105 | Water Fasting in 2025!

Welcome back to another episode of the Real Health Podcast. Our aim, our mission is to add value to your health journey in a condensed amount of time. Right? So we wanna provide as much information to get you going, to get your health journey, moving in the right direction without spending an hour on a podcast. So we're gonna try to knock these out in 12, 15 minutes.

Today, we're talking about- this is, maybe you've been a long time listener, maybe you've been one of the new listeners, but if you've listened for any amount of time, you'd realize that we talk about fasting a lot. And so today, maybe this is your- the need for you to hear about fasting and finally do your first ever fast, but today, we're gonna talk about water fasting. And I'm gonna actually give you another option if that seems daunting. We've talked about water fasting in the past. We're gonna talk about another alternative to water only fasting, and we'll talk about bone broth fasting as a good alternative.

When we look at water fasting, it is an ancient secret that's been used throughout religious communities for centuries. And it's obviously tied deeply in the roots of spiritual emphasis and a spiritual discipline, but when we actually look at the physical attributes or the benefits of water fasting, it's hard to ignore the countless benefits that are happening to our physical body. Every year, I will fast in the beginning of the year and the middle of the year, and that fast will be at the minimum of 3 days, and that fast can last all the way up to 5 to 7 days where you're only consuming water. Now sometimes I'll drink green tea during a water only fast, and, sometimes black coffee just kinda depends on if I'm doing doing a caffeine reset or not. But if you've- if you're unfamiliar with water fasting, let me just kinda help you understand a little bit about the benefits.

First off, you really don't get any benefit in the first 24 hours. The benefits that are scaling high, that are monumentous, that are long lasting really occur after 24 hours. Now there is benefit to fasting in terms of the discipline of doing 24 hour fast that you can train your body. And if you would like to have a little bit better understanding of how to go into a fast properly, look at our previous episodes last year where we actually shared how to prep your body for a water fast. Today is really just the benefit of it and giving you an alternative.

So up to 24 hours, it's really just developing discipline. But after 24 hours, some magical things actually happen. Our creator, God, inside of our body created our genes to to just, like, turn on when we start fasting in a really cool way, and these certain genes turn on to unlock these healing powers of our body. It sounds very mystical, but the reality is it's very, scientific. When we actually look at the effects post 24 hours, we start getting into a growth hormone surge.

It's one of the first things that happen. Why does a growth hormone surge happen? Well, the growth hormone surge happens to start a repair process of the body and to preserve muscle mass. It's a common myth that you actually lose muscle. Your body will actually eat its own muscle in an extended fast, but it's just actually not the case.

We actually see that there's so much growth hormone production, your body preserves its lean skeletal mass. Now, what then happens after 24 hours? We get that growth hormone surge 48 hours. Now our body starts to go in a state called autophagy. 48 hours to 72 hours, autophagy starts.

So we get this growth hormone surge protecting our body from breaking down, our good tissue from breaking down. And now we're actually going into what's called autophagy, which is breaking down or, in essence, autophagy, your body eating itself. "But you just told me it doesn't eat itself." Well, it actually does eat itself. It just eats all the bad stuff.

Autophagy is a cellular cleansing process by which your immune system starts to eat its damaged, dead, senescent cells. So these are cells that are not functioning well. These are cells that have DNA damage. And your immune system starts to scavenge and eat all of these damaged tissue and tissue cells and starts to do this cleanup. We call this autophagy.

It actually starts to eat away cancer cells. One of the most fascinating books I've ever read is a book by doctor Thomas Seifried called Cancer as a Metabolic Disease, and and through that book, kinda talks through the metabolic effects of a cancer cell. So 24, 40 hours, you get autophagy starting, and now our immune system is eating and killing and and kind of helping your body clean up. Not only damaged cells, but now we're talking about cancer cells. That then elevates even more significantly post 48 hours into day 3.

Most of the data shows if you wanna do a full autophagy reset, 3 to 5 days is kind of the sweet spot for water fasting. That's really where autophagy has its greatest effects, and that's really where the body starts to clean itself out. When we look at day 3 of a water fast, now we're actually getting into not only deep autophagy, but now we're getting into a deeper ketogenic state. Your body's practically used up all its glucose reserves and now we're making ketones for energy. Day 3 is really where a lot of breakthrough happens in mental energy clarity and cognitive enhancement.

