Episode 509: Renee Fitton: Fast-Mimicking: A Smarter Way to Support Longevity

25:15There's now about 47 clinical trials published on fasting mimicking alone. And what we're seeing is that the results that you see in water-only fasting are also seen equivalently in fasting mimicking. It's hard to compare because you're not actually doing the exact same thing. They're not controlled. But generally speaking, we're seeing a lot of the same results. There is one study that I have seen where they actually did in mice. they compared regular nutrition, water-only fasting, and fasting mimicking. This study was in IBD, or inflammatory bowel disease. And so this is like really bad gut health concerns.

25:54I mean, it's not even gut health at this point. It's, you know, the degradation of the gut lining, okay? So it's very severe. And what they were able to show in this mice population is that the fasting and fasting mimicking were able to help with the regeneration of the gut lining, like true cellular cleanup and repair, like essentially regressing or remitting the disease. But what the coolest part was is that the fasting mimicking did even better. And when we look at why that might be, it's because you add nutrition, you add fiber, you add some of these things that are also helpful, as well as the cellular cleanup and the autophagy and all of the wonderful things of fasting to bring.

26:35So while I would never say that that's going to be the case for everything, there may be cases where water-only fasting might get you a little bit more. There may also be cases where fasting mimicking could get you more. And also, how about the concept of at least something is better than nothing, right? If it gets you 80 % of it, of the benefits, it's better than 0 % of the benefits. Especially if you're never going to do it, right? If the idea of water-only fasting for five days is like, yeah, exactly. It's never happening. Never happening. It's never happening. I'm telling you, even I told you, even the intermittent fasting, it's very difficult.

27:13And I figured like that makes so much sense to me now. But when you said that thing about four times a year versus like every single day, the intermittent, because that like resonated, that clicked for me actually. Yeah.

27:30You know I'm all about finding an edge. The small daily habits that give you more energy, focus, and resilience. But that's why I am hooked on monovitality. Most people are mineral deficient, and that means low energy, brain fog, slow recovery, and dull skin. But mana flips the switch by giving your body a complete spectrum of minerals it actually knows how to use. We're talking shilajit from the Himalayas, ormas from the Dead Sea, and marine plasma from the ocean, plus amino acids and 88 other trace minerals. The benefits are real. We're talking steady all-day energy, sharper focus, faster recovery, a stronger immunity, plus glowing skin.

28:16But the biggest win, it fuels your cells for real longevity. Think of it as like a cellular switch-on formula, not as a stimulant, but the raw power your body needs to create energy and repair itself. Try it now, and I bet you'll be hooked too. Go to monavitality.com and use code JENNIFER20 for a discount. That's manavitality.com, M-A-N-N-A vitality.com and use code Jennifer20.

28:57So fast mimicking. So how do we do it? And like, tell me about this because I did it. I was like, how three crackers on one day. And that's why I want you to talk to my audience about it. So basically, I did this five-day fast mimicking diet. It was very difficult. I'm not going to lie. It was very difficult. It's still challenging. It is challenging. And I'll tell you the biggest challenge is someone who's very active like me. Psychologically, it's very difficult because I still worked out and I was starving. And I'm just being totally honest. But my hunger did dissipate and it did wane on like day three maybe.

29:37Three, four, five. Yeah. But then I made a mistake and I ended it early. I think I called someone there. I'm like, oh my God. But they said it was okay. But the point that I'm trying to make is I want you to talk about how to do it fast. What is fast mimicking? What do you eat? How do you do both? How do you get the benefits? And how does somebody who is active and who needs to be active for their brain to function well and just to kind of as part of their habitual life, how do they do both? Yeah. Okay. So let me first start with, I guess, how it's possible and then what it looks like, and then I'll touch on the athletic piece.

30:12Okay. So how it's possible, very fair question, because we know fasting as no food. And now I'm telling you that you can have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, food all day, every day, real whole food, and still go into a fasted state. And people are like, no way, that's impossible. But it's really important that we recognize that it's not just lower calories. It's very specific foods, very specific ingredients, paired together in a very specific way. So it's very highly scientific. And the way, and what we're trying to achieve with these very specific choices in the foods and ingredients that we're having is that we're trying to essentially live under the radar of something that we call nutrient sensing pathways.

