Intermittent Fasting

GPT provides some insight into how ketones’ loss happens

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Windows Copilot shines

I’ve asked it:

“Find me papers that look at what happens to ketones while in ketosis. What interests me is how much energy lost with acetone and acetoacetate while in ketosis.“

The reply is below

🌟 Exploring Energy Loss During Ketosis: The Role of Acetone and Acetoacetate🌟

When our bodies enter ketosis—often due to low carbohydrate intake or fasting—we begin producing ketone bodies as alternative fuel sources. The primary ketone bodies are:

  • Beta-Hydroxybutyrate (BHB)
  • Acetoacetate (AcAc)
  • Acetone

While these molecules serve as vital energy sources, not all are utilized efficiently, leading to some energy loss. Here’s how it happens:

🔹 Energy Loss Through Ketone Excretion

1. Acetone Exhalation

  • Formation: Acetone is produced from the spontaneous decarboxylation of acetoacetate.
  • Excretion: Being volatile, acetone is exhaled through the lungs and also lost via urine and sweat.
  • Energy Implications: The exhaled acetone contains caloric energy that the body doesn’t recover—this represents direct energy loss.

2. Urinary Excretion of Acetoacetate and BHB

  • Renal Handling: The kidneys filter blood ketone bodies, reabsorbing most but not all. Excess ketones are excreted in the urine.
  • Energy Implications: The energy in these excreted ketones is also lost to the body. During high ketone production, urinary losses can be significant.

🔹 Key Research Findings

• Magnitude of Energy Loss

  • Quantitative Estimates: Energy loss through ketone excretion can range from 50 to 100 kilocalories per day in individuals in ketosis.
  • Influencing Factors: Depth of ketosis, metabolic rates, and kidney function affect the extent of ketone loss.

• Metabolic Adaptations Over Time

  • Increased Efficiency: With prolonged ketosis, the body adapts—kidneys enhance ketone reabsorption, and tissues improve ketone utilization, reducing losses.
  • Reduced Acetone Production: The body produces less acetone over time, minimizing exhaled energy loss.

• Clinical Contexts

  • Diabetes Mellitus: In uncontrolled type 1 diabetes, ketone production surges, and energy loss through excretion becomes more pronounced, contributing to weight loss.
  • Ketogenic Diets: Initial ketone losses are higher but tend to decrease as the body adapts to ketosis.

🔹 Understanding the Energy Calculations

• Caloric Content of Ketone Bodies

  • Beta-Hydroxybutyrate and Acetoacetate: Approximately 4.5 kcal per gram.
  • Acetone: While not a significant energy source, its loss still represents unused potential energy.

• Estimating Daily Losses

  • Urinary Ketones: Losing 10 grams of ketones via urine equates to about 45 kcal lost per day.
  • Exhaled Acetone: Though smaller in quantity, exhaled acetone adds to the total energy deficit.

🔹 Implications of Ketone Energy Loss

• Weight Management

  • Contributing Factor: Inefficient ketone utilization and subsequent energy loss may aid in weight loss by creating a caloric deficit.
  • Dietary Adjustments: Understanding this loss can help calibrate caloric intake for those on ketogenic diets.

• Metabolic Health

  • Efficiency Over Time: As the body adapts and reduces energy loss, dietary adjustments may be necessary to maintain weight loss momentum.
  • Monitoring Ketosis Levels: Regular testing of blood or urine ketone levels can inform about the state of ketosis and metabolic efficiency.

🔹 Additional Insights

• Breath Acetone as a Marker

  • Non-Invasive Monitoring: Breath acetone levels correlate with blood ketone levels, offering a convenient way to monitor ketosis.
  • Research Utilization: Used to estimate acetone production and associated energy loss.

• Ketone Metabolism Beyond Energy

  • Signaling Molecules: Ketone bodies play roles in gene expression, inflammation, and oxidative stress.
  • Therapeutic Potential: Minimizing unnecessary energy loss can enhance the benefits of ketogenic diets, especially in medical conditions like epilepsy or metabolic disorders.

🔹 Connecting the Dots

The loss of energy through acetone exhalation and acetoacetate excretion during ketosis, while seemingly minor, has meaningful implications:

  • Metabolic Efficiency: Highlights the balance the body achieves between utilizing alternative energy sources and conserving energy.
  • Dietary Planning: Emphasizes the importance of adjusting nutritional strategies as the body’s adaptation to ketosis evolves.
  • Health Outcomes: Offers insights that could improve interventions for metabolic diseases, weight management, and overall well-being.

