Fasting has incredible benefits for your body and your spiritual health. Fasting can also help you heal many long-term medical conditions. I’m joined by Dr. Daniel Pompa, an expert in cellular health, to talk all about fasting.
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About Dr. Daniel Pompa
Dr. Daniel Pompa earned his Doctor of Chiropractic degree at Life University’s College of Chiropractic in Marietta, Georgia in 1995 where he graduated second in a class of 150. His journey back to health continued to lead him to a voracious passion to research and learning beyond what is often readily understood.
Daniel explains that our bodies are capable and built to fast. For centuries, our bodies have faced food shortages that they’ve had to survive through. The truth is that our bodies thrive and heal when we fast for any period of time.
Fasting can transform your health. Daniel shares some personal stories of how fasting has helped cure his son’s skin condition and how Cameron George’s body innately knew how to heal itself through a fast. He encourages you to listen to Cameron’s full story in his podcast episode, How to Biohack your Fasts with Cameron George.
There are so many different ways that you can fast. Daniel explains how you can start with a partial fast, one that lasts a day or two, to help you transition into his preferred fast - the 5 day fast. Daniel also details out what exactly happens to your body during a fast and why they’re so beneficial for everyone to do.
If you’ve never done any kind of fast before, it can be a daunting experience to approach. Daniel helps to ease your fears by explaining what you should expect to feel during a fast. From initial hunger pains, perhaps some unexpected body aches, and then the clarity of mind and body that comes.
Another type of fast we talk about is a dry fast - where you drink no water for the duration of your fast. There are two types: a hard dry fast and a soft dry fast. The difference between a soft and hard dry fast is that while undertaking a hard dry fast you don’t even shower as your body can absorb the water through your skin!
Finally, we discuss the spiritual links to fasting. Most religions observe some type of fasting and there are many spiritual benefits to the practice. Daniel explains that the process of fasting brings your mind clarity and often results in mental, emotional, and sometimes physical breakthroughs.
Have you ever participated in a fast? How often will you include fasting in your year? As always, you can ask me anything and let me hear your thoughts in the comments on the episode page. If you have questions, email team@drannacabeca.com.
In This Episode:
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Why we’re programmed to fast
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How fasting can transform your health
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What a partial fast is and how it helps you transition to a full fast
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What happens to your body during a fast
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What you should expect to feel during a fast
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How you do a hard and a soft dry fast
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What the spiritual links and benefits of fasting are
Quotes:
“The body gets rid of bad cells. We’re program to fast to get rid of these bad cells. They build up in all of us, they’re called sebaceous cells; cells that live too long.” (15:09)
“Not everyone has to do an extended fast. I believe multiple 5-day fasts do the same thing.” (23:27)
“When you need a breakthrough, for a family member, for something that you’re looking for in your life, something bigger than you: fast. Because fasting creates breakthroughs.” (37:02)
Resources Mentioned
Buy Beyond Fasting Book by Dr. Daniel Pompa
Listen to Episode 282: How to Biohack your Fasts with Cameron George
Find Dr. Daniel Pompa on Facebook | Pinterest | YouTube | Twitter
Join the KetoGreen Community on Facebook
Buy Keto-Green 16
Transcript:
Dr. Daniel:
The body has an inborn ability to heal, and fasting harnesses that like no other therapy. It's the oldest therapy known to man. Every religious disagrees on everything, even prayer, except one thing, fasting. This is not something new. I think people are just now hearing about it. I mean for good reason, there's been some new studies that really have shown us why fasting is just transformative.
Dr. Anna:
Why would we fast? There certainly are many reasons for us to fast, and many ways to fast as well. So today I'm going to get into that with a dear colleague of mine, Dr. Daniel Pompa, author of Beyond Fasting, this excellent book and resource to get you exercising that fasting muscle.
Dr. Anna:
Hi everyone. It's Dr. Anna Cabeca, I'm the girlfriend doctor. It is my mission and my passion to help women live better lives, before, during, and after menopause. So welcome to The Girlfriend Doctor Podcast, an intimate place for intimate conversation. And remember, I am here for you. You can ask or tell me anything. No shame, no guilt, no apologies. We pull back the curtain on all things related to women's health. You name it, we talk about it. We're all about shining a light on our overall wellness, mind, body, and spirit. So let's get started.
Dr. Anna:
And today my guest is Dr. Daniel Pompa. He is a respected leader in the health and wellness space, educating practitioners around the world, and the public, on the origins of inflammation driven disease. The therapeutic application of the ketogenic diet, fasting, ancestral based health approaches, cellular healing, and detoxification. Trained as a chiropractor, his authority is rooted in his own battle, having overcome neurotoxic illness and heavy metal poisoning using his own unique cellular detoxification strategies. A relentless self experimenter, Dr. Pompa has a passion for healing others. He's a true warrior of a from pain to purpose mindset. And he speaks about removing the cause of toxicity and inflammation, going upstream and following a multi-therapeutic approach to health and healing. Dr. Pompa and his wife, Merily, live in Park City, Utah with their five children, two dogs, and two cats. I know you guys are going to love this. Here we go.
