Stuff You Should Know - What's the deal with intermittent fasting?

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

Could eating at only certain times of the day lead to weight loss? Possibly! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, there is a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah, like does the US government really have alien technology? Or what about the future of AI? What happens when computers actually learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you find your favorite shows. What's up, y'all. My name is Mimi Walker, and I'm your resident auntie Supreme. Overhand me my purse, the podcast. If you aren't familiar with Handing My Purse, it's a podcast that's all about diving into and understanding the nuances of black culture from social emotional well-being to cultural matters, mental health, and just the life experiences that we have to face every day.

Be sure to tune in every single Tuesday. Listen and follow hammy my purse on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you should know. I can't believe how good you've gotten at this after 15 years. Oh yeah, thank you.

Thank you. It's amazing. I've had a lot of practice. Pull something like that out here, 16 years in, 15, whatever it is. Sure. I mean, I'm full of surprises. I like to think Speaking of surprises we want to issue a little CoA right off the bat here. Good idea In a little trigger warning this topic is about intermittent fasting and

You know there's just a lot of baggage wrapped up anytime you're talking weight loss and Diet techniques and especially fasting. If you've ever struggled with disordered eating fasting can be very problematic obviously, even intermittently. So, and there's just a lot of emotion and feelings wrapped up and all this stuff. So we just want to let people know if the title didn't give it away. We're going to talk about the ins and outs and the science of intermittent fasting.

Yeah, I've had disorder eating pretty much my whole life and when I tried intermittent fasting, it really set it off. Oh, really? Mm-hmm, interesting. Yeah, for sure, unfortunately. And I also noticed I kind of plateaued really quickly because I was using it to lose weight.

But one of the things I didn't realize, Chuck, is that I guess I did kind of realize it, but it's not at the forefront of your mind that there's a lot of other reasons besides weight loss that people engage in intermittent fasting based on some studies that have come down the pike over the last couple of decades, and especially the last decade that show it's quite conceivable that if you engage in intermittent fasting for a prolonged period of time, all sorts of health markers like blood cholesterol, blood sugar, insulin resistance, all this stuff can really improve. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, as we'll see studies are Problematic when it comes to intermittent fasting because there's been so many of them a lot of them have been on mice a Lot of them some of them have been on humans, but with any kind of Diet studies like humans sticking to a diet is tough, so it's hard to get accurate results. And results study wise have been kind of mixed. And it also the, and the, the

grabster helped us put this one together, but as it also points out that the media comes into play. So six, eight, 10 years ago, even five years ago, intermittent fasting was the cool, awesome, amazing new thing. And just in the past couple of years, I've even noticed that it's like, well, I'm not so sure about this. Yeah. Is that correct? Like, I have not noticed that. I guess I have no fear about attention. So people are poo-pooing it. Yeah, I think, but you know, I think it's like, any diet fad kind of goes out of favor trend-wise, and then I think there are some people in the media

who will then report on like only the negative studies, and not like, hey, overall, it looks like this or that. I don't know, maybe not. I think it's possible that that's what triggers the negativity toward the diet trend. It's possible. It's the chicken or the egg kind of thing. Like does the media start poo-pooing it or does the public start poo-pooing it and then the other one picks it up.

Mark, yeah! So for those of you who have never tried intermittent fasting, that's one of the things. So many people have tried intermittent fasting because it's really, really easy to start. But for those of you who aren't familiar with it, totally cool, we're going to explain it a little bit. But essentially intermittent fasting is not so much watching what you eat, or even necessarily how many calories you eat, although both of those are supposed to be wrapped up in it. But the thing that really differentiates IF, for those in the know, from other types of

caloric restriction diets, is that the time you eat or the amount of time over the course of a day that you eat is really what's important here. Yeah, and we'll probably hammer this home a lot, but while you said, and even CO8 already, that not necessarily counting your calories, that doesn't mean, hey, I got eight hours a day to stuff my face with whatever I want to, you're still supposed to eat a healthy diet. There is no way to be healthy and drop weight without a healthy diet. Let's just say that across the board. Yep. Right.

But with intermittent fasting or IF, as you said, there's a few different sub types. The first is also known sometimes as time restricted eating or time restricted feeding, which sounds weird because I don't have some big giant grown up that comes in and feeds me. I don't know about you. Why not? That would be pretty great. Here comes the plane But this is when you sort of divide your day up into Eating hours and not eating hours and even within that there are different Ways to do it, but one of the most common that you'll see online, if you look up, you'll see the number 16 colon eight.

And that is 16 hours off, and eight hours where you can eat. And that's, you know, if you're just a regular daytime worker who sleeps at night, the good news about this one is about half the time that you're not supposed to be eating You should be sleeping. Yeah, cuz that's the thing we all fast anyway from the when we sleep we're fasting Yeah, this is just kind of extending it a little more making it a little more deliberate unless you sleepwalk in That's true fridge. Yeah, if you're on ambient and eat butter Yeah, I am yeah, I can remember which one it was.

