Ep. 155 - Fasting with or without low-carbohydrate Diet reduces Visceral fat and improves Metabolic Syndrome | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD

In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss a study about time-restricted eating with or without a low-carbohydrate diet reduces visceral fat and improves metabolic syndrome and some useful takeaways.

Let’s continue the conversation. Click the link below to JOIN the Fasting For Life Community, a group of likeminded, new and experienced fasters! The first two rules of fasting need not apply!

Fasting For Life Community - Join HERE

This week in the community…

New to the podcast and wondering where to start? Head to the website and download our FREE Fast Start Guide, 6 simple steps to put One Meal a Day Fasting (OMAD) into practice!

Maybe you are experienced as a faster and wondering about your results and IF they could be linked to INSULIN resistance? Head over to the website and download our FREE Insulin Resistance Assessment!

Or get both here at our website: 

www.thefastingforlife.com/resources

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please tap on the stars below and consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it helps bring you the best original content each week. We also enjoy reading them!

Sign up for the Fasting For Life newsletter at www.thefastingforlife.com

Follow Fasting For Life: www.facebook.com/thefastingforlife

www.instagram.com/thefastingforlife

Join the Community on Facebook!

Fasting For Life Ep. 155 Transcript

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hello. I’m Dr. Scott Dr. Watier.

[Tommy Welling]
And I'm Tommy Welling. And you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
This podcast is about using fasting as a tool to regain your health, achieve ultimate wellness, and live the life you truly deserve.

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

[Dr. Scott Watier]
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's Dr. Scott Warner and I'm here as always. I'm a good friend and colleague, Tommy Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir.

[Tommy Welling]
Hey, Scott, how are you?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
As always, fantastic, my friend. Excited to have another fasting conversation. Today we are in the thick of the holiday hullabaloo as we like to call it Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror. Christmas is right around the corner. So we want to talk all things fasting. And guess what? Today we get to have a fun conversation about time. Restricted eating, fasting with or without low carb diet reduces visceral fat and improves metabolic syndrome.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
A randomized trial. So if you're thinking, wow, this is going to be a fun one, it's going to be like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. But in podcast form, we are going to talk about it, we're going to break it down and there's some really cool takeaways. So I'm excited about this conversation today, Tommy, and just want to welcome in the new listeners to the POD.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you want to learn more about Tommy and I and our journey and why we actually do what we do, feel free to head back to episode zero in episode one. Check them out here. Our story and I cannot believe that we are coming up on 2 million downloads and 150 plus episodes and yeah, just so crazy, so, so grateful for all of you listening in.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Longtime listeners, you've been on this FaceTime journey with us for a while and you've seen us, you know, kind of through the months, two years. Now, you take this thing on and continue to fulfill our promise that we're going to continue to bring new research in how we're going to apply it to our long term results, because we always say we want to begin with the end in mind.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I love that this this literally was published in Cell Reports Medicine, October 10th, 2022. So some really cool stuff, brand new and how it applies. So it's one of the most common things that we hear, Tommy, to kind of set the stage when people come to us or start listening or reach out or join a challenge or send us an email, whatever it is, we hear a lot about the low carbohydrate approach to weight loss.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
We've we've done episodes on this. The research for diabetics shows that it's not sustainable. For most people. We've done enough, but that can be helpful. No, 100%. 100%. We've also done and broken down literature on the fact that as you get closer to your maintenance goal and your body composition changes, right, you have more lean muscle and less fat that your body actually requires carbohydrate sources.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now, we are not talking about refined, processed crap. Right. You no natural sources. Okay. Healthy sources of carbohydrates. But this episode is really going to be around. What were the differences between a low carb diet versus a time restricted eating window or intermittent fasting? Right. So an eight hour feeding nutrition opportunity. Yeah. And so a 16 eight intermittent fast compared to the combination of time restricted.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So that eight hour window plus the low carbohydrate and there's some really cool stuff that came out of it.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, that's a really cool place to start because like if you think about it, if you're just coming into to fasting or just starting to think about or you're like, What can I do as far as time restricted eating. Like just skipping breakfast, just waiting, like pushing off that first bite of food until lunchtime, like, you know, roughly 12 p.m. for for a lot of us.

