#89 - Why one meal a day (OMAD) is critical for optimal health with guest co-host @ drjasonfung.

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. It is November 2nd.

This is Jorge Cruise. Welcome to the show. I'm super happy you're here.

Uh, I can't believe it is the first Monday in November.

Uh, hope you had a great Halloween. Um, and it's Monday. Wow.

And tomorrow's the election.

Are you guys excited for that? Oh my goodness. What a week it will be. But on today's show, get ready because it is going to be an exciting topic today. We are talking about intermittent fasting. And obviously when you eat less and you eat in a time-restricted window is what we call it, you may be concerned about hunger. So on today's show, I'm gonna do two things with the world's leading authority on intermittent fasting. He is the New York Times bestselling author of so many books on this topic. His name is Dr. Jason Fung, F-U-N-G. I've interviewed him before. If you've not heard our interview, you gotta listen to the other show we did. Great, great material. I met Jason when I was writing my book 3 years ago called Cruise Control, The Cruise Control Diet, which was my take on intermittent fasting for kind of the newbie or the beginner, the everyday person, right? And it was a 16-hour window of not eating, and you would eat in an 8-hour window. So in the intermittent fasting world, we call it a 16:8. But on today's show, you're going to find out why I was a little wrong if you want to be someone who actually sees results with weight where you have beneficial weight loss results. Because the better results, where not only do you lose weight but your body has more time to go through housekeeping—

they call it autophagy—

is when you get to 24 hours. And you're going to be like, what are you talking about, Mr. Jorge Cruise? Well, Jason Fung and I had a conversation. It's blown my mind. I thought 16 hours was solid. I thought 20 hours was great. But if you want to see true beneficial health results that include weight loss, but also maximize this housekeeping effect, which is why I do it. I don't do it to lose weight. And I've been doing this now for 8 months. It's called OMAD, one meal a day. This acronym OMAD, you can check it out on every social platform. There are hundreds of thousands of people following that in the US. It's a big deal. A lot of people do it. Even the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, does this, and he's a billionaire, and he is not trying to lose weight. He's just trying to improve his longevity minimize aging. And when you get to 24 hours of fasting, magic happens. And basically you eat one meal every day. It's like, I have my meal around 3 PM Pacific time, for anyone that wants to eat with me, right? Uh, every day around that time. And we're going to talk about what to eat when you break your fast, because recently what's super controversial— the New York Times covered this, so it's legit— but, um, there was a journal article written on intermittent fasting and how intermittent fasting doesn't work for weight loss. And what Jason and I talk about is this study, this incredible research, uh, that was done. And unfortunately, it was done in a flawed way where there were two control groups. One where they had a structured 3-meal-a-day plan with snacks, was all structured, they just couldn't go to Domino's and eat whatever. And then there was one that was unstructured, and that was the group that was fasting for 16 hours, and they had 8 hours to eat whatever they wanted. In Latin, there's a word, it's A-D-L-I-B-I-T-U-M, ad libitum, I think is how you say it. You're going to hear Jason say it a few times throughout the show, as I've never heard this word before. And basically, it's quite the word because it pretty much, pretty much means you can eat to one's pleasure, as you desire. It basically means you can do whatever the heck you want when it comes to your diet. And I can tell you So if you eat basically whatever you want, and what people did in the study from what they've been talking about is junk food. They pretty much ate carbs, because who sits down when you're told you can eat whatever you want and has, you know, eggs, healthy protein, whether it's a steak, a lettuce-wrapped burger. I mean, you're going to go for the pizza, the nachos. I mean, believe me, this is Jorge Cruise. I'm a sugar and carb ex-addict. Salty foods included. And you're gonna get all that because you want the potato chips, you want the corn chips, you want maybe a little guac, but you go for the hummus, you want, you know, you want the beans on there, you want the carbs, the rice. That's what we go for, those comfort foods, right? If we can eat whatever we want. And that's why the study honestly didn't work that well because it was done in a way where the only people that had structure were the people eating 3 meals a day, not fasting. And then the ones fasting could eat whatever. And so if you're given 8 hours to eat junk food, you're not gonna lose weight. So on this show, we're gonna talk about all that. We'll even talk about bone broth and if that is something you can eat while you're fasting or not, because a lot of people want little hacks on what you can eat while you're fasting, what we call cheats, and we're gonna talk about that. So it's a lot of great material on today's show. It's gonna blow your mind. You may be motivated moving forward to follow in my footsteps. You don't have to. You can still see results. They're not gonna be huge. They're gonna be tiny results, and not bad, a pound or two a week if you do a 16:8. Uh, ideally you want to get up to 20 hours and 4-hour eating window. And if you're brave, wild, and crazy and want to live as long as possible and be in the phenomenal shape of your life, you're going to want to consider a 24-hour fast as a lifestyle. It's pretty powerful. You save money, and obviously it's structured. You're not going to be eating junk food. Sorry, no Domino's pizzas, although you can on occasion do that, maybe on a Friday. And I always tell my clients with my Zero Hunger Method that you get one day a week to have a cheat meal, you know, and because you're eating one meal a day, so enjoy. But hopefully there's always a little protein. I know when I have my cheat meals, I love nachos with cheese, but I always put steak on, you know, rather than just a ribeye or something. So I do that, and I may even have some rice and beans. And, you know, I am Latino, so I like all that stuff. But nachos, nachos are where my heart go to every single time. But so you're allowed a cheat date, and you can even on that cheat day have your wine or alcohol, whatever you want to do, and even ice cream and all that. But if you do that every single day, even if it's one meal a day, you're not going to be helping your body in a beneficial way. It has to be structured. So all that is on today's show, guys. I'm super excited. Now, before we get into the, the actual talk, I have to give a shout out to our sponsors and thank them for all their support. We're brought to you by Primal Kitchen. They're giving us all a free chipotle lemon mayo made avocado oil, my favorite anti-inflammatory. This is premium grade. 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Uh, it doesn't taste healthy, just tastes delicious. And you just simply go to primalkitchen.com/jorgecruise and you're good to go. We're also brought to you by Joovv. Now, Joovv, you get a free gift with the promo code Jorge, uh, is my red light therapy secret, uh, which is no longer a secret because I've been talking about it now for 3 years. But it is a red light therapy that I use in the morning early when it's dark, or at night, or anytime I just feel a little depressed or anxious because I go through that sometimes. I had a pretty rocky childhood, so there's still some cobwebs in my brain sometimes that are triggered. And when I want to feel happy, pretending I'm like a Disneyland kind of vibes, but you know, for me it's a sunrise in Maui or something, or Hawaii, or, or in Capri seeing a sunset, that magic light. You guys know what I mean, that beautiful orange-red light. 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So now with all that said and done, I'm excited because I mean, for me, you know, food was an issue for all my life. When I was younger, I was overweight. Sugar, carbs, all that stuff.