There's a few variations of this that, like you said, I'll fall into time restricted feeding or diet. I've heard 16, eight more than anything. To just kind of encompass this whole category. But there's like 14, 10. There's O-mad, which stands for one meal a day. Essentially, what you're doing is you're just limiting how much you eat. Again, what you're doing is you're just limiting

how much you eat. Again, when you eat, it's sensible, and doing that, you're fasting intermittently, you're doing it every day. So the intermittent fast takes place over the course of 24 hours, not necessarily anything longer than that. That's right.

The next way you might hear, as a way to go about it, it's pretty common common is five colon two And these are days of the week instead of hours this time. So that means that for five days of the week You're pretty much eating your normal diet again. Hopefully that should be a good healthy diet And then on those two days you're either Not eating at all or you're eating really, really, really low calories.

Like, I've seen 200 to 600 calories a day. And you probably shouldn't do this two days in a row, but I'm sure some people do it two days in a row. You actually don't really want to do it two days in a row. There's no benefits to it, and it can actually be counterproductive, because as we'll see, you can enter what's called colloquially a starvation mode where your body starts hanging on to fat stores and slows your metabolism, which is the opposite of what you want if you're intermittent fasting for weight loss. So you really don't want to go beyond 24 hours, but you just do two days out of every seven

and just non-consecretively. Yeah, because, like you said, that starvation on your body thinks you must be lost in the woods or the desert or something. Right. Because you're not putting anything in me. So I'm going to slow things down. Metabolism lies. Right.

The third one is called the fasting mimicking diet or FMD. It's also sometimes called the war your diet. I had never heard of this one. It's essentially like a time restricted one, but really what you're just doing is eating one, like decent sized meal, but again, really well put together like fats and proteins and vegetables and stuff like that.

But it's a good sized meal toward the end of the day. And then throughout the day, maybe you're nibbling on some other like vegetables or nuts or something like that. So again, it's time restricted. But the emphasis of this is to like keep up your nutrients just enough so that you can stay ripped. Like if you're an athlete or you're really into exercising,

but you wanna intermittent fast for other health benefits. This is probably the one that you should do. Because we should say, it's no joke that when you fast, especially if you fast more than 24 hours, you start to feel a little weak, you start to get some brain fog, you start to notice that you are definitely not up to snuff. Yeah.

So you wanna be up to snuff if you're training, but you still want an IF, or your diet, friend. That's right. So Ed points out, and we should also reiterate, that fasting means that you're not consuming calories. You want to drink water, you want to drink a lot of water, and you can also drink coffee, you can also drink tea, you can't dump a bunch of sugar and creamer in it. But people also modify I.F. a little bit and be like, all right, you know what, I'm going to eat a little bit of yogurt in the morning or I'll put, you know, I'll have a couple of

carrots at noon or maybe I'll have that creamer in the coffee. So like a little bit of calories coming in, but that's still sort of generally considered a fast. Right, that was, I couldn't do that. Like I could coast for a very long time if I just didn't eat. I can do that too. Once I started eating, it was all over.

Like I just wanted to eat everything in sight. So I would put all feeding as long as possible. I'm kind of the same way. I think there's a misconception like when someone like me has extra pounds that I just like eat all the time And I don't I can go a long long time without eating and I'm fine. I'm not like oh I'm hungry Mm-hmm And I don't think it's just like mind over matter. I just, I can do that. It's, I have a terrible metabolism, awful genetics, and I'm learning now to eat the right foods, but. Good for you.

I think when, just don't judge people, if you see someone that's so way, it doesn't mean that they just constantly are stuffing their face, because that's not the case. Yeah, I mean, even if they are, who the heck are you to judge them, like leave them alone? Yeah, shut up anyway. Yeah, they're living their best life

or they have a terrible burden to bear, and either way, just leave them alone. Yeah, I think that's a great stuff. You should know T-shirt is on the front. Shut up anyway, on the back, just leave them alone. That's right. So, new motto. I love it.

We need a colon in between the two. Yeah, between everything. So, do you want to talk about the whole idea behind this? Yeah, all right, so Fasting basically is based on the idea that when we metabolize energy It usually comes from the food we just ate Mm-hmm, and if we have some leftover some of that glue coat is really what it breaks down to,

is stored in our muscles, something called glycogen, which is a really quick available burst of energy that we can release if we need be. And then beyond that, once those glycogen stores are replenished, it could be converted to fat for like long term storage, basically. That's the way you can look at it. If you don't eat, then you don't have that initial amount of energy to burn through to power you through the day. So you have to go from the beginning to your glycogen stores, which you can burn up quite quickly if you're exercising. That's really what they're for. And then after that, you're going to start

burning fat. And when you burn fat, something called ketones are released. And then after that, you're going to start burning fat. And when you burn fat, something called ketones are released. And if you're in the intermittent fasting, this is the sweet spot that you feel like kidding. Yeah. And if you've ever done like atkins or any other sort of slow carb or no carb kind of eating, then you know all about ketones. They talk a lot about ketones and ketogenesis. You could also refer to it as the metabolic switch. And that's the point where your body switches over and says, okay, I need some energy. And the only place that I can get it here is the fat stores.

