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Chapter 13
260 Plays4 months ago
The Fast and the Furious!! Dave and the Doc set out on a two-day fast together!! Will it go as planned? Of course not, but not in the way you might think!
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Transcript
Dave's Journey of Redemption
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Dave here. You know, we don't talk enough anymore. It's always about me. How are you? How have you been doing? Me? How have I been? Okay. Well, I felt like I let the team down a little bit last week. Guys, I'll be honest. So this week, I totally redeemed myself. I didn't eat for 81 hours. What's that like? Let's talk about it. It's Chapter 13 of Dr. Val Saves Dave.
00:00:33
Speaker
Hey everybody, have you heard the news? Dave's turning 50 and he's got the blues He's out of shape and this is true He needs help, he has no clue He grabs his phone and she can't quit Don't you bow, we'll do her trick She'll be tough, there's no free pass Come on Dave, get off your ass Don't you bow, can you save Dave? He's called a lie
00:01:02
Speaker
He'll behave. Oh, do you think he will cave? Listen, and he's back in school. It's his funny buddies, Dr. Val's rules. It's his funny buddies, Dr. Val's rules. Good morning, Doctor. Good morning. Hello, listener, and welcome back to Dr. Val Saves
The Fasting Experience
00:01:27
Speaker
Dave. And we're actually cheery and happy today. More happy than normal. Did you notice how chipper and cheery I am after the debacle of chapter 12? Yes. And not only did I notice that, I noticed how fantastic you're looking. You are glowing. Oh, am I? This old thing?
00:01:47
Speaker
ah Well, let's tell our listeners why. Okay. Well, welcome back everybody. I was feeling so, uh, um, I don't want to say disappointed in myself, but I wasn't feeling good, uh, about my choices and actually just flat out wasn't feeling good as a result of my choices last week. So I felt that I had let, uh, myself down, Dr. Val down, my sister down missing her birthday. I did not let down Tim Blew at the Chesney because I played fantastic on the golf course, but um I didn't do the fast and I ate like garbage, all of that stuff. So the only way to redeem myself was to fast. That's right. It was time to do it. And so doc tell us all about fasting and what we did was originally called the reboot.
00:02:40
Speaker
We decided to go with the reboot. So we took a little bit of a look at your life and we took that deep dive into all the different types of fasting and we said, hey, the best thing to do is hit the reset button and start to develop a habit and a pattern where for two days out of every month you fast and you don't There's a number of different ways
Benefits of Fasting Explained by Dr. Val
00:03:01
Speaker
of doing it. Some people do just water. They don't drink anything. Some people do like a dry fast where they don't eat or drink anything you know through the whole day. Other people will drink water. So we said, let's be gentle. This is your first time doing it. And let's do it having you have
00:03:17
Speaker
greens juices and bone broth and herbal tea and water throughout the day as much as you need. But we're just going to do that type of fasting and what will happen is your body will start to develop some of the benefits. So we started to talk about, okay, here's the benefits once you go over fasting for 12 to 14 hours. Here's what happens when you go over, ah you know, 16 or 24 hours up to 48 hours. And so when you're actually doing two days, two full complete days of no food, just, you know, clear broths, juices, water, et cetera, your body will actually start
00:03:54
Speaker
to break down proteins that are becoming damaged, cellular debris, things that it no longer needs. And you'll start to get into this process called autophagy. And you'll start to break down tissues that could potentially become cancerous in the future if they were allowed to do that, tissues that you don't need. And you'll start to metabolize those, break them down and get healthy. You get cellular you'll begin to get some cellular regeneration. You know what's crazy is I saw autophagy at the Elma combo. They were fantastic. And cellular debris opened for them. So that's that's crazy. Yay.
Challenges Faced During Fasting
00:04:30
Speaker
That was a long time ago. h So the body, so what we set out to do is, and I'm sorry I cut you off, but some jokes have a shelf life. There was no way I was going to remember both those terms for much longer. So before we go into what I did, walk me through autophagy. How do you even spell that? What's that word?
00:04:50
Speaker
Well, it's like auto, the car, A-U-T-O, hu and then phagy. Phagy.-H, not an F, P-H-A-G-Y. Perfect. Autophagy. Autophagy. You could say that too. Yeah, autophagy. So what's autophagy? So that is, again, the breakdown of different proteins in your body that are no longer, they're not optimal. Does it happen every day? Does it only happen when we fast? like It happens more specifically when we fast. Okay, and where does it happen? In your whole body? Yep, in the cells. So when we take a look at different diseases like cancer, when we take a look at a lot of inflammation, we can have cellular debris within our system and we can have proteins that aren't completely healthy.
00:05:34
Speaker
And so when we rest our body, we give our body a chance to break down these proteins. And so we can help in terms of preventing cancer, cardiovascular disease, decreasing inflammation. If you fast long enough, you'll actually begin to break down some of the proteins that we call tau proteins that we know can form in the brain and can be responsible for um Alzheimer's and and senile dementia. So there can be some real wonderful benefits for fasting. Tau is T-A-U, the zooming, tau, like in the Greek alphabet, tau. That's right. So tau is ah only in the brain? Tau's brain? That's one of the proteins that we find starts to develop within the brain of people who are developing Alzheimer's. And it's one of the early signals. And we say, OK, that's that's not good. And we start to experience these neurofibularly tangles that can start to happen. And so you don't get proper brain function and ah thought processing.
00:06:32
Speaker
Neurofibrillary tangles. There you go. Never saw them live. ah Well, you don't have to worry about those when brushing out your hair because, you know, you don't have any. Right. Right. Because I'm smart. There we go. I can't imagine how much time you waste. Exactly. Getting out those tangles. Hair havers. You people are crazy. Anyway, all right, so so we set out. Now, ah dear listener, fellow journeyer, ah those of you who are playing along with me at home in the home game, I really did feel bad. I'd i'd ballooned back up from, I'd put it on a bunch of pounds again. So I was up at 202. So when I weighed in to start the fast, I started at 202. I weighed myself. Did you see? So Monday morning, now technically my fast started Sunday night at Sunday night dinner.
