Transcript of Episode 91: Strategies to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain
With Dr. Daniel Pompa and Meredith Dykstra.
Meredith:
Fun! Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. This is Episode 91, and I have Dr. Pompa here on the call. We have a really fun topic for you guys today. First of all, let’s see how you’re doing, Dr. Pompa. It looks like you have a different background there.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, yeah. Hey! I’m doing wonderful. Here we are, I’m in a beautiful place preparing for lectures in the future. I have to sometimes get away to actually get ‘er done. You know that, Meredith. Here I am in a really nice location to do that. With Thanksgiving coming up, I cannot wait to take a little break. Guess where I’m going for Thanksgiving. I’m going to Jackson Hole for Thanksgiving. Remember the video I shot there?
Meredith:
Last year, I do remember.
Dr. Pompa:
I went there, and I was looking at these primitive diets because they have a few museums there, a lot about that, and just looking at what these people ate. I love Jackson Hole, and I’m spending Thanksgiving there with the family, so cannot wait! We have a great message as these seasons come up, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Meredith, do you gain weight? Do you gain weight during the holidays?
Meredith:
Over the holidays? It’s funny you ask. I used to before I met you. I joined with our team here and our mission and learned this incredible information. I definitely used to binge and eat very, very indulgent foods that I still can enjoy, but with some different strategies where I don’t gain the weight anymore over the holidays. It’s a really nice thing to experience, I have to say. Do you gain weight over the holidays?
Dr. Pompa:
I do not. I do not. As you said that, maybe I did, too, at one point. As today’s show is how to go through the holidays without gaining weight – no. I’m always asked this question. We don’t gain weight, but I’m always asked, “Well, yeah, but you don’t eat the things. You’re not going to partake in this great meal.” Ah, not true! I will eat like a king. I will feast. I will have great things.
Granted, I’m not going to eat a lot of the crap. I like to make healthier pies. We do definitely healthier things, but I promise you, I will have pie. I will have some ice cream. I will have some things that most people would say, “Oh, my gosh, Dr. Pompa doesn’t eat.” I promise you, I will not gain weight because of these 10 strategies that Meredith, you actually put most of these together. I think that these are the strategies that you and I do. We went over them. We’re like, “Yeah, this is what I do. This is what I do.” That’s how I can even enjoy some of these foods that I normally don’t even eat and still not gain weight. Let’s get into them. Guide us through.
Meredith:
Awesome. All right, guys. Ten strategies to help you avoid weight gain during the holidays, so listen up. We’re going to dive right in. All right. The first one here, you’ve heard us talk about this on the show before, but there are kind of some specific strategies you can use over the holidays, as well, for this one. Strategy number one is intermittent fasting. Now Dr. Pompa, how can this help us to not gain weight over the holidays?
Dr. Pompa:
Intermittent fasting is a strategy to get your body to really be a more efficient fat burner. The old adage of eating six meals a day, spreading out your meals, we know on the short term, that works, but we never give our body a chance to actually burn fat. Something that you and I both do is we intermittent fast daily. That means that we give ourselves 16, 18 hours in between dinner and breakfast or our next meal, which wouldn’t be breakfast. It’s typically lunch. We give ourselves that amount of time to burn our fat.
Amazing stuff happens when we don’t eat. Growth hormone goes up. Anabolic hormones that we need to be lean, and lose fat, and use fat for energy rise, and we go into this stage where our bodies literally clean up our cells. Matter of fact, it’s something called autolytic behavior takes place, where our bodies automatically start eating bad stuff. That even happens when we’re not eating, or it’s called autophage, where the body starts eating bad cancer cells and bad cells that need to go away or potentially could be cancer cells.
That happens when we do these intermittent fasts. Hormones go in the right direction. Our body starts to eat the bad stuff, and it utilizes its fat for energy. Then something else miraculous happens. What happens is our glucose levels go down, and our body compensates for that by raising something called ketones, which we know heal the brain, downregulate inflammation, the cause of all disease, turns on our longevities, our genes that are involved in living longer, the certain one gene. People in studies that do this type of fasting, intermittent fasting, we know that they live longer.
