 You ready for some controversy? We're gonna talk about Fasting in this episode who should and shouldn't do it. This topic always brings the haters So bring it bring it if you disagree with us. We love that by the way We're gonna give away our intermittent fasting guide for free to one of you lucky Viewers here so you can win it Leave a comment below and talk to us about fasting. Do you agree with us? Do you disagree with us? Bring up some good points as long as your comment is within the first 24 hours that we drop this episode You enter in the contest to win the fasting guide for free You also have to subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications Also for everybody else. We're gonna make the fasting guide which is already inexpensive even less expensive It's 50% off just for this particular episode. Go check it out head over to maps fitness products calm Just use the code I f 5 0 that's I f 50 for that discount. All right. Enjoy the show You know what we got to talk about is one of our most popular clips on the podcast channel that gets a lot That's tons of comments and there's negative lots of negative comments on it Wow, it's the one that we did on intermittent fasting question is from cam the lamb is Intermittent intermittent fasting ever a good idea when wanting to lose weight No, we talked about we did a whole episode on why fasting is a terrible way to lose weight with that focus Yeah, not exactly now now keep in mind Can you lose weight by let's change the word from fasting to not eating? Can you lose weight by not eating? But yeah, that's what happens is kind of a byproduct. That's what happens when you don't eat you lose weight Yeah, we did just off all the zealots Yeah We pissed a lot of people off because we said that fasting was a terrible way to lose weight So people in the comments are like what was the title of that one Doug? Why you should not use intermittent fasting to lose weight? Yes, and there were people that oh these guys don't know what fasting is They're confusing it with starving and this is what I you know, and so I think we should go deeper into Fasting in general and then talk a little bit about why we still think it's probably a bad idea to lose weight And well bad way to diet first Why don't you do this because I think I read some of the comments and some of the comments people Think that we don't know what fasting is So why don't we Definitely break down one what fasting is and then also the history of it So we can we can make sure we address that we know what we're talking about when it comes to fasting And then we'll address the point that I think we made before. Yes. No, that's that's a good point So fasting is the voluntary Essentially, you're voluntarily not eating you're choosing not to eat for a specified period of time resources are plentiful Yeah, so that and that's that's a very important part fasting is not because here's what happens a lot of people will use evolution As a way to support why fasting so good because obviously thousands of years ago We definitely went for long periods without food, right? So you would successfully hunt Not that often we didn't kill an animal every single day. It's highly unlikely So we probably ate very very little until we killed an animal and then we ate a lot, right? And then we would repeat that cycle And so humans evolved to be able to go for long periods of time without food without really any detrimental effects There's studies that have been done on people who didn't eat for, you know, two weeks a month and they don't see really any These are with healthy people. They don't see like, you know, super detrimental effects And it's because we evolved to do this, but that's not the history of fasting That is we didn't have food the history of fasting is is way past that fasting again It's the voluntary You're voluntarily not eating when food is available and around you. That's what fasting is not I'm not eating because I don't because then we could we could label every famine that ever happened is yeah fasting or anytime Somebody was you know a POW or in concentration camps. That wasn't fasting. That was involuntary How many different variations of fasting are there now? I know that I mean the warrior diet was 5-2 diet Yeah, there's the 16-8 Protocol Which is the warrior one, right? That's warrior diet is like you don't eat all day and then you eat one meal at night Yeah, there's a lot of different protocols to What would be considered fasting so you have the like the eight hour window you have like multiple days What's the 5-2-2? What's that one Justin? Oh, so there's like two days where you're at like 500 to 600 calories Okay in the rest of the week basically you eat normal So it's just a low calorie days and then there's a fasting mimicking diet. This is dr. Longo Came up with this because of the beneficial effects of fasting on the outcomes of cancer along go or so Yeah, dr. Walter Longo And so he does is he puts people on this really really low calorie diet for extended period of time which mimics the effects of fasting, but if you want to look at the history of fasting you have to look at the The voluntary absolvement or the voluntary rejection of food for a specified period of time and when you look at that really the roots of Fasting were from spiritual practices. This is the oldest records of people That we have of people voluntarily Choosing to not eat and you find this in the the Christian Bible the even the the Jewish Bible right the Old Testament you find this in the Koran you find this in Buddhism in pretty much every major Religion has fasting as a component of that religion or is written into The religion and some of them still practice the practice of abstinence, you know in different forms And it isn't all of them like for religious reasons all about abstaining right? Is that what it's they're all about? It was it's all about the spiritual practice of abstaining and the detachment, you know of of worldly desires I mean food is one of our most primal Needs and desires right so it's like food sex water shelter and What you find in spiritual practices are abstinence from a lot of those things some religions will the more people will abstain from sex Right in fact today in the Catholic tradition if you're a priest you you don't have sex Ramadan is about to isn't that what that's about? Yeah, they go through periods of fast where they don't eat