What If You Only Ate Once A Day For 30 Days?

Hello Health Champions. What would happen if  you only ate one meal a day for 30 days? Just  

once a day for 30 days. Well a lot of people  would probably say that they would get hungry.  

But what we want to understand is more about the  changes and the behavior the physiology of change  

that can assist us in making these changes. So  hunger is just a sensation and it's mostly based  

on habits. That whatever habits you have,  whatever behavior you engage in habitually  

creates a conditioned expectation your body is  led to believe that things are going to happen  

a certain way. And your body adapts by  making changes at the cellular level  

because it can increase and decrease physical  tissues it can make metabolic changes it can  

increase or decrease up regulate or down  regulate enzymes, hormones, mitochondria,  

energy production and you even make neurological  changes. Your body constantly makes new synapses  

and breaks down old synapses that you don't need  anymore. So it rewires your nervous system and  

your behavior and it lays down physical pathways  that are different. If your behavior and your  

environment changes the biggest obstacle for most  people to change is that they think they are the  

way they are. I hear that all the time that's  just the way I am, and my dad was the same way,  

and it runs in my family, and that's the way we've  always done things. But it doesn't work like that.  

If you're eating six times a day it's because you  learn to eat six times a day and if you eat three  

times or once a day it's because you learned to  eat that way and your body started expecting it.  

So what we really want to get into is to  understand change is change really difficult. And  

I want to make the argument that it is not hard.  It is inevitable. It's the only way it can be is  

constant change you're changing all the time  already. So how come then you say that I look  

like the same person when I get up in the morning?  And I look in the mirror, I see the same person  

that I saw yesterday or last week or last year and  it's probably going to be the same person I see  

next week. Well here's how it works it's not the  same person looking back at you because you are 90  

new cells since last year the person  you're looking at today versus last year 90  

of those cells are different old cells  break down and you have to make new ones.  

So if they look the same it's because you made  more of the same. The other way you want to  

think about this is that your nervous system  is processing billions of bits of information  

every second it receives information it processes  information and it issues commands. It signals  

it orchestrates the body and in doing that it's  always changing and adapting every moment of every  

day you are changing. Your body is reacting to  the things you eat and your thoughts and the air  

pressure and to gravity and to things happening  around you. And if it looks like you are the same  

it's not because you stayed the same it's  because you changed, but you recreated  

the same thing. The way the body changes is  called adaptation and I love to observe these  

everyday things and really sort of think about  them and be in awe of how incredible the body is  

so one example is when I'm walking on the mountain  trail and I have a heart rate monitor and I look  

at the heart rate and I'm walking on the flat  and then as soon as it starts going up even a  

couple of degrees my heart rate goes up isn't  that incredible there's some intelligence in my  

body that knows that the conditions are changing  and we're going to need more oxygen delivery more  

blood flow to cope so automatically i don't have  to think about it I don't know how to do that  

my body knows how to do that it just blows me  away. I'm in awe I love to watch these things then  

if you do things on a regular basis now the body  gets so good at it that it anticipates you don't  

even have to get up on the incline it observes and  as soon as you get even close your heart rate goes  

up a little bit just in anticipation just to be  ready if you do this and your body gets better  

at it then you start creating long term changes so  now we're talking days to months so one example is  

playing the guitar I love playing the guitar but  the first time you pick it up or if you haven't  

played for a long time the first time you pick it  up it really hurts it feels like your fingers are  

bleeding after just a few minutes but if you keep  it up then after a few days or a couple of weeks  

just any amount of regular playing then your  body puts down calluses changes the skin  

and it only changes it on one hand where you  need it how smart is that if you go to the gym  

and if you put some tension on a muscle the body  senses hey I'm gonna have to use more strength in  

the future so it sends more protein to incorporate  into more muscle fibers so it can get better  

it's called muscle hypertrophy and the opposite  is true as well because if you're a couch potato  

and you don't put any tension on your muscles  now the body says why should i put precious  

protein resources into building tissue  that there's obviously no use for  

so that's called atrophy if you're working on  your endurance now your body increases your  

blood distribution capacity it will make more  blood capillaries it will increase your red  

blood cells to increase oxygen delivery it will  up regulate enzymes involved in energy production  

it will increase the number of mitochondria so  you can make more energy and use more oxygen  

there's endless pieces that the body improves  to make you better at whatever you do and if you  

normally live at sea level but then you go for a  couple of weeks maybe a vacation in the mountains  

now at altitude there is less oxygen in the  air if there's less oxygen the body senses that  

it says I'm going to need more red blood cells I  need to increase my oxygen carrying capacity so  

i can keep delivering the same amount of oxygen  even though there is less of it so your kidneys  

make hormone called EPO or erythropoietin to  make more red blood cells how smart is that bone  

is another interesting example because if you  load up bone if you do weight-bearing exercise  

under the influence of gravity you'll make more  bone or you'll maintain and reinforce the bones  

whereas if you go out into space for any length  of time then the body says well what do I need  