00:07:21
Speaker
And then I had like four or five cherries at nine o'clock. Cause I was just absent mindedly doop doo doo, you know, otherwise my fast would have started at like six 30, except for those darn cherries anyway. So, you know, Monday morning, uh, you know, you don't eat. You wake up and you don't eat. um And the plan was to go for two days, two solid days, right? Monday and Tuesday, I was not going to eat. I was going to bone broth it up. And and that was the plan. so I would say by Monday afternoon, I started to get pretty cranky. I started to get, uh, certainly hungry. Um, it was early on though in the fast. So I was still very motivated and still like, we got this buddy talking to my body. Well, so what happens in the first, you know, like your body doesn't even know you're fasting until you've missed like the second meal, right? Like cause some days you're busy and miss lunch. So your body might be like, Hey hungry. And you're like, yeah, we're not eating right now. Anybody's okay. Cool. Cool. Whatever.
00:08:21
Speaker
And then by dinnertime though, now the body says to go, you know, what's actually going on here? What do we, uh, hello, uh, hunger signals. So now the hunger signals really started to come. And of course, uh, my family started eating. So the smell of food is now in the house. So now we're getting serious into a fast is when your body starts to scream and going even to bed that night. The body was like, wait a minute. We didn't. ah What the hell? So what happens in your body? When does your body actually start to recognize it's fasting? Like what would be the shortest amount of time you could fast that would have benefits or what benefits happen early on?
00:09:04
Speaker
Well, typically with respect to fasting, it's technically once you've eaten a meal, when your body has processed that meal and when the blood sugar levels have gotten back down between three and six is a normal range for blood sugar levels, we consider that fasting. And so for most people we'll say, okay, two hours after eating, Technically, you're starting the fasting phase. You're not using glucose as a fuel source anymore. You're going to start burning off the glycogen stores. And then eventually, you're going to get into fat burning mode. So regularly, just going to bed and getting up you know and eating. Usually, most people leave like 12 hours between the time they finish eating and the time that they get up and start eating again. That's normal. That that is considered a fast. And that's why we call breakfast breakfast.
00:09:50
Speaker
ah But when we're actually using it for therapeutic purposes and for health purposes, we want to go 14 hours or more. And so usually 14, 16, 18, that's when we start kind of saying, okay, now we're getting a a therapeutic physical benefit. And some of the benefit, too, that you get of doing a fast can be just resting the digestive system and allowing it to heal. And so that's why there's a difference between doing a juice and a smoothie. So if you do a smoothie, you've got the fiber in it. You don't want to have any fiber. You don't want to do anything with protein in it. You're not really resting the digestive system. You want to do everything that's clear. You want to do clear liquids so that your digestion doesn't have to worry about it. It doesn't have to process it. And you just get this nice, smooth ah sailing with respect to blood sugar levels. So that's what we were ah attempting to accomplish, which we did.
00:10:43
Speaker
So essentially by not eating, um, I'm giving my body the, the time off work. Yep. And so it can start to tidy up the place. Yep. Right. It's like, Oh, I get the day off while I'm meant to do some laundry, meaning to take out the recycling, et cetera, the neurofibularies. Yep. Uh, the towel proteins are building up, we sweep out the cobwebs. Right. So where the body starts to get to work on a little housekeeping, right? Yep. So that was the first day. Now I woke up the second day, uh, hungry. The second day I was like, all right, the body's like, okay, we're good. Thanks for that. Let's eat. And then I was like, you know, you're going to have a little cup of bone broth there, buddy. Bone broth made me hungry. That's a bone broth. Bone broth is your body's like, yeah, where's the rest of this chicken?
00:11:31
Speaker
this is is This has elements of food. Can we have the food that came with this bone broth, please? Are there any bones we can on pick on anything? um so that was Day two was not great. Yeah. Day two, I had a headache most of the day. I started to get chilly oh yeah as we, ah you know, like on ah on a very nice day out, you know, I needed a sweater, yep right? like ah Like an old man at a cabin, which didn't feel good. And I was cranky. yeah I
Breaking Negative Cycles with Fasting
00:12:08
Speaker
had low energy ah for sure. I didn't, ah you know, talked to some neighbors, talked to some people, didn't have much to offer them conversationally.
00:12:17
Speaker
didn't have much energy. I was like, yeah, I'm not eating. I haven't eaten. Bye. I always yeah i didn't feel feel great on this rotate too. So what's happening in that stretch of time in the body that made me feel like if it's been cleaning, why wasn't my body more excited to not be eating at that point? So this is what most people experience. And for me, when I've done fast in the time in and times past, and I've done longer fast. I've done you know juice fast for a full week. I did a full month of of juicing just for those experiences. And usually the first day, you're pretty you're fine. You're kind of like, yeah, I'm hungry, but I can deal with it. The second day, I find, yep, the hunger
00:12:59
Speaker
ah is just through the roof and you're just mean, you're tired, you're grumpy, you can't think clearly, you're having what we call a healing crisis. So the headaches, some people get skin rashes, your body is is doing that that detoxification and it's kind of adjusting to not having the food. And so for me, that is the worst day and my and the hunger hasn't shut off yet. Day three, the hunger shuts off. And then the the energy for me goes through the roof. So on day two though, what the body, is it still cleaning yeah or is it now looking for, it's like we've cleaned. No. and We need some fuel. Like why why was it that such a tough stretch?
00:13:41
Speaker
that day too, which I guess would would be around the 40 if I start from the Sunday night. So I'm coming up on the 48 hour mark. You know, this is around hour 40. Yeah. I would say was. ah It is for most people because we're not used to going without food. So the longer you do the fast, the less that will be an issue. You're doing a lot of detoxification at that particular point in time. You're breaking down fat cells as fuel sources. And our fat cells are actually where we hold a lot of our chemicals that we can't get rid of. So we our liver is our organ of detoxification. We have, you know, detoxification that can happen through the skin, a little bit through the lungs, the you know, the kidneys and the colon help out, but the liver is kind of like the, I call it the bathtub of the human body. So what's happening? Mine has bathtub gin. Yes, exactly. That's what my liver is. It is bathtub gin. Yeah. You could probably get drunk off my liver. You probably could, and I think we've had that conversation. like What would happen if we rang out your liver? like How many bottles of alcohol could could we actually extract from it? Well, you could make a couple of nice drinks for sure, you but a variety of drinks. It wouldn't just be the one. Right. yeah Yeah. And so when we actually take a look at other things in the environment, ah different types of medications, different types of chemicals, different types of solvents, um plastics that you're exposed to, that your body can't get rid of through the liver very easily. What happens is it will store them in the fat cells. So now you're breaking down these fat cells and the toxins that are there are getting released into the system.
