Healthy habits are crucial in living a balanced, successful lifestyle. But nowadays, it might be hard to tell the difference between a healthy habit, and one that isn’t so good for you. It’s easy to lose sight of yourself when you’re chasing a bigger picture – but that’s often a fault that will keep you from reaching those goals faster.
Dave Asprey, the founder and chairman of the Bulletproof 360 high-performance coffee
and food company and the creator of Bulletproof Coffee joins us on this episode of Making Bank. As a New York Times best-selling author and the host of an award-winning podcast, Dave has worked with the world’s most renowned doctors, researchers, and scientists to uncover the most innovative and effective techniques for enhancing mental and physical performance.
Dave has discovered a healthy habit that changed his life: fasting. Not only has fasting help him become physically in shape but has helped his mental health. Learn how improving your health can begin with understanding the how and why of the benefits of fasting.
Tuning Your Fast
When it comes to fasting, a lot of people think of the 12 hours fast in which they eat dinner, stop eating for the night, and then wake up. However, there are different methods of fasting. You must find the fasting technique that works for your lifestyle and your body. “You tune your fast like you would tune exercise,” Dave says.
“The psychology of fasting is so deeply rooted inside us that most people don’t see it,” Dave touches on the fact that our brains are so focused on food that it takes up excess energies and thoughts. Fasting means not only are you getting your energy back from not thinking about food, but you can spend those thoughts on other aspects of your life and actively choose what you want to think about.
There is a difference between craving and hunger, and you can start to tell the difference when you start to fast. It’s a process of learning how your body reacts to hunger, how your brain reacts to the cravings that aren’t actual signals of hunger. Fasting can also allow the fear around the hunger to turn off. So much of what we do as humans is based on habits that we’ve developed from a young age that isn’t beneficial to a sustainable lifestyle. By doing the science to learn about it, Dave has recognized how fasting can change lives.
Most people, when fasting, try and place spiritual fasting techniques while attempting to teach themselves the new habit. However, Dave knows that the working technique is asking how to stop thinking of food, how do I get the benefits from my body, and how do I turn up the energy in the brain. Oftentimes, overthinking can muddle the pure science of it all.
Putting investments into your body now means that later, you’ll be able to reap the benefits. “A lot of younger guys are like, yeah, I got this. And look, if you’re under maybe 28, you can do stupid things to your body…you’re burning the candle at both ends and sometimes in the middle. And it’s all right.”
Unfortunately, our bodies won’t be able to maintain that lifestyle, especially as our bodies grow. Once that is realized, putting the time into your body now – and when you can – can help you stay healthy and reach the goals that you want to be able to reach years out.
Fasting: Not Just Food
Fasting doesn’t always involve food. There are all sorts of different types of fasting. “The hardest fast of all is to understand that fasting is just means going without…there are all sorts of different fasts, but one of the most difficult fast, and one of the most important fasts is just a fast from hate. Like sit down and say for the next four hours, I’m not going to think a bad thing about another person, thing, or myself.”
That’s one of the hardest fasts a person can do – whether it involved eating food at that time or not. Just deciding to change a habit means that the system that you’ve created in your head is going to have to actively try and change something that your brain thinks it needs.
All those bad thoughts are manifestations of fear. It’s your body trying to protect yourself, but it’s not necessary. It’s not real. Understanding what you need to do versus what you feel like you need is the basis of fasting. Cutting down on the unnecessary things in your life will free up time for you to put energy, time, and effort into the things that you want to do. The first place that you’ve got to start is in your own body – care for yourself so that you can accomplish what you want while extending your longevity.
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