Take THIS For Serious Fasting Benefits

Hello Health Champions. Did you know that fasting can provide tremendous health benefits, but a lot of things people drink during fasting will backfire and negate a lot of those benefits. So by watching this video today you will learn not only what to drink but why. And the best fasting drink by far is called water. And it doesn't matter if your goal is weight loss or improved metabolic health to reduce insulin resistance and reverse type 2 diabetes. If you're looking for improved energy or focus or if you're fasting for religious or spiritual beliefs, it works perfectly for all of those. Also if you're trying to improve immunity or if you're trying to reduce inflammation and pain, then the water is still the best drink by far. The only time that you're fasting and water is not good is if you're doing something called a dry fast which I recommend being very very careful with. We're going to talk a little bit more about that in this video. Now strictly speaking fasting means to not eat. And eating obviously provides calories and resources to the body. So when you don't eat when you fast, you want it to be zero calories. Water obviously has zero calories. But there are some other things that you can still enjoy that has zero calories like coffee and tea. But the reason water is still better is that it also provides better hydration. It has, it is the perfect hydrator. And coffee and tea are obviously liquid, they're water based, but there's a little question mark on the hydration there. And the reason is that caffeine can affect the body. And caffeine has a slight effect on the pituitary. It turns off a hormone called anti-diuretic hormone. So the anti-diuretic means to keep fluids in the body. And caffeine turns that off just a little bit, which means we're losing fluids. So on the one hand, you're adding fluids through the coffee and the tea, but you're offsetting that by losing a little bit through the caffeine. So again, water obviously, you're adding, but you're not having the caffeine, so you're not losing. And it's not a huge difference, but it's something that we still want to be aware of. But then there's one more factor that I'm going to call cleansing. And here water is still the perfect one. And we're going to put a question mark on the coffee and the tea. So if you imagine that you have a cell in the body, and in this cell, we have particles. There is a certain number of particles that's normal for the body. Now as your body goes through and does what it does, it produces metabolic waste. And some of this metabolic waste is particles. So now we need to flush those out. When we get dehydrated, that means that we're losing the water, but we are keeping the particles. So there's a higher concentration of these particles. And that's kind of what happens with dry fasting is that you're not adding the water to flush that those things out. So now imagine that you add a drop of water. Now if this water is pure, it's going to have no particles in it. If it's a mineral water, it's going to have just a few particles in there, but they're going to be good particles. They're not going to be metabolic waste. They're going to be the electrolytes that your body is looking for. Now on the other hand, let's say that you drink something with a bunch of sugar like a soda or even in this case, the coffee or the tea wouldn't be as bad as soda, but soda cannot hydrate you. Even though soda still is based on water, it has a higher concentration of particles in it than the body fluid does on average. So you're not adding water. You're not hydrating the body when you're drinking soda. You're adding more particles that is actually going to pull water from your body at first. So therefore what you want to add is you want to add pure water as pure as possible. And that way you can flush these, you can dilute these particles and restore that balance of the number of particles called osmolarity. And a very simple analogy would be if you wash your car, then you soap it all down and then once it's all soapy, of course you can't just leave that because it's just going to dry and cake on. You need to rinse it off. If you rinse with clean water, now you've done the job, it's a nice clean car. But if you wash it with Coca-Cola or you wash it with coffee, there's going to be some residue there. And obviously the more junk is in there, the worse. So I'm not saying that this is a huge issue with coffee and tea, but I am saying that water is always going to be the best thing that meets all of these criteria. And as long as you don't add sugar or anything else to it, the tea could be black, tea, green, tea, white tea, herb tea, ginger, chamomile, hebiscus, dandelion, it doesn't matter if it's based on water and you just sort of soak some things, steep some things in it, it's still going to be fine. And then we have things that have almost zero calories. So now if you're strict, if you're a purist, then technically you're not fasting anymore. But if you look in more to the results on the benefits, then there are some things that are still totally okay or even desirable. So apple cider vinegar, even though it has three calories per tablespoon, which is very, very little, it doesn't raise blood sugar. It has something called acetic acid in it. And that's a short chain fatty acid. It can be turned into energy rather quickly. And it can feed and your beneficial gut bacteria. But if you just have it a little bit by itself, you're probably going to absorb it and use it and you can turn that into energy rather quickly without raising blood sugar at all. And apple cider vinegar has also been shown to improve the body's insulin sensitivity. You can improve your metabolic health, all things