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155: Rewire Your Body in 5 Days: The Fast That Isn’t Really Fasting · Harder Than Life

• 0:07
  I'm Kelly Siegel, and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business, and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living.
• 0:23
  Welcome back to the Heart of the Life podcast. It's Kelly Siegel. Today's guest, Renee Fitton, is a powerhouse at the intersection of nutrition, science, and healthcare innovation. As the Director of Education and Healthcare Sales at Prolon, she's on a mission to educate and empower health professionals with the life-changing science behind fasting-mimicking diets.
• 0:46
  Can't wait to understand what those are. Renee combines scientific precision with a heart-centered approach, helping people, especially women in midlife, navigate metabolic shifts, hormonal changes, and the challenges of aging through nutrition that actually work. With a deep-rooted background in evidence-based nutritional science and real-world applications, Renee is a thought leader revolutionizing the conversation around longevity, cellular health, and the future of food as medicine.
• 1:16
  Welcome, Renee. Thank you so much for having me, and what a beautiful introduction. It's going to be a lot of really good information and hopefully some stuff that people haven't heard before, which is going to keep things interesting.
• 1:28
  So I always say that life happens for me and it's so odd. Before I did show prep for you, I had said, the only thing that I haven't done in fitness is fast. And I hate the process. And every time I go to a holistic doctor, I'm 49 years old, best shape of my life, but I want to get better. I constantly improve it. So you put this thing in front of me I've never seen before, FMDs. Can you explain what it is?
• 1:58
  Well, you put it perfectly. I think now we're getting to a point where people recognize how incredibly valuable it is, how important it is for our health, for our longevity, but no one wants to do it. And not to mention there's safety concerns, there's muscle loss concerns, there's all this stuff that kind of piles up in terms of negatives around water-only fasting. And so about 30 years ago, Dr. Walter Longo went to uncover how you could get the benefits of water-only fasting
• 2:27
  but with food. And that is what the fasting mimicking diet is, is the ability to do exactly that mimic a fast, get the benefits of water only fasting, but still eat giving you additional safety, giving you muscle protection while still giving you all those incredible deep longevity benefits, metabolic benefits. I mean, there's so much we can spend hours uncovering all of the breadth of benefits that come from fasting and fasting mimicking.
• 2:56
  Okay, we're two minutes in and I already, I'm like, oh God, thank goodness. You said, so I get the fasting, because normal fasting is no water, no nothing. So walk me through that a little more. The guy like me that I take in 220 grams of protein every single day. I eat five times. Like food is my fuel. I don't care what it is. I'm eating it. It's usually good.
• 3:20
  So walk me through how the heck you treat me as I want to do this. Cause I do actually, I wish I would have done the show prep earlier. Cause I probably would have called you and said, let's push this back. Let me go through one. Walk me through exactly. If I say Renee today, I'm signing up for the program. What do I, when I got my kit, what happens?
• 3:41
  Perfect. Well, first of all, we're absolutely going to make sure that you get a kid and we'll get me back on afterwards. And we'll talk about how it, how it went, because you have to experience it to really believe it in all honesty, even though there's 40 plus clinical trials and 30 plus years of research, you really like, I strongly believe that everybody has to try this. And then once they do, inevitably, you are going to feel everything that I'm going to be talking about today. That being said, what, what can you expect? Well,
• 4:07
  It is still a calorie reduced program. What we're trying to do is live below essentially the sensors that your body has looking for food. So, you know, we can't overdo it in really anything. Of course, it is still calorie reduced, but what we are certainly reducing is going to be protein and is going to be simple carbohydrates. Those are the biggest triggers to our body getting kicked out of a fast.
• 4:34
  We are only going to do this though for five days, a few times a year. So don't like, I think a lot of people who sometimes hear that they're like, oh man, no, no, no, I'm not going to do it. But we're only asking to do this a few times a year as this spring cleanup. And what you're going to do for these five days is you're going to get everything that you need breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, everything.
• 4:55
  And it is going to be super like fully hands off. You don't have to cook anything. You don't have to prep anything. You don't have to buy anything else. Everything is in there. Breakfasts are going to be nut based bars. Then you go to soups for lunch and for dinner. You get snacks like olives, crackers, et cetera. There's even like a chocolate bar at the end of the day. So, you know, there is food throughout the day, but it is still going to be slightly restricted, but certainly much easier to do.
• 5:23
  than water-only fasting. Sounds a lot like the old school Weight Watchers. They're totally different. So I'll tell you where the differences lie.
• 5:35
  So this is far more than just calorie restriction. It is also very scientifically selected nutrients and ingredients that live below the sensors at the cellular level. So maybe I should step back a little bit and talk about how our body perceives a fast. So.
• 5:56
  When the scientists were looking into how we could fast with food, the first thing to uncover was, sure, we have this dictionary definition of fasting, which is don't eat. Some people even think don't drink anything, right? And that is that dictionary definition of fasting. Now, scientists were trying to uncover what do our cells, our body actually do.
• 6:17
  perceive as fasting. And it turns out they're not reading the same dictionary. So they have their own unique definition. And that definition is based off of whether or not the alarm bells on the cell surface are triggered or not.
