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My torso: 6 months before and immediately after 16 days of this diet

Introduction

The world's population is fatter than it has ever been. Most of us in the developed world are surrounded by a bewildering variety of tasty food at a cheap price. Not only are there the foods that we evolved to eat, such as meat and vegetables, there are now vast quantities of foods loaded with white flour, fat and sugar, ingredients that were previously rare, expensive or non-existent. On the other side of the equation people are doing less and less physical work; Most people sit in front of a computer screen or stand around talking to people all day. The old manual labouring jobs that took so much energy are all but gone. Nor do people play sport for relaxation as much as they used to. Now we watch TV, surf the net and play video games. The result of all this is that most of us are overweight and far too many of us are obese.

Yes, we LOVE to eat! Ironically however, we don't like the fat. Nor is being overweight good for us. The fatter we are the slower we get and the slower we get the less energy we burn and the more we eat and the fatter we get. It's a vicious cycle! Worse, the fatter we get the greater the chance of getting serious diseases like diabetes and heart disease. The greater load that we have to carry puts greater stress on our joints, wearing out hip and knee joints long before their time. It also prevents us from doing healthy and enjoyable things that are good for us, like climbing mountains, playing with children and climbing stairs. Finally, fat is ugly and that combined with the other factors causes us to develop a low self image which only makes a bad situation worse. Pretty bad huh? But there is a simple solution: Diet!

There are more weight loss diets out there than you will ever hear of but do they all work? Certainly not! For a start any diet that claims to make you to lose weight while still eating like a pig is to be regard with greatest skepticism. Some of these are blatant frauds while others hope to exploit a supposed bug in the body's digestive chemistry such as the no-carb diet or the high-protein diet. Don't trust them!

Mainstream tried and proven diets all work the same way: You eat less food than your body requires and you slowly lose weight. Yes, these do work, PROVIDED YOU STICK TO THEM, but you may often feel a bit hungry. The other problem with conventional diets is that they are SLOW! Consider a fairly non-aggressive conventional diet where your calorific intake is restricted to 3/4 of your body's daily requirements. Under this diet you will be lucky to lose 100g per day. Let's say you want to lose 10kg, this will take you 100 days, if you stick to it... It takes real strength of will to force yourself to resist temptation for such a long period. Great if you can do it!

But why not go all the way and starve yourself down to your target weight at maximum pace? After all there is NO FASTER WAY to lose weight than to stop eating altogether! Instead of taking 100 days to lose 10kg you can lose it in 25! It is a lot easier to force yourself to hang on for 4 weeks than it is for 14!

This is where "Mr Mars' Starvation Diet" comes in. It is for people that want to lose that fat as fast as possible and are prepared to suffer to get there. It is for people who are prepared to starve for 2 weeks at a time! Yes, it takes will power, some days more than others, most days you feel quite normal, some days can be pretty bad, but overall it isn't nearly as bad as it sounds.

The human body has evolved to cope with starvation; fat is part of the body's boom and bust cycle after all, it is the complement of hunger. The starvation diet is indisputably effective. Have you ever seen a starving POW with rolls of fat?

This diet isn't just an academic exercise or a theory; I went through it myself and lost 7kg in just 16 days. Sure, I suffered at times but I got there!

This page provides a detailed explanation of what the body goes through during a fast so that you can understand what is happening and why. It also provides my food and drink intake for counteracting brain fade and muscle wastage.

Only A Bit Overweight?

So you're only 5 kg overweight. Why should you have to lose it? Well the short answer is you don't HAVE to, it's your body after all. However, next time you're in the supermarket pick up a couple of 2kg packs of sugar, feel how heavy they are. Now add a 1kg bag. That's the extra weight you're carrying ALL the time! Now look at the bulk of them. That's the volume of fat you have bloating out your belly and elsewhere. Not so little is it?

If you are 10kg overweight go down to your local hardware store and pick up a 10kg bag of cement. That's what you are carrying around ALL the time! Heavy isn't it? No wonder you don't feel like running! Look at the bulk of it. Where do you think that volume of fat is stored? Do you think it's invisible? Do you think people don't notice?

