Ep. 172 - Blueprint to Fasting For Fat Loss, fasting for beginners, & what is fast cycling? | How to ramp up for longer fasts, reverse insulin resistance, & break your fast | CGM data to optimize your fasting | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan
FREE RESOURCE - DOWNLOAD THE NEW BLUEPRINT TO FASTING FOR FATLOSS!
- Learn how to RAMP UP into longer fasting windows!
- Gain insights into the non-weight loss benefits of fasting!
- Personalize your own fasting schedule and consistent FAT LOSS results!
- Get answers to what breaks a fast, how to break a fast, and tips and tricks to accelerate your fasting wins!
THE BLUEPRINT TO FASTING FOR FAT LOSS DOWNLOAD
In today’s timely episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss shifting the mindset about fasting, what's the right diet? the cycle of fasting, the 80% rule, and much more.
Nutrisense CGM LINK to Discount - Get $30 off and one-month free dietician support with the PROMO CODE “FASTINGORLIFE” www.nutrisense.io/fastingforlife
Let’s continue the conversation. Click the link below to JOIN the Fasting For Life Community, a group of like-minded, new, and experienced fasters! The first two rules of fasting need not apply!
Fasting For Life Community - Join HERE
New to the podcast and wondering where to start? Head to the website and download our FREE Fast Start Guide, 6 simple steps to put One Meal a Day Fasting (OMAD) into practice!
If you enjoy the podcast, would you please tap on the stars below and consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it helps bring you the best original content each week. We also enjoy reading them
Fasting For Life Ep. 172 Transcript
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hello. I’m Dr. Scott 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's Dr. Scott Weidner and I'm here as always, and 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. Ready for a fun conversation Today we are going to call this the Blueprint to Fasting for Fat Loss or the Beginner's Guide to Fasting for Fat Loss or the Re-engagement Guide to Fasting for Fat Loss. But today is going to be a conversation, a 30,000 foot overview of pretty much our fasting for life method.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Some of the big needle movers, some of the big levers that you can pull, answering some of the most basic questions. So if you are a long term listener and you're an OG and you're like, probably not, probably not for me, I still think there might be a couple of things in here for you. Stick around. Yeah. And for you on our offers or you fasting freelancers or a few folks that are just in the more beginning stage or the stage where you're trying to gain some consistency or maybe the scale was moving in it.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Stop. We're hoping that this conversation is going to be impactful for you as well. So welcome into all the new listeners. Just really appreciate everybody joining us for this conversation today. So Tommy, the blueprint to fasting for fat loss, what are we going to go over today? We're going to talk about fasting in general. Different types of fast go over some just basic definitions.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We're going to talk about fast cycling and what that is and how we apply it. The benefits of fasting overall, a brief definition of insulin and insulin resistance. What are the signs of insulin resistance like? How do you know? Because it's not something we can test at home. We're going to talk about how to ramp up into longer fasts and then how do I break it?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
What breaks a fast, what should I eat? And some additional tips for success, as well as some truth behind why losing weight matters for long term health outcomes.
[Tommy Welling]
So while I don't want to go over today.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah yeah I think reader.
[Tommy Welling]
So I mean I think I think these are all the important parts that understanding on a little bit better means my next fasting decision feels a little bit more natural, a little bit easier to stick with, a little less likely to kind of get off track And like that. That momentum is is a big part of the process too.
[Tommy Welling]
So I think is going to be good.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So we recently did a fasting masterclass, right? Our first like lies, Open Access kind of event that we've ever done. And some of the feedback was looking for some of the stuff that we're going to talk about today. Yeah, and this is why we have the resource, the blueprint. You can head to the show notes and click the link.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
The blueprint to fasting for Fat Loss is a free 20 page PDF, and it has all of the stuff 30,000 foot view that we're going to go over today, but also the nitty gritty visuals, some of the things that really need to hit home and some of the stats and things that we use and rely on to get results.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But when we did the Masterclass, it was we were really pushing on the big shifts that need to happen mindset. The yeah, yeah, the mindset, the mental ahas that need to take place to not use fasting as just another diet because you're setting yourself up for diet results. Okay, yeah. Yeah. So it's going.
[Tommy Welling]
To have to be a start and there's going to have to be a finish, right, like any other diet that I've ever done.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So now this episode combined with the PDF, when Be a Place to Go, much like our mini masterclass, which was our fast start guide one meal a day guide that's still on our site, still has tons of people going through it every single week. On how to go from more of an intermittent to a one meal a day fasting weight loss strategy, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Comes with videos. This is going to be like the 30,000 foot picture of the blueprint to fasting for fat loss. So this episode combined with the PDF is going to give you a lot of things that you can put in to gain considerable traction with adopting a fasting lifestyle. So fasting is not a diet, right? Tommy Yeah.
