EPISODE DESCRIPTION:

In today’s episode, we sit down with Dr. David Jockers to unpack the science behind intermittent fasting, metabolic flexibility, mitochondria, research bias, and why women need a more nuanced approach to fasting.

We dive into blood sugar regulation, cortisol, growth hormone, GLP-1, autophagy, protein intake, feast-famine cycling, and how fasting can support fat loss, energy, gut health, and brain performance — when it’s done the right way.

If you’ve ever wondered whether fasting is good or bad for women (especially in perimenopause), this conversation will bring clarity, context, and actionable guidance you can use right away.

Transcript:

Becca: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Health Revival Show. We are so excited. We have been waiting for this interview to happen. We met Dr. Jockers, what last spring, like almost nine months ago at Benaza's book signing. Uh, and Liz and I have read many of Dr. Jocker's articles. I always refer to him. He has such a wealth of knowledge, and he is a doctor of natural medicine.

He is also a chiropractor by trade, uh, and he specializes in basically empowering people with science by based solutions for their health, by running this phenomenal website with all of the different articles you could ever think of on all of the different health topics with actionable, applicable things on there, which I love.

Uh, so welcome to the show, Dr. Jackers. 

Dr. Jockers: Well, thank you ladies for having me. It's a, it's an honor. 

Becca: Yeah. So can you give us just a little bit of a brief background in terms of like how you got into this world and what made you wanna go down the route of more blog posting education? I hate to even call them blogs because I feel like they're so much more valuable than just a blog.

But, um, you know how you [00:01:00] got into this space. 

Dr. Jockers: Yeah, for sure. So growing up, my mom actually was really into natural health. This is back in the early nineties. And so she was studying to become a midwife and then a massage therapist, and eventually a naturopath. And, um, in the early nineties, you know, the, the popular diet was the macrobiotic diet, which, you know, is, is basically very low fat, low salt, nothing tastes good, it's, it's vegan.

Um, and so she tried to put my family on that and, uh, we all rebelled, right? But she kept persisting and trying to get us to eat healthier foods. And I was an athlete growing up and so she taught me that the food I eat impacts my performance. And so she would make like steamed kale or whatever it was.

And, uh, she always had her own garden and would grow stuff. And I didn't like most vegetables growing up. Like most, you know, teenagers. Um, I would greatly prefer processed foods and she would explain to me that I needed to eat those because that would help me have more energy. My skin would be better. I would be able to have, you [00:02:00] know, be able to recover better from, um, exercise.

And so for me it was like anything that would help me perform better, I was gonna do. And. Growing up, whenever we got sick, she would make a big pot of, of vegetable soup with garlic and we would eat like raw garlic cloves, right? That was basically our antibiotic growing up. I was never on a prescription medication growing up.

And um, and so that's just how, so I was just ingrained with the idea that what I eat affects my performance. And so that led me when my athletic career was over into personal training. It just seemed natural. I liked fitness, I loved working out. And, um, I liked the idea of sports nutrition, that the food I can consume is gonna impact, you know, my ability to build muscle and to recover and all of that, everything that went into it.

And so I was a personal trainer and I was living the personal trainer lifestyle, eating six meals a day, you know, 5,000 calories to try to maintain my, my muscle mass. And, um, I ended up developing irritable bowel and I actually lost about 30 [00:03:00] pounds of muscle during that period of time, even though I was still trying to eat a lot.

I had terrible cramping. Um. Constipation, diarrhea. Um. You know, just terrible gut pain and, uh, and, and malabsorption. And so along the, the way there were, there were chiropractors actually at my gym that I was, that I worked at, and they always seemed to be in a good mood. And, uh, one of them actually turned me on to a book called The No Grain Diet.

He was like, you know what, you need to change your diet. And he was like, you should read this book right here. And it was by Dr. Joe Mercola had just come out. I read that book. I was like, okay, I'm gonna try this. And I thought I was living a healthier lifestyle than anybody I knew. Right. I was doing what I thought, you know what, what Men's Health told me was healthy.

Right. Basically, that's what I was doing. Men's Health Magazine was like, was like, uh, my, my main reading source. And research source at that time. And so when I read the No Grain Diet, uh, by Dr. Mercola, I was, I was really turned on by that. I was like, I'm gonna try this. And so [00:04:00] I went from being on basically like a lacto ovo vegetarian diet that was relatively high carbohydrate.

It was, uh, lots of whole grains and things like that. Soy burgers came off. All of that went on a diet that consisted of as much grass fed organic meat products as I could find. It was a lot harder to find back then. And, um, lots of fruits and vegetables. And I followed that diet and my body healed. And during, along the way, I just noticed that I was naturally satiated.

I didn't have to, uh, you know, eat all the time. And I actually felt better when I was fasting, even though I had never heard of anybody. Actually, there was, you know, nobody talked about intermittent fasting back in these days, and that inspired me to get into graduate school. And, um, I went, I, I became a chiropractor and, um, opened a clinic back in 2009 and, um, in, uh, the Georgia area, just outside of Atlanta.

And I was always, the way that I learn best is [00:05:00] I'm a very visual learner and I also learn best by actually writing about what I'm, what I'm learning. And I think really this is something I'm, most people will find that they're gonna learn so much better if they don't just read something. So, I'm an avid reader, but for me, it works better if I read something and I either communicate about it.

Through, you know, having a, a conversation about it like, like we are today or through actually writing about it. And so for me it was part of, I knew that, you know, when I got out of, out of, uh, chiropractic school, I don't know if it was like this for you, for you ladies, when you got out of, I, I don't know exactly what your degrees are, but whatever it is, like you get your certification, it's like you just started learning, right?

Like there's so much to learn and so much to do. And so I knew I had a lot to learn. And I also just wanted to get the message out. And so I started writing articles for other websites. And those articles were a way for me to learn. And also they were a great resource because I would have the same patients asking questions all the [00:06:00] time.

They would say, what do I do for my thyroid? How do I heal my gut? Um, what are the best foods to eat? To burn fat? To lose weight? 

Liz: Alright, if you're dealing with water retention, you're waking up puffy, your ankles or your wrist are really swollen, or you can't get your rings off and maybe you're even dragging throughout the day.

No matter how much water you drink, there's actually a good chance. That you're not actually hydrating properly. 

Becca: Exactly, because water alone is not enough. You need electrolytes. You need sodium, potassium, magnesium, because those things actually pull water into your cells. Otherwise, you're basically just flushing it out and wondering why you're still tired.

You're still bloated, and you're still sluggish. 

Liz: But here's the thing, most electrolyte supplements out there aren't helping you in any way because a lot of them contain things like natural flavors, food dyes, and malto action, which can irritate your gut. And these things can also spike your blood sugar when you're trying to heal.

That's 

Becca: why we both started using buoy. It's super simple. Just trace minerals and electrolytes in liquid form, no [00:07:00] flavors, no colors, no sugar, no sweeteners, and you squeeze it into whatever you are drinking. Water, coffee, tea, smoothies, 

Liz: you name it. And it's clinically backed by science too. So studies have shown that buoy helps you hydrate better, 64% better in fact.

And that's data coming from key blood and urinary markers, not just marketing fluff. And honestly, you can feel the difference. I've had many clients tell me their digestions improved. They have less headaches and their better energy throughout the day. And buoy isn't 

Becca: just for people that go to the gym all the time and sweat a bunch.

