Episode 134 | 30-Day Fast With Cancer: Can You Keep Your Muscle?

[00:00:00] Dr. Katie Deming: What would happen if someone didn't eat for 30 days? Most people assume that the body would start burning muscle, but today we're looking at a real 30 day supervised water fast where someone lost 23 pounds, cut their visceral fat in half, and didn't lose any muscle at all. Today I'm joined by Paul, who recently completed a 30 day Fast with me.

[00:00:22] Dr. Katie Deming: Paul is a serial entrepreneur and now investor, and he came to fasting after receiving a recent diagnosis of pancreatic [00:00:30] cancer. And like many people facing a diagnosis like that, he began exploring ways to support his health, and fasting became part of that journey. One of the biggest concerns that people have about prolonged water fasting is muscle loss, especially for people dealing with cancer.

[00:00:47] Dr. Katie Deming: In this episode, we're going to talk about three things. What actually happens to muscle during a 30 day fast, why fasting may preferentially burn, dangerous, visceral fat around organs, and what Paul [00:01:00] experienced mentally and emotionally during the fast, which ended up being one of the most surprising parts.

[00:01:06] Dr. Katie Deming: Paul, thanks for being here and willing to share your story today.

[00:01:10] Paul Suchoski: You're welcome. Glad to be here. Dr. Katy was a good experience.

[00:01:13] Dr. Katie Deming: So Paul, I wanted to start by asking you, before you started the fast, what did you believe was going to happen to your body?

[00:01:22] Paul Suchoski: I had spent a decent amount of time with a couple of functional oncologists as well as, uh, standard of care [00:01:30] oncologists, and everybody said, don't do this. You're gonna lose too much muscle mass, and if you do choose to do chemo after this, that would be a bad mistake. So my biggest concern going in and, you know, I, I, I considered it stopping after 14 days 'cause I was losing weight so fast was muscle mass loss.

[00:01:50] Paul Suchoski: And surprisingly, I did not experience that.

[00:01:53] Dr. Katie Deming: this is one of the things that people. Have a misconception about with fasting, it's like one of the biggest [00:02:00] misconceptions is that the body immediately starts burning muscle. But the body is actually designed to handle periods without food. And when we stop eating, insulin levels drop and the body shifts from burning glucose to burning stored fat, and at the same time, growth hormone increases.

[00:02:18] Dr. Katie Deming: Which helps preserve lean tissue, and the liver produces ketones, which become the major fuel source for the brain. And because the brain can run on ketones, the body doesn't need [00:02:30] to break down muscle for fuel. So instead, the body begins mobilizing stored fat, including visceral fat around the organs. And that's exactly what we saw in your case, right.

[00:02:41] Paul Suchoski: Yeah. I was surprised. I lost no muscle mass I did InBody scans with my physician every two weeks throughout the process. Dating back to my annual physical in October, and I start the fast with you on January 26th, and I actually gained muscle mass in my legs during [00:03:00] the fast while I was not doing any exercise at all, which was kind of surprising.

[00:03:05] Dr. Katie Deming: and this is the thing, I think that people get really surprised when they hear things like this. So, you know, let, let's back up for a second and let me ask you, Paul, like what made you decide to move forward with fasting? Like, why was this something, even though you were afraid of the, the losing muscle mass and your doctors were telling you not to, what was it that made you move forward with fasting in the first place?

[00:03:29] Paul Suchoski: [00:03:30] Well, first off, my, my wife and I are. Big fans of yours and we had probably seen a couple dozen of your podcast already. And, I guess I didn't really see anything all that promising with conventional medicine. I mean, I'm considered stage four metastatic pancreat, even though I've only Got uh, metastasis in one lymph node, which made me ineligible for surgery.

[00:03:54] Paul Suchoski: And basically if I decided to go the chemo route. All the genetics [00:04:00] indicated that I would have a much harsher response than the average person in the chemo that they use for pancreatic cancer is already incredibly harsh. A lot of side effects, which I really didn't want particularly. Uh, when it comes to, um, nerve damage to the hands, arms, lower legs and feet.

