Ep. 114 - Do You Need To Be Supplementing On Your Fasting Journey? | Blood Sugar Control | Potential Benefits Of Cinnamon

Uncategorized Mar 01, 2022

 

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss blood sugar control, the potential benefits of cinnamon, are you fasting the right way if you're not taking supplementation?

 

Research Links

Cinnamon
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14633804/
https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/26/12/3215/21858/Cinnamon-Improves-Glucose-and-Lipids-of-People
https://cinnamonfood.com/cinnamon-dosage/

Chromium and Vanadium
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3308119/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16339278/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24725432/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0162013414000889?via%3Dihub

Gymnema Sylvestre
https://nahalsabzsalamat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/shanmugasundaram1990-1-1.pdf

 

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Fasting For Life Ep. 114 Transcript

00;00;01;24 - 00;00;03;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hello. I'm Dr. Scott Watier.

00;00;03;17 - 00;00;06;21
[Tommy Welling]
And I'm Tommy Welling, and you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.

00;00;08;09 - 00;00;14;25
[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.

00;00;15;25 - 00;00;24;10
[Tommy Welling]
Each episode is a short conversation on a single topic with immediate, actionable steps. We cover everything from fat loss on health and wellness to the science of lifestyle design.

00;00;25;01 - 00;00;45;20
[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. Everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Warrior, and I'm here as always and the good friend and colleague Tommy.

00;00;45;20 - 00;00;47;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Well, and good afternoon to you, sir.

00;00;48;03 - 00;00;48;29
[Tommy Welling]
Hey, Scott, how are you?

00;00;49;25 - 00;01;12;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Doing fantastic today, my friend. We are going to be unpacking a fun conversation, one that has been on the radar for months and months and months with dozens and dozens of questions. And I think it's going to be a be a good convo and hopefully give you some perspective on fasting, the fasting lifestyle and how we can

00;01;12;29 - 00;01;31;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
use supplementation, nutrition and fasting windows to really, you know, prevent disease, reverse things like blood sugar related issues like prediabetes and diabetes and and really just, you know, improve that long term health journey that brought you and I to fasting.

00;01;31;25 - 00;01;44;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if you guys are new to fasting and you haven't listened to a lot of the episodes, feel free to go back and listen to Tommy and I's original starting point, our journey episode one or two. Be nice to us because back then we didn't know what we were doing.

00;01;44;20 - 00;02;03;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We just we knew that we had stumbled across a pretty powerful life, transforming just eye opening experience when we put fasting into our own lives. And you can go to the website, the fasting for MLive.com. Check out some of the free resources, the fast start guide, the insulin assessment and really just happy to have you with us

00;02;03;27 - 00;02;29;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
on this fasting and lifestyle journey. So time before we unpack the supplementation question. So what supplements should I be taking specifically in regards to blood sugar is a question we've gotten over and over again as a lot of people come to fasting for weight loss due to health related issues.

00;02;29;23 - 00;02;48;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So as we know, as the BMI scale goes up and the weight goes up, the comorbidities, the the the blood, the blood work numbers, the conversations with your doctor, all of those things tend to happen. So supplementation is something that people ask and look at.

00;02;48;26 - 00;02;58;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's a multi multibillion dollar industry every single year as a buffer replacement or support to building health.

00;02;59;01 - 00;03;11;17
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes it can be. It can be like an intermediary step where someone's looking to put off that medication and maybe they don't have to do that. Maybe they don't have to get on a new medicine.

00;03;11;17 - 00;03;32;08
[Tommy Welling]
If they can find the right supplement to kind of support right now, that might be a good alternative. And I like this conversation because growing up in my house, there were a lot of supplements, supplemental support. It was like, Let's look for a natural pass before we necessarily have to take medications for something.

00;03;32;08 - 00;03;43;23
[Tommy Welling]
If that's possible, you know, growing up with a lot of weight lifting and and in the kind of, you know, bodybuilding supplement world and that kind of thing, I spent a lot of time in GNC. I know you did, too.

00;03;44;02 - 00;04;01;14
[Tommy Welling]
And I think finding good support for for your health journey and and feeling like you're doing everything that you can to support that is is an important thing. And if you if you have question marks there, then it can feel like maybe I'm not doing everything that I could.

00;04;01;22 - 00;04;06;25
[Tommy Welling]
And then you start wondering why you're not seeing the results that you're looking for to. And those can be frustration points.

00;04;07;17 - 00;04;30;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, it's interesting because my perspective I started out in a very heavily medically minded family where it was, you know, as a young kid, severe allergies, asthma for different inhalers, cycle cycles of steroids for the inflammation, multiple trips to the emergency room and ambulances, the inability to play, you know, junior high grammar school in junior high rec

00;04;30;16 - 00;04;47;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
sports, which led into me not being almost not being able to play in high school, which I love to do. And I went down a different path and started looking at some of these, you know, some people call it natural medicine or are you Vedic medicine in the Indian culture?

