Ep. 123 - Keto-Mojo | Why We Recommend Blood Ketone Readings | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss the body cycle, ketosis, what it is, what are ketones, Are you in a fat-adapted state, the normal ketone numbers, why they recommend blood ketone readings, and Keto-Mojo.

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Fasting For Life Ep. 123 Transcript

00;00;01;23 - 00;00;03;08
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hello. I'm Dr. Scott Dr. Watier.

00;00;03;16 - 00;00;06;20
[Tommy Welling]
And I'm Tommy Welling, and you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.

00;00;08;09 - 00;00;14;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This podcast is about using fasting as a tool to regain your health, achieve ultimate wellness, and live the life you truly deserve.

00;00;15;24 - 00;00;24;09
[Tommy Welling]
Each episode is a short conversation on a single topic with immediate, actionable steps. We cover everything from fat loss on health and wellness to the science of lifestyle design.

00;00;25;00 - 00;00;31;16
[Tommy Welling]
We started fasting for life because of how fasting has transformed our lives, and we hope to share the tools that we have learned along the way.

00;00;40;11 - 00;00;47;16
[Tommy Welling]
Everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Walker, and I'm here as always with my good friend and colleague Tommy Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir.

00;00;47;26 - 00;00;48;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hey, Scott, how are you?

00;00;49;07 - 00;01;11;11
[Tommy Welling]
Doing fantastic, my friend. Ready to break down the key tone conversation, get into how to test why? To test what's a ketone etc. And it comes from a really great question that was posed from one of our continuity members. So we're going to get into that in just a second. But I wanted to welcome everyone into today's episode.

00;01;11;11 - 00;01;36;15
[Tommy Welling]
And if you're new to the podcast, please, Tommy and I would love you to go back and listen to the first couple of episodes of how we ended up here in episode. I don't know what episode this is 120 ish somewhere in that range, and it's been a heck of a journey, but we want to welcome you in go back, hear a little bit more about our story, how we ended up here and, and why, more importantly, we are on this journey with you.

00;01;36;15 - 00;02;18;01
[Tommy Welling]
So if you've been a long time listener, appreciate you being a part of the fasting for Life Fam and we'd love to have you drop a five star review for us those are our favorite kind of course, right? And luckily we have many of those in, in our, in our repertoire here on Pod Apple podcast. But the reason we asked for that is that tells the podcast gods, which I don't know what really that means, but we record we put out value we put out content and we zoom in over to the platforms and that tells Apple and Spotify and wherever you listen your podcasts that we are delivering value to you the listener.

00;02;18;01 - 00;02;48;23
[Tommy Welling]
So would appreciate if you guys do that as well. Tommy but as we hop into today's conversation, I'll start with just the question itself. And it was it came from a really a place of, of confusion or just a lack of understanding and I know that speaks to our journey with trying to figure out how to get our health back and lose the weight and lower the blood pressure and reverse the pre-diabetes and all of those different types of things.

00;02;49;17 - 00;03;11;08
[Tommy Welling]
But the question was really great because it came from a place of, hey, I have this new fun thing and it's a Quito mojo show, and we'll put a link in the show notes where we have partnered with them for an additional discount code for one of the large like the starter packs where you get all the test kits and the fancy new Bluetooth app.

00;03;11;08 - 00;03;28;03
[Tommy Welling]
And I don't even have that. I have the old one. So yeah, so I'm still living in the Dark Ages, but you know, a lot of people, as they start to get more into the fasting lifestyle and adapting that concept of I want this to be the last time that I lose the weight, you know, you need more tools.

00;03;28;03 - 00;03;43;04
[Tommy Welling]
The beginner tools that you start with on a fasting journey are much different than the advanced tools and the maintenance tools. And the key to mojo has been a key component for a lot of people. And we don't promote it, we don't mention it, we don't, you know, people that do the challenges, you don't have to have it.

00;03;43;24 - 00;03;49;06
[Tommy Welling]
But it is something that can be a powerful tool. But timing, as you say, can also be a detriment.

00;03;49;20 - 00;04;08;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, good point. I think I think it was probably maybe like a year and a half or so into my fasting journey when I finally got one. And it's really cool because for that. Yeah, because yeah, yeah. You you get a level of data that, that you just can't get any other way besides actually looking at what's in your blood.

00;04;08;25 - 00;04;25;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And, you know, like for me personally, I didn't really want to like do a fingerprint. That's just not something I'm used to. I was a little bit hesitant you know, to need to do that myself personally. I know a few of our challenges have been to so that's, that's, you know, one thing that you just, just took a few times doing it.

00;04;25;15 - 00;04;47;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's really no big deal but I thought the the interesting thing was that I started to get this really interesting data, but I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. And I've studied human physiology and like for, for many, many hours. And it still wasn't just intuitive on like when should I test, what should I be looking for are higher numbers always better.

00;04;47;24 - 00;05;12;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Is there like a holy grail of, of like gold standard numbers that I'm looking for here? How do I know if I'm on the right track? I mean, it just it just kind of uncovered almost like a Pandora's box of of new questions and uncertainty. And so what what I hate to see happen is I hate to hear from someone who says, yeah, I've been testing and I'm not really sure if I'm if I'm doing it right or maybe I'm doing something wrong with my fasting.

