Ep. 138 - The Effects of Intermittent Fasting in Humans Compared to a Non-intervention Diet and Caloric Restriction | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD

Uncategorized Aug 16, 2022

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss the effects of intermittent fasting in humans compared to a non-intervention diet and caloric restriction, and how intermittent fasting compares to the standard baseline eating approach.

 

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Fasting For Life Ep. 138 Transcript

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hello. I'm Dr. Scott Dr. Watier.

[Tommy Welling]
And I'm Tommy Welling. And you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.

[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.

[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.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
We started fasting for life because of how fasting has transformed our lives, and we hope to share the tools that we have learned along the way. Everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life Podcast. My name's Dr. Scott Weidner and I'm here as always, on my good friend and colleague Tommy Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir.

[Tommy Welling]
Hey, Scott, how are you?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Doing fantastic, my friend. We're going to be talking fasting today. Go figure. Yeah. If you are a new listener, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. Super excited to have you with us. If you want to go back and hear more about Tommy and I and our journeys and our stories and how we ended up here doing hundreds of episodes with millions of downloads and challenges and coaching and all of the stuff that's come out of our own journeys with fasting and getting our life and our health back and losing the weight for good.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Feel free to head back to episode zero in episode one. Give it a listen and get a little bit more perspective on why we do what we do. So welcome to everyone listening for this episode. Today is going to be fun. We're going to talk about a meta analysis, which is thousands of participants across dozens of studies. And it's going to be detailing the effects of intermittent fasting in humans compared to a non intervention diet, which is we'll unpack that in a second.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And caloric restriction so your standard eat less, move more low calorie or excuse me, calorie deficit type approach. And this is a meta analysis of randomized controlled trials and there's a few aha's that are going to come out of this today tell me but there's also some while does too like well duh. Right. Like that makes sense.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah has and well does. So you know looking at this one and there's 43 different randomized controlled trials, almost 2500 participants in here. And so just looking at it through this lens where we go, okay, what am I usually kind of defaulting to? What am I usually trying the low and slow diet, having tried it so many times in the past and it kind of like it can be effective and then usually can slowly lose some effectiveness over time.

[Tommy Welling]
So I think it's really important to see how intermittent fasting can compare to what many of us have done so many different times in the past and see if there's any benefit for one versus the other. And then just taking a look at how intermittent fasting compares to just kind of our standard baseline eating approach, I think there's some good perspective to come out of this massive study.

[Tommy Welling]
I'm glad we found it.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, no, it's interesting because when you first read it and there's some nuance here, too, it's like, well, the meta analysis found that people who followed ISIS had lower weight, better BMI, better waist circumference, fat free mass, insulin resistance, etc., compared with the non restricted diet. So the non restricted diet is an interesting term. We're like, well, what does that really mean?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? You're like, Well, and that just means in this study that there was no intervention in those diet groups. So it was just important to us what you're doing on a daily basis and maybe some people are following a low carb diet, maybe some people are doing paleo, maybe some people were just eating, you know, fast food three times a day.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So there's a lot of variability in there. And when you put it in that light, you're like, well, here's our first well duh moment, right? So you start using fasting and you comparing it to people that are just doing stuff willy nilly. Well, duh. Yeah. There's going to be an incredible improvement in all of those metrics that relate to health, longevity and obviously weight loss.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I like that. Like, cool, we're already on the right track and that's a really good thing. Before we really start focusing on some of the details that really matter and continue to move the needle even further, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. There's a couple of like weird things or pitfalls in this too, and we're looking at so many different variabilities. The first one is the fact that there are so many different subtypes and types, and that's what they come out and say, is that intermittent fasting is becoming more increasingly significant in terms of study results, right. In terms of its efficacy for weight loss.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But it's also that there are a ton of different ways you can do it. There's all different named fast. And in this study they look at adverse intermittent energy restriction, time restricted feeding, Ramadan fasting, and there are subsets to some of those as well. And we've done episodes on all of those different topics right there. We've looked at Ramadan studies, TRF studies, IFR versus C.R., which is intermittent energy restriction versus calorie restriction studies.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, we've talked about AIDS versus oh man versus yeah. Five to iRF and it's just the warrior fad. Like it just keeps going, right. So yeah, we're going to simplify it here. Interestingly enough, that's also going to be a talking point in kind of a little bit of the nuance that we find when looking at these different things and then the calorie restriction diets that they looked at here where you're a calorie deficit diets.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then there were also the Mediterranean diet and the dash diet, which is the one to help lower blood pressure. Right. So and those are continuous low and slow energy restriction type diets. And then for the Q, which is the the participants continued their usual dietary habits. So these are the ones that didn't have any intervention funds for the study.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then it was cool because they looked at so many different metrics and there's tables upon tables upon tables, right? And it's like, you know, waist circumference, BMI, fat free mass that makes sense on blood glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol. And here's where we kind of find almost like a head spinning, like when we're sifting through it, like, wait a minute, what is this really telling us and what do we want to take away from this?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
I personally would love to take away for all of you listening, or especially for you are in the unrestricted category right now. Yeah, we're just kind of doing your usual dietary stuff and you know, you need to make a change, but you're kind of looking at calorie restriction and workout programs going, Oh my, if you do.

