Intermittent fasting is one of the most powerful strategies for improving your overall metabolic Health it's not just helpful for weight loss it's actually great for your overall health with Benefits ranging from A reduced risk of heart disease and a reduced risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes to significantly improved brain function but there's a lot of information about intermittent fasting on the internet and Not all of it is scientifically accurate or quite honestly even helpful fasting is powerful but there's a distinct difference between smart fasting and extreme fasting and so we want to give
you some clarity about how to fast properly so that you get the metabolic benefit and prevent yourself from long-term negative consequences so we're going to take a few moments to go over what intermittent fasting is if You're new to the subject and get you the tools to be able to implement intermittent fasting into your life starting today we're also going to talk about our recommended fasting schedules both for weight loss and for reduced overall chronic disease risk we're going to talk about what you can eat and what you shouldn't eat during your fasting periods and
we're going to give you some tips on how you can maximize your next Intermittent fast again whether this is a is a New Concept to you or whether you've been doing this for a while now one of the things that I'd like to get out of the way before we go too deep into this is understanding that human beings are actually evolutionarily adapted to long duration fasts so think back to hunter-gatherer times when humans didn't have access to three meals a day plus snacks our human ancestors were actually not Hunter-gatherers they were gatherer hunters and
we know this because they spent the majority of their time Gathering and a minority of their time hunting other animals in order to survive for long periods of time with limited food availability which was quite common our human ancestors had to fast for extended periods of time sometimes upwards of 10 days in a row and we see this in the scientific research there are studies That demonstrate that when you induce as little as a 10-day fast in humans you induce a number of significant metabolic improvements the first study to talk about this is a study
titled influence of a 10-day mimic of our ancient Lifestyle on anthropore metrics and parameters of metabolism and inflammation what this study did was put individuals onto a 10-day mimic of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle To determine what would happen to them if they mimicked the behavior of our hunter-gatherer ancestors in order to do this they had individuals walk 14 kilometers per day on average because that's about how much hunter-gatherers used to walk they also had them carry an eight kilogram backpack which is approximately 18 pounds and that can actually add up very quickly they then provided them
with raw food Because hunter-gatherers generally did not cook their food and they provided them with fresh water these individuals also slept outside in sleeping bags and they were exposed to temperatures as low as 12 degrees and as high as 42 degrees Celsius what this research study found was that there were three features of the metabolic syndrome that significantly improved when living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle for 10 days and those three features include number One body mass number two improved glucose homeostasis and number three circulating lipids so this is a short-term study to Deep dive into what
it would look like if you as an individual switched over to a hunter-gather lifestyle which truth be told is almost akin to backpacking if you just put on a backpack and went into the woods and hung out for five to ten days at a time your health would likely Significantly improve because your energy expenditure would be quite High your energy intake would be quite low you would induce a negative calorie deficit and as a result of that a number of metabolic markers will improve now we're going to go into understanding the details about what a
calorie deficit is in a little bit but I want you to understand that this pattern of fasting and feasting which is cycling between periods of both high energy intake and Low calorie intake creates a collection of biochemical adaptations that naturally selected for individuals who could survive that amidst an uncertain food supply so this is natural selection at play the environment places specific restrictions on you and you as an individual have to adapt to that environmental condition if you can adapt then you can reproduce you are likely to pass on those genes to your offspring Now
scientists believe that over the course of time these metabolic adaptations that allowed for regular intermittent fasting became so ingrained into the human species that it's present in our genetic material in modern humans and for this reason modern day humans are not only capable of fasting for extended periods of time they actually derive substantial metabolic benefit when they do so my point here is that if you didn't Just have breakfast but you still had to hunt as an example to get some food okay if you had to survive in general and if you had to endure
long periods of time with no food your body would activate an internal recycling program that would actually optimize the function of your liver and your muscle and your brain and your cardiovascular system and this internal recycling program is known as autophagy Autophagy is a name of a biochemical mechanism that is a conserved mechanism that evolved with human beings that is largely responsible for recycling old and damaged proteins inside of cells old and damaged lipids and old and damaged carbohydrates and when this process occurs the cellular environment tends to become less inflammatory and a higher functioning
over the course of time so you can think of autophagy as basically a way that tissues can oxidize fatty Acids that have been stored for long periods of time and to oxidize stored carbohydrates that have been stored for long periods of time that are present inside of your muscle and liver and by getting rid of those two fuel tanks and by as well recycling old and dysfunctional proteins the cellular environment tends to become more optimal which then induces a number of metabolic adaptations that are positive adaptations inside of each tissue which Then confers improved overall
metabolic Health now calorie restriction was first discovered back in the 1930s by a researcher named Clive McKay he and his colleagues at Cornell University were the first to observe that restricting the calorie intake of laboratory rats allowed them to live longer than their ad-lib or their well-fed counterparts who were given access to food approximately 24 hours a day So you can see on the screen that back in 1939 he published a paper called growth lifespan ultimate body size and age changes in the albino rat after feeding diets restricted in calories and him and his team
