Revisiting one of our best episodes from 2019, with author, public speaker, and biohacking coach Siim Land.
Siim has written several books about intermittent fasting, autophagy, ketosis, and resistance training. This is an important conversation about how fasting and muscle growth can go hand in hand. There are a lot of common questions and concerns about this topic; from finding that perfect balance of mTOR and autophagy to how much protein is too much, and we will answer ‘when is the best time to exercise when you are following a fasting lifestyle?'
More about Siim Land:
Siim Land is an author, public speaker and biohacking coach. Despite his young age (24), he’s written several books about intermittent fasting, autophagy, ketosis and resistance training. Siim has a degree in anthropology and lives in Estonia.
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Transcript:
Dr. Pompa:
Have you had these questions? How do I intermittent fast with exercise? What is the best time to eat after I exercise? How do I add diet variation into my life so I can live my life as normal? All right, on this episode, we’re going to answer all of these questions and so many more. Even how much protein should I ingest? Here’s another one. If I’m not interested in putting muscle on, is resistive training something that I need? You’re going to learn not only is it something you need but how it’s the key to anti-aging. I think more importantly, on this episode, is you’re going to see a little bit more of how I live my life and the gentleman that I interviewed here. Really, a lot of information, a lot of questions so many of you had on this episode of Cell TV.
I want to give thanks to one of our sponsors, CytoDefend. Look, at a time like this, I think that our immune system and keeping our immune system operating now is more important than ever. I can also tell you that I pay attention to the things that keep my immune system on par and healthy. So glad that CytoDefend is one of our sponsors here on Cell TV and it’s a product that I use, my family uses, and hopefully, you’ll check it out. By the way, you can check it out with the link right here below. If you want to try a free bottle, you can actually get a free bottle. Just pay the shipping and I think you’ll reorder after that but check it out.
Ashley:
If you’re listening to this podcast and want to access the amazing CytoDefend product Dr. Pompa just mentioned, please visit freeimmunity.com. Again, that’s freeimmunity.com.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m Ashley Smith and today we welcome Siim Land who is an author, public speaker, and biohacking coach. He has written several books about intermittent fasting, autophagy, ketosis, and resistance training. Today, he’s here to talk about how fasting and muscle growth go hand in hand. There are a lot of common questions and concerns about this topic and they will be addressed today. From finding that perfect balance of mTOR and autophagy to how much protein is too much, this is an interview you won’t want to miss. Let’s welcome, Siim Land who is joining us all the way from Estonia and of course, Dr. Pompa who is in Park City. Welcome, guys.
Siim:
All right.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, rarely do I get to interview someone where this time—where it’s colder where they are than it is where I am although you told me I have more snow. I guess, that’s good. It’s not as cold and I have more snow because snow can be fun. Well, listen. This is a topic that not many of us are talking about. I think that’s how you and I connected because we connect on this topic of—well, there’s the groups, right? You have your vegan, vegetarian group that hates this mTOR pathway which—those of you who haven’t watched shows, it’s an anabolic pathway that can age you prematurely if you stay in it too long which is true.
Then you have the other side. You have your body builders and workout people who hate autophagy because I’m going to lose muscle. However, you and I, agree on that the balance between them is the key. One of the things I wanted to talk about today is how do we do this? I mean, I talk about it in my book a lot. I even cite all the studies because I believe the key is going back and forth. The topic today is, how do we do this? What does that look like? How much protein? How do I work in resistive training to this? How many fats? How much time do I spend with either increased protein or calories to stimulate mTOR?
Anyway, this is a topic that really is, I think, something that everyone needs to learn in their life because I believe we were genetically programmed for times of fast, or famine, I should say. In times of feast which is what stimulates this pathway called mTOR. Siim, what I just said may have confused some people. What the heck are we talking about? Let’s start there. I mean, try to make it more simple than I just said.
Siim:
Yeah, definitely. It’s very common for people to let’s say gravitate towards a certain idea when it comes to nutrition and diet. A lot of the times, it’s just people are—they get so good results by changing up their diet every once in a while. They’ve quit their standard American diet. They go on a vegan diet and they see some massive improvements in their health or they go on a keto diet or something and again, they see improvements. It’s never that this magical diet is the best diet for everyone. It’s the fact that they’re changing their body’s nutritional environment or metabolic status towards a certain direction and that is allowing their body to start healing itself and bring it back into balance.
You mentioned a few of these pathways that are constantly affecting this balance in your body such as autophagy and mTOR. Let’s say, for example, if your body is experiencing energy deprivation and starvation, then it’s going to turn on this pathway called autophagy or this process called autophagy. When it’s fed, when it’s eating, it turns on the other side of the coin which is mTOR and mTOR is the switch for growth and replication. From an evolutionary perspective or the perspective of survival, your body can’t really activate those things at the same time because both of them require some resources and the body tries to be as energy efficient as possible in order to survive.
