Ep. 117 - The Difference Between One Meal A Day And Nutrition Window | The Long-Term Sustainability Equation | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss one meal a day fasting and caloric restriction, the difference between one meal a day and nutrition window, the long-term sustainability equation.

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Fasting For Life Ep. 117 Transcript

00;00;01;24 - 00;00;03;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hello. I'm Dr. Scott Dr. 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;46;03
[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 Waters, and I'm here, as always, am a good friend and colleague Tom Welling.

00;00;46;04 - 00;00;47;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Good afternoon to you, sir.

00;00;47;16 - 00;00;48;29
Tommy Welling
Hey, Scott, how are you doing?

00;00;48;29 - 00;01;07;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fantastic, my friend. We're going to have a good conversation today. If I do say so myself. I want to welcome all the new listeners in today. If you're new to the podcast. Thanks for being here. If you guys have been with us for a while, but on this fasting journey, we appreciate you, your reviews, your feedback, your

00;01;07;01 - 00;01;27;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
questions, your emails. Yeah. And I'm really excited about today's conversation as some of these questions have come up, you know, from you guys, the listeners, and then also some of the conversations that you and I have been having with some of our long term members where the basic beginner questions are different, then the more advanced.

00;01;27;03 - 00;01;43;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I've been doing fasting for a while. I've adopted this as a lifestyle type questions and I feel like a couple of these are going to be more in that category. But we've got some good ones that we want to unpack for you today and have some action steps for you as we always try to do at the

00;01;43;15 - 00;01;49;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
end of the episode to make sure that you can take this stuff and apply it to your day to day life.

00;01;49;19 - 00;02;01;11
Tommy Welling
Yeah, it's it's a really good point because as you go through your fasting journey, those questions do change. You start to pay attention, you start to realize, Oh, you know what? I didn't even realize I was doing that or I was thinking that.

00;02;01;16 - 00;02;19;13
Tommy Welling
Or maybe that had an effect on some way that I felt or that I think and that affects the very next steps. After that, you start stringing those together and then you can start to explain why results can vary even if the fasting seems like simple and I'm doing it the same way as somebody else that I

00;02;19;13 - 00;02;22;14
Tommy Welling
know, but our results are very different. There's a lot of reasons for that.

00;02;23;14 - 00;02;39;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I love using listener questions or questions that come in or things that are brought up in the groups or in challenges or whatnot because it gives us insight if you listen to the podcast intro. So if you with all the catchy music right that I still love, I can listen to that music on repeat.

00;02;39;26 - 00;02;55;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Sometimes I do. But when I love that, they come in because this is showing like real time, like real life stuff, right? Like not just, you know, sometimes you get nerdy on some episodes. And again, if you're new, there's a mix of more conversational, more life application, more.

00;02;55;29 - 00;03;17;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Sometimes we dove into the research articles and try to hit it all from different angles. But more importantly, make it conversational in our journeys with fasting and weight loss and health. There was a lot of compartmentalization, and that can be good to a certain degree, but it's through the framework and the experience that we can change the

00;03;17;05 - 00;03;24;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
outcome. And that's why I think today's questions are going to be really great because I think there's going to be some like looking at it through a different lens, so to speak.

00;03;25;09 - 00;03;28;06
Tommy Welling
Hmm. Yeah, good point. Where do you think we should start?

00;03;28;25 - 00;03;43;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I think we should start with the question isn't oh, mad or one meal a day? Right? And if you're new to fasting, we have a one meal a day resource is the first resource that we ever created. You can go to the website, the fasting for Life dot com, click resources.

00;03;43;12 - 00;03;54;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We'll zoom it over into your inbox. It's a six steps to put one meal a day fasting into your life, so didn't expect to put a plug in there right there. But Olmert came up and I was like, If people are new, they're not going to know what that is.

00;03;54;23 - 00;04;01;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So isn't one meal a day fasting, just caloric restriction?

00;04;02;04 - 00;04;13;24
Tommy Welling
Mm hmm. Yeah, it's a good point, because that that question right there kind of kept me from fasting for a long time where I said, I'm tracking everything, isn't this the same? I don't need to look at the clock.