will go down in the literature history because they documented for the first time ever that restricting calorie intake in laboratory rats didn't lower their life expectancy didn't increase their chronic disease Risk and didn't impair their quality of life in fact the exact opposite happened so you can see on the next graph that animals who were fed and ad-lib diet died at a very specific rate so you're looking at a survival curve which demonstrates the number of animals that are alive at any given moment of time as a function of time so at the beginning of
experiment there are a hundred percent of all animals that are alive and as time increases on the x-axis the Percentage of animals that are still alive decreases and what Clive McKay and his colleagues determined was that animals who were calorie restricted ended up living longer so at any moment in time when you compare the percent alive versus the ad-lib group those in the calorie restricted group were actually healthier and a larger number of them were alive and that's true for both male rats in the top panel as well as female rats in The bottom panel
now the next graph shows that other researchers continued to extrapolate upon these findings and then continued to perform experiments where they increased the magnitude of the calorie restriction so Clive McKay and his colleagues started experimenting with animals who were restricted by between 10 and 20 percent and then other researchers continued to improve upon this and restrict Animals by as much as 40 or 50 percent or 60 percent and every time they increase the magnitude of calorie restriction animals continued to live longer so here again in red you see animals that were fed in the ad-lib
group and the animals that are provided free access to food that die off according to this very specific pattern if you restrict Animals by 60 percent what you end up doing is pushing that survival over to the right which means that these animals ended up living as Much as 50 percent longer simply by eating 60 percent less food and finally in the next graph you see once again that other researchers are determining the same conserved mechanism occurs not only in rats but also in mice you take the ad-lib-fed animals in green you restrict them by
25 you push the survival curve to the right you should restricted by 55 again you push the survival curve to the right you've restrict them by 65 and Again you push the survival curve to the right so what this body of Research indicates is that calorie restriction is in fact not a stressful metabolic exercise but in fact an exercise that significantly improves the metabolic health of both mice and rats now this single observation unlocked an explosion of scientific research that began to explain the biological mechanisms that are responsible for Reducing the rate of Aging for
increasing longevity for improving memory for stimulating weight loss and significantly reducing the risk for many chronic conditions including heart disease cancer and type 2 diabetes now what's interesting about this is that calorie restriction Works in almost every single organism studied to date and I say almost because it's not 100 but it is a very high percentage and those organisms include yeast worms Flies mice rats and most recently monkeys now calorie restriction has been shown to increase longevity and prolong or delay the onset of many age-related diseases and is in fact the only known mechanism to
increase longevity period end of story I will say that again calorie restriction is the only known mechanism to increase longevity period end of story you can't exercise more to live a longer life you can't meditate More to live a longer life if you turn to me and said Cyrus I'm trying to live more days on this planet I want to extend my longevity there is only one known conserved biological mechanism that will induce an increase in longevity and that is calorie restriction now Studies have demonstrated that a 20 to 50 percent reduction in calorie intake
has been shown to increase lifespan by up to 50 percent and prevent Or delay the onset of many chronic diseases including but not limited to obesity type 2 diabetes cancer nephropathy cardiomyopathy neurodegeneration and multiple autoimmune diseases so if you are living with any form of a chronic disease and you are interested in significantly improving your health then you may want to consider inducing a calorie restricted state so research done by Eric ravison and Leoni heelbron demonstrates that calorie restriction extends lifespan and retards age-related chronic diseases in many species again including rats mice fish flies worms
and yeast now the mechanisms through which the calorie restriction induces its metabolic effects are not fully described or in other words are unclear calorie restriction it reduces the metabolic rate we know this and it also significantly reduces oxidative stress we know this it improves insulin Sensitivity which should be very interesting to you if you're living with any form of diabetes and it alters neuroendocrine and sympathetic nervous system function in animals those are all good things so here's the take-home message make no mistake about it inducing calorie restriction is a powerful way to improve many aspects
of your metabolic health and do it simultaneously now here's the thing you may think to yourself all right fine Calorie restriction sounds like a plan but I don't want to eat less food Cyrus you're telling me that all I have to do is reduce my food intake but guess what that's the last thing I want to do I actually enjoy eating food so much that I want to increase my food intake so how am I going to actually apply this into my life especially make it sustainable okay now here's the thing I want you to
think about I don't want you to think about all the negative you know all the Difficulties of accomplishing calorie restriction because that's where intermittent fasting comes into play intermittent fasting is a way to mimic the effects of calorie restriction but in order to really understand why it works I want you to think about another concept and that's called negative calorie balance negative calorie balance is the name of the game negative calorie balance is a metabolic state in which your energy Expenditure exceeds your energy intake once again negative calorie balance is a metabolic state in which
your energy expenditure the amount of energy you are expending is greater than the amount of energy that you are eating and taking into your mouth okay think of it like a checking account right you got your inflows which is the deposits that go into the account then you got your outflows which are the withdrawals if you put more into the account than you Take out of it the account is likely to grow similarly in humans if you eat more calories and you put more energy into the system and you don't take as much out you
