Ryan Podcast Host:
Hi, I'm Ryan Kimball, a certified ketogenic fasting health coach, serial biohacker and personal counselor, and I'm the host of this podcast.
Thanks for taking some time to be with me today, and let's get right into it. Today we're gonna be talking about fasting. And it's many benefits and why I prefer it as probably my first choice in working with people.
I often say to my clients, if I could only work with you on one thing, it would be fasting. And that's just because it has so many different. Benefits for the body on a very deep level. It taps into that healing that the body innately has the ability to heal itself and gives you benefits that pretty much nothing else does.
So I always say that this is something that is probably one of the most powerful things you can use in improving. Now that said, today we'll definitely be talking about how to practically apply fasting in your life and create a fasting [00:01:00] lifestyle. This is for those who are new to the subject or want some more.
Information on getting to the next level in their fasting journey. So I'd just like to start with a little bit of information about fasting and what we're referring to specifically for our purposes. Fasting is not eating for an extended period of time and being able to drink liquids or not eating, and also not having any.
So for most of what I'll be going over we'll be using the not eating and having liquids. But I will refer to the other method as well in brief, just so you have some information on that. . So if you're going to start out, it's important to know that fasting is not new. The research that has occurred in the last few years, especially since around 2016, has really given us a lot more information about why fasting works and how to use it.
However, fasting has been around since pretty much the [00:02:00] beginning of mankind's history. In fact, you can find in some of the earliest. The vedic hymns from over 10,000 years ago references to fasting and its amazing benefits and why someone should use it to improve their health which is what we'll be going over today, how to use it to improve your health, of course.
So that said, it also continued from there all the way right up into present day. Fasting has been used in different ways, by different cultures for different reasons, for many years. , but there was always an aspect of it improving a person's health. And now that we know more about why it improves your health, we can really tailor it towards using it to improve specific things, whether it's getting control of an autoimmune disease actually handling someone's body composition to their ideal weight and ideal body composition muscle to fat.
and numerous other things from chronic fatigue to all the different myriad of illnesses that man [00:03:00] basically has. And any of them can be addressed and improved, at least with fasting from the research that I've studied. So to get you started, if you're just starting out and new to this fasting world, the fasting lifestyle, what you want to do is take whatever meals you're eating, whether that's two or three meals a day, and eliminate snacks.
So it'd be three meals, for example, with no snacks, eat like you normally do, but have three meals. No. . Now, I will say just at the start here, that if you can be in a ketogenic state at the beginning of your fasting journey, it definitely is very helpful. It is not totally necessary. People, like I said, have been doing fasting for thousands of years with amazing benefits without necessarily being in a ketogenic state.
However, my first podcast goes over extensively how to get into a ketogenic state and then gradiently get into fasting, which is the ideal way, in my opinion, to do it. , get into ketosis, then start fasting or do them [00:04:00] concurrently, whatever works for you. That said, if you are in a fasting mindset and you just wanna dive right in, then you do your three meals a day, no snacks, and then you start moving your breakfast towards lunch.
This is usually the easiest way for people to do it. It's not, it doesn't have to be done this way, but it's usually easiest to move your breakfast towards lunch. And that gets you into the intermittent fasting, which is the. Stage of fasting, this is where you're not eating. Your window of fasting is around 13 to 16 hours.
In which time you would have no food, you'd only have liquids. So by liquids we of course either mean water or it could be tea or coffee. Herbal teas. Basically no calorie. . And when you're doing this, it is important that you maintain a high level of liquids, keep yourself very hydrated, and it's totally permissible to have electrolytes.
There are many electrolyte drinks out there that are no, no [00:05:00] sugar, no calorie, and they don't break your fast, but they give you all the electrolytes you need in order to keep your body functioning, and that's very important. So it'll be liquids, only some electrolytes if you feel like you need them, and you will know you need them by the biofeedback in your body.
