#72 - ASK JORGE: @drjasonfung answers why intermittent fasting gives you optimal health in less time.

Happy Monday, September 7th. This is Jorge Cruise and welcome to the Jorge Cruise Show. It is Labor Day. Hopefully you're having a great time with family and friends and enjoying some sunshine, getting a little vitamin D and socially distancing, hopefully, and maybe even having to wear a mask. But this is the new normal and we have to kind of embrace it and love what is. And as hard as it is to live this way, I think there's a lesson to be learned in it. And you know, part of it for me at least recently has been really to appreciate my health even more. You know, I've been really lucky in the last few weeks to go back to a gym that I love that's an outdoor gym in San Diego. So I've been getting myself, um, that special, uh, VIP treatment that exercise has given me for 20 years, you know, using my 8 Minute Method to really not just, uh, you know, burn belly fat, but really to, to maximize my mood, my wellbeing, and keep me young. So I'm excited and, and I wanna encourage you on today's show to take advantage of one of the best fitness shortcuts I have discovered in my entire career. It's called intermittent fasting, and we are talking to the premier, premier— like, literally, this is the world's leading expert on it, Dr. Jason Fung in Toronto, Canada. He's written various books, all bestsellers. If you go to Amazon, you type in Jason Fung, F-U-N-G, his books are number one, all his books. And I had the honor of him writing the introduction to my Cruise Control book on intermittent fasting 3 years ago. So since then, we've become dear friends, and I said, Jason, we got to do a talk. So many people don't understand this. They think it's an eating disorder. They think if you eat one meal a day, you're crazy, which is what I've been doing. Or two meals is kind of crazy too, but you know, you need three meals and breakfast.

Oh my gosh.

So we're going to talk about everything about intermittent fasting. You're going to discover what it does for your body and how it extends your life. And it's not about weight loss. It's about really gaining control of your energy, your ability to work better, play better, and live a better life. So that's today's show. We're brought to you by my website, uh, 8 Minutes Live. It's a brand new site. We're launching in a week from today on September 14th, and I want to invite you over there. Uh, just go on over to 8minuteslive.com and you can sign up for the text alert that we'll send you next week once we launch. You can also still sign up for the free masterclass called The 8 Minute Cure, which is really about how interval training, high-intensity interval training, can transform your body's ability to, to burn stored belly fat and lower your waist circumference and transform your health, your mood, etc. So check that out. It's at 8minuteslive.com. That's number 8 minutes with an S live.com. You're gonna love it. We're also brought to you by Zero Hunger Water. Now this is a brand new website. It's something I'm creating. It is my first ever, um, hunger control product and it's an electrolyte water that'll be coming out later this year. I don't have the date yet, but I want to invite you to get on the list and I'll be sharing more and more because out of the other 20 years of, um, me working in fitness, nutrition has been huge. We're talking about that today on the show intermittent fasting, but the key to fasting and not feeling hungry is turning off hunger, right? And gaining control of that. And that's what zerohungerwater.com does. And this one is spelled with the letter Z as in zebra. Z-E-R-O, zerohungerwater.com. Check it out because it really is, I think, the culmination of my whole entire career. Because we're going to talk to you about intermittent fasting, but in order to do it, you need to not be hungry and you don't want to suffer. And Zero Hunger Water will give you the edge, will give you control back in your life to go after what you want. So check it out, it's brand new, zerohungerwater.com. That's the letter Z-E-R-O hungerwater.com. And finally, we're brought to you by Primal Kitchen. Uh, Primal Kitchen is created by my mentor Mark Sisson, who got me started on intermittent fasting. He is giving us a free lemon mayo, uh, delicious chipotle-flavored mayo made with avocado oil.

It's anti-inflammatory.

Simply go to primalkitchen.com jorgecruise. That's primalkitchen.com/jorgecruise. And, uh, and that's it. And I'm excited for today's show. I think you're going to learn really why I do this every day. And at age 49— I'm going to be 50 next year— I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life. I have the most control of my, of my hunger, my, my fitness. And it's because of intermittent fasting that I've been able to really maximize, I think, my health and my my aging. So where if you age, you age well, you know. So let's get started right now. Hi, my name is Jorge Cruise, and I'm known as the 8-Minute Life Strategist to the world's busiest celebrities. I've been a fitness, nutrition, and peak performance trainer for over 20 years, and you may have seen my work with Oprah Winfrey, Khloe Kardashian, Tyra Banks, President Clinton, Kelly Clarkson, Dr. Oz, Tony Robbins, or even Steve Harvey. My career started because in my early 20s I had no control of my life, and experts told me I was tired and overweight because I didn't exercise enough and overate. They were wrong. I discovered that there are fitness shortcuts that would give you control of your life in less time. My passion to find the best science-backed fitness shortcuts has allowed me to write over 30 books and become a multiple New York Times bestselling author with over 9 million books in print. And I know I can help you get control of your life. Welcome to the Jorge Cruise Show.

All right, everyone, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited. One of the people I respect the most and truly one of the experts, in my opinion, on the future of, I would hope, not just optimal health, but really everyday health for every person in America and the world, I would hope, needs to know Dr. Jason Fung. He's— he and I've been now connected and friendly, even though we haven't met in person yet. One of these days we will. We've had many virtual meetings, right, Jason?

We were supposed to meet in New York, I think, and then COVID happened. So it was—

it did. Well, Jason, you're on camera now, so please say hi to everyone. And Dr. Jason Fung is in— I believe you're in Canada right now. You're in Toronto.

Yes, Toronto, yes.

Well, welcome. I'll toot your horn for one moment. He's truly not just the best-selling author and one of my favorite books, his first book ever, The Obesity Code. This is kind of the book that put him on the map. But Jason has become beyond a weight loss expert, shall we say, in the world of books and really as an expert. But he's kind of created a niche where he is truly, when you think of any MD that has this background, it's rare. He is truly the premier expert when it comes to fasting, you know, and understanding that fasting is, is a biohack, and it's really what our ancestors did, and that it's not an eating disorder. And he's become also the expert on intermittent fasting, which I'm a big fan of. And when I was writing my book initially, Jason and I had many conversations, and he was so kind to write a very nice, uh, introduction to the Cruise Control Diet book that I wrote, uh, almost 3 years ago now. So please welcome everyone officially Dr. Jason Fung.

Thanks so much. It's great to be here.