And you have entered ketosis at that point. And that's a big part of a low carb or no carb diet and a big part of IF. Yeah and ketones are basically what replaces glucose when you burn your fat the ketones are released and that's what you're running on energy. But the thing is is your body's not set up to run on ketones for very long which is why intermittent fasting is much safer than fasting fasting, because as ketones build up in your blood, it makes your blood acidic, which Ipsophacto can eventually lead to coma and then death. And for people who are diabetic, especially, I think type one diabetic, but I'm pretty

sure for all people with diabetes, it's really hard for your body to balance ketones in the first place. So they build up much more quickly than for other people. So that makes it even intermittent fasting very dangerous if you have diabetes. And I don't know if we said this or not, but I mean, it's very smart. To number one, find a doctor or some sort of healthcare provider that you, whose opinion you trust and look up to. And then number two, talk to that person about

whether or not you specifically should undertake intermittent fasting. Yeah. And if you have diabetes, I'm guessing they're probably gonna say, nah, you probably shouldn't. Yeah. I have a great GP now that I've had for a number of years now, and I finally sort of got to the point where I've locked in a GP that I've had for a number of years now, and I finally sort of got

to the point where I've locked in a GP that has gotten to know me, and it's that relationship with a doctor I always wanted where I feel like he likes me and cares about me and knows me and my health to a degree. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's cool. It's really good and worthwhile. I don't not want to go to him. In fact, I probably, and he's got a great messaging system, which is awesome because you don't feel like you have to make an appointment for everything. But I probably bug

him too much and I'm too proactive about health stuff if that's possible. But it's really beneficial. You know, like to have a doctor that's invested in you, because then you can say, hey, Doc, I'm thinking about trying this, and they'll know you, and they're not just reading from a script, and they'll say, you know, it's probably not a good idea to do that. Or this might work for you. Give it a shot, and maybe come see me in three months, and we'll do some blood work and check out.

Right. Good stuff. That is great stuff. You're very lucky, very fortunate, Chuck. Yeah. Right. Good stuff. That is great stuff. You're very lucky. Very fortunate Chuck. Yeah, I feel like I went in many years without having a good GP and Didn't go to the doctor a lot because of that. Well, that's an excellent reason not to go to the doctor Like you said you don't want to go to the doctor and then

Either the doctor might be making you feel bad about yourself Which is a terrible terrible thing for a doctor to do or or if you feel like they're phoning it in, and you're just kind of giving you boilerplate advice. That doesn't really make you feel any better either. So yeah, I mean, to find a really good doctor's. Man, hang on to that guy. Yeah, and he cusses in front of me, which I love. Oh, yeah.

And he recognized and complimented my pavement shirt last time I was in. So he ticks all the boxes. Wow, he really does. What a dream boat. Yeah, Dr. Ramchur, I'll shout him out. He's great. So I say we take a little break and we'll come back and talk about what studies say about all this stuff. Let's do it. There's a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Does the US government really have alien technology? And what about the future of artificial intelligence, AI? What happens when computers learn to think?

Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. We've spent a decade applying critical thinking to some of the most bizarre phenomenon civilization and beyond. Each week, we dive deep into unsolved mysteries, conspiracy theories and actual conspiracies. You've heard about these things,

but what's the full story? Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows. What's up, fam. I'm Brian Ford, artist and baker and host of the new podcast, Flaky Biscuit. On this podcast, I'm going to get to know my guests by

cooking up their favorite nostalgic meal. It could be anything from Twinkies to moms Thanksgiving Jurassic. Sometimes I might get it wrong. Sometimes I'll get it right. I'm so happy it's good because man, if not be like, you know, everybody not my mom. Either way, we will have a blast. You'll have access to every recipe so you can cook and bake alongside me. As I talk to artists, musicians, and chefs about how this meal guided them to success. And these nostalgic meals, fam, they inspire one of a kind conversations.

When I bake this recipe, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh. Does this podcast come with a therapist? Ha, ha, ha, he can. Listen to Flaky Biscuit every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the OverComfort Podcast with Jenna Calopese. Yup, that's me. You may know my late mom, Jenny Rivera, my queen. She's been my guiding light as I bring you a new season of OverComfort Podcast.

This season I'll continue to discover and encourage you and me to get out of our comfort zones and choose our calling. Join me as I dive into conversations that will inspire you, challenge you, and bring you healing. We're on this journey together. I'm opening up about my life and telling my story in my own words. Yes, you'll hear it from me first before the Cheezman lands on your social media food. If you thought you knew everything, guess again.

