Beyond Fasting: How To Biohack Your Fast To Accelerate Fat Loss, Stave Off Carbohydrate Cravings & Enhance Cellular Autophagy.

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness Podcast, anyone can fast. I love that start because you said you had two pages, right. Don't eat right. You know, if it were only so simple. Point is, is that the moment people stop eating, bad things happen. It's a stress. A fast is actually a stress. It too is a hormetic principle in that if we stress the body, magic can happen. But if we do these pre stresses before it, man, magic really happens when you actually fast.

Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. All right, I got my buddy Dan Pompa on today's show and he just wrote an amazing book about fasting. We're going to take a deep dive into fasting today and it's certainly a topic that I think is relevant because it is so beneficial, not just for all the physical benefits that you've no.

Doubt heard about, but I think it's.

One of the, one of the best things you can do for your spiritual disciplines. Practice fasting. When combined with breath work, when combined with prayer, when combined with meditation, it is powerful, powerful Shiite.

Alright folks, as usual, I get tons and tons of questions from you all about fasting. How do you break a fast? What's the proper day length for a fast, can you eat calories during a fast, does coffee break a fast, etc. Etc. And I've interviewed people about fasting in the past. I've interviewed Dr. Jason Fung, for example. I've interviewed Dr. Mercola. But there's one guy who, whenever I'm hanging out with him, is not only researching fasting, but also practicing it very intensively. Like spending time in the trenches experimenting with all sorts of different fasts. Not only that, but his wife does a lot of fasting. His children, which we'll discuss today, have even successfully implemented all sorts of different fasts. So not only is he researching fasting, but he's also practicing it himself, which means he's always, for me at least got a bunch of practical knowledge when it comes to how to fast properly. Now, thankfully, he did just write a book and it's a really good book. Aside from making the mistake of having a complete tool like me write the foreword, the book is actually pretty good. It's called Beyond Fasting, Beyond Fasting. Brand new book that decodes pretty much everything you need to know about fasting and furthermore uses this really interesting approach to ease you into a fast and do things like accelerate your stem cell mobilization during a fast kick in autophagy sooner allow for fat adaptation to occur on a quicker basis based on some of the things you do going into the fast. So the book has it all spelled out for you, but I have lots of questions that I want to dive into in terms of kind of the boots on the streets application of what's actually in the book. So again, the book is called Beyond Fasting. Now, my guest, the author of the book, he's been on the show before. So he is a guy I first discovered when it came to the world of detoxification. He knows a ton on detox strategies and he and I did a super thorough podcast on phase one, phase two liver detox, how you can clean out the body, whether it's true, if you can't even detox, colonic cell turnover, liver cells. We covered a ton. And that was in the episode called the most effective detox you've never heard of and exactly how to do it. I'm going to link to that show in the show notes for today's podcast, which I'll give you in a minute. Then we did another big podcast on fasting before he wrote this book in which we got into some of the impact on fasting and stem cells, how fasting burns fat, feast, famine cycles, a lot more. But again, since that previous podcast, he's written this book that I think delves into even more than we were able to get into on that show. However, if you want to listen to either of those shows, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com fast with Dan that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com FastWithDan because my guest, if you haven't guessed already, is Dr. Dan Pompa, one of the most respected leaders in the health and wellness space, particularly the alternative health and wellness space. He educates hundreds of practitioners around the globe on inflammation driven diseases, the ketogenic diet, fasting, ancestral eating approaches, cellular healing, detoxification. He has his own podcast called Cellular Healing tv, which is fantastic. And he's trained as a chiropractor, but really, really has taken a deep dive into what I would say are two things in particular cellular detox and then also fasting. And like I mentioned, he in his own right is a biohacker, a self experimenter. He is behind the scenes, I think one of the better, if you can use this word too freely, biohackers out there. As far as what he's implementing in his own life, whenever I hang out with him, he's got all sorts of new tools. He's using. And so we're gonna have a fun chat today. Dan, welcome to the show, man.

Hey, love being here, Ben. Gosh, here we are in quarantine. You know, this is the perfect thing. We'll just talk all day.

Yeah, but you broke quarantine, didn't you? Because you just like, you. You got back from a trip. Am I supposed to let people know that on the podcast?

Yeah, no, it's okay. I was training, doing some training in an office down in Florida. And when I left, you know, there was. Florida wasn't even affected. Matter of fact, my flight was actually full, so it was no big deal. And then kind of while we were there, they started like, you know, making it harder, at least for New Yorkers and New Jersey people to make their way into Florida. And then things started shutting down after that. It was good, man. I stayed an extra week, you know, that I was doing beyond my work. So I got a little vacation out of it. We even, you know, had some of the family there, so it was great, actually.

Now you. You, when you say you were training, were you. Were you at a doctor's office? Because I know one thing you do. You're always sending me photos of you with different doctors doing crazy like ozone dialysis and high dose vitamin C injections and some things I've actually traveled with you to do. But what were you up to? Anything you can share with the audience as far as any. Any new treatments.

Yeah, I trained doctors all around the world. You know, my, obviously my detox protocols and, you know, that particular doc. We were actually filming some things. We were doing some interviews together. So, you know, training, interviews, filming. I was like, oh, yeah, it's perfect time. You know, things are dead. We wanted to get these things done. So headed down there and kind of got stuck there. It was, you know, I could have left if we wanted to, but it was just such a perfect time. Would you rather be Park City, Utah? That's where I live in a shoulder season. What that means is it's not like the perfect time in winter where you can ski and it's not summer where we have these gorgeous mountain bike trails which you and I have. You know, you hit many of these trails with me on the mountain bikes. So the shoulder season, you want to get the heck out of Park City. So, yeah, I was in Florida.

Okay, cool. And as far as. Because I know you're always delving into this stuff, I know we want to focus on fasting today, but with everything that you're up to. Cause you're one of the few guys I know who, like me, has like a home hyperbaric chamber and a bunch of red lights everywhere and all sorts of crazy tools. And then you're also traveling to all these different doctor's offices, learning things that you can turn around and teach your practitioners or write about or talk about on your podcast. Is there anything particularly head turning or crazy or you think, groundbreaking that you've been up to in the world of health, whether on this Florida trip or anytime else in the past couple of months?

Yeah, I mean, on that particular trip, Dr. John Laurence, he's doing great things there at his clinic in Sarasota. That's where it is. You know, he has this thing. Ben, I thought of you. I know we both know Dr. John, and it's called a CVAC. And what it does is it basically takes you up to Mount Everest at that elevation, so to speak, in a simulator. But what it is, is you can literally feel the air in this chamber get cold, which it would at that elevation. And then you can feel the pressure change. As a matter of fact, if you take a deep breath and hold it, when it goes up to those elevations, you feel like your lungs are just going to explode. I mean, you literally have to seep it out to hold it on, and then boom, it takes a deep dive at sea level. So these pressure changes, on and off, on and off are basically creating a hormesis. Hormetic principle is your forces your body to adapt. Right. And it's amazing. So they can do some different therapies in the office, even stem cell prp, whatever it is, and you can go in this chamber and it drives it like into your cells, or you just do the procedure without doing other things first. Right. Just that up and down in elevation forces the cells to adapt. So it's amazing how it works. I've never. Look, you and I have seen a lot. We've been a lot, we've tried a lot. This one was new to me.

Yeah. When I interviewed Hunter McIntyre, an obstacle course racer, he talked about this guy named Crazy Bobby who he's working with, who has developed apparently a giant CVAC chamber you can go into and work out in. Because a lot of these things are like pods that you sit inside. But, yeah, I find them fascinating. I haven't done much with cvac, but I think a lot of people confuse it with hyperbaric or hypobaric. But it's not really a change in the percentage of oxygen that you breathe. It's a significant Change though, in the altitude. And yeah, I mean, I've seen good data on circulation and oxygen rich blood cells and removal, lactic acid and mitochondrial biogenesis and stem cell production, but I, I really haven't messed around with CBAC much, so that's, that's pretty cool.

