Dr. Mindy here and on this video we are going to talk about the 48 hour fast so if you are new
to my channel I just want to say welcome please hit the subscribe button notification button I
am here to teach you everything you need to know about fasting I'm working on getting
a million people here to my channel this year so that we could ignite a movement of fasters
you will see fasting is one of the greatest ways to take back control of your health and the 48
hour fast is amazing because there's so much mental health that comes with fasting that long
and those of you that share my videos out you guys know how much I love you I appreciate all your
positive comments and the amazing way that you show up in the fasting world so thank you and
let's start with this fast training week it is now sponsored by LMNT so you guys know if
you've been following my videos this week that element is doing a box giveaway to five of our
resetters during this week so if you want to win a free box of LMNT which is a mineral
supplement that fasters desperately need and look there's 30 of them in here then just put companion
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okay 48 hour fast here's what's really cool when you break down fasting you look at 15 hours is
really helping us become metabolically flexible 17 hours is helping ourselves start to detox
24 hours we start resetting our gut 36 hours we start making our body more efficient at
burning fat and at 48 hours we amp up our brain power so I have four studies that I
want to share with you guys they all come at looking at the 48 hour fast in unique ways
but before I launch into those studies I want you to realize that there are two major things
that happen to us as we age one is that our dopamine receptor sites become less sensitive so
just because you make dopamine doesn't mean that you're going to use that dopamine and you're going
to experience dopamine in the same way so how this looks for you is it may look like you've been
you know everything in your life looks fine but you're just not as joyful as you used to be
or things that used to excite you don't excite you as much anymore and that could be because these
dopamine receptor sites are not as sensitive a little bit like insulin receptor sites that
don't become as sensitive dopamine receptor sites can get blunted and it can not take in
the dopamine molecules as easily so one of the changes you're going to see here is that this
48 hour fast starts to re-sensitize these dopamine receptor sites the second thing that you'll see in
some of the studies I'm going to share with you is that when we have been under a tremendous amount
of stress for a long period of time and the longer we live on this planet the more stress we're gonna
have what ends up happening is that we start getting locked into our amygdala our amygdala
is the midbrain it is the fight or flight brain so as you age as stress goes up as you have more
trauma you need tools to start to help to get more blood flow more activity to the prefrontal cortex
I talk about that a lot this week because the prefrontal cortex when you're operating from
this part of your brain it quiets the anxiety fighter flight brain and you're going to see
that the 48 hour fast can start to help us with more cognition in the prefrontal cortex so that's
really cool right so these are the two principles I'm operating off as I go down these four studies
okay first one was a study that they did where they took two groups of people and they said
okay one can eat all day and the other we're going to restrict their calories by 70 percent
now they didn't do the eating window fasting window that routine they just restricted by 70%
and all they were looking at was these dopamine receptor sites and what they found is that in
the people that they restricted calories from for 70% of their calories that they increased
increased the number of receptor sites so this isn't even making these receptor sites more
sensitive I'll show you that study in a moment you actually got more dopamine receptor sites
so think about it those of you that have been fasting a long time how excited are you when all
of a sudden you open up your eating window and you're like okay I'm ready to go let me start
eating you get so much more joy out of your food because you literally have created more receptor
sites that will pull the dopamine into the cells and activate joy in your brain that's pretty cool
okay second study was done this was specifically done on a 48-hour fast on
amateur weight lifters and what they did is they found that after 48 hours it was water
no calories so there was nothing it was just water for 48 hours and they found that they had a higher
parasympathetic activity which if you're familiar with the nervous system your sympathetic nervous
system is what is that fight-or-flight like go-go-go nervous system and the parasympathetic
is the rest and digest so a 48-hour fast in these amateur weight lifters improved
parasympathetic activity so they chilled out okay it also decreased resting and this is part this
is important resting frontal brain activities so think about it for a second how many times
have you been sitting around and think I shouldn't be anxious I should be doing something why can't I
just sit here and you feel wound up that's because at rest your prefrontal cortex is constantly going
we need our prefrontal cortex to be able to solve problems which is great and to be able to
see a goal and go after a goal but when we're resting we don't want it active and so what
they found in these weight lifters is the at 48 hours they started to see the prefrontal cortex
resting prefrontal cortex activity come down okay and then the third thing that I think
is really interesting is they saw parts of the prefrontal cortex in these amateur weight lifters
that became the cognitive functions improved and specifically this is so cool specifically
in mental flexibility so what does that mean that means that they were able to go from task to
task to task much easier and switch in and out of different learning styles so those of you that are
studying those of you that have jobs that require a lot of multitasking this is where the 48-hour
fast is going to help to condition your brain okay third study this is also a really cool one this
study showed that as ketones went up there was another chemical neurochemical that went up which
is called BDNF so the more ketones you get the more BDNF you get and what they found is that BDNF
alerts the neurons in the hippocampus and says hey we're going to make a metabolic shift here
we're going from glucose to ketones and in that we need you to start repairing and so that's exactly
what the brain does the hippocampus is the part of the brain that's mood and memory so this one was
done on they went over 24 hours they didn't say how long but they said it was an over 24 hour fast
so I'm putting it in the 48-hour fast category and they said that when the BDNF came on the
scene because ketones came on the scene that these neurons in the mood and memory part of our brains
started to regenerate they started to create new neurons and the brain was more able to learn the
brain was more alert because of that metabolic switch how cool is that okay and then the last
one this was also a 24-hour plus one so again they didn't they didn't say hardcore 24 or hardcore
48. so I'm gonna put it in the 48 because I want your brain to be working at its best
so they found that they passed 24 hours they started to see an increase in dopamine release
in the brain so you got more dopamine coming out if we go back to that first study you've got
more receptor sites if we go to the third study you've got more of these neural pathways carrying
dopamine and now we're seeing you're going to get like I said more release the other thing then the
last thing i'm going to tell you if you're not completely convinced is that what they found is
that these neurons these new neurons were more excitable so the effect that a 48-hour fast
can have on dopamine on BDNF on the hippocampus for mood and memory on the prefrontal cortex
study after study after study is showing that the longer you fast the more the benefits turn to the
brain so super cool I'll leave all the links for these studies in the notes for those of you
that want to dive into them and look at them but this is fast training week and this week we are
practicing the 48 hour fast so please go back and watch the video I did the one before this and
every day this week I'll have new videos out but I love this fast love it and I think you guys will
find that this is one of those facts that even if you struggle to get to that 48-hour mark
all of these brain changes are going to make it so that after the fast you're going to have
a brain that works even better than the one you got now and if you're new to my channel and you
haven't done fast training week I just want to encourage you just to go and make sure you get
the companion guide we have everything you need to know about fast training week there that is
how you can dive into the intricacies of fast training week so as always I hope that helps