So, I took another test with Ancestry and it told me a lot about who I am and it led me to my biological father. And everyone here, my friends, laugh, but I'm Puerto Rican! Listen to the Overcome for Podcasts with Jenna Calopas as part of my Cuituran Podcast Network available on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And inside the top of the top. All right, Chuck, so there have been a tremendous number of studies on intermittent fasting.

Going back, I think to the 60s is when it really started to kind of get underway. But it really picked up in like the 2010s. Yeah. And that's when everybody was like, oh, this stuff is so great. It's amazing. And like one study came in and said, it's great. So now we're all going to try it. Since then, things have kind of leveled out a little bit. Like you said, people have, if not started to poo poo, at least started to look at it with a little more skepticism as you should, anything like that. Yeah, I agree. But if you look at the major meta studies that look at really high quality studies together,

it seems like it's backed up that there is something to this, especially in realms outside of weight loss. Yeah. And we'll kind of go through those in a sec, but Ed did point out that like what you're looking at is calorie restriction in general is what I have accomplishes. It's just sort of in the way that it does it. general is what IF accomplishes. It's just sort of in the way that it does it. So calorie restriction is going to improve, you know, you're going to lose weight if you've taken less calories. It's kind of a no-brainer. You'll probably end up with better health markers as a result of fewer calories. And a lot of studies say like, hey, this is sort of like any other calorie restriction and that you're going to lose some weight. But

IF is easy to follow or I guess I just say easier to follow for some people than calorie counting. There's a lot of great apps out there, a lot of great fitness trackers where you can enter the foods you eat, enter the drinks you have and stuff like that, and all the snacks and your exercise, and it'll keep track of all that for you. So it's easier than ever before to do that, but it's still really hard for some people, like me, to do that.

I go through periods where I'm really good at entering all that stuff, and then I got to the point where I was like, I just know how to eat, I just need to do that. I'm really tired of having to get up my phone every time I put something in my mouth. So it's not a great fit for me, but something like intermittent fasting is just sort of, you know, if you're doing 16-8, that's all you got to remember and then just eat sensibly. Right.

The upside of the whole thing is that the recommendation is eat fewer large meals and scientifically speaking, large meal is a thousand calories or more. Cut some of those down to 600 calories, 700 calories even, and you will start to lose weight. Especially if you convert the fried, I think they call it an obesogenic diet, lots of sugar, lots of fried foods, or also called the American or standard American diet. If you convert that to healthier stuff and you're knocking some of the calories off, you really will see good results, especially if you can change your attitude toward food and come to appreciate that,

then you can make it like a long-term adaptation. The point here is it doesn't matter how you approach that, whether like you said counting calories and staying within a certain window every day, or just doing it through intermittent fasting. That's a good way to cut out a thousand calorie meal. Just don't eat past a certain time and make sure that time comes before you typically would eat a thousand calorie meal.

Yeah, and I guess there's just a lot of first hand accounts in this one because I've struggled with weight for a lot of my life. For me, it's like I had to get to that point that I've only just recently gotten to, where it wasn't about denying something that I craved, but it was about looking at something that I really love to eat and been like, oh, god, no, I can't eat that.

You know what I mean? Like, now when I see a like greasy cheeseburger in fries, I don't go, oh God, that looks so good. No one's so bad, but I can't have it. I look at that and I go, my God, that looks like a heart attack on a plate. I can't, it's not appealing, it's a little bit appealing, but it's not as appealing looking, you know what I mean?

Yeah, and I'm glad you correct yourself because I don't think it is meant to be a switch where you go from, oh my God, I want that burger to gross. I'll never eat that again. I'm sure that happens for some people, but I don't know that that's realistic for the majority of people. Instead, like a really well crafted burger like that

is pretty rare. And we talked about this in the Fried Chicken episode. If you just held out for really genuinely good fried chicken and that's the only kind you ate, you would automatically start eating less fried chicken, same thing with the cheeseburgs, same thing with anything that's unhealthy or bad for you, making scare quotes right now. If you just stick to the ones that are worth it, if you set a bar for yourself and say, that is not worth it, this is worth it. And you indulge in the worth it stuff once and a while, then you're fine. Like that makes the whole thing so much easier.

It's just denying yourself time after time after time. No one can keep that up. Now that's really tough. Yeah, it's not even worth trying. It's finding what's moderate for you. Right. And then from that point on, you can build like a different relationship with food. I've been through the same stuff as

you. And I'm actually I'm pretty good at exposure, where I'll go through the grocery store. I'll purposely go down aisles that I don't need stuff from that has snacks and treats on it. Just to be like this isn't worth worth it. It's not gonna look anything like it does on the box. It's not gonna taste anything like what the ad is making me think it's gonna taste like. It's literally not worth it. And I've actually kind of gotten pretty good at that to where every once in a while,

I'll be like, no, this is actually totally worth this slice of published cake is worth it. I'll tell you that once in a while, but certainly not every time and certainly not with any snack, I pass in the grocery store. Yeah, I just judged a, uh, I was a, oh, yeah, a quote unquote celebrity judge. Yeah. At the Kirkwood spring flings, wing fling. And, uh, first of all, it was so much fun.

