Inflammation

Top 7 Fasting Mistakes That Cause Cravings And Fatigue

Conquering Chronic Inflammation Summit

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Number one is not eating enough. We're talking about fasting. People are what, not eating enough? I thought I wasn't supposed to be eating well. The key to fasting is feasting when you are in your eating period. It's designating times when you eat and feast and times when you fast. It's not an attempt at a low-calorie diet. You're not counting your calories and trying to keep your calories low. That's not the goal. When you're doing intermittent fasting. When you eat whatever window of time you're eating in, okay, maybe it's six hours. Maybe it's eight hours. You want to make sure you eat well; eat till you're fully satiated. I recommend at least 30 grams of high-quality protein in every single meal and roughly 20 to maybe up to 40 grams of healthy fats, sometimes only more than 30 grams of protein. If you've got a lot of lean body tissue, if you're doing strength training, or if you're trying to build muscle, you may need 56 grams of protein in a meal. and many more fat just depends. The amount of fat you put in might be as low as, let's say, 20 grams of fat. Let's say you don't have a gallbladder or consuming a lot of fat just makes you feel bloated, you don't feel good that you consume less fat or more protein in your meal. If you feel good eating a lot more fat—30, 40, 50 grams of fat in a meal—then consume that because that's going to help give you more satiety and make you feel more satiated. You also need to have some fiber. Fiber oftentimes helps. I mean, not everybody does great with fiber, but for most people, having a big salad with their meal, having vegetables, and things that, even some fruit can be helpful for, provides more satiety.

The key is just getting enough calories in your meals when you are consuming them. Particularly before you start your fast. Let's say, daily, you're eating 2 or 3 meals in a 6 or 8-hour eating window. Your last meal is, let's say, at 6 p.m., finished by 7 p.m., and then you're fasting until 1:00 the next day. You want to make sure that in your dinner meal, you're consuming a good amount of calories, getting protein, and getting healthy fats. That way, you're not hungry.  You're you're you're satiated. Now your body's burning fat for fuel. getting enough calories and eating enough food, particularly protein, is super important. Number one, a lot of people are not doing that. They're undereating. They're just not eating as much. Then several hours later they're hungry or they're eating the wrong types of foods, like a lot of starch and a lot of sugar. That's going to throw off their blood sugar. It's going to make it harder for their body to burn fat when they are going through their fasting period. Then they're going to feel hypoglycemic. They're going to have cravings. It's not a good setup for a fast. Number two is poor hydration. We need to be hydrated when we are fasting. That's part of the cleansing process—getting some good hydration into our system. Hydration also helps to fill our stomachs. For drinking water, it expands our stomach, which reduces the amount of ghrelin, which is our hunger hormone. our stomach when there's nothing in our stomach. Sometimes you'll feel your stomach growl. That's the effect where ghrelin is being released, and ghrelin circulates, gets up into the brain and the hypothalamus, and tells us, I'm hungry. It's time to eat some food. When we drink water, we distend the stomach, which reduces the amount of ghrelin that's released. We don't get the neurological effects of that desire to eat, that hunger that takes place. good. Hydration is key. It is also very important for energy production. 

Along with water is taking in electrolytes; particularly when we're fasting, our insulin levels go down. Insulin is the hormone we release when we eat. Insulin's job is to take sugar and put it into the cells. Almost a key coming in, unlocking the door on the cells, the insulin receptor, and allowing sugar and other nutrients, like magnesium to get into the cells where they can be used for energy. When insulin is elevated in our bloodstream, we retain sodium, so we retain sodium in water. Water comes with sodium. If we have insulin resistance, our body is producing a lot of insulin, we can oftentimes have a lot of swelling, and we can have higher blood pressure. However, when we're going through a period of fasting or if we're eating a very low-carb blood sugar-stabilizing diet and we're exercising, we're doing things to maintain good metabolic health; we are not going to have high insulin. We're going to have lower insulin levels, particularly when we're fasting, and then we're going to excrete more sodium. Remember to have high insulin. We retain sodium, and low insulin helps us excrete the sodium. Now we're getting rid of it. If we don't replace it by taking in some salt, we can feel very, very dizzy until we've adapted to fasting for a while. A lot of people notice dizziness. They notice an increase in cravings. They notice their energy goes down, and their mental clarity goes down. They just don't feel good. They can even develop flu symptoms when they're electrolytes, particularly sodium. The most important one is lowering and going down. Until you get more adapted to retaining the sodium and the electrolytes, taking a little bit of salt—just putting some salt or sea salt on your tongue and taking that every few hours during the fast—will help with your overall energy production. That can be helpful. 

