Unlocking Longevity: Fasting, Autophagy & mTOR

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, well, I am grateful to be here with you, David. I love what you are doing. I love this topic of fasting. I do believe it is the best way, or one of the best ways, to harness that innate intelligence. You talk a lot about this, this inner physician. We have wisdom within the body, and there is an inner physician that God built inside of the body that is self-healing, and the truth is that there is no pill, surgery, or anything external that could replace the healing capabilities of this innate intelligence. 

For many years, we thought it was just the DNA nucleus running the show. We learned that there is something that communicates with the DNA nucleus, and that is intelligence. That is the cell membrane. It is the integrity of that membrane, the cell wall. Fasting removes the interference when we are eating constantly. The average American is eating 300 grams of carbohydrates per day. That alone is bad. But they are eating it throughout the entire day, pretty much every waking hour, and they are constantly starting that digestive process, number one. Number two is that they are constantly raising glucose and insulin so they have these blood sugar rollercoaster spikes that eventually lead to leaky gut and insulin resistance, which leads to Type 2 diabetes, which leads to a whole host of other health issues and complications.

Fasting is nature’s reset button. You eliminate the interference, and you allow your digestive system to take a break. I always talk about an analogy to help this make sense. It is somebody who works a 9-to-5 job. Let us say they are corporate workers, and they are working their butt off 40 to 60 hours a week every single week. They own a house with a garage. This garage has all this junk inside of it. But they do not have time. They have no time to clean out that junk because they are constantly working every single week. But now their boss has given them two weeks off. So they are at home a couple of days into this vacation, and they are. I have all this time in my hand. Let me venture off to the garage. 

They start fixing things, cleaning up this garage, and getting rid of this old junk that has been sitting around there for years. Now you have this beautiful, functioning, incredible garage, and that is essentially what happens when we fast. The innate intelligence goes to work, and it looks for cells that are damaged and inflamed. It allows the digestive system to take a break, and it goes in and repairs it. But when we are constantly eating and starting that digestive process, we do not have time for that. It is, okay, another project that started. We are going to have to work on that project, and then we are about to complete that project. Another project has come, and you have to keep working on it. So when you fast, you allow your body to reset and recover, and you allow this inner physician to go to work and take care of the junk that needs to be taken care of.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, that is so well said. I love that idea of the inner wisdom within us, the inner physician within us, coming to work and healing and repairing our bodies. Now, a lot of people and I used to think that growing up, my parents would have us fast, I did not start doing this long as a teenager, but it was one day out of the entire year we would do a fast, and it was for spiritual purposes. I thought that was the worst thing ever. I thought it was just horrible that I would waste; I would completely waste away. I have no energy at all. In a sense, psychologically, I set myself up for that. A lot of people have this idea that if they go more than three or four hours without eating, they are going to have no energy, they are going to lose weight, their muscles are going to waste away, and they are going to feel awful. I want to touch on some of these myths behind fasting. What is your bet? What has your experience been with that?

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

I have had the same thought process, especially during the early days when I got into the health space in 2008 or so. It is still so popular in the fitness space that you will waste it away. You are going to eat away at muscle and go into starvation mode. Yes,  let us debunk a lot of these myths. With that mindset, sometimes your thoughts could create reality. We want to go into it knowing that fasting is a healing tool. It is a healing space to be in. To put things in perspective when somebody is afraid of skipping a meal or going at least more than 4 hours without eating something. I put it into perspective, and I talk about this gentleman named Angus Barberie, who did the Guinness World Record for the longest recorded water fast many years ago, a Scotsman.

He was 450 pounds. The man was morbidly obese, and he was medically supervised. He had water, some electrolytes, coffee, tea, and some nutritional yeast. But essentially, he did not eat for 382 days, and he went from 300 to 450 pounds, excuse me, on day 1 to 180 pounds on day 382. His electrolytes look great. Blood work looked good. He felt great. Now he had a lot of weight and a lot of energy on his body, too, to be used for fuel. It is an extreme example, but that goes to show that somebody who is very lean, with 10% body fat, has tens of thousands of calories. When you do not eat, you are essentially going to use your body fat. That is exactly what it is. It is stored energy, and the body is very smart. 