are likely to grow AKA become more larger and gain body mass if you do the exact opposite and instead you put less into the account and you take more out of the account than you end up with a smaller account you don't necessarily want that in your bank account but you do want that in your body you want to Take on less food than you are expending and that right there is what's called a negative calorie balance now operating in a negative calorie balance for extended periods of time forces your muscles and liver to burn
off or offload stored glucose and fatty acids which in turns makes both of those tissues more responsive to both of those fuels next time they become available and that's really good news for you so you might be asking yourself why is this important Cyrus all right two reasons number one first oxidizing excess stored fat inside of your muscles and inside of your liver is a powerful way to increase their ability to communicate with insulin if you read the mastering diabetes book you know this if you're new to this concept go pick up the mastering diabetes
book directly from Amazon and read it cover to cover in that book you're going to learn the fat insulin connection which Demonstrates that as your fat intake goes up your insulin sensitivity goes down as your fat intake goes up insulin responsiveness goes down as your fat intake comes up insulin action inside of your liver and muscle goes down so less fat in your diet unlocks the insulin receptors ability to recognize and communicate with insulin effectively which is a good thing and also oxidizing fat by performing an intermittent fast going into a calorie restricted State Can
help get rid or oxidize many of the stored fat molecules that are present inside of your liver and muscle cells which then enables insulin signaling to increase okay in addition to that negative calorie balance also oxidizes glucose and glucose is stored as a molecule known as glycogen so you can see on your screen right here glycogen is the stored form of glucose that is present inside Of your liver and inside of your muscle you can think of glycogen as a storage tank and it's a storage tank of carbohydrate that is a reservoir of energy so
when you go and perform exercise that is one of the fuel tanks that is dipped into for readily available fuel that you can oxidize and turn into ATP immediately so that you can perform contractions in the elongations inside of your muscle tissue okay now as the glycogen storage tank Begins to decrease when you are in a calorie restricted State muscle and liver cells activate a series of intracellular mechanisms that make it easier to import glucose the next time you eat it so in effect negative calorie balance activates a few collection of Master enzymes in your
muscle and liver cells that create this state of cellular hunger and the next time you eat food that enables those cells to be able to Import those fuels easier and they stay out of your blood and they get inside of tissues exactly where they belong now I understand this may seem illogical but scientists have uncovered that reducing food intake for extended periods of time allows blood vessels everywhere in your body to relax as well and that reduces your blood pressure so you see benefits inside of your liver benefits inside of your muscle and significant cardiovascular
benefits as well Now Studies have also shown that calorie restriction improves the function of endothelial cells which is a single cell layer lining inside of blood vessels and calorie restriction improves their ability to manufacture a very powerful gas known as nitric oxide and this is a gas that allows blood vessels to dilate so calorie restriction again you can think of it as this most is incredibly powerful form of medicine if you will that induces a number of positive Metabolic effects in multiple tissues they happen simultaneously and as a result your risk for many chronic diseases
decreases as tissue Health increases simultaneously hey I'm Cyrus combata co-creator of the mastering diabetes method which has helped thousands of people reverse insulin resistance and take control of their lives no matter what type of Diabetes they're living with do you want to know all of our tips tricks and Secrets they're right here in our New York Times best-selling book mastering diabetes which you can find at masteringdiabetes.org book if you're ready to master diabetes pick up a copy today you won't be disappointed now in addition to increased nitric oxide synthesis studies also demonstrate that calorie restrictions
substantially reduces your LDL cholesterol your triglyceride level and directly improves the function of your heart tissue and Can be as effective as exercise so some of the best exercise physiologists on the planet at Washington University including John Halsey and Luigi Fontana have demonstrated this in the research they conducted a one-year randomized control trial in middle-aged lean and overweight men and women to evaluate the effect of body fat reduction either by a 20 increase in energy expenditure via exercise or by a 20 decrease in energy intake from calorie restriction so the Question they were trying to
answer is if you're trying to lose fat because losing fat mass is known to improve metabolic Health what's a more effective way to do it do you increase your exercise or do you decrease your food intake what they found was actually quite fascinating they hypothesized that exercise would be more effective but what they actually found was that their 12-month negative calorie balance experiment Demonstrated that the calorie restriction group and the exercise groups both improved simultaneously and both of them improved to approximately the same magnitude cow restriction tended to be slightly more effective but overall 20
increase in exercising at a 20 decrease in calorie intake resulted in a significant Improvement in many coronary heart disease risk factors now you may not think that that's actually quite Powerful but the truth is that if you don't like exercising or if you struggle with exercise or if you are talking yourself out of Performing exercise on a daily basis because you just never Hound a way to integrate it into your lifestyle then here's the thing if instead of exercising which I am a strong advocate for If instead of exercising you simply reduced your calorie intake
by approximately 20 percent that right there would induce a Number of similar metabolic benefits now back when I was doing my PhD research from my laboratory at UC Berkeley also showed that negative calorie balance can reduce What's called the global cell proliferation rate and the global cell proliferation rate refers to the speed at which cells replicate and when you can induce a reduction in the replication rate of cells that means that the tissue itself turns over slower which means that the rate of tumor Incidences also increases slower so you can see it in this study
