Kind: captions
Language: en
today we're going to be talking about
the best fasting window for weight loss
and the way that I'm going to explain
this to you is to take all the
complicated Technical and medical jargon
out of it and try to make it very very
straightforward and just use plain speak
plain language so that anyone can
actually understand what it is when we
talk about fasting and windows and
weight loss all right so let's talk
about fasting what is fasting fasting
simply put is not eating and there lots
of times where we're not eating for
example when we're sleeping we're not
eating and that's also called
fasting now when you get up in the
morning after a night's sleep and you
break your fast you're having breakfast
and that's as simple as it actually gets
we're naturally fasting every single day
when we're actually asleep and then we
break our fast whenever we eat um might
be breakfast if you SK skip breakfast it
might be lunch you might have an early
lunch and that is as simple it actually
gets now there are um ways of actually
extending fasting and practicing fasting
to be able to make your body do more
during this fasting time and I'm going
to explain all that but I want to take
you back into history a little bit there
are many cultures and religions that
actually routinely practice fasting for
example when I was uh on a gap year
before I went to medical school I
traveled to the medic Mediterranean and
one of the interesting experiences I had
was to go to mount AOS which is this
Holy Mountain in
Northeast uh Greece um it is a uh series
of 20 monasteries built into the Rock of
this mountain and I was doing some
mountain climbing and hiking and with
and doing research on uh the livelihood
and the health of the people that lived
in this monastic community now they
actually live a 16th century lifestyle
and that's what made me fascinated to
actually take a look at what it would be
like to actually live during medieval
times so that was a kind of like going
to the time machine and and coming out
in the 16th century for example but the
monks actually uh in Eastern Orthodox
religion uh actually practice routine
fasting so this is a fasting isn't just
a Modern Trend it's something that's
been around for a long time so fasting
is also very natural we do it every
single uh day while we're not eating now
let me extend this idea of fasting not
eating to an extreme so if you were
Shipwrecked on a desert island and you
didn't have food uh or if your car broke
down in the desert and you had to walk
through you know just parched desert
environment for miles and miles and
miles and there was no food eventually
um you would be not eating for not just
hours but but for days okay and that's
also kind of fasting and eventually
you'll actually start to consume your
own body because your body is looking
for energy and that fasting becomes
starvation and obviously you've seen
pictures of people uh in concentration
camps and in Other Extreme circumstances
where they become skeletal um they have
almost no muscle no fat left in your
body because they've been starving and
that's an extreme of fasting and so
that's important to understand as well
if you're in a desert and you don't eat
for days and days and days your body
will consume itself and that's an
extreme of fasting all right now to
understand the opposite end of fasting
um let's talk about not fasting so
you're eating you're eating all the time
in fact you're overe eing all right and
this is actually one of the big problems
in many modern societies because we are
surrounded by an abundance of food and
we are marketed food all the time and we
have it just always just in front of us
so it's easy to snack on things and then
uh when we're eating we're not eating
mindfully we're busy and when we're
overeating we actually overload our our
metabolism okay and that's the opposite
of fasting and when we're eating what
happens is that our body our pancreas
produces insulin and Insulin comes out
whenever we are eating to be able to
draw the fuel from the food that we just
ate and put it into our muscles and put
it into our storage systems our fuel
tanks in our body that's our body fat so
that we have enough energy okay very
very simple and if you uh eat regularly
your insulin will go up and it'll
actually take your blood glucose down to
normal levels and then you wait for your
next meal and then your glucose goes up
the fuel goes up the insulin comes out
draws it back and your insulin and your
glucose levels go back down that's
basically how our body and our
metabolism the main part of our
metabolism works when it comes to eating
and hormones like insulin so I'm not
going to go any much deeper than that
for for the moment but what happens if
you overeat and you're continuously
putting fuel in your body it's kind of
like taking your car to a gas station
and filling up the tank but and rather
than stopping and pulling the nozzle out
when the clicker goes on your tank is
full you just keep forcing more fuel
into your tank now in your car the gas
tank the fuel tank is actually made out
of metal so it'll just overflow but in
our body when we actually overflow our
fuel tank by adding too much fuel
meaning overeating what we're doing is
we're able to stretch our fuel tanks and
that's our fat cells and you keep on
stretching the next one and the next one