• 6:33
  These alarm bells are called nutrient sensing pathways. And we have three major ones that we are primarily focused on that are the biggest triggers to avoid getting too nerdy. I'll just quickly mention them, but we can always dig into them more. But IGF-1, PKA, and mTOR. mTOR is getting a lot of chatter around these days. But those are going to be those alarm bells on the cellular surface.
• 6:58
  Those alarm bells are looking for very specific things in very specific amounts. So I like to think of it like when I like to picture it, I picture it like 007 style lasers, right? And there are in fact, you can kind of maneuver your way under those lasers and get to the other side. And that is what fasting mimicking is attempting to do. You are giving the very specific nutrients in very specific amounts that go below
• 7:27
  those lasers or live below the nutrient sensing pathways. So that is why it's uniquely different. And you can't just do a low calorie diet of any sort and be in a fasted mimicking state. You have to have very specific nutrients as well as low calories to be in a fasted mimicking state.
• 7:50
  As I said before, before I did the show prep, I'm like, man, I got to do this fasting. And then I read yours. I'm like, this is so weird. This is God telling me I have I must do this. But a lot of my listeners are big, muscular men like me. And every time I've gone to go get.
• 8:05
  you know, my body checked out, they've said, Hey, we want you to do a true fast. And I'm like, absolutely not. So the only reason I want to do it is because my digestion is not correct. I take in so much protein that there's just always some bloat. Is that a reason to do this fast and will that help?
• 8:26
  Great question. So there's so much that I can touch on with just that sentence that you shared with me. One being that high protein intake is really great for muscle building, of course. But it also, of course, is a pro-growth nutrient, hence why it helps build muscle.
• 8:42
  But when we consume a lot of protein and we're constantly in pro growth straight, it's really important to also give our body these, like I like to call them spring cleaning breaks, where you just let your body take all of at the cellular level, the excess growth that just creates waste in your cells and clean that up. So high protein intake is really, if anything, a number one reason why I would recommend the fasting mimicking diet so that you can clean.
• 9:10
  clean up the excess growth that's been happening inside your cells, not in your muscle, but inside your cells that can lead to problems down the line. That's number one. Number two is with fasting mimicking diet. I can, and we should throw these in the show notes. I have tons of studies that take fasting mimicking diet and do DEXA scans, the gold standard for body composition.
• 9:33
  And look at muscle mass before and after a fast and is showing consistently muscle protection with true fat mass. So if you're looking to cut and you want to protect your muscle and you need to do it in a short period of time, I mean, there is no better solution than the fasting mimicking diet.
• 9:55
  And then the last piece that you mentioned, which is gut health. So gut health is right now being studied in quite a bit of detail with fasting mimicking, but they're actually doing it at a level that is a little bit more clinical. So they're looking at people that have IBD. So
• 10:12
  Crohn's, colitis, things like that, where the gut lining is fully deteriorating and inflamed. And what they've been able to show, and granted, I have to say that this is preclinical work, so it is not in humans yet. It is being, this was in mice models, but they were able to show that the gut lining was regenerated, rebuilt,
• 10:35
  And that they also saw improvements in the microbiome. So the healthy bacteria in our gut. So, well, I can't say for certain, because we don't have in-depth human studies in healthy individuals, which you, I would certainly consider a healthy individual. I can say that some of this research that we're seeing in the world of gut health is certainly positive in that direction. And when we look at water only fasting, we're,
• 11:02
  we see a lot of really great data for gut health, especially because like, it's really just the beauty of fasting is that we kind of just get out of the way. We say, Hey body, we know that you're really smart. We know that you've had, you know, millennia to develop all of the intelligence inside of our body. We're going to get out of your way. We're going to let you do your magic. And then we'll come back and fuel you and refill you with all this incredible food so that you can continue to grow in its maximum capacity. So,
• 11:32
  I hope I answered your question. You actually did really well. So it only makes sense in my barbaric head because I'm not the smartest guy, but I vary my workouts. We vary our workouts to keep our muscles guessing. Why would I not vary my food? Because I can tell you for 30 years, I have been on a pro-protein workout.
• 11:56
  You know, maybe sometimes I limit carbs. Maybe sometimes I don't. I've gotten rid of all sugars and alcohol, but I have yet to try. So I will do you one better. And believe me, if you know me, I mean what I say. If you send me one, we will follow it. We'll take a before and after, and we'll take every day and we'll document the whole thing. And I promise we'll either go on TikTok live or Instagram live, or we'll do something and we'll redocument it and show it.
• 12:25
  I have seen it time and time again. Let me just say I've walked thousands of people through these fasts. And I have had people do before and after. And usually people don't have access to DEXA scans. And that's okay. You can use a bioimpedance analysis or those in bodies or things like that.
• 12:42
  That'll work too. Just make sure if you're using those because they really vary based off of water, wait at least three to five days, preferably that five-day range, after you've done your fast to retest so that the water changes aren't impacting your results. But yes, it will be, I mean, I can't wait.
