On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast
anyone can fast. I love that start because you said you had two pages right? Don't eat right, you know if it were only so simple point is is that the moment people stop eating bad things happen. It's a stress of fast is actually a stress it too is a hormetic principle in that if we stress the body magic can happen. But if we do these pre-stress has before it man magic really happens.
Happens when you actually fast
help performance nutrition longevity ancestral living biohacking and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show.
All right. I got my buddy Dan Pompa on today's show and he just wrote an amazing book about fasting we're going to take a deep dive into fasting today and it's certainly a topic that I think is relevant because it is so beneficial not just for all the physical benefits that you've no doubt heard about but I think it's one of the one of the best things you can do for your spiritual
disciplines practice
fasting.
Combined with breathwork when combined with prayer when combined with meditation. It is
powerful powerful
she at so you're going to enjoy this episode with
Dan and
I want to give you a huge discount code right now. So Kyon KI on is my website where I create pure efficacious shotgun formulations of supplements and functional foods. We've got everything from coffees two bars to
Weight loss and fat gain
control is that even a word fat gain control supplements? I'm making it up. We have wonderful one for muscle
gain and gut nourishing compounds like the Keanu me know is
we've got colostrum. We have what I would consider to be one of the best fish oils on the planet over there and you get 20% off of everything and the peace of mind it is all been heavily vetted by yours truly. So you get that 20% discount if you go to
Key on.com that's get ki o n.com and your discount code there is bgf to 0 now. I also want to tell you about something super duper tasty. You may have heard me talk about this healthy alternative to those toxin Laden golden milk lattes that you might get. It's a a Starbucks or local favorite coffee shop that tastes really good. But just Jim up your blood sugar levels and and really aren't that great for you and furthermore kind of
expensive when I have talked in the past about my favorite alternative. I've talked about this organifi gold stuff. But what organifi did was they took their super popular golden milk latte powder that already has things like Rishi and ginger and turmeric and turkey tail mushroom and all these wonderful immune-boosting and super tasty compounds it and they made a chocolate version and this has pretty much made my evenings amazing.
So you get the delicious rich
chocolate flavor. I like to mix it up with a little bit of hot coconut milk and you can use a latte frother to make it all bubbly. Oh my goodness. This is so so good. You can also if you want to in a pinch just throwing your morning smoothie as well. But I like that evening sipping gold chocolate.
You don't have to have
dessert like cheesecake or ice cream just drink a little bit of this stuff and the bonus is it helps you sleep. So organifi is going to give all of
of my listeners a 20% discount off of their
organifi chocolate
gold you go to organifi.com / been that's organifi with an eye.com / been and that will get you 20%
off.
Hey before we jump into today's podcast with Dan. I did want to let you know that
That's my microphone
was kind of busted. So if
the Sound audio quality is slightly lacking my apologies, but fear not the contents good so that being said, let's jump in.
All right, folks as usual I get tons and tons of questions from you all about fasting. How do you break a fast? What's the proper daylight for a fast? Can you calories during a fast those coffee break of fast, etcetera Etc and I've interviewed people about fasting in the past. I've interviewed. Dr. Jason Fung. For example, I've interviewed. Dr. Mercola but there's one guy who whenever I'm hanging out with him is not only
Researching fasting but also practicing it very intensively like spending time in the trenches experimenting with all sorts of different fast. Not only that but his wife does a lot of fasting his children which will discuss today have even successfully implemented all sorts of different fast. So not only is he researching fasting but he's also practices and himself which means he's always for me at least got a bunch of practical knowledge when it comes to how to fast properly.
Now thankfully he did just write a book and it's a really good book aside from making the mistake of having a complete tool like me write the forward. The book is actually pretty good. It's called Beyond fasting be on fasting brand new book that decodes pretty much everything. You need to know about fasting and furthermore uses this really interesting approach to ease you into a fast and do things like accelerate your stem cell mobilization during a fast kicking off top @ g sooner Ally.
For fat out up tation to occur on a quicker basis based on some of the things you do going into the fast so the book has it all spelled out for you, but I have lots of questions and I want to dive into in terms of kind of the boots on the streets application of what's actually in the book. So again, the book is called be on fasting now my guess the author the book he's been on the show before so he is guy I first discovered when it came to the world of detoxification. He knows a ton on detox strategies and here.
A I did a super thorough podcast on Phase 1 Phase 2 liver detox how you can clean out the body whether it's true. If you can't even detox, you know colonic cell turnover liver cells, we covered a ton and that was in the episode called the most effective detox. You've never heard of and exactly how to do it. I'm going to link to that show in the show notes for today's podcast which will give you in a minute. Then we did another big podcast on fasting before he wrote this book in which we got into some of the impact on fasting and
I'm cells how fasting burns fat Feast famine Cycles a lot more. But again since that previous podcast that he's written this book that I think delves into even more than we were able to get into on that show. However, if you want to listen to either of those shows, you can go to Ben Greenfield fitness.com / fast with Dan that's Ben Greenfield fitness.com fast with Dan because my guest if you haven't guessed already is dr. Dan Pompa one of the most respected leaders in the health and
Wellness space particularly Alternative Health and Wellness space he educates hundreds of practitioners around the globe on inflammation driven diseases the ketogenic diet fasting ancestral eating approaches cellular healing detoxification. He has his own podcast called cellular healing TV, which is fantastic and he's trained as a chiropractor but really really is taking a deep dive into what I would say are two things in particular cellular detox and then also fasting and like I mentioned
His own right is a biohacker a self experiment or he is behind the scenes. I think one of the better if you can use this word to freely bio hackers out there as far as what he's implementing in his own life. I ever hang out with him. He's a got all sorts of new tools using and so sorting a fun chat today, Dan. Welcome to the show man.
Hey, love being here Ben. Gosh, here. We are in quarantine. You know, this is the perfect thing. We'll just talk all day.
Yeah, but you broke quarantine didn't
you because you just like you act like you got back from a trick. Am I supposed to let people know that on the podcast is I think yeah. I know. It's okay. I was training
doing some training in an office down in Florida. And when I left, you know, there was a Florida wasn't even affected matter of fact, my flight was actually full so it was no big deal and then kind of while we were there they started like, you know, making it harder at least for New Yorkers and New Jersey people to make their way into Florida and then
Things started shutting down after that. It was good man. I stayed an extra week, you know that I was doing beyond my work. So I got a little vacation out of it. I whe even you know had some of the family there, so it was great. Actually
you you when you see her training where you at where you at a doctor's office because I know one thing you do, you're always sending me photos of you with different doctors doing crazy, like ozone dialysis and high dose vitamin C injections and some things on a troubled with you to do. But what were you up to anything you can share with
The audience as far as any new
treatments. Yeah, I trained doctors all around the world. Do you know my obviously my detox protocols and that particular doc. We were actually filming some things we were doing some interviews together. So, you know training interviews filming I was like, oh, yeah, it's perfect time, you know, things are dead. We wanted to get these things done. So headed down there and kind of got stuck there. It was, you know, I could have left if we wanted to but it was just such a perfect time. Who would you rather?
Be Park City Utah. That's where I live in a shoulder season what that means is it's not like the perfect, you know time and winter where you can ski and it's not summer where we have these gorgeous mountain bike trails, which you and I have you know, you hit many of these trails with me on the mountain bikes. So the shoulder season you want to get the heck out of park city. So yeah, I was in
Florida. Okay cool. And as far as because I know you're always delving into this stuff. I know we want to focus on fasting today.
But with with everything that you're up to because because you're one of the few guys I know who like me has like a home hyperbaric chamber and a bunch of red lights everywhere and all sorts of crazy tools. And then you're also traveling abilities that were doctors offices learning things that you can turn around and teach your practitioners or write about or talked about on your podcast. Is there anything particularly head-turning or crazy or you think groundbreaking you've been up to in the world of Health whether on this Florida trip or any timeouts in the past couple of months?
Yeah.
I mean on that particular trip, dr. John Lawrence, he's doing great things there in his clinic and Sarasota. That's where it is. You know, he has this thing been I thought of you, you know, I know we both know dr. John and it's called a sivak and what it does is it basically takes you up to Mount Everest that elevation so to speak in a simulator, but what it is is you can literally feel the air.
