Low-carb diets are skyrocketing in popularity because they work. It's estimated that 50-80% of the population suffers from some type of insulin resistance. Tack on years of accumulating damage and then a chronic illness hits. You can expect the body to shut down. One of dry fasting's most important benefits is improving the cellular resistance to hormones and micronutrients. Some of the fastest results you can get are with low-carb diets. The fastest results will be with a version of the carnivore diet. [Personally, I would never go full carnivore because there is just too much risk of losing microbiome diversity forever].
Chronic stress (something that a low-carb diet also creates on top of fatty acid insulin resistance) is indicative of fat accumulation and insulin resistance. Think about this when I advocate for psychedelics 😄
Stress-Induced Diabetes: A Review
Here’s what you’ll read online on thousands of blogs and articles when it comes to insulin resistance and how to deal with it:
- Reduce carbohydrates
- Physical activity
- Lower weight
- Healthy diet
The same things get repeated over and over. Yes, these are all important things for overall health, but once you’re damaged, these things will not reverse the underlying condition because they are too vague and not strong enough. Especially if you’ve already got a chronic illness. Get on a low-carb diet for too long and your thyroid starts to suffer, metabolism drops, sleep quality worsens, and so much more. I know I'll get a lot of hate for this viewpoint, but I guarantee you that if you spend enough time on the diet, without cheating, you'll eventually hit a wall. Most influencers cheat, mark my words. There needs to be a third step after the initial healing. A step that puts it all together and gets you back to being able to eat a variety of foods and maintain great health.
So I was recently talking/consulting with Dr. Berg about dry fasting. Yes THE Bergman. Our conversation shifted towards micronutrient resistance and it instantly gave me a light bulb moment connecting micronutrient resistance to insulin resistance. We talked about how high vitamin D levels are preventative for many chronic illnesses. And yet chronically ill people with high amounts of Vitamin D were still sick. It turns out that simply having high Vitamin D levels in the blood doesn't mean that it's being delivered to the cell. Hence, cellular micronutrient resistance. Drum roll. Fix the cells and fix yourself.
What is Cellular Micronutrient Resistance?
Cellular micronutrient resistance refers to the inability of cells to effectively utilize essential vitamins and minerals, leading to deficiencies even when dietary intake is adequate. This resistance can impair metabolic functions and exacerbate insulin resistance.
What is the recommended way to fix this?
You’ll be told to eat a whole foods diet, supplement, and improve your gut health. This all makes sense, but if that were all there was to it, we wouldn’t have so many problems and all you long haulers would be healed already. If you're inclined to skip dry fasting and fixing the parasympathetic nervous system, you can technically only focus on trying to get all the necessary co-factors. I don't think this will work for many, but if you're relatively healthy, go for it. This means micronutrients that are meant to help the cells improve their metabolism and micronutrient resistance. Things like Magnesium, Zinc, and B vitamins are things you’ll see over and over again when it comes to cell metabolism and health.
Dry fasting is going to work wonders. Just like really long water fasts work too. I think dry fasting is the more advanced version that brings more benefits, but that doesn't mean it's the answer for everyone. However, even though dry fasting can be a miracle worker, it's not always enough. You'll notice that even people going to Filonov retreats where they do 9-day dry fasts, still come back and deteriorate over time. They feel great initially, but then they either overdo it, underdo it, or simply deteriorate with no known cause. I see it over and over. Some heavy illnesses require more. I believe psychedelics and parasympathetic supplements are one option.
You’ll notice that I have psilocybin indicated during the Scorch Protocol refeed sections. I have also experimented with THC/CBD. To explain this quickly and succinctly before you freak out, let me start off by saying that I believe insulin and cellular micronutrient resistance are the key to everything. It’s one of the main reasons why fasting seems to help so much, fasting puts the cells through the ringer, and dry fasting especially. Think of it like giving an electric shock to restart the system. Restructuring the water and internal components due to the hyperosmotic stress helps.
Cellular micronutrient resistance and insulin resistance are one of the main causes of illnesses and obesity, and it’s why low-carb diets seem to help almost all sick people (initially). Damage from high blood glucose mixed with high insulin gets people into all kinds of trouble. Getting rid of that brings them back. But fixing the underlying issue is where you need to focus your attention on.
