#96 Is Fasting the Missing Piece of Your Health

Siim Land (0:00)

Could it be that intermittent fasting is one of the missing pieces of the puzzle when it comes to optimizing your health and longevity? Of course, the fundamentals are still exercise, proper nutrition, sleep, and stress management.

But I would say that fasting and avoiding food for a certain period of time and coupling it up with proper refeeding is still one of those things that tends to be neglected. So in this episode of the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast, I'm going to replay the interview that I had on the Optimal Performance Podcast with Sean McCormick. Body Mind Empowerment.

SPEAKER_2 (0:36)

Get stronger, faster, smarter, quicker, friendlier, more helpful, more driven.

Siim Land (0:42)

Everything the body needs.

SPEAKER_2 (0:43)

Control your mind.

Sean McCormick (0:47)

And we're here with Siim Land, who is all the way in Estonia. It's seven o'clock at night in his time. It's the morning in my time.

And Siim is a YouTuber, a biohacking conference coordinator, an author, a speaker. And if you have not found his YouTube channel yet, it's S-I-I-M-L-A-N-D. And the dude is a juggernaut. The amount of content that you do is super amazing and I'm super glad to have you on today's episode.

Siim Land (1:14)

Well, yeah, thanks for having me. And I'm also excited for talking about some cool stuff.

Sean McCormick (1:19)

Yeah.

So I like to start each episode with the same question and because this is going to be as hardcore biohacking as we can get, you know, it's nighttime where you're at. I'd love to know what you've put in your body today.

Siim Land (1:40)

Well, funny enough that although it's starting to get late, I still haven't consumed any actual calories for today.

And I'm doing like a very restricted time, time restricted feeding type of schedule with intermittent fasting and such. So today I've only put on in like only some black coffee and some molecular hydrogen water. So that's what I've been consuming for this day only.

Sean McCormick (2:06)

Tell me about the molecular hydrogen water.

Siim Land (2:09)

Well, I've been using the brand, this brand called True Sea Water. And I do think it's quite a cool concept and I haven't like had much experience with it so far, but there's still quite a new research coming out that it's really beneficial for hydrating the cells and promoting oxygen production and such.

So it's something we're curious and I'm really excited to kind of look into what's gonna have a future benefits I may experience. But so far it's been pretty good.

Sean McCormick (2:43)

Nice, so all day long, are you in the middle of an extended fast? Is that why you haven't eaten anything all day?

Siim Land (2:53)

No, not really.

At the moment, I'm doing a regular kind of a fasting type thing that I do almost every day. And today is gonna be basically like a 24-hour fast thing where after this interview, I may probably have like a smaller meal. But in general, it's like this sort of a one-day fast type of thing where I mimic more caloric restriction and drive my body into this deeper fast state.

Sean McCormick (3:20)

And what about supplements? Do you take any vitamins or supplements?

Siim Land (3:24)

No, not really. First of all, I think they're not gonna be necessary for such a short fast. Like one day isn't gonna cause any deficiencies in any of these essential vitamins and minerals. So I don't really take any supplements during the fasting window.

So first of all, like I said, they're not needed. And secondly, like also the kind of the absorption is much lower if you're not combining them with food. So later I may have like some, you know, maybe fish oil or cod liver oil or something like that, but not necessarily during the fasting window. So yeah, just water and coffee.

Sean McCormick (4:00)

Okay, so you tend to stay away from supplementation unless you have some food in your stomach as sort of a general rule?

Siim Land (4:07)

Yeah, I don't see like really point in taking supplements if you are fasting. Like first of all, they may interfere with the fasting physiology. And secondly, like I actually think that going through these periods of not getting your essential nutrients and vitamins, minerals all the time that can have like this positive benefit by making the body more sensitive towards them again, like we know that, you know, carbohydrate restriction and ketogenic dieting, they can improve insulin sensitivity.

But, you know, the same can apply to these essential vitamins and minerals. If you don't get them all the time, then your body will start to prioritize them. And whenever you do get them, then you will absorb them much better, at least like in the short term, and at least then like a small hormetic dose.