Are in this chamber get cold, which it would at that elevation and then you can feel the pressure change is a matter of fact, if you take a deep breath and hold it when it goes up to those elevations you feel like your airs. Your lungs are just going to explode. I mean, you literally have to seep it out to hold it on and then boom it takes a deep dive at sea level. So these pressure changes on and off on and off or basically creating a you know, a hormesis hermetic principle. Is your forces your body to
Right, and it's amazing so they can do some different Therapies in the office even stem cell PRP whatever it is. You can go in this chamber and it drives it like into your cells or you just do the the procedure without doing other things first, right? Just that up and down in elevation forces the cells to adapt. So it's amazing how it works. I've never look you and I have seen a lot. We've been a lot we've tried a lot this one.
It was new to
me. Yeah, you know when I when I interviewed a hunter McIntyre and also of course racer he talked about this guy named Crazy Bobby who he's working with who has developed apparently like a giant sivak chamber you can go into and work out in because a lot of these things are like pods that you sit inside. But yeah, they're not I find them fascinating. I haven't done much with sivak, but a lot I think a lot of people confuse it with Hyperbaric or hypobaric, but it's not really a change in the percentage of oxygen that you breathe. It's a
Nificant change though in the altitude and yeah, I mean I've seen good data on circulation and oxygen rich blood cells and removal lactic acid and and mitochondrial biogenesis and stem cell production. But I really messed around with see that commercial. That's pretty cool.
Yeah, you know, I mean you said it like people think you know Hyperbaric, you know, even in a hyperbaric what changes is the pressure, you know, not so much the oxygen levels, right? It's like the pressure when it pushes in on you. So if you think about elevation, right, you know when you get
Get up to Mount Everest. What changes is the pressure right and therefore the inability to utilize the oxygen in your body has to adapt of course when you get at sea level there's a much greater pressure and therefore the ability to utilize the oxygen so yeah, the oxygen content doesn't change much right? It's really the pressure. That's the
deal. Yeah. Well, I definitely want to try it someday. I just haven't had a chance to yet. So dr. John Lawrence, by the way, he's actually flying up to my house in a few weeks to record a podcast.
Austin for those of you listening in here, you may have heard me talk about like high dose of Melatonin suppositories and nebulizing glutathione and n-acetylcysteine and all these kind of crazy medical procedures that can be used for sleep or immunity and John is the guy that I've been getting all that stuff from so we're finally getting connected record a big podcast on all that stuff and I'm guessing we'll probably hit on sivak to so I don't think I told you this damn but he's flying up in about two weeks or record.
Yeah, no, I knew he was recording with you. I didn't know when but ya know you all will love listen to John. He's a wealth of knowledge on those topics and really has developed some great products around those topics as well. So I love that
guy. Awesome. Well see back aside. I want to get into fasting and the book is fantastic. And again, if you guys go to Ben Greenfield fitness.com fast with Dan all link to the book.
Anything else Adama I talked about in the show, but you know the I guess the first thing is Dan like my heart kind of sinks whenever I get another fasting book yet another fastening book sent to my house because it seems like it's almost like a commercial industry now right now built around this concept of of like just like I if I could write a fasting book you would be two pages long and one page won't be don't page to would be eat. However, you know, there's there's a little bit more to it than that.
That but you know, how would you differentiate your approach to fasting and we have times you can you can read the whole big time but I want you to walk me through how the fasting protocol in your book is is different than any other fasting protocol might be out there.
Yeah. Well, I'm laughing right because the same thing happened to me. Alright, everyone sends me their books and Guy keto right. It's like, you know, you know, two pages, you know, lower-carb. Okay next but yeah, the books are still selling know what you know, what?
Should different because I trained doctors, you know, it's one thing reading a piece of literature which I love doing. However, what I love more is being able to take that concept and then bringing it to my group and then putting it into practice and then at the end of that then we're able to really come together as a group and say well man, this is working. This isn't so what's in that book is really a program of
what me and my doctors that I teach have been doing for many years that works and really, you know in it is the strategies of how we fix the microbiome the gut how we turn off auto immunity. You know, how we fix these impossible to fix thyroid conditions unexplainable and says, well, you know, so you're right when you're saying it it that's why I chose title be on fasting because it really is it, you know, so anyone can fast I
Of that start because you said you had two pages right? Don't eat right, you know if it were only so simple because the the point is is that the moment people stop eating bad things happen and it's because they have cells that don't shift over effectively into fat adaptation. They don't shift over into a really high enough a topology and we're going to break all this down. So if you're not folks, but the point I want to make is this you don't just run a marathon.
Athan to get the best results you train for it or let me use a Ben Greenfield example. What things are you doing right now? Like what big races are you
doing? I'm trading for the Russian kettlebell certification. It's a kettlebell certification is just basically learning a lot of new moves like the wind Bell and the overhead jerk and you know a snatch test and it's less of a race because increasingly I've become disillusioned with racing. It's not where my heart is right now, and I'm just
Another other challenges, but for me right now, yeah, I'm training for a Russian kettlebell certification. Why do you ask good
sir? Yeah, so heck yea that sounds hard anyway, but I don't know what the hardest what was the hardest ratio ever did anyway.
Oh jeez, dude over 20 years of racing. I would say probably the hardest would be Ironman Hawaii because of the combination of the Heat and the speed of the competitive field and then Spartan World Championships probably because the elevation and again that the speed of the
The competitive
field imagine doing one of those races without training. Okay. Number one. I don't know that you'd finish. But but let's say you miraculously to I'll Ben Greenfield would finish even without training right? But okay, but
your results in my defense not to throw you off track too much. I did do I earn my very last Ironman Hawaii was like a publicity stunt with Team Timex where they called me up for weeks before the race and asked me if I could come race. So I did do Ironman Hawaii. I did it took me like 12 and a half hours.
Hours, but I did that one. I'm four weeks of training and I'll tell you the hardest part of it was not running or swimming was just you know, that that base stays with you, but it was the biomechanical position of being hunched over on a bike for five hours after not being used to be in that position for.
Okay. So the point is is if you to train more on the bike you did, you know, maybe you made it in 8 hours 10 hours. I don't know. Who knows but the point is is that we don't just do a race like that if we train we get better results.
It's and really that's the book right. It's it takes you through everything. I have learned in 20 years honestly of really look I started into fasting in the 90s. It was me and some natural hygiene Society Geeks. Honestly it's and and they were vegan vegetarian and I was a grass-fed meat eater. So we resonated on one thing fasting but you know, I've been studying fasting since the 90s. So it's really Beyond 20 years, you know and through that 20 years an
Coaching doctors, you know, we learned a lot. I've learned a lot and in it in that book is what I've learned but it's really here's the key fasting. There's absolute Miracles that happen in fasting. You know, I think every one of your listeners get it and understand this most of the principles. However, what we've learned walking up to that fast, if you do this a month before you fast man the results go through the roof the healing turning off bat listen,
We all have what is called senescence cells. These are cells that live too long and simply age you prematurely have, you know, it keeps you from recovering faster. They're the immuno senescent cells. These are immune cells that live too long. And what they do is just drive inflammatory State PSI. I just did a video when over two million people on Facebook talking about this concept when you look at why this disease is attacking old people. It was basically experts are saying it's they have too many.
mm, you know senescent cells driving inflammation and cytokines and then when you look at a 30 year old who gets Corona and gets super sick for two to three weeks even potentially dying very, you know, very rare, but potentially they have one thing in common to many immunosuppressant cells that actually stimulate the cytokine reaction and they are falling victim to something that they shouldn't even know if you and I got Corona and I think I did we wouldn't even have a symptom
Because we don't have these cytokine activities being driven by these cells that live too long. So the point is how do you get rid of them? You get rid of them in fasting States, especially extended fast, which is what the book is about. However, when we look at in the book I talk about how to know when you're in this Max ottava G getting rid of these cells. So I've had my p16 enzymes measured which is a marker for how many of these senescent cells you have.
And I put myself in a regiment or program and re-measured and I'll just say this my wife and I well we're far younger on every way possible DNA methylation testing. Tell him you're testing p16 testing, you know, basically how many immunosuppressed immuno senescent cells we have. So the point is is that if you do it, right you can massively D age get new tissues new cells, but the key is what you do before.
