← The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
This Italian Fasting Hack Breaks All The Rules Of Fasting : 1464
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Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. There's an Italian fasting hack that breaks every rule of fasting, but somehow works better. You still get to eat food and you still have meals, but your gut responds as if you've done a deep extended fast. It starves the bacteria that create gas and inflammation. It activates a hidden repair mode that your gut never enters into with modern eating. And it can repair your gut lining. And when you repair that gut lining, you stop feeling heavy and foggy all the time. And today, you're going to learn exactly how this Italian fasting lets you eat while still getting all the benefits of an extended fast. And why it fixes your bloating even when everything else doesn't work. Your gut's not a simple pipe where food goes in, your body takes the nutrients, and something else comes out at the end. It's an ecosystem with trillions of microorganisms competing for food and space in your gut. Your modern lifestyle has trained that system. And harmful bacteria have crowded out the good guys. And those harmful bacteria love it when you eat constantly. And most of us have learned to live in a grazing pattern. A quick sugary breakfast like oatmeal, a snack before lunch, something in the afternoon to stay awake, a late dinner, and maybe a dessert or a bedtime snack. That means your digestive system never gets a genuine break. Every few hours, more fuel arrives. And those bacteria, the harmful guys, they're waiting and yeast is waiting. And they love that pattern because they thrive on sugar. They love refined carbs and a steady stream of calories. When they break down those carbs, they can start to ferment them. And fermentation in your gut gives you the gas and it gives you inflammation. And the gas becomes bloating and pressure and cramping. And those inflammatory chemicals irritate your gut lining and make it more sensitive over time. Meanwhile, the good bacteria, the beneficial ones that you want more of, they play by different rules. They like some fibers and compounds called polyphenols that come from colored plants. An ultra processed diet essentially starves those good bacteria, and so they lose territory along the gut wall. On top of that, your gut has a built in cleanup cycle called the migrating motor complex, or mmc. Its job is to push leftover food particles, mucus, bacteria, down the line so that they don't get to overgrow. And when you're constantly snacking, you keep telling your digestive system, we're still working. The MMC never gets to complete its rounds. Residue builds up. Bacteria overgrow in places they should be passing through. Fermentation goes up, so you get bloated. Gut lining now takes hits from lots of directions, all at the same time. And there's never a real repair window because there's always another meal waiting in line. Those tiny areas of damage begin to accumulate. The immune cells in your gut wall stay on high alert. And over time, that inflammation doesn't just stay in your gut, it starts to alter the gut brain axis. It's the communication highway between your intestines and your nervous system. Your gut imbalance distorts your hunger signals. You crave more sugar and quick energy, which feeds the same harmful bacteria. Your mood becomes more fragile, you feel fatigued, and your stress tolerance drops. And maybe you yell at people you care about and wonder what's wrong with you. It's your gut. What started As a bit of bloating is now a full system pattern in your body and you probably don't know why. And that's why if you want to restore your gut health, you'd want a structured way to suppress the bad bacteria and open space for the good guys to rebuild. One of the most effective ways to do that is to just give your gut a break. When you lower your caloric intake in a structured way, your gut shifts from processing mode into repair mode. You're removing the constant fuel that the bad guys rely on. So you do a fast. And the way most people try to give it a break with fasting, well, it's hard to do. It takes willpower, it takes time and it can affect your performance. And when most people get desperate enough from bloating, you do what I did. I've written a couple books about it actually. You go into a fast. So one day you're grazing and the next day you decide you're just going to do a 24 hour fast. And that can be totally liberating and work really well. But you might jump into a 72 hour water only fast, which is going to be a lot of work if you have a family and, and a job and a life and you're not fasting in a cave the way I did in order to write the book about it. And some people wake up after a heavy weekend and just say, I'll just skip meals today. And some people say, I'm just gonna eat one meal a day, Monday through Friday. And this works for some people, but for most people it creates more stress, more cortisol. And over time, cortisol leads to leaky gut. And that one meal a day might be a giant dinner late in the evening that dumps all the calories into your gut when you're, when your gut isn't ready for it. So