[Tommy Welling]
Correct.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Because sitting right there.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, right. Like if I look at it like a diet, then I should expect diet results. But that's, that's like it's kind of like banging my head up against a wall, which is what it felt like for years and years and years, going like jumping back onto the next diet or waiting for the motivation to hit because I knew I was off track, but I knew I still had this this big goal that I wanted to hit.
[Tommy Welling]
And I was going to come back to it as soon as I felt like the frustration of the last failure kind of dissipated. And then I was waiting for that lightning to strike. And then I kind of get back on board, change everything, renew my gym membership, change everything that was on my plate most of the time and really, like hit it, you know, and start tracking everything again.
[Tommy Welling]
But if I, if I can shift that a little bit going into what really is fasting instead of it just being my next diet, if I go, okay, I'm going to learn some tools here that are going to help me burn the fat finally that I'm looking to to do and and to gain control over the scale. But then I can I can adapt my fasting to my long term goals rather than throwing it out, like leaving it by the wayside.
[Tommy Welling]
So just just tweak it over time for for sustainability long term, that that's going to be my, my number one best starting point for my mindset. Now we can start going like, okay, let's get into how like how do we actually use this for fat loss and knowing that I'm still going to continue using this as a long term tool as well, not just the temporary, you know, flash in the pan kind of thing.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, I heard you allude there to the on off mindset, right? So life gets in the way and you just throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes. And then you got to get the motivation up again or the despair and frustration high enough again. Are you willing to get back on track and, you know, start the process over?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if you look at fasting, so people from the outside that don't fast. Right. Or in probably a semantics argument here, right. Well, aren't you in a caloric deficit with fasting. Yes. Aren't you delaying your food? Yes, those things are all true. But simply, if you're a novice to fasting, it seems pretty simple to avoid right? Food during a fasting window.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
During an eating window? Yeah. By definition it seems simple, but in the execution becomes a complexity. So rather than focusing on which foods to eat, which is the majority of where people go, okay, what I'm going to work out five days a week, I'm going to eat more salads, I'm going to decrease alcohol, I'm going to limit carbs, whatever.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, yeah, just no more carbs, okay? Yeah, whatever that is. Instead of focusing on the foods to eat, fasting focuses on when to eat them. So simply in the beginning you can just start to delay your nutrition or eating opportunities. So it's more of an eating schedule than a feeding schedule, right? So it's contrary to popular diet culture, which is tracking calorie counting, weighing macros, three meals a day plus snacks to stoke your metabolism or five or five, Right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. All of those things that we bring with us through the 21 day fixes the, you know.
[Tommy Welling]
Cleanse.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Reset the cleanses. Yeah. All of yeah you can insert any papaya that mainstream the lemon juice diet right. The South beach diet Right. All of these mainstream type things. So when you first start out fasting, the simplicity, the power is in the simplicity. But we bring in all of the previous iterations of our failed attempts, sometimes the but that is why that yeah, some of the baggage so that is why the masterclass was really designed to hit those tangible things that can begin with the end in mind rather than just, okay, here's your fasting schedule.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Because what works for you may not work for me because your date nights on a different night than mine. Yeah, right. And your kids are in a different schools. And my kids and your family visits at a different time. My visits and. Yeah, never mind. Cultural differences. Like our United States Hallmark calendar is different than I don't know.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Pick another calendar the.
[Tommy Welling]
Any any other country.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, right. Like the Hallmark calendar. Here's there's a peanut butter and jelly day. There's a sibling there's there's everything. It's National Candy Bar Day. I'm like, Get out of here. Right. So fasting simply the act of abstaining from food, right? Time restricted eating, time delayed eating tree TRF time restricted feeding. It all varies depending on what seems sustainable for you.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So what's the right diet for an individual? What's the right pass for an individual? Well, you need some repetitions to figure it out. So when we're looking at the different methods, you know, there's the six eight, the warrior fast nomad to mad team at two meals a day, one meal a day. There's dry fasting, which is done most notably during Ramadan.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We don't typically promote dry fasting for more than short periods of time. Yeah, we really focus.
