Hydration’s Impact: Extend Fasting Benefits & Body Healing

Gina Bria

I am so excited. We are going to have such a great conversation, and it is so important. Thank you so much for this opportunity to spread this incredibly wonderful and wild information.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Well, sure. Do you want to start by telling us a little bit more about yourself and what piqued your interest in hydration, water, and your personal story? Then,  all the way, I will be doing it professionally with the organization, advocacy, and all of that.

Gina Bria

Thank you. It is such a surprise because I am trained as a Cultural Anthropologist, what the heck am I doing leading a nonprofit on better hydration strategies? Let me tell you a little bit about that story because, in that story, you discover for yourself some very important things. I was looking at as an Anthropologist, I was piqued by the question, Wait a minute, why are all these desert dwellers not drinking eight glasses a day? We are medically told this is the prescription, and yet they are better hydrated than we are. So I was, well, they are not drinking liquid water because there is not any. Let us go look at that question. Let us go look at those stories. 

I did investigations and fieldwork into desert dwellers in every desert region of the globe. To dig out this information, not only to go and visit people but to go back to very old ethnography before we became industrial, was there any record of how people were hydrating? The surprising information that came out of this that I want to share with your audience and help me spread is that they were using food to hydrate, and they were not using the water that is locked inside of food. In desert communities, they are using plants—cactus, aloe, or tubers—under the ground that was dug up, that were literally on trails that they walk; they would stop and dig up certain areas. They knew plants grew that were holding water for them under the ground as they were going through their nomadic phases. I thought this was a huge piece of information. I could not believe that we did not know more about it. 

What I wanted to find out was that the commonality in every desert region was different plants, but each of those plants had a jelly quality inside of them. I wanted to find out what that gel was because I thought, okay, that was the commonality. There is something about the aloe gel or cactus gel that is different and somehow helps them absorb or retain water. I never suspected, Dr. Antoun, that that was a form of water itself. It is concentrated water. It is jelly-like water. Isn’t that extraordinary? We do not have just liquid vapor and ice. There is a phase between liquid and ice. That is where water begins to get more and more concentrated. Desert environments just accelerate the water’s phase. Change into this jelly-like phase. Have you ever heard of that information before?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Never.

Gina Bria

Now, you know why I founded the Hydration Foundation is to share that there is a form of water locked in plants. It turns out it is not just desert plants. All plants hold this accelerated form of water. It is said that water inside plants is more hydrating than liquid.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Really? 

Gina Bria

Yes. The reason that is true is that this jelly-like phase of water, or we could call it plasma water. The scientists that I am working with who are researching this call it structured water or ordered water, or Dr. Pawluk himself calls it easy water. Fourth phase: water. It helps us think about water in phases. This is another phase of water, the fourth phase, and this is the water that is found inside our cells and tissues. Not only are the plants transferring water from liquid into gel but so are all the animals on the planet. Are we? 

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Are you saying, does that mean that eating a plant-based diet is one of the benefits? There are multiple benefits to complex carbs and not over-spiking of IGF, etc., which is one of the benefits of getting more hydrating water from the plants.

Gina Bria

much better than the liquid we are guzzling. Start with gel water. In food. I want you to think, Okay, in watermelon, cucumber, chia seeds, I am going to give you a list before we leave this talk so that everyone knows what these foods are and they can go to those. Of course, we are going to have a conversation on fasting, too. We are not forgetting that for you. But I want you to be able to leave this conversation knowing that for most of the world and before modern times, in industrial times, most people used their foods to hydrate. This is far more hydrating and effective than liquid because those foods are already ready to match our cellular structure. There is easy osmosis into our cells and tissues when the body does not have to take liquid translated into this more concentrated form and then pass it into our cells and tissues. 