and you can actually make a single fat
cell expand three times its size that's
300% and then you can actually make more
fat cells when you need more fuel
because you're actually eating more
overfilling our tank so to speak so fat
fuel tank goes up gets bigger bigger and
you make some more bigger bigger and
this is exactly what we're actually
seeing this obesity epidemic and between
um fasting normally and overeating and
then becoming and and putting our
metabolism through a lot of stress
because we've got too much fuel in our
body and then you're actually stretching
out your fat cells um that becomes
obesity and all the things that all the
bad things you can imagine that happen
in your body when you've got too much
fat too much fuel becomes inflammatory
and actually takes down your health your
your whole Health uh systems actually
get derailed I read about your health
systems in uh my book uh eat to beat
disease and I talk about metabolism and
body fat in eat to beat your diet my
second book and so if you want to
actually get much more detail I'd
recommend you just uh read those books
because uh I explain that in great
detail but for today what I wanted to
actually do is saying overeating
overwhelms your metabolism when you've
got too much fuel you'll actually cause
a lot of insulin to come out as well and
Insulin as I told you is actually trying
to draw that fuel into your muscles and
into your fat stores when you have too
much insulin one of the things that
happens is that your body needs to make
more insulin keep on making more insulin
because it needs more and more insulin
then you actually have a lot of
something called insulin like growth
factor that's produced in your body
igf1 and this insulin like growth factor
in normal Amounts is perfectly healthy
but when there's too much insulin like
growth factor igf-1 that's a setup for a
lot of dangerous situations including
metabolic problems but also even cancer
cancer is stimulated by an excess of
igf-1 this has been shown in the
laboratory it's been correlated in the
clinic and this is one of the reasons we
think that overeating metabolic syndrome
uh overweight and obesity actually is
tagged in part to whole idea of uh
cancer okay now uh the other thing when
you grow a lot of fat is that fat as a
fat expands it's outstripping its blood
supply and when that actually happens
inflammation sets in and now you've got
inflammatory fat and your body actually
suffers from the consequences of
inflammation as well so all this
overeating uh and obesity to starvation
uh that's actually these are the two
bookends these are the two extremes and
somewhere in the middle is exactly where
we want to be all right so fasting is
natural fasting is also beneficial and
let me kind of talk about the benefits
of fasting as well what's happening when
we're not eating well at the great great
way to qu ask this is what happens when
we're sleeping well number one is that
when we're uh not eating for a prolonged
period of time our insulin levels go
down because there's no more fuel in the
body to actually bring to your muscles
and our fat stores when our insulin goes
down our metabolism shifts gears I call
this like shifting gears in a race car
and it goes from fat storing mode to fat
burning mode all right and when you're
fat burning fat that's actually when
you're fasting that's when you're
sleeping so a lot of people don't
realize this but we're actually burning
fat when we're sleeping when you don't
even need to exercise in order to burn
fat that's actually part of our body's
natural metabolism and that's also the
reason why you want to actually fast for
a good amount of time every night so
what's a good amount of time well we
know that on average sleeping 7 to n
hours in evening so let's round that out
I'm calling it eight hours is actually a
good amount of time to sleep sleeping is
restorative to your brain to our
metabolism to our gut microbiome to our
immune system sleeping is so important
for us and one of the reasons is
important is that it gives us this
window of fasting so let's call it eight
hours of fasting eight hours of sleeping
where our body is shifted into mode to
actually burn down extra fat stores
that's actually really beneficial
because whatever calories you've loaded
into your body during a day you get to
burn some of them off uh in the evening
okay so again this is occurs you shift
into the state because your insulin
levels are low because you're not
putting fuel into your body and your
body shifts into gear now the other
thing that can actually happen uh you
know one of the things we say is that
when you're sleeping at night you should
sleep in cool in a cool room like 67 68
degrees Fahrenheit that's pretty cool
all right and the reason that is is
because at cooler temperatures we get
more benefit out of this one of the
things that can happen is that at cooler
temperatures our Brown fat which is a
healthy fat in our body it's not wiggly
jiggly like uh the the muffin top or the
fat in your thighs it's actually way for
thin fat around the side of your neck
behind your breastbone a little bit
between your shoulder blades and brown
fat at cool temperatures switches on
it's like turning on uh the the gas jets
on your uh stove top click click click
whoosh and uh
on your stove top to turn on the gas you
