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Fasting: deadly or what? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and with me is Charles W.
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Speaker 1: Chucker's Bryant. I'm hungry, are you? I just had a
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Speaker 1: six of a slice of pizza pizza. Yeah, you better hurry.
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Speaker 1: That's all right, it's pretty good. I got off pizza.
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Speaker 1: The cheese gets gets to my stomach. In our Digestion podcast.
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Speaker 1: You've got a lot of great support I did for
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Speaker 1: people anything work. I am going to uh make an
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Speaker 1: appointment with a specialist for the gird good and get scoped.
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Speaker 1: I think they call it when they drop a camera
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Speaker 1: down in there and they find out that I have
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Speaker 1: a small dragon living in my stomach and then the
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Speaker 1: scope drops a film canister into your stomach. Asked him
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Speaker 1: to be retrieved later and developed. Yeah, so thank you
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Speaker 1: for that support people. I'm definitely gonna go get that
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Speaker 1: checked out. He's going to the specialists, going to a specialist. Um,
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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna quit drinking red wine? Is that the problem? Well? No,
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Speaker 1: I mean I get heartburned from anything, which is so
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Speaker 1: that means I've definitely got a real issue. But obviously
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Speaker 1: things like red wine and chocolate and Margarita's and citrus,
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Speaker 1: all the best stuff, all the best stuff. Margarite is
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Speaker 1: you could go either way. I like him. During the
1:31
Speaker 1: right time of year, you need to just drink like
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Speaker 1: white Russians all the time. It has a lot of
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Speaker 1: milk in it. Chocolate though that's a black Russian. Oh right,
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Speaker 1: white Russian. Or just drink of vodka mm hmm, yeah,
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Speaker 1: just drink milk, okay and pretend you're wasted and be healthy. Chuck. Yes,
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Speaker 1: have you ever fasted? Uh no, I've done the little
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Speaker 1: Master cleans thing, but which is sort of a fast.
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Speaker 1: I guess so that the lemon juice one. Yeah, okay,
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Speaker 1: we've talked about this before. I've done that as well,
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Speaker 1: and this is kind of like gives you shingles. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do it again. You're not. So I
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Speaker 1: fast like all the time. I know that, um all
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Speaker 1: the time? Maybe hyperbole because I actually do eat. Sometimes
2:19
Speaker 1: you just say to the pizza the sixth of Us,
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Speaker 1: um what I I? And so I have a pretty
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Speaker 1: good understanding of what fasting can do and what it
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Speaker 1: feels like. But what I did not know is that
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Speaker 1: it comes from an old Anglo Saxon word fastin. Oh yeah, yeah,
2:37
Speaker 1: that's the the fact of the podcast for me. Well,
2:44
Speaker 1: that's that's remarkable, facing fast and fasten fasting. There's an
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Speaker 1: f A E S T E N fasting. Yeah, so
2:53
Speaker 1: people have been doing it for a while. Then that's
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Speaker 1: what you're saying. Well, yeah, apparently, um, fast and means
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Speaker 1: to hold oneself from food, and yeah, people have been
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Speaker 1: doing it for a while because it's a firmly rooted
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Speaker 1: in a lot of religious traditions that have been around
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Speaker 1: for many, many years. Um. And then there's other reasons
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Speaker 1: that people fast, more modern ones see medical fasting. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: which we'll talk about, political statement fasting, Yeah, hunger strikes. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: there's a lot of that. In the twentieth century it
3:22
Speaker 1: was big for hunger strikes. Of course still is. But
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Speaker 1: let's let's talk about fasting, shall we. Okay, Um, let's
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Speaker 1: talk about specifically religious fasting. Chuck, great place to start. Um,
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Speaker 1: it's been going on for thousands of years in religion.
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Speaker 1: So you answered your own question. Yeah, I knew eventually
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Speaker 1: that's been coy uh. A lot of times they initiate
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Speaker 1: a fast to um. Someone will do that too, maintain
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Speaker 1: contact with the divinity. And some say that if you
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Speaker 1: fast for long enough, you will hallucinate, and that that
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Speaker 1: might be uh. They might interpret that as communicating directly
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Speaker 1: with God. Right. And I looked that up. I couldn't
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Speaker 1: find out exactly why you hallucinate when you fast. I mean,
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Speaker 1: that is corroborated all over the place. The best I
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Speaker 1: can find, you're dying. Well, the best I can find
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Speaker 1: is that it's a it's a vitamin deficiency leads to
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Speaker 1: hallucinations for some reason, but I don't I don't know why.
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Speaker 1: But no, not necessarily. Also came across some articles that
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Speaker 1: suggested that hallucinations are a lot more natural than we
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Speaker 1: would think because we associate them with mental illness or
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Speaker 1: drug use. UM in the West way of a lot
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Speaker 1: of negative connotations for hallucinations UM that aren't necessarily spiritual, right,
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Speaker 1: when in fact other cultures might believe it's a form
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Speaker 1: of enlightenment. Right. So hallucinations may not be bad. It
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Speaker 1: may not be that you're dying, and it may not
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Speaker 1: be that you're mentally ill. It may just be that
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Speaker 1: you're hungry. Yeah, all right, that's a good point. Um.
