Ep. 167 - Low Calorie or Cyclical very Low Calorie: which is better for Fat Loss & improving HbA1c? | How Fast is too Fast to Lose Weight? | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan
In today’s timely episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss how fast is too fast to lose weight, how many calories should you eat & should you restrict natural carbohydrates for optimal fat loss, transition to weight maintenance mode & long-term habits, and much more.
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Fasting For Life Ep. 167 Transcript
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hello. I’m Dr. Scott Dr. Watier.
[Tommy Welling]
And I'm Tommy Welling. And you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This podcast is about using fasting as a tool to regain your health, achieve ultimate wellness, and live the life you truly deserve.
[Tommy Welling]
Each episode is a short conversation on a single topic with immediate, actionable steps. We cover everything from fat loss and health and wellness to the science of lifestyle design.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We started fasting for life because of how fasting has transformed our lives and we hope to share the tools that we have learned along the way. Hey everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name's Dr. Scott Warrier and I'm here as always. I'm a good friend and colleague, Tommy Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir.
[Tommy Welling]
Hey, Scott. How are you.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Doing? Fantastic, my friend. Phone conversation coming your way today about intermittent calorie restricted diet and the effects on type two diabetes remission, and not just a short term study, but something that looks at the individuals 12 months down the road and some really cool insights that we can garner from it. So I'm excited to dive into that article.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's a heavy one, but there's going to be some really cool things that we can talk about. So we're going to nerd out just a little bit. But before we do that, I want to welcome in all of you new listeners to the Fasting for Life podcast. We are so happy that you're giving us an opportunity to join you on your fasting journey and turning fasting into the solution in the lifestyle that we all were or are still looking for in terms of our health and our weight loss goals.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So, all right, you want to learn more about Tommy and I head back to episode one. I think it's like 20 or 25 minutes long. You can hear more about why we started this podcast, why we have the programs we have now, and how fasting has absolutely transformed our lives and given us our lives back. So shout out to the long term listeners as well.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We still love and appreciate all of those five star reviews. Tommy, you got one. You want a shout out this morning? I believe they're just incredible. We we there's nothing better than when we started this thing a few years ago. And don't worry, I'll keep the self-aggrandizing portion of today's episode extremely short. And it was like, Man, this really worked for us.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Let's let's tell some people about it. And here we are, you know, going on 160 something episodes later, and the momentum just keeps growing. So every time we get not just a, Hey, you guys are great, rah rah, that's not what I'm talking about, right? That's not what we need. Those are cool. Yeah, those are cool. But it's the it's the ones where we hear part of the story, too.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We're like, I did this and it worked, and. Holy moly. So, Tom, you got a shout out here real quick.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. E Figueroa, new to the lifestyle. Thanks for dropping five stars. Hey, guys, listen to episode 161. Had to go back to the beginning to just listen to the episode of Human Growth Hormone. Really appreciate all that information. Last year I went to a wellness doctor. He he was selling me Semaglutide $450 a month to start around $300 a month.
[Tommy Welling]
Tried to sell me HGH, 40 $200 per month. Wow. Like, I mean, you're talking house payments here. I didn't I didn't bite but spent over $4,000 total on supplements for three months, knocked off £30 in three months. I've been fasting for two weeks. I'm already down an incredible £20 without the high cost of medications and supplements hooked on the new lifestyle already feeling so much better.
[Tommy Welling]
That's so awesome. Congrats on incredible progress right now and I know some mind blowing ahas right there. Talk about like flipping, flipping what you were thinking like on its head. That's incredible.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I hadn't seen that one. So you can't see me since This is an audio medium. But like Tom, you can see me on zoom in. Like my eyes are.
