Ep. 161 - Why Sugar, Carbs, and your Liver Matter for your Weight, Body Fat, and Blood Work | How Fasting 16:8 and Reducing Sugar can Improve Fatty Liver (NAFLD), Body Fat, & Triglycerides in just 12 weeks | Intermittent Fasting for Fat Loss | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan for OMAD
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In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss ow can my diet help prevent or treat NAFLD? The effects of time-restricted feeding (16/8) combined with a low-sugar diet on the management of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Glycogenosis and much more.
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Research Reference Links
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36257081/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34890795/
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/liver-disease/nafld-nash/eating-diet-nutrition
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33354866/
Fasting For Life Ep. 161 Transcript
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hello. I’m Dr. Scott Dr. Watier.
[Tommy Welling]
And I'm Tommy Welling. And you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This podcast is about using fasting as a tool to regain your health, achieve ultimate wellness, and live the life you truly deserve.
[Tommy Welling]
Each episode is a short conversation on a single topic with immediate, actionable steps. We cover everything from fat loss and health and wellness to the science of lifestyle design.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We started fasting for life because of how fasting has transformed our lives and we hope to share the tools that we have learned along the way. Hey, everyone. Want to hop on real quick? Wish everyone a happy New Year and we are off and running here at Fasting for Life. Want to let you know about the first seven fasting lifestyle challenges just a couple of weeks away here.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Coming up on February 1st. I could not believe it already. If you've started this year off with the best intention setting those resolutions, if you've been in the weight loss journey, you know about the New Year, New Year's resolutions. And the fact is that they pretty much wear off by the end of the month. If you've been to the gym, you know that everybody comes out of the woodwork and the gyms get busy.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then the sad reality is by the end of the month, they're back to those old habits and those old lifestyles and we don't want that for you. And by the way, I'm speaking from personal experience here. So that is why our challenge actually starts after the holidays have entered our rearview mirror and the holiday hangover has passed February 1st.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We are starting fresh with a seven day fasting lifestyle challenge. And no, it is not a seven day fast. We use intermittent fasting windows all the way up to 36 to 40 hour fasting windows. We have a beginner schedule and advanced schedule and it is going to be building those foundational actionable habits on a day to day basis that can get you long term sustainable results by adopting a fasting lifestyle.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We don't want you to miss out. It's going to be absolutely incredible, is going to be an incredible experience that we have in store for you. February 1st is the start date. You can go to the Shownotes, click the link for more information. And now onto today's episode. Everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Water and I'm here as always with my good friend and colleague, Tom Welling.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Good afternoon to you, sir.
[Tommy Welling]
Hey, Scott, how are you doing?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fantastic, my friend. A happy New Year to all of you hopping on the podcast episode this week. If we are not the first and maybe we will be the last to wish you a happy New Year, but we are happy regardless that you are here with us this week. Shout out to all the old school listeners as well.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Oh geez. The fasting for life lifers on this journey with us to turn fasting into the sustainable health and weight loss solution that so many of us are looking for. If you're new, feel free to head back to episode one where we tell our story in about 30 minutes of why we found fasting, how we found fasting, and gives you some insight into our motivation to do what it is that we do day to day.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now in the weight loss and fasting world. So welcome in welcome in incredible episodes today. Tell me if I do say so ourselves. I'm excited to unpack this article on the effects of low sugar diet combined with intermittent fasting. Not just that, but in the context of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Something that you and I will unpack because we share just a tiny bit of our journey on how those labs popped up for us, but they kind of just got swept under the rug.
[Tommy Welling]
So yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Lots of good stuff today, lots of encouragement coming your way. And couple of announcements real quick. The new blueprint to fasting for Fat Loss is available. You can go to the show notes, click the link, download it, we'll send it over to you over the interwebs, put it in your email inbox, and then also the next seven day fasting lifestyle challenge.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you want to accelerate your results, you've got the guide. You're going to leave the episode putting one or two of these things into action today, which is, as you hear in our opening, we want you to take something away every single episode that you can apply to your fasting life, into your health, immediately after you get the results, you're going to have an opportunity.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You can sign up for that challenge. Don't miss out. This is the first one of the year and we've got some incredible stuff in store. Tommy I can't believe like the holiday hangovers going away, the New Year's resolutions are leaving the gyms. We're a few weeks into the year and it feels like I mean, do we even like what happened to 2022?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So. All right, don't lose the momentum if you've got it or if you're ready to make some change. We are here for you as well, Tommy.