[Tommy Welling]
On the body than it needs to.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Be. Yeah, there's some cool, cool effects, but we really do, you know, electrolyte balancing and hydration, balancing fasting as well because you do lose some excess water. But then there's just the, you know, skipping around. I'm going to freelance out fast today. Maybe I'll fast mom skip over these here and there. Yeah, maybe I'll skip breakfast or I'm just not really hungry at lunch today, so I won't eat.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And then we've got our extended fast where we go, the 24 hour mark, the 36 hour mark, the 48 hour mark and the 72 hour mark. And to be honest, we don't really use fasting links in that fasting times to that length unless there's some very specific metabolic functional outcome that we're looking for. So, yeah, fast cycling by definition, far away.
[Tommy Welling]
I'm sorry.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You know, again.
[Tommy Welling]
You start to get very far away from from real life and from long term applicability. This is this is why we've heard from a lot of folks who have a have a list of like fasting accomplishments with these long fast done it a whole bunch of times, but still have a ton of weight to lose because it doesn't help or still.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Have health concerns, too, right?
[Tommy Welling]
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Because it doesn't help the balance. The relationship with food. I can almost become afraid to eat whenever I am breaking my fast. It becomes very comfortable to go. I know what I'm doing when I'm fasting, but as soon as I start eating, I'm really not sure what to do. And I get this fear of the plate almost with those with some of those really long fast and some of those habits that can come along with it.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Great point. So most of us came to fasting for weight loss.
[Tommy Welling]
Right? Yeah, desperate weight loss for me.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So you get the benefits of increasing your cardiovascular health, reducing blood pressure, LDL, HDL, triglycerides, improving fat oxidation or metabolism, decreasing insulin resistance, fasting blood sugars, a1c Yeah, increasing. That's right. Growth hormone. We just talked today in a conversation with the client about, you know, fasting and autophagy for osteoporosis, reduced inflammation, increased brain function, decreased brain fog, and you just keep going and going and going.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But at the basis of all of those things is insulin. And insulin resistance.
[Tommy Welling]
That's that's something that's like like you alluded to earlier, you said it directly, you said you you can't test for that at home. So it's not like I can I can just see what my insulin resistance is like right now in a snapshot. But when we start to go like, well, what are the signs of it? What are the ways to actually tell if I might have that?
[Tommy Welling]
One of the biggest indicators of it is long term weight loss resistance. Every every failed diet attempt. And every time I try to diet and it feels like it took longer this time to lose the same weight that I did last time. Or maybe I didn't quite even get to as low as I did last time. That's that's a sign of weight loss resistance.
[Tommy Welling]
That's that's an indication of insulin resistance because you can kind of think about it as like layers on the onion that kind of like build up over time. And while we're while we're dropping the weight and tapping into some of those long term fat stores where we're kind of peeling away those layers of insulin resistance. But it can take longer to peel them away than it did to build them.
[Tommy Welling]
It's not it's not always that. It's it's just going to go away, like very, very quickly as the as the weight drops. And there's there's different stages, too. But you want to talk about what insulin resistance means or how to like understand, you know. Yeah. What it looks like.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So insulin normally affects the ability for your body to tap into long term fat stores. So it's the regulator, it's the on off switch, right. So when insulin resistance goes up and we'll describe it here in a minute, that results in higher than normal levels of insulin, which makes it more difficult ultimately to tap into those fat stores.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That resistance, that weight loss resistance piece that you just mentioned. So eat food, you increase your insulin and then depending on your energy storage facilities, meaning your skeletal muscle and your liver. Right. Depending on how much short term energy, 24 hour energy is stored there, depending on.
[Tommy Welling]
Glycogen.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
As glucose. Right. Or glycogen in the liver. Right. So you food, you have a response, food gets broken down, blood glucose goes up, insulin comes in and raises kind of lags behind it. And then it's going to process that energy. It's either going to tell your body to burn it, it's going to store it in skeletal muscle, it's going to store it as glycogen in the liver, or it then ultimately is going to be turned into fat.
[Tommy Welling]
So put in a deep freeze, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah. Lock the door.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. So as we start to fast without food, insulin comes down, your body flips that switch and then you're able to tap into those long term fat stores. So yeah, we know insulin resistance, things like cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes, metal box syndrome, other health problems such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. We did a recent episode on that PCOS certain cancers also.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So yeah, Alzheimer's, right? Okay. Type three diabetes. So some of the signs and symptoms, Tommie, are interesting because you mentioned weight loss resistance. So weight gain, even though you're doing the right things, especially around the waist, increased waist circumference, high blood sugar levels, high blood pressure, dark patches of skin fatigue, that weight loss resistance. Despite your efforts of diet and exercise, right.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
High levels of triglycerides, low levels of HDL, which is the good cholesterol, and then some of the the more feeling based rather than metric based, are not being able to be satiated. Right? Yeah. Not being able to like miss a meal because you get hangry.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, just just a just a little while between meals starts to get, like, very uncomfortable. Find myself needing like having cravings for food constantly throughout the day, which which makes it tough, especially if I'm tracking things and know how many calories I have, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then also, like the fatigue and the lethargy that comes along with it.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Because meal post-lunch. Oh.
