Episode 509: Renee Fitton: Fast-Mimicking: A Smarter Way to Support Longevity

Speaker 1 Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Gresham.

Speaker 2 In this episode of Habits and Hustle, I sit down with longevity dietician Renee Fittin to unpack what truly supports healthy aging and why fast mimicking has become a standout tool.

Speaker 2 We break down how it works at the cellular level and why a few focus cycles beat daily restriction and how the right stress can shift your biology.

Speaker 2 We cover the differences between fasting and fast mimicking, how to protect muscle, what midlife women should watch for, and the metabolic changes people experience on a structured protocol.

Speaker 2 Renee also shares why most people feel clearer and more energized after a five-day cycle and how to fit it into real life without derailing training.

Speaker 2 If you want a grounded, science-based look at what actually moves the needle for HealthSpan, this episode lays out the strategies that work. Please enjoy.

Speaker 2 Okay, you guys, we have a fun podcast today. You know how I love talking about longevity and biohacking and health and all the things.

Speaker 2 And today we have Renee, well, we have Renee,

Speaker 2 who I would say, Renee, how would you just, you're a longevity dietician? Like it's not, and how do you pronounce your last name? Fittin? Fittin?

Speaker 1 Fittin. Okay, Renee Fitton.

Speaker 2 She's a longevity dietitian who I never really hear anybody calling them that. That's very niche, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it totally is. It's a very unique group of us that can even have this type of title.
I got my master's degree, not only in nutrition, but in nutrition, health span, and longevity.

Speaker 1 It's one of the only programs. Oh, wow.
It's out of USC. It's founded by Dr.

Speaker 1 Valter Longo in partnership with USC to help people who are interested in nutrition focus their nutrition education on longevity and helping people live healthier longer. Oh, I love that.

Speaker 2 Okay, so I don't know if you know this, but on this podcast, we always take these shots. They're Magic Mind.
They're like a performance shot and they have lots of great stuff in it.

Speaker 2 And I want to know, is this good for our health and our longevity?

Speaker 1 Yes. No, I, of course, you showed me these and I was like, okay, read all of the ingredients.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Read all the ingredients.

Speaker 1 I am so, I was all about it. Everything looks incredible.
The one thing that I love that they did too was that they created a non-caffeinated version and a caffeinated version. Yes.

Speaker 1 The caffeinated version has matcha and green tea, which is incredible for longevity. And so I'm a big fan of that, but I myself can't have too much caffeine anyway.
Sorry, you said that.

Speaker 1 So I love that they have created two different options for both.

Speaker 2 They also have max, which is like three times a caffeine, but that's really, yes, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 But like, never, I wouldn't sleep for five minutes.

Speaker 2 Oh my God, you wouldn't sleep for like a year. But like, okay, so let's say we shoot this like we would like the tequila shop, but not.
And I don't know. Like, I think I'm not a, I love caffeine.

Speaker 2 so i don't know if you tell me if you actually feel it at the end tell me if you actually feel something okay okay all right i'm ready let's do it cheers okay cheers

Speaker 1 oh wow that's good so good i was expecting you know like even though there's no ginger in it trust me i know i was waiting for a ginger kick you know oh or like a punch you know you whenever you do these little shots it's always like oh but you always taste terrible this one that's why i like this one this by the way this is not even a commercial for magic wine i feel like this is a whole thing No, I love the taste of them.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I have too many of them.
That's why, whenever I do the podcast, I only do like a little bit because I

Speaker 1 do the whole thing.

Speaker 2 Well, no, no, you should. I have if I'm doing five podcasts today, I shouldn't have five of these a day, right?

Speaker 2 So I just do like a little bit because otherwise, I think there's a max that you should be doing. Okay.
Anyway, so now you're going to be focused and you're going to be like locked in.

Speaker 1 I'm ready to rock.

Speaker 2 All right. So I didn't realize.
So you did this.

Speaker 2 You did this. I get like, so

Speaker 2 Dr. Longo, he created Prolon.

Speaker 1 He also also created Prolon. So he's the founder of Prolon, but even before that, he's one of the leading longevity researchers, probably like 20 years before Prolon.

Speaker 1 His main focus was just figuring out how to help people live longer through nutrition. And then Prolon came around 20 years later.
Oh, 20 years later.

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh. Okay.
So let's start with longevity, right? So what does that mean?

Speaker 2 When people use, like, throw around these words all the time, longevity and biohacking and this and this, wellness, so many things can like fall fall under these umbrellas.

Speaker 2 In your opinion, what does longevity really mean?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I'm so glad that you asked that question because longevity is a super buzzword right now.
I'm seeing it absolutely everywhere.

Speaker 1 And at the end of the day, like what I, when I talk to people, they're like, eh, I don't even actually really need to live that much longer.

Speaker 1 Like I, like, I don't want to be sick when I'm, you know, 90. Like that doesn't even sound like a fun time to be, you know, my, myself, you know, I won't be myself.

Speaker 1 I want to be able to do, like play tennis and climb mountains. And, and and that, to me, is where we've lost the connection to longevity.
Longevity isn't just about living longer.

Speaker 1 It's also about living healthy longer.

Speaker 1 And what we've captured, so the World Health Organization actually released some data saying that people are living anywhere from about like 73 to 79 kind of range.

Speaker 1 And their health span, meaning how long they're actually healthy, is only about 61 to 63 years old.

Speaker 1 And so that means that you have like 10 to 20 years of unhealthy life that you're living for the vast majority of us.

Speaker 1 And that to me is the problem that I'm trying to solve and that longevity dietitians and people who are really focused in longevity are trying to solve is how do we take that 20 year, 10, 20 year gap from where we're healthy to our last day on this planet.

Speaker 1 How do we make sure that that's super healthy and that we shrink that to ideally no time at all?

Speaker 2 Wow. I never heard it like that.
So you're saying that we spend the last 15 or 20 years of our lives unhealthy, basically.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Like immobile or lower mobility, even like depression, like all of these things that are slowly kind of taxing on us.
And it's just a gradual decline. Like no one, no one wants that.

Speaker 1 That doesn't sound fun.

Speaker 1 And I think, unfortunately, I did a really cool exercise recently at an event where everyone kind of closed their eyes and thought about themselves when they were 85 and 90.

Speaker 1 And at the end, the host was like, okay, how many people saw themselves as frail?

Speaker 1 And almost everybody lifted their hand up because like, that's what you think the end of your life is going to be when you're in your later years.

Speaker 1 And that's not what is the reality for everybody, especially people who are taking measures and precautions to support their health today, preventatively.

Speaker 2 So wait, so let me just go back for a second because you said that we spend like the last 15, 20 years. I also was under the impression that people are living much longer, though.

Speaker 1 Well, actually, it's funny because we saw this trend of it going up and now it's actually kind of coming back down a little bit. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And especially in like our, you know, first world nations where that's what we're seeing. And there's a lot of reasons.

Speaker 1 I mean, there's some unfortunate non-health related reasons like higher rates of suicide in younger individuals, things like that, that are probably causing this number to start decreasing.

Speaker 1 But for the first time, we're actually not really seeing it continuing to progress. We're starting to see it come down.

Speaker 1 And then the other thing that we're seeing is this larger gap in the health span to lifespan piece where people are getting sicker earlier.

Speaker 1 So sure, maybe they're living longer, but are those years beneficial or are they just in the hospital?

