Transcription
When we get down to stressing metabolisms, this is keto continuum 9-12. And again, the psychology of this phase is really important. This is a place where I really do like my patients to be using a blood meter. I want them measuring their doctor boss ratio. I want them measuring, did the fast get you the results that we need?
And if there's one reason that I unabashedly say the best lecture I've ever given is at the end of that online course, it's about fasting. It's about what happens on a ketogenic diet when you fast versus what happens when you're insulin resistant and you fast. And what happens to an athlete in their 20s when they fast. And it's my favorite lecture. It really does summarize why do I do this every week? Why do I fast every week? And I measure my autophagy ratio. I don't like it. It's not fun, but it really is good for me. And the example for my patients is just something I feel very called to do.
So again, we don't want you doing this every day. I've had people try to do a fast every 48 hours, OMAD, one meal every other day. But, uh, it is, uh, that's a really big stress. You do need a healthy support system. Usually, a a ketone buddy doing it with you is important. You'll see that I fast, um, using one of these stressing metabolisms once a week. I start on the Sunday show. I usually go until I get a doctor boss ratio of 40. I used to use the clock. And in this, uh, in this worksheet, I have used the the this the overview, um, of having a stressing metabolism or stressing your metabolism and using the clock as your measurement of fasting because it is this simple way to say this is the place I begin to sort to say how well can you do this?
Each of these fasts have a skill set with them. That first fast of 36 hours seems daunting to people the first time they do it. I will recommend to remember when you do a 36-hour fast, make sure you're clipping the coupon that the 16 hours of sleep. That means you have two sleep cycles in that 36 hours. That's how you get to 36 hours. So you have supper normally and you don't eat after supper. You go to bed. You wake up the next morning and mentally, you are just fasting for that day. You are going to get your head to bed that night without anything but salt and black water.
If it's your first fast, I let my patients have bone broth. In, I really recommend ketones in a can at that point. If they've been doing MCT oil, I actually don't like them to do MCT when they're fasting. I just like them to do the ketones in a can. I really want their liver making as much of the ketones as possible from their fat cells, and that requires as few calories as possible. So I say, yep, you can have ketones in a can for that. You can have ketones in a capsule for that. And as you can see on this fast, a few minutes, 40 minutes ago, I took a few capsules. But for the most part, we want you having nothing but salt, black coffee, tea, water. And the better you get at fasting, the it is a skill. Uh, it is a skill to say no. It's not just about not eating. It's what do you do when you're not eating? Which sounds obvious, except it's weird. The first couple of them, you're like, oh my goodness, I just went 36 hours without food. It's like an identity shift.
A couple warnings I do like to put on there. Here is to show you that begin the fast after the evening meal. And this is danger if you take blood pressure medicines or if you take blood sugar lowering meds. Please walk with your doctor on this. You want to be in step with what they advise. And if somebody's watching you, do not happen to a 36-hour fast if you're on those medications and you haven't talked to your doctor.
All right, so then 36-hour meal. This is still a hard one for me. Not so much for 36, but definitely at 48 and my goodness, at 72. I'm terrible at this. Is I have a celebration meal when I'm done with my fast. I go from fasting to feasting. And I do it a lot. As much as I tell myself I'm not going to do it, I'm just going to have a can of sardines, I'm going to have some braun schweiger, I'm going to go on with my life. Dang, I really struggle by the time you get the third day without food. And I've gone like seven days. I've had a couple of times where I pushed. And when I audio recorded the book, I fasted for seven and a half days. And it does change your measuring tool. But the feast afterwards, man, I just boy, I struggle with that one.
As you work through this, your 48-hour fast and 72-hour fast have different options. I will tell you that, um, this is the one that I'm working on right now. When the timing is right, stress your metabolism with eight consecutive weeks of a 72-hour fast. And that is really where I have cleaned up people who, when they're ready, and they've, I mean, these are the folks that write in and say, Dr. Boz, I've been on a ketogenic diet for a year and a half. I've been stalled. I feel really good. I just can't seem to get to the next level. I've done a few 36-hour fasts. I push them. And again, I select them pretty carefully of who I tell to do this. But say you need consecutive at least six weeks of 72-hour fasting once a week. And what happens during those 72-hour fasts is they go from dabbling in fasting to really honing the skill of what it looks like to not eat for three days. Now, you cannot even talk about that when you are in a keto continuum number two or three or four. Uh, your body isn't ready for that.
And the number of people that go from two meals a day and then they hop down to a 36-hour fast only to say, geez, I didn't feel very good, or I felt fine, but I just didn't have the energy you said I was going to have. What I contend is they don't know what it feels to feel fine yet. Those fat-based hormones weren't high enough to support a fast. So I know this is a lot to go through, but I really show you this because the map of where you're going with the ketogenic diet does matter. It is not a race to the bottom. It is not that everybody needs to poke their finger like I do. No, not everybody should be fasting. There is a season for this. And if your goal is to improve your health to the point where your immune system works better, you take care of a cancer like Grandma Rose did. Remember, she was nine months into that story before she did the fast of a lifetime, which lasted 40 days. And it did save her life. It was amazing. And had we not been practicing a ketogenic diet, had her fat-based hormones not been in good rhythm, she would not have survived. She would not have had that outcome.
As I write this next book, and as I get to the last few chapters here, talking about a patient who's going through this keto continuum and where he gets stalled, and where he finds benefit, and where he kind of struggles with his own, you know, mental demons for, can he do this? It really shows you what I've learned in the last five years about a ketogenic diet, how it fits in with the chronic illnesses of many of my patients, and then how do I march through and advance them slowly. One of my, the last, this past week, I had a couple other people saying, my my family member has cancer. I saw, I read your book. We're going to try and fast for 40 days. And I'm like, stop. Do not do that. You are taking an insulin-resistant cancer patient on chemo, fasting them for 40 days is not the right answer. They have got to be in a ketogenic state for a period of time before you can really push that, unless they're under strict medical supervision.
When you look at the trials for people like that who are being treated for brain tumors or some of the even like pancreatic cancers that they're trying to use a ketogenic state to help that chemotherapy work better, they are, they are checked incessantly. They're in the hospital on these things. So if your loved one has cancer and you want to use the ketogenic diet, the right answer is you do the ketogenic diet. You walk with them and you start at step one, step two, step three. That online course shows you where do people fall apart? Where do they not understand what's happening in their body? And how can you prevent that? It is super easy, but you gotta have it in the sequence and the, and in the timing for those people who really need it.
All right, I hope that does show you why I wanted you to see the path of what I use in my practice, but also in life for coaching people on the ketogenic diet. Please subscribe to my channel and don't forget to click the notification bell so you don't miss out on any new videos. Stay tuned.