That’s why it has developed these different pathways and sensors for directing the energy doors one or the other. The problem in the modern world is that we’re never really experiencing “famine” or starvation. We are always in this overly fed, abundant state. [00:06:14] if you are on elevated mTOR all the time, you’re being fed, overfed constantly, then you may just accelerate aging and you will also predispose yourself to more disease and obesity. That’s why in this modern world, we have to create these scenarios that mimic starvation and mimic some period of famine so that we would keep our body in this homeostatic balance that we wouldn’t over express the anabolism and mTOR.
Dr. Pompa
Oh, yeah. In my book, I call it diet variation. Feast, famine cycling. You’re right. I mean, we have to imitate what our bodies are genetically programmed to do because—when you look at whether you improve your muscle function or strength, your digestion, anything, your brain, it’s the principle of adaptation. Meaning we create stress and if we adapt, we get stronger. We have to create the stresses. You and I, right before we got on, we were talking about going from hot to cold. A sauna, out laying in the snow. Ashley was like, you guys are nuts. From hot to really freezing cold. What are we doing? We’re creating a stress and the adaptation improves your immune system. The adaptation improves your hormones.
We’re not doing anything different when we’re changing the diet. When we’re going from a pathway of autophagy to mTOR, we’re doing the same thing as hot or cold. Literally, we’re just causing the body to adapt. That’s the principle that Siim and I are following here, and that’s the principle that really, it holds up on everything. It’s really cool. I’m using this machine that’s called an AVACEN. The whole principle is, it heats just part of your blood and then your hypothalamus that senses your body temperature, goes, uh-oh, only part of the blood is heated, I’m going to go into heat stroke. What does it do?
It opens up all of your capillaries and sends blood into every part of your body where it normally doesn’t have a lot of blood flow. It creates this massive healing in your body all based on stressing the body or getting the body to think it’s stressed and it creates this amazing adaptation to where it sends blood out to cool the body is what it’s trying to do. Save its life. All right, Siim. Let me back up a second. We’ll tear this thing apart here for people and I want people to realize—look we’re going to tell you how to work out with this concept and how to put all these things together. How did you get into this, Siim? What’s your following? You have a big YouTube following out there. How did you land here?
Siim:
Originally, I was just into weightlifting back in high school. At that time, I was also very curious and did a lot of research about nutrition and diet just to optimize my results and improve my body composition and strength. So just over the course of years of—learned about different diets like keto, paleo. I’ve done different versions of carbohydrate loading, intermittent fasting, extended fasting, and also just started to broadcast those things into my blog. From that time, it gradually grew into a YouTube Channel and a podcast which we had you on a few weeks ago as well. I’ve just become very—almost like a self-experimenter who is researching about these things and sharing it with other people.
Dr. Pompa:
How many followers do you have? You have a big following.
Siim:
Yeah, on YouTube, I have 95,000 subscribers or something. We’re close to 100,000. On other of the social media platforms, I also have—on Instagram, it’s 28,000. The podcast itself also has, I don’t know, 10,000 to 20,000 followers. Yeah, it’s been gradually growing over the course of years.
Dr. Pompa:
That makes me happy because someone out there is speaking the right thing in this area. Believe me, people line up in their camps, man. You have the keto campers, the paleo people. I just came up with that. Keto campers, paleo people actually. Then you have your vegan people and your vegetarian people. You have these people that line up on the autophagy side of things. Yet how few bring it all together. Let’s talk about it. I think we have a lot of listeners that are intermittent fasting. We both know that intermittent fasting, a lot of people are gravitating even to one meal a day which I have many days one meal, but doing too much of even intermittent fasting can produce too much autophagy and therefore, too much of a catabolic state. It can lower our immunity. Talk a little bit about that and talk about how you have found to bring balance to that.
Siim:
Yeah, definitely. I think the most common problem with fasting too frequently has to do with the thyroid so to say and your metabolic rate. Your thyroid is very vulnerable to stress and especially adrenaline and cortisol. Those things are actually very elevated when you are fasting because, like you said, fasting is a stressor. It’s a positive stressor but with anything that is good, too much of it can become bad. It can become bad. If you fast, let’s say, too often, too long, all the time, then you will inevitably don’t regulate your thyroid and that can just slow down your metabolism that can cause some other hormonal imbalances. Yeah, especially weaken your immune system, so you may get sick.
The way I personally overcome this is I change things up. On most days, I do eat one meal a day over the course of a few hours but on some other days, I just add an additional meal and I eat two meals a day. It just breaks the pattern so to say. It allows my body to recover from the fasting and allows me to still keep making progress. That’s an easy way of changing things up and you can still do some form of fasting. For other people, they may even have to include maybe three meals a day depending on the situation. The main idea is that you change it up a little bit. You can also change things up with your diet. For example, I do think that eating somewhat of a low carb diet that incorporates healthy fats and plenty of protein is a good idea for most people especially the population that is insulin resistant or they have some sort of metabolic syndrome.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I agree.