30:51I just like to think of them like alarm bells on our cell surface, like 007 style laser beams. No, that's like Mission Impossible. Like kind of staying underneath. You just don't touch the, that's exactly what I was thinking. Exactly. And so if you pick the right foods in the right amounts and the right pairs, then you can kind of make your way underneath all of these lasers and your body will be like, oh, okay, it's fine. We're just going to stay in this fasted state. There's not enough here for us to say it's time to grow. So instead, like your body picks one or the other. It's like grow, grow, grow or repair, rejuvenate.

31:25And so that's really what we're achieving here. So what you see in a five-day fasting mimicking experience, or now there's also one-day experiences, but what you generally will see is that they're going to be very plant-based, so very low protein. And people always freak out when I say that. We can talk about that more. But that's especially because those alarm bells or those sensors are especially triggered by protein. So for those five days, you're just going to chill on that. And then the other thing is that you're going to see high fiber. You're going to see high healthy fats. And you're also going to see really low sugar.

32:01So the things that are low, protein and sugar, things that are high, fiber and fat. And what that looks like in practice is like maybe you start the day with a nut-based bar with a little teensy bit of honey. Then you transition into like a seed cracker. Then you transition into a plant-based soup. And then you transition into olives. And then you transition into another plant-based soup. and the wonderful people at Prolon have added a little chocolate crisp at the end of the day to make it just an extra little deliciousness. How nice of them. Exactly, right? And so that's kind of like what a day would look like.

32:36But all of those things have been very carefully chosen and very carefully created with very specific nutrient requirements, ingredient requirements, et cetera, to make sure that we're living below those sensors. So could someone just do this on their own at home if they wanted to? Hypothetically, absolutely. I have never recommended it to any of, I've walked thousands and thousands of people through these protocols. And it's not just because I'm a fan of Dr. Walter Longo's and I've studied with him and a fan of Prolon's, but also because I have seen people, one, make some pretty big mistakes when they do it themselves.

33:14It's really hard to know when is too much of XYZ ingredient, when is too much of this. And because it's so highly scientific, the risks of you having one too many almonds or one too many XYZ thing is moderately high. The way that Prolon, for example, has designed these kits is that they've given you the absolute most that you can have before you get to threshold. So somebody who's doing it at home will probably end up having to have way less even just to ensure that they're kind of staying below the radar. The other thing, yeah. That's a great point. So you'll probably end up eating too less, which I mean much less, which then you'll be even more starving.

33:54Yeah. Or too much would then kick you out of autophagy. And so the whole thing is pointless anyway. Exactly. So there's this really careful balance. All of the studies that you see in fasting mimicking have been done with the Prolon or L-Nutra Health kits. So every research has been done with that kit. Wow. Which is kind of also, I don't think people realize. No, right. That's where all the research is coming from. Yeah. I understand. And so like if you want to be 100 % sure that you're going to get the results, then you want to go that way. The other thing that I want to mention is about muscle protection.

34:26Like we know and we're going to talk about athleticism and like getting in our workouts and all that good stuff. But part of the reason why fasting mimicking is so amazing is because we've been able to show time and time again that muscle is being protected. Even without the protein? Even without the protein. And we can talk a little bit about that too and how that's possible. But we have seen like in probably over a dozen studies looking at like DEXA scans, like the best of the best, looking to see where our weight loss is coming from. And it's exclusively coming from our fat, especially in the trunk fat region, and our visceral fat, which are the hardest areas to lose weight.

35:04So that's – and we know that we want to protect our muscles. So like that's also another piece of the puzzle that fasting mimicking kind of comes into play. And I worry when people do this at home by themselves that they are not getting that muscle protection. And there's a couple of reasons. One, it's just like maybe you didn't choose the right ingredients, foods, combinations, etc. But also there's another thing that's included in the Prolon kit. It's called the glycerol drink or the L drink. And it is a little bit of glycerol that helps your body use that instead of going to your muscle. So it's one of the little magic ingredients that is really like, I don't think you could find that anywhere else that's included in the kit that's added to help with that piece too.

