Month: February 2020

My alternate day fast to 4 day fast experience (279 hours over 2 weeks)

In the last few weeks I have done quite a bit of fasting. Feb. 22 I started some alternate day fasting then most recently completed a 4 day fast.

Fasting starting from February 22 – March 6th, 2020.

  1. 66 hours then 2 days of eating
  2. 41 hours then 1 day of eating
  3. 39 hours then 1 day of eating
  4. 36 hours then 1 day of eating then…
  5. 97 hours (4 days of no food)

279 hours over 2 weeks

Why did I do this?

To help heal injuries namely my knee and shoulder. I tore my knee close to 10-11 weeks ago and the shoulder was probably from November when I did that last judo competition.

I received some damage in that one in my shoulder and eye.

I think my knee is getting better, but shoulder is really sluggish.

I often eat within an 8 hour window. And the longest fast I’ve done prior to this was 3 days (83 hours) in San Fran.

Anyways WHY FAST?

People fast for different reasons like to:

  • lower inflammation
  • improve metabolism
  • promote cell turnover
  • decrease your risk of cancer
  • improve your immune system
  • increase your life span (if done regularly)
  • lose weight (but it will come back if you don’t change your eating habits)
  • improve cognitive function (decreases chances of or symptoms of Alzheimers)

But I did this mainly to help heal injuries.

Because…

  1. It increases stem cells (24, 48, 72 hour+ fasts have all proven to increase stem cell regeneration in different systems in the body).
  2. It increases growth hormone (1 day, 5 days or more will send your daily GH levels up higher than if you were eating, but lowers IGF-1.)

And some other things…

More details on those in my course named Healiscus. That’s about how to heal your knees if you injured them and (especially a torn meniscus).

Anyways…

After that 66 hour fast I felt some improvement in my knee.

In the past since 2015 I’ve done a handful of fasts around 66-81 hours, one day a week fasts, and for the last year+ eating usually within a 4-8 hour window.

The 4 day fast (97 hours)

This is the longest fast I have done so far, previously it was 83 hours.

So I had been doing an alternate day fast (which probably made it a little more difficult to do) and kept reading about the benefits of a 5 day fast or fasting mimicking diet. I was going for 5 days, but didn’t make it as you’ll see below.

I didn’t eat on Sunday and then I ate on Monday and stopped around 9pm. I was planning on just the alt day fast but, decided to push.

A little further…

Day 1

Rode my bike down the river towards the south of Sawara-ku and then up the mountain to Bozu waterfall (13km). Felt ok.

Never realized it was that far, but it’s mostly a nice ride if you go down Muromi river as there is a bike path along the river.

The last part of it was up hill so with one speed bike I was walking. I almost turned around several times, but kept saying let’s go a little further.

Needed a dose of nature.

Saw a quirky house and a cool little bamboo forest.

Most of the mountains in Fukuoka are covered in Cedar trees that look like they were planted.

Saw signs of Kanayama, Mt. which was 6km and another for Bozu falls which was 1 km so I went that way.

Here’s a picture.

Here’s another…

But I think cause I had been doing this alternate day fasting I was feeling a little hungrier and lower energy than I normally would on a 24 hour fast.

I didn’t eat but I drank green tea.

Day 2

Today was low energy. All day I have felt low energy. Noises were loud and people annoying.

I didn’t drink green tea which also might have had an effect. I didn’t get a headache though which is a typically caffeine withdrawal side effect.

I went for a few walks down the river and out once looking for lactase and then a little hike to a temple on a hill which is nearby and less than 1/2 mile or so.

Lied down a bunch.

Felt dizzy and wobbly at times.

Day 3

Now it’s like 62 hours into a fast. Been up for an hour, feel o.k. It’s sunny. I’ll probably go out for a walk and do some yoga first.

Yoga was somewhat more difficult than usual. Thinking about the foods I want to eat. Thinking of walking to the store to get some green tea.

Then drinking it maybe decaffeinating it. If you let the tea soak a bit (some say for a minute) then dump it out and then infuse it again it will have less caffeine. The first infusion has the most caffeine.

Some say caffeine may interfere with some of the effects of fasting and others don’t. Some studies say green tea promotes autophagy, yet I don’t know about the stem cells and growth hormone.

Although a quick Google search shows autophagy helps stem cells.

And that’s what I am after. Yesterday was no green tea. Today we’ll see.

So we got some tea, and I decaf’d it pouring off maybe 70% of the caffeine so they say. I feel slightly more crisp or sharp.

I feel better.

