The Ultimate Water Fast Challenge Day 1

Foreign. Hey guys, welcome to the live Ultimate Human three day water fasting challenge. Thank you so much for showing up for yourselves for the ultimate Human. For everybody else on here, I'm human biologist and co founder of the Ultimate Human, Gary Breca. And I'm so pumped that you guys are all here. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to commit to your own health and well being and participate in this fast. I promise you, this is going to be life, life changing for you. This is your first water fast. Take it easy. I'm going to be with you every step of the way. So over the next three days, we're going to transform your relationship with food, inflammation and even your cellular health. We're going to enable you to flush toxins from your body, reset your metabolism and unlock your body's natural healing potential. You've heard me say all the time, more of what God gave us, less of what man makes us. This is what God gave us to heal and repair our bodies. Fasting. You know, every religion in the world has fasted for centuries. They thought that it brought them closer to God. It made them more aware, made them more focused, more concentrated. You are about to experience all of those benefits. This isn't just about losing a few pounds. This is about cellular regeneration and proving to yourself that you can do hard things. So stick with this. Now, why is water fasting so powerful? Well, because it triggers the most ancient healing mechanism in your body called autophagy. Autophagy is a fancy word for cell. You see, we want cells to be birthed mainly in the bone marrow and other areas of the body enter our bloodstream. And we want them to be working for us. So when they stop working for us, but they're still living, we want our immune system to turn those cells into energy so we can replace them with fresh new cells. You're going to learn a lot of new terms, autophagy, cellular senescence, sometimes called zombie cells. But when you remove food, your cells literally start eating themselves. And we eat the herd from the weakest part forward. Right? It's just the way that mother Nature works. It's the same way that your cellular biology works. When your immune system realizes that you have not been fed for a prolonged period of time, it goes into the body to consume energy. And what does it consume? It consumes zombie cells, or cells that we call senescent cells. These are cells that have been hanging out for days or weeks or months, maybe even years in your body that are no longer able to perform their function. Every Single person watching this right now has red blood cells in your bloodstream that can no longer carry oxygen. You've got platelets that can no longer carry growth factors. You have white blood cells that no longer have the ability to mount an immune defense. We want the body to selectively get rid of those cells and replace them with with healthy, new functioning cells. I always use the funny analogy that, what if you had a company full of lazy employees? What if we could get that employee out of their seat and put someone in their chair that's going to do their job? Well, that's what the immune system does. Now, the immune system eats lazy employees, and we can't really eat our lazy employees, but that's what the immune system does. It goes in and it eats us from the most useless part forward. So they're consuming damaged proteins, they're clearing out cellular junk, and they're rebuilding a stronger, healthier ver of themselves, which means a stronger, healthier version of you. So think of it as your body's internal housekeeping crew working overtime to clean out the garage of your cells. This is not starvation. Every human being, except for the ones that I'm going to say should, should not water fast here in a few minutes when I give the disclaimer can survive of water fasting challenge. It's not starvation. It's strategic cellular optimization. Your body has been designed for this for millions of years, guys, and we're simply driving or simply giving it permission to do what it does best. So don't think that you're starving, you're not eating, but your body is. It's just eating you, and it's eating the weakest part of you. So before we dive into the protocol, let's talk a couple of safety items, because I want every single one of you to complete this challenge successfully. Water fasting is incredibly powerful, but unfortunately, it's not for everyone. If you have gout type 1 or type 2 diabetes, if you have a known eating disorder, if you're over 65 pregnant, or you're under 18, or you're on certain medications that you think might interfere with a water fast, you must consult with your physician before participating in this challenge. This is why I give you a challenge guide and a protocol and an outline. So if you're not able to do it during our time over the next three days, you can do this on your own after you've consulted with your physician. The biggest risks are electrolyte imbalances and dehydration, hydration, which is exactly why we're using specific products and certain protocols, I've designed this challenge to be as safe as possible while maximizing the benefits for you. So remember, everything I share today is for informational purposes only. It's not meant to be medical advice. I am not a licensed physician. I am not licensed to give medical advice. And you should always take the advice of your practitioner. So today is our transition day. The biggest reason why people fail is because they go cold turkey into a water fast. So we're not going cold turkey because that would shock your system. Instead, we're going to strategically ease you into the fast with what I call the training wheels approach. So it's kind of funny you'll consume two liters of spring water throughout the day today because you're also consuming bone broth. I've got my bone broth right here. You might see me actually sipping on this during the show today. If you guys read the guide, you also have your bone broth. My team warmed this up for me. I'm using kettle and fire. You have to use that bone broth. But please choose. Hopefully you chose one that is organic. If you're using a beef bone broth, one that is grass fed from grass finished cattle. So the training wheels approach is you're going to consume 2 liters of spring water throughout the day today, plus 32 ounces of high quality bone broth. That's 16.9 ounce bowls. I just warm this up in a pan, put it in here. This is really satisfying. I'm going to tell you all the benefits of bone broth, all why we use this to ease into and why we use this to ease out of a fast. So we're not shocking our system no solid food whatsoever, but we're providing your body with liquid nutrition that will not spike your insulin. So as you begin the fasting process, it's really important that we allow insulin to calm down. This approach enables your body to shift metabolically without intense stress that leads to most people failing a water fast. You're not starving yourself, you're feeding your future. Guys, let's break down your morning routine