Fast and after
a couple of thoughts here Peter Atia, I know you're familiar with him. He has this concept called a nothing Burger where he will do one week of fasting sandwiched in between two weeks of nutritional ketosis to step up the body's ability to be able to generate ketones and mobilize fatty acids. So that the fast becomes more doable mentally, but also more effective physically is this kind of the same type of concept.
Yeah, so, you know,
I would say it's the same type of concept. Absolutely. I mean, you know, there's more to it even becoming just fat adapted chapter one is fat adaptation and you know, then it goes from there chapters three and four in the book. I talk about my diet variation principles which you know ladies you listening, you know, why five high-carb days before your cycle before your period transition your hormones massively the rest of the month now again, how did we
Learn this, you know, I learned this is you know training doctors. We all started doing this with women who have struggle getting even intermittent fasting struggle getting into ketosis or they are in ketosis and struggle in this stop losing weight. So we started doing some of these died variation principles and basically it's a hormetic principle when you shift your diet seasonally monthly or weekly it the body has to change and it does it two ways to adapt to this dietary change.
JH and it could be there's many different dietary changes we employ but the hormetic principle is this the body adapts to the change by changing its microbiome all which is part of how we heal really hard to heal guts and it also doesn't with hormone optimization certain hormones get optimized no different than going in and out of hot and cold right, you know, it's we realize that we get this rise in Europe and Efrain arise and growth hormone and you know, but it's short but dietary change in shifts.
Actually last even longer so it's magic right? I mean and again, there's weekly principles monthly principles one of which I just shared with you is just this high carb five days in a row in 4 women right before their period medic can be more random but it works the body adapts to the change and there's a other reasons to ladies the when you're the week before your period. Typically your innate intelligence gives you cravings and you go. I am so good on my diet accept that
week before my period Well, your body's telling you eat carbs. The reason is because it'll rise up insulin and you need insulin for many many hormone conversions in you're making so many hormone conversions the week before your cycle that that rise in insulin becomes magic and then therefore you hormonal optimized and then what happens really is cool is kind of weeks after your cycle every bit of the hormones get better and then the fat burning machine fires up again. So I
That's just one example of some of the principles that we do before the fast because if we employ these diet variation strategies before you fast, we get you more into this ability to experience Max a topology and really that's what we want during the fast. We want your your body using all of its bad cells right during the fast as its energy. So these strategies help you prepare for I call it might occur metabolic mitochondrial Fitness if we can stress your mitochondria, where
You burn fat for energy again and again and again by the time you get to the fast it's a stress of fast is actually a stress it too is a hormetic principle in that if we stress the body magic can happen. But if we do these pre stresses before it man magic really happens when you actually
fast. Okay, so it makes sense that you would want to limit carbohydrates going into a fast to upregulate.
Your ability to be able to enter into a state of ketosis or utilize fatty acids or even upregulate otology during the fast but boots on the streets. What does that look like? Let's say so you and I are recording with days is ait's a Friday. So let's say next Friday, you know week from now. I want to begin a fasting protocol and I want to hear a little bit more about like the length of fast that you recommend but before we get there, what what is it going to look like for me as far as like a typical breakfast lunch dinner or snacking?
Scenario going into my fast.
Yes. Okay. Let's assume most of your listeners are low carb keto paleo something of that sort. You know, your next steps are and I would assume most of your listeners intermittent fasting definitely know about interim and fast. So one of the first things we do is we start squeezing their eating window down, right? Which okay great. You're used to eating in your eight-hour window. Maybe it's a six-hour window, you know meaning
Experiencing a 15 hour fast writer an 18-hour fast whatever it is. Maybe it's 15. Maybe it's you know, 10 hour fast. Who knows but whatever it is. You squeeze it down you're eating window and maybe you start doing more days. We're just eating in a 4-Hour a three-hour window. We even add in one or two days a week randomly. We just eat one meal or you don't eat it. All you just randomly do a fast one day a week, maybe two, but okay, that's great because that's
That's teaching the mitochondria to go without food in you better start to burn fat, you know, because otherwise you're going to die. So it's a little bit of mitochondrial stress a little bit of mitochondrial Fitness there. However, I always say that so that's the fast but if we add feast days we've learned clinically that they're actually as important sometimes more important specially for thyroid people adrenal people hormone challenge people the feast days become more
Port and then the fast days so therefore we add one two and sometimes three feast days. Now A Feast Day can look like a high carb day, you know hundred hundred and fifty two hundred grams of carbs a day depending on the person. It could be a high-protein day why we all because some people say man, I just I don't digest carbs. Well Bubba Bubba, okay do high protein or maybe it's a really high calorie day protein carbs or calories stimulate a pathway that some of your listeners are familiar with
Called it mtor now. There's criticism of mtor from the anti-agers because they say mtor ages you prematurely okay. I agree if you stay high calorie high protein high carb too long, then they're right. It'll stimulate mtor and you will age prematurely but when you do it in these short bursts, it stimulates an anabolic growth pathway that in short bursts is Magic healing occurs and also the body goes. Oh, okay. I'm not in the starve.
In state and it actually fires up fat burning in a topology more. So it's magic when you you know, I interviewed Kristen Verde. She did some stuff on, you know, basically every other day fasting Etc and I asked her the question then I said, you know, Chris is why is it work? What why did every other day Feast famine Feast famine disease famine work better than low fat high fat diets low cal any diet they compared it to why did it work better? She said adaptation because
we're forcing the body to adapt. So the feast famine cycling is a weekly diet variation strategy meaning you could put four to one. You can put too fast days one feast day you could do to feast days to fast days, right and three just regular old keto days whatever diet you're on the point is pick what works for you and your schedule but the variation becomes the magic. Okay, I guess that's a weekly variation.
Monthly variation is what I already told you all is add five days a month of a hive feast day. Now you could do the same thing high carbs that week before your period you could do high-protein try that and then once we get to the fasting State once we actually fast then we add five days of even just low calorie low carb low protein in a month. So now that's really a massive amount of variation. So the point is
is that the variation creates this stress that we need to experience more a topology and therefore more benefit from The Fast and that's what you asked the question. What can someone start doing now just mix it up just like I'm saying monthly and weekly now been we can talk about seasonal variation. I'm telling you those listening. Here's the problem with your listening audience and mine and I say that love in my heart because we are all the same people. We are so disciplined
Times that we don't shift our diets seasonally we just stick to what worked for
us avocados banana coffee around. Yeah.
Okay certain things. Yeah. Okay, do your round I'm with you but the point is is if you can make some massive shifts in your diet seasonally ancient cultures were forced into it. I think we talked about some of these principles on the last when we interviewed last time, but ancient cultures were forced into these massive changes we are
We aren't we tend to eat the same Foods. Oh, but man when you make a shift, I'll go into like some deep ketosis ketosis for a couple months and then I go high healthy carbs, you know, I mean just change it up massively or maybe you do a carnivore diet for a month man. I'm telling you. The magic is in the in the change. We as a group of doctors will tell you when we have someone who can't break through in weight loss resistance or something of that sort. We should we really change up their diet like
Really exaggerated it works.
Hey, I want to interrupt Today's Show to tell you about how you can get some free meat. That's right. Absolutely free me. Not just any meat. We're talking grass-fed grass-finished beef and some of the tastiest
bacon you're ever
going to wrap your teeth around. So what this company does butcher box is they Source free range organic chicken Heritage breed pork which by the way if you've never
Never had Heritage breed pork. You're missing out on what the other white meat is supposed to taste like they've got wild Alaskan salmon. Did I mention bacon? I think I did along with grass-fed grass-finished beef. No antibiotics. No added hormones in any of this meat and what they do is they make it really convenient you get to choose a curated box of whatever type of meats that you desire or you can choose one of their pre-selected boxes. They send all the high quality healthy protein.