Dr. Anna:
Dr. Dan Pompa, what an honor to have you hear on my Girlfriend Doctor podcast. Welcome.
Dr. Daniel:
Glad to be here. You have been on mine, and here I am. I'm so glad to meet your audience.
Dr. Anna:
Well I was so thrilled for your book coming out, Beyond Fasting, because what a great title, too. Because we're all talking now about fasting, intermittent fasting. Tell us a little bit about your story with fasting, and how you recognized it to be such a powerful clinical modality. You are one of the world leaders in fasting and using it in clinical health.
Dr. Daniel:
I was into it when it wasn't even cool. Now it's cool. I've been waiting for you all. Here we are. Back in the 90s is when I really got into it. I just have a fascination with the innate intelligence in the body. The body has an inborn ability to heal, and fasting harnesses that like no other therapy. It's the oldest therapy known to man. Every religious group disagrees on everything, even prayer, except one thing, fasting. This is not something new. I think people are just now hearing about it, I mean for good reason. There's been some new studies that really show why fasting is just transformative.
Dr. Daniel:
I can tell you, as you know I coach doctors around the world and we would say, "Look, these impossible autoimmune conditions and complicated conditions, we could never help them without fasting." It is such a powerful modality. And I believe that humans are genetically programmed to fast. Without it, I believe, we'd develop disease. With it, I believe not only do we prevent disease, but I believe we can beat disease.
Dr. Daniel:
I interviewed Thomas Seyfried, he wrote the book, Cancer is a Metabolic Disease. And he said, "Look, one extended fast a year can decrease cancer 95%." Clinically we see it. So we're programmed to fast, we're just not. So we need to purposely do this, whereas ancient cultures, they were forced into it. They had environmental changes, lack of food, droughts. Today, we need to purposely fast to transform our health.
Dr. Anna:
Exactly. And I think that's such a key, to transform our health, that it is transformative, and beyond intermittent fasting. So what do you say to the person who says, "Well I get hypoglycemic. I'm going to have a hard time. There's no way that I can go even 12 hours without food." What do you say to that person?
Dr. Daniel:
I say you have a big cellular problem. Obviously if you haven't been diagnosed with diabetes, it's coming because you may have been diagnosed with hypoglycemia, which is the front side of pre-diabetes. Look, that's a problem when you can't go without food that long this is what's happening. Your cells can use two things for energy, sugar or fat. That's it. So what happens is most people, we're going to talk about some of the causative factors. Of course the standard American diet, but even certain toxins can affect the cell, your cells in the body from hearing hormones that teach, or tell I should say, your cells to burn fat.
Dr. Daniel:
So when we're not eating, our healthy cells should burn our stored fat. So I haven't eaten today, yet I'm not hungry because I'm eating. I'm eating my stored fat. That's what should happen. But, so many people are broken in this area of the cell where you burn fat, that you don't. So guess what happens? One of two things. If you go long enough, your body will just start breaking your muscle down, to break your muscle down into sugar. And that's not good, because that lowers your metabolism. Or, this is a better one, is it doesn't want to break its muscle down, it wants so survive. So it'll just tell you to eat. It'll give you cravings for carbohydrates, because the point is it needs the sugar to survive. If it wasn't broken it would simply switch over and burn your stored fat as energy, and you would forget about food. Simple as that. That's what's happening.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Have you ever had a client where you weren't able to get them to do extended fasting?
Dr. Daniel:
My book that you brought up, it really is week one, two, three, four, five, up to a fast, week six. And then week seven is how you break the fast. You don't just run a marathon. So I would never expect any of my clients to just go out and run a marathon, you train for it, to get the best results, even to finish. So that's what the book's about. Okay, I don't just expect you to fast, you can actually work up to a fast. Even with that said, some people, their first fast is best to do a partial fast, which is getting your calories under 1,000, depending on body size. Sometimes it's less. And getting your protein under 20 grams a day. And that's called a partial fast, and sometimes that's the first fast.
Dr. Daniel:
But we'd do five days, years ago, before there was ever research around this. We just said, "Well, clinically we just see the best results by going at least five don't ays." Why? It takes about three days to overcome all the garbage. You feel rough for those first three days, you do. Now, you follow the program in my book, you don't feel as rough. That's the whole point of it. But typically you feel rough those first three days. And then day four, there's a breakthrough that happens. And what we know now happens on day four, scientifically, is your body hits what is called max autophagy. What that means is it's getting rid of all the bad cells in your body. It's that smart. It gets rid of the bad cells for energy. It needs energy, it needs amino acids. So it's breaking those down. It's so smart, it doesn't take away your good cells, it goes after the ones that have bad DNA that could potentially cause cancer.
