Ep. 145 - Q&A Session: Dealing with Cramps | Perfectionist Tendencies and Mindset Shifts | Monk Fruit Sweetener Recommendation | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD

In Today’s Episode, we field questions from YOU, the listener! This is an action-packed episode of real-life weight loss and fasting journeys. How to stop foot or leg cramps, what is OMAD to OMG, monk fruit sweetener recommendation, how to deal with keto breath, perfectionist tendencies, and mindset shifts. 

 

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Fasting For Life Ep. 145 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. Hey everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name's Dr. Scott Water and I'm here as always, and my good friend and colleague, Tommy Whelan. Good afternoon to you, sir.

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

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fantastic, my friend. We're going to do a little listener Q&A today. We have had hundreds of questions come in over the last few months and a lot of them are similar in nature. So our Q&A questions are Q&A sessions. If you're looking for a commonly asked question in, you're new to the podcast. We do a few every couple of months, so go ahead and head back and just search fasting for Life podcast drop in the keywords you're looking for.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
We just had, for instance, a question about a CGM come in and we've never done a dedicated episode on a CGM. So I don't have a place to send that question or that person. But if you are new and you're looking for some frequently asked questions, go ahead, go back in the episodes, do a quick little search. You can probably find the majority of the basic starter type questions welcoming in all of you new listeners.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Head back. Listen to Tommy and his story if you want to know a little bit more about how we ended up here and why we continue to deliver weekly podcast episodes for you longtime listeners, we want to thank you for being on this journey with us, and if you like what you hear, please drop us a review. We prefer the five star kind that tells the podcast gods that we are doing something of value.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And Tommy was just doing a fist pump in the air. So this is audio medium, so you can see that. But I felt the need to share it because he was fist pumping into you into the air and I could see that and experience it through Zoom. Today's questions, Tommy. We're going to go through a gamut of different things and there's a couple of really good ones in terms of of nuance type applications of of how we adapt this fasting lifestyle.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then there are some just basic ones, like how do I get rid of the bad breath guy? So if you do have questions, you can always submit them to us. Info at the fasting for life icon. They will end up in our inbox and we will hopefully get them on an episode or get back to you quickly.

[Tommy Welling]
Or leave them in a five star review.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's also a good way to do the drop that I don't like there. So I'm glad you do. Two birds.

[Tommy Welling]
One stone right there.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I like it. I like it. All right. So let's hop into some of the questions. So we had a question that came in as I wake up several times a night with foot or leg cramps, how can I stop this? So, yeah, very common question, especially when you start fasting and most people go directly to magnesium, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's their first thing. And I'm going to encourage you not to do that. I want you to do this. This exact order. This way would be to start with increasing your hydration earlier in the day to mid to late afternoon. And with that hydration, making sure that you're increasing your sea salt, Himalayan salt or trace minerals. So multiple times a day.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then what that's going to do is that's going to really should be for the majority of people, the fix. Now, if you want to add in some potassium rich foods, that's great, too. Don't go take a potassium supplement. Just get it from a food. Get it from a banana. Try that for a couple of nights. And then the second thing do would be continue that and then added and Epsom salt bath a warm Epsom salt bath or foot soak prior to bed.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then the third thing would be do those two things and then you want to go look at a supplement like calm alarm. Yeah, it's got some magnesium and it's got a bunch of other things that help calm the system down, relax the muscles, relax the nervous system, and that typically fixes it. A lot of times people don't even need to go to step three, but that would be the way that I would look at it first would be increase the hydration and the trace minerals or salt.

[Tommy Welling]
You know, when I, I suffered from these kind of things, the worst it was when I first got started and I had less eating opportunities, but I was still bringing in more of the indulgent, more like more of the processed foods, you know, so some more, you know, fast food. I may have still had more pizza nights, you know, things like that.