[Tommy Welling]
Oh man. Like the low right there because what that means I mean if you if you think about the insulin response the higher that is like diabetics and anybody who's who's supplementing with insulin like they have to inject they have to be careful with the amount. Right. Because there is a such thing as an insulin coma. Well, as levels of insulin get higher and higher because our pancreas is sensing it needs to send out more because we're not having the proper response to it.
[Tommy Welling]
Right. That high level of insulin means that I come crashing down, especially when I eat foods that that spike my blood sugar more and need more insulin.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And that so that rebound effect is so before you even get to the insulin resistance point is if you have volatile blood sugar swings right. You're going to feel a lot of this stuff as well. The cravings for salty, the cravings for crunchy, the fluffiness post carbohydrates are alcohol. Right. And you'll get stuck in this kind of cycle of always looking for the next fix when it comes to food.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And you know, add in some familial predispositions, an abnormal waist to height ratio, you can end up going down the path of having these blood sugar swings, which can lead to more insulin being required or these cravings, this craving cycle, this inability to lose weight, fatigue after meals, inflammation, abdominal obesity, which leads to imbalance metrics on the labs, hormone imbalances, hunger, hormone imbalances, estrogen dominance, low thyroid increase, fat storage.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You get stuck in this cycle where fasting can come in and break that cycle by allowing your insulin to come down low enough where your blood sugar will come down low enough. With consistency. Over the first few weeks, you can start to feel that, Wow, I'm not as hungry, I'm not eating as much as I used to. I don't feel like I need to nap every day.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Hey, I notice that my knee pains better. You know, all of these little kind of winds start to plant up. And that's where the magic happens when you start to plan and execute on consistency or fast cycling, stacking those fast on top of one another, because then you get motivated to keep going rather than just waiting for the lightning to strike, to restart the diet again.
[Tommy Welling]
That's cool. And when you when you start to feel those things, like if you do have some just random kind of inflammatory pain, that's kind of like it's kind of unpredictable, right? As that starts to subside a little bit, you know, start to get into into fasting. And then I'm actually, you know, hitting my my timer is a little bit more and I'm starting to feel a little bit better, like that.
[Tommy Welling]
That's a really cool thing. But then the next time that I kind of revert back, if I, if I go back to any of those old habits or I kind of like, hey, maybe there's like an indulgent thing that I've been saying no to and I kind of want to just go do that again. Maybe it's a Friday night pizza night like that was our thing in our house or something like that.
[Tommy Welling]
As soon as I feel that, like, weird, random pain, kind of come back or some of that, like insulin hitting me, like smacking me in the face, then I go like, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. I like how I was feeling yesterday or a couple of days ago. I like that better. Let me let me go do a little bit more of that.
[Tommy Welling]
So it starts like push me in that direction because I'm feeling the difference between the two. The same thing goes with with like brain fog too. I remember the the first time I kind of felt like that, that beneficial brain fog, you know, after like a 22 hour fast. And it was like, that's pretty cool. Like, I'd like to spend more time in that zone versus what I was doing before.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
For the first time, you extend your fasting and go to bed without eating dinner, right? And you break that 24 hour mark, you wake up the next morning feeling incredible, right? So we know that BDNF brain drive nootropic factor goes up when you get past those 18 to 24 hour marks. So that can lead to that that free feeling, that clear head.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. And the reality is is in the beginning there's a lot of little stumbling blocks with fasting as we typically look for the okay give me my fasting plan, Right. Yeah. Give me my meal plan, what are my recipes, What's my workout, what are my macros? What am I out right with fasting? It's going through some of the repetitions and we'll talk about what that looks like in just a second.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But big picture, when we're looking at lifestyle change, we don't just randomly get motivated, take an action and then get a result. That's what we typically think when we're relying on willpower to motivate us to finally do something that we know we should be doing and we're not doing consistently right. We don't need to be told we know it.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's why we say encouragement is greater than accountability, because sure, I mean, we know right? So I don't need to be told when I'm not on track, Right? It's like, okay, yeah, I know. So what it actually looks like for sustainable success is taking an action, getting a result, not labeling it good or bad, and then being able to get the motivation to keep going.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And if you follow the 80% rule with fasting and the fasting schedule that's in the ramp up in the blueprint, then you're going to be getting a lot of wins or results that are going to give you the motivation to want to keep going, just like the stuff that Tommy was just talking about. So willpower don't rely on it won't power like that.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I'll resist the candy at the office. I'll resist the I'll go out with my friends, but I won't drink and I won't get the late night pizza or I won't, you know.
