Why Intermittent Fasting Isn’t A Miracle Diet - Dr Rhonda Patrick

talk to me about Tim restricted feeding because for a long time that was like the hot new girl in school and everyone loved it and it was really interesting but it seems like the trend is swaying at least a little bit away from Tim restricted feeding especially on a morning so what's your how do you conceptualize all of this now um so time restricted feeding or time restricted eating you know it the it's a form of intermittent fasting right and I think that many people when they think about intermittent fasting they think okay well I just need to skip a meal I need to like have a period I need to extend my period of time where I'm not eating and the easiest way to do that is skip skip a meal um and that's kind of what happened so you know Dr sain Panda good friend of mine big you know circadian biologist researcher does a lot of research on time restricted feeding and um you know we talked about this like almost 10 years ago essentially there's a circadian reason to eat your food within a certain time window and then have a period of rest and fasting right so everything on our body runs on a clock and including our metabolism and um you know so so we're most insulin sensitive in the morning least sensitive insulin sensitive in the evening right so you know your blood glucose levels will go much higher with the same carbohydrate intake in the evening versus the morning even you know just calories are the same everything's the same there's also some argu to be made by you just need a period of rest like your gut digestion all that like energy is being diverted to do that when you're digesting food like that's that's a big thing and there's also a lot of responses that happen after you eat a meal causing inflammation and things like that that divert energy there so it's taking energy away from other things like repair so so repairing processes usually happen when you're in a fasted state so just like when you're sleeping your brain shuts down right like your brain if you didn't sleep sleep your brain's not going to repair it's not going to stop like you need that rest period Well the same goes for like other organs like it need they need a rest period and and so it's really important to have that rest period right so the longer the rest the longer the rest period is the better in terms of like having enough energy to like do those repair processes things like that require energy and there's also you know other reasons as well but generally speaking um there's an argument why it's good to have a rest period a fasting period right and is that does it need to be 16 hours does it need to be 20 does it need to be 12 like I don't I don't really know that we know the exact time um to that but what we do know is that talking about this to the public was translated to I need to skip breakfast that was like the take-home was okay I need to do a 16h hour I need to do eat my food within 8 hours and do a 16 hour fast and the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to skip breakfast and keep extend myun 12 have dinner eight Grays between then and and that was exactly and that was that was kind of the the take-home the Practical implication there that everyone started doing um the problem with that is that you know so our muscle is the biggest reservoir for amino acids just like you know we store glucose as glycogen in our liver and our muscle we store um triglyceride as you know you know we fat as triglycerides in our atopus tissue we don't really store mus I mean we don't really store amino acids but you can kind of think of the muscle as a reservoir for it because when we have a period of um basically we're not getting an intake of amino acids we need it we need amino acids to survive like we need them and so our body pulls from our muscle so in the morning if you think about it what's the longest period you go without having amino acids well it's when you're sleeping so breakfast is actually really important it's it's important to get protein amino acids in that first meal because if you extend that me if you extend that fasting period by skipping breakfast your body is going to be like I need protein I need I got to make a bunch of proteins to like have my heartbeat and my kidneys function right so it's going to pull amino acids out of your muscle and so um that can cause muscle atrophy particularly if you're not doing resistance training so amino acid is one way to stimulate muscle protein synthesis um the other way to do it would be resistance training so there have been studies done like for example women that are doing Tim restricted feeding they will not lose muscle mass if they're doing resistance training so does it mitigate the gains of resistance training by doing that it mitigates the the atrophy so it it's mitigating no sorry does time-restricted feeding I.E skipping breakfast limit the gains made from resistance training if both of those things are done together not not if you're getting enough protein I mean not in that study at least I think I think if you're not getting enough protein within 24hour period yes but like if you're getting so so to get your gains in and I'm sure you've had people on talking about this but like the RDA for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight and that was like determined like forever ago when we were using older techniques we as in scientist not me cuz I haven't personally done this experiment but um the scientific Community was using techniques that uh under estimated amino acid losses so so these committees were set up to determine okay how many how much amino acids do you know