Yeah, you know, I mean, you said it like people think, you know, hyperbaric. You know, even in a hyperbaric, what changes is the pressure, you know, not so much the oxygen levels, right. It's like the pressure what it pushes in on you. So if you think about elevation, right. You know, when you get up to Mount Everest, what changes is the pressure, right. And therefore the inability to utilize the oxygen. Your body has to adapt. And of course, when you get at sea level, there's a much greater pressure and therefore the ability to utilize the oxygen. So, yeah, the oxygen content doesn't change much. Right. It' sit's really the pressure. That's the deal. Yeah.

Well, I definitely want to try it someday. I just haven't had a chance to yet. So, Dr. John Lorenz, by the way, he's actually flying up to my house in a few weeks to record a podcast. And for those of you listening in, you may have heard me talk about like high dose melatonin suppositories and nebulizing glutathione and N acetylcysteine and all these kind of crazy medical procedures that can be used for sleep or immunity. And John is the guy that I've been getting all that stuff from. So we're finally going to connect and record a big podcast on all that stuff. And I'm guessing we'll probably hit on CVAC too. So I don't think I told you this, Dan, but he's flying up in about two weeks. Weeks. And we're recording.

Yeah, no, I knew he was recording with you. I didn't know when, but yeah, no, y' all will love listening to John. He's a wealth of knowledge on those topics and really has developed some great products around those topics as well. So I love that guy.

Awesome. Well, CBAC aside, I want to get into fasting and the book is fantastic. And again, if you guys go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com FastWithDan I'll link to the book and everything else that Dan and I talk about in this show. But I guess the first thing is, Dan, my heart kind of sinks whenever I get another fasting book, yet another fasting book sent to my house because it seems like it's almost Like a commercial industry now, right now, built around this concept of if I could write a fasting book, it would be two pages long and page one would be don't, and page two would be eat. However, there's a little bit more to it than that. But how would you differentiate your approach to fasting? And we have times you can rabbit hole big time. But I want you to walk me through how the fasting protocol in your book is different than any other fasting protocol that might be out there.

Yeah, well, I'm laughing because the same thing happens to me. Everyone sends me their books and keto. Right. It's like, you know, two pages, you know, lower carb. Okay, next. But, yeah, the books are still selling. No. You know what makes it different? Yeah, because I train doctors. You know, it's one thing reading a piece of literature, which I love doing. However, what I love more is being able to take that concept and then bringing it to my group and then putting it into practice. And then at the end of that, then we're able to really come together as a group and say, well, man, this is working. This isn't. So what's in that book is really a program of what me and my doctors that I teach have been doing for many years that works. And really in it is the strategies of how we fix the microbiome, the gut, how we turn off autoimmunity, how we fix these impossible to fix thyroid conditions, unexplainable illnesses. You know, so you're right when you're saying it. That's why I chose the title Beyond Fasting, because it really is, you know, so anyone can fast. I love that start because you said, you know, two pages, right. Don't eat. Right. You know, if it were only so simple. Because the point is, is that the moment people stop eating, bad things happen. And it's because they have cells that don't shift over effectively into fat adaptation. They don't shift over into a really high enough autophagy. And we're going to break all this down. So fear not, folks, but the point I want to make is this. You don't just run a marathon to get the best results. You train for it. Or let me use a Ben Greenfield example. What things are you doing right now, like, what big races are you doing?

I'm training for the Russian kettlebell certification. It's a kettlebell certification. It's just basically learning a lot of new moves like the windmill and the. The overhead jerk and, you know, a snatch test. And it's less of a race because increasingly I've become disillusioned with racing. It's not where my heart is right now, and I'm just setting up other challenges. But for me, right now, yeah, I'm training for a Russian kettlebell certification. Why do you ask? Good sir.

Yeah, so it sounds hard anyway, but I don't know what the hardest. What was the hardest race you ever did anyway?

Oh, Geez, dude. Over 20 years of racing, I would say probably the hardest would be Ironman Hawaii because of the combination of the heat and the speed of the competitive field. And then Spartan World Championships, probably because the elevation and again, the speed of the competitive field.

Imagine doing one of those races without training. Okay, number one, I don't know that you'd finish, but let's say you miraculously did. Ben Greenfield would finish even without training. Right, but okay, but your results, in.

My defense, not to throw you off track too much, I did do iron. My very last Ironman Hawaii was like a publicity stunt with Team Timex where they called me up four weeks before the race and asked me if I could come race. So I did do Ironman Hawaii. It took me like 12 and a half hours, but I did that one on four weeks of training. And I'll tell you, the hardest part of it was not running or swimming, was just, you know, that base stays with you, but it was the biomechanical position of being hunched over on a bike for five hours after not being used to being in that position for.

Okay, so the point is, is if you'd have trained more on the bike, you'd have, you'd have, maybe you made it in 8 hours, 10 hours, I don't know, who knows? But the point is, is that we don't just do a race like that. If we train, we get better results. And really, that's the book, right? It's. It takes you through everything. I have learned in 20 years, honestly, of really. Look, I, I started into fasting in the 90s. It was me and some natural hygiene society geeks. Honestly, it's. And, and they were vegan, vegetarian, and I was a grass fed meat eater. So we resonated on one thing, fasting. But, you know, I, I've been studying fasting since the 90s. So it's really beyond 20 years, you know, and through that 20 years and coaching doctors, you know, I, we learned a lot. I've learned a lot. And in it, in that book is what I've learned. But really, here's the key. Fasting, there's Absolute miracles that happen in fasting. You know, I think every one of your listeners get it and understand this. Most of the principles, however, what we've learned walking up to that fast, if you do this a month before you fast, man, the results go through the roof. The healing, turning off bad. Listen, we all have what is called senescent cells. These are cells that live too long and simply age you prematurely. It keeps you from recovering faster. There are immunosenescent cells, these are immune cells that live too long and what they do is just drive inflammatory states. I just did a video when over 2 million people on Facebook talking about this concept. When you look at why this disease is attacking old people, it was basically experts are saying they have too many immunosenescent cells driving inflammation and cytokines. And then when you look at a 30 year old who gets corona and gets super sick for two to three weeks, even potentially dying, very, you know, very rare, but potentially they have one thing in common. Too many immunosuppressant cells that actually stimulate the cytokine reaction and they are falling victim to something that they shouldn't even know. If you and I got corona, and I think I did, we wouldn't even have a symptom because we don't have these cytokine activities being driven by these cells that live too long. So the point is, how do you get rid of them? You get rid of them in fasting states, especially extended fasts, which is what the book is about. However, when we look at in the book, I talk about how to know when you're in this max autophagy, getting rid of these cells. So I've had my P16 enzymes measured, which is, is a marker for how many of these senescent cells you have. And I put myself in a regimen or program and remeasured. And I'll just say this, my wife and I, well, we're far younger on every way possible. DNA methylation testing, telomere testing, P16 testing, you know, basically how many immunosuppress immunosenescent cells we have. So the point is that if you do it right, you can massively de age, get new tissues, new cells. But the key is what you do before the fast and after.

A couple of thoughts here. Peter Attia, I know you're familiar with him, he has this concept called a nothing burger where he will do one week of fasting sandwiched in between two weeks of nutritional ketosis to step up the body's ability to be able to generate Ketones and mobilize fatty acids so that the fast becomes more doable mentally but also more effective physically. Is this kind of the same type of concept?

