Time-Restricted Eating

Why metabolic flexibility is the foundation for intuitive fasting

Dr. Will Cole explains that true intuitive eating requires metabolic flexibility first, and that most people mistake hormone imbalances and blood sugar dysregulation for intuition.

"So I wanted to have a functional medicine conversation about this concept of metabolic flexibility"

The four-week cycling protocol for building metabolic flexibility

Cole describes his four-week fasting protocol that cycles between 12:12, 16:8, 18:6, and OMAD windows, comparing it to a yoga class that expands and contracts your metabolism.

"Week one and we four of the book which is just a 12-12 which in the fasting world"

Women and intermittent fasting — a cyclical approach around the menstrual cycle

Cole addresses the common claim that women cannot intermittent fast, recommending lighter fasts around periods and ovulation with increased clean carbohydrates to support hormones.

"I would say doing lighter fasts around your period and around ovulation and I give the specific days everyone cycles different"

Electrolytes as a practical hack to make fasting easier

Cole shares that sipping electrolyte water with magnesium, potassium, sodium and chloride during fasts was a game-changer he initially underestimated.

"Don't underestimate the power of"

Time Restricted Eating: Fasting

Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance.

"Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance."

Zoe's 40000-person fasting study shows inflammation reduction

Discussion of Zoe's landmark study with nearly 40,000 participants on time-restricted eating, showing improvements in energy, mood, hunger, and bloating when meals are shifted earlier in the day and eating windows are narrowed.

"And we conducted the world's largest fasting study. I'm incredibly proud of the fact that we at Zoe managed to get close to 40,000 people participating in a research study where they're adding time-restricted eating into their daily habit, into their daily lifestyle."

Intermittent fasting supports gut microbiome health

The guest recommends intermittent fasting as a key practice for gut health alongside meditation and stress reduction, noting the strong connection between the gut and the brain.