00:15:12
Speaker
But when you go without protein for more than two days or leading into two days, your liver's ability to detoxify will decrease. So we have these liver enzymes that become what we call down-regulated because you need protein for them. If you don't have the protein, your body can't make them as much. So you have these chemicals and these these products, what we call toxins coming into your bloodstream to be gotten rid of from your body. And there isn't as much of a place for them to go. So your body is doing what bodies do. and It's sending you signals, hunger signals saying, I need food. Give me the food. It's not around. So you get irritable. You get grumpy. Well, yeah. So first to use your language, my body is giving me feedback. Yes. Right. yeah And I'm ignoring the feedback.
00:16:05
Speaker
You are in this case, yeah. In this case. So the body is now starting to get testy at me. Yeah. Right. Hey, hey, hey, feed me, feed me. Yeah. Well, a week ago I fed it everything it thought it wanted. and So this week it got nothing. You get nothing. You hot dog eating mustard stains, son of a, you got nothing body. That's all you get for all your caramel apple pie Sundays and what the heck. Well, that was, you know, the food companies really ah trying to trick your body. I know. It's not my fault. no It's not my fault, except it was my fault. So anyway, ah that afternoon I felt poorly, yeah which felt appropriate because that's what I was in this for was, okay, I deserve a little and I owe it to
00:16:49
Speaker
my our dear listeners and to you guys to see this journey through. And the fact that, you know, my weight hasn't really been my main focus. It's been a focus and it's a metric. It's a way to measure, how am I doing? Hey, weight's coming down. I must be doing okay. So when my weight went back up, you know, back above 200 after a couple of weeks of just hovering right there. And then I was like, come on, we got a little bit of time left. I'd already declared halftime after Disneyland. So this was an, unacceptable and unexpected complete setback. I mean, totally expected. Yep. Let's be real. Who are we dealing with? I should say it was 100% expected. Oh, you're going to have a golf tournament? It's in the theme song. Probably not, but yes, it was on the calendar. Of course it was going to go bad, but I didn't expect it to go that bad. I thought I would, you know, okay, I'll stray a bit, but I didn't know I was going to go full berserker, lunatic,
00:17:47
Speaker
digging through the trash can without a shirt on and just like so I knew. that's what That's what happens with the body. When I was ah a teenager, I had a cousin who had struggled with her weight for you know a lot of her life and she was older than I was. And she said, you know you know what the best way to ah to lose weight is? And I said, what? And she said, don't gain it in the first place. That was, you know, it sounds obvious, but it's really wise. Are you guys close?
00:18:21
Speaker
Yes, it was the best advice I'd ever gotten. Thank you. There you go. Okay. Thank you and Marie. So with respect to that advice, it's the same with when you go out and you're going to a golf tournament. You have to expect failure. You have to plan and prepare for it. And it's not truly failure, it's you have to expect your body and your physiology to do what it's designed and built to do.
Fasting and Stem Cell Production
00:18:45
Speaker
If you give it the hot dogs, if you give it the sugar, if you give it the chemicals, the fat, salt and sugar, you're going to overeat because that's human. And if you start drinking, forget it, it's going to happen. And then you lose the ability to make good decisions because you're chemically altered. Exactly. Right.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah. So the key is to avoid it in the first place if you can, but once you go, hold on. So, but okay. So not to rehash last episode because you can go back and listen to it, but yes, I had a disastrous, uh, a week of decision-making and it, it prolonged. It wasn't just that the golf tournament, that was the problem is once I got into that, then it was like, spiral who cares about me anyway? Certainly not the listeners. Yeah. Keep eating. Keep eating. so yeah you know All this so negative self-talk comes. But to your point coming off of that, and here's where I'd like to give you a tip of the hat, um you know, we talked and I was, you know, embarrassed, but certainly not proud of the fact that, you know, look, this was not what this show was about. And it shows your, my body, your rules. And I ah did none of it for a good stretch of time. So, um, you said though, there's no failure. It's only failure if you quit. And I certainly had felt like a failure that week. So, but having your sport, having your confidence got me back in the heart. Okay. Let's turn it around. And this fasting was a great idea. Now.
00:20:21
Speaker
if I can tell them, after two days, ah we had a scheduled session with David Dunder, and we can circle back to this conversation, but I finally got to learn how to run. Now that I've walked, yeahp I learned how to run, which is a separate conversation. But that morning, 6 a.m., up after two days of fasting now, and of course, starting the night before, so we're now at 50 hours or something, I went for a run and David had me sprinting at one point, which is, you know, hilarious. If you've watched me live for the last several years, the old man's up sprinting with no food in his system.
00:21:01
Speaker
But he had me running, you know, 14 kilometers an hour, big sprints and whatever. I felt good. I felt good during the sprints. You know, I was able to keep up and and do what he asked. And then I drove home afterwards and I was like, ready to pass out. I would have thought, but I wasn't. I was like, geez, I feel, I feel all right here. Now, because of our previous episode where we talked about fasting, you had explained on that one, which I believe is chapter 10, that at 72 hours, your body will start to produce stem cells. You'll get stem cell regeneration. Stem cell regeneration. yes Yes. Now, what does that actually look like in the body? Where does it regenerate? Like all over, they start popping up. I start getting stem cells in my kneecaps. It doesn't find the spot where I'm weakest that it goes, let's get his elbow. Like where do stem cells happen? What's even happening when you say stem cell regeneration?
00:21:58
Speaker
Well, stem cells, for those of you who are big fans of Michael J. Fox, ah are what we actually are looking into from a medical perspective for helping in terms of healing diseases like Parkinson's and helping in terms of regenerating tissues. They're cells that aren't formed yet. They're like little baby cells and they could become anything they want. And so what happens is when they're produced, the cells where we need it, where the areas that are starting to break down, the stem cells can go into those areas and help regenerate those tissues. So if you are aging faster than you should, let's say you have wrinkles, it can help in terms of your skin. It can help in terms of anti-aging.
00:22:41
Speaker
You're right. If you have um degradation of your knee cartilage, it can help in terms of increasing that knee cartilage. it can though It can go there. They can help in terms of forming any cell that is not optimal and it has an accelerated aging process and is starting to become damaged and breaking down. And so that's why stem cell research is something that is really, really popular right now because we're looking at it for anti-aging and extending human performance and extending human life. So your body's going to produce or start to regenerate more of these stem cells or start to generate more of the stem cells. So you actually get a reversal of the aging process. You get an anti-aging effect.
