In this video I'll uncover whether or not fasting is healthy
and the dangers associated with it.
When it comes to health it is not a one size fits all approach.
And the other thing when it comes to health too much of a good thing isn’t necessarily
a good thing.
I work with a lot of people and what I find is there are a lot of people who are implementing
a lot of different health strategies like intermittent fasting and getting great results.
The other problem is there are a lot of people who are implementing intermittent fasting
and destroying their health.
So that is why in this video we are going to discuss intermittent fasting.
The other thing we are going to talk about is the benefits that intermittent fasting
has to offer.
We are also going to talk about the dangers associated with it.
We are also going to talk about how to properly do intermittent fasting at the end of this
video.
So stick around until the end so I can help you get all the information and a good clear
picture as to what's really going on with this topic of intermittent fasting but before
I get started i’m Dr. Zyrowski.
Welcome to the channel.
If you are new to the channel it is a pleasure to have you.
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I can help you excel your health and your life.
Let’s go ahead and talk about intermittent fasting in general, right?
Because there have been a lot of cool things that've happened over the past couple years.
Now we have always known that intermittent fasting is a really beneficial process and
strategy that we can implement in order to improve our health.
But at the end of 2019 we saw this really great review of studies that came out and
this review article basically showed us all the research, proven benefits that intermittent
fasting has to offer.
This is incredibly beneficial because as I mentioned before this allows this health strategy
to be used in hospital systems.
It allows it to be used in government health education.
Basically because now we have the research there to show that it is proven.
Like I said before we all knew, like hey it works.
I’m working with people clinically, hey this works but research really proved it.
As I mentioned even though as I mentioned even though this is a positive health strategy
for many reasons.
It can also be a negative strategy and were going to talk about that.
What I want to do first is just mention briefly the different type of fasting.
Okay, because a lot of people see fasting as this idea.
As this big general topic but it could really be broken down into subcategories and its
important to understand those subcategories so you can actually figure out which one works
best for you.
And understand that different people may be doing different styles of fasting.
Now there is alternate day fasting.
This is essentially where you are going every other day and you are switching it up.
So one day you are going to do calorie restriction and the next day you are going to do normal
calories.
You are going to continue on that routine day in and day out.
Now 5:2 intermittent fasting is basically where you are going to restrict calories to
500 calories or less 2 days a week.
The other 5 days a week you are going to eat normal calories.
Then there is time restricted feeding.
Okay and this is basically what I would refer to as your typical 16:8 intermittent fasting
or your one meal a day.
Now there is one other type of fasting that I don’t have up there and that would be
your typical water fasting.
Many people are doing 3 day water fast, 7 day water fast.
They have a ton of benefits that they offer and there are some people who do like a fast,
one day water fast every single day of the week.
Okay, so those are really the basic type of fasting there.
Now let's talk about how fasting can benefit you okay?
I talked about from the very beginning that fasting has so many benefits and that according
to the research article that it is going to be very beneficial for disease prevention
and for longevity.
It is also going to help you lose weight okay?
So if you are someone who has a problem with obesity or type 2 diabetes then this is an
incredible way to not only turn your body into a fat burner so you start burning that
fat for energy versus holding it and walking around with it every day or storing more fat.
It also is going to be a very good way to improve insulin sensitivity if you are someone
who is a type 2 diabetic.
It is also very good for cardiovascular disease.
Fasting has been shown time and time again to help prevent cardiovascular disease.
For these people who have high cholesterol scores and triglyceride scores and inflammation
in the heart.
Essentially utilizing fasting is good for going in and reversing that and bringing it
to a good homeostatic that is going to help you improve your health and help you prevent
cardiovascular disease.
Which so many people are facing today.
Cancer is another one that fasting is really good for.
A lot of people are suffering from cancer.
When you are fasting you put yourself in this state of autophagy.
This autophagy goes in and breaks down those bad cells, those cells like cancer cells.
It breaks them down and takes those broken down parts and it basically recycles them
to use them for new healthy cells.
It also is supportive against avoiding neurodegenerative diseases.
We can think of alzhemiers.
We can think of dementia.
We can think of parkinsons, all these different neurodegenerative diseases that people are
suffering from fasting helps improve brain health.
Not only cognitive performance but focus, everything.
So from a preventative standpoint we want to use fasting but also just from a day to
day stand point to improve brain function.
It’s very powerful.
It’s also going to help keep you away from problems like asthma, arthritis.
One of the reasons that it helps so well with arthritis is because it helps decrease inflammation.
Arthritis is just an inflammation problem that has gone out of control in the body.
It also is going to help with surgical recovery and traumatic injury recovery.
Okay, you know we see this all the time in nature alone.
An animal gets hurt and what do they do?
They go and they fast and when they fast it helps their body recover.
It works the same way for human beings were all biological creatures.
Same things happens with human beings if you are fasting you just heal better from surgeries.
From anything this is very powerful.
I said from the very beginning that review article is powerful because now they can look
at this and go someone had a surgery in the hospital and because of that we can go and
use fasting in order to help them recover faster after surgeries
So pretty pretty interesting data here.
Now let’s go talk about some of the dangers of fasting because we have to really look
at this.
As I’ve said from the beginning too much of a good thing is not necessarily a good
thing.
Now this is a bright-eyed smiling vegan, keto one meal a day person.
I mean they are just happy as can be right here and they are smiling at us.
And of course I’m joking with you but this is some of the challenges that we see.
Now I've been implementing fasting for a long period of time.
Now I'm not just someone who jumped on the fasting bandwagon when it became popular on
the internet.
I have been doing it since the conception of my career.
I learned about it in school.
One of my professors actually owns a fasting clinic where he does clinical fasting for
like 40 plus days.