Siim:
At the same time, some carb cycling is also very beneficial because of—carbs especially are useful for boosting your thyroid and overcoming this slow metabolism so to say. Those are actually more effective for overcoming metabolic adaptation and also breaking ketosis. This shift promotes this metabolic flexibility that teaches the body to use both carbs and fats in different situations. Doing it in a cyclical manner also enables your body to maintain its resilience [00:13:18]. It doesn’t go into this very deprived state of being constantly in ketosis.
Dr. Pompa:
I couldn’t agree more. Yeah, I mean, there’s times when I’m doing very strict low carb ketosis for months and then there’s times where I shift over to higher healthy carbohydrates for a time. I call that seasonal variation but what you’re talking about with the intermittent fasting—and again, for new viewers, intermittent fasting just means [00:13:45] eat in a window whether it be four hours, six hours, or one meal, that’s an intermittent fasting where you’re fasting maybe 15 hours, 20 hours, something every day. To our point, people with thyroid issues, I think more women, they do better with variation. I find even sometimes three days of more eating or higher healthy carbohydrate eating, they seem to be the same vein.
Siim:
Yeah, yeah. Your body has a weight limiting factor for restoring glycogen so you can’t really fully absorb all the glycogen in one sitting. It has to be done over the course of several hours or several days for example. Yeah, that’s why a single carbohydrate meal may not be as effective as doing it over several meals.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, yeah. No, exactly. Throwing in certain days of the week especially like you said for these more hormone—perimenopause, adrenal issues or thyroid issues. The problem with it, Siim though is that, just like everything else, someone moves to a vegan diet. They feel great. Now they’re always on a vegan diet. Someone moves to a paleo diet, they feel great. Now they’re always on a paleo diet meaning they’re getting too much protein too long. The vegan person is getting too much autophagy too long. We kind of stick to where we are. We know it’s different with intermittent fasting.
Intermittent fasting, people do it and then they realize, oh my gosh, this is working, finally. Then they shift to even less, less, less, right? Less meals, one meal. They’re able to do it because they’re getting more used to it, metabolically flexible. They end up eating less and less and less and less and it leads to destruction. Do you find that it’s hard to get people oftentimes to do the feast days? I have to tell people that feast days are as important as the fast days. Do you find the same thing?
Siim:
Yeah, definitely. I myself am also guilty of it every once in a while. Fasting, once you get used to it, it’s so comfortable. You enjoy the [00:15:49], the mental clarity, the feeling of bliss. You just want to do it, but at the same time, I have to remind myself again that you have to break it up every once in a while.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I’m just guilty as you are. Honestly, you get to a point where it’s easier for me just to go about my busy day without eating and I’m like, oh my gosh, I literally, oftentimes have to eat. Now I may not have that over the holidays but this is something that’s—when I get busy during my work week. When you have time off, it’s a little bit easier to remind yourself to eat. Let’s bring it to your expertise here, working out. I don’t care if you’re the house mom or the workout enthusiast, this works for you. I really want you to give them a really good schedule, those listening, of how to balance this with—okay, intermittent fasting, some feast days, and resistive workouts because if you put all these together, there’s magic here. Yet so few are putting it all together. Give them an example of how to put your workouts in, how to put your feast days in, and how to put your intermittent fasting in.
Siim:
Yeah, definitely. First of all, I’m going to back up a little bit of, why would you want to do resistance training? The aspect of resistance training, the main goal of that or the main effect is that it promotes muscle growth and also promotes bone density and just general functionality.
Dr. Pompa:
Back up right there, Siim. I’m the sick person watching this. I don’t want muscle growth. I’m the woman who’s like, that’s the last thing I want. You and I, that means something else. It means healthy people need muscle growth. Even if you want to stay skinny and healthy, you need muscle. Explain that a little bit.
Siim:
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Building muscle isn’t about body building and going to the stage in bikinis. It’s about actually creating this lean muscle tissue that is functional and it’s just making you more healthier. Muscle, as an organ, also as a tissue is very healthy for improving your glucose tolerance, increases insulin sensitivity. It just improves even your cognitive functioning as well as just anti-aging. Muscle is very critical for slowing down the aging process. As you get older, your muscle mass is going to inevitably start to deteriorate and it’s also going to become increasingly more a problem as you get older, so the less muscle you have, the faster you’re going to age. The faster you age, the less muscle you’re going to have. It’s a vicious cycle in a sense.
Dr. Pompa:
Now you have everyone’s attention. We all need good quality muscle. Let’s put the program together.
Siim:
True. You do it with—the best form of doing it is with weights and that is just shown over the course of decades that some form of weightlifting at the gym with weights like free weights or kettlebells or something else, that’s the most effective way of doing it.