Your front door cut out the middleman. So you get it at a fraction of the cost what you pay for this stuff of the butcher or at the grocery store and they're going to give all my listeners $20 off your first box from butcher box and two pounds of free ground, grass-fed grass-finished beef and two packs of their mouth watering bacon. You just go to Butcher box.com / been butcher box.com / been you can also if
Just wind up on the butcher box website use code been 20 been to zero that will get you
20% off of any of the butcher box meet
experiences. And also the $20 off the first box is accompanied with your two pounds of ground beef and your two packs of bacon. They just toss those in for free this podcast is also brought to you by what I would consider to be is one of the smartest water websites out there. So Robert Slovak a pioneer.
In water filtration technology in a well-known figure in the water treatment industry. I think we he's one of the smartest water cats out there. He has developed this website that has things like hypertonic mineral plasma. It's got 78 different trace minerals and elements in it. He's got these wonderful hydrogen tablets that are formulated to give you a really high parts per million of hydrogen in your water, which is amazing for sleep for energy for your mitochondrial health for modulating inflammation.
And he has basically just assembled kind of hand curated the best of the best things to upgrade your water on his website water and wellness. So he's going to get 15% off of to all my listeners. You got to water and wellness.com Greenfield water and wellness.com Greenfield. They'll get you 15 percent off your order alternatively if you can't remember that whole URL just go to his website use the code Greenfield check out that will also get you 15% off.
And you're gonna have a lot of fun. It's a really really cool way to make your water super duper healthy. So check out Roberts website water and wellness.com, Greenfield.
We talked about that a lot last time about these ancestral cultures that probably still have a great deal of their genetic adaptations woven into our DNA when it comes to not just periods of time spent in a catabolic phase and cycling between anabolism and catabolism mtor switching on and mtor switching off. But then also changes in the macro nutrient composition based on the availability of let's say, you know seeds nuts berries and tubers versus large game animals.
Fish and you know, you see this in many cultures and it just makes sense. And I think we're also blessed and that we can order from Amazon and Thrive market and our grocery store can bring Stephanie around but but yeah, they're not only physiological implications of that being a little bit of an evolutionary mismatch. But then of course, you know that aside there's even the environmental impact right? I think that the more that we can eat locally the more we're going to be selecting naturally seasonal.
Available foods and the less of an impact we're going to make on the planet when we are using lots of jet fuel to just get the same Foods in because we're reading the same thing for breakfast lunch and dinner year-round, you know, even even my dad. For example, he's a he practices Eastern Orthodox fasting and it's very intensive and he has periods of the Year where there's a great amount of protein restriction or dairy restriction or meat restriction and then other periods where he's able to Feast on these these amazing meals will rich in
Tina and perhaps more modern example of that would be I interviewed the guys from from the wild Health Physician Network Mike Mullen and Matt Dawson a few weeks ago and they talked a lot about how in their in their patients. They'll they'll almost kind of try to simulate some of these longevity studies such as the recent one where they were pulsing DHEA and growth hormone and Metformin and they'll take a strategy like that but also pair it with like a food and exercise driven anabolic cycle where there's harder.
Outs weight training increases in growth hormone hormone higher carbon take less fasting with periods of catabolism or it's more like, you know sauna walking Sunshine yoga protein restriction calorie restriction and compressed feeding windows. So it does make sense. I know you lay it out pretty well in the book. And so the general approaches is you fat adapt going into the fast and what about, you know, not to return to like Peter T is nothing but
Her approach. What about after the fast? I mean, you know, it's just so so he'll continue in nutritional ketosis even without the calorie restriction from the fast, but he'll continue to keep nutritional ketosis after the fast too. I guess he's himself out of the fast, but what do you look at regarding the post fasting
State? Yeah, you have to ease your way out, you know, and what I recommend is a five-day fast, we'll talk about why in a moment, but I have taken people through some very long fast, right and again the
The bigger the person the longer the fast they can do in sometimes need to do but you how you break the fast for the especially then the next two days. So if you're fasting five days day six and seven or critical that you go lower calorie, so we lower the calories down depending on your body size and I do discuss that in the book but you know somewhere under a thousand five to eight hundred will just say that the day one
Back eating so that would be technically day 6 and then the next day maybe 800 to a thousand calories, you know, so we he's the caloric intake up. Why because your enzymes in your gut are really low on purpose you it's in a rested state so you don't want to just you know, it's kind of like laying on your couch and you're half asleep and you know, and then you start doing sprints in the yard, you know, you're probably going to pull something so you don't want to do that. Also, you don't want to
just throw, you know dense proteins down your gut. So we wait a couple days before we add meat sin.
I want to interrupt you real quick before you get on the raw veggies which might be the same logic behind the protein, but would that be because of a digestive enzyme sluggishness or like what would be the actual reason that you wouldn't eat a heftier complex?
Even your microbiome remember during a faster starving down good and bad bacterias and they're kind of in a little hibernation.
Out you need certain bacteria to make even enough HCL. So your hcl's lower other digestive enzymes are a little lower and sluggish so we want to give them easy to digest foods right like avocados some berries. I mean these softer Foods if you know Blended vegetables steamed vegetables, if you just eat it like a raw vegetable like, you know, big salad people get some stomach aches or you some raw broccoli forget about
it. Now. I want to play Devil's Advocate though damn because you
So if you look at this from an ancestral standpoint and let's say, you know someone from the Spokane Indian tribe up around where I'm at is hunting large animal for days or a herd of animals for days and comes across that kill and is able to harvest the animal from the data. I've seen or at least see the anecdotes I've seen epidemiologically they would then go into a great feast where they're going to cook that animal and
It and have lots of it and break the fast with a pretty hefty meal. Now. I'm not saying that they might not have had some amount of digestive distress afterwards, but couldn't you make an argument from an ancestral standpoint that that you could break your FAFSA like a giant ribeye steak a bunch of bone broth some organ meats, you know plants berries tumors. It's so so what do you think about this from an ancestral standpoint?
Yeah. So I love that question because you know my son Daniel right? Very healthy young man.
And he you know, he just jumps right? I'm he all of my children. I have five have fasted many many times and you know, he just jumped right in after a fast and he got away with it. Right and then my other child did not and did not get away with it. So two different people, but you know, I think the healthier you are to your point and let me even say it this way the more you fast my son Daniel.
A lot of fasting he's done for day drive fast. We'll
talk about that in a minute out. That was you know,
he's 21. He'll be 22 here soon in a month. So he's done a lot of fasting. I think the more fasting you do like some, you know ancestral tribe. So to speak where they're forced into these long periods. Listen the body can adapt to anything they are going to be able to adapt to that and get used to that. They're you know, they're just their microbiomes are just Stellar I mean, so
So the average American I you can you know more people right now in our society are not going to adapt to that massive food chain, and they're going to regret it. Yeah, so, you know, that's the that's really the issue. I you know, I have broken my fast too. I mean, I'm healthy. I have broken it too fast and he ate certain things. I you know, I got I get a stomachache little indigestion, you know, but I don't want to put myself in that environment. I want my microbiome to you know, start feeding. I want to feed my stuff.
Cells. I don't want to add the stress. I just came out of the stress. So, you know breaking the fast is really important to just keep maximizing the results.
So it would kind of depend I guess on whether or not you're willing to potentially put up with a little bit of digestive distress. I personally like I really dig breaking it fast with a big celebratory meal and and honestly, I pop some digestive enzymes and I feel pretty good doing that and and and again like I'll use bio jest or masses.
Signs or you know, some some kind of good enzyme with some proteolytic sand things like that.
You can absolutely biohack it with a Sim, you know with some enzymes that that band that does work and that would work for you and I for sure if you're sick and challenged it's not going to work for even the enzymes. I mean, I'll how do I know these things because again, clinically I fast a lot of people thousands of people sick and challenge people slower is better, you know, again healthier people throw some enzymes in with it. Yeah, you'll get away with it.