35:45So how much of this, like, do people lose weight on it? For sure, yeah. And it depends on how much weight you have to lose, right? So the more weight you have to lose, you'll generally see more significant weight loss. Individuals who have no weight to lose generally will see like very small weight loss, but they'll usually regain it after completing. And won't everyone just regain it though? Because no. And that's the cool part, is that because what we're seeing is fat-focused weight loss instead of what, unfortunately, we see with GLP-1s and so many of the other diets out there in low-calorie diet and even Mediterranean diet, because we did a side-by-side comparison of Mediterranean and fasting mimicking, and Mediterranean saw muscle loss.

36:26But because - Really? Yes. Five pounds of muscle loss in the Mediterranean and zero in the fasting mimicking. And you had to do every single day 120 days of Mediterranean diet, like to its precision. And you only had to do 20 days of fasting mimicking over the 120-day period. So it's like not only is it easier, but it's also a better result. And both of them showed obviously really good heart health metrics because that's what the Mediterranean diet is recommended for. And it's the gold standard. And by the way, I'm a big fan of the Mediterranean diet. But there is still – we have to be really, really careful when we take some of these everyday diet low-calorie options.

37:01to watch our muscle. That's really good information. I like that. No, I'm learning so much here. You know, it's funny, whenever I do a podcast like this, I'm like, oh, how much more information can I really, I mean, hasn't it all been said and done before? But I've actually, you've said a few things here where I'm like, wow, I didn't know that. Like this is, no, this is really great. I'm actually enjoying this conversation. Now, I don't need to sound surprised, but I'm just saying I have more questions for you. Perfect. I'm here for it. Okay. So tell me like specifically, what are the benefits that someone would get from just doing something like this four or five times a year?

37:36Okay, tons. But I'm going to name some of my favorites. Okay. And I'm going to, I'm assuming like most of your audience are kind of health optimizers in a lot of ways. Yeah, a lot of them are. So I'm going to focus on some of those ones that are beneficial for everybody, but also worth noting. And like to anybody listening, if you have something that you're interested in, you want to see a fasting mimicking may help with that. There's some really cool studies in autoimmune health, in oncology, in metabolic health, a ton of really great data and research on that too. So the stuff that I want to call out though is biological age.

38:08So we've been able to show that with just three cycles of fasting mimicking, you can reverse your biological age by two and a half years. Is there an extra kid around here somewhere? You're really 105, right? Yeah, exactly. That's a surprise. But by the way, the next thing that I was going to say is skin health. And what we've been able to show is with even just one five-day cycle, 25 % improvement in skin hydration, reduction in fine lines, improvement in skin texture. And so like, you know. All by doing a Prolon diet for five days. For five days. For five days. Prove it. Well, honestly, I can because there's so many people.

38:47Well, first of all, there's a clinical trial and they put 40 women on a fasting mimicking kit and then they put the other half not on the just regular diet. And they looked at it, not just asking them like, hey, does your skin look and feel better? They also did something called a Vizia and an Antera score, which is like an actual measure of what your skin health is, like how it's performing. And they tested that before and after one cycle and three cycles. And even after the first cycle, there's that 25 % improvement. So like this is, that is the proof in one way. But I also will call out, like I said, Like, there's now been over a million people that have done fasting mimicking with Prolon.

39:28And if you go on, like, the Facebook and groups where people are sharing their experience, so many people now are taking a picture of their face on day zero and on day six. And the difference is visible in the pictures. Really? Yes. Like, the inflammation in their face, like, completely gone. Well, yeah, they haven't eaten. They're gone. No, no, like, bags under their eyes. Their skin looks more vibrant and hydrated and glowing. And it's like, it's just like the little things that you don't come back. But yeah, but does the skin, like once you start eating again, yeah, of course you're going to be gaunt.

40:02But then you'll have eating. It's not gaunt. It's like the inflammation. It's like the puffiness, like the bags under the eyes kind of thing. Because six days of not eating, you're going to look, you know, much less bloated. Totally, totally. And by the way, I'm definitely not saying that some of this is water weight. Absolutely. Absolutely, that's a part of it, right? But we also know that as well as that, and even though you might regain those three pounds or two pounds of water weight that you lost, the real fat loss is going to be pretty hard for you to regain in the three to four months before your next round.