They actually offer a 35% lifetime discount for anyone that's struggling with chronic illnesses, things like pots, Hashimoto's, Crohn's disease, chronic migraines, and every autoimmune condition, they're really committed to making better hydration accessible to people who need it most. 

Liz: I actually throw it in my coffee every morning because it's such an easy upgrade.

You don't even taste it, but you're definitely gonna notice if you miss it. If 

Becca: you're tired of playing hydration roulette and want something that actually supports your body, you've gotta try [00:08:00] buoy. It's honestly one of the simplest ways to feel better faster. 

Dr. Jockers: How do I stabilize my blood sugar? How do I heal diabetes?

And so I was saying the same thing over and over and over again, and I used to do talks every Monday night at my workshop on a number of these topics. And I just thought, you know what, if I could put together like a really good professionally written article on this topic, that will help that patient, but also they'll probably share it with other people and, and maybe there'll be some sort of organic reach.

And so I started writing for these other websites that had a big, uh, a big following. And that's exactly what happened. It was a great marketing tool for my clinic. I started getting attention from people all over the world that wanted to do consultations with me. Um, you know, and, and back then there was no real model for that.

I was doing, you know, I had a local clinic and so I just had to figure out how to do phone consults with people all over the world. Um, and at the same time, it saved me time because when people would ask me questions in my clinic, I would just send them an article. I'd say, you know what? That's a [00:09:00] great question.

Uh, we definitely need to get you that information on thyroid. I'm gonna send you an article. And so I would just have a list where I would write down people's names. I would send them whatever content, or if I didn't have an article on that, I was like, that is a great idea. I need to write an article. It actually would be frustrating to me if somebody would ask a question that I didn't have some, some sort of great piece of content on.

So I would either do videos or articles, you know, on whatever that topic was, and then later send that to them. So that's really what got me going. And then eventually that took on a life of its own. I created my own website and, um, with the same idea. And eventually I sold my clinic. And, and, you know, now this is what I do is just create online health content through my podcast, my YouTube channel, and then also, you know, through my blog.

Um, but you know, it's really came from a passion to, to help as many people as possible. Reach their full God-given health potential. And, um, you know, my mom helped spur me in that journey. And, uh, you know, my desire is to really help others, uh, you [00:10:00] know, find, find their full potential in health and healing.

Liz: I love that. And very much like you, I would say we're similar as far as visual. I am the person at 19th to read it, listen to it, write it, and communicate it, because I think that's really how you and you, you know, remember it. And then over time, like you mentioned, we're just continuously evolving and learning and the science and the research is as well.

So it's, it's one of those things where you go back and you refer to like, oh, remember that clinical pearl, that nugget that I learned and this is a situation, it would apply, but you're never gonna remember just reading from a textbook. You know? And I think that's one thing we aim to share a lot on our podcast is that just because it's in the research doesn't mean that it's always applicable to the person in front of you.

And everyone is so bio individual and case by case. That's, we have to, you know. To work that way. At least in our practice, that's what we believe. So on that note, I would love to hear from your end, you do a ton of research. What are your filters? Because I know [00:11:00] that there are a lot of research types of, you know, research studies.

There's a lot of different types of funding, different organizations behind certain things. A lot that don't get published but have surfaced through documentaries or other things that we've recently seen in terms of, here I'm referring to the vaccinated versus unvaccinated group, you know, that, uh, was shut down and then now people are finding out about it.

So I would just love before we get into today's really like the heavy topic for you to kind of explain to the listeners. Here's how you might sensor certain things that you're reading online to know if it's valid or not. And then obviously you have a great, uh, website with many types of blogs. We refer out to this all the time, especially I would say my top ones, uh, for your website are h pylori parasites.

And I ine always telling people like, I can explain this to you, but I want you to go here and see visually because then it sets it a little bit more. So. But yeah, if you could just answer that. I know it's kind of a complex question, but there's just, we gotta filter Yeah. Information these days. [00:12:00] 

Dr. Jockers: Yeah, for sure.

So, you know, when you're looking at research, there's a couple things that I look at. Number one is you gotta recognize your own cognitive bias and you also have to recommend, recognize that really all researchers have some level of cognitive bias. And what is a cognitive bias? It just means that naturally, based on your own life experiences and things that you've learned, you are going to favor certain information over others.

And all of us have that, it's totally fine. It's, it's a normal part of being a human being. You just want to kind of understand where your cognitive bias is, right? Like, so I had great health results from intermittent fasting and from, um, from basically like a paleo style lower carbohydrate diet. So my cognitive bias is, hey, that worked amazing for me and I've seen it work for a lot of other people.

So there's gotta be some level of evidence that this is beneficial for people. Um, but then also realize that I may not have all the answers. So kind of a humble approach as well, uh, where it's like, I may not have all the answers or I may not have the [00:13:00] mechanism dialed in, and I, I just wanna stay curious and learn as much as I can.

And so that, I think that's kind of where it starts. And then of course, you know, whenever you're looking at studies. Um, you know, the, the best evidence is usually gonna be reviews, right? Reviews and meta-analysis, right? Where basically they look at a combination of studies. So there could be like 300 studies on turmeric, for example, right?

I. And so you could find all kinds of interesting, interesting results based on those studies. But if you really wanna know in detail the, the, the overall summary of those, of those individual st those in each individual study, you look at a meta analysis and usually anything they're researching, anything that the, the scientific community is researching a lot on.

They're gonna do a meta analysis like every few years. And so you can find recent most updated meta analysis on a lot of different topics. And then you just kind of look at that and you look at how they set up [00:14:00] that meta analysis. And then you can also look at disclosure information. So they should always have disclosures, like if they took money from anything and they can put that at the bottom.

Now there's a lot of ways that of course, scientists can, uh, not disclose certain things. And of course they came in with certain cognitive biases as well, right? That, that go into it. So you always have to take that into account. I think that's important and just know that like there is no perfect study.

Um, and sometimes common sense is more important than than study results, but study results can also be, be helpful just for data. That demonstrates certain, maybe certain mechanisms or, um, or proof of, you know, some level of proof, some level of scientific evidence for a theory that you have, right? That that can be helpful.

And so I think that's a key way, and that's, that's how, you know, my team and I, that's how we look at research is through that lens. And I think that there's a lot of, there's a lot [00:15:00] of weight put into, especially when it comes to nutrition, there's a lot of weight put into epidemiological studies, which are basically like surveys, right?

And so they'll survey people on what they ate over the last, let's say five years or 10 years or, or six months or whatever it was. And of course there's a lot of holes in that. Number one is a lot of people don't remember what they ate. So just the ability to recall what you're eating on a regular basis, I think that that is a flaw in those kind of studies.

Um, another thought, another flaw is what we call the healthy user bias. And the healthy user bias is this, is that. Most people, again, going back to this idea of cognitive bias, most people have a certain idea of what a healthy lifestyle is based on what they've been told. Right. And for most people, like these epidemiological studies are, are often used to try to justify eating less meat, more plant-based foods.