So I learned that if you fast and you normally drink tea or coffee then if you want to do a water fast then the best thing to do would be to cut out your caffeine intake a few days before you food fast otherwise you are going to have 2 shocks to your system.

Or just drink it.

The other thing I have been doing the last 2 days is a lot of massage with my aluminum bottle (kinda like a foam roller) and tennis ball.

These are very neglected.

Things I should be doing way more often. I realized all the effin’ pain I have locked up in my legs. Muscular tightness, pain and imbalances.

After a few sessions I feel like I am walking different.

I feel like I got some things done today. I wrote quite a bit. I’ve been working on a new ebook. And I updated some other stuff on ESLinsider.

The feeling I’ve had is somewhat of an aversion towards people noises etc. Kinda like how I usually feel, LOL, but a little more extreme.

Kinda like when you are sick or I was also reminded of psilocybin mushrooms – how I felt averse to people, but without the paranoia.

Now it’s 10:47pm and I feel o.k. Not struggling or feeling very weak. Going to get off line here soon and sit in my little DIY sauna I made with a small electric heater and the built in heater in my room and a tarp.

Yes, it’s kinda ghetto.

But works o.k. not quite hot enough actually a third heater would be better. See you tomorrow.

Oh I forgot to say I noticed I have a bit of acne which is surprising as I haven’t eaten in 73 hours. Some suggest it might be the hormones in fat since I am now running on fat.

Glycogen gets burned off most say in around 24 hours.

Day 4

Today started at 3:00am. I woke up at 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep. It was very cold. So I browsed the internet a bit and tried to go back to sleep, but didn’t work.

Was it the caffeine from yesterday?

Maybe partly. So I decided to go for a walk. And I hiked up Atago temple and a took a picture about 10 minutes before sunrise.

A few minutes before sunrise

Going to write a bit, drink tea and then probably take a nap.

I tried and we dozed for about 10 minutes and then that was that. Did a little yoga, a sweat, a little work, and some massage.

My DIY massage tools… they work pretty good. That’s a tennis ball in a sock.

Also got some buckwheat tea. It’s quite nice. It tastes a little like genmaicha with that roasted rice flavor, but there is no green tea in it. I like it.

Flavor.

MMM…

And no caffeine.

That’s good.

Because I need some sleep.

Felt very annoyed with people today when I went to the store. I wonder is it some sort of intuition or is it just hunger? I saw some guy say on Reddit that he felt more intuitive while fasting.

Hmm, I wondered, but was skeptical.

I feel definitely more irritable. I have no desire to talk to people or be near them. It’s 3:31 and it’s been about 91 hours. This is the farthest I have been.

Still shooting for tomorrow night 9pm. That will be 5 days.

And then we eat.

Food sounds orgasmic. Yet, I am kinda o.k. now. Stomach is fine.

It’s 9pm and I took a nap for a few hours. Less than 24 hours to go. 96 hours completed. Feeling kinda ill.

Day 5

I was intending on fasting today, but last night I started to feel very sick. I tried meditating and couldn’t really do it. I couldn’t maintain my focus.

I felt nauseous and I couldn’t sleep. I noticed whenever I have a bad night of sleep during a fast it makes it much more likely that I will break that fast the next day.

Could have been caffeine in the tea from the day before because I drank some later in the day even though I ‘decaffed’ it.

So at about 10pm (97 hours) I was craving salt and I took a handful of spirulina and then I made a soup with: nori, wakame, spinach, shiitake mushrooms, fresh parsley, salt, pepper, MCT oil and olive oil.

It was very delicious.

But I had to take it slow as I was afraid of throwing it up.

Fortunately I didn’t. And then a little while later, I made a stir fry with chicken, eggs, some of those same vegetables and nori.

It was great.

Then some milk, blueberries, and ground peanuts.

Bit by bit I started feeling better.

I slept o.k.

Woke up a few times once at 3am and had a little milk and berries.

And this morning I went and got some good grano padano cheese. I got a craving for it last night.

I felt a little weak riding my bike and I had to go a few miles down a noisy busy road to get it. The local places don’t have good cheese like that.

In Japan and everywhere else I have lived in Asia you’ve got limited options for good cheese.

And then for breakfast I had:

  • Grano padano
  • Matcha
  • Blueberries and walnuts in milk
  • A grapefruit (tis the season here for white grapefruit, mmm)
  • Ground peanuts
  • Cacao and stevia

Yum, looking forward to more food today. Fasting gives you an amazing appreciation for food. It’s like that saying…

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Another benefit of fasting

This is purely subjective. People do fast for spiritual reasons, but I think an extended fast can give you some insight on your problems.

