00:00:00
if you want to lose body fat you
00:00:03
actually need to extend the period of
00:00:05
time that you're not eating in other
00:00:07
words extend your fasting period and get
00:00:09
rid of all the snacks in order for you
00:00:12
to have enough time that your insulin is
00:00:14
low when insulin is low it's going to
00:00:16
allow fat burning which is going to
00:00:18
allow you to pull those calories back
00:00:20
out you're cited as being really the
00:00:23
founder of modern intermittent fasting
00:00:25
and I've heard people talk about
00:00:27
intermittent fasting on this show over
00:00:29
and over and over over again now but the
00:00:34
internet says that it really came from
00:00:35
you I know the inter fasting has been
00:00:37
happening for thousands of years but the
00:00:39
idea of it as a tool for weight loss
00:00:42
they say it came from you it because in
00:00:44
2013 2014 really nobody was talking
00:00:47
about it from a medical standpoint like
00:00:50
what's happening in the body why is it
00:00:52
good why is it bad and really I was for
00:00:54
years sort of this one voice in the
00:00:56
wilderness that was saying like hey this
00:00:59
is a tool for us if you want to lose
00:01:02
weight because it's important then you
00:01:04
can just set aside a period of time that
00:01:06
you don't eat at the time people thought
00:01:08
it was extremely bad for you and I I
00:01:10
looked through all the literature and I
00:01:12
said well why is it bad for you and they
00:01:14
had all these reasons there's all these
00:01:16
myths about intermittent fasting and how
00:01:18
it's going to cause you to gain weight
00:01:20
and be tired and hungry and all these
00:01:22
sorts of things I said well no there's
00:01:24
actually a lot of data here over the
00:01:26
last you know 2,000 years that we've
00:01:28
used intermittent fasting and they're
00:01:30
simply not true and I can go over a few
00:01:32
of those but that's why there was nobody
00:01:34
talking about it at the time and that's
00:01:36
where I started to sort of bring it into
00:01:38
the uh sort of public Consciousness that
00:01:41
this is a tool that's all it is were you
00:01:43
attacked for that at the time oh
00:01:44
absolutely like I got I got attacked
00:01:47
from all sides I got you know doctors
00:01:50
were coming after me dietitians were
00:01:51
coming after me everybody thought I was
00:01:53
going to do so much harm and the funny
00:01:56
part was that you know as I think back I
00:02:00
spoke to a lot of colleagues a lot of
00:02:01
colleagues would say to me you know what
00:02:03
I used to do that when I was in training
00:02:05
we did that all the time we'd go 24
00:02:07
hours without eating because we're in
00:02:09
the o or we're in the ER or we are busy
00:02:11
so we did that constantly and nothing
00:02:13
bad happened and I remember thinking you
00:02:16
know what as a doctor I actually tell
00:02:18
people to fast all the time if you have
00:02:20
to go for surgery you need to fast if
00:02:22
you're after surgery you need to fast if
00:02:25
you do fasting blood work you need to
00:02:27
fast so why is it that I'm actually
00:02:29
telling people people to fast all the
00:02:31
time and yet for weight loss you
00:02:33
shouldn't fast that doesn't make any
00:02:35
sense and physiologically from a body
00:02:37
standpoint it doesn't make any sense uh
00:02:40
one of the things people talked about
00:02:42
was you know it's going to make you eat
00:02:45
more later it's going to make you more
00:02:46
hungry your basil metabolic ratees going
00:02:48
to go down this was one of the big myths
00:02:50
of intermittent fasting that's going to
00:02:51
cause the so-called starvation mode
00:02:54
right and this is the idea that your
00:02:55
basil metabolic rate will fall so low
00:02:57
that when you do start to eat you're
00:02:59
going to gain weight again so I said
00:03:02
well let's think about this you can do a
00:03:04
study where you take somebody say you
00:03:06
for example and you could fast them for
00:03:08
