Welcome to Episode 354 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Vanessa Spina, author of Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight.
Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:
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To submit your own questions, email questions@IFpodcast.com, or submit your questions here!!
SHOW NOTES
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BUTCHERBOX:
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Listener Q&A: Nancy - Have him make you danger coffee and do some cold plunge Q&A question...
Listener Q&A: Vanessa - What is his favorite emoji and why? Think carefully.
Listener Q&A: Lizzie - How come we're allowed to drink black coffee and tea on a fast?
Listener Q&A: Tracy - Can you humor us and take the clean, fast challenge and not have anything but black coffee and water during your fast for 30 days and report back if you notice any difference?
Listener Q&A: Susie - He has said he will take spermedine for the rest of his life. Why didn't he recommend it in his book, Smarter Not Harder?
Listener Q&A: Jean - Has biohacking turned into a holistic movement for rich people?.
Listener Q&A: Tracy - Is an Upgrade Lab is coming to Raleigh?
Listener Q&A: Stephanie - He has a much different way of sharing information. I've recently been seeing posts about sex. He was discussing orgasms. What does he think about orgasms?
Listener Q&A: Scott - By restraining ejaculation, does that increase your vitality?
Listener Q&A: Renee - If you are on a date, what is the biggest turn on to you for a girl to order at the restaurant?
Listener Q&A: - Why does he keep referring to raw vegan as his gripe with veganism?
Listener Q&A: James - Will you be talking to Dave about the Follistatin gene therapy?
Listener Q&A: Leah - What have you changed your mind on based off of new information that you once believed strongly?
Listener Q&A: Teresa - Is there anything he's written about in his books that makes him cringe because he doesn't agree with it today?
Our content does not constitute an attempt to practice medicine and does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider for medical advice and answers to personal health questions.
TRANSCRIPT
(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)
Melanie Avalon:
Welcome to Episode 354 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, author of "What, When, Wine" and creator of the supplement line AvalonX. And I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Spina, sports nutrition specialist, author of "Keto Essentials" and creator of the Tone Breath Ketone Analyzer and Tone Lux Red Light Therapy Bannals. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ketogenicgirl.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. To be featured on the show, email us your questions to questions@ifpodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast.
Melanie Avalon:
You are in for such a special treat with today's episode. I actually recorded today's episode in person with Dave Asprey in Austin at his house. It was so incredibly surreal. It was my first live podcast ever.
Melanie Avalon:
So talk about a way to start with that. Of course, I will be posting video clips on my Instagram. So if you want to see what this actually looked like going down, check that out. And in this conversation, we got to do a spicy AMA.
Melanie Avalon:
You guys had such incredible questions and Dave's answers were, well, they were pretty much what I would expect from Dave. And by the way, we get a lot of coffee questions on this show. We talk about it in this episode.
Melanie Avalon:
I cannot recommend Danger Coffee enough. It will not break your fast. It is remineralized. It is tested to be free of mold and toxins. And it tastes delicious. I love Danger Coffee. So go to melanieavalon.com/danger.
Melanie Avalon:
You see coupon code MelanieAvalon that will get you 10% off Danger Coffee. If you want to have the best coffee for your fast, you want Danger Coffee. And of course, we will put links to everything as well as have a full transcript in the show notes.
Melanie Avalon:
Those will be at ifpodcast.com/episode354. All right, so on that note, please enjoy my fabulous conversation with Dave Asprey. Hi friends, welcome back to the show. So this is a moment for me.
Melanie Avalon:
This is actually my first in -person podcast. Ever? Ever. God, I'm so nervous. You're first? When are we gonna do? I'm nervous. I've done like 500 episodes and I've never done one in person. So I like don't even know what to do.
Melanie Avalon:
I have to like have my notes, all the things.
Dave Asprey:
I was trying not to judge you out loud.
Melanie Avalon:
But if you're going to do it.
Dave Asprey:
They're way more fun in person. I've been really working out more on my show in person. So it's like literally the same as going out to dinner, but now it's a conversation in person instead of a Zoom call and just millions of people get to listen in.
Melanie Avalon:
So the agenda for right now, I wanted to do an AMA with you. I asked the audience for questions. I'm going to tell them who I am. I got a lot of questions for Dave Asprey, who I am here with. Some of them came in, I was like, oh, some of these are kind of spicy.
Melanie Avalon:
So then I did a follow -up, and I was like, can I get spicy questions for Dave Asprey? Absolutely.
Dave Asprey:
is like butt hole signing and all that.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, it's all the things. I can't wait. So I hope you're ready. Can we jump in?
Dave Asprey:
Let's do it, ask me anything.
Melanie Avalon:
Okay, so to start things off, we have from Nancy. Oh, how exciting. That's all caps with like exclamation. Hey, Nancy. Nancy, she says, have him make you danger coffee.
Dave Asprey:
I already kind of did that for the photo shoot.
Melanie Avalon:
and do some cold plunge Q &A question style like Rachel Varga. Those inspired me right into the cold river by her house. So you got her into the cold river. Side note, I actually have never done a cold plunge even though I do cryotherapy every day.
Dave Asprey:
Oh my gosh, you know, the sun was still up when you came over for the copy photo shoot. We could have hopped in the cold plunge. I know, but we did not. But you just kind of didn't, and now it's dark so we couldn't do it.
