The fasting journal · matched to fast day 33
Day 33. Losing Again
Day 33. Wednesday under the gazebo, the little USA gnome in both hands instead of the glass. Two mornings ago the scale was going the wrong way. This morning it turned.
192.0 pounds. Down 0.6 from yesterday and 36.6 pounds below the 228.6 he weighed on August 1. BMI holds at 29.1, muscle reads 37.1 percent and the day burned 2003 calories. Body fat came in at 32.2 percent, a hair under yesterday.
How do I feel? I feel good. I feel great.
Great is back. Yesterday the word was okay.
Day three of the incident
He named it again before anyone else could. We are also at day three of the avocado incident. Well, what was I thinking?
Then he moved on, because the number let him. Anyway, we are losing weight. So we stopped gaining it and we leveled off and now we are losing it.
That is the whole arc in one sentence. Day 30 was 190.2 with broth and a quarter of an avocado that evening. Day 31 jumped to 192.0. Day 32 crept to 192.6. Today is 192.0 again. The 2.4 pound rise was water riding in on the sodium from the broth and the little bit of carbohydrate in the avocado. Water leaves the way it came. He said as much two days ago and the scale just agreed with him.
I am confident that is going to continue downward.
The strip has not caught up
However, the ketone strips are telling a different story. They are not able to detect any ketones in my system just yet.
The pad on the strip matched the palest square on the chart for the second morning in a row. On day 30 it matched the deep purple marked 16. On day 31 it read 4. Day 32 and day 33 read zero.
He is not surprised. The reason is his own first week. Which is the way it worked the last time, he said. If you recall, I lost almost five or six pounds before the ketones were detected in my system and then it went through the roof.
The journal has the exact figures. The strip read zero on days 1, 2 and 3. It showed its first color on the morning of day 4, a 5 on the chart, with the scale at 218.0 after a 10.6 pound drop from the start. By day 5 he called it official. By day 8 the strip hit 16 and stayed at the dark end for the next three weeks. His memory of the pounds is a little generous. The pattern he remembers is right. The scale moved first and the strip followed a few days behind.
Today is the second blank morning since the food. If the first week is any guide there is at least one more to sit through. He knows that and he is not pretending otherwise.
So I am hopeful that tomorrow will be the case and I will be able to show some positive numbers there.
Confident about the scale. Hopeful about the strip. He picked those two words carefully and they are the honest version of where day 33 stands.
What he is not doing
Nothing new. No salt, no fat, no extra walking to chase the color back. Water only and a strip every morning, the same routine that carried him into ketosis in August without any help. The broth only experiment is still parked until the strip is dark again, so he can tell which of the two foods did the damage before he tries either one on purpose.
Fifty seven to go
August is a wall of X marks and September has two. Day 33 of 90, 57 left.
No glass today and no cheers. Just the gnome and a short one.
Quick answers
How long does it take for ketones to come back after eating during a water fast?
John does not know and he says so. His only comparison is his own first week. In August the strip stayed blank on days 1, 2 and 3 and showed its first color on the morning of day 4, after the scale had already dropped 10.6 pounds. This time the strip went blank on day 32, two mornings after the food. Day 33 is the second blank morning. He is hopeful tomorrow shows color. That is a hope built on one earlier data point, not a rule. Ketone production ramps back up once the body has used the incoming food and returns to stored fat. The speed of that varies from person to person.
Why is the scale dropping again if the ketone strip still says zero?
Because the two numbers measure different things. The two day gain after the avocado was water, carried in with the sodium from the broth and the small amount of carbohydrate in the avocado. Once that meal was fully processed the extra water started to leave and the scale turned around. A urine strip only shows the ketones the body is spilling into urine. It can sit at zero while weight moves for other reasons. John leveled off on day 32 and lost 0.6 on day 33 with the strip still blank both mornings. The scale reacts to water fast. The strip reacts to fuel.
Did John gain back real weight from one small meal?
The record says no. He went from 190.2 on day 30 to 192.6 on day 32, a 2.4 pound rise. Day 33 brought it back to 192.0. He is still 36.6 pounds below his August 1 start. A quarter of an avocado and a bowl of broth do not hold enough calories to build anything close to two pounds of fat in two days. The rise was water and it is already leaving. What the meal did cost him was the ketone level, which is what he is watching now.
Is John doing anything different to speed up ketosis this time?
No. Water only, a strip every morning and patience. He is not adding fat, salt, exercise or anything else to force it. The approach is the same one that put him into ketosis in the first week, when he did nothing but drink water and wait. He calls himself confident about the scale and hopeful about the strip. He keeps those two words separate on purpose. The doctor watching his monthly bloodwork knows about the food and about the plan.