Ep. 14 - FAQs, Fasting Myths, Stomach Pains while Fasting | Eating Windows for Better Sleep | Forming New Habits Starting with a Free Intermittent Fasting Plan

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Hello, I'm Dr. Scott Watier. And I'm Tommy Welling, and you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.

This podcast is about using fasting as a tool to regain your health. Achieve ultimate wellness and live the life you truly deserve.

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.

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 is Dr. Scott Watier, and as always, I am here with my good friend and colleague, Tommy Welling. Good evening, sir.

Good evening, Scott. How are you, man?

I am awesome. Grand. I don't mean that just to be that guy. You know, and you're like, how are you doing today, ma'am? She's like, exuberant. I'm like, no, no, I am really good. I'm super fired up. I know we price say that at the opening of all the podcasts, but I love this and I love the feedback we're getting and I love what we're gonna talk about tonight. And I'm just having a really good time with it.

So, yeah, yeah, we've been asking for everyone to send us questions for a while now, so we haven't ignored you. If you did send a question a while back, we haven't forgotten.

We've been compiling them and we thought we'd put them into an episode. And so I think that's what we're going to do tonight. Is that right?

One hundred percent. So we're gonna be doing the Q&A as these have come in from all over the map.

So we've had from podcast reviews, which is what we're asking you guys to do, as well as like a five star view, of course. Those are the only ones that we accept coming from our new fast, our guide mini masterclass, shameless plug. And through Facebook, through email, through Facebook Messenger. So on some of our posts are really just come in common across all forms of communication. So we've been putting them together. And yeah, I'm excited to go over some of these were going to be talking about digestive changes that you can see. We're going to be going over sleep and how to end your night correctly so you can make sure you're setting yourself up for a good night's sleep and then also some habits. So just to recap, last week, Tommy, you loved last week's topic. The 2.4 million to 24 loved it.

I loved it.

That stuff just really kind of sinks in with me where we're so far away from where we should be in some of our cultural habits, that it's really no surprise why we don't have our health house in order at this point.

Yeah. And talk about a way to put it in terms of house when we last week. The running theme and I'll explain the 2.4 to twenty four in a second. The running theme.

I actually don't go back on the steps. But I'll still explain it in just a second. The running theme last week was, all right, I'm going to do good. We're going to shelter at home. You know I'm going to do this new home workout plan. I got my workout bands and then like by day three, you're pouring the ice cream literally into the pasta. So that was the the the thread last week along with avoiding those processed foods. Right. So the twenty two point four to twenty four, you know, if we scrunch down human evolution, remove your belief systems here like just say 2.4. It's for an analogy purposes 2.4 million years is now a twenty four hour clock.

Right. And we've been eating processed foods for four seconds. So crazy.

Yeah. People like all the research, random controlled double lines. OK. Yep. Great. I'm going to choose the more natural Whole Foods with less ingredients.

I'm going to stay away from the processed stuff that spikes my insulin. So that's all I have to say about that. But last week was a good episode. So I said, go back to do it. Yeah. Yep. Done. I can't. Or I can. Yeah. Yeah. So let's start off with the Q&A. This came from our Contact US form. So info at the fasting for Life.com, info at the fasting for Life.com. And Miss Anna sent in a question about sleep. Right. So the struggle is unable to fall asleep without the sensation of feeling very full. So we did she reference our episode on sleep, which helped, but she still has the habit. And this is why we're gonna talk about the question, too, in this, you know, three that we're gonna go over tonight about habits. But it's the years of habits of overeating right before going to bed. Right.

So giving into that habit and repeating that behavior over and over and over and that she's been her brain and she feels that she needs to be fully full or overly full to get to bed.

Yeah, there's a there's a matter of, you know, stomach distension. There's a matter of just that that mental kind of fulfillment and satisfaction, you know, that you're just kind of used to.

I mean, I know people will reference that sometimes, especially like if you if you go through a tough financial time, you say, well, go into bed hungry. Right. I mean, that that has like, you know, a big kind of visual. We all kind of. Oh, yeah, that that doesn't sound like something I want to do.

But at the same time, that can be come a crutch over years and years where if you don't have that feeling, it can be weird. It can be unsettling. Kind of like if you all of a sudden you change the temperature in your bedroom by five or eight degrees. You're gonna have a tough time going to Tibet. It's just gonna be a very different kind of sensation that you're used to.

Yeah. And the habit, the habitual thing is key to is, you know, I grew up watching my dad snack at night, so we'd have dinner and then he'd have a bowl ice cream or a bag of popcorn or chips or that was part of the routine.