Speaker 1 And are we, you know, is somebody getting their first heart attack at 40 and then continuously getting sicker and getting a stroke and then, you know, getting, and we're just constantly just, you know, trying to put a bandaid on everything and you're just living like a really uncomfortable life in the hospital for the last 20 30 however many years you know wow so what's the reason for like what what what's the big reasons for that then i mean i i'm going to be biased and say that nutrition has a big part of it but it's really all of these lifestyle things that have just completely been shoved under the rug that people don't want to make the effort to do this preventative stuff so that can include of course nutrition that's a huge umbrella like there's a lot of things that we can talk about in the nutrition space Of course, exercise, sleep, no one, like so many people are just completely ignoring that.

Speaker 1 Community is a big one. So sadness and loneliness and high levels of stress are also causing people to get sicker earlier.
It's impacting our microbiome.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, it's, there's so many different verticals that are playing into that. And that's probably why.
almost everybody is facing this because it's not just one thing. It's so many things.

Speaker 1 And we're just trying to take the easy way out and thinking that no matter how we live today, it's not going to impact us down the line.

Speaker 2 Okay, so this is what I find interesting.

Speaker 2 Everything you just said, the sleep and nutrition, this community, these are like, again, more buzzwords, because we've been talking about this for a long time. This is not new, right? Right.

Speaker 2 Like, these are the core pillars of what makes people live the longest. Like the Blue Zone diets, all about the sense of community, not feeling lonely, having people, you know, all the things.

Speaker 2 Then, with all the knowledge and all the information,

Speaker 2 why is it that the number keeps on decreasing?

Speaker 1 Okay. So I, I mean, my belief here is that we're not making it easy for people to do these things.

Speaker 2 It feels, it's easier.

Speaker 1 Like, let's just take sleep for an example.

Speaker 2 We can talk, we can think about it and theorize it all day long, but we're not actually taking the measures.

Speaker 1 It's not fun or easy. You would rather be playing on your phone and going scrolling through social media than get an extra hour of sleep.

Speaker 2 Well, I think also that you just, you just said it. I think that it's not about the knowledge.
That's why I was kind of like, I was like kind of wheeling you in here.

Speaker 1 Cause I don't

Speaker 2 thank you. I don't think it has anything to do with like the with with knowing.
It's like with anything in life, right? We can, we all have the information at this point.

Speaker 2 We all know what we should be doing and could be doing, but we were choosing not to do it.

Speaker 1 Exactly. And, you know, I like, I always

Speaker 1 kind of hesitate a little bit with this like motivation and choice reason because I think that at the same time as motivation and making the decision and making the effort plays a huge part in it, I also wish that industry and like the United States just in general would take efforts to make it easier for people to make those choices, right?

Speaker 1 So, like, make it so that it's not just like you drive down the street and all you see are fast food restaurants. Like,

Speaker 1 like finally, you see like a sweet green at least now and again, but like it's so hard. And in most places, you don't even have those types of healthier choices.

Speaker 1 And so it's also about like finding ways, whether it's the government helping us create these healthy environments that people can make healthier and better choices at work, when they're out and about, et cetera.

Speaker 1 But it's also just us as a society helping each other make these healthy choices too. So it's also environmental in a big way, I think.

Speaker 2 Right. Like the coasts are probably.

Speaker 2 are much more way healthier. Right.
Way healthier because, but I also, because of money.

Speaker 2 Let's just be honest. 100%.
I think the people who are really kind of doing a lot of this preventative stuff have a lot of expendable income.

Speaker 2 They're making it so, or it is, they're make, they, or whoever it is, they are, is making it so that only the rich people can stay healthy. Yeah.
That's the problem.

Speaker 1 Well, and what we're starting to see now is finally insurers are starting to cover things like medically tailored meals, but they're only covering it for really sick people.

Speaker 1 They're starting to cover like grocery costs, farmers market costs, and things like that.

Speaker 1 But it's really like just in the earliest days of this. But finally, we are starting to see a shift in some of this stuff getting covered.

Speaker 1 And once we can really like pull the throttle on that, I'm hoping that we're going to start seeing it easier for people to achieve this.

Speaker 1 But it's also the other problem is like food deserts, for example. Like in the middle of America, there's so many people that don't have access to a lot of fruits and vegetables.

Speaker 1 And I mean, I just did a full cross-country from LA to Miami. And when I was in the middle, I was like, whoa, okay, I finally see it.
I get it. Really?

Speaker 1 I couldn't even make a healthy choice if I wanted to because everywhere I stopped was just a gas station. And inside the gas station, it was just a bunch of processed food.

Speaker 1 Like not even like, at least sometimes in LA, like there's apples and bananas in the 7-Eleven, but not there.

Speaker 2 I wonder why that still with all this information, all the things. So a lot of it is geographical, where the socioeconomic, where people have money versus not.

Speaker 2 But like in here, and I talk about this all the time, there's to even get to see a doctor, no, no good doctor takes insurance anymore.

Speaker 2 So like you have to pay a fortune just to see like a proper doctor, you know, or wait like 400 years and you can be dead by then. No longevity program I've seen makes you live to 400.

Speaker 2 That's the first thing. The second thing is that, yeah, you can make healthier choices, like food choices.
I mean, I think it's not expensive to eat well. That's actually, that's a misconception.

Speaker 2 I think that's really easy.

Speaker 2 Like it's just as easy to get like, you know, a piece of chicken and an apple and an orange as it is to get like a McDonald's Big Mac. By the way, these things are expensive.
They are.

Speaker 1 I can't believe it. It's not expensive.

Speaker 2 It has gotten shockingly expensive. Fast food is like 20 bucks now for like a happy meal or whatever the hell they is.
You know what I mean? Like it's not, the prices are not.

Speaker 1 It's super hard to justify.

Speaker 2 It's super hard to justify because it used to be like, oh,

Speaker 2 I can't afford it. It's actually cheaper now to go to the grocery store, buy a bag of lettuce, buy a can of tuna, buy a tomato, put some dressing on it and call it a day.

Speaker 2 Much cheaper and better for you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but also work.

Speaker 2 But also, yes, exactly. Not that much work.
Let's be honest.

Speaker 2 Opening a can and opening a bag is not that crazy. I mean, it's not like coal mining work, but it's still not as easy as it's going through a drive-thru.

Speaker 2 I think, you know, it's funny with life, right? Because the more information we have, the more access we have, it actually, in my opinion, is why the decline is happening.

Speaker 2 People People can order Postmates, Uber Eats, all the different apps. Like people are so lazy now, they won't even buy their groceries.
They won't go to a grocery store.

Speaker 2 They won't have, they don't have to buy their, go to get their lunch or go to get their dinner or go to, everyone just sit and watch Netflix and just order whatever the hell they want.

Speaker 1 Right. And this is even impacting outside of nutrition, like even in sense of community.

Speaker 1 Like a number of times that I've seen a meme of somebody being like, I just don't want to leave the house today. Like I'm just not going to go see my friends.
And it's like this funny joke. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, no, this is so bad. So bad.
This is going to just ruin our community and ruin our like

Speaker 1 sense of

Speaker 1 connection.

Speaker 2 No, we've created a culture of laziness and like just like ineptness of like not even, there's no purpose in trying to do it. But that's why it's like the whole cycle.

Speaker 2 That's why people are more lonely. That's why people are more sad.
That's why people are more depressed. And and the cycle goes on and on and on.

Speaker 2 So I'm not surprised that that trajectory is dipping because of all these external, like all these external things, social media.