because this sets the tone for the entire day. So upon waking this morning, if you read the guide, you should have taken one scoop of perfect aminos. The reason why I selected perfect aminos and you know what a big fan I am of this, is because it has all nine of the essential amino acids. Remember, amino acids are not proteins. They are the building blocks of proteins. Over the next three days, your body is going to be desperate for amino acids. And, and you know where it's going to get them from old tired cells that are no longer performing their function. This has no calories, it does not break a fast. It doesn't involve liver metabolism. It is equivalent to 29 grams of whey protein. So imagine that you ingested 29 grams of whey protein with no caloric impact and you didn't break your fast. You're going to put that in 8 ounces of spring water, which I also have here, which is probably why I'm going to take several pee breaks and add a pinch of Baja Gold mineral salt. Make a mineral salt that comes in this liquid version. This is what I take every day and I travel with it. If you have the bags of Baja Gold mineral salt, no problem. Just take a good healthy pinch of that, put it in a glass of water, that 8 ounce glass of water, mix it in with the perfect aminos and drop in one H2 tab. The reason why we're going to use elemental magnesium, which effervesces into hydrogen gas is because hydrogen gas is the only selective antioxidant that I am aware of that can do the magic that hydrogen can. It actually can lower inflammation where needed and it can raise inflammation where also needed. Remember, it's a big fallacy that all we want to do is suppress inflammation to get all of the oxidative free radicals out of the bloodstream, out of our tissues and out of our cells. That's not true. We, what we truly want is something called redox homeostasis. I know that's a mouthful, but we want the right amount of inflammation and the right amount of suppression of oxidation. Hydrogen gas restores that to balance, it restores redox homeostasis. It will also help you keep the lights on. And boy, you guys are coffee connoisseurs. Because the biggest question I got asked before the water fast is can I still drink black coffee? Yes, you can still drink black coffee. So this morning, hopefully if you're a coffee drinker, you had your black coffee. If you haven't, you're welcome to start now. So let's discuss why we're using bone broth on day one and specifically why I use kettle and fire. You don't have to use any of these particular brands. You're welcome to use whatever brand you want. But the reason why I use kettle and fire is because this isn't a regular store bought broth. This is liquid nutrition. It provides collagen which is going to help us repair our gut lining. It provides amino acids as cellular Building blocks. It provides minerals for electrolyte balance. And even more importantly, it has gelatin, which is great for our digestive support. Vegans and vegetarians, there are vegetarian versions of this. You can take a chicken version. I think I have the chicken version there. I'm drinking the beef version today. If you are vegan or vegetarian, you can actually get bone broths that are vegan or vegetarian based. I think Kettle and Fire has both of those. The important thing is we want the gelatin, we want the minerals, we want the electrolytes, and we want the collagen that comes in the liquid form of bone broth. This is so soothing and healing to our gut. There are stories that I don't share on Instagram for fear of backlash, but I will tell you on this water fast, I have seen miracles in people with severe digestive issues, diverticulitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome, which is, you know, I'm not a big believer in all of these things that lead to symptoms like gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, irritability, cramping. Yes, I said diarrhea. On a water fasting challenge. Most store bought bone broths are made from bone paste. There is a major difference between bone paste and slow cooked bone broth. Bone paste is cooked very quickly at very high heats and it destroys the nutrients similar to what happens when we homog and pasteurized milk. So Kettle and Fire slow cooks these real bones for hours. They do it at low temperatures and then we use a, they use a retorting process to make it shelf stable so it preserves all the therapeutic compounds that are in there. I'm a huge fan of that. You'll have your first bowl at noon today, your second at 6pm Those are your only meals today, guys. So have your bone broth. If you haven't started yet, you can start sipping it with me on the, on the challenge right now. I'll finish this while I'm on the challenge. It's actually delicious. I actually love bone broth. It actually kills the hunger cravings, it gives you a satiated feeling, and it helps line the gut and heal and seal our gut. So a lot of what we're doing today is really focused on allowing our gut flora to thrive, giving our liver and other detox systems a break and healing and sealing our gut. So now water is your lifeline during the fast. But not just any water. You must use spring or filtered water. Please never use distilled water. Here's why this matters. Distilled water strips minerals from our body. There's something called osmosis. Contents in our body move from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration. So if we actually fill our bodies and our bloodstream with distilled water, it will pull electrolytes and minerals out of our tissue. That's not what we want to do. So spring waters and good filtered waters are, are the way to go for this water fast. You know, these, these distilled waters very often lead to dangerous electrolyte imbalances that can cause heart issues, dizziness, and even fasting failure. You'll just have to stop the fast. I have tons of incidences where for some reason people did the gallon of water a day challenge. When they did the gallon of water a day, they chose distilled water. And some of these folks actually ended up in the ER with tachycardic episodes because they stripped so many electrolytes from their body in addition to los it through sweat. So I'm not a big fan of distilled water. I'm an enormous fan of mineral water, spring water, filtered water that we're going to add these electrolytes to. So your day one target is 2 liters of spring water spread throughout the day. You don't have to eat it, drink it all at one time, just spread it throughout the day. That's about one liter every eight hours in addition to your bone broth. So we're staying plenty hydrated during this fast. Starting day two, we'll increase to 3 liters with added Baja Gold. Baja Gold sea salt in every single glass. So each time that you have a big glass of water, you're just going to take a little pinch of Baja Gold or take one squirt one ML from here. As you know, that's. That is one of my favorite biohacks. We are so mineral deficient. You know, I just did a big stage talk a few days ago with Laura Trump in Fort Lauderdale, and we actually talked about how our soil has been so