Dave Asprey:
I say you got out of that. Guys, I think you should leave a comment and just encourage cold plunges with all sorts of reasons, like scientific reasons as well as, what motivates you best? Like motivational or like, Motivation.
Dave Asprey:
Like shameful, like what's kind of motivation? It's like, you're a bad person if you don't do it or like, you're a better person to do it.
Melanie Avalon:
to all of that. Okay, good.
Dave Asprey:
You know what she doesn't deal. So do this stuff she doesn't deal well with until she gets in the co -plunge and then you win. Possibly.
Melanie Avalon:
I do well with like- Don't do that, be nice. I do well with like, this'll make you an amazing person. You'll be a very good girl if you do this, that's what I do.
Dave Asprey:
You don't have a huge amount of body fat. So for you, a very cold plunge is going to be more effective than a long one. Like normally it's three to six minutes that you would do. In the water. In the water.
Dave Asprey:
And for you, it's probably just 90 seconds, right? And it's enough to get your body so you're doping levels of where you want them to be, but you don't need to turn on more calibrating, right? So it depends on how much lean mass you have and then the percentage of body fat.
Dave Asprey:
And if you're super lean, doing a long cold plunge is harder than someone who has padding. I'm down to about six and a half percent body fat right now. And I can do, you know, 10 minute cold plunge, but I probably shouldn't.
Dave Asprey:
And six minutes is really the upper limit where you see most of the benefits.
Melanie Avalon:
so I can go for like a minute. Yeah.
Dave Asprey:
Just get an oesanus, you're nice and warm, and then do one minute. That's easy. If I get hot first. Do that. And for you, that's fine. What you're doing is there's a dopamine response and then there's a cold shock protein and burning more calories and more brown fat.
Dave Asprey:
For you, it's the dopamine response that's going to be most important. So, brief and unpleasant equals good. Okay.
Melanie Avalon:
Okay, I'll do it. To -do list, I'll go back. Okay, very important question. This comes from Vanessa. Vanessa Spina, go host of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hey, Vanessa. This might be the most important question you've ever been asked.
Melanie Avalon:
Are you ready? What is his favorite emoji and why? Think carefully.
Dave Asprey:
Hmm. I am a huge fan of emojis that can be misinterpreted. Okay. So you just don't exactly know what the person meant. So they cause more trouble than they actually solve. So what emoji is that? All the ones you would send in seventh grade.
Dave Asprey:
Such as certain types of nightshade vegetable fruits, vegetables. It's a nightshade. It's purple. Well, what's not what could that be? Eggplants. That's a good idea. Okay. Yeah, that one. Yeah, I didn't think of it, but okay.
Melanie Avalon:
This priest's favorite emoji is an eggplant.
Dave Asprey:
I always say it's one of mine, but anytime you can say something, you're like, wait a minute, and you just aren't quite sure. Yeah. Those are the fun ones. So it depends on context, but it has to be one that's unclear and probably could have a bad connotation.
Melanie Avalon:
Have you noticed that the little twin girl emojis, they're Playboy bunnies?
Dave Asprey:
No, there's a twin playboy buddy.
Melanie Avalon:
It's like two girls and it's supposed to be like kids or twins or girls, but they're wearing playboy bunny ears
Dave Asprey:
Is it screaming? This thing at my bit, this like Disney did that, didn't they?
Melanie Avalon:
No, yes. Like kind of how like Disney sneaks in all the stuff. Yeah.
Dave Asprey:
Yeah. Pretty sure. Fun facts. Like even going back to like Snow White and stuff like that. Yeah.
Melanie Avalon:
My favorite emoji is the sparkles.
Dave Asprey:
Of course. You know, I use those sparkles a lot actually. Oh, sparkles. And also there's another magical one. Oh, and then like the crown ones, I use those a lot. Crown? For friends. Like the regal crown, those are good.
Melanie Avalon:
I like the fog one. Oh, that's cool. It's like a smile.
Dave Asprey:
That was not a question I've ever answered before.
Melanie Avalon:
Really? Yep. Oh yeah, okay, I'm excited, okay. Okay, so we have to answer, this is the intermittent fasting podcast in case you were wondering. Okay. So we have fasting questions.
Dave Asprey:
for you. But just tell me sometimes, right? Because it's intermittent. You said that. When you're in a relationship, you're in a relationship.
Melanie Avalon:
when you're on the Melannie. No, Dave was on the Melannie Evelyn biohacking podcast and you...
Dave Asprey:
pointed that out. I did. You did. I repeated that joke but I'm knowing it. It's all good. I'm out of drugs.
Melanie Avalon:
Smart drugs. So this is something I've actually thought about a lot. This comes from Lizzie. She says, how come we're allowed to drink black coffee and tea on a fast? Surely only water. I always felt that it's a loophole for coffee drinkers or at least if we're able to drink coffee and tea, there must be other substances available.
Melanie Avalon:
I have thought about this so much. Thought about this?
Dave Asprey:
I have and one of the really important things that I've been asked myself is why are you allowed to drink water during a fast?
Melanie Avalon:
because it's nonchloric, it's just H2O, it's your body.
Dave Asprey:
So not having calories is a tea and coffee. Not having calories. I'm getting really confused already. I know. And why are you allowed to breathe out fast? That's a good question. Well, nutrients. Breathwork is pretty much intermittent fasting.
Dave Asprey:
Yes. For your lungs. True. Right, but strangely, we have all these weird rules about what we're allowed and not allowed to do while we're fasting that are based on nothing that's about science or thinking.