5kg overweight is significant, you should seriously consider losing it. If you are 10 kg over you should certainly diet as the extra weight is already affecting you whether you admit it or not. If you are 20 kg or more overweight it's time to stop making excuses and adopt a diet that works. You are heading for serious health problems if you don't have them already and things will only get worse. If you are a man you are probably heading for a heart attack as well.

Disclaimer

Although I am a scientist I am not a qualified dietician, nor am I a qualified biochemist, nor have I tested this diet on any subjects other than myself. I do not warrant that this diet will not cause any damage to any person wishing to try it. Although I am happy with its results on myself I do not know your details and I cannot recommend that it is suitable for you. If you follow it and something goes wrong I will not be liable for any damages. Starve at your own risk!

Warning

If you are a diabetic or an alcoholic who is likely to binge drink you should NOT try this diet. You may slip into ketoacidosis which in extreme cases can be fatal.

Don't believe the drivel you will read in most of the numerous websites about the "ketosis" diet. Most of the stuff you will find there consists of half truths, misunderstanding and utter bullshit! When people claim they have been in ketosis for 6 months, don't believe them! When they suggest you can and should live permanently in ketosis, don't believe them!

The starvation diet DOES put you into ketosis but believe me: You do NOT want to live there permanently! Ketosis is the body's emergency adaptation to starvation. It isn't a way to lose weight! You lose the weight because you're starving, not because you're in ketosis! Even if I believed that people actually spent 6 months in ketosis, (which I don't), clearly their diet doesn't work since they should have reached their target weight long before that! Treat those fools and snake-oil salesmen with the contempt they deserve!

Metabolic Chemistry

The human body is an incredibly complicated machine with many different chemical reactions going on at all times and in all locations. The metabolic reactions were only properly understood in the middle of the 20th century. They are amazing and varied but they all revolve around one thing: ENERGY!

The energy provider for cellular respiration comes from a molecule called Adenosine TriPhosphate (ATP). The three phosphate groups form a chain and there are two high energy bonds holding the final two phosphate groups in place. When an ATP molecule loses a phosphate group it becomes Adenosine DiPhosphate (ADP) and gives up some energy. ADP molecules can lose a further phosphate group and become Adenosine MonoPhosphate (AMP) and give up some more energy. This energy given up by degrading ATP is the energy we use in our daily lives.

ATP only lasts for a second or so before degrading so it must be continually remade by each cell in the body and the primary fuel for making ATP is GLUCOSE. Each molecule of glucose along with 6 oxygen molecules is converted to carbon dioxide and water and recharges a maximum of 38 ATPs. There is the basis of life right there! You need glucose (food) and oxygen (air) to live (energy) and you excrete CO2 and water.

The process through which glucose is consumed is quite complicated and comprises 3 separate processes: glycolysis, the citric acid (Krebs) cycle and the electron transport system. Each process has various stages involving various molecules. Glycolysis takes place in the cytosol but the other two processes take place in the mitochondria which requires certain molecules to be transported across the mitochondrial membrane, which requires more reactions. Many of the molecules involved in cellular respiration are closely related to each other and can be converted to each other depending on concentrations, hormones, enzymes and coenzymes. Molecules need not start as glucose to participate in cellular metabolism and produce energy. Any of the descendants of glucose can join the process at the appropriate point and release some of the energy that glucose does. This means that fatty acids and ketones can be used as fuel by a cell although they require some preparatory reactions first.

Food Intake

Food may be composed of many things but the main 3 that the body is interested in are carbohydrates, fats and protein. The digestive process breaks these down as follows:

After being broken down the body then uses these components as follows:

Fat buildup

When you consistently take in more calories than you can use your body stores some of the excess as fat. It doesn't greatly matter whether you are eating carbs, protein or fats, they can ALL be converted into fat. Many people think that fat is the worst thing to eat as it will be immediately stored directly as fat. This is not entirely true as, as previously detailed, the ingested fat is broken down into components and then reassembled, furthermore it is clear that excess carbs are pretty effectively converted to fat as well. I don't know whether excess protein conversion to fat is as efficient as the other two food types but it certainly does happen. However there aren't too many people living on a pure protein diet and such a thing is ill advised anyway due to permanently overtaxing the kidneys and raising the ketone levels in the blood to an unheathly amount.

