Ep. 182 - Which hydration supplement is best for fasting? | Blood pressure, skin, hair, & your fasting lifestyle | How much salt do you need & why drinking more water doesn’t help | Nutrisense CGM to improve your fasting | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan
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In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss electrolyte balance, hydration and sodium intake, what causes electrolyte imbalance, whole foods and their contribution to electrolyte balance, and possible routines for maintaining electrolyte balance.
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Fasting For Life Ep. 182 Transcript
Hello. I'm Dr. Scott Watier.
And I'm Tommy Welling.
And you're
listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.
This podcast is about using fasting
as a tool to regain
your health, achieve ultimate wellness,
and live the life you truly deserve.
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.
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 is Dr. Scott Water and I'm here.
As always, I'm good friend and colleague
Tommy Whelan.
Good afternoon to you, sir.
Hey, Scott,
How are you doing? Fantastic. My friend.
Excited for today's conversation
and today's episode.
We're going to get a little salty,
my friend, so not sure
which one of us is saltier today
than the other, but we're both fired up.
We'll see.
As we did an episode completely
dedicated to Salt a few episodes back.
That was episode
and we've had some follow ups
since then and we thought,
why not talk about hydration
and electrolytes from the big picture
and why salt is part of that equation
and why so many of us have done it wrong
because we've been taught wrong.
And we're going to break that down for you
today.
We're going to give you
our best recommendations, tips and tricks
to make your fast your fasting lifestyle
easier, more fun, more enjoyable,
and most importantly, get the results
that you've been looking for.
So if you are new to the podcast,
welcome in.
Thanks for giving us a listen.
Hopefully you follow us, download,
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Wherever you get your podcast,
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that tells the podcast world
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and goddesses that we are doing value
and bringing value each and every week.
So we appreciate the follow.
If you are a long term listener
and you want to give us a review,
we greatly appreciate
that as we continue on our mission
to reach more
and more folks on this fasting journey,
you have a choice when it comes
to your health and weight loss,
and we believe that fasting can transform
your life just like it has our lives.
If you want to learn more about
Tommy and his story,
please head back to episode one.
Give it a listen where we tell you
pretty much how fasting has become
such an important part of our lives
and how it really gave us our lives back.
So, Tommy, today
we're going to talk electrolytes.
And the idea for this conversation
came out of some follow ups
that we got from the episode on Salt.
So our salt episode
really goes into the science of how
we've gotten
the salt recommendations wrong
and what the new recommended
guidelines are.
And then we give you some ideas
on how to make that possible
in your day to day life.
Well, we want to talk about today
is the electrolyte balance
and why it's so important.
And then all of these electrolyte products
that we now see out on the market.
So there's so many different products
that are touting electrolyte balance.
Right.
And they're usually geared towards
the active fitness workout
category of folks,
but they really add a huge benefit
to a fasting individual
or a fasting lifestyle.
And the fact that they deliver
that balance and electrolytes.
Because two things we hear as man, I can't
do the salt, I just can't get it down.
And the other is I'm P and all the time
and going to the bathroom,
I'm drinking all this water.
But like if I'm going to do my one ounce
per pound of body weight,
like cut your weight in half.
If you weigh £200, you want to drink
Yeah, like it's hard to get in.
I'm up all night.
I still feel like dry mouth, and I just.
It's difficult to get the water in. Well,
we want to talk.
Yeah, we want to come at this
from a place of sustainability.
And do you really need that much water?
And if you have a considerable amount
of weight to lose, then drinking
So we want to start off big picture
about the main players in hydration
and electrolyte balance
and then kind of give you some tips
on how to level up your hydration game,
which will make a huge
impact on your fasting
and your how you feel during your fast
and then how you feel after
you break your fast and then how you feel,
you know, kind of when you start cycling
those longer fast into
your fasting routine.
Yeah.
When things can get
you really need to be taking a look
at some of the details,
like the electrolyte details
in order to kind of get that right
so that you can enjoy the process
a little bit more
so you don't have to feel like
you're struggling through that fast.
I mean, because it can kind of discourage
you, you know, like you're on a fast
and you want to do it for fat loss
especially, but then all of a sudden
you're not you're not feeling 100% or,
you know, like you said,
you feel like you're up all day
and up all night peeing,
which which can be indicative
that your electrolytes are out of balance
at that point because you basically have
too much water in the body right then.
And so, you know,
you go through a biochemical process
to actually clear out some of that water
so that your electrolyte concentration
can come back up.
So oftentimes
the water that you're bringing in wasn't
wasn't followed by enough salt.
And like, if you look back at food supply
and medical recommendations
over the last several, several decades,
we have tons and tons of foods
that are labeled low sodium or no sodium.
