We believe in functional mental wellness, a holistic approach to mental health. We know that there's hope for those of us who have experienced trauma, even profound trauma and that's why we created the universe is your therapist podcast, we believe whether you call it God, the universe, source, unity or love that there is something much greater than us that conspires for our good, we envision a world of healing and connection, and we teach you simple but powerful practices that integrate your mind, body and spirit so that you can come home to your highest self and your truest identity. You are not broken, you are loved, and you can heal. My name is Amy Hoyt, and together with my sister, Lena, we will take you on a journey of healing and self discovery.
Hi, everyone. We're so glad you're joining us today for this podcast. And we are today talking about toxic stress, fasting and mental health. And with us today is windier Rosso, who is a psychologist and studies cells, and has lots of really fascinating information about how our cells work in our body, and why it's important that we pay attention to cellular health as we work on our toxic stress, or work on healing from trauma. Welcome, Wendy.
Hi, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I would love being here.
Oh, it's great to have you, Wendy and I and Amy actually all grew up together. And it's just been so fun to work on this project with you.
Thank you, I agree, I feel the same.
Okay, so I know that you and I have talked multiple times. Also with Amy about intermittent fasting. And I'm gonna let you kind of take the lead on this and talk a little bit about how what you think is a reputable way to learn about it. Keeping in mind that we are not offering medical advice to anybody, we are sharing information that we've acquired through our learning and reading and studying, and feel free to do or not do anything that we're talking about today. Thanks, Wendy. Go ahead and tell us a little bit about intermittent fasting.
Well, one of the principles around intermittent fasting is to sort of cleanse your body from the toxins that are currently in your body. So we are feeding ourselves and putting food into our body all the time. And, and so when we do an intermittent fasting, the first thing is you kind of just help your body, clean that out. You don't by not putting anything else in your body works on metabolizes and flushes out some of the talks.
So when we're not constantly eating, the body has a chance to kind of get rid of some of the toxins and extra things.
Yes. Okay. And so the next part is that, of course, one of the things from fasting is that it can help one we're getting rid of those toxins and everything, it can help us to try to restore our body back into wholeness, homeostasis, or more balance. And a lot of people are kind of afraid of doing intermittent fasting because they think they might get hungry or feel dizzy or have a headache. And that might be true, because if your body's has too much, for example, carbohydrates or sugar stored up, and all of a sudden you take it the sugar away, your body's like Wait gets used to processing this sugar, you have conditioned your body to process sugar. So when it's taken away, it has all this extra this extra mechanisms for processing sugar that's not there. And that can cause you to kind of have a headache or feel a little funny physically. But it's nothing to worry about your body will over a short period of time just tell those mechanisms. We don't need you anymore. We don't need you today and you'll be able to flush them out of your body but drink water to do that that will help.
Absolutely. And I can remember talking to you one time about how you were doing a little lengthier fast and you said that one thing that you noticed helped you when you had a headache or you weren't feeling well because your body was craving sugar or carbs that you use some Himalayan salt and water and drink that. Why? Why is that helpful?
Well because normally you have your the food you normally eat has electrolytes in it. It has things that have positive and negative charges in it and the water you drink has that as well. But sometimes people have gone faster They drink distilled water, which gives them no nothing charged coming into their body. And so having a little Himalayan salt or some kind of electrolyte balance supplement is useful during fasting. I mean, I would say you don't really need it when you're having a regular diet that has those things in it of food. But when you're fasting, it you don't really need the electrolytes for a couple of days. But maybe if you're doing three or more days, you might want to start using something like that to make sure I'm balanced, it can be dangerous to fast. Without having electrolytes you and your body needs to be electrically balanced.
Right. And, and I think a lot of people these days are familiar with intermittent fasting, we would advise that you check with a medical professional before you undertake any lengthy fast at all, which would be more than 24 hours. But the intermittent fasting is there's so much information about how it can be done. And I remember when you introduce me to Jason fund's book, he's a Canadian doctor. And he has a book, I can't remember what it's called, actually, but it was so good.
Yeah, he has a couple of books. One is called the obesity code. And that's the first one I read. And he's a nephrologist that works with a lot of diabetic patients. So he also has a book called The Diabetes code. And he has a book called The Cancer code as well. And he discusses how intermittent fasting can help improve those conditions, all of those conditions, diabetes, and cancer and anything surrounding sugar imbalances, or weight, those kinds of things.
