297 Mike Mutzel: The Truth About Fasting

You know, why are people overweight? Why are they sick? Why are they inflamed? You know, blood sugar dysregulation, insulin resistance, and really, hyperinsulinemia is just part of that. And so I think that's where the power of fasting or low carb or even keto comes in. And I just want to provide a caveat to what you said here. So when we start to fast, that's a natural way to get into ketosis. And so a lot of people, when they think keto and fasting are different, well, maybe the diet, because you can have success with intermittent fasting or prolonged fasting and not be keto per se. It's a lot easier to have success with fasting or intermittent fasting if you are on a low carb diet anyway, because it lends itself to making ketones. But when we start to fast, our glucose drops, insulin drops. And if we pause and look at, okay, what are the health benefits ascribed to low glucose and low insulin? What really kind of drives mitochondrial metabolism and mitochondrial biogenesis? Because instead of like fermenting sugar, you have to actually go through breaking down fats.

That's Mike Mutzl and this is episode 297 of Wellness Force Radio. Wellness Force Radio, where we discover the physical emotional intelligence to live life. You can have the same brain states.

As someone who's done an hour of.

Meditation every day for 40 years. There's a lot of losses that we go through. So the ability to be able to cope with those losses is very important to build skill in it, because loss will happen.

You know, you have to have spiritual courage, to really grow spiritually, because if you really want to take guidance from your soul, you have to be ready to realize that many of the things that you're asking for guidance on, your ego has some kind of an addiction.

To or an investment in what's going on. My friend. This is Josh Trent. You made it here to Wellness Force, and today is a really, really great day. I'll tell you why. Besides the fact that we're here breathing and most of us listening to this have a roof over our head, clean water to drink, and plenty of food to eat. Many of us are fortunate enough to just take the time out of our day to take a break to get more intelligent, to listen to a podcast. This is why I am hands down grateful for you being here with the entire global Wellness Force community. Today's guest is a world famous health and wellness expert. He's a podcast host over at High Intens Health. This is the one and only Mike Mussel. This man is a legend. We're going in depth today about fasting. It's a topic we've explored, but we have not gone this deep. You're in for a real treat. We're going to uncover the nuances about who fasting is, for what fasting actually is and if it can actually help us. When done strategically, let go of old weight and if you're like me or most of us here, you lead a full, sometimes frenetic busy life and sticking in proper nutrition and workouts and movement and breath work can seem arduous at times. Let's be real so we understand this now. When it comes to proper rest and recovery, there is so much we can do from a behavioral perspective. This is why supplementation, when the lifestyle factors are put in place is so important. And this is why Wellness Force partnered with Life Aid Beverage company actually just went up to Santa Cruz and did a podcast with the founder Aaron Hind. Look for that in just a couple weeks. Actually. This product, I so was overjoyed by going into the headquarters, seeing how they produce this and seeing the love and care that they put into these Fit8RX and Fit8.0 products. This is a sugar free beverage. First of all. It's made for people that want to recover faster from the gym or their outside activity or just to feel better with these vitamins and minerals, the B complex, the turmeric, the CoQ10 that give you an upper hand when you're done exercising and working out. Now this is what they're offering to us because we're all here in the collective together. You get 20 bucks off 20 bucks off 48 cans of the Zero or the Zero RX. All you have to do is go to wellnessforce.com zero and you get 20 bucks off 48 cans. That's wellnessforce.com zero. Make sure you get the discount. Share that with your friends. Give it a test drive. I guarantee you will love the way that you feel. This is my favorite post workout recovery drink on the market and the taste is just as great as the nutrients and vitamins inside of the drink. This podcast that you're about to hear with Mike Mutzl and I, it was recorded live in Kirkland, Washington. I got to fly out to visit Mike there in person where we did a breathwork video where I was in. You can search High intensity health on YouTube and the show notes today have that link in the video as well@wellnessforce.com 297Mike is one of the most powerful voices in health and wellness. He's a clinical nutritionist. He's a functional medicine specialist. He's also a father and a content creator and a husband and so many other things, including a authentic and kind human being. This is what our world needs right now. There's a lot of quote influencers out there, a lot of people who are noting that when they have the right audience and when they say the right things, they can get notoriety and whatnot. This is completely not even in Mike's field. This is why Mike is here with us. He is a trustworthy person that gives us actionable advice when it comes to the real science and the story about fasting. We're talking about what metabolic debt actually is, how we can recover from this. Mike is going to teach us how to face what debt we've caused to our metabolism, how we can recover from that. Mike also shares with us how long we should be fasting, when it compares to our body's circadian clock and our health history. What goals we have when it comes to fasting need to be factored in when approaching a fasting protocol. We explore why fasting is not for everyone, but it is for the right person that's looking to shed extra pounds. Mike also shares with us his belief systems, how he had childhood experiences that formulated his now power as a health and wellness content creator. Mike also shares how plants have supported him and not just the ones that grow from trees and out of the ground. The special plants, the psychedelic plants, the healing plants that give deep introspection into why we're actually here on the planet. And Mike shares with us how they've made him a more resilient and aware human being in all his physical, mental, and spiritual wellness. We're going to learn from Mike and all his lessons. Make sure you really dig into the part where we get to the nuts and bolts of fasting, the 12 hour fasting, the feeding window, and everything else. You know, this quote from Mike really sums up fasting. He says dietary frameworks may not apply if the emotional inventory isn't taken. Of course, you know, we're going to explore the physical and the emotional on Wellness Force right here right now with Mike Mutzel live in Kirkland, Washington. What's up, everybody? This is Josh Trent with Wellness Force in Seattle with Mike Mutzal. Mike, thank you so much for having me.

Your house, My pleasure. Thanks for coming.

I wrote something special for you. It was a bio and I'd done some digging on you and I had a lot of fun digging on you. And I want to read this because traditionally, for the podcast, I'll just do a rolling start where it's like, my friend and I just talking, but you go so deep into the science on your show that I thought this bio was actually perfect.

All right, let's do it.

So our guest today is one of the world's leading experts in health, wellness, and functional medicine. He holds a master's degree in clinical nutrition, a bachelor's in biology, and is a graduate of the Institute of Functional Medicine. He also has an intense hunger, which you guys are going to find on this show, for knowledge that truly helps people, his tribe, live their life well. And to no surprise, he hosts a bombshell podcast called High Intensity Health, which we're going to talk about. This podcast has reached millions of people across the world with powerful health information. He wrote a book called the Belly fat the real secret, about how your diet, intestinal health, health, and gut bacteria help you burn fat. And he has created over 20 health courses online. His moral compass is set to true north. He's a husband, he's a father. He's a true wellness warrior. His past is marked with major threshold, both inner and outer challenges. These challenges have allowed him to now embody this physical and emotional intelligence. We always talk about a wellness force that we can learn from so we can thrive in the modern world. Mike Mutzel, High Intensity Health. Here we go, man. Let's do this.

Best intro ever, man. Thank you so much for that bio and reading that. That's awesome.

Ye. Yeah. I mean, when I look at your work, it's been four years in the making for you and I to be sitting in your house. We started podcasting around the same time, actually. John Lee Dumas group, his podcast group. And when I saw you, I was like, oh, he's probably into fitness. Little did I know of all the things you've been through, how many people you'd serve, and just the impact that you're making on the world, man. Before we even start the conversation, though, like, how did you come up with this name, High Intensity Health? I thought it was because you had this hunger for the truth, but it's something different.

Well, yeah, I mean, there's a few different things. I mean, I just love high intensity interval training. And I was like, how can I, like, create something out of that? And surprisingly, that domain wasn't taken yet. And so I was like, all right, I'm just gonna buy this. And I kind of sat on it for about a year because, like, You. I mean, I had this idea, this dream of creating a podcast, but it took me a long time to actually, like, get the guts to actually do it, you know. And so, yeah, I thought, you know what I mean? Because health to be really healthy, I think in 21st century society, unless you live on a farm, unless you're in Costa Rica, you know, off the grid, like, it's. It take a lot of intention. It's a little intense. Like, you have to confine your feeding window, you have to exercise, you have to balance your sleep, like your mindset, everything that you talk about on your show. So I was like, this is kind of intense. But how can I create, like a format where people can learn intense stuff, whether it's science, whatever, in a short period of time? And it's uncomfortable while they're learning it because, you know, a lot of people just want to hear, eat this, not that, go gluten free, go paleo. Like, they just want to know, like.

The sound bites, more like surface Y level stuff.