I’ll tell you, I just found a great thing if I can find it here. I have to read this. I’m not going to slow you down too much, but I promise you, this will be worth it. In my studies, I found this – well, almost found this. Hold on. I’m going to get there. Don’t you worry. We’re all familiar with the Hunzu [sic.] people, right? I’m going to read a title for you. They Live for 120 Years, They Look Twice as Young, and Haven’t Been Sick for One Day, All Secrets of the People. This is the Hunzu tribes. I just lost my page. There it is. Okay.
This is the secret of the Hunzu tribes. It says, “During the summer, they eat fresh vegetables and fruit, and when winter comes, they consume a diet of apricots, sheep milk, cheese.” It’s a very different diet than they consume in the summer, which is obviously a higher fruits and vegetable diet. “This is the time when the Hunzu eat – then there is a time when the Hunzu eat nothing, a period known as starving spring.”
What happens is is these people fast even spring. They take their bodies through this amazing thing. Also, we’re going to get to this, that’s also diet variation, isn’t it? Their diet shifts, and they say they’re finding out that these times where they literally don’t eat, times where they change and eat much less, and then times where they feast on fats is why they live so long.
Meredith, when I read that article, I’m saying, “Oh my gosh! This is what we do.” You’re going to hear that principle in -inaudible-. From that, we can refer back to it just to – but these fasts like that and fasting daily really is a strategy to live longer, be healthier -inaudible-.
Meredith:
Just out of curiosity, how long were the Hunzu people fasting in the spring?
Dr. Pompa:
I have to find out more, but it looks like they went with very little food for months, a couple months, very little. It looked like they’d go a week, and then have a little bit, and a week, and then have a little bit. It looked like a very varied fast for a long period of time. It’s kind of neat when you look at that.
Meredith:
Awesome. I love it. With the intermittent fasting, too, just around the holidays to kind of bring it back to our specific topic, I know for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, I will not really be eating much throughout the day. I’ll probably wake up, maybe have some organic coffee or tea with some coconut oil in the morning, and maybe snack a little bit throughout the day, but I will be saving my calories for that big meal in the evening. I will be enjoying every bite of it. That is a way to intermittent fast before a big holiday meal.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.
Meredith:
Yeah. Another just trick, I think, is good to implement is after you have that holiday meal that evening, wait at least 12 hours before you eat the next day to give your body that rest and that fasting time.
Dr. Pompa:
You know that I’ve been preparing for a seminar and doing a lot of my own research, which I love to do, and measuring my own glucose levels, measuring my own ketones, and just looking what the body does. I do practice something that we call diet variation where in the summer, I go into ketosis, and my body’s very efficient. My carbohydrates are below 50 and a very efficient fat burner at that time. When I go into that state, I always feel absolutely amazing. Anyways, in that state – closing the door there. We got somebody –
Meredith:
Somebody tried to walk in. All right.
Dr. Pompa:
My body functions very well with an athletic point. Fall comes, and I purposely raise my carbohydrates to – would still consider a low-carb diet, but maybe 100, 150, which is defined, still, as a low-carb diet. To me, it’s high, and sometimes I even have trouble getting those carbohydrate numbers because I do not eat breakfast, and I’m only eat a small meal in the day, and big meal at dinner.
Here’s what I found: Oftentimes, I’ll purposely, once a week, I do diet variation, where I’ll eat a big carbohydrate meal. We get this emmer wheat pasta, which is the ancient wheat. Anyways, I’ll have a big dish of pasta, and I don’t feast carbohydrates, but then I don’t eat the next morning. Lo and behold, I test my glucose, and through the day, it’s getting lower and lower, and my ketones are rising. Literally, even after the big meal, my body shifts into this fat-burning mode because I’ve got it used to doing that, where I start actually going back into ketosis, even though I had that big carb meal. It’s an interesting finding.
If you ate the big Thanksgiving meal, and you did what you just said, you just simply waited after and didn’t eat for those hours after the meal, your body is going to normalize that glucose rise -inaudible-.
Meredith:
-inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
It keeps you from storing fat, and you’ll actually burn all of the stuff out that you stored because your body will take all those carbohydrates and store them into glucose. When it doesn’t have room to store it as glucose, it moves it into fat. If you don’t let your body do that by not eating for the next day, you’re not going to get the fat. It’s brilliant.