40:43Yeah, 100%. Especially if you're going to do this for once a month for three months in a row as your kickstart. Like if your goal is weight loss, if that's why you're doing it and you do your first round and you lose, you know, five to 10 pounds. And then you, your goal is like 20 or 30 pounds. Like you'll, you'll want to do it in like consecutively monthly until you reach that goal. Most people find that like three to four consecutive will get them where they need to go. We have some amazing results on like metabolic health and so many other things even beyond weight loss. Because, you know, weight loss at the end of the day is kind of like this cherry on top to all of the deep cellular cleanup benefits that you get.

41:26But also like, yeah, sure, if that's what brings you in and makes you want to try this, I am so game for you to try it and see those results. Then you'll start seeing all the other things that happen. Even like behavior change. I mean, I could go on and on, but all of the benefits— Behavior change? Yes. There's a super cool study that just came out this year with fasting mimicking in people with type 2 diabetes. So just like, as an aside, fasting mimicking has been able to show that in as little as like four to six months, people are coming off of their meds to the point where they don't even need to be on any more diabetes medication.

42:00Like, this is really impactful. There's now programs that are called diabetes remission and regression programs that use once a month fasting mimicking to get people off of their meds and no longer have the diabetes diagnosis or prediabetes diagnosis. Like, really impactful. But in one of these studies where they were able to show that, they did this assessment where they asked them at the beginning how much they were working out and at the end how much they were working out. And they didn't tell them, hey, by the way, like on top of the fasting mimicking diet or on top of this nutrition program that we put you on, could you also work out?

42:36They didn't say that. They just checked on these schedules that they were filling out how often they were working out. And what they showed is that the fasting mimicking diet group increased their physical activity without being told by four hours a week. And then the regular diet, everyday healthy diet group, decreased their physical activity by six hours a week at the end of the six-month period. And it's like, how and why? Right? And so the research, I mean, there's only so much that we can know for sure, but there's some guesses that we have, which is that, one, you feel lighter but also stronger.

43:11So when you feel stronger and lighter at the same time, because we're not tapping into muscle, you feel more energized and ready to go hit the gym or even go for a walk or whatever it might be, right? The other thing is that you've completed five days and you're done and you feel good about yourself. You feel like you accomplished something. It's not like, oh my God, I have to do this for the rest of my life every day and you never get a win. You get a win on day six. Like, I'm done. I did it. Good job for me. Amazing. So that's exactly, I was going to say, that's a big one. It's a huge time. Yeah, I gave, like, I was telling a few of my friends, we should do it together kind of thing.

43:46So that was the big thing I noticed with a lot of my friends who are, like, very competitive or type A personalities. They wanted to finish it because it's like, okay, well, it's only five days. Let's see if I can do it. Right. And it was like, I can do anything for five days, right? Exactly. You know, and so, and the fact that there's an end point, right? It's not like it's going to go drone on like an intermittent fasting forever and ever, right? So I understand that. That makes sense. So basically, let me just kind of summarize. The behavioral changes, the skin, the weight loss. Biological age.

44:22Biological age. That's a big one. Metabolic health. I'm going to do it today. I want to look like I'm 25 again. If I just keep on doubling and tripling it, will that work? If I just do it week after week after week? No. I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. But people do ask me that seriously all of the time. Oh my gosh, really? For real, because you can imagine like, okay, yes, it's hard, but some people find it easier than they expected. Yeah. A lot of people find that they feel incredible on day six and they're like, no, no, no, I don't want to go back to the bad feeling. Yeah, I've heard that too.

44:54You know, or like, I don't want to be not energized again. Like they have fear of like where they entered versus where they are now. And they're like, how do I just keep this going? And wow. And it's awesome. It's like, it's great. But then I, you know, people will say, well, I'll just do like water only fasting for another five days, or I'll just keep it going. And I'm like, okay, there is too much of a good thing at the end of the day. And we don't want to overstress your body. And with the other thing that we want to do is the beauty of the five days is that you have 25 other days, and sometimes like three months in between to eat regular healthy nutrition that then rebuilds.