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Speaker 1: A lot of times religious fast are are undertaken because
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Speaker 1: you're toning for since is punishment, you're asking God for
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Speaker 1: your forgiveness for your misdeeds. Yeah, these are the big
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Speaker 1: two basically, like you fast religiously either to get closer
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Speaker 1: to God or to tell God you're sorry and thus
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Speaker 1: get closer to God. Yeah, yeah, I know what you
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Speaker 1: mean though. Thanks. So let's you know, you want to
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Speaker 1: talk about some of the religions and and why and
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Speaker 1: when they fast. Yeah, Buddhists. Buddhists fast on full moon days, holidays, um,
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Speaker 1: and they do it mainly for purification and to um
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Speaker 1: free the mind. Apparently you know your butt will follow
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Speaker 1: if you free the mind. That's an old Buddhist adage.
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Speaker 1: I had not heard that, I think so. Um, they're
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Speaker 1: fasting is mostly it's not a full fast. You can drink,
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Speaker 1: so I guess you could have soup, maybe just a broth.
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Speaker 1: God help you if you have noodles in it, but
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Speaker 1: you have to abstain from solid foods, right, Um, you
6:00
Speaker 1: can live on broth yeah forever. Yeah, he probably wouldn't
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Speaker 1: have a very productive life. G Hi system, But yeah,
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Speaker 1: you can live on broth. Catholics they fashion on fast
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Speaker 1: on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday. Um. Actually they can eat
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Speaker 1: a small meal without meat on those two days. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so it's not exactly a fast. But they on Fridays
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Speaker 1: during Lent, they're not really supposed to eat meat at all.
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Speaker 1: That's why we have the filet of fish and for
6:29
Speaker 1: a little while in the sixties of the Hula burger,
6:31
Speaker 1: right because Crock was like, man, there's a mess of
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Speaker 1: Catholics out there and they're not eating burgers on Fridays,
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Speaker 1: but we need to get them in the store anyway. See,
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Speaker 1: I'm thankful for that because I love a filet of
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Speaker 1: fish every now and then, like once a year. Uh.
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Speaker 1: They fast to Catholics fast to show their control of
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Speaker 1: their flesh, fleshly which one of my favorite words, fleshly desires.
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Speaker 1: So Catholic to do penance, to show solidarity with the
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Speaker 1: poor and people who might not have food. So I
6:59
Speaker 1: went to a Atholic school for the first couple of
7:01
Speaker 1: years of school, our Lady of Perpetual Help and um,
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Speaker 1: every once in a while they would serve rice with
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Speaker 1: a pad of butter for lunch, and it was kind
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Speaker 1: of this fast, but it wasn't really fast because we're
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Speaker 1: still having rice. But basically the whole idea was, this
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Speaker 1: is what poor kids in Bangladesh have to eat every day,
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Speaker 1: and you're just this spoiled kid, So eat some rice
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Speaker 1: instead and kind of get in the mindset. And I
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Speaker 1: never did it because I got the point. But some
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Speaker 1: of my friends would eat the rice and then eat
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Speaker 1: their own lunch from home as well, which even even
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Speaker 1: in like second grade, I'm like, that seems wrong. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I don't think you're supposed to be doing it like that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah they I mean that didn't even have to be
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Speaker 1: a religious space. You could do that in school today
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Speaker 1: and just say as a hunger awareness like in Australia. Yeah, Australia,
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Speaker 1: what what is that? The forty hour Fast? Do you
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Speaker 1: know anything about that? I know that I think they
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Speaker 1: have it once a year and many many Australians take part,
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Speaker 1: and basically the whole thing is to like they raise
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Speaker 1: awareness of poverty, of the state of the poverty stricken
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Speaker 1: and um also to raise money to the forty Hour Famine.
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Speaker 1: Excuse me, which is a fast? Boy? We headed that
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Speaker 1: one off the past. Good going, chuck, uh Eastern Orthodox
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Speaker 1: Church members they will fast on Lent. They observe the
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Speaker 1: Apostles fast and the Nativity fast, and they think, um,
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Speaker 1: that it could strengthen your that your resistance to gluttony
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Speaker 1: is obviously one of the seven deadly sins. And they
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Speaker 1: eat no meat, dairy, eggs, or fish during these fasts.
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Speaker 1: So it's my understanding. They can also eat a little something,
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Speaker 1: just not those things the carbs. They can eat bread,
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Speaker 1: that'd be nice, and bread and broth. But now you're talking, yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's what else you need. I can't think of it.
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Speaker 1: Fruits and vegetables and stuff like that. Well, no, it
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Speaker 1: says no meat, dairy, eggs, or fish. So you could
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Speaker 1: have fruits, vegetables, broth, bread. That's like, that's a good
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Speaker 1: kind in a fast right there. I wouldn't even call
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Speaker 1: that a fast. No, you couldn't actually get gluttonous on that.
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Speaker 1: You could. Uh. The Jewish folks they fast on Yam Kapoor,
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Speaker 1: which is the day of Atonement, and they are doing
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Speaker 1: this to a tone first sins obviously like the Catholics,
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Speaker 1: and special requests from God. I know, it's so funny.