Believe it or not, your body's fat cells are constantly circulating the fat stored, out of the cells, into the blood and back into the cells again. All you need to do to get rid of that unsightly and debilitating fat is to use it up while it is circulating and the way to do that is to starve, either a bit at a time or to the max!

Starvation Biochemistry

The First 3 Days

When the concentration of glucose in the blood drops below the desired level 2 things happen:

The amount of glycogen stored depends on your diet up to this point. If you have been eating plenty and laying down fat your stores of glycogen will be at their maximum and it will take about a day to deplete them. For this reason it is pointless to fast for just one day then return to your normal diet. You will not be burning any fat, just glycogen.

After a day of fasting you will have depleted your glycogen store, glucagon and cortisol levels will increase and your body will start burning through your fat storage. Fat is a very efficient storage of energy however, releasing twice as much energy as the same weight of glucose, so the most you can hope to lose, (for an average man), is 500g per day with moderate exercise.

While fasting, fat cells convert stored fat into glycerol and fatty acids. The glycerol is converted to glucose or one of the components in the glycolysis process and produces energy. The fatty acids float free into the bloodstream and are taken up by cells (mostly muscle and liver cells) which use the ß-oxidation process in their mitochondria to convert these to reactants for the citric acid cycle where they are used for fuel. However this fuel can ONLY be used in the cell it was formed in.

Problem #1

You stop eating, the body burns the fat, you lose weight, no problem right? Well, not quite... The free-floating, long-chain fatty acids are too big to pass the blood-brain barrier, so the brain cannot use them for energy even though the muscles and liver can. If there is still some glucose in the blood the brain will use that for fuel and the muscles and liver will preferentially use the fatty acids. When there is no external source that glucose is obtained through gluconeogenesis.

For this reason it is IMPORTANT to keep a small amount of glucose in the blood stream during days 2 and 3 of the starvation process for the brain to use and also to eat a small amount of quality protein a few times a day to rebuild any muscle that might have been catabolised.

Due to high levels of cortisol the liver is now madly pursuing gluconeogenesis. Oddly, this process requires that one of the substrates for the citric acid cycle: oxaloacetate, be transported from inside the mitochondria out to the cytosol where it is used to make the glucose. After fasting for 3 days the concentration of oxaloacetate in the mitochondria of the liver is so depleted by this process that the citric acid cycle there is too slow to keep up. This causes the acetyl-CoA in the mitochondria to follow the ketogenic pathway instead. Those products of ß-oxidation in the liver that were fuel for the citric acid cycle there are now converted into ketones instead of directly into energy. Also known as ketone bodies, these are: acetone, acetoacetic acid and ß-hydroxybutyric acid. Unlike the precursors of the citric acid cycle, ketones CAN diffuse out into the blood and be used as fuel by most of the cells of the body, including the BRAIN! And that is what happens to them, especially since the liver itself, (unlike the rest of the body), cannot metabolise them.

The ketone bodies are small enough to pass through the blood-brain barrier and the brain can now get most of the fuel it needs from the body's fat... about 70%. The liver cannot quite generate enough ketone bodies to fully power the brain however. The brain still needs 30g of glucose to make up the shortfall. 20g of this can be produced from glycerol in the liver leaving just 10g required from elsewhere. This is found by breaking down muscle, 30g per day of muscle wastage. This isn't much for a few days but over time it becomes significant.

Anyway: Problem #1 solved!

Ketosis

The state you reach after 4 days or so of fasting is called ketosis. You'll know when you are passing into that state as your brain will begin to struggle. You will feel faint, a little dizzy and a bit confused. Your urine will also turn a darkish yellow. This is the point where the brain can't get enough glucose but ketone levels are not yet high enough to fill the gap. When you reach this point, take it easy, don't do anything tricky or dangerous and eat some protein and carbs, not a full meal, just enough to take the edge off. Deal with the light-headedness immediately by eating one jelly bean. It will provide an almost instant, small, short-term glucose hit. This is the hardest part of the diet. You just have to push through it. Remember your jelly beans, don't let yourself faint! With a bit of luck you'll wake up after a good sleep, find you've lost weight and feel better. This will indicate that your body is now producing enough ketones to supply most of your brain's requirements.

