Intermittent Fasting Over 50’s

What are the benefits to fasting over the age of 50?
And what should you really be doing to make sure that you start fasting in a healthy proper safe and effective way?
I’m not a doctor I’m just some guy on the internet but I did lose 100 pounds and I do know quite a bit of biochem
Thomas Delauer

Is Intermittent Fasting SAFE Over Age 50?

Metabolic Flexibility
People over the age of 40 or 50, lack a little bit of metabolic flexibility.
When you were in your 20s or 30s, even your body had the ability to adapt fairly well.
Whether it was a shift in your diet from more carbohydrates to more fats or vice versa.

When people get older the body cells just don’t adapt as quickly.
Going to fasting, it means ask the Body to start using stored energy as body fat
And asking it the body doesn’t have the enzymes available to do that.
Why? Because the body is not used to it.

What you’ve been eating throughout your entire life plays a big role too.
For example if you haven’t eaten a bunch of fats previously.
You’ve been on a predominantly carbohydrate rich diet.
You lack some of the Enzymes.
That helps you convert fat into fuel easier during a fast.
It’s something that we have to figure out how to address.
And how you can work easing into fasting into the equation.

Before you jump into Fasting
If you haven’t done it before.
Try fasting for just about two days per week to allow yourself to adjust again.
And your body is struggling and trying to figure out a way.
By doing fasting this way, you will allow your body to develop the enzymatic ability to start processing the stored fuel.

Sarcopenia
If you didn’t want to make fasting more of a regular lifestyle
You could inch your way along much easier.
You might be concerned about losing muscle.
Which is a very viable concern.
And of course, protein comes into play there right.
One of the most common themes that I hear from people over the age of 40 and 50 is they don’t want to lose their muscle mass.

The natural age-associated muscle loss is called Sarcopenia.
Fasting could accelerate that.
If you’re not careful.
But all you have to do is:
Make sure that you’re getting adequate amounts of protein after your fast.
Maybe you fast for 16 to 18 hours.
It’s important you get between 2 -3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.
Even on a day that you fasted.
It’s very easy to not get enough protein in on a Fasting day and this is very important.
Because during a fast you go into a little bit of a negative nitrogen balance.
You need to make sure you’re supporting that.

Them prior to going into a bunch of fasting.
You may want to consider eliminating snacking.
Eliminating snacking on the days that you’re not Fasting allows again those enzymes to activate.
It allows those enzymes to get used to you not eating all the time.

Eating Pattern
Go down to three meals a day.
And allow the time in between meals for the enzymes to up regulate.
That way you can start activating the enzyme.
And, when you do go to IF.
Your body’s ready to go.

Vitamin D.
Adding Vitamin D to your body
When we look at muscle mass one of the biggest levers that you can pull to maintain muscle seems to be Vitamin D.
There is a very strong research correlation between sarcopenia age-related, muscle loss and Vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin D is a hormone.
It has a Lot of different properties.
I would just recommend that you eat good quality meat or good quality fish that has high amounts of Vitamin D in it.
It will make a big difference there in terms of just at least the perceived muscle mass.

Brain Fuel
If you don’t eat, your brain is going to suffer from it.
Well there’s two very clear points.
The first one is that our brain is our survival tool.
When we are depriving ourselves of fuel the body reallocates energy to the brain.
That is our most effective way of staying alive.

The other piece is called brain insulin resistance.
And what is it?
Where your cells don’t really utilize sugar very well and carbohydrates very well.
It happens all over the body, but is going to happen specifically in the brain.

There’s a lot of Cool research showing that brain insulin resistance could be a big part of neurodegenerative diseases.

When you’re fasting your body starts using ketones in the brain instead of glucose.
If you’re potentially insulin resistant in the brain
You’re at least providing your brain with fuel rather than starving it.