[00:04:20] Paul Suchoski: My wife and I do a lot of backpacking, a lot of cycling, so, um, there was really nothing all that exciting for me. Standard of care. I had done a three [00:04:30] day fast to start the calendar year just outta curiosity to see if I could do it.that was unsupervised 'cause it. was short enough to do it that way. And I had been on a ketogenic diet for about probably three weeks before I started the 30 day fast with you, And. Between, mid-December and mid-January, I noticed that my, um, circulating tumor cells were cut in half and the only thing I could, say was I thought that it was [00:05:00] a result of the three day fast and the, ketogenic diet.

[00:05:04] Paul Suchoski: So I decided,why not try the 30 day fast? A force came to worse and I was losing most of mass too fast. I always had the option of bailing out after two or three weeks.didn't have to do that, obviously. and then I was gonna go into, some other protocols such as, hyperbaric oxygen, therapy and a, protocol of off-label drugs and supplements, which looked more promising to me than the chemo [00:05:30] did.

[00:05:30] Paul Suchoski: This was kind of the third day of water pass for me, was a way of jump starting the whole process.

[00:05:36] Dr. Katie Deming: Got it. And uh, you started to answer this question, but I'd love to have you pull it out for the listeners. Did you always plan to go 30 days or did that evolve during the fast once you started? I.

[00:05:47] Paul Suchoski: You know, that's, that's hard to answer. Going the end, my goal was to go 30 days. Uh, that was my intention, but in the first. A week or two, I was down probably 15 pounds [00:06:00] and I had not yet gotten an InBody scan, so I was really concerned that I was losing a lot of muscle. So, I'd say after 14 days, got the InBody scan from my physician and it was kind of like, kind of like a surprise for me.

[00:06:15] Paul Suchoski: And it, at that point I.

[00:06:16] Paul Suchoski: decided to move forward. It really, for me was not that difficult. Surprisingly, it was more of a mental challenge than it was actually a physical challenge.

[00:06:26] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah, that actually, that was my next question is like, what was the first [00:06:30] part of the fast, like for you? Was it hard? Were you hungry? Was it what you expected?

[00:06:35] Paul Suchoski: You know, I, I really, until day 27, I was not that hungry. I.

[00:06:40] Paul Suchoski: had a really hard day on day 27, and I think other people sometimes have. It's almost like I hit a wall both mentally and physically, but that was about the only tough time for me. I had, I had a much harder time getting into the zone as far as the mental turning off my brain.[00:07:00]

[00:07:00] Paul Suchoski: 'cause what I found was with the ketones, I just felt so sharp and so alive. It's like I wanted to do things. I mean, I actually had. Higher levels of energy during the fast than I typically do when I eat.and my brain just felt so sharp. It was hard for me. It probably took me two weeks to really settle into just kind of being as chill and calm as possible.

[00:07:26] Paul Suchoski: 'cause I wanted to do stuff that, so that was the bigger challenge for me [00:07:30] was I felt alive. I felt alive during the fast, which sounds crazy.

[00:07:33] Dr. Katie Deming: I know, and and that was surprising for you, right?

[00:07:36] Paul Suchoski: It was very surprising. I figured I'd be dead, you know, just feel absolutely exhausted and I just, I felt incredibly alive and I think my brain liked burning the ketones.

[00:07:48] Dr. Katie Deming: and that's, that's what we hear from so many people. So once you settled into the fast, what started to change for you mentally or emotionally?

[00:07:58] Paul Suchoski: you know, it was a [00:08:00] sense of calm that I've always had a hard time achieving. I mean, I've always been kind of high strung, you know, high performer, which with that unfortunately comes anxiety. And so, for no good reason, it was just there. And, uh, it pretty much disappeared. Uh, one of the people that was, uh, in the fast with me, a couple of Michelle and Mike, Michelle said that I had a tick in my, this side of my cheek that kind of disappeared during the fast.

[00:08:27] Paul Suchoski: And I've had that for as long as I can imagine. [00:08:30] So I, I think that just with some indication, I always had some low level of, of stress and anxiety, which kind of disappeared during the fast and, um, it was just an amazing sense of calm it, it, but it did take me a while to kind of get there. I think other people got into that much faster than I did.

