Change Your Brain Every Day - Nutritional Strategies For 2021 with Dave Asprey

Episode Date: December 31, 2020

In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, we wrap up a series with bio-hacking expert and “Fast This Way” author Dave Asprey. Dave and Tana Amen discuss some of the major takeaways from Dave’s new book, including tips to change your body’s chemistry not by eating certain foods, but also by eating them a certain way.  For more info on Dave Asprey's new book "Fast This Way", visit https://www.amazon.com/Fast-This-Way-Inflammation-High-Performing/dp/0062882864  

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to Brainmd.com. Welcome back. We're on the final episode with Dave Asprey. I'm having so much fun. We are talking about fasting. Who knew fasting could be so much fun?

But Dave, I learned so much in the last episode about, you know, not just like how to fast, but these hacks that you have. So how to not make it so miserable. I just had a great time, but I have a couple of questions. Um, I know it's different for men and women. I heard you mention that. And I have a question about what's different for women. Obviously I'm concerned about that, but also, um, you touched on supplements and I want you to dig into that a little bit because even I sometimes get a little confused about, can I take my supplements? Am I, is it going to make me sick if I'm not eating? confused about, can I take my supplements? Am I, is it going to make me sick if I'm not eating? You know, there's so many thoughts we have around all of that. Um, and you probably have a lot of other things that, you know,

myths that people or questions that people encounter when they start a fast. So can you touch on those two and maybe anything else that you can think of to address? Yes. Most of the fasting research when you go back in time was done on young white dudes. And the reason for that is because that's who was in university. So college freshmen are the cheapest guinea pigs you can get who are humans because they'll do anything for beer money. And that's why about three quarters of fasting literature was done on relatively young men. And then you're like, well, what does fasting do as you age? What does fasting do if you're a woman? So I looked at all the research and there's one chapter in the book that's very specific to women and saying, all right, here's what we know. And one of the

things is that women oftentimes doing intermittent fasting every day doesn't work. And by the way, exercise every single day, like intense exercise doesn't work either. Movement every day works. But if you're going to go hit it hard every day, because that's the habit you want to do, because it's easier to hit it hard every day, you will burn out, you'll overtrain and your sleep will go down, your hormones will get messed up. It's almost like another, the exercise trap that matches the keto trap and the fasting trap and the vegan trap. You know, more isn't always better. It's the right dose. So yeah, I mean, I've, I've spent an hour and a half a day in the gym, six days a week for 18 months. And I still weigh 300 pounds at the end of that. So I'm like, Oh, maybe that doesn't work. And what you'll find for women is that if you're

menstruating, your body's already under a pretty heavy load, like it's building new tissue, right? That is probably not a time to fast. And it may work for you to fast then. There are a few women who report that, but for most of them, you know, have some protein and some fat in the morning, and you're going to feel better. And those are days to nurture yourself, not to create the stress of a fast. And fasting is what's called a hormetic stressor. And it's one of those, if it doesn't kill me, it makes me stronger things. So there are times when, you know what, this is not the day for that, right? Eat a clean diet that makes you feel good, but eat. And if you're going through a paramount pause, or if you're just going through stress, you know, it's okay to eat three meals a day, but eat meals that are so satisfying.

You don't have any desire to snack afterwards. If you eat and you're hungry two hours later, you ate the wrong stuff or you didn't eat enough. And many times people are eating their trigger foods and things like that. But I just think it's really important for women, especially if you're first getting started fast every other day, like have breakfast and I just have the right breakfast. So you're not going to go have, you know, a, a, whatever, an egg McMuffin for breakfast if you don't fast. But if you do that, you're going to realize, Oh, I can do this on the days when it feels right. And some days you're going to just, I'm going to do 14 hours without food. And because that's what I wanted. And some days you can say, I'm going to do

a 16 hour fast. And then when it's time for lunch, like, you know what? I'm feeling so good. I'm just going to wait till dinner. I just did a 24 hour fast. Look at me. But you don't have to do it on a schedule. You don't have to do it every day. And it's better to not do it every day because women are more susceptible to the stress of fasting than men, especially, I believe, if you're in your fertile years or if you're in perimenopause. And there's a lot of good science and recommendations in the book around that. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.

