The "Fast Without Fasting" Protocol for a Younger, Healthier, Stronger Gut Made For Reducing Body Fat and The Dangerous Habitat We Live In
Once upon a time in a land far far away there lived primitive humans. They slept in caves or other makeshift shelters. They hunted and gathered their food. Danger lurked behind every bush, tree or knoll.
There were no restaurants. There were no packaged foods. There was no one on a television harkening you to Arby’s to come retrieve your meat filled sandwich.
There was no eating without exertion either. Getting food to eat took great time and effort. The hunter risked his life for a meal. Now the food creates the danger. Wow. Think about that for a second. There is now more danger in what and how much we eat than actually obtaining what we eat. That’s a huge shift.
So why do I say your or rather our habitat can be hazardous to our health? Well, for starters we weren’t designed to have all the food we have readily available to us. It’s a paradox. We have this over abundance of something that used to be so scarce. Does this mean there’s too much of a good thing?
No. Not necessarily. It just means our method of survival has changed. Whereas we once had to fight starvation we now have to fight over indulgence. Given the two I’ll gladly take the latter as the fight of the day.
I think most of us take for granted just how difficult it is to operate in a habitat of food on every corner. It’s food that’s not that healthy either. We don’t have to exert any energy for our food. We can walk to our refrigerator and pile in a thousand calories without ever reaching a heart rate of 75. This leads to an enormous energy imbalance. It’s a ton of calories going in, but not a lot of calories going out. So what do we do?
Well, I could tell you all the theories about willpower and calorie counting and the like. Or I could just tell you about Chinese water torture, which is about as pleasurable as another person telling you that to lose weight you must starve yourself.
I’m not going to do that. Instead I want to take a different approach. I want to start by telling you there is a way to eat the things you like. I don’t mean just some of the things you like. I mean ALL the things you like. You just have to do it strategically.
Think of your body as a symphony. As long as everyone is playing their instrument at just the right time it sounds lovely. However, If the tuba just went rogue and started blasting during a violin solo, the whole operation would take a nosedive. It’s the same with our body. Keep everyone in time and it will perform swimmingly. Start to let that tuba run wild and it’s a heart attack, insulin resistance or some other malady.
So why should you listen to me? What are my credentials? None. I do not have a degree in nutrition or health science. I am not a personal trainer. Here’s what I am. I’m a lifelong learner of peak performance and health. I looked back and realized I’ve been geeking out on this stuff for nearly 30 years. Here are my most important stats as I see it.
I’m not exactly young. I’m almost 47 years old
My body fat percentage is around 15%
I am 6’2” and weigh 195-197 depending on time of day
My Vo2 Max is in the neighborhood of 52
I can still leapfrog over my daughter while she stands straight up
I can still run a full sprint and not pull a hammy
The bottom line is I take my health very seriously. I’ve done Keto, Paleo, Adkins... you name it I’ve done it. However, I’ve settled into a protocol that works for me. There’s the key. It works for me. Maybe it would work for you. Maybe it wouldn’t. Chances are it’s hit and miss. We are all unique.
However, in my effort to be able to recommend a protocol anyone could benefit from I started looking for universality. What are the things we all share universally relating to health?
Well, we all depend on the hormones insulin and glucagon. I wrote about them in last week’s Vitruvian Letter. You can read the article HERE.
In the article I discussed how these powerful life saving hormones determine our blood sugar level and how important blood sugar management is to weight control. It’s also vital to many other aspects of health, but I’m sticking with weight for the moment.
My question was, “How can anyone eat foods they like, stop counting calories, don’t go to extremes on certain foods and still manage blood sugar?” In my research I discovered the work of Joel Greene, Founder of Veep Nutrition.
Joel is somewhat of a pioneer in the gut health space. He was taking gut health before talking about gut health. Now it seems everyone is discussing it. However, even with all the other experts such as Steven Gundry, my friend Dr. Marvin Singh, Andrew Weil and a host of others talking about gut health it was Joel Greene who first started presenting this thing called gut microbiome.