Yeah. So, you know, I would say it's the same type of concept. Absolutely. I mean, you know, there's more to it even becoming just fat adapted. Chapter one is fat adaptation. And, you know, then it, it goes from there. Chapters three and four in the book, I talk about my diet variation principles, which, you know, ladies, you're listening to. You know, why five high carb days before your cycle, before your period, transition your hormones massively the rest of the month. Now, again, how did we learn this? You know, I learned this is, you know, training doctors. We all started doing this with women who have struggle, even intermittent fasting, struggle getting into ketosis, or they are in ketosis and struggle and they stop losing weight. So we started doing some of these diet variation principles. And basically, it's a hormetic principle. When you shift your diet seasonally, monthly or weekly, the body has to change and it does it. Two ways to adapt to this dietary change. And it could be. And there's many different dietary changes we employ. But the hormetic principle is this. The body adapts to the change by changing its microbiome. All of which is part of how we heal really hard to heal guts. And it also does it with hormone optimization. Certain hormones get optimized. No different than going in and out of hot and cold, right? You know, it's. We realize that we get this rise in norepinephrine, a rise in growth hormone. And, you know, but it's short. But dietary change in shifts actually last even longer. So it's. It's magic, right? I mean, and again, there's weekly principles, monthly principles. One of which I just shared with you is just this high carb five days in a row for women right before their period. Men, it can be more random, but it works. The body adapts to the change. And there's other reasons too, ladies. When you're the week before your period, typically your innate intelligence gives you cravings and you go, I am so good on my diet except the week before my period. Well, your body's telling you eat carbs. The reason is because it'll rise up insulin. And you need insulin for many, many hormone conversions. And you're making so many hormone conversions the week before your cycle that that rise in insulin becomes magic. And then, therefore, you hormonally optimize, and then what happens really is cool, is kind of the weeks after Your cycle, every bit of the hormones get better and then the fat burning machine fires up again. So I mean, that's just one example of some of the principles that we do before the fast. Because if we employ these diet variation strategies before you fast, we get you more into this ability to experience max autophagy. And really that's what we want during the fast. We want your body using all of its bad cells right during the fast as it's energy. So these strategies help prepare for, I call it metabolic mitochondrial fitness. If we can stress your mitochondria where you burn fat for energy again and again and again, by the time you get to the fast, it's a stress. A fast is actually a stress. It too is a hormetic principle in that if we stress the body, magic can happen. But if we do these pre stresses before it, man magic really happens when you actually fast.

Okay, so it makes sense that you would want to limit carbohydrates going into a fast to upregulate your ability to be able to enter into a state of ketosis, or utilize fatty acids, or even upregulate autophagy during the fast. But boots on the streets, what does that look like? Let's say. So you and I are recording. What day is it? It's a Friday. So let's say next Friday, a week from now. I want to begin a fasting protocol and I want to hear a little bit more about the length of fast that you recommend. But before we get there, what is it going to look like for me as far as a typical breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacking scenario going into my fast?

Yeah. So, okay, let's assume most of your listeners are low carb, keto, paleo, something of that sort. You know, your next steps are, and I would assume most of your listeners, intermittent fast. Definitely know about intermittent fast. So one of the first things we do is we start squeezing their eating window down, right? Which, okay, great, you're used to eating in your eight hour window. Maybe it's a six hour window, you know, meaning you're experiencing a 15 hour fast, right. Or an 18 hour fast, whatever it is, maybe it's 15, maybe it's, you know, 10 hour fast, who knows? But whatever it is, you squeeze it down your eating window and maybe you start doing more days where you're just eating in a four hour or three hour window. We even add in one or two days a week randomly where you just eat one meal or you don't eat at all. You just randomly do a fast one Day, a week, maybe two. But okay, that's great because that's teaching the mitochondria to go without food and you better start to burn fat because otherwise you're going to die. So it's a little bit of mitochondrial stress, a little bit of mitochondrial fitness there. However, I always say this. So that's the fast. But if we had feast days, we've learned clinically that they're actually as important, sometimes more important, especially for thyroid people, adrenal people, hormone challenge people. The feast days become more important than the fast days. So therefore we add one, two, and sometimes three feast days. Now, a feast day can look like a high carb day, you know, 100, 150, 200 grams of carbs a day. Depending on the person. It could be a high protein day. Why? Well, because some people say, man, I just, I don't digest carbs well, blah, blah, blah. Okay, do high protein or maybe it's a really high calorie day. Protein, carbs or calories stimulate a pathway that some of your listeners are familiar with called mtor. Now, there's criticism of MTOR from the anti agers because they say MTOR ages you prematurely. Okay, I agree. If you stay high calorie, high protein, high carb too long, then they're right. It'll stimulate MTOR and you will age prematurely. But when you do it in these short bursts, it stimulates an anabolic growth pathway that in short burst is magic. Healing occurs. And also the body goes, oh, okay, I'm not in this starvation state. And it actually fires up fat burning and autophagy more. So it's magic. When you, you know, I interviewed Kristen Verde. She did some stuff on, you know, basically every other day, fasting, et cetera. And I asked her the question, Ben, I said, you know, Kristen, why does it work? Why did every other day, feast, famine, feast famine, feast famine work better than low fat, high fat diets, low calorie, I mean, any diet they compared it to, why did it work better? She said adaptation, because we're forcing the body to adapt. So the feast famine cycling is a weekly diet variation strategy, meaning you could put four, two, one, you could put two fast days, one feast day. You could do two feast days. Two fast days, right? And three, just regular old keto days, whatever diet you're on. The point is pick what works for you and your schedule, but the variation becomes the magic. Okay, I get that's a weekly variation. Monthly variation is what I already told you all is add five days a month of a High feast day. Now, you could do the same thing. High carbs the week before your period. You could do high protein. Try that. And then once we get to the fasting state, once we actually fast, then we add five days of even just low calorie, low carb, low protein in a month. So then that's really a massive amount of variation. So the point is, is that the variation creates this stress that we need to experience more autophagy and therefore more benefit from the fast. And that's what you asked the question, what can someone start doing now? Just mix it up. Just like I'm saying, monthly and weekly. Now, Ben, we can talk about seasonal variation. I'm telling you those listening. Here's the problem with your listening audience and mine. And I say that with love in my heart because we are all the same people. We are so disciplined at times that we don't shift our diets seasonally. We just stick to what worked for us.

Avocados, banana, coffee. Year round.

Yeah, okay, Certain things. Yeah, okay, do year round. I'm with you. But the point is, if you can make some massive shifts in your diet seasonally, ancient cultures were forced into it. I think we talked about some of these principles on the last, when we interviewed last time. But ancient cultures were forced into these massive changes. We aren't. We tend to eat the same foods. Oh, but man, when you make a shift, I'll go into like some deep ketosis for a couple months and then I go high, healthy carbs, you know, I mean, just change it up massively. Or maybe you do a carnivore diet for a month, man, I'm telling you, the magic is in the change. We as a group of doctors will tell you when we have someone who can't break through in weight loss resistance or something of that sort, we really change up their diet. Like really exaggerated. It works.

We talked about that a lot last time about these ancestral cultures that probably still have a great deal of their genetic adaptations woven into our DNA when it comes to not just periods of time spent in the catabolic phase and cycling between anabolism and catabolism, MTOR switching on and MTOR switching off, but then also changes in the macronutrient composition based on the availability of, let's say, seeds, nuts, berries and tubers versus large game animals or fish. And you see this in many cultures and it just makes sense. I think we're also blessed in that we can order from Amazon and Thrive market and our grocery store can bring stuff in year round. But yeah, there are not only physiological implications of that being a little bit of an evolutionary mismatch. But then of course that aside, there's even the environmental impact. I think that the more that we can eat locally, the more we're going to be selecting naturally seasonal available foods and the less of an impact we're going to make on the planet when we are using lots of jet fuel to just get the same foods in because we're eating the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner year round. Even my dad for example, he practices Eastern Orthodox fasting and it's very intensive and he has periods of the year where there's a great amount of protein restriction or dairy restriction or meat restriction and then other periods where he's able to feast these amazing meals rich in protein. And perhaps a more modern example of that would be. I interviewed the guys from the Wild Health Physician network, Mike Mullen and Matt Dawson a few weeks ago and they talked a lot about how in their patients they'll almost kind of try to simulate some of these longevity studies such as the recent one where they were pulling pulsing DHEA and growth hormone and metformin. And they'll take a strategy like that but also pair it with like a food and exercise driven anabolic cycle where there's harder workouts, weight training, increases in growth hormone, higher carb intake, less fasting, with periods of catabolism where it's more like you know, sauna, walking, sunshine, yoga, protein restriction, calorie restriction and compressed feeding windows. So it does make sense. I know you lay it out pretty well in the book. And so the general approach is you fat adapt going into the fast. And what about to return to Peter Attia's nothing burger approach? What about after the fast? So he'll continue in nutritional ketosis even without the calorie restriction from the fast. But he'll continue nutritional ketosis after the fast too, I guess ease himself out of the fast. But what do you look at regarding the post fasting state?

