#114 - Dr. Jason Fung: Do Women Need to Fast Differently?

Hi, my name is Jorge Cruise, and I'm the number one New York Times bestselling author and leading fitness, nutrition, and peak performance trainer to the world's busiest celebrities. You may have seen my work with Oprah Winfrey, Khloe Kardashian, Tyra Banks, Kelly Clarkson, or even Dr. Oz. My career started because in my early 20s, I was out of control and addicted to sweets, carbs and salty snacks, and experts told me to simply count calories to get control.

They were wrong.

My passion to get control of my hunger led me to find simple ways backed by science that would turn off physical hunger as well as my emotional eating instantly. And I know I can help you too. Welcome to the Jorge Cruise Show. Well, happy Monday, Hey, it's March 1st. Welcome to the Jorge Cruise Show. I'm Jorge. I'm thrilled you're here right now. This is the number one podcast to help you overcome addictions to sugar, carbs, salty snack foods, and more importantly, it's also home of the Zero Hunger Plan, which will help you drop 2 pounds each day. Yeah, you heard me right, 2 pounds each day. We do it through this process I call a zero hunger window that's 23 hours. Most people call it what I call the F word, which is fasting, but it's a 23-hour window that we do fasting. Asking for, all with no hunger. And that's why the plan's called Zero Hunger. And on today's show, guys, we are talking to the world's premier expert. When I mean premier, this is the number one guy on Earth. There's really no one that has a higher level of experience, um, background. He's a doctor. He's in Toronto, Canada. His name is Dr. Jason Fung. He's been on the show multiple times. Today we address what I think is critical because the majority of my listeners on the show here are women. So ladies, we are talking about really not just do you have to fast differently as a woman, but also the benefits to fasting for women and men. You know, I'm— hey, I represent the guys, but my audience has always been women. And I will tell you that you're also going to discover one key element of what I do every week, which is an extended fast. Now, some of my clients will do the OMAD, the one meal a day, which is what I typically do most days of the week. But starting on Sunday nights, I always have my last meal and then I won't I don't eat again until Wednesday. That's called an extended fast. It's a 3-day zero-hunger window. And for the 3 days, I have no hunger. Now, again, this is all due to the mineral deficiency correction that we take care of. If you guys don't know about Zero Hunger Water, it was recently featured last month, um, in Woman's World magazine. And it's really a simple way to turn off hunger and has nothing to do with counting calories, has nothing to do with fiber, and it really is breakthrough. So all that on today's show, guys. Before we get started this Monday, I have to thank our sponsors. And I also want to wish wish a very happy birthday to Anthony Robbins. He's born on leap year, so on February 29th, and today is March 1st. My birthday is a Saturday, so we're kind of Pisces brothers. And I love Tony Robbins. He's a sponsor of the show. His team is extending to us a $3,300 discount for this Thursday, guys, March 4th. This is incredible. I, I brought my manual to show you guys. Incredible. That— can you guys see that there? It's called Unleash The Power Within. I attended this last year. It is a virtual event. It is extraordinary. It will help you realize not that just the universe is inside of you, that this unlimited power, but it'll help you unleash it. Because a lot of times we need some sort of what therapists would call behavioral cognitive therapy, which are just a thinking structure to release, um, fear and to really be unstoppable. Sometimes we need more, sometimes we got to go in deeper, but Tony does some incredible work. And in just 4 days, you can transform that energy in you. And he's giving us this massive discount. So check it out. I want you to go to his website. He made a special link for us. And again, it's Tony's birthday. So happy birthday, Tony. He's 60, I think 61 years young today. Not that it counts, because he only has a birthday, I think, with leap year every 4 years. So I, I wish I was born on February 29th. But regardless, guys, check this out. The URL is upwvirtual.com.

