Protein Fasting Try 2

The day of Protein Fasting Try 2 of my Protein Fasting Experiment started off quite well. It was raining like hell outside, but the roads at 7 am were nice enough to arrive to the gym early.

Before the high-intensity kettlebell/bootcamp workout, I’d had my usual morning green tea, to which I had added 1/2 tbsp. of coconut oil. I still consider such a workout to be in a fasted state.

My breakfast was an avocado-cocoa-chocolate smoothie that resembles chocolate pudding. I had this on Protein Fast Try 1 and liked it a lot! It’s really quite filling. I added a crumbled tahini cookie on top of it that only contains 1 g of protein. Besides, I poured some sugar-free blueberry sauce all over the pudding. I love the blueberry-chocolate combination. But must admit, this syrup tastes awful by itself if you ask me.

For a couple of snacks to get me through the day, I decided to put together a pie that would be called Protein Fast pie. It’s not easy trying to get rid most of the protein ingredients and still make it work. Helped myself with some xanthan gum and psyllium husks, which help hold dough together. And, I was quite surprised by how well the pie turned out and held together! For the most part, it is made of shredded coconut (less protein than defatted coconut flour), butter, and berries. It turned out so well, I’m going to share the recipe up here, soon.

For lunch, I had shirataki noodles with some white mushrooms in sugar-free tomato sauce, with a side of cucumber salad. I had to be careful with the amount of mushrooms as they do contain a noticeable amount of protein.

I have to admit, I feel just a little bit stupid trying to count protein in vegetables and stuff (to no offence, Dave Asprey!). Also, I’m being almost more careful about it than tracking my net carbs on all the other days. But I’m helplessly stubborn and determined to make it through another Protein Fast try. For the sake of calling this my personal Protein Fasting Experiment.

Anyways, back to the food. Throughout the day, I ate 3 pieces of my Protein Fast Pie and 3 pieces of dark, stevia-sweetened, chocolate. I couldn’t help it as the chocolate arrived as a gift in a box of ordered organic cacao butter for making homemade chocolate and chocolate candy.

In the evening, I felt tired and hungry. I ate 2 oz. of coconut cream. But felt significantly more tired than on other days. I can’t really claim it was because of lack of protein, since I had a long hard-working day, following an intense morning workout. I felt highly energetic for the first part of the day, but in the late afternoon, energy levels started dropping noticeably.

I have no idea how I’m going to feel the day after, and I’m hoping it won’t be as bad as the Try 1. But I think I’m already decided not to repeat this fast in the future. At least not in such a manner. I can’t blame Asprey’s idea for not feeling too well because he does suggest eating rice and sweet potato while protein fasting, and I’m just not ready to do that. Which might be the reason for such low energy levels. Plus, I haven’t kept my own “promise” to eat way more vegetables than the last time and went for berries again, instead.

At least these two tries have given me some new keto recipe ideas and showed me how to eat without too much protein intake which sometimes is a problem on keto.

My macronutrients for the day were: 151 g Fat (87%), 17 g Protein (4%), and 32 g Net carbs (8%; higher than usual).

The day after

I slept pretty well, only had a bit of trouble falling asleep. I got up in a good mood and with adequate energy levels to hit the gym and go through some leg workout.

Oh, stepped on the scale first thing in the morning, and it displayed 1.5 lbs down since one and two days before. As I keep saying, I don’t otherwise like to weight myself so often because such day-to-day fluctuations in weight are completely normal for me. Still, the number the scale displayed this time, got me guessing that no water retention was going on as a result of increased carb intake the day before. I guess I didn’t overdo it, and, comparing to Protein Fast Try 1, I did way better not eating too much dark chocolate and such. Yay!

To sum up, comparing to Try 1, I’ve felt better this time and might have even lost some water weight. But, I’d have to do at least one more try to see if the evening exhaustion has something to do with the body lacking protein.

I’m not sure whether I’m doing this again, though. I would need many more solid arguments to convince me that this is healthy and beneficial for me in any way.

Until then, I think eating low carb and leaving out crappy, processed stuff is doing the job for me.

Have you tried protein fasting? Have anything to say about it? Please, leave a comment below. Thank you!