EP. 39. Effects Of A 72 Hour Fast

EP. 39. Effects Of A 72 Hour Fast

Three days without food sounds like misery until you realize the hardest part is not hunger, it is routine. Nick Urankar records a solo run right after finishing a 72-hour fast and tells the full story, including the moment the group challenge turned into a one-person decision. We talk about why fasting benefits go beyond the scale, how it feels once you pass the first 24 hours, and why “I just miss chewing” might be the most honest line you will hear about appetite.

We also answer the questions people actually ask when they are considering a water fast or intermittent fasting: What can you drink while fasting? Is black coffee OK? Why do electrolytes matter? Is bone broth “cheating” or just a practical tool? Nick shares what he used, what he avoided, and why the goal is progress not perfection. Jake jumps in with insights on water weight, glycogen, mental clarity, and the bigger reason many people fast in the first place: giving your body space to recover and clear out what is not serving you.

If you are thinking about weight loss, we cut through the noise. A 72-hour fast can drop pounds fast, but most of that comes back quickly, so the real win is the reset and the intention you bring to breaking a fast. Nick explains how he reintroduced food with a simple meal and why planning that meal ahead can keep you from undoing the work. We also cover fasted workouts, dialing back intensity, and keeping your focus on the long game instead of one dramatic week.

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What would you try first: a 16-hour intermittent fast or a full 24 hours?

Transcript

Why I Choose To Fast

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh for me, I do it for the health benefits, but I also do it because I think deep down it's good for my body to not have to digest, to clean itself out. I never stop putting self stuff in my body, so I might as well allow it to just take a break. I'm Nikki Urankar flying solo today. Um we actually had a guest we were gonna have on, had some logistics with work, kind of came into play with Jake, just got to hang out, and then Braxton had some stuff. So here I am, and figured this was probably a good time to talk about uh I had just done a fast. I'm not sure when this is gonna come out. Maybe let's say this is the not this week, but the next week. So I just finished a fast. Today is April 23rd here in studio, but on, and it's Thursday. Uh last Saturday, I had actually, let's let's back up. We were with a group of friends, we were out at a concert in Indianapolis, Brandon Lake concert, and we were out at dinner, and somebody talked about fasting, and I had said, Oh, I I need to actually do a fast. It's been a long time. I normally when I fast, I'll do I always just say, like, all right, I'm gonna get to 24 hours and then make a call. And I'll normally go 40 to 50, is what I'll say, is kind of my my sweet spot that I just I'm like, ah, I feel really good. And a couple of them were like, oh, I want to do a 72-hour fast. So we essentially made this challenge, this pack, like, all right, let's do 72-hour fast, figured out a date, 19th of April, boom, let's do it. Well, I think it was like the 17th of April. Get a message, one of the guys is like, ah, I can't do it. Another guy basically responded, like, well, okay, let me know when you want to do it. And then I said, I'm still I'm still doing it. And I realized, okay, I guess I'm doing this alone. So this is on Saturday. We uh had plans to go and grab a burger and some other stuff, so I was like, oh, this will be a great final meal before my fast starts. So I go ahead, go start the fast. After eating a meal, there's Braxton at the window. You can come in, Brax. He's super busy. We're not live. You're kidding. We are. Yeah. Uh-oh. So this is what happens in real life. It's not, I don't I don't think it's here, man. Alright, thank you. Thank you for coming in. Bye. Any anything you want to say about fasting?

unknown 3:05

It's good for you if done right.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

It's good for you if done right. Correct. Boom. Words to live by. Alright, back to my story.

How I Set Up 72 Hours

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Fasting. So Saturday, I'm gonna start my fast. We eat, and I'm like, alright, good to go. Now, if you are somebody who wants to fast, I love to have breakfast, lunch, and start then. I like to start at about noon. Um, it it allows you to get really far in by the time you wake up the next day. You're close to 24 hours already. Well, on this one, it was about five o'clock when I had our meal. So it was gonna be a later start to the fast, which is fine. Wake up in the morning. When you wake up in the morning, so this is the 20th of April, you start thinking about breakfast. Like it's on your mind, it's a habit. And I don't normally eat breakfast, but I do uh maybe I'll have some protein or uh some fast carbs, a banana, apple, something before I go to the gym. Well, Sunday I'm like I'm not eating, obviously. And I was doing 24 hours of water, and then after that, bone broth, coffee, you know, and water with electrolytes. So electrolytes as well. And there's a phone ringing right now.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

