Mediterranean Fasting – The Future of Intermittent Fasting in 2023

Timestamps ⏱

0:00 – Intro – The Best Diet to Mix with Fasting in 2023
2:14 – Mediterranean Diet + 14-Hour Fasting
4:41 – Use Code THOMAS20 for 20% off House of Macadamias!
5:21 – How to do a Mediterranean Diet with Fasting

SUMMARY OF AUTHOR’S THOUGHTS

Intermittent fasting can be paired with different diets for optimal results.

According to recent research, combining time-restricted eating with a Mediterranean-style diet may be an effective option. This is because the Mediterranean diet includes a balance of low-carb and healthy fats, which can help with cell growth and repair. Additionally, the Mediterranean diet includes a variety of fruits, vegetables, and starchy foods which can provide the necessary carbohydrates to trigger cell growth and repair while still being in line with the principles of intermittent fasting.

IN THE AUTHOR’S OWN WORDS…

What is the best diet to combine with Intermittent fasting in 2023 based upon newer research that’s really come out?

Well, there’s a really cool study that came out October of 2022 that paints a very clear picture for where we might need to start going in 2023.

We wholeheartedly said that the best diet to combine with intermittent fasting was probably keto. And here’s the thing, like that still works great and that’s still phenomenal, but the benefit to being glued into my channel is the fact that I’m always going to bring you the newer stuff. And although that can be frustrating sometimes, you’re like I just got the hang of this, at least you can trust that you’re always getting new stuff and always able to evolve and fine-tune your diet strategy.

Okay, as a matter of fact, comment down below what kind of diet strategy you’re doing right now. I’m curious to see what you’re following or if you’re intermittent fasting, what you’re combining it with. So, what we’re starting to see now is that combining time-restricted feeding with a Mediterranean style lifestyle or diet could be really good.

The reason before we thought keto worked so well with intermittent fasting was because when you’re doing keto, you’re producing ketones. When you’re doing intermittent fasting, you’re often producing ketones, so it would make sense that lower carb or ketosis would naturally feed into success with fasting. And it certainly does, but we also start to develop an issue where hmm, if we’re so low carb and we’re fasting all the time, perhaps we occasionally need some carbohydrates to still trigger cell growth and repair outside of just autophagy.

We need the occasional mtor spike, we need the occasional insulin spike. So, with that, we started saying, well what kind of like carbs can we bring in? I’m not about to just bring bread in, I have too much of a history with bread. I’m not about to bring flowers in, too much history with cakes and pies, no way. But fruits, some starchy or vegetables, okay I could consider that. Maybe some lentils, wait a minute, this is looking a lot like the Mediterranean diet, but I still want to have my good fats, so I still want my mono unsaturated fats like my macadamia nuts. I still want my olive oil, I still want my fattier fish, I still want the occasional nuts and seeds. Wait, this looks a lot like Mediterranean, and I’m not even trying.

So, this study that was published in cell metabolism took a look at shift workers that were firefighters, okay, October 2022, 137 firefighters that were working rotating 24-hour shifts. So, their circadian rhythms and metabolisms were whacked out.

In case you didn’t know, people that work shift work, their metabolisms get whacked fast. Okay, first responders, nurses, military personnel, all this, they end up with serious metabolic issues. So this study put them on a Mediterranean diet or a Mediterranean diet with a 14-hour fast. Okay, this was really fascinating because simply doing a 14-hour fast, which is barely fasting, it’s more just time-restricted consolidated eating. By following the same diet, the group that fasted had huge reductions in what is called their very low density lipoprotein (VLDL).

I’m sure you’re familiar with cholesterol. Okay, I’m sure you’re familiar with HDL and LDL, but you may or may not know what VLDL is. VLDL is the very dense LDL that we know based upon the research to be the one that is really the problem. So if we can have a reduction in VLDL size, we’re really off to a great start. But that’s not all that happened. There was a huge reduction in HbA1c. So these groups were eating the same thing, and here’s what’s fascinating is these groups were eating carbs. Like, if you’re eating low carb or keto, there’s no surprise your HbA1c drops. You’re not going to have glucose and insulin spikes. But if you’re consuming carbs when you see a reduction in HbA1c by eating the same amount of carbs but just adjusting your timing, that’s huge. But also changes in blood pressure too.

