Ep. 122 - Severe Sleep Deprivation | How Sleep Is An Integral Part Of Being Metabolically Healthy | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss how sleep is an integral part of having a healthy metabolic state or being metabolically healthy, fasting and sleep and how it affects your cravings, weight loss and insulin resistance, and severe sleep deprivation.

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Fasting For Life Ep. 122 Transcript

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

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;06 - 00;00;46;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Water and I'm here as always. Am a good friend and colleague, Tommy. Well, and good afternoon to you, sir.

00;00;46;29 - 00;00;48;12
[Tommy Welling]
Hey, Scott, how are you doing?

00;00;48;12 - 00;01;11;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fantastic, my friend. As always, I'm excited about today's podcast episode. I want to welcome all your new listeners in Welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. If you want to hear more about Tommy's story or my story or our journey with fasting and how fasting has transformed our lives, you can head back to the original episodes when

00;01;11;19 - 00;01;32;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
we were wee little, brand new infant podcasters and we just had a story to share and we decided to turn on some microphones and 1.2 million downloads later. Here we are speaking to your listeners every single week, and I just want to welcome the new listeners and go ahead, check out our story.

00;01;33;07 - 00;01;50;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Be Grace. Forgive us a little grace. You know, we, we we've evolved along the years and yeah, today's conversation that we're going to be talking about sleep actually relates directly back to the beginning of my journey. And I know, Tommy, you had some direct ties with sleep as well.

00;01;50;07 - 00;02;11;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Absolutely. And we're going to talk through our. Briefly through our journey and how it relates to the topic of sleep we really want to give you. Because I personally feel that sleep is very under, discussed or under. It's just not talked about enough when it comes to specifically weight loss, but really just overall health, especially in today's

00;02;11;20 - 00;02;11;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
world.

00;02;12;15 - 00;02;28;01
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, agreed. As our world keeps speeding up and we are just moving at like just light speed, sleep becomes less and less desirable. Harder and harder to get. And it just feels like we're. We're kind of constantly being pulled away from it.

00;02;28;01 - 00;02;44;19
[Tommy Welling]
I mean, we have we have screens and devices in front of us all the time that are so much more interesting than actually just closing our eyes and getting some rest. But it turns out like it's it's so important and it can make all the difference between, you know, weight loss, health success and versus just, you know

00;02;44;21 - 00;02;51;09
[Tommy Welling]
, not understanding, not being able to put all the pieces together. And that's that's where I was for for a long, long, long time.

00;02;52;03 - 00;03;04;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So let's define some terms and just go over some basic numbers and stats and then set the stage for the conversation about sleep. And then we're going to relate it directly to a study that Tommy's is going to break down and talk about some numbers directly related to weight loss.

00;03;04;28 - 00;03;26;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But then I also want to zoom back out and talk about how sleep is an integral part of having a healthy metabolic state or being metabolically healthy, so to speak. And we've done podcast episodes on it. And so a big research analysis that came out, I believe it was in 2021, late 2021, we did an episode on

00;03;26;13 - 00;03;47;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
it where it said that about only about 12% of people are actually metabolically healthy. And that really was kind of a an eye opening message to at least to us in that, you know, the work that we're doing and reversing insulin resistance and reversing diabetes and getting the weight off and maintaining those changes and why it's so

00;03;47;18 - 00;04;13;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
important. And, you know, one of those the pieces of that puzzle in in connecting it to insulin resistance is is that metabolic health piece and sleep really like you had alluded to Tommy is has become something that and we'll talk about boundaries too related to fasting and sleep and how it affects your cravings and hunger and all

00;04;13;04 - 00;04;28;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
that kind of stuff. But for instance, you know, sleep is one of those things that. Seems to be pushed pushed, pushed out of out of the necessity category into the. I'll get it. I'll sleep when I die. Right.

00;04;28;27 - 00;04;39;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Or I'll sleep when I'm dead type mentality, right? Yeah. So we can talk about some stats. We'll talk about sleep, we'll give some definitions, we'll talk about the study and how it relates to weight loss and insulin resistance.

00;04;39;12 - 00;04;56;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then we're going to share with you our sleep guide that we've created, that we use inside of our challenges and inside of our coaching, our continuity group. This is something that we created that's going to help you be able to go home today, or if you're driving or listening or maybe you're already at home, literally go

00;04;56;28 - 00;05;14;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
make these changes in your house or plan tonight for tomorrow morning, or literally be able to do one or two things now that can start working on this sleep problem. And it's one of the coolest things that we hear with people that have been working with us for a while when they say, you know what, I can't

00;05;14;23 - 00;05;34;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
tell you how much better I'm sleeping two years down the road or six months into my fasting journey. And it's it's it's just it's awesome to see that, like, when you pull the blinders off because you really don't know how bad you sleep until you start sleeping well.

