Fasting & Success on a Keto Diet

I'm just going to introduce you and then we will get started. Okay. Okay, I'd like to welcome Ben Azadi, FDNP, who's on a mission to help 1 billion people live a healthier lifestyle. Ben is the author of three best-selling books, The Perfect Health Booklet, The Intermittent Fasting Cheat Sheet, and The Power of Sleep. Ben is a go-to source for intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet. He's known as the health detective because he investigates dysfunction and educates, not medicates, love that, to bring the body back to normal function. Ben is the host of the Top 15 Keto Camp Podcast. I was lucky enough to be a guest where he discussed ancient healing strategies such as fasting and the ketogenic diet. So Ben, my friend, thank you for spending part of your day with me. I often spend part of my day with you now. And I'm so excited to talk to you about keto and fasting. But before we do that, please tell us your story. Yeah, well, thank you for inviting me. I love the work that you're and you did amazing on my podcast. So go listen to that if you haven't done so already. It was a great discussion. Yeah, so my story, a lot of people see me as a healthy, lean man. And that wasn't my story growing up. I was actually very much overweight. As an understatement, I was obese for most of my life. Growing up here in beautiful Miami, Florida, where I still live, I was pretty much left to my own devices growing up. My parents immigrated here from Iran back in the 1970s, had me, my sister had me. And then I grew up here, my parents did the best they can with their resources. And they worked several jobs. And I was left to my own devices. So I hung out with the wrong crowd. I did the wrong things. I played video games hours on end, I ate a stupid American diet. And it resulted in me being both physically and mentally obese. I say mentally obese because I had such negative self defeating thoughts, thoughts of suicide. And this transferred into my adulthood where I found myself now back in 2008, being a 24 year old obese man who wanted to end his life. I was on the internet looking for ways to end my life. And every time I did that, Christina, I would think about the devastation I would leave behind for my mother. And I love my mom so much. I didn't want to do that to her. So it stopped me from pursuing that, thank God. And this is a point in my life where I was rock bottom to crying every day, I didn't want to be in a room by myself, because all I would think about was hurting myself and thinking about ways to end this suffering. This is where books entered my life. You see the books behind me, I started to read books for the first time in my life, other than being forced to read it in school. I read books from Wayne Dyer, and Bob Proctor, and Jim Rohn, and Tony Robbins, and Earl Nightingale, these amazing people who all went through a rock bottom of their own, and got out of that space to create greatness in the world. And it inspired me to want to do the same. And it helped me for the first time in my life, take responsibility and ownership over my health, over my results. Up until that point, I was playing the victim card. And I finally became a victor of my future. And I stopped being a victim of my past. So I took responsibility. And I said, I am responsible. I said those words out loud. Fast forward nine months, I went from 250 pounds, down to 170 pounds, I went from 34% body fat down to 6% body fat. And I finally carved out a physical six pack, which I always wanted, my whole life, not that that is synonymous with health, but for me, it was a goal. But most importantly, I carved out a mental six pack. And that's what started my journey off into the health space as a personal trainer, a CrossFit owner, and then eventually a certified health coach. And I just been a student of the game of life. I just continue to study and learn and apply the information and we're just so inspired to just get this information out into the world. So that's, that's amazing. Now, did you did you use keto in in part of your big weight loss transformation? Or did you discover keto later? As a health coach? Yeah, it's funny, because the way I lost the weight is not the way I would teach it right now. I was actually one of those fit, skinny, sick people. I had digestive issues. I had acne, I had things going on, but I was lean. So I did it the wrong way. But that's what started my journey, right? Any kind of change would have gotten me results. I was exercising excessively, I was counting calories excessively. But it wasn't until 2013, that I discovered keto, which is when I was coming off my vegan experiment, where I was a vegan, a strict vegan for a year and a half, and stopped working for me five months in, but I stuck with it too long. And then I started to get into the work of Paul Czech and Dr. Daniel Pompa and Dr. Joe Mercola and Dave Asprey. And I realized maybe this vegan diet is not for me. So I got off of it, and I got into keto back then. And that's where it was just a game changer. Because now I started to focus on health and not just weight loss. I started to focus on cellular health. And that was the game changer for my transformation. That is that's huge. So yeah, you've been doing keto a lot longer than I have, even though I learned about it back in 2012, really, I just I couldn't, I couldn't make that switch. I just couldn't go there. And I would, I would just sabotage myself and sabotage myself, and I couldn't get off the sugar. And I just had to have that extra piece of fruit or that banana or that sweet potato. And so for the newbies out there, or for people who are just skeptical, saying keto is too hard, keto is too restrictive, keto is just a fad. What are the health benefits? And how would you even encourage someone to get started? Yeah, great question. Great question. Because keto is very popular nowadays. And it's a good thing. It's a bad thing. I