Speaker 2 Like, why, why go talk to someone in person when I can just like watch something on TikTok? I mean, that's the life we're living.

Speaker 2 But so that's why I want to like end that with saying that like everything requires effort. We need to put effort into everything.
If you want a certain result, it requires you to put in the effort.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or at least take one step forward, you know?

Speaker 2 But even one step forward takes effort. And it's like.
taking the like the theory and like executing on it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So then I know that you're a huge fan of obviously Prolon because now that I know, I didn't even know you were in his program. Yeah.
But can we talk about it?

Speaker 2 Because I have a lot, I get a lot of questions about it. The fast mimicking diet, fasting in general.
Why are these so essential in your opinion to longevity?

Speaker 1 Wow. Well, we've generally recognized fasting as being very strongly associated with longevity.

Speaker 1 Even like long-term significant calorie restriction studies have been able to show improved longevity across, you know flies and worm studies all the way to human studies why and it's because we can go right into the science if you want to know it's because what we're seeing is that we're limiting growth factors and growth hormone that are essentially just like excessively replicating our body at all times and that can lead to a handful of things but it can also lead to chronic disease um age-related disease all of these things that happen generally later in life so now we're just kind of like shoving them up again There's also when we fast some other things that are going on.

Speaker 1 Aside from preventing disease by not excessively causing this growth, what we're also doing is we're doing cleanup. So there's this really cool feature when we go into a fast called autophagy.

Speaker 1 It's known as, it literally means self-eating.

Speaker 1 And it sounds like maybe a bad thing, but it's a wonderful thing because it's eating the bad stuff, the stuff that has accumulated over time that we don't need anymore, that isn't working as well as it should.

Speaker 1 And so, our body, during this phase of autophagy, will go hunt down the stuff that is not working well, eat that, get rid of it, and then allow new material to be made.

Speaker 1 So, not only, again, are we preventing some of the downsides of excessive growth and aging, we're also doing cleanup and repair. And both of those things together are really impactful.
Oh,

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 1 why?

Speaker 2 So, there's fasting, obviously, intermittent fasting.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 What is the best type of fasting to do for your health span, for your longevity, for your lifespan?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So if we're talking specifically longevity and health span, without a doubt, it's going to be prolonged fasting.
And the definition of prolonged fasting is going to be over two days.

Speaker 1 So three, usually my sweet spot is going to be three to five days. And that's because that autophagy that I was just sharing is really only able to be maximally activated at around the three-day mark.

Speaker 1 So, if you want to get that deep cleanup, if you want to get that cellular rejuvenation, then you have to fast for at least that long. And then you want to live in it.

Speaker 1 You don't just want to like start spring cleaning, empty out one drawer, and then be done for the day. You want to really get like in the floorboards and get all of the junk.

Speaker 1 And that takes a few days. So, you live in it for a little while and get all of those benefits.
So, I'm a big believer in doing that, maybe not that often, like three, four times a year. That's it.

Speaker 1 And getting this quarterly cleanup at the cellular level, helping your body just kind of like do a really good repair and rejuvenation, get out of the way and let it do its work.

Speaker 1 And then for the rest of the days, you are focused on the growth.

Speaker 1 You're focusing on the building, focusing on the refilling in all of the gaps and all of the wonderful things that our nutrition can give us.

Speaker 2 So you're saying for three to five days, at least four or five times a year. Yeah.
And what have you seen? Like, what kind of fast is this? Is this like eating nothing?

Speaker 2 Cause I can't like, if I can't go from, if I can't eat lunch, I get nervous. You know what I mean? Like that to me is a big deal.
It's such a psychological thing.

Speaker 2 Like I know intermittent fasting is big. However, I have heard, you can tell me the numbers maybe, that even intermittent fasting has becoming, is declining in numbers.
Is that true?

Speaker 1 Yeah, we're definitely seeing a lot of people kind of pushing back against intermittent fasting because of some of the concerns with everyday intermittent fasting. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, what we need to recognize when we talk about fasting is that fasting is a stress on the body. It's something that we call a hermetic stress or a positive stress.

Speaker 1 And so, it can have some really great benefits. But if you're constantly stressing out your body, eventually it's no longer helpful anymore.
Oh, right.

Speaker 2 Or you just get acclimated to it like you would anything else. So, that's interesting.
So, that's why you said fasting four or five times a year, like every quarter-ish.

Speaker 1 It's kind of

Speaker 2 like a reset. Yeah.
I never thought of it that way. I mean, I've never been a faster or an intermittent faster for the same, for the reason I just said.

Speaker 2 I like to eat lunch, dinner, breakfast, and a snack as much as I can. But

Speaker 2 I want to get into that too, because when you're active, it's very hard not to eat because then you just, I feel nauseous and I get, I can't go through my day.

Speaker 2 But I didn't, that makes sense to me because your body will get used to and adjust to everything and anything that you do too long.

Speaker 2 So if you're constantly just eating in a window of eight hours or whatever that window is,

Speaker 2 then that becomes your new normal.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 and there is still a risk of muscle loss if you're significantly calorie reduced for a long period of time. And so anyway, there's also certainly some risk there.

Speaker 2 I also believe that, you know, if I was to be totally honest, I think people are doing a lot of this for weight loss.

Speaker 2 That's like a mechanism for them to have disordered eating. That's honestly what I think.

Speaker 1 Well, I will say, like, you know, scientifically speaking, what we, when we look at intermittent fasting, where you hit like 16, 18 hours, the reason why that's so helpful to weight loss is because you're letting your body start burning fat for energy instead of using sugar.

Speaker 1 Once you hit about the 12-hour mark, your body has tapped out of all of the sugar stores that it has, and now it needs to go look elsewhere.

Speaker 1 And so that's why people find it really helpful for weight loss because it's finally letting their body go to the fat for energy and start depleting that.

Speaker 1 So I actually am a proponent of intermittent fasting, ideally closer to like a 14 hour mark, not like these crazy 18, 20, 24 hour marks.

Speaker 2 That's not intermittent fasting. That's 24 hours.

Speaker 1 I mean, they're calling like the 5'2, that's still technically intermittent fasting because which is what?

Speaker 1 So 5-2 is five days of regular eating and two days of either very low calorie or only water for two days a week, every week for as long as you'd go.

Speaker 2 I know, I had a guy on here talking to me about that. Actually, the 5-2, he didn't call it 5-2, but he says that like he won't eat on Mondays and he doesn't eat on this day.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, you sound like an anorexic, like a manorexic. Like these are all ways to, in my opinion, to manage your calorie intake.

Speaker 1 Right. So I will.
I know you don't agree. Yeah, I'll give it a little extra because yes,

Speaker 2 there is truth to that.

Speaker 1 Part of why intermittent fasting can work is because it shortens your eating window and therefore may shorten your calorie intake.

Speaker 1 But in many cases, we don't even see calorie intake change because they're just shortening the eating window and they're just eating more during that window. That's what I was going to say.

Speaker 2 Listen, I've tried it before and I ate. double the calories because I was starving.
So I had like six chicken breasts because I couldn't get, you know what I mean? Like I was so hungry.

Speaker 2 I couldn't wait to eat. Right.
So, but I think that everyone's different. I get it.
But I did.

Speaker 2 So the five two is then you're taking two days, like you're literally not eating for two days of the week.

Speaker 1 Usually you separate them like apart from each other. But yeah, trust me, by the way, so the funny thing is, I have, here I am talking all of the wonderful things about prolonged fasting.