four days and measure how much how many
00:03:11
calories they're burning their basil
00:03:13
metabolic rate on day Zero before the
00:03:15
fast and measure them four days into the
00:03:17
fast and see how many calories you're
00:03:18
burning so on day Zero they say you're
00:03:22
you're burning say 2,000 calories a day
00:03:24
on day four of zero food you don't eat
00:03:26
any food for 4 days they measure how
00:03:29
much calories burning your body is
00:03:30
burning 2200 calories your basil
00:03:34
metabolic rate didn't go down it went up
00:03:37
your body's activating itself during
00:03:40
fasting which is fascinating because if
00:03:42
you're trying to lose weight dropping
00:03:45
that masal metabolic rate is death like
00:03:48
if you drop that metabolic rate it's so
00:03:50
hard to lose weight that's what the
00:03:52
calorie restricted diets did that's what
00:03:54
the lowfat diets did the eating all the
00:03:56
time did but when you actually fast your
00:03:59
metabol rate went up and we see this in
00:04:01
study after study and the reason is
00:04:04
actually basic physiology it's actually
00:04:07
medical physiology like first year
00:04:09
medical school stuff when you don't eat
00:04:12
what happens in your body from a hormone
00:04:14
standpoint is that your insulin's going
00:04:16
to fall you're going to allow your body
00:04:19
to start using the calories that are in
00:04:21
the body at the same time other hormones
00:04:24
go up so the sympathetic tone goes up
00:04:27
which is your fight ORF flight response
00:04:29
your your cortisol levels go up because
00:04:31
again it's an activation and your growth
00:04:33
hormone goes up because those hormones
00:04:35
are going to start telling your body to
00:04:37
start pulling calories out so you're
00:04:39
actually activating yourself think about
00:04:42
in the wild if you see a Hungry Wolf is
00:04:45
that wolf just sort of you know all like
00:04:48
lethargic no he's activated he's
00:04:51
actually more dangerous than any other
00:04:53
wolf as opposed to say a lion who just
00:04:56
ate because when you just eat you just
00:04:58
want to lie there you know you want to
00:05:00
digest your food you have no energy so
00:05:02
people say wow your your your metabolic
00:05:04
rate is going to go down if you fast no
00:05:06
the the truth is actually the opposite
00:05:08
it goes up do you fast oh I do that
00:05:10
regularly yeah and what does your fast
00:05:12
look like because I've heard of all
00:05:13
these different types of fasting 36
00:05:15
hours 72 hours yeah 14 hours there's no
00:05:18
rules for fasting you could do you know
00:05:21
it could be 16 hours so 14 hours
00:05:23
remember is sort of a baseline 12 to 14
00:05:25
hours right that just means you're not
00:05:27
eating after dinner that's it
00:05:30
um and so if you want to lose weight
00:05:32
that's probably not strong enough to
00:05:35
make you lose weight because 12 to 14
00:05:36
hours is sort of just this Baseline that
00:05:38
people had in the
00:05:40
70s um so you can go to 16 hours for
00:05:42
example and you shrink that by either
00:05:44
eating breakfast a little later or
00:05:47
eating dinner a little earlier but you
00:05:49
can do more than that you can do say a
00:05:51
24-hour fast you could eat two meals a
00:05:53
day say eat between 12 and 6 that's a
00:05:55
6-hour eating window or you could eat
00:05:57
once a day which is like a 24-hour fast
00:05:59
or you could even go multiple days uh
00:06:02
without eating because again your body
00:06:04
is smart like your body knows what to do
00:06:07
if you have all those calories sitting
00:06:09
on your body right 100,000 calories
00:06:12
sitting in body fat and you don't eat
00:06:14
for three days well you need 6,000
00:06:16
calories well you have 100,000 200,000
00:06:19
so what's the problem take it out of
00:06:20
your body fat let your body eat your
00:06:24
body fat that's what fasting is doing
00:06:26
for you and it's totally natural because
00:06:29
because that's what it's there for that
00:06:32
