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Post #65 – Fasting, the old new technology and panacea for Optimal Health – Part III

03 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by in Autophagy, Fasting, Ideal Body Weight, Lean Mass, Living to 120, Optimal Health, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Uncategorized, wellness

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In the Posts #63 and #64, I described that all fasting methods consist of some variations of these variables:

  1. What you eat or not eat,
  2. How much you eat or not eat,
  3. When you eat or not eat, and
  4. How frequently you repeat the process.

And, with these variables you can make all kinds of combinations. For example, you may have seen or heard of the following popular combinations:

  1. Water only Fast for, say, 1, 3, or 5 consecutive days; alternate day fasting; 5:2 fasting: fasting for 2 days and eating the other 5 days of the week.
  2. Calories Restricted Diet: 20% fewer calories per day, e.g., 1,600 calories per day when 2,000 is your regular intake
  3. Time-Restricted Feeding: 8:16 fasting: eating for 8 hours and fasting for 16 hours; 4:20 fasting, where you eat for 4 hours and fast for 20, etc.
  4. Fasting-Mimicking Diet: During fasting, you still eat but with certain restrictions on carbs and protein, so your body feels as if you are fasting.

So, what option is optimal for you or me, depends on a variety of variables including: state of your health, state of your fitness, your goals, your ability to follow the process in the short term or long term, any medicines you are taking, age, BMI.

There are a couple of important principles to remember while fasting.

Our bodies have Multiple Energy Sources: a) immediate energy from the food we eat, b) Glycogen stored in liver, and c) fat stored in the body, and d) lean body mass, and e) cellular debris. In different situations, body dips into appropriate energy source.

Chronobiology or body’s circadian clock dictates metabolism. For most people, metabolism is higher in the morning until early afternoon. So, it is better to eat heavier meals in at breakfast or lunch then at dinner.

The benefits of long-term fasting are numerous, seems almost too good to be true. But all theses have been demonstrated in research and personally I have experienced these:

  1. Lose weight
  2. Lose body fat, especially visceral fast, while retaining lean body mass
  3. Reverse diabetes, hypertension, lower LDL and many other health issues
  4. Become appreciative of tastes and smells of food
  5. Start to eat more mindfully
  6. Learn not to panic if food is not immediately available when feeling hungry
  7. Spend less time and money on food
  8. Improved mental and emotional outlook
  9. Increased lifespan and healthspan

Now for what works, what does not and how to make it work for you.

  1. Calorie Restricted Diet is the least effective for major weight loss: An important principle is that 1 pound of body weight does not always equal to 3500 calories. If you have tried to lose weight by counting calories, you know that by eating fewer calories by the same amount, you lose less weight in the second month than the first, and you less weight in the third month than the second and so on.

In fact, per Pennigton Biomedical Research Center Predictor Calculator, if I were to reduce my daily intake by 500 calories and keep it for a year, my weight loss over 12 months would look like the following:

Weight Predictor

As you can see from the chart, it gets harder and harder to lose weight by reducing number of calories and easy to hit a plateau.

  1. Calories restricted diet, however, does seem to offer benefits of both health span and lifespan 
  1. All other types for fasting are effective in weight loss and other benefits. What will work for you, depends upon your tolerance. 
  1. A good strategy often is to start with Time Restricted Feeding, work up to one or more days of water fasting or Fasting Mimicking Diets (FMD).

My wife Kimberly and I started with becoming conscious of how many hours we did not eat every day. And, then we tried to stretch that period to at least 12 hours every day and longer when possible. 

Next, we started with water only fasting for one day a week. For us, from Friday after dinner to Saturday dinner worked.

We did one-day-a-week water only fasts for about 4 to 5 weeks. We were working ourselves up to a 3-day and then a 5-day water only fast, but then we came across fasting mimicking diet programs. One such program is in the book: Grow a New Body, by Dr. Albert Villoldo.

Grow a new body

So, we moved to 5-day programs of fasting mimicking diet. We are doing the ProLon protocol that consists of prepackage food and supplements developed at the University of Southern California by Valter Longo and explained in his book, The Longevity Diet . We like the results.