depleted over the years. If I showed you a soil lineage study looking at the mineral nutrient content and the microbiome in our soil between 1945 and today, you would be shocked how depleted our soil is. I find it very, very difficult for people to get all of the nutrition that they need just from a whole food diet. That's why we supplement with targeted things like amino acids, hydrogen gas, and, and, and Baja Gold sea salt, which has no all 91 trace minerals avoid. So, ladies, let me, let Me talk to you guys for a minute. I want to address something crucial that most fasting experts would completely ignore. Your menstrual cycle timing can make or break your fasting success. So the best time to fast is during your follicular phase, which is days one to day 14 of your cycle. So if you're not in that part of your cycle, you're welcome to still do this fast. But. But just remember, because you have enhanced insulin sensitivity during that time and better glucose tolerance, lower cortisol levels, and you'll have easier appetite control. If you avoid fasting days 20 to 28 of your cycle, it will make the fasting easier. When rising progesterone creates insulin resistance, it increases your cravings, and it causes a higher stress response. So if you're not in day one to day 14 of your cycle, that's fine. Just know you're going to have to be a little extra disciplined because it might be a bit more challenging of a mental game. If you are not able to complete this fast, download the guide, stick with us through the three days, and then do the water fast on your follicular phase, days 1 to 14 of your cycle. If you must fast during your luteal phase due to scheduling, just expect it to be more challenging and consider additional electrolyte support, adding additional Baja gold to those times when you're drinking your spring water. Okay, and this is about not making this fast difficult. It's about working with your cellular biology. So day one is typically the easiest day. But let's set realistic expectations so you're all prepared. Normal experiences include mild hunger between your bone broth meals. Guys, it is okay to be hungry. You know, I say all the time. Aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort. We gotta stop telling grandma not to go outside. It's too hot, not to go outside, it's too cold. Just to lay down, just to relax, to eat. At the very first pang of hunger, it is okay to be hungry. During these three days, you might actually notice that during the times that you are hungry, you are focused, you are alert, you're oriented, you feel concentrated. So a slight energy dip around 3 to 4pm is perfectly normal. Clear thinking and mental focus and possibly a slight headache, which usually means you need more water with salt. These are all normal adaption responses. Some of you guys are doing this for the very first time. Thousands of you have not even fasted for 24 hours, which is why we're easing in and easing out of this fast. So however, call your doctor immediately if you experience severe Dizziness, fainting, heart palpitations. If you experience extreme weakness or chest pain. These are extraordinarily rare. If you experience anything like that, just break the fast. Remember, you have bone broth today, so you're not fully fasted yet. We're preparing your body for the real transformation that begins tomorrow. So I want to hear from you right now in the comments. Tell me what time you started the morning protocol today. How did the perfect aminos taste? Are you feeling energy changes already? What's the biggest concern about tomorrow that you have when we remove the training wheels? Let me know in the comments. I'm going to address all of those questions live for you guys and I'm going to have Dr. I'm going to have Dr. Paul Saladino on in a few minutes. He's also going to take your questions. So drop your answers in the chat because our team is monitoring all the comments and we'll highlight the best questions for our guests. We're all in this together, guys, and your success stories will inspire other people who are struggling. Once you complete this water fast, I want you to tell all your friends, your neighbors, your loved ones, your family members what you've accomplished because this is a big, big deal. And maybe you can start to do this on a regular basis two or three times a year as a family or with your co workers or with your loved ones. Because fasting truly is one of the most powerful things we have to harness in the human body. Don't be shy. Share your experiences, guys. So I'm going to go through exactly what our our body is going through during these first hours of the water fast. So during the first four to eight hours, which is hopefully when you were sleeping last night, you ate your last meal, seven, eight, nine o' clock last night. Well within four to eight hours, your blood sugar really began to fall. Insulin stopped being produced, so your glucose got to a certain level. Your body stopped producing insulin and as your blood sugar settled, your liver kicked in and turned stored glucose called glycogen into glucose in your bloodstream. You know people that wear something called a constant glucose monitor or cgm, if you've ever done that. It's a little patch you put on your arm and you can open up an app on your phone. You can see your blood sugar in real time. One of the things that really confuses people is they're like, Gary, I don't get it. I went to bed at 9 or 10, 11 o' clock last night. I woke up this morning, I haven't eaten a Thing. And as soon as I started moving around, my blood sugar started to rise. That's your liver taking stored sugar called glycogen. You also store it in the muscles and putting it back into the, back into the blood, the form of glucose. It's called gluconeogenesis. That is a perfectly normal response. Over the next few days, we're going to exhaust that glycolic reserve, that stored glycogen. What happens when we don't have any more glycogen and we don't have any more glucose? That's where the magic begins. Around hours 12. At 12 hours, your, your food consumed has been burned, your digestive system is going to sleep and your body is starting to enter a phase of ketosis. At 16 hours, the body is ramping up fat burning. And at 18 hours, guys, and some of you are very close to that now. At 18 hours, your body starts to dump massive amounts of your own human growth hormone, growth hormone into the body. Your pituitary starts to increase its secretion of growth hormone. That is the fountain of youth. So guys, we've got Dr. Paul Saladino on. He's a good friend of mine. So many of you know him. I'm beyond excited to introduce him as our day one guest. Paul is not only a close friend, but he's a physician, he's a researcher, he's an author. He's absolutely revolutionized how we think about nutrition and metabolic health. He brings a unique perspective because he understands both the carnivore and animal based approach to nutrition and the strategic use of fasting to optimize your body. Paul, welcome to the ultimate human family. Thank you for sharing your expertise, brother.