00;04;14;01 - 00;04;36;10
Tommy Welling
I'm already counting every calorie, every macro, right? So, so it must be the same. But that the missing piece there for me and for a lot of folks on the same journey was the insulin component because there is a very different insulin effect on 3456 meals a day or eating opportunities throughout the day, whether that was a

00;04;36;10 - 00;04;54;22
Tommy Welling
protein shake or a prepackaged meal or something that I had prepped early in the week, even if it was extremely healthy, nutritious and calculated down to the very last calorie. There's still a significant insulin response there. And when you have an insulin response, it's not that that's a bad thing, but we have to know that that keeps

00;04;54;22 - 00;05;13;14
Tommy Welling
us from getting into long term fat burning mode and we are in energy storage mode at that point. So if we're doing one meal a day and we only have one main insulin spike throughout the day, we're able to get those insulin levels lower and keep them there longer, which tends to put us into more of the

00;05;13;14 - 00;05;24;15
Tommy Welling
long term fat burning mode, which for many of us on the fasting journey. That's that's why we got here, because we were looking to undo years of weight accumulation that at least I was.

00;05;24;29 - 00;05;36;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I love it from the energy perspective, too. And there's a lot of, you know, personally, we've experienced this and a lot of if you guys have been fasting, you know this, that energy boost that you get, right?

00;05;36;18 - 00;05;56;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That that feeling of once you get past, you know, figuring out what cravings are and what hunger is and how to hydrate and using salt and electrolytes and knowing, you know, after you get some repetitions with it. Yeah, you could really get to a place where speaking to this question of, you know, not getting results versus getting

00;05;56;16 - 00;06;08;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
results and being on a low caloric restriction for three to six months at a time. And, you know, getting results in the short term, but then plateauing in frustration sets in and willpower runs out and et cetera, et cetera.

00;06;08;12 - 00;06;20;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I love the idea or this concept, like you said to me, that the insulin spikes, right? So the difference here is that, like you said, we're shrinking the window when we have the elevated insulin and the excess energy in our bloodstream.

00;06;21;05 - 00;06;35;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if you're doing four or five or six meals a day and you're small spike, small spike, small spike, small spike, you're and so you're working out five or six times a week and you've plateaued and you're just not getting the results.

00;06;36;08 - 00;06;51;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Your body's going to go into a short term, not an energy depletion, but a state where it's going to want to try to conserve some of the limited energy that's coming in. Sure. And that's the problem with long term caloric restriction is that you get into, like everything starts to slow down and they've they've shown this.

00;06;51;25 - 00;07;09;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we did an episode recently on on the difference between exercising and a fed state versus a fasted state. And what happens to fat burning during exercise, fasted and then post exercise, right? And there really is no great benefit to either.

00;07;09;26 - 00;07;27;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You get the same net effect because your body compensates and either upregulates or downregulates the storage of energy or the expenditure of energy, right? So with that for me, when I was on a caloric restriction and doing the workout plans and counting calories and macros, I always found that I did great for a little while.

00;07;27;23 - 00;07;41;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But then everything felt like it just slowed down and I felt more tired, more brain fog. My sleep was worse. I was more on edge. And then when I put fasting in, you only have that one spike and then your body's able to tap into those fat stores.

00;07;41;22 - 00;08;03;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And now it has this energy like rush, like just picture a dam breaking and then you've got this energy that floods in. So, yeah, you might have, you know, the same amount of caloric intake across, you know, four or five or six opportunities with two or three meals and some snacks versus, you know, let's even say, 60

00;08;03;04 - 00;08;18;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
or 80% of that in a one meal a day. Or let's say a, you know, a 20 hour fast rate with a four hour eating window nutrition window. And we'll talk about those terms in just a second. But the rest of that time, you're going to get that energy like, increase that woosh, right?

00;08;19;09 - 00;08;25;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that doesn't always happen, right when you start fasting, but typically it does within the first couple of weeks.

00;08;25;18 - 00;08;42;15
Tommy Welling
Yeah. And to compound that problem, one thing that you mentioned there was exercise. And sometimes the issue can be that if I'm like, I was heavy into the exercise world and I grew up on protein shakes, like I got my first tub of protein powder when I was probably 14.