[Tommy Welling]
A little analysis paralysis, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
I know I've got to do this next. Yeah, yeah. But like, do I really want to do it this? Why do I want to join the gym? Go want to go back to do what I did that worked for a few weeks back then like yeah, there can be that analysis paralysis. So I love that there's some nuance in here too.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. Do I need to get a nutrition plan? Like, what should my next plan be? You know, and and sometimes it's a matter of like, I know I've personally felt myself in the past waiting for the frustration to build, to kind of push my motivation over the edge, to kind of take that next step, you know. So just seeing that we can kind of simplify the process and get some core results is, I think, very motivating.

[Tommy Welling]
You know, like one of the things that I liked was they were looking at certain things like specifically like cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, waist circumference, right? Fat free mass, what the fasting insulin levels were. And then comparing it between these different groups. And I think it could be overwhelming just to like look at this study, but pulling out some of these four points thing is important.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So if we look just statistically reporting versus the nonintervention, right. So you're going to look at greater weight loss BMI compared to your standard operating procedure or habitual diets, smaller waist circumference. You know, pretty much all of the metrics when you're comparing those to iRF was like the clear winner, right? Obviously, you're starting a new weight loss intervention, so you would expect there to be these big changes in terms of your bloodwork, how you're feeling, your insulin levels, all of that starting to change.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And the good news is, is that if you're on the fence, yes, it works like that's the first takeaway.

[Tommy Welling]
Right off the fence.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yes, this can work.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, yeah. Take a little quick action now, like set a fasting time or think when could you restrict your actual intake, even if just a little bit deliberately? And, you know, maybe that's like skipping breakfast at first if you've never done that, but either way, you have a leg up on the previous version of the operating system for the diet.

[Tommy Welling]
As soon as you put some boundaries in place right there with the time restriction, that's cool.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if you're a long time faster than you know, right, and one of the things too was in the subgroup analysis that eight studies were looking at the effect on insulin resistance and there was a direct insulin resistance decrease like a statistically significant decrease. That was all those studies looked at. That was the main takeaway that we want to be decreasing the insulin, which is the upstream cause of the downstream effect, which is the blood sugar, which leads to diabetes, you know, cardio metabolic disorders, metabolic disease and all of those co-morbidities that come around having the increased visceral fat, bigger waist, carrying the weight for you through the later decades in life, you know, diabetes

[Dr. Scott Watier]
and blood sugar is that thing that's lurking beneath the surface. And interestingly enough, when we unpack the second half of today's conversation, we're going to show that the biggest change was the most significant in the most significant category, even though the two groups like I would have expected more differences. Right. But then that gets back into the conversation of the fact that this is 43 different trials.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're looking at so many different subgroups and subtypes, and the average length was as short as one month's three weeks, all the way up to six months. And the average was about in that 1 to 3 month range, right? Yeah. So for simplicity D you know, the thing that really was the biggest takeaway when looking at the calorie restriction versus the idea for the fasting groups was that the waist circumference was the only statistically significant difference between the two groups.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And at first, as a fasting advocate, I'd be like, Oh, wait a minute.

[Tommy Welling]
You sure?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Okay, hold on. And here's where the nuance comes in. And I'm excited to hear your response to this. I've already said it once, but I didn't hear your response. So, yeah, here's what it says. These results may lend credence to the notion of calories in, calories out. Right. So calorie restriction. Yeah. Being all that is necessary to lose weight and improve health without overcomplicating an already difficult task.