What's up, Gary? Good to see you.

Good to see you. You in Costa Rica?

Yeah, of course, man. I just went out for a surf this morning.

I was gonna say, did you skateboard today? Did you surf today, surf this morning?

Skateboarding later today, Maybe a workout some time in the pool? Yeah.

That's awesome, man. I've been watching your videos. You got a mean right jab too, brother. I'm not messing with Paul Saladino. So, you know, I wanted to just dive into some of the science of what's happening in, in their bodies right now. We've got tens of thousands of people that have joined this challenge. A lot of the very, very first time. Many of them are not familiar with ketosis. Many of them are not familiar with the benefits of keeping our sugars and our glycemic profile low. I wonder if you might just Talk about too, the benefits of bone broth. You know, I'm having a beef bone broth later. I only get two choices for meals today. So I'm having beef bone broth at noon, I'm having chicken bone broth at dinner. Those, that's my, my menu for the day. But I wonder if you might actually talk about bone broth and its benefits in the body, why you use it, why you think it's a great substitute sometimes for meals, how it could help people ease into or out of a fast. And then also what metabolic switches are being flipped today that they can't see but they should be aware of.

Yeah, that's this interesting kind of seesaw right between fed and fasting states. And as we go into a fasted state, which we do throughout the day between meals, we do it overnight when we're sleeping. But when we do longer fasts, maybe longer than 12 hours, I think most of us probably get it a 12 hour fast overnight, give or take. And then when you do like longer than 12 hours, you really start to push into that fasted state. And that's where you kind of flip these molecular switches. And we can get technical here and talk about mtor versus AMP kinase and the genes that get turned on. But basically there's an interesting thing. There's a word that people have probably heard of, which is autophagy, the colloquial term cellular house cleaning or just systemic house cleaning. And this appears to happen especially in animal models and almost certainly in humans with more intensity once we stop eating for longer and longer amounts of time. I think obviously there is a point at which that becomes too much autophagy. You can starve yourself to death, but in the meantime, in the middle part, there's some interesting things that happen. When we are eating, we are turning on this MTOR pathway, this building pathway. When we stop eating, we're turning that one off and you get this AMP kinase pathway and it allows the body to do these rebuilding pathways. At some level, it's important for people to understand that you're always doing autophagy so you don't have to be fasting to do cellular house cleaning. Your body's really smart. Autophagy happens to differentially in different tissues of your body, there's different autophagic processes happening in your brain. For the neurons at the level of the liver, at the level of muscles in your fat depots. What's really cool, I think about fasting from an autophagy perspective is that it probably also serves to do some Unique things at the level of the gut flora, which isn't technically autophagy, and then in terms of insulin sensitivity and metabolic health. And so I think that I come back to this so much, and when I'm talking to people and when I'm thinking about how to. How people solve their problems, I think that most issues that we suffer from today are metabolic issues, right?

Oh, my God. Absolutely agree with you, dude.

It's insulin resistance, right? And that. And that's metabolic dysfunction. It's synonymous. And so there are lots of theories about what causes insulin resistance. What we know pretty well is that if you start fasting, you reverse insulin resistance very quickly. You're like, this is. This really helps, this process very quickly. And whether that has to do with recycling of the membrane components of the mitochondria that happen more quickly when you're fasting, or a turnover of the gut flora that decreases inflammation from dysbiotic organisms like gram negative bacteria that have these components of the cell wall, like lipopolysaccharide. It's a very unique thing to not put food in your body. And these unique processes happen in the body that do sort of reset those things. Now, you've asked about bone broth, which is a great sort of next step, which is, okay, say you fasted for 24 hours. How do you. How do you go back to eating? Well, bone broth is a great thing to do. You know, you want some collagen, you want the glycine that's a part of that. You want these. These collagenous amino acids to help you restart your feeding. Because you're. Everything's kind of calm down when you're fasting, right? Your body's not doing the digestive stuff. So when you start eating again, you go slowly, you go gradually with something like a bone broth is a great thing. But the idea is that you fast to sort of reset things. And then as you refeed, we need to think about what people are eating. And that's where the magic happens, I think, because fasting can be a reset. But then the real question is, what were we eating in the first place that caused us to have insulin resistance? Right? Like, what was it in the first place that broke the mitochondria, which is where I think the insulin resistance, metabolic dysfunction happens. And why is that? Why is that happening and how do we correct that when we start eating again? So Gary must trust me a lot because he's left me all of you guys. He just stepped out. So I get to talk to all of you. I could say whatever I want. And I'll try and carry this for Gary while he's probably stepped out to go to the bathroom. So this is interesting for me. I hope this won't be too. Too nerdy for you guys, but when I look at humans and human health, I don't think that it's carbohydrates per se, that cause insulin resistance, and I think that processed sugar is problematic.

That was my first water fasting pee, guys. Sorry. I literally had a liter of fluid before we got on here.

That was pretty fast. That was a fast beat. Yeah, that was a very fast beat.

Sorry.

Prostate is healthy.

Hey, we're all best friends now, guys. So we broke the ice for the water fast.

Yeah. Gary, breakfast. Prostate is healthy. But I was just. I was saying, Gary, that I. I think that, like, processed sugar is a problem because of the way it affects the gut flora, but I don't think that things like. Personally, when I look at the literature, I don't think things like sweet potato or fruit or even honey are what causes us to become insulin resistant. I really get excited about membranes, and this is technical and kind of geeky, but I look at.

They're all geeks on here, buddy. Mitochondrial spirit animals.

Yeah. Mitochondrial membranes, I think, are where. Are kind of ground zero for insulin resistance. So maybe there are people listening to this on the call who have pre diabetes. You have a high fasting insulin. I really think that that physiology occurs in the cell membrane and the mitochondrial membrane. And these are fluid fat. These are fluid membranes of phospholipids. And those phospholipids have tails which are fatty acids. And so when we eat certain types of fats, the membranes become populated with those types of fats. And you guys have probably heard me talk about seed oils. The reason I think that seed oils are a problem for humans, and I apologize if I'm beating a dead horse here, is that when we eat seed oils, I think that we introduce an evolutionarily inappropriate amount of linoleic acid, this omega 6 polyunsaturated fat into our diets. And people don't understand this. That gets stored. That gets stored in your membranes. That gets stored in every cell in your body. Because we don't make polyunsaturated fats as humans, and we can't break them down quickly or easily. We can't bioconvert them. We can make saturated fats, and we can make monounsaturated fats as humans, but we can't make polyunsaturated fats. And this means that if you eat polyunsaturated fats, which are not toxic per se, but I'll say if you eat evolutionarily inappropriate amounts of polyunsaturated fats, you can end up putting those fats into your membranes. And I think that is really where our metabolism starts to be broken. And what's interesting about fasting is that fasting might be one of the fastest ways to accelerate the turnover of those membranes, to accelerate the re population of those membranes with less polyunsaturated fats. Because when you are fasting, you have to make fats on your own. Right. If humans are going to do de novo lipogenesis, if you're going to make fats on your own, you only make saturated fats, and then you can convert them to monounsaturated, you won't make more polyunsaturated fats. So it's interesting to think that if you're fasting, you're not taking in any polyunsaturated fats, and maybe you can turn over the mitochondrial or cellular membranes a little more quickly and begin to kind of correct the roots of the insulin resistance at the membranous level. Again, this is technical, but it's one of the things that's very fascinating to me about giving your body zero nutrients or really, really small, intentionally measured amounts of nutrients in a fasted state.