00;05;34;12 - 00;05;53;23
[Tommy Welling]
Whoo! That's a good point right there. That's one where a couple of years ago, you probably couldn't have told me that with with me, actually, like taking that in, internalizing it and thinking about that in a way that that I could do something differently because I was, I was always looking at sleep like, well, it's kind of

00;05;53;23 - 00;06;09;16
[Tommy Welling]
a necessary evil that that was the label I would have given it. I would have said, I'll sleep when I'm dead, or I just don't need that much sleep. Like now I'm different, I'm different, I can function on less sleep, you know, if I get 4 hours, I'm going to wake up the next day.

00;06;10;09 - 00;06;23;06
[Tommy Welling]
Most of how I would be, even if I got 8 hours, I would definitely slide by on like five, five and a half hours, easy, multiple nights in a row. If I needed to pull an all nighter like during college, I got in the habit of doing that.

00;06;23;13 - 00;06;33;21
[Tommy Welling]
I could. I could pull that off whenever I needed to. No big deal, right? Turns out there were a lot of reasons why I wish I had a different perspective, but. But that's that's how I looked at sleep.

00;06;33;29 - 00;06;37;03
[Tommy Welling]
And so it was, it was in the optional category for me, for sure.

00;06;37;22 - 00;06;53;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And right now it's actually optional for me as we just had our third child and I slept on a mattress in our closet. Oh, due to some circumstances. And I just needed a night. Like, I was like, no, my wife said, Go, I don't want you too far.

00;06;54;07 - 00;07;04;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, we're five days into this when we're recording, right, this episode and I'm like, All right, so this is this is the fix. And I was able to get a good chunk and I woke up feeling a lot better and more rested today.

00;07;04;21 - 00;07;06;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But for you, protected sleep.

00;07;06;09 - 00;07;07;16
[Tommy Welling]
You protected sleep right there.

00;07;07;16 - 00;07;23;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I did, but I still didn't get enough because I was up later working on some things that I thought were more important than my sleep. So I created a short term sleep deprivation and severe sleep deprivation can be defined.

00;07;23;10 - 00;07;40;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Look at this transition or Segway can be defined as getting 4.5 hours of sleep per night or less. And now we're not talking total sleep and we're not this excuse me, this number can also there's you can go down the rabbit hole here and start dissecting like the different sleep cycles.

00;07;40;26 - 00;07;55;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that is not what we are. Okay? That's not what I'm doing. Dr. Rebecca Robbins, she's incredible. She has a lot of great research out there about sleep. She's someone that I go to if I need to ask her questions on Instagram, and she's responded with some guidance.

00;07;55;25 - 00;08;10;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So she's incredible. She is the research sleep specialist. Okay. Yeah. So what what I'm saying here is sleep deprivation, severe sleep deprivation, less than four and a half hours of sleep per night. Okay. So that's going to change some people's perspective.

00;08;10;00 - 00;08;23;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now, we want uninterrupted sleep, too. We don't want this constant awake. Sleep, awake, sleep, awake, sleep. Yeah. And I'm going to give a real basic definition of what sleep deprivation is not in the severe category, but in the average category.

00;08;24;06 - 00;08;49;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Mm hmm. But the sleep needs and I know you are this of a badge of honor, Tommy and I did as well, going through college, working in the restaurant industry, you know, being up late, up early, consistently pushing the envelope and thinking that I was going to get ahead by operating in those gray areas.

00;08;49;15 - 00;09;00;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So. Right. When we're looking at different sleep needs. 0 to 3 months all the way up to 17 hours. A day, right? So I would love to have a retreat. We're going to do a fasting for life retreat.

00;09;00;05 - 00;09;12;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Seven days. We all sleep for 17 hours. You're going to lose £10 because that's how important sleep is when it comes to weight loss. So now we're looking at, let's say, right, yeah. 14 to 18 years of age.

00;09;12;07 - 00;09;28;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So adolescents. 70% of adolescents. Do you not get enough sleep and they need 8 to 10 hours. So if I go back to my sports schedule, my after school curriculum, my homework. No, I was getting maybe six.