need the the the flame is drawing gas
fuel from someplace it could be a gas
propane tank in the side of your house
it could be from the town's gas lines
but in your body when your brown fat
turns on it's a process called
thermogenesis it Triggers on the
generation of heat click click click
whoosh it has to draw that fuel from
your white fat Brown fat good fat draws
extra fuel from your white fat which can
bad fat if you have too much of it
particularly in the tube of your body
called the visceral fat and this
actually happens at cooler temperature
so when you're sleeping and fasting if
you turn down the temperature that's as
a little practical tip you're actually
burning you're improving your metabolism
because you're actually turning on
thermogenesis uh as well all right now
white fat is that inflammatory fat that
builds up builds up can expand and
expand and become uh inflammatory and
cause all these problems so Brown fat is
is good fat uh and it actually is turned
on activated when you actually have a
cool uh temperature now when you are
actually burning down that extra body
fat that you don't need one of the
benefits is that your inflammation
actually starts to taper off now this
isn't just on a hour to hour basis or
even know one evening basis this
actually happens over time and so this
is why you want to practice regular
fasting which all of us doing when we're
sleeping but you should be conscious
about it and mindful of the fact that
when you get a good night sleep you're
actually doing something good for your
metabolism by burning off extra body fat
all right now so where does all this the
the new trend of intermittent fasting
come from it sounds like it's a brand
new diet Trend and everybody's getting
into it and you have to fast for 16
hours and eat only8 hours now think
about it eating only8 hours a day would
be like getting up in the morning at
8:00 and eating breakfast okay uh and
then if you wanted to have everything
squeeze in 8 hours you got to eat dinner
before
4:00 uh and that's your 8 Hour window
and then the rest of it is
fasting look uh a lot of people do that
uh it's a practice it's uh and it works
because if you're actually not eating
for 16 hours your body is shifted into
that fat burning mode you're actually
going to lose weight because you're
going to burn down extra fuel burn down
a lot of extra calories uh and and
that's that can be beneficial uh for
your body but to to me and I think for
most people that I know uh probably you
as well uh practicing eating in within
an 8 Hour window so it's a tall order
because it doesn't fit into most
people's schedules if you have a family
if you're cooking for a family if you've
got kids if you've got a regular day job
where you um uh need to dine out uh it's
very very difficult to actually squeeze
everything into an eight hour window if
you can do it more power to you but
really the whole point of healthy
fasting and basically overall lifestyle
and diet lifestyle health is really to
do something you can sustain regularly
over the course of your lifetime right
so it's very hard for most people to do
168 over the course of their lives so I
want to actually
explain um that uh how to actually do
fasting in a more common sense sort of
way so first of all I want to just recap
a little bit the 168 which does work and
by the way you know 16 and8 16 hours of
fasting and 8 hours of eating uh isn't
some magic number I mean it works
clinically it works in people but isn't
a magic number that was studied in huge
clinical trials and then medical
scientists pulled out you have to fast
for 16 hours it's not a hard fast rule
any fasting actually works and in fact
the 168 idea came from a publication
that was uh from lab animals all right
so that 168 was kind of arbitrary from a
researcher uh and it does work in people
but again it's not that practical so uh
and then during that 16 hours of fasting
again your metabolism is shifting into
fat burning mode you're burning down
extra calories you're lowering
inflammation you're losing visceral fat
and you're losing body weight all right
so it's actually good for you in a lot
of different ways however it's not
practical so what I actually think that
you should know is that research has
been done showing not only 16 and 16
hours of fasting and eight hours of
eating works but even 12 hours of
fasting and 12 hours of eating which is
a much more reasonable time frame also
is a decent way of actually doing
fasting okay you can also have weight
loss you can also lose body fat you can
also improve your metabolism all right
and that's actually quite a reasonable
way to actually operate now uh before we
talk about 12 hours of fasting and 12
hours of eating which is the more
reasonable way doing it I want to
actually talk about the there's some
situations where people do fast from a
medical perspective for long long
periods of time 16 hours and even more
maybe even fasting for a day or two and
what happens is that when you fast for a
long time before you go into starvation
your body actually starts to generate
its own energy right so you're not
putting fuel into your body uh and your
body eventually senses this and it goes
into a panic mode it goes okay now we
need a new plan a to get some energy so
what it does is that your body will
actually produce ketones ketones are an
alternative energy source in your body