You can also make electrolyte powders, as long as they don't have sugar or any other calories in them. Those can be helpful during intense stress or poor sleep. If you sleep badly, that's going to throw off your insulin levels, and it's going to throw off another hormone called leptin. Leptin is a hormone that the fat cells release, and it circulates, gets into the hypothalamus in your brain, and tells you you're not hungry. It stops the hunger signal, tells you you're satiated, and tells you to burn fat for fuel. People who have poor sleep or high stress can develop a condition called leptin resistance, where they're producing a lot of leptin but their body is not responding to it, so they never feel it. They always feel hungry, and they're not able to burn fat effectively for fuel. We need to keep stress under control. then we also need to make sure we're prioritizing good rest and good sleep. If you're not doing that, if you're not sleeping well, or if you're going through intense periods of stress, maybe you're going through a divorce, a sickness in your family, or something like that. Then doing an extended fast would not be a good idea; you might just need to start with a 12-hour overnight fast. Just be gentle on your body. Try to make good nutrition choices, but pushing your fasting window or tightening your fasting window may be tough on your body because of the amount of stress you're under. If you're not sleeping well, especially, that's going to make it hard. I always tell people to dial in the stress to a manageable level and let's make sure we're sleeping well. When we do that now, that sets us up for a great fasting experience. that's key.  

Number five is not pooping. You need to be moving your bowels, particularly if you're intermittently fasting. Let's say again that you're doing a 16- to 18-hour fast or maybe a 2020 four-hour fast with only one meal a day. Whatever it is, whatever your fasting window is on on a particular day, you should be moving your bowels every single morning. between 6 and 9 a.m. In the morning, your colon is most active. You should have 1 or 2 bowel movements in that period. Just get rid of everything—all the waste from the day before—in that period, or certainly within 24 hours. Meaning if you ate lunch at 1:00 on Tuesday, you should have all the waste from that meal out of your body by 1:00 on Wednesday. If it sits in there longer, it's going to petrify; it's going to rot and petrify, and that's going to release highly toxic compounds. We call those endotoxins that drive up inflammation in your body, drive up stress hormones, and increase cravings. Believe it or not, the bacterial fermentation that takes place there will signal to your brain that you're hungry and that you want food that's not healthy for you. It's going to stimulate more sugar cravings and more starch cravings than you're going to be eating. Next thing, you're going to be eating a big bag of Frito-lay's. Because your body is saying it's giving you these strong urges to do that. You've got to make sure you're moving your bowels, and getting things out of your system. Drinking a lot of water in the morning and getting the salts in can help. Perhaps some magnesium supplementation can help a lot of people notice good bowel movements when they drink coffee in the morning because of the chlorogenic acid in there. The caffeine stimulates your vagus nerve and stimulates peristalsis in your gut. It also helps to improve bile flow from your liver and activate liver detoxification. that can be helpful for a lot of people as well. But you got to get pooping. 

Another thing you can do is just buy a castor oil pack. You can get castor oil, a flannel, or my favorite castor oil pack is Queen of Thrones. They have the whole kit with them. I'll have a link below the video, and you just put that over your colon. A little bit of the castor oil is on the flannel. Tie it up. Do that overnight. That has a natural laxative effect if it's over the colon that will help move your bowels and help you get rid of toxins. that can be helpful. You can also do it over the liver to help stimulate and open up the bile ducts and stimulate liver detoxification and liver regeneration. That's helpful. Number six is a poor mindset. A lot of people, when they go fast the whole time, think I can't eat anything. I can't eat anything. It's this attitude of deprivation. because of that, because that's what they're thinking about. That thought process itself stimulates more cravings. Then they'll go, and they'll see family members or friends eating something. then again, it triggers that response, and they're, I can't eat anything. It's triggering this reaction that tells the body, I need to have cravings, and it makes it hard to be successful with the fasting period you're trying to accomplish. You have to have a poor mindset—not a victim mindset, not a deprivation mindset, but an empowering mindset. I have a mindset that says this is going to be amazing for my body. I'm going to build better strength and stamina. I'm going to have better control over my mood and my cravings. I'm not going to let food control me. I'm going to control how I decide to eat food. You have to have that empowering mindset. When you do that, the fast becomes a lot easier as opposed to a deprivation mindset. 