Understanding the nuances of ketone metabolism and energy loss showcases the body’s remarkable adaptability! Whether for personal health goals or academic interest, delving into this area uncovers the intricate interplay between diet, metabolism, and energy utilization. 🌟

Ketosis with exogenous ketones cocktail

There are a number of ways to enter ketosis state.

First approach is to do it natively
When you fast or follow a ketogenic diet (with less than 50 gr of carbs in a day) liver glycogen becomes depleted at some point and liver starts to convert fats (free fatty acids) into ketones.

There are three ketone types in the body:
1. Beta Hydroxybutyrate – BHB a primary fuel for the body
2. Acetoacetate – used for energy to a less extent (expelled in urine)

3. Acetone (isn’t used for energy and expelled in breath and urine)

Second approach is to take a supplement

It is also possible to enter into ketosis by taking supplements. There are three main types of them:

  1. MCT Oil (or MCT Oil Powder) which stands for Medium Chain Triglycerides oil. It’s a purified Coconut Oil that retains only C8 and C10 fractions that are metabolized in the liver to ketones.
  2. Ketone salts, use Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium salts combined with BHB ketones.
  3. Ketone esters which are a type of chemical compound that is converted to ketones and provides high level of ketosis in comparison to ketone salts and the effect of taking them lasts for hours, while ketone salts last for an hour or so.

My experimenting with exogenous ketones

The above mentioned supplements are known as exogenous (external) ketones since they can induce exogenous ketosis independent of the diet. It means that even though you may eat carbs and hence insulin level will be high you still will get into ketosis taking such supplements.

I’ve been taking MCT Oil, MCT Oil Powder, Ketone salts for months. So today I’ve decided to make a cocktail of all of them at once and see what happens.

Experiment setup
On 14th hour of the fast I am mixing in 250 ml of carbonated water the following compounds:

  1. 9 grams of MCT Oil (I took 1 tablespoon of MCT Oil which is about 10 ml)
  2. 11 grams of MCT Oil Powder that contains 6 grams of MCT Oil.
  3. 9 grams of Potassium D-BHB ketones salt that contains about 6.5 gr of BHB ketones.
  4. One tablespoon of Raw Apple Cider Vinegar (about 10 ml)

In total:

  • 15 grams of MCT Oil,
  • 6.5 grams of BHB ketones.

This cocktail should bring my Acetone ketone level in breath which I can measure to about 0.5 mmol/l.

Notice
A better and more exact way to measure ketones would be to measure BHB ketones concentration in blood using Blood Ketone Meter.

References
More information about ketones

https://ketonutrition.org/the-many-faces-of-beta-hydroxybutyrate-bhb/?form=MG0AV3

Ketosis is just fifteen minutes away

If you haven’t felt what ketosis is then the best way to do it is to use exogenous (external) ketones. For example, you can take about 10 grams of the Potassium BHB ketones salt that I periodically use to enter ketosis.

After taking 10 grams in a fasted state (about 14 hours into fast) it takes about 15 minutes to enter ketosis. And at the peak it reaches about 0.5 mmol/l of Acetone ketone in the breath.

Pay attention, that exogenously induce ketosis doesn’t feel that good. You may experience a light headache and overall feeling of discomfort. What is interesting during prolonged fasts of 40 hours long I haven’t felt discomfort to the same extent that exogenous ketosis caused.

Also, the physiology of exogenously induced ketosis is very different than the endogenous (native) one that happens during prolonged fasting.

The main difference being fat mobilization: endogenous ketosis happens when free fatty acid released from fat storage are turned into ketones, while during exogenous ketosis no fat is mobilized and to the contrary fat usage is inhibited.

So there you have it, exogenous ketosis is just 15 minutes away, but it wont’ help you lose weight. It can definitely help in preventing, or slowing down early onset of dementia, it can help reduce epilepsy seizers, and can improve sport performance though.

Weight loss as an engineering

Photo by Alora Griffiths on Unsplash

Today in the morning, my weight was 82 kg (180 lb).

Also, today is June 2nd and 11 days have left until it will be 2 years since I’ve started doing intermittent fasting.