We talked about this innate intelligence already, but we have this incredible human body that was built for thriving. When we fast, the body is going to raise these counter-regulatory hormones as insulin drops, and these hormones that run counter to insulin increase. So with glucagon, the human growth hormone, the sympathetic tone is essentially activated. Human growth hormone is one of those hormones that preserves muscle. It preserves lean muscle mass. It helps you put on lean muscle mass. That is your body’s way of protecting your muscles. When you are in a fasted state, your body is going to go to your fat stores, not your muscles. That would not be a very efficient mechanism; if we automatically tapped into muscle and protein, our ancestors would not have survived. That would have withered it away. 

We have an amazing process that takes place, and there is a lot of research that shows this takes place in a fast-paced state. There was a study that came out, I believe it’s 2013 Science Daily, that showed 24-hour water fast resulted in about a 20% increase in human growth hormone and a 1300 percent increase in women. The 2,000% was in men after about 24 hours. That’s because the body’s preserving the muscle, not eating away at it.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, and what is so important to understand is that you get this HGH release, which again helps you preserve that lean body mass and creates an environment where, if you do strength training, you enhance your strength and your muscle tissue. It is powerful.  Going back to that ancestral perspective, when our ancestors did not have food for, let us say, a day or two, they did not just lay in their beds. Instead, in a sense, hunger was a drive for them to become more creative in their hunting, in their gathering, and in whatever mechanisms they had to access food. 

They have become harder to kill, in a sense. They have become stronger and more resilient through that experience. I think all of us have experienced that on Thanksgiving, we eat a huge meal. We are bringing in all this potential energy. But then, how do we feel? Tired. When we start practicing intermittent fasting, it is one of those things you start to notice that you have better energy and better mental clarity. It is pretty amazing what happens. What are some of the other myths that you encounter that people have when it comes to practicing fasting?

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, and you are exactly. When you eat a big meal, you experience a food coma; that is where the term food coma came from. It takes so much energy from you and your resources and blood flow, and now you are using that for digestion. But when you fast, that energy is diverted. You talk a lot about that in your book and in your work. Yes. Another myth would be that men and women should practice fasting the same way. That is not true because we should also classify women in different parts of their lives, practicing in different ways as well. A menstruating woman should practice fasting differently than a post-menopausal woman, and a man should practice it differently than a woman because of different hormone fluctuations.

We have the same hormones, but we have different fluctuations in those hormones. Men have this 24-hour recycling pattern of hormones just like the sun. When the sun comes out, it sets, it rises, and it sets a 24-hour pattern. We have a similar pattern with some of our sex hormones, etc. Cycling women have this 28-day pattern where it is more like the moon that comes out after 28 days. They have to do it a little bit differently. So week by week, that would be a little bit different. The fasting schedule for a menstruating woman, for example, would be a week before the period. We are probably saying that menstruating women do not want to practice too much fasting because they want to build a healthy progesterone cycle. When the period starts, that is a good week for the fast to occur and to do more aggressive fasting. There is a big myth that men and women should do it the same way. That is not true. 

Fasting, unfortunately, is good and bad. It has become very popular, and that is a good thing. People are becoming aware of it because it is not new; it is just nuanced. But with that being so popular, people are saying women should not fast because it wrecks their hormones. That is saying women should not exercise because it wrecks their hormones. They are saying fasting is stressful. It is not good for you, especially women. It is the same thing as saying they should not exercise because exercise is stressful. 

You know this, David, it is about staying in that hermetic zone of stress, which is very important. You mentioned it being harder to kill our ancestors. We want to be harder to kill, and stress is how you do that. Your body needs to adapt to that stress. But that is the thing. It needs to adapt. Stress is only bad when your body does not adapt, but when it does adapt, you get stronger, you eat healthier, you live longer, and you feel better. I threw in a few myths there, but that is the next myth that I would want to cover.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, I think that is so important. It is the principle of overload in fitness. If you do not train your muscles, they will atrophy, or if you train too late, they will atrophy, or they won’t. You will not get the benefits if you have to challenge your muscles in a certain way, where you are challenging them at their peak. In a sense, they are overloading the amount of resistance that they can put out for them to adapt. As long as you have enough nutrients and rest, you will get stronger. It is the same with fasting, where you have to practice it and in the sense, healthily challenge your metabolic system to just gradually bump it or give it a nudge, your metabolic system a nudge, and then, of course, rest, recover, and provide the proper nutrients. That way, you can recover and get stronger through the stress you were talking about. That is what is so important. Any other big myths that you are seeing with fasting?