00;08;42;24 - 00;08;59;10
Tommy Welling
And, you know, so that was like a mainstay for me. But I would always look at the actual calories of those and never think about the insulin response to the problem there is. I might only be taken in 150 or 200 calories worth of protein, and I'm thinking to myself, Well, I got this anabolic window.

00;08;59;27 - 00;09;16;10
Tommy Welling
I want to bring in this protein right now. Now, after my workout, otherwise my workouts is just going to just throw it in the garbage, right, it was just a waste of time. And then the problem is there that that insulin, the insulin response from that protein shake is so disproportional to the number of calories I just

00;09;16;10 - 00;09;27;15
Tommy Welling
brought in that that that's compounding the problem. And I could feel it like I felt different after having those, but I could never explain why that was or why the scale wasn't moving, even though everything was perfectly counted out.

00;09;27;29 - 00;09;41;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I had never thought about that. I used to get up super early in the morning and go do CrossFit. And this is what I was doing years and years right of this and. I would get up early, I'd be rested, I have a good night's sleep and get up energized.

00;09;41;09 - 00;09;53;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'd work out, I'd have my shake with coconut water, right? And then I would be exhausted, but I would crash. Yeah, and that's probably why I still don't like working out in the morning. I should probably try it again.

00;09;53;23 - 00;10;11;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'm typically a midday late afternoon day when when the energy my brain energy has been used up in the morning because that's where I like my creative time, my my project completion time, my eye focused energy time in the mornings that as the day goes on, it's more, you know, get stuff done, kind of task oriented stuff

00;10;11;10 - 00;10;24;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
, right? So I like to work out later in the day, but I was just that's interesting that you put it that way because I wonder if that protein shake was contributing to that. And I always used to feel that like insatiable hunger after it, too.

00;10;24;13 - 00;10;43;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I guarantee that had to do with that blood swing, that blood sugar swing from that insulin spike. So. So for the question, and that's why I love this question of isn't just the caloric restriction in theory. Yes, like in definition, yes, you're restricting your calories throughout the day, but the difference is in the insulin component or

00;10;43;20 - 00;10;58;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
that hormonal component to it. And this question really went well with another question that had come in about, Well, what happens? I love this terminology. If I cheat, if I put air quotes around the word cheat right during a fast.

00;10;58;29 - 00;11;04;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And what kind of air quotes damage am I doing to the overall process?

00;11;05;02 - 00;11;22;03
Tommy Welling
Oh yeah, that's that's a loaded question right there, too. And I like this one because you have you have this physiological component, but you also have the psychological component here, too. And then the long term additive effects of how how well do I feel motivated during my fast?

00;11;22;04 - 00;11;39;28
Tommy Welling
How easy is it to stick to this fast and then set my next timer as well if I'm looking to string together long term fasting wins in order to see long term results? I'm going to need to maintain good motivation and in a good sense of of identity throughout this process.

00;11;39;28 - 00;11;54;02
Tommy Welling
Here, I'm going to need to be reaffirming the fact that I can hit a fasting time or I can do it well. I can feel good about it and not kick myself too much. If I do make a mistake or quote unquote cheat or, like, fall off a little bit.

00;11;54;07 - 00;12;11;14
Tommy Welling
I'm going to need to pick myself back up pretty quickly so that I can get to the next fasting time or hit it, have the physiological benefits and and keep seeing those results over time. And I feel like a lot of people get derailed because of something like this right here and then don't know how to pick

00;12;11;14 - 00;12;24;05
Tommy Welling
themselves back up and kind of get themselves re motivated or tell themselves that it's OK. That was temporary or that was a mistake. And it's OK. I can just set my next timer and get right back on the horse.

00;12;24;20 - 00;12;44;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
When we had this conversation with the person. It was interesting because my one of my first questions was, well, what was what was the reason for it was an insatiable hunger? Was it stress? Was it like I just felt like you just had to have it like that connection, that emotional connection to a certain sweet treat or

00;12;44;03 - 00;12;56;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
something? And there's a big difference between, you know, something like a handful of almonds, which at max could be 25% insulin or Jenek, right, have have a 25% insulin response. You'd probably have to eat a considerable amount, too.