Surface. Yeah. And I was like. And so that was kind of the. The impetus for the high intensity health dive deeper. Because, you know, because back in 2014, I mean, there was a lot of podcasts out there. Now in 2019, there's so many, like.

An ocean of podcasts now.

Everybody, man, it's like, you know, it's almost, you know, I remember when I was selling supplements to doctors in 2006, and I remember some of these doctors, even back then, they didn't have a website. And I thought, dude, I mean, every business has to have a website. And we're kind of entering that era where every business needs to have a podcast almost, you know, or YouTube channel. So anyway, it's super interesting. So that's how I got into it.

I found it fascinating. I was looking at your about section, and you and your brother had a very deep connection around health when you were young. You actually said, we spent a lot of time watching Jean Claude Van Damme karate kick bad guys to save beautiful women. Then when Arnold Schwarzenegger surmounted the Predator, that's what really was your impetus to be a bodybuilder. Take us to that section, because there's a rich story there.

Sure.

Before all the academia and everything that you unfolded for yourself, there was this childhood frame that we can really talk about that set you up, that teed you up to be Mike Mutzel, High intensity health.

Yeah, I mean, it's. It came from a place of just watching movies. Right. You know, my mom, like, loved Van Damme, back in the day. And yeah, so my brother and I, we just were infatuated with Arnold and Van Damme. And then there was a bodybuilder back then in the late 80s, Lee Haney. So bought his book on bodybuilding, you know, and I was like a terrible student back then. Didn't care about school at all. And so. But I would read these fitness magazines. In fact, you know, my parents, like, kind of thought maybe I was gay or something. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but they were like, you know, Mike, you're always like, look at these men. New, like with muscles, like, but wearing little Speedos. Yeah. Do we need to talk about this? I'm like, dude, I just like the look of having muscle, right? So, you know, I got into, into weightlifting early and then we were always. We had a punching bag, a boxing bag, a speed bag, you know, bench press. I mean, so I started doing that stuff early and I wanted to be a bodybuilder. Got into steroids and all that in college and then thankfully hurt my back and. Because I would have just kept going down that road and probably wouldn't be here today, probably wouldn't have a child. And so, yeah, so I, you know, I realized that, like, you know what? Because I was like, right now I'm 180 pounds, right? I got up to 235 pounds. And so I was way stronger, way bigger. But it doesn't change your happiness, like, your level of satisfaction. Like, people think once I achieve this physical look or something like that, like, it doesn't really change how you feel.

And I would say it's just for both men and women, but especially for men, the masculine. It's almost like the masculine lie that we've all been sold, where if you look a certain way, if you have this much money in the bank as a man, then you're worthy. Did you ever feel that when you were growing up, like you needed to make this much money, you needed to look this certain way?

Totally, man. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you need to have the money, you need to have the car. I got into cars in high school and stuff like that. But yeah, it was, it was. It's all about aesthetics. But, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't change anything. Yeah, really. And so it's, you know, and I think it's not as popular to talk about the deeper emotional stuff and finding your meaning and your purpose. But that's, you know, I think, where a lot of true happiness comes from. And I Think a lot of people, like, bounce around from different diets to diets, trying to find that. But it's not until you really, you know, for me, it comes serving other people. I mean, that's like, that's what gets me out of bed, that gets me fired up knowing that I can help someone with a video or a podcast or a conversation. So I think people need to find what that is for them. And everyone's different, man, you know?

Yeah. And everything that happened for you I talked about in your bio, like the thresholds you've gone through. There was one specific threshold where you were introduced to drugs way early. You know, I think it was nine years old or something. And my heart goes out to anyone that's introduced to anything that will set them up for a big learning curve. Because the universe gave you a big learning curve, right? Nine years old. Your brother introduced you, I think, to marijuana or something, Right, when you were.

Yeah, we were camping. Yeah, I was, you know, just before I turned 10. So it was, it was August. I want to say it was 1991. And yeah, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was my older stepbrother. I mean, I looked up to him like I had been the older brother of my, you know, my dad's side. My mom had remarried and, you know, I was super excited to now have an older stepbrother because I had three younger brothers, right. So I was kind of like the middle child. And we're on a camping trip and they pulled out this, this little pipe, little aluminum pip. And I didn't know what it was, but they were all smoking this and so forth. They were in junior high and took a hit and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I'm like, wow, don't do drugs. Dare against drugs. Remember all that was in the 80s. And I thought, why have I not known about this? Like, I can see different. You know, everything seemed more intense and everything like that. And so this was in Northern California. I went from, you know, affluent family, you know, private school here in the Seattle area to Northern California, a little bit, bit more blue collar, you know, things like that. And just went down a really bad path, right? And yeah, I was suicidal after that. My brain was. Was totally trash, man. I mean, as you can imagine, because I'm not like an anti cannabis person, but I think when someone's brain's developing you in infuse these exogenous compounds, alcohol, chemicals, whatever, like they're going to change.

Neurodevelopment even too much scary Movies or just the parents fighting. I mean, the brain is so malleable. Totally. Especially conception all the way through seven. And some research shows even till 10 or 15, our brain doesn't even stop form its real synaptic connections until I believe our mid-20s to where we really figure out who we are. So I'm thinking about Mike Mutzl. I know you. I see you as this leader in health, you know, functional medicine background and understanding all the nuances of how the body works. And I can only think like how that served you to go through the drugs and that just uncomfortable time. Do you look back on that now as a teacher?

Totally, man. I mean, it made me depressed for a long time and I was. It was always like what drove me because I realized that I was like, I had a handicap, you know what I mean? Because in high school. So I, you know, I got into. I got arrested twice before the age of 15. Thankfully. My second time I got arrested was here in Bellevue, Washington. And my dad sent me to rehab. And that changed my life, you know. And then I really started to take health seriously. Changed my brain, changed my body and so forth. But yeah, I used to think like, man, I'm never going to be like these other people, these other kids are so much smarter than me. They know stuff, they can remember stuff. Like I was reteaching myself. It's so embarrassing. And let me tell you, like, I couldn't talk about this two years ago because I would have been like so embarrassed to even admit this stuff. But now I'm like, you know what? I don't have this weight loss story. I don't have this transformation of like, I lost £700, whatever, £300, you know. All I. All I know is that, dude, like, I felt like a total idiot my entire life up until I just realized, like, well, I'm just going to tell people like that I did this dumb stuff, man. Like I. Anyway, so yeah, it was. It was really tough. But. But what changed my mindset was, yeah, I wanted to. I went to Northern Arizona University my first year of college, which was a miracle that I even got into colle. Cause when I was taking the act sat like I fell asleep. I just guessed because my brain was so screwed up. It took probably. Josh, it sounds crazy, but at least six years of like clean eating and diet to change my brain back. So I didn't start to feel like a normal human being until I was probably 19, 20. And I think people are like, what are you talking about? Like, I could converse with People, but things were slow. Like my reaction time. I think your Wernicke's area, which is where you create speech, was affected for me personally from that. And so anyway, things were toug tough for me. I mean, I still dated in high school, had a long term girlfriend, stuff like that. But so. But I like created these ways to like circumvent conversations and you know, and work around my handicaps and stuff like that. But seeing how I was able to change my brain back from that was like, wow, the body is so resilient and malleable. And so. But anyway, yeah, so that I think maybe I compensate for all the science that I share and all the research that I read. Like, I don't read. Like, I have books and I read, read lay press books, but mostly I have binders of peer reviewed academic research and that's what I read. Like in the sauna before bed. That's all I'm reading. Because teachers pulled my dad aside in high school and said, mike is really going to struggle in science. And I remember that. I can remember exactly where I was when they told my dad that because it was all based upon standardized testing. And they're like, he doesn't know shit about science. Right. And so I've been like, man, that drives me like, these people are going to say that I can't figure this stuff out. I know I can. Right? And anyway, where I was going with this story is. And again, this isn't about me. I just want people to hear this so that they can change. You know, it's not just about this poor Mic story, but I want people to understand that because I think people.

