Ep. 119 - What Is Visceral Fat? | The Association of Adiponectin and Visceral Fat with Insulin Resistance | Ramadan Fasting | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD
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In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss types of fat, how and why they're important, and why fasting can be an incredible tool to get some pretty amazing results, what is visceral fat and why is it important, Ramadan fasting and much more.
Research Links:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3473928/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23687099/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4122042/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2002.67
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6318440/
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22439-adiponectin
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5500349/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4800358/
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Fasting For Life Ep. 119 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
[Dr. Scott Watier]
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;21;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Each episode is a short conversation on a single topic with immediate, actionable steps. We cover everything from fat.
00;00;21;20 - 00;00;24;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Loss on health and wellness to the science of lifestyle design.
00;00;25;01 - 00;00;50;17
[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. Hey, everyone want to hop on real quick before we get into today's episode and let everyone know that the next seven day fasting lifestyle challenge registration link is live, you can go
00;00;50;17 - 00;01;04;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
to the show notes, click the link for more details, or you can go to the fasting for Life dot com forward slash live. Wanted to speak directly to you? If you've been listening to the podcast, maybe your new and just getting started.
00;01;05;00 - 00;01;24;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Or maybe you've been fasting for a while and really trying to adopt that lifestyle on the scale just won't move beyond that two to 43 to £5 each week. Or maybe you feel like you've hit that dreaded weight loss plateau or maybe the hunger or as my wife likes to say, the hangry ness has snuck up and
00;01;24;10 - 00;01;39;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
bit you on the backside, and you just can't seem to get away from those cravings or the consistency of your fasting schedule just isn't allowing you to get back on track if you've fallen by the wayside. This seven day lifestyle challenge is exactly for you.
00;01;39;14 - 00;01;56;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's coming up in the near future. Please don't miss out on this opportunity. We are super excited to be leveling up this experience and leaving that diet baggage behind, giving you the confidence in the habits to build that long term weight loss and fasting lifestyle success.
00;01;56;24 - 00;02;11;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Go to the show notes you can click the link or the fasting for life dot com forward slash live. We will hope to see you on the inside. And now to today's episode. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast.
00;02;11;13 - 00;02;16;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
My name is Dr. Scott Warrior and I'm here as always, and my good friend and colleague taught me well and good afternoon to you, sir.
00;02;16;26 - 00;02;18;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hey, Scott, how are you doing?
00;02;18;08 - 00;02;36;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fantastic, my friend got to get into a fun episode today. We're going to break down the barriers of fat and what types of fat there are and how and why they're important, and why fasting can be an incredible tool to get.
00;02;36;05 - 00;02;51;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Some pretty amazing results were also in challenge prep mode. We're just onboarding a whole new group of people into the the lifestyle of fasting for life and what it is that we truly do. So I am excited. I am pumped up.
00;02;51;27 - 00;03;10;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I am ready to dove into visceral fat or that there's going to be a lot of fun wordplay today. I have a feeling we're going to get a little bit nerdy, so I hope hopefully we both have our big brain shoes on today so we can land the plane here and give you guys some actionable things that
00;03;10;18 - 00;03;22;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
you can take away today that you can put into your day to day life that can get you the results and adopt the fasting lifestyle that we have found to be so transformational for us, as well as so many of our other listeners.
00;03;22;17 - 00;03;25;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So, Tommy, I think that's all we got to do today, right?
00;03;25;25 - 00;03;38;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, that's that's it. That's it. Just a just a really short order and no, no big deal at all. Right? Yeah. I think this is going to be cool to get into here because this is something that that I I knew existed.
00;03;38;03 - 00;03;52;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I knew it was important, but I didn't. I didn't know how to put all the pieces together. I didn't know why when I kept hearing, Oh well, you could, you could have visceral fat. You could have fat around your vital organs, and that could be a problem.
00;03;52;03 - 00;04;03;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But I didn't know what that meant for me personally or if it was important or should I have to worry about it now? Or should that be something that I think about later on? How do I fix it even if it is an issue?
00;04;04;06 - 00;04;17;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
All of these things kind of felt like, Man, I don't know. I don't know what to do about it. So hopefully we answer some of those questions here and and put some of the pieces together so we can get the process started here and actually make some long term wins.
00;04;18;03 - 00;04;35;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And this was this came again. If you new to the podcast, go back and listen to the first few episodes where you'll hear why we started it. Who Tommy and I are, what we've done, what we've accomplished with fasting, and how it's given us our lives back to be better dads, better husbands and literally correct years
00;04;35;18 - 00;04;48;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
of frustration in us trying to regain our health by getting the weight off and ultimately keeping it off. So a lot of this stuff has come from self-discovery. And we always want to speak from a framework of experience.
00;04;48;13 - 00;05;01;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We go find some research articles, we're going to unpack it. But what I found with that frustration in that journey and what we hear from so many people is, you know, I've tried so many times and I just can't get the results to stick, right?
00;05;01;27 - 00;05;19;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, one to 5% of people will keep the weight off and maintain that weight for for a substantial amount of time eating from four months to years. And it's just a struggle. And you know, that's where the motivation to kind of unpack this stuff comes from from us so we can give you stuff that can help
00;05;19;22 - 00;05;33;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
you in your day to day, simplify the process and like you said, get those results. So, you know, I went back to the original problem and pulled out my old. DEXA scans, and we're going to talk about what that is and why it's important.
00;05;33;19 - 00;05;44;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But there's so many different metrics out there that you can look at, OK, well, body fat percentage great. That's a good metric, right? Looking at lean muscle tissue versus the fat tissue you have on your body and how that relates to health.
00;05;44;18 - 00;06;08;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
BMI is the most commonly used diagnostic tool for characterizing healthy weight versus overweight versus obesity versus, you know, severe obesity. And BMI doesn't do a great job of breaking down those differences in body fat, so you can get out there into the Dr Google world, into the information superhighway and get lost and.
00;06;09;17 - 00;06;29;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Most people will get frustrated to a certain point and then put in a lifestyle overhaul where they eat less, move more type strategy. And what happens is then you get stuck in this cycle of, you know, that restriction omission and then you fall off the wagon and the bingeing comes back in.
00;06;29;14 - 00;06;42;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The old lifestyle habits come back and then you go back to the old dieting lifestyle and you get this yoyo kind of thing that takes place and you don't really end up in any better of a place and you're more frustrated and more annoyed.
00;06;42;10 - 00;07;04;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's why fasting can be so powerful, because it can simplify that process and also help balance out some of those sticking points. And that's why we focus so much on doing our challenges eight times a year and have the support pieces in place to be able to get you out of that cycle and into a vehicle
00;07;04;20 - 00;07;22;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
that allows you to break through those pain points, get results, but also have an understanding that the framework that you're operating in now looking at those metrics like the scale and the BMI and blood panels and that type of stuff, isn't the vehicle that's going to get you to the end result.
00;07;22;08 - 00;07;34;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we want to kind of unpack another metric that we can look at, like when we talk about insulin resistance, like what is your fasting insulin? No, what is your inflammation markers like? What is your CRP number? Right?
00;07;34;24 - 00;07;46;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Because we did an episode on that talking about how that blocks slept in. Well, what is your visceral fat content, right? What is visceral fat? Why is it important? Why is it more important in our opinion than a BMI calculation?
00;07;47;13 - 00;08;05;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then ultimately, you know, how can fasting, you know, speed that process up or reassure you that you're doing something right? And how do we test it? How do we look at it? And ultimately, how do we use that as a tool to make sure that we're getting the results that we want?
00;08;05;02 - 00;08;12;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I know there is a lot there, but that's what we're going on today and starting with what is visceral fat compared to subcutaneous fat, et cetera. Wow.
00;08;13;14 - 00;08;30;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Let me address one point, which was that whole sticking point problem. Yes. I can't tell you how many sticking points I had during my weight loss journey, my multi-decade decade weight loss journey. And you know, at those sticking points, you get to a point where you go, OK, well, it's not working.
00;08;30;17 - 00;08;49;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I've restricted calories to, let's say it's 20 or it's 15 hundred calories and now it's not working. So let me just restrict it a little more because I don't know what other lever to pull here. And when when you do that, you end up going further down the wrong path.
00;08;49;02 - 00;09;08;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It wasn't working before, and it's still probably not going to be working then. Or if it does spark some new results, it's probably not going to last very long. And that's a really frustrating way to to operate, let alone the fact that that the why behind your the actual results that you're looking for is going to have
00;09;08;09 - 00;09;22;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
to be really strong to continue to carry you on that process. So when we start to understand what visceral fat is, the fact that, you know, we actually have fat cells that are around our vital organs. And why does that matter?
00;09;22;09 - 00;09;36;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Are they the same kind of fat cells as what's in the flab in the back of my arm, right or around my hips or my or my lower midsection or around my legs, like in any of your trouble areas, but they're actually different.
00;09;37;00 - 00;09;55;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Those visceral fat cells are actually different from the rest of the body fat or the subcutaneous fat. And that's part of the issue there. That's that's not talked about very often because the visceral fat cells are actually hormonally active, they're actually signaling to the rest of your body, to your other fat cells, to your brain and the
00;09;55;04 - 00;10;12;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
rest of your body. What's going on there? They're giving updates, hormonal updates to the rest of your body as far as how much fat you actually have stored. But the problem there is that the more visceral fat we have, the worse those signals get, the more unclear they get.
00;10;12;07 - 00;10;16;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's that's part of the cascade of problems that we have here.
00;10;16;23 - 00;10;31;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we're going to mention that with a panel, when we look at changes in the heart, like in the heart function related to that cascade that you just reference. So that was a really good place to start, which is the difference between visceral versus that versus sat, right?
00;10;31;11 - 00;10;50;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So body fat percentage looks at the total body fat that you have on your on your body, right? Well, there are some different, like you said, types of visceral, deep, intra abdominal. So in between the organs, it's not the stuff that is beneath the skin, which is the subcutaneous right.
00;10;50;18 - 00;11;07;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So right, the area that we want to focus is around that midsection. And, you know, the gel like fat or that visceral fat is around those organs like the liver, the pancreas, the kidneys, et cetera. And that's why I love that study about the heart, which we'll talk about at the end, because the heart is not in
00;11;07;06 - 00;11;20;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
that area. That's not in that. Centrally located area, so the two areas we're looking at are the Android region of the abdomen versus the guy Noid region, the Gynradd Region is those tribal areas. You mentioned Tommy, that's around the hips and the thighs.
00;11;21;07 - 00;11;42;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's more of like the pear shaped fat versus the Android region, which is that deep area of the abdomen around those organs, which is where that that or the visceral adipose tissue tends to reside. So if I go back to my original scans, I'm looking at a fat mass of around 60, a lean mass of around
00;11;43;19 - 00;12;03;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
a 150 and then my android fat, which is that fat that so the total fat around my midsection was about £17. But the Android fat, that visceral fat in that little area around those organs was when I began £7.
00;12;03;11 - 00;12;22;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hmm. OK. We're going to give you some reference ranges here that I didn't know until we prepped for this podcast. Yeah, and it's smack me in the face now. Luckily, my follow up, my most recent scan was in the high threes, so I've cut that number in half.
00;12;23;19 - 00;12;46;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But, but but the reference ranges show that I need to cut that number by 80% again, and that's why we talk about this. The vicious cycle of, you know, I lost all the weight quickly, right? And then I've just kind of been hanging out air quotes in maintenance, even though so somebody in in our previous challenge asked
00;12;46;29 - 00;13;04;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
, Hey, what's your are you at maintenance like? What's your goal? And I was like, Well, no, I'm not at maintenance, but I'm looking specifically at the body fat percentage in relationship to the visceral fat. No. And that's why we're going to unpack the problems with visceral fat here in just a minute, because that's the number that really
00;13;04;03 - 00;13;17;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
matters to me. If my value is I want to change the generational health of my family, I need to not become my grandparents and my dad who struggle with diabetes, who is no longer diabetic. Thank God, because he jumped into one of the challenges and got incredible results.
00;13;18;02 - 00;13;33;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
He's off 1517 medications, lost £70 like completely enjoying his retirement, so I didn't want to end up there. So it's like, OK, well, well, what? What, what? How do we hone in on on targets that matter? And that's where the visceral fat comes in.
00;13;33;10 - 00;13;44;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I know you mentioned there was a realization for you, too, about the whole DEXA scan kind of piece of this of like, how do we know what this number is like? What you need to your average blood plan or body fat bod pod isn't.
00;13;45;00 - 00;13;47;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You might give it to you, but the best out there is that DEXA scan.
00;13;48;05 - 00;14;02;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, the crazy part for me was that I didn't know that visceral fat was more highly correlated with all the main markers that are so important to all of of what we're talking about here versus just body fat percent or BMI.
00;14;03;11 - 00;14;22;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like, if you're familiar with BMI, then you've probably had the thought, Well, yeah, but maybe that doesn't really apply to me because it doesn't really apply to everybody, doesn't get at muscle mass and and things like that. There's plenty of outliers for for the BMI, even though we know BMI is correlated with long term health outcomes, right
00;14;23;05 - 00;14;40;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
? But it can be really easy to go well, yeah. But maybe it doesn't quite apply to me in this in this situation, so it can almost be demotivating in that regard. But when we start looking at visceral fat and we go, Wow, the correlation is so much stronger versus just quote unquote body fat to blood glucose and
00;14;40;26 - 00;14;57;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
fasting insulin levels and weight loss success, blood pressure, triglycerides, LDL, cerp, even even certain cancers that that are much more highly correlated with visceral fat versus body fat. And then and then we say, OK, well, we can actually get to these numbers.
00;14;57;22 - 00;15;14;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We were we were prepping for this and I said, You know what? I need a DEXA scan. I need to do this. I need to understand what's going on around my vital organs. See, if, like you said, even after losing a lot of weight, do I still have more work to do here and in how do I
00;15;14;06 - 00;15;16;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
actually track those numbers over time?
00;15;16;13 - 00;15;24;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know what I just heard there was why is why is visceral fat important? And then we'll then we'll unpack how we're going to get rid of it, right? So for you, you're just like, Well, now I need to know my number.
00;15;24;20 - 00;15;39;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
For me, it was motivation, like, Oh crap, now that I look at that and you just kind of, you know, rat a tat tat of them, right? So why is it important? Because it's significantly associated with insulin resistance, which leads to diabetes, right?
00;15;39;18 - 00;16;05;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We're going to unpack. It leads to lower adiponectin, which is a hormonally active signal, a signal that comes out of your hormonally active, visceral adipose fat cells. And then it leads to an imbalance cholesterol profile. It leads to, you know, metabolic syndrome, which is the conditions of abdominal obesity, go figure, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high
00;16;05;25 - 00;16;26;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
serum triglycerides. So we're looking at. All of these things that lead to cardiovascular and major health related problems, just I shouldn't say just but looking at the amount of fat that we have in that Android region or that centrally located region down by those those organs.
00;16;26;01 - 00;16;44;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So when we're looking at this, there's correlation and causation between carrying this extra weight around us, and that's why we always go back to the well, if I if I go through this cycle of losing weight, gaining weight, losing weight, gaining weight, losing like gaining weight, you've been doing that for years.
00;16;44;25 - 00;17;03;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Getting off that crazy roller coaster is of the utmost importance. Now, more than ever, right? So if you've been doing that over and over and over again, it's time to break through giving back those five to £8 that maybe you've been losing and gaining with fasting.
00;17;04;07 - 00;17;25;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, right. You're still on the cycle. You might not be in the eat less, move more, you know, mindset anymore. You've adopted fasting as your lifestyle, but one or two times a week, personally. Again, this comes from personal personal experience and then connecting the dots is I noticed that with our date nights.
00;17;25;19 - 00;17;40;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then one other night a week, I was having an IPA or two. Mm-Hmm. And what I realized was that I was in that same situation where I was like, Yeah, I wanted to work on my visceral fat and get down to that lower body fat percentage, right?
00;17;40;14 - 00;17;54;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. When somebody asked me, What have you been doing? I'm like, I'll just kind of been hanging out of maintenance, doing my one meal a day, right? Taking part in some of the the weekly schedules that we do and, you know, really setting my week each week, but not really having that motivation to push forward.
00;17;54;25 - 00;18;17;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
What I noticed was that those couple of instances where I was having just a few, like two, maybe three that was kicking me out of fat burning for up to 36 to 48 hours. So I was literally just going up to down for up four down to and I was living the the cyclical health like like, I'm
00;18;17;12 - 00;18;37;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
not making progress. So yeah, so that's why we you know this. This visceral adipose tissue for us is and you just admitted it as well as is, is that next level of leveling up your your toolset, your skill set on honing in of of why making sure that we're progressing through a fat loss phase with fasting is
00;18;37;21 - 00;18;52;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
just as or more important, in my opinion, because there's additional benefits we're going to talk about with fasting. Yeah, which leads into the conversation of why is adiponectin a part of that equation, right? So adiponectin is an important piece to this, and adiponectin is a positive thing.
00;18;52;09 - 00;19;01;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We want more adiponectin circling through our bloodstream. The problem is, when you have this centrally located fat, it actually lowers those numbers.
00;19;01;19 - 00;19;20;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So in much like other processes that happen in the body, when we start to overproduce a signal, the body figures out ways to kind of suppress that signal so that it's not just completely overwhelmed by something that the volume just keeps raising and raising and raising, so it figures out ways to lower the volume.
00;19;20;28 - 00;19;36;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So what happens here is actually as we accumulate more visceral fat, we actually are suppressing the production of that adiponectin. And it's it's it's only coming from the actual adipocytes, the fat cells and mostly from the visceral fat cells.
00;19;36;27 - 00;19;59;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And so that's a problem because we know that higher adiponectin levels are associated with better blood sugar control, better fasting, insulin, lower blood pressure and in a balanced, you know, lipid panel on blood work. And so the problem here is that as we get more and more fat cells accumulating, especially the visceral ones, then those signals get
00;19;59;16 - 00;20;11;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
completely out of whack and that starts to again get at the the question of, well, why does it feel like it's just getting harder and harder to lose the weight? I used to be able to lose those few pounds relatively easily.
00;20;11;11 - 00;20;22;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
They would kind of just melt off. And now it's just getting harder and harder and harder as the the scale just kind of creeps up year after year after year. It is getting harder because hormonally, it's a different environment.
00;20;22;16 - 00;20;25;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's a much bigger struggle now for the body to drop those pounds.
00;20;26;11 - 00;20;40;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, because maybe you're a little bit smaller, but maybe your your your metabolic rate has changed. But now you've got another level of resistance. You've got a higher body fat percentage, higher visceral fat increase. It messes with the beta cell function in the pancreas.
00;20;41;09 - 00;21;01;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The lower adiponectin leads to insulin resistance. All signs point to poor blood glucose control. You can't tap into the fat long term fat stores because let's say you're grazing during your window or you can't close your window where you haven't fully adopted the fasting lifestyle yet into an intermittent window, which we'll talk about with Ramadan study here
00;21;01;14 - 00;21;16;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
, about adiponectin and the benefits that there's been a lot of doom and gloom so far in this. So don't worry, we're coming with the positivity here. So, yeah. Right. Just look to connect the dots. Sure. Yeah. So this was just like a lot to unpack where we started to like just every layer was another level of like
00;21;16;18 - 00;21;31;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
, oh, like, let's make sure we can kind of kind of put a plan together on how we're going to really be able to target this and and know that we're doing it right for us. So we get all of these things point to those metabolic disorders, right?
00;21;31;19 - 00;21;43;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Which is the opposite of what we want. We all know that losing weight is important. Ask any doctor. Right? But then look at the system that we have. It's not working here in the states. 72% of the population.
00;21;44;06 - 00;22;02;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
75%, depending on the studies back from 20 1819, showed that the population is overweight. And then we're moving towards a category upwards of 30 plus, going towards 40 plus percent of the population that's obese. Wow. Right. So what are the normal ranges, right, Tommy?
00;22;02;06 - 00;22;21;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we talk about insulin fasting insulin levels, so fasting insulin levels, we have an assessment on the website, the insulin assessment that talks about the waist circumference and then the waist to height ratio, which is an indicator of metabolic disorders and heart related issues and and metabolic metabolic syndrome.
00;22;22;00 - 00;22;32;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So that is there you can go get that. You can take the subjective quiz and it can show you, you know where you are in terms of a score on having insulin resistance, right? I'm going somewhere with this story.
00;22;33;23 - 00;22;49;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So then you go there with the insulin and then you go get your bloodwork done in your insulin comes back. And let's say, you know, you're at twelve, right? And I know you have a client that you were talking to, someone that you've been working with where, you know, they came back and it was like at the
00;22;49;07 - 00;22;58;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
very high range, but still within normal, it was like 2422 or something, right? Right. Way up there. And we're like, Whoa, OK, now we understand what.
00;22;58;00 - 00;23;00;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The reference range was like. 25, you know.
00;23;00;16 - 00;23;18;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like right, right? six, 25. And he was at like 24.5, right? Uh-Huh. So some of you can go and then get your insulin number. So what is a healthy, visceral adipose tissue? No, no. And and I've only seen one person that's had zero and it was my wife when she was at the Lena's body fat percentage that
00;23;18;10 - 00;23;36;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
she's ever been. Yeah. So I'm like, Yes, of course. Overachiever, right? Right. Love you, honey. But also, it's impressive to like there's also a level of like, wow. So when we're looking at these reference ranges, there's a couple of studies that really stood out to us and.
00;23;37;20 - 00;23;55;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The first study was out of the visceral fat mass has stronger associations with diabetes and prediabetes than other anthropomorphic Prometric obesity indicators among Korean adults. So in this study, they looked at a couple of different populations and it was it was a big study.
00;23;55;21 - 00;24;18;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
There were 600 people in it. And the thing that struck me here was that 40% of the participate participants were classified as having prediabetes and 10% were classified as being diabetic. Right. But when we looked at the body mass index or the BMI, the men were at about 25 and the women were just below 24.
00;24;18;22 - 00;24;42;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we're talking about that healthy weight just on the cusp of being overweight. Right? Yeah, right. The visceral fat mass. Was 1.2 kilograms and range from point four, 2.9 in the women, so an average of about point five or six, so we're not talking about a high level like we're talking anywhere from a pound up to maybe
00;24;42;25 - 00;25;07;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
£4, three and a half pounds, £4 in men as a high range that we're already showing signs of having the higher, excuse me, the lower adiponectin levels, right? Mm hmm. That was leading to the poor blood sugar control, which was, in this case, 50% of the participants were either pre-diabetic or diabetic.
00;25;07;18 - 00;25;18;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I'm sitting here going, Yeah, great. I'm not at seven anymore, but no time to get an update, right? Where about where am I? And then obviously, you had you had this similar realization.
00;25;18;27 - 00;25;37;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So yeah, I need to establish my own reference range. Like, where where am I? I don't. I don't know where I was two years ago, but I can certainly figure out where I am now and and then actually redo it 90 days from now and see if the needles moving and just understanding the fact that, you know
00;25;37;12 - 00;25;53;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
, there's there's a couple of studies here that we found that started to establish this reference range in different patient or different populations rather. But, you know, it's not something I've ever heard cited before. Like, you know what, your visceral fat should be x y z.
00;25;53;17 - 00;26;06;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I've heard, you know, these are these are the markers for, you know, body composition for the body, right? And then it's like, Oh, here's a picture of a bodybuilder. Here's a picture of someone who's overweight. Here's kind of a normal individual, you know?
00;26;06;06 - 00;26;23;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But but never hearing how many pounds or how many grams even of visceral fat is is healthy. And then when we start to be able to to see this and go, Oh, well, this, this is what's really correlated with those long term health outcomes that we're we're looking to improve and gain control over.
00;26;23;20 - 00;26;42;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then it was cool because it also uncovered that study about the heart and what that looked like as far as visceral fat actually accumulating around the heart. And the fact that even before there was clinical symptoms show up, we can start to correlate what's going on, how much visceral fat is around the heart.
00;26;42;19 - 00;26;53;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's actually showing the problem even before we get there, kind of like looking into a crystal ball a little bit, and that's a really cool thing about understanding your visceral fat.
00;26;53;26 - 00;27;03;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I want to zoom out just because you just had a couple of things there. And for clarity, in that study, it was the visceral fat in the Android region that was affecting the heart and will impact that in a second.
00;27;04;05 - 00;27;21;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But it's that it's that progression, right? So what is the reference range? And then where are we looking in that crystal ball of where we're going? And what, like shocked me or stunned me in this was the fact that there was this other study the visceral fat reference range right in the European men and women.
00;27;22;16 - 00;27;39;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This is in lost one in 2017, aged 20 to 30 years. And this was done through a DEXA scan. So this was values derived from healthy European men and women and the average of the group. So men typically have more visceral fat than women.
00;27;39;24 - 00;27;57;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And in this study in this group and this was another large study and the visceral fat reference range, so is in grams, but about 450 grams is about £1. Mm hmm. So the average in this, the men were up over 500, so just over £1 of visceral fat.
00;27;58;09 - 00;28;18;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And the women were just under £1 of visceral fat. So again, a very small number in healthy individuals, right? So what is the reference range that we should be shooting for? Less is better. Yeah, we want less and subcutaneous fat does have some correlations and can be linked to.
00;28;20;02 - 00;28;33;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Issues as well, but they're more of the inflammatory kind, they're more related to like the syrupy markers inflammation. They're not directly related, like the visceral adipose tissue is to the more serious conditions like the metabolic issues, the metabolic syndrome.
00;28;33;23 - 00;28;45;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So that's why when we talk about body fat percentage really focusing on decreasing the body fat percentage, making sure that we're decreasing the VAT as well, which leads us to the really cool study of Ramadan fasting.
00;28;45;22 - 00;28;57;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So this is where we were asking the question, OK, well, so what can we do about it and can fasting help with this? If I know this is an issue, or I think it might be Kim fasting help.
00;28;57;08 - 00;29;12;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And so it's really cool because a lot of the studies that have actually been done on fasting oftentimes involve Ramadan because it's kind of it's it's going to take place and people are able to observe what happens. So it's cool because.
00;29;12;25 - 00;29;22;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Control, it's an easily controlled environment, right? Yeah, it's like there's a large population Muslim population that's doing this. So it's like, Oh, well, yeah, there's a lot of studies out there. It's really it's called.
00;29;22;22 - 00;29;34;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Let's take some bloodwork and ask some questions, you know, during during this, during this time. And so what I like is that typically in most of the Ramadan, studies do not see a very big actual weight loss, like a net weight loss.
00;29;34;23 - 00;29;49;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But so even even when weight loss doesn't occur, we start to be able to uncover, OK, just consistently going into that like 13 to maybe 16 hour kind of fast range, we can start to see some really cool effects.
00;29;49;18 - 00;30;15;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And they often often happen to do with with insulin or blood sugar control. But here we started to see an increase in those adiponectin levels, even just over a few weeks of consistent 13 to 1617 hour fasting, which is really, really cool because in order to see those changes in adiponectin levels, normally those would be correlated with
00;30;16;03 - 00;30;24;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
an actual change in the visceral fat. So even before the visceral fat had a chance to change, we had an improvement in adiponectin levels.
00;30;25;07 - 00;30;43;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
There's two points here that I want to make. one is I didn't realize that depending on where you live in the world, your fasting hours from Ramadan will differ because it's sunup to sundown, right? So, yeah, for the people living in Greenland, you got the short end of the stick or here in the states, even because you're
00;30;43;02 - 00;31;01;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
going to be more towards the intermittent fasting level, about 1516 hour. But there are places like in Uruguay and Paraguay where it's eleven or twelve hours. So that's probably why we don't see the weight loss changes in these studies because it's really not a a a caloric deficit driven fasting window, right, or fasting range.
00;31;01;17 - 00;31;15;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But I love the fact that even in that situation, right with the shorter windows, you know, there was a significant increase in the serum of. Yeah, right. So like the body was. And so this is the interesting thing.
00;31;15;05 - 00;31;31;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And there was an increase in triglycerides. Hmm. So what we don't want to do in the low and slow method or the intermittent grazing. I'm a I'm a I'm a fasting type. I'm a gratuitous graze to a disc.
00;31;31;02 - 00;31;31;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Raiser.
00;31;31;19 - 00;31;44;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? Or I'm the priority pivot where I just kind of like make make up my pivots as I go to fit what I really want to do. And I don't really have any boundaries. Right, right. Or the weekend warrior right fasting type.
00;31;44;12 - 00;31;56;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But for it specifically, the cool thing with fasting. And so we get that out of and level raising, which is what we want. But the increased triglyceride here for some of you might be the was not a bad thing.
00;31;57;21 - 00;32;14;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But what that's showing is that we're actually tapping into some of the fat stores. Yeah, we're able to produce and break down those fat cells. So this is what we talk about with, you know, getting stuck in that cycle, Tommy, the crash dieting cycle, right?
00;32;14;16 - 00;32;28;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The Yo-Yo type thing is, if you're in that model, you're constantly feeding and not able to be tapping into. You're always hungry. You're doing that few small meals, you're doing the snacks in between, right?
00;32;28;29 - 00;32;47;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Even using your calories are restricted, right, like even if you are at a calorie deficit, right? So when we do that, we start to increasingly restrict, like you were saying earlier in the conversation, we consistently restrict and we paint ourselves into a corner where we can only restrict further.
00;32;47;28 - 00;33;00;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But it's only furthering the cycle. So when we take a step back and we start to say, OK, well in a 13 to 16 hour fasting range, we get an improvement in adiponectin here. So what happens if we keep going?
00;33;00;07 - 00;33;19;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
What happens if we consistently apply this as a lifestyle? What happens if we break through that plateau, get the scale starting to move and then we start to consistently tap into those long term fat stores like you, like you alluded to with those increasing triglyceride levels, which means I'm actually tapping into my own long term fat stores
00;33;19;27 - 00;33;30;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
, which is a really cool thing. Now I start to see the momentum build. Now I start to see the scale start to move in the right direction, and I can continue to balance things out while I drop the visceral fat.
00;33;30;24 - 00;33;36;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's exactly the process that we get started in the challenge that we're we're going into here.
00;33;36;18 - 00;33;53;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And to just one more point on zooming out is that with that heart study that we had mentioned, the there were changes in the echocardiographic study. They were looking at these hearts of these obese patients and they were normotensive.
00;33;53;22 - 00;34;17;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So normal blood pressure, normal blood pressure patients. Mm hmm. And they were looking at the abnormalities, and they found that there was a direct correlation between the amount of visceral fat and seeing these changes on ECHO without any symptoms showing up in terms of blood pressure changes or heart function.
00;34;18;04 - 00;34;35;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Wow, so this is that Crystal Ball piece looking to the future. Well, OK, let's get the body fat percentage down. Let's get off the like you just alluded to the crazy crash dieting, yo-yo, dieting, fasting, gratuitous grazing, going to move my fasting window cycle.
00;34;35;21 - 00;34;54;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And let's hone in on some real targets and some real metrics. Let's get a DEXA scan done. Let's have a baseline, and let's commit to doing a consistent fasting schedule for the next 90 days and go back and look at those changes.
00;34;54;10 - 00;35;10;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now we're able to track some metrics. Get off of this potential path that we're on, that you can see of blood sugar conditions developing over the decades. And all of a sudden your blood sugar pops 20 years down the road.
00;35;10;07 - 00;35;23;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But you've really had this problem years ago. So where do you start? Well, the takeaway today is it's time to level up your fasting game, and we've got the challenge coming up on April 30th. And you alluded to it already, Tom, you already mentioned it.
00;35;23;12 - 00;35;42;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you've been on this, I've been using the same five to eight, or maybe you've lost 20 or 30 and you can't get past that next plot the next plateau, right? I'm raising my hand here in an audio medium that I've been showing it maintenance and I have this knowledge and conviction of now.
00;35;42;11 - 00;35;59;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I know. Well, yeah, there's another level of importance here, right? Hmm. We're seeing changes on echocardiograms and normotensive obese patients. Yeah. May not be obese, right anymore, but I still got some that right. So let's not let's let's look in that crystal ball.
00;35;59;14 - 00;36;13;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if any of that resonates with you, if you're like, Wow, this is overwhelming, I want to assure you that we simplify this process during the seven day lifestyle fasting challenge, and you're going to get everything you need.
00;36;13;13 - 00;36;30;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're going to break through that plateau, get off the crazy site, the yo yo cycle, the fasting fatigue, let's say you're having. We're going to push you. We're going to encourage you. And I I know because we look at the data from the last few challenges that the average weight loss is between that six and eight pound
00;36;30;06 - 00;36;44;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
range. And we're also going to teach you what you can do to continue to keep it off and continue to move the ball forward. So I'm pumped at this conversation and this topic came up now because it's a perfect time to jump in the boat with us and start rowing in the right direction.
00;36;45;09 - 00;36;57;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, absolutely. Like, there's there's something going on here and we can do something about it. So let's understand that this is not something that's widely talked about. It's because it's it's not quite at the level of understanding like this is new stuff.
00;36;57;21 - 00;37;15;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We haven't had access to DEXA scans for for more than like a couple of whoever knows. Yeah, you know, right? And so it's like, this is new stuff where we're getting insight into what's going on in the important regions of our body, not just the Hey, how does how, how do I look in the mirror and things
00;37;15;25 - 00;37;33;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
like that and like, like superficial stuff like this is getting very important. We can look in that crystal ball and then we can do something about it. So getting that momentum, I think, is key. So starting that process and understanding how to make it stick and how to work long term, make this a lifestyle and something sustainable
00;37;34;04 - 00;37;43;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
. And that's that's another part of what we get into during the challenge. So I'm really looking forward to it. And I can't wait to see the cool results are going to happen during the seven days to yep.
00;37;43;25 - 00;37;57;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So April 30th is the next challenge. Yes, we know that there is an Easter holiday in there that is OK, we've got a plan for you. We are not going to let the external environment or the external forces control our results because we are worth it.
00;37;57;21 - 00;38;11;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You are worth it. We're going to support you through it. We set the challenge schedule for the entire year and the only time that we really look at holidays, it's like, OK, well, that's life, right? So how do we make fasting a lifestyle?
00;38;12;00 - 00;38;23;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Well, you got to figure out how to navigate life with fasting. And I'm just super pumped because we're leveling up the experience, and I am just excited because it feels like just yesterday we finished the last one, right?
00;38;23;25 - 00;38;41;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You got an amazing group of people that we've been working with and seen some amazing breakthrough. So April 30th, you can go to the show notes or WW wd fasting for life dot com forward slash live. If you've got questions, feel free to reach out, but we hope to see you on the inside, Tommy.
00;38;41;14 - 00;38;56;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And as always, thank you for the amazing conversation. Hopefully we connected some dots and move the needle today. I know for us personally, we've definitely recommitted to leveling up our game and our our results. And as I always like to say, you can't get what you don't have.
00;38;57;04 - 00;39;04;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if we can have it and own it, then we can teach it and empower and encourage so. Challenge April 30 Tommy, thank you for the conversation. We'll talk to you.
00;39;04;26 - 00;39;11;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Thank you. So you've heard today's episode, and you may be wondering, where do I start?
00;39;11;23 - 00;39;20;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Head on over to the 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;09 - 00;39;34;23
[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.