all these bones for because there's no gravity and  NASA says that astronauts will lose one percent  

bone mass per month in weightlessness that's  about 15 to 20 times faster than a deconditioned  

elderly person and another adaptation is insulin  resistance we talk a lot about metabolic health  

and insulin resistance on this channel because  it's related to weight loss and diabetes and so  

forth so if you have chronically high insulin your  cells start to resist those high levels of insulin  

and the cells become insulin resistant and all of  these are changes that you're aware of that you  

can see changing day to day and if you were to eat  once a day for 30 days then your body would make  

similar changes relevant to your metabolic  function but if we only eat once a day one meal  

a day where are we gonna get the energy that's  what we're told all the time that you have to eat  

breakfast to give you energy up until lunch you  have to eat small frequent meals to keep your  

blood sugar up otherwise you become hypoglycemic  and your energy tanks well that doesn't really  

happen right because the people who try eating one  meal a day they actually find that they survive  

and they feel better so here's how it actually  works that you eat the food but that food that you  

just ate does not become energy right away there's  a small trickle you're breaking down a little  

bit of glucose in the mouth you start absorbing  just a tiny little trickle but the vast majority  

98% or so of the food you ate is gonna become  energy hours later so the way it works is the  

food that you just ate becomes a signal it tells  the body hey we have some resources coming in  

you don't have to hold on so tightly to the stores  from before so the body starts breaking down some  

glycogen for blood glucose it starts breaking down  some fat for energy so that we have some energy  

while this food is being processed and then in  the next couple of hours you break down the food  

and after a few hours some of that food is used  up as energy and a lot of it becomes stored as  

fat and carbohydrate those are the two primary  storage forms of energy in the body protein can  

become energy but the body under normal conditions  will spare the protein because it's more important  

for other things but now that we have stored the  fat and the carbohydrate the whole idea would be  

to use up some fat and carbohydrate but  what happens is we're going to primarily  

burn carbohydrate first especially if we eat many  meals a day and especially if we eat high carb  

then we're going to store fat and carb but we're  going to burn the carbohydrate first primarily and  

I'll get back to that and why is the body going  to burn the carbohydrate first why is it going to  

have a tendency to do that and there's two reasons  the first is that the body is very poor at storing  

carbohydrate the vast majority of energy stores  in the body is going to be fat it's a much  

better storage form if you're a little bit on  the obese side you might store about point four  

percent as carbohydrate if you're very lean it  might be two percent carbohydrate but almost  

all your energy stores are going to be fat the  other reason the body will burn carbs first is  

that high glucose levels are dangerous not short  term not for hours or a few days or even weeks but  

if it goes on for years or decades that's called  diabetes and diabetes is the number one cause  

of blindness kidney failure neuropathy joint  destruction heart disease high blood pressure  

all of those things are associated with high  glucose so the body is going to do the best it  

can to bring this glucose down anytime it gets  high and there's three ways that the body can  

reduce that glucose one is that it can burn it  that's why it tries to use carbohydrates first  

second it can try to store it but we already said  that the carbohydrate stores fill up very quickly  

the body is very limited in the ability to store  carbohydrate and the third thing it can do is to  

store fat so now we're back into storing fat and  carbohydrate but mostly burning the carbohydrate  

so how would we ever get in to burning the  fat we have to eat less carbohydrate and or  

eat less often it's even more powerful to  eat less often so if you eat once a day  

one meal a day you go 20 24 hours without food  your body has to get into burning that fat because  

it will burn through some of that carbohydrate and  then it will switch it will transition to have a  

tendency to burn more and more fat the longer  you go and now that I've said all that I want  

you to listen very very carefully because these  are not absolutes we want to think in tendencies  

and percentages rather than absolutes because  the body always uses a mix of carbohydrate  

and fat always but the mix is different it's going  to be primarily carb or primarily fat and here's  

how you want to think about it that depending on  where you are on the insulin resistance on your  

metabolic health then you're going to be either  on the red side if you are a high carb diabetic  

person or if you're a metabolically healthy low  carb person you're going to be on this end so if  

you're eating maybe once a day and you're eating  very low carb you're probably going to burn about  

95 fat when you get into the fat burning  zone because you're teaching your body  

to use fat primarily again you're shifting your  metabolic pathways but if you're eating all these  

carbohydrates why don't you burn a hundred percent  carbs why do you burn thirty to fifty percent fat  

because some of these carbs that we talked about  they get converted into fat there's always a flux  

there's always a transition of glucose becoming  fat fat cannot become glucose it's a one-way  

street one-way trip but glucose is always being  transitioned being converted into fat and the  

more glucose we have and the more carbs you eat  the more of that conversion is going to happen  

so a portion of your energy is always going to be  coming from fat even if you eat zero fat but who  

would not be a good candidate to eat one meal a  day well if you are too thin if you are emaciated  

if you are scrawny if you have a really hard time  putting on weight then you're not a candidate  

