Ep. 011 - Intro to Fasting

SHOW NOTES

Have you ever tried fasting or thought about trying fasting?  You might have just heard about it or maybe you actually dipped your toe into the fasting waters, either way, in this episode, I want  to help you understand fasting a little better.  I cover...

1. Types of fasting
2. The benefits and disadvantages of fasting
3. Common fasting mistakes
4. Considerations

Enjoy!

TRANSCRIPT

 Let's talk about fasting Today, I'm diving into the good and bad of fasting to help you decide if it's something you want to do for your health and weight loss,

Welcome to Man in the Arena, your go-to podcast for all things related to health and weight loss for men over 40. Here we discuss strategies that will get you off the sidelines and into the game so you can achieve your optimal health. It's time to lead a legacy of longevity. What is going on? Welcome to Man in the Arena.

My name is Craig Spear. I'm your health and weight loss guide, and today I'm gonna talk to you about a somewhat controversial topic, which is fasting. Now, why is fasting controversial? There's two reasons. In my opinion, the main reason is that science is not a hundred percent conclusive, that fasting leads to weight loss.

And improved health. And I think the reason why science is inconclusive here is that we're all individuals and we all have different needs. And the problem with the health and weight loss industry is that science tries to find a one size fits all solution to all humans, but that's simply not realistic.

For example, a 55 year old male has completely different metabolic needs than a 24 year old female or an eight year old kid. Someone who's a shift worker has completely different energy needs than someone who works from home from nine to five. And then when you consider genetics and cultural norms, we have even greater individual needs.

Now, the second reason why I think fasting is somewhat controversial is most people instinctively hate the idea of eating less food. And I totally get that. Our brains are hardwired for survival. So evolutionarily it makes no sense to avoid eating food, especially when it's really accessible to us, and that's where I see most people lose their shit.

This idea of missing a meal or not eating just isn't in our nature, even though most of our ancestors often fasted. Needless to say, fasting can be a touchy subject. With that being said, I wanna provide you with an overview of what I've seen in my coaching, mainly working with men over 30 who have fasted.

I also wanna share with you what I've done personally using fasting. So that's what today's episode is all about. It's an intro to fasting. We're just gonna skim the surface today. I definitely cannot cover all the implications of fasting on weight loss and health in under 20 minutes. So with that, let me be clear.

You do not have to fast to lose weight and be healthy, but if you're struggling to lose weight and you are struggling to be healthy, this may be a route you consider. Now, one last guideline. It's always a great idea to consult with your doctor before starting a fasting regimen. Just check in with them, get their insight.

They know your health history. They're gonna give you a lot of good advice. And if you're pregnant or you're breastfeeding, if you have hormonal imbalances or if you have an eating disorder or if you're underweight, then fasting simply isn't for you. Okay, so what is fasting? Very simply, fasting means to abstain from food.

So just based on that definition, we all fast, every human being fast because we sleep, and over that time we're abstaining from food. So we do naturally fast in this sort of rhythm of our day, but from a traditional western eating schedule, you fast approximately eight to 12 hours a day, depending on when your last meal is.

If it's dinner or if it's a snack after dinner, say eight o'clock, and then you sleep 10 hours, then you're, you're gonna have breakfast around six o'clock. Okay? So we all fast. We all abstain from food in some way, but there's different types of fasting with respect to an actual determined fasting schedule.

The first one is the most common, and this is the one that I prescribe most, and it's a time restricted or an intermittent fast. And what that means is you're predetermining a smaller eating window. So the normal intermittent fasting ratio is a 16 hour fast and an eight hour eating window. And it typically means skipping breakfast and eating your first meal at noon, eating your last meal at eight o'clock, and then fasting the full 16 hours back till the next noon.

The second type of fasting regimen that I see is a periodic fasting regimen, and this usually looks like a five to two method whereby you eat regularly or normally like the normal western eating schedule, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Five days a week and then you take two days. To fast, and in this instance it would be less than 500 calories.

On those fasting days, most people would not eat any calories or very limited amount of calories on those fasting days, but based on the periodic fasting definition, it could be up to 500 calories. Another fasting schedule I see is an alternate day fasting schedule where people will eat their normal breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then the next day they fast next day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they just kind of cycle through.

Another one that is very common in my space that I see some of my clients take on is a 24 hour fast, which is also known as an omad, one meal a day. So someone might say, okay, my only meal of the day is gonna be lunch. I eat lunch 24 hours, and I eat my next lunch or dinner. You don't have to sort of determine that, but it's, it's good to identify, are you going to eat at lunch or are you gonna eat at dinner?

Or maybe it's breakfast. And this typically is done by people who work on shift. So doctors, nurses and that sort of thing, because their schedule is pretty restrictive in terms of being able to get to, you know, lunch and other meals throughout the day. And then the last type of fasting that is most common, or not most common, but is common is a prolonged fast.

And this is more typical of, of religious. Types of fasting, but I also see it's usually done where it's 36 hours or more. That's considered a, a prolonged fast, 36, 48, 72 hours, and I've seen as long as four days of fasting. Now, I'll talk a little bit about the benefits of that in a minute. So those are the types of fasting now, Why does it work?