get it. I get why people have a negative taste in their mouth when they hear the word keto because a lot of people teach it the wrong way. A lot of people are giving it a bad name. Let's understand that keto has been around since our and since humans have existed. So for 2.5 million years, ketosis has been around. It's not a fad. It's not a trend. It's not going away anytime soon. It has longevity because keto is not a diet. Keto is a metabolic process. It's a metabolic state. And it is not about eating a whole bunch of bacon and cheese and fried fats. Yes, that could be keto. But when me and Christina talk about it, we talk about it from a cellular health perspective. So keto is about bringing your carbohydrates low enough so you can now switch to an alternate fuel source, your body fat, and your liver now produces ketones to fuel the brain. Why would we want to do this? Well, our body has 70 trillion cells, give or take. And out of the 70 trillion cells in the body, we only have two options for fuel. Either we're burning sugar in the form of glucose, or we're burning fat and producing ketones. That's it. There is an issue when we are stuck burning glucose. It is a very dirty fuel source for our cells. It creates a lot of cellular smoke, cellular byproducts that compare burning sugar to a Mack truck going through the highway with all the smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe. Not healthy for the environment, not healthy for your cellular environment. When we transition now and we teach the body to burn fat by bringing our carbohydrates low enough and we're burning our own body fat, now the liver is producing ketones. Ketones I compare to a Tesla cruising through the highway, much cleaner for the environment, much cleaner for your cellular environment. So we want to teach the body to do this. As a matter of fact, every single one of our ancestors went through the process of ketosis because their environment dictated them getting into ketosis. Now we have the luxury. We're so blessed to have food readily available to us that we need to actually mimic our ancestors by being intentional because the body is hardwired for the old school. The body doesn't care that we could go on our phone and hit the Uber Eats app and have a millennial knocking on our door in 30 minutes. The body doesn't care about that. The body is hardwired for the old school. So we want to mimic our ancestors. And one final point here for those who say that keto is not normal. Babies that are breastfed go in and out of ketosis because babies that are being breastfed, breast milk has saturated fat, has cholesterol, and it helps the development of the brain, which is mostly fat. And the final point here, as I continue this rant, is that out of the 70 trillion cells in the body, every cell has a lipid bilayer around it, which is called the cell membrane. Life begins and ends at the cell membrane. The cell membrane is the body guard of your cells. It tells your DNA to turn on genes and to turn off genes. And guess what it's made of? Protein, saturated fat, and cholesterol. Because your body loves fat. We are made up of fat. Less than 1% of the body is made up of carbohydrates. So we give ourselves the building blocks of what it wants when we eat high fat, high protein, and that's what keto does for the body. Thank you. Speaking of cholesterol, it's just a battle I fight, I feel like on a daily basis. And I think that my friends, my family, and my clients need to hear from someone else. They need to hear from you. What is the deal with saturated fat and cholesterol? Perfect question. I just got off of 40 days of eating nothing but animal fat and saturated fat and cholesterol by doing the carnivore diet, right? And I did my lab work on day one, I did a full $3,500 lab work panel on myself on day one, which had a full cholesterol panel, inflammatory markers. And I did the same exact lab work on day 40, the last day of carnivore. So let's talk about what happened with my results. I haven't even shared this because I just recorded a video, but I haven't published it. So your audience is getting this data before my audience gets it. My cholesterol is naturally high. I think I have that gene, I haven't tested, but my cholesterol was high on day one. My total cholesterol was around 280, I believe. I got to double check, but it was around upper 200s. LDLs were high, LDL particles were high on day one. Now, my inflammatory markers were not high, which is very important because your lipid panel, which is your cholesterol panel, is one piece of data, right? But we want to look at that in combination of your inflammatory markers, in combination with your A1C, which is your three month average of your blood sugars, which is your fasting insulin, right? This is going to give you the whole picture. So what are the inflammatory markers? So I did a high sensitivity C-reactive protein, which is really good at assessing your risk of a cardiovascular event. I did homocysteine, which is really good at looking at brain inflammation, artery inflammation. I did ferritin, and I think those were the only three in terms of inflammatory markers. And you did triglycerides too. Right, I did triglycerides, but you could also look at A1C as an inflammatory marker, and fasting insulin as an inflammatory marker. So I did all those. My total cholesterol on day one was around 280, and then on day 40, it went up to around 350, right? My LDLs all went up. Triglycerides was around 115, and it stayed the same. But here's the catcher. Because you're listening to that, and you're thinking, oh boy, this guy needs to go on a stat, right? Well, your doctor might say that. But let's look at my C-reactive protein on day one. So first of all, C-reactive protein is assessing your risk of a future cardiovascular event. It's a very accurate marker to see if you're going to have a stroke or a heart attack. My C-reactive protein on day one was 1.2. That's pretty