That's the phone Braxton's looking for right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Okay, the phone is look at this. It happens. You're solo. I see him, I can see through the window of the door, and he's walking around upstairs. So, oh, it's because he's like, call me, babe. So, for me, I'm the hardest part about a fast is the first 24 hours, and I think that's where most people fail. They start and it gets tough, and they're like, Oh, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this. When you've done it enough times, the hardest part is that you're just focused on you're normally eating at this time. People are eating around you, you're not eating, and it's different. Well, by the time you're getting ready for bed, you're already focused on not eating. So it starts to kind of subside. When I woke up on Monday morning, there's nothing. Like you're not hungry. You're I remember it was maybe 10 or 11 o'clock, and Chelsea was like, Are you is your stomach like rumbling? Like, are you really hungry? And I was like, No, it once you get past 24 hours, there's nothing. And then she walks away, and like 10 minutes later, I just hear my stomach gargling. And it's not that I'm hungry, it's just it's empty. And I start with bone broth. And the bone broth that I had, uh, I think it's kettle and fire.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

That's the brand.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Is normally the brand from uh Whole Foods, but Costco carries it as well. So we had gone to Costco on Sunday morning for me to go pick up some bone broth after starting the fast. And Costco had an organic Kirklands brand, which was like half the price. And they're in the big, I want to say they're like 20 ounces or 24 ounces, and it came with like six of them. So bought those. Uh, I would say the difference between the two is the Costco brand was a little more watery, whereas I think the Kettle and Fire has I don't want marrow is the word I use, like a thicker, there's like a thickness to it that when it when it gets cooler, it starts to separate. I didn't have that uh with the Costco brand, which makes me think there's probably a quality difference, not that the organic or whatever, but just like the the quality of how they do it is obviously slightly different. Um so wake up Monday and I'm not hungry at all. And actually, I had played a soccer game on Sunday night. I wanted to work out a little bit, I didn't feel low on energy, zero low on energy at all.