00;09;28;21 - 00;09;29;06
[Tommy Welling]
Right?

00;09;29;07 - 00;09;33;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Maybe on average, there was a lot of there was a lot of nights that I was less than that.

00;09;34;25 - 00;09;39;02
[Tommy Welling]
During such an important time to think of all the growth, cycling development.

00;09;39;16 - 00;09;54;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Neuro neuro brain growth, development stages, right? So and then as we get to 25 to 45, 45 to 60 and 70 to 90, we really all need about 7 to 9 hours. So there's a misconception out there that, oh, the older you get, the less sleep you need.

00;09;54;19 - 00;10;10;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Not technically. Now some people are different and everybody's metabolic fingerprints are a little bit different. So I know Elon Musk, I think he came out recently, he was like, Yeah, I sleep six, 6 hours a night and I can function and and create do all the things that I do on 6 hours the night.

00;10;10;14 - 00;10;24;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I remember the interview being like, wow, that's actually a lot. I thought, you're going to say like four, right? Because he's, you know, he does a lot of stuff, right. Or like, you know, you see these posts on social media, like, you know, Jeff Bezos, he sleeps 8 hours night and gets up at 9 a.m. every

00;10;24;02 - 00;10;45;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
morning and or whatever. And I'm like, oh, man, I want to get up at 9 a.m. every morning. So seven or 9 hours is really from 25 until through our nineties, but we don't typically I know me personally speaking, so I started messing this process up in in high school and then through college years.

00;10;45;16 - 00;11;02;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then I started multiple businesses. I was in clinical practice, I got married, I had kids. So guess what? Your sleep sometimes gets pushed to the outer limits of necessity because of all these other things that need to be cared for or looked after or taking care of.

00;11;03;09 - 00;11;11;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we're really undermining the natural healing process and the weight loss capability and the metabolic flexibility by.

00;11;11;26 - 00;11;12;16
[Tommy Welling]
Not.

00;11;12;20 - 00;11;14;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Following these categories.

00;11;14;23 - 00;11;31;12
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, that's that's crazy. A lot of good points in there, too, because what I also heard or what that reminded me of was the fact that then later into your thirties, utilizing a lot of your free time to jump on the rowing machine.

00;11;31;20 - 00;11;45;21
[Tommy Welling]
Right. To get more calories in to get more calories burned there, because you're you're at that point, you're chasing your health. Right. And you're trying to lose the weight. So you jump on. I did the same thing where even at if it was 10:00 at night, could be 11:00 at night.

00;11;45;21 - 00;11;59;08
[Tommy Welling]
I might jump on the on the treadmill or on the on the elliptical machine so I could burn some more of the calories. Well, I. I could have just gone to bed and I could have burned through probably half of those calories.

00;11;59;08 - 00;12;16;12
[Tommy Welling]
Sure. It wouldn't have looked as good on my my my calorie tracker. Right. But but my physiology would have been better for it. My, my, my metabolic rate, my fat burning would have been better off for it. I would have had better inhibition and self-control the next day and better quality of life the next day and the

00;12;16;12 - 00;12;35;08
[Tommy Welling]
next day after that, too. Whereas I was I was focused on trying to get the calorie numbers to fit in. And then think back to your your Sunday afternoon example where you're doing all the meal prep, right? How much time does that take where you're you're literally prioritizing the things that you're thinking are going to get you

00;12;35;08 - 00;12;53;02
[Tommy Welling]
those pieces of the health puzzle back when you could have been prioritizing the sleep that would have been central to the healing process right then and as we're going to see would have probably made a a noticeable difference over time in your actual caloric intake and body composition too.

00;12;53;24 - 00;13;20;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I know of a colleague who is a functional medicine provider who works in the blood sugar or diabetes reversal type area, right? ARENA Yeah. Balancing hormones, reducing insulin resistance, fasting, all of those different things, right. With the outcome of increasing long term health metrics that will not accept clients if they do not agree to make sleep the

00;13;20;05 - 00;13;33;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
number one priority. And sometimes they'll even have to go through like some test runs and track their sleep. And once the body gets enough sleep, then they can get into the program. And I know there's some challenges out there to weight loss challenges.

00;13;33;24 - 00;13;50;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
These you know, the I saw this at the beginning of of the pandemic and it was lose lose the weight, right. Lose the COVID 15 or whatever they were doing strategically marketing to it. Right. Right. And it's a five day challenge, but it was a sleep challenge.