Salty.

I always say salty snack foods, but it's true. It was the potato chips and the corn chips, obviously, for the nachos that I love. But you're going to discover why intermittent fasting is something that will not only clean your life up, your body up through autophagy, but it can give you the ultimate health. But you're going to find out what you've learned may have been off and how 24 hours of fasting could be ideal to transform your health. And it's provocative, but please share this with your loved ones, guys. And let's get started right now if you're ready.

I'm ready.

Let's do this. Happy Monday, everyone. Let's do it.

Just a few weeks ago in the New York Times, there's a big article about intermittent fasting and, and how intermittent fasting, according to a study, was not effective at helping people with weight loss and health. And of course, I reached out to my dear friend Dr. Jason Fung when this happened, and we decided to do a little conversation. So joining me on the other side here in Canada, in Toronto, is my dear friend Dr. Jason Fung. Please say hi to everyone, Jason.

Hey, how are you? Good to be here.

Well, I'm thrilled you're here, Jason, because, you know, this article came out September 28th in the New York Times. I'll just show everyone a little screenshot here on my iPad, and it basically just says the potential downside of intermittent fasting. And, you know, Jason is not only, I would say, the world's leading expert in this field, he's written the top books, from The Obesity Code, literally, to the books that I believe are the top books that people, when they start fasting, any kind of Fasting, they go to your name, Dr. Jason Fung, on Amazon. And you've written so many wonderful books on this topic. You've dedicated your life to this, and you have an online kind of community as well, uh, that we'll, we'll shout out to at the end of the, the call here, um, that you've dedicated a lot of your work to this. And I feel like if anyone could help us understand what was in the New York Times, it would be you. And I'm just so grateful you're here, Jason, because I think I'm scratching my head literally and saying, what the heck? But what do you see? I mean, you've read this article, right, Jason? Tell me what your thoughts are on this— that the New York Times kind of is promoting that, that fasting is not effective, especially when it comes to health and weight loss, right?

Yeah. It's a little bit counterintuitive. We have to look at the study that was done and how they came to that conclusion. Of course, studies can only answer very, very specific questions. So they put people into very specific groups and the way that they did it was not really the way that most people do fasting and certainly not the way that we recommend. So what they did was they had two groups and one group was going to be a time-restricted eating. So 16 hours of fasting. Um, and the sort of the, when you dig down into the details, there was a little bit of a difference between the way they said they should eat and the way we normally tell people when they eat. So normally when we tell people, okay, if you're going to be sort of 16 hours of fasting, which is an 8-hour eating window, you sort of eat everything you normally do, just Cut it off, you know, truncate it where you want to do so. 8 hours, say 12 to 8, you eat normally from 12 to 8 and everything else just gets wiped out. So that's normally the way we tell people to do it. So eat as normally as you can, just keep, you know, but everything in that sort of fasting window is kind of tossed out.

Yeah, no, agreed. And I feel like that's been the basis of what I've recommended to people. And you remember the Cruise Control Diet that I wrote and you were kind enough to write the introduction. And I feel like that is the standard 16 hours of fasting and an 8-hour eating window. There's some people that do less, right? Jason, they'll do one meal a day, right?

Yeah. So some people do one meal a day. And again, the point is not to sort of gorge yourself during that period. Um, because you'll find that weight loss is not gonna— if you just shove all your calories in and, you know, eat ice cream and cookies and stuff and you say, oh, I'm fasting, so I should eat cookies. Um, you're going to have a bit more trouble with weight loss than you normally would.

You need quality macronutrients when you're eating.