Yeah, you have to ease your way out, you know. And what I recommend is a five day fast. We'll talk about why in a moment. But I have taken people through some very long fasts. Right. And again the bigger the person, the longer the fast they can do and sometimes need to do. But you how you break the fast for the especially the next two days. So if you're fasting five days, days six and seven are critical that you go lower calorie. So we lower the calories down depending on your body size and I do discuss that in the book, but, you know, somewhere under 1,500 to 800, we'll just say the day one back eating. So that would be technically day six. And then the next day, maybe 800 to 1,000 calories, you know, so we ease the caloric intake up. Why? Because your enzymes in your gut are really low on purpose. It's in a rested state. So you don't want to just, you know, it' sit's kind of like laying on your couch and you're half asleep and, you know, and then you start doing sprints in the yard. You know, you're probably gonna pull something. So you don't want to do that. Also, you don't want to just throw, you know, dense proteins down your gut. So we wait a couple days before we add meats in.

I want to interrupt you real quick before you get onto raw veggies, which might be the same logic behind the protein, but would that be because of a digestive enzyme sluggishness or what would be the actual reason that you wouldn't eat a half tier complex?

Even your microbiome, Remember, during a fast, you're starving down good and bad bacteria, and they're kind of in a little hibernation mode. You need certain bacteria to make even enough hcl, so your hcl is lower. Other digestive enzymes are a little lower and sluggish. So we wanna give them easy to digest foods, right? Like avocado, some berries. I mean, these softer foods. If you'reyou know, blended vegetables, steamed vegetables. If you just eat it like a raw vegetable, like a, you know, big salad, people get stomach aches. Or you eat some raw broccoli, forget about it.

Now, I wanna play devil's advocate though, Dan, because if you look at this from an ancestral standpoint, and let's say someone from the Spokane Indian tribe up around where I'm at, is hunting a large animal for days or a herd of animals for days and comes across that kill and is able to harvest the animal. From the data I've seen, or at least the anecdotes I've seen epidemiologically, they would then go into a great feast where they're going to cook that animal and eat it and have lots of it and break the fast with a pretty hefty meal. Now, I'm not saying that they might not have had some amount of digestive distress afterwards, but couldn't you make an argument from an ancestral standpoint that you could break your fast with like a giant ribeye Steak, a bunch of bone broth, some organ meats, plants, berries, tubers. So what do you think about this from an ancestral standpoint?

Yeah, so I love that question because you know, my son Daniel, right, very healthy young man and he, you know, he just jumps, right. I mean, all of my children, I have five have fasted many, many times and you know, he just jumped right in after a fast and he got away with it. Right. And then my other child did that and did not get away with it. So two different people. But you know, I think the healthier you are, to your point, and let me even say it this way, the more you fast. My son Daniel does a lot of fasting. He's done four day dry fasts. We'll talk about that in a minute.

How old is he now?

He's 21. He'll be 22 here soon, in a month. So he's done a lot of fasting. I think the more fasting you do, like ancestral tribes, so to speak, where they're forced into these long periods, listen, the body can adapt to, to anything. They are going to be able to adapt to that and get used to that. Their microbiomes are just stellar. I mean, so the average American, even more people right now in our society are not going to adapt to that massive food chain and they're going to regret it. Yeah, so that's really the issue. I have broken my fast too. I'm healthy, I have broken it too fast and ate certain things. I get a stomachache, little indigestion, but I don't want to put myself in that environment. I want my microbiome to start feeding. I want to feed my stem cells. I don't want to add the stress. I just came out of the stress. So breaking the fast is really important to just keep maximizing the results.

It would depend, I guess, on whether or not you're willing to potentially put up with a little bit of digestive distress. I personally I really dig breaking a fast fast with a big celebratory meal. And honestly I popped some digestive enzymes and I feel pretty good doing that. And again, I'll use BioGest or Masymes or some kind of good enzyme with some proteolytics and things like that.

You can absolutely biohack it with some enzymes. Ben, that does work and that would work for you and I for sure, if you're sick and challenged, it's not going to work for even the enzymes. I mean, how do I know these things? Because again, clinically I fast A lot of people, thousands of people, sick and challenged people. Slower is better. Again, healthier people. You throw some enzymes in with it. Yeah, you'll get away with it.

Okay, so when it comes to the actual fast itself, once you get into your flavor of a fasting protocol, are you eating or consuming anything at all when you're fasting, including water? Like, what's your approach? The actual fasting window itself?

Yeah, there's. In the book, I give people choices of different types of fasts. Right. And one of which is just pure water. There's magic we experience when we measure how we look at autophagy. We get the best results. I would say autophagy wise from a pure water fast. But oftentimes that's not where we start, people. Your first fast could be a partial fast where we just get calories. Depending on body size. Under 1000, you have to keep your protein under 20, depending on body size. If you're very small, maybe under 15, because that breaks you out of autophagy. If you eat too much protein, you'll slow or break out of autophagy. If you eat too many calories, you won't get into autophagy. So but you know, so you get autophagy via this partial fast. So that's an option. Bone broth fasting is technically a partial fast. The nice thing about partial fasting, number one, it's not as psychologically hard. It's like, oh, I can still eat. You can take products, supplements. When you're doing a pure water fat, you can drink coffee and tea if you'd like. Right. That's a lot better. But when you're doing a water fast, it's best to do nothing except maybe some sea salt to maintain electrolytes. But really you're in full reliance on the innate intelligence you get. Also something that I call energy diversion. On a pure water fast, where the body has massive energy to heal with, it's diverting the energy would normally take to digest and assimilate food, which is a tremendous amount of energy. And now it has this extra energy. It doesn't just lay and sit on it. No, it takes that energy and starts driving it into healing. I mean, you might day three of a fast water fast, all of a sudden have this knee pain and like, gosh, why does my knee ache? Oh, I injured this knee 20 years ago. You know, it's kind of like what's happened here with this quarantine, right. All of a sudden we have extra time on our hands. We're looking at our Cupboards and you know, we're looking at our closets going, oh, you know, I'm just going to start fixing this. And you jump into things you never had time to fix and now you have a little bit extra time and energy and you're fixing it. So you know, that's what happens during a pure water fast mix. Massive amounts of energy that it can divert towards healing. But anyways, partial fasting still gets autophagy, still a great tool. I'm going to be honest with you. I do about four, five day water fasts a year. I'm sorry? I do four five day fasts a year. I do two partial and I do two water. Now I'm going to tell you I prefer the water. Fasting is easier for me. Why? Because I'm that guy and this is not everybody. I'm that guy. Once I start eating, it's kind of hard to stop. So it's like I literally when I do it, I have to do like shakes and just like, okay, this is the shake I'm going to do, you know, at 2 o' clock and one at 6 o' clock and that's it, you know, and I have to have it all caloried out and protein out and figured out. Otherwise if I'm, if I'm just doing little bits of food, I just want to keep eating. And even after I drink my shake, I want another one, you know, so water I lose after a couple days, I'm done. I don't even have appetite anymore. I definitely not hunger. So you can choose your fast.

Now, are you taking regardless of whether you're doing a water fast or a bone broth fast or a partial fast, like a fasting mimicking diet, for example, are you taking any type of supplements to accelerate autophagy or enhance the benefits of of a fast, Whether that might be something like berberine or metformin or whether it be like you mentioned some kind of a mineral supplement. I know that many people will fast for some of the detoxification benefits. So there are like binders that you can take. I mean, what would a supplementation stack look like for you when it comes to fasting?