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His team made that special for us. If you go to that website link, I'm going to read it to you again, upwvirtual.com/jorge. What will happen is you'll have options, but the option that is the most popular is the one where you save $3,300, and it's this Thursday, March 4th. And that is how I'm spending my 50th birthday, is with Tony. My birthday's on March 6th. The event ends on March 7th. You'll find out everything you need at this link. Check it out. Money-back guarantee too, guys. And it is a transformational event. So thank you to Tony and his team for extending this incredible discount to us, um, as we start March. All right, guys, we're also brought to you by, uh, my favorite Elemental Labs. Elemental Labs is how I start my day every morning. I'm actually in a pinch, so I actually made some here. This is my zero hunger water, 32 ounces of water, and then I had a packet of the Elemental Labs, um, electrolytes. Now the electrolytes have what I would call the secret sauce in which isn't a secret, because if you picked up Woman's World magazine, you know I gave away the recipe for free. And if you wanna know how to make Zero Hunger Water so you can turn off hunger and not have to worry about hunger, whether you're doing a 1-day fast or a 3-day one like me, you gotta check it out. You can go to zerohungerplan.com to get that free recipe. But if you're in a pinch, what I use is Robb Wolf's Elemental Labs. And Elemental Labs make these little packets on the go. They're flavored. They have the right amount of sodium, magnesium, and potassium, which we must have have to turn off hunger. And a lot of us are scared about, you know, high blood pressure and salt. That is a myth, guys. Sodium, when it's not paired with a high insulin environment, which our diet does not really incorporate, even though we have a Carb Lovers Diet and we have Mediterranean and we have Meat Lovers, we utilize the lowest carbs possible because it's only when you go high sugar, high carb, that blood pressure goes up with salt. So there's no issues on that. And in our newsletter that's going out today, you'll learn about that. If you haven't signed up Check it out. But Elemental Labs is incredible. Check it out. They're giving us a free $45 value bundle box when you get the value bundle kit. So check it. I have a URL for you, very much like Tony Robbins's. It is drinkelement.com/jorge. Let me spell it for you. It's D-R-I-N-K-L as in Larry, M as in Mary, N as in Nancy, T as in Tom, dot com forward slash Jorge, J-O-R-G-E. You go to that URL, you have two options. Scroll to the bottom to get the the value bundle kit where you get a free box of electrolytes. And what's best of all is you can customize these kits. So when you get your boxes of electrolytes and they'll last you the whole month if you do the value bundle, you literally can make it all chocolate. There are months I do that. I have a lot of chocolate for March being my birthday month, but I also like their salty citrus. There's so many delicious varieties, guys. Check it out. You can customize your value bundle too. So check it out. And again, you get a free box. It's a $45 value at Elemental Labs. Electrolytes. So amazing. And thank you to Robb Wolf for that. We're also brought to you by Julian Bakery. Julian Bakery is what I use and what I will be using this Saturday. I'm having a little game night with some of my dearest friends, small game night. We're not doing anything fancy at my house. And instead of having a traditional cake, my favorite used to be the chocolate cake at Costco. I know it's only $14, but oh, it's so good. It's like, do you guys remember Ding Dongs? 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And then the coupon code is my name, Jorge Cruise, the full name, all one word. Do it all caps just to be safe. J-O-R-G-E-C-R-U-I-S-E. And you're set. 10% off. Try their bread too. Oh, not that I eat a lot of bread, but when I have bread— and I'll be having bread this weekend. I'm in a 3-day window right now, zero hunger window, so I won't eat till Wednesday. But this weekend, um, I have some friends coming in, flying in to my 50th, so we are going to be eating cake and bread, but also a lot of good bites because I'm a big fan of high protein. You guys know that. So with that said, guys, uh, let's get to today's show. Welcome everyone to a really special podcast. One of my dearest friends over the last year through COVID and even before is back on the show, Dr. Jason Fung. You guys know him. He's truly the world's leading expert, uh, and doctor when it comes to fasting. And, you know, fasting has become such an interesting, um, distinction and tool to help people improve their health and controversial. I know when we spoke last, we talked about the New York Times and how they did a study or they reported on study. And Jason and I talked about that. If you guys missed it, that was our last interview. But I think Dr. Fung is on the line. Dr. Fung, Jason, are you there?

Hey, great to be here.

Hey, happy New Year 2021, right?

Happy New Year to you too.

Well, and I'm excited because I think this is the year that we can utilize all our distinctions, hopefully, like the Super Friends. I feel like I've been talking to so many great people, and you truly are the Superman of of fasting or the Batman. Do you prefer Batman or Superman? Which one would you be? No one's asked you that question before, right?

But I think it's, uh, Super Friends is great. I used to watch that show, right?

The cartoons, right? Yes. And that Hall of Justice, do you remember that? And the Wonder Twins. I always remember the Wonder Twins. Activate!

Yeah, they never came back though.

But what happened to them? Yeah, I bet you they're coming back one day, don't you think?

They'll have a movie. Yeah, they'll have a movie. Everybody else had their movie.

Everyone, everyone. So, well, we've got, uh, well, which one would you be if you had to pick one? Superman, Batman, or do you have a preference?

I don't have a real preference. I mean, I like them all.

They were all— yeah, yeah. Well, I think of you the Superman of, of intermittent fasting. And so on today's show, we're going to be talking, uh, about women's fasting. I thought, Jason, because I have a lot of women in midlife and they have some questions, and then extend fasting, extended fasting. And I know you're also an expert on that. You lead these incredible medical, um, I mean, I don't know if you call them a retreat, but they're interventions. People work with you. And I think you are the premier guy that does this. And I think people know this and you're the author of some incredible bestselling books. So I'm just so honored you're here, Jason, and to help us understand, uh, this tech, this technique that so many people, I mean, briefly, do you remember what the New York Times said? And not to start with something old, but I, have you heard more on that? Are people still misinformed about intermittent fasting? And then let's dive into some questions I have here, but how are we since our last conversation, Jason?

Yeah. I mean, the thing is that, you know, they do these studies and the way they set them up can really influence the result. And so it was sort of a negative study and they said, oh, maybe there's a problem with loss of lean mass.

And remind people what study this was in or what journal, because the New York Times reported on it, But it wasn't that.

No, it was, I think, in the Journal of the American Medical Association or one fairly prominent medical.

Yeah. Yeah.

But the thing about these nutrition studies is that they're very, very hard to design. And if you remember, the issue there was the way they sort of set it up that the people who are fasting, they're doing the 16:8 fast, which is 16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of eating. They sort of told them, well, you can eat whatever you want. So if you're eating pizza and donuts all through that 8 hours, well, you're not going to lose a lot of weight.

And there was a word that you taught me. What was the word for that kind of—

it was ad libitum. So this is the technical term. So it's to your heart's content, basically. So that was the instruction. So we don't know what they ate, actually. They might have been eating great sort of foods, but they might also have been eating— so we just don't know.

They could have been doing Domino's pizza and Ben Jerry's. I mean, why do I feel like That happens sometimes, especially when people are overweight, right? I mean, it works, it makes you feel good, but continue, continue.