Okay, and there's two answers to this. The first answer is when you fast, you are naturally reducing your caloric intake. Just based on reducing your eating window, you're gonna take in less calories. And the second reason has to do with managing your blood sugar and your insulin levels. So I want you to think of today's kind of eating culture from a western kind of cultural sense.

Most people in North America and in Europe, they get up and they have some kind of high carb breakfast, whether it's cereal, a bagel, toast, those types of foods. And what happens after you eat those foods is you get this crash sometimes 30 minutes to an hour later. So what happens? You grab that morning snack and then you crash again, and then you eat lunch, and then you crash again, afternoon snack, and then maybe you have a snack on the drive home from work, and then it's dinner.

So we're constantly eating and as a result, we're constantly seeing these elevated blood glucose levels. And because we're seeing these elevated blood glucose levels, we're seeing consistently elevated insulin levels. So your pancreas is releasing insulin in order to move the energy into the cell. And as I've said on previous episodes, as long as you have insulin in your blood, you cannot metabolize body fat for energy.

You're gonna be primarily using glucose for energy at that point. And so that's why you're getting these crashes up and down and up and down. So by virtue, when you fast, you are drastically changing this kind of cycle. This pattern of eating and you're eating less frequently and your body starts to manage the energy demands of your day by becoming fat adapted.

So our second energy source is stored energy in the form of body fat. And so when when you don't eat, your body is able to adapt and metabolize that fat. That's what's called being metabolically flexible. Okay. Now, once your body's processed all your blood glucose, say at the end of your eating window, your pancreas no longer needs to release insulin, and then your body's better able to utilize the stored energy as fuel.

So that's kind of a really quick, rudimentary way of defining why fasting works. I wanna highlight here the benefits of fasting and why you should consider doing fasting. The first one, as I've kind of described is we have this metabolic flexibility. So your body gets way better at being able to switch between different energy sources, carbs and fats way more efficiently in response to what you eat when you exercise and during rest.

And that's really, really important. We wanna be able to utilize the different sources of energy. The second thing is we see this improved insulin sensitivity, and by virtue of this reduced insulin resistance. So if we're constantly eating all day, especially high carb foods, We're constantly releasing insulin into the bloodstream.

In order to help that energy get into our cells, our cells eventually start to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is too much work here. And think of your cell kind of having a lock. And that lock starts to malfunction. It starts to break down, and insulin is the key. So insulin no longer becomes effective at opening that lock.

And so that's what it insulin resistance is. So we wanna be insulin sensitive. Wanna have insulin sensitivity, wanna be able to allow insulin to bind to that cell and, and open it up so that we can get energy into it. And of course, the downstream impact of that from insulin resistance is we can't get the sugar from the blood into the cell.

And then sugar in the cell is naturally toxic, and that's where people are pre-diabetic or diabetic and, and a whole other host of health complications occur from there. So, Fasting naturally helps us become more insulin sensitive and reduces insulin resistance and by virtue we start to see another benefit, which is weight loss.

That right there is the key benefit of fasting, but of course you see other benefits of as well. You see an increase in human growth hormone production. You know when you go on longer fast, people who, who do those prolonged 36 48, 4 day fast. There's a process called autophagy, which is this body's natural way of clearing out dead cells.

So you actually, you know, your body, because it's sort of gone into this starvation mode, is gonna start to naturally eat up the dead cells. And that's been really powerful in terms of anti-aging, reducing lifestyle diseases, also other diseases such as, um, Alzheimer's and dementia. From my perspective, what I've personally witnessed in my coaching and also within myself, the benefits of intermittent fasting is very simple.

You just have less decisions to make every day when it comes to food, and so that leads to less decision fatigue. And because you're not making as many decisions as you used to with respect to eating, now you can focus that energy and that mental concentration into other areas of your life. And then the other benefit as well that I see from fasting is see way less impulsive eating because you've made decisions ahead of time, you have less decisions to make around food, and you're not seeing nearly as many cravings because of this improved metabolic flexibility, seeing way less spikes and crashes in your blood sugar.

Now with that, there are disadvantages to fasting. It's not this magical pill, this cure-all. There are disadvantages. Very simply, the obvious disadvantages is what I call starter symptoms. So if you decide to start fasting, let's say you do an intermittent, fast, 16 hour fast and an eight hour eating window, you're going to experience, or you may, I shouldn't say you're going to, you may experience symptoms like increased hunger, headaches, lightheadedness, fatigue, irritability, decreased focus, and in very, very rare instances, Someone will experience nausea, insomnia, or constipation.

So that's an obvious disadvantage. Now, in saying that, I've never seen these symptoms last more than two weeks. Very rarely in fact have I seen them last that long. Usually it's a week or a few days, and I can say that in my coaching and prescribing this to a lot of guys, I've never had someone come back to me and say, I can't keep doing this.