Okay, so when it comes to the actual fasted self what you get into your flavor of a fasting protocol, are you eating or consuming anything at all? When you're fasting including water? Like what's your approach the actual fasting window
itself? Yeah, there's in the book. I give people choices of different types of fast, right and one of which is just pure water. There's Magic Eye we experience when we
Measure, you know how we look at a tapa G we get the best results. I would say at apogee Wise from a pure water fast, but often times that's not where we start people your first fast could be a partial fast where we just get calories depending on body size under a thousand. You have to keep your protein under 20, depending on body size of your very small maybe under 15 because that breaks you out of a topology. If you eat too much protein, you'll slow or break out of a tough edgy if you eat too many calories, you won't get
kattappa G so but you know so you get a tapa G via this partial fast so that's an option bone broth fasting is technically a partial fast the nice thing about partial fasting number one it's not as psychologically hard it's like oh I can still eat you can take products supplements when you're doing a pure water fat you can drink coffee and tea if you'd like right that's a lot better but when you're doing a water fast you know it's best to do nothing
except maybe some sea salt to maintain electrolytes but really you're in full Reliance on the innate intelligence you get also something that I call Energy diversion on a pure water fast where the body has massive energy to heal with its diverting the energy would normally you take to digest and assimilate food which is a tremendous amount of energy and now it has this extra energy it doesn't just layer and sit on it know it
It's that energy in starts driving it into healing. I mean you might day 3 of a fast water fast all of a sudden have this knee pain and like gosh why is my knee ache? I injured this knee 20 years ago, you know, it's kind of like what's happened here with this quarantine, right? All of a sudden we have extra time. Our hands were looking at our cupboards and you know, we're looking at our closets going. Oh, you know, I'm just going to start fixing this and you jump into things you never had time to fix and now you have a little bit extra time and energy in your
Or fixing it. So, you know, that's what happens during a pure water fast massive amounts of energy that you can it can divert towards healing. But anyways, partial fasting still gets a topology still a great tool. I'm going to be honest with you I do about four five day water fast a year. I'm sorry. I do for five-day fasi or I do too partial and I do to water now. I'm going to tell you I prefer the water fasting is easier for me. Why because I'm that guy.
and this is not everybody I'm that guy once I start eating it's kind of hard to stop so it's like I literally when I do it I have to do like shakes and just like okay this is the shake I'm going to do you know at two o'clock and one at six o'clock and that's it you know and I have to have it all calorie doubt and protein doubt and figure it out otherwise if I'm if I'm just doing little bits of food I just want to keep eating and even after I drink my shake I want another one you know so water I lose
you know after a couple days I'm done I'm just I don't even have appetite anymore I definitely not hunger so you know you can choose your
fast now are you taking regardless of whether doing a water fast or a bone broth fast or partial fast like a fasting mimicking diet for example are you taking any type of supplements to accelerate otology or enhance the benefits of a fast whether that meat might be something like Berberian or metformin or whether it be like you mentioned
some kind of a mineral supplement I know that many people will Fast for some of the detoxification benefits so there are like binders that you can take I mean what would a supplementation stack look like for you when it comes to fasting
well in a water fast I love just water and sea salt right and I could fast even without sea salt my body's used to fasting but many of you lose a lot of electrolytes because you dumped a lot of stored glucose and
electrolytes if you have electrolyte that without sugar great take it or just take sea salt you know and if you can do it without any supplements do it now in the book I talk about the fasting Trio where did that come from you know my doctors and myself we fast a lot of people with a lot of health challenges and to your point you release a lot of toxins because of a toppity so more toxic people a lot of their symptoms during a fast the severe headaches you know the
massive brain fog dizziness all of that stuff yes it could be caused by the lack of electrolytes so replace them however a lot of its toxin related so a binder that sits in the gut we utilize called bind it sits in the gut and just grabs toxins that get dumped into the bile that gets dumped into your gut and you just reabsorb it reabsorb it and just makes you feel like crap so bind is one another one's Saito detox which you use and we talked about on past shows it is a binder in and around
body systemically but it's a particle so it's not like you're eating food so it works to mitigate a lot of those symptoms and then one other one is something you talked about on your show its molecular hydrogen and molecular hydrogen down regulates something called hydroxy free radicals that raised up with toxic people when they fast so if we knock those down actually by the way molecular hydrogen is also shown to increase the topology and a fasting state so it's a product that works
it really well for that I don't know if you sell one on your site been but people can grab
them for hydrogen yeah I am I go around there like I get some Quicksilver there's another company called water and wellness that has some good ones but but yeah I mean most hydrogen tablets the ingredients are pretty minimal and they're pretty similar from tablet
tablet yeah so I mean you can add that so the point though is that the to mitigate a lot of the symptoms using some of these binders is Magic and we called it the fasting Trio
Okay so
So the fasting Trio by the way, you're saying that's the binder the hydrogen tablets won't
that's the Saito bind and we call it fast tonic, which is a molecular hydrogen put the three together it really for people who get symptoms during fasting there. There's your answer at a little you know, some sea salt 2 teaspoons of sea salt a day bam and you're going to change a
lot of your fasting State. Okay. Wait, you said Saito bind is one the hydrogen tablets are another
Saito detox is one bind as the second. Okay, and then fast
Fast tonic is the third. That's the
trio. Okay goddess. Those would be the three that you use when you're when you're fasting
for your audience. Just well will link those and do something special for your audience. You talked to Ashley will make that happen will add the link here.
So, okay. All right. Got it. I'll put it in the show notes at been grateful tennis.com fast with Dan now someone could theoretically use something like I don't know activated charcoal for example or something like that if they were in a pinch.
right yeah if they were to pinch I mean look I die test binders you know a lot of the charcoals on the markets especially the some of the better ones that come from dirt they're contaminated carbons hold toxins so many of them are contaminated we test them they're contaminated so I'm a big believer in always always always test binders specially carbons in those sorts but yeah and then there's different grades to write the the what the carbon that's in bind it is
a super activated carbon Pharmacy grade it's an amazing binder but yeah I mean if you have a carbon Folks at home that you're accustomed to you can use that in a bind but the bind product has four different binders in it you know want even that comes from a tree in Africa and there's some pretty cool binders in it because you don't you want multiple binders reason your body will dump organic toxins you know things like biotoxins right mole
A biotoxin infections or biotoxins it'll dump those things you need specific binders for that. It'll bind it'll drop heavy metals. That's inorganic toxin. Well different binders work for that. So, you know it you want multiple binders really to be
effective. Okay. Got it. Now, what about anything aside from supplements? Like I talked earlier about how you've got a hyperbaric chamber last time. I visit you. I just wanted the airport. You have me stick wrecked on at my ass or hurt. I'm sorry. I'm sorry wrecked on.
Ozone of my up my my ass rectal delivery of ozone, which I guess you could call wrecked own. I just I just coined a new term. So in terms of any a biohacker things that you might be using to enhance a fasting protocol you messing around and i stuff.
Yeah. I like recto ozone. I'm going to use that that Ben Ben Greenfield coined it recta oza erecto that says own in the butt. But yeah. No, that's that would be a great thing. Right? I mean you're going to increase your oxygen that
Sarah singlet oxygen is going to break off into the blood and it's going to up regulate some of your immune cells. That's awesome. And it's not like you're taking anything to do it. Now. A lot of people will ask about saunas. If you're healthy saunas, no problem. A lot of unhealthy people though, then fasting State they get in a sauna and they want to pass out. They feel worse. It kills them for two days. So just be cautious. I'm okay with saunas if you're if you're able to do them, so take it.
Slow and Low I'm asked about exercise even during fasting state if you're healthy no problem. I can exercise no problem. However, even though I can in many of you can't you just don't have the energy stores so it's too much stress and if you don't adapt to stress, it's not a good stress, but even though I can exercise I don't because I want and this is we're talking longer fast here day fast. Do you know no problem at all, but a longer fast I want that.
Gee that extra energy that I talked about that the body will divert into healing I want it to go to healing and not you know, just towards the exercise so you know it but day 5 of my fast when growth hormone is it is highest point. I always exercise on day five and take advantage of that hormone, you know, because you have a maximum growth hormone rise right at that day five and then I'll couple hours later hour later. I'll break my fast on day 5, so, you know, I mean, so what you do during the
there's a lot of other fun by Oaks I think red light therapy is fantastic. It's not as stressful as a full-blown sauna. So to speak I think that's great. I'm trying to think of things that people would have access to Ben help me and you can ask the question. Is that good during the fast?
Yeah. Well, I think some of these things that would enhance her up regulate the increase in stem cell mobilization. We know occurs during a fast would probably be if you had access to them useful, you know, particularly.