Dave Asprey:
They're just, I don't know, there was a lab test where the mice only had water because mice don't have espresso machines and they were locked in little mouse prisons. So because of scientists in the 1950s, probably, wearing a white lab coat and weird goggles was mean to mice, then you should only have water.
Dave Asprey:
Sounds good to me. Or you could say, what are the hallmarks of things that cause a fast and break a fast? And what will cause a fast is a rise in mTOR or a rise in insulin. Since coffee and tea don't do either one of those, and by the way, neither do butter or MCT oil, you can have them during a fast in moderate amounts, which makes fasting much easier, especially for women.
Dave Asprey:
And it doesn't change mTOR. It doesn't change insulin and you feel good. And this very much angers a few people who are what I'm going to call fasting. Fasting obsessives, fasting. Then it's not about being pure because they're not being scientific.
Dave Asprey:
Oh, they're fasting dogmatics is what they are.
Melanie Avalon:
to challenge you on that.
Dave Asprey:
You can challenge me on this.
Melanie Avalon:
So you could do something in your life, like just get excited and it would affect your insulin or your insulin, your cortisol.
Dave Asprey:
Because it turns out cortisol goes up when you intermittent fast anyway because that's what happens when you're hungry. It's how your body liberates glucose from muscle tissue. So I don't worry about cortisol going up.
Melanie Avalon:
Okay, back to, okay, I could be in the mall and smell something delicious, like those cinnamon roll fun things, and affect my insulin. That is cool.
Dave Asprey:
That's correct.
Melanie Avalon:
So does that break my fast?
Dave Asprey:
If you were doing something called a dopamine fast, technically it would. And there is a kind of fasting that my friend, Camsepa, coined a few years ago called dopamine fasting. And I wrote about it in Fast This Way, which is my big intermittent fasting book on the psychology and the science of fasting.
Dave Asprey:
And what Cam talked about, by the way, he runs Maximus Tribe, which is a new company I'm backing that has a testosterone enhancement tech firm and that's super cool. What Cam said is, well, anything that raises dopamine is going to basically make your dopamine receptors less sensitive, just like anything that raises insulin can make your insulin receptors less sensitive.
Dave Asprey:
Therefore, to do a dopamine fast, be really bored. Like no social media, no color, sit in a couch and basically lay there for a day or for a weekend with like no people, no stimulation, no music. And by doing that, you can increase your happiness levels.
Dave Asprey:
You can, I just think it's easier to do a cold plunge because that has a similar effect.
Melanie Avalon:
This is literally the book I'm reading right now is about this. So with the dopamine, because it comes in and waves. So is he saying that if you stop, then the spike you get will be bigger?
Dave Asprey:
Not that the spike will be bigger, but that when there is a spike, you'll feel it better. So it'll be the same size spike as before, but since your receptors are more open to it, it'll feel bigger. It's almost identical to what happens during a cold plunge.
Melanie Avalon:
It's the same amount of dopamine, but you feel it more. Yeah. Even though it's literally what you're feeling. So who's feeling it more? Like, who is the part of you that's feeling that dopamine more?
Melanie Avalon:
If it's your dopamine?
Dave Asprey:
receptors.
Melanie Avalon:
It's the same amount of dopamine. You're saying intuitively the person, the real you.
Dave Asprey:
Sometimes you need three pieces of pizza to feel satisfied and sometimes you need one Yeah, so your dopamine receptors will feel satisfied on one piece of dopamine pizza instead of three
Melanie Avalon:
Have you done a dopamine fast?
Dave Asprey:
I have, because I read a book about it. I do everything. How long? It's just for a weekend. It's just basically being bored. You don't eat, you get water. On a dopamine fast, you probably shouldn't have coffee or tea because they're flavors.
Dave Asprey:
And you shouldn't use the central. Oh, that was a question. You want to use bored. Like it kind of sucks. It's probably not worth it. Like I said, I do cold plunders because they have the similar dopamine sensitizing effect.
Melanie Avalon:
Tracy, she wants to know, can you humor us and take the clean, fast challenge and not have anything but black coffee and water during your fast for 30 days and report back if you notice any difference?
Dave Asprey:
You want me to do a 30 day fast?
Melanie Avalon:
No, 30 day clean fast. So like during your fasting time, only black coffee and water. No supplements, no nothing, no. No. you
Dave Asprey:
That would be dumb. I thought that was gonna be the answer. So I don't know, like clean fast challenge, how about less effective fast challenge? We could just rebrand it that way. Because if you're not taking fasting memetics while you're fasting, you're not getting the same benefits.
Dave Asprey:
Why would you not take spermedine during a fast? That's insane. Why would you not have electrolytes during a fast? That's insane. Why would you not amplify the benefits you get from your fast? Because, oh, I know.
Dave Asprey:
Because working hard and suffering bring you moral turpitude, is actually the word for it. But they bring you moral goodness. They make you a good person. I just wrote a whole book called Smarter Not Harder about why doing things the hard way and working hard and suffering actually don't get to results.
Dave Asprey:
In fact, the guy with the shovel digging a ditch who works really hard, doesn't get paid as much as the guy with the tractor who gets it done in five minutes. So if you wanna live in the past, you need to get rid of all your clothes so you didn't grow yourself and live in a cave and it's dumb.
Dave Asprey:
And working hard sucks. The ability to work hard with all the best tools will get you thousands of times the results in your life. So no, I'm not doing some dumb, sorry guys, clean fast challenge, because it doesn't work as well as doing it with tools.