Speaker 1 And the longest I've ever been able to go with water-only fasting is probably about 36 hours. And that's because I am a big believer.

Speaker 1 in fasting with food and including nutrition in your fasting protocol. And And now that I have been able to do that, I hit five-day windows and I've done it over 15 times now.

Speaker 1 And so it's like a night and day difference in terms of being able to achieve it, feeling comfortable, supporting our health and our wellness.

Speaker 1 I mean, I still wouldn't recommend it if you have a history of eating disorders, but still, it is, it is a much better option and a safer option and a muscle protective option than water only. So.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's good to know. So let's talk about the fact, because if I was going to do any fasting, which I did, I did the prolon, I did the fat, I did the fast mimicking diet

Speaker 2 way easier than doing a water fast.

Speaker 2 So to me,

Speaker 2 are you saying that's the same?

Speaker 2 If you do fast mimicking, you get the same results as doing a water fast.

Speaker 1 So there's never actually been a side-by-side comparison of water only fasting for five days and the fasting mimicking diet for five days.

Speaker 1 So we have to be a little bit cautious about doing exact comparisons, at least as scientists and evidence-based researchers.

Speaker 1 Like you, we just, we're not going to make claims that we don't have 100% certainty on. But there are a couple of things that I can say.

Speaker 1 We see a lot of research on water-only fasting and we see a lot of research on fasting mimicking. There's now about 47 clinical trials published on fasting mimicking alone.

Speaker 1 And what we're seeing is that the results that you see in water-only fasting are also seen equivalently in fasting mimicking.

Speaker 1 It's hard to compare because you're not actually doing the exact same thing. They're not controlled.
But generally speaking, we're seeing a lot of the same results.

Speaker 1 There is one study that I have seen where they actually did in mice, they compared regular nutrition, water-only fasting, and fasting mimicking.

Speaker 1 This study was

Speaker 1 in IBD or inflammatory bowel disease. And so this is like really bad gut health.
concerns. I mean, it's not even, it's not even gut health at this point.

Speaker 1 It's, you know, the degradation of the gut lining. Okay.
So it's very severe.

Speaker 1 And what they were able to show in these, in this mice population is that the fasting and fasting mimicking were able to help with the regeneration of the gut lining, like true cellular cleanup and repair, like essentially regressing or remitting the disease.

Speaker 1 But what the coolest part was is that the fasting mimicking did even better.

Speaker 1 And when we look at why that might be, it's because you add nutrition, you add fiber, you add some of these things that are also helpful as well as the cellular cleanup and the autophagy and all of the wonderful things that fasting brings so while i would never say that that's going to be the case for everything there may be cases where water only fasting might get you a little bit more there may also be cases where fasting mimicking could get you more and also is how about the concept of like at least something is better than nothing right might get you 80 of it yeah of the of the benefits it's better than 0 percent of the benefits especially if you're never going to do it if you're never going to right like Like, if the idea of water only fasting for five days is like, yeah,

Speaker 2 it's never happening. Never happening.

Speaker 1 It's never happening.

Speaker 2 I'm telling you, even I told you, even the intermittent fasting is like, I, it's very difficult. Yeah.
And I figured, like, that makes so much sense to me now.

Speaker 2 But when you said that thing about four times a year versus like every single day, the intermittent, because that like resonated, that clicked for me, actually. Yeah.

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Speaker 2 So fast mimicking. So how do we we do it? And like, tell me about, tell me about this because I, I already, I did it.
I was like, how three crackers on one day.

Speaker 2 And that's why I want you to talk to my audience about it. Because I did, so basically I did this five-day fast mimicking diet.
It was very difficult. I'm not going to lie.

Speaker 1 It was very difficult.

Speaker 2 It is challenging. And I'll tell you, the biggest challenge is someone who's very active like me.
Psychologically, it's very difficult because I still worked out and I was starving.

Speaker 2 And I'm just being totally honest. And, but my, it, my, my, my hunger did dissipate and it did wane on like day three, maybe.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But then I made a mistake and I ended it early. I think I, I called, I called someone there.
I'm like, oh my God. But they said it was okay.

Speaker 2 But the point that I'm trying to make is, I want you to talk about how to do it. Fast, what is fast mimicking? Like, what do you eat? How do you do both? How do you get the benefits?

Speaker 2 And how does somebody who is active and who needs to be active for their brain to function well and just to kind of as part of their habitual life, how do they do both?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.
So let me first start with, I guess, how it's possible and then what it looks like. And then I'll touch on the athletic piece.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So how it's possible, very fair question, because we know fasting as no food. And now I'm telling you that you can have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.

Speaker 1 food all day, every day, real whole food, and still go into a fasted state. And people are like, no way, that's impossible.

Speaker 1 But it's really important that we recognize that it's not just lower calories. It's very specific foods, very specific ingredients paired together in a very specific way.

Speaker 1 So it's very highly scientific. And the way, and what we're trying to achieve with these very specific choices in the foods and ingredients that we're having.

Speaker 1 is that we're trying to essentially live under the radar of something that we call nutrient sensing pathways. I just like to think of them like alarm bells on our cell surface, like 007 style.

Speaker 2 No, that's like Mission Impossible. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like kind of staying underneath. So just don't touch the, that's exactly what I was thinking.

Speaker 1 Exactly. And so if you pick the right foods in the right amounts and the right pairs, then you can kind of make your way underneath all of these lasers and your body will be like, oh, okay, it's fine.

Speaker 1 We're just going to stay in this fasting state. There's not enough here for us to say it's time to grow.

Speaker 1 So instead, like your body picks one or the other, it's like grow, grow, grow, or repair, rejuvenate. And so that's really what we're achieving here.

Speaker 1 So what you see in a five-day fasting mimicking experience, or now there's also one day experiences, but what you generally will see is that they're going to be very plant-based. So very low protein.

Speaker 1 And people always freak out when I say that, but I'll talk a little, we can talk about that more. But that's especially because those alarm bells or those sensors are especially triggered by protein.

Speaker 1 So for those five days, you're just going to chill on that.

Speaker 1 And then the other thing is that you're going to see high fiber, you're going to see high healthy fats, and you're also going to to see really low sugar.

Speaker 1 So the things that are low, protein and sugar, things that are high, fiber and fat.

Speaker 1 And what that looks like in practice is like maybe you start the day with a nut-based bar with a little teensy bit of honey. Then you transition into like a seed cracker.

Speaker 1 Then you transition into a plant-based soup. And then you transition into olives.
And then you transition into another plant-based soup.

Speaker 1 And the wonderful people at Prolon have added a little chocolate crisp at the end of the day to make it just an extra little deliciousness.

Speaker 2 How nice of them.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Right.

Speaker 1 And so that's kind of like what a day would look like.

Speaker 1 But all of those things have been very carefully chosen and very carefully created with very specific nutrient requirements, ingredient requirements, et cetera, to make sure that we're living below those sensors.

Speaker 2 So could someone just do this on their own at home if they wanted to?

Speaker 1 Hypothetically, absolutely. I have never recommended it to any of, I've walked thousands and thousands of people through these protocols.
And it's not just because I'm a fan of Dr.

Speaker 1 Valter Longo's and I've studied with him and a fan of Prolon's, but also because I have seen people, one, make some pretty big mistakes when they do it themselves.

Speaker 1 That it's really hard to know when is too much of XYZ ingredient, when is too much of this.

Speaker 1 And because it's so highly scientific, the risks of you having one too many almonds or one too many XYZ thing is moderately high.

