Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
Speaker 2: should know.
Speaker 3: I can believe how good you've gotten at this after
Speaker 3: fifteen years.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, thank you, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4: It's amazing.
Speaker 3: I've had a lot of practice pull something like that
Speaker 3: out here, sixteen years in fifteen whatever.
Speaker 2: It is, sure, I mean, I'm full of surprises. I
Speaker 2: like to think.
Speaker 3: Speaking of surprises, we want to issue a little CoA
Speaker 3: right off.
Speaker 4: The bat here, good idea and a little trigger warning.
Speaker 3: This topic is about intermittent fasting, and you know, there's
Speaker 3: just a lot of baggage wrapped up anytime you're talking
Speaker 3: weight loss and diet techniques, and especially fast If you've
Speaker 3: ever struggled with disordered eating, fasting can be very problematic, obviously,
Speaker 3: even intermittently. So uh, and there's just a lot of
Speaker 3: emotion and feelings wrapped up in all this stuff. So
Speaker 3: we just want to let people know, if the title
Speaker 3: didn't give it away, we're going to talk about the
Speaker 3: ins and outs and the science of intermittent fasting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've had disordered eating pretty much my whole life,
Speaker 2: and when I tried intermittent fasting, it really set it off.
Speaker 4: Oh really mm hmm. Interesting, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, and I also noticed I kind of plateaued really
Speaker 2: quickly because I was using it to lose weight. But
Speaker 2: one of the things I didn't realize, Chuck, is that
Speaker 2: I guess I did kind of realize it, but it's
Speaker 2: not at the forefront of your mind that there's a
Speaker 2: lot of other reasons besides weight loss that people engage
Speaker 2: in intermittent fasting. Based on some studies that have come
Speaker 2: down the pike over the last couple decades and especially
Speaker 2: the last decade, that show it's quite conceivable that if
Speaker 2: you engage in intermittent fasting for a prolonged period of time,
Speaker 2: all sorts of health markers like blood cholesterol, blood sugar,
Speaker 2: insulin resistance, all this stuff can can really improve.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah. But you know, as we'll see, studies
Speaker 3: are problematic when it comes to intermittent fasting because there's
Speaker 3: been so many of them. A lot of them have
Speaker 3: been on mice, a lot of them, some of them
Speaker 3: have been on humans. But with any kind of diet,
Speaker 3: studies like humans sticking to a diet is tough, so
Speaker 3: it's hard to get accurate results, and results study wise
Speaker 3: have been kind of mixed.
Speaker 4: And it also the.
Speaker 3: Grabster helped us put this one together. But as Ed
Speaker 3: also points out that the media comes into play. So six, eight,
Speaker 3: ten years ago, even five years ago, intermittent fasting was
Speaker 3: the cool, awesome, amazing new thing, And just in the
Speaker 3: past couple of years, I've even noticed that it's like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is that correct? Like I have not noticed that.
Speaker 2: I guess I have, So people are poo pooing it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think, But you know, I think it's like.
Speaker 3: Any diet fad kind of goes out of favor trend wise,
Speaker 3: and then I think there are some people in the
Speaker 3: media who will then report on like only the negative
Speaker 3: studies and not like hey, overall it looks like this
Speaker 3: or that.
Speaker 2: I think it's possible that that's what triggers the negativity
Speaker 2: towards the diet trend. It's possible is the chicken or
Speaker 2: the egg kind of thing, like does the media start
Speaker 2: poopooing it or does the problem start poopooing it and
Speaker 2: then the other one picks it up? So, uh, For
Speaker 2: those of you who have never tried to emittinfesting, that's
Speaker 2: one of the things so many people have tried to
Speaker 2: manifest because it's really really easy to start. But for
Speaker 2: those of you who aren't familiar with it, totally cool.
Speaker 2: We're going to explain it a little bit. But essentially,
Speaker 2: intermittent fasting is not so much watching what you eat
Speaker 2: or even necessarily how many calories you eat, although both
Speaker 2: of those are supposed to be wrapped up in it.
Speaker 2: But the thing that really differentiates if for those in
Speaker 2: the know, from other types of caloric restriction diets, is
Speaker 2: that the time you eat, or the amount of time
Speaker 2: over the course of a day that you eat, is
Speaker 2: really what's important here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we'll probably hammer this home a lot, but
Speaker 3: while you said and even coaight already that not necessarily
Speaker 3: counting your calories, that doesn't mean hey, I got eight
Speaker 3: hours a day to stuff my face with.
Speaker 4: Whatever I want to. You're still supposed to eat a
Speaker 4: healthy diet.
Speaker 3: There is no way to be healthy and drop weight
Speaker 3: without a healthy diet. Let's just say that across the board. Yep, right,
Speaker 3: But with intermittent fasting or if, as you said, there's
Speaker 3: a few different sub types. The first is also known
Speaker 3: sometimes as time restricted eating or time restricted feeding, which
Speaker 3: sounds weird because I don't have some big giant grown
Speaker 3: up that comes in and feeds me.
Speaker 4: I don't know about you. Why not, chuck, That would
Speaker 4: be pretty great. Here comes the plane.
Speaker 3: But this is when you sort of divide your day
Speaker 3: up into eating hours and not eating hours, and even
Speaker 3: within that. There are different ways to do it, but
Speaker 3: one of the most common that you'll see online.
Speaker 4: If you look up, you'll.
Speaker 3: See the number sixteen colon eight, and that is sixteen
Speaker 3: hours off and eight hours where you can eat. And
Speaker 3: that's you know, if you're just a regular daytime worker
Speaker 3: who sleeps at night. The good news about this one
Speaker 3: is about half the time that you're not supposed to
Speaker 3: be eating, you'll should be sleeping.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's the thing we all fast anyway, from
Speaker 2: the when we sleep, we're fasting. This is just kind
Speaker 2: of extending it a little more, making it a little more.