And that was the issue. So that was the way they had set it up. And, um, you know, and, and, and sort of, I agree with that result. If you tell people, okay, you can eat from 12 to 8 and you can eat as much as you want, whenever you want. Well, you know, if you tell me, hey, that's the study, I'd be like, yeah, sure. You know, let me go, let me have potato chips and Ben Jerry's, please bring me a pint. I'm ready. Yeah, exactly. Because that's the study. And they think it's going to work just fine. It's like, I could have told you it's not going to work. Like, you know, you can't eat all that stuff. So we don't know what people are actually eating. So then they say, well, the fasting doesn't work. It's like, well, duh, you know, weight loss is about two things. It's about what you eat. And it's about when you eat, like how often you go. So if you're eating and they're two different, they're completely different. So you could eat good food and not fast and do well, and you could eat sort of very, very sparsely, like fast a lot and, you know, still do very well. So there are two different levers. So if you have both of them in the sort of optimal setting for weight loss, that is eating really good food and fasting a lot, then sure, you can lose way. If you do sort of one, but not the other. So fast a lot, but have really bad food or not fast and have really good food, you know, one up, one down might be good. You have both, like you're eating all the time and you're eating bad food. Well, then you're going to do really bad. So there are two different things and you can't really separate them because they're both important. So what they did of course was they allowed you, they said, okay, you have to fast. But then they said, eat whatever you want. And it's like, well, you know, well, I don't know how valid that is. So the point is that, you know, there was a little bit of negativity around it. And I have a feeling that a lot of it is just due to the inherent bias of people, that people need to eat all the time, like eat 10 times a day, because this is sort of like it became very in vogue for a couple of years.

And not just by dietitians and weight loss experts, but by actual doctors. And it seemed to be the— how would you describe it? Not the mantra of our, of our civilized world, but it almost became where We were not capable of going 3 hours without eating a peanut or something. It's literally, we would pass out. I mean, I don't know who created this. I always say during the Victorian time period, do you think it could have been at least kicked off by, do you remember Harvey Kellogg in his sanitarium, right?

Oh yeah.

And the invention of the breakfast. He correct, I believe he coined the term. It was 2 words before, right? Bruck.

Yeah.

Fat breaking the fast.

Fast. Thank you.

You know, but, and he got cereal to sell. So I feel like, uh, there's one meal that we didn't eat before the 1910s or. Right. Because when did people start eating breakfast? It was in this, in the 19— it was what, 1920, 19, like around that time.

It was, it was variable depending on where you were, but a lot of people would sort of like in the fields, they would eat very early and then not eat almost the whole day because they're in the fields and then working until they came back. So yes, they were eating early, but then there's a huge stretch. They weren't eating lunch because they're out in the fields. Right. So that was in the 1920s. Probably.

Yeah.

And of course, then it was sort of, you know, '60s, '50s, '60s, '70s, you're talking 3 meals a day, but no snacks. So breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And if you remember, that's still about a 14-hour fast. So remember in the '60s and '70s, of course you're eating dinner a bit earlier because the moms were not working at that era. So you're eating at around 6 o'clock, right? The dad would get home at 5:30, boom, and eat, have dinner.

And the moms would tell the kids, what would they tell them? Right. If they wanted a snack, right.

If you wanted a snack after school, it's like, no, you're going to ruin your dinner. And if you want to snack after, you know, at bedtime, they'd say, no, you should eat more at dinner. Right. So it's very, very frowned upon. So if you didn't eat dinner until— if you ate dinner at 6 and didn't eat again until say 8:00 AM, right. Breakfast time, you're talking about a 14-hour period of fasting every single day without even thinking about it. So that's sort of like standard. Okay. And then you get into the 2000s where all of a sudden, I mean, you look at the kids and the schools, they're like, oh, make sure you eat breakfast. If you don't eat breakfast, I'm going to yell at you. Like, seriously, they're just going to come down on you.

It's almost called, what do they call that? It's like eating, shaming you for not eating.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was terrible. It still is to some extent, but it's like, yeah, if you didn't eat breakfast, if you didn't have your kid eat a full breakfast, it was almost like the world's worst parent.

Right. Yeah. It was like child abuse, literally child abuse. And then you're a horrible parent. Horrible, horrible parents. And PS, for all the parents listening, is it okay that they don't do that? I mean, that was all— I hate to say, uh, misunderstandings, or can we just say it was BS?

I mean, yeah, I mean, if you wanted to eat breakfast, I'm okay with that. If you didn't want to eat breakfast, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, that for most of the last 10 years, right? And hasn't affected me.

Yeah. And so now rewind it all the way up to today. I feel like I remember before COVID but The Taco Bell invented the fourth meal. And yeah, we're already having 6 meals. And, you know, they're telling people to eat at midnight, you know, go to Taco Bell and eat at midnight. I'm like, what? You should be sleeping. Yeah.

And the thing is that it's sort of nuts because not only did— okay, so say you did eat breakfast, they'd still give the kids a mid-morning snack, right? So at recess or whatever, instead of just going out and playing, which is what I did, right? Recess, they booted you out into yard, no matter what temperature. It could be a blizzard. It could be so icy, they didn't care.

Go play. Yeah.

Anyway, yeah, with minimal supervision, which was good too.

Yeah.

But the thing is that now you get like a snack at recess and then you have lunch and then you have a snack if you're in the afternoon.

It's almost like a feeding time. It's not even recess, it's eating time, right? Have a snack, have a snack, have a snack.

And then dinner, you'd have a snack. And then if you didn't have a bedtime snack, again, you're the world's worst parent sort of thing. Like, okay, now— and the studies show this, that people are eating sort of like 6 times a day. And it was never backed by any science. Like, it wasn't that they did a study and said, oh, wow, eating 6 times a day is great for you. And nobody in history had ever done it because there is work to do.

I mean, we go back to— we look back, Paleolithic man, thousands of years. I mean, of course, I mean, we didn't go that far back, but ancient man, how many times a day did they eat, Jason? Honestly, come on. Like once a day, maybe.

And if you didn't catch something, you might not even eat that day. Yeah.

I mean, there was no refrigerator. Waiter to eat or no coffee. There was no nothing. I mean, you just got to go get it.

And all of a sudden we came into this culture of the, say, '90s and 2000s where really, if you didn't eat, you were just abusing kids. It's like, okay, you remember back in the day, '60s and '70s. So this is, again, if you were a bad boy, you got sent to bed without dinner. So you didn't eat from 12 until 8. So 20 hours of fasting. And we didn't think it was child abuse. We just thought it was nothing. Like, people are simply not allowed to be hungry anymore. And the other thing, of course, is that why do you think people carry body fat? Why do you think our body carries body fat?