body fat is not there for looks it's
00:06:34
there for you as a source as a store of
00:06:36
calories so fasting just lets you use
00:06:39
that there's nothing wrong with it
00:06:41
leptin is this hormone that essentially
00:06:44
brings down my Hunger makes me less
00:06:47
hungry is it therefore possible that
00:06:50
people are becoming leapin resistant
00:06:53
there is leap in resistance the question
00:06:54
again is why and the way to think about
00:06:57
it is it's sort of this sort of balance
00:06:59
right so insulin if you give people
00:07:01
insulin like if you think about causes
00:07:03
of obesity what causes people to gain
00:07:05
weight well if I give you insulin you'll
00:07:07
gain weight if I give me insulin I'll
00:07:08
gain weight so insulin causes weight
00:07:10
gain whereas leptin will cause the
00:07:12
opposite so it's sort of the Seesaw body
00:07:14
fat is nothing more or less than uh a
00:07:18
store of energy right and you only store
00:07:20
energy when your body tells you our
00:07:22
entire body runs on hormones right
00:07:24
nothing happens without the hormonal
00:07:26
system being activated so insulin is
00:07:28
pushing us to gain weight Le us is
00:07:30
pushing us to lose weight and what's
00:07:32
happening is that one is sort of
00:07:34
overcoming the other insulin is
00:07:35
overcoming the leptin in the last six
00:07:37
months so many of the nutritionists I've
00:07:38
spoken to have really impressed upon me
00:07:40
that we are fiber deficient and I'm
00:07:44
wondering how that happened um well I
00:07:47
think it was part of the processing uh
00:07:49
thing so taking out fiber is a great way
00:07:52
to make foods more appealing if you will
00:07:57
um so what happens is that if you take
00:08:01
um flour for example and you have a lot
00:08:03
of fiber in it then the digestion is
00:08:05
slowed so what you get is a slower rise
00:08:09
so you take flow and you put a lot of
00:08:11
fiber in it well instead of uh having
00:08:14
this huge spike in insulin which you're
00:08:16
going to get it's a much slower spike in
00:08:18
insulin when you have the huge spike in
00:08:20
insulin it basically overloads your
00:08:23
system and it makes you feel you know
00:08:26
gives you this big hit sort of like if
00:08:28
you have like cocaine P for example you
00:08:30
know it's it's turned into a very fine
00:08:32
powder then you snort it so you get this
00:08:35
massive sort of Spike same thing with um
00:08:39
you know carbohydrates if you don't have
00:08:40
any uh fiber you you pull all the fiber
00:08:43
out by processing you get this massive
00:08:46
sort of unnatural Spike and your body
00:08:47
says oh that's great it tastes great I
00:08:50
really love it and you get people who
00:08:52
are sort of addicted to it because that
00:08:54
big spike is going then going to release
00:08:57
dopamine and dopamine is a pleasure
00:09:00
hormone so you eat you know cookies or
00:09:03
whatever highly processed foods you get
00:09:05
this sort of pleasurable response and
00:09:08
that makes you crave it if you have a
00:09:10
lot of fiber it acts almost sort of like
00:09:13
an antidote to that carbohydrate because
00:09:16
you're slowing down that release what
00:09:18
foods are high in fiber well mostly
00:09:20
unprocessed Foods so the the things like
00:09:22
beans and if you're having if you're
00:09:24
eating uh whole grains for example
00:09:26
compared to others then it's going to
00:09:28
have a reduction in the speed of
00:09:30
absorption so it's again not about the
00:09:33
calories necessarily or even necessarily
00:09:35
about the carbohydrates because you're
00:09:36
still eating the same amount of
00:09:38
carbohydrate but you're slowing down the
00:09:41
speed at which is absorbed which is
00:09:43
going to change the instructions that
00:09:45
you give your body if you have a massive
00:09:47
spike in glucose you get this massive
00:09:51
dopamine surge right and your body's
00:09:53
like yo love it then the next time
00:09:57
you're like okay give me that fine
00:09:59