[Tommy Welling]
Like eyes bulging, peeled.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Back, So incredible. So keep it coming. Keep putting in the words awesome. We want to bring you value each and every episode. So let's hop into today's conversation. Tommy, This article and I love that this stuff is a lot of the articles that we've been doing recently, and you might notice that there's some overlap where it's like, Oh, another conversation on diabetes remission.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, another conversation on fasting and blood sugar. Yeah, but there's a lot more coming out recently. A lot of these articles are within the last few months. This one's from December 2020 to, you know, most recent episodes we've done were, you know, within the last few months. We really have a couple that are coming up that are going to be from 2023, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I just love that there's the continued search for better answers, especially when it comes to the obesity and weight loss and diabetes epidemic. And we know that eight out of the top ten reasons why people you know, all all cause mortality here in the US are related to blood sugar and insulin related issues. So it is that important and we want to but we want to make it tangible too, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We want to make it applicable. We want to give you steps you can do today. So this study came out of China, Tommy, and it was the effect of an intermittent calorie restricted diet on type two diabetes remission, a randomized controlled trial. And it's out of the Journal of Clinical Endocrine in the Journal of Clinical, the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's going on today. All right, don't you guys? Why we got you here and I just want our first and foremost big picture. There is a, you know, anywhere between 70 to 90 million Americans. And I was one of them that didn't know I had pre-diabetes.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, me, too.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And in the moment, you don't really think it's a big deal. Yeah. Or maybe you've had some symptoms come up. You know, we're not we're not talking medical advice here, but, you know, we've had some symptoms of blood pressure, liver enzymes. We did a whole episode recently on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and in sleeping.
[Tommy Welling]
Deep, deep sleep.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Sleep lethargic nap after eating a nap every day, multiple right, waistline increasing, even though you're doing all the right things, counting calories, working out more, eating less, moving more right. And it just isn't working. And, you know, labs were a little bit off but air quotes normal right?
[Tommy Welling]
Still within normal limits. Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And the reality is, is that diabetes by definition is a progressive disorder and the medications used are to manage the disease. But we like to say, like this article mentions for the reversal or even more fancy word remission of the condition.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's possible. It's doable. People are doing it. We've done it. And there's some cool insights that come out of this article and we're going to unpack those here for you in just a sec.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, there are. I want to highlight that term that you just said remission of it, because, you know, for for myself 70 plus pounds ago, coming off of what was my pre-diabetes or pre pre-diabetes because I hadn't even been told yet that I was officially on the track yet. But I can go back and pull the bloodwork and I can I can see how much higher things were than they are now and how they trended up over the years.
[Tommy Welling]
You know, slowly but surely ticking up in all those boxes that you mentioned. But treating treating this as in remission rather than just reversal means that we are highlighting the fact that, yes, there was there was a problem. And I did work to reverse the problem and back the problem away. However, I need to remain vigilant over time so I can continue to keep it at bay.
[Tommy Welling]
Because if I went back to my old habits, I would be back on the track that I was before. So, so that diabetes remission, I really like that angle and I don't hear that very often.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'd like to apply it to habit remission. We're going to talk about that a little bit too. Putting those old those old habits that are painting you into a corner, those old relationships with food, those old social, social setting habits, putting those into remission, too. Because then that means there's a sustainability portion, there's a cultivation, there's a lifestyle adaptation.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Because if you think of fasting as a diet, then it's going to be a diet. But so is every other diet, right? Yeah, The calorie restriction roller coaster of on and off, right? I'm on my diet. It works. I'm off my diet. It doesn't. You have a gastric surgery for weight loss, but you don't change the habits that got you there.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. You get on the diet and you do it. But then what happens when you stop taking the age and eating 500 calories a day? Sure. Well, we know what happens. And that's just the definition of insanity. So the cool thing about this study was one was it was not shy from carbohydrates. Okay. Right.
[Tommy Welling]
That's a nice.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Change.