or drink when the Sun is up only when the Sun comes down So it's it's the history is spiritual there is some medical history to fasting you can go back as far as apocrates who's the you know, the he's the guy that Came up with the quote like what was that let medicine be thy food and food be thy medicine Yeah, and he observed that when people went without food that Certain conditions would get better Primarily conditions that involve seizures So, you know back in the ancient Greece, right when people had epileptic seizures It was like a mystery what the hell is going on are they possessed? We don't know what to do and he noticed when they went without food. Yeah, this seizures No, he's also the Dr. D on I can't pronounce his name Yeah, so with this ketogenic protocol and found that same thing, right? Oh, yeah, we've known that for a long time We've known that fasting or eating a ketogenic diet, which is high fat very very low carb and low protein This is a medical ketogenic. No, that was okay So my point that I was trying to make was that he theorized that it wasn't confirmed until Dom's research with the seals Is that correct? No, that was it already was it already confirmed condition and diving. I believe yeah So so they were getting seizures Yeah, you're getting seizures when they would go under for a certain amount of time And then I think that's what led Dom down the the path of actually doing the research Yeah, cuz the the rebreathers that they would use yeah to minimize bubbles, right? So they're trying to be stealth would it would give them too much oxygen and some of them would suffer from seizures And he knew that ketogenic diets had been used. That's the first treatment for epilepsy So I have a family member. Okay, so that in other words Dom wasn't the one who pioneered that he just made the connection of Okay, we've already been using this as an anti seizure tactic. So let me try and apply this to the sea yes, I mean before Anti-seizure medications were created. That was how you if you it's been around a long time for that Oh, I want to say it's been used medically since the 1950s or maybe even before because the 70s is when it got popularized as far as a diet is a diet Yeah, so it came out as a diet. I believe in 72 ish or somewhere around there medical version around a long time Yeah, Doug, maybe you can see how long people have been how long we've been using ketogenic diet to treat epilepsy I want to say it's the 1950s. It might even have been before that and they would put kids on Super high-fat low protein low carb diets and of course is before we had epileptic You know medications and it would work for a lot of them not all of them But it would work for a lot and this is because when you don't eat carbohydrates and you're not eating a ton of protein You have you create ketones and they have this anti kind of seizure effect the 1920s Wow, even before that so so it's been around for a long time So Hippocrates notice this and notice that it cured this type of condition So that's the I guess you could go back as far as Hippocrates for the medical history but the the history of fasting for Health and fitness it's all rooted in the spiritual practices and it comes from People practicing fasting because they noticed that it made them They would detach from things and they will feel better as a result And you also see too there's been you know some evidence of it, you know being beneficial in terms of like cancer And sort of starving the cancer from you know evolving further and like going into you know treatment to do that You know leading into treatment as well. Yes. Yeah, so these are all these are all medical and health benefits that have came from it And we've been using this as far back as like you're saying Hippocrates But when when was it introduced as a diet? When did it become a fad diet? Wasn't it in the 70s when it was first used as a diet and it's been popularized again today in the 70s There was like the the wellness crunchy crowd that would do it and they would talk about it benefiting their health But it wasn't like a health and fitness thing in fact Health and fitness people would laugh at it. We know this even as trainers in the 90s Yes, it's a because we I wasn't it wasn't something that we would take seriously if I if and when I did come across it Which I don't remember the first time I heard someone talk about it I probably would have scoffed at it in the early 2000s late 90s if someone said oh you should do this No, they would do just skipping meals That was the one of the most common ways to lose weight is they would say skip breakfast or don't eat lunch Or you know, don't eat breakfast and lunch and you'll end up losing that says 2012 Doug. Yeah Yeah, that's the 5-2 diet That's what Justin was talking about. I didn't hear about fasting for Fitness and fat loss pretty sure as a warrior diet was the most popular one that like gained the most That's the one that brought it to my attention. Yeah, because I was back in the obviously with this back when I had my personal training studio I would go on the bodybuilding.com forums and fitness forums That's why I would get like information and there were people talking about how oh man I only eat once a day and I'm getting so ripped now. This was Mind-blowing because at the time everything was about eating every two or three hours Yeah, like you had to eat every two or three hours So it was so counter that and the fact that people weren't losing tons of muscle by not eating all day long now Granted they were eating a lot of calories when they would eat that one meal. It's 2001 when that came out That's when I it came on, you know to my horizon when I started trying to that's when it was like sort of mainstream So yeah, so I recall hearing about it around around this time But I could have sworn when I dug into it It got the the science that supports it came out in the 70s and the warrior diet is what made it mainstream And and popular and so since 2001 to now It's become this weight-loss strategy Yeah, but the science and research that supports all the benefits that when you talk about the you know growth hormone and you Talk about so let off a G right all those benefits that research Yeah, I believe was done in the 70s that the warrior diet pulls from and the diet is what made it pop It probably wasn't mainstream I know that skipping meals and not eating for a long time was not encouraged