The fasting journal · matched to fast day 31
Day 31. The Avocado and Broth Incident
Day 31. Monday at the gazebo, the patriotic gnome back on duty and a glass of water raised at the end the way it always is. Except this morning the number went the wrong way for the first time in a month.
192.0 pounds. Up 1.8 from yesterday and still 36.6 pounds below the 228.6 he started at on August 1. BMI moved back to 29.1, muscle is holding at 37.1 percent and the day burned 2003 calories. John did not flinch at any of it. He knew exactly where the number came from.
What he ate
Yesterday was broth day, the first taste of anything besides water in 30 days. A small bowl of homemade vegetable broth and a quarter of an avocado.
Oh my God, did I need that, he said. It was really good.
Then came the honest part. However, that has an effect on everything else.
That is the whole reason to run an experiment in public. He wanted the broth, he took the broth and now he is showing what the broth did rather than quietly skipping a day.
The ketones told on him
The scale was the smaller story. The strip was the loud one.
Sunday morning his strip was reading 16, the darkest square on the keto mojo chart.
Monday morning it read 4. Second thing that you could see by my numbers on my ketones, he said. We dropped from a 16 to a four. That means I am still burning ketone but I am doing it at a slower pace.
He is reading his own chart correctly. A urine strip shows the ketones the body is spilling, not the fat it is burning. Food gives the body an easier fuel and ketone output falls off. A 4 is still inside the range these strips call ketosis, which is why he called it a slower pace rather than a stop. His phrase for where that leaves him was more like an intermittent type of fasting pace.
He also thinks the cleanup work stopped. Autophagy probably stopped right away, he said, because now it found some food that is coming in. Stop maintenance, stop cleaning things up. That has been his stated reason for going 90 days since the beginning. Autophagy is a real cellular recycling process and it is why he is doing this at all. What no home test can do is tell him what his own cells did overnight. A urine strip measures ketones and nothing else.
Naming it and moving on
We are going to call this the avocado and broth incident.
That is the line of the day and it is the reason this journal keeps working. He gave the setback a name, made it funny and then said what he is doing about it. I am back on the water diet, back drinking water.
The follow up plan is better than the joke. Later on I am going to try and figure out whether it was the avocado that did it or whether it was the broth that did it, because we still have some more broth. He will drink broth by itself later this week once the ketones climb back toward 16. One variable at a time.
The blood kit from yesterday is done and going out. I did the blood test this morning. I am going to mail it in. As soon as I get those results in, I will post them.
Fifty nine to go
August is fully crossed out, all 31 boxes, with a small smiley face drawn on September 1. One month is in the book. There are 59 days left.
How do I feel? I feel good. I feel great. Then the glass came up the way it does every day. You have an enjoyable Monday. Cheers.
Quick answers
Why does the scale go up after eating on a long water fast?
John gained 1.8 pounds overnight after one bowl of broth and a quarter of an avocado, which is far more than that food weighs. Most of a jump like this is water rather than fat. Food brings carbohydrate back in, the body stores it with water attached and a broth also carries sodium, which pulls more water in with it. After a month of very low intake even a small amount of food can move the number on the scale the next morning. The gain does not undo the month. It does tell him the body reacted, which is exactly what he wanted to see.
Why did my ketone strip drop after eating during a fast?
John watched his strip fall from the darkest square on the chart to a much lighter one, a drop from 16 down to 4. Urine strips measure the ketones your body is spilling out rather than the fat you are burning. When food arrives the body has an easier fuel to work with, so it makes fewer ketones and the strip color fades. A 4 still sits inside the range these strips call ketosis. His own read was that he is still burning ketones but at a slower pace, which is a fair way to describe what the color change shows.
Does avocado break a fast?
John ate a quarter of an avocado alongside his broth and cannot yet say which one moved his numbers. Avocado is mostly fat with some fiber and a small amount of carbohydrate, so it is gentler on blood sugar than most foods. It is still food. Any calories end a true water fast by definition, no matter how clean the source. What differs is the size of the response. He plans to drink broth on its own later this week once his ketones climb back, which will separate the two and give him an answer instead of a guess.
How do you get back into deep ketosis after eating?
John's plan is the simplest one available. Go back to water only and wait. Once the incoming food is used up the body returns to burning stored fat and ketone production climbs again. How fast that happens is not something a urine strip can pin down and it varies from person to person and meal to meal. He is treating his own strip as the scoreboard, aiming to see the color walk back up toward the dark end of the chart before he tries broth again. Anyone attempting this needs medical supervision rather than a color chart alone.