The longevity Diet

Fasting does have side-effects that include headache, lethargy and low energy. But these tend to resolve themselves.  Drinking lots of water and staying hydrated really helps. On a longer fast, first day tends to be the most difficult.

And, finally, fasting is not recommended in the following situations,. It is best to check with your doctor and work under doctor’s supervision while fasting:

  1. For pregnant and lactating women or children
  2. If you are on any medications, especially for diabetes and hypertension
  3. If you are underweight
  4. If you are over 70 years old

Summary

  1. There are many benefits of fasting, from more mindful eating to reversing diseases and living longer.
  2. Several variables make up a fasting protocol: what, how, when and how frequently you eat or not eat.
  3. There are many types of fasting: water only fasts, calories restricted diet, time-restricted feeding, and fasting-mimicking diet. What is optimal for you depends on a number of factors related to your health, fitness, and goals.
  4. Three general principles that you can use as guide to choose a protocol that may best suit you are: multiple sources of energy, autophagy and chronobiology.
  5. Calories restricted diet is not the best for weight loss for long terms. However, you do get benefits of healthier and longer life
  6. You can start with time-restricted feeding, extend periods of not eating and then work up to multi-day fasting.
  7. Fasting mimicking diets are great ways to have the benefits of longer fasting.
  8. If you have any medical issues, fast only under the care of a medical doctor.

What do you think?

Have you an experience with fasting? What worked or not worked for you? What benefits or difficulties you faced while fasting?

I and the readers of this blog would love to hear from you and learn from you.

Please click on Comment to leave your comments or question so others can benefit from your input.

 

Post #28 – Eating for Optimal Health Part VII – Best beverage to drink is pure water

16 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in Ideal Body Weight, Lean Mass, Life-Span, Living to 120, meditation, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Vitality

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In blog post of 9/29/2014: So, what should you eat for optimal health?, I listed the seven basic principles I have extracted from the many diet books and resources I have studied. These principles are:

  1. What you eat, how much you eat and when you eat, all matter
  2. Eat clean
  3. Eat lots of vegetables and fruits
  4. Use only healthy fats and fat sources
  5. Incorporate sufficient proteins in your diet
  6. Best beverage to drink is pure water
  7. Add or subtract specific foods based on your personal needs

In the last posts, we discussed the first five of these principles. Today, let’s focus on the fifth principle: Best beverage to drink is pure water. And, as usual without any fluff stuff, let’s get to it.

I am sure by now you have heard over and over again, “Keep yourself hydrated.” Or “Drink plenty of water”. But why do we need to keep hydrated?

Water is the solvent for biochemical reactions and has unique physical properties (e.g., high specific heat) to absorb metabolic heat within the body.

Water is also essential for maintaining vascular volume and serves as the medium for transport within the body by supplying nutrients and removing waste. In addition, cell hydration has been has been suggested to be an important signal to regulate cell metabolism and gene expression.

Water is the largest component of human bodies. About 70% of our body weight is water. To maintain homeostasis, i.e., equilibrium in our biology, we need to replenish the daily water loss. Water loss comes from breathing out, sweating, urination and excretion.

You may have noticed feeling sluggish if you are dehydrated. In fact dehydration can bring on a variety of symptoms:

Mild to moderate dehydration is likely to cause:

  • Dry, sticky mouth
  • Sleepiness or tiredness — children are likely to be less active than usual
  • Thirst
  • Decreased urine output
  • No wet diapers for three hours for infants
  • Few or no tears when crying
  • Dry skin
  • Headache
  • Constipation
  • Dizziness or lightheadedness

Severe dehydration, a medical emergency, can cause:

  • Extreme thirst
  • Extreme fussiness or sleepiness in infants and children; irritability and confusion in adults
  • Very dry mouth, skin and mucous membranes
  • Little or no urination — any urine that is produced will be darker than normal
  • Sunken eyes
  • Shriveled and dry skin that lacks elasticity and doesn’t “bounce back” when pinched into a fold
  • In infants, sunken fontanels — the soft spots on the top of a baby’s head
  • Low blood pressure
  • Rapid heartbeat
  • Rapid breathing
  • No tears when crying
  • Fever
  • In the most serious cases, delirium or unconsciousness

Many diseases are linked to dehydration. These include kidney stones, gall stones, bladder, colon and other cancers, arrhythmias, blood clots, Mitral Valve Prolapse, and Osteoporosis.