If we are getting that water from our food, we do not have to do that extra work. and I will tell you too: if you are guzzling water all the time, there is no time for absorption. It will be like a flash flood in a canyon. It flashes through your system in as little as 10 minutes. When that water floods you, that liquid fills it, and that liquid floods, it is pulling out the electrolytes, which are the mechanism for making that water into a more concentrated plasma-like form. One of the things I want to tell your audience is to not drink a naked glass of water anymore. Get some minerals or some salts; just pinch into that water so that it will begin that process. If you are just drinking a lot, when we fast, we tend to do the water fasting without food, which helps us absorb, maintain, and even time release. If you eat an apple, that apple is bringing in the juice in the apple in plasma form. It is already a little bit more viscous. Then the pectin and the fiber in that fruit hold that water in the body and release it slowly so your tissues and your cells have time to absorb it. This is a very different paradigm now we are talking about how you get hydration. I am sure you have thoughts on this. I would love to hear them.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

It is fascinating. It is fascinating information. I have done multiple studies in health care. I spent 11 years and never had nutrition studies. I have always complained of never having nutrition studies. I have done my M.D. Ph.D. in two methods, and I have only had one hour of nutrition training. Not nutrition and lifestyle are behind probably 80% of the chronic conditions that we are dealing with, and we have never, ever had a session on water. I think this is very important for everyone listening today to learn from what you are saying. It makes sense why we have done chemistry and biochemistry. If you are not turning that water into adding to the substance or engraving it in food or gel forms, it is going to go fast and is not going to get the time for the absorption that happened, whether in a setting from the gastric dumping to the GI tract. 

It makes a lot of sense what you are saying. I do not know if I would tell people not to drink water as it is today, but I understand that what you are saying is that you can improve it. You can enhance it by doing so, but we do not want you also end up overeating food just for that reason. It all goes back to the balance of life. This is exactly what it is. Sometimes our ancestors drank from the river, and some and most of the time they ate plant-based food, and they probably got hydration from both and had a balanced life, which optimized longevity. We, I have been spending, what, 25 years now on research on longevity, and everything goes back into a homeostatic balance in evolution, basically matching our body with what is meant to be. I think this is what you are saying, as well as that it is not only about the liquid water, but the water that is contained in foods, especially fruits, and vegetables, has a better way to hydrate and an effective way to match the ingredients within the body. There is concentration in the transfer pattern and speed so that the entire body benefits from both.

Gina Bria

Of course, there is a balance between liquid and gel water in our bodies. The body needs both to be able to do its work of what the whole point of fasting is and the point of fasting besides the mental capacity for mastery over one’s self, which is extraordinary. Remember, I am. I was coming at this from a cultural anthropology point of view, more than just our biology. We are also ours, our social beings, and our spiritual beings. This is incredibly important. Fasting is a pathway to mastery over food and mastery over self. I do not want to even use the word mastery. It is; there is a better word.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

It is the discipline.

Gina Bria

Yes. There is a partnership where we finally come into ownership of our bodies and occupy ourselves in this extraordinary instrument that the body is rare, beautiful, and blessed for one life to live in, occupy, enjoy, and keep in health. The liquid water I want to get back to that point in the jelly water is in partnership with our body, and the way that works is that the gel forms and shapes our cells and our tissues, and the liquid, when it goes into the liquid state, washes and cleanses. We need both of those going on at once. My advocacy for food is just to get a balance back into using the absorptive power of food as part of our hydration process, not to just guzzle water all the time, which is the message that we are given here.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

What do you recommend for people to add to their water when they are fasting?

Gina Bria

Well, a pinch of salt is handy, It is sea salt. We want to use salts that have not had minerals stripped from them. That is because the salts are adding this thickening agent. It happens. I do not want to get too complex, but it happens through electromagnetic charge. Minerals of any kind in there in that sea salt, and you can also buy liquid mineral drops, which I love to use because unfortunately our soils are so stripped of those minerals that even when we are eating organic food, the amount of minerals that go into that growth is modest compared to what the ancients would have had access to.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Il depletion is a big issue today.

Gina Bria

The modern hack for soil depletion is to directly add minerals back into your water or your foods. Liquid minerals are high-quality liquid minerals. The ancients used something called Shilajit, which is a plant compound that is so ancient. It has been smooshed into a nearly tar-like black matter. Many cultures around the world will use a little bit of that to add to their liquids or just take it directly and hold it under the tongue. It is not so tasty. But then, with it, we get the benefit. These practices of adding minerals are ancient, and people do it through many methods. Dr. Antoun, they do it through, for example, bathing in minerals or clays. There is a broad aspect to getting into hot waters: the heat and the infrared in the waters help the mineral absorption be more complete. 