I did a Google search for:

spiritual benefits of fasting

Then I got a whole page of results with titles “god” this and “god” that. So to get rid of results that you don’t want to see you put a “-” in front of the word like “-god”.

So I did.

And then got a bunch of “allah” listings, so I put a “-allah”. Searched again and that got rid of the “allah” results.

Like this:

I guess to some people spirituality is synonymous with “religion” although most of those people (with a fixed mentality) would never call it “religion”.

Anyways one thing I realized is that for a prolonged fast it would be best to be somewhere tranquil. Kind of similar for psilocybin.

Not the kind of thing you want to do in a busy place. I don’t think so.

I found people and noises to be annoying.

I found myself crossing the street to avoid people.

Lately I really enjoy watching the ducks. There are lots of different kinds of sea birds in Fukuoka that are nearby and that I see everyday.

But I have a new appreciation for ducks.

And in Fukuoka there seems to be different kinds of ducks.

Ducks can fly, swim, go under water, walk a bit and they’re cute especially when they stick their heads under water and their butts up in the air^^.

And I wondered about the ducks life as I watch them float out on the sea. What are they tuned into?

And speaking of search results…

I found this to be funny.

If you start doing a lot of research into fasting then you are likely to find Valter Longo who is well known for his research on fasting and cancer and his 5 day ‘fasting mimicking’ diet (calorie restriction).

So I did a search with his name and at the bottom of the page looked at the search results which I found to be funny.

Searches related to are search queries that are based on what people are searching for. And I thought the “valter longo wife” and “valter longo married” were funny.

Why were people searching for that?

HAHAHA.

Ian’s over and out.

Feeling better.

Shoulder, legs and knee. The combination of massage and fasting have me feeling rejuvenated.

How green tea & cacao can help heal your injuries, burn fat, increase strength, and kill cancer cells

Green tea (especially matcha) and cacao have some things in common. And these can be used to help heal your injuries, burn fat, increase strength and kill cancer cells.

But it’s probably going to take large quantities.

Green tea contains something called EGCG.

And this study says (if I understand correctly) that EGCG found in green tea helps grow new bone.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6485322/

If it can help bones and skin maybe it can help cartilage.

Matcha since it’s the whole plant is considered by some to be 3x higher in that compared to normal green tea.

Also…

Green tea and cacao both contain epicatechins which are said to be good for arthritis, building muscle strength and burning fat.

Yet the amount in both is much lower than in supplement form. I’ve heard doses ranging from 150mg to as high as 500mg  (said Tailormade Compounding) of epicatechin will show some results in strength and fat depletion.

I’ve read that some studies show that consuming 150mg of epicatechin could improve your strength (possibly grip strength) by 7%.

Maybe if I consume that much my judo and jiujitsu game will improve since your grip game in grappling is so important.

Or if you’re a carpenter it might improve your hammer game.

I read a cup of green tea contains about 10mg.

So you would have to drink 10-15 cups of green tea or maybe 5 cups of matcha.

Matcha might contain 3 times as much. So a cup might get you 30mg.

Cacao is high in epicatechins too.

Cacao powder is the best form.

So can you eat a bunch of chocolate?

Cacao (not chocolate) is what is good for you. Chocolate contains sugar and milk+.

Milk chocolate contains the least amount of epicatechins.

A dark chocolate bar might contain 46mg.

“…these effects are ‘markedly reduced’ when the chocolate is consumed with ‘milk’ or if milk is incorporated as milk chocolate.” – Source

As a test one day I ate the whole box of these cacao bits (95%) as an experiment which is a total of 60 grams and the next day I felt kind of hung over.

But that’s probably not epicatechin.

There’s caffeine and theobromine and other things in cacao.

I’ll have to try it again sometime.

I do think it’s kind of addictive so I don’t eat it everyday and I sometimes vary the amount because  if I eat the same amount everyday and then suddenly stop I feel withdrawal.

Other benefits of cacao and green tea:

So maybe supplementation with epicatechins is the best way to get high consistently high quantities.

I love green tea and drink it everyday.

I probably easily drink 10-15 glasses a day recently although I reuse the tea and probably get 5-6 small cups out of the same tea so maybe not close to a 150mg of epicatechin.

And recently in the same day I will drink both matcha and green tea.

Recently I haven’t but in the past I would pour off the first cup to reduce the caffeine, but when you do that you also reduce the epicatechins and phenols.

How does cacao compare to green tea?

