EFR 864: Biggest Intermittent FASTING Mistakes, Fasting Mimicking Diet, How to Properly Activate AUTOPHAGY and Longevity Benefits of Time Restricted Eating with Renee Fitton

00:00 - Chase (Host) The following is an Operation Podcast production.

00:03 - Renee (Guest) What I'm about to say is going to make people question everything they ever knew about fasting. You can fast with food.

00:11 - Chase (Host) Are there any benefits of fasting for our sexual health? Yes, is there any hope for maintaining healthy testosterone levels, even increasing testosterone levels by fasting?

00:21 - Renee (Guest) Fasting, without a doubt, is going to be beneficial, and I cannot stress enough that there are lots of different kinds of fasts and you need to find the right one for you, and not everyone should be fasting 16 hours a day, every single day. That personalization piece is key. What are these biochemical pathways that, when they're activated, we've seen that longevity has increased, decreased? The underpinnings of longevity and understanding the science behind it has been going on for a long, long time. We just, for a long time didn't know how that translated to humans and thankfully now a lot of that research is coming out and we're really able to see how the background science is tying into all of these changes that we can make in our lifestyle to activate those pathways to our benefit. My name is Renee Fitton and I'm a longevity dietitian, and this is Ever Forward Radio.

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03:19 I'm your host, chase Schooning, certified health coach, wellness entrepreneur, army veteran, and today I am joined by Renee Fitton. She is a leader in the intersection of nutrition, healthcare and education. As director of education and healthcare sales at Prolon, she shapes sales strategies and equips healthcare practitioners with cutting edge insights into both nutrition and longevity. These are really the two key areas we're diving into today, especially through the lens of fasting. Renee's expertise is in evidence-based practices and nutritional science, and this has made her a true trusted authority. I think after the end of this episode, you're going to realize that she is going to be your new favorite friend when it comes to anything and everything related to fasting. Renee is dedicated to advancing the role of nutrition in revolutionizing healthcare, blending scientific rigor with a compassionate approach to wellness. She's going to be taking us through the science of fasting, emphasizing that you can fast with food yes, you heard me right and she's going to be discussing its surprising benefits for sexual health, optimizing testosterone, longevity, boosting mood, energy, clearing skin and so so much more.

04:37 This one is a doozy. It is a master class. You might want to take notes. You might even want to rewind and go back, but no matter what you do, if you find any value in today's episode, it would mean the world to me If you would do one or even both of these things subscribing to the show, following along on your podcast platform of choice, whether that's Apple podcast, spotify, wherever just tapping that follow button, that subscribe button. It does immense things over here and I appreciate all the support we can get to help keep growing the show and get even more amazing guests like Renee and beyond that, share it out.

05:10 If you think one person in your life right now could benefit from this fasting masterclass and everything that Renee is bringing to the table in terms of nutrition and longevity, then look, don't keep it to yourself. Part of living a life ever forward, I say, is bringing attention and awareness into the areas of your wellbeing that can help move you forward. But also, let's share the wealth. Let's help others move the needle in their wellness as well. Share it out. Thank you so much. Welcome to the show. This is Rene Fitton. Rene, you have this incredible tagline. When I was looking up your bio and all the things about you and you say that quote I'm deeply immersed in the dynamic intersection of science, innovation and health care. How do you realistically blend all of those areas?

05:59 - Renee (Guest) It's not easy, but realistically, all of those things do come together in so many ways in today's world, right? So healthcare I mean, I'm a dietician, so every day, all day, I'm thinking about healthcare. It is a dynamic space. It's changing every single day. There's always new information and the only way to truly synthesize that is by leveraging technology and innovation in a way that helps you synthesize it. And then also, if you're going to make a change, especially in today's world, you again need to leverage all these new innovations to make a difference, because unfortunately, we know that what we're doing right now is not working. We're in an epidemic of health care and something needs to change. So innovation is the solution.

06:46 - Chase (Host) You also have a really unique program that was a part of your master's, was your master's master's in longevity nutrition. What is that and what is being taught at higher education levels around longevity nutrition these days?

07:01 - Renee (Guest) So it is. So first you got to get the basics down right, like when it comes to nutrition. You got to get the basics down right, like when it comes to nutrition. You got to know the basics. So you come into your master's and you have all of the basics from your undergrad and then you triple down on how do all these biochemical pathways work together to help people live longer, but not just longer. You want to be able to increase health span, so that's also in the title of my master's. It is living healthier longer, and so all of those things kind of play together in a lot of ways. So what are the interventions that we can do to increase lifespan? That's a big part of what we're doing. Talk a lot about fasting actually in the program.

07:38 - Chase (Host) Coming soon, coming soon.

07:40 - Renee (Guest) Hint hint and we also talk a lot about the biochemical pathways of longevity. So what are these biochemical pathways that, when they're activated, we've seen that in mice models, in human models, longevity is increased, decreased. So looking a lot at that research, it's really, really interesting and there's actually quite a bit of it, because that research the underpinnings of longevity and understanding the science behind it has been going on for a long, long time. We just don't. We for a long time didn't know how that translated to humans. And thankfully now a lot of that research is coming out and we're doing a lot of that research and we're really able to see how the background science is tying into all of these, uh, these changes that we can make in our lifestyle to activate those pathways to our benefit.

08:28 - Chase (Host) And the core of your work and the core of what we're going to talk about here today is really around fasting. Um, myths, truths, half truths, lies and something that's even new to me it's fasting, mimicking, fasting, mimicking diet. So I have so many questions, um, stoked to have someone with your expertise here on the show to just really answer them all. So you ready.

08:50 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, let's go. We got a lot.

08:52 - Chase (Host) How does fasting benefit our metabolism?

08:55 - Renee (Guest) So many ways. When we look at our metabolism, it's kind of an umbrella term of a lot of things.

09:01 So yeah, maybe define metabolism first, yeah, so metabolism is a term to describe the way that our body uses nutrients. So, yeah, maybe define metabolism first. Yeah, so metabolism is a term to describe the way that our body uses nutrients. So you think of all of the different types of nutrients that we consume? They're all handled in different ways, uh, by different parts of our body, by different organs. Um, so it all kind of comes together to produce our, our metabolism that burns fuel and uses it for energy. So it could be really complex, honestly, and there's so many pieces to that puzzle. So that's a really big question. How does fasting impact metabolism? It impacts it in a lot of ways, but I think the one that people usually come back to is going to be blood sugar regulation and insulin resistance, and those are two big parts about of metabolism and also some of the parts that in today's world, we have managed the most poorly so far.

09:54 - Chase (Host) So what about brain health? How does fasting benefit our brain?

09:57 - Renee (Guest) Oh, I love this one. I think there's so much potential in this space. Right now, we see a lot of research with fasting and Alzheimer's, especially because and I'm getting ahead of myself but the generation of ketones, uh, it's a fuel that our brain really likes to use, and so there's a lot of opportunity there. Not to mention, uh, when we look at things like Alzheimer's, it is sometimes called type three diabetes.

10:21 - Chase (Host) Yeah, yeah.

10:21 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, because it's so closely associated with a poorly blood or a poor blood sugar management and so it has a lot of ties there and, as we know, fasting also strongly impacts that part of metabolism. So so much opportunity in brain health with fasting.

10:39 - Chase (Host) What about and there's a little bit of a reach, but again just thinking of multiple areas of wellbeing here are there any benefits of fasting for our sexual health?

10:47 - Renee (Guest) Yes, um, I think right now the research is kind of all over the map. Uh, you'll hear people talking I hear it all the time about, oh, testosterone and all these hormones that do eventually tie back into sexual health. But one of the biggest impacts on sexual health and one of the biggest causes of erectile dysfunction is actually a significant weight gain or obesity, and so unfortunately, that also increases insulin resistance and those things can really be problematic when it comes to sexual health. And so using fasting to help with weight management, which is very well tied that you can support weight management with fasting could be really beneficial for your sexual health.

11:28 - Chase (Host) You already said the T word there. I know a lot of guys are interested, you know, and women too. Actually, Testosterone has become big on a lot of people's radar. So is there any hope for maintaining healthy testosterone levels, even increasing testosterone levels by fasting?

11:46 - Renee (Guest) I think it's a good question. I think it depends on the person. Right now the research is super limited, so I want to hesitate on how much I'm going to say. But early, early research, I would say if you are a guy who is higher BMI or higher weight and you need to lose weight, I would say fasting, without a doubt, is going to be beneficial and very likely will help you possibly increase your testosterone, just through the weight loss component of it. Now, if you're a, there's, there's one study, okay.

12:17 So, like I really again hesitate to make too many claims here, but studies on a on a healthy population of men where they did show a decrease in testosterone, but it's it was. They were already really fit and strong and healthy and I believe it was with intermittent fasting over a very long period of time. And I cannot stress enough that there are lots of different kinds of fasts and you need to find the right one for you, and not everyone should be fasting 16 hours a day every single day. And that, I think, is where we sometimes get into this problem of saying fasting is bad or fasting is bad for testosterone or whatever your, your fear is, when realistically, all you have to do is go look at a different vertical of fasting. Maybe it's fasting three times a year for three to five days. Maybe that's the right thing for you and that's where you're going to get incredible longevity benefits and it's not going to tap into testosterone levels or you know something that might not be working for you. So that personalization piece is key.

13:24 - Chase (Host) Yeah, it just makes me curious. Uh, I would love to maybe get that study from you. I'm curious like, uh, the approach of fasting. Were they measuring testosterone before and after? I'm just thinking of uh, you know a guy hearing something that he might want to hear to give him the benefit that he might want to say oh, if I introduce intermittent fasting to my normal healthy life routine, uh, am I going to get a bump in my T kind of thing.

13:46 So if I have low T before but high T after, or vice versa, and you can kind of use that information to manipulate your own habits and your own approach to training and nutrition. It's a multifaceted approach, but it could be a unique one.

13:59 - Renee (Guest) Absolutely, and I would also note that when you're fasting, especially intermittent fasting, it's more than just the time restriction, it's what are you eating when you are eating too? And if you are looking at studies that didn't do any assessment of what you were eating when you were eating, then you are only getting a very small piece of that picture. So for any research whether we're talking about fasting research or any research in nutrition you really have to carefully read those articles. You can't just read the abstract of a nutrition article. You have to read the whole thing, and I'm sorry it's not going to be fun.