Reintroducing Food Post-Fast
00:23:25
Speaker
So
00:23:27
Speaker
at that moment in that morning, even though we had made it the two days, I said, well, I've come this far. Let's fast another day to get to 72. Like I'm already 50 hours in. I can do another day. so And I believe the conversation we had, you were, because so usually I feel great on day three. At day three, the energy comes up you're and you're like, I feel so good, I never have to eat again. Why was I eating in the first place? And so we had this conversation where you were actually like, hey, I feel good. Can we keep going? And how long can I actually do this for?
00:24:04
Speaker
because I think that's the really great question. I love that you asked that question. And so what we did is we said, okay, well, what are our goals, but then what's happening in your lifestyle? Because if you had the availability, if we knew like, hey, you don't have to be anywhere, you don't have to go out, you can just, you have nothing that you have to do, we could have extended it as long as your body wanted. And what will happen with the body is you'll start to feel great. You'll have great energy, focus, concentration. You'll feel like you could do that forever. And you'll sail along and you'll be able to do all of your activities, again, with running and feeling okay. And then there will come a point in time where you for me, my body goes, okay, if I don't choose something, I'm going to kill someone. And that could be and maybe- I think that's right when I was texting you. you were texting me the night of day two. What can I, I'm like, I need to go to bed. That's a different story, but was day two, day two, I'm ugly. Day two is not it's not nobody's friend. No. And so, but then, you know, day three, yeah, you're like, this is fantastic. And so usually what happens is I tell people to, if they have the availability, let's extend the fast until your body is ready to come off of it. And that might be day five, six, seven, it might be longer.
00:25:24
Speaker
So my body was ready to come off of it right at the 70 hour mark. No, it wasn't. Oh, you weren't there. My body was like, we got to eat, bro. we Really? Oh yeah. It was brutal. Cause it was at like 70 hours and I was like, ah, there's two hours to go. a body But my body was just looking at food and I must open the fridge 15 times. oh And it was like, can we just anything? It was the, I had the cans on the counter of the mackerel and it was like, please open one. My body was screaming to eat at 70 hours. Because I thought you said like you were still feeling really good and energized. Well, there's a lot of different ways you can feel really good and energized. I did feel really good, and I did feel energized, but my body was ready to eat. Yeah. And you were like, I'm going to kill someone if I don't eat. i wasn't No, it wasn't like that. i was But like I was hungry, and my body wanted protein specifically. When I was looking around, it was like, eat the fish. Eat the fish. And I was like, well, we could have some more bone brothers. Eat the fish.
00:26:18
Speaker
and so um But I was like, we're right here. And not only that, the way it worked out with my schedule, 72 hours was only a couple hours until bedtime. So I was like, I actually just have to make it like three more hours. And then I get all that nighttime bonus hours yeah of sleeping. So by the time I get up in the morning, it'll be, I'll be at 80. And I asked you, is there a benefit between 82 or 90? Is there any difference? Not really. Because I was saying I could go, I could have gone longer by day four.
00:26:50
Speaker
okay Well, that's good to know then too. But the reason that we didn't come are the reason that we didn't extend it, because we we could have and we could have just let your body run its course, but we didn't because we knew that within a couple of days you had an event that you had to be at where it would be very likely that you would be exposed to alcohol. and so Actually, you know, for me specifically, I mean, yes, yes, the weekend is coming. I'll have to work. Alcohol may be available, although I'm super excited about the idea that I could be a cheap drunk. Finally. Finally. Are you kidding? Could I have half pint of light beer, please? I think we should explain that to people because it's not necessarily intuitive. So I had a patient um who shall remain nameless, but she knows who she is. um So she was doing a juice fast for 21 days. She's like, I want to do the impossible.
00:27:47
Speaker
i want to um I want to just prove to myself that I'm a metahuman, so this is what I'm going to do. This is how I'm going to do it." And so she's doing this juice fast, and we're getting close to the end. I think it was like day 18 or something, and she starts drinking alcohol. We had a conversation. I was like, what what do you mean you're drinking alcohol? And she's like, well, it's liquid. It's a juice. I'm like, like what no. I'm like, you have to understand. When you don't feed your body protein, after two days, the liver shuts down, like it stops being able to detoxify. So when you start to putting toxins in it, like coffee or cinnamon juice, alcohol gets in your system and stays there so much longer.
00:28:33
Speaker
She was like, oh, I was wondering why I was feeling so hungry and getting drunk so easily and ah why I had all these sugar cravings and why it got so hard. I'm like, yeah, you can't you can't drink alcohol when you're doing this. Sipping on gin and juice laid back. ah So listeners, what I'm hearing is next time you have a party, so Fast on the way in. Eat some protein. And then woo! Let your freak flag fly. yeah My liver's not working. Get that booze in you. Oh, just one glass of wine and go to the moon. You would. That's exciting. I wish I'd learned this years ago. I could have saved a fortune. It's science. I know, but I could have saved so much money. I just would have fasted going into the weekends yeah and then hit that bottle hard.
00:29:25
Speaker
Yeah. That's what you're saying, right? And died of alcohol poisoning. yeah Yeah, that's fine. That's the takeaway, right? Oh yeah, sure. Okay. let's ah Let's stop with my silliness about drinking. But no, I had the event coming up and ah we talked about going to 72 because one of the other things that you said was, it you why don't you do it to prove you can do it? Yeah. So there was also the mental thing coming off the you know quote unquote failures, let's say, the feedback, the the the very questionable decision-making that it was also good to retrain the brain to go, look, you can handle this. You can make good decisions now. Why don't you go go ahead and do that for a couple of days to atone for your sins.
00:30:07
Speaker
you know Again, there's there's no failure. There's no sin. There's just feedback. There's information. There's, okay, this was a train wreck. Now let's talk about what we could do better next time. We wouldn't have a show if I made good choices all the time. This is true. Okay. Well, one of the things that I was so impressed with that hasn't, that you haven't spoken of um and probably cause you, you know, you're not going to pat yourself on the back, but I'm going to pat you on the back. So when we had that call with David Thunder, you know, we were talking with David Thunder, you were doing your sprints and then we were actually, I was sitting on the ground. I was ah holding the the camera and videotaping it. So David could or see my feet see your feet and see your run.
