Fasting Space

Minimalism and medicine.

I'll tell you minimalism, one of my favorite philosophies.

It's something that I have always appreciated,
really appreciate.

So when we think of minimalism,
where it's most often brought in

is like into decorating, into how we're organizing our house.

If you look up minimalism online,
you'll see podcasts about getting the clutter out

and simplifying everything and simple fasting.

To me, what I'm trying to do on this channel
through my work in medicine

is help us to simplify our life in our metabolism,
our metabolic health, actually in the body.

So what I like to say is

that fasting is minimalism in the body.

So we can take the concepts of minimalism,

bring them in both to health, our life
and then medicine more broadly.

So going to take a look at that today.

So minimalism in medicine, we are,

I would say in many ways, in a maximalist medical system

or about as far away from minimalism

as perhaps we have ever been.

And then there's parts of that are good and bad.

Of course, we are in the midst of an incredible explosion

of technology and development and things,
and there are good sides to that.

But today we're going to look at the other side of it.

Also, how do we need as little as possible?

Minimalism certainly isn't about having no possessions
or no things.

It's just about having the best things,
things of true value and importance.

And of course,
this is what we really want in medicine for sure.

A couple quotes
on minimalism to center our thinking and bringing it in.

This from Connie Biscay.

Less is more.

Less is better.

It enables you to be less distracted
from what's really important to you in life.

It creates space.

So when you get rid of the clutter, all the things

that are not essential, what remains is what really matters.

And this is what we want.

What really matters in medicine and how do we deliver

medicine in a way that is the most effective?

Like a razor sharpening,
just the things that are of great value.

Here's another one Hans Hofmann.

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary

so that the necessary may speak.

Isn't that beautiful?

So to me,
these are very centering thoughts for a fasting space,

for the type of thing that we are trying to do in our body

and in health, and then taking it more broadly

into the broader experience that we're having in medicine.

So to me, when I think of minimalism and medicine,

I think of this centering phrase first, do no harm to me.

This is like the minimalist maxim in medicine first,
do no harm.

So I was doing a lot of thinking.

As I was preparing for this discussion,

I was thinking, you know, does anybody not agree with this?

And it turns out that this wonderful

doctor who wrote this article does not agree.

And so I like always to challenge thinking.

And so I was thinking,

should we challenge the idea of first do no harm.

And so this doctor is an orthopedic surgeon.

And so I kind of get a smile on my face
thinking about their perspective.

Think about the life of a surgeon okay.

What is the first thing they do.

They cut into people.

And that obviously is some amount of harm.

And so oftentimes
you say the first thing they're doing is causing some harm.

The proposal that this doctor makes is that
we need to replace

first, do no harm with harm appropriately.

I just I laughed while I watch this paper.

I put this paper as a reference,
you know, so you can read it if you want their perspective.

I completely disagree with it, actually,
like an a big picture.

But I love the perspective of thinking, you know, from
a surgeon saying, okay, some amount of harm going to happen.

We're going to go in to get the infection out.

The big picture that I have is that we need to zoom out first.

Do no harm to me does not mean we can't do a surgery.

It does not mean that there can't be risk
or that something can't happen.

Medicine is always a discussion about risk everywhere.

And the point that they make in here that I really like is
there's risk

in delaying and certainly in an emergency,

first, doing no harm is like,
don't delay if seconds count, okay?

Don't harm someone by dithering around and doing 20 things.

To me, this is, you know, do what has to be done.

To me. This is not incompatible. First, do no harm.

I think is very applicable to surgery and an emergency
just like it is in the rest of healthcare.

If we get right into the emergency settings, seconds matter.

Okay, first do no harm to me.

Says okay,
if seconds matter, there should be a millisecond thought

just a millisecond about, you know,
is this the right thing to do?

And the scenario that was coming to my mind is like,
is this patient 90 years old?

Do they have a special bracelet where they have said,
you know, I have a living will I have an advanced directive?

I've, I don't want to be resuscitated.

I want the end of my life to be let me go peacefully, please.

If someone has communicated that
and you don't take a millisecond.

I've seen this happen in medicine, and all of a sudden people

are getting put on ventilators and CPR
and things that we don't want.