Speaker 3: Deliberate, unless you sleep walk in eat that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're on ambient and eat butter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ambien, I could remember which one it was.
Speaker 2: There's a few variations of this that like you said,
Speaker 2: I'll fall into time restricted feeding or diet. I've heard
Speaker 2: sixteen eight more than anything to just kind of encompass this,
Speaker 2: this whole category, but there's like fourteen ten. There's o MAD,
Speaker 2: which stands for one meal a day. Essentially, what you're
Speaker 2: doing is you're just limiting how much you eat again,
Speaker 2: and when you eat it's sensible and that and doing that,
Speaker 2: you're fasting intermittently. You're doing it every day, So the
Speaker 2: intermittent fast takes place over the course of twenty four hours,
Speaker 2: not necessarily anything longer than that.
Speaker 4: That's right. The next way you might hear.
Speaker 3: As a way to go about it, it's pretty common,
Speaker 3: is five in two and these are days of the
Speaker 3: week instead of hours of time.
Speaker 4: So that means that for.
Speaker 3: Five days of the week, you're pretty much eating your
Speaker 3: normal diet again hopefully that should be a good healthy diet.
Speaker 3: And then on those two days you're either not eating
Speaker 3: at all or you're eating really, really really low calories.
Speaker 3: I've seen two hundred to six hundred calories a day,
Speaker 3: And you probably shouldn't do this two days in a row,
Speaker 3: but I'm sure some people do it.
Speaker 4: Two days in a row.
Speaker 2: You actually don't really want to do it two days
Speaker 2: in a row. There's no benefits to it, and it
Speaker 2: can actually be counterproductive because, as we'll see, you can
Speaker 2: enter what's called colloquially is starvation mode, where your body
Speaker 2: starts hanging on to fat stores and slows your metabolism,
Speaker 2: which is the opposite of what you want if you're
Speaker 2: intermittent fasting for weight loss. So you really don't want
Speaker 2: to go beyond twenty four hours, but you just do
Speaker 2: two days out of every seven, and just nonconsecutively.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because if you, like said that, starvation mode, your
Speaker 3: body thinks you must be lost in the woods or
Speaker 3: the desert or something, right, because you're alive. You're not
Speaker 3: putting anything in me, so I'm going to slow things
Speaker 3: down metabolism wise.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: The third one is called the fasting mimicking diet or FMD.
Speaker 2: It's also sometimes called the warrior diet.
Speaker 4: I had never heard of this one.
Speaker 2: It's essentially like a time restricted one. But really what
Speaker 2: you're just doing is eating one like decent sized meal,
Speaker 2: but again really well put together, like fats and proteins
Speaker 2: and vegetables and stuff like that. But it's a good
Speaker 2: sized meal. Toward the end of the day and then
Speaker 2: throughout the day maybe you're nibbling on some other like
Speaker 2: vegetables or nuts or something like that. So again it's
Speaker 2: time restricted. But the emphasis of this is to like
Speaker 2: keep up your nutrients just enough so that you can
Speaker 2: stay ripped. Like if you're an athlete or you're really
Speaker 2: into exercising, but you want to intermit and fast for
Speaker 2: other health benefits, this is probably the one you should do,
Speaker 2: because we should say it's no joke that when you fast,
Speaker 2: especially if you fast more than twenty four hours, you
Speaker 2: start to feel a little weak, You start to get
Speaker 2: some brain fog, you start to notice that you are
Speaker 2: definitely not up to snuff. Yeah, so you want to
Speaker 2: be up to snuff if you're training, but you're still
Speaker 2: on if war your diet friend.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: So Ed points out, and we should also reiterate that
Speaker 3: fasting means that you're not consuming calories. You want to
Speaker 3: drink water. You want to drink a lot of water,
Speaker 3: and you can also drink coffee. You can also drink tea.
Speaker 3: You can't dump a bunch of sugar and creamer in it.
Speaker 3: But people also modify if a little bit and be like,
Speaker 3: all right, you know what, I'm going to eat a
Speaker 3: little bit of yogurt in the morning, or I'll put
Speaker 3: you know, I'll have a couple of carrots at noon,
Speaker 3: or maybe i'll have that creamer in the coffee, so
Speaker 3: like a little bit of calories coming in. But that's
Speaker 3: still sort of generally considered a fast, right.
Speaker 2: That was, I couldn't do that, Like I could coast
Speaker 2: for a very long time if I just didn't eat.
Speaker 4: I can do that too.
Speaker 2: Once I started eating, it was all over. Like I've
Speaker 2: just wanted to eat everything in sight, so I would
Speaker 2: put off eating as long as possible.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of the same way. I think there's a
Speaker 3: misconception like when someone like me has extra pounds that
Speaker 3: I just like eat all the time, and I don't.
Speaker 3: I can go a long long time without eating and
Speaker 3: I'm fine. I'm not like, oh I'm hungry, And I
Speaker 3: don't think it's just like mind over matter. I just
Speaker 3: I can do that. It's I have a terrible metabolism,
Speaker 3: awful genetics, and I'm learning now to eat the right foods.
Speaker 4: But I think when I just don't judge people.
Speaker 3: If you see someone that sober weight, it doesn't mean
Speaker 3: that they just constantly are stuffing their face because that's
Speaker 3: not the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and even if they are, who the
Speaker 2: heck are you to judge them? Like? Leave them alone?
Speaker 4: Yeah, shut up anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're either they're living their best life or they
Speaker 2: have a terrible burden to bear in either way, just
Speaker 2: leave them alone.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's a great stuff. You should know.
Speaker 3: T shirt is on the front, shut up anyway on
Speaker 3: the back, just leave them alone.
Speaker 2: That's right, So new motto.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: We need a colon in between the two.
Speaker 4: Yeah, between everything.
