Elena breaks down four intermittent fasting protocols and their benefits: metabolic flexibility, autophagy for anti-aging, and ketosis for brain energy. She warns that IF only works after fixing foundational issues like thyroid and gut health, and cautions against side effects like constipation and fatigue without proper hydration and fiber.
Chapters
So there are, I would say, 4 main types of intermittent fasting. So the one of the most studied in the literature, it's called alternate day fasting, which means you're eating normally for one day and the next day you have a very limited, restricted food meal, like usually 20 to 25% of calories. So usually just one meal per day. The next day you're eating again normally. And then the day after that, you're not eating and so on. That's alternate day fasting. Then you have 5:2, which is 5 days of normal eating. And then you have 2 days, could be consecutive days. Like let's say Friday and Saturday, you having this restricted eating. So one meal per day. The trick is to find the days that work for you. So the third type of intermittent fasting is probably one of the most popular ones. It's the time-restricted fasting. Feeding. So basically having your fasting window or eating window, it's easier to focus on the positive. My eating window from 12:00 PM until 8:00 PM, that's my 8-hour eating window. So your eating window could be 6 hours or it could be 10 hours as long as you stick to it. And as you mentioned, as long as you have this consistency in terms of following the same pattern over and over again, I'm seeing intermittent fasting fasting as your health optimization tool. But before you can optimize your health, you need to clean up your health first. So it's going back to foundation. Like, let's say if you have a house and you want to have this beautiful designed interior inside with the beautiful curtains and furniture, but your plumbing is off and you have mold in the basement and your electricity is not working really well, it's no point to have this beautiful interior. So for me, intermittent fasting is really the next step is really getting you in the ultimate performance, making sure it's really anti-aging too. So if you have any issues, and the most common ones, which I see a lot at the clinic, is people, especially women with thyroidal issues, people who are already quite stressed out and have some adrenal issues, trying to embark on this intermittent fasting and actually creating more damage than the benefits. Okay. So for me, I would say the 3 most important ones, uh, the benefits. So the number 1, I would definitely say it's metabolic flexibility. So making sure that your glucose levels are dropping, your insulin sensitivity is improving, that your glycogen, which is your storage of your sugar in the liver, is decreasing. That would be by far probably one of the most important ones because insulin is such an important hormone, which regulates everything else and links to everything else. So that would be number one. Number two for me would be anti-aging, really. So this is the— during fasting, when we're not eating, we start actually recycling this cellular, cellular debris, cellular waste. Waste. Yeah. If you think about the cell like a little household, and this household accumulates different waste during the day. And at night when we're not eating, this waste is being recycled and the old organelles, cellular organelles, is being used for different functions. So this process is called autophagy. So basically self-eating and clean up this waste and the fasting. And it's, it's a lot of evidence in the literature suggests that this process is kicking in when you're not eating. So it's over, over time, this is the proper anti-aging benefits. And number 3 is ketosis. So ketosis is a state where you're using ketones instead of the glucose as your main energy source. And these ketones, they can cross the blood-brain barrier. Your brain loves it basically. Yeah. Your brain loves it. Exactly. And you have this uplifting in your mood. Some people say like, I'm just feeling so great when I'm in ketosis. Like my mood is lifted. I have clarity in my thinking. So this is like a cognitive, a brain health. Is a really strong advantage of fasting. So sorting out your hormones would be really important. So if you have any issues with your thyroid, if you're on any sort of medication, consult your doctor because some of the dosages may need to be adjusted. That would be number one. Number two, I would say there are a lot of complaints about constipation, a lot of complaints of being irritable, having a low mood and fatigue. Those are the three main ones in terms of side effects. Those are temporary. Just make sure that you drink a lot, that you're hydrated, and then when you eat, your, your food needs to be quite nutrient and fiber rich. However, if you are prone to constipation to start with and it's not great, you probably need to sort out your constipation before embarking on intermittent fasting because it may definitely aggravate your constipation. I'm a really anti-diet person. Yeah, I would never put— I mean, sometimes you do need to restrict certain things when you're trying to work on the imbalances, but that's a very targeted approach. We know what we're trying to achieve. I usually measure those things as well, but I would never say go on this diet or that diet or that diet. Intermittent fasting is not a diet and that's the beauty of it, right? We're all doing it anyway. You just need to do it in a way that it supports your anti-aging, wellbeing, your brain health and everything else.
