#845: How to Use Ketosis for Enhanced Mood, Cognition, and Long-Term Brain Protection — A Practical and Tactical Guide with Dr. Dominic D'Agostino (Plus: Deconstructing Tim’s Latest Keto Experiment)

Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris show. This particular episode, I think is probably my most practical, tactical discussion of ketosis. What the benefits are, how to implement it, when the rubber hits the road, what do you do? What do you do? What do you try to avoid? What are some of the challenges? And this conversation with Dom D'Agostino, I'll describe him in a second, took place about midway through a month long experiment. I've done a lot of ketogenic dieting. I've experimented with it since probably the late nineties. And my latest bout was one month wearing both a continuous glucose monitor and a continuous ketone monitor. And we basically deconstructed it. And I got Dom's advice on how to tweak it, how to fine tune it. Now, why would you even want to consider ketosis? And we also get into exogenous ketones. So supplemental ketones, they've become quite the topic du jour, quite popular among certain athletic populations and so on. But we talk about toxicity with some of these supplements and what to look out for. We talk about ketone dependence and withdrawal. We talk about before and after testing and lots of ways that you can be a bit smarter, a bit more informed about approaching all of this. So the benefits, why would you even consider this? Why have I myself spent so much time in ketosis, so to speak? Well, there are a few things. Immediately, I will notice once I get to a certain concentration in my blood and that's generally around, let's just call it 0.7 millimolars measured with a finger prick and then more as you get going. I need less sleep. So instead of eight to nine hours, six hours, six and a half hours, I wake up and I am wide awake. So that's another difference. I wake up and I am wide awake, alert, ready to go. I don't need an hour of booting up and tons of caffeine to get online. I am mentally sharper. My verbal acuity, my ability to think just has a faster turnover. And in the afternoons, I do not have what you would typically associate with say a normal diet involving lots of carbohydrates. The afternoon dip. I don't need a nap. I don't need a huge extra cup of coffee around two or three in the afternoon to keep me going. That is just unnecessary altogether. But those all pale in comparison to the mood stabilizing and enhancing effects. It just takes the ups and downs. And maybe this is peculiar to me, but it preserves the ups, right? I'm not going through crazy manic swings, but it doesn't mute your upside in terms of mood, but it really stabilizes and minimizes the downswings. And that in and of itself makes it worth it to me. And then there are questions around long term benefits, possible …