Great. How are things in Toronto with COVID-19? Are you, I'm sure you and your family staying safe. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Everything seems to be settling down here. So, you know, our numbers here in Toronto have been coming, they are slowly coming down. So that's all good news.

All good news. Yeah. Well, Jason, I don't know where to start other than I love your origin story, but I think people, I think we've talked enough, but as if there are some new— we have a lot of new listeners on the show and with the new format. And I thought it would be great if you could share a little bit of your story of what brought you to book one, because you've studied medicine and you are a doctor. And I feel like you're a very unique doctor because you really have become this authority, in my opinion, world authority on fasting. But can you tell us the story that brought you to where you're at today? Because a lot of people may not know your background. And I think it's very interesting so people can appreciate how much work you've put into becoming Dr. Jason Fung, right?

Yeah, sure, absolutely. So what happened basically is that the, you know, I did medical school in Toronto and then I did my subspecialty training in internal medicine and nephrology. And I did that at the University of California, Los Angeles.

And for people who may not know that study, tell them what that is, the study of—

Oh, that's just, I'm a kidney specialist. So it's an extra 5 years of training after medical school. To do internal medicine and then kidneys specifically. So it's a very sort of traditional sort of medical specialty and I really had no particular interest in weight loss or fasting or anything at the time. And it's interesting because of course in the United States and Canada, we've had this very big epidemic of obesity and along with that was this sort of epidemic of type 2 diabetes, which turns out to be the biggest cause of kidney disease by far. So as I'm going through, you know, the 2000s, 2010s, it just becomes a bigger and bigger and bigger part of my professional practice is kidney disease due to type 2 diabetes. And the interesting thing about it is that in medical school and residency training, we actually learn almost nothing about nutrition and even less about how to lose weight. So essentially the entire field of medicine has given up weight loss to sort of, you know, Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and this sort of thing. So the medical doctors—

Would you say, not to interrupt, but is it still that way in 2020? Would you say mainly?

Unfortunately it is, which is sort of sad because it's like, it's not that these companies don't know what they're doing, but on the other hand, it's a huge part of being healthy.

I agree, yes.

Because if you're having type 2 diabetes and the complications, remember it's a big cause of big cause of stroke. Obesity contributes to cancer, lots of cancer. Heart disease, kidney disease, blindness, amputation. So all of these things which are medical conditions, the root cause is sort of this overweight. And we all know this. This is not news to any doctor or anybody who's been listening at all for the last 20 years. We all know that being overweight puts your health at risk. Why is it that medical doctors simply had no interest in helping people lose weight? Other than like bariatric surgery, which is good, but very extreme. I mean, cutting out pieces of healthy stomach and stuff. It's like, that's a very extreme way to—

It's aggressive. It's an aggressive solution, right?

Exactly. And again, I'm not saying that there's not a place for it, but on the other hand, it's not suitable for most people who just want to get a little—

And it's dangerous and it's costly and it's something that requires an extensive amount of healing. I mean, it's just, it's a big deal, right?

It's a big deal. And there's a lot of complications that people don't talk about. So the thing is that it's a medical issue. It's in fact the root cause of a lot of the issues that we see down the line. And yet doctors and medical researchers and everybody had basically given up this entire field, which was contributing so much to the you know, problems that we are seeing. And I thought, well, that's kind of strange because if you think about diabetic kidney disease, okay, so you're overweight, which leads to type 2 diabetes, which leads to kidney disease. So we spend billions of dollars trying to treat the kidney disease with dialysis and drugs. And it's like, okay, but look at the chain of events. Why don't you intervene at the overweight part, get them to lose weight? Then they won't develop type 2 diabetes, which means they won't get diabetic kidney disease. That is the obvious way to do it. And yet—

It's common sense really, right? I mean, it's so direct and simple and yet why? So how did you crack this? Because obviously I think it makes sense. And why is it everyone else can't get this?

That's a doctor. I know. Well, I wonder the same thing.

What was your aha moment? Did you have one of those?

I think it was, yeah, it was sort of when I was thinking about the problem of type 2 diabetes. And then one day I was thinking, okay, well, let's think about it this way. If you have diabetic kidney disease, the solution actually is staring you in the face because it's diabetic kidney disease. If you lose the weight, you don't have diabetes, you won't get kidney disease. And it's like, ah, So what I need to do is help people lose weight. That is actually the most important thing I can do, not give them some drugs after they developed a kidney disease. That's like completely shutting the door after the, you know, the barn door after the horse is gone, right? It's like, it's a ridiculous way to treat people.

It's backwards a little bit, right? Yeah.

It's completely backwards. And yet even today you can go to any university and they're spending their billions of dollars on developing this drug and that drug and this drug and that drug and virtually none None of them actually have a clinic dedicated to helping people lose weight like I've been running for the last, you know, 7 or 8 years because that is the way to keep people healthy. But nobody seems to be interested in that. They're interested in how to treat people after they've gotten sick because it's far more lucrative to give them drugs.

And I mean, I hate to be so honest, but if we're going to have a moment of honesty here, I mean, not that we're going to mention names of of organizations or doctors, but do you really think it's about money? It's the lucrative part?

It's not overtly that, but the money flows in from treatment.

Give people an idea of where, how the money floats in. What would you guess?

Yeah. So there's a lot of conflicts of interest within medicine. So for example, you have pharmaceutical companies which make drugs, which is— there's nothing wrong with that. But then what they do, of course, is that they take the profits from those drugs which treat, say, type 2 diabetes. And what they do is they give it to fund doctors to write about how to treat it and so on, of course, focused on drugs because that's their area. So they have no interest in promoting health per se. They have an interest in promoting the treatment of disease as, as, you know, they're a company. That's what they do, right?

They have to produce a revenue for their shareholders.

Yeah. Exactly. So that, you have to expect that from the company because that's a company.

That's life.

Unfortunately, the doctors and the pharmas, the universities have become sort of addicted to gorging themselves on this sort of fountain of cash. And instead of, so I think they're all good people, but they've sort of lost sight of the fact that all this money that's coming in from this source actually distorts their view. I don't think they actually recognize that it actually is a high risk.

So, and it's not that they're in denial, but maybe they're just, I hate to say it, as smart as these folks are, they're a little naive, possibly, or how would you describe it?

I think it's naive.

I mean, blind or naive, right?

There's a ton of, yeah. And they think that they're not biased, but they are biased by this.