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Speaker 1: It's like, hey, I'm not gonna eat for twenty five
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Speaker 1: whole hours. But I have a huge favor to ask
9:25
Speaker 1: you right sun up. The sundown is that the deal
9:29
Speaker 1: which and they have one of the tougher fast because
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Speaker 1: they don't eat or drink anything for twenty five hours.
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Speaker 1: That's like no nothing, that's a real fast. Mormons stay
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Speaker 1: fast on the first Sunday every month. This is kind
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Speaker 1: of a week fast. If you ask me, this is
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Speaker 1: like a Tuesday for me. They have to skip two meals.
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Speaker 1: They skipped two meals and they think it helps them
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Speaker 1: obviously get closer to God like many of the religions do,
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Speaker 1: and just basically just focuses their minds on God. Well,
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Speaker 1: the cool thing about the More and Fast, in my opinion,
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Speaker 1: is that they're also required to give food and money
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Speaker 1: to the needy, right what they would have spent perhaps
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Speaker 1: on those meals. It's probably a good one. You should
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Speaker 1: do one on Mormons as a whole. We've had that
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Speaker 1: requested a lot. I've read about this one guy UM
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Speaker 1: named Paul Kingston, and he is the head of a
10:18
Speaker 1: an accused alleged crime family that's a Mormon sect also UM.
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Speaker 1: And he does forty day fasts. Yeah, wow, forty days man,
10:31
Speaker 1: can you imagine it's good? Did it? He does it?
10:36
Speaker 1: I bet his breast stink so bad. Um, we'll get
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Speaker 1: into that. Muslims uh that obviously they fast on for
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Speaker 1: the observance of Ramadan, the ninth month on the Muslim calendar.
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Speaker 1: And many of you might not know what Ramadan is.
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Speaker 1: Do you want to tell him? I'll tell him. It
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Speaker 1: commemorates the month when the Koran was first revealed to Mohammed.
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Speaker 1: That's what Ramadan is all about, is right. So they
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Speaker 1: don't have food, they don't have drink, they don't smoke,
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Speaker 1: they don't curse, they don't have sex from sunrise the sunset. Yeah,
11:08
Speaker 1: for a month, every day for a month, that's right.
11:12
Speaker 1: And millions millions of people do this during Ramadan. Which
11:17
Speaker 1: is when is it? Like? Does it take place roughly
11:20
Speaker 1: in November on the Grigorian calendar? I think is it?
11:24
Speaker 1: I think it is. And we've been asked to do
11:26
Speaker 1: one on Ramadan too, So we're gonna we got a lot.
11:29
Speaker 1: We haven't explained hardly anything, have we we still? Uh.
11:35
Speaker 1: Ramadan is a very famous fast obviously because um of
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Speaker 1: the length of time, and it is supposed to teach
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Speaker 1: Muslims patients and modesty spirituality. You ask Allah for forgiveness,
11:47
Speaker 1: pray for guidance, and you purify yourself and then it's
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Speaker 1: really effective, man, like getting this, uh, this mindset of
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Speaker 1: I want this, so I'll have it right now, um
12:01
Speaker 1: out of your head for a little while. Even a
12:03
Speaker 1: day really kind of opens your eyes a little bit
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Speaker 1: beyond that one single day denial, aren't you? It never
12:13
Speaker 1: it never leaves you, does it? Well? I have to
12:15
Speaker 1: say that, like, um, the further I've gotten away from Catholicism,
12:18
Speaker 1: the more into self denial I've gotten. Ironically. Yeah, alright,
12:23
Speaker 1: well let's talk about medical fasting. That's an overview of
12:25
Speaker 1: religious fasting. You can get a lot more detailed but
12:29
Speaker 1: nice transition than you. Well, medical fasting, Um, a lot
12:33
Speaker 1: of people have probably engaged in. If you've ever had
12:36
Speaker 1: some sort of test done, A lot of times they're like,
12:39
Speaker 1: don't eat the night before your your appointment, um, sometimes
12:43
Speaker 1: twenty four hours if it's like certain kinds of blood tests. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: The reason for this is pretty straightforward and logical. With
12:50
Speaker 1: blood tests in particular, Um, they want your body to
12:54
Speaker 1: have metabolized all the food, so they have a pretty
12:56
Speaker 1: good idea of what your baseline levels of things like cholesterol, blood, sugar, um,
13:01
Speaker 1: all of these things are in your system normally. If you,
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Speaker 1: you know, ate a handful of chicken fat right before
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Speaker 1: you went in for your cholesterol test, it's gonna skew
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Speaker 1: the results a little bit. Yeah, that fat's gonna be
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Speaker 1: in your blood. But if you haven't eaten in twenty
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Speaker 1: four hours and your blood shows uh, the same levels
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Speaker 1: of lipids that as if you had just eating a
13:24
Speaker 1: handful of chicken fat, your physician is going to be like,
13:27
Speaker 1: we have to save your life right now. Well, yeah,
13:30
Speaker 1: if your baseline indicates something that scary, then no more
13:32
Speaker 1: chicken fat um. And the same goes with if you
13:38
Speaker 1: were going to go under for surgery, yeah, which apparently
13:42
Speaker 1: this one's becoming outdated. We both had surgery recently. You
13:46
Speaker 1: went all the way under it into I went into
13:48
Speaker 1: twilight sleep for my tooth. I went all the way under,
13:53
Speaker 1: and I don't know what my oral surgeon used, but
13:56
Speaker 1: she brought me out like totally was wide awake within
14:00
Speaker 1: an hour of being put under, Like she did the
14:03
Speaker 1: procedure and then I was wide awake. I still need
14:05
Speaker 1: to ask her you weren't like I was just right back.