Green tea is an infusion and cacao is a whole food.

This PDF says cacao has 3 times the phyto chemicals, but it’s not an equal comparison.

A more equal comparison would be cacao vs. matcha powder. Matcha is green tea leaf powder.

It’s the whole plant.

I also read grape seed extract contains epicatechins too.

My experience with BPC 157 to heal injuries (especially my knee)

I first heard about BPC 157 in this thread I started about my torn meniscus and what to do. Someone there mentioned it then and it didn’t sink in.

At first…

But I kept on looking into surgical options, PRP, stem cells, etc. and kept running into BPC 157 and other peptides. So I decided to give them a whirl as they sounded pretty good.

I ordered BPC from an Alibaba shop.

Then I got it about Jan 24th and did my first injection.

Yeah, so needles are weird.

I never thought I’d be injecting my self with anything. But when you’ve got pain and you know that it will help then you do what you got to do.

So I injected it everyday about 3 times a day for 2 weeks. A day anywhere from about 700-1000mcg.

I mostly injected it in my knee (knee capsule), around my knee (sub cutaneous) , and then my shoulder and a few times in my belly fat.

But you don’t want to inject the same spot many times. And BPC has a short half-life that’s why you have to inject it more often.

I even combined it with blood on a couple of occasions. Yeah can you believe that.

Withdrawing your own blood is super hard.

Recently I have taken it orally by squirting it on my gums that are receding. And wonder if that has had a different effect.

If you take it orally it needs to be twice the amount and a bit more according to Jean Francois Tremblay.

Did I have side effects?

Not really. The first time I injected it I got a bit of anxiety or fear after, but I think that was psychological.

After that not.

I got a little burning sometimes immediately following the injection.

For 2 weeks I felt fine and then the last 2 days or so after injections I felt some pain and inflammation where I injected so I stopped and took it orally.

Could have been because the needle was dull. I reused the same needles after cleaning them. I would typically use one needle a day, but those last days I might have used one needle in 2 days.

I would either boil them to disinfect or wipe with an alcohol wipe that contained ethanol, paraben and benzlkonium chloride.

But IDK something caused irritation in the last two days.

Of course best practice is to use a new needle every time.

Also could have been the bacteriostatic water went bad or something and caused irritation like the alcohol.

I made my own.

Which is normally .9% benzl alcohol and water, but I couldn’t find benzl so I got ethanol and used about 1%.

Like I said I was fine for 2 weeks.

I think a dull needle was part of the problem especially in the one location that caused the most pain – the skin over my patella tendon.

But I always used a ‘new’ needle when I would inject in the joint space.

Anyways those were my minor side effects.

Dosage?

What’s the right amount?

IDK. If you look online you will see 250-1000mg a day suggested or common is 250mg 2-3 times a day.

But one of the more popular studies that you will see is the one about rats that had their ligaments sliced up and then repaired with BPC.

After MCL transection BPC 157 was effective in rats when given once daily intraperitoneally (10 microg or 10 ng/kg) or locally as a thin layer (1.0 microg dissolved in distilled water/g commercial neutral cream) at the site of injury, first application 30 min after surgery and the final application 24 h before sacrifice.
Source

Another site said:

“Rats and mice ingesting BPC 157 in their drinking water, the typical dosage ranged between 10 nanograms to 10 mcg (micrograms) per kg.”

Which kind of looks like the quote above, but in the study above they were injecting or applying with a cream.

Jean Tremblay said that if you take it orally you need 2 times the amount and a little more.

So I am about 155 or 71kg or so normally.

So I guess the dose would be around 700mcg a day.

So how has it helped?

My knee feels a bit more stable and stronger than it did before. I had pain for a good 6-7 weeks especially standing still and after about 3 pm.

Walking was o.k. for a while early in the day but then later in the day would start hurting more.

And I had to move more cautiously.

Now I feel it is more stable and stronger at about 9 weeks post injury.

But it still has a way to go and I will be trying some other peptides and continue using this until finished.

I haven’t noticed it helping my shoulder much although I injected it there less often. Jean Tremblay says it doesn’t actually matter much usually where you inject it because the peptide will find it’s way to the injury.

He says it’s systemic.

Although if it’s in a place like your knee: meniscus, acl, pcl, etc. then it’s going to travel around your blood stream before it makes it’s way into the joint and the knee is a capsule so really if you have an injury there you should inject into the joint space.

Of course you ‘shouldn’t’ do it yourself they say. You ‘should’ get a professional.

But I knew I had to do that to get the best results so I did.

