Ep. 102 - The Holiday Hullabaloo | Fasting during the holidays | Resisting external pressures to put yourself first | New Year's Resolutions DON'T WORK! | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss how to deal with external pressures during the holidays and how to insulate yourself from the all-too-common, year-end weight gain. Small decisions add up over time, so ensure you have a game plan before the Holiday Hullabaloo is in full swing!

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Show Transcript: www.thefastingforlife.com/blog

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Fasting For Life Ep. 102.mp3

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:00:01] Hello. I'm Dr. Scott Watier

Tommy Welling: [00:00:03] And I'm Tommy Welling, and you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:00:08] 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: [00:00:15] 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: [00:00:25] We started fasting for life because of how fasting has transformed our lives, and we hope to share the tools that we have learned

[00:00:30] Along the way.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:00:40] Hey, everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Watier and I'm here as always with my good friend and colleague Tommy Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir. Hey, Scott, how are you doing? Fantastic, my friend. Today's episode is going to be a fun one. We're going to affectionately name this conversation that we're going to have today. We're going to name it the holiday hullabaloo. And I think it's going to be a great convo as we are kind of smack dab in the middle of the holiday season. And unless you've been living under a rock and have no cell phone, no Wi-Fi internet access and maybe no TV or you live in the woods in a tent somewhere, you probably know at this point that Christmas is just a mere few weeks away. Yeah. And, you know, Thanksgiving was a blur, so we want to be able to make sure that we set you all up for success. And I think the conversation today is going to be really cool because it comes out of a lot of the layered trainings and conversations we've been having over the last few weeks inside the challenges and the continuity group and whatnot. And we've gotten a lot of questions about it too, about how to how to make fasting stick and how to make the long term results stick. And you know, that's why we did the previous podcast on the holiday weight gain, and we're just going to unpack it a little bit more with some tangible, real life things, hopefully for you guys and give you some action steps that you can put into place over the next few weeks.

Tommy Welling: [00:02:07] Yeah, because you know, looking back, over the years, this was always a really tough time of year where it was kind of like, it's easy for for goals and priorities to kind of take a backseat to a lot of external pressure and a lot of things that we're going to be unpacking. And, you know, like we can pay for that all year long if we if we don't have the right intention going into this time of year and just just a few tweaks here and there can make for a much different experience is what we found over the last few years, which is just absolutely night and day different from how I personally used to go about the holidays.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:02:48] Yeah, and it's it's, you know, as cliche as some of the things that I've implemented or learned over the years, learn most of the time by failing on my face and then like we had to say, failing forward. Yeah, it's no different than the fasting and weight loss and health journey that I've been on since I was 12 years old, you know, and diagnosed with severe asthma. And we're not going to go into our story today if you guys are new to the podcast. Go back and listen to the first couple of episodes. Give us a little grace. We were knew there was one hundred and some odd number of episodes ago, but if you want to learn a little bit more about who we are in our story and how we ended up here, go back and take a listen. And for you guys that have been with us for a while. Know we like to say that that that phrase failing forward or learning or making this, you know, a lifestyle change. So the fasting for life moniker or actual name was was that for a reason that we want to make this lifestyle part of our life and not make the diet the focus, the the macro counting and the calories and the meal prepping for hours on the weekends and all of that stuff that didn't really work well for us. Fasting was that switch that allowed us to tap into the physiology and then also simplify the day to day life. So right now with the holiday season, you know, this is where a lot of that external or extrinsic influences come into play and they can really, you know that that that I believe it's a country song, Jesus, take the wheel like those outside things can come in and take the wheel. You never know what I'm going to say and like veer you off into a ditch, right?