These emergency situations can actually harm people
and we can disrespect people's wishes.

So even in the emergency, we want to think first, do

no harm, take the millisecond
and then like if it really is the appropriate thing to do,

of course do all the things,
have the surgeries be maximally intense?

But first, you know, harm, I think even in this scenario.

But when we take it out of the emergency situation,

then it becomes even more clear.

We need a centering principle in medicine that starts

from a grounded place where we don't hurt people so much.

Hurting of people happens in medicine.

Everyone aware and they point out in this article
to okay, medical errors, a part of it.

But I'll tell you a way to get way upstream of medical errors,
which is such a huge problem

and a huge process is to stop doing so many things to people.

I will tell you as a first principle.

So I, I really love it.

So after really challenging myself with articles saying
no, we should,

we should focus on appropriately harming people,
I say no medicine is first do no harm.

It is a tried and true grounded philosophy.

And it is.

It remains the core philosophy
of what I think medicine really should be founded on.

Doing as few things as necessary is going

to help us protect people from ourselves.

Because, you know, they told me in medical school,
they say 50% of what we're teaching you is wrong.

We just don't know what 50%. Okay.

And it's probably more than that. All right.

So to me, a minimalist philosophy is like starting

at a very grounded and humble space
and really being thoughtful.

So not that we can never do anything
but that we are bringing so much care

and thoughtfulness and intention to it.

Okay, so that's like some big philosophy to start.

Here's just a little anecdote from my experience
when I was working at the VA

hospital way back in the day.

Okay, 2000 and this episode happened.

Do you remember? This is just one tiny example.

Ranbaxy Corporation, one of the largest

generic pharmaceutical manufacturers,

was producing generic Lipitor,

a tour of Austin, and their process was broken.

For years,
their machines were putting glass shards into the pills.

And then I had some patients who were getting these
and had them recalled.

And so for years, people eating micro glass shards

and and they paid huge fines and all of this things.

So to me, this is always highlighted,
you know, how many people were harmed by the many lawsuits?

And people say, oh, people weren't really harmed.

But to me it always just was a thing.

I was like, I was a very young doctor.

I was like, oh, I'm prescribing things to people like,
oh, this is just what we do.

The things are going out.

All of a sudden
I'm filling people up with micro glass shards in it.

You know, it always was framing to me.

There can be bigger things going on
that we do not completely understand.

And I was like,
oh, isn't it the case that if we were minimizing some of this,

what if not that anyone should ever not
take something that they need and could help them?

But what if we were getting to a level
where someone didn't need it?

Like obviously they would be healthy,
but then it would be protecting people from things like this.

So this has been a minimalist thought that is stuck with me
in medicine for quite a long time.

Can we design processes and systems to help people

be insulated from gigantic industrial manufacturing accidents

that are poisoning people, for example, like would be great.

It would be great.

Okay, so how do we do that?

You know, this is what we're going to try to dive in
like promoting health.

This is the very foundation to me of health care.

And it's even it's like what
what becomes health care and what just becomes

life and a healthy life like all this
we see it just merges together.

But promoting health should be the,

the, the bedrock practice, certainly of health care.

And if it's beyond health care, you know, it certainly is.

But when we think about a multi-trillion dollar
health care system,

almost the entire focus

practically is on treating disease
when it has reached an advanced stage

and we have very little, precious little actual

financial resources that are in this space.

And it's kind of and, you know,
if that's how it is, it's how it is.

And we don't have to complain about it.

We can take control of it ourselves in our own life.

And this is the thing, I want this to be really empowering.

We don't have to get overwhelmed or frustrated about

politics and economics, health system and all these things.

We can just observe it and we can see the focus of this place

is on treating disease in an advanced stage,
and we want to get way upstream.

That's what I want to say.

The minimalist perspective bring it into our life.

And probably the way we backdoor into medicine is that

when we have systems
and thoughts and ways of being in the world

that are healthier and keep people healthy,
people just going to need to interact with the health system

a lot less, and that's going to help everybody,
and it's going to help people in the health system

who are overworked, and it's going to leave more resources

for people who really need it at that time.

So I say all of a sudden,
what is the health care system grows much bigger.