It seems like a 80 kg (176 lb) weight will be a better one to celebrate the anniversary.

It means that within 11 days I need to lose 4 pounds (2 kg), and it’s better for it to be fat.

I think at this point in time after reading more than dozens of books on fasting and nutrition, after reading more than 50 scientific papers on nutrition and metabolism, after watching more than 200 videos on the subject weight loss and nutrition, and most importantly trying various approaches to weight loss I have a good grasp of how to lose these 2 kg.

Actually, losing weight is like engineering at this point. This is because when you know how it works it’s easy to calculate what needs to be done to lose weight.

The algorithm of weight loss is called Carbohydrate-Insulin Model (hypothesis, theory) of obesity.

This hypothesis says, that we gain weight when eating too much carbohydrates frequently throughout the day.

This causes insulin hormone to be released which inhibits fat mobilization, and promotes fat storage. As a consequence, the body doesn’t get the energy it expected to get from the food one ate, hence the elevated hunger and cravings. Which cause a person to eat again and again, even though she has enough energy in a form of fat stored in the body.

Now, that we know how we gain weight, to lose weight we need to do the reverse: stop eating carbohydrates, or eat less than 100 gram of them in a day, which is known as insulin lowering diet or low-carb diet. Ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting achieve the same effect by lowering insulin level, since you don’t get carbs in the system.

Pay attention, that we are not talking about eating less, we are talking about stopping eating carbs.
You can eat other food that contains protein and fat without any issue. Pay attention, that vegetable oils, like soybean, corn etc. are found to be inflammatory, so olive oil is the best.

Also, saturated fat in animal products is neutral to beneficial to our health, so I eat it without any issue.

Also, sugar is a carb and that is why it and any food that sugar is added to is also a good candidate for elimination from the diet.
It means food that’s out is: sugary drinks, bread and buns, cookies, sweets, sweet chocolate, natural juices etc.
Ultra processed food, like chips, snacks, pizzas etc. is out too.

So, to summarize to lose weight in an engineered way I will:

  1. Continue Intermittent Fasting regimen by having 16 hours fast, 8 hours eating window.
  2. Continue eating mostly low carb diet, and restraining from eating food that contains any sugar.
  3. Continue walking outside just for fun, since it’s free and affordable to almost everyone, unlike a gym membership.


That’s it in a nut shell how to lose weight.

Stay tuned.

Ketones of Potassium BHB salt to induce exogenous ketosis

Exogenous ketones

After overnight fasting of about 10 hours insulin level in the blood is very low. It means that body is using free fatty acids mobilized from adipocytes (fat cells) for energy to power skeletal muscles, liver, heart.

So to induce recreational ketosis I decided to take Potassium BHB ketones salt to do just that.

16/8 fast won’t help you to go into ketosis

Did you know that based on reading the scientific literature and my own experience measuring ketones level in breath while fasting I see that there is no ketosis even after 21 hours of the fast.

It’s concerning, and it means that doing 16/8 fast works only by using free fatty acids as an energy source, since there is no ketosis at this state. Also for ketosis to start not only insulin should be low, there is a need for the glycogen reserves in the liver to be depleted. Liver has about 100-150 grams of glycogen which varies in people.

There is this assumption that taking MCT oil or ketone salts can speed up the start of endogenous (natural) ketosis. I’ve experimented with both of them and haven’t seen this effect. One caveat, though I didn’t measure BHB ketones in blood (which is the most precise measurement you can do at home), instead I used digital ketones breath meter.

Acetone the ketone excreted in breath correlates well with the level of BHB ketones in blood.

Experiment of N = 1

Anyway, I took about 6300 mg (6.3 g) of Potassium BHB ketones salt in 250 ml of sparkling water to induce exogenous ketosis since I find it fun. Even though it’s possible to induce exogenous ketosis while eating it’s more effective in a fasted state.

Based on the papers I’ve read it should induce ketosis within one hour with the concentration of BHB ketones in blood of about 0.5 – 0.6 mmol/l. I do measure after an hour a concentration of Acetone ketones in breath of 0.2 mmol/l.

References

Potassium BHB ketone salt I’ve used.

Prolonged Fasting is a piece of cake! Or is it?

Photo by manu schwendener on Unsplash

What is prolonged fasting?