Speaker 1 The way that Prolon, for example, has designed these kits is that they've given you the absolute most that you can have before you get to threshold.

Speaker 1 So somebody who's doing it at home will probably end up having to have way less even just to ensure that they're kind of staying below the radar. The other thing, yeah.
That's a good point.

Speaker 2 So you probably end up eating too less, which I mean much less, which then you'll be even more starving.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Or too much would then kick you out of autophagy. And so the whole thing is pointless anyway.

Speaker 1 Exactly. So there's there's this really careful balance.
The all of the studies that you see in fasting mimicking have been done with the Prolon or El NutraHealth kits.

Speaker 1 So every research has been done with that kit, which is kind of also, I guess, I don't

Speaker 1 realize. No, right.

Speaker 2 That's where all the research is coming from. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I understand. And so like, if you, if you want to be 100% sure that you're going to get the results, then you want to go that way.
The other thing that I want to mention is about muscle protection.

Speaker 1 Like we know, and we're going to talk about athleticism and like like getting in our workouts and all that good stuff.

Speaker 1 But part of the reason why fasting mimicking is so amazing is because we've been able to show time and time again that muscle is being protected. And even without the protein?

Speaker 1 Even without the protein. And we can talk a little bit about that too, and how that's possible.

Speaker 1 But we have seen like in probably over a dozen studies looking at like DEXA scans, like the best of the best, looking to see where our weight loss is coming from.

Speaker 1 And it's exclusively coming from our fat, especially in the trunk fat region and our visceral fat, which are the hardest areas to lose weight.

Speaker 1 So that's, and we know that we want to protect our muscles. So like that's also another piece of the puzzle that fasting mimicking kind of comes into play.

Speaker 1 And I worry when people do this at home by themselves, that they are not getting that muscle protection. And there's a couple of reasons.

Speaker 1 One, it's just like maybe you didn't choose the right ingredients, foods, combinations, et cetera. But also, there's another thing that's included in the Prolon kit.

Speaker 1 It's called the glycerol drink or the L drink. And it is a little bit of glycerol that helps your body use that instead of going to your muscle.

Speaker 1 So it's one of the little magic ingredients that is really like, I don't think you could find that anywhere else that's included in the kit that's added to help with that piece too.

Speaker 2 So how much of this, like, do people lose weight on it?

Speaker 1 For sure. Yeah.
And it depends on how much weight you have to lose, right? So the more weight you have to lose, you'll generally see more significant weight loss.

Speaker 1 Individuals who have no weight to lose generally will see like very small weight loss, but they'll usually regain it at after completing.

Speaker 2 And won't everyone just regain it though?

Speaker 1 Cause no.

Speaker 1 And that's the cool part is that because what we're seeing is fat-focused weight loss instead of what unfortunately we see with like GLP1s and so many of the other diets out there in low-calorie diet and even Mediterranean diet, because we did a side-by-side comparison of Mediterranean and fasting mimicking and Mediterranean saw muscle loss.

Speaker 1 But because

Speaker 1 really? Yes. Five pounds muscle loss in the Mediterranean and zero in the fasting mimicking, and you had to do every single day 120 days of Mediterranean diet, like to its precision.

Speaker 1 And you only had to do 20 days of fasting mimicking over the 120-day period. So it's like not only easier, but it's also a better result.

Speaker 1 And both of them showed obviously really good heart health metrics because that's what the Mediterranean diet is recommended for. And it's the gold standard.

Speaker 1 And by the way, I'm a big fan of the Mediterranean diet, right?

Speaker 1 But there is still, we have to be really, really careful when we take some of these everyday diet, low calorie options to watch our muscle.

Speaker 2 That's really good information. I like that.

Speaker 1 No, but I like learning so much here.

Speaker 2 You know, it's funny. Whenever I do a podcast like this, I'm like, oh, how much more information can I really, I mean, hasn't it all been said and done before?

Speaker 2 But I've actually, you've said a few things here where I'm like, wow, I didn't know that. Yeah.
Like, this is, no, this is really great. I'm actually enjoying this conversation.

Speaker 2 Now, I don't mean to sound surprised, but I'm just saying I have more questions for you. Perfect.

Speaker 1 We're here for it.

Speaker 2 Okay, so tell me, like, specifically, what are the benefits that someone would get from just doing something like this four or five times a year?

Speaker 1 Okay, tons. But I'm going to name some of my favorites.
Okay. And I'm going to, I'm assuming like most of your audience are kind of health optimizers in a lot of ways.
Yeah, a lot of them are.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to focus on some of those ones that are beneficial for everybody, but also worth noting and like to anybody listening, if you have something that you're interested in, you want to see if fasting mimicking may help with that.

Speaker 1 There's some really cool studies in autoimmune health, in oncology, in metabolic health, a ton of really great data and research on that too.

Speaker 1 So the stuff that I want to call out though is biological age. So we've been able to show that with just three cycles of fasting mimicking, you can reverse your biological age by two and a half years.

Speaker 1 Is there an extra extra kid around here somewhere?

Speaker 2 Because you're really 105, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. A surprise.

Speaker 1 But by the way, the next thing that I was going to say is skin health.

Speaker 1 And what we've been able to show is with even just one five-day cycle 25 improvement in skin hydration reduction in fine lines improvement in skin texture and so like you know all by doing a prolon diet for five days for five days for five days and prove it yeah well honestly this is i can because there's so many people well first of all there's a clinical trial and they put 40 women on a fasting mimicking kit and then they put the other half not on like just regular diet and they looked at it not just asking them like hey does your skin look and feel better they also did something called a visia and an antera score which is like an actual measure of what your skin health is like how it's yeah performing and they they tested that before and after one cycle and three cycles and even after the first cycle there's that 25 improvement so like this is that that is the proof in one way but i also will call out like i said like there's now been over a million people that have done fasting mimicking with prolon and if you go on like like the facebook and groups where people are are sharing their experience so many people now are taking a picture of their face on day zero and on day six and the difference is visible in the pictures Really?

Speaker 2 Yes. Like the inflammation in their face like completely well yeah they haven't eaten they're gone.

Speaker 1 No like bags under their eyes. Their skin looks more vibrant and hydrated and glowing.

Speaker 2 And it's like, it's it's just like the little things that you're going to be able to do. It doesn't come back, but yeah, but does the get like once you start eating again?

Speaker 2 Yeah, of course you're going to be gaunt.

Speaker 1 But then you'll, you'll have.

Speaker 1 It's not, it's not gaunt. It's like the inflammation.
It's like the puffiness, like the bags under the eyes kind of thing.

Speaker 2 Like in six days of not eating,

Speaker 2 like you're going to look, you know, much less.

Speaker 1 bloated.

Speaker 1 Totally, totally. And I, and, and by the way, I'm definitely not saying that some of this is water weight.
Yeah. Some like absolutely.
Yeah. Absolutely.
That's a part, right? Right.

Speaker 1 But we also know that as well as that, and even though you might like regain those three pounds or two pounds of water weight that you lost, the real fat loss is going to be pretty hard for you to regain in the three to four months before your next round.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And 100%

Speaker 1 you're going to

Speaker 1 do this for once a month for three months in a row as your kickstart.

Speaker 1 Like if your goal is weight loss, if that's why you're doing it and you do your first round and you lose, you know, five to 10 pounds and then you your goal is like 20 or 30 pounds like you'll you'll want to do it in like consecutively monthly until you reach that goal most people find that like three to four consecutive will get them where they need to go we have some amazing results on like metabolic health and so many other things even beyond weight loss because you know weight loss at the end of the day is kind of like this cherry on top to all of the deep cellular cleanup benefits that you get.