Speaker 2: So do you want to talk about the whole idea
Speaker 2: behind this?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: All right, So fast thing basically is based on the
Speaker 2: idea that when we metabolize energy, it usually comes from
Speaker 2: the food we just eat, and if we have some leftover,
Speaker 2: some of that glucose is really what it breaks down to,
Speaker 2: is stored in our muscles is something called glycogen, which
Speaker 2: is a really quick available burst of energy that we
Speaker 2: can release if we need be and then beyond that,
Speaker 2: once those glycogen stores are replenished, it could be converted
Speaker 2: to fat for like long term storage. Basically, that's the
Speaker 2: way you can look at it. If you don't eat,
Speaker 2: then you don't have that initial amount of energy to
Speaker 2: burn through to power you through the day. So you
Speaker 2: have to go from the beginning to your glycogen stores,
Speaker 2: which you can burn up quite quickly if you're exercising. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's really what they're for. And then after that you're
Speaker 2: gonna start burning fat. And when you burn fat, something
Speaker 2: called ketones are released. And if you're into intermittent fasting,
Speaker 2: this is the sweet spot that you feel like hitting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And if you've ever done like Atkins or any
Speaker 3: other sort of slow carb or no carb kind of eating,
Speaker 3: then you know all about ketones. They talk a lot
Speaker 3: about ketones and ketogenesis. You could also refer to it
Speaker 3: as the metabolic switch. And that's the point where your
Speaker 3: body switches over and says, Okay, I need some energy
Speaker 3: and the only place that I can get it here
Speaker 3: is the fat stores. And you have entered ketosis at
Speaker 3: that point. And that's a big part of a low
Speaker 3: carb or no carb diet and a big part of yeah.
Speaker 2: And key tones are basically what replaces glucose. When you
Speaker 2: burn your fat, the key tones are released, and that's
Speaker 2: what you're running on energy. But the thing is is
Speaker 2: your body's not set up to run on key tones
Speaker 2: for very long, which is why intermittent fasting is much
Speaker 2: safer than fasting fasting because as keytnes build up in
Speaker 2: your blood, it makes your blood acidic, which ipso facto,
Speaker 2: can eventually lead to coma and then death. And for
Speaker 2: people who are diabetic, especially I think type one diabetic,
Speaker 2: but I'm pretty sure for all people with diabetes. It's
Speaker 2: really hard for your body to balance keytnes in the
Speaker 2: first place, so they build up much more quickly than
Speaker 2: for other people. So that makes it even intermittent fasting
Speaker 2: very dangerous if you have diabetes. And I don't know
Speaker 2: if we said this or not, but I mean it's
Speaker 2: it's very smart if to number one, find a doctor
Speaker 2: or some sort of healthcare provider that you whose opinion
Speaker 2: you trust and look up to, and then number two
Speaker 2: talk to that person about whether or not you specifically
Speaker 2: should undertake internet and fasting. Yeah, and if you have diabetes,
Speaker 2: I'm guessing they're probably gonna say, nay, probably shouldn't.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I have a great GP now that I've had for
Speaker 3: a number of years now, and I finally sort of
Speaker 3: got to the point where I've locked in a GP
Speaker 3: that has gotten to know me, and it's that relationship
Speaker 3: with a doctor I always wanted where I feel like
Speaker 3: he likes me and cares about me and like knows
Speaker 3: me and my.
Speaker 4: Health to a degree, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 4: So it's really good and worthwhile.
Speaker 3: I don't not want to go to him, in fact,
Speaker 3: I probably And he's got a great messaging system, which
Speaker 3: is awesome because you don't feel like you have to
Speaker 3: make an appointment for everything. But I probably bug him
Speaker 3: too much and I'm too proactive about health stuff, if
Speaker 3: that's possible. But it's really beneficial, you know, like to
Speaker 3: have a doctor that's invested in you, because then you
Speaker 3: can and say, you know, hey, doc, I'm thinking about
Speaker 3: trying this, and they'll they'll know you and they're not
Speaker 3: just reading from a script, and they'll say, you know,
Speaker 3: it's probably not a good idea to do that, or
Speaker 3: this might work for you. Give it a shot, and
Speaker 3: maybe come see me in three months and we'll do
Speaker 3: some blood work and check you out.
Speaker 4: Right. Good stuff.
Speaker 2: That is great stuff. You're very lucky, very fortunate, Chuck.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like I went many years without having
Speaker 3: a good GP. And didn't go to the doctor a
Speaker 3: lot because of that.
Speaker 2: Well, that's an excellent reason not to go to the doctor.
Speaker 2: Like you said, you don't want to go to the doctor.
Speaker 2: And then either the doctor might be making you feel
Speaker 2: bad about yourself, which is a terrible, terrible thing for
Speaker 2: a doctor to do, or if you feel like they're
Speaker 2: phoning it in and just kind of giving you boilerplate advice, right,
Speaker 2: that doesn't really make you feel any better either. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean to finding really good doctors. Man, hang on
Speaker 2: to that guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he cusses in front of me, which I love.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and he recognized and complimented my pavement shirt
Speaker 3: last time I was in.
Speaker 4: Oh, so, like he took all the boxes.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, he really does. What a dream boat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Doctor Ramsare'll shout him out.
Speaker 1: He's great.
Speaker 2: So I say we take a little break and we'll
Speaker 2: come back and talk about what studies say about all
Speaker 2: this stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: All, right, Chuck. So, there have been a tremendous number
Speaker 2: of studies on intermittent fasting, going back. I think to
Speaker 2: the sixties is when it really started to kind of
Speaker 2: get underway. But it really picked up in like the
Speaker 2: twenty tens. Yeah, and that's when everybody was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this stuff is so great, it's amazing, and like one
Speaker 2: study came in and said it's great, so now we're
Speaker 2: all going to try it. Since then, things have kind
Speaker 2: of leveled up a little bit. Like you said, people have,
Speaker 2: if not started to pooh pooh it, at least started
Speaker 2: to look at it with a little more skepticism as
Speaker 2: you should anything like that. Yeah, agreed, But if you
Speaker 2: look at the major meta studies that look at really
Speaker 2: high quality studies together, it seems like it's backed up
Speaker 2: that there is something to this, especially in realms outside
Speaker 2: of weight loss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we'll kind of go through those in a sec.