00;13;50;24 - 00;14;20;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Mean there were no food recommendations, no workouts, nothing. It was literally increasing their sleep to then result in a better functioning physiology, which then was allowing the body to drop the pounds and yeah, for so for definitions because we talked about severe sleep deprivation, but sleep deprivation is defined as not simply not obtaining adequate total sleep.

00;14;20;09 - 00;14;32;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So then people are going to say, well, what the heck is adequate total sleep? For 25 to 90, it's 7 to 9 hours. Now, if I slept 9 hours tonight, I would wake up tomorrow and be in a complete brain fog.

00;14;34;10 - 00;14;50;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I am good and I feel good and my cravings are good. And we'll go into the connection, dance and resistance of all the metabolic stuff here in a second is usually in that 7 to 7 and a half hour range because we know that one night of less than four and a half hours can have a two

00;14;50;07 - 00;15;08;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
week to week effect on your on your physiology, your metabolic physiology and your sleep patterns. So I know if my kids stay up late and they don't get their 10 to 11 hours a night right now because they're in the 3 to 5 range, sometimes 12, that they're going to be off.

00;15;08;02 - 00;15;19;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
They're not going to be the same. They're going to act differently. They're going to ask for more desserts and snacks. They're going to be, you know, the little the little midget terrorist minions that we talk about, right? Yeah.

00;15;19;13 - 00;15;32;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we prioritize sleep as a family. Right. So I'm definitely the the black sheep in the family when it comes to sleep. Everybody else is really good at it. I'm still learning and improving, but the woop that is so woop.

00;15;32;02 - 00;15;43;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you're listening, come sponsor the show because we don't have any sponsors, but we would love to have you. And it's it's transformed my understanding of what the heck I'm doing when I choose to not prioritize sleep. Yeah.

00;15;43;08 - 00;15;54;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So it's going to be a little bit my point of saying that it's going to be a little bit different for every individual. But sleep deprivation is just not obtaining adequate total sleep. 7 to 9 hours. That's it.

00;15;54;25 - 00;16;09;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So that transitions perfectly into this sleep study that, Tommy, you kind of unpack some of the numbers here. And if we're talking and relating it specifically to weight loss, and then we'll go into the insulin resistance piece. It was kind of mind blowing.

00;16;10;09 - 00;16;27;26
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, it really was. I wish I could go back in time. I say this a lot because it's so true. I wish I could go back in time and see this data so clearly because during the time when I was accumulating weight year after year after year, what I was thinking about sleep was now it's not really

00;16;27;26 - 00;16;50;07
[Tommy Welling]
in in control. It's not central to my weight or to my health. But that's absolutely not the case. And it really is central and the data backs it up in a really interesting way. The the bottom line for it, people who are overweight, who routinely sleep less than six and a half hours each night, eat about 150

00;16;50;07 - 00;17;04;09
[Tommy Welling]
calories per day different. And when when they just get a little bit more sleep about an hour to an hour and a quarter of additional sleep, that bridges the gap right there. And those numbers really add up over time.

00;17;04;09 - 00;17;24;22
[Tommy Welling]
So to kind of break down the study a little bit here, what they did was they took overweight individuals, people with a 25 to 30 BMI and and split them up into two groups in over two weeks and said, okay, either keep doing what you're doing, eating stays the same, sleep stays the same, just keep doing what

00;17;24;22 - 00;17;36;16
[Tommy Welling]
you're doing. We're just going to track the results over a two week period. And then the other group was, Hey, we're going to help you sleep a little bit better to get up to eight and a half hours of sleep per night.

00;17;36;16 - 00;17;46;01
[Tommy Welling]
But they're not going to they're going to leave them in the group. They're not going to do any further intervention. They're just going to help them work on their sleep habits just a little bit so they can get a little bit longer sleep.

00;17;46;16 - 00;18;05;12
[Tommy Welling]
And what they found was astounding because the difference that separated between the two groups over just a two week period really, really adds up over time. You're talking about 150 calories in one group and 100 calorie difference in the other group every single day.

00;18;05;23 - 00;18;19;05
[Tommy Welling]
Difference in consumption with no change in metabolic rate, no change in what they were actually eating from day to day. But just having a little bit more time, a little bit less sleep, a little less rest, a little less inhibition.

00;18;19;13 - 00;18;36;03
[Tommy Welling]
Right. And these things just add up to, you know, just a few more bites, but every single day they add up. And just over that two week period, you're talking about an increase in a in a pound in the group that slept less.