Dr. Daniel:
Your immune cells that are living too long, they're called senescent cells, and they cause mischief: inflammation, autoimmune, allergies, food allergies. It's get rid of those. That's how we can shut down those bad autoimmune conditions. So this autophagy happens and the body's getting rid of all these bad things. It's maxed out around day four, and then you start feeling better. And then your ketones go up, and we hit what we call max autophagy. Day five, something magical happens. Every time your body gets rid of one of these bad cells, guess what it does? It stimulates a stem cell to replace it with a young, vibrant immune cell, or whatever cell that it took. It could be a skin cell, could be a muscle cell. And now you start regenerating. So you get maximum autophagy on day four, and you get maximum stem cell day five.
Dr. Daniel:
So back before we knew the science, we just knew that magic happens day four, let's ride it out one more day to day five. And we even found out, with new science, that day five you have this maximum growth hormone rise. So five days, there's magic there. And that's what the book's about.
Dr. Anna:
And what is the maximum you can eat during those five days, to get those results? Because you said under 1,000. Now one thing that we've done in our groups, intermittent fasting, extended water fasting, 72 hours. And then sometimes longer fasts, however that looks for people. But definitely working them up with keto green shakes the first couple days or the first few times they do it, just really focusing on, too, in my programs, get alkaline before you go into a fast, and just supporting your body. So with the fasting mimicking diet, they're still eating during that. Is there a magic formula for that?
Dr. Daniel:
The fasting mimicking diet took a partial fast, which I've taught and utilized for years. I actually learned it from a Frenchman, Albert Mosseri, before anyone heard the word fasting mimicking diet. Longo, in his group, reached out to me and I love them and I love the research they're doing. They took it and put it in five boxes for five days.
Dr. Daniel:
The only issue that my doctors have with it is there's some inflammatory foods that some people don't do well with. Some people don't do well with SIBO people get a little bloating from it. So in my book I have a partial fast on how you can design it yourself with foods that you like. So for example, the foods you focus on in your program, The Green Keto, you could literally build that five day partial fast out of everything. I would love for you to do that, for my group, actually. So let's do a partial green fast, which would be wonderful because you've really focused in on some specific foods. You can do that with what I've laid out in the book. You can literally go through there and pick your foods. That's what I like about a partial fast.
Dr. Daniel:
I'm going to be honest though, metabolically I will put someone on a partial fast first. Psychologically it's easier, "Oh, I get to eat. Oh, I can do that." Okay I'm limiting my calories to under 1,000. When I do it, I stick around 500, honestly. And again, you can pick the foods you want in that 500 calories. Bigger people can definitely do around 1,000. So body size, I talk about that in the book, is relevant. Here's what people forget, protein is important. If you go over 20 grams of protein in a day, in those calories, you'll shut autophagy off. So you do have to limit the protein to still getting this autophagy going.
Dr. Daniel:
So the magic is that combination of low protein, low calories. And again, you can build it to the foods that you want. So here's my final point, to answer that question. So I actually don't like partial fasting as much, only because it's me. Now this is a personal issue. Once I start eating, I don't like to stop. When I water fast, I just lose my hunger. And again, I lose that day one. I can go 24 hours. It's a busy day, I don't even think about food until I stop. And then I go, "Oh, food." And it's really appetite not hunger, push it off. By day two, I'm done. No problem. Everything in my book I've trained myself to be that flexible, metabolically flexible.
Dr. Daniel:
But the bottom line is, partial fasting, psychologically, is easier. But I think if you're one of those people that have trouble limiting your food once you start eating, you're better off water fasting.
Dr. Anna:
Right. All or none. And I'm with you on that. I think initially to go through and say, "Hey, I'm able to do just a shake only fast," or something like that, is so encouraging. And it does give that confidence like, "Okay, let me go to the next type of fast." I definitely recommend that.
Dr. Daniel:
And that's right. Exactly. The psychological thing without food, you get beyond it. You go, "Okay, I can do it." What you could do is, your shake, the smoothie, the green keto smoothie, all you have to do is dial that in. If you follow the rules you can dial in the same exact smoothie. Which I actually prefer that. If I'm going to do a partial fast, I typically dial my smoothie in to where I can do it twice a day, typically in my eating window. So I'll do on at 2:00 and one at 6:00. But again, at the end of the day I'm still around 500-600 calories and I'm under 20 grams of protein, in that shake. That's easy. You just have to measure what you're putting into the green smoothie, and limit it to that. It's simple. Simple.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Oh I love it. Is that 20 grams the same for women?
Dr. Daniel:
That's why in the book I base it on body size. So 20 grams, for me, I can handle that. I have more muscle. Women, I like to get them under 15 grams.
Dr. Anna:
Okay. Yeah. That's good. Now in your book, love this book, Beyond Fasting, you talk about the seven accomplishments, which I love that, seven accomplishments of fasting.
