The Crazy Benefits of Water-Only Fasting With Dr. Alan Goldhamer

When it comes to maximizing health, if a person's overweight and wants to lose weight, if a person has heart disease, diabetes, if they've got cancer, or if they're healthy and their goal is to live the maximum healthy life possible, I believe the evidence supports the idea of an exclusively whole plant food diet that's free of SOS. SOS is the international symbol of danger—and it stands for salt, oil, and sugar.

Our hyper-industrialized western world is entrenched in an epidemic of food addiction, and it's something that I think is fueled by this ever-increasing array of highly processed foods that are scientifically designed—with just the right amount of sugar, salt and fat—to hijack our nervous system, our hormonal response, to hook us, to enslave us, and ultimately, over time, make us sick and subsequently a ward of the pharmaceutical industry.

The conditions that are caused by dietary excess are particularly responsive to fasting, and it makes sense. Obesity, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune diseases, certain forms of cancer—these conditions we know are made much worse by poor dietary choices, so it's not shocking to find out that fasting is kind of the ultimate undoing of the consequences of excess.

Two-thirds of people in industrialized societies are overweight or obese. If you're not fat, you're abnormal.

How good you can become in a sport may largely be dependent on genetics and luck. How long you're going to live in life may be largely dependent on genetics and luck. But, how well you're going to live in the time you have left may be dependent on what you put in your mouth and the diet & lifestyle choices that you make.

Right now, in the United States, more than two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese.

Humans evolved in a very different environment than the one we live in today. We lived in an environment of scarcity. So, most humans, actually, didn't live to reproduce. They didn't pass on their genes. They died from predation. They died from starvation.

The net effect of salt, oil, and sugar in the diet is actually obvious and devastating around us. It's why you see obesity and the diseases of dietary excess. That's what's making people fat.

Fasting has a profound effect on insulin resistance. In fact, as much as 80% of our type 2 diabetics can achieve normal blood sugar levels without medication.

We've arrived at this cultural moment where anything uncomfortable is seen as, you know, optional in our lives, right? We're so disconnected from challenge and stepping outside of our comfort zones. And to tell somebody 'Look, you've got to overhaul everything that you're doing' is a difficult message. It's a very undigestible message.