How much water do we need?

So, given that we need to keep body hydrated, that is, replace the H2O we lose daily with equivalent amount of H2O, how much water do we need everyday?

Institute of Medicine of the National Academies report on Dietary Reference Intake for Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride and Sulfate recommends the following DAILY Recommended intakes for water for different age groups:

For Children

1–3 years         1.3 L total; 0.9 L (4 cups) as beverages

4–8 years         1.7 L total; 1.2 L (5 cups) as beverages

For Males

9–13 years       2.4 L total; 1.8 L (8 cups) as beverages

14–18 years     3.3 L total; 2.6 L (11 cups) as beverages

Over 19 years   3.7 L total; 3.0 L (13 cups) as beverages

 For Females

9–13 years       2.1 L/day of total water; 1.6 L (7 cups)

14–18 years     2.3 L/day of total water; 1.8 L (8 cups)

Over 19 years   2.7 L total; 2.2 L (9 cups) as beverages

Pregnant and Lactating women are exception and will need even more for each respective age group.

Can you drink too much water?

In very unusual circumstances, excess consumption of water and low sodium intake may lead to excess body water, resulting in hyponatremia and cellular edema. This condition comes from body getting too low in sodium rather than too much water.

What are the sources for water?

So, given that we need to keep body hydrated, that is replace the H2O we lose daily with equivalent amount of H2O, where do we get it from and where should we get it from?

Well first of all we do get a little bit of it when the body oxidizes hydrogen-containing substances during metabolism or energy production cycle. This water, called Metabolic Water is generally enough to offset the water we breathe out as vapors.

Rest of the water comes from what we consume, i.e., the stuff that crosses our lips. Of course, if you are taking nutrients intravenously (as saline solution or glucose solution in a hospital) that also counts.

All foods, especially, fruits and vegetables contain water. Beverages Coffees, tea, ice tea, milk, sodas, juices, beer all contain water. Institute of Medicine of the National Academies report on Dietary Reference Intake for Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride and Sulfate has the following table on daily water intake from a 2,200 calories daily diet. (Please click on the graphic below if it is not readable)

Table

NOTE: This diet meets the Adequate Intake or the Recommended Dietary Allowance for adult men and women for all nutrients for which one has been established (for fiber, it meets the ratio of 14 g/1,000 kcal) and provides energy nutrients within the acceptable macronutrient distribution ranges. Nutrient totals may not equal the sum of the parts, due to rounding. Vegetables prepared without salt.

Food composition data: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 16.

DATA SOURCE: ENVIRON International

So, what is the optimal source of hydration?

When I came to the US, 37 years ago, I somehow created associations that beer is the only drink that really goes with pizza and at McDonald’s you always ate hamburger with French fries and Coke. I don’t know how those associations happened, since I did not eat pizzas or McDonald’s’ hamburgers before coming to the US. I guess it was from watching all those TV commercials or just mimicking what everyone else around me was doing.   In fact, it was four years later that watching a friend of mine, I learned that you could actually ask for water at McDonalds.

Fruits and vegetables are definitely good sources for water. Other than getting water from food, what about beverages? Are all beverages, coffees, tea, ice tea, milk, sodas, juices, beer, and wine as good a source of water?

Given the western culture, the answer could be quite confusing.

In research literature, there seems to be some controversy about whether coffee and alcohol are only transitional diuretics or permanent diuretics. Some say that caffeine and alcohol actually cause dehydration. Others disagree.

And, the citrus industry convinced us over two decades ago that “orange juice is not just for breakfast anymore”, so we should be  drinking that all day long.

Coke and Pepsi, of course, promise us sex and happiness.

“Got Milk” teaches us that all the hip people drink milk and it is a fun drink and of course, it is the only source of calcium out there.

Beer is the real beverage to quench thirst, besides it gets us sex and popularity.

Wine is definitely one for sophisticated people and of course makes us live longer.

All this just to get people to drink their stuff to get hydrated! So, what is one to do?

I tend to agree with Joe Dillon, who likes to say, “Just because it is wet, does not mean it will hydrate you.”