I mean they do serious serious fasting with individuals who have serious health problems.
So I learned about it then and I have always been intrigued by it and I have always implemented
into my health routines in my clinic.
So basically what I am saying is that this is something that I have real world experience
with.
When you have real world experience with it guess what happens.
You see all the problems that people are creating for themselves by implementing fasting.
So let's talk about some of them.
First of all for a lot of people fasting turns into severe calorie restriction.
We get this idea that well if we are doing 16:8.
We could be so much better if we do one meal a day.
Then it gets to one meal a day and then it’s like if I got all my calories within a 30
minute period, I'd be even healthier.
Then what happens you end up with a calorie restriction problem because you are probably
not getting all your calories in that very short time.
That is why when I talk about one meal a day, I typically say between 1 and 2 hours.
Some people say nope if you are doing one meal a day it has to be within 1 hour and
I don’t say it like that because simply a lot of people can’t do that.
It is not feasible for them, it’s not comfortable for them and as a result of doing so they
go into a severe calorie restriction.
Okay, so you end up with severe calorie restriction in some cases and it essentially ends up in
an eating disorder.
Like if you think about how and I have so many different examples I could use with this.
Let’s just think of one here.
If this individual comes in and their doing intermittent fasting and their health is in
absolute crisis.
Then they're going and doing things like severe calorie restriction essentially they put themselves
into a eating strategy where they try to eat all their calories in a very short period
of time.
They are not eating not near enough calories and they have created an eating disorder for
themselves essentially.
Phycology is the way they are looking at food and the way they look at eating is not healthy.
When you do this what happens?
Weight loss stalls that is one of the big things that happens.
Okay, individual I was recently working with “Can’t lose weight but I got this amazing
one meal a day plan I’m doing and I’m just rocking it”.
Weight loss stall.
Hair starts falling out.
I have seen this many times as well.
I am doing this perfect diet and this perfect eating strategy yet all my hair is falling
out and the individual is totally unhealthy.
Fatigue is a major issue.
Mood swings that are just all over the place, severe cravings where you are really proud
of yourself because you are doing this calorie restriction but then you go off the rails
like you have never seen every single day.
A lot of people, it’s interesting because they are very proud of still maintaining this
one meal a day but then they just do some serious binge eating.
The reason they are doing binge eating in many cases is because their body is just starving
for nutrition.
Then I can't sleep at night.
You are up all night and one of the reasons you’ll be up all night is because if you
are not getting enough protein.
Your body is going to wake you up and say hey basic survival we need some food here.
So, these are some of the things I see and we have to be very careful with it because
too much of a good thing is not a good thing.
Let’s take this a step further here.
Fasting causes stress in the body.
When we look at the stress it causes its typically a good physiological stressor and it helps
our body become stronger but the issue is in an unhealthy person this physiology stress
can make them become even more unhealthy.
So, this physiology stress for one can lead to blood sugar instability.
And what happens here with individuals when it comes to blood sugar and too much stress.
Blood sugar is high and then blood sugar is low.
This is interesting because they go into a state of hypoglycemia when they are fasting
and they feel terrible.
Their brain won’t work, their shaky, their dizziness.
Then when they have their first meal they go into a state of hyperglycemia.
Even though they were in some cases eating pretty good and healthy.
So they have that blood sugar instability problem and the reason for that is because
the body is unhealthy and it is just not able to maintain homeostasis.
This happens to a lot of people and fasting is incredibly uncomfortable for them but they
push through it.
As you push through it you are creating more stress in your body and driving more problems.
It’s interesting because I have people say to me “No, this is a healthy strategy”.
I mean I have had people literally when I tell them this is what we want to do.
Like we want to actually stop fasting, they look at me like I'm crazy.
They like ok well I just walked into the crazy doctors office and apparently this isn’t
going to work out.
I have had to like literally drag people into the second and third week of working with
me.
And increase their meals and increase their calories and it's so crazy and interesting
because do you know what happens when you start increasing their calorie intake and
you get them off this really bad pattern that they are on?
They start losing weight.
They start feeling better.
I had an individual who recently in a 3 week period who went from one meal a day to 3 meals
a day.
So this idea of the only way to eat is doing very strict fasting methods is really really
false.
You are going to have problems like blood sugar stability.
You are going to have problems like high cortisol.
This high cortisol is a stress hormone, like I said a lot of physiology stress.
Stress hormones are high you can’t lose weight when you have this hormone that is
just out of control.
It is also very destructive to your overall health.
You are going to get adrenal fatigue.
So some people may have adrenal fatigue starting this process out and maybe causing a lot of
issues but they may just be under an enormous amount of stress.
They may have the whole package.
You know financial stress, family stress, relationship stress, work stress and then
you’re trying to add intermittent fasting in.
In an extreme way in on top of a rigid work out schedule.
And so there is way too much stress and then they cause adrenal problems in their body
which leads to the inability to sleep at night and some of these issues.
Then lastly chronic stress is a major problem here.
So when we look at fasting in general as we see it is going to be something that is highly
beneficial but there is a time and a place for it.
And there is no reason to be extreme with it.
Okay?
Put in the comment section below some of the experiences you have had with intermittent
fasting.
The good, the bad, let me know.
Give this video a thumbs up and share it with your friends as well because a lot of people
are doing this.
Now when it comes to making sure that you are using proper fasting strategies as I mentioned
in the beginning I have a whole video on this.
Check this out this going to teach you everything you need to know to properly do intermittent
fasting right.
We actually want to be switching it up quite a bit because if we were going to be doing
16:8 intermittent fasting 7 days a week then it’s going to, our bodies are going to basically
plateau.