00;05;12;06 - 00;05;34;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'm really not sure. So a little bit of confidence and understanding of some of these things and what, what, what you might be seeing on your mojo and when to test can go a long way towards actually furthering or accelerating you on your fasting journey rather than bringing in those those like seeds of doubt. That can be frustrating or get us off track, right?

00;05;34;23 - 00;05;55;13
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. Before I read the question that came in, that happened to me when, you know, one of the most downloaded episodes we have is you putting me on the therapy couch as we like to joke and asking me a bunch of questions about losing the 48. We say £50 in 50 days, but it was £48 in 50 days and keeping 45 plus of that off for the last two plus years.

00;05;55;13 - 00;06;16;02
[Tommy Welling]
Now. Right. You know, you asked me a bunch of questions about that fasting journey during those 50 days and you know, after I started getting a few reps under my belt and doing some home ads, some one meal a days and 24 hour fast and pushed to 30 and 36 and read all Dr. Fong's books and you know, you were coaching me through because you have, you were six months ahead of the fasting journey that I was at that point.

00;06;16;14 - 00;06;33;03
[Tommy Welling]
And I just remember, you know, I was like, all right, well man, let's see how fast I can get to 50, right? So I'm like, let's do a five day fast. And I remember breaking out the Quito mojo, and I almost made fun of you earlier. I'll mention it here is you're like, Oh, the fingerprint. I'm like, Weren't you premed?

00;06;33;21 - 00;06;37;15
[Tommy Welling]
Right? At some point I was like, Wait a minute. Yeah, you're word of a fingerprint anyway, right?

00;06;37;28 - 00;06;40;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It says little things sometimes that, like, keep us from getting to the next.

00;06;40;20 - 00;06;58;12
[Tommy Welling]
Level, right? True. Yes. Transparency. Yeah. There are mornings like when I will do bouts of testing. Now we'll talk about when to test and how to test and how to use it. But yeah, there's still times where like my hands are cold, like I'm just like, it doesn't even hurt. It's just the thought of it hurting. So I totally get you, right?

00;06;58;24 - 00;07;00;21
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, but I had to get that little dig in there, so.

00;07;00;21 - 00;07;01;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Oh, thanks. Yeah.

00;07;01;17 - 00;07;26;20
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. You're welcome. So going back to the five day fast, and I was like on day three and I was just feeling like, oh, like I was in a deep level of ketosis. Yeah. I thought because if I look at it, we'll go over the numbers here. If I look at like therapeutic ketosis and higher level of ketones, sometimes you can kind of get like this the opposite of the euphoric feeling of fasting.

00;07;26;20 - 00;07;44;22
[Tommy Welling]
And you kind of get like this sluggish kind of low energy, like you just want to take a nap and I was like, Wait a minute, I'm on day three. I should be feeling great. It was just, I was actually excuse me, it was between the 66 and the 72 hour mark OK? It was right before I got to day three.

00;07;45;21 - 00;07;46;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And.

00;07;46;18 - 00;08;17;24
[Tommy Welling]
I took the reading and I was like, point four. I'm not even in low level ketosis. Is what it's like. Yeah, yeah. And I checked my blood sugar and it was like 105 and I'm like, Huh, like I'm to net 60 something hours into a fast. I'm like, What is going on? Right? So yeah, we're going to unpack that scenario through the question that came in and give you direct like direct action steps on what you can do if you have a key to mojo or if you're like, what the heck is a key to mojo?

00;08;17;24 - 00;08;38;19
[Tommy Welling]
Just go to the website and check it out. To it. Is Quito hyphen Mojo dot com and they've got tons of articles, tons of resources, and if you end up getting one, please take the additional discount that we have in the show notes. They've been an incredible partner, super supportive. If you have questions like their customer support is incredible.

00;08;39;18 - 00;08;48;23
[Tommy Welling]
People have had issues with the units they they just they replace it, they fix the shipping like they've just been really responsive and we've had a great experience with them. So cool.

00;08;48;23 - 00;08;53;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Recipes too. They have a lot of good recipes, foundations, and things like that. Like a lot of support, like to support.

00;08;53;29 - 00;09;17;18
[Tommy Welling]
Ketosis for beginners, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. That's cool stuff. Yeah. So, so with that, the question for that came in was just started using a Quito mojo and never really had any idea about what my glucose levels were. And now I'm using it for about three weeks trying to understand the higher numbers I'm seeing one on a longer fast 30 plus hours even when doing a good hour of Fat Burn workout.

00;09;18;00 - 00;09;41;20
[Tommy Welling]
So we just have two things that just popped up right there in that first question or in that first sentence. And I love this part because this was me. That's why I told that story. Just don't have brain understanding why you get higher numbers during that scenario, right? And you can just feel the angst of like, oh, and it seems that 10:30 a.m. I get a constant consistently high number no matter what.

00;09;41;20 - 00;10;04;13
[Tommy Welling]
So is this just my body cycle or what? Thanks for your response. And, you know, you and I went back and forth about really how to answer this question. And both of us went directly to, well, here's the chart, let's go over this. But I want to kind of zoom out for a second and really talk about the fact that he he really answered his own question in here, which is the quotes body cycle.