14:32 - Chase (Host) That's what our master's program really taught us how to do.

14:36 - Renee (Guest) Exactly, read the whole thing from beginning to end, go hunt down what is what they're saying and what they actually did, and you know, and put on your critical thinking hat and think about all the things that they didn't measure and then make an assessment if you feel like they did a good enough job or what you can safely assume from that study, recognizing that there's going to be pitfalls to any nutrition study. And that's like it's the field of science that I love the absolute most and also hate the most.

15:06 - Chase (Host) Yeah, it's like looking at a study for something that is of interest to you, that maybe you're looking to change in your life. But yeah, it's a study of 500 senior citizens and you're a 23 year old African-American woman you know, and like there were no minorities in the report or anything like that.

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16:24 So if you're looking to simplify your routine while maximizing your health, check out Fatty 15 today. Head over to fatty15.com. Slash everforward that's F-A-T-T-Y, 1-5.com. Slash everforward to learn more about why I love it, the years of clinical evidence coming out now supporting it and how you can start feeling your best today and support your longevity for tomorrow and save an additional 15% off of their already discounted 90 day starter kit. Again, that's fatty15.com slash ever forward code ever forward at checkout to save an additional 15% off of their already discounted 90 day starter kit. You kind of already touched on this, but I think it's a powerful question to really drive home. Is it more important what we eat or when we eat?

17:09 - Renee (Guest) I'm gonna say they're both equally important. But if I had to pick, I think you can do a lot more wrong with what you eat than when you eat, and so that's again like putting a gun to my head telling me I have to pick right. I really think that they're equally important in so many ways, because if you eat in the wrong time windows, you can do a lot of damage, and we've really started to understand circadian nutrition meaning like eating um according to your body's clock, which we all, all of our bodies have a clock, chronotype Exactly and and recognizing what that is, eating, um, according to your body's clock, which we, all of our bodies have a clock chronotype, exactly, and and recognizing what that is.

17:50 And it turns out there's not a lot of variability in chronotype, Like there is some, don't get me wrong, but like we're all pretty darn similar in our in in terms of like, typically when the sun goes up and typically around when the sun goes down, like that's. We want to be living kind of around that clock and so when we live within those boundaries, our body is really, really happy and we'll do a lot of great work for us and our metabolism, our metabolism is going to work better, and it's just so. So many wonderful benefits to eating within a really chronological time window can be beneficial, but what you eat, of course. Like I mean, there's no getting around that If you eat in a perfect window but you eat a bunch of Oreos and you know junk all day.

18:34 - Chase (Host) But they're vegan. But they're vegan, so they're healthy, right, True?

18:38 - Renee (Guest) true, cool, and, like you know, there's so much stuff that you could have in that window and just completely derail, so they go hand in hand. You have to do both.

18:49 - Chase (Host) It's a really hard. A lot of these questions I recognize are hard to really just, you know, question answer, question answer. Because you know I always in so many of these interviews I go back to kind of you know health coach hat chase and I think about if I had a client in front of me, a patient in front of me chase and I think about if I had a client in front of me, a patient in front of me 9.9 out of 10 answers would be to any question they had, or any idea we had for their wellness would be.

19:14 - Renee (Guest) It depends, right, but also putting that hat on, like my clinician hat, it's what are you going to do?

19:18 - Chase (Host) Right, what's the goal? What are you going to do? What are you going to stay adherent to? Exactly that's the most important thing.

19:23 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, and so, with anything in nutrition, what are you going to do? Should be the very first question you ask yourself, because I can tell you to fast, I can tell you to cut your window to whatever my suggestion is, but if you're not going to do it, I'd rather focus on something else, because I want to do what you're going to, what you're excited about, what you're going to work on, and then what you will inevitably find is that when you do this thing that you're excited about and you achieve it, you're going to want to do the next thing, and then you're going to want to do the next thing, and it's just going to keep compounding until you are an entirely healthier, happier version of yourself from taking this one little step that you thought maybe wasn't going to do a difference.

20:09 - Chase (Host) It's true, it works. Everybody, I promise. Um. So I think some other common questions that people have around fasting are does water break a fast? Does coffee break a fast? Cause these are the things I think a lot of people are reaching for when they wake up or just after a long period of time with not eating. So are they undoing the fast? Basically?

20:23 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, great question with not eating. So are they undoing the fast? Basically, yeah, great question. So the the important thing to recognize is what is your definition of a fast? Right? And my definition of a fast is a cellular fast and all the research that has been done over the last like 30 or so years in understanding what our cells are looking for when we're in a fasted state versus when we're not in a fasted state. They're looking for very specific things and essentially there are alarm bells on our cells that will trigger if there are specific nutrients and specific amounts, and so we're looking at what those specific nutrients are and if they've been present in any given amount.

21:04 There are definite things that will kick you out of a fast and it's not the things that people think. So I always hear well, bone broth isn't going to kick me out of a fast. Bone broth is packed full of amino acids which, correct it, will not spike your blood sugar. It will. You know you're not going to get kicked out of ketosis, but it will kick you out of a cellular fast, meaning you will not be able to activate that deep cellular cleanup, the autophagy, some of those really incredible benefits of fasting that we can reach. So bone broth, that's a no Water. I'm fine with it. I know some people like to do their dry fast, but it's not going to kick you out of a cellular fast and it's not going to kick you out of ketosis. It's not going to do any of that.

21:52 - Chase (Host) You seem kind of hesitant to say water. You know. Water I'm fine with. Is there any any other reason why maybe you wouldn't go with water out of a fast?

22:01 - Renee (Guest) No, or it's going to break a, honestly no, the only reason I say that is because I know that there's some people that feel strongly about dry fasting. I I don't really think that there's enough there to say anything about it.

22:15 - Chase (Host) The only reason I hate to break people's hearts. Is it the right? What time of fast are you doing?

22:18 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, okay, yeah, exactly. So water totally fine, and in fact I'm a strong believer in hydrate the heck during your fast, like that is a really great way to help just kind of always have something near you. It's much safer. Uh, so many benefits to having water during a fast. So water absolutely. Um coffee, coffee is a fun one. Um coffee will not. It won't kick you out of ketosis.

22:45 - Chase (Host) Black coffee Black coffee Very important.

22:47 - Renee (Guest) Thank you for that distinction. Black coffee won't kick you out of ketosis. It won't spike your blood glucose. It's going to be okay, especially for, like those shorter fasts, speech autophagy. There is some very early mice model studies that suggest that very, very high amounts of caffeine can trigger one of our nutrient sensing pathways, pka one of them, but very, very high levels and in mice models. So it's kind of like if you were trying to be super, super, super cautious, I would say exclude it during your fast, but very likely that the amount of coffee that we are consuming is not going to break your fast. So, like when I make recommendations around my prolonged fast where I absolutely want to trigger autophagy, I will say 140 milligrams of caffeine a day, up to 140 milligrams of caffeine a day 140 is a unique number that's slightly above most average cups.

23:50 Yeah, yeah.

23:51 - Chase (Host) Well, unless you go to like Starbucks, they're notoriously higher caffeine. But I mean, a standard cup of coffee is like go to a diner. It's going to be like 60 to 80.

23:59 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, exactly, so it's about two cups is what it is yeah, exactly, and and it's just kind of this safe zone where we feel like pretty good that you won't, you won't, right, kick yourself out of autophagy and again, like the research is still so early that it's really just more of a safeguard, okay. And so you know, anybody who says that they're sure that it will or it won't, I would say like no, we're not sure well, are we really sure about anything, right? Didn't we just talk about that.

24:27 - Chase (Host) The more I know, the more I don't know.

24:28 - Renee (Guest) That's for sure, yeah, exactly.

24:30 - Chase (Host) Can you go back and kind of define high levels of caffeine then? What would constitute high levels of caffeine that would concern you about consumption during a fast?

24:45 - Renee (Guest) I mean, I'm talking about amounts that I don't know anybody doing, like in in the thousands, right, like really really high, like several, several, several cups of coffee, like eight cups, like these are. These are where we get very likely to have some sort of metabolic impact. Right, like generally speaking. Again, we haven't done these studies in humans, so there isn't a a number right, we don't know to study humans with like two grams of caffeine.

25:03 - Chase (Host) They've done studies like that.

25:04 - Renee (Guest) You know they've done. They've like two grams of caffeine. They've done studies like that. You know they've done.

25:07 - Chase (Host) They've like eight cups of coffee.

25:09 - Renee (Guest) They've done. They've done all sorts of human studies with quite a bit of caffeine, um, and also studies with just people who are already doing that on their own right, like just seeing how somebody who already is doing that without prompting, how did you do? How did you fare Um? But that being said, you know I'm a longevity dietitian, so I would be remiss not to mention that there are a lot of benefits being seen in coffee and even decaf coffee, so it's the coffee bean itself that seems to be really beneficial, and also green tea, both which are caffeinated beverages, but again, you can get the benefits with the decaf versions that are really beneficial for longevity.

25:47 - Chase (Host) So is that, because of polyphenols, some resveratrol is found in flavonoids, things like that.

25:53 - Renee (Guest) Yes, yes, um, and yes, yes, yes and yes, uh, but the thing is, is that, because it's a plant-based compound, we're there's so many things that we probably also don't know that it could be right, yeah we haven't fully mapped all the phytonutrients in anything really Right.

26:08 And when they've done the studies, to compare like a supplement version of what you're getting or like supplement green tea extracts and things like that. There's benefits, right, so we know that that's part of it, it, but it's almost never as beneficial as just drinking the cup of tea or drinking a cup of coffee. So it's again like we always like to hack everything. We always like to find like let's just pull this one piece but, it's.

26:36 It's how it all works together, and nature is really incredible in that it thought of everything, probably a lot better than even the smartest scientist in the lab, and and it's had a lot more time. It's got had millions of years to figure it out, unlike us who are trying to figure this out in hundreds, you know.

