The Power of Fasting | Thomas DeLauer

I want to talk to you about fasting. Fasting is so ingrained naturally in what we should be doing. How come we don't hear much about fasting? Do you believe? It's become something that's so

obvious and there's no money. The the pharmaceutical industry, you know, control and I think their number one priority is to make money. >> It's just interesting. We live in this

time where we just have constant consumption and constant barrage of things and dopamine hits and it's not just food. With social media, it's hard to just stop. Eating is a way to lower

our stress because it's pleasurable. So, we snack. Food. It's that signal to tell our body that we're safe. Everyone should go 12 hours without food. I believe that. I believe that if you stop

eating at 7:00 p.m. at night, you should give yourself until at least 7:00 a.m. Like, just give yourself that period of time. 36 hours is probably what I would consider the optimal sort of sweet spot.

Bang for the buck. In fact, I don't know if you knew this, but >> really, so this podcast is with Thomas Dealer, who's a fitness coach and also a health

educator. He taught me about the benefits of fasting. If you like that interview, please hit the subscribe button. And also, if you have some suggestion on who you would like me to

interview, let us know in the comment section or send us an email. 2016 uh Yoshinori Osuni I want to I don't want to mess up his name Osuni a biologist won the Nobel Prize for atapi

how come >> we don't hear much about fasting do you Well, I think that fasting is so ingrained naturally in what we should be doing that it's become something that's

so easy and so obvious that it's not fun to talk about and there's no money in it, right? There's no money in telling someone not to eat food. I feel we live in a world where people want to have it

easy. They want the magic pill, >> but the reality is not sexy. You need to to make a commitment. You need to get out your comfort zone and you need you know it takes takes it takes a point

that it put you outside of your comfort zone right. >> Yeah man. I mean fasting is I think a lot of people view it as extreme and when you talk about it you have to be

very careful because people will be very quick to jump to say that it's a disordered way of eating and that it's very extreme when in reality it's probably the most biologically like

natural evolutionarily accurate way to eat or not eat that we have. I mean we are very very simply designed to have a stimulus a signal from food or not. It's just interesting. We live in this time

where we just have constant consumption and constant barrage of things and dopamine hits. And it's not just food. It's it's social media. It's everything. And it's it's hard to just stop. It's

hard to just stop. And if you sit in stillness and you sit in that quiet even away from food, you know, heaven forbid you have to do that and you have to sit with your own thoughts and your own

hunger and your That's not easy, right? >> But it's something that is so biologically natural. So it's not talked about because it sounds extreme, but it's far from extreme. It's very

natural. >> That's right. And and fasting exists for a long time. We see it in all religion, Christianity Judaism Islam uh Hinduism, Buddhism, they all have

fasting protocols, right? And if you think about our antag, I'm sure they didn't eat three times or five times a day and snack in between, right?

So, it's it's uh it's very interesting that we're would you say we're built for fasting? I'd say we are built for a stimulus or a signal from food and a signal from no food. It's pretty darn

simple. I think that when we are eating food, we have a series of signals that tell our body, you are safe, you have fuel, you are safe to repair and rebuild and and grow, right? And then when you

are not eating, you oftentimes have signals that do kind of counterintuitive things. Signals that say you're somewhat not safe right now. You need to find food. Which is why it upregulates so

much energy and so much of those systems in our body because even though it's unsafe for the body to be in a fast state, it's also that hunger drive that makes us want to perform and drive and

uh also signal a different kind of repair because there's no burden from food coming in. So it's very simple where the body just responds to the food for growth and it responds to no food

for sort of intrinsic repair and recovery in certain ways. >> So it's not that it's good or bad or biologically accurate or not accurate. It's simply the fact that we are

designed to go without food. Period. It's absolutely fine. And we can live for weeks without food. Quite frankly, there's some people that have gone much longer over within a Yeah. the longest

like over a year, right? It's >> the world record, I believe, is uh 382 days. Medical supervision, of course, it was y IV, but it's incredible. >> Yeah, it's it's but we can only live for

a few days without water, right? And obviously a few minutes without air. So when you look at the hierarchy of kind of what we need, you know, when you look at even uh Maswell's like hierarchy of

needs and what we need and you look at those six things, it's like yeah, food, water, shelter, you know, all these things are important, connection, all that stuff is important, okay? But it