00;10;04;13 - 00;10;46;07
[Tommy Welling]
It really is part of your ender endocrine circadian rhythm, which is the hormonal rhythm that includes growth hormone, thyroid, stimulating hormone, prolactin, running angiotensin aldosterone system, fibroblast growth factors. You know, you've got leptin, vasopressin, melatonin, cortisol, insulin and all of these things cycle throughout the day based on your circadian rhythm. And one of the things here that is interesting to see is especially if you're in the pre-diabetic or diabetic world and you're testing your blood sugar, you might have heard of something called the dawn phenomenon where your numbers are higher in the morning.

00;10;46;20 - 00;11;07;29
[Tommy Welling]
Well, physiologically speaking, you know, as we go throughout the day, insulin should continue to decrease. And as we sleep, then things start to awake as we go through our normal body cycles, he called it, or circadian rhythm. And as we get to the waking hours of between six and eight or seven and 8 a.m., your body goes into wake up mode.

00;11;08;00 - 00;11;15;10
[Tommy Welling]
So it really is going to raise cortisol levels, which is going to be kind of like your body's natural alarm clock.

00;11;15;20 - 00;11;16;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? Yeah.

00;11;16;27 - 00;11;28;12
[Tommy Welling]
Noradrenaline, it's waking you up. Yeah. And it's putting blood sugar into the bloodstream for your body to start doing those normal waking up type activities.

00;11;28;20 - 00;11;53;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yes. And that's exactly why, if you like, for me, I didn't I didn't feel those for a long time. I didn't feel those like natural that that natural push to to wake up in the morning because insulin level and blood sugar was so high as I went to bed that I didn't I didn't give it enough of a chance because I tended to eat really late at night and raise those those levels.

00;11;53;07 - 00;12;16;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I didn't get the correct amount of time. And I was short on sleep, too. So I didn't get I was hitting it from both sides and I didn't get the correct balancing time. So I didn't get that that surge in the morning that's meant to to literally like drive you into wake up mode where that's where if you've ever, like, overslept past your either your alarm clock or your natural circadian rhythm going.

00;12;16;23 - 00;12;35;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, let me just get a little bit more sleep, right? I'll feel that much more rested and then you wake up like an hour later, but it feels like, oh, man, like now I really need some more sleep. You just slept off that natural wake up your cortisol level and blood sugar. Those all came down that were meant to drive you up and out of, you know, for the day.

00;12;35;18 - 00;12;53;13
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, that's why I love the question. I was like, man, every day I just seem to have higher numbers, right? And yes, I mean, that's part of the natural process. So, yes, if you are and this is where it's going to transition into the conversation about ketosis, what it is, what are ketones? Are you are you in a fat adapted state?

00;12;53;27 - 00;13;16;15
[Tommy Welling]
Ketoacidosis, which is not what we're going to be talking about because that is a dangerous physiological event that takes place most commonly when you have a lack of insulin. So a type one diabetic, you can't happen in type two, but it's much more rare and especially in the terms of like, yes, you have insulin producing or tumors in the pancreas that don't allow your body produce insulin.

00;13;16;22 - 00;13;37;27
[Tommy Welling]
So we're talking about rare situations. Ketosis is not ketoacidosis. Ketosis is a actually a healthy state where our body is producing ketones from our stored fat. So anybody listening give us, give us a fist pump, raise your hand, give us an amen, shout out. Right, beat the horn. Well, maybe not if you're in traffic, but yeah, who wants more fat burning.

00;13;37;27 - 00;14;04;12
[Tommy Welling]
Right? So right. The, the, the distinction here is when we were talking about burning glucose or sugar as an energy supply versus ketones and glucose is what our body turns our food into. Right? And then from there our body is either going to burn it off, it's going to stored in smooth muscle or it's going to send it to the liver to be stored as glycogen.

00;14;04;17 - 00;14;31;24
[Tommy Welling]
Right now, after a while, you then start to use those areas are full and you have insulin being high in a constant state of food or energy in the body. It's going to start storing those as fat and increasing those visceral fat and subcutaneous fat numbers like we talked about a few episodes ago. So when we're talking about ketosis and ketones, when you get the monitor and you start testing, it's like, all right, well I've got my blood sugar, number one.

00;14;31;28 - 00;14;46;21
[Tommy Welling]
What should that be? I've got my ketone number. Yeah, what should that be? I'm feeling one way and the scale is doing this other thing and I'm fasting over here and it's like, am I really simplifying the process? Here, like, what's going on?

00;14;47;10 - 00;15;23;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, good point. A lot of arrows moving in potentially different directions. So we kind of have to take them, you know, one piece of the puzzle at a time so that's why I feel like that summary that you gave on blood sugar and, and the circadian rhythm is really important as, as kind of a stand alone just by itself because you could literally use a kilo mojo or any other device and just look at blood sugar and how you're you're responding to certain meals that you eat and start understanding when you feel a certain way is does your blood sugar tend to be a little higher or a little lower?

00;15;23;24 - 00;15;47;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And what what is happening throughout the day? So that that's an interesting level of insight to get just on its own before we even have the ketone conversation, because the interesting thing is there is a bit of an inverse correlation between blood sugar and ketones when when when our ketones start to rise because we start to burn more fat, we start to make that transition into ketosis.

00;15;47;03 - 00;16;09;24
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And fat burning blood sugar tends to be slowly dropping during that time, but but not indefinitely. Right. Like there's always going to be a floor that the body's going to put in. It's not going to let blood sugar get get beyond a certain point, beyond a certain low but at the same time, depending on how insulin resistant you are, the ceiling could be fairly high.

