Ep. 1 - Fasting for Beginners | Best way to start Intermittent Fasting | Download your free Intermittent Fasting Plan

Holiday Recap | The Why | Fast Start Guide

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss how their journey brought them to Fasting for Life. It begins with a holiday recap followed by the sharing of each's story and the trials and tribulations that they endured along the way. There are many similarities between the two but in the end, the art of fasting is what turned their lives around. The episode concludes with a discussion on fasting, how to get started and where to download your Fast Start Guide.

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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.

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 and 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.

Everyone, stocks got here and with my friend and colleague Tommy Welling, hey, dancer. Hey, I'm doing great, Scott. How are you? Awesome, man. It's twenty twenty two thousand nineteen was transformational for both of us. We're gonna get into everything right here in our first episode of the Fasting Life podcast. We just got through the holidays, so I know that I am. Kind of sick and tired of hearing the same frustrations and complaints from family and friends about the holidays and the diet and how they fall off track and they don't have time. How was your holidays in perspective of those things?

Yeah, I heard a lot of that too. A lot of guilt and some whining. And I just kind of just kind of bemoaning the point. And I did I did a little bit. I tried not to preach, but I said, stop worrying about it so much. Just space your meals out a little bit more, eat a little less when you don't have to and enjoy those times with friends and family. Those are special times, you know, life short. So you don't have to guilt yourself the whole day and and worry about little calorie deficits here or there to try to make up for that later, because that's a that's a fool's game. And we'll tell you.

On top of that, I've heard a couple of the scenarios. Words a gal just I'll just start in January, you know? No, it's it's just it's it's just 30 days. It's just one holiday. Well, yeah, it doesn't turn out to be just that. But you still hit your goals moving in that direction.

Yeah, doing great. Keep the momentum going up through December. I still have some weight that I want to take off and some goals for 2020 that are big important to me. And I wanted to make sure that I ended December with a lot of motivation. So set some new goals. In December, I had some aggressive fasting goals and I hit most of them. Life came up and I adjusted and I enjoyed the time, but I still took them all the momentum right into the end of the year. So that's good.

That's awesome, man. Same here. We was actually able to continue the momentum. There was no step back this year, which which I never would have thought possible. So, you know, guys, we jump into fasting for life and how it simplified our lives in twenty nineteen and the changes we've seen. You I really want to kind of go back to the struggles that you and I both had, similar paths, similar timelines, different specifics of the situations, but a lot of overlapping similarities that, you know, is why I ended up asking you for for help. Back in back in June. So where did it start for you? When when did this process start of of struggling with the ideal weight and, you know, the eating and all those different types of things? When did it start for you?

I feel like I'm on the psychologist's couch now, but I'll try not to go too deep into the psyche here, but I mean, I remember being a kid in elementary school doing the way ends and those were always, you know, at the higher percentiles. And I didn't really worry too much about it at that point. But then when I got a little bit older, probably 13, 14 started lifting weights and then really kind of, you know, got a little more body conscious like everybody does and and started saying, well, you know, I have this these extra layers. You know what? What what can I do with this? And then. And then came the research and trying to figure out, OK, if I'm lifting weights, should this fat come off? Should I see these these changes, you know, more more prevalently? And and that's probably where where it started. And, you know, and I I started tracking weight, seeing it go up and down. I remember getting a body fat monitor probably when I was 16 or 17 and started looking at that number. Could never really get it to move very much, honestly. But. But I did start paying attention to it at that point.

Yes, it's interesting, you mean it's so crazy, the similarities because I started lifting weights a 13 or 14 also and I was always the big guy.

You know, my nickname in gym class was Fat Face One Year. That was actually what my teacher used to call me. And I can look back and laugh at it now. But, you know, there is an underlying psychology to it that kind of sticks with you, you know, especially in your formidable years. You know, so as it went into college for me, I started powerlifting and just got bigger and bigger, more more bulky muscle. You know, shirts didn't fit. You know, I was always called the big guy. No neck, no neck a saurus. I mean, there's there's a whole host of nicknames that I had. And then when I stopped working out, you know, it kind of just turned into a centralized weight gain. And from there, I went into graduate school, into chiropractic school, learning about nutrition. I've always been into nutrition and exercise. The science behind it. And it was, you know, my undergrad degree, my concentration was in nutrition and, you know, getting out into practice and starting to help all those people. And I myself was failing. You know, that was it was it was starting to get to the point where I was out of options.

