Can intermittent fasting really help you drop pounds of body fat, gain mental clarity and prevent cancer and alzheimer’s disease? Or is this all too good to be true? Curious if intermittent fasting is right for you or how to get started? Tune in to hear Ali and Becki break down the benefits of intermittent fasting, the basics for getting started and how to know if fasting will support your health goals!
In this Episode, Ali and Becki discuss the basics of intermittent fasting including how and why it is done, different types of fasts and how it can help to break old patterns of overeating and overconsumption! In modern society, access to food is a constant and we have gotten so far removed from the ancestral patterns of hunter gatherer society or feast and famine as a true reality. Intermittent fasting can help us to break away from this overfed model, but beyond a mindset shift it can also allow the body to use stored fat as fuel. Beyond weight loss, other benefits have been seen in cancer treatment, neurological disease and cognitive decline. Learn about tools that can support intermittent fasting, when fasting is appropriate and how this tool can be a part of an even bigger lifestyle shift toward using fat as fuel!
Also In This Episode:
- Benefits of Intermittent Fasting
- Human Growth Hormone Stimulation
- Autophagy/Cellular Reset
- Stem Cell Regeneration
- Neuropathway Regeneration
- Research Highlights of Intermittent Fasting
- Effect of intermittent fasting and refeeding on insulin action in healthy men http://jap.physiology.org/content/99/6/2128
- Intermittent fasting and caloric restriction ameliorate age-related behavioral deficits in the triple-transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17306982
- Common Misconceptions and Misuse of Intermittent Fasting
- Jason Fung – The Complete Guide to Fasting https://www.dietdoctor.com/authors/dr-jason-fung-m-d
- Tools to Support Your Fast
- Best Foods for Breaking Your Fast
- Supplements to Support Your Fast
Transcript:
Welcome to the naturally nourished podcast, that delivers cutting edge food as medicine solutions for optimum health. Ali Miller is a nutrition expert sought out by the media and America’s top medical institutes for her revolutionary functional medicine interventions. From disease treatment to prevention, every episode will empower you with ways to put yourself back in control of your health. Please note, the topics discussed are for educational purposes only. Now welcome integrative dietitians Ali Miller and her co-host Becki Yoo.
B: Welcome to the Naturally Nourished podcast. This is episode 63 and today we are talking about a topic that has been very buzzworthy lately and one we get a ton of questions on from our clients, as well as participants in our virtual ketosis program. We’re talking about intermittent fasting. So you may have heard of this in the paleo community or maybe from a personal trainer, or fitness instructor, and it’s really used as a tool to accelerate body fat loss. So today we’re going to cover some of the major do’s and don’ts of fasting and have listeners decide for themselves whether it’s right for them. But before we jump in Ali, what are your updates?
A: So hey everyone. We’re really excited to jump into this topic and as Becki said, it’s kind of different flavors for different individuals and during the time of the season, you might find that fasting isn’t something that agrees with you. You may find certain hormonal influencing times that it’s a good thing for you or it doesn’t work so well for you so we’ll talk definitely about that and as she also eluded to, it’s a higher tools that we use within our ketogenic program. We are selling spaces in the Virtual Ketosis Program for 2018. The $50 offer will go through Jan 2 and the code for that is KETO2018 so it’s just K-E-T-O-2018 and you add that coupon to your cart upon checkout, and this applies to both the $199 Bundle Package which also includes the Eat Fat Get Skinny and Ketogenic Kickstart Ebook as well as just the virtual participant ticket which is $169. So for just an extra $30 you save an extra $9 or 5 on the Keto Ebook Bundle, so I definitely recommend doing that and with the $50 off, it’s only $149 instead of $199. So we hope you guys will join us it’s an awesome program we have seen amazing benefits and we’ll be talking about it more and more and more to come as we go towards the tail end of the year but fasting if just one of the many tools that utilized within this type of a program and we’re going to talk about how beyond weight loss and fat burn it cans definitely be a tool for whole body health.
B: Awesome so, Ali, let’s start off today with just the basics on intermittent fasting So let’s define intermittent fasting for listeners and also talk about how it’s done.
