Hydration’s Impact: Extend Fasting Benefits & Body Healing

Introduction to Hydration and Fasting 0:00

Hi, everyone. This is Dr. Joseph Antoun, your host for the Fasting and Longevity Summit. I have a great pleasure today to bring you Gina one of the global experts on water and hydration. And, as you know, fasting. There's two types of fasting, fasting with water and fasting with food. And regardless of fasting, water runs everywhere in our system and the planet. So it's very important to talk about hydration and water. And I brought you the best on this topic. Gina welcome to the Fasting and Longevity Summit, and thank you for your time today.

Oh, I'm so excited. We're going to have such a great conversation and it's so important, so thank you so much for this opportunity to spread this incredibly wonderful and wild information. Well, sure. Do you want to start by telling us a little bit more about yourself and and how what pique your interest in hydration, water, your personal story, and then all the way to I'll be doing it in a professional way. And with the organization and advocacy and all of that. Thank you. It's such a surprise because I'm actually trained as a cultural anthropologist, so what the heck am I doing leading a a nonprofit on better hydration strategies?

And let me tell you a little bit about that story, because it in that story, you really discover for yourself some very important things. So I was looking at as an anthropologist, I was piqued by the question, wait a minute, why are the all these desert dwellers not drinking eight glasses a day like we're medically told, is absolutely the prescription, and yet they're better hydrated than we are. And so I was like, well, they're not drinking liquid water because there isn't any. So let's go look at that question.

Let's go look at those stories. So I did investigations and fieldwork into desert dwellers in every desert region in the globe. And to dig out this information not only to go and visit people, but to actually go back to very old ethnography like before we became industrial, was there any record of how people were hydrating and the surprising information that came out of this

Desert Dwellers and Gel Water in Plants 2:25

that I want to share with your audience and really help me spread this, is that they were using food to hydrate and they were not using they were using the water that's locked inside of food. So in desert communities, they're using I want you to think plants like cactus or aloe or tubers under the ground that were dug up, that were literally like on trails that they walk, they would stop and dig up certain in certain areas. They knew plants grew that were literally holding water for them under the ground as they were going through their their their nomadic phases.

So I thought this was huge information. I couldn't believe that we didn't know more about it. And what I wanted to find out was that the commonality in every desert region, different plants, but each of those plants had a kind of jelly like quality inside of them. And I wanted to find out what that gel was because I thought, okay, that that's the commonality. There's something about the kind of aloe gel or cactus gel that's different that somehow helps them absorb or retain water. Never suspecting Dr.

Antoon that that was actually a form of water itself. It's concentrated water. It's jelly like water. Isn't that extraordinary? Like we don't have just liquid vapor and ice. There's actually a phase in between liquid and ice. That's where water begins to get more and more concentrated. And desert environments just accelerate water's phase. Change into this jelly like phase have you ever heard of that information before? Never. Right. So now you know why I founded the Hydration Foundation to actually share that there is a form of water locked in plants.

It turns out it's not just desert plants. All plants hold this accelerated form of water. It's that water inside of plants is more hydrating than liquid. Really? Yes. And the reason that's true is that the this jelly like phase of water or we could call it plasma water. The scientists that I'm working with, who are researching this call it structured water or ordered water or Dr. Pollock 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 that this is actually the kind of water that's found inside our cells and tissues.

So not only are the plants transferring water from liquid into gel, but so are all the animals on the planet. So are we right? Are you. Saying so? Does that mean that eating a plant based diet, one of the benefits I mean, there's multiple benefits from complex carbs. And in that over spiking IGF, etc., that is one of the benefits, getting a more hydrating water from the plants. Much better than the liquid we're guzzling. So start with gel water in food. So I want you to think like okay, watermelon cucumber.

She is see, I'm going to give you a list before we leave this this talk so that everyone knows what these foods are and they can go to those. And of course, we're going to have the conversation on fasting, too. Don't don't. We're 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 use their foods to hydrate. And this is far more hydrating and effective than liquid, because those foods come already ready to match our cellular structure.