Dave Asprey:
Right, I just don't get it. Like, why do we have Luddite fasting out here? I'm triggered right now. I identify as getting shit done.
Melanie Avalon:
and what does it mean if you're being triggered?
Dave Asprey:
That means I need more coffee, danger coffee obviously. Yeah, danger coffee. Who knows what I might do? Well, you- Sorry guys. I wanna be like real nice about that one, but seriously, why is that clean?
Dave Asprey:
Like where do your standards come from? And also tea, tea is full oxalic acid. You probably don't want that during your fast. Like why are you doing this to yourself? Do you know the components of what you're putting in and what you're not putting in?
Dave Asprey:
And I also wanna know, are you using an air filter? Cause if you're not, 30 pounds of air and your body fat and some protein you're gonna lose, I kinda think that might be dirty. So, could be better.
Melanie Avalon:
Dave Asprey is not going to take the clean fast challenge, is the takeaway for
Dave Asprey:
I love it that your challenge would be able to fast.
Melanie Avalon:
Susie, you mentioned this, and I thought about this. I read Smarter Not Harder, which I highly recommend. And Susie said, he has said he will take sperm redeem for the rest of his life. Why didn't he recommend it in his book, Smarter Not Harder?
Melanie Avalon:
I was thinking that too.
Dave Asprey:
I didn't recommend it in Smarter Not Harder because if you read Superhuman, my book on longevity, I talked about how spermidine was a very promising longevity compound, but you couldn't buy it. And so what I did is I illegally imported probiotics from Japan that would make spermidine for me.
Dave Asprey:
And then when it came on the market, the first company I bring into the US, I had to run my podcast to launch the company because I could finally buy it. And because of all that, and because I also wrote about it in my fasting book called Fast This Way, they came out after that, I didn't feel like repeating it for people in Smarter Not Harder was there because it's not a book on fasting.
Dave Asprey:
It's a book on tools that give you really these five states of longevity or fitness or putting on muscle or losing weight very, very quickly. Kind of like the opposite of the Clean Fast Challenge, where you do the stuff that works even faster instead of even slower.
Melanie Avalon:
solid answer, getting more controversial. So biohacking, Jean, who you might know him, he has two questions. Question one, has biohacking turned into a holtish movement for rich people?
Dave Asprey:
I was just talking with Molina, who wrote the first book on biohacking in Spanish for the entire Latin American market. And it's in its fifth edition. It's not for Latin American millionaires. In fact, my books are in 16 languages.
Dave Asprey:
All of the books have, here's what you can do for free using a principle of biohacking. Here's what you can do that's moderately expensive, like 50 bucks a month. And here's what you can do that the crazy billionaires do.
Dave Asprey:
And I do my best to take the crazy billionaire stuff and I put it at Upgrade Labs. We're opening 27 locations and counting. You can go to ownanupgradelabs.com and you can open a franchise in your neighborhood to bring biohacking at an affordable level.
Dave Asprey:
So yeah, there's crazy billionaire types who oftentimes are buying the same kind of equipment I've tested for years at home because they can afford it. And I bless that because they're the ones who are funding things that are changing the world for all of us.
Dave Asprey:
And if you don't believe that, look at the history of mobile phones. They used to cost $50 ,000 and $20 a minute. And now they're like free, even in Africa. They're a dollar a month in some places. So biohacking is a movement about control of our own biology where you control your own biology, not your government, not your doctor, not your mommy.
Dave Asprey:
You get to be in control. And that's not just for billionaires. That is for all humans. And as a side note, 60% of biohackers have always been women.
Melanie Avalon:
That's a good segue. But before that, because you mentioned Upgrade Labs, Tracy wants to know if an Upgrade Lab is coming to Raleigh.
Dave Asprey:
Ooh, I think we've talked with someone in Raleigh, but I don't think we've signed it yet. Wouldn't surprise me. If not, go to ownanupgradelabs .com. Could be you.
Melanie Avalon:
might be coming. Okay, segue to women. Got a lot of questions about women and sex. If you're good with that.
Dave Asprey:
Like I said, it's an ask me anything, right? Right.
Melanie Avalon:
Stephanie, she says, I'm very excited for this one. He intrigues me. He has a much different way of sharing information. I've recently been seeing posts about sex. He was discussing orgasms. What does he think about orgasms?
Melanie Avalon:
I read more orgasms are better for women, but less for men, kind of ironic. And I will comment on that, like me, I'll comment. I've had John Gray on my other show a few times and I believe he is a proponent of this idea that women, all the orgasms all the time and men, not so much.
Dave Asprey:
That's actually not Jones' perspective.
Melanie Avalon:
Is that John's perspective? No. Are you sure?
Dave Asprey:
I don't know the inference for years John Gray, the Mars and Venus guy. What he says is, and I'm gonna correct it, ejaculation for men is not good for them, but orgasms are good for them. And most men listening and most women actually believe that orgasm and ejaculation and men are the same thing.
Dave Asprey:
Men can orgasm and not ejaculate. So it turns out this isn't new sharing for me. If you read my book, Game Changers, going back to I think 2015 maybe, I took 400 episodes of the Human Upgrade podcast and I used the statistician because we didn't have AI that could do it at the time to figure out the common elements that all of these people had done to focus on in a structured interview about how do you, the question was, what are the three pieces of advice you have for someone who wants to perform better at every part of being a human being?