See you in a certain light now. So it. I believe that the depth of trust is built by understanding how many thresholds somebody's gone through. And you've gone through a lot because there was even part of your story too where there was like steroid use and that was in your life. And then moving forward, there was another threshold where you found this biomarker, this elevated tumor. It was called AFP Alpha fetal protein, which I just learned about. I was watching you on the Health Theory with Tom Bilyeu phenomenal podcast. We'll link that in the show notes. And I was thinking about, wow, okay. It's been threshold, from threshold to threshold for Mike of this growth. But yet you still seem to have this curiosity and joy inside of you. I think some people could use these thresholds to be like, you know what? Life's been really hard. I'm actually just gonna, like, Go kind of more the fear route. I'm not gonna be seen. I'm not gonna put myself out there. But it was this AFP protein being found that actually lighted the fire for you to be like, you know what, What? High Intensity health is now going to be video podcasts. I'm going to face my fear. I'm going to go through my stuff just like we're all doing. I feel like anyone watching this has a dream inside of them, and there's things that happen either to them or for them, and then they decide when they're inspired enough. So what inspired you in that moment to change everything and really put yourself out there when you found out about afp?

Yeah, I mean, that's. And that's another thing. I was scared to even talk about that, you know, because you get your lab test back. I mean, first of all, I had all these symptoms, this pain, got this lab test back, and it said right there, tumor marker. And the range is 0 to 8. And mine was like 69. I posted on Instagram, people can see it. So I've been tracking it, and it scared the crap out of me, you know, as a new father and everything like that. And I realized, like, man, what if I don't have as much time as I think? You know, I mean, what if, like, we all think, oh, you know, when I'm 40, I'm gonna do this. When I'm 50, I'm gonna do this. When I'm 60, I'm gonna do that. And what if I'm. I don't hit 50, what if I don't hit 45? So I wanna be able to leave a legacy and let people know that and to create something. And that's what's so great about the Internet, right? Is. Is now you can create information that will serve other people when you're gone, when you're not here. As long as the Internet doesn't crash.

How cool is that?

It's pretty neat.

Our parents. Parents only had photographs, dude.

I mean, yeah, they could write books and things like that, but still, yeah.

It'S a pretty amazing time that we live in where we could do videos and people get to see us decades from now, hundreds of years from now.

It's amazing, man. And so that drives me. And so, yeah, I mean, there's been so many forks in the road, and I really. Whether it's God, whether it's the universe, I feel like someone or something, some energetic body is trying to push me to a different direction. And I think if people take A look back at their life and realize like, wow, if I was in that car in high school that went off the cliff or whatever, like there's so. You know, and realize that no one's gonna come save you, you know, no one. Because I used to think, oh, man, if I, you know, if I'm depressed enough or if I just kill myself and I write a letter like, hey, sorry, I screwed up my brain for months because I thought about this a lot. I could jump off this bridge in front of my house, write a letter to my parents, like, you know what I did too many drugs. I screwed up.

Sorry.

It's not your fault. It's my fault. But I was like, that's just gonna leave so many un. Unanswered questions. That's not going to serve anyone. And so I think we all need to realize that we can do more than we currently are. We can impact more people. But no one is going to come pick you up and save you. You have to do the work and whatever that is for, you know, some people have health issues. You know, they're different than mine. But we need to realize that. Playing the victim, the poor me. And then also. And it goes back to your question. Not identifying. Because I started to identify with this tumor biomarker.

Like I. The tumor biomarker instead of. I have cancer instead of, like, I'm learning from it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was.

And then I was like. I was like, wait a minute. This is just one biomarker. This is one damn biomarker.

Isn't the ego and the mind so powerful sometimes? We've all been there where we receive a diagnosis or something, we lose a job or something traumatic, and for days, some people, even weeks or months are like, wearing it like it's a black cloak. What do you think that is about our psyche when it. When it pertains to health conditions specifically?

You know, I think it gives people attention. You know, I think a lot of us are craving community and connection. A lot of us are not. Not connected anymore. When you have an illness or a dis ease, your family reaches out to you. They're like, hey, what's going on? You get more attention from medical professionals. Yeah. And so I think, you know, and I don't want to pick on the autoimmune crowd, but I see this in the autoimmune crowd. The Hashimoto's, the lupus, the Graves, the ra. And folks will say, I have this condition. It's like, well, do you. Or do you have antibodies? And it's all a spectrum, right? And so I encourage people to not identify with their disease. And I've noticed this with family members that have had cancer, you know, once they started to identify and they called themselves, I'm not normal anymore. I'm like these cancer patients, their health shifted. Like you could visibly see it, like in just their mood and affect. And so I think it's really important, like these, the power of suggestion, the power of positive thinking, like it sounds woo woo and all that.

Not so much. Because if you look at the hard data from like a 40 years of Zen print program and you really see how when someone is in a perpetual state of gratitude, it affects their physiology. It's called psychoneuroimmunology. I mean literally, like you make yourself healthy, you make yourself sick, by the way, you think. So I would like to piggyback on what you said and just realize, okay, if I am identifying as something that I don't like how it feels, don't I just have the power to stop identifying with it at any time? Isn't that actually true? I mean, easier said than done, but isn't that the bottom of the barrel truth? Yeah.

And, you know, I think it's easier said than done, like you said, but I think it's an exercise we all need to be aware of, you know, and we all need to start doing that and implementing that, even if our blood tests come back and so forth and say things. But you know, it made me realize too that these labs are imperfect, you know, and the range is, you know, and so alpha fetaprotein, I mean, it says tumor biomarker, right? From LabCorp. So it's kind of scary, but then you do the research on it, you're like, well, it could be linked from a number of different things. So I just had a full body MRI. Cost me 2,200 bucks. But it just was great peace of mind. So I don't have cancer that we can find, but I have a seminal vesicle that's enlarged. And the radiologist was like, you know what? It could be that this enlarged vesicle is just releasing more of these alpha fetal proteins because it's from this egg yolk cell derivative and that could be part of it. And so because I realized that I can't identify with this biomarker for three years. And so I really realized that I don't have cancer. It's just one biomarker, it's whatever. And so if I would have identified with that, I probably could have. And it sounds crazy. Caused cancer to growth and really believed in this. And had liver cancer or because, you know, alpha feta protein elevations are normally correlated with hepatocellular carcinoma or lung cancer, which is very fatal. Poor prognosis. And so I was reading that stuff and I was like, dude, I gotta focus on the positive. So, yeah, the outcome. So take home. Message for anyone listening. If you have a disease where you have a blood test, first of all, retest that blood marker. It's oftentimes that these are fluke biomarkers that can be elevated from just being cold. Right. Some people are having an illness. Right. Let's say you got a common cold and you test your C. Ratchet protein. It can be 6 or 7. Scare the hell out of you.

Just.

It's just a common cold. And then the mindset piece is just so powerful.

Yeah. And I can feel into that too, because this is what led you to low carb keto, and really understanding even deeper how the body works. Because look at all the research out there. And I have some questions for you about this. How we can mitigate somebody who maybe has a cancer predisposition or that's maybe even dealing with cancer. Especially when we look at low carb and the benefits of fasting. Like, fasting, I think you and Dan Pardee and our whole space are really at the top of the food chain. I know there's some other professionals up there as well. I think you're leading the conversation in a different way. You're talking about it from an emotional, energetic standpoint, and you're bringing the science. I'd love for us to explore the concept of fasting for people that want to mitigate health dispositions like cancer and other autoimmune diseases and then also low carb, because keto is a totally different topic. But I think those two, the low carb and the other one, like, they really help people the most for disease. Medication.

Yeah. I mean, it depends on the disease. But if we look at why are people overweight, why are they sick, why are they inflamed? Blood sugar, dysregulation, insulin resistance, and really hyperinsulinemia is just part of that. And so I think that's where the power of fasting or low carb or even keto comes in. And I just want to just provide a caveat to what you said here. So when we start to fast, that's a natural way to get into ketosis. And so a lot of people, when they think keto and fasting are different, well, maybe the Diet, because you can have success with intermittent fasting or prolonged fasting and not be keto per se. It's a lot easier to have success with fasting or intermittent fasting if you are on a low carb diet anyway, because it lends itself to making ketones. But you know the fasting physiology. When we start to fast, our glucose drops, insulin drops. And if we pause and look at, okay, what are the health benefits ascribed to low glucose and low insulin? Well, it really kind of drives mitochondrial metabolism and mitochondrial biogenesis because instead of like fermenting sugar, you have to actually go through breaking down fat, fats via the mitochondria, beta oxidation or, and most often time, this is simultaneously. Not only are you burning fats in the mitochondria systemically, but in the brain requires an alternative, and that alternative is fats. But the brain can't directly. A lot of people say, oh, your brain loves fat, right? True. But your brain can't really get fat from the bloodstream directly in it. It needs the fat in the form of ketones. And that's why MCTs are so effective for say, Alzheimer's or not schizophrenia, but seizures, things like that. Ketones are like a controlled release fat. If you look at how fats are metabolized in acetyl CoA, a ketone beta hydroxybutyrate is two molecules of these acetyl CoA, which by the way, our liver makes when we fast, when we eat low carb, high fat diet, or when we exercise. So people that are physically active, they're naturally making more ketones and they don't even know it. Which is interesting. But getting back to this, just want to kind of provide that clarification because some people think that the only way to get into ketosis is to eat a ton of, of fat. And that's actually not true. Just compressing your feeding window. Many studies have shown this in people that are non keto, meaning eating, say only for six to eight hours of a day and fasting for the rest. Yeah.