Dr. Daniel:
Yeah. Look, I talked about autophagy. The body gets rid of bad cells. Again, we're programmed to fast to get rid of these bad cells that build up in all of us. They're called senescent cells. These are, again, I repeat myself, cells that live too long. Here we are in this time, we could be a little bit beyond corona at this point, but the fact is is that when they looked at who is most vulnerable, young or old, in the groups that are getting most sick from corona, it was those who have the most immuno-senescent cells. Old people, they have more immuno-senescent cells. These are immune cells that live too long. They drive inflammation. Oh yeah. They could've died from the virus. Young people can also have too many of these immuno-senescent cells, because they're unhealthy, leaky gut, different things. They're the ones that would be sick for two weeks. And you hear of them, and then you hear of the other people, they didn't even know they had the sick. How do you even know they got sick, right? That's me and you.
Dr. Daniel:
So the bottom line is, is that this autophagy process gets rid of these cells that live too long called senescent cells. Huge. Then it activates a stem cell. Benefit one, autophagy. Benefit two, stem cell creation, which is huge because you're renewing your body. Stem cells is what heals you. Oftentimes you can't get well or an injury won't heal because you don't have enough stem cells. So if you're getting rid of bad cells and getting more stem cells that heal you ... Or you could go pay $10,000 and get stem cells injected or get them for fee. So you can figure that out yourself, it's pretty easy.
Dr. Daniel:
But anyways, so there's two benefits. A third one is my favorite, called energy diversion. When you're not eating, you massively, this is probably a bigger benefit in pure water fasting, you get this massive energy that your innate intelligence now has. And it just goes, "Okay, what am I going to do with it. Oh I'll tell you, I'm going to take these extra stem cells, I'm going to start healing stuff that hasn't healed." So during a fast, typically around day three/day four, you will get this knee pain like, "Wow, why does my knee ache?" Well you probably injured it 20 years ago and your body just didn't have enough energy to drive towards that healing, and enough stem cells.
Dr. Daniel:
I remember when I used to fast years ago I felt kidney pains all the time after day four. My kidneys were still beat up from me being sick years ago. It's a pretty cool thing.
Dr. Anna:
Wow. But that's a huge connection for me, because we're going to talk about this, y'all listening, Dr. Dan Pompa and I are going to talk about something that I'm not recommending any of you do on your own without physician guidance, and having been an expert faster. We are going to talk about something in just a few minutes that I can't wait to talk about with Dr. Dan. But when I dry fasted, that's what we were going to talk about, we'll explain that later. But when I dry fasted, oh man my kidneys were hurting. And I've had such adrenal issues, adrenal fatigue, adrenal stress. And the kidneys hold the energy of fear. And I never even thought about it as a result of energetic issue that here it's working to heal some damaged area in such an extreme way.
Dr. Daniel:
That's it. It's amazing. You really get a respect for the innate intelligence when you fast. And you realize it starts to take these stem cells, this extra energy, and starts healing. I said the body is genetically programmed to fast. Another part of these accomplishments that happen during a fast is your body resets its microbiome. During these times of fast, good and bad bacteria starve down, and it gives your microbiome a chance to reset and raise more good than bad. It kind of fixes that dysbiosis.
Dr. Anna:
And candida, right?
Dr. Daniel:
Yeah. Exactly. It only happens during fasting state. So there's a reset of your gut. And then there's a reset of your DNA, literally. Your body, during fasting times, turns off bad genes that stressors turn on just through living. So again, being programmed to fast, our bodies reset, turn off those bad genes. And it's shown to upper regulate and turn on good genes that make you live longer, healthy, down regulate inflammation. So you see all of that happening during a fast.
Dr. Daniel:
And there's one more I call hormone optimization. So I said that day five you see this massive rise in growth hormone. And that actually starts day one, you start to see growth hormone going up. And why is that happening? The body puts itself into this mode of save itself. It wants to hold onto its muscle in case it has to run from a lion or survive. So it raises growth hormone to do that. Also your cells become very hormone sensitive. And it's so smart. It knows it's producing less hormones to survive, but it makes the cells so sensitive.
Dr. Daniel:
And really when you look at why people can't lose weight, why people don't feel well, hormone problems. It's not the lack of hormones, which everybody thinks, even alternative docs. It's really cell sensitivity to the hormone that becomes the problem. When we look at very healthy people in ancient cultures, their hormone levels are actually really low, but their cells are so sensitive. So during a longer fast you can keep increasing your cell sensitivity to your hormones. So there's seven massive benefits right there.
Dr. Anna:
Massive. And really looking at how we can create insulin sensitivity, right?
Dr. Daniel:
That's right. That's a hormone that your cells become insulin sensitive to.
Dr. Anna:
Right. And they can be hormone resistant and they can be hormone sensitive. And again, that's why I always say it takes more than hormones to fix your hormones.
Dr. Daniel:
That's right.