45:30So it's more than just like in my spring cleaning analogy, you find that you have like really rickety dining room chairs. And that's the stuff that you're going to go say like we got to get rid of these. You throw those in the trash. Well, you're not just going to live without dining room chairs. You have to go and get new dining room chairs that will refill that space. And that is what happens when we eat regular nutrition in between our cycles of fasting. We're rebuilding. We're filling up the space. We're creating new cellular components and the things that will actually make the cell thrive and be younger than it was before.

46:05How about brain? Yeah, so there's some cool stuff happening in brain health for sure. There's a lot of things that we attribute to that. One being you probably hear about ketosis and the keto diet being really good for brain health because ketones can enter through the blood-brain barrier. So part of some of the benefits that we see with fasting is probably somewhat attributed to the ketosis. But where we differ from the keto diet is that the keto diet will not be able to really activate autophagy. It's not going to be able to do the cellular cleanup and rejuvenation. So while you get high ketones, you're not getting the cellular cleanup.

46:40And that's where fasting and fasting mimicking gives you the best of both worlds. You get the ketones. You get the brain fuel. You get the energy from the ketones in your brain. And you're also kind of giving your brain a break from always using sugar all of the time, which is also helpful. All of those things are great. But you also get the cellular cleanup and rejuvenation. And I'm going to be very, very cautious here because it is mice studies and it's early data. But there have been research done and fasting mimicking in mice models of Alzheimer's. And they've been able to show removal of the beta amyloid plaques and improvements in the tau fibers and all of the things that we're seeing as problematic in that condition.

47:26So, again, very early in its mice models. But I anticipate that we'll see a lot more research in that space, seeing as we can see a lot of benefit there. That's really interesting. So, there's a lot. I mean, this is a thing, right? And then let's move off of this whole fast mimicking thing. But like, I find it interesting because the truth of the matter is when you say the word to people, a lot of people like have done it before. I know multiple people that have done like, like you said, 15 times, 10 times. A lot of doctor friends of mine are like huge advocates for this. They prescribe it to their patients.

48:00Like, it's actually like a thing where like people really like are doing this a lot if you just like dig a little bit. Like people who are like very, like top health practitioners. For sure. I would say that the vast majority of the people that you're hearing on air or on social are probably, they probably know about fasting mimicking and are big believers in it, whether they've announced it to the world or not. Yeah. Because the research is like so hard to deny. You can't yet. We have, as I mentioned, over a million people that have gone through fasting mimicking and continue to do it today. There are also 20 ,000 physicians and practitioners that are recommending this in the Prolon database.

48:42But that's only a small segment of the people that are, in fact, referring it because not everybody knows that they can work directly with Prolon to help get this to their patients. Wow. So, yeah. So, I mean, it's really starting to spread. It's starting to get its legs, even though, yeah, of course, it's like a little bit challenging. But it's like it's also something that you have to do three times a year. Yeah. And it's so impactful. Right. And the research was there. So.

49:14Today's episode is powered by AMP. You know, those days when you're just done. I mean, the meetings, the kids, the to do list, and you still want to move your body. But the gym feels a million miles away. That's exactly why I love my AMP. AMP is a smart AI-powered strength training device that sits right in your home. It's super sleek, literally looks like you got it at the Apple store. And it also counts your reps, adjusts your weights for you, and you're always training under the perfect amount of tension. So whether you've got 15 minutes or 45, AMP adapts in real time to make every workout simple, effective, and completely personal.

49:56And the app is super cool too. It has hundreds of different workouts, strength, Pilates, mobility, recovery, and it's so easy to use. It's literally been a game changer for me. I don't have to plan my workouts or wonder what I'm going to do. I just turn on my amp and it takes care of the rest. And as a mom and a business owner and a podcaster, That convenience means I stay consistent and, you know, strength training, especially for women, is so key for my hormone balance, longevity, and, of course, confidence. So you can see why I'm obsessed. Go to joinamp.com slash gen to learn more. That's joinamp.com slash gen because strength should fit your life.

50:50Okay, enough of a prolon already. Okay. And fast mimicking and water diets. And, and is there anything besides that now? I mean, God, like, is what for longevity that, that we haven't heard ad nauseum what's like the things to do and how about things not to do? Yeah. So I think the big one that I'm going to call out, and I'm, I already afraid of the comments that are going to come my way for this one, but is the protein debate. Oh, it's a big one. It's a big one. It's like everything. It's like, it's so much now. It's outrageous. It's beyond. I mean, like, unless you're eating a cow at every meal, you're like shunned over 40.

