Hey y’all I’m 6’1 206lbs and around 25-30% bodyfat - I’ve been done about 4 36hr fasts since december and gone from 217lb to current weight, do a decent job maintaining but fatloss has come mostly from these fasting days.
Anyways, I wake up this morning after a full day fast, decent sleep for not eating, but I’m a bit jittery, brain-foggy, and certainly feel like a little bit of carbs would turn my brain on substantially. I’m fighting two things here - wanting my brain and body to physically function (I have work and some yard work to do as well) and also wanting to burn more fat. I have theorycrafted that eating low carb/keto would keep me in a fat burning state more effectively, and I can eat like a 1500-1800 calorie day high protein/high fat and perhaps do a full fast day the next day. My days of no eating I seem to have a decent amount of gas in the tank for light workouts, and working.
My only question is, will I feel in the same state I feel now if I don’t eat any carbohydrates? since I am not keto adapted (and don’t plan to be, i eat a moderate carb amount and it doesn’t cause me to gain weight, I gained weight from overeating ice cream for 6 months a year or two ago) or would I just be better off limiting to like 80-100g of carbs today so I can hit fasting ketosis easier tonight/tomorrow?
I don’t have enough experience to answer your question, but the second day is always the hardest for me, I’m currently on day 5 of a water fast and when I woke up on the third day I felt and still feel great. It might be worth it to try to push through today, but if your body is really not feeling it, you may want to listen to it.
keto is known as a fasting mimicking diet. people combine it with fasting all the time for the reason you described, myself included. i regularly go on/off keto. fasting when not fat adapted is so miserable.
doing keto/low carb will make fasting effortless. if you get fat adapted, you can absent mindedly slide into a fast without trying because you wont have an appetite, to such degree that thinking of food might even repel you. you wont get jittery because you wont have blood sugar issues, in fact you will have quite a bit of energy and wont have brain fog. calories still matter as much as ever. you just have to take the time to get fat adapted for 1-2 months, which means you will have to push through unpleasant symptoms like brain fog and low energy especially during the first couple weeks.
to answer your question: the more you deplete your liver glycogen, the easier the fast will be. so limit your carbs 1-3 days before fasts.
The second day’s always a bit more difficult.Take an electrolyte supplement and you’ll be ok. Might sound rude but if I were you I’d have a cup of black coffee and suck it up— that’s how I’m doing it.