Yeah, exactly. So in this study, what they did, of course, was they said one group is going to eat a structured— and I can only infer from the way they worded it, it's a structured 3 meals a day. So they basically told the group, eat sort of a structured meal 3 times a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. And if you want a snack, you can take a snack, but it's structured meals.

So basically the other one was non-fasting, non-fasting.

So 3 meals a day. The other group, they said, Eat ad libitum, which is eat whatever you feel like and however often you feel like in those 8 hours that you're fasting. That is cookies are okay. Cookies, ice cream. You want to eat constantly. You want to eat like throughout the entire 8 hours of that, that feeding window. You could. So it was basically ad libitum, which is really eat to your heart's content. That's not the way. And eat whatever you want. Like it's not structured. There's no structure. You can eat whatever you want. And the way, the reason they did that was because in rat studies of fasting, they found that you could let rats eat whatever they wanted in this 8-hour window. But the difference is that rat metabolism is much higher than human metabolism. So 8 hours of rat fasting is much different than 8 hours of human fasting. So, you know, a rat fasting for 8 hours is more than the equivalent of a human fasting for 24 or even 36 hours, uh, because their metabolic rates are much higher. So they have to eat more frequently and all this sort of stuff. So when you fast them for that period of time, it's not the equivalent, but they took the rat and the human and they said, well, it worked for rats. So we can tell humans to eat whatever they want in that 8 hours. And that's, you know, it's, it's a huge difference in the way you practice medicine and the way they did the study. So they tried to emulate the rat studies. Not taking into account the difference in metabolic rate. Like if you said, eat whatever you want, like now, and then don't eat again for 36 hours, that's maybe you might do okay. You get to eat once for 36 hours and eat whatever you want. That might work, but eat whatever you want for 8 hours of the day. Um, you know, looking at that going in, I'd say, well, that's not going to work for most people. And my clinical experience is that if you tried to do that, you really wouldn't lose much weight at all, which is what they found. And then of course, uh, the, the 16 hours of fasting is really just, it's not a whole heck of a lot of fasting for people. Like when you're trying to get people to lose weight, that's more of a stepping stone. I mean, we never used to use 16 hours, honestly. Um, but we cover it just because it's sort of a, you know, a very beginning. And if people did well on 16 hours, we'd leave them on that. But honestly, We didn't, we didn't see a huge amount of weight loss at 16 hours. If you're, if you're, if you're not—

what was the tipping point, Jason? What, what number of hours were the weight loss higher?

Yeah, higher. So 20, 24 is what we'd see more beneficial weight loss. If you did 16, but you really changed your diet, that is really ate good stuff and cut out all the junk and processed food.

You know what, not to interrupt, but you know, you know, my work with, uh, you know, my interviews as well on the podcast with Dr. Uh, Paul Saladino and, uh, and, uh, Sean Baker, a lot of these guys are eating a high-fat, high-protein diet, more keto, obviously a little more carnivore. And then there are people like Mark Sisson that are also moving in that direction. And I feel like, you know, I've been doing one meal a day and it's been very helpful. And I've recommended to a lot of clients. And I love that you're saying that you really see a more significant transformation with weight when people get closer to— you were saying, is it a 24-hour fast? And maybe explain that to everyone watching and listening.

Yeah. And that's sort of a one meal a day. So sort of eat dinner and then eat again at dinner. So you sort of don't eat anything in between and it doesn't have to be every day, but often 3, 4 times a week, depending on what your weight loss goals are. But the 16:8 is sort of, it just sort of gets you there barely. Now in a clinical setting, of course, like when you see patients, it's okay because if people are doing great and some people will because they'll change their foods as well. So if they do great, then you Just leave it be. Right. But if they're not doing great, then you can up it and you say, okay, well, it's not working for you. You haven't lost any weight and you wanted to lose weight. So let's, let's up the fasting and see what we can do about your, you know, cutting out some of the junk. And, you know, the, the point is too, that when you sort of shorten that fasting window, you're getting rid of a lot of the opportunity to eat this sort of junk. Uh, you know, that, that, that, that gets very tempting. Like you walk by and there's donuts on the counter, like, you know, muffins on Pringles, you name it. Especially if you're sitting at home in the kitchen or something, right?

