#142 | Fasting Mimicking to Balance Muscle & Longevity | Joseph Antoun, MD PhD

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Like so many people, I have struggled to lose my visceral fat while I have continued to put on muscle.... but there is more to being a wise athlete than having maximum muscle. I also want to live LONG as a strong athlete. The prevailing wisdom says that when you fast or when you cut calories, you lose fat and muscle.  So the challenge remains….how to thread the needle on losing the visceral fat while keeping my muscle.  And what about the battle between the high protein for maximum muscle growth vs low protein for low IGF-1 and life extension?  Is there any way to get the best of both worlds?  

Today on episode 142 I am joined by Dr Joseph Antoun, a medical doctor who is now the CEO at L-Nutra, the company that makes Prolon, the 5-day FMD food kits (wwwprolonlife.com). Could fasting mimicking be the answer to losing visceral fat while retaining muscle and at the same time extending lifespan as a strong athlete?  After talking to Dr Antoun, I am convinced it is…and as of today, I am on day 2 of my initial 5-day FMD.  

Listen in to see if you come to the same conclusion. 

And please forgive the inconsistent recording quality….but if you want to give the Prolon FMD a try, click on the link at the top of the show notes to get a great discount. 

All right, let’s talk to Dr Joseph Antoun about fasting mimicking for athletes.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD is the CEO of L-Nutra, a Food as Medicine leader using Science to Nutrition research first to uncover what humans should eat to live healthier longer and second to help patients achieve better health outcomes.

Bullet points

Food as medicine & muscular longevity

• Use your body's built-in system to renew and fine-tune cells. ProLon, a 5-day precision nutrition program, and Fast Mimicking Technology formulation, is designed to trigger your body's built-in system to renew and fine-tune cells - by mimicking a fast.
• Fasting mimicking (not fasting per se) to get the renewal signal without resource depletion (Joe's take: long water only fasts are the equivalent of overtraining…too much signal without enough recovery)
• Periodic fasting mimicking turns on cellular renewal without forcing the body into restructuring into a low resource phenotype 
• GH is a stress hormone. In water only fasting the body doesn't have the resources to maintain muscle. With FMD the minimal resources provided are enough to work with GH to maintain muscle while getting fat loss and autophagy
• Eat the least protein necessary to build and maintain the body and lifestyle you want.  Any more than the minimum is age accelerating without muscle benefit. 
• The amino acid composition matters. Focus on plants with some fish protein. That’s good enough for muscle building when combined with FMD a few times a year.  Eat 0.8-0.9 g/kg on average per day (less if you aren't an athlete). Perhaps cycle between higher and lower amounts of protein around resistance training. 
• For me, that means i'm cutting back from 200g/day to an average of 100g/day (I'll adjust after seeing how my body reacts)... I already started. 
• I'm on day 2....looking in the box I can tell you it would be hard to pull it together myself. For now I will buy the box to see if it really does work for me.  It’s pricy but tolerable. And the Fast Bar is delicious. 
• Prolon info
• Clinical studies have shown that the ProLon formulation can specifically target belly fat and promote safe and effective weight loss.
• Why not just fast? Despite the potential benefits, fasting is hard to do. Hard on the body.

Related info and episodes:

• Episode 135 | What's Your Healthy Bodyfat %?
• Episode 132 | Measuring Metabolism
• Episode 137 | Healthy Fat Loss

More Prolon info:

• prolonlife.com
• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45260-9.pdf
• https://www.valterlongo.com/daily-longevity-diet-for-adults/

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