And to me, like just like when I'm talking

about a fasting space,
I'm also talking about eating healthfully.

Like I can't separate those two.

In my mind, it's just two sides of the same coin to me.

I look at it, I say agriculture is the health system,
and when we look at our country,

I don't think we can look at the way the state of health is

and say that our food system

and the health care system
are also two sides of the same coin.

You know, it's like we are what we eat,
what we are bringing into our bodies,

both the good and the bad is one of the most major
manifestations of health.

So if we want to really get upstream, like we got to,

we got to look in these types of directions
and then we see the culture to write that the culture,

the mental space, when we think about all the things
that bring wellness to the body, so much of it

exists outside of the health care system
as classically defined.

So when we're looking at ways to make processes
to minimize the amount of things that we have to do to people,

the problem isn't just, you know, a doctor's office
and a government program and Medicare and,

you know, all these things
that we classically think of as health care.

It's like we got to think much bigger, in my view.

And I just have this point. I say everything matters.

You know, I really believe that.

I did the conversation back in the fall.

Everything matters in the health and it really does.

And so. Let's dial in on that.

All right.

If the number one problem in our health care system,
which I say it is the number one problem in health,

the health for people is metabolic dysfunction,
which means our metabolism,

the way the body is running is not optimized, optimized.

And it's because the environment that the body is placed in
is not the environment

that it was created
for, designed for, that it is trying to operate in.

And. To me,
we have so many thoughts in our health system and society

that the problems that we have are genetic disorders.

And really,
I think we need to look at the environment that we have,

and we see that there's not a healthy environment
and the process of promoting health and bringing it

into a space thoughtfully, as a space

of designing environments
that can help the human body to flourish.

When we have a broader system
in which the human body is flourishing,

will not be experiencing metabolic dysfunction,
the amount of these downstream processes is going to be less.

So you look at this list,
I just typed this up as I was making the slide of things

that are downstream
and interrelated with metabolic dysfunction.

So I'm not saying that, oh, a fasting process.

We just going to have everybody in the country
going to start fasting and all these will disappear.

I'm not I'm not saying anything. There's no panacea.

But what I am saying is that fasting is one component,

absolutely, of a process that can help all of these things.

And if we are going to try to minimize,
I would say, the catastrophic impact

of so many of these conditions on our society,
you know, should just be in the discussion.

This is the type of discussion
that I'm wanting to lead and have with people.

You look at the top one cardiovascular disease leading

killer of people, you know in the country,

such a profound space to get an autophagy effect,

to clear out excess and help to improve this system.

Things from the top all the way to the bottom.

Abdominal complaints.

I mean, I could just and I and I have
and I will continue to give talks on all these things.

How many people that I've worked
with suffering from acid reflux, how many proton

pump inhibitors prescriptions am I able to stop

when people actually give some rest to the GI system?

So here's like just to take one disease, like acid reflux

and say it's not everything, but a huge amount of healing

and health can come from opening up a fasting space,
getting in a cycle with it.

Where we teach the body
we don't need acid here all the time, especially at night.

People with severe reflux have to sleep with a bed tipped up
so that they're not reflexes

and is like, okay, you start fasting in the evening,
you shut down all the acid production.

Do you see how that's bringing minimalism into things
on many levels minimizing the acid production, minimizing

the meals, minimizing the space where the digestive system
has to work, minimizing medications.

All of a sudden the cost of things going way down.

And there are so many second order effects from it,

like the development of Barrett's and risk for cancer.

So it's just huge.

So we could take four hours and go through

examples on every one of these lists of ways

that minimalism and then a fasting based minimalist process

can come into this space,

but we're just going to focus on one for keeping things here

after I've already done a bonus one
when I got talking about Gerd.

Okay.

And all this is to say, you know,

I want the standard approach

in medicine of technology our way out of all.

I want that to continue.

I want it to be clear if I I'm not opposed
to developing new drugs and using every type of technology

and, and actual medicine, you know, pills

to fix any of these problems, I want new and better.

Everything is good.

If I didn't believe in any of that,
I would just be sitting out in a field with my goats.

Like that session
we did the other day, and I'd say I'd disconnect, but instead

I've built a video studio in my house.