Two questions come to mind. I'm just thinking like the audience is listening right now, and I feel like you're saying junk, and obviously I'm 100% behind what you're saying here. We want to minimize the processed foods, and mainly they're carbohydrates that were all sugar and carbs and salty snack foods. And, you know, and the, the more natural foods, you know, I always like to look at the ancestral diet, and I'm not saying everyone has to eat, you know, um, you know, more of a meat-based diet, but I feel like a lot of people are scared of that. What is your take, Jason, on a, on a meat-based diet, because I know there's controversy even on that. And not that that's something that you're necessarily focused in on versus a plant-based diet, but I feel like my first question is, if we replace the junk, could we replace it with more of an animal-based diet and, and some plants, of course? And then two, uh, I feel like this is important because I feel like if people get to that one meal a day where I'm at, and I tell people, you know, that I'm doing one meal a day and they look at me like I'm from Mars, they They're like, what? And I'm not— I have zero hunger. You know, I use electrolytes. I've used healthy fats to suppress appetite. You know, and if I drink water, I'll add some electrolytes and that really makes a difference. But I want people to know that if they do this 24-hour window, you know, where it's one meal a day possibly, that they're not going to disappear and lose muscle. Because I think so many people I've spoken to feel like, well, you're not being healthy. And then I show them, you know, I've gained almost 20 pounds of lean muscle during this COVID-19 window by eating more of a carnivore diet, fasting, one meal a day, you know, have a nice ribeye, something like that. Maybe some eggs and a little collagen or something like that. And maybe some zucchini or some plants, you know, a little something that I enjoy. But if I do that one meal, the results I've gained, you know, lean muscle, I've lost the body fat. And, you know, I'm almost 50 and I feel like I'm at the best shape of my life. And you know, Paul Saladino, he's in phenomenal shape. He's in his early 40s. Shawn Baker's in his mid-50s. And Mark Sisson, he's in his late '60s, '67. These are just some people that embrace this, and I would say they're in superstar shape. But would you share with us your thoughts on this junk you say we have to minimize? And obviously it's so sad that JAMA— because this was a study published in the Journal of American Medicine, correct?

Yeah. So I mean, it is a, it is a randomized trial. The problem I think is that you didn't have people who actually have the clinical experience of actually using this for people. Sure. You had asked me, I would have said, I don't think that's going to work. Like if you're eating junk food, literally, because that's the term they used, ad libitum. And the thing—

say that word again. What was the term?

So ad libitum is the Latin term. So for junk food, for American food, it's to, you know, at liberty or whatever.

Wow. And you know what people are going to eat? They're going to eat the junk. Yeah.

Yeah.

You tell me I can eat pizza and, you know, French fries, chips and ice cream all day. I'll be like, yeah, this is great. Like, you know, the problem is, of course, they didn't do well.

No, it's all sugar and processed carbohydrates. So what would you suggest we would have replaced it with? I mean, obviously there's lots of options, right?

There's lots of options. And I think that the good thing— like, I don't necessarily say you have to do a plant-based diet. I don't say you necessarily have to do an animal-based diet either. Both can be very healthy. You can eat meat all day like Shawn and Paul, and you can be very healthy. Now they eat often, I think once a day, you know, as well, because it keeps you really full.

So, oh my gosh, no hunger when you eat this high-fat, high-protein diet. And can you explain for anyone listening why a high-fat, high-protein diet like that, like what Shawn and, and, uh, and Jason do, or Shawn and Paul do, apologize, why that turns off hunger? Because it really, I've been doing that and I, I feel no hunger when I eat that way. And a couple electrolytes, which help too, you Yeah.

I mean, because the protein and the fat, they activate these satiety hormones, things like peptide YY, cholecystokinin. So they really keep you full. And the other thing is that as you start, you know, mostly eating protein and fat, your body is metabolizing fat. So the change from fasting where you're basically eating body fat to eating is, is, is sort of seamless. So therefore the reason you don't get so much hunger is because the body's able to transition very easily. Into metabolizing body fat, which is the exact same as if you're eating. So eating and fasting is the same. The body's just getting its energy from fat. So it's very easy for that. And it makes it easy. I mean, the other thing is of course getting into the sort of rhythm of it, the habit of it makes it very easy because a lot of our hunger is not real hunger. It's more sort of learned. You learn, okay, time to eat lunch. I'm hungry now. So you do actually get hungry, but only because you've trained yourself that way.

And then it's all in here. Yeah.

Well, exactly. And that's one of the keys of fasting is it sort of breaks that sort of dependence on, oh, I must eat because it's lunchtime or I must eat because it's dinnertime. If you're busy during lunch, then you eat. And if you're not busy, you know, if you're busy during lunch, then you don't eat and that's it. And your body just goes right, or, you know, you just sail right through. So it not only affects the sort sort of physiology, but also it affects the psychology that you don't have to eat all the time. And I think that this is the, um, you know, the key— oh, sorry, just to finish my, my, uh, what you're asking about the whole plant-based versus carnivore. So the whole thing about the, the, the diets that you can be very healthy with both. I don't make any specific recommendations. You can even be healthy eating carbohydrates, but it's the processing that really makes it bad. Cause there's lots of cultures. They eat lots of beans and stuff. And it's, uh, you know, and they do fine. If you want to do that, no problem. I think you'll do fine.

Would you say if people did a little more plant-based, Jason, uh, because you explained it so well, when you do more animal-based, how it turns off the hunger and you feel more satiated with the plants, they're not quite as, uh, they're not structured the same as animal protein, obviously. So you may be eating— I mean, it does save a little money. I know plants are are more affordable for everyone out there. And some people like it for, you know, budgets, but some people do like plant-based, but you would, would you somehow agree that, that a plant-based side is going to require during that one window, probably more volume to fill you up, right?

Yeah, probably like you probably need a bit more bulk, you know, uh, you know, the problem is with a lot of plant-based diet. And now of course they don't talk about plant-based, they talk about whole food plant-based because you could eat chocolate donuts all day and be plant-based, right? It's not healthy. Healthy. Doritos, all that. Exactly.

Oh, shit.