So you want to pay attention throughout your fasting. to how your body is feeling. I'm a strong proponent of biofeedback. Listen to your body. There are literally trillions of data points going on at any given time in your body, feeding you information back in the form of, I feel great or not so great. I feel strong, or I feel weak, I feel faint, or I don't.
All these perceptions come from the biofeedback of your body so that you know what's going on and there's no more extensive data set that you could avail yourself of than the feedback you get from your body. Computer biofeedback systems only use a very limited set comparatively speaking of [00:06:00] information.
That said, listen to your body and continue your fasting. Once you get to the point. Your lunch and your breakfast are pretty much at the same time. You've moved your breakfast all the way up to lunch, you're down to two meals a day. You're fasting maybe 16 hours a day. You are doing a full intermittent fast, and you can do this daily a fasting period of
13 to 16 hours daily indefinitely and get amazing benefits from it. It's going to improve your digestive tract, it's gonna improve your energy levels. It's going to have amazing benefits. But after you've, this is just the start. After you've gotten this done, is when you start to really get into being able to take advantage of
the benefits of the next phase of fasting, which is often called autophagy fasting, and it's basically a fasting period of 17 to 22 hours. So it could be called an extended fasting period. It could be called 17 to 22 hour fasting. Whatever works for you makes sense. But the reason it's referred to as autophagy fasting is because it produces [00:07:00] autophagy in the body.
And autophagy is something that has just recently been discovered. I want to give you some information on that. But basically the idea is that your body has the ability to basically clean out old parts, old proteins that are, hanging around that are damaged. Or they're, maybe they're abnormal for some reason.
They've been exposed to certain toxins or damage from the sun even. And your body, naturally, when it goes into this autophagy state, is able to detox, eliminate them, flush them outside of the body, and then your, you get the benefits of having, a better basically protein building system in your body.
The other amazing thing is that the parts that it doesn't eliminate. It actually restructures. It restructures the amino acids so that they are no longer damaged and can be used for either fuel or for building up the body, building up your muscles and your various organs [00:08:00] and whatnot.
So it has this cleansing effect basically on many different levels. On your body and allows your body to begin healing. Because it no longer has those toxins present and begin rebuilding itself. And this occurs, it just happens. It's not something you have to make your body do you simply fast for a period of 17 hours or more.
and you start to get into this autophagy state, and that's autophagy fasting, and it really is that simple. You don't have to make it any more complex than that. And even though it's very simple and it doesn't seem like it maybe should have the benefit, it does. It has an amazing benefit in that the abnormal cells that are created by these abnormal or damaged proteins are eliminated.
By eliminating them, you're eliminating the possibility of disease occurring because of those cells. Disease occurs because of damaged cells in the body, period. So you're eliminating the possibility of disease just by fasting. Now, that's [00:09:00] not to mention the fact that when you detox the body, you increase the body's ability to metabolize and handle the energy sources, so you improve your body composition, you're gonna lose weight.
Body fat specifically because your body is going to be trained into using body fat for fuel the more you fast. And it has a lot of other benefits, and I'm not gonna get into all of those here because this is a how to, this is how to fast. But after you've gotten through autophagy fast and you're comfortable with this and you feel good and you feel energized, the things that pay attention to is you want to feel energized and you want to have cognitive awareness.
You want to be mentally, And you want to be able to sustain this. You don't want it to be something that goes in and out. If those things are occurring, you're ready to go on to omad, which is one meal a day, OMAD fasting, and this is where you're fasting, basically what it says for a period of 24 hours. So this is where you get into the additional benefits beyond autophagy.
Autophagy [00:10:00] would be enough, but there are actually two other really amazing benefits from fasting. And the first one I'm gonna go over is the increase in human growth hormones. So around, 20 or more hours. And again, everybody's a little different and different studies come out that show us different information about when this starts, but somewhere around 20 to 24 hours, human growth hormone starts to increase.