14:10
Speaker 1: I love the Twilight. Actually yeah, it was pretty rocking. Um.
14:14
Speaker 1: I mean I still wasted, but it was like like
14:18
Speaker 1: I was awake. It wasn't like huge time loss or
14:21
Speaker 1: anything like that. Anyway, I wasn't supposed to eat. I thought,
14:24
Speaker 1: just eat, but it's eat or drink And they had
14:26
Speaker 1: to delay my surgery like three hours because I was
14:29
Speaker 1: a jass and drank some coffee. Um. And the whole
14:32
Speaker 1: reason I didn't understand why until I read this article.
14:36
Speaker 1: But the whole reason they tell you not to um
14:38
Speaker 1: eat or drink anything for you know, the night before
14:41
Speaker 1: you're put under, because they're worried you're going to puke
14:45
Speaker 1: and choke on your vomit like John Bottom. I didn't
14:48
Speaker 1: know that. I thought it was just it could make
14:49
Speaker 1: you nauseous. Until I read this, I didn't realize that
14:52
Speaker 1: was a deal. No, But they may be phasing it
14:54
Speaker 1: out because it can make you nauseous if you don't eat,
14:57
Speaker 1: if you have if you take all those drugs on
15:00
Speaker 1: an empty stomach, um, you may be likelier to be nauseated.
15:04
Speaker 1: And it's also really rare that they found, so I
15:08
Speaker 1: think it's not uh, I mean they still did it
15:12
Speaker 1: with me, but the article says that it may be
15:15
Speaker 1: phased out because it's such a rare thing to choke
15:17
Speaker 1: like that, right, And they're saying, well, a lot more people,
15:21
Speaker 1: um are having trouble with dizziness feigning because they haven't
15:24
Speaker 1: eaten anything, and we just pumped them full of drugs.
15:27
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go ahead and let people eat. And
15:31
Speaker 1: in the UM, I want to take a minute to
15:34
Speaker 1: explain the difference between nauseous and nauseated. You know this, Yeah,
15:39
Speaker 1: So nauseous means that, um, you're causing nausea, right, so
15:45
Speaker 1: I'm making you nauseous. I'm nauseous to you, Okay. Nauseated
15:52
Speaker 1: means that you're feeling or suffering from nausea. So I'm
15:57
Speaker 1: making you nauseated. I'm nauseous to you. Know, I'm nauseated,
16:03
Speaker 1: is what you would say, unless you are aware that
16:08
Speaker 1: you're making other people no nauseous And that's with behaviorally speaking,
16:14
Speaker 1: what do you mean, well, like you're nauseated with someone's
16:17
Speaker 1: actions or does that mean literally you're nauseated with somebody's
16:21
Speaker 1: actions that would make the other person nauseous. They have
16:24
Speaker 1: the ability to cause nausea and other people got you.
16:27
Speaker 1: I never knew that. It's a big, big deal. The
16:30
Speaker 1: more you know, thank you worldwide words. By the way,
16:32
Speaker 1: is that where that came from? Yeah, that's a great thing.
16:34
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. Uh So what happens when you
16:38
Speaker 1: stop eating? Your body is going to start burning. You know,
16:43
Speaker 1: if you don't have any protein, your body's gonna break
16:45
Speaker 1: down your muscle. It's gonna start eating that because that's protein. Yeah,
16:50
Speaker 1: it's a scary notion, it is, which is why if
16:52
Speaker 1: you're on a low calorie diet you want to eat
16:55
Speaker 1: lean protein. And it's also why you'll feel weak if
16:58
Speaker 1: you're on like a hunger strike, like to the point
17:01
Speaker 1: where you can't get out of bed, if it's you
17:03
Speaker 1: haven't eaten for three weeks or you're hallucinating um. A
17:09
Speaker 1: long term fast can damage your heart because your heart
17:12
Speaker 1: is a muscle, and what what your body is doing
17:14
Speaker 1: is going after your muscle because your muscle is made
17:17
Speaker 1: of amino acids, which is the building blocks of protein.
17:20
Speaker 1: So it's saying, well, basically, we have a bunch of
17:22
Speaker 1: store of amino acids here where your brain is Like no, no,
17:26
Speaker 1: I used that to lift things where I used that
17:28
Speaker 1: to pump blood. Your body's like, no, it's a bunch
17:31
Speaker 1: of amino acids and I need it right now. If
17:34
Speaker 1: you feed your body lean protein, logically speaking, um, it
17:38
Speaker 1: will go after other things e g. Fat because it
17:42
Speaker 1: has protein. Right. So aside from the heart though, liver
17:45
Speaker 1: and kidneys can also decrease in size if you don't
17:48
Speaker 1: have enough protein and damage those as well, which is
17:51
Speaker 1: not good. It is not good. Um that at least
17:53
Speaker 1: it is pretty clearly too fasting for weight loss. Right, Yes,
17:57
Speaker 1: there's a weird catch twenty two for fasting for weight
18:01
Speaker 1: loss where your body, uh, if given few enough calories
18:06
Speaker 1: or if on a fast, enters what's called starvation mode.