Dave Asprey:
And after 400 answers, I came up with a set of roughly 50 laws that came out of this. So don't follow me, I don't wanna be a guru. I curate gurus and I learn from them and then I structure it so you can learn it better.
Dave Asprey:
And what I did is I published my ejaculation and orgasm data for an entire year in the book. There's a graph and there's an equation. An equation looks like this. This is for men only, women do not do this, it would be bad for you.
Dave Asprey:
You take your age in years, minus seven, and then you divide that by four. So let's say you're like 40. So age in years, 40 minus seven is 33 divided by four. How many times is four going to 33? I was doing my own.
Dave Asprey:
Okay, it should be eight. So what's your age? Six. Six, okay, so if you're a guy, so people can do the math, you just disclosed. So if you're 40, that's just about eight, so you're under 40. So then your answer is about six.
Dave Asprey:
That's the number of days between ejaculations for guys. So don't ejaculate more often than that. Oh, for men. For me. And this is really important. If you're a woman, there's a different equation that's never been written in all of Taoism.
Dave Asprey:
I searched everywhere, but I did make up the equation for you. So what this means, guys, is that if you want, and this equation is to maintain your health. If you want to live a long time, this is written.
Dave Asprey:
And I've interviewed, no, I've written, I've interviewed John Gray, I've interviewed Montauk Chia, who's a very famous guy who teaches this stuff. This is Tantra, this is Qi Gong, and I've studied these esoteric practices.
Dave Asprey:
So what you end up with is you go, okay, if you want to live forever, and that's what all these sciences are about, was longevity. It's ejaculate once every 30 days, and keep your orgasm for men to less than an hour.
Dave Asprey:
So I'm like, this is bullshit. I'm going to test this. So for a year, I gathered my data. I did my happiness number every day. How much do I like my life, my career, my job, my company, family life, just how good is life?
Dave Asprey:
And I also tracked carefully on a graph, ejaculation versus orgasm, versus masturbation versus sex. And it pissed me off, but absolutely there is an ejaculation hangover, and over -exaculating does deplete what they used to call your Qi.
Dave Asprey:
So only for men. But then for women, because a lot of these practices, they didn't talk about women very much. So like, all right, let's look into the research. And I did talk to John Gray about this, and he wasn't public with his comments about this at the time, but we had private conversations.
Dave Asprey:
John and many others will say, okay, and now science supports this as well, that for women, orgasms are not depleting. They're actually enhancing. Your EQ goes up, your oxytocin goes up, and things like that.
Dave Asprey:
And there's actually seven to nine different kinds of orgasms women can have.
Melanie Avalon:
Seven to nine.
Dave Asprey:
It depends on who you listen to, but there's probably not. I always go with the bigger hand.
Melanie Avalon:
which are debated.
Dave Asprey:
I'm not going to go there on this. I don't think I have time because I have to finish telling you the equation for limit. Okay. Plus, you don't want to get this banned on whatever platform it'll be on.
Dave Asprey:
So, here's the equation for a minute. Are you ready? It's the number of orgasms until you feel like you're going to die. Plus two.
Melanie Avalon:
is how many orgasms.
Dave Asprey:
you live in the long run. Okay. Regularly.
Melanie Avalon:
I will make a note of that.
Dave Asprey:
And by the way guys, there's no way you're going to be able to do that for your partner unless you learn how to not ejaculate all the time. So right now for guys, if you're getting to the end of the act, it's going to feel like you're going to die.
Dave Asprey:
Because you're like, if I do not finish right now and then your body convinced you to finish and you go, okay, why did I do that? So what you do is you break that just like intermittent fasting. Oh, I'm not going to starve to death if I don't eat for a day.
Dave Asprey:
You're not going to die if you don't finish. And what happens is once you decouple that, then you are always ready to do it again and do it again. And what does that do? It raises your oxytocin and it raises your partner's oxytocin and you don't get the 24 to 48 hour well documented testosterone drop after you ejaculate.
Dave Asprey:
But online, you want to be a powerful man, you shouldn't be at the mercy of ejaculating and your partnership will probably improve as a result of that.
Melanie Avalon:
So were you at the mercy of ejaculating when you did not make your goal?
Dave Asprey:
You know, I guess technically I will tell you that when I was trying to do 30 days without a jackpot, and that was really hard when you were learning to do something like that. So I remember a few times like on day 23, I'm like, I'm publishing my data.
Dave Asprey:
It's like, okay, you know, none, none, none. And then oops, okay, start over again. So it was a practice to be able to get to 30 days while having your regular sex, right? And you know, it's a massive improvement in quality of life.
Dave Asprey:
And that's why John Gray is real public about it now as well.
Melanie Avalon:
Congratulations. You answered Scott's question. He went to know by restraining ejaculation, does that increase your vitality? So I'm guessing yes.
Dave Asprey:
It does. And you know, the eject that once every 30 days or less is the the Qigong master's perspective on that. There's probably like a once a month is probably a good number. And also if you're younger, that's probably about right.
Dave Asprey:
But at least the equation do that.
Melanie Avalon:
Okay, we'll put that in the show notes. Couldn't. Renee wants to know, if you are on a date, what is the biggest turn on to you for a girl to order at the restaurant? Is there a food that a woman could order on a date that would turn you on?
Dave Asprey:
I would just say a woman who orders a grass -fed rabbi is by definition an attractive woman.