A: Sure so when we’re looking at the idea of intermittent fasting, it’s as simple as simple and dumbed down as it can be it’s just not eating for periods of time. Not consuming food. And the issue is in the American diet, and really in our Westernized civilization, we are in almost a chronic overfed state as our norm. And you know, we’re looking at now Taco Bell and certain fast food restaurants doing the 4th meal, or you maybe told by a personal trainer to eat every 3 hours even if you aren’t hungry because it‘s good to keep your metabolism revved up and were learning more and more with the Journal of Metabolism and different influences on endocrinological influence and hormone response that when we’re constantly in overfed, that can really exhaust our insulin response and it can drive excessive body fat, and it can hinder our blood sugar metabolism as well as our body fat metabolism. So we’re realizing that the more we stimulate the body with food, the less functional the body is ast using food as fuel appropriate. It’s almost like we abuse those patterns and mechanisms and so we’re going back towards another trend of more ancestral health, of more of these maybe hunter gatherer rituals where there was more a of a feasting and a fasting where when food was abundant it was consumed and we’ll talk about that too today I’m not a huge fan of feasting ad lib per say, but that concept of when food was readily available it was consumed and then ancestrally some individuals would go upwards of 2 days rationing small amounts of higher fat and nourishing small bites to really get through or doing long term 36 hours fasts without food at all. And just relying on water and such. And so we are understanding when we look at connections of our adrenals and our stress axis as we’ve discussed before either being in that fight or flight or rest and digest mode, and I think that the issue metabolically with the American population and obesity is that 2 part: we’re both in a constant fight or flight mode and that is adding insult to injury when it’s also paired with a constant fed mode.
B: Awesome so ok so when we have constant exposure to food though, this can be a little bit more challenging that it was for our ancestors who just you know, it wasn’t in front of them they weren’t running into a grocery store every time they ran out of something or they didn’t have stores on the shelves.
A: Right.
B: So let’s talk about the benefits and why we’d want to do this in the first place.
A: Sure so the benefits of fasting starting on a metabolic level is we can see a big improvement on our sexual hormones and our metabolic hormones with an increase of HGH so I’m sure that a lot of you heard about the buzz, it’s kind of died out because a lot of the HGH supplements or drops in that type of a diet have been passed to be no more effective than an placebo but there was a potential raise of HGH based on the fact that those diets were only 600 calories so they were upregulating in some sense fasting to one level, but the human growth hormone can play a big benefit on our metabolic processes. It helps to increase activity in the tissue that burns calories, and also can help to create our sexual hormone balance so it can help also with things like testosterone production which further than supports musculature and so that’s one of the big benefits that we see. Another thing more on a neurological level which is where we see a lot of the exciting research is on stem cell regeneration we can actually see increased cellular function and it kind of is driven by this process called autophagy.
Whereas morbid as this sounds, your own body’s cells basically eat away at the parts of the cells that are dysfunctional and recycle the parts that are able to be utilized and have this whole kind of cellular reset if you will. And so we see this both healing while stem cell regeneration and also with cleaning out dysfunctional parts of the cell and increasing the expression of the functional elements of the cell. And this is where even we’re seeing in up to date oncology research, the benefits of fasting for instance like post-chemotherapy infusion participating in a 24 hour fast because not only is the individual nauseous but they have a higher increase of toxins in the bloodstream and the fasting actually helps the body to upregulate the detox process versus the body being stressed by the metabolic process of breaking down nutrients in food. So on a cellular level, that autophagy can help with cleaning up and increasing the function of cells, and then we’re even seeing neuropathway regeneration in shift. We’re seeing a lot of research in advancements with Alzheimer’s and dementia and the benefits that fasting can actually reduce oxidation in the brain as well as potentially in the cardiovascular system. So when we’re talking about beta amyloid plaque or build up , in our vessels all of this can actually be benefited during fasting state when the body’s able to do more of a self-inventory and then clean up messes if you will.
B: Awesome I think that breaks it down a little bit rather than that big word “autophagy” it’s clean-up right?
A: Yes, yes exactly.
B: So let’s without getting too, too nerdy let’s dive into just a couple of research studies that are relevant here.