• 12:58
  To hear you're gonna walk me through it. And the other thing is, is that we'll share the whole journey because if it helps one more thing that I didn't say that you Probably will will agree with me on is is also I sleep. Well, I sleep seven hours, but I still am tired a lot My body is so used to what I put into it. I just think this is gonna help me with my energy So i'm going to take this very very very serious and be the uh, the guinea pig for for the heart of the life nation so having said that
• 13:26
  I want to talk about two things and, and I see you chomping at the bit to talk more, but I will, is how often you said a couple times, once, twice, three times or more a year. The general recommendation is that you would for anybody healthy or somebody looking to like really adjust their metabolic health. You start with one thing.
• 13:47
  per month for three months in a row. And that's what you start off with. That'll just get you to baseline. And then from there, everybody transitions to once every three to four months. Some people who have, you know, if you have type two diabetes, if you have diabetes,
• 14:05
  metabolic health concerns like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, et cetera. Instead of doing those first three in a row, you might do four, you might do five, you might do six. But for most people, three in a row and then just three times a year moving forward is more than enough. If you are already really healthy and you're really just looking to do this to hyper optimize, you can just start assuming that you are already at baseline and do them quarterly.
• 14:34
  Nice. So four times a year, what do they cost, Paul Park? Well, they generally cost anywhere between $175 to $250, depending on which ones you get. There's organic ones. There's ones that we have a programmatic one where you also get to work with a dietician, where you get to get labs done. So, you know, depending on how.
• 14:54
  intense you want to get into it and how much support you want to get of course that's gonna be at the higher price range but if you just want to get a box delivered to your door and you feel confident you can power through you can even get we have a free group coaching with dietitians that are done every single day that's included in the cost um with with the prolon kits let me just add one more thing
• 15:20
  especially for anybody who's like in Los Angeles, Miami, New York areas, I would love to know how much you spend in five days on food. And I can guarantee you that it is a lot more than those numbers that I just shared. And so yeah,
• 15:36
  per day or per the whole thing? For the five days. That's cheap. I think I spend more than that on normal food and I eat home with my daughter. So that's nothing. And just think about this people that are healthy. We're spending that on, on protein bars, protein shakes. Uh, you know, heck my gym costs double that. It's, it's,
• 16:01
  That's nothing for somebody that wants to feel good. And if it gives me more energy and I can be a more, more service to people, it's, it's down. Let's talk about the energy. What, what will it do? And then we're going to go into longevity and aging. So talk to me about the energy. Am I wrong at saying it should help improve my energy? Not at all. In fact, I would say over 80% of people who do this, even after just the first five days
• 16:24
  say that they have higher levels of energy. They feel more mental clarity. And that's probably a number of things. Obviously, yes, we're getting that deep cellular cleanup, something called autophagy that is happening when we go into these long fasts that you really can't get any other way. So sure, that's a big part of it. But another part of this is that we're letting our body go into ketosis. So it burns fat for fuel, it releases ketones in our body, and those ketones go straight
• 16:54
  like high octane fuel for our brains and just really, uh, they, it really helps with that mental clarity and that energy. So people even on the fast, I will hear people say come day four or five, man, I'm feeling so good. I'm feeling so energized. There's a, there's a term called keto euphoria that people will feel kind of at that tail end. And it really is that it's that sense of alertness, awareness, awareness.
• 17:19
  You smell things better, see things brighter. Even before it's done, some people will notice some of those changes. How are you guys making any money? I own an IT company, so I run it. It just doesn't seem like it's expensive enough.
• 17:35
  You know, I think that everyone kind of has this sliding scale of how much they're willing to invest in their health. And I think and understandably for some people, that number seems high. And I think because we're not doing a good enough job of explaining, you don't have to pay for any other food. You're actually replacing your costs.
• 17:54
  And so and so I think I think it's really just a perception thing for for a lot of people. But yeah, no, it is. It's super, super reasonable. And we really like our goal is to get as many people to access this and to gain these benefits as humanly possible. So yeah, I mean, the price when this first came out was like $500 a box.
• 18:15
  And we have drastically brought that price to something that is really accessible for as many people as possible without us, you know, tanking and going bankrupt.
• 18:26
  I'm gonna do this, I promise. You got me excited, and I'm not kidding you. I wanna stress this again, I just said before, I gotta do something, I gotta be comfortable with this fasting, and then the God, just I believe in God, and he just sends you to me and makes it so easy that if I didn't do it, I am an idiot. So let's talk about mental clarity, energy levels,
• 18:47
  longevity and health. Cause here's another funny thing. You probably, you don't know about me. I'm going to live to a hundred, probably one 20 because I keep such good shape. How will this help me if I do it? Like you said, four times a year. Okay. So even just three times a year, I'm going to make you bump up that number to one 31. Okay.
• 19:11
  Because what we've been able to show with clinical trials is that biological age with even just three cycles, just one year, right? We saw an average increase in biological age by two and a half years. Then if you were to do that three times a year for 20 years, right?
• 19:32
  It increased biological age by 11.5 years. So this is not small numbers. It is really, really impactful what happens when we allow our body to go into these long fasts. And I will reiterate long fasts. There is a very important difference between this daily intermittent fasting and these longer fasts, like three to five day fasts.