Meredith:
You never gave your body the chance to burn the fat. Maybe someone’s listening to us for the first time, would you recommend jumping into daily intermittent fasting? Would there be a benefit even if you just did it once or twice a week?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I think that there’s definitely a bigger benefit when you actually do this as an activity for longer. I think the longer you do it, the more efficient your body becomes. That’s no doubt. However, I think that someone can just do that and still get a benefit and offset that big meal in some aspect by just not eating for at least, like you said, at least 12 hours, maybe even 16, 18 hours after that meal.
Meredith:
Awesome. All right. Strategy number one, intermittent fasting. All right. Number two, another strategy we’ve talked a lot about here, but we can incorporate it into the holiday calendar. Let’s talk about burst training, Dr. Pompa, and how that can help us avoid weight gain during the holidays.
Dr. Pompa:
You know, I did a video and an article on this, so if you go to DrPompa.com – you can go and put in the word Skinning. Wasn’t it in the title, right? You showed me doing this – I did this skinning where we put these skins like an animal skin – they’re not made of animal skin anymore – on the bottom of our skis, and we’d trek up the mountains. In the video, I talk about why doing it on a fasting state – basically it’s burst training to put it simple.
Burst training on an empty stomach in the morning without eating, you get this major growth hormone rise. It kicks you into this fat burning phase like crazy. I know that when I do my morning mountain bike rides without eating, I am literally so lean the next day. There is a difference of burst training on a full stomach versus on an empty stomach in the morning. It is a strategy. It does work. I always say that you don’t lose weight by exercise; it’s the cherry on the top. You can sure make that cherry a lot bigger by doing what you just said.
Meredith:
Awesome. That would be a great strategy after Thanksgiving night, and you’ve just eaten a ton, to wake up and work out on a fasted stomach. Same with Christmas. Same with any of the other holidays coming up. Just wake up and work out. That’s going to help you get back into fat burning mode.
Dr. Pompa:
Great strategy.
Meredith:
Awesome. All right. Number three, you and I are big proponents of this. Eat fat first. Let’s talk about good fat over the holidays.
Dr. Pompa:
There’s actually science behind that. You said, “Dr. Pompa, this is a strategy that just came into my mind. Eat fat first.” It didn’t just come into your mind. You noticed that when you do that, you seem to get full faster. Am I right on that?
Meredith:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
I said, “Meredith, there’s actually science behind that.” When you eat fat, there’s actually something released called – I have to pronounce it correctly – cholecystokinin that is released when you eat large amounts of fat in a response to the fat. However, cholecystokinin actually stimulates your vagal nerve. The vagus nerve is one that’s responsible for eating or not eating. It connects to your brain and your digestion. There’s this nerve.
It stimulates that neurological response, and it tells us basically to eat less. It makes us not eat as much. It just makes us want to not – wants us to stop eating. That’s really important. When you eat fat, you start to release that hormone, and all of a sudden, you’re partway through the meal going, “I’m really not hungry anymore.” Great strategy. Eat fat first. Give them some suggestions.
Meredith:
Yeah. It’s so key, even just some snacks in between meals with -inaudible- fat, or some raw cheese, nuts, olives. I always have some coconut oil on hand with a little sea salt and cinnamon to regulate my blood sugar and keep me really full. At meals, cover your salad in olive oil. Eat the fatty parts of your meat as long as it’s from grass-fed, healthy animals. Don’t shy away from fat because it does make such a huge difference in feeling good, your brain functioning well, and keeping your satiated, to really decrease cravings for other things that aren’t so good for you.
Dr. Pompa:
I saw my father do that. He really mastered eating less and living longer. He would even have butter, so don’t be afraid of having a tablespoon of butter before a meal, ghee. These really saturated fats will stimulate that cholecystokinin and really just – you’ll find that you just simply eat less naturally.
Remember, we can never caloric restrict by saying, “I’m done eating. I’m going to lose weight. I’m just going to not eat less. I’m not done eating,” and walk away hungry. No. That lasts for a week at best, maybe a day, maybe two, whatever. The point is is no. You have to eat less. We know that people live longer who eat less, but it’s eating less because you’re not hungry. That’s what happens when we intermittent fast.
I haven’t eaten today. It’s 1:30 my time, and I have not one bite of food. I have no sign of hunger, zero. My body’s functioning on its fat supplies and all the bad stuff. It’s eating it. I can easily go to dinner without eating, no problem at all. Again, that is lower calories. Do I caloric restrict? I don’t even try. I’ll eat like a king tonight. If I did eat lunch, I could eat a nice, big lunch, but at the end of the day, I’m eating less, not because I’m pushing food away, because my hormonal system is so efficient at the cellular level burning fat that you simply don’t get hungry.
