Ep. 150 - Tenets for a Successful Fasting Lifestyle | Factors that Significantly Impact your Blood Sugar | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD

In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss the tenets of a fasting lifestyle, balancing your blood sugar and factors that significantly impact it, and hunger vs dehydration vs boredom.

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Fasting For Life Ep. 150 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 is Dr. Scott Water and I'm here as always. I'm a 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. Excited about today's conversation. This is. I cannot believe that I get to say these words. This is episode 150, my friend. I cannot believe. Don't worry. We'll do this for too long. But I want to celebrate this for just a few seconds. Because as we were prepping to roll out these podcast episodes throughout the last quarter of this year and into the holidays, and you know, we just had an incredible amount of growth and feedback and just incredible challenges last fall.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So as we were gearing up and I was like, All right, yeah, we're going to record the next batch of podcast and I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. We're at 150. So it feels like and you're like, That's once a year. And I'm like, What? It's crazy. So I had no idea we'd end up here. I don't know about you, but if you're new and you want to learn more about Tommy and I, you can head back and listen to the first couple of episodes.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Episode zero in episode one, give you a little bit insight into why we started this podcast, and now we're here 150 episodes later. Man, it's crazy.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, because I was like, Wow, I remember when we recorded Episode 100 and it's just like a really, really good like, go back there and check it out. Like, you know, if you're, if you're new or you need a reset or something else like that and then it was like, okay, we're, we're 50 more like, that's only going to happen once a year, this crazy, right?

[Tommy Welling]
You know, like all the cool conversations that we've had and it just it just continues to grow. And we continue to learn and get feedback. And it's just a really, really cool process. So everyone who's who's here, who's been listening, thank you for listening. And if you knew, there's just so much to go back and actually listen to.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's really cool. Yeah. So we want to give you a starting point today, just like you reference episode 100, which was, you know, we did a wall of fame, we did shared a bunch of the best testimonials and wins that people have sent us over the weeks, two months, two years. Now and then we highlighted some of the most downloaded, most impactful podcast episodes that we had recorded out of the top 100.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, we've done a lot about metabolic health and disease reversal and weight loss, and we always want to give you one thing that you can take away from an episode and go and just like you heard in the podcast Open, if you listen to that catchy music, which I still love, by the way, good. Because it's ours, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But I always love listening to the open, right. That that bed of music is just so catchy. We have it. And I just listen to it on loop sometimes, but we want to give you something actionable. We want to give you something that you can take and put into your entire day to day. So today's conversation is going to be an overview of the tenets of a fasting for life lifestyle.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we were going to put a number on it, like the ten tenants, right? And then I'm like, Whoa, we wrote out a list. We were like, Wait, this one pairs with this one and this one kind of is similar to this one. So we're going to break it down into a couple of categories today. But this is going to be a great starting place if you are new to the podcast or new the fasting lifestyle.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And if you need some motivation and don't know where to get started, go back and listen. Episode 100 after this. And then a lot of people like to just start at the beginning. So we're very grateful for you long term listeners, as you mentioned as well time. So thank you for continuing to be on this journey. So the tenants for a successful fasting lifestyle because when we first started this I don't know about you time but for me I tried everything else and I was like, I just need to get the weight off.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And as I was diving in to Dr. Fong's books and the research and schedules and how to fast and how long can I do this, can I do that, etc., etc. What's allowed, what's not? I just remember being like, Yeah, I don't know this. I've done some fasting with, with keto. Like I couldn't keep it off, you know, at this point I had finally identified that it was insulin resistance, hormone levels were out of whack and my lab work was starting to show it in my mid thirties.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So it was just kind of like all right, well this makes sense to me, so let's do it. Yeah, but what does that look like as a lifestyle? Because losing the weight as quickly as I did really didn't matter if you couldn't maintain those results and make it a lifestyle. And that's kind of where our messaging has shifted over the weeks to months to years now.