00;16;09;24 - 00;16;35;02
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So blood sugar could rise, especially after eating or or during the earlier part of the day. And that's not always so it's not always a direct correlation. A little bit up on ketones means a little bit down on blood sugar. So there can be some some mixed results there, too. And so I think as we start to think about the ketone situation, as we as we we're looking at this infographic from Quito module.

00;16;35;09 - 00;17;06;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And as we start to look at the nutritional ketosis, it really shows that the ketone levels that we're looking for really kind of start at that fat burning range at about 0.5 and moderate ketosis being at, you know, one to 1.5. So I think having that number in the back of my mind when I start to go actually do testing, I start to look at that going as I get into deeper fat burning I'm going to want to stay within kind of that range.

00;17;06;23 - 00;17;25;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's going to be a good range to signal to me that I'm becoming fat adapted. I'm burning through these fat stores, and it'll be interesting to see what my blood sugar does throughout the day and just kind of be observational about it. It's going to take a little bit of time to to start to see and notice trends throughout the day.

00;17;25;07 - 00;17;25;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right.

00;17;26;08 - 00;17;51;20
[Tommy Welling]
You said something there about the inverse relationship. Now that is a normal situation yeah. That doesn't always happen. And so when you explain some of the the ketone numbers, but a lot of some people don't even know you know, if you're not a diabetic, you probably aren't testing your blood sugar. The problem is, is that these numbers are rising and then you go and get a fasted blood sugar test and we talked about.

00;17;52;07 - 00;17;52;28
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The.

00;17;53;08 - 00;18;19;02
[Tommy Welling]
The differences and the changes that we think in looking at faster blood sugar versus non faster blood sugar and insulin tests and insulin, you know, the timed insulin test, which is is really the most accurate, which takes two to 3 hours and most doctors don't order it. So now we're getting up in the air here and I want to win the plane with just the basics of normal blood sugar numbers to go alongside of you explaining the normal ketone numbers.

00;18;19;02 - 00;18;38;10
[Tommy Welling]
So normal blood sugar numbers in if you just go to doctor Google, as we like to say, and you put them in, you're going to see 80 to 100 is normal and then 100. Now this is in a fasted state. So you wake up in the morning what should your numbers be? 80 to 100, 100 to 124 or 25.

00;18;38;17 - 00;19;23;05
[Tommy Welling]
However you want to split the split, the baby there on the on the range is going to be prediabetic and then 126 plus 125, 126 and above is going to be diabetic OK so one of the interesting things that we see with a lot of people that start doing this and getting into, like you said Tommy, those moderate ketone zones for the 1.5 even up to the 2.0, which we've seen personally for some optimal fat loss because ketones are indeed a ketone body is formed from the breakdown of the fat that breaks down into fatty acids that then produces the ketone as an alternate preferred energy source, then glucose, which is the constant need to

00;19;23;05 - 00;19;35;29
[Tommy Welling]
consume. Right? Yeah, right. So normal blood sugar in for me when I'm doing longer, fast or you know, when I was in my fat loss mode, I would see numbers that were, that were well.

00;19;35;29 - 00;19;36;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Below 80.

00;19;37;11 - 00;20;05;05
[Tommy Welling]
And that is one of those misconceptions that you alluded to in the beginning where it's like, oh no, is my blood sugar too low? And the reassurance here is obviously if you have a concern, speak with your doctor. But if you're on blood sugar lowering medications or blood sugar altering medications as a diabetic, then those that can actually force your blood sugar to low but your body has, you know, has has mechanisms, mechanisms and alerts placed in to not allow that to happen.

00;20;05;13 - 00;20;26;14
[Tommy Welling]
The only time that typically happens is when you have a chemical induction from a medication. So. Right, we could see those numbers dip below 80. And typically I like to see that. But the reality is, is that if you just started testing and you just started your fat loss journey and you want fasting to be the answer for the long term result, you're probably not going to see the ideal situation of like this question that came in.

00;20;26;14 - 00;20;51;10
[Tommy Welling]
I wake up in the morning, my blood sugars high, my ketones are low. What the heck? Well, not one instance that could be normal. And we'll get into the when to test and how to kind of use the machine, Tommy, because the chemo motor can be powerful, but it also can be expensive, right? So if you're doing multiple tests today, then the ketone strips are actually more way more expensive than the glucose strips.

00;20;51;10 - 00;20;58;09
[Tommy Welling]
And that's why we encourage you to get the big bundle with the discount because then you get like 50 or 60 strips to start with and that's going to last you while.

00;20;58;22 - 00;21;28;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, it's going to take a little bit of time, like I alluded to earlier too, to start to see the trends in, in the data and start to get comfortable with testing. And when you're going to be testing. But I do like this infographic they have and it's about one to test. And you know what the, the first recommendation in there is in the morning while fasted so that you do get that that fasted blood sugar number that is so important to know like OK, so now I haven't done anything I've been sleeping, resting insulin, blood sugar have been coming down.