what quantity of amino masses do we lose every day and how much do we make sure we have to get each day to replenish that right um and so those losses were underestimated in other words we're losing more than they thought and so what what does that mean that means oh maybe the RDA for protein is too low so people like Dr Stuart Phillips and others have now redone these experiments with like newer more sensitive techn techologies because that's what happens with time right we get better Technologies more sensitivity and they've now determined that it's actually 1.2 grams per kilogram to just bare minimum prevent losses another 50% on top of what was originally 50% on what originally and if you're actually doing phys if you're physically active if you're doing resistance training that goes up to 1.6 grams per body and well 1.2 is the minimum but like to like build muscle to get the gains you're talking about and there's actually been studies done in older adults a big problem older adults are they're not as sensitive to amino acids it's called anabolic resistance so with the same protein intake they won't build as much muscle if they're 65 versus when they were 35 so Granddad needs to be cooking twice as many steaks he needs twice as many steaks and there's been studies looking at the actual RDA of older adults get 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight and then the other group gets 1.2 grams per kilogram body weight the group that got 1.2 has much higher muscle mass gains yep and and just actually prevents the atrophy that is is happening just with age okay so getting back to the time restricted yes eating thing yes how should someone incorporate this into their lifestyle what it sounds like you're saying is have a high protein meal at some point early in the day uh but if you're also saying that it's important for us to have a period of rest and digest so that it's digest rest and repair can actually happen how should people think about about doing that especially given the fact that sorry later in the day instant sensitivity is uh skewed anyone that did carb night or car backloading 15 years ago because they read a bodybuilding.com Forum like me knows that so you've kind of got this oh it's good to eat some things later in the day there's this skew down that way but there's also we can't miss breakfast so it's like that just sounds like eating all day to me when do we when do we stop right um yeah sorry I went off on a tangent there there but yes so um the the the time restricted eating okay there's a there's a couple good ways to think about it you want to stop eating about 3 hours before you go to bed if possible okay that's last bit of food in mouth Yes yes because it's still you got to add another five so last fit bit of food in mouth doesn't mean I'm now in a fasted State you got to calculate five hours after that it takes about five hours to digest okay so after the 5 hours after your last bit of food in the mouth now you're in a fasted state right so that's going to be when you're sleeping most likely um you don't have to skip a meal you can eat your food within an 8 hour period and fast for 16 hours without having to skip a meal most of the time unless I guess unless you're an Entertainer and your meals do come later then but still you can still like everything's just shifted over and yes you'll be you know less insulin insulin sensitive later in the day but you can like do some air squats for 2 minutes like you could there are there there are things you can do to improve insulin sensitivity and also to improve glucose blood glucose levels like later in the evening if you're having a meal and we can talk more about that later but anyway so there are things you can do I think that the way to think about it is the easy way is to to stop eating about three hours before bed that's a really easy and also your sleep improves because you're when you're digesting if you eat like right before you get to bed your body's like awake it's like awake right it's like digesting and using energy it's it's not even Beyond what's happening physiologically just the sense of being full so I was a club promoter for 15 years which meant that we would work from we'd set the club up at 9:00 p.m. and we'd finish at 2:00 in the morning and I'd get back and the food that I'd prepped that morning the day before this morning would be there waiting for me oh well you know haven't eaten in 6 hours 7 hours something like that okay so I'll get in and I'll eat but just the discomfort of having a lot of food in you like even that sucks right uh and you know the other thing is with with the thinking about it I think um a lot of people got all like you know na tizy over over the fact that like if you looked at the the time restricted feeding and the weight loss a lot of the weight loss was due to caloric restriction because people were just actually eating less they were skipping meals and it's like yeah so a lot of weight loss I mean when it comes to weight loss like calories in calories out matter like energy balance right so that's important I think that's where a lot of people were like oh time restricted eating doesn't matter because it's all about caloric restriction and it's like well yeah if you're looking at what end point are you looking at are you trying to lose weight then you caloric restriction like you should be not eating get the however you want right and most people that are like obese even overweight they can actually they can actually fast and not lose as much muscle like some people will go on a fast or do you know limit their they'll skip meals basically and they can lose like up to 30% of