good. Not optimal, but pretty good. On day 40, after eating nothing but saturated fat and protein from animal products, it went to 0.5. Wow. So I essentially reduced my risk of a cardiovascular event by more than 50% by eating nothing but saturated fat and protein for 40 days. Yes. All of the plant-based knowledge out there, the Game Changers movie, and all of that information. Flies in the face of all that. Yeah. And my homocysteine dropped as well. It was nine, and then it went to, I think, 8.6 on day 40. My fasting insulin dropped. My A1C dropped a from 5.2 to 5.1. So yes, cholesterol is one piece of the puzzle, but is it oxidized? Are your inflammatory markers showing that that cholesterol is being lodged into your arteries? If my C-reactive protein went up and my other inflammatory markers went up, then yeah, that's a cause for concern. What I just did, it increased my risk of heart disease. But here's the deal. This is such an empowerful statement. It's a study from Harvard. I believe it was back in 2008 or 2009. It showed that more people die with heart disease, so heart attacks and strokes, with normal to low cholesterol than with high cholesterol. Cholesterol is a Band-Aid. Just because it's found in the arteries, which we know we've been duped by the old Ancel Keys because they found high amounts of cholesterol in heart attack victims, that's like saying, okay, we show up to this building that's on fire, and every time there's a building on fire, there's firefighters, so we blame the firefighters. No. The firefighters are there to repair the fire. The cholesterol is there to repair the inflammation. So the root cause is inflammation. It's not cholesterol. Cholesterol makes your hormones. Cholesterol builds your cell membranes. Cholesterol is so important to the body. So important. Yeah, and I think just the way doctors are trained is that we were attempting to prevent heart disease, but really where that all actually stemmed from before was smoking and then vegetable oils, right? I love that we share that. Vegetable oils are the single worst thing that you could put in your body. What's so terrible about vegetable oils, Ben? Yeah, it's worse than sugar. It's worse than smoking cigarettes. So I'll list all the eight that we want to make sure we avoid, which I know you know of, but I'll list them for your audience. Why are they so bad? Well, the body has no use. Your body cannot burn and use vegetable oils as an energy source. So they get lodged into your cell membranes. So taking you back to biology class, your cells have that lipid bilayer, that cell membrane, but then there's also these attachments to all of your cells called cell membrane receptor sites. The scientific term is integral membrane proteins, but just think of them as kind of like cell phone antenna signals. Your hormones and your nutrients attach to these on your cells, and then it goes into your cells to burn fat to produce energy. When you eat these vegetable oils, they get lodged around your cell membrane and these receptor sites, and now they become inflamed and blocked. So your hormones can't get in, your nutrients can't get in, and disease starts to manifest. There was a study called the Iowa study that showed these unstable fats, like vegetable oils, when they removed it from the diet from these participants, it took 132 days before their cell membrane went back to functioning normal. Isn't that crazy? 132 days. So they're really bad for you. I interviewed a gentleman, Brian Peskin, who asked about this, and I asked him what's worse, smoking cigarettes or consuming these cooked vegetable oils, and he looked at the science, and he said that according to his research, if somebody smoked two packs of cigarettes every single day for up to 28 years, their chances of developing lung cancer is about 16%, one-sixth, and then compare that to somebody who eats these, consumes these cooked vegetable oils every single day for up to 28 years, their chances of developing lung cancer or cancer overall and heart disease is about 86%, right? Wow. What a crazy comparison, right? And we're not saying to smoke cigarettes here, we're saying to avoid these vegetable oils. So what are they? Take notes here or grab a pen and paper. This is very important for you. You also note that when Ben lists this, they don't come from any actual vegetable, so. Yeah, yeah. Actually, they do, the corn and the soy, but the way that they're extracted. Legume, it's a stretch. Yeah, I guess that you're right, legume. Yeah, I guess you're right. They are not really vegetables. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. So here's the list. Canola oil, corn oil, cotton seed oil, grape seed oil, soybean oil, peanut oil, safflower oil, and sunflower oil. Now there's two here. The sunflower oil and the safflower oil could be totally fine if those are organic cold processed, but the rest we want to avoid as much as possible. And instead, we want to switch over to these healthy fats that actually give your cells the building blocks that it needs to do its job. So those are going to be coconut oil is much better. Avocado oil, olive oil, grass fed butter, grass fed ghee, even duck fat and lard are much stable fats, and you can use all those to cook with as well. Awesome. Yeah, thank you for that list. That is really helpful. Okay, so let's chat about some fasting. So can you, do you have to do keto to also do intermittent fasting? Or can people who actually enjoy more carbohydrate also benefit from intermittent fasting? You don't necessarily have to do keto to do fasting. But if you want to maximize your fasting, I would recommend getting metabolically flexible first. Meaning you do keto for a little bit, you just reset your hormones and metabolism teach you to burn fat. And then you can start going back to your higher carbohydrate lifestyle with fasting. The reason I say that is because if you're a pure sugar burner, and you're stuck burning