Speaker 1 But also like, yeah, sure. If that's what brings you in and makes you want to try this, I am so game for you to try it and see those results.
Then you'll start seeing all the other things that happen.

Speaker 1 Even like behavior change. I mean, I could go on and on, but all of the benefits.
Behavior change? Yes.

Speaker 1 There's a super cool study that just came out this year with fasting, mimicking, and people with type 2 diabetes.

Speaker 1 So just like, as an aside, fasting, mimicking has been able to show that in as little as like four to six months, people are coming off of their meds to the point where they don't even need to be on any more diabetes medication.

Speaker 1 Like this is really impactful.

Speaker 1 There's now programs that are called diabetes remission and regression programs that use once a month fasting mimicking to get people off of their meds and no longer have the diabetes diagnosis or pre-diabetes diagnosis.

Speaker 1 Like really impactful.

Speaker 1 But in one of these studies where they were able to show that, they did this assessment where they asked them at the beginning how much they were working out and at the end how much they were working out.

Speaker 1 And they didn't tell them, hey, by the way, like on top of the fasting, mimicking diet or on top of this nutrition program that we put you on, could you also work out? They didn't say that.

Speaker 1 They just checked on these schedules that they were filling out, how often they were working out. And what they showed is that the fasting, mimicking diet group increased their physical activity.

Speaker 1 without being told by four hours a week. And then the regular diet, everyday healthy diet group, decreased their physical activity by six hours a week at the end of the six month period.

Speaker 1 And it's like, how and why? Why? Yeah. Right.
And so the research, I mean, there's only

Speaker 1 so much that we can know for sure, but there's some guesses that we have, which is that one, you feel lighter, but also stronger.

Speaker 1 So when you feel stronger and lighter at the same time, because we're not tapping into muscle, you feel more energized and ready to like go hit the gym or even go for a walk or whatever it might be.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 The other thing is, is that you've completed five days and you're done and you feel good about yourself. You feel like you accomplished something.

Speaker 1 It's not like, oh my God, I have to do this for the rest of my life every day and you never get like a win. You get a win at the end on day six.
Like, I'm done. I did it.
Good job for me. Amazing.

Speaker 2 So that's exactly, I was going to say, that's a big one. It's a huge one.
Yeah. I gave a, I gave, um, I like, I was telling a few of my friends, we should do it together kind of thing.

Speaker 2 So that was the big thing I noticed with a lot of my friends who are like very competitive or type A personalities. They wanted to finish it because it's like, okay, well, it's only five days.

Speaker 2 Let's see if I can do it.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 And it was like, like it's like i can i can do anything for five days right like exactly you know and so and the fact that there's an end point right like it's not like it's gonna go drone on like an intermittent fasting forever and ever right like so i i understand that that makes sense so basically let me just like kind of summarize the behavioral changes the skin the weight loss um biological age biological age that's a big one i'm gonna metabolic health i'm gonna do it today um i'll i want to look like i'm 25 again do you think if i just do if i just keep on like doubling and tripling it, will that work?

Speaker 2 If I just just do it week after week after week? No.

Speaker 1 I'm joking.

Speaker 2 I'm joking. I'm joking.

Speaker 1 But people do ask me that seriously all of the time.

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh, really?

Speaker 1 For real. Because

Speaker 1 you can imagine, like, okay, yes, it's hard, but some people find it easier than they expected. Yeah.

Speaker 1 A lot of people find that they feel incredible on day six and they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, I don't want to go back to the

Speaker 1 bad feeling. You know, or like, I don't want to be not energized again.
Like, they have fear of like where they entered versus where they are now. And they're like, How do I just keep this going?

Speaker 1 And wow. And it's awesome.
It's like, it's great. But then I, you know, people will say, well, I'll just do like water only fasting for another five days or I'll just keep it going.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, okay, there is too much of a good thing at the end of the day. And we don't want to overstress your body.

Speaker 1 And with the other thing that we want to do is the beauty of the five days is that you have 25 other days and sometimes like three months in between to eat regular, healthy nutrition that then rebuilds.

Speaker 1 So it's more than just like, like in my spring cleaning analogy, you find that you have like really rickety dining room chairs, and that's the stuff that you're going to go say, like, we got to get rid of these.

Speaker 1 You throw those in the trash. Well, you're not just going to live without dining room chairs.
You have to go and get new dining room chairs that will refill that space. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And that is what happens when we eat regular nutrition in between our cycles of fasting. And we're rebuilding, we're filling up the space.

Speaker 1 We're creating new cellular components and the things that will actually make the cell thrive and be younger than it was before.

Speaker 2 How about brain?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So there's some cool stuff happening in brain health for sure.
There's a lot of things that we attribute to that.

Speaker 1 One being you probably hear about ketosis and the keto diet being really good for brain health because ketones can enter through the blood-brain barrier.

Speaker 1 So Part of some of the benefits that we see with fasting is probably somewhat attributed to the ketosis.

Speaker 1 But where we differ from the the keto diet is that the keto diet will not be able to really activate autophagy. It's not going to be able to do the cellular cleanup and rejuvenation.

Speaker 1 So while you get high ketones, you're not getting the cellular cleanup. And that's where fasting and fasting mimicking gives you the best of both worlds.

Speaker 1 You get the ketones, you get the brain fuel, you get the energy from the ketones in your brain.

Speaker 1 And you're also kind of giving your brain a break from always using sugar all of the time, which is also helpful. All of those things are great, but you also get the cellular cleanup and rejuvenation.

Speaker 1 And I have, I'm going to be very, very cautious here

Speaker 1 because it is mice studies and it's early data, but there have been

Speaker 1 research done and fasting mimicking in mice models, in mice models of Alzheimer's. And they've been able to show removal of the beta amyloid plaques and improvements in the cow fibers and all of the

Speaker 1 things that we're seeing as problematic in that condition.

Speaker 1 So again, very early and it's mice models, but I anticipate that that we'll see a lot more research in that space, seeing as we can see a lot of benefit there.

Speaker 2 That's really interesting. So there's a lot, I mean, this is a thing, right?

Speaker 2 With, and then let's move off of this whole fast mimicking thing, but like, I find it interesting because the truth of the matter is, when you say the word to people, a lot of people like have done it before.

Speaker 2 I know multiple people that have done like you said, 15 times, 10 times. A lot of doctor friends of mine are like huge advocates for this.
They prescribe it to their patients.

Speaker 1 like it's actually like a thing where like people really like are doing this like a lot if you this if you just like dig a little bit like people who are like very like top health practitioners for sure i would say that the vast majority of the people that you're hearing on air or on social are probably they probably know about fasting mimicking yeah and are big believers in it whether they're they've announced it to the world or not yeah because the research is like so hard to deny you can't yet we have like as as i mentioned mentioned, like over a million people that have gone through fasting mimicking and continue to do it today.

Speaker 1 There are also 20,000 physicians and practitioners that are recommending this in

Speaker 1 the Prolon database, but that's only a small segment of the people that are in fact referring it because not everybody knows that they can work directly with Prolon to help get this to their patients.

Speaker 1 So yeah. So, I mean, it's, it's like, it's really, it's starting to spread.

Speaker 1 It's starting to get its legs, even though, yeah, of course, it's like a little bit challenging, but it's like, it's also something that you only have to do three times a year. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's so impactful. Right.
And the research is there. So.