But it is. It's French fries and chocolate donuts all day. That's plant-based. People would be very happy. It's a plant-based diet. So that's why nobody or few people talk about plant-based as healthy. And now they go whole food plant-based. And I agree with that. Right. If you eat whole plants and stuff, you're way better off than eating chocolate donuts all day long. Oh, well, yeah. So that's the thing is that there's nothing intrinsically healthy about eating a plant-based diet. That You know, that's, that's the point. You can eat chocolate donuts and pizza, you know, vegetarian pizza, but you know, you can do that and nobody thinks that's a healthy diet. So sure, you could certainly do that. You may have to, you may have to tweak your fasting a little bit, but the point is that, you know, by changing the foods, you can make a big difference and you don't want people to eat sort of whatever. If they're trying to lose weight and you say you can eat whatever you want, want. It's not helpful. As opposed to if somebody tells you, you need to eat 3 structured meals a day. Now you think, okay, well, I need to eat sort of like my mom taught me, which is a bit of vegetable, but there's not too much sugar. That's a structured meal.

Right.

And that's the problem with the study. The way they did it is that they were trying to, they're trying to let people eat whatever they want because they saw this in the rat study and it didn't work for humans. And I didn't think it would work for humans. If anybody had asked me, I would have said, yeah, that doesn't sound like a good Like you, if you're going to do the fasting, you should do it the proper way, which is eat normally during your eating window and cut out everything outside of that. Don't try and cram in snacks because you're not going to eat. Don't try and cram this in. You're trying to get your body to eat your body fat. So the other problem, of course, which is what the New York Times article was trying to say is this, what they saw was a very small decrease. Uh, so, so, so both groups groups actually had very similar weight loss, slightly more for the fasting group, but nothing, nothing major. But when they measured the sort of lean mass loss versus fat loss, they saw a little bit more of the lean muscle loss. And, and, and, you know, the—

which group again, Jason, with which group?

The fasting group. They said, oh, maybe there was a little bit more of the—

let's segue to that because I think that's a question people always have, especially if we're now maybe saying 24 hours is even better. Are they going to lose even more muscle? How do you, how do you address the loss of muscle? Because I have never experienced that.

I've actually gained muscle, and I don't actually think it's true. So again, this is what happens when you have people who don't, you know, they're not using it for like, you know, like I do, where I use it for lots and lots of people for years and years and years. So I've seen it all. I'll tell you that it's a, it's, it's a great option for people. You don't have to do it. I mean, I'm not saying that you have to do it, but it's an option for people if they do well. The thing about the lean mass is that when you're overweight, you actually don't just have too much fat. You also have too much protein somewhere on the order. And remember, the people in this study are like 100 kilos or 230 pounds sort of thing. So big people, people who are overweight, weight not only have too much fat, but they also have too much protein. And that's the connective tissue, which is the stuff that holds all your cells in place. That's the skin, that's the blood vessels. All of that is not fat. That is protein. That is lean mass. Okay. So you have to understand. So if you're overweight, you have too much protein by about 50, 60, 70% compared to a lean And that is not muscle.

And that is an adaptation that occurs to help keep your body, I would hope, at that heavy weight from breaking or falling apart. I mean, it's literally supportive tissues, right?

To keep a heavy frame together.

Yeah.

So when you fast, what happens is that you start to, as you go into the longer fast, if you're, um, you know, once you get through the glucose, then you actually start, there's a, there's a short window in there where you're actually burning protein. And protein is not the same as muscle. And people always think that burning protein is a bad thing, but it's a good thing because if you have too much protein, you don't want it. You don't want that excess flappy skin. That's why we don't have the— you don't see the same problem.

I'm so happy you brought that up.

Um, that other people do because they lose the fat, but they don't lose the protein. Whereas when you start fasting, there's a period somewhere where it's starting probably around 16 hours, going up to about 30 hours where you actually start to burn protein. And you'd say, why is that a good thing? Well, if you think about autophagy, that's a process of burning stuff you don't need, like the protein that you don't need. Remember, fat is just a store of energy. It just sits there for the most part. When you have way too much of it, it, you know, it gets you all the problems, but you also have too much protein. So you bring that down. It's not necessarily muscle. When you don't eat, your body will actually just start getting rid of certain protein because it thinks that there's no food coming in. I can't have all this. You know, body mass that I'm supporting here. So I need to get rid of it. So it's not going to just use the protein, the fat, but it's also going to burn some of the protein and like autophagy. The first thing you do is get rid of this protein that you don't need, the stuff you don't need, but it doesn't know what it doesn't need. Right. So it just gets rid of protein and then rebuilds what it needs when you start to eat again, because remember growth hormone goes up during fasting. So when you eat again, your body's going to rebuild what you don't need and you're going to not rebuild build what you don't need because the body can't say, oh, I need— I have too much skin. I know that. It doesn't know that. It just gets rid of all protein and then rebuilds what you need. So if you're exercising, for example, that's the way you build or lose muscle. Like what you eat has very little to do with the muscle that you build or don't build. So you send an astronaut, you send a person into space.