can't produce them forever all right
this is when you start digesting your
own body but during the period of time
you're producing ketones as a fuel
source and your brain uses ketones for
example it's been found by medical
researchers that it can be useful for
treating seizure disorders in epilepsy
okay it's also been studied in um uh
because it affects the brain uh it's
also been used as a metabolic
intervention to treat brain cancers like
gly blastoma and that's there's some
evidence showing that this that fasting
and ketogenesis uh the generation of
ketones can be uh uh helpful and useful
and there's an active area of research
okay so what I want to actually say now
is let's talk about how to actually do
it in a window that's actually quite
reasonable to do so uh 12 hours uh of
fasting and 12 hours of eating you can
actually do that very easily so I'll
tell you how I do it is if I um am
getting up at 7 o'clock in the morning
for example uh and I eat breakfast at
8:00 and I have my regular day let's say
that I eat dinner at around 7:00 in the
evening uh for most of the time and many
people like for me I eat dinner it lasts
about an hour most people about the same
I know that there are many places around
the world where people enjoy 2hour
dinners uh I think that's a that's a
privilege uh and usually if you're
eating with other people that's also a
healthy thing to do um but if let's say
that I eat dinner at 7 and I put my
dishes away at 8 I'm done all right now
I don't eat again until the next day all
right I don't do midnight snacking I
don't uh uh you know grab one last thing
before I go to bed um so let's say that
I go to bed at 11:00 all right I usually
go to bed a little bit later but let's
say
for the sake of this argument my my
model example that I'm going to bed at
11: I should try to sleep for8 hours
right so I'm I actually going to bed at
11:00 I want to sleep until 700 in the
morning which you know that's a
reasonable amount of time uh that's not
too late at to go to bed and it's not
too early for Rise all right so 11: to 7
is my sleeping time that 8 hours a lot
of things are happening in our my body
that's good right so remember when let
explain this to you I'm uh eating dinner
at 7:00 I finished eating at 8:00 I put
the dishes away the fuel in my my
bloodstream is going up after I'm eating
the food my insulin levels are going up
to draw that energy down into my body
into my muscles and into my fuel tanks
my fat cells but I'm not eating after I
put the dishes away and So eventually
the my my fuel levels my glucose will go
down the insulin levels will go down all
right and my body senses that and it
goes hm all right let's switch into fuel
burning mode since we're not going to be
loading up we're not going to be storing
fuel anymore let's just burn it down and
so between 8:00 and 11:00 when I go to
bed it's about 3 hours of of time where
I'm fasting I'm starting my fast all
right then from 11:00 to 7 in the
morning that's another 8 hours so that's
3 hours before bedtime and then uh 8
hours during that that's 11 hours all
right from 11 to 7 so 11 hours of
fasting and then and in that time my
body is switched into fuel burning mode
I'm burning down extra calories I'm
burning down fuel extra fuel that stored
my fat um I'm I'm helping to streamline
my metabolism at the same time a lot of
other good things are happening uh while
I'm sleeping my brain is being
detoxified my gut microbiome is
rebooting my immune system is actually
being reset and I'm actually improving
my metabolism okay uh and my gut
microbiome is also being improved as
well so it's 7:00 in the morning I've
had uh 11 hours of metabolic Improvement
now when I get up in the morning I don't
eat right breakfast right away and this
is a little Pro tip for you if you want
to extend your fasting window rather
than do what you did when you were a kid
which is when your mom said hey roll out
of bed eat some breakfast and don't miss
the school bus and run to school so we a
lot of us actually have this pattern
we've been trained to actually eat right
away as soon as we get up I'm going to
tell you to take it easy on yourself
get up in the morning you're an adult
get ready take your time getting ready
brush your teeth take a shower get
dressed and then if you're like me what
you do is um uh take a little time
before you eat you don't need to rush
right into breakfast right away you
might feel hungry but uh I think most of
our early morning eating immediately is
drawn is is kind of coming out of a
habit more than anything else don't
worry you're going to survive if you
don't eat something right away I check
my email email I might read I catch up
on the news see what happened overnight
uh I might read a few pages of a book uh
I like to open the door and step outside
get a little bit of fresh air that's all
good all right do a little bit of
stretching all those natural things that
you would do and before I know it
between the time I get up and the time I
might eat breakfast let's say at 8:00
right so I got up at 700 I waited for an
hour it's 8:00 now guess what I've added
an extra hour to My fasting right so
dishes away at 8: 3 hours to 11:00 all
right where I'm going to bed from 11:00
to 7:00 in the morning that's another 8
hours that's uh 3 + 8 is 11: now I put
an extra hour between 7 and 8:00 a.m.