51:31Right. It's crazy. The peer pressure to eat protein. And so much of it. So much. And so much of it. And it's like, okay, well, look, I have seen the data that is suggesting that you should be eating so, so much protein. And I do recognize that muscle is so critical to longevity. I am not going to deny that having strong muscles and having muscle density as you enter into your 60s is critical. I believe that 100%. But do you need to be having 100 million grams of protein every single day? Like one gram per pound is kind of what I've been starting to hear a lot more. And That's just really outrageous.

52:15And why I say outrageous, it's not just outrageous. There's research kind of starting, well, that has been around actually for quite a long time, showing the exact opposite. Showing that if you have way too much protein, that you can increase your risk of age-related diseases, especially cancer. And especially when you have certain types of protein, especially animal-based protein. So, you know, it doesn't mean that you have to go fully vegan or plant-based by any means, but it does mean that if you are excessively consuming a lot of animal protein, you are sure possibly going to get muscle density if you're also doing weight -bearing exercise.

52:55But you may also be increasing your risk of cancer and age-related disease because it is like a very careful balance. And so as with anything, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. I really caution people with this like massive protein intake push that we're starting to see. Starting to see? Like pull it back a little bit. A lot of it. I would say it's not starting. It's been like, this is part of the whole meta, like there's a whole trend of menopause, perimetopause, protein, wearing a weighted vest, all these things. It's like things go into these crazy trends and cycles that just are outrageous and just takes it and just, they're beating a dead horse.

53:37Like if something is doing well, they'll just keep beating it and beating it and beating it until like, it's just like, all right, I can't look at another thing about menopause, perimenopause, protein, weighted vest, creatine, like enough. I mean, when's the next trend starting? Like that's what I want to know. Right. Cause like I get it. But I think, like you said, sometimes less is more, right? It doesn't mean that now they told you to eat 100 grams. Now it's going to be, oh, no, no, no. You have to have 200 grams. It's crazy. It's like 200 grams. And it's like, oh, no, five milligrams of creatine.

54:13Oh, no. It's actually 10 milligrams to get the real benefit. Five is for toddlers. You need to be at 10 to get the brain benefits or get this benefit. It's never ending. And this is with supplements. This is with everything. Like it's more is more, is more, is more, is more, is more. And in my experience with life, it's actually with everything, less is more, right? So I'm now like, I'm actually now like cutting back on the supplements, cutting back on these extra stuff. Like unless my body actually says I need it, which means the best thing you could probably do in my opinion is get your blood tested four times a year or quarterly or twice a year, whatever.

54:54I think it's twice a year maybe, just so you see what you're deficient in and then supplement on those. Yes. Right? 1 ,000%. Hyper-personalized to yourself. I mean, that's like at the end of the day, the core of nutrition is that we're all different and we all need our own unique protocols. And like we love to make everything so black and white. Yeah. We love to be like protein is good, carbs are bad. So now that's like the way to go. And everybody should just be having a lot of protein and no carbs. said, I'm like, okay, it seems like a little bit of a black and white situation. And sure, maybe there are populations, by the way, that like we know for sure that a ketogenic diet can be helpful, like with people with seizures, for example.

55:36There's a lot of research that shows that that can be super helpful there. But does that mean that it's good for absolutely everybody? Exactly. And also, like in general, I just feel like this is like a real hot topic for me because And I just find like everything just has become so exacerbated online. Like if something, like I said, like then it's everything just overkill, overkill, overkill. Like basics though are the one, like keeping it basic. Exercise daily, move your body daily, you know, eat moderately well. Like the fasting thing I understand because it's like you said four or five times a year.

56:13That makes sense to me. Like, but all the diets, like how about this whole thing? Have you heard of this diet? diet. Oh man, it's like a big one now too. You said it. I said a keto? Yeah, not keto. It's like something else. Circadian rhythm. No, no, no. I don't remember what it is. Oh my gosh. I don't know what it is. It's going to drive me crazy too. Hold on a second. I have to find it what it is. Well, while I'm looking to find this diet, is there anything else? Like give us some other things that are not so obvious. Oh, what do you think about for longevity, the sauna, the cold plunge, things like that?