Speaker 3: But Ed did point out that, like what you're looking
Speaker 3: at is calorie restriction in general is what IF accomplishes.
Speaker 3: It's just sort of in the way that it does it.
Speaker 3: So calorie restriction is going to improve You know, you're
Speaker 3: gonna lose weight if you've taken less calories. It's kind
Speaker 3: of a no brainer. You'll probably end up with better
Speaker 3: health markers as a result of fewer calories, and a
Speaker 3: lot of studies say like, hey, this is sort of
Speaker 3: like any other calorie restriction and that you're gonna.
Speaker 4: Lose some weight. But if is.
Speaker 3: Easy easy to follow, or I guess it's say easier
Speaker 3: to follow for some people than calorie counting. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of great apps out there, a lot of great
Speaker 3: fitness trackers where you can enter the foods you eat,
Speaker 3: enter the drinks you have and stuff like that, and
Speaker 3: all the snacks and your exercise, and it'll keep track
Speaker 3: of all that for you. So it's easier than ever
Speaker 3: before to do that, but it's still really hard for
Speaker 3: some people like me to do that. I go through
Speaker 3: periods where I'm really good at entering all that stuff,
Speaker 3: and then I got to the point where I was like,
Speaker 3: I know how to eat, I just need to do that.
Speaker 3: I'm really tired of I can get off my phone
Speaker 3: every time I put something in my mouth. So it's
Speaker 3: not a great fit for me. But something like intermittent
Speaker 3: fasting is just sort of you know, if you're doing
Speaker 3: sixteen eight, that's all you got to remember and then
Speaker 3: just eat sensibly.
Speaker 2: Right. The upside of the whole thing is that the
Speaker 2: recommendation is eat fewer large meals, and scientifically speaking, a
Speaker 2: large meal is a thousand calories or more cut some
Speaker 2: of those down to six hundred calories, seven hundred calories even,
Speaker 2: and you will start to lose weight, especially if you
Speaker 2: convert the fried I think they call it an obisagenic
Speaker 2: diet lots of sugar, lots of fried foods are also
Speaker 2: called the American or standard American diet. If you convert
Speaker 2: that to healthier stuff and you're knocking some of the
Speaker 2: calories off, you really will see good results, especially if
Speaker 2: you can change your attitude toward food and come to
Speaker 2: appreciate that, then you can make it like a long
Speaker 2: term adaptation. The point here is it doesn't matter how
Speaker 2: you approach that, whether, like you said, counting calories and
Speaker 2: staying within a certain window every day or just doing
Speaker 2: it through intermittent fasting. That's a good way to cut
Speaker 2: out a thousand calori. Just don't eat past a certain
Speaker 2: time and make sure that that time comes before you
Speaker 2: typically would eat a thousand calorie meal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and A and I guess there's you know, just
Speaker 3: a lot of first hand accounts in this one, because
Speaker 3: I've struggled with weight for a lot of my life.
Speaker 3: But for me, it's like I had to get to
Speaker 3: that point that I've only just recently gotten to where
Speaker 3: it wasn't about like denying something that I craved, but
Speaker 3: it was about looking at something that I really loved to.
Speaker 4: Eat and been like, ugh, God, now I can't eat that,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: Like now, when I see a big like cheese, greasy cheeseburger.
Speaker 3: And fries, I don't go, oh God, that looks so
Speaker 3: good and I want it so bad, but I can't
Speaker 3: have it. I look at that and I go, my god,
Speaker 3: that looks like, you know, a heart attack on a plate.
Speaker 4: I can't like.
Speaker 3: It's not appealing. It's a little bit appealing, but it's
Speaker 3: not as appealing looking, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm glad you yourself, because I don't think
Speaker 2: it is meant to be a switch where you go
Speaker 2: from oh my god, I want that burger to gross
Speaker 2: I'll never eat that again. I'm sure that happens for
Speaker 2: some people, but I don't know that that's realistic for
Speaker 2: the majority of people. Instead, like a really well crafted
Speaker 2: burger like that is pretty rare. We talked about this
Speaker 2: in the Fried Chicken episode. If you just held out
Speaker 2: for really genuinely good fried chicken and that's the only
Speaker 2: kind you ate. You would automatically start eating less fried chicken.
Speaker 2: Same thing with the cheeseburger, same thing with anything that's
Speaker 2: unhealthy or bad for you. I'm making scare quotes right now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you just stick to the ones that are worth it,
Speaker 2: if you set a bar for yourself and say that
Speaker 2: is not worth it, this is worth it, and you
Speaker 2: indulge in the worth it stuff once in a while,
Speaker 2: then you find like that makes the whole thing so
Speaker 2: much easier. It's just denying yourself time after time after time.
Speaker 2: No one can keep that up. Yeah, it's not even
Speaker 2: worth trying. It's finding what's modern for you, and then
Speaker 2: from that point on you can build like a different
Speaker 2: relationship with food. I've been through the same stuff as you,
Speaker 2: and I'm actually I'm pretty good at exposure where I'll
Speaker 2: go through the grocery store. I'll purposely go down aisles
Speaker 2: that I don't need stuff from, that has snacks and
Speaker 2: treats on it, just just to be like, this isn't
Speaker 2: worth it. I don't. It's not going to look anything
Speaker 2: like it does on the box. It's not gonna taste
Speaker 2: anything like what the ad is making me think. It's
Speaker 2: gonna taste like it's literally not worth it. And I've
Speaker 2: actually kind of gotten pretty good at that to where
Speaker 2: every once in a while I'll be like, no, this
Speaker 2: is actually totally worth The slice of Public's cake is
Speaker 2: worth it. I'll take that once in a while, but
Speaker 2: certainly not every time, and certainly not with any snack
Speaker 2: I passed in the grocery store.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just judged a I was a oh yeah,
Speaker 3: a quote unquote celebrity judge. Yeah, at the Kirkwood Spring
Speaker 3: Flings Wing Fling. And first of all, it was so
Speaker 3: much fun. I would be a judge in any food
Speaker 3: contest ever because it's I've never done it before and
Speaker 3: it was just really fun to sit and taste the
Speaker 3: food and like to rate it according to the scale.
