Transcript of Episode 108: Water Fasting Done Right
With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra, and special guest Dr. Derrick Dempsey.
Meredith:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. This is episode number 108. We have a special guest joining Dr. Pompa and I for this episode, and his name is Dr. Derrick Dempsey. We’re talking about a really exciting topic today. We’re going to be discussing water fasting. Dr. Dempsey has some recent personal experience with water fasting. Before we jump in, I’m going to tell you a little bit more about Dr. Dempsey. I’m going to read his bio here, and then we are going to jump into this topic and why he has become an expert on water fasting.
Dr. Derrick Dempsey, DC is a speaker, teacher, coach of cellular healing, and a detoxification specialist. He attended Temple University, then went on to the National University of Health Sciences, where he became certified as a chiropractic sports physician. He’s owned private practices in Wheaton, Illinois and Lisbon and Estoril, Portugal. In 2007, he was a speaker at Portugal’s first conference on sports medicine. He currently runs a private practice in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he’s husband to a very awesome wife of 27 years and a father of three wonderful children. He’s also a doctor in Dr. Pompa’s practitioner coaching program, HCS seminars. He just completed a 22-day water fast, which is very impressive.
Dr. Pompa:
That makes him an expert. In my book, that makes him an expert.
Dr. Dempsey:
Either that or crazy, right?
Meredith:
Welcome, Dr. Dempsey.
Dr. Dempsey:
Thank you so much. It’s an honor and a privilege to be here.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
Thank you, Dan, for all the coaching you’ve given me and so many other doctors in the US. I’m honored to be here with you and Meredith.
Dr. Pompa:
Thank you. You know, one of the things I always say is some of these topics, like the cellular detox, when we’re dealing with mold and metals, you need a practitioner. That’s why we’re coaching docs like ourselves. We’re duplicating ourselves around the nation because people need this. With fasting, today’s conversation, this is something that you need a coach for. This is something that you have to have experience with. That’s why we’re training docs like yourself. Those watching this, you need guidance with the detox. You need guidance with the fasting, but these two things put together, which I like to call ancient healing strategies in true cellular detox, this is how lives change. This is what, really, we’ve put together, right doc?
Dr. Dempsey:
Right, right.
Dr. Pompa:
We see lives changing in your practice, as well as, you know, I still see people – clients from around the world. It’s what changes lives. I’m sure it’s one of the things that inspired you to fast. Let me start there. I do want to set up – so hang in there, folks, because I do want to teach you about this amazing, ancient healing strategy, which fasting is. We’ve talked a lot about whey water fasts. We’ve talked a lot about beef stock, stock fasting, period, but yet, we’ve really never talked a lot about water fasting, although I’ve mentioned it. This is where I got my experience years ago. I learned from some of the best in this area of water fasting. I’ve practiced it for years with many. What inspired you, Dr. D, to go 22 days on water, man?
Dr. Dempsey:
It was supposed to be five days is what it was.
Dr. Pompa:
By the way, Derrick, I do that with my patients, too. “Let’s start out with four days.” Then I get them there, it’s like, “Well, can you go more?” “Yeah. Actually, I’m not hungry.” “Good. Let’s go seven.” Get to seven, “Let’s go 10.”
Dr. Dempey:
It’s amazing, too. Like you say, though, words you use, “You’ll see the magic happen,” and it really does. When they talk about ancient, for me, it’s biblically, for one, and even before then. Of course, fasting’s been around forever.
Dr. Pompa:
Yep.
Dr. Dempsey:
I was having words with Meredith earlier. My father-in-law is a pastor/missionary. When I got into this fast, probably after a week, he had heard I was doing it. He says, “You know what? The bible says not ‘if you fast,’ it says, ‘when you fast.’”
Dr. Pompa:
When – mm-hmm.
Dr. Dempsey:
“When you fast” – yeah. There’s a lot of different instances, but even David humbled himself before God by fasting.
Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Dempsey:
For me, it was – there was that spiritual motivation, some things I wanted to work on between me and God. Then as I got into it more and more – and it was a talk we did on a Tuesday. When I was following up after a call that I’m – or notes that I put on our Facebook page, on our Platinum page. I was asking, “So what’s the best way to come off of a fast?” I was going to do five days and come off. Meredith had brought that into the conversation, and you’d commented about some things, and you were talking about cell die-off. It was just really, really neat stuff.
From that point, I just got into it a little bit more and started studying more, thinking, “Okay. What will 10 days do? What will 12 days do?” It’s just amazing the different things that start to happen in your body over that period of time. Of course, I continued on from then. That was probably the “why.”
After we talked and then I studied more, I realized, “You know what? Man, I can do these things. I don’t know what’s going on inside me. I don’t know what’s growing and what’s been there, but what a better way to do things for my health, for my wife, Nancy, and for our kids to improve my health? That’s my responsibility.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
You know what I put in here and everything else. When I started doing it, I felt really good, really, really good. I was encouraged by that to do something for them.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. We’ll kind of take it through the fast, how you felt through it, and different changes that went on. You had some health challenges, even despite doing things right for many years, right? You still had some things that just weren’t clearing out. Of course, I encouraged you to fast, and even just what I was teaching inspired you to fast.
Let me just give a little teaching moment for those listening. I hope this inspires you to listen very deeply. Then we’ll kind of go through your experience here in a second. I wanted to do this upfront because this is the power. I just got back from teaching a seminar to about 200 doctors. I really quoted a lot of studies about how growth hormones rises even with a short fast, even one day, 24 hours. That why, by the way, I fast 24 hours one day a week. I have a fasting day, and I have a feast day. I call it “Fast and famine.” -inaudible-, and I do that every week. It’s part of what I call diet variation. I’ve wrote articles about that.