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, a lot of people say that the benefits of fasting come from being in a caloric deficit. That might be one benefit. But there is a big difference between fasting and a calorie deficit or cutting calories, because with simply cutting calories, for example, let us say somebody is cutting calories, but they are eating throughout the day. They are not getting that digestive reset even though there are calories, versus somebody who may cut their calories to the same amount. But with fasting, they do get that digestive reset. There is a difference in what it does for the gut. However, I do not focus on calories because I think calories are more of a distraction. I think the body is much more sophisticated and complex than just calories in versus calories out. I do think calories matter, but I do not think they are high on the priority list. I think they are more of a distraction than anything else. I had to do a whole 180 with that because, in the beginning, I used to teach all about the science of fat loss and teach people how to calculate their total daily energy expenditure and be deficient in it. 

The problem with it is that it has many problems, but one of the main problems is that it works short-term, and the person thinks, Okay, this is working out. Cutting calories does work; Ben’s a lighter, and David’s a liar. But over time, what is going to happen? The metabolism needs to adapt to the energy deficit, and then the metabolism slows and lowers, and then you have to cut your calories more. If you only cut your calories so much with fasting, it is not necessarily about eating less. It is about eating less often. You could still be in a calorie deficit, but the cool thing about doing it with fasting is that you have the counter-regulatory hormones that preserve your metabolism and prevent your metabolism from going into starvation mode. Granted, excessive fasting is not good, but with the amount of fasting you talk about, adapting to it, and then getting the nutrients and enough protein during your eating window, you will not have that issue. The body is very smart, and some studies show the metabolism revs up during a fast, not decreases. That is because of these counter-regulatory hormones.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, that is good. What are some of the biggest mistakes that you see people making as they start to practice intermittent fasting?

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

One of the biggest mistakes is that they think that they do not look at fasting as a muscle, and I do look at it as a muscle. You mentioned that as well. For example, somebody has been a couch potato for 10 years, and they hear about the amazing benefits of CrossFit or Barry’s Bootcamp, whatever it is. They go, and they do a full 60-minute workout that first day. They are going to hurt themselves. They are going to be sore for a week. They are going to feel similar to fasting. If you burn sugar or eat every 2 to 3 hours for years and you go and hear about the benefits of a 24-hour fast, you say, Tomorrow is my day. I am going to do a 24-hour fast. It is going to look ugly and feel awful because it is a muscle you have not developed yet. 

The big mistake is to dive into fasting. You want to build up that fasting muscle. One of the best ways to do that, and I know you teach the same thing, is to get fat-adapted; teach your body to burn fat instead of sugar. You do that in 7 to 14 days. Do some variation of keto, a low-carb, high-fat diet. Yet your body’s familiar with burning fat instead of sugar. Then you start pairing that with the fasting schedule, and you start building up that window. With fasting, you start extending that window, and you are going to notice that you are going to get the results that you are seeking because you did not go into it and shock the body, essentially. That is a big mistake. People just do too much too soon.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, that is super important. You talked about getting fat-adapted. Can you expand upon that? You said you could do it in about seven or 14 days. I know you are a huge advocate of a ketogenic diet. You are the great podcast Keto Camp in your book, and Keto Flex, where you teach people how to do that and how to get into a fat-adopted state. Let us talk about the importance of that and how somebody goes about getting into it.

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, absolutely. I do see it as an important first step for somebody who is burning sugar, only explaining what that means. The average person, as I mentioned, consumes 300 grams of carbs per day and eats frequently. They are constantly burning sugar and glucose. They are in this sugar-burning state. When we think about the 70 trillion cells or so inside the body, we have two major pathways for energy: sugar and fat. In other words, glucose or ketones. The majority of people in some studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill came out with that study in 2018 that said about 88% of American adults are essentially metabolically unhealthy, and I would categorize them as being sugar burners. 