00;04;47;14 - 00;05;02;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then you've got Eastern Medicine, right? Oriental Medicine, those types of things. And, you know, sometimes that can have a connotation that comes with it where we've moved far away from that into the supplement world, right? There's a supplement for everything.

00;05;02;24 - 00;05;17;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, right. But there can be a connotation of of safety concerns. Or is this right or is this really going to work? And you know, we want to unpack some of that stuff today really focused around the blood sugar and blood sugar control.

00;05;18;17 - 00;05;34;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we're going to give you the pros and cons and both sides of it. But really, the top four things that we see that can help you on your weight loss journey with cravings, blood sugar control, diabetes reversal, some of the things that we see and things that we've done personally.

00;05;35;06 - 00;05;52;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, in our group, in our in our our our clients that we've had, that we've done one on one with back back when we first started. And my dad, for example. So just taking a look at this from a 30,000 foot perspective on what things can we do that can support the journey now?

00;05;52;23 - 00;06;06;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if you're stuck and frustrated, you got £150 to lose and you're like, Gosh, I can't seem to get out of my own way versus, Hey, you're on the journey and you don't want to take the medication or you've been on it for a while and you want to find a way to get off of it.

00;06;07;01 - 00;06;25;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, for instance, like cholesterol, there's cholesterol medication versus something called red yeast rice that has a similar mechanism. But really, what we look at is, OK, what's the underlying cause or is the supplement going to just treat or attack the downstream symptom?

00;06;25;21 - 00;06;39;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Or are we actually going to be able to get to the underlying cause? And that's where fasting is so powerful. So these supplements are not recommendations to say, Hey, I don't eat fish. You need healthy omega threes. I need to supplement with fish oil.

00;06;39;20 - 00;06;48;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hey, I need vitamin D. It's cold three months out of the year here in Texas, and some of you're going to laugh. I'm from New England. I get it. 100 inches of snow a year I used to shovel.

00;06;48;16 - 00;07;00;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It was one of my first jobs cleaning sidewalks, right? I don't miss it, but I don't get enough sun. I'm inside in front of a computer with a ring light. Most days, right? Like working from a computer. So yes, I should supplement with vitamin D.

00;07;00;11 - 00;07;19;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We're not talking about that specifically, but zooming out to the to the bigger picture of why we wear, why we tend to go toward supplements, is that addressing the underlying cause? And then how we can put some of these things into our path or our journey that can make the process that much easier?

00;07;20;03 - 00;07;34;10
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. What about even just the question of do I need to be supplementing on my fasting journey, right? Like, do I need to bring more things into this? Am I? Am I fasting the right way if I'm not taking supplementation?

00;07;34;11 - 00;07;50;10
[Tommy Welling]
Should I? Should I add something to that? And then that can almost that can get into the conversation about, well, how many tools would you like to have in your arsenal? How many things do you want to bring into the equation and do you really need them, you know?

00;07;51;00 - 00;08;10;19
[Tommy Welling]
And I think that's a good example. The £150, because if you if you feel like you have a substantial amount to lose, this is going to be a long term journey. Sometimes it can feel like I just can't break the cycle of certain things like like the cravings, like the blood sugar, you know, the big swings.

00;08;10;25 - 00;08;20;11
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, the swings, the emotional connection to food, all that kind of stuff. And so sometimes supplementing can can kind of kind of short circuit that cycle, which is a good thing.

00;08;20;27 - 00;08;39;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, for sure. And that's really where, you know, my journey back in the day started was or what things can I do to allow allow the process to get the result that I'm looking for, but also to make the process more enjoyable because one of the things about health and weight loss and most people come to fasting

00;08;39;02 - 00;08;57;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
for weight loss, but there's so many other health benefits as well. And we've done, you know, episodes and episodes upon those things on those different types of things. But really, it's it's the sustainability long term. So for instance, like let's take melatonin, which we're not talking about today, but using melatonin every single night to help you sleep

00;08;57;18 - 00;09;23;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
is not a recommended protocol, right? And it's no different than, you know, being on blood pressure medication. Well, we know lifestyle changes can severe, can can reverse high blood pressure and just like diabetes. Lifestyle changes can reverse diabetes as long as you're not following the American Diabetes Association recommendations of how to follow your meal plans and food

00;09;23;24 - 00;09;40;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
pyramid because you're never going to get there. So we really want to take an approach that is going to allow us to have success and sustainability. So a few key concepts. We've mentioned a couple already today. one is we're going to talk about a supplement that can help with cravings and those big blood sugar swings.