On this, I showed the power of what happens to hormones. I showed in my studies that the best way to optimize hormones today is not giving more hormones; it’s to become more hormone-sensitive and naturally raise up your hormones like growth hormone, testosterone, really all the hormones that we need to heal and that people are really struggling with today. I showed that these fasts are the most dramatic way. I hope you write notes at home because I think this is a really important topic.
Fasting accomplishes several things. Number one, what happens in a fast – I always say and you’ve heard me say this, “If you want to live longer than anyone, healthy, control your glucose.” There is no better way – and insulin. There’s no better way to control glucose and insulin, flatline, than with a fast. Your body just starts burning its own fuel, and you get no spikes in glucose and no spikes in insulin, and you live longer. I showed that just – every time we eat, we have a drop in testosterone. When you’re eating less, you get less drops in testosterone, and you get less spikes of insulin and glucose, which drive inflammation and ages prematurely.
When we look at the studies of people living longer, they eat less, but I always say, “You can’t just push calories away.” We eat less because we don’t need to eat. Our bodies are feeding from itself, and we have this perfect glucose. Okay. That’s one massive benefit.
The other massive benefit – and you said it, Derrick. I showed the studies on how bad cells die during fasts. The bad cells do not adapt. They don’t have the ability to utilize fat. They start dying off. It’s called autophagy.
Dr. Dempsey:
-inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
Therefore, you start losing. The gentleman that you saw I interviewed onstage, he was another doctor who was on day 20 or 19 at the time on a water fast. I interviewed him this weekend. All his skin tags were falling off. We see tumors massively shrink. This stuff is real. Literally, things fall off bodies because, literally, all those bad cells are dying off. Of course, viruses die out, things like that, toxins move from deeper tissues. All that good stuff happens.
Then the other thing that happens is that genetics start to change. I always say, “If you want to change your bad genes to good, and turn on the good ones, and turn off the bad ones, which we call epigenetics, fasting.” It works whether it’s a one-day fast a week or whether – especially in these long things, you are able to turn off these genes.
Dr. Dempsey:
Wow. Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
With every fast, we heal. One more thing – I would add a fourth – is you become extremely hormone-sensitive, as well, which is what we want to be. Our cells need to hear the hormones. All of this happens during fasts. If we haven’t inspired you yet to listen and to do a fast, hopefully, that does. That’s the science. Okay. Now, talk about your experience. How did you feel day one, day two, day three? We talk about when you break through. When did that happen? Talk about day one.
Dr. Dempsey:
Okay. That comment you made about skin tags – Nancy and I were watching you guys while you were doing the interview. I was reaching under my arm and going like this. I used to have these little skin tags. I said, “Nancy, they’re gone!”
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. You didn’t realize.
Dr. Dempsey:
I completely forgot all about them. They were gone.
Meredith:
That’s awesome.
Dr. Dempsey:
Okay, day one. Day one was actually pretty easy, again, because you’ve taught the fast –
Dr. Pompa:
You intermittent fast daily, so you were used -inaudible-.
Dr. Dempsey:
Yes. I intermittent fast daily. Yes – and with the other fasting you taught us with broth and with whey water, which was a fabulous product, as well. I’ve done that, so mentally, a little bit, I was prepared. Day two and three, I had noticed in the past on the broth and the other one, can be a little bit harder. You would think, “Well, I need to eat something. I need to have something at lunch or dinner.” I don’t know. I broke through that. It wasn’t too difficult for me.
Now, if somebody was just going to go ahead and do water, they’ve never fasted before, well, they have to be careful because they might have a hard time doing that.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s why I think with water – you need supervision. That’s why we’re training doctors, right?
Dr. Dempsey:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Electrolytes can drop. There are some pitfalls. We’ll talk about that. Good point.
Dr. Dempsey:
Yeah. Even with broth, too, you get – there’s a lot of this broth hype going on. It’s a good thing, but a lot of people are fasting with it. They don’t realize what they’re doing. They have to be careful, too.
Dr. Pompa:
They’re not doing it correctly. I see it all the time. Yep.
Dr. Dempsey:
I got to day four, easy. Day five, easy, but the switch, I don’t – it was somewhere between four and six. Mentally, this switch just went off in the brain. It said, “Hey. You’re fine with water. Just keep going. You don’t need food.” It was like that. My mental clarity from that point on, it changed a lot.
Before I was 15, I had four head trauma. I was knocked out four times, completely. Academically, that started to affect me. I know swelling on the brain and all those things can be affected. I just always thought it was from that, not realizing, of course, the foods over the years, and what I ate, and how those things could affect me, and what you’re talking about, those balances of insulin and glucose, and the hormone resistance.
Man, it just felt like this weight came down out of my brain, and it just allowed me to – I would pick things up, Dan. Usually, it would take me two or three times, even notes I was getting, even eating well and just some of the intermittent fasting. When I did the water, the clarity, the mental – reading things. I was like, “Whoa! That’s what it says.” One time, I would read it. I’ve never done that.
Dr. Pompa:
I always say that people don’t realize the lights are off until they’re turned on.
Dr. Dempsey:
That’s the truth, too. It really is. Just the – what do you call it – brain fog, it was clearly that, definitely. I had that very difficulty with concentration.
Dr. Pompa:
By the way, Derrick, Dr. D, that’s just the reduction in inflammation. My daughter, who is in Spain – I don’t know how close – how close is Valencia to where you were?
Dr. Dempsey:
Close. We were -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
Anyway, she’s going to school there. She had a concussion the summer before she left, and it was horrible. She lost her memory, couldn’t do school. We did some things with her, and we even took her to Life College, where they do this gyroscope thing, and we did it. It worked. No doubt, it was great. She ends up hitting her head in Spain. Second concussion, which is always worse, the second one. All the symptoms are back, and she’s going, “Oh, my gosh! What am I going to do? I can’t go back to that treatment. What am I going to do?”
