#1 Absolute Best Way To Extend A Fast & Boost Autophagy

Hello Health Champions today we're going to talk  about the secret to extended fasting and extended  

of course means longer so this is anything  beyond 16 to 24 hours a lot of people who do  

intermittent fasting they'll go anywhere from  12 to 24 hours I probably go on average about  

16 hours a day without food but extended is when  you go longer than that so if you have dinner at  

six o'clock and then you skip the whole next day  when you wake up the next morning you have about  

36 hours without food if you wait to lunch to eat  now you have about 42 hours so I think that would  

be a pretty good place to start and then you can  work up to it from there so if you do 42 hours  

your first time your first extended fast then next  week or a couple of weeks later you could go a  

little bit longer and then as you learn how your  body responds you can work up to maybe three four  

five days and some people want to go longer than  that more than five days up to a week or even two  

but if you do that I would strongly recommend that  you have some medical supervision so that you can  

check what's going on with your body to make sure  that all your markers are okay but there's also a  

reason I don't think that you need to do that and  it is that I believe you get most of the benefits  

of fasting anywhere from two days up to about five  days and those benefits are quite numerous they  

include a course weight loss because you drop  insulin and when you're not eating your body  

has to burn fat off the body but also there's  something called autophagy so even people who  

don't need to lose weight they do some fasting  for the purpose for the benefit of autophagy  

and this is where your body changes a lot of its  biochemistry resources become scarce and your body  

gets better at recycling and using resources that  are already in the body so it will tend to reduce  

inflammation it will tend to give you an immune  boost and it will also help you with brain repairs  

if you have some brain inflammation some brain  fog or if you've had a concussion recently or  

sometime in the past then autophagy and fasting is  the most powerful way to help the brain to clean  

some of that stuff up another reason why a lot of  people do longer fasting is for longevity so when  

you go a little bit longer without food now you  start to up regulate your survival genes they're  

called sirtuins and with anywhere from two to five  days you're going to dramatically increase those  

sirtuins and contribute to better longevity and  higher quality of life and the greatest benefit  

that would affect the most people is that it's  the fastest way of reversing insulin resistance  

and type 2 diabetes and if you can do that now  you're going to start affecting things like  

high blood pressure it's going to start coming  down your risk of stroke your risk of cancer  

your risk of cardiovascular disease are going to  come dramatically down and also not to mention  

that type 2 diabetes is the number one risk of  kidney failure and blindness so you're going  

to dramatically reduce all of those but with all  those benefits why isn't everybody doing longer  

fasting on a regular basis because there are some  obstacles and the first one is ignorance we're  

told that we have to eat all the time you must eat  breakfast you must eat three Square meals you must  

have frequent snacks and top off your blood sugar  every couple hours so we've been indoctrinated  

and if we're used to that if we've never missed  a meal or never missed a day of meals then it's  

kind of scary with the idea of not eating for a  couple of days so we need to to understand that  

it's perfectly safe that your body is built to go  without food it's called feast and famine it's a  

Natural Balance that actually benefits the body  another reason would be fear people don't like  

discomfort they're afraid of hunger they they're  afraid of the unknown so they think that they're  

going to get super hungry they don't know that  you get a little bit hungry and then it passes so  

it's not really a big deal but it is a fear that  people have to come over and find out that it's  

not so bad and then there's this thing called keto  flu which happens when you either go really low  

carb like keto or you start fasting now you can  get certain unpleasant symptoms like fatigue and  

weakness maybe brain fog maybe irritability and  then some physical symptoms like headaches nausea  

and poor sleep so even though there's growing  evidence of the benefits of fasting these are  

the things that keep people from trying but here's  what we need to understand that you can make it so  

much easier if you understand what we're going to  talk about and the key to successful comfortable  

long-term fasting is electrolytes another word  for electrolytes is minerals and it's minerals  

that we use in large quantities we need to consume  them hundreds of milligrams or even several grams  

per day whereas trace minerals we use in tiny tiny  amounts like single milligrams or even micrograms  

and think of minerals as charged particles and  because of this they conduct electricity this is  

primarily what the body uses them for and they  participate in all the nerve signaling in the  

body they're also involved with regulating fluid  balance through the kidneys and also pH balance  

also through the kidneys primarily and this is  basically why you feel bad when your fasting is if  

you're losing some of these electrolytes so that  you can't regulate your nerve signals and your  

fluid balance and your pH properly and here's why  these factors can change when you start fasting  

and Keto so when you eat less and especially when  you eat less carbohydrates now you start using up  

a little bit of the stored carbohydrate that  you have and that's called glycogen glycogen  

