Dr. Valter Longo - cell biologist and longevity expert is the creator of the fasting mimicking diet (FMD) which puts us into a true fasting state - and triggers all kinds of amazing benefits - without completely avoiding eating food.

I’ve done 15 DIY versions of the FMD and 1 official one from ProLon, developed by Dr. Longo and his team. Prolon is a “Patented Nutrition program backed by 25 years and $36 million in research & development”.

“Fasting has been evolving for billions of years.”

-Dr. Valter Longo, author of The Longevity Diet 

The two phases of this fast are:

1. The fasting period when damaged cell parts and cells are cleared away from our bodies including our liver, kidneys, heart, immune system (5 days)

2. Refeeding when we get to eat again and new and turned-on stem cells go to work and rebuild our organs or our “system cells” (up to 30 days)

“It’s really extraordinary and probably the most powerful regeneration or generation program that you have since birth.”

-Valter Longo

Fasting offers a plethora of benefits:

• Clears away damaged cell parts and cells from our organs

• Rebuilds and regenerates those parts of our organs with perfectly new stem cells

• Slows down aging

• Hunger hormones are fine-tuned (helping us to curb our appetite)

• IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1) stays low for months which can inhibit tumor growth

• We become more insulin sensitive therefore optimizing our metabolic health

My personal benefits in addition to the above are:

1. Reminds me to be mindful of what I’m normally very mindless about: eating almost everything in sight

2. Recalibrates my tummy neurons to clearly tell me when I’ve had enough food and should stop eating instead of over-stuffing myself at every meal

3. Drop a few pounds (and with a little effort, I can pretty easily keep it off)

This has been key for me in changing my relationship with food. It's hard (not impossible, but tough) to go through this for almost a week but coming out of the fast in some ways is even harder since we have all food options opened to us again. 

I can't stress the importance of this enough: we must refeed well in order to continue to reap the benefits of fasting. Like most things in life, it's what we do most of the time that matters. 

“The most important part is the refeeding.”

-Valter Longo

The fasting state is a powerful and natural healing system that we all have that otherwise lays dormant. In the fasting state, our cells begin to literally eat the damaged parts of our cells (autophagy) and repair damaged parts of our organs. We activate many more stem cells than usual during fasting and once we break our fast and "refeed", those stem cells start to regenerate those areas that need it the most. 🤯

What this could mean is lowering our chances of developing chronic diseases, healing the most high priority areas throughout our bodies, and so much more. 

I’m in the prevention game and based on years of bad habits, I’m a perfect candidate to practice seasonal fasts.

Fasting Video Series