[Tommy Welling]
Of pace.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, right. And it was it was a lot of fat in it as well. So I want to unpack kind of just the overview of the study. And it was in a three month or so, a three month randomized controlled trial and what they were looking at was intermittent fasting diets that alternate days of ad the bottom eating meaning eating to your satiated without boundaries, with modified fasting, you know, very low calorie days.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's something we talk about. It's like, well, how do I get all my calories in in a one meal a day? Well, you don't. It's designed to be a one meal.
[Tommy Welling]
Right.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And quote one meal a day, end quote. Right. Hard stop. So it can significantly reduce body weight and improve cardiometabolic risk factors. Right. So disease reversal prevention not management of, but prevention of and they use they Chinese medical nutrition therapy diet. And in this three month trial average age of 53 BMI of 19 to 30 with type two diabetes.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we're talking downstream from this metabolic condition of insulin resistance and metabolic inflexibility. Right. Years down the line who were taking medications or insulin were assigned to consume this CMG diet, this Chinese medical nutrition therapy diet. Right.
[Tommy Welling]
Right.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Or the add the beat them control by. So the CMT diet involves five days of very low energy intake so like 800 calories and 46 was from carbs. Now we'll unpack that in just a minute. 46% from fat and 8% protein low. So we would definitely like to see the protein Loba higher right Carbs maybe a little bit lower.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. If we're going to be doing sustainability here, followed by ten days. So five days of that followed by ten days of at the bottom. And they were both groups were following the dietary guidelines for diabetes in China. Tommy, which looks eerily similar to us here in the States right.
[Tommy Welling]
As far as the, you know, general recommended guidelines for for nutrition. Yeah. You know, so it's it's interesting because, you know, pretty much all all countries still have like, you know, just kind of grains, grains at the bottom. Right. And then maybe some fruits, maybe some vegetables going up from there. And and usually like meat and poultry a little bit higher and then oils and, you know, additional salt and sugar, you know, kind of at the top.
[Tommy Welling]
But the cool thing is here that we we do see I love the fact that it was almost 50% carbohydrates because just like almost every study like this is usually so restricted on the carbohydrates or at least at least more moderate, this is the the highest carbohydrate and lowest protein I've ever seen, you know, in any study like this.
[Tommy Welling]
So when you when you look at for.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Clarity there, we we see a lot that have the carbs. Even if you're looking at like standard American diet type A research articles, you'll see 50, 55, 60% carb and then you'll see, you know, 25, 30% protein maybe, or then you'll see the fat. Really true. We're doing a very low fat diet, right? Low carb. And then maybe you'll see the fat content a little bit higher, but then the carb content is lower.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This is the first one we've seen where they're like equal.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. And then super low protein. It's really interesting. I mean, you know, but in your in your natural state, like protein is fewer and farther between, you know, So like it's just interesting that if you keep this as like more homemade kind of stuff and like less restaurant consumption, things like that, like this is this is kind of a fairly interesting natural balance of of macronutrients, but we just don't normally see it in a in a trial like this.
[Tommy Welling]
So it's cool to see what what the results were without just restricting carbohydrates because, like, we know that that's that's hard to sustain.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Well, one of the one of the questions we get all the time is especially people that come to fasting, like, oh, I eat very low carb, it's great. That's fine. If that's the way you want to live your life, that's great. Now, I'm not saying refined, processed crap, right? Sure. Sugary drinks. We know the.
[Tommy Welling]
Things that got me into this.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
When I was talking about that. Like natural forms, like the carbohydrates in this were rice, millet, corn, buckwheat, quinoa, oat, right. Like root flours. There was some diet wheat, some dietary wheat, flour, white kidney beans, black beans, yellow beans, brown rice, these Chinese yams. Right this this isn't all the stuff that we're going to see on the inside aisles of our grocery store is packed in the colorful boxes of breakfast cereals and Pop-Tarts.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's not what we're talking about. So but when people come to fasting, they always ask us, Well, yeah, I'm just going to cut out carbohydrates and long term health. I'm going to agree with that statement that we need to reduce those sugary, fructose laden, high fructose corn sirup process. Refined carbohydrates. Yes.