that we published back in April of 2011. we determined that inducing calorie restriction in animals shown in the white bars on the right hand side of each of these bar graphs resulted in a reduced turnover rate in keratinocytes which are cells in your skin as well as hepatocytes which are cells in your liver as well as MEC which are mammary epithelial cells shown on the bottom Left as well as splenic T cells shown on the right so we chose four different tissues and demonstrated that calorie restriction or inducing a negative calorie balance is effective at
lowering the global cell proliferation rate in all four of those tissues and if we went on to study more tissues we would likely find a very similar effect which is that the rate at which cells are replicating goes down which means the rate of tumor incidence goes down which means the rate Of cancer development goes down and who doesn't want that now since being overweight dramatically increases your risk for the development of many cancers by increasing the global cell proliferation rate weight loss that naturally occurs from being a negative calorie balance is one of the
most powerful things that you can possibly do to reduce your chronic disease risk especially when it comes to type 2 diabetes and cancer So I just want you to understand that negative calorie balance is the gold standard the question is how can you induce negative calorie balance do I have to be hungry all the time or can I perform it intermittently and get a very similar effect now when it comes to intermittent fasting again intermittent fasting is a way to mimic the effects of calorie restriction by inducing negative calorie balance people ask us all the
time they say whoa Should I try intermittent fasting is it good for me is it not good for me you know like how do I know whether or not I'm a candidate for intermittent fasting now the risk of intermittent fasting are extremely low and I'm going to detail about what intermittent fasting actually is and how you can perform it in a couple minutes here but just to get this out of the way okay intermittent fasting does apply to the majority of all humans but here's who it does not apply to Number one young children not
smart to induce calorie restriction because they require calories in order to grow number two pregnant women not smart number three breastfeeding mothers not smart okay people who should be cautious about intermittent fasting are include people with type 1 diabetes myself okay we're going to show you how you can perform a intermittent fast upwards of 24 hours but anything beyond 24 hours is definitely not safe People who have Eating Disorders if you have an eating disorder or a history of Eating Disorders then I do not recommend intermittent fasting because it can be very difficult psychologically and
emotionally and if you are an athlete trying to gain muscle mass or in advance of a competition or you're trying to grow your muscle mass and change your body composition then I strongly would not recommend intermittent fasting and finally people who are underweight okay If you're underweight and you are trying to gain weight then intermittent fasting is not going to lead you in the right direction now if you have a medical condition people always ask us well what about what about type 2 diabetes what about chronic kidney disease what about fatty liver disease should I
perform intermittent fasting and the answer is I'm not your doctor I cannot tell you exactly which diseases are safe to Intermittent fast with but here's what I will tell you talk to your doctor about it ask your doctor most doctors are actually quite knowledgeable about intermittent fasting and to give you a sort of generalized statement here I would say most humans the answer is yes but if you have a very specific question about your particular metabolic State then please go talk with your doctor and get help from a medical professional okay here's what I want
you to not do I Don't want you to overthink this I don't want you to scare yourself into sitting on the sidelines I want you to just try this out and I want you to make small changes until it feels comfortable okay the overwhelming majority of all people should intermittent fast because again it induces a number of positive metabolic consequences okay if you're trying to lose weight I highly recommend inducing negative calorie balance through intermittent fasting if you're Trying to improve your insulin sensitivity which in my professional opinion should be the majority of all humans
the answer is yes perform intermittent fasting okay this is a very valuable technique that can significantly improve your insulin sensitivity independent of exercise independent of a low-fat plant-based whole food diet and now we can get into detail about how you can specifically do This in your world okay the question is is this a Sprint is this a marathon do I have to commit to this for the rest of my life and the answer is I want you to just start that's all I want you to do I don't want you to get too deep into
what's going to happen three years from now five years from now and can I turn this into a permanent habit change don't think about that just think about the next couple of days The first thing that you can do is called the once per week intermittent fast it's a 24 hour fast that is performed only one day per week so here's how you can do this you just choose one day of the week where you are likely to not be quite active okay so you choose a rest day if you're an active exerciser and during
that day you basically are going to drink water for breakfast drink water for lunch and start and stop your fast at dinner time So the easiest way to think about this is if you chose Wednesday as your fasting day what I would do is go backwards to Tuesday evening I would eat dinner I would finish my dinner at let's say seven o'clock P.M I would stop eating dinner seven o'clock pm and I would start my stopwatch from that moment onwards my goal is to try and not eat food for approximately 24 hours how am I
going to do that well From the time dinner is done until the time I go to bed I'll just drink some water when I hit the pillow hopefully at like nine o'clock pm 10 o'clock P.M somewhere around there I'll have two to three hours of a post digestive State already passed and that's a good thing because most of the material inside of my digestive system will have cleared and as a result of that my digestive system will not be running an active metabolic process which will enable me To sleep better I will then go to
sleep at call at 10 o'clock P.M I'll sleep from 10 o'clock P.M until six o'clock AM the next morning when I wake up I am already 11 hours into my fast because your sleeping window counts so I'm pretty much halfway done if you think about it that way all I have to do is not eat food for breakfast and not eat food for lunch well how am I gonna do that he's very simple for breakfast instead of Eating food what I would do is drink two to three glasses of water now water has this effect
