Fasting Mimicking Diet: Benefits Of Fasting While You Eat

Hello Health Champions. Today we're going to talk about the fasting mimicking diet.

That is how you can still eat a little
bit while still getting most of the

benefits of fasting so we're gonna talk
about what the fasting mimicking diet

traditionally is but we're also gonna
try to understand it and see how we can

improve it. Coming right up hey I'm Dr.
Ekberg I'm a holistic doctor and a

former Olympic decathlete and if you
want to truly master health by

understanding how the body really works
make sure you subscribe and hit that

notification bell so you don't miss
anything. So the fasting mimicking diet

is a thing it's a patented method and it
was developed by Valter Longo he's got a

PhD and he's been doing research for a
long time he's originally from Italy but

he's in California for the most part and
he's been doing a lot of research on

fasting and aging and nutrition and how
calorie restriction and different

metabolites and hormones affect these
different variables and in that process

he came up with a way where you can get
most of the benefits of fasting while

still eating a little bit and this is a
big step forward because a lot of people

need the benefits of fasting but a lot
of people are not willing to go on a

five-day water fast they're not capable
or ready mentally to make that shift so

what the fasting mimicking diet says is
that you can get the same benefits which

are basically you can lower blood
glucose you can lower blood pressure you

can reduce insulin you can reduce
triglycerides you can reduce

inflammation all of these measured on
blood work and it is very powerful in

losing weight and all of these are of
course involved with insulin resistance

and metabolic syndrome so if you find a
way to reduce insulin resistance to

unclog the body to stop the clogging
process

you're gonna get a lot of these benefits
and the method was in large part

originally developed for treatment of
cancer for part of treatment for cancer

so it is inducing and maintaining
autophagy which has been shown to be able

to reduce cancer prevent reverse cancer
etc so here's the principle of that diet

is that you reduce your calories
dramatically for about five days and

during that time you also reduce the
carbs you reduce the protein and you

increase the fat so you're gonna eat 800
calories and 47% of those are gonna be

carbs only 9% are going to be protein
and 44% are gonna be fat so now you're

gonna say depending on what your
background is if you never heard of low

carb or keto you're gonna say that oh
well that sounds interesting

if you've already done a lot of keto and
low carb you go oh my god what do you

mean low carb that's sky high carb and
that's true so when they say that this

is low carb low protein high fat that's
relative to the standard American diet

because that promotes sixty or more
percent of calories from carbohydrate so

when we take them down to 47 then that's
lower and when we increase the fat to 44

that's more than the 30% that's
recommended so we all have to put this

in perspective and we have to realize
that most of these this method these

benefits are for people who have never
made any changes before so in terms of

grams what this means is you would eat
about 94 grams of carbs 18 grams of

protein and 39 grams of fat and again if
you've done low carb and keto then

you're gonna go that's not low carb
that's like three four times the carbs

that I eat so we all have to remember
that and put that in perspective so the

biggest change the main difference that
the most radical departure from any diet

is the low protein and there's a reason
for that and it is that you have all

these different nutrient sensors in the
body you have the the insulin and you

have the mTOR and the AMPK and so forth
and they respond differently to

different macronutrients and if we can
get the ratios right then we can

maintain we can induce we can maintain
and we can sustain autophagy so basically

the number one thing that turns off autophagy is protein so autophagy is the

recycling mechanism to clean up it's a
very powerful healing and detox and

repair mechanism that we have in the
body but it primarily responds to

protein so the whole deal with this
fasting mimicking diet is that you can

maintain autophagy even if you eat 800
calories as long as your proteins are

very low so that's the key that we have
to have in mind so then the idea is that

you do this for five days per month so
in the beginning assuming that you're

going from just any old diet whatever
that have got you sick in the first

place then for five days you eat 800
calories with this macro arrangement and

then you do that three times so for five
days you eat low carb then the rest of

the month
you eat so-called normal and you do that

three months and then once you've gone
through it for three months you probably

have reversed a lot of these markers and
then you can go back to eating your

normal diet and then you maintain your
health by doing this once every three

months or once every six months
depending on what your lifestyle is and

what your tendencies are for insulin resistance and weight

gain and so forth so part of this patent
and part of this whole idea is that you

can also buy a package you can order a
package and you pay some money and you

get everything that you're gonna eat for
that period of time and the advantage is