for this i don't do well eating one meal a day  for very long i do it a couple of times a week  

because of convenience and i feel good doing that  i don't have a problem but if i eat one meal a day  

for a couple of weeks then i start losing too much  weight it's difficult for me to maintain that so  

if you're too thin then you shouldn't eat one meal  a day if you are pregnant or breastfeeding you are  

eating for two and that's not the best time to  experiment your body as you well know is crazy  

enough with everything going on so that's not when  you want to make changes if you are a small child  

or a growing child or teenager then that also is  not the best time to make far reaching changes  

anything else well it would be any kind of  condition if you have a digestive disorder if  

you have anything else going on where you feel you  need more if your body isn't ready to make those  

kind of changes just use your common sense so if  you fit any of these does that mean you have to  

eat six times a day? No. I would recommend that you  for most people you can safely eat two to three  

times a day in a six to eight hour period and if  you eat good solid foods with a good mix of meat  

vegetables and fat then you're going to get plenty  of nutrients to fill you up and sustain you so now  

that you understand the physiology of change  and you know that you can do this what's going  

to happen if you eat once a day for 30 days you  will probably get some hunger and some discomfort  

and if you are a carb addict if you've been eating  six times a day you might have more discomfort  

if you're metabolically healthy you might have  very slight discomfort but the key to understand  

here is that it's very short term your body adapts  physiologically very very quickly so we're talking  

a few days and then your body will be on track  with your new habits and what you find then  

is you actually have less hunger because now you  taught your body to burn fat you taught your body  

to use the reserves more efficiently and they  often say that it takes 21 days to change a habit  

and i don't know if that's a magic number but i  think it's a good rule of thumb so if you go 30  

days then you've got the 21 plus a little bit of  extra which means that you have probably created  

a new habit you have rewired your nervous system  this is what your body expects now and it becomes  

easier and easier to maintain it one of the  most important changes you will probably see  

is a change in blood glucose and insulin they will  both have a tendency to drop and they are related  

to something called syndrome x or metabolic  syndrome and that's associated with the majority  

of degenerative disease chronic degenerative  disease like type 2 diabetes high blood pressure  

cardiovascular disease stroke they're all  part of metabolic syndrome and if you eat  

once a day for 30 days you will start healing your  metabolism you'll start teaching your body better  

metabolic habits you will learn how to start using  some of those stores and you will be dramatically  

reducing your risk of chronic degenerative disease  a lot of people will also start losing weight some  

people with the most stubborn weight may not see  this immediately but 80 - 90 percent of people will  

probably have a significant weight loss and then  we get into some of the quality of life you will  

find that it's a huge time savings if you're only  going to eat once a day it doesn't take that long  

and you can also increase the quality of your food  you have time to create a gourmet meal every day  

basically because you're only going to eat once  you can take the time to do that you'll also find  

that because your metabolic health is improving  now you start burning some fat stores your  

energy becomes more stable you're not dependent on  topping off your blood sugar every couple of hours  

your mood improves your energy is much more  stable and because of this you also find that  

you have more freedom because your life no longer  revolves around a feeding schedule you don't have  

to structure your entire life around where am i  going to find food if you get to food you eat if  

you don't you're going to be fine anyway so  let's say you do one meal a day for 30 days  

then what well it kind of depends on where you are  what were your aspirations what did you hope to  

accomplish by doing this if you're done then you  can start playing around with some other things  

but if you still have some ways to go then  you keep it up you do another 30 days and  

another 30 days and so forth and there's nothing  wrong with with changing it up a little bit but  

by now you're so good at this your body is so  adapted it's very easy to go with one meal a  

day however if your weight is very stubborn or if  your blood glucose or if you're fasting insulin  

is just really stubborn it won't budge now what  can break that plateau is to add some longer fasts  

so if you are used to eating one meal a day if  you but you've got your body conditioned to that  

then it's very easy to just skip a whole day  entirely and by the time you wake up the next  

morning you're probably gone at least 36  hours and then if you make it to lunch  

you have 42 hours so doing these little bit  longer fasts can typically break those plateaus  

and get you much deeper into that fat burning  so let's say that you've done one or more 30 day  

periods with this and now you have reached a good  weight or a good blood glucose or you reversed  

your type 2 diabetes or your cholesterol values  then what is you start playing around with it  

so now for some people they're going to be fine  eating one meal a day like i said for myself i  

have a hard time maintaining my ideal weight i get  too skinny so i like to increase and i eat two or  

three times a day in a six to eight hour period  so this is going to be different for different  

people just play around with it and see what works  for you and then from time to time you watch this  

video again because every time you're tempted to  think of yourself and say I am the way I am you  

scratch that thought and you remind yourself  that I am the way I recreate myself moment to  

moment change is inevitable change is easy if  you're going to change then why not change it  

to something that you'd rather be? If you enjoyed  this video, you're going to love that one, and if  

you truly want to master health by understanding  how the body really works, make sure you subscribe,  

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