Ep. 159 - CGM, Do I need a Continuous Glucose Monitor for Fasting?, How does apple cider vinegar (acv) affect blood sugar, does creamer in my coffee break a fast? Can I use Stevia and sweeteners? Can I still lose weight with an alcoholic drink in my window? Fasting for Weight Maintenance | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD

In today’s episode, we discuss beginning with the end in mind, and how the next 6-12 months can look on your fasting journey. We talk through maintenance considerations and how the habits that lost the weight are the same habits in maintenance simply applied differently. TMI we talk bowel movements, fasting optimizers, blood sugar mushroom tea and CGM’s! (continuous glucose monitor). Building on the last couple of weeks, we hope you listen in and enjoy!

 

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Fasting For Life Ep. 159 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 on my good friend and colleague, Tommy Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir.

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

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Doing fantastic, my friend. Happy New Year to you again. Happy New Year to all of you new listeners. Hop in on the fasting train to launch for 2023. So we are excited about today's conversation. We started last year off in a similar fashion. We were going to bring you some of the most common questions we get about fasting and kind of being on your fasting journey.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Some of things that come up along the way, but also some big picture perspective on what does maintenance look like? How do I get started again? What happens when I lose that activation energy and the the shiny newness of the new plan fades away, much like those New Year's resolutions or gym memberships. So we got a fun episode for you today.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Welcome into the OGs as well. Appreciate y'all. Continue ing to follow us on this fasting journey. And man, we have an incredible year coming up for y'all this year with new resources. I'll touch on that in just a second because we did promise you one this week and it will be next week because we've had a delay and in production.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But we want to make sure it's perfect.

[Tommy Welling]
So yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
We just coming stay tuned this year so many new things so many you into new research some some new resources challenges all on deck for this year to support you on your health and weight loss journey through the tried and true art of fasting. So welcome in new and old. We are pumped to be here with you in 2023, Tommy.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So beginning with the end in mind, big picture where we want to go throughout this year. We want to go over some of the questions or threads or conversation threads that we've been having over the last few weeks. And I want to start beginning with the end in mind. There's something that we say often. Sure. And the question was framed in a way that said, what do I do with maintenance modifications since I'm at maintenance when it comes to the fasting lifestyle?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So do I need to learn to eat at or near my caloric requirements? I haven't been tracking for a while, but I'm pretty sure that eating that much or getting that much food within a shorter, you know, one meal a day type situation isn't probably going to be sustainable. And you're right. So should I try for a nutrition window?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Should I focus on food quality timing? Do I move my schedule week to week? What does that maintenance picture look like?

[Tommy Welling]
And yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
The application of this is going to be a little bit different for everybody. But in the big picture, setting a weight loss goal, especially this time of year. And we're going to wrap the episode up with some actionable things you can do to make sure that you're going to keep the progress going. But beginning with the end in mind of, okay, you have your weight loss goal in mind, you have maintenance in mind.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So what is that ideal day or that ideal kind of fasting lifestyle? Look like when you've achieved it? Not if, but when? Yeah, and I think that's what Jill was speaking to here. It was like, well, I'm at maintenance, but like this feels weird. Like, do I keep doing the things I was doing? And the reality is, this is what I want to impact is the habits that she's built to get to maintenance are the same habits that's going to continue to for her to maintain those changes, which is, you know, big picture.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's what we want. We want sustainable weight loss. You know, the stats say otherwise that you can lose it, but you can't keep it. Sure, there's no point in making all the money if you can't keep it right. No point. Losing all the weight and getting the health to keep losing it. Yeah. Is like those foundational habits that she used to achieve.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Her goal are the same habits she's going to use to to to maintain it, but applied in a different way.

[Tommy Welling]
Wow. There's a lot to unpack here. First, let me give a shout out. Congrats, Joe, for the work that you've been putting in consistently. We've noticed over the over the past once you know during 2022 so is incredible but I also want to want to make sure to highlight the fact that when we embark whether we have £10 to go or 20 or 150, either way I'm going to have to to know and be confident that I can achieve that long term goal and also that it's going to take some adapting, you know, while I'm going through that journey to kind of take the off ramp to maintenance.

[Tommy Welling]
So knowing that it's not going to look the exact same as as everything that I did to get there means that I'm already mentally I've already accepted the fact that it's not going to look be the exact same. Okay. And I think that's one of the problems with the fact that we know 95% of people, you know, give the weight back like end up, you know, kind of kind of giving back that that progress.