and now 11 + 1 is 12 now I've actually
fasted 12 hours out of 24 hours and I
have fasted half of the day 12 hours out
of 24 50% of the day I put my metabolism
into fast that burning mode and
sometimes by the way I'll skip breakfast
um by the way here's the thing you might
want to know is drinking coffee or tea
as long as you don't put sugar or milk
in it doesn't break your fast it's just
liquid and yeah there's some bioactives
in it but they don't count as calories
okay so um I I because I almost always
have coffee in the morning should you
choose to skip breakfast one of the
things that you can do if you're going
to eat lunch so you're getting up at 700
in the morning all right that's uh uh
that's 11 hours and now if you actually
don't eat until noon all right 7 to 12
that's another 5 hours so now that's 12
plus uh sorry 11 + 5 now you've actually
got 16 hours of fasting so by skipping
breakfast you can actually get to 16
hours and that's a more reasonable way
of doing 16 to8 but what I'm telling you
is that you can actually do 12 12 and
and clinical studies have been done to
show that that actually is good for your
metabolism uh as well so that's my
little trick to you to actually do
fasting the window in the morning uh and
uh it it's it's something that when I'm
busy I will sometimes skip breakfast and
I can extend my fast and that actually
is something that's even better and the
key thing I want to tell you is that no
matter how many hours you're fasting the
one thing is when you finally do eat
let's say you eat breakfast after you
know at: clock um or let's say that you
skip breakfast and you're eating lunch
whatever you do you don't want to
overeat remember we talked about
overeating what overeating does is
actually overloads fuel to puts too much
fuel in your fuel tank and you're going
to start building up that those fat
stores again and so when you fast too
long you tend to get really really
hungry and that actually put you set you
up to actually overeat hello there just
a quick note I have another free
resource I want to share with you five
of my favorite mediterian foods to fight
fat listen I don't personally follow any
special diet but I do follow a food
approach I call it the mediterian way
because it brings together the
healthiest Cuisines from two parts of
the world that live really long and well
the Mediterranean and Asia and I put
together a list of five specific foods
that you can add to your plate mediteran
style so you can optimize your
metabolism and fight harmful body fat
download it for free right now from the
description below now back to the video
i' like to remind people this idea of
not overeating there's a Japanese saying
from a confusion concept called Hara
haii Hara haiban basically means uh stop
eating when you're 80% full meaning when
you're satisfied with your with your
meal you got to have in reception that
means that you're paying attention to
how your body feels when you feel
satisfied that you've had your food but
not full so you're 80% full on your way
there but you're not full stop leave the
party before it's over don't clean your
plate stop when you're 80% full and
leave the table all right or or stop 80
that's actually a good rule of thumb so
you're not overeating after you're
actually uh fasting now there's a couple
of things that you want to uh look at
when you're looking at time Windows
because I just gave you a time window
during the day that I think works for
most people certainly works for me um
but you know there are some situations
that require you to be a little bit more
creative for example if you are work a
night shift so whether you're a security
guard you're a nurse You're a doctor
you're a fireman you know on overnight
shift graveyard shift or your policeman
look um you're actually going to be um
dealing with a completely different
mindset but you can actually work it out
in your head where uh when you are awake
and at work you actually eating and then
when you come home post shift you use
those um you know you use that eight
hours uh and then extension on both
sides in order to be able to still give
you uh the 12 hours the key is that when
you uh if you're going to eat at work uh
when you come home don't eat a ton of
food and keep on eating a ton of food
when you're home like you're like as if
you were uh having a dayshift uh job uh
that way you're not disturbing your
sleep cycle your metabolic cycle your
