The fasting journal · matched to fast day 34
Day 34. Four Inches Off the Waist
Day 34. Golden hour under the gazebo, gnome in one hand, glass of water in the other. The scale gave him a clean number this morning. Then he put the scale aside and reached for a tape measure instead.
191.3 pounds. Down 0.7 from yesterday and 37.3 pounds below the 228.6 he weighed on August 1. That is two losing mornings in a row after the avocado plateau. BMI reads 29, body fat 32 percent, muscle 37.2 percent and the day burned 1999 calories.
How do I feel? I feel good. I feel fine.
The donut
The strip stayed stubborn. The avocado situation still follows me, in that the ketone strips are still showing a big old donut as far as any readings on it.
A big old donut. Zero, drawn in strip form. Third blank morning in a row, after the 16 and the 4 that followed the day 30 food. He has a theory about why.
But I continue losing weight, I suspect mostly water. Until I get all that water out of me it is just not going to register anything. So we are just going to keep drinking more water.
That is the whole plan. More water to flush the water. He watched this movie in week one, when the strip stayed blank for three mornings and lit up on the fourth. This is morning three.
The tape measure does not care about ketones
Then he changed the subject to the things nobody asks about. On a better note, I just want to share some other things that are going on that I did not bring to anybody’s attention.
When I started this I had a waist size of approximately 40 inches. Now I am a little bit less than 36 because 36 is kind of fitting me a little bit loose. So I lost four inches. Hey, who knew?
Four inches of waist in 34 days. The scale can argue with itself about water all it wants. The shorts are not confused.
He kept going. My ring goes onto my ring finger with no problem. It just slides in and out, no fatty little slowdown along the way. And the shoes. I have always been a very comfortable nine and a half in shoe size and lately it had been getting kind of snug. Well, now that is not a problem. My feet go into a nine and a half with no hesitation, plenty of room there.
A ring, a waistband and a pair of shoes. Three measurements no strip can dilute. They also line up with the second lab panel, drawn on day 31 and published today, where the blood tells its own version of the same story.
So yeah, those are the positives.
Fifty six mornings left
That being said, I am going to let you guys go. And until next time, cheers.
The glass went up, the gnome stayed patriotic and day 34 went in the book at 191.3.
Fifty six days to go. Tomorrow the strip gets another chance.
Quick answers
Can you track a water fast by waist size instead of the scale?
You can and John just did. He started with a waist of about 40 inches. On day 34 his 36 inch shorts fit loose. He calls it four inches gone. A tape measure or a pair of pants answers a different question than the scale. The scale moves with water, food in transit and fat together, which is why it jumped around after his day 30 avocado. The waist only shrinks when the body underneath is actually getting smaller. Neither number is a lab result. They are two home measurements that keep each other honest.
Why do rings and shoes fit better a month into a water fast?
John's ring now slides on and off with no fight and his nine and a half shoes have room to spare after weeks of feeling snug. Fingers and feet carry both fat and retained fluid. A month of fat loss plus less swelling shows up exactly there. Swelling in the extremities rises and falls with fluid and salt balance, which a water fast changes completely. He did not expect either change. That is why he shared them. Nobody stands on a scale to check their shoe size.
Is it normal for the ketone strip to stay at zero three mornings in a row?
It is the third straight zero morning for John, after readings of 16 and then 4 in the days after his day 30 food. His own first week ran the same way. The strip stayed blank on days 1 through 3 and showed color on day 4. He is treating this stretch as the same movie. A urine strip only shows spilled ketones. John's theory is that the extra water he is carrying from the broth and avocado is diluting everything. His answer is to drink more water, stay on water only and wait for the color.
How much of the weight lost after a food slip is water?
John suspects most of his current daily drops are water leaving. The record backs the shape of that. The broth and avocado on day 30 pushed him up 2.4 pounds in two days, far more than the food itself could weigh as fat. Days 33 and 34 gave back 1.3 of those pounds while the strip stayed at zero. Water rushed in with the sodium and the carbohydrate and now it is draining back out. The fat loss underneath continues at its own quieter pace, which is exactly what his shrinking waist is showing.