56:53For sure. Okay. So I'm a big fan of the infrared saunas, especially. I think that they're incredible and there is a good deal of research there. Cold plunging, by the way, I have slightly changed my mind on it. I was a huge cold plunge fan and I have started to decrease my appreciation for it. I started to look a little bit more at the research and it's very conflicting. Now, what we know for sure is that like your body, when you go into these very cold plunge type things, there's going to be increase in your metabolic rate as your body tries to heat you back up again. Right. So there is potentially like some benefits for calorie burning and weight loss.

57:34But like a lot of even some of the recovery stuff that people have been touting and a lot of the benefits that we're seeing with cold plunging may not be as big as we think they are. And in my opinion, cold plunging is so hard. Horrible. It's horrible. And I'm like, just no. Like if we're not even sure if this is going to be super beneficial, I'm just going to go in the inverse. The way I see it is I hate that cold plunge. It's like the bane of my existence. Anything that I like, I think why suffer more than you have to at this point, I prefer getting this, again, things to me are common sense, right?

58:12Like you sweat out the toxins. That makes sense. It's not that, it's not as like brutal as going into like a minus, like frigid, you know, icebox basically. I also think like just, I've heard the hormone disruption for women is not great. I also heard that it's not great for muscle atrophy. These are all real things that I, and I believe the sources I'm, and because I hate it, I'm going to, I'm going to now lean into those, the sauna I like, you know, but okay. I, after I yelled at you about like enough about the fast mimicking, I do have a couple of questions though. Do you mind? Okay. Cause I forgot.

58:50I do have to ask these questions cause I know people will ask me and I'll be like, oh, I didn't even ask. Okay. And after I just like basically railed on it, why is fast mimicking, is the fast mimicking diet good for people who are going through menopause? Okay, so this is a great question. First, I know that there has been a lot of talk about fasting being not good for women. And I think first of what I want to say is that that is based off of the fact that there is limited research in women's health with fasting. So a lot of like very, what's the word I'm looking for? But people who are very cautious will say, well, because the research isn't there, then it could be problematic.

59:29And this is why it could be problematic. And so you just shouldn't do it. But there are, at least with fasting mimicking, a lot of data on women about, I would say, 90 % of those 47 studies have been done with about 50 % or more women. And we're seeing all of those wonderful results, even it's not like only the men are seeing these benefits. The other thing that we are concerned about specifically for women when we talk about fasting is the stress response and the higher levels of cortisol, which if we are especially skipping breakfast, that can be very dysregulating and can cause some problems.

1:00:08So yes, I'm not a big recommender of intermittent fasting every day, especially skipping breakfast, especially for women. But with fasting mimicking, because we're giving nutrition, we're limiting a lot of that. So I know a lot of physicians and practitioners that for women, especially in midlife, they're only recommending fasting mimicking. Interesting. Okay, that makes sense. For that reason. Because it's just gentler on the body and you still get the benefits. Okay, the other question we didn't answer before, so I want to kind of circle back and then we can wrap, is athletes or people who work out all the time.

1:00:42How do they do it? Do they just not do it? Like, do you not work out as you do it? Or just do walking, as you would like to say? So, okay, well, I'm going to give you the official answer. The official answer is that you should limit your activity to, like, walking, stretching, recovery during those five days. So we have a lot of athletes that do this protocol. They're always going to do it during off-season. They're not doing it when they're, like, in the middle of season going hard every single day. Absolutely not. Like, it's just—that would be a huge stress on the body, too much of a stress on the body.

1:01:18and we're trying to like even like with cold plunging and infrared sauna and same with exercise like we don't want to quadruple layer on stress on the body right so when you're in a fasted these prolonged fasted states like everything else you can kind of just chill but again you could go back to your exercise hard before and after and there are still people that will claim that they can do it all and that they can exercise while they fast but for me i'm like just take five days to just like pull it back, focus on stretching. There's so many, like do, do meditation, do like a sound bath, do, do for modalities.