I said, “Olivia, fast.” By day one, she’s saying, “I can’t do this.” Day two, “Things are worse!” Day three, “A little bit better.” By day four, she’s like, “All my symptoms are gone.”
Dr. Dempsey:
-inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
It was like day five, day six – and she’s been fine every since. It downregulates that brain inflammation, takes the brain fog away, just activates the brain, heals things that have been damaged years ago. That’s one of the things that we recognize. Go on. Okay. Talk about some other changes. I know that you had some other things going on healthwise that –
Dr. Dempsey:
Yeah. I was looking at some of my notes from the – of course, there’s rapid weight loss.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. What did you lose? How much weight did you lose?
Dr. Dempsey:
I went from about 208, 210 to 185. That was my actual sports playing weight in college. It was 185 to 190. I’m 188 right now. I feel phenomenal, my body.
Dr. Pompa:
I have to point out, because you did it right. If you don’t have enough electrolytes, your balance is off, people can lose muscle. You did it right. You lost the fat. Hey, Meredith, remember you sent me that study? They were fasting people that were obese, 60 pounds plus more weight and even some 400-, 500-pound people. They fasted these people on water for one year or more, right Meredith? I’m just going by memory.
They went down to normal weight. They were going from 300, 400 pounds down to 180 pounds in a year, and they fed for a year just on their body. They had so much toxins stored up in this tissue. They uprooted that, and they all went through – they’d go through crazy symptoms just of things coming out, things being exposed. They ended up down to a normal weight again after a year of water. How about that?
Dr. Dempsey:
You know what’s amazing? That word you said, “Deep toxins.” You realize when you do this, they are deep in you. You just can’t go do a liver detox and expect everything to be gone.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
This stuff is so deep.
Meredith:
This brings up an interesting point, too. I’m wondering, just as a side note with weight. Maybe some people are watching who are very thin, and they’re concerned about fasting. What do you have to say to that?
Dr. Pompa:
Great question. I just got off the phone with one today. She might have lost five pounds. She fasted for – it was over 10 days. It might have been 14 days. It was just water. They barely lose weight. The body is that intelligent. I’m telling you. You want to talk about digging into that innate, inborn intelligence that God put in all of us, fasting is that.
During a fast, the body finds what we call homeostasis, which is this balance. It knows enough to eat the damaged tissue, the bad DNA cells. That’s why it’ll eat skin tags. That’s why it eats tumors. The body’s so intelligent, it doesn’t want to eat its good tissue. It knows it needs muscle, so the body literally will not – it’ll avoid the muscle. Remember, you said you just kind of broke though around that day five or six, whatever it was, four, five, or six? The body went into that motion now, where it’s feeding off the toxic tissue. It’s remarkable.
Years ago, I fasted a woman. She went about 26, 27 days, and she had a massive tumor. She went through this metamorphosis. She would come in, her tongue was white. Then it was green. Then it grew black fuzz this thick off of her tongue. She stunk so bad, her family literally had to put her in her own room, and they had to put fans pulling the air out because she stunk up their house. Then she would come bouncing in the clinic, not eating, with all this energy and stinking. The next day, she wasn’t. It was just remarkable.
Things fell out. Bad hair fell out. She was replaced with new. It was just remarkable. Of course, her tumor shrunk, but just remarkable what it does. Endometriosis, the body will eat this bad tissue. That’s innate intelligence. Meredith, to your point, the people, they don’t lose the muscle. The only lose so much, especially when it’s done right. They don’t lose the muscle. They spare the muscles, and they burn the bad stuff. It’s remarkable.
Dr. Dempsey:
Meredith, I had the conversation with several patients because they saw me. Some of them thought I was sick, of course. I said, “No. This is what I’ve been going through.” We were talking about disease tissue. I went like this with my hands. I said, “There could be diseased tissue in me, of course, or there’s tumors, cancerous tissue.” I said, “Or I can do a water fast.” After you study all of this info on water fast, and you learn these things through Dr. Pompa, you realize, “I would do a water fast any day. Knowing what it can do to that tissue, it’s just caused” – the term “massive cell die-off” of the unhealthy tissue. It’s amazing. To me, it was like it’s almost a no-brainer.
Dr. Pompa:
Yep.
Meredith:
Yep.
Dr. Pompa:
My wife – I had told this story, I think, on a past episode – was diagnosed with a pre-cancerous cervical cancer. Of course, they wanted to remove it, the whole thing. We just said, “Nope.” This is when I was just reading and learning about fasting. She did, I think it was 12 days, of just water, maybe 13. It was remarkable, the changes that I saw in her. Months later, she went back, and of course, cancer gone.
If those of you watching this didn’t see the episode, I interviewed Professor Seyfried. He wrote the book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease -inaudible- just showing, putting people in these restricted states, utilizing – you’re moving in and out of ketosis with these types of fasts. His research shows that this is the best way to get the body’s immune system able to fight the cancer properly. It’s a great interview. Watch it. I wrote an article about it, as well. Amazing stuff happens, right?
Dr. Dempsey:
Yup.
Dr. Pompa:
You had some shaky leg syndrome, which is a neurotoxic thing, right? Tell about what happened with that.
Dr. Dempsey:
I tell you, it had to be at least – you think of quality of sleep, of course, between the snoring – because I just always had been congested for years and years no matter what. Eating right and intermittent fasting, still had some. That changed. The restless leg – I mean, really jumpy legs. That just completely stopped during the water fast. Like you were saying, those deep toxins, you can still have some of that. Some of that did come back, but nothing like it was before.
Dr. Pompa:
The snoring hasn’t come back at all.
Dr. Dempsey:
No.
Dr. Pompa:
It was interesting because you had this thing that happened during the fast in the sinuses area, which had been a chronic issue with you forever, right, obviously driving the snoring.
Dr. Dempsey:
Yes.