I would be a judge in any food contest ever, because I've never done it before. It was just really fun to sit and taste the food and to rate it according to the scale. Had a really good time, but it was 15 chicken wings. Some of these were the big, huge double wings with the drum and the flat And you know I the one eight like probably five of them all the way through because they were that good

But the others I just like ate a bite or two and tasted But then I looked at the plate at the end and all of those wings and I was just like how did I used to sit down and just Scarf through 12 to 15 chicken wings like it was nothing. It's like that's just so much stuff. Yeah. And that's just a mental hurdle, I guess I finally got over. But again, it's different for everyone and I'm not saying my problems are solved. It's where I am right now, you know.

Yeah, and I wanted to say something for those of you who are into body positivity, believe that diet culture is very harmful, I totally respect that. That's your right. We're not speaking to you. We're not trying to convince you to think otherwise at all. This is not for you, but there are plenty of listeners out there who are in the same boat that you and I are in, Chuck, that want to lose weight and ever struggle with us for so many years. And I guess we're just sharing what's worked for us, which may or may not work for you.

But I just don't want anybody to think like we're shaming anybody who's not trying to lose weight, not at all. Hopefully you know us that well or well enough by now to know we wouldn't do that. But I feel like it's worth pointing out just because it can be such a sensitive subject for people. Yeah, understandably so. Yeah, I do believe that you can be very healthy at a range of weights. I'm talking about, for me, I don't mean I want to look good in my bikini bottoms. I have some poor health markers at my age.

It's just inevitable. I want to be around for my daughter and I want to be around to record this dumb show. Mm-hmm. You'd be so mad if I dropped dead. I would be pretty upset. I would kick your corpse. You'd be like, yeah, better.

Yeah, better. He just had to eat that last fried chicken cheeseburger, didn't you? I'd put your ashes in a punching bag and a box it. That's a really great idea. Not for you, but I'm saying like if you're a boxer, you could definitely do worse with your ashes. Oh, I thought you meant like, you know, did you hate your parents?

Put them in a heavy bag and beat them up for the rest of your life. That works too. Man, that feels good. This got really dark. All right, so let's look at some of these meta studies and what they've revealed. Because like I said, a lot of these have been done on mice and stuff like that.

There's less research on humans, but still a lot. I think Ed said there were like 300 IF studies last year alone. But in 2020, the NIH looked at a bunch of studies that went back several decades and said this, hundreds of animal studies and scores of human clinical trials have shown the intermittent fasting can lead to improvements in health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers, and neurological disorders. So, you know, there you go. That's a meta-study analysis. Yeah, by the NIH, which I mean, they typically, hopefully, don't throw their weight towards

something that's illegitimate. I mean, it's so hard to find anybody to trust. Everyone's got such an agenda these days, but I mean, if you're going to trust somebody, it might as well be the NIH. Right. So yes, they basically said, there are other health benefits out there besides just losing weight and that it could conceivably be worth trying. One of the things they pointed out was that when you release ketones, it basically triggers your body to go into a defensive state, anti-inflammatory state. Your immune system kicks in. There's all sorts

of things that happen and change in your body when you start burning fat. And one of the things that it does is it starts kicking off your defenses against metabolic stress. I didn't know what that was. It's not metabolic syndrome where you have insulin resistance and basically pre-diabetes or maybe diabetes. This is different. This is what happens when you exercise

and you start tearing up your muscles that actually triggers your body's defenses to rebuild and repair and build more muscle. It's the point of exercising your resistance training. And that one of the things that happens with ketones is it actually helps that process go more smoothly of repairing and building muscle. So at least one study is found that if you exercise using IF, that it can actually help build muscle, that's one study that we turned up,

but it makes logical sense if that's what ketones do. Yeah, I agree. Other people have come out to just a point out that since intermittent fasting, isn't just one thing and there are quite a few different subtypes and ways to go about it, that it also can complicate studies because some people might qualify five to or 16, eight or the omad, was it omad? Yeah. Omad or warrior diet as intermittent fasting. So, you know, for a study, you should be comparing apples to apples. Yeah, one other big criticism of the enthusiasm for intermittent fasting is a lot of these studies,

they leave off like in mice or, you know, in rats. So like, for example, there's a big talk about converting white fat to brown fat. Brown fat is much easier to burn. And it's how you lose weight, basically. It's how you burn fat. And that intermittent fasting helped turn more white fat to brown fat in mice. It's not necessarily something that you see in humans, but at least in mice with intermittent fasting, it is.