• 19:55
  All right, I've been selfish in talking about me because it's all about me sometimes, and I'm excited, you can tell. I'm not the normal, typical listener of the Harder Than Life show. We have everybody from 15-year-olds all the way to 55-year-olds. What does typical people come and wanna do fasting? Tell me what an average person is going to see. They're listening like, great, Kelly, you're frickin' 500 workouts.
• 20:22
  You know, 5% body fat. I'm human, not like you. What is this going to do for me, the average Joe?
• 20:29
  Absolutely. I think a lot of things bring people to fasting, fasting mimicking and Prolon. A couple of things that are top of the list is going to be weight loss. So there is relatively rapid weight loss and they're also seeing that it is long, it's maintained because we're not tapping into muscle. So we're not creating that dangerous vicious cycle where people lose weight, but they lose a bunch of muscle, their metabolic rate goes down.
• 20:56
  And you're really just setting yourself up for failure instead of success. And so that really healthy balance of weight loss is huge for people. And we like to actually consider that the cherry on top because of all of the longevity benefits, but it certainly gets people excited. Some other things that might not be initially kind of at the top of people's mind, but when we get this deep cellular cleanup that we're, we're offering it.
• 21:22
  Our cells are pretty much making up our entire body. And one of those ways that we can actually physically see that at work is in our skin. And we've been able to show clinical studies where skin has less fine lines, better texture, better hydration, even again, just after the first five days. That's 25% improvement on average after just the first five days, which again, incredible.
• 21:51
  Other things that are bringing people in are going to be metabolic health. 95%, over 95%, I think that the new stat is 97% of Americans are considered metabolically unhealthy. So the vast majority of people listening...
• 22:07
  are going to have something possibly out of whack. And that could be your blood pressure. That could be your cholesterol. That could be your triglycerides. That could even just be a higher weight. All of those things tap into your metabolic health. And when we look at what the fasting mimicking diet can do, it really just hits every single one of those markers. And that's why metabolic health is a huge reason why people should be supporting this and adding this into their annual protocol. We have...
• 22:38
  incredible results with individuals with type two diabetes showing disease remission where they are coming off of medications after as little as three to six months on the program coming off of medication like that's outstanding did i just hear that right wait hold on did i just hear that right no ozempic
• 22:57
  No, no. And, and you know what, a lot of people are coming onto the program on GLP ones on metformin on, uh, you know, insulin, et cetera. And those are all getting pushed aside, supporting healthier, longer life. Again, I mean, those GLP ones are just burning muscle like crazy. So, you know, it is.
• 23:21
  Yeah. And all the side effects, right? I mean, if you can replace all of those meds with five days, three times a year, a total of 15 days of intervention, I mean, that seems like a no brainer to me. Renee, why does 97% of the population have some sort of indicator? That scares me. What's going on?
• 23:45
  Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, that's a big question. It's a loaded question. I think that it's a combination of things, right? Because we know that our metabolic health is impacted by more than just nutrition. I'm a dietician. So I'm obviously, you know, my alarm bells go off with, it's the food system.
• 24:02
  We have so much processed food. We have so much, so much food. We're constantly eating from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to bed. Food is always so readily available and we never give our bodies a break. So absolutely, especially with the amount of sugar consumption we have is going to be
• 24:21
  huge problems for our metabolic health. And so that is one factor, but our metabolic health is also impacted by poor sleep. It is also impacted by high levels of stress. And I don't know about you, but I don't know very many people in the United States and even the world today that aren't riddled with stress and so much anxiety from the world around us. And so like, you tap all of those, one of those lifestyle factors,
• 24:49
  And make that, you know, really out of out of a healthy range. And you really do set yourself up for metabolic instability or dysregulation. And so, yeah, I mean, to me, it's kind of like, unfortunately, until we can really help people
• 25:08
  get to the right choices. So make it easier to have a, you know, reasonable work day where you also can get to bed at a nice time, where we make it easier for people to choose those healthier options, because there's way more of them everywhere you go, where we make it. We just, we have to make it easy because right now we're just making it easy to make all the wrong decisions. Literally. You just took the marketing right out of my mouth. I was like, I was like a good, cheap and fast, but fast. You're already fasting. So good, cheap and easy.
• 25:37
  You can't make it any easier. I'm so impressed. Now, let me understand. How did you get into this business? Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, I love nutrition. And I've loved nutrition for over a decade. It was my passion. The moment that I really started...
• 25:54
  taking care of my health. It just was like, oh wow, look at this amazing lifestyle factor that can just change so much with reasonably small tweaks to your nutrition. And so I really just found it incredibly fascinating. I started looking at a lot of the research. And then I found that to really level up, I should get my master's degree. And I thought, okay, well, what am I going to get my master's degree in a lot of nutrition is this clinical nutrition world.
• 26:22
  And that is incredible and absolutely needed. There's a lot of people going through all sorts of conditions that need nutrition support. But I really wanted to look into longevity. And I had found Dr. Walter Longo, and he had actually created a master's program out of USC that is specific to longevity and health span. So not just living long, but living healthy long.
• 26:47
  I was like, sign me up. This is the program that I want to do. And thankfully they let me in. And I studied at USC, got my master's in longevity and nutrition there. And I never looked back. And that was, my gosh, it's probably been eight plus years, probably longer than that. So you said something that I'm going completely off cuff because today's you're seeing so many people come.