[Tommy Welling]
Things that are like they got easier with time. I have less of those now, you know, I don't I don't really like think about some of those same foods that I that I really crave. But oftentimes they're less nutritionally, you efficient. They're delivering less of of what I actually need in a well-balanced way. So sometimes these things can kind of pop up.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. 100% it gets easier. So if you're new to fasting and you're listening, we're going to encourage you not to break your fast trying to fit all of the stuff that you missed out on air, quotes missed out on earlier in that day. Okay, I did it. Tommy's done. I did it. You want to ease into those meals and those those eating times, and that actually kind of leads into a second question.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
We've had a couple of questions come in for clarification. In the Fast Start guide, it refers to planning and eating one meal. So an omen approach. And somebody else asked what is homemade and what is O-M-G? Okay, well, because we just had it. Yeah. An episode of Matt Dog, right? Yeah. Oh, Matt is one meal a day.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fat loss, fasting method, one meal a day to lose weight, to lose fat and to get that scale moving. Right. So yeah. OMG is oh my god or oh my gosh. Right. That's just an emoji. It's, it's part of today's society. So oh man to O-M-G that episode was talking about that that oh what do I do.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Oh my gosh. Like what happened? What's going on? So yeah, hopefully that clears that up at all. Matt is one meal a day and then she asks here. So are you planning on eating one meal? So an oh matt approach or do you actually need each your favorite meal then plan your second meal to eat after? So one meal a day means one meal a day.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But what we mean when we say put your favorite foods in is don't just eat like kale salad, like a rabbit, like eat some foods that you actually enjoy eating to make the process fun. Mhm.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. You know like if you've ever been tracking and like doing like meal prep or meal planning, let's think about it as like really on or off, you know, where you just kind of like hit it really hard. You plan everything and, and you want everything to be right. You know how many calories you need to bring in.

[Tommy Welling]
And you kind of have like if you have your go to diet foods or like your go to diet meal, that, that, you know, was like when I'm strict, this is what I do and I can pull it off. If you do that with one meal a day, it's it's probably not going to last very long because you're not going to look forward to the meal.

[Tommy Welling]
It's like like don't.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Eat chicken and white rice and broccoli, right? Every day on your meals, you have flexibility with fasting and that's why it's sustainable. Yeah, that's what I just heard. And what you were just saying. Yeah.

[Tommy Welling]
They're like.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You brought me back. Good. You could. Yeah.

[Tommy Welling]
I wouldn't recommend it, you know, and it's not necessary. But you also don't want to be. You know, on the other side, which is like, okay, I can just eat whatever I want because I'm doing one meal a day, right? So let me do half a pizza whenever, whenever I, I break my fast here. So bringing in good foods, foods that you look forward to and in balancing out your plate, getting a lot of good nutrients in is kind of the recipe for success.

[Tommy Welling]
There.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And it gives you that flexibility too, simplicity and flexibility. So good question. So we had a message come in from Chris. That last question was from Esther Sterry, and Chris's question says, Hi guys, I'm new to your podcast and love what I'm listening to you. My stories are not that different than most. I have been flirting with fasting on and off for a couple of years now.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Just need a little more encouragement to sticking to it. Yeah. Amen. However, it's kind of funny. I fast in my late teens, not by choice, just forgot, like in a busy mom with five brothers juggling businesses. And I didn't know I was fasting. Right? Sure said he moved around a lot. Dad was in the military. His grandfather passed away from diabetes.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we hear that so often. And that was part of my motivation, my time to make a change. Right, and get my dad to reverse his diabetes and get off 15 medications. Right. And off insulin. Yeah. So sorry that you do experience that, but it's all too common. Chris, I appreciate you sharing that. And then he said he's 26 overweight.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, it was a healthy weight back in his late teens. Right. And he wants to be able to tap into, you know, taking care of his kids and grandkids. Right. Like talk about like a lifelong plan. But here's the question. So trying to talk to my dad about this stuff is hard because he won't listen to the podcast.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I get it. My dad calls all of our coaching lives and our challenges and all that. He calls them podcast and no, they're podcast. This is a.