Yeah, I love that, man. We got a bunch of questions from YouTube. Some of these are great. Can we have coconut water during a fast?

Well, I mean.

No. I think the best answer is no.

I think coming from a guy who.

Actually travels with his own coconuts.

Yeah. Like, I've been coconuts. Yeah. So, like, basically it depends. Yeah, I think that, like, when you give yourself too many calories during a fast, you're going to change the fasting physiology. So that's what you're trying to be careful of. Especially carbohydrates during a fast are going to affect the fasting physiology. So coconut water definitely has carbohydrates. It definitely has, quote, sugars. Right. I think that when you're not fasting, coconut water is super healthy. But if you really want to lean into that fasting physiology, coconut water is not the best thing to drink. A little bit of water, preferably spring water with salt is a great thing. Bone broth is a great thing because you're really just getting a few amino acids in there in the bone broth. And I think protein is less likely to affect the physiology of your Fast than like straight carbohydrates. You know, you wouldn't really want to take a spoonful of honey during a fast if you're trying to leverage that, that ketotic physiology. I mean, I think honey is a great food for humans, but not necessarily when you're fasting.

Okay, can I still Zin, which I, I assume is the nicotine pouches?

Yeah, I mean, when you are fasting, you're, you're definitely dialing up, you know, your sympathetic nervous system, which is the, the fight or flight nervous system. This is. The catecholamines are part of the response to a fast. You know, a nicotine is going to add to that. I personally think that Zin is, is a little tricky for humans. It's addictive and it, it is habit forming and it's going to change your physiology. So maybe we can talk you off the ledge and talk you out of doing Zyn in the first place. But I mean, from my perspective, if, if you're just asking me the question of whether a Zyn is going to negatively affect your fasting physiology, I can't think of a way that it necessarily would. Do you, do you disagree, Gary?

I, I don't disagree with that. No. And I, I think, you know, anything that you can do to, to maintain your stability, you know, I told people, you continue to take your medications, I don't want you to just stop medications cold. And if you're regularly using Zen and it's something that you can't go without, you should probably continue it during your fast. It won't. I can't see a pathway to have it interrupt your fast. If you want it to also be the time that maybe you stop doing Zen, maybe this is the time. But you're going to have a lot to deal with just with hunger, cravings.

And everything going to be some withdrawal.

Yeah. So what are the best foods to break a fast with?

Well, you mentioned bone broth. If we think of that, I think it's the best as a food. Bone broth is a great way to do it. Simple, you know, obviously throughout the fast, because your insulin is going to drop very quickly when you're fasting. You are going to lose electrolytes. You want to think about electrolytes, so you want to think about a good quality salt that's been tested for metals, etc, and kind of go from there. But I think bone broth. And then I think you, you want to do probably, I would say slower carbohydrates up front, like maybe something with A little fiber before you do. A couple quick carbohydrate, like a honey, and then a little bit of protein and then kind of gradually step back into your other food.

Yeah, we're using a bone broth to ease in and eat out. Ease out of the fast. So I just think it's like nature's miracle food, sort of perfectly designed for fasting. Can I add honey back to my coffee? So that answer is no, but you can add honey back to your coffee when you're breaking your fast. That's just fine. What should I drink if I'm vegan?

There is no such thing as vegan collagen. I'm sorry, guys. Now this is my gentle reminder that perhaps animal foods are valuable for all humans. I respect intentionality, so I have to respect a vegan perspective. But I think that animal foods are very valuable for most humans and there just isn't such thing as vegan collagen. And I'll say a little bit about why collagen is valuable in a moment. If you are a vegan or you don't do any animal foods, you're kind of in that space where you're thinking about water, spring water and salt. And then maybe you'd want to think about like a low, a low glycemic index, like, quote, juice. Maybe you'd want to juice some vegetables or something. Maybe cucumber juice, off the top of my head would be a good one. Like you could juice a cucumber. This might be the way that I would start from a vegan perspective. But I've been thinking about collagen because recently there was a study that came out that said, oh, collagen is not beneficial for humans. And when you look carefully, I still think there's plenty of evidence that collagen is beneficial for humans. And collagen is a tripeptide. It's usually proline, hydroxyproline, glycine. There's different types of collagen. There's type one, type two, type three, type four, whatever. And they're all different permutations of an alpha helix type configuration. When you, when you eat collagen, those amino acids get broken down in your stomach, but there are still Di peptides of two amino acids that, that pass through your stomach, and those actually serve signaling roles in the human body. And those can actually bind to receptors that trigger the production of new collagen in your body. So this is really interesting that, that yes, when you eat a steak, it gets broken down into the component amino acids, but in that steak is collagen in the connective tissue. Or if you're taking a collagen supplement, that also will provide you with these tripeptides and the collagen. But you will break them down into dipeptides. And those dipeptides actually get into the body undigested, and they serve signaling roles and they have been shown to actually trigger the production of new collagen. So that's really interesting. That's really animal with an animal based sort of collagen. Right. And yeah.

Okay. Should I still do hot yoga during the fast?

From my perspective, this is living on the edge.

Yeah.

Because you are, you are much more likely during a fast to have electrolyte shifts and water shifts like we talked about. When you fast, your insulin will go down. And that is a good thing in the short term. But I learned this the hard way many years ago when I did a carnivore diet. When your insulin goes down, you don't get the same amount of signaling at the level of the kidneys to hold on to electrolytes. And when you don't hold on to electrolytes, sodium chloride, potassium, magnesium, you will waste the electrolytes. And that is a problem for humans. I ended up after a year plus on a carnivore diet with some pretty significant electrolyte issues. So this is the benefit of carbohydrates when you're not fasting. Insulin is not the enemy, per se. Right. Insulin is a, is a peptide hormone produced in your pancreas that you will die without. Insulin is not the enemy, and I don't think that insulin is the cause of insulin resistance. That's sort of what I was talking about a little earlier. But when you are fasting, your insulin will drop and that will cause you to waste electrolytes, which is why it's really important to pay attention to your, to your fluid status and your electrolyte repletion. If I did hot yoga when I was fasting, I would be in trouble because I sweat so much that it would be very difficult for me to manage my electrolytes in that way. Use with caution would be my perspective yet.

