I have chronic fatigue syndrome and long covid. 31M
Ive tried so many different protocols, and paid tens of thousands of dollars to different doctors and naturopaths, with no real improvements.
Ive done a dry fast after reading some articles on the dry fasting club and it's the first time i felt a glimpse of myself. I'm wondering if its simply the fat burning / autophagy / ketones that are making me feel better?
Why does the scorch protocol start with low-carb even though it seems fixing glucose oxidation is the most important thing?
Do i need to be low-carb to start the scorch protcol?
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Far_Calendar4564
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- Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2025 12:51 am
Re: Do i need to be low-carb to start the scorch protcol?
Hi Far_Calendar, thanks and congratulations on being the first one to post a question!This is a great question, even though it casts a wide net. Do you really need to start low-carb to do the scorch protocol effectively? My answer is yes, even though some caveats for certain situations exist, like someone who has little to no fat and doesn't have the reserves to switch to keto and THEN dry fast. There's also other health issues and strategies that can be taken into consideration but won't be dived into in this answer.
fat adaptation means you get to speed run the "fasting muscle"
The reason the scorch protocol asks that you prepare your body in a low-carb/keto environment is to open up fat-burn adaptation. When you first start fasting it is extremely difficult. You often hear things like you need to build your fasting muscle with many progressively longer fasts. Getting keto adapted, is a way to bypass most of the fasting muscle requirements, which is easier for most people to achieve. Asking someone who has never fasted before to start doing progressively longer fasts is hard. Take someone i worked with who tried jumping straight into a 3-day water fast after years of SAD diet eating, he was a wreck by hour 20, head pounding, snapping at everyone, and ended up raiding the fridge at 2am. But after two weeks of keto, the same guy sails through a dry fast like it's just skipping lunch, no drama, because his body's already flipping fats into fuel without the usual protest.
safer for liver
Adapting to the keto diet means that your body and especially your liver has adapted to fatty acid oxidation and produces ketones quickly. This allows you to start a fast already in ketosis and avoid the possible complications associated with jumping into longer fasts from pure glucose burning. Now we can make a case for either keto or not keto being the best starting position, but from an overall safety perspective, keto is the safest way to enter into a long fast to avoid liver and other complications. While you may want to do even a mild liver flush before performing a 7-9 day dry fast, you dont have to do it for 5 day and under ones if you enter from a keto adapted state.
quick wins = more chance to succeed
usually when dealing with chronic illness you are already dealing with a dysfunctional glucose oxidation system. Your body is not using glucose correctly, so switching to a keto diet will give you faster results and make you feel healthier, this is often a necessary crutch to push the sick person into fasting. A sick person, going from a sick diet, into a more difficult fast (because not fat adapted) is a recipe for quitting. This strategy makes it as safe as possible and as encouraging as possible.
this is self explanatory, if you dont have to wait 3 days to get into deeper ketosis, you start in it right away. Not going to get into the weeds about hormesis effect and glucose oxidation. But to nudge a bit deeper, that immediate ketone surge ramps up LC3-II markers in your cells way sooner, pulling junk proteins into autophagosomes without the lag, which means you're clearing senescent cells and misfolded cellular proteins from the jump. If you stack the scorch low-carb prep on top of the dry fast, this frontloads the benefits, you get a running start.
fat adaptation means you get to speed run the "fasting muscle"
The reason the scorch protocol asks that you prepare your body in a low-carb/keto environment is to open up fat-burn adaptation. When you first start fasting it is extremely difficult. You often hear things like you need to build your fasting muscle with many progressively longer fasts. Getting keto adapted, is a way to bypass most of the fasting muscle requirements, which is easier for most people to achieve. Asking someone who has never fasted before to start doing progressively longer fasts is hard. Take someone i worked with who tried jumping straight into a 3-day water fast after years of SAD diet eating, he was a wreck by hour 20, head pounding, snapping at everyone, and ended up raiding the fridge at 2am. But after two weeks of keto, the same guy sails through a dry fast like it's just skipping lunch, no drama, because his body's already flipping fats into fuel without the usual protest.
- Muscle protein sparing: Keto adaptation boosts growth hormone and spares lean mass during fasts, per studies on endurance athletes, so you're less likely to lose strength gains while low-carb scorching before the dry fast.
- Electrolyte stability: Early adaptation helps retain sodium and magnesium better, dodging the cramps and fatigue that hit carb-burners hardest in the first 48 hours.
- Hormonal tweaks: It normalizes cortisol spikes from fasting stress, which could otherwise sabotage sleep and recovery in newbies.
safer for liver
Adapting to the keto diet means that your body and especially your liver has adapted to fatty acid oxidation and produces ketones quickly. This allows you to start a fast already in ketosis and avoid the possible complications associated with jumping into longer fasts from pure glucose burning. Now we can make a case for either keto or not keto being the best starting position, but from an overall safety perspective, keto is the safest way to enter into a long fast to avoid liver and other complications. While you may want to do even a mild liver flush before performing a 7-9 day dry fast, you dont have to do it for 5 day and under ones if you enter from a keto adapted state.
- Fibrosis prevention: Keto curbs stellate cell activation in the liver, slowing scar tissue buildup that fasting alone might stress if you're starting fatty.
- Bile acid recycling: Adaptation improves enterohepatic circulation, easing toxin export during dry fasts and cutting gallstone odds.
quick wins = more chance to succeed
usually when dealing with chronic illness you are already dealing with a dysfunctional glucose oxidation system. Your body is not using glucose correctly, so switching to a keto diet will give you faster results and make you feel healthier, this is often a necessary crutch to push the sick person into fasting. A sick person, going from a sick diet, into a more difficult fast (because not fat adapted) is a recipe for quitting. This strategy makes it as safe as possible and as encouraging as possible.
- Microbiome shifts: Keto favors butyrate-producers in the gut, which could amp immune modulation faster in IBD or allergies.
- Neuro benefits: Early ketone access clears brain fog in conditions like PCOS or depression, building mental buy-in for the fast.
this is self explanatory, if you dont have to wait 3 days to get into deeper ketosis, you start in it right away. Not going to get into the weeds about hormesis effect and glucose oxidation. But to nudge a bit deeper, that immediate ketone surge ramps up LC3-II markers in your cells way sooner, pulling junk proteins into autophagosomes without the lag, which means you're clearing senescent cells and misfolded cellular proteins from the jump. If you stack the scorch low-carb prep on top of the dry fast, this frontloads the benefits, you get a running start.