The fasting journal · matched to fast day 47
Day 47. Still in Ketosis on Beef Broth
Day 47 opens in the usual spot under the gazebo, gnome in one hand. Yesterday John stood in the same place and told the camera the 90 day water fast was officially over. Today the tone is different. He is still counting the days and he still sounds like himself. The difference is that he sounds well.
Numbers first. 178.3 pounds this morning. That is 0.1 pound down from yesterday and it erases the 0.1 pound gain that came with breaking the fast. Total change is 50.3 pounds in 47 days from the 228.6 start on August 1. BMI 27, body fat 28.4 percent, muscle 38.3 percent, 1906 calories burned. The chart on the fridge got its 47th X this morning.
Two days of beef broth
How do I feel? I feel much better than I felt two days ago. That much is true. I feel good.
That is the whole headline. The nausea that ended the fast on day 46 is gone. The homemade beef broth he broke the fast with at 10 at night on day 45 has become the plan for now. Small amounts, a couple of days running.
The beef broth has neutralized everything in my stomach. The last two days I have been taking the beef broth and it has been doing its work really good.
His stomach is calm. That was the only job the broth had and it did it. Cleveland Clinic describes refeeding after a long stretch without food as the stage where the ramp matters more than the menu. A plain broth is about as gentle a first rung as there is.
The strip that would not move
Here is the part John did not expect. He held up today’s ketone strip and it reads 16, the darkest pad on the keto mojo chart. The same reading he has posted for weeks.
It has also kept me in a ketosis state. I am not sure if it was meant to do that. But I am slowly getting into it.
It was not meant to do anything. Broth is water, salt, a little protein and a little fat. There is almost no carbohydrate in it. Carbohydrate is what would switch the body back off fat burning. Cleveland Clinic explains ketosis as the state the body enters when carbohydrate intake stays low enough that it turns to fat for fuel. Six weeks of fasting built that state and a few cups of broth do not tear it down. MedlinePlus notes that ketones show up in urine whenever the body is burning fat instead of glucose, so the pad is telling the truth. The fat is still burning.
He calls it a little bit unusual. What he means is that he expected the number to drop once food was back in the picture. On his previous fast he used vegetable broth and remembers losing weight faster than this. Which brings up the one thing that has changed.
Why the scale slowed down
I am not losing as much weight as I thought I was gonna lose, like I did when I did the vegetable broth thing.
The scale is moving by tenths now instead of by pounds. Broth is a small number of calories and that alone is a change after 45 days of zero. The bigger lever is salt. MedlinePlus points out that sodium helps the body hold on to fluid. After weeks of nothing, a salty liquid tells the body to keep water it would otherwise have let go. A flat scale for a few days is water doing its job. It is not fat coming back. The strip already settled that argument.
Cranberry juice, diluted
There is one new item on the counter.
I am also drinking cranberry juice diluted in water, as one of the suggestions there to go ahead and do that. So I am doing that.
Unsweetened cranberry juice cut with water. He did not say who suggested it, only that it was one of the suggestions he was given for this stage and he is following it. Unsweetened is the word that matters. A sweetened cranberry cocktail is mostly sugar and would do the one thing broth has not done, hand his body a reason to leave ketosis. Diluted and unsweetened it is a small amount of flavor and a little more fluid on top of the broth.
Where this leaves the count
John still opened today with day 47 of the 90 day water fast. The water only part ended on day 46 and this site said so plainly. What he is doing now is the slow part, the part that the last 46 days were building toward. Broth first. Cranberry juice diluted in water. Small amounts. His doctor stays in the loop the way she has since day one, with the monthly bloodwork that framed the whole run. If you are new here, start with what a water fast actually is before you read the daily pages.
Overall it has been good, he says. That is all he has for now. Cheers.
Quick answers
Can you stay in ketosis while drinking beef broth?
John's strip says yes, at least for the first two days. Ketosis is the state where the body runs on fat and makes ketones because it is not getting much carbohydrate. Cleveland Clinic describes it as what happens when carbohydrate intake is low enough that the body switches fuels. Plain beef broth is mostly water, salt, a little protein and a little fat with almost no carbohydrate, so a small amount does not hand the body the sugar it would need to switch back. That is why John can sip broth and still read 16 on the pad. He was not sure the broth was meant to do that. It was not the goal. It is just what a low carbohydrate liquid does.
Why does John's ketone strip still read 16 after he ended the fast?
Because ending the water only fast did not mean eating a normal meal. He broke it with a small amount of beef broth at night on day 45 and has kept the amounts small since. MedlinePlus explains that ketones show up in urine when the body burns fat for fuel instead of glucose, which is exactly what six weeks of fasting set up. A few cups of broth do not undo that overnight. The strip reading 16 is the top pad on his keto mojo chart, so the body is still deep in fat burning. He calls it a little bit unusual. It is unusual only in the sense that he expected the number to drop faster.
Why is John drinking cranberry juice diluted in water?
He says it was one of the suggestions given to him for this stage, so he is going ahead and doing it. He dilutes unsweetened cranberry juice in water rather than drinking it straight. Unsweetened is the key word. Sweetened cranberry cocktail is mostly sugar and would work against the ketosis he is still in. Diluted in water it is a small amount of flavor and a small amount of fluid on top of the broth. Anyone thinking about copying the idea should ask their own doctor first. John's refeed runs under the same doctor who watched the whole fast with monthly bloodwork.
Why did John's weight loss slow down once he added broth?
Two things changed at once. Broth brings in calories, even if not many. It also brings in salt. MedlinePlus notes that sodium helps the body hold on to fluid, so a salty liquid after weeks of nothing can nudge the scale up or hold it flat for a few days even while fat is still burning. John noticed the same thing on his previous fast when he used vegetable broth and expected to lose more than he is losing now. A 0.1 pound drop after a 0.1 pound gain the day before is the scale catching its breath, not a sign the fat loss stopped. His strip says the fat is still burning.