26:54 - Chase (Host) So then, do you think, are we close to, or will we ever be at a point where we can 100% understand what is happening in the human body during a fast and be able to, like, completely break down? This is what is happening. This is why, this is what manipulates it, this is what deviates it.

27:13 - Renee (Guest) I think one day. I think no, I think one day we will, because we, we know so much. Like, let me just be clear, Like I, I know, I say like we don't have that much research. Like, let me just be clear, Like I, I know, I say like we don't have that much research, you know, but we do. We have so much information and there is now starting to be a lot of stuff that's relatively definitive and that we know is happening, and it's just a matter of it just being a really complex web and there's so much more to know, Right, so it's, you know, we're still in the early days, but we know a lot and so, yeah, one day I hope we'll know it all.

27:48 - Chase (Host) Well, we'll come back for a part two. Yeah, yeah, um, you mentioned blood sugar earlier. Uh, is the real benefit of fasting better blood sugar management? And if so, can't we just monitor our nutrition to control for excess carbs, sugars, things like that, to get the benefit instead of fasting?

28:06 - Renee (Guest) Okay. So if the only benefit was blood sugar management, sure, but it's not. There are so many more benefits and in fact I would argue well, depending on the person. For some people where blood sugar management is out of control, that is the very first thing we should be tackling, absolutely. But for those where our blood sugar is already healthy, there, you should still be fasting the right kind of fasting, um periodically, to get the other benefits of fasting, like the longevity benefits, the uh skin health benefits, the gut health benefits, all of the other benefits that are permeating our system beyond just blood sugar management. But yes, blood sugar management is huge and really important, and especially important for patients with type 2 diabetes and things like that. There's this really incredible new program for patients with type 2 diabetes that are looking to reverse type 2 diabetes and let me just reiterate, reverse right. So this is not just get your blood sugar in control with a bunch of meds. This is let's get off of those meds, let's get your blood sugar in control and let you be in diabetes remission.

29:17 - Chase (Host) Isn't it already possible with nutrition? Yes, absolutely yeah. Yeah, but um but you're saying uniquely through fasting with.

29:25 - Renee (Guest) With fasting in a really short period of time and not having to change your diet every single day.

29:30 - Chase (Host) How short a period of time.

29:32 - Renee (Guest) So the studies that are being done right now are, with five days of a fasting mimicking diet once a month for six months, that is a total, by the the way, of 30 days of intervention.

29:46 - Chase (Host) So within six months, theoretically, someone could go from having type two diabetes to not.

29:54 - Renee (Guest) Yes, wow, everybody's different, right, and these are studies with like about a hundred people and, but, just by the way, a pretty good study in the nutrition world. It's not amazing, but it's it's pretty darn good way. A pretty good study in the nutrition world. It's not amazing, but it's it's pretty darn good. And uh, you know these. These are patients that are later stage in type two diabetes and we're seeing some really incredible results.

30:13 - Chase (Host) So when we're talking blood sugar management and metabolism, I think another hot term right now is a metabolic flexibility. So can you define that for us please? What is metabolic flexibility, and should the general public? Does it really matter to me about what fuel source my body is primarily using?

30:31 - Renee (Guest) Okay, yes, it matters Absolutely, and it matters no matter who you are, because metabolic flexibility is your ability to switch fuel sources.

30:42 And so what the heck does that mean? Your body usually will use sugar first, because it's really easy to use, but when we are in a fasted state, it has used up all of the sugar that we have, all that glucose stores that we have, and then it'll switch to burning fat for fuel. And this switch and the ability to switch back and forth, is known as metabolic flexibility. If you can do that, you are metabolically flexible. If you can't do that, it's because you have trained your body to just live in this sugar glucose state the whole time. You're not able to switch and that, if you're just staying over here, leads to insulin resistance and some of these problems that we're seeing actually happen a lot, unfortunately in especially the US right now. So you want to let your body be able to switch back and forth comfortably between these two fuel sources, and also, of course, there's benefits to using ketones occasionally and things like that. So we you know there's plenty of reasons why you should do it, but it is important and it's important for everybody.

31:49 - Chase (Host) Hey guys, quick break from my conversation with Renee to bring your attention to something that, should you choose to try any real form of fasting here, might actually support your mood, energy, focus and even help transition you back into your regular eating habits. Of course, I'm talking about electrolytes, but not just any. You need the right ones. You need things that aren't full of dodgy ingredients, sugar. No, you need the most effective, clinically proven, science-backed ratio of things like sodium, potassium, magnesium, and these are all what you're going to find, plus some amazing flavors that you can mix into really any drink, hot or cold, from today's sponsor, element. See, whether you're crushing workouts, fasting or just trying to stay hydrated throughout the day, water alone isn't enough. That's where Element comes in. See, unlike sugary sports drinks or watered-down electrolyte mixes, element delivers the science-backed hydration that your body craves, especially during and coming in and out of a fast. No sugar, no artificial ingredients, just real electrolytes in the delicious salty mix that actually works. Why does this matter? Because proper hydration supports better energy, improved brain function and muscle recovery. Plus, it can even help prevent those awful midday crashes. And the best part is Element tastes amazing, whether you like it salty, sweet or just straight up refreshing. Personally, I love orange salt, citrus. But getting ready for the summer months, man, you can't go wrong with watermelon. And right now they got an exclusive deal for you, just from my ever forward radio community. If you can't pick the flavor that you want or want to try one, but try them all. Well, with any purchase you get a free variety sample pack. You heard me right. Just check out the link in the show notes or head to drink elementcom. Slash ever forward to learn more. That's d-r-i-n-k-l-m-n-tcom. Slash ever forward to get your free variety sample pack with any purchase. And, guys, lastly, I got to put you on this amazing free app I recently discovered from supco that is really making sure that I am on top of my personal wellness goals and making sure I'm not wasting any time or money and only putting things into my body that are directly supporting my goals. See, supco is the free app right now in beta mode that is going to help you manage your supplements and see exactly how they stack up for your personal needs and wants my stack score 87. I love seeing that I'm taking things that are directly supporting my personal goals currently of longevity, sleep, health and cognitive function. Things in my sack include my daily multivitamin, ashwagandha, l-theanine, protein powder, creatine and a few others. What is it?

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35:24 I've already tried the whole app. It's incredible. I love it. Hopefully I'll see you on there. Supco slash ever forward. So is it just a matter of you? Know, I'm right-handed and I want to start writing left-handed. All right, body go from sugar to fat. You know, can we, can we really get to a point, to where we can just go?

35:45 - Renee (Guest) All right, now I'm switching over.

35:46 - Chase (Host) I love that analogy I'm going to steal it.

35:47 - Renee (Guest) So thank you of the left-handed versus right-handed. It is kind of like that, if you've been right-handed for all of this time and that's the only way you've been writing, and now I tell you, well, you kind of have to care about both hands, so start writing with your left hand. It's going to take you a hot second to start writing. Well, with that left hand. It's going to be uncomfortable. You're not going to want to do it. The body does the exact same thing when you ask it to switch fuel sources. So when we are, if we never really let our body go into a fasted state and you can get into a fasted state like you can start getting there at about the 12 hour mark. Okay, so you haven't eaten things for 12 hours and unfortunately in today's world almost nobody is even fasting for 12 hours because we eat so late into the night.

36:35 - Chase (Host) I was going to say I feel like that's just like a great long night's sleep, with a few hours padding after dinner.

36:45 - Renee (Guest) Right, yeah, but how many people are doing that? Where they were measuring circadian patterns and they were asking people to just take a picture of everything that they ate throughout the day, just to, like assess timing of eating. And you look at the graphs and it's wild. It's just people are eating all day, every day there, and and also it's really easy, I think, as humans to to say, oh yeah, on Monday I ate, for I had a 12 hour fast. Yeah, what about on Saturday? What about on Friday? You know like it all comes together into a bigger picture, right? So most people are actually not really getting even a 12 hour fast, and so you're very seldomly tapping into the fat stores for fuel, and that's again not everybody's going to go into ketosis after, or start tapping into ketosis at the 12 hour mark Maybe it takes 13. So most people are not really getting there.

37:42 - Chase (Host) Okay, can I pause you right there? Yeah, um, just to kind of drive home a couple of those points. So I'm hearing is 12 hours the minimum we need to be fasting general public to get the benefits of fasting? Part two is the real first benefit of fasting after 12 hours, or at least 12 hours is getting into ketosis. Is that what I'm hearing?

38:07 - Renee (Guest) Okay, yes, in some ways. So 12 hours is where you are going to start tapping into some of the benefits of fasting.

38:16 - Chase (Host) Is that when we switch over fuel sources?

38:18 - Renee (Guest) Yes, exactly that's when we've probably tapped out on our sugar reserves. So first we use up everything that's just flowing in our blood and then we go to our liver where a bunch of sugar is stored and we start using that up, and usually around the 12 hour mark that's where we start tapping out in what's in our liver. It might take a little bit longer than that. Everybody's a little bit different. Also, how much you ate before might play into this as well.

38:47 So it's a very loose number. But around that 12 hour mark, that's when we start switching over and we start thinking. Okay, the body starts thinking I need to start looking at fat for a fuel source because I don't know if there's going to be more sugar coming.

39:01 - Chase (Host) Okay, and I'm also hearing that it's more of a process after 12 hours. It's not 12 or one. Okay, start burning fat.

39:09 - Renee (Guest) Exactly. Yes, it's I. I I'm gonna use this for a couple of things, but the analogy of a dimmer switch is really nice here right so slowly increasing and kind of like a dimmer switch, that's a little stuck at the bottom and then really fast at the top so, and then, uh, can you please go back and pick up?

39:26 - Chase (Host) uh, is it really the first primary benefit, what we've already kind of established switching from sugar to fat burning is it? It then ketosis?

39:34 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, so now we go from sugar to fat and we're triggering ketosis. Ketosis is really beneficial. There's a lot of great benefits to being there. Is it the only benefit? No, is it the major benefit? I'm not going to speculate. There are, there's another really big one that I would say is is way up there and in fact sometimes I don't know if maximizing ketosis is like the main goal. We just want to get there because we want to trigger autophagy, that deep cellular cleanup. And ketosis and autophagy, while they oftentimes happen together, are uniquely different and you can be in ketosis and not trigger autophagy.