Um, you know, the people that are very strong [00:16:00] plant-based or, or vegetarian, vegan diet, uh, advocates, they tend to use these studies, but there is a healthy user bias in that. Up until maybe five years ago, the idea that eating red meat was healthy was still very, um. It was, it was more fringe. So for most people, let's say from the time from 1980 to probably 20 20, 90 plus percent of people, if you ask them what is a healthy diet, they would probably say, eat lots of salads.

Lots of plants stay away from red meat. Now there's a growing group that's advocating, you know, consuming grass fed red meats and how healthy that is. So, you know that that same group, you know, it might be 75% of the people that would say red meat's bad. Um, so there's a growing group so that, that, that majority is coming down.

But for most of these studies, [00:17:00] people had this idea that eating red meat was bad. Now. Typically when people are not eating red meat, they're also engaging in other healthier lifestyle activities because they, they associate, and again, they're, they're more health conscious. So you take somebody at very health conscious, um, that believes that eating meat is bad.

Well, those people are probably exercising. They probably are prioritizing good sleep. They are probably, um, you know, en enjoying better relationships, right? Or, or prioritizing good relationships. And they're not smoking as much. They're not drinking alcohol as much. Whereas people that didn't really have the same, you know, they're, they weren't, um, health enthusiasts, they're probably eating a lot of, a lot of fried food, a lot of processed foods.

And so their idea, they're, they're eating burgers, but they're also eating french fries in a sense, right? Mm-hmm. And so they're also probably smoking and drinking and things like that. So this healthy user bias really impacts a lot of the studies that are widely circulated in the nutritional world. [00:18:00] And so, not that the epidemiological data can't be beneficial, but you have to look at it through the lens that it could be flawed based on that healthy user bias.

So I think that's really important. And then there a lot of sizzly headlines, um, sell, right? And so, and they get attention. And so for researchers. They, you know, they, they have an incentive to get grants to do continual research. So how are they getting grants? Well, one is if they come in with a, in, in a certain scientific paradigm and they, they ha they publish research that continuate that paradigm that's beneficial and they can get more grants for that.

For example, the idea that maybe that saturated fat is bad for heart disease, if they have research that continuate right, that's based around that paradigm and, and continues that, that that idea that actually can help [00:19:00] get them more grants. And so there's an incentive there. Also, sizzly headlines, especially sizzly headlines that take in a sense kind of take down.

The stuff or ideas that are not the consensus of the sci, the quote unquote scientific community, the research community. So things that they naturally would disagree with based on their own cognitive bias. Those kind of sizzly headlines can also get them a lot of attention. So like, for example, I know there was a, a headline about erythritol, um, increasing your risk of diabetes and stroke that came out uh, not too long ago.

Now erythritol is a sugar alcohol. I'm not a big advocate of it, primarily because when I consume erythritol, um, I get gas and bloated, right? It, it makes me bloated. And that can be an issue with sugar alcohols. However, there are is a certain percentage of people that do not have any digestive [00:20:00] discomfort.

And erythritol has actually been shown to decrease blood insulin levels for, you know, a, a good, a good percentage of people, um, you know, and b, in a sense, a safe and healthy alternative to blood sugar or to, to, to using sources of sugar in a sense, right? Um, and safer than a lot of the chemical, uh, diet, you know, diet, drinks, sweeteners like aspartame and Splenda and things like that.

And so what they did in this study was. They didn't actually talk about how much erythritol people consumed, they just measured erythritol in the blood. And the reality of it is the body actually can make its own erythritol, right? Especially people that are diabetic to begin with, right? There's a certain pathway where they actually can produce erythritol.

So they weren't differentiating. What they found was that people with higher blood erythritol levels had a greater risk of atherosclerosis. I believe that was the, the finding in the study. And what they weren't [00:21:00] differentiating was if that erythritol was coming from the diet or if it was coming from this physiological mechanism where the body actually creates erythritol from high fructose consumption.

And so they just ran with the headline that erythritol increases the risk of atherosclerosis. And so, um, I know in my online community, lots of people were sending this study and being like, oh, like. Uh, you know, erythritol actually increases atherosclerosis. Here's the study that proves it, but the study didn't actually prove that it was a sizzly headline, right?

It just showed that people with higher blood erythritol levels had a higher risk of atherosclerosis, but it didn't actually, um, it didn't differentiate the mechanism for the high blood erythritol levels, okay? And the idea that you would consume erythritol in your diet and that it would get into the bloodstream without breaking down.

I mean, erythritol is highly fermentable. So even just the, the [00:22:00] mechanism itself is that, like, unless you're injecting the erythritol directly into your bloodstream, it's not going to increase the blood erythritol levels because it's going to be fermented in the gut. Now, that doesn't mean that it's healthy, but.

The idea that the blood erythritol levels were increasing the risk based on consuming erythritol really didn't make scientific sense to begin with. Right. So that's just an example of how a lot of times you have to, you have to look at these studies and analyze 'em in a little bit more detail. 

Liz: And the control too.

'cause what I would think about is all of the people who are in that, what was their baseline? What was their diet, what was their insulin? And all of these other, you know, health markers, metabolic markers. So very good information. And I think it gives a lot of people, you know, we talk a lot about this, you just can't take information at surface level.

You gotta understand where it's coming from. I remember, gosh, this has been probably over five, six years ago, you know, when we look at all of the documentaries that came out for the [00:23:00] plant-based push Game changer. Game changers. And then when you actually, yeah, game changers, when you actually dove into all of the research, it was very skewed.

And the funding was, you know, just wild. And so a lot of pieces were left out. And like you're saying, they had. Scare tactics. You know, basically fear-mongering people away, but then pushing a different narrative at the same time to purchase artificial processed manmade Franken foods. Right. That I just, you know, anyways, so yeah, 

Becca: I would be curious, is there any type of bias around populations that are in research articles?

Because just off the top, like this is total personal thought, I would probably never go and sign up for a research study and, and I know that some research studies pay people to be a part of them. Right. And so like, is there anything out there that shows that more people are in research studies that are like low income or it's more like already sick people or what kind of, you know, 'cause usually you have to, one, I, I would imagine agree to be in a [00:24:00] research study and then two, like, you know, aura or Whoop or these other people, like they.

I don't know, are they running research on people that have their app that aren't, maybe you agree to that in the agreement statement? I don't know. I probably did. Um, but like are, is it generally less healthy or low income people that are making up a lot of these research studies? 

Dr. Jockers: Yeah, I mean, that's a good question.

I'm not exactly sure that's, that's a great question to ask. But we do know, like with labs, like with clinical lab ranges, when people are, for example, when, when we look at, when we go, go and get labs done and they're looking at your vitamin D levels, right? Or your C-reactive protein or something along those lines, they will actually look at.

Um, you know, basically people who are getting labs done regularly, which up until maybe a few years ago, it was only sick people. Um, and now you have more health enthusiasts that are getting labs done on a regular basis. But the research was done on these sick people and they're looking at, you know, basically a bell curve.

And [00:25:00] so you have, you know, a whole bunch of people that are dealing with chronic inflammatory conditions, and then they're lining it up on the bell curve. And if you're like two standard deviations away from that, you know, from the middle of that bell curve, then that would be the outlier range. Okay? And of course, in functional medicine, we're looking at, Hey, what is optimal here?

