Longevity Project II: How to Begin Fasting
Why I Practice Intermittent Fasting
I practice intermittent fasting every day. This means I will often confine my eating to 16/8 (sixteen hours fasting/eight hours eating window), 20/4, and occasionally 23/1 (also called OMAD - one meal per day). Unlike most people who are concerned with their weight, I am most concerned with cognitive decline. I have my DNA results from 23andme.com, and it shows that I have a slight risk of late-onset Alzheimer's.
Although scientists don’t yet know exactly how the APOE e4 variant works, it is associated with an increased risk for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Based on your genetic result, you have one copy of the e4 variant, which is not uncommon; more than 25% of people in the United States have at least one copy of this variant. People with this result have a slightly increased risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, but most people with this result will not develop the condition. In the general population, about 11-14% of people may develop Alzheimer’s disease by the age of 85. For people with your genetic result, it’s estimated that up to 20-30% may develop Alzheimer’s by age 85.
Family history can play an important role; if a close family member has been diagnosed with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, then a person may be more likely to develop the condition. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes are also associated with an increased risk, so it’s important to try to keep your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar at healthy levels.
While none of my close family members have been diagnosed with late-onset Alzheimer's disease, prevention is always better than a cure. The one thing that I can control through diet is to maintain healthy blood sugar levels.
According to the Diabetic Society and mainstream medical advice, one should eat small meals multiple times per day. Shortly after you eat, your insulin levels spike to metabolize the sugars in your food. Eating numerous times during the day means having elevated insulin levels for most of the day. Eating within a small window during the day causes insulin to spike for only a short time.
How to Start
I can say from experience that having a rigid Keto diet for at least three days before fasting makes it more accessible. The “The Original Ketogenic Diet” was devised to treat epilepsy. It entailed severe curtailment of carbohydrates. Most diets are predominantly carbohydrates with a minimum of fats. Keto flips the equation. Only 4% of the calories come from carbs, 6% from protein and 90% from fat. Typically a Keto diet will have less than 80 calories per day from carbohydrates. A "rigid" or "hard" Keto diet will attempt to push carbs to less than 20 calories per day.
As an example, in 1 cup of Mixed Salad Greens, there is 1.76g of carbohydrates. However, dietary fibre is a "carb" but is not digested as a carb. This means that Mixed Salad Greens have only 1.76-1.1 = 0.65 carbs per one cup. I will discuss later the importance of eating 8-10 cups of leafy green vegetables per day. Eating your daily requirements of leafy greens accounts for 6.5 grams.
One cup of sliced avocado has 12.45 - 9.8 = 2.65g
As one can see, there are no carbohydrates in meats. I encourage everyone to visit https://www.nutritionvalue.org/ and examine the Carbohydrates, Proteins and Fat levels in your typical day's meal plan.
Ghrelin is an orexigenic hormone that is secreted from the stomach, and it signals the part of the brain called the hypothalamus to release two orexigenic neuropeptides called neuropeptide Y (NPY) and agouti-related peptide (AGRP). At this point, you start to feel hungry, and your stomach won’t stop growling (which can become an awkward ordeal when the class is quiet). Assuming the body responds and fills the stomach with food, ghrelin levels start to decrease and anorexigenic messengers enter the scene to suppress appetite.
However, the research study suggests that some microbial peptides are suspected to have keys that are identical or very similar to the key found in ghrelin, which creates a possibility for chemical messengers other than ghrelin to induce hunger.
I want you to consider the phrase "some microbial peptides are suspected to have keys that are identical ... to the key found in ghrelin". This statement means that some microbes in your stomach can create hunger pangs. You receive signals to eat, not because you are hungry but because the microbes are hungry. These microbes thrive on the sugars in our diets. My going full Keto or Carnivore for three days kills the predominance of these microbes. Doing so will make the fasting experience easier.