Tommy Welling: [00:04:29] And you know, like, I yeah, I feel like those extrinsic pressures are a lot of kind of what comes into play. Whether you're talking like big picture, like this part of the season, this part of the year or even even like moment to moment during the day, like even just thinking back before I had ever set a timer for fasting and how I would go about like, OK, well, it was just breakfast, lunch and dinner with those normal kind of snack times, you know, not understanding the the negative effect that I was having, you know, by just kind of just kind of being an autopilot, but also letting those extrinsic factors, you know, kind of take a role like if if I was invited to a lunch or to a dinner or something else like that, it was just kind of like, OK, well, that's just going to be another eating opportunity. And I didn't really take an active role in that decision making process right there. And so that's more on on a smaller scale, but the same thing can happen on a much larger scale this time of year, where we have these kind of peer pressure, extrinsic factors that are coming in, invitations to different get togethers. And it's like there's bake sales and there's like school parties and there's there's get togethers, there's holiday parties and like some of the stuff can feel like nonstop. Like, didn't we just have cake yesterday? Like, I don't normally have cake. And then it's all these like these baked goods and things like that. But if we're not taking an active role, those things can really accumulate and create this, this calorie debt that we have to pay back. And this like extra weight that's showing up on the scale. Now, the clothes aren't fitting as well. I'm getting less confident as the holidays kind of go on and and really, those are all external forces that end up, you know, kind of stockpiling against me, right?

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:06:18] Yeah, taking the wheel right and just and veering you off track, right? So I know we're in an audio medium, but I'm visually grabbing the fake steering wheel and singing it all the way across my desk swerves. Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting too is like, you know, and this is just speaking from personal experience and then all of the feedback that we've gotten from all of y'all that have listened, especially through the holiday last year. And you know, the holidays, you know, they have a purpose, they have family. There's it's a time of giving and gratitude. It's also supposed to be a time of rest. Yeah. And this is, you know, pot calling the kettle. This is this is the one that I suck at the most and the entire like Jim nutrition like industry basis. They're like, I don't know the statistics off the top of my head. I should have looked him up for. I didn't know what this was going to come out here. So don't call me if I'm incorrect here. But the concept or the overview of it is is the majority of the sales for a lot of the gyms and the big gym chains. They make a lot of their money in January that set themselves up for the rest of the year with those 12, six and 12 month memberships, right? Like, there's an entire industry that's set up around the holiday malaise and the fact that you're going to do all this extra stuff and indulge more and have more opportunities to veer off track.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:07:40] And then New Year's New Year's New Year new, you write your new you New Year's resolutions, come on in and get fit and. And take back the wheel, right, right, right, so there's a whole industry that we're like, you know, just playing into and personally, I would like you, said Tommy. I would do the same thing. I would, you know, I work really hard and be intentional. And then, you know, it just gets to a point where if you don't focus on it and you're not intentional with it and you don't put up some boundaries, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes or some non-negotiables, as we like to say, then you're going to lose control. And there's there's a story that we had heard recently from someone that I'll tell here in just a minute where it's like, we're not. We're not, we're not putting ourselves first, so to speak. Yeah, yeah,