where when you consume large quantities of it it actually can slightly distend the uh the stretch receptors inside of your stomach and inside of your large intestine it can kind of temporarily mimic the idea that you're eating food and as a result of that it sounds a neurological signal up to your brain that says okay slow down I'm not as hungry anymore okay I'm not Gonna lie it's going to be a little bit difficult the first time you do it maybe the second time maybe the third time but it'll eventually get to a point where
your brain no longer sends a signal to your digestive system that says it's time for food because you'll develop a pattern where you're not eating breakfast and then that will fade away so you basically just consume water and not worry about eating food during your breakfast time now you get to lunch at Lunch time you want to do the same thing distract yourself go somewhere else don't go don't show up to a cafe don't go to a friend's house for food when everybody else is eating distract yourself and take yourself away from a food environment
and when you do that then you can pass the lunch hour and you can continue to drink water or drink a decaffeinated beverage until you get to dinner time now the goal is to get to approximately 24 hours if you stop your Fast at five o'clock P.M or six o'clock P.M instead of seven o'clock P.M it's not a big deal just get to a point where you're fasting for approximately 24 hours and when you do that you've induced a significant metabolic benefit to multiple tissues like we've already talked about now you can take it to
the next level and perform the next type of fast and this is called the twice per week 24 hour intermittent fast here you're going To choose two days of the week instead of just one so here I would do Monday and Thursday because they're separated by a couple of days where I can continue to eat food I'm going to do the same thing and basically skip eating food for 24 hours on Monday I'm gonna eat my dinner on Sunday night and I'm gonna eat my dinner on Monday and then I'm gonna repeat that process on
Thursday and when I do it that way I now have two periods of 24-hour Intermittent fasting under my belt which is going to induce a larger negative calorie balance the third option is for people who have performed intermittent fasting for a significant period of time and are more comfortable with it this is the the most effective type of fast that I've ever seen it's called the 16-8 intermittent fast and this is actually funny enough easier than a 24-hour intermittent fast and it's also More effective so here's how you do it you choose one meal of
the day that you're not going to eat breakfast is usually the easiest meal to not eat so again if we go backwards and start on the Sunday evening I want you to eat dinner on Sunday evening I want you to start your fast as soon as dinner is over I want you to fast all the way through breakfast the next morning wake up drink some water continue moving along through your day and then Basically start eating food at approximately 12 o'clock the next day if you do it that way you effectively skip one meal which
is breakfast and then you are allowed to eat your lunch you are allowed to eat a snack you are allowed to eat a dinner and then you do it over again the trick with a 16 8 fast and the reason why it is so effective is because you do it every day this the original 24-hour fast that I spoke about the once per week and the Twice per week they're only done once or twice per week the 16-8 fastest performed every single day and the accumulated negative calorie balance that you accumulate today and tomorrow and
the next day and the next day and the next day is what creates such a powerful Metabolic Effect over the course of time at first it's going to suck and then it's going to feel automatic and at that point you're not going to have to think about it you're Just not even going to be hungry at breakfast and that's easy for you you continue doing this process every single day and eventually you get to the point where you are a professional intermittent faster now let's get into our tips and tricks for having a good experience
or a great experience in your next intermittent fast okay now again I want to stress the fact that your sleep time counts when you are asleep you are not eating Food you can absolutely count that towards your overall duration of intermittent fasting and that's a good thing because that means you don't have to count only your waking hours okay you want to get into a state a fasted state of extended duration that is where the metabolic magic happens and that's when autophagy activates which again is that cellular recycling program that we talked about earlier okay
now research shows that as little as 100 calories can Put you back into a Fed state so the goal is to try and keep your total calorie intake below 100 calories for the entire duration of your fast during your fast I recommend drinking a lot of water I also say it's okay to drink coffee if you want to drink either caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee go for it I'm not going to put that in as an obstacle in your way you can certainly drink tea both caffeine rich and caffeine free you Can drink green juices you
can drink apple cider vinegar with water and you can even snack on some non-starchy vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli and cucumbers and tomatoes because they're very low in their calorie intake and they are likely to not disrupt the fasting State now when it comes to tea I'm going to be perfectly honest here we created a tea made of Indian gooseberries it's called amla green tea if you haven't heard of it yet I highly Recommend taking a look at it it incorporates the Indian Gooseberry which is the most powerful antioxidant rich food ever discovered by human
beings it has documented research based improvements in in its total antioxidant power because it's such a powerful Berry it can induce three different types of metabolic improvements number one it's the most powerful cholesterol reducing food ever discovered by humans number two it's an extremely powerful uh blood Glucose lowering food and number three it's an extremely powerful blood pressure lowering food so if you want lower cholesterol and or lower blood glucose and or lower blood pressure then eating Indian gooseberries is likely to give you some metabolic benefit so what we did is we turned the amla
berry which is an otherwise very unpleasurable experience into something that's actually tasty so you can see here on your screen the green bottle is the Original flavor and this is a combination of Indian gooseberries plus green tea this one tends to have about one-fourth as much caffeine as a cup of coffee so it's got a very small caffeine dose and if you're very sensitive caffeine then you can just get the decaffeinated version of this green bottle the next bottle that we created or the next flavor is the Hibiscus flavor as you can see here in