[Tommy Welling]
It's very it's difficult to keep it off, but it's not impossible. And success leaves a lot of clues. And one of those things is, is understanding that I will have to make some adaptations whenever I get there. So you go ahead.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
No, I was just going to say. So we're building on the last couple of weeks. Right. So we talked about, you know, the health benefits of fasting at the end of 2022 and fasting as a lifestyle give you some basics, some goal setting, looking at the big picture, looking at the long term. Right. And then, you know, episode 158 we talked about the launch formula.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So intention, consistency, guidance and reflections from 2022. So that one is really like a hey, like this is a reset, this is a fresh start or this is how I get back on track moving forward. And we highlighted all of the most important topics from the from the year that we saw played out inside of our challenges and our communications and our thousands of messages that we get.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. Yeah. So today, you know, starting with that concept of maintenance time you like you just said and seeing that the idea is to keep it once you get it.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you're at the beginning of your journey and you're just starting fasting or you're reengaging in 2023 because the holidays got you. Right, which should happens. Been there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Raising both hands and feet. You can't see it. But yeah, I've been there as well years past without fasting.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, Jill's success was in applying the basic principles of hitting her fasting windows, her water, her mindset goals, breaking down her big goal into smaller goals, you know, engaging, asking questions, you know, stepping outside of the shadows when the fasting police aren't around. You know, she shared that in her first month after following last last summer following our podcast.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And and one of our challenges is that she weighed every day in the beginning, and she had 15 days that first month where the scale went up. And she was like, Man, that was hard. Yeah, right. Without the right support or the right perspective, then that can be really derailing, right?

[Tommy Welling]
So yeah, demotivate for sure.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But the same things that she did, fasting timer, intentionality and she as I outlined the question right when we started today talking about it should I do this, should I move this, should I open my windows? Should I what food should I focus on protein, etc. All these different questions, counting calories, macros. I'm just going back and looking at the list again.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. It's not that she's going to stop fasting or stop caring about what's in her nutrition window or stop setting her timing or stop getting her water and or stop focusing on her steps or stop looking at her her why? Which is to have a happy and healthy retirement. Grandkids, family, spouse, all of that stuff.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But if you can't continue to live in a fat loss phase when you finally arrived at maintenance. So there's going to be this feeling out period about how your body responds to more nutrition opportunities. You're going to be making more decisions. You're going to have the need for more intentionality in a little bit of planning and making sure that you're getting in good nutrient foods and things that you enjoy eating.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, because if not, you're just going to be like trying to fit a round peg in a square hole or vice versa. I'm terrible analogies like that. Whatever it is, you're going to be trying to squeeze it in when it's like, All right, well, what got me here, but now, how do I apply those habits a little bit differently?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And you got to give yourself a little bit more time to yeah, you can lose with fasting. You can lose £10 in ten days, but can you keep it off? Right. So you got to yeah, you got to give yourself some time, make a couple of changes. Right. Keep the foundational habit the same, make a couple of changes and then see how your body responds and how the scale responds over the next how your energy is are focuses, are your libido is are your brain brain fog or lack thereof is you know, and how how you're performing on a day to day basis.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's not quality of life piece that really comes into maintenance. So as we build on the last couple of weeks and like future pace what the next six months or 12 months can look like for you, thinking about what it feels like, what it looks like, and what maintenance actually is for you is an important part of that process.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I love all those points and I feel like a lot of stories that we hear from people looking back and what they did to try to maintain it. A lot of times they tried to change too many things all at the same time, like like thinking maintenance just looked very, very different from, from my fat loss phase, but like, like going from, let's say, let's say Nomad or maybe they were doing, you know, a few hours worth of an eating window, but some longer fast there as well to give enough time to to tap into those long term fat stores.

[Tommy Welling]
But then just all of a sudden switching going, okay, I'm at my main goal weight now I'm going to go to 16 eight which which a lot of people will will kind of start with or use for their fasting journey. But but just opening that up, going from four much smaller eating windows all of a sudden to an eight hour eating window.

[Tommy Welling]
And now, like you said, I have all those decisions to make. And, you know, I might still have some levels of insulin resistance, even if the scale is where I want it to be. I had it. I was building those for years. It can it can be or I've been severely carbohydrate restricted, too. And then all of a sudden I'm bringing in all of these other foods over a much longer period.