Meredith:
To remind viewers, too, that didn’t happen to you overnight either, where you were able to not eat up until dinnertime. It is a process called keto-adaptation, fat adaptation, that does take a period of time.
Dr. Pompa:
If you look at the strategies, we did the five strategies. The five strategies that – we have articles for each strategy, one, two, three, four, five. If you do those strategies long enough – if you don’t understand a word we’re talking about, ketosis or intermittent fasting, diet variation, read the strategies. It’s all there. We have articles on ketosis. Put it into the Search bar where the articles are. You’ll find videos. You’ll find articles, diet variation videos, articles. All these strategies are there. If we say something you’re not familiar with, we have an article on it. We have videos on it.
Meredith:
Yes. That’s at DrPompa.com. D-R-P-O-M-P-A dot com. Check those out for sure for more information if you’re curious and are hearing some things for the first time. All right. Strategy number three was eat fat first. Next, strategy number four, take a walk or do some form of movement after a meal to increase your metabolism and avoid the postprandial blood sugar spike. Why is it important to exercise and get some movement after we eat a big meal?
Dr. Pompa:
The postprandial blood sugar spike, meaning that if you take – even a healthy meal. If you take your blood sugar before a meal, it’s going to be, for most of you, probably in the 90s. For Meredith and I, 60s or 70s. Then you eat, and then you’re going to see 120s. That’s if you’re healthy. If you’re pre-diabetic, you’re going to see something higher than that, and that’s very dangerous. After I eat, I’ll see, maybe, 104, 105, whatever. The point is it goes up. Obviously, some people go up so high, then they slam down, and then you’re dead.
Meredith:
Just sit on the couch watching football. Yep.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s right. Exactly. If you exercise or do anything afterwards, like you said, just some type of movement, you’re going to utilize that glucose so you don’t get that massive drop. Also, you’re going to utilize some of that glucose so your body’s not looking for places to store it. Your body just goes into this blah phase. Burn the glucose is the point.
Meredith:
Yep. Go out. Go for a walk. Go play some football. Go have some fun with your family after that meal, and you’ll reap not only the benefits of great time with your family, but you will also avoid that blood sugar spike and keep yourself – get yourself in a fat-burning mode.
Dr. Pompa:
I’m not one to watch people play things. I don’t understand that. Gentlemen out there, I’m sorry. I don’t get it. I don’t get sitting in front of the television all day watching people play. I could do that for a period of time, then I do, “I want to play. I want to do something.” It’s like, “I want to go out and do something. I don’t want to watch people do things,” but that’s me. You’re going to do what you do, but if you’re going to watch football all day, for goodness sakes, go out and do something before you do right after the meals.
Meredith:
Right. Exactly. Do a little something. All right. Next, strategy number five, this is something I do. I eat a pretty similar breakfast and lunch every day, which kind of just helps me keep on track with my whole meal plan. Now, to back up, I don’t often eat breakfast. Typically, I maybe just have some green tea in the morning with coconut oil, so I just have that good fat, which keeps me going right until lunch, and I’m fine.
A lot of people like to have a little breakfast. Perhaps you would like to have a smoothie for breakfast, and then maybe have a salad with some healthy fat and protein for lunch, which is what I typically have for lunch. By having those same breakfast and lunches every day, you kind of keep yourself in the same mode, and you can kind of gauge your calories a little bit better, too. When you’re having different meals in the evenings, just kind of have a better gauge of where you’re at and when you splurge because you are being more consistent throughout the day.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. It really does help. Even at the end, if you’re looking at your carbohydrates, it’s so much easier to know what your carbohydrates are if you’re doing the same things for breakfast and for lunch. It’s always easy for me. People say, “Oh, you’re – ” If I’m in ketosis and I’m tracking my carbs, it’s easy because I know what I had for lunch. I know the carbohydrate total, and it makes me go, “Yeah, I can pretty much have this for dinner now with no problem because I had the same thing.” Yeah, it’s darn easy. That’s good, good stuff.
Meredith:
Thanks. Yep. That was number five. If you need some smoothie ideas, by the way, we do have a free smoothie e-book for download. Just go to FreeSmoothieEBook.com, and you can get 25 of our favorite smoothie recipes, and that’s a free download. Go check that out, little side note.
