Category: Help Articles

I did a 5-day water fast with daily blood glucose and ketones measurements

I have been on Intermittent Fasting (IF) for over a year and I gradually increased my IF from 16/8 to 18/6, 20/4 and sometimes reaching 24 or 25 hours without food. There are so many resources on the web on the benefits of IF such as reversing insulin resistance, weight loss (because one tends to eat lesser with IF and creates a sustainable calorie deficit) and many more.

However, to get some of the better benefits such as fat burn (ketosis) and autophagy, a fast that is beyond 24 hours is required. This is because you may already spend 24-48 hours depleting your glycogen store in your liver and muscle before you can enter ketosis. This is the time that autophagy can also begin. While on a keto diet or IF, one tends to drink black tea / coffee but that is thought to interrupt the autophagy process by stimulating insulin response. As such, I planned to be extremely strict on my 5-day water fast – nothing except plain water.

I started on Sunday, 28 November 2021 at 6:30pm – that is the time I swallowed my last bite of dinner. I at like there was no tomorrow. As a result, I weighed in at 90.45KG that night. Although I started on Sunday 6:30pm and is to break my fast at the same time on the following Friday, let’s take Monday as Day 1 for simplicity.

I bought a tube of ketone urine test strips in advance but I gave it some thought and felt that I should invest in a more precise data collection since I’ll be committing so much to this 5-day fast. It would be a waste if I had to fall back on test strip indicators that are subjective. I will then use Glucose-Ketones-Index (GKI) to see how am I doing in terms of ketosis.

What is GKI (Glucose Ketones Index)

Day 1

I went out to grab blood glucose and ketones strips for my Abbott Freestyle Optium Neo Blood Glucose & Ketones Monitoring System

  • Mood: Totally fine – this is within my usual IF practice anyway
  • Energy level: Great
  • Mental clarity: good
  • Blood Glucose: 4.8 mmol/L
  • Blood Ketones: 0.3 mmol/L
  • GKI: 16 (Not in ketosis)
  • Weight: 88.75 kg
  • Remarks: My body has yet to fully use up the glycogen store due to my high carb meal the day before. I expect this to be depleted within the next 12-24 hours.

Day 2

  • Mood: A little grumpy
  • Energy level: A little lesser than normal
  • Mental clarity: good
  • Blood Glucose: 3.6 mmol/L
  • Blood Ketones: 2.1 mmol/L
  • GKI: 1.7 (Therapeutic ketosis)
  • Weight: 88.25 kg
  • Remarks: I jumped straight into ketosis. The hunger was okay but my mind is

Day 3

  • Mood: neutral
  • Energy level: it’s alright
  • Mental clarity: good
  • Blood Glucose: 3.2 mmol/L
  • Blood Ketones: 3.6 mmol/L
  • GKI: 0.9  (Highest therapeutic ketosis)
  • Weight: 87.2 kg
  • Remarks: Technically hypoglycaemic if based purely on blood glucose level. However, I am burning fats and ketones so this level of glucose is still safe. The body is using protein to produce the little bit of glucose needed by certain parts of the body that cannot burn fat/ketones.

Day 4

  • Mood: grumpy
  • Energy level: lower than usual
  • Mental clarity: great
  • Blood Glucose: 3.3 mmol/L
  • Blood Ketones: 4.7 mmol/L
  • GKI: 0.7  (Highest therapeutic ketosis)
  • Weight: 86.75 kg
  • Remarks: I can’t take my mind of food. Every time I open FB/IG, someone is posting about food they bought / eating or how-to style videos about preparing food. I went into Grab app and attempted to schedule some deliveries for the next day ….

Day 5

  • Mood: surreal
  • Energy level: lower than usual
  • Mental clarity: great
  • Blood Glucose: 3.1 mmol/L
  • Blood Ketones: 6.2 mmol/L
  • GKI: 0.5  (Highest therapeutic ketosis)
  • Weight: 85.4 kg
  • Remarks: I walked for about 2.4km to run errands (Grab groceries and such for my breaking of fast). Because of that exertion, I hit an all time high of 6.2 mmol/L of ketones and 3.1 mmol/L of glucose.