[Tommy Welling]
Hey, very cool.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Want to give a couple of shout outs to some of the incredible reviews that we've gotten recently? Yes, we just had a huge milestone. So from the bottom of our heart, if you've been listening to us for a while, you know that one of our goals is to pull back the curtain on blood sugar, diabetes, pre-diabetes, insulin resistance, it's toll on health, shortening our life, decreasing our quality of life in the later decades.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And we really want to empower each and every one of you that fasting can be an incredibly powerful tool to reverse these things, prevent these things, and never end up in a situation where you have to spend your time, all of your time, effort, energy and finances on trying to get your health back. We want to prevent, we want to encourage, we want to pull you out of the matrix and empower you that you have control of your health, you have control of your weight.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
There is a way to do it. And fasting can be that solution for so many. And Tommy, that that mark that we just hit is that 2 million downloads? Yes. Which is just I never would have imagined. So a sincere thank you and appreciation and gratitude that you all continue to listen, continue to follow, continue to share. So we want to give a shout out to a couple of the most recent our favorite reviews, the five star reviews, before we hop into the effects of a low sugar diet combined with intermittent fasting in the context of non alcoholic society liver disease.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So, Tommy, you have those up in front of you. You want me to start? Yes.
[Tommy Welling]
Yes, I do. Absolutely. Ray. And thank you for the five Star Review helpful podcast on fasting. I've been fasting for about a month and a half now, and I found this podcast to be a great encouragement and helps me understand more about fasting. Thank you for all the great information! Ran You are very welcome. Thank you for the review too.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yes, absolutely. WSMV, I wish we could know who these people are. Thank you. It's the best. A daily conversation. I don't like to talk about fasting with my family, friends or coworkers. Have you been listening for a while? You know, the first year rules of fasting, just like the first two rules of Fight Club. If you're old enough to get that reference are don't talk about fasting.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And they say they listen daily because it feels like a conversation between you and I find myself agreeing with them and thinking, that happened to me too, right? I, I have this podcast on and off throughout my day. The bass. Thank you so much, WSMV, and appreciate you listening in. And that is exactly the essence of why we do this week in and week out.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And these reviews tell the podcast gods that we're doing something of value so much. We're going to do one more shout out before we dive in.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, absolutely. Julie knew, but very impressed. I've been hearing wonderful things about this duo from a guy who is a Ph.D. and I'm a previous nurse anesthetist, so we're both pretty selective. I join the last seven days challenge, got through during the holidays with a £5 loss and a big drop in my cravings for unhealthy foods. Congrats, Julie.
[Tommy Welling]
That's incredible. I'm now in the sixth month VIP coaching and have consumed hours of the content, super impressed with the content. But most of all, these men seem to really care and genuinely want to help people struggling. Absolutely we do. And she says she learned so much in the process and so wish she had started months ago. Thanks, guys.
[Tommy Welling]
You're welcome. Julie, Thank you. For for the trust and for the shout out. I appreciate it.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, the trust is a big thing. So if you're new and you go, and who are these guys? Right? We're just we're just normal folks just like you. But yeah, fasting transformed our lives, and that is our mission and vision now is to take this message and continue to build on, you know, just the tried and true art of fasting, but most importantly, get your results.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So with that being said, appreciate the shout out. Feel free to drop us a view we are getting going here with 2023 continuing that momentum. We ended the year with some talks about goals and mindset and then we did a big year in review From the first episode of the year, the new resource is out. The blueprint to fasting for fat loss.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We get the challenge coming up, so we are just launching well, that was one of our episodes to launching 2023 with this fasting lifestyle and this fasting energy. So this study is really cool. Tommy From a personalized standpoint, this just came out. I mean, we're talking like hot off the presses in. Where is the date? I just had it in front of me.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I got January 20, 23, January 22.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yup, yup. And it is going to be looking at the combination of decreasing your sugar intake and combining it with the standard beginner's first step in the fasting, which is that intermittent fasting window, which is the 16 eight intermittent fasting window, which is where you have 16 hours of fasting and a lot of those are, you know, in the evenings you're sleeping and then in the morning.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So, you know, we stacked the deck in our favor to get it to make it a little bit easier, right as you're getting into it. And then, you know, skipping breakfast, breaking your fast, using an eight hour eating opportunity or we like to say a nutrition window. And this randomized trial was specifically done in participants with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I know you and I personally sharing not the whole story, but just a little piece is that as my blood work as I was working out and, you know, doing CrossFit and counting calories and macros and tracking and hiring this specialized world renowned nutritionist here in Houston and paid him about ten grand. And I was labeled as a slow oxidizer.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I was doing 60 to 90 minutes on the rowing machine multiple times a week and I would lose a little, but my body composition really wouldn't change. And I started doing this the in the in the working out and the different types of workouts and cycling through them and just trying it all. Sure. Over the over about a seven year span my blood work continued to tick up blood pressure, triglycerides, HDL was low, LDL was high to the point where my wife showed some of the genetic testing that we had done.