• 27:13
  end up living longer, but don't remember that they're living because of dementia. We can see our past president. Has there been any long-term studies about the fasting and what it does to maybe fend off dementia later on in life?
• 27:29
  Yes and no, because you said long-term and I don't want to make any promises that I can't keep. The studies that we have on Alzheimer's with fasting mimicking are super cool, but they are in mice models right now. They also did a pilot study in about 10 to 20 individuals with Alzheimer's, but it's a pilot study. So it's really early and it's mostly just done to make sure that it's safe in that population population.
• 27:54
  which the checkmark was given. But in the mice model data of the fasting mimicking diet for Alzheimer's, they were able to show that there was removal of the beta amyloid plaque, which take off all of the nerdy speak is essentially reversal of the disease in the brain. So the problems that are being caused that are causing dementia,
• 28:17
  are being removed, which is really, really hard to do. Another thing to keep in mind when we talk about Alzheimer's is that it's also sometimes called type three diabetes because it is so connected to poorly regulated blood sugar. So if you support healthy blood sugar regulation,
• 28:38
  you also support less likelihood of developing Alzheimer's and degenerative and neurodegenerative conditions. Those two pieces where we've been able to show incredible results on insulin resistance, incredible results on HbA1c or blood sugar management, incredible results with type 2 diabetes with fasting and fasting mimicking,
• 28:58
  And then also this early research that we're seeing on the actual presentation of the disease is very, very exciting. Not to mention my final little piece on this one is that in that biological age study that I mentioned earlier, another piece of that study was they wanted to see if you were to do this for 20 years, how would your risk of various conditions change? Yeah.
• 29:27
  And so they did it for cancer. They did it for neurodegenerative diseases. They did it for diabetes. They did it for all-cause mortality. And they were able to show that even in healthy people that had no risk, so that none of their markers that usually signal that you might be at risk, none of those were out of range. Even there, there was anywhere from 5% to 30% risk reduction of those conditions.
• 29:56
  which is pretty incredible. So it's also highly preventative. I'm so blown away. I literally, I'm thinking about them cutting this up for social media and thinking, all you see is my head wrinkled because I'm blown away. And I look like I'm angry, but I'm processing this going,
• 30:13
  Renee, what are the negative? The only negative I can think of is the uncomfortability for five days to not be able to just grab whatever you want and sort it into your pie hole. But if you're already a gym rat or already going regular, you understand your relationship with, I don't even want to say pain. Let's just say uncomfortability. What is the downside? I'm not seeing it.
• 30:37
  No. So, I mean, you, you, you nailed it and it is, it is, I would say it is still marginally uncomfortable, um, but no pain, no gain. And I would not call it pain. I would just call it marginal discomfort. Um, and, and some people breeze through it too. So if anybody listening, um, already does intermittent fasting already does any sort of ketogenic diet, um,
• 31:00
  You will breeze through this and you'll be like, man, that was easy. Can I do it again? Like in five days. And I get asked that question. I get asked if people can just keep going past day five because they just feel so good. Please don't. It is really important to rebuild again, right? We do a full spring cleaning. You don't take everything out of your home for spring cleaning and then just leave it empty. You got to replenish and rebuild and
• 31:26
  you know, those broken down chairs, dining room chairs, you can't just leave just a table, you need to put the chairs back. And so really important to not just to overdo it. But yeah, I mean, that's, that's primarily the only downside. There are people that shouldn't do this. And so maybe it's worth calling that out. Yes.
• 31:46
  So people that should not do this are those that are pregnant, breastfeeding. If you're under 18, you definitely wanna speak to a doctor. If you have any end stage health conditions, definitely speak to a doctor. Anybody who has really low BMI. So BMI is usually under like 18.5 is gonna be a flag for us. And again, you wanna speak to your doctor or just get an assessment. Like, do you have really good muscle tone or are you,
• 32:15
  um, what we would call a sarcopenic. So that's really it. Oh, and the last one is anybody who has an allergy to nuts. Sadly, there's a lot of nuts in the program. So that's an important one. Yeah. So I started off an intro and I talked about women and we, you know, you're a specialist in women, obviously, because you are a woman and you understand the body.
• 32:36
  our women audience is growing and I get all the time. This is the one that just be nuts is they say, I don't want to look bulky and I don't want to look muscular. And I'm like, you know what? Try. You know how hard it is to look like this. So having said that, is this, is this a little more leaning towards women or is it just you that lean towards women?
• 32:55
  What are the differences? Okay. So men and women can do this, but what now let's, we talked a lot about me. Let's lean towards the women. What do you see with a typical woman? And I can use my girlfriend as a, as a, as a, she just hired a nutritionist. She's going to a, um, uh, a trainer. You don't know. I can train her, doesn't listen to me. You know how it is relationships. How does the, she, she is a, uh,
• 33:23
  and real estate investor, go, go, go, go, go all day, all day. How would this help a typical woman like her? Oh my gosh. Well, it was super important is that, and the reason why I specialize in this is because there's a lot of misinformation around fasting for women. So in fact, you ask like, is it more for women or men? If anything, all of the research and all of the
• 33:47
  evidence and strength of evidence is a lot around men's health. And so for men, it's like kind of a no brainer. Absolutely. For women, there's a few yellow flags where we're like, OK, well, how is this going to impact fertility? Or is this OK if I'm in perimenopause or is this OK after menopause? We need to take time to assess.