Tommy Welling: [00:08:27] That's that's really kind of the crux of the matter because, you know, even when we go through a day, if it's if I'm doing a 12 hour fast, let's say it doesn't take a lot of mental focus to just go, OK, well, I want to do a 12 hour fast write. I mean, that's a fairly simple thing to do. It's not all that long, but but, you know, setting the intention for it means I made a decision. I put myself first. I said, You know what? I don't need to eat for the next 12 hours. That's important to me. So let me do that. So I drew a little line in the sand there. It's not a very deep one. It's nothing dramatic. But I still put myself first in that moment because if I get an invitation to a lunch or something else like that that I don't know what's going to come at me today, I still know that I'm doing a 12 hour fast. So it's going to take a lot for me to undo that decision and to go, Yeah, you know what? Never mind that that wasn't. That's not what I'm going to end up doing so. So taking that a step further and going into the holidays with with a little bit of intention means I can draw some small lines in the sand and go, you know, what's going to be important to me? Not feeling like I need to undo the last month or the last two months when January comes around or to set a quote unquote New Year's resolution, which is absolutely useless in my personal history of all my New Year's resolutions, right? But I don't remember a single time when I did a New Year's resolution, and it didn't involve some sort of weight goal that was always worse off than the previous year. It was just it was a recurring thing. So frustrating over time. So drawing those little lines in the sand is like part of that intentionality that I want to go into the holiday season with.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:10:15] So here's a funny story from when we were when I was in full time clinical practice around the holidays, we would have people that would bring in all of the additional stuff, right? They'd bring in the cookies and the desserts and the kint, the tin cans of short breads and all that stuff. And yeah, my staff are always looking at me like, Oh, you want us to put these in the back? And I was like, Absolutely not. I'm like, Bring them to the suite next door or put them out on a table, and all the patients can have them and then offer them to go home. And they're like, Well, isn't. Aren't we like a wellness center? I'm like, Yeah, so why are we going to take them all and put them in the back and hoard them like chipmunks or squirrels storing up for the winter? I'm like, No, get that crap out of here. Thank you for the intention. It was super sweet, but like, I don't need that stuff staring me in the face, so we would literally just leave this little table up and it would just, you know, have a red tablecloth on it. And that's where we would. We would put everything I'd be like, You guys want to indulge, that's fine. But if I eat that right now, I'm going to go, need to go under the table and take a nap. Like, I don't need that bagel with cream cheese right at 11 o'clock. So it's just that like that little line in the sand like, OK, we have to be aware that we're going to be having these things come up. And and then, like you said, you don't have to buy the brownies, right? So you can buy the brownies or the bake sale for the school to support the school, but you can just do the donation. Yeah. And like, you don't have to take the brownies with you. You're right.

Tommy Welling: [00:11:45] Because if you take the brownies with you, they are going to stay with you because

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:11:49] You're going to eat. Come on, let's be real.

Tommy Welling: [00:11:51] Right, right. They're going to be amazing. They're going to be fresh. And they're going to stick with you, and they're probably not just going to be here through December. They're probably going to stay on longer. So you know that that intentionality right there do the donation. I love that you could also take them and you could you could donate them, give them to a friend. You could. You could. You could bring some joy to somebody else, right? Who who may not, you know, have the same goals that you do right now. And that could still spread joy without you having to pay for it. Because just because it's the holiday season, like if we don't put ourselves first in these small ways, then we end up putting everybody else above us and everything else comes first. Before our goals, we end up, you know, bearing the brunt of that in some way or another. It might be a little less mental health, you know, like higher stress levels, maybe a little bit more like, like you said, malaise or, you know, maybe even sadness frustration through the holidays like I used to have like like some anxiety, a little guilt, some shame through the holidays because it was like everything was just it kind of wasn't aligned. I didn't set these intentions, and that's easy for that to happen.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:13:02] And I still have some of that now, and you can lead a conversation just to be real that I have with my wife pretty consistently. It's like, OK, hey, we set our intention for the year, the six months, the quarter, whatever it is like these decisions that we're making are we are we protecting the family like energy in the family unit here? Like, are we spreading ourselves too thin? Like, I don't want to have two or three things. And with kids, it's easy because it's like zoo lights, incentives, wonderland and birthday parties and, you know, go to go drive around the neighborhoods and look at lights and and, you know, all the extra stuff. Go see Santa. And you know, it's easy to like overextend. And that doesn't even take into account the family peace. So, you know, going back to the original framework of like the holidays having a purpose, family giving and gratitude and having some rest built in as well. You know, I always try to protect that rest piece as much as possible. And I know that if I get spread too thin, then all the other stuff starts creeping in. My sleep gets affected, my cravings go up and then I start to, you know, Jesus takes the wheel and I, you know, I'm off into the, you know, on the rumble strip going, Oh God, what's happening, right? So you know, there's always, you know, even today, like we have our family, we live here, we have an aunt and uncle in town. But outside of that, we have no family, all the families in Dallas, which is just a short drive away.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:14:25] You know, four or four and a half five hour drive, you know, with traffic to north to the north side. And then all my family's in New England and I'm sorry, but like traveling with little kids nowadays, especially and back to the potential like snowed in situation in New England, I'm like, I'm not willing to take that risk. You know, having the dogs and I'm like, we've we have our our footprint here. So I want to be intentional and making sure that the holiday season and the traditions that we're starting stay at the center point. And if you're constantly putting your energy out into the other areas and the other, you know, asks that you get then and that's where you're going to get that holiday malaise or that rundown feeling. And that's you direct toll on immune system, direct toll on your struggling with your fasting windows and all that kind of things. So learning to say no, we used to do a talk in the clinic this time of year. It was healthy for the holidays and there would be 10 to 15 minutes of that conversation would just be going through the priority Covey's priority quadrants and like talking about like how to say no, like if you're one of those providers or fixers or like people that like to, you know, coordinate and help and you're and you're that social butterfly like, you can easily say yes too often and and just encouraging telling people that it's OK to say no, like you could just feel like the stress in the room. Just it's like, Yeah, exactly. It was real. Wow, I

