Weight: 77.0
Body fat: 25.5%
BMI: 24.4
RHR: 58bpm
Sleep: 5hrs 15min (1hr53) + (3hrs32)
BP: 129/61 @62bpm

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This makes no sense.

I’ve dropped only a marginal amount in weight over the past 24hrs, and my body fat has remained pretty much the same. The only thing I can put it down to is two portions of broth I had yesterday – about 1 cup, or 250mls of turkey broth in the morning, and about 300mls of chicken broth in the afternoon.

I would have thought both broths had minimal calories. There are no solids in them at all. But I put in a lot of salt – Himalayan salt. Maybe it is water retention. If so, it pisses me off – if I can use that term in the context of water retention…

A dear Camino friend in the Basque country, Marie – she is a highly experienced chiropractor but also something of a naturopath – posted on my blog overnight, and I put that post in here below because it’s relevant, and Marie is a highly esteemed health professional.

She said she attended a world renowned health clinic in Germany some years back and went on a strict fast, no coffee or supplements of any kind, and after day 12 she made a huge breakthrough and felt wonderful. (see below)

So I have decided I will not have coffee anymore – only tea.
And no more broth.

That aside, how do I feel? Pretty good, really. I feel no hunger at all, and in fact when I had the second portion of chicken broth yesterday it made me feel nauseous. I don’t think I will miss the broth for the remainder of the fast.

What I probably will miss though is the coffee. But I feel that if I am to completely detox, I need to detox from coffee.

When I did my 40mins on the bike yesterday I felt a real lack of energy – I did the slowest session ever: 40mins/14.3kms/403cals. I just had no power in my legs. Prior to the fast I was doing 19kms+ over 40mins.

Sleep last night was difficult. I had a total of 5hrs15mins only.

I woke up at about 1am, and didn’t go back to sleep for some 2hrs40mins later, with the aid of melatonin. I spent the time working out the third act of my new screenplay, then I read. I’m currently reading The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula le Guin, regarded by many as a masterpiece. About a third of the way through I can see why they’d think that.

Anyway, this is what Marie posted on my blog overnight:

To make thing short :on 2003 I was diagnosed with severe burnout and depression. My MD wanted me to take powerful drugs which I did not feel taking. So I looked for an alternative and check into the Buchinger Clinic in Germany, one of the top ten clinics in the world.

I was treated only with fast, no médecines, no supplements, no coffee allowed. And walking, swimming, yoga and art therapy. It was tough but on the night of day 12 something happened in my brain, like if someone had switched on a light bulb. No more foggy brain, good humor, and I started to laugh again.

Physically I was feeling great, started to run, gaining strength. So when my husband asked me to come back I stupidly obeyed. Day 17 I decided to stop to have time to do the transition to normal eating. But I should have kept going.

I was feeling that the process was not finished and this same year I came back for a ten days fast and a third time for a week of detox and others medical treatment like the cleaning of my blood.

BTW in Buchinger, they think that we don’t need supplements, neither salt. Or coffee. Because it is interfering with the the way our body is working thru the fast.

Here is the next excerpt from Dr Jason Fung’s book, The Complete Guide to Fasting. This is about ketosis, and ketogenic diets –

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You may have heard of a ketogenic diet—it’s been quickly growing in popularity in the last several years and is known to be helpful for a wide range of health problems, including obesity. As it happens, a ketogenic diet and fasting have several features in common. 

A ketogenic diet gets its name from ketone bodies. These are substances the body produces during fat-burning; they’re what fuels the brain when glucose is scarce. A ketogenic diet helps shift the body from burning glucose to burning fat, which results in the creation of ketones. Of course, fasting causes the body to burn fat, too—and that means it also results in the creation of ketones. 

Body fat is composed mostly of triglycerides, which are molecules made of one glycerol backbone to which three fatty acids of varying lengths are attached. During fat-burning, the triglyceride molecule is broken down into the glycerol backbone and the 3 fatty acids. The fatty acids are used directly by most of the organs of the body, including the liver, kidney, heart, and muscles. 

However, certain cells are not able to burn fat, including the inner part of the kidney (renal medulla) and red blood cells. To supply the glucose those cells need, the liver uses the glycerol backbone to manufacture new glucose molecules. More importantly, though, the brain cannot use fatty acids, either.

Ketone bodies produced during fat-burning fill that gap, and the brain becomes powered mostly on ketones, which supply up to 75 percent of its energy needs. This dramatically reduces the brain’s need for glucose, enabling adequate glucose production from glycerol. 

In this way, triglycerides provide energy in the form of fatty acids, ketones, and glucose—enough for the entire body. So, yes, the brain still requires glucose to function normally during fasting, but we do not need to eat glucose. We can manufacture enough glucose to power the entire body simply from body fat.

This is a normal situation. This is the way our body is designed to work.