doesn't mean that you can't survive without one of those for a lengthy period of time. And it's not all about just making your body stronger. It's more about giving your body an

opportunity to rest in its own signals and rest in its own development and repair versus constantly signaling it with food and sugar and things that are causing the body to have to work

overtime just to deal with those foods. Do you think sometime because we live in a society that we're bombarded all the time because it elevate our level of stress, eating is a way to lower our

stress because it's pleasurable. So we snack and we get into that that sort of problem in our life. >> Yeah, for sure. For sure. Because food for as long as we have history, we can

see that food once again, it's that it's that signal to tell our body that we're safe, right? So it's like food has always been reward. It's always been pleasure. It's always been safety. When

you have food, okay, finally I got the kill. I'm safe. I can eat. Right? So it is deeply ingrained in our psyche and deeply ingrained in our biology to seek that reward from food and seek that

pleasure from food. So when we are in a time of stress now in today's world, stress looks very different than it did 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, it looks

very different today. It looks different because now you're worried about losing your job and not being able to pay your mortgage. And you're also worried about what people think about you. and you're

worried about all constant barrage of just concerns and stress. Whereas thousands and thousands of years ago, it would be stress just to simply stay alive. That's right. And you would have

a surge of stress and then you would have your fuel and you'd have your recovery and you'd have your food and you'd have your pleasure and your reward. So here we are constantly

stressed in today's world and we're constantly trying to battle that stress with something to signal to our body that we're safe, which most of the time it's food. So people emotionally eat

because it's just available and it's a coping mechanism for the constant stress that >> we talk about stress. Stress could be detrimental. Uh you know fighters flight

that we're bombarded all the time you know but there's also we talk about stress. There are stresses that are beneficial. Training is a stress that is beneficial. Fasting could be a stress

that is beneficial if you use it for the right reason. I want to talk about the different type of fasting and and how do you differentiate certain type of fasting, long fasting

and and timerestricted eating and what are the benefits of each? Yes. Each of them say off the top of my head, you know, there's a variety of different kinds of fasting. So, let's start with

like the standard um fasting that a lot of people do, which is like the 168 fasting where they just fast almost every day for 16 hours. they just skip breakfast and they do, you know, eight

hour eating window. That's like a standard intermittent fasting protocol. Um, I'm going to put that one aside because I don't consider that like a deep fast. I consider that almost more

lifestyle. A lot of people do that and don't even realize they do >> every every day. You know, it's just like I'm very similar to that. A lot of times I don't eat breakfast. I have to I

have to tell myself to eat breakfast sometimes so that I don't undereat. >> I don't eat breakfast like I since I dis discovered fasting. But now I start reincorporating my breakfast because you

told me typically what I do like my standard is you know like four days per week I will eat breakfast and eat relatively normal three square meals sort of thing. Um but I still have a

minimum minimum 12-h hour fast always like I think everyone every single person minimum go 12 hours without eating. I wouldn't consider it a fast. >> When you say a fast to interrupt you

you're allowed to drink water in that 12 hour. Yes. I just mean like everyone should go 12 hours without food. I believe that. I believe that if you stop eating at 7:00 p.m. at night, you should

give yourself until at least 7 a.m. Like just give yourself that period of time, that rest and digest. We are absolutely. So I don't consider that fasting. I consider that baseline. Okay? And then

what I'll do is uh you know like three days per week I will do like an 18 to 20 hour fast. So for me it's going to be skipping breakfast usually skipping lunch and then eating something

mid-afternoon and then having a pretty big, you know, dinner, right? And I'll do that two, three, sometimes four days a week, but usually two or three days a week. And I do that because I like to

have fasting sort of be the anomaly, the shock to the system because if you fast every day, >> your body acclimates to that adapt. It just adapts. And so eventually you're

not doing yourself much good other than just maybe a convenient lifestyle of skipping breakfast. But what I like to do is actually keep the body guessing a little bit. So have breakfast, keep my

cortisol low so that my body's always knowing that there's less, you know, like not this constant stress. and then you know fast fast you so it's like it's a shock to my body and that way I'm

getting speaking of the stress you're talking about that hormetic stressor that's triggering adaptation because I encourage people don't look at fasting as just caloric restriction that's a

benefit but the minute the thing you're looking after is like an acute stress signal you want fasting to be enough of a stressor that it's telling your body this person is under stress we need to

sign repair we need to do this we need to do that all these signals very very important. Um, that only happens if your fasting length is an anomaly, is abnormal from your norm. Right?