00;21;28;19 - 00;22;09;09
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now I'm ready to go. OK, so what, what do my numbers look like when it's been probably the longest amount of time it will be today? Without food and then and and taking into account that circadian rhythm factor and the other the other main times to test would be either like right before if you're if you're planning on eating lunch that day, then before eating lunch and if you're going to be eating dinner that day, then maybe around like late afternoon time, maybe three or 4:00 before eating dinner so that you can you can kind of correlate those with with how you're feeling with what your blood sugar numbers are doing and with your actual

00;22;09;09 - 00;22;34;27
[Dr. Scott Watier]
fasting time, too. So I actually recommend writing all of those factors down whenever you, you, you track it, maybe tracking on a spreadsheet or something for a couple of weeks so that you can start to notice trends in that and put a little like notes column on off to the side to take note of any any ways that you're feeling or how particularly easy or difficult this fast may have been or if cravings kicked up or anything else like that.

00;22;35;10 - 00;22;48;15
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Because those can be really good to associate with the data because those things, those patterns will start to repeat themselves over time and you can predict around them plan your fasts around them and really start to like level up your results.

00;22;48;15 - 00;23;11;02
[Tommy Welling]
Do so for clarity here, because I see two different scenarios and if you're new and you're just starting fasting, that's one. But if you've been fasting and now you want to incorporate some testing, so wake up during the morning right? If your meal that day or if your window that day starts in the morning, make sure it's before your food and then like you said, timing before lunch or dinner.

00;23;11;18 - 00;23;35;26
[Tommy Welling]
But if you're fasting all day and your your you're not going to be eating on that day. Let's say you're doing a 30 hour fast, right? 36 hour fast or 48 hour fast. I like getting a morning in an evening number because in the morning is going to be your fasting, your, your, your, your benchmark, right, of what you're waking up with and how your circadian rhythm is, is working.

00;23;35;26 - 00;23;56;23
[Tommy Welling]
Right. And that's why I love the question that came in. But then in the evening, insulin should be at its lowest. So having those bookends over the course, personally I like to do about seven, sometimes ten days when I was doing this and I just did a about here recently because I'm working on the last few pounds of visceral fat, which is the motivation to do that episode that we did.

00;23;57;07 - 00;24;10;10
[Tommy Welling]
Nice. And I know you had the body testing done as well. We're going to share all the stuff in the future conversations and episodes like we said, we'd like to be on this journey with you as we level up and figure out how to best get the weight off. Keep it off.

00;24;10;21 - 00;24;11;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah.

00;24;11;12 - 00;24;34;13
[Tommy Welling]
And increase that. That challenge poverty and quality of life. So when you're looking at the testing seven to ten days for me and then do a consistent fasting schedule for 30 days and then do another seven to ten days, and you should see the difference between those numbers, right? It's just like going to get blood work and then going back and redoing the blood work 36, 96 months, a year later, for a physical, right?

00;24;34;16 - 00;24;55;09
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. So it's going to give you some idea of which direction you're trending in is the fasting protocol using working. So if you're like, what's a fasting protocol? The easiest one we recommend if you've been doing intermittent fasting, which is 68, meaning you have an eight hour nutrition window, we like to call the nutrition window focusing on good quality, nutrient dense foods versus 6 hours of fasting.

00;24;55;09 - 00;25;13;21
[Tommy Welling]
If you've if you've gone to the OMA one meal of day, maybe a one to two hour window with getting your sustenance in for that day, your nutrient, your nutrition window. There you can go to the website, the fasting for Life.com. You can go to the resources tab and get the fast start guide, which is that one meal a day plan.

00;25;14;03 - 00;25;14;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah.

00;25;14;28 - 00;25;24;06
[Tommy Welling]
So that's really like there is another thing you can do with testing too, Tommy, is you can test for food sensitivities, but I don't really want to get into that much. You can just go to the website on Amazon.com and check.

00;25;24;06 - 00;25;24;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That out.

00;25;25;11 - 00;25;33;23
[Tommy Welling]
Because that's going to be doing before reading and then testing after your meals. And I did some of that to figure out it like how did Stevia affect me? How did coffee affect me?

00;25;33;24 - 00;25;34;23
[Dr. Scott Watier]
How did you know.

00;25;34;26 - 00;25;53;18
[Tommy Welling]
Certain foods, those types of things where I notice to your point of journaling and tracking, I me like I just didn't feel great after that meal. Right. Like, well, let me let me see what's physiologically happening. I thought I was going to be, you know, in the homestretch on days approaching day three of that five day fast and I was in the dumps feeling like crap.

00;25;53;18 - 00;26;01;25
[Tommy Welling]
I'm like, what is happening? Right. So there's a lot of nuance here, but I love that basics of testing in the morning before a meal or in the evening.

00;26;01;25 - 00;26;25;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Well, yeah. So, OK, you you I remember something that that you used to do. You used to tell me that the your the the afternoon like like maybe around what, 2:00 or so was like your your toughest time, like if you were going to be fasting. That was just it was full of like environment context and just reminders like lunch time, like, oh man, that's a tough time for you.

00;26;25;14 - 00;26;26;17
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right to fast through.

00;26;26;24 - 00;26;59;08
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. It was also so for me it was sleep stress and insulin resistance, right? So that time of day, typically in a normal circadian rhythm, your cortisol is going to spike between 12 and three, 3:00, right? Somewhere in that range so I would also get that additional stress response right which would, which would make it my hardest time because then I would go, my cravings would kick up my fatigue would kick up my brain, fog would kick up and really the hydration and the coffee would actually make it worse in the afternoon.

00;26;59;20 - 00;27;04;09
[Tommy Welling]
So I was doing double quad shot Americanos.

00;27;04;26 - 00;27;05;21
[Dr. Scott Watier]
For a while.