18:10
Speaker 1: And when you enter starvation mode, it goes. It does
18:13
Speaker 1: things like going after your muscles, which is bad, but
18:16
Speaker 1: it also lowers your metabolism to preserve calories. So the
18:20
Speaker 1: fewer calories you take in, the fewer calories you end
18:23
Speaker 1: up burning. It's weird. It's not weird. It actually makes
18:26
Speaker 1: perfect sense, but it's also extremely unhealthy. It is, and
18:30
Speaker 1: there's uh. I've dug into web m D for this
18:33
Speaker 1: UM and they say that there's a lot of controversy
18:37
Speaker 1: on this people say, you know, some people say it's
18:40
Speaker 1: can be effective. Other people say it can't. But they say,
18:42
Speaker 1: if you really weed through all this stuff that most
18:45
Speaker 1: medical experts say that it is not healthy at all. Um,
18:49
Speaker 1: it'll come back quickly if you fast to lose weight,
18:52
Speaker 1: it's really just liquids. Beyonce made a lot of headlines
18:56
Speaker 1: when she did the Master Cleanse and lost twenty pounds
18:59
Speaker 1: for Dream Roles. Awesome movie. Did you see that? No,
19:04
Speaker 1: I don't know if you'd like, it might not be
19:07
Speaker 1: your thing. Okay, health risks that we already covered, um, liver, kidney,
19:14
Speaker 1: and heart. And this doctor says, you know, people try
19:19
Speaker 1: all these weird diets and there's a hundred thousand different
19:24
Speaker 1: books on odd diets. When everyone knows the way to
19:27
Speaker 1: lose weight is lower your fat, eat five fruits and
19:31
Speaker 1: vegetables a day, drink a lot of water, and do
19:34
Speaker 1: some exercise and get plenty of sleep. Uh. If they
19:37
Speaker 1: say I want to fast, let's say you want to
19:40
Speaker 1: fast and do a good enema just to clean yourself out,
19:44
Speaker 1: Very very dangerous to do that. What not to do
19:48
Speaker 1: an enemo while you're on a fast. It's not a
19:51
Speaker 1: good one too. Punch web MD says, what you're gonna
19:54
Speaker 1: do is you're gonna flush your intestinal attract of your
19:57
Speaker 1: good bacteria and put your health it too sarious risk um.
20:02
Speaker 1: And this is the whole detoxification thing. There's one camp
20:05
Speaker 1: that says, you know, your body detoxes itself, there's no
20:09
Speaker 1: scientific evidence that any of these cleanses do any good.
20:12
Speaker 1: Then there's another camp that says, well, if you're eating healthy,
20:16
Speaker 1: then your body is doing a great job of detoxifying itself.
20:20
Speaker 1: But most people don't eat healthy, they eat packaged, processed foods,
20:24
Speaker 1: and so your body could actually use some help detoxifying.
20:27
Speaker 1: I mean that makes a lot of sense of the
20:28
Speaker 1: same thing with saunas, like they're like, well, yeah, I
20:31
Speaker 1: mean you might only sweat like a very small amount
20:34
Speaker 1: of toxins out of your body, but you're still sweating
20:37
Speaker 1: that amount out. Why why how could that hurt if
20:40
Speaker 1: you're doing it properly. There's definitely two camps on this.
20:42
Speaker 1: It is very controversial. Yeah, same with a calorie restricted diet,
20:46
Speaker 1: which I know we've talked about before. There's two camps
20:48
Speaker 1: on it. The fact of the matter is it's neither
20:51
Speaker 1: one knows for certain whether they're right. That's a lot
20:54
Speaker 1: of it's just based on the common sense and logic ketosis.
20:58
Speaker 1: If you go without eating for a couple of days,
21:00
Speaker 1: your body is gonna enter a stage called ketosis, and
21:02
Speaker 1: that is, um, what your goal is. If you do
21:05
Speaker 1: the Atkins diet, they preach ketosis and that's what happens
21:09
Speaker 1: when your body runs out of carbs to burn for energy,
21:12
Speaker 1: so it burns fat, which sounds like a good thing. Um,
21:15
Speaker 1: but the breath I mentioned earlier, be prepared for really
21:18
Speaker 1: awful halitosis. Is that right? Tell me about it, Chuck. Well,
21:22
Speaker 1: it's that's just one of the side effects of of
21:25
Speaker 1: fasting and ketosis is you're you're gonna have rank halitosis.
21:30
Speaker 1: I don't know the science behind it, but it's true.
21:34
Speaker 1: And uh so, you know, carry around if you're gonna
21:36
Speaker 1: be doing that kind of thing. Just take care of
21:38
Speaker 1: your mouth a little more. Get a tongue scraper. Um.