[Tommy Welling]
I can I can definitely see the the weight, you know, tick up more quickly than I was expecting during this. So I think not not expanding that window too quickly is is one of the big the big life warnings for, you know, for going into maintenance.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And as you're I mean, it's you're probably going to be looking at different metrics, too. So you might not be worried so much about your blood sugar because you've reversed your pre-diabetes or you used to be in the hundreds, now you're in the eighties. Right? So yeah, you don't have to worry so much about that. But maybe you're looking at some lab metrics or a DEXA scan or body composition or those types of things as well.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So those are different skill sets that you're going to learn if you haven't been incorporating them in your last few months of the weight loss phase as well. So some.

[Tommy Welling]
Good point.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Just some perspective on beginning with the end in mind and putting some thought to those as well. So I want to transition with you a couple of the other questions. The more like kind of like frequently asked questions type thing, like, can I have this, what about this? Can I have flavored water? What are your thoughts on what in my water can I put creamer, my coffee, etc.?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
We also get a very common question where people say, Hey, this is TMI, but I have to know, okay, now we always know about bowel movements, right?

[Tommy Welling]
It's all movements.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's always it's okay. It's not.

[Tommy Welling]
TMI.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
I know it's not. So the question came in. I normally go once or twice a day, but since I've been on this program, it slowed to once every two or three days I realized that less in equals less out. But a good bowel movement is one of the greatest gifts to seniors. I have no discomfort. Just wondering if this is normal.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Could this also be the reason that the scale hasn't moved down recently after having some pretty significant results to begin with, some weight loss results? So this question is kind of twofold. One is. Yeah, absolutely right. Less and means less out. Sure. But consistency is the key here, meaning consistency in the pattern. So if you've had digestive changes prior to or digestive issues prior to fasting in the beginning, you need to be careful with breaking your fast, slowly or the handful of almonds and decreasing your fluid intake so you don't end up with gastric emptying.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Sure. Okay. If you're subject to the opposite effect. So instead of diarrhea, constipation, before fasting, then you might be prone to having some of those similarities. Some of those symptoms come up right in the beginning as your body adapts to the changes in digestive enzymes and your body's survival phase of hunger and delaying, not denying food and changing the timing like your body is very systematized to being ready for a certain amount of food at certain times throughout the day.

[Tommy Welling]
Sure.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Q Hunger or hunger cues there. So a couple of things you can do on the decreased movement is making sure that you are staying focused on not water, but trace minerals and electrolytes that will slow down the motility of your digestive tract and cause a backlog because you're don't have the correct environment or the correct balance of electrolytes.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
As you start to fast, insulin comes down, your electrolytes get flushed out. In the process of diuresis being a lot. If you stay consistent with your concentrates minerals or Himalayan salt or your Redman's salt, then you should notice that the constipation should not be a problem if you're consistent with it from day to day. The second thing is the concept of magnesium tummy, where if you're feeling like you're stuck, then 225 milligrams of magnesium citrate at night before bed can be a game changer.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then the third thing would be making sure that you are putting in fibrous foods into your eating windows, but you can also use something like sodium husk and you can use that at any time. There's really not much to it, but that's going to help get things moving again. If you do end up in the category of being stopped up and not just having the normal decreased lessen equals less out and decreased frequency.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. Can we talk about food quality for a second, too? Mm hmm. Because if you're if you're, you know, you're taking this seriously, you're taking control of your health, you want to see the scale move down. You also want to, you know, take control of the long term health measures, too. You might find yourself making more deliberate, intentional food choices as well.

[Tommy Welling]
So as you you come off of some of the processed foods and you're you're taking in more whole foods, you know, we can become a lot more efficient with those and there's a lot less waste that needs to come off of those foods, too. That could be a little bit of a new normal where, you know, percentage, percentage volume of waste is actually coming down because most of what I'm bringing in or more of what I'm bringing in is is usable substrate for the body.

[Tommy Welling]
Right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. But that's so true when I did the carnivore. 60 day carnivore. Yeah. Kind of pilot run guinea pig over here. There was definite decrease in Yeah. Really in the mass. And I was like whoa. Like I hadn't felt this change since when I started fasting and the weight just started like falling off.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Interesting back in the day. But yeah. And then we also transitioned our dogs to raw food and I noticed that like, now I don't have to clean up the yard half the time before with three dogs and a small yard. It was like twice a day cleaning up the backyard, right? With three kids. Now they're on raw food.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like there's no fillers. There's no there's nothing in it. And they're yeah, their coats are better. Their moods are better. So interesting. I know we're not canines, but as you just said that I was like, Oh, yeah, that happened to me with Carnivore and oh yeah, for dogs too.