00;18;36;11 - 00;18;50;09
[Tommy Welling]
And you're talking about a decrease in a whole pound of fat in the group that slept just that 1 to 1.2 hours more. So you're talking about now over a £2 difference between those groups in a in just the two week period.

00;18;50;14 - 00;18;54;27
[Tommy Welling]
And we can see how that is just that that adds up. Like that's a snowball effect right there.

00;18;55;11 - 00;18;58;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that was just for fat body fat content or is that for total scale?

00;18;59;08 - 00;19;18;01
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, the results were similar in both, but there was there was about a 2 to 2 and a half pound difference in total weight and about a pound and a half difference in in just body fat alone over a pound and close to a pound and a half of body fat in just those two weeks.

00;19;18;16 - 00;19;30;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Okay. So what I was hearing there was there was a sleep extension group in a control group. And literally, this is the coolest thing about this study that I found was like, now you just keep doing what you're doing.

00;19;30;13 - 00;19;42;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yep. And that group was like, just keep doing what you're doing. Was that less than six and a half hours per night? Mm. Right. So I fell into that category and still fall into that category quite often.

00;19;42;15 - 00;19;42;24
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

00;19;43;04 - 00;19;58;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So annoying. But you got to know where the weak spot is so then we can, we can improve it. Right. So and the interesting thing, the other thing that I really liked about this is what I was hearing was this was between a BMI, right?

00;19;58;11 - 00;20;14;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So BMI between 25 and 29. So this is the overweight category, not the obese category. So the overweight category in the United States is about 72% of the population. When you when you factor in that category and the obese the obese category as well.

00;20;14;06 - 00;20;14;24
[Tommy Welling]
So, yeah.

00;20;15;11 - 00;20;30;26
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We're looking at the majority of people out there. So this was a good reference range for me of 21 to 40 years old. Right. So the people that are most likely at any given time, you know, 50 to 60% of the population is actively trying to lose weight.

00;20;31;06 - 00;20;42;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Mhm. Right. So this, I like this because it was like okay this is me, this is what I used to do, this is what I tend to still do. Sometimes I'm in a season with the new baby where I'm going to be in this.

00;20;42;29 - 00;20;54;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Just keep doing what you do in control group of sleeping less than six and a half hours a night. Right. But it's the overweight category, the 15 to £20 group. It's the 21 to 40 years of age. Men and women.

00;20;54;29 - 00;21;21;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. It's it's really like a good comparison to like, the average. Right. The average person that's probably listening or came to fasting to lose some weight. Right. So the last takeaway man that just smacked me in the face from this was when the previous research linked each hour of sleep reduction relative to 7 hours of sleep.

00;21;21;12 - 00;21;24;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. To a 9% increase in obesity risk.

00;21;24;29 - 00;21;25;24
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

00;21;26;06 - 00;21;28;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Just unpack it all. We need to hear that again.

00;21;29;02 - 00;21;42;13
[Tommy Welling]
Each hour that you slept less than those 7 hours was a 9% increase in obesity risk. And and that that continued for for each hour that you added to that. And so what?

00;21;43;01 - 00;22;02;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So yeah, if you went 4726 9% 625 9%. 5 to 4. Yeah, 9%. And just one night, right. One night of less than four and a half hours is detrimental. And then one night of lesson seven or in this study they were doing the six and a half mark is a 9% increase in obesity risk.

00;22;03;00 - 00;22;23;10
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. It's it's incredible. And it's just it's cumulative. And like the thing that I didn't I didn't understand for those times when I called an all nighter or I did have one of those like less than four and a half hours, like the the more extreme, you know, kind of nights was that if if you with a

00;22;23;10 - 00;22;39;07
[Tommy Welling]
little bit of deliberate effort, you can get right back on track and it might only take you a night or two to really get that get that back. But but you have to be very intentional about it because when when you start looking at the stuff that says, well, you're off track for two weeks like that, that's

00;22;39;07 - 00;22;49;18
[Tommy Welling]
detrimental. That's because it doesn't just correct itself, you know, quickly, like accidentally. You have to be really intentional about getting that back on track. Right?

00;22;50;00 - 00;23;06;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This was the thing that woop is really opened my eyes to again woop if you're listening reach out info be fasting for Lipscomb it was that it's it it tells you hey you screwed up last night. Now you need to you need nine and a half hours in bed tonight to get caught up from just yesterday.