And human growth hormone is responsible for our body being able to build up and improve the structure and increase your metabolism its basically the anti-aging hormone is the colloquial name for many times. So it allows your body to build and handle certain functions that create optimal repair in the body.
And this is really important because around 30, early thirties or so, human growth hormone basically goes way down or even stops because your body's done growing. very much no longer needed in the body's view, [00:11:00] but by doing fasting, you can increase it. In fact, it's been found that in some studies, human growth hormone was increased as much as 1300% by fasting for a 24 hour period or longer.
And this was accompanied actually by exercise towards the end of that fasting period. Not extensive exercise, but 20 to 40 minutes. Moderate exercise, whatever that means for you. So you combine those two things. You could get great increase in your human growth hormone, which is anti-aging. It helps with preparing the body and it's gonna increase your metabolism, which improves body composition.
So all of these things help with body composition as well as healing the body. The third thing, is, stem cell regeneration. So this is when the body actually is able to produce more stem cells through the use of fasting. And this is amazing. This is not something that has been ever before figured out as a, like there's not a supplement you can take or a drug you can take necessarily that increases stem cell production.
But you [00:12:00] know what fasting does? And stem cells are basically the raw material that builds your body. So these are the things that at the beginning of our lives, the creation of the body is done through stem cells and then later on as we're growing and repairing stem cells are used to create specialized cells that do specialized functions in the body.
They're of the starting point cellularly for everything that is created in the body, and they're super powerful when they can be generated, but there hasn't been a way of generating them specifically. And over the last few years, a lot of studies have been done about this. There was a study actually done at MIT and what was revealed is that stem cell production was drastically increased when a person was in a fasted state and that fasted state tended to be around 24 hours or more.
And you don't just jump into this, you build up to it. But a person can use those extra stem cells for whatever the body needs. They don't. , they're not just made in one part of the body. They go all over the body and they help with repair, and they help with, [00:13:00] fixing things that might be going on.
Stem cells can reduce inflammation. They can actually repair damaged tissues in the body that might not otherwise get repaired. So you have these three amazing benefits just by doing this simple activity of fasting and autophagy and, stem cell regeneration and the human growth hormone increase.
And that's just by fasting up to 24 hours. Now what you want to do is after you get up to this omad one meal a day and you're feeling good and you've been paying attention to your body and backing off if you need to, taking electrolytes, if you need to, drinking extra liquids, if you need to, et cetera then you wanna go up to 36 hour fasting.
And this is where you're gonna really dial in on a lot of these benefits because in that autophagy fasting phase and then into the 24 hour phase where you get the other benefits. These now will stay with you right up until the end of your fast. And at the end and during that whole period, you're gonna be benefiting from the additional stem cells, from the [00:14:00] autophagy and the increased human growth hormone.
So you get up to this 36 hour fasting and you don't even have to stop there. It's pretty simple to get to after you're doing 24 hour fast to get to 36 hours, you simply don't eat that dinner you would normally eat to break your fast at 24 hours. You go and wait until the next morning sometime and have your first meal.
And in doing that, you just simply are sleeping through the rest of your fast basically. And it's very easy to do. So you get all these benefits while you're sleeping, which is when your body actually repairs and does a lot of rest and repair functions. So it's pretty. to get up to 36 hours, and then from there just increase very gradiently.
So add a few more hours, add a few more hours. Maybe instead of eating in the morning after your 36 hour fast on that second day, maybe wait until lunch and try to get up to 40 or 42 hours or so, and then try to do even more than that until you get up to a 48 hour. And then during that [00:15:00] time, you really want to be using tools that help you extend the fast and make it beneficial for you.
I'm gonna give you a couple little hacks here that I have everybody do. So the first thing of course, and this really isn't a hack, this is just paying attention. If you start feeling weak or you know something's going on, that's non optimum. If you're faint or whatever, back off, break your fast and then try it again and do the same amount until you get comfortable at that level, and then increase it slowly.