carbohydrate what about protein cuz we
00:10:01
we tend to think a protein is something
00:10:03
that you know is super great for weight
00:10:05
loss yeah protein is probably uh sort of
00:10:09
inter it's not bad I mean the main thing
00:10:12
is cutting down the carbohydrates but
00:10:14
you know in the BCD code I really talk
00:10:16
about cutting the processing down
00:10:18
because uh proteins usually don't come
00:10:22
as pure protein right in nature you
00:10:25
never find like you know how you have
00:10:27
like whe powder protein or whatever
00:10:30
the only way you can do that is by
00:10:33
processing the heck out of food to get
00:10:35
some kind of pure protein it doesn't
00:10:37
exist in nature like it almost doesn't
00:10:40
exist in maybe there's a few examples
00:10:43
but when you eat meat you think okay
00:10:45
there's a lot of protein but that's
00:10:46
actually a lot of fat in there too right
00:10:49
um if you eat anything else that has
00:10:51
protein it's it's rarely all protein you
00:10:54
know very lean meats like chicken breast
00:10:56
and stuff are going to be higher in
00:10:57
protein but there's still a lot other
00:10:59
stuff in there and it's very rare that
00:11:01
somebody will eat just all pure 100%
00:11:05
protein it tends to be hard to eat like
00:11:08
the fat brings a lot of flavor and so on
00:11:10
so it's a bit of an unnatural way to eat
00:11:14
sure if you if you're to eat a lot of
00:11:16
protein it does Spike insulin so it does
00:11:18
have some effect to gain weight but it's
00:11:19
actually a very um inefficient uh
00:11:22
macronutrient that is your there's three
00:11:25
macronutrients there's carbohydrates
00:11:27
there's um fat and there's protein
00:11:30
your body stores energy or calories in
00:11:32
two ways there's car glucose which is
00:11:34
carbohydrate and it stores it as body
00:11:36
fat which is fat right it doesn't
00:11:39
protein is not a way for the body to
00:11:41
store energy so when you're eating a lot
00:11:43
of protein it's very difficult for it to
00:11:45
turn it into a storage mechanism like
00:11:49
you know so you eat glucose and you eat
00:11:52
fat you can store glucose and you can
00:11:54
store fat but you eat protein but you
00:11:56
don't really store it as a source of
00:11:58
energy so if all Foods then increase our
00:12:00
insulin
00:12:02
levels I guess the best solution is to
00:12:04
fast uh fasting is certainly one way but
00:12:07
just changing the foods to uh other ones
00:12:09
because if you look at the
00:12:11
insulin uh release in processed foods
00:12:14
versus unprocessed Foods there's a huge
00:12:17
difference so if you eat sort of uh
00:12:20
highly refined foods like white bread
00:12:22
for example then you're going to have a
00:12:25
very different response in insulin
00:12:27
compared to sort of of um a whole a
00:12:31
whole food so unprocessed Foods in
00:12:34
general your body knows how to handle
00:12:36
like we've been eating them for
00:12:37
thousands of years um but certainly
00:12:41
anytime you eat your insulin is going to
00:12:43
go up you're giving your body
00:12:44
instructions to store energy so the
00:12:47
solution is to eat less often what if
00:12:48
you do a juice fast juice fast of course
00:12:51
is not a real fast because you're you're
00:12:53
taking a lot of sugars what you think of
00:12:55
juice fasting um I'm generally I I I
00:12:59
think it's less effective than regular
00:13:01
fasting and it really depends on how
00:13:02
much juice you take if you take a lot of
00:13:04
juice you could easily get you know
00:13:06
thousands of calories plus a lot of
00:13:07
sugar if you do it you know cucumber
00:13:10
juice and stuff that's very low in sugar
00:13:12
and kale juice then it could be very
00:13:13
very healthy for you because there's
00:13:15
vitamins and stuff there so it all
00:13:16
depends on how it's done we have a
00:13:18
closing tradition on this podcast where
00:13:20
the last last guest leaves a question
00:13:21
for the next guest without knowing who
00:13:23
they're leaving it for and the question