I mean, the amount of technology that I'm surrounded by here
just so we can

talk is huge,
and I think that there is great value in it. Why?

I do both things.

We want to try to have all of the advancement

as possible,
but then we also want to need it as little as possible.

That's like the balance, you know. Yes.

Fasting minimalism for the body.

If we have metabolic clutter, this is bringing it in okay.

How do you get rid of metabolic clutter.

We did the session on autophagy.

If you're familiar with that process
burn up the junk and get it out.

Do you see this is like cleaning the house.

When the house is clean, there's more space
less likely to run into stuff is more efficient.

We want to take that minimalist process,
bring it into the cell

so that our cells are as efficient as possible.

This is how we really help life and health

to spring forth in the body.

Get to the root level. Fasting can help us do it.

Here is one example

that was on my mind that I put into these slides.

So hypertension high blood pressure okay a huge problem.

It's like half of adults in the country
have elevated blood pressure.

This is data from the American Heart Association.

Their study that I think was going to say 2021.

55 million people, 2021.

I've seen estimates for the present day
that we're heading over 60 million people.

Hypertension and hypertension.

If we go back to our list of diseases, hypertension
is upstream of cardiovascular disease and kidney disease.

And and so much of this so and hypertension

deeply connected into our metabolism and then fasting

have such a profound impact on hypertension.

So if we're taking hypertension high blood pressure,
something half of people,

half of adults at least struggling with
and the number of prescriptions is over

100 million prescriptions, you know,
I think the data was saying

so it's like here is a huge issue

in medicine way upstream

and basically in the medical system, fasting,
nowhere in the discussion

in mainstream treatment

of hypertension, you know, which just kind of blows my mind.

So I want to show you also data from the American Heart
Association of this fascinating study

that was published of 1610 subjects.

Who were treated with long term fasting,
including many patients who were hypertensive.

And so they have multiple different groups
in this studies, observational study,

people with severe hypertension who are on medication,
and then people who with hypertension,

who are not medicated,
and then normal individuals who also fasting.

And they're assessing blood pressure in all of these people.

And what is so interesting,
just I highlighted a couple data points out of this,

but I just wanted to read a little out of the methods of this

because it highlights something that I think is so important.

Subjects underwent a multidisciplinary fasting program

with daily intake of approximately 250 calories.

They were able to have some broth and some stuff like this
if they wanted.

Didn't have to.

Weight went down, stress scores went down

okay, and the well-being index increased.

Okay. I did a fasting study. Check out my video.

I've done a couple videos on my study
I did when I was at the university.

I experienced the same thing.

People losing weight and people's stress level
going down, people's quality of life scores

in my study, many data points that touch on this.

People see fasting is intimidating and it absolutely can be.

But when you actually help people to do it
like this in a multidisciplinary setting, here

we're talking about even longer fasting
that people actually like it and people come back.

It's amazing.

Blood pressure values decreased.

And the one that I want to point out is specifically
this highlighted one in people whose blood pressure

were highest to start with, and people losing 25 points
off their blood pressure in the fasting state.

And then you go down into this other highlighted one in people
whose blood pressure was normal.

It only dropped three.

So it's like people whose blood pressure is okay.

Fasting isn't making them hypertensive because

see, fasting bringing things into balance,
bringing things toward

normal people whose blood pressure is too high,
it brings it toward normal.

But it's not dropping people to low.

You know where it's okay. Isn't that fascinating?

Now, this is long fasting from four days

out toward a month, which is just wild.

And these is supervised by doctors.

And this, to be clear, is not simple fasting.

Like simple fasting.

What I'm doing in my space is more like this.

Next, study that I show you, which is just on time restricted

eating like a 16 eight so like way on the other end.

And then this study is so interesting.

This this one people are doing 16 eight

I think at least five days a week over three months.

And, and I really dug into this
because this study is a meta analysis.

And the studies that they were bringing in
were specifically weight loss studies.

And it's not like this other study where it weren't
specifically studying a lot of hypertensive people.

They demonstrated that we know
we're bringing four points off of the blood

pressure, you know,
but this is averaged across almost 700 patients.

And it wasn't a hypertension study.