A: Sure so there was one that I pulled by the Journal of applied Physiology and this looked at- and we’ll put a link in our show notes- this looked at 80 men and it looked at intermittent fasting every second day for 20 hours for 15 days so every other day they fasted for 20 hour window. And they found that there was enhancement in insulin sensitivity so this is the opposite of insulin resistance and we do know bar none that that is one of the most beneficial influence of fasting. So fasting really helps again, if you think of insulin as ringing a doorbell on the body’s metabolism of like food is here food is here, when you stop overstimulation and there was resistance of someone now opening the door based on that signal, that’s kind of what the insulin resistance is seen as, well if you stop overstimulating the doorbell, if its’ silent all of a sudden then doorbell rings, we’re going to respond to that more readily. And so that’s kind of a good visual of how insulin sensitivity can definitely be enhanced with the intermittent fasting or using fasting as a tool.
There was also seen in these 80 men, adipose tissue changes that actually demonstrated influence of adiponectin, which adiponectin is a component that plays a big role in our metabolism and it can play a role with hand in hand leptin and fasting. So we see that leptin can play a big role with satiation and can tell us that we’re full or satisfied and leptin also can be influenced by overconsumption of carbohydrates just like insulin can. So that’s one of the benefits that we see when we just fasting as well is that we can get more leptin sensitivity but just like anything, too much of a good things can be bad and that’s where in the ketogenic community and the keto diet that we run we do incorporate after a tight 4 months or months of ketosis without any carbohydrates, we may encourage a little bit of carb cycling because we can actually see leptin resistance and excessive leptin to leptin depletion and then that’s where we can get hunger again when the body doesn’t read that leptin as satiating. So in this study over this period of time though there was a connect win with plays a role with our gray fat that thermogenic activity and leptin as far as satiation and those are basic survival mechanisms to help up from surviving during that fasting state.
B: Awesome and then we were just talking offline about ow the majority of studies really though, are still animal studies that are available on intermittent fasting.
A: Yes.
B: So I also pulled one on a mouse model in Alzheimer’s up to kind of demonstrate that some of the neurological benefits.
A: Ok.
B; And so these animals, these mice, were given either an ad lib diet, a calorie restricted about 40% of their requirement daily or they were intermittent fasted every other day. And so it at 10 months of this study both the calorie restricted and the intermittent fasted mice demonstrated more cognitive enhancement and more exploratory behavior in a maze activity then those that were fed ad lib. But then at 17 months the intermittent fasted months kind of took off and actually performed better on their goal related tasks and then we’re also seen to have lower levels of plaques and tau that are associated with Alzheimer’s.
A: Awesome. So in the beginning the calorie restriction and intermittent fasting were seen to be paired, but then it really accelerated the intermittent fasting over caloric restriction.
B: Exactly.
A: Ok cool. And I think that does pair more with the way that we use this as a tool in clinical practice and personally as well as far as it being kind of a cycling approach and thinking of ti again as kind of taking out the trash on a cellular level in the body and giving the body time to do its wonderful mechanisms of action within its capabilities and not overstimulation, giving it the time to do the work per say.
B: Awesome I think that’s a really good to summarize it. So what about before we jump into different types of fasting and how we see it, what about misunderstandings or ways that we see fasting misused? Let’s talk about that.
A: Yeah, well I think one of the things that makes a lot of people especially medical practitioners and dietitians kind of gun-shy if you will of using fasting as a tool is the fact that it can often be misperceived in a binge and restriction cycle. So a lot of times we think of clinical eating disorders, there is a very tight calorie restriction approach and then often a binge episode and then some form of purging whether the purging is through excess exercise or the purging could actually be vomiting or use of laxatives or in some eating disorders there is no purging, there’s just then tighter restrictive cycle. So that concept of “I can eat whatever I want” I’m just going to fast it off, per say, is not how we recommend using this and it can definitely drive more metabolic dysfunction in the body especially if we’re going into a chronically underfed state on a regular basis as we saw with the mice study, short term use of calorie restriction but it’s really about using the fasting as tool and not over time ongoing caloric restriction which can be distressing to the body. And now caloric restriction can also be interpreted we’re talking about to a starvation mode which is significantly lower than metabolic rate for an extended period of time, not just a restriction to meet your metabolic rate and such.