So it's just crazy how it kind of snowballs. And the time goes by when, you know, you and I have conversations like this. We look back, we're like, where did it? Like, where did it go wrong? Like, where did we miss it? You know, I mean.

Yeah, I know. I remember sitting in a masters class for physiology and they were sitting there and this was for medical students. And so they're they're teaching nutrition. And I was waiting for the answer, because at this point, I was sitting there going, OK, I'm about thirty five pounds heavier than I'd like to be with weight. That seems to be slowly accumulating up. I can get it to come down, but not not very far. And I'm waiting for the answer. Like, give me the science, give me the info graph that shows me what I need to do that I've been missing for this whole time. And as they skim over the nutrition, I had an epiphany. I realized they're not getting it. They're not teaching it. These are the doctors that are being trained right now on the cutting edge of medicine, aren't going to have the answer for their patients. And it was it was a light bulb, but not a good one that that went off right there for me. And I knew I had some work to do, but that was years ago before I discovered fasting and how powerful it's been for me.

And we're going to talk a lot about, you know, the different models that are out there and how there are so many there's so much more knowledge and information if you go to the health and lifestyle section of a bookstore. Yes, they still do exist where you search it on Amazon, you know, or you search for a diet. There's so much misinformation out there. Yo-Yo, dieting and bingeing and the lemon juice diet. And, you know, it just the list just keeps going on and on and on. And, you know, the big the big one that is is typically taught, you know, once you dive in a little bit more is looking at calories in and calories out an equation and how it's not just simply that for some people. Now, you know, we're not going to get into the nuts and bolts in the numbers today. But the reality is, is that, you know, I had to go learn this stuff on my own with two degrees and you had to go learn it on your own without your degrees. And even then, you know, you touched on it even today.

You know, the system is not set up to educate the docs on how to teach nutrition or even some schools don't even teach it at all. They may get one class, maybe 10 hours on nutrition and that's just not going to be enough. So, you know, I had tried everything. Up until Father's Day, when I was, you know, hanging out with you and having a conversation and I just asked you. I was like, hey, what should I do? I've tried all of these different things. And you looked at me and you just said, What? Stop eating. I just wanted to say it again because I laughed and just stopped eating. Yeah. Eating. I was like, what do you mean? So what did you do before fasting became, you know, what you what you put into your your day to day? Like what methods? Yeah. Like what? What did you do? Because obviously you hit a tipping point at some point and you know mine. But what was the. Yeah. Yeah. What did you try?

Like what was your frustration level where you are probably on the 30th or 40th time of doing some sort of diet, some sort of. OK, I'm invigorated. I have momentum. I have a Y. I have a high level of motivation. Time to hit the gym hard. That was always my my number one. I need to lift heavy weights, lift a lot of weights, because that was always just something I enjoyed. And knowing, you know, there's there's big body builders out there and they're really lean and really strong. I thought that was a big part of the equation. So I need to be at the gym. I'm going to do a lot of cardio and I'm going to restrict calories. I wasn't always low carb versus low fat or whatever specific. I have tried em all. But I didn't use just one set of macros or some other formula. But it was always calorie restriction, usually five to eight hundred calories off of whatever some online calculator would tell me is my my basal metabolic rate. And then I would go from there and I would be strict. I would use an app and count every calorie and expecting results. But usually they were much slower than they were projected. And then they would stop a lot faster than than what my goal was. So the frustration just kind of building over the years and by the beginning of twenty nineteen.