For Barak pulsed electromagnetic field tables or units would probably help out a little bit because those can induce a little bit of a release from bone marrow anything that would upregulate detox Pathways, you know, like the red light therapy or some type of sauna protocol. And then I also think anything that would upregulate mitochondrial biogenesis or activity of cytochrome oxidase like photons from light or infrared light therapy long walks in the sunshine grounding earthing. Well, that's it.
Yeah, I think most of the stuff is pretty straightforward things people would already do in general for mitochondrial health or for detoxification. But but what I would say is even more important, you know regarding the exercise piece of things is you know, if we step back and look at it from a physiological standpoint, we know that glycogen reserves are going to be pretty affected by a fast liver and muscle glycogen. And so, you know for me it comes down to sauna easy walks yoga a little bit of
cold soaking even though you get a huge amount of glycogenolysis during cold soaks you got to be careful with excess use of the cold and then anything from a training or a cardio standpoint that would rely more on the phosphor genic than the glycolytic system meaning if you're going to lift weights you're doing three sets of five reps super quick explosive and heavy or if you're going to do interval training we know the body kicks into glycolysis somewhere between about 20 and 30 seconds right so you might do
do 10 seconds super hard on an aerodyne and then four minutes of active recovery peddling a might do three or four rounds of thats just these quick bursts of exercise if it's cardio and quick bursts of power if its strength and I think if you combine that with walking little bit of sauce on a little bit of yoga a little bit of cold you know your kind of stringing together a pretty good self-care protocol during the fast that's also not going to deplete you from an adrenal standpoint or even from an
Standpoint which is actually I wanted to touch on immunity since it sends it's relevant to what we're talking about right now. But before we do anything you wanted to add in to close the loop. Yeah. Yeah. I know.
It's amazing right because your audience I read everything you said. I'm 100% in agreement with when you're dealing with my audience is typically people seeking to get their health back. Right and it's they literally they don't have the energy to do that.
That they're just surviving in the fast which is okay. You want that healing to go to that energy to go to Healing so, you know, just if you're healthy and you know, that's what you do normally in your, you know have no big health challenges everything been you were talking about fantastic. If you're not and you do have health challenges take the energy and just drive it to Healing like I love doing what you said, right? I love doing some hot cold, you know, but again, my body adapts to that and it
it's a plus challenge you know unhealthy people they do that they just they can't make it through their day so you know been you know your audience is very different than mine so we have to just be cautious with the advice that we give each audience hoaxes less than to be known that you know there's two ways of doing it there
yeah I want to touch on women and I want to touch on kids too because your wife fast and your kids I think all of them fast but before we do
we'd be remiss not to discuss the impact of fasting on immunity just because so many people are asking about all right now during the Corona virus pandemic so what's your take on fasting when it comes to whether or not it's something we should avoid in terms of excess stress from a community
standpoint
Yeah, you know and again right right now is critical, you know, when we talk about, you know, kind of two answers in one here all my children actually organize their own fast because of the coronavirus right because they, you know, they are overheard me talking about it. You know, I was reading an article article about the immuno senescence cells and putting people at risk for Coronavirus and
they basically said that we're going too fast right and they just and that was probably even before it was really known that okay this isn't even that dangerous this virus for kids right but they jumped in and organize their own little fast they fasted for five days just water why why would you do that for immunity because during a fast you're getting rid of these hyperactive senescent immune cells that cause inflammation in actually increase your risk and when you fast your
relating a stem cell and you're creating a new immune cell that is Vigilant it is the perfect guard for your immune system that new brand new cell so we're recreating our immune systems with a fast so that's what they did you know there's a microbiome connection here to you know real immunity I mean it really does start the gut right I mean I everyone listening knows that now I mean even yogurt commercial seventy percent of your immune system starts in your gut well I can tell you that we don't fix
really bad guts in microbiome by just eating a bunch of bacteria if we're only so easy we do it by this hormetic principal stressing it so those died variation strategies that I talked about earlier changing your diet going feast days famine days that's actually the key for changing the microbiome for better so when you look at all of the testing right now around the microbiome that's gotten better there's the Vaio
intestine you know there's others there's one thing we really learn from it all because it's really realized that okay we thought were going to be able to do these tests and identify bad guys and kill them and get better at didn't work out like that but we did take away is the difference between a Ben Greenfield or a doctor Pompa in someone's struggling in their health in their microbiome that is is diversity you know Ben and we actually had our microbiome are
Looked at by the same really smart scientist, and she said oh my gosh, you and Ben Greenfield have the most diverse bacteria out of any I've looked at and you know, there's a reason for that. But yeah, she was amazed by our diversity which diversity equals immunity just so, you know, the more diverse your bacteria the healthier you are the healthier immune system. So, you know, what did Ben and I do to get that diversity, you know, we do a lot of these fasting things in terms.
And fasting you know, so yes that creates diversity which creates immunity so real immunity actually does start in the gut and everything we're talking about with fasting is really the way that you fix this diversity. By the way, when you change your diet seasonally, we know that part of that adaptation carnivore diet, you know vegan diet or maybe you go to send to a keto diet into a high carb diet. Is that the adaptation occurs in part by A diversity.
The microbiome that occurs when your body has to go. Oh, these are fibrous Foods now. I was just eating all meat and fat. Boom all of a sudden it starts to upregulate new bacteria. And when you switch again anyways creates a diversity the more shifts you have in your diet, therefore creates a better immunity fasting States. We are genetically programmed of times of fasting. So every time you fast you stress your bacteria in your gut and it creates more diverse.
Ersity as a matter of fact your microbiome actually resets literally. I mean it's the way to reset your microbiome and it creates diversity. So really real immunity starts in the
gut. I have different thoughts on the immunity component honestly and and the more data I see the more I'm convinced that fasting during the coronavirus may not be the best idea because if you look at fasting and viruses in particular, right and
compare and contrast that with bacterial infections we know that viruses do things like you know rapidly deplete selenium values and a lot of other nutrients but in particular selenium we know that in rodent models there's almost like this hyper cortisol looks slightly inflammatory response to fasting then there's also the mtor piece you know that when you look at blocking mtor it also reduces this different is transmembrane proteins interferon
inducible transmembrane protein and that seems to also be something that could make you more susceptible to viruses and you seem to see the opposite when you look at fasting like like in terms of bacterial infections right so fasting and bacterial infections we see good activity of the Ketone beta-hydroxybutyrate on some of these bacterial infections we see better phagocytosis so you've got a better ability to be able to engulf and destroy a lot of these pathogenic bacterial cells and you also
Emily and you don't see as much of a viral infection but with a bacterial infection you also see a real drop in appetites you know suggesting that that maybe just from an ancestral standpoint our body's telling us not to eat when you have a bacterial infection versus a viral infection like a flu or you know even though the common cold is a Corona virus type of thing so I personally think the answer depends on whether it's virus versus
bacteria well you know what I read that study actually there's one study out there on rodents that showed that however on my desktop I have
three others that showed the opposite and there was reasons why and when you look at the body actually and again humans the way what they did in that study the number of days and the stress that they put them under I think partly change the result however I will say in this was my advice you know to my doctors listen to the innate intelligence so for example when you get a flu which is a virus most of us actually lose appetite whether
one day two days three days you know and then when your appetite comes back it typically comes back virosa SLI you know and then it's time to eat again however when you're older and you get a flu oftentimes the opposite reaction happens where you're actually hungry and by the way that's exactly what we're seeing with the crown of our some people lose appetite completely some people actually gain hunger my advice is listen to your innate intelligence because the body knows what it's doing and what it needs so far
follow your innate on that you know in and again even with certain bacterial infections it can go opposite directions on you so there is an innate intelligence in our bodies in listen to it we can't just look at one rat study and go oh fasting is not good or the opposite fasting is good right we can't do that you know we have to be able to you know look at eons of what our bodies instinctively want to do and kind of Follow that so there's my advice
yeah and it's also possible if you look in a
