KetoFasting: The Dark Side of Fasting & Ketosis (+How To Use Cyclic Ketosis To Fix The Issues)
Boundless Life
Exploring Fasting: Risks and Benefits
This chapter examines the complexities and potential downsides of water fasting in the face of environmental toxins, while emphasizing the critical role of amino acids in supporting detoxification. It contrasts water fasting with keto fasting, detailing how the latter may offer enhanced benefits, particularly when considering muscle maintenance and metabolic flexibility. Additionally, the chapter underscores the importance of regular refeeds and carefully selected protein sources in optimizing fasting outcomes and overall health.
From Dr. Joseph Mercola, my friend, multiple-time podcast guest, a guy who thinks way outside-the-box and seems to always be discovering some new cutting-edge way to enhance human health and longevity, and one of the world's foremost authorities on alternative health has just written a guide to using the principles of ketogenic eating, meal planning, and timing to treat disease, promote weight loss, and optimize health.
The new book is called "KetoFast: Rejuvenate Your Health with a Step-by-Step Guide to Timing Your Ketogenic Meals". In the book, he explores the profound health benefits that result when ketogenic living and well-planned fasting are combined. Topics include:
-How our food is making us sick and what we can do about it...
-The physiology and mechanisms of fasting, including stem cell activation...
-How the cyclical ketogenic diet--with fasting included--differs from the conventional keto diet...
-How fasting works and how safe it is for you...
-How regular one-day fasts support fat burning and detoxification while minimizing hunger and side effects...
-How to monitor your progress with lab tests...
-And much more...
During our discussion, you'll discover: -The fascinating history of fasting among different religions and cultures...8:25- Dr. Mercola's book was originally written to learn to optimize multiple day water fasting
- Most religions integrate fasting into their practice (speaks to its efficacy throughout history)
- It's one of the best ways to express care for your spirit, especially when combined with meditation, gratitude, solitude, etc.
- Therapeutic fasting:
- Calorie restriction to activate metabolic processes to catalyze the healing process
- Fasting didn't become popular in the U.S. until the 1800's with the natural hygiene movement
- Became more popular when Herbert Shelton popularized it in 1911
- TrueNorth Health Center
- Different varieties of fasting:
- Intermittent (the foundation)
- Dr. Satchin Panda found that 90% of people don't do this (listen to my podcast with Dr. Panda)
- You need more than intermittent to get the max effect of autophagy
- Fasting mimicking diet, water diet
- Hybrid of the two, minimize the harmful effects
- Intermittent (the foundation)
- Autophagy:
- 3 types
- Micro
- Macro
- Chaperone mediated
- You activate autophagy with the keto fast
- Dr. Mercola does not recommend a long-term water fast
- Free stem cell transplant is what happens during the regeneration phase, after the autophagy phase
- The magic happens during the refeed and strength rebuilding; similar to a growth hormone injection
- Do a 42 hour fast, in which you eat 300-500 calories 2x per week
- 3 types
- Extended fasting helps reduce gut permeability by stimulating brain/gut pathways
- Consider fasting before other treatments or supplements for repairing the gut
- Certain supplements will inhibit autophagy: colostrum, B12
- AMP-k and mTOR
- It's your friend; The higher the better
- A nutrient sensor
- Puts your body in "repair mode"
- See Saw: AMP-k up, mTOR down, vice versa
- Berberine
- ECGC from green tea and European wild apples
- Pomegranate peel powder
- Urolithin A
- Pomegranate Pulled Apart podcast from ATP Science
- Dr. Mercola’s “autophagy tea” before my nightly fast to also limit mTor activation and increase autophagy:
- 1 tsp Pau d’ Arco powdered tea
- ½ tsp hydroxycitrate and garcinia (HCA/Garcinia powder)
- ½ tsp quercetin powder
- ½ tsp glycine powder
- ½ teaspoon chamomile powder
- Lakanto monkfruit sweetener to taste
- You don't want to take exogenous ketones when you want to activate autophagy while fasting
- Fats and carbs are fuel sources; broken down by enzymes
- Oxygen receives electrons from the food you're digesting in the form of hydrogen (which is converted to water)
- Most people are metabolically inflexible; can't burn much fat for fuel
- Ketones increase Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (nADPH)
- We in the 21st century are exposed to chemical and industrial toxins not historically known to humans
- Toxins are stored in our fat
- When you fast, you release these toxins
- Cause unpleasant side effects and symptoms
- 2 phases:
- Convert fat soluble to water soluble (not a problem)
- Attach molecules to the toxin
- You need frequent refeeds to fuel the process of eliminating the toxins and enhancing detox pathways
- A keto fast (42 hours, 300-500 calories) 2x/week is far more powerful than an occasional multi-day water fast or even fast mimicking diet
- Detoxification impairment
- Compliance: people just won't do it
- How Dr. Mercola recommends Ben improve his own fasting strategy:
- Ben takes essential amino acids for protein during extended fasts
- Don't eat meat protein (branch chain amino acids)
- Take collagen protein
- Drawbacks to long-term ketosis
- Requires significant calorie restriction
- Women can develop thyroid impairment
- You simply weren't designed to do it
- Fasting primes your body for improvement; the real magic happens in the refeeds
- You must be metabolically flexible
- Eat in a 4-6 hour window per day for 4 weeks
- Branch chain aminos: lucine, isoleucine, valine
- Eat these on the refeed, not during the keto fast
- Don't activate mTor along with autophagy
- Cyclical approach:
- Keto fast 2x/week
- Every day intermittent fast
- Strategies to deal with hunger or appetite cravings:
- Vast majority of metabolically flexible people won't feel hungry
- Coconut oil, MCT oil, aloe gel
- Nicotine gum and sparkling water
- Brian Richards' Sauna Space
- Near infrared is the best
- 40% of energy from the sun is infrared
- Near infrared heats you up very quickly
- Penetrates much more of the body than far infrared
- Book: Sauna Therapy for Detoxification and Healing
- Compounds prior to sauna use:
- Niacin (small doses)
- Use low EMF
-My previous episodes with Dr. Mercola:
-KetoFast: Rejuvenate Your Health with a Step-by-Step Guide to Timing Your Ketogenic Meals
-Meta.org for research studies
-Ben's Switzerland healing retreat at Paracelsus
-The Complete Guide To Fasting by Jason Fung
-My interview with Dr. Satchin Panda
-Dr. Mercola’s “autophagy tea” before my nightly fast to also limit mTor activation and increase autophagy:
-
- 1 tsp Pau d’ Arco powdered tea
- ½ tsp hydroxycitrate and garcinia (HCA/Garcinia powder)
- ½ tsp quercetin powder
- ½ tsp glycine powder
- ½ teaspoon chamomile powder
- Lakanto monkfruit sweetener to taste
-Pomegranate Pulled Apart podcast from ATPScience
-"The Longevity Diet" by Dr. Valter Longo
-Dr. Lawrence Wilson's book "Sauna Therapy For Detoxification & Healing"
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Do you have questions, thoughts or feedback for Dr. Mercola or me? Leave your comments below and one of us will reply!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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