That was when I went at it hard once again, and after the first probably eight or nine pounds I could not move the needle and I got more aggressive with it. I worked out more, I did more cardio and everyone around me, well you know that I was I was telling I was frustrated. They were just saying, OK, we'll just do more, do more, you know, eat a little less and do a little more cardio. But, you know, at the same time, I was I was I keep seeing well, don't eat too few calories because you don't want to go into starvation mode, right? Right. So metabolism. Yeah, your metabolism. How how far can I go without hitting this this FairPoint hitting the boogey man. That is the metabolic shutdown. So I find myself, you know, stuck between a rock and a hard place going, OK. Is this just never going to work? Am I not going to have a solution? Can I just not drop the weight that I thought I should always be able to? And that's when my audible I pulled it up and it recommended Dr. Fung's book, The Obesity Code. And I said, well, what I have to lose, I picked it up right then. Read it three times. Front the back.

Yeah, I think. Yeah. It's one of those that you need to do that too. And it's easy to do it also. You know, that was the first reference point that you gave to me to other than the stop eating statement that you just kind of slapped me in the face with that day, which was quite a wakeup call. But there's so many similarities between our our journeys. And I was like, OK, wait a minute. Over the seven years of being in practice, you know, I had put in multiple different weight loss programs into the clinic. Everything from DNA testing to metabolic testing to macros to reverse dieting to whole 30s. To tracking your inflammation markers to, you know, the Dutch tests, to adrenal issues, to thinking it was my gut. And it always just came back to the fact that I could easily quickly put on weight. And I could be eating good food, but if I started working out, I would bulk up fast. I went to this world renowned nutritionist here in Houston and he did the calipers the initial way. And I followed his program's strict for six months. And I hit this wall where all of a sudden he's like, OK, what are you not telling me? I'm like a nun. I'm not lying, you know, like my wife and I are doing this together. Trust me, I'm not messing up the equation. Like I know my numbers. I'm following exactly what you're telling me.

We must not be sleeping. You must not be drinking water and you'll sleep. A big part of it, too. For my Jeremy. But. He was like, OK. You're one of these people that just metabolizes carbs a lot slower than everyone else, and he didn't say insulin. He didn't say insulin resistance. He didn't say you've lost your insulin insulin sensitivity. He didn't say any of that to me. But after doing all of the testing on myself and it not working and helping hundreds of patients in our clinic, we saw over 20, 500 patients in a four and a half year period. And every one of them was exposed to our weight loss and nutrition programs. And we had a lot of great results, but they never lasted. So it was I was experiencing the same thing without without without any answers and I just couldn't figure it out. And, you know, I had the blood markers done and I had, you know, panels done for life insurances and my triglycerides would be out of whack. And my wife's like, what are you eating? And I'm like, I'm not like I just don't know what's going on. And I would do a fasting blood glucose. And guess what? It would be normal. And I'm sitting there going, okay. Something just doesn't make sense. And, you know, after you said to me, read this book, you know, insulin resistance, that would you call it the boogey man? I remember what?

Yes. Well, boogey man was was metabolic slow down. That's right. The insulin resistance was is basically. Is basically the key to everything that that is not talked about in all of the diet equations and what to eat. We don't talk about when to eat, which has a huge impact on on low levels, insulin resistance and sensitivity, and it's cumulative damage that we're doing. And so, you know, we get to this point where we're talking in our 30s here after years and years and years of building up insulin resistance.

Yeah. The one thing the other term that never gets used. I feel like it's homeostasis. No, our balance in our body is self-regulated. So there's an ability of our of our system to want to self-regulate and bring back to a balance. So there are other outside influences like stress and sleep and hormones and things that can swing your body out of balance, which then can further the issue when it comes to insulin and blood sugars and weight gain, et cetera. But it keeps coming down because that word insulin and we know where are you on the scale? What is your family history? You know, my dad and his brothers and a couple of my grandparents and everybody in my family. You know, heart disease, diabetes, type 2, not type 1, but type 2 diabetes, congestive heart failure, stents. And, you know, if you are diabetic or you have, you know, severe insulin resistance, you know, you're more susceptible to to that to those common conditions, which makes up, you know, 60 to 70 percent of the preventable disease that we have in the US. So it was amazing to read that book, talked to you and then start doing it and lot lose forty nine point five pounds in 50 days. Well. And I leveled out with your guidance around 40 pounds, about that 60 day mark, that sixty five day mark, and it's been easy to maintain for me. With the holidays, with, you know, my daughter's third birthday, with traveling with having two kids under the age of three. You know, and multiple businesses and launching this podcast. And, you know, just it's been amazingly simple. And I know that's one of the things that you taught me through this process. And, you know, how did you seem to figure that out? Like when were you like, OK? This is something that I can maintain.