40:16 - Chase (Host) I think a lot of people are getting their feathers ruffled.

40:19 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, exactly, but I got the science so.

40:22 - Chase (Host) I want to get into autophagy specifically in another section you're coming up, but just a couple of other questions. I think just and these were all kind of just top of mind for me and just kind of looking at other, you know honestly, pieces of content health, wellness, influencers, doctors, literature um, they kind of just stood out to me as what I believe to be a lot of the top of mind questions when it comes to fasting. So two, how long is too long to fast? And well, actually we already kind of covered, you know, that minimum 12 hour kind of being the minimum. Uh, so let's just go with how long is too long to fast?

40:55 - Renee (Guest) Great question. It depends on what type of fasting you're doing. Are you doing dry fasting? Are you doing water fasting? Are you doing a fasting mimicking? The more you add, the safer it becomes. Right Like dry fasting should not be done for very long.

41:09 - Chase (Host) We don't last very long without water and dry fasting is meaning and honestly I don't recommend it. So let's just be clear.

41:15 - Renee (Guest) I don't recommend dry fasting. I'm not a big proponent of dry fasting. It's not super safe. Have water, so water fasting I would say like realistically, we don't recommend that people do it. If you have any sort of safety concerns, like over two days of water fasting, they generally recommend that you're doing that supervised actually.

41:36 - Chase (Host) I see a lot of clinics doing it now like 10 day, 30 day water fast.

41:40 - Renee (Guest) Exactly and where. If you're water fasting, definitely. If you're water fasting, we don't recommend anything over 21 days because then you're definitely plummeting, like you're absolutely, absolutely going to tap into your muscle stores and things like that. There's this case study of this man. I wish I remembered his name, but he was this Italian man. He was about 300, 400 pounds and he fasted for a year.

42:05 - Chase (Host) I've seen this. Yes, yeah.

42:07 - Renee (Guest) And so he lost a lot of weight and he was. He probably lost a ton of muscle too, but he, he came out actually healthier in a lot of ways on the other side. But also, you know, like it's, it's not safe and it's really like he had all of this store that he could burn fat for fuel for all of that time. Most of us are not going to have that situation, and so it is. You know, you, really, realistically, I do not recommend fasting for anything longer than five days.

42:39 - Chase (Host) And that would be like a total fast or any kind of fast. I would say any kind of fast.

42:43 - Renee (Guest) So, even fasting, mimicking, five days max. There may be some cases where we might extend it to six days, but, like you know, it's it's within that five day range. Right, and that is because a lot of research is being done on the refeeding phase. So sure You've done all of this cleanup. What is happening after that? And the after that part, the rebuilding part, is as important, if not more important, than the cleanup part, because you can't just get rid of all the junk and not replace it. You need to replace it and that's the refeed part. So too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, as with anything. And so my, my preference is five days, ideally, fasting, mimicking for five days and for shorter, water only fasts. I like water only fasts for daily intermittent fasting and then doing fasting, mimicking for longer fasts, just because they're safer and they are muscle protective. Every single study is consistently showing that. So I like those for the longer fasts.

43:52 - Chase (Host) Who do you think should absolutely not fast?

43:56 - Renee (Guest) Pregnant breastfeeding? Definitely not. Um, individuals who are under 18, be mindful, because you're in a growth phase and fasting is actually meant to be an anti-growth phase. It's meant to be like kind of a cleanup phase, and so, under 18, just be mindful for sure. Um, individuals who have end stage conditions, you always want to speak to a healthcare provider. There may be some, uh physicians that will actually recommend fasting, but only do it if it's recommended by your practitioner. What else? Um, those are the big ones that, oh, uh, anybody who has a history of eating disorders uh, we're, we don't want to go there. Um, and then, I think, anybody who has muscle wasting um, focus first on building and rebuilding your muscle and then work on fast.

44:48 - Chase (Host) Okay, and kind of speaking of I'm assuming here during a fast that should we be hitting the gym? Should we be doing our yoga routine? Should we as active, as maybe we normally are not on a fast, or is it just kind of like kill all that?

45:00 - Renee (Guest) So movement is so important. During a fast, You're doing all this cleanup and movement allows your body to flush that all out. So I love movement. Now you notice, I didn't say working out, I didn't say lifting weights. There's too much of stress on your body can actually be hindering your results in a lot of ways. I do have a lot of people that choose to just continue and they swear by it. But you know, we want to be really careful and if you are again, I would say fasting. Mimicking is going to at least give you nutrition during that period. But the general recommendation is my kind of rule of thumb is if you're sweating, you've probably gone too far. For safety purposes, just do light movement, yoga, stretching during your long fasts. Okay, During your inter like. If you're doing daily intermittent fasts, you don't need to.

45:55 - Chase (Host) So I would now like to kind of shift gears and get into the types of fasting. So we've kind of said some key words, we've talked about them a little bit, but if you could please just like break them down a little bit more, uh, so let's talk intermittent fasting. What is that and why is that different from other types of fasting?

46:09 - Renee (Guest) Okay, so I like to break it up into two different groups the intermittent fasting group, which I will say is 48 hours or less. So a lot of people will are surprised by that, because they think of 16 hours of fasting like daily, but even like a one day fast or even like a two day fast or less is going to be an intermittent fasting window.

46:29 - Chase (Host) Would that be a dry fast or water fast?

46:32 - Renee (Guest) Water fast, uh, there's not consuming calories.

46:35 You're not consuming calories. There are now, uh, fasting products that you can consume that will keep you in the fasted state. For those fasts, and I, those ones definitely don't bother me if and this is this is me personally I'm not bothered by adding in like a, like the bone broth and all those things that I said. Break your fast during those shorter fasts that are 24 hours or less, because the main goal of those fasts is ketosis, right, like. It's about that metabolic flexibility, it's about switching fuel services. So as long as you're getting that, I think you're getting a lot of the benefits of those shorter fasts.

47:10 Now, fast grouping number two are going to be these prolonged fasts. These are fasts that are over 48 hours and that that's a very important time flag, because at 48 hours, that's when autophagy is significantly stimulated and this is where we start getting that deep cellular cleanup and this is where a lot of those things that can stop autophagy, like bone broth et cetera, are going to be hugely problematic, because they're going to block, they're going to trigger those alarm bells on the cells. So those ones, these prolonged fasts, are so important. These are the ones that I think everybody should be doing a few times a year. There's very few people that I don't think should be doing that one five day fast every three to four months.

48:00 - Chase (Host) Hmm, it's got me thinking. I've never tried a fast like that. For that long I've done intermittent fasting for periods of time and for me that was 16, 18 hours tops. But going five days multiple times a year, yeah, that's a commitment.

48:17 - Renee (Guest) Absolutely, and in fact I don't recommend anybody does that with water only, because, one, almost nobody's going to do it. And two, there are certainly safety issues, as I mentioned a little earlier. I wouldn't recommend two to three days water only, fasting, unless you have medical supervision. So what is the option? The option is something called fasting mimicking, and it's where you can consume food every single day, all day, and your body still believes that you are in a fasted state. And that's because all that research that went into figuring out what triggers those alarm bells on the cellular surface or what triggers those nutrients sensing pathways, we've figured that out and we know how to trick our body into thinking that there's nothing there by just not putting in the nutrients that are triggering those alarm bells.

49:07 - Chase (Host) Okay, we're going to get to the fasting mimicking later on. That's going to be my big cliffhanger for everybody towards the answer. You guys stick around, okay, um, and as I so I want to talk about one more question around intermittent fasting, and then I'm going to get into a couple other areas. But for each one, if you could unpack for us a little bit, who would really not? Not, who would benefit most? But besides maybe measuring, besides getting a lab draw before and after, besides maybe getting a ketone meter or a glucose monitor and really getting at those biometrics, what can I realistically expect to feel before and after, to kind of get that more qualitative feedback of oh, this is for me, or I'm feeling better. This is something I want to introduce into my routine.

49:52 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, great question. So it's really tough, especially when I mentioned autophagy, which is you can't measure that.

49:58 - Chase (Host) Yeah.

49:58 - Renee (Guest) You can measure it in the lab and we have but.

50:01 - Chase (Host) We can't feel autophagy, you can't feel it.

50:03 - Renee (Guest) Right, but you can see your cells in one very specific place, and that's your skin. Your one very specific place and that's your skin. Your skin is, of course, made up with tons of cells, and it's something that we see every day, and so I tell all of my patients to take a picture of their face before they start and take a picture at day six when they're done their five day fasting mimicking program, and the difference is incredible.

50:29 The inflammation in their face is almost all gone. It is their skin is more hydrated, better texture. Um, all of these how's it more hydrated?

50:40 - Chase (Host) We're consuming water, right, this is just okay.

50:43 - Renee (Guest) But, but also, if you think about it, when we're working at the cellular level, there's all of these things in your cells that usually will help you uh, you know, metabolize and and help your body achieve all of those things that it needs to achieve, including hydration. So, when you are cleaning up your cells, your body's able to do a lot of things better, and that includes hydration. So, while we don't know the exact pathway as to why we see the improved skin hydration that is, my assumption is that, because we're working at that deep cellular level, it's impacting so many aspects of our health and so, so, yeah, so the hydration, the skin texture and the fine lines, all of those things you can see even in just five days, and that was clinically studied. So, and that is with objective measures.

51:27 - Chase (Host) So these are things like viscous skin analysis, uh, and and some of these metrics that you know it's not just somebody saying I think I look better, I got a couple less crow's feet.

51:37 - Renee (Guest) Although we did ask that too, and people were said, they had higher confidence.

51:42 - Chase (Host) Oh, wow.

51:43 - Renee (Guest) You know all of these other just more subjective measures which you know. We can't scoff at that either. That's pretty cool. So not only do you recognize it, not only do you feel better, but also we see it objectively. So all of it comes together to be really positive. So that's one thing that I think is easy to do, just to see it right away. But you will be able to feel it as well when we shift into ketosis. So first, if you've not shifted into ketosis, we talked about that left-hand, right-hand situation where it's tricky and it's uncomfortable. You might feel a little bit uncomfortable in the early days, but what inevitably will happen is, come day four or day five, your senses are heightened. I will smell things so much more vividly. Every color is brighter. It's so wild. Why is that? So? We think we know why we well, so there's something called keto euphoria, which is it's essentially just the way that we feel when our brain is on ketones, kind of thing.