>> So, that's like my style of fasting. >> Then we get into like maybe the 24-hour fasts, which I think are great. I think a 24-hour fast um, you know, is once you get past 16 hours, 18 hours, that's when

the magic starts. So, you don't start getting serious autophagy and cellular cleanup and the cellular repair until you're 16, 18 hours into effect. >> 16 18. Okay, it starts then. So 24 hours

is a great spot because you just get to that where you're getting six hours or so of really good deep fasting, right? So 24-hour fasting is great. Okay. Then there's obviously we could go into

detail about 40 36 hours is like another benefit. 36 hours is probably what I would consider the optimal sort of sweet spot. Bang for the buck, right? Really. So like a three-day fast is very very

powerful for many reasons. It's probably, you know, one of the most powerful, but bang for the buck, 36 hours is great. 36 is you can you can do that with very little muscle loss. You

can do that with uh it's very easy to do 36 hours for most people. They don't struggle too bad with it. Um you know, something happens at that 48 hour mark where it's like you're going two days

without dinner. That's when people start to trip up. That's it gets hard. But 36 hours, I think almost anyone can do one full day without food and one skip and one breakfast, right? Just boom. That's

all you got to do for and it's and you get about 70% of the benefits of a three-day fast in 36 hours. >> Oh wow. >> So the 30% of benefits that you get

after that are very spec like if you're going to a 72 Yes. are very specific for the gut and very specific with stem cells. >> Right.

>> So in in my case for example ulcer ulcer colitis it's very beneficial to 72. >> Yes. That extra that extra day and a half is is pretty much critical for what you're doing because that's where the

benefit comes. But everything else from a longevity perspective, I find that 36 hours is the sweet spot. You get the longevity benefit without the risk of muscle loss. And and you know, you and I

have a good amount of muscle on us, so it's not a huge deal. But when you're talking about people that maybe aren't aren't training a whole lot, every ounce of muscle that they have is precious as

they get older, right? That that's your metabolism. That is everything. So, um you know, you don't want to take someone that's 70 years old and that doesn't have a lot of muscle and encourage them

to do lots of fasting because it's a risk. it's a risk that they can't afford because it'd be very hard for them to put that muscle back on, >> right? So, so for someone that's like

older, unless they're experienced, you know, I usually say, "Hey, you know, 36, 48 hours is perfect." >> How long into a fast you start losing muscle in general? It does it has

something to do with how much fat do you have or >> That's a good question. It does depend. Uh, you know, if you have more fat on hand, your body is definitely going to

be more apt to burn the fat. So, you're you're in a safer spot there. But one of the most important things that people forget is if you don't use it, you lose it. Okay? So when you remember we talked

about signals. Food is a signal. Training stimulus is also a signal. Okay? When you lift up a weight, it is telling your brain, hey, this person is using this muscle. This muscle is

relevant for survival. Right? So don't burn that muscle. Hm. >> In fact, I don't know if you knew this, but 70% of muscle protein synthesis of actually building muscle comes from the

stimulus itself. The rest is pretty much protein, right? So, eating protein is great for building muscle. The most important thing, 70% of the most important thing is the stimulus, putting

tension on the muscle. So, that's why when you came in Montreal, we were doing our three-day water fast. We were in our third day and you're like, George, it's important that we train. Yes.

>> More than ever. this and you don't have to train with this high intensity. It's about keeping tension on the muscles. So again, the body says, "Okay, I'm in survival mode." However,

he's using this muscle. So clearly this is important for survival. So let's not burn that. That's the mistake that I think you see a lot of the longevity experts kind of you see like uh some of

them changed their minds a little bit on fasting. They're like, "Oh, I'm not fasting as much because I didn't want to lose muscle." But when I've talked to them, I'm like, "Well, what are you

doing when you're fasting?" They're like, "Oh, I I take my I barely train. I walk." I'm like that's the problem like that. >> We are a machine that is you know this

organism is meant to move like and it's simple signal input output. If you are not telling your body >> that it is needed to lift that that this muscle is necessary and you're not

eating of course it's going to burn that muscle. It's not metabolically necessary. Right? So the body's trying to find efficiency. So if you're like fasting and you're not training the

closest line of efficiency is the body says well get rid of this metabolically expensive muscle. we don't need that. This guy's starving. But if you're using that muscle, the body says, "No, we need