The First 24 Hours Are The Challenge

SPEAKER_00 7:03

And I think at that point is when I posted on social media, hey, what what questions do you guys have? Because I started getting a ton of questions, and then I got flooded with questions. I didn't answer a lot because many of them were very similar. Uh, but then went through Monday and I remember what's what's the hardest part about a fast, once you're far enough in that you're not hungry, is breaking it. So on Tuesday I wake up, again, not hungry, still have all my energy. People were always like, oh, don't lift or don't do this, you're so low on energy. Uh was not low on energy whatsoever. I ended up, I think I started at 199 pounds, and when I woke up on Tuesday, I was 194 and a half, and by middle of the day I weighed myself again. Now it's 193.4, I think. That was the last time I weighed myself. And people are like, Oh, are you gonna, you know, what's that mean for you? And I'm like, nothing. It just means that's all the stuff that was in me is gone. Obviously, I've I'm got a lot less water in me, though I'm drinking a lot. You do pee a lot more when you're on a fast. You you'll notice that, and that you're clearing yourself out, but also that's all you've got in you. So you're trying to drink a lot of water and drink a lot of stuff because you want to fill your stomach, and then you don't feel hungry. So I'm last day, noon, and I'm like, what you know, everyone then I start getting messages. What are you gonna eat? How are you gonna break your fast? I'm like, I the last thing I'm trying to do is think about food. Like, when people are asking, what are you gonna do? I'm like, try to make myself feel really hungry? No. So finally we had just a ton of stuff, and I ended up for you know dinner, made a huge bowl of everything you can possibly think of. I posted on social media, but really kind of wanted to, we got Jake chat through maybe some questions or things that maybe he's noticed that I kind of heard online. A lot of them people were asking me about should they do a 72-hour fast? Um, and sometimes people were saying, like, I'm type 2 diabetic, or I've got these issues, would this help me, or I don't know if it should. Number one thing is if you're not sure, consult with somebody. Not with me, but consult with whoever it is that is helping you in your journey of health. And I think that 72 hours is a long time right off the bat. I think 24 hours is a great window, or even just intermittent fasting, which would just be 16 plus hours. It doesn't need to be and start there. I uh I even had somebody who messaged me and said they they've been struggling with energy and just they're reaching their goals and they've been and it's been really hard because they fast every week, 24 hours, once a week. And I was like, well, yeah, that's really hard because you're you're fasting all the time, and and they were like, I don't like it, I don't like it. And I was like, well, why don't you make some different changes in your life that are probably more beneficial than fasting every week, and maybe fast once a month or once every quarter and make those other changes that you can sustain. I think sometimes when we see something online, we think that that's a new answer to a problem or a new answer to a fix that we're trying to solve, and we forget about everything else and we just try to focus on that one thing. Fasting's not gonna fix you. Fasting's a great uh challenge. It it does have a ton of health benefits. Uh for me, I do it for the health benefits, but I also do it because I think deep down it's good for my body to not have to digest, to clean itself out. I never stop putting stuff in my body, so I might as well allow it to just take a break. So, whatever benefit that you believe that might have, I think it has a huge benefit for myself. So to give it a break. And a lot of times when I start thinking about, oh mate, should I fast? That's normally the time I should fast. So I will do it within a couple weeks. But truthfully, allowing the body to just have its time to not have to do anything. People were asking, well, won't that ruin your gains? No, it won't. Like it will not ruin your gains. If that's what your focus is, then like maybe now's not the time for you to do fasting. But what else could you do? You could probably clean up your diet a little bit. But again, I think we try to focus in and hone in on the positives and the negatives and how we can not have to make the changes we know we need to make to try to fix something that is I I don't know how to say it properly, but it's not broken. Meaning, fasting's not gonna fix uh uh your eating habits. It's gonna stop you from eating. Now, could it be a great way to reset? So I had a lot of people that would ask, well, what would be if I wanted to cut my weight? Is this gonna, you know, you've lost you lost six pounds, five pounds. Is this a great way to lose weight? I'm like, well, it's a great way to drop weight fast, but it's not weight that you're gonna keep off. I want to put it right back on. But it's a great way to reset how you think about food because when you reintroduce it, you can choose how to reintroduce it. A lot of times, if you the longer you fast, the more they say you need to be specific in what you bring in your system. You shouldn't just, you know, go to fast food or fried foods or eat like crap. You should take it slow and reintroduce stuff to your body. So I think fasting is a great thing to reset, not just reset your internal systems, but reset what you put in.

Weight Loss Myths And The Reset

SPEAKER_00 12:50

And uh yeah, I I love restarting because it it's like a new blueprint. So I try to think of it as a reset, not just a reset of like, oh, I'm resetting myself, but I'm resetting what I'm gonna put inside of my body. So it allows me to say, like, uh I I don't like that I'm eating this over the last few months. I'm gonna do a fast and I'm just gonna when I come back to eating, I'm not bringing that back in. That's a great way to do it. So, yeah, questions, Jake, that you might have.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Well, I I think a couple things. A lot of people think this is like a weight, this is how you lose weight, but the thing that your body's getting rid of is mostly glycogen and water that you fill it with, and you fill it up daily with that. And also, I mean, like the big benefit of you know, that I read up on it is like your body's getting rid of all the damaged cells when you're in a fast. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

So Yeah, once you hit that 24 hour mark after that, that's where the real magic happens. Um, that's why I think the biggest challenge is to hit 24 hours. I don't think that the challenge is 72 or five days or one week. Just like anything, it's say I'm gonna go 24 hours. And if you get there and you feel great, go 40. Go 36. Go like there's no right or wrong. It's just once you know you can hit 24, okay, eat, and then the next time go 40, and then the next time increase it. Like 72 for me now, I know I can do. It's not a I wonder if I can. I would rather say 24 hours and hit 72 than say 72 hours and hit 24. I'm gonna feel way better about myself. Neither is bad, but a lot of times we put ourselves under pressure to do something. But truthfully, the biggest bang for your buck is post 24 hours. So if you can hit that, oh yeah. Yeah, the water weight, your colon cleans out.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