21:45
Speaker 1: I think probably while we're on this, we should take
21:47
Speaker 1: the time to debunk the whole idea that you should
21:50
Speaker 1: be drinking eight glasses of water a day. Debunk. Well,
21:54
Speaker 1: you should definitely drink water. It's not it's good. It's
21:57
Speaker 1: good to drink water, but that whole eight glasses of date.
22:00
Speaker 1: Think there's people who rigidly drink eight glasses of water
22:03
Speaker 1: a day, totally arbitrary, and um, yeah, there's a guy
22:10
Speaker 1: named Tim Crow who's a professor nutrition at Deacon University
22:14
Speaker 1: who's kind of gone to the trouble of debunking this.
22:16
Speaker 1: Apparently back in the US, um recommended, uh two point
22:23
Speaker 1: five liters of water a day, I would imagine. So, um,
22:29
Speaker 1: so this this, this whole uh this, this is where
22:34
Speaker 1: this whole eight glasses came from. Right, um, but there
22:40
Speaker 1: there's also been this whole Um it has to just
22:42
Speaker 1: be water idea, Like it can't be coffee, it can't
22:46
Speaker 1: be so that one guy said liquids, water and other
22:48
Speaker 1: liquids right, at least on web m D. Technically you
22:51
Speaker 1: could get it all from cokes, which is you know,
22:54
Speaker 1: it's gonna have all these other side effects. But there
22:58
Speaker 1: it's water, you know, one of the main ingredients, and
23:01
Speaker 1: coke is water. Same with coffee, same with tea, all
23:03
Speaker 1: this other stuff. So, um, if you're drinking water, drink water.
23:08
Speaker 1: But that whole eight classes a day thing is apparently
23:11
Speaker 1: not true, says that one guy. There's Well, the problem
23:15
Speaker 1: is water intake varies by body size weight. It's two individuals,
23:22
Speaker 1: say eight classes a day. Yeah, but let's put it
23:25
Speaker 1: this way. It's never gonna be bad for you, is it. Yeah,
23:28
Speaker 1: there's um you can die of water toxicity. Well not
23:32
Speaker 1: from eight glass water, No, but people have that. That
23:36
Speaker 1: lady did that contest drink like twelve gallons of water
23:39
Speaker 1: or something like that. I know, isn't that crazy. That
23:40
Speaker 1: wasn't that much, but there was a lot. And then
23:43
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. There's one other there's one other problem that
23:46
Speaker 1: can develop from not eating from fasting. When you lose minerals,
23:52
Speaker 1: not only can you hallucinate, but specifically, if you have
23:55
Speaker 1: h not enough potassium, copper, and magnesium, you can lose
24:03
Speaker 1: electricity or electrical function in your heart. That's not good. Well,
24:07
Speaker 1: it's also gonna put a big hit on your immune system.
24:09
Speaker 1: If you're fasting, you're gonna have a real hard time
24:12
Speaker 1: finding off sickness or and if you get sick, you're
24:14
Speaker 1: gonna have a real hard time getting better. Yes, because
24:17
Speaker 1: you're not getting the stuff you need, the good stuff.
24:19
Speaker 1: I agreed, the nutrients. So what what's the next checker?
24:22
Speaker 1: Hunger strikes that's really the last reason that we have
24:25
Speaker 1: for fasting. And throughout history a lot of people have
24:30
Speaker 1: made political statements by going on very public hunger strikes
24:33
Speaker 1: to raise awareness, and it's you know, it's a good
24:37
Speaker 1: way to get attention if you're a Gandhi, Let's say,
24:40
Speaker 1: And Gandhi did do that, I think in because the
24:44
Speaker 1: Crown was saying, hey, let's get this new Indian constitution
24:48
Speaker 1: underway and let's codify the cast system that keeps people
24:52
Speaker 1: in these this horrible socioeconomic hierarchy. And Gandhi said, you
24:58
Speaker 1: know what, you do that and I'm can eat and
25:00
Speaker 1: the whole world will pay attention. And the Brits were like, oh,
25:04
Speaker 1: shut up, and Gandhi was like, no, I'm gonna do it,
25:06
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, no, you're not. And he did
25:08
Speaker 1: it and everybody paid attention. And he said, one day,
25:10
Speaker 1: Sir Richard Edinburgh will make a movie about me. Isn't
25:13
Speaker 1: that who made Gandhi? I think so? Huh? And Ben
25:16
Speaker 1: Kingsley will play me because he looks that's good stuff, Chuck.
25:22
Speaker 1: That was a great back and forth, wasn't Bobby Sands
25:26
Speaker 1: Uh the infamous Irish hunger strike in Uh in Ireland
25:31
Speaker 1: and and sorry, in in May's prison in Northern Ireland.
25:34
Speaker 1: He fasted for sixty six days and I'm pretty sure
25:38
Speaker 1: he had some of his uh ira A cohorts taking
25:42
Speaker 1: part in it with him. Yeah, I think nine other
25:44
Speaker 1: guys died. I wasn't including him, Okay, sixty six days. Yeah.