So in clinical, they're not looking at what's optimal. They're just looking at, okay, if you are off, you know, if you're way outta range, now you have a clinical diagnosis, versus, you know, what, what really is the optimal range? And that's why in functional medicine. We had to come up with tighter lab ranges as opposed to what you go, if you go to LabCorp, get blood drawn.

If you're only looking for things that are flagged. You're missing out on a lot of really good data and a lot of good information that, um, may indicate you're skewing in a certain direction where you are maybe subclinically anemic or you have subclinical meaning not diagnosable hypothyroidism. So [00:26:00] subclinical hypothyroidism, subclinical vitamin D deficiency.

Um, and so having that data, understanding that now you can address it, well be before you wait too long and, uh, you actually get the clinical diagnosis. And also it's gonna help you in your, with, with whatever, um, you know, your health goals are by optimizing those levels. So we do know that happens when it comes to lab ranges.

So yeah, that's a great question to ask when it comes to generalized research. You know, particularly these kind of epidemiological studies or you know, any sort of, uh, randomized control trial where they're actually doing human studies. 

Liz: Yeah. One other thing I would add before we get into fasting too, is just I was thinking as you're talking about, so this personal bias, right?

Can't remember what we had. I, I don't remember what I ate last year, let alone if they're asking me. Yeah. You know, five years ago. I also think that there is a large part, and I would say that I would include myself in this, in our mind where we think we're doing better than we actually are. Like I talk to people [00:27:00] all the time in terms of their gut health and chronic constipation.

For example, one of my first questions is, are you hydrated? How much water are you consuming? What electrolytes? And then when they start telling me, I get like 40 ounces a day. Okay, how much caffeine do you have? You know, how many cups of coffee do you have for day? And so they, in their mind, because maybe they also think that they don't need to drink, you know, more than that, they think that that's healthy.

So I think there could be so many things that are uncontrolled. And then from a recall perspective. It's like, I think that I eat better than I do. I think I more move more, you know, than I do when we're looking at maybe data on mm-hmm. You know, an obese person or somebody struggling with insulin resistance or weight loss resistance.

And so there can be a lot of errors there. And this is why we love the research. We love great sources of people who spend the time, you know, doing the analysis and then present the good information like you. But at the same time, like I said before, it's like you can't always just go off research. You gotta really look at that person in front of you.

And I know that, as you mentioned, the optimal ranges. [00:28:00] One thing that we struggled to get our clients, like we, we run our own labs in our practice, but if I tell someone who said, oh, I wanna go through my insurance, here's the laundry list of things that I would run for you. They're coming back with maybe 40% of that, right?

One of those being LDH fasting insulin, right? H-S-C-R-P. A lot of these metabolic markers and their doctors say, no, we don't wanna do it. I always say, I think it's because maybe they don't know how to interpret it. More importantly, knowing from the metabolic standpoint, like a fasting insulin, if the person is obese and they're struggling to lose weight, their A1C doesn't have to be off.

Their fasting glucose doesn't have to be off, but their insulin can be high. Right? And what we would say, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, I love to see anywhere between like a four and a six. Maybe a two to eight is the functional range. Most people go after, but your LabCorp range goes up to 22, 24 sometimes.

No wonder you're struggling to lose weight. And so this is a, a tool that we can utilize to be not only proactive and help give that person [00:29:00] answers, but also to convince them, Hey, we need to start working your body systems and the natural built-in systems to clean house and maybe get into some autophagy, do some fasting work.

There are a lot of things that we can do outside of just counting calories or points. Right. If somebody's maybe still on the Weight Watchers train or things like that. So I know that you have done a lot of research and a lot of posting on fasting. You've done intermittent fasting yourself and found that very helpful.

What would you say to the person out there who is just confused? Because we have, especially in the perimenopause space mm-hmm. Very, very different sides of the sword in terms of different doctors or functional people saying like, fasting is the worst thing you can do, and then fasting is what every woman should do.

I'd love to hear your take on that. For those that are just been confused. 

Dr. Jockers: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is a really important conversation because we have to realize is that any sort of ancestral stress, this is like my cognitive bias, is [00:30:00] that if it was a stressor that our ancestors experienced, okay.

It's only for a short period of time, then our body knows how to adapt to it. So for example, um, this is where, and this is really where like the bio modern biohacking world is. So fasting we know is a stressor to the body, but because it's a stressor, if it's done properly and it's cycled with what we call feast, famine cycling, then the, and, and you're getting, you know, the, the nourishment that you need and the recovery that you need, then it actually teaches the body to become more metabolically flexible, better at burning sugar and also better at burning fat for fuel.

Most people in our society are stuck in chronic. Glycolysis, or basically they're stuck in kind of a sugar burning mode. And, and that's emphasized by higher, uh, fasting insulin levels. So when your insulin levels are elevated in your bloodstream, you can't burn fat effectively for fuel. And so then your cells primarily are [00:31:00] running off of glucose, but you only have a certain amount of glucose available at any given time.

And when glucose starts to lower, your body will actually increase cortisol to elevate glucose again, and you actually get hunger and cravings. Right. And so when it comes to, let's say weight loss, for example, instead of trying to count calories and kind of do this kind of caloric deficit model, what we wanna do is be able to control hunger.

And that's actually what, like, for example, the, the best medication that has shown to be the most effective, uh, for weight loss is, does not actually turn on fat burning. Right? So it's, of course, it's zo ozempic, it's semi glut. Tide has nothing to do with. Fat burning, right? Doesn't trigger fat burning, doesn't, doesn't do anything with the mitochondria.

All it does is shut down hunger. Okay? Now, there are better ways to, to suppress hunger. Um, we can talk about that as we get going, but we have to be able to control hunger. I mean, that's really the, the, the big step there when it comes to weight loss, for example. [00:32:00] Um, and fasting actually can be really powerful with this.

And fasting is a stressor. I think that's, that's the biggest thing you have to understand. But also eating is a stressor, believe it or not. Like when you eat, you bring in a lot more pathogens, okay? Even if you cook the food well, you're bringing in a wide range of pathogens. You're actually putting stress on your gut.

You have to produce enough stomach acid that's very energy demanding. You have to be able to produce enough digestive enzymes, bile flow, right? Um, it's mechanical stress on the gut lining. Now that stress also. In the right paradigm, like in, in the right model is beneficial. Kinda like exercise. Okay? So exercise.

If, you know, I just worked out, uh, and I did, I did legs and so I was doing squats, I was doing deadlifts, and if you actually took my blood, like if you did a blood draw right in the middle of my workout, my C-reactive protein would be be sky high, right? And so it looked like I had a heart attack, but obviously we know that my body actually is recovering from that.

So I work [00:33:00] out and if I get the right nourishment, the right rest, okay, in the right proper environment that allows me to, you know, turn on my parasympathetic nervous system to boost growth hormone, which is your kind of quintessential anti-aging hormone that turns on healing and repair. I get optimal melatonin release at night.

Then if you were to draw my blood work, let's say 36 hours after that workout, my creactive protein's gonna drop really low. My body's now good at suppressing inflammation, keeping it under control has a really good tight balance on that. And really, it's kind of the same thing with any sort of stressor that we put, you know, put our body under.

And so with fasting, the big thing here is you need to do feast, famine, cycling, right? And so we need to make sure when we're eating, we're eating really good. Nutrient-dense foods and we need to eat to suppress hunger. And what do we, how do we do that? Well, high protein diets. So eating a lot of protein has been [00:34:00] shown to actually boost GLP one, right?