You you're still gonna go to the bathroom. You're gonna go to the bathroom 70 hours in. And eventually, so you gotta remember there's a lot of this stuff stored up in you that's just it's not you eat and within six hours it comes out of you. Like some of the stuff that's coming out of you is from a couple days ago. So you're holding on to so much stuff, so much inflammation. You're releasing a lot of that. Again, you're peeing a lot of it out, so you're peeing so much. And I wouldn't say that I'm drinking more while fasting than I normally drink. Though I maybe, but I wouldn't say it's a ton more. So you're just peeing because there's nothing else. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

There's nothing else. I feel like a lot of people they they overlook. Like you can fast. If you eat your last meal, let's just say five o'clock and you go to bed, that's eight hours right there. If you sleep eight hours, you're already fasting. So that's that's most of your fast right there. I I I feel like that's when I eat, I eat early. My last meals early, and I try to keep my fast you know, mostly at night. But like I told you, I'm gonna do one like what you did. Because I feel like I've done one before and the benefits are phenomenal. Like your brain fog, your mental clarity gone. But I mean, yeah, it's and I still feel great.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

I feel super lean. Um, you just don't have that inflammation. And it's gonna come back, which is why it's good to reset. That's why it's great to not, if you're doing it for health benefits, think of it as when you come out of it, you're coming back better. So, how can you help fuel yourself? Yeah. That the uh I think with the weight loss, because that was a big one, there it is not a you don't do it for weight loss. Weight loss is a byproduct of, like you said, you're you're releasing all these things. I weighed myself today um or last night just to check. And I again I was 199 when I started and I was 193.4 when I ended. I was 197 and a half last night. Yeah, and I stopped on Tuesday night. So that was yesterday was Wednesday? So I was one one day I put back on four pounds. Now, did I put on four pounds? No, I never lost the four pounds. I I released four pounds of stuff, right? I I don't know, but I think that that's good for me. The weight is not really an issue. If if if you're doing it for weight loss or for bulking, there's way more, there's way different things you can do. It's a long game for weight loss, and it's a long game for bulking. It's not a short stint. Um what else? Like what are your thoughts? I mean because you obviously interacted too, like on online.

Breaking The Fast With Real Food

SPEAKER_01 17:25

And I've done it before. It's you know, a lot of people have asked about it, and it's it's like I said, you have to do it correctly because I guarantee you there's most people, their first meal is not what your first meal was gonna be. Their first meal is gonna be something a lot different. And they always say, ease yourself back in, and exactly what you had was perfect.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

So And I did have a lot. I had rice.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

But look what you had.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

You had clean Yes, I had rice, vegetables. I didn't put any sauces on it. I let it be. It was rice, um, like zucchini, broccoli, grilled chicken, and I don't know, maybe there's one or two more things. And then I just heated it up, ate it. So I was like, You put any sauce on like, nah, I feel like that wouldn't be no. I'm just gonna put salt and pepper and oh, egg. I put took two carboiled eggs and put them on top. She's like, Really? And I was like, Yeah, I just some more protein.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Yeah, that that's easing your way back in. Yeah, because some people will go and pick something up real quick. Correct. You can't do that.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah, you need to be so it's one of those where I would suggest if you're gonna fast, I did not do this, but it would be a suggestion I would make to myself, so I'll we'll make it to you, is plan out what your meal coming back in is before you start. So that way you're not focused on what is it gonna be, which is what I did. I open up the fridge and I'm like, all right, we have a lot of prepped food. I'm just gonna take what we have prepped. I'm not gonna try to make this more complicated than it should be. And I just ate that. Um, and again, if you're like, well, I don't have prepped food, you can. And the easiest way to prep your food is cook more than you're gonna eat. Like I we will buy pounds of chicken, we'll buy pounds of ground beef, we'll buy pounds of whatever the meat is, we'll buy or we'll cook tons of rice, we'll take big bags of veggies and we'll cook all of those, and then we'll store them and we just pick from them. Like, if you do that for every single dinner, you've got multiple lunches, multiple dinners when you don't want to cook, but prepping doesn't have to be for prep. Prepping can be while you're already getting ready to eat, prep that food. And I know we've talked about that, but that's a great thing to do, especially for something like this, to be able just to grab