Hey everyone, it's Jorge Cruise. Hey, I wanted to interrupt the show just for one single minute to invite you to join the number one newsletter that really is about controlling appetite. I call it Zero Hunger Live, uh, and you can go to zerohungerlive.com. The bottom of the page, we have a sign up for this newsletter. Comes out every Friday from yours truly, and it really is the number one source on my best biohacks that we don't even cover on the show to help control appetite, including emotional hunger. So if you are struggling with that, please join our newsletter. Check it out at zero, the number zero, but spelled out zerohungerlive.com, and you'll sign up and get it for free every Friday, and it's exclusive to listeners. All right, just go to zerohungerlive.com. Let's get back to the show.

They start losing muscle right away. Why? Because you're not using your muscle. There's no gravity, so you don't use your muscles. You lose— so they start— they, they lose muscle, they lose bone right away. So they have to exercise to do that. Same thing with the body. So how much muscle you gain or lose— and you see it in the study, there's no difference in their strength when they test them on the strength. It's not muscle necessarily that you're losing. And the loss of protein, just like in a toffee is a good thing, not a bad thing. But of course, you know, people who aren't familiar with fasting won't know that. They just say, oh, you're losing muscle because you're fasting. Yeah. And then the newspaper says, oh, people lose muscle. You shouldn't do this. It's like, okay, well, you know, forgetting the fact that, you know, fasting has been used for thousands of years.

Thousands.

And it's in the word breakfast. It's like literally the word tells you that you should have a daily fasting period. You're just extending it if you want to lose weight, right? It's, it's a part of a natural cycle of eating and fasting, eating and fasting. You're not supposed to eat all the time and you're not supposed to fast all the time. So it's this natural cycle. And I think that this is the problem is that you get these researchers who haven't advised people how to do it and they haven't they haven't understood it and they haven't actually treated people with it. And then they try and do a study and then it's designed in a way that's going to minimize your good results. Like I said, you know, you don't want somebody eating 8 times in 8 hours. I mean, that's worse than eating 3 times a day.

Yeah. I know they literally have cranked it up. And that's what happened in this study in the New York Times. Right. It seems that way.

Yeah. They couldn't— we don't know what they did. But we know that they were told to eat whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as it's within that.

What was it, that term again, Jason?

That term, fancy ad libitum. So it's a Latin term and it's, it's, you see it a lot.

And I think that is why this study was flawed, because that really is unhealthy. And if anyone out there has tried my version of it or your version of it, I think, I feel like we guide them with a structured meal plan, right, Jason? You have to hopefully have a structured whole foods and healthy foods and ancestral foods, even, you know, with good protein.

And you're still not trying to eat that often. Like if you eat an 8-hour window and you eat at say noon and then 7, that's what it is. It doesn't mean you snack all day just because it's within that 8 hours. I mean, this is the problem is that they thought that people could snack all day with chocolate donuts all day long, as long as it's within that 8 hours, because that's what the rat study told them.

Yeah.

They would still lose weight. Well, I could have told you you'll never lose weight snacking all day on chocolate donuts for 8 hours a day eating chocolate donuts. So this is the thing is that they chose an intervention. And then, of course, when it was negative, it was a bit of a surprise to them because they were expecting, you know, people would just lose weight. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, like I said, it would have to be a lot longer to be the same as that rat. You'd have to be at a probably a 36-hour fast to be similar to that rat study. So if you ate once in every 36 hours, you'd probably be not too bad because it's hard to stuff yourself so much at one sitting. It still wouldn't be the way I'd go, but you know, it's, it's the way you do the study. And the other thing is, of course, that there's no allowance for individuality. That is, if it's It's working great.

I leave it.

If it doesn't work, I change it. Right. And of course, in a study, you don't do that. So of course, you know, people get the idea. They read these articles, they say, oh, the science said that fasting doesn't work. I'm like, so if you don't eat, you will lose weight. Like, do you have a problem with that? Like, there's just no, like, you can't get around the math of it, right? If you're not eating and and you're still alive, you need to use energy. Like you need to generate a source of energy from somewhere. Some of it will come from glucose, which is good because as your glucose goes down, but some of it will come from protein as well during that 16 to 30 hour period. That's not a bad thing necessarily, but that's what they say. They see it and they say it's a bad thing. It's like, no, it's a good thing.

Depends where it's coming from.

Yeah. So, so, so your body has only those three options to use and all of them are good in specific settings. And that's where you need a very deep knowledge of this sort of topic. You can't just say, okay, this is what we're doing. And, uh, you know, there it is. Right.

Jason, could you share with us briefly how you mentioned 24 hours being such a magic tipping point, but then you alluded, I think a little bit that you could go beyond that. And I feel like if anyone knows what that's like and if it's had clients and, and, and has worked with people that have gone, I think, did you mention 30-hour fasts at one point?

Yeah.

So I think what happened And, and yeah, tell us why that is beneficial and that isn't something that should be poo-pooed. I mean, is there a limit? Where do you— I mean, take us through those higher limits past 24 hours. Yeah, so how is the next one?

Yeah, these are sort of like double-edged swords. So the higher you go, the more powerful you are, but on the other hand, it can hurt you if you don't do it properly.

Tell us the good and the bad.

Yeah, yeah. So 24 hours, almost anybody can do, and this is assuming you're not malnourished and, you know, you're, you're you're talking to your doctor and you're adjusting your medications, like all that other stuff.

