Thursday, November 28, 2019
Monday, November 4, 2019
Fasting Update 7
Back in about the second week of September I tossed in the towel on my fasting plan. I wanted to fast four days a week for 26 weeks. What happened? I suppose at the 14 week mark the level of muscle cramps had escalated to the point that I quit the fast. The muscle cramps would be from electrolyte imbalance, which one ignores at their peril. And worst of all I couldn't sleep either.
Why would I do such a thing? Because I had read a study published by Valter Longo and his group of researchers saying that mice that had been fasted weekly for four days for six months had regrown chemically damaged insulin producing cells in the pancreas to the point that they were once again normal mice. These were mice that could not have survived their injuries more than a few weeks otherwise. This happened because the fasts caused the mouseketeers to cannibalize damaged cells for sustenance during the fast, then replace these tissues with brand new ones by producing stem cells. It wasn't my pancreas that troubled me. It was my legs, especially my left leg. The big problem has been pain. I felt like I was walking on broken glass.
On the theory that fasting four days a week for six months would regenerate my legs, I set off to accomplish this.
I had a friend who was traveling to Memphis to have stem cell therapy. Reading about this, I wasn't sure about the quality of stem cell therapy in the US. Some have gone abroad as medical tourists to have this done, because regulations in some foreign countries allow newer techniques. The biggest obstacle is the cost. I would say at least $30,000 and that's for a maybe.
Still, I wanted to try stem cell therapy, therefore trying to get my own body to do the work was an intriguing prospect.
They, people who have had stem cell therapy and doctors and researchers, say that the stem cell magic happens in the days and weeks following the therapy, since it is a matter of waiting for new tissue to regenerate. And so two months are usually required to gauge the level of improvement.
At first I wasn't sure I had had that much success. But two months after ending the fast, it's obvious that things have changed for me. I would estimate my improvement of pain levels at 75 - 80%. I'm not sure how much pain relief translates into normal walking because so far I've just gotten to the point of noticing that I can do more chores. I guess I would say that before my ability to keep going when I walked or stood was about five or 10 minutes. After that it took me about an hour to be able to manage more effort. Now I have noticed that I can go for 20 minutes anyway. Can I go shopping at the mall? Can I go for a long walk? I don't think I'm there yet. I can go into the gas station on a trip and shop at the convenient store and powder my nose. I couldn't do that before. That caused me a lot of anxiety. I can walk normally into a theater or restaurant. I couldn't do that before either. I walked into a field nearby and picked some pears a few days ago. I couldn't have done that six months ago. I stand at counters in businesses waiting my turn. That was a nightmare in the past. I carried a box outside to the postman. That was something I couldn't do. People didn't notice much that I didn't walk. When they saw me, everyone was just sitting down talking and visiting. Sometimes they would be annoyed because I would ask people to serve me at a meal, thinking I should get up and do it myself. Buffets were impossible. So the things that have changed would probably not seem like giant changes, but they have improved things a lot for me.
What's my plan now? Now I am trying the "one meal a day" (OMAD) plan. I eat breakfast and then nothing until breakfast the next day. Also, I'm on a ketogenic diet. I thought I wouldn't get enough food to survive that way. Well, maybe not forever. Just for the time being. This hasn't been nearly as difficult as a fast. The great thing about it is my ketogenic diet has worked a lot better on this plan. I never seemed to be in ketosis, and I need to be in ketosis to reap all the benefits. But with OMAD I was surprised to checked my ketones and see I was at the point I was at with a full fledged fast. My fasting blood glucose has gone from 109 to 93. And on this plan my weight is dropping.
So that's life in the big city.
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