glucose, how do you know? Well, you know, because if you skip a meal, you feel like crap, you are hangry, you're irritable, you're not fun to be around. That's a sign that you're a sugar burner and your metabolism does not have that flexibility to switch to fat burn. So when you hear about fasting, and you just go right into fasting without doing some prep work, like getting metabolically flexible, it's gonna look ugly, just like a couch potato, who sits on the couch for 10 years, decides to do CrossFit the next day, it's gonna look ugly, and they're gonna hurt themselves. So fasting is a powerful tool the same way a chainsaw is a powerful tool. Chainsaw can get the job done and get you amazing results. Chainsaw could also hurt you if you don't know what you're doing. Same thing with fasting. So more important than the tool is the person who wields that tool, you got to know how to use it. So fasting is a muscle that we develop over time. And I believe the way to develop that is to do a little bit of some low carb keto for a short period of time, it could just be two weeks. And then we pair intermittent fasting, and then your body will have the ability to burn through sugar, and then tap into fat. And that's where the magic happens. Awesome. And what is the magic of what are the benefits of fasting for people who don't know, or who believe that intermittent fasting is also another fad? Yeah, well, fasting has also been around since humans have existed. Every religion practices some form of fasting. There are stories about fasting in the 1700s or 1800s. But there was the Greeks, they used to think individuals who had seizures, they didn't know what a seizure was, they thought they were actually possessed by the devil, they thought they had demons inside of them. So what they would do is actually take these people having seizures thinking they had the demon inside of them, and they would put them in a room, lock the door and force them to fast, which forced them to produce ketones. And it cured the seizures. We now know through research, ketones help cure seizures through fasting. So that's a pretty cool story, right? So fasting, the benefits are numerous, I can tell you this, weight loss and fat loss is not even the most important benefit. By the way, weight loss occurs as a side effect of getting healthy. And fasting and keto are ways to get because we don't lose weight to get healthy, we get healthy to lose weight. So we want to make sure we do some intermittent fasting. One of my favorite benefits of fasting is the way it turns my brain on as an entrepreneur at YouTube, Christina, anybody who wants to be super productive and wants to be just focused and clear. They want to recall names, they want to be creative, they want to be able to take problems and turn problems into new opportunities. Fasting helps you do that because it takes massive amounts of energy and resources and blood flow to process food to eat a meal. Think about all that occurs in the body just from eating a meal to be the healthiest meal in the world, but it takes a huge process. And when you are not eating and practicing fasting instead, now you have all those resources and blood flow and it's being diverted to the task at hand to your brain function to crush the day. The body is so freaking smart. It is the world's greatest healer that we have within the body, the inner physician that we have access to every single second of every single day that no pill, no surgery, no supplement can replace what we have in the body. As long as we identify the interference, remove the interference and allow this innate intelligence to do its job, we're going to get all the results we want. And fasting is a way to harness that innate intelligence because the body thinks, oh crap, we've gone 16, 18 hours without food. We are entering a famish and we want to fire up this body to function on all cylinders so we could go out there into the wild and hunt and kill our next meal. The body, again, is hardwired for the old school. It doesn't care about Uber Eats, doesn't care about Whole Foods. It's hardwired this way. So it'll raise what's called counter-regulatory hormones. These hormones run counter to insulin. So insulin is that fat storage hormone that is now at baseline when you're fasting and these hormones run counter to it. You have cortisol, you have glucagon, you have human growth hormone and a few others that actually are, it's your body's way of pumping you full of energy so you can go hunt and kill. But the hack here is that you're not going to do that. You're going to use it to crush your day. So that's one of my favorite benefits, the energy and focus that it gives me to crush my day. Yeah. I know you call it the great land of ketosis. I call it keto high because you're always in such a good mood when you're running on ketones. So there are a lot of questions about what breaks a fast and even different types of fasting. Can you share with us like if you're new to fasting, what would you suggest that people do as a protocol to say to try a fasting day? Yeah, you would definitely do a little bit of some keto or low carb and then once you feel like you're ready, here is how you could start. You could simply just go from eight to eight, meaning by 8pm you're done eating. No more food. You took your last bite. You do your nighttime routine. You go to bed. So you go to bed at 11, giving yourself at least three hours of fasting before bed, which is good. Then you go to sleep and then you wake up in the morning and you wait to have your first meal until 8am. So what you're doing there is a 12 hour fast. That's a really good start. Then what you want to do as you feel good, push out that window, either eat dinner an hour earlier at seven, you're done or break your fast at 9am instead of 8am. Eventually you want to build up to an 18 six schedule. I think most people will benefit from an 18 six schedule, meaning you have an 18 hour fasting