Hi, everybody, welcome to Week One of intermittent fasting. In this very first week we're going to talk about the introduction to intermittent fasting and more than the How to versus the the science of the why and some of the later classes we're going to get more into a lot of the benefits for next week we'll be talking about weight loss. And then third week will be just general healthy eating, how to eat healthy while you're doing intermittent fasting. Week Four, we'll get into the anti aging benefits and week five, we'll talk about intermittent fasting for athletes. But this first week we're going to talk about just getting started and a little bit about the why of why fasting is good for you. So he Humans have been fasting for basically for millennia.

It's it's actually a very normal part of life. And that's the reason why we call our first meal of the day break fast. That's where breakfast comes from. So it's been it's been practiced for religious reasons for cleansing rituals. It's it's actually a very normal part of human existence. And it really was a part of our ancestors, normal daily life as hunter gatherers.

Humans were designed to fast on a normal basis because food wasn't always readily available, right? So our ancestors couldn't go to the grocery store anytime they wanted to. And even as recently as, as a couple hundred years ago, our people had to store food for the winter and they in the winter, they ate a lot less and times were a lot leaner because they didn't have the abundance of food. So it is actually a very, very normal part of human existence, it's really not, hasn't been until very modern times that people have eaten so much. And I have a statistic here it says that I'm in 1977, the average number of meals and snacks a day for the average American was three, a total of three snacks and meals a day. Fast forward to 2006, the average number of meals and snacks per day for the average American was up to six, three square meals and three snacks.

So basically, in that period of time from 77 to 2006, the average American doubled their consumption of food and that's not even talking about, you know, the whole go big phenomenon. We're just talking about the number of meals and snacks that people are eating. So, you know, I really don't know who came up with the idea that you should graze all day and eat constantly throughout the day in this somehow Help your metabolism, it was probably some sort of a marketing campaign that just became traditional wisdom somehow. But it's it's not a good idea and it's really not helpful human beings are not cows we're not meant to graze all day. Our digestive systems so let's talk a little bit just a little bit about about the digestive system and and so why fasting is good for us. So the human digestive system is basically the seat of our health.

All disease begins in the gut. Most of our immune system over 90% of our immune system is located in our gut. Most of our neurotransmitters including serotonin, which is the feel good chemical for our brain is made in our gut, almost most of it 90 something percent. So the the gut is extremely important part of our health and well being It also takes a huge amount of energy in order to operate. So a lot of most of our care a lot of our calories, a lot of our energy and everything is going into is going into our digestive system. And so that's why this intermittent fasting has anti aging benefits.

Because when so much of our energy is going into our digestive system and digesting food for so much of the day, there isn't energy to do other important bodily functions like cellular regeneration. So myself, I'm sorry. Um, so anyway, so it takes it so it takes a whole lot of a whole lot of energy. And so an example of that is when a person is in a state of extreme stress, or especially if it's like a life threatening type of a situation. What will happen is is the body will shut down the digestive system So that all of the energy can go to the the muscles and the nervous system so that to fuel fight or flight, right, and so what happens is, is the body shuts down. So in an extreme situation, you might, you know, hear if somebody's like losing control of their bladder or losing control of their bowels, well, that's because the body shuts down non essential functions in order to get all the energy to the muscles in the nervous system.

So the digestive system is shut down. So what happens is a worker raising throughout the day, and we're constantly eating and and probably the average American probably eats between 16 and 18 hours a day. Your body is constantly having to run your digestive system, and so you're not able to use that energy for other things. So it's just it's just not good for it. It needs to rest like any, any system, right? It needs to have downtime and rest.

So that's why it's good to have these longer periods of fasting. So most people if we're lucky, you might, you know, fast the eight hours that you're sleeping If you're getting eight hours of sleep at night, but really our digestive systems need a little bit longer than that. So the longer periods you can stretch it out, the better it is for your body. So, that's why that we recommend intermittent fasting. It's simple, it's flexible, it's practical. It is a way of giving your body time to regenerate.

It helps to balance blood sugar. It has the anti aging benefits are just they're just so many benefits to intermittent fasting. So intermittent fasting is good for weight loss. It will, it will level out your metabolism and basically repair your metabolism so many people, especially when you get to be in your in your 40s and 50s. your metabolism is just completely jacked up from from so many years of yo yo dieting and from calorie restriction. And I'll get a little bit more next week into what calorie restriction of traditional dieting actually does to your body because it actually has the the opposite of the intended effect and, and low calorie diets end up actually slowing your metabolism.

Whereas intermittent fasting because this is a normal function of the body to go for periods without food and then to then feast it actually improves your metabolism. So if you're in this for weight loss and we have we have different people in the group there are some people in the group who are interested in weight loss we have a few a couple of athletes, and we have a couple people who are just interested in in general health and anti aging benefits. So if you are interested in in intermittent fasting for weight loss, one thing that you need to know is that you need to be patient with it because it could take a little bit of time depending on how you know messed up your system is depending on how insulin resistant you are, depending on how slow your metabolism is. It might take a little bit of time for your body to start to repair itself.

And so you need to be kind of patient. When I started, I was probably about 40 pounds overweight. And it was probably, you know, when I first started I lost like that quick five pounds, you know, that you lose when you lose some water weight and things, but it probably took me Oh, at least, at least 60 days about two months before I actually started to see some significant weight loss because it just took that long for my metabolism to to level out and to repair itself. So it did take some time, but then once it did, to be quite honest, the weight just just fell off because my body returned to its natural state. And so it's actually a very simple thing to do. So, okay, so let's talk about it.