that." Like, "We need that. Don't burn that. Burn the fat instead." So, it's I think now more than ever with people with fasting, it's important to and you don't need to exhaust yourself, but you

need to resistance train. M and uh another question I I want to ask you is someone is obese and someone is slim, is it easier for the person who's obese to do fasting because he has more fat to

burn or or is is is it proven or it's it's only subjective? >> It's believe it or not a very technical question because it gets into a number of different things like uh I don't know

if you've heard of leptin before. Leptin is a hunger hormone. associated with hunger. It's a it's a satiety hormone. When you have people that are very obese,

they oftent times have a very hard time tapping into that fat because of leptin because they have these hormones that are basically signaling to the brain. Um it's a thing called leptin resistance.

So when you have a lot of fat on your body, fat sends a signal to your brain that says, "Hey, like we have enough food on hand. we have fat on hand, you don't need to eat. Right? So like if

someone in theory has a fat on them, lots of fat on them, it should be telling their brain, hey, you have enough fat, you don't need to eat. >> It's like a bear who goes to

hibernation. He wants to make himself fat. So he >> it's it's so it's so you have this fat and it tells your brain, hey, you have enough fat on hand. You don't need to

eat. But the pro But if that was the case, then how come people that are fat are always wanting to eat more, right? They're always hungry. And what happens is because the brain gets desensitized

to the leptin when you have so much fat on you and it's sending this leptin signal. It's like I always say it's like if I was calling an ex-girlfriend and I kept calling her and kept calling her

and kept calling her until she finally blocked me. That's what happens with leptin in the brain. So fat people have so much fat that is pumping out leptin that the the it's constantly picking up

the phone and calling the brain to the point where the brain actually develops resistance and no longer answers that signal. >> Oh wow.

>> So that's the real interesting thing that happens with obesity is that people have more fat on them and their brain doesn't register it. So they just keep eating and eating. So fasting can be

very difficult for obese people at first but it doesn't take long. They like we've seen in the literature that like you know if people just consistently fast for a couple of months it brings

that leptin like just doing short fasts it brings that leptin sensitivity back where the the brain starts to pick up the phone again and once the brain starts to pick up the phone again then

fasting becomes a breeze. So I always tell people that are like obese or have a lot of fat to lose start with small fasts. Start like 12 16 hours and do that for just a couple weeks and get

your body used to it so that leptin starts working again and then do the longer fasts. So if someone who's has a obesity problem and does not like to work out much, you would tell him to

start doing short fasts, right? To in order to lose weight, do it more more often for a shorter period of time. >> Exactly. Right. Than doing a long one and work your way up to the longer ones

because um you know eventually if they were to just continue to fast eventually it would work. It would just be hard for them. They would find if you took someone that had, you know, a hundred

extra pounds of fat on them and they had never fasted before and you asked them to do a three-day fast, they absolutely could do it and they absolutely would lose fat, but it would be difficult.

They would be very hungry. Whereas you and I who are like metabolically healthy, after about 24 hours, we're not hungry anymore. >> Whereas those people that signal is

going to keep going because it's disrupted. >> So it takes a little more time for them. So, it's important that I always just say just so that they don't have a bad

experience, start small and work your way up. I I like what you just said because there's a a school of thought that people like, oh, if you're if you're fat, it's because you have a a

gene, you know, it's a gene problem. But I think it's >> it's disempower people to make the right choice and be able to take take their their health in their own hands. I think

it's important to mention it, you know. >> Yeah. the genetic polymorphisms that cause obesity are less than I believe it's less than 1% of the obesity population. So, I'm not saying that it's

uh that you're not genetically predisposed to obesity, >> but the polymorphisms that actually can make you obese, it's a very small amount of people.

>> I want to talk about there's certain people that are not big fan of fasting. They would say, "Oh, you can have a calorie restriction and eat many times during your day." What would be the

difference if we consume the same amount of calorie for example, but instead of doing a fast, I eat like in a in a certain window of time, but for the certain same amount of calorie for, for

example, for a few days, >> is is it more advantageous to to fast what the literature is is telling us? >> There's two things I'll say. Uh the first thing is the most important thing

is what you can adhere to. Hands down, I have no problem with caloric restriction. I think caloric restriction works. Um, and I'm I'm not discounting that it isn't effective, but I can give

my opinion and I can cite the literature on it is that when or I can at least describe a mechanism. Let's say you have two two people. One person restricts their calories daily for seven days and

another person restricts their calories the exact same amount except they do it by fasting two days. Okay. >> Okay. And at the end of the week they have are in the same calorie deficit.

