VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Hey guys, Dr. Derek here! This is going to be our video on How to Prepare for a Successful Fast. I find this might be the most important piece to fasting in general, and I say that because a proper, preparatory way of eating allows fasting to be a much easier part of your life. So this is actually where we have to start with a lot of people, especially folks who have really aggressive hunger, and this is very common across the board people who suffer from obesity and diabetes. Their hunger is very powerful, and it's hard to sometimes understand. That's why the advice of: “just eat less” doesn't really work for those folks, because it’s an incredible hunger pang that they get that is only satiated when they eat. Resolving that is the first step, and that is quite honestly the reason why most people are a little afraid of fasting.
“What if I'm hungry?” One: it'll be okay, but two: that's the feeling that tends to make us give in and eat something. That, of course, is going to abort the fast to a degree. So, how do we avoid hunger ruining our successful fast? I found that if we switch to a lower carbohydrate diet, this is an incredibly important preparatory component. This can mean a lot of different things for different people: some people are very analytical, numbers based, and will say: “shoot for less than 50 grams of carbohydrates a day.” That doesn't work for everybody. Not everybody likes to sit down and count how many grams of carbohydrates are in their meals. Of course, then there's the total carbohydrates versus net carbohydrates…I tend to shoot for net. This is kind of an equation that looks at subtracting how many grams of fiber we're also eating. You can go online and look at the calculation for net carbohydrates.
There are a lot of resources out there to do that for the people who aren't as analytical and are more “intuitive eaters.” I have them follow a couple of simple rules. The first one is going to be: no grains, no sugar, no processed foods. We take that out first. Secondly we emphasize plants that grow above the ground. Think about this for a second, that means leafy greens are in! Zucchinis and in bell peppers are in! Squashes are in! But what that takes out are things like sweet potatoes, potatoes, turnips—a lot of the starchy root vegetables. I have them aim for no more than one serving of fruit in a day and no bananas. Bananas are chock-full of carbohydrates and they easily will ruin a carbohydrate load. Next is leveraging protein—so making sure that we are having meals that are low in processed foods, low fruit, higher in protein—because protein actually makes us very satiated, and the last thing, which is arguably the most important piece, is to eat till you're full.
So I already know what some of you were thinking: does this mean you just eat bacon for every meal? No, that is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, we're looking to have a balanced eating strategy that has plants, some animal protein, and good quality fats in it. What we need to be cognizant of, especially when we are looking to change things like weight loss patterns and regulate blood sugar, we have to be cognizant of the carbohydrate load. That's where the emphasis on the above-ground plants come in. Once you start to learn and understand the amounts of carbohydrates in these points, you can start to navigate “how do I make sure I spread that out throughout my day so that that I am not eating too many, but I'm also getting good sources of phytonutrients through plants?” Routinely animal protein does have some benefits. It has some benefits in the way of: its a protein source without any other carbohydrates. Generally speaking, that's not as easy to find in the plant kingdom—especially unprocessed.
If you look at a lot of the sources of plant proteins: beans, legumes, nuts and seeds—all foods that are generally okay. However, if we were trying to stick to a low carbohydrate diet, we have to be cognizant that: yes, they are sources of protein, but they are also relatively robust sources of carbohydrates as well. So if it fits into our day and our carbohydrate load, fantastic! It's really easy to stretch over that carbohydrate limit if we're including a lot of these as our protein sources.
In our next video, we're going to go into the next step of having a successful fast and that's implementing intermittent fasting or time restricted eating. Pay attention for that next one and thanks for tuning in!