So I think that’s a big misunderstanding and I think listening to Dr. Jason from who’s really the master, maybe you could look up the name of his book on fasting. He has 2 and he has the I believe it’s the Institute of Metabolism but he does clinical observed fasts in his programs and he has a book specifically on fasting and it’s all research referenced and fantastic but he uses this reference of you know, washing your hands and practicing good hygiene doesn’t make you a hypochondriac or doesn’t make you OCD, about OCD behavior could be excessive hand washing but washing your hands doesn’t make you OCD if that makes sense. So same thing, practicing intermittent fasting could be a technique that could be misused or over abused with an eating disorder individual but does not create an eating disorder. Does that make sense?
B: That totally makes sense and his book is called The Complete Guide to Fasting, his website also has a ton of really good videos and presentations about fasting so I’ll liken to that in the show notes for anybody who’s looking to really take a deep dive into the subject.
A: Cool. And so I think that is a misunderstanding that it creates eating disorder I don’t think it creates an eating disorder by any means. I think that the eating disorder individual is an individual that should not practice fasting, right? So that means that it could evoke more unhealthy food relationships for someone that doesn’t have a healthy relationship with food. So it’s good to be mindful of if you do use fasting, if you’re telling yourself and watching the clock and saying “oh I can make it 3 more hours” you know, that’s not being intuitive and that’s overworking the signals of your body of hunger and that’s not going to be likely as beneficial for the body as if it comes and feels very natural to the body. So, again, I think that’s one of the biggest misunderstandings and it can also be misused if we’re not watching our total carbohydrate consumption. So if we are fasting from a high carbohydrate diet, and we’re going from excessive insulin resistance, yes, it will still help with insulin sensitivity but were going to deal with a lot of dips of hypoglycemia because there’s a lot of insulin in the bloodstream and so if there’s excessive insulin the bloodstream that’s going to create a dramatic drop of blood sugar and it takes anywhere between 12-24 hours for the liver to kind of wring out the glycogen of or the blood sugar storage in the liver and at 24 hours post time of fasting, that’s when it kind of equals out and people could kind of come into more of a balanced approach regardless of whether their preexisting diet was, but most people don’t fast for more than 24 hours most people are trying to do a 16 or an 18 hour fast and for those individuals it would not behoove them to go from a high glycemic standard American diet into a 16 or 18 hour fast.
It’s only if those individuals are going to be a metabolically monitored fast prolonging 24 hours that they’ll actually get benefit. So for those of us to use fasting as a balance tool, I would highly advise that we are fat fuel adapted already able to make ketones, we’ve already restricted our carbohydrates and taught the body how fat can be used as fuel and then even if we’re going from more of a low glycemic diet and using fasting as stool, that would work just find but I would definitely recommend the intro and outro days of your fast should be the lowest of your low glycemic c approach so that it’s not as much of a jump into cold water, per say. And the body’s more functional at the available high octane fuel of ketone bodies versus having a kind of bad transmission in the car, shifting from high glucose and not understanding how to use ketones as fuel.
B: Yeah I love that visual of kind of that shift in and out or visual or like a pendulum and swinging from one side to the other.
A: Absolutely.
B: Versus trying to keep that pendulum kind of controlled in the middle when we’re fasting.
A: Absolutely and clinically I used to never recommend fasting, for individuals who were low glycemic and I kind of made that rule across the board and I even have a blog article out there about when to use intermittent fasting and I’m thinking of doing some revisions to that because I’m starting to find that it could be used as a tool for some individuals but that’s when it gets really specific to that person and across the board I would still have the stance that fasting is the most functional for someone that is fat fuel adapted of using ketones so people in ketosis have the most successful outcome of fasting and the least organ stress on their body.
B: Awesome. So let’s talk about different types of fasting now Ali because I know we recommend in our keto program using keto coffee but I’m heard of other types of fasting as well.