[Tommy Welling]
Difficult task. I'll agree with that. Not overcomplicating it though. I mean, what simpler than fasting, calorie restriction and tracking everything and looking at percentage decreases and tracking all of those things every day over time. That's a lot more complicated to me than fasting is. So I disagree. I strongly disagree with that statement.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if we look back and many of you listening might have a similar journey to our journey where it was you've done it, you've tracked it, you've waited, you've hired the coach, you've hired the nutrition coach, you spent thousands of dollars, you've done the testing, and you end up not being able to get the sustainable result of the weight loss or the health benefit right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So tracking and weighing and doing all of that and macros to me is, like you just said, a much more complicated way than simply pulling one or two levers, which is I'm going to make an intentional decision during my eating window to eat these foods and I'm going to set a timer to time restrict or calorie restrict my way into a fasting time.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like it's simple. You just you stop eating, you set the timer so you don't have to do all of the other stuff that you've done and tried and hasn't worked in the past. So it's like, okay, well, why does it work? Well, it works just as well or better than the calorie restriction, right? And what we're seeing with the waist circumference is that the waist circumference, as we know, is a strong indicator of mortality and morbidity.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It is something that I believe that should be in every doctor's office and every conversation when your doctor may say to you, hey, you got to lose some weight. It's not about the blood sugar number. To me, it's about the waist circumference, the visceral adiposity. We've done episodes on this, the insulin resistance, right? Measured by home air, which thankfully outperformed.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. We saw that decrease in insulin resistance, but that weight circumference was the only statistical significant difference and it was pretty large as well. And that is telling me that we're not just treating the downstream. You know, let's look at the blood sugar. We're actually shrinking the waist, right. And shrinking that visceral adiposity. Right. To be able to make a long term health benefit, never mind the weight loss, but the fact that we're moving a cardio metabolic or a metabolic marker that is as significant as waist circumference.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, it's crazy because out of all of the things that they measured, that's actually the most important one to correlate with long term health outcomes, quality of life, longer. That's the one. If there was only one that you would be looking for an improvement, it was that one. And so to make a statement like calorie restriction, maybe the only thing that's needed so that we don't overcomplicated and making the assumption that everything else was equal between the C.R. and the if groups because that was the only difference is like everything that's important from the findings is like is taken away with that statement.

[Tommy Welling]
So I'm going to reiterate strongly disagree there.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And even if you look at some of the subgroup analysis to which that's where the head spinning kind of started to get into, I was like, Well, hold on, there's so many different moving parts here. What they found was that when you looked at time restricted feeding versus calorie restriction that there were statistically significant changes in the time restricted feeding week versus calorie restriction.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So the waist circumference. Yes, the fat mass. Yes. And the diastolic blood pressure also came down with just a week of time restricted feeding versus calorie restriction. So lots of variables, lots of moving parts. The simplest D would be the second takeaway time that you just eloquently stated there is like if you want to simplify this and know that what you're doing is going to get a long term sustainable result, not just for the weight or the scale, but for that overall health, that longevity, that metabolic flexibility, that waist circumference thing really just sticks out to being like, all right, well, you know, I know that I'm going to be following a plan that is

[Dr. Scott Watier]
most important thing that we say is that is sustainable for you long term. If you can't see fasting being a part of your lifestyle, then fasting is just like any other diet or any of the other subtypes or anything that we just mentioned in this episode. And The Takeaway would be, well, let's simplify it, and waist circumference and insulin resistance, let's get those moving in the right direction.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I promise you the scale is going to do what you want it to do. If those two things are moving.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. And you don't like speaking of the simplicity and the sustainability portion, like I think most dieters like if you've ever dieted you can relate to the fact that there are some times when you feel more on, sometimes when you feel more off, sometimes when it feels like you've just completely gotten off track. And especially if you have a lot of weight to lose, you know, it can be a longer term kind of frustration point or maybe a plateau or a lack of motivation.

[Tommy Welling]
Like you don't find yourself as motivated to do it right now. So getting back on track can be an important part of that process. When our motivation ebbs and flows right? And if we look at intermittent fasting, it can be a lot easier to get back on track, especially going back to the beginning of the conversation when we see that even just some form of time restriction versus just kind of eating without any regard to boundaries or any sort of restriction at all is a lot more effective.