But you know here's a funny thing about that the medical benefits the physical benefits that are observed with fasting are Almost identical to being in a calorie-restricted diet. In fact our friend Lane Norton hammers this all the time He smashes on the intermittent fasting Crowd for that that all these benefits that they tout are so amazing that fasting gives you are all similar if not identical to the same benefits that you get if you just are in a Caloristic to diet for an appear an extended period of time. Yeah, you see the cell autophagy You see the reduced in inflammation I mean in fact the reduction in inflammation from eating reduced calories and the health benefits from eating reduced calories are so powerful that even eating an unhealthy low calorie diet makes it actually can be quite healthy in comparison to a Relatively healthy diet. That's high calorie to the point where like we know that like lots of sugar and Certain fats aren't good for you, but when it's in the presence of a low calories a lot of those problems become small problems or small issues to the point where there's actually professors and Nutrition teachers that have done experiments like there was one guy I don't remember his name, but he was a professor and he said I'm gonna go on a Twinkie and Big Mac diet or something like that and Show everybody that I'm gonna improve my cholesterol. I'm gonna improve my blood lipid You know my you just did low calorie cuz he just did low calorie and I wouldn't go that route because I think Longevity of the diet. It's a big factor. Nobody considers which we'll get into with fasting like how nutrient deficiencies Yeah, was it gonna happen? How sustainable is it really? That's it the sustainability, right? But yeah, all a lot of the health and in medical and physical benefits I should say come from calorie restriction even the medical benefits. So Dr. Volter Longo Saw that if you just if you ate a little bit But really reduced the protein in the in the carbs down quite a bit. You would still see this kind of anti-cancer Effect from doing that. So, you know, that's that's a that's a big one. That's a big important thing So let's talk about the the benefits Because I do think there are benefits of fasting There's lots of you know, the irony of this is that we are doing this episode in response to people bashing us about our stance I never met fasting, but we actually have a guide Yeah, on some level. Yeah, I mean, I think that we talked about it a lot You know early on when we first started the podcast and we all have experimented with it We've all taught it to some of our clients and utilized it ourselves personally And I I see tremendous value in it and I obviously will cover all the different things I think what I have a problem with and I think you guys are on the same page is That's not how it's being used or that's not the main reason why it's the reasons that are that are the benefits of it Are not why they're using that's right as a diet, right? It's then that's how it was popular if they got popular have known Before oh one when the warrior die came out the the benefits that people are talking about is the weight loss benefits from it Which I think we agree is the worst reason for you to do that. Yeah, and before we get into that Let's let's let's stick to the benefits for a second now the benefits from fasting To the best of my opinion based on my experience right trained lots of people and even of course working with myself But just being experienced trainer and coach Begin and end at the emotional spiritual and mental benefits So forget the physical benefits the physical benefits of weight loss fat loss Whatever, so it's a byproduct that yeah that can happen from it But that's not the benefits of fasting the fasting benefits really are these spiritual mental Emotional kind of benefits by the way Not for everybody for some people it'll actually do the opposite But let's say you're somebody that has a you have a lot of impulse issues with food, right? So you're very impulsive every time you get stressed or anxious or bored you eat You're can you have this bad relationship with food in that particular regard Sometimes being without Allows you to deal with those issues and Detach a little bit from this impulsive thing and then you can rebuild a better relationship Any anxiety around hunger in general like have like this I mean I went through phases of that and that's what was so mind-blowing for me with intermittent fasting was just you know I don't have to eat, you know right away and like I'm gonna be okay And I'm not gonna lose, you know muscle mass like within a day or two Because I'm not fueling my body But you know other than that it was just a way for me to sort of break the cycle of what I felt I was bound to Well, even the definition of hunger many people think it's hunger when it's really craving Yeah, I think that's one of the the biggest things that I got from that even personally was you know I would think if I didn't eat for four or five hours. Oh, I'm hungry. I mean that's I gotta eat You know I'm saying oh my muscles probably falling off to your point or I gotta get some food to me and A lot of times I didn't realize that I was just craving foods because we've built these rituals around What time we eat and what we eat during that time and the body is craving something more so than it is truly hungry Especially if you had a very sedentary day when you probably didn't even tap into your results Yeah, here's a good rule at like test, right? Oh, I'm starving and then would you eat anything? You know I'm actually craving Mexican food right now. I'm not wouldn't you know No, I love that as I've used that you've shared that before on the show where you know when someone says they're they're hungry And then you start listing off. Well, we could stop and grab this real quick Or I have some I have some cucumbers and on some water over here with that and but no I don't want that or they start turning down food like you ain't that hungry Yeah, because nobody who's really hungry turns down any sort of it reminds me of like with kids like with my kids Where my my daughter's like, oh, I'm starving, you know, like oh cool We have some leftover meat from last night, right? No, no, no, I want some of the tortilla chips or whatever in the well You're not really hungry. You just have a craving. Yeah, you know, you're not starving real