What You Can Drink While Fasting

SPEAKER_00 19:38

and go.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Did anybody ask you what you can have during your fast and what you can't have? Lot of people ask me.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Okay, and and so I and I also what I would say is that's a great question because there are a lot of camps when it comes to fasting. Some would just be nothing. Some might be where it's it's nothing, it's not even liquid. Like it's and it might be 24 hours of just you are not putting anything in your system. There could be just water. There are some that will say, like, okay, well, you can do coffee, you can do water with it, um, bone broth, stuff like that. Some people will say, Yeah, for sure, it's such a great benefit post 24 hours. Most of the time, that that that's where that will say. Some might say, Before, I've not heard that, so I could be wrong. Um, but just because it still helps in the process, it doesn't take away from what like keto. Some people will try to get into ketosis. Um, but I would say for myself, I am okay with water, coffee, bone broth. And the main reason for the bone broth for me is I do want to get some protein. I doesn't need to be high calories, I do want to get some later in it just because I'm like, I don't need to be into ketosis perfect. I don't need to um have no calories in, no nothing. Like I'm not trying to be perfect. I'm trying to get the full benefits of I'm letting myself reset, I'm letting myself renew, improve, and it does need to be perfect. So if you if you said, well, Nick, I want to, I'll do it, but I want to do bone broth right away, cool, do it. And then maybe the next time try 24 hours and then bone broth. You know, you want to have coffee, cool. Uh you don't want to, cool. Like to me, it's it's I would rather fight with you on your current diet over how you're gonna do your fast.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

A lot of people I think also get mixed up. They're like, oh, it has zero calories, I can have it. Yeah. You know, like, oh, Coke Zero has zero calories, but no, you can't. That's not the same.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

No, and it's not, it's not so I would love somebody to fact check me on this or or argue this. And I'm not saying because I'm right, I'm just saying like I would love to hear any feedback. It's not zero calories. Like your body basically doesn't know what it is. So when it goes in, it goes in as nothing. But is it nothing? No, it's not nothing. You can tell by looking at it. That's not, it's super thick. There's something there. And it basically goes into your body, and your body's like, we don't know what this is. So what's it do? It throws it to the liver. Then the liver gets it and goes, I don't know what the heck this is. So it figures out how to use it. And it will find a way to use it. It will convert it. It will change it. It will do something to be able to use it. And it does that. May not do it with all of it, but it's going to do something. That's the whole point. Your body, essentially, how I uh explain it is we think as people that we can trick our bodies because we are smarter than our bodies are. And our bodies are amazing, resilient, so smart, and they can use a lot of things to keep us alive. Example would be I bet you somebody could live on just drinking zero calorie drinks for way longer than somebody could live without eating, but drinking water. Why? Because there's stuff in it. Doesn't mean it's going to be healthy for them. But there are, there's they're going to be able to maintain some weight. They're going to be able like there's going to be uh more in it that a person who wasn't eating it's not it's not going in and going right out. That's my my two cents. What are your thoughts on that? Because I know you've done stuff on that or looked into those things.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Well, I mean I'm just not. I would I don't want to drink soda as it is, yeah. But you're right though, it does have something in it. I mean, what's that caramel color that's making it, you know?

Training And Looking At The Year

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Um I know a lot of people ask you about working out during the fast. Um scientific. Um your growth hormone is spiked like five times, two to five times I've heard during your fast. Um, which is beneficial when you're sleeping and you know, repairing muscle and but I mean, did you have any issues training at all?

SPEAKER_00 24:10

No, so that's another good guess. There were lots of questions, and more so I think around the training, there weren't many questions or more statements. Hey, make sure you don't train, make sure you need protein, you need this. Well, when I when I take protein right before I train, let's say I do, am I using that protein in that training session? No, not right then. Post-training, yeah, right, but not in the training. So, like, I don't need protein for this training session for the recovery for that stuff, yeah. But do I need it? And is truthfully me not having it, am I going to be worse for having worked out? No. That's my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