Dr. Anna:
All right. Now I've got you.
Dr. Daniel:
Now when you said that in my interview I'm like, "Boom. Right there." If it was so easy, then we would just be taking hormones, but no. It makes your blood work look better, but you don't feel better, because it's more than hormones. Absolutely.
Dr. Anna:
And the combination makes a difference. And that whole thing of hormone resistance or cellular resistance to hormone optimization. I'm with you. And the answer is not higher and higher levels of hormone. And so now I'm like man we're going to talk extended fasting and we're going to get into-
Dr. Daniel:
Well we've been talking about extended fasting. That was all that, it was five day fasting there.
Dr. Anna:
That's a five day. Well what's your longest fast, water fast?
Dr. Daniel:
That's extended. I think my longest was about a week, that's all. My wife has done 12 days. My son, at age 13, did 11 days.
Dr. Anna:
What?
Dr. Daniel:
Yeah. So here's that story actually. I was doing a talk and I was doing PowerPoints. He looked over my shoulder and said, "Oh my gosh, what's wrong with her?" She had severe psoriasis all over her body. She had autoimmune. And then the after picture was her perfectly clear. It looked like two different people. And he was like, "Oh my gosh. What did she do?" The reason he was interested is because this was my last child, youngest. So he didn't follow the Pompa program. He had some psoriasis marks because he was always like, "What are these things?" I'm like, "That's the beginning of psoriasis. That's why you need to clean up your diet." He was a carb addicted child. And would never listen to me, but he was getting concerned about this.
Dr. Daniel:
When he said that that woman was the same as what I said he had, and I said, "Simon, hers started just like that," he walked out of the room. And I'm like, "Huh, wonder where that's going to go?" He walked back in five minutes later and said, "Okay, what did she do?" I said, "She fasted and she did my cellular detox." He said, "Okay, I'm starting a fast." I'm like, "All right. Great." You know, "How long do I have to go?" I said, "Five days." He goes, "Okay."
Dr. Daniel:
I thought it was going to last a day. He made it that day, I was stunned. The next day he somehow motivated on. We ended up traveling to New York and were gone for three days, my wife and I. So it was a good thing because he was like, "Okay, I can do it until you get back." So he had a goal. We got back, he was beyond day five. And he went on to 11 days. He kept saying, "Is more better? Is more better?" Because he was carb addicted and overweight. It broke his carb addiction and he never had a drop of psoriasis again. And it broke him through. S if my son can do it, you can do it.
Dr. Daniel:
Now listen, not everyone has to do an extended extended fast. I believe multiple five day fasts can do the same thing. I do about four multiple five day fasts a year. But add one to your year, just add one.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Again, start one day, go to two, go to three, and see. And I always tell clients, ghrelin hormone is the strongest on the second day until you've exercised that muscle. But that hunger hormone's the strongest. Make it through day two and all of a sudden you're like, "Oh man, I'm doing more pushups. I feel lighter. Well I'm doing one pushup," I don't know.
Dr. Daniel:
In my book I break it down, what you should feel each day. Because when you know what to feel each day, like you said, like day two, "Okay, I am hangry. I'm going to kill someone." And it happens around the times you typically eat. If you eat at noon, you better be busy at noon, because you're going to get hangry. When you kind of know what to expect, it does make it easier.
Dr. Anna:
I love that. This is Dr. Anna Cabeca, The Girlfriend Doctor, author of best selling books, Keto-Green 16 and The Hormone Fix. I quickly wanted to share with you that my new book, Keto-Green 16, is finally available. Look inside these pages, beautiful recipes, a 16 day, clinically proven, effective, fat loss, adrenaline boosting, anti inflammatory plan that will make you feel great quickly.
Dr. Anna:
We have used this plan in clients in post-menopause, menopause, and post-menopause, as well as some gentlemen that have joined us along the way. I love it when men are joining alongside their ladies and taking part. And what we've found is an increase in fat loss, a decrease in symptom scores, and a decrease in waste. So we like to see these changes.
Dr. Anna:
In fact, we had one client who's a 67 year old woman who has tried many things. She was diagnosed in the past with breast cancer and had felt that she had hit a wall, and she was just going to have to power through or struggle for the rest of her life. Just within one cycle of Keto-Green 16 she not only felt tremendous, but she said she was happier than she's been in forever, that she could remember. And she was no longer feeling like when is the next shoe going to drop, as far as waiting for another diagnosis. She felt empowered over her own body, and that she has taken this control back. Not to mention losing some weight, improving her blood sugar with a decrease in hemoglobin A1C, as well as some other really important health markers.
Dr. Anna:
Now we've had a gentleman in the plan, his name is Daniel. At 57 years old, with 80 pounds to lose, on blood pressure medicine, at risk for starting blood sugar medicine. He did one cycle of Keto-Green 16 with his beautiful wife, and within 16 days his symptoms dropped tremendously. His blood pressure improved so much that he has to be weaned off his blood pressure medicine. And he lost 30 pounds. I know, crazy right. And what other clients have told me, especially during the quarantine, is that they felt like they were doing something good for their body. They could focus on their health and their resilience, which made them feel much stronger and healthier. And so I encourage you to check it out, Keto-Green 16. And I am pleased to be on this journey with you.