[Tommy Welling]
Sure, yeah. When I first stumbled upon fasting, similar to you, it was out of a point of frustration and desperation, but I wouldn't have identified with the word lifestyle at that point. I wasn't looking at this as a lifestyle tool. I was looking at it as a tool in my tool belt to hopefully finally, once and for all, actually get the weight off, which I hadn't been able to do, you know.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But I couldn't live without doing all the stuff that failed previously. Like, I don't want to do that stuff anymore.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, not again. It's not working. That's the definition of insanity, right? Why should I be doing that? But. But I couldn't have seen past the, like, £74 and going past that to actually keep it off long term, that that would have been that would have been really tough to see as a lifestyle. But now, looking back over a couple of years and with perspective, you can see that in order to maintain that, you're going to have to adopt some things for the long term, not just the tools that I need to get the weight off, but I'm going to have to adjust this to sustainability for a long term.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, and that's really the sustainability piece is where we've shifted our focus to the metabolic health, reversing diabetes, not becoming you know, we did a bunch of podcasts recently, kind of a little mini series on metabolic health and why fasting is so important and why getting the weight off matters and all of the failed attempts and the misinformation and the stuff that's just out there that isn't working for the majority of people.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I want to start off today's conversation with really focusing on the, you know, a few factors, four or five factors that significantly impact your blood sugar. And then why we're starting there is blood sugar. Balancing your blood sugar, bringing down your insulin is going to allow you to not have cravings to be able to listen to your body intuitively, be able to know what hunger is versus dehydration versus audience boredom.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Yeah. Why are you you're going too fast. Why would you starve yourself right. That seems ridiculous. I can't go 3 hours without eating. Okay. Well, okay. Is that good? Really? So I didn't work for me to stop that metabolism. So we want to we want to focus on a few of those factors to begin with. And then sprinkled in throughout today's conversation, we're also going to give you a handful of tips to make the fasting journey easier and things you can look at if you're new to fasting, if you've been stuck, if the results aren't what you think you should be getting, or if you've been fasting and you got away from it, and

[Dr. Scott Watier]
it's time to kind of almost do a reset and really use this as a starting point to set yourself up for the the most successful end of a year that you could imagine because we're in the holidays. It's here, right? Halloweens past Turkey and gravy is right around the corner and smell. Yeah, it's coming. Here we go. Right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then we have Christmas and New Year's and then boom, here we are, 2022 is in the books. So I know we've done multiple episodes about goals and new resolutions and all that kind of stuff, but let's not wait because waiting is just it's silly. Let's start now and how we're going to set this end of the.

[Tommy Welling]
Year up.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
To be the most successful possible. And we have that last, final challenge coming up. Beginning of December, Tommy, which was our biggest challenge yet. And that's because people are looking at the calendar going, Oh, Halloween and Thanksgiving got me got to do something. And that's okay. Yes. That's your starting point. But we want to give you some things to look at as you expand that out over the weeks, the months to turn fasting into the lifestyle that truly gets the results that you're looking for.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Never mind just on the scale, but in your overall health and quality of life.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. And sometimes this conversation starts with with a question that we hear often, which is like, how do I fast the right way? Right. Like I'm putting quotations around. Right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
I really hope there's not a right and wrong way. Right?

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. I mean, it's it's kind of a loaded question where, you know, there's kind of an assumption there that I might be doing this very wrongly or I may be doing this perfectly. But either way, it's tough to see that there's that there's a wide range of of ways to fast that work. Well, there's water fasting and there's broth fasting and there's dry fasting and there's shorter, fast and intermittent and extended and alternate day and and all these other terms.

[Tommy Welling]
But the point of the matter is that especially in the beginning, but at any point you can you can kind of doubt what what you're doing. And the trouble with doubt is that it can it can make me less convicted about going forward, and I can lose focus sometimes or it can make me feel like, oh, if the scale stops moving for a couple of days or maybe even a couple of weeks, what I'm doing might not be working and maybe I'm tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