Speaker 3: Had a really good time. But it was fifteen chicken wings.
Speaker 3: Some of these were the big, huge double wings, you
Speaker 3: know with the drum and the flat and you know
Speaker 3: the one I like probably five of them all the
Speaker 3: way through because they were that good. But the others
Speaker 3: I just like ate a bite or two and tasted.
Speaker 3: But then I looked at the plate at the end
Speaker 3: and all of those wings and I was just like,
Speaker 3: how did. I used to sit down and just scarf
Speaker 3: through twelve to fifteen chicken wings like it was nothing.
Speaker 3: It's like, that's just so much stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's just a mental hurdle.
Speaker 3: I guess I finally got over. But again, you know,
Speaker 3: stiffing for everyone. And I'm not saying my problems are solved.
Speaker 3: It's it's where I am right now, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I wanted to say something for those of
Speaker 2: you who are into a body positivity believe that you know,
Speaker 2: diet culture is very harmful. I totally respect that. That's
Speaker 2: You're right. We're not speaking to you, We're not trying
Speaker 2: to convince you to think otherwise at all at all.
Speaker 2: This is not for you. But there are plenty of
Speaker 2: listeners out there who are in the same boat that
Speaker 2: you and I are in, Chuck, that want to lose
Speaker 2: weight and have struggled with us for so many years.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I guess we're just sharing what's worked for us,
Speaker 2: which may or may not work for you. But I
Speaker 2: just don't want anybody to think like we're shaming anybody
Speaker 2: who's not trying to lose weight, not at all. Hopefully
Speaker 2: you know us that well or well enough by now
Speaker 2: to know we wouldn't do that, but I feel like
Speaker 2: it's worth it's worth pointing out just because it can
Speaker 2: be such a sensitive subject for people. Yeah, understandably.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, I do believe that you can
Speaker 3: be very healthy at a range of weights.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about for me.
Speaker 3: I don't mean I want to look good in my
Speaker 3: bikini bottoms. I like have some poor health markers at
Speaker 3: my age. You know, it's just inevitable. And I want
Speaker 3: to be around for my daughter, and I want to
Speaker 3: be around to record this dumb show.
Speaker 4: You'd be so mad if I dropped dead.
Speaker 2: I would be pretty upset. I would kick your corpse.
Speaker 4: You bet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just had to eat that last fried chicken cheeseburger,
Speaker 2: didn't you.
Speaker 4: I'd put your ashes in a punching bag and I'd
Speaker 4: box it.
Speaker 2: That's a really great idea. Yeah, not for you, but
Speaker 2: I'm saying, like, if you're a boxer, you could definitely
Speaker 2: do worse with your ashes.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: I thought you meant, like, you know, did you hate
Speaker 3: your parents? Put them in a heavy bag and beat
Speaker 3: them up for the.
Speaker 4: Rest of your life.
Speaker 2: That works too, man.
Speaker 3: Uh, this got really dark, all right, So let's look
Speaker 3: at some of these metas studies and what they've revealed, because,
Speaker 3: like I said, a lot of these have been done
Speaker 3: on mice and stuff like that. There's less research on humans,
Speaker 3: but still a lot. I think ed said there were
Speaker 3: like three hundred IF studies last year alone, But in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, NIH looked at a bunch of studies that
Speaker 3: went back several decades and said this, Hundreds of animal
Speaker 3: studies and scores of human clinical trials have shown the
Speaker 3: intermitt and fasting can lead to improvements in health conditions
Speaker 3: such as OBCD, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers, and neurological disorders.
Speaker 3: So you know, there you go, that's a meta study analysis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, by the NIH, which I mean they typically hopefully
Speaker 2: don't throw their weight towards something that's illegitimate.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so hard to find anybody to trust.
Speaker 2: Everyone's got such an agenda these days. But I mean,
Speaker 2: if you're going to trust somebody, it might as well
Speaker 2: be the NIH, right. So yes, they basically said you
Speaker 2: there are other health benefits out there besides just losing weight,
Speaker 2: and that it could conceivably be worth trying. One of
Speaker 2: the things they pointed out was that when you release keithnees,
Speaker 2: it basically triggers your body to go into a defensive state,
Speaker 2: anti inflammatory state, Your immune system kicks in. There's all
Speaker 2: sorts of of things that happen and change in your
Speaker 2: body when you start burning fat. And one of the
Speaker 2: things that it does is it starts kicking off your
Speaker 2: defenses against metabolic stress. I didn't know what that was.
Speaker 2: It's not metabolic syndrome where you have like insulin resistance
Speaker 2: and basically pre diabetes or maybe diabetes. This is different.
Speaker 2: This is what happens when you exercise and you start
Speaker 2: tearing up your muscles. That actually triggers your body's defenses
Speaker 2: to rebuild and repair and build more muscle. It's the
Speaker 2: point of exercising your resistance training, and that one of
Speaker 2: the things that happens with keytnes is it actually helps
Speaker 2: that process go more smoothly of repairing and building muscle.
Speaker 2: So at least one study is found that if you
Speaker 2: exercise using if that it can actually help build muscle.