The interesting part for me though, is I always looked at fasting and intermittent fasting as more of like autophagy, cellular cleanup, other benefits. I never really put my mind around the ketosis conversation with the fasting because I assume, and please correct me, I assumed that a ketosis lifestyle was something that was more long term. But fasting and intermittent fasting is. I thought it was for other. Is that different? Am I misunderstood there?

No, no. I think you're along the same lines there that we're kind of talking about, but part of the physiology of fasting is ketosis and ketogenesis and utilizing ketones as fuel because basically, I mean, you need a certain basal energy in the body. And then when glucose goes down from fasting, your body's going to ramp up fatty acid oxidation. And part of that is ketone synthesis and ketone utilization, what they call ketolysis. And so that's just part of, you know, but you know, most people, they're eating every two or three hours, they never cause that demand that stress to cause the liver to make ketones. And a lot of people say like, wow, intermittent fasting keto, that's so stressful. I have adrenal fatigue, I'm already under a load of stress. And if you actually look at the research, eating in and of itself raises cortisol and adrenaline just like fasting does. So it's not like we've kind of positioned fasting as this emergency thing, the body that we have this kind of backup mechanism just in case there's not enough food. And it's very stressful, but we kind of don't want to utilize it. But we don't realize is that eating is not iatrogenic free. Like it's not side effect free. Like if you think about when people have heart attacks when they get inflammation, it's in the post meal, post prandial window. And I'm not anti food, but I'm.

Just saying we need food to survive.

We absolutely need it. But I love food. Yeah, me too. I mean that's part of why I fast because I love food too much.

There's this, there's the thermic effect of food because when we're eating stuff like you know, tendons and organ meats and all these things and even nuts and seeds for some and energy that the digestion uses, it's a load on our body. So I could see how if somebody was already inflamed, already super tired, their circadian rhythm is off, they're not aligned with their health practices and they're eating the wrong types of foods. Well then yeah, them eating food every couple of hours is just going to be another tack of load of stress. It's going to be another stressor on their body. How do we look at the beginning window then for somebody that's just like a general weight loss person that wants to use intermittent fasting or fasting, like where do they begin?

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean I just recommend people start it with 12 hour fast. Super simple. Right? So just it's very easy. It's like, you know, because the idea of going without food for some people is scary. They're like, dude, I don't know, I would fall apart without my muffin or without my Starbucks, you know, I mean, literally some people are at that level. Probably not your listeners, but I think some people are there. So it's like, look, just, just make 6 to 6. Like if you can eat dinner by 6 or just say 7 to 7, 7pm to 7am if that's your starting place, like that's like telling people, look, I know you, you don't know how to bench press yet. Let's get you doing a pushup, even a wall pushup, something very simple.

Seven to seven sounds really realistic for most people.

They can do it.

Yeah, don't eat from seven at night till seven in the morning. That's a great starting place.

Yeah. And then you know what, and, and if you can skip breakfast and push it out to maybe 10:00am, maybe 11, and start slowly. I mean, this is like learning to crawl, to walk, to run. And so that's the thing, you know, a lot of people hear about one meal a day, which my wife does, but she's been physically active since she was 16. She was a, you know, collegiate runner, has record.

This is the Omad diet.

Yeah, the Omad man. But it's like that's, that's like sprinting. You need to learn how to crawl. And so that's where I think, you know, the beauty of the Internet is information's everywhere. The downside is the context is often lost. Right. And you were talking earlier about like, well, why fasting, why this? You know, and just in my wife's case, for example, she's on the extreme end of the eating spectrum, right? Very high protein, very low carb, good fat.

You know, that's been a training curve for years though. She didn't just show up one morning. No.

Yeah, she started the keto thing before me back in 2013 actually. And I thought keto was a bunch of crap, you know, because I was so myopically focused on the microbiome. And talk about post meal inflammation. Like if you want to drive in an academic study, inflammation in the post meal window give someone a lot of fat. And what you see is actually the absorption of gram negative bacteria into their systemic circulation. It's a low dose sepsis, so septic shock. You get in a really bad accident in a car, for example, perforate your bowel, all the microbiome from your intestine Leaks in, that's called septicemia. You can die from that. Well, a lot of us have low grade sepsis and we don't even know it. Part of that could be like this Trojan horse analogy where you have a lot of these long chain fats from refined oils, bacterial inflammagens called endotoxin. They're like a dog's tail on bacteria. Those get in there and they drive systemic pro inflammatory pathways. So yeah, long story short. So when my wife was doing keto, I thought man, that's crazy, you're causing all these. But then I saw her body change and I realized that there's more about the kind of the metabolic physiology of ketosis and how it affects the immune system. These ketones are anti inflammatory so it kind of mitigates some of this post meal inflammation. But yeah, long story short, my wife's mother has cancer. My wife lost her older sister to cancer. So that's why she's doing this very extreme version of intermittent fasting called one meal a day.

Do you feel like your eating changed overnight when you found out about the age afp? Like did that really drive you into low carbon and keto and understanding how physiology works for the body in those eating states.

Great question. I just took fasting more seriously. Yeah, I kind of poo pooed fasting. Like, you know what, when I'm, when I'm in my 40s, I'll worry about it, you know, But I'm like, nah.

It'S crazy because if you look back on human evolution, sometimes we would go days without food because it just wasn't available. It's only in this current consumerism culture where the food companies have controlled the information that comes out. San Diego State's nutritional department is spreading, sponsored by Kellogg's and Kraft and all these companies, I mean, just follow the money trail, right? It's not conspiracy theory, it's legitimate science. Okay? When you pay for someone's curriculum, that curriculum is going to be steered in a certain way. Did you, did you find that to be the true in college with your clinical nutrition studies?

That's a good, good question. You know I did, I didn't, I wasn't aware of that back then. I wasn't aware of like how industry can influence academics. But now, I mean if we look at where this eat every two to three hours came from, that came from managing blood sugar and diabetics in the 90s. So it's like, so you're like, well wait, you're trying to. That's the therapy to help people control their blood sugars, eating more frequently, small meals, you're like, well, but the people that are trying to do this to balance their blood, you know, they already have insulin resistance. Why are you trying to give them. It's different therapies. Right? And so I think people need to realize that one of the best ways to balance your blood sugar is just to go for extended periods of times without food because you're literally creating more, you know, insulin sensitivity.

What happens when we stack low level activity on top of that, like walking, is that beneficial? So it enhances the effect.

Totally. Yeah. So you're actually driving the hormonal cascade. And so really, I mean, for the scientific people, you know, what you need is low insulin, okay? You need high glucagon, low glucose. That's kind of the recipe to kickstart fat burning. That happens through, again, low carb, high fat dieting. That happens through fasting, that happens through exercise. So I kind of consider it this triad, right? So you can't just eat a lot of bacon and no bread and think that you're good. Right. You need to also implement the aspect of time restricted feeding or fasting and, or exercise. And so, so if someone is going to fast, I often recommend going for a walk first thing in the morning, you know, and really kickstart that fatty acid oxidation. And from a circadian rhythm standpoint, our mitochondria and our fat oxidation pathways are elevated in the morning.

Anyway, there's a really good YouTube video you have, and it's how long should we fast? It's dependent on three things. Our body circadian clock, our health history and our goals, like what we're actually doing. Let's explore those three because I think for the people that are like, eh, fasting's too hard. If we go into those three, it might not be so hard anymore.