There's an easy osmosis into our cells and tissues when the body doesn't have to take liquid translated into this more concentrated form and then pass it into our cells and tissues. So if we're getting that water from our food,

Why Plant Foods Hydrate Better 7:00

we don't have to do that extra work. And and I'll tell you too, if you are guzzling water all the time, there's no time for absorption. There's no the thought that will. It will it's like a flash flood in a canyon. It's flashes through your system in as little as 10 minutes. And when that water floods you, that liquid fill it, that liquid flood, it's pulling out a let the very electrolytes which are the mechanism for making that water into more concentrated plasma like form. So one of the things I really want to give to your audience is do not drink a naked glass of water anymore.

Get some minerals or some salts, just a pinch into that water so that it begins that process. If you're if you're just drinking a lot, which when we do fasting, we tend to do the what the water fasting without the food, which helps us absorb and maintain and and even time release. So if you eat an apple, that apple is bringing in the juice in the apple in in in the plasma form. It's already a little bit more vicious. And then the pectin and the fiber in that fruit hold that water in the body and time release it slowly so your tissues and your cells have time to absorb it.

So this is a very different paradigm. Now we're talking about how you get hydration. I'm sure you have thoughts on this. I'd love to hear them. I mean, it's fascinating. It's fascinating information. Obviously, you know, of I've done I've done multiple studies in health care. I spent 11 years and never had I've always complained of never had nutrition studies. Right. I've done my M.D. Ph.D. in two methods, and I've only had one hour of nutrition training. Oh, not the nutrition and lifestyle is behind probably 80% of the chronic conditions that we're dealing with and never, ever had a session on water.

So I think this is very important for for everyone listening today to learn from what you're saying. And it makes sense why we've done chemistry and biochemistry if if you're not add if you're not telling that what to do with adding to it the substance or engraving it in food or in gel forms, it's going to go fast and is not going to get the time for the absorption that happened, whether in a setting all the way from the gastric dumping, all the way to the to the GI track. And it makes a lot of sense what you're saying.

I don't know if I would say for people not to drink water as is today, but I understand what you're saying is that you can improve it. You can enhance it by by, you know, but we don't want that also to end up over eating food just for that for that reason. And it all goes back to the balance of life, right? This is exactly what it is. Sometimes our ancestors drank from the river and some and most of the times they ate the plant based food and they probably got hydration from both and had a balanced life and which optimize longevity.

We you know, I've been spending, what, 25 years now and research on longevity and everything goes back into a homeostatic balance in evolution, basically matching our body with what is meant to be. And I think this is what you're saying as well as like that only about the liquid water, but the water that is contained in foods and especially fruits and vegetables has a better way to hydrate and an effective way to match the ingredients within the body. And there's the right concentration in the right transfer pattern and speed so that the entire body benefits from both.

Of course, there's a balance between liquid and gel water in our body. In fact, the body needs both in order 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, really. So remember, I'm, I was coming at this from a cultural anthropology point of view more than just we are more than just our biology. We are also our our, our social being, our our spiritual being. This is incredibly important.

And fasting helps is a pathway to getting mastery over food, mastery over self mass.

Minerals, Salts, and Hydration During Fasting 11:30

I don't want to even use the word mastery. It's, there's a better word if. The discipline is the yeah. Yeah, this is. It. There's a partnership where we, we finally come into ownership of our we occupy ourselves in this extraordinary instrument that the body is rare and beautiful and blessed for one, you know, one life to really live in and occupy and enjoy and keep in health. And and and so the what the liquid water I want to get back to that point in the jell water are in partnership in our body and the way that work is that the the gel forms and shapes our cells and our tissues and the liquid when it goes into the liquid state washes and cleanses.

So we need both of those going on at once. And 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're given right here. What do you recommend for people to add to their water when they're fasting? Oh, well, a pinch of salt is handy, right? It's sea salt. We want to be using salts that haven't had minerals stripped from them. And that's because the salts are adding this thickening agent in.

It happens. I don't want to get too complex, but it happens through electromagnetic charge. So 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're eating organic food, the the amount of minerals that goes into that growth is modest compared to what the ancients would have had access. Soil depletion is a big is a big issue today. Right. So that modern hack for soil depletion is to directly add minerals back into your water or your foods.