Which one which one was better? Well, both of them probably lost weight. Both of them probably lost similar amounts of fat. Where we do see differences, although it's small in short amounts, is

the fasting group usually has better improvements in metabolic outcomes, mitochondrial outcomes, uh PGC1A, insulin resistance, um improvements in, you know, more autophagy. So, you get

these different signals that are better. And what it comes down to is there's a an energy sensor in our body. It's called EMPK, okay? AMP AM or protein kynise. And think of it as like a um a a

volume knob. Okay? >> And that volume knob goes up to 10. >> If you crank it all the way to 10, that is like you are in a deep deep deep calorie deficit where you are without

food. Okay? When you are in just regular caloric restriction, it's like you're only turning it to like a three or a four. >> Oh,

>> okay. And it's that way for a whole week. Yes, that's great. and you're going to burn calories. But there's benefit to cranking it all the way to 10 because when you crank it all the way to

10, you go into a deeper caloric deficit. And when you get into that deep caloric deficit, you have more signaling for aggressive change in the body. It's like a difference between, you know,

like dipping your toe in some water versus sticking your arm all the way in and really immersing your So, you're going to get equally wet if you put your finger in the water for a week or you

can just do it all now, right? >> Oh, yeah. One shot. >> So, that whole AMPK sort of dial is very important. So, it's on one hand it's splitting hairs, but on the other hand,

it's like I'm a fan of living in that way where I go all the way and then I come all the way back. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Plus, it's more fun. I don't want to

just like sit there and eat like, you know, celery and mustard. I'd ra I would rather fast for two days and then enjoy my [ __ ] food. >> Yeah. Get get away with it. Yeah.

Faster. Exactly. you suffer more for a shorter per period of time than to stretch it for Yeah. Yeah. One thing I I can say is that for my personal experience is that um I just wish I

would have discovered fasting earlier in my life. Uh I just had a Achilles tendon injuries uh last summer that prevent me for from running for two months and I was doing physio everything to make it

better and sometime it it felt great but as soon I was starting to run again it it I feel a sharp pain and I do four uh three three days water fast a year and when I did my three-day water fast

and I had that injury Y my injury sort of disappeared. It it's borderline magical. Well, I know there is nothing ma ma magical about it, but it's it's scientific, but it's it killed my

inflammation probably and it helped my tissue to repair. Um, if I would have known fasting earlier in my life, I would have used it even as a professional athlete maybe to

to recuperate from my injuries or maybe after a fight, right? That would be a good way. If you would be a competitive professional athlete, would you use it for that? I absolutely use it for that

and there is a a very key difference that I notice between you know my recovery if I fast versus my recovery if I don't and it's a global thing it's not a it's not just like isolated thing you

know so it's like if I'm fasting frequently it's like my overall baseline state of inflammation is lower >> like that baseline we all have a certain level of inflammation at baseline like

if you didn't have inflammation you would die like obviously we have have it I think because when exercise, your inflammation goes up, right? It's it's normal. Like your inflammation goes up,

recovery takes a lot of inflammation. And there's a fine line. If your baseline is here and you spike your inflammation from training and this is the top threshold, and you push yourself

over, that's not doing you any good up there, right? That that area up there is actually starts to be counterproductive. It's like we need just just a little bit of inflammation to kickstart recovery.

So what I've done is my baseline inflammation, and I've measured this multiple times, my baseline inflammation is about a half a point lower. So it's significantly lower. So when I do spike

it with training, I have a lot more wiggle room. I'm not spiking into the dangerous territory. And when I say dangerous, it's like >> I think athletes can experience this.