Well, tell us, Jason. Here we go.

That's all it is. That's purely all it is.

It's like overfueling your car and putting gas in it every 10 minutes. And it's like, no, you can go 250, 250 miles, 300 miles without refueling. Can you imagine if you kept putting gas pass every 3 hours when you're driving?

Yeah. It'd be like, where would it go?

Where would it go? Right. You'd explode.

You'd explode. And it'd be so inconvenient. And yet that's what we did to our body. We said, oh, you cannot let your body go more than 3 hours without stuffing some kind of muffin in your mouth or something like that. And it's like, no, our body is built to handle these periods. In fact, it should be very healthy. In the '70s, we had 14 hours every single night. I mean, sure. If you had, you know, a special occasion, you'd eat later or whatever, but in general, that was the sort of baseline. And because it was the habit, it was not hard because you're used to doing it. Everybody you know is doing it. Your parents are doing it. Your siblings are doing it. Your friends are doing it. It just was not a big deal. So the point is you have to remember that your body really exists in two states. 2 states from a body fat standpoint. You're either storing those calories or you're burning those calories. That's it. So when you're eating, you're going to store those calories. When you're not eating, you're going to burn those calories.

So I love talking to you, Jason. You make things so simple. I mean, that's the thing I learned years ago from Oprah. And, you know, she's successful at communicating. She always told me, keep it simple. And that is simple. So may I segue to my first question? I think it's a great bridge. So, you know, I work with a lot of women in that age group, like Oprah, in their 60s. I have women in their early 50s starting to go through perimenopause. There are a lot of doctors now that have shows and talk about fasting and how women, you know, young women, middle-aged women, women that have been through menopause— oh gosh, you have to be cautious, you have to eat, you have to fast at a special way. And I thought we would start with that question. Do women, first of all— I mean, I can't— I'm going back to my ancient brain here, or, uh, you know, Paleolithic men and women. I can't imagine they had different eating plans in ancient times. They're like, well, you're a woman, you're gonna, you're gonna eat twice as much. And, you know, I'm, I'm a man, and oh no, I'm gonna eat once, and I'm stronger than you. And now that you're going through perimenopause— and yes, it's true, probably Paleolithic women didn't make it to 50, probably, right? I think the age lifespan back then was, what, 30 or 40, right, Jason?

Yeah. I mean, obviously we live a lot longer now, but the, your point is well taken when you talk about—

take it, take it away, Jason, please.

Uh, women versus men. There are differences, of course, women versus men. There's difference in sex hormones, for example, estrogen, progesterone versus testosterone and so on. But the main hormones that we're talking about in terms of weight gain, weight loss, which is things like insulin and growth hormone, all that, there's actually no big weight loss differences. Now, that's not to say that the sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, don't make a difference in weight gain. So if you think about puberty, for example, when you go from prepubertal girls, you know, their levels of fat are about the same as prepubertal boys. As soon as you get to puberty, there's a huge split. So women tend to gain more fat. Fat, especially in the breasts and the hips. And men tend— boys tend to get more muscle. That's just what happens. And it's probably due to the testosterone in the boys and the estrogen in the girls.

And with all the intention that we're here to reproduce and put more humans on the earth. I mean, that was our—

exactly. So they're trying to—

game plan back in the day.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's— this is what happens. So therefore, there is clearly an influence influence of the sex hormones on body fat. So therefore, you know, when people go through menopause, certainly you may have more trouble losing weight. I don't deny it. I just can't do anything about that.

Yeah. And there's nothing that you've got to do to trick the body because now that you're a woman in midlife, that, well, let's— here's the trick. Here's the biohack because you're old now. It's just going to be harder. I mean, I hate to say it, but I'm going to be 50 next month, you know, and I feel like You know, it's— I'm not 20, I get it. I'm 50, and I see the guys at the gym doing, you know, I do kettlebell swings or burpees, and I can keep up with them, but I got to work a little harder. I'm 50, you know, and what am I supposed to do, like, just put stem cells in me? And we know when we do— and we're going to talk about, if you don't mind, the next question is about extended fasting, 3 days and up, and all that, and stem cells. But I do those sometimes, and, and I feel good, but I know— I mean, how would how would you— so for any woman, let's focus in on the women in midlife and fasting. And, you know, there are experts, women fasting experts, I'm not going to mention names, um, and you've probably been on some of their shows that say, oh no, no, no, you have to fast differently. We have to do a pattern of, you know, we got to do a, you know, a 5-1-1 or 4-1-1 where you do this for 4 days and you do this. I mean, is it— it's complicated. I know Oprah would not approve of She would say, keep it simple. Do we keep it simple or do we—

I would keep it simple because the thing about the fasting regimens is everybody reacts differently. So, you know, whatever regimen that you put together, it may or may not work for you. You actually have to try it and see if it works for me. It may not work for you. It's just the way it is. It's like, you know, some people like vanilla ice cream and some people like chocolate. You can't turn somebody who loves vanilla ice cream into somebody who loves chocolate.

And for the ladies out there, they're— because they're tough on themselves, Jason. I don't interrupt, but add this if you would with what you were saying, because I feel like the way they judge whether— like an OMAD does— was I have a lot of my clients that do the OMAD, eat one meal a day. And I know that's not a huge stress on the body. It's not like the 3-day fast. And they're seeing great results. They're maybe 5 pounds from their weight goal, like, and we're talking high school weight. And these are women in their 50s, so they're doing great. They're not overweight, they're not obese, they're so beautiful. And, and, you know, and I get it. I have a little bit of, you know, side I have back fat and I'm 50, but yeah, I'm okay with it. It's not that bad. I look pretty darn good if I take a selfie, if I stand up tall, you know. So I tell them it's okay, and it may take a little more time to get rid of those last 5 pounds if you're in midlife or going through perimenopause or, or menopause, or— and I have some clients that have had hysterectomies, you know, and so it's going to be a little harder. So what would you tell these women that are that plateau and it's 5 pounds away from, you know, high school weight. I mean, I feel like wouldn't we all like to be at our high school appearance and youth? Is that— are we unrealistic? I hate to tell a woman not to get her goal or just be more patient, or what would be your suggestion?