00;27;06;09 - 00;27;26;22
[Tommy Welling]
You know, burning the candle at both ends, not sleeping, get my workout, my rowing workouts in seeing patients 40 to 50 hours a week. Right. Like yeah, yeah. So that point, that part of the afternoon to you. So you may see some higher readings there as well. Not just is indicative of insulin resistance and a non properly functioning circadian rhythm or cortisol.

00;27;27;06 - 00;27;45;25
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah so so what that reminded me of too was the fact that that was a great time for me to actually test my my blood sugar and my ketones because that was kind of a cool thing to have so if I wasn't going to be eating lunch on that given day, it was kind of a getaway from what I'm doing.

00;27;46;01 - 00;28;07;01
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Have something that's going off still like like an alarm that's going to go off every single day and I'm going to go, you know, go to the other room, get my chemo mojo and actually take a measurement at that point. Like during the tougher time or the time when maybe I have strong context clues to be eating, but I'm fasting through that time right now.

00;28;07;06 - 00;28;41;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So let me go just take my numbers and and correlate them that way. And so that became like a cool little non eating like fasting ritual for me to do, you know, after I got my ketone mojo. So I think that's, that's good. So if you have a really tough time and maybe it's during dinner, like, hey, I really want to, you know, skip dinner tonight, but the is eating or I'm really tempted to eat when I had planned not to go take your numbers and go like remove yourself from the situation there, change the context, change the environment and go do something else and take your mind off of it.

00;28;41;21 - 00;28;54;16
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then when you come back, you're probably not going to still feel that that strong push to eat, but instead you got some new data that could actually, you know, kind of get you to the next level there, too. So tipping the scales in your favor right there.

00;28;55;23 - 00;29;22;26
[Tommy Welling]
I promise to say that I forgot to unpack why we recommend a keto mojo and what the differences between I can't believe we just put this at the beginning of the episode. So apologies for kind of being in reverse here. But why know mojo? We, we, I decided to use it. You decide to get it, why we recommend it, and we don't recommend the other two types of testing, which is the urine strips or deo's breast meters, right?

00;29;22;26 - 00;29;47;27
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. So why do we recommend testing for ketones in the bloodstream? And then I want to wrap up the conversation today, Tammy, with kind of future pacing, this concept of you don't have to be doing Quito or the Quito diet or the Quito lifestyle to be able to get into ketosis. Fasting gets you into ketosis without having to do Quito.

00;29;47;27 - 00;30;21;05
[Tommy Welling]
OK, so I just want to get that disclaimer out there because what I was about to say was the concept of the fat adoption or fat adapted state, which is the metabolic state where your body is efficiently burning fat from food and stored body fat and you're not constantly transitioning in and out of ketosis, which is where we see headaches, brain fog, fatigue, digestive changes, frustration, angst, angst, a little jittery like I type feeling wired and tired, sleep disturbances, all of that stuff.

00;30;21;05 - 00;30;46;25
[Tommy Welling]
So before we go to the future, facing fat adapted state of decreased hunger, more energy, balanced hormones, weight loss, better exercise, all that stuff is why do we recommend and why do we use ketone readings, blood ketone readings. And it comes down to the fact that there is a, you know, a three step process or three types of ketone bodies that are produced.

00;30;47;07 - 00;31;11;28
[Tommy Welling]
And you really need to know kind of what they measure and why. So I just want to kind of lay this out here. Tell me then, have you taken into the conversation of future pacing the idea and the concept of why we want to test long term with this stuff or test for a few days fast, you know, lose some weight fast, get into a routine level up your tools, your skills, come back to testing for seven to ten days, see where you're at, compare, move forward, et cetera.

00;31;12;17 - 00;31;35;19
[Tommy Welling]
The urine test, right, that we got a lot of messages about this. Hey, I've been fasting. I'm not in ketosis. Well, you are. So or hey, I did the breast meter. It shows that I'm in like deep therapeutic ketosis but I'm not losing weight or I feel tired or insert reason here. The urine test measure a pseudo acetate right.

00;31;35;19 - 00;32;00;09
[Tommy Welling]
And a pseudo acetate is a byproduct of the breakdown of the fatty acids in the liver. And what your body then does with the pseudo acetate, which is a form of ketone, it is going to spill that out into the urine as a waste. So if you're not in the early stages of ketosis, then you're not going to see high levels.

00;32;00;24 - 00;32;23;00
[Tommy Welling]
Or if you're excuse me, I said that incorrectly. If you've been fasting and you're into a it past that introductory stage of transitioning into ketosis, then you're not going to see the ketone bodies on a urine strip because you don't have the byproduct of the initiation of this process. So you're going to be like, Oh, I'm 24 hours in and I got nothing.

00;32;23;10 - 00;32;49;16
[Tommy Welling]
Well, no, the chances are you probably do. The second situation is the breath kit's right, the, there's different breath test, right? So you're breathing out into a machine and it's going to read acetate, which is the simplest keto acid. And this is, it's the least abundant and it's the one that's exhaled through the lungs again as a waste product rather than as a fuel source.

00;32;49;16 - 00;33;15;06
[Tommy Welling]
When we talk about burning ketones instead of glucose we're then going to be breathing these out or almost like the exhaust ketone. And it's interesting because we actually lose our fat through our through breathing through the process of burning off that fatty acid, right? So the one we want, which is why we recommend mojo or a or of the like for in Canada, there's a company called for a care outside of those two.