[Tommy Welling]
And and that's the exact opposite of of adopting a sustainable, long term lifestyle right there. So we definitely want to avoid that.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yep, 100%. So let's start with some of the basics. So energy sources in the body, we've got glucose and we've got ketones, right? And then you have glycogen, which is the stored form of glucose. So your body ingest energy, breaks down that food into energy and then it's either burned or stored, right? So when you have glucose, it is in its active form floating around in the bloodstream.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Glycogen is stored the type of sugar that is stored in your muscles or your liver. So when we're looking at stabilizing blood sugar, the starting point in the first few things we're going to talk about here is what are the four main levers that are going to affect those blood sugar numbers and why it matters most importantly? So if your blood sugar is all over the map and you're getting these higher readings, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So one of the things that really smacked me in the face when I when I did my I did two, two week trials of a CGM, a constant glucose monitor. Okay. And I was doing, you know, I was doing some testing with Quito Mojo. And if you don't know what that is, we've got episodes on and testing my blood sugars and my fasting numbers and doing some sensitivity testing and testing before meals and after meals.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
What I didn't realize when I first started was, you know, per the American Diabetes Association, anything below 140 post-meal is normal, but you really don't want to see more than a 30 milligram change in your blood sugar before and after meals. So if it's 100 before meal and it's 130 after, you're okay. But what will happen is this is why the standard medical tests that we have when you're looking at, you know, routine bloodwork, it's just a tiny little snapshot.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's it's not showing you exactly what is happening. Let's say if you do a blood test and you do the fasting protocol that you're supposed to do 8 hours and then you go get your blood work in the morning. Yeah, maybe elevated, indicating a pre-diabetes or diabetes level. But what's it doing the rest of the time? What's it doing the rest of the day?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
What foods are altering it and that what happens and is the more volatile your blood sugar levels are or the higher they go, it can lead to insulin resistance, which is what we talk a ton about. And that was my problem. The hormone that hormone insulin helps shuttle glucose into the cells for energy. Right. But right if you develop resistance to it, then you're going to get low levels of chronic inflammation, oxidative stress.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're going to these are things that are going to lead to all of the host of metabolic conditions that are related to blood sugars. Eight out of the top ten reasons why people die in the United States is related to insulin in some way. So we want to help balance out those blood sugar levels and get insulin down to reduce that resistance.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And I already alluded to one of the main levers in this intro here, which is your diet, the foods that you eat and those swings that you see aren't the same for everybody.

[Tommy Welling]
Wow. Yeah. And they're not the same for each type of food that you could be putting on your plate to break your fast either. And they're also not the same responding to each different fast that you might be doing as well. So as we get more consistency with our fasting, we see a better control of those blood sugar numbers.

[Tommy Welling]
But to know that you're staying within a certain range whenever you are eating certain foods can be really helpful. That's why I like monitoring what those numbers are can be very helpful, but also actually pairing those up with consistent fast can be part of part of the the beginner's kind of struggle also, which is like, okay, I'm not sure how to like how to do these fast.

[Tommy Welling]
I'm also not sure if they're the right fast to be doing. But then how am I responding afterwards to when I'm breaking those fast? Right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So yeah, what food you're putting on your plate and what choices you're making, absolutely play a part of it. So it's interesting. There was this one say I was saying like everybody's a little bit different where my wife and I, she consumes she's lean, has zero visceral fat. She's an incredible shape. She works really hard at it. And she can have a lot more carbohydrates than I can.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Metabolically speaking. So there's an example of a study of 800 participants, and they looked at the postprandial glucose readings, right? So after you ate when people ate bread and there were 795 people that range all the way from 44, the blood sugar change. Right. So we want to see that 30 that 30 marker right as average. Okay. They saw the majority of those people change 44 milligrams, but the bottom 10% was only 15.

[Tommy Welling]
Okay.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Wow. So, okay, there's me and my wife, right? I sniff a carbohydrate, I get tired. Insulin spikes at me more, thankfully. But then she can have a couple hundred grams of carbs a day and her body is just optimized to to use them and not allow that insulin resistance to build. Yeah. So when you're looking at this from a tenants of a fasting lifestyle, keeping it lower in carbohydrates is extremely helpful to the beginner, making sure you're getting a good amount of fiber, right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And things like focusing on, like we say, protein and fat, because then you're going to be releasing things like polycystic heinen and satiety hormones that are going to allow your blood sugar to stay buffered and blunted so it's not spiking as high and you're going to stay more hungry. And the biggest thing is really just keeping your plate whole food based, not the refined, processed stuff.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
What we've done episode and had conversations on in the past.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I think it's important to mention the fact that as you, you know, start the metabolic healing process, as you start getting the weight off, as you start reversing these things that we're talking about, understanding that if you did use carbohydrate restriction to make sure that you were keeping those those blood sugar numbers, you know, within within the the right range that you wanted, you don't necessarily have to continue to to just limit all of those carbohydrates for life.