You have these overriding recommendations
for a lot of folks that are going to low
sodium diet, pull out all the sodium
that you can from your diet,
because we need to get that blood
pressure down,
which we've talked about in the past,
as is oftentimes
much more likely an insulin issue
rather than a high salt content issue.
And so between
all of these these conflicting arrows
and conflicting recommendations
and with with issues with the food supply
as well, and potentially lack of
of whole food sources in the food supply,
it can be it can be a really mixed bag.
It can be really tricky to kind of
get the electrolyte balance correct,
which is why we we really wanted
to have this conversation.
So when we're looking at let's go
big picture here, when we're looking
at the main players
in the electrolytes, right.
So when we're looking at the conversation
of drink half your body weight
and ounces of water per day, right.
So your body's made up of 50 to 70% water,
but a hydration, really, the concept the
the idea
of hydration involves balancing the water
and the minerals optimally.
So that's where the electrolyte
conversation comes in.
So we talked in depth in the SALT episode
about using Redmond
sea salt, Celtic sea salt, Himalayan
salt or trace minerals supplement,
get the full spectrum of trace minerals.
But the main players that you want
are going to be sodium,
potassium chloride
as well as calcium and magnesium.
Right?
So the important thing here is we want
we want to think about this
as a homeostasis, as a balanced equation.
Right?
So let's say you work out most people
sweat out water and electrolytes.
That's why it's important to hydrate
before, during or after a workout.
Right. Low electrolyte
levels can lead to side effects
like muscle contractions or cramps.
So we hear a lot.
Oh, I started fasting, but now I'm
getting these muscle cramps at night.
Oh, I must.
Let me go take some magnesium. Oh, my God.
Wait a minute.
There's different forms of magnesium,
and most of the times it is a hydration
and electrolyte imbalance issue,
not just a dehydration issue.
Right?
So people say, oh, I'm fasting.
Oh, let me go up now.
First of all, we always say, okay, start
with a teaspoon of salt mid-afternoon
and then do that for a few nights maybe,
or warm ups and salt baths, magnesium
before bed, and it should improve.
Right.
So these electrolytes are very important
in so many different things
that take place in the body.
You got thermal regulation,
physical performance, brain performance,
GI function, digestion,
kidney function, cardiovascular health,
the health of your skin.
You know, in fact,
dehydration can lead to negative outcomes,
such as feelings of low mood fatigue,
reduced alertness, headaches, etc..
So one of the things that we hear
is, well, I'm already retaining water.
My doc wanted me to decrease
my salt will go back and listen to
to the episode
that we mentioned, episode 179
because the SALT recommendation
of less than 2.3 grams in our opinion
and now what the research
shows is an article
we're going to link here in today's
episode from the Journal American
Medical Association that should actually
be between four and six grams per day.
Yeah,
but one of the things is I'm retaining
water like I'm puffy, I'm bloated,
your face might feel puffy,
you might have retaining water
in your legs right now.
A lot of times
people go to the worst case scenario.
I've got heart failure, I've got liver
disease, I've got kidney failure.
Right now, if there is that situation,
then yes, that's that's
important to talk to your doctor
about that electrolyte balance,
making sure you're getting enough
potassium and decreasing the salt intake
because your body will retain.
But in most cases,
it's in under hydration, under electrolyte
imbalanced electrolyte issue.
Yeah.
And then the symptoms
that can kind of come along with that can
then be
it's like we can have a handle on them
sometimes when we're taking in food
all throughout the day
and not really notice these imbalances
or these changes in electrolyte balance.
Yes, because when is coming in
all throughout the day,
then we have these different variations
in food supply and
and sodium chloride and other electrolytes
kind of coming in.
We can
we can maintain a level of like of comfort
in our electrolytes,
but then we start strategically fasting.
All of a sudden,
we can we can get into where
we actually notice these these changes.
And if we're not doing it
right when we are bringing in nutrition
or we're not being proactive
about the electrolytes
that we're bringing in,
we can really start
to feel the difference.
And and if we
if we do that too many times,
we can really be pushing,
like bumping up against the wall,
hitting our head up
against the wall, going like this
fasting thing is very uncomfortable.
It's very hard or I don't see myself
doing it long term because I'm not
I'm not feeling 100%
when I don't feel great.
Yeah, right. Yeah,
That's absolutely what we want.
We want to prevent right
there. The mood changes.
The hunger that can come from dehydration.
Worse makes it worse, right?
The I'm up all night.
I want to do a long fast,
but I can't. I'm in the car all day.
I can't be pulling over every 5 minutes.
Right?
Yeah.
The changes in the brain function. Right.
We mentioned because that so important,
the digestive changes,
all of these things can be little things
stuck in your craw as you're
trying to adapt to fasting lifestyle
and you just get frustrated.
You don't know if you're doing it right.
So we want to kind of remove
some of that fear
and some of those unknowns
and give you some things that you can do.
Now most people go to, All right, well,
if I'm dehydrated, drink more water.