00;12;57;27 - 00;13;16;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Or like some bone broth versus a Starbucks cookie that might have 40 grams of sugar and, you know, three 400 calories, right? So the physiological versus emotional damage, I put air quotes again. We're we're in an audio medium, so I just need to make sure I keep saying that because I can see you and you can see

00;13;16;27 - 00;13;33;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
me, but doesn't make sense. And if you are listening, right is different too. So that going back to to land the plane is like, well, why? first of all, the terminology, why do you feel that it's a cheat and that there's damage and and like, what's the what's the intention behind it?

00;13;33;04 - 00;13;46;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then you brought up a great question when we walked through Tommy was how does it feel after? And the answer was more like, Well, it's kind of not really intentional. It's just kind of like, I'm in the moment, it's busy.

00;13;46;06 - 00;14;02;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'm over here, I'm doing this and then I do it and I'm like, Oh yeah, I did it. So in the bigger picture of things, it's pretty inconsequential to the long term goal. So I don't see any damage to it unless it's the roadblock that you were talking to.

00;14;02;03 - 00;14;05;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's not allowing you to get consistent with your fasting windows.

00;14;05;25 - 00;14;17;09
Tommy Welling
Yeah, because if you're if you're speaking about damage as in like, well, how how far did I put off my goals right there? Well, it's just a matter of, well, how many calories that I eat. Was it like 100 calories, OK?

00;14;17;17 - 00;14;27;13
Tommy Welling
Maybe if I'm burning a little less than 100 calories an hour, then, you know, maybe I did an hour or an hour and a half where the quote unquote damage rate, just to be like, ultra simplistic about it.

00;14;27;21 - 00;14;39;02
Tommy Welling
But, you know, because that's basically like I brought energy in, I'm going to need to burn through that. So I added a little bit to my to my number of hours of. I'm going to need a fast to get to my long term weight goal.

00;14;39;10 - 00;14;59;23
Tommy Welling
But if we're if we're talking on the psychological side of it, I'm more concerned with with that side because if if I get into a like a shame guilt spiral and I find it like I'm judging myself for my behavior and I can't really mentally move past it, that's going to be a problem because then it's easy

00;14;59;23 - 00;15;14;13
Tommy Welling
to bring in more food to to help kind of like fill that gap or fill that void and bring in positive feelings from the food that I'm taking in, which makes it a slippery slope harder to set the timer, harder to stop that behavior and set the timer for the next fast.

00;15;14;26 - 00;15;28;15
Tommy Welling
And that can be a real problem. And then on my next fast, I'm looking at my my previous fast as potentially a failure or didn't go exactly like I wanted to. And then that starts to have long term effects on my self-image, too.

00;15;28;23 - 00;15;32;12
Tommy Welling
So that's that can be like a spiral.

00;15;33;04 - 00;15;48;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And this all came from the question when I cheat during a fast explain the extent of damage that I do. Right? So that's why we I love the application of some of these things. So if you're listening and you're like, Yeah, I do that, I mean, I was doing so great and I just can't seem to get

00;15;48;04 - 00;15;59;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
past that, that that sticking point, right? This is something that we talk a lot about is committed, especially during the challenges when we have these different like, choose your own adventure. Are you more of a beginner? You more advanced?

00;15;59;22 - 00;16;14;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Do you want to do like a super advanced schedule right there in the seven days? And then, you know, when people ask us for advice, it's like, OK, well, the question I always like to lead with is if you're in that situation and it's been the stumbling block and there's some of the things that you're feeling are

00;16;14;19 - 00;16;31;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
resonating with, some of the things we just talked about is start with something that you know you can commit to or just outside of your your comfort zone. So don't go and try to. I'm going to do a 72 hour fast because no, you're not.

00;16;31;02 - 00;16;49;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And you know, you're not going to do it. I'm going to do an open-ended fast to make up for the guilt that I feel from the air quotes cheat. No pick something that you can commit to go back to the basics, pull out your your fast start guide that has the six steps right for one meal a

00;16;49;21 - 00;17;06;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
day. Go back to a fast where you were successful recently and go recreate that because it's not just the timer. Sometimes it is the sleep and the stress and the mindlessness and the connection to a certain food. It could be that stuff, too.