52:44 - Chase (Host) Uh, so we think yeah, yeah, I'm on mine right now ketone iq yeah yeah so.

52:49 - Renee (Guest) So it's it interesting, and especially when your body's making your own endogenous ketones, it's it's really impressive what it can do.

52:57 - Chase (Host) So With intermittent fasting. Can we use things like electrolytes, salts, sodium, potassium, magnesium.

53:04 - Renee (Guest) That's a great question. So the my short answer is going to be yes, but you're. When you're on a fasting mimicking program, it's already defined and you already are getting a lot of those electrolytes as part of it. So no there. But when you're doing your own daily fasting, yes, and it can be really helpful.

53:23 - Chase (Host) It doesn't break a fast, does it?

53:23 - Renee (Guest) No, okay, well, depends what electrolytes you're using, right, like if they have a bunch of sugar in them and some of them do so read your labels, right. But if it's pure electrolytes, generally not.

53:35 - Chase (Host) Okay, good, good to know. Uh, water. Talk to us about water fast. What is it? What are the parameters? Who should do it, who shouldn't?

53:41 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, so water fasting, I would recommend it only for the shorter fasts, right, our intermittent fasting land? Uh, I think that people who are looking to lose weight, this is a really great space. I don't recommend that people do long-term intermittent fasting. So I'm talking 16 hour fasts or more every day. I don't recommend that in for the longterm because it also is stress inducing. It puts a stress on your body and that stress is called a hermetic stress or, which is essentially a positive stress, and there's lots of benefits that can come from it. But if you're constantly doing it every single day, that can pile up over time and especially if you don't need it. So I prefer for people to do shorter fasts, like 12, maybe even 14 hours once they've reached their weight loss goals, maybe even 14 hours once they've reached their weight loss goals, and then do only those longer fasts, those 16 hour water fasts, uh, when they need to lose weight.

54:39 - Chase (Host) Now, when you say weight loss, are we talking? I got this nagging three to five pounds I'm trying to ditch, or you know, it's like a clinically obese person. I need, I need to lose 80 pounds, a hundred pounds, because my health, my life, depends on it.

54:52 - Renee (Guest) Both I think both are going to be beneficial here. Um, for those nagging three pounds, that can be all sorts of things. So I I would try it and see if it works, and if it doesn't work in the first, you know, I would give it three weeks.

55:09 It's probably not for you and you don't need it Like there. There might be something else that you can do to support with that. It might be build muscle, go to the gym and do uh you know heavy weights. Stuff like that can be really helpful for those last three pounds. But try it.

55:22 - Chase (Host) Okay, um, I want to jump in on something else there. I think there's a lot of confusion around the health benefits, particularly the weight loss benefits, of fasting, particularly intermittent fasting, because people struggle with getting their appropriate amount of daily caloric intake in that new shortened window.

55:41 - Renee (Guest) Yeah.

55:41 - Chase (Host) So people go oh, intermittent fasting works for me to to lean out to lose these five, 10, 50 pounds, whatever. But it's really just that you didn't. You wound up dropping five 800 calories a day because your fasting eating window was so short and you just couldn't fill it. So is it the fasting or is it the caloric restriction?

56:00 - Renee (Guest) Both and so caloric restriction is inevitably going to be beneficial in weight loss. But also, don't forget, when we are doing these 16 hour windows, we are tapping into fat burning and so we are still getting some additional benefit. So the research here is still like a little bit. There's some that will compare a hypo caloric diet or where they just just shorten the calories to an intermittent fast and they're equal in the calories and they see where did where was their better benefit? And I've seen it go both ways, you know.

56:40 So there's so many other variables right Probably exactly, but so I've seen it go both ways. But the other thing is is what is easier for you, to go on and track every calorie every day or to restrict your eating window? Um, you know so. So whatever works for you, do that.

57:00 - Chase (Host) It depends, everybody, it depends.

57:02 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, but I will say, like you can't, you can't forget that with intermittent fasting of over that, like 12, 13, 14 hour mark, you are starting to tap into that ketosis and you are starting to work on that metabolic flexibility and I do see benefits there. So, even if you're just fasting for 12 hours, like just get there, because there's lots of different ways to fast for any given amount of time right, because you can just eat from breakfast to lunch, or you could eat from lunch to dinner, and those are actually two very different fasts and they can have different results because of the way that our hormones work throughout the day. And again I will come back to that internal clock. It is, it's like clockwork. Uh, you know, like you're, the way that our hormones go are the same pretty much every single day.

57:51 When we wake up in the morning, cortisol goes up. It helps us get up and it helps us be alert when we wake up, and then at the end of the day, our insulin doesn't work as well to help our body uptake sugar. So for those two reasons, it's more ideal to shift your eating window, to eat earlier in the day and stop earlier in the evening, just because our body just functions better when we're eating in those windows and they're going to do more for you and they're going to. Your metabolism is going to work better at consuming those calories and consuming that food If you're eating it in that window.

58:27 - Chase (Host) Okay, related, but side quest here on that, because you bring up an important aspect and that's hormones.

58:34 - Renee (Guest) Yeah.

58:35 - Chase (Host) Is there any detriment to long-term hormone health by long-term fasting?

58:42 - Renee (Guest) We don't know. But we do know that long-term fasting is not really fully studied enough, is not really fully studied enough. There's been kind of information coming in both directions, which is why I don't recommend long-term everyday fasting. There is there is the risk that that consistent stress all of the time is going to be deleterious or problematic and so it's just just follow your body, listen to your body, know when it's time and know when it's not time. And you know like I love these five day fasting, mimicking diets, but I only do them. I only do them three times a year and sometimes I'll only do them two times a year because I just know I know when it's time and know when it's time for that cleanup. And also I might get through day three or four and be like oh no, no, it's time, I went too many too frequently For you.

59:43 - Chase (Host) what does that feel?

59:43 - Renee (Guest) like what does that look like? Why do you cut it off short? Yeah, I'll, I'll recognize that. I just don't feel as as alert I I'll notice like more of that brain fog. I'll notice, um, like just grogginess in a lot of ways, and it's essentially my body telling me no, now, that's because I've done this for a long time. I have done, probably I'm about to do my 15th five day.

01:00:06 - Chase (Host) Wow.

01:00:07 - Renee (Guest) Next month.

01:00:08 - Chase (Host) So what's that? Like the last three years.

01:00:10 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, no, uh, more than that, it's like seven, two or three a year. So I'm doing, I've done up to four a year.

01:00:16 - Chase (Host) Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:00:17 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, so I've been doing it for I feel like like seven or eight years now.

01:00:20 So it's, it's. You know it adds up really fast, um, but uh, yeah. So these these fasts that are for five days, that are with food, are just far nicer to my body. And when you start, you'll probably get some of that grogginess, you'll probably get some of those headaches, You'll probably get some of that left-hand, right-hand switching action that is. So don't mix that up so much with your body saying no to fasting as much as it's upset that you're switching the fuel sources.

01:00:53 Uh, so so that that is totally normal in the early days of fasting. But now that I've done it so many times, I can tell you you, you know, you know your body, you just and. And the beauty of fasting is not only everything that's happening, but you also get a moment of pause to stop thinking about all the food noise I'm constantly. I'm a foodie, so this is the funny part the girl who loves fasting is also a foodie.

01:01:17 Um, I I'm always thinking about where I'm going to go for dinner and what I'm going to have for lunch, and, ooh, what should I have for breakfast tomorrow, like I'm always thinking about the next meal, you know.

01:01:26 Right, and and so when you are in these longer fasts where you just stop, you also really connect with your body and you think, okay, wait, am I really hungry right now? Oh yeah, no, no, I am really hungry right now, but totally makes sense, I'm fasting. And then you think, oh, but I'm also really clear-headed and oh, wow, I also feel like I could go for a really nice walk right now. I feel like just going standing in the sun. I feel like I could go for a really nice walk right now. I feel like just going standing in the sun. You really get to start capturing what your body needs, because you're giving that time to stop and essentially meditate internally on what's going on.

01:02:02 - Chase (Host) That's so true I can definitely speak to that as well. Another fast is for religious purposes, and a fast for religious purpose seems to have higher adherence. Why do we see more success with fasting for religious purposes than other types of fast? Is there a spiritual component here that we can understand or we can even maybe apply to be more successful in our fast?

01:02:30 - Renee (Guest) I think, I think absolutely. I want to be careful because I don't want to assume this is not something that we can study right, you know, unless maybe we were to put one group that we're doing it for religious purposes and one group that didn't and say like, why are you doing this and what's motivating you? One of the biggest success points, or one of the biggest points that will bring success, is knowing what their why is. So why are they doing this? What is their goal at the very end of this? So not like, oh, I want to not have type two diabetes, or I want to improve my blood sugar, but I want to spend more time with my grandchildren, or I want to go climb Mount Everest, or you know what is that kind of.

01:03:09 If you were to picture yourself when this is all done, what are you doing that you aren't doing right now? And that visual is really, really helpful in getting people to the finish line, yeah, and so I think that, possibly, for those who are doing it for religious reasons, they also have that why they have that reason why they're doing it, and it's for, you know, higher power or you know, um, you know whatever's motivating them through that and also community right. They're doing it as a as a community.

01:03:38 - Chase (Host) That's such a great other point. Yeah, most likely they're not doing it alone. Talking about religious fast, I actually found this really interesting uh study about fasting for religious purposes. That kind of shines a similar light to blue zonesones. It was talking about Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This was a study of almost 500 patients from hospitals in Utah. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints followers reported routine fasting exhibited significantly lower weight and lower fasting glucose levels all great things we talked about earlier as well as lower prevalences of diabetes and coronary stenosis. Seventh-day Adventists emphasize a healthy diet and lifestyle overall, so I think that's an important thing to note as important expressions of their faith, and they live approximately almost seven and a half years longer than other white adults.