This is the state where you will most quickly lose your fat. It is just a question of how much will-power you have. Living in a state of ketosis can be irritating at times, especially in the first week! Don't imagine that it is like falling off a log. It takes some doing! You may often be hungry, often irritated and just a little fuzzy in the head. It isn't impossibly difficult or incredibly painful though. You can function fairly normally and you can put up with it but you have to MEAN it!

The temptation to eat can be pretty strong at times although if you don't EVER cheat on the rules it isn't as bad as you might expect. You can also drink things other than water too. Drink as much tea or coffee as you like (within reason) although not loaded up with milk and sugar. You can also drink as many herbal teas as you like. At any rate, only WILLPOWER will keep you on the fast when the kitchen is full of food. Willpower loves positive feedback and by the time you are into full ketosis you should have already lost 2kg or so. When you see that loss on your scales you will know that starving works and you will wish to continue!

It is important to keep exercising too. Not only does exercise increase the rate at which you burn that fat it also makes you feel good about what you are doing. Fasting loosens your body up and makes you conscious of your body as well. Surprisingly, even though you are starving you can still put out a decent amount of energy, not the violent peaks you might have been used to but still a good moderate steady load. The weight you have lost also makes you enjoy your exercise more as you begin to notice the difference.

After day 4 you may find that during cold weather your feet and hands will often be cold and that it is difficult to warm them up without an external heat source. This is because the body is trying to conserve energy and reducing circulation to the extremities is one way to do this. Wear gloves, thick woollen socks and warm shoes, turn up the heating, put them in a warm foot bath before bed, use a hot water bottle... anything that works for you. It's only for a few weeks.

Problem #2

In ketosis cortisol levels are high and if this is prolonged one of the effects of this is that muscle tissues are broken down (proteolysis) into amino acids to make glucose via gluconeogenesis or to power the citric acid cycle directly. Unfortunately this effect is difficult to prevent. Strangely, Mifepristone (Korlym), (also used in the abortion drug RU486), is an effective cortisol receptor blocker and it may be a solution, although it is clearly not appropriate for everyone. You will need to consult your doctor before gaining access to this drug. There are alternative drugs including: ketoconazole (Nizoral), mitotane (Lysodren) and metyrapone (Metopirone) but they are not necessarily as effective as you would wish for this purpose and may have side effects that you don't want. Other possible non-prescription alternatives include: high dosages of vitamin C, laughter and dancing. It seems unlikely that any of these will really do the job but I guess they can't do any harm so go ahead and give them a go if you wish.

One should be careful with controlling cortisol levels directly, you don't want to completely stop proteolysis otherwise your brain may find itself entirely without fuel and that may put you in a coma! Mind you, you can react to this, (provided you can feel it coming), with a quick shot of glucose via jelly beans or other carbs but you will be removing your safety net. Still, if you want to just stay on the fast for a month or more, don't want to lose muscle mass, have access to Mifepristone, have consulted your doctor about the proper dosage and can monitor the effects properly, it may be your only way... Just allow a bit of room for the safety net!

It is not a good idea to allow significant muscle wastage. Visual inspection is not a good guide to this as you will be losing subcutaneous fat which will make you arms and legs look thinner without necessarily reducing muscle mass. You need an objective measure. Reduced muscle means reduced strength, so you simply need to compare your strength to your baseline before the diet. If you are doing weight training you will instantly see this as your sets become difficult or impossible. When this happens it is time to stop the diet at least until your muscles rebuild and your cortisol levels drop back to normal.

Problem #2 not properly solved...

After 2 Weeks

Unless you have an effective means of reducing your cortisol concentration, after 2 weeks or so you will probably start to get some muscle wastage. As previously mentioned you will need an objective measure of your strength in order to establish this. If you do experience noticeable muscle wastage and you still have 2 kg or more to reach your goal it is time to take a break for a week or so. If you are only a about kilo from your goal then you can push on to reach it and cop the muscle wastage since it will only be a few days more.

