These days there are always new diet options being offered up by the health and wellness industry. This has its good and bad points, of course.

On the good side, we’re all built differently and our own unique systems function better with certain ways of eating than others. Variety is the spice of life! What works for one person may not work for another. For example, maybe a mostly-fruit diet is your thing. Or, perhaps you’re all about the high protein/low carbs. Whatever the spice is of your life, you can bet there’s a diet for you to try.

The not-so-good side is that often we find diets that swing to extremes in what you can eat, often causing extremes in health ramifications too. Fad diets are really not where it’s at, and if you don’t use an abundance of caution when embarking on a new way of eating, you could do a lot more harm than good. 

Fasting – Not A Fad

When we think of fasting, we may think of the guru perched peacefully on their meditation cushion, or perhaps even a hunger strike. But in recent years, fasting has become more mainstream. A lot of attention has come around intermittent fasting, in particular – not exactly as a “diet” per se, but as a way of eating. In other words, it’s not an exception you would adopt in the way you eat, just to drop 10 quick pounds. Instead, it’s the rule by which you’ve chosen to fuel your body every day.

The premise with intermittent fasting is that you simply restrict your eating to a certain set of hours each day, 11 am-7 pm, for example. You don’t do much monitoring of what is consumed during that time unless, of course, you want to. The only real requirement is that you consume no calories outside of the allotted hours. Why? Essentially, you’re attempting to get your body to run as efficiently as possible on whatever it is that you give it. 

Autophagy And Fasting

Studies have shown that intermittent fasting is a great way to jumpstart a process known as autophagy, which in very simple terms is essentially when healthy cells eat non-healthy cells, thereby causing your body to run more efficiently on the strongest cells. (1) 

Scientists and dietitians seem to generally agree that this particular method of eating can be beneficial. This is a bit of a rarity, so you know it must be good! 

Enter Dr. Valter Longo. He has built an entire foundation of well-respected research around the premise that fasting is excellent for the human immune system in particular. He has performed countless experiments around fasting, working with some of the most brilliant minds in the industry. According to a 2014 article from the University of Southern California news regarding a study from Cell Stem Cell, “cycles of prolonged fasting not only protect against immune system damage — a major side effect of chemotherapy — but also induce immune system regeneration, shifting stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal.” (2)

This is huge, both for people who are trying to build their systems back up and for people who want to stave off the effects of aging for as long as possible.

From Dr. Longo’s website: The Valter Longo Foundation supports research aimed at rapidly developing inexpensive, creative, integrative therapies for the treatment of serious diseases and the identification of strategies to prevent illness and promote longer, healthier lives. (3) What a fantastic mission.

What Is Fasting?

Fasting is traditionally thought of as total abstinence from food and drink for a set amount of time. Your body needs a certain number of calories to run efficiently. (That’s where the idea comes from that an average person needs 2,000 calories per day.)

So, delving a little further into this idea of fasting, if a person consumes only 500 calories in a day, that would also be considered fasting. They are not consuming the calories their body needs to support all its systems effectively. 

It’s in this sweet spot, that Dr. Longo works. 

The “fasting-mimicking diet” he developed, is exactly what it sounds like: you are indeed consuming calories, but not enough to be considered a “normal” amount, so technically speaking, you are fasting. By consuming his strictly proportioned meals, you will effectively be fasting while still receiving the nutrition your body needs. 

In the above video, Meggie talks about fasting. She dives into what it means to fast, what the health benefits are, and how to begin. We know there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to health, so she also discusses how to identify when you might not be a good candidate for fasting. You can also learn more about Prolon – The Fasting Mimicking Diet mentioned in the video by clicking HERE!

Reset Your Systems

The end result of this, according to Dr. Longo’s findings, is that a person’s body runs more efficiently. Your digestive system works better. Your immune system functions more effectively. The science behind his fasting-mimicking diet is being used to advance understanding of how diet can affect cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, autoimmune, cardiovascular, diabetes and obesity, according to the website. In fact, Dr. Longo’s team showed that fasting for two days ‘slowed the growth and spread of five out of the eight cancers studied.’ It’s important to note this was specific to the experiments performed on mice, but the results are promising. If it is possible, though not yet proven, that fasting may slow the growth of cancer cells, it may be worth giving a try. (4)

In an interview with Dr. Longo, he indicates that all signs point to twice-yearly fasting as a viable option for adding years to a person’s life. (5) 

But what’s more, it’s healthy years that are added to a person’s life. This is what really means something. Adding time to a life that’s not already full of health and vitality, is not what we’re trying for here! So, this way of managing one’s eating offers a one-two punch. 

First, it re-calibrates bodily systems, meaning they run smoother, which in turn provides energy for all your days to get better, stronger and more purposeful. 

Second, those better, stronger and more purposeful days turn into years upon years worth of quality living, and that’s what this mission is all about. Strength, vitality, and a long life lived well. Thanks, Dr. Longo, for all your hard work!