[00:08:49] Paul Suchoski: That was, that was the bigger challenge, was just kind of shutting my brain activity off during the fast.

[00:08:56] Dr. Katie Deming: I remember you describing that you know that since you were in [00:09:00] middle school, you really had had this baseline level of anxiety that was just always there. Do you remember when in the fast that you started to notice that that was dissipating for you?

[00:09:11] Paul Suchoski: Probably sometime in the late teens. I'd say probably sometime between day 15 and 20. And by, by not, say by the start of the third week, it was pretty much gone. So the last nine or 10 days, you know, I was just kind of in a super chill zone, which for me, [00:09:30] like I said, is hard to get to. And I've been able to stay there since the end of the fast, which is nice.

[00:09:36] Paul Suchoski: So, you know, the anxiety has stayed down and I, I saw it. I mean, what was interesting for me is I don't have any food in my stomach. And yet, if my brain starts cranking up, whether it's excited or stressed, my blood sugar's up in the hundreds. The hundreds. And that's with absolutely air food in me.

[00:09:56] Paul Suchoski: And that's being driven, I think, entirely by the cortisol [00:10:00] in my system. So that was really for me, you know, is being a scientist that was pretty interesting that, you know, zero calories in. And if I'm, if I'm relaxed, my, my, uh, blood sugar, my glucose was typically in the low seventies to low eighties. And if my brain started firing, it was a hundred, 110 with zero calories in me, which tells me something.

[00:10:24] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah. Well, and that actually gets to my next question 'cause I was gonna ask you, like, looking [00:10:30] back on this experience of the 30 day fast, what did you learn about yourself? And maybe one of those things is that. Your blood sugar is really tied to cortisol and that any kind of stress brings that up. But I'm wondering, you know what, what, maybe even more about that or what else did you learn about yourself through the process?

[00:10:51] Paul Suchoski: what was interesting is, like I said before, I did the 30 day fast. I was trying to do a therapeutic ketogenic [00:11:00] diet with 80% fat, 15% protein, and 5% carbs, and. I could only get into a good ketogenic state in one of two ways. One was going after a hard bicycle ride, in which case that would relax my mind and would burn all the glucose in my system.

[00:11:17] Paul Suchoski: And the other one was to do a three day fast. I could not get there without one of those two mechanisms. And I think it's because I couldn't turn my brain off and I didn't realize how important that was. And you [00:11:30] know, I know as you fight cancer, they keep saying you've got to be. You can't be anxious, you gotta be calm.

[00:11:36] Paul Suchoski: That's a big part of the healing process?

[00:11:38] Paul Suchoski: is taking the anxiety away. And I think it's because the anxiety does feed this blood sugar loop, which, you know, you really, I mean the cancer feeds on this glucose. So I think that's important. And you know, I also sell, saw it in my, um, I've always had slightly high blood [00:12:00] pressure. I.

[00:12:00] Paul Suchoski: mean, not super high. I'd say 1 30, 1 35 over 90. you know, I'd go to the doctor, maybe it'd be one 40 over 95, but during the fast it was low 100 to over 70, which is again, just another indication that my body is in a much more relaxed state than it typically is in, and it's, it stayed that way. So right now, I'm, I, I'm not.

[00:12:24] Paul Suchoski: Taking blood pressure medicine again, and I hope not to have to start.

[00:12:28] Dr. Katie Deming: I love that. So I [00:12:30] wanna dive into, because I love that you did the InBody scan before the fast and then during the fast and after the fast, because we have this beautiful data that captures what I've seen with other fasts and also what the data from other fasting centers have shown. But you know, you.

[00:12:49] Dr. Katie Deming: We have the measurements of showing exactly what was found with the body scans during, before and after your fast. So I'm wondering if you, I have the [00:13:00] numbers too, but I'd love to have you summarize it in your words just to tell people what you experienced and then we can kind of break this down and looking at.

[00:13:07] Dr. Katie Deming: What is typical to happen while people are fasting? So what, what did your in-body scan show? And also, I wanna answer a question because this was asked of me, in my recent three-day fast is, you know, did you do a DEXA scan? Why would you choose this scan versus a different scan? And let's just start with that question.