00;23;06;19 - 00;23;20;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I'm like eix okay. Not sure when that's going to happen, right? So making it a priority and putting those boundaries around it, just like fasting is, is something that we have to do to see a consistent result over time.

00;23;21;13 - 00;23;34;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But I just I can't get over the fact that the control group compared to the sleep extension group, the the group that was sleeping more, the sleeping group had a 270 calorie less consumption per day.

00;23;35;16 - 00;23;57;01
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. There was a wide gap created between those two groups. Yeah, it added up to 270 calories per day. Like, there's so many, so many studies that point to similar data on this. And you start doing the math on this, even a 200 calorie per day difference, which is which is what we find in that five hour

00;23;57;01 - 00;24;15;27
[Tommy Welling]
per night group. That's that's £0.4 a week. That's £1.7 of fat per month. And 20 over £20 of fat in a year. And and even even when the results are like 150 calories per day, you're over £15 of additional fat per year.

00;24;16;10 - 00;24;39;10
[Tommy Welling]
That that's that's adding up. That makes it to where, regardless of eating all the right stuff or tracking all of the calories perfectly and not not knowing why, the numbers just don't seem to be adding up or the scale still not moving like this starts to really explain why you can you can really you can have a

00;24;39;10 - 00;24;52;03
[Tommy Welling]
good fast and a terrible night's sleep and go, well, I thought the scale would be down today. Like what happened? Like we've even seen some people 36 hour fast. And what it didn't. It didn't drop it at all.

00;24;52;09 - 00;25;12;17
[Tommy Welling]
Well, how was your sleep last night? Oh, it was. It was terrible. Well, that might be the exact reason for it, because you go into, like, a water retention, your glycogen stores are going to stay fuller longer. Metabolic rate takes a little hit temporarily, and all of a sudden, you're you're in more of a stress mode rather

00;25;12;17 - 00;25;16;21
[Tommy Welling]
than a. Yeah, it's okay to burn mode, right? Like, your physiology is different.

00;25;18;10 - 00;25;37;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And if you go out there into the weight loss world, the industry standard message that you're going to hear about healthy weight loss is about 1 to £2 per week. Mm hmm. So if we're talking about just that 200 calorie, you know, increase over the course of a week, it's going to add up and it's going to

00;25;37;22 - 00;26;00;29
[Dr. Scott Watier]
slow down your progress to the point of frustration. And this is why the boundaries around super important because I'll unpack. Just rat a tat tat here. How sleep lack. Not so sleep deprivation. Not adequate sleep. Right. Not less than four and a half hour severe sleep deprivation category, but just the general healthy definition of sleep deprivation, which

00;26;00;29 - 00;26;21;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
is not getting enough adequate sleep every night. Right. It's it's you're going to then increase the fatigue. You're going to decrease your leptin, which is the hormone that tells your body. And we did a whole episode on leptin recently that that it's that it's full that it has enough stores for winter.

00;26;21;17 - 00;26;35;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And your ghrelin hunger hormone, your short acting ghrelin hormone is going to go up. You're going to be awake with more opportunity to eat. I don't know about you guys, but being up late at night like the snack monster wants to get me, your body temperature is going to decrease.

00;26;35;22 - 00;26;56;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're going to have altered body thermoregulation. Right. And the total daily energy expenditure, the TDP that your body burns every day has other categories that aren't just exercise related. So any. Right. Non exercise activity. Thermogenesis. Right. So your body burning off that extra consumption, your cortisol is going to go up.

00;26;56;26 - 00;27;13;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're sympathetic, you're going to go up. Your appetite and cravings are going to go up due to the hormone imbalances, your metabolic rate and flexibility is going to go down your glucose tolerance, the ability of your body to process the glucose floating around in the bloodstream, which triggers insulin to then either store it or shuttle it into

00;27;13;07 - 00;27;27;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
a cell or into the liver or to burn it. And your insulin levels in the time insulin is going to be there in your bloodstream is going to go up, and that is going to result in things like insulin resistance, weight gain, obesity and metabolic syndrome.

00;27;27;19 - 00;27;45;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So why do we care about the BMI and the weight? Well, because that leads to higher weight categories. And we know the correlations between carrying the extra weight and the adverse health effects that happen and start to show up like metabolic syndrome in the high blood pressure and cholesterol and blood sugar related issues that pop up in

00;27;45;19 - 00;27;59;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
, you know, your fourth or fifth decade of life. But they really started, you know, back in your teenage years when you weren't getting enough adequate sleep and you were increasing this insulin resistance and this this inability of your body to have this metabolic flexibility.