So liquid minerals are a, you know, high quality liquid minerals. The ancients use something called Sheela G, which is a plant compound that's so ancient. It's been it's been smooshed into into a like almost tar like black matter. And and many cultures around the world will use a little bit of that, too, to add to their liquids or just take it directly, hold it under the tongue. It's not so tasty. But then, you know, with we get the benefit. In fact, this these practices of adding minerals are so ancient and they people do it through many methods, talk to and to and they do it through, for example, bathing in minerals or clays.

So these are there's a broad aspect getting into hot waters, the heat and the infrared in the waters, the heated waters help the mineral absorption be more complete. So if you're fasting, one fantastic thing to do is to take a mineral bath. You know, this also opens up the exit passages for the for the waste in our body that we want to get rid of. And that's the value of fasting, is cleansing and getting rid of that. And that's a hydration project, right? That is literally water cleansing you from the inside.

So not only are you drinking water and adding a bit of mineral to make that replenishment actually happen, you're also hydration is about exiting. It's not just about the input which everybody asking about how much, how much, how much. I'm like, wait a minute, you also want to talk about how to get how much is going out of you. And that's really valuable because going to water going out of you is carrying now the waste and the citrus and the toxins that our culture is subject to, in and incredible volume.

So you got to want to get that. Yeah, I am going to ask the question how much water per day? And I know the answer depends, but we want to learn more about how you approach this, how you answer this question. And what's your recommendation for everyone listening today about how to process? Yes. So what I want to do is also help you get to the point as the listeners that you are this master, this occupier

How Much Water to Drink and Signs of Dehydration 16:20

of your own body, your own terrain. So you're going to have to answer the question about how much. And and and we're going to start with at least 1.5 liters. And we have this information from studies that were done in Germany identifying how much mineral water to take in and where blood draws. We're able to see an improvement and integrative hygiene. And this is in addition to food or if somebody is fasting. In those studies, it will they were eating a regular diet. So we identify how much, but the 1.5 is a baseline.

So we know you can start there. Right. And when I fast I go buy three bottles of mineral water and I line those up and I know I have my water source. Which bottle is is how much. Is a liter. Okay. So you go for three liters. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not trying to drink all that I'm using that as okay, I got my resources. Now how, what during this fast is happening to me and what I'm looking for is a sense of satiation. So you're not drinking just to guzzle the amount, get that rid of that idea you're drinking to now.

Still or sparkling. Is there any any studies you've done or any things you read about the difference or impact or. Right? That's a good question. Yes. So it's a personal preference. There is some research. It's modest right now that carbonated or the bubbles as they pop release even more electric charge. So some there's some people who think that drinking bottled water or sparkling water brings a higher electric charge to the water. And and I think that is a valuable bit of information, except for people who don't like sparkling water.

Like, don't worry about it. It's small. Yeah, it's a minor point. You love drink wine, you love. So when I'm drinking those, I have those three. I want you to picture those three bottles in front of me. I'm only five one. I'm also in my sixties. It's a very different than standing next to a very tall guy who's a high you youthful, active person. So you want to check in with yourself about are you feeling satiated? Are you feeling fluid? In 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're probably not getting enough of that three liters.

Your fatigue is a huge clue that the the fuel amount has gone down in your system and water is your fuel, it's your electrical charge. So fatigue, headaches, classic, classic. If you're getting a headache during fasting, try some hydration. See if you can help that go away. Movement is key. How is that water getting distributed? If you aren't moving your tissues, you're not compressing and moving and pushing the the fluid dynamic through your system. So if you feel stiff, you're not getting hydration to that area.

If you're crabby and irritable, like these are all classic fasting issues that come up. And I'm just trying to alert you that those are hydration signals, right? That's you want to think about your body as moving through the day in the environment when. What you're mentioning is critical and is a lot of foundational science. I mean, even in our role on the five day fasting mimicking diet Valter Longo the invented he he has the glycerol drink and he has hydration and tears throughout the day that he inserted into it.