Why? Because ketones are a supportive fuel for yourselves. They are a great fuel source for yourselves and in particular, your brain cells or your neurons absolutely love ketones. What a ketone body is when your body burns fat for energy, it uses what's called a ketone or fat breaks down into a ketone, and then the ketone body is then used as the cellular energy molecule. What's cool about ketones is again not only do they provide an energy source, but they are a very powerful antioxidant and anti inflammatory molecule.

So these ketones cross the blood brain barrier and are essential at reducing neurological inflammation. It's why we get such a cognitive enhancement on day 3, day 4, and day 5. Those ketone bodies, if you do a blood test, can start registering at a really high level. And as you become more efficient at utilizing ketones for energy, your body becomes more energetic. It actually makes more energy or ATP.

Your mitochondria starts coming alive, you're killing old cancer cells, your immune system starts to regenerate on day 3. On day 4, you're giving your body such a reset that it's this beautiful symphony of, like, starvation, right? You're starving yourself, yet at the same time, you're unlocking this mystery of the body where it is not only self preserving, but it's self enhancing and self healing. Innately, within your body, you're designed to heal and this is how we heal. We actually go without food.

That's how we heal. Rarely do we do that in our society, obviously. And so when we do it, we unlock this wonderful mystery of the body. That can seem sometimes overwhelming, like, how can I ever go 3 days, 4 days, or even 5 days without without any food? And I would just tell you 2 things.

1, don't take my word for it. Work with a medical practitioner in your area to help you walk through this journey, especially if you have blood sugar dysregulation. Number 2 is anyone can do it. It's just a matter of figuring out what is right for you and how to approach it. And maybe we don't start with a 3 day.

Maybe we start with a 3 hour. Maybe we start with a 12 hour. Maybe we start with a 48 hour, and we slowly build from there. But that's where partnering with a practitioner to help you on that journey is so important, especially with how how incredible water fasting is for the body. Now I have a lot of patients that are like, alright.

Well, I'm not I'm just not ready for that, but I would like to do something. So that's where I turn them on to an alternative. Here's my alternative for you today. If you are interested in water fasting, but it's like, "Yeah. It seems aggressive."

3 days. No food. I get it. Consider a bone broth fast where you consume just bone broth for 3 days. Now here's what I would do.

I wouldn't buy store bought bone broth. You can, but that's why that's not what I would do. I'd make my own bone broth. I'd go to go to Whole Foods has grass fed beef bones. Local farmers go to grab a bunch of beef bones, make a big crock pot that simmers for 2 days of just bone broth, filter that out, and drink that for 3 days.

And it is incredible, the benefit you'll get. You'll get tons of gelatin collagen fibers, tons of proline glycine that's fantastic for skin rejuvenation, tissue regeneration, but you also you're not getting any carbohydrates. So you're gonna actually get into ketosis even on a bone broth fast, so you're gonna get a lot of that cognitive enhancement that we talked about. And this is very similar to what we call a fasting mimicking diet or FMD, which actually research shows can display all the benefits of autophagy. You'll get autophagy on a 3 day bone bone broth fast, which is fantastic, but without obviously having to do it, on just water alone.

So consider a bone broth fast. Now if you would like, we have a resource for you, free resource. Don't have to pay for it. Just reach out to us. It is a 14 day fasting guide.

As I tell a lot of my patients, fasting is important, but how to break the fast is actually just as important. So what it does, it gives you 3 days of how to do a water fast into a slow reintroduction of food, where we go from water to broths, back into sauerkraut and fermented foods. We properly scale our food back into our body so that our digestive system has time to start processing food again. If you were going to fast, make sure you break it properly. If you want that 14 day fasting guide that we've put together for you, that every day there is a physical challenge, there's a mental challenge, there's a spiritual challenge, then reach out to us by just giving us a direct message on Instagram, or you can reach out to the office and we'll provide that resource for you.

So maybe this is like, hey. You've heard me talk about water fasting now for 5 episodes. Well, this is maybe the number 6 that kinda gets you finally into a position where you're like, hey, I wanna do that. If you need any help with the journey, reach out to us. If you are getting started in this and you're some from a different state or country, reach out to a local practitioner and get help in starting this water fasting journey.

It is an incredible way that unlocks your body's ability to self heal and self regulate. As always, we appreciate you listening in, and we pray that this episode provided value for you today. So thanks again for listening to another episode of the Real Health Podcast.

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