Remember, fasting is a stress.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Exercise is a stress on the body too, but you have to sort of balance it; you don't want to stress yourself all the time.

So when you're going longer (and that's like five days), then perhaps a little bit of calories may be okay.

Always stick to natural foods, low in carbohydrate, especially refined carbohydrates.

But when you're going only a day, then it's no problem.

So the last fasting reset, what I typically do is I don't eat anything for the first two days and then the last few, then I'll have a little bit.

Usually I take like 3-400 calories.

Day three, day four I typically take a little bit of vegetables, and remember I'm taking a little bit of bone broth, so I'm probably getting like 50 calories of that.

[music] Hello to our podcast listeners.

This is our monthly Q&A with our very own Dr.

Jason Fung, where he tackles questions submitted by our TFM Community members.

And I have an exciting announcement for next month.

Patrice Mitchell, who is one of our Fasting Method Community mentors, will be joining us for our monthly Q&A with Dr.

Fung.

Five years ago, Patrice and I have the opportunity, the honor, to interview Dr.

Fung about his then newly published book, The Cancer Code.

That was before these webinars became podcasts.

With October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month and marking the five year anniversary of this important book's publication, we thought it was the perfect time to revisit this crucial topic.

So, Dr.

Fung, I'm excited to talk to you about the new bone broth.

Yeah, this is very exciting.

We've been working on it, Megan and I.

I got my son to help, Matthew, and his friend.

So what we've done is-- so I was just doing fasting the other day and I thought, oh, I really needed this product.

But what it is is a powdered bone broth.

So I make my own bone broth, normally, okay?

I'm making some now actually, but it's a pain because it takes 24 hours.

Actually, it takes me a little more because I throw in the chicken and then I throw in the salt and stuff, but I cook it for like 18 hours, and then I stick it in the fridge to take off the fat because I don't like it.

So it's almost like three days from when I start the whole process.

You know, and I do make enough so that I can freeze it, but it's a pain.

So I find it very useful, but the problem is, when you look at a lot of the bone broths that are out there, they have all this other stuff in it.

You know, and that doesn't give you control over it.

So, you know, we were talking, Megan and I, about how we're going to make fasting easier for these five-day reset challenges and stuff, which I actually think are super, super useful for people to do because I'm doing them and I actually feel a lot better.

What we've done is we've worked with a company to create this product, which is basically powdered bone broth, which means that you just open the package, you put it in (it's a scoop) hot water, stir it up for a minute, and that's it.

And there's only one ingredient in this bone broth.

[laughs] It's just chicken bones, pasture-raised chicken bones.

And that's it.

So that's going to make it super, super easy.

There's not even salt in it.

And I said, "Well, how about salt?" And they're like, "Well, you know, let people do their own thing." And I'm like, "Okay, this makes a lot of sense," because a lot of the powdered bone broths that I see at Whole Foods and so on, they have everything all mixed up for you.

So yes, if you want to give it a bit of extra flavor with carrots, or with onions, or with whatever, you're going to have to boil that in yourself.

You're going to have to add the salt yourself, but then you can do whatever you want with it.

So that's the advantage of it.

And then you know what's going into your body, right?

And so if you want some of those other bone broths, they're out there, but this is just chicken.

What I've done with it is-- I can use it straight, but usually I have to put a little salt in.

And then what I do sometimes now is I actually boil some vegetables in there (some Shanghai bok choy, actually) and then that gives it a bit more flavor.

So it gives you the flavor of the vegetables, plus you've got the chicken.

And then I add salt and sometimes miso which, again, gives you that salt but a bit more umami flavor as well.

So it goes really well.

I actually find it really good during fasting.

But if you don't like miso, if you want to just use salt, if you want to use more pepper, or if you want to use whatever you want, right?

Ginger is another thing that I'll throw in there.