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Once she showed it to a friend of hers at the gym because we were friends with the owners at that point when they still on, they no longer own the gym. That's why I put it in the past tense. And she was like, Is he like drinking beer and eating like fast food every day? All right? And she's like, No, I don't think so.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I'm like, No, I'm not. I'm not stopping it. And know the triple cheeseburger and the whatever on the way home. No. Yeah, I'm I'm like, I'm eating like, yeah, we're we're food, prepping in meal, prepping and working out all this stuff. Right? But my liver enzymes were always something that showed up right on my lab work, but it was never something that was talked about.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And yeah, I didn't discover the blood sugar insulin underlying issue that I had because my blood glucose and A1 C was always in normal range. Yes, my fasting blood sugar was usually in the nineties, but it was like, Oh, that's okay, it's fine. Right? And it was never, ever talked about, you know. And I looked like a strong man in the off season with the big old belly I had, you know, I had a lot, you know, I could power lift the foundation, the house off the foundation.
[Tommy Welling]
Traps up to your ears.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? Yeah. And the point was, it was like, okay, well, my numbers weren't getting any better and what was the issue? So I never knew back then that those liver, those elevated liver enzymes were an indication that I had something going on with my energy, my, my body's ability to process, store and burn fat specifically around the liver as an organ or as as a as a processing plant.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, it's crazy. And, you know, if you think about it, the liver is is central to everything that we do as far as removing blood sugar from from the system, as well as burning through fat, metabolically shifting gears from sugar, burning into fat, burning into ketosis. So it's it's played a vital role. So like, we should be looking at it and it's a shame that that some of these things that that tell us that there is a problem lurking and brewing underneath the surface are just kind of like you said earlier, like kind of swept under the rug because you may not meet the definition or the the strict the strict definition of nonalcoholic fatty
[Tommy Welling]
liver disease. But at the same time, those ticking up enzymes that show up on a lot of our blood work, especially as we're putting on some weight and we're feeling a little bit worse and we're we're trying to diet, we're trying to get the weight off, but it's just not coming off. A lot of times these these enzyme levels are ticking up.
[Tommy Welling]
And and this is that's the definition. The definition is, is that actual excess fat building up in the liver, but not caused by alcohol or heavy alcohol use. And it can just it can just be there kind of lurking and just kind of getting swept under the rug because there's there's not really too much to talk about. But at the same time, it's happening as you're as that blood sugar was kind of ticking up, too.
[Tommy Welling]
And we know where that or that kind of ends up over time.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And the diagnosis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, you know, they're going to you're going to look at, you know, how do I say this? They're going to look at you as a whole, Right? And they're going to look at your health history and they're going to, you know, look at the bloodwork, the alt in medical history, overweight, obesity, insulin resistance, type two diabetes.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're going to hear a lot of the same things we talk about on all the other episodes triglycerides, abnormal levels of cholesterol and abnormal lipid profile. Right. HDL is low. LDL as high or metabolic syndrome. And they'll, you know, ask about other causes of liver disease. Do you have a family history? Do you drink? And then they'll do a physical exam.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Look at your body mass index. Do you have an enlarged liver? Do you have signs of insulin resistance such as darkened skin patches, knuckles, elbows, knees, signs of cirrhosis? Sure. But if a lot of those come back negative, then and you do the blood work and you have your alt your alanine aminotransferase in your SD, which is your aspartate aminotransferase and they're just slightly elevated and there's no other history or cirrhosis or additional major concern, then it's going to be rare in, in my experience of, of going through this and also hearing about it and hearing from other a lot of the other people that I've shared about their journey in their lab work and
[Dr. Scott Watier]
their conversations like going to the next step for ultrasound or biopsy or CT scan or an MRI is not typically where that conversation goes. Normally it goes to blood pressure. Here's a cholesterol medication. Hey, you might want to think about, you know, eat less, move more kind of things. Yeah. If the risk isn't inherently there for you, if you fall in one of those high risk categories.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So the frustrating thing is it just kind of like gets swept under the rug. And the reality is there was an article in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology that's a mouthful in December of 2022. So another recent article and this is a meta analysis, this thing is massive 2019 global nafld nonalcoholic fatty liver disease prevalence, a systematic review and meta analysis.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? So they looked at the the reason they're looking at this because the increase in rates of obesity and type two diabetes mellitus may lead to the increase of prevalence of nafld while they're very much related. Right and in the process in the liver of like a genesis like. So there's a direct correlation there. And the reality is, is that this is kind of how do we say it like the elephant in the room.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Nobody really knows what to do with it or how to talk about it.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, everyone just keeps jumping over it.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? It's like all this pink elephant in the room. So this review wanted to look at determining the current and recent trends on the global and regional prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. So systematic research, they looked through 17,244 articles. They found 245 eligible studies, 5.3 million individuals.