01:04:28 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, I love those studies. There's also a group I believe they're also seventh day Adventists uh in, uh, loma Linda, california, which is another blue zone, and it is, you know when. When we look at the blue zones, it's not just one thing, and I think that's something that we always need to tie back to. It's not just what they're eating, but it's that community.

01:04:48 - Chase (Host) The one through line for every blue zone is community.

01:04:51 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, exactly, and I love that. I mean, how nice is it to know that if all we, if all we did for our health was go hang out with a friend like that, would be beneficial for our longevity Awesome.

01:05:03 - Chase (Host) Well, think about it. I don't know about you, but every time I hang out with my people, I leave feeling so much better.

01:05:08 - Renee (Guest) And that could be.

01:05:09 - Chase (Host) maybe we got a salad or maybe we crushed a pizza much better. And that could be. Maybe we got a salad or maybe we crushed a pizza, um, but there's just something unique about enjoying what you do with people that you love.

01:05:18 - Renee (Guest) Absolutely, which is also why, if you're looking for a way to volunteer in the world and kind of make a difference um, doing some of like the senior citizen, uh, support, where you go and visit people and go spend time with people that can be such a powerful way to support people's health and obviously their mental health, but but even their longevity in so many ways, because that sense of community and that sense of being together we don't all have that and going to find ways to support other people in that way is really really powerful.

01:05:47 - Chase (Host) And now, if we go, do that while fasting, it's like bonus points, right, bonus points, absolutely.

01:05:52 - Renee (Guest) Right, oh my gosh. I mean, if you think about all of the pieces that we're hitting, if you do that, volunteer work is very, very good for your health.

01:05:58 - Chase (Host) I agree, so let's jump into autophagy. We mentioned a few times what is it?

01:06:04 - Renee (Guest) Yeah.

01:06:04 - Chase (Host) And why is it unique to fasting?

01:06:07 - Renee (Guest) Yes, okay, okay. Autophagy, one of my favorite topics right now. It was studied, actually received the Nobel Prize in 2016 by Dr Oshumi, out of Japan, for figuring out that autophagy can be activated through fasting. It is very powerful hence why it won the Nobel Prize in its ability to clean our cells. So it's our body's own ability to clean its own cells without any outside force.

01:06:39 - Chase (Host) What does that mean? To clean our cells?

01:06:41 - Renee (Guest) I like to think of it as like an internal vacuum cleaner, taking out the junk. So, as we age, our body just continues to build stuff, and occasionally some of the stuff it builds breaks and it gets old and it doesn't work as well. So things like misfolded proteins or misfolded organelles, or you know these things that used to work great but now they just broke down. It's kind of like a car you know it needs a pit stop to replace some of the stuff that has been used and needs a fresh version of that item. And our organelles are no different. Over time we need to replace them, and so that's where autophagy comes in. We need to give our body some time to stop building and creating, eventually, junk when it's being overused and start cleaning out.

01:07:30 So it's kind of like a spring cleaning in a way are used and start cleaning out. So it's kind of like a spring cleaning in a way. So that's really important. We need to give our body that pit stop. We need to give our body that time to clean itself up and those cells time to repair and rejuvenate. We also need to give time for the body to rebuild after that. So it's one thing to take out all of this stuff, but you need to repair. So I like to think about autophagy like, um this this stress has occurred, it forces you to um, let me go back. Actually, let's talk a little bit about autophagy in terms of what turns it on, and then I'm going to give you my analogy. That kind of ties it all together at a time.

01:08:08 - Chase (Host) Question there as well. Does autophagy only happen during fasting or because of fasting?

01:08:19 - Renee (Guest) Yes, okay, so great question. So, in terms of autophagy, what turns it on? It's stress to the body where nutrients are limited and so it doesn't have enough nutrition to grow, so it then triggers autophagy. So there's a really mostly just fasting that does that, and fasting for over 48 hours, so very important. A lot of people are like, oh, I did a 16 hour fast, I triggered autophagy. No, you didn't.

01:08:39 - Chase (Host) Which I hear a lot online. Yeah, you didn't. We'll make some bold claims.

01:08:42 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, yeah, it's all over the literature right now. I've seen 24 to 48 hours as like kind of the standard right now. I 24 to 48 hours as like kind of the standard. Right now I lean on 48. I think that's a safer number to assess as the point where you're really optimizing autophagy. So 48 hours, that's when it's peaking, and again it's.

01:09:01 I do like to think of it again as that dimmer switch where it's kind of like growing but it's that kind of broken dimmer switch where the bottom part is a little tough and it takes a little bit longer to get there and then it really skyrockets. And so the the concept that we like to think about here is let's say, you're a business owner, right, and you have all your employees, everybody's, everything's growing, you're getting all this money, everything's great, and you're not going to change anything when you have one bad employee because it's just like too much work to deal with with that person right now. You, you're growing, things are great, it's like it's not your biggest worry right now. Um, one thing isn't super efficient, whatever.

01:09:42 We're still growing, but you have one bad day and then the next day it's fine, you're still just going to keep going because you had one bad day, whatever. It's not a big deal, but you have several bad days. All of a sudden, now you're reassessing and you're going to go back and you're going to do a lot of work on cleaning things up. You don't know where if money's going to come in the next day or the next day, because it's been you know a couple of weeks where it hasn't. So you're going to reassess and you're going to start, you know, cutting the fat. And that's kind of what the body is doing in this, in this sense of autophagy. Is one day or a few hours of fasting isn't going to ring the alarm bells to our body to do something, because it kind of takes work to really get this autophagy thing going. So it's not going to bother if it's just going to get stopped right away.

01:10:29 - Chase (Host) Right, okay, yeah.

01:10:30 - Renee (Guest) And so it needs more time in that hermetic stress space, that positive stress space, to really trigger it and say, okay, it's time, let's bring in the arsenal, let's start doing some cleanup, because we don't know when food's going to come next. Autophagy also is this concept that your body's using all of that misfolded proteins and organelles for food during that time too. It's kind of like you, you, your house in the winter time. Okay, you, you're cold. You turn on the fireplace when, um, you know you've got logs, but all of a sudden you run out of logs. What are you going to do? You either are going to freeze or you're going to go start looking for things in your house.

01:11:12 Yeah, exactly what burns. And so are you going to go take your heirloom chest from your grandmother. No, you're going to go take the broken down chair in the corner and you're going to go throw that in the fire. And that is that same concept. That's what autophagy is doing. It's going to look for the stuff that it doesn't need, it's going to use that for energy during that period of time, and then, when food returns, it's then going to say, okay, wow, we burnt all those chairs. What are we going to do we're going to go get more chairs new chairs and replace, and so it's the same concept there.

01:11:44 - Chase (Host) Kind of sounds like a taking an everything shower. Yeah.

01:11:47 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, exactly, exactly, and you come out feeling so fresh. Um, so, yeah, absolutely.

01:11:55 - Chase (Host) How long do we have to fast to really trigger autophagy? We've kind of 48 hours 48 hours.

01:12:00 - Renee (Guest) That's my number. I've seen, I've seen the current literature anywhere from 24 to 48, but 48 over two days. So like and now to. To be very clear, 48 means on day three, right? So on day three, that's when it's happening. It's not on day two, right, because you got to get to 48 hours.

01:12:21 - Chase (Host) So on day three could we go back to our normal eating habits?

01:12:24 - Renee (Guest) So I love this question because it's kind of like if I told you that it took you two days to get up the courage to go start spring cleaning and then you started spring cleaning on day three, do you think you'd get very far if you stopped right once you started? No, and it's the same concept. If you do that with autophagy, you want to give it time to get some of the work done. So that's why five is that magic number where you really start triggering on day three. Then you live in it for a little while too.

01:12:58 - Chase (Host) Makes total sense.

01:12:59 - Renee (Guest) Yeah.

01:12:59 - Chase (Host) Is there anything else in the realm of autophagy that you would like to cover?

01:13:04 - Renee (Guest) Yes, yes. So autophagy is blocked by many things, and one of the biggest, the major blockers of it are going to be excess simple sugars, but also amino acids, and this is so. This is protein. Okay. So when we want to trigger autophagy, we have to be very careful not to excessively consume protein. We want to keep that really limited and ideally even make it just plant sources, because they have different amino acid compositions that are less likely to trigger autophagy. Autophagy is blocked by something called mTOR. It's one of those nutrient sensing pathways that I've been talking about. You may something called mtor. It's one of those nutrient sensing pathways that I've been talking about. You may have heard it. It's kind of starting to get a little bit more buzz around it. Mtor is really important in longevity, in trying not to excessively spike it all the time, but also when you spike mtor, you stop autophagy. It increase mtor, decrease autophagy. It's like just this, this marriage that doesn't work so well.

01:14:04 - Chase (Host) This is, I think, the main mechanism we look at of all the mice science around longevity, but humans too now, and humans too.

01:14:12 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, now we're seeing it in humans too, so it started actually in yeast. When I tell people, hey, protein, in this specific case, people have such a strong tie to protein these days and there was so much conversation around protein these days, so sometimes when we say limit it during this time, people get really upset about it. So I always want to tie back to the science. This is why and it's because mTOR is especially triggered by amino acids, and if you trigger mTOR, you are going to inhibit autophagy. So if you want to get those deep cellular benefits which I cannot stress enough, are some of the biggest reasons why you would do a long fast and are the real benefits of doing a long fast uh, be really, really cautious about not inhibiting autophagy from things that don't inhibit ketosis but do inhibit autophagy.

01:15:02 - Chase (Host) Okay, definitely some things to be mindful of there. Also, I've heard a lot of different points around what to do. What are the best ways to transition out of a fast. People will say you go just water, then water and electrolytes, then water, electrolytes, bone broth or just bone broth or coffee, start with only liquids and then ease into soft foods. Um, what is the best way again for the general public to transition out of a fast?

01:15:32 - Renee (Guest) Great question. It depends how long you've been fasting. Like if you're just doing a 16, 14, 12 hour fast, probably honestly do anything.