If you are fasting, one fantastic thing to do is to take a mineral bath. This also opens up the exit passages for the waste in our bodies that we want to get rid of. That is the value of fasting: cleansing and getting rid of that. That is a hydration project. That is water cleansing you from the inside. Not only are you drinking water and adding a bit of mineral to make that replenishment happen, but hydration is also about exiting. It is not just about the input; everybody is asking about how much, how much, and how much. I am. Wait a minute. You also want to talk about how to get how much is going out of you. That is valuable because going to the water and going out of you is now carrying the waste, the distress, and the toxins that our culture is subject to in incredible volume. You have to want to get that.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yes, I am going to ask the question: how much water per day? I know the answer depends, but we want to learn more about how you approach this and how you answer this question. What is your recommendation for everyone listening today about how to process?

Gina Bria

Yes. What I want to do is also help you get to the point, as the listeners, that you are this master, this occupier of your own body, your terrain. You are going to have to answer the question about how much. and we are going to start with at least 1.5 liters. We have this information from studies that were done in Germany identifying how much mineral water to take in and where blood draws we can see an improvement in integrative hygiene.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

This is in addition to food or if somebody is fasting.

Gina Bria

Yes. In those studies, they were eating a regular diet. We identify how much, but the 1.5 is a baseline. We know you can start there. When I fast, I go by three bottles of mineral water. I line them up, and I know I have my water source.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Which bottle is how much?

Gina Bria

Is a liter.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Okay. You go for three liters.

Gina Bria

Yes. I am not trying to drink all that; I am using that as, Okay, I got my resources. Now how, what during this fast is happening to me, and what I am looking for is a sense of satiation? You are not drinking just to guzzle the amount; get rid of that idea you are drinking now.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Still or sparkling. Are there any studies you have done or any things you have read about the difference or impact?

Gina Bria

That is a good question. Yes. It is a personal preference. There is some research. It is modest now that the carbonated bubbles, as they pop, release even more electric charge. Some people think that drinking bottled water or sparkling water brings a higher electric charge to the water. I think that is a valuable bit of information, except for people who do not drink sparkling water. Do not worry about it. It is small.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yes, it is a minor point.

Gina Bria

Drink what you love. When I am drinking those, I have those three. I want you to picture those three bottles in front of me. I am only 5’1. I am also in my 60s. It is very different from standing next to a very tall guy who is a youthful and active person. You would want to check in with yourself about it. Are you feeling satiated? Are you feeling fluid and mobile? You can do some tests on yourself. For example, pay attention to your mood and your brain function. If you are feeling fatigued, you are probably not getting enough of those three liters. Your fatigue is a huge clue that the fuel amount has gone down in your system, and water is your fuel; it is your electrical charge. Fatigue, headaches, classic. If you are getting a headache during fasting, try some hydration. See if you can help that go away. 

Movement is key. How is that water being distributed? If you are not moving your tissues, you are not compressing, moving, and pushing the fluid dynamic through your system. If you feel stiff, you are not getting hydration in that area. If you are crabby and irritable, these are all classic fasting issues that come up. I am just trying to alert you that those are hydration signals.  You want to think about your body moving through the day in the environment.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

What you are mentioning is critical and is a lot of foundational science. Even in our role on the five-day fasting mimicking diet, Valter Longo, the inventor, has the glycerol drink, and he has hydration and teas throughout the day that he inserted into it. He spent 20 years on the research in 18 universities and the National Board of Health was involved. There is a lot of foundation about that hydration level with the body, and as you said, it is not just water; it is water with something else a little bit to maintain it, contain it, and then have it transmitted effectively to the tissues. Go ahead. 

Gina Bria

Yes. I love that you bring that out. If you think about how they plan to ProLon, you think about the points of the day as oasis points to rehydrate.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yes.