Which is, um, glucagon-like peptide and that hormone. Is what, what basically shuts down hunger and, you know, creates satiety. Also eating, you know, colorful fruits and vegetables, foods that are whole foods that are, that are high in fiber will help distend the stomach. They release slower into our intestine from our stomach.

And that process will also suppress hunger. So I always recommend eating a high protein diet with all your meals. Um, colorful fruits and vegetables in the meal as well. Healthy fats, which usually come with your protein, right? But if you're eating like a chicken breast, you add in some olive oil, um, you add in avocado or butter or something along those lines.

And that will help if you're having a protein shake. If you're doing some sort of like processed type food, like eat, like having a protein powder. Make sure you've got extra fats on board. Make sure you're putting in coconut oil or avocado. You can put a avocado in your smoothie. That's how I like to do it.

Um, so I get healthy fats in there and that's gonna [00:35:00] slow down. The release, uh, and the, the metabolism of the, the, the, the foods that we're consuming in there. So like with a, with a protein shake, that can be really, even though, even though it's high protein, it can be really inogenic, meaning that it can drive up insulin much higher if we don't have the healthy fats, if we don't have good fiber in there.

So it's important that you know that we're doing that, and that's what we want to do. We want, when we're consuming meals, we want meals that are not going to spike our blood sugar and our insulin, but we're just gonna get a nice gentle nudge, right? A gen, a gentle increase in sh and blood sugar and insulin, and then it will come back to baseline within an hour or two.

And that's what we're looking for. And that teaches the body to burn fat for fuel. And so the better you get at, at teaching your body to burn fat in between meals, okay? The easier it is to undergo intermittent fasting. When we're eating foods that spike our blood sugar, we get a big rise in sugar, big rise in [00:36:00] insulin, and then a big drop that teaches our body to become very inflexible, metabolically to become a really poor fat burner.

And then we're gonna have more hunger and cravings. That's how you know if you are in sugar burning mode, if it's 3, 4, 5 hours between meals and you've got hunger cravings, you have low energy, you've got fatigue. It's a sign that you had a high insulin release with your last, most likely your last meal, okay?

Or it may be just a repeated pattern that you've been doing for, for quite a while, and so your body's more insulin resistant. And, uh, you're not consuming blood sugar, stable blood sugar, stabilizing foods and meals on a regular basis. So that's really the first step to become more metabolically flexible.

I recommend, like, like, you know, my story earlier, earlier I was eating six meals a day, right? A lot of those meals were ultra processed foods. Even though I was choosing healthy things like protein bars and stuff like that, much of it was ultra processed. It was spiking my blood sugar and my insulin, [00:37:00] and I was hungry every few hours.

And so when I went to a whole real food diet, high end protein where I would consume 50 or more grams of protein every time I ate, along with, you know, colorful fruits and vegetables, then I started to notice I could go longer between meals, four or five, six hours. In fact, I could go from breakfast to dinner and not even feel hungry.

Okay? And then I could go from dinner to let's say, lunch or midday or, or early afternoon the next day and not feel hungry, okay? As long as I hydrated well, and that was because I wasn't getting these huge shocks of, of blood sugar and insulin, and my body was better at burning fat. We wanna have this great metabolic flexibility where we want to be really good at burning sugar when we need to.

Okay? And that typically is when we're exercising or perf doing some sort of high, you know, high intense performance. All right? That is when we need to be really good at burning sugar, okay? But we also wanna be really good at burning fat. And most of the time [00:38:00] we should be burning fat. We should be burning fat all night while we sleep.

We should be burning fat, you know, throughout the day when we're not doing some sort of high intensity exercise or high I intense performance. And when we're really good at that, we don't feel hunger and cravings all the time. And so, like, like my body, I get hungry most of the time. I'm, I don't, I don't get hungry till I start eating.

When I start eating, then my body says, oh, okay, now it's, it's eating time. I better make sure I'm getting a lot of nutrients, a lot of protein, right? And that's when I eat a, uh, you know, a ton of calories. Now, I will say for, for women, um, when it comes to fasting, there's more nuances than men. I found that men super easy to get them fasting.

Uh, most of them, their physiology is more like me. And so basically, uh, you know, the first week or so can be a little uncomfortable if they're used to eating, let's say breakfast or lunch or whatever meal, we're going to fast. It can be a little uncomfortable for the first few days, but really only takes three to five days and then they feel great.

[00:39:00] Like all of a sudden they feel fantastic. And one of the things that happens when you fast is that you get, you boost growth hormone release, right? Because insulin is an antagonist to growth hormone. And insulin of course is your fat storage hormone and growth hormone is a fat burning hormone. And when insulin goes down, growth hormone goes up, particularly growth hormone also goes up at night, um, when you're, when you're sleeping.

And so if you can fast and stop eating a few hours before you go to bed, you're gonna get a nice rise in growth hormone if you're on a blood sugar stabilizing diet. And then that's gonna help you burn fat more effectively for fuel. It's also gonna preserve your lean mu, your lean body tissue, your lean muscle.

And that's super important now with women. The hardest demographic is gonna be young, menstruating females that are also really busy, right? Maybe they've got kids and a career, let's say, or just a, you know, a busy, uh, busy lifestyle and they're trying to exercise as well, right? Trying to do all the things, all the biohacking [00:40:00] and then incorporate fasting.

And that can be a little bit more challenging because women have this natural, especially menstruating, females have this kind of natural, um, trigger. When it comes to fertility. You need a certain amount of body fat. And when you get under the, that, that body fat threshold, um, then your body is gonna send anti fertility signals by reducing progesterone release in particular, but also estrogen, right?

And progesterone is super important, not only for a healthy menstrual cycle, but also progesterone is a gaba agonist, meaning that it helps to increase GABA in the brain, which makes you feel calm, relaxed. Um, helps you sleep better. And so for women, if they're overstressing their body, they're not gonna produce enough progesterone.

And that overstress could be from over training with. Exercise could also be from, from doing too much fasting or too much caloric restriction course. It could also be from living in a moldy home, from having relational problems, from bad sleep [00:41:00] habits, bad sleep hygiene, uh, maybe having blue light on at night, maybe scrolling on their phone before they go to bed or having a TV on in their room.

All these things can create stress, poor sleep, and kind of this cycle where there's, they're releasing more stress hormone and, and not enough progesterone, not enough sex hormone to have a healthy menstrual cycle. But fasting can be one of those, um, stressors on the body. And this is where the, the nuanced conversation comes in because people will say, well, fasting is bad for you because it increases cortisol.

And then they say, that's the end of the conversation. It ends right there, but it shouldn't. That should be the beginning of the conversation. So when you fast, you do release cortisol. Cortisol is actually a high performance stress hormone. Cortisol. It's job, it's aoc corticoid. That means it elevates blood glucose, right?

So when your glucose, your, your blood sugar goes down, you need to keep it really stable. So cortisol comes out, brings [00:42:00] it back up. That's because your neurons need to run off of off glucose. They can, they can produce about 50% of their energy from ketones, which is a breakdown product of, of fatty acids that happens when you're fasting.

