Can Athletes Use Intermittent Fasting?
Even if you don’t suffer from prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes, intermittent fasting has so many benefits to your overall health. In Dr. Jason’s new book, The Cancer Code, he explains how intermittent fasting can reduce your risk of cancer and other diseases!
But what if you’re an athlete, and you need a high-calorie diet to supplement all the exercise you’re doing? Can you still use intermittent fasting to upgrade your wellness? I asked Dr. Jason for his thoughts:
“You have to differentiate between the weekend athlete, the one who really isn’t at that super high level of competition, [and the professional athlete]. … So if you’re one of these guys who works out two or three times a week … [fasting] is perfectly acceptable because if you don’t eat, your body will simply take those calories that it needs from your body fat.” – Dr. Jason Fung
If you work out on a moderate level, intermittent fasting is not off limits! In fact, it will help you burn off fat at a more efficient level and make room to build muscle. However, if you’re an elite athlete, chances are that you need those calories.
“Most [elite athletes] don’t have enough body fat to sustain [that sort of fasting], right? … So what we do there, and we’ve worked with a number of elite athletes, is that you have to separate what you’re trying to do. So in the ‘on-season,’ you can’t really fast. It’s hard to do. You need too much energy.” – Dr. Jason Fung
Here’s the bottom line for athletes: It depends on your body type, your sport, and other health factors. As always, it’s important to talk to your doctor before trying intermittent fasting, especially if you’re a high-performance athlete!
Dr. Jason Fung’s Top Five Foods to Eat for a Healthier Life
Of course, intermittent fasting is not as powerful if you don’t eat the right foods in the first place! If your diet is composed solely of carbs and sugars, then the odds are intermittent fasting won’t give you the results you’re looking for. What you eat directly affects your mental, emotional, and physical health, so it’s important to get clear on what foods you should eat and what foods you should avoid.
Whenever I have health experts come on The School of Greatness, I love to ask them about their favorite foods for a healthy lifestyle and why they love them. I asked Dr. Jason this same question: “If you could only eat five foods, what would those be, based on your scientific research/benefits they have for the body?” Here are his answers:
#1. Meat
There’s a lot of debate on meat — both ethical and environmental — but from a nutritional point of view, Dr. Jason says that meat is one of the most nutritious foods out there.
“Fish and chicken for sure would be up there. And, you know, scientifically, of course, [meats are] much more complete sources of protein for us because we’re animals. So, therefore, we use animal proteins much better than we can use plant proteins.” – Dr. Jason Fung
If you’re not a meat-eater, don’t worry — there are many other foods that have nutritional benefits and proteins as well!
#2. Beans
If you’re a vegetarian, beans are a great source of protein to supplement your diet!
“People have eaten beans for … millennia — like [they’ve] subsisted on beans and so on. So that’d be a … vegetarian source of very good protein and can actually be quite delicious!” – Dr. Jason Fung
#3. Avocado
One of Dr. Jason’s favorite fruits is avocado!
“I think everybody loves avocado, and there are so many vitamins in there and so on.” – Dr. Jason Fung
In addition to having lots of vitamins, avocados also contain amino acids and help decrease the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other health concerns.
#4. Cauliflower and Broccoli
If you’re looking to replace a carbohydrate side dish, look no further than cauliflower and broccoli! These two vegetables are rich in nutrients and are much better for your body than mashed potatoes or even rice!
#5. Tofu
Lastly, Dr. Jason said he loved tofu, and it’s a great vegetarian protein option as well! Tofu also contains a lot of amino acids and nutrients, such as potassium, iron, and manganese.
Remember: If you don’t supplement intermittent fasting with a healthy spread of foods, such as the ones above, it won’t have its full effect. To level up your health, it’s essential to look at it from a holistic standpoint so that you have everything working for you instead of against you!
How to Live Longer and Fuller: Go into Maintenance Mode
By eating healthy and not too often throughout the day, we increase our odds for a long, full life! Dr. Jason broke down the science for us in a way that everybody can understand:
“Our body has sort of two ways that it can go. You can either go into sort of growth mode or [you] can go into cell repair and maintenance mode. And the way you do that, of course, is by eating less, and fasting plays a big role in that. Because again, if you eat, then you’re going to activate the nutrient sensors. … If you’re young [or a kid], that’s fine. But think of it like a race car, right? You rev that engine, you’re going to go really fast, but you keep revving the engine, [and] it’s not going to last for very long, right? So you need to put that engine into sort of storage for a little while if you want to maximize the length of it.” – Dr. Jason Fung
I love the metaphors Dr. Jason uses. It makes total sense, right? Life isn’t a sprint — it’s a marathon, and to run it, we need endurance. Intermittent fasting helps us tap into that longevity. As Dr. Jason says, “We’re designed to eat until we’re full and then stop.” In our society today, it’s so easy to just keep eating and keep eating — just because the food is so readily available to us. But if we break up our meals with periods of fasting, we take our bodies back to that maintenance state.
“As you get older, you want to push yourself into that longevity stage, which means eating less, which means doing more fasting.” – Dr. Jason Fung
Another thing that helps us live longer is our mindset:
“So when people talk about positive attitudes and gratitude and community and staying connected and all that sort of stuff, it sounds hokey, but it actually has a huge impact on life and quality of life and even longevity.” – Dr. Jason Fung
It can be difficult to study the effects of mindset on health, but more and more people are noticing that those with healthier mindsets have healthier bodies. Dr. Jason explained that there are hormones released when you’re happy, and your immune system improves when you’re in a good mood!
“The immune system, which under chronic stress winds up getting degraded, right? … If you’re under too much stress, your immune system really doesn’t work as well. And the immune system plays a key role in fighting cancer.” – Dr. Jason Fung
If you can take care of your body, while also taking care of your mental and emotional state, you are much more likely to live a longer, fuller life!
Why You Should Listen to This Dr. Jason Fung Podcast Episode Right Now…
This interview was extremely eye-opening for me — it’s full of so many great tools and valuable information that you can use to level-up your health and live a longer life!
I want to acknowledge Dr. Jason Fung for his amazing analogies — he turns the complex into something that is understandable and easy to break down. Cancer, obesity, and diabetes can be very hard to understand when you’re dealing with the sickness itself, but the fact that he is able to communicate effectively and simply is so powerful for the rest of us.
I also love Dr. Jason’s definition of greatness:
“I think, you know, that greatness is really about being able to impact people in a positive way. … to be able to impact somebody so that … they’ll be able to lose weight or they’ll be able to reverse their diabetes or understand cancer better as a disease. [Helping people] is a humongous privilege.” – Dr. Jason Fung
Dr. Jason lives by that definition, and he’s impacted so many people in such a healthy, positive way! I was honored to have him on the podcast for a two-part interview, and I know that I personally learned so much. Definitely check out Part One if you haven’t already!
If this interview impacted you, we would love to hear about it! Tag Dr. Jason, @drjasonfung, and me, @lewishowes, on Instagram with a screenshot of the episode and your greatest takeaways!
Remember: Your health isn’t out of your control. There are so many different things you can do to give yourself the upper advantage!
To Greatness,