00:30:48
Speaker
And you were on the ground, you sat down on the ground with me, you lay down on the ground and then you got up totally fine. I sprung. You did, you did. I sprung up, no creaking or nothing. Nothing. I was doing a full 14 kilometer sprint and then did a split jump. to get off the treadmill and then popped off, hopped over the other treadmill down into a push-up position yep to listen to a couple minutes of coaching, then pushed up back, hopped back on three horse pumps with the right foot and off to the running again. yep yeah it was I think we mentioned it to David at the time that I might i can't normally
00:31:25
Speaker
move like this. I don't i don't i don't do the ground. and in your In your initial conversation with him, which I think was episode six, you were saying like, Hey, your goal was just getting out of a chair without groaning. Yeah. And now look at you. Look at me now. So look at me just from a week ago, let alone, I mean, if we go back to chapter six, there's big changes. Our medical disclaimer. Before you go down the rabbit hole of kale smoothies and laughter yoga, a quick reminder, we're not your doctor. We might have the prescription for a good joke, but when it comes to your health, consult the pros. So laugh and learn, but keep that stethoscope handy. Just in case. Hey everybody, Dave here. I hope you're enjoying the journey with Dr. Val and I so far. If you haven't yet, be sure to like or subscribe or follow us or whatever they tell you to do on Spotify or Apple or whatever platform you listen to us on. And if you have any questions or if you want to follow up on anything we've discussed on the show so far, head on over to Instagram and find us there at Dr. Val Saves Dave. Send us a message with your questions and we'll be sure to answer them on a future podcast.
00:32:35
Speaker
hey thanks for listening and be good to yourself
00:32:41
Speaker
ah weighed in this morning at one hundred and ninety five pounds the coveted ninety five so i lost six pounds during the fast uh, during the three days, two pounds a day. That's probably a good average for a fast, I guess, but also, you know, I had padded it. There was a lot of inflammation. Hey, thanks for There was, yeah. So it was an easy way, but I still, it was great. listening and be It felt good to good to yourself. lose that. Um, but what we had talked about going into the weekend too, and one of the reasons we stopped it when we did, because I think this is interesting and important to whoever's listening or going, Oh, I'm going to try fast.
00:33:17
Speaker
Um, cause you can probably hear the difference in my voice from this week to last episode. I'm sure my energy is, is different cause my energy is very different. But, um, we talked to about, and I would not have known this, you don't just start eating yeah coming off the fast, which I totally would have done. I would have hovered. In fact, without you, I would have grabbed a burger immediately. I have burger and fries and be like, I'm looking forward to this. Big milkshake or coke. I would have loaded it up. you would have But you said, which I would never have thought of, don't eat any meat the first day back. It's like, don't eat any protein the first day back. So um explain why, and then I'll explain what I did, but explain why. that Protein and fat, really. you When you want break a fast, when whenever you're fasting, you want to work into it and you want to work out of it.
00:34:08
Speaker
Ideally, you want to take half the time of the fast to work into it and half the time to work out. Because if you have this big, huge gluttony fast, because you talked about that too. Well, I could just like load up the day before, stock up. I might as well force feed myself. Yeah, I'm wicked smart. Yeah, it's harder on your system. It's like slamming on the gas and then slamming on the brakes. So you want to be gentle. You want to let give the body some time to get used to less food and to slow down a little bit. So then once you have fasted, once you've been fasting, your digestion is going to shut down. And that's what we want to do. Everything's resting. It's nice and quiet. It's in a healing phase. So when you start eating, you want to feed it foods that are very easy for it to break down and digest.
00:34:54
Speaker
foods that aren't going to spike and crash your sugar levels, but also foods that are going to have a lot of nutrient value, a lot of enzymes, and foods that are very watery. So we chose ah fruits and the non-starchy vegetables that are very light, things that would be, we could do still some of the juices and and some of the, we could do smoothies, we could do bone broth as you're doing it that day, as you're adding in some of the actual food. because you still want to keep the digestive system light. And so if you were to to just feed it a whole bunch of protein and and a whole bunch of fat, it would be really heavy. It would call on all your digestive juices and that could be very damaging. and Did we say non-starchy?
00:35:41
Speaker
I did, yeah. I don't recall. No, I think... Let's check the text, too, because not only did we have... Because we could tell it was... the who We both had fasting brain. So, doctor... Because I get the test the text going, what should I eat? We had talked about it, and Let me jump in on your behalf here first. Dr. Val, being not just a leader, but a teammate and a pal, decided that since I was fasting, that she would also fast yes with me, which was great to have a wingman. Yeah. And so, yes, it was a day two where I was like, so what can I eat tomorrow? And Dr. Val was like, you can eat the back of my hand using Texan again. You son of a, she didn't put it in those words, but that was the vibe. You ever get a vibe through a Tex? I mean, Tex is commended. It was day two, it was the end of the day. I was ready for bed. Like I was just like, I gotta go to bed. It was so yearnual. It was interpreting. Normally you're like, great question. Let's talk about food. You're like, I don't care if you ever eat. Don't text me again, you piece of garbage. And I was like, wow. I'm not thinking clearly. Don't say let's go to the texts as confident as you are right now, because I'm not a hundred percent sure. I know you said vegetables.
00:36:54
Speaker
I don't know for a fact that you said non-starchy. So, but that's not the point anyway. I'm just checking it because I don't believe you said non-starchy. Because we had a conversation about it. Then we had the text and in the text you were like, okay, what can I eat? And I'm like, okay, eat this. And I was so specific. And it was, yeah, it was the middle finger. It was an emoji. Eat this.
00:37:23
Speaker
And I was like, wow, how come my fast is going better? This is my first time, beginner's luck, I guess. No, here's what I want to talk about. Or I wanted to ask ah before we go back to the starchy. Why people get mean? ah No. hey oh There's so many reasons. What would have happened to my body if I had just started eating as if I hadn't fasted? Would I have? It would have hurt. Yeah. And you could have done physical damage. Cramping or you mean like could have bowel movement wise? Like it would have been like I would have had a very upset stomach. Like what happens if I'd done that burger fries combo?