Okay.
Maybe if I'm now now you just told me if I
am retaining water to drink more water.
Yeah. We'll talk in a second. And,
you know.
Well, let me go get a
an electrolyte hydration product.
Right,
Because you'll see these all over the map.
We're going to go over some of these
in just a minute.
But you brought up where I think
the best place to start is, which is food.
And this is a quote from registered
nutrition dietitian Heather Davis.
She says Whole Foods
can be greatly underestimated in terms
of their contribution
to our electrolyte balance,
given that many Whole Foods contain
considerable amounts of electrolytes
as well as additional nutrients,
it makes sense to prioritize Whole Foods
as the foundation
of our electrolyte balance.
You start fasting,
your insulin comes down, L Dr.
Rhone tells the kidneys
to get rid of the blood volume,
and then your diuresis kicks in,
especially in the beginning.
If you're new to fasting
or you try to extend your fasting windows,
you're paying more, you're losing
that electrolyte imbalance and then boom,
now you've got these symptoms, right?
These things that you're not feeling
great about it.
And now you have less opportunity
to get electrolyte
balances from one of the main players,
which is food,
because you're not eating as often,
which is why we say
more whole foods over
refined, processed, packaged foods.
Right? Yeah.
And that's where that question,
you know, all kind of always comes up.
I'm starting to fast.
Do I need to change my diet?
Do I need to fix everything
that's on my plate?
And it's like, well, not necessarily.
You don't have to necessarily change
everything all at once,
but if you're a getting disaster, yeah,
but if you're not getting more
of those plates a little bit more, right,
or you're not making
some improvements to them,
then it can definitely make the process
a little bit more frustrating.
So you don't like I love the fact
that the more of our plates are balanced
and you have whole food sources on them,
like those foods
where we're balanced by nature.
Like there's a
there's a really cool process and cool
like homeostasis
within the system that kind of happens.
And if we compare that versus more highly
processed or highly engineered foods,
those things are typically they're over
salted to bring in additional taste
and additional like mouthfeel and all this
kind of like engineered crave ability
kind of stuff, which is like,
you know, there's there's nothing
necessarily inherently wrong with that,
but it can send the balances
of these electrolyte ratios like way off.
And so even if I am getting in enough
salt, I might not be getting near enough
potassium or magnesium in with that salt
and that can be a real problem.
Yeah.
So when we're looking at the
some of the concerns here
right from big picture, well, you know,
I get to, you know,
the blood pressure
concern, the cardiovascular risk.
There's some research that came out
from the General Medical Association
with thousands and thousands of people
in these studies that they reviewed
and they were looking at sodium,
potassium excretion
and the risk of cardiovascular events.
And they linked
they came up with this hazard ratio
where if you were at the low end
or the high end,
you had higher chance of congestive heart
failure, cardiovascular risk and stroke.
And why don't we talk about this a lot
and this and these types of conditions
in this space?
Well, if you have weight loss resistance,
you're carrying extra weight around.
You're trying to use fasting
to reduce those
and come off medications
and reverse blood sugar,
diabetes, heart disease,
cardiovascular events, stroke,
they're all linked at the core level
from an insulin perspective,
keeping that extra weight on over
the decades leads to metabolic syndrome
and these higher incidences
of these diseases.
So they found an optimal range
where the government and the World Health
Organization recommendation of 2.3
grams of sodium per day
and then 2.0 for the World Health
Organization is like,
I don't know, one third
less than it should be.
They found this optimal range
of homeostasis that would take place
when you were between that four
and six grams per day.
Now go back and listen to the saw episode.
The reason I bring this up is because
as we talk through some of these things,
you're like, Well,
how do I make this adaptable?
To me,
everybody's a little bit different, right?
So we always say, shoot for the 75
to 90 ounces of water
a day and then add in your salt.
But then also make sure that
when you are breaking your fast, you're
you're making those whole food decisions.
Right.
And when we look at the players
in fluid homeostasis,
I mean, you've got your thirst,
your hypothalamus, you've got
your intracellular fluids,
you've got your extracellular fluids,
you've got your renin
angiotensin, you've got your hyper
or just that hypothalamus vasopressin,
you've got your different
barometric receptors
for your blood pressure.
Right. It's a very complex equation. Sure.
But if we can control the input
and know why it's happening,
then we know that almost like when we talk
about the different electrolyte products
that are out there
that can simplify the equation for you,
and by no means do you need them.
You can make this stuff at home too.
I don't like to do that
because if somebody already done it
and it makes it more efficient for me,
I'd rather just go do that.
But I think of my electrolyte use
as and my supplements as part of my health
plan, as part of my daily multivitamin
and like replacement.
Right. Like, I'll take a multivitamin.
I want to get some food.
It's an essential part of the process.