Data Collected

May be an image of text that says "Howard's Ketones, Glucose & GKI Ketones (mmol/L) 8 16 Glucose (mmol/L) GKI 6 4.8 20 3.6 6.2 4.7 3.6 3.2 15 2 2.1 3.3 0.3 1.7 3.1 10 0 29/11/2021 0.9 30/11/2021 0.7 5 01/12/2021 0.5 02/12/2021 Date 0 03/12/2021"

May be an image of text that says "Howard's weight, body fat and muscle mass Weight (KG) 100 90.45 88.85 Body Fat (KG) 88.75 80 Muscle Mass (KG) 88.25 87.5 87.2 60 86.75 58.20 86.05 85.4 58. FI 57.90 40 28:76 57.90 PM 57.70 58.20 27.45 26.89 20 28/11 pm 26.92 26.43 26.16 29/11 pm 25.94 1/12 am 24.70 24.77 2/12 am 3/12pm pm"

My final blood glucose and ketones blood test on Day 5

Conclusion

As you can see, despite not eating for 5 days, my blood glucose level did not drop below 3 (which would have been dangerous). This is no coincidence as the body just produces enough glucose to keep some parts of my body functioning while the bulk of my body ran on fats and ketones. Will I do it again? Yes – twice a year. There is no need to go on a 5-day fast that often. However, I am contemplating going on a weekly 48-hour fast on top of my IF.

A word of warning: if you are diabetic, please consult a doctor first because instead of ketosis, you can slip into ketoacidosis which is potentially life threatening!

 

[Solved] Intel Compute Stick Wi-Fi broke after Windows 10 Creators Update!

I currently manage a small cluster of 25 Intel Compute Sticks (STK1AW32SC) as a small part of my day job. I allowed Windows 10 to do its regular Windows Update as part of security best practice to protect my devices from unpatched vulnerabilities.

Windows 10 Creators Update came a little late for me, trickling in between July and August 2017. During this period, privacy review dialogues kept appearing on my machines’ displays. After I’m done with all these privacy reviews, the nightmares begun.

Upon reboot after the Windows 10 Creators Update, each and every Intel Compute Stick did not have internet connectivity!

Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

I checked and found that the wireless network adapter had disappeared from the Network Connections page!

Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

Going to Device Manager, I found that the wireless network adapter Intel Dual Band Wirelss AC 7265 has an error on it. On some sticks, the wireless network adapter is totally missing from Device Manager! For this, go to the end of the post to see how you can perform a Network Reset to get back the device entry. For those who can see the Intel Wireless AC 7265 with a yellow triangle, double click it and go to the Driver tab.

Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

Click Update Driver and then Browse my computer for driver software because you’ll want to rollback to the last version of the driver.

Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

Choose Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer since the older driver would still be on your computer. Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

When you get to this point, make sure you click on any older driver i.e. anything but the driver with the newest date.

Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

There you go! Wi-Fi fixed. You don’t (usually) need to even restart the PC!Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

As shared earlier, I encountered a strange situation on some of the sticks whereby the wireless network adapter cannot be found in the Device Manager. For such a situation, you will need to perform a Network Reset as shown in the following screenshot. Warning! You will lose ALL saved Wi-Fi networks/passwords. Once done, you will need to restart your computer and go back to Device Manager to do the driver rollback described above.

Intel Compute Stick Wireless AC 7265 can't start after Windows 10 Update

I’ve informed Intel about this but they kept referring me to Microsoft. I give up. Microsoft is NOT going to care about someone like me. What I can do is to share this fix on my blog to help as many people as I can. This is quite obviously a case of Microsoft bundling a faulty driver for this device as part of a major update! How careless!

Cheers!

Top up any amount to use your Qoo10 Cart Coupon

Qoo10 has been giving out cart coupons every other day and I really enjoy using them to buy diapers, milk powder and other household items. There’s just one small problem. Sometimes I’m just short of 20 cents to hit the minimum cart amount. I definitely do not want to buy another tin of milk powder just to fulfill the 20 cents. Sometimes it could be 10 cents, 25 cents, 99 cents short, it doesn’t matter. All you have to do is to use a “Coupon Top Up” service. This coupon top up service allows you to add a dummy item to cart at whatever cost you want (minimum 10 cents). You will not get anything from them but you WILL be able to then easily proceed with your order quickly.

Here’s a simple guide using a real order I made just now:Qoo10 Tip for using cart coupon

As you can see, I was short of 20 cents to be eligible to use the $20 coupon!

Qoo10 Tip for using cart couponWith this special “fake item”, I was able to choose to add 20 cents to my cart total. The base amount is 10 cents so just add 2 of the item with option “None” (No top up). If you need 25 cents, simply add 1 item with None as option and another item with 5 cents option to give you a total of 25 cents.

Qoo10 Tip for using cart couponWith this, it just costs me 20 cents to enable to use of my $20 coupon.