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My chiropractor, Dr. John at Archetype, here in Homewood is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to all things HEALTH. His practice at Archetype is built from the foundations of health that allow the human to have a template to operate and navigate their body in a modern environment. You’ll see in our interview that Dr. John talks a lot about how, since our ancestral times, human society has taken a turn away from our ancestral times and towards the unnatural. We are more stagnant than we used to be, and we just don’t operate out of the same space we did thousands of years ago. This has resulted in humans becoming less healthier beings. I just learned at his practice last week that every inch forward we crane our necks down to look at our phones for instance, puts an additional 10 lbs of pressure on our neck/spine. No wonder we are always so tight through those areas!
Archetype Health in Homewood, AL offers chiropractic services but also offers:
- Nutrition Services (I’m currently doing the 45 day cleanse he recommends twice a year!)
- Human Adaptability Training
- Neuroscience Services
- + MUCH More!
Dr. John is a huge proponent of Intermittent Fasting and it just so happens to work out perfectly that Intermittent Fasting is one huge pillar of FASTer Way to Fat Loss. FWTFL is the program I began using 3 years ago, just after having Finn, to help me lose the baby weight and get back into shape. If y’all are looking more into Intermittent Fasting, you will love this Q&A I did with Dr. John at Archetype! It’s a long one so grab yourself a coffee (and a water!) and let’s jump in!!!
DISCLAIMER: Always consult with your doctor prior to changing anything in your health and wellness journey.
Practical Tips For Intermittent Fasting From My Chiropractor
Question #1: What is Intermittent Fasting and do you think it’s important for busy moms?
“Intermittent fasting is important and, I would say, is a significant part of the Archetype Health practice mainly when it comes to blood analysis and nutritional portions. Fasting is just as natural to the human as breathing. A lot of people would say that is a huge claim and absolutely it is. When we were in our ancestral times, we fasted out of need while we were looking for foods. We are doing none of that in our modern day. People consider Intermittent Fasting a ‘diet’ but it is not a diet. It is just as natural as breathing.“
“Fasting is just as natural to the human as breathing”
DR. JOHN, ARCHETYPE HEALTH
Question #2: What have you seen to be the greatest benefits of Intermittent Fasting?
“I wrote a post on Instagram that said, “Fasting is as important to our long term health as breathing is to our short term health.” Fasting comes with a lot of benefits but specifically, it allows your body to:
- Stabilize glucose
- Stabilize the use of glucose
- Stabilize the use of fat
- Enter ketosis
- Detoxify
- Repair organ systems
Question #3: How frequently do you recommend Intermittent Fasting?
“A lot of people fast daily but actually you shouldn’t. That’s wrong. You should be doing it as an ancestral human would, as the means for searching for food, specifically clean food. If you were fasting as if you were in the ancestral days searching for food, you would have a period where you were eating food and then you would be fasting again as you searched for food. You shouldn’t fast every day at the exact same times because that practice wouldn’t mimic going back to our ancestral times.”
Question #4: Why do you recommend longer fasting periods?
“The first 18-20 hours of fasting, your body’s energy source is glucose. When you fast past 20 hours, you’re using your body’s fat to make energy. Most people don’t make it past that 20 hour mark so what that essentially does is train your body to receive food on a regular basis and be dependent on food alone. But, that’s really very unnatural. When you do that, you burn out your use of insulin and you burn out your use of glucose being broken down into the system because it’s working 100% of the time. There’s no rest for it. There’s no repair for it.
It’s literally like driving a car from New York to LA at 100 MPH on the highway, without taking any breaks. That wouldn’t be possible because eventually the wheels would come off and the car would break down. Our bodies were meant to fast and have done so for 99.5% of our human existence. But in the modern day, we have these new things that always give us food. We are putting food into our body consistently and so that is our first glucose pathway. That first glucose pathway is you teaching your body that it is always going to have food given to it. If you go past 20 hours of fasting, you are teaching your body that it has to rely on itself to retrieve energy so it can exist and it can recover.”
“Our bodies were meant to fast, and have done so for 99.5% of our human existence”
DR. JOHN, ARCHETYPE HEALTH
Question #5: Tell me more about you and Archetype!
“Archetype” is a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors; the representation of the ‘ideal’ human being. My practice at Archetype Health is built around ancestral humans living in a modern environment. What I mean by ‘modern environment’ is that we, as humans, currently exist in a very unnatural environment. We still have to do those things (eat, exercise, take care of our bodies) our ancestors did but we do so in a very segregated environment. Everything was integrated back in our ancestral days. Now, our diet is separate, movement is separate, health care is separate and searching for food is separate. While I don’t want to return entirely to those ancestral days, what I DO want is to fit the practices from those days into our modern day environment so we can live the best version of our lives that we are meant to live.
In our health approach here at Archetype Health, which is focused on a natural healthcare method, we don’t promote anything that would be unnatural to the body or give you unnatural things to put in your body. I want to do everything as naturally as possible. We have a natural, living ethos that surrounds Archetype Health… that in essence IS “archetype”. Everyone should consider looking into the nutritional portion of our services at Archetype Health.”
Have You Ever Wondered the Benefits of Fasting For Various Lengths of Time?
Let’s Recap…
Wasn’t all of that SO informative? It’s like drinking from a fire hydrant every time I am with Dr. John. His approach to health, and specifically Intermittent Fasting, is so counter intuitive to what our modern, diet culture preaches. It makes me think of the phrase Eric always tells the boys when they are wrestling and want our help. The phrase is, “You have to learn how to help yourself.” It’s a great analogy specifically when we are thinking about our personal health and wellness journeys. As kids, we were taught that breakfast is the most important meal of the day but really you should dig into it and figure out what works well for your body.
Dr. John and I talked more in detail about Intermittent Fasting and the benefits and we’ll be sharing that will y’all in a PART 2 coming soon! In the meantime, if you’re wanting to learn more about Intermittent Fasting, check out my top fasting posts below!
Additionally, be sure to head over to Archetype Health’s website to learn more about what they do at their practice. You can also give them a follow on Instagram and check out their tips for a better life there!
Click HERE to read my experience at Archetype (formerly Friends & Family) when I was pregnant 5 years ago with Finn. You can read more about my chiropractic history and how I have benefitted from chiropractic services in some of my previous posts!
Wanting another’s perspective and experience with intermittent fasting? My girlfriend Laura from Walking in Memphis in High Heels is sharing her experience and take on IF over on her blog today too! Head over to her post here and give it a read!
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