Yeah, there's a few things that you can do in terms of the plateau. And, you know, there's really only a few things, sort of levers to sort of juggle here. So one is changing up the foods that you eat. So that's the diet. So, of course, changing it up, you can change to a different diet and there's a ton of diets out there. You can choose whatever you want to choose.

Sure.

The other one in terms of the diet is the sweeteners trip up a lot of people. People think the sweeteners are great and so on. Cutting that out can really go a long way.

Would you mind getting a little more specific? Because I've always been against the pink packets, the blue ones and the yellows. But I know stevia and monk fruit are controversial because they are plant-based. But would you include that or exclude?

Yeah, I would, I would include them as well. So just all of those sweeteners, of course, they make you really want to eat. That's what appetizers are. That's what they do. When you eat something sweet, you want something more sweet. I remember when I was a kid, I used to drink a lot of juice and stuff. Yes, it was healthy back then, right? So you drink a lot of juice. I thought water tasted horrible.

Like, oh, Jason, yeah, I think a lot of women are saying, Jason, it's just like us. Because I think people, and women in particular, they like— what would you call it— variety, or they like some excitement. And water, I hate to say it, at least the old Jason Fung— the— how old are you, like a teenager?

Or— no, I'm almost 52.

No, no, not you, but back when you hated water.

Oh, back then I was like, you know, yeah, as a teenager.

And you hated water? Really? Really, Jason? It's okay to say.

Yeah, I thought it was terrible. I thought it tasted awful. But of course, back then everybody drank juice. Like, yeah, we told our kids to drink apple juice and stuff.

Right. For sure.

You're getting a lot of sugar. But the point is that your, your, your taste buds sort of change and that sweetness actually makes you want to take more sweet stuff. And that trips up a lot of people. So you can change—

Even if it has zero calories, right?

Even if it has zero calories.

And then you end up— Go ahead.

That's why if you look at like how many people have ever said to you? Oh, I just switched to Diet Coke and lost 25 pounds. Like zero people. Like how many people have probably tried that? Like, I don't know, 1,000 people. And of those 1,000 people, like zero. You know, it's, it's, it's one of the things that is really a trap to think that, oh, because it has zero calories, it's not going to do anything else for you. If it makes you hungry and want to eat, then it's going to work against you.

So I hate to ask you, we have to do with the Jason Fung, the teenage Jason Fung didn't like to do. And just know that we don't need— I mean, I hate to say you just have to drink it without sweeteners, right? Drink your waters, your electrolytes unsweetened, right, Jason? Is that the take-home right now?

And that's what I do all the time now. And of course, I switched to a lot of tea, so things like herbal teas and stuff, mint tea.

There's tons of unsweetened— underline unsweetened. And even the And even though people have talked about stevia and monk fruit, one more time, really don't do that because it's, it's not so much that it's a natural source, but it's that it causes it to taste sweet.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's the sweetness.

Yeah. And not everybody's good. Like, some people will take it and have no problem with it. And if you have no problem with it, go ahead. But if you are struggling to lose that last few pounds, and that's one of the things that you can try and see if it really works.

I love that.

So that's your diet. The second is your fasting. You can change it up. You can do more fasting. You could do shorter, more frequent fasts, or you could do extended fasting, something that not a lot of people have done. Yeah. Sort of extended 3 to 5 day fast.

I want to talk about this.

Very powerful. And then the third thing, which people always forget is— What?

What?

It's stress and sleep make a huge, huge difference to weight loss.

Oh, I think you've hit the nail on the head because I want to tell you, these were Women, they're not sleeping right now. And we'll go ahead to tell us, say one more time. So the big thing is sleep and, and it's, it's all the stress.

So the stress hormones. So we can study this very easily. Cortisol is the sort of hormone that gets released when you're under stress. And if you give synthetic hormone, synthetic cortisol, which is prednisone, it's a standard medication used for lots of different things, asthma and all kinds.

And I have certain women that are taking estrogen patches. Is that screw up the body too if they're trying to lose weight or not?

Um, it can certainly, because again, it's just those— the estrogen, progesterone, sex hormones do play a role in determining body fat. That's the puberty, right?

When that makes sense because it makes your body— it mimics it when it was younger, right?

Yeah.

And so you're going to be more curvy, more curvy, right?

Yeah. And, and when you go through menopause, some people— there's all those, but that may also make it difficult to lose weight.

Say that one more time, Jason. We lost audio just for a second. We dropped.

Sorry. So in menopause, so there's a lot of changes that go on in menopause as well. And some people, a lot of people notice that it's harder to lose weight and so on. Again, it's, it's those sex hormones do play a role in how much body fat you have. So it's not like your imagination. Tons of people notice it, then there's a good reason for that because they do play a role. The question is, can I do something about it? It's natural. I can't do anything about it. We stopped giving hormone replacement for everybody like 25 years ago. The issue is you have to work with that as best as you can.

Do you encourage or not encourage women to do estrogen replacement or men to do testosterone replacement? What do you think?

Yeah, that's a very controversial area, actually.

I know. Give us two cents on it because I know that's not your wheelhouse, but you know about it, right?

Yeah, testosterone replacement was very popular for— so both of them were extremely popular like 25 years ago.

Wow.

Then they completely fell out of favor. So the reason is, of course, so everybody wound up on estrogen replacement. So like practically 90% of postmenopausal women about 25 years ago were on estrogen replacement, like my mom was, for example.

Everybody was.