Dr. Pompa:
Tell the viewers what transpired there, and then we’ll get back to those shaky legs.
Dr. Dempsey:
What happened is it was probably day 12 through 15, somewhere in there, I just started getting all this pressure, just like somebody just had their fingers pushing on my sinuses here -inaudible-, too. Then I would blow my nose, and it was bleeding. I had never had bloody noses, and both sides – actually bright red blood. As I continued, my breathing kept getting better, and better, and better. I was concerned. I was like, “What’s this bright red blood?” Just talking to you, man, you were saying, “That’s some toxin stuff coming out of your body.” Ever since then, I can tell I don’t have that swelling deep inside. Now, is some of it still there? Probably, but I’ll do another fast again.
Dr. Pompa:
I always say, “With every fast, more and more healing comes out.” I also say that during a water fast is the best way to find out where these weaknesses are.
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
You were holding toxins up there. One of the things I asked you is, “Did you have teeth removed, which causes cavitation? Did you have root canals, and did you have silver fillings?” You had silver fillings.
Dr. Dempsey:
No root canals.
Dr. Pompa:
No root canals, and you had teeth removed. Those toxins sit in there, and they will for the entire life, screwing up your immune system, screwing up those tissues, driving inflammation here and here. All of a sudden, you get these symptoms there; it’s healing. It’s healing.
One of my clients, she had, all of a sudden, her colon – what was happening with her colon during the fast. It brought out her weak spot, and, of course, she had some skin issues, and it manifested there. Let’s talk about the shaky legs because that’s a neurotoxic thing. They went away completely during the fast. I had said, “Hey, it’s a good chance that it may come back, but less,” and that’s exactly what happened. Eventually, it started creeping back in again, right, but less, much less?
Dr. Dempsey:
Yeah – much less. Before, they were to the point, they would almost – it would pretty much wake me up sometimes, not every night, but sometimes, it would do that.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. The interesting thing is you’ll do another fast or even maybe fasting one of two days even just during the week, but eventually, it’ll happen less. Maybe it’ll take three months to come back, right?
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
Every fast, a different layer of healing. I want my viewers to hear that because they’re going to say, “Well, I did one fast, and maybe this didn’t clear up, and this actually started.” Okay. Again, it’s layers that are coming out, layers. In between these fasts, when you’re doing true cellular detox, going upstream, removing these deep-rooted toxins, this is where the magic is. Like we said, this is where the magic is.
Dr. Dempsey:
Magic happens. Yeah. You know, with fasting, people always say, “Well, do you have energy?” I had so much energy. It was nuts. I used to drive home, and I’d be like, “Man, I can’t wait to nap.” This is eating good and intermittent fasting. When I went through the water fast, I’m like, “What can I do next?” I’m up at 10:30 at night. I’m sanding the walls because I was going to paint. My wife’s like, “What are you doing?” I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t want to go to bed. I don’t have to.”
Dr. Pompa:
I wanted to cover some of the myths of fasting. The myths of fasting is that you lose muscle, and you’re never going to gain it back. It’s not true. You don’t lose muscle cells. They’re there forever. Immediately, you fill right back up again. That’s a myth. The myth of, “Oh, you’re not going to have energy” – boloney! You need less sleep. You wake up after four hours going, “I’m done.”
Dr. Dempsey:
You do. You need less sleep. I slept during it and sleep great.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
It’s amazing. You -inaudible-. I didn’t notice it, a little bit of less joint pain during the fast, but I didn’t realize, as I got towards the end of it, it was probably two weeks after, I said to Nancy, I said, “You know what?” I said, “I wake up. I have no joint pain, no pain at all.” I used to get up and think, “I’m 55 now. I’m a little sore from doing things.” It’s –
Dr. Pompa:
Gone.
Dr. Dempsey:
It’s that global inflammation you talk about. All the inflammation is just lower.
Dr. Pompa:
Massively reduced, massively.
Dr. Dempsey:
Yep.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s a way to let the body heal. That’s why it works for concussions, like my daughter, back pain that just is not getting well. You can watch the body go into this accelerated healing mode. Remember, the hormones rise. You become more hormone-sensitive, and a massive reduction in inflammation. It all creates healing, basically, is what it does.
Dr. Dempsey:
Let me tell you, if there was some low T, it definitely raised.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.
Dr. Dempsey:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
Definitely hormone-sensitive.
Dr. Pompa:
I talked about this at the seminar, you know, and we talk about muscle loss, right, Meredith? That’s why I love to put in these guys called the Hodge twins.
Dr. Dempsey:
-inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
Meredith’s going to try to get them on the show, but they have to promise not to drop F-bombs. They do videos that get a million hits about intermittent fasting. There’s these big, big, buff guys. They’re going on average 19 hours without eating. Now, they were the typical bodybuilder, wanting to build muscle eating six meals a day and the whole thing. Now, they’re not eating for 19 hours. Then they eat for those remaining five hours of the day, and they eat. They do eat a lot during that time because they want to put muscle on, right?
Dr. Dempsey:
Right, right.
Dr. Pompa:
The point is this: They read the studies showing fasting increases growth hormone, increases testosterone, and it’s a strategy to actually put muscle on. Yeah. Fasting, you’re getting rid of bad tissue, you’re keeping your good muscle cells, and it’s actually – you respond. I always say that if you lose – if you’re skinny and you lose five pounds, big deal. You’ll gain it back and then some because you assimilate food better because the gut heals that rapidly.
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s actually a strategy to gain weight for people who are unable to gain weight, so -inaudible- Meredith’s point.
Dr. Dempsey:
Another thing that I read about as I was doing this, too, was they talk about visceral fat and the impact it has on visceral fat, and also, of course, the ketones and the effect on the brain, as well.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
It’s just amazing things that go on in the body.
Dr. Pompa:
Yup. Derrick, talk a little bit about that. You were looking at your glucose and ketones. One of the things I always say is, “Your glucose should be dropping, and your ketones should be rising.”