And and definitely, you know, as you know he spent 20 years on the research and 18 universities and National Board of Health involved. So there's a lot of foundation about that hydration level with the body and and like you said, it's not just water, it's water with something else a little bit to maintain it, contain it, and then have it transmitted effectively to the tissues. So I love you. Bring out we go ahead. Yes. So that that if you think about how they plan prolong if you think about the points of the day as oasis points to rehydrate. Yes.

So that all of that you take in olives are a classic Middle Eastern food used for hydration and desert people all over that. Okay. As our figs and our dates, I mean, these turn out to be unbelievably hydrating foods.

Water, Detox, and the Role of Baths 21:30

But because we're used to looking for water in liquid form only, we've missed that information. So getting back to this idea of of having a volume of water that you personally are distributing as your checking in with yourself, you see, then you're gaining a skill for hydrating yourself not just through a fast, but how you're going to go forward into your longevity. This is really exciting to realize that you are the measurement, you are the terrain, you are the desert, and you're going to think about yourself differently and knowing that you're going to need to move through your day looking for your hydration spots because you're going to need replenishment.

What are the signals that are coming from your body? So fatigue is very important. Crabby miss irritability is another one. Creepiness of muscles. You see, I'm giving you a different set up of assessment tests to help you understand. Oh, let's anticipate. When I start to feel that way, I'm going to need some hydration. That's fantastic. And then to add the role of water in in cleansing the body. Right. And what it brings when it goes out of the body, what it brings with it, which is important with fasting.

With fasting and we go catabolic. The body is breaking down fats first. So there's a lot of income to the blood stream of molecules. On top of that, the cells start doing the autophagy and the rejuvenation and try to detox and try to consume the debris in the organelles. So not just hydrating that it's very important to have enough water for the can, you know, the excretion from it through the kidneys or the bowel movements, which with the with fasting is very critical to get these elements out. Yes.

And and that's never not even part of the hydration got. They all want to know the input, but they don't want to think about how can I help my body exit this material that I've released through the fasting? So I think baths are great and I think when you add Epsom salts to your baths, now you've just mineralized that water and you're helping to literally suck out through the skin, which is the major detox organ, right? It's the major hydration organ. What we're so used to just pouring it down our throat that we don't think about the amount of water that comes in through our skin and goes out through our skin.

So there's a whole internal structure and then we're encased in this gorgeous, gorgeous flesh. The body knows what it's doing. It is the most sophisticated biological entity, and we get to live with it and participate in it. And we're doing it all from up here. Like I have didn't have a rational reason for why 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. So the baths are extremely important, as is sunlight.

So not only are your are your does your tissue need hydration, but your microbiome needs hydration. All those bacterias inside of you that participate in creating health for you, they also need good hydration. And one of the best way because is going to be eating out this is the little I've going to follow the chain for this so I can help make it clear. But sunlight is part of the way that food concentrates water. Right? We're going back to my desert research now. It's the same in your body. When you get out and get sunlight, it starts the transfer, the phase transfer of the liquid water within you into a more gel like structure.

So when the sunlight comes in, it's actually a electromagnetic process that starts to concentrate the water within you. So you see you're getting and making a higher quality water inside your own body just by exposure to sunlight. Of course, it's got to be according to your phenotype. You need to read, you know, what your skin type is and how much sun you're going to need, how much you're sensitive to. But this is it isn't just that vitamin D you're getting out there. You're getting electromagnetic signals that puts water into a phase change.

Isn't that extraordinary. Yet? Never to realize you're getting better hydration through sunlight exposure. Now let's talk about saw in us an infrared because the sunlight is an infrared exposure that's one of the things it does multiple multiple things besides making vitamin D it's a clock. You're the sun is also a clock telling everything in your body to orchestrate what what time to do its its work. So it's. 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.

Sunlight, Circadian Rhythms, and Hydration 26:45

We always talk about the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine because there's a win for fasting and autophagy and rejuvenation of the cell, which is a foundational mark in the history of fasting. Red We we always thought fasting would, would help you lose weight and therefore will improve metabolic markers, which is true. But then after you spend two or three days of fasting, the body's in a crisis and the cells rejuvenate. And that's autophagy the Nobel Prize in Medicine 2016. Now, 2017 was exactly what you're saying, which is we follow the sunlight.