Bottom Line

My take on all this is to ask the basic question: when I drink a beverage for hydration, do I want the collateral stuff?

Whether it is caffeine, or alcohol, or sugars or artificial sweeteners, or artificial colors, or whatever else,  if I do want the collateral stuff, then the particular beverage at that moment is an acceptable, desirable or even a good source of hydration. If not, I rather just drink water.

And, in most of the situations, when I am looking to hydrate myself, I rather go directly to the source of hydration that my body is ultimately looking for, which, of course, is Water.

What do you think of this approach?

Do you feel that this simplifies the confusion about water and hydration?

Do you see a hole in this approach? What would you do differently?

Post #10 – Did I tell you about fixing migraines without the meds?

05 Monday May 2014

Posted by in Reversing Chronic Diseases, Uncategorized, Vigor, Vitality

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In the 21 April 2014 post, I shared my story how I cured my allergies and also dramatically lowered my cholesterol without the meds.  In the 28 April 2014 post, I listed what else is possible and references to specific literature and techniques for fixing several other issues.

Trust me, when I say this: I have not invented any of this stuff.  Just stumbled upon it and personally experienced some of it myself.

And, that’s why I am obsessed with this subject. What else is possible that I have not heard of yet?  If you know of something, I will be interested in hearing about it, learning about it and then sharing it.

One topic that comes up a lot is headaches. Just the garden variety tension headaches or serious migraines.  It pains me to see or hear about someone suffering from these headaches because with some very simple to use techniques I have been helping others deal with their headaches for almost two decades now.

Instead of me telling the story, I thought I would ask a couple of people who I helped tell their stories in their own words.

I helped Jennifer with her migraine about six months ago. Her story is a fairly detailed account of her experience and also provides some context.

The second story is more recent. This past weekend, my wife and I went to see our son Dan’s Ultimate Frisbee Regional Championship tournament in Allentown, PA.  One of their most valuable player, Justin (team name Chalky), was anxiously pacing the sidelines. When I asked what was going on, he told me he was unable to play because he was suffering from a serious migraine.

With a process very similar to the one used for Jennifer, I was able to take Justin’s headache from 7 down to 0 in about 10 minutes.  He played in the semifinals and finals games without any headache.  Dan’s team won the Regionals by the way and is going to compete for the National Championship. I also include here Justin’s story in his own words.

In their stories, Jennifer and Justin refer to two different and distinct techniques.

The first is an acupressure technique that involves applying pressure with hands to various points on and around the head. I learned this technique from Jerry Teplitz in one of his talks and demonstrations almost twenty years ago.

The second technique the stories refer to is one I learned from a book: Working on Yourself Doesn’t Work: The 3 Simple Ideas That Will Instantaneously Transform Your Life, by Ariel and Shya Kane.  In this technique, you basically ask someone a series of questions about their pain and almost magically, the pain goes away.  It is supposed to work on any pain, but I have been using it for headaches.

Using both techniques together for headaches is my own creation. I have found that if someone is having a very mild headache either technique will fix it.  However, if they are having rather severe headache, then I could bring it from say a level 9 down to 3 using acupressure technique and then talk them down from 3 to 0 using Kane technique.

So, here are Jennifer and Justin’s stories:

Jennifer’s story in her words:

Is medication really the answer to healing pain?

I was diagnosed with Migraines at age 13.  I was considered a severe case by doctors’ standards.   I would get 10-15 migraines per year that would leave me in a debilitating state.  With these types of headaches, I could not be exposed to light or sound.  I would have to lock myself in a pitch black room and sometimes miss school needing to sleep these things off for one or more days.   Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Excedrin and prescription drugs became my best friend.  The migraines became so bad one year that I finally had to see a ‘neuro’ doctor who prescribed an injection that would be called in when I felt a migraine starting.  This injection would take about 20 minutes to start working.  It would normally cure my migraines but the side effects would leave me feeling like I pulled an all-night drinking binge at my local college bar.

As I have become older and wiser, I learned the triggers that caused my migraines and I could usually sense them starting.   If I picked on the signs, I would rush to the nearest drug store and stock up on Excedrin Migraine and Advil in hopes of reducing the pain level and reduce the amount of time I would have to miss work or daily activities.