[00:13:26] Dr. Katie Deming: What, why you used InBody scan? And then we can dive into the [00:13:30] results.

[00:13:30] Paul Suchoski: So, the DEXA scan Scan is, um, it uses radiation. And, um, I'm already getting, you know, between, CAT scans and, PET scans. I'm getting more than enough radiation in my body. So the DEXA scan is just measuring, I'm sorry, not the DEXA scan. The in body is, is measuring impedance. You know, you basically, you basically hold it with your hands and you have your feet on electrodes and it's measuring impedance, uh, through your body, [00:14:00] which is basically resistance through your body.

[00:14:03] Paul Suchoski: Based on that, it can back out how much water mass you have. muscle mass and fat mass, and going into the fast, I was in pretty good shape. I was probably, 1 75. You know, I'm, I'm five foot 10. I was probably 1 75 to 1 78. doing a lot of exercise going in my, my body fat percent body fat was. 16, 17%, which is a little bit higher than I like.

[00:14:28] Paul Suchoski: But you know, I think most [00:14:30] people would say that's pretty trim.

[00:14:31] Paul Suchoski: But during the fast or at the end of the fast, my percent body fat was down to 8%. And I think that, I, I.

[00:14:39] Paul Suchoski: don't know what it measures, but basically it measures the, uh, visceral fat. And instead of giving you pounds, it gives you a rating. So going into the fast, I had number three, visceral fat, which was kind of the average.

[00:14:55] Paul Suchoski: Coming out I was at one, uh, which was basically the best you could get. [00:15:00] So, you know, I came out wearing, probably went in wearing size 32 pants, came out wearing 30 pants, and I'm still in 30 pants. And I haven't been in size 30 pants since college. about 8% body fat and. I don't think I've ever been this trim in my life, even when I've been in the best of shape back in high school playing sports.

[00:15:21] Paul Suchoski: I don't think I was this trim. So, um, it really did an amazing job of stripping the body fat off me without touching the [00:15:30] muscles and the muscle mass. Basically, I said muscle mass, upper body stayed the same lower body. I actually gained muscle mass somehow. And I don't know if that was an indication, maybe I was over exercising, going into the fast and I was, um, doing too much cardio and maybe breaking down into muscles in my legs.

[00:15:48] Paul Suchoski: And during the fast, I'm not doing any exercise, so somehow I put muscle mass on during the fast, which sounds nuts.

[00:15:56] Dr. Katie Deming: Well, and, and definitely surprising for what you was, your biggest fear, like [00:16:00] this was your biggest fear coming in, was that you were gonna lose muscle mass. And here not only did you maintain it, but it, it seemed that in your lower body, that you maybe were gaining muscle mass in the early part of the fast.

[00:16:12] Paul Suchoski: Yes, and you, you had indicated you thought this was gonna be the case, and what I saw was my weight dropped off really, really fast for about the first three weeks. Then it actually stabilized. I mean, it basically did not go anywhere for the last 10 days. It just stabilized,

[00:16:28] Paul Suchoski: predicted.

[00:16:29] Dr. Katie Deming: [00:16:30] Yeah, and that's, you know, one of the things that I see is that the first week the weight just drops like a rock and it scares people. Like, oh my gosh, if I continue this rate of weight loss, there is no way that I'm gonna make it through this fast. But what happens is at some point the body adjusts and the weight loss either really slows down or even stops and kind of maintains, because when we have the growth hormone upregulated, it's.

[00:16:58] Dr. Katie Deming: It's basically telling your body [00:17:00] to preserve the muscle mass and just losing any fat if there's fat to be lost. And you know, I'm gonna take, I have your October scan and then I have the one that was after the fast. And I'm gonna summarize some of these numbers. So, you know, during the fast, at your lowest point in the fast, you went down, lost 23 pounds, right?

[00:17:21] Dr. Katie Deming: But then, you know what people don't realize is that. You lose that much, but then you regain weight during refeeding and so your ultimate weight loss was about 13 [00:17:30] pounds total for the whole fast. And then your body fat, um, percentage that I had. This is from the October one, 'cause I know there was one in between, but I had.