Gina Bria

The olives, that you take in, are a classic Middle Eastern food used for hydration in desert people all over the place.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Okay.

Gina Bria

As our figs and our dates show, these turn out to be unbelievably hydrating foods. But because we are used to looking for water in liquid form only, we have missed that information. Getting back to this idea of having a volume of water that you are distributing as you check in with yourself, you see, then you are gaining a skill for hydrating yourself, not just through a fast, but how you are going to go forward into your longevity. This is exciting to realize that you are the measurement, you are the terrain, you are the desert, and you are going to think about yourself differently, knowing that you are going to need to move through your day looking for your hydration spots because you are going to need replenishment. What are the signals that are coming from your body? Fatigue is very important. Crabbyness and irritability are another one. creakiness of the muscles. You see, I am giving you a different set of assessment tests to help you understand. Let us anticipate. When I start to feel that way, I am going to need some hydration.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

That’s fantastic. Then add the role of water in cleansing the body. What it brings when it goes out of the body and what it brings with it, which is important with fasting. With fasting, we go catabolic. The body is breaking down fat first. There is a lot of income in the bloodstream of molecules. On top of that, the cells start doing autophagy and rejuvenation and try to detox and consume the debris in the organelles. not just hydrating that it is very important to have enough water for the can, the excretion from it through the kidneys or the bowel movements, which with fasting is very critical to get these elements out.

Gina Bria

Yes. That is never even part of the hydration. They all want to know the input, but they do not want to think about how I can help my body exit this material that I have released through fasting. I think baths are great, and I think when you add Epsom salts to your baths, now you have just mineralized that water and you are helping to suck out through the skin, which is the major detox organ, It is the major hydration organ. We are so used to just pouring it down our throat that we do not think about the amount of water that comes in through our skin and goes out through our skin. There is a whole internal structure, and then we are encased in this gorgeous flesh. The body knows what it is doing. It is the most sophisticated biological entity, and we get to live with it and participate in it. We are doing it all from up here. I did not have a rational reason to do all this stuff instead of just participating in the intelligence that the body already has by giving it what it needs biologically. 

Yes. The baths are extremely important, as is sunlight. Not only does your tissue need hydration, but your microbiome needs hydration. All those bacteria inside of you that participate in creating health for you also need good hydration. One of the best ways for me to help clarify this is to follow the chain. But sunlight is part of the way that food concentrates water. We are going back to my desert research now. It is the same in your body. When you get out and get sunlight, it starts the phase transfer of the liquid water within you into a more gel structure. When the sunlight comes in, it is an electromagnetic process that starts to concentrate the water within you. You see, you are getting and making higher-quality water inside your own body just by exposure to sunlight. Of course, it has to be according to your phenotype. You need to read what your skin type is, how much sun you are going to need, and how much you are sensitive to. But this is not just the vitamin D you are getting out there. You are getting electromagnetic signals that put water into a phase change. Isn’t that extraordinary?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yes. Never realized that.

Gina Bria

You are getting better hydration through sunlight exposure. Now let us talk about saunas and infrared because sunlight is an infrared exposure that is one of the things it does multiple things besides making vitamin D. It is a clock. The sun is also a clock telling everything in your body to orchestrate what time to do its work. 

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

I want to pause here. Sorry to intervene, but the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2017 was on the biological clock, the circadian rhythm of every organ. We always talk about the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine because there is a win for fasting and autophagy and rejuvenation of the cell, which is a foundational mark in the history of fasting. We always thought fasting would help you lose weight and therefore improve metabolic markers, which is true. But then, after two or three days of fasting, the body’s in a crisis and the cells rejuvenate. That is autophagy, the Nobel Prize in Medicine 2016. Now, 2017 was exactly what you were saying, which is that we follow the sunlight at the end of the day. Our organs follow the sunlight. They want to work during the day when they are rejuvenated and rest during the night. We have created a lot of mismatches recently by staying up at night and eating late at night. This is causing a lot of the metabolic disorders that we are suffering from today.