So there might be some of that in there, too. And obviously, you know, throw stones only if you know, you know, the whole glass house throw stones analogy, right?

Yeah. So I struggle with these exact same issues. And it was a realization for looking at my dad and his health and and being like, well, yeah, that's where I got that habit from. So. Could be stress could be that, you know, go to bed hungry. Could be all of those things combined. But the underlying habit is what we need to address.

But there are some practical things that you can do to set yourself up for success. Help break that habit. And that's what we want to talk about.

Yeah, we want to keep it, you know, actionable. We we want to address what could we do? How could we improve it? So let's start with the eating window. The later you are eating, the more likely you are going to be kind of perpetuating that feeling of fullness going into the evening time. And you may be more dependent, you know, on feeling that. And it's going to be it's going to be tougher to to pry away from that. If all of your meals are towards the end of the day, you know, or if you're calorie loading, you know, later in the day, which a lot of us do.

One meal a day dinner is a very common plan. But at the same time, if this is the struggle point, then I think the timing is the very first thing that I would look at.

Yeah, in it, if you look at the timing, so if you have there's studies out there that show and this is gonna you know, we're not going to get into a lot of the the study stuff tonight. But if you eat the same exact meal. At 8 a.m. versus 8 p.m., your insulin spike is higher at 8:00 p.m.. It's the same food, right?

So your body is automatically going to be setting yourself up for failure. And think about it like when you start doing these longer fast.

I know, Tommy, you and I have talked about this hundreds of times. This is the first wave of hunger. You get the next day on like one of your first times you fasted. It's not really hunger. Because you've eaten like probably twelve hours ago, eight hours ago. Like, it's not really hunger. It's the soap. The social cue. The time of day. The sun rising. The coffee brewing. The email dinking. The kids whining. The the dog barking to go out.

It's all of that routine and those psychological, physiological, environmental cues that go boom. And then your brain goes, oh, I smell food. Oh, I better get the stomach ready to start digesting. So if if you look at the timing of it and the queues, then yes. I don't care how strong repression you are, you're gonna give in to those hormonal impulses because that's what's controlling the hunger. It's hormones, right. So the hormones are gonna set you up for failure. So just by changing your window. And we'll explain what that means now is is going to kind of start pulling you away from that.

Yeah.

So, you know, if you expand that window, make it start. So even if you're eating one meal a day. And I don't think you went into any detail about exactly how you're eating right now. So we'll have to make some assumptions or give some suggestions here.

But even if you're eating one meal a day and it's dinner, if you started it a few hours earlier and then start with, you know, start front loading it with a little bit of healthy fats, a handful of nuts, some other things that are more satiating, making sure to load it with vegetables and not just something more, you know, just kind of carbohydrate fast digesting sugar later on.

And then we ate those types of things. So, yeah, the fats came in guacamole like high, high, healthy fat mean protein.

You want to remove the carbs as much as you can because that just spikes insulin more. But opening up that window, like you said, just to be really clear to some people, don't may not know that terminology. Right. Like because I think about it on like we talked about the stuff all day. Right. Like, we love it. We live it. We we. Yeah, I know. The first rule of fasting is not to talk about fasting. That's in the beginning when you start telling people. Sally in accounting or Bob 90. Yeah, don't do that.

But what's your teaching, Sally and Bob? You can talk about it. Or if you have a podcast about it. Yeah, you're going to have to talk about it. Start a blog. Sense me mail.

So the window. So when you're doing so, there's an assumption here is that you're eating a lot of your caloric intake right before you go to bed. So what we want you to do is you want you to back that up.

So if you're reading between eight and 10 now we want to eat between six and eight. Or to start with 7 and 9. Right. So hopefully that clears up the concern.

And what that's going to do is when your circadian rhythm is going to take over. But what happens is when you have a full distended gut full of high insulin stimulating foods. Right. You're gonna throw off that circadian rhythm. So then your natural healing and your natural digestion and your natural, you know, decrease in blood pressure and the blood volume changes and all of that stuff that takes place while you sleep. The burning of the of the carbohydrates, the glucose in your bloodstream, all of that is going to stop.

And what you're typically going to see is that you're going to wake up between that two to four range. Right. Which is liver typically in terms of an indicator. And that means short term glycogen. So your liver is packed with with the food, right? It's packed with the sugar. You just a and now it's just spilling into the bloodstream. And guess what that does to your body. It wakes you up.

Yeah. Yes.

Then you're going to kill your healthy sleep cycles, you're not going to feel as rested. You're going to be more stressed the next day, more likely to overeat and to comfort eat. And now you have yourself the start of a vicious cycle.