And they would fight you on this, probably, that they're completely aware.

They would fight you on this because they'll say that, oh no, I'm looking out for the good of the people and this and that. And this is what I do. But it's really just, you know, I don't think they quite see it. I mean, the problem is this, you know, and I hate to say this, but there, you know, money always corrupts people in certain ways. It biases people in certain ways. And that's why there are rules, certain rules. So a judge, you cannot, if you're a company, you cannot simply pay a judge. You can't say, oh, hey, Judge XYZ, you're in charge of this case against my company. But hey, let me take you out to a fancy dinner. That's completely illegal. Or you can't go to a policeman and say, hey, you know, you're the police. I'd like to give you a few hundreds of thousands of dollars. And hey, you happen to be also in charge of this against my company. You can't do that because we know that that money biases people. Yet in the same situation, you can have a pharmaceutical that gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to individual doctors. So it's not like a doctor's organization, but you'll have one doctor who's making like $400,000 giving talks for a pharmaceutical, convincing other doctors that this drug is so good. Well, that's very— they're biased. The doctor is biased, but the entire system is biased. So why Do we allow the system to bias doctors in favor of treatments as opposed to things that make no money, like fasting, like, you know, getting people to eat right and all this sort of thing? Right. It's a completely backwards situation. And the doctors and the universities, they are so sort of dependent now on this source of funding that they cannot imagine not having those funds. And it's like, But it's blood money, right? It's like a judge that takes money or a policeman that takes money from the mob.

Sounds like a movie we should do, Jason. The doctor world. I mean, it's just— so you've seen this, you woke out of this blindness or naivete. What's the word? If you're naive, you're naive. How do you say that word? Naivete?

Naivete.

How do you say it?

Naivete.

I feel like that's the word, you know, and I feel like, I think they're good people, just maybe they just don't know that their actions are not really intelligent. It's not the first step. They're letting, as you said, the horse out of the barn and then closing the door, right?

And I think that the problem is that you really have to have somebody come in and say, you know what, you know, as a doctor, as a university, you can't do You can't take money from these other organizations that have commercial interests because it's going to bias you. And it's important for our institutions to remain unbiased, just like the judges, just like the policemen.

Yes.

Doctors have— you have to say it's now illegal to do this. I mean, I'll tell you that 25 years ago, the doctors used to get kickbacks. So if you prescribed a certain number of medications, you prescribe X number of medications, you would get a cruise, right? The doctor, it's like, okay, that's really—

And this is just 25 years ago.

Yeah, about 25 years.

We're saying in the '90s, this was not long ago.

'80s, probably the '90s. You could do that kind of stuff. Wow. And then it changed. Yeah, of course. Everybody said, well, you know, again, at the time, the doctors didn't see anything wrong with it. But then they like the cruise, the free cruise to Greece or something, right?

Let's go to Greece.

If you gave enough prescriptions for a certain pill. And it was terrible. And of course, you had the same thing happen with the opioid crisis where people died. Right. Because you have a corruption of these doctors who are not supposed to be corrupted. But we have to put in safeguards. And it's easy. You just say, OK, if you're a doctor, you can't take money from a pharmaceutical company. It's illegal. Just like a judge, you can't take money from this. You can't even, you know, if you're a New York City policeman, you can't even take a a cup of coffee. Like, that's illegal. That you cannot take a cup of coffee from somebody.

And that doesn't exist as we speak right now for most medical doctors. They could be spokespeople, correct?

It's hundreds of thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical companies. And, you know—

No, it's incredible. I mean, it's a little— I mean, at this moment of truth and honesty, I mean, it's a little sad to hear that this is being allowed. And I get it from the policeman example, but it makes good sense as a doctor. So you broke out of this— blindness and you finally said, all right, there's another solution. So now connect the dots from this aha moment you just described, which was intense, to where you are today. Because now, how many books have you written total now, Jason? Because you just had one come out during COVID right?

Yeah. Yeah. So I have a couple I've written by myself and a couple I've co-written.

So, so you're—

The Obesity Code, The Diabetes Code, which is more specific into type 2 diabetes. And then The Complete Guide to Fasting I co-wrote and Life in the Fasting Lane as well.

So, so let's bring, let's bring in the fasting lane. So how did fasting, because obviously you could have been a high protein, high fat doctor like an Atkins, but your specialty isn't so much in the macros, even though I'm sure you have suggestions for clients and all that, but it's more about this ancient idea. Maybe tell us how you got into it and then let's describe what fasting is and intermittent fasting. But how did you, who put that on your radar? Into this fasting world? Because that is, as you said, you described it, there's no money in it because you're not eating. There's not even money for the food people because you're literally maybe drinking water. We're going to talk about some cheats, but there aren't a lot. I mean, it's mainly healthy fats, but how did you get, how did this, how did, how did you discover fasting?

Well, again, so I went sort of back to the beginning. So I had this sort of moment that was like, oh, okay, people need to lose weight. If you want to get healthy, you need to lose weight. Now I've got back and really looked at the science. Because of course at the time everybody's talking about calories in, calories out, and just, you know, eat a few less calories and that's it. And that's exactly the approach that doesn't work. So eating 500 less calories a day, they tell you, okay, you're going to lose a pound of fat a day. Guess what? It actually works for just about zero people. And there's good scientific reasons for that. That's what I talk about in the book.

So everyone that's listening, please, this is from Dr. Jason Fung, truly the authority on this. Counting calories, as much as God bless everyone that's on Weight Watchers or things like that, where they're counting points or calories or cutting down, in your opinion, say one more time, maybe in a different way, but it truly is not smart. It's, it's just, it doesn't work. Is that your opinion, Jason?

Yeah, it doesn't work because it leads you to this idea that you could eat cookies for dinner as long as you eat 500 less calories than your grilled salmon with salad, you're going to lose weight. It's like, okay, but cookies are fattening and grilled salmon generally is not fattening. Nobody gets fat eating broccoli, sort of thing, right? So therefore it's not the calories that's important because you can eat fewer calories eating cookies. It's the fattening effect of those foods. And that's the whole point. It's the effect on our hormones. Because if you eat cookies versus you eat broccoli, When you eat it, the effect on our hormones is completely and utterly different. So cookies are going to spike your insulin. The broccoli will not.