00;09;40;19 - 00;09;55;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Jemima Sylvester, we're in talk about cinnamon and the pros and cons because there are a couple and give you some action steps there. Cinnamon is something easy that you can put in your in your day to day. If you're worried about blood sugar imbalances or you're trying to reverse getting out of the diabetes category to the day

00;09;55;20 - 00;10;10;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
prediabetes or from prediabetes and to a normal healthy blood sugar range, which, by the way. Fasting super helpful. And then we're going to talk about chromium and vanadium, and I believe that is right on the list. Let me just check here.

00;10;10;25 - 00;10;32;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yep. So those main ones today, from the construct of decreasing your blood sugar swings, increasing our insulin sensitivity, decreasing our insulin resistance and then helping with cravings as well. So. All right, Tommy, let's start with cinnamon and 100%, OK, let's put behind the curtain, right?

00;10;32;07 - 00;10;51;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We say that often on the Fasting for Life podcast and in our challenges, in our groups and in the emails and messages that we get is this we've never specifically talked about supplements before, but if we had to list the top three questions that we get is what breaks my fast, right?

00;10;51;14 - 00;10;52;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then.

00;10;52;12 - 00;10;53;20
[Tommy Welling]
Well, what do I eat.

00;10;54;12 - 00;11;07;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? Like, there's that two part equation. You've got your fast and then your feeding right or your eating window. And then the third is I would I would I would group supplements and exercise kind of together at the same level.

00;11;07;26 - 00;11;30;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And it's it's full transparency working at GNC for years, right? Being in the nutrition world, having a minor in it, or they don't call it that. They called it a concentration loving this type of stuff. Other than that time, we talked about the definition of fiber for six weeks in my graduate level nutrition course because that was

00;11;30;18 - 00;11;45;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
awful. So if you ever want to know the real definition of fiber, don't ask me because I don't want to ever relive that. So I've always had an affinity for it. But being a GNC, people would come in with a symptom, specifically looking for a treatment.

00;11;45;20 - 00;12;07;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we want to get away from that in terms of long term, like health planning or health journey, right? Long term gaining health throughout life. We don't want to be treating a specific symptom just like we would with a medication, but we want to add support to the body to allow that process to be sustainable.

00;12;07;10 - 00;12;19;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? So there's there's certain decisions that you're going to have to make when it comes to this stuff. And of course, if you're on medication, you're dealing with certain health things. Make sure you talk to your doctor, let them know because if you get on Dr. Google.

00;12;20;17 - 00;12;38;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And you go down the rabbit hole. The reason I'm saying this is because today in preparation, in reviewing the conversation we were going to have in the bullet points in the research articles. I mean, there was a long week or two of preparation just on cinnamon, where I learned some things that I had never known.

00;12;39;23 - 00;12;47;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I had to Google how to pronounce some of the compounds right? So the reason I'm telling you this is there is a.

00;12;47;26 - 00;12;49;18
[Tommy Welling]
Big pitfall.

00;12;49;22 - 00;13;11;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Or a big speed bump in getting quality information, and hopefully that's what we're going to bring to you today in a well-rounded combo. So that's quite the intro of saying we are not experts in this, but we're going to give you the aggregate of all of the information and years of experience and then some very specific research

00;13;11;21 - 00;13;28;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
articles that we found, which as normal as usual, there are some contradictions in them. But we're going to unpack them and then give you some really basic action steps that hopefully take away some things that can be put into your fasting and health journey.

00;13;28;14 - 00;13;41;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So cinnamon. That was my disclaimer, by the way, if you guys don't pick up on that. OK, so let's talk about cinnamon. Tommy, the study that we found that we want to highlight and start with is really stinking cool.

00;13;41;14 - 00;14;07;10
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, it is. Cinnamon improves glucose and lipids of people with type two diabetes and. There's a lot of benefits here because they were looking at things like HDL, LDL, total cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting, blood glucose and saw decreases in basically everything, everything that they were looking at.

00;14;07;20 - 00;14;28;18
[Tommy Welling]
And it didn't take that long to do either. Within 20 to 60 days saw substantial decreases in all of these things. And this was news to me. I didn't know that that cinnamon had had these potential benefits. Honestly, I had never I hadn't looked for something to support my blood sugar when I had major blood sugar issues

00;14;28;19 - 00;14;35;27
[Tommy Welling]
. I was just kind of like. Hoping slash waiting to not go on medication for these things.

00;14;36;00 - 00;14;38;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Caloric deficit and working out will get me there.

00;14;38;20 - 00;14;42;16
[Tommy Welling]
Right? That was pretty much my angle. Yeah.