• 34:07
  Has the research been done here? And in all honesty, it's limited. It is. So we have to take what we know and what evidence is out there and then use it to our advantage. So some of the things to keep in mind. As women...
• 34:23
  Some we should ideally fast during the first 15 days of our cycle. And so that's because that's when estrogen is a little bit higher and estrogen lives and enjoys to live better in those ketogenic levels.
• 34:41
  environments, as opposed to when progesterone is higher in the later half of our cycle, where we want to make sure that we have higher amounts of carbohydrates. So those are just things that are unique to women when we fast. So maybe it's just about being a little bit more mindful about the timing of the fast that needs to be considered.
• 35:00
  But also for women, especially after the age of even like as early as 35, but usually after 40, 45, this is when you really need to be mindful of muscle mass. We see that muscle mass deteriorates starting at the age of 30 and then deteriorates.
• 35:20
  significantly deteriorates around the age of 50. So whatever you're doing for your health, for your girlfriend, when she goes to see her nutritionist, making sure that whatever you're doing is not just focusing on weight loss, but is very focused on muscle protection.
• 35:37
  And unfortunately, a lot of diets out there are not doing that. They're really just focusing on weight loss. And that's vicious cycle. And then the other piece is that around that perimenopause stage, another thing that happens when estrogen goes down, we also are at higher risk of...
• 35:58
  diabetes of insulin resistance blood sugar mismanagement in the body and so all of that puts us at higher risk for those metabolic conditions and so it's really important that whatever we're doing again is able to support that and so fasting mimicking is kind of like that magic bullet that is able to tap into all of those things that are uniquely
• 36:22
  to, to women and some of the changes over life that women face, um, that, that fasting really is able to support. And I hope people just literally are just listening to this because my face, facial expressions, I am fascinated by this Renee. Thank you so much. I'm learning. I'm learning a tongue. Now I understand why my, my 16 year old daughter is her hormones are all. So that was another question. What's the age limit? Is there an age, do they have to be 18 or older? Like,
• 36:50
  Yes. So preferably 18 or over. There are always going to be exceptions based off of your doctor's recommendation and if it is necessary. But generally, the reason why we suggest it's 18 and up is because before the age of 18, we really need to be focused on growing, growing, growing. And we don't need to worry so much about the cleanup. Whereas once we hit, I mean, as early as 18, we're going to be focused on growing, growing, growing.
• 37:16
  Cleanup needs to start happening and we need to give our body that time and that space to shift from always this grow, grow, grow, grow, grow mode to repair, rejuvenate, clean up so that we can go back to grow, grow, grow, but, you know, not make a giant mess of that growth.
• 37:34
  I kind of like to think of it like a house where you, you know, you only have so much walls, you know, room space in your home and you can buy a lot of stuff and make your home beautiful. But there's so much so much stuff that you can buy before you can't walk around the house anymore. So periodically you need to go around and you need to see, OK, what are my favorite pieces?
• 37:56
  I, you know, I'm making more money now and I want to buy something even nicer for this. And so you need to find time to get rid of some of this stuff. And then you can go out and then replenish and rebuild and have even better success moving forward.
• 38:10
  So think of it as pruning a bush. You got to cut it back for it to grow bigger. So it's kind of like muscles. You got to rip it apart to make it bigger. So I'm still stuck on sugar that I want to come back to. I'm really stuck on this muscle protection. Because just yesterday, my team walked in and said, we have to do something about muscle protection regarding semiglutide. And so we're working on a...
• 38:36
  a solo episode. I do Thursday solo episodes on how to build your muscle up. So we're going to, we're going to incorporate this into it. And then I'm just fascinated by this FMDs. I never heard these terms before. I love what I get to do. FMDs, fasting mimicking diets. Like literally before we went out and I was talking to Steve and I said, fasting mimicking diet, what could this possibly be? So let's go back to sugar.
• 39:03
  Because I what started the whole heart and life movement is I used to love me some scotch And my whole life changed when I just said I'm gonna take a break from alcohol and but after I Went six months and said, you know, I don't think I'm ever gonna drink again I got this intense craving for sugar because that's you know, there's the stress I
• 39:26
  That's how I deal with stress So I get little jolly ranchers But when I'm in a phase like I am right now Like no sugar I get my sugar from fruit
• 39:37
  So what is your relationship with alcohol? Because it's been getting a, taking a beating with Jordan Peterson and Brett and Huberman. Like it is not cool to drink anymore. What is your concept of that? And. Great, great question. So it's so tough because for me, sometimes it is highly personalized and it is also dependent on how you are using alcohol. We know without a doubt, binge drinking, excessive drinking that is,
• 40:06
  one of the worst things that you can do for your health. Now there's now like in Canada, the recommendation, unlike in the United States where it's like usually about two glasses for men, one glass for women per day kind of thing. And two glasses a week for women is something along those lines, but there's like some allowance, right in Canada, they've now turned it to zero.
