vitals sankha cooray
nutrition · fasting · metabolism

Eating less,
watching closer.

Personal field notes from years of intermittent fasting, lab-report self-study, and the slow business of learning how my own metabolism actually behaves.

Singapore daily IF practitioner lean mass hyper-responder
01

About

For years I've been quietly running my own nutrition and metabolism experiment. Daily intermittent fasting, lots of questions about food, and a habit of reading every line of every blood panel that comes back.

Somewhere along the way I discovered I'm a lean-mass hyper-responder — the metabolic phenotype where being lean and low-carb sends LDL up while metabolic markers stay clean. Which made me much more interested in the system, not just the number.

This page is where I collect those notes — the protocols I actually follow, the self-studies I've done from my own lab reports, and the beliefs the work has nudged me toward.

It's a field journal, not a how-to. Everyone's metabolism is its own weather system. Mine is what I have data on.

02

What I Actually Do

current

The plain version of the routine — eating windows, training, the boring things that compound.

eating window
~ 6 h
Daily intermittent fasting. The window flexes around training and social food, but the rhythm holds.
fasted hours
~ 18 h
Long enough most days to brush against autophagy — the body's housekeeping mode.
food bias
whole · low-noise
Real food, low ultra-processed share, generous protein, plenty of vegetables.
training
strength · zone-2
Heavy work for lean mass, easy aerobic for the engine. Most sessions in the fasted state.
tracking
weight · scans · panels
Withings scale daily, body-composition scans periodically, full lipid + metabolic panels regularly.
guardrails
sleep · stress
When sleep slips or stress spikes, the eating window opens. The protocol serves the body, not the other way.
03

Self-Studies from Lab Reports

A few of the threads I've followed through my own numbers. Each one earned a deeper read than the doctor's three-line summary.

phenotype

Lean-mass hyper-responder

lipid panels · longitudinal

Discovered through repeated panels: lean, low-carb, high LDL, clean triglycerides and HDL. The classic LMHR pattern. Tracking how it shifts over years.

write-up coming
metabolic

Fasting glucose & HbA1c

routine panels

Following the gap between fasting glucose and HbA1c, and what changes the IF window seems to make to both.

write-up coming
composition

Body composition trends

Withings + DEXA-style scans

Long-running lean-mass vs fat-mass tracking — what holds, what shifts, what training and food adjustments actually move.

write-up coming
future

Open slot

to be added

New self-study threads — micronutrients, sleep tracking, HRV — will be added as they earn enough data to write up.

to be added
04

Working Beliefs

Not advice — just the shorthand I've ended up with after years of self-tracking. They may not survive the next decade of evidence, and that's the point.

Autophagy is worth the hunger
The body's cleanup window seems to earn its keep — for me, daily, modestly. Not a fad, a habit.
Real food first
If it has an ingredient list longer than its name, treat it as a sometimes food.
Track the system, not the number
A single biomarker out of context lies. Patterns across panels tell the truth.
n = 1 is enough to learn
Population studies steer; my own numbers decide. The two together beat either alone.
Sleep before supplements
No nutrient stack outperforms a good night. Fix the basics first.
Capability over aesthetics
Can I lift it, run it, recover from it? That's the scoreboard. The mirror is downstream.
Note. This is a personal journal of self-experimentation, not medical advice. Intermittent fasting, dietary changes, and metabolic interventions can affect different bodies very differently. Talk to a qualified clinician before changing your own protocol.
05

Live Signal

live
Withings Body Scan — smart scale with retractable ECG handle Withings Body Scan ↗

Measured, not claimed. These numbers come straight off my Withings Body Scan — the receipts behind the protocol, updated automatically. No edited highlight reel; just what the scale says this week.

Early days. This live signal is still finding its shape — the dashboard was only just wired to the scale, so the first readings may be sparse or jumpy. Expect the picture to get steadier and more consistent as weeks of data accumulate.

Withings ScanWatch 2 — hybrid smartwatch with temperature, SpO₂ and ECG sensors Withings ScanWatch 2 ↗
arrived · syncing up

A Withings ScanWatch 2 has arrived and is settling onto the wrist — joining the scale as a second always-on sensor. Where the Body Scan is a weekly snapshot, the watch adds the continuous layer: round-the-clock signals from the wrist, in the long stretches between scans.

Await more insights and data soon. Now that it's on the wrist, the metrics below will start flowing into this live signal alongside the scale as the first nights and days of data sync through. Researchers and the merely curious — keep watching this space.

What I'll be posting from the watch
  • Overnight & resting heart rate
  • Respiratory rate — nightly average
  • Sleep score & architecture — deep / light / REM
  • Steps & daily activity
  • Blood oxygen (SpO₂) spot checks
  • Estimated VO₂ max / fitness level

ECG traces, HRV and TempTech 24/7 temperature stay in the Withings app for now — the public API doesn't export those yet.

open data · research consent

These readings are yours to study.

I freely consent to my own body-composition and cardiovascular data being used for research, teaching, and health science. If you're a medical researcher, clinician, or health-science student and this honest n = 1 record could be useful — for a study, a teaching example, or simply a sanity check — I'd be glad to share the underlying export. Curiosity and collaboration welcome.

Reach out →
06

Get in touch

Have a project, a question, or just want to say hello? Drop a note below and it'll reach me directly.