Now the reason that it was probably so dramatic is that a Mediterranean diet, being super rich in monounsaturated fats, already massively improves insulin sensitivity. The Mediterranean diet is probably the best diet for insulin sensitivity anyway, because of the monounsaturated fats. But you combine that with low levels of insulin when you’re fasting. So when you’re fasting your insulin levels drop, and then when you do eat food, you want to make sure that your cells are insulin sensitive enough to take that nutrition in. That’s the problem you face with people that are maybe intermittent fasting with very flexible dieting right. They fast and then maybe they break their fast with like a sandwich or something. But if you break your fast with you know something lean, some lean protein, maybe a little bit of fruit, and then a few hours later add some macadamia nuts, that’s a really good strategy.

Do you do this, like, how do you do Mediterranean with intermittent fasting? Okay, let’s talk about this for a moment. So you have a playbook and something you can follow. I’m not going to give you the full meal plan, but I’ll give you the basics that you can basically apply yourself if you wanted to.

Intermittent fast first off, start with doing like three or four days a week at like 18 or 20 hours of fasting, maybe 16 if you’re really getting used to it. How would you break your fast in a Mediterranean fashion? Nothing really changes there. You would use lean meats, either lean red meat, lean fish, lean poultry, lean pork, any kind of lean meat that you can just break your fast with.

Okay, and maybe a small amount of fruit, but realistically, break your fast with just protein and then about 30 or 60 minutes later in a Mediterranean fashion you could add some more of your fruit and some more of your carbs coming in from like lentils. I love like black lentils or red split lentils, super low carb, and low GI in the grand scheme of things, and they’re so low glycemic that I’m comfortable adding fats along with those carbs.

So my next meal might look something like this. I might have maybe some ground lamb, like a lamb burger, like a lean lamb burger or lean red meat, because red meat is fine on Mediterranean as long as it’s lean, so like a 93 or 96 lean beef, okay. Then I’ll put maybe a little bit of feta cheese, a little bit of avocado, a little bit of olive oil and maybe I’ll put it over a bed of lentils or something. That’s a perfect way to just describe what the ideal Mediterranean style meal would look like for me after fasting.

So those kinds of meals, you’re getting a rich antioxidant profile because when you’re fasting, a lot of times people end up neglecting a lot of nutrition because they’ve been fasting for so long, they might eat one or two meals, they’re really not all that hungry and they miss out on the antioxidants. They miss out on the micronutrients. But the nice thing about the Mediterranean style diet, especially if you choose lean red meat, which is nutritious to begin with, you’re getting a massive massive dose of antioxidants and vitamins and minerals in one single meal. There’s no better diet for one meal a day, there’s no better diet for two meals a day or no better diet for intermittent fasting based upon the research we know today.

SOME ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

Intermittent Fasting and the Mediterranean Diet – A Match Made in Health Heaven

What is Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting (IF) is not a conventional diet plan but an eating pattern that rotates between periods of fasting and eating and is repeated day after day. New and exciting scientific research is building, suggesting that IF cannot only support weight loss but also promote numerous additional health benefits including preventing and treating diseases like fatty liver disease (NASH and NAFLD), Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease and even certain types of cancers.

There are myriad methods of intermittent fasting circulating, all of which split the day or week into eating periods and fasting periods. The most popular method of intermittent fasting—and some say the easiest to follow—is called the “16:8 method.” With this method, you restrict all your daily calorie consumption to an 8-hour window. For example, you begin your eating window at 11 AM and consume all your calories from 11AM until 7PM. From 7PM until 11AM the next day, you consume only calorie-free liquids.

Doctors declare Mediterranean diet plus intermittent fasting is ideal for a healthy heart

A group of doctors has declared this the ideal eating plan for a healthy heart.

If you were to design the ideal eating plan for a healthy heart, plenty of evidence suggests it would be the Pesco-Mediterranean diet with daily intermittent fasting built in, a group of doctors declared this week.

It’s still the plant-rich, olive oil-lubricated Mediterranean diet most people are familiar with – but with more emphasis on seafood as the main source of animal protein.

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