Melanie Avalon:
what temperature.
Dave Asprey:
Hmm. Probably rare, maybe medium rare. But if it's above that, it's like, oh my God, like I try not to judge anything out loud. What about blue? Blue is good. Just if it's burned, you're like, oh, how sad.
Dave Asprey:
But honestly, I don't judge people based on what they eat. It's how you show up in the world. That's really kind of you. For real. I mean, I might tease them and people tease me too. But if whatever you're eating, you can't be teased by someone who cares about you and designs you, then you probably have a problem.
Dave Asprey:
Like I am dating someone who is, let's say, wannabe vegan. She's not a vegan. She eats, you know, dairy and chicken and fish, but I'm just like, I'm gonna get her to eat today. Is that pescatine? She doesn't eat that much chicken and fish.
Dave Asprey:
And she sort of says, I kind of wanna be vegan, but I don't think she really does. I think she's teasing me. But regardless, I don't care what you eat as long as it works for you. But when people say, I'm eating this and I'm in pain all the time and my brain doesn't work.
Dave Asprey:
And like maybe it's the MSG and like, no, it's not the MSG. Okay, fine, whatever.
Melanie Avalon:
So we have a question about that. I have a really quick question though. Have you found a way to make the restaurant actually give you a rare steak?
Dave Asprey:
Order it blue and you'll get it rare usually.
Melanie Avalon:
I found out a way. I asked to order a steak for dessert, and it was when the kitchen was closed, so they were not about it. I was like, listen, you can just get the raw steak, just put it on for a second, I'll be good in that work.
Dave Asprey:
I would work. Then the guys are gonna eat lay. You probably could just say you want one minute per side and you're good. Yeah, I'm still working on that one. Yeah, blue is good.
Melanie Avalon:
Speaking of Nancy, she wants to know why does he keep referring to raw vegan as his gripe with veganism? Whole foods plant-based has some impressive results in science, particularly without oils. And this is vastly different from a raw diet.
Melanie Avalon:
Is it a running joke? Is it residual trauma from too many sprouts? I can do without kale, but I'm very tired of my cozy meals being lumped into a small fringe, extreme lifestyle. By the way, I am a Dave fan.
Melanie Avalon:
I drink danger coffee every morning, no shade here, can't wait to hear the interview. So, I've thought of that.
Dave Asprey:
I love the honest questions there. I talk about how I've been vegan and a raw vegan because I've done both. And being a raw vegan shows a devout commitment to a cult -like belief system. It's like being in the inner circle of priests of the vegan cult.
Dave Asprey:
So I just use that as like a proof that I'm one of you and my sprouters and juicers and blenders and dehydrators and all that stuff that's probably in the garage somewhere. I don't know, I don't use it anymore.
Dave Asprey:
So I wasn't just a raw vegan. I wouldn't be really cloned that. The problem is that all of these staple, cozy vegan foods are full of oxalates. They're full of phytic acid. They're full of carbohydrates.
Dave Asprey:
They're full of lectins. You can't get oil -free. You just get plant oils. You can eat corn. It's got corn oil in it. You can eat soy, which is full of all those bad things, plus some estrogen mimics.
Dave Asprey:
It's also got soybean oil in it. You can eat nuts. It's got omega -6's in it. So it's not oil -free. And if you're talking about a really radical friend the zero -fat 1970s vegan movement might be even more extreme than the raw vegan movement.
Dave Asprey:
So that said, is there an argument for a zero -fat, relatively high -starch, low -toxin diet that contains plants that are not full of oxalates, phytates, or lectins that are bad for you? Nobody knows, because they've never tried it.
Dave Asprey:
But metabolically, there probably is a case for that. It'll be used for a brief period. As there's a case for being a vegan for a brief period. If you listen to the Human Upgrade, I did a podcast with James Clements about a book called The Switch from James.
Dave Asprey:
Cool. Do you want it? In a minute. James is a friend and a fellow longevity enthusiast I've known for 25 years. This is a guy who flew around and got all these really, really old centenarian people's DNA.
Dave Asprey:
So James actually says be a vegan and then be carnivore. Be vegan, then carnivore on a monthly basis to live forever. It's a good argument, good book, and cool guy.
Melanie Avalon:
I would posit the Kempner diet might be what you were saying.
Dave Asprey:
a Kempner diet remind you. How about this?
Melanie Avalon:
It's like rice and sugar and you reverse people's diabetes.
Dave Asprey:
I believe that's the same thing. It's the zero fat, high starch sugar diet. I do not believe anymore that sugar causes diabetes. I think excess sugar is bad for you from a dopamine perspective and a gut bacteria perspective.
Dave Asprey:
I think diabetes, and I'm for years now, is caused by omega -6 fats primarily. And toxins. That evolved dysfunction.
Melanie Avalon:
Well, we do have a question from A. James. This is supposed to be anonymous. So this is A. James. A. James, not a mutual friend, James. He says, will you be talking to Dave about the, is it Follistatin gene therapy?
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. He got the gene therapy himself, maybe for promoting it, question mark, but says it only lasts a couple of months, and then you must do it again to maintain muscle mass. He's been, quote, getting ripped just since becoming single again, LOL.
Dave Asprey:
So two correct things. Gene therapy is good for up to two years, not a couple months. Go to daveasprey.com/genetherapy for info about that and a link to the episode in it. And no, I did this because I wrote about gene therapy in my longevity book in 2016, 2017.