[Tommy Welling]
Right. Like like we're talking about lifestyle tenets here, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Zooming out to the big picture, absolute lutely. And that's one of the tips, too, is making sure that when you do have opportunities to eat and we just saw a post about this in the community group recently, but somebody was like, What? Nomad one meal a day. Be counterintuitive to making sure that you're getting enough nutrients in your diet and enough nutrition.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So one of the things that goes along. Yes, diet is one of the I mean, like that word, nutrition is one of the major. What you're putting on your plate and then ultimately in your mouth is one of the major blood glucose levers. Right. But prioritizing those, if you're on a fat loss phase and your fasting doing longer, more extended, fast, doing 20, 22 hour, 24 hour sprinkling in those 36, 48 hour fast, you're going to want to make sure that you're prioritizing that nutrition and what you're putting on your plate when you have the opportunity to do so.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Because that's that's going to matter a whole lot. And then and then what's coming in those micronutrients, that's going to matter a lot. That's also going to help regulate things like the hormonal balances that we talked about and also electrolytes, too, which is going to be important part of the process, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So micronutrients would be like the four. It would be like, I don't know, outside looking in of the top four, right micronutrients would be another major contributor to the to the glucose levels, right. So for sure, absolutely. The micronutrients, the things that you need in smaller amounts. Right. And really that's why I just now include a full spectrum, more of like a therapeutic salt, like a red beans or a Himalayan salt or a concentrates trace mineral to making making sure that I'm getting those smaller micronutrient categories taking care of.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And if you're eating Whole Foods right, the things that actually grow from the ground, then you're going to be getting as much as you possibly can from those nutrition opportunities. And we'll mention a couple of supplements or vitamins here. You know, later on in the conversation, that'd be a good place to start if you feel like you are deficient or not getting good nutrition in during those eating opportunities.

[Tommy Welling]
Okay, cool. And then so, you know, what do you want to talk about next exercise?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, you're actually I mean, we're we're going to go through exercise, stress and sleep. Yeah. Exercise is man, it's such a there's so many. How do I put this? There's so many different ways to get movement in that, you know, the boot camp for me doesn't work, right? If you tell me to go walk in, like chill out 30 minutes a day or like three or four times a week, post my meals.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I'm in heaven. Just give me outside. Leave me alone, AirPods in and I'm out. See?

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. The cool thing about that is that all the research that, that we've, we've gone through some of the studies in the past, they, they show that, you know, doing something like 30 minutes after you eat, actually going on that walk has a huge effect on what the blood sugar is actually doing. So when you're talking about keeping it within that that 30 point difference between pre meal to post meal, that's going to go a huge way, especially if you're doing something like like concentrating on dinner's like whether that's one meal a day dinners or let's say a lot of people do like a 12 p.m. to six or 8 p.m. for, for an eating

[Tommy Welling]
window, you know, that kind of thing going, going for those post-meal walks is like it was really counterintuitive for me coming into fasting because I had been always like very, very gung ho that if I was at the gym lifting very heavy weights, doing just a whole lot of exercise, then my diet was on point. But if I wasn't doing one of those two things, the other one was was tossed out.

[Tommy Welling]
They went hand in hand, but they they weren't individually like recognized by me as important things. So the fact that we know that we can move the needle here and we don't have to just be doing a 60 minute spin class, you know, five times a week or something. And that might actually be that might actually hurt. Our results, especially in the beginning, can be a little bit more than what we what we should be doing.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And we see this a lot when. Well yeah, I'm doing all these things I'm doing the fast but the scale still not budging. Okay, well, that's why we're gonna talk about sleep and stress, but what is your exercise routine? Well, I work out five or six days a week, you know, 30 to 60 minutes. It's like, okay, so moderate exercise, moderate heart rate increase hours after eating is going to help.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's why we say just go for a walk. It's been shown to have a 30% reduction. Right. So figuring out one of the tips here is, yes, exercise is one of the big movers when it comes to blood sugar. But it's also one of the things that we need to be smart with. We can't just go willy nilly, right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
We don't want you to stop exercising. But if you're not exercising, we don't want you to jump into the deep end. Right? Right. So Dr. Fong says continue the exercise. Eventually you're going to become fat adapted, your body's going to learn to use those ketones rather than glucose. For Dr. Attia, Peter Attia, he has an entire series on this that you're not going to see.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Strength decreases when you're doing weightlifting or resistance training, that it's actually key to maintaining muscle mass while fasting is getting some form of resistance, training or movement in 3 to 4 times a week. So one of the things that I see you're telling me that people will do is they'll do a hard workout and then plan to fast the rest of the day.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. The two things you need to do to be smart with physical activity is place it in your schedule where you know that it's going to set yourself up for success because certain types of workouts will actually increase your hunger. But we know working out fasted versus fed the net effect over the next 24 hours is exactly the same.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So you just need to pick what's right for you. So if you get really hungry after a workout, don't plan the faster rest of the day, workout fasted and then break your fast with a good, good nutrition opportunity. And then the second thing would be the hydration and the salt that goes along with that.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, absolutely. Be smart about that. That eating to, you know, like stay away from like highly, highly craveable foods right after a workout because you might intake a little bit more than you were expecting, especially like I like to do, paired up with maybe a small handful of nuts or maybe some crunchy vegetables or something like that to kind of break that fast and maybe cut the hunger down just a little bit.

