Yesterday, I had this soy yogurt dish first for lunch. It had some nuts and dried fruit. Soy yogurt can activate autophagy. Then I had some salad, beans, and fermented brown rice. For dinner, I had Natto and sardine since it was Thursday, a fish-eating day.
It has been three months since I began this intermittent fasting and I have kind of figured out the optimal way of doing it.
I decided to call it Hare and Ke Intermittent Fasting.
I do the 16 hour fast for five days a week, and take a break on Saturday and Sunday. I chose this way based on the concept of Hare and Ke. Hare is a time of celebrations and holidays and Ke is usual days. I am making weekdays to be Ke, and the weekend to be Hare.
According to James Clement, the author of The Switch: Ignite Your Metabolism with Intermittent Fasting, Protein Cycling, and Keto, it is good to have your autophagy on for 8 months of the year and off for 4 months of the year. I don’t know how exactly he turns autophagy off during those 4 months, eating 3 meals a day, stop doing exercises? Now there are so many factors to activate autophagy, intermittent fasting, exercises, and certain types of food such as natto and yogurt, do we have to shut all of them off to turn autophagy off?
Well, 4 months is a long time to shut everything off. For example, if you stop your intermittent fasting during the winter months, can you get back to fasting again in the spring? You are so used to eating 3 times a day and must be difficult to change your routine.
He says that we can also have our autophagy on for 2 months and off for 1 month and alternate the rhythm. In that case, can we not divide a week into on section and off section?
The ratio is almost the same if you switch 5 days on period to 2 days off period. I don’t know if it has the same effect, but it is so much easier to do it this way. I have done it for 3 months and it isn’t difficult to switch from the weekend routine to the weekdays routine.
I can apply so many other things in this rhythm. During Ke period, I have a plant-based diet and have animals on the Hare period. Well, to be exact, Monday, Wednesday, Friday are the plant-based diet time and Tuesday and Thursday are fish-eating time, and the weekend is meat-eating time.
I have fish twice a week to increase omega 3 intakes to keep the good balance of omega 6 and omega 3.
I don’t have fish every day because I want to reduce the intake of amino acids methionine, isoleucine, leucine, valine, arginine which are high in animal-based protein including fish. This way, I can suppress mTOR for those three days. I try to stay with a low protein diet on Tuesday and Thursday, too even eating fish by reducing the amount.
So, generally speaking, weekdays are Ke and time to activate autophagy and suppress mTOR.
On the weekend, however, it is Hare period and I can activate mTOR completely by increasing my overall protein intake including methionine, isoleucine, leucine, valine, arginine by adding meat and dairy to the diet. As for cheese, I have a little during the week, too since it helps activate autophagy. For meat, I choose good meat such as grass-fed beef or free-range chicken to avoid factory-farmed meat and we can afford to do it by limiting meat consumption only on the weekend.
On Wednesday, I have only vegetables for lunch to extend the period of no protein and carbs. In other words, it is a day to suppress mTOR the most, and I place it in the middle of the week.
As for the exercises, I go Nordic walking 5 days a week and do HIIT after the Nordic walk on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I take a break from exercises on the weekend. The reason why I don’t do HIIT on Tuesday and Thursday is to rest my muscles for 48 hours. My HIIT is muscular training, push-ups, sit-ups, and squats, and needs resting.
And to break the fast, I always eat a salad first to slow down the elevation of the blood sugar level. It is not talked about so much but it is important since your blood sugar level is very low after 16 hours of not eating.
We certainly had different lifestyles between winter and the rest of the year for a long period of our history, and it is good to go back to such an ancient rhythm. However, in modern times, we haven’t differentiated our routine according to the season so much, but instead, many of us have different schedules between weekdays and weekends, and it is easy to make the switch, for our work, family, and everything.
I think this Hare and Ke Intermittent Fasting is more applicable to our present lifestyle.
Hare and Ke: the Japanese Secret to Happy Eating
The Ikigai Diet: The Secret Japanese Diet to Health and Longevity
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