Ep. 38 - Low Fat vs. Low Carb Research & 5x Fat Loss! | Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, Insulin Sensitivity, Fasting Glucose | Elderly disease reversal and BMI | Customized Fasting Plan

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Hello, I'm Dr. Scott Watier, and I'm Tommy Welling, and you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast, and this podcast is about using fasting as a tool to regain your health, achieve ultimate wellness and live the life you truly deserve.

Each episode is a short conversation on a single topic with immediate, actionable steps. We cover everything from fat loss on health and wellness to the science of lifestyle design.

We started fasting for life because of how fasting has transformed our lives, and we hope to share the tools that we have learned along the way.

Hey, everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Watier. I'm here, as always, my good friend and colleague, Tommy Welling. Good evening, sir.

Hey, Scott. How are you doing?

Fantastic. We're going to get a little nerdy, a little research tonight. So if you guys have been following along with us over the episodes, we kind of ebb and flow between the anecdotes, the stories, the Cunard's. So we're going to dive into a really cool research article that just stood out like I mean, I saw it and I was like, yep, this is a topic. We're going to talk about this and it's going to be it's going to be a lot of fun.

Yeah, I like it. I think it's going to be just pointing out some really, really actionable stuff, some really, really good evidence for some of the things that that we've been talking about and that we really like and we find the best results with. So I think it's going to be good.

Yeah. So I'm going to read it and the link will be in the description.

So it's the effects of weight loss during a low carb diet on specific adipose tissue areas and insulin sensitivity in older adults with obesity and randomized clinical trial. So big old mouth full of words. Right. And disclaimer, not research scientists. Right. So that is not our job. So the cool thing about this is this article was very digestible ahead. Make a bad joke. But it's it's really comparing because when we started the podcast in our own lives, we don't subscribe to just one way of eating. It's not keto. It's not high carb, low carb, high fat. It's not paleo carnivore like fasting.

The beauty of fasting is vegan Pescadero or whatever. Right. It's yeah, fasting can fit into any lifestyle.

And that's what we love about the principles of fasting and what we've created with fasting for life.

And this study really should push us into holding more people accountable into one of these categories.

And if they are looking to see some really great weight loss, fat loss specifically, and in moving the needle on important long term longevity, health metrics in terms of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, et cetera, cardiovascular issues, you know, this study kind of epitomizes where we want to take the message because we didn't just start to talk about, hey, we didn't eat for three days and we did X, Y and Z. And it was fun. Like, that's fun. But like, this is really the nitty gritty. And that's why I was like, boom, this, this, this, this topic's going right to the top of the list.

Yeah. There's there's so much more to fasting than just not eating. Right, because we're talking about reversing disease processes here that have been forming over potentially decades, a lifetime. And that's one of the things I love about this study, is that it is specifically in older adults. And and the older we get, the more these comorbidities, the the insulin resistance, the diabetes, the cardiovascular disease, everything that we talk about it, it's going to hit us harder and harder. All blood pressure, just the list keeps going. Everything. It's going to hit us harder and harder and it's going to be harder to reverse at that point to each year we get older, our body becomes a little bit less efficient, a little slower. It's harder to reverse these things. So to have a study that that shines a light on on reversal processes and and gives us really, really actionable things, it's it's huge.

I want to jump in and say, especially as we get older, this study was done in men and women aged 60 to seventy five years of age.

So in the clinical experience, we used to deal with a lot of joint degenerative change, arthritis, arthritic conditions, knee pain, back pain, preventing surgeries and hip replacements and knee replacements and all that kind of stuff. Degenerative neck issues, arthritis, osteoarthritis, all of these different things. Right. And I'm telling you, the older you get, the harder it is to try to outwork bad diet. Like you can't move. Your energy's worse, like so you get on this slippery slope. So we're talking about, like, giving one of the hardest demographics, the ability to have control over their health metrics and what happens on their blood work rather than having to rely on medications or doctor's recommendations that don't really ever get to the cause of the problem, especially in diabetes, that really just treat the symptom or manage the blood glucose. Right. So never mind. Are we talking about that powerful message where we're giving the older like you?

You literally have a choice and now you can absolutely do it.

We're doing it with people on our program. My dad's on the program. He's off all of his insulin and metformin and one of his blood pressure medications in 60 days. So it's doable. But never mind. We're giving the people that haven't reached that age group the opportunity to never end up there.

Right. I mean, that's that's huge. That's everything that we're that we're looking to communicate and have to figure out. How do you how do you crack the code for that? And, you know, so many of us have been trying to do it for so many years, but putting the fasting together with with the diet and the other the other habits that go along with it, how do you how do you optimize those those things to get the best results? So that's exactly what we're looking at in the study. Yeah.

So let's break down the study. So, very so low carb versus low fat, pretty much just keep it simple. Right. And it it was amazing to me, because if you just look at the basic numbers, I know there's a few that you want to specifically mention, but the low carb group.