Or meat, if you have like protein. And it tends to lean into, I mean, I'm not to spoiler alert this, but it's more the carbohydrates that raise insulin and all that. But overall eating does it too. So how did you get to the not eating aspect, this fasting? Because people have been fasting for millennia, right, Jason?

Yeah, yeah. So then as I went into the sort of basic science, I said it's not about the calories, it's really about the hormonal effect of our body because the hormones are the instructions of our body. So you can give your body instructions to gain fat, that's insulin. So certain foods will do that. So I thought, okay, well, if it's really about that, then what if you simply don't eat at all? And that's fasting. So the first thing I thought is, okay, that's a terrible idea.

Brilliant. I mean, did it just hit you like that or was it like divine intervention? Did someone tap you on the shoulder and say, Dr. Fung.

Don't eat.

No, somebody was talking one time about cleanses, right? And cleanses are sort of these things where you don't eat, but then drink tea or whatever. And there's different things. There's detoxes and there's something called teatoxes where you drink tea and don't eat. And the first thing I thought was, well, that's a really bad idea because everybody knows fasting is really bad for you. Right.

But then, is that the thought in your opinion right now? Some, I mean, people do look at people. When I'm in New York, I'm with people like Kelly Ripa or Wendy Williams, and people at times say that women of that size, because they're petite, have an eating disorder. Right? And they think— is that your opinion? They think fasting— I mean, I hate to ask you, but do people think this is a disorder of some sort? Right?

Some people think that, but it's all a matter of context. Because for example, of course, in the '70s, we had a big problem with anorexia nervosa. And that was a very big problem. Young girls died with it. But it's a matter of context. So if you're talking about a 16-year-old girl who weighs sort of 80 pounds, yeah, definitely don't do anything. You need to gain weight. But if you're talking about a 65-year-old man with type 2 diabetes who weighs 300 pounds, well, it's not an eating disorder because one, it's not that much fun to not eat. I mean, people prefer to eat. And two, they need to lose weight to get healthy. They don't need to gain weight like the person with anorexia nervosa. So it's a totally context-driven thing. So while it may have been important when anorexia nervosa is a big issue, we're on the opposite side of the spectrum where people are dying of type 2 diabetes and obesity. I mean, now it's a good thing. If people are dying of anorexia nervosa, it's a bad thing, right? So you got to take the context context into account. And, and the problem was that, so everybody sort of had this idea, especially 6 or 7 years ago when I started, everybody's like, oh, fasting is bad, fasting is bad. And then I thought about it for a second. And I mean, I had that thought, same thought myself. And I thought, wait a second, why do I think it's so bad? Because first of all, I actually tell people to fast all the time. So when people are in hospital, they need to fast if they're getting surgery. If they are getting colonoscopies, for example, they need to fast. And if they're doing fasting blood work, they need to fast. So it's like, what am I talking about? All these people are fasting and I'm telling them to fast to do their blood work, for example, and nothing bad actually happens to them. So, so why can't we do this? That was my question. Why can't we do this?

And that's a great question. A new question. And so what did you discover? Because obviously this is your thing.

I mean, so tell us why, why is it okay?

Yes. Tell us, what did you discover?

So I went back into the research and my advantage of course is that I understand the human physiology quite deeply and it's okay because it turns out that there's a very well described sort of response of the body when you start fasting. It's been known for thousands of years really. And people have been doing it for thousands of years.— and the medical physiology, what happens in the human body, has been worked out for decades and decades. And there's nothing bad in the whole thing. In fact, that's the precise reason that you carry body fat. It's not there for looks. It's there because it's a store of calories that allows you to not eat at certain times. So when you're sleeping, for example, you are not eating. And you don't die because your body has stored some calories away. And body fat is one of those ways that the body stores calories. So you're really just using the body fat for precisely the reason it's there. It's like the bears, right? They hibernate, but they gain a lot of fat before the winter so that they are able to hibernate through the entire winter. Well, we're carrying body fat, so use it. And the way you use it is to allow your body to fast. And in fact, it's even in our language. So you look at the word breakfast, the meal that breaks your fast, which means you need to fast every day because you can't break your fast if you are not fasting. So what it implies, of course, is that there is a natural cycle. You feed your body and you store calories. That's when you eat and you fast. And that's when you digest the foods that you've eaten. And that's when you take the calories from this food that you've stored away.— and that's your fasting period. And that should happen at night when you're sleeping, for example, you're going to use those calories and then you break your fast. In French, the verb jeûner is to fast and the breakfast is déjeuner, right? So it's the same in English and French. It's embedded in our language. It's embedded in all of our religious institutions. So you look at any major religion, you've got—

it's been built in.

Yeah. It's been built in this period of fasting. Fasting, not only are you supposed to do it sort of on this daily basis, but once in a while, like once a year or whatever, you have a longer fast to really sort of clean out your body. And in fact, you know, in the Catholic religion, during Lent you'll do more fasting. In the Islam religion, you're going to do it during Ramadan. Yom Kippur, people will fast. In Buddhism, people fast. In Hinduism, people fast. So there's all these religions that have built it in. So it's not something that I just sort made up. It's something that's been actually been around for thousands of years that people have been using successfully to get healthier. That was the whole point. And yet somehow in the last 20, 30 years, we had turned it all around and turned it into something that we thought is very unhealthy. So unhealthy in fact, that we tell our children that they need to snack continuously.

Right? This is something new, but why are you going to— I'm not going to be surprised if you say that again. This has to do with an industry that's probably generating a revenue by the more we eat, the more they make. And I mean, 2 2 does equal 4. Am I right?

Right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, it was pushed obviously by a lot of industry that wanted to sell snack foods. But you think about it this way, like you look at, you know, my kids when they're younger, it's like they have breakfast and then they give them a mid-morning snack, then they'd have lunch. Then they give an after-school snack, then they'd have dinner, and then they'd have a snack during their soccer game. So that's 6 times a day people are eating. And it's like, and then I think back to my, you know, my upbringing in the '70s, and it's like, okay, you got your breakfast, your lunch, your dinner. You wanted after-school snack, your mom would say, no, you're gonna ruin your dinner. You want an after-dinner snack, like a bedtime snack, she'd say, no, you should have eaten more at dinner. And if you're naughty, If you're a naughty boy, you got sent to bed without dinner, which means you fasted from 12 noon until the next day, like 8 o'clock.