being equal. So there are some strong reasons to take a little bit of apple cider vinegar during fasting. Another thing that you can take is lemon juice and it has a tiny little bit of sugar in it. But if you put it in water, you're probably just going to put like a teaspoon for a tall glass of water. And it only has five calories per tablespoon. So a teaspoon will be a third of that. So can we take some apple cider vinegar and lemon and still meet our goals, be true to our goals? All of these things that we talked about before, they're still going to be totally fine except if you're fasting for religious or spiritual beliefs, then obviously you have to refer to whatever they dictate. And then we want to understand something called autophagy, which is actually responsible for a lot of the immune improvement and inflammation improvement. And autophagy means self-eating and it's not as dramatic as that sounds. It simply means you get better at recycling and taking advantage of resources on the inside. When you don't eat, you're not adding any new resources and therefore the resources that are already existing in the body become much, much more precious. Body up regulates its recycling ability. So it starts going after things that are just not quite right. Because there are little damaged proteins that are a little misfolded, any piece of extra junk or even foreign pathogens like lyrus and bacteria, they can be used as resources. Your body up regulates its immune system and its scavenging ability. And the most precious resource in the body at this point is protein. So the body is looking for protein in all the nooks and crannies. And a lot of the health benefits that we see from fasting has to do with this mechanism of autophagy. So a lot of people who don't have any weight problem or metabolic issues or inflammation, they're feeling great, they're still occasionally doing some fasting just to get the benefits from autophagy. And then there are some things that have a little bit more calories still. And again, now we're not really fasting anymore but these can still provide some benefits under certain circumstances. And that would be things like MCT oil, medium chain triglycerides that have 115 calories per tablespoon. We have butter that have 105 calories per tablespoon. And chia that has 37 calories per tablespoon. And the first two have been popularized by something called bullet proof coffee. The people fast, they make some coffee and then they whip in. some butter and/or MCT oil. And now a lot of people get the idea that this is better than fasting. But I want to clarify that and set you straight. It's not better than fasting. So why would you do it then? It can be a good idea if it helps you extend your fast. So if you're shooting for 20 or 24 hours but somewhere along the way you start getting really hungry and really cranky and you don't feel so good. Especially if you're new to this, if your body hasn't adapted and it's not knowing where to get the energy, it's not really good at burning fat yet. And you cut back on the carbohydrates and you go longer between meals. Now the body is wondering where is my energy. So now if it helps you extend the fast, if it helps you go from 16 to 20 or 24 hours, now that's a good thing. So again, it depends on if you have a pureist, if you have a strict view of fasting or if you're just looking for the benefits and the results. So here is how it normally works. That when you eat a large meal, you're putting resources and calories into the body. That your body needs to release a corresponding amount of insulin to bring down the blood sugar and to process through these calories, these carbohydrates, especially. But if instead you are fasting, now this insulin, you're not adding any calories. So from the time that you had your last meal or a few hours after you had your last meal, you are going to have pretty much a straight line for the first few days where your insulin is going to drop. And eventually it plateaus at a very low baseline level just to maintain your basic blood sugar, the handle your basic blood sugar. Now if you go and you have some MCT oil or some butter or even put some cream in there and let's say that you got here to 16 hours and you're trying to get to 24. And at 16 hours you had something that triggered a tiny little spike of insulin. Well you haven't ruined your fast. You're not creating any blood sugar. You probably will have a little bit of a reaction. You'll have a little bit of change in insulin and the nutrient sensors in the body, but it's so slight. And if it helps you get another four or eight hours, all that happens is you're getting that little blip and then you continue and you get much much further than you would have if you couldn't get through it. So MCT oil, medium chain triglycerides would probably be the best out of these from that perspective because basically it's about half as long of a molecule as most regular fats. And because of that it gets into your circulation faster and then it breaks down into energy faster. So it's almost like a carbohydrate in the sense that it can provide faster energy, but the beauty is it's not a carbohydrate. It does not raise blood sugar. It's a different molecule and chemistry altogether. It's just a faster form of energy. So if you're new to fasting or if your body can't maintain its energy throughout, then taking a tiny little bit, even just a teaspoon of MCT oil can get you that little boost and get you through. You want to be careful with MCT because if you're not used to it, you can create some stomach upsets. I probably would suggest starting with just a teaspoon anyway. Now butter is going to have more of the longer chains. It's going to be absorbed slower, but it's also