00;17;06;11 - 00;17;13;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So pick something that you can absolutely commit to if you need to regain your traction coming out of something like this if you notice you've been in a funk.

00;17;14;05 - 00;17;26;10
Tommy Welling
Yeah, take notice if if anything's repeating itself, because if you find yourself triggered to make the same quote unquote cheat throughout the week, or maybe it's a certain day of the week or certain week of the month, it could have to do with hormonal cycles, right?

00;17;26;18 - 00;17;38;24
Tommy Welling
But it could also be contextual. Like every time I drive by a certain fast food place, I feel compelled because I have a long term habit to to kind of go towards it. Pick a different route, you know, to come home from work if you need to.

00;17;38;24 - 00;17;56;04
Tommy Welling
If it's a candy bowl at work, toss it out or replace it with stuff that you really aren't tempted by. And that can be for everybody else. Like, it's OK to start tweaking your environment to protect yourself from these kind of feelings and they'll get easier, or they'll start to erode over time.

00;17;56;04 - 00;18;07;18
Tommy Welling
But in the beginning, you might need some sort of shortcut to either avoid them or take away the temptation completely or put it into your window and avoid it outside of your window, right?

00;18;08;02 - 00;18;18;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, that's not that mindfulness, right? So if you're in the moment you're grabbing the cookie, you're grabbing the thing off your kid's plate, you're the jar of candy in the in the conference room at work, whatever it is.

00;18;19;03 - 00;18;30;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Put that into your window. Like, make sure you're putting that into the plan that you want for sustainability. So I love that part, and I forgot that that came out in the conversation as well, where it's like, Oh yeah, well, how do I?

00;18;31;03 - 00;18;44;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I don't really need to be doing this right now. Let me just save this for later, and that just a little bit of that delayed gratification. We're working on that with my five year old daughter right now, I'm sure, and it's a it's a very powerful motivator, especially at five years old.

00;18;44;19 - 00;18;55;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But it can be also for the things that we enjoy, especially when it comes to food and relationship with food as well. So, yeah, I'm really glad that that came up again. Yeah. And it just brought me back to that conversation.

00;18;55;24 - 00;19;06;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So one other thing here was the the question about one meal a day in nutrition window, right? So what's the difference between one meal a.

00;19;06;09 - 00;19;06;24
Tommy Welling
Day.

00;19;07;04 - 00;19;15;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And the, let's say, a four hour nutrition window? Or I felt an hour or even a one hour nutrition window, right?

00;19;15;06 - 00;19;29;07
Tommy Welling
Yeah. OK, so. So I think that's a good question, because again, it can come down to the insulin response, but we can also we can also imagine that if I sat down for one meal, maybe it's 30 minutes.

00;19;29;15 - 00;19;42;11
Tommy Welling
There's there's time to eat a certain amount of food, right? But if I have a one hour or a. two hour eating window. It's really not the same thing, because now I have the opportunity to potentially potentially graze.

00;19;42;19 - 00;20;01;08
Tommy Welling
Maybe I can fit in like a smaller meal or kind of almost an appetizer in there and a full meal. So I might have three different eating opportunities just within a couple of hours. That's going to make a big difference long term for the number of calories that I brought in during that, that eating opportunity that's going

00;20;01;08 - 00;20;09;02
Tommy Welling
to that's going to add up over days and weeks and months to change the trajectory of my progress, my long term weight loss goal progress, right?

00;20;09;16 - 00;20;28;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, not really. The word window is the slippery slope for me, right? Because that's what you just described there. The nutrition component is really just in a push towards making better, more intentional decisions about the food that we are giving our body during the opportunity during the time restricted nature of fasting, making sure because we see this

00;20;28;25 - 00;20;43;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
a lot, people plateau, they can't stick to it. It's because you're not giving yourself enough opportunity to consume nutrient dense, satiating foods that you enjoy. And that's just no go ahead.

00;20;43;13 - 00;20;47;12
Tommy Welling
Sorry, might still be scared of food. Almost right? Calories in. Calories out?

00;20;47;12 - 00;20;58;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Yeah. And that's that. That's not the the mindset that we want to break. Like, we don't want to bring that stuff into fasting because this it's just another diet, right? We don't want that. We don't want to bring that stuff in.