The last migraine that I remember recently having was at work.   I remember driving to work and feeling a whopper coming on.  When I got to my office, I turned off the lights and starting frantically asking folks if they had any headache pain relievers.  On a scale from 1-10 (10 being the worst), I was a 10.   I took some meds, but threw up and could not keep them in my stomach.

I decided that I had to lie down on the floor of my office and asked a co-worker to wake me up in an hour just so I could knock the edge off and I also knew I was in no condition to make the 50 mile commute back home.  I heard a knock on my door and my boss asked if I was OK.  I opened the door and proceeded to tell him the agony I was in.  I felt like my head was going to explode.   He asked me if I would allow him to try a technique that he learned of to make the headache go away.

First he applied pressure along the center of my skull using his thumbs and forefingers and then around the bottom of my skull.   It was intense pressure but not painful. He repeated the process two three times. After he was done with that he asked me to rate my headache from scale of 1 to 10. I felt much better, almost functional. I told him it was 4.

He said, “Let us see if we can make it even better”.

Then he asked me to close my eyes and take a deep breath.   While my eyes were closed, he spoke softly asking me to locate the point of headache pain.   Oddly enough, it was like searching in the dark for something but I was able to say that the pain was on the left side above my temple.   He then asked softly, “what shape is the headache”.  He had to give me a few suggestions because I asked, “Shape?” wondering what he meant by that. He said, “is it a square?, a circle?, a triangle?…”.  I quickly said, “A STAR”.   He then talked to me and said, “Ah, a star.. huh?,. it has many sharp points… “.  The next thing he asked me was, “what COLOR the headache was?”.. I replied, “red”.  Then he said “o.k., now take a deep breath and keep your eyes closed and keep yourself relaxed.”  He would ask about my pain scale from 1 to 10 at the end, each time with me having to pause and think about what my number actually was.   We repeated these steps a few times, each time, with me locating the place where the pain was in my head.  Colors and shapes would change as I gave him the first shape that would pop in my head or the first color I would see.

What I started noticing after a few times was, 1), the headache was moving.  It was not in the same place as the time before.  2) The shapes went from a star, to a square to a triangle to circle etc., and the colors going from red to purple to blue to white. In between each of these routine questions, he asked about my pain scale with each time the pain scale became less til it was finally a 1. I was hesitant to say zero but it really wasn’t a one either.

After about 10 -15 minutes of this exercise.  He asked me to open my eyes.  He asked how I felt.  I can only describe the feeling as waking up from a nap.  I was a little sleepy maybe even slightly groggy for a few seconds but MY HEADACHE WAS GONE.  He asked about my headache and I started to chuckle because the pain was not there.

I thought at first that he must have played some mind trick or hypnosis on me, but he didn’t.  Instead he explained that no two thoughts or feelings can exist in the same space.   By locating the headache and through his questions, another thought or feeling was occupying the place where my headache used to be.   I have tried this technique on my husband and child and rather than needing to reach for Tylenol, they come running to me for help and there are no side effects or scary liver issues from too much medication.

I could say that Dr. Thareja saved my life that day because I have not had a migraine of that magnitude since that day.  One reason is because when I feel the headaches coming back, I lie down and start to imagine the shapes, colors and locate the pain.   It is sort of like talking yourself down from a ledge.  I am so thankful.  I can honestly say I have not had to take Excedrin for migraine in 4 -6 months.

Justin’s (Chalky’s) story in his words

Magic Mr. Thareja

He pressed pressure points in a pattern on my head, and told me to rate the headache after each pass.  He did this several times until he had confirmation from me that the headache was going away.

After that he asked me a series of questions.  They really did not have any scientific backing to them.  He asked things like “where is the headache”, “what shape is the headache”, “how heavy is the headache”, “what color is it”, and then “now how bad is the headache”.  He repeated the questions again and again until the headache was gone.

It seemed to me that I was actually able to pinpoint the location that the headache originated from after him asking the first question several times, but the other questions just made the headache seem silly and took my mind off of the pain.  In this way, he slowly forced the headache out of my mind and effectively got rid of it.

Pretty cool stuff!