Ep. 104 - Should you do longer, "open-ended" fasts? | Finding yourself in new fasting territory...keep going or break it as planned? | Slippage points and losing fasting focus | Reverse diabetes & pre-diabetes | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss a recent important decision point a member had during an open-ended fast. It can sometimes be difficult to decide how long your next fast should be, especially without a definitive plan to start with. Even with a plan, if you break through a plateau or old mental barrier or limiting belief, you can quickly find yourself at a new crossroad outside of your comfort zone.

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Show Transcript: www.thefastingforlife.com/blog

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Fasting For Life Ep. 104.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

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:00:23] 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

[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 am here, as always, with my good friend and colleague Tommy Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir. Hey, Scott, how are you doing? Great, my friend? Today's conversation, I think, is going to be a cool one. I say that at the beginning of every podcast episode, if you guys are new to the podcast, we want to thank you for tuning in and giving us a shot. If you guys are one of the OGS or the ambassadors have been with us on this journey for a while. Thank you for continuing to listen and continuing to tell the podcasting gods with your reviews and comments and feedback that we are doing something worthwhile. So thank you and welcome. If you are new, shout out to a couple of people that have left us some of our favorite reviews, which are the five star kind. Luckily, we we are thankful that we have many of those, so we're going to continue to keep delivering content and actionable information in regards to the fasting for life, lifestyle, the fasting lifestyle, the insulin friendly lifestyle. However you want to word it, but shout out to North GRB fasting will elevate your life and thank you for the kind words. I love that it was fasting as a lifestyle upgrade rather than just a weight management tool. Yes, that is something you will hear. And then another shout out from Florida chief.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:01:57] I read it a chef the first time, but Florida chief kind words about you did the same, saying that we keep it real and make a difference for those of us trying to make fasting a lasting lifestyle. So thank you as well right back at you. All right, Tommy. So today's conversation? Is done. I will not do a cheesy drum roll like I have in the past. This comes from one of our OGS and our membership group, and it's really cool to see her breakthrough. So shout out to you, Donna, if you are listening and I'll just I think I'll just get into it, Tommy. And unless you start to unpack it. So I've never fasted for this long exclamation point. I've never had a 2.0 ketosis reading and being pre-diabetic. My blood sugar has never been as low as seventy nine. I am down eight pounds since Saturday. Hashtag wins. That's something we use often last year when I lost 20 pounds. I never made it past thirty six to forty hours, but I was still losing weight. It took three months, mostly because I would snack and on pickles and cheese and et cetera. There were some wine involved in there. There were some increased eating opportunities due to a one of those food services where they deliver meals to your house. So I know I never want to throw out food or waste either. So that's why I can't.

Tommy Welling: [00:03:26] Yeah, I never want to waste anything. Yeah, I

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:03:29] Know. I'm like, Why is this in here? Somebody needs to eat it. Over the past year, she gained back 14 of the 20 but had enough and recommitted to myself. This past Saturday, I knew Christmas was around the corner. We'll talk about this motivation and frustration here. So she decided to push hard and for once, not cheat. Now we call it. We don't call it cheating. We call it slippage. Yeah. Saturday night was the last meal made homemade chili. Sunday had some coffee water, played golf, didn't eat or drink. Did water Monday coffee and water a cup of tea at night. Oh, there was one little pickle in there at three Tuesday I had. If you're not familiar with that, eating a pickle or having some salt water is a fasting hack when you were transitioning from sugar burner to a fat burner. And then her question, which is, I know I'm finally there. I gave you quite the long road to get here, but there were so many levels here and nuances. My question is this since I feel amazing and I have no cravings at all, should I just keep fasting or stick to the weekly schedule and eat today? Wow.