[Tommy Welling]
Great, great podcast.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Guys. Great podcast. Anyway, old dog, new tricks, but he might read. Do you guys have a book that he might read or an episode like 138 where you have study results that he at least might look at? So we just had a recent episode come out that maybe you can grab the transcript too and he might read it where we talk about the top eight causes of disease or eight out of the top ten are linked to diabetes or excuse me, not disease, death.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Okay. Yeah, mortality rates. And then the medication is associated with that. Some are a good place, but really it started from my journey. Tommy was was reading Dr. Fong's book, The Obesity Code. But you could either recommend the obesity code or the diabetes code, which would be a great place to start if you won't listen to our incredible podcast ideas, right?

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. The obesity code. That's where things were were kind of laid out for me. And they started to make sense. I started to open my eyes to the possibilities that, wait a minute, wait a minute. There are real reasons why things seem to be kind of broken within the systems that we're using to fix these things that are broken.

[Tommy Welling]
So I would definitely start there too, for sure.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yep. Yep. All right, cool. Thank you, Chris, for sharing your story. Keep up the good work. And yeah, if you need anything from us, please let us know. We are glad you have made it to the Fasting for Life podcast and the Fasting for Life Family. So you've taken the first step.

[Tommy Welling]
Scott Yeah, but did he also say like, how do I get more consistent with my fasting? I've been flirting with my fasting too.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, he said a little bit more encouragement to stick to it.

[Tommy Welling]
So I wonder if it's the fact that Dad's not really on board. Like, is that is that pulling you back towards the other side? Like keeping you like one foot in, one foot out because you have this this hesitation right there, almost like we see with with spouses sometimes that could be mentally kind of holding you back a little bit.

[Tommy Welling]
So but I'm going to say this, I'm taking a liberty here, but don't don't feel like you have to convince your dad that this is the right thing for him in order for you to do it and to stick with it, to right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, that's a great point. One of my mentors, as I was coming up through the health professions, he always said it's not your responsibility to fix your friends and family. It's somebody else's. Like you're always going to be little Scotty or little Johnny.

[Tommy Welling]
Your.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Baby Suzy. You're like, you know, you're always going to have that a childhood reverence in their eyes, right? So even as a professional, by the good Lord above my dad, like he he listened in hook, line and sinker, he jumped in and £60. And, you know, now we've got dozens and hundreds of testimonies of other people reversing their diabetes and coming off medication.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So, yeah, I'm just glad that he chose and it wasn't me. He had to make the choice.

[Tommy Welling]
You couldn't have made him.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, no, there was no way. Like, I'm wired the same way, so trying to make me do something. Yeah, that's what my son and I are going to do. Yeah. As is just like me. So great point about. That's why the first two rules of fasting are don't talk about fasting and don't talk about fasting until you get comfortable at a level with results where people look at you and go subconsciously, Oh, okay.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Well, what he's doing is working, so maybe I'll give it a listen. And I think that might have been part of what my dad saw on me too. So lead by example. Right. So great point there, Tommy. All right.

[Tommy Welling]
You keep keep doing it. Keep sticking with it. Your results will speak to him. Yep.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yep. 400%. Yep. Your results might be the motivating factor that he needs. You can't tell him. You just have to. You have to live your life for you and for your why and hopefully it'll translate over to him. So good stuff there. Couple of just basic, simple questions. We had a question come in from Jennifer looking to get away from stevia and some of the other artificial sweeteners.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
He was looking for a monk fruit sweetener recommendation. Okay. So, you know, in baking and during your eating windows, conto has a great monk fruit. They're like the big player in the monk fruit world.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Game La Conto. And then another one that we've used in our and stuff like that is Swerve. I know that's not Monk Fruit, but that's another one. If you're doing like healthy making swaps, right, and not getting away from the store, bought cupcakes and making your own homemade Cheeto cupcakes with frosting. These are desserts, too. To live life and not restrict on your way into being overweight and depressed and unhappy with, you know, your health and your metrics and everything you can.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You can live this turn this into lifestyle by swapping things. Yeah. And that's where Monk Fruit and those types of sweeteners come into play. So the content.