Gina Bria

Our clocks are out of sync. I was fortunate enough to get the research from, I think, Laura Cooper at Northwestern Texas, where she identified the fact that our microbiome has molecular clocks—not only our organs but our microbiome. They are also dying to find out. Just get me outside so I know what time it is and what I am supposed to be doing. This idea that we need to be in the modern severed us from the basic biological orchestrator, the great conductor of all our cell signaling and our microbiome signaling, and even the microbiome in the soil. Everything runs on the sun’s clock and the moon’s phases. These are not folk medicine. It is they who were using it. But we know that this is cosmological biology that we severed when we live indoors and spend all our time seated. We have just brought ill health upon ourselves. If you are fasting, you already care about this whole process. Fasting is a very important part of the feast and fasting cycle that our ancestors used to practice. It is very deeply related to these rhythms that our bodies need. Why do we need rhythms? Why not just stay in perfect balance all the time?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Such an important point. I want to emphasize it. For those who want to read more about circadian fasting, this science comes from Sachin Pandit of the Salt Institute. Very robust science from passion is amazing science. The data shows that people are doing 12 to 14 hours of fasting, but they are starting early, meaning when the sun is down at 6:07 p.m. This is when they eat their last meal, and then they go all the way to the next day, but they are having breakfast because you can spend 12 to 14 hours of early dinner to breakfast. This is what is shown in what we call circadian fasting. It is going to be very much aligned with longevity. When we talk to centenarians, we study a lot. The centenarians and our founder, Valter Longo, spent a lot of time across the blue zones talking to people who live hundreds and beyond. This is what they do. That is the right way. I called it front-loaded intermittent fasting that matches the body with longevity. 

Now, the opposite. A lot of studies with a lot of people, I studied intermittent fasting in the 16 hours, the 18 hours, and the OMAD, or one meal a day. But they do them. They still eat at eight, nine, and 10 p.m. and they have to spend all the next day with no food, which is a mismatch with the circadian rhythm. With the requirement for energy and calories for the essential bodies in the morning. They are starving the body when the body needs the calories, the next day, all the way to 4 p.m. and 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Then they are binge eating, and then they go to sleep in an anabolic pro-aging state, which is a mismatch of longevity. 

The new science is showing that everyone asks me why intermittent fasting has positive and sometimes negative signs when you do it.  Either the circadian rhythm is front-loaded, and when you do it wrong, it is actually because eating late at night is more damaging than the compensation of intermittent fasting that you do the next day. This is where the results are conflicting. A major message from us at this summit is to tell people how to do intermittent fasting—12 to 14 hours of front-loaded eating early. That is the most important step. then have your breakfast, or if you want to go longer, do it with food, with the fasting, mimicking nutrition, because then you get the hydration that you need, the minerals, the vitamins, and the macros that you need to replenish your body since the morning, the entire day as well as what it was meant to do, and give it all the minerals, vitamins, and macros that it needs.

Gina Bria

You can see how excited I am that we are now matching up together and bringing our information together. This is such a wonderful conversation. It is so important as an anthropologist to find people who are bringing the correct way to fit the way to fast and the way to match our biology. The message I want to share is that, as modern people, we have severed ourselves, we live indoors, and we sit all the time. We take a high level of pharmaceutical ingestion. We do not ground. We are wearing shoes; we are in cars; we are in planes; we are in cubicles. Phones and screen time are everywhere, and they are extremely dehydrating. People are not aware of that. Each of these hits on our hydration. We have to find a way to bring that back. and mastering fasting is a wonderful place to start this whole rehydration. Using the water to cleanse both the intake and the output is just magnificent. We desperately need this conversation.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

This is the only session I have an anthropologist with me here. Typically, it is medical doctors and PhDs, but it is important to go back, and people ask me all the time, Is fasting a fad? Is this a new trend? Is it going to happen, I always say this is the only non-trend. What is a fad is the way we are living today—eating all the time and eating late at night. Our ancestors found fasting to be part of their diet. It has never been eaten all the time. There are hundreds of thousands of humans on this planet. We never ate all the time. We fasted, and then we would have found food. We ate and went together.