At the end of the day, our organs, you know, follow the sunlight. They want to work during the day when they're rejuvenate and rest during the night. And we're creating a lot of mismatch recently, right, by staying up at night, delayed by eating late at night. And this is inducing a lot of the metabolic disorders that we're we're suffering from today. Our clocks are out of sync. Yes. And and I was fortunate enough to to get the research from I think it's Laura Cooper at Southern Texas, where she identified the fact that our microbiome has molecular clocks, not only our organs, but our microbiome.

They're also dying to find out. Just get me outside so I know what time it is and what I'm supposed to be doing. So this idea that we we need to be in that modern US moderns have severed ourself 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 this isn't folk medicine. I mean, it is they they were using it. But we we this is a cosmological cosmological biology that we sever when we live indoors and we spend all our time seated.

Wow. We we have just brought ill health upon ourselves. So if you're fasting, you already care about this whole process. And fasting is a very important our larger part of the feast and fasting cycle that the that our our ancestors used to practice. And it is very deeply related to these rhythms that our bodies need to. Why do we need rhythms? Why not just stay in perfect balance all the time? That's an important point. I really want to emphasize it. And for those who want to read more about circadian fasting in this science come from Sachin Pandit of Salt Institute.

Very robust science from passion is amazing scientist in the data is showing that right so you take people doing 12 hours to 14 hours of fasting but they're starting early meaning when the sun is down 6:07 p.m.. This is when they ate the last meal and then they're going all the way to the next day, but they're having breakfast because you can spend 12 hours to 14 hours early dinner all the way to breakfast. This is what's showing the what we call the circadian fasting. It's going to be very much aligned with longevity.

And when we talk to centenarians, we study a lot. The centenarians, our founder, Valter Longo, spent a lot of time across the blue zones talking to people who live hundreds and beyond. And this is what they do. So that's the right way. I called the front loaded intermittent fasting that matches the body with longevity. Now the opposite. A lot of studies and a lot of people are studying intermittent fasting in the 16 hours, in the 18 hours and the OMA or one meal a day. But they do them. They still eat eight, nine, 10 p.m.

and they have to spend all the next day with no food, which is a mismatch with circadian rhythm, with the requirement for energy and calories for the essential bodies in the morning, they're starving the body. When the body needs the calorie, the next day, all the way to 4 p.m. and 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., and then they're binge eating and then they go to sleep in an anabolic aging state and is a mismatch of longevity. And the new science is showing that. And everyone asks me like why intermittent fasting has positive signs and sometimes negative signs is when you do it right.

Either circadian rhythm in front loaded and when you do it wrong, it actually, because eating late at night is more damaging than the compensation of intermittent fasting that you do the next day. And this is where the results are conflicting. And a major message from us in this summit is to tell people how to do the right intermittent fasting, 12 to 14 hours frontloaded eating early. That's the most important step. And 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 get the minerals, the vitamins and the macros that you need to rehmat your body since the morning, the entire day as well with what it meant to to do and give it all the minerals, vitamins and the macros that it needs.

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 the the way to fast and the way to match our biology. Because the message I want to share is as modern people, we have severed ourselves, we live indoors, we sit all the time. We take a high level of pharmaceutical ingestion. We don't ground. We're wearing shoes, we're in cars, we're in planes, we're in cubicles.

Everywhere you look, it's a hit taking phones, screen time, very dehydrating. People aren't aware of that. So each of these are hits on our hydration. We have to find a way to bring that back. And and mastering fasting is a wonderful place to start this whole rehydration, you know, using the water to cleanse both the intake and the output is just magic. And we desperately need this conversation because. This is the only fashion. I have an anthropologist with me here. Typically, it's medical doctors and places, but it's important to go

Circadian Fasting and Eating Earlier in the Day 33:05

back and and, you know, people ask me all the time, is fasting a fad? Is this a new trend? Is it going to and and I always say this is the only non trend. What is a fad is the way we're living today, eating all the time and eating late at night. Yes, our ancestors found fasting is part of the diet. It has never been eating all the time. Right? It's hundreds of thousands of years of us humans on this planet. We never ate all the time. We fasted and then we would have found food. We ate and go together.