And no one got sick. No one got— no one died. No kids died without food in their tummies. I mean, maybe it was uncomfortable for an hour, but it passes.

It passes. And that's the point that in the '70s, we had this idea that, one, you shouldn't be snacking. And all of a sudden, we've turned the whole thing around and we've told our kids, you need to eat. To eat. You need to eat all the time. Never let a few hours go by without shoving a muffin in your mouth, right? And then we go, I wonder why our kids are so fat. It's like, maybe it's what we told them to do. And we take it for granted that this is sort of a natural thing. But prior to the 1970s, nobody ate 6 times a day. Nobody was that ridiculous.

And, and, you know, in the Cruise Control book that you were so kind to write that introduction for me, that was 3 years ago now. I can't I talk a little bit briefly, not about the history so much, but during the Victorian time period, because 100 or so years ago, we didn't have refrigerators. There wasn't a lot of preservatives. And if you go back, I mean, you know how much I've studied things like ancestral health. And we go back not just 1,000 or 2 years, we go back 10, 20, 100,000, million years. Our species, right, Jason? And I don't know how much you've studied all our ancient ancient species and us as ancient men, but we definitely, even before religion, didn't have the ability to eat all day. I mean, we were hunters. You would agree to some degree, right, Jason?

Absolutely. And the thing is that when you eat, you have to, you know, you have to digest that food and so on. So, so in fact, even when you look at lions and tigers, they'll eat and then they won't eat for a long time. They're not going to keep eating constantly just for the heck of it because they're gonna dull their senses and stuff. So you look at like some of the physiology, like, you know, when you eat, you need to shift all your blood to digest, right? So python or something, they'll eat a giant meal and they're actually very vulnerable at that point because they are very vulnerable to other species coming in and eating them because they need to digest and they can't move and all this sort of stuff. It's the same with us. You think about things Thanksgiving, you have a huge Thanksgiving meal. All you can really do is lie on the couch and watch some football. That's about it. Like you're not going out and you're not able to run. It's so true. You know, it's so true. It's, it's, you need those fasting periods. And the point is that there's this balance that you need to take. And we've gone so far into the, we must eat all the time sort of thing that bringing back the fasting and the intermittent fasting is really what's necessary at this time for people to stay healthy. And the point is that, It's, it's, it's, it's, it's available. Anybody can do it. It's free. It makes your life simpler. It gives you more time. And it's something we've done for thousands of years. So if something bad was going to happen because you're fasting for 20 hours, well, what about all those children who were naughty and went, got sent to bed without dinner? Like how come they survived? Literally millions of people did that and nobody got sick, right? It's like, how does that happen?

And I would say what I'm doing right now, Jason, to share with everyone, because with Cruise Control, I was prescribing a 16-hour fast, but I'm doing 20 hours right now, kind of like what you just mentioned. And I feel like whether it's 16 or 20, and I have certain celebrity clients that eat one meal a day, the acronym OMAD, one meal a day, is a form of intermittent fasting. And I think two meals a day is what most of my traditional readers have done. And I feel like with your book, this guide to fasting, you kind of COVID all the options. But in a nutshell, for anyone that thinks that we're very provocative here, that we are blowing their minds, or like saying that it's, it's healthy and it's safe— we're literally saying it's healthy and safe to not eat every 3 or 4 hours, and that you can eat in a 4-hour window, an 8-hour window. So whether it's an 8-hour window or smaller, I think that— that tends to be the norm. Would you agree, Jason? Most people are doing like a 16:8 or a little less. I don't think if you're doing— I think 16 hours is kind of like where most people do an intermittent fast, right? There are many types, but that's the common one.

The easiest one to start off with. So, you know, we always break people in, in our program, like thefastingmethod.com. We have this program and we always start people like, okay, start with cutting out all all the snacks. Now you've got into your 1970s style breakfast, lunch, dinner. Remember at this time, nobody's watching their diet. They're all eating white bread. They're all eating their steak and potatoes. They're all eating Oreo cookies. They're just not eating all the time.

And we were as a nation somewhat leaner, right? I mean, considerably leaner, right?

Oh yeah, considerably leaner. And so then you can start to shorten your eating window and something like a 16:8 is very good because it fits into a life schedule very easily. So if you simply start eating somewhere around 12 or 11 o'clock in the morning and you go till 7 or 8 o'clock at night and then don't eat anything after that, you've got yourself a 16-hour fast and you can build that in almost every day. And the point is that nobody really even needs to know about it. Like you have your coffee in the morning and then go till sort of 11 or 12. And you can do that without even, you know, anybody blinking an eye. If you simply skip that lunch and you go to one meal a day, you're just having dinner. Again, when you work through lunch, most people don't even notice.

I mean, I've done that and on occasion, and I have a couple of questions I want to definitely save for the end here, but about cheating the fast, because you know about how I've done that with certain clients of mine, but I feel like that's what I do. And sometimes I'll have a snack, but it's one of these, cheats, if you will, and it's more healthy fat. But I feel like you're absolutely right. When you do one meal a day, you can work through breakfast with your coffee, whether you put butter or things like that. We'll talk about that in a sec maybe. But, and then you eventually, it's 2 or 3 o'clock and that's when I eat my one meal a day, around 3 o'clock. And I give myself till maybe 4 or 5 o'clock at the most. So, and do you have clients that do that, that do the one meal a day? Is that becoming something that is more, I don't want to say common, but something that people Because of, I think maybe we could spend a minute on why beyond the weight loss, because I know a lot of clients that I've worked with that aren't doing this to lose lbs, but they're doing it for health. There's this word that I know is connected to these longer fasts called autophagy. Could we talk a little bit about these 20-hour fasts and then how autophagy can be a bit of a house cleaner, right? For the body.

So that's what the, uh, so in 2007, 2016, one of the key researchers in autophagy, who was the 2016 Nobel Prize winner in medicine, he called it the body's sort of cellular recycling system. And essentially what happens is when you don't eat, so for about, probably starts around 16 and goes up after that till about 30 hours perhaps, your body—

Tell us the researcher's name for anyone that's into Google.

Osumi. He's from Japan and he started in the '70s studying autophagy in yeast and so on. So wow.

And this is just in 2016. So not that— 4 years ago, right?

So just 4 years ago.

Yeah.