And that's the OMAD acronym.

Yeah. So the one meal a day is the 24-hour fast, which is, it's just great because it makes it very easy. That is, you don't have to think about it too much. It's like, I eat one meal a day, like that's when I eat and that's it. So we have researchers like Dr. Mark Mattson who wrote the article in the New England Journal. I mean, he's, I think he's been doing it for like 20 years. Right. And he's—

what's his name again? Who's that?

Uh, Mark Mattson. So he's a researcher at the NIH. He wrote an article about fasting in the New England Journal of Medicine, which is the most prestigious journal. And I think he's done it himself on interviews. I've seen him talk about it. I think he does it like he's been doing it for years and years.

One meal a day.

Yeah. So he does that just, and I'll tell you, it's, it's, it's—

If you would share that with me, Jason, I'd love to share it with all our audience. Do you happen to have the article or a PDF?

You can share I'll send it to you. Thank you.

We'll include it in the show notes, guys. Yeah.

But the thing is that it's a great combination of efficacy and simplicity, right? As you start to go longer, it really starts to impact the way you live your life because you have dinner with your family, you have, you know, you go out and meet friends and stuff. Well, maybe not now, but before, you, you do this kind of social— it's eating is not purely sustenance. There's a huge social component to it and you can't ignore that. So when you start going longer, it really starts to impact that. So that's why 24 hours is a lot, is really the simplest thing to do. When you go longer, you get more power because what you do is you're getting past the sugar. So the sugar lasts 24 hours. And after that, you start burning low protein at 30 hours. By the time you get past that, you're pretty well just burning fat. So the advantage of going up to like a 36-hour fast, which is say if you eat dinner on Monday, you would not eat until Wednesday morning. So that's 36 hours. You're well past 24 hours, right?

Say that one more time.

So the scenario would be for someone listening, say you eat dinner at say 7 on a Monday and then you skip all of Tuesday's meals and you go to Wednesday morning at 7. That's a 36-hour period of fasting. And the advantage of that is that at you go to 36 hours is that you get an extra 8 hours of fasting pretty much for free because you're sleeping, right? So you're sleeping, but while you're sleeping, your body has to continue to burn energy. And the only source left is body fat. So you're getting sort of 8 hours for free. So even though you drop one meal, you're going up by 12 hours, which gives you a huge boost boost in terms of the, you know, its power. So the other thing is that oftentimes when you wake up, you're sort of reset. A lot of times people are not even hungry by then, so they can even extend it and keep going. So that's the thing is that you can really go as long as you want. Remember, your body has energy stored in the form of body fat, which is, you know, for one a day, you only need about half a pound of body fat. So a pound of fat is about 3,500 calories. So you need maybe 1,800. That's half a pound. So for, if you're 100 kilos, like the people in the study, you're talking about, so 240 pounds is probably at least like, you know, they're probably, if you're overweight, they're probably something like 30, 40% body fat, right? You're talking out like 80 pounds of body fat, of which you need half. So you're a long way from being in danger of running out. What you're trying to do, of course, is you're trying to force your body into using the body fat instead of the food, because you remember your body has a perfectly good source of food sitting in your fat stores. That's what the bears do.

Yeah.

So, uh, you don't need to go—

this is not dangerous. It's not an eating disorder. It's just a strategy to improve health.

Exactly. And it's not like, you know, it's different. I mean, I'm not treating 16-year-old girls who weigh, you know, 56 pounds, right? I'm treating like, you know, 60-year-old men who weigh 300 pounds. They're not in danger of anorexia nervosa. And it's not that much fun. So people tell us disordered eating is like, okay, well, first of all, it's not that much fun. Two, they need it more than they need to eat. And 3, it's not like I have to force them to eat again. It's hard to get them to fast. It's not that much. It's not that— it's not like I'm worried that any one of these— so out of the thousands of people I've seen, I don't think I've ever had to force somebody off the fasting and say, oh, you need to stop right now because I don't treat 16-year-old girls who weigh 56 pounds, right? There you could— you might get into trouble. Trouble, but it's all a matter of, is it the right intervention for the right person? So if you have type 2 diabetes and you're 60 years old and you weigh 300 pounds, this'll do you a lot more good than eating 6 meals a day sort of thing, right? It's a lot better for you. And that's the whole point. You have to know who should do it, who should not. And then the thing about the, the muscle loss is that in order for the body— so the body stores energy in 2 ways. It stores it as sugar and it stores it as body fat. So in order for you to start burning muscle right away, uh, other than what we talked about, you'd have to believe that nature, Mother Nature is so stupid that we store energy as body fat and sugar. And then when we need it, we start burning protein. Like, why would, how would we have even survived if we, our bodies were just that stupid? Like, it doesn't make any sense. Yes, there is a little bit of protein burning. And if you understand the physiology, there's this period right in there, about 16, 30 hours that you're going to get some protein burning. And it's not necessarily a bad thing because you can rebuild that protein. If you lose excess protein, that's not a bad thing. It's a good thing because remember there's all these diseases where you have too much protein, not too much fat, but excess protein that you need to sort of break down.