[Tommy Welling]
Helps to get some of those cravings under control too, you know, right. As things are balancing that can be.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, because it's a much better decision, right, when you make it at home or use those things than the alternative.

[Tommy Welling]
So yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Easy straightforward questionnaire. So another question this was cool will do the easy 1/1. So sugar free gum candy stuff for breath. Right. So as you're drinking more black coffee or transitioning into Quito and you have Quito breath, right, like you could literally peel with mine back in the beginning, you could peel paint off a wall. Right? It was like, what is happening Quito breath that weird mouth feel.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So she was saying on your tongue. Yeah, right. This question came in a couple of times. This most recent one is from Sarah. What about the spike? It should a sugar free gum. Can I chew gum? Does that start the the phallic phase? Is that going to spike my insulin? So the easiest thing that I do and this is what I use personally is an essential oil breath spray.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So now a lot of the times I forget to buy the spray or I can't find the little spray bottle because my kids have taken it. So I just use an essential, not a body spray that is not ingestible, but like an essential oil spray that has a nutrition label on it, which means it's able to be ingested.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I will keep a peppermint. My favorite is wintergreen and spearmint and I will just fill my head back as I just talk away from the microphone once and drop one drop of peppermint oil under your tongue and you will get that wasabi face draining, like, oh, kind of like, all right, I'm awake smelling salt type effect and then boom, your breath ahead.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Your breath is good to go. So that is my go to when I need something. So my kids don't tell me that my breath stinks.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I like that one too. I use it as a mental reminder that I probably need to go grab some water, maybe some minerals, too, you know? Yeah, it's not really going to fix the problem, but it is going to like I feel it more the less hydrated I am. Like the longer it's been since since I've sipped on some water, the more I'm going to feel that.

[Tommy Welling]
So I use it kind of as a cue.

[Dr. Scott Watier]

[Tommy Welling]
Oh, okay.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And this is this speaks a little bit to the Weekend Warrior. I felt a little weekend warrior vibe there, like and she's a teacher. So Mondays probably are crazy, right? Sure. I can't imagine. Like, the floodgates opening on a monday with a class of 20 or 30. However many kids are in class. Right. My mom was a teacher for years and God bless you all because that takes a special type of person and you deserve to be much more well-compensated than you are.

[Tommy Welling]
Absolutely.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But seeing my mom go through the years, too, so I get it. So I would say me this is an interesting kind of thought process here of really just committing to the schedule that you want to do is the most important thing, regardless of what day ends and why, it doesn't really matter.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. Yeah. Like it works.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
For your lifestyle.

[Tommy Welling]
Long term. Yeah. Yeah. Because we don't have to match it up. Like I know a lot of folks will get maybe those weekly or monthly calendars and like put them in their house and go like, okay, I'm fasting this day. I'm passing that day because I want to drop a few pounds or I want to practice this fasting thing.

[Tommy Welling]
Right? But just because those calendars sometimes start with with Monday, sometimes we'll start with Sunday, too. It doesn't matter. You construct it the way you need to. And I love the idea of of kind of gathering your bearings, kind of like focusing your week on a Sunday. A lot of times that may be a slowdown, stress free or less stress kind of like maybe I have boundaries, things just kind of slow down.

[Tommy Welling]
Maybe it's time for reflection, maybe time for prayer, maybe time for cleaning, whatever it may be. That can be a great time to go. Okay, well, whatever I wanted to accomplish this week with my fasting, let it start today. And then rather than starting tomorrow, like, I'm going to get back on my diet on Monday. Like, I don't know how many times I've thought and said that over the years when I was trying to lose the weight.

