Potential Benefits And Side Effects Of Intermittent Fasting – Dr. Berg

In a lot of my other videos, I’ve talked about the benefits of intermittent fasting. In this video,we’re going to talk about the side effects of intermittent fasting. For those of you that arenew, the benefits are incredible. You’re going to lose weight, especially in the midsection.You’re going to have cognitive improvements with memory, focus, more attention.Your inflammation is going to drop. There’s a lot of conditions with inflammation. You have

arthritis, autoimmune. That’s going to improve. Your skin’s going to improve. Memory’s going toimprove. Sleep’s going to improve. Hunger’s going to go down. You’re not going to crave anymore.So these are all real good benefits. But now let’s kind of cover the side effects. I’m goingto be totally transparent. There are some side effects that you need to know about.First one is you’re going to have a spike of uric acid. Now, uric acid is related to

two conditions, gout and a certain type of kidney stone. If you’re predisposed to getting kidneystones, there’s two types. There’s oxalate stones and then there are uric acid stones.If you’re doing intermittent fasting and you get a kidney stone, it’s going to be probably a uricacid stone. Another indication of high levels of uric acid is you get gout, like your big toestarts hurting or you have some type of arthritis or pain that turns on when you do intermittent

of fasting. Now again, this is not common, but it can happen. The question is, why is uric acidgoing up in the first place? That is because one big function of uric acid in the body is this,it’s an antioxidant. Yeah. So as your body is repairing and clearing out stuff and detoxifying,it uses uric acid as an antioxidant. Interesting. Now, the simple way to reduce uric acid is just torealize that your pH is too acid and you need to alkalize a little bit.

Now, the next time you eat, make sure you have big salads. You can also do a potassium citrateor an electrolyte powder with a lot of potassium in there because that will alkalize you very,very quick. But potassium citrate is alkaline and that’s a really good mineral to use.But of course, vegetables in general are very important because when you’re actually eating,you’re doing keto with intermittent fasting, it’s very important to consume large quantities

of vegetables to minimize this right here. Because now potentially, if you’re not doingenough vegetables, you can have higher levels of your acid and that can kind of irritate yourkidneys. All right, number two, you might feel cold in your hands and your feet. This is mainlybecause the adaptation phase. You’re actually going into a hardcore ketosis. Your thyroid doesnot have to work as much, so it’s going to turn off a little bit. It’s not going to be a hypothyroid

condition. It just means that your thyroid is adapting a little bit. This is temporary. It’snot a big deal, but it may happen. Okay, so we have moodiness, especially in the first threedays. So when you start intermittent fasting, I always recommend to do it gradually. Start withthree meals a day, then another two meals a day, and let your body tell you how long to go.If you have a hard time going from one meal to the next, then we know you have insulin resistance.

okay? And then when you do fasting, you’re going to get moody. You’re going to have symptoms oflow blood sugar. The way you know you’re in real good ketosis and it’s all working is that you cango long periods of time without being hungry and you feel fine. So in the transition phase,mainly three days, you may feel moody and other symptoms, okay? So it’s going to go away. You justneed to persist and push through it. It’s really important though what you eat when you eat.

That’s why I recommend not doing junk food. Make sure you do healthy ketosis. I put a link downbelow so you can see what that means. But that way, you will make this transition a lot fasterand probably without too many symptoms. Okay, headaches may occur simply becauseyou’re coming off of running your body on sugar, especially the brain, and the brain does not havethe ability to store sugar. So it doesn’t have glycogen. So it’s dependent on what’s going on

with the blood. So if you’re starting out and you haven’t adapted to fat fully and your bloodsugars are low, your brain is going to feel it and you may have a headache from low blood sugars.Realize this is temporary. And once three days is up and you’re fully into ketosis,your brain will be very happy on ketones because one of the benefits of intermittent fastingis cognitive benefits, memory, focus. And you can get into ketosis through fasting

and a low-carb ketogenic plan. We recommend the combination, we being me.Okay, then we have number five. You may notice you might have more stomach acid,like a little heartburn, something like that, because fasting increases acids in your stomach.But the interesting thing is that most people will do fine on this. Most people don’t haveenough stomach acid. So when they do intermittent fasting and their stomach has a chance to heal

and produce enough acid, the next time they eat, it’s much, much better. If this happens,which is going to be rare, but if it happens, just go ahead and eat and then gradually kindof work into it. It might mean that you’re just going too fast. A lot of these symptoms that I’mtalking about or side effects are just adaptation problems that happen in the beginning. But if youjust push through and get through it, you’re going to have all these benefits right here.

Number six, you may feel nauseated when you eat. And this is interesting because here you are,you finally get into fasting and you’re going and you’re feeling wonderful, euphoric, and then youeat and you feel like crap. That happens a lot. You might feel nauseous. That just has to do withthe adaptation. Your body is not used to going that long and then eating and then not eatingand then eating. What’s going to happen over a period of time, probably three or four weeks,

this is going to go away. Because your body is going to adapt and it’s going to be able toeat and then not eat and be able to digest. This usually is related to a sluggish gallbladder.Okay, so when you eat, take apple cider vinegar, maybe some purified bile salt after you eat. Ihave a lot of videos on that, but that apple cider vinegar will help you with this nauseousness.When you do intermittent fasting, people initially have this idea like, oh my gosh,

I have to eat this one meal a day or two meals a day, and then I have to go for this period oftime, 20 hours without eating. So they really stuff themselves, especially in the beginning,because they’re like, they’re in this survival thing. Bad idea. You’re going to feel like sobloated, especially if you’re doing a lot more fat than you’re used to. So I’m going to recommenddon’t do that. Just eat a really good meal, but try not to push it to the extreme where you’re

completely bloated. And you’ll learn that as you do this, because you’ll find that the food thatyou eat will last a good amount of time because you’re going to be burning your own fat. It’s notjust all about that one meal. Okay. Now, fainting. This really only happens if you do prolongedfasting too quick. Let’s say your body is not adapted enough and you saw one of my videos aboutprolonged fasting because it increases stem cell and arthritis and stuff. So you’re going to jump

right in and go three days, no eating. And then you end up fainting simply because you didn’thave enough sea salt, okay, or electrolytes or B vitamins. So there’s a way to do this and Irecommend ease into this and not jump into it too fast. So you want to do prolonged fasting afteryou build up your nutrition. You have to be pretty healthy to do it, especially because a lot ofpeople have nutritional deficiencies and if they do prolonged fasting, those deficiencies will be

magnified. The other little point ab