And Lord knows we don't want women walking around more stressed during those times than they need to be. Exactly. We don't want anyone more stressed, but men, it's similar, especially if there's a lot of weight to lose, but men don't have a monthly cycle, right? So for us, it's like, you probably didn't get enough sleep or you overdid something the other night. And today you're just, you're not in a good place. And if you're fasting to avoid eating toxins, maybe it's okay. But if you're just like, I'm going to have breakfast. And if I wake

up, I'm like, oh, something isn't right. You you know i'll put 30 grams of collagen in my coffee that i broke my fast i got a lot of protein and fat in the morning and i'm okay and it's great it actually tastes it totally tastes good and it's still it's the same amount of work you know you're gonna blend your coffee anyway so i'm kind of lazy in the morning i don't want to go prepare breakfast meal when i used to go leave early in the morning to go to the gym. It's so satisfying and complete. Yeah. And then you're kind of bursting with energy from those MCTs.

Now let's talk about supplements though. This is an area that's hotly contested in the world of aggressive water only fasters. You can't have. And it's because it's complex. And the first thing I want to share is there's a section in the book called the barfy four. And these are four things. If you take those during a fast, you are going to hate your life. Now, the first one is B vitamins. You are going to taste those all day and you might taste them twice because they literally are really not something to take without food. And if you're saying, oh, I'm going to take my

normal vitamins while I'm fasting, that one might not be advisable. The second one is multivitamins. And I mean, you guys have a very high quality multivitamin that you make. Yeah. Right. And when I'm fasting, I don't take that one either. Right. Just because your stomach isn't going to like it because it contains B vitamins and it contains another thing that's on the list, which is minerals. And usually zinc can be okay on an empty stomach, but a multimineral or anything containing iron is really going to make you not feel good on an empty stomach. So then just skip that during the fast.

Have that when you're done with the fast, unless you're doing bulletproof coffee or if you're doing the prebiotic fiber, because those are enough protection. You can take vitamins with that. Right. Okay. Yep. And then the final one is fish oil. Don't take that on an empty stomach.

You're just not going to like what happens, right? Even if it's a super high quality fish oil, it's good for the brain in moderate amounts. You don't need to like drink a whole bottle of it. And that also is like, wait till you eat. But if you're going to have bulletproof coffee, or you're going to have this soluble fiber, you probably will tolerate fish oil as well. So these are for when you're having black coffee or water or tea during a fast only, or water if you're one of the hair shirt fasters. Well, it's okay to be a water faster, but like you don't have to be a water faster to get the benefits. In fact, coffee is almost always better than water during a fast, except at night. Now, if those are the things you don't take,

what should you take to get more benefits from a fast than you normally would? And one of my favorites there is something called proteolytic enzymes. Now, when you fast, your pancreas is like, oh, I guess I don't have to make digestive enzymes. I can make other enzymes. And what enzymes do in the body is they allow chemical reactions to take place with much less energy than if we were doing physical chemistry reactions so that they make things very efficient. And you can take proteolytic enzyme, things like seropeptase and natokinase and other types of protein digesters. And when the body

says, oh, I have no protein for them to digest in the gut, maybe I can use those to break down scar tissue, to break down unneeded proteins, waste proteins in the blood. And it's a very powerful thing to take during a fast. I take those every night anyway on an empty stomach, but I take them when I fast in the morning too. Oh, that's so interesting. I did not know that. Yeah. You'll find over time, massive changes, even scars that you've had for a long time, like if someone's had a C-section or a car accident or something, those scars get softer because the body's like, I got nothing else to do with all this stuff.

Let me break down stuff I don't need. And they even break down autoimmune molecules that are in your body, which is really cool. Wow, that's so cool. And the other massively important, just massively important thing when you're fasting, probably the most important supplement that I write about in Fast This Way is to deal with another problem. When you fast, you generally lose fat and your body stores mold toxins called mycotoxins. It stores extra estrogen.