[Tommy Welling]
We have better results, we have better waist circumference, the scales doing better blood work's looking better, right? So it can be easier to get back on track. We don't have to feel like we're just completely on or completely off. It doesn't have to be this huge change to get back on track with intermittent fasting. That's a really cool for long term results.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I love this takeaway too because they looked at some of the subgroups, found that looking at the different types of lifestyles or the calorie restriction versus air versus nonintervention with women, if was significantly more effective in reducing fat mass when compared to the other groups and for men if significantly reduced men's weight and BMI compared to the calorie restriction group.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So there is a couple other like subgroup takeaways too. And then on top of that, I have also reduced triglyceride levels more effectively in men as well. So when you start really like honing in and figuring this out and putting the pieces together for you long term, you know, one of the things about fasting is that it can fit any lifestyle, it can fit all of these different 43 studies, it can fit the subgroups, it can fit your life, your stressors, your family, your preferred way of eating.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It can fit all of that with all of the benefits of calorie restriction plus waist circumference and insulin resistance, which is that iceberg analogy, right? The blood sugar that you're seeing on your lab work or the blood pressure that's been ticking up or the cholesterol that's elevating or the inflammation that's rising over the years, or the hormones that are imbalanced or the hunger that you always have, all of that stuff is the stuff on top of the water.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's what you see. But beneath is where the majority of the issue lies, which is those resistances and specifically the insulin resistance, where you're not able to tap into the fat stores and it's harder to lose the weight and it's harder to stay on track, right? So yeah, really just the overall benefit is is staggering when it's like, all right, well, I have two different choices here.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
I can take this path of this path. Right. Well, I want to take the passage sustainable. I want to take the path that is simple. I want to take the path that I know what I'm doing is going to work and I don't have all of that extra. Well, I've tried it this way before when I'm on, I'm on.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But when I'm off, I'm off and then I'm off my.

[Tommy Welling]
Diet and then.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
All the weight comes back.

[Tommy Welling]
The crazy thing to you is that if you look at the things that they measured in the study and then let's say you're you're looking to control your triglycerides, you're looking to lower your blood pressure a little bit like everybody has something that has to do with their why they're motivating factor for getting the weight off or for getting a better sense of balance within their health profile.

[Tommy Welling]
Right. And, you know, we can see potential in all of those things. But I think knowing that if you go into a doctor's office or another health provider, you're oftentimes going to hear about, oh, well, just, you know, reduce your intake a little bit, reduce your food a little bit, and then exercise a little bit more like eat less, Move More is a pretty ubiquitous recommendation out there.

[Tommy Welling]
It's just the most common one still, unfortunately. But to know that intermittent fasting can help to get at all of those other things, even if you're not hearing about it quite as much, I think is a powerful thing because the adaptability of intermittent fasting, regardless of, like you said, what your lifestyle looks like, what you prefer, eating plan looks like, and any number of other lifestyle factors.

[Tommy Welling]
That adaptability is the huge part. And that's why we've seen so many people get long term like huge transformational testimony animals like I want to like get up and give a standing ovation sometimes for some of the emails that we get. So it's just really cool that, that we can get at all of these different things. Even if you're, you're new to intermittent fasting, like the power is there, you know, you just got to get started.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? And I think about like, what's next slide me right there with that statement is what do I do now? Okay. Well, you get a couple of things. One, you can head to the shownotes, click the link for the Fasting for Life Community Group. It is on Facebook. It is a incredible place to get your questions answered, to interact with people that follow the podcast, that live the fasting lifestyle.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, it is an incredible group and I don't know why this is. It's very positive where I'm in, a lot of other groups, fasting and weight loss and all these other groups, and it can be rude sometimes, like the energy to this group is incredibly positive. Like I think we've had two instances ever where we've had to be like, now we're not going to let that kind of happen over here.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like, Yes, get out of here with that, we've got great moderators, coaches. Tommie and I are in there answering your questions. So one would become there too, would be go download the Fast Start Guide. And if you've done this in the past but you never got the videos that came with it, then go back and read download the Fast Start Guide.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's on our website, the fasting for life dot com w be WW the fasting for life dot com it's in the show notes. You can download the fast start guide under the resources tab when you also if you go to the Facebook group and sign up that way, we'll send you an email. We'll also send you the videos as well that go along with the PDF, which is six simple steps to put fasting into your day to day life.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Come join the conversation, get back on track or get started. Maybe it's time for a little bit of a re engagement, right? Yeah. Download it again. Look at it again. It's simple, it's effective. And just like one of the big takeaways from the study that we looked at, tell me, we want to make sure that we're promoting the simplicity of it.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But when you have questions, we also want you to get them answered too. And getting sending us an email or a message sometimes isn't the best way for us to answer those. So that's why we have the group.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's really cool. Keep the conversation going because that way you can continue to level up through the process and continue getting really good results that continue to motivate you and keep pushing for that better balance, better sense of control and health and well-being for the long term wins.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So, yeah, absolutely love it. All right. So two things you'll see inside the group. Download the Fast Start Guide. We appreciate all of you listeners. If you're new, head back and listen. The first couple of episodes for all of the OG's long term listeners, we appreciate you continuing to follow this journey with us. And Tommy, as always, appreciate the conversation, sir, and we'll talk soon.

[Tommy Welling]
Thank you. Bye. So you've heard today's episode, and you may be wondering, where do I start? Head on over to the fasting for life icon and sign up for our newsletter where you'll receive fasting tips and strategies to maximize results and fit fasting into your day to day life.

[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.

 

 

 

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