143: I Stopped Eating by the Clock. Here's What Happened

143: I Stopped Eating by the Clock. Here's What Happened
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Today I wanna share with you the simplest health hack there is. It doesn't cost anything, it doesn't require any supplement or any application. It's super, super simple, but one of the most fundamental things you need in order to optimize your health. Welcome to the Primal Shift Podcast. To set the stage, let me ask you a question, and I want you to answer it for yourself.

Have you ever felt hungry? And you say, "Of course, I've felt hungry. I feel hungry all the time. Every day I feel hungry." But no, I, I don't mean, "Ooh, it's breakfast time" hungry, or "I'm bored" hungry, or "Ooh, this looks good" hungry. No, I mean real phylo- physiological hunger And I would even argue that for most of you listening or watching this, you have never felt truly hungry, and that also includes our kids.

Now, I know some people listening to this who have fasted with me for, you know, extended periods. I know you guys know what it, what it means to feel hungry. I know, I get it. But for the majority of people, including our kids, I would argue they don't know what it means to truly feel hungry. Just to give you an example, you know, our kids, you know, go to the fridge and they're, "Oh, I'm hungry, but there's nothing I can eat."

I'm like, "If you don't find any food in the fridge, then you're not hungry." You're craving for something specific, which is different to feeling hungry. Because I would argue that most eating, most of the eating that we do, and that also im- includes me a lot of times, isn't driven by need. It's driven by schedule or by the clock, the environment, emotions, habit.

Just the other day, I went to Miami for a photo and video shoot with a cold plunge, uh, brand that I work with, and the shoot was supposed to start at 10:30 in the morning. I got up at 6:30. I'm like, "Well, I have plenty of time to have breakfast." So I walk over to the restaurant and I sit down and I have a coffee and, you know, I get the menu in front of me and I'm like, "I'm not really hungry, so why would I eat?"

And naturally, my reasoning immediately was, well, because if you don't eat now, who knows when is the next time that you can eat, because there might not be lunch, you know, or there might not be... you know, dinner might be late. Who, who knows? I don't know the schedule, you know? But then I'm like, so what? I mean, even if there is no food throughout the day, it doesn't really matter because what's the worst that can happen?

I'm gonna fast. That should not be a problem because if you cannot or if I cannot operate on a high level while if I have to skip a meal or two, then there is something fundamentally wrong that I need to work on. Now, I know that I can operate, and that's why I said, "You know what? I'm not going to eat And there are a couple of hormones involved in all of this, you know, that I wanna briefly touch on so you know what's going on.

Because by knowing what's going on when you feel something, that I think then is makes it much easier to say, "Okay, I acknowledge what I'm feeling, but I'm not r- responding or reacting to it because I know what it is, and it's not, it's not important." And one of those hormones is ghrelin. You know, it's the hunger hormone.

And unfortunately, that hunger hormone gets or trains to your schedule. If you eat at noon every day, you, you will feel, quote-unquote, "hunger" at noon whether your body needs fuel or not. I mean, obviously, if you're, if you just ate before then, you know, your, the hunger you feel might be, might be very little.

You might barely feel it. But everything else being equal, you will feel a version of hungry based on a schedule, you know? And so that pang at your usual mealtime is often a conditioned alarm and not necessarily a fuel gauge. And the other nuance is, you know, the difference between cravings and hunger.

Those are not the same things. Cravings are usually very specific. If you wanna eat something sugary, sweet, salty, uh, that's a dopamine hit that you're craving really, and not, not fuel in the traditional sense. Real hunger is nonspecific. You know, your body wants energy, not a particular flavor. And

The one test I alwa- what I tell my kids is, you know, if they're like, "Oh, I'm hungry, but I don't feel..." I'm like, "Well, if you're hungry, you know, would you eat a plain steak right now or eggs or an apple for that matter?" And if the answer is no, I wanna have X, Y, Z, then that's a craving and, and not hunger.

And so giving into those cravings, giving into your ghrelin, uh, knocking on your door because it's a specific time of the day, you know, that can very easily then lead to constant grazing that keeps insulin en- um, elevated and that's not a good thing. Because insulin is a fat-storing hormone, and for most of us, we don't wanna store more fat and conserve more energy for a fight that will likely never come, right?

And, you know, going back to that, uh, to the trip to Miami a couple of days ago, I actually just came back last night, um, as of this recording, and I had a very heavy meal. I ate... I went to a Brazilian steakhouse and I had about-- and I ate about two pounds of meat the night before. And so I woke up and I wasn't hungry.