red this bottle is our most popular Product and this contains hibiscus which is another antioxidant powerful rich food plus Indian gooseberries plus cinnamon plus mint plus Ginger and the combination of all these tastes fantastic and people have been raving about just how powerful it is and how great it tastes the third flavor which we created is the purple bottle and the purple bottle is elderberries we created this to be a very powerful immune Boosting version of the alma green tea product line and this contains Indian gooseberries plus elderberries plus mint plus Ginger plus cinnamon the
combination of those ingredients tastes actually very good this is my favorite flavor and has a very powerful not only cardiovascular and diabetes benefits but it also can significantly improve your immune system and finally we created pumpkin spice now who doesn't love pumpkin spice okay it's the brown bottle And this was an instant hit as soon as we released it at the end of last year if you like pumpkin spice if you're a pumpkin spice latte a fan and you just like the pumpkin flavor pick up one of these bottles because this also contains the Indian
Gooseberry has powerful metabolic effects and has that flavor of Thanksgiving slash Halloween slash Christmas that we all love okay now also since you're a fan of mastering diabetes I'm going to extend you a 20 discount All you got to do is use the code mastering diabetes 20 at checkout so go ahead and use that code if you're picking up a bottle of Alma green or multiple bottles get this stuff into your life and the reason I'm talking about in the first place now that I'm done with my advertisement is because umla green is a very
powerful beverage that you can drink during a fast the whole purpose of drinking water while you are fasting or staying Hydrated is because it's extremely important during a fast and if you're going to choose some beverage it might as well be either pure water or have an antioxidant Rich benefit because adding antioxidants during a fasted state is another way of Performing metabolic housekeeping that can improve the functionality of tissues all throughout your body okay now if you're super hungry and you want to just tough it out you know is That the right way to go
about it because a lot of people complain to us or they they suggest to us they're like listen I tried to do this intermittent fasting thing but my Lord was at heart I got to the 16 hour marker and I wanted to eat everything in sight I want I got to the 24 hour marker and I could barely stay conscious right now the truth is that oftentimes people exaggerate but the idea is if you get super hungry here's what you can do number one Pause just get a control of your emotions I understand that being
hungry can also you know make people hangry and you know can get worked up emotionally but if you just take a pause take a deep breath go outside distract yourself get away from food that's my primary trick don't go to your kitchen don't go to a cafe don't go watch somebody else eat a piece of pizza go outside where the thought of food is Not likely to happen and when you do it that way it significantly reduces your emotional overwhelm and that right there can dramatically improve your overall fasting experience now another question that people
ask us all the time is they say all right fine I can do this intermittent fasting thing it sounds like a plan but what about when I eat food what am I allowed to eat what should I be eating and surprise surprise I'm gonna tell you that my Recommendation is to eat a low-fat plant-based whole food diet I guess you didn't know I was going to say that right technically speaking you can eat whatever you wanted right because you induce a negative calorie balance and that is a good positive metabolic state but then what you
likely don't want to do is go into the FED state where you're actually inducing inflammation because of the quality of nutrients that are Coming into your mouth or because of the quantity right so a low fat plant-based whole food diet is going to help with weight loss it help continue to keep your immune system strong help reduce your risk for heart disease and help reduce your risk for insulin resistance and diabetes okay but if you eat a diet that contains things like high meat High Dairy and other processed foods or Ultra processed foods then what
you do during your fed States is you increase your Chronic disease risk and then you're using intermittent fasting as a Band-Aid to try and reduce your chronic disease risk so you're basically yo-yoing between this is good for me this is not good for me this is good for me this is not good for me and it ends up putting you in a tough position down the road okay the reason you're fasting in the first place is to improve your metabolic health so eating a low fat plant-based whole food diet aligns with the very Reason that
you are performing intermittent fasting in the first place so if you look on your screen you'll see that we categorize Foods into green light yellow light and red light okay in the green light category these are foods that you can eat ad-lib as much as you want you do not have to count calories you do not have to count portion control you do not have to count servings okay we say this because in the overwhelming majority of people when they increase Their fiber intake from fiber-rich foods from fruits starchy vegetables beans lentils peas intact whole
grains leafy greens non-starchy vegetables herbs spices and mushrooms the more of that material they eat the more fiber they put into their digestive system the more full they become I know it's counterintuitive you might be thinking to yourself ah whatever I when I eat fruit I'm not I'm not I'm hungry 10 minutes later the Answer is I'm not asking you to just sit there and eat fruit I'm asking you to eat a fiber rich collection of foods and when you do it that way you're eating a lot of fiber plus water which is called bulk
and that is the single most powerful satiation signal that researchers have ever discovered we wrote about it in our book mastering diabetes you can read about it in the book mastering diabetes there's an entire section on bulk and all of that Research is derived from a woman named Dr Barbara rolls who has created an entire system called volumetrics which is mind-bogglingly powerful here's my point the green light collection of foods is real good for you can we maybe blow that up on the screen there we go like it I like I like it okay let's
get that nice and big the yellow light category includes foods that you can certainly eat but just have them in small quantities because they Tend to be a little bit more processed or a little bit more fat Rich number one nuts number two seeds number three avocados then coconuts olives soy pastas and breads okay again a little bit is okay a lot of bit can turn into a little bit of a challenging metabolic situation finally in the red light category these are all the foods that have documented inflammatory effects okay and I know a lot
