#91 How to Adapt to Intermittent Fasting Q&A

Siim Land (0:00)

They say that Intermittent Fasting has a ton of health benefits, and that it's super easy to do. However, it may not be as simple as simply stop eating. In some cases, you need some additional guidance and some more adaptation period. So in this episode of the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast, we're going to be talking about how to adapt to Intermittent Fasting.

It's another recording of my YouTube live streams, so it's going to include some Q&A as well. Like Charles Darwin himself said, it's not the strongest nor the most intelligent of the species that survives, but the one that's most adaptable to change.

SPEAKER_2 (0:50)

Body Mind Empowerment.

Siim Land (0:54)

And as you can see from the title, then I'm going to be talking about how can you adapt to interpretive fasting. And the main kind of theme is going to be surrounding of how do you actually get used to it, so to say. A lot of people can, or like there is a lot of many benefits to fasting and such, but it doesn't matter how good the benefits are if you're not able to fast, so to say, or if you're not able to make it happen, if you're not able to kind of stick to it in the long term.

Yeah, so that's why it's so quite important to kind of pay attention to how can I actually make it a sustainable lifestyle change. And it's never going to be, so this sort of, it may not always be easy, and it may not always be a downhill road or a walk in a park. It may have some implications and such. So that's what I've been talking about in today's livestream. So yeah, hit like and share it around with someone else who is struggling with fasting. I myself have been doing it for nearly, almost seven years or almost nearing eight years by now. So I can say that I'm quite used to it already, and there isn't any problems for me to fast for like a week with no problems and such, and I feel perfectly fine. And what I wanted to kind of start is of maybe going through some of the initial journey of how I began and how did I become, quote unquote, fat adapted for fasting, to kind of give like overview of how you yourself may get used to it, so to say. I didn't have like the intention of becoming extremely fat adapted with fasting. When I started, I did it only as a way of like, as a way of tracking my nutrition as well as losing some body fat and such. But after a while, I realized that, you know, yeah, it's so powering. It's so powerful for the body. It's so healthy. And it's also much more convenient to do in the modern world. So I decided to, you know, it's something that I wanted to implement into my lifestyle further and make it like a sustainable lifestyle change. So when I first started, I heard about these different kind of methods of doing fasting. And the first thing I started off with was the 16 and 8 hour time window where you consume your food within eight hours and such. And usually you have like two meals and something.

The first kind of people I've started following from that kind of methodology where people like the Hodge twins, the two YouTubers who do bodybuilding and fitness and comedy and everything else, as well as Martin Birken, who is the creator of the lean gains method. So these were the first people I came across when I started fasting. And I did the 16 and 8 hour method for maybe like two to four years or two to three years, something like that. And it's like perfectly fine. It's perfectly sustainable. And it's something that I actually think that most people should stick to on an everyday basis, even if they're not planning on doing OMAD or if they're not doing Keto or if they're not doing these extended fasts, then at least I think that the 16 and 8 hour fasting window is something that should be sort of the golden aim towards fasting every day. And that's going to be, it's not going to give you like the full benefits, but at the same time, it's a simple method of time restricting your eating window. And in so doing, you may gain some of the benefits of improved insulin sensitivity, reduced blood sugar, as well as like prolonging the fasted state in the morning, so to say, and gaining some benefits from that.

But, you know, then again, I've also one of the first books I read about fasting was the book of Ori Hoffmeckler called The Warrior Diet, which is a bit, which is like a step further than the 16 and 8 hour time window. The Warrior Diet usually is something like 20 hours fasting and you eat your food within four hours or such. So it's like a very prolonged OMAD, prolonged one meal a day. It's not like one meal specifically, but you consume it still within a single sitting, not in a single sitting directly, but maybe like within two meals, but in a very time restricted manner. And the Warrior Diet is also very effective and such. And it may take a bit of more effort. If you're kind of jumping into fasting right away, you may not be able to tolerate it that effectively. Of course, you will be like perfectly fine with that, but it may not be that enjoyable, so to say. You know, the truth is that everyone can fast, everyone can fast for like days and weeks upon end with no problems. Like if you were to be thrown into the wild with no food, no calories, no Twinkies, no quest bars, no protein shakes, no steaks, and you're like literally in this barren wasteland, then the only thing for you to survive or the only option for you to survive is to simply adapt to the fasting and shift into like really deep ketosis and trigger these other longevity pathways. So like physiologically, everyone is perfectly fine. And it actually is actually quite in my opinion, it's actually one of the most kind of beneficial traits for general longevity, as well as health is to be able to tolerate these kinds of nutritional stressors, whether that be from fasting, whether that be from carb restriction, whether that be from, you know, tolerating these hormetic compounds from plants or whatever they may be. It's like a good trait of biological fitness, as well as longevity, so to say.