Because it's powdered, I don't-- I can cook it and in like, you know, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, I'll get all the flavor out of the ginger or the onions or whatever, rather than having to cook the broth, which I'm actually currently doing today.

But instead of having to cook it for 18 hours, I can get it and use it today.

So that's available now.

The product is called Aeira and the website is called drinkaeira.com.

The other thing we did is to create two teas which are, again, for fasting.

So this is just a green tea and then there's one for night time.

The green tea is a-- I think it's a passion fruit green [passion peach green] and then there's a lemon ginger one as well.

And both of them are really good.

They're actually what I drink.

And that's why we went back to the manufacturer and we said, "Let's get this because I'm using these.

I like these.

Let's get these out there." Green tea helps a lot with fasting, I find.

And then there's this lemon ginger tea that I find really good, especially in the summer.

It's got a little bit of licorice and stuff.

I actually brew it and then I stick it in the fridge, and it's great all summer long.

I've been drinking it basically all summer.

So both of those are available now as well.

They're loose leaf teas.

We don't have the individual packets yet.

We're just starting it.

So I think it's really going to help during the five-day reset because then you can get your teas, you can get your green teas, you can get your bone broth without having to make a giant batch at home.

So I'm really excited to see how that can, you know, make the fasting easier.

Fasting will never be easy, but at least we can make it easier by, one, supporting each other, two, by doing it together, and, three, with these other things that will be able to help.

So I'm really excited about this.

I think it's really going to be of benefit.

So I have a couple questions for you.

First of all, I'm excited about this because, as a migraine sufferer, one of the issues I have, especially if I already buy store bought bone broth, is it can have a certain amount of MSG in it and not have to list it because you just don't have to list it.

That's the way the Food and Drug Administration works if it's a small amount.

It's enough to give me a migraine, and so that's another reason why I don't use a lot of bone broth unless I have my friend make it from scratch.

So I'm excited about that.

The other thing is, is that I was so pleased that we took a vote on the teas, whether they would have sweeteners added or not, and our members voted no, they wanted it all natural.

So, yes, all of this is natural, Dr.

Fung.

Yeah.

The teas we were always going to leave unsweetened because I actually drink it mostly unsweetened as well.

It was going to be this other product that we're starting to work on because we're trying to get these out, but it was the electrolytes, actually.

So a lot of electrolytes, you know, have sweeteners or whatever.

And what we were going to do, which we haven't, we're still working on all this stuff, is going to be not sweetened at all, in which case you can add your own.

Because you can buy stevia if you like stevia, right?

I don't mind.

If it works for you, right, then you can add stevia if you want to, but you can buy it and just add it yourself.

Or you can add honey, or you can add maple syrup, or whatever, a little bit of sugar if you want to, rather than us putting it in.

And I don't think that product exists right now, a completely unsweetened-- because if you look at most of the electrolytes, they actually have quite a bit of sucralose, I think, most of the time.

The other thing is I think the bone broth is mostly just shipping to the US right now just because of-- the problem is that the Canadian-- you know, and I feel this because I'm Canadian, right?

The Canadian thing is different because to import it to Canada you need completely different packaging.

You need to have French and English.

You need to all have all sorts of things.

So I saw in the comments, "Can you get it in Canada?" Unfortunately not because we've been trying to get it done, right?

It's actually been like months and months.

We've had to get, you know-- because you have to get all these things approved.

I didn't realize what an involved process it was, but you have to get all these things approved.

You have to source it, you have to get somebody to make it, then you have to package it and make sure that it follows all the packaging laws.

And then you have to get a distributor and all that.

So it's been a bit of a work, but to do it for Canada is even more because you actually have to change all the packaging so that you have French and English, and then you have to find a different distributor because you don't want to pay import duties to go into it.

So unfortunately it won't be in Canada for now, but, you know, at some point we we may do that.

So yes, sorry, for Canadians, it's just...

Crazy.

Unfortunately.

