Weight: 77.2
Body fat: 25.8%
BMI: 24.6
RHR: 58bpm
Sleep: 7hrs 42min
BP: 126/64 @67bpm

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I woke up this morning feeling pretty drak. Very flat, and a bit light headed. Not hungry at all. It might have been due to the 9mg of melatonin I had early this morning at about 4am.

I’m at a crucial point in my screenplay at the moment, and I use the couple of hours from between 2:30am-4am to work through upcoming story issues. I find it’s a very creative time for me. But the downside is that I sometimes find it hard to go back to sleep. So I take melatonin, which for me works well.

But now having had my two double espressos, I’m feeling good. I feel like I’ve entered The Zone, where should I decide to, I could continue this fast indefinitely. I’ve gotta say though, last night was difficult. Our son Henry cooked chicken and rice for dinner and it looked and smelled delicious. I would have loved to have tucked into it, but it wasn’t possible.

One of the reasons I’m doing this fast is to control my random eating urges, and I have to say this is happening. Whilst I would have loved to have sat down with Henry and Jennifer last night and tucked into a good feed, I didn’t allow myself to. I’m either doing this fast, or I’m bailing. I have no intention of bailing – at least, not yet!

My stats are interesting once again: weight down a bit but not hugely, body fat has actually gone up a bit – how does that work? Resting Heart Rate has edged up a bit. I did a bike session late yesterday and my numbers were a bit stronger than the day before, but nothing like they were pre-fast. I’m not able to produce the kind of energy I had while I was eating. (40mins/16.5km/505cals)

Now having done a week of my fast, I have dropped 6kgs exactly. But the weight loss each day is slowing. See graph below ~

Yesterday I had coffee, tea, water, and about 250ml of bone broth. I had that not because I was hungry, but to ensure that I had some nutrients, including salt. This morning I had some turkey bone broth for the same reason. I’ll probably do that daily now that I’m into the second week of the fast. It’s permissible in an extended fast, according to Dr Jason Fung.

Speaking of Dr Fung, here is the second part of his piece on fridge vs freezer!

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The two compartments, the fridge and the freezer, are not used simultaneously but sequentially. You need to (mostly) empty out the fridge before you can use what’s in the freezer—you need to burn most of the glycogen before you can burn fat. In essence, the body can burn either sugar or fat, but not both. 

How easy it is to get to the fat freezer depends upon the hormone insulin. Is the freezer locked away in the basement behind steel gates, or is it located right beside the refrigerator? Insulin levels are the prime determinant. When we are not eating, insulin levels are low, allowing full access to the fat freezer—the body is able to easily get at the stored fat. With low insulin levels, you don’t even have to completely empty the glycogen refrigerator before opening the fat freezer, since it’s so easily accessible. 

Think about your fridge at home. Does it have to be completely empty of everything, including that half-empty bottle of ketchup and tub of yogurt, before you open that pack of burgers from the freezer? Of course not! Similarly, with low insulin levels, the body can burn fat even if there is still some glucose around. That means that if you’re cutting calories and have low insulin levels, it’s easy for your body to compensate for the reduced food energy by getting some fat out of the freezer even if your glycogen fridge isn’t completely empty. 

But the emptier your glycogen fridge, the more likely you will be to use what’s in the fat freezer, and the easier it is to get to the freezer, the more likely it is that you will use it. Not only do low insulin levels allow access to the fat freezer, they actually trigger fat-burning for energy. If insulin levels are abnormally low, then fat is continually burned. 

We see this situation in type 1 diabetes, when the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are destroyed. As insulin falls to undetectable levels, patients, often children, burn through all their fat stores and are unable to gain weight no matter how many calories they consume. Untreated, this is a fatal disease. 

Treatment with insulin injections allows them to store fat normally once again. On the other hand, high insulin levels prevent the body from accessing the fat in the freezer. It is locked away behind steel bars. Insulin inhibits lipolysis—it stops the body from burning fat. High insulin levels, which are normal after meals, signal our body to store some of the incoming energy. 

Logically, therefore, we also stop burning stored fat (why bother when there’s energy from food?). This doesn’t just happen after meals, however—we also see this in diseases of too much insulin. For example, insulin injections, often used in the treatment of diabetes, commonly lead to increased fat accumulation because the body is unable to burn fat. 

(That’s great for type 1 diabetics, who have too little fat to begin with, but not so great for type 2 diabetics, who usually have too much.)

Insulin resistance, sometimes called prediabetes or metabolic syndrome, is the most common situation where insulin levels are persistently kept abnormally high.