Dr. Anna:
I always look for what is the smallest changes I can make that's going to give me the biggest results, and that's how I ended up doing some dry fasting. And it was that actually I had come across it and then I was reading my Bible and saw on the road to Damascus was blinded by the voice of Jesus. And so he had nothing by mouth, no food, no beverage, for three days. And so that for me was reinforcement. I'm like, "Okay God, I'm going to do 72 hours. I can do this." And that was a prayer fast, and certainly that was a dry fast. That was the first time I did a dry fast. I did three days, and I can tell you I felt amazing day three.
Dr. Anna:
What I felt, and this is what I wanted so much to talk with you about, is what I felt was this, I call it, piezoelectric charge, this really high level of energy. Then I just broke it. You get so really thirsty, and I just wanted to drink something. And I had made my 72 hours. I'm like, "Done."
Dr. Daniel:
That's right. Well there's magic in the dry fast. So just back up a second. Folks, I think you heard her, but we'll repeat it. No food or water, nothing past the mouth. And there's something called a hard dry fast where you don't even shower. Why? Because yeah, your body will suck in the water. It wants to live that bad it will suck in water. So that is a soft dry fast, is where you actually do shower. So you will pull a little water. And a hard dry fast is-
Dr. Anna:
And brush your teeth.
Dr. Daniel:
Yeah. Exactly. And hard dry fast is no shower at all. I just lost 90% of my female audience there. "No shower. Forget it. Done." So soft dry fast, you can still shower and brush your teeth. So why would we do this? Many religious groups do this, for sure. There's a three to one autophagy. So remember I said that autophagy is getting rid of all the bad cells. So you have a three to one, meaning that one day of dry is like three days of water. Now I've got your interest again, I think. Not your interest, but your followers.
Dr. Anna:
Oh no, me too. I love that. I'm glad to hear you say it. Absolutely.
Dr. Daniel:
So why would it be a three to one ratio? Why would we get more autophagy? It's pretty simple actually. Your body needs water to survive. We've all heard, "You can't live without three days of water." Well, that's not true. I'll tell you a really amazing story after I make this point. So your body to survive will bust down fat cells, which carry the most toxins, and obviously they're the ones we really want to get rid of. And it will do that because fat cells hold the most water. So at autophagy it gets rid of these fat cells, and typically it's doing the bad ones, the toxic ones. But what it does is it gets its water that way. So that's why it's three to one autophagy, because your body's surviving and needing water.
Dr. Daniel:
So I had said amazing story. A guy named Cameron, when I took him on as a client he was so sick, I mean death's door literally. He got so bad that he basically was going without ... he couldn't eat, and it went from eight foods, he had such food intolerance, to five, to three, to one. Couldn't eat a food without reacting dramatically. Then he narrowed down to where he could only drink one water, literally one water, otherwise he was reacting. And then all of a sudden he couldn't do that anymore. He was in the hospital. They put IVs in him to save his life, anaphylactic reactions. They basically sent him home to die. They didn't know what to do. Because they're like, "We don't know what to do with him. We can't do anything with him."
Dr. Daniel:
I told his parents, I said, "Listen, the innate intelligence knows. If it doesn't want water or food, let it go. The innate intelligence won't allow him to die, it won't. It'll open something up, just ride it." He went 12 days. Because their question was, "Well how do we know when to try water again?" I said, "He'll get extremely thirsty. His thirst will go away." He was already at that point. I said, "It'll come back, and then just listen to the innate intelligence and start drinking again. And that hunger will come back." That's exactly what happened. Saved his life. And Cameron now develops products for me. He works for my business. Amazing story. My podcast, Cellular Healing TV, that I interviewed you on, I interview him on that. So Cameron George, if you put his name in the search on Cell TV you can see that whole story.
Dr. Anna:
I love that story. I love that story. And that innate intelligence, trusting that innate intelligence. Just thinking of the extended dry fasting that just one day would equal three days of water fast. Now there are challenges to that, certainly. Again, with any of us, we've got to work through it. But what I noticed in my third day was an ... I don't even know where the word came from, like recessed memory in physics possibly, but piezoelectric. So that had just popped into my head.
Dr. Anna:
So I was talking with my dear friend, Dr. Angela Akin, and she looked it up. So here piezoelectric is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials, such as crystal, certain ceramic, and biological matter such as bone, DNA, and various proteins, in response to applied mechanical stress. The word piezoelectricity means electricity resulting from pressure and latent heat. What I felt at the 72 hours, at this third day, was just this lightness, this tremendous lightness. And when I look at that word pressure, on bones or proteins ... because when you're that dehydrated, that compression would cause that pressure, then igniting an electric charge possibly?