[Tommy Welling]
Right, Right. But eating.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
A potato, I'm going to push back on like that being bad for your health long.
[Tommy Welling]
Term. Sure. Yeah, of.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Course. The damn thing grows from the ground, like, right. Like it has like it breaks down into an energy source and if your body is able to burn that energy right, then it doesn't get stored as fat. It doesn't increase your adipose tissue, which then becomes metabolically active, which then increases your insulin resistance and unbalances your hunger hormones.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And you can't get off that. I'm constantly hungry, craving everything cycle. So it's interesting here. Time is like, where are you going with this? So no, no, no.
[Tommy Welling]
But if you slice up that potato, then you deep fry it and then you, you.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Just put the modules in there.
[Tommy Welling]
And then smother it with high fructose corn, sirup laden ketchup.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now, flavor.
[Tommy Welling]
The the potato became bad, you know, or the effect of the potato is, is, you know, part of a bad cycle. But it's very different, you know, coming from straight from the ground.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So I really like that that there are more natural forms of carbohydrates in there. And they do fruit and vegetable gruel for breakfast, solid beverage, right. So I wouldn't recommend the CMT Diet. Right. CMT Diet. I would not recommend it. And then composite nutritional rice, which is just loaded with a bunch of words I can't say, and mushrooms and yams and salts and fibers and melons and lily root flowers.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And so it seems like a lot.
[Tommy Welling]
Of interesting.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Lab produced stuff, Right. But it gets you the macronutrient breakdown that we talked about. 46 4608 And then dinner, they had a solid beverage. And then this this very diverse wheat flour, bean, kidney, quinoa biscuit sort of thing. Right. And the idea was, is that they wanted to control and see if they could. The primary outcome was for that diabetes remission rate defined as an EPA one C of less than 6.5 after three months.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
This is the cool part because we get this question a lot to do. I have to eat low carb or do I have to eat this way for the rest of my life? I just love bread right now. Loving bread too much is a problem. Sure, right. But it's probably not the only part of the problem. And then the other cool part was year was three months of ceasing Antidiabetic medication was assessed after the intervention at three and 12 month follow up, and then the secondary outcomes were the A1, see fasting glucose, blood pressure, anthropomorphic medication use and quality of life.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So we've set this up for you, right? And some of you go a lot. The results probably are pretty, pretty crappy based on what you just told me. Right? In terms of carbohydrate intake, the quality of food, the results are pretty astounding. 53% at three months. So we did five days of of Ohman, right? Pretty much.
[Tommy Welling]
But broken up into five eating opportunities a day to caloric.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Equivalent to Oman. Excuse me. So we're not talking about tapping into fasting here.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah sure.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Eight and then and then ten days of at the bottom right following the CMT Diet or the Chinese, very similar to the American Diabetes Association food pyramid, right?
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
[Tommy Welling]
Wow. So the the actual control group was just eating ad Lib Dem. So they weren't actually they weren't actually controlling the number of calories and they were less restricted on what they were actually in taking. But I mean, that's crazy. 50% of participants in the intervention actually ceased the Antidiabetic medication and just one in the control group. So the other thing was the decrease in fasting glucose two and bodyweight as well and, and quality of life improvement as well in the intervention group.
[Tommy Welling]
I mean the results are staggering and I never would have predicted such a, such a big difference in those two groups based on this design.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now the BMI categories we're talking about again are from 1930, so normal weight up to overweight or obese comes 30 plus. So those folks have a much more metabolically active fat tissue. Leptin resistance is insulin resistance is probably higher. So there's a few things here just to take into account. But the primary result for the primary driver, which was diabetes remission, it wasn't medication seizing.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. 47% of the participants in the control group and the Cinnamon Tea Group in the intervention group achieved diabetes remission in only that same one individual in the control group. But the awesome thing was at a 12 month follow up 44%. So only one less person that achieved remission went back.
