Category: insulin

How To Extend Ketosis

For those of you who are doing intermittent fasting, there is an easy way to really extend ketosis after one day of intermittent fasting.

I do 19:5 intermittent fasting. It is just the way I eat now, and don’t even have to think about doing it. But that means beginning at the 12th hour of my 19 hour fast, only then does ketosis begin with ketone production by the liver. So I regularly get just 7 hours of increasing ketosis, and then, when I eat, it stops abruptly.

The question is how to extend that ketosis the next day without doing an additional 24 hour fast? I’ve discovered a trick to do that with what I’m calling a “Keto day”.

I really don’t believe in the Keto diet because the long term results are not at all healthy with the most serious consequence being increased probability of heart disease. The body just isn’t designed to be socked on a daily basis with that huge quantify of fat in the diet.

But my Keto day is different, as it is just a single day. And here is the secret — fat doesn’t spike insulin at all — nothing, and with a Keto day, you get so little carbohydrates, it isn’t going to restore your glycogen levels at all.

So what happens is that, with me, at that hour that I eat, there is no insulin response for another 24 hours. So instead of getting just 7 hours of ketosis over the 48 hours, I will get 31 hours of ketosis — without having to do an additional 24 hour fast the second day. Pretty cool trick, no?

Health

48-Hour Fast

I want to do one 48-hour fast per month to get the benefit of increased autophagy, but I’ve had difficulty doing this. I stay busy with exercise (swimming) the full day that I can’t eat anything, but end up caving and eating just a few hours before going to bed, which would otherwise mean success if I didn’t cave. So I almost get there. Frustrating.

I got this idea from listening to a Youtuber about how to extend a fast a little longer. The idea was to use very high-fat and low-carb foods that won’t spike one’s insulin levels, so they won’t bring down the active ketosis. So I thought I might try this the next time I reach that impasse at a few hours from bedtime.

I’ve chosen two foods to eat: pecans (20 half shells) and one whole avocado. I put these two foods into cronometer, and they do provide an enormous amount of fact and very little carbohydrates. The issue is whether that much fat will satisfy my food craving and get me to bedtime without an insulin spike. We’ll see how this goes.

Intermittent Fasting