What we want to do is teach these individuals to switch energy sources, burn fat, and use ketones. As for how we do that, it is pretty straightforward. We want to gradually decrease our total carbohydrates so that if you are listening to this or watching this and you are consuming 300 grams of carbs per day, let us gradually decrease that every single day until we lower that to under 50 total grams of carbs per day. Some people need to go lower, but we will say, 50 grams of carbs per day. As you are doing that, you are increasing healthy fats, saturated fats, mono- and saturated fats, and healthy dietary protein as well. In about seven or 14 days keeping your electrolytes up at the same time, which is very important in about 77 to 14 days, your body’s going to make that switch. 

For now, you are burning body fat. Those fatty acids are now being sent to your liver. Your liver is using it and producing ketones. You talk all about this in your work and books, David. That is somebody who is fat-adapted. At that point, you could test, by the way, your blood ketones; if it shows 0.5 or higher millimoles per liter, you are essentially in ketosis and you are fat-adapted, and you can do that in 7 to 14 days. Once you achieve that, then I would start paring in some fasting schedules with that.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

How would you recommend somebody get started with that and get, fat-adapted to it? Should they start with intermittent fasting? What’s your first step with that?

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

The first step would be to decrease the carbohydrates and then remove the snacking. Have three meals per day, and if you are doing six meals a day, let us say you are doing three meals and three snacks. Stick with just three meals, and then every day track your macros in terms of your carbohydrates and keep lowering those carbs so you get under 50 total grams of carbs per day. I also talk about the two, two, two, two rule, which I got from a mutual friend of ours, my mentor, Dr. Pompa. This is a good strategy for a beginner, and you want to hit this rule every day until you get into ketosis and get fat-adapted. It is two tablespoons of olive oil and avocado oil every day, two tablespoons of grass-fed butter or grass-fed ghee every single day, and two tablespoons of coconut oil or MCT oil every single day. Then two teaspoons of sea salt every single day. As you lower the carbs, hit that 2 to 2 rule, and then once you verify that you are in ketosis, then I would maybe eliminate the breakfast and have lunch and dinner. What you are doing is a 16/8 fast or the opposite way, you could have breakfast and lunch and eliminate the dinner. Whatever works better for your schedule.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, that is great. That is how I teach it as well. I think that is an easy way to gradually move into it as your body gets fat-adapted. You have less hunger and cravings because you have less. I always say that I am very rarely hungry. Usually, I do not notice hunger until I start eating. Then my body, says it is eating time. It is. Okay, yes, I need to get my calories now. That is when you do not have to think about calories because your body’s going to give you an idea of how much you need to consume. 

There are some people who, when they start practicing fasting, tend to overeat a little bit, and they might notice symptoms such as their energy going down a lot after they eat or digestive issues. That would be a sign. Hey, maybe cut it down just a little bit. We have to listen to the feedback that your body’s getting. Are there any tips that you give as people are reducing the number of meals they are consuming, consolidating their eating window, and maybe consuming a little bit more calories in their meals because they are only eating maybe two or three times a day? They are eating a larger amount when they do eat. Are there any tips that you give to help improve digestion, to help improve energy between meals, or after a meal?

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, focusing on protein as the main macronutrient with those meals, and I would say to aim to get about 40 grams of protein in at least two of those meals, and you should be in good shape. Protein is so important. The amino acids, essential amino acids, There are essential fats and essential amino acids. There is no such thing as essential carbohydrates. Interesting. Not that we are saying you should never have carbs. I am just saying they are not essential. The body can manufacture glucose from protein and fat, which is super cool. But yes, focus on protein. Now let us say you are eating more protein, but it is sitting in your gut. That is a sign of low stomach acid, and you want to build up stomach acid. You could do that with some HCL supplementation or some apple cider vinegar. That is a sign that it is more of a problem with breaking down protein if it sits in the gut. If you get more loose stools, David, you talk about this; if you get more diarrhea or loose stools, that is more of a problem breaking down fat. That is where you want to support the liver and the liver’s ability to produce bile. Maybe incorporate more bitters, maybe take an ox bile supplement, maybe do some things like a castor oil pack or coffee enemas. But that will signal more liver support. 

