The fasting journal · matched to fast day 36
Day 36. Barely There but I Will Take It
Day 36. Saturday afternoon under the gazebo, the American flag gnome tucked in one arm like a co host. John opens with the number the way he always does.
190.2 pounds. Down 0.7 from yesterday and 38.4 pounds below the 228.6 he weighed on August 1. BMI is 28.8, body fat 31.7 percent, muscle 37.3 percent and the day burned 1991 calories. Four losing mornings in a row now.
How do I feel? I feel good. I feel great. That was the whole health report today and honestly that is the best kind.
Barely there
Then the strip. Today is day six of what John calls the avocado incident, the quarter avocado and homemade broth he ate on day 30. The strip dropped from 16 to 4 the next morning and then went flat zero for four mornings straight.
Today there was color.
However, today we have ketones according to the strip. It is barely there. I mean it really is barely there but I will take it.
That is the honest read. Not a victory lap, just a faint tint at the bottom of the chart, the 0.5 mmol/L square, logged exactly as faint as it looked. Yesterday he caught himself calling a blank strip almost pinkish and admitted it was hope. Today he did not have to hope. Six days of water after the deviation and the chemistry is showing up on paper again.
Why the wording changed
Then John addressed something viewers may have noticed. The videos sound a little different lately. He explained it straight.
You may have noticed that we changed our wording with regard to our script. The reason for that is because we are being banned from certain social websites with regard to the wording, we think anyway. Or it may just be the actual subject matter that nobody wants to talk about, even though it is healthy for you.
That is the reality of documenting a long fast in 2026. His YouTube uploads have been taken down. His reels get age gated. So the script talks around certain words now and the avocado incident gets its funny code name. The fast itself has not changed at all. Water, the morning weigh in, the strip and the video, every single day, with his doctor watching the bloodwork monthly.
In either case, we are just going to continue on this path and see what happens.
Day 36 of 90
He kept it short today. A wave, a wish for a wonderful Saturday afternoon and the glass of water raised to the camera. Till next time, cheers.
Fifty four days to go. The strip finally has a tint, the scale is under 191 and the gnome has not missed a taping yet.
Quick answers
What does a 0.5 mmol/L reading on a urine ketone strip mean?
It is the first colored square above zero on the chart that comes with the strips. The bottle John uses runs from a beige zero up through pink and purple. The 0.5 mmol/L square is the palest step, a faint tint you have to look for. That is exactly what his day 36 strip showed. He held it up, said it was barely there, said it twice and then logged it. Yesterday he admitted a blank strip looked almost pinkish because he wanted it to be. Today the tint was real enough to count, so the site shows 0.5 instead of another zero.
How long did it take John to show ketones again after breaking his fast?
Six days, in his case. He ate a quarter of an avocado and homemade broth on day 30. The next morning the strip dropped from 16 to 4. Days 32 through 35 read zero, four blank mornings in a row. On day 36 the first trace of color showed up. That is one person's timeline, not a rule. Urine strips also lag what the body is doing and hydration changes how concentrated they read. He treated the blank stretch the same way he treats everything else, keep drinking water and read the strip again tomorrow.
Why did John change the wording in his videos?
Because some of his videos were being taken down or restricted on social platforms. His YouTube uploads have been removed before and Instagram has limited who can see his reels. He thinks certain words in the script may be triggering it, so he now talks around them and says the avocado incident instead of naming what the fast is. As he put it, or it may just be the subject matter nobody wants to talk about. Either way the plan did not change. The full videos and the daily journal live on this site, which no platform can take down.
How much weight has John lost in 36 days of water fasting?
38.4 pounds. He started at 228.6 pounds on August 1 and weighed 190.2 on the morning of day 36, which averages out to just over a pound a day for five weeks. The daily number still swings. Day 35 dropped 0.4 and day 36 dropped 0.7. His BMI is down to 28.8 and the fast runs under doctor supervision with monthly bloodwork. He is not chasing a daily target. The average is what he watches and the average keeps pointing the same direction.