Tommy Welling: [00:04:33] Yeah, there's a lot there. Let me expound on one thing before we go further, which was that term that you mentioned slippage because slippage. We don't talk about slippage all that much. But or it's been a little while since we reference that, I believe is is when things aren't clean. So, you know, like you may be familiar with the term clean fast versus dirty fast, but what we define as slippage are those points where it's like, OK, well, I was I set out to do a 28 28 hour fast, let's say, but I ended up breaking a little bit early at at twenty five hours or something, you know, something kind of came up and it made me change my plan, my original plan in that moment. Or maybe it's something like I'm I'm OK doing my fast with a little bit of creamer, and I normally only have one cup of coffee in the morning, but then one cup of coffee turns into maybe one in the morning and then one in the afternoon, or maybe two in the morning. And things like that, where things start to creep in, where it's additional calories, additional eating opportunities, longer fast become a little bit shorter. And these things add up over time and we define these as slippage.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:05:46] One more caveat to that a one more scenario could also be the I am going to set out and do a 24 hour fast today, but then you just for no reason, decide to eat lunch. Ok, yeah. Special occasion. It's not a it's not a or you're like, All right, this is what I'm going to eat for dinner. And then you pivot due to an emotional stress or something that happens and you end up in the drive through, you know, convenience, the drive thru heart attack line at McDonald's. And you're like, All right, I'm just going to go here and, you know, just continue my old habits. So something causes you to shift out of the plan. And I love because she layers commitment into this as well. So, yeah, those those are also some other things that we can that we categorize as slippage, which, you know, as we wrap up today's episode, we'll give you some, some frameworks and some action steps as we always try to do that. That should help explain that as well.

Tommy Welling: [00:06:39] Yeah. And so here here for Donna, again, shout out because just taking stock of these things, especially after you've had significant success or you've been doing this for a while, it like I know personally, I've had to do this myself where I had to take a step back and go, OK, well, it's been three months and I'm kind of at the same spot I was three months ago. Why is that? Like, what's what's not really working or what am I not being motivated towards to kind of push the boundaries or maybe drop a few more pounds or feel a little bit better or get get some new results? Right, and then I kind of find myself treading water, and I'll have to, you know, take a step back and be real and be honest with myself about what I've been doing. Where where have those slippage points maybe coming in or why am I just not as motivated as I thought I would be at this point? Three months ago, right?

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:07:33] Yeah. And I pushed back in, made a comment, and I was like, OK, so to get some more conversation going, so that's what we like to do. Yeah. You know, to our question was, should I just keep fasting or stick to the weekly schedule, right? So she's had a lowest blood sugar number of highest ketosis ketosis? No, she is a pre-diabetic, so she's reversing disease by hitting these numbers like that's part of the the diabetes reversal process. Yeah. And if you're new to that concept, it is something that you won't get information from the American Diabetes Association on their website because it's all about management. But we talk a lot about reversal getting to the underlying cause the hormonal imbalances, the insulin resistance, all of that stuff. If you're, you know, go back, you can search for those words and listen to some of the episodes where we unpack some of that stuff. But really, my question was, OK, so so what is different this time? And you know, why is it different? What's the result? That's different. And like, really reflect on those things. Where are you reverting back to the old patterns by using this short term goal, right? Like, Oh, I'm frustrated because Christmas is around the corner and I gave it all back, so I'm going to I'm going to throw a couple of logs on the fire and I'm going to use this short term, this frustration and this short term goal to like be like, I'm really going to push in here. Or have you truly had a realization that after multiple attempts to adopt this as a lifestyle right, where you've had success in the past, are you able to commit to having a level of anchor or conviction where you're like, No, I think I've actually realized that for me to get the results, I need to do something different.

Tommy Welling: [00:09:18] Yeah, and then what, what should I be doing different and what does that look like and what I what I heard from you there is is like getting clarity on on maybe why you're in this fast right now and then what you want to get out of this fast. But also then what's the plan for the next one to like if you're sitting here and you and you're not sure if you should extend this fast or if you should go ahead and end it, then there probably wasn't a clear defined endpoint whenever you jumped in, right? So then things feel a little bit unpredictable, right?

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:09:53] Yeah. And that's that's I mean. I mean, that's it, right? That's the outline scenario we talked about with the just you slipped. There was some form of slippage, right? So yeah, if we're framing it out, I mean, you can fill in the blanks here because you had come up with this construct is there's the slippage method, right? And you got some level of result. But were you ever really like anchored to it? Well, you got results without having to really be anchored to it. So. And we're not the, you know, we're not going to have the conversation about, you know, does lemon juice in my water break a fast right like we need long term sustainability here? That's what we want. We want long term results, right? So because otherwise it's just another diet and it's not sustainable and you're not getting the health benefits in the long term benefits and the decrease in all the disease processes that come along with being overweight, obese and having diabetes. So. Right? You know, so you have the slippage method. You had some setbacks. You have frustration. Christmas is around the corner and we ended up settling on, you know, encouraging her to continue, right? She has the data, she has the experience, she has the repetition.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:10:58] This is the mastery part. Right. So you have the mindset, you have the motivation, you have the method. And maybe the method is waned and waxed over the over the months, weeks to months because of the slippage method, right? So now you have this cleaned up new method, right? Because she's done it. She she committed with that frustration and those setbacks with that Christmas lurking. It was like, now you've cleaned up the method, you've got results, right? So OK, this is positive reinforcement, not the negative reinforcement of the guilt and shame and old weight loss. Yo yo dieting model, right? So yeah, but but here's there's two things I want you to unpack these two potential pitfalls here. What is the plan? When? The frustration is gone, and some of the results have come back right and Christmas is no longer lurking. Mm hmm. And the fact that she sounded surprised by the success. So you said this when you're surprised by success. You immediately expect failure.

