¶ Benefits of Fasting for Health
Got it All right . Dr Lufkin , I told you last night that I am on my first 72-hour fast and it is . You know , last night I was at about what was I about ? 27 , 28 hours and I was really really feeling it . I was so hungry , I was really really feeling it . I was so hungry and they always told me that .
You know , after you know , at about the halfway point 36 , 38 hours it gets easier you fall into like this hyper-focused zone . So I called you because they wanted to find out what exactly was going on and was I doing the right things ? And what ? Can I eat anything ? Can I drink anything besides water or coffee ?
Oh yeah , well , Josh , I'm so excited you're doing this because I mean , in my , in my mind , I think fasting is one of the most powerful tools in our lifestyle toolkit to begin our journey for health and longevity . It's a great . Nutrition is a powerful tool and this is something we all get to do . We don't have to change what we eat at all .
You can keep eating the same things . You just change when you eat and and space it out like you're doing . So , man , I'm I'm so excited for you , brother . You're doing this . This is , this is great , and we can all share in the experience with you .
You know what we should do . You know what we should do Is , when we launch the company , we should get , we should get , we should do this and have everybody join us , anybody who's willing to try it to join us , and sort of a giant support group that you know sort of urges each other on .
And because my buddies and I right now have I think there's five of us it's me , bob , chad cory and john walland um , so we're and chad schmidt , so we have this , this group like come on , guys , we can do it . Just keep pushing .
I'm like I can't go anywhere , I'm gonna eat my hand yeah , it's harder to fall off the wagon when you've got peer pressure and everything Just doing it myself . It's like , okay , maybe I won't go the full 72 hours , but if I've got my buddies doing it or my tribe on social media or whatever , then it's empowering for all of us .
That's so great , you're doing that . So how's it ?
feeling yeah , all of us .
That's so great , you're doing that , yeah .
So how's it feeling ? Yeah , go ahead . No , I was just going to say what exactly is happening in my body right now . So I'm at about I'm a little over halfway . I'm probably at 38 , maybe 39 hours at this point . Sound about right .
Yeah , yeah , I mean , I love the quote about fasting . My buddy Jason Fung , who's like the fasting guru , he has a great quote about fasting . He said there's one thing that all the religions of the world agree on , whether it's , you know , Jesus , Buddha , Muhammad , you know Hindu traditions , all of them and they agree that fasting is healthy .
Yeah , and it has a long , long history . Is it a reset for your organs ? Is it ? Is it ? Does it kill ? You know potential um carcinogenic cells ? What is it ? What is the why ? Is it so good for me ?
well , a couple things . One every time we put food in our mouth and you know foreign matter which food is into our digestive system , it triggers a natural response of our body , which is inflammation , which protects us from foreign matter . So inflammation being turned on all the time .
Chronic inflammation is one of the drivers for aging and most of the chronic diseases . So anything we can do to turn down inflammation is good . So if we snack literally all the time and have food in our digestive system all the time , then inflammation is turned on all the time . So the first thing fasting does , it gives our gut a rest .
It gives our gut a break from constantly digesting food and having food in there . So the first thing it does , it turns down inflammation that way . The second thing it does , which is really fascinating , is normally our body runs on glucose and runs on glycogen that's stored in glucose , which is from sugar and carbohydrates .
When we stop eating and we don't have any glucose coming in our diet or anything in our diet , we naturally burn up our stores of glucose , which is first in the form of glycogen in our muscles , and that takes about 12 hours . So after 12 hours we burn through that .
Then what happens is we start burning our fat for energy , which is normal , healthy thing to do , it also and that that allows us to enter a type of metabolism called ketosis , which is very , very healthy . And this ketosis turns a metabolic switch that begins to activate repair mechanisms called autophagy and has many other benefits .
And those are the two things that fasting really , really drive these repair mechanisms that turn down inflammation , give our body a little bit of a rest and a reset , but , yeah , so it's a lot of benefits from it . I mean , how are you feeling ? Do you feel any different now ? Your mental levels or your sharpness , or anything .
Well , you mentioned to me last night that at a certain point I wasn't going to feel as hungry , and I don't feel as hungry today .