00;14;43;22 - 00;15;04;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And so that specifically for the numbers for serum glucose. So this study looked at one, three and six grams of cinnamon daily. Now we're going to impact cinnamon a minute. And some of the the the a major pitfall that we've seen in the research that's out there versus in a test tube versus in human studies, right

00;15;04;05 - 00;15;21;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
? Or in in rats versus in human studies. And the cinnamon that's actually studied is not the one that we're going to recommend. If you're going to use this as a blood sugar managing supplement throughout your journey here. So there might be an aha moment for some of you, as the was for me looking into this the serum

00;15;21;26 - 00;15;45;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
glucose or the fasting glucose in the six gram, the group right, that was the one that showed the most improvement for fasting. Glucose was an 18 to 29% decrease for triglycerides was a 23 to 30% decrease. LDL, right, air quotes, bad cholesterol was seven to 27% decrease.

00;15;45;14 - 00;15;59;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
A lot of volatility in that one. And total cholesterol twelve to 26% decrease. Yeah, and changes in HDL were not significant, right? And these were noted that this was noted that there were no significant changes in the placebo group.

00;16;00;03 - 00;16;18;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Placebo groups and cinnamon was consumed for 40 days, followed by a 20 day washout period, which is cool because that really shows that the effectiveness of the dose and that, you know, when you start a supplement that you know, people really want that immediate like, I took an aspirin and the headache goes away.

00;16;18;27 - 00;16;20;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's not really how it works.

00;16;20;26 - 00;16;34;00
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, know when I saw the dosages there one grams, three grams and six grams. My my first thought was six grams. Sounds like a lot. Is that? Is that a whole is that a whole bunch, is that a realistic?

00;16;34;04 - 00;16;37;08
[Tommy Welling]
You know, it's a teaspoon to take a teaspoon? OK, that's yeah.

00;16;37;21 - 00;16;52;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
No. But I did the same thing and this is actually where it opened up a rabbit hole where I was working in GNC, right, for years through grad school. And people would come in, Hey, might take cinnamon and OK, here's our blood sugar control supplement.

00;16;52;14 - 00;17;04;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It has, however, many milligrams of cinnamon. Here you go. Right? And then we had some blends that had like chromium in and we'll get chromium in a minute. And I would just here, here it is what I found, what we found by doing.

00;17;04;08 - 00;17;17;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Prepping for this was that the majority of the cinnamon that's on the market is called. There's two. Well, let me back up for a second. There's two different forms of cinnamon and the one that's on the market that you find in.

00;17;18;17 - 00;17;29;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Spice aisles and in supplements is not the one that we want to be taking. And it's also the one that is found in the majority of the research that is done in humans. But there's an issue with it.

00;17;29;14 - 00;17;49;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So Cassia, cinnamon. It's kind of like Kashi, but it's in pronunciation. But not not not an e at the end in a so kasha. It's CISPA. And then salon or salon cinnamon S.Y. Low. And there's two different forms.

00;17;49;19 - 00;18;05;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
They're from two different places in the world, right? And the one that is mostly manufactured and that we find in our stores and shelves is the cashew cinnamon. And that is the one that comes with a toxicity concern to the liver and kidneys.

00;18;06;05 - 00;18;23;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
When you get to the one teaspoon level, the Catch 22 is the one teaspoon level or the six grams is the one that showed all of those wonderful percent decreased benefits in the fasting, glucose, serum, glucose, triglycerides, LDL and total cholesterol.

00;18;23;03 - 00;18;37;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So now you're going, OK, great. I've been taking cinnamon for all these for all these years. You probably haven't been taking a teaspoon a day or the supplement you're taking probably doesn't have that amount in it, so it's probably nothing to be overly concerned about.

00;18;38;13 - 00;18;51;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But the good news is, is now we know that the Salon Cinnamon is the one that we actually want to be taking, and you can find it. So we're going to pin a link in the show notes where you can find it spelled C e y alone.

00;18;52;09 - 00;19;17;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that is the form of cinnamon that you want to be taking because of the chemical coumarin that is in it. Coumarin in the cassia cinnamon as anywhere from four to 10% based on where it's sourced from. But in the Salon Cinnamon, it's 0.004%, so you would have to take exponentially more like you would have to like

00;19;17;14 - 00;19;30;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
, eat the whole bottle to have any concern of getting to that level of coumarin that's in the cache of sodium. Now this was all new to me, so I was like, Man, I think I told my dad to take cinnamon years ago because he was pre-diabetic.

00;19;30;15 - 00;19;45;15
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, right? Yeah. You know, this is this is one of those things where I know a lot of people coming into fasting who are like on the verge of of getting that prescription or they're kind of being threatened, you know, right now with, Hey, I'm about to have to put you on some medication to control and.