Well, extended or prolonged fasting which is fasting for more than 24 hours is not your lovely 16/8. It’s more challenging and I should say it’s another level of fasting altogether.

First, it requires more dedication since unlike short fasts you still need to live in an environment where people continue to eat and you have to deal with food preparation for them and feel all the smells and looks of the food.

So if you can, do extended fasting when there is no one around, so not to be distracted.

Second, prolonged fasts are less comfortable than 16/8. After about 24 hours into a fast you start feeling a feeling of emptiness in the stomach that is a little bit annoying, but bearable. And at 8:00 PM as it also happens during regular fast you’ll feel hungry due to high levels of ghrelin hormone.

The good news is that in the morning of the second day of fasting if you do 42 hours for example, you don’t want to eat at all. Which is the same thing I feel during short fasts too.

Third, when you do prolonged fast you may feel coldness and low energy even though after about 24-36 hours (depending on the amount of glycogen in the liver) body should switch to using fat as main source of energy. Also, you may feel like going to sleep very early. Which is the case for me today, as usual when doing 42 hours fast.

Benefits of extended fasting

But, don’t forget that this is not in vain:

  1. During prolonged fasts you lose fat really fast.
  2. You have more time since you do not need to buy, cook or prepare food, unless you have kids. Then it sucks.
  3. You have an opportunity to look at your usual life from outside and see how our life is food-centric most of the time.
  4. Autophagy is in full swing only during prolonged fasts starting after 24 hours into fasting. I am not sure that 16/8 turns on autophagy at all (I’ll check this point in scientific papers later).

So there you have it


Extended fasting is challenging, but it comes with some benefits. If you don’t do it too frequently it can be even fun, when you do it with a partner, and kids are sent to spend time with grandpas and grandmas. And you use free time for walking, reading and sleeping.

How to lose weight and have fun doing it?

Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash

Can you lose fat and maintain your weight after this?

If you want to understand how to lose weight, then there are a couple of steps to follow to achieve this.

Pre-requisites

1. Check that you have no constraints that can prevent you from doing intermittent fasting. Which are

Do not try intermittent fasting if you are

  • a pregnant woman
  • a breastfeeding woman
  • underweight person
  • a child under 18 years old
  • has a medical condition that requires consultation with a doctor

Watch me!

2. I strongly recommend you to watch How to Avoid Insulin Resistance and Why it’s Important | Dr. Robert Lustig & Dr. Dom D’Agostino to understand how too much Insulin hormone that is released due to sugary and starchy foods and drinks consumption drives weight gain (fat gain). 

When you understand this simple thing then you can do three things below:

  • You can change what you eat to lessen or completely remove sugary and starchy foods and drinks from food you eat. This approach is also known as Insulin lowering diet (aka low-carb and Ketogenic diets)
  • Or you can go on an Intermittent Fasting lane and strive to do 16 hours long fast and 8 hours long eating window. It’s flexible and you can start from 12 hours fast, which means skipping your breakfast. It’s simple as that.
  • Or you can combine both of the above approaches.

3. Then if you feel like it you can start walking. As soon as you start losing weight (at first water) after stopping eating ultra processed food and sugar, you may find yourself more energetic and walking is a good thing to engage in.

4. At last, if you want to you can start doing resistance training using your own body (push-ups), resistance bands or dumbbells (these can be expensive to buy new, but you can find used ones at FB marketplace for example).

To summarize

For most of the people, it possible to lose weight without using drugs, surgeries and going to the gym by understanding that excessive amount of Insulin hormone is what is driving weight gain.

When you stop eating sugary and starchy foods, drinking sugary drinks all of which is called Ultra Processed food there is nothing that can prevent you from being healthier.

You can do it!

References:

The people that theirs advice I listen very carefully are:

  1. Benjamin Bikman, PhD – “Why We Get Sick”
  2. Jason Fung, MD – “The Obesity Code”
  3. Gary Taubes, investigative journalist – “Why We Get Fat”
  4. Mark Mattson, PhD – “Intermittent Fasting Revolution”
  5. Robert Lustig, MD – “Fat Chance”
  6. David Perlmutter, MD – “Drop Acid”
  7. Gin Stephens, author – “Fast. Feast. Repeat”
  8. Dr. Sten Ekberg (YouTuber)
  9. Dr. Berg (YouTuber)
  10. Thomas DeLauer (YouTuber)