Speaker 2: That's one study that we turned up. But it makes
Speaker 2: logical sense if that's what ketones do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: Other people have come out to just to point out
Speaker 3: that since intermittent fasting isn't just one thing, and there
Speaker 3: are quite a few different subtypes and ways to go
Speaker 3: about it. That it also can complicate studies because you know,
Speaker 3: some people might qualify five to two or sixteen eight
Speaker 3: or the omad was it omad?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Omad or warrior diet as intermittent fasting. So you know,
Speaker 3: for a study, you should be comparing apples to apples.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One other big criticism of the enthusiasm for interment
Speaker 2: fasting is a lot of these studies they leave off
Speaker 2: like in mice or you know, in rats. So like,
Speaker 2: for example, there's a there's big talk about converting white
Speaker 2: fat to brown fat. Brown fat is much easier to burn,
Speaker 2: and it's how you lose weight. Basically, it's how you
Speaker 2: burn fat, and that intermittent fasting helped turn more white
Speaker 2: fat to brown fat in mice. That's not necessarily something
Speaker 2: that you see in humans, but at least in mice
Speaker 2: with intermittent fasting, it is. So if you hear like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it helps you burn fat faster, ask yourself like, wait, how,
Speaker 2: and then secondly, how did they figure that out?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good good point. Should we take a break, Oh, sure, sure,
Speaker 4: all right, let's take our.
Speaker 3: Second break, and we keep kind of teasing a little
Speaker 3: bit some of the more positive health outcomes that you
Speaker 3: can have, and we're going to get to those right
Speaker 3: after this. All right, we're back with some promised bullet
Speaker 3: points as Ed has them. And you already talked about
Speaker 3: the brown fat and mice.
Speaker 2: Don't take the brown fat.
Speaker 4: That's right. I had never heard of white fat and
Speaker 4: brown fat. It seems crazy.
Speaker 2: Brown fat sounds kind of tasty, you know, like fatty
Speaker 2: gravy is what it seems like to me.
Speaker 4: We love the brown fat, though.
Speaker 3: I think brown fat like is your body's way of
Speaker 3: like heating your body up right, like you're upping your
Speaker 3: body temperature.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is totally me armchairing this, but from
Speaker 2: the research putting together different threads of research from this topic,
Speaker 2: white fat is probably the deep storage of energy and
Speaker 2: then the process of burning that fat. Part of that
Speaker 2: is converting it to brown fat. First, That's my.
Speaker 4: Guess, which you do in a cast iron skillet.
Speaker 2: That's right, you brown some fat.
Speaker 4: That sounds good, all right.
Speaker 3: In mice once again, and some of these are in
Speaker 3: human and we'll point that out. But in mice, it
Speaker 3: did show that you had improved metabolism and improved intestinal
Speaker 3: function with an IF diet.
Speaker 2: And specifically intestinal stem cell function. And they think that
Speaker 2: at the stem cell intestinal stem cell level is where
Speaker 2: disorders like type two diabetes, obesity, and colon cancer happen.
Speaker 2: And it's from an excess nutrient uptake, they think, which
Speaker 2: releases way more hormones than normal, and thus it leads
Speaker 2: to all these problems. And so what they were saying
Speaker 2: in mice, it actually curbed that, which is really helpful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, it's reducing inflammation our old friend.
Speaker 4: That we just talked about exactly all right, I guess
Speaker 4: our old enemy, I said that wrong? What else? All right?
Speaker 4: This one's in humans.
Speaker 3: It can lead to a reduced resting heart rate, lower
Speaker 3: your bad cholesterol which is the LD, and reduce your
Speaker 3: risk of cardiovascular disease.
Speaker 2: That's right. Also reduces fasting blood glucose and insulin levels,
Speaker 2: so that reduces your diabetes related symptoms. One too in humans. Yeah,
Speaker 2: thank you for pointing that out. Sure, what about the
Speaker 2: next one in mice?
Speaker 3: Reduction in oxidative brain damage. So what we're talking about
Speaker 3: is potentially a reduction in symptoms of Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they found something similar in humans, not necessarily
Speaker 2: a reduction in Alzheimer's symptoms yet, but at least an
Speaker 2: increase in cognitive performance, which kind of contradicts what I've
Speaker 2: experienced where you get brain fog after a while. But
Speaker 2: what they've kind of traced it to is that it
Speaker 2: helps mitochondria function in the brain. Mitochondria the little powerhouses
Speaker 2: of the cells, and that it also aids in neurogenesis,
Speaker 2: so it's actually help you're actually developing more neurons than
Speaker 2: you would if you weren't. Intermittent fasting is what that
Speaker 2: study showed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hope you can pronounce this next word, what
Speaker 3: ketogenesis can release?
Speaker 2: What is that at aponectin?
Speaker 1: Hm?
Speaker 4: Okay, very nice? What is that?
Speaker 2: At a Pnnectin is a homeostatic signal hormone, And basically
Speaker 2: what it does is it helps regulate glucose levels, helps
Speaker 2: in lipid metabolism, helps in insulin sensitivity, It helps move
Speaker 2: insulin into the cells where it's the where the insulin
Speaker 2: is carrying the glucose, helps an insulin production. It's basically,
Speaker 2: you want a decent amount of adiponectin in your in
Speaker 2: your blood stream because it's a very helpful balancing act
Speaker 2: balancing hormone.
Speaker 3: All right, So those are some positives. Ed pointed out
Speaker 3: that there's there are a lot more bullet points he
Speaker 3: could have included, did you have any extras you want
Speaker 3: to throw in there?