of people are going to say Cyrus what are your sources cite your sources For every single one of these and I've done that before and I'm not going to do it right here but the point is that the more dairy products you eat the more eggs the more red meat the more white meat the more fish the more shellfish the more oil you consume the more refined sugars and the more pastries and breads you put into your mouth the higher your risk for many chronic diseases okay so that's why we put those in the red
light category because those Have documented either carcinogenic effects or document fermented chronic disease inducing effects and when you reduce your intake of those and move from the red light category over to the yellow light and then the green light category you can just watch as your health dramatically improves in a very short period of time hey I'm Cyrus combata co-founder of mastering diabetes and the New York Times best-selling co-author of Mastery Diabetes Now the secret to weight loss and reversing conditions like insulin resistance and heart disease is in your diet I'm sure you know that
by now but do you know exactly what to eat in order to make that happen now we make it simple with a delicious and simple meal plan that contains 21 meals per week that's guaranteed to help you lose weight and improve your health from the ground up if you want those Secrets visit Masteringdiabetes.org feed me and begin eating the tastiest food you've eaten in years and absolutely love your newfound Health masteringdiabetes.org femi get started today all right here's the next question we get from people they say all right fine I get you I get you
I should be eating Lo-Fi plant this whole food diet when I'm eating I should be calorie restricting approximately 16 hours a day For best results but here's the thing I'm concerned about uh if I fast it's not going to make me slower because I like to exercise and I'm concerned that if I'm exercising and I'm fasting simultaneously that fasting is going to get in the way of my exercise regimen and it's not going to enable me to get good physical performance okay so most people tend to think that if they stop eating large quantities of
Protein in particular that they're going to get weaker and all of a sudden they're going to lose muscle mass and then they're going to shrivel away and die okay now I'm joking when I say that but I'm also not joking because you see this all over the place and most of this is just pure Bro Science okay now most people believe that you have to eat thousands and thousands and thousands of calories a day the protein is the most important macronutrient but the truth is That the importance of protein is highly exaggerated and we did
it in an entire piece and an entire podcast episode an entire YouTube video an entire collection of other short videos about the effect of eating too much protein and how it actually can induce what's called late onset postprandial hyperglycemia what the heck is that it is the induction of insulin resistance about three to five hours after you Finish eating a meal okay if you want to watch that video and listen to that podcast then by all means I highly recommend doing it whatever platform you on you can either see it in the notes or you
can see it pop up on the screen but my point here is go listen to that episode about protein because we talk a lot about how protein is not created equal stuff that comes from plants is different than stuff that comes from animals and the consumption of any more Than approximately 30 grams of protein from one meal can induce high blood glucose and high insulin concentrations in the 5 to 18 hours following a meal which can put you in the wrong direction and create a negative metabolic State that's not what we're looking for okay now
another question that people worry about is that they won't be able to exercise if they are performing calorie restriction okay and the truth is that when you first begin intermittent Fasting and or calorie restriction it can be a little hard because all of a sudden you're going from being well fed all day long every day to inducing a state of negative calorie balance and you know you might get a little tired and you might feel like when you're in the gym you don't have as much exercise I'll be the first person to tell you that
I've done that before a lot of times and that is a true statement but here's the thing After about three or four days it fades away because again the neurological signal that your brain sends to your digestive system that says eat food eat food eat food eat food eat food that tends to fade away and as a result of that you're less hungry and as a result of that you don't worry about food as much and then the emotional feeling of not being able to perform in the gym disappears okay now I've been an avid
athlete for I don't know 39 years of my life and I can tell you that when intermittent fasting it is absolutely possible to exercise and I highly recommend doing it but here's the thing if you're going to perform intermittent fasting the simplest way to do it is to eat food and exercise in approximately the same window so if you're performing a 168 fast as an example and you have an Eight hour eating window then put your exercise inside of that eating window so that means that if you do happen to have low blood glucose or
you wanted to get a little bit of food before or after your exercise regimen you're allowed to because it's in your eating window but if you tried to exercise in your fasting State you're welcome to do that as well it's just going to be a little bit more difficult because if you want to eat food then there's none available for you Okay it's just that simple now if you're doing high intensity exercise I highly recommend exercise during your eating window that is the most important thing that you can do and the reason is because high
intensity interval training can certainly be very physically demanding on you and if you can do that exercise during your feeding window you're going to put yourself at an advantage now the last thing I'll talk about exercise is that people say that It's going to help me you know it's gonna it's gonna cause me to lose muscle mass and or I'm not going to be able to gain weight and the answer is gaining weight might be challenging I'll be the first person to tell you that but the best part is that if you are losing weight
as a result of intermittent fasting exercising is really good for you because normally when you lose weight if let's say you lose weight and you're not exercising at all When you lose weight without any exercise you lose approximately for every pound that you lose you lose approximately two-thirds of that as fat mass and approximately one-third of that as lean body mass as muscle tissue okay so it's impossible to avoid when you lose weight you will lose muscle mass period of story but when you perform exercise inside of your lifestyle and you are losing weight simultaneously