[Tommy Welling]
Right. So it can actually be good to to break from that mentality. So I feel like this is a really cool idea and a good way to do it.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
One of my favorite days to do an extended fast is from like a Saturday night in through Sunday into Monday or early Sunday. Let's say we do. You know, we make something at home with the kids for Sunday morning before we head out to church. It's like, all right, well, let's yeah, yeah. But then I'm going to fast because I want my body and I want my my focus.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
I want my my extra energy, my euphoria. I want that to fuel me through Monday and Tuesday because I like to frontload my week with work. So I love that beginning on Sunday, putting on the tension. Yeah, putting the intention for the week. So you just have to really play around with it and see what works for you.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But I love that question from Sarah as well. Okay. Couple more here have come in from Katherine. And we've talked about this a few times, but it's been a while. And it's I've been feeling under the weather these past few days, I'm not sure if it's just allergies or, you know, something from kids going back to school or just the down stress.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
As high sleep is off, you run into target to get a backpack last minute or you forgot the not matter. Oh, my God. Where's the lunchbox? I don't know. It's out in the sandbox somewhere. Right? Buried it in castles. Right. So. And then the spouse in the situation was like, no, you need to eat, you need to break your fast.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You eat three meals a day while feeling run down and there's a conversation here that I think needs to happen. But the husband's correct or the spouse is correct in saying that fasting is a short term stress on your body and you don't need the extra stress if you're sick. Sure. And we have, you know, both sides of the aisle, most people that we talk to inside of our sphere.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And myself personally, I prefer not to eat when I am not feeling well. It doesn't matter if it's a head cold or flu. I just am not hungry. And that's how I'm wired. My son is the exact same way he came home from daycare the other day and I'm like, Man, you didn't eat your lunch. And that night started Red Flag.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It was he wasn't himself. And I'm like, oh, there it is. Right. Little cold or cough, nothing serious. Everything's fine. But he's normally breakfast, lunch, and then he's not a really big dinner guy. So if I wouldn't have looked and we would have gone in to dinner and he not ate, I wouldn't have realized it. Yeah. So, like, he's not feeling well.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
He is barely in a whole meal. We're keeping him hydrated. Coconut water, the green juice. He lets us know when he's hungry now because he's three and a half years old. Right. So, yeah, he's the same way I am. Like, I feel better and I feel way less sick less often when I'm consistently fasting. But it's a personal choice.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And typically when you break your fast, you don't really feel any better.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, right. I would second everything that you just said. I feel the same way since getting the weight off and being consistent with my fasting. It's hard to remember the last time I really felt under the weather. Yeah, it used to be, you know, pretty. Pretty much like once or twice a quarter was kind of me.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It was like every 6 to 8 weeks it was like boom, boom, boom, boom. And I'm like, man, my goodness.

[Tommy Welling]
Right. Yeah. So I would say for me, my my first priority is kind of like if I wanted to drop, let's say £10 and you know, I'm using fasting and things are going well now. I'm feeling under the weather. Let's not be hyper focused on on that weight loss goal right now. Let's like right, like let's get better.

[Tommy Welling]
Let's take care of my body. In your body. That's yeah. That's the long term. That's the long game here. Okay. Right. So, so then I'm not going to be worried about my fasting or am I not fasting? Like, if I'm not feeling well, I'm not going to set my fasting timer. You know what I mean? Let me just not worry about fasting time, okay?

[Tommy Welling]
Let me let me get some rest and hydration here. But then to your point, I'm probably not going to feel like eating much either, but I'm going to be okay if I want to like nibble on something. If I if I have a sour stomach or I feel like, hey, if I brought in some bone broth or something, maybe I'll feel a little bit better then let me do that.