Gina Bria

We ate together. I think one of the things I love to bring to consideration for all of us is that we were born into one of the most abnormal societies that has ever existed. Please hear that. It is not your fault. It is just where we are at. We are going to have to hack our way out of this. We have severed from all the biological resources that just being outside gives us. Just standing outside on the grass is what we need to have health, and yet it is not part of our daily chain. What I would like to alert people to is that I am sure, all of us go to bed at night feeling deprived; something did not. 

There is a lot, and there is an ache. We are filling it with food; we are filling it with scrolling. But we do not feel satisfied when we walk into our room and lie down on our beds. That is not you. That is not the insufficiency coming from you. That is the cultural context we are living in. We are not alive in this environment, and yet we can get ourselves thereby occupying ourselves and our biology differently than we do. That involves love for one another, good relationships, eating together, sunshine, getting your feet on the ground, finding beautiful food, and enjoying butterflies and birds. Get some flowers in your house, for God’s sake, start nurturing this incredible, deprived hole that we are in, each of us, and then let us do it together. That is my excuse for going on a rant.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

That is the best way to end this. Appreciate you. It is always about science, biology, and the spirit as well. Outlining the body and the spirit has always been common; this is why fasting is the only common word in all divided religions and also in other meditation bases, whether divine or religious. Fasting has always been part of it. It is the alignment of the body and spirit that gets you the biggest effect. We see this in centenarian studies. We try to study people living hundreds and beyond and try to identify every pattern that we can bring to humans today. This is where we talk about circadian fasting, three times a year, doing a ProLon fast. But what is common to all of them is their smile, their sense of purpose, their living with their family in their hometown, that just happiness, that serenity, and some of them are telling us the story while smoking, some of them are the proteins in their life, and it is fat and they fried food, but they were happy and they were living in their nest. I think this is very important because it trickles down into eating healthy, exercising, being out sleeping early, and stressing less. This is what we are missing today. A lot of the stresses that we have imposed on our lives are pushing us to do a lot of good.

Gina Bria

Before we go, I would love to give a couple of, I think, important tips, if you do not mind. I would if I had your expertise to assist me right now. But one is that, as you are fasting, I want to help you through movement. Increase the dynamic liquid flow; this fluid dynamism in your body will help you accentuate what you are getting rid of. This is so simple, and I want to include movement as part of your hydration strategy. Incredibly important. 

Here is my list of symptoms. Go for it. You can do this while you are driving a car, while you are talking on your cell phone, or as you are moving through your day. You are just going to drop your chin to your chest. Just a nice, slow drop from chin to chest. then you raise your chin in your head just a little bit back till it is gentle for you, and then maybe just down again; maybe do two or three of those. Now, what you have just accomplished is that you have used your physical pressure and the weight of your head to activate an incredible flush down your spinal canal. This is so simple, but I want you to understand how dynamic water is. If you just drop your chin to your chest, you have just flushed your entire synovial canal, the water in your brain. The gel water, the viscous jelly-like water. It is thin enough to flow like liquid and thick enough to become your tissues. Even some people are surmising your bones. This is what fascia is all about. Well, we can carry on that conversation some other time, but this movement is incredibly valuable for you. 

Any movement is going to be good. People call it exercise, but then you can just call it movement. That is your first tip. Make sure you drop your chin on your chest as often as you can. You also look very positive; you are nodding your head all the time. The second one, I would love to hear your take on this. This would be a food for after you have fasted. It could be your first food if you agree with me. I want to hear your expertise on this too. I am a big fan of chia seed because it is one of these desert plants that accelerates the transfer of liquid into this high-gel, highly electrical stage. That gel is more conducive to the electrical function of your body, which also increases your ability to detox and also makes you have longevity because you are going to live longer. You have more electricity in your body. This is something I call chia pudding. It has become much more common. But if you mix some chia seeds into a can of coconut milk, you have one can of coconut milk, and I use about five. I remember because I supply my five fingers with five tablespoons of chia seed, and you just mix that up, and that combination is a superhydrator and does not involve liquid. You are not peeing all the time. It is a great post-fast entry food. I would love to hear what you think of that idea.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