00;19;45;15 - 00;19;50;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You need go on metformin. Now we did a whole episode on berberine in that for men, too. So go listen to that if that's you.

00;19;50;26 - 00;20;10;18
[Tommy Welling]
Same thing for for triglycerides, for cholesterol, for blood pressure, even which we're not talking about blood pressure right now, but just just that kind of looming thing where if I had something that could potentially give me a 15% benefit, a 25% benefit, maybe I could put a stop gap there, figure out how to get going with this

00;20;10;18 - 00;20;20;13
[Tommy Welling]
fasting thing. And then I don't have to just get on that medication that's so hard to get off of. Right. And so I I think that's a huge point for for a lot of folks.

00;20;21;04 - 00;20;32;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So just to wrap up cinnamon in terms of the conversation, the inclusion of cinnamon, this is right from one of the articles in the diet of people with type two diabetes will reduce risk factors associated with diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

00;20;33;11 - 00;20;47;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So you're going to be helping balance those blood sugars and allow your body to continue to lose the weight and get into a healthy range. So this is something that you can absolutely add as long as you're getting the right source and the right dosage.

00;20;47;19 - 00;21;01;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So it was really kind of eye opening to me to know that there was such like one of those issues. one of those times are you? You hear it, you understand it. You know it. I lived it. I used to recommend it when I was a G and C like I mentioned, and I didn't even realize that

00;21;01;21 - 00;21;22;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
there was this dichotomy between the two sources. Yeah, that was required to get serum blood blood level changes, which were beneficial, but not knowing that there was that toxicities. You too. So again, make sure that if this is something you've been doing, make the switch, but let your doctor know if you are diabetic, you're on medications.

00;21;22;29 - 00;21;45;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Make sure there's no contraindications there. But really eye opening about cinnamon. I want to transition into chromium or chromium collinet specifically, and this is something that I have taken personally. I've used it just like berberine. We talked about in the previous episode when it comes to the differences between berberine and metformin and how their their mechanism is

00;21;45;07 - 00;21;56;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
similar, but comes with less side effects. And we want it. We want it again. We want to talk about these things for the short term journey rather than the long term. Hey, I'm on this for the rest of my life type situation.

00;21;57;14 - 00;22;16;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This study from molecular endocrinology in 2006 Chromium activates glucose transporter for trafficking and enhances insulin stimulated glucose transport and three T3 l one adipocytes via a cholesterol dependent mechanism. I only say that because we're going to make this really stinkin simple that chromium and vanadium together.

00;22;16;08 - 00;22;23;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Chromium colon eight. Have been shown to have great effects on blood stabilization, blood sugar stabilization.

00;22;24;00 - 00;22;48;21
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, they're they're working in skeletal muscle. They're working in the liver and working in the fat cells even to help glucose transporter mechanisms. They're helping to shuttle the glucose where it needs to be. So it's not just sitting there raising blood sugar levels to overly high levels or keeping them there longer, which is exactly what we're looking

00;22;48;21 - 00;22;59;17
[Tommy Welling]
to fix with fasting a lot of times. And and this is directly supporting that cause, which is which is super cool. I didn't even know that that chromium or vanadium could do these things.

00;23;00;19 - 00;23;23;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, so it's interesting because, you know, we could we're not going to go down all of the different pathways, and there is multiple studies on chromium less than vanadium, but still enough to show that chromium acts to increase the production of the transport molecule that allows your body to process the blood sugar more effectively.

00;23;23;17 - 00;23;40;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And it open up opens up a window that allows the cell to have it flow down the concentration gradient into the cell, where it can actually be used for energy. So it's it can stabilize blood sugar levels by reducing the insulin.

00;23;40;01 - 00;23;52;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Need it right? So you're going to get a blood sugar balancing effect. And the last thing to talk about today is cravings, right? So the more we can get your just envision this like an old sine wave if you go back into mass class, right?

00;23;52;25 - 00;24;07;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, you've got that that up and down and up and down ride the wave form. The higher and lower those spikes, the more volatility we want to reduce those those spikes and get them into a more control range.

00;24;07;17 - 00;24;27;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And that's what Chromium is going to do in combination with vanadium. Vanadium is a trace mineral that mimics insulin and improving the cell's sensitivity to insulin, and there was a cool study here that was done in rats that that they were they were induced to have diabetes, and then the use of these supplements was showed the

00;24;27;20 - 00;24;28;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
complete reversal.

00;24;29;00 - 00;24;48;23
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. And they literally were watching the antioxidative properties of a Nadiem working within those rats that were induced to have type two diabetes, literally increasing the liver activity to break down the sugar that was ingested lowered the blood sugar levels, lowered insulin secretion and just a complete.