Tommy Welling: [00:15:57] Wish I had heard that talk. I like I'm having flashbacks right now because, you know, my wife and I, you know, definitely we like to keep strong relationships. We like to please others. And there was a lot of that, especially around the holidays. It was like with stepparents and, you know, multiple sets of parents and, you know, across different parts of town. And it was, you know, three or four or five different celebrations, Thanksgiving, Christmas, like for each one. And we're driving all over the place. And, you know, so we were we were taking the brunt of that responsibility and that workload. But at the same time, people were preparing for when we would get over there and it was like, OK, well, here's a meal. But you know, without without drawing any lines in the sand, it was like just overconsumption for for like keeping these strong relationships and like the social aspect of it. And I never really looked at it like like an obligation, but at the same time, it was it was stressful and I would pay for it later, like throughout the. Years and and I didn't know how to undo that either, so I didn't say no on the front end and I didn't have a solution on the back end. So now going into the holidays, we're not going to say yes to every opportunity that comes around, but even the ones that do, they're not all going to be eating opportunities, that's for sure. Like, I'm going to sit there, enjoy the social time and I'm going to have some black coffee in my hand, like not just another meal, so I can just feel terrible and then have to feel like I need to undo that, too. It's a very different experience now.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:17:26] Yeah, it really is. Let's unpack some tangibles here. Some some stuff where like, because we've talked a lot about like the macro, the thirty thousand foot kind of view in the different things that can come up this time of year. So to frame this out, I use the word cliché earlier and there's this there's this challenge out there called seventy five hard and it's like two workouts a day. No TV sunlight every day. Read ten minutes a day. And it's it's an incredible challenge with the amount of time and energy commitment going into it, and I've seen some really cool things happen. My wife and I have been playing with the idea of doing it, but we have allowed the schedule to not be perfect. Air quotes, right? So that can relate directly to while you're fasting, window your social calendar and the different things going on around this time of year as well. And I want to tell me when we frame this out in a second, I want to talk about whether or not like what your decision is going into the holiday. So from here until the end of the year, do you on a self self-reflection? Do you see yourself as someone that can can continue to be in a fat loss phase or probably need to back off a little and be more in a maintenance phase? Or you're just sitting there going, what? I'm new, what the heck do I do? So I want to make sure we frame out those intentionally, but to use the cliché of choose your hard.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:18:55] Right? Yeah, this is a phrase that you we talk a lot about, especially in health care. And with the trainings that I do for the multidisciplinary clinics and training all the medical providers, from orthopedics to mid-levels to rehab techs and everybody in between, you know, when patients come in, what we're trying to teach them in our clinics is that they have a choice and you get to choose your heart when it comes to your health. Yeah, right. Having surgery is hard, but doing rehab is also hard, right? Yeah. So choose your heart. Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your heart. Obesity is hard. Being fit and disciplined is hard. I don't even like the word discipline being fit and healthy as hard. Choose your heart. Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard communicating versus non communicating. If anybody is listening, that's married, communicating is freaking hard, OK? It was a lot easier when I was single, but it is absolutely worth it. So I'm choosing my heart. And you know, it is, you know, one of those like extreme ownership, like U.S. Navy SEAL Jack Willock type mindset. But when it comes to your health and your weight, what we want to do is we want to make sure that we're we're tapping into the physiology and the benefit that we can get by using fasting and putting some intention behind our boundaries in our windows.