that you get the exact calories you get
the exact macronutrients you get the

exact proportions and you don't have to
think about it there's no learning curve

you just open up the box and you do what
it says so it's very very convenient but

now the question is though is it optimal
is this really the absolute best way to

do this which we're going to talk about
and is it cost effective so this just

depends on where are you on your
learning curve are you willing to spend

the money or are you willing to learn if
you have a little bit of money you don't

mind spending it and you are not willing
to take the time to learn then go for

the package because you're gonna be able
to get a lot of these benefits without

changing a whole lot of other things but
on the question if it's optimal I would

argue that it's not and that we can by
being willing to learn which is why

you're watching this channel in the
first place

by will being willing to learn we can
enhance this we can do it at a much

lower cost and we can get even better
results so really what the package is

about it's getting some or getting
significant benefits with the least

amount of change and learning right so
it's not a bad thing I'm it's awesome

because the vast majority of the
population have never heard of low carb

or nutrition or whole food and they're
not there yet so this is a great entry

place for those people but if you're
willing to learn a little more than we

can take it one step further so I want
to talk about how we can make this even

better how do we get the optimum benefit
and how do we spend less money and how

do we maintain it how do we not just go
for some benefit but we go for the

optimal long-term benefit right so if we
combine Keto or low carb high fat if we

have the body fat adapted already when
we do the fasting mimicking diet then

we're gonna be in a much much better
place so here's what that would look

like so the calories on a typical keto
diet would be about 2,000 and then we

have about 5% carbs 20% protein and 75%
of calories from fat and this is kind of

vary depending on the size of the person
anywhere from 1,500 to 3,500 maybe the

carbs are going to vary maybe from 5% or
from 0% to 10% so these are just rough

numbers but you get the idea if we
convert that to grams on a traditional

ketogenic diet we're gonna be maybe 25
grams of fat hundred grams of protein

and 150 170 grams of fat now if we take
that if we take the fasting mimicking

diet a little step further and remember
that they they came up with these

numbers probably because it's better
than the standard diet all right they

have to do certain things to get results
without rocking the boat too much right

it's a step in the right direction and
to avoid a lot of the controversy they

probably decided that people are used to
having their carbs so if we let them eat

a little bit of carbs then they're gonna
feel more like normal but what I would

suggest this if we take this with a keto
approach then we take it down to 800

calories and we keep our 25 grams of
carbs that we are accustomed to in our

ketogenic diet so whatever you're doing
just keep doing that if you're on keto

if not then learn some of the keto stuff
before and we

got lots of videos for that and then the
protein is going to be the big change

it's gonna go from a hundred grams down
to 18 grams because we're reducing both

the number of calories and the
percentage so this is the key this is

the reason the fasting mimicking diet
works is the very low amount of protein

that is going to sustain the autophagy it's
going to allow you to eat some food but