hunger. You'll eat food You want to have food. I know because I fasted for 72 hours and you know anything broccoli fish Fruit, you know anything it sounds good. I also know to craving it as a craving tends to be much more specific So it does give you a better relationship in some instances with hunger and what that really is versus cravings because a lot of what Drives our food choices is based on cravings and not hunger. Well, and it's I Always try to kind of step back a little bit because we we talk a lot to like our bubble and people that go to the gym And we talked to you know people that have dieted somewhat But you know, there's a lot of people out there who have never taken a meal off, you know It's that's still a mind-blowing thing. They think like this drop, you know and blood sugar or whatever is good They're gonna like pass out and die And you know, I've talked to even you know, so my parents on some level like I had to kind of Talk them through that, you know process and and and tell them, you know, it's it's gonna be alright Well, that's piece of the benefits of just also another self-control, you know Just the ability to say okay, I've decided I'm gonna fast for the next 24 hours or whatever you decide to do and You have the the mental discipline to do that and then you start to piece together what we're talking about that Oh, I wasn't really that hungry. So that unfolds from that, but even just the ability to Refrain from eating, you know because you definitely can and there's lots of benefits for you actually doing it But a lot of people don't don't actually do it Like you said, they've never gone through a full day of not eating I mean that just sounds so crazy by the way the benefits of fasting from food that we're talking about can be applied To fasting from anything that you have a bit of an unhealthy attachment to try fasting from electronics, right? Take turn off your phone turn off electronics Don't do anything for a week with them Yeah, and then you'll also potentially develop a better relationship with them fast from sex fast from video games Things that you may have an unhealthy relationship with anything impulsive It's so great You bring that up because if you've been a listener to the show for Anytime in the last two months or whatever I brought up just a month ago that I fasted I didn't say I didn't use that word I say I've taken a break But that's exactly what I was doing was taking a fast from marijuana and I and I always want to check myself If I ever find that I'm getting out of control or I'm allowing it to Drive my my day or I'm can't a day or two can't go by without me wanting to smoke I never want to lose that self-control that way regardless of all the benefits that have came out about cannabis and how much I enjoy it or what I think I have balance in my life I always want to prove to myself that I can restrict from that and make sure that I'm always in control that so you're right It's it doesn't always have to be food And I think that's where we've changed this into the the all the physical benefits when really this is where the real meat of Value of fasting and it can and it can give you a great sense of empowerment if food rules you in many different ways Breaking that chain can make you feel empowered now. Here's the dark side of that right This if you talk to anybody and I've worked with a lot of people who have eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia If you talk to them or you talk to experts in this They'll tell you that what drives a lot of people to do this is the sense of control In fact, they'll have they'll do it worse when the life around them is very stressful and things seem to be falling apart That's when they're most Strict with that type of eating because it's that sense of control. So there's a dub. It's a bit of a double-edged sword, right? That's why fasting for weight loss or fat loss can be terrible Because you can really encourage this bad relationship. That's the key here is What you're doing with your diet can either encourage or discourage a bad relationship with your food And if you're if you're abstaining from eating and the primary goal is aesthetics or weight loss More often than not you're creating this kind of bad relationship where you're just starving yours And that's at least the call it back in the day starving yourself or skipping meals are not eating to lose weight I also love the awareness that it brings and what I mean by that is like You know when you're a trainer and you're trying to troubleshoot with a client like if they're eating certain foods That they may have an intolerance to right or have an issue their body may have an issue with and they tell me like oh I had you know my pizza dipped in ranch for my snack and then for dinner I had Burger King with a milkshake and they name all these things that you know could be potential offenders It's like trying to narrow down and figure out like well. What the hell is bothering this person? Is it the gluten? Is it the sugar? Is it the dairy? Is it you know what was it all the above or is it just eating in a crazy surplus like you can't figure that One of the coolest ways to bring more awareness to how your body responds to certain foods is by taking them all away for a while Taking them all for a way away for a while And then as you start to reintroduce these different foods Becoming aware of how the body responds because the body is amazing it you'd be surprised how quickly your stool will show Your energy will show your sleep will show your hair your skin There's lots of indicators on whether this food that you're consuming is bad or good for you And you can't really tell that if you're constantly feeding yourself every couple of hours It's hard to tease out. Well, what was it that actually bothered me or makes me feel bloated afterwards Well, I don't know until I get rid of everything and then slowly that's one of my favorite things about fast Yeah, and I think if you're somebody that is has a fear of not eating so like I was you know skinny Right as a kid and I wanted to put on muscle and so I developed this bad relationship with food Where I was afraid of not eating to the point where if I went on a road trip Gotta make sure I have three protein bars with me or a shake or where we can eat for lunch Gotta make sure I have the high protein meal or and I was afraid of missing any meal So I had this bad connection