00:37:59
Speaker
Some people get physical symptoms like having indigestion, gas, bloating, discomfort. um For some people, they can actually do mechanical damage to the stomach because you don't have a lot
Reflecting on Fasting Benefits and New Goals
00:38:14
Speaker
of digestive enzymes going at that point in time. You've had your stomach resting, the motility is shut down. Now all of a sudden you throw all of this garbage in it. What do you think is going to happen? So remember when we were talking about fasting and I was saying, I have ah some friends and colleagues and who are medical doctors from Arab countries um and from the Middle East and they were saying Ramadan. you're saying Yeah. So even
00:38:38
Speaker
you know You did several days, but even people who are doing dry fasting, who are doing Ramadan, and they're just not having anything to eat or drink, if they do a lot of foods that are challenging to digest and challenging to break down, if they do a lot of unhealthy foods, they can do some real damage. And a lot of people end up in the ER if they do it wrong. I couldn't imagine if I wasn't drinking anything during this, like the the ingesting of nothing, the dry mouth, et cetera. I would have been ah ferocious. So because we weren't talking, let me tell you what I did do.
00:39:14
Speaker
Because I can take a hint, especially when it's spelled out as clearly as eat this.
00:39:21
Speaker
ah With the hand gesture? Yeah, with the full, suck my wake.
00:39:28
Speaker
So kiss my grits, I think, for those of you who are old enough. So what I did do that morning was I had a... So when I got up on Thursday, so I last ate Sunday night, So this was now Thursday morning and I had a breakfast tonic with some of the greens plus, um, and I added a grapefruit and turmeric and ginger and it was out of lemon. But so that was my morning thing, right? So it didn't even feel like food because it still felt like liquid, but it was a, a meteor. Technically there's some food in there now, right? With the grapefruit.
00:40:07
Speaker
And there's something in your stomach. Yeah. So now there was some, so that's what I did. And then ah a couple hours later I did around 11 ish, um, or noonish. I did a strawberry and blueberry frozen strawberries and blueberries with more greens powder nice and water. I did that as a smoothie. So again, just gentle then around three o'clock. Cause I was like, I still have it eaten technically. So, you know, I was basically coming up on 90 hours at that point, but ah ish. Technically a fast at that point, but no, the fastest broken, but I haven't eaten anything. yeah I'm saying it had been that long since I actually ate something. So at that point I ate half an avocado. That was my choice. Soft, gentle, easy on the palate and the digestion system.
00:40:54
Speaker
And then for dinner that night, I had ah green beans. I had a sweet potato, yay and which is a starchy. It is. so But I had a sweet potato and I had an arugula salad with the other half of the avocado, some olive oil and salt. Nice. see so So I had the arugula salad, the green beans, the sweet potato, oh, and a pickle. There we go. Pickle. ah And I was stuffed. I was so full. Were you also in heaven? um The arugula salad with avocado was without a doubt the best salad I've ever eaten yeah in my life, bar none. The sweet potato was probably the most sumptuous exquisite sweet potato yeah I've ever had. The green beans were marvelous. Your tastes get heightened. the Yes, the body was so grateful for food. And because it was real food, could healthy, clean, real food, yeah ah my body was also...
00:42:00
Speaker
Ooh, we like this. But halfway through this sweet potato, I mean, it was, you know, diced up into dollar sized coins or whatever. So four of the eight coins on my plate, I'm saying four in, I started to feel full. Now normally I'd have two steaks and a chicken breast to go with that yes or something. You know, the point is this would make no dent in my appetite. Yeah. Cause your stomach is shrunk. Yeah. So I was. Oh, stuffed. And the body was like, whoa, easy, bro. So see that's what you mean about easing in, right? Is that you will not have the appetite yes that you would have normally had. So that was, that was it. That's all I've eaten this week until this morning, yeah um ah where I had my first protein. I had a a can of mackerel, wild cod mackerel. So just a quick one before we recorded here, mostly because I wasn't sure if energy would fade. Yeah.
00:42:57
Speaker
Um, so that's the week of fasting. I've, I've barely eaten. I don't even feel hungry. I don't even know that I need to eat, but I do wonder, should I now start loading in protein or now how do we rebuild, assuming I'm going back to a regular life? Or could I turn right around and fast again for four more days? Or would that be madness? What you could, but what I always want to base it on here is what are your goals? because You're not being mad at me? oh Good luck with that. yeah Have you read or listened to the beginning of the so the theme song of our show?
00:43:33
Speaker
My goal is, I don't know, you're in charge. ah so But one of the things that we talked about as a goal for you is you said, My goal is, yes yes, optimum health, optimizing the body, but you were really clear and you said, I don't want to get i don't want to lose too much weight. And for you, like the 195 was the big key. And then you were also like, I want to improve my my golf game and I want to focus on you know athletics and performance once we get the body healed. So now we're moving into that phase.
00:44:04
Speaker
so Doing a reboot of the two days once a month will actually get you into a regular rhythm of fasting, and that will be really great for overall health, wellbeing, and longevity. Why wouldn't I make it a three day if the health benefits of the 72 are better? You could in the future. You could keep it- Three days once a month? Yeah. Yeah, you could absolutely do that. I tell you what, that third day is so much better than the second day. It is, yeah. That if you're going to go through the second day, that's pointless to just stop there. that's like that's i wouldn't I wouldn't do it yeah because of that second day sucked so much. You go through the hard part, why not? The third day is a treat, folks, yeah compared to the second day. It really is. And then once every three to four months, I would say basically once every three months. So, you know. Quarterly. Quarterly. Yeah. Well, you know, think about it, you know, you take your car in for a tune up, a lube oil and filter, you know, take your body and and do the same, right? Do a longer extended fast and start seeing if you can do five days, if you can do a full seven days.
00:45:05
Speaker
and start getting a longer fast in to get some of those benefits as well. So if you kind of look at it like that, then our focus right now should actually be on, okay, let's keep in terms of leaning out the body fat percentage, but let's start putting on muscle mass. Let's start getting you into training. I know you're working with David on the running, but let's also- I'm actually- You're not allowed to run yet. I'm not allowed to run yet. He let me run. he like Once. Supervised. Well, he was watching and I had to hold on to the railings the whole time. Supervised visits. I was running with my training wheels on and then at the very end he let me let go yeah and use my arms and I didn't fall so he said, okay, we can try again. But he said specifically, don't run. yeah Do not run between now and then. That's right. So I'm not quite allowed to run. I'm like a horse that got taken out of the barn yep and now I'm back in the stable.