their weight will come from muscle so crazy it's crazy unless you do resistance training resistance training is that presumably only if you're having sufficient protein outside of that intermittent fasting window not necessarily um that will help you gain more but like mitigating the atrophy because you got the stimulus you got the stimulus okay what would you suggest as a good selection of breakfasts that people could have that kind of meet the criteria that you're talking about here what would be some of the things EGS right eggs would be like like four depending on your body weight you know some you're if you're a dude you're probably going to have like five eggs scrambled eggs are great you've got I mean it's got the protein and eggs are really high and they have like lutein and choline in them I mean choline's important for brain function um lutein it's much higher in Greens like kale but there's some in at least pasture raised eggs Farm the the farm you know the nonconventional eggs or whatever they're called those are terrible um but what is that just to interject that what is that to know about eggs how do you select your eggs pasture raised um because you want them to eat like grass and stuff the chickens because they're get they're getting like lutein from the greens and lutein is really important for brain function and eye function I would love to talk about that more when we talk about cognitive function because it actually there's like a lot there's not enough ltin in an egg to substitute What's Done in clinical studies but there is in kale so U but still it's good to get a source of it so I think I think eggs is a really good source of um protein for breakfast because it's you know it's just it's very nutrient-dense with the Coline as well choline's really high in egg yolk baking an eggs steaking eggs yeah I mean like whatever your your jam is like for the for the protein bacon and eggs steak and eggs you know um I like to also have some smoked salmon and eggs so like my Omega-3s what about the people who are training first thing in the morning let's say that they've got to get to work they're part of the you know they're the 6 a.m. CrossFit crowds they're not going to be up at 4:30 doing The Scrambled day so that they can digest it in time to go do Fran they're going to probably do a protein shake like way protein so you would still even for the people that are up early and then go to go and train it's such a high priority that you would still suggest consuming some protein prior to working out it's hard to get 1.6 and then you and then like you know so steuart Phillips likes to use this analogy I'll give him credit for it like where you're squeezing the last drops out of the cloth like for people that are like really trying to gain muscle mass like it's like really their thing you can go like up to like two you're getting like two grams per Kil body weight and so I mean there are some people that like so if you're really trying to like gain that muscle uh you do need pretty much one gram per pound you do yeah you do need unless you know unless you're just going to eat like you know lunch and dinner and lots and lots of protein but it's really not that it's hard to get that much protein we had this uh like rule at Uni which was no one flukes one gram per pound of body weight no one accidentally goes through their day and looks back at the macros they've eaten and goes I hit 180 grams of protein without thinking like it has to be conscious unless buff ifer one meal is kind of like 50 grams in any case or less yeah 30 to 40 40 yeah yeah so you're like okay well well done you managed to get through four Stakes there but how much of that is actually going to be used by your body so um yeah that's an interesting one I it's I found it fascinating kind of observing this intermittent fasting to we still need to do this but we need to integrate it but we need to frontload the protein earlier in the day uh and also to just alleviate the protein debt that your 1.6 per kilo of body weight needs to hit by the end of the day yeah I think that it's it's it's it makes sense when you just think about it like if you're if you're skipping a meal you're going to be losing muscle mass like especially if you're not doing any resistance training and that's like okay well then I probably shouldn't be skipping a meal but I I can still do time restricted eating you know by just stopping my meals before 3 hours before bed and then you know you're going to get a period of fasting really you just want that repair mode you know you want that repair mode and and there's been clinical studies that have looked at other end points besides weight loss and it does make a difference it like there's improvements in things like blood pressure for example things like that but I don't know that you're going to get the repair like there's animal studies mechanistically looking at that you're not I don't know that we're going to get that in human data on that it's going to be hard to do um not impossible but it's it's definitely going to cost money to get a clinical trial doing that sort of work this episode is brought to you by momentus you might have heard me say that I took my testosterone from 495 to 1006 and two of the supplements I used throughout that were fidji agrus and tonat Ali I first heard Andrew hubman talk about the really impressive effects that these have on testosterone but the problem is most supplements don't actually contain what they say momentus make the only NSF certified fidio grus and tonat Ali in the world meaning that even Olympians can use it because that 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