But they also need glucose. So that's why you have that cortisol release, which is important. Now, cortisol also gives us an awakening response. In the morning when you have good cortisol, about 10 to 15 minutes after you wake up, you just feel good like you feel alive, mentally alert. Okay? Ready to go with your day.

That's a sign you have good morning cortisol. Okay? When you have too much cortisol, you, um. You might feel agitated, irritated, um, and you might have anxiety. You might be, you know, just, uh, impulsive, right? With a lot of things you do, you might not be able to sleep well at night, okay? Or if you're under-producing cortisol in the morning, uh, you have a poor cortisol awakening response.

It's really hard to get outta bed. And then you're fatigued even after you get outta bed, right? You're kind of fatigued throughout the day. [00:43:00] So you need good cortisol balance, and fasting will increase cortisol. The issue, the thing with fasting is if you're doing it right, you're also gonna release a lot of growth hormone.

And the problem that people, the, the issue that people have when they say fasting increases cortisol is high. Cortisol is catabolic on the body. So what that means is it will break down muscle tissue. And it'll break down bone and it's very, very catabolic and it won't, won't allow you to produce the proper amount of sex hormone.

We talked about that with stressors and how that depletes progesterone release and all of those things are true. However, when you have low insulin, this combination of low insulin, slightly elevated cortisol at the right time, like earlier in the day and elevated growth hormone. This is actually a high performance state because growth hormone will buffer the catabolic effects of the cortisol.

By preserving lean body tissue, it sends a strong signal [00:44:00] to preserve your lean body tissue, your muscle, and your bone. It actually puts you in more of an anabolic muscle building state, and that growth hormone will also tell your body to produce rampant amounts of sex hormone or optimal amounts of sex hormone.

So if you have slightly elevated cortisol, but still good cortisol sensitivity on the cells, and also elevated growth hormone or optimal, optimal amounts of growth hormone and low insulin, that's a really good high performance state during the day. Now at night, of course, your cortisol should drop. And if you do proper things to block out blue light at night to wind down, wind down your mind, you shouldn't have goals, for example, you know, that you're trying to accomplish around your house at night.

Um, you should be getting yourself in a more relaxed state and really prioritizing good sleep. Then you are gonna lower that cord, that nighttime cortisol, you're gonna get a nice boost of growth hormone and that is gonna help balance out those [00:45:00] hormones. Okay? But if you're in, if you're fasting and you're in a, a really strong, let's say, uh, low, you know, calorie restricted diet for a long period of time, you could also have elevated cortisol from that.

Okay? Although, what I am seeing is that there's a lot of people that are doing something called a protein sparing modified fast. I, I even have a friend, I dunno if you guys know her, Vanessa Spina. And so she's very lean. So she, she has a great podcast, the Optimal Protein Podcast, and I had her on my show recently and she's very lean and muscular.

And one of the things that she really likes to do is protein sparing modified fast, where she will do around 800 to a thousand calories, right? And she'll do, she did this, I think she did like two weeks of this, and then now she does it once or twice a week to lean up, right? To get her body like really lean.

And she just feels better in general [00:46:00] when she does it. Um, and she will do this 800 to a thousand calories. It's calorie restricted, but it's also very high protein. So it's a high protein, it's called protein sparing modified fast. Um, and what she's found is that she feels really good with that and she's walked, walked a lot of other women through it as well.

But in general, chloric restriction for a long period of time can be problematic, um, and could cause more cortisol. So that's where this feast, famine cycling comes in, where you're eating really good amounts of, of calories from whole real foods, high in protein, healthy fats, colorful fruits and vegetables when you're eating.

Um, and then you take longer periods of time between meals. Okay. I find that most people are gonna do great on two to three meals a day. If you're somebody that, uh, can consume a lot of calories in a meal, then usually two meals a day can be great. And if you're somebody that maybe you've had your gallbladder taken out, [00:47:00] maybe you've had sluggish bio flow, um, or just eating a lot in a, you know, eating, let's say 800 calories in a meal.

Does not make you feel good. Then try three meals. And do three meals with high protein, let's say 30 or more grams of protein in that meal. Colorful fruits and vegetables, healthy fats in there. Um, and if you're doing that on a regular basis and also prioritizing really good sleep, okay, then, then fasting really shouldn't be that big of an issue.

And when we're talking about intermittent fasting, really talking about going like 14 to 16, maybe 18 hours between meals. So like you finish your dinner at, let's say 6:00 PM at night, and you go until 10:00 AM the next day, right, without eating, or 12:00 PM the next day without eating. That's an example of like a, a really good intermittent fasting cycle.

Your insulin will drop, you'll burn fat, your body will undergo autophagy where it'll break down these old damaged. Cellular organelles, it will regenerate new mitochondria, um, through [00:48:00] autophagy the breakdown of old damaged mitochondria and also through mitochondrial biogenesis, where your, your body will actually form new, healthy, stress resilient mitochondria.

And ultimately, the quality of our life at the cellular level is gonna come down to the amount of high functioning, stress resilient mitochondria. So whether when it comes to our exercise, our sleep, our nutrition, all of these things, our heat cold exposure, if we're doing the sauna, if we're, um, you know, doing, you know, getting cold exposure, if we're doing all those things, all those things have really at the cellular level one goal.

Are we, are we creating new, healthy, stress resilient mitochondria or not, right? And if we are, we're gonna get better. We're gonna adapt more effectively to it. We're be, we're gonna become more resilient human beings, harder to kill. And if we're overwhelming our body with stress. Then we're creating actually damaged mitochondria, or we're not gonna actually clean out the bad mitochondria, and we're overwhelming our [00:49:00] system, our allostatic, our, our stress load is too, is too high, and we're not getting those desired results.

So that's really what it comes down to. 

Liz: Yeah. I would love for you to touch on the three day fast in terms of the immune reset that you talk a lot about. When we talk with women, many times we're working them into a three day fast where we're going, you know, walking them in. Like you, you mentioned before, men are a little bit more resilient for me.

I've done several different types of fast and, you know, omas one meal a day or four hour eating window and coming out of it, it feels weird, but going back into it, it also feels weird. And by that I mean like hardish, um, in terms of you haven't been fasting for bit's, like, oh, this is a little uncomfortable, but by day two or three I'm good.

I, I don't need to be thinking about that. So I'd love for you to touch on, because I think for many people they will give up on fasting too easily. In my experience from a female perspective, they're mistaking some of their detox symptoms when their body is getting into autophagy or low blood sugar.

'cause we've checked the keto mojo, we've [00:50:00] checked the continuous glucose monitor, and they're not very low blood sugar, but rather they're getting headaches or tired because your body's running a marathon internally as it starts to do this cleanup process. And then by day two, day three, wow, here's my energy and my brain, my mental clarity like I had in my twenties.

I love this. But it sometimes is a situation where people just give up too fast. I'd love to just hear your opinion on that for those who maybe feel like, oh, fasting isn't for me, or I've tried it and didn't work, or whatever. 

Dr. Jockers: Yeah, for sure. So a couple big things I would always say, you know, before you do a three day fast, make sure you're sleeping well.

Okay. Sleeping well is so critical. We talked about the growth hormone. You are gonna feel good doing a fast if your growth hormone is elevated. To balance out the effects of the cortisol. But if you're not sleeping well at night, if you don't have stable blood sugar to begin the fast, you're not going to get the, the, the, the natural rise of growth hormone.