00;20;58;15 - 00;21;13;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So that's why I love this question. one meal a day and she actually explained it herself during the conversation was like, So I'm just going to sit down, have a meal, eat, tell them, satiated and then set my timer.

00;21;13;24 - 00;21;28;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Bingo. There's one meal a day, right? There's one meal a day. Yeah. Put some intention. Enjoy, eat slowly. Hydrate throughout the day. Boom, you nailed it. Now I like the concept of nutrition window the window slippery slope portion.

00;21;28;00 - 00;21;43;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
When we're talking about maintenance, when we're talking about fast break, when we're talking about getting back on track, or when you hit a set point in your breaking through a plateau, giving your body the signs, it's like, Hey, we're good here, you know, maybe you've lost 20 or £30 and it's stalled.

00;21;43;13 - 00;21;55;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
OK, well, have a window where you can get some good sustenance in there and give your body what it needs to know that, you know, slow down like the first toe doesn't go as fast as the second toe.

00;21;55;06 - 00;22;06;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you've got 40 or 50 to lose, the body is changing. And that's why I love the idea of the window when it comes more to the maintenance portion of how you maintain these changes in the weight loss with fasting.

00;22;07;00 - 00;22;26;06
Tommy Welling
Yeah, agreed. And like those first, probably six to nine months on my own fasting journey, I used weeks like that where I went to a three, four or five hour window to maintain the progress on the scale because I was still just in utter disbelief that I had actually lost 20 or £25 like it still felt like

00;22;26;14 - 00;22;41;21
Tommy Welling
too good to be true. And I was scared that as soon as I stopped setting these 20 to 3036 hour timers that I was just going to immediately, like, give it all back. I kept seeing the scale in my mind, just ticking back up just super quickly.

00;22;41;29 - 00;22;58;07
Tommy Welling
So I would take, you know, a few days to a week here and there. Open that window a little bit. Be really intentional with my food. But just to gain confidence like those confidence building weeks. And and sometimes that's a really important part of the process, especially if you you find yourself looking in the mirror going well

00;22;58;07 - 00;23;07;11
Tommy Welling
, I'm not even sure I recognize this person right now because the change is happening relatively quickly and I'm not used to weight loss success, right?

00;23;08;12 - 00;23;21;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, and that's that's that that just speaks to the to the long term sustainability equation, right? Yeah. I want to call it the long term sustainability problem, but the long term sustainability equation, like how do I how do I make this stick long term?

00;23;21;14 - 00;23;38;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
What's that repeated win? And even when there is, let's call it a failure or a the last question and a cheat, right? Like you broke a fast early or we had a question that I want to mention just briefly here about is there a difference between a 30 hour fast and followed by a 24 or 42, followed

00;23;38;21 - 00;23;52;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
by a twelve? Now, Mike, my first response was, I think you're over complicating it, right? Yeah. If you have a lunch that comes up and you want to go eat lunch, go eat lunch and then set your timer and get back to as close to your plan as possible.

00;23;52;03 - 00;24;04;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's where we talk about that long term sustainability piece. Now, a twelve hour fast isn't even a fast. OK, let's get to let's get to 1618 hours before we start to call anything on fast. OK? Right? Come on, let's let's be real here, right?

00;24;04;10 - 00;24;21;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We can. Yeah, we can stop eating at 8:00 p.m. and not eat by 8:00 a.m., Right? And that's I mean, that's twelve hours. Like, Let's let's skip this. Not a fast right? Yeah. Let's let's make it to lunch, OK? But it does speak to that that sustainability piece long term where we want to be able to zoom out and

00;24;21;24 - 00;24;23;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
zoom in when necessary.

00;24;23;16 - 00;24;35;16
Tommy Welling
Yeah, that question right there also speaks to the whole what happens if I cheated during that fast? Because it's a matter of, well, yesterday was a perfect word. I feel I know, right? I know what I'm saying it.

00;24;36;02 - 00;24;50;24
Tommy Welling
Everyone's yeah, yeah, air quotes cheated. But but the thing about it is having a short memory for like what happened yesterday or if I made a fasting mistake or if I feel like, Oh man, I cheated. That was that was like the old me.