[Tommy Welling]
Wow.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
They achieved diabetes remission. 44% of the participants and then that one person that had gotten it in the control group well gave it back.
[Tommy Welling]
Give it back to back.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And this is the fear of dieting in the dieting mindset, right? So in looking at fasting like a diet, we don't have consistent efforts or lifestyle habits change. If your lifestyle habits don't change and you put the old bad ones into remission, then you don't have rewired new habits. Then it comes back. So the cool thing was A1 C was lower and the quality of life was higher in the intervention group as well.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And the initial change in body weight remained stable in both groups.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But the difference was the disease progression or the disease lack of disease, remission.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So diabetes, right. Some genetic conditions, a lot of environmental factors contributing to its manifestation. Right. So a lot of moving parts. The incredible thing here is evidence suggests that the V.A led right. So the 600 800 calorie a day intervention that they were undergoing in other research says is you can significantly reduce liver fat, liver insulin resistance and normalize these fasting glucose levels in seven days.
[Tommy Welling]
Wow.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if we're talking about this other article, a reversal of type two diabetes, normalization of beta cell function in association with decreased pancreas and liver triglyceride, all this was from 2011. And that article showed that 600 calories a day can have those drastic changes in just seven days. In this study, however, with some of the things we just mentioned, right, the types of foods and the dietary recommendations that are following, even though they still got results, it took eight weeks for those reductions in pancreatic fat and improvements and beta cell function to occur.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
While everybody's journey is going to be a little bit different, there are people out there that are just going to I'm just going to Angus Barbieri my way there. I'm going to fast for 300 and whatever days, light years or whatever, however many days it's going to take and I'm going to come off of my medications. And then at the other end, I'm going to be a new person with rewired habits.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And some people can do that. The cool thing is, is that this study, even with its limitations and it's its carbohydrate amount and its dietary, you know, diabetic guidelines for food and the add the medium component, it still produced significant reductions. And then looking at the long term, they were able to keep them. And this is where I want to have the last part of this conversation today, Tommy, is the fact that when we increase and we look at fasting and applying the low carb or how do I get my calories in or what should my fasting window look like, then we can start to have some pretty cool conversations about beginning with the end
[Dr. Scott Watier]
in mind of prevention of diabetes if you have it remission. But then what does life look like after the intervention period, after the very low calorie nomad plan or the fast cycling where you're varying different fasting windows from 1618 hours all the way up to 36, 48, sometimes 72.
[Tommy Welling]
Hmm. Yeah. And it was cool to see that they included some of that that education, that reintroduction component within this, this study. So they went through a period anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks afterwards where they would transition to that would that weight maintenance diet because what they're what they're showing and what they're reiterating is the fact that that calorie restriction was not necessary after the remission portion to keep the weight off or to keep the diabetes or the blood sugar issues at bay.
[Tommy Welling]
But that reintroduction portion of what you were just alluding to, that that's important. What are you going to do? Like if you've been losing weight, let's say, with Nomad, like I did for a while, then then what? What what do you do after that? And if you if you don't have a plan, like I felt like, you know, many times that can be the time where if I'm not sure what to do next or how to kind of get off of get off of this track, then I'm on, right?