I'm a huge fan of one meal a day, a few days a week. When your gut is working. And your biology isn't going to interpret a random fast as a smart healing choice. If your gut isn't ready, it's going to read a sudden lack of food as something stressful. And you want a beneficial amount of stress, not an excessive amount of stress. And a lot of that's dictated by what's already going on in your gut. If you over fast cortisol, which is your main stress hormone, that's a good hormone, unless it's too high, it'll rise to keep your blood sugar stable. And it's useful, but relying on it all the time is not useful. With repeated high spikes, cortisol does break down the gut lining directly and it makes it more permeable. And high levels of cortisol from over fasting when your gut is already in bad shape, can further reduce the diversity of the good bacteria in your gut. And your gut wall is simultaneously trying to repair and trying to deal with this onslaught. And this is why over fasting can be a source of stress. And it's why never fasting is also a source of stress. One thing that can also happen with a full water fast, when your metabolism and your gut haven't had a chance to to adapt to it, is you can have blood sugar crashes. When your glucose drops, your body will automatically release adrenaline to push it back up. And that can feel good. But if it happens too much or often, it can make you feel shaky or anxious. And your gut motility, which is how your body moves food and waste along, becomes random instead of following a rhythm because you've kind of broken your patterns. And when those patterns are broken, it sends mixed signals to your microbiome. So extended zero calorie fasts, especially beyond three days, starve all bacteria, the harmful ones and the good ones. Some beneficial microbes, like those that depend on regular fibers and slow carbs, are going to struggle when there's nothing for a long time. And then when you finally break your fast and you do it with pizza or a highly processed meal, when, which is what a lot of us do, you're creating a huge inflammatory storm. You get a flood of sugar and carbs and additives. It hits the lining that you've already stressed with cortisol and adrenaline and a lack of fuel. So those harmful bacteria right there to step on in, and the cycle repeats. So here's the deal. Fasting is something that I love. It's absolutely changed my life. But it's not magic unless you do it the right way. It works under specific calorie and nutrient conditions. If you're blown out, tired, you have leaky gut, maybe doing an extended water fast isn't the right choice, but intermittent fasting could be. So it's a flexible tool. And over fasting is not a good thing. It's not something that should become starvation. What does work, especially if you're just getting going, is having some energy. So your gut bacteria will shift in the right direction, but a low enough amount of energy that you still get the benefits of fasting. And one of those is autophagy, which is when your cells clean themselves up. And if there's no food and no calories at all. For longer periods of time, like five days, your microbiome could get dysregulated. So you want enough nutrients to have basic, healthy microbiome nourishment and to keep you from getting blood sugar swings. But you want your system to get a clear signal. It's time to clean up. When your intake of calories drops to 800 or 900 calories a day, but it doesn't go all the way to zero, your brain says, oh, I guess I should go into conservation and cleanup mode. But it doesn't have to go into panic mode because there's still at least some food in the environment. That means your cells will turn up autophagy. And it's because they're realizing there might be an energy crunch, so they need to get rid of the weak guys. And with autophagy, your cells start breaking down those weak cells and recycling their damaged components. It's like sending your old batteries in to be refurbished and renewed so they come back able to carry a full charge. And your microbiome will notice this shift from autophagy. The harmful bacteria lose their constant sugar source, so they lose their place in the gut. They grow more slowly. The beneficial bacteria gain territory. The inflammatory pressure on your gut wall goes down, and that means the gut lining itself can regenerate more effectively. And that means you get less leaky gut, less brain fog, and less reactive immune inflammation. In this gentle, precise balance. It's actually pretty hard to achieve. But this is exactly what an Italian researcher, Valter Longo, designed when he created the Fasting Mimicking Diet. Valter is legendary in the field of fasting and nutrition and mitochondria. And he's been on the Human Upgrade my podcast twice. Because he's so legendary, instead of telling people to stop eating completely, he engineered a five day protocol that makes your body believe it's fasting while you're still eating food every day. It's kind of similar to the idea of putting butter and MCT oil in your coffee during a fast. You're getting some energy, but you're still in a fasting mode. But this is complete and focused on your gut bacteria. It's called the Fasting Mimicking diet, or