Now, if you’ve ever dived into this topic related to Diabetes and insulin resistance you’ll notice that most doctors say that you can’t heal the underlying issue. Once you’re diabetic, you can only manage the symptoms through insulin and diet. This is where low-carb diets come around and claim to heal diabetes. I don’t like calling this healing, because we all know that if the ‘healed’ person has any high amount of carbs they will spiral out of control and out of health very quickly. How many low/zero-carb dieters do you know that eat a piece of fruit or bread and spiral out of control? Even though your cells technically become more insulin sensitive, this is due to them being starved of glucose. Refill the glycogen stores and you’re back to intense insulin resistance. Healed would mean that you are now truly insulin sensitive and can eat large amounts of carbs with no negative side effects.
So how do we fight this? Aggressive fasting as a reset tool and then increasing relaxation and the parasympathetic nervous system. Some may find my methods a little drastic. If that is you, I want you to feel comfortable understanding that simply focusing on relaxation-type states will help too. Think brain retraining, meditation, etc. My methods are just more aggressive. More details under the Scorch Protocol.
I stumbled upon this through experimentation that later led me down many research paths for insulin resistance and psychedelics. Why do they help chronic illness so much? Why do they lower blood sugar, and give you energy? They lower insulin resistance and cellular micronutrient resistance. Chronic illness, terrible sleeping habits, and bad diets are all very stressful and this stress translates to cellular resistance. Daily stress builds and the resistance gets worse. Our cells go through trauma and have a very hard time going back. Imagine them slowly turning to stone. This stone is less permeable, and will eventually break the cell. You can almost imagine the idea of the stoneskin disease from Game of thrones. Going backwards is tough. Yet there are miraculous recoveries attributed to meditation, relaxation, and psychedelics. What people don’t understand is that psychedelics are like meditation and relaxation on steroids (if taken correctly). All of these acts contribute to lowering levels of fasting insulin and improving all aspects of cellular resistance.
Elizabeth A Penner
The impact of marijuana use on glucose, insulin, and insulin resistance among US adults. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23684393/
“Epidemiologic studies have found lower prevalence rates of obesity and diabetes mellitus in marijuana users compared with people who have never used marijuana, suggesting a relationship between cannabinoids and peripheral metabolic processes.”
“Conclusions: We found that marijuana use was associated with lower levels of fasting insulin and HOMA-IR, and smaller waist circumference.”
Have you ever made the connection to chronically ill people smoking weed? The scientific reasoning is to use it to deal with the pain. But it's much more than just that. Some of the best researchers in the metabolic field, like Ben Bikman, attribute insulin resistance to our increasing cancer and chronic illness rates.
William J. Panenka
Chronic Treatment With Psilocybin Decreases Changes in Body Weight in a Rodent Model of Obesity https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.891512/full
“Results: Both the low and high dose psilocybin groups caused a significant decrease in changes in body weight compared to controls. The metformin group produced a greater decrease in change in body weight than either psilocybin groups or controls. Both high dose psilocybin and metformin decreased consumption of the high calorie diet, and exhibited decreased central adiposity.”
If you start to understand insulin's role in the body, you'll understand that this study points towards improvement in insulin sensitivity.
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A single dose of psilocybin, the active compound in “magic mushrooms,” given to mice prompted a long-lasting increase in the connections between neurons.
Are you starting to see why this is a key component of recovering your health? Chronic illnesses are diabolical and require aggressive treatment. If you are simply trying to improve your health but are only slightly sick or unhealthy, then you can ignore a lot of these recommendations. But since you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that this information is really sparking connections and shifting gears in your head. I’m hoping that you’re also understanding the need to dive deeper and gradually experiment with these ideas. I’ve noticed that a lot of extreme personalities like to jump into the deep end as soon as possible. Take it easy, you’re already undertaking an intense process. Yes, it is miraculous but at the same time, it can be dangerous if taken too lightly.
I’ll be diving a lot deeper into these serotonin and parasympathetic activators in future topics, but I do have a small protocol dedicated to psilocybin that you should check out called the enlightenment protocol ;) Expanding on ideas introduced by Paul Stamets, like the Stamet’s Stack is a great place to start.