I was still fueled, you know? Could I have eaten? Sure. M- You know, I, I certainly ate in similar occasions in the past where I'm like, "Well, now is the time because I don't have time later. Let's just eat." You know? But that's not really a good thing because if you eat when you're not truly hungry, how do you know when you're satisfied?

How do you know when to stop? Now- There is another, you know, nuance to that where you can get a little bit more leeway depending on what you eat. Now, if you eat a whole, whole, uh, a high protein diet, so if I would've had more steak and eggs for breakfast, it would have likely not negatively impacted me in a meaningful way because I ate only protein.

But if your giving in means eating, you know, pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast or cereal or whatever, then it's a whole different ballgame because it needlessly elevates your blood sugar, it needlessly elevates your insulin levels, and it has a cascading effect that is all not good for you, you know?

In, in now in my case, you know, the shoot, the photo shoot worked perfectly fine, actually was very clear in my head because I was probably getting into ketosis. There were ketones in my bloodstream. My brain was working really well. The video shoot went incredibly well. And then later on it turned out for lunch I actually had some food and, and then I ate because then I was genuinely hungry and, and I ate.

But there was no reason to eat before. And the point, the one thing that you really have to ask yourself when you are in a situation where you're like, "Okay, if I don't eat now, I don't know when I'm gonna eat next." And of course, you know, if you're out in the wild and you know that you might not have food for days or possibly weeks, by all means, eat when you have the opportunity.

But in our modern life, that's what I'm really referring to. So if you maybe have an early flight, if you have a meeting, if you have a photo shoot like I had, and you have to recognize or, or you think about, well, if I don't eat now, I don't know when I'm gonna eat next, what is the worst that can happen?

The worst that can happen is that you have to skip breakfast. You might have to skip lunch, maybe worst case scenario, so to say, you might even have to skip dinner, but chances are it's only about skipping breakfast and then having only dinner, but nothing in between. What is the worst that can happen?

The worst that can happen is that you got a free 24-hour potentially fast, that's incredibly good for you. That improves your metabolic, metabolic flexibility. It turns you into fat-burning mode or it switches on f- fat-burning mode. There are a lot of benefits to doing that. You don't even have to plan it.

You don't have to force yourself to fast. It just comes naturally. So always, whenever I have the chance, take that opportunity because only good things happen when I'm forced to skip a meal. Nothing bad is gonna happen. If you fall apart if you have to skip that breakfast or maybe the breakfast and the, the lunch, then there is def- I would highly encourage you to intentionally do that more often because your metabolic flexibility is not where it should be.

You should not be falling apart. And so, you know, there's, there's only a... there are only pros of doing this. Now, here is what I would like you to consider. You know, just once as an experiment. We have to interrupt this episode for an important message from your feet. They've had enough of being crammed into traditional shoes.

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And now back to the episode. Go a day without food.

You know, you can have water, you can have salt. Black coffee and tea is fine too. I mean, I would not put... no, no honey in the tea and no milk in the coffee, but just, you know, plain liquids, sugar or calorie-free liquids, um, and water and nothing else And it's not about weight loss or about, you know, improving your longevity or whatever.

This is just about calibration. Calibrating your baseline, understanding what it truly means to feel hungry. Because likely at the end of that, if you've never done it before in particular, at the end of the 24-hour fast, you will likely feel what is true hunger, and you will be able to then differentiate between a craving or a hunger pang or a pseudo hunger with true physiological hunger, where I'm like, "I want fuel now.

It doesn't really matter what it is, plain yogurt, plain steak, an apple, whatever. Give me anything. I'm hungry." You know? Re- that real hunger, you know, that's, that's, that's quiet and, and physical. You know? It's, it's, it feels just very different, but you need to be able to recognize that and understand it so you can then really make decisions based on, on, on understanding what, what it is that you feel.

You know? It's not this fuzzy or urgent kind of thing where, you know, y- when you're truly hungry, you stop caring about flavor. You know? You'd happily eat anything, something plain. And once you've understood that, then, and you go out and say, "Okay, now, you know, it's, I just had breakfast. Two hours later I feel hungry again.

Maybe that's just me being stressed." And I have that too. You know? Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm immune to any of that. Sometimes, you know, we, we have breakfast, I go to the computer, I, you know, something very stressful happens, and one and a half, two hours later, I get up, I'm like, "I, I wanna eat something."

You know? That's my body telling me, "We need fuel for a fight or to run away." You know? Even though it's only something meaningless at the end of the day. Our life is not threatened, but my brain doesn't know the difference. You know? It's like, "Fuel up, fuel up. There is a fight coming or, you know, something that we need to be prepared for."