And of course, then their studies showed that one, it didn't reduce heart attacks because they thought it would reduce heart attacks.

It didn't.

But it might increase your risk of breast cancer.

And pardon my language.

So what was the last one? Blood clots. So blood clots and breast cancer were increased risk with estrogen replacement.

And women were doing it with the positive intention. I mean, your mother was doing this to feel younger, to have more— what was the intention?

It was— the intention was to reduce heart attacks. So 25 years ago when I was in medical school, it was standard treatment. You get— when you were menopausal, you got estrogen replacement because we thought it would reduce your risk of heart attacks. Turns out it probably increased your risk of heart attacks and increased your risk of breast cancer. Wow. So then about 15 years ago, practically every woman got taken off of it because the breast cancer thing was super scary. Breast cancer rates actually dropped quite a bit right after that, which is— so it probably was increasing the risk of breast cancer, which is scary, scary, scary stuff. So of course almost everybody got taken off of it. Now there's a bit of a resurgence in terms of treating some women, the appropriate women, with biosimilar hormones. So we may be able, like instead of giving to Maybe we can just give it to a few people who would benefit, which is a much more logical way.

More extreme cases like hysterectomies or what? Who are the women that are thumbs up for this?

Yeah. So there's, there's a few, like if they take out your ovaries for whatever reason, you might need some hormone replacement. So there is a place, but it's not every single woman in America.

And it's still risky and it's still risky, right, for heart and cancer.

Depends on how you do it. So again, if your levels are super low, then bringing them back up are probably not so bad. But there's the same thing for testosterone. So super popular about 25 years ago. Then there's a huge thing about it's going to increase your risk of prostate cancer. So then it sort of got thrown in the trash and nobody was doing it. Now, interestingly enough, again, may have a role, but again, not just giving it to whoever walks in the door, like check the levels. If they're extremely low, then bringing it back up might be of benefit. So in the right population.

Yeah. Well, very good.

I mean, yeah. So, so, so there are other reasons why you can't lose weight, but you have to be, you have to know about them and you have to, that's not something that you can just sort of do yourself. Put yourself on, take yourself off. Those are medications and have to be taken because there's a risk if you just— like, you can't just take it. Like, you could be putting yourself at risk.

No, you need a doctor's supervision. You really do. And you need a prescription. I don't think you can just get this at Rite Aid. You just can't get it. I mean, you can buy it online, probably buy everything online, but you shouldn't be doing that, right? Listeners, please don't be buying drugs online without a doctor's help and supervision. Well, Jason, let's So let's segue here to extended fasting because in a nutshell too, with women, it sounds like our recommendation, your recommendation is just to keep it simple, right? Jason, there's no need to be— I mean, it's—

Don't try to complicate things because again, are women different than men? Yes, they are. But let's look at history because we can look back at all of human history.

Like, and we never separated the eating of the— the speed of the sexes.

Eat together. We eat the same foods. We eat like, you know, at dinner. You don't eat something and make something completely different for that, you know, because I'm a woman, I gotta eat this.

I'm eating special foods here at a special time. I eat, you know, less or more, you know, or whatever.

We eat together. We eat the same foods. Like, you make the same thing for your son as your daughter. When you do fasting, so say it's Lent, say it's Ramadan, say it's, you know, Yom Kippur. Do, do women and men do the same thing? Absolutely. They do the same thing. There's no difference.

All right. All right.

So I don't make any difference. If you look at the studies, the studies on fasting show that they're pretty much the same in general. Now that's not to say that that, you know, somebody says, you know, women don't have any trouble fasting because men have trouble fasting too. It's just that women, they are different, but there's nothing that you should necessarily do differently.

Hey, it's Jorge Cruise, and I just wanted to interrupt the show just for a moment to invite you to head on over and sign up for my daily Zero Hunger email. That'll give you each day a simple what to eat to get radical control over your sugar, carb, and salty snack food cravings. And if this is something you want to conquer and make a lifestyle, the newsletter is important. It will really give you tools every day to keep building that momentum to create a lifestyle where you're in control of sugar and carbs. So if that sounds good, check it out. Simply go to zerohungerplan.com. I'll spell it for you, it's with a Z, Z-E-R-O-H-U-N-G-E-R-P-L-A-N.com. Zero hunger plan dot com, and it's all free. I'll see you there. Let's get back to the show.

All you do is you do it and you see if it works.

Yeah, yeah. And if anything, change what you're eating. Don't change the, the fasting idea. And let's segue, if you don't mind, because I know we've got another 10 minutes or so, and I want to make sure to ask this question. I have two if we can, but the first one is about stress on the body from doing a 3-day, uh, fast, because I have a lot of women that have been doing this with me and they've seen incredible results, but then they're concerned about the word you mentioned, cortisol and stress. And there's some people that are poo-pooing a 3-day fast. And I, you know, I'm turning 50, so I want this from— I'm asking it for the men too. So for the men and women that are in midlife, and I think all my audience pretty much is 40 and up. I don't think we have any millennials watching or listening, but for anyone that is down to those last 5 pounds, let's pretend it's one of them, male or female. I don't know if it really matters. We'll lean into the women because that's more of my audience. We'll think of, uh, the gals in that age group. And if they've got 5 pounds and it's not coming off, I think my suggestion from your guidance over the many years we've known each other now, with 2 or 3 years, I feel like is yes, it's okay to do a 72-hour window, and, and it gives you the stem cells and the longevity. But here's the concern. They're like, well, is it going to cause stress where I keep the fat on? That's, that's the first dilemma. And two, will I lose muscle? So can you take it away, Jason?

Yeah, the question about muscle— and I actually just did a YouTube video on this—

oh, fantastic.

Muscle is one. The bottom line is no, it does not break down your muscle. So muscle grows or doesn't grow mostly based on whether you use it or not.

Yeah.