fmd. And the structure is simple and kind of ruthless in a good way. You get 800 to 1100 calories per day for five consecutive days, with a specific emphasis on the right fats, very low protein, which is required to turn on autophagy. Some complex carbs and fibers and micronutrients. But before you even begin the official five day Italian fasting mimicking protocol, you want to do a short pre reset to get your body ready. And for one to three days, you start out by just becoming a detective. You write down what you eat and drink and you also write down when you're bloated or you have brain fog or anything else in your gut isn't right. Is it after large dinners? Is it worse late at night? And just that simple log can show you how your pattern of constant feeding is affecting you. And it can help you see how rarely your gut really gets true off time. So you walk past the bowl of chips in the kitchen and you eat a couple. Well, there you go. You wonder why your bacteria are not working. They didn't get a break. The second thing you want to do before the fasting mimicking diet for a couple days is begin a pre cleanup. You don't have to be perfect, you just start lowering the burden on your gut. So don't eat ultra processed foods. Cut back on sodas or just throw them away. Cut back on fruit juices, anything with lots of sugar and no fiber. Probably a bad idea here. Choose simple foods like eggs or fish for protein and some grass fed butter or olive oil to get some healthy fats. And this does two things at once. It's going to start depriving the bad bacteria from some of their favorite fuels. And it's going to start to feed the microbes that you want to grow. And third, start training your gut to have a daily rest period by compressing your eating window. Intermittent fasting. Aim for a 12 hour window to start maybe from 8am to 8pm so just eat all your meals inside that window and deliberately avoid early snacks or having calories or dessert after 8pm it's pretty achievable for anyone.
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Modern life keeps your nervous system in overdrive. Most solutions try to change your brain chemistry. But your body also runs on electrical signals and rhythms. Your brain uses electrical waves, your heart beats in patterns and your nervous system sends signals through tiny pulses. Light and sound are also forms of energy your body can sense. Scientists have studied them for decades because certain wavelengths and frequencies influence how cells and nerves respond. That's why I use the One Device. It combines light and sound in a wearable. It sends gentle signals your body can respond to while you work, meditate or wind down. Most wearables just track stress. The One device supports your nervous system direct without any Bluetooth or emfs. People who wear it report sleeping more Deeply and feeling calmer, more focused, energized and grounded. It's wearable frequency support you can use all day long. Learn more@theonedevice.com Dave,
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And that gives your migrating motor complex a chance to reduce bacterial overgrowth before you begin that fasting mimicking phase. And fourth, don't forget about hydration and electrolytes. During low calorie phases, people often mistake dehydration and low minerals for bad reactions. So to prevent that, you gradually increase your water intake. Depending on your size and your activity, you can add a pinch of high quality salt or an electrolyte mix with sodium and potassium and magnesium. A well hydrated gut with adequate electrolytes moves better and handles change way more gracefully. So don't do a dehydrated fast. It's not going to feel good. By the time you finish these few days of preparation, which don't take a lot of effort, you've already started shifting your gut from overload towards improvement. And now you're ready to start your five day Italian fasting, mimicking gut reset, also known as the fmd. Think of it like an educational framework. If you have medical conditions, take medications like insulin or blood pressure drugs, or have a history of eating disorders, work with your doctor or health practitioner and adapt it to your situation. So don't do things that you know will be harmful. Then for five Consecutive days. You follow a simple set of rules. Your daily calories sit around 800 to 1100, depending on your size and how you feel. But you clearly stay below your normal intake. You eat moderate amounts of healthy fats, like extra virgin olive oil, maybe some avocado. Keep your protein very low, far below what you normally eat. As low as you can. And be careful. Even things like broccoli or coconut have some protein in them. Look it up online. You also eat low to moderate amounts of complex carbs from vegetables so you don't have to load up on huge plates of veggies. They'll have more protein than you think and probably not feel good on your gut. And then remove the obvious gut stressors. No sugar, no grains, no alcohol, no ultra processed foods, no artificial colors. And flavorings. And liquids you take are pretty simple water, some herbal tea and some danger coffee if you tolerate it well. And you can have some light broths that fit in your