00:45:59
Speaker
Yeah. So at this point, I'm not worried about building me just yet because my goal was to recover for 50, which is, uh, we are January or sorry, January, we started on January 14th. We are now June 14th today, right? So this is five months it is to the day. So we are at 195 pounds, which is amazing. Uh, that was the goal for, you know, was to get under 200, but 195 sounded like a good number. But also I had a ah talk with the, um, so we aced your goal cause that was the goal for July for your birthday. But what last week showed us is we're not there yet. Cause I could put on a few pounds real quick. So I'm just, let's not yeah again, we haven't broken through the tape yet. We got to run all the way through. And there's a, there's some events coming up oh on some schedule where, you know, it'll be tricky. So I'm as curious as you are. He's going to fail. I mean, he's going to have feedback. I could easily wait 205 by July 14th. That's what I'm saying. I could easily, easily, that's what I've learned. Except you do not want me to fast again. I don't want to have put all this work in just to fail at the end, yeah but you're not going to life finds a way. so But I also wanted to share with you and our listeners.
00:47:22
Speaker
that I spoke with the gastroenterologist. Yay. Is that how you say it? yeah Am I getting better at pronouncing that? Yup. And they said, and I loved this. I want to remember this forever, but they said my, they don't use the term cornhole. I wonder why not. Yeah. Niblet filter. It's not smash the medical term, but my niblet filter. Wait, it isn't? Yeah, my poop shoe, my colon is the term that I choose, was, and I quote, pristine. Yay. I have a pristine ah colon. And in my stomach, where they had also gone spelunking, they found where the gastroenteritis was, and they saw what looked like an ulcer.
00:48:10
Speaker
So I didn't really know what an ulcer was, but it turns out, as it was explained to me, is it's a little divot in your stomach lining, your stomach wall. You probably know what an ulcer is. Yep, I do. Yes, I don't know why I'm telling you. Because you're explaining to the listeners and I'm sitting in front of you. Yeah, but I'm sitting in front of you explaining. Why don't you explain what an ulcer is? You're going to do it better.
00:48:34
Speaker
Well, I could. Okay. It's a little divot. Thank you. It's a little divot out of the wall. And then ah what they said was, is that it had basically repaired. And so to put it in golf terms, the divot had been filled in yeah and it was regrowing and it looked good, but they could see the evidence, which again, they, seem to think was alcohol related, but it could have been some spicy food. We don't know. We'll never know. Good point. Let's look at the ratio of alcohol consumption to spicy food consumption. It's a different episode. What's that ratio for? We don't have time for this. We don't have time. You're getting sidetracked. I'm trying to explain all sorts of people right now. I don't appreciate you coming into my classroom.
00:49:19
Speaker
Being a distraction. Okay. Now. Who has the ADD now? Head on the desk, please.
00:49:27
Speaker
So ah basically it's repaired. It's not quite repaired, but it's repaired. So it's well on its way. There's evidence, you know? um So outside of, you know, living like ah awfulness again, it will continue to repair. It'll be fine. So essentially. On June 14th, spoiler alert with a month ago, you have officially saved Dave. Yay. So how about that? Now we will have to see what you do in the next month, because you may lose Dave. You may lose Dave on the operating table. You might find Dave at a bar with a pitcher of beer in front of him on July 12th, weighing 204 pounds, going, ah, don't go over that naturopath, malarkey.
00:50:14
Speaker
Nice to be enjoyed. Woo! But I don't think I will. And I'll tell you why. ah This fast has done several things for me. A, it's helped me with my atonement, helped to swage the guilt I felt for what I've done. ah B, having never gone this long in my life without eating. um It provided my brain a new pathway to use David Thunder's ah terms as far as how I had to learn to walk. Remember when I was doing some of his exercises, he used the phrase, um, we're we're helping your brain, uh, discover all the options that are available to it. That's what it said in order to break the neural pathways when he has you.
00:50:58
Speaker
rocking on different parts of your feet and say, go, okay, now move your weight to the front of your foot. Now the back, give the brain the options. So by fasting and feeling good. I would never have thought I would feel good not eating. In fact, even during this fast, I assumed I'd be laying on a couch watching movies or something. I oh i couldn't, I can't stand. Could you bring me a cup of water, please? I'm so weak. I've eaten in 41 hours. But that was not the case. and sprint if I could I could function. yes And in fact, even today, if you look at what I've eaten for the week, it is you know not 5%
00:51:38
Speaker
of what i would eat in a normal week by this point and yet i have energy i feel good i'm up and about running things so i think i'm giving my brain a new option that it does and your pancreas uh i don't talk to it but your brain does um what's the pancreas trying to tell me Well, what would have happened, the pancreas will secrete insulin when you have food that turns into sugar, right? So when your sugar levels in your bloodstream go above six, the body is hardwired to produce insulin to help bring the sugar from the bloodstream and pull it into the muscles to use as a fuel source or into the fat cells for storage.
00:52:22
Speaker
And so for a lot of people, they're eating foods that turn into really to sugar really quickly. We get this high amount of sugar in the bloodstream. They have a lot of insulin come up. They pull it down into the cells and then they their blood sugar levels come crashing down and that's when they get hungry and they get hangry at that point in time. They get high insulin spikes, high blood sugar levels, high crashes, right? So your blood sugar levels goes high, comes crashing down low, then you create more coffee, more sugar, more donuts, more of that stuff to help in terms of getting the sugar up. You get it going up again. So the pancreas is constantly producing a whole bunch of insulin.
00:53:01
Speaker
And that insulin has a negative effect on the system. it's It's what's contributing to some of the obesity rates, but it contributes to other disease levels as well. And so what ends up happening when you do a fast is that you don't have to produce any insulin. Your pancreas gets a bit of a rest and it gets to go, okay, now I can just make some insulin and hey, now I'm done making the insulin, I can just chill. And that can help it rest and regenerate. Well, I don't know what's going on in my body because I still don't speak body completely, but I can tell you this much. In learning to hear the feedback from my body, my body quite enjoyed.