So it became very, very topical after that because it was recognized, of course, by everybody that this is actually a very important thing. And what autophagy is, is is this process in the body that happens where when you don't eat, your body actually breaks down these subcellular parts called organelles. And it sounds like breaking down things is a bad idea, but it's actually very good because what happens, of course, is the first thing when you're trying to renovate something is you've got to rip stuff down. So you can't renovate your bathroom until you throw out that old toilet or whatever, right?

So— Great metaphor, yeah.

Out is actually the most important part of actually rejuvenating the system. So that's the first part. You can't do the second part without the first part. That's what the body does. So as you undergo this autophagy, you get rid of all this sort of junk that you don't need. And then when you eat again, your body has growth hormone and it's actually going to rebuild, but only going to rebuild the stuff that you need. The stuff that you don't need is actually just gone. So it's sort of like a spring house cleaning. You're getting rid of the old stuff and recycling it into new functional protein. And what that is, of course, when you break down old stuff and build new stuff, is a process of rejuvenation. You're actually making things new again. And this is why he called it a cellular recycling system. Wow. And autophagy is a, is a big part of that. And literally, if you eat, I mean, assuming that you eat a variety of sort of foods. When you eat, you basically shut that whole system down. And that's the whole point. If you do that, you're just going to accumulate old stuff, just like your basement accumulates all this junk. You know how, you know, you have a couple of spare bedrooms and it's just filled up full of—

pardon my French— full of crap. But literally, you're full of crap.

That's exactly what happens in your house and exactly what happens in the body. And what actually fascinates me is that when you think about how people used to talk about fasting, it was this process of detoxification and purification, of cleansing. And the whole thing is that, hey, if, if this is what you're talking about, detoxification, cleansing, this is what autophagy does. And they knew about it sort of for hundreds of years. They've been doing it, you know, this this process of, you know, in terms of, say, if you put it into religious terms, it's this purification of the spirit or whatever, but you're actually just cleaning out your body, right? So you're detoxifying, and they've known about it for hundreds of years, and now the science is just catching up to them.

Wow, in 4 years that happened. And I feel like with autophagy, here's the benefit beyond weight loss, right? And obviously it's because, partly because of the weight loss, and this is what you do with your clinic and all that, but I feel like people's longevity improves. And from what I've read about centenarians, I was very fortunate, my grandmother, she passed not that long ago, but she made it to 103, Colombian, my grandma Maria. And she was very petite. And from what I hear, centenarians that are, I mean, to make it to be 100 and to have that kind of long life that is quality, you have to be somewhat, what's the word without being negative, a positive word for someone who's lean. What would you call people that have have a low body fat, a low waist circumference, right, Jason?

Yeah. Yeah. Generally you have to be that. I mean, a lot of people who, you know, they think that growth is good. So when you eat a lot of protein, when you eat a lot of food, you tend to grow more. That's because their body has nutrient sensors. That is, your body knows when you're getting nutrients and when you have nutrients, your body He wants to grow. The problem is that growth and longevity are sort of opposite. So it's just like when you have a car and you rev the engine and you go fast. Well, if you keep going fast, that car is not going to last that long. So they're at odds with each other. So growth is great if you want to be big and fast and all this sort of stuff, but it is exactly the opposite of what you want to do from a longevity standpoint. If you want to run long, You can't run hot, right? So it's like the car, you want to rev up the engine, that engine is not going to last. You want to grow really, really big. Well, that's great, but it will play itself out on the other side. And that's one of the things that longevity, um, is important because if you decrease the nutrient sensors, that is fasting, for example, your body's going to sense that you have no nutrients. Therefore, it's going to get rid of a lot of the excess cells that you don't need. So when you turn down the nutrient sensors, you turn down growth and activate maintenance and repair. So the body sort of cycles between the two. You either grow or you're in this sort of maintenance repair mode. If you're always in growth mode, that is when you're eating all the time, you're putting yourself into growth mode all the time, as opposed to longevity, which is why most of these, uh, people who live very long, they generally don't eat a lot. I mean, it's because you want to be in this sort of maintenance repair mode, activating autophagy, activating all these sort of cleansing things as opposed to being really big and massive.

Yes, yes. No, I agree. And I feel like for most people that are listening, I know most of our audience are women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. And I think for them, they don't want to be growing. I don't think any person— Well, certain younger men maybe that are in body competitions and they want to weight gain and all that, maybe those are the exception. But for the majority of people in midlife, I would say a lot of these women and their husbands and the men that do listen in, I probably take 20% men, I think they don't— they're not obsessed with being big anymore. I think they want longevity, they want energy, they want quality of life, they want that freedom that comes from not having dis-ease in your body. So I feel like with what this can do for us and how it saves time and money, it's literally a cure that requires nothing. And it's a natural cure that our ancestors did. And, you know, I'm a fan of ancestral health and I've interviewed, you know, Dr. Jason— I'm sorry, you know, Dr. Baker and Dr. Saladino and Mark Sisson. They're all talking about ancestral health. And you've worked with them, right, Jason? And I feel like their ideas of studying the past, I think, reveal that this is something that is not just safe, but it's how we, how we, how we became the species we are today. Because we weren't eating a lot of food 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 years ago. We searched for it, did it. And, and so my big question that I want to ask you, a few questions if we can end with these. People that are watching probably and listening to the show today are thinking, well, how do I How do I curb appetite? And for me, I'm a big fan of certain things and whether it's hydration and certain minerals like magnesium, potassium, but I thought if I could, we could do a rapid fire of some quick questions and you can give me a 1-minute answer if you want and we'll keep them short so we can get maybe 5 in and then however you want to wrap up because I want people to know how to find your website and your social and your resources and your books because I feel like we need more Jason Fung out there and I know there are a few. You mentioned a few. I'm thank goodness for this researcher 4 years ago, this Japanese man who, um, why do I feel like he's not doing your kind of work, but at least he's brought light into the world for people like you and myself that want to help and encourage people to embrace this. I want to call it a lifestyle. Would you agree with me? This can be a lifestyle. It's not just something you do for a week or 21 days or 22 days, right?

Absolutely. And that's, that's the whole point of, you know, uh, something like the very word breakfast, which is like, yeah, it's something you do every day. There's a feeding period and there's a fasting period and you want to have both and you need to be in the proper proportion. If you're not, then you're going to have problems. So if you're too far into the feeding, then you have to increase the fasting. That's really all it means.