So this person actually has a question about-- because this is what I'm excited to use it for with this new reset diet that we're trying at TFM, that is having a lot of success.

You can use a bone broth for that, so that's great.

This person says, "Can people tweak

the 5:2 Diet with the two nonconsecutive restrictive calorie days as full, fast days of water only and reap the same, if not better, results or must food in the form of nutrient-dense, low-calorie be consumed?

Is it easier to just fast and avoid food altogether on those two nonconsecutive days?

Is there any harm or advantage to doing that?" I think you can absolutely do a full fast on those days.

I think you'll get more benefits and I don't think there's any risk to doing that.

So yeah, absolutely, you can do that.

When you're going longer, when you're going for five days, then people start to question whether or not it's better to take a little bit.

And this is where some of the data from the fasting-mimicking diet, they use-- it's about 500 calories once a day for five days sort of thing.

It's roughly that much.

What they're saying is that it's actually a little bit better because it's not as stressful on the body.

Because remember, fasting is a stress.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Exercise is a stress on the body, too, but you have to sort of balance it.

You don't want to stress yourself all the time.

So when you're going longer (and that's like five days), then perhaps a little bit of calories may be okay.

Always stick to natural foods low in carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates.

But when you're going only a day, then it's no problem.

So the last fasting reset, what I typically do is I don't eat anything for the first two days and then, for the last few, I'll have a little bit.

Usually I take like 3-400 calories.

Day three, day four, I typically take a little bit of vegetables.

And remember I'm taking a little bit of bone broth, so I'm probably getting like 50 calories of that.

The bone broth is interesting.

When you look at the ingredients, the food ingredients, it's actually like 12g of protein, zero carbs and zero fat.

So it's actually like all protein in there, which is pretty nice even if you just wanted to take it by itself.

But yeah, absolutely, you can take that.

And the other thing I forgot to mention with the previous question about having the additives.

Yeah, the thing is that there are a lot of additives.

Once you start looking into the manufacturing, there's lots of stuff that you can put in without telling people.

And that was the problem with LMNT, if you remember.

They put in maltodextrin and didn't tell anybody they had maltodextrin because it fell under the sort of amount.

And everybody said, "Oh, what's the big deal?" It's like the big deal is they never told us, right?

And that's something we're committed to not doing because we learned from a lot of people were upset about that, right?

And it's not that there's a lot of maltodextrin, it's very small, but it's the same with MSG.

Some people don't react well to these things, so don't put it in.

Yes, the product is not going to be as sweet or taste as good, but at least we're telling you.

If you want to add some sweetener, if you want to add some maltodextrin, go ahead.

Put it in yourself.

It'll make it taste sweeter and probably a little bit better.

We'll put the flavoring in, but not the other one.

That's down the line, right, for electrolytes.

But yeah, same thing for the broth and same thing for the teas.

There's not going to be any sweeteners.

The teas are nice.

They're all organic.

If you look at the ingredient list it's completely there.

On the drinkaeira website, they have all their ingredients.

We have all the ingredients there.

And you can see there's nothing dodgy about the whole thing because we just don't want to-- we just don't want to do that.

This is not what we would do ourselves, right?

So why would we sell it to other people?

So that's the thing.

I'm the same way with my collagen.

People are like, "Oh, they've got snickerdoodle collagen." And you know, I'm like, "Yeah?

I don't need that." [laughter] I don't think I'm low on that ingredient, that nutrient in my body.

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[music] I've got another question here for you that kind of leads into this question.

They said, "I've seen videos of Dr.Fung endorsing the fasting-mimicking diet.

Does he, Dr.

Fung, advocate it for type two diabetes?

I am asking because of the plant-based, carb items in the kit, like soups, crackers, and bars, and the potential spike in insulin and glucose consuming those." Yeah, the fasting-mimicking diet-- so, one, yes, I do think it's good.

And the reason is that they've done probably more studies than anybody else, right?

So I actually didn't think it was great at the beginning.