A: Yeah, so fasting in general is looked at in a caloric restriction or timing. And when we use it in our program we do both so we pair both caloric restriction with a timing restriction and generally speaking, caloric restriction is looking at like less than 600 calories a day which is really to the point of kind of a starvation mode and when I do caloric restriction paired with timing, I stay about that less than 600 and that’s where I think we start to get negative influence so we generally are look at about 800 calorie restriction and the timing of either a 16/8,or 18/6 and so the first number is the amount of time without food, the second number is the fed time so 16/8 would look like from 8pm until noon that following day, so you’d have your last meal completed by 8pm and then you’d go to sleep at whatever time you do, you could sip on water in the evening, wake up, you might just do a water fast during that 16/8 and then at noon you’d break you fast and that’s when you’d have you first meal or a snack to ease into it. And 18/6/ would be going just a little bit longer so maybe that’d be going from 7pm until 1 so you know we just added an hour on both ends of the spectrum and that’d be 18 hours without food, 6 hours with food and then 24 hours of course would be an entire day without food and as far as without food and how that is identified, there’s even a choose your own adventure within that pattern. So some individuals really advocate for a simply water fast which means just drinking water and potentially an electrolyte within the solution.
We use in our ketosis program a fat fast which incorporates keto coffee or keto tea, and so we’re looking at incorporating typically something with MCT I like to recommend coconut oil as s whole food versus the MCT oil per say but coconut oil and grass-fed butter or ghee so we’re getting a different blend of fatty acids there and then we’re also going to be getting a little bit of caffeine and that fat can teach the body that fat is available as fuel, it can help with ketone productivity especially with getting the MCT in the coconut oil that helps to produce ketones and also gives us a little bit of energy from the caffeine, so that tends to work really well. Some individuals get jittery with that, they have hormonal imbalance with that and they need to add a little bit of protein there and that’s where those individuals might add like a tablespoon of our grass-fed why or tablespoon of collagen and that might be enough to keep them to use that as a fasting technique. Then there’s also individuals that would do a bone broth fast if they don’t want to use coffee or tea, bone broth is going to have a little bit of protein, a good distribution of amino acids, it’s going to have the benefits of course collagen and gelatin, and then some individuals we definitely would encourage playing with adding fast to the bone broth so like pureeing some turmeric and ghee in your fasting morning.
There’s also Jimmy Moore brought to light the egg fast and so that’s another technique that some people will do a couple of days some people will do egg fast where they’re just doing eggs which are a blend of highly absorbable fast and B vitamins and essential fatty acids, and a little bit of protein. So comparable to bone broth fast with Ghee but with just a little bit of a different profile. And then you know there’s modifications all across the board and it really comes down to listening to your body. Technically when I’m teaching our Virtual Ketosis Program, I like to say if we’re going to add something that isn’t pure fat to our coffee or tea then that’s not technically fasting so on a non-fasting day if we wanted to do keto coffee and add a scoop of collagen, add a half scoop of grassfed whey and some cinnamon and vanilla in there, that would be then you know a fed state but for those individuals who don’t tolerate pure fat and that’s the closest they can get, it’s still is likely easier on their system to process than breaking down cellulose fibers and whole foods because it is pre-masticated, pre-chewed if you will and easy to absorb or assimilate or use and that might be a technique that kind of stair steps you into the process. So generally speaking to kind of clarify, fasting is both a combination of caloric restriction and timing. I’ve had individuals try to do the 16/8 and still fit in all 1200 or 1600 calories and that’s not a good thing either because then you’re constantly feeding during your fed state and you don’t want to necessarily be eating 6 hours straight either.
It’s just that that’s the only time you’re allowed to have food consumption. So it is a combination of both caloric restriction and timing, and then it may be just pure water during the timing that you’re in a fasting mode, it may be fat fueled fasting which would be like a keto coffee it may be a mix of protein and fat as would be seen in your bone broth with the ghee or the egg fast, and it really comes down to ensuring that we listen to our body if we have negative responses like shakes, jitters, anxiety, blood sugar crashes, sweats, vision changes then these are all indications that this is not something that agrees with our body metabolically and we have to find other ways to explore those beneficial outcomes.
B: I’m really glad you said that last part and I think that when we do our Virtual Ketosis Program for example, we will have individuals just start and get keto adapted or fat adapted for at least a week before they even mess with the intermittent fasting.
A: Absolutely and you know, again, like I said different times of the year, different of season it’ll agree differently and a lot of times what sets up the most success or failure is how you step into the fast and how you break the fast so often my answer is for those who are struggling with fasting is have more fat, have more fat, have more fat, because at least that it going to have less influence on insulin than protein and definitely than carbohydrates will.