[Tommy Welling]
So I'm not just feeling ravenous after a hard workout and then go go in a break that fast. And then the hydration piece is really key, too. So, you know, even like just keeping some salt with you when you go to the gym or, you know, just, just keeping your up, put it in your water bottle before you go to the gym.

[Tommy Welling]
Can be can be just huge.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yes. There are some salt in your pre-workout or in your I like to use, you know, shots of espresso or concentrated cold brew as a as a pre-workout when I do need it right now. That's the cool thing about walking again, just like fasting is that I just want to hit on this one. Last point is they've looked at 15 minute walks after each meal versus a 30 to 45 minute walk mid-day.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And over the course of 24 hours, it's about the same effect on blood sugar. So just like if you want to work out fast versus fat, it's the same effect on muscle building, right? And that's why they're like when we started, the conversation was, well, am I fasting the right way? Well, there's so many different nuances and variables based on your life, your situation, and what you like to do.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, and I would love for you to pick something that you enjoy, right? Because that's something that's sustainable in that.

[Tommy Welling]
Be more likely to stick with it. Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I'm not going to. I'm not going to run. No, that's not me. I'm not a runner. But give me a rowing machine and a podcast or a documentary man on a screen. I'm I'll go forever. I love it. Yeah, right. So you got to pick something that you like. One thing I will note is if you do have diabetes or blood sugar related issues, make sure that you're talking to your health care provider about what you are doing because there are going to be medications that you will stop needing as much like when insulin comes down, your blood pressure medication won't be needed by your body.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Your body's going to regulate it naturally, which is what we want. Diabetes, you know, exercise it will actually cause. This is why I want to mention this. You will see a short term increase in blood sugar. That's because your body dumps even just with walking. If you're sedentary and you start walking and you've got diabetes, you might go for a walking bill.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like, why do my blood sugar go up 100 points? What?

[Tommy Welling]
You know, yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'm supposed to be doing the opposite.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I think it scares some people off from actually going on that walk, like, measure my blood sugar, and I'm like, oh, I guess. I guess I'm not responding well to that walk. Maybe I should stop. No, absolutely not. Right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
That will stop. That is a transient short term effect. So do not get scared away by that, but know that it can happen. Okay? Yeah. Especially if you're using insulin and those different types of short term, long term acting thing. So always let your health care provider know what you're doing. Have a conversation, but be confident that this is the decision you're making for your health.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And they you need to find somebody that's in your corner.

[Tommy Welling]
So, wow.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Overview of exercise 30 minutes of moderate, moderate exercise 3 to 5 days a week. So walking is a great place to start. And then a couple of light resistance exercise opportunities a week. And if you don't do anything right now, then simply after your meal just go for a 30 minute walk. Let's keep it as simple as possible for you to make this a lifestyle and build those habits day to day.

[Tommy Welling]
So love that.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
The next to stress.

[Tommy Welling]
Tummy stress is an interesting one because it piggybacks right off of exercise because where we started the exercise conversation was oftentimes we we like to do much more intense exercise if we can. And like if you if you've come up with calories in, calories out and you've been using exercise to lose weight, then it's likely that you may have used some intense exercise in the past.

[Tommy Welling]
Well, that can be a stressor on the body and any stressor on the body can actually affect our weight loss results and other things like that. So especially when we're fasting, we want to keep in mind the fact that any of this, like chronic stressors can can affect it too, because any stress signal to the body means, hey, the easiest thing for the body to do is to release blood sugars, is to release glucose to raise blood sugar, because we're wired for tiger stress, not for traffic in boss stress type of stress needs sugar balance.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, exactly. The game has changed. We're not playing the same game.

