Trying The Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD) - Part of The Longevity Diet by Valter Longo, PhD

Don and I are trying The Fasting Mimicking Diet (or FMD) as created by Valter Longo, PhD, as a result of years of experience of creating a diet that mimics the good effects of fasting, while limiting the negative effects of the stress of going without food.  The FMD is followed for five days, and allows restricted calories, with 1100 total calories on Day 1, and 800 calories for Days 2-5.  On Day 1, 25g of protein are included, obtained primarily from nuts and seeds, with the remaining calories roughly split between complex carbohydrates from vegetables, and fats from nuts, seeds and oils. 

Zucchini Pasta w/ Refreshing Corn Sauce

As of now, Wednesday June 25 is Day 3 of trying The Fasting Mimicking Diet.  Days 2-5 include 400 calories each of the carbohydrates and fats, for a total of 800 calories.  It's roughly 1/2 of my normal caloric intake, and 1/3 of Don's.  Each person does the same total calories because a smaller / lighter person has less room for too much weight loss.   Four hundred calories of fat is about 45 grams, which is pretty much what I typically consume in a day.  (Day 1 included 500 calories from fat, or about 55 grams.)

I know, I hear you asking, "Wait, what???  What is the Fasting Mimicking Diet, and didn't you just do The Brown Rice Diet?"  

Yes, we did.  And now we are doing the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD) by Valter Longo, PhD, discussed in his book, The Longevity Diet.  

And yes, this is a bit of a tangent away from the promised post about how eating brown rice has transformed me in many ways, because it has!  Rice is considered by many to be the healthiest food, and most spiritually and energetically balanced whole grain.  Rice is life.  Without a doubt, after all these years, brown rice & veggies with some Miso Soup (similar to what we had during our 7-10 day Brown Rice Diet (aka Ohsawa Diet No. 7), along with some tofu is still my happy meal. This is just how Don and I are eating until after the five day Fasting Mimicking Diet is over.  

Ah yes, I can almost smell the fresh pot of brown rice cooking now!

Rather than take up precious space on this particular post explaining the scientific details of the Fasting Mimicking Diet, I'll share the description straight from the Amazon listing for his book, linked above:

Can what you eat determine how long, and how well, you live?  The clinically proven answer is yes... The culmination of 25 years of research on aging, nutrition, and disease across the globe, this unique program lays out a simple solution to living to a healthy old age through nutrition.  The key is combining the healthy everyday eating plan the book outlines, with the scientifically engineered fasting-mimicking diet, or FMD; the FMD, done just 3-4 times a year, does away with the misery and starvation most of us experience while fasting, allowing you to reap all the beneficial health effects of a restrictive diet, while avoiding negative stressors, like low energy and sleeplessness.

 

Getting creative with this one - Hazelnut Tahini Aspic w/ homemade Hazelnut Milk - Delicious!

As many followers of Don and myself over the years may have figured out by now, we like to learn through direct experience.  Throughout our time together ~ and before we met ~ we have experimented with different approaches to overcoming various health conditions, and improving overall health as we age.  Without a doubt a plant-based diet suits us best.  

We have been slowly detoxing, and restoring cleaner blood, and better blood flow and cellular health after our unfortunate side trek of several years following a very low-carb / keto diet, followed by our Meats & Sweets (meat & fruit & veggies) diet from around 2017-2022.  All the progress we had made during the five years prior while following a whole-foods, plant-based diet likely spared us worse health outcomes.  We just foolishly abandoned it too soon, and for all the wrong reasons.  

I won't spell out those details out here as it's been written about elsewhere, and that time in our life is in the past.  Or, as a friend likes to say, 'that ship has sailed.'  Thankfully, we 'returned home to our hearts.'

As it is, between us, we have had sufficient signs of ailing kidney and heart health, and immune system challenges to let us know that Nature IS the ultimate form of justice.  The price we paid for our foray into the dark side of eating dead animal corpses was pretty big.  And well deserved!  We found out through our direct experience the consequences of those choices!

Our longer term health outcomes were not looking good, despite our seeming relatively healthy appearance for our over 60 age group.   But looking 'healthier than the average person our age,' or than what has become the accepted norm has never been a goal.  The bar for the standard norm is quite low in my opinion.  Doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice that, or at least I don't think so (enter scratching my head emoji here!)

Experiencing true freedom, and realizing the fullness of our Divine potential is and has been.  Despite setbacks, we pick ourselves up and keep going.  Hence, we are trying the FMD to see how it goes.  Just another fun food related (vegan / plant-based) experiment.  Besides, what's five days if it can help restore your youthful metabolism, and help you reverse the negative effects of past choice?  

Purple Kale w/ Walnut Sauce & Fermented Ginger Carrots

So, without further ado, my next post will be a sharing of our meals, and experience doing the Fasting Mimicking Diet.  Stay tuned!