Dave Asprey:
That's superhuman if you wanna read how to live to at least 180. Since then a couple of people have come out with books saying we might live for an extra 10 years, but it's all about health span. And if you just exercise enough and that's like Neanderthal longevity from the 80s and it's kind of gross.
Dave Asprey:
So the reason I did this is in my book, I said we will be able to do gene therapy soon and we'll have IPSC edited stem cells. The guy who created these who was on the podcast along with his partner Mac, read the book in medical school and said, oh, I made enough money selling Tesla shares.
Dave Asprey:
How about I build this tech for longevity instead of being a regular doctor? So I got it because I'm gonna live to at least 180 and I had got it even if I never talked about it but I talk about it because that's my job to talk about the stuff I do to live to 180 so you don't have to spend millions of dollars trying your life for yourself.
Dave Asprey:
That's why I did it.
Melanie Avalon:
I have a question. When you write your books, do you write your books?
Dave Asprey:
Yes, I write my books. Now, what is the definition of writing a book?
Melanie Avalon:
Do you, every sentence in the book, did that come from your creative inspiration that you then pinned?
Dave Asprey:
No book published today unless it's self -published is that way because you work with a team of editors at your publisher Literally before any of my books is out there. It has been handled by at least a dozen people to help me Get my words and my thoughts in order So to write a New York Times bestseller that's gonna be read by hundreds of thousands of people I would be irresponsible if I only wrote every word myself and the publisher would be irresponsible If they published it without going through every single word doing fact -checking Telling me that this sentence looks stupid and here's how it should be better.
Dave Asprey:
It's like a team of critics working on it and There's absolutely stages where it's collaborative or like oh we want to get these ideas in here. How do we do it? So I'll go back and forth with someone There's usually a primary editor or we'll call it writing partner where we'll have the conversations to structure it And then we go back and forth So I don't think you can legitimately say anyone wrote every word in their book unless they're a first -time author It's a team effort if it's going to be a worthy book
Melanie Avalon:
the legal department's fund.
Dave Asprey:
Believable for a win is great fun. How are you? Did I write my book? Yeah. Yeah. With every single word in the book, yours.
Melanie Avalon:
Yes, and then it got both self -published, yes. And then traditionally published, which I actually brought you a copy of my book because 10 years ago, I went to the opening of the bullet proof at the time, Coffee Shop in Santa Monica.
Melanie Avalon:
I've told you this before, but I'm telling you again. And I came with my self -published book at the time, and I was like, I'm gonna give Dave asked for my book. And I was dressed up in like a cocktail dress, sparkly, and then they were like, Dave's gone.
Melanie Avalon:
I was like, okay. And so I gave them self -published one. I was like, can you please give this to Dave? And then I walked away and I was like, someday I will give him my book in person. Well, here you go.
Melanie Avalon:
I have it down there. Thank you. So I'm giving it to you. Aw. But to answer your question, that's the real version, like the traditionally published. And I think I can say that I wrote every sentence, and then they would say like, oh, we need to put this in here because of all of us.
Melanie Avalon:
So then I would like write a new sentence. you
Dave Asprey:
Your editor didn't just say, here's my suggested edit, and you clicked accept.
Melanie Avalon:
And
Dave Asprey:
There's collaborative tools for getting it out there in a way that's good. And so I don't think there's any shade on doing or not doing that. It's just when you have a book that's really going to be seen by so many people, you need like beta readers to go through it.
Dave Asprey:
Like, no, this doesn't work. This doesn't work. And then do I care if it's me who says, you know, this sentence was in a passive voice and I missed it? Can you put an active voice? I don't know, I hope someone could do that.
Dave Asprey:
That's, it's like, I don't wash my own socks. I get help with that. And I'm, You don't wash your own socks. I'm grateful to have help for that. And I do that because it takes more time to wash my socks than the value that's provided.
Dave Asprey:
So I can focus on this podcast because I pay someone to help me with that. And I'm super grateful for it, right? But it's the same thing with the book. I do the strategic parts and the important parts.
Dave Asprey:
And if someone says, you want to reorganize these three sentences, I don't care. Can you copy and paste them instead of me? And I feel good about that.
Melanie Avalon:
I have an example. I recently interviewed last week Nina Tyshuls.
Dave Asprey:
I wasn't near that.
Melanie Avalon:
And she's good friends with Gary Tops. I had Gary on the show. And that reminded me that when I tried to traditionally publish my book, they were like not having it with Gary. They were like, you got to put in some sort of disclaimer.
Melanie Avalon:
So I went in and like made a disclaimer.
Dave Asprey:
You want to know something really funny? Sure. I interviewed Gary Tabs on my podcast, probably one of the first 20 out of more than a thousand episodes now. Oh, wow. And after the interview, I said, Gary, I'm writing my fertility book.
Dave Asprey:
And I need, like I don't know what to do, but I've been writing it for five years to self publish this about how I was able to have two kids, even though my mother, my kids was 39 and 42 at the time we had them, which was infertile when I met her.
Dave Asprey:
So like there's a lot of knowledge in here. And it was Gary who introduced me to my first agent. And so the next day was so nice. He sent to know, so Gary Tabs, if you're this, thank you brother for your support early in my writing career.
Dave Asprey:
I don't forget those things.
Melanie Avalon:
I love Gary. Okay. Two last questions related to all of this. Leah says, I love the quote, what have you changed your mind on based off of new information that you once believed strongly type question.