[Tommy Welling]
No appetizers for me, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, right, right, right. I'll go to a happy hour, but I'm like, no, the won't power is only going to get you so far, but it's not. I want power, that mindset that we talk about so aiming for that the want of the end goal but then reverse engineering, how you get there. Well you need actions on a daily basis that build up to that big result based goal.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
But if you just set the goal and don't have the actions and that's why you fall off and get frustrated, and that's why dieting is not sustainable for so many folks. So six days in a 30 day month is an 80% sure for the 80% rule, right? Yeah, a mindset shift. It's not perfect. It's not on or off.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's a process. Right? So how to prep for fasting, I think is probably the next best thing to talk about. Before we go over just briefly what the.
[Tommy Welling]
Ramp up schedules look like. Okay. I wanted to say one thing about the the 80% rule. Sure. Because I feel like the longer you've been dieting, the more you've been conditioned along that like perfection on off black white mentality, especially when it comes to what you're doing, what you're eating, how you're eating. And if if the scale is actually moving in the direction that you want it to be because it's so binary, it's so like easy to to find failures or to get smacked in the face by the one metric that you're using, which is the scale.
[Tommy Welling]
And then it can be very, very easy to get off track. So I feel like the 80%, it's like anti perfectionism, which can feel a little bit weird. But I'm going to encourage everybody, especially if it feels weird, that that that that absolutely is like understanding that life's not perfect this month isn't going to be perfect. Even if I hit every facet this month and it was quote unquote perfect, it was always something I could have done a little bit better.
[Tommy Welling]
And next month is unlikely to be 100%. So building a little bit of wiggle room, forgiveness, wiggle room, you know, for myself before I set out on it is is a really important step in process.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So if we're looking at those, you know, that concept and you're looking at your fasting timer, you're like, what if I did 80% of a 24 hour fast? I was supposed to go to 24 hours, I only did 80%.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That's awesome.
[Tommy Welling]
It's pretty solid.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Fast. Oh, I was supposed to eat lunch today, and I eat dinner instead. Okay, well, you still check the fasting box, right? Right. But with the calorie counting or the workouts, it's like I missed a workout. I'm in. I'm. I was under on my break calories off.
[Tommy Welling]
I mean, is that a big.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. Went over 500 calories. Right? And we just drive ourselves crazy. So yeah when we look at using varied fasting windows to fit our lifestyle, prepping for fasting is also important, right? So make sure that you're going to want to stay hydrated, increase your water. Black tea and coffee are best. You can have some sparkling waters if you want.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You're going to want to, you know, decrease the amount you're eating during your first few longer fast. Don't try to consume all what you would normally eat, right?
[Tommy Welling]
Day's worth of.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like a whole day, like in a one hour window. No, it's. Please don't do that. Right. And you're going to want to limit the refined, processed carbohydrates and alcohol because those are going to have the bigger blood sugar swings which create the cravings. And that cycle that we talked about earlier and you want to start with the intention to finish.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So you want to commit to a fasting window that, you know, you can hit.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, right. That gets back to you 24 hours, you know, the 80%. So it was huge. It was a big win. At the same time, if you consistently set a let's say at 23 or 24 hour timer and you're consistently getting to 80% of that, what would be better for you to do would be to set a 20 or 21 hour timer and then actually achieve the result that you intended.
[Tommy Welling]
That would be better than falling short of the mark over and over and over again. You're giving your your your subconscious thought process and motivational signals and dopamine hits. You're getting a much clearer signal that you are able to to trust yourself, setting the intention for the plan and to actually execute on it rather than failing to meet the mark.
[Tommy Welling]
And then you you start to doubt yourself over time, which kind of erodes the confidence factor, you know, and it plays an important role on your long term success here.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right? So when you start to go into the planning, right, that's why we built out this kind of ramp up example schedule. And you know, we did 100 customized fasting schedules back in the day based on a biometric, you know.