Speaker 2: There's another one that it also moderates leptin, and leptin
Speaker 2: is a hunger signaling hormone that we've talked about before,
Speaker 2: but it's produced by adipos, right, so your body's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I've been burning some fat, I'm going to release some
Speaker 2: leptin and make you feel hungry. So it triggers hunger
Speaker 2: and food consumption. And if you have too little leptin,
Speaker 2: you're going to be hungry all the time, like starving,
Speaker 2: and you're going to overeat even though you don't necessarily
Speaker 2: need it. If you have too much leptin, your body
Speaker 2: will actually become desensitized to it and leptin resistant, and
Speaker 2: so it's going to have the same effect as too
Speaker 2: little leptin. You're going to be hungry all the time
Speaker 2: and keep putting on weight. So intermittent fasting seems to
Speaker 2: moderate your leptin levels to a kind of like a
Speaker 2: goldilocks zone of where you want it the.
Speaker 4: Old Goldilocks zone.
Speaker 2: It's such a great analogy.
Speaker 4: It really is, because it means it's just right yep.
Speaker 3: If you wondered about how it compares to other kind
Speaker 3: of more recent diets. Althout, Mediterranean is not recent at all.
Speaker 3: It's as old as the as the world.
Speaker 2: As old as the Bronze A.
Speaker 3: But you know, sort of talking about the Mediterranean diet
Speaker 3: has become sort of trendy lately, as well as paleo.
Speaker 4: And there have been studies.
Speaker 3: It was one in twenty twenty that compared Paleo Mediterranean
Speaker 3: and IF, and I think in those groups, IF lost
Speaker 3: the most, yeah, compared to the other two. Everyone lost
Speaker 3: weight training diet is a great way to eat. And
Speaker 3: I've never done paleo, but I've heard good things about
Speaker 3: that too. But one point that ed found in the
Speaker 3: study is that people on IF and Mediterranean adhere to
Speaker 3: these diets about twenty percent more than on the Paleo
Speaker 3: And it's just common sense.
Speaker 4: It's as if.
Speaker 3: It's a diet you're doing for health markers or weight
Speaker 3: loss and you're not sticking to it, then you're not
Speaker 3: really going to get the real result of what that
Speaker 3: diet means or how it affects you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I meant to point out at
Speaker 2: the very beginning of the episode where we were talking
Speaker 2: about how you know, like some there's just all diets
Speaker 2: are fads. The Mediterranean one seems to be the one
Speaker 2: diet that bucks that trend because it's been around steady
Speaker 2: since the nineties easily, I would say even early nineties
Speaker 2: is when it became.
Speaker 4: Popular, well as far as labeling it that right.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, but then so so non Mediterranean people trying
Speaker 2: a Mediterranean diet I think really kicked off in the nineties,
Speaker 2: and I mean people are still trying it now and
Speaker 2: some people have adopted it and kept it, and I
Speaker 2: just feel like that that's the one that's that's the
Speaker 2: most doable for people in my in my opinion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's you're not I mean, you're denying yourself
Speaker 3: like stuff like fried chicken, but you're still eating like
Speaker 3: really good food.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess if you cook the fried chicken
Speaker 2: as a boneless, skinless chicken breast and olive oil, that's
Speaker 2: fried chicken, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Mediterranean like you're eating good fish, like you know,
Speaker 3: those are some of the hallmarks of that diet as
Speaker 3: olive oil and fish and wine.
Speaker 2: Don't forget the wine.
Speaker 3: Wine and nuts and things like that, like that's all
Speaker 3: yummy tasty anyway, So uh, it's I agree he's finding
Speaker 3: good fish is sometimes the problem for if you live Inland.
Speaker 2: Yes, it really really is. It's sad but true. Although
Speaker 2: have you been to beatlecat In? I think m M
Speaker 2: Park for a little five.
Speaker 3: I have been there many, many times. Is one of
Speaker 3: the places that I like to take out of town
Speaker 3: guests because it's great, fun and lively and delicious and
Speaker 3: really quickly. One of my co judges at the wing
Speaker 3: Fling was Ford Fry, who's uh oh really big Atlanta
Speaker 3: restaurateur and that's one of his places.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a big shot.
Speaker 4: Yeah him.
Speaker 3: He was next to me actually, but he and my
Speaker 3: brother are old friends. They their kids played baseball and
Speaker 3: stuff together. So, uh, sport's cool.
Speaker 2: That's great. So you already knew him before you judged
Speaker 2: with him.
Speaker 4: I had met him once.
Speaker 3: He was very kind, and when his original flagship restaurant
Speaker 3: JCT was open, we had a big Mother's Day or
Speaker 3: birthday dinner there with a bunch of my family and
Speaker 3: he comped the whole meal. It's like ten of us. Wow,
Speaker 3: and uh, that was my first experience with Ford, so.
Speaker 2: Just good dude, it's a great first experience.
Speaker 4: What are you gonna say about Beetlecat though, Well, they
Speaker 4: have like.
Speaker 2: The best giant shrimp you will find in the state
Speaker 2: of Georgia by far, maybe even including Inland Carolinas.
Speaker 3: Okay, you know what that means is Ford's got a guy.
Speaker 2: He has a great guy. And also, every once in
Speaker 2: a while people will email us and be like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm coming to Atlanta. Where should I eat? Just look
Speaker 2: up a Ford Fry restaurant and go to it, and
Speaker 2: there's you will not go wrong. You cannot go wrong
Speaker 2: at a Ford Fry restaurant in Atlanta. It's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's got a great Italian place, great Mexican place,
Speaker 3: great seafood place.
Speaker 4: Yep. He kind of covers all the bases.
Speaker 3: And I would recommend upstairs at Beetle Cat unless you're
Speaker 3: young and like to party. Downstairs as a little rowdy
Speaker 3: for me, Yeah, yeah, like it upstairs.
Speaker 2: I've only ever been there during the day and it
Speaker 2: was not rowdy, but it looks downstairs. Yeah, downstairs, it
Speaker 2: gets a.
Speaker 3: Little rowdy in that I can imagine for a fish restaurant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is how four Fry's restaurants work. I
Speaker 2: think we were right. Now, seriously, you got anything else
Speaker 2: on intermittent fasting? Oh wait, there is one more thing?