Um, The best thing to do is to ease in Don't go Don't try to go into a 16 eight all at once and if you've read the material you know that the most common system for the intermittent fasting is 16 hours of fasting with an eight hour eating window. It's best if you're if you're a normal breakfast eater that you just sort of ease into it. Say you normally have breakfast at 7am. So maybe for the first you know, five days you slide your breakfast time to 9am and then after you know, a few more days of that maybe you push it to 10 until you get to whatever your preferred eating window is. I do and most people I know do about 11am to 7pm so we break fast at 11am followed by this the way I do at a break fast at 11am. About 1231 o'clock, whatever it is, I have lunch, and then I have my dinner in the evening and wrap up my eating By 7pm, so that I have then a 16 hour window of fasting.

But ease into it Take your time. Another way of easing into it is not to do it seven days a week, start out doing it maybe every other day. Choose the timing that's right for you. Most people find that it's easier to skip breakfast. And that's because we're busy in the morning, we're getting ready. You know, depending on what you're doing, you might have kids, you know, getting off to work.

And they just they find that easier because the evening the dinner tends to be a social meal, you might be out with friends or you're sitting down with your family. And it's also you know, evening is when you're starting to wind down and usually having some time to relax and that makes you you want to eat more. The other thing is is to be to be really patient with yourself because a lot of the of the hunger that you might be feeling might just be a little bit more psychological and I wrote this in the in the material We're very conditioned, we get into the habit of eating. And we might not really be that hungry, but we sort of get in the habit. And so you just sometimes you just have to ride it out at first and you'll find that that after you get into it and you get accustomed to it, those feelings will actually go away and you won't be you won't be hungry and you won't have the hunger pains and you just, you just need to write it out at first but if you ease into it, take your time and kind of ride through that and be patient with yourself then it you'll get used to it.

And then it just becomes second nature. You don't even have to think about it. One thing that I do recommend and I have a something to show you guys, one thing I do recommend is you break your fast gently give your gives your digestive system time to warm up. I do recommend that you break your fast with either a green juice or maybe a smoothie. If you're going to work or you're out about and you're thinking you don't you can't have this So this is what I do, I will make something in the morning. And then when I leave and go out for the day, I will put it in this little container that I got.

So I got this from on Amazon. And there's there's several different companies that make it This one is called fresh seven is the brand on this, but it's basically in one of these vacuum sealed containers. And it's made specifically for smoothies. It's kind of awkward because it's square, which is kind of weird for drinking from But anyway, they're all they're all like this for some reason. So anyway, you fill it up, and I would recommend that because you're gonna suck the air out of it. So you know, if you fully fill it halfway, it's really hard to do that.

So if you fill it up, like at least like three quarters of the way, and then you put the lid on and then just put the little vacuum pump on here and you suck the air out. And then that'll keep your smoothie fresh for hours, your smoothie or your green juice. So that is something that I recommend warms up your digestive system. And then an hour or two later, you can have your lunch Another thing is, when you are whenever and not just in the morning when you're breaking fast, but whenever you're having a green juice or a smoothie, be sure that you do a little chewing as you're drinking it, I know it's a liquid, but you need to, to, to, to move your jaw and masticate and and and give your body the signal that you are taking in food so that it will begin the digestive process.

Because what happens is when whenever we're drinking something, if we don't shoe, it doesn't signal our body that we're the beginning of the digestive process. And so it doesn't generate the the saliva and the digestive juices to get things started digesting so it's much better for your system. If you get that started so your first few swallows a juice kind of give it a chew and to get those juices flowing and that'll help get your your digestive system warmed up and digest your juice better. See What else would I want to go over coffee that's a big thing. I'm a huge coffee drinker I will never give up my coffee. So what's important is to have your coffee black because you you can't take in any calories because the calories are going to break your fast.

So I'm very much against artificial sweeteners with the exception of stevia. stevia is a natural sweetener but you need to be sure and read the label on whatever stevia product you use because a lot of them have other ingredients are not pure stevia. So check your stevia use that for your sweetener and no no cream um once you have been doing intermittent fasting for a while and your body becomes fat adapted, and we'll discuss that more in the next week in the in the session on weight loss. Then you can put in MCT oil there is some calories associated that but it's it's pure fat. And so if you are fat adapted, then that is actually okay. And you could you could probably get away with that without actually breaking your fast.

And if you don't know what I mean by fat adapted then you probably aren't so we'll talk about that next week. Let's see. And then the last thing I want to talk about was just the, the general idea of clean eating. Okay, so intermittent fasting is not a cure all, and it's not going to cover all your sins. So you still still do need to try to eat healthy during your eating window, whatever that is. Eight hours, 10 hours, whatever your eating window is to try to eat as healthy as possible.

I did give you a clean eating guide. That was in the email. On the web page. If you go to the downloads, there is a clean eating guide. It's it can be a lot if you don't have a clean diet right now. It can seem very overwhelming.

So I would say don't try to do both at the same time, at first, get into the intermittent fasting, get used to the system of eating. And then once you're starting to feel comfortable and you've gotten over the bumps and you're you know, you don't have the hunger and you're feeling really good about that, then start working on cleaning up your diet. Because if you try to take almost all of this on at once, and you feel deprived because you're eating clean and you feel deprived, because you're you're skipping a meal and maybe you also are decided to take on an exercise routine, you're really setting yourself up for failure. It's just too much. So take it easy on yourself. Don't do that.

Start with one thing at a time. Start with intermittent fasting. Get that down, give yourself a few weeks, get that down, and then start working on on cleaning up your diet.