Right. Which is trying to keep it, which is their carbs at 10 percent of their daily intake. Right. Was they had five times more fat loss, three times more visceral fat loss while maintaining muscle mass and increased increasing their insulin sensitivity.

So just incredible numbers.

And I know I'll let you pick a couple of those apart in just a second, but the.

Incredible losses in terms of total fat, specifically visceral fat, visceral fat is the stuff around the midsection in between the organs, the stuff you don't see that increases your chance of heart disease, cardiovascular issues, et cetera. Right. So that's the important stuff, the stuff on the inside that we want to see changing. And the people in the low carb side had a nine point seven percent or 10 percent total loss compared to two percent in the low fat.

Yeah, even in taking the same amount of calories, doing the same amount of activity, same exercises, everything else held the same. And they just into and took that much less carbohydrates during the study.

Yeah. And that's the whole thing about the exercise. Right. Like the study was focused on the dietary changes and so with the dietary changes. And so some of the people that we were working with like, no, no, don't worry about exercise. Yes. Is it good for longevity and overall health metrics, et cetera? Right. But we did a whole episode on the Ten Thousand Steps to Nowhere. Right. About ten thousand steps really isn't a good metric. What we're specifically talking about here is targeting the fat areas in the visceral fat that can get you a five times return just by simply changing the portions.

Of macros, meaning fat, carbs and protein on your plate.

Yeah, turning some of those carbs into healthy fats deliberately and just watching your results skyrocket, put that together with fasting and with being deliberate about your meal timing. And you talk about a recipe for success. I mean, I can't think of anything better. But let me also point out the population that was in this study. You mentioned that it was 60 to 70 five year olds. It was male and female, but nobody was diabetic here. So nobody was on diabetic medications. So they had normal fasting glucose within the normal range. And these were overweight to obese patients. You're talking about a BMI that was 30 to 40. OK, so so these are people in a tough spot. They had a lot of weight to lose. We're not talking about healthy young adults here. We're talking about people who had a significant amount of weight to lose and who were basically sedentary here as well. So, I mean, these these are all things that bode fantastically well for no matter where you're starting, being able to find a path to the goals that you're looking for.

One of the crazy things that we looked at as we're going through the data was like, well, wait a minute, there was really no change in between the two groups in the fasting glucose, like you just mentioned. And what was a big change was the fact that the insulin sensitivity, meaning how well your body can process the carbohydrates and insulin, insulin resistance and insulin sensitivity are opposite.

So the more resistance you have, the less effective insulin is in taking the sugar, the glucose that's in your body and putting it somewhere, either storing it as fat, burning it as energy, putting in your skeletal muscle, etc.. Right. That's what causes the storage of fat over time. Insulin is the hormone that controls that. So the more resistance you have, the less effective it is. The worse off you are. The more sensitivity you have, the better it works. Right. So when we're looking at the starting point for these groups that we're not diabetic, they did have an increased BMI, which increases the chance of diabetes. Right. And all the other things that go with it, those comorbidities that we always talk about.

But the insulin sensitivity, the good one, went up dramatically in the low carb group.

So. One more thing and the.

Small LDL particle, not just LDL cholesterol, went down because cholesterol is a whole nother conversation. It's been vilified, right. There's there's many more little subsets of cholesterol that tell us exactly what's going on. So.

Never mind, does your cholesterol come down, your insulin, your effective insulin goes up, but if we wouldn't have looked at insulin, then we would have been looking at these studies, looking at fasting glucose, and the results would have been hidden, which is what you said to me right before we hopped on to record this.

And I was like, oh, my gosh.

We never would have seen this.

No, you wouldn't, it was it's completely hidden because what would show up in your standard bloodwork panel would have been the fasting glucose, which, again, look normal in in both groups. In the study, it was between one hundred and three and one hundred and six, which is right there in the normal range. But what happened over the course of the study was the fasting insulin, which isn't usually measured, actually went up two percent in the low fat diet group, but went down thirty one percent in the low carbohydrate. So that, again, let's just say one more time, the low fat group had a two percent increase in their fasting insulin. That's bad. That means you're you're storing more fat at any given time, but you're very low carbohydrate group. The 10 percent or less, they literally drop their fasting insulin levels by thirty one percent, which would have been completely covered up in the blood work, which which would have been, despite no difference in fasting glucose or in your A1 C levels over a 90 day period. This is insulin. It's behind the curtain, but it's what's causing the problem or the solution.

So for clarification on the fasting blood glucose, the normal's these people were really kind of right on that borderline of normal in pre diabetes.

So if they would have had that test done over six months, another six months, et cetera, they would have probably been labeled as pre diabetic. That that level is one on one to one twenty five. So we're talking at one or two, plus or minus a couple, a couple units, one of the three plus or minus a couple of units. So they're right on that borderline but no formal diagnosis. But with that BMI at that age group, they are well on their way to develop.