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Yeah, yeah, we should talk a little bit
Speaker 3: about circadium rhythm fasting. It is another subtype of intermittent fasting.
Speaker 3: And it's almost like the eighteen six is it eighteen
Speaker 3: six six sixteen eight, sixteen eight, but the whole key
Speaker 3: with the and they found really good results and I'll
Speaker 3: let you kind of put the cherry on top of
Speaker 3: that result with the mice. But what it really means
Speaker 3: is doing restricted eating like that, but really focus on
Speaker 3: the morning. So like maybe an eight am to six
Speaker 3: pm is when you're eating, or even five pm, and
Speaker 3: like literally nothing after that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every once in a while you'll find somebody who's like, no,
Speaker 2: you need to have your biggest meals earlier. I've heard
Speaker 2: it put is eat breakfast like a king, lunch like
Speaker 2: a queen. And I can't remember the last one, but
Speaker 2: basically not royalty for dinner.
Speaker 4: Dinner like the guy who sweeps up the hoop and
Speaker 4: the horse.
Speaker 2: Exact exactly right. So, and the point is you're just
Speaker 2: eating your highest energy food earlier, and that's actually tied
Speaker 2: to circadian rhythms. And one study on time time restrictive
Speaker 2: feedings found that mice lived up to thirty five percent
Speaker 2: longer lifespans if they did circadian timed feedings. And I
Speaker 2: think they were doing this, like they were probably testing
Speaker 2: the mice as hormones to determine whether they should be
Speaker 2: fed right then or not like that level. But you
Speaker 2: can still do it by what you just said, like
Speaker 2: start eating a little earlier, restrict your food in the evening,
Speaker 2: and then eat the most towards the beginning of the day.
Speaker 2: That would qualify as or circadian timed food or circadian
Speaker 2: timed feeding. And if you did that, if you're an
Speaker 2: average person in the United States average lifespan is seventy
Speaker 2: seven years, you'd add twenty seven years onto your life
Speaker 2: if that worked out for you like it did the
Speaker 2: mice in that study.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we should point out in that study that
Speaker 3: was thirty five percent longer for specifically the circadian rhythm
Speaker 3: model compared to ten percent longer for just regular intermittent
Speaker 3: restricted feeding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, still nothing to sneeze at.
Speaker 3: Nothing and you know ten percent? Do you really want
Speaker 3: to live thirty five percent longer?
Speaker 2: I mean, if it's healthy and you don't care about
Speaker 2: your loved one, sure, yeah, I'm just going. Or if
Speaker 2: you make new friends really easily. Yeah, you got anything else?
Speaker 4: I got nothing else.
Speaker 2: I don't either, which means, of course, everybody, it's time
Speaker 2: for a listener mail.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm gonna call this one a listener from
Speaker 3: the Czech Republic. Oh nice, Yeah, this is a good one. Hi, Josh,
Speaker 3: Chuck and Jerry. My name is Otakar, and I live
Speaker 3: in the Czech Republic. I started listening to the show
Speaker 3: about two years ago when I started a forty minute
Speaker 3: commute and I've never listened to I had never listened
Speaker 3: to any podcasts before, so I asked Google to give
Speaker 3: me some options, and that's how I found stuff you
Speaker 3: should know.
Speaker 2: Thanks Google, That's.
Speaker 3: Right, it was exactly what I needed. I really like
Speaker 3: the way your podcast is basically a normal conversation between
Speaker 3: two guys we're from the same generation as I am,
Speaker 3: about so many interesting topics. Maybe I wouldn't find some
Speaker 3: of the topics interesting myself, but because you research the
Speaker 3: things and talk about them in such a great way.
Speaker 3: There's always something worth remembering for me.
Speaker 2: Nice, thank you, it's very nice.
Speaker 4: This whole thing is just a very sweet letter.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: I've always been curious about things and good and remembering
Speaker 3: random facts that I've heard somewhere, So your show is
Speaker 3: just the perfect way for me to find out something
Speaker 3: new that I might want to look a bit more
Speaker 3: into later. I often wonder if teaching at schools should
Speaker 3: actually be done by two people being a conversation about
Speaker 3: a subject.
Speaker 2: How about that pretty cool? I mean, wasn't that like?
Speaker 2: Isn't that Platonic or Aristotelene like? It's some form of
Speaker 2: probably Socratic, Socratic Socratic. Yea, so great, it.
Speaker 4: Is so great.
Speaker 3: I guess there's a very little chance that you're going
Speaker 3: to do a live show in the Czech Republic.
Speaker 4: That's probably right.
Speaker 3: But if any of you would ever travel to Prague,
Speaker 3: let me know. I can give you some hints about
Speaker 3: where and when to go see the best of Prague.
Speaker 4: So thank you very much for what you do.
Speaker 3: I find the fact that there are people like you
Speaker 3: who like to explore things and talk about them in
Speaker 3: such an enthusiastic kind and often funny way very comforting.
Speaker 4: Best regards, O Takar.
Speaker 2: Man, O Takar, that is a very sweet, very sweet emil.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for sending that to us. And
Speaker 2: Prague is definitely on my list for sure.
Speaker 4: I've been, but it was a long time ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you need to go back. You were like broke
Speaker 2: and backpacking, weren't you. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4: Something besides bread.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure sure it's a different nation now, even
Speaker 2: from the last time you were there, so check out out.
Speaker 4: It was newly the Czech Republic, then.
Speaker 2: The the what would they call it, the Velvet Revolution?
Speaker 3: I don't know, but it was not Czechoslovakia. I do
Speaker 3: not remember that at least think.
Speaker 2: It US Okay, well, at any rate, I think we
Speaker 2: lost O Tacar even by this point. So if you
Speaker 2: want to get in touch with us, like O Takar did,
Speaker 2: you can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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