[Tommy Welling]
And I don't have to worry about oh, I just broke my fast and I was fasting and then the mental the mental nonsense and gymnastics too, while I'm just trying to to heal and feel better.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Bros mean he's right. The spouse here is right. It is a short term stress. But I've just found in a lot of people we hear from that you get better and there's research on immune function, right? With fasting when you get longer, fast. So don't focus on the fast focus on getting better. The bone broth is actually a cool way to merge.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Reality's here and be like, Oh, honey, yeah, I understand you're concerned. I don't feel great and my stomach doesn't feel great, so I'm just going to sip on some bone broth, get some calories, and, you know, there's all that nutrition in there, right, that you'll get as well. And super fast. Yeah, because fasting is powerful as well. It's not what we do or our area of expertize.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But yeah, you know, broth, fasting is something that's out there and there are benefits to to bone broth, right. So yeah, that might be the kind of meeting in the middle, right. To take some of the pressure off. The only time I personally I've broken my fast when I'm not feeling well intentionally is when you get, like you said, that sour stomach where you just say.

[Tommy Welling]
Oh.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But then I don't really want to eat anything. So I typically go to broth anyway. So here we are again, right? Bone broth, multiple, multiple reasons or multiple things that that could be, you know, a good thing in that moment to really to really help you get better and also merge those realities.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I know my parents and grandparents used to always say like, oh, get some something bubbly. And then oftentimes they would go to like Sprite, which I. Ginger yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Ginger ale and toast and toast.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. It was like sprite and.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Toast and salt since that's what it was.

[Tommy Welling]
Yep. Saltine crackers.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's the last thing I want to eat when I don't feel well as a dry cracker. What the heck?

[Tommy Welling]
That makes me feel sick. Yeah, just.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Thinking. Maybe the science behind it, I don't know. But like, yeah, it feels like my big fat Greek wedding, where it's like, oh, Windex, right? Yeah. What are we doing it for? Everything. Yeah.

[Tommy Welling]
Right. So. So these days, I would not go for that same sprite or that ginger ale. I would grab a Waterloo or, you know, a Pellegrino or something. That's real water. Yeah. Yeah. Something. Something that could be bubbly, but it doesn't have to have, you know, a bunch of junk in it, too. Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
One thing I struggle with and I'm not feeling well is drinking my water as well. Like, I don't want to drink the amount of water that I typically do when I can't breathe or my head's congested or my stomach's a little off. Right? So really make sure that you're keeping an eye on your hydration, but you can also just do that by decreasing the water, by increasing those those electrolytes in those minerals and broth.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Does it all for you again. So bone broth again. Here we are. Cool, right? Okay. So, Tommy, one last question. I think you're right. Yep. Came in from Stephanie.

[Tommy Welling]
So, yes, Stephanie asked about the perspective about not getting it all right all the time. And we we had a previous episode come out about the 8020 rule. So it was it was regarding that kind of conversation like, hey, I'm really trying to focus on getting it right 80% of the time, but my schedule doesn't allow me to like to necessarily hit my plans.

[Tommy Welling]
There's a lot of moving parts and sometimes you know, I may not hit my 28 hour fast that I that I set my goal for, but if I move that by a couple of hours in, my next my next class ends up being those 2 hours longer, you know, like it it works out and I'm essentially meeting the intention of my original goal, but my fasting app is now stamping it with like a you lose.

[Tommy Welling]
Oh yeah you didn't get it you failed to you to achieve that last goal. So what do I do about it? Should I do something to adjust the behavior? Is there something to look out for on the other side of that? Like, am I setting myself up for some other sort of like, you know, failure on the on the back end of that?

[Tommy Welling]
So I think coming off of that 8020 conversation, it's a good empowering thing to realize that a lot of us have some of those perfectionist kind of tendencies, especially if we've been on a diet roller coaster for a long period of time. We get used to tracking things and getting on or off, and I'll start again on Monday.