00:13:26
that's been left for you
00:13:29
is what is your greatest gift to the
00:13:34
world I think if if if you know I
00:13:40
suppose it's sounds very arrogant um but
00:13:45
I really hope that my my work helps
00:13:50
people sort
00:13:52
of reverse the type two diabetes because
00:13:55
that is really sort of one of the most
00:13:59
close things that I deal with because I
00:14:01
deal with it professionally sort of
00:14:02
every day um and helps break the stigma
00:14:07
of not just the stigma but the
00:14:09
understanding like like you know
00:14:11
stimulates more thinking about weight
00:14:15
loss how to lose weight more than
00:14:17
calories in calories out I mean it's so
00:14:20
sort of Pie in the Sky because you know
00:14:23
it's there's a whole you know worldwide
00:14:27
sort of institutionalized
00:14:29
fossilized almost you know thinking
00:14:32
around calories it's all about calories
00:14:34
sort of thing so to for me to upset it
00:14:36
seems
00:14:38
ridiculous but I hope that I can at
00:14:41
least start that conversation to say hey
00:14:45
let's think about these things let's
00:14:47
think about the hormones let's think
00:14:48
about reversing type 2 diabetes let's
00:14:50
think about all getting together and
00:14:52
helping each other to become so much
00:14:55
healthier not through drugs and not
00:14:59
through more surgery and not with you
00:15:01
know weird and new things that you've
00:15:04
never heard of but with the tried and
00:15:07
the true sort of oldest thinking that
00:15:11
has been there right it's it's to me
00:15:13
it's I I sometimes think about this
00:15:15
crazy I like why do I think I can even
00:15:18
do that right it's just ridiculous it's
00:15:20
so much hubris but you know I I can only
00:15:25
try right because I I see in my own
00:15:28
practice how much good it's done for
00:15:30
some people so it drives me to say I
00:15:32
need to bring it to more people I need
00:15:34
to to to explain it to them if they want
00:15:36
to be helped they will be helped but if
00:15:38
they don't want understand this okay I'm
00:15:39
not trying to force myself to do
00:15:41
anything but you know that's what I hope
00:15:43
my greatest gift will be um but at the
00:15:47
same time I sort of think that's just
00:15:50
you know you're crazy if you can think
00:15:52
you can do that but well it's The Crazy
00:15:55
Ones that change the world Dr Jason um
00:15:57
It's The Crazy Ones that change the
00:15:58
world and even with you know your
00:16:00
conversation around intermittent fasting
00:16:02
has changed many many lives that you'll
00:16:04
never get to meet I imagine many many
00:16:06
millions many many millions because it's
00:16:09
even brought the conversation to this
00:16:10
show before you entered the room many
00:16:13
many months and months and months and
00:16:15
almost a year ago people started talking
00:16:17
on the show about intim and fasting and
00:16:19
that's in many respects due to the work
00:16:21
that you've done to further that
00:16:23
conversation and now your work continues
00:16:25
to highlight the fact that type 2
00:16:26
diabetes is a reversible disas disease
00:16:29
in many cases and I think again that's
00:16:31
going to
00:16:32
save you know tens of millions if not
00:16:34
hundreds of millions of lives over the
00:16:36
coming coming decades and years so thank
00:16:38
you for what you do Dr Jason um it's a
00:16:41
huge honor to get to sit with you today
00:16:42
and I feel wiser and more enlightened
00:16:44
and like someone has turned the lights
00:16:46
on in a certain part of my knowledge
00:16:48
because of this conversation so I thank
00:16:50
you for that tremendously thank you so
00:16:51
much it's been great if you love the
00:16:53
dver CEO brand and you watch this
00:16:55
Channel please do me a huge favor become
00:16:57
part of the 15 % of the viewers on this
00:17:00
channel that have hit the Subscribe
00:17:01
button it helps us tremendously and the
00:17:03
bigger the channel gets the bigger the
00:17:05
guests