00;27;59;24 - 00;28;17;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, it's just crazy that, you know, just by that one night asleep, you're going to have, you know, that caloric the potential caloric increase. And you might the point of me bringing all that up is you might be able to willpower your way and Navy SEAL your way through that for a short period of time.

00;28;18;05 - 00;28;33;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But if you're constantly undermining the effect of the weight loss program or the fasting schedule that you're following, if you're constantly undermining that with not getting enough sleep and you have all of those hormonal cascades take place that I just mentioned.

00;28;34;02 - 00;28;37;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, just what that is a that is a that is a heavy cross to bear.

00;28;38;09 - 00;28;38;18
[Tommy Welling]
Right now.

00;28;38;25 - 00;28;56;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
In trying to to to wheel your way through that. And we talk about willpower a lot, that it is finite. It is that consistent win, that consistent showing up. So I just love the fact that when we talk about boundaries around fasting and our fasting windows versus our eating windows or our nutrition windows, we can do the

00;28;56;23 - 00;29;12;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
same thing with sleep, which is why we have the How to get great sleep info graph guide that we're going to have you guys go to the website, the fasting for life icon, the fasting for life icon and you can go to the resources you can download.

00;29;12;15 - 00;29;23;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It will zip it over into your inbox, but it's going to give you five or six exact things that you can do today to start slowly pulling back the layers of the inadequate sleep.

00;29;24;11 - 00;29;44;10
[Tommy Welling]
So powerful those boundaries, like just the reason why there's so much magic in getting those little boundaries right for fasting and then but also for sleeping. But, and they, they work together, like, so powerfully that it's it can blow your mind.

00;29;44;25 - 00;29;57;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I can only speak from experience, right? Like, yeah, so I did keto, I did fasting, I was doing all this metabolic testing, one test I ran just to make sure was it might. Here's the problem is all my numbers look good.

00;29;57;16 - 00;30;14;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I had a little bit off in my liver enzymes. My blood pressure was slightly elevated, but it always been like always, which is always been that way and started having a lot more fatigue and brain fog. By the way, these are signs of weight loss and insulin resistance, right?

00;30;14;18 - 00;30;36;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Sure. And there are also signs of. Guess what? Sleep deprivation. Okay. So insomnia. And 70% of American population doesn't get enough sleep and 10% suffer from insomnia. And millions and millions of Americans have trouble getting consistent sleep. And as we age, we have more inflammation and more pain and etc., etc..

00;30;36;02 - 00;30;52;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So. I was literally having these little like flares go up and had some short term results and would get on the rower and force my way through, but was going through a lot of stress and business and life and kids and marriage and family and all this stuff.

00;30;52;05 - 00;31;15;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. Speaking to the I know I'm preaching to the choir here. Right. But from a place of experience, it wasn't fasting. Just fasting. I shouldn't say just fasting. It wasn't just fasting. That got me to make the lifestyle changes that then made me a better husband and regained my health and completely changed the trajectory of my life

00;31;15;22 - 00;31;30;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
. It was focusing on the stress and the sleep to the point where my wife and I would do these programs together. Right. And she's an overachiever and she crushes it and, you know, different different scenario. Different situation. Right.

00;31;31;13 - 00;31;33;11
[Dr. Scott Watier]
In terms of insulin resistance.

00;31;33;11 - 00;31;35;21
[Tommy Welling]
And and yeah, she does.

00;31;35;21 - 00;31;51;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
How her body responds. Yeah. How her body responds to the macros and the working out, etc.. We would, we would, we would do these programs together. I remember we did this one once. It's called the Dolce Diet and my Dolce and we were doing all this stuff and I mentioned this before, but I would know that if

00;31;51;19 - 00;32;01;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I woke up and had a poor night of sleep, like if I was up for a couple of hours a night or I hours up a bunch of times like I knew at way and the next morning that the scale was either going to be the same or go up.

00;32;02;03 - 00;32;19;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I could have done everything perfectly. I could have worked out perfectly. I could have tracked all my macros, I could have gotten my exercise in, gotten my steps in, did my meditation, gone to bed on time, and if I had a poor night of sleep, that scale would be the same or go up the following day.

00;32;19;17 - 00;32;38;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's when it hit me. Oh, okay. Like you got to do something about this. And fasting was really the first step to start to allow me to feel better and have the energy and the focus to start working on sleep and stress and all the other pieces that come with this.