Dr. Daniel:
Let me bring some ... You're going to love this. You're going to flip when you see this. One of the things that happens in fasting, and particular dry fasting, to your point. What happens is there's something called membrane potential. The potential across this membrane is life and death, disease/no disease. It allows us to have energy. Healthy people that like gosh they always have enough energy, they have somewhere a membrane potential above 70. So negative 70 millivolts, this is an electric potential. It needs to be there to move nutrients in your cell, toxins out of the cell. That potential, life or death.
Dr. Daniel:
When you get down around 50, these people are sick, they have symptoms.
Dr. Anna:
And very acidic, by the way. Very acidic.
Dr. Daniel:
Absolutely. When you get down around 15, you have cancer at that point. So one of the things that we see is this immediate fix of the membrane. Now again, when you go back out of the fast you end up evolving back because you might have toxic things upstream going on. But the more you do this, the higher the potential. So that millivolt potential, it's the difference of health and no health, life and death, cancer/no cancer, diabetes/no diabetes. All of it.
Dr. Anna:
Higher electric charge.
Dr. Daniel:
That's it. That's what it is. It's an electric charge that your cells need to operate. Without it, it's the most basic thing. And there's other things. We've heard about red light therapy can have a temporary effect on that. PEMF, pulsed electro magnetic fields, they can change that. I'm a big fan of them because they change the membrane potential. But fasting, huge.
Dr. Anna:
Huge. Oh wow. I love this. Dr. Pompa, how exciting. I'm definitely going to bring keto-green fasting into your group. And I'm going to bring your fasting into my group, and we'll do some extended. We haven't done a five day water fast in my group.
Dr. Daniel:
What you could do is start a group and then you could have me on, we'll inspire people throughout the five days. It's a lot of fun. The book brings people up to the fast. So each week you can bring a lesson. Like, "Okay, here we are. Here we are. Hurry." You can add your magic to it. I'm all for it. I love it. Listen, you will resonate with every one of those weeks before the fast. And then, like I said, you will add your magic to it and it'll be awesome. But you bring people up to it, then you walk them through the fast.
Dr. Daniel:
I tell you what, I have fasted over 20,000 people that way. So it's a lot of fun to do big online groups. I've built massive Facebook groups just because fasting, it's transformative. The miracles that happen during those. Listen, I just got goosebumps because you have to understand, we just talked about the physical benefits of fasting. But the reason every spiritual group, every religious group on the planet believes in fasting is because if you want to [inaudible 00:36:05] thing, a breakthrough that you need in your life, fasting is how you do it.
Dr. Daniel:
So Biblically, there's so many stories and I talk about some of them in my book. Jehoshaphat's one of my favorites, because here Israel had three of the biggest armies coming out of the north against them. They were dead. I mean they had nothing to do. So Jehoshaphat did the best thing he could've. He called the people together and he proclaimed a fast for the whole nation of Israel. And they prayed and they fasted. And God spoke in that fast to them. And you know what he did? He moved before them. Those three armies actually turned on themselves and they killed themselves. See that was a problem way bigger than them. And that's what we do with fasting.
Dr. Daniel:
So when we look at when there's a problem, Paul lost his sight. Nothing. Through the water, three days. So the physical, yes. But when you need a breakthrough for a family member, for something that you're looking for in your life, something bigger than you, fast. Because fasting creates breakthrough. I'm telling you, there's a Biblical term called [foreign language 00:36:06], the English is be strong and courageous, but the Hebrew is so much more powerful. It means God has already gone before you and broke through, and moved you into the promise. So as Moses, literally, his last words on his death bed, God spoke through Moses, [foreign language 00:36:06], meaning I've already moved into the promise for you. The resistance, the fear, the 31 armies that you're moving into, I have beaten them back. Trust me.
Dr. Daniel:
So in a fasting state we're putting God to that test and we're saying, "Move before us. Move us into the promise." Every one of us has a promise. It will move us into that promise. It creates breakthrough, that's what I love about fasting.
Dr. Anna:
I agree completely. Before I make a strong decision, I fast and I pray. And actually even with this, at the onset of the quarantine and the coronavirus, and my daughter was in Europe still. I just fasted and I prayed. And really giving clarity, making the best decisions. And also, that piece that surpasses all understanding. And then it also ... I was told to, basically, do my daily lives. So I've been doing my daily lives on my Facebook group, and I'll bring you into that group too and we'll talk about a fast.
Dr. Anna:
But it's exactly that. It's the breakthrough. And why? Certainly it's, for me, uncomfortable doing live speaking or anything, but I have that confidence now and that it's as much for me as it is for other people.