by far the tastiest, obviously. So if you're just looking for a treat in your coffee and that helps you get through, then that can be a good thing too. And chia are seeds. They are high in protein. They're high in fat. They're very low in carbohydrate and they're high in soluble fibers. If you take a tablespoon or two and you drop it into water, then these seeds are going to soak up the water and turn into gel basically. And then you can drink that and it's kind of cool. You feel a little gel particles. And then you can add, you can flavor it with some lemon or cinnamon or all of the above. Maybe a drop of stevia, maybe a sprinkle of salt and you have a pretty decent drink. And because of all the fiber, that can give you a sense of fullness and help you carry through. And again, none of these are going to be a problem because they provide a little bit of energy, a little sense of fullness, but they do not spike your blood sugar. So strictly speaking, you're breaking your fast. If you're just looking at the results, you're looking for, then you're still okay. So I hope it's clear that bulletproof coffee can be okay, but it's not better. It doesn't do anything magical beyond fasting. And if you make it, then MCT oil is totally fine. Butter is totally fine. And then some people like to put some creamer in there. They want that creamy feeling, that whiteness of the coffee. And now skim milk is not going to be a good choice. Half and half is going to be a lot better, but still not the best. And heavy cream is going to be the best thing if you're looking to put some creamer in there. And there's several reasons for this. The first is that skim milk has 55% of the calories come from sugar. And it's not the worst sugar. It's lactose. So it's slower and better than than table sugar, but it's still a sugar that can raise your blood sugar. And when 55% of the calories are sugar, that means there's no fat in there to slow down the absorption. Half and half has about 12% of the calories from sugar, but heavy cream has only 3% of calories from sugar. So the rest is fat basically, which is less there to slow it down. And two tablespoons of heavy cream has less than 1 gram of lactose. It's like 0.7, 0.8. And because half of the heavy cream is fat, almost, and skim milk has none, that means there's almost twice as much sugar. It's not just a percentage, but there's twice as much sugar in the skim milk. And it's unopposed. It's not slowed down by any fat. But then there's one more factor, which is probably even a bigger factor. How much of it would you use? So if you start off with a little butter or MCT or a little bit of both, and then you want to put some cream in, a tablespoon of heavy cream goes a long way. But if you put a tablespoon of skim milk, you probably can't even notice a difference. It's still going to look like black coffee. So chances are if you try to cream it up with skim milk, you're probably going to be using three or four or even five tablespoons before you see any difference. And the reason this becomes important during a fast, especially is even things that wouldn't be a huge deal during a time when you're eating. During a fast, your body is super sensitive, because it has gone without added resources. It's looking around very, very carefully in the body for extra resources. So any little thing that you put in there is going to really upset and change the balance of what's going on. And then we also want to understand bone broth because a lot of people will associate fasting with bone broth and think that oil, you can't really fast, you should have bone broth when you're fasting. And bone broth can have some benefits during fasting. If your primary goal is gut healing, then it provides some collagen and some nutrients that can actually help you heal the gut. But it depends on what your goal is. So if it's anything else than gut healing, you probably want to stay away from it. And we want to understand protein. When you're fasting, protein becomes the most precious resource. Carbo hydrates, not a big deal. Fat, not a big deal. You have some carbs stored and you have a ton of fat stored. As you fast, your body switches from carbs to almost pure fat. So it can go weeks and months on that stuff. Protein is the precious one because we need it to maintain tissue. We need it for hormones, etc. So it's basically the lack of protein that drives autophidies, the strongest factor. And bone broth has 10 grams of protein per cup. And it may not sound like a whole lot if you eat 80 or 90 or 100 grams a day, but during fasting it's a lot. So there's been a lot of research done on something called the fasting mimicking diet. And what that means is that you eat in a way that mimics fasting. You restrict certain things very specifically and how does that work. You reduce calories by half or little more than half, like 30 to 40 percent of your normal total. But then you also restrict protein much more strictly to 9 to 18 grams a day based on body size basically. And if you have some bone broth then and you have even just one cup, you could already exceed that limit and turn off the autophagy because if you put that much protein in, now protein is not such a scarce resource anymore. So like I said, if gut healing is your primary concern, then bone broth could be a good thing. If your primary concern is to improve blood glucose and insulin and metabolic health, then you're still fine. You're getting a minimal impact on insulin by from 10 grams of protein. But autophagy is going to be effectively shut off by the time you exceed that. And then the other benefits are going to be a little uncertain, like immunity, inflammation and pain control. We don't quite know because you're still getting some benefit