[Tommy Welling]
Wow.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Whoa. The global prevalence was 29.8% of the population, while 82 of these included articles that used ultrasound not just elevated enzymes but ultrasound to diagnose it. Right. With the United States coming in in the top spot at 36%, or North America, I should say.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? Well, it matters because the majority of people, the number one reason why people die that have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is due to cardiovascular disease. Now we're getting into the connection between diabetes and cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance and blood sugar issues.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. Wow.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if this is as high as it is, then how do we prevent or reverse or undo this clogged up liver function? Because the liver is absolutely so important. It is not just a filter, it is a living, breathing, metabolic functioning necessity that you need to have in your system. So just looking at it like risk factors, low HDL, type two, diabetes, high BMI, age, hypertension, waist circumference, right.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
All of these things that if you are struggling to lose weight, you typically have either on your radar or are already in that category.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. And I feel like an important piece of the puzzle that was missing for me for a long time that I just don't hear talked about very often is the fact that the liver is responsible for actually metabolizing most of the fructose and a lot of the sugar that that actually comes through the body. So the connection begins with what what we have to do with the fructose, especially that we bring in, which is like high fructose corn sirup is such a like an easy target, but also such a a powerful part of the problem here, because when that comes into the liver, the liver is forced to actually make stabilize that.
[Tommy Welling]
And then if we already have a full liver, liquid glycogen fall. So we're we're basically eating at or a little bit above our our caloric needs or our insulin levels are a little bit higher than they should be. So it becomes a little harder to tap into the stored fuel that we have in our liver. When we're doing that, then each additional gram of sugar, especially of fructose that comes in, is forced to to actually be deposited as little fat droplets, mostly as a visceral fat right around the heart and the vital organs.
[Tommy Welling]
And then now we have the strong connection between sugar coming in and then cardiometabolic disease, right? That is a huge part of cognitive dissonance for most of us. Most of us just don't think about that or don't understand it, or we haven't heard that before. To be able to make those connections.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I want to share where the sources of the majority of the fructose comes from. But first, this is from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases or the Niddk. And it's talking that it says here that either of you have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease or NASH, which is a serious I always mess up the pronunciation of this nonalcoholic steatohepatitis hepatic Titus who.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So what they say here is weight loss can reduce fat inflammation and fibrosis or scarring, right? So if you're overweight or obese, losing weight now some of you going, Yeah, I know, I'm trying. Losing at least 3 to 5% of your body weight can reduce fat in the liver. You may need to lose up to 7 to 10.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So we're going to share some stuff from this article and the changes that we saw in a 12 week period. Just 12 weeks. Right. So just remember those numbers, okay? They're going to be close. If I recall correctly. Tommy has those stats, but I'm pretty sure that we're in the in the ballpark of self-limited overpromising.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I had to lose about 15% of my body weight before I saw those enzymes drop, the ones that weren't talked about whenever they actually came up.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And I think I have to look at that, I'm not sure, you know. So let's talk about where this stuff comes from. So this there was a study that was looked at. It was an article in medical news today. It's that high fructose corn sirup intake linked to liver disease and it was looking at the link between the high fructose corn sirup and AASLD.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And, you know, we know the risk factors already mentioned those. It was looking at exploring the consumption rates and hopefully helping researchers identify the reasons behind different ethnic groups. So it was looking at the done analysis and this came from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the NHANES in 2017 and 18, and they looked at about 3230, 300 folks and 31% were in the moderate fructose consumption group and 35% were in the high consumption group.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And it looked at Mexican-Americans, non-Hispanic blacks and non-Hispanic whites as the three main groups and fructose consumption came in various sources. So if you think of Fruit House, right, most people think, well, fruit and then sodas or soft drinks. Yeah. Direct sources of sugar candy. Well, 29% from baked goods, pasta and other grains. Yeah, 28% from fruits and items containing fruit or fake fruit.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This juice contains 10% juice from concentrate. Right. 16% from sweeteners, condiments and sauces.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, that's a big.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Okay. Yeah, I just.
