How to Achieve Metabolic Flexibility | Goop

First, find out where you are on the metabolic flexibility spectrum. I adapted the metabolic flexibility quiz in the book and put it online for people to take for free.

After this, it starts with harnessing the best of both food and fasting. A clean, mostly plant-based ketogenic diet—the ketotarian diet—and flexible intermittent fasting work synergistically and amplify each other. A clean keto diet and intermittent fasting both support your body to naturally produce ketones, specifically beta hydroxybutyrate or BHB. This ketone isn’t just a way to burn fat, although that is one benefit. It also is an epigenetic modulator, meaning it acts like a signaling molecule, aiding our body in:

1. •

   lowering inflammation

2. •

   increasing autophagy (cellular recycling)

3. •

   increasing stem cells

4. •

   increasing antioxidant pathways

5. •

   balancing the gut microbiome

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   increasing BDNF (the brain’s ability to make new neurons)

7. •

   making healthier mitochondria (cellular energy centers)

These are very important for feeling vibrant wellness. That’s why in Intuitive Fasting, I paired the four-week flexible fasting plan with a cyclical ketotarian food plan. Focusing on foods like:

1. •

   Avocados and avocado oil

2. •

   Olives and extra virgin olive oil

3. •

   Coconut cream, milk, and oil

4. •

   Sea vegetables (nori sheets, dulse flakes)

5. •

   Dark leafy vegetables (spinach, kale)

6. •

   Sulfur-rich vegetables, like Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and asparagus

7. •

   Nuts and seeds, like macadamias, almonds, and walnuts

8. •

   Low-fructose fruits like berries

Ketotarian also has vegetarian keto recipe options, so you can add in pasture-raised organic eggs or grass-fed ghee (clarified butter), as well as pescatarian keto options. This is where you bring in wild-caught fish, like Alaskan salmon, with their beneficial omega-3 fats.

While the above foods are the foundation, a cyclical ketotarian approach means we periodically increase clean carbs like fruits, rice, and sweet potatoes a few times a week or a month. Many women especially do well with this cyclical approach, increasing these carbs around their periods, ovulation, or intuitively throughout the week. There is a grace and lightness to this approach.

By pairing this food plan with expanding and contracting fasting windows, we build metabolic flexibility sustainably.