[Tommy Welling]
And I don't really know where I'm going to end up. And the default for a lot of us is revert start reverting back to old habits. But that's how the weight comes back on usually quickly. If we're not if we're not careful. Right. Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And it was interesting because they mentioned a few other research articles in here that compared the 800 to 600 calorie a day type of mad scenario have been reported to produce significantly greater weight loss at three and six months compared to low energy diets without greater rates of attrition, meaning it's not harder to sustain. So we're talking low energy diets where anywhere between 1050 hundred calories, so many women, so many men come to us saying, I have been restricting my calories and eating like a bird for so many years, 800,000, 1200 calories.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You've been under consuming the LEDs, 600, 800. What this study was, 847. I think it was calories, right? Yeah. Produce greater weight loss at three and six months compared to those other old habit patterns what you just mentioned. We go back to doing it the way we were doing it. We haven't rewired that stuff. We haven't turned it into, like we like to say, fasting for life, a lifestyle.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? And yeah, I want to mention something here, Tommy, because you just had a recent experience with some blood sugar numbers that was pretty eye opening to you. Yes. And I want to bring up nutrients again, as you listen to this episode and you're like, wow. Like, okay, great research articles out of China, you know, crazy, cool. I think I can do this.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But having real time data is so incredibly powerful and being back with nutrients, nutrients combines the cutting edge technology and the human expertise and interpretation, right? So we've got nutrients that can help with your health goals and give you the dietary guidance and have this really cool app where you can see what your blood sugar is doing in real time, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like, yeah, this article shows long term results, but the biosensor itself is painless. You apply it to the back of your tricep and it lives there for 14 days. And that biosensor combined with the support and the app allows you to see how your body responds to food, but not just food, more health style, more lifestyle and health type things like exercise and stress and sleep and and and fasting.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
What does your blood sugar do to me? So I know, you know, seeing data in real time, like taking this research article and applying it to your life. Yeah, we're going to land the plane and give you some really cool takeaways here, of course. But you had an experience recently with your CGM that was kind of eye opening.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, I mean, just, just literally setting my timer. And when, when I'm on track and I am not finding myself in old patterns like, you know, just kind of grazing in the pantry or, you know, or eating out and things like that, when when things are on track, I can see stability in my blood sugar. And it's really, really good to see.
[Tommy Welling]
It's also reinforcing a lot of the good habits that I've been building over the last few years that are night and day different from, you know, what kind of got me into the mess in the first place. But I can also see as soon as I kind of if I forget the fact that it's in remission, the blood sugar issues are in remission.
[Tommy Welling]
And if I take my eye off the prize and don't set my fasting timer or end up grazing in the pantry, last week I was I was out at a restaurant and we had a kind of a family get together. And as soon as sleep was a little bit off and I didn't have my fasting timer set and I was at a restaurant, the peeks that I saw just came back, smacked me in the face too, to reinforce exactly why I do this and why the lifestyle component of it is is just so important to me.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Now, in real time, you were having a good time, you were having fun. You didn't feel terrible after your meal, but your insulin levels, your levels were elevated, right? So.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The seeing the data in real time makes it so much easier to identify where the gaps are and how can we improve. So weight loss, better sleep, stable energy throughout the day, less cravings, knowing what foods serve us and what foods don't is just incredible. So we've partnered with nutrients and it's been incredibly eye opening for us, as you just heard from Tommy.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So you can head to Nutri Sense dot EO forward slash fasting for life. We're excited to officially being partnered with the CGM Nutrition. It's incredible support, incredible app visuals and just a process that's going to be incredibly eye opening for you. So I want to encourage you head to the show notes or the website nutrition start IO forward slash fasting for life.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Use the code, fasting for life. You're going to save 30 bucks, you're going to get one month free of dietician support. And I want to encourage you to sign up for one of the longer subscriptions. They're cheaper per month because yes, it is an investment, but you're going to be getting real time data, you know, like we're sharing with some of these research articles like delivered to your phone 24 seven.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And it's powerful because you can make some really cool, lasting change in the next three, six, nine or 12 months. So head to the show Notes Nutrition Studio Forward slash Fasting for life, Fasting for life, The Code. And we'd love to hear your stories as well about how the sensor is improving your life and improving your fasting journey.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So, Tom, beginning with the end in mind, I want to transition to the last part of today's conversation, which is this conversation at the end of this article where it talks about, you know, studying continued hypochlorite diets being necessary for keeping Type two diabetes in remission. And they say and show that once type two is achieved, transition periods that can be used to maintain that weight loss is where the magic lies, right.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Is is where a lot of us get it so wrong. And where I got it so wrong for so many years. Right. So monitoring is key, just like we talked about with the CGM, but physical activity, keeping track of your body weight but not obsessively being on the scale. Right, Right. So what happened, which was really cool that came out of the study, was that once the weight loss has happened and then both groups maintained it following the additional guidelines they were given, if weight regain is avoided after achieving significant weight loss in reversal of the mechanisms underlying in the dysfunction with type two diabetes and cravings and blood sugar and all that.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, the improvements in A-1 C will remain. And this is the cool part because people come and say, well, you know, how fast is too fast?