also binds with water it's like a sponge so  one gram of glycogen is going to hold on to  

about three to four grams of water and then when  you burn up the glycogen there's nothing to hold  

the water so it becomes extra and you start losing  that water you go to the bathroom and get rid of  

it so the first three to four pounds of any diet  is going to be water loss from using up glycogen  

and here's why some of these factors can start  changing there's two big reasons and here's the  

first one when you start fasting in keto you're  going to start using up some glycogen and glycogen  

is stored carbohydrate you can store it in your  muscles you can store it in your liver and what  

most people don't realize is that glycogen binds  water it's like a sponge it just holds water to  

it so as you start using up the glycogen you also  start losing the water because there's nothing to  

hold it the sponge is gone so the water just  kind of leaks out and you can hold about one  

pound of glycogen in your body so that glycogen is  going to hold on to about three to four pounds so  

as you burn up your glycogen the first three to  four pounds of weight loss of any diet is going  

to be just plain water because big glycogen  is gone but then we need to understand that  

sodium always follows water sodium is the primary  electrolyte in the extracellular fluid which we'll  

talk about in a second so as you're losing some  water your laws are losing sodium with it they  

always go together and this is the first big  reason that you can start getting electrolyte  

imbalances and start feeling bad when you do  keto and fasting so sodium potassium magnesium  

and calcium are the four big electrolytes that  we need to be concerned with so glycogen is the  

first reason that we can get loss and imbalance of  electrolyte when we do fasting in keto and why we  

feel bad like keto flu the second reason has to  do with insulin and think about it this way why  

do so many diabetics have high blood pressure  why do they go hand in hand almost always and  

that is because when insulin is high which it is  in diabetics now the kidneys are going to be have  

a greater tendency to reabsorb sodium it's going  to reabsorb it to a higher degree and therefore  

we keep more sodium sodium pulls the water with it  and now we get that hypertension that high blood  

pressure and now when we start fasting or keto  what happens is that insulin is going to start  

dropping and fasting is one of the most powerful  ways to reduce insulin quickly so naturally if  

High insulin keeps more sodium in then less  insulin it's going to start letting go of some  

sodium so there's less sodium reabsorption in the  kidneys and now we lose further electrolytes and  

further water so let's go through these four major  electrolytes the first one being sodium and sodium  

is the most plentiful electron light it's the  one we have by far the most in the extracellular  

fluid so what that means is we have this organ and  here's a blood vessel running through this organ  

and then we have cells in this organ so  obviously inside the cells that is intracellular  

and everything else is extracellular so a lot of  times we talk about blood glucose going from the  

bloodstream and into the cell well when we talk  about electrolytes everything that's not inside  

the cell is extracellular so the bloodstream and  the cell all of this is extracellular and here is  

where the sodium is the dominant by far dominant  electrolyte so it's going to determine the blood  

pressure and the amount of fluids and the fluid  regulation in that extracellular fluid so sodium  

is the primary factor in fluid regulation but it  also is a key to nerve signaling and to muscle  

contractions so some of the symptoms that we  get yet if sodium gets too low are things like  

headaches a lot of that has to do with loss  of water but we can also get dizzy and we can  

get severe fatigue so the next step to understand  when it comes to sodium and potassium is something  

called the sodium potassium ATP Ace pump and what  does that mean it means it's pumping sodium and  

potassium in and out of cells and it uses energy  it uses ATP to do it this is a costly process  

and I'm mentioning this because I think it's  important to understand that we have such a pump  

but also that about one-third of your calories  of all the calories that you eat if you eat 3  

000 calories then about 1 000 of those calories go  directly and only to fueling this sodium potassium  

pump that's how important it is to regulate these  ions and these minerals so looking at this pick  

picture now this would be the outside of the cell  this would be the inside of the cell and this is  

called a lipid bilayer so these little round  heads here they're phospholipids they kind of  

makes a little bit both with water and with fat so  they're kind of bipolar but these inside here they  

are the fatty acids and they are hydrophobic  water and oil don't mix so the fat it turns  

inward against each other and this is how all  cell membranes in the body are designed it's a  

lipid bilayer that determines to keep the inside  and the outside separate and determine what is  

allowed to pass and every time this pump cranks  one turn we're going to move three sodiums out  

and we're going to move two potassiums in and this  is just the way this works and this is involved  

with all nerve conduction it's involved with the  kidneys regulating sodium potassium and fluid this  

is one of the primary pumps in body physiology so  obviously the next one then would be potassium and  

now potassium is the most plentiful intracellular  so most of the sodium is floating extracellular  