Dr. Pompa:
I think the other benefit to that, too, is that if you keep those two meals healthy, you don’t have to overthink it. You’re not going to get into trouble if you have your smoothie for breakfast, smoothie for lunch. Maybe it’s eggs for breakfast, eggs for lunch. Then at dinner, then you have some leeway. At dinner, you have some leeway if you keep those meals consistent and healthy, it’s easy for dinner then.
Meredith:
Yep. It’s a great strategy. That’s number five. All right. Number six, next is save your carbs for the evening meal, eating protein and fat during the day and carbs at the evening meal. Can you explain why that is effective for fat burning and avoiding weight gain?
Dr. Pompa:
What I said before is when I was eat those – I ate a big carbohydrate dinner, and I noticed my glucose, especially if I didn’t eat breakfast and I intermittent fasted daily, I would notice that my glucose levels would be a little higher first thing in the morning than if I didn’t have that carbohydrate meal. I’d start the day higher. Surely, it would start to drop, drop, drop, drop the glucose, and then the ketones would rise as long as I didn’t eat. The bigger meal was easy. As long as I didn’t eat in the day, I could get away with the big meal.
Now, opposite would be true. If I ate a little bit of carbs here, even if it wasn’t that much, a little bit of carbs at lunch, even if it wasn’t that much, then I eat the big carbohydrate meal, different outcome. I’m not going to get the low glucose and the high ketones, and I’m not going to burn fat. I’m going to store it all. By doing it at one meal is a strategy to utilize those carbohydrates and not store them as fat.
Meredith:
I know you’ve said that as humans, we’re nocturnal eaters, too. So many people still believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Can you just talk about that a little bit more, and the importance of those carbohydrates at night, and -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. It’s been shown that humans are nocturnal eaters. Of course, there’s some science that people talk about there. I think when you just look at history, you look at the Roman culture, the Greek culture, and most European cultures, it’s the big dinner. It is the big dinner, hence the word continental breakfast, very small. Americans go there, and we’re like, “Really? This is breakfast? Where’s the waffles? Where’s the eggs? It’s like this?” They barely eat. It’s tea, a little thing. I don’t even know what it is.
Meredith:
Crumpet.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. The point is that we’re really the only culture that east this huge breakfast. My gosh, they don’t even eat lunch over there. They nap. They eat these little things even for lunch, so it’s very small, and then the big dinner that lasts two hours. The Romans did it. The Greeks did it, and like I said, even the European cultures. That really just fits with how humans are.
Here’s the science behind it, real fast. When you eat the big meal, it stimulates the parasympathetic nerve system. That’s the nerve system that relaxes us and puts us into a nice sleep mode. It drops our cortisol levels so we can go to sleep. The opposite is true. When we’re not eating, our sympathetic nerve system gets stimulated. That means we have more energy. We’re burning our fat. We feel more energetic, and our cortisols go up. That’s the difference is that that big meal stimulates that parasympathetic nerve system and makes us want to rest.
Meredith:
Another component of it, too, is if you’re practicing intermittent fasting, if you don’t eat that large meal in the evening, your body will believe it’s starving and hang onto fat, which is the problem that, of course, nobody wants.
Dr. Pompa:
Yes. Exactly, exactly right. You need the big meal to remind your body, “We’re not starving. Don’t store fat. Let’s use it.”
Meredith:
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Great. All right. Next strategy, we are on number seven, I believe. This one is just kind of a good reminder. We know that this is important, but we need to choose the highest quality ingredients possible for these holiday dishes that we’re making. That means, ideally, local and sustainable, but organic and grass-fed animal products, raw, organic, ideally, fermented dairy products because we need to avoid GMOs, number one. Number two, when we eat these really high quality foods, we’re more satiated.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I think that’s the key. You need good ingredients. Yeah, you’re going to spend more, but look. Oftentimes, it’s not so much the food that makes us fat; it’s the chemicals, isn’t it? Easy to avoid. Don’t get the chemicals. You can easily use Stevia sweetener. You should be doing that anyway. Our pies taste better to me than any of the pies. We get all the good ingredients every time.
Matter of fact, my son made a pie, and it was an apple pie. It was absolutely delicious. I’m telling you, you’d be like, “This is the best pie.” It was all great ingredients. It’s easier than you think, folks, but remember, it’s the chemicals and the toxins that are in the food that are making people more fat and more sick even than the food.