So there is definitely a dose response effect to fasting.

Absolutely.

I did the hypertension talk specifically a couple months ago,

where I presented some data from people

who are do fasting studies like this.

The the study I was showing from the American Heart
Association was done at a center in Germany,

and I was presenting some similar data in the hypertension
talk from a center in California.

The researcher who is leading that California
study believes that all hypertension, essentially

all hypertension, can be resolved
through fasting in an extended space.

My experience, which is focused on

the shallow end of the pool, something like this.

Is that the effect is like this for many people.

Some people have a more profound effect,

even with a 16 eight sort of practice and some people don't.

And it's like, so there's some amount of power to it.

So when we think about minimalism in medicine here,
we have two practices

a gentle practice in a very intense practice
that are showing a dose response relationship,

and getting into a space where we can help resolve blood
pressure problems for people.

So like and here's something that doesn't really cost anything

to do a simple fasting practice 16 eight.

And all of a sudden, you know, in
my experience is about a third of people doing 16,

eight have a significant clinically relevant improvement
in their blood pressure.

Maybe two thirds don't.

And some people, you know, need
would need to turn up the intensity of that.

But when we think about, okay,
if 60 million people have high blood pressure

and we have hundreds of millions of prescriptions for this,

and here we have many different data

sets published in the American Heart Association,
you know, showing

profound effects of fasting
to bring healing to blood pressure.

And when you think about fasting, it's just nothing.

So say I call fasting
applied nothingness in the medical context.

You could almost call it prescribed nothingness.

No, I'm just here.

I'm a guy on the internet, you know, look at all
my disclaimers.

I'm not prescribing anything for someone
as I talk to your medical team,

but I'm seeing as a concept for the broader health system

how many prescriptions are written for pills

and how much cost is associated with it,
and how much benefit just aren't you curious?

I would say I'm curious how much benefit could be squeezed

out of a fasting process for practically no cost.

That would minimize the amount of things
we have to do to people if we're trying to.

If we say less is more.

But here is a space where I say

it is really profoundly true, like less is more.

I think how many levels
this is operating just with blood pressure,

less food intake, less meals is more space.

Okay, that's the fasting
space, is less medication, lower blood pressure.

It's like less is much, much more, much, much more.

And then the cost much less.

And then just like I was showing with the.

Pharmaceutical case in the beginning
where people being harmed from.

This dysfunctional process. Okay.

How many side effects are we minimizing also

by minimizing the number of things like the

this is hypertension as a model for we can do it

because if we go back to this list of all the processes

that are downstream of metabolic dysfunction,
I didn't even put hypertension on this list.

Hypertension is upstream of many things on this list,

especially the kidney disease and the cardiovascular disease.

So if we're way upstream,
it's not like we can wave any magic wand.

It's not like fasting.

Even I never say it's even easy. And this is like the barrier.

Like taking a pill is easy.

If you come into a clinic and your blood pressure is high

and you take a pill for it, you get on losartan or whatever

you get on and your blood pressure is going to be better,
and that's a good thing.

See, I love that and we need things like that.

But then we can step back from it and we can say,

look at the bigger picture that we have in medicine.

And here we have a beautiful center in Germany that's running

one of patients through it
and documenting this huge benefit in blood pressure.

And what if we started channeling some of the fire
hose of resources

is going in the direction of this medical process.

We stop medicalized it and realizing there's actually

healing potential in the body by doing nothing.

That's what fasting is showing, you know?

And I think it is so incredible.

Marie is here.

Hello to you.

Happy
to be talking about lowering blood pressure with fasting.

That's one of the benefits that I'm hoping for.

Yeah, it's it is a really good thing to talk about.

You know the big focus that I want.

We look at this list.

We got obesity there on number five.

I want to help anyone lose the weight that they want.

Fasting an incredible process to help do that.

then type two diabetes like intimately connected with that.

And so we open up some fasting space
we can burn through blood sugar

as we reduce that resource in the body.

Blood sugar.

Just see it as a resource that we're using and burning up.

Now we're turning to the body fat.

And then we can start accessing that.

We're creating a hormonal environment.

We're bringing the insulin level down,
which is a blocker to the body fat.