I think I am not opposed to it, but I have not studied. As you know we are based on science, and people come to us and tell us new trends and mainly to volunteer longer because we do randomized clinical trials and everything we say. That is our biggest value to society; if we do not study it, we do not know what you are saying. Makes sense. I do not think it is going to hurt anyone to have the chia seeds after the fast, but I do not know what the combination with coconut oil does or does not do to the body. Our recommendation after somebody fast is definitely to eat something soft for the stomach and for the microbiome to rebuild that aligns with what you are saying. What you are saying contains liquid in a job form. It appears that it may also be beneficial. 

My answer is, Why not? But I cannot confirm scientifically that would be the ideal both-fast regimen. But hey, I just had these chia seeds this morning, so I can confirm that, but I appreciate your recommendation. I think a lot of people, after fasting, should hydrate. They should go back to eating a plant-based diet, with a little bit of, again, we are big on pescatarian and/or flexitarian, just to go back and rematch the body with what we are supposed to eat. We are talking about human evolution and inhuman living close to rivers, where there was a lot of plant-based again, we learned today about the value of hydration to the plant base. For us, go back to that plant-based diet, which is what you describe as part of it, and add a little bit of fish or seafood, which are a good balance of certain amino acids that your body needs with the omegas that your revivalism and your lipids would benefit from. and coconut has that. Nothing could back up what you are saying. But it could.

Gina Bria

Yes. We should continue to investigate this, and I think this conversation has been such a blessing. We want at the Hydration Foundation, this is my work to spread this into people’s use as best we can to help hydrate people well in a very dehydrating environment and to understand the role of foods in our hydration post-fasting and be able to tell you what food is, I want you to think about a pear or an apple as nature’s portable water bottle. This is a good idea to have, and then also to recognize that fasting is an ancient technique for cleaning ourselves up, both physically and mentally. It is well documented, as you have said, around the world, through anthropology, how widespread these practices are. No culture lives without doing these things. These were all, and if I could say one more thing, they were not just for our health. Our body is a collaborative project with both the microbiome inside of us and our spiritual relationship with the people in our families around us. and health is not a very exciting destination. There is a destination beyond health. Health is something. that is, to be living this vibrant, exciting, curious life on our planet while we have our bodies.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

This is great. I agree with you. Fasting is aligned. historians, entrepreneurs, or just religion and science. Now they all agree on the value of fasting. This is why we are doing the summit: to reconfirm to everyone that the way to eat for longevity is to eat and not to eat. We are not born to eat all the time. In the time when we do not eat, where is that time? The circadian fasting that we talked about today, how to optimize it, the hydration being sometimes the fasting with food, what is part of the day, etc.—this is what this summit is all about. I appreciate you today for this illuminated discussion. Again, it is the first time I have heard anyone talk about hydration and fasting and the way you present it today. Thank you for doing this. I appreciate your time. For everyone who wants to read more or learn more, what would you direct them to go from here?

Gina Bria

Yes. My job is educating. We have a website called the Hydration Foundation. It rhymes. That is how you say it and it is a nonprofit. It is dot org, hydrationfoundation.org. There is science in there. There is a recipe there. There are conversations about what to do as a young mother, as a nursing mother, when you are traveling, and if you are an athlete, all of these things are important to bring, especially caring for our elders and helping them to have a hydrated eldership that brings them wisdom and allows them to contribute instead of just shriveling away. 

We also have a book that we published called Quench, and that has a fire. I published that with Dr. Dana Cohen. She is an M.D., an Integrative M.D. in New York City, and that has 50 recipes in it. It discusses all these things about water and new science, talks about fasting, and gives you recipes for the movement we did today, skin to chest, helping you understand the dynamics and how you can also drive the dynamic flow in your body. Quench is available anywhere online. I think it is in seven languages. It was renewed and reviewed by the New York Times and NPR. We have had great success with that book, so I love to share. That is an easy way to get some information. Thank you so much. We appreciate.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

It is very much appreciated. Thank you. Bye bye.

Gina Bria

Bye bye.