Well, in a water fast, I love just water and sea salt, right? And I could fast even without sea salt. My body's used to fasting, but many of you lose a lot of electrolytes because you dump a lot of stored glucose and therefore electrolytes. If you have electrolyte without sugar, great, take it. Or just take sea salt, you know, and if you can do it without any supplements. Do it now. In the book I talk about the fasting trio. Where did that come from? You know, my doctors and myself, we fast a lot of people with a lot of health challenges. And to your point, you release a lot of toxins because of autophagy. So more toxic people, a lot of their symptoms during a fast, the severe headaches, you know, the massive brain fog, dizziness, all of that stuff. Yes. It could be caused by the lack of electrolytes. So replace them. However, a lot of it's toxin related. So a binder that sits in the gut we utilize called bind. It sits in the gut and just grabs toxins that get dumped into the bile. It gets dumped into your gut and you just reabsorb it, reabsorb it and it just makes you feel like crap. So bind is one. Another one cyto detox, which you, you use and we talked about on past shows. It is a binder in and around the body systemically, but it's a particle, so it's not like you're eating food. So it works to mitigate a lot of those symptoms. And then one other one is something you talked about on your show. It's molecular hydrogen. And molecular hydrogen downregulates something called hydroxy free radicals that raise up with toxic people when they fast. So if we knock those down, actually, by the way, molecular hydrogen is also shown to increase autophagy in a fasting state. So it's a product that works really well for that. I don't know if you sell one on your site, Ben, but people can.

Grab that for hydrogen. Yeah, I, I go around like, I get some from Quicksilver. There's another company called Water and Wellness that has some good ones. But, but yeah, I mean, most hydrogen tablets, the ingredients are pretty minimal and they're pretty similar from tablet to tablet.

Yeah. So I mean, you could add that. So the, the point though is, is that the, to mitigate a lot of the symptoms using some of these binders is magic. And we called it the fasting trio.

Okay, so, so the fasting trio, by the way, you're, you're saying that's the binder. The hydrogen tablets won't.

That's the cyto bind and we call it fast tonic, which is a molecular hydrogen. Put the three together, it really. For people who get symptoms during fasting, there, there's your answer. Add a little, you know, some sea salt, two teaspoons of sea salt a day, bam. And you're, you're gonna change a Lot of your fasting state.

Okay, wait, you said cyto bind is one, the hydrogen tablets are another.

Cyto detox is one, bind is the second.

Okay.

And then fast tonic is the third. That's the trio.

Okay, got it. So those would be the three that you use when you're, when you're fasting for your audience.

Just, we'll link those and do something special for your audience. You know, talk to Ashley. We'll make that happen. We'll add the link here. So.

Okay. All right, got it. I'll put it in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com FastWithDan now, someone could theoretically use something like, I don't know, active bidding charcoal, for example, or something like that. If they were in a pinch, right?

Yeah, if they were in a pinch. I mean, look, I test binders. You know, a lot of the charcoals on the markets, especially the, some of the better ones that come from dirt, they're contaminated. Carbons hold toxins. So many of them are contaminated. We test them, they're contaminated. So I'm a big believer and always, always, always test binders, especially carbons and those sorts of. But yeah, and then there's different grades too, right? The, the one, the carbon that's in bind, it is a super activated carbon, pharmacy grade.

It's.

It's an amazing binder. But yeah, I mean, if you have a carbon, folks at home that you're accustomed to, you can use that in a bind. But the bind product has four different binders in it. You know, one even that comes from a tree in Africa. I mean, there's some pretty cool binders in it because you don't you want multiple binders. The reason your body will dump organic toxins, things like biotoxins, right? Molds of biotoxin infections are biotoxins. It'll dump those things. You need specific binders for that. It'll drop heavy metals. That's an inorganic toxin. Well, different binders work for that. So, you know, you want multiple binders really to be effective.

Okay, got it. Now, what about anything aside from supplements? Like I talked earlier about how you've got a hyperbaric chamber. Last time I visited you, I just flown into the airport, you had me stick rectone up my ass. I'm sorry, Rectone? Ozone up my. Up my ass. Rectal delivery of ozone, which I guess you could call rectone. I just coined a new term. So in terms of any biohacks or things that you might be using to enhance a fasting protocol, Are you messing around with any of that stuff?

Yeah, I like recto ozone. I'm going to use that. Ben Greenfield coined it. Recto ozone. A recto, that's ozone in the butt. But yeah, no, that would be a great thing, right? I mean, you're gonna increase your oxygen. That extra singlet oxygen is gonna break off into the blood and it's gonna upregulate some of your immune cells. That's awesome. And it's not like you're taking anything to do it. Now a lot of people will ask about saunas if you're healthy. Saunas, no problem. A lot of unhealthy people though, in a fasting state, they get in a sauna and they wanna pass out. They feel worse it kill days. So just be cautious. I'm okay with saunas if you're able to do them. So take it slow and low. I'm asked about exercise, even during a fasting state. If you're healthy, no problem. I can exercise, no problem. However, even though I can, many of you can't. You just don't have the energy stores, so it's too much stress. And if you don't adapt to stress, it's not a good stress. But even though I can exercise, I don't because I wantand this is, we're talking longer fasts here. Day fast, no problem at all. But a longer fast. I want that energy, that extra energy that I talked about that the body will divert into healing. I want it to go to healing and not just towards the exercise, but day five of my fast. When growth hormone is at its highest point, I always exercise on day five and take advantage of that hormone, you know, because you have a maximum growth hormone rise right at that day five. And then a couple hours later, hour later, I'll break my fast on day five. So yeah, I mean, so what you do during the fast, there's a lot of other fun biops. I think red light therapy is fantastic. It's not as stressful as a full blown sauna, so to speak. I think that's great. I'm trying to think of things that people would have access to. Ben, help me and you can ask the question, is that good during the fast?

Yeah, well, I think some of these things that would enhance or upregulate the increase in stem cell mobilization that we know occurs during a fast would probably be, if you had access to them, useful. You know, particularly hyperbaric pulse electromagnetic field. Tables or units would probably help out with that a little bit because those can induce A little bit of a release from bone marrow, anything that would upregulate detox pathways like the red light therapy or some type of sauna protocol. And then I also think anything that would upregulate mitochondrial biogenesis or activity of cytochrome oxidase, like photons from light or infrared light therapy, long walks in the sunshine, grounding, earthing, really good mineral intake. Yeah, I think most of this stuff is pretty straightforward things people would already do in general for mitochondrial health or for detoxification. But what I would say is even more important regarding the exercise piece of things is if we step back and look at it from a physiological standpoint, we know that glycogen reserves are going to be pretty affected by a fast liver and muscle glycogen. For me, it comes down to sauna, easy walks, yoga, a little bit of cold soaking. Even though you get a huge amount of glycogenolysis during cold soaks, you gotta be careful with excess use of the cold. And then anything from a training or a cardio standpoint that would rely more on the phosphogenic than the glycolytic system. Meaning if you're going to lift weights, you're doing three sets of five reps, super quick, explosive and heavy. Or if you're going to do interval training, we know the body kicks into glycolysis somewhere between about 20 and 30 seconds, right. So you, you might do 10 seconds super hard on an Aerodyne and then four minutes of active recovery pedaling and you might do three or four rounds of that. So just these quick bursts of exercise if it's cardio, and quick bursts of power if it's strength. And I think if you combine that with walking, a little bit of sauna, a little bit of yoga, a little bit of cold, you're kind of stringing together a pretty good self care protocol during the fast that's also not going to, to deplete you from an adrenal standpoint or even from an immune standpoint, which is actually, I wanted to touch on immunity since it's relevant to what we're talking about right now. But before we do anything you wanted to add in to close the loop on.