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s the sign of a very good cell. During fast, we see some crazy high ketone numbers. We always say between .5 and 5 is normal, but we even see up to 7 during fast. What did you see on your glucose and ketones?
Dr. Dempsey:
You know what? Next time I do this, I’m going to just track everything. It didn’t register with me because initially, I was just going to do the five day.
Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Dempsey:
Within the first 10 days, my ketones were about 4.5. The second week, they were in the 5.5 range.
Dr. Pompa:
Wow.
Dr. Dempsey:
Third week, 6.5. It was interesting. I went 4.5, 5.5, 6.5. Glucose was down to – it was 60ish or lower.
Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sometimes, I’ll even see people’s glucose drop in the thirties or forties, and then it starts to come up in, like I said, typically in the sixties, which Seyfried calls the target zone, in the sixties in the glucose, and at least above 3 in the ketones. With these fasts, we see those really high levels of ketones, which, by the way, again, it heals the brain. Ketones are healing. They turn off bad genes. It’s remarkable.
I just had a client this morning that he was doing bone stock. I’m looking at his glucose number and ketones, going, “He’s four days into a bone fast – several, maybe his fourth one, and his glucose” – and he’s probably watching this. His glucose is still nineties, hundred. I’m going, “Hmm” – even sometimes higher. Then his ketones were 1.2, 1.8. I’m going, “That’s not high enough.” I said, “Okay, next fast, we’re doing just water.”
Dr. Dempsey:
Water.
Dr. Pompa:
I know we’re going to see a massive jump. Some people have to do water to hit the target range that Seyfriend talks about, where we know the bad cells are dying.
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
We know bad cells are dying when the glucose goes in the sixties and the ketones go that high. That’s that magic. You know magic’s happening during the fast when you see those numbers. That’s why, folks watching, that’s why we look at those numbers and measure them to see when we’re hitting that target zone. It really is telling.
Dr. Dempsey:
You know, I was encouraged by, also, as I was doing this, Dr. Dominic – when you interviewed Dr. Dominic. Man, people should watch that. Him, Volek, the interview you did, and Seyfried –
Dr. Pompa:
Yup.
Dr. Dempsey:
If people haven’t seen that, go back and watch those. I watched Dominic’s probably three times, easily, or listened to it.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. He really inspired us in his new research, showing how these elevated – moments of these elevated ketones turn off bad genes. Most of these symptoms of why people still don’t feel well despite eating perfect, exercising, doing all the right things, certain genes are turned on, and we’re still expressing it. It can take years and years to downregulate that gene expression. The fastest way to do it is with these periodic fasts that we’re talking about. It really is the missing link. When you combine ancient healing strategies, like we’re discussing, with the true cellular detox, this is the magic.
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
This is the magic.
Dr. Dempsey:
Another thing that changes was some of the sensory – of course taste changed. I did have the whitish tongue. I didn’t get the black, hairy tongue. I didn’t go there.
Dr. Pompa:
You’re not that sick. You’re not that – yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
I had white tongue. Then actually, of course, smell, too changed quite a bit.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
You become more chemically sensitive, I think. You smell these things, and you’re like, “Whoa! What was that?”
Dr. Pompa:
Right. Yeah. Your body does get really protecting itself and really trying to keep itself away from the toxins. It’s that attuned. It is remarkable how in tune with your body and how clear your brain gets. I believe that’s one of the reasons why God said, “When you fast.” He wanted His people to really approach Him in a clear way. Really, the Bible talks about that. It talked about bean fasting. It is the oldest method of healing that there really is, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. All of that changes during a fast. Even some of our bad thoughts, it’s epigenetic, bad patterns. Fasting changes the genome. We know it even changes who we are at the cellular level, even emotionally. Really cool. No wonder, biblically, it was a command.
Meredith:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Dempsey:
One of the words you said, mentally, how it affects you. I know, definitely mentally, in terms of – I’m pretty calm. You know that.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. You are.
Dr. Dempsey:
I’m around you guys and around my family. It was even more so. The way I responded to Nancy, the way I responded to my kids, it was different. Some people would think it would be aggravating. Maybe, initially, you’re aggravated because you’re not eating.
Dr. Pompa:
Right. Absolutely.
Dr. Dempsey:
That can happen to some people. I’ll tell you what. Mentally and emotionally, man, it was really calm for me.
Dr. Pompa:
You know, you had said something. You thought maybe it was easier – again, a client this week said he thought it was much easier doing water fasting than broth fasting. His hunger just simply was gone completely during the water fast.
Dr. Dempsey:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
During the broth fast, he said, “You know, you just still kind of had appetite more.” Those of you watching this who’ve done broth fasts or whey water and thought maybe it was challenging – this would be much harder. There’s your food, Dr. Dare. -inaudible-. Anyways, it could be the opposite. Yeah. Yeah. Hold that up. There’s the CytoDetox.
Dr. Dempsey:
I mentioned that. If I got bottled water anywhere, I didn’t know, really, the story. If it said, “Purified” or “Spring,” I took about two or three of these and dropped them in the bottle.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
-inaudible-. That’s great stuff.
Dr. Pompa:
The thing is people always say, “Do I take my supplements during the fast?” I always say, “No.” I allow ASEA because it’s redox, and there’s another product, Restore, that’s redox. They’re liquids. I don’t mind it. I’ve had a few people just do just Cyto drops during the fast and said it was remarkable. I haven’t experimented enough with it to think that this is something I would prescribe, so to speak, with most fasts. I know that people fasting with water and just the ASEA – and we just started experimenting with the Restore – do really well with it because it’s only redox. It’s not offering the body any nutrition, which we don’t want. We don’t want nutrition. There’s a time for nutrition; there’s a time to fast.