So first, what is the gut microbiome? This is the ecosystem of trillions of microorganisms that live within and on our bodies. These include bacteria, fungi, Protozoa, and viruses.
When I had author and physician Marvin Singh on The Jason Wright Show, he discussed the importance of what he calls precision medicine. There is no one cure for all of our health and wellness needs. We are all different, and each part of the body needs to be taken into account.
The primary idea I want you to take from this is the word precision. If we are going to start rebuilding the lining of our gut for optimal health we must do it precisely. Our eating will have purpose beyond taming our hunger and cravings. We are targeting bacteria to grow and perform a specific purpose. If done correctly, our bodies will burn fat as it should, store what we need and most importantly create a strong and robust immune system. All of this will ensure good health today and a longer tomorrow.
Dr. Singh likes to refer to the execution of this idea as performing “precisionomics.” First, learn your health data and own it. Next, modify your lifestyle based on the data. It’s like an economist who looks at all sorts of economic data and tries to see the future and understand behavior. Except in this case we are looking out our health data.
To get an overall picture of your gut microbiome you can actually get a test performed for about $150-300. This can give you valuable information on your overall gut health. The point I’m making here is there is a very very strong correlation between body fat and your gut. There is a strong correlation between your overall health and your gut health.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said “All medicine begins in the gut.” So let’s take our medicine and start getting leaner.
The first thing to remember is this is not a diet. This is a feeding. It’s a feeding of bacteria in your gut so it will grow. We want it to grow so it can perform its job at an optimal level.
Let’s first stop thinking about eating as a one meal at a time proposition. While each meal might be unique, look at it as a relay race. One meal is preparing for the next. Once it has done its job it hands off the work to the next meal. This meal goes to work until it’s time for the next. Fill in whatever analogy you want. It could be taking shifts. It could be the symphony with the horns coming in and then the strings. The point is we are well advised to realize that our meals don’t function in a vacuum. Each one builds upon the other. If we are strategic about it we can start to fuel our bodies in one symphonic way with absolute harmony.
Here’s the cool thing. A symphonic body is a slow-aging body. It’s a well-performing body. It’s a healthy body. Did you know if you eat an egg, you will eat less at your next meal and eat less the next day? Want to know why? It’s not “just because.” There is a reason. Eggs suppress the hunger hormone ghrelin. So if done right, you can eat a meal that will suppress ghrelin before you fast. This will make your intermittent fast less stressful. Get it? The tuba plays as long as needed until it’s time for the oboe to come in and rock the show. Nothing, after all, rocks like a good oboe.
So with this in mind, here is the order of operation for a 48 hour period I have tried. It works! I dropped my body fat percentage by 2 points in two weeks. I had NEVER done that before. Further, you will see this isn’t all that crazy. Yes. It takes some planning and execution. However, you don’t have to be perfect. If you just follow along the setup before meals will save you if you go off the rails. Here we go.
Remember, this plan is not to feed YOU. It’s about feeding your bifidobacteria. We are tuning up the symphony.
The primary objectives are to:
Feed bifidobacteria
Spin up butyrate
Burn Fat (YES)
Steer immune macrophages (Precision)
Pre-amplify fasting signals
*The following guide is an adaptation from Joel Greene’s two day core feeding schedule found in his book “The Immunity Code.”
Day 1
What When Why
Breakfast-Big pile of black berries and some walnuts. Don’t hold back you need a big batch so chow down
First hour of your eating so somewhere around breakfast
This will stimulate Adiponectin, which helps insulin work better and amps your B-vitamin
Snack-Macadamia or some other fatty nut for a snack
3.5-4 hours after the first feeding. This is so important. What you eat here will make the next meal more effective
This slows digestion. Mac nuts contain methionine. This mimics fasting, but look at you eating!