It's coming. It's right around the corner. And once that cascade starts, that's really hard to get off that roller coaster because then the meds start increasing. You're really trying to control it, trying to avoid amputation and other kidney failure, a whole host of things that happens, you know, above the age of 70 and 80.

Yeah, those percentages is just it's amazing.

So this study is just packed with positive feedback that if you're in a place where you have the weight to lose, you have the higher BMI, you're in an older age group or you're in a younger group and you look at your dad or your your grandparents or your your your family history of the path that a lot of the people have taken in front of you.

I mean, it's time to really look in the mirror and be like, OK, so what are my options here? Right. I can continue doing the same thing and expecting the results to change.

Or I can change my day to day habits, which then over a month to two months to three months become rewired in your brain, that you have control to never end up in a position where you have those poor health metrics, the increased costs of insurance, the decreased quality of life, and God forbid, the diagnosis of Type two diabetes, heart disease, et cetera, et cetera.

So this study just I mean, it was like a smack in the face, but it was also like half man. Like this is. This this is this is I mean, this is this is where the juices, right?

Yeah. And I don't even know if we mentioned the fact that this was only an eight week study that this is this is less than two months to lower fasting insulin levels by over 30 percent, drop visceral fat and fat deposits by up to 10 percent. I mean, this isn't a huge commitment here. This is very doable. And in a in an even healthier or younger population, the results are likely to be even more favorable.

It's just incredible. I just went back and looked at a couple of our notes. I know we might be repeating ourselves a little bit, but greater increases in insulin sensitivity, good greater HDL, good decreases in fasting, insulin good decreases and triglycerides good, all compared to a low fat diet.

If we and we're going to do a whole episode, I've just decided to be on the fly. So welcome to welcome to the party that's going on in my head. I'm scared. Yeah, no kidding. Right. And it's fueled by Tzvia. Right. So the stevia sweetened drinks, nothing crazy, but it is a party for me. This is my this is my treat. So we're going to do a whole episode on the low fat craze and what it did in the history of it and why it started and the detrimental effects that it's really taken, especially on the baby boomer generation.

Yeah, it's a whole nother conversation, but just the positive outcome of this in the action step, really, that we want to encourage you to do and just to think about is to know that you have control over what's going to happen the next time, especially if you're in this age group.

You have a choice in eight weeks or less just to see and have a different conversation than you're used to having when you go into the doctor's office.

Right. A different conversation. Then you need to lose weight.

Your blood pressure is up, your cholesterol is up, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right now. OK, well, we're going to have to put you on this medication. Well, how long do I need to take? It will forever. Wait a minute. That's not fixing anything or what's the cause?

You now literally have the exact equation. Never mind combining fasting, like you said on top of this, you know, doing fasting with the low carb. I mean, you still got to have some carbs, right? You still get to eat a piece of bread, still get to have some carbs in your diet, but you have the opportunity to make that transformation.

Yeah, I mean, this these people weren't deliberately going into a severe calorie deficit by any means and still dropping that fat.

I mean, this is hugely empowering in eight weeks, ten percent a week, visceral. They maintain their skeletal muscle. They had more lean tissue in their thighs. Like, I just I just want to keep going.

Ok, so let's let the plane action step take home message. Well, fired up tonight, little nerdy. I don't know why.

Just this is just stand out to me. But if you haven't started fasting, go start like if you're if if, if you're, if you don't know what your plate looks like, simply go get one of those, one of those you know, Mac was at my fitness pals or something.

Just Google macros.

Give us a shout out, we'll send you a couple little like images that we use to just help people make better decisions. But like, really just start today.

Absolutely. Just just start. I mean, Tom, is there anything else you want to add in terms of the impact of the study for people?

No, I just love taking this as kind of a framework for what you're going to eat when you're not fasting. You know, get started with the fast start guide, do the one meal a day. You know, we kind of make it into easy steps for you. Use this as the framework for what you're going to eat when you do break the fast. And I mean, you have you have a powerful system here and it's almost guaranteed to get you going in the direction that you're looking for.

So I'm going to say something crazy. Don't don't get upset. Party. My head's still going. I'll try. I don't even care if you start fasting. Just do this. Just do this.

Yes. We want you to fast I can see Tommy staring at me through the screen. I don't know what he's thinking. I'm thinking, but like just do it.

Like, I just want to encourage you from a place of struggled with it myself, from helping my dad reverse this stuff and seeing literally he could have been in the study because the results he's getting are exactly this or better. It's just it's just so crazy to me that people just aren't doing it right. Knowledge is not power actionis so recommend if you haven't started fasting, if you knew the podcast, go to the website, stop the fasting for life dotcom, the fasting for life dotcom all spelled out. There's a fast start guide. Download the Fast Start guide that will give you a twenty minute little mini masterclass lesson that comes with the six step PDF to put fasting into your life. Listen to this episode on repeat.

Speed us up at one point five times the speed if you have to add just in print this into your brain. And and I mean, tomorrow's tomorrow's the best day to start.

Absolutely awesome, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Bye.

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