B: Awesome so how about people who should not fast I know we already mentioned eating disorder mentality or past history of eating disorder, but let’s talk about just some of the barriers to fasting, how not to do it, and then who should not fast or not consider intermittent fasting.
A: So the who should not fast definitely would be yes anyone that is currently in recovery or active eating disorder and then definitely pregnant women I don’t recommend fasting. Again, organic fasting meaning taking time without eating within reason but clockwatching fasting, no and I honestly don’t even recommend per say across the board it’s more about listening to the signals of your body and, yes, you can have structured 3 days of fasting morning and, yes, that is a plan, but you don’t want to overdrive the signals of the body so pregnancy and eating disorder are not times to go into any form of calorie restriction or rigidity as far as when to not eat it’s about signals of listening to your body and fueling your body and feeling safe with fueling your body. Also, as far as medications are concerned, there can definitely be some interactions with medications that are supposed to be taken with food as well as drugs or medications that work as hypoglycemic agents and that’s the biggest category that we watch with fasting.
So individuals that are on oral glucohygenics like Glucophage or metformin, or are on insulin of course their units of insulin would be greatly adjusted or they would not even be taking a short acting insulin on a fasting morning because there’s not going for it to act on as far as glucose in the blood stream. They may only be doing their long-dose insulin and they may even be taking a fasting blood sugar and waiting until they break that fast but that individual should definitely be monitored with a certified diabetes educator and I would as a stance not recommend a fast for a insulin diabetes that isn’t actively monitored. But with medical monitoring we can see some awesome outcomes, and reduced medication dosages over time. However, if taking the medication as prescribed not a good fit. And then again the biggest area of concern is those who are coming from a standard diet, a high carbohydrate diet they are going to get high reactivity of hypoglycemic a because there’s a lot of insulin circulating in their bloodstream and so these individuals when they wake up they are going to be hungry and that’s the same example of why people say “oh well I decided to skip eating breakfast because when I eat breakfast I’m so much hungrier” those are people that re having cereal, banana, orange juice, you know standard American carbs on carbs on carbs breakfast and they’re getting a dynamic glucose spike followed buy a glucose crash because that excessive insulin dropped the glucose so low that now they are hypoglycemic and they’re getting those hunger signals.
And so any time we’re going from very high blood sugar or a high carbohydrate diet, again, after 24 hours of fasting, they’re going to get benefits from it but you know to do more than a 24 hour fast, that also should be e medically monitored so in this type of recommendation people need to start adapting their diet to go low glycemic and even furthermore I’d recommend that they are keto adapted and their body knows what fat as fuel feels like to get the benefits of fasting.
B: Awesome I think that’s super helpful. So what about how to get started with all of this and maybe any tips and tricks that you have for kind of if fasting sounds like something that could work for listeners, how you would recommend diving in.
A: Yeah so, like I said, and it’s kind of where you’re at and so being keto-adapted is definitely a tool and that would mean that typically it takes about 72 hours, 36-72 hours for an individual to really start to produce and use ketones as fuel and that’s generalized you know some people have other errors of metabolism, some people have inflammation, and or hormone imbalance and those things can further hinder their process of getting keto adapted so for some individuals it will take an entire week, and that’s why often we say don’t just jump into keto with fasting, wait to bring that in until you are producing ketones and you’re monitoring. So for keto-adapted individuals, we definitely recommend like 3 days consecutive of the 16 – 18 hour fasts and those days would look like maybe 1 protein shake, 1 meal, 1 snack where they’re breaking at noon or 1 and you know then they’re having that final meal in the evening and then even for those individuals, they might during their fasting window have a keto coffee or keto tea and they may also have bone broth so if they have a late night, we may encourage them to have a bone broth and 10 pm if they’re not going to bed until 11:30 or have a fat bomb something of pure fat the combination of coconut oil and grass-fed butter with some flavor enhancers if you will, like maybe lemon zest and a lemon extract that would be a really nice lemon meringue type deal and so using a fat bomb would definitely be something that some individuals would use to get through their fasting period and prevent hunger but still get the benefit again of less of the insulin activity and staying still lower calorie so they can get the benefits of the autophagy or the cellular recycling. So there can be many influential tricks and tools but again, higher fat during the time of fasting can help. You can play with just water and that would be fine as well but when you get a signal of hunger that’s when I would go for a little fat. And be intuitive with what works for your body.