So, if you hear, like, oh oh yeah, it helps you burn fat faster, ask yourself like, wait, how? And then secondly, how did they figure that out? Yeah, that's a good point. Should we take a break? Oh, sure, sure. All right, let's take our second break and we keep kind of teasing a little bit some of the more positive health outcomes that you can have, and we're going to get to those right after this

There's a ton of stuff. They don't want to know. Does the US government really have alien technology? And what about the future of artificial intelligence, AI? What happens when computers learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers, and government cover-ups from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. We spent a decade applying critical thinking

to some of the most bizarre phenomenon civilization and beyond. Each week, we dive deep into unsolved mysteries, conspiracy theories, and actual conspiracies. You've heard about these things, but what's the full story? Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple app Apple podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows. What's up fam? I'm Brian Ford, Artisan Baker and host of the new podcast Flaky Biscuit.

On this podcast, I'm going to get to know my guests by cooking up their favorite nostalgic meal. It could be anything from Twinkies to moms Thanksgiving Jurassic. Sometimes I might get it wrong, sometimes I'll get it right. I'm so happy it's good because man, if it wasn't, I'd be like, you know, everybody not my mom. Yeah. Either way, we will have a blast. You'll have access to every recipe so you can cook and bake alongside me. As I talk to artists, musicians, and chefs about how this meal guided them to success.

And these nostalgic meals, fam, they inspire one of a kind conversations. When I bake this recipe, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Does this podcast come with a therapist? They can. Listen to Flaky Biscuit every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola hola, it's your girl cheekies and I'm back with brand new episodes of my podcasts, cheekies and chill and dear cheekies.

Last season, I shared so many intimate stories with you guys and had conversations with some of my favorite people. This season, we're picking up right where we left off. We'll talk about everything from spirituality, relationships, women's health, and so much more. And guess what? Dear Cheekies is also back. Seguiré contestando todo a tus preguntas.

I'll be answering even more of your questions. And honestly guys, I cannot wait. Asi que no te pierdas, nune momento, the Chiquis and Shell and your Chiquis as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

And inside the sky, I should love, I should love. I should love, I should love, I should love. All right, we're back with some promise bullet points as Ed has them. And you already talked about the brown fat in mice. Don't take the brown fat. That's right.

I had never heard of white fat and brown fat. It seems crazy. Brown fat sounds kind of tasty. It's like fatty gravy is what it seems like to me. We want the brown fat though. I think brown fat like is your body's way of like heating your body up, right? Like you're upping your body temperature? Yeah, so this is totally me armchairing this, but from the research putting together different

threads of research from this topic, white fat is probably the deep storage of energy and then the process of burning that fat. Part of that is converting it to brown fat first. That's my guess. What you do in the cast iron skillet. That's right, you brown some fat. Yes. What you do in the cast iron skillet. That's right, you brown some fat. That sounds good. All right, in mice, once again, and some of these are in human,

and we'll point that out. But in mice, it did show that you had improved metabolism and improved intestinal function with an IF diet. And specifically intestinal stem cell function, and they think that at the stem cell, intestinal stem cell function, and they think that at the stem cell, intestinal stem cell level, is where disorders like type 2 diabetes, obesity, and colon cancer happen.

It's from an excess nutrient uptake, they think, which releases way more hormones than normal, and thus it leads to all these problems. And so what they were saying in mice, it actually curbed that, which is really helpful. Yeah, and you know, it's reducing inflammation or altering that we just talked about. Exactly. Or I guess our old enemy.

I said that wrong. What else? All right, this one's in humans. It can lead to a reduced resting heart rate, lower your bad cholesterol, which is the LDL, and reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. That's right. Also, reduces fasting blood, glucose, and insulin levels, so that reduces your diabetes-related symptoms. That's a big one too. Infumins, yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. Sure. What about the next one in mice? Reduction in oxidative brain damage. So what we're talking about is potentially a reduction in symptoms of Alzheimer's.

Yeah, and they found something similar in humans, not necessarily a reduction in Alzheimer's symptoms yet, but at least an increase in cognitive performance, which is kind of contradicts what I've experienced where you get brain fog after a while. But what they've kind of traced it to is that it helps mitochondria function in the brain, mitochondria, the little powerhouses of the cells, and that it also aids in neurogenesis. So it's actually, you're actually developing more neurons than you would if you weren't intermittent fasting is what that study showed. and fasting is what that study showed. Yeah, I hope you can pronounce this next word, what ketogenesis can release, what is that? At a Ponectin.

Mm-hmm, okay, very nice. What is that? At a Ponectin is a homeostatic signal hormone. And basically what it does is it helps regulate glucose levels, helps in lipid metabolism, helps in insulin sensitivity, it helps move insulin into the cells where the insulin is carrying the glucose, helps in insulin production. It's basically, you want a decent amount of adiponectin in your bloodstream because it's

a very helpful balancing act, balancing hormone. All right, so those are some positives. Ed pointed out that there's, there are a lot more bullet points he could have included. Did you have any extras you want to throw in there? There was another one that also moderates leptin and leptin is a hunger signaling hormone that we've talked about before, but it's produced by adipose, right? So your body's like, oh, I've been burning some fat, I'm going to release some leptin and make you feel hungry.