I thought, you know, why take calories when you're fasting, right?

Just fast.

But to their credit, they've actually done a ton of studies.

They've put out like 20+ studies on the fasting-mimicking diet.

So when they say that they're beneficial for-- and there's actually a ton of benefits, including kidney disease, which I was like, wow, kidney disease.

Not diabetic kidney disease, regular kidney disease.

I'm like, that's a crazy thought to me that they could be beneficial.

But certain types of- you know, for type two diabetes, for weight loss, for rejuvenation.

So they had one study which I thought was crazy because it reduced their biological age by, I don't know, like 1.7 years or something like that, right?

It's like, Holy crap, that's amazing.

Kidney disease.

There's all kinds of studies they've done and have shown benefit.

So I hear your question because I'm like, I probably wouldn't have done that myself (put in these crackers and carbs and stuff), but it's very little, right?

Because you're still only talking about 500 calories or less.

And compared to the regular diet of 2000 calories or 200g of carbs, it's still a lot less.

So for most people, it is going to be of benefit.

But again, if you were to say, you know, where's the data?

It's like they have the data, right?

So how can I say it's better my way because I don't have the data.

So yes, I do think that they've done a great job showing that that sort of thing is beneficial.

They've actually been very instrumental in setting our TFM Reset Challenge, because, if the science says that this is a good thing to do, then we should be doing it.

Do I need to be paying $300 every month?

No!

I think I could do something very similar and still get like 95 or more percent of the benefits, because we tend to be lower carb, right?

So I think that if we do what we are doing, which is with the bone broth, with the teas, and a little bit of vegetables and that kind of thing, and we of course have always done more of the fat fasting, right, so the avocadoes and that kind of thing.

So we're slightly different than the fasting-mimicking diet, but I think that I'll always support the science, which is that their stuff actually does work.

I think we're going to do it a bit better, and a lot cheaper, and use real foods.

You know, I don't want to use ultra-processed foods.

I want to use real foods.

I want to use more fat rather than carbohydrates.

But I can't say that we have data.

They do.

So therefore, yes, I do support them because it's like, hey, if they've got a product which is helping people, which they've shown and proven can help people, then I will support it.

There's a couple of downsides, which I've always thought, which is the cost is probably, I think, the biggest downside, because I don't think it's- you know, they have to do it to do the studies and all this stuff, right, but that's not my problem.

And two, is to be a little bit less carb heavy is what I would do.

And that's why this is what we do.

It's not the fasting-mimicking diet.

It's sort of based on the science around it.

Yes.

I have had several clients that have been on Prolon and they've done an excellent job.

And I highly recommend those of you who can find podcast where Dr.

Fung and Valter Longo are talking to one another.

It's fascinating to see these two friends and heavyweights and very knowledgeable in this area discuss the topic.

So look for those podcasts.

Yeah, we try not to get to sort of into our own thing and saying that everything else is bad because there are lots of different ways to do things, and we just have to make sure that we're giving everybody the most, you know...

Find what works for you and works for your pocketbook.

Yeah.

Really.

Definitely.

This person has a question for you, and I understand it's a big topic.

There's a lot of nuance to it.

"While an individual approach to managing and/or reversing diabetes is best from a diet perspective, is it generally better to have a diverse diet and manage diabetes with medication if needed, rather than restricting your diet to avoid medication?" Yeah, there's a lot of nuance in that, and it depends a lot on type one versus type two diabetes.

Because remember, type two diabetes is what we focus on.

But there's a lot of actually type-one-like diabetes in adults.

It's called LADA or latant autoimmune disease in adults.

And it's actually much more common than we originally expected.

So there's a lot of nuance in that.

And I find it a lot, actually, in my practice because I'm looking for it more specifically.

So the whole thing is that diverse diet is sort of this-- it could mean a lot of things, right?

Diverse in terms of having Cheetos in there is not good, but diverse in other ways is good.