window and you have a six hour feasting window. And I say feasting very intentionally. You want to eat until full. You want to have plenty of protein and fat within your eating window. Remind the body that it's not starving. So that would be 12 to 6pm is your eating window. Let's say you have a big lunch and then a big dinner at six o'clock and then the rest of the time you're in a fasted state. That right there is very sustainable and you'll get a lot of benefits just by doing that. Amazing. So what would you be doing in the morning, for example, up until noon until you have a meal? Or is it okay to have liquids? Definitely want to have water and some sea salt. That's important to have during your fasting window. If you want to maximize the benefits of that fast and get the most of that, what's called autophagy cellular repair, so cleanup and recycling, then just water and salt. With that being said, there are some fasting crutches you could throw into the mix. So you could have some coffee. And how do you know if coffee is going to do you well on your fast? Well, you could always test you could test your glucose before you have the coffee or the fatty coffee or the tea. Let's say it's 86, which is pretty good. And then you have your coffee or tea. And then you test 30 minutes after, again, your blood glucose I'm talking about here. If your glucose rises more than five points, then it's breaking a lot of the benefits of the fast. If your glucose stays the same, then you're getting most of the benefits from that fast. It's very individualized. The only way to know is to test your glucose. Yeah. Before coffee would kick me out of ketosis. Oh, I have ketosis. Totally out of ketosis. Wow. So blood sugar, blood sugar issues. Yeah, we're still now to this day. Does it do it? No. Okay. No, not not lately. But but there's so many landmines, right? There's so many landmines unless you are completely preparing your own food. Yeah, so true. Little things can kick you out. Did you use a CGM before? No, I haven't used the CGM you guys is a continuous glucose monitor. I haven't. But it's it's been on my mind as something to try. Would you recommend that? I actually just started using one for the first time. I'm seven days into using one. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I recommend it's great data. I mean, I have it right here on my on my shoulder. All I got to do is go to my phone. And I got to tell you when I put it in, I didn't feel anything. I thought I was going to feel like a pin. I didn't feel anything. Is it that's like injected and it's Yeah, it's like if you can see it's underneath this little like a pad. Yeah, it's a little white piece. But so I tested my glucose right before at 434. So 30 minutes before we started this, it was at 96, which is pretty good because I just ate a meal an hour before. Let's see if it went up from just this conversation. 100 Yeah. Oh, it's amazing how stress does or like yeah, energy, whatever you want to call it. Exactly. So I didn't eat anything, but it went up. Right. So it's interesting. Oh, that's that's cortisol for you. Right cortisol. Right. The mighty cortisol. cortisol gets us gets us through the day. Okay, so what about more serious fasting? I know that you recently did a dry fat. Can you explain to folks what a dry fast is? And why the heck you would do it? The audience is gonna get don't get scared. Yeah, this is a take extreme caution. But yeah, what is dry fasting? Well, obviously you don't eat food, but you also don't drink water. And there's two types of dry fasting. There's the most extreme version, which is called a hard dry fast. And then there's a soft dry fast. Both are extreme, but one is more extreme than the other. I'll explain both. A hard hard dry fast means of course, you're not drinking water, you're not eating food. But also, you are not getting any water to touch your skin. You're not washing your hands. You're not going out in the rain. You're not brushing your teeth because your body will absorb some of that water and hydrate yourself. That's how amazing the body is. And then we have a soft dry fast, no water, no food, but you could brush your teeth, you could take a shower, you go out in the rain, you wash your hands. Why would we want to do this? Well, it's a big stressor to the body. And it forces the body to adapt in a good way. Your body when you force this adaptation, good cells get stronger and bad cells don't adapt. So hypothetically, you could get almost three times the benefit three times the benefit with a dry fast versus a wet fast. So with that being said, if you did a 24 hour dry fast, which I just did, I'll share with you my experience, that could be equivalent to a three day water fast in regards to fat loss and this autophagy process, right? So it's a lot, right? And people ask, how do you measure that? Well, unfortunately, there's no accurate way to measure autophagy unless you go into this very comprehensive lab, which nobody's going to do. But the way that I measure is the way I got the method I got from Dr. Thomas Seyfried, who I know you studied, and has a big influence for you, which is looking at glucose and ketone ratios, right? So what I've seen is glucose drops three times faster and ketones rise three times faster with the dry fast versus a wet fast. So it's very interesting. That is so cool. Was it hard? I mean, was it? You're an experienced faster, you know, you're passing. So was it hard even for you to do a dry fast? It sucked. Yeah, I didn't really enjoy it. I made sure I did it on a Sunday where I had nothing scheduled. I just pretty much read all day and listen to podcasts and took naps. I didn't exercise. I knew it was gonna be one of those days where I just wanted to recover and reset. So I mean, it was a challenge, but it wasn't impossible. I was able to function, I was able to read, I was able to, you know, have cognitive awareness. For me, the issue was not having my coffee