Right. And I think that's what I was kind of alluding to, too, is that cycle that the repeating habit. So we want you to change your your mindset on this, too.

We're going to talk about this with the second question is, you know, if you only eat in a short period of time or if you tend to just kind of skip breakfast and have a light lunch and then eat all your calories at night. We need to start pulling some of that back. Right. That's that's take home number one. And then to make sure you're staying hydrated in the early, late afternoon and early evening hours, you're not getting up to pee all night. But you definitely have a good amount of fluid in your system, which dehydration can cause you to have more cravings and can also cause you to want to eat more.

Yeah, a couple less thoughts on that for you. Just in case, if you're having something sweet late at night, I recommend taking that and putting that earlier in the day or cutting back on it as much as you can, because just the more sugar later in the day is just going to make this problem worse. The same thing with caffeine. So take a look at your coffee intake. If you're having caffeine later on in the day, your your need to have that distension in your stomach to feel comfortable going to bed. It's going to be you're going to be fighting even more of it.

If you have caffeine in the blood and you're you're less you're less rested, less poised for a good night's sleep.

Good. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a good way to wrap it up. And obviously, I know you've listened to the sleep episode, but so for everybody else out there, you know, cooler is better. Avoid the screens now before bed. No TV in the bedroom.

There's a lot of other things that you can do. Time you just mentioned moving the caffeine away. So if you want to get more information on that. Go ahead and go back in the previous episodes and look for the sleep up. So or move on to number two here, which is another habit related comment. And this comes through the fast start guy. Mini masterclass, if you guys don't know what that is. It's our 20 minute deep dive videos. It's six video series. It's completely free, but it goes hand-in-hand with the fast start guide because it really walks you through using that guide successfully. We want you fasting as a pro like now because it is quickly you see the results, the quick like, oh, wow, whereas I spend my whole life, so. Right. This question comes in through that mini master class, which is really cool that we're just getting touch points from everywhere.

Yeah, pretty cool. And this is Sandy. So she met, she said great class, giving us good reminders on what to do. I have no problem making a plan, but I do have trouble sticking to it. I think it's just a habit.

Again, there's that word that I'm having trouble breaking. I have a good Y, but I don't always think before I eat.

Mm hmm. So this was interesting because just to frame it like that and, you know, not to pick on you, Sandy, at all. Thanks for. Thanks for sending in the question. So I don't always think before I eat. So, you know, we talk a lot about when to not eat and meal timing and eating windows and things like that. So I'm I'm guessing, Sandy, that you're you're talking about, you know, your actual meal planning for when you have your meal or when you do break your fast or or are you still sticking to, you know, more of a calorie restricted kind of model?

So what I'm thinking yeah. What I'm thinking and Sandy's made had unbelievable results, too. She is crushing it like just just crushing it. Weight loss, you know, all this. Just amazing stuff. Right. It's awesome. Yeah. Just she's been seen. Unbelievable changes.

Just. Yeah, overall just it's unreal. So one thing is we need to remember that we've got to focus on the wins versus the losses.

So even though you're not making the best decisions when you eat. Right. That's different than not planning and just winging it, but knowing that it's coming and knowing that you're going to just bec-, I guess I'll just figure it out like that's different. Right. Where if you think about this and you're like, OK, if I'm on it because Sandy's done a lot of one meal a day is right. If I'm going to do one meal a day. Right, and she's done some longer, Vastu, but if I'm going to do one meal a day and I have one meal, right, I have one eating window. Right. I have one stop at the grocery store. I have one showing an opportunity. One opportunity here. Right. If you choose and Sandy, hopefully this can help you frame it a little bit differently. So you do kind of have that click where you're like, oh, wait, hold on. Is if you have one me on one opportunity and you choose to eat poorly. Right. And you have the high carbohydrate foods and you have the Doritos and you have the big diet soda and not saying that you're eating the sandwich. I'm just giving you a typical right fallowing nutritional value, the low nutritional value you are giving your body nothing in terms of nutrition for that entire day. You've had one shot and now all of the food you've chosen to eat is bad. Right. And so it's like framing it that where you're like, oh, wait. OK. So if I'm eating two meals today and you decide to, you know, have pizza and beer and wings at lunch.

Right. Which you can probably tell throughout the threat of this. Those are. I love I.P.S. I love a good pizza and I love really good, well-done buffalo wings.