I would venture to say that the Cyto drops don’t – of course, it doesn’t offer nutrition, either. It’s just a particle, so I think that it would be okay. Again, I don’t want to make those recommendations until we, as a group of doctors, do more of that. I really don’t like to interfere with the body’s innate intelligence in any way. Redox molecules, that’s what they use day in, day out. We’ll keep people – stay tuned with some of these things that we’re doing as a group, that we all say, “Yeah. This works even better.”
Dr. Dempsey:
Pretty much, for people watching, the ASEA helps a lot with the cell-to-cell communication, what goes on in the body.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. Redox molecules are natural. You need them for cell-to-cell communication, which I like because in a fast, we’re relying on innate intelligence, which is cell-to-cell communications. Some people get very depleted in redox because they’re toxic. Those particular products offer those redox molecules back. I feel it would improve the innate intelligence. It’s not adding vitamins. We don’t want vitamin C. We don’t want vitamin D. We don’t want nutrition. That’s the point of a fast.
By the way, I have to talk about this, as well. During a fast, we can exercise after a 24-hour fast, and it raises growth hormone. When we’re prolonged fasting, it’s shown that exercise can be more detrimental because we don’t have the protein stores to do the healing, right -inaudible-. I always say during a long fast, “We want to rest.” We want to do what our ancestors did. We just want to rest. That doesn’t mean – like you said, you had energy to do the things. That’s normal. Daily life, absolutely normal, but extraordinary amounts of exercise, breaking muscle tissue down with weights, we want to hold off on that.
Dr. Dempsey:
-inaudible-. Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s crazy because you do have the energy to exercise, but we want our body to heal. We don’t want to use that energy for crazy exercise or healing our torn muscle that we just did purposely. We want it to go towards healing the body. When you get that motivation to run around, I always say sometimes, “Just hold that energy. Let it heal. Let it heal.”
Dr. Dempsey:
There’s kind of a psoriatic area on the back of my scalp that I have. There was different things that I noticed with the skin. That is so much less irritated than it can be. I think what you were saying about, “If you go ahead and do another fast, it can go into even deeper healing,” which I understand now just as you commented on it. I also noticed from the knees down, like in the shin area, my skin broke out. Here across the chest, just bumpy and red, man. I just wanted to do this, but I didn’t. I just put ASEA on it.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
Then in the middle of my back, about this much of the zone, was just kind of rashy, irritated, probably for about two to three weeks like that during the last 15 days and after it. I just put ASEA on it. I did no supplements at all.
Dr. Pompa:
Yep.
Dr. Dempsey:
I just showered with water, man. I didn’t even use shampoos. I’m like, “I’m not putting anything on me, man, no -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, yeah. You raise a good point. A pure fast, we don’t even like you brushing your teeth just because the potential swallowing, we don’t want that. It’s very tempting. You can rinse with water, and it’s very tempting. I say get a toothbrush without anything. Brush with a toothbrush without toothpaste is fine. Most importantly, brush your tongue. Scrape your tongue. Get a tongue scraper. That’s really important. Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
Yeah. Yeah, I did. I did just use water on teeth and tongue with my brush, did them both. Just tried to stay as clean as possible.
Dr. Pompa:
Let’s talk about breaking a fast as an educational moment. Breaking a fast can be – I always say, “You can make or break it right here.” If someone breaks a fast, they get all excited, and they just start throwing the food down. Boy, is that a mistake because your digestive tract, it was just healing and taking a rest. Now, all of a sudden, you throw a bunch of food at it too quick, it’s going – you end up with diarrhea, irritable bowel, truth be told.
Dr. Dempsey:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
How did you break your fast, Dr. D?
Dr. Dempsey:
When I got to day – I didn’t know when I was going to stop. I got to day 22, and I was like, “Man, I feel great. Should I eat something tomorrow?” That was a Friday. I was going to eat Saturday. I started the fast at 9:00 on a Friday, and I thought, “Well, I’ll end at 9:00 this coming – a Saturday.” It was just out of, “Well, I guess I’ll start eating.” What I did is I just did broth. Actually, the first thing I had was some Suero. I had some Suero, and then I think it –
Dr. Pompa:
It’s the whey water, the Suero Gold, the whey water.
Dr. Dempsey:
-inaudible- Suero Gold whey water.
Dr. Pompa:
Great thing to break a fast with. Yep.
Dr. Dempsey:
It’s such a great, great product, too, with Beyond Organics products. Then took chicken broth – I didn’t have access to beef at the time, so I just went with chicken broth, completely clean, organic chicken broth.
Dr. Pompa:
Great. Great idea. Yep.
Dr. Dempsey:
I did that for the next three day, with also Suero. I didn’t mix them together, of course. I couldn’t imagine that combination. I had Suero with me and the chicken broth, and did it for three days. I was actually driving up to Philly when I was breaking my fast – well, when I started breaking the fast. That’s what I took with me on my drive. Then probably day four, I sautéed with butter beef broth and spinach. I just put it in a saucepan, sautéed it together, and dropped an egg in. It just cooked the egg right in the pan with it. I did that as a soup. That was day four.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s perfect.
Dr. Dempsey:
I actually kept doing that on the drive back from Philly to here, which was about eight, nine hours. I just filled a thermos with that, and that was my food coming back, that whole eight, nine hours.
Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Dempsey:
Since then, just intermittent fasted, and that’s been at least a couple weeks now. Even this Saturday to Sunday, I did the 24-hour just water, where you say kind of the famine thing and then just feast Sunday.
Dr. Pompa:
Right.
Dr. Dempsey:
Sunday evening, actually, I feasted.
Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
You know, people can do it. It’s always, “Well, I’ll start the new year,” or “I’ll start after this person’s birthday,” or “I have this big function. I’ll start” – if you put your mind to it, you can do it.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s right.