Yeah, no, it's amazing, right? Because your audience, everything you said, I'm 100% in agreement with. When you're dealing with. My audience is typically people seeking to get their health back. Right. And it's, they literally, they don't have the energy to do that. They're just surviving in the fast, which is okay you want that healing to go to that energy to go to healing. So, you know, just if you're healthy and, you know, that's what you do normally and you're, you know, have no big health challenges. Everything Ben, you were talking about, fantastic. If you're not and you do have health challenges, take the energy and just drive it to healing. Like, I love doing what you said, right. I love doing some hot, cold, you know, but again, my body adapts to that, and it's a plus. Unhealthy people, they do that. They just can't make it through their day. So, you know, Ben, your audience is very different than mine, so we have to just be cautious with the advice that we give each audience. So just let them be known that, you know, there's two ways of doing it there.

Yeah, I want to touch on women, and I want to touch on kids, too, because your wife fasts and your kids, I think all of them fast. But before we do, we'd be remiss not to discuss the impact of fasting on immunity, just because so many people are asking about it right now during the coronavirus pandemic. So what's your take on fasting when it comes to whether or not it's something we should avoid in terms of excess stress from an immunity standpoint?

Yeah. You know, and again, right now is critical. You know, when we talk about, you know, kind of two answers in one here. All my children actually organize their own fast because of the coronavirus, Right? Because, you know, they are overheard me talking about it. You know, I was reading an article about the immunosenescence cells and putting people at risk for coronavirus, and they basically said, man, we're gonna fast. Right? And they just. And that was probably even before it was really known that, okay, this isn't even that dangerous, this virus for kids, right? But they jumped in and organized their own little fast. They fasted for five days, just water. Why? Why would you do that? For immunity. Because during a fast, you're getting rid of these hyperactive senescent immune cells that cause inflammation and actually increase your risk. And when you fast, you're upregulating a stem cell and you're creating a new immune cell that is vigilant. It is the perfect guard for your immune system, that new, brand new cell. So we're recreating our immune systems with a fast. So that's what they did. You know, there's a microbiome connection here, too. You know, real immunity. I mean, it really does start in the Gut, right? I mean, everyone listening knows that now. I mean, even yogurt commercial, 70% of your immune system starts in your gut. Well, I can tell you that we don't fix really bad guts in microbiome by just eating a bunch of bacteria. We're only so easy. We do it by this hormetic principle, stressing it. So those diet variation strategies that I talked about earlier, you know, changing your diet, going feast days, famine days, that's actually the key for changing the microbiome for better. So when you look at all of the testing right now around the microbiome that's gotten better, there's the biome test and there's others. There's one thing we really learn from it all because we really realized that, okay, we thought we're going to be able to do these tests and identify bad guys and kill them and get better. It didn't work out like that. But what we did take away is the difference between a Ben Greenfield or a Dr. Pompa and someone struggling in their health in their microbiome. That is, is diversity. You know, Ben, we actually had our microbiome, our poop, looked at by the same really smart scientist. And she said, oh my gosh, you and Ben Greenfield have the most diverse bacteria out of any I've looked at. And, you know, there's a reason for that. But yeah, she was amazed by our diversity, which diversity equals immunity. Just so you know, the more diverse your bacteria, the healthier you are, the healthier your immune system. So, you know, what did Ben and I do to get that diversity? You know, we do a lot of these fasting things, intermittent fasting, you know, so, yes, that creates diversity, which creates immunity. So real immunity actually does so start in the gut. And everything we're talking about with fasting is really the way that you fix this diversity. By the way, when you change your diet seasonally, we know that part of that adaptation, carnivore diet, vegan diet, or maybe you go just into a keto diet, into a high carb diet, is the adaptation occurs in part by a diversity in the microbiome that occurs when your body has to go, oh, these are fibrous foods now. I was just eating all meat and fat. Boom. All of a sudden it starts to upregulate new bacteria. And when you switch again anyways, it creates a diversity. The more shifts you have in your diet therefore creates a better immunity. Fasting states, we are genetically programmed of times of fasting. So every time you fast, you stress your bacteria in your gut, and it creates more diversity. As a matter of fact, your microbiome actually resets. Literally. I mean, it's the way to reset your microbiome, and it creates diversity. So really, real immunity starts in the gut.

I have different thoughts on the immunity component, honestly. And the more data I see, the more I'm convinced that fasting during the coronavirus may not be the best idea. Because if you look at fasting and viruses in particular, and you compare and contrast that with bacterial infections, we know that viruses do things like rapidly deplete selenium values and a lot of other nutrients, but in particular selenium, we know that in rodent models, there's almost like this hypercortisolic, slightly inflammatory response to fasting. Then there's also the MTOR piece. When you look at blocking mtor, it also reduces this different. It's a transmembrane proteins, interferon inducible transmembrane protein. And that seems to also be something that could make you more susceptible to viruses. And you seem to see the opposite when you look at fasting in terms of bacterial infections. So fasting and bacterial infection infections, we see good activity of the ketone beta hydroxybutyrate on some of these bacterial infections, we see better phagocytosis. So you've got a better ability to be able to engulf and destroy a lot of these pathogenic bacterial cells. And you also, interestingly, and you don't see this as much as a viral infection, but with a bacterial infection, you also see a real drop in appetites, suggesting that maybe just from an ancestral standpoint, our body's telling us us not to eat when we have a bacterial infection versus a viral infection like a flu or, you know, even the common cold is a coronavirus type of thing. So I personally think the answer depends on whether it's virus versus bacteria.

Well, you know what? I read that study, actually. There's one study out there on rodents that showed that. However, on my desktop, I have three others that showed the opposite. And there was reasons why. And when you look at the body, actually, and again, humans, the way what they did in that study, the number of days and the stress that they put them under, I think partly changed the result. However, I will say, and this was my advice to my doctors, listen to the innate intelligence. So, for example, when you get a flu, which is a virus, most of us actually lose appetite, whether it's one day, two days, three days, and then when your appetite comes back, it typically comes back ferociously. And then it's time to eat again. However, when you're older and you get a flu, oftentimes the opposite reaction happens where you're actually hungry. And by the way, that's exactly what we're seeing with the coronavirus. Some people lose appetite completely. Some people actually gain hunger. My advice is listen to your innate intelligence because the body knows what it's doing and what it needs. So follow your innate on that. And again, even with certain bacterial infections, it can go opposite directions on you. So there is an innate intelligence in our bodies and listen to it. We can't just look at one rat study and go, oh, fasting's not good, or the opposite fasting is good. Right. We can't do that. We have to be able to look at eons of what our bodies instinctively want to do and kind of follow that. So there's my advice.

Yeah. And it's also possible if you look at a hypercortisolic response, depletion of selenium and an inhibition of MTOR being the three main mechanisms via which fasting may not be beneficial for the immune system during a virus, some of that might be able to be skirted. Right. You could supplement with selenium. You could do some of those brief intermittent exercise things. The idea would be then you could like take some selenium, you could trigger mtoravir via some brief high intensity exercise sessions which we mentioned earlier. And then perhaps from the cortisol standpoint, get adequate sleep, meditation, yoga, prayer, family relationships, et cetera. And you may actually be able to skirt some of the proposed issues with fasting and a viral infection.

Yeah. One thing I've learned, man, just studying all this stuff for so many years, what seems right to man in what seems right with the knowledge base that we have isn't always right. You know, it's amazing how often I learn something and I go, gosh, yeah, it made so much sense. And then I look back and go, but it simply just wasn't true. You know, it's just crazy. That's why, you know, that's why following the innate intelligence is the best thing. If you're hungry, eat, you know, especially if you're really hungry. If you lose your appetite, don't, you know. And then, you know, we are talking about there's different strategies for prevention than different strategies if you actually get the virus. Right. You know, so, you know, just that's how confusing it can be. So listening to your body. Yeah, best thing to do.

Got it. Okay, now a couple other things. Like we mentioned, your kids fast and They've done, as you alluded to, some pretty intensive fasts. Now, what are your thoughts on kids and fasting? You say this is just for kids with extra fat stores. Would you say it's something kids need to be careful with? I mean, my own kids don't do a lot of fasting. They're these skinny ass 12 year old boys who would probably waste away after a day or two of fasting. They're so thin and lean and active. But I want to get your take on fasting because as a young father, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. And I know you've walked your own children through fasting protocols. So what, what wisdom do you have to share for folks about kids and fasting?