We're changing things hormonally in the body.

And hormonally
a lot of blood pressure is controlled by hormones in the body.

And so as we are changing that hormonal structure,
we are opening up a lot of space

in the body where things can change
because we see if we want things to change.

Okay.

The way you change things in the body,

you change the environment,
you can change the experience that the body is happening.

And you know, that's just dialing me into this mental health.

Number nine.

So we could talk all day.

I could literally talk all day about all of these lists.

But blood pressure, one that I key into
because it's something

that either you say someone is dealing with
or we're trying not to deal with.

Well, so many of these things are like that, right?

The big idea of medicine to me,
or what is even getting upstream of medicine,

the way we help to minimize everything in medicine
that'll make the true medicine much better.

You know what I say?

We want the actual interventions.

We do.

We're trying to do as few things to people as possible,

like we want the things that we actually do to be razor sharp,
you know, then everything is out of the way

and we have clarity, and we can make our interventions
as effective and cost effective

as possible with as few side effects as possible.

So blood pressure is the thing.

I'm happy to talk a lot more about it.

Dose response. That's the thing that I would have to say.

Some people getting a big response right away,
even from little bits of fasting.

Some people have to increase that fasting intensity
more to get that effect.

There is a subset of people who experience blood pressure
get better before weight loss.

And then there is another subset of people who.

It's once they start losing weight and getting that process
going, then the blood pressure comes down more slowly.

What I have to say about it is
we just need a huge amount of more research

in order to really tease out
what is happening with all of it.

And so right now, we're operating in a frontier in medicine,
where we have

literally hundreds of billions of dollars
and trillions of dollars over the course of a decade

going to research every highly

advanced thing, which I'm not opposed to, like I've said,

but we have almost nothing going to studying the basic

foundational processes of the body,
like how fasting interacts with our blood pressure.

You know, what I have to say about it is to transition

into here is
we don't have to get overwhelmed by the health care system.

We can have our own minimalist medicine,
and this is the way to bring it down

here is we can run some experiments.

And what I say, you talk with your medical team,
you say, I heard internet guy say a thing, okay.

And what do you think? Right.

And so the internet guy says like, oh,

we can run some experiments,
like you're working with your clinic.

You see, if I am bringing in some fasting things,
I have a home blood pressure monitor.

You know, if someone is struggling with blood pressure,
get yourself a blood pressure cuff at home, ideally

one that goes up on the arm and not a risky one,

and then learn how to use it properly

so that you can get accurate readings,
and then you can track it over time and see what happens.

Create our own minimalist medicine.

And this is the way that I say, is the back door around?

So much of the maximalism of medicine is

that we create a culture
that is supportive of minimalist medicine,

doing as few things as possible, but not nothing like
I tell people like on that list was cancer.

Okay, I've been working on a talk for quite a while

on fasting relationship with cancer,
which is very fascinating.

But there's no magic wand.

I'll tell people it's not like you're going to start fasting.

No one could ever get cancer.

Everything in life is probabilities and life is in.

My assessment, as far as I can see, is not always fair.

And sometimes I've thought about like,
oh, I'm a big fasting person.

I was like, what if I get some cancer? It could happen.

I think like, oh my gosh.

I mean, we're just trying to do everything we can
to tip the scales in our favor, but who knows?

Like as part of my study for the cancer talk,

I've just been looking at all this data on cancer rates.

And actually, cancer rates are going down in older people
and way up in younger people.

And this is is just really interesting to look into.

I'm a somewhat younger person.

I'm actually in the demographic of
of people who have colon cancer rates going way up.

And so if you look at colon cancer screening guidelines,
they've dropped from 50 to 45

to try to pick up more of these cancers in younger people.

And so I've been thinking through my own personal health,

things like just full disclosure, if I had a cancer, I would

I would go, I would sign up for every modern, beneficial thing
that we could do.

After thoughtfully considering it,
I'll tell you my experience in medicine.

I've seen people diagnosed with cancer who freak out
and they leave the country.

I've seen people head off to all kinds of different places.