Like if you're going through a really heavy training block, you don't necessarily feel good when the training block ends. like you actually need that time to recover, right? That's why you

have a loading week, what they call de loing. >> Yeah. >> And I notice it even uh like puffiness and water retention. Like when I'm

training really hard and pushing my body, I actually look worse. I look, you know, tired. I circles under my eyes. I'm exhaust. You can tell when I'm training hard. And that's because my

inflammatory state goes up. >> Yeah. So, if I can lower my baseline, it makes it so that I can tolerate more before I tip into that state where I'm run down. And how about the growth

hormone production? It it's spiked to after and that's significant. I mean, >> that's what helped you heal, right? >> I believe. So, I think there's a number of different things. I think that the

growth hormone response is a significant one. Um, I think there's also, you know, what are called chaperoning proteins. There's also all kinds of things that like allow proteins to essentially

aggregate and form the way that they should. Um, but yes, that's a very big one. It's just being able to have that spike in growth hormone alongside, you know, adequate protein when it is time

to eat, right? So, it's like >> that signal because the the growth hormone pulses that you get when you're fasting are specifically designed in your body to protect the muscle during a

fast. That's why they release. They actually you release growth hormone when you're fasting because your body is trying to preserve muscle. So, you can capitalize on that and use that growth

hormone for growth, too, right? And it's people might say, "Well, how do you possibly use growth hormone for growth if there's no food coming in?" Well, again, we come back to that same thing.

It's a signal. Okay? The growth hormone is telling your muscle to preserve and to grow or to at least preserve. So then when you do have food on top of that later on, you get this growth and

recovery. So the stimulus is happening during the fast, the actual repair happens right after. >> We talk about inflammation. There's something that happened to me sometimes

after a hard training. I feel tired then I go eat and I'm not as disciplined as you Thomas. I I eat a lot of sugar sometimes and when I like something like a ice cream I'm I have the tendency to

take too much. Is it just an idea? But I feel sometime after I eat a big dessert I feel bloated and I feel like my body especially certain places that are more inflamed than others.

>> Yeah. you know, is it just my my in my head or it's really a phenomenon that happens when you eat sugar is it sort of make you blow up? >> Yes, I think that it's a again you're

getting this you're able to highlight where you have sensitivities and we've seen we've seen this in other literature and we've seen it with there's a protocol called the autoimmune paleo

protocol which is designed for people with autoimmune conditions where they go on this extremely restricted diet. It's not fasting, but they restrict their diet. Uh, no night shades, no um

legumes, no nuts, no I mean it's extremely restrictive, but the whole point is to be able to remove anything that is going to be like triggering inflammatory conditions and then you

slowly introduce foods in and you monitor what happens, >> right? >> Sorry, what triggers inflammatory response like a trigger or

>> It can vary. Well, any food is going to trigger a small inflammatory response. It's called the postprandial inflammatory response. So, whenever you eat, you have inflammation, and that's

that's normal. But most people have one or two things that affect them more, right? Like um like I speak for myself, uh like almonds and cashews. I mean, I eat those and within an hour I'm like,

what is wrong with my wrist? Like it's I'm so sensitive to them. >> I never would have figured that out if it wasn't for fasting because my whole diet was just mixed and I could have it

would have been so hard to isolate a variable and it took one experience for me. I was coming off of a 48 hour fast and I was like, "Oh, cashews sounds so good. I'm craving cashews." So, I ate

cashews. And I mean, I'm kidding you not, within like 45 minutes, my I felt like I I felt like I herniated a disc in my back. My wrist was hurt. I was like, "What is going on?" Like, all it was was

cashews. The next time I did a fast, I just didn't eat the cashews. I just I didn't even think of it, but I had something and I didn't feel that way. And I started to connect the dots. So,

then I'm like, "Oh, you know what? That's interesting. I had cashews after I broke that fast. I'm going to eat some cashews now. And I started getting the same kind of feelings. The thing is is

what fasting does is it makes you so sensitive >> that you feel those things. And some would say, well, I don't want to be that sensitive. I don't I mean, I want to

know. I want to know what I respond to. I don't. >> And some people actually process sugar fine. It's I think there's when you get into that I mean sugar is definitely

problematic but I think when you get down to it there are like epigenetic types and there are people that handle sugar better than other people. Um but you know for me sugar is hugely

problematic. Like I I am very inflamed with sugar. I'm very inflamed with certain nuts. Um I'm very inflamed with even like kale really causes issues with me.

>> Oh yeah. >> Though it's just does that mean that that food's bad? Not necessarily. But it means that fasting has given me this clean litmus test.

>> Generally speaking, which food are the most inflammatory for people like and and inflammation is the cause to a lot a lot of problem. >> I mean sugar probably is number one

>> sugar. >> Um high fructose corn syrup, anything that's like high concentrated fructose. >> Can you give me an example of >> I mean those are like the types of

things that are in it's basically another kind of sugar, right? It's basically the stuff that's in like a you know a fruit juice or things like that like like a not good fruit juice.