[Tommy Welling]
And then and just having like really no restrictions on the time of it until 8 p.m. and then just having a hard line in the sand where I'm cutting it off at that point so I can make sure that I'm not like snacking and, and doing other things that are going to, you know, disrupt my, my sleeping pattern and how I feel.

[Tommy Welling]
And needing more insulin during those, those nighttime rest hours, then I have nice, nice line in the sand, you know, like it's it's a great place to start and it's not all that difficult really to do, like kind of just get away from breakfast, you know? So that's really cool. And then the fact that in this study they broke it down into not just did the subjects lose weight, which we see all the time and you know, like, yeah, there is some value to it.

[Tommy Welling]
But when we go a level deeper or a couple levels deeper here and we start talking about five different cardio metabolic risk factors in this study like this is this is what actually matters. This is where we get a really good insight into what's going on in that body. Besides just did the scale go up or down a pound?

[Tommy Welling]
Who cares? How does the health look like? What does the health profile look like of the individual? Right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, we're going to focus on those cardiometabolic factors, metabolic syndrome, and most importantly, we're going to highlight the visceral adiposity. So we did a couple of episodes dedicated specifically to that versus SAT subjects anyways versus visceral fat, the visceral fat. The cool thing about all of these is they all reduce subcutaneous fat. So you all lost weight in fat or the differences between the groups and we always like to begin with the end in mind and really focus on the main drivers of health.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So yes, we know that BMI is not the best metric for it's actually just a thing that was created to study large, large populations of people. There's a correlation between being in the higher categories, overweight and obese. Where I was living for for almost two decades. Me, too. But, you know, carrying the big £180 of lean tissue as well, though.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I was I could, you know, bench press a Buick and squat, impressive numbers, but I wasn't healthy on the inside because of that visceral adiposity, that van. Right. The stuff that's in between the organs that I'm still working on because that's the stuff that is like been around the longest and it's the stuff that carries the most risk.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
When looking at metabolic syndrome, which is three out of the five of the following cardio metabolic risks and large waist circumference. So waist circumference, height to weight ratio, a much better tracking method than the scale of high blood pressure, impaired fasting glucose, so not 99 or below, because once you get to 100, 124, 25, it's pre-diabetes. We like to see 85, 86 and below.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So impaired fasting glucose because it's a slippery slope, it increases over over over the years, months, two years, two decades. Elevated triglycerides, which we know is a indicator heart cardio, metabolic risk factors and low HDL. So air quotes, there's much more to this, but air quotes, the good cholesterol hdl-c levels. Right so that excess fat in the entire abdominal region, i.e. the visceral fat is the primary driver and is a metabolically active tissue.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So to counteract all this, right, the biggest lever that we have is to get the weight off and hopefully target the visceral adiposity.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So how do we do that?

[Tommy Welling]
How do we, you know, like, that's that's the million dollar question, right? But you know, so.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
As we as we start to and I just say it, fasting, okay, you just say it and then we'll then we'll unpack it here. Right? That's why we're talking about this because it's so cool. Now, there is some limitations to the study and a couple of things we need to be concerned about in terms of, you know, body composition, etc., but it's all part of the process.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But fasting is the answer to that. Well, how do we do this? All right. Let's talk about.

[Tommy Welling]
It. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the other half of the fasting equation as well, like what's on my plate during my nutrition opportunity anyway. So great. I drew the lines in the sand and that's a great place to start. However, as effective as that might be, especially in the beginning, it's not always going to get you to where you want to go, depending on what your nutrition or lack thereof habits, what your eating habits look like, what is your your emotional connection to food and things like that.

[Tommy Welling]
I had a lot of bad habits, even though I tracked for years and years and years coming into fasting. I had a lot of bad habits and we hear it all the time, Hey, if I'm fasting, doesn't that mean I can just eat whatever I want sometimes?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Not for a short period of time.