Dr. Pompa:
What about all the cardio and the aerobics classes and the bikes and all that stuff? You’re saying it’s better than that?
Siim:
Yeah. The cardio exercise, it’s not going to stimulate muscle growth because it targets another completely [00:19:06] system in our body which is aerobics. You’re not going to build any muscle with cardio. You’re only going to burn calories. The difference between resistance training and cardio workouts is that, the cardio workouts only promote endurance and they burn calories. Whereas the resistance training exercise stimulates muscle growth which is going to speed up your metabolism. It’s also going to enhance your bone density and also improve your hormonal profile. It’s a much more effective way for losing fats as well as slowing down the aging process.
Dr. Pompa:
I just read a study. I want to keep your train of thought here, but I’ll just interject this. They’re doing DNA methylation test which is really a very active way of looking at how old you are, really how old you are at the cyto level and even your internal organs. They’re finding that people who do more cardio training actually have the worse scores. I mean, there is a fine line and I’m not against cardio. Listen, I was a cyclist. I actually love it. The resistive training, to your point, is far better for anti-aging. It’s far better when you’re sick. It does better for your hormones. Too much of the other is very easy especially if you’re already not adapting to stress. Too much of the cardio could create more of oxidative stress, but go ahead.
Siim:
Definitely, yeah. I myself work out with my own body weight. I do calisthenics on most days, but I also go to the gym two times a week where I do actual weights and the heavier loads. When you look at the research, then generally two to three times a week of resistance training seems to be the minimum and seems to be like the bare minimum for the optimal dose. You can also do it more frequently but most people, let’s say, who are just exercising for their health and anti-aging then they don’t really want to do any more than that either which is fine. You can just go to the gym, workout three times a week, and generally, it’s better to target full body compound movements that target multiple joints and they also stimulate the entire body.
They’re more effective in terms of the actual response that you get from the exercise. The biceps curl is also almost like the cardio workout of the resistance training. Instead of doing the biceps curl or the triceps pushup, you will learn to focus more on the bench press or the barbell row because with the bench press, you’re also training your shoulders, your chest, a little bit of your lats, your back, and it strengthens the entire upper body in one movement. Whereas with the biceps curl, you’re only training the biceps and the forearm and so on. You’re going to have to just spend more time doing it and it’s going to be less effective.
That’s why full body, multi-joint, compound lifts, the general power lifting movements like the bench press, the squat, the deadlift and the barbell row, those are the big four movements that I think everyone should incorporate in some shape or form. Those are going to mimic the functional movements that you do in your everyday life. If you teach yourself how to deadlift correctly, then you’re also going to teach yourself how to lift up a bookcase from the floor better and you’re not going to pull a muscle or something.
Dr. Pompa:
Do you have any examples of some of those that you put together in your website? Where would you point our people to be like, yeah, I want one of Siim’s workouts and get some ideas there?
Siim:
Yeah. I do actually have a book, Metabolic Autophagy that talks about how you combine both intermittent fasting with resistance training. It’s going to teach you how do we balance mTOR with autophagy and how do you do it with both the fasting and the training.
Dr. Pompa:
No, exactly. People want to know. People want to be like, okay, just show me what to do, but I agree with you. If you’re looking for health and longevity, even two days a week of resistive training can be really amazing. That number is what I do, two or three days. I do other outdoor activities in and around that, but the resistive training, that’s pretty much exactly what I do. If we’re doing some of that resistive training—here’s a question I always get. We know that we need protein to recover as well. We know this. Folks listening, this mTOR pathway which is this anabolic pathway, muscle builders or body builders if you will, they exaggerate these couple of things to make more muscle and be an mTOR.
Increase protein, increase calories or even increase carbohydrates. Those will stimulate the mTOR pathway. The autophagy pathway is decrease calories or fasting and decrease protein. We have these pathways that we’ve been talking about, they’re opposite. Recovery from workout. How much protein? This is always the debate. Again, let’s talk about health. The body builders they want massive amounts of protein. For our viewers and listeners, we want the optimal health balance. When do I ingest it? Do I ingest more on my workout days? Do I ingest less? Give us a guideline with the protein.
Siim:
Yeah, definitely. You said it right that protein is very important for muscle growth and it’s critical for longevity as well. If you are under eating protein, you’re going on a low protein diet, then you may actually end up losing muscle mass which is going to actually accelerate your aging process which is the opposite that you want. I don’t think a low protein diet is a good idea for longevity and too much of it isn’t good either for the reason that you mentioned. If you look at the research, they found that the optimal amount of protein for muscle growth, that maximizes muscle growth is around 0.8 grams per pound of lean body mass up to 1.2 grams per pound of lean body mass.
That’s the upper limit that you wouldn’t see any increasing effect going beyond that. Generally, that’s the amount that is recommended for people who are very physically active. They work out three to five times a week or something, but for the general population who just wants to be healthy, I would say that it’s slightly less, maybe it can be at minimum I would still recommend 0.6 grams per pound of lean body mass and upward to 0.8, somewhere right there.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, so give us an example for a 125-pound person and a 150-pound person [00:25:47] for 150.