One more thing I would recommend, is to keep your electrolytes and minerals up, especially during the fast, because as you fast, your body is going to lower insulin, which is a good thing, especially for a lot of people. As you lower insulin, you release all this extra body weight and you shed extra body weight, which is good, you are going to feel lighter and look lighter, but the kidneys also will shed some electrolytes, too. Sometimes if it happens too aggressively, you might get a headache, and your energy levels might drop. Just keeping those minerals and electrolytes up during the fasting window is going to be very important.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, I think that is an important caveat. Most people out there have heard that salt is bad especially if they tend towards maybe they have a family history of high blood pressure or cardiovascular disease. A lot of times just preventatively their doctor will put them on a low-salt diet. A low-salt diet can be helpful if you have insulin resistance because when you have high insulin, you retain sodium. But as you are getting fat adapted and doing intermittent fasting, you are getting insulin sensitive and your overall insulin levels go down, which is, as you mentioned, extreme healthiness is what most people out there. You mentioned 88%. Almost nine out of 10 people in our study need to lower the amount of insulin in their blood. When they do that, you start to excrete sodium and that is what you were talking about. Replacing that, getting the sea salt, you mentioned two teaspoons each day.  

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, table salt. Two teaspoons, yes.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes. Make sure you are getting enough of that. Getting enough trace minerals. There are a lot of good trace mineral-rich foods that we both love and that we talk about a lot in our books. When we are doing that now, we are replacing those. That is going to help you with energy. A lot of times, when people are going through this fat adaptation process and they do not feel good, a lot of it is because they do not have the salts there. They are electrolyte- and sodium-deficient. That will cause a condition called Keto flu, where you feel awful. You have probably seen a lot of people experience this.

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, exactly. It is more of a carbohydrate withdrawal symptom, but that is exactly what the major cause of it is. It was that dramatic decrease in those electrolytes on day one. Keep the sea salt up, and keep the electrolytes and minerals up. You do not have to go through the suffering. You do not have to experience the Keto flu as long as you do this the right way.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, for sure. You mentioned protein and getting 40 grams of protein, and I know I am a huge advocate of that as well. I usually eat two meals a day, sometimes three with a third one, and I am always getting 40, 50, or more grams of protein in all of my meals. It helps me feel great and takes away any cravings. I feel mentally clear and have great energy after my meals, and I just feel fantastic. I am stronger now at 41 than I ever was. Honestly, even in my early twenties, I feel better than ever, and dialing in the protein has been key to that. 

However, in the longevity world, protein can have a bad rap. People will look at bodybuilders and will say, Well, they are amplifying this pathway mTOR this growth pathway in the body and they are doing it too much. How does this nutrition plan where we are prioritizing protein when we are eating, but also taking breaks away from food, help us with our mTOR and keeping mTOR under control?

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

It is a great question. You are right and that is a problem. When we look at bodybuilders, I think I was reading a stat that showed the average bodybuilder lives about 12 years less than the average person, and then people blame that on mTOR. MTOR, this mechanistic target of Rapamycin, is this anabolic growth pathway. It is very important in spurts and very healthy in spurts. But when you are constantly in a growth pathway, the sensor is turned on all the time; it is going to signal growth, growth, growth, and sometimes it could signal growth to cells we do not want to grow and duplicate. That is the problem with too much of mTOR. 

The opposite of mTOR is autophagy, which is more catabolic and repair. You get that with exercise; you get that with fasting and autophagy is such an incredible process. Again, the innate intelligence goes to work, looking for cells that are not working properly and trying to fix those cells. If it has determined a cell is not functioning at all, this is not a zombie cell. It all sent a signal to get rid of the cell altogether via apoptosis and then go another step and create a stem cell, which is amazing. All of this is happening during a fast. 