to food in that way not eating for a day or two and then realizing it was okay Boy was that that was great That was great for me and then when I went to eat all of a sudden I enjoyed foods totally different I had a different appreciation For different foods because it wasn't all about all I got to get big and build muscle another point to that is when I Was faced with when I was at like a birthday party or I was at like somewhere where there was like this And I was trying to be like hyper conscious of You know staying within You know a healthy body composition or I'm like I'm trying to like, you know enjoy myself But also realizing like I can also just not partake Okay, it's not like I have to you know because my body's on this clock Like I have to be bound to like eating at this specific time like I can break free and I could do it elsewhere I you know like it was just more freedom that just unlocked itself for me Well and back to Sal's point that I was this definitely this kid right trying to build muscle and get bigger And it was insecure about being skinny So missing a meal was not an option. It was like I would I would rather eat junk food Yes, get calories in than not eat at all in fear of I wouldn't get bigger I wouldn't build more muscle so for the longest time that was a big So if you came to me with all these benefits and told me how great intermittent fasting is in the early 2000s you would never get me to do it just because of that simple reason was like I don't care if it does Cellotophagy, I don't care if it increased energy good for hormone I don't care about all that stuff if if I'm potentially going to sacrifice Muscle or not getting bigger because I was so insecure about that now Now what I know and understand to your point Justin is I easily can go to a birthday party And instead of eating the all the sugar and cake and candy. That's just there just so I can get calories in I'm totally okay not eating whatsoever Maybe not even for the rest of the day and waiting till I'm back home again And I can make myself a good healthy balanced meal and it is not going to slow down my progress Towards my gains of building muscle. Yeah, that's like road trips were like that for me Oh, I have to go in a long drive and oh, you know, it's lunchtime My only options are Taco Bell McDonald's and you know Burger King. Yeah, those time slots are so arbitrary You know, I think that's like one of the things like it really like it could be any time And like I could just have one meal that day and like load up on calories in that one meal Never great. That's another great point It's something else that goes back to the old You know every the two-hour window of like you want it You never wanted to body go for longer than two hours while eating in the anabolic window I was so caught up in all those things that I didn't think about it as oh Wow, I can just not eat for these these four to six hours that I'm driving or I'm at a party and I'll just double my dinner Yeah, I'll just said I'm just having you know 12 ounces of chicken now I'm gonna have a whole pound and a half of chicken for dinner and I never thought that way before I was so concerned about Every two to three hours getting these meals So some of that stuff are some of the great benefits of understanding that right so if you're going into fasting and you're you're going into it from a spiritual Emotional standpoint like okay. I've got this bad relationship to food I just need to stay away from food for 24 hours or 48 hours and just deal with myself and When I feel those impulses I'll go for a walk or I'll meditate and I'll deal with these cravings Without putting food in my mouth and if you're going into it with that standpoint You're gonna come out of it typically with some benefit right you're gonna come out of it and be like You know what that wasn't so bad. It was able to do that I lasted for X amount of hours and I was able to kind of change my relationship a little bit now If you go into it saying I'm not gonna eat for 24 hours because I need to lose weight Boy is that a different mentality and what it tends to lead to it's no different than the binge restrict model of dieting This is the problem with all diets is that they tend to encourage this restrict model that is Typically usually followed by this binge model because here's the deal if I'm going into it from a spiritual standpoint It's coming from a place of look. I want to better myself. This is something I want to work on This is something I want to do to improve myself when you typically go into it from a weight loss standpoint or fat loss It's like I need to lose fat. I don't like how I look I'm bad. Whatever. I'm gonna not eat this food Eventually after that period you rebel from that and this is what the binge looks like and by the way You know if you look at people who practice Fasting and don't come to it from a spiritual standpoint. You almost always see that you almost always see the following Meal or meals or after the time is up where it tends to be in the opposite direction The food choices tend to be not so good. By the way, one of the characteristics of binge eating Here's one of the characteristics the speed of the food that you put in your mouth So you tend to eat much faster than you normally would Studies will show something like 30% faster. Maybe it's high speed So it's like you're just getting it in there and the food That's on the fork or the spoon is what you're thinking about not even the food That's in your mouth by the way, we've all experienced this right you're eating something Although you're in you have the taste in your mouth and the food is still in there You can't wait to swallow that because what you're thinking about is the next one especially chips Right, which is a very if you think about it's very strange, right? It's like well, the whole point is to enjoy this and taste it but I can't even enjoy and taste it It's about getting the next one in this is one of the characteristics of kind of that binge mentality fasting to diet Tends to encourage that I've seen this a hundred thousand times over and over again and again back in the day It was just called skipping meals. We didn't call it fasting people would just oh I'm trying to lose weight So I'm not eating breakfast and then you would look at their lunch or their dinner later on and you could see like Well the success rate it still falls under the diet