I did have some coffee this morning I accidentally , by the way , we're rehearsing in the , on the stage in there and they're doing this big line dance thing , and on the bar were some pretzels and I just like with absolute mind , they reached out and threw a couple pretzels and I was like no , I can't eat that .
So I did , in full transparency , I did eat a pretzel this morning , but I do feel good . I feel like I'm very sharp , I feel like I'm in a good mood , I don't feel lethargic or tired . But you mentioned to me last night something you know it goes all the way back to the hunters and gatherers .
Explain that to me again there's one school of thought about fasting which I find fascinating and it makes sense to me a little bit if you think about our ancestors before 12,000 years ago , when the agricultural revolution came , but before that , for the hundreds of know , hundreds of thousands of years or more , before that , as humans we didn't have agriculture , we
were hunter gatherers . So typically , hunter gatherers , they get a prey , they , you know , they hunt , they get something to eat and then they go for a while while they're hunting again and maybe they're not eating . So it's sort of naturally intervals of fasting and eating and fasting and eating .
So there's this theory about fasting , that and if you think about it , it makes sense that when you're fasting , when you're hunting , you want to be sharp mentally , you want to have good vision , you want to have good hearing , you want to be at the top of your game , because if you don't , you don't survive , you don't pass on the gene .
So basically , we were selected for , when we're fasting , to be very sharp , have extra energy , mental acuity and all these things so that we can survive and find the game . And when you think about it , when you're eating . I mean I noticed that I I sort of get brain fog when I eat . I'm full , I'm sitting around digesting .
I'm not at my sharpest , I'm not at the top of my game , but it makes sense evolutionarily that fasting is actually going to turn up the A player in us all because we needed it to survive . All our ancestors were selected for that . I mean that actually makes perfect sense . Needed it to survive . You know , all our ancestors were selected for that .
I mean that makes that actually makes perfect sense you know yeah you're not , if you're not sharp and on top of your game , you don't eat . If you don't eat , you don't live , and if you don't live , you don't pass on the genes to the next generation yeah , yeah , and it makes sense .
I mean , I , I like . I like , when I take breaks from eating because I feel like I'm I'm a little bit sharper during the day , I'll skip a couple of meals , even usually . And , and I feel like I'm sharper , yeah , all right . Well that's good
¶ Fasting for Health and Longevity
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That's good .
One question people always ask is so you're doing , just to be clear , you're doing like a water , only fast , right ? So what ? What do you ? What have you been drinking and what do you what ? What can people eat on this fast ? So ?
so , bob , he's the uh , he's the tyrant who's sort of leading the crew on this thing . He says water only . He doesn't drink coffee . He doesn't drink anything um other than waters . So I've , I've just done some research . That's why I called you last night . A couple of my other friends who do this , you know , said that you should take in electrolytes .
You should take in if coffee's okay . Some people say like beef broth . I haven't done that yet . So mostly what I've done is coffee , tea , water , that's it .
Yeah , yeah , that's good , I'm , I'm . I'm not as orthodox as Bob on it with the water only . So I drink coffee as long as it doesn't have sugar or milk in it no calories . So the thing I want to avoid is calories . I don't want to kick my metabolism out of ketosis or out of that fasted state . So , yeah , so anything .
You know carbonated water , but no sugar , and I don't even anything . You know carbonated water but no , no sugar , and I don't even .
you know use sugar substitutes really just keep it .
Keep it that way , but it seems , yeah , it seems to be okay yeah so how much ? Longer do you have ? What are the what's your target endpoint ?
on this tomorrow , tomorrow night uh , I'll be done around five o'clock , 5 , 6 o'clock tomorrow night .
Uh huh .
Yeah , so I'm over halfway Feeling okay . I'll let you know tonight how I'm feeling . But if these guys are going to do it , I'm going to do it , because I'm not going to , you know , bear the weight of these guys talking smack to me For years . So I have to finish .
So they're gonna , you're gonna , let me hear it yeah , the beer pressure is a strong , strong influence .
How , what are you gonna do after you get done ? What , what , what's your meal gonna look like ?
uh , I don't know . I mean , I want to just go eat pizza and and everything that I can get my hands on is there . Is there a way to ease your way back in ?