Tommy Welling: [00:12:06] Yeah.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:12:10] Thank you for that, by the way, I just I felt like it fit in here, right in the conversation.

Tommy Welling: [00:12:15] Yeah, and that that can happen when we weren't clear when we set out on something. So it's almost like like rolling the dice and then it was random. You know, it was we didn't feel like we had control over that outcome. It came to us

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:12:29] Lotteries fasting lottery. Yeah, yeah.

Tommy Welling: [00:12:32] Like, I just won the fasting lottery because I'm sitting here with unexpected results, but I'm not quite sure how I got here, you know, or I'm not sure why. Like what made me able to do this this time? And like the the power here in going back a couple of steps and going, well, OK, what gave me the fuel to do this? And am I willing to to continue using these methods that are clearly working right now to continue getting results? But but then also like what's what's the larger overall end goal? Because I'm going to need that in order to fuel my next, the next step on my journey, too.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:13:10] So that was cool because right there, what I just heard was going back and it's the cleaned up new method timed with the frustration, right? So it was the you know what? I'm done. I'm going to recommit, but this time I'm actually going to really commit, right? So I don't know what the reason for the new commit outside of the the, you know, the lurking Christmas thing right around the corner, the new year, right? The New Year's resolutions lurking in the shadows, right? But then the second part of this really is the plan, right? So I loved your explanation of your experience in the trading world and how the the plan itself can undermine. Itself, I know it sounds a little odd if you're making an emotional decision and uh oh, retro in the moment, right?

Tommy Welling: [00:13:58] Retro in the moment, like so, you know, like if you're if you're ever looking at like a financial portfolio, you know, you're watching, I mean, it could be your bank account, but something that moves a little faster, like if you ever actually like, watch the stock market or you see anything like that, you can you can trick yourself into going from a very short term transaction where you, you, you buy a certain stock, but you bought it for a very short term amount of time. But then things start to change. In that moment, either it starts to drop in value or it starts to rapidly increase in value. Like like this example here where things are going well, but I'm not really sure why, and I'm not sure what to do next. And so if if your plan was originally to do, you know, to make a short term investment versus holding onto to an asset for a long period of time, well, you just changed your plan significantly. So in in in that world, the the obligation is to have a very, very good justifiable reason for making a decision change like that because that that can be a potential where where slippage and self-justification and other things can kind of come in which have long term, you know, can have long term disastrous results. So knowing where you're going, right?

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:15:18] Yeah. And what I heard there was you can undermine the long term goals by making an emotional decision in the moment. And I love the analogy I have. I am, I am, you know, pre-kindergarten level when it comes to something like a day trading analogy, right? So I'm like, Yeah, I get it right. Like, you don't you don't try to, you know, you know, there's there's a level of skill that's required, right? So it's like me. I'd be like, I went up and be like, Oh crap. Yeah, no one gains tax. Yeah, what do you what do I do now? Yeah, or it goes down and it's like, and then you lose out on an opportunity to be the next whatever millionaire. So. Yeah, again, speaking away out of my pay grade. So I want to bring it back to what I heard there, though, was that the emotional decision in the moment the rut row can undermine the plan and back to the conversation we're having about Donna's difference this time around, which is why I encouraged. We talked and encouraged her to push the plan to push the fast because she wasn't a really good place was because the realization that the new method, the cleaned up method, the cleaned up commitment, the new intentionality was what was allowed her to push to the place where the results that she had been looking for with the dirty method or the slippage method in the past. Yeah, he was finally able to get to the Promised Land, which is the numbers that she wanted to see on the blood sugar reading and the ketone reading, which then I think is going to fuel her when Christmas and the frustration of of of not getting the result and giving it back and Christmas lurking around the corner. When that is gone, that short term goal, this new positive reinforcement is going to be able to become part of the long term sustainable plan, not undermining the financial plan with that moment. And you click the button and then your future, your kids college fund goes away.