[00:17:41] Dr. Katie Deming: 18.4% and then the body,fat percentage after the fast was 8.2%. So significant reduction in body fat, but skeletal muscle mass was 81.6 pounds before. And 81.6 pounds after, [00:18:00] which is just incredible that it literally did not move. Not even a pound, not even a half a pound. There was literal stability there.

[00:18:06] Dr. Katie Deming: And then, like you said, the visceral fat, which this is the most dangerous fat, this is the fat that we all need to be worried about for you in the InBody scan. They measure it, like you said, as a number. And this, I have the one from October was a visceral fat level of seven and all the way down to three.

[00:18:25] Dr. Katie Deming: So. What is amazing about this and you know, I had someone on my [00:18:30] three-day fast recently ask, they're like, it seems like fasting's kind of like, yo-yo dieting is this dangerous. Just like yo-yo dieting and these numbers that we are citing here that are really the numbers that you had from before and after the fast shows.

[00:18:44] Dr. Katie Deming: This is like the opposite of yo-yo dieting. This is your body doing. Exactly what it's designed to do, to lean down, to get rid of that dangerous, visceral fat, and then mobilize and use, you know, subcutaneous fat [00:19:00] and preserve your lean body mass. And I think one of the things that we didn't state at the beginning of this interview, but it's important to point out, is that you are very fit.

[00:19:08] Dr. Katie Deming: So if there's someone who you'd be worried doesn't have the weight to lose in a fast because. You know, you don't have a lot of fat on your body. It is you, you, you know, tell, tell the people what you were doing activity wise before. How are you diagnosed? Actually, maybe that explains the whole story.

[00:19:26] Paul Suchoski: Yeah, sure. Um, you know, I, I am very [00:19:30] active. I love the outdoors, so, um, my wife and I probably spend 30 to 40 days a year in tents. We do extended backpacking trips, you know, we've done the John Muir Trail, in the Sierras. We've spent a lot of time up in Wind River range, up in, up in Idaho and in the Sause.

[00:19:54] Paul Suchoski: typical vacation for us is we'll go out and five to seven days on the trail, a couple days off [00:20:00] in town, repeat five to seven days on the trail. We're carrying 45 pound packs, 10, 12, 15 mile days with a ton of elevation gain, you know, three, four, 5,000 feet of elevation gain during the day and just get to see amazing things.

[00:20:17] Paul Suchoski: And if I'm not doing that, I'm typically out. On my road bike, you know, riding 40, 50 mile rides. I do a lot of, spend a lot of time in the gym lifting weights. So I, I try, you know, I try to do [00:20:30] something almost every day because I just enjoy it. And so that's my typical lifestyle going in. Um, I was diagnosed, I mean, to this day, even though I'm considered terminal.

[00:20:45] Paul Suchoski: I don't consider myself terminal. The medical community concerns my considers me terminal. I was out on a bicycle ride. It was an easy ride for me, 30, 35 miles and got hit by a, electric [00:21:00] bike and basically got knocked out, almost rolled down into a creek and ended up in the emergency room with a broken collarbone and three broken ribs and a head injury.

[00:21:11] Paul Suchoski: And, uh, had extensive bruising on the right side of my body from just hitting the concrete so hard that they did a, um, when I was in the ER, in the trauma center, they did a, CAT scan my abdomen and they found out that I had a tumor of some type, [00:21:30] or I guess they don't call it that, let's say an abnormality in my, in my pancreas.

[00:21:38] Paul Suchoski: So went through a series of tests. You know, I, I'm like, I don't believe this. I think it's just it's gotta be due to the accident. It can't be real. But I've got, uh, Deeno carcinoma, which is the primary form of pancreatic cancer, and it has spread to a lymph node. So I'm considered metastatic. And, um, [00:22:00] to this day, the tumor's not grown.

[00:22:03] Paul Suchoski: I have zero symptoms and I think the advantage is, is that my, my tumor is in the tail of my pancreas as opposed to the head of my pancreas. So it's not impacting the, the bile duct or the liver. So I'm not having any of the upset stomach or difficulty digesting food. It's just there and as long as it stays there and doesn't grow, I don't care if it's there 'cause it's not impacted my life at all.