Yeah, I would agree with that. And there's something also called the keto flu, which is exactly what Paul is referring to, even though he didn't say it is. When your kidneys don't bind and they waste a lot of electrolyte, so which is why we're heavily replacing electrolytes during this fast, you get flu like symptoms. So if you've ever heard of the keto flu, when people go into ketosis, this has to do with a significant and rapid drop in sodium because of the kidney excretion. So one of the things we do to avoid keto flu and I've put literally thousands of people on 10 week ketogenic resets, especially if they have high fasted triglycerides and insulin resistance very, very successfully. And when we're doing this, we make certain that they are taking in plenty of electrolytes, especially sodium. You know, there's a lot of myths about sodium and it increases your blood pressure and you know, all kinds of things. That's, that's actually patently false. I'm glad you agree with that, Paul. You know, I say this all the time. If you were so, if your blood pressure was so high right now, if you had an emergency and you called 911 and the paramedics showed up, the first thing they would do to lower your high blood pressure is bag you with saline to lower your blood pressure. There's lots of evidence, there's a really interesting study published in the Wiley Journal of Headaches about how an inverse relationship between sodium and migraine headaches. An inverse relationship. Migraine headaches went up, sodium went down, migraine headaches went down as sodium went up. But during a fast, especially if this is your first time fasting, let's not put too much stress on our body. Walks, light stretching, light yoga, easy sessions in the gym. Not heavy weight bearing exercise, not heavy lifting. This is not the time to put more hormetic stress on your body because fasting is in itself a hormetic stress. So I have fatty liver. Is it good for me to fast?

Absolutely. That's a great thing. That's sort of perhaps top five, top three, you know, that's a great thing. Fatty liver is a manifestation of underlying insulin resistance systems. There's alcoholic fatty liver and there's non alcoholic fatty liver. So most people have non alcoholic fatty liver. I'm presuming this person has something called nafld. So non alcoholic fatty liver disease. And that is a manifestation in your liver of underlying insulin resistance. So how do you fix that? Well, you fix your underlying diet, but in the short term, fasting can be a very powerful tool to improve, improve your insulin sensitivity, to lower that insulin and probably to lower liver fat, even in the short term. Again, long term, the, the real crux of the issue is what you're eating day to day that is causing you to have fatty liver. In the short term. This is a great way to start NAFLD is top three. That's a. That's a perfect thing for fasting.

Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. Is there a recommendation for an alternative for body health? Perfect aminos that can be bought over the counter today?

I.

If you're in. If you're in the US and you have GoPuff, you can have them in 15 minutes or less. So the vast majority are of you are probably in a location where you get on Gopuff. I talk about the amino acids, all nine of the essential amino acids. It doesn't need to be body health by any means. So as long as you're getting all nine of the essential amino acids, and this is just what we're going to use, you know, initially, it doesn't break it fast. So we use these initially to make sure that we have of amino acid balance in the body. So what about getting IV fluids, excluding dextrose during the fast? But if I were to get an IV with vitamins included, Fine. I think so, too. Yeah, that one's fine by me, too.

Can I just add to your previous point, Gary, about sodium?

Yeah. Yes.

You know, we're told that sodium causes high blood pressure. You know, I went to medical school. This is what we're told. Somebody has high blood pressure, you limit their salt. Doesn't work, makes them lightheaded, lowers like all sorts of important things. Lowers fluid volume, increases erectile dysfunction, increases the risk of them falling. We call this, you know, like, basically there's fainting and then there's being lightheaded and increases the risk of lightheadedness. It increases aldosterone, which is many times interpreted as a stress hormone in the human body. If you limit your sodium, your body will essentially work very hard to hold on to sodium, and that will increase aldosterone. So you don't want your body to press aldosterone because that's just. It's a stress lever in the human body. So when you are insulin resistant, there is some physiology that causes you to hold on to sodium a little more avidly. And this may be part of the reason you have high blood pressure. There's also probably some things going on in the arterial wall that are problematic. Dysfunction of nitric oxide production and endothelium, et cetera. But it's kind of like carbohydrates and insulin resistance. I don't think carbohydrates cause insulin resistance. When you are insulin resistant, you don't handle carbohydrates very well. I don't think sodium causes high blood pressure. Which is another manifestation of insulin resistance. When you have high blood pressure, you don't necessarily manage, you don't do well with lots of salt. Doesn't mean you shouldn't eat zero salt. But again, we come back to the question or the crux of the matter, which is fix the underlying cause. It's not salt. And most of us do better with a little more salt than we think we should be eating. And if you have kidneys that work fine, you will excrete that salt.

I completely and totally, wholeheartedly agree with that. What is the difference between doing this and a juice fast?

Well, a juice fast is, is you're eliminating right whole, like solid food. A juice fast is not going to leverage ketogenic physiology in the same way. They probably both have their place. But a fast fast, which is what we'll call this, like a true fast, is completely different physiology. In the human body, if you juice fast, it will have different physiology. I suppose you're not getting any protein. You might trigger FGF 21 and things like this. But this is a completely different animal. Apples to oranges here.

Yeah. Are vitamins okay to take during a fast, like magnesium, zinc or my multivitamins?