still be in autophagy and with the
autophagy you get all those anti-aging

benefits you get the healing benefits
you get the stem-cell benefits and so

forth and then the fat is going to be a
very high percentage at 78% but the

total amount will be lower because we're
eating less food so if you're already

fat adapted which would be awesome then
you're not going to have any problem

still eating one or two meals a day if
you've done some intermittent fasting

and that's why it's so such a good idea
to be in keto and low carb high fat

before and if you've done intermittent
fasting then this is going to be such a

smooth transition if you go straight
from a standard American diet into doing

the fasting mimicking diet then you're
probably going to be able to suffer

through the five days you're gonna tell
yourself I can do five days but you'll

feel miserable while your body is
transitioning and getting into fat

burning and so forth but if you're
already fat burning it's gonna be really

smooth so let's expand a little bit on
the benefits we have we talked about

these benefits of fasting that we're
going to still get most of them with the

fasting mimicking but what's the benefit
of doing the keto modified a keto

fasting mimicking diet as opposed to
regular fasting mimicking diet well

if you get fat adapted first then you're
gonna have a much easier transition and

you're gonna get deeper levels of autophagy and insulin reduction

insulin resistance so we want to
understand that insulin resistance and

autophagy is not a switch that you flip
it's not an on-and-off thing it's a

gradual thing you have more or less of
it even people on a standard American

diet are gonna have a some amount of
autophagy just that's just how the body

cleans up but you're gonna have many
many many many times more autophagy

which is what we're looking for if you
do the fasting here we're just look into

increase the benefits to get a higher
percentage of benefit so if we think

about this as insulin resistance on
these two graphs then if you're doing

the standard American diet if you sort
of think that if you don't want to learn

anything and you just think hey I'm
gonna eat normal which is high carb

whatever they recommend and then I'm
gonna suffer for five days then you're

gonna get a yo-yo thing you're you're
gonna get some benefits but then in

between you're basically just going to
eat enough garbage again enough insulin

stimulating food to offset the benefits
you're not going to get a huge amount of

long-term improvement so the red would
be insulin resistance that while you're

eating normal you are still sort of
promoting insulin resistance and then

you do your five day fasting mimicking
and you get some insulin sensitivity you

get some etaf Egeus and benefits but
then you go right back so the fasting

mimicking is just enough to offset the
other bad stuff that you do whereas if

you do a low carb if you're already
reversing insulin resistance then the

you're already below the line you're not
promoting insulin resistance at any time

in the month now you're gonna get a much
much deeper effect you're gonna have it

for a longer period of time
you're

get into it much quicker because you're
basically already there and the total

benefit the amount of reversing insulin
resistance is going to be much larger

and now you are not just compensating
for what the bad stuff that you do

you're actually moving toward long-term
health and if we imagine a similar

scenario for autophagy then it would
be almost the same except that autophagy

would be present to a lesser degree
that if you're eating your standard high

carb processed food regular food diet
then you would just barely get in it

would take you a few days to get into so
you're doing this for five days it

probably takes you a good two days three
days even to get into a significant

amount of autophagy and then you go right
back to eating and now you're kind of

undoing that and you're just getting
ready for the next five days to to

recover whereas if you're on a ketogenic
diet and you're eating two or three

meals you're probably not in a ton of
autophagy but you're you get more autophagy

than if you ate a high carb diet
during the time that you're fasting

you're not so far away from the auto
fuji so you're more likely to have some

degree of autophagy in the mornings for
example when before you eat so now

instead of having two three days to get
into autophagy you're probably in

autophagy within 12, 18, 24 hours because
you're so close already and now you can

spend almost the entire five days just
building on that momentum and then when

you get back out
you're not instantly undoing all the

good that you did so why would we do
fasting mimicking as opposed to just

plain fasting because fasting is still
gonna get you all these benefits and it

will be even better but here's why the
fasting mimicking diet is better than a

water fast and the number one thing
obviously is that it

easier it's more acceptable for most
people and even if you're already fat

adapted it's still easier because it's
not such a mental barrier to to get into

it you know if you're going to be able
to eat a little bit then you could

probably go five days instead of maybe
two or three days on a water fast so you

go longer and therefore you get more of
the autophagy benefits with less effort

so to speak and if it's easier then you
can also do it more often

so if you just sort of had the the
mental strength to do a water fast of

three days every couple of months now
maybe you can do it once a month and not

really feel that it's much pressure and
the other issue is about weight so if

you have a ton of weight to lose
then you're gonna lose weight faster on

the water fast but if you don't have a
lot of weight to lose and if you want

some of these autophagy benefits so for me
it's hard to do a lot of long three four

five day water fast because I sort of
have to eat myself up I have to gain

back the weight between each time but if
I do a fasting mimicking diet then there

is less weight loss because I'm putting
in some calories I'm putting in maybe

roughly half or close to half of my
usual calories so the weight loss will

be a lot less it'll be easier to
maintain it longer and do it more often

and I still get that sustained autophagy
benefit and like I said the key to

understand is it that it's the protein
that you have to watch you get better

results if you watch the carbs as well
but it's the protein that's the key

you've got to keep that down which means
that this is basically a vegan diet for

these five days you're going to be vegan
because virtually every animal product

is going to have too much protein to
keep you

then that 18 to 20 gram range so I would
suggest that you get yourself your

glucose meter and your ketone meter and
you give this a try you start tracking

you start measuring and you see how
these numbers compare and you'll

probably find that your ketone will be
really good your glucose ketone ratio

will be really good even though you're
eating some calories you'll be able to

sustain your autophagy you'll be
getting most of these benefits even

while eating a little bit if you enjoyed
this video make sure you also take a

look at that one thank you so much for
watching and I'll see you in the next

video