It's a good point. Yeah, I mean, I think people are. There's so much confusion out there because there's a lot of different, you know, people doing different. I mean, first of all, everyone is so different. That's the thing we need to understand, right? So if this is a young athlete that's looking to get pregnant, the fasting recommendations are so different compared to someone who's 55, done with kids, close to retirement, but has 40 pounds to lose. And so I think again, this context needs to be considered. Right? And then what are our goals? And so what are the ways to go about this? And really, and I got this, I like to listen and learn from different people. And so Dave Ramsey has this financial, he's kind of a right wing financial guy from the south, right? I mean, he's kind of funny, but people call in and they ask him questions about how can I get out of debt, how can I pay off this credit card, student loans, whatever. First thing he says, like, what's your income? How old are you? What are your expenses? Like, it's like he's trying to ascertain like how much fiscal debt do they have? And so I was like, like, well, people need to, like we need to somehow quantify the metabolic debt that we have. And so I'm working on this new book and helping people to realize like, okay, Sally Smith, very active. She's been paleo since she was 10. Her mother was like a nutritionist, right? She's been growing her own vegetables. Her fasting program or time restricted feeding program or low carb whatever. It's gonna be so different from Joe Smith, who's been eating McDonald's his whole life, who's been drinking diet soda, who's been staying up late, right? And so I think we all need to be very brutally honest. And that's tough. Do and say, like, man, I've been living a crappy lifestyle for a long time. I need to be a little bit more extreme with this.

Your concept. I've never heard of this metabolic debt. It makes so much sense. I'm not going to buy a house If I have $100,000 in credit card debt. It's like not going to happen even if my heart really wants it. So if my heart really wants to lose weight, if my higher self sees me as a healthy, fit, attractive man or woman, that's great. But what you're saying is to actually look at the debt that's been occurred and not collected yet. I think it's like the debt collection phase when it comes to metabolism that we don't want face. How do we look at that? How do we begin to look at what has happened for us? Someone in our space that I respect, he has a lot of debt and he's open about it. It's Jimmy Moore. And he talks about how with all of his keto exploration and everything that he's doing, he always reminds people, look, my past was very different than yours. I have a lot more metabolic damage that I'm continuing to get through and get over. So I'm 39. I'm always looking for ways to let go of lipids, to let go of extra energy because my body doesn't need it anymore. So I'm thinking about my invent that you mentioned for like a metabolic debt window for me. Lots of poor nutrition when I was a kid, Welfare craft kick cereal, Velveeta cheese, like just terrible stuff for like two decades. And all of that stuff stays with us for some time. But how long does it actually stay with us? And to what degree do we let go of it? How do we let go of that?

It's a brilliant question. I don't know that anyone knows. You know, I mean, part of what's unique about food is it makes up our cellular components as well. And food affects genetic expression and epigenetics. Right. I think your case then going like, you've already been doing this, but going paleo, going grass fed organic, really changing the messages that you're sending to your DNA and your epigenetics and your genes. And then maybe tinkering the fasting knob, like fine tuning that a little bit, the exercise knob, you're doing the sleep and spirituality knob. But maybe just tinker all these different knobs that we have at our fingertips. And so what is the right solution for everyone? I don't know. I mean, maybe in 10 years we'll have a blood test, we'll look at the metabolomics and proteomics, then we'll be able to, to say, okay, and Josh, we have genetic expression of whatever APOE is wonky or ppar alpha, ppar gamma is upregulated. We'll know how exactly to fine tune these things. But until then, I think we just need to just be realistic and set a plan for ourselves and be like, look, if I've been doing this unhealthy thing like you said, it was maybe 20 years in the making and you've been now doing this 20 years, roughly. Pretty healthy. Yeah, it makes sense. You've been cleaning things up and you're giving it equal time. Going back to the steroid thing, I don't know why this analogy's coming to my mind. But anyway, so when people do steroids, they should come off steroids. And that's a problem with the Internet now is everyone's on steroids for a prolonged period of time. But one of the things that people would say is when you do steroids, let's say you do a 12 week steroid cycle, you put on a lot of muscle, you get big, all this, you do a contest, you should take 12 weeks off of, no steroids, right? So the amount of time that you were on on, you should balance out with the amount of Time that you should be off. And so I'm thinking that that kind of makes sense to reset our body when it comes to, like, how long have I been unhealthy? If it's 20 years, okay, maybe the body can adapt in more real time. But in Jimmy Moore's case, if you.

Know what I mean, That's a really good point.

I'm not saying that I'm right on that. I could be totally wrong.

Let's be realistic about the recovery phase of anything. If you go hike a mountain with no training, your recovery is going to be a lot, lot different than if you trained for six months. So if people are looking for drastic diets, I mean, I was £280 at one point. So I did all this experimentation. I lost and gained 100 pounds. And, you know, when I went to the exercise physiology ward at ucsd, the head scientist told me, when you lose more than 15% of your body weight at one time, it completely affects your resting metabolic rate. So for those of us in this conversation of have I lost a lot of weight in my life and have I gained it back? It's actually disadvantageous to how many calories your body body is burning at rest. You're resting metabolic rate. Can you shine a light on that a little bit? Yeah.

I mean, in. We call AT or adaptive thermogenesis in some of the metabolic research. And you know, part of it comes through just our, our resting metabolic rate is higher the more heavy we are. Right. So the 285 pound version of Josh, the 235 pound version of Mike. Although our body composition was not superior at those body weights, our resting metabolic rate was higher. And when we exercised, we would burn more calories when we were at that higher body weight because you're just moving.

More mass and we have more muscle tissue as well, which requires more calories. So yeah, it's fascinating to me though, like, what's the science around why it actually lowers and can we ever regain a higher rmr?

Yeah, I mean, part of it has to do with fat cell physiology. And it may be that the fat cells are changing as we gain these weight regain cycles. So you lose it and regain it. Hyperplasia is new formation of fat cells and hypertrophy is enlargement. And so what we see in people that have done these yo yo diets where they've done biopsies of adipocytes or fat cells, is there's evidence of hyperplasia and hypertrophy. So if we think about like hyp building muscle Right, great, positive. But you don't want your fat cells to enlarge. And so that may be part of it. And so I think there's new data now looking at your pre weight loss leptin and ghrelin levels. So these are appetite satiety signaling hormones people can test at any LabCorp quest, whatever. And your pre weight loss, pre diet levels of that will actually determine how successful long term your weight loss will be. And it's kind of interesting. So it doesn't mean that these are high or the ratios are off that you're doomed, but it just means that youyour body set point is such that it may be easier or harder to sustain that weight loss.

Could, could those levels of leptin and ghrelin, the hunger, the satiety, hormones, could that also dictate what style of, of dietary path someone might take? In other words, if you found out your ghrelin was this level and your leptin was this level, could that dictate your intermittent fasting window? Could that dictate Mediterranean Paleo keto? Could we learn anything from that in the long term?

I totally think so. I think that's a brilliant point. I haven't thought of that. It's amazing. Yeah, I think so. Because fasting is really a great way to do that. Because actually what f fasting does is it increases ghrelin and reduces leptin. And some people share with people that.

Don'T know about ghrelin and leptin. We've talked about it with Perlmutter and other people on the show. But if somebody hasn't heard of the seesaw between ghrelin and leptin, like what is that?

Yeah, so leptin is our energy gauge. So it's lowest. Like when we are recording this right now, my leptin is probably the lowest and that's driving hunger. So the mid part of the day, it oscillates on our circadian rhythm. 99 point whatever percent of leptin released is from our adipocytes or fat cells. So the more, more fat, more body fat you have, the more leptin you're releasing. But leptin gets this leptin resistance within the brain, which is really unique. And so it's this paradox where you're like, well wait, someone is overweight but they're really chronically hungry. How can that be? Because there should be feedback mechanisms inhibiting food intake.

There's enough energy there, but the brain doesn't sense it.

Right. And the analogy that Alicia Stanton taught in an IFM seminar a long time ago, 2008. I remember this is like when you order pizza, right? If you order pizza, pizza and 200 pizza men come in, you're gonna be like, you're not even gonna open your front door because you're like, dude, what are you guys doing here? Right? But if one comes in, you're gonna open the door. And so when there's too much of a message, our receptors become desensitized. They ignore that. And so that's leptin resistance. And it really happens in the hypothalamic kind of the brain level and so on the contrast. Ghrelin stimulates appetite and satiety. And so this is involved in creating hunger. So when you fast, ghrelin increase increases and actually. And when you really suppress your calories. And I think this is why, going back to your specific question, people that have really cranked up ghrelin, anyway, doing calorie counting, probably not going to be just traditional dieting. More exercise. JT talks about this. What does he, what does he say?

He has the eat more, move less. He has an el calculator. It's all laid out in his book lose weight here, we'll link it in the show notes. Yeah, no, it's all about his actual mechanism.