[Tommy Welling]
Like, like I intake.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Intake form a long questionnaire and and put, you know, put together these plans. And what we realized was, well, once people had the plan, they just forgot the plan. Yeah. Okay, well, that doesn't work. So we need the repetitions, right? So when you're starting out, you can start out with a couple of days of skipping breakfast and doing a 68.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. Feel good. Go to a couple of days of doing an 18 six. So move it from a mid-day lunch to a little bit later lunch and you can just always flip this right and do breakfast. Breakfast. Sure. Yeah, right. You can always flip it on its head. But this is what most people do to start. And after a couple of days of that, you can feel good.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You go to 20 hours and how are you feeling? What's the scale doing? What's your sleep like? What's your stress levels? How do you feel on your workout days? Are you moving cravings? Right, All that kind of stuff. So you could stay there for a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks and see some pretty cool results. Now, if you are looking to get the scale moving quickly and we've had conversations about getting the weight off quick because of the metabolic what's right, I'm looking for the metabolic stuff that comes with it, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, the cravings, the imbalance, hunger, hormones that, you know, we want to get them we want to keep the momentum going by seeing the results. So you can you can ramp up even more and maybe your week two looks like a couple of 18, a couple of twenties, a couple of 20 twos and maybe a 24. Right. So maybe the third week looks like an 18, a 20 or a 22 or 24.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
A 30? Yeah, maybe there's a week. Yeah, maybe there's a week where you alternate 30 and 18. You go to lunch to dinner, lunch to dinner and you try these different windows and see how your body responds, how you feel, what you're sleeping looks like. Because if we visualize, you know, eating three meals a day and snacks, your blood sugar and your insulin are going to be high all throughout that time.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
They're never going to have a time to calm down. Yeah. So stress plays a role. Sleep plays a role. Your mindset plays a role.
[Tommy Welling]
Who choices play.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Food choices the weekend. They all play a role in these things. So you need to play around with, especially with the marriage merge and the spouses and friends and family and social circles and all that stuff.
[Tommy Welling]
Holidate. Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Holidate the Hallmark calendar, right? The Snickers de or whatever the heck it is, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. So you need to play around with this what you say.
[Tommy Welling]
Over fasting food like.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Oh the fast.
[Tommy Welling]
Mask or you know.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. I can't believe that was real. So then after you start playing around the schedules, we ramp up a little bit. Now the question always comes, Well, how do I break my fast? We have a couple of few principles that we like to follow on how to break your fast. And Tommy, you told me one thing very much from the get go, and I didn't listen when I first started fasting.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, what I said was slow down and.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Resist the.
[Tommy Welling]
Urge to just kind of just start opening the buffet table. You know, whenever you go to to break your fast, especially if you're in new territory, like, like you just finished a longer fast than you've done before or you've only done a couple of times or a handful of times or something like that. And just just be slow, be okay that, you know, this meal may take a little bit longer or it's okay to like have a few bites, have a little bit break the fast easy and then just kind of yeah, just kind of walk away.
[Tommy Welling]
Like just walk away. Ten, 15, 20 minutes goes a long way, though, to kind of squash some of that initial hunger rather than like giving in to that, like ravenous feeling. Because I I've certainly paid for that in the past, especially like, like in the beginning. It's pretty easy to do.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah.
[Tommy Welling]
Just going into it with a little bit of like, yeah, I'm going to avoid slow down, slow down, slow down.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right, Yeah. So you got to play around with how to break your fast. Do you know sometimes there's digestive changes, sometimes there's fullness changes, Sometimes you have this big meal plan, You can't even eat it after you've been doing it for a few days. Yeah. So a few principles that really help because we don't subscribe to one strict way of eating, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah, because I mean, it's up to you. What do you enjoy right now when it comes to the four rules, it's limiting the ultra processed and ultra processed, refined, processed carbohydrates and foods as much as you can, because we know the research shows the calorie density cravings that you fast harder. Yeah, they make your next fasting window even harder.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
They do. And then health ramifications come with it as well. And then the second thing is choosing more whole food nutrition in place of those things, more home cooked meals, if you can, putting foods in your windows that you actually enjoy eating is number three. So if I was going to try to lose £50 again and I had hired someone to help me out coach and they said, okay, we're going to use running is your exercise.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We're going to have you on a pescatarian diet. And I'm like, okay, I hate running. And I my family doesn't my wife doesn't eat fish. So this is going to be complicated, right? Yeah, It's not sustainable. Right? So, yes, making better food choices, replacing the Big Mac with, by the way, Big Mac salad. Go look it up. Incredible.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's actually just the homemade Big Mac sauce because you can put on either. Yeah, it's incredible. And that a Big Mac in I don't know how long it's ever been a long time. And I still knew what it tasted like after the Big Mac sauce anyway. Right. But make sure you're putting foods that you enjoy, Right? You don't want to restrict and omit your way and paint yourself into a corner and then prioritizing protein and healthy fats.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So if you're trying to reverse diabetes or decrease your blood sugar swings or come off medications or prevent that stuff, then, you know, limiting carbohydrates and limiting the foods that create the biggest insulin spikes in the beginning are great. Like, let's do that. But let's also think about what's sustainable for you long term, because we know that fasting changes food as we go through the process.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, it really does. It's like when I'm when I'm kind of living in a state of just constant ingestion, digestion, like I'm bringing in food fairly, fairly regularly throughout the day without any real like large breaks. And that then some of the, some of my like physical symptoms, some of my like emotional my, my, my state of mind and my state of emotional well-being can kind of be muted by by some of the like overwhelming hunger signals, the cravings, the like insulin induced lethargy that that drop in energy, you know, that can kind of like put me in a fog to where I don't even realize some of the stuff that's going on.