cortisol response depletion of selenium and inhibition of mtor being the three main mechanisms via which fasting may not be beneficial for the immune system during a virus some of them might be able to be skirted right you can supplement with selenium you could do you could do some of those brief intermittent exercise things the idea would be then you could like take some selenium you could trigger and tour via some brief high-intensity exercise sessions which we mentioned earlier and then perhaps from the from the cortisol standpoint
Point you'll get adequate sleep meditation yoga prayer family relationships Etc and you may actually be able to skirt some of the some of the proposed issues with fasting and a viral infection
you know you know you know one thing I've learned man you know just studying all this stuff for so many years what seems right to man and what seems right with the knowledge base that we have isn't always right you know it's amazing how often I learn something and I go oh gosh yeah I made so much sense
and I look back and go but it's simply just wasn't true you know it's just crazy that's why you know that's why I fall in the innate intelligence is the best thing if you're hungry eat you know specially if you're really hungry if you lose your appetite don't you know and then you know we are talking about there's different strategies for prevention than different strategies if you actually get the virus right you know so you know just that's how confusing it can be so listening to your body yeah best thing to
do
okay now a couple other things like we mention your kids fast and they done as you alluded to some pretty intensive fast now what are what are your thoughts on kids and fasting when you say this is just for kids with extra fat stores would you say it's something kids need to be careful with I mean my my own kids don't do a lot of fasting you know they're these skinny ass twelve-year-old boys who would probably waste away after a day or two a fasting they're so thin and lean and active but I want to get your take on fast
because you know as as a young father I'm still trying to wrap my head around it and I know you walked your own children through fasting protocols so what wisdom do you have to share for folks about kids and fasting
yeah you know in Europe fasting kids is more acceptable than here in the US but yeah I mean kids are in a growth state right kids can even eat multiple times a day kids can get away with a lot more because they are in this growth spurt spurt and state you know
is one day of fasting a benefit to a kid I think it is unless the kid is in an obese state I don't think longer fasting or necessary obviously certain health conditions could you know be exceptions to any rule here but normal healthy kids yeah I mean if they go a day without eating I'm sure it's darn good for them now my in my book I talk about my youngest son Simon he was gay I think it was 13 at the time
and he was the kid that didn't follow the pump protocol very typical when you're going to have kids right your first one especially I mean you're like on it man I mean everything right you know and if God forbid if they fall down the steps you're running over there by the fifth one when they fall down the steps you like yah right any blood now okay yeah you'll be all right you know and then you're definitely not paying attention to their diet they'll figure it out the other ones did anyways so he was my carb addicted child overweight child and hands
up with these little psoriasis patches that are forming on him and I'm trying to get him to change his diet of course he won't so and then he sees I'm preparing for a talk and he sees a PowerPoint of a before and after of this girl who had severe psoriasis I mean horrible picture but then the after picture was very different and she said he said what is that and I said oh yes she has psoriasis that's this patches that you have right you know and your hair and up here and he's like oh and he like walked out of the room and
came back well what did she do I said well she fasted and you know she did the cellular detoxes well but she fasted you know several fasts and that's how it fixed it and then he walked out of the room came back again said okay I'm going too fast and I'm like oh yeah okay great he's going too fast my car predicted child well he made it through he said how long should I go I said five days I'm like okay he made it through the first day I was stunned and then he made it through day to which I was really
really stunned and then we were traveling to New York my wife and I so he made a goal that he's going to break his fast when we got back in a couple days and it was probably easier for him because we you know we're gone and he had that goal right and we and Mom wasn't there you know to take care of him just as brothers older brothers who are so yeah that was easy he didn't want to eat their cooking anyways so he makes it when we get back and by this time he's kind of over the hump and lost his hunger is now feeding from his body and all his
yeah fat stores that he had anyways he ends up going 11 days and it's because he just kept saying his more better is more better you know and he saw himself shrinking honestly I well it fixed not only the psoriasis he never got it back but it fixed his carb addiction if you saw my son now he's 16 and thin and shape and thin as a rail I been did you see him last time you were here did you see the fat Simon of the skinny Simon
I saw both the fat Simon in the skinny Simon and
was pretty profound I mean II thought and no no offense but I literally thought you sent him off to fat camp or something I mean the the change from the time I saw him and and then when I showed up at your house and saw him again I mean he was a lean mean machine and it's crazy because what I understand like he didn't vastly change his exercise protocol or anything like that like he just passed it
yeah I've no I can't get him to exercise you know that's the next step but yeah no he fasted and it literally broke his addiction which is another amazing thing fasting does
it concern with him about you know something like bone density or hormones or anything like that with with with someone who's still in their growth phases like that doing it fast
yeah great question I mean not not when a kid is over way like that you know it because remember this the body is utilizing its stores it's getting nutrition oh he
plenty of it you know I case in point I you know a kid like that will need more nutrition and therefore that's why he was like the fast shrinking machine you know because his body needed more so but it got it you know it's as psoriasis obviously he was in a greater state of health and by the way his energy changed everything changed after that fast I had a guy he came to one of my seminars he was the he was a patient of one of my doctors and he was on a hundred and twenty one days
of fasting now this guy was morbidly obese and he was on 14 medications when he started the fast by the time he got to my seminar he was off the medications with his doctor by the way his doctor was blessing this fast because they were following him they were stunned one of the things they did is looked at all his nutrition markers and every possible way they could measure it and of course they were looking at all these inflammatory markers everything and as the fast one on the longer it went on the better his
Nutrition markers became like how is that possibly wasn't eating anything. He was just drinking water. Well, you know again, it just shows you it's counterintuitive often times to what we think right? It's the the nutrition he had what was creating the imbalances as was a lot of cellular issues and as the he was healing is nutrition was actually in his body was actually getting better. He was able to come off as medications his brain balance time. He lifted out of a
Eight state of depression it went in my seminar. I was talking about how to know when to break an extended fast and it's amazing. I've talked a little bit about in intelligence the body intuitively. I said, you will start to get hungry, you know. Well, you know, I look at food I get 99 that's appetite hungers different. It's an are rolling in the deep pit of your stomach. You'll know the difference and I said your weight loss will also start to slow down to wear it.
doesn't happen anymore that means your body stop the etapa G so these are all signs to break the fast well it was about a week after he left the seminar that he started getting those signs and there was some other that I talked about his tongue was like really multiple colors black green I went through the fast and another size when your tongue goes back to regular pingtung time to break the fast and all of that stuff was happening to him and he broke the fast but the point there is really that the the innate intelligence
gets its nutrition and improves its nutrition in a fasting State now again you have to have the body stores right I mean a skinny child like my other ones are yours you know there's just no need and you know there's obviously the body would tap into you know even your skinny child has fat stores let's be clear you know probably even you know twenty thirty thousand stored calories you and I been have at least 50 60 you know thousand calorie stored in
bat right it's just in in in between our organs so we have the fat stores to survive on so even kids last a fasting State and even you know even if they fasted three to five days it's the body will find what it needs even in a skinny child I just don't recommend it I just don't think it's a need
yeah I'm kind of on the same page you know and an extreme point would be that morbidly obese man who you can find stories about who fasted for over 300 days and was able to do so
because of the massive amount of energy in storage and nutrients that he had in his fat tissue I think if you have a very obese kid that they could probably get away with the fasting protocol that's well-structured and perhaps even includes like some minerals on a multivitamin versus you know again you know perfect example you my skinny ass 12 year old boys they just don't need to fast they don't there's there's aside from perhaps the spiritual and physical discipline type of benefits they get from it from a physiological or a health standpoint
Don't really need to be fasting but I do think that it can be implemented successfully and there are some some ancestral examples of kids who who have been on fasting protocols. I don't necessarily think abstinence from food and drink for Spiritual purposes. It's you know, especially is an issue if it's well-structured and if if a kid is definitely having it position in a way that's not going to create something like an eating disorder. I just think it's really it's really kind of like a fine wine.
Line, but I think it depends on the kid and it depends on honestly their state of fatness to a certain extent.
