So the idea of doing a reverse 52 intermittent fast doesn’t really seem to work. At least all it seemed to do was derail me from the progress I had made in June as compared to July. By August I was full off any type of fast, intermittent or otherwise. 

Having said that it wasn’t all bad.

I saw substantial fat loss in terms of percentage drop as compared to June. For the month of June the body fat percentage barely budged off 40-42%. For the month of July dropped from 41% to 37%. So while the scale didn’t show as big a drop in body mass, there seemed to be a bigger proportion of body mass coming from fat as compared to muscle mass.

 In fact, lean muscle mass went up by 2%. 

At this point I’m considering that there is a point between doing a 5 day fast and an 18 day fast that is optimal. Just not sure exactly where that is.

The other aspect is that the refeed days can’t be whatever you want. Anything that breaks the ketosis cycle sets you back. What I don’t know is whether that sets you back 3 days or 4 before you re-establish ketosis again.

Much of the literature seems to be mixed on exactly how fast you can get back into ketosis. It appears to depend in part on what type of carb loading you have been doing prior to trying to re-establish ketosis. 

So on a R52 type plan, where you are spending your 2 refeeding days carb loading in order to help rebuild muscle mass, it is quite likely that you are going to be more on the 4 day side of things getting back into ketosis. The implication is that even thou you are reducing calories as part of an R52 approach, regardless of how you split the days up, you never quite get back into full ketosis before carb loading again. 

I’m assuming at this point that you need a minimum of 8 days in order to realize benefits. Three days of transition and five days of ketosis.

If I had more time I would have liked to experiment with an idea of doing the following:

• 5 Days – Fasting (10% max calories and 10-12 glycemic load units, 16:8)
• 2 Days – Protein Loading (100% max calories, 16:8)
• 5 Days – Fasting (10% max calories and 10-12 glycemic load units, 16:8)
• 2 Days – Carbohydrate Loading (100% max calories, unrestricted)

That maintains 9 days of ketosis, 2 days of carb loading, and 3 days of transition without allowing the fasting periods to extend beyond 5-6 days at a time. 

Unfortunately, my schedule for this month is messed up and then in September I enter into the medically supervised program. So this type of an approach is going to have to wait until January. 

On the plus side I still plan on getting about 20 days of longer term fasting over the next 30 days or so with two breaks for family obligations. So its not as if I’m stopping completely the fasting approach.

I can however identify that getting back into this after the last 12 days of non-fasting is going to be a bit difficult as the carb addiction has started to kick back in. Its actually taken about 6-7 days to get up the nerve to start this again.

While I still have 103 lbs to go before I reach my goal weight, fortunately my weight increase peaked at 12 lbs over my lowest weight which seems about right for water weight regain. I had originally considered I might have done more ‘damage’ than that and was half expecting the scale to tip out at over 310, but at 304 I’m reasonably happy with the fact that getting back into a routine should get me back below 300 before the end of the week and, with a little luck start knocking on that 290 door again.

Goal is still 280 before starting the medical program – so I’m hoping that this is achievable.

— Kevin