00;33;15;06 - 00;33;33;28
[Tommy Welling]
We don't I don't know of actually I think, you know, motor now ships to Spain and a couple of other European countries as well which is cool but the one we want is the beta hydroxybutyrate, which is the most prevalent and stable ketone body in the blood. And this is the one that's transported to the cells to be used as fuel.

00;33;34;11 - 00;33;57;09
[Tommy Welling]
And it can end and it can fuel most of the brain's energy needs along with the muscles and organs. Because part of the the pushback that we get out there is that while glucose is the most important fuel for your brain, yes, it is. But your body can also function in a key tonic state with using ketones as that means energy supply.

00;33;57;21 - 00;34;16;06
[Tommy Welling]
And typically that's about at that 70% mark. So that is why it's like, yeah, I've got the breast monitor, I've got the urine strips, but I'm not seeing it. We really recommend that you're going to be looking at the beta hydroxybutyrate. It's also why we don't recommend the exhaustion is ketones. Now, Isagenix Ketones is a whole nother conversation.

00;34;16;06 - 00;34;41;11
[Tommy Welling]
We're not going to go down that rabbit hole, but if you're putting the packet in your water, you're actually shutting down the normal process to get into ketosis, which means you need to continually use them just like taking a medication for blood pressure you need to continually use it until you get to the cause of the source. So we want your body to naturally do these things, which is the concept of fat adoption, which is kind of how we want to wrap up today's conversation.

00;34;41;11 - 00;35;06;10
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, and fat adoption is it's such a cool thing, but I feel like there's a lot of misunderstanding out there between, Oh, am I a sugar burner or am I a fat burner? You are both. It depends on on exactly what you're feeding your body and when you are feeding your body and Quito mojo or a device like this, like where you're actually measuring ketones in blood sugar can help you understand, you know, not really like moment to moment.

00;35;06;10 - 00;35;35;06
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's not a continuous monitor, but hour by hour, day by day and then week by week as you go through your fasting journey, what what are you doing and how are you supporting the physiology that helps you get to the results that you're looking for, that that health status, that that lack of brain fog, that increased energy and like, you know, turning yourself into a fat burning machine rather than the fat storage machine that I was for, for three decades.

00;35;35;12 - 00;36;03;07
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So so this is this is much, much better. And the cool thing is it starts to give you a level of insight if you're if you're paying attention. And that's why we're we're talking about, you know, when is best to to track and then what to kind of correlate with that. Because as we get into that fat adapted state, we can understand if I go back to one of my previous, like favorite meals from a few years ago, one of my more indulgent meals one of the ones that that led me to to accumulate the fat over time.

00;36;03;18 - 00;36;27;22
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I actually take my numbers before and afterwards. I can see what is happening, but I can also I can also tell how I'm feeling, too. And so I know that certain things are not conducive to feeling well and getting better results. And that's a powerful thing because as I start to correlate those things, it starts to feel a lot less like I need more willpower to do the right thing or to make the right choices.

00;36;27;28 - 00;36;51;20
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And now all of a sudden it becomes easier to make those choices because I know that they're going to help me feel better and feel the way that I want to feel. And having that level of insight helped me get there faster. That's the really cool thing about the fat adoption process and then correlating it with numbers that are your truth physiology and and going along your fasting journey.

00;36;52;19 - 00;37;10;18
[Tommy Welling]
So this speaks exactly to the second part of the question that we started this conversation with was we hear a lot, Hey, I worked out why do my numbers spike? Hey, I went for a walk. I'm a diabetic. You told me to walk after dinner because it wants the blood, the insulin spike. Yeah, but why the heck are my numbers?

00;37;10;18 - 00;37;27;12
[Tommy Welling]
100 points higher after a walk. Well, you've got some severe insulin resistance and go back and search. If you don't know what some resistance is, go back and search for some of the episodes where we talked about it. It's the underlying theme to why fasting has been so powerful in our journeys, and it helps you undo that resistance.

00;37;27;12 - 00;37;54;04
[Tommy Welling]
To allow your body to burn through the energy that you consume and get into those stored fats and undo the blood sugar related conditions and all of those things. But the question was, and we get this was, you know, after I work out, my numbers go up. And the that is an absolutely normal physiological response that you have stored short term stored energy in your muscle and then also short term stored energy supplies, glycogen in your liver.

00;37;54;14 - 00;38;15;04
[Tommy Welling]
And when you expend that energy, then your body is going to need to have more energy. Right? Like if you think about this from an endurance athlete standpoint, those are all those little power pouches or the power packs. So my wife used to run marathon. She would make her own at home one because she don't want all the chemicals and flavorings, all that crap.

00;38;15;04 - 00;38;38;17
[Tommy Welling]
And it and this idea of carb loading before long endurance events, et cetera. Well, the interesting thing is, is that when your fat adapted, there are athletes out there, endurance, like crazy people that I love and respect. But it's not for me. And I do 100 milers and all this stuff that do it in a fat adopted state that do it in you know, against the grain, against the common theme.

00;38;38;17 - 00;38;55;27
[Tommy Welling]
And I used to have a patient who did a lot of that stuff, multiple Ironman. He was on the competing for a while, traveled all across the world. Did him in Europe, did him in in in in the blue water areas. I don't remember if it was the Virgin Islands or Mexico or whatever, but done them all around the world.