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Speaker 2 Okay, enough of a prolon already. Okay, and fast mimicking and water diets.
And

Speaker 2 is there anything besides that now? I mean, God, like, is there what for longevity that we haven't heard at nauseum of what's like the things to do? And how about things not to do?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So I think the big one that I'm going to call out, and I'm already afraid of the comments that are going to come my way for this one, but is the protein debate.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's a big one. It's a big one.
Oh, it's like everything. It's like, it's so much now.

Speaker 1 It's outrageous.

Speaker 2 It's beyond. I mean, like, unless you're eating a cow at every meal, you're like shunned over 40.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 It's crazy. The peer pressure to eat protein and so much of it.

Speaker 1 So much. And so much of it.
And it's like, okay, well, look, I have seen the data that is suggesting that you should be eating so, so much protein.

Speaker 1 And I do recognize that muscle is so critical to longevity. I am not going to deny that having strong muscles and having muscle density as you enter into your 60s is critical.
I believe that 100%.

Speaker 1 But do you need to be having 100 million grams of protein every single day? Like one gram per pound is kind of what I've been starting to hear a lot more. And that's just really outrageous.

Speaker 1 And why I say outrageous, it's not just outrageous.

Speaker 1 There's research kind of starting, well, that has been around actually for quite a long time, showing the exact opposite, showing that if you have way too much protein, that you can increase your risk of age-related age-related diseases, especially cancer, and especially when you have certain types of protein, especially animal-based proteins.

Speaker 1 So, you know, it doesn't mean that you have to go fully vegan or plant-based by any means, but it does mean that if you are excessively consuming a lot of animal protein, you are sure possibly going to get muscle density if you're also doing weight-bearing exercise.

Speaker 1 But you may also be increasing your risk of cancer and age-related disease disease because it's it is like a very careful balance. And so as with anything, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

Speaker 1 I really caution people with these this like massive protein intake push that we're starting to see. Like starting to see pull it back a little bit.
Okay. A lot of it.

Speaker 2 I would say it's not starting. It's been like, this is part of the whole meta, like there's a whole trend of menopause, perimetopause, protein, wearing a weighted vest, all these things.

Speaker 2 It's like things go into these crazy trends and cycles that just are outrageous and

Speaker 2 just takes it and just they be they're beating a dead horse. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like if something is doing well, they'll just keep beating it and beating it and beating it until like it's just like, all right, I can't look at another thing about menopause, perimetopause, protein, weighted vest, creatine.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 2 enough. I mean, when's the next trend starting? Like, that's what I want to know, right? Because like, I get it.
But I think, like you said, like sometimes like less is more, right?

Speaker 2 It doesn't mean that now they told you to eat 100 grams. Now it's going to be, oh, no, no, no, you have to have 200 grams.

Speaker 1 Like, it's crazy.

Speaker 2 It's like three, 200 grams. And it's like, oh, no, five milligrams of creatine.
Oh, no. It's actually 10 milligrams to get the real benefit.
Like five is like for toddlers.

Speaker 2 You need to be at 10 to get the brain benefits or get this benefit. Like it's never ending.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 And this is with supplements. This is with everything.
Like it's all, it's more is more.

Speaker 2 It's more is more is more is more yeah and in my experience with life it's actually with everything less is more right like so i'm now like i'm i'm going i'm actually now like cutting back on the supplements cutting back on these extra stuff like unless my body actually says i need it which means the best thing you could probably do in my opinion is get your blood tested four times a year or quarterly or twice a year or whatever i think it's twice a year maybe just so you see what you're deficient in and then supplement on those yes right 1000 hyper personalize to yourself i mean that's like at the end of the day the core of nutrition is that we're all different and we all need our own unique protocols and like we love to make everything so black and white yeah we love to be like protein is good carbs are bad so now that's like the way to go and everybody should just be having a lot of protein and no carbs and i'm like okay i i It seems like a little bit of a black and white situation.

Speaker 1 And sure, maybe there are populations, by the way, that like we know for sure that a ketogenic diet can be helpful, like with people with seizures, for example.

Speaker 1 There's some a lot of research that shows that that can be super helpful there. But does that mean that it's good for absolutely everybody?

Speaker 2 Exactly. And also, like in general, I just feel like this is like a real hot topic for me because I just find like everything just has become so exacerbated online.

Speaker 2 Like if something, like I said, like then it's everything just overkill, overkill, overkill. Like basics, though, are the one, like keeping it basic.

Speaker 2 Exercise daily, move your body daily, you know, eat moderately well. Like the fasting thing, I understand, because it's like you said, four or five times a year.

Speaker 2 That makes sense to me. Like, but all the diets, like, how about this whole thing? Have you heard of this diet? Oh, man.
It's like a big one now, too.

Speaker 2 You said it. I said it, keto? Yeah, yeah, not keto.
It's like something else. Circadian rhythm.
No, no, no. I don't remember what it is.

Speaker 1 Oh, my gosh. I don't know.

Speaker 2 It's going to drive me crazy, too.

Speaker 1 Hold on a second.

Speaker 2 I have to find it what it is.

Speaker 2 Well, while I'm looking to find this diet, is there anything else? Like, give us some other things that are not so

Speaker 1 obvious.

Speaker 2 Oh, what do you think about for longevity? The sauna, the cold plunge, things like that.

Speaker 1 For sure. Okay, so I'm a big fan of the infrared saunas, especially.
I think that they're incredible and there is a good deal of research there.

Speaker 1 Cold plunging, by the way, I have slightly changed my mind on it. I was a huge cold plunge fan and I have started to decrease my appreciation for it.

Speaker 1 I started to look a little bit more at the research and it's very conflicting.

Speaker 1 Now, what we know for sure is that like your body, when you go into these very cold plunge type things, there's going to be increase in your metabolic rate as your body tries to heat you back up again.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 So there is potentially like some benefits for calorie burning and weight loss, but like a lot of even some of the recovery stuff that people have been touting and a lot of the benefits that we're seeing with cold punching may not be as big as we think they are.

Speaker 1 And in my opinion, cold punching is so hard. Horrible.
It's horrible. And I'm like, just no.

Speaker 1 Like if it's, if we're not even sure if this is going to be super beneficial, I'm just going to go in the infrared sauce.

Speaker 2 Listen, this, the way I see it is I hate that cold plunge. It's like the bane of my existence.
Anything that I like, I think, why suffer more than you have to at this point? I prefer getting the,

Speaker 2 again, things to me are common sense, right? Like you sweat out the toxins. That makes sense.

Speaker 2 It's not that, it's not as like brutal as going into like a minus like frigid, you know, icebox, basically. I also think like just, I've heard the hormone disruption for women is not great.

Speaker 2 I also heard that it's it's not great for muscle atrophy. These are all real things that I, and I believe the sources I'm,

Speaker 2 and because I hate it, I'm gonna,

Speaker 2 I'm gonna now lean into those. The sauna I like, you know, but okay, after I yelled at you about like enough about the fast mimicking, I do have a couple questions though.
Do you mind?

Speaker 2 No, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 Okay, because I forgot.

Speaker 2 I do have to ask these questions because I know people will ask me and I'll be like, oh, I didn't even ask.