And recognizing that and saying, "Okay. Hey, there is nothing is going on," and suddenly it goes away. But even if it was real hunger, the other thing you should understand is that hunger doesn't go up, up, up, up and gets more and more and more and more and more. It actually comes in waves. It goes up, and then it goes down.

You know? That's the other thing. Even when you're fasting for long and you're feeling, "I can't do it anymore. I can't do it." Suddenly I'm like, "You know what? I don't feel hungry anymore suddenly." You know? It, that's, that's the only reason why you can sustain longer day or multi-day fasts, because you're not getting getting hungrier every hour.

It comes and goes. And if you, let's say, you know, and, and I do this occasionally as well, especially in, in afternoons. You know, I, I had my breakfast maybe let's say around 10:00 AM, and then I have a very stressful work. You know, I, I do, uh, respond to comments, you know, record videos, record a podcast, you know, do crunch the numbers for MK Supplements, whatever it is.

You know, I'm like, "Okay, I'm drained. I'm, I'm incredibly... You know, I, I need to take a break." And then suddenly feel like, oh, I'm, I'm... I get hungry, you know? And depending on what time of the day it is and, and what it is right now, if I wanna deal with that in a certain way by doing breathing or by, you know, going outside, by being in nature for a little bit, I might just, just grab, you know, a piece of meat, a meat stick maybe.

And, and I've noticed that by, by tricking my body into, hey, you're getting energy, even though it's not really getting energy, it's getting protein, nothing but protein, you know, I immediately feel better. And that is for me then always proof then, well, well, that was not true hunger. That was also a craving caused by a spike in cortisol, but at least I confirmed that with protein and fat and not carbohydrates, you know?

And so if you wanna give in, if you feel like you need to give in for whatever reason, do it with protein and with fat, animal protein or animal fat, and it'll, it'll likely not have any negative impact. If anything at all, you know, it'll increase your total protein intake and that might help you, you know, with either maintaining or building muscle tissue.

Um, and it's not gonna spike your blood sugar or do anything that could be detrimental to your health. I mean, obviously try to avoid those stressful situations as you can. Find ways to mitigate them in other ways, uh, not by eating, because also your body gets trained to, to do that. But if you feel like you need something or if you feel like you might be truly hungry, grab a piece of meat.

You know, grab a, a protein, um, a beef stick or, you know, a carnivore bar or something like that. You know, something that's, that's no carbs. But the one thing, you know, with all of that, that I would like you to To go away with or to, to, to take home, so to say, is to try your best to eat only to true hunger.

Not to the clock, not to an emotion, not to you being anxious. Um, eat when you're truly hungry. Because if you do that, it's then also very easy to stop eating when you're full. If you eat when you're not hungry, how do you know when you're full? You know, that's... it's, it's fair- fairly simple to, to understand why that is.

Now, obviously, you know, if you're, you know, t- if you have certain medical conditions, if you're a type one diabetic or whatever, if you're on certain medications, that messes with all of that, you know. Talk to your doctor before implementing, you know, any of the things that I say. But generally speaking, you know, you need to learn to understand yourself.

You need to understand the signals your body is try- is trying to send you, including the hunger signals with certain hunger and satiety hormones, ghrelin and leptin being those two. And, and then use it wisely. But start, you know, maybe with that one-day fast. You know, it's, it's not about the fasting per se.

The fasting here is just a tool to help you calibrate. And do that every so often, you know. E- even if you don't care about fasting for longevity or for certain health benefits, do it for no other reason than to recalibrate yourself and find out how it feels when you're truly hungry and what is everything else.

And that then will guide you, hopefully, to make better dietary decisions and better food intake decisions, so you eat only when you're hungry and you stop when you're full. And if you pair that then with an appropriate diet, so by eating high protein, high fat, you know, high animal protein, high animal fat, and, um, and lower on carbohydrates, you know, everything else is gonna fall into place as far as nutrition is concerned.

It makes it then much simpler. It doesn't really make sense to embark on a, on a fancy or complicated diet if you don't really understand when you're hungry and when you're full. So I hope... It's fairly simple. It's fairly straightforward. It's common sense really, but I think we, we sometimes forget the foundation, the basics, and worry about more complicated things.

You know, counting this, counting proteins, count- you know, eating certain things, not eating certain things. Start with the basics. You know, unless you already have that down, start with the very basics. You know, understand when you're hungry, eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full. With that, we're gonna wrap it up.

I hope you, um, learned something. If not, maybe you know someone who can learn from that, so share it with that person. And, um, if you have any questions, of course, as always, let me know, shoot me an email, comment if you're watching this on a platform supporting comments. Until next week.