Yeah, he has all these different acronyms that help you kind of remember it, but it's basically move more, eat less. And so when you do that, you're going crank up ghrelin. And so basically that suppresses your resting metabolic rate and it makes you more hungry, which translates into poor long term success. And so I think for people listening, if they do want to measure your leptin ghrelin levels, what I would make sure to be consistent on is when you remeasure because all these hormones fluctuate on a circadian rhythm. So I've had people, clients, you know, they're like, I got my testosterone level back and it was like it was in the tank. Like, well, when did you get it tested? Oh, four in the afternoon. Like, well, I mean, you know, to be honest, to get a good assessment, it's like it should be in the first couple hours of your day because that's going to be like the peak, you know. And so we want to be able to look at these adipocytokines, these appetite hormones, satiety hormones, when we would think they would be kind of at their lowest.

Right.

And so just be consistent with your blood tests because circadian rhythms matter.

And I can see somebody who's like, okay, these are grand concepts. Maybe somebody's even rewound it and this is the second or third time they're listening to this or they're watching this. At the bottom of it all, there is a question, I think for most people, and that question is how do I know what's right for me, for me to actually do the if window, for me to actually do play around with my caloric load, how much carbs I should have, if I should even be in ketosis? Maybe let's just talk about the fasting one because it seems like it's the least expensive, it's cheap to not eat. Right. It's free. And how would one going? You talked about 7 to 7 as a starting point, but what's the next stage after that? Is it having an eight hour feeding window? Is it having only certain times throughout the day that you eat? I mean, how does one figure out what's right for them when it comes to intermittent fasting specifically?

Yeah, that's a beautiful point. And just to kind of look, take a step back, you know, I like people to track labs and to look at things that are objective wire markers to track progress. So I'm biased, and I'm sure you're biased too when it comes to physical fitness. But I think strength is a good proxy to see how things are going. Like if you're getting weaker, something's not right. Right. And so I like people to be able to figure out some sort of exercise they can do to realize like, and this may sound like, oh, Mike the meathead is talking about this. And not that I'm a meathead per se, but if we look at just something like grip strength throughout hundreds of thousands of epidemiological studies and people, low grip strength is correlated with poor mortality and increased risk of sudden death of all causes. Right. So when you do something that loses your strength or causes strength to decline, that's not a good thing. So I encourage people to have some sort of objective biomarker physically and then look at blood tests and look at things like sleep data, look at heart rate variability, the oura ring's good, there's other tools that are, are out there. And then just track like just because once we start tinkering with these things, we don't really know like where we came from. If we don't, you know, it's like if I started tracking my finances right now, I would have no idea if I'm improving or not. If I didn't track them six months ago. Right. Like, and So I think we're good at tracking finances, but we're really bad at tracking objective health parameters because a lot of us are just like, I wake up, I need three cups of coffee. That's just how I am. You know, they don't. We don't realize because we don't really have these wearables in these trackables because.

We'Re crazy creatures of habit. And it's fascinating. Before we jumped on for this show, I was telling you I used to moderate health panels for wearables. And I would find that the people that were manufacturing the wearables, the marketing departments, people on the stage that I was doing the panels with, they weren't in great health. And I felt like there's something missing here. And when I really got down to it in the back end, I understood that it was mostly profit driven. And it is rare that you find a company that's doing things with a moral compass and that's making money. Because, look, I enjoy capitalism. I love making money because money allots me freedom and allows me to be here with you. There's this other side of exploration, though, when people look at health where they feel overwhelmed because of all these companies that are out there. They've been taken advantage of. They've bought devices that didn't work. Maybe they signed up for a program and it was completely lackluster. It was nothing they thought it would be. How do we, as a consumer who's frustrated, actually start and look at. All right, what things should I buy and how do I go about that beginning process of being the victor and not a victim of circumstance?

That's a great question. I haven't thought about that. It's brilliant. You know, I think looking at heart rate variability, it's really hard to deny that. And there's a lot of good data that shows that first morning heart rate variability correlates really well with a lot of different parameters and proxies. And you can use. I have no financial affiliation with any of these companies, but there's a free one by Marco Altini called HRV4 training.

I love that one. Jade Tita is actually the one that turned me onto that.

Nice.

This is the first thing in the morning you put your finger over the camera on the iPhone.

Yeah. Is it perfect? No. But is it better than nothing? Yeah, I think so. If you want to spend a little bit more money, there's this app called Elite hrv. I have that. That works well. The aura. Right. Ring works well. So look, I mean, you could even do Resting pulse. I mean I used to do this when I was doing competitive bike racing is first morning pulse. And that tells you kind of where you are in terms of overtraining or overreaching. So that's good blood glucose, pretty affordable, pretty inexpensive. So first morning blood glucose, blood glucose after a meal. If you have these massive swings after you eat, probably not the right food for you. It doesn't mean it's an unhealthy food. It just may not be good for Josh or good for Mike or Sally. So I think those are, those are good proxies.

What about from a performance standpoint? Could it be how many squats you could do without fatiguing? How many push ups you could do? Or even just a bar hold because aligned with the HRV and just how you feel. Maybe it's an aura reading number. What about key things for our physicality? Because you mentioned strength as a barometer.

Yeah, I mean it's tough if people have not been physically active. And that's why I encourage people, everyone to move, walk, do these different things. But you know, you can find a hill in your neighborhood and like if you can walk up it and you know, and time yourself and just be like, dude, I'm in the, I'm in the best shape. So this is going to be like my HRV for fitness, right? And if you can walk up that in 30 seconds, like I actually, you know, I have a hill. My gym is just behind this. Folks can't see it right now. And so this very steep hill. And I can tell like if I can crush this hill, which I try and do five days a week and I'm not breathing that hard or I can carry on a conversation. And that's the thing is really kind of this relative perceived exertion. We talk about this in fitness. RPE, RPE of 10 out of 10 or 8 out of 8 or 8 out of 10. That's just like how hard it is, you know. And so give your exercise on it. Let's say you do you hold like you were talking about doing a pull up, right? If one pull up is a 10 out of 10, you're like, dude, if someone paid me a million dollars, I could barely get this sucker. That's an RPE, a 10 out of 10. If you can get to the point where like you can do five pull ups and it's an RPE of seven like you're doing, you're way better than you were. And so create this. And so I like people to be able to gauge that with the talk and walk method when they're doing their exercise. Right. So if you, you can do a strenuous hill or a run and you can carry on a conversation, that means your fitness is improving because when you first start, it's normally like you're huffing and puffing hard. So I think it depends on going back to your specific question. I mean, I now do more powerlifting, which is bench squat deadlift.

Right.

So it's very easy to objectively measure am I getting stronger or weaker? Right. Is that the best tool in the world? No, but I think looking at something that's a compound movement like a squat, that can be an air squat, it.

Could be a body weight. So squat to start anything, nothing crazy, just like an air squat on a box.

Yeah. So if you can, like we have a coffee table right there. If you can sit and squat onto that 25 times or whatever, that's your test. Okay, cool. Just make that your test, whatever it is for you.

This is awesome because my last question for the intermittent fasting section of our podcast was about stress load. And I think there's no way we can take stress out of the equation. Right. We can play around with foods and macros and we can play around with physical fitness as a barometer, but when I think about someone's existential internal or external stress load, that is probably, if not the biggest factor in the types of foods that they'll crave and literally what their body's calling for. How do you plug in stress and stress load for people that want to get success out of intermittent fasting?

You know what this answer is going to actually, people are going to be either irritated or surprised. I think the fasted state lends itself to stress based physiology much better. And people are like, whoa. But fasting is a stressor because it.

Feels a little stressful. For people that begin fasting because you're.

Making a metabolic switch that you haven't done for a long time. Just like if I've never done sprints or intervals and you tell me to do a tabata, it's going to feel very stressful, but over time that's going to feel good. And so what we see is actually, so if we do standardized testing to evaluate stress and I just did a YouTube video on it and shared on my podcast, but these scientists in Germany, I can't remember the name of the stress, but it was a standardized way to create stress where they had people do mental arithmetic output out loud with in a group of like 30 people. So like most people have.

Sounds like hell for me, dude.

And so they measured. They measured cortisol before and after during.

My hell math in public.

So. So let me. Let me question you on this. Right, so they did isocaloric. So energy is equal carbs, fats, or protein. What do you think drove cortisol more in that if you do a pre meal of one of those free macros.

I would, I would imagine, assume carbohydrates.

It drove it like, almost double.

Okay, yeah.

So you're like, okay, so you're like, work is stressed, life is stressed. I just need to have these carbs, man, because it's real food and whatever you like. Well, you're actually fueling the monster to beI mean, if you believe these human studies, which they're well controlled, I mean, they're doing serial blood tests, you know, of cortisol. And other studies have actually looked at this where they stress people before they give them pre carbs and so forth. And we see the same kind of thing.