You really want to stick to natural foods.

You have to understand that if the foods are natural, and you're cutting your carbs, and you're doing the fasting, a lot of people won't need the medications.

And there's no controversy.

Dietary treatments are always the first, second, and third line treatments.

Then after that is medication, right?

The problem is that, when you go to the doctor, he doesn't even talk to you about the diet and just goes, boom, right into medications.

But that's not the way they teach.

Everybody agrees.

Every medical school teaches you that it's all about diet, all about diet, all about diet.

But the problem is that, when they go into practice, it's all about drugs because that's the way that the medical system is set up.

You get your five-minute appointment with the doctor.

He doesn't have an hour to talk to you about your diet, see what you're eating, what you're not eating, what you should be eating, whatever, right?

So therefore, it's like, "Here's a prescription for metformin," or whatever they choose to give you.

So, you know, there's a lot of nuance on that, but the basics are still the same.

So make sure it's type one versus type two diabetes.

Always start with the diet.

Diverse is not necessarily good.

It could be good, but mostly it's going to be about reducing ultra-processed foods and also adding the fasting if you need to.

Yeah, thank you for that.

This is a question that's been going around in our Zoom rooms a lot.

And I know Megan wrote an article on Should You Do One Meal A Day, where she talks about the staggered OMAD as opposed to doing OMAD every single day.

But the question that's been coming up repeatedly is, "Can one, or, more importantly, should one practice OMAD to reverse insulin resistance or type two diabetes?

Is there a nutritional concern here?

Is the length of time that you do OMAD or can do OMAD a factor?" You know, should you do OMAD for six months in order to reverse type two diabetes?

Yeah, I don't see a problem with that.

And there's a lot of people who do OMAD like for years and years and years.

It really depends on what that meal is.

Make sure that it's full of nutrients and vitamins and all that sort of thing.

One meal a day is perfectly fine if you want to do it.

Some people sort of plateau, and that's where you can switch it up to try and get some more things.

But to reverse hyperinsulinemia, absolutely.

You can certainly do that.

It's not a problem.

They were directing this specifically at people who didn't need to lose weight.

You certainly still can.

People have maintained themselves on one meal a day for years and been fine.

You can certainly eat all the nutrients you need in one meal.

If that meal is ultra-processed junk food, then, no, you're not going to get the nutrients, the vitamins, the minerals, and all that, but that's true if it's three meals a day.

Just because you're eating three meals a day, if you're eating all McDonald's, then you're still probably not getting the nutrients you need.

So the same applies.

Make sure you're eating natural foods, unprocessed foods, you know, avoiding the ultra-processed foods because a lot of ultra-processed foods strip out a lot of nutrients.

Eating meat tends to make it easier.

So vegetarians have a tougher time just because meat is one of the most highly nutrient-dense foods.

So vegetarians tend to have a bit of trouble with that, actually.

The amount of nutrients in vegetables tends to be a lot less than meat.

As a matter of fact, the International Diabetes Foundation recently came out with a new category, type five diabetes, specifically linked to childhood malnutrition.

And we're not seeing that yet.

We're not expecting to see that in first world countries, but I'm kind of wondering, is that going to happen if everybody-- all they eat is Cheetos and Doritos and all of that stuff.

This is specifically linked to nutrient deficiency.

And so I thought that was interesting.

I'm like, what's coming down the road?

Yeah.

And really ultra-processed foods is one of the hottest topics out there.

Maybe because of Robert F Kennedy and Maha stuff, but I actually think it's a very important thing, because if you look at the difference in the Western diet versus any other diet, it's really the amount of processing that happens.

Most other countries in the world have much less processed foods than the United States.

It's about 70% for the United States.

And in places like Italy, it's like 15%.

It's quite striking.

And Italy is a modern European nation.

They love their food and, you know, they just eat a lot less ultra-processed foods.

So none of these bars and stuff, meal supplements and all this stuff, right?