Tommy Welling: [00:17:08] Yeah, what about the fact that she has? She has a new positive reinforcement right there. No wiring with s like like she's excited right now in this moment. Ok, so so how do you take that excitement and leverage it into new wiring that gets to take the place of like some of those old things like the old slippage, the old patterns, the old negative reinforcement, the old diet and Yo-Yo and all that kind of nonsense, right? And we get to input and impart new positive reinforcers, new things that we enjoy that we understand. Wow. Like, I got really cool feelings from that last fast. Ok, so so how did I do it? I did it through this clean fast. I did it by preparing before I went into the fast. And then and then and then we can we can continue to to build that momentum by breaking that fast in a good way, like having a plan for breaking that fast and then for jumping into the next one. So I think that while these emotions are at their peak, that the thing should be to have a plan for the next one and not break that fast until that plan has crystallized. Like it is crystal clear and you have the maximum like positive energy when you're coming out of this fast two.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:18:31] So there's one more little pitfall here that you just uncovered on with that conviction of having a plan and clarity of what you're going to do next because there is a fear that we hear often. And I think it might be layered here too with I've never been able to get here before. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get back. You don't want to break my fast. Yeah. Well, there's times physiologically where I got to a point with ketones, where I felt like crap and I was like, I'm breaking my. It was supposed to be a seven day fast. I've only done a few and I stopped at five days. Yeah, because I was in a therapeutic level of ketosis and I just felt icky and I was like, No, no, no. I don't need therapeutic level of ketosis right now. I need idle fat burning. This wasn't the fat loss phase right back in the day where I'm like, You know, I want ideal fat burning. I want nutritional ketosis, right? A few of my body. I want to feel good. I want the energy, right, all that kind of stuff. So there's a fear of, Oh my god, I made it. Oh gosh, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to get back.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:19:24] And when you do break it, if you don't have clarity on what you're going to do next and what the plan is and that positive reinforcement where I really saw was cool in the comments after this is where it was like, well, one of the reasons we made a change is we we changed our meal prep schedule like these, these these like these blue aprons and HelloFresh and these places they ship the meals to you was what we're not going to order them as frequently and my husband's on board, and now we're going to do more intentional dinners together. So now I have something to look forward to. So now we're talking about having an anchor and a plan that you can stick to and not the fear of like, Oh, am I going to give it all back again or am I going to overeat? Right? Or what's the fear around the well, yeah, it's fasting and repeating like, this is two parts of the equation. You just can't fast forever, right? Like, that's not that's not what we're what we're working on here. So I just love that like there was this little hint of possible boogeyman in the closet fear of am I ever going to get back here again?

Tommy Welling: [00:20:23] And then, uh oh, like, well, what if I break it wrong?

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:20:27] Like, what if? What if? What if? Yeah. So she made some intentional changes, which I think is going to tap into that long term sustainability again.

Tommy Welling: [00:20:34] Yeah. And I think it's important to remember, like as you get into longer fasts, especially as you're pushing into new territory, it is really important that, you know, the process is a little bit different. Like the longer you go, the the the easier you should be like, you know, with the food, the slower, more intentional you should be should expect that there will be something a little bit different on the other side, like you've been going without food like, you know, for a while, right?

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:21:02] Yeah, don't jump in, too. Yeah, don't don't go to the buffet to break your fast.