in the morning. I love my coffee. So I had a mild headache, I think, not having the caffeine, which shows that I've been drinking too much caffeine. I need to take a longer break. But I didn't get hungry. I really didn't even get that thirsty. And I did it 24 hours with my girlfriend and she did a little bit less, but we did it together. And then I broke the fast and water. I, you know, I had more gratitude for the water, I had more gratitude for that meal, it really helped me appreciate it more, because I deprived myself from it. And here's the difference between fasting and starvation. Starvation, you're forced into not eating, not drinking, you don't have a choice. Fasting, you're choosing to go period of time without food and or water. If you ever, you know, want to know the difference there, that's the difference. You're choosing to do this for health benefits, and the health benefits are tremendous. And the research is clear. Fasting could do well for not just fat loss, but for recycling damaged cells, for getting rid of pre-cancerous cells that could turn cancerous. It's just a powerful tool. Yeah, agreed. I also, you know, for people who worry about entering starvation mode, you know, because they're going to skip a meal or two, or for the day, really, until your body burns through all its fat stores, and then starts burning through muscle, that then you're really in starvation. And there's plenty of fat for us to burn through. Totally. Yeah, according, I was gonna say, non-danger of that. Yeah, according to Dr. Jason Fung, your body won't tap into it, your muscle, until you reach about 5% body fat or less, which is pretty low. So somebody who has 10% body fat, which is pretty lean, they still have about what, 50, 60, almost 100,000 calories worth of energy on their body. So there's no danger, as long as you're not doing it excessively. Like too much of a good thing ends up being a bad thing. So we don't want too much autophagy. We don't want too much fasting. There's a balance That's why I said earlier, feasting. We feast, and we fast. That's the way that we're designed to be. Right. So what would you, when you're breaking a fast like that, what do you break the fast with? What's a smart thing to break the fast with? Yeah, a lot of people do a good fast, and then they break it, and they lose a lot of the benefits. So I'll say the worst. And like pizza and ice cream, I did this great thing. Right. Yeah, if you're doing a longer fast, and you break it with that, that's even that could be dangerous with the refeeding syndrome. So if you're going like three or more days, and you're doing a block fast, which has tremendous benefits, but if you decide to do it, and then break it with a high carb meal, that could be deathly. Okay, so we got to know what we're doing. But if you're doing an intermittent fast, 24 hours or less, and breaking the fast, you don't have to worry about that refeeding syndrome. But we still don't want to break it with a heart high carb meal. So that's the worst way to break the fast with a high carb meal, because the hormones are sensitive when you break a fast. And insulin is going to do a good job at delivering that glucose spike from the carbs into your cells. And if you have fat and carbs, the fat will go along with it, it could slow down fat burning. So the best way to break a fast is with protein and fat, mostly protein and fat, like bone broth, or eggs and avocado or keto smoothie, those are much better options. Great, fantastic. So one of the one of my favorite things about you is that you talk about a positive mindset. And in one of your pillars, you talk about embracing the suck. Yeah, also, you know, being the person that you need to be to, you know, bring in all these amazing things in your life. So can you talk about this embracing the suck piece, I find that a lot of people can have a good strategy, right? Keto is an amazing strategy, intermittent fasting is a fantastic strategy, but they won't execute it because they don't have the right mindset. Absolutely. And you talked about being mentally obese. So can you say more about embracing this suck and how to not be mentally obese? Yeah, this is my favorite thing to talk about. Because you could be doing keto or paleo or it is perfectly with the perfect fasting schedule. But if you don't have it going on in here with that mental six pack, you're not going to be able to heal. Right now we live in a time and place because a lot of stress, there's a lot of changes, a lot of people in transition, a lot of people pivoting. We live in a very character building year. That's the term I'm going to use character building. And old keys do not open new doors. So we need to throw away our old way of thinking our self limiting beliefs. And we need to embrace the suck. So what do I mean by that? Well, when I started my health transformation, and I went from being 250 pounds down to 170. It sucked, right? I went to barbecues and parties. And I said no to chips and beer and I was made fun of I worked out and I was sore. And that discipline sucked. And when you start a new goal, whether it's a health goal, a business goal, whatever venture it is, it's going to suck. It should suck. It should challenge you, it should stretch you. If you're not living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space. Bob Proctor once told me that. So my formula for success is suck, suck, suck, success. We embrace the suck, we push forward, we lean into the suck. And the body will expand, the body will get stronger. It's like a muscle that you're developing. So the biggest thing I see with why people start a new approach for their health, and it doesn't last, yes, you said it, it's having a structure, we want to have a structure. But also even before that, having a reason. Reasons come before results. Reasons before results. Your reason is your why. It's your highest value. Your why is not you want to lose 20 pounds. Your why