01:15:40 Um so if I'm just intermittent fasting, you know, my next meal can be just whatever your body hasn't really had that much of a break that it's going to be shocked by the next item that you present. Okay, now, if you've fasted for even 24, but definitely in these five, three, five day ranges, right, you want to be very cautious about what you return to your body. Your body's super clean and I have. I will be the first to say I have had a burger after a five day fast. I you know like you get on day four and you're like what am I going to?

01:16:13 - Chase (Host) have on day six. It probably just hits so much harder it is awful I have.

01:16:17 - Renee (Guest) you didn't want to be around me after I did that it was awful. It was that burger ruined me.

01:16:22 - Chase (Host) Really.

01:16:23 - Renee (Guest) It, it ruined.

01:16:24 - Chase (Host) I was expecting the opposite. Like you're just so like. Oh my God, this burger is the best thing ever. You're so hungry.

01:16:29 - Renee (Guest) Oh, no, no, no, it was so bad and I felt I felt so sick. I've never felt so sick, and it's because your body is so clean. It knows exactly what the heck it wants. It doesn't want a bunch of you know, unfortunately, kind of junk that I mean it was, it was a good burger, Okay, Um, and, and so you know you got you. You really do want to transition and ease your body back in, because when you have that burger, it's got to do a lot of work in a lot of ways that it hasn't been for the last few days and it doesn't like it, and it knows that that isn't quite the thing that it's looking for to use as fuel to rebuild from everything that it just broke down.

01:17:08 - Chase (Host) It all comes back to metabolism, right.

01:17:10 - Renee (Guest) Yeah.

01:17:10 - Chase (Host) If we're going from like everything we just talked about the benefits of fasting to then just flooding our system and demanding heavy metabolism, then it's like is it undo? Is it? Is it undoing everything or we're just negating some benefits?

01:17:26 - Renee (Guest) It's definitely not undoing anything because you've done like I cannot stress the power of autophagy for three days. If you live in it for three days like you've done a lot of really, really good work and it's hard to undo it, and in fact we've. We've seen studies where they check back in three months later when people go back to a regular diet. They've done absolutely nothing else other than a five-day fast once a month for three months, check back in and we see about 75% of all those benefits maintained They've done absolutely nothing else. That's pretty crazy.

01:17:58 You have a bad meal here or there. That's kind of the beauty of these long fasts is that you can have some indulgence here or there and like don't we all want to hear that, that we don't have to be perfect all of the time you can have. You can go away on vacation and have a little bit of a you know, an indulgent weekend. Awesome, like let's, let's give ourselves that flexibility and that ability to do that. And these deep, deep cleanups put you in a place where you can give yourself that flexibility, which I love, but in terms of that transition day, not the day to do it not the day to do it, the transition day just gradually return, and I do agree very much with this kind of return to solid foods.

01:18:37 So I do find that generally people like to start with softer foods in the early part of the day, especially if you've done a fasting, mimicking diet where you are consuming food, uh, which, again, I strongly recommend you. The transition day is really quite easy. You should still gradually transition back to regular eating, but your body has been consuming and metabolizing food over the last five days and so it's. It's a lot easier to return and you can do that all in one day. Now, if you were doing water only, fasting for that time, you would hopefully be medically supervised and they'd be telling you exactly what the heck to eat and uh, but it would be very likely be a gradual return to solid foods. Not high amounts of, like, saturated fats, not high amounts of processed food, not high amounts of artificial sugars or even, uh, refined sugars.

01:19:23 - Chase (Host) So you know all the stuff that they kind of like say hey watch out, for those are the stuff, the good old fashioned whole foods, yeah, exactly.

01:19:29 - Renee (Guest) Exactly and ideally, especially again, um, for those five days. I would also say on that first day limit your animal protein again, because again we haven't been triggering all of those pathways and just again, just a gradual return.

01:19:43 - Chase (Host) Okay so Okay, I want to get into one other area, a benefit that I think a lot of people look to fasting for, and that's immune health. Before we get into having you explain this fasting mimicking diet, we've been teasing this whole time.

01:19:56 Yeah, and especially when it comes to water fasts. I think there was a documentary on Netflix or saw something online A lot of people going to these longer, longer fast and even water fast, longer water fast, uh, because they have cancer or they're really, really focused on boosting immune health and no matter what they're doing, for whatever reason unique to them, is not working. And I'm going to share a study again. I'll link this for everybody on the show notes uh, talking about uh fasting, using fasting with women with breast cancer and this incredible followup years later. And so bear with me as there's a little blurb here.

01:20:36 Quote using data from the national health and nutrition examination surveys, we have shown that each three hour increase in nighttime fasting duration was associated with significantly reduced odds of elevated a1c blood sugar so pre-diabetes diabetics, things like that and significantly lower crp c-reactive protein, which is a big marker for inflammation of the body. Lower crp concentrations in women who ate less than 30% of their daily calories after 5 pm. They then went on to publish an analysis of the nightly fasting interval in almost 2,400 breast cancer survivors, which is a huge population for a study, and their data shows that cancer survivors who fasted less than 13 hours per night during the seven years of follow-up had an increased risk of recurrence. To their knowledge, this is the first human study to demonstrate an association of prolonged nightly fasting with a clinical outcome. So we're talking a really large population size, pretty long study here seven years and to see significant fluctuation and recurrence or what's the word I'm looking for with cancer and remission, that's profound.

01:21:56 - Renee (Guest) It is incredibly profound enough, that guy, dr Walter Longo, that we brought up at the beginning. The whole reason that he got into this was because of the connection of fasting in oncology and there's so much research now in this space. Now I want to be very careful here because cancer is a very complex disease and not all cancers are the same. So we have to be very cautious that while fasting might be showing as beneficial in one population, it may not in others. So there's actually quite a bit of research in the breast cancer space. I'm seeing almost a lot of the research happening there and a lot of it is really exciting and really beneficial. Lot of it is really exciting and really beneficial. We even are seeing it being leveraged in treatment, showing that pairing fasting during treatment reduces the symptoms of chemotherapy.

01:22:51 So, making it more, you know, doable, uh, and comfortable, which you can imagine? It certainly is not.

01:22:58 So, whatever you can do to make it better. I mean, that's really interesting. And then, of course, now there's starting to be some outcomes, data that are really, really exciting. There's going to have to be so much more research and in so many cancers and but it's, it's really really positive research coming out there and we think that it's happening for so many reasons. I like the study that you shared here, because they're specifically talking about nighttime fasting and that's kind of what we were talking about earlier, and this is very likely heavily in women, just because of the occurrence of breast cancer is far more in women than in men.

01:23:35 - Chase (Host) Yeah, it was a shutoff of 5 pm.

01:23:37 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, and so that is not like an absurd fasting window, right. That is not like an absurd fasting window right. And specifically in the evening, where, when we have that reduced impact of insulin, that difficulty in absorbing glucose in the later evening, and so it's probably also supporting that metabolic health, and we know that cancer also is very closely tied with our metabolic health.

01:24:02 - Chase (Host) And we know that cancer also is very closely tied with our metabolic health. So it's kind of like a nice big lead domino a lot of other positive physiological effects that contribute to being better, being a better cancer fighter.

01:24:13 - Renee (Guest) Right, and I mean especially in this one, which, especially what they were measuring was the rate of reoccurrence. This is also kind of just a general study of what is your health in between, right, and so there's a lot of things that you can do to uh, prevent reoccurrence, nutrition being a major one, but, um, fasting and like being chronologically mindful of when you're eating, certainly playing a part into that too, yeah, okay I feel like the part that we've all been waiting for, I've been waiting for and I know, is your jam yes, also, just like so well-versed in fasting.

01:24:49 - Chase (Host) This has all been very informative for me, and I hope the audience as well. So thank you for everything so far. Fasting, mimicking Fasting, mimicking diet what is it, and is it as beneficial as traditional fasting or the other fasting methods that we've already talked about?

01:25:04 - Renee (Guest) Great question, okay, so what is it? Let's start there. Fasting mimicking is the idea and actually the science, because it's been researched quite heavily. There's over 40 clinical studies just in fasting mimicking diet coming out of USC and some of the top research institutions.

01:25:20 - Chase (Host) I was able to find quite a amount I can't talk. I was able to find a lot of fasting, mimicking diet, uh studies way more than I was expecting.

01:25:29 - Renee (Guest) Yes, yeah, exactly. And, and now it's really starting to blow up. So all sorts of people are starting to like really get into this fasting, mimicking space, because we see such great outcomes that people are really starting to to catch on.

01:25:43 Yeah, we see such great outcomes that people are really starting to to catch on. Yeah, and, and they're the leading researchers, the top uh impact factor journals, so this is really strong science. So I cannot reiterate that enough, because what I'm about to say is going to make people think what the heck? What I'm about to say is going to make people question everything they ever knew about fasting. You can fast with food.

01:26:08 - Chase (Host) What.

01:26:08 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, you can get all of those benefits of fasting. You can trigger autophagy, you can get into ketosis with food and I don't think necessarily getting into ketosis with food is like super shocking to people because the ketogenic diet but autophagy with food is like crazy and unheard of and all of the benefits of fasting with food. It it just seems too good to be true. But it is all based on the science of understanding the difference between what our eyeballs and what maybe what our dictionary says is fasting and actually what our cells perceive as fasting. And it turns out those are two different things. It is not just did I put food in my mouth or did I not put food in my mouth, but it's what did I put in my mouth, how much, and all of those people, all of those things kind of coming together into determining whether you're in a fasted state or not.

01:27:03 - Chase (Host) Okay. So what is the fasting mimicking diet and how can we fast with food?

01:27:08 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, so it is very precise and there's a lot of things that go into it. But, generally speaking, what you're seeing are going to be a very highly plant-based program for these five days, and that's because, again, I was talking about that protein and a lot of those amino acids really kicking you out of that fast, so you got to be careful there. Um, it is also got, uh, things like a nut based bars, things like plant-based soups, um, you even have like crackers and there's even a little chocolate crisp at the end of the day. So you're getting food throughout the day, every single day.

01:27:42 - Chase (Host) So is that not just a significant caloric restriction diet?

