I've tried virtually all different kinds of fasting that there is. 3D fast, 5D fast, 7D fast, alternative fasting, and I do have to say that I don't see like a real reason or benefit of going for like super long fasts. That's why in this video I'm gonna talk about why I'm no longer doing extended fasts. Make sure to click like and subscribe as well for future videos about what up them as you can help and performance. Giri! Hey, welcome back to the channel, my name is Steve Lund and I've done independent fasting for over 8 years by now. And during that time I've also implemented many types of extended fasting. The human body is incredibly resilient in that sense, like we can go for many days without eating at all. And it doesn't really have any huge negative effect on your performance as well as your well-being. However, after so many years of doing this, I have to say that I won't recommend going for like very long extended fasts. In my opinion, I think that any long, like 10-day or 14-day fast, etc. They're kind of silly, the definitely not needed when you're looking for some sort of health benefits. Like many times people who are doing extended fasts than the rationale for doing that is that trying to go into like a deeper state of atology or they try to activate different kinds of longevity pathways inside the body. Now there are animals that are showing that extended fasting does increase atology proteins and it does have like some other beneficial biomarkers activated as well, such as folks who are proteins or twins, etc. that are considered to be beneficial for longevity. Wait a minute! Obviously the most visible and clearest effect that happens would be just severe weight loss. Like you would lose a lot of weight if you fast for like let's say 7 or 10 days and it does have, let's say positive health effect on your body if you do that, but you know it's not necessarily caused by the fasting in that scenario, it can also be just caused by the severe calorie restriction and the weight loss that you experience. Like if you lose even a little bit of weight if you consider yourself healthy, then that calorie restriction and that weight loss will inevitably have a positive effect on almost all of your biomarkers. Like you would see a reduction in your lipids, your cholesterol levels, your blood sugar levels insulin, and all those things will improve just by virtue of weight loss and calorie restriction. You don't necessarily need to go like a very long fast to see those effects of course if you go for a fast for 7 days, then you're going to get those effects faster. Like you will see the weight loss and you will see the improvements in your biomarkers much faster if you fast for 7 days as opposed to being under calorie restriction for 2 weeks. And I guess that's one of the reasons why people may like to do this extended fast as well. And I can empathize and I can agree with that in that sense. Like I personally would also prefer to do like a 3 or 5 day fast as opposed to being under calorie restriction for your months upon end. However, it still doesn't mean that there is like some sort of necessity for going for like an extended fast even for these biomarkers when it comes to longevity. This entire topic about topology and this longevity pathway is not very clear. We don't have any real human data and no human studies showing that first of all that these biomarkers are beneficial for longevity although they are associated with aspects of health spend and the life span in other species we don't know it depends on the price to humans. And second of all, we don't know that whether or not the fasting is the most effective way of doing that and whether or not they actually will carry over those effects in actual longevity. This is a point! There's also going to be a lot of negative side effects that you may experience from extended fasts. Your thyroid function will decrease significantly. Your metabolic rate, your lipid levels will go down quite severely, at least during the fast. Of course you can like reverse those things once you start eating again. Like it's very normal for your metabolic rate and thyroid function to drop down under energy restriction even calorie restriction will do that. But the problem is that if you are doing a very long fast, three, seven, ten days, then that drop in metabolic rate and lipid levels and thyroid function, you can stick around for definitely many months after even you've stopped the fast. So in my opinion it's not really worth it especially if you're rather healthy and lean already. Then going for this severe long fasting and calorie restriction is just not worth it. In my opinion you're going to lose your muscle mass, you're going to lose fat and weight obviously. But that's not necessary, like worth it if you take into account all the other things that may come with that, like your drop in metabolic rate and thyroid function etc. This is not just something that I would do to my body if it's already healthy and functioning optimally. Like you don't need necessarily to go for these long fasts, to activate a autophagy in a first place and you can activate all these different long-degenerative pathways with exercise, for example, and you can mimic extended fasting with just severe exercise. I think overtraining is probably much healthier for you than extended fasting. Like if you go for let's say a few days where you're just grinding yourself with exercise, I think that's even healthier than this extended fasting for a week. Because you're going to get all the other adaptations that you get from exercise as well and you're going to get this positive aspect of increased fitness, cardiovascular fitness, muscle mass and bone density and all those things that you don't see from fasting. With fasting, extended fasting, you do see like this increased biomarkers of longevity etc. and weight loss and those things. But you don't see this increased fitness aspect. And muscle mass itself is also quite important for health and longevity. I think muscle mass and muscle strength itself will be one of the best predictors of overall vitality and health span. Like if you have just muscle, everything else will improve as well as a result of that and it takes less effort to stay healthy if you're kind of skinny fat or obese or you don't have muscle at all. And it's really hard to kind of maintain good biomarkers whereas you have even just a little bit of muscle and strength, then your biomarkers and your blood results, those are going to stay optimal even without even trying that much because your body is just functioning better. Now, everything I say in this video is kind of referring to this extended fast. 5, 7 days probably, anything less than 5 days, I still think is quite okay. Like a 3 day fast isn't going to wreck your metabolism, it's not going to make you lose muscle, it's not going to lower your thyroid that much in a reversible way. And yeah, everything less than 5 days is still fine and I think that it's kind of okay to do every once in a while, maybe like a few times a year, you're not going to see any decrease in your overall health and fitness by doing that. But if you're going for like 7 day, 10 day, 14 day fast, as some people do online, then yeah, I think that you will have quite a lot to lose. Or it's kind of like a lazy way out of not doing the other things that will contribute to your health and anxiety, like exercise. I think exercise is more important than fasting for overall health and longevity. Calibration itself is also needed, like even if you do let's say a 10 day fast, you lose all the weight, you see improving the biomarkers, but then you like, you know, gain that weight back by overeating again over the span of the entire year, then you're still not improving your health, even if you do like a 14 or 30 day fast even let's say, you're still not improving your health. So in conclusion, I do think that a 3 day fast, 48 hour fast, 5 day fast at max is fine. Like if you can do them a few times a year, what you will see is a better biomarker, as you will lose weight, calorie restriction, but that can also come with a bit of like negative side effects. Like you can start to binge after you break the fast, you can see a drop in your metal rate, the entire function, etc. Going for a super long extended fasting like 10 days and beyond is definitely not what I recommend and I don't see any like real benefit to doing them either that you wouldn't get from anywhere else. If you want to learn how to optimize the end of fasting and do it for improved body composition and health, then check out my inner and fasting video course. But under that, thanks for watching this video, make sure you click the like, subscribe, notification bell as well, my name is C, stay optimized, stay empowered.