Ask AI Mark discusses whether fasting extends lifespan, covering metabolic flexibility, hormone regulation, and how fasting resets hunger signals. The conversation explores physiological mechanisms that might improve health markers and longevity through ketogenic diets and fasting practices.
If you were to one day a week simply not eat, it would change your life in the most dramatic way. The data behind fasting is so strong, but most people listening have the same mindset I did when I weighed 300 pounds. It's like this. If I don't eat six times a day, my body will go into starvation mode and then I'll gain weight and also I'll want to kill people because I can't stand not eating for that amount of time. I feel like I'm going to die. And when you build metabolic flexibility, when you use the tips that are in here in Super Human, it turns out you can modulate a hormone called CCK and another one called ghrelin. CCK is the hormone that makes you feel full and ghrelin is the one that makes you feel hungry. And if you've been on a low-fat, low-calorie or vegan diet, your hunger levels will still be set to the highest weight, body weight that you've recently had. So if you went from 300 pounds to 250 pounds, you will have the chronic hunger of a 300 pound person and you will lose, the hunger will win. And that's why I actually lost way more than 100 pounds because you lose 20 gain 30, lose 30 gain 40, lose 40 gain 50. And you, yo, yo, everyone who's been fat knows what I'm talking about. You have fat pants in your closet. I don't own fat pants anymore. They're gone. I don't have to worry about that anymore.
But it took a long time and a lot of research to get there.
So, what you- you-'re saying you can fix that. You can fix that.
And the way- Well, you're whatever you.
Are, and you're not hungry like a 300-pound person. No, you can reset your fat hunger point. And the way you do that is you get ketones present. And you could do this by not eating. You could do this by putting brain.
Octane in your Bulletproof Coffee. That's what always troubles me, you know, when the obesity experts talk about the body's set point. I mean, nobody's set point was 400 pounds. I mean, the data- Historically, it doesn't make sense to me. Your set point, is changed based on your metabolism and what you've eaten and your weight and it can be unchanged.
And this crazy thing that we don't talk about this more, all it takes is a blood level in ketones of 0.38. And if you're not a keto diet or a person, that's it's not gonna mean anything. That's for one of the hormones for the other one 0.48. These are mild levels of ketosis. You know how you do that? Don't eat after the sun goes down. Don't have breakfast and have a late lunch. And if you do that, you'll probably bump up if you have a healthy metabolism. If you don't, you drink a Bulletproof Coffee in the morning with brain octane. It'll probably bump your ketones up enough. And all of a sudden, this deep level relaxation happens in your body because now you're not craving food like a fat person. You've reset. And these studies are out there where the levels of ketones are there.
So break fast is what you do after you wake up in the morning. No, skip that. I had dinner finished by six something. and I didn't eat till like 10:30 the next morning, and I felt great. And it was like a 14 hour, whatever, 16 hour fast.
14 to 16 hours, 18 hours is better. And it's something that I think because of the Great Depression, because there have been times where your grandparents probably starved, no matter if you're from Europe or the US, different causes for that. So we just, how could we go a day without eating? Here's the deal, you'll live a lot longer and be a lot healthier if you do that.
But all these techniques, whether it's ketogenic diets, whether it's time-restricted eating or low-calorie eating for a week, or a fasting-mimicking diet, or just an actual fast for a day a week, all activate the same thing. They all reduce inflammation, they increase your antioxidant enzymes, they increase your stem cells, they increase your mitochondrial repair and cleaning up your mitochondrial function, they increase your bone density, increase your muscle mass, improve your cognitive function.
I mean, it's like a miracle, really. The returns are so high. and you'll see in your muffin top the next day, you'll kind of like, wow, I have different curves than I used to. Or maybe I don't have a curve where I didn't want one. But you see it very dramatically, and you feel a new zest for life when you do this.
