Longevity and the ProLon Fasting Mimicking Diet
Let’s just start with the fact that I’m terrible at fasting. Sure, I dabbled with intermittent fasting a few years ago when it first became all the rage, but it was hard. I love to eat! So I’m the last person who would presumably complete a 5-day fasting challenge. Until now. I’ll show you what changed my mind.
The world’s leading expert on aging and longevity is Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California. This is a man who has amassed over $30 million in government funding for his research on fasting, and he has 14 clinical trials currently ongoing. In 2018 he was named one of Time Magazine’s Top 50 Influential People in Health Care, so he’s the real deal.
Anyway, I recently learned that not even Valter Longo does intermittent fasting. But he does do something called a ProLon “fasting mimicking diet” (FMD) for five days at a time, from twice a year to once a quarter. Patients in his clinical research trials even do this diet as frequently as once a month to treat conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmunity, and even cancer.
So if this FMD works for the world’s leading expert on aging and longevity, I figured it could help me toward my own goal of living as healthily as possible for as long as I can. So I ordered a box.
Order the box here.
If you go to the ProLon website, $200 gets you a box of food shipped to your home for your FMD. ProLon was founded by Valter Longo, but he donates all of the profits from his share towards fasting research. Which is much needed, as big pharma isn’t much interested in funding research on something that is free (fasting). At any rate, when you receive your box, you can sign up for a group fast, or a free coaching call, or you can go at it alone. (I highly recommend against going at it alone.)
But before we open that box, let’s go over what happens to your body when you fast and what exactly the FMD does.
For the first two days of the FMD, your body switches from burning sugar (glucose) for fuel to burning fat for fuel. This is called ketosis. Your body will always preferentially use sugar for fuel if you’re consuming it, because it’s more efficient. But if you’re not consuming sugar, your body can burn fat, and it’s almost impossible to exhaust your fat stores. So this diet burns fat.
The FMD keeps you burning fat because the food it does provide is small enough so that it doesn’t trigger your body’s nutrient sensors. In other words, your body thinks that it’s starving even though you’re still eating some food. So it’s fasting, with food.
Slide from L-Nutra, makers of ProLon
After about two days is where the FMD differs from intermittent fasting (which is usually done for less than a day). At about two days, your cells sense that they aren’t getting any more nutrition, so they start eating up the old and dead parts of themselves for fuel. This process is called autophagy, and it’s a good thing. With an endless stream of nutrition, your cells have the capacity hold onto the old and dead parts, and this is thought to be responsible for a good deal of the aging process. But a periodic fast of more than two days starts cleaning up the cells, and if the fast goes on for more than four days, a process called “cellular rejuvenation” occurs. This means that when nutrition is finally reintroduced, the cell will start replacing the parts it destroyed with fresh new parts. And voila, you have anti-aging! You can actually turn back your biological clock.
Slide from L-Nutra
Beyond what happens at a cellular level, the FMD has benefits for almost every organ you can think of. Your blood pressure and heart rate decreases, your heart rate variability (a marker of recovery) increases, you burn fat, lose weight, control glucose, improve your mental acuity, increase the number of dopamine (reward) receptors in your brain, and give your gut a much-needed rest from all that food. Studies show that even your skin becomes clearer. The hormones that are associated with aging and growth (insulin, IGF-1, and mTOR) are all inhibited by fasting, indicating that fasting presses the pause button on aging.
If by now you’re convinced that fasting is a good thing, let’s go ahead and open the ProLon box of goodies.
You’ll receive five small boxes in your shipment, one for each day of the fast. The boxes contain everything you’ll eat: mostly bars, soup mixes, olives, crackers, and teas. The first day provides 1150 calories, and days 2-5 contain only 800 calories. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. Days 2-5 also contain a glycerol drink that you dilute into a water bottle and drink over the course of the day. This helps prevent you from losing muscle mass during the fast.
You’re not supposed to do any intense exercise during the fast or undergo extreme conditions like excessive cold or heat. You can have as much water, sparkling water, and herbal tea as you want, and up to 140 mg of caffeine per day (about three shots of espresso). You can also have two packets of Stevia, two slices of squeezed lemon, and two pieces of sugar-free gum per day. Since ProLon comes with its own supplements, it is recommended that you avoid your own supplements, but you can take your prescription medication as normal.
As for my experience, I found the FMD challenging, but doable. The hardest part wasn’t physical - it was emotionally craving the foods that I normally eat. I didn’t sleep well the first night and had a headache, which apparently is common. But I did notice that my heart rate was lower on my Oura ring, and my heart rate variability was higher than it’s ever been, which indicates that I was getting a cardiometabolic benefit even on day one. I also woke up refreshed, even after sleeping poorly.
By the second day, I got the hang of the diet, and it was a little easier to tolerate, but I was still feeling slow, and very cold (your body temperature drops because you’re not getting heat from digesting your food). I also noticed that my breath smelled weird, probably because of the ketones building up in my system. The third day was the hardest because days 3 and 5 have the least amount of food, and although I was less hungry than before, it was a challenge. But by day 5, I was feeling light, and full of energy. I wasn’t hungry for my first “meal” until lunchtime, and I found that I didn’t really feel like eating much.
I lost four pounds over the course of five days (which, from my reading, seems about average). Because of the addition of the glycerol drink during the fast, I have to presume that most of the weight loss was loss of fat, but next time I’ll have my body fat percentage taken before and after the fast to be sure. I also noticed that my skin became clearer, and my relationship with food has improved, simply because I’m acutely aware of what I’m putting into my body and how it’s making me feel.
(Pro)Long story short, this was the perfect reset to kick off the new year. It eliminated the bloat from the holidays and made me feel fantastic. Will I do it again? Most definitely. Frequently? No. It was hard! While most of the studies have been done with doing the FMD once a month for a three month period, I think that repeating it half-yearly or quarterly will be more than enough for me.
If you choose to try the ProLon FMD, here are some tips:
Try to time it for during the week - I started on a Sunday. That way, you’ll have enough distractions to get you through the first few days. Avoid starting it during times of stress or travel, when you’ll have every excuse to cheat.
Recruit your partner. My husband wouldn’t join me, and watching him eat a “real” dinner every night was torture!
Join a fasting group – you can do this through ProLon when you get your box. It was so helpful for me to know that others were going through the same experiences (like being cold), and you can share tips and inspiration.
Get a coaching call – you can also do this through ProLon. They have certified coaches who can answer your questions. My coach was Audrey Zona, and she was wonderful.
Drink tons of water and tea
Try to eat your “breakfast” as late as you can, have “lunch” in the afternoon, “dinner” with your family, and go to bed early.
Remember that you’ll feel better every day, and amazing at the end – that’s what pushed me through!
Please let me know what you think and if that was helpful. Thank you for reading!
xo
Gina