So it doesn't really like eating. So assuming that you have, are adequately nourished, that you're not like, you know, 60 pounds or something like that. Like, you know, if you're not anorexic and you're not on chemotherapy and, you know, wasting away. So assuming you have relatively normal 20, 25% body fat and average looking, right? If you have enough nutrients from that standpoint, that's most people, like 99% of your audience probably.

Sure.

Then your muscle grows when you exercise it. So you lift heavy things, you'll grow muscle. When you don't lift heavy things— we can— we used to do this bed rest for heart attacks.

And Jason, we dropped you again. Would you repeat that last piece?

So if you don't use your muscle, say somebody goes on bed bed rest for 7 days. So if you break your leg and you're confined to your bed, we know because we see this every single day in the hospital, we've known about this for the last 55 years at least, that muscle just goes way down because you're not standing up. So if you're standing up, you've got 100 and whatever pounds, 180 pounds, 160 pounds of weight standing that your legs have to push up against gravity. That's what you have to do to walk. If you don't walk, you're not exercising. Even the walking is exercise and you lose muscle incredibly quickly. So 7 days, you will lose a ton of muscle. It happens to everybody because you're not using it.

You'll use it or lose it. And then if you're older, what's that term about loss of muscle for age loss?

It's sarcopenia. Yeah.

And that's also involved, especially in this age group, right?

Yeah. So it's the same thing. Most people aren't as active in their older age because of arthritis and this and that, right? You're maybe you get a bit dizzy, maybe you have some breathing trouble. So you're much less active and therefore you're going to lose muscle. That's, that, that's the only way you grow or don't grow muscle.

It's not, it's not from fasting, right? Jason, I feel like, let's say it strongly because I feel like people are scared of losing their biceps, their butts there. It's from a lack of use, not from doing a 1-day OMAD or a 3-day Every day. So now what about cortisol? Because then that's the other issue. People are like, oh my gosh, the stress on the body. It's so intense. One day OMAD, let alone 3 days. But is it really that dangerous doing a 3-day fast, Jason?

Not really. I mean, if you look at what happens to the cortisol, yes, it does go up. That is one of the hormones that goes up. You are putting yourself under stress, but the point is that that's your only way get better. Like exercise is a stress. You're stressing your muscles. That is the only way you get stronger. So if you put yourself and you get a bit of cortisol, it will come down. What's dangerous is when your cortisol goes up and stays up. And this is what happens, of course, in the modern day. You have, uh, you know, trouble with your spouse, trouble with your kids. You have money problems, you have mortgage coming up, you have stress that never goes away. Away. That's the problem for chronic pain syndromes.

Your cortisol levels goes up. It's the emotion. What do we call that? Emotional, mental stress, right?

The mental stress is actually very dangerous. It's very harmful to you. And that's why things like yoga, meditation, tai chi and stuff are actually super, super important. And really a huge part of longevity is because those periods of meditation and the same thing, like all of these yoga, you know, movement Tai Chi. These are all actually forms of meditation.

Oh, I became a yoga instructor last year, and I tell you, it was for mental health. I go to the gym even though I want to keep my biceps in one piece. I go there because it's mental health. Uh, you know, it makes you feel good, right?

I started doing yoga too, and I tell you, it's, it's, it's fantastic. Like, it's not just that you're training your flexibility and your core, which is really important, But it's, it's that sort of relaxation. It's the cortisol. That's really what you're trying to get out of your system. But the point is that when you fast, your cortisol, yes, it will go up.

But tell us how much. And it's, it's small, negligible. I can't say that word. But is it a small amount? Is it something that's not comparable to stressing about COVID-19 and your spouse? Right. Or is it at that level? Not that 0 to 10. 10 is massive stress. Where is a 3-day fast?

Probably like in the middle somewhere, like a 5. So it's, it's there. It's true, but it's not a chronic stress.

And now when people think 3 days though, don't they think that's chronic or is that not, that's not chronic, right?

It's like years, weeks, years. That's, that's the problem. Right. And again, it's not a constant thing. The cortisol is doing something because the fasting is the cortisol is there to pull the glucose and pull the sugar out of your system. Right. So what it's doing is— so the problem with cortisol, like if you're under stress because you have big bills coming up, mortgage, and you lost your job, for example, your cortisol is up.

That's a 10, don't you think? Zero to 10.

That's like a 10. It's not going away. That's the problem.

It's all 2021. That's chronic, not a 3-day Fast.

Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's the cortisol. What it does is it sort of pulls energy from your body. It pulls your stored energy out because that's what cortisol does. And when you fast, you're, you're not putting any energy in and you're pulling it out from your body.

So that's good.

When you're not fasting and your stress is just up, you've got lots of sugar glucose, and now you're pulling more out of the body and then it's going, it's an abnormal situation. Whereas the cortisol stress that you're undergoing is the natural situation where you're supposed to have that cortisol, right? So it's a totally different situation. And the truth of the matter is that the 3-day fast, I mean, it's a time-limited thing. You can always stop it if you don't feel well, but it's actually a strategy that most people haven't tried. Uh, when they do try it, they find that, boy, It's sometimes you just go like, this is incredible. Like, you know, you know how many times people try it and they go, oh my God, like, I feel amazing.

A 3-day fast, right? Jason?

Yeah.

And remind people the benefits of doing this. And I was telling my clients it would be okay. And I said, I'll ask Jason Fung. This Dr. Fung would say the truth. He's here to help us. He's not here to harm us. He's a super friend, right? If we they did, say for example, a dinner on Sunday, we had our one meal a day, where most of my clients are following like a Paul Saladino diet, a Carnivore Code-ish diet, you know, high protein, high fat, some squash, some, you know, simple vegetables, and then it's a sizable meal. Then they do a 3-day fast. And if they were to do it weekly, Jason, so Monday, Tuesday, and then break it on Wednesday, is that gonna— I mean, that's not extended, and— or it's not It's not chronic stress on cortisol. And it's also not something that I think is hurtful. If anything, tell them the benefits of the stem cells briefly. But first, would that protocol be something that you would say is okay to try?