Increase slowly. We don't wanna increase too fast, especially when we're going beyond 36 hours or up to 36 hours because what can happen is it stresses the body and puts a stress on the body and your body then releases cortisol. Your adrenals releases hormone cortisol, which then is a dominant hormone and it will spike your insulin a bit and will throw other factors off in the body, which don't give you the benefits you're looking for.
They can be counter beneficial. , you might get some benefits, but you're also gonna get some not so hot things going on. So do it slowly. Do it in a way that works is, hard for [00:16:00] some people. You type a personalities out there who want to just do it slow down, take it one step at a time.
And then after you keep building up, there's some tools you can use right from the beginning of fasting. In fact one is apple cider vinegar. So you can have a glass of water with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. and even a pinch of Redmond's real salt or some sort of mineral salt. I recommend Redmond's Real Salt.
I think it's the best one on the market out there. By pinch I mean an eighth of a teaspoon, and you put that in a glass of water and you mix it up and you just sip it throughout your fast. And it will help your body get into ketosis. There are acids in apple cider vinegar that help the body get into a deeper state of burning fat for fuel.
And there's other factors in the apple cider vinegar that help benefit you during the fast. And then additionally, the salt replaces electrolytes and gives you other benefits that allow your body to function the way it's supposed to during a fast, right? So that's one thing you can use. And then the other thing is to keep yourself engaged.
It doesn't have to be heavy physical activity, [00:17:00] but there's a mental piece to fasting where you're going. , your mind's gonna be thinking you should be eating cuz you're so used to eating. It's such a built-in habit every so many hours you eat. But if you have yourself engaged, set up a schedule even before you start the fast.
I'm gonna be doing this, and this. Even if it's, you're gonna be getting through some series of shows that you wanted to watch, have yourself engaged or you're going out, you're gonna be doing yard work or you're gonna be doing things with your. Being engaged will help you extend your fast successfully.
Having apple cider vinegar with salt drink will also help you as well. Two really simple, but super effective hacks you can use throughout your fast and extending it into a 36 hour, then 48 hour even 72 hour fast. Now these longer fasts give you more benefits for those three things. The autophagy, the human growth.
and the stem cell regeneration. So that's why you want to keep extending it and use it as a lifestyle. How often do you do these things? Think of it as a [00:18:00] lifestyle. It's not something you do every day, these extended fasts, but you could do intermittent fasting every day, and often I have people set up a schedule that works for them.
So maybe they do intermittent fasting four days a week, and then they do two days a week of a 24 hour. And then they do one day where they just have normal meals, three days. And it's actually good to break up, not do fasting all the time because it allows your body to have certain nutrients. It might be desiring and you don't want to have a restrictive diet too much cause that will tell your body to slow down.
So at least one day a week, it's good to have a fairly high calorie, or at least normal calorie day healthy foods. I'm not talking about junking out, having good foods that are nourishing one day a week seems to a sweet spot for most people, and then maybe once a month doing a 36 hour fast or less than that.
It could be even. But the idea is that you use this as a lifestyle. Find out what works for you. Maybe you need to do more than once a month. Once a month on [00:19:00] the 36 hour fast, because your body needs it more often than that. In order to get the benefits it needs, listen, pay attention and listen to your body.
Now, of course, if you're working with someone who. Teaches fasting or uses that as part of their program, then talk to them about using these different methods and they will most likely be able to guide you as well. But listening to your body and being able to give the person you're working with feedback about what's going on will also help them guide you more effectively.
So don't just put it all in someone else's hands necessarily. Now that said if you're doing all of these different types of fasts and they work for you, that type of schedule works for you. . But for some people they need something that is a little faster, like maybe they want to get into this deep state of having the stem cell regeneration, all the benefits that go with that anti-inflammation, repairing the body, increased human growth hormone, which helps repair the body faster, build things up, improve metabolism, and of course, the detox effects of autophagy.