And I'm not until you having the way you explained how intermittent fasting, which can be four hours of fasting or six hours of fasting, intermittent fasting actually helps our cellular processes in terms of flushing out those things that are not necessary in our cell. And I think about how much different advice there is nutritionally and in terms of an eating plan or a diet plan. And it makes so much sense to me that our cells need some absent absence of food in order to repair and do what they need to do. And I think about I have a cousin who's actually a bodybuilder, and yes, amazing, she just, I think she's just one first in the nation in her category or something. Yeah, and she, um, she eats several small meals a day, but that's under the direction of a trainer. And that's it, for purposes of being able to achieve her. Her goal as far as bodybuilding, I find it hard to intermittent fast, I eat more than two hours. Because I love to eat and I have a really hard time with sugar. And I've noticed that if I can go without it for three days. That is much easier after that, but those first three days are so hard for me.
I agree. I agree. I've experienced the sugar headache myself when I've tried to refrain from sugar and also from caffeine as well. I've reread both those. Do you want me to walk through a little bit what happens over a few hours of fasting? Absolutely, that'd be so helpful. Okay, so when the first few hours, 48 hours that you're fasting, be your blood sugar drops a little bit and all the foods left your stomach and your body kind of at the end of that time stops producing insulin, which is it it can be a good or bad thing depending on your the state of your health but for if you're a little overweight or you you know have a hormone imbalance that could be a really good positive thing. So that's why in Jason Fung spoke he discussed don't snack in between meals because what he's He explains that there's this curve for sugar, where you eat and it goes up, and then it needs to come down. Right? And if you eat every two hours, it goes up, up, up, up. And that would be excellent for someone that you're your isn't your cousin. Yeah, that's training because she's burning all of that. But if you're not if you're like a regular citizen like me, I'm not burning enough calories or sugars or to keep eating every two hours. So what happens is your insulin goes up and then it's comes back down and if you extend the amount of time that you eat in between the coming back down and going even under that curve so you goes up over the curb and comes down And then when you eat again, it comes back up. And that kind of keeps you in balance, right. So, continuous eating or eating is short intervals, just keeps raising a hormone like insulin, which is not productive for you, and it has nowhere to go, the cells are full, so goes to fat cells. And that's what happens. But the next step is that after about 12 hours, your body starts generating a little more human growth hormone, which we like because it has an anti aging properties. And it's burning and processing all that foods still. And then after about, I don't know, 14 to 18 hours, you start having some of your fat burned as energy if you've been fasting for 14 to 18 hours, because now it's looking for a source for energy and doesn't have one, so it starts turning to the fat. That's the part I like, and then
to fat to source energy. So that's their body fat cells to source the energy after 14 to 18 hours.
Right, because it has no more food left. And but the thing that's catching the most attention right now is its benefits of something called a toughie G. Now, autophagy is the body's way of cleaning up damage cells, in order to regenerate newer, healthier cells. What happens is our body's supposed to normally have this process going all the time, where we have a balance of we eat something ourselves grow old or die. And then there's a process called the toffees that comes in, it eats those cells. And it takes anything that's still working in the cell, like a mitochondria or some kind of organelle. And it, repurpose it and creates a new cell with those working parts inside. So it's a very efficient system. It just gets rid of it. Sorry,
I have a question. I just forgot my question. Oh, can you please spell out a toffee G? Because when you first started talking about it, I, I could, I thought I knew how it was spelled, but I want to look it up. And so maybe you could spell it out for our listeners. So if they're interested in learning more about it, they'd know how to look it up.
Sure. It's spelled a U, T, O P Hagy. a tautology. Okay, Spelling Bee just then. I said it afterwards,
you are spelling bee. And you want
to say thank you. All right. So this is what I want to talk about, because this is a super exciting thing that people want in their life. And what this is, is the process, like I said, to restore and regenerate new cells, and we all want that it. But it doesn't do that by just cleaning up old cells, and getting rid of them and throwing in the trash or having them excreted through our body, it creates new cells to replace them. So this happens around 18 to 24 hours after you have stopped eating a toffee G is able to then kick into place. And the reason is that normally this happens also exercise is a huge, something that hugely increases autophagy and helps it skyrocket. But the reason is because a toughie G is a digestive process. So it kind of whenever if you keep bringing food into your body, it's not a life, necessity process of digestion. So if I start eating, my body's like, oh my gosh, here comes some donuts. Or hopefully it's not donuts, here comes an apple, or here comes some healthy meal, and I have to digest it. So it takes a ton of you takes a backseat to that to that imperative process of digesting food. And so it kind of slows down and works minimally. But when you deprive your body of food, and there's no more digestion left, your body is completely digested everything between 18 and 24 hours after you're done eating, but closer to 24. Most people feel then that digestive process can kick in because there's resources for it. It can be used, and that cleans up follow on cells. So if we're eating two hour, every two hours, we're eating six times a day or we're just eating excessive amounts. Then we're doing that using old tired cells. And it shows on our body. It shows in our wrinkles, it shows in our skin elasticity. It just shows in our digestive capabilities. It shows in our thinking processes. And if we're you if we fast and deprive ourselves autophagy digests and can sit in and clean up the old cells. And all of a sudden, people are showing in studies are showing that people's wrinkles are being reduced, those old cells that have been trying to use skin elasticity are gone. And they're creating new cells, even 51 years old, like I am. And so that is extremely helpful and valuable for your system. So I love and Takuji. And also, the increase that intermittent fasting does for growth hormone, I'm all about it.