Tommy Welling: [00:21:06] No, no.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:21:07] We have episodes on that. If you're new and you're thinking, why would anyone ever want to do more than a 24 hour fast right again if you're new to the podcast? Just go back. Pick some of the episodes when we talk about how to break a fast and all that kind of stuff, how to do extended fasting, the benefits versus the, you know, the pitfalls, et cetera. But so to wrap up today's episode, Tommy clarity to conviction, we should never be surprised by success because then we're going to expect failure. There's that little sub context of fear, possibly there where, oh my god, I made it. How am I going to get back here, right? We've got the slippage method method versus the cleaned up method. So again, shout out to you, Donna. But really, you know, a couple of key takeaways and the overarching kind of wrap up here for me would be simple. Fasting is very simple, but it is not easy, and simplicity comes the easy part. It can get easy when it comes through obtaining the clarity and the conviction, right? So fasting is simple, not easy. So if you're listening to this and going, well, this is me, I'm in this situation.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:22:09] I've been Donna right and we've been there before through different periods, as you admitted and when I had post surgery, same thing. But learning from the past. Right. And. Really, really, really like stocking up or going back to the basics and then outlining what your goal or your anchor is moving forward when the Christmas? Oh uh oh, moment comes up, like, what's your plan actually going to be so learning from the past? Sticking to the basics and then making sure that that goal or that anchor right with the financial analogy is really still right in the front and center of your face at all times. You know, we talk sometimes about the calorie debt number for some people, like knowing how much stored energy that they need to burn through to lose that fat. Right. So those three things, really. Let's wrap up the episode. We're kind of like unpacking those for a minute or two and then making sure that, like those are the clear action steps here moving forward for a lot of people.

Tommy Welling: [00:23:10] Yeah. And I think that it is important as we wrap this up to remember, you know, have a have a reason why you started that timer. So, you know, what are those important goals to you? What is your what are your overarching whys like for like for us, it was it was like an energy and long term health kind of thing, you know, keeping up with with growing families like, well, like what? Like what's. What's important to everyone is is always a little bit different. But just knowing what's really important and then using that to fuel when you set your timer and having a plan on the back end as well. So if you are going to go into a fast like an open ended fast, I've never been a big fan of open ended fast because then it always feels a bit arbitrary to me why I ended it. And then that's likely to to carry over into your next fast to that kind of like level of unpredictability and just arbitrary nature of that.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:24:08] So it's not repeatable habits or basics that that are sustainable.

Tommy Welling: [00:24:12] Yeah, right. So so going in with a defined endpoint, I always found it to be a lot better and and just making sure that you have clarity when you're breaking that so that you can be wiring up the correct positive reinforcers and have the right sustainable habits. And so I'm going to encourage everyone that if you've been doing fasting and again, like like if you feel like this is kind of you, you can identify with some of these things that just aren't working or feel arbitrary or you feel like the success has been random lately, like take a step back. So if you've been if you've been doing 20 hour fast, just just drop down a notch or two so that you can consistently hit your timer. That's intentional that you set out to and hit an intentional timer for multiple days. Like this isn't a race, so doing multiple days of of eight hour fast or 12 hour fast if you if you have had trouble getting to a 16 hour fast. But if, if if you've if you're already beyond that, just just take it a step back and get some consistency in it before you look to push to longer fasts again.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:25:20] Yeah, my final thought here tell and that was a great bike. That was a golden. We'll call it a nugget right there. Fasting nugget is for the motivation of the Y where you started that explanation. I sat here and I went, Well, yeah, I need to lose 40 50 pounds for a couple of years. Yeah, like why all of a sudden did it work? Well, it was the method we had the plan, you know, you had done fasting. I dove into the research, read the books, started fasting and whoa, like, holy moly. But it was also that like the motivation, like when my wife was like, No, you need to figure this out of why you're not healthy and why your numbers are getting worse and why you're always tired and cranky and moody. And and like why you're not getting healthier. You're like, What is happening? Like, I need you to be here for the kids. Our family is growing like, Go figure it out. I'll support you in anything you need, but just go figure it out. So that obviously that motivation now is much different because it's gone and it's two and a half years later, and that's not the same situation.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:26:19] So I love that learning from the past, you know, taking a step back, getting back to the basics, as you alluded to, and then making sure that that goal or that anchor is clear. So if you are new to fasting, you could head to the website, be fasting for life. You can download the fast start guide. If you guys have been on this journey with us for a while, know that we have another challenge coming up. We're going to continue to drop the episodes through the holidays and the next challenge is January 12th, 2022. I cannot believe that there are three teams in that year, but we get a lot of cool stuff coming up for next year as well. So Tommy, as always, thank you for the conversation. Thank you for the nuance. Love doing this podcast with you. You guys keep giving us the feedback. We love it. We prefer the five star kind drops of review if you haven't yet. And as always, Tommy, thank you, sir. We'll talk soon.

Tommy Welling: [00:27:07] 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.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:27:23] Why are you 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.