Yeah. Yeah, and I don't know that fasting creates an eating disorder, but I recommend never eating someone who has an eating disorder not too fast. I definitely don't recommend it for any eating disorder. But you know, yeah, it's, you know, you did talk about the ancestral thing that are you know, and of course there's times when you know tribes their kids we were forced into fasting and
Sure, they benefited from it but you know, they were they would feed the kids in those States. They would actually feed the kids before the adults. Right? So, you know, but if they were forced to all go without food or very little the kids were able to do it. Of course, you know, they were able to adapt their their kids they
adapt. Yeah, and then just one other thought is that you know, and I'm implementing with my kids right now because we're going through a book on spiritual disciplines you can you can train a child to gain some of the
mental discipline that an adult would get from fasting with technology fasts with Lego fast with video games. Yeah, like like there are ways that you can get some of the mental and spiritual benefits without it being a straight food fast. So just something to think about it and we certainly Incorporated that with our kids and had certain period of time where you know, we just have days where okay is that with Elizabeth or day and we're going to we don't tell them to do anything but we encourage them to get Outdoors. We're not going to do Legos today. We're going all out.
right have it certain thing that we abstain from on X Y or Z day of the week now what about women in the reason I ask this is I know your wife Marilyn has had a lot of success with fasting however I also know that there's a lot of evidence that for example kiss Peyton one of the hormones it's necessary for gonadotropin hormone release and maintenance of luteinizing follicle-stimulating hormone a lot of a lot of advantages fertility parameters that seems to be deleterious
mostly affected with excess fasting in women which is why generally there's kind of a recommendation going around that women stick close to like a 10 to 12 hour intermittent fasting window where men can get away with 12 to 16 hour and fast we know that lean and active females tend to develop almost like a something very similar to an athletic Triad syndrome you know with low bone density and and a minute area for example in a state of excess fasting or excess calorie restriction and it also appears that some of the longevity benefit seem to differ whether
Premenopausal in which case excess passing teams to be detrimental versus postmenopausal probably because the hormone piece where it doesn't seem to be as detrimental. So so how do you kind of weave through the deal with women and fasting and how it might be different?
Yeah, you know, I think that this is the where the variation and what you do ahead of it even matters more, you know, so I say people that are hormonal e challenged and women in general do better with more variation in their diet to your point.
You know staying in ketosis men can do it a lot longer lower carb a lot longer women on the other hand absolutely need more feast days a week. And as I pointed out even monthly they just Thrive and I what I found out to is even seasonally they thrive on more changes in the diet higher carb times. So if you do these variations when it does come down to fast, it changes all the rules, you know, so I had you know in my doctor group does
Germany pelts who has a pretty large following that was her she couldn't even do ketosis that long without hormonal detrimental effects and let alone fasting intermittent fasting wasn't working for when she start adding adding in the diet variation strategies Game Changer game changer for her and it just transformed even now when she fast it's like a breeze for her the same thing happened to my wife you know what she just needed more of the variation and then when she did Fast
that game changer so I think a lot of that concept comes out of hormonal e unhealthy American women and yeah it's not going to go well right so but you need that's why you need the strategies I offer in my book you know when I visited the tribe is it a tribe in Africa hunting Gathering tribe and you know these this tribe was actually when I saw it was shortly after they came out of the deep mountains and they were on a long fast and they were
forced into it in many even the other tribes in that area but again the women they were forced to fast and I made the point that you know what they gather and what they find will give to the kids you know but the women are were typically the ones who would fast the best in the easiest in that tribe as I found out you know the men would have to go out for long long Journeys and you know needed even a little more sometimes than the women but you know so I think that when it's done correctly with the
creation in the feasts were all designed we're all genetically designed to fast we are you know and again the variations the
magic so in terms of merrily how how would like a month of her fasting protocol look like right now and and you could share I know if she cares if you share with you know whether she's pretty or Perry or postmenopausal or what exactly
she's doing yeah no she's she's pre you know and she's 52 so she's younger than I but you know she
absolutely she loves a fat fasting now my wife will tell you is that since the time I've known her right she is like I can go through a fast and I'm not hungry she's not hungry but eating is very emotional for my wife she'll tell you that she gets happy when she thinks about you know her morning coffee everyone I have people going yes that's me too she gets happy when she thinks about food so you just kind of want to stay away from my wife during a fast
and she gets a little hangry but actually she's gotten better and she'd be poking me in the ribs right now if she was here I've gotten better you know but there's an emotional component of eating with her but you know it's very easy for her to fast you know it's not like she gets you know severe energy losses or anything like that she goes about her day and yes it transforms her I mean a month after a fast you know she just gets more muscular and that's just because the etapa jeez
I'm cell connection you know your body goes into a repair State and you get new muscle cells and recovery and she's hormonal e optimize so fasting for her has been a hormonal optimization but again she you know she does it right I mean she goes in to these anabolic states of eating in between she does high carbs at the right times for periods of time she's not always low carb diet so she really mixes it up well
she she probably mixes it up better than me which is because she falls in her intelligence she really knows what she needs
yeah no well I mean your whole family is a perfect example of kind of living I mean you know you guys drive nice cars you live in a cool house usual these bio hacks but you're perfect example of family it's tapping into a lot of these ancestral tactics as well and this whole Feast famine cycling and I do respect that like when I come hang out with you guys you know sometimes I'll show up and it's just like what's for breakfast nothing what's for lunch
oh and we're going to go to this amazing Italian restaurant for dinner and celebrate and have an amazing meal and here's the supplements you take beforehand and you know come back and you know maybe maybe hit a hyperbaric chamber and I mean you guys have a really cool life that you've set up and I don't want to blow smoke but you and your kids and your wife like like you look good you're healthy and you just look very very vibrant and fit and I know that a big part of that and you guys are known for this within the health communities that the pomp of family is the
and family and you know eventually once my kids are older I do plan on beginning to teach them a little bit more about actual food fasting but I certainly look up to you guys as a really good example the family who has cracked the code on how to do this right and and this book just kind of puts it all together
and Betty you know it's funny yeah we are known for that but like you know and when you know us closely you know it's like you would say holy cow they are also a feasting family
we know how to eat into your point though as far as why fasting successful is fasting got very popular and I think the women got hit the hardest hormonal e challenge people got hit the hardest with keto low carb and fasting strategies because the variation needs to be there and I think that's what's missing and that's what we do really well as a family man we Feast we Feast we fast we fast and it is that variation that
really has led to great success and we've duplicated that you know in many many people around the world and the feasts are as important as the fast remember that
yeah yeah well I think people are going to dig this book and I don't think that now this book is available on Amazon right
not yet we because wait I don't have it we haven't went with the publisher yet on purpose we're just launched it to my clothes following so you're now we're sharing it with your
so I has even gone through professionally editing yet so it's just a new launch and as you know what it means to have a book it was still added to 3 times still mistakes but professional lighting will happen when we go with the publisher but you got y'all can get it I've made been you know gave we set up a special offer for y'all so there you
go yeah I've got a I've got a 15% discount code on the book and then I'm going to also get some links to everything we talked about like dr. John Lawrence is website because I'll be doing a podcast with him previous podcasts I don't see that
because you were talking about earlier some of the supplements you talked about and then of course the book itself so all of that is going to be over at Ben Greenfield fitness.com fast with Dan in addition to the other two podcast that I did with dance whether you guys are going to find a lot of good stuff over there and damn thank you for your time man for coming on the show by the way for those of you listening in if my voice sounded a little bit different during today's show it's because my microphone broke right before he hopped on so
some little echoey and my voice isn't as deep and Rich and and amazing as usual it's I'm going to blame it on technology but either way we really want to get this episode in the half of you guys so so Dan thanks for making yourself available for putting up with my technology
snafus yeah I love it actually I just had my son sabotage your mic so your voice wouldn't be so rich and deep and sexier than mine so you know I had to match a bad now our voices are at least equal
well
well once this once this quarantine is over I'll fly down to Park City and we'll skip breakfast and lunch and then go have an amazing steak
I love it man I love your family guy you you guys are live at the lead at man love that about you been appreciate
you thanks Dan all right folks I'm Ben Greenfield on with dr. Dan Pompa three-time repeat guests on the been grouped in the show signing out from Ben Greenfield fitness.com have an amazing
week
well thanks for listening to today's
show you can grab all the show notes three sources pretty much everything that I mentioned over at Ben Greenfield fitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me including the highly helpful Ben recommends page which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones sleep digestion fat loss performance and plenty more please also know that all the links all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode
load help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week so when you listen in be sure to use the links in the show notes use the promo codes that generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every
week