Tommy Welling: [00:20:22] Yeah. And you know, you're going to need to choose those hearts, like in each one of these scenarios that we're talking about. And whether you're in a fat loss phase or more of a maintenance phase or you're you're figuring out where to put your own boundaries for for the holidays, there's going to be some choosing your heart like going to four different, you know, Christmas get togethers is hard, but also saying no to a family member or being there at the table while they're eating and you're not eating. It is also hard, you know, like one of the two, but also going through not making a decision there being an autopilot, letting Jesus take the wheel and then coming out of the holidays needing to make up for that and feeling frustrated and maybe some shame and guilt like, Oh man, I let it happen to me again during this holiday season. That's hard, too. So all of those situations are hard, so you're going to have to choose one. And like personally, I'd rather I'd rather do the one that kind of rips the Band-Aid off now set some intention and and minimizes the the frustration on the backend.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:21:29] So if you've been fasting and you've been having some weight loss right and you've been doing well, the decision now is OK, well, what do I do for the holidays? So you've got to start with some self-reflection and maybe just a simple five or ten minute journal and you look, OK, what are my goals for this season? Who do I want to see? What things do I want to experience? Are there any non-negotiables when it comes to social engagement? You know, and put some intention behind, what do you want the next four weeks to look like so Jesus doesn't take the wheel and you drive off into a ditch, right? Like, I love that I said that because now it's become the theme of the holiday hullabaloo episode. So, all right, I'm going to have to play the song when we're done here. I can't think of the artist because I'm terrible with that stuff, but it's a woman and I know it's great and I've heard it, but it's not coming to me. And so when we're talking about intention here, if you are if you've been doing well and you've had a lot of momentum, you don't have to give up one twelfth of your year, right? And you can keep the momentum going. So sitting down, reflecting, picking those non-negotiables, then putting those on the calendar and then everything else that comes up is just a simple question. Is this something that I'm willing to commit to that is going to allow me to continue to move towards my goals? And if it's not, then you don't do it or if you do do it, then you do it with some boundaries.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:22:49] Like, for instance, you know, over Thanksgiving, we talked a lot about if you've got multiple stops or you've got a meal. Plus, if you have traditions that you do or maybe you have a dinner at one house and then drinks and dessert at another house, giving yourself those for that four to six hour window. Just like when you go to a restaurant, you look at the menu ahead of time, right? And you don't let them put the bread. If you're in a fat loss phase, you don't let them put the bread on the table. If the bread is a trigger like, don't let them put the chips in the here in Texas, the chips and the salsa on the table, if you know that's something that you can't feel in control around, right? So you're in a fallow space, you're doing well, so just sit down and pick those things. And then if you're if you're someone that has been struggling with this stuff and you don't feel like you have the confidence, maybe it's time just to set the intention for this next four weeks that you're going to maintain the changes that you've made and then maybe pick one or two spots to push it a little bit.