Melanie Avalon:
So it has been a long time. I'm sure his views have changed over the years. I would love to know what matters to him now. And then Teresa said, is there anything he's written about in his books that makes him cringe because he doesn't agree with it today?
Dave Asprey:
Okay, there's the cringiest part is when I came out with the Bulletproof Diet cookbook, I feel like I was bullied into having some recipes with Kale. Really? Yeah, because at the time, Kale had a $6 million marketing budget from the Kale Marketing Association.
Dave Asprey:
And so many people were just Kale. And I'm like, guys, Kale and spinach are not that good for you. But if you're going to have a little bit, you can have a little bit if you must. But what I did in the first chapter of the Bulletproof Diet, okay?
Dave Asprey:
Clamer? No, I just, just what it is. Okay, here's the things that are messing with you. Lectins, there's the whole genre of lectin books, right? Oxalates, they're having their day right now and it's only going to get better, right?
Dave Asprey:
And then there's Retic Acid, which is in my most recent book, which is a big problem. And I talked about histamine, which is also having its day right now because of long COVID and all this stuff. And it's like intermittent fasting and omega -6 fats.
Dave Asprey:
So these were the universe to play with in the Bulletproof Diet on all those different levels. But what I didn't do, probably because the data wasn't organized yet, is I wasn't aggressive enough on lowering oxalates, especially being a former vegan or a former whole foods plant -based diet.
Dave Asprey:
Because the more whole the food is, the more toxins from plants there are. That's why, like brown rice, every rice eating culture, if you can afford it, you eat the white rice because the toxins are more in the brown part than the same thing with wheat.
Dave Asprey:
Whole wheat is for peasants because you don't care if they die, but the wealthier people eat the white flour because it has less toxins and they get their nutrients from the side of beef. So, sad, that's how the world works.
Dave Asprey:
Now, the fact that some 70s guys like to eat brown rice because fiber, not knowing about lectins or arsenic or oxalates, I don't know, they're nonsense. So anyway, I was not aggressive enough on oxalates.
Dave Asprey:
I should have just said guys, beets are stupid. Almonds, especially almond milk, which wasn't much of a thing, is stupid. And I should have said raspberries are not worth it. Eat more blueberries. I'm a big blueberry fan.
Dave Asprey:
I love blueberries. But raspberries, the number of, especially women I've spoken with who had interstitial cystitis and serious pain in the reproductive system, they give up these foods. Oh, and kale and spinach are in there.
Dave Asprey:
And I've always been against those guys. Spinach is the very worst besides rhubarb. And I just feel like I wasn't aggressive enough. So my apologies if you ever had a recipe with almonds or kale on them that came from my book.
Dave Asprey:
I know better now.
Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for my first in -person podcast.
Dave Asprey:
And I gotta say congratulations, you're doing a really good job of moving the biohacking movement forward. I love it that we have younger people, women who are doing it. And it's so important because this idea that we have control of our own biology, it's intrinsic to being human.
Dave Asprey:
But the reason that 60% of my followers have always been women, sometimes like 55%, but it's always been slightly more than half, it's because women generally are better biohackers than men. Because for a lot of guys, including me, when I was younger, it's like, well, there's no bone sticking out down here, I'm probably fine.
Dave Asprey:
Right, and we're maybe not that tuned in, but because women's bodies change on a regular basis, you notice, because it's different today. So the sense of interoception, which is the nervous system feeling of what's gone on the body.
Dave Asprey:
Like what's happening where? Well, that's proprioception. Interoception is just the broader word for everything, including like your gut. It's proprioception is where am I in space. Interoception is my gut tingly or is it gas?
Dave Asprey:
You don't know. So there's all these different feelings and a lot of your emotions. And the vibe of where things are. They say like the issues and the tissues and stuff like that. And it's how do you feel what's going on in your inner world, but not the cognitive inner world, but the somatic inner world.
Dave Asprey:
So women are better at that on average than men because you just deal with a changing landscape and we're kind of like, oh, I think I'm okay. So this is why I think there are so many women biohackers.
Dave Asprey:
There are also so many intuitive uphealers who are women. The last 15 or so years of moving the biohack movement forward, I've been very carefully bringing more breath work and meditation, more intuition and more will say esoteric practices and that are based on somatic sense of the self.
Dave Asprey:
I know they're real because I run a neuroscience institution 40 years is in, right? And that lets us measure whether it's happening or whether we're just deceiving ourselves. It is happening.
Melanie Avalon:
Well, thank you. And I will say to that point, listeners, friends, I would not be doing what I'm doing today. I would not have this podcast if not for Dave Asprey. Honestly, I was experiencing health conditions and I started listening to your show and I just found things that worked and I've been following you since then.
Melanie Avalon:
So literally, this would not be happening if not for you. And that's not just me. It's the entire world. So I cannot recommend enough getting Dave's books, all the things. You'll learn everything especially fastest way if you want to know all about fasting.
Melanie Avalon:
So thank you.
Dave Asprey:
You are so welcome and just keep inspiring people. You're part of building the movement of biohacking. It is a growing global movement and it's here to stay. So thanks for helping.
Melanie Avalon:
Thank you so much for listening to the Intimation Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice and no patient-doctor relationship is formed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders. See you next week!
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Melanie's What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine
Vanessa's Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight
The Tone Device Breath Ketone Analyzer
The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast
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