00;24;49;23 - 00;25;02;03
[Tommy Welling]
Antioxidative response that was that was almost back to normal non insulin, non insulin dependent diabetes levels, which is. Incredible.

00;25;03;02 - 00;25;17;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I love the fact that. These so these might be new words like chromium, coal, what I've never even heard of that vanadium, huh? What like where do I get this? How do I find it right? A lot of this stuff naturally comes from our food supply.

00;25;18;00 - 00;25;37;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Is a trace mineral. Right? So I'll give you some. I'll rat a tat tat those sources here in just a second. But if we're combining the 125 to 250 micrograms of chromium and 375 to 700 micrograms of vanadium, we're going to see, especially in higher carbohydrate meals.

00;25;37;03 - 00;25;52;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
They're going to improve your postprandial blood sugar significantly. So post-meal blood sugar, right? So if we're talking about walking post-meal fasting, adding supplementation, using cinnamon, using these type of supplements, we want to be able to apply them to real life situation.

00;25;52;24 - 00;26;13;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we want to mute those blood sugar swings. We want to get the blood sugar balance down. We want to increase improve the insulin sensitivity of the cells or the insulin production in certain cases, depending on if we're talking type one and type two and a lot of multivitamins will have some of these supplements in there.

00;26;14;05 - 00;26;32;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if you can get a good whole food source multivitamin, you may be able to kind of kill two birds with one stone here. You can get chromium colony separately and then for vanadium, the micronutrient. And there's articles and research out there, more recent stuff as well.

00;26;32;08 - 00;26;56;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But foods that are nutrient rich and vanadium are going to be dill seed, which I don't know of way other than putting that in like soups and stews right to get that black pepper. So, of course, black pepper, shellfish, spinach, mushrooms, whole ancient grains, raw dairy products, ground parsley, for instance, just simple things that you can add

00;26;56;02 - 00;27;10;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
into your nutrition windows that can also get you some of the additional benefits. Because sometimes you know, just going straight to a supplement less less is better than more, sometimes in terms of getting a whole food source rather than just having to go straight to a supplement.

00;27;11;08 - 00;27;30;11
[Tommy Welling]
This just reminded me of of the point that I want to make sure that we're also clear on, which is that when when you're fasting, each time you go to break your fast, that's a really important time to make sure your focus on good nutrition like being intentional with well-balanced food and actually thinking through that.

00;27;30;12 - 00;27;44;12
[Tommy Welling]
Like when I first started fasting, sometimes it felt like, OK, cool. Now I have an opportunity to have a meal that I missed out on. Have some sort of food that was maybe a little more indulgent or something like that and wasn't really serving my goals, but I had already seen the scale start to move.

00;27;44;22 - 00;28;01;12
[Tommy Welling]
But, you know, it really is an opportunity for good nutrition and just the fact that, like a balanced plate may have a good amount of things like vanadium or chromium, you know, in there means I don't have to worry so much about bringing this stuff in as like a one off from supplementation.

00;28;01;19 - 00;28;08;25
[Tommy Welling]
Just using that that that meal, that that eating window or that that that meal as a good nutrition opportunity right there.

00;28;09;01 - 00;28;20;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now don't get me wrong, you can in the beginning, if you've got some considerable weight to lose, you know, like when I am £50, so I can pretty much break my window whatever I wanted, as long as I wasn't going and getting two large pizzas from Pizza Hut, right?

00;28;20;00 - 00;28;29;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like, Oh man! And after you start fasting and you start losing some of the weight when you have those meals and there's some that came up in the last challenge and the continuity group was, Well, does your body get more sense?

00;28;30;01 - 00;28;43;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Do I get like food sensitivities from from fasting? Well, no. You're just more sensitive to the fact that you feel better by eating certain foods. Right? So like, you won't touch pizza anymore. I won't do Mexican food anymore.

00;28;43;04 - 00;29;00;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I just I don't feel good after. So I love that perspective of kind of growing through the process, right? Like and we always say the first time you break a 24 hour fast, if you've ever done Omar and you were doing intermittent and you want to break through a plateau, that was our first resource fast our guide

00;29;00;26 - 00;29;13;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
, you can go to the website, you can download it. The fasting for ICOM, it's six simple steps to do that, right? He's never done nomad one meal a day. Then you break your fast. I ate everything and it wasn't like I went to the Pizza Hut.

00;29;13;09 - 00;29;29;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I had grass-fed burgers, I had raw cheese. I had some jazz brown, home cooked brown jasmine rice. I had one of the protein bars that I missed out on, right? I had six cups of popcorn. I was like putting this all in this little two hour window, be like how many you all the stuff that.