Tommy Welling: [00:23:44] Yeah, I think that's a that's a really good point because like in one of our groups, we have some people who just recently committed to doing one meal a day, like doing a-mad. So, you know, downloading the fast start guide, getting started, getting getting very intentional about their a-mad and committing to this like in December or or even a few weeks ago, you know, in in November. And so, you know, if like, if that's an important goal for you, then each one of those days December, you know, just just pick one of those opportunities. You know, sometimes there might be two or three or four eating opportunities in a day. Well, guess what time to arm yourself with some black tea or some black coffee, maybe some sparkling water go, you know, enjoy those other things, those other get togethers, but be ready to choose your heart and somebody goes, Well, aren't you going to be eating? You know everyone else is eating? No, that's OK. I just, you know, maybe I already had this meal like, you know, I ate something earlier. You know, I have a big dinner planned for later, whatever it is, one of those, those little lines that you can just have kind of quickly. And and it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be anything like you'll be surprised at how quickly people kind of move on to the next thing and you can enjoy it and then not have the frustration and kind of the lagging effects behind that.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:25:07] And I would also say one more thing is make sure you plan the things that you enjoy. We can't restrict and omit our ways, our way to long term success. So make sure that you're putting in the things that you love and that you enjoy. So for our family, for example, we're going to Santa Wonderland and when we go, I'm going to enjoy that day. Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to give myself the window. We're going to get food, we're going to have an IPA. We're going to the kids will do the apple cider, cinnamon thing or whatever it is. You can keep the cinnamon nutmeg, not my, not my flavor profile. It goes in the same bin as the pumpkin right for me. But yeah, we're going to enjoy that day. So that's one of those things. I'm like, No, that is, we're doing this and then Christmas breakfast. So for me, I want it for our family. I want to take that that tradition of when we had Christmas breakfast and then we I want to pass that down to my kids and then the grandkids in the future. Like, I love that I love waking up on Christmas morning knowing that man, I'm going to. I'm going to share this. We're going to get fried baloney.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:26:09] Oh, wow. One time of year. Damn it, that is staying on my schedule. That is non-negotiable. I'm going to need a nap that day. I'm not going to feel great, but I'm going to know that that is just one small, intentional enjoyment. So you can go to these gatherings, you can make these decisions. You can enjoy the holidays as long as you are putting the intention behind it. And yeah, people, I prefer Thanksgiving because it's more social where Christmas has a lot of other things that come with it. Right? Right, right? You know, there's that family component, all the stuff that we just unpacked. I don't want to rehash it all. But so I have always growing up love Thanksgiving more. And that social piece, that connection piece, that creating the memory piece is really what I want to encourage a lot of y'all to focus on. And you can simply use fasting like you said, Tommy. If you're new, go to the fast start guide on the website, the fasting for life. You can download that guide. You can commit to doing a-mad for the next four weeks and you will see transformation. And it will be one of the most enjoyable holiday seasons that you've had.

Tommy Welling: [00:27:15] Yeah, I know it's it's going to really be an incredible holiday season, and I'm looking forward to hearing some of the stories from everyone listening, you know, about how it went and what they did. So, you know, if you are new and you're just getting started, I'm going to encourage you to do something like start something now. It's it's early in December right now and you can you can get the ball rolling a little bit even, you know, just just make a few small tweaks now and you can continue that momentum into, you know, you know, Christmas and New Year's and and everything like that. And and looking forward to like a January where you don't have to feel like you need to undo something because you went into it with that intentionality. So you know

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:27:55] You're not the marketing target for all the New Year's resolutions stuff, right? Imagine, imagine a start to 2020 to that. That doesn't involve you being part of that group. And yes, it can totally be done. So we wanted to drop this conversation of the holiday hullabaloo and this, you know, this framework a little bit earlier before the holidays kind of tick up. So if you guys ever have questions, you can reach out to us at info, at the fasting for life info and be fasting for life. We just wrapped up our last challenge of the year. The next challenge is coming up in January, January 12th to the 18th. That's correct, Tommy. And so we're just super pumped. We're going to do a year end review like we did last year as well. It's just a lot of cool stuff coming. We appreciate each and every one of you listening. Thank you for tuning in, Tommy, as always. Thank you, sir, and we'll talk soon.

Tommy Welling: [00:28:41] Thank you. Bye. So you've heard today's episode, and you may be wondering, where do I start? Head on over to be fasting for life and sign up for our newsletter, where you'll receive fasting tips and strategies to maximize results and fit fasting into your day to day life while you're there.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:28:58] 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.