[Tommy Welling]
So, I mean, it's crazy when you start to to put in some intentional fasting on a consistent basis. It doesn't even have to take that long of doing that before you go. Like, Huh, I just noticed like X-Y-Z food. Like for me it was it was pizza over here. Like some local, you know, random place just realizing how that made me feel versus like 120 hour fast and like how I felt during those 20 hours versus right after having that pizza was like, I've had this a thousand times, but I've never noticed these things because I didn't have any anything to compare it to.
[Tommy Welling]
But so that that just like reference, reference point for comparison is, is like a huge mental Aha. Where, where some of the big like how fasting changes food kind of kind of can come in.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And that's where the relationship the emotional connection to food like yeah there's a big proponent of the stressful world that we live in where food is used to comfort us in a way. And if you can't ever peel those layers back, if you're constantly in a state of the habit, patterns in the relationships that you have and how you interact with food and seafood, because we're in our diet foods like the enemy, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
It's like.
[Tommy Welling]
Right.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
When you're on a diet, air quotes, diet foods, the enemy. Yeah. When you have an opportunity in nutrition window or an eating window with fasting, it's an opportunity. It's a positive to get some some nutrition and Right. But yeah, we don't have to worry so much about each little calorie because you're putting yourself in a significant, significant deficit when you're doing these fasting.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So when you break your fast, if you do an amount you for that 40 to 60% caloric need, you know, that's what we see. So if it's a full day of food, cut it, cut it in half and start there, put it in, you're eating wind up at some time, windows around it. Give yourself some time, start slow.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I mean, we have visuals inside of the blueprint as well, which will help for you to be able to kind of compartmentalize and see these things and try some stuff. First time you've done a 24 hour fast, don't just go right into the all you can eat buffet. Don't go right into the restaurant meal. Don't go right into the barbecue party at the neighbor's house.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. Like start slow, little bit of intensive bone broth, raw veggies, fermented foods, handful of almonds, even a small salad. Right. Some people like to prioritize protein, charcuterie, prioritize fat of the avocados and olives. Right. Avocados have a ton of fiber in it. Potassium. So for sure, you just have to kind of play around with these things and see what works for you.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Right. And then just a couple of things as we wrap up. The the tips and tricks for fasting really is really to focus on the electrolyte balance and not necessarily the hydration, which is something that is commonly stated. Man, I'm getting my nineties or ounces of water in, but I'm still really thirsty or my mouth feels weird or tastes weird or stinks.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Like I just get this bad breath, you know, Quito breath transition thing happening. If you can really focus on electrolytes and using Red Sea salt, Himalayan salt, trace minerals that we talk a lot about, then you're going to see a big difference in one, the amount you go to the bathroom and to how you feel, the fatigue, the brain fog, the fuzziness, those drops in energy, all of that stuff can be very much helped with not necessarily the water intake, but that the electrolyte and the trace mineral intake.
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, absolutely. Especially to go along with with the water that I'm that I'm bringing in because it helps it helps me actually do what I need to do physiologically with that water because when when we're eating throughout the day, what we may not realize is that we're bringing in salt and a bunch of different trace minerals and also some additional water.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Than we typically drink when we eat, right?