So speaking from experience, if you decide to have that at lunch, you're more likely to mess up dinner, right, if you're doing more of a two meal intermittent fast deficit. But then you Verde chosen that 50 percent of your nutrition that you're going to be putting in your body that day is junk. So now 50 percent of what you're giving yourself in all this effort and time and energy that you've put into it, you're like, oh, man. Well, I guess I'm only going to be 50 percent good today.

You know, so just that little mindset shift, I think can be helpful. Yeah. Look at it. More of an opportunity to put something really good, really nutritious, really healing into your body rather than just an opportunity to, you know, fulfill that craving or, you know. Well, that sweet tooth that you've been pushing off during the previous fasting window. Yeah. That's a great point.

I think that'll be helpful, too. And, you know, knowing Sandy and knowing the changes she's been through, she's just crushing it.

So I just think this might be one of the last little pieces to really, you know, keep keep the momentum going. So cool. Definitely. We hear a lot about habits, habits, habits, patterns, habits, patterns, the power of habit. It's a yellow and red covered book. Pretty eye opening. I've read it on and off a dozen times. So I can remember the author's name. But really good resource if you guys are looking forward to under you know, if you guys are the readers, researchers go out and pick up that book. It's an easy read, but a lot of cool information. So the last one we're gonna talk about in this episode is, ah, I believe this is one of the first questions we've received and this is one of our five star reviews on our podcast. So we ask that you go drop us a review. Give us some feedback. We love the conversational type of kind of what this has become. And this is from fast ruthlessly.

That is a mouthful.

And this has to do with what gastric trouble as as I'm talking to, c'mon, say it like gastric dumping. Right. So when your stomach is like we've all had it right and it's like.

Hell, I get to get to start sweating and you're like, I gotta get to a bathroom like like not like in five minutes, like right now. Right. And this can happen when you start removing the consistent food supply. If you have an underlying gut imbalance in terms of bacteria. Which is one thing we can talk about. But it also is the fact that your body is just like clearing out. It's giving it a break almost. So I've had this from a few people that I've been coaching. And there's a few things, you know, in terms of a plan, because if you're planning on fasting and then you stop fasting and you eat right, which is the situation, then the bathroom needs to be like within the next 30 minutes. Right. So if you're fasting throughout the day and let's say you break your fast at lunch and you're at work, well, that's a problem, right? So we want it right. We want to be able to make sure that did not where if you're traveling, we want to make sure that you have the the plan in place where we know how to handle it. And there's a few things you can do to get there.

Yeah. And good time. Well, what I was going to say is that.

You know, so I can't remember the guy's name who who fasted for what was it, three hundred eighty two days. Right.

And then I think it said that he was they made their I just kind of skipped over that, as you noticed as I get I don't know that guy.

I think he I think it said he had a bowel movement like once every forty seven days or fifty two days. I could be misquoting it, but something like that.

So if you think about, you know, we we go through day to day, if we're just kind of normal eating, you know, two, three, four, five different times a day.

In Western culture, a lot of times. And then, you know, one or two bowel movements a day, I think is pretty average somewhere between there. And then just complete fasting for a year goes two to once every 50 days or or something like that. So. So between that, there's a pretty wide range of of, you know, regularity and predictability that can can really kind of mess with your your day to day life. So I think anything that we can we can do to give a little bit some tweaks here and there might be helpful.

Yes. So when we're looking at this type of issue, your body's trying to tell you something. Right.

So there is obviously an imbalance and it could start from the digestive enzymes in your saliva all the way down to when you go to the bathroom. So from start to finish, we've got some checkpoints here that we can talk about. Where I would start is I would start by looking at what you're eating.

Right.

So if if there are any gallbladder issues, you know, you might want to worry about avoiding the fatty or foods. In terms of insulin and health and weight loss, you want to avoid the carbohydrate. So I would recommend starting with some fermented foods before you actually plan your meal. OK. So starting with the fermented foods, fermented foods have high levels of prebiotic. So this is the stuff that's going to help your balance out the levels in your digestive track, in your stomach, in your small intestine that are going to allow you to digest the food more normally. OK. So probiotics, you can do it in a supplement form. I recommend always trying to get it from a natural source. Right. And then so you would eat from into foods, sauerkraut, pickled, anything, those types of things. You know, I do not really care for that type of stuff. It's not my palate pickled beets, but the sauerkraut I can do. But I prefer to just take it in a supplement. And then you can also couple that with. And I always say do one thing first and then try it for a couple of days. The second thing would be a simple digestive enzyme. So something that you take before you eat to prep your body to help digest the food. So those are two simple things you can do on the front end to see if we can get some more traction and not have this big rush to the bathroom. So look at the foods you're eating. Possibly reduce the fats. If there's any gallbladder history there and then you want to look at adding a prebiotic and then possibly a digestive enzyme. There's super digestive enzymes that you can get that can help break down the food and balance those levels.