I would say yes. I would also say that if your multivitamin has folic acid. You didn't listen to Gary. You need to throw it out.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Interestingly, the FDA just approved the first prescription strength folinic acid. I was like, hallelujah. As a frontline treatment for autism, guys. Because the data was clear that many, many, many autistic children responded very well to getting folic acid out of their diet and including something called folinic acid or methylfolate, which is essentially the converted form of folic acid and folate. Also, several people have asked if they should sauna today. So I sauna today, but on days two and days three, when we are actually fully water fasted again, I would just avoid that hormetic stress, less hormetic stress on our body just for this, the 48 hours of the true intentional part of the fast when we're not having bone broth. You know, I, I did work out this morning. I also am essentially fed because I'm. I'm having bone broth at noon and bone broth at 6pm tomorrow. I'm going to take it really easy. I'm just going to do a weighted rock walk outside in the sun. I will get a little bit of a sweat on, but I'm not actually trying to be panting and sprinting I'm just going to sort of ease, you know, my body light, gentle movement is amazing for you. I'm going to get sunlight, I'm going to do my breath work. I'm certainly either going to do a treadmill session if it's, you know, really nasty outside, or I'm going to get outside and, and do like a 3 or 4k walk tomorrow, in my case with a weighted vest. So we're just trying to take all of the regular hormetic stresses like intense exercise or hits cardio or hot yoga, and we're going to relax on that for, for the last 48 hours of the fast. So the, the last person said I'm nursing a leg injury. Will the fast affect this?

As long as you keep your fluid volume adequate, I don't think it's going to be a problem at all.

Yeah, yeah. And then the, the last question was, I'm on day two of my fast and I'm planning to do five days. But when I did my last five day water fast on day five, I got diarrhea. Why would this have happened?

I mean, there's a lot of reasons. I mean, who, who could speculate, you know.

Yeah.

Die off. Yeah.

I mean, think of the fact that you're actually just not taking in any solid food. So it's not, not surprising to have watery stools. I mean, not taking any fiber or any other, yeah. You know, bulk into the intestine. So I, I don't know that I would worry about that. I think anything over three days, especially anything over five days is what I would call a medical fast. And, and you, you should have some supervision. I think we're in a very safe strike zone here. Using a day to ease in and taking two days to, to water fast, which is why I chose a three day water fast because I think just about everybody can complete that. The other question was, can I have sparkling water while I'm fasting?

Absolutely.

Yeah, I believe that too. What is the science behind an increase in urine output with an increase in protein, amino acids? What is the science behind an increase in urine output with an increase in protein and amino acids?

I don't know. Is there science there? I mean, I suppose it could have some mechanism to level the kidney, but I'm not, I'm not familiar with that. Are you, Gary?

Yeah. I mean, I mean, proteinuria, which is protein in your urine, is, is not a normal condition. That's a sign of, you know, kidney dysfunction. But I'm not aware of any science behind increased urine Output with increase in protein and amino acids. So there may be some science behind that. I'm. I'm also unaware of it sounds like Paul is too.

So.

Yeah, you know, you stumped the masters today with that one.

I mean, I. Maybe there's a. I mean, maybe your body is just increasing, you know, getting that, getting the amino acid. I'm not sure I'd have to look at. I'm not sure exactly what they're referring to.

So can I add MCT oil to my coffee? And can we take long walks? So I'll take these separately and give Paul a chance to answer. You can certainly take long walks. No to adding MCT oils to your coffee. MCT oils are fine on your coffee on a normal basis, but we're actually trying to have the ketosis in the body. Normally, when you're in a state of ketosis or if you're on a ketogenic diet, you can put MCT oil in your coffee, but it would break a fast. Okay.

Yeah.

So last question. If I'm used to intermittent fasting, do I need to ease in with the bone broth? I would say no. You can actually just start your three day water fast and do all 72 hours with your spring and mineral waters. And you do not have to ease into that. If you're already somebody who actually eats in a time restricted window. Your body's used to actually switching to these different states into a ketotic state and into a carbohydrate state. So.

Yeah. Yeah. Gary, can I share something exciting with you that's not related to fasting?

Of course you can. Yeah. I thought you were going to put your foot in the screen there for a second.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm barefoot in Costa Rica, but no foot. Did you know that I made a movie?

No.

I made a movie and we just released the teaser trailer, so I'm excited.

Oh, right on.

Yeah. So the movie is called Food for Humans and we're doing a film tour. I was just so fed up with the, the documentaries that I saw on Netflix causing people to get. Do diets that I think are harming them. I think that the, that meat is so valuable for humans when we're eating and not fasting that I wanted to make a documentary showing how human health can be improved with the quality of food, simple food for humans. Right. And so we worked for this. We worked on this for two years. 85 people have worked on this movie. It's like, it's amazing. It's over 90 it's a full feature length documentary and we're doing a film tour. So in December I'm going to be in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix and la. And we're selling the tickets now. So I hope that I will see some of your community there. You can 100.

You will.

I hope I'll see you at one of these. You can let me know and you can share with your community if you can make any of them. But you can go.

Yeah. If your team can give us.

Okay, she's.

Malia's texting Martin now on your team because I'll put a, a link to this or you know, so that people can find out more about it. And, and, and how do they find out more about you? Like if there's someone on here right now that wants to take a deep, deeper dive with you, where, where can they find you?

You can buy tickets to the, to the premieres. I will be at all the premieres. I'll be doing exclusive Q and A's.

FoodForHumans.com and they're gonna sell out for humans dot com. Okay.

That's awesome. Dot com. Yep.

And where do they find you? Paul Saladino.

You can find me at Paul Saladino, MD, MD for Medical Doctor Salad. Like salad that I don't eat.

The guy that's on an animal based diet has salad in his name.

Yes. Yes. God.

God cursed you.

Yeah, God has a sense of humor. But yeah, God, I hope to see. Yeah.

The one thing you never see a.

Lot of you guys. I hope to see a lot of you guys at these film premieres because I really will. I'm really excited about. And if you go to foodforhumans.com you can see the teaser trailer. My dog is in the teaser trailer. He's really cute. His name is Zach. You guys can see, see it. Gary hasn't met my dog yet, but I hope he will soon. So that's awesome.