[Tommy Welling]
No, we're not. You're not? So physiologically speaking, if we're undergoing these these different stressors, we're raising blood sugar, and then that's going to be hitting the the metabolic health in the opposite direction as we may be going against our our weight loss results in our in our fasting. The reason why we're fasting, right. Which is to control our health and the overall balance within the body.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, stress is huge. And that was one of the the three musketeers, I like to say for me personally, you know, just mention that real quick as it was my poor sleep and wearing it as a badge of honor that I didn't need a lot of sleep. And it was my chronic low level stress being in full time practice, married, new to marriage, a little one on the way, all of that, right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Cortisol levels were constantly high, you know, because of that stress, because of that increased blood sugar that gets dumped into the system. Right. To get to get away from the tiger that's chasing nice back in the day now it's used in traffic but that level that low level chronic stress can lead to insulin resistance. So I had the midsection visceral adiposity, the visceral fat, I had the sleep, I had the stress, and I had the years of bulking, cutting, bulking, cutting, bulking, cutting.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And, you know, it was part of that that trifecta that was really contributing to the fact that losing the weight was getting harder, sticking to those low calorie eat less move more plans is getting more difficult. Yeah. So one of the things you can simply do here is tapping into the rest and digest or the parasympathetic nervous system, which is just diaphragmatic breathing.

[Tommy Welling]
Hmm.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Simply can decrease their cortisol. There's a research article that they had 20 sessions per week and this can be done in 3 to 5 minutes or less once you get good at it. Yeah. And I used to use something called RMD, which is release meditation technique, and I still use it from time to time, but not necessarily as much, you know, going from, you know, stay at home dad one day to, you know, business the next day to clinic the next day or all three of those things, excuse me, in one day, taking those few minutes and just sitting down and being like, All right, let me just breathe here the proper way.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And you can help blunt that cortisol spike ultimately, you know, taking away that blood sugar dump and that that study was incredible because it was in type two diabetics and it showed that fasting blood glucose and post-meal glucose levels were majorly decreased in nine weeks. I remember the exact number, but in a short period of time, your body was able to adapt, which is incredible.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
One of the tips that goes along with this, you know, blood glucose levels, like what levers can we pull? Is that listening to your body? Part of this, which is fasting, can also be a short term stress on your system. So listening to your body and knowing how you're feeling is also part of this sustainability equation and fasting lifestyle process.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, and I feel like a big one of those flags that kind of go off from your body is, is sometimes telling you, Hey, you know what, it'd be a good time to rest right now. And that that's a reason why I like sleep is a big lever for blood sugar, but it's also one of those things that goes along with listening to your body because like you mentioned before, wearing that like I don't need that much sleep as a badge of honor is really if you think about it, one of the ways that we ignore our body sometimes when it's trying to tell us something important.

[Tommy Welling]
So when we start fasting, especially when we start to get a little bit more metabolically flexible, but before that happens, actually, we can we can sometimes be transitioning between more sugar burning to more fat burning. That can be that can feel very tiring sometimes. And so sometimes all we need to do really is rest, chill out for a little bit, control the external stressors that might be adding up and probably stay hydrated.

[Tommy Welling]
But those I need to rest signals. If we're not careful, they could be easy to ignore or to misinterpret. Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
The short term action here versus the long term goal is where it kind of gets a little clunky. You're like, Well, for me it was like, All right, well, that's not going anywhere. Like my stress are going anywhere. My poor sleep out of control. We have a new baby. Yeah, those situations. Okay, great. Yeah, totally understand. Right. But it's putting that intentionality in that thought process into listening to, like you said, how you're feeling throughout the day.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I know if I have a bad night of sleep that my cravings and my 1 to 3 p.m. is going to be worse the next day. I can't have like a nice creative workflow, like, oh, I got to go and build a new course between one and three. Not happening, or it's going to be really hard to do because of the poor sleep from the night before.

[Tommy Welling]
Could be hard to stick to your fast two right? Like yeah, that's.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Not 100%. And that's we did a whole episode, multiple episodes on sleep because of how important it is. I just want to highlight a couple of things here, but looking at the blood glucose levels, right. So we've we've already talked about diet, we've talked about exercise, we've talked about stress. And now we are going to talk about sleep.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
They're all related. Okay. So when we're looking at the qualitative versus quantitative metrics, when it comes to sleep, sleep is so incredibly important and vital for optimal metabolism, insulin sensitivity, which is the good action of insulin resistance or insulin resistance, bad and sensitivity, good, right. And glucose variability, meaning your body being able to ingest a certain type of food and have a normal response to it.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So just simply, you know, five nights of sleep deprivation, right? So 4 hours of sleep a night, all these people that were not metabolically unhealthy, these people were healthy weight, healthy age, healthy males, five nights of sleep deprivation, 4 hours of sleep per night. Their metabolic profile switched to a type two diabetic in five days.

[Tommy Welling]
Wow. Wow.