>> Um >> there's these things called you've probably heard of trans fats before. Trans fats are um you like in margarine they're in anything on the label that

says hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil. >> Uhhuh. >> That's where they take a fat and they add a hydrogen molecule to it to make a

an oil solid. So like the cream filling of an Oreo. That's a perfect example of something where it's actually a liquid oil that they've added a hydrogen to make it more of a saturated.

>> Oh god. >> So, and the Oreo the cookie. >> Yeah. So, like this. So, it's like anything. And that's And I'm being very concerned.

>> Man, I love those cookie. God damn. >> Well, there's a um I don't know if you have Trader Joe's in Montreal, but Trader Joe's is a store here. They have a version that's called Jojo's where

they're still an Oreo, but they don't use the hydrogenated stuff. So those are and I'm being very conservative with those because those are ones that have strong like randomized control trial

clinical evidence behind them as these are very inflammatory and very bad. Um if you start getting into the weeds, high high concentrations of even regular saturated fat can be inflammatory, but

it's usually only if they're in combination with some sugar, too. Okay? So like the worst things that you eat are the things that are combining saturated fat and combining sugar. It's

literally the most like inflam chemical, right? >> It's just it if you think about it, you can reverse engineer this and realize like where where in nature do you have a

high amount of fat and a high amount of sugar naturally occurring together? Can you name one food? >> Yeah. >> It's a man-made thing. Yeah.

>> Right. So it's like you think highfat, high carbohydrate, that's a Snickers bar. That's a pizza. That's a That doesn't exist in nature. In nature, it's very like one or the other. You have

protein and fat from your meat or you have [ __ ] sugar from fruit. >> Okay. And those in isolation are not really problematic. It's when like when in nature would you ever have both. Very

seldom. If you went back 10,000 years, like I know you're into paleontology that you think like what did their diet look like? We don't may not know for certain. They might have gotten some

some nuts, you know, depending on where the region is, but for the most part in the winter, >> yeah, you live in a in an ice age. You you have to you have to hunt. Yeah.

>> You're going to be probably largely ketogenic. Lots of meat, lots of fat. And then in the summer, you get this opportunity to to get some fruit, you know, but you're not having robust

amounts of carbohydrates, and you're certainly not having robust amounts of carbs and fat together. There's like I can't think of a single food. Maybe a coconut kind of has some sugar in it and

has some fat. >> Oh, yeah. But it also is like one of the most calorically dense foods. Anyway, so if if you're given a choice, do you use butter or margarine?

>> Oh, butter. Here you go. >> Explain to me why. For some reason, some people believe like margarine because it's vegetital, it's more healthy. >> Yeah, margarine is pure 100% like that's

hydrogenated oil. they they there there's a whole like you could get political on why that got pushed through essentially but basically the goal was to like you know reduce the animal

saturated fats but it is a pure trans fat. It is um I would say the margarine by its classical definition is the most dangerous food you could eat really >> because it is pure hydrogenated trans

fats. It's it's they take hydrogen and they are taking an oil, an industrialized seed oil that's essentially been chemically adulterated to become a an oil in the first place

and then they treat it with hydrogen to make it a solid. So the the the claim is that well this is a vegetable oil and it's going to be more heart healthy. Whereas now we have the evidence that

trans fats are trans fat. I mean there's no debate there. There's no debate. Like all a isisles of the nutritional dogmas agree that trans fats are just awful. So I don't they I know they're trying to

change how like margarine is made. It's slightly different. Doesn't doesn't have as much hydrogenated stuff, but it's still just like a highly industrialized oil that's put into a solid. I mean,

you're much better to just have the real. >> Of course. Wow. I'm going to tell that to my mom. Like I'm going to translate this whole part to him for to her so she

can understand. My goodness, she she used Margarine. pushed it hard. I mean, I grew up using it, too. It was like >> um you know, country croc and what was the other one? Uh, can't believe it's

not butter. All the stuff that we were like told. I remember being a kid and being afraid of butter. You know, >> if you want to be as healthy as possible, what do you use to cook

something on your on the oven? >> I'm still I'm a big I'm a big avocado oil guy. Avocado oil is uh has a high smoke point. >> Even when it burns, it's still