All right. So I think let's establish the point here. I think everyone watching and listening to the show right now, But obviously, I strongly endorse everything you've said here, Jason, and I feel like you've endorsed my work, and I'm so grateful for that. But the questions people always have is, how do I curb? Because the first thing you think about not eating is, I'm going to be hungry. And how many times do people ask you, what do I do about the hunger? So I'll ask it to you, and then I'll tell you what I tell my clients. But do you get that question? Just to ask. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. To be prepared for. And it helps to know that hunger sort of passes. It's like a wave. So if you ride out the wave, it will pass out and you'll be back down to your baseline. So it doesn't just keep building and building and building, but if there are certain cheats, like you're mentioning, that can help you get through that. So a classic fast is really water only.

So that's the most, that's the classic, just drink water.

Yeah. Straight water. But then we usually tell people that taking things like tea is very, very beneficial. So with, we have some Peak Tea, there's the fasting tea.

Oh, and I love the Peak Tea. I mentioned it in the Cruise Control book and briefly described this tea that you kind of helped develop because it's a simple tea. It has properties that help. How would you describe it with appetite? It helps just curb it, right?

Crystals. So what they do is they use this cold brew crystallization to take the cold brew tea. So you're getting more— what, what that does, of course, just like with cold brew coffee, you get more of the sort of good stuff. But the cold brew tea, you get more of these catechins, which are these molecules that help suppress appetite in the green tea. So then what, what happens is that you take the green tea, you cold brew it, and then you dry it out and you get crystals. So it's easy, just a little package You just put it in water and add water up and that's it.

Hot or cold, right?

Yeah. Hot or cold.

And tea will not break the fast, obviously, right?

Jason? Yeah, clearly. Because the green teas and the fasting teas and the herbal teas and stuff, they really have no calories. So your body's not going to break the fast. And then coffee, black coffee and stuff. If you start adding sort of natural, healthy fats, it also doesn't make a big difference. So while it is food, it doesn't have a lot of insulin effect. Insulin is a hormone that sort of switches you into sort of fat storage rather than fat burning. So then even like a little bit of, a little bit of cream in the coffee is okay. And that's where people do this Bulletproof coffee with the butter and MCT oil, for example. And some people have great results with it. And that's the secret is that it's all healthy fats. So even if you were to take a little bit. We're talking about a couple of grams of carbohydrate here and there. Some people are like, "Oh, I've been doing this fast and I accidentally took this," which is like—

They're concerned that, "Oh my gosh, I had a little bit of fat, but I had a carb or 2 grams or 3." What would you say to how we cheat it? Because I know for me, you know about my Cruise Control coffee, similar to Bulletproof, we use the butter or the heavy cream. For the most part, you would say that's fine, fine to do. What would you say about— What about, for example, we talked about this recently, this would be my second question about like egg yolks. Remember I mentioned to you that because if you search it out, the egg yolk is primarily fat, but it has a little bit of carbohydrate if you check it. What are your thoughts on something like that with a little bit of carbohydrate?

So again, it's not a big deal because remember it's not an all or nothing process. So your body, you know, the insulin level levels, as it starts to go down, you switch more into the fasting mode. If you take a little bit of carbohydrate, it's going to go backwards a little bit. Remember, you're only talking 2 or 3 grams, like a typical person eating 50% carbohydrate, they're talking about 250 grams a day. So 2 or 3 is like, you know, less than 1% almost. So you're talking about, okay, yeah, insulin's coming down, down, down, you'll go back up, but then it'll start going down, down, down, down, because you're not taking a lot. So it's not a big deal. And that's why I tell people, don't worry about it. Like if you accidentally broke your fast, you don't go from like, oh, I did 16 hours. Now I have to start from zero. No, it's like, no, your body's going to go backwards in terms of what you're trying to do for, for 5 minutes or 10 minutes. And then it's going to start going back to where you were. So don't worry about it. You can get great results even with these, you know, these sort of fasting training wheels.

Yep, yep. And they help kind of give you a little something to literally chew on without elevating insulin. And it really is about the insulin and healthy fats. Just for everyone listening, how would you describe whether it's a butter, an MCT oil, coconut oil? It doesn't tend to have that effect on insulin. It's more carbs and a little protein, correct? Fat for some reason keeps insulin levels— how would you describe it? Low? Or how would you—

it keeps it down. It's because Because the fat actually gets— the way it's processed in the body, it goes right into the fat stores. You're still burning fat, it's just that you're putting in fat at the same time. Insulin doesn't go up because you don't need it to go up.

I love that. Next real rapid fire, to keep it short, this idea of hydration, because I know I love teas, I love coffee, but for me, I walk around with a bottle of water, usually a spring water. And sometimes I'll add a little, a pinch, just a pinch of like a Himalayan salt with magnesium potassium. What are your thoughts on electrolytes and water and hydration? Is that something, because I know the purest of all fasting is water-based, but hydration throughout the day helps curb appetite as well, right, Jason?

Absolutely. So, so I think that's a great thing. And the, sometimes if people get a little lightheaded, for example, because they're going from sort of a relatively high salt diet to zero because if you're drinking tea, you don't usually put salt in it. So that's why sometimes some people do the water and salt, which sounds strange, but a lot of people find it very useful. The magnesium can help with the cramps as well. And then the other thing I tell people to do, which is sort of a cheat as well, is the bone broth because it's not so strange to add the salt to that. And you've got You get all the minerals from the bones and all that to help get over it. It's a bit of satiety and all this sort of stuff. So again, that's another cheat that works very well for us.

And would you say if you were doing a bone broth, I'm assuming a soup of some sort maybe, right?

Yeah. Usually just the broth. Just the broth.

So with that cheat, you don't see that, and that would be more protein than carbs as it's a protein, is low enough where it's not going to other than for a few minutes, maybe raise your insulin and then it'll drop back down and you don't have to start at zero again. What would you say is a recommended amount of a broth maybe?

Yeah. Usually you'd take like a bowl or a mug of it. And I tell people, if you're getting really hungry, then what you do is get yourself a big cup of hot tea or a big cup of broth or a big bowl of broth. By the time you slowly finish it, because obviously obviously it takes some time for it to cool and you need to drink it. So by the time you finish it, most of the time the hunger will have mostly dissipated and that's enough to get you over that sort of wave of hunger.