When you're eating a meal, eat a meal.

I think that's where things are coming, a lot of research coming down along those lines.

A lot of countries that have-- the government pays for your health care insurance, they have stricter guidelines on food.

So they don't allow all of these additives and chemicals and everything because they're trying to do preventative health on people.

So it's interesting.

Yeah.

And really, if you look at what the United States allows versus Europe, especially, it's a lot.

The American government allows all kinds of stuff to go into your food that the Europeans don't.

Canada's in between.

So there's a bunch of stuff we don't allow.

So we're not as good as the Europeans, but we're not as bad as the Americans.

And it's like but people don't even want this stuff, right?

It's like, it's crazy that we allow it into there and we allow like, oh, you can put it in without telling anybody because it's under this amount.

But it doesn't have to be a lot of MSG for somebody to react to it or whatever, right?

Bio individuality.

Yes, definitely.

There's a group of mothers (I've forgotten their name) that will show the back of, like the mac 'n' cheese box in America, and then compare it to one in Europe.

And it's half the ingredients and it's like, wow!

I saw that just recently for Activia yogurt too.

I saw a post...

Oh yeah.

And it was the same.

Activia yogurt in Europe has four ingredients and like ten in the United States.

And it's all crap, right?

It's carrageenan and guar gum and all this stuff.

It's like, why are you putting it in there?

It's yogurt, right?

So you think you're buying healthy, but you're actually not.

And that's scary.

I think that's important.

And if you go to these websites like Diet Doctor that have satiation indicators for a food, yogurt that has all these ingredients has zero satiation.

Whereas if you have organic, grass-fed, Greek yogurt, it's got like 85% satiation.

You know, so there's a difference in your satisfaction in what you're eating too, so that you're not hungry.

Anyway, we could talk on this all hour.

Let me get to some more questions here.

So this person says, "Do I have to leave the weights workout for the last day of a prolonged fast and eat after the workout?

Or can I work out with weights every day during a five-day fast without a problem, and consider fasting after the heavy-weight workout?" So I think there's a factor in here on if you're fat-adapted too or not, right, Dr.

Fung?

You can workout every day.

I mean, when I do my fast, I just do everything I normally do.

For building muscle, generally, they talk about you fast and then you train and then you eat.

So, yeah, if that's your goal, then you may gain a little bit more.

Like, if you're fasting for a long time and then you're deciding should I eat and then work out, or should I work out and then eat, then, yeah, work out and then eat because you want to take advantage of the really high growth hormone that's there.

It's got your body primed for it.

You work out and then you take all the protein (that's what you want to eat if you're trying to build more muscle), then you take the protein and you get extra muscle building from that.

It applies to shorter fasts as well, 24hour fasts, but you get the most growth hormone effect after about 4 or 5 days.

So you can still work out during that time, because, again, your body will find the calories that it needs to do your exercise.

So if you become fat-adapted-- the idea is that your muscles can use glucose or fat.

If you work out, you can burn off your muscle glycogen.

And then if you're not fat-adapted, then you will feel weaker.

And people say, "Oh, they do these studies.

And, you know, we found that when people fast, they're not as strong." Yeah, because your muscle-- and remember the muscle is a separate compartment.

So the muscle glycogen is only for the muscles, right?

So even if you deplete your glycogen in your liver, your muscle still has glycogen.

But if your muscle has never used fat as a fuel source for, you know, 50 years, then you do the study and you say, "Okay, I fast, I deplete my muscle glycogen," you will be weaker because your muscles don't know how to use the fat.

It takes a few weeks before you get that back.

But then they do these studies-- and I see these studies published all the time, and they're like, "I told you, fasting make you weak." It's like, no.

It's like running.

If you've never run for 50 years and then do a, you know, half marathon, you'll feel terrible and you might hurt yourself badly.

You need to take it easy because you haven't done it in a long time.

Same thing with the fasting.