00;29;29;28 - 00;29;44;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then after that I was like, You told me not to. I felt like crap. I ate way too much. Right? It was like way too much. I know. And you were right. So you you. I just love that perspective that, yes, we have an opportunity here to get some good nutrient dense foods into our body and

00;29;44;18 - 00;30;02;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
simply adding like foods that I just mentioned and things like cinnamon into your diet can be helpful for that long term health benefit. So the last one? Tommy, then we're going to talk to talk about today, today's Geneva Silvestri, and this one is really specifically if you go back through the old.

00;30;03;11 - 00;30;19;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Origination of this is you're going to look at, you know, in in going back to the old grammar, in the words of it is going to be the destroyer of sugar right in Hindi to story of sugar, so it helps reduce sugar cravings and balance blood sugar naturally.

00;30;19;22 - 00;30;34;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I forgot that I used to use this when I was in my powerlifting days. I used to take this and it was a recommendation from the owner of GNC who was like, this crazy natural bodybuilder guy. Yeah, and he's like, No, no, no, you need this.

00;30;34;23 - 00;30;43;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I was like, Why? He's like, because it's going to help balance your blood sugars. You're going to have less cravings, you're not going to be hungry as much all the time. Even I was eating six times a day and all this other stuff.

00;30;44;00 - 00;31;04;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Plus, you know, snacks and late night snacks before bed just to make sure I hit my protein numbers. Jim Lima has powerful phytonutrients that have adaptogenic qualities that really help your body with stress. Stress is one of the main triggers of emotional eating cravings, hunger.

00;31;05;05 - 00;31;27;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Old habits, old eating patterns like we're connecting a lot of dots here in the well, I just have this relationship with food or I crave sugar. I crave this certain insert your advice here. Yeah, that simply adding Jemima while you start to flex your fasting muscles can help make the journey that much simpler.

00;31;27;12 - 00;31;44;06
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, especially in the beginning, like when when I started fasting, I had 80 or £90 that I wanted to lose. And I mean, we get emails from from a lot of folks £100 hundred and 50 200 plus pounds who it feels like they don't know where to kind of break that cycle.

00;31;44;09 - 00;32;08;29
[Tommy Welling]
That that craving behavior indulgent. Making myself feel better. But I'm frustrated because I'm not seeing the scale move. And like, I just can't seem to get traction, get out of my own way, and I feel like this could be like, this might be something helpful if I'm feeling that way to kind of help me throw a wrench

00;32;08;29 - 00;32;11;21
[Tommy Welling]
into that, that cycle that I just can't seem to get out of.

00;32;12;16 - 00;32;32;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, the cool thing about adaptogenic things like this is that they also have additional benefits, too. So it's not just you're going to you're going to help with the cravings and whatnot, but I love that, you know, it's there's going to be benefits looking at some of the research and decrease inflammation and decrease oxidative stress and stopping

00;32;32;09 - 00;32;49;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
, you know, reducing the absorption in the small intestine and helping the pancreas create more healthy levels of insulin and decreasing serum triglycerides and cholesterol. And the air quotes bad cholesterol. So simply total cholesterol versus the bad cholesterol. Excuse me.

00;32;49;13 - 00;33;05;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So simply, just putting or getting about 100 to 200 mg in with your meals can help balance those blood sugar levels post-meal, which is where, especially in the evenings, if you're doing one meal a day, the snack monster can come in.

00;33;05;16 - 00;33;15;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The craving monster can come in post meal where you're like, Oh yeah, I was going to have to Oreos. And no, you ended up eating the whole box right? Or I was going to have one or two squares of dark chocolate.

00;33;15;18 - 00;33;35;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Next thing I know I'm two bars in, so it can really help with meals to help kind of mute some of those negative effects while you are trying to kind of really break through a plateau or get the consistency ball rolling or really when you get close to maintenance and you just haven't been able to get that

00;33;35;10 - 00;33;37;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
habit or that new lifestyle pattern to stick?

00;33;38;06 - 00;33;52;29
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. And I feel like it's a good time to mention like if there's there's a lot of folks out there who who might already be on on supplements for for these kind of things or for for other related things, but who, you know, might, might be getting going with their fasting journey.

00;33;53;08 - 00;34;11;23
[Tommy Welling]
But like. I do like the power that comes from from fasting and successfully hitting your fasting time or even if it's it doesn't have to be super long. But just getting to the end of what I plan to do, and I did it, and then I broke my fast intentionally like, that's a big win for me.

00;34;12;03 - 00;34;27;28
[Tommy Welling]
And every time I do it, that's another win. That's another vote for my brain, for doing the right thing. That's going to lead me towards my, my long term health and what I what I'm looking to do. So the more things I bring from the outside, the less credit I'm able to give myself for.