Lunch-Resistant starches-I eat a big bowl of black beans (wash them if they have sugar) , a little bit of cheese (burns fat), hot salsa and some grilled chicken. *Eat this cold. This helps feed the bacteria. The cooling keeps the starches from turning to sugar
4.5 hours from your first meal, which should be 30 minutes after your nuts
Starch resistant foods slow digestion. They don’t feed us so much as they feed the bifidobacteria and that’s what we’re after.
Snack-Avocado-I hope you like avocados because they are so dang good for you! This is our pre-load snack to prepare for dinner.
8 hours after first meal/3.5 hours after previous meal.
Triggers AMPK. Avocados also lower insulin output, and that’s a good thing. It means less stored fat.
Dinner-Omega 3 rich fish or other protein, raw veggies and some cabbage (I eat a few spoonfuls of sauerkraut)
10 hours after first meal 2 hours after avocado
It feeds to bifido and it ferments through the night. We want to produce butyrate at a peak level over a 24 hour period to fire up AMPK
Final Snack-Glycine (low cal jell-o) or a better option is to go to www.bengreenfield.com and get Ben’s recipe
Bedtime
Quenches the hunger and allows more fat to burn through the night
Day Two
This will be a day of 4 smaller fatty meals
Objective: Amplify fastin while steering fat mass macrophages and targeting pexophagy
What When Why
Breakfast-Eggs! Very important. You need the Omega 3. Maybe add some avocado or a cheese stick and some walnuts but get those O3’s!
Hour 1-First meal of the day
Yesterday was all about steering macrophages in your fat mass with this meal.
Snack/Lunch-A boiled egg and some cheese or maybe one of those keto egg bits from Starbucks.
Hour 4.5 so 3.5 hours from first meal
More O3’s
Snack-Two avocado cups or just an avocado
Hour 7 from your first meal or 3.5 hours from previous
Slow the insulin and preparing for your next meal
Cup of full fat cottage cheese
Hour 9.5 of the day or around 2.5 hours from the previous snack
Satiate and feed the bifido and helps burn fat
Dinner-Steak, veggies (grilled or sauteed)
Hour 10 since you started eating. (Remember we are eating in a total feeding window. It’s all about timing for these two days)
Keeps insulin level low. This whole day has been about keeping insulin production low. You will probably eat a big meal here. Just try to keep it high fat, low carb
A quick note about walnuts- This nut that actually resembles the brain has been proven to improve cognitive ability if eaten daily. A study from Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital estimated that women who are 70 years or older saw a reduction in cognitive decline equivalent to two years.
That’s it! This two day pattern will set you up for amazing results. Here’s what I suggest. Follow this plan strictly for two days. Once you have a rhythm, throw in a “cheat” meal here and there, but after the meal go back to the plan depending on the day. Just keep this rolling as a way to be prepared when the big meal comes.
This is going to drastically lower the impact of crappy meals. Again, this is about timing and strengthening the lining of your gut. Sure, if you do this you’ll probably lose some body fat. However, the biggest win is slowing the aging process and reducing inflammation.
I’ve left plenty of room for you to do some research on your own, and I hope you will. This is how the information will really stick. When you start to look at food as medicine, vitamins and overall nutrition, everything changes. You will become a more purposeful eater.
I find myself now eating a handful of mac nuts prior to dinner so I can eat a more carb heavy meal and not worry so much. It’s not about controlling weight so much as it is about controlling insulin.
This only scratches the surface. There is so much more to learn, but I do hope you found it helpful. Start to offset your meals by looking at eating as a symphony and when the tuba comes blasting in, it won’t completely destroy the performance. Instead the other players will be performing at such a high level they will make up for tuba’s mistake.
Coming up on The Jason Wright Show I will be interviewing Dr. Marvin Singh again about his new book, “Rescue Your Health,” and we will cover a lot of these topics. Be looking for the episode on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.