Siim:
Yeah. For example, if a person is 120 pounds or 130 pounds, then at minimum, I would say that 100 grams of protein per day is a good idea and upward, 120 grams upward, you don’t need to go beyond 1 gram per pound of body weight. For example, if someone is 150 pounds, then the minimum for them is 125 grams and upward to 150 grams or something that—if you look at the RDA, the RDA—
Dr. Pompa:
On the lower scale of things, it would be actually lower. That was around that 0.8 number there, wasn’t it?
Siim:
Yeah, yeah. That’s true. That’s true. If a person would aim for 0.6, then I would say maybe 100 grams or something again.
Dr. Pompa:
For a 150-pound person, so at 100 grams, yeah. I think that’s right. Yeah, 0.8, you’re right, 0.75, right, divided in half. If it’s 0.5, 150-pound person would be 75 grams of protein would be 0.5. A little more would maybe 80, 90. Okay, all right. I just want people to know how we’re calculating that.
Siim:
Yeah, that’s true. I wouldn’t recommend going less than that especially if you’re doing some form of intermittent fasting because the idea, that aim to accelerate aging, it’s also coming from the perspective of eating six meals a day. That’s why body builders eat six times a day because mTOR also has a limiting factor, so to say. You can’t overstimulate mTOR in one sitting up to a certain threshold and you can’t—even if you eat let’s say 100 grams of protein in one sitting or 30 grams of protein in one sitting, the mTOR stimulation from that meal is still the same because the body, it’s not going to overstimulate mTOR because it can only absorb a certain amount of protein in one sitting.
If you’re doing some form of intermittent fasting, then you don’t really have to worry about the protein that much because your eating frequency is smaller. You’re stimulating mTOR even in a smaller time frame, so you have less problems. You only would have to worry about it if you’re eating the standard American diet with frequent snacks and frequent meals where you’re keeping mTOR and insulin elevated all the time. But with fasting, that’s avoided. You’re protecting yourself against it.
Dr. Pompa:
I want to repeat what you said. If you’re an intermittent faster, who is doing resistive training, the fact is, is you probably have a greater risk of getting under protein because again, remember, protein is needed. We want protein to stimulate mTOR because mTOR is why you’re working out. mTOR is needed to make the muscles stronger. Again, Siim’s point I think is really well taken. I think today, we have a lot of our viewers who are risking too little protein because they’re eating a lot of plant-based perhaps. It’s a little harder to get the amount of protein that you’re talking about. You’re better off when you are eating, making sure you’re getting that amount. Again, just looking at those numbers, staying around that 0.7, 0.8, I guess is a healthy range there. Just do the math.
Siim:
It’s also important to emphasize the quality of that protein and the composition of that protein. You mentioned plant-based proteins, they are generally less mTOR stimulating than animal protein because animal protein contains more of these anabolic amino acids like the branched-chain amino acids and leucine especially. Leucine is the key factor for stimulating mTOR. You can even achieve a higher mTOR response with less protein if the leucine content is higher. Generally, animal protein especially eggs or meat, they have more leucine than plant protein. Let’s say, with fasting, you have also less to worry about when it comes to animal protein in terms of if you are worried about mTOR or methionine or something.
Dr. Pompa:
I think the other point that you said I think is so well taken too is if you are intermittent fasting, your risk of eating too much protein becomes much less. To your point, when you’re eating six meals a day, you could actually have the same amount of protein as someone intermittent fasting and have actually more problems stimulating mTOR. You have a lot of plant-based people who are eating many meals a day, who at the end of the day, could actually run into more aging problems than someone eating one or two meals a day. I think that was a really good point.
Siim:
Yeah, you said plant-based people can also experience higher rates of mTOR if they’re eating all the time because glucose and sugar is also stimulating mTOR. Insulin also elevates mTOR. Even if you’re eating a no animal protein diet, but you’re doing it very frequently, then you’re still not avoiding the constant stimulation of mTOR and accelerated aging.
Dr. Pompa:
Look, I’m not against vegan diet or a vegetarian diet for short periods of time. You know what I mean. That’s kind of Siim and I’s point is, the problem is, is that people tend to do these things too long. I’m going to get some massive mTOR stimulation for short periods of time, but I think with the intermittent fasting, I think the protein conversations are really an important one. I really don’t worry about my protein in a meal because I do intermittent fast. People always go, how much protein do you get? When I work out, I make sure I eat a normal amount of protein in my diet. If you looked at my amount of protein, it’s probably at least 120 grams of protein at the end of my day, and I get that in one or two meals even.