[Tommy Welling]
Yeah, Yeah. During those eating opportunities, we're bringing in a lot of hydrating substances at that point. So the hydration is still very, very important, but it has to be done deliberately, even during those times when I'm fasting. So I'm going extended periods without food coming in. And then, you know, one of my favorite things on the tips and tricks is, is actually the to do list as well.
[Tommy Welling]
So right, so especially in the beginning, which is when it's like this feels kind of weird, I'm used to, you know, eating throughout the day and I have multiple opportunities where it's like a couple of hours like these these different blocks of time that I'm not used to having or I'm not used to feeling energetic during this part of the day, like, what should I be doing with myself?
[Tommy Welling]
Like go back to the stuff that that may have been waiting for you for a while, like dust off that old to do list. That's kind of like the. Yeah, I'm never really getting to that. I wish I could. So it's almost like it became a dream. Like bring that back out because, you know, you skip a couple of meals, you got a little bit extra lunch money in your pocket, like take that and go do a DIY project.
[Tommy Welling]
Go do something that that like, like increasing.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Out that clean out that closet.
[Tommy Welling]
Whatever it is that you haven't kind of gotten to in the past, could be a really good way to maintain focus. Get your mind off of food, especially when cravings are still relatively high. Like it hasn't really like balance. It's not it's not perfect, right? But so sometimes I just need like a really, really good, productive distraction that can go a long way, too.
[Tommy Welling]
And then, you know, after my my next fast, I can kind of I kind of appreciate, you know, what what I did during this last class and that that becomes a cool part of like the taking action and actually seeing a cool new result, which is motivating, you know, as far as part of the process.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I Want to wrap up today with just a couple of thoughts on why why this matters like where we're coming from and why we decided to kind of go down this path of creating fasting methods and doing challenges and creating resources because you know, your weight loss journey. My loss journey, our sustainability journey is so similar to so many other folks.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And the reality is, is that you being healthy and you getting the weight off and you living the life that you deserve matters to you because you're worth it. Like if you want it, you need it. The problem is, is that we have have so many failed attempts or we don't really know what to do because there's so many different ways or information overload out there.
[Tommy Welling]
Sure. Yeah.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
That we don't know what steps to take or then we don't have any personalization or customization of the process or we DIY it or we do have done for you. Right? Here's your, here's your meal plan right or now even surgeries and and medications for weight loss right. And injection pills right done to you stuff right the reality is, is that the statistics don't lie.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And right now we have an obesity and overweight issue in here in the states. It's it's 72 or 73% of men and women of the population are either overweight or obese, 42% in obesity. That's including severe obese category and then 30%, 31% in the overweight category. And the reality is that we have it's going up very quickly, right?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
Yeah. So most people, you know, at any given time, 50 to 60% of folks of us are trying to lose weight. We have more access to nutrition and food here in the States than ever before. Our problem. Right. So being overweight or carrying that extra weight is also believed to account for 80 to 85% of the risk of type two diabetes, metabolic syndrome, abdominal obesity, dyslipidemia, CRP issues, inflammation, arthritis, all the stuff that we've mentioned.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
So the reality is, is that in order to get different results, we need to do something different. If we want to become part of the 5% of the population that achieves that healthy weight and that that desired life. Right. That that happy, healthy life, then it might be time to do something different. And that's why we do the weekly episodes and created the blueprint Fasting for fat loss.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
And if you're new, the last thing I want to end on today, Tommy, is there are two rules. So if you're new to fasting, don't talk about fasting and don't talk about fasting, because we all know that friend, family member, coworker, spouse, right? That thinks you're crazy for skipping a meal or not eating right. But then when you lose £30 and they say, Wow, you're you look great, what have you been doing?
[Dr. Scott Watier]
You tell them energy is through the roof. I told you that I can't do it right. So there's a dissonance to fasting in the beginning and it's completely natural and part of the process. So if you're looking for more guidance, two things, Tommy. One, you can head to the show notes, click the blueprint link, download the blueprint. It's free resource.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
We'll send it over to your to your inbox. You can have it. And the second would be to go to the Facebook community, head to the community, join our private Facebook group of like minded fosters that are all working on developing the ideal weight loss strategy, fat loss strategy and fasting lifestyle for each individual.
[Tommy Welling]
So love it.
[Dr. Scott Watier]
I love this conversation. I could have this conversation. Well, we have this conversation almost every day anyway, so go grab the blueprint. Head to the Facebook community. If you want to join a community of like minded fosters, let us know if we can help you in any way. Tommy. Yeah. As always, sir. Appreciate the conversation. We'll talk soon.
[Tommy Welling]
Thank you. Bye.
[Tommy Welling]
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.