There is a way to dial into these [00:20:00] faster, and that is through dry. , and usually you only do dry fasting for a period of at max 30 hours. More than that I would not recommend. But dry fasting is a very specific tool. And it's sometimes not done until you've gotten used to doing the water fasts and the fasts that allow liquids.
Most of the time that's the way I see it done, but it doesn't have to be as long as you gradiently approach it. Some people wanna do dry fast and they have a very limited schedule. Maybe they only have one or two days a week where they could do any sort of longer fast because of the demands of their lifestyle, et cetera.
So during a dry fast, it's just what it says. You don't eat anything, but you also don't drink anything. And if you do this for, let's say you start out with a 12 hour period, just like you were doing with intermittent fasting. You start small, but you do a dry fast for 12. and then extend it and try to get up to doing it for 16, doing it for 18.
And the idea is to get up to a point where you could do it for a whole day or even 30 hours [00:21:00] and your body will move faster. And there's not a lot of research on how much faster you get into these different states, but you definitely get into the states of autophagy and human growth hormone increase.
You do have to pay attention if you're gonna exercise during that time. It has to be fairly light because you can't use up too many of your liquids because you're not drinking anything. But it's okay to move around and do things if you do this slowly. And there's also something called a hard dry, fast, and this is where you eliminate any contact with liquids as well as food during the time you're doing the fast.
And again, you could, I would start with just normal, dry fast, where you have no liquids. But it's not a hard dry fast, so in a hard dry fast is you wouldn't be showering, you wouldn't be washing your hands, you wouldn't be brushing your teeth, basically, you're not allowing your body to have any sort of liquid or sustenance of any sort, and it speeds up this whole process.
Again, if you do hard, dry, fast to them gradiently, I'd [00:22:00] recommend doing the water fasting up to 36 or 48. Then try dry fasting, then try hard dry fasting. And this is a fasting lifestyle. These are not all the ways you can use fasting by any means. There's a lot of other types of fasts and ways of going about it.
But these are the simple basics and there are a lot of hacks that you can use to increase your benefits from fasting. Such as lowering your caloric intake, especially your protein. Right before your fast, the 24 hours before your fast, this will move you into autophagy faster, cuz you run out of the building blocks that you've eaten faster so your body starts regenerating and or producing the different benefits faster.
Usually you don't want to go below, 20 grams of protein for the day before you're fast. But if you reduce it down to 20 grams, you're gonna get into autophagy faster as. Which is really beneficial and you'll get deeper into it once you get into it. So a few little hacks [00:23:00] I've thrown in here that you can use.
But if you were to work on all these things and create a lifestyle that works for you, really pay attention to your body. Never overstressing it over a six month period, you could totally turn around probably any health situation you have. Now, that said, there are situations where it's not the right thing to fast.
If. pregnant. If you're nursing you wouldn't be doing any of these extended type of fasts. Of course. If you're diabetic, if you're working with a doctor, always consult with your healthcare practitioner before starting any of these things. But that said, there are a lot of benefits.
I've worked with a lot of clients on using this, and I just wanted this information to be available to anybody who might feel that they could benefit. , if you have any questions, I'm always interested in helping people who are interested in improving their health, improving their life. You can send me a message on Instagram, my handles at Longevity, fitness and Health.
Feel free to email me info. info@longevityfitnessandhealth.com and I look forward to hearing [00:24:00] amazing results that you hopefully get from applying all of this. Thank you for listening and have yourself a great. Thank you for listening to this podcast episode. As a biohacker and health coach, I am always interested in helping others improve their lives.
This is my passion. This is what I do. I help others, so I'd like to extend this offer to you. Send me any question about your health or your life, and I'll send you back a sincere answer. With an actionable strategy that you can apply, no obligation. Just go to longevity fitness and health.com and enter your question on the contact page, or check me out on Instagram at Longevity Fitness and Health and DM me.
I've enjoyed bringing you this podcast episode today. Thanks and have a great day.