Meredith:
Mm-hmm, so true. Last year, we put up a big Thanksgiving menu on DrPompa.com, on your website. I know there’s a pumpkin pie recipe on there that’s really fabulous. If you need some idea and some recipe inspiration for Thanksgiving next week, definitely check out the Thanksgiving menu on DrPompa.com. Just type in pumpkin pie. It’ll pop right up.
Dr. Pompa:
There you go.
Meredith:
Awesome. Next, this is strategy number eight. We’ve talked a lot about this, but diet variation and specifically shifting into the ketogenic diet after the holidays for rapid weight loss. We’ve eaten on Thanksgiving, Christmas, all of the holidays we’ve gone through, and some people who are still out there, they will have gained maybe five, ten pounds over the holidays. It happens.
This strategy, to put yourself in a ketosis after the holidays can just bring about rapid weight loss. Can you talk a little bit about how that mechanism works, Dr. Pompa. I know -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
I said I like to vary my diet. I go from in ketosis in the summer, then shift over. I talked about the Hunzu people. At different times of the year, they do different diets. You can utilize this where you’re eating higher carbohydrates during the holiday. Then all of a sudden, now you shift into ketosis. It’s unbelievable. When you do that, your body is shifting gears. You get this hormone rise. Your body starts to utilize its fat for energy. Your appetite goes just way down automatically because you’re eating higher fats. You’re releasing more of the enzyme that I said actually causes your body to not be as hungry.
Your body’s not as hungry because it’s burning fat for energy, so it just doesn’t need to eat. There’s multiple reasons why to shift your diet into ketosis. We’ve written articles on diet variation in the five strategies. We have two articles on ketosis on our website, as well.
Meredith:
We do. Yeah. It is incredible just from personal experience how not hungry you are on the ketogenic diet. It’s funny because sometimes, after a while, you just want to eat something, but you’re just not hungry. It’s very interesting.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no doubt.
Meredith:
It’s fun to experiment with. Great strategy after the holiday to drop weight really fast. All right. Second to the last one here, number nine. This is also kind of a post-holiday strategy. Maybe you want to wait until early January to start this. Giving a longer – a block fast a try to jumpstart cellular healing and weight loss. Talk about how a longer fast versus the intermittent fast can help you lose weight.
Dr. Pompa:
The Hunzu people did it right in the spring. Whether it was a week, a few weeks within a month, they would just simply not eat. Listen, there’s nothing healthier. Thomas Seyfried is a scientist who is one of the leading researchers on cancer. As a matter of fact, he wrote a book called Cancer as a Metabolic Disease showing that it is elevated glucose that really is a problem with cancer.
There’s a toxic reason for that. The mitochondria gets damaged, and now the cells can only use glucose. Anyways, long story there, but his point is even one fast a year, seven to ten days, decreases your cancer chances up to 99%. Why? During these fasts, your body starts eating – that autolytic process starts eating all the bad stuff, and the -inaudible- that goes on that starts eating the bad, toxic cells that haven’t died and should. That what happens during fast.
When you start a different diet shift with a fast, it immediately throws you into ketosis. It immediately throws you into fat burning, and your body eating through this process, and a rise in growth hormone. It’s the best way to start a diet shift is with a block fast at least four days, whether it’s whey water – we’ve done shows on whey water fasting – or broth fasting, or stock fasting. We’ve done shows on that, as well. Go back, and you can look in the archive of podcast 2015 shows, and you’ll see both of those fasts. We’ve discussed them.
Meredith:
Now, to clarify, for the book on cancer as a metabolic disease, Dr. Seyfried was referring to water fasting, correct?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, but in his book, he talks also about the fact that – the research being it looks like you can even do stock fasting, and you’ll get these results.
Meredith:
Really.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s really all about the glucose levels. They target about 55 to 65 when people are fasting of the target zone and the ketones rising at least above two to seven. That’s their, what he calls, the target zone. To his point is as long as you’re in that zone, it doesn’t matter if you’re stock fasting or water fasting, you’re going to get a positive effect.
Meredith:
Awesome.