[Tommy Welling]
I would say like not me. But you probably will, especially in the beginning. But it will be it will be helpful to reflect on that, because as you get better with your fasting, hopefully and you know, over time, you start to have you start to make better nutrition choices. And if you haven't, then some of the stuff that we're going to uncover in the research article might show you why it will be a good idea to do some of that, too, to really get the needle moving, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Might give you some something to stand on. We're like, okay, I know I should be doing this, but why have I not been able to yet? So yeah, we're going to talk about that in just a second. So, yeah, a three month randomized trial in cell reports medicine. Right. So this is something that just came out. The study was actually out of China and they looked at three different groups.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So there was a low carb, which is less than 130 grams of carbohydrates per day, which if you're doing low carb, that's not really that low carb. But it was still cool to see the results. TERRY Time restricted, eating all calories consumed with an eight hour period, either 12 to 8 or 824. And I was self-selected. Again, one of the limitations we just did an episode recently, I can't remember when about the differences in the results when comparing those different for an eight hour windows, which is really cool.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And then the combined groups of the tree, the eight hour window plus the low carb or less than 130 carbs day anyone's ever done low carbohydrate air quotes dieting. Right? The sustainability of it doesn't seem to be there for most people. And if you do in Quito or Quito, I mean, you're talking less than ten carbs a day sometimes.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So, yeah, this is a very liberal, low carbohydrate kind of number in my in my opinion, that's a good thing, too. It is. And right then, the fact is, I see the word sorry flexibility here. Yeah, sustainability. I see it here as like, oh, I can actually eat a potato. It's not going to cure. No, no, no, it's not.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now, if you have severe metabolic syndrome and severe diabetes and you're on insulin, then we're going to need to talk about limiting those things to help reverse that stuff. But that doesn't mean you can ever eat it again, right?

[Tommy Welling]
At least for now. Yeah, right. Definitely. It's going to go a long way, but that's a cool thing because at 130 grams, you split that up into like like a 16 eight. Like if you if you broke that up in 2 to 2 meals per day, then, you know, you're talking about 65 grams of carbohydrates in each one of those two meals like like that.

[Tommy Welling]
That's fine. That doesn't necessarily seem overly restrictive. You know, to to where I feel like this isn't like real life. And then at the same time, then I get into kind of the old dieting mentality, like my on off diet, right? That we want to live.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Good and bad foods too. Right? So right. We don't shy away or bastardize any of the macro groups. They're all macros for a reason. They're all energy supplies and sources for a reason. If you have diabetes, if you have metabolic syndrome, if you have fatty liver, if you have issues with your blood work, if you have heart disease, then we are absolutely going to recommend limiting your carbohydrates to the lowest number that you can get that is sustainable for you to undo the years of that disease process building so we're not saying, oh yeah, if you're out that no, we're not painting, you know, a rose colored and what's the what's the what am I

[Dr. Scott Watier]
trying to say here? It's not all roses. Okay. So there is some cool stuff that comes out comparing the groups now. But even if you were to do the 130, you should for most people, be able to see blood sugar changes and you're going to get all the benefits that we're going to unpack here in just a second.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So there is overall results of the trial. Tommy is you have your low carb group, you have your eight hour time restricted. Right. And then you have your low carb plus eight hour time restricted. Right. And you have your body weight, your visceral fat, which is I love that they put this in as a marker. I love. Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then secondary outcomes so those are the two primary were glycemic control so blood sugar numbers triglycerides right on your lab work and uric acid which is really cool to see the results because we did a whole episode on gout and uric acid and how it is a risk factor. Well known now risk factor for metabolic syndrome which is the first you know, the series of symptoms and cardiometabolic concerns that we mentioned a few minutes ago.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I love that these are the markers because this is where we're talking about, oh, I just got to lose £20. No, you just have to reverse disease. And then the weight is going to come off. If you if you do the right things, then you're going to see the results.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, that's like like that's the thing. Understanding that the visceral fat is so highly correlated with the amount of actual body fat and like how much higher your body weight is versus what you kind of like know or like, yeah, I have this spare tire, I have this whatever. I don't need it. Like, you know, you don't need it.