I think it's so interesting how a toffee G can also help our mental processes. And for mental health, we want all of our cells to be operating efficiently. And you described something a few minutes ago, when you're talking about a toffee G and it's almost like the, the tafa gioc process, I don't know if, if that's a word, but that process actually then digests old cells, and gives the body an opportunity to function with new cells. And, and I think also about how we talk so much in and America about brain fog. And I think there are a ton of things that contribute to brain fog. And I also believe that when we are not eating continuously, that that allows for better mental health because our brain is made up of cells, and then healthier our cells are, the healthier we will be. So I'm thinking about, I hardly ever intermittently fast. And what I mean by that is that I tend to eat whenever and eat late at night. And so even when I go to sleep, and then wake up, I don't have a very long window of fasting. And I, I know that in like the 10th and 11th 12th centuries, breakfast used to be called break the fast.
Yes.
And so one of my challenges that I want to work on this month with our focus on physiological hydration, mental health, is I want to work on eating earlier in the evening, and allowing my body but eight hours to repair between my evening meal and my morning meal. And it's hard for me, but I won't really want to give that a whirl because I think it will help me.
I think that's a great idea. So just to let you know, to give a little more incentive for moving to a sort of a longer break between meals and fasting, this a topic due process is supposed to increase by 300%, if you get to 36 hours of fasting. And then if you go 48 hours, let's say you just do a weekend fast. And so you do that your immune system can, can start to reset a little bit, and it will decrease your inflammation. Because the toffee cells can start working on inflammation. And when you are talking about brain focus, what happens when you're fasting for so many hours is that maybe around I think 18 hours that your ketones start to increase. And when you have ketones in your brain that helps you focus. So some people feel a little bit of a fog at the beginning of a fast. But if they stick with it just long enough they can they can have more focus. So I would say that's a great way to start is to do it overnight, use what you've got you already going to go to sleep, stop eating at 8am. And in Jason phones book, one thing he suggests is maybe skip breakfast, maybe have two meals a day. So it doesn't have to be completely all something that alters your life. But maybe there's one or two days a week that you do that or one day a week or you just fast once a month or for one day for 24 hours, any amount of time will give you some health benefits.
Love it. Thank you. Again I want to reiterate we are not offering medical advice and we're no no offering nutritional advice. We recommend that any extended fast be you consult with your medical professionals and I do recognize that certain medications are to be taken with meals and so we are not encouraging you to go against any kind of instruction on your medications or anything that you have been told by your doctor. Please consult with your medical team. If you decide you want to try some of the longer fasting and may Make sure that it's right for your body at this time. Wendy, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.
I love hearing all the things that you learn through your reading, and all the information you have about our cells. If this is interesting to you, this is some of the stuff that we work on and talk about in our program, the whole health lab, where we address toxic stress and trauma. And you can find us at www mending trauma.com We encourage you to continue making small steps and improving the health of your body and mind in small increments as you go along on your journey. Thanks again for joining us. We'll see you next week.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you want to go deeper on this subject or any other subjects we've covered in the podcast. We are so excited to be launching our signature membership program at mending trauma.com This is a trauma informed mental health membership where we combine clinically effective practices courses and mentoring while putting you in the driver's seat. We teach you how to heal your trauma with the latest research combining mind body and spirit we want to walk you through a healing journey while also empowering you if you have felt this episode is helpful. We would absolutely love if you would go to Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your pods and give us a review. We'd also love it if you would share it with someone you think it might help tag us on social media at mending trauma.com Or at Amy Hoyt PhD, we would love to reshare and also if there's anything we can do to help we would love to hear from you email info at mending trauma.com Give us your suggestions or topics you want to hear about. We would absolutely love to be of more service to you. We're so excited because we have so many good episodes coming up in season two, and we can't wait to go on this journey with you