You need to counteract the negative [00:51:00] effects of the cortisol. And so I think that's so critical to begin with. Um, so, so always helping people sleep better to be before they jump into like a three day fast. And then I always, you know, fa fasting is kind of like a muscle that you need to exercise, so. Just like running a 5K, like you wouldn't just get off the couch and run a 5K, you would want to build up to that.

So you'd want to run a mile first, right? Or or or a half a mile and gradually build your fasting muscle. So you might start with an intermittent fast, 16, 18 hours. And then once you get to the point where you can do like a 20 to 24 hour fast, relatively easy, maybe a lunch to lunch fast, or something along those lines that you do once a week, that would be the time where I say, okay, this is a great time to jump into like more of a three day fast at this period of time.

Okay? Now a big thing that happens whenever you're fasting is your insulin drops, okay? And that's kind of where the magic happens, because that's when you start really undergoing autophagy [00:52:00] fat burning. But the other thing that happens is insulin holds on to sodium. And so when you have elevated insulin, your body's gonna retain more water and more sodium in your bloodstream.

And when you're fast, now your insulin drops, you start to excrete sodium and water, so you start peeing it out. And that can cause a lot of the dizziness, headaches. A lot of these, these hypoglycemic like symptoms are actually related to hyponatremia or low sodium content. Mm-hmm. And so taking in some extra salts can be really beneficial.

Most people find that if they just take like a pinch of sea salt, put it on their tongue, that they feel better. Now for other people, you know, many of us have food addictions too. We want the dopamine hit. So there's also a level of like deprivation, right? You think about a drug addict when um, you know, if they were to come off of an alcoholic coming off of alcohol, a heroin addict coming [00:53:00] off of heroin, there's gonna be withdrawal symptoms.

So if we've been used to eating ultra processed foods for the dopamine boost that we get from that, there's gonna be a pretty big drop in dopamine. And if our neurochemistry is not ready for that, that can also cause. Uh, withdrawal like symptoms as well. So it's kind of this combination. Typically, it's, it's less likely that it's a hypoglycemia.

It's more likely that it's low sodium and also the low dopamine in a neuro, in a neurology that is used to getting these really major rises, like major boosts of dopamine from, from food. And so I think that's, that's really big. But like you said, I mean, there's kind of this uncomfortable period and as you get through that, then fasting becomes easier because your body starts to break down fat and it starts producing ketones.

And this is kind of what happens when you are doing intermittent fasting. Before you do the three day fast, your body gets better at this [00:54:00] process of taking fatty acids, using them for energy. 'cause we all have plenty of body fat that we can use for energy. We just have to be able to tap into it and then actually converting those fatty acids into ketones.

And those ketones are smaller water soluble molecules that can cross the blood brain barrier. We can't burn fatty acids for fuel in our brain, but we can burn ketones. And so if we are, if we're not used to creating ketones and utilizing them for energy, then it can, it can take a little bit of, uh, conditioning our, our, our body to be able to use those.

And so for somebody that is very metabolically damaged, very metabolically dysfunctional, high insulin, and we just put them on a long fast. It's gonna be really uncomfortable because it's gonna have this, there's this adjustment period before they produce the ketones and then use the ketones, right? And this is also why I don't recommend, um, testing your ketones on urine strip, because when you test 'em on a urine strip, all you're [00:55:00] looking at you, you are looking at to see if your body's producing 'em, but you're not looking at how well your body's utilizing them.

In fact, what a lot of people will tell me is at first their ketones were really high on the urine strip, and over time they, they went down and they think they're doing something wrong. But actually, that's actually a positive sign. Because that tells me that our body's actually using them as a fuel source, and that's what we want when we get the ketones up into the brain.

They're a great fuel source for neurons, but they also are an epigenetic modulator, and that means that they actually turn on positive genetic expression. In the body and, and particularly in the neurons, they actually in increase the amount of mitochondria in the neurons, they turn on autophagy or the breakdown of old damaged mitochondria that are not stress resilient.

And we need that space, right? If there's, if there's senescent or aged mitochondria in a neuron, it's taking up space and not producing the cellular energy we need. So we either need to break it down and regenerate it right into a [00:56:00] better, you know, mi a better mitochondria that's more stress, stress resilient, or just eliminate it all together.

And so in that way we can get like new mitochondrial that will, that could spur off of, um, uh, off of good healthy mitochondria. And so we call that mitochondrial biogenesis. And so we need more healthy mitochondria in the neurons. And that's one, one of the things that ketones stimulate. They also help to balance the glutamate to GABA ratio in the brain.

And when we have brain inflammation. We have excess excitatory activity. And that's, that's that glutamate. Glutamate is like the gas pedal in the brain. GABA is like the breaks. And so when we have higher brain inflammation, right, which most people do, we are over exciting the neurons. And that can lead to a lot of the things I talked about earlier.

Anxiety, right? It can lead to impulsivity, right? Trouble concentrating, trouble focusing, trouble sleeping. It can also result in depression because [00:57:00] when we have too much excitation, we end up with actually we're, we end up killing the neurons. Something called neuro excitotoxicity where we kill the neurons and there, there, there ends up being a domino like effect.

When one neuron dies, it spills out its contents, calcium and all these different ions into the next neuron, next to it, and over excites that neuron and then that neuron dies. And over excites neuron next to, it's like a domino effect going down. And when we get a high amount of neuronal death. We get mental lethargy.

We get depression, right? These are common symptoms of high brain inflammation and neuronal death. Okay? Not good. And so over time, obviously that leads to, uh, neurodegenerative conditions, Alzheimer's, dementia, things like that. And so the, uh, the, the ketones elevated in the brain helps balance that glutamate to GABA ratio, which makes you think sharply and quickly, but also be very calm.

So you kind of have this natural balanced state where you're calm, [00:58:00] but you also can think sharply and quickly. You have great memory. We recall, and that's one of the great benefits of getting into this state. And so, um, so really the, the magic happens when you're able to produce and utilize these ketones as an energy source, okay?

But also having that balance of cortisol to growth hormone to where you're over not overly catabolic, and you're preserving your lean body tissue. So that's why I recommend really good sleep hygiene and sleep habits. That really needs to go along with the fast 

Liz: and chill out too. Yeah, that's, we have like a whole three day fasting protocol.

Becca: You don't need to go running or burn more calories or like drink water. 

Dr. Jockers: Absolutely. 

Becca: And like you said, I think a lot of it can be mental and then people get into their minds of like, oh my God, I'm feeling low blood sugar. And I really do believe that a lot of the symptoms come from more dehydration than it comes from actual low blood sugar.

Because I've been in the sixties and felt completely [00:59:00] fine. Like, or even in the fifties, in a deep fast, if you are hydrated and if you're taking in electrolytes. Um, but a lot of people freak out and think, yeah. This is alerting the keto mojo's yelling at me that my blood sugar's too low. Um, but if you're, 

Dr. Jockers: and you gotta take into consideration caffeine as well.

I know. Like that's what gets me. 'cause I like to drink coffee. Yes. And so like, if you're doing a three day fast and you come off of the coffee you have to take into account, you're probably not gonna feel your best when you're coming off the caffeine as well. Yep, 

Liz: yep. Okay. Wait, so you're saying no coffee during a three day fast?