B: Yeah and that said you know, when we are actually in keto and doing this fasting I think it’s a lot easier to go without food because we may not be getting that hunger signaling and then yeah keto coffee is a godsend when you’re trying to get through to take the edge off that fast.
A: Yeah and well beyond that, ketones having ketones in your bloodstream ketones block you hunger signals so you’re coming from a place where you’re not hungry, right and so that’s one of the beautiful elements of the quote on quote ketone high is when you’re running on this high octane fuel and you’re ready preventing your muscle from wasting by having those ketones and you already know that fat is this not unending fuel source but for many people there is a good amount of fuel on their body to use, that really created that satiety and makes this a sustainable behavior and you know, we recommend consecutive days because that helps the body to get deeper into using the fat as fuel so a lot of people do the intermittent fasting Monday – Wednesday and some even extend Monday – Friday and then do fed state or more free keto approach lower carbohydrate higher fat days on the weekends.
B: Yeah I’ve heard you describe it as like a deep freezer or reaching into the body’s deep freezer when you’re in keto and fasting.
A: Mhm mhm absolutely it’s the kind of better to use than the refrigerator which is constantly we’re adding and pulling out that’s the budget change of our metabolism and that’s where we get that set point and that’s whether we can definitively have breaks or plateau with our metabolism.
B: Awesome so, Ali, how do you fast?
A: So I do the 3 consecutive days generally speaking some week I will do 4 or 5, and I carb cycle which is a whole other conversation but I incorporate carbohydrates in my diet 2x a month at typically, typically at minimum every now and then there’s a month when I’m feeling that I’m not wanting a carb cycle and then there’s sometimes a month where I’ll carb cycle 1 time a week and it kind of just depends on so many different factors. But I do the fasting for a 16 or 18 hour window, and I do it with just fat I do a keto coffee. And so mine is 3 teaspoons of coconut oil, 1 teaspoon of grass-fed better so a little bit heavier on the coconut oil, and then I’ve been on a jam of adding vanilla extract and cinnamon to all of that and then I still make the fat fueled coffee on my non fasting days but I add in collagen and half a scoop of grass-fed why and I use that as more of a breakfast and I typically break with eggs like every day so if I’m adding the protein to my coffee I might break with eggs a little earlier because that’s not a fasting day and I’d have the eggs at like 10am, if it’s a fasting day I do late, I do the eggs around 1pm.
B: And speaking of breaking fasts, how do you recommend is that typically what you recommend to clients, to break with protein?
A: Yeah protein and fat so that’s why I like to do eggs and avocado or an arugula salad with eggs, and maybe a breakfast sausage or something like that. You definitely want to go into nourishing choices and you, you know when you’re avoiding carbohydrates in the diet, the best time to have carbohydrates is actually post workout or later in the day to get the benefit of the leptin resurge while you surge and it can actually help to get us into deeper sleep, make it more beneficial with our melatonin. So not the best thing to bring in the middle of the day when you’re breaking a fast so definitely protein and fats so eggs with veggies and avocado, bone broth adding in some pulled chicken in there as your protein source and vegetables in the bone broth or doing like a green smoothie with our grass-fed whey would be another great tick but maybe using a little bit of fat in there with a nut butter or coconut milk.
B: And them, lastly, let’s just talk about supplements to support fasting,
A: Sure well and another meal that could be really good could be a salad with protein, you know, your standard salad, protein you get a good vinaigrette with fat so your olive oil avocado oil in there could even add nuts or seeds or a good cheese in there or something like that. So supplements I mentioned the MCTs are really helpful and those are naturally in coconut oil so I would recommend the you know extra virgin oil, I like Dr. Bronner’s brand I like Nutiva brand, we can link a couple of those in our notes, MCT oil you can do as well which is just a refined form of this I just like to check that it is fully coconut derived versus coconut and palm oil derived I’m more of a fan of getting coconut oil because you’re going to get the additional benefits of monolauric and lauric acid you get the antiviral, antifungal benefits caprylic acid, all of that in the full coconut oil versus in a defined MCT oil you’re not going to get that holistic benefit and that’s where I really start with again, food is medicine and eating things and ideally they’re most identifiable whole food form.