00;24;50;24 - 00;25;03;18
Tommy Welling
That was an old habit. That's what I'm trying to get away from. OK, well, let's have a short memory for that kind of stuff. And if if yesterday I had lunch, but I hadn't planned on it yet, I planned to do a longer fast yesterday.

00;25;03;24 - 00;25;15;23
Tommy Welling
Ruminating on yesterday is not going to help me stick to my time or today. It's not going to help me keep my eye on the prize focus on my long term results. So let's just let's just drop it.

00;25;15;23 - 00;25;21;28
Tommy Welling
Let's forget about it and focus on what we can do right in the moment today and set that next timer and then just keep moving forward.

00;25;22;14 - 00;25;37;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I love that intention. It's it's, you know, we say this quite often as we fail forward and and you know, it's a lot of my business and business mentorships and business mentors. They're always like the faster you can fail, the more you're going to grow because you will literally learn in those moments.

00;25;37;16 - 00;25;47;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We like to talk about how we need to enjoy the process, and these hiccups are not failures in the dieting world. There's a lot of that negative reciprocal psychology that comes into play where you know you're on or you're off.

00;25;47;29 - 00;26;00;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The beautiful thing about fasting is that it's simple, even though sometimes not easy. You have the ability to just in the moment, make the decision, commit to something that you can commit to in terms of a window and set the timer and go right.

00;26;00;27 - 00;26;11;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's the beauty of it, is that it's simple. You know, for me, I don't I don't miss counting the calories, tracking the macros. I don't miss six to eight hours of meal prepping and planning on Sundays with my wife.

00;26;11;08 - 00;26;21;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now what do we do plan our our week and our meals? But it's a much different conversation. Hey, when are you eating this week? OK, here's my fasting said. OK, I'm going to make. We need to shop for these recipes.

00;26;21;05 - 00;26;35;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're going to cook Tuesday. I cook. OK, boom done. And we're done in like 20 minutes over a cup of coffee on a Sunday. You know, our six to eight hours. So, Tommy, as you wrap up today's episode, I love the fact that this was not planned, but a lot of the questions that come up today and

00;26;35;14 - 00;26;40;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
things that we've mentioned are go right back to the resources that we have that we've.

00;26;40;16 - 00;26;41;06
Tommy Welling
Created.

00;26;41;19 - 00;26;51;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That you can find on our website on Fasting for Life XCOM. So if you need to get back on track or you want to do, Oh my God, you've been doing an intermittent window, you can go download the fast start guide, right?

00;26;51;02 - 00;27;08;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we've mentioned insulin a lot, right? So we have a subjective insulin assessment that can give you some insight into whether or not you might have some insulin resistance, which could be contributing to that long term sustainability difficulty of getting the weight off and keeping it off.

00;27;08;25 - 00;27;24;26
Tommy Welling
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And if you if you find yourself at a struggle point, not sure what to do. You feel like Groundhog Day like the same thing keeps coming up over and over again, then shoot us a message info at these asking for life XCOM so that we can.

00;27;24;26 - 00;27;38;22
Tommy Welling
We can kind of talk through it, and I feel like that conversational component can be sometimes can be all the difference between getting to that next step and seeing long term results versus just plateauing, getting frustrated and not seeing the results that you're looking for.

00;27;39;07 - 00;27;54;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And ultimately saying fasting doesn't work for me, right? Sure. And that's that's ultimately the last thing that we want because there's enough any Barnes and Noble go to the lifestyle section. There's enough dieting and lemon juice diet books and and all the other stuff out there that can give you those results.

00;27;54;07 - 00;28;01;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we want you to get the results you've been looking for. So appreciate everybody listening to Tommy. As always, appreciate the conversation and we'll talk soon.

00;28;01;22 - 00;28;12;15
Tommy Welling
Thank you. Bye. So you've heard today's episode, and you may be wondering where to. I start head on over to the fasting for Life dot com and sign up for our newsletter, where you'll.

00;28;12;15 - 00;28;13;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Receive fasting tips and.

00;28;13;18 - 00;28;17;06
Tommy Welling
Strategies to maximize results and fit fasting into your day to day life.

00;28;17;28 - 00;28;32;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 and.