We ate together. Right? So I think one of the things I really love to to bring to to consider for all of us is we are born into one of the most abnormal societies that has ever existed. Please hear that. It's not your fault. It's just where we're at. We're going to have to hack our way out of this. And we're severed from all the biological resources that just being outside gives us the amount of incoming information. Just by standing outside on the grass is what we need to have health, and yet it's not part of our daily chain.

And what I would like to to alert people to is, I'm sure, like all of us, you go to bed at night feeling deprived, something didn't. There's a lot there's an ache. We're filling it with food, we're filling it with scrolling. But we do not feel satisfied when we walk into our room and lay down on our bit. That is not you. That is not the insufficiency coming from you. That is the cultural context we're living in. We're not alive in this environment, and yet we can get ourselves to it with occupying ourselves and our biology differently than we do.

And that involves, you know, love for one another, good relationships, eating together, sunshine, getting your feet on the ground, finding beautiful food, enjoying butterflies and birds. Get some flowers in your house, for God's sakes, start nurturing this incredible, deprived hole that we're in, each of us, and then let's do it together. So that's my forgive me for going. On a rant some best way to end this. Appreciate you. It's always about science, biology, but the spirit as well. And outlining the body and the spirit has always you know, this is why fasting is the only common word in all divided religions and also in other, you know, meditation base or, you know, none divine or religious as well.

Fasting has always been part of it. It's the alignment of the body and spirit that gets you the biggest effect. We see this in centenarian studies. You know, we try we study people living hundreds and beyond and trying to identify every pattern that we can bring to humans today. And this is where we talk about circadian fasting three times a year, doing a prolonged fast. But we really what's really common to all of them is their smile is their sense of purpose, is them living with their family in their hometown, that that just happiness, that serenity, that that, you know, and some of them are telling us the story while smoking, some of them the proteins in their life, and it's fat and they fried food, but they were happy and they were living in their nest.

And I think this is very important because it trickles down into eating healthy and exercising and being out and sleeping early and stressing less that this is what we're missing today. A lot of the stresses that we have imposed on our lives is pushing us to do a lot of well. Before we go, I'd love to give a couple of I think, really important tips, if you don't mind. I'd like to if I have your expertize now to help me. But one is I as you're fasting, I want to help you through movement. So increase the dynamic liquid flow, this fluid dynamism in your body to help you accentuate what you're getting rid of.

And this is so simple and I want to include movement as part of your hydration strategy. Incredibly important. So here's my here's my symptoms. Go for it. You can do this while you're driving a car, while you're talking on your cell phone, or as you're moving through your day, you're just going to drop your chin to your chest. Just a nice slow drop of chin to chest. And then you raise your chin in your head just a little bit back till it's gentle for you and then maybe just down again, maybe do two or three of those.

Now, what you have just accomplished is you've used your physical pressure and the weight of your head to activate an incredible flush all the way 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've just flushed your entire synovial canal. The water in your brain. The what? The jell water, biscuits, jelly, like water. It's. It's thin enough to flow like liquid and thick enough to become your tissues. And even some people are surmising your bones.

This is what fashion is all about. Well, we can carry that conversation some other time, but just this movement is incredibly valuable for you.

Modern Dehydrating Habits and the Need for Balance 38:45

Any movement is going to be good. It people call it exercise, but then you can just call it movement. So what? That's your first tip. Make sure you drop your chin to your chest as often as you can. And you also look very positive, like you're nodding your head all the time. And the second one, I'd love to hear your take on this. So this would be an A food for after you've fasted. It could be your first food if you agree with me. I want to hear your expertize on this too. I'm a big fan of chia seed because chia seed is one of these desert plants that accelerate the the transfer from liquid into this high gel, highly electrical stage.