I remember reading the book and in the obesity code, Dr. Fung does not just preach fasting, correct? It's eat. It's almost a side note. It's a it's kind of a footnote at the end. Here's a couple of of guidelines that you can use to get started. Right. You know, and it's almost in a few spots that most people are gonna skip over anyway. But I was ready to throw in the towel. Like I said, I had been through just dozens of weight loss cycles and attempts previously. And I was reading the book. And then he's started talking about this this ancient secret and how it's so deeply ingrained in our physiology, our DNA, our history. But, you know, specifically in America and in a lot of of the modern world, you know, the civilized first world countries, we've gotten into the habits that completely erased any sort of fasting. Like I don't remember anybody except for a couple of people in my life for religious purposes who had ever talked about fasting ever. So if I heard somebody say they they were gonna start fasting, it was like, oh, that sounds impossible. Like, we know we have had meals a day. Yeah, we have three meals a day and we have one to three more snacks.

And and it's potentially eating until midnight or later. And then it might be a sleepless or a very low sleep night ahead. And then, you know, maybe up by five or six. And then it's it's breakfast time again. So there's not there's not time to just not be eating. And that that sounds so weird. But as I was sitting there listening to it. A light bulb went off that I just realized this is the only thing I haven't done. I couldn't do a search for weight loss, fat loss methods, do any sort of search like that and find some some new uncovered Brock. Except this was this was the only one that I hadn't done before. And it was because I had always been worried about this. Metabolic slow down, metabolic shut down. I don't want to go into starvation mode. That's the boogey man. And especially if you're working out hard, you're trying to get stronger, build muscle and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Then then that's what you're trying to avoid. And that's what I realized. What do I have to lose? Yeah. Nothing at everything at the same time.

Yeah. It's amazing that recorded fast over 380 days and all the guy did was take a multi-vitamin. And when I tell people that they're like what. Like what do you mean? You know, so that's one of the things we're gonna get into. You know, with our with our kind of how we roll this out with the mindset, the motivation, the method and the mastery of this is, you know, we're gonna hear things like, well, I need to eat or, oh, you know, I'm on medication or my doctor says I need to do X, Y and Z. And by no means are we gonna sit here and tell you to, you know, stop taking your meds and don't consult your doctor. But there there's a decision point, you know, in it for us and in it for everyone. It's like, okay, I've been doing this for 30 years and I just don't see the results. So, you know, that definition of insanity that's probably overused in today's world, but, you know, keep doing the same thing over and over. And, you know, you look in the mirror and you're like, man, I just don't get it. Why tonight? Why isn't it changing? Well, you made it might be time to change something. And we really want to roll this out. So it's simple. It's effective. You have support. You know, one thing that you did for me, Tommy, is that you text me that night when you're like, okay, how do you feel? Other than I'd be like free.

I feel OK. And then my day to ask, OK, I really need to eat. You know, you don't. And then I look in the mirror, I'm like, yeah, you're right. I got about 50 pounds of fuel that, you know, I could probably go on to a cabin in the woods somewhere and I'd be I'd come home being OK. My beard might be a little long, but, you know, I am gonna survive, you know. So there's a lot of research out there, lot information. You know, the obesity code was the starting point for me. Thanks. Thanks to you for point. You know, for sharing it with me. But now we've kind of really delve into this and we want to we want to put it together for everyone that's listening, who's struggled with, you know, Yo-Yo dieting, weight gain, you know, just that type of up and down, frustrating type scenario where you're just not getting the results that you're expecting to get. So, you know, what would you tell? Because I love the way that you look at this in terms of communicating. When people say, you know, what are the three things that you hear most when you tell someone that you're fasting? First of all, first rule of fasting is don't tell people you're fasting, right?