[Tommy Welling]
So nice.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Never TMI.

[Tommy Welling]
Right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hydration and salt first. And if your sensitive salt can have a laxative effect, so be careful. And then, depending on which side of the spectrum, often going to often do loose or going not enough and stuck and then, you know, using magnesium citrate 225 liquid form is better at night and then you can also do psyllium husk as well as a source of fiber to help things get moving as well.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So cool let's transition into there's no way to non awkward way to transition out of bowel movement conversations into the conversation about CGM and fasting optimizers. I don't like the word hack.

[Tommy Welling]
Mm hmm.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Because with that comes a negative connotation. Sure. But there are some things that if we are in the blood sugar space and we want like we talked about the end of the year and all the episodes we've done on fasting for cardiometabolic health and decreased risk. And, you know, eight or nine of the top reasons why people have health issues and their their life is shortened and they lose their life here due to disease in this country.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
They're related to insulin and blood sugar related issues. So for putting that at the forefront, then the question comes up about CGM, which is a continuous glucose monitor. Okay. Yeah. And there's a couple of big companies out there. You can just Google it. It's everywhere. And it's become much more common as the prevalence of pre diabetes, diabetes, younger diabetics and not type one, but type two in the expansion of this group of people where, you know, CGM is kind of in especially in the fasting world, kind of become a household name, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So yeah, you're like, Oh, can you use glucose or actually know what that is? So the idea here is twofold. One is, do you need something like that? Mm hmm. And the answer that I initially come up with is most likely not. Mm hmm. If you're a diabetic or pre-diabetic, then you can go to your doctor and ask Dexcom six Freestyle Libre.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's covered under most insurances. Mm hmm. There might be some costs, but you would be able to get one. And most of them are two week implant wearables. Right. And you can get some pretty cool data on them if we're going to be beginning with the end in mind and focusing on blood sugar, metabolic health, decreasing cardio metabolic effects and metabolic disease.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And getting the weight off, then it's hard to lose weight when our blood sugar is continuously elevated when we're in a high insulin genic state.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's impossible. It's damn near impossible. You can't tap into those long term fat stores, especially if we're talking about considerable decades and considerable tens of pounds of weight, you know, ten, 20, 30, 40, £50 plus.

[Tommy Welling]
Yep.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So a question came in was like, hey, I was able to talk to my doctor about getting one of these. Do you think I should? And then if I do, what the heck do I do with it? Right. And the initial response would be, gather some data. If what you're doing is working, you're losing weight, you're feeling good, you're at maintenance, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Get one and gather some data. Do what you've been doing that's working and see how your body responds. Because your response cannot be unless you just decide to not open the app or look at the numbers and just pretend it doesn't exist.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Your choices in your day to day routine is going to give you a discernible result. That's going to be right there. Ready to smack in the face. Right.

[Tommy Welling]
Especially if you're tracking your weight along with it. Right. Kind of.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You can see some correlations.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, right. Yeah. Yep.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So there's this sub category here of, like, okay, well, what about insert? Can I have this? Can I use this? Should I use ACV? What about walking? What about this? That falls into this. If you had a CGM, it would be really cool to be able to test your individualized response.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And my story started with when I had this, when I when I did two separate 14 day trials with CGM, I was I tested things like coffee and come to find out I was having a blood sugar response to coffee due to my HP axis and my adrenals.

[Tommy Welling]
Black coffee.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Black coffee.

[Tommy Welling]
Okay. Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I was like, Oh, crap. Well, what else am I doing that? So I just started trying everything. I was like, What about my Xavier in my fasting window? If I had a Xavier and dinner. Hmm. My blood sugar would stay elevated for two, 3 hours longer than if I just had the dinner without the Xavier.