With the protein, if you are having your amount of protein during your eating window and then you are going and pairing that with a fasting schedule, you are getting a proper balance now of mTOR growth and spurts and that autophagy catabolic repair. That is the magic; it is a delicate dance between both these pathways, mTOR and autophagy. They have an inverted relationship: mTOR is activated, autophagy is deactivated, and vice versa. We do not want too much autophagy and too much fasting, and we do not want too much mTOR or too much growth. That is where the magic happens: pairing an intermittent fasting schedule with a feasting schedule with enough protein is where the magic happens.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, great explanation. I think that the advantage of the way that I teach and the way that you teach it in your Keto Flex book is that we are getting the benefits of both because there are a lot of people in the longevity space who prioritize autophagy. I understand why. Autophagy is an amazing mechanism, and most people in our society are autophagy-deficient, meaning their bodies are not undergoing this process of cellular healing and repair. Most people need to prioritize that for a certain period. But too much autophagy is just as bad as too much mTOR. Your body wastes away. We know that as people age with a big condition, they deal with sarcopenia, where they lose muscle tissue and bone tissue. If we are overdoing autophagy, we are wasting our system away. 

I think one of the most important things we can do is build lean body tissue and then do everything we can to keep it functioning at a high level. I think what you are talking about there are words like this feast, famine cycle. I know you call it Keto Flex, where we are undergoing this period of autophagy and also periods where we are elevating mTOR so we can build and maintain muscle mass. I think that works perfectly with giving us what our goals are, which is to have great health, a great, functioning brain, and lean body tissue so we can pick up our grant and our great, great, grandchildren when we are 94 years old and do all the things we want to do and live into our 90s without any medications.

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, that is the ultimate goal there. The balance is very important. The problem is this, and I was guilty of this when I first started to fasting in 2013. You feel so good when you fast. At least I do. You fall in love with it. You hear about all the benefits of autophagy and what it does for the gut,  for fat loss, and the brain and body and you want more, but more, that is not necessarily better. You have to balance it out. Feast, famine, cycling. David, you nailed it, That is what our cells are hardwired to do, and that is how our cells thrive. There is a time to fast. When we fast, we fast. Then there is a time to feast, then we feast, we feast. We get enough protein and healthy food. It is important to balance both. I do not know. I ask you this question, David. With fasting being so popular, I have found that in my community I am telling more people to feast than before I was telling them more so, to fast. Have you found the same thing?

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, I think that is important. As a lot of you said, a lot of people will go overboard with this. I did, too. I remember that I felt so good. I was doing 2/24-hour fasts a week, and I felt great. Brain function. I felt the best diet I had ever felt. I felt so good. I did this for, I do not know, a year and a half. I was in my second year of doing this, and I am still doing it with my workouts. I was just feeling fatigued and having to take longer periods between sets. I am, and I do not feel I am maximizing my strength potential. I stopped doing that, and I only do it once a week now, which I think works perfectly for me. 1/24-hour fast a week. I just did it from lunch Wednesday to lunch Thursday, finished it with a workout, and I am exercising. I am working out more, feeling amazing, and recovering better. My sleep scores are better. I have added 7 pounds of muscle feeling good. 

I think all of us, do feel so good when we get fat-adapt. I think that is something that the listener misunderstands when you practice this the right way, you are going to feel good and sometimes you are going to press into it because you are feeling so good and you got it. You always have to have a radar, listen to the messages your body’s giving you, and experiment with different things.  

I think it is important to understand that perhaps there was a certain approach that you took that helped you feel great, but you might need to tinker. It does not mean a radical change, but even just small changes and constant listening to the feedback that your body is giving you to find the best approach for you, at least at this period in your life. 

I know, for example, that when we had babies,  my wife and I were done having children, but we had four children, four and a half years, including twins in the beginning. I was working out seven days a week when we first started. With the twins, I was getting four or five hours of sleep at night, and it was not good sleep. I was just so overtrained, and I was feeling inflamed all the time, having trouble focusing and concentrating—just massive fatigue at times. I realized I was way overdoing it. I am not recovering well enough. I need to dial down the exercise. If we are under an extreme amount of stress, we might feel good when we are fasting. Then, all of a sudden, we had a stressful season in our lives.