So.

I know, I know it sounds very counter to what a lot of people in the wellness space say is, look, if your life is already stressed, adding in fasting, adding in keto, like it's a bad, bad thing. And I would challenge you and say, well, if you look at some of the research that Dom Bogacino's lab is doing in the Navy SEALs, these are individuals that are very stressed.

What's more stressful than being a Navy seal?

I mean, that's combat environments, dude. So you're talking about very extreme environments. So extreme that these air rebreathers, when they're breathing under, you know, for 30 minutes or so forth, can trigger a seizure, which would be fatal if you're underwater. So what does he do? They are studying nutritional ketosis to augment that very stressful physiologic condition. And it seems that the state of ketosis helps the body become more resilient in conditions of environmental extreme. So, look, I'm not saying everyone should fast if they're stressed. I'm not saying that at all. It can be a challenge. But I think we need to challenge the thinking that fasting is stressful. And if we look at allostatic load. Right. When we talk about stress, that's what we're talking about is allostatic load. How much?

What is allostatic?

It just has to do with the. How much is our homeostasis being pulled. Our balance from baseline.

Yes.

Like, how much. How filled up is our cup? If your cup is very full. Okay. Like adding fasting, is that going to spill the water over? Maybe be like, well what about food, food eating? And I'm not anti food, but just hear me out. Eating contributes to allostatic load. That's blood, that's nutrition, that's digestive enzyme, lipases, motility, that's all that, that's a post meal processing. Like so there's a energy. You talked about thermogenesis, right? When we eat food, our metabolic rate goes up. You're like, well why is that? You're disrupting homeostasis. So your body needs to rev up post meal metabolic rate to keep homeostasis. The body's trying to maintain balance, right. And so you're like eating all these carbs. Like, I'm stressed, I just need to eat every two. You're like, well, I don't know, I mean is that an emotional connection to food? And you're mitigating your stress via emotional eating? Look, I've done that, I'm totally guilty of that crap. You know, I get it. But I think fasting makes us be brutally honest with our emotional connection to food.

That's a mic drop moment right there. I mean fasting makes us very aware of our emotional connection to food. Like let's let that land for a moment because I think that's a trigger for most people. It's like, well, how do you know that I should fast? And what if you take away, I mean, even the anger or the frustration that someone feels about fasting without ever doing fasting is kind of a telltale signal.

Totally. And it's tough. And I will say, I mean I used to manage stress through emotional eating. So I would come home and I don't have an obesity. Obesity problem. Right. I mean, just whatever. But it was like I was realizing that I like, because this was when I was living by myself, didn't have a significant other. Didn't you know all this? So after work, have glass of wine, have blueberries. Like it was healthy, real food. But I was having way too much and I was mindlessly eating and I was like, man, this is. And I had heard about intermittent fasting, but I'm like, I'll do that when I'm older and I don't need to do that right now and just kind of lying to myself about how I was coping with stress. And look, alcohol and food, I mean outside of maybe porn and stuff, this is how people manage stress these days. They watch tv, they eat food, they eat junk food, they do other things. And so I think if anyone's listening and resonating and just being aware of their behaviors. And here's how I knew that I had a problem with food is when I would come back, because I was always traveling for work. I was a salesman living in Colorado. I was going to Utah. I was going to Reno, Nevada, going to Vegas. It was my territory, kind of the Rocky Mountain region. And I realized that I would come home and I would do the same stuff. And I was like, going, right. The first thing I did, I put down my bags and I would go to the cupboard looking for crap just to eat. And I was like, dude, why am I doing this? I haven't even unpacked my damn suitcase and I'm already looking for food right away. And so I think it helps for people to get out of their environment, and then when they're back in their environment, be very mindful of their patterns. And so it's funny that the stuff that you do when you come back.

Man, one of the things. Things that I could do a whole podcast with you on just the emotional connection to food, like. But I really respect your academia and science around fasting, which is why I wanted to go very deep with you on fasting. But one thing that you said to me in a phone call, it was like six months ago, and I was just blown away. You said, dietary frameworks may not apply if the emotional inventory isn't taken. And when you said that, it was like, I mean, lights went off in my head. Because, man, if we have the PDF and the plan and the study and your courses, and we have the best podcast and everything, there's stuff still kind of a internal locus of control that has to align with our soul to actually do the health practices in the first place. Like, if we're not taking the emotional inventory of what really matters to us and why it matters, does anything we've said today even matter at all? Maybe in some ways, maybe not. I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, it's a brilliant question, right? Because I think it's so much easier to be just like everyone else, you know? And so you have to have that deeper. Why am I doing this? To say, you know what, I'm gonna fast, guys, or I'm not gonna have that alcohol, or I'm not gonna have the fat fast food or whatever it is, because there's temptation on every single corner. And so if you just kind of are unaware and flying blind, like, you're going to be drawn to that, right? You're not going to have that Deeper seated. Why telling you to? Because look, I mean to eat healthy you got to go meet a farmer, get grass fed stuff, you got to pay the money, you got to cook your food right?

And it's challenging, requires higher intensity. As you say on high intensity health. It requires, requires higher intensity. It's more of a load. It takes more of our being to make the healthy choices.

You have to have that deeper drive. And so yeah, the emotions, I mean, and food is very emotional and there's so much connection to that. And I think it's kind of a woo woo thing to sort of talk about. But I think so many people struggle with this and either A, they're not ready, they don't know they have a problem yet, they're not ready to admit it. Like, I don't have an eating disorder, come on, I got control of this. Or they don't know how they would change it. They're like, okay, if I knew that I had an eating disorder disorder or this weird connection with food, what am I going to do differently? And yeah, I think just brutal honesty. And like you talk about like being a little bit uncomfortable, you know, and so that's where fasting is unique. So like we used to have all sorts of like kind of safety foods, right? It was gluten free chips, all this sort of stuff. So like you're stressful, just grab some chips, like they're healthy, they're paleo, whatever. But you know what? Now like when you're fasting, you got to deal with that, you got to realize, wow, I'm feeling awkward right now, I'm feeling uncomfortable, I'm feeling nervous, nervous. Like I, you know, why, why do I feel this way? And then what am I going to do that's not just going to mask that, but maybe help resolve that and kind of, you know, heal that or address that in a different way with breath, work with mindfulness, with awareness, whatever it is. And I think that's where growth can come in. And you know, if you look at fasting, if you look at Islamic research and Ramadan and stuff like that, a lot of people get a lot of mental elation and a lot of, there's a lot of mental carryover that they get from that. And so I think that's another reason why people should consider fasting. Not just for all the physiology that we've been talking about, keto, fat loss, blah blah, blah, okay, great. But the mindset shifts and realizing that like, look, I'm craving food, food's around me, but I can Go without food for 48 hours. It's pretty empowering. And it makes you realize, like, if I can do that, I can probably do these other things that I'm scared to do or don't know how to do yet.

Don't you feel like this is why we're seeing in our industry a reception resurgence of cold therapy, hot therapy events, experiential learnings, breath work, fasting, intermittent fasting. It's because we've become very soft as men and women, like our ability to deal with stress and deal with change. You represent this attunement to who the hell we actually are at a primal self level because there is so much of our society, like soft couches and computers and tablets and one click Amazon to your door. I mean, people could live literally in their house for their entire life now, and that's never existed in human evolution. So I'm curious how you see what you do with high intensity health unfolding in the future. You've been really focused on the disease pathways and the physiology and the biology of ketosis and low carb. And people know you as an expert in these spaces. But what. What else is lighting you up for high intensity health besides those subjects right now?

Oh, man. Well, thank you for that. That's. That's awesome, Josh. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, really trying to teach people and not that I'm an expert per se, but live off the land in a sense. Like, we haven't gone in the backyard yet.

You have 16 chickens back there.

Yeah, three turkeys and two pigs and stuff like that.

So the pigs were fighting last night. He told me.

Crazy. Oh, my gosh. Not to change the topics, but man, these. I mean, all males I've seen. So we used to have roosters. They fight like crazy. We used to have two tom turkeys or male turkeys. They fight like crazy. So it's. It's a male thing. It's weird. It's this machismo. This is my territory. And so. So we see this in business and politics and corporations and crap like that. Like, it's crazy, man.

It's why we need our women. We need you more than ever. Totally feminine energy. Yeah.