You have to almost trust your body that it has that intelligence. You know, this Mother Nature created us in a way where we have that. And is it true, Jason, for people that are fasting? Because I know I've noticed for me it's been very helpful. I've had little— I call them little biohacks. You know about my, uh, Cruise Control Coffee where I put the healthy fats in there to help with satiating hunger, healthy fats. But I've moved a little more towards electrolytes, you know, minerals, magnesium, potassium, and a little bit of that. And it's been very helpful. Uh, you know, I drink that in the morning and I've, uh, not that I've stopped drinking coffee, but I don't drink as much of it. And I almost am not using butter anymore in my coffee. Have you had any experience with mineral electrolytes with your clients to help them?

Yeah. A lot of them find it useful. So it's salt electrolytes and stuff. I mean, personally, I just use tea or coffee. That's typically what I do. Just, I'm used to it. I don't, you know, but again, it's just getting, getting it through. You find out what you need and then you do it.

Right.

And those things don't break the fast, right? Because I always feel like people are always worried that coffee will break the fast, tea would break the fast, electrolytes. There are a lot of things that— maybe we can end on this for people that want to do this. Obviously, uh, we're going to give them your website and I want them to pick up your books because they're invaluable. But what would you say are probably a few things they could do that would be allowed during a fasting window? Obviously tea, coffee, uh, we've talked about healthy fats, electrolytes. What else?

Those are Those are probably the big ones, right? So green tea is what I recommend to people. Coffee is great. And again, the other thing is that gives you something to do. So say you get really hungry at lunchtime, then get yourself a big hot cup of green tea. By the time you finish it, the hunger wave has sort of mostly passed. It gives you something to do, gives you something to drink. Same thing with the electrolytes. You can put salt in water. People sometimes use, you know, apples, diluted apple cider vinegar, for example. It's just whatever gets you through. Bone broth is a great one. One. It's not a strict fast again, but it's good just to get you through.

Don't really hurt the fasting too much, a little bone broth, you know, because I know people have asked about that. They've said, oh, won't that break the fast? It's too much protein. But is there a gauge for the protein? No more than certain amount of grams or carbohydrates?

I think we've talked carbs, but again, if— as long as you're keeping it little. So the key is that your body is going to see the, the, the, you know, the protein or the fat or whatever, and it'll sort of blip up a little bit, then it'll go back down. Like, if you're assuming you're not taking like a full— small amounts, like tiny amounts are not going to make any difference.

All right. Yeah. And probably under 3 grams, you would say, if it's carbs or proteins, somewhere in there.

Yeah, I think so.

Like diluted. And the tea and coffee obviously don't have any of that, so we're fine. And like mineral electrolytes don't have that either, so we're there. So I love it. Well, Jason, please share with us where people can find you online, because you have an incredible community, which I think is the premier community for, for this kind of support. And I feel like obviously you lead this. Tell them a little bit about it, would you, Jason?

Yeah. So you can go to thefastingmethod.com and there's a lot of information there. There's sort of links to YouTube and the blogs and all that sort of stuff. And then there's also a paid program for, which is a community with where we provide sort of the tools that people need to fast, you know, health trackers and, you know, people that you can interact with and courses and videos and all that kind kind of stuff. If you really have trouble with the fasting, you feel that you need the help, then we're there to provide it for you. And that's thefastingmethod.com.

That's great. And then what would be the book you'd recommend for someone wanting to read more on this? That you've written so many good ones. And I know you have some coming up too.

Yeah. So if you, if you want to know the sort of practical stuff, The Complete Guide to Fasting is a practical guide. The Obesity Code is more of a scientific, uh, talk about how that is. And my upcoming book is The Cancer Code, which is again, sort of a description of sort of our understanding of cancer. It's not, it's not necessarily about nutrition or fasting or so on. It's a bit more broad than that. It's more of a discussion of sort of our understanding of cancer as a disease.

Incredible.

And how fasting can help alleviate that to some degree, right, Jason?

Yeah, there's, there's a lot of sort of beginning evidence. Most of the book is not about that, but I do talk about it as a strategy at the end, how it could potentially do it. There's not a lot of data, and that's the reason there's not more about it.

I can't wait for— and that'll be out this year or next?

November 10th, actually.

Ah, all right. Well, we'll have to talk about that soon. But Jason, I can't thank you enough for your time and for setting the record straight about this controversy out there. I feel like you provide such a simple solution and an explanation that made total sense. So thank you so much. My hat's off to you always for your work. And please everyone follow Jason on social. Would you mind giving them your social media so they can find you?

So on Instagram or Twitter, it's @DrJasonFung. That's Dr. Jason Fung. On YouTube though, it's just Jason Fung. If you go to Dr. Jason Fung, it's some scam site that uses my name and image and tries to sell your stuff. So just remember— Jason on YouTube? It's Jason Fung on YouTube but on Instagram and Twitter it's Dr. Jason Fung. Hey!

It's Jorge Cruz.

If you have one more minute I wanted to address something that I think is super important and that That is, if you need help with anything from the show, uh, 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, uh, I want you to join my Fit Family on text. It's a brand new service I've just launched, and, uh, 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, 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 gonna 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 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, but 80% of you in the US should be able to text me. I know if you have T-Mobile, you have to put on premium service or something like 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. Uh, 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 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.