[Tommy Welling]
There's a lot of those things that self reinforce a lot of those perfectionist tendencies. So we tend to give ourselves like the stamp of disapproval sometimes or not let ourselves book a win when really we should. So she's trying not to cheat herself, trying not to set herself up for failure and I feel like there's some some good perspective that we can we can lend and and be helpful on, too, because I've been through it myself to have you.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, 100%. So first of all, in the zero app change the goal. Yeah, you hit your goal so we don't have to think about it down to the minutia. Zoom out a little bit, right. Yeah. She even says, you know, so if I do that, then the app tells me I failed and then my monkey brain takes over and then I'm like, Oh, I screwed up anyway, so why even bother right now?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Sure. We want the app. Yeah, we want the opposite of that. Right. So the mindset shift would be my intention was to fast today and I'm going to hit my fasting targets out of 30 days. If I missed six days, I still had 80%. Yeah. So if you fasted at that day and you ate with intention making intentional choices during your nutrition window and you drank water with electrolytes every day, and you did that for 30 days and you hit 80%, your life would drastically change, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we need to get ourselves out of the way. So simple, simple, simple, simple. Yes, we can talk about the minutia, we talk about the mask. We can talk about the specificity. Right. Engineers, architects, surgeons, all the stuff. We're nurses where things matter. Right. Like the the detail. I know. Yeah. Building a bridge. You should probably make sure the numbers are right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So we get that. But in the sustainability piece of the comfort level of the confidence level, we want to frame it as Yeah, intentionally set fasted today, put some thought into what I was going to eat right maybe a swap or two less processed better choices of carbs planning ahead for for those life events. Right those pivots of those shifts and and really just hitting your water tight and boom like you've got you've got a great recipe for success.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But I love.

[Tommy Welling]
How powerful, where.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
That question came from. Yeah. And in terms of can't get on my own way, right.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. I love that she realized that she was she was potentially getting in her own way right here because that's an important piece of perspective to a lot of times we don't we don't notice it or it takes us a long time to actually notice it. But, you know, if you're at the office and then all of a sudden, you know, it's Tuesday and I was I was going to be fasting today until dinner and then they're calling in four for Taco Tuesday and you change the plan.

[Tommy Welling]
I wouldn't go back into my app and change that like I wanted to do lunch. No, you wanted to do dinner, right. So I think that's what she didn't want to cross that line right there. So I think that's that's an important distinction. But at the same time, if my plan was lunch and it went to an early dinner because I didn't get out of the office until a.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Little bit, you get stuck in traffic or something.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, yeah, that's great. Go back in there, change it, book it as a win. Yes, tomorrow's fast. Might be a little bit shorter because of that. And that's completely okay to go ahead and change that in the app, too, because that's just real life. And you you got the win. You deserve to see it. When you go back and look at the the reflection of your your performance, you know.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So Taco Tuesday would turn into take home Taco Tuesday.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Wrap the tacos up. Bring them home with you. Somebody brings in cookies. Don't eat three now put them in your window. That discipline to delay that gratification. My goodness, I'm trying to teach my kids that because I didn't learn it until later in life. So that was a powerful tool. Powerful, powerful tool. So just a really cool question, really cool construct.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I misspoke. We had one more question that came through. Tommy, as we wrap up. Today's episode was we get this question all the time, you know, what is a challenge and why would I do it? Or the second part of that would be what is coaching and how do I get more information on that? Okay, so coaching is access through coming through a challenge.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And the reason we do it that way is very intentional because you listen to the podcast, you may be new to fasting, you may have some fasting reps, but you don't know how we operate or how we coach or what the environment even feels like. So during a challenge, we bring you into the VIP coaching group that we have on Facebook, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
We bring you in and the challenge actually takes place in the group and you get the experience. So it's almost like, all right, here's a challenge and then we'll talk about why you would do a challenge, right? And give you some things that maybe it's the right time for you, maybe it's the right fit and kind of the thought process.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And what our challenge is designed to do. But the coaching is that. All right, well, I've been through a challenge. Now I know what to expect. Heck, yeah. It's like, Oh, I get to get in the hot tub and I don't have to get out. I can stay. And then you have an opportunity to continue on coaching. So you get the experience to see if it is the right fit.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And for a lot of people, you know, challenges can be a powerful tool regardless of coaching, just a powerful tool to to get some of the things that are missing in this fasting lifestyle journey.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, sometimes it's it's just a few little pieces here or there question marks that make us hesitate to take the next step and that can keep us self-limited. That, that can keep our results from from being what we're we're looking to actually achieve there. So the challenge is a cool way to to kind of push outside of your current comfort zone.