"How do you think the Make America Healthy Again agenda is going so far? At the time of this recording, it's been, I don't know, a couple months or something, right? Yeah, I think the best part of it has been the awareness that it's caused in our society. You know, people who weren't talking about health and wellness are now talking about it and talking about the food that's out there. They're questioning ultra processed foods. So I think the awareness part has been a huge success. Yeah, I'd have to agree with Tina. I think the awareness part is probably the biggest win, right? So some of the ideas are long legislating health, meaning banning these things and banning certain additives and all that. It's a step in the direction of increasing awareness. But what you're trying to do then is force people to make the right choice. And that never really goes well. You know, if they don't really understand why they can't have red dye number 45 in their Cheerios or whatever, they'll just find another way. And they'll, and food companies will find another way, right? So you can ban the existing ingredients. They'll just come up with new stuff. And so I think ultimately it's the awareness and the knowledge that's so important. And one thing that goes along with the awareness is that people are now seeking the knowledge more, which is why programs like this, for example, become really important because people need to go somewhere to learn about what am I putting in my body? What impact does that have? How does that relate to the things I'm feeling? And then what are some of the simple things I can do to modulate my experience and improve my health span? It can be very complicated for people because you hear a lot. There's a million and one things you can do from the moment you wake up to the time you go to sleep. Totally. I feel compassion for people that listen to this show. Yeah. Like every week I sit down, I mean, it's not always about health, but when it is, it's like. It can be complicated, right? Yeah. And everything sounds like the most important thing. Totally. Right? Totally. And so you can get this paralysis by just feeling overwhelmed and overanalyzing every little step you take and every little thing you do. And then I also, one of the things I get when I engage with a lot of people is they feel wholly inadequate because they do see influencers and all that who seemingly live a perfect life, right? They wake up and they have a three-hour morning routine because they're getting up at 4.30 in the morning every night, right? At least it's what they're portraying, right? And they're sleeping 12 hours every night and their diet is perfect. They don't need a single drop of a seed oil or this or that. And it really makes people feel inadequate and a failure in the same way that back in the day, the ultra skinny fashion models used to make people feel fat. Right. And so, and that leads to inaction or, or more negative action to me in ways that I think, um, can, can drive harm towards society. So I think what my goal would be in the way I talk to people about health and wellness and all that is number one, start with at least an 80, 20 rule, you know, 80% good decisions. You're going to make 20% bad decisions. I'm probably somewhere in there. Yeah, which is then you're living, right? Because there's a lot of living that happens in that 20%. And if you live 100% perfect, you lose out on a lot of the aspects of being human. Also go broke. And you go broke. Yeah, exactly, right? We can't all spend crazy money crazy money on everything every little thing and so a lot of it to me is about building your system to a level of resilience where the 20 doesn't break you right and so there's some foundational things that i think are really important for people to understand uh and and i'm hoping that comes out more in some of this make amer healthier again idea. Yeah. I overheard a conversation with two moms saying, RFK better not take away my kids' concrustables. These are lifesavers to me. And I thought, oh my God, that's crazy that she would say that. But then I realized like, this is great. It's still planting a seed in her head. She knows that those are not probably healthy and she's doing them out of convenience, which I'm a mother of three kids. I understand how hard it is when you're getting out the door, but at least it plants the seed in that mother's head and says, oh, maybe I should make different choices for my child. So I think just having people have this top of mind has been really a huge success. Yeah. I think you both raise a solid point that the education and awareness, I tend to be, I wanna be optimistic, but I would say I'm a bit cynical just because there's so many major life-threatening issues that seem to be sidelined by a lot of the leaders in this space, like the freaking bioweapon that's still being injected into babies example and i know you guys you know you're with a company so i don't you don't have to agree or disagree with that uh you know the thing spraying in the sky you know 5g towers next to every freaking church and school i'm like it's frustrating to me because i i don't think it's important that we educate people about fruit loops right but it's like in terms of needle movers and something that's really going to impact society and people's health and longevity, I think some of the things that are getting attention are relatively insignificant versus some of the more, you know, grievous harm that's being inflicted upon people or that they're inflicting on themselves. That's kind of the cynical side of yeah the positive side is like wow i mean a few years ago no one kind of in the mainstream was even acknowledging any of that let alone the fruit loops right so i'm trying to be patient and just allow things to kind of unfold and also one of the things i like to remind people of is um that we are each responsible for our own well-being. I think one of the downsides is us looking to a politician or legislation to fix our lives. It's like, I don't care what the government says. I'm going to do my own research. And if I make mistakes, it's on me. But I think one of the downsides too is people outsourcing their power their power to legislation. When meanwhile, you know, we all like that every time you pick up a fork, it's like you doing it, right? Yeah, it is. But, you know, to Tina's original point, if the knowledge and awareness isn't there, then people don't know they're harming themselves. And these corporations are feeding us all kinds of poison that we're just unaware of. So it's like you can't have informed consent if you're not informed. Yeah. And that's a really important point because the solution to alcoholism and alcoholism risk is not prohibition. Right. So you can have prohibition. That didn't work out so well. It didn't work out so well. Right. You'll find another way. What is the underlying driver of alcoholism, right? Why would someone become addicted to it? That's really where the solution lies. It's not stop the vice or ban the vice. And so that's where my concern is that that's the easy route that it'll end up taking, is that we're just going to ban a lot of things and remove this from that, that but we're not maybe we're not putting enough emphasis on the education side of it and the empowerment and like you said informed consent you have to have the informed side of it right so yeah i mean you think about uh to me in terms of food there's a few main offenders one being aspartame the other one being msg and then probably throw like really gnarly seed oils in there too i'm curious if you guys have your worst offenders but in terms of regulation you take something like msg if you go to the gas station and buy some beef jerky or some chips and you look at the ingredients you're like oh you know i have a little awareness of this i want to make sure it doesn't say monosodium glutium glutamate. You read the label and it just says spices. Right. You know, there's a lot of that going on. And even in the supplement industry, unfortunately. So that part of like the education and awareness, I think is really helpful because as the consumers become more educated, then the demand for products that aren't shady like that grows. Right. And then manufacturing gets cheaper and people can launch companies that have clean products that are actually successful, you know? Yeah. I think just going back to the whole foods, the whole real foods is just exciting to see people talking about that more. Totally. On that note, so we mentioned that it can get very expensive, right? And you guys have a really great company with relatively affordable, very meaningful supplements. One thing I like about Just Thrive is you guys don't just put out like 57 products in your suite for the hell of it. Oh, we got a vitamin C and a B vitamin C. You just kind of stick to your thing, which is mostly gut related. What for each of you would be the top three free health supporting practices or interventions? Don't involve buying a freaking product. Okay. Okay. I would say, okay. I guess I would say avoiding products that have glyphosate and pesticides that are sprayed with. Oh, I forgot glyphosate in my fantasy. Yes. Throw that in there. So I would say avoiding foods that are, you know, laden with glyphosate because those are so disruptive to your gut health. So that does kind of involve buying something because you're going to be buying foods that are organic, but trying to avoid those types of foods. Intermittent fasting has been really good for, that we know now that intermittent fasting actually in the fasted state will help certain bacteria proliferate. I do think that when you're hormonal or in menopausal years, it's a little bit, you have to be a little bit more careful with intermittent fasting, maybe not as long, because it could add stress and contribute to increases in cortisol. But intermittent fasting is a great tool. And then just- That actually saves you money. Yeah, exactly. See? If you're not spending. Exactly."

Balancing mTOR and AMPK for muscle and longevity

Siim Land explains how to bridge bodybuilding and longevity by cycling between mTOR stimulation for muscle growth and AMPK activation through fasting on a daily basis.

"the key is in the balance finding this balance on a daily basis where you stimulate both the aspect of building muscle with muscle"

Autophagy is not an on-off switch — BCAAs during fasting

Land debunks the misconception that one gram of BCAAs completely shuts down autophagy, explaining that basal autophagy occurs constantly and small inputs only temporarily shift the mTOR-AMPK balance.

"one of the misconceptions about autophagy is that that it's almost like this on an off switch"

Growth hormone during fasting protects muscle from catabolism

Land explains that fasting elevates growth hormone which acts as an anti-catabolic hormone protecting against muscle breakdown, and that autophagy itself can protect against sarcopenia through hormesis.

"growth hormone is in economic you build muscle it's more of like an anti-catabolic hormone that protects against muscle protein breakdown and it promotes fat loss"

Eating earlier in the day aligns with circadian metabolism

Professor Russell Foster explains that our ability to clear glucose is much more efficient in the first half of the day, and loading calories at breakfast and lunch rather than dinner aligns with circadian biology. The large evening meal is a recent historical development.

"So, in fact, you're getting rid of glucose very effectively during the first half of the day, but less effectively during the second half of the day. And of course, by having higher levels of glucose, you can generate glucose intolerance, and you're on the way to type 2 diabetes."

Intermittent fasting sparked a biohacking journey

Sim Land started intermittent fasting around 2013-2014 for body composition, which led him deeper into biohacking and longevity research.

"That's the time I started doing intermittent fasting because that was pretty popular back in 2013, 2014 era."