the exercise will Preserve muscle mass loss that's the beauty of it so rather than it being two-thirds fat one-third muscle it can go upwards of maybe eighty percent or 90 percent fat and then only 10 to 20 percent muscle so you can think of exercise as a way of preserving your existing muscle mass and that's something that you likely are going to want if you're an avid exerciser all right that's a lot of information I get it let's recap to make sure that we are All on the same page okay I'm going to give you
approximately 11 take-home messages I know that's a lot we're going to walk through them one by one by one number one if you're interested in starting intermittent fasting I highly recommend it but please start slowly if you're new to intermittent fasting just start with a shorter duration of fasting and then gradually increase it over time you can start with as little as 12 hours and Then go to 14 and then to 16 and then you can just stop when you get to 16. there is no rush work this into your lifestyle and do it in
a way where it's sustainable and if it takes you a week or two weeks or a month to get there it's totally fine nobody is going to hold you accountable for that number two stay hydrated at all times drink plenty of water throughout the day when you're performing intermittent fasting especially during your fasting period When you get into a mindset of not wanting to eat any food you can also sometimes forget to drink water and that can be disastrous down the road especially if you're living with any form of diabetes because dehydration can increase your
blood glucose so stay hydrated it's going to help the autophagy process it's going to help keep your blood glucose low it's going to help keep your blood pressure low and you're going to be doing yourself a huge Favor number three plan your meals plan your meals ahead of time and focus on eating nutrient dense foods from all low fat plant-based whole food diet when you are in your eating window it's very simple to do planning your meals actually becomes easier because there's less meals to plan so if you can think forward and make sure that
you know exactly what you're Going to eat and when you're going to eat it it can just make the process a little bit more systematic number four be consistent be very consistent and stick to a consistent fasting schedule and this is going to help your brain adapt to an intermittent fasting regimen it's going to help your digestive system adapt to the intermittent fasting regimen and it's most importantly going to help your emotions adapt to an intermittent Fasting regimen the thing that derails people most of the time is purely their emotions so if you can get
to a point where you are doing this in a consistent manner your brain will learn it your body will learn it and it'll get to a point where it just feels automatic that's the point number five listen to your body if you feel unwell or if you feel extremely hungry or if you feel a little light-headed or you have low blood pressure or you are going Hypoglycemic then it is okay to break your fast early okay please don't be irresponsible and please don't feel like you have to power through something when there could be alarm
Bells going off in your head please be safe when doing this at all times number six stay busy okay keep yourself occupied during your fasting period especially at the beginning of the fasting process because it can help distract you from hunger and Cravings That can derail you okay I cannot emphasize this enough if you are sitting in an area where other people are eating food where you can smell food being prepared or you are visibly able to look at other people consuming food it's going to make your life harder so take yourself out of that
environment and stack the cards in your favor number seven try not to overeat during your eating Windows okay while intermittent fasting allows you to be Able to eat large meals during your eating window it's still important to be very mindful of how much food you are consuming and I don't want you to to think that you have to overeat simply because you're not going to be eating for an extended duration of time okay eat sensibly eat to about 80 fullness and you should be just fine number eight eat a nutrient-dense diet eat a low fat
plant-based whole food diet because That's what I recommend that's what we recommend at mastering diabetes and that's what the research has demonstrated to be one of the most powerful things that you can do for your overall health it is the most nutrient-dense diet ever discovered by human beings it has a higher concentration of antioxidants and phytochemicals than any other diet known to man so stack the carbs in your favor once again and eat that during your Feeding windows number nine stay active incorporate regular physical activity into your routine to help maximize the benefits of intermittent
fasting again it will help preserve your muscle mass if you are an active individual during a weight loss process number 10 get enough sleep aim for seven to nine hours of sleep per night to help support your overall well-being and to help you stay asleep while you are hungry it's just that simple if you're Awake for too many hours then you might talk yourself out of the fasting State and if you are asleep you don't even know that you're hungry and it can keep you keep you in the game for a longer period of time
and finally number 11. consider working with a healthcare professional if you have any particular Health Care concerns that you need to address if you have any underlying medical conditions or concerns please talk with your doctor please work with a Healthcare professional please reach out to the team at lovelife Telehealth that was formerly known as plant-based Telehealth to get a Telehealth physician to help you determine whether intermittent fasting is right for you and they will help you perform intermittent fasting so that you can get maximum benefits from it I hope this has been a insightful and
helpful deep dive into understanding insulin resistance and intermittent Fasting and how you can use intermittent fasting as a tool to induce negative calorie balance to maximize your overall health there's a lot to learn in this world of intermittent fasting and my goal is to try and provide you with value at all times so if you have any questions feel free to reach out to our team leave a comment on whatever platform you're on and we will get back to you and help you dramatically improve your life as quickly as possible talk With you real soon
hi I'm Cyrus combata co-founder of mastering diabetes and the New York Times best-selling author of Mastery diabetes Now the science behind diabetes can get very complicated very quickly but fortunately Your solution doesn't have to be if you'd like to learn the simple proven and guaranteed method to take your life back from diabetes you can go to masteringdiabetes.org start to get Guidance coaching and more information today it's time to sit in the driver's seat of your diabetes health and make this the last coaching program you ever need are you ready if you are visit masteringdiabetes.org start
to get started then the same coaching program that's helped over 10 000 people around the world see you inside