It stores PCBs, environmental pollutants. It stores heavy metals in your fat. And if you melt a lot of fat all at the same time, all of that toxin is going to go to your liver. Your liver can only oxidize so much of it, and then it gets recirculated and sometimes even put into the brain. Unless there was something present in your stomach that could just stick to those things as they get excreted. And it is one of the world's oldest, maybe the world's oldest supplement. It's called

activated charcoal. And activated charcoal sticks to every one of the types of toxins I just mentioned. And so as they're recirculating through the biliary system, through the bile in your liver, well, the activated charcoal is right there. They're electrically attracted to it. And then you poop the toxins out instead of experiencing brain fog and the more you fast the more you're losing weight rapidly the more important it is to deal with the toxins so they don't go into your brain so what i do is at some point during the day away from any medications and away from enzymes i will take my activated charcoal during a fast. And the side benefit of that is it sticks

to this bad stuff that gut bacteria make called LPS or lipopolysaccharide. We talked about in an earlier episode. And this stuff makes the brain inflamed and it makes you hungry and it makes you angry and gives you cravings. It's a toxin from stress bacteria. Activated charcoal sticks to that toxin so you don't have to experience it. you want to have a super awesome fast you start out the morning with the most energy possible do your bulletproof coffee put in your prebiotic fiber drink that wait a little while have some activated charcoal and you're like i am so golden say this is the best day i've had in a long time i don't care about food i'm not distracted i had super clarity in my brain and it's a very different experience than i had a glass of water this morning.

Like there'll be a different day, but you're still going to have the ability to lose weight. You're still going to burn fat. You're still going to get autophagy. You're just going to like your life better. That's so interesting. That was so helpful about the supplements. That's really, really helpful. I did a lot of research on this and there's a handful of actually more than a dozen other

supplements that you can take during a fast. And I just rank them like this is worth taking this is not worth taking you can take this but you might not absorb as much uh we talk about vitamin d vitamin a vitamin k2 and all sorts of other things so it's it's complex but it's not that hard to understand and i really worked hard to lay it out in a way that was uh that was accessible for people and all of those in the book each one of them, yeah. I love that. Okay, so Fast This Way, it just sounds like it's just loaded with information.

I can't wait to actually read it. I think I'm going to sign up for your course. I think that just sounds awesome. I mean, I've learned so much in this time. And I pride myself on staying on top of stuff. So this is really, really very thorough. Thank you. Yeah, I know this is cool.

So Fast This Way, you can buy it anywhere books are sold. And if you go to fastthisway. Yeah, I know this is cool. So Fast This Way, you can buy it anywhere books are sold. And if you go to FastThisWay.com, you get to have Dave Asprey as your coach and his team for a couple of weeks. So highly recommend that. Also, please go to the Brain Warriors Way podcast.com and tell us what you've learned. Leave it in the comment section. Would love to hear from you. Leave us a review question comments. And if you would tag a friend, take a screenshot, tag a friend, tag Dave, tag me, and, um, give us your best questions, your best concerns, and anything you've learned. We love to hear from you. So Dave, any parting comments before we go about COVID, um, about what's going on with you, about fasting? Yes.

There is a part of a chapter in Fast This Way where there's great research out there about when to eat and when to fast, depending on what kind of infection you have. Oh. And I don't want to give away all the secrets in there because it's a little bit more complex than this, but studies show that if you're dealing with a virus, you should eat and you should eat some carbs, but not sugar. And I go into all the details about why and where

and how to tell which is which. And if you have a bacterial infection, the rules are different. So there's good research there and fasting can be used to change the time you go to sleep. It can be used to change the time you wake up. It can be used during an illness. And I go through all that. And this is what's missing from the don't eat for a while. And here's all the reasons to do it. The nuances are here. And they're very powerful just when you know what to do.

I love that. That's fantastic. So you can take control of your health. You can be proactive. You can take responsibility for where you're at. Do something positive during this crazy time. Fast this way. And we're so grateful to you, Dave. As always, you've been a good friend. You are just a great colleague and so purposeful and so helpful. Dana, thank you. I so appreciate your work. I appreciate Daniel's work. You guys really have changed my life and I would not have graduated from business school without your work.

And I certainly wouldn't be doing all my bulletproof stuff. I'd probably be homeless. So thank you. And the world is a better place because of you. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe

so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.