And absolutely.

You may be hungry, but drink water, right? Or tea. Yeah.

And the thing is that you're actually— unsweetened. Yeah. The hunger actually starts to dissipate very quickly too. But yeah, once you start getting into the longer fasts, fast, there's all this data that suggests that you start to activate all these— you sort of decrease inflammation, which is very, sometimes very harmful, all the arthritis and stuff. Growth hormone is, you know, shooting up and therefore your body's going to start to sort of— when you eat, you're going to regrow a lot of these proteins. So what happens is your body breaks down these proteins. So yeah, it breaks down basic your proteins. Some of the proteins get broken down during a fast and people think that's a bad thing, but it's not. In order for you to rejuvenate yourself, the first step is actually getting rid of the stuff. So what your body does is sort of gets rid of some of the protein and then it sees, hey, what am I using? If you're using your muscles, it's going to rebuild those. If you're using your heart muscle, it's going to rebuild that. If you've got skin that gets broken down and your body's like, actually, I don't need that Skin, it's going to— it's not going to rebuild.

And that's where we can recoil loose skin. I mean, really, we can. Women in their 50s and 60s are very concerned about all that loose skin, and they usually do the surgeries with the cutting. And this can make a huge difference. You've seen this, right, Jason?

We've seen this. We see this a lot, actually. And this is one of the things that was interesting is that we have people who lose like hundreds of pounds and they actually say, I don't have that much loose skin like they do have. A little bit, but not to the extent that the other people in the TV shows have where they have to do that surgery, which is also because they lose it in a way that is different.

You know, they're not doing intermittent fasting. They're just not eating.

They're not doing it. They're just doing these, you know, whatever they, you know, bariatric surgeries and stuff. But yeah, the thing is that when you're doing it with the fasting, you're, you're allowing your body to break down some protein and that's where everybody gets worried. Deprived, but then you've got the growth hormone to rebuild what you need and not what you don't need. And that's where the skin gets reabsorbed. And that's why we actually have never referred anybody for skin removal surgery. Wow.

And remind people, you've been doing this for how many years and you've never had anyone? How many?

7 years. I mean, it's a lot of people. And, you know, on our YouTube videos, you put a few pictures, there's, you know, they're losing hundreds of pounds. And some of them are just like, yeah, this—

So we lost you again.

You get that period of time where you are burning a little bit of protein and protein is not necessarily muscle. Skin is protein. Connective tissue is protein.

We lost you for a second, Jason. We lost you for a second. If you don't mind, just 30 seconds. We lost a piece of what you said there. I'm sorry.

Sorry. So there is a period of time during fasting where you are going to break down some protein, but protein is not necessarily muscle. Like excess skin is protein. Excess connective tissue is protein. The point is that you break down the protein, then your body with the growth hormone says, what do we need? We need some muscle. We need some of this. We need some of this. Let's rebuild that and not rebuild the skin because we don't need it. So that's where, you know, that sort of thing can really be helpful.

So Jason, to end on this note, if we were to do the following, this is what I've been suggesting, and I want your thumbs up if it's okay to ask. You know, we're doing OMAD for days a week, and we're doing an extended fast 3 days a week. So we have 7 days in a week. Does that seem like it would be safe? And it's not going to— it's not something chronic that's going to cause so much stress. And we're eating a high-protein, high-fat diet, you know, kind of a carnivorous diet. And obviously they can switch that up if they need to add more vegetables and things like that. But does that window of, uh, you know, the old— you know, the OMAD acronym, one meal a day, and then we do that for 4. So basically they're just eating 4 days a week. Is that going to be OK? I mean, I want to make sure women are safe with that.

Yeah, there's no problem. I mean, obviously, if you're on medication or whatever, you need to talk to your doctor, of course. And if you're not feeling well, if you really feel lousy, then of course, stop and do something else, because remember that everybody reacts differently. So some people and most people do great with that sort of regimen. There might be a few, and it's no fault of theirs and no fault of yours. It's just that this type of diet may not agree with them. In this case, you stop, modify it, you modify it to what works for you. And that's the key with the fasting. And that's, that's why it's so powerful because you can do that or you could do something else. Like it's, it's okay.

But if anything, this could be a lifestyle and the benefits would be beyond weight loss. I mean, obviously you're not going to be heavy, you're going to live a long life and the stem cells. And that truly is something that keeps us young. Is the, what would you use the word? Is it a renewal of stem cells? Production of stem cells when we go to 3 days?

Yeah, it seems like, and most of the data is very preliminary, but there seems to be sort of this increased sort of rejuvenation, this increased stem cells, decreased inflammation. A lot of this is animal data, so it's not clear, but, you know, and the autophagy, which is something we've talked about before as well, this sort of cleansing period. So all of these things people are researching more and more, and it seems to be extremely beneficial for so many different things.

So happy you said that, Jason. You've made my day. And I think you've given women— you know, remember that movie Waiting to Exhale? I think they've been holding their breath, and I think they get stressed out from holding their breath, and that causes belly fat. And that's the issue. Issue. So I think the take-home is breathe, keep it simple, and there's nothing to fear here with what we're talking about. Jason, I can't thank you enough. I know we're running short on time, but would you remind people— and I'm going to show them my favorite book, although, uh, you've got a few books— but tell them where they can find you online, your YouTube videos, your Instagram, uh, just tell them, and your website, please, because your program is fabulous.

Yeah, so they, um, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram. It's at Dr. Jason Fung. On YouTube, it's— my channel is just Jason Fung, so check it out. There's actually— I've just started putting out weekly videos now.

Oh, awesome.

Covering various topics, so it's all free.

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