[Dr. Scott Watier]

[Tommy Welling]
Wow.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So I wasn't in the four hour category, but I was in that five and a half to six range. So the magic number is really seven when it comes to sleep.

[Tommy Welling]

[Tommy Welling]
Right? Like that's a big habit that was in my family. But when you set out to go, okay, well, I had dinner, I closed my eating window, whatever that looked like for you, and then you set your timer, which setting the timer is is huge too. But once you set that timer and it's going to be it's going to be sometime tomorrow, let's say when I'm breaking that fast, all of a sudden I have the ability to go, okay, no more food like nothing else.

[Tommy Welling]
Like there's no snacks. There's no there's no ice cream coming in tonight. That's fine. I'm protecting my sleep. Right then. Right then and there, because I've had less things coming in. There's less digestion that has to go on. There's less blood sugar spikes. That happened right before I'm going to bed. And that sleep right there is is protected.

[Tommy Welling]
That's going to be better. This can be a longer, higher quality sleep than with previous bouts of, you know, snacking or later night eating and.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Stuff like that. This also yeah, this also taps into the listening to your body thing too. I like going to bed and not eating.

[Tommy Welling]
The light meal versus eating a light meal.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And having a bad night of sleep. Sleep wins and it's hard to do sometimes. And when you first start fasting and you get through the extended fasting, let's say you're doing your first 24 hour plus fast, those first couple of nights you might be awake and your body's burning through and your liver switches on between two and 4 a.m. and it's you're awake and you're like, okay, well now what I want to encourage you that this doesn't last, okay?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Most times the more consistent you are with your fasting windows and the more consistent you are with the three other tenants here, managing the stress to a reasonable level, or at least having something to do when it hits. Getting moving. It's simple. Besides, eating right simply is walking, right? Yeah. That's that's a whole man. We've done so many conversations on that.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And then making sure that you're putting the proper nutrition opportunities when you do break your fast because the last thing you want to be doing is fasting and then eating a bunch of crap and undoing all that hard.

[Tommy Welling]
Work.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And not getting that nutrition. And so couple more things on sleep here. If you're struggling with cravings or you're struggling with feeling full, like you just you could just eat.

[Tommy Welling]
And eat and eat and eat and eat.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Never mind is lack of sleep related to increased inflammation, which then can block the C-reactive protein and then block the actual effectiveness of your hunger hormones? So they don't get to the brain, but you're going to throw out the balance of those hunger hormones with poor sleep patterns. So you can have all the intense intentionality in the world to set a fasting window.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we're going to talk about one of the tips here. Keep periods of fasting to a scheduled reasonable time. And you already mentioned using a timer, right? Right. A little bit of intentionality, a little bit of scheduling and a little, little bit of reasonable ness added into the equation and all of that's.

[Tommy Welling]
But yeah, it goes a long way.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Right. So those hunger hormones, if you have a poor night of sleep that next day, know that it's coming your blood sugar levels, it's sleep. A mover of the blood sugar levels. Right. As we shared with the research in that study of the young men with the 4 hours. Right 40% change in just five nights. They now have the metabolic profile of a type two diabetic in just five nights.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Know that your cravings or your inability to full right. Like when we say eat to satiety, that's part of listening to your body. But that's not something you can't do. That's not something you can figure out for you unless you've gone through it. And that's why one of the other tips is keep periods of fasting to a scheduled reasonable timeframe and almost picture it like wading into the water at like like the beach or at the resort pool where they've kind of got like you kind of can go in.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
They've got the fountain time. Yeah, yeah. It's a little ramp into your fasting schedule.

[Tommy Welling]
I love that analogy because. I feel like there's so many. It could almost feel random, I guess where people start out with with fasting because it just depends on what you were exposed, you know, was it was it simply a skip breakfast recommendation or was it a 12 hour or a 16 or 18 or was it an omen or did you hear somebody about somebody doing like a five day fast or a ten day fast or something like that?

[Tommy Welling]
So the the initial starting point for that question, am I fasting the right way? And how you perceive the answer of that can really depend on how you got started with fasting. So I feel like keeping it simple and breaking it down to something that's that's a scheduled and that be reasonable for you. That's where that's where we should be starting or that's where we should be resetting.

[Tommy Welling]
Even if you've been doing this for a long time, because setting that timer, setting the intentionality for it, and then knowing what your actual plan is, it doesn't have to be a five day fast. It can be a 16 hour fast. But doing that is going to start the process of like rebalancing and potentially. Yeah. And potentially dropping the weight if there is weight to drop.