Anyway, a break is a good idea! After 15 days you should have lost around 6kg. If you were aiming for 20kg then you still have along way to go! A break will give you a chance to not only rebuild your lost muscle, (not too much after only 2 weeks), and to allow your cortisol levels to return to normal, but also to enjoy eating and drinking normally and recharge your motivation for the next section. Don't binge though or you will simply undo all your hard work!

When you're ready to go again, go again! If you want to lose 20kg you'll need to do it in 3 stages. Once you've done 1 stage you'll know what you're in for and you'll be ready for the next 2.

When you have burnt all the fat you wish to it is time to stop fasting and return to a normal diet. If you don't stop, your body will switch to full protein burn, your muscles will waste away, you will suffer brain damage, your heart will stop and you will die.

The Diet

Average man's daily total energy quota: ~2,500 Calories (10,500kJ)
Average man's daily brain energy quota: ~330Cal, or 80g glucose

With a daily calorific intake of 250 Cal the body will lose fat equivalent to 2,250 Cal each day. Each gram of fat contains about 9.3 Cal so this amounts to 240g per day. However, because the process of converting fat to ATP is not 100% efficient the actual rate of fat loss will be higher than this and an average man doing moderate exercise and following this diet can expect to lose about 400g of fat per day.

These are the foods that I use in my diet (you can use others with similar characteristics if you wish):

High GI carbs would be the ideal thing for the slow release glucose that the brain needs, however these are brown bread, nuts and dairy products. Nuts and dairy also contain protein which would make them ideal except that they contain too much fat and too many calories. You could use half a slice of brown bread with a scraping of jam instead of jelly if you wish but once you're into day 4 there is no place for it so I just left it out.

Carry a small pack of jelly beans around with you. If you get light-headed eat just one and it should rapidly fix the problem. Note, the jelly beans are for emergencies; you shouldn't be eating half a pack a day. You may experience a steady low-level fuzz in the brain, this is part of fasting, don't use the jelly beans for this.

Once you get into ketosis you will mostly be eating small amounts of chicken, fish or potato, make sure you put some salt on them as you won't be getting much from other sources. The longer you stay on the diet the more you will need external sources of vitamins and minerals so make sure you take a daily vitamin tablet.

Sorry folks, no alcohol on this diet. It contains too many calories.

Note - You can move around the times of your little food parcels, probably you won't be exercising while at work unless you have a manual job. Just make sure you supply the protein hit before and after the exercise.

Preparation

Your best source of high protein, low calorie food are skinless chicken breasts, with fish, (not battered), coming a close second.

When you eat your little portions of food you can heat them up in the microwave or not as you wish. Personally I like my potato warm, even if it is only a spoonful, so 20 seconds in the mic!

Day 1 - Using up your glycogen stores, no need to provide any calories

Eat nothing but drink plenty of water and/or other low calorie drinks such as black tea, coffee or herbal tea. You can drink white tea or coffee if you wish but only 1 or 2 and don't add sugar.

Days 2 & 3 - Moving towards ketosis, need 330 Cal for brain

Drink plenty of fluids and try to keep a constant but small amount of glucose in your bloodstream, enough to fuel the brain but no more. Exercise and eat a small amount of protein an hour or two before and after.

Total - 336 Cal, 23g protein

Day 4 onwards - Ketosis, need 40 Cal for brain

Drink plenty of fluids, take a daily multivitamin pill. Eat a jelly bean if you feel light-headed. Exercise! Mix in some anaerobic work amongst the aerobic (ie get yourself puffing from time to time). This will generate lactate which the liver will convert to glucose for the brain. Eat a small amount of protein an hour or two before and after. The hope here is that supplying protein will help prevent muscle wastage, either by rebuilding muscle lost to proteolysis or by supplying the required amino acids direct from the digestive process... It may work for a week or so but in the end the cortisol is simply going to take its toll I'm sad to say. Go ahead and try taking Vitamin C to reduce the cortisol if you wish, 1,000mg 3x daily, maybe it will have an effect, if not, what have you lost? Take a break from the diet when you experience muscle wastage.