• 40:27
  And yeah, their recommendation is no, none at all. That's the best, that's their best recommendation. Now it's interesting because when we look at long living individuals, we do see wine consumption, for example, in a lot of their diets. And so I've, I've like, I've kind of gone back and forth with this, looking at the research and, you know, looking at epidemiological or this long-term data and like trying to come to a decision as to what my stance is on it.
• 40:54
  And I think what I have come to the decision of is that limit your drinking as much as possible. And if you are going to drink, make sure that it's with friends and that you are doing truly, and it sounds crazy, but, but make sure that it's with friends because what we see is that alcohol used to create this sense of community, the community aspect and the social aspect that is.
• 41:19
  Community and social feeling as part of a social unit is a huge part of longevity. And if having one, maybe two glasses of wine infrequently as part of that community is going to bring you that sense of peace and calm.
• 41:36
  I actually think that that adds more value than it deters. Now, if you are doing that every single day, or even if you're doing it like in, you know, I'm not saying like go to a dinner and have eight glasses of wine either. So I think there's a very healthy balance. And if you don't like drinking, don't. You know, it's certainly better not to if it doesn't add any of that community purpose
• 42:06
  social aspect that for some people it can offer. Have you seen any studies about, I've read a lot of studies, but I haven't isolated them to see like Spain, France, and especially Italy, like they drink daily, but it's very little. And I'm wondering if there's some different preservatives that were put or different ingredients that were putting in our alcohol and our wine that were.
• 42:34
  they're not doing over there because you go to Italy and they drink everybody and they're the healthiest people I've ever seen. Have you seen any, am I crazy at saying this or no? I think that that goes back to what I was saying is that when you see the people in Europe, a couple of things I've noticed while I've been out here, one, the size of the glasses, like the beers that are served are like crazy.
• 42:59
  this is the glass and this is how much they put in it so they're doing smaller quantities that is noticeably different and the other piece is that they are all they are laughing and you know they're eating small plates with everything they're not eating these giant meals
• 43:16
  And they're doing it as part of a community. And I would be curious to see in those individuals today, in today's world, because it is we have to be careful when we compare like some of this older data of like the blue zones and things to what people are doing today. I'd be curious to know what the health of those that are drinking every day versus those that don't. And that's where we do have to reflect back on the literature.
• 43:41
  It's not my area of expertise, but I will look into it. And maybe by the time the show airs, I'll let you know, like if there's any good research on European alcohol intake and whether or not it has any difference with American alcohol intake. Equivalent amounts, but possibly different outcomes. Is there a healthy version of sugar that you guys supply or you recommend like a sugar alternative?
• 44:09
  Like me, if I'm jonesing for sugar, is it one of your bars? You said there's a bar at the end of the day. Is that where you get a little bit of sugar? In the bars, there is a little bit of honey. The reason why those bars are amazing though is not necessarily like the type of sugar that is being used or the amount even. It is that it is very, very carefully balanced with enough healthy fiber and fats that it limits the amount that your blood sugar spikes.
• 44:37
  So even though you get some of that sweetness, it doesn't cause a significant blood sugar spike. And those spikes, if we just have sugar all by itself, then...
• 44:48
  Immediately registers our body can grab it right away and use it right away. And if we let that happen too often, if we let our blood sugar spike too frequently, that's where we start. It's kind of like just like punching your blood vessel walls and your cells like constantly every time you let one of those spikes happen. So if you just do it like once here and there, like it's not too bad. But if you're doing it all of the time, that's where we get inflammation. So...
• 45:16
  The goal is to limit it as much as you can. And if you are going to have sugars, have them with sugar.
• 45:25
  other nutrients that can try and limit the absorption. So things that limit that you mentioned fruit, the reason why dietitians love fruit so much, as opposed to sweets, even though they might even have the same amount of total sugar is that the fruit, it has a ton of fiber and that fiber limits the impact.
• 45:47
  of that sugar on your blood sugar. If you have that sweet tooth, don't just go for like the pure sugar, like candies and things. Try and find something sweeter that has a little bit of fiber or that adds a little bit of fat. Those bars though, they do have some sweetness. Some people like to use them as an evening snack. I love to consider them magic, but it is science. So they don't change your blood sugar at all and they don't drop your ketones at all.
• 46:15
  So if you wear like a CGM or a blood sugar monitor, it's so fun to watch it just go like this and nothing happens. It's like, how? But it's a fast and mimicking science, so. I wanna employ my audience to make certain that they explore different options. I've learned more today
• 46:36
  from you, you blew my mind on a few things. And one of them specifically is I'm a no alcohol kind of guy. I stress that to my coaches, my mentors, everybody. And I like what you just said. You expanded my mind like, hey, if it's a part of a community and it's one or two,
• 46:57
  I can see that benefit is so much more because they say what the key to longevity is the relationships you have in your life. If it's getting together with a big group of people and you're having one glass of wine, you, you open my mind. So I just want everybody to realize that I would have probably been a hard no. And then you just gave me a great reason. So what is the biggest misconception about fasting that you hear often?