is not you want to be healthy. It's layers and layers and layers beyond that. Your why is probably the fact that you have grandkids and when they come and visit you, you can only spend about 15 minutes with them before you're exhausted and you just want to have more energy to spend time with your grandkids. Or your why is that you don't have confidence right now. You feel unhealthy and out of shape and your energy levels are low and it's affecting your confidence levels. Or you go on vacation with your family and you're hurting all the time. You want to take a nap and it's causing a relationship problem. That's a why. So get clear on your why. Find a structure that works for you, whether it's working with Christina, working with my, whatever it is, find a structure because structure trumps intention and then you take action. The world does not reward intention takers. The world rewards action takers. So that's it. Reasons before results. Find somebody who can show you the way who could guide you and take action. And when you find and you hit a roadblock because life is going to punch you in the face. Mike Tyson said it best. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. And life is going to punch you in the face. But understand that setbacks are set ups for something great. When you keep your eye on the prize, when you keep your eye on your why, the setbacks are opportunities to grow and to learn. So that's so important right there. I encourage everybody to get clear on your why to find a structure that works for you. That is amazing. That is the best advice ever. Thank you. What's what's the worst advice ever? Ah, the worst. I asked you that. Didn't I ask you that? What's the well, one thing is just count your calories and exercise. I think that was your answer. By the way, it might have been it was it was like eat six times a day. But yeah, there you go. That's another stupid bit of advice. Yeah, calories is also not that super. Yeah, it's stupid. That's a really bad advice that people are still regurgitating to just eat less and move more. The body is not a calculator. It's not a bank account. It's a complex chemistry lab. Do calories matter? Yes. Are calories important? No, they are a distraction to what really matters. What matters are your hormones and your metabolism. And what dictates your hormones and metabolism is the thoughts that you're thinking and the food you're putting in your mouth. So the worst advice is to sell somebody just to eat less and move more. That's only going to give you short term results that result in long term frustration. Yeah, I heard you say on another podcast that even just, you know, social connection and, you know, feeling positive and all of that it has a greater impact on your health than anything else. Yeah, exactly. When you look at the blue zones, which are the these regions all across the world that have the longest lifespan and also health span. They have that in common. They have community. They have purpose. It's so important to live on purpose with your purpose to find out what your purpose is in your purpose is unique to you. Nobody has your purpose. So I recommend reading the book, The Values Factor by Dr. John Demartini. That book has a ton of exercises that changed my life. It'll help you find your purpose. Oh, thank you. I'm looking for my next book. Excellent. Perfect. So we both have a morning cocktail that we recommend. What's in what's in yours? Yeah, I recommend the keto cocktail, which is going to be about 16 ounces of water with some sea salt about a pinch or two of some sea salt. I use Redmond's real salt, which I always have available on demand. And then a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar and a teaspoon of cream of tartar. Cream of tartar has some potassium. So this is just an electrolyte loaded cocktail, which is important when you're doing keto and fasting because you lose some electrolytes. So that's going to really help with your energy level. It's going to help with this electrolyte balance. What is your cocktail? My cocktail is almost the same. It's 16 ounces of water. It's one fresh lemon with two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and then optional electrolyte powder to mask all that. And or it's a teaspoon of sole, which would be the saturated salt water. So the cream of tartar, which has a lot of potassium, is that would you say that's also alkalizing? Is that why or is it just what is the potassium good for? Yeah, I don't know if it's alkalizing. It's a good question. I do know that it has a good amount of potassium. I think one teaspoon has about 500 milligrams. Why that's important is because potassium is one of the most important electrolytes that we have in the body. And we require about 4,700 milligrams of potassium about every single day. So this is a great way to add that into the mix in combination with your green leafy vegetables and your grass fed beeps have some potassium as well. So this is a good way to add that extra potassium in the mix. And why and what's your take on salt? Because so many people that's another great myth that avoid salt. Yeah, you should avoid table salt, the fake salt for sure. But we're talking about real sea salt, which is what I have here. So that's what Christina and I are referring to. It's not table salt. This is actually essential as trace minerals. Salt is imperative for cell function. So we're talking about real salt. We're not talking about table salt. That stuff is the stuff. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Minerals, you guys, they they they're your heartbeat, your muscle contraction, avoiding headaches, muscle cramping. I mean, there's all these amazing benefits, especially when you come off of carbohydrates, because carbohydrates require water to be stored in your body, which is why you would lose so much water weight to when you come off of sugar and then flush out all your electrolytes. So that's really, really important. So I really want to thank you for coming on today and spending spending this time with me. As as we as we sort of like wrap up, how do people get started? I mean, one, they definitely should be watching your YouTube channel and listening to your podcast. Like, hands down, you guys, Ben puts out really good information. There's a lot of terrible information on the internet, too. But first of all, you need to subscribe to his channel right away. Congrats on the over 100,000 now. Yeah, so much that on your website, because it says 70. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna update that. Yeah, I have. Nice. You're well on your way to a million, 2 million. I remember when Thomas DeLauer was, was at 100. Now he's 2 million. So you're, you're, you're right there, bud. Thank you, Christina. I appreciate that. And okay, wait, hang on. So where Where can we find you? Besides YouTube and the podcast? Like, where are you going to be? Tell us about your Keto Camp Academy. Tell us. Well, I'm doing a free webinar this Friday on fasting. So it's August 7. If you want to sign up for that, there's some spots available over at Ben Azadi webinar.com. That's called the art of fasting. I'm going to do a masterclass on fasting, share a little bit more about my story. My Keto Camp Academy is my online health coaching program, where we have hundreds and hundreds of members who get a structure, speaking of which, have over 200 videos in the academy that you cannot find anywhere else. A to Z Keto, the most comprehensive health coaching program that I've come across. So it's monthly coaching. There's two group coaching calls, we have masterclasses, we do zoom workouts, and that you can learn more over at Keto Camp Academy calm, and then just type in my name and any social media platform. I'll pop right up. I'm very accessible. And I just love to share this information any way I can. So I want to acknowledge you, though, before we wrap up, and say, thank you for what you shared. I mean, you're doing incredible work. I'm grateful to have connected with you. I know that we have some plans. I don't know if you want to announce it. But you have some plans for next year, having an event, and I'm grateful to be a part of that. And I just love what you're doing. You are a wealth of knowledge. And you're so authentic. And I'm grateful for you to consume. So thank you for what you do. Yeah, you guys. So no, this, this will be the first anyone's hearing about it. But for Keto Symposium 2021, Ben is on our speaker lineup, he is going to be here with us in Greenwich, September 25 2021. So mark that on your calendar. Please everybody come out for that like live events. Like we all miss them. sporting events, concerts. I went to a comedy show recently, and the poor comedians are trying to do their jokes without being able to really hear or read the audience. I felt so bad for them. But it was so much fun to be an event. And we just, we need the world to kind of come back to a semi normal situation here and and come together and be together. And we're also going to be in Las Vegas together in October of 2021. So let's look forward to for next year. And that's that's going to be super fun. Yeah, it's gonna be a blast. Please make it out there. I'd love to meet you. And those live events are just extraordinary. They're so much better than live streaming. They're just a whole nother level. And right now we are we need that we are we are craving that live connection. So 2021 we're going to be connected in in Connecticut and also in Las Vegas. I can't wait. Yeah, I mean, I feel like you learn so much more. It takes your personal game to another level. When you you feel immersed in a in a in a conference type of setting. I agree. The energy about it. Yeah. Energy is completely different when you're there in person versus a computer screen. So absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Ben, thanks again. And, and we'll we'll we'll be talking soon. Yeah, thank you. I hope your audience enjoyed it. And I appreciate your work. And we'll talk. Yeah. And like these guys were super quiet. Anyone who's still still on the call if they have any questions, please type them in the chat. Do you have any questions for Ben? I'm not sure I can see my like my Facebook live if there were any questions. Yeah, so I see john, Kevin, Tom, thank you, john, Kevin and Tom for joining us. I hope that was valuable. And yeah, there were some other people and they must have dropped off. But they topped off when we talked about the drive fast and like, wait a minute, what is this out of here? That's, that's for crazy people. Um, I just I'm not, I would say I would not categorize myself as an experienced fasting person. And it's the concept of doing a drive fast to me is so, you know, just that is amazing. So maybe one, you know, someday, someday I can graduate to that. But I think it's, it's, it's like a lot of things you have to train, train up because it would probably be too much stress for your average bear, right? Yeah, absolutely. Your 12 hour intermittent fast and graduate, you know, graduate slowly up to 18 hour 18, six, and then maybe do a liquid day. And maybe you're doing a black fast. And then, you know, you know, and so on. Exactly on something that intense. You train for it. Exactly. And then you go for it. You know, you can do 12 hours, 14 hours drive by every fast has its benefit. There's no such thing as a failed fast. So yeah, that's exactly a good plan right there. You build that muscle. There's no such thing as a failed fast. No, I don't. I don't believe so. I mean, I think every Yeah, every every fast has its benefit. So if you say I'm going to do an 18 hour water fast tomorrow, you do 14. You're a success, right? You just build from that you just beat yesterday. So yeah, there's no there is no there's no fail. I love that. Okay. All right, my friends. You are Christina. Thank you. Have a great day.