[Tommy Welling]
Your body's not doing better because of it, right? Your body's doing a bit worse because it's there. So as it starts to come down proportionately, the visceral fat starts to starts to come down, right? And then those secondary outcome measures start to improve as well. But differentiating between the methods to actually find what's working better. Like we see a body fat reduction in the low carb group, but we see even more when they go eight hour time restricted regardless of the carbohydrates.

[Tommy Welling]
And then we see even more when they put both methods together, which is what we we'd hope to see, like as I'm as I'm doing more, as I'm quote unquote, doing better or like you could even like think about it as like I'm kind of trying harder, right? Like, I don't really like that connotation here. But the fact of the matter is we put another arsenal in another method together, and then we start to see like combinatorial results.

[Tommy Welling]
So we actually start to move the needle more like, you know, one plus one starts to equal three at this point, like the whole system's working better.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
I was just thinking, good, better, best. Yeah. So low carb good. You're going to lose weight. You're going to move these markers.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Time restricted window. Even though the visceral adiposity and the secondary measures did not move nearly as much when compared to the TRT. So low carb versus dry tree's better and then you combine them both. Yeah. Magic. So it's for weight loss. Body weight decreased in a greater extent in the combined group. So you're reducing the caloric intake, the opportunity as we know with fasting, if you've been doing it, that you're going to notice changes in satiation, you're going to your hormones, your hunger signals are going to start to balance.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're not going to be hungry, you're not going to be starving and ravenous all the time. A lot of similarities between the the time restricted eating group and the combined group as well in terms of primary and secondary outcomes. That mass decrease in all the groups compared to the baseline was a greater decrease in the combined group and there was a non-significant decrease in the combined group when it came to muscle mass.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So just Terri alone there was a slight decrease and we did an entire episode on this now to combat that 330 minute resistance training workouts a week, simply walking is another great way to.

[Tommy Welling]
Know protein in your nutrition opportunity.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And focusing on protein as a main starting point for each one of these nutrition opportunities can combat that. But I love that that it was non-significant decrease in the combined group so good better best right.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah it's pretty cool how that works and that it's nice and just the fact that like understanding that as I'm dropping substantial fat, my body as a machine doesn't need quite as much muscle mass or strength to move that body through space. Like we're, we're constantly getting we're constantly fighting against gravity. Right. But but each pound that we have less, we have to fight less against gravity.

[Tommy Welling]
And then we also have the combined results, which is the fact that when they look at what that lean tissue is versus the fatty tissue, there is there is actually a water component in the fatty tissue as well. So we have we have a few things to to kind of like look into the data for some of these studies.

[Tommy Welling]
But what I really like here too, is just the fact that when when these when these health outcomes start to improve, they start to improve each other as well. Because you said one thing at the beginning of the conversation, which was that that adipose tissue, especially the visceral fat, is hormonally active tissue. Right. And so we're getting these signals from the actual fat tissue.

[Tommy Welling]
And so as we start to take the weight off, the hormonal signals start to balance too, which means it starts to become easier to make more of the right nutrition opportunities because the cravings come down and then because my body can actually understand when I'm when I'm full or satiated, whereas those signals are getting crossed like much earlier in the process.

[Tommy Welling]
So the more weight you have to lose, the more those signals can be crossed and the harder it can feel to kind of get the ball rolling. But as we start to just get some consistency with it, then we can we can really start to feel that momentum build, which is which is really cool and it's like it's all over the results of this study here.