25:49
Speaker 1: So they had demands, various demands like, hey, we want
25:53
Speaker 1: to wear our own clothes. We want to be able
25:56
Speaker 1: to socialize and correspond with the outside world. Sure mails,
26:00
Speaker 1: mailsome letters here and there. We shouldn't have to do
26:02
Speaker 1: penal work as part of our senates here and uh,
26:08
Speaker 1: nine prisoners died, like you said, and sixty others died,
26:11
Speaker 1: and the violence that followed. I think there were some
26:13
Speaker 1: riots that happened afterwards, and it was a really big deal.
26:16
Speaker 1: I think I wrote about that in my how Long
26:20
Speaker 1: can You Go Without Food and Water? Article many months ago.
26:22
Speaker 1: That's where we talked about the Calori restricted diet, isn't it.
26:24
Speaker 1: I think? So we'll have to tweet that that episode.
26:27
Speaker 1: It's a good one, agreed, man that that seems like
26:30
Speaker 1: a gazillion years ago. And then I don't even remember
26:32
Speaker 1: what was in it. I don't either, Uh, and then
26:35
Speaker 1: we mentioned the forty hour famine, which is an annual
26:37
Speaker 1: event in Australia, and basically people say, I'm not gonna
26:41
Speaker 1: drink food or water for forty hours and I'm going
26:43
Speaker 1: to raise awareness. Like that's a really good way to
26:46
Speaker 1: raise awareness, to just say I'm not eating and you
26:51
Speaker 1: can't make me. And then people will try. Authorities will
26:54
Speaker 1: be like, no, we have to keep you alive because
26:57
Speaker 1: we want to keep you in prison. Logic all over
27:01
Speaker 1: the place. You got anything more about fasting? No, you know,
27:06
Speaker 1: be careful if you're out there. It's Uh. Anarexy is
27:09
Speaker 1: a real problem in the world and it can get
27:11
Speaker 1: out of hand. And there was a sidebar in this
27:13
Speaker 1: article we didn't cover, but um, we'd be remiss without
27:16
Speaker 1: mentioning that anorexia nervosa. That's right, not good, No, neither.
27:24
Speaker 1: I saw a thing recently where UM a plus size model.
27:29
Speaker 1: Did you see this? This female plus size model had
27:33
Speaker 1: her picture taken with UM, a regular model and they
27:37
Speaker 1: were like both nude and just hugging and it looked
27:40
Speaker 1: like she was hugging a a small child and I
27:45
Speaker 1: think they had and she was doing this to raise
27:47
Speaker 1: awareness that like this image that they put out with
27:50
Speaker 1: models is just a unattainable and be unsafe. And I
27:55
Speaker 1: think that I can't remember the year, but it was
27:58
Speaker 1: something like twenty years ago the average model was like
28:02
Speaker 1: eight percent smaller and thinner than your average person. And
28:06
Speaker 1: nowadays it's like well, not only that they alter them
28:11
Speaker 1: digitally through like photoshop or some other photo editing. Sweet, yeah,
28:16
Speaker 1: just do crazy things for me. They don't even look
28:19
Speaker 1: right if you see what they do to them in
28:21
Speaker 1: photoshop afterwards, it's crazy. It's a great article. I wish
28:25
Speaker 1: I could remember where it was. It was going around Facebook, though,
28:27
Speaker 1: but I think it is a very good message to
28:29
Speaker 1: send out that chuck from stuff you should know thinks
28:32
Speaker 1: that that plus size model was uber hot and sexy.
28:37
Speaker 1: Look good for you? Look good, man, That's how a
28:39
Speaker 1: woman should look. It's very nice of you, not like
28:41
Speaker 1: that little frail waife waif of a of a lady.
28:45
Speaker 1: And if you're like that, naturally I'm not you know,
28:47
Speaker 1: I don't want to make you feel bad about yourself,
28:50
Speaker 1: but if you're starving thisself with to make you look
28:51
Speaker 1: like that, then some guys like a little junk in
28:54
Speaker 1: the trunk, as they say. I think that's an excellent
28:57
Speaker 1: one to end the fun way too good, Chuck. So
29:00
Speaker 1: you have nothing more now about fasting? No, nothing more
29:03
Speaker 1: any other discourse. Jerry's just the last. He's like, boy,
29:07
Speaker 1: these guys are spiraling. Um. Well, if you want to
29:10
Speaker 1: know more about fasting, you can type that word into
29:13
Speaker 1: the search bar at how stuff works dot com and
29:17
Speaker 1: chucks a junk in the trunk. So that brings up
29:20
Speaker 1: listener mail. So listener mail. As I just said, right,
29:27
Speaker 1: I'm shaking my head down. I knew that you're going
29:30
Speaker 1: to say that. South By Southwest announcement continues. Is this
29:35
Speaker 1: the generic one or the specific one? This is the
29:38
Speaker 1: generic version. This is the the um where does this
29:42
Speaker 1: is filled with the seat and trickery? Yes, we are
29:44
Speaker 1: having a party on Monday, March twelve in Austin, Texas. Yeah,
29:51
Speaker 1: no badge required, let's not forget. Also, dude, we're doing
29:54
Speaker 1: an official live podcast on the day before March eleven pm. Okay, well,
30:00
Speaker 1: I'm glad you remember that. What's going on March twelve,
30:02
Speaker 1: March twelfth is a party we're having and uh at
30:06
Speaker 1: a place to be announced later downtown Austin, and there
30:10
Speaker 1: will be performers comedians, bands and some other special treats
30:15
Speaker 1: and it will be in the evening hours. Yeah, it'll
30:18
Speaker 1: be a cool party, early evening hours. Can we call
30:20
Speaker 1: it a party, it's a it's a party. Okay, it
30:23
Speaker 1: will be a party. And if you don't have to
30:25
Speaker 1: have a badge for this, you do have to have
30:26
Speaker 1: a badge for the live podcast on Sunday, and you
30:29
Speaker 1: probably have to be twenty one when don't you think
30:31
Speaker 1: do you know, I think it's a restaurant. Well, yeah,
30:35
Speaker 1: I think you can come in there and awesome. Or
30:36
Speaker 1: if you're twenty one, you can come in there and
30:38
Speaker 1: drink your face off. Yeah, bring your pocketbook. We're not
30:42
Speaker 1: buying drinks. You can buy us drinks. Yeah, here you go.