Dr. Pompa:
I’m a big believer in water fasting, too; however, he talks a lot about that. He talks about even utilizing ketosis with fasting. His point is that it’s not just ketosis, but it’s ketose with restriction, which he calls KD-R, keto diet restriction, meaning utilizing ketosis with fasting either daily or block, which we described, or just simple eating less in ketosis. I’m talking about that at my next seminar to our doctors.
By the way, that’s why some people, Meredith, ask the question sometimes why people don’t lose weight in ketosis and others do. I have several theories that I have offered. According to these studies, not just by Seyfried, but others, they’re not restricting their caloric intake enough. When you and I go into ketosis, we get a release in the cholecystokinins, and we eat less. That doesn’t happen with everybody. Some people don’t. They don’t get that release of the cholecystokinins, and therefore, they’re not eating less. According to Seyfriend’s work and, like I said, other studies that I’m looking at and acquiring, that’s a problem. Not that it’s unhealthy, but they don’t get the benefit of ketosis like you and I.
In mouse studies, none of the mice lost weight unless they did ketosis with the restriction. Interesting, Meredith. I’m going to teach more about that at my seminar, and you’ll hear all those studies.
Meredith:
Awesome. I’m excited to learn more, and I’m sure we’ll be sharing a lot more with all of you in the future, as well.
Dr. Pompa:
Intermittent fasting with ketosis, whether it’s block or daily, that’s the key according to the studies.
Meredith:
Wow. Big take-home point there after the holidays for rapid weight loss, guys. Taking notes there. That was number nine. Awesome. This last one, we couldn’t have this list without focusing, of course, on the mental and spiritual component of the holidays and the importance of focusing on people, and on relaxing, and destressing, and possibly doing some yoga, meditation, prayers, taking the time for yourself and to really remember the reason for the season, and why we love to gather together and celebrate this time of the year, and just really, the importance of just enjoying that time with family, and friends, and the spiritual component of the season.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s so true because people, unfortunately, in the holidays, they allow themselves – I use the word allow – to get more stressed out, which raises cortisol, and that can be a reason why you gain weight, going, “I’m eating less during the holidays.” Yeah, your stress, your cortisol levels throws you into whatever you eat, you start storing as fat.
My suggestion is get into your prayer closet more during the holidays. Hey, I’m going to motivate you. Here it is. You ready? Watch the movie War Room.
Meredith:
I saw it. I did.
Dr. Pompa:
I watched it the other night. I’ll tell you what. If that doesn’t inspire you to get into your prayer closet, a.k.a. war room, nothing will. I’ll make a challenge. If, during the holidays, you say, “Okay, I’m going to spend time, whether it’s even 10, 15 minutes in my little room,” whatever that room is, “and put it to prayer,” I promise you, you will have a different holiday, not from a weight loss standpoint, although it’ll help because of the stress. I’m telling you, you will have a joyful holiday because it will just bring you into, really, what the whole season is about. Thanksgiving, thanks to our Lord and Savior. I’ll tell you, that is a challenge. As a matter of fact, that’s – I started my morning out like that today. There you go.
Meredith:
It makes a huge difference in your day when you start it in the right way. That is for sure. I can agree. I think with these 10 strategies, guys, I’ll just do a quick, little review. If you implement these, then I think you’re really going to be on the right track to have an amazing holiday season and to not gain weight.
Okay. The first one, as we recall, intermittent fasting. Number two, burst training. Number three, eat fat first. Number four, we said take a walk or do some movement after a big meal to avoid that postprandial blood sugar spike. Number five, we said eat a similar breakfast and lunch each day to help yourself gauge calories. Number six, we talked about saving carbohydrates for your evening meal. Next, number seven, using the highest quality ingredients you can afford for you meals, including organic, grass-fed, local produce and animal products. Next, we had – let me see here.
I’ve got these a little bit out of order. To jumpstart cellular healing with a longer fast, so this would be after the new year, probably after the holidays, but take a longer block fast to jumpstart cellular healing. Next, try the ketogenic diet, incorporating diet variation for rapid weight loss, and the last one, of course, if to focus on the people and the reason for the season.
Everyone, we hope you have an amazing holiday season and Thanksgiving next week. If you need to recipe inspiration, check out some of our ideas on DrPompa.com. Anything else you’d like to add, Dr. Pompa?
Dr. Pompa:
No. Have a happy Thanksgiving, absolutely.
Meredith:
All right. Awesome. Thanks, everyone. Take care, and we will see you next week.
Dr. Pompa:
Bye.