So coconut oil would be a huge one and then on a supplement form, I definitely would recommend our Boost and Burn so this has a combination of ribose which helps with supporting energy metabolism and it’s really what’s in our RNA, right so it plays a big role with our NDA cellular regeneration and energy influence in the body and then it has L-carnitine and carnitine is the driver of our body’s ability to use fat as fuel so if you are already calorie restricting and time restricting and you have some body fat that you want your body to be burning, optimizing your carnitine is one of the best places to start so the Boost and Burn is an awesome tool for that and some individuals use that ongoing and some just It just on their fasting days but it definitely helps to kind of church that wheel of when already restricted, the body’s ability to functionally use fat to burn as fuel.
B: Awesome, yeah, that’s a great supplement if we’re already dealing with any adverse effects of fasting or kind of difficulty shifting into that ketogenic mode or keto flu.
A: Yeah and, I guess, just in- and I know we’re going to wrap soon but I want to just mention to people so if it’s intimidating for you I hope that at least today’s episode just gives you the idea that don’t eat when you’re not hungry, you know, be mindful and listen to your body and if anything shaves off some of the hours when you start or end your eating so if you’re constantly doing an evening snack, then that’s probably something to practice and at least switch that snack up to pure fat so try like our Key Lime Keto Bites or try our strawberry cheesecake fat bombs or the Pumpkin Fat Bombs and use higher fat during those times to create that satiety and teach the body that fat is a good primary fuel that is going to hold over the body rather than those naked carbs in the evenings which are going to drive more dysregulation of blood sugar and more of that insulin resistance and body fat storage so teaching the body to use fast as fuel is great and if any of this is intriguing to you I highly recommend that you check out on AlimillerRD.com go over to Books and Program, click on our virtual ketosis program and definitely strongly consider there’s that coupon KETO2018 and you can get $50 off either the $199 or the $169 class or the class with the bundle of the e-books and I am sure we’ve had no negative feedback, only positive praises and I’m sure that you too would get a lot of benefits of how your body can use fat as fuel.
B: Awesome so I think we’ve covered a lot in terms of the basics of intermittent fasting I know we’ll probably do this again on a future episode maybe get a couple of guests on this topic. But I think that’s all for today.
A: Yeah on gluconeogenesis or glycogen synthase and all those things and I’ll spare that for next time around guys but thanks so much for tuning in and if you have a moment if you can go over to iTunes and give us a 5 star rating and some positive praises it always helps to spread food as medicine with those that you love and help us to create viral movement of empowering ourselves with our food intake.
Thank you for listening to the Naturally Nourished Podcast. Visit our blog at Alimillerrd.com for recipes, wellness tips, and food as medicine meal plans. Connect with Ali at Becki at AliMillerRD on InstaGram or Twitter and Facebook. Until next time, stay nourished and be well.
Very nice presentation! How do you address getting adequate fiber on the ketogenic diet? Thank you!
There are many ways to get fiber including chia seeds and nuts/seeds in general, leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, and other non-starchy veggies!
You mentioned that fasting is only supported if you are in a Ketogenic state correct? If you are just eating low glycemic will the intermittent fasting meant that your liver will be dumping glucose into your blood stream if you wake up and you do not eat anything at all? Curious about that role of the liver dumping glucose?
The liver plays a major role in regulating blood sugar, so yes it will dump stored glucose (glycogen) in the absence of food. We are however, learning more and more about fasting and research is starting to look like there are benefits even in a more low glycemic approach vs. keto. With keto however there is less of a dynamic “swing” in glucose which makes it easier for some folks–less hunger pangs, lightheadedness etc!
How do you recommend incorporating supplements in a 16/8 fast? I typically take my vitamins twice a day, once with breakfast and then again with afternoon snack. Although, with fasting until noon, I take them later in the day. All my vitamins/supplements are through you! What are your recommendations!? Take on an empty stomach? Or taking at noon and after dinner is sufficient? Thank you!
Really depends on what you are taking and whether they need to be with/without food! All of our supplements specify this on the product pages for ease :).