Yeah, you know, in Europe, fasting kids is more acceptable than here in the U.S. but yeah, I mean, kids are in a growth state, right? Kids can even eat multiple times a day. Kids can get away with a lot more because they are in this growth spurt and state. You know. Is one day of fasting a benefit to a kid? I think it is. Unless the kid is in an obese state. I don't think longer fasting are necessary. Obviously certain health conditions could be exceptions to any rule here. But normal, healthy kids, yeah, I mean, if they go a day without eating, I'm sure it's darn good for them. Now in my book, I talk about my youngest son, Simon. He was, well, I think he was 13 at the time. And he was the kid that didn't follow the Pompa protocol. Very typical when you have kids, right? Your first one especially, I mean, you're like on it, man. I mean, everything, right? You know, and if, God forbid, if they fall down the steps, you're running over there, you know, by the fifth one, when they fall down the steps, you're like, you all right? Any blood? No? Okay, yeah, you'll be all right, you know, and then you're definitely not paying attention to their diet. They'll figure it out. The other ones did. Anyways, so he was my carb addicted child, overweight child, and he ends up with these little psoriasis patches that are forming on him. And I'm trying to get him to change his diet. Of course he won't. So. And then he sees, I'm preparing for a talk and he sees a PowerPoint of a before and an after of this girl who had severe psoriasis. I mean, horrible picture. But then the after picture was very different. And she said, he said, what is that? And I said, oh, yeah, she has psoriasis. That's those patches that you have, right? You know, in your hair and up here. And he's like, oh. And he, like, walked out of the room, and he came back. Well, what did she do? I said, well, she fasted. And, you know, she did the cellular detox as well, but she fasted, you know, several fasts, and, you know, that's how it fixed it. And then he walked out of the room, came back again, said, okay, I'm going to fast. And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, great. He's going to fast. My carb addicted child. Well, he made it through. He said, how long should I go? I said, five days. I'm like, okay. He made it through the first day. I was stunned. And then he made it through day two, which I was really stunned. And then we were traveling to New York, my wife and I. So he made a goal that he's going to break his fast when we got back in a couple days. And it was probably easier for him because we were gone. And he had that goal, right? And mom wasn't there to take care of him. Just his brothers, older brothers were. So that was easy. He didn't want to eat their cooking anyways. So he makes it when we get back, and by this time, he's kind of over the hump and lost his hunger. He's now feeding from his body and all his fat stores that he had. Anyways, he ends up going 11 days, and it's because he just kept saying, is more better, is more better? And he saw himself shrinking, honestly. Well, it fixed not only the psoriasis, he never got it back, but it fixed his carb addiction. If you saw my son now, he's 16 and thin in shape and thin as a rail. Ben, did you see him last time you were here? Did you see the fat Simon or the skinny Simon?

I saw both the fat Simon and the skinny Simon, and it was pretty profound. I mean, I thought. And no, no offense, but I literally thought you sent him off to fat camp or something. I mean, the change from the time I saw him and then when I showed up at your house and saw him again, I mean, he was a lean, mean machine. And it's crazy because from what I understand, like, he didn't vastly change his exercise protocol or anything like that. Like, he just fasted.

Yeah, no, I can't get him to exercise. That's the next step. But, yeah, no, he fasted, and it literally broke his addiction, which is another amazing thing. Fasting does.

But do you get concerned with him about something like bone density or hormones or anything like that with someone who's still in their growth phases like that, doing it Fasting?

Yeah, great question. I mean, not when a kid is overweight like that. Because remember this, the body is utilizing its stores, it's getting nutrition. Oh, he had plenty of it. You know, case in point. I, you know, a kid like that will need more nutrition. Therefore, that's why he was like the fast shrinking machine, you know, because his body needed more. So but it got it. You know, it's his psoriasis. Obviously he was in a greater state of health. And by the way, his energy changed, everything changed after that fast. I had a guy, he came to one of my seminars. He was a patient of one of my doctors and he was on 121 days of fasting. Now this guy was morbidly obese and he was on 14 medications when he started to fast. By the time he got to my seminar, he was off the medications with his doctor. By the way, his doctor was blessing this fast because they were following him. They were stunned. One of the things they did is looked at all his nutrition markers and every possible way they could measure it. And of course they were looking at all his inflammatory markers, everything. And as the fast went on, the longer it went on, the better his nutrition markers became. How is that possible? He wasn't eating anything, he was just drinking water. Well, again, it just shows you it's counterintuitive oftentimes to what we think. Right. It's the nutrition he had. What was creating the imbalances was a lot of cellular issues. And as he was healing, his nutrition was actually, and his body was actually getting better. He was able to come off his medications, his brain balanced. I mean, he lifted out of a great state of depression. In my seminar I was talking about how to know when to break an extended fast. And it's amazing. I was talking a little bit about innate intelligence, the body, intuitively. I said, you will start to get hungry, you know, well, you know, I look at food, I get now that's appetite. Hunger is different. It's a gnarling in the deep pit of your stomach. You'll know the difference. And I said, your weight loss will also start to slow down to where it doesn't happen anymore. That means your body stopped the autophagy. So these are all signs to break the fast. Well, it was about a week after he left the seminar that he started getting those signs. And there was Some other that I talked about, his tongue was like really multiple colors, black, green, I mean through the fast. And another sign is when your tongue goes back to regular pink tongue, you know, it's time to break the fast. And all of that stuff was happening to him and he broke the fast. But the point there is really that the innate intelligence gets its nutrition and improves its nutrition in a fasting state. Now again, you have to have the body stores, right? I mean a skinny child, like my other ones are yours, you know, there's just no need. And you know, there's obviously the body would tap into, you know, even your skinny child has fat stores. Let's be clear. You know, probably even, you know, 20, 30,000 stored calories. You and I Ben, have at least 50, 60, you know, thousand calories stored in fat. Right. It's just in and between our organs. So we have the fat stores to survive on. So even kids last a fasting state and even if they fasted three to five days, the body will find what it needs even in a skinny child. I just don't recommend it. I just don't think it's a need.

Yeah, I'm kind of on the same page. And an extreme point would be the morbidly obese man who you can find stories about who fasted for over 300 days and was able to do so because of the mass, amount of energy and storage and nutrients that he had in his fat tissue. And I think if you have a very obese kid that they could probably get away with the fasting protocol that's well structured and perhaps even includes like some minerals on a multivitamin versus, you know, again, you know, perfect example like my skinny ass. 12 year old boys, they just don't need to fast. They don't, there's, there's, aside from perhaps the spiritual and physical discipline type of benefits they get from it. From a physiological or a health standpoint, they don't really need to be fasting. But I do think that it can be implemented successfully. And there are some ancestral examples of kids who have been on fasting protocols. I don't necessarily think abstinence from food and drink for spiritual purposes especially is an issue if it's well structured and if a kid is definitely having an position in a way that's not going to create something like an eating disorder. I just think it's really kind of like a fine line. But I think it depends on the kid and it depends on honestly their state of fatness to a certain extent.

Yeah, yeah. And I don't know that fasting creates an eating disorder, but I recommend never eating someone who has an eating disorder not to fast. I definitely don't recommend it for any eating disorder. But you know, yeah, it's, you know, you did talk about the ancestral thing there, you know, and of course there's times when tribes, their kids were forced into fasting and I'm sure they benefited from it. But you know, they would feed the kids in those states, they would actually feed the kids before the adults. Right. So, you know, but if they were forced to all go without food or very little, the kids were able to do it. Of course, you know, they were able to adapt. They're kids, they adapt.