If you’re insulin resistant then the carbohydrates are going into your brain aren’t getting into the cell
Which means your brain is never really getting the activity.
And if you don’t use it you lose it.
But if you have ketones coming in at least you’re getting brain activity.
There’s some research that shows that

Despite age and despite insulin resistance,
Levels in the brain ketones are still used as a viable fuel.

When they’re looked at through various PET scans (Positron Emission Tomography) in FMRI imaging (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) or functional MRI (FMRI),
and for the nerves out there there’s something out there called BDNF * (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor)
BDNF is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the BDNF gene. BDNF is a member of the neurotrophin family of growth factors, which are related to the canonical nerve growth factor.
Neurotrophic factors are found in the brain
And the periphery which is brain-derived no tropic factor
And ketones help the signaling of that brain-derived neurotrophic factor,
basically just helps your brain the networks within your brain communicate with each other.

Fasting has some indirect improvements on keeping your brain.
What is called plastic.
we have to look at insulin sensitivity again.
One of the biggest things that we can do for ourselves metabolically is keep our cells hyper active in terms of wanting various fuel sources.

If you’re constantly bombarding yourself with food your cells just kind of turn it off a little bit.
Essentially your cells just say I’m over this fuel and they turn it off

What ends up happening is if you fast for a little bit
The cells get away from the food for a while and suddenly they kind of miss it and they want it
you need to have that little break from food.

That’s very good for your Metabolism
Looking at muscle sensitivity in terms of insulin
The muscles are deprived of calories for a little bit, deprived of carbohydrates
Then all of a sudden
You go through a period of time where you’re not consuming them

They actually get a huge benefit from it
because all of a sudden you bring food back in and they suck it Up
and they engorge and they grow

Fasting accelerates Aging
The concern that Fasting accelerates aging because it stresses the body out
It’s actually quite the opposite.
When you stress your body out
your body gets stronger
your body gets more capable of dealing with stress

which is what we want for the long term

Looking at it from a biochemical standpoint
The down regulation of what is called mTOR (mechanistic Target Of Rapamycin)
mTOR is simply put a switch that is flipped on to build muscle
and when we’re kind of growing
And flipped off when we’re recycling (autophagy)
During a fast we flip that switch off and we go into recycling mode
where we go through autophagy
which in a very simple broad Sense

Just where your cells are recycling used components of one another
Down regulation of mTOR is associated with an increase in lifespan
We have a strategic down regulation of mTOR during a fast
And then after the fast it flips back on we can build muscle again

Gut Barrier
There’s also a big improvement in your gut barrier
Gut barrier protects you from some of the toxins that are into the gut that we all have
Fasting helps improve that inflammatory response within your gut
That you don’t have what are called lipopolysaccharides
You don’t have basically bad bugs getting into your bloodstream.
When the bad bugs get into your bloodstream your body has no choice
but to fight back against them because they’re not supposed to be there
This causes undue stress in your body And this undue stress triggers your body to weaken.
And that weakness can allow you to be susceptible to diseases to all kinds of things
it just makes you weaker
And ultimately makes you age in a bad way

The lipid profile
Fasting has been demonstrated to reduce some of the small particle of LDL Cholesterols
Ketones which appear when you fast become your fuel substrate
They inhibit something called HDACs
These HDACs normally stop us from activating our genetic blueprint
When you’re fasting it acts as a key that unlocks the library of your genetics
For your different cells to access and to be able to reproduce in a better way
Basically you’ve just opened up a knowledge base for your cells to become bigger and better stronger
You name it this happens with anti-aging genes
And oxidative damage genes things
that help you out in terms of healthy aging

Before you get into fasting
Start with two to three days per week
On the days you’re not fasting don’t snack
Try to do three square meals
Get two to three grams of protein per kilogram of body weight
On the days you are not fastingAlso on the days you are fasting
Get good amounts of Vitamin D to help support the muscle
Start with shorter fasts with 14 Hours 16 hours
And ease your way up to longer fast as you feel comfortable
You shouldn’t feel cruddy
You should be feeling pretty darn good and energized as always keep it.

Thomas Delauer