were designed to function a very long time ago.  However, some of us may choose (or need) to take this a step further.  This is where we start to look at the concept of Therapeutic Fasting.  While Intermittent Fasting has some incredible benefits and does allow your apistat to heal and insulin resistance to improve, some of us need more than that to heal totally.  This is where we take fasting to whole new level and we extend the fast beyond 24 hours, often over many days.  The video below by Dr. Jason Fung provides an introduction to fasting and, more importantly, to address fasting over many days in order to heal your metabolism and attack Obesity right where it hurts.

Dr. Fung is the world’s leading authority on Therapeutic Fasting and the real cause of Obesity.  His recent book, ‘The Obesity Code‘, is outstanding and provides great insights into the mechanisms of fasting and how to use it to heal your body and conquer Obesity.  I’m sure there were times when our ancestors went for many days without eating but if you are considering pushing your fasting window out beyond 24 hours to engage in real Therapeutic Fasting then I would highly recommend that you read Dr. Fung’s book and, especially if you are pregnant or suffering from any sort of ailment, that you consult your “Low Carb Friendly” doctor before embarking on this journey.

The bottom line is that we were never designed to eat 3 or more times a day and the closer we get back to eating the way we were designed to eat the better our bodies react and more our health benefits. For a lot of you this concept is difficult to get your head around. We have all been brainwashed so severely since the day we were born that it takes a lot to overcome those preconceived ideas.  Just take it one day at a time and introduce changes in very small steps.  If this is hard for you or you don’t feel like you can do it, start by try pushing your fasting window out by 15 minutes at a time.  If you normally have breakfast at 8 am, push it to 8:15 for a few days and then 8:30.  Over time you will be eating your first meal after 11 am without a problem.  Then you should not feel hungry till the evening and you can now have your second meal for supper in the evening.  Now you are down to 2 meals, brunch and dinner.  Very soon your life will no longer revolve around mealtimes and you will eat whenever you need to and not when society tries to tell you to eat.