Well , yeah , I mean , obviously you don't want to pig out too much , you want to take advantage of the health benefits and do something . So when I do it I try and select something healthy . And select something healthy which for me is low carb , low sugar , get rid of the seed oils and get rid of the grain , so it's kind of a metabolically healthy diet .
So I flow right into that . But the great thing about fasting is , once you've gone 72 hours without eating anything , anything you put in your mouth after that is going to be delicious , so you could have kale by itself and you'll love it .
So , so you could pick a bunch of healthy things and , trust me , they will be the best food you've ever eaten , in 72 hours at least .
Yeah , well that's that's that's that's , that's true . My worry right now is I don't want to lose too much muscle . I don't want to try to put muscle back on , and my biggest fear of this is I know it's going to burn fat , but I also don't want to lose too much muscle . Is there a chance of that with this ?
Yeah , for the , for these relatively short fasts like this , it's , it's not a problem Usually , you know , in most cases you know you don't really start metabolizing the muscle . So I think you know , I think you're safe on that , especially if you continue . You know you could continue to exercise even during your fast and after your fast , you know .
But but take a look at it and let me know , yeah , let's . You know , we can look at your weight too during the fast and some of that's going to be , you know , water and other things . So it's hard to , it's hard to detect subtle differences in muscle mass , you know , over over a couple of days like that .
But but we can , we can check it out and I love your idea about trying this again in a couple months and inviting all our audiences to join us and we can do it . I say even more peer pressure for all of us .
I mean , even my little group that I have with me now is helping a lot , because we keep sort of cheering each other on , so I think it'd be a great idea . Yeah , yeah , it's not for the weak though it is . It is a is a real commitment . But it's 72 hours and I'm and everybody who tells me it's a total reset and it makes you feel .
I mean , I'm feeling great right now and I haven't eaten for a day and a half . Um , so I tend to want to believe that it's going to be actually good for the mind and the body . What did .
Have you learned from this ? Like , what , what , what were , what were the secrets that got you through this ? Or is there anything that that you're feeling now , that you didn't expect to be feeling , from this , from this process ? What's it like from the inside .
I thought that I was going to be a lot hungrier at this point . The hardest part , clearly , is the first 24 hours , because last night I wanted to eat my hand I really did um , but this morning I woke up and I'm feeling I don't feel crazy hungry . I wanted to get coffee right away , just get something in my system .
Um , but yeah , uh , feeling clear , feeling in a really good mood , wasn't expecting that , um , but yeah , I'm also very much looking forward to that first meal yeah , and that that's that's one of the benefits too .
when you , when your body switches out of glucose burning and you burn up the glycogen and you switch into the ketosis , like we were talking about yesterday , one of the effects of ketosis is the appetite drops down , so so it's actually gets a little bit easier .
You know , as you're going through it , that's what most people experience and also so it's , so it's an added benefit there . Are you guys all going to get together and celebrate ? Are you at remote locations ?
No , they're all in Minnesota , Arizona , Minnesota and Arizona . So no , I'm in New Mexico . So we'll just we'll , all you know , maybe get a Zoom session and just pig out together . I don't know , we'll figure it out .
Well , I really want to applaud you , josh . I know you're really taking a deep dive about health and longevity and becoming an expert in your own right in this space , so I applaud you for sharing this experience and giving everybody else the benefit of teaching them about fasting .
So this is really wonderful , to your credit yeah , I can't , I can't talk about it unless I've actually done it .
So here we are yeah , yeah , absolutely yeah , and and uh , yeah , the next next time we do it we can do , we can add the continuous glucose monitors and , uh , do some kind of in-depth monitoring and involve everybody in it . And uh , I think it'll , I think it'll be a lot of fun I do too .
I do too .
¶ Charity Event to Promote Fasting
Let's plan on , uh , I don't know . Let's say like october . How's that sometime okay ?
yeah , yeah , we can . We can set it up and we could even get you know , we could even get sponsors for charity or something to do it you know and raise awareness about fasting and you know , kind of really get it out there that the health benefits , because it's it's gonna , it's gonna it good idea .
Yeah , I gotta run dr love all right thank you brother great brother . All right , talk to you soon . Man see ya all right later . Bye .