What I will say is that when you are fasting, you have to pay attention to your energy levels. Are you going to what I had said to a few people was like, I'm not going to work out as intense as I would if I were not fasting because I don't have that intensity. So I've got to understand the longer that I'm fasting, the less intensity I'm going to have. It might be where I'm doing more of a low intensity bodybuilding thing. I'm not going on a 20-mile run. Like I'm I'm doing some pressing, I'm working on some dumbbell stuff, I'm doing push-ups, like basic things that are not necessarily, they're not not spiking my heart rate, but I'm not trying to go intense. I'm just trying to work out. And I didn't feel any issues with energy. And if you do, don't work out. And we're all different. And for me, I I trained probably from 2013, maybe 2012 or 2013, up until pretty much now, but all the way until I competed, I would train fasted. And when I say train fasted, I would go to like eat dinner, let's say 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock. It would be a little bit later, depending on when I came home at night. I would wake up early in the morning, I would coach, I would train from 6 30 to 9, normally doing later on in my years, the my competition, I would be running. So I might run 60 to 75 minutes of intervals, just running intervals. Or I might do one or two workouts. Then I would coach. And then I would train up until about noon to one, and then I would eat. So I would I would work out all that time. Now, what's funny is one of the times I did a long fast, it was I started my fast at like noon, woke up and I went to the gym, and I remember I was working out, and my wife was like, Nick, be careful you're fasting. And I was like, I'm not even 24 hours in. And I do this every day anyway. You just when if I don't tell you I'm fasting, it's not a problem. But if I tell you I'm fasting, you're concerned about me. So I train I intermittent fasted by accident because number one, I'm not hungry when I train. So I would come in and I didn't want to eat at five in the morning, so I'd have some coffee and then I would train. And then by the time it was like, okay, I can eat or train, I'm gonna train. And then when I knew I needed a break, I'd be like, well, I got an hour, I'll eat. It was that was it. That was how it worked. Now, was it beneficial? No. Did I have periods of time where I did better and I you know planned out my foods and yeah, but most of the time that's how I did it.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Now, did you do any electrolytes or salt or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Um your basic stuff. Like at that point, um, we had I had like the tablets. Okay, you know, but this was before element and liquid IV and and all the supplements. But yeah, no, I just drank a lot of a lot of water, a lot of coffee.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah, and they they say coffee, electrobytes, and bone broth. That's pretty much your main three that you need.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yep, and then everything else was I didn't take protein supplement. I ate, I always had a lot of meat there and I would eat. I ate my protein. Um now I also understood like when I was really hungry at night, I knew I was out of caloric deficit. So there might be two to four days a week where I'd make up a lot of calories at night. I'd carb back load. There's a lot that I would do to make that up, and I could tell when I made it up. Now, I think if we look at uh calories as a week rather than a day, and if you said, Oh, I need 2,000 calories a day, okay, well that's what, 14,000 a week?

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

So, okay, 14,000 a week though, if we break that out and we just get to our 14,000, that doesn't have to be 2,000 every day. There might be a day where you do 1,500, there might be a day you do 3,000. There might be a day that you do your 2,000, then 1,800, and then 2,200. And so I look at I looked at my training more as a week block, and I would say, okay, I'm not gonna be perfect any one day, but if inside of this week I can make it where you did the math and you looked at it and you said, hey, he was perfect for seven days, I would look at it as a week or a month over a day. So I never was stressing about a one-day thing. If I had a bad day, I'd be like, well, that bad day is gonna look really good over a week. Or that week's gonna look really good over a month. So my whole thing was I would break things out longer. So I'd say, hey, I didn't get as much today, but that just means I'm gonna get more tomorrow. That was it.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