Then number seven; which only applies to women. is the menstrual cycle timing. But for men, it's important to know this. If you're having your spouse fast, or your girlfriend, or your daughter or sister, or whatever it is, Menstrual cycle timing is super key. For women, the last week before they start menstruating is not a good time to fast. The reason why is that you need to increase your insulin levels during that period to produce the amount of hormones needed for the menstruation process. What happens the last week before a woman menstruates? They oftentimes have a lot of cravings. It's their body telling them, I need more calories, more food, and more carbohydrates during that period. The best time for a woman to fast is actually after she starts menstruating in the first few days. It's a great way to just reduce inflammation and reduce any symptoms of cramping and bloating that can be associated with menstruation. It is a great time to fast, usually around ovulation, which is day 14 of the menstrual cycle. The typical 28-day menstrual cycle, roughly around days 12 to 14 or 15, is when ovulation takes place. It's usually, again, a good time to go more into a feasting cycle. During that period, and then after ovulation, is a good time to go back into doing some fasting up until you get to roughly day 21, day 22 on that menstrual cycle, and then again, that's a great time to eat more calories, more protein, and more carbohydrates, ideally from healthy sources like fruit, starchy, sweet potatoes, nutrient-dense starch, starchy vegetables, squashes, and beans. Perhaps those are healthier sources of carbohydrates. Getting a lot of protein during that part of time as well can be helpful. 

Hopefully, this video was helpful for you guys. You do not want to make these mistakes if you're trying to be successful with intermittent fasting or, particularly, with extended fasting, which gets even more challenging. It's even more important to do these things correctly if you're trying to do a three-day or five-day water fast. You dial these things in here. Hopefully, this is helpful. Be sure to share this video or podcast with anybody that you care about who needs to understand this information. Now is the time; if you have not already, what are you waiting for? Subscribe to our channel and hit the bell button. That way, you get notified whenever I post a new video, so you never miss one of these important trainings. Thank you so much for doing that, and we'll see you guys in future training. Be blessed, everybody.

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<h6>David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS</h6>
Hi, it's Dr. David Jockers. Today I'm talking about The Top Seven Mistakes I See People Make When They're Trying Intermittent or Extended Fasting. We know fasting can be one of the most powerful healing strategies. I call it the most ancient, inexpensive, and powerful healing strategy known to mankind because all of our ancestors did it because they didn't have pantries and access to food all the time. There are many times of scarcity where they have to eat very little or have no food. Sometimes they would go days; sometimes they would only go once a day. This was very common for our ancestors. In today's day and age. We have food all around us,? We have to be intentional about fasting. Fasting doesn't cost us anything, so it's inexpensive. Then it may be the most powerful healing strategy known to mankind because of its incredible benefits for burning fat, reducing inflammation, and stimulating cell repair mechanisms. We call that autophagy, and fasting might have incredible health benefits. However, some people have not had good experiences with fasting, and these are the reasons why, for the top seven mistakes:

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Dr. David Jockers is a doctor of natural medicine and runs one of the most popular natural health websites in DrJockers.com which has gotten over 1 million monthly visitors, and his work has been seen on popular media such as the Dr Oz show and Hallmark Home and Family.
Dr Jockers is the author of the best-selling books, “The Keto Metabolic Breakthrough” by Victory Belt publishing and “The Fasting Transformation.” He is a world-renowned expert in the area of metabolic health, fasting, brain health, inflammation and functional nutrition.
He is also the host of the popular Dr Jockers Functional Nutrition podcast which has been consistently ranked among the top 50 health and fitness podcasts and has been the #1 ranked nutrition podcast in the world.
Dr Jockers lives in Canton, Georgia with his wife Angel and his twin boys David &amp; Joshua and his daughters Joyful &amp; Shine.

Top 7 Fasting Mistakes That Cause Cravings And Fatigue

David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS

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David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS