Ep. 121 - Is Food Addiction Real And Does That Matter? | How Sugar Affects the Brain | 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, and the long-term sustainability equation. 

 

Research Links:
https://examine.com/nutrition/food-addiction-is-it-real-and-does-that-matter/#ref4
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa066082
https://unitedbrainassociation.org/2020/06/28/how-sugar-affects-the-brain/

 

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Fasting For Life Ep. 121 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 Fast and 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 and health and wellness to the science of lifestyle design.

00;00;25;01 - 00;00;30;22
[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.

00;00;30;26 - 00;00;31;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Along the way.

00;00;40;05 - 00;00;47;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hey Ron, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Water here, and I'm here as always, with my good friend and colleague, Tom Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir.

00;00;47;24 - 00;00;49;06
[Tommy Welling]
Hey, Scott, how are you doing?

00;00;49;06 - 00;01;05;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fantastic, my friend. Today's conversation is going to be a good one. I'm going to put it out there into the universe. As always, we're going to have some fun, probably have some laughs, tell some bad jokes, but we're going to keep the main thing, the main thing, which is talking about fasting and how to adopt this fasting

00;01;05;29 - 00;01;23;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
lifestyle to get the long term weight loss and health results. Yeah. That you have not been able to acquire up until this point. And that is exactly how you and I ended up here. Tommy we both have similar stories and similar journeys, and if you want to hear more about that, you can feel free to go back

00;01;23;28 - 00;01;34;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
and listen to the first few episodes of the podcast, learn a little bit more about who we are and what we do. If you are indeed new to the Fasting for Life podcast, there's a lot of fasting podcasts out there.

00;01;34;26 - 00;01;49;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It is a new thing, a new hot topic, a new conversational thing that you hear a lot more about. Yeah, even though fasting has been around since the dawn of time. So we appreciate you guys listening. If you've been a long time listener, give us a shout out.

00;01;49;18 - 00;02;07;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Let us know how your journey is going. Info the fasting for life XCOM. If you're looking for some resources, you go to the fasting for life icon, go to resources. We've got a fast start guide, an insulin assessment, some tools to get you started or help you along your way on your fasting journey.

00;02;08;04 - 00;02;23;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we like reviews, so now we are well over 1 million downloads. So just an appreciation shout out. We haven't done it in a while. We've gotten a little nerdy in some and diving into some of the more and deeper physiological concepts around fasting and over the last few weeks.

00;02;23;27 - 00;02;36;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So want to give each and every one of you listeners a shout out. Continue to tell Apple and Spotify in the podcast Gods that we are doing something that is worth listening to. So drop us a five star review.

00;02;36;09 - 00;02;47;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Those are our favorite. Give us to reach out. Give us a shout out. Let us know how your fasting journey is going. All right, Tony. So. Today's conversation. I'm just going to throw out a disclaimer at the beginning.

00;02;48;08 - 00;02;48;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Okay.

00;02;49;09 - 00;02;49;20
[Tommy Welling]
Okay.

00;02;50;18 - 00;03;16;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You ready? Ready. Okay. So. We are not going to be speaking around today's conversation, in all seriousness. From a clinical perspective, if you listen to this topic and you think that you align or have some of these issues from a clinical standpoint of an addiction, then we definitely want you to go get and get some help and

00;03;16;05 - 00;03;33;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
seek out the right people and we'll give you some some guidelines on what that looks like. But we want to talk about an article that was written by Stephen Gwinnett. That's I'm not sure about the pronunciation. I did go in and Google the pronunciation ahead of time, but I didn't believe that that was correct because it seemed

00;03;33;19 - 00;03;59;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
really jumbled. So he is a Ph.D. and he wrote this article around food addiction. And is it real and does it matter? So it's something that's out there and it's something that we hear a lot in feedback for people that are coming to fasting as a way to lose weight and regain their health.

00;03;59;29 - 00;04;21;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And there's a lot of conversation around cravings and off limit foods or bad foods or sugar addiction, right? Yeah. And so we want to talk about this from a come from of an understanding that there is something going on with our relationship with food as a society that is leading to the skyrocketing.

00;04;22;29 - 00;04;48;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Weight and obesity epidemic that is then in turn leading to metabolic disorders, heart disease, diabetes and all of those other core comorbidities that come with, you know, blood pressure and cholesterol and thyroid and medications. Right. So the reason why I felt like this was we felt like this was a good conversation is there's a lot of correlations

00;04;48;04 - 00;05;09;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
between our own personal journey and foods that we crave and dare I say, are we're addicted to. So yeah, you know, just overview food addiction. Like drug addiction is not in the DSM, right? It's not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

00;05;11;00 - 00;05;32;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But what Yale has done has come up with because there is something going on again. Right. With this this epidemic of increased waist circumference and increased heart disease. And all of these numbers are skyrocketing. Even though not not fear mongering here, but even though where do we have more access to health care here in the states, we're

00;05;32;26 - 00;05;49;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
spending ten times as much and trillions of dollars a year on our health care system. Yeah, but we can't seem to get a handle on what's happening when it comes to our food supply and our manifestation of our behavior.

00;05;49;09 - 00;06;07;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So it's really cool because we're going to speak through this from our own personal experience, that there's a new tool that's come out because a lot of this research is new, right? Yeah. And the new tool has come out from the Yale food addiction scale or the Y, f, a s and they've come up with seven features

00;06;08;18 - 00;06;26;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
of addiction that are incorporated into this scale. And when you and I read this, we both went, Oh, my God, I have those. Right? So can this really be real? And we're not going to go down the rabbit hole of rodent models and human models and how sugar has a definite dopamine effect on the brain.

00;06;26;11 - 00;06;40;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I want to come from the palatability, the salt, sugar, fat conversation and that angle and then really how fasting is like. Fixed a lot of this stuff for us. So anyway, I'm going to that's the introduction. So here you go.

00;06;41;03 - 00;06;45;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'm just going to sit back and listen for the next ten or 15 minutes and have. Okay.

00;06;45;20 - 00;07;01;21
[Tommy Welling]
All right. So the food addiction scale talk about mind blowing like I had I had never seen anything organized in this way. And honestly, if I had looked at this before, my fasting journey had began. I don't I don't exactly know what I would have thought.

00;07;01;21 - 00;07;16;12
[Tommy Welling]
I probably honestly would have thought, well, that stuff doesn't really apply to me because I know how to track the calories and the macros of what I'm eating. Even when I am eating the foods that I can't seem to get myself away from or can't stop thinking about.

00;07;16;23 - 00;07;37;21
[Tommy Welling]
So to your point, salt, sugar, fat, that really started to that book really started to open my eyes to, you know, what could potentially be going on with my own psychological cravings, my own physiology, and the fact that what I was really craving or what I tended to expose myself to as far as ultra processed or indulgent

00;07;37;21 - 00;07;58;20
[Tommy Welling]
foods for myself, because I grew up eating them and I had emotional ties to them, I really did highly crave them. Those were things that I couldn't separate myself from mentally. I could put them off. I could diet, exercise vigilantly, religiously, even, and and put them off for a while.

00;07;58;20 - 00;08;13;20
[Tommy Welling]
But I would be craving them. I would be looking forward to them. I would even look for any excuse to jump off my diet bandwagon for the week. By Thursday or Friday, hopefully my wife was on board like, Hey, hon, you know, what are we eating for dinner tonight?

00;08;13;21 - 00;08;27;07
[Tommy Welling]
Like, Oh, yeah, we already have that prepped, right? But yeah, but you don't really want to eat what's in the fridge, right? Maybe we should just get a pizza. How does that sound? And then just kind of just kind of floating it out there and and if if she if she grabbed on to it, it was like

00;08;27;07 - 00;08;38;24
[Tommy Welling]
, yes, all right, cool. So I'm kind of off of this wagon, at least for the next couple of days. I can I can have some more of these highly craveable foods that will be okay through the weekend and then I'll get back on board Monday.

00;08;38;25 - 00;08;58;16
[Tommy Welling]
This was like this was the cycle that I lived for years and years and years. And when I look at this Yale food addiction scale, there are seven points here. And I quickly counted six out of those seven that I clearly, clearly had, despite probably not being able to admit it to myself just maybe three years ago

00;08;58;28 - 00;09;01;19
[Tommy Welling]
and that it was it's eye opening.

00;09;02;12 - 00;09;28;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So just real quick, the substance tends to be consumed in larger amounts or over longer periods of time than intended. Right, reducing time. So these are already hitting home with me, reducing time spent on important recreational, social or work related activities because of consumption, persistent desire or unsuccessful attempts to stop or curb consumption, continuing consumption despite

00;09;28;21 - 00;09;44;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
negative physical or psychological consequences. And there's a little blood sugar meter. There is an image. Yeah. Spending a lot of time on activities related to consumption or recovering from consumption, needing more of the substance to achieve the desired effect and withdrawal.

00;09;44;20 - 00;09;48;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So like unpleasant symptoms when withdrawing from the substance.

00;09;48;15 - 00;09;48;28
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

00;09;49;14 - 00;10;06;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So again, when we started this, there's also another scale created the addiction like eating behavior scale to abs and that's not directly derived from an analogy like say a drug addiction difference with food is, is that we need food, we need inputs to to nourish our bodies.

00;10;06;27 - 00;10;19;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So you don't need methamphetamine, right? Like that's your that there's a different level of chemistry that's going on there. But there are some similarities. And the most common one that we hear about is a sugar addiction. Right.

00;10;19;11 - 00;10;33;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So, oh, I'm addicted to sugar. Right. Well, I know for me, I've never been a sweets guy. So if sugar addiction was the main driver of the carb insulin model of obesity, then how did I get there? Right.

00;10;33;28 - 00;10;41;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. I fall more into the the fat and also the savory type category. Right. Salty.

00;10;41;20 - 00;10;42;23
[Tommy Welling]
So that kind of stuff.

00;10;42;23 - 00;10;58;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's more me and I'll sit there and this is what I used to do with the big bag of skinny pop or the bag of potato chips or that was me. Like, I would always just sit there and we'll talk a little bit about those different scenarios and how we can combat them and give

00;10;58;06 - 00;11;11;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
you some, some action steps. And, you know, fasting obviously is going to be the top of the list. And we're going to talk a little bit about fasting a little differently today in terms of your picking, your fasting choosing your fasting windows or choose your own adventure.

00;11;11;01 - 00;11;31;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But the the thing with sugar and it's the most common one. So I just want to mention it is that, you know, looking at the consumption of sugar over the years. Sugar consumption has actually gone down recently, but the obesity overweight categories and those statistics are continuing to go up.

00;11;32;06 - 00;11;53;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So is sugar a problem? Yes, it's everywhere. And in the USDA claims the average American consumes about £156 a year. Or 34 teaspoons of sugar a day more. Then what our body needs. Mm. So if sugar. So six teaspoons a day for women.

00;11;53;09 - 00;12;12;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Nine teaspoons a day for men is the recommended amount. But if sugar consumption has gone down dramatically recently, and we're more aware that big food exists in the salt, sugar, fat, but these genetically modified Twinkies that can, you know, survive for decades on the shelf.

00;12;12;23 - 00;12;28;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. Not real food. The problem is, is that, you know, when we're looking at the sugar consumption, that's where we get into the blood sugar swings, we get into insulin resistance, we get into a quick energy spike in the body, which then can cause that crash.

00;12;29;02 - 00;12;49;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It can also decrease BNF, which is brain derived new trophic factors, and that really can not allow our nerve neurology, our nerve, our neuro endocrine system to function properly, your brain fog, post-lunch crashes and all that. So that's the most common one.

00;12;49;21 - 00;13;00;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But what I love about the the, the scale is that it, it kind of nailed me to the cross, right? Just like it did for you. You're like, wow, I had six out of seven of those.

00;13;00;24 - 00;13;24;24
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. And it was like, did I always have these? Like, did I just not realize that I had them and I couldn't really, like, see the picture frame from inside the picture. It was like I couldn't even understand that these were limiting not only my my own results, but my own psychology, until I started consistently applying fasting

00;13;24;24 - 00;13;37;18
[Tommy Welling]
, because once I once I started doing that, that gave a little bit of built in separation for myself to where if I set a timer for 16 hours and I'm not going to eat anything for that 16 hours, well well, guess what?

00;13;37;26 - 00;13;52;13
[Tommy Welling]
That's 16 hours that I might have these cravings. But at the same time, assuming I stick to that 16 hour plan, I don't have the input. So I'm not going to stop by my local fast food place. I'm not going to order a pizza.

00;13;52;20 - 00;14;12;15
[Tommy Welling]
I'm not going to expose myself to whatever that highly craveable food is for at least the next 16 hours. And now I have a little bit of time to think about it. So if I spend an hour of that time reading Salt, Sugar, Fat, I learn something new about potentially one of the foods that was so crave

00;14;12;15 - 00;14;27;01
[Tommy Welling]
worthy craveable for me. I might have a little bit more mental ammunition to go. Yeah, you know what? Maybe maybe that particular have, it's not really serving me super well, so maybe I'll limit my exposure even a little bit longer.

00;14;27;01 - 00;14;45;13
[Tommy Welling]
Maybe when I break this fast, I'm not going to break it with that highly craveable food, even though I kind of like to. Maybe I'll separate myself a little bit further, which I think was was like, I feel lucky that that was built in to my fast because I don't know if I would have gotten there like

00;14;45;13 - 00;14;52;21
[Tommy Welling]
just on my own. Like I never had that thought that I needed to do that to separate myself. But it kind of just happened when I started fasting.

00;14;53;16 - 00;15;15;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, it wasn't my intention either to end up in a place where I would have a realization that the thing that I was doing in the moment that I was enjoying, for whatever reason, right, was going to result in me feeling a certain way, you know, immediately after the consumption or let's say the next morning when my

00;15;15;25 - 00;15;35;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
sleep was all disturbed. And I noticed for me one of those things was alcohol, where my the realization came for me was, was actually with my kids, where it was like, man, I'm tired and I'm more angry and I'm more irritable the next day after consuming a few IPAs on a date night.

00;15;35;13 - 00;15;50;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I know we talk a lot about this because it's like one of those things that's just been a habit for that's been ingrained as a non-negotiable for so long. Sure. And in between, there's not much consumption. But that Saturday was not nearly as enjoyable, right?

00;15;50;28 - 00;16;09;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like the weekends were starting off, not feeling great and being on my game to be that better dad, that better husband. So that's where the realization has come in for me as well. Not just specifically like, you know, bantering back and forth about, you know, the research or medical communities don't really know if food addiction is a

00;16;09;05 - 00;16;24;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
real thing, right? Like, like a substance addition, like, like tobacco or a non substance addiction, like gambling. There's really no consensus when it comes to food. But, you know, I know that on a Friday night, just like you would message your wife and be like, Hey, what do you wanna do for dinner tonight?

00;16;24;03 - 00;16;39;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'd be the same thing. Be like, Hey, you want to go? I wanna go grab some drinks and hang out. Like, right. That was my that was my default because that's what I did for so many years through being in the restaurant business and it just being like the social cue.

00;16;39;23 - 00;17;02;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we'll talk about cues and kind of habits here in a minute. But it's interesting because when we continue to look at the the the things that support the concept of food addiction, you know, modern processed foods that stimulate the brain, the dopamine response, especially the combination of fats and carbohydrates.

00;17;02;05 - 00;17;23;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yes, calorie dense processed foods, rich in refined carbohydrates are more likely to trigger those addiction like eating behaviors, while the more simple, unprocessed foods are less likely to trigger. So there is evidence out there that people self-identified. This is why we're talking about it, because we hear this often all the time.

00;17;24;09 - 00;17;37;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
All the time. When you're addicted to a certain food and like you, you experienced distress due to the struggles of trying to control that intake. And we don't you can't restrict, you know, your way to happiness.

00;17;38;00 - 00;17;38;11
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

00;17;38;22 - 00;18;02;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then the the the the yellow food scale, you know, take some of that criteria and applies it to the food. So it's not an exact like apples to apples, but there are some correlations there. And people with that self labeled food addiction have a pattern of brain activity that's similar to the drug addiction or the gambling

00;18;02;25 - 00;18;16;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
addiction. Mm hmm. Now, when we're looking at, like, rodent studies versus human studies, like we don't want to go down that path again, not our area of expertize, but how can we then? Like there are neurochemical changes that take place.

00;18;16;05 - 00;18;39;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But how can we insulate ourselves and encourage ourselves to celebrate the journey of how to. Take this situations taught me that you and I experienced and actually put them into a plan like where you know that you have the control panel in front of you where you can pull this lever down and bring this lever up to

00;18;39;13 - 00;18;57;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
increase your confidence to know that, you know, maybe I'm not addicted to the food. Maybe it's the the the cue that causes me to. Exhibit the habit that manifests itself in a food related behavior. And that was me.

00;18;58;02 - 00;19;11;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, that was me. The pizza, the beer, the the sun. Fun day, the the date night. Like, I've had that realization recently where I'm like, Yeah, the juice isn't worth the squeeze anymore for me. Yeah, I just don't feel good enough.

00;19;11;05 - 00;19;21;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But if I was truly addicted to food, like, how did I just meander my way through and figure out a way to break it? Well, no, there was. There were some sustainable things that we did in between to get there.

00;19;21;21 - 00;19;41;07
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. And I think you have to start becoming a little bit observant of those things. And sometimes journaling can help where you go like, okay, if, if, if I'm, if I'm consistently setting a fasting timer but I'm having trouble sticking to it or I'm having trouble like, you know, being focused on, on my why, why I'm actually

00;19;41;07 - 00;19;52;16
[Tommy Welling]
doing this or why is this important to me? Should I be consistently fasting? Because we ask we ask questions all the time from from people who follow us and who are on our on our email list and things like that.

00;19;52;22 - 00;20;10;23
[Tommy Welling]
And the most common kind of response that we get for some of those questions is something like, I'm just having trouble getting back on track or consistently sticking to my timer. Well, I know for myself personally, especially when I when I started off with fasting, I had a lot of trouble sticking to it because of things like

00;20;11;01 - 00;20;28;14
[Tommy Welling]
highly craveable foods that I couldn't wait to put back into my window whenever I broke my fast. So let alone the fact that I could easily undo my calorie, my, my, my calorie deficit or, you know, any of the time that I had just spent burning through my fat stores.

00;20;28;22 - 00;20;48;27
[Tommy Welling]
I could undo that by putting the wrong foods into that next window. But what I realized was I feel awful. Afterwards, I started to associate those negative physical feelings with my next fast and those. Each one of those made it a lot easier for the next time I set my fasting timer to go.

00;20;48;27 - 00;21;02;01
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, you know what? I don't. I don't want to break my fast that way again because that was not fun. I don't want to feel like that again. So that started to make it like a more natural process to where I wasn't just clawing my way to good habits.

00;21;02;07 - 00;21;10;07
[Tommy Welling]
It felt like, Yeah, I'm, I'm making different choices because that's how I want to feel. And that was much easier to do.

00;21;10;23 - 00;21;29;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Interestingly, out of this article, right, that Dr. Steven had done this, like if you look at the I want to come back to that point, I have a point of going back just a second is if you look at the references, there's like 50 references in this article, like considering the definition, a critical example of practical implications

00;21;29;12 - 00;21;50;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
drive from food addiction, concept, food reward and cocaine, increased extracellular dopamine in nucleus, which foods may be addictive. So to your point of not just stumbling upon this, it was the consistent repeatability and sustainability of those fast that, in my opinion, really balanced out my cravings and my blood sugar.

00;21;50;06 - 00;22;08;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Sure. Which can also lead to those things. Yeah, but one of the last takeaways I want to mention is that in here there's specific research that that hits on energy restriction and other weight loss diets, including those based on calorie restriction and carb restriction, directly reduced food cravings.

00;22;09;13 - 00;22;27;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if you're sitting here going, wow, this is kind of overwhelming. Yes, this is me. I have a sugar. I'm addicted to this. I've got whatever it is, right? Yeah. Is that the first thing here would be to commit to this is what I was hearing with what you were saying is committing to a window with a

00;22;27;00 - 00;22;38;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
little bit of reflection. Yeah, right. Like in the beginning, going all the way to back the first time I broke a 24 hour fast or a one meal a day. It was not a meal, it was a buffet.

00;22;40;04 - 00;22;50;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I told myself, I'm never going to break my fast that way. And then I also know that if I'm going to be doing let's say that a challenge, right? We're going to be doing a an advanced schedule, a more aggressive fat loss schedule.

00;22;50;21 - 00;22;51;01
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

00;22;52;06 - 00;23;18;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I am not going to eat high calorie, dense, low, nutrient dense foods. Before I go into waking up the next day and going into a longer fast because I know my hunger cues, my blood sugar swings, my mood, my fatigue, all of that poor sleep is going to make me swing way into the man.

00;23;18;13 - 00;23;21;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This is uncomfortable and kind of sucks category, right?

00;23;21;23 - 00;23;38;20
[Tommy Welling]
Right. And that is not a way to go into your next fast. That's not a way to enjoy the process. That's not a way to to actually burn through those long term fast stores consistently. That's not a way to to gain momentum within the process.

00;23;38;20 - 00;23;57;10
[Tommy Welling]
Like you have to you have to set yourself up for success. And it looks very different from what you just described. It looks like intentional little bit of planning and and realizing when you feel bad with certain foods and then doing something a little bit different intentionally and consistently.

00;23;58;06 - 00;24;10;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Oh, I just love this this idea. Well, we know that there's evidence that shows that fasting can help with that metabolic flexibility, better blood sugar control, insulin sensitivity. So you don't get those big swings or those big cravings anymore.

00;24;10;20 - 00;24;28;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We also know it helps balance out your leptin and ghrelin, which is your satiety and hunger hormones, right? Like we know that those can then once we pull the resistance down, you're going to get those hunger cues like that are really hunger and not just the phallic phase and our five senses telling us that we are hungry

00;24;28;11 - 00;24;48;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
because we saw the Chick-Fil-A sign driving home. But I love this quote from Dr. Will Cole and he talks about it's unique from, you know, fasting is unique from other programs because it encourages people to customize their fasts, making it longer or shorter to suit their personal needs.

00;24;48;19 - 00;25;00;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So this isn't like a meal plan. Like, here's your meal plan. Well, guess what? We're not big fans of meal planning because we're telling you what to eat. Well, how about we teach you how to make the decisions on what works for you?

00;25;00;10 - 00;25;07;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. You know, that whole teach Amanda fish analogy or whatever that I'm terrible at paraphrasing thing, so I'm not going to. But you know what I'm talking about.

00;25;07;15 - 00;25;07;25
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

00;25;08;17 - 00;25;19;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So it's never meant. And we say this all the time. It's never meant to restrict or omit it's never meant to feel punitive or painful is the wording that he uses. Right. And if you have disordered eating, like, you know, let's get some help.

00;25;19;22 - 00;25;37;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? Don't just try to do this on your own. Yeah, but the protocols for fasting are really secondary to someone's relationship with their body and their relationship with their food. Yeah, and that's something that we talk a lot about, because it can be a trigger for some, but you can't hate and shame your way into loving the

00;25;37;24 - 00;25;53;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
process. Like we have to enjoy the process along the way on what it is that we're doing and there's nothing better for me. When I started. Two to commit to it in the short term. You forget about the long term goal losing £50, right?

00;25;53;03 - 00;26;14;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I was just like, That's a lot. What is my next fasting window? Yeah, and seeing the winds. Like that was that was the accelerator for me. Right. So I want to make sure we talk about a few things to curb this concept of food addiction wherever you fall in the spectrum of it in agreement or not.

00;26;14;16 - 00;26;32;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. But we didn't we didn't fast our way into obesity epidemic. Right. We didn't. Yo, yo, yo, yo. Did it our way and restricted our way into this imbalance that we're sitting in. So I want to make sure that we talk about some actionable things that we can do to to stop that, in my opinion, which is

00;26;32;06 - 00;26;45;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
that emotional cue, which is where we talk about the whole B.S. method and making sure, like you said, journaling, but we're identifying like, what's my eating type? Like, where do I where do I go awry? Do I overeat?

00;26;47;09 - 00;26;59;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know it, eat to excess and then feel uncomfortable and go back for seconds, even though I shouldn't. This is the mental chatter component. Am I a grazer? Do I just snack when I'm bored or sit in front of the TV and just open the bag?

00;26;59;19 - 00;27;14;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And next thing I know, the bag is gone. And my more like the professional, you know, I travel a lot for work, so I'll go and I'll have big lavish dinners and then drinks with the clients after. Or do I overindulge at restaurants?

00;27;14;11 - 00;27;20;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Is it like, I'm going to start with a drink, go to the bread, go to an appetizer, go to a salad, go to a dinner and take home a dessert.

00;27;21;04 - 00;27;22;14
[Tommy Welling]
Right. Or.

00;27;22;16 - 00;27;34;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Or like the, you know, the desktop diner. Now, today's world. We all work from home. Am I just like you say, Tommy? Me, the revolving pantry door. So you need to know where you are and what your kryptonite is and identify it first and foremost.

00;27;35;12 - 00;27;40;00
[Tommy Welling]
There's a lot there. You mentioned the halt the bees method. Right. And I know a lot of yeah, we.

00;27;40;00 - 00;27;41;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Need a framework because that was a lot of jargon. So.

00;27;41;22 - 00;27;55;03
[Tommy Welling]
Yes, no. Yeah, I was great. The Hot the bee is is basically looking at what are those reasons behind those triggers that might lead you to the behaviors that you would you'd rather not see or you want to curb or you want to get away from?

00;27;55;08 - 00;28;13;23
[Tommy Welling]
Well, if you if you take a look and think about it like a checklist, like am I hungry, angry, lonely, tired, bored or stressed? Those are the most common reasons why we we will go to food, especially those craveable ones or the ones that make us feel a little bit better, whether it's because it's a little endorphin

00;28;13;23 - 00;28;26;27
[Tommy Welling]
rush or a little dopamine, just it makes us we have some happy hormones, some happy chemicals that kind of come out or it reminds us of of a happy time or something, something along those lines. It kind of like they say, eating your eating your feelings.

00;28;27;01 - 00;28;43;01
[Tommy Welling]
Sometimes I've done that thousands of times. So if you are doing if you are feeling one of those ways, when you find yourself reaching for that food that you don't want to be reaching for it or it's not serving your goals, then take a step back.

00;28;43;11 - 00;29;02;02
[Tommy Welling]
Count down, five, four, three, two, one. Even set a timer for four, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. Walk away from the situation. When you come back, when the timer goes off, you're likely to have kind of rebalanced that emotional state and not feel like you need the food to kind of fill that in the moment.

00;29;02;08 - 00;29;11;16
[Tommy Welling]
And then, you know, if you're in the middle of the fast right, then then you can just get right back to to where you were and, you know, just keep crossing that fast right there.

00;29;11;29 - 00;29;26;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And I love it. So the whole it's important right now to write hungry, angry, lonely, tired. But the B and the S are so much more important for me. Am I bored and am I stress so like identifying those cues again?

00;29;26;00 - 00;29;35;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I know you've said this a lot, but what time of day do you crave the food or what time of your fast is it in? Typically for me, it's it's between it was between one and 3 p.m..

00;29;36;06 - 00;29;36;18
[Tommy Welling]
Okay.

00;29;36;28 - 00;29;48;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And for a long time it was post dinner, it was post closing my window when I was doing one meal a day with dinners. So what moods make me crave certain foods? In what situations do I typically overeat?

00;29;49;16 - 00;29;51;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
With what people do.

00;29;51;12 - 00;29;55;04
[Tommy Welling]
I usually eat the wrong foods. That's a big one, Mike. Drop. Right.

00;29;55;07 - 00;30;10;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, right. So what size people do I typically. Yeah. And what places usually end up causing those cravings. Right. So is it the bakery at the grocery store. Is it the. So we need to identify where this the the mental chatter begins.

00;30;10;07 - 00;30;24;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then we want you to swap the routine. So we typically try to change the behavior when we need to change the routine. Yeah, right. We restrict the behavior, but no, we need to try to insert something that, you know, let's say.

00;30;25;16 - 00;30;39;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, you have certain cravings at a certain time of day or you're bored, right? Or you're mindlessly watching TV or you just hang around the house. Right. You need to, like, know that at this time every day, maybe it's time to go for a walk.

00;30;39;27 - 00;30;55;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. Or maybe it's time to put in that workout. Or maybe it's time to do something for you. Like something you enjoy to do. And I used to do this. Early on in the process. And I just forgot about this when I would hit those points if I stayed in the house because I work from home.

00;30;55;15 - 00;31;08;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This was after being in practice and out of the house all the time. Where convenience was more the issue. But in the home it was more of like the pub just milling around the house. I'm going to take a break from my calls, I guess, and open the fridge.

00;31;08;02 - 00;31;12;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. Like grown up. I can hear it in my head, like close the fridge from.

00;31;12;09 - 00;31;13;17
[Tommy Welling]
My kids, get out of the pantry.

00;31;13;17 - 00;31;28;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Go outside or forward. Right. Like. So my point in bringing that up was you can't if there's a once you've identified the time, let's say you can't just say, all right, I'm just going to sit by myself and stare at the fridge and expect my willpower.

00;31;28;25 - 00;31;47;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
No, you need to put something in that space that you enjoy, like you mentioned, that changes that emotional state, which is then going to change the habit or the action. Yeah. It can't be like, Oh, I'm going to go do something I don't like because you're not going to keep doing that.

00;31;47;13 - 00;31;58;09
[Tommy Welling]
No, it needs to be the opposite of that is one of my favorite things to do. And I did a lot of this early in the process was I started to make lists of the things that I really enjoyed doing.

00;31;58;13 - 00;32;09;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Oh, I forgot to mention it. I used to take the dogs to the park. Yeah, I loved taking the dogs to thank you. I totally felt like way in the plane. I used to take the dogs to the park and just throw the Frisbee outside in the cold in the sun.

00;32;09;20 - 00;32;12;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I would come back and I'd be like, I wasn't even hungry.

00;32;12;08 - 00;32;28;03
[Tommy Welling]
Right, right. But like, put, put your favorite stuff in those toughest times of of whatever fast it is. Doesn't matter how long or how short the fast is, but you should have this list of things that you can go to because that's you know, you talk about positive reinforcement.

00;32;28;03 - 00;32;39;19
[Tommy Welling]
You talk about casting a vote in the right direction to undo years and years and years of of these behaviors that we've like stacked on top of each other. We have reps and reps and reps that we're trying to undo here.

00;32;39;26 - 00;32;59;27
[Tommy Welling]
Well, you're going to need some firepower for that. You're going to need to start putting those things in place intentionally because, you know, one of the other things that we hear for folks who come into our group or come into a challenge is that when they're when they're struggling with with really highly like high food craving problems

00;33;00;05 - 00;33;21;12
[Tommy Welling]
, where they're they're thinking about these foods a lot, it's making them or they feel like they're breaking their fast prematurely because they're just thinking about these foods. A lot of times they're having these big swings because they're doing multiday fast, that they think that that's going to be the Holy Grail to like break these cycles and so

00;33;21;12 - 00;33;34;15
[Tommy Welling]
doing two and three and four and five day fast. But then just coming back and almost like binge behavior sometimes like I've been missing out on all these foods I've been thinking about for the last several days, and then the and then they like get off the rail.

00;33;34;15 - 00;33;56;02
[Tommy Welling]
So it's these huge swings on the scale, in the psychology, in the reinforcement of the process. And then it feels like I can never really gain traction like this. So it's, it's okay to focus on the shorter, fast, like getting the consistent wins is going to be so much better for healing the food cravings, getting momentum on

00;33;56;02 - 00;34;02;07
[Tommy Welling]
the scale with your fasting results versus trying to just like be a fasting hero, right?

00;34;03;04 - 00;34;18;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And it's what I'm hearing there is like almost putting in a couple of simple rules. Like couples simple like just basic frameworks where I know, I know the triggers that I used to have, but now I don't have them anymore.

00;34;18;03 - 00;34;34;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But it didn't happen overnight. Fasting is simple. Yeah. Stop eating. But it's not always so easy. So like putting in a couple of frameworks that you can rely on because it eventually they become habits, right? Like let's just use, you know.

00;34;34;20 - 00;34;37;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
For me it's like I don't eat chicken wings anymore.

00;34;37;23 - 00;34;38;08
[Tommy Welling]
Mhm.

00;34;39;14 - 00;34;56;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I just don't eat them. Did you used to? Oh, yeah, all the time. Especially back in. Back in the day. Yeah. Like football. Restaurant business. Restaurant manager. Part owner. Like it was. It was my go to. Right. So I can't just have one chicken wing.

00;34;56;27 - 00;34;57;09
[Tommy Welling]
Right.

00;34;58;12 - 00;35;12;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I'm not going to go in order six. Yeah, I'm going to order 25. So now when I do it, it is like super celebratory. Maybe the one or two times a year that I get to play golf, I'll go get wings.

00;35;12;20 - 00;35;25;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But then it's like, All right, I know it's coming. I'm planning for it, but it's like in the interim, if you're struggling with certain certain foods, then why not? For the short term, take your willpower out of it like I don't eat French fries.

00;35;26;13 - 00;35;26;24
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

00;35;28;22 - 00;35;46;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Give yourself a break. You will surprise yourself when all of the the the wins that you get sticking to consistent fasting windows and bouncing your blood sugar and removing the insulin and leptin resistance, over time you'll be able to come back to that like I can now.

00;35;47;10 - 00;35;53;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I can go eat them and then I don't want them again for six months. But before I used to think about like.

00;35;53;20 - 00;35;54;06
[Tommy Welling]
All the.

00;35;54;06 - 00;36;07;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Time, all the time. Go and going past my favorite wing place. Yep. I used to work back in the day at a college bar and it was ten cent wing night. You better believe that. Like I look forward to that every single week.

00;36;07;02 - 00;36;09;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I went home with containers full.

00;36;11;08 - 00;36;27;01
[Tommy Welling]
So. Yeah, no, no wonder. I mean, that would be so hard to stop thinking about. I mean, like, think about how much, how much thought went into that way back in the day. And even $5 worth would have been, you know, two or three meals worth of wings, what you're thinking about it over multiple days.

00;36;27;09 - 00;36;32;21
[Tommy Welling]
And then you had to drudge through the next three or four days before before they had ten cent weeknight again, right?

00;36;32;21 - 00;36;50;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Your willpower is going to run out in these situations, right? Yeah. It's just going to the last one. I really want to unpack just a little bit, Tom, which we mentioned is the the social networks. And there's studies that show that there's correlations between the groups that we so called run in.

00;36;50;24 - 00;37;09;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, right. Yeah. And and the the fact that obesity can can happen in clusters and there's a social connection to that, like the brother and sister study where, you know, the brother is tends to show, you know, abnormal eating patterns or obesity or or whatever.

00;37;09;04 - 00;37;20;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Then then the sister or the younger siblings are going to as well. And I know for me, being a very social being back in the day that, you know, it was part of the routine. It was like, hey, we're going to get together and go do this.

00;37;20;29 - 00;37;44;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But yeah, making sure that we're. You know, leveraging the external triggers from the the people outside of you that have a potential control on your fasting window and your food choices. So. Being able to say no or insulating yourself.

00;37;45;28 - 00;38;05;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
From those situations. So you make the decision when you get to decide when you're going to consume, indulge, break a fast, etc.. And it's just we hear so much of the Oh, my husband said this, my wife wanted to do this.

00;38;05;14 - 00;38;20;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
My family's coming in town. We had a a pop up insert, you know, social gathering here. Some of those things can really become immediate yeses when they should be maybes.

00;38;21;01 - 00;38;37;19
[Tommy Welling]
Maybes or occasional yeses or let me give it let me give it some thought and see if if I if I want to participate or maybe I'll participate in a little different way, because you know what? That fasting window for that time really is non-negotiable for me.

00;38;37;25 - 00;38;53;11
[Tommy Welling]
But I do still want to partake in the social aspect of it, and that's okay too. And that could be that can feel a little bit weird, especially early on in the process. But you know that this reminds me of that saying like, you want to be a successful person, then, you know, go hang out with with

00;38;53;11 - 00;39;15;03
[Tommy Welling]
nine other successful people. Right. And you'll most likely be the 10th. Well, the same thing goes for obese or healthy or unhealthy or insert whatever here there is a good chance that you end up kind of as you end up being highly influenced and and somehow related in a lot of in a lot of ways to to

00;39;15;03 - 00;39;26;12
[Tommy Welling]
your social network that you spend the most time with. So, so that's an important consideration. So drawing some healthy boundaries, especially early on in your fasting process, that's why we joke the first two rules.

00;39;26;14 - 00;39;27;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Two rules.

00;39;27;08 - 00;39;41;08
[Tommy Welling]
Right? Don't talk about fasting, but at the same time, if you need to draw some healthy boundaries because just like highly craveable foods, your outside network is, is tending to to steer you in the wrong direction more of the time than you would like.

00;39;41;16 - 00;39;47;25
[Tommy Welling]
Then it's time to start saying no to some things or saying, Well, you know what, I'm doing this a little bit differently now.

00;39;48;03 - 00;40;00;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Or you need to find a fasting buddy because there's not, especially in the beginning. That's why the first two rules are the rules, right? Yeah. Until you get some wins and you see the weight loss and people ask you what you're doing and then you tell them you're fasting and then they revolt against the thought like, why

00;40;00;19 - 00;40;12;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
would you do that? Right. So there's layers there that we are. We are swimming upstream. We are doing something different. You know, it's there's a whole host of of stumbling blocks in those conversations when you're new to it.

00;40;13;16 - 00;40;29;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But that study that I referenced, I want to be really clear on the numbers. It was it was from the New England Journal of Medicine, the spread of obesity in large social networks over 32 years. So it was 12,067 people was a large study, but 57% increase of becoming obese.

00;40;29;07 - 00;40;52;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you had a friend that became obese in the same given interval, so like with a 95% confidence interval, like siblings was 40%. With a 95% CI and then spouses was 37%. So the effects were not seen among neighbors like in their immediate geographical locations and stuff.

00;40;52;14 - 00;41;13;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, but it was there were phenomena that appeared to be relevant in the biological and behavioral trait of obesity, and it seems to spread through social ties. Right. So even if it's not a conscious thing, you know, being around like you said, you know, in that you hear this in mentorship programs for business all the time, right

00;41;13;20 - 00;41;29;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
? Show me, show me. You know, I'll show you your results if you show me the five people you spend the most time with. Right, right, right, right. And it's like there's some truth to that. So we're not saying, you know, fire, fire your husband or wife, cancel all of your friends.

00;41;29;29 - 00;41;49;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. But just be aware that there is a external trigger or control sometimes where these people don't. And not to say they're not, but they don't understand what you as an individual are going through or what your health goals are or what your why is or why you even started fasting, or how many years you've actually struggled

00;41;49;26 - 00;42;05;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
with weight or so many times do we hear like, Yeah, this started for me when I was a teenager, especially in women or in girls or you know, we have similar things where it was like for me, my nickname in gym class was Fat Face Water, and that was literally it.

00;42;05;14 - 00;42;15;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That was my, my like I had a big I have a big head. I have to order hat specially on line for a fitted hat like I have a large dome, it's a seven and five, seven, seven, eight.

00;42;15;04 - 00;42;20;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So like it's big. Okay, so I can't just go and buy a hat, you know, first world problems off the rack.

00;42;20;25 - 00;42;21;20
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, right, right.

00;42;21;25 - 00;42;32;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I have, I have always grown up. Oh, look at his cheeks. They would grab my cheeks right. Even after I lost all the way. I still have a big head and I still have cheeks. Right. That is.

00;42;32;01 - 00;42;51;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That is me. It's not going away. But it comes from such so long ago. So these these external situations, things that people say they don't even realize, like what you're doing or what you're trying to do. So just I just encourage if you're sitting here, we talk about this as like the marriage merge, if you're sitting here

00;42;51;15 - 00;42;58;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
listening to, well, how do I have these conversations? Well, here's my rule. Keep it to yourself until you're confident enough to be able to have that conversation.

00;42;58;10 - 00;42;58;23
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

00;42;59;07 - 00;43;10;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you're fasting and oh, how come you're eating your ten minute you're £10 into your £50 journey? Wait, do you get to £30? Because when you get to £30, people are going to ask you, Wow, what are you doing?

00;43;10;15 - 00;43;24;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're going to have so much more confidence to be able to handle that situation because it is a it is a real thing. It it is that it that external cue or control from the social aspect. There's everything.

00;43;25;03 - 00;43;40;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
There's a Easter candy. Like just look at the cycle of candy that goes through in the promotion that goes through our holiday calendar here in the United States. Yeah, it's there's oh, we're taking down the decorations. We're putting up the next thing, taking this down.

00;43;40;09 - 00;43;57;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Okay, now it's like now it's safe Paddy's Day. Now it's the 4th of July. Now it's a birthday. Now it's, it's always something on the external that's trying to pull you off track. Yeah. So really putting in some, finding a fasting body, going to the fasting for life community group, getting in the group, being in listening to

00;43;57;27 - 00;44;04;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
the podcast, sharing the message or the friend, finding a fact like those things can really help on this journey as well.

00;44;04;20 - 00;44;19;06
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, they can. And I think getting plugged in is such a big thing because, you know, you really you really may be swimming upstream here, especially depending on on who who's in your network. And, you know, how familiar are they with fasting?

00;44;19;06 - 00;44;33;17
[Tommy Welling]
Do they have the weight to lose that you have to lose? I just think it's a great point because I was just remembering going through the grocery store recently, seeing these different like multicolor cakes, you know, like so we're over here in Houston and it was like king cakes everywhere.

00;44;33;22 - 00;44;42;14
[Tommy Welling]
And so those are for Mardi Gras, right? But just a few weeks back, it was like Valentine's cookies everywhere. And before that, it was it was New Years this and it was Christmas that and it was pumpkin pie.

00;44;42;19 - 00;44;57;13
[Tommy Welling]
And it was like there's never not a theme of these highly, highly craveable, you know, high fat, high carb desserts, the things that if you're not careful, you can pack them on top of the food that you've already eaten, on top of the good nutrition that you already had.

00;44;57;20 - 00;45;13;10
[Tommy Welling]
And those calories are just going to sit in there. That fuel is just going to sit there because it didn't make you feel any more satisfied. Now you're probably going to need to just set a timer and have some time to burn through those because you're not going to be able to to go have a piece of

00;45;13;10 - 00;45;23;11
[Tommy Welling]
pumpkin pie and then go go straight to the gym for for two and a half hours of rigorous exercise to kind of, quote unquote, you know, burn that off immediately. You're probably going to have to wait that one out.

00;45;23;19 - 00;45;35;29
[Tommy Welling]
So so think of all the times that you may have had that that slice or whatever it may be. And and think think about that the next time you set your fasting timer, give yourself a reason why I'm committing to this one.

00;45;35;29 - 00;45;47;24
[Tommy Welling]
Just like if you're paying off $100 worth of debt. Well, well posted on your. Ridge and remind yourself why you're you know, you're skipping your next thing to buy so you can make an extra payment on that on that that debt there.

00;45;47;25 - 00;45;49;17
[Tommy Welling]
And, you know, think about it like that.

00;45;49;25 - 00;46;01;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
What I'm hearing is balance. Like there's got to be a balance point somewhere in there where you can figure out how this is going to work for you. We want to be encouraging in this that you didn't really know where the conversation was going to go when you were.

00;46;01;22 - 00;46;16;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It started with our own personal journey, looking at the Yale food addiction math scale and going, Wow, that was me. Okay, well, what did I do over the last two and a half years? Yeah. And what have we seen in our groups and the conversations we have and the questions we get?

00;46;17;11 - 00;46;37;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And yes, it's a fasting podcast. Yes, it's a fasting lifestyle, but we do need sustenance. And half of the problem, like I said, we didn't fast our way into having metabolic disorders and blood panels that were off. I did we now under slept, overstressed and over consumed our way into these situations.

00;46;37;08 - 00;46;50;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So the best way to start is keep it simple. So I want you guys to to if you haven't grabbed the resource, go to the website, the fasting for Life Icon. There's the Fast Start guide, which now has 20 minutes of video support.

00;46;51;03 - 00;47;07;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So you get access to 20 minutes of short little videos. They're 3 minutes to three, four or 5 minutes apiece, and they walk you through exactly how to put fasting into your day to day life. And with that, I want to make sure just to highlight that.

00;47;09;02 - 00;47;31;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fasting has been able to undo all of the stuff that we just talked about in this conversation. Yes. By simply staying consistent with fasting windows that fit you as an individual mentally, physically and emotionally. Fasting window that you can commit to and stay consistent with.

00;47;31;23 - 00;47;48;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Forget about everything else we just talked about. Simply doing that and having you, Tommy, in our conversations and this is why we started the podcast. Yeah. Is what ended up getting us to where we are now. And this is what we see in the continuity group, in the community group in our membership.

00;47;48;28 - 00;48;03;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Is that staying consistent, having an accountability piece and just keeping it simple? Yes, we talk a lot about all the nuance and the psychology and the physiology, but keeping it simple. Picking a window that you can mentally start to is really the best place to start.

00;48;03;19 - 00;48;18;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Tommy So as we wrap up today's conversation, you know, a delicate one because there's stories on both sides. Is it clinically relevant? Is it not? Is it truly an addiction? Well, the reality is, is that we need to find our our own way through this process.

00;48;18;17 - 00;48;31;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Hopefully today's conversation is going to land with somebody. So appreciate the conversation as always. Send us a message, drop us a review. Let us know how we're doing. Love and appreciate you guys for listening and being on this journey with us.

00;48;31;02 - 00;48;33;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Tommie, as always, thank you for the conversation, sir. We'll talk soon.

00;48;33;18 - 00;48;49;07
[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 the fasting for life icon 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;48;49;29 - 00;49;03;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
While you're 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.