00;32;38;09 - 00;32;55;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So speaking from personal experience, it was a huge eye opener and this is one of the first resources that we ever made for our challenges was this How to Get Great Sleep guy? Because we want to begin with the end in mind, which is getting the long term result of sustainable weight loss and health and not just

00;32;55;15 - 00;32;57;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
be constantly stuck on that. Yo, yo.

00;32;57;16 - 00;33;11;02
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, that's the cool thing. When, when we start to see a little bit of, of fasting results and then when we maybe don't see the results during a certain fast and then we go, wait a minute, but I did everything right.

00;33;11;10 - 00;33;15;16
[Tommy Welling]
Right. Like, like why didn't the scale move that time and now maybe a hold on.

00;33;15;16 - 00;33;31;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Was it, was it the dinner roll I had. Yeah. Was it the the, the, the evil, you know, insert bad food here? Was it the decision I made? Was it was it did I not faster? Did I did I do did I did I not calculate this time?

00;33;31;27 - 00;33;32;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right.

00;33;32;08 - 00;33;42;28
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. Is fasting not working for me or is it going to work for me? Right. But if we take a look and go, what was my sleep quality last night? Did I get good sleep? Did I get enough of it?

00;33;43;07 - 00;33;54;23
[Tommy Welling]
Because that can be enough for your body to go. Well, we didn't have the time to heal. We didn't have the time to get more efficient, the next day to regenerate, regenerate any of the cells that we used or used up yesterday.

00;33;54;23 - 00;34;19;01
[Tommy Welling]
So we're not working. We're not working quite as hard today. We didn't get to get through all the glycogen or or get into as deep a ketosis state yesterday or today either. So I think. I think that that everything here is like it's we can start to put some fine points on why sleep is is so important

00;34;19;01 - 00;34;43;19
[Tommy Welling]
not just this whole like this pie in the sky. Idea of sleep is good, right? Yeah, but. But, but why does it matter? It matters because it affects the body in in very tangible physiological ways. And it also opens up an opportunity for boundaries to become very blurred and very slippery and just to provide an opportunity, just

00;34;43;19 - 00;35;03;21
[Tommy Welling]
just a physical opportunity of of of a vacuum for some more calories to come in, less efficient on the burning side when they go out and. We have an opportunity here to to put a couple of boundaries in place that support our fasting and our fasting lifestyle and will accelerate those results and allow us to to, like

00;35;03;21 - 00;35;10;17
[Tommy Welling]
, bear the fruit of our of our results on the fasting side, too. So I love this conversation and that and the resource as well.

00;35;11;00 - 00;35;27;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. I want to make sure because I still suck at this full transparency. This is not something that I'm good at. Me being able to like push sleep into the gray area and just say, no, I'll get it done.

00;35;27;09 - 00;35;37;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
No, I'll work harder. No, I'll do X, Y or Z for the family. And my wife right now know obviously I'm in full support mode with having a new baby at home. And you know, so, yes, I am.

00;35;37;19 - 00;35;52;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'm not good at this. So just having this conversation and and the woop and the the realization of where I was to where I am now and the fact that we say this and we mean this truly that we are on this journey with you.

00;35;52;24 - 00;36;09;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. This fasting for life. This the name of the podcast, the name of the website, the fasting for life dot com was by design because this is a fasting lifestyle and a fasting journey which results in better health and better quality of life.

00;36;10;05 - 00;36;23;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And today's conversation about sleep is one that obviously for us, timing has been something that hits very close to home. So yeah. As we wrap up today, how to get great sleep, you want to go to the website, the fasting for life dot com.

00;36;23;13 - 00;36;34;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You can click the link in the show notes, you can type it in or try to voice dictate it on your iPhone. But for me, that never works out. Go to the resources tab. We'll zoom in over into your inbox.

00;36;35;15 - 00;36;54;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And these are things that you can put into your day to day life. And I just want to encourage everybody that you got to start somewhere. So pick one thing tonight. Yes, just simplify it. If you've been off your fasting journey and you're you're struggling to find a keep that momentum, go check out the resource.

00;36;54;06 - 00;37;08;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We've got some other cool resources for you there as well. The Fast Start guide, which will help you get back on track, which is now comes with 20 minutes of video support also. So cool. Tommy Yeah, great conversation, sir.

00;37;09;06 - 00;37;12;00
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I appreciate it as always. And we'll talk soon.

00;37;12;14 - 00;37;28;03
[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 V 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;37;28;26 - 00;37;43;26
[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 and.