[Tommy Welling]
So get information right to the surface. Yeah, yeah, right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So you can look at the research about artificial sweeteners and allulose and stevia and all this different stuff and bulletproof coffee. And, you know, that could be two 300 calories in a cup. And you're like, oh, wait, wait a minute. So if we're beginning with the end in mind and we want to keep fasting as the as the primary, because it's a great weight loss tool, but it's also a great health tool for maintaining health over long term.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Then we need to look at like, well, how would I know if those things are going to serve me well? You can try them out and see how you feel, but the next level up would be testing your blood sugar. You don't need a CGM. You can do that with the Quito Mojo, which we have linked in the show notes.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You get a massive discount. We get a couple of bucks off of it, full transparency. But we just partnered with them and they offered it to us like we went to them were like, Hey, our people need you. Like we got like, what do you need? Right? So you get you can always use, you know, our Quito mojo or blood a finger prick test and well, like one of those diabetes, you get those at CVS, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Or Walgreens. But the idea of use it.

[Tommy Welling]
Use it.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? Yeah. You like you said, that was our personalization. Right. So I know, Tommy, you had a few you want to list off there and go through.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, like morning blood sugar numbers really kind of give me a focal point. That's like one of my habits that that I practice. It's part of a maintenance, you know, fasting lifestyle practice. For me, it keeps things top.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Which is what periodic checking in on your blood sugar numbers like.

[Tommy Welling]
Checking in like lately, especially going into this year, I started looking at just the daily numbers on a consistent basis that I hadn't I hadn't really done. You know, it was kind of sporadic even for that morning number reading, which is so powerful because to see how much of a dawn phenomenon effect that I'm actually going through, you know, in the morning time, I can see a difference, probably about 15 points difference on the blood sugar, whether I have an earlier dinner window or a later dinner window, you know, and so just right there in that, it makes it a lot less tempting to, you know, kind of push off for a later dinner, which

[Tommy Welling]
feels a little more relaxing, a little like, oh, yeah, I'd rather be a little.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Bit more family, a little bit better. Maybe it.

[Tommy Welling]
Does. Yeah, it's kind of it's it's quieter, it's a little less stressful. And we get the same question about like, what about alcohol in my, in my eating window, you know, but if, if I, if I take a look at it and I have the eating window and I know if it's later, it's going to be 15 points higher in the in the morning.

[Tommy Welling]
I know that's not doing good things adding up over time for my body for my physiology. So the same thing comes in. If I were to put an alcoholic drink in the window, especially the later that it is watching what those numbers do, which, you know, you get even more insight on in a CGM. But it doesn't. But you can you can see that kind of stuff, you know, kind of lurking under the surface.

[Tommy Welling]
So it's it's feedback that tends to shift my decisions, not in a way that feels like I'm kind of clawing my way through my diet, but more in a way that's like, what do I actually want? What are my long term goals? How am I actually feeling now? And now I have the data to correctly correlate my behavioral patterns become.

[Tommy Welling]
They start serving me more without feeling like I'm fighting through it. Does that make sense?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, it does. And some of these other optimizers as well, like, you know, we talk about walks after meals, you know, decreasing postprandial blood sugar by 30%. The use of apple cider vinegar. We already mentioned bulletproof coffee, how it doesn't kick you out of ketosis, but it definitely breaks the fast. So sure. What's your intention of fasting? Right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
CREAMER In my coffee, Dr. Fong says, you know, the calories are less or maybe it's a mushroom drink that you're now using instead of the usual espresso shot. And maybe, you know, we had a question come in. It's got 20 calories, 80% less caffeine, which is good for for this individual, for Linda. And I don't really think about it breaking my fast.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
I know there's several of these mushroom drinks out there, but like she's doing it for a health reason. Yeah, right. A long term health benefit. So 20 calories, long term health benefit. You feel better when you do that? I'd say do it. Don't worry about it. Breaking your fast, right? CGM Yeah, I mean, you could you could get one and try it out, but I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze on that same thing.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Question We talked about apple cider vinegar. I hate vinegar was the the framework, but I really wanted the question. Steve, to help blunt my blood sugar because her fat loss phase getting the weight off right.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And what things can I do to optimize my progress? Just like if you're a calorie counter macro tracker, eat less, move more, then you're going to have like a myfitnesspal. You're gonna have a scale, you're going to have certain tools to get the result desired results. So well, if you hate vinegar, my first thing would be like, well, no, probably not the solution for you, but you could look up some, you know, ACV adrenal cocktails that have like a little bit of orange juice and fresh squeezed orange juice and, you know, ginger and, you know, you can put vitamin C and other things in it to make it palatable.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
But then is it going to blunt the blood sugar spike, which the research shows is about one ounce of apple cider vinegar prior to a meal can get you, you know, 20, 30, 40% decrease in your blood sugar insulin response for that meal. So we always answer these questions with the try it out, see how you feel. Did it seem to move the needle or is this thing that you want to put into your day to day routine, part of your long term health plan?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And if it is, then go ahead and put it into your nutrition when there are nutrition opportunity, but sometimes if you need to take it in the morning, so you can be more regular, so you don't have like, yeah, absolutely.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
CGM bread or the blood sugar threat is yeah, that's important, right? If you're going to be looking at long term health this year and not just at the scale, then looking at other metrics, my second metric that I would choose well, I choose it first over the scale because that that thing will just mess with you because you have an expectation in the time and the reality don't match, you get frustrated, etc., but you know, blood sugar for sure.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if you can get a CGM and you're the type of person that likes to look at things and be like, Whoa, like you said, that's going to leverage my decision making. Then I say, Do it. But if not, you can go ahead with the simple Fingerstick do you know a few weeks, get a baseline and then see how your body responds to some of these optimizers.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Lemon and water is another one. You know those types. You already mentioned late meal versus early meal. Different ways to break a fast on me. Right. There's there's a big conversation around that as well.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, absolutely there is. And I like imagine getting the that piece of data from what your blood sugar did with or without the apple cider vinegar. So even like, to Linda's point, that she hates the vinegar. Well, guess what? If I did if I took in the same meal at the same time of day.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
I hated the vinegar.