[Tommy Welling]
So I love that.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, some of those secondary measures too are really cool when you look at the uric acid and triglyceride levels. So those decreased in. So gout, right? Inflammation, uric acid, triglycerides. So we don't want those things float around the bloodstream even though we're breaking down fat. There's going to be more of that in the short term. There were no differences between the TRT in the combined group, but there was a big difference between the low carb group, right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So those things only moved in the combined or the TRT group. So fasting for the win, right. Yeah, I'm fasting yellow card for the. Yeah. Alone. Right. And same thing with the LDL. So there was a slight increase, which is what we would expect to see short term. But then long term we see that number come down and HDL rise as well.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So fasting, blood clots decreased and the TRT in the combined group with with no differences between the group markers of insulin sensitivity, fasting insulin c-peptide homa i r right. Which is the industry standard for diagnosing insulin resistance, which is the main driver for the weight loss resistance issue. And that weight regain kind of cycle of dieting. Over the years I've been trying to lose the same £20.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It gets harder and harder. And if you've got elevated blood sugars, it's going to take that aren't working as well. You're going to it's going to take more insulin to try to process that which again turns into resistance, which means more fat storage, etc.. So really cool things. In terms of the outcomes, I really want to focus primarily there was some nuances here in terms of, you know, despite the inclusion of those several groups, the researchers did not adjust for multiple comparisons, which can result in some false positives.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Dietary adherence was worse in the early time. Restricted eating group. MM And it was 61 days compared to the late which was 75 days. So people that were picking the later window had more success.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I could see that. I could see for myself like, well, why do you think that we hear that? Oh, my dinner is so much more sustainable than like home at lunch or let alone home at breakfast. If you've been told like eat earlier in the day. Right, and you just try to do breakfast. Like a lot of times I'm much more likely to be eating alone or foods that I don't look forward to as much, you know, versus later on in the day.

[Tommy Welling]
So understanding that that sustainability piece right there or giving yourself some flexibility, allowing yourself to go, yeah, you know what? Why don't I do an earlier window once or twice a week? Because I want some additional benefits. I want to kind of mix it up a little bit, but then, you know, maybe the rest of the time I'm finding myself with the later window and my compliance is going to be much, much better.

[Tommy Welling]
Guess what? It's not about the home runs in the short term. It's about the sustainability and my consistency with it. In the long term, that's absolutely going to dictate my results.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, it even says a year further. Studies are needed to confirm whether combination of CD, low carb and free time restricted eating produce greater weight loss than LCD or tarry alone. Well, I don't care which one it is. What works for you. Like you were just speaking about what's sustainability now if you want to get additional benefit, like we're going to talk about what the visceral fat here in just a second that I would recommend doing both, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So fasting for the win, plus a low carb approach to get the weight off and then slowly start playing with those macro compositions and how you feel.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Across multiple meals, across different time windows. And that's why that that variability or the sustainability like we've seen in the previous studies where they looked at how do you sustain the weight loss while there was, you know, different main categories with intrinsic and extrinsic factors involved where it showed only 5% of the people were able to sustain the weight loss for 2 to 3 years.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? So it's like there's an individualization here that takes place. But I love the fact that, you know, reduction in hunger and increased fullness for time, restricted eating. And it's definitely it said it may be, but it's definitely a result of the changes of the ghrelin levels and the leptin levels as things start to balance. Right. So most people think, oh, you're fasting, you're going to starve yourself.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Well, no, things actually start to get easier again, the more consistent you are day to day, week to week, month to month.

[Tommy Welling]
I can't even tell you before, before time. Restricted eating if there was ever really a time that I felt like satisfied, satiated, like quote unquote, for it was like every two or 3 hours. Yeah. What am I kind of eating or snacking on, you know, next because the, the boundary that the the discipline but the practice wasn't there and then like the hunger cues and the lack of satiety, they were they were just all over the place.

[Tommy Welling]
I mean, it was haywire. I didn't understand it at the time. But then, you know, you start to put in the boundaries and get consistent with it and actually apply it over a little bit of time. Those things really do start to balance in like in a powerful way. I would never go back like, absolutely not.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But it sounds. Yeah, intuitive.

[Tommy Welling]
Especially at the start.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It does especially start or if you've been off it for a while, just remember how you felt when it was, you know, when it was working. All right?

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Looking, yeah. When things are clicking. So I want to highlight one thing here is the visceral fat component, right? So that's that visceral fat, that deep fat that's that's in between the organs, right? The belly, the midsection by the excess.