We might need to dial it back a little bit because, again, fasting is a stressor. The more stress we are under, the more stress we can handle on our system. We might need to dial it back. We might be overtraining. We always have to watch for feedback from that. You are. In our communities, we tend to get people who start this. They had a great experience with it. That is one of the reasons why they love following us, and they keep pressing into it because they are hearing about all these great benefits, and in some cases, they are doing too much of it.

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

That is exactly what I did. Because you are, you feel so good, but you have to listen to the body. Like you did, David, you felt inflamed, and yes, seven days a week, getting 4 to 5 hours of sleep. Of course, you are not going to be able to recover and adapt to those stressors. One of the things I use and what I teach my students is a good gauge to know if you are fasting too much or not. Number one, you said, is to pay attention to the clues and signals your body is giving you. Number two, I look at heart rate variability as a good gauge to see if my nervous system is being challenged. I love. I have your ring. I think you do too.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes. 

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

When I see my heart rate variability tank, I know that I applied too much stress. It could have been mental stress. It could have been too much physical stress. That is a day for me not to apply a lot of stress. It will be more of a feast day, with more light activity versus a heavy training session. I look at HRV, but if I see my HRV increase or hit a baseline for around 65 issues, my baseline this morning when I woke up, was 72. It was a little bit higher than my baseline. Today I did a good workout in a fast-paced sprint. I did some bench press because I saw that and I felt good, and I use that as a good gauge. But if I were to see my HRV tank at 42, I would have probably felt off as a result, I would not have done the same workout or the same fasting schedule.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes. You are getting that feedback. Again, not only can you just listen to your body, but you can also look at the heart rate variability you were talking about. The Oura Ring is a great, great instrument to use—just a ring that you wear at night—and will track your deep sleep, your REM sleep. It will look at the ear-to-heart rate variability you mentioned, which is the gap between the heartbeats. A lot of people think, well, it is that gaps between the heartbeats; the space between your heartbeats should be the same all the time. It is not true. Your adaptability and resilience, one way to measure that is that heart rate variability should be very variable or highly variable. That is a sign of better adaptation. It is very interesting.

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, exactly.  It is such a good gauge. If we think about the nervous system, even when you study it in school, the nervous system is so important. There are two primary branches: the sympathetic branch, which is fight or flight, very important in spurts just like in mTOR, and the parasympathetic, which is rest and digest, very important in spurts. A lot of people, including myself, I was locked into sympathetic, and I was doing a lot of fasting. I was in a CrossFit gym I owned it several years ago, and that i not good. It needs to be balanced with more parasympathetic. 

That heart rate variability is giving you that gauge, that score. If you are adapting to the stressors. Everybody is going to have a different average and a different baseline. So do not compare. I should not compare my HRV to David’s and vice versa. But you find your average, your baseline, for maybe seven days, and then you work on building it up over time. If you have days where it’s tanked, it does not necessarily mean it is a bad thing, by the way, because you could have done a good workout and then it lowered the HRV. But if that is a day for recovery, then over time it could pull it back up because of that stressor. Look at it as a gauge and pay attention to your body. Those are going to give you some good clues as to whether or not you are fasting too much or you are in a good, sweet spot.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, a good point. What is your top recovery strategy for people to practice?

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Good question. Number one; is my favorite supplement in the world, called vitamin G. This supplement is anti-inflammatory and helps with oxytocin and GABA. I found studies that show vitamin G lowers A-1C and lowers blood pressure. I looked at some of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work, he has done some brain scans, and he has seen 1200 chemical reactions take place when participants take vitamin G. Vitamin G is something you cannot get at Amazon or your supplement store. It is the practice of gratitude. It acts as a vitamin supplement because it is so anti-inflammatory, and it is going to put you in a parasympathetic state as soon as you feel gratitude. Not a checklist, meaning do not treat it as a checklist. You probably will not get the same benefits but you will feel the gratefulness and feeling the gratitude.

What an amazing way to instantly put your body into a recovery parasympathetic state. There are some simple ways to do it. If you have trouble digesting food as you sit there and look at your food, think about all the things that went into getting that food in front of you. The animals that fed off the earth, the transportation, the company that was delivered to your house, how we got there, all the moving parts for you to feed on that food and to thrive in your life and feel that gratitude that puts you in a parasympathetic state and helps with digestion. Then, bread before bed is another good time to practice vitamin G because the subconscious mind is highly impressionable. So vitamin G is number one; I have some more, but I do not know if you want to add to that, David.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

No, I love that. Vitamin G, just that gratitude. If you could bottle that up, that would be a blockbuster, and that would be the single best drug that pharma has ever created, ever.