fasting cycle while you're at home
during the day all right so you just got
to be able to invert uh turn this the
schedule upside down if you're doing a
night shift treat the night shift as a
time you're going to be eating and then
when you're at home don't start picking
at the food during breakfast lunch and
dinner hours nope just uh flip it around
and home time becomes fasting time all
right now the one thing about that's
difficult about night shift is that uh
during day time sometimes it's hard to
sleep quite as well so you're not
actually getting good deep sleep call it
REM sleep that just refers to the brain
waves the type of brain waves when
having really good sleep so you're not
may not may not be shifting fully into
metabolic burning mode all right and so
you're not night shift isn't the best um
uh for metabolic Health uh and that
that's what why actually clinical
Studies have shown that people who work
night shifts are more vulnerable to
chronic diseases more more vulnerable to
diabetes more vulnerable to
cardiovascular disease and even more
more vulnerable to
cancer so my advice if you work the
night shift and I've worked plenty of
night shifts uh as a doctor all right is
that when you get a chance ask for the
day shift all right now another couple
of things that are to keep in mind is
that you know what do you how do you
manage fasting when you're traveling you
know you're on vacation or you're on
business travel and this is the tough
one because you might be Crossing time
zones right it's evening when you leave
uh it's bright day when you wake up and
you might been might not have slept well
in the plane and you might have been fed
all the time on your plane or you might
be in a hotel and uh you know now you
don't have ready access to food you
don't have much control over the food
vacation is really really tough so what
I actually want to share with you is uh
a rule of thumb about fasting that I
learned from the when I was on Mount AOS
I I told you during my Gap year I spent
time in Greece in a Northeast uh section
called Mount AOS I I visited to do some
research and some uh rock climbing
mountain climbing it was an amazing
experience uh anybody who doesn't know
what Mount AOS is you should check it
out it's a fascinating place like living
a 16th century lifestyle but I remember
talking to the monks there who are
pretty pretty hardcore about their
fasting regimen uh when they're in the
monasteries they basically say when
they're traveling cuz I used I asked
them this very question what do you do
when you're traveling how do you
actually handle the fast and they
basically said look they cut themselves
a break when they're traveling or when
they're sick and they don't actually
have to stick to those hard and fast uh
fast uh rules for when they're eating
and not eating so that's actually what I
would actually tell you is that when
you're traveling during that period
you're going from point A to point B
take it easy on yourself you can step
back from the travel thing let whatever
is going to happen happen you know what
you you know what your body does when
you're actually sleeping and not eating
is that you're actually switching into a
fat burning mode which is good but don't
get too stressed out all right um uh
about it and try to get back into the
program when you get to where you are or
when you can get back home uh to have a
more regular uh program that's actually
a great way uh sort of like to be able
to handle uh traveling I think that you
know part of the joy of traveling is the
food part of the joy traveling is to be
able to immerse yourself in the
environment so you want to actually try
to get adjust yourself into your new
environment as quickly as possible if
this is a vacation and once you're
adjusted okay keep in mind when you're
sleeping you're not eating when you're
not eating you're fasting and and the
longer you can stretch that out between
uh when you finish your uh meal the
night before and when you eat your first
meal the next day if you can stretch it
out to 12 hours you know that's a pretty
reasonable window to be able to get
metabolic Health all right I hope you
guys learned something about uh
practical tips for fasting and fasting
Windows thanks for watching and I'll
catch you on the next
video hi there if you enjoyed watching
this video I know you'll love the next
one stay here and check it out and I'll
see you there