Yeah. Really, man. It's. And so these two male pigs, man, they were. They were foaming at the mouth like they had damn rabies attacking. And these are pigs that they sleep together like 69 style so that they're for protection, you know, so they have all the angles covered after predator comes. And they were just like going to kill each Other. And, and they're so low to the ground and their inertia is just so. And they, they were battling ramp, like, and their ears were chewed. Half one of them chewed up. I mean, it's like I thought, man, I'm have to go get a knife. And just before they both kill each other and like just cut one's throat. Like, it sounds brutal, but I'm like, they're just, this is gonna be nasty.

It's primal. They don't have the consciousness that we have.

They don't know.

Some people might argue against that. But you actually have a course around this. I saw on your website there's a specific course around teaching people how to have their own garden, their own kind of permaculture agriculture system.

Yeah, Backyard garden school. So Nancy Carpenter, she's been doing my show now. She's awesome. Since 2000, 2014. Great lady. And so, yeah, she grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, chicken farm. And grows all her own food. Not all of it, but a lot of it. And she's amazing. So, yeah, we partnered up on that. And so, yeah, kind of where I was going with that long story about the pigs and everything is, I think, like you alluded to, we're becoming more aware that, man, this life can be so easy if we let it. And there's no growth that comes with that and really there's no meaning with that. So it would be nice. Like, look, if you don't leave your house, Amazon delivers everything, groceries, I mean, tv, entertainment, whatever. You don't have to do crap. Alexa answers your emails. That's not satisfying. I think part of what makes life rewarding is work and effort and strife. And look at David Goggins and his following. And people are realizing that, man, this easy life, there's got to be. It's not satisfying. And so I'm not saying we have to be David Goggins or Struggle or anything like that, but having animals has given me a lot of purpose, you know, because I got to care for them, man. Like in the morning, I can't sleep in and just sit in my bed because I used to do this in my late 20s, you know, just on Facebook, just sit in bed like, ah, I don't need to get up for anything. I should just screw around and whatever. No one's going to know. I can hear the chickens. I can. The pigs are hungry. They do omad. They eat one meal a day, by the way, anyway, so it's like, it gives people purpose and it. And most importantly, it connects Them with their environment. Because so many people are like, well, should I be keto or should I not? Where do you live? What's in your environment? Like our microbiome. And I really think that our cellular expression of different metabolic pathways, I don't have a lot of data to support this. We have some animal model studies that show this. But eating in season just resonates with our being. And you can look at this on a spiritual level and a really strict cellular, molecular, biological level. And so having those animals and being attuned to what's growing helps you align your biology to. And I think that's a big thing that's missing because people are eating health food out of context. You live in Minnesota in December and you're having a blueberry smoothie.

Yeah.

Mangoes, sure. Really?

I mean, well, it's fascinating to me because we have this natural sleep wake cycle where our bodies, you know, the way that we. We release melatonin for a reason when it's dark.

Yeah.

So people that are shift workers, they've been shown to have way more cardiovascular disease and health complications because they're out of alignment with the earth. And there's a component that we talked about with Anahata Ananda where she talks about the four seasons and honoring the seasons in our lives as well. So I think sometimes for many of us that are chasing a dream that maybe we're out of season or we're burnt out. I mean, I've been there, you know, for a long time. I was like white Knuckling Wellness Force, like, it's got to make it. And then when I just let go and just like, allowed things to occur, it became easier. I'm curious for people, as parting guidance, if you could give them some kind of mental framework around trusting the process, letting go of always having to be in control when it comes to their food and their fasting. Can you give people parting guidance on the process of surrender and the process of trusting self love? When they look at their food, their fasting, their health, it's beautiful.

I mean, I don't know that I'm an expert and I probably will botch this, but I think we need to trust the messages that both the universe and that we feel, you know, something doesn't feel right. It's probably not right. Like a lot of us can stay in bad relationships, A lot of us can stay in a job that we don't like just because we think we should, even though we know it doesn't feel right. And so I think a lot of us. We take that, these emotions that we feel, we take these signs from the universe or God, whatever you want to spin it, and we ignore them. And I think that's a big mistake. And so I think just being aware that these are messages and when you're feeling these things, you should act on them. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not the next day, but you should start to manifest and at least pay attention to it, because a lot of us kind of tune this stuff out, man. And think about it. You started this podcast in 2014, but you had the drive to do it in 2010. Like me to me too, in 2012, I wanted to do a podcast, but, like, I'm not good enough.

Took many years of going through my own. My own verbal dialogue that wasn't serving me to just. To just let go. And letting go is what allowed me to do, which is such a paradox. Letting go and the doing. It's a really interesting fact, man. I'm fascinated by what you do. I'd love to interview with you again in the future because there's so much we could explore even deeper about when ketosis is right for someone and how low carb actually works. I love the breadth that we covered with fasting today and when it comes to wellness and health, you know, high intensity health. Like, how do you describe wellness? If you were to define wellness? Like, what is your definition of wellness?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think being able to function on a daily basis without a lot of external sources of medicine, crutches, things like that. Not that that's bad, but I think, you know, the ability and also to have resilience. And so I think if we think about, you know, if we look at people that you think are, well and, you know, in their 70s or whatever, like, that they're resilient, they're strong people. Small little bumps in the road doesn't totally throw them off kilter. Whereas the people that we think are not so. Well, it's like one little thing. And it can be. You didn't text me the exact direction. Yes, it could be just small. They flip, freak out. You're like, something's not quite right there. So it's both, I think, mental and physical. And so that's what I would say is wellness. So I think wellness is really resilience. It's the ability to look. If we didn't have lunch or dinner today, we're not going to fall apart, man. We're going to make it. We're going to be okay. We Get a flat tire. We're not going to have a meltdown on the side of the road. It's like, it happens. So having that adaptability, because I think, think people that kind of are unwell are just very rigid. Both in different things in there, you know, little bumps in the road just throw them off kilter.

Man, I love your definition. Resilience isn't about rigidity. Resilience is. I think Bruce Lee talked about it, and you'll have to look that up because I will butcher the shit out of that. But we both know that Bruce Lee was something about flowing with challenge as if it were water. So resilience isn't the oak tree that doesn't bend. It's like resilience can be the oak tree that their roots are so deep. They've done so much cold training and fasting and so much everything when it comes to health practices that when the strong breeze comes, they can just sway with it. They can. They can blow with the breeze instead of cracking. And I really enjoyed this conversation, man. Thank you for having me at your home.

Yeah.

Here in Washington. Yeah. This is really cool. And tell people where they can find you besides your YouTube channel, which is a quarter of a million really, really focused people that are here to live their Life. Well, your YouTube channel is probably the most impressive channel, one of the most impressive channels in our whole space. But where can they go to find your programs and more about you?

Yeah. Well, first all, thanks so much for having me on. And you're a great interviewer, man. Like, your voice and like, you're paying attention. You're doing really good work. So keep it up. Yeah, just High Intensity Health is my website, so, yeah, I'm active on the website, but Instagram too. I like to share, like, some science.

And yeah, you're on the Grams. I see you on the Grams a lot.

That's kind of fun. So, yeah, those are the two places. If anyone is listening and they heard this, they can send a DM and just say, hey, I heard you on Wellness Force Radio. Thanks. Or I wish we would talk about this. Or you suck. Whatever. I love to hear from people.

Why are you telling me not to eat, Mike?

Yeah, right. So, yeah, man, really appreciate you coming out here. And thanks for having me on.

Awesome. Thank you, brother.

Thank you.

We'll do this again soon.

Sounds good.

All right, you guys, we're talking about this in the Wellness Force group as well. Wellnessforce.com group. Send your questions in. Let me know what are the questions that I didn't ask that you wanted me to ask that. You would have asked if you were sitting here with Mike. So until we see you again, we're both wishing you love and wellness. Hey, thanks for listening to the show my friend. Everything you learned on this podcast starts with your morning practices. So from over 300 world class guests, we pull together six simple yet powerful morning practices down into a 21 minute system guaranteed to increase your vibration and the way that you feel every day. Get this free powerful guide over@wellnessforce.com M21 and if you love this show, share it with somebody. Share it with somebody that you love or that you care about. You can support the show easily by leaving us a five star review. Review on iTunes. Just go to wellnessforce.com review or if you're on your phone, just tap it. Hit the link in purple that says review this podcast. And the journey does not stop here. We're continuing this discovering process in our private Facebook group over@wellnessforce.com group. You can be a part of it. You already are. All you have to do is join us@wellnessforce.com group and I will welcome you at the door. Now go out into your life and live in your life well. And until I see you again real soon, I'm wishing you love and wellness.