calorie budget. But watch out for broths. They have protein in them and you're trying to keep it low. Day one's your entry day. You have about 1100 calories, eat about 120 calories of protein, 500 from fat, and about 500 calories from carbs. Day two through five are deep fasting mimicking days. Here go for around 750 daily calories and focus on being consistent with time of day. You want about 70 calories of protein, 320 calories of fat and 350 calories of carbs. You can treat this five day protocol as a magic pill if you want to. It'll improve things, it'll feel better. And if you go right back to habits that aren't particularly supportive, it's a short term magic pill. But if you can change your habits at least a little bit after the fasting mimicking diet, it can give you a sustainable advantage. That's a much bigger magic pill. And the first thing to do is to feed the right microbes every day. And you got to feed them what they like. They eat prebiotics. You can get prebiotics from prebiotic powders or things like artichokes, asparagus or leeks. And it's hard to get enough prebiotics from eating plants unless you really like a lot of plants. So a prebiotic fiber is a really good investment. You can also incorporate fermented foods with naturally occurring probiotics like raw sheep yogurt or sauerkraut. And cut high toxin flavor foods out. Lectins are anti Nutrients that shred your gut lining. And you can find them in grains, especially whole grains, legumes and nuts. And even worse is oxalate, which is another type of anti nutrient. These are compounds that bind to calcium in your body to form razor sharp crystals that directly irritate the tissues in your gut and are toxic to your gut microbiome and your mitochondria. And a lot of the superfood plants like spinach, kale, even sweet potatoes and almonds are high in them. And sadly, so is chocolate. So is green tea, which is why having less toxic vegetables can be really beneficial as you rebuild your gut lining. The second pillar of recovering from a fasting mimicking diet and just fixing your gut in general is just meal timing and circadian rhythm. Because a lot of people don't know your gut bacteria have a circadian rhythm as well as you do. And this is just your body's natural 24 hour cycle marked by light and darkness and cold and heat and nutrient availability and having no nutrients. So food timing is one of the things that influences your body's internal clock. So aim for a consistent overnight fasting window, 12 to 14 hours most days. For example, you might finish your last meal at 7pm and then have your first meal the next day around 9am it's not that hard to have a little bit of a later breakfast and just avoid constant grazing and anchor your meals at fairly predictable times. In an ideal world, lunch would be bigger than dinner, but if you have a big dinner and it's early, you'll be fine. The reason you do this is it gives your migrating motor complex time to run between the meals and keep your gut in a predictable cycle of activity, rest, activity, rest. And the third pillar to have sustained benefits from a fast is sleep and stress, because your gut doesn't live in isolation from the rest of your body. So go to bed and wake up at a consistent time in a cool pitch black room. It'll stabilize your circadian rhythm, it'll also stabilize your gut bacteria circadian rhythm. And it almost goes without saying, but do something to chill out before you go to bed because your gut bacteria will chill out too. Breathing exercises, go for a short walk, leave your phone at home, or any kind of relaxation, journaling, gratitude, staring at your loved ones. It doesn't really matter, just have a conscious chill out time because it's about your brain, your heart and your gut bacteria. So how often would you want to do something like a five day water fast? Well, it's pretty intense, probably not that often. But how often would you do the Fasting Mimicking diet? A lot of people do three or four cycles per year spaced out by months, and they're doing that to reactivate autophagy and to really keep themselves from aging as quickly. And the difference between doing the fasting mimicking diet three or four times a year and going without three or four times a year is that you can do the fasting mimicking diet and live your normal life and really not not have a lot of willpower or distraction versus a 5 day water only fast where you're unlikely to show up Thursday morning at work after not having food for three days and be at your full capacity. So the fasting mimicking diet is a really beneficial hack. And I'm saying this as a guy with two New York Times bestsellers about fasting. So I love fasting and I also love the Fasting mimicking diet. To learn more about fasting, including the Fasting Mimicking Diet, I've taught more than 100,000 people how to successfully fast. Just go to fastwithdave.com or to try
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my favorite Fasting mimicking diet, use the QR code.
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The Human Upgrade, Formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider carefully, read all labels, and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.