[Tommy Welling]
I just saw a couple of posts about somebody using ketchup, like with a with a continuous glucose monitor and the spikes that they see often from different condiments like ketchup. I mean, that.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Ketchup was a huge hit. So that's right. Yeah. And then 16% from sodas. Okay. So if we've got the wrong target here, then the results may not match, right? If we're just, you thinking we're doing the right thing and it's not helping. I mean, if that sounds familiar, you know, we shared a little bit about our story here a few minutes ago, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So what we want to look at with the actual effects of the study is that, you know, we've talked about the stats, we've talked about the trends. We know the Nafld is strongly associated with lack of movement and unhealthy hypochlorite diets. But is there something small that we can change? Right, Reducing and we're not saying all forms of carbohydrates, but specifically fructose versus glucose because fructose.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
How did you word it? Tommy It's like it's like gas on the fire. Like, what did you say?
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I mean, it is it's a major piece of that. I mean, it's a major like wrench being thrown into the system. I don't know exactly what I said, but I don't intentionally. It's the accelerant for sure.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, it's an accelerant. That's the word I was looking for. An accelerant. Right. So I don't mean to tie you up there and then not. Not exactly give you what I was looking for. I was like, you said something, right? So, yeah, when we're looking at this study, you know, excessive energy intake is a primary driver of development of nafld.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But evidence suggests that certain sources of energy, such as sugar. Right. What you're talking about, what you just mentioned, may especially promote increases and therefore. Yeah, now we just talked about the sources of most of them. So the cornerstone of treatment is lifestyle modification with the aim of achieving significant weight loss. So we shared some numbers there, right.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
[Tommy Welling]
Down the rabbit hole you are.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So time restricted eating which incorporates extended periods of daily fasting. Right. The most common is that eight hour window, followed by 16 hours of fasting. There's an increasing in popularity, right? So is the low sugar diet combined with TRT beneficial? And this 12 week randomized trial was 45 participants of a smaller study. But I love that it was 42 year olds, 60% men, 40% women.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We're starting to see a lot more studies with fasting. And we just did that last week's episode that talked about the four and six hour windows, and that was the majority of those women were on the borderline of obesity and it was the majority of women in that study.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Which was really cool to see. Right. So the prescribed diets were ISO caloric, 30% of total daily energy from fat 15 protein, which in these studies I would love to see. How about we prioritize protein and fat and decrease the carbs? Okay. I know for this one they couldn't do that, but it's always so interested me that protein is so low, so 30% fat, 50% protein, 55% carbohydrates with at least nine servings of fruits and vegetables.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Dietary adherence was monitored. The primary outcome was liver fat, assessed to be in control via the attenuation parameter. The secondary outcomes were liver fibrosis assessed using a fiber scan and liver enzyme levels. Right. The ALTA and AC and the GT anthropometric markers of inflammation, which I love, the CRP, the CRP addition to this one as well, right? Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And because we know higher levels of CRP, less effective fat burning due to some of the blocking of the leptin signals and the insulin effectiveness getting to your brain, telling your brain to burn fat. And then they looked at total antioxidant capacity, fasting blood glucose, fasting insulin ins and resistance, which was not just like a blood test, it was actually using the gold standard.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Homa I.R. Mm hmm. And looking at blood lipids. So let's go over some of the results. Wow.
[Tommy Welling]
I love the design of this because when I talked to any of my friends or family and they talk about something being off in their blood work versus fasting. Yeah, well, no, no. Yeah, we're not even talking about fasting, but if they say, Oh man, I got my blood work back and I got some elevated triglycerides, or maybe they actually say some, some elevated liver enzymes, which is more rare because like we know 36% of Americans actually have this, but most don't understand that they have it because it's not being actually diagnosed for them.