This is way too difficult. Mostly everyone I've coached has said this is actually pretty easy and I'm actually kind of enjoying it. But I do want you to be mindful of the disadvantages of fasting. Other disadvantages that I've seen is it can make travel or other social situations more awkward or a little bit more just difficult to deal with.

So you have to have a plan and a strategy if you're going to institute fasting as to how you're gonna handle those situations. So with that, I've also seen some common mistakes. I've seen mistakes people make when they start a fasting regimen and how that can kind of lead to complications down the line.

So for example, because you're already in a reduced eating window, a lot of times people, what they'll do just by their nature is. They'll either work through a meal, right? They're just very busy with work and they'll, they won't break their fast at 12 o'clock. They'll just keep working and then they'll break their fast at two o'clock or they'll skip meals.

What I'm saying is they're inadvertently prolonging their fast, and the problem with that is that increases hunger. Quite substantially. We know that the hunger hormone is ghrelin, and when you're not eating on a sort of specific schedule and you skip a meal, ghrelin levels rise really dramatically, and that can sort of lead to this artificial hunger.

And so in other words, when you do break your fast, you tend to overeat. Not only do you tend to overeat, but you're probably looking for calorically dense foods rather than nutrient dense foods. So that's one of the common mistakes I see. Another common mistake I see is not planning meals ahead of time.

So if you're gonna try a fast, make sure you're making your decisions from a place of strength ahead of time, from your prefrontal rather than from this place of weakness in the moment. So typically a fasting schedule is gonna tell us when to eat, not what to eat, but you still want to decide ahead of time what you're going to eat.

Another mistake I see is people will eat too many carbs at their last meal. So if you end your fast at eight o'clock, make sure you're focusing on eating something high in protein and fats. And the reason why that's important is you don't want your body to have to process all this glucose at the end of your fast, which then just delays your body's ability to become fat adapted.

Okay, two more mistakes I see is breaking the fast with fat and carbs. Rather than fats and proteins or carbs and proteins. All right, so we wanna make sure, again, we're eating fats and proteins at our first meal, or it's carbon and proteins. And then lastly, not being consistent enough. This is a big one, I see.

So it's important to stay committed over months, not weeks. So if you're gonna try fasting, make sure you give it a good go. Work through those initial starter symptoms. And then really give it a good go. And I'm gonna talk about considerations next and give you some ideas as to how you can sort of best implement a fasting regimen.

So with considerations, make sure you have a plan. You don't wanna just wing this, you don't wanna wake up one day and just say, oh, I think I'll try intermittent fasting. I saw you ne uh, interesting social media post. Or I listen to Craig's podcast, I'm just gonna give it a go. No, you wanna have a plan.

Decide on what type of fasting regimen you're gonna use. Decide on what meals you're gonna have at certain times, what types of foods, and then give it a good three weeks and, and kind of, sort of be curious and understand what the impacts have been on your life. And so with that, you need to have an open mind to this experience.

You need to be curious, you need to, you need to be sort of experimental in your approach. So this is not a diet, okay. And don't do this if you're just trying to lose weight. That's what I describe as a traditional diet. You wanna do this because it has a full range of health benefits and you wanna see if it works for your lifestyle and for your body.

Some people find it really difficult, and so if that's the case for you, don't do it. There's no sense in being miserable and try to power through this. Okay? Now with that, I'll say this. Once you start. You can absolutely make exceptions. It's not all or nothing. So you can still have breakfast. All right.

Just decide ahead of time and if you're gonna have breakfast, make sure it's kind of a one-off. It's not, well, I'm just gonna eat breakfast for the next few days. It's no, I've got a wedding coming up and I'm gonna do a late dinner because of the wedding. Or you know, we have family coming in, so we're gonna have a brunch and that's planned.

And then get back onto your regular intimate schedule. Or your fasting schedule, I should say. Okay. You're not gonna lose all of your gains if you stop fasting for a day or two. Where most people get into trouble is they think they've stopped fasting, so they might as well do it another time when it's more convenient.

And the answer to that is no. Simply get back to your fast as soon as you can. Okay. So the main takeaway for today, based on what I just described in the considerations, based on what I said on the, in the introduction. Decide on a fasting type that works for you. Try it out. Experiment, then iterate. Evolve it based on how you feel and what you need, not based on what other people tell you, what works for them or what you've read in an article or heard even on a podcast.

Okay. You gotta figure out what works best for you and be curious and then adapt as you go. I have clients who do not fast. I have clients who do an OM ad. I have clients who will do a prolonged fast once a week. I have clients who do a regular intermittent fasting schedule 16 and eight. Everyone is different.

We all have our different energy and metabolic needs. So be curious and do your own thing. So there you have it. That's my quick intro into fasting. Let me know what you thought of this episode, and if you have any specific questions, connect with me. Head on over to the spear method.com. Schedule a free consult on my website where we can talk about where you're at, where you want to get to, and then how you can actually get there.

Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to episode 12 next week, and in the meantime, keep leading a legacy of good health and longevity.

If you're ready to step inside the arena and change the trajectory of your health, head on over to the spear method.com and download by free guide to learn simple and effective strategies on how to optimize your health today.