So it triggers hunger and food consumption. And if you have too little leptin, you're going to be hungry all the time, like starving and you're going to overeat even though you don't necessarily need it. If you have too much leptin, your body will actually become desensitized to an leptin resistant. And so it's going to have the same effect as too little leptin. You're going to be hungry all the time and keep putting on weight. So intermittent fasting seems to moderate your leptin levels to kind of like a Goldilocks zone of where you want it. The old Goldilocks zone. It's such a great analogy.

It really is, because it means it's just right. Yep. If you wondered about how it compares to other kind of more recent diets, although Mediterranean isn't recent at all, it's as old as the world is. It's as old as the Bronze Age. But, you know, sort of talking about the Mediterranean diet has become sort of trendy lately, as well as Paleo. And there have been studies, it was one in 2020 that compared Paleo Mediterranean and

IF, and I think in those groups, IF lost the most. Eight point eight points. Yeah, compared to the other two, everyone lost weight. Mediterranean diet is a great way to eat. And I've never done paleo, but I've heard good things about that too. But one point that I had found in the study is that people on I.F. and Mediterranean adhere to these diets, about 20% more than on the paleo. And it's just common sense.

If it's a diet you're doing for health markers or weight loss and you're not sticking to it, then you're not really gonna get the real result of what that diet means or how it affects you. Yeah, and I meant to point up at the very beginning of the episode where we were talking about how, there's just all diets or fads. Mm-hmm.

The Mediterranean one seems to be the one diet that bucks that trend, because it's been around steady since the 90s, easily. I would say even early 90s is when it became popular. Well, as far as labeling it that, right? Right, exactly. But then, so non-meditranian people trying a Mediterranean diet I think really kicked off in the 90s and I mean people are

still trying it now and some people have adopted it and kept it and I just feel like that that's the one that's that's the most doable for people in my in my opinion yeah because it's you're not, because you're denying yourself like fried chicken, but you're still eating like really good food. I mean, I guess if you cooked the fried chicken as a boneless, skinless chicken breast in olive oil, that's fried chicken, right?

Yeah, but Mediterranean, you're eating good fish. Those are some of the hallmarks of that diet is olive oil and fish and... And wine, don't forget the wine. Wine and nuts and things like that. That's all yummy tasty anyway. So I agree. It's finding good fishes, sometimes the problem,

if you live inland. Yes, it really, really is. It's sad, but true. Although, have you been to beetle cat in I think M.M. Park, her little five? Beetlecat in, I think, MM Park or little five? I have been there many, many times. This is one of the places that I like to take out a town guest because it's great fun and lively and delicious and really

quickly one of my co-judges at the wing fling was Ford Fry. He was a big Atlanta restaurant tour and that's one of his places. Yeah, he's a big shot. Yeah, Ford's great. He's a big brother. He was nextge- Did you literally love elbows with him? He was next to me actually, but he and my brother, old friends, they, their kids played baseball and stuff together. So, forge school.

Cool guy. So you already knew him before you judged with him? I hadn't met him once. He was very kind. And when his original flagship restaurant, JCT, he was open. We had a big Mother's Day or Birthday dinner there with a bunch of my family

and he comped the whole meal. It's like 10 of us. Wow. And that was my first experience with Ford. So just good dude. It's a great first experience. What are you going to say about Beetlecat though? Well they have like the best giant shrimp you will find in the state of Georgia by far. Maybe even including Inland Carolinas. Okay. You know what that means is Ford's got a guy. He has a great guy. And also, everyone's gonna want people email us and be like, hey, I'm coming to Atlanta.

Where should I eat? Just look up a Ford Fry restaurant and go to it. You will not go wrong. You cannot go wrong at a Ford Fry restaurant and that land, that's true. Yeah, you got a great Italian place, great Mexican place, great seafood place. Yep.

He kind of covers all the bases and I would recommend upstairs the beetle cat unless you're young and like to party downstairs as a little rowdy for me. Yeah. Yeah, I like it upstairs. I've only ever been there during the day and it was not rowdy. But it looks cool. Yeah, downstairs. You get to little rowdy and I can imagine for for a fish restaurant

Yeah, so this is how Ford Friars restaurant work. I think we know You got anything else on intermittent fasting. Oh, wait, there is one more thing go ahead Yeah, yeah, we should talk a little bit about circadian rhythm fasting It is another subtype of intermittent fasting uh And it's almost like the 186. Is it 186? 168. 168. But the whole key with the, and they found really good results, and I'll let you kind of put the cherry on top with that result with the mice. But what it really means is doing restricted eating like that, but really focus on the morning.