[Tommy Welling]
I served it.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Up. So, yeah, credit. I appreciate your transparency.

[Tommy Welling]
I'm sure there are more out here listening. Who might he mean or two? Yeah, but at the same time, if you if you did a more controlled test where you did the same meal, the same time of day, took your blood sugar, you know, maybe an hour after that meal with or without the apple cider vinegar. And if you saw a 20 point drop, you know, from one to the other, how much less you hate vinegar at that point.

[Tommy Welling]
Can you stomach can you swallow the shot of apple cider vinegar? Like is the juice worth the squeeze at that point? Absolutely. Why don't you consider it a prescription for yourself to, like, get better fasting results and, you know, be able to do more with your fasting? So I really like that and it doesn't have to be necessarily right there when you when you take the apple cider vinegar could be at the beginning or could be at the end of your meal, depending on on what you're actually wanting to do with it.

[Tommy Welling]
But how you actually break your fast is as absolutely something that you can correlate with your with your blood sugar, whether you're using a CGM or, you know, mojo or anything else. Right. And how you feel, you know, during during that that portion when you broke your fast and how easy is it to stick with your next fast is is really important too.

[Tommy Welling]
So experimenting with a few different things like the almonds that you mentioned or some crunchy raw veggies or something else like that. How to break your fast is something that's going to going to take some some experimenting as well. Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if you're looking to potentially blunt the blood sugar spike, then definitely do the ACV 30 minutes before your meal and breaking the fast prioritizing fat and protein and then carbohydrates after. So that's the order you should eat for optimal blood sugar. Now, some people are going to say, well, that didn't work for me. Right? That's the whole point of this kind of nuanced conversation.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. Is it worth for some to see versus others? Most importantly, as we wrap up this conversation here in a minute, we're going to talk about, well, there's some customization here along the way that you're going to have to figure out or personalization that you're going to have to figure out while adopting this lifestyle. Because we know that 21 days to make a habit is not absolutely true when we're talking about major lifestyle change or major lifestyle sustainability in those changes.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So the 21 days to make a habit. Yeah, sure. If you want to add water to your morning routine. Yeah, about 21 days you probably get into a good rhythm about, you know, adding a glass of water before your coffee. But there's a lot more to it, to a complete lifestyle change or adopting a new way of living.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So breaking your fast in that order is one of the things that, yeah, you get some pretty cool data with the CGM or even just blood sugar testing as we mentioned. And then the resistant the cold resistant starch is one that's come up this previous year as well, which we found interesting where, you know, if you cool your starches overnight and then reheat and eat, the cold insulin resistance portion of that starch can also reduce.