Dr. Daniel:
You know the best part about fasting is when we are weak he is strong. And it puts us in a weakened state. When you understand, you read the Bible, it talks about that weak state is where God moves. It's like when David was at his weakest points in the Bible, that's when God stepped up for him. So at that time we become weak spiritually, emotionally, physically. Spiritually, we actually become stronger, but physically and emotionally we become little weaker, more vulnerable. And then we pray and God moves during those times. I believe it has something to do with that weakness that's created.
Dr. Daniel:
And if you think about it, even the physical breakthrough is what appears to be weak is actually strength. It's really amazing parallels.
Dr. Anna:
It's a rebuilding, a reinforcement, a reconstruction. I always say every great cathedral, cathedral as our body is the cathedral of our spirit, so every great cathedral needs constant renovation, and fasting does that. But also, more than that, this spiritual clarity we get is from ketones. A part of it is this ketones and that higher vibration, that higher electric potential.
Dr. Daniel:
By the way, when we look at studies on ketones, typically its therapeutic values that most people don't reach, 3.5 and above, that really can transform the brain and the microbiome. So when people try to be in keto, a lot of sick people can't reach those therapeutic numbers. Well how do we get there? Fasting. Fasting is the magic. And when Thomas Siegfried, with these cancer patients, one of the things that he learned was ketosis alone wasn't good enough. They needed restriction. And restriction got higher therapeutic values, and more autophagy. So restriction and ketones is what Siegfried realized was the magic for cancer. But I believe it's the magic for our brain too. We need higher numbers of ketones that we can typically only get in a fasting state. We have the restriction. We have the energy benefits. That's why I love keto, but I love keto and fasting. That's what I love.
Dr. Anna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep. Absolutely. Using our own ketones, our own fat to make ketone. Wow. Dr. Pompa, I could talk with you all day. This has just been so wonderful, and I know so wonderful for my community. And I really do, I thank you for your time. Please let people know where to find you, how to get your book, and also your Facebook groups.
Dr. Daniel:
Yeah. My Facebook group is dr.danielpompa. So my name right there, you can see it. Hold that back up. So there it is, it's dr.danielpompa. That's my Facebook. It's what's on the book. And that's my fan page there. You could also go to drpompa.com, that's my website. And I have my podcast, Cellular Healing TV, there.
Dr. Anna:
Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for being with us today. And can get this book anywhere books are sold, too. At drpompa.com, Amazon.
Dr. Daniel:
Yeah. And right now, actually, we're not releasing it to many groups because I haven't went to a publisher yet. So right now the most direct way to get it is if you go to beyondfastingbook.com. You can get it directly for cheaper. Because we haven't purposely released it. It's still in professional editing, but we offered that version. So get it.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for being with us.
Dr. Anna:
What a fabulous discussion. You know I love talking about fasting, and it is a spiritual exercise as well as a tool for optimizing our health. So we will be doing keto-green fasting in our group, as well as some extended fasting. As you've heard, we are committed and supporting each other in our community. Dr. Dan Pompa, as well as I, will be supporting you guys in some extended fasting. I can't wait, because in a community we really, really inspire even greater healing and accountability. I know for me, whenever I'm fasting, you guys have seen me in my keto-green community on Facebook or my Magic Menopause group, I am right there along with you. And that helps me stay with it too. So I am always glad to be here with you.
Dr. Anna:
Speaking of my Magic Menopause community, you know we're open for enrollment a couple times a year, usually once or twice a year. And that's a group where I do the live coaching in a very private webinar setting. And it's super fun. And one of my clients, named Katie, who has been in Magic Menopause for three years now, has been doing some extended fasting as well. And including this last round that I did, right before Easter 2020, we did some extended fasting. And I did two days of keto-green fasting with three days of water fasting. In the past she'd only done keto-green fasting, that is our keto-green shake and bone broth for two or three days. Typically we push for that 72 hours. So this round she was committed to doing water fasting. And she did it.
Dr. Anna:
And what she said was, "Dr. Anna, I feel better than ever. This has really transformed my life and also my confidence. Here I was, at day one, thinking oh my gosh I just want to chew something but I know you said that at day two, that's when hunger can be really tricky. So I made it through, and by day three I was sailing. Thank you so much for this opportunity, I know it's done my body so good. I feel so strong and so much better. Thank you Katie. Thanks for sharing that with us.
Dr. Anna:
And thank you to all of you. I love hearing from you. I love hearing how our community, my work and my books, my programs, have effected you in some way. It does really help us all keep going. And you, again, are inspiration to others. So keep sharing your stories with me, and I'll continue sharing as well. And a big shout out just for everyone who has bought my latest book, Keto-Green 16. I'm thrilled with all the positive feedback and that it is a best seller. I'm so grateful. I love it. And then also, don't forget, my book The Hormone Fix, my magnus opus you guys, a book that everyone should read. Let's do Keto-Green 16. Keep taking it into your communities. And again, I thank you. Thank you for being here. This is Dr. Anna. Thank you for joining me and My Girlfriend Doctor podcast. Til next time.