Paul, thank you so much for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule to share your expertise with my ultimate human community. I mean, the depth of knowledge that you brought just to this conversation is exactly why I respect your work so much. And we will give you some love and support on the documentary. Thank you, guys. Dude, you've given our community some great insights. They simply just can't get anywhere else. And I know this information is going to make the difference when people are trying to complete this fast and they're truly trying to optimize their metabolic health for years to come. So thank you so much. Brother is There anything else you want to add before we go?

No, it's good to see you. I just. I'm just going to add that I hope I get to see you in person soon. It's been too long since I've given you a hug.

Yeah, you used to stay at my house and drink all my raw milk.

All the time, but now you got.

A direct relationship with Southwest Ranches. You don't call me anymore.

I mean, I. I'm gonna. The next time I'm in Miami, I'll. Hopefully I'll cross paths with you.

Yeah, you just. You. You got. You got my connect, and now you're gone direct, and there's no. You don't need the middleman. You don't need breakfast.

I love. No. I always want to see you guys. I miss you. So hopefully we'll get to hang out soon.

Miss you too, brother. We'll talk very soon, man. Thank you so much.

Good to see you guys. Good luck to everyone with the fast, and, you know, you guys are all taking, like, an incredibly intentional step in the right direction. So my best to all of you, and hopefully I see you guys on tour. Foodforhumans.com I want to see you for the movie, and everybody's gonna love it. So bye, guys.

All right, thanks, Paul. What an awesome human, man. Hey, so now let me take you guys on a journey through the incredible history and science of fasting. Because what we're doing is. Is not new. It's. It's ancient wisdom, and it's backed by modern research. You know, I. I often will say, things that have stuck around for thousands and thousands of years have probably stuck around for thousands and thousands of years because they work, not because they don't work. In fact, fasting has been practiced for over 200, 000 years from Hippocrates, who said, healing is a matter of time, but it's sometimes also a matter of opportunity. So when he. He would say that, when he would prescribe fasting to his patients, Pythagoras required his students to fast for 40 days before taking exams because he believed that it enhanced their mental clarity. But here's what's fascinating. Modern science is proving that these ancient practitioners were absolutely right. In fact, a lot of that is happening now at Health and Human Services. We're realizing there is no way to eat our way around poor sleep. There's no way to sleep our way around a poor diet. There's no substitute for mobility. The blue zones prove this. There was a landmark study in 2016 in Cell in the journal Cell that showed that just 72 hours of fasting, which you guys are going to do today, can regenerate the entire immune system by triggering STEM cell production. Dr. Valter Longo, the PhD researcher at USC, demonstrated that fasting for 72 hours forces the body to use up stored glucose and fat, but more importantly, it breaks down old immune cells and generates new ones. The Nobel Prize in physiology guys was awarded in 2016 to Joshua Ashumi for for discovering the mechanism of autophagy. That's the very process we're triggering right now. A 2019 study in the New England Journal of Medicine even showed that intermittent fasting and periodic fasting improve cardiovascular health. It reduced inflammation and actually extended lifespan, something that statins have not been proven to do. So we're not experimenting, we're actually following protocols have been validated for thousands and thousands of years through human experience and decades of peer reviewed research. So now let me address just a couple specific concerns before we go. If you're hungrier than expected today, that is completely normal. The bone broth will help stabilize you. If you have a slight headache, immediately just add more Baja Gold sea salt to your water because it's usually electrolyte related. If you're experiencing an energy crash around 2pm, just consider having your second bone broth a little earlier than 6pm you're just actually getting in and out of the fasted state faster than most people. So if you're having trouble focusing at work or try taking your H2 tab in divided doses throughout the day. You can have an additional H2 tab later in the day if you feel like you're having trouble focusing or concentrating. This is elemental magnesium and hydrogen gas. It will not break a fast. Remember, everyone's biochemistry is a little bit different, which is why I personalized why, you know, the personalized guidance we're going to do over the next few days matters. This level of customization is exactly what separates successful fasters from those who quit on day two. And I don't want any of you to quit on day two. So while we wrap up day one for my free audience on YouTube, Ultimate Humans, you have officially begun your transformation. I am super proud of every single one of you. Here's what's happening in your body right now as we speak. Your insulin levels are dropping, your glycogen stores are being depleted, your liver is preparing to produce ketone bodies called beta hydroxybutyrate, and your cellular cleanup has already started. So you're not just surviving today, you're Thriving. You're proving that you can prioritize long term health over short term comfort. It is going to be a little bit uncomfortable, but I want us to push through this together as a, as a group. Tomorrow we'll be, we'll remove the training wheels. We're going to transition to the full water fast, where the real magic begins. So get some great sleep tonight because your body does it best. It does the best healing when you're actually sleeping. So tomorrow we actually enter the detox zone. So before you go, I also need to tell you something about my VIP group. My VIP members, a lot of which are on here now, are staying on with me for another two hours. And we're going to do advanced content that I just can't share in the public domain on YouTube. We're diving deep into hormone optimization strategies. We're going to talk about personalized troubleshooting for your specific biochemistry and complete the seven day refeeding protocol that determines whether you keep these benefits long term or not. So my VIPs also get direct access to me for live Q&As. We do extended time with our expert guests. We do detailed preparation strategies for day two that a lot of people miss. So the difference between those who succeed and those who fail at fasting often comes down to the details. So my VIP community, I pour myself into this community. I'm trying to grow this to hundreds of thousands of people and create a movement across the world focused on optimizing our health. This is the most incredible community, guys. When you hear the stories of life transformation in this community, people that had autoimmune diseases that no longer have them, people that have lost weight, they have figured out their hormones, they have gone through menopause successfully. And if you're serious about, you know, maximizing this experience, just join me now for my VIP group. My team is posting the links in the chat now. And so VIP members please stay on. We're going to just take a 10 minute break. I'm going to use the restroom again. I'm going to get some more water. I'm going to finish my bone broth and I will see all of the VIPs back here in 10 minutes. The rest of you guys, I will see you all tomorrow at noon. Good luck, stay fasted. We will get through this together.