That gel is more conducive of the electrical function of your body, which also increases the ability of you to detox and also makes you have longevity because you're going to live longer, right? You have more electric electricity in your body. So this is something I call chia pudding. It's become much more common. But if you mix some chia seeds into a can of coconut milk, you know, you have one can of coconut milk and I use about five. I remember because I supply my five fingers of my hand, five tablespoons of chia seed, and you just mix that up and that combination is a super hydrator and it doesn't involve liquid.

So you're not peeing all the time. So it's a great post. Fast entry food. I'd love to hear what you think of that idea. I think I mean, I'm not opposed to it, but I haven't studied. We, as you know, we are based on science and people come to us and L-Nutra and mainly to volunteer longer because we do randomized clinical trials and everything we say. And that's our biggest value add to society is if we don't study it, we don't know what you're saying. Makes sense. I don't think I don't think it's going to hurt anyone to to have the chia seeds after the fast but I don't know the combination with coconut oil what it does or doesn't do to the body.

Our recommendation after somebody fast is definitely to eat something soft for the stomach, for the microbiome to rebuild. So that aligns with what you're saying. What you're saying contains liquid in a job form. So it seems also it could help. So my answer is why not? But I cannot confirm scientifically that would be the ideal both fast regimen. But hey, I just had this morning chia seeds and and and so I can I can confirm that and but I appreciate your recommendation. I think a lot of people after the fasting should definitely like you said to hydrate they should go back to eat in a plant based diet with with a little bit of again we're big on pescatarian and or flexitarian just to go back and rematch the body with would what are we supposed to eat.

We're talking about human evolution and inhuman living close to rivers and where there was a lot of plant based. And again, we learned today about the value of hydration to the plant base. So 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 that your revivalism and your lipids would benefit from. So and coconut has that. So nothing nothing that could this confirm what you're saying?

But it could. Well, we should. Be like it. Yeah. We could continue to investigate this and I think this conversation has been such a blessing. You know, we want at the Hydration Foundation, this is my work to spread this into people's use as best we can really help hydrate people well in a very dehydrating environment. And and to understand the role of foods in our hydration post fasting and be able to you it's you know like what food is I want you to think about a pear or an apple as as nature's portable water bottle.

This is a good idea to have and then also to recognize

Practical Tips and Resources for Better Hydration 43:05

that fasting is a ancient technique for cleaning ourselves up, both physically and mentally. And it's it's well documented, as you have said, around the world, through anthropology, how how widespread these practices no culture live without doing these things. These were all you know and they they if I could say one more thing, they weren't just for our health. They 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 and health is not a very it's not a very exciting destination. There's a destination beyond health. Health is for something. And that's to be living this vibrant, exciting, curious life on our planet while we're while we have our bodies. So this is great. And I agree with you. Fasting. Fasting is aligned. Historians, entrepreneurial or just religion and science. Now they all agree on the value of fasting. And this is why we're doing the summit, is to reconfirm to everyone that that the way to eat for longevity is to eat and not to eat.

We're not born to eat all the time. And in the time where we don't 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's part of the day, etc., and this is what this summit is all about. I really appreciate you today for this illuminated discussion. You know, again, it's that's the first time I've hear anyone talking about hydration and fasting and the way you present it today. Thank you for for doing this.

And I appreciate your time. And for everyone who wants to read more or learn more, what would you direct them to to go from here? Yes. So my job is educating, right. So we have a website called Hydration Foundation. It rhymes. That's how you and it's nonprofit. So it's .org, hydrationfoundation.org. There's science on there. There's recipes on there. There's, you know, conversations about what to do as a young mother, as a nursing mother, when you're traveling and if you're an athlete, all of these things are really important to bring.

And especially caring for our elders and helping them be, you know, have hydrated elder ship that is brings them wisdom and allows them to contribute instead of just shriveling away. So we also have a book that we published called Quench and that has a fire. I, I published that with Dr. Dayna Cohen. She's an M.D., 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 movement like we did today, skin to chest, helping you understand the dynamics, how you can also drive the dynamic flow in your body.

So Quench is available anywhere on online. I think it's in seven languages. It was renewed, reviewed by the New York Times and NPR. We've had great success with that book, so I love to share. That's an easy way to get some information. Thank you so much. We really appreciate. It very much. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye bye.