1:01:54Yeah. Do like a light yoga class. Like there's so many other things that you can do to move your body and be active during those five days, a grand total, like 15, 20 days a year where you're just going to chill back for a sec. Okay. I did work out like I told you, and it was hard. And, but like, it's more of a, I'm like, I'm like a monkey mind. So this is what I'm saying with people who have like a monkey mind, like mine or have like serious, like inability to sit still, it is challenging. When I say I worked out, though, I have to be honest, I wasn't hardcore doing Tabatas and hits. I was doing the walking and I was doing very lightweight.

1:02:32But it's okay. You can manage without... You don't have to kill it for every single day. So that makes sense. I like that. Is there anything else that we can talk about regarding like any information that you've seen regarding longevity and diet that has not been said a million times and then some? Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, there's so, there's so much in this world. I think one thing that maybe we're not talking about enough is now with the rise of exogenous ketones, I've spent some time like looking into that. What is that? So it's like, have you seen, oh gosh, what's the name? There's like, I think it's called Keto Mojo.

1:03:13There's like a, or no, that's one of the trackers. But various like drinks that are, they taste awful, but they're packed with ketones. So you drink them and it's supposed to just give you this increase in ketosis. So instead of actually letting your body get into ketosis all by itself, you're just taking ketones, which we call exogenous ketones. And this is like super new. I mean, relatively new. There's one brand that I actually think is pretty decent. It's a full drink and it's called Holy Water and it doesn't taste like absolute trash. But the reality is that the research just isn't really there yet.

1:03:54And what we're seeing is that a lot of people who are trying to add these ketones to just like drink them, maybe, yeah, it's going to increase your ketosis or increase the number of ketones in your blood. But is it actually helping? And this is like kind of where I come back to like, sometimes hacking the system is just never going to do as well as if your body just does it on its own. If your body is going to be able to get into ketosis through fasting or through a keto diet, it's doing the work. It's going to run out of sugar and then it's going to make its own ketones from fat. And that's part of the magic.

1:04:31Like if you're hacking the system and you're just giving the ketones, you're losing all of the pre-work and benefits of actually making it in your own body. And what we also have been able to see now is that when you take these exogenous ketones, it may even limit your body's ability to make their own ketones. So people do ask me, and this one I just find is interesting, like, oh, can I just add exogenous ketones when I'm doing fasting? And my answer is always no, because it could very well impact your body's own ability to get there and create some of these benefits. And so I guess like that's a very long way of saying that when we do fasting and fasting mimicking, don't just assume that because it didn't change your blood sugar or that it, you know, kept you in ketosis, that it's not impacting the benefits.

1:05:22Same with protein. Like so many people are like, I'm just going to drink some bone broth while I do this. No, it's going to ruin it. That's exactly what I was going to say. Why can't you just drink some bone broth? So Prolon does have these soups. Yes. So I mean, it's good. The soups are much better than they used to be from what I understand. I only knew these soups, but the bone broth is a big one. I thought, why not? Why can't you just have the bone broth? Right. Well, you'll notice that all of the soups in a Prolon kit, for example, are all plant-based. It's like tomato, minestrone, et cetera.

1:05:55The protein, I get it. I get it. I get it now. And now I understand. I'm learning it now. I got it. I got it, Renee. Okay. Okay. So this is good information. I learned something from this podcast. Thank you. Good. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me. It's always such a pleasure to hang out with you, my fellow Canadians. Exactly. Of course. I mean, this is like our bond right there. Another Canadian. How do you not like a Canadian, right? Well, these days, maybe it's a little bit different, but we won't get into that situation. Thank you for being here, Renee. How do people find out more about anything about what you're doing and who you are?

1:06:30For sure. Well, you can definitely check me out on Instagram. I'm at fittonnutrition. That's F-I-T-T-O-N nutrition. I also have a website, fittonutrition.com. If you are curious about learning more about the Prolon kits and fasting mimicking, I would direct you to prolonlife.com. That's P-R-O-L-O-N life.com. And for people who, by the way, do want to do fasting mimicking for disease and for metabolic health and some of the more advanced reasons why you might want to consider this, I would recommend a company called L Nutra Health. Their website is L-N-U-T-R-A health.com. Thanks, Renee. Awesome.

1:07:10Bye.

1:07:19Amen.