Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is quickly becoming known as one of
the best ways to enhance your vitality and vigor. In chapter
6 , I discussed how intermittent fasting can stoke the
ketogenic fire (your brain’s preferred fuel) by reducing
insulin. But as a hormetic stressor, fasting is also able to turn
on many of the same repair genes that we’ve already
discussed, increasing antioxidant coverage and BDNF
production.
It is thought that the body takes these periods of rest
from food as an opportunity to clean house, recycle
damaged proteins, and kill off immune cells that have
become dysfunctional. In antiquity, fasting periods were
baked into the cake, so to speak, because food was simply
not in plentiful supply year-round. We’ll be the first to admit
that it’s a lot easier to “not eat” when there’s no food in
sight than to build fasting periods into our busy lives, but as
detailed below, we think it’s well worth the extra effort.
Whether by time-restricted feeding or periodic low-
calorie diets (more on these below), the benefits of fasting
are numerous:
Improved decision making.^17 This makes sense from
an evolutionary standpoint: what would happen to our
survival chances if we got dumber the minute food
wasn’t around? Our species probably wouldn’t have
lasted very long!
Improved insulin sensitivity. Fasting can improve
markers of metabolic health including our ability to