Hey, what's up?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
I got a
question about fasting and about a book that I did a review on.
There's this book on Obesity Code.
You can check it out here and it's a really good book, actually.
It really changed some of my mindset on some of the things as far as fitness.
I've actually changed my diet quite a bit.
In fact, I'm just coming off of a three-day fast.
It's Tuesday now.
I just broke the fast yesterday, but I stopped eating Friday night and I didn’t eat Saturday
or Sunday, or Monday until Monday evening when I broke the fast.
It's a good three-day fast.
I'll tell you.
You'll learn a lot about yourself if you don't eat for three days.
You'll learn a little bit about who you really are.
I've done this enough times that I've sort of been able to go there and learn, gain some
insight from that.
It's definitely something I encourage, but, you know, obviously, check with your doctor.
I'm not a doctor so if you don't eat for three days and somehow you die, it's not my fault.
You're the idiot who didn’t eat for three days.
Okay?
I got this question from Kevin and Kevin says, "Hey, John.
I've read the book you recommended, Obesity Code.
I imagine you did three days of fasting based on that book."
There you go, my brother.
All right.
He says, "Have you seen any benefits?
I do know that you fast 24-hour period."
My normal regular scheduled fasting is everyday.
I basically don't eat for 22 hours or 23 hours.
I eat one meal a day.
I fast all day long.
I haven’t eaten today.
I won't eat until like 5:00 or 6:00 and that will be the one meal I'll eat.
That's my protocol.
He says additional info: "Another is how you deal with hunger during fasting.
I actually managed to subdue my hunger, but when I see delicious food in front of me,
I couldn’t resist.
Thankfully or not thankfully, my wife loves to cook delicious food and it's so hard to
resist."
A couple of things here, Kevin.
Some benefits.
There are some definite scientific benefits.
I'm not going to go like in-depth into science here in this video since I don’t have any
research in front of me, and I'd just be coding up fake statistics that I don’t have in
front of me.
I will tell you this.
HEH levels when you fast have been proven to rise dramatically as much as up to a thousand
percent, and it sort of peaks around 48-72 hours.
A three-day fast like that is going to give you a very high HEH level, which I can feel.
When I went to the gym yesterday and I hit the—I hit PRs on a lot of lifts with no
food for three days.
A lot of people will say, "Well, that doesn’t make any sense like you're going to be"—They
always say this.
They say, "Well, if I did that, I would lose a bunch of muscle and I'd faint."
I’m not saying that you won't faint.
Maybe you would.
It depends on your blood sugar, but for most—but think about this from a biological standpoint.
Let's say you're a caveman and let's say that you haven't eaten for four, five days because
the only way that you get food is you fucking kill something and you eat it.
What do you think would be a biological advantage?
You think that you should be at your weakest at that point like you're like, "Oh, I can't
hardly hold this spear.
I haven’t eaten for four days," or do you think you're going to be jacked?
Do you think that your body is going to be pumping you full of adrenaline like you better
kill something or you're going to die and you're going to have superhuman strength?
Which do you think makes more sense?
Okay?
Think about that.
That's just something to think about.
I know we're on the same—I know I'm preaching to the choir because you read the book and,
obviously, you like the book, but for those of you that are doubting and wondering about
this, that's my explanation like come up with a better sound reason why.
You know, come up with a reason why you should be like ready to pass out and weak after not
eating and I'll entertain it, but it doesn’t make any sense to me from a biological standpoint.
Anyway, that's one benefit of it that I find.
The other one is just the mental clarity.
Like I said, you learn a lot about yourself by not eating for three days.
It's hard.
It's difficult.
It's not an easy thing to do, but you learn about what you can endure that being hungry
is not that bad.
Also, I do like 10-mile runs when I'm fasting as well.
Just like what you're capable of.
It's pretty awesome when you're like you haven't eaten for three days and you ran 10 miles
and lifted a bunch of weights, and you're like, "Wow there's a lot of stuff in life
that I thought was hard.
Now, it seems easy because if I can do that, what can't I do?"
I think that's something and, again, I've done videos on this before where I've talked
about like that where you're at worst is your actual best.
What I mean by that is like when things are hard and how you're acting in that time, that's
what you actually are.
That's the real you coming out.
If you put yourself through hell, if you put yourself through fasting for three days, that
personality that you have then, that's the real you and that's where you can actually
work on that real personality because if you improve yourself, if you can hold back your
temper, if you can control your emotions, if you can have emotional mastery at that
point, when you're not under that kind of pressure, it will be much easier.
That's where you really get to do some really deep self-development.
At least that's what I find.
Just from a health benefit, I mean like I said, you read Obesity Code.
You know that the most efficient way to burn fat is to fast, obviously.
When you do that, you also prime yourself to build muscle with the HEH increase.
From a health standpoint, I think that it's highly beneficial for what I'm trying to achieve
physique wise.
I've had great benefits and great results from it, and then also from a medical standpoint
there's been a lot of studies showing that fasting is helpful to your health, everything
from preventing cancer to program cell death which is—I'm losing the name for it now.
Anyway, those things can help to renew the body.
Now, as far as dealing with hunger, I'll answer that real quick.
This is one of those things that like—I mean it subsides, like hunger comes and goes.
You're not like constantly hungry.
It's going to come and go, so the best thing to do is just to distract yourself and go
do something else or just recognize it.
I mean being self-aware is really powerful.
Anytime you're trying to master any kind of emotion or feeling being self-aware and just
saying, "Okay, I feel really hungry right now."
I know it sounds really stupid, but if you acknowledge and you say—because then you
acknowledge the difference between the urge to eat and the feeling of hunger.
Do you see what I'm saying?
As creatures, biological creatures, we tend to like—we go with what we desire.
We don’t make the connection always between the emotion and the feeling, and then the
action.
When you separate those two and you say, "I'm hungry.
I'm feeling hungry," and you feel what that feels like, you're like, "Oh, that doesn’t
mean I have to eat.
It just means that I would want to eat," but it doesn’t mean—I know it sounds a little
bit silly, but try it.
It will help you.
Then as far as delicious food, you just got to develop the—again, I would say that the
biggest with that is that I always tell myself that FoMO, fear of missing out.
FoMO.
I did a video on FoMO.
I think I even talked about food and stuff like that because—there are some delicious
food in front of you.
You can eat delicious food anytime you want.
I always tell myself, "John, you're a grown ass man.
You can go to the store and you can buy a whole fucking cheesecake if you want.
You can eat the whole thing if you want.
Anytime you want."
This is like—you can do this.
This is amazing, right?
Why do you feel like just because someone brought cupcakes into work that you've got
to eat the cupcakes or some cooked delicious food?
You can go to a nice restaurant and eat delicious food.
You see what I'm saying?
If you're trying to fast, if you're trying to not eat, then just don't do it.
Don't like indulge it because you're afraid of missing out.
Anytime you make choices in life like that where you're afraid of missing, that FoMO,
you make bad choices.
I mean there are definitely occasions where it's once in a lifetime opportunity, but most
of the time someone cooking a good meal or someone bringing cupcakes into work is not
a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I mean let's be honest here and how much are you really selling missing out anyway.
Some hedonistic pleasure for like a few minutes of enjoying some food.
Big fucking deal.
What are your bigger goals in life?
That's what I remind myself when I'm hungry.
Okay, I'm hungry right now so I'm reminding myself that.
All right.
That's all I got for you today.
Thanks for question.
Check out the book if you haven't, The Obesity Code.
Check my review on it.
I think it's a really good book.
I think everyone should read it, and that's all I got.
All right.
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