but because of this pump that cranks the potassium  back in inside the cells now potassium is mostly  

inside cells so on every little surface here  we would have these little potassium pumps and  

there's thousands of them and they crank hundreds  of times per second so what the sodium potassium  

pump also does is it moves electrical charge  because every time it churns you're moving  

three sodiums and two potassiums each one has  a positive charge but the net difference is  

every time it cranks it is pumping a positive  net charge outside of the cell and this is the  

foundation for all of the nerve signaling in the  body when your nervous system sends signals this  

is exactly how that happens and it is also key  to muscle contraction because first of all the  

nerve signal has to send a signal to the muscle  to contract and that uses this sodium potassium  

pump for this propagation but also inside the  muscle we have electrolytes that make the muscle  

actually contract on the inside now potassium  more than any of the other electrolytes it's  

important to understand that you can get severe  symptoms it can be life-threatening if it is too  

high or too low so either way you can get symptoms  like muscle cramping muscle weakness and irregular  

heartbeats as you probably know the heart is  a muscle but it's very different from other  

muscles in the body because other muscles while  they have a basic muscle tone they don't really  

do do anything they don't move until the brain  sends a signal to tell them to do something but  

the heart it generates its own signals it needs  to beat at a steady Baseline Rhythm so it has its  

own Pacemaker and it has its own base rate now the  nervous system the fight flight sympathetic or the  

feed breed parasympathetic it can speed up or slow  down the heart with nervous system activity but  

the heart doesn't stop it always has that base  rate so this makes it a little more sensitive  

and more the influence of potassium so normal  potassium would be 3.5 to 5.2 milli equivalents  

per liter but if it starts falling a lot below  that now we get what's called tachycardia the  

heart actually speeds up because there's less of a  breaking influence and it's stream cases this can  

lead to what's called ventricular fibrillation so  the heart starts beating so fast that it doesn't  

have time to fill so it's just kind of flapping  in the wind the blood doesn't have time to get  

through and now we're losing the efficiency  we're not really pumping blood the heart is  

just beating without getting any liquid through  and this obviously can lead to a heart attack so  

anything less than 2.5 of potassium is considered  life-threatening but then the opposite of that  

is high potassium which actually slows down the  hearts that's called bradycardia and in extreme  

cases if you have enormously high potassium  the heart can actually stop all together so  

once your levels start getting up over six and  a half seven seven and a half now that is also  

considered life-threatening because your heart  could actually stop now both of these scenarios  

sound pretty scary but realize that it takes a  lot to get the potassium that far out of range and  

if you have functioning kidneys that can regulate  minerals and fluids then you're not probably ever  

going to have a problem that extreme but this is  something definitely to watch for if you have some  

serious kidney problems magnesium is an incredibly  important electrolyte and we test it routinely on  

all the blood work that we do and I'm sad to say  that the majority of people we test probably are  

deficient or they have less than an optimal  level and magnesium is super super important  

it is involved with hundreds of different enzyme  reactions it's a cofactor so if your body makes  

protein or hormones or different tissues and it  puts things together then it's an enzyme that fits  

these different amino acids together and magnesium  is the cofactor that makes the enzyme work  

so therefore it's part of nerve signaling it's  part of muscle function and even part of blood  

glucose regulation if our levels get really  low then we can experience things like nausea  

weakness and muscle cramping and this is one of  the most important ones for muscle cramping and  

magnesium is also known as a calming mineral  because the presence of enough magnesium helps  

stabilize the charge of that electrical charge  of that membrane when the sodium potassium pump  

cranks then magnesium reinforces the stability of  that membrane the fourth big electrolyte is called  

calcium and everybody knows of course that it's  involved with bone health because it mineralizes  

bone if we don't have enough calcium long term  we get osteoporosis but what most people don't  

realize is that the body prioritizes calc calcium  in the blood short term so long term we've got to  

have it in the bone short term we have to have  it in the blood and that's even more important  

because of nerve signals and because of muscle  function muscle contractions so there's a tiny  

gland called a parathyroid that makes a hormone  to pull calcium from the bone and that is more  

important minute to minute second to second to  regulate the blood levels of calcium so that the  

nerve signals and the muscles work so if we see  low calcium on a blood test that probably has  

more to do with parathyroid function than it  does with your dietary intake of calcium but  

still calcium can be low and some of the symptoms  that could happen are things like muscle spasms  

or numbness in handsome feet and it can even  influence things like depression and anxiety  

so remember that the keto flu and the symptoms and  the problems with the fast thing turn up because  

we lose water and we lose or we get an imbalance  of electrolytes so the solution then is we need  

to add both if you only drink water and you've  already lost electrolytes chances are you could  

make the problem worse so it's super important  to understand the balance here and then once we  

add them now we need to maintain the balance we  don't want to just gulp up tons of one mineral  

and ignore the others now where do we get these  minerals these electrolytes well first of all we  

need to know that most people are deficient most  people don't get enough and the single biggest  

reason for that is that we eat junk we eat so much  processed foods 70 percent of calories come from  