category, right? So I mean what what is the success rate on your fad diets? Like I think it's the failure rate is north of 80 percent. Oh, it's gotta be gas like 85 90 Yeah, so I mean north of 80 percent fail on all fad diets And so this now falls under that category as a failure as a diet Yes, now I don't think it's a failure as a tool for health and wellness It's an incredible tool for health and wellness when used properly I still stand by that. It's a terrible diet method Yeah, but I also blame our space for this because I know not only did the book warrior diet make it popular But so did a lot of influencers and stuff. I mean even people that I remember I used to watch the hodge Anabolic fasting Yeah, exactly anabolic fastings a thing the hodge twins made it really popular On their channel when they first came out and it was all about showing that they could eat garbage They were eating fast food and things like that. Yeah, it would they could get away with eating bad food You know quote-unquote bad food in these these smaller windows as long as they were training and doing those and fitting their macros And so it became very popular. Oh look at these people that look amazing They have great bodies and they're going through fast food drive-throughs to fill their calories in as long as they're eating So that's where it took off and I know it took off and I remember getting asked by clients about it because that's why it looks very Appealing to the average person who's going to just hold out for 10 hours. That's right. That's right It's it's very it's a god. What a selling point for a diet like listen We're not gonna tell you you can't eat McDonald's you absolutely can have a burger king or ice cream But here's the deal you just need to fit it in this window and stay within these calories So you stay within these calories and you eat in this window go ahead and have whatever you want It'll work and so that is that is such a a bad strategy for Reason why you know people when they get their stomach stapled You know why there's not as good of a success right with that either It's like you know your stomach smaller, but you're still cram and they haven't addressed the behaviors leading into that Which then it ends up stretching out and then you know a lot of times like up ends, you know the surgery Studies on fasting and weight loss are because people eat less calories. That's it So when people have this window of eating time or they don't eat except for one meal a day When you equate the calories you find that they eat less calories now if you follow these people long enough You see that they the fail rate is just as high as regular diets now I remember as a trainer When fasting became kind of this thing in the fitness space right and I remember Some clients having a bad reaction to fasting in particular female clients. I remember one woman is particular She started exhibiting signs So what she was doing is she was doing this kind of this one meal a day type of fast So she would only one meal a day. It's now a very popular thing right now By the way, it's called the OMAD diet or whatever one meal a day. Yeah. Oh mad diet. It's getting really so I had this client It's female client now give you a little backstory. She's your your typical cortisol junkie Wanted to work out all the time go go go type of individual So this was very appealing to her. Oh cool. I don't have to take up time eating I'll eat one meal a day. Oh my god all these wonderful benefits I have discipline and control that was what she was all about and so she did it and then she started noticing her Hair was thinning starting to fall out her skin wasn't looking so good Her libido was dropping. It was the thing that tipped her over into HPA axis dysfunction so HPA axis is the hypothalamus pituitary and the adrenals back in the day They called it adrenal fatigue, right? It's not really your adrenals that are gonna fatigue It's really the hormone communication that starts to get out. It's it's it's being in this kind of chronic Stress response right high cortisol in women estrogen progesterone get all over the place And you get this like the symptoms of like, you know bad hormone profile Women tend to be more sensitive to the effects of extended fasting than men do now. This probably goes again back to Evolution where men were the hunters and we probably did go for longer periods of time Without eating and also women's bodies are just more sensitive to those types of stresses anyway because They're always under the the potential of getting pregnant, right? So they the body's always like hey look If we're not, you know, we can survive, but we can't survive and be pregnant So let's shut that down so the hormones tend to you know respond in that way So if you're somebody that is dealing with hormone issues Fasting is probably not a good idea if you're a guy with low to you fact chronic fasting Can actually lower testosterone in some men not all men But in some men it can also lower testosterone because going for extended periods without food Can be perceived as a stress by the body and if you already on the line in your high stress already and sleep Isn't good Skipping meals and not eating for long periods of time might just tip you over well the the other Negative that I see with it too. That's very common is somebody who has let's say a lot of success with it with losing weight Right, so they decide this is going to be a weight loss strategy for them They read the warrior diet or whatever or someone their friend did it and it was successful So they follow it and they apply just like most clients would apply is is more is better Which in this case restricting more is better so they get in the mentality of oh wow I'm just gonna eat this. I don't have to eat all day long And I had the small window and instead of eating all the calories They probably should for their body what it needs they try and resist even more and stretch that time out even further not Realizing that what they're doing is they're teaching their body to adapt to conserve to slow down the metabolism Yeah, they're doing these 500 calories to 900 calorie It's like a super low calorie diet right and so very common thing Very common and and of course it shows initial weight loss and success when it comes to that But it's not long-term success and they just made it that much more challenging for themselves when they get off this You know