So like maybe an 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. is when you're eating or even 5 p.m. and like literally nothing after that. Yeah, every once in a while you'll find somebody who's like, no, you need to have your biggest meals earlier. I've heard it put as eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen, and I can't remember the last one, but basically not royalty for dinner. Dinner like the guy who sweeps up the poop in the horse. Exactly, right? So, and the point is you're just eating your highest energy food earlier, and that's actually tied to circadian rhythms. And one

study on time, time restrictive feedings found that mice lived up to 35% longer life spans if they did circadian timed feedings. And I think they were doing this like they were probably testing the mice's hormones to determine whether they should be fed right then or not like that level. But you can still do it by what you just said, like start eating a little earlier, restrict your food in the evening and then eat the most toward the beginning of the day. That would qualify as circadian timed food, or circadian timed feeding. And if you did that, if you're an average person in the United States, average lifespan is 77 years.

You would add 27 years onto your life if that worked out for you like it did the mice in that study. Yeah, and we should point out in that study, that was 35% longer for specifically the circadian rhythm model compared to 10% longer for just regular intermittent restricted feeding. Yeah, still nothing to sneeze at. Nothing to, you know, 10% do you really want to live 35% longer?

I mean, if it's healthy and you don't care about your loved ones, sure. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Or if you make new friends really easily. Yeah. Are you got anything else? I got nothing else. I don't either, which means, of course, everybody

is time for listener mail. All right, I'm going to call this one a listener from the Czech Republic. Oh, nice. Yeah, this is a good one. Hi, Josh Chukingeri. My name is Ota Carr and I live in the Czech Republic. Oh, nice. Yeah, this is a good one. Hi, Josh Chukingeri. My name is Ota Carr, and I live in the Czech Republic. I started listening to the show about two years ago

when I started a 40-minute commute. And I've never listened to any podcast before, so I asked Google to give me some options, and that's how I found stuff you should know. Thanks, Google. That's right. It was exactly what I needed. I really liked the way your podcast is basically

a normal conversation between two guys. We're from the same generation as I am about so many interesting topics. Maybe I wouldn't find some of the topics interesting myself, but because you research the things and talk about them in such a great way, there's always something worth remembering for me. Nice, thank you.

Yeah, it's very nice. This whole thing is just a very sweet letter. I love it. I've always been curious about things and good and remembering random facts that I've heard somewhere. So your show was just the perfect way for me to find out something new that I might want to look a bit more into later.

I often wonder if teaching at schools should actually be done by two people having a conversation about a subject. How about that? Pretty cool. I mean, isn't that like, uh, in that platonic or stoddling, like it's some form of... Probably. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, There's a very little chance that you're going to do a live show in the Czech Republic. It's probably right. But if any of you would ever travel to Prague, let me know.

I can give you some hints about where and when to go see the best of Prague. So I thank you very much for what you do. I find the fact that there are people like you who like to explore things and talk about them in such an enthusiastic, kind and often funny way, very comforting. Best regards, Ota Carr. Man, Ota Carr is a very sweet, very comforting. Best regards, Ota Carr. Man, Ota Carr, that is a very sweet, very sweet email. Thank you very much for sending that to us and Prague is definitely on my list for sure. I've been but it was a long time ago. Yeah you need to go back.

You were like broke and backpacking weren't you? Yeah, I'll go any, something besides bread. I'm pretty sure it's a different nation now even from the last time you were there so Check it out. No, it was Newly the Czech Republic then the what they call it the velvet revolution I don't know, but it was not Czechoslovakia. I do not remember that at least I like it was okay Well at any rate, I think we lost Otocar even by this point So if you want to get in touch with us like Otocar did you, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast.itihardradio.com Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, myHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

to your favorite shows. So there is a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah, like does the US government really have alien technology? Or what about the future of AI? What happens when computers actually learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events.

Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite shows. I'm Entertainment and Lifestyle Reporter Tommy Diderio. On my new show, I've never said this before. I'll be talking to different artists and the stars of your favorite movies and shows and getting the full story. And of course, as the title suggests, I'll also be asking all of my guests to tell me at least one thing that they've never said before.

Listen to, I've never said this before, with Tommy Diderio on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up y'all? My name is Mimi Walker and I'm your resident auntie supreme over at Hamming My Purse the Podcast. If you aren't familiar with Hamming My Purse, it's a podcast that's all about diving into an understanding the nuance is a black culture. From social emotional well-being to cultural matters, mental health and just the life experiences that we are faced with every day. I want to normalize us having uncomfortable conversations in our community. So if you're old enough to have enjoyed listen a new addition in your cassette player in the 80s yet young enough to like songs by Glowrilla Big Lotto or know the difference between Dubbaby and Lil Baby, then this is absolutely

the podcast for you. Even if you can't identify with any of those things I said, listen anyway. I'm sure you'll find something that you can relate to. So grab your favorite thing to sit on, get comfortable and listen to Hammy My Purse. It is absolutely everything you never even knew you needed in the podcast. Listen and follow Hamming My Purse on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.