• 47:23
  Okay, the biggest one that I hear the most is that intermittent fasting and long-term fasting are essentially the same. Or if you do intermittent fasting for a really long period of time, you'll get the same benefits of like a five-day or even a three-day fast. And that is definitely not the case. And it's because at around that three-day mark of water-only fasting or fasting mimicking,
• 47:48
  Something is activated and that something is called autophagy, aka deep cellular cleanup and rejuvenation. This is where like all those benefits that I was sharing, the skin health benefits, the metabolic health benefits, certainly the biological age benefits.
• 48:04
  A huge portion of that is happening because of that deep cellular cleanup or autophagy. And so even if you're doing intermittent fasting, cool, amazing. There are benefits to that, by the way. I'm not saying there's none. I'm just saying that make sure you still do at least three times a year, just five days, three times a year.
• 48:26
  Just to get in that deep cellular cleanup that is very, very hard to trigger in any other way. We are only really seeing it possibly being activated with really, really, really intense exercise. So if, you know, the only two ways we've been able to see that is with really, really, really, really intense exercise and three-plus-day fasting.
• 48:50
  What's the future of nutrition and preventative health care? Because we've got you talked about Canada. Canada has a nationalized health care program. So that's no surprising that they're not that they're saying no alcohol. What about the nutrition in preventative health care? Because that's what we really have to we got to get out in front of this.
• 49:09
  Absolutely. I think honestly, like at this point, our health care system is consistently reimbursing only reactive health care. So we will you know, you have insurance. Sure. We'll pay for a stint for, you know, this problem that has, by the way, been happening. It took it took 20 years for you to get to this place where you need a stint. But we're just going to worry about it now that it has happened. What if.
• 49:34
  20 years before that, we said, Hey, listen, we, we started noticing some things are going on. We're going to pay for you to see a dietician. We're going to pay for some cooking classes, and we're going to pay for two months of healthy food for you. That would be cheaper than all of the medications and everything else that had to happen down the line. And you'd be setting people up for long-term success. That way you just got to get your stuff covered by healthcare.
• 50:01
  Yeah. I mean, and by the way, we're working on that. There are super, super exciting, but also for some people, you know, not their favorite. GLP-1s are no longer getting covered by a lot of the major insurers because they're so crazy expensive. And on top of that, we are seeing some downsides to some of these. We haven't even begun to see it.
• 50:28
  Yeah. And especially for people who are using it only for weight loss. You know, if you have diabetes that, you know, those, that's what those drugs were actually designed for. So it makes sense over there, but for weight loss, it doesn't really. And so insurers are looking for alternate solutions and a fasting mimicking is absolutely one that really,
• 50:47
  They're looking at it and there is a world like in the next within even even within the next year that these these are going to be covered by insurance. We just need you know, we need insurers to really get excited about food as medicine and nutrition first interventions, which they're getting there.
• 51:07
  I'll send you an email at my assistant follow up and we, we're going to order this. We're going to document it. Well, let's partner up and let's have some fun and I'll, I'll share the entire journey with you and why not? It's this, this is a blast. Um, really appreciate you coming on. You, you've educated me more than I've ever, ever freaking could have thought of.
• 51:25
  The next book we're writing, we just finished Happier Than Life, which talks about diet and exercise. The next one's going to be healthier than life. And if this works, I will put this in exclusively for that. Because I mean, what I just said to you is absolutely true. I said, I have got to do this fasting. But the whole concept of it, it just sounded miserable. But I love the mimicking, fasting mimicking, because you're still allowing me to have some kind of sustenance. How does the muscle protection actually work in this?
• 51:55
  So that's a really good question. And it's actually part of the magic behind all of this and part of this science. It's a two-part answer. The first piece is that growth hormone when we fast is naturally increased. And so that has this protective mechanism.
• 52:13
  Now, no matter what, if you water fast or if you fast mimic, that growth hormone is going to increase and protect your muscle for a little while, right? You can't fast forever and it protect for super, super long, but for five days it certainly can. On top with the fact with fasting mimicking and fasting mimicking only, we also add nutrition. And so the nutrition allows your body to, instead of going to your muscle for food, go to the food that you're giving it for food.
• 52:42
  So the nutrition with growth hormone combined allows for that muscle protection. Not to mention that we also in the Prolon 5-Day Kit add something called the L-Drink. It's a glycerol-based beverage that allows, again, your body to use that. Your body will turn that into...
• 53:01
  some glucose for energy instead of going again to your muscle for protein. And it'll use that, that is also tailored by your weight. So for you, for example, you'll be using a little bit more. And then, you know, for me, I usually use just like a couple of the beginning and it's based off of your weight. So you'll go and you'll adjust that by weight. And that's how we're able to personalize and make sure, again, we're being hyper muscle protective and also support
• 53:31
  So lots of pieces to the puzzle that make all of these results a reality. I just have to point out that I, how I know that you're not selling something. You're actually trying to help people is you're telling people not to overdo the fast. Most people are like, oh, you could do a little more. You're like, no, stop.
• 53:48
  So guys use this. Everything's to be in the show notes. I really appreciate your time. Thanks everybody for listening. Hopefully you got some great advice as I did. If you would appreciate it as much as I did, please rate it, please share it. Follow us on YouTube and share this with anybody who may not like fasting like I started out on this episode. Really love you guys all. Appreciate you for listening. Till next time, be harder than life.
• 54:16
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.