[Tommy Welling]
That's why the name challenges that that's where the whole thing came from because we wanted to be able to provide an environment where you can get the questions answered at the right time and push yourself outside of the comfort zone and get the perspective that you need. Because when, when you get a little bit different angle, a little different explanation of something, it can hit you a different way from whenever you were at a different stage in your fasting journey.

[Tommy Welling]
And that can be the important part to, you know, get to the next level, see something new. And we see some some incredible breakthroughs, not only on the scale but off the scale, non scale victories. You know, during the challenge.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fasting is simple, but sometimes it's not easy, right? We wouldn't have solutions of thousands of conversations and questions and things that we continue, like fasting is simple. How do we have this much to talk about? Fasting, right. All right. Like, how is this possible? Right. So the challenges are really a great way to experience a systemic like a plan, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So when you start a diet, you have a plan, but it's hard to stick to the plan. So a challenge is like you are launching out of, you know, the old, you know, when you go to the they have circuses anymore I don't know if the guy in the can a.

[Tommy Welling]
Catapult.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
The cannon. Yeah like you are launched out and you get the results through the challenge and really the biggest aha. And takeaway of a challenge that we want you all to experience is I can see fasting as being my lifelong solution to my weight and health problems like this is the vehicle that's going to get me there. Finally, it's not the low and slow caloric deficit.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's not the eat less, move more, it's not the elliptical at 5 a.m. every day when I'm going to start my 12 week boot camp. It's not now the lifestyle component that you can see yourself driving the Ferrari of the lifestyle of fasting rather than the whoop de that keeps breaking down because the maintenance isn't up, kept on is just old and rot it out right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like right. The idea of a challenge is break through a plateau, get some questions answered, start your fasting journey. Right? Like I don't know where to start. Great. The challenge is a great place to start. Be able to test out some of those features of the Ferrari, of the fasting lifestyle. It's just incredible to see as we go through the challenge.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like every group's a little bit different. It's a heck of a lot of fun and then you have an opportunity to continue coaching. So any final thoughts? Yeah, Tommy, as we wrap up today's episode and then that last question.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I think the only thing I would add, because I was that was great is just the consistency of a live environment that every single day during. Yeah, that's a powerful thing.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
As my dad would say, it's a podcast to go live in the group single day, right? Yeah.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. It's that and it's being in the group of, of coaching members, coaching clients who are actually everyone's rowing in the same direction at the same time. That is a powerful, powerful force right there. So, so it's it's the mixture of all of those factors right there.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yep. And the next challenge is coming up at the end of this month. So keep a lookout for that. Registration will open about ten days prior. The next challenge starts on October 26. So you are hopefully listening to this episode at the perfect time. You've got a few more episodes listen to. You can go back and hear about our story.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You can search the questions and answers. You can go to the website, download the Fast Start Guide, which helps you put one meal a day fasting into your day to day life. You can go to the Facebook community group that we have on Facebook, which is a group of like minded individuals, were in there answering questions and getting encouragement and really honing in this fasting skill on how to turn into a weight loss strategy, but more importantly, a healthy lifestyle.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So Tommy, as we wrap up today's episode challenge coming up at the end of this month, we got tons of work to do, a lot more questions to answer in the future. So we appreciate all of you guys listening. Yep. Head to the Facebook group, the show notes. To find the Facebook group. You head to the website, the fasting for life dot com.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we will see you guys in the next episode. We'll talk soon.

[Tommy Welling]
Cool. 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.