You've got to get your muscles adapted to that fat so that, when they run out of the muscle glycogen, they can switch over to fat.

And they've shown-- they've done muscle biopsy studies where they've shown there's all these changes in the genetics.

Various genes are being turned on, various genes are being turned off so that you develop the ability to use fat as a fuel, but it doesn't happen if you do it once.

So you will be weaker because your muscles are trying to use glycogen.

They haven't yet developed the genes and the ability to use fat as an efficient source of fuel, and then you switch over.

But they have all these ultra marathoners who do super low carb and Tour de France winners and all this who have done that.

So yeah, absolutely, it can be done, but don't expect it to be right away.

It just doesn't happen.

And I don't know why you would expect it to, but they do these studies and I'm always thinking like, do you have any common sense?

You take somebody who's never fasted, and then you fast them and say how terribly they've done.

You have to acclimate.

Definitely.

Last year, when I was doing 48s, 66s.

And so I would go to my trainer and lift heavy weights in the fasted state.

I'd be about 42 to 48 hours fasted.

And then on the second one, I would continue the fast.

To do the 66 I would continue on.

And his big surprise was (because he works with older people - 55 and older) that he's like, "Wow, your heart rate recovery is so much faster than my other clients.

You return to baseline of your heart after you've been lifting all these heavy weights." And I'm like, "That's because I'm fat adapted." You know, and the heart loves-- you think the brain loves ketones.

[laughter] The heart loves ketones.

Yeah.

It's actually quite stunning now, all these people talking now about the ketones and the heart is-- one, it's very important, but you see these anecdotal stories of people just doing way better after they've gone to that.

And then now with all the metabolic psychiatry that Chris Palmer, and Bret Scher, and all these people talking about, it's like, wow, I never expected that.

It's stunning how some people respond.

Like, some people respond very well.

Not everybody, I guess, but so many people respond so well.

It really opens a whole new paradigm of thinking about what the problem actually is and can you effect it with foods and so on.

So really exciting stuff about that for sure.

Dr.

Ben Bikman talks about going into at least a low level of nutritional ketosis once a day, even if you cycle out of it.

Can you take one last question?

It's on ketones.

Yeah, yeah.

So, "Is long-term ketosis bad for the body?

Some doctors are saying that it is and that you should carb cycle, but are there any studies supporting this?" I don't know that it's bad for you.

I think that cycling is-- if you want to do it, I think it's perfectly reasonable.

Remember, people have been eating carbs for a long time, so your body can certainly handle a certain amount of carbs.

What happened in 1977 is they said we should eat 55 to 60% carbs.

That was the dietary guidelines for Americans.

So it wasn't that we wanted to eat more carbs, they told us to eat more carbs.

But if you're eating a low level of carbs, and then none, and then low, and then none, it probably is okay because people have been doing it for quite some time.

So if you want to stay in ketosis for a long time, I don't actually think there's a problem.

I mean, there's talk about people who are on the carnivore diet and stuff.

So if you ever look at Shawn Baker, I mean, he looks a lot better than most people, right?

So he's obviously in long-term ketosis.

I don't know how many years, it's been probably like 6 or 7 years that he's been carnivore.

And you know, that's long-term ketosis, right?

Everybody told him he'd drop dead of a heart attack.

I always joke because, you know, it's like people told him all kinds of stuff.

I remember talking to him when he just sort of started and stuff and, you know, I said, "Yeah, I don't see a problem," right?

Because he's an orthopedic surgeon, so he knows it wouldn't have been a problem.

But he asked me because we're both doctors, and I'm like, "I don't see that it's a problem either." So yeah.

Now, you know, what is it six or seven years later.

Like, obviously, he's not dead of a heart attack.

[laughs] He's doing just fine.

Better than fine, better than most of us, I have to say.

So yeah.

Well, thank you so much Dr.

Fung.

This has been fun, a fun podcast.

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