Dr. Dempsey:
Whatever, three months ago, I wouldn’t think I would have been doing this, but then the more I learned about it and from you, I was like, “I’m going to do this because I know it’s healthy for me.”
Dr. Pompa:
Spring’s coming. I always talk about the Hunza people. They had what they call Fasting Spring, where they were forced to fast. In the summer, they would eat mostly fruits, vegetables, gathered things. Then winter would come, and they were eating lard, and cheese, and yogurts, fermented things, but meats. That’s all they had. They didn’t eat any vegetables. Then spring would come, they ran out of their lards, and meats, and things, and they would starve. They nicknamed it “Starving Spring.” It really is the reason why the Hunza people actually live the longest health-free. They believe it’s the fast more than it is the food that they’re eating.
Dr. Dempsey:
That’s interesting. Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
-inaudible- after they discovered this that they really realized it’s the fast. Seyfried talks about one seven-day fast a year decreases your cancer chances 95% or whatever it was quoted. It really is remarkable what the healing does. You broke the fast right, Dr. D, man. You nailed it. It’s just that slow progression.
Oftentimes, people jump into raw vegetables. Actually, cooked vegetables or blended some way just to make the digestion a little easier. Smashed avocado, anything like that, cooked and pureed vegetables, actually works really well. Of course, the fermented products like the Suero Gold or the Amasai are great. Yeah, great advice. Well, Meredith, do you have any further curiosity? I think Miss Meredith is jumping into a fast soon because of your inspiration.
Dr. Dempsey:
She is.
Meredith:
Yeah. I’m on day two of my first ever water fast.
Dr. Pompa:
I didn’t even know. You jumped in. Talk! Tell us.
Meredith:
Yeah. It’s very exciting because I had done the broth fast, and I’ve done the Suero Gold fast, but this just – it felt like time to take it to the next level. Yesterday, I felt kind of tired, but I was traveling all day, so it was kind of a convenient day to do it because I was busy all day anyway. Anyway, I feel pretty good, still a little tired. I was a little bit hungry yesterday, but not so hungry today. We’ll see how it goes. I’m hoping for at least four days.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. You’ll cross over fast, Meredith, because you’re in ketosis. She intermittent fasts. Tomorrow and Friday, Meredith, you’re going to be getting a lot done. You’re going to be a little ball of energy.
Dr. Dempsey:
She will be. Yeah. Yes, she will.
Dr. Pompa:
Meredith, do me a favor? Track some of your glucose numbers, your ketone numbers, your weight.
Dr. Dempsey:
Okay.
Dr. Pompa:
Track all that so we can share it. We want to share that science. Derrick, Dr. D, make sure you track it your next fast, too, right?
Dr. Dempsey:
Yeah. I’ll definitely do that. I’m sorry I didn’t do that. It would have been –
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, no, that’s all right. Journal your symptoms. Journal all the things that are changing because those watching – again, you know, Meredith, I can’t wait for you to have some symptoms. Meredith is one of those people that – she doesn’t change a lot. She takes Restore; she notices nothing. She takes ASEA; she notices nothing. Am I right, Meredith? Am I right?
Meredith:
-inaudible- high doses.
Dr. Pompa:
What’s that?
Meredith:
He’s like, “Come on, something! I want a reaction.” I’m hoping, yeah, this is the key. I am out of all of the ketone and the blood sugar strips, and I got rid of my scale years ago, so I don’t know.
Dr. Pompa:
Go get one.
Meredith:
I don’t like keeping track, but –
Dr. Pompa:
I want science. I want numbers. Go get a scale. I want to know what you’re doing.
Meredith:
Okay. Just for you, Dr. Pompa, I’ll get a scale.
Dr. Pompa:
Read glucose numbers. Don’t you want to know if you’re in the target? Now, Meredith, come on.
Meredith:
Now that you were talking about the glucose – or the ketones up, the glucose down, those target fields, I am very curious. I’ll stop on the way home and get some blood sugar strips. You guys did cover most of my questions, too. I wanted to talk a little bit more about the psychological component to all of this. I think that a lot of people watching are probably intrigued, but a little fearful, too. Fasting can be intimidating, especially even to me. It took me up until now – I’ve been into health and wellness for years – to think about, “Okay. I can do a water fast.” What would you say to those people that just have some strong emotional attachments to food and have some fear of not eating?
Dr. Dempsey:
I was actually reading kind of what you’re saying. It’s one of the things I wrote down. I had written, “Fasting can increase confidence and our ability to have control over our lives and our appetite.” It is amazing how food can control people. It really is. I wish I could just say it’s easy to do, but it’s – it’s not easy to do, but I think it’s a necessary thing if you want to overcome a food addiction.
Dr. Pompa:
Well said.
Dr. Dempsey:
Do whatever you can. Get somebody else who can do it with you – would be a great thing. You’re going to meet resistance from people. You really will. I did. My kids were like, “Hey, Dad, how’s your water?” while they’re just filling their mouths up. Get support. It’s like any other addiction people might have. Some kind of support, another person that be accountable to or get a coach. Get somebody to coach you that can walk alongside you.
Dr. Pompa:
Yep.
Dr. Dempsey:
Some people need you to do this, other’s say, “You can do it.” Some, you just need to kind of drag along and say, “Hey, let’s do this thing. You keep putting it off. Let’s do it now.”
Dr. Pompa:
Yup. Absolutely. We don’t want to just fast and go right back to our evil ways. What are you doing at that point? We want to move in and out of ketotic states, diet variation, intermittent fasting daily, the true cellular detox, most important. It is really what – when we put these things together, Dr. D, this is what I call a multi-therapeutic approach. This is what I teach. This is what we practice every day. This multi-therapeutic approach, is it easy? No. Does it work with – where everything else doesn’t? Yes, it does.