Yeah. And then just one other thought is that, and I'm implementing this with my kids right now because we're going through a book on spiritual disciplines. You can train a child to gain some of the mental discipline that an adult would get from fasting with technology, fasts with Lego, fasts with video games fast. There are ways that you can get some of the mental and spiritual benefits without it being a straight food fast. So just something to think about, about. And we've certainly incorporated that with our kids and had certain periods of time where we just have days where, okay, this is outdoor day and we don't tell them to do anything but we encourage them get outdoors. We're not going to do Legos today. We're going to all try to have a certain thing that we abstain from on X, Y or Z day of the week. Now what about women? The reason I ask this is I know your wife Merilylee has had a lot of success with, with fasting. However, I also know that there's a lot of evidence that for example, kisspeptin, one of the hormones that's necessary for gonadotropin hormone release and maintenance of luteinizing and follicle stimulating hormone. A lot of advantageous fertility parameters that seems to be deleteriously affected with excess fasting in women. Which is why generally there's kind of a recommendation going around, around that women stick close to like a 10 to 12 hour intermittent fasting window where men can get away with 12 to 16 hour intermittent fasts. We know that lean and active females tend to develop almost like something very similar to an athletic triad syndrome with low bone density and amenorrhea, for example, in a state of excess fasting or excess calorie restriction. And it also appears that some of the longevity benefits seem to differ whether you're premenopausal and not. In which case, excess fasting seems to be detrimental versus postmenopausal, probably because of the hormone piece where it doesn't seem to be as detrimental. So how do you kind of weave through the deal with women and fasting and how it might be different?

Yeah, I think that this is where the variation in what you do ahead of it even matters more. So I say people that are hormonally challenged and women in general do better with more variation in their diet. To your point, you know, staying in ketosis, men can do it a lot longer, lower carb a lot longer. Women, on the other hand, absolutely need more feast days a week. And as I pointed out, even monthly, they just thrive. And what I found out too is even seasonally, they thrive on more changes in their diet, higher carb times. So if you do these variations, when it does come down to fast, it changes all the rules, you know, so I had, you know, in my doctor group, Dr. Mindy Peltz, who has a pretty large following, that was her. She couldn't even do ketosis that long without hormonal detrimental effects and let alone fasting, intermittent fasting wasn't working for her when she started adding, adding in the diet variation strategies, game changer, Game changer for her. And it just transformed. Even now when she fasts, it's like a breeze for her. The same thing happened to my wife. You know, she just needed more of the variation. And then when she did fast, game changer. So I think a lot of that concept comes out of hormonally unhealthy American women. And, yeah, it's just not going to go well. Right. So. But you need. That's why you need the strategies I offer in my book. You know, when I visited the tribe, I visited a tribe in Africa, a hunting, gathering tribe. And, you know, this tribe was actually, when I saw them, it was short. Shortly after they came out of the deep mountains and they were on a long fast and they were forced into it. And many, even the other tribes in that area. But again, the women, they were forced to fast. And I made the point that what they gather and what they find, they'll give to the kids. But the women were typically the ones who would fast the best and the easiest in that tribe, as I found out, you know, the men would have to go out for long, long journeys and, you know, needed even a little more sometimes than the women. But, you know, so I think that when it's done correctly with the variation in the feasts, we're all designed. We're all genetically designed to fast. We are, you know, and again, the variation's the magic.

So in terms of Marilee, how would like a month of her fasting protocol look like right now? And you could share. I don't know if she. She cares if you share whether she's pre or peri or postmenopausal or what exactly she's doing.

Yeah, no, she's. She's pre, you know, and she's 52, so she's younger than I. But, you know, she. Absolutely, she loves fasting. Now, my wife will tell you is that since the time I've known her, right, she is like, I can go through a fast and I'm not hungry. She's not hungry. But eating is very emotional for my wife. She'll tell you that she gets happy when she thinks about her morning coffee. I have people going, yes, that's me too. She gets happy when she thinks about food. So you just kind of want to stay away from my wife during a fast? She gets a little hangry, but actually she's gotten better. And she'd be poking me in the ribs right now if she was here. I've gotten better. But there's an emotional component of eating with her. But, you know, it's very easy for her to fast. You know, it's not like she gets, you know, severe energy losses or anything like that. She goes about her day and yes, it transforms her. I mean, a month after a fast, you know, she just gets more muscular. And that's just because the autophagy, stem cell connection, you know, your body goes into a repair state and you get new muscle cells in recovery. And she's hormonally optimized. So fasting for her has been a hormonal optimization. But again, she does it right. I mean, she goes into these anabolic states of eating in between. She does high carbs at the right times for periods of time. She's not always low carb diet. So she really mixes it up. Well, honestly, she probably mixes it up better than me, which is because she follows her innate intelligence. She really knows what she needs.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, your whole family is a perfect example of kind of live. I mean, you know, you guys drive nice cars, you live in a cool house, use all these biohacks, but you're a perfect example of a family that's tapping into a lot of these ancestral tactics as well, and this whole feast, famine, cycling. And I do respect that, like, when I come hang out with you Guys, you know, sometimes I'll show up and it's just like, what's for breakfast? Nothing. What's for lunch? Nothing. Oh, and then we're gonna go to this amazing Italian restaurant for dinner and celebrate and have an amazing meal. And here's the supplements you take beforehand. And, you know, come back and, you know, maybe. Maybe hit a hyperbaric chamber. I mean, you guys have a really cool life that you've set up. And I don't want to blow smoke, but you and your kids and your wife, like, you look good, you're healthy, and you just look very, very vibrant and fit. And I know that a big part of that, and you guys are known for this within the health community, is that the Pompa family is a fasting family. And, you know, eventually, once my kids are older, I do plan on beginning to teach them a little bit more about actual food fasting. But I certainly look up to you guys as a really good example of a family who has cracked the code on how to do this right? And this book just kind of puts it all together.

And Betty, it's funny, we are known for that, but when you know us closely, it's like you would debate, holy cow, they are also a feasting family. We know how to eat. And to your point, though, as far as why fasting is successful is fasting got very popular, and I think the women got hit the hardest. Hormonally challenged people got hit the hardest with keto, low carb, and fasting strategies, because the variation needs to be there. And I think that's what's missing. And that's what we do really well as a family. Man, we feast. We feast. We fast. We fast. And it is that variation that really has led to great success. And we've duplicated that in many, many people around the world. And the feasts are as important as the fast. Remember that. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I think people are going to dig this book. And I don't think that. Now, this book isn't available on Amazon, right?

Not yet. Because we. I don't have it. We haven't went with the publisher yet on purpose. We're just launched it to my close following. So you're. Now we're sharing it with your following. So it hasn't even gone through professionally editing yet. So it's just a new launch. And as you know what it means to have a book. It was still edited three times. Still mistakes, but professional editing will happen when we go with the publisher. But you got. Y' all can get It I've made Ben, you know, we set up a special offer for y', all. So there you go.

Yeah, I've got a, I've got a 15% discount code on the book and then I'm gonna also get some links to everything we talked about, like Dr. John Laurence's website, because I'll be doing a podcast with him. Previous podcasts on cvac, which you were talking about earlier, some of the supplements you talked about, and then of course the book itself. So all of that, that is going to be over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com FastWithDan in addition to the other two podcasts that I did with Dan. So I think you guys are going to find a lot of good stuff over there. And Dan, thank you for your time, man, for coming on the show. By the way, for those of you listening in, if my voice sounded a little bit different during today's show, it's because my microphone broke right before he hopped on. So if I sound a little echoey and my voice isn't as, as deep and rich and amazing as usual, I'm going to blame it on technology. But either way, we really want to get this episode into the hat for you guys. So, Dan, thanks for making yourself available for putting up with my technology snafus.

I love it. Actually, I just had my son sabotage your mic so your voice wouldn't be so rich and deep and sexier than mine. So I had to match a bit. Now our voices are at least equal.

Well, once this, once this quarantine is over, I'll fly down to Park City and we'll, we'll skip breakfast and lunch and then go have an amazing steak.

I love it, man. I love your family guy. You, you guys are, you live it to lead it, man. Love that about you, Ben. Appreciate you.

Thanks, Dan. Alright, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Dr. Dan Pompa, three time repeat guest on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show. Signing out from Ben Greenfield Fitness. Have an amazing week.

Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep, digestion, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes, Use the promo codes that I generated, Rate, because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.