If I had a great training day, I'm like, great, let's try to do it again tomorrow, because if I don't, I had it today. And if I don't have it today, I know I'm gonna have it tomorrow. Like I knew over the long term I was going to make it look really good on paper. And that's what I think happens with great athletes, is you might look at them and see them on their worst day, whether it's a game or a practice, and you're like, oh my gosh, maybe they're losing it. And they're just like, no, you just saw me at my worst. But look at the big picture, and that day is a blip because that doesn't normally exist. You just only see pieces of me. So I think what's really cool in what fasting, if you like kind of segue it into that, is fasting is just a choice, and you can do it however you want. Just like training, you do however you want, just like eating, you do however you want. Sometimes when we have these small pockets of time, we like to nitpick and help and fix, and it's like, but what are you doing over the okay? I fasted 72 hours. Let's say I do that twice in a year. That's six days. Well, what are your 359 other days? That's where I make my focus. So my 359 days are so good that those six days of fasting are just helping me. That's that's how I try to look at everything. It's it's not trying to nitpick, it's not trying to fix, it's not trying to say what's right or wrong, it's not trying to, you know, it's it's just saying I want to be my best version. And the way that I do that is not by trying to maintain who I am, it's by saying, if I have a bad day, my bad day should be so good compared to everybody else's that it looks good. And my really, really good days should look impossible to everyone else. And that's it. And when I say everyone else, I mean if you looked at me, you would say, Well, yeah, but that's you. Like, look at you, you're just different. No, I'm the same. I just don't try to maintain, I say, okay, my bad days will look like maintenance days and my great days are new. So the way that I say that is I'm always trying to create new highs, like the new betters, new bests. And my lows, I'm trying to increase my lows and increase my highs all the time. So my lows should feel like, oh, that was a crappy day, but like that five years ago, I would have dreamed for this. That's that's how I try to live my life. So every time that I fast, I just try to be a little bit better at how I'm approaching it, how long I'm doing it. Um, can I be an impact? Can I help other people? Like, who am I becoming through this? And then when I come out of it, am I a better version of myself or am I worse? And if I'm worse, how can I improve? You know, it all comes down to I do something like a fast because it makes me proud of who I am. It helps me become a better me.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

It's hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

It's hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

It is, but just like anything, once you do it, you're like, oh, I can do that again.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

I know it's easy.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Yeah. And then you're like, well, if I go longer, that's gonna be hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

So you've just raised your standard. 72 hours, to me, I'm like, 72 hours, come on. Give me that. It's nothing. Well, the first time I did 24, I was like, I don't know. I don't know. Like, I know I can do it, but like, do I really want to do it?

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

And I think that there are so many of us that like we just make the choice of no because we'd rather not sacrifice. And once you get done though, you're like, it wasn't a sacrifice, it was truly me. That's good for me.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

And you feel really good. Oh, fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

I still feel like I said, I feel super lean. I know I'm already pretty lean, um, but I feel really good. I feel like it makes you want to do it again. Yeah. But I know that it's not beneficial for me to be like, all right, I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

How many times a year do you do?

SPEAKER_00 33:12

So I normally will probably fast two to four times a year, most of them being 40 hours.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Okay. So like quarterly. I would say quarterly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

And again, if if we're really busy and there's a lot going on, I won't, but I don't, and I don't schedule it. I think I probably should have it on the calendar of like, hey, if I looked at a 12-month calendar and just said, you know, May, I'm gonna fast this month. Just so I knew, like, okay, some point during this month I should fast. I do it off heel. When I start to feel bloated or like, uh, maybe I've been kind of eating like crap, maybe I haven't been feeling the best. Um, that's when it'll creep in my head of like you should probably do a fast. And that's normally my my go-to. So again, it was us.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

You know your body's best. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

So if you're thinking like maybe I should try this, try it for 24 hours.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Dude, it's one less thing you gotta do during the day is eat. Oh, yeah. That's the that's another benefit, too. It is, and it's especially if you have a busy schedule.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

And if you can get somebody else to do it with you, yeah, like that's a great way. Again, I had two other guys doing it, and the fact that they didn't, uh I was like, I'm not going to make that. I I would be more mad at myself for saying, okay, fine, I won't do it too. And I would sit in that. And how many of us do that? How many of us say we're gonna do something, and then we get right to the start line and we make a decision not to, and we beat ourselves up about it for a long time. If not, we're still beating ourselves up. So I know that about myself, and that's part of me saying, I'm a better version of me because I don't let that dictate my decisions.