[00:22:29] Paul Suchoski: So my goal [00:22:30] was, you know. Hopefully with this fast, it helps reduce it. Maybe it'll go away. I do plan on getting another scan probably in July, PET scan. but I really want to, um, do some of the off-label, uh, drugs and, um, supplements in the meantime. And I'm getting,hyperbaric oxygen five days a week.

[00:22:50] Paul Suchoski: I wanna get that about three or four months, see how it plays out, and I'm hoping that come July. Tumor has shrunk. Maybe the, maybe the [00:23:00] circulating tumor cells are down to a point. I'm no longer considered metastatic, in which case they maybe would consider going in and, doing surgery to take this thing outta me, which would be awesome.

[00:23:10] Paul Suchoski: Or maybe it will disappear as a result of the fast. I mean, who knows?

[00:23:14] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah, and you just finished for the listeners, like you literally just finished refeeding over the weekend, so this is very soon. We're waiting for the results and Absolutely. Paul wanna bring you back once you have your scans afterwards, but you know. You [00:23:30] are someone who's very fit that this finding of the cancer was kind of an incidental thing.

[00:23:35] Dr. Katie Deming: Actually, that e-bike was probably an angel coming by to take you out so that you could find this and, and get you on the path to healing. But I'm wondering when you saw the results, when you saw that InBody scan, I think it was last week, that you had that done, like what went through your mind when you saw that?

[00:23:54] Paul Suchoski: I mean, the doctor, you know my, I've got a concierge doctor who I've gotten to be very close to. [00:24:00] And, um, I think he's just blown away by what I'm doing. 'cause you know, he's just, you know, he doesn't understand cancer that well. He, he just like, I don't know how you did, did this, but somehow your muscle mass is exactly the same as when you started.

[00:24:15] Paul Suchoski: So I think it blew him away more than it blew me away. I just knew that I felt good and, my clothes are fitting really well and I look in the mirror. And I look like I'm in better shape than I was going into the fast just because [00:24:30] I've lost the, the fat. And so, um, was I surprised? Yes, very surprised.

[00:24:39] Paul Suchoski: Was I happy? Extremely happy. 'cause I can't get in this kind of shape without doing a fast, unfortunately. Yeah, I was, I was ecstatic with the results. did not, I was hoping for something like this, but I did not expect it by any sense of the imagination,

[00:24:54] Dr. Katie Deming: Beautiful.

[00:24:55] Paul Suchoski: even though you told me of an athlete or two that, I can't remember the [00:25:00] triathlete that you said went through this and saw exactly the same thing.

[00:25:03] Dr. Katie Deming: Janie, Jenny Davis was a track cyclist. Yeah.

[00:25:06] Paul Suchoski: Track cycles. Okay. Yeah.

[00:25:07] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah, she, same thing because she measured before and after and she was someone that I was really worried 'cause she was so thin and fit coming in exactly what you described. And she reports actually that her workouts and her power increased after the fast. You know, people feel.

[00:25:26] Dr. Katie Deming: Better. They feel, you know, younger, they feel more [00:25:30] vibrant. This is what I hear. And would you say that's the case? Do you feel younger, even though you, you know, your jeans fit like they did when you're high school? Do you, how do you feel? I.

[00:25:38] Paul Suchoski: I feel? good. Um, what I have seen is, I'm back in the gym three days a week and I'm, and I'm walking slash hiking three or four days a week. my strength has come back and my upper body surprisingly fast, so I go in the gym and I'm lifting just about the same amount of weights I was before. I don't have quite as much stamina as I did.

[00:25:59] Paul Suchoski: my [00:26:00] lower body is having a harder time coming back, and you had kind of warned me it would probably take six to eight, maybe 10 weeks. And, for me, three mile walk in the pass was just trivial. It's, it's, it's, it's a workout right now. You know, it's, I'm, I'm climbing maybe four or 500 feet, so for me it's what I.

[00:26:17] Paul Suchoski: consider to be an easy, it would've been an easy hike.