00;34;28;04 - 00;34;49;07
[Tommy Welling]
For those wins. So making sure that, you know, I might not always need these things, or maybe I don't need as many as I'm as I'm using right now. Maybe there's some benefit in really sticking to my timer and really focusing on what that looks like and my next successful fast versus my next, like, really long, fast

00;34;49;25 - 00;34;54;13
[Tommy Welling]
and kind of getting the ball moving and giving myself some credit for what I did.

00;34;55;11 - 00;35;10;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
one of the things that hurt my heart the most is when I do consultations with patients and they would come in and they would bring in the list of of of medications and supplements. Yeah, and it would be 20, 30, 40 things long.

00;35;10;28 - 00;35;30;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. They would have they would have, you know, two supplements per medication that they were taking just to offset some of the side effects, for instance, like when you take certain cholesterol medications and blood pressure medications you want to supplement with Coke Q10 because it depletes the enzymes that actually fuel normal muscle function.

00;35;30;12 - 00;35;41;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Your heart's a muscle, right? So now you're on Coke, you ten and you're taking fish oil and you take it. But the problem is you have all of these medications over here. You have all these health concerns over here taking all these supplements over here.

00;35;42;01 - 00;36;00;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But are you making progress? Are you getting off of medications? Are you losing the weight? Is your energy increasing? Can you play with the grandkids? Is your midsection going down? And not just keeping your numbers between the goalposts when you have your blood work done or your checkups, but really making a conscious effort?

00;36;00;03 - 00;36;21;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Tell me what you just said was to, you know, to to hit those metrics and know that you're in control. That the decisions that you're making in the action, steps that you're taking by your fasting windows, by your nutrient, by your feeding windows, where you can have your your nutrient opportunities right, your meals that you can put

00;36;21;26 - 00;36;34;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
in with some intentionality. We really start to where we started this conversation today. Tommy was kind of zoom out to the bigger picture. And so what I heard you say there and the reason I told that story was don't just run out and put all these things in.

00;36;35;02 - 00;36;51;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, that's not what we're saying. All right. If you are on them on cinnamon, make the switch. If you're looking for something to help with sugar cravings, go ahead. There we go. If you are struggling with big blood sugar swings, then chromium and vanadium may be an option for you.

00;36;51;05 - 00;37;03;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But sticking to the basics is what you and I got results worth and what a lot of people do get results with. But this question, we just couldn't ignore it anymore, right? It was like, OK, well, what do I do if I have X, Y or Z?

00;37;03;15 - 00;37;16;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Well, yeah, these are the options. These are the best options that we feel that can get you some support on that journey. So as you wrap up today, Tommy, you can head over the website Fasting for Life dot com.

00;37;16;12 - 00;37;26;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You can download the Fast Start Guide six simple steps to put one meal a day fasting into your day to day life. There's an insulin assessment if you're wondering what's insulin resistance? I don't even know what that is.

00;37;26;01 - 00;37;45;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Go ahead and download the insulin assessment that will give you some, some data on whether or not you possibly have some insulin resistance. And then there's a cool resource in there as well. Talking about height to weight weight ratio and just giving you more tools to be able to measure your progress through your fasting journey.

00;37;45;26 - 00;37;48;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So, Tom, any final thoughts as you wrap up today?

00;37;48;22 - 00;38;09;21
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, my my main takeaway from this conversation is there are things that you can be doing to to get closer to your long term goals. But I'm going to encourage you to look at what you're doing on the fasting front, because that is going to be the simplest, most effective way to bring down your fasting blood glucose

00;38;09;28 - 00;38;24;06
[Tommy Welling]
to bring down your insulin response. And usually, where most people start is something like a twelve hour or 16 hour fast. You might just need to increase the dial just a little bit. And so I do definitely want everyone to go get the fast start guy.

00;38;24;06 - 00;38;40;00
[Tommy Welling]
Go to the fasting for MLive.com, download the fast start guide. And because starting off with a one meal a day is a really powerful way to get the insulin response to to much lower levels than than usually as seen with with a normal pattern of eating.

00;38;40;00 - 00;38;44;07
[Tommy Welling]
So definitely do that, get started and and see some progress there.

00;38;44;21 - 00;39;01;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I love that point right there. Simplest way between two points is a straight line, right? So yeah, just simply doing pushing the window, maybe extending your fasting window, you can see some pretty cool stuff happen. So give us a shout out info at the fasting for life dot com if you have questions, Tommy.

00;39;01;23 - 00;39;05;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
As always, I appreciate the conversation, sir, and we'll talk soon.

00;39;05;17 - 00;39;20;23
[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 be fasting for life dot com 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.

00;39;21;16 - 00;39;34;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
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.

 

 

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