I love that. Yeah. And it does pass within a few, like I'd say probably 15, 20 minutes, right, Jason? Maybe worst case. And then obviously water is a form of all those things with a little bit of salt. You can do that. And I feel like it's such a simple, biohack, whether it's the tea, the coffee, the coffee with some butters or the teas with butters or water with salt or— and I love your idea of the bone broth. It's so simple. I always thought it was a little too high in protein. Are there any guidelines for people that are looking at labels right now possibly and thinking, well, can I do this or can I do that? Because they're going to know what else can they do. How do you— what's in your mind the rule of thumb? To not exceed too many carbs or proteins? Any guidelines there maybe?

You know, with carbs, you really want to keep it sort of 2 or 3 grams. I mean, because it's going to stimulate insulin quite a bit. With the protein, it's a little bit more difficult. I mean, you really shouldn't be having a lot of proteins. If you're just getting the bone broth and not eating the actual like meat or whatever that's in it, then you're going to have a sort of very small amount. There's the collagen which makes it sort of a little bit gummy and stuff, but there's not a lot. I mean, you're less than a few grams. Yeah.

So keep it to a couple of grams literally, and you'll be fine. And then obviously with fat, not as worried on that. And I'm not saying you have permission to eat a whole stick of butter or 100 egg yolks, but keep it to a normal amount because that will, I mean, if you're, how shall we say, not an emotional eater, because I know sometimes people eat not because of hunger, but, and I'm sure you've dealt with people that are, boredom eaters, stress eaters, you know, the emotional eaters. But I feel like the healthy fats definitely turn off the hunger, just like the tea does, just like a coffee with a little butter could do, or these yolks. And what would be your guidelines on healthy fats? How much is too much or not to worry there?

I would say, I would say take as little as you need, because again, the point is that your body is burning fat when you're getting into the fasting, right?. But if you're adding fat at the same time, of course, it's just like, you know, it's just like in the bathtub. If you pull the plug and turn on the water, like it's going down one side and coming in the other side. So it's the same thing. Your body is burning it, but it's going to keep coming in. So you really want to keep it to as low as possible.

Fantastic. Well, Jason, I can't thank you enough. I feel like we've covered the bases of fasting, and I feel like if people want to reach out to you, you're very active on social media. Obviously, you You're physically located in Toronto, Canada. Is there a place in Toronto that if people are in that neck of the woods you would suggest? And then obviously tell us how to get in touch with you digitally, please.

Yeah. So you can find me, my website is www.thefastingmethod.com. So we have a program for the fasting. You can find me on Twitter. The handle is @DrJasonFung. That's D-R Jason Fung. Um, yeah, that's probably the best thing to, to to reach me. And, you know, there's Facebook groups and so on. So yeah, you know, and then there's the books that are available everywhere for more information.

If someone is wanting to get one of your books after this conversation, is there a book that you would suggest to them if they don't get them all? Obviously, I think they should get all of them, but is there one that you would say you would suggest to someone who's beginning this journey, you know?

I'd probably start with The Obesity Code, just because that is sort of the basis, the science of how this whole process works.

This is it right here, guys.

Yeah. A lot of the basics you can figure out yourself or just go online or you can check my YouTube channel. There's, there's lots of information there as well about how to fast and so on. So, you know, that, that part is relatively easy. Understanding it is the more important thing. And that's where a book is, you know, it, yeah, there's a bit more time to lay out the foundations of everything.

Well, Jason, thank you for all your, your, your work, your passion to help others and health. And, and I feel like, uh, I just, I hope more and more people can share this message that you have to, to their loved ones, to their community, to people that maybe, uh, have some sort of dis-ease in their body. And for anyone who doesn't, and just wants to have longevity. This is, I think, probably in my 25-year career as a trainer and 20 years as an author, I feel like probably one of the most pivotal mechanisms of health. You know, you know, as a trainer I started with just exercise, but nutrition is such a big thing. And I always tell my celebrity clients, you can't out-train a poor diet. So I feel like you have really given us, I think, a lot to think about and to embrace here. And so thank you, Jason, for your continued hard work. And remind everyone, the new book that just came out this 2020 that they should also get, if, you know, they get The Obesity Code, the new one is The Fast Lane. Is that right?

Life in the Fasting Lane. So that's a little bit lighter read. It's more about a story and sort of, it's a little bit less dense than the science. It's more, you know, sort of practical stuff for fasting. Fasting and sort of, you know, what to do, you know, to make it successful, sort of the social side of fasting. So all of those sort of topics that's not the hard science of it. Yeah.

And they're great stories. I mean, very inspirational too. I think very emotionally uplifting to see how many people's lives have transformed, you know, not just the waistline, but, you know, but their overall health and happiness. So thank you for keeping us healthy, Jason. I can't thank you enough, and I can't wait to connect soon after COVID. But for right now, thank goodness for Zoom, and, and thank you for joining us today. I'm so grateful. And again, guys, Dr. Jason Fung. Thank you, Jason. Hey, it's Jorge. If you have one more minute, I wanted to address something that I think is super important, and that is if you need help with anything from the show, if you need help about losing belly fat, if you want help about intermittent fasting, if you want help about exercise, interval training, anything at all, I want you to join my Fit Family on text. It's a brand new service I've just launched. And if you really do need help, I want you to text me right now. It really is that simple. You'll be part of my texting family. I have a group of people that I work with via text. Texts, and it's all for free. So I'd love you to join. All you have to do is text my, uh, Malibu number. It's a 424 area code number, so I'm going to give it to you right now. Jot this down, or while you're listening, text me right now.

I mean it.

424-228-9548, and you'll join my Fit Family. Let me give it to you one more time. It's area code 424 228-9548. Now it's gonna work only in the US, so I have to say that if you're listening to our show outside of the US, sorry, no international texting yet at least. And, uh, but 80% of you in the US should be able to text me. I know if you have T-Mobile and you have to put on premium service or something like that, uh, but this is free and I'm going to be giving away a lot of my time on this texting service. A lot of free things like our Belly Fat Cure course will be announced on here. So if you've done my survey, this is how you'll get access to it. I'll be doing special livestream events only for people in my texting community, and I'll be announcing my next 19-day challenge on there as well. So really utilize this, and, uh, and you'll get first glances from our show as well. So it'll be a great chance for us to connect. And I may even call you and FaceTime you. So kind of a fun thing. Again, the number— text me, literally do it right now— area code 424-228-9548. And I look forward to having you join my Fit Family. Take good care and God bless. Peace and purpose.