[Tommy Welling]
But when when they talk about having some elevated enzymes or triglycerides or cholesterol or something like that, most of them most of these are 1980s or 1970s or 1960s models. Then they immediately go to I need to reduce the fat in my diet. They almost never say I need to cut out some sugar in my diet. And the court talking about this.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, the cool thing about this study is it's going to directly compare that, which I really like.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So it's interesting. You might be thinking, who the heck would you know who talks about that stuff? Well, with your background. Me? Yeah. Uh huh. And you're. Yeah, you do? Yeah, I really do. Yeah, right. The first time we hung out for intervention by the wives, stuff like this came up, I can. I can. I can attest to it.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So. Right. The cool thing here is that the intervention and control groups were icer caloric, meaning they ate the same amount of calories based on their the reports. The intervention and control groups decreased their energy intake by 198 and 153 kilograms per day respectively compared to the baseline. So the energy intake in both groups was statistically significant compared to the baseline, but there was no difference in energy intake between the groups and the fat mass compared to baseline.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? So the intervention group decreased body weight and fat mass from 83 to 80 kilograms and 26 to 24 kilograms in the control. Additionally, compared to the control, the intervention decreased liver fat and liver fibrosis scores and improved or reduced all levels of liver enzymes.
[Tommy Welling]
Nice.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Here's a kicker the control increased fat mass and decreased lean body mass.
[Tommy Welling]
Ouch. In 12 weeks, 12 weeks you're talking about a fourth of a year here. And left to my own devices, when my liver already doesn't look great, I already have some elevated enzymes. It doesn't take long to continue to move in the wrong direction. That's.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, that's the accelerant right there.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. That that. That's where I was. That's what I was seeing in my bloodwork. But on a year to year basis, you don't have to go very long to see that without controlling either both what I'm in taking or the timing of what I'm taking. It doesn't have to be I don't have to be eating anything crazy. I don't have to be taking in just way too many calories.
[Tommy Welling]
But my liver is suffering over time and it's getting worse.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
My macros were so incredibly crazy to me that like there were days I just couldn't finish the food and it was like one meal was like two cups are like 200. And I don't remember the exact numbers, but like 285 carbs a day, like, I don't I don't remember exactly the amount, like 150, 170 grams of protein and under 100 grams of fat, like 90 grams of fat, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It was like insane to me. But more inflamed bloodwork is getting worse. Feeling worse. Right? So all of those things as well. But it definitely was not moving the needle. And this is 55% carbohydrate, right? So interestingly enough, when we do our our food or nutrition feedback in our group, we'll ask people to put together some meals and track for a short period of time to make sure that we're not under consuming or overconsuming in certain areas.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
With the fasting schedules, there's always posts where it's like, Yeah, I thought I was doing great. And then we break down and it's like the meals are 50 to 60% carbohydrates, and that's more common if we look at the standard American diet. I mean, that's what we're talking about, right? So it's just it's just crazy. Share a few more results here.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The innovation, I think you have some percentages on body body weight as well, but I want to make sure we hit the total cholesterol number. So the intervention decreased triglycerides from 201 to 133.
[Tommy Welling]
Wow. I'll say that again.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
[Tommy Welling]
Wow. On the total.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Cholesterol, imagine if the carbohydrate percentage was 30%. Yeah. And it was natural unrefined, unprocessed carbs.
[Tommy Welling]
And if it was an eight hour eating window, what if.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, maybe it was 6 hours. Yeah, maybe. Maybe a six or a four. Like last week. Sorry. Last week you were doing here. Do you pick it up or down. So and each of these changes were significant compared to the controls. So total cholesterol went from 190 to 157 and ldl-c from 104 to 84. Wow. They also decreased levels of fasting.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Blood glucose gets better from 105 to 92 prediabetic to non. Now I'd like to see that. 90 to 86 or five.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
No need to. You know what the inventor of the Titanic said? It can't be sank archeological is that iceberg, right? So yeah, 105 to 92. Let's not be a 92. Let's be a little farther away from the air Quotes Normal range of nine 9 to 1082. Yeah. CRP 3.14 to 2.02 Huge huge CRP doesn't have a big range, small range.
[Tommy Welling]
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Would. Right. And each of these changes were significant. No stinking way. Right. So the big picture, your time, given your numbers, any more numbers we want to share before we move on?