00;38;55;27 - 00;39;21;23
[Tommy Welling]
And he he started to to he he said it mess around with or play with ketosis and ketones and he said it took him about about six weeks before he really started to feel the difference and he didn't have the same recovery. And I'm speaking outside of my pay grade. I'm just I'm saying this from a perspective of your body's going to do what it needs to do.

00;39;22;02 - 00;39;43;00
[Tommy Welling]
And there is a way when you get it, when you're able to flip the switch from Sugar Brenner to Fat Burner or get into ketosis more effectively, which is what you were referencing as you become more consistent with fasting. The idea is, is that becoming fat adapted will take longer for someone that's insulin resistance, but it really depends on your individual situation.

00;39;43;08 - 00;40;08;22
[Tommy Welling]
So knowing how to navigate that right and signs that you're more fat adapted is you have less hunger, you have more energy and you have better exercise performance or endurance doesn't have to be related to the situation I just told you about, about the multiple hundred miler guy. Right, right. But just in your day to day performance, and your day to day workouts or your day to day chasing kids around or grandkids, right?

00;40;09;13 - 00;40;21;15
[Tommy Welling]
You have better performance, better energy and lack of hunger that's showing us that your body is adapting to becoming a ketone burner. And that's where the mojo and testing comes into play.

00;40;21;29 - 00;40;34;12
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, great points because as you get more efficient, as better at burning through those long term fat sores that you have, your body looks at those fat stores as actual fuel sources, whereas if you're if you're.

00;40;34;19 - 00;40;37;11
[Tommy Welling]
Constantly stored for winter, right? Yeah.

00;40;37;22 - 00;40;59;13
[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you're constantly feeding the machine, bringing in new food every three or 4 hours, then your body is looking for the next sugar hit. And that's why you feel that volatility and that blood sugar crash. And you can feel the hanger coming on because your body's not looking at the long term fat stores as actual fuel sources. It can't tap into those until it starts to ramp up into ketosis.

00;40;59;13 - 00;41;25;05
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So that lack of hunger is such a such a powerful like sign that that you're on the right track. And so I really I really love it and I like I like to see the numbers and correlate them with how I feel because as I as the brain fog lowers, I can see my, my blood sugar just dropping into that like 70, 80 range and I can see those ketones coming up from like point five to maybe that one point level.

00;41;25;05 - 00;41;38;19
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But one other point that I want to make here that, that we hear a lot is, man, I really wish my ketone numbers were higher right now. Like they're only at point five, they're only at point eight. We hear that a lot. And I want to.

00;41;38;19 - 00;41;50;17
[Tommy Welling]
Encourage I've heard they're only at 1.8 and I'm like you are in the money zone. Like you just you walk through the airport, put it a quarter into the slot machine and you hit the jackpot like you're good.

00;41;51;06 - 00;42;19;03
[Dr. Scott Watier]
What are you complaining about? Right. So yeah, like that optimal fat burning zone starts at 0.5. But to your point that you made earlier, the higher level of insulin resistance you are and the more weight that you have to lose, the more time you're going to spend in that point, five ish kind of range until you you start to just, you know, burn through some of that old long term fat stores and then you might start to see those ketone levels rise.

00;42;19;03 - 00;42;40;04
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But as you consistently show up and consistently hit those fasting times and burn through those long term fat stores, those those numbers are going to creep up in due time on their own. But trusting the process is a really, really important part of this and not looking for that, that high score, it's not the holy grail of of of high ketone numbers here.

00;42;40;10 - 00;42;50;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you're doing the right thing over time, the results are going to eventually show up and speak for themselves, even if you're not hitting super high ketone numbers.

00;42;50;29 - 00;43;06;28
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. And that that goes that speaks to the conversation of becoming fat adopted. Right. And then the lifestyle that comes with it, the fasting lifestyle that comes with that. So I think we should do a whole different episode on that and kind of go and pull some of the research articles because there's, there's info out there. We've just never really talked about it in that light.

00;43;06;28 - 00;43;36;13
[Tommy Welling]
So I absolutely love where that conversation is going. So if you are listening to the episode and you're still with us, right? Or you're like, Man, I've been waiting for this forever, we appreciate that because we do get this question very often. Yes. We haven't talked about in this light, you can head to the website, the fasting for Life.com, the fasting for Life.com, go to the resources, sign up for our newsletter, come into the fold, become part of the fasting for life fam as we like to affectionately call it.

00;43;37;10 - 00;43;56;28
[Tommy Welling]
And Tommy, as we wrap up today's episode. I appreciate the conversation as always. Yeah, and I look forward to continuing the conversation with you here in the upcoming episode. So yeah, I appreciate you all for listening. Appreciate the conversation, sir. It's time to end the episode. The dog says it's time to go and we'll talk soon.

00;43;57;25 - 00;43;58;18
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Thanks. Bye.

00;44;00;27 - 00;44;13;14
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So you've heard today's episode and you may be wondering where do I start? Head on over to the Fasting for Life dot com and sign up for our newsletter. Where you'll receive fasting tips and strategies to maximize results and fit fasting into your day to day life.

00;44;14;07 - 00;44;27;20
[Tommy Welling]
While are you there, download your free fast start guide to get started today. Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to leave us a five star review and we'll be back next week with another episode of Fasting for Life.