[Tommy Welling]
The.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Blood sugar spike. So if you are like, oh, that's cool, struggling with carbohydrates, you know, carbohydrates aren't the devil. They're not bad. Certain forms. Refined, processed carbs. Yeah, sugar is fructose, all that kind of stuff, of course, can, you know, increase blood sugar response and slow down fat burning and clog up liver and, you know, fructose directly related to any nonalcoholic, fatty liver disease, etc., high fructose corn sirup.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So all of that stuff. Yeah. But if you're talking about like natural sources of carbohydrates, especially for women, those are great for hormone building. As you get leaner and your visceral fat comes down, your body's going to want more of those for an energy supply, right? As you have less stored fat to burn, your body's going to need short term energy supplies.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
More.

[Tommy Welling]
Which maintenance needs more of those, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah.

[Tommy Welling]
Which is part of that. Yeah. What we were talking about earlier, like.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, it's.

[Tommy Welling]
Going to look a little different.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right now. I'm not saying Go Burn Your Green Brain Book by Dr. Perlmutter. Of course not. There's a lot of good information in there. But that balance or kind of what that looks like for you. Yeah, there is some cool feedback that you can get in this optimizer. Can I have should I put this in my window type conversation?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
And those are the things that we found over the course of a 30, 60, 90 day, six month yearlong journey or goal can derail you because you start getting analysis paralysis. Is this working? Why am I doing it? And you get off track from keeping the main thing. The main thing which is fasting timer. Make sure you're getting your trace minerals and salts.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Make sure you know, making decent decisions during your fasting window.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Which leads to the last conversation piece for today. Time is a question came in about needing a complete reset right this time of year. So all of you gym goers that are dealing with the lack of access in machines and treadmills right now.

[Tommy Welling]
My wife was just talking.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
About just hang on, because in a couple of weeks, most of the people are going to scatter. Okay. Yeah, it's just the sad reality of the situation. Okay. So you'll get your favorite treadmill back or your favorite elliptical or your favorite shoulder press machine or your favorite, you know, yoga mat or dumbbell or whatever it is. It's common.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So just so just stand by. But there's this idea of needing a complete reset. So this person thought they could freelanced their way through some stress in the holidays and didn't really self-proclaimed didn't really form any life habits that way. So I asked, is there an introductory training to start like day one, including hot? Like, how do where do I go?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
What tools do I use? I need a timer. Like, I don't even have a timer right now. Like the wheels fell off. Where do I go? How do I start? I think it's a really cool way to wrap up today's conversation. And then leading into next week, about four and six hour fasting windows in the new resource, etc., it's on me.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I just love this idea of like, okay, I'm here. I made the decision, it didn't work. Okay, I'm back again. Just, you know, all the folks in the gym. But like I want to I love how she says I want to build some foundational life habits here. Yes. That's what we want to focus on.

[Tommy Welling]
Right. And I like I've I've absolutely been there. My perfectionist brain, very black and white, has has really pushed me towards feeling like, okay, total reset time because it was for me, it was always like if my if my diet was on, I was in the gym. If I was in the gym, my diet was on. If one went off, the other one completely fell off too.

[Tommy Welling]
So, so just just identifying with the fact that needing a total reset is like it can definitely be part of, of the issue. So I'm going to I'm going to say two things. One is you need to remind yourself that you don't have to change everything in order to be completely moving. You can be completely moving in the right direction.

[Tommy Welling]
You can take big strides without absolutely changing everything. A few foundational things that you can stick to is is really where where the magic happens. Okay. And then the other one is that we can oftentimes convince ourselves that our our effort, like how hard it is, it should be correlated with our our results and how much results we actually see.

[Tommy Welling]
And and that's a fallacy as well. So, so keeping those two things in mind, if I make a recommendation like I still use fast, have it every single day, it's a great simple app. I think you pay a few dollars for it now. I was grandfathered when? When it was free. It's a good one. Why?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You want a free one life app.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah yeah yeah there's some is like but but keep it basic. I like fast habit because it's very very basic, right. So it keeps the important stuff in front of me. So right there I also make sure that I have a big cup for water like right in front of my coffee maker every morning because I don't want to start the day with coffee.

[Tommy Welling]
I want to start the day with hydration. So a few grains of pink, Himalayan sea salt and some water means that I already made a decision. Like first thing in the that this is this is what I'm doing. This is what's important to me. So there's no doubting it later on in the day. And it's not big. It's not huge.