[00:26:19] Paul Suchoski: Right now it's, it's a moderate level hike, so it seems like the, the lower body. stamina's not there. And my guess is it's just you have so much more muscle [00:26:30] in your lower body than you do your upper body that I just need more. I dunno if it's a glycogen store issue, if it just takes time to get that back.

[00:26:38] Paul Suchoski: But, the stamina's still not there in my lower legs, but again, it's, it's not even been two weeks since I've been off the fast.

[00:26:43] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah, right. You just finished Refeeding this weekend. So this is like really early days and and what my experience is and if, if I've been corrected the fast, hopefully I'm correct with your recovery, but usually people say it's about six weeks and then they're back to their full strength and exercise capacity that they were [00:27:00] before the fast.

[00:27:01] Dr. Katie Deming: So let me ask you this, Paul. If someone listening is afraid fasting will cause muscle loss, what would you tell them after going through this?

[00:27:10] Paul Suchoski: I would tell them that it will not. Based on my experience, um, I think it's highly unlikely that it will cause muscle, muscle loss. it sure did not for me, and, um, I did nothing. I mean, I might have gone out for one or two half mile [00:27:30] walks the entire time during the fast. I, I basically got no exercise. I felt like a, a slug, it was, uh, I'm just not used to that.

[00:27:39] Paul Suchoski: So, no exercise at all. Did not lose any muscle, and so I think there is a very good chance that you'll come out of this?

[00:27:48] Paul Suchoski: without losing muscle. I know there's several people in the current group that were a couple weeks behind me. The number of the guys thought we're worried about exactly the same issue going in, and [00:28:00] my bet is when they get done, they'll see the same results.

[00:28:03] Paul Suchoski: They won't see any muscle muscle loss at all.

[00:28:06] Dr. Katie Deming: I love it. Thank you so much, Paul, for faring sharing your story with us.

[00:28:10] Paul Suchoski: Uh, you're welcome.

[00:28:11] Dr. Katie Deming: it's been actually a privilege to not only see this incredible results, but also to see. Your anxiety decrease for you to feel really calm in your body because, like you said, healing requires, you know, reducing that, that fear and that anxiety in feeling calm.

[00:28:29] Dr. Katie Deming: And so you've [00:28:30] demonstrated that so beautifully from doing this work. So thank you so much for being here.

[00:28:34] Paul Suchoski: I'm happy to be here.

[00:28:36] Paul Suchoski: I look forward to, Sharing some very good results, I hope in July.

[00:28:40] Dr. Katie Deming: Absolutely. Well, we are gonna have you back when you get those results so that we can go through like what was your whole plan of what you did and how the fast played into that. And I, I can't wait to see it. And also, I know you're gonna write a book in 20 years and you're gonna be alive in 20 years to write it.

[00:28:55] Dr. Katie Deming: So, and, and for those doctors who say your terminal, I'm not one of them. [00:29:00] Everyone who listens to me knows that, that I don't believe that stage four cancer means that it's nothing is terminal and that you can't eradicate it and, and live a long, healthy life. So godspeed to you and thank you so much for being with us.

[00:29:15] Paul Suchoski: I really appreciate it. It's been a good experience. Thank you.

[00:29:17] Dr. Katie Deming: Today we heard Paul's experience completing a 30 day supervised water fast after his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. During the fast, he lost 23 pounds, but after refeeding, his weight [00:29:30] stabilized at a true weight loss of 13 pounds. Most importantly, the body composition data showed his muscle mast stayed exactly the same after his fast body fat dropped dramatically from 18 to 8%, and dangerous, visceral fat dropped from seven to three.

[00:29:49] Dr. Katie Deming: Final takeaway here is that the human body is incredibly intelligent, and when fasting is done properly, the body doesn't simply break down muscle. It [00:30:00] mobilizes stored fat while preserving lean tissue.

[00:30:03] Dr. Katie Deming: If you found today's episode helpful and you're ready to take radical ownership of your health today, subscribe to The Born to Heal podcast now so you don't miss the answers conventional medicine never gave you.

[00:30:15] Dr. Katie Deming: If you're ready to experience what true healing feels like from the inside out, join me for a three day water fast next month. The link can be found below. Thank you for listening and remember, just like me, you are born to heal.