Typically, I get it in two meals. Part of the days, I do one meal, I’m getting less, but on the other days I’m getting more. On my feast days, when I really eat a lot, I’m probably getting far more. I hope I am. I mean, I think I’ve figured it out to where I’m getting 150, 200 grams on some of those days purposely. Again, what we’re talking about is doing this, feast, famine, high protein. By the way, Siim, one of the things I’m doing with people who are looking to regain their health is instead of just doing high carbohydrate days, I have them do high protein days because I am so concerned about the protein for the recovery and arguably, protein has more to do with the recovery than the carbohydrates [00:32:34].
I like to do high protein days which stimulates mTOR. I don’t care if you get there—you can get there through carbohydrates. You can get there through calories. You can get there through obviously protein. Protein, calories, carbs, all of it will get you there. I think for sick people, I love doing the high protein days.
Siim:
Yeah, that’s true. Protein is very valuable and even over feeding on protein doesn’t mean that you’re wasting it away because—let’s say protein can be absorbed quite over the course of several hours. Even if you are eating or let’s say you’re exceeding your body’s protein requirements in a meal, then your body is going to just slow down the digestion of the protein and it’s still going to stay in your system for several hours afterwards. Your body is going to prolong the anabolic response from that and you’re still absorbing it. You’re not really wasting it away. That’s very useful especially if you’re fasting and having this higher pool of amino acids to pull from.
Dr. Pompa:
We spoke a little bit to the person on this side, the autophagy side. What about the people out there that really want to put on muscle? What about the intermittent fasting? Is it better to put muscle in intermittent fasting or the old days of eating five, six meals a day? Which way actually is going to help me hormonally put muscle on?
Siim:
The problem with the body building advice of eating six meals a day is that advice comes from people who are taking anabolic steroids. Their hormonal environment is already more prone to muscle growth and they’re geared towards taking more advantage of that higher eating frequency. Let’s say, natural people who are just wanting to building muscle then for them it’s not that important to have that frequent meals. Of course, eating more often would help the muscle building process but it’s not detrimental for them to skip meals either. Let’s say, the average person can still eat let’s say, two meals a day and be very successful at building muscle as long as the calories and the protein content of the meals is sufficient.
Arguably, you would still see a beneficial result in terms of the improved hormonal profile and improved body composition. I like to see fasting or intermittent fasting where you fast for 16 hours and eat your food within 8 hours. That’s a good lean bulking style of dieting where you’re still eating enough, but you’re also able to maintain relative leanness without getting fat. If you’re trying to really push the envelope then maybe going towards eating three meals a day with a span of maybe 14 hours or something but you don’t need to really go beyond that. You don’t need to eat from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed to build muscles.
Dr. Pompa:
Arguably, that’s where you run in to trouble with too much mTOR stimulation. Now some of the body builders are eating in a window, realizing they get this hormone benefit for growth during fasting. However, they’re pushing a lot of calories in the eating. Maybe they’re eating three times a day but they’re eating a lot of calories in the eating window. Does that work? Have you tried that?
Siim:
Yeah, definitely. You can still eat plenty of calories even if it’s in the small eating window and build muscle with it. Sometimes people just have a hard time of achieving that because especially if they’re eating a whole foods diet then it’s very hard to gain weight on eating carrots and sweet potatoes and chicken breast or something. In that case, they can safely just increase the calorie density of their meals. They don’t have to eat bok choy and lettuce or something that they can go for the fattier pieces of steak. Maybe add some sweet potatoes, maybe add some fruit and some nuts or something that just have higher calories and help them to achieve a calorie surplus that way.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. You’re saying stick to your fat and protein in the eating window because you’re right. I mean, basically, we’re getting the autophagy from the fasting. Let’s say we go eighteen hours. Now we’re trying to eat all these calories to gain muscle in the window. You’re simply not hungry half the time. It’s like, I don’t want to eat another meal. If you really bring the quality of protein and fats and you can pull it off because again, in the eating window is the mTOR stimulation. That means, we either have to increase calories, protein or carbs. One of the other or all of them to really get that going.
Siim:
One trick also that stimulates appetite is also combining carbs with the protein. That can also result in a higher anabolic response. If you combine carbohydrates with protein, then you’re also going to raise mTOR and insulin slightly higher. That’s going to also make you hungrier in some aspects and also makes it easier for you to overcome this palate fatigue that you may experience by eating in a small window.
Dr. Pompa:
Great advice. Body builders have been doing that for years. Carbohydrates and protein even helps deliver the amino acids into the cell better for recovery. This is a question we always get. What about meal timing around your workout? Meaning, the old days, it was like, I would run home from the gym. If not, bring protein with me to make sure that I consume protein 20 minute after my workout. Now hormonally, we know there’s some differences that we’ve discovered along the way for that but talk about the meal timing around the workouts because that’s probably one of the biggest questions I get.