Absolutely. You know, it's one of those things where it's kind of it's it's a little bit better kept to yourself or to me, you know, to maybe a couple of close friends. But you tell everybody you're going to get a lot of of. Discouragement maybe, or so much skepticism that especially in the beginning where you're a little bit fragile about it. You don't want to doubt yourself too much. Just just do it a little bit. You'll you'll gain some confidence in it and then you'll be able to tell everyone why, how how well you feel and why it's working. But what I usually hear when I tell somebody I'm fasting is. Don't you get super hungry? What's the longest you've gone without eating and and how are you feeling? How is your energy and how do you feel? And usually they follow up with. I get headaches. So I couldn't do that.

So and that's where, you know, the creation of the fast our guide comes in. So that's gonna be the first action step. You know, our goal on these on these episodes is to distill the information to you so you can go do it, because that's what you did. That's what I did. And a lot of the success stories that we've seen here, because we've been helping people on the way, is they just go do it. And not everybody needs to do it the way I did it. You know, fifty pound forty nine half pounds in 50 days, probably a little aggressive. But you know, for me, I got like, well, this is working. So let's see how fast I can lose 50. You know, I'm at that 40 her out, you know, maintaining the 40 pound weight loss. And, you know, I've got another 15 to 20 to go based on my body composition. But really wants you to, you know, kind of look in the mirror ten days into twenty twenty.

You know, what are you doing? And is it sustainable?

You know, you're gonna have to be honest with yourself and have you done this rigmarole before? Have you said. All right. New Year, new me. Can't stand that phrase. When I was the same, you know, just just go do something different. And that's where we want to encourage you, you know, to really think and write down your goals. OK. Do I really want to be low carb and not enjoy? The wonderful world of pizza and IPA is occasionally and, you know, all of those different types of things will know that's miserable, like what percentage of the population time and you think they actually can sustain that man for like a lifetime.

I mean, it's pretty close to zero. And the ones who are doing it, that they're usually not a lot of fun to be around for too long. You can do it for for a little while and that's fine. But life shouldn't be without. Without any of those things all of the time.

Now, everyone that's out there that's listening to those that's doing Kito, keep doing Kito. It's working for you. Great. You know, we're not one camp versus the other camp. You know, we are going to talk a lot about food supply. We are going to talk a lot about science behind the different types of foods. And the sugar is in the insulin response and, you know, glucose and some scientifics terminology and thought processes behind why this works. But really, we want to we want to put it into those categories of what's your mindset, what's your motivation? We'll show you the method. It'll be a little bit different for everybody. And then when you figure this out for your own body, within that first couple of weeks to 30 days, you know, you take back control, which is one of the words that you said to me early on where it's simple.

From a day to day perspective, and it gives you control and that's all that fast starts. Excuse me, fast start. God really does is it gives you the framework to start.

So we want you to go to the Web site w w w dot the fasting for life.com w w w dot v fasting for Life.com. There is a big button right at the top that you can click on.

You put in your name and email and boom you now have the fast start god. So look in the mirror. Be honest with yourself.

Is it sustainable? Is what you're doing working? We can both tell you that. This method for us has just been. The quickest way to regain control. It's been sustainable. And most importantly, it's simple.

Absolutely, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Why learn from you, sir? So.

Next thing to do, like we said fast, our guide and then podcast. So if this if you have found us, we want you to subscribe. Leave us a review. There's also an e-mail on the Web site, info at the fasting for Life.com.

We want to be, you know, open to a conversational type experience, questions, thoughts, concerns.

We also have the Facebook page that we just started up and you'll see when you go to the Web site. We also have a challenge that's coming. More details to come on that. So make sure you subscribe. Give us a like on Facebook and download that fast-start guide. And tell me what else you got.

Nothing, absolutely nothing. Stay tuned, stay tuned for next week. We're going to we're going to come back and excited to share some more great messages with you guys.

Love it, man. Thanks so much. See you.

So you've heard today's episode and you may be wondering, where do I start? Head on over to be fasting for Life.com and sign up for our newsletter where you'll receive fasting tips and strategies to maximize results and fit fasting for your day to day life.

While you're there, download your free fast start guy 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 view and we'll be back next week with another episode of Fasting for Life.

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