00:53:39
Speaker
the feelings of this fast. Not day two. Day two sucked. My body and I did not like each other. um But day three, very good. Day four, just weaning back in, great. um I'm not even that excited to eat today, even though I can, even though I'm back, baby. And it's, I've got carte blanche to go eat. I'm not that interested in it. I'm not, like, right now I should be starving yeah based on the morning I've had. You know, I'm already at, you know, 8,000 steps. and have been running around working. I should be starving. I'm not. um So what I can tell you, dear listeners, is fasting is good. Yes. There it is. ah Try one if you haven't. um Wow. I feel, I don't want to say so I feel good. I feel great. I feel different. I feel very different than I've felt. It's a unique experience in my ah life, so I don't have an ability to compare it. um The fasting I did for the colonoscopy
00:54:38
Speaker
I was surprised how good I felt after, which was part of why I was like, hmm, try it again sometime. But that one I drank a lot of Gatorade's and had some Jell-O, like there was a lot of sugar throughout that. Not a lot of sugar because the Gatorade fit as ah we've discussed has very little, but it had the watermelon juice extract, yeah some stevia. So there was some of that where I didn't have any of that. yeah This, it was bone broth and tea. Yeah. so um I feel great. Yay. I'm back, baby. You've got that clarity. You've got that regeneration. Yeah, now what? Yeah. Well, now you it's getting back on path and saying, okay, we want to make sure that you're keeping up with the protein, that you're staying away from the foods that you're intolerant to that are contributing to inflammation within your system. We'll still continue that healing because that process still has to happen. So should I start eating less now that it turns out I feel good eating less? Should I be changing
00:55:33
Speaker
what I've been eating for, or should I still be eating protein every three hours? Well, you should still be eating protein every two to three hours. That's going to stay the same. The amount of protein that you'll eat will be less because you won't be as hungry. You'll get full quicker. And that's what we do want. Okay. Absolutely. Now, in the future, if our goals start to shift and change again, a lot of men like doing intermittent fasting where they go to ah an 18.6. They fast ah every day for 18 hours and they eat for six. So that's an option and a possibility. For you, our goals now are to start working in terms of performance. I'm going to be 19 and seven because I want to beat other men.
00:56:15
Speaker
Well, you could, but I don't want you doing that yet. I know that math doesn't add up though. That was the point. I'm going to take a 26 hour days. There we go. But we're not going to do the intermittent fasting for you because the goal that we wanted... Because we don't half ass anything. and There we go. Yes, we don't. But it's also not appropriate for the goal that you want to achieve. Because the goal that you want to achieve isn't just about weight loss. It's about now performance. So now we've got to put some muscle mass on you. If you're going to start doing the running and we don't get enough protein in your system, you're going to lose too much weight. And I know you said to me, like, hey, I don't like when my body goes below 195 because I feel too thin.
00:56:56
Speaker
First of all, I don't know what it feels like because it's been 25 years since I was down there, but I was saying when I think about it on paper, yeah I don't want to. Having said that, if I'm a muscly shredded 190, I might love it. I'll never know. You probably will. No, I'm not allowed to run yet. I wonder if I'll be allowed to before July 14th. Usually it's six weeks. Okay, so we might not make it. Four to six weeks before you can start running. okay so for them Having said that, it's going to depend on how fast your body adjusts. because i think um if you like Given how well you performed, yeah you're probably going to be closer to the four weeks versus six.
00:57:36
Speaker
Um, but having said that as well, you know, what our goal is going to be when you do start running is also to make sure that we get David Thunder to put you on a program for weights, because we also want the muscle building. Because if you just go out and run, it's great, but it's not going to get you the muscle mass. I want to lose body fat percentage, but I want to increase your muscle mass and keep that up. We're still not there, body fat percentage wise. No we're not. I'm still technically. So we got a month to go because I was just wondering, well, what's our goal now? I've hit the weight that I wanted to achieve. I've healed the stomach. You know, like technically we did it with a month to go. Now I'm in that weird place. So that's what I'm saying, the goal now? is about keeping the weight the same, losing body fat percentage while building muscle mass so that we switch our focus to performance.
Next Steps for Athletic Performance
00:58:26
Speaker
So our performance as well, what you were talking about is, hey, you also want to golf and help in terms of increasing your longevity within the game and increasing
00:58:35
Speaker
um Keep up with the college kids. Absolutely. So we can start designing a protocol and a program that's going to help you lose body fat percentage, build the muscle mass, keep the weight at where it is. So you know we're not really getting a lot of weight loss per se. We're going to switch our focus off the weight and onto the muscle mass and body fat percentage, and then your physical performance. not just running, not just lifting strength, but in terms of how far can you hit the golf ball? How fast can your swing be? Bigger, faster, stronger. We can rebuild him. Exactly. We have the technology. We do. I'm going to be bionic Dave. Yes. Super Dave. So, I mean, we've hit the weight of 195. The body's pretty much healed, but we still have a month to go. Yep. And let's face it, I'm not doing any underwear modeling yet.
00:59:29
Speaker
Well, technically you could. I don't know how much product you'd sell, but... Well, I'm still... I don't have the extra large. Plus size models. Try our new comfy cut. It's great for couch sitting or whatever you want to do. Um, but I, uh, uh, I'm obviously still not quite there. So we should do a blood work yeah again to see how well we've done on that with ah final blood work. yeah Like for our big final exam, we want to.
01:00:01
Speaker
we'll do the blood work and we'll do the metrics and we're going to shift our focus now. Do the metrics. So we're going to keep our focus on, you know, making sure that the 195 is, is where you stay and that you don't, you know, kind of reverse that trend and start heading back up towards 200. But what we're going to focus on now is more about body fat percentage and muscle mass. So we'll do those metrics again. We'll keep a closer eye on that. And then we'll start to look at performance as well. I want to find out what my biological age is. And if that's gone down, I want to look at my old pal, Viz Carol, who's playing on the old church organ, my Visceral Fats. And it's time for that cute little subdriver, Anius, subcutaneous to a surface so we can find out what's been going on there. So ah yes, there's lots more to do in this month. There's lots to discover, but I'm back on track.
01:00:52
Speaker
We've recovered from the Chesney. Uh, I'm back in the game with a month to go. So let's rock and roll. And what I love is that, you know, you had these goals of what you thought was realistically possible and you hit those goals a month early. And so this goes full circle back to our conversation of you don't know what your body is really capable of. So let's find out, let's see what this sucker can really do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Turned it into a high-performance machine. Let's go get it. Exactly. All right. Well, listeners, ah change feels strange, but then things can feel better. So anyway, be good to yourselves. There's more to come next week on Dr. Val Saves Day. Dr. Val, can you save Dave? He's one of mine.
01:01:44
Speaker
He'll behave. Oh, do you think he will cave? Listen, and he's back in school. It's his funny buddy's Dr. Val's rules. It's his funny buddy's Dr. Val's rules.