In some situations, your tried and true weight loss methods seem to stop working. Sometimes you run into a plateau – a phenomenon well-known to most of us who embarked on a weight loss journey. Sometimes during maintenance mode, you notice that your weight starts creeping up and, despite your best efforts, you seem to be able to stop it from gaining but not to bring it back down. Often this is caused by our body adjusting to your routines and setting its thermostat to a new set point, as we discussed here. If you run into one of these situations, I suggest trying one of the fasting protocols shown below. They are intended to surprise your body, shake it out of complacency, break through the plateau and restart the weight loss process. Another possible use of these protocols is to increase your compliance – meaning, changing your routine can help you stay in fasting state by breaking the boredom and introducing new varieties that re-energize your excitement.
A few necessary comments:
- Routines below are described with an assumption that you are familiar with fasting basics and protocols as described in The Time Machine Diet book.
- Keto Day refers to a day when you eat very limited to no carbs; your food intake consists of good fat and moderate protein.
- On Keto Day you don’t need to count calories, but you don’t eat everything in sight either. The rules of a Keto Day are: eat only when hungry and stop when satiated.
- 500-600 Cal Day refers to a day of the 5:2 fasting protocol.
- Fast Day refers to a full fast – you don’t eat any food; you drink a lot of water, hot water with lemon, coffee, tea, and these three drinks. Bone broth is OK as well.
With all above in mind, these protocols illustrated by the images should be pretty much self-explanatory. The Ladder is the simplest of them; it eases you in and makes sure that you have no carbohydrates intake for the duration of three days. It’s very likely to put you in ketosis. Expect to pee a lot, lose a few pounds and gain back about half to two-thirds of that when the water weight returns.
The Well takes you out of fasted state (and ketosis) slower by adding the inverted sequence on the exit side. By adding two more days to ketosis, it increases the effect while still keeping it easy to handle, as you add more food every day after the full fast.
Extended Well protocol adds fast days at the bottom of the well. The effect is going to be stronger; it’s up to you how many days you add. Keep it reasonable – the whole fasting method is not supposed to be a torture. Shorter fasts that you can comply with are better than heroic efforts that you can’t handle. Push your body but don’t torment it.
Finally, Stacked Ladder – this protocol is a funky one and is guaranteed to confuse your body to no end.
These waves of fed and fasted state, all remaining within keto zone, are difficult for your body to adjust to quickly – and you are not going to give it a chance because it’s pretty easy to mix and match these protocols, keeping your body on its toes. Plateau be gone.