[Tommy Welling]
Now there are so many more factors like the sleep and especially like the nutrition. And then what else am I doing? How is my exercise or movement? There's a lot of factors obviously, but if we can simplify it and then we can actually get consistency with those simple steps, that's going to start taking us somewhere rather than being like and I'm just not sure how to interpret the results whenever things aren't happening.

[Tommy Welling]
Like the scales not moving.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And that so a few of those other tips we're going to go over now really tap into that what you were just illuminating right there which is the should I be doing it this way? Like now simplicity is really the key for longevity here. For sustainability. All right. So a few things you can do during your fasting windows, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Know that hunger is going to come, but you got to keep your mind busy. Have a to do list, right? Use black coffee, use cold water. Use your Himalayan salt or your sea salt. You can even add things like, you know, cinnamon or essential oils to water to give yourself, just distract yourself and get away from the fact that it's like you got £50 to lose.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're not hungry. Okay? You got enough energy stores to burn through. You just need to get to the point where you can tap into them. So staying busy is, one, staying hydrated smartly, right? We really talked about that with exercise. If you're going to sweat, make sure you're adding in those extra trace minerals or Himalayan salt or sea salt to help balance those electrolytes.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Drinking more just water is not the solution. It's using the electrolytes smartly. And then, you know, we talked about having patience with the process, like knowing that you're going to be wanting to be listening to your body throughout this process and seeing how you feel. So maybe journaling will be helpful for some, but I think the last one here, Tommie, as we talk about, you know, what to do, set the timer and be intentional.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But then when you break your fast, we really need to know. Like that's the other half of the equation too. We already talked about diet in the food choices, but the way to break your fast, especially if you're pushing into those longer fasting windows also matters.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, when you get past like that 1618 hour mark, it really can be to the point where the first thing that you use to break your fast is going to start to matter more. So I feel like focusing on things that are that are promoting which mode my body is in. At that point, you almost start to you get the the metabolic shift towards the fat burning away from so much of the sugar burning that you might have been used to, especially if you've been gaining weight for a while or lately before you started fasting.

[Tommy Welling]
If you if you're not used to a lower carbohydrate diet, that's okay. You don't have to be necessarily. But breaking your fast with something small and something that's that's lower on the carbohydrate side can be very, very helpful. Maybe some crunchy vegetables, celery, carrots, cucumbers are good. Maybe with a little salt and pepper. But you also have things that are that are a little bit more fatty, too, like maybe a small serving of olives or almonds or other nuts.

[Tommy Welling]
Those can be very helpful ways to to break the fast as well.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, one thing to do too, because we talked about exercise. One thing not to do is just to slug a protein shake once your window opens post-workout either. That's why is very quickly digesting. So I would definitely do what Tommy just said over. Just go into slam a protein shake and try to prioritize your protein and your fats, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Don't start your meal with it, but make sure that in that meal you have the ability to get in. Like if usually one chicken breast add another one, sit, eat slower, get, get the food in, give your body the nutrition, open up like you don't have to rush it or cram it like like an eating challenge, but make sure that you're going to be focusing on those proteins and fats during your eating window, because those are the things that are going to help stabilize the blood sugars and they're also going to keep you fuller longer.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Just think about the Chinese food example, right? Eat Chinese food, lots of rices and carbs and all this stuff. And like 10 minutes later, you're hungry again. Okay, that's not a sauce, man. All that. Yeah, yeah. All those yummy sauces, right? Yeah. So for sure. Make sure that you are breaking the fast, gently, and then some things are going to work for some of your own.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Some more digestive changes are going to happen. They don't last forever. Running to the bathroom isn't going to happen all the time. It might happen the first couple of times. Post fast feeling a little nauseous or a little sluggish after a larger meal. Breaking your fast. Yeah, you probably need a little bit more time maybe to look at your hydration.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we talked about the for significant blood glucose levels. Right. And then we've given and sprinkled some of those tips. And throughout fasting time, you would if we're going to zoom out to big picture here of how to make this a lifestyle, really, you have to you have to go through some of the trial and error to figure out what works for you, because you can go and just get on Dr. Google and you can look like what is the best intermittent fasting schedule?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Sure. Well, some people are going to say, well, you shouldn't go past 18 hours. Some people are going to say you shouldn't ever do a 24 hour fast. Some people are going to say 12 hours. The 1212 split is the ideal fasting window. Well, not if you're insulin resistant in your cravings are crap and you don't exercise in your sleep out of whack and you're stressed to high heavens.