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Well, more rapid initial weight loss is associated with greater weight loss in the long term and improved weight loss maintenance.
[Tommy Welling]
Yep.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
What about my muscle? Well, you're not going need your muscle. You've got £40 of fat to burn. Growth hormone is spiking when you fast growth hormone is not anabolic, it's not growing muscle. But let's add some walking and let's add some physical activity. Let's add some sustainability conversation to this. Right. So there are a lot of cool things that can happen.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And they even say replacing 1 to 3 main meals per day and shifting that time and getting into that valid, right, that lower caloric intake. Yeah, a few days a week compared to the low and slow failed dieting Hypochlorite restrict it, right? Yeah. It's not sustainable. So that's why we created the blueprint of fasting for fat loss too, because it speaks to personalizing this fasting journey to you as an individual and to the lifestyle you want into the foods you like to eat.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, it absolutely does. One thing that's that's counterintuitive that worked really well in this in this study that I didn't do for a long time was I kept trying to do the exact same thing. I only wanted a plan that I could do every single day the exact same way. The only problem is there that even if you have a really good, calculated caloric deficit or you have a really good fasting plan that works on a given day, if you do the same thing every single day, exactly the same way, guess what?
[Tommy Welling]
Bodies are really smart and they really love homeostasis too. So they get into into a balance. We get into a routine and then into a balance, let alone as our as our habits can kind of creep back in. And we get comfortable too, sometimes, and we find ways to kind of extend our window or we get a little bit more calorie dense foods in and things like that.
[Tommy Welling]
And so as as we kind of highlight that fact, I wanted I wanted to share what they were actually doing with the CMT Diet. They were doing breakfast, lunch, lunch was basically broken up into two parts and then dinner. And then later in the day, it was a it was that biscuit that you were talking about. So these were broken up into literally 250, 150, 200, 150, 150 calories, like five, five times over the day.
[Tommy Welling]
So that's not that's not my favorite way to to do this because of the insulin, because of the blood sugar and the insulin at the same time, you had people coming off of putting diabetes into remission. So there were medications and things like that. So there was there was a lot of balance that complex to be. Yeah, yeah, right.
[Tommy Welling]
But if if this was me and I was taking some of this advice to make it actionable and say, okay, well could I could I put that in, I mean, that, that sounds like a really good way to, to kind of structure a nomad or maybe a short eating window. Right. And then, and the fact that they were doing this five days and then and then ten days they were eating, you know, balanced but to satiety means that they weren't just doing the exact same thing every single day.
[Tommy Welling]
Correct? Right. And that's that's a key component. So when you look at the blueprint for fasting for fat loss, then you can you can take those, those tools, use them, but you don't have to do the exact same thing every day. So don't be like me looking for for just the one thing that you can do every single day.
[Tommy Welling]
The exact same times. Right? And yeah, yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You just spoke to it because they even mentioned in the summary suggested that traditional prolonged dieting is made more difficult by the major drawbacks associated hunger, associated with hunger and daily decision ins about what and how much to eat decisions and how these issues can be avoided through a shorter period, shrinking your window involving more energy restriction. Right.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And rather than drinking all of your calories and snacking all of your calories in throughout the day. Yeah. So you just spoke to the struggle of I've done it. Yeah, right. I know. We all have. Right. So the cool thing is, is that you also get the additional benefits of fasting with the hormone balancing and the growth hormone spikes and the cravings going away, etc..