30:46
Speaker 1: Can we get to it now? Yes? Okay. Appropriately This
30:50
Speaker 1: is from an Aussie fan that um has uh to
30:54
Speaker 1: wants to raise awareness for weight loss. Weird funny how
30:59
Speaker 1: that works. Greetings from down Under. I just wanted to
31:02
Speaker 1: plug a little something for the Ausi corner of the
31:05
Speaker 1: s y s K nation and we have a lot
31:06
Speaker 1: of Australian fans. One of our major AUSI broadcasters has
31:11
Speaker 1: started a new initiative called the one million kilow challenge
31:16
Speaker 1: and the goal is to get Australians to collectively pledged
31:19
Speaker 1: to lose one million kilos. It's about two point to
31:23
Speaker 1: million pounds. Where you backwards folk as she calls us, uh.
31:27
Speaker 1: Their site is www dot one and it's the number
31:30
Speaker 1: one million kilow challenge dot com dot a you that
31:36
Speaker 1: means Australia and it gives you all the diet and
31:39
Speaker 1: exercise plans you need to shed that lab in ten
31:41
Speaker 1: weeks starting on January. Maybe I should do this. You
31:45
Speaker 1: can complete the challenge as an individual or as a team.
31:48
Speaker 1: So I thought, why not rally the s y s
31:50
Speaker 1: K army. I think it would be a great way
31:53
Speaker 1: for AUSI listeners. I'm sorry keep saying Ausy. It's really Ausy.
31:57
Speaker 1: As they say AUSI lis sners to interact, get healthier
32:01
Speaker 1: and dominate all the other teams. So I created a team,
32:05
Speaker 1: conveniently named them Team s Y s K. International folk
32:09
Speaker 1: always complain when we can't enter your contests, so how
32:12
Speaker 1: about we make this the official Ausy thing. Of course,
32:16
Speaker 1: you guys can still sign up if you're willing to
32:19
Speaker 1: fake an Aussie address and get your key loose two
32:21
Speaker 1: pounds convert at the ready I have pledged to lose
32:25
Speaker 1: five point three ms. That's eleven point seven pounds that
32:29
Speaker 1: I put on last year, and I'm really pumped up
32:31
Speaker 1: about it. Um. I don't know how to get this
32:33
Speaker 1: out to the s y s K nation, but I
32:36
Speaker 1: would love it if we could encourage any other AUSI
32:38
Speaker 1: or otherwise listeners to sign up and fight the flat together.
32:41
Speaker 1: And this is how you do it live the email
32:44
Speaker 1: us and we read it the next day. So here
32:47
Speaker 1: we are jesus ps I noticed the Colbar nation doesn't
32:50
Speaker 1: even have a team, so we've already won up them again.
32:54
Speaker 1: Nice um, and that's in thirty days. January is when
32:59
Speaker 1: it it's off, and that is number one million kilow
33:03
Speaker 1: challenge dot com dot Au and throw a www in
33:07
Speaker 1: front of that and you'll be taking straight there. And
33:10
Speaker 1: is there a team page? Uh? She said she started
33:13
Speaker 1: team s y s K, so I guess it might
33:15
Speaker 1: be like Kiva word. You might can enter that in
33:17
Speaker 1: a in a team section or something to find out. Okay,
33:20
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look after this. Actually all right, well we'll
33:23
Speaker 1: publicize it if you can. That is Live. Thanks a lot, Live.
33:26
Speaker 1: We appreciate you go into that trouble and thanks to
33:29
Speaker 1: everybody listening. If you have a cool story, uh that
33:33
Speaker 1: you want to tell us about, it doesn't matter if
33:35
Speaker 1: it has to do with fasting or anything else we
33:37
Speaker 1: want to hear it. Just whatever, general assignment, how about that? Yeah? Yeah.
33:42
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at s y s
33:45
Speaker 1: K podcast, Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash stuff you
33:48
Speaker 1: Should Know and Uh. You can also reach us via
33:52
Speaker 1: email at Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com. Be sure
34:01
Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
34:04
Speaker 1: Join how Stepwork's staff as we explore the most promising
34:07
Speaker 1: and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the
34:13
Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you