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
I believe everybody needs a coach. If you’re going to improve your golf game or your tennis game, people hire coaches. I don’t care if you’re healthy. If I want to be healthier, I’m going to hire a coach. Obviously, if you’re sick, you have to hire a coach because you don’t need more treatments, folks. You don’t. You need to be taught. You need to be coached.
One of my passions has been now, is explaining to people, “I’m not going to doctor you. I’m not going to treat you. This is about coaching you.” I think we need to change our language because people don’t need more treatments.
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
They need to be coached. They need to learn a process. It’s taken us years of experience to learn this. We learned it even in our own battles, let alone our study, but we really have to keep educating people. My goal when I take a client on – and Dr. D, I know it’s your goal, too. Our goal isn’t to get them well in that eight months. Our goal is to teach them this that they need to do and continue to do to get their life back. It’s a new message.
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
It really is. It’s a new message, but it’s a real message, and it’s a true message. These people that are challenged, for them to think that they’re going to just walk away after two detox things, or after this cleanse, or after this treatment, or this pill, it’s just absurd. It really is. The diseases we’re seeing today take 20, 30, and 40 years to accumulate. The amount of toxins that turn off all the good genes and turn on all the bad genes, that takes years to fill – or to fix. Let me tell you, if you’re willing to learn – this is why we’re training doctors with this new philosophy of coaching as opposed to treating. If you’re willing to learn and participate in your rescue, that is the answer. You may not be ready for it yet, but it is the answer. It is the answer.
Dr. Dempsey:
As I’ve talked with people, they – I use the term – “Right now, in terms of the medical field, you’re a lab value. You go in. They’ll do a lab on you. If you fall out of the parameters of that lab, they’ll treat what the lab says.”
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
You’ve talked about this before, how they’ve forgot to listen to people, find out what’s the source of my problem?
Dr. Pompa:
Right.
Dr. Dempsey:
We have to dig deeper and deeper.
Dr. Pompa:
Alternative medicine’s now doing the same thing, right? They go in. They run $2,000 worth of blood work, or stool samples, and urine. They do all this stuff, and then they’re saying, “Okay, from these tests, this is what you need.”
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s not how I got my life back.
Dr. Dempsey:
Hm-mmm.
Dr. Pompa:
I got my life back by doing these things, right?
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
The fasting, the ancient things, and then the true cellular detox, removing the interference, the stressors that are upstream, and the body does the healing. I am disappointed with alternative healthcare right now. I think a lot of the criticism is valid. We’re just treating more symptoms with more medications, and we remove gluten. We remove food allergens. We give you methyl donors. It’s part of it, but it’s a small part of what, really, healing comes from. I think we have a really unique message, Doc. That’s why we need more of us. Honestly, we need more of us.
Dr. Dempsey:
Dr. Pompa, you’ve done a very good job of coaching a lot of us. I know that. I definitely appreciate what you’re doing.
Dr. Pompa:
I appreciate your service in this area because there’s a hurting world that has – that still don’t feel well, and they’re crying out for answers.
Dr. Dempsey:
-inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
I can’t say we have all the answers, but I know that our approach is more unique and different than anybody else’s. When you look at our core group, Doc, how many of us suffered? How many of us have suffered?
Dr. Dempsey:
All of us.
Dr. Pompa:
The great majority of us, of the doctors who are doing this – yep.
Dr. Dempsey:
When we were living in Portugal at the time, 2009, I flew over to Pittsburgh. I was invited by a doctor and heard you talk. I sat there. We were drawing things and putting them up on the wall, one poster after another of cell inflammation. I just sat there, and I was like, “Holy cow! This is kind of the key. This is why people are sick, Dr. Pompa.”
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Dr. Dempsey:
It just made me realize that if there’s one constant, of course, it’s the inflammation, low-level inflammation people. What it comes from, different things, but -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
That was some years ago, Doc.
Dr. Dempsey:
Two thousand nine.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I remember.
Dr. Dempsey:
Who flies to Pittsburgh in February, I always think -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
That was a bad – whose idea was that? Was that Warren’s idea?
Dr. Dempsey:
That’s what I told you. “Why don’t you do these in Miami or something?”
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Hey, look, how many lives – changed your life at that time. Now how many lives have you changed because of the clients that you’ve taught this stuff to, right?
Dr. Dempsey:
Right.
Dr. Pompa:
Lives changed. Listen, we could just go on and on. Hey, I’m going to have you again on your next fast, too, so be prepared. We’re going to have Don [Clume] – I know you’re watching. Dr. [Clume], who we just talked about, is at day twenty – I don’t know. He’s probably at day 25 by now after this weekend – or 24, maybe. We’re going to have him on, too.
Dr. Dempsey:
-inaudible-. Yeah. It’s a privilege. Meredith, did I answer all the – you got more questions?
Meredith:
I don’t. It’s been such a privilege to have you. This is such an inspiring topic. I know we’re probably going to get a lot of comments and questions about this, so we’ll be doing future shows, I’m sure, on water fasting. Do you have any closing words? What would you say to those who are watching who are contemplating doing a water fast?
Dr. Dempsey:
You can do it. Absolutely. I was the same. I didn’t think I could do it. I was going to do the – you’re going to do four days or five days. For some people, they need that support. They need somebody to do it alongside them, I think, would be a good idea.
Meredith:
Awesome. Wise words. Thank you. I’m inspired. I hope you guys who are watching are inspired. Thanks so much for watching, and thank you, Dr. Dempsey for sharing your story, and Dr. Pompa, as always, a wealth of information, and an amazing topic. Thanks, everyone.
Dr. Pompa:
Thank you.
Dr. Dempsey:
Thanks, Meredith. Thank you, Dr. Pompa. It’s good to see you guys.
Dr. Pompa:
Thank you. You’re welcome. You’re welcome, Doc.
Meredith:
All right. Closing out. We’ll see you next week.
Dr. Dempsey:
Bye-bye.