Total - 229 Cal, 22g protein

Returning To Normal

In order to return to normal you need to get your body out of ketosis. The way to do this is with CARBS! After 2 weeks of almost no carbs your body will be screaming out for them! As soon as your body starts to digest carbs your blood glucose levels will rise which will cause 2 things:

As you will recall: the liver started producing ketones because it produced so much glucose by gluconeogenesis that it depleted the mitochondria of oxaloacetate. In order for it to stop the ketosis it needs to:

Don't be surprised when, even after 4 hours and a few proper meals, you still have the funny feeling in your head that means your brain is still living off ketone bodies. Don't worry about it. Keep the carbs up, enjoy eating some food again and get some exercise. It will take around 12 hours before you feel mostly normal and it could be a day before you are fully normal. Remember: it took you at least 3 days to get into it so it is not surprising that it should take you the best part of a day to get out of it.

Both simple and complex carbs are required to get the blood glucose levels up and to keep them up. The simple sugars are what the body wants now and the complex will keep the glucose levels up after you stop. After two weeks of almost no food and no fibre you will probably be constipated too.

Assuming you stop your starvation first thing in the morning a good first breakfast would be a full glass of orange juice and a decent bowl of whole grain cereal with fruit, milk and yoghurt. Enjoy it!

Eat plenty of fresh fruit throughout the day. It supplies simple carbs and fibre. Go to the supermarket and select whatever looks good to you. I simply bought a bag of grapes. A good lunch would be brown bread with honey or jam.

You will be needing to rebuild some muscle too so you should have some protein before you exercise and then a good serving of chicken and vegetables afterwards. Keep the fat intake down, it doesn't supply anything useful. I could say the same about alcohol but I won't.

Keep up the fluids and keep up the fruit and you should be back to normal by the time you wake up the next morning. Remember: Eat but don't binge eat! You didn't go through all this just to wind up back at square one!

Finally, don't be dismayed when your body weight jumps back up 2 kg in the first 2 or 3 days. Most of this is simply refilling the intestines with fluid and food in various stages of digestion. Some of the rest is probably due to refilling the glycogen stores. If you find your weight continues to rise beyond this point you must be eating too much.

You should find that your stomach has shrunk after that extended starvation and you should be satisfied with smaller servings. You should also find yourself less attracted to fatty foods and alcohol. Take advantage of this to change your diet to one with less calories. Count your daily calories and see whether you are exceeding your quota and what the prime offenders are. If you are over, cut your intake back to neutral by reducing or eliminating the prime offenders.

Conclusion

Many people find the idea of fasting for more than a few days very scary. I'm not sure why, it is quite natural. The fat is only put there to allow for such an eventuality. Some people think that ketosis is a dangerous state which could result in death due to ketoacidosis... Perhaps there are cases of people dying on a starvation diet before reaching their target weight, but I suspect they were probably diabetics or binge drinkers. You must do your own research, make your own decisions and take responsibility for them. If you are trying this diet and feel especially bad you can just have a small meal, drink a beer and relax. If you still feel bad go and see a doctor!

I quite enjoyed the process of going through this diet and figuring out what worked and why. I would certainly do it again if my weight creeps up too far again. Starving was irritating more than painful. I felt a little more driven than normal and I found it a little harder to relax. I was often hungry but not as often as you might suppose and often had a fuzzy feeling in the head but not always. After the first week I felt surprisingly normal most of the time. The only actually scary point was when I was passing into full ketosis and got very light headed (this was before I got my jelly beans). I did question myself for a little while there but I now realise what that was and perhaps one might equate it with "hitting the wall" in a marathon: once you get through it things get better.

I started on this diet without fully understanding the biochemistry involved and I experimented and researched as I went. I put up with the hunger, fuzziness, lightheadedness and irritation for 16 days and nights and lost 7 kg. I reached my target weight which was my normal weight when I was 30. It took considerable willpower, but most things that are worth anything in life take willpower! I certainly found that it helped a lot knowing I only had to keep doing it for 2 weeks. It's not fun but it works.

Excelsior!

References

Wikipedia - Starvation Response
Wikipedia - Ketogenesis
Wikipedia - Cortisol
Solomon & Davis - Human Anatomy & Physiology, 1983
WeightLoss Australia - Food Nutrition Tables
LifeInTheFastLane - Starvation Response
Drugs.Com - Korlym

Warren Mars - September 10, 2018