In the course I created I share more details on how I did that amongst other things to heal your knee.

Every situation is unique but know you can heal your meniscus without surgery.

I think TB500 which I ordered would be a bit better for that one perhaps or used in conjunction with because it has a longer half life.

I heard maybe 7-10 days vs. BPC’s 4-6 hours.

I don’t want to inject everyday into my knee capsule because the space is small and it’s not good to keep injecting into the same area.

Other people suggest injecting it locally near the injury.

So I’ve also done 2 blood injections of about 2-4ml into my knees. One time my left and right and 2 times into my right and one time with BPC.

Oh, there was another time I tried blood, but it coagulated in the syringe and wouldn’t come out. I did managed eventually to squeeze out most in the sink and it had a little residue left and then I added BPC to that and injected that.

One time my left knee was hurting in the morning when I woke up more than my injured right knee.

In the past my left knee was the worst of the 2 (old MCL injury+patella tracking issues), but has been compensating for the right as I have been limping around.

So I injected both knees inside the joint and I felt a little burning feeling for about 30 minutes in my left knee and then the pain was gone.

And actually since then that knee has also bothered me less.

One of the times I did DIY blood injections was also about 1ml of blood and bpc in that knee.

Anyways…

I think the BPC does have some anti-inflammatory response like is said.

Most other times I noticed no immediate relief and the process of pain reduction and improvement has been slow.

One thing I noticed is that since I’ve taken it orally (last 4 days or so) yesterday I drank ‘raw milk’ and this time it did not cause any sort of tummy rumble like it often did in the past.

Can’t say for sure if it was the BPC. But it is supposedly good for your gut.

I’ll try it again and see if I get the rumble.

I will continue to use it until gone and then update this.

The placebo effect

I’ve wondered about the quality of the BPC I got because I got it from China (Alibaba) from a vendor that a few people recommended on Reddit.

They say 95-99% of the peptides out there come from China. Even most of the sites that sell them in the US or UK are still selling peptides from China.

They buy them in bulk and then raise the price a lot.

So if you are savvy financially you might just buy them from China.

But…

Then if you start researching you may hear that they may be fake or under dosed or have bacteria or ____.

There is probably some truth to that but I think there is a lot of fear mongering out there and a lot of the people saying those things have self interests.

Also the the bacteria one was an isolated case as far as I know.

So it’s like bad news and fear.

You fear the water and sharks more than you do driving your car, but in reality driving your car is way more dangerous.

If you want to get USA made peptides or Canadian made peptides you could try Tailor made compounds or Canlabs.

But you are going to pay 5-10X the price.

The placebo effect I think can go both ways.

You start to think ok these peptides are from China and they don’t work or the fragment is broken or it’s under dosed or maybe there is bacteria in it.

So it becomes true.

Or what the anti-doping organization in Australia made some claim that 80% of peptides are fake or under dosed.

Maybe, but I don’t really trust that bit of news because it’s in their self interests to say so.

And possibly the people who keep saying it.

So if you want to get the most out of the placebo effect then you can buy from one of those places that do regular testing in North America.

But is it possible that what you can buy on Alibaba is the exact same thing?

Yep.

All of the vendors on Alibaba try to make it look like they are the factory, but they are not.

I found two companies on there that used the same building with their photoshopped name on it to make it look like it was their factory.

Those sellers there are definitely not transparent as to who they are. A good business would be to be a seller there who is.

Make a video about who you are and what you do, but they don’t.

From what I’ve learned from Jean Francois Tremblay is that there aren’t that many factories in China that make peptides, but the vendors on Alibaba all probably buy their peptides from the same few factories and then resell them.

And there are rules and regulations in China.

It’s the middle men you got to watch out for.

There is a lot of fear out there (sinophobia) about China too. And maybe some is true, but perhaps I am less fearful because I lived in Asia and China for like 8 years.

Sometimes if you feel that you got fake peptides it’s possible that it’s from a bad batch. Like the peptide fragment chain broke and wasn’t that they were trying to make a fake peptide.

It’s that they are big factories selling lots of peptides to resellers and they probably don’t test every batch.

So you may be getting inert amino acids.

Could there be factories out there making and selling fake peptides?

IDK. Maybe little ones, but you know they won’t be in business long. And the cost of setting up a factory just to make fake look alike peptides is too high I would think.

I also recently ordered from Canlabs a couple peptides and will see how they go and I will probably get a better placebo effect too since I know more about who made them.

But they were way more expensive.

How to do intraarticular knee injection

Related:

Have you tried BPC157? How did it go?