[Tommy Welling]
Lungs.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Liver. Yeah. I mean.

[Tommy Welling]
It's yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Intestines, all that stuff. Right. So excess, visceral fat is central to the development of metabolic syndrome. So that stuff, all the cardio metabolic issues you mentioned.

[Tommy Welling]
In the beginning and.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It leads to adipose tissue dysfunction, right. Metabolically active fat cells, right? Yeah. They're like mutiny against your results. They're having these little meetings going. We're going to get them right. Staging a coup.

[Tommy Welling]
On your body.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And insulin resistance. So the expansion of visceral fat and insulin resistance increases circulating free fatty acids which infiltrate the liver and the skeletal muscle and disrupt the glucose homeostasis or balance. Right. So they respond those to tissues, skeletal muscle and liver by increasing the breakdown, which results in decreased glucose uptake in muscle along with an increased glucose and triglyceride production and increased HDL clearance in the liver.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So never mind that. Does visceral adiposity then alter the secretion of out of vaccines, which are the hormones and cytokines and other protein secreted by fat tissue. So now we've got metabolically broken fat cells, never mind, we have more of them. And then it's included increased secretion of pro-inflammatory inflammation cytokines. Right? Interleukin six TNF factor or tumor necrosis factor alpha reduced secretion of adiponectin contributing to a chronic state of low grade inflammation and the deterioration of the cardio metabolic health.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So visceral adiposity should really be like the main focus of how we're going to combat insulin resistance and long term sustainability. Right. Of, of why we need to get the weight off for the long term.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, that's the key to our to our long term health right there. And then, you know, the next logical question is, well, like, how do I do that? Well, just remembering how intertwined it is with the overall excess body fat level, like there's so highly correlated between that. And actually what I'm bringing in during my nutrition opportunities is going to give the actual signals of if I'm depositing or if I'm burning more of the visceral fat here.

[Tommy Welling]
So I just I love the fact that that we've we've been able to highlight a few of the things that that work and what helps like pour gasoline on the fire to do those things like better. And, and then taking into account the, the consistency and the sustainability piece that like allows you to actually keep going with it so that you can make substantial progress over time.

[Tommy Welling]
Because like, what's the point if I'm, if I'm just dropping a few pounds and then kind of putting it back on and then just yo yoing back and forth. In fact, usually it ends up with a little bit less muscle each time, a little bit more visceral, fat each time, and then a little bit more insulin resistance. So those things combined.

[Tommy Welling]
And then I'm a little older too, right? So, so all those factors combined means that that's exactly why every time I go to lose the weight, it's a little bit harder the next time. Now, like this is the time I have to get it right this time and I have to be thinking about long term, how am I going to sustain this?

[Tommy Welling]
How do I keep this off? Because that that's the key right there, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And they actually talk about that time restricted eating and how whether or not it's going to have an accelerated process on decreasing the visceral fat. Well, I'll tell you, even if a hyper caloric diet utilizing a longer eating period did the same thing, I know that fasting and all the other benefits that I get from it, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
The hunger, the the big enough increase, the the better energy, the better sleep, all the things that I've only been able to obtain personally through sticking with consistent fasting that works for me, rather than counting and weighing and stoking my metabolism three times a day.

[Tommy Welling]
With quote.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Unquote snacks. Right? Quote unquote. Right. So the limitation here are here in the study that further studies all that kind of thing. The cool thing is, is that better, good, better, best.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
This is a three month trial. There's a three month study, so a 12 week study they mention assess changes in visceral fat with three also reported significant decrease in visceral fat. At the end of 12 weeks, the TRT group lost a significant amount of body weight and fat mass where the outcomes did not control, did not change in the control group.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So the arrows, regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of the choice that you're going to use to apply fasting as your lifestyle change that you're going to be continuing to build on over the weeks, two months, two years to get the long term sustainable, decreased risk and cardio metabolic factors as well as increased health, longevity, vitality, etc. There is flexibility in this.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So the encouragement here is if it's not working, then think back to when it was working and do more of those things. We overcomplicate this, as you can just tell by this previous conversation, right? We can go in a ton of different directions to get excited about it. All right. The result is there when you use TRT or LCD low carb.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. Combining them is going to give you some of the best of both worlds in short term results. But then what do you do? But then what's the plan?