White Trash which is white sugar white flour and  these processed dead vegetable oils that have no  

nutrients no minerals whatsoever and just a little  reminder for you that friends don't let friends  

bring home white trash just don't do it learn what  real food is and that's what you bring home now if  

you're only doing like standard intermittent  fasting like 16 to 24 hours now the food is  

going to provide the vast majority of minerals  if you eat enough fish and meat and chicken and  

vegetables such as non-starchy vegetables there's  tons of minerals in that food so you're going to  

be okay however like we said you're losing you're  lowering some insulin you're changing some things  

around so it's a good idea to supplement because  again most people are a little bit deficient to  

start with so some supplementation can come in  handy especially if you're exercising especially  

if you have hot weather if you work outside  you're going to be losing lots of water and  

you want to replenish both water and electrolytes  but the most important time to really supplement  

is if you're doing extended fasting if you're  going longer like 36 hours up to five days now  

you're not putting any electrolytes back in So  short-term fasting you're getting some of it from  

the food you're eating when you're not eating  any food you're losing minerals but you're not  

putting any back in so it's super important and  this is the biggest reason why people sometimes  

feel bad when they're doing longer fasting it  has much more to do with the electrolytes than  

the fact that you're not getting calories which  brings me to a little announcement so I'm super  

super excited to announce that I have developed  my own nutrition brand my own supplement brand it  

is called Euvexia and I thought long and hard but  that name I worked on it for a few days and what  

it is it's Greek It's a combination of two Greek  words where e and u is like the prefix in Euphoria  

it means good and true and Euvexia means Wellness  in Greek so basically what this word means is true  

wellness and when I figure that out and what I  stand for I just felt it was the perfect name  

and then we came up with this gorgeous logo which  is an e which is obviously e for Euvexia but also  

e for Ekberg and the first product we will launch  in a few days is called euLyte and so it's a true  

electrolyte basically so why did I develop Euvexia  well first of all realize that I made videos for  

13 years and during that time I built the channel  to about 3 million subscribers I get dozens of  

requests to promote products every single day and  I've turned them all down because I want to keep  

the message pure and honest I want to stand behind  something if I recommend something it should be  

something that I use personally or in the clinic  and that I found really works on people now here's  

the problem almost every day people bring in  products supplements that they found online  

they heard that they were good for something they  saw an ad someplace and they asked me what do you  

think of this and my answer is always the same I  don't think anything I just test it I use muscle  

testing and I check it to see if this product is  any good for that person and it really bothers  

me how many bad products are out there the basic  idea in medicine and in healthcare is first of all  

"Do no harm" so if you have something useless  that's all right but you shouldn't have things  

that are harmful and some of these electrolyte  products some of the worst they even have sugar  

in them some big big brands now most people doing  fasting or trying to lower their blood sugar to  

stabilize their blood sugar and then they take  an electrolyte with sugar in it breaks my heart  

another problem is that some of these powders have  wimpy doses they hardly contain anything useful  

and oftentimes if they do then there's mostly one  they have maybe either potassium or sodium because  

they're the cheapest to put in there another big  problem that goes back to this thing about first  

Do no harm is that almost everything has natural  flavors and natural colors in them and this could  

be okay or it could be really bad and most of  them are really bad there's many many thousands  

of chemicals that have been approved under the  heading of natural flavor natural color that are  

actually harmful and of course the cheap ones are  the ones that they use and they're typically the  

harmful ones so when I muscle test I find that  9 out of 10 products whether they're capsules  

or powders or whatever they don't test well at  all they test as harmful and when it comes to  

electrolytes I have yet to test a single one that  people bring in that doesn't test as harmful and  

most of the time it's because they have some cheap  version of a natural flavor or natural color in  

there so quite frankly I developed this product  because I needed something that works that I  

could recommend to you and to my patients I wanted  something with substantial amounts of the stuff  

you need I wanted something that was balanced and  comprehensive and most importantly it must pass  

muscle testing I'm super excited about bringing  this product to the market and if you'd like to  

know more about it then I'd love for you to join  me on a live stream that we're doing on Wednesday  

June 7th if you like this video you're going  to love that one and if you truly want to  

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