look super low calorie diet because now the metabolism has slowed down, you know, what's funny the because people approach fitness through this you know hardcore motivation and I have the the I can restrict myself and I can Prevent myself from what is that called? It's not discipline discipline is a skill I'm talking more about like and not motivation motivation is a part of it, but rather You know the the ability to restrict right the ability just withstand this pain, right? This is how people approach fitness and health Okay, I can withstand this sucky period of time to get into shape. This is why The diets that tend to be the most successful not in terms of long-term weight loss But rather in terms of sales right the most successful selling weight-loss diets always have very few Simparred and fast rules. Yeah Don't eat until 6 p.m. Or don't eat after 6 p.m. Or only eat one meal or avoid all carbs or eat No fat or you can eat everything so long as it's green or raw or whatever Yeah, you'll find all the diets that sell the most are all about three or less Hard and fast rules because most people approach fitness through this. Okay. I'm motivated. I'm ready I'm gonna just do whatever I need to do. Oh cool two rules. I need to follow. I'm gonna do that I'm just gonna stick to that so it always fails so true It fails every time because it's not developing the long-term behaviors If you want to develop if you want to get into a situation where you're lean healthy lean long term the only way to do that is to have these behaviors that are healthy and sustainable and Relying on motivation Inspiration relying on the fact that you can restrict and prevent yourself. That's short-lived. It's not forever It's impossible because at some point you're gonna go through Periods of time when you're not motivated You're gonna go through periods of time when you're really stressed or you don't care How many times that happened, you know, you know people like that like you know what I know I've been on this hardcore diet. I don't care right now because I just you know I that that shitty thing happened to me today or now fuck it I don't and then what happens when you're off of it There's I forgot the name of the psychological phenomena talked about in our previous podcast is it's like It's like someone who cheats on their their boyfriend or their girlfriend, right? Like as soon as they cheat once now and I could cheat a thousand times because what's the deal? What's the difference? I did it once do it a million times, right? It's like, okay. I'm off the diet Well, now I'm off what you break the seal now screw it, right? Whether I do ten thousand calories or one thousand calories over it doesn't matter So that's the allure of fasting, but that's all that's also the problem If you go into it for with a weight loss goal an aesthetic goal You're almost you're inevitably going to fail and potentially create a bad relationship Here's the people that it's worse the worst for if your bad relationship with food Involved restricting yourself too much, right? So if you're somebody that was borderline Anorexic or bulimic or you really starved yourself or in the past and now you're thinking now you're like, okay Now I'm gonna try and do it healthy do not Go into this you will push you right back into where you were before just name something different I would I wouldn't mess with it with 90 plus percent of my clients the the small percentage I did play with it is in the competitive world. I Actually loved I'm in fact. I remember when I first started introducing it to competitors There's nobody I knew that was doing that I didn't know a single other coach that was coaching people that were getting ready to get on the stage and entered and Interminute fasting with those clients and I did it to break up this they have the opposite relationship with food Yeah, they're addicted to this They cannot go longer than two hours without being fed that they have to have a protein bar or a shake or their tupperware Meal out and they got to be on this schedule all the time. I'd love to disrupt that by Interrupting their week by saying, okay, we're not eating today. All I want you to do today is if you go to the gym It's walking stretching day and we are not gonna train you're not gonna eat and we're gonna fast and I remember they would all freak out Oh my god, what about my protein? I'm gonna miss my targets and won't the muscle fall off No, that's not how the body works and it's not gonna do that to you at all and trust me It's gonna benefit us and you're gonna feel great the next day and love to teach those people How to interrupt their eating patterns and those are the ones or somebody that has a very good Relationship with food and diet and understand balance and macros and they've and they've been in this space And I really feel like that's got to be a lot of those the negative comments that you got from the YouTube clip that we did I've got to be other fitness professionals that have a really good handle on nutrition themselves and they're like Well, that's whack. I see benefit use it for all the benefits Right, you know another sort of category that annoys me and I've seen this in somewhat of like the wellness sphere and Just you know other places it's been promoted to sell products specifically about like detoxing Yeah, and you know, they'll sell you some solution to go with it or you know You have to do some kind of like, you know specific lemon You know powder thing and or like, you know having your own pepper or something to like get these toxic Agents in your body out and basically exercise the demons out. Yeah, you know why it's because Unless you're selling a book on a specific way to fast. How do you make money? Yeah, how do you sell it? Yeah, how do you make money telling people to not eat anything right? You can't sell them anything So what they did is they said, okay? Here's your fasting, you know protocol You're not eating any food But mix you know take these pills three times a day to help your body. I remember that was a big push on the bca's That was a big push in our space. I saw coaches that were while you're fasting When fasting became popular And then you started to see it move into even the bodybuilding world and a lot of the fitness Enthusiasts were starting to promote it. They were also promoting it along the lines of their, you know BCAA supplements like well if you're worried