01:27:48 - Renee (Guest) No, so it's very different, because the nutrient sensing pathways, or the alarm bells on the cell that tell us that we're in a fast food state or not, are looking for very specific things. So not all calories are equal, oh it's clicking for me.

01:28:03 - Chase (Host) I'm a little slow, oh wow.

01:28:05 - Renee (Guest) Well, sometimes we got to try it a few different ways.

01:28:08 - Chase (Host) Wow.

01:28:08 Yeah, yeah, I'm going to let you sit with that. All right, please pause while I have my mind blown. Wow, yeah, um. And speaking of, I was finding some really impressive studies. Uh, this is from one in the advances in nutrition. Some really impressive studies. Uh, this is from one in the advances in nutrition. Um, looking at fasting mimicking diet increases health and longevity in mice. And I'm trying to skim through here to just really hit some of the yeah, the big numbers, because it's very impressive. They're looking at, um, things like cancer, weight loss, uh, even procreation. Looking at the test of the efficacy of this fmd, fasting, mimicking diet and multiple mouse studies focused on health and longevity for the treatment of aging related diseases such as diabetes, cancer and, in a mouse model, for multiple sclerosis. I didn't even know mice could get MS.

01:28:56 - Renee (Guest) You, you induce it in the mice. I'm sorry, sorry.

01:29:00 - Chase (Host) Yeah, but um, yeah, uh, but um yeah, and they're looking at, uh, this sample, I think it was like a hundred or a hundred plus and um, it's just. Basically they were able to reverse everything.

01:29:12 - Renee (Guest) Yeah Well, we have to be careful with reduce, reverse, everything but kind of um like in the mice study. Yeah, and I always go back to this type one diabetes study. I think a lot of people who are not sure about fasting mimicking when they hear about this one. They're just like what?

01:29:30 - Chase (Host) Yeah, in type two and type one diabetes and type one Mouse models, fmd cycles successfully restored insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis. Yes, type one diabetics.

01:29:41 - Renee (Guest) Yeah, so beta cells.

01:29:43 - Chase (Host) That's crazy.

01:29:44 - Renee (Guest) Are non-functional in type one diabetes. They are there and they're not coming back. There's not really anything that we've been able to do to treat this, other than just make up for it by giving people insulin.

01:29:56 - Chase (Host) Yeah, got the insulin pump. You take injections yeah.

01:29:58 - Renee (Guest) That is the solution for type one diabetes. Now, in this study and granted it was in mice, but really phenomenal results where the beta cells were regenerated- that's crazy, yeah.

01:30:14 - Chase (Host) We're taking dead systems in the body, non-operative systems in the body, traditionally from the get-go, from birth or very soon after, and they're being reactivated.

01:30:23 - Renee (Guest) Yep, and the same thing is happening in the MS model. We also have an IBD model where these are models right, so these are mice, so we got to be careful. But in a lot of these there's also been small safety trials with humans that are paired with these preclinical or mice model trials and we're seeing that it's safe in those humans. And now more trials are being done in humans to just, you know, ensure that that's actually being shown. And we have some human trials. By the way, in a lot of cases, especially like we're starting small right, we're starting small. We're starting with, like the most prevalent disease out there, type 2 diabetes. So starting big, but really incredible results in humans with type two diabetes. Uh, and that's just in disease states. Now I want to be clear we have a lot of studies in healthy people, so you don't have to have been diagnosed with a condition to benefit from this, because prevention is super important too.

01:31:24 - Chase (Host) So, yeah, really, Can you go a little bit deeper there, as we kind of begin to wrap up here, um with, let's say, the fasting, mimicking diet?

01:31:31 - Renee (Guest) Yeah.

01:31:32 - Chase (Host) This is something that the general public should consider. If they're not diabetic, if they're, in general, good health, generally good health, they feel okay, their biomarkers Okay. They have no real aches, pains issues to speak of. Why should I consider the FMD?

01:31:47 - Renee (Guest) So the one study that was published in 2024 that I would always point back to for this population is going to be the biological age study.

01:31:56 This was a study that looked at a number of biomarkers that have been strongly associated with your longevity and therefore allowing us to assess your biological age. I've said a lot of things in a lot of big words, but essentially, your biological age is how old your cells are, and we can measure that, and it turns out that your biological age can be older than your true age or it can be younger than your true age. So certainly we all want to be younger than our true age. It has a lot of benefits for longevity overall, and so we assess what your biological age is by looking at a lot of factors and seeing where you stand compared to other people of the same age, et cetera, and we were able to show that, with three cycles of a fasting mimicking diet that is, five days of fasting, mimicking a month for three months in a row, right? So five days on 25 days off, five days on 25 days on, five days on five days off there was a 2.5 year biological age reversal.

01:32:55 - Chase (Host) So in just a matter of months we can reverse our biological age by two and a half years. Yes, now does it go away once we come off that fmd protocol no.

01:33:07 - Renee (Guest) So they also did so with that same study. They did assessments and they looked at what, if you were to do this for a period of 20 years, from the age of 50 to 70, is what they were assuming here and they showed an 11 year biological age reversal over that period of time If you were to do it over a three year period. So, or three times a year over that 20 year period. So the results do continue to compound. It's not something that you should do and then never do again.

01:33:36 - Chase (Host) That's important to note, but the results are not disappearing after a few days, so that's like yeah that's like saying you know, oh yeah, I started walking or started exercise and I felt good and I lost some weight, you know, and then if you stop, the weight comes back, the lethargy comes back, you know, all that stuff comes back. So exactly, For example this has been amazing.

01:33:57 To wrap us up before I get to my final question, in just a one-liner, you know, pitch, the skeptic, pitch, the person who is just, I don't know, I don't know. Intermittent fasting, water fasting, just a fasting approach to their nutrition, their lifestyle, their, their healthy habits. Give us the pitch as to why we should consider it. And again, if I'm not dealing with any major health issue like, why should I entertain this?

01:34:23 - Renee (Guest) I'm going to take it way back, and when I say way back, I'm going to say millions and millions of years back. I think we get fooled into thinking that fasting is a fad and that it is new. But it is so important to remember that we evolved in periods where we were constantly fasting and, because that's from our very early days, our bodies evolved to thrive during these periods of fasting and so we have to let our body live in this period, in this space where it knows what to do and it knows how to take advantage of this time. And so, if you don't believe the research, the decades of research, fine, but if you can believe anything, believe in our evolution over time and the fact that we have you know this. This is something that our body knows what to do.

01:35:10 And if you just let your body do it, you will be very impressed at what it can do for you.

01:35:16 - Chase (Host) I agree. That's very well said and this is something I've never been one to really advocate for, for no particular reason other than I just don't regularly fast. But there's no denying in my opinion. Looking back at the history of the human species, you can't deny that we went periods, long periods, sometimes, without food or we had very minimal calories. We wouldn't be here, you and I would not be here, you would not be here, if our ancestors did not fast Right. Whether that was by choice or by circumstance is a different story, but it's a part of us.

01:35:51 - Renee (Guest) It absolutely is, and the beauty is that it's a part of us that we can still tap into and we can still leverage and we can still optimize. So let's do it, let's take advantage of that and let's keep researching it, let's keep uncovering more ways to take advantage of it and more ways to personalize it, because I I, if I haven't made it clear over the last little while personal that is going to guide you in the right direction for you and your goals, because all types of fasting that we talked about today have different outcomes and are for different people.

01:36:34 - Chase (Host) So okay, I lied. I have one other question brought to light and then we're going to wrap up. I promise Um. Are there any inherent dangers to fasting? What is the most dangerous thing someone might be doing with their approach to fasting that they should absolutely be aware of right now?

01:36:49 - Renee (Guest) Yeah. So I would say, don't do it for too long. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. That is probably the danger there, because you, there is stress to the body, there is going to be nutrient deprivation, and so there is, of course, danger if you're doing that too long. So be very, very mindful to not overdo it and to do it safely. Uh, if you have any healthcare conditions or, uh, if you have any uh health conditions I should say that are very severe, or even, honestly, any health condition, just go talk to your healthcare practitioner and I would say, you know, a lot of healthcare practitioners are starting to warm up to the idea of fasting. If you want to get a second opinion, do so. You know, like some practitioners are just like no, we're not doing it because they don't want to bother looking into it or they don't believe in nutrition, which still like blows my mind.

01:37:40 - Chase (Host) Great resource I'll recommend is Amy Shaw, dr Amy Shaw. She's. It blows my mind, a great resource I'll recommend is Amy Shaw, dr Amy Shaw. Yes, she's been on the show a few times and she's, I know, a big advocate for fasting and even, I think, fasting mimicking, in fact.

01:37:51 - Renee (Guest) She's doing a group fast with El Nutra Prolon right now. On the way. So literally as we speak right now, she is on social media doing a group fast with her whole audience of over a million people now.

01:38:03 Yeah, yeah, talking about media, doing a group fast with her whole audience of over a million people now. Uh, talking about the fasting, mimicking diet and how she's leveraging it and just she's doing it herself. You know she's doing. She's talking about how it's working for her and what she likes and parts that she doesn't like you know she's coming back on soon, so I'll have to ask her about it now.

01:38:16 - Chase (Host) That's fresh, that's really cool. Um well, renee, this has been incredible. Thank you so much. What does Ever Forward mean to you? Those two words, you know this is the hardest question of the whole thing. I wait to the very end.

01:38:29 - Renee (Guest) Because, you know, I think about that and I think, man, it's like constantly moving forward, and then I start getting into, like my perfectionist brain and that is just who I am as a person and so for me I have to stop myself and have to say whatever forward means is progress, not perfection. It is about taking a step, any step, big or small, and just moving forward and not having judgment on whether it was a good enough step or a big enough step or a step in the right direction, you know, just letting it happen and just making the effort and not expecting it to be perfect, and not always like looking all the way to the end of this, always moving finish line, but like taking it little steps at a time. And that is so important to me because, as a perfectionist, it is so easy to get stuck in that type of thinking, this all or none thinking, this perfectionist thinking you don't need to be there, just take a pause, take a step back and just think about what's one little thing that you can do to get there.

01:39:39 - Chase (Host) For more information on everything you just heard, make sure to check this episode's show notes or head to everforwardradio.com