Mexico, like a when I was in medical school,
I was, you know, basically shadowing,

helping in oncology
clinics of this woman who got diagnosed with breast cancer

and went off to some crazy place in Mexico rubbing

banana peels and lemongrass on themselves
and, you know, just nothing that helped

and then ended up, you know, in a very, very bad place.

So we want to take the benefits of the system,

but take it into our own minimalist processes ahead of time.

And here's the thing as we're trying to get into that space.

Oh, here's this question.

Let me answer that.

Does fasting reduce triglycerides?

Looks like it didn't in the study of it.

It is variable.

And that is kind of a complex topic.

It really depends on the population that you are studying.

In some cases it certainly can.

And in some cases it's dependent on many other factors.

What exactly diet people are eating
and what is the baseline health

characteristics and weight and BMI of of the people.

So it's complicated. What I would say is that it's in the mix.

It is in the mix, but

hard to give a blanket statement on it.

To me, minimalist medicine fasting is at the core of it.

I said earlier, fasting is minimalism for the body.

And so as we bring fasting into the body,
did did the talk just yesterday?

Was it make fasting a part of yourself?

You know, as we are making fasting a part of ourselves,
meaning opening up space and clearing out

the metabolic clutter?

To me, as people are doing this
and really making it a long term part of the process.

This is how we bring fasting into the health care system.

You know, it's like we're just decompressing
for whatever part of it we know.

How much of an impact can it make.

I personally think, like I said, say not a magic wand.

It's not like it's going to just wash everything away.

But I think the impact could be really big as people start

to really understand it in a bigger fashion.

We've been through a wave kind of where like a subculture
kind of figured out, like, oh, fasting is a thing.

It can help people lose weight.

So people say, is fasting a fad?

Well, fasting was a fad or has been
there are fad like elements

online of people who have really hyped it into something
that is kind of like that.

But then when we pull things back, we say, well, fasting

has been a practice that human beings have found value
from for thousands of years.

And we can dive back into deep history

and see that across cultures and across millennia,

people have used fasting for healing purposes

and also for spiritual and mental health practices.

Just something people have found value from.

So as we're thinking about our medical context,

where we're struggling
with huge amounts of metabolic dysfunction,

and we can also see, well,
we are a culture that is out of touch in a lot of ways,

with a deep history of ways
that human beings have lived and interacted on this planet.

And fasting has been a part
of so many cultures and traditions.

And so I think, like we are people just like anyone else.

And like if we can touch back
into some deep places of things that have value,

you know, I think the potential of this
actually to have a huge impact is huge.

Like, who doesn't want to be healthy?

Who doesn't want to have practices
that can help with metabolic health?

And so I actually think it is.

But whether whether it can help more broadly, say,
does it help you?

Does it help one individual person?

You know, I just know from my own self it's been tremendously

beneficial to my health process.

I'm extremely grateful for it.

And so we just bring it down into our own minimalist medicine,

bring the amount of fasting into your life
that makes life better,

never forced, never to away.

That causes stress.

To me, a fasting process should be anti.

It should be the type of thing that's like oh, less to do.

Give the body a break.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by hunger in any space,
you can stop it

at any point realizing
you're just strengthening like lifting a weight.

We've used that analogy a way to a lot.

It's like how much hunger wait, can I lift?

If you say, this is maxing me out, we can just stop.

But then watch The Hunger Series that I have on the channel
and then use that as a training program.

Because a fasting process, a powerful process

to gain control over hunger, is something you can practice
and get better at.

And master is an incredible skill
in the midst of a consumption culture

where the consumption
so much is driving the dis health and dysfunction.

Fasting is a process that I say
very gently can push back against that.

That's bringing minimalism into this entire process.

Not nothing forever, right?

Maybe nothing for periods of time.

But remember, minimalism is not about no possessions.

It's about just the things that bring value.

And so we think about fasting process.

It's not about never eating, it's just about bringing context

to the eating so that the eating we have is very purposeful,
so that it's bringing us

the healthiest things in a context
that helps it to nourish the body.

Right.

This is the type of mindset that as people adopt,

it's going to have an impact.

And then here's every other parts.

The four things that I talk about.

The clean eating.

Remember, fasting and eating is the same thing to me.

It's just one and then the other.