Habits Change And The Mirror Effect

SPEAKER_00 34:53

It's my daughter was struggling with um just kids' stuff and you know, me being a parent and trying to like help her out. I'm like, ah, here, okay, let's let's dive in this. And she was saying, Dad, I I have these habits that are really hard because they're my habits, and I know that they're not good, but I don't know if I can change them because it's they're easy. And I was like, I get that. And she was sitting down and I said, Raise your left hand. And she raised her left hand and she put it back down, and I was like, Alright, go over to the side of the wall. And I made her do all these things, and I was like, Did you did you want to do those? And she's like, No, I'm like, but did you do them anyway? And she's like, Yeah, I'm like, that's how you create new habits. You don't want to do what's what's not easy. All you have to do is force yourself to do it anyway. And I think we live in a society where we don't do what we know we should because we have these habits, because it's hard. Whenever I have somebody try something new or change something or they want fixed, and I'm and I and I'm making them do something completely different. The number one thing they say is this feels weird, this is uncomfortable, and it's always around the change. They're like, this doesn't feel right. And I'm like, change doesn't feel right because it's different. It should feel weird, it should feel awkward, it should feel off, it should feel different, it should feel hard because you're changing something that you've never done. So we think that change is just should feel the exact same as what we currently are doing. And if we were currently doing it, yeah, it'd feel the same, but we're not. So change, what's really awesome about making a change is that once you get far enough along and it starts to feel normal, try to go back to how you were. And then you'll realize, wait, that's hard too. Because you'd have to re-change and go back where you were. So for me, I'm always trying to say, how can I become better? How can I become more efficient? How can I make the tough change so that it becomes easy and it's hard for me to go back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

So I I do have one thing about fasting. Um trying to think of this quote. I think it's like fasting isn't magic, it's a mirror. Um it shows you real quick if you're in control or your habits are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

I like that. I like that. Cause it, yeah, it it isn't easy to not eat. I mean, the number one thing I was the number one thing I kept saying was to my wife, I said, I just miss chewing food. I don't, I'm not hungry. I miss the things like it. It shows you how often you just grab something. Like there'd be times I'd walk over and I'd like open the fridge. Eventually I stopped doing that, but then I'd open the cupboard and I'm like, what am I doing?

SPEAKER_01 37:51

You must be bored.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Yeah. I'm like, this is like, gosh. But it's made me realize I don't. So I was in the habit of like kind of constantly snacking, grabbing food. And I think we all fall on that.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Oh yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Um, but right now I'm not because it's you're like, wait, I went three days without eating. I don't need to eat after one hour. So it it it definitely puts there's a mirror in front of you where you're like, wait a minute. Ah maybe I don't understand my maybe I don't understand this food thing as well as I thought, or I can fall into habits. I fall into bad habits all the time.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

It's trying to pull myself out of them or make the bad not as bad.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

But I still also up to you noticing that you're falling into bad habits.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Yep. And I think that we all notice when we are, it's the matter of like who's pulling themselves out and acknowledging it and saying it. Like, hey, I'm struggling. And I think that's where this podcast try to get around people who are trying to make you a better person. And if listening to something like this helps you to say, like, hey, this is helping me become better, that's the goal. So fasting, man.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Do it. Yep, Jake's gonna do it, so he'll have a little. Yeah, I'm going, yeah. I like I said, I've done it before and I felt phenomenal. Like I said, the before.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

When are you planning on doing it?

SPEAKER_01 39:09

I'll probably do one this weekend. That's the goal. I was gonna do it this weekend. Like starting tomorrow? Yeah. Yep. So my last meal.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

I love doing a noon, noon, noon one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Two like the latest is yeah, that's perfect, actually. So about that, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Well, Jake's then gonna have his.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

I'll have mine after this weekend, so on the next podcast.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

I'll show you my so you're gonna go Friday to Monday? Yeah. So Monday at noon. So you're going 72 hours, essentially, is the is the plan.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Yep. Water, bone broth, and mine was coffee. Oh, yeah, I'll do that too. Yeah, mine was coffee. I do black coffee as it is. So do I.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

So I do, yeah. I espresso. Love it. Um but awesome.

Closing And Subscribe

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Well, thank you for listening. Uh, subscribe, share this. This was the uh solo. I think this is the first solo for me on this. I don't think any of us have done like a solo because we just had the girls. All right, if there's anything you want to hear, let us know. We appreciate you. Um The Rise and Trust Podcast. Out.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

We'll see you.