[Tommy Welling]
There was also oh, no, you talked about blood glucose. Yeah. Like I think you hit them all. Those are they're incredible.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So what about the body fat? The intervention group that lost the amount of weight? So it was. Despite a similar decrease in energy intake, the intervention group lost a little over three kilograms of body weight and about 2.5 kilograms of fat mass, while the control group gained about 1.7 kilograms of fat mass on average. The divergence was crazy.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
In body composition implies that there was a greater decrease in energy intake from the intervention group. And. Right. It's not uncommon to see that in self-reported things, but it's also very common. So you don't hear to see that in fasting interventions.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You stop being hungry all the time, your cravings improve, you feel better, you don't feel as ravenous. Things start to balance out. Your body is in ketosis and tapping into some of those fat stores, i.e. 2.5 kilograms of fat mass. Right. And three kilograms of total body weight in 12 weeks.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. I mean, I love the fact that that sentence right there means they can't explain the difference based on what they were actually measuring. Right. There's this this divergence implies there was a greater decrease in energy intake in the intervention group. No, they knew what the calories were. They just didn't expect to see the change in body composition to be so substantial.
[Tommy Welling]
And that's where we can we can really start moving the needle in some surprising ways when we're when we're implementing fasting. Correct? Right. And we're we're using the super power of actually controlling the food intake as well to to level up those those fasting results too, which is, which is why there's so much potential here. And this is incredible.
[Tommy Welling]
But I also want to point out the fact that this was a 12 week study because we've we've done episodes in the past talking about some of the major dietary restrictions or interventions or styles that can be used like a ketogenic diet and low carb and things like that, because a lot of these things are tough to stick to long term and that's okay.
[Tommy Welling]
And it can also be tough to like see myself using this for a long term basis. But 12 weeks is not very long to actually set things aside to use something like this as a planned protocol. Knowing that I'm going to shift gears maybe 12 weeks from now, I don't have to be doing this for life in order to actually create a healthier version of myself.
[Tommy Welling]
And I think that's the incredibly empowering part that that's the perspective I wish I had a few years ago.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And if you're a £200 person listening to this, right, you know, that's three that's over 3% of your body weight. Remember, we shared that 3 to 5% will do it for most people. Right. But we need to look at the liver as an important part. Right. So, you know, when that's why sugar restriction is being investigated for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, there's an association between sugar sweetened beverage consumption, but there's also the the research that showed that 29% from baked goods, pasta and other grains, crackers, baked goods, right.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Packaged foods, 28% from foods and other items containing fruit or fruit juice, 60% from studies, and then 16%, 16% excuse me, from sodas. So it's like, okay, we've got to make sure that we're yeah, we we know. Yeah, let's reduce the sugar. But it's not the sweets in the sodas per say and just.
[Tommy Welling]
Ice cream, you know.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Right. And the idea here is, is that, you know, fructose may have that particularly detrimental effect on the liver because of how it's metabolized. Right. It's that accelerant. It goes through a different process. But glucose metabolism in the liver is regulated.
[Tommy Welling]
By.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Insulin. So if you're imbalanced in the liver fat accumulation, right. So when fatty acid uptake in the production exceeds rates of the fatty acid oxidation and export us breathing out our fat, we literally burn we lose our fat through our breath, right when that's out of whack. And we're looking at insulin, right? The metabolism of this glucose and fructose or fructose is a little bit different because it goes through that different process.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But so a surplus of glucose then bypasses the liver to be metabolized by other tissues. So your liver is clogged. So now we're starting to see and there's an article we're going to do an episode on where it shows that insulin resistance in the skeletal muscle and what that mechanism look like looks like. Right. So fructose independent of insulin and not regulated by the energy status of liver.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we need to decrease the fructose, but then to get the liver swinging that equation of oxidation in our favor, well, let's just decrease the insulin or energy intake overall. Yeah. And let our liver come up fresh, so to speak. Yeah. And that's where fasting is so stinking powerful. You don't have to completely remove carbohydrates. You don't have to demonize food groups.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You don't have to we're going to say limit, limit, right limit, because you will accelerate that process because carbohydrates, you know, have the highest insulin and blood sugar response. Right. But it doesn't have to be a one size fits all approach.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fasting, however, can apply to any and all situation when applied properly.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. You also don't have to eat like a rabbit whenever you want to break your fast. In order to move the needle here, we need to leverage the time component because time is time is the besides your actual macronutrient time is your is your big lever here. And I would argue that it's probably a slightly bigger lever than the the intake, the macronutrient profile.
[Tommy Welling]
So what that means is we have to get better at leveraging the time component and not just being concerned that I'm not eating the perfect food. When I do break my fast, I need to get to get better and more consistent with my fasting and then add this on top, you know, a little bit of of control and delaying, but not complete, you know, restriction or omission of some of my favorite foods.
