The Benefits of Fasting on The Joe Rogan Experience

I exercise that you do I'm sure you you almost have a voracious appetite I mean I do but nothing like what I used to mean I I fast pretty much every day I've been doing sixteen hours what are you doing um depends so when I'm in I split my time between New York and California when I'm in New York it's absolutely one meal a day no ifs ands or buts because it's just the schedule is such that you know I'm seeing patients in the morning and afternoon and I don't want to do I don't want to waste time to eat what do you doctrine that's a good question I mean I trained as a surgeon and did cancer surgery but I my practice is based on longevity so it's sort of how do you apply nutrition exercise sleep stress management endocrinology lipid ology supplements hormones all that stuff like how do you engineer how to make somebody live longer is my clinical interest so yeah so in New York I eat one meal a day so it's basically like a 22-hour fasting window and then I'm feeding within a two hour window Wow when I'm here it's about this well I mean yesterday and today it's the same like you know today has just been kind of a busy day you know I won't eat till dinner tonight but my short fast would be 16 hours where I would eat a short fit there would be a short fence long one for me really dude you got to get in touch with your evolutionary so I had this discussion with a friend this morning because he was saying to me he can't do 16 hours well he's a [ __ ] you just told no but I said you got to understand if our ancestors couldn't function when they were hungry we wouldn't be here so it's not just that starvation a short-term adaptation to starvation is is necessary it's probably beneficial in other words you know during these short periods of deprivation of food you know we get just a little bit more epinephrine and norepinephrine we just get a little bit sharper a little bit better I I can't even I can't even remember what it's like to eat three meals a day it's been so long really yeah well let me be doing this I mean I've been doing crazy [ __ ] for ten years nutritional wise like I'm I spent three years in ketosis where it was you know one day I was in ketosis for three years lots of fasting but I think intermittent fasting or time restricted feeding probably at least five years and what a for people listening what are the benefits of that well I mean if we're gonna be it really technical we have to be clear that I think a lot of the benefits are overstated and a lot of the benefits are things that we've only studied in animals so there's a guy named Sachin panda at the Salk Institute in San Diego who's I think one of the world's experts on time restricted feeding but you know for example a 16 hour fast in a mouse produces unbelievable results if you take a group of you know certain types of mice or strains of rats or other rodents and you in a 24-hour period deprive them of any nutrient for 16 hours but then for 8 hours let them eat whatever the hell they want they can't gain weight so and and and the reason we think is that it once you give a long enough period of time when the animal can ramp up it's like the enzymes in the liver that are responsible for fat oxidation I mean they just basically become fat burnt I hate that term fat burning machine it's so overused but that's babe they basically just become unbelievably efficient by metabolizing fat so we have to be careful that when we extrapolate that cuz you and I have a very different metabolism in a mouse like a 16 hour fast to a mouse is much longer than it is to us so I don't know if those benefits would extend also it's not entirely clear the time restricted feeding will produce the longevity benefit that we see in other sort of fasting or fasting mimicking types of diets so for me what it comes down to is I mean honestly it's just an easier way it gives me a much more Liberty with what I eat during my feeding window I don't have to be nearly as restrictive when I'm feeding if I have that period off it's just just in terms of like my physiologic response secondly there's a convenience thing like I kind of hate being tethered to eat mmm I like knowing that if I get into a pinch like I don't have to eat right now if I'm sitting on the airplane and they're serving dog [ __ ] I don't have to eat I can wait another five hours until I eat I also just feel much more steady in my energy levels I I need to vaguely remember like 10 years ago when I was kind of like eating a normal diet how I always had this lull and energy after lunch like there is the post lunch pre dinner I just don't feel good like not that I feel bad but like I'm not sharp I'm not in my a-game and I don't even remember that feels like anymore which is not to say I feel great all the time but I definitely don't have that vacillating energy level yeah I've said that to people when I eliminated most carbs from my diet you know and I have a friend of mine who talked to his trainer about that his trainers like you're crazy eat bread eat pasta don't listen him like no don't listen to him like just just google it that stuff's [ __ ] terrible for you if you want to eat carbohydrates get it from fruits you know get it from some natural sources but just if you have a trainer that's telling you to eat bread get a new [ __ ] trainer because it's just it's not what you need it's nothing wrong with eating if you want to occasionally and in small doses but when I eliminated most that stuff from my diet I felt the exact same thing I felt that midday nap desire go away and they're just the fog enos about like you at the end of the day like oh god I'm [ __ ] tired and then I'd have to drink a cup of coffee to get ramped back up again and this is like never-ending cycle of having this insulin spike and then this crash and that is that's from carbohydrates it's from refined carbohydrates and you know having too much [ __ ] sugar in your body and everybody does it it's like alright so this will be funny for your so google my name and just put like peter attea fat and you'll you're gonna see a picture of me when I was a swimmer cuz all this time we were talking about me swimming you're assuming like I'm a fit dude I was fit but fat dude fit but a fit but totally fat and this was a meeting Oh non-stop carbs look there there I am see on the left there well I wouldn't say you were fat I would say you got you got a little paunch on ya I don't know wait wait there's another picture after I swim across Lake Tahoe go to that that one right there yeah go got there fella boozing it up yeah but it's also you're sitting down stood up you suck it in for a picture on Instagram might look okay oh no I I was definitely you know probably what maybe 30 pounds heavier Wow butBut bought you no body fat was much greater and what were you eating oh I mean I probably went three three or four bottles of power a today because you know raining all day and you know every post-workout was a carb refeed and so you're in sort of this vicious glycogen dependent state yeah and people that it's it's crazy that there's so many folks out there that are living their life that don't even understand that this is a process they're going through they just think this is eating and exercise this is what happens but it's not your body live shot up cut that off push it away enter into a completely different food source just change the way you you eat your body will change and that that just that concept the people that sounds like horseshit it sounds like what are you saying you you're with you offering some miracle cure your office no I'm saying you will change the dimension of life that you operate in it will change because you won't be the same person you won't like who you are is dependent upon a lot of things but one of them is how much energy you have how you feel whether you're crashing if you change the way you eat you change the energy you have you change the way you feel it'll change your behavior will change your choices it'll change your ambitions it'll change your potential I mean there's so many things that will change but