We need both of these things
and we kind of balancing back and forth and really our process

of about finding the line between that, how many times eating

is most beneficial to the body, and how much fasting time

is most beneficial to the body, is another personal experiment
that we can run in our own life.

You know?

Is the answer to that three or 2 or 1
or maybe sometimes zero or maybe four in a season.

You know, it's like we have this spectrum of space

and then our movement practices,
these are the foundational things that

that are so easy to overlook
and that are overlooked in our society in great measure.

Bringing gentle movement
practices might be as simple as just taking a walk.

No gym membership required.

Body doesn't know if we walk into a gym,
it just knows if we move.

So doing simple movements, taking a walk, doing

a stationary bike, doing some light resistance
things like body weight.

Squat means just sitting into a chair and standing up again.

You know that this is working the muscles of the body,
helping them to be strong.

As we're doing that, we're soaking up excess energy
and all of these things feed forward.

And all of these things are the synergistic processes

that help us build a holistic process of health

in our life, and that help the metabolism to be finely tuned

and the body to be strong and the nutrients to be there
so that our energy is present.

And when all of these things are happening, that supporting

our mental health practices
and we see maybe the foundation of all of it,

a practice of mindfulness
to keep our headspace in the healthiest way.

When we are doing all these things together,

it's going to give us every best chance

to need as little medicine as possible.

This is how we are creating the most space in our life.

No guarantees right? Life happens.

Life does not seem to be fair.

All kinds of things happen to people.

And like we said with that story on the pills that weren't
so good as there's things happening

and we don't understand all the reasons why,
but we do our very best,

bring all of the healthiest practices
into our life to give ourselves the best shot.

And then if we have done that,
then from that point, that's maybe

where medicine,
as it's traditionally find in our culture, would start.

Say, I'm doing every good thing that I possibly can.

I tried my best with all this and look, this happened
and now we can deal with it.

But even when these things happen, because life happens, okay,

we're at least at the most the strongest starting point,
you know what I mean?

We're giving ourselves every advantage so that medicine
can take us the rest of the way, if you see what I'm saying.

Some thoughts on minimalist medicine,

some thoughts on taking the very best
and most powerful care of ourselves that we can

so that we can be as healthy as possible
and need as little medicine as possible.

That's been the thought behind it.

I could probably go on and on about it for so long, but

I will try to leave it perhaps at those thoughts today.

I would love to hear your thoughts
about Have an ongoing discussion about it.

Are there reflections that you have about this
after hearing it?

Are there things that you would like to know more about?

Happy to do more talks like this.

I have a couple planned on these different ways
that we can take these elements

and bring them into our life, then it's mirroring,
you know, these big picture things.

I kind of like thinking about the big health care system,

which is complicated, and it's both beautiful and difficult.

And I do love the technology, and it's very inspiring

to see many of the developments of where it is going.

But and I think the part that we really need to add in

is just trying to need all that good stuff
as little as possible.

And I think that's like at least half of it.

At least half of it need as little as possible.

That's what I want.

I I'm, I'm, I love all the high tech scanners.

It's amazing the molecular biology and the synthetic agents
that are being created and and all that is great.

I just never want to have to use it.

I'll tell you about it.

I don't want to have to use any high tech thing.

If I absolutely have to do it, then I will do it.

Okay. Share your ongoing thoughts in the comments.

Come back to this session.

If you have thoughts like this, come back to the video.

Leave a comment. It'll come to me.

We'll have an ongoing chat about it.

I hope these thoughts are encouraging.

I hope they bring a great mindset
and thinking to you all these things matter.

What I said earlier in the session, everything matters.

Our health choices in this day really do matter.

So I give you the greatest encouragement.

If you have a mindset to do it
and you can open up some fasting space and that feels gentle

and positive and you can feel the energy flowing,
then I say, lean into that.

And if that's not your day, then beautiful.

And I say as much as you can in the state,

try to keep every process thing out of your life.

Choose the healthiest, most nourishing foods.

Maybe take a walk, get some exercise, and join me.

Tomorrow we'll dial in on a centering mindfulness space.

That's what I'm planning for tomorrow.

So we dial in on some of that thinking
and I will look forward to seeing you there.

Have a great day, everyone.