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But in the beginning can be tough. And that's why the free resource it's in the show notes, you can click the link, we'll zoom it over to your email inbox and also go to our website, The fasting for life dot com forward slash resources, the fasting for life dot com forward slash resources. You can grab that free resource.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's pretty robust. It goes through a bunch of different examples. It also gives you some perspective on why, just like we're talking about today, we want to get the weight off quickly. Then obviously there's that sustainability piece, right? And that's just going to take repetitions and failing forward and trial and error and probably joining one of our challenges or finding support and stabilization in your life.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. Rewiring those habits. So final thought for today as we kind of wrap it up is they mentioned while there isn't a we agree with this there isn't a universal best diet for type two diabetes remission as we highlighted some of our concerns. But this one, there is a theoretical best diet for each individual person. And here's the kicker beginning with the end in mind, that's whichever one, whatever your fasting schedule looks like, whatever the foods you enjoy to put in your window that are nutrient dense, that are going to satiate you, it's whichever one they're able to stick to long enough to achieve the significant weight loss required to reverse the underlying mechanism and
[Dr. Scott Watier]
never be on the path to pre-diabetes, diabetes, or having to get to the point where you need to get your diabetes in remission. Yeah, so the sustainable one, the theory second best plan for each individual person is the plan that you can see yourself sticking to that gets you a result that is motivating enough to want to keep going and not continually being hindered by the decisions and the cravings and the hunger and the insert all of the excuses X, Y, and z.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And it's a long list, right? We want the lifestyle change, we want the habit change. And we've found and that's why we want to direct you to the resource, to the blueprint that many people can get there through the repetitions and the practice of adapting this fasting lifestyle.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, you brought me back to a place where one of the decision points was, Is the diet working for me right now where it was like this constant thing of, okay, is the scale moving? How am I feeling? Is the diet actually working? Is it worth doing? Should I be changing it yet? Should I be making a change to it or throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
[Tommy Welling]
All those kind of things.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Again on Monday.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, they just.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
They just next 21 day bootcamp.
[Tommy Welling]
Oh man.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Next 12 month to the 12 week reset we keep going.
[Tommy Welling]
Decision fatigue No I do not know medical weight loss in a box I know.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'll get back on Weight Watchers and I'm not I'm not doing it to be dismissive, but just highlighting the fact that the pattern is there. I could keep going. I go back in and just keep picking line item by line item. The conversations and the actions and the mindset shifts that can be seen. But the empowerment here is that it is doable and it's just going to take some trial and error and let us help you accelerate that process.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So go grab the blueprint to fasting for fat loss. Reach out to us if you got questions. Continue to listen to the podcast. You can also continue the conversation in our Fasting for Life community on Facebook. That link is also in the show notes. If you're ready to level up your monitoring. Right, which is one of the categories that matter for sustainability, check out the nutrition link.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Nutrition link at that $30 discount. It's just been an incredible re eye opening experience for me, slapping that thing back on and going, okay, there's been some slippage. Time to level up. I've ran the marathon, but I didn't get carried to the car. I had to walk to the car I've ran. So using those feet, although I've never ran a marathon, I've only them on the on the on the concept to rower.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So that's, that's not a real true depiction of of what's happened but the marathon of fasting. Right. And getting the weight off and maintaining that weight loss. So hopefully that analogy makes sense. What I want to encourage you guys to do something today for it. So grab the blueprint, listen to an episode, set your timer, get back to the basics, but also always begin with the end in mind.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So, Tommy, fun conversation today. Appreciate the conversation as always, and we'll talk soon.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, cool. Thank you. Bye. So you've heard today's episode and you may be wondering, where do I start? Head on over to the fasting for life icon and sign up for our newsletter where you'll receive.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
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[Tommy Welling]
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[Dr. Scott Watier]
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