Siim:
Yeah, definitely. I think it depends a lot on how you’ve been fasting either before or around the workout. If they’re coming from a fasted workout, then it is slightly more important to get the nutrients faster into your system and start the recovery process than it is if you were coming from a fed workout. If you eat before a workout, then you can safely fast for several hours after the workout because you’re still using the nutrients that you got from the first meal. If you’re coming from a fasted workout, that can be somewhat more catabolic on your system and you’ve broken down your muscles doing the workout. If you continue to fast afterwards, then that can lead to just additional muscle loss which is not ideal. In that case, I will suggest maybe trying to eat an hour or two after the workout if you have been fasting.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s what I do. I try to eat—you still get that growth hormone rise. If you exercise on a fasted state, you’re getting that growth hormone rise, the sensitivity to the hormones. I try to ride that out for an hour or two after and then eat. The debate is this—my friend, Ben Greenfield, we've had the conversation and I find that nobody really knows the answer. Probably, because there’s never been a really good study. When is that optimal time to eat that first meal after you work out in a fasted state? Nobody seems to actually know the answer, and you and I landed in the same place. I like to just give that growth hormone a little bit of time but how much time, I don’t know.
Siim:
I think an hour or two is a good amount because some of the beneficial adaptations you experience from the workout require the rise of cortisol and require the rise of growth hormone. If you suppress cortisol immediately after working out by taking a protein shake or something, then you may not see the optimal results. You need some of that stress to kick in and allow it to do its work.
Dr. Pompa:
Also, testosterone, the moment you start eating, your testosterone starts going doing. There’s the time for both. Again, ride the hormonal optimization ride, eat and start providing the protein needed to recover. We land in the same place, but maybe someone will come along and say a different time later. Maybe it’s different for everybody a little bit, I don’t know.
Siim:
Yeah, it depends on the person.
Dr. Pompa:
We got ourselves very fat-adapted so our bodies really go into that state, growth hormone state, rise in testosterone state after a workout, but maybe other people are perhaps not. I don’t know.
Siim:
Yeah. It’s much easier for a body to deal with fasting if you’re fat-adapted and in ketosis. You’re going to experience less muscle catabolism and you’re also going to experience this hunger. Probably, with a keto diet or if you are fat-adapted, then you can ride the wave for longer and you’ll have less negative side effects versus someone who is a sugar burner, that for them, the fasting is just going to cause more damage and they may need to repair it more often.
Dr. Pompa:
This is a hard question to ask guys like us because every day is a little bit different. The question is, okay, what’s your average day look like with your workouts, your meals. We almost have to go, okay, well, on feast days, I call them—it looks like this. A fasting day looks like this. Try to answer that question as best you can. I know we vary our routines but what does your workout routines look like with your diet?
Siim:
I would say five days of the week, I’m doing one meal a day with workouts. On those days, I fast probably about 20 hours or something and I eat my food within 3 hours or somewhere along the lines of that. Sometimes it’s smaller, sometimes it’s longer, but yeah, generally, I fast. For the entire day, I consume only coffee or tea. Then in the afternoon, I’m going to have a resistance training workout with calisthenics or weights. The only caveat or the only difference that I do is I actually consume a small amount of protein during the workouts in the form of a protein shake.
The idea is that, because I’m only eating once a day, I’m still in need of some amino acids in order to protect myself against the catabolism that I would experience during a fasted workout. I consume a small protein shake which is like 100 calories during the workout and that is also going to—
Dr. Pompa:
What time is that workout? You work out later in the day.
Siim:
It’s in the afternoon, around 4:00 PM.
Dr. Pompa:
That way you’re getting that pure fast because if you did the shake, you’re going to break your autophagy.
Siim:
Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Pompa:
You’re getting that over there. Then technically, you’re eating in a window—
Siim:
Four hours or something, yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s what I do. Most of my eating days are within four hours and then, once I eat then I eat. I mean, I may eat just whatever.
Siim:
It’s not like this one massive meal, it’s more like a feast over the course of several hours. You have a meal. You wait a little bit and you continue eating because it is somewhat difficult to stuff yourself with all of your daily calories. If you extend the window, then it’s going to be somewhat easier.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s exactly what I do and I witnessed that when I visited a tribe in Africa. When they started eating, they just ate. Like you said, it’s not like that they sat down to one meal. They put it at a very festive time of eating and was not just necessarily their one big meal. Of course, I’ll eat even up to the big meal. It’s like I just eat a little bit, little bit, little bit then I’ll eat maybe a big meal but I do. I have a three, four-hour eating window. It’s not like I sit in my kitchen and eat that whole time, but I start the eating process. I go do something else. I eat a little more. I go to do something else then I eat my dinner. I’m eating in there. Your workouts are a little later. Again, you start that. What about just taking—this is easy for people and oftentimes, this is what I do when I have them, but I’ll take some amino acids when I work out or during that workout just to feed the body right there.
Siim:
Yeah, that’s the same principle. If you were to take those amino acids in the morning, then that would still stop the fasting.