Sometimes we do black coffee. 

Becca: Well, it depends on the person. Depends on the type of fast too, right? Depends 

Dr. Jockers: on the type of fast. Exactly. 

Becca: Yeah. Um, so in kind of like a scheme of a year per se, how would you recommend to people to, and again, it can be very person dependent, but like general idea. This is maybe go through a, you know, two to three months of feeding normally and keeping a short fast in once a week or something like that.

And then spend a period of time where you [01:00:00] build into intermittent fasting in a deep fast once or twice a year. Like, how do you typically think it's good to keep yourself fine tuned to this? 

Dr. Jockers: Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Well, again, it depends on the individual. It depends on the amount of activity that person has, um, their body fat percentage to begin with.

Obviously there's all these personalized, uh, elements to it, but in general, like for example, what, what I'm doing on a regular basis is I'll tell you what I do and what my wife does as an example, right? So what I personally do is I do usually about an 18 hour fast most days, and then I eat a lot of calories in like a six hour eating window, right?

That's kind of typically what I'm doing. Sometimes it extends out to eight hours depending on what, you know, if I'm busy at night or something like that. Um, but six to eight hour eating window where I'm, I'm consuming a lot of calories. And then one day a week I try to get a 20 to 24 hour fast and I like a lunch to lunch fast.

Um, I find that to be most effective for me. I've done certainly done dinner to dinner, and it depends how busy I am and traveling and things [01:01:00] like that. I find if I'm traveling, it's easier to fast. Like if I'm in airports and stuff like that. Um, so I'll base it around some of those factors, uh, but if I'm able to control it, I like a lunch to lunch fast.

Eat a really good lunch. Right. And then I, and then I just fast through dinner. Now it's normal. If you're used to eating a meal at a certain period of time to have some natural hunger at that time, especially if you're sitting with your family and they're eating, that's normal. I drink herbal tea or I, or I drink water.

That water will descend my stomach. It will inhibit my hunger hormone ghrelin and make it easier to fast through that. And you know, I have, I have a lot of fasting experience to know that actually I feel better when I fast. So it's better, it's a better idea for me to just fast through this meal than to consume it.

'cause I wanna get my longer fast in that, that week. Mm-hmm. And then the next morning it's like, I'm not hungry, I feel great. And then I usually end up breaking my fast with a workout before I end up actually eating some sort of food. Okay. And it's usually a 20 to 24 hour fast. Every now and then I'll do a little bit [01:02:00] longer one.

Um, and then for me, I will do a extended fast. When I'm sick. So usually once a year, once or twice a year, I get a fever or flu, you know, haven't had one yet. Uh, fortunately this fall or winter. But when I do, I just listen to my body. My body's saying I need more rest. Okay. I stop eating. I hydrate well, and I spend more time in my sauna, right.

And more time napping and resting right during that period of time. And usually I'll do a three, four day fast. I've done five day before during that period of time. So for me, I don't do it like, okay, this coming January 1st, I'm gonna do a five day fast. I just base it around when my body gives me the signal.

Mm-hmm. Okay. We need a little hibernation here. Right. Um, to, to repair. And that's when I turn, that's when I go into more of an extended fasting cycle. Now my wife, she [01:03:00] likes to do like a three day fast every few months. Okay. Um, and for her, she does it really for the gut health benefits and also for, for some fat loss.

Right. Um, and she eats more. So I'm, I'm pretty strict on my nutrition plan, right? She likes to go off the nutrition plan a little bit more than I do, right? Like, she likes ice cream one night on weekend, right? You know, things like, she's more fun, I would say, than I am. So the way she, in her head, the way she counters that is she's like, well, I'm gonna do like every three month, three or four months.

She does like a three day fast. Um, and so she, you know, for her, that's how, how she approaches it. So quarterly, she's figuring out a time when it works and we always make sure it's when she starts her menstrual cycle. That's the other thing is timing out fasting around the menstrual cycle for a, for a woman, like she's a 43-year-old woman, so.

She, um, you know, she's in perimenopause and so she still has a menstrual cycle. And you don't [01:04:00] wanna fast the week before you menstruate or right around ovulation. The best time to fast would be right after you start menstruating, like within that first kind of 10 day period, um, after menstruation. So the first day, you know, when you, when you bleed, that's day one, right?

I know you guys know this, but for the listeners, right? So in that first 10 day period is a really good time to fast, all right? Around ovulation. You need a more estrogen, progesterone levels, right? You higher, higher estrogen, progesterone. Um, you don't wanna put that stressor on your body. Remember there's these fertility signals, um, that you want to tell the body.

You wanna tell the body that food is plentiful. It's a great time to ovulate and be fertile, okay? Um, and so, and then right before menstruation as well, 'cause you have higher amounts of progesterone that you need. And so it's a good time to tell the body we're in a time of feasting. Food is plentiful right now, so right after ovulation, you can fast [01:05:00] again if you want to.

Um, but not the week before. So I wouldn't do any sort of extended fasting. You might do a intermittent fast, like a 12, 14, 16 hour fast if you feel good with that. Um, but nothing, don't, don't be more aggressive with your fasting, um, outside of that. So anyways, that's how we time it with my wife and on a regular, on a day-to-day basis.

She's doing something similar to me, 16 to 18 hours, one day a week, she'll, uh, she'll eat like a big breakfast. Now she usually does lunch and dinner, so one day a week she eats a big breakfast with my kids. Um, it's her feast day, right? So she has that, that big feast day. Um, and that works really, really well for her.

Um, and every now and then I'll eat breakfast with her if we go on a date. So we have a date morning every Friday, every other Friday morning, um, and we go out to a brunch, right? And then she, uh, I used to not eat breakfast just because I fe I felt I feel better. And then she's like, she asked me to start eating breakfast with her.

'cause it's kind of strange when she's sitting there on a date and she's eating [01:06:00] and I'm not. So I decided for her, I'll start doing that. So on those days, I eat breakfast. And then I eat dinner and I fast kind of from breakfast to dinner. Mm-hmm. 

Liz: Yeah. So I love the way that you describe this because it's easy to understand and also for the listener, you can feel good in terms of like there's no right or wrong.

Mm-hmm. In terms of, hey, you know what? I feel better doing it this way that works for my body. If I do have something I can be flexible and eat my breakfast and then I just don't have to have that lunch. That's a thing I think a lot of people get into is like, well I normally eat it this time so I have to eat it this time.

But if you just ate earlier than you normally do, you can fast between and give your body that motor ing complex and peristalsis. Yeah. You know, a little bit of release. So I love that. And obviously there's so much on the website for everybody to go and read and I think you even have some audio now as I, I saw that, um, as well, obviously outside of the YouTube channel and your Instagram are great resources too.

So this has been awesome. I wanna also be mindful of time 'cause I know you have, [01:07:00] uh, a family event to go to. So as we wrap up here, tell our listeners. Where they can, you know, find you obviously we'll put it all in the links in the show notes and we'll share this out like we do Yep. In your blogs as well.

Dr. Jockers: Yeah. Well thanks so much. Yeah, it was a great conversation and yeah, you can find me dr jockers.com also. I have a great podcast, Dr. Jockers functional Nutrition podcast as well, so absolutely thank, thanks so much for having me guys.