[Tommy Welling]
You know, And then now I can start seeing the needle move. I can see the blood work start to improve, even even if it wasn't diagnosed. Like if I go back five years and I and I look at my my alti in my city and my GTI and they're all ticking up. They're in the yellow or sometimes in the in the red zone.
[Tommy Welling]
But I never had any insight into that. But if, but if I knew it was going to move the needle, if I just like skipped breakfast consistently and stopped eating past maybe like 8 p.m. or something and actually like time restricted, that I would have been all over it. But, but I never I never knew the concrete connection there.
[Tommy Welling]
So I think that's huge.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, looking at the reduction here to, you know, looking at so just trying to apply it to real life, right. Because what you're talking about there is real life. Right. And especially for women, especially, you know, under 40 childbearing years, you need healthy carbohydrates leading up to your to your cycle because progesterone is fueled by those. Right.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So like that's where the cravings. So low carb. Yes. It is so powerful in this instance. Right. Decreasing the sugar even though their carbohydrate intake was still 55%. You know, the reduction in real life, the intervention group reduced sugar and fructose intake from 139 to 101 and then 24 to 4. So fructose 24 to 4 and sugar 139 to 101.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I mean, that's a lot of sugar. So imagine if we like cut those numbers, the sugar number in half.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's just incredible that like the application of this can fit any no matter where you are. Yeah. On the spectrum. Right. And there's we can just keep going. Right. The studies that show that diabetes and low carb adherence is at the two year mark was worse than it was at the origination date. It was good at 6 to 12 months, but then 18 to 24 months, the wheels fell off as.
[Tommy Welling]
We were thinking about it. As a lifelong, as a long term, you know, kind of thing, not a rotational intervention.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And so the takeaway here is, well, how do you do this? Well, put a little bit of intentionality into your plan. Right. You need to have a guide. Well, you got a blueprint to fat loss.
[Tommy Welling]
Right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Starting right. The blueprint to fasting for fat loss. Start there. It has everything in there you need. It's got a little bit of science, a little bit of application, how to ramp up your windows, how to choose your window. Right. We have our one meal a day guide already, but this is going to be more of a comprehensive blueprint, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then start doing those things today. Make a different decision when your next nutrition opportunity set your timer, be consistent. Right. So you really want to use the word accelerant or accelerate that process. Then we're going to recommend you happen. This kick off event for this year, the first seven eight fasting lifestyle challenge coming up as well. Tommy So grab the guide, pick one or two things that you're going to do today.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Don't pretend. Don't think about it in the future. Know how to.
[Tommy Welling]
Push it off. Yeah, one push. Think.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
If you do celebrate that process and then go check out the link for the seven day fasting lifestyle challenge that is coming up on February 1st. And yes, we waited for the holiday hangover to take place and the New Year's resolutions to wear off because now we are focused that we're going to start the month fresh. Doesn't matter.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The month doesn't matter of the day. It's the decision that you make in the moment to start. And that's what we're going to do along with you, Tommy. So, yeah.
[Tommy Welling]
Go ahead with the challenge. Not in January. It doesn't have to be about a New Year's resolution, you know? Exactly. Now, several forget about forget about, you know, the silly stuff that the flash in the pan stuff. Right. But this is all about getting a little bit outside of your comfort zone, right. And having the support and the feedback and the structure that can really help push and accelerate the process.
[Tommy Welling]
So we're all about moving that momentum in the right direction. So it's going to be really cool. So super excited to see everyone.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Absolutely, Absolutely. Absolutely. Head to the show notes. Download The Blueprint to Fasting for Fat Loss. Check out the link for more information, dates and times for the seven day fasting lifestyle challenge coming up on February 1st. Tommy, as always, sir, thank you for the conversation. Hugely mean I'm so fired up about this one. I want to keep going when we get it in the episode.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So thank you guys for listening again. Thank you all for just the amazing just continued support, as you know, with with the downloads and the weekly lessons and the reviews. We just we are so appreciative that you guys have chosen us to be part of your fasting journey. So grateful love and appreciate you all for listening. Tommy, as always, sir.
[Tommy Welling]
TUCKSON Thank you. Bye. So you've heard today's episode, and you may be wondering, where do I start? Head on over to V Fasting for life dot com and sign up for our newsletter where you'll receive.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
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[Tommy Welling]
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[Dr. Scott Watier]
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