about losing any muscle mass Make sure you take your drink your sip on your bca's all day long But stay fasted and so so we get all the benefits of fasting and then we make sure you don't lose any muscle And I can sell you this product Yeah, or this was a big one was uh, you know, you're not going to eat all day But you're going to get your nutrients so we're going to sell you these juices, right? So this is these juice fast and you buy their bottles and it's really again It's it's their way of capitalizing On a particular trend because again, how do you sell anything when you're telling people to do They're just keeping you low calorie like everything else. Like that's literally. Yeah, it's it's the same formula Yeah, now my my best experience with fasting I'll I mean I I'll tell you what one of my favorite experiences was was when you know when I first started dating my wife We went on this road trip and in part of this road trip. We stopped at Lake Tahoe And we were gonna we were gonna get in these kayaks We're gonna go across the lake and we're gonna find a campsite and do this whole thing And really bringing a bunch of food I mean because you're you're in these little kayaks and you're and it's like, you know what? Let's just we'll have something light for breakfast And then we'll just fast all day long because the point of this isn't to go eat a bunch The point is to be in nature and be with each other and it was great Like what a wonderful experience, but it wasn't like hey, I know we're going to the lake to kayak We're going to be burning tons of calories. What if we didn't eat and got ripped at this? Like it wasn't that at all It was all about Detaching from food during this particular. This is really how I recommend it for most people like If you're gonna fast try meditating with it or try spending time with your kids or again if you have this Bad relationship with food where you know after meetings. I'm so stressed out. I go reach for a candy bar Maybe that's a good time to fast so you can deal with your feelings. I really I really love the awareness piece That was probably one of my favorite things because it you I mean we all remember right you You were the one that started talking about your three-day fast. You were doing for a while there How sensitive you are after you come off the fact I mean fact we remember recommending like having chicken broth for like your first meal because your gut is so sensitive And what I love about that sensitivity though is that as soon as you introduce anything that your body doesn't agree with You know, I mean the way you got to go to the bathroom right afterwards How it feels even going down And it's amazing how quickly the body adapts and will figure out a way to be okay with that food if you ignore those Signals, so it's a it's a really cool way to give yourself this loud signal on You know, I know that Maybe this could be the food that is bothering me But I'm not sure like man you clean out your system for two or three days Then you start to introduce these foods and then you pay attention and you will feel it You know and if it feels great going down that it's probably not something that's bothering your gut at all But again, if you're teetering on this like too much stress not enough sleep, you know Kind of line and then you fast on top of it You it's your body will perceive it as more stress And you will see cortisol spike You could see more anxiety like what I you know, I don't remember who said this This was a famous psychologist that talked about how some of his patients Would have anxiety Throughout the day and so what do you recommend and many of them you noticed didn't eat breakfast So he recommended that they eat a protein and fat breakfast in the morning and it helped significantly with their anxiety because it helped Prevent cortisol spiking it was great for insulin because it was mostly fat and protein But if you're like in this high stress situation Overtrained lack of sleep and then on top of it you're going for hours without food That could definitely tip you over the edge Into this this hpa axis dysfunction. Look if you talk to a functional medicine practitioner And you are and they identify that you've got some hpa axis dysfunction And it's not related necessarily to maybe something gut inflammatory in the gut because sometimes fasting is good for that or whatever Oftentimes they'll tell you we're going to have you eat every few hours You will oftentimes they'll say no you should not go without food for long periods of time Because it's just stressing your body out too much. So Definitely do I when it comes to fasting as a diet even our fasting guy. We don't talk about it this way It's not Ineffective weight loss strategy. What I mean by effective is whenever we talk about something that's effective. It's Long-term sustainable Because not eating is very effective for weight loss in the short term So it's you know chaining yourself to a treadmill and you know running for hours on end But when we talk about effective, we're talking about sustainable It is not sustainable. It's about as unsustainable as every other diet that exists every other fad diet If you're doing it for spiritual and emotional reasons for detachment For creating a better relationship with food if your relationship with food is being attached to food You need to eat all the time It could be a very valuable tool if you're somebody that has Eating issues that resulted in you not eating food terrible terrible tool so fasting like any tool Can be effective in the positive it could also be very effective in the negative So, uh, what does it buy or be aware right when you do this? Look, if you like our information head over to mind pump free Dot com and check out our guides We've got tons of guides on everything from exercise to nutrition guides that help you get more fit And of course they're all free again. It's mind pump free dot com You can also find all of us on instagram So you can find justin at mind pump justin me at mind pump sal and adam at mind pump adam When you're telling your body to do something it understands movement Not necessarily connection to the muscles And so to the point we were saying earlier If you don't learn how to stabilize and connect You're going to develop these compensatory systems where other muscles are doing more work And then if you push past that and you keep working out now you strengthen