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, but then what? Yeah. What I also heard there was like knowing what you're actually going after too, because you mentioned it earlier, which is like, are you, are you just thinking about like £10 on the scale and what that means? Or is there a little bit more like hiding underneath the surface, like lurking under the surface? And sometimes that's the visceral fat, but it might be something else there, too.

[Tommy Welling]
And that can be an important point for for you know, why you're doing this, too. And that can help set the next fasting timer. So if you're if you're feeling like you're you're moving in the right direction or you've been or you've been at a standstill for a while, like it's either time to, like, go back to what's been working or it's time to like lean in a little bit and do more and like maybe get a little bit more serious about, about why or what you want here.

[Tommy Welling]
Because like, like, do you really want to be doing this again? Do you really want to make progress and then and then go backwards? Like if that's been the pattern, like that was my pattern a thousand times. It feels like, did I really want to do it again? Like, no, absolutely not. Like at a certain point I realized, no, like there's no way I'm going to do this again.

[Tommy Welling]
Like I'm going to get it right and I'm going to keep it right like that. That's it.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And then so we've got two main levers. You get your fasting time and then you've got your food choices, right? So start there, start simple. Keep it simple. If you've been doing the eight hour window that the study has been showing right, you are getting benefit. If the scale is stalled and your measurements are changing, you're making long term weight loss success because that's your fat.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Your body is shrinking. Yes, yes. And more. Yes. So staying consistent, focusing on the right targets, keeping it simple. So if you guys are looking for some guidance on how to take your fasting to the next level, if you've been doing the eight hour window and you want to go to more of a one meal or one window per day, head to the website, the fasting for life dot com or the fasting for life dot com forward slash resources.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
We have the Fast Start guide, which is six simple steps to put fasting into your day to day life. There's also an insulin assessment on that website where it can because you can't measure insulin resistance at home. But it is a subjective questionnaire that will indicate whether or not you have some of the signs or symptoms of insulin resistance and you now have a plan.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You get our little video series that comes with it, the Mini Masterclass, and it will allow you to level up no matter where you are. Brand new Ben on your off, you're back on again or you're ready to break through that next plateau. Right. So so we also want to invite you into the Facebook community group, the link is in the show notes, a place where you can go and break the first two rules of fasting, which are don't talk about fasting and don't talk about fasting, meaning to the outside folks that don't understand what it is that you do, especially around the holiday season that we're in, you're having results.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Somebody gives you the compliment. Hey, you look great. What are you doing? I'm fasting. Don't say that at Christmas dinner, okay? Come to the Facebook group. Come around like minded people, talk about your fasting plans and your strategies. Get some support for the holiday season. We want to see you guys succeed and win. Tommy, final thoughts as we wrap up today's conversation.

[Tommy Welling]
Do more of what's working. And, you know, just just like you said in the holidays, knowing support. Yeah. Knowing the fact that you have a place for support and you can have those conversations, that's a big part of it because you need to enjoy the process. And feeling connected is a big part of enjoying the process. To do more of that.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And keep.

[Tommy Welling]
Seeing new results, absolutely. Make it a great holiday season and kick off 2023 with the right momentum. Yes, because that is a great feeling going into a new year right there.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yep, absolutely. Love it. All right. So appreciate the conversation as always. We'll talk soon.

[Tommy Welling]
Thank you. Bye. So you've heard today's episode and you may be wondering, where do I start? Head on over to V Fastening for Life dot com and sign up for our newsletter where you'll receive.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fasting.

[Tommy Welling]
Tips and strategies to maximize results and fit fasting into your day to day life.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
While you're there, download your free fast start guide to get started today. Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to leave us a five star review and we'll be back next week with another episode of Fasting for Life and.