Speaker 2 Okay. And after I just like basically railed on it, why is fast mimicking is the fast mimicking diet good for people who are going through menopause okay so this is a great question first

Speaker 1 I know that there has been a lot of talk about fasting being not good for women and I think first what I want to say is that that is based off of the fact that there is limited research in women's health with fasting so a lot of like very

Speaker 1 uh what's the word I'm looking for, but people who are very cautious will say, well, because the research isn't there, then it could be problematic.

Speaker 1 and this is why it could be problematic and so you just shouldn't do it but there are at least with fasting mimicking a lot of data on women about

Speaker 1 i would say 90 of this those 47 studies have been done with about 50 or more women and we're seeing all of those wonderful results even it's not like only the men are seeing these benefits.

Speaker 1 The other thing that we are concerned about specifically for women when we talk about fasting is the stress response and the higher levels of of cortisol, which if we are especially skipping breakfast, that can be very dysregulating and can cause some problems.

Speaker 1 So yes, I'm

Speaker 1 not a big recommender of intermittent fasting every day, especially skipping breakfast,

Speaker 1 especially for women. But with fasting mimicking, because we're giving nutrition, we're limiting a lot of that.

Speaker 1 So I know a lot of physicians and practitioners that for women, especially in midlife, they're only recommending fasting mimicking.

Speaker 2 Interesting. Okay.

Speaker 1 For that reason.

Speaker 1 Because it's just gentler on the body and you still get the benefits.

Speaker 2 Okay. The other question we didn't answer before, so I want to kind of circle back and then we can wrap is athletes or people who work out all the time.
How do they do it? Do they just not do it?

Speaker 2 Like, do you not work out as you do it or just do walking, as you would like to say?

Speaker 1 So, okay, well, I'm going to give you the official answer. The official answer is that you should limit your activity to like walking, stretching, recovery during those five days.

Speaker 1 So we have a lot of athletes that do this protocol. They're gen, well, they're always going to do it during offseason.

Speaker 1 They're not doing it when they're like in the middle of season going hard every single day. Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 Like it's, it's just, that would be a huge stress on the body, too much of a stress on the body.

Speaker 1 And we're trying to, like, even like with cold plunging and infrared sauna, and same with exercise, like, we don't want to quadruple layer on stress on the body. Right.

Speaker 1 So when you're in a fasted, these prolonged fasted states, like everything else, you can kind of just chill. But again, you could go back to your exercise hard before and after.

Speaker 1 And there are still people that will claim that they can do it all and that they can exercise while they fast. But for me, I'm like, just take five days to just like pull it back, focus on stretching.

Speaker 1 There's so many, like do, do meditation, do like a sound bath, do different modalities. Yeah, do like a light yoga class.

Speaker 1 Like there's so many other things that you can do to move your body and be active during those five days, a grand total, like 15, 20 days a year, where you're just going to chill back for a sec.

Speaker 2 Okay. I did work out, like I told you, and it was hard.
But like, it's more of a ment. I have like a monkey mind.

Speaker 2 So this is what I'm saying with people who have like a monkey mind like mine or have like serious like inability to sit still, it is challenging. Right.

Speaker 2 So what when I say I worked out, though, I have to be honest, I didn't like, I wasn't like hardcore doing like Tabatas and hits and, you know, I was doing the walking and I was doing like very lightweights but yeah it's okay I mean like you can manage without for you know you don't have to like kill it for every single day so that makes sense I like that is there anything else that we can talk about regarding like any information that you've seen regarding longevity and diet that has not been said a million times and then some yeah I mean I think I mean there's so there's so much in this world um I think one thing that maybe we're not talking about enough is now with the rise of exogenous ketones, I've spent some time like looking into that.

Speaker 1 And what is that?

Speaker 1 So it's like, have you seen,

Speaker 1 oh gosh, what's the name of it? There's like, I think it's called Keto Mongeau. There's like a, or no, that's, that's one of the, the trackers, but

Speaker 1 various like drinks that are, they taste awful, but they're packed with ketones. So you drink them and it's supposed to just give you this increase in ketosis.

Speaker 1 So instead of actually letting your body get into ketosis all by itself,

Speaker 1 you're just taking ketones, which we call exogenous ketones. And this is like super new.

Speaker 1 I mean, relatively new. There's one brand that I actually think is pretty decent.
It's a full drink and it's called Holy Water and it doesn't taste like absolute trash. Okay.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 the reality is that the research just isn't really there yet.

Speaker 1 And what we're seeing is that a lot of people who are trying to add these ketones to just like drink them, maybe, yeah, it's going to increase your ketosis or increase the number of ketones in your blood, but is it actually helping you?

Speaker 1 And this is like kind of where I come back to like sometimes hacking the system is just never going to do as well as if your body just does it on its own.

Speaker 1 If your body is going to be able to get into ketosis through fasting or through a keto diet, it's doing the work. It's going to run out of sugar and then it's going to make its own ketones from fat.

Speaker 1 And that's part of the magic. Like if you're hacking the system and you're just giving the ketones, you're losing all of the pre-work and benefits of actually making it in your own body.

Speaker 1 And what we also have been able to see now is that when you take these exogenous ketones, it may even limit your body's ability to make their own ketones.

Speaker 1 So people do ask me, and this one I just find is interesting, like, oh, can I just add exogenous ketones when I'm doing fasting?

Speaker 1 And my answer is always no, because it could very well impact your body's own ability to get there and create some of these benefits.

Speaker 1 And so I guess like that's a very long way of saying that when we do fasting and fasting mimicking, don't just assume that because it didn't change your blood sugar or that it, you know, kept you in ketosis, that it's not impacting the benefits.

Speaker 1 Same with protein. Like so many people are like, I'm just going to drink some bone broth while I do this.
No, it's going to, it's going to ruin it.

Speaker 2 That's exactly what I was going to say. Why can't you just drink some bone broth?

Speaker 2 Although you're, so Prolon does have these soups. Yes.
So, I mean, it's, it's a good. The soups are much better than they used to be, from what I understand.

Speaker 2 I only knew these soups, but but the bone broth is a big one. I thought, why not? Why can't you just have the bone broth?

Speaker 1 Right. Well, you'll notice that all of the soups in a Prolon kit, for example, are all plant-based.
It's like tomato, minestrone, et cetera.

Speaker 2 The protein, I get it. I get it.
I get it now. Now I understand.
I'm learning it now. I got it.
I got it, Renee. Okay.

Speaker 2 Okay, so that's this, this is good information.

Speaker 2 I learned something from this podcast. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Good. Thanks for being here.
Thank you so much for having me. It's always such a pleasure to hang out with you.
It's a fellow Canadian.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Of course.
I mean, this is like our bond right there. Another Canadian.
How do you not like a Canadian, right?

Speaker 2 Well, these days, maybe it's a little bit different, but we won't get into that situation.

Speaker 2 Thank you for being here, Renee. How do people find out more about anything, about what you're doing and who you are?

Speaker 1 And for sure. Well, you can definitely check me out on Instagram.
I'm at Fitten Nutrition. That's F-I-T-T-O-N Nutrition.
I also have a website, fitnutrition.com.

Speaker 1 If you are curious about learning more about the Prolon kits and fasting mimicking, I would direct you to prolonlife.com. That's P-R-O-L-O-N life.com.

Speaker 1 And for people who, by the way, do want to do fasting mimicking for disease

Speaker 1 and for metabolic health and some of the more advanced reasons why you might want to consider this, I would recommend a company called El Nutra Health.

Speaker 1 Their website is l-n-ut-ra-ahealth.com.

Speaker 2 Thanks, Renee.

Speaker 1 Awesome. Bye.