Dr. Pompa:
I don’t want to do that.
Siim:
It would stop the autophagy. Yes, you would only get away with it if you take it during the workout and later in the day.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. That’s why you push it out, so you can actually do that. You push your workout. Most people, I would say they like to workout in the morning. Then if I do workout early in the morning, I just don’t want to do that because I don’t want to break my fasting state or I just make that a feast day. I make that a day where I do just take in way more calories and protein throughout the whole day. Days I work out early, I try to feast on those days more. I don’t know if you ever do that but—
Siim:
Yeah, you can still—if you work out in the morning, then break a fast in the noontime or something and have two meals, three meals. You should never confine yourself into a certain specific way of eating. You should always maintain the flexibility and be able to adapt to different situations.
Dr. Pompa:
Another idea, Siim, is if you were saying, hey, the only time I can work out is 8:00 AM, 7:00 AM. You shift your eating window completely. You stop eating at 3:00 in the afternoon and your fast is longer. You know what I’m saying? You can move your eating window for whatever works for your workouts or your job. I mean, who knows? I mean, you don’t have to do this eating window in the afternoon. You could make a shift.
Siim:
Yeah, that’s a good point. Arguably, some research says that early time that you’re eating is better than later times you are eating, but actually, if you compare them, then there’s not going to be any difference as long as the hours are matched. The magic comes from the suppression of eating window whether that be earlier or later. It doesn’t really matter.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I played around with it and I’ve had conversation with Jason Fung about this and others where they—for people who are metabolically challenged, diabetes or what-not, it seems that earlier eating does better for them. Maybe but clinically, I don’t know. I tend to just let people say where does it fit because the fact is—I think you’re right. The magic is in the fast, no matter what. There’s maybe a little benefit of where your eating window is. I agree with eating too close to bed is destructive for everybody. It disrupts your deep sleep, exactly. By giving yourself four hours before bed, that’s what I do, seems to taper down any negative that would come eating late.
Here’s the things about eating too early. My argument is this, that we have the dawn effect meaning, in the morning, your body—cortisol is out that wakes us up. The cortisol rise and then glucose follows cortisol. Then we push glucose out into the systems. If you test your glucose in the morning, it should always be a little bit higher. That’s why we don’t have appetite. A healthy person doesn’t have appetite because you’re releasing glucose and you’re going about burning your glucose. For me, it’s like the body almost doesn’t want to eat in the morning. What’s your thoughts on that because there’s debate both sides of this?
Siim:
I agree with you in the sense that you shouldn’t feel hungry in the morning if you have a healthy flexible metabolism because you’re coming from an overnight fast. You’re in semi-ketosis already and that should give you enough energy to start your day and suppress your appetite. It’s definitely not ideal to be eating food if you have elevated cortisol and elevated blood sugar. Cortisol itself is deemed to be bad, but you actually need that cortisol to kickstart the circadian rhythm and to start the day and mobilize the fat. At that point, it’s a good idea to have cortisol elevators and maybe wait. Also just, if you prefer eating early in the morning, then still wait a few hours after waking up to allow the cortisol to lower down.
Dr. Pompa:
My morning eaters, that’s what I tell them. Wait and let that cortisol come down, let that glucose come down, and then typically, your body will tell you if you get hungry. Siim, this has been a great conversation. I think we really hashed it out on all of the topics. The amount of protein, when to workout, how to eat, how to vary your diet. You and I didn’t know each other before you interviewed me on your social media platform but we really resonate around this topic. I’m glad there’s a few us out there.
Siim:
Yeah. I’m also glad to talk with you and definitely, likewise, spreading the good message with you.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, absolutely. Ashley will connect your media pages where people can watch you and get some workout advice and all that great stuff. Siim, thank you so much for being on Cellular Healing TV.
Siim:
Yeah, it was good talking with you.
Dr. Pompa:
Hey, I want to tell you about one of our sponsors, CytoDetox. Look, podcasts cost money. There’s a lot of production going around this but we are grateful to have CytoDetox as one of the sponsors. It’s so easy for me to talk about the product because myself and my family use it constantly as we practice what I preach. For over 15 years, I have talked about and taught doctors and the public about cellular detox and I’ll tell you, Cyto was a breakthrough. Cyto was a breakthrough for us and its changed so many lives so we’re grateful that they sponsor Cellular Healing TV. It makes sense, doesn’t it? They should.
Ashley:
If you’re listening to this podcast and want to access the amazing CytoDetox product Dr. Pompa just mentioned, please visit, detoxoffer.com. Again, that’s detoxoffer.com.
That’s it for this week. The materials and content within this podcast are intended as general information only and they’re not to be considered as substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you would like to purchase some of the supplements mentioned on the show, please visit the site, asseenonchtv.com and use the code, CHTV15 for 15% off. Again, that’s asseenonchtv.com. Use the code, CHTV15 for 15% off. As always, thanks for listening.