Yeah, and I mean, I would I would take a look at again what you're eating, what is your typical plate look like? Is it really heavy on something like for some people it's cruciferous vegetables for, you know, roughage from broccoli and Brussels sprouts and things like that. I think for other people, you know, it might be, you know, like you mentioned, oils, certain kinds of fats.

You go to a certain type of restaurant and, you know, you might you know, you might not have very long.

So you need to run to the restroom. So I'm just looking at what's what's on your typical plate, because you may want to, you know, make a few tweaks, like Scott said, and see how that goes for you.

I think that's a really good point to is maybe doing a food log and just taking kind of thinking about, okay. What? What am I what am I? My history has been a trigger for me. And this has never happened until you started intermittent fasting then. Yeah, I think I think we got a handle on this pretty quickly. If we look at what's going what what foods you're eating, the amount of food you're eating, so maybe your overstimulating start with the prebiotic rich foods, you know, the fermented foods.

Add a little. You don't eat a lot of those. Right. And then looking at a possible prebiotic and or a digestive enzyme. Now, if you don't see any improvements with that, then there's also ways to do some basic gut flora testing. There's tons of labs out there. I have a whole list. So if that's something that's you know, we need to go down down that road, just reach out to us and I'll get you the resources for that. No problem.

Yeah, for sure. Last thing that came to my mind was if you're eating a very narrow range of foods, there is a possibility that you're focusing on something that just doesn't sit very well with you. So maybe that's not the case. Maybe you have a nice range of foods, but if not, if it's just a few things that you're taking in, you might be sensitive to those.

So maybe again, just just do the food log. See how that how things change. And you might notice that there's something that you should just stay away for.

That's awesome. Yep. Yep, yep. Yeah. Doing a little reflection tracking that can I can usually answer some some pretty little bring some stuff into into clarity in most cases so. All right. So we just meant that was those also those three contact. So we have a bunch more. We're gonna be rolling out the Q&A episodes more frequently because we're getting a lot of feedback. So they started piling up. We're like, oh, yeah, we should probably start, start, start putting these out. So the action step for today is. Take a look at your habits. So whatever it is that you are falling into and that cyclic routine of day after day after day after day, because, you know, we're creatures of habit. You know, I've done tons of nutrition workshops where I say, OK, who eats oatmeal for breakfast? Raise your hand. Who eats eggs for breakfast? Raise your hand. Who eats waffles for breakfast? Raise their hand. Who eats fruit for breakfast? And then I'm like, OK, how many days a week do you eat that? Every day, five to seven days. Right. Three to five days or one to three days. Everyone's like, well, you do it like every day. Like, we like that habit. We're creatures of habit. Right. So look at your habits and try to change the setting that that habit is taking place in. Right. So change the timing. Change the the the routine. But try to snap yourself out of it and then be cognizant. Be aware that, you know, this is going to happen if you don't do something different. So just simply changing the environment would be something for everyone to kind of look at. Examine your habits. If you're getting results, great. If you've got some sticking points. Start with a little self-reflection on what is happening when that habit is taking place.

That's a great, excellent step. I wanted to add one thing that just came to my mind I can't remember which book it was that I read it in. Maybe was a Brian Tracy book. Either that or a psycho cybernetics or one of the other ones that are that are related.

But when when they were talking about habits and they wanted you to kind of get in exactly what you're talking about right here, they said try this.

Most people will put on their right shoe first, haha. You just start putting your left shoe on first. Try it for a day. Then try it for a week.

And then just keep going with it. It starts your day saying, OK.

Wow. Like habits are strong. And I'm just a small tweak will throw you off. It takes you a minute to get used to that and you'll realize, yeah, I'm being subjected to a lot of habits that I've form throughout the day. It makes you very cognizant of it very quickly.

Utilities just reminded me that I always put my left shoe on first. So perfect. I just don't know what it is, man. It's just that's what it is.

All right. So wrap it up.

So fat mini fast. Our God, mini masterclass for the fast our God. If you've already downloaded it, we're going to say this a few times.

Go back to our Web site and click the new button at the top of the page. You're gonna get access to the new mini masterclass, which is those videos support and then just continue to send us questions, you know? So we're super excited. We love it. We're very thankful for each one of you that kind of tunes in to listen to us and we're having a great time doing it. So, yeah, as always, Tommy. Thank you, sir. And we'll talk soon. Thank you, Scott.

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