from improving insulin. Insulin creates an inflammatory state. And anytime that you eat significantly less, then you are reducing inflammation. But when we shut off the autophagy, now we're offsetting. We're negating a lot of these other benefits of immunity and inflammation because a lot of that comes from the autophagy. And then there are some other drinks that we want to understand as well that people often associate with fasting. They think it's super healthy and therefore you should have them when fasting. So first we want to talk about serving size that very often if you go out and buy some juice, for example, then even if a cup is considered to be a serving size, it just depends on how much they put in the bottle because even if a bottle is a cup and one serving or if it is two cups and two servings, most people are going to think that the serving is the bottle and they're going to consume that as a serving. So when I looked for some green juice, it could have anywhere from 5 to 53 grams of sugar, not just carbs, but sugar. And this is the bad stuff. This is not the lactose. This is the sucrose which is 50% glucose and 50% fructose, the bad stuff that's the same as table sugar. So you obviously don't want 53 grams of sugar during a fast, that's kind of obvious. If you made your own juice and you base it mostly on celery and some leafy greens, you're going to get really close, maybe even just slightly under the 5 grams. And at that level, I would give it a question mark. I think it's still probably more than you want because you're getting it as pure sugar. It's not like the heavy cream where it's buffered by fat. 5 grams of sugar is going to create a blood sugar spike. It's not going to ruin your fast. But if you did that, I would suggest you do it closer to the end of the fast. Like when you're about to eat a meal, then it's not going to have a whole lot of detrimental effects. But overall, I really can't recommend green juice during a fast. So we're going to put a big red X on that. And the same thing with fruit juice, fruit is going to have a whole lot more sugar than green juice. So we're not going to have any fruit juice start off at 5 grams. You're going to have one cup of typical juices like orange juice or apple juice are going to be 20 grams. And it's going to be hard to get over 53 because that is basically what fruit juice is. So what that means is this green juice here was probably just fruit juice with a sprinkle of green in it. So again, not recommended. Then we have this thing called coconut water. And a lot of people think that this is some magical thing. And if it's natural and you live on a tropical island, then yes, this is a good food to consume along with the coconut. But with coconut water, now you're getting 11 grams of sugar per cup. A larger serving could obviously have twice that. So again, way, way, way too much sugar. And even though there are some good things in coconut water, they are mostly overrated and exaggerated. There's no critical magical amount of mineral nutrients in there. And then we need to understand hydration, which obviously has a lot to do with water, but also with osmotic pressure and with particles. If you recall, the cell that I drew up here with the particles in it, those particles act like a sponge and they hold water to them. They pull water to them. So the body doesn't have water pumps. The body can't pump water around. It pumps particles across cell membranes and then the water follows. And the particles that the body pumps, the primary ones are sodium and potassium. And we know them as electrolytes. They're charged particles and the body regulates all kinds of things. They create signals, electrical signals because they're electrically charged. And then the water follows. So during a fast, you're going to be losing water because you're going to be losing some sodium and some potassium and the water follows. There's two factors. When you use up your carbohydrates, they act as a sponge. And then when the sponge is gone, you release that water. Also, when you're fasting and your insulin drops, there is less of a tendency to reabsorb the sodium. So we lose a little bit more sodium and with that, again, goes the water. So the way that you hydrate during the fast is to first drink water and then you need to supplement primarily with sodium and potassium. So the simplest way would be to just take some table salt. Make sure that you put a sprinkle of table salt in everything that you drink. But if you don't get the potassium, that's going to create a little bit of an imbalance for a lot of people. And then there are some other things that are not as critical, but that can be very beneficial in general and especially during a fast. And that's magnesium, calcium, trace minerals that a lot of people are deficient in. There's about 70, 80 of those. And then also manganese and zinc that can help regulate immunity and blood sugar and so forth. So I created my own electrolyte product. And rather than just put sodium and potassium in there like a lot of them do, I put all of this in there. So it's the most complete electrolyte on the market and it's ideal for fasting. I'll put some information down below if you want to try it out. So in order to hydrate, you want to drink a lot of good clean water so you can flush out the toxins and the metabolic waste. But then you also want to take in some of the good particles, the proper electrolytes so that your body can regulate the fluid balance properly. If you enjoyed this video, you're going to love that one. And if you truly want to master health by understanding how the body really works, make sure you subscribe, hit that bell and turn on all the notifications so you never miss a life-saving video.