[Tommy Welling]
I'm not going to see a difference on the scale tomorrow because of it, but it helps me set the timer and remember why I set the timer. And so it's just foundational for me. But again, the the effort of it doesn't correlate with my long term results and sustainability, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
So what I just heard there is setting the intentions of 3 to 5 minutes a day. Right. You need a reset. So what I want is for anyone listening to say, all right, maybe you're ready, listen to the first episode of the year. I got it. And now you're back on. I need a reset. That's me raising my hand.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right then there. Yeah. I remember the first holidays after losing all the weight versus the previous holiday and how absolutely different in crazy different it was. And now this last year's holiday seems so like dull and mundane when it came to food in celebration because I didn't have. Yeah. I didn't think about, you know, where's my big black shirt or how am I going to feel on the drive back from grandma's house?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Or, you know, man, that next day after Thanksgiving, here we go. Like, I'll take that day off work, you know, like all of those types of things. So it's crazy. You know, we want to zoom in a little bit of intentionality, perspective, 3 to 5 minutes. But the last thing I want to say today, Tommy, is when you were if you were a faster in or if you were on a weight loss journey previously, make sure you go and reflect because we started this conversation about beginning with the end in mind what the next six months or 12 months can look like for you, right?

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Beginning with maintenance in mind, who is that person? What do they do? How do they look? How do they feel? How do they act? So if you've been somewhere on this journey of adapting, fasting or weight loss to achieve better health, going back and pulling some of the things that you liked about what you did that worked previously.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Is a huge accelerant to the potential of looking at a £50 weight loss and being off track for months and needing a reset going, Oh, crap, here we go again. All right. This is going to be hard. You know, now that you've said that or you subconsciously believe it or yeah. Going to be because whether you believe you can or you can't, you are right.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're right. So going back and pulling those things, foundational habits like you mentioned, pulling those things out that you previously did that were working for you as a lifestyle change that moved the needle to get results, making sure that we're pulling just two or three because we typically focus on the negative, right?

[Tommy Welling]
Like, yeah.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It didn't work. This is why. Well, okay, but what did work when it was working? Hmm. And that's where we want to go. So we've got a few things for you as we wrap up today's episode next week. New resource, Tammy Additional support. You need a place, you need to get back on the fasting train and get off the, you know, the struggle bus.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Let's let's go back to the fast start guide. If you have the Fast Start Guide, if you've never watched the videos that come with the Fast Start Guide, go get the fast start guide that comes with the mini masterclass and then start putting on add back into your routine. And then also we want to invite you to the fasting For Life Community Group on Facebook.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
This is a place that it is it is not a one size fits all for fasting. It is a very specific group of individuals that come in looking for support all around this type of lifestyle adaptation. Our podcast kind of how we look at things. We wanted a place to go where, you know, you can come and get the reset, the support, the questions answered.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
Tommy So final thoughts. Yeah, right. There's no TMI. So final thoughts as we wrap up this episode of Continuing the momentum in 2020. Great.

[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. Final thoughts is, is that just like we talked about foundational habits a lot, leveling those up just a little bit or going to reengage with something like the fast start guide, taking 20 minutes, setting them aside to watch the videos that go along with it. That's multiple votes for your subconscious. That helps you to make those better decisions in the moment that don't feel like I'm clawing my way uphill.

[Tommy Welling]
So go to that. Take an action, and then guess what? When the new resource drops in about a week, it's going to be sent over to you automatically. You're going to have more ways to level up those foundational habits, like very soon, like so as soon as it's released. So it's just we're off on unlike so many of the right tracks for 2023 already.

[Tommy Welling]
I just I just love it. Keep leaning into.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It, you know, and I'll drop this little nugget next fasting challenge February 1st and by the way, it's right around the corner. So how do you see on the inside, Tommy, as always, great conversation. Thank you, sir. Head to the show notes. Click the link. Fasting for life community on Facebook. Go get the fast start guide. If you haven't gotten the accompanying video series that goes with it, stay tuned for the resource next week.

[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's going to be an incredible year. Tommy, appreciate the conversation. Appreciate you all for listening. If you feel so inclined, drop a five star review that's there. Our favorite kind to continue to tell the podcast gods that we are doing something good and providing value each week. Sir. Yes. Thank you, everybody, for listening and we'll see you next week.

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

[Dr. Scott Watier]
While you're there. Download your free fast start guide to get started today. Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to leave us a five star review and we'll be back next week with another episode of Fasting for Life.