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, so true. But you cannot bottle it up and it is free.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

It is free, and you can use to have it at any time.

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

You can use it at any time, and you cannot overdose. There is no upper limit. That is number one. Number two; would be very important for health: to live a life on purpose. With your purpose, find out what your highest values are. I know Dr. John Demartini is somebody that I freaking love. Have you studied Dr. John Demartini?

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, I have. Yes, I have heard of him. 

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, he is incredible. He talks so much about your highest values, and the Greeks call it your Telos. There is a whole study on this called Teleology, the study of purpose and highest values. When you are living in congruence with what is important to you, you are in a healing state. Many people are doing things because it is what is expected of them. That is an inflammatory state. It is very hard to feel happy and healthy when you are doing things that you are not designed to do. Finding a life of purpose is very important. I know that is outside the scope of this conversation, but I had to throw that in there. 

But some practical things in terms of biohacking and red light therapy. I am a big fan of red light therapy. I have got a panel here. I have two panels upstairs. Photobiomodulation. Again; more is not better. Find a good sweet spot for red light therapy. Grounding, which could also be called vitamin G, which is simply your bare feet on the sand, the dirt, and the grass on earth. Essentially, just grounding is important. It is taking a handful of antioxidants. I utilize a PEMF map, which is similar to the benefits of grounding as well. Funny movies, things that get oxytocin going, are great for recovery and sleep, quality, deep sleep, and REM sleep. I aim to get at least an hour and a half of each each night, which is very important for recovery.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes, great strategies. I also think that if you have a family, significant other, or a pet, just cuddling and getting that oxytocin release, which is super powerful, helps you heal and recover. Getting out in the sun—you mentioned red light and infrared. I know that I feel best when I get 30 minutes of good-quality sun daily. It just helps so much. That is another great strategy. Some people will do infrared saunas. I think that is fantastic. I do it from time to time as well. You can overdo that as well, especially if you have it cranked up and hot. Same with cold plunges, cold showers, and things like that. I think it is very helpful. It is something I practice but again can be overdone, and we have a society where some people are, it is interesting because, in our society, some people are very averse to doing anything uncomfortable. then other people are, Oh, it’s uncomfortable. Give me more. It has got to find the balance.

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes. True. It is just an important point in the biohacking space. It is the latter, Give me more. Give me more. Yes. We asked the average cold plunge coach, or whatever you want to call them. breathwork coaches who do a lot of cold plunging. You ask them, All, how long should I do it for? They are going to tell you that most of them want to take 3 minutes. That is not the right answer. Somebody who is challenged with their mitochondria and their health. Yes, you should not do 3 minutes, David. 

They think they should do 30 seconds and then build their way up. I think the most important thing to ask yourself is: How did you feel the rest of the day after that sauna, after that red light, after that cold plunge out of that fast, after that workout? Whatever it was, if you felt better and more energized, you found a good rhythm. You found a good length and a good duration. But if you feel more depleted, you do too much.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Yes. Amazing, amazing interview. Amazing stuff. Great tips. Ben, this has been awesome. Guys,  check out his book, Keto Flex, and also his podcast, Keto Camp. Good stuff that he is putting out. Ben, any last words of inspiration here for our audience?

Ben Azadi, FDN-P

Yes, I know. Thank you, David. I have been a huge fan of your work for so many years, and it is an honor to call you a friend. I love what you are doing with the summit, which is so important. My last bit of advice would be to believe the body was built to be self-healing. It is. If you believe you created that fact. But if you believe it was not, you are also. 

Choose where you want to put your energy and where you want to expand. Faith and fear both demand that you believe in something you cannot see. You choose. The choice is yours. I encourage you to choose faith and believe that your body is built to be self-healing and fasting is one of the ways to harness that self-healing mechanism.

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

Love that. Ben Azadi, thank you so much. You are an inspiration.