So I just want to make sure
that when we're
talking about the long term
big health picture here, the idea is,
is that we want to figure out
how to customize this for use.
You got to try different things
to figure out what you're going to,
how you're going to feel,
what works for you.
You know, some people like myself,
I can just drop a teaspoon of salt
in water and I'm good.
And then I've got my trace minerals
for the day.
Now, in the days that I work out,
I like to use some form of electrolyte
replacement because it's just it's
it's it's an optimizer.
It makes the process easier. Nice.
You know, I was going into a date night
the other day
and I was doing some yard work.
I mean, it's getting it's
getting pretty warm.
Yeah.
You know, so so I grab, I grab some water,
I grab some salt, and like,
I grabbed them before I went outside, like
there was no waiting until I, you know,
didn't feel 100% or started
really sweating and stuff like that,
like being proactive about it.
So one thing I'm going to do drop
a little plug about is starting your day
with something proactive
on on the hydration side, you know, So
definitely just like that little reminder,
I like to put one little reminder right
by the coffee maker, because it's like do
something before the coffee before that.
Like I know the dopamine hits
going to come.
I'm going to enjoy the coffee, but like,
do something on the proactive hydration
side, bring in a little bit of water
and a little bit of salt, at least,
you know, to kind of get the day started
before I get that like automatic,
you know, give me kind of dopamine hit.
And that's just like a little
a little flex of the discipline muscle
that kind of goes a long way for like,
yeah,
my fasting lifestyle starts
first thing in the morning
as soon as I get up
and there's no denying it.
At that point,
I even subconsciously, just a little hint.
So this personalization piece right
you just mentioned, you know,
whenever we do have we have a date.
We had a date.
I went to our favorite restaurant
last week
and on the way there
I always have an element
and we'll talk about the different ones
out there in just a second.
And then before I go to bed,
I always make sure that I'm taking
my trace minerals and hydrating extra
if I have, you know, a more indulgent meal
or restaurant foods
or that are cooked with more preservatives
and things like that.
Or if I have a couple
of alcoholic beverages right,
then I want to make sure
that I'm proactively setting myself up
for the morning being easier.
Right.
You know, so
because I'll hydration, hydrating also,
you know, they're going to electrolyte
balancing, right?
So one thing that I noticed
and I want to mention this here
as the article that's in the show notes,
was actually a neutral sense article.
One of the cool things that I noticed
is we're going to go through
some of the most common
electrolyte products that are out there,
and we're going to recommend our favorite.
And this is after
a lot of trial and error.
But one of the cool things that I noticed
is when I started looking
at using my CGM to kind of test
some of this stuff,
I found that I was more sensitive
to some of the things or some of the
the ingredients that are in some of these
electrolyte products on the market.
And when we're talking about nutrients,
I know I've been doing it for a while
now, Tommy,
and we've partnered with neutral scents
because it combines cutting edge
technology and human expertise.
So you can see how your body responds
to different foods exercise, stress,
sleep, hydration, etc.
But by pairing the CGM with their app
and their expert dietitian
guidance nutritionist really is
help me level up my game.
So I used to like to drink Xavier's
and stevia sweetened with stevia
and what I didn't realize is that
I was having a blood sugar reaction
and a hypoglycemic response to the Xavier,
which was making my cravings worse.
My blood sugar is more unstable
and then ultimately making my fasting
more difficult. So nutri sense.
Since I've been back on their six month
program, we've got their app,
which is incredible.
But then you also have the continuous
glucose monitor,
which is the sensor
that you put on the back of your arm.
It's completely painless
and it monitors your blood sugar levels
and it gives you real time
feedback on what your body is doing.
Then you have the app to like,
visualize it, log it, track it, etc.
run experiments,
which is what I've been doing.
And then you have the expert
dietician guidance as well.
So when I was starting to play around
with some of these different
electrolyte products,
there was a clear winner in Elementi
for whatever reason,
that one had zero effect on my stimulation
of hunger, zero effect on my CGM,
my nutrition sensor.
And it gave me the real time data
that personalization, that customization
and say, okay,
this is what I'm going to use moving
forward as part of my wellness routine.
So you can use the nutrition CGM
to get that real time feedback.
So we've partnered with them.
You can head to nutrition start
i o forward slash fasting for life,
head to the link
that'll get you $30 off and one month
free of the dietician support.
And I really encourage you
to do one of the six or 12 month plans
because you're going to be able to start
to track some of this stuff and know
that when you make changes
in your food choices
or your hydration plan
or your electrolytes
or your pre workouts or the things
that you like to use in your long term
wellness plan, you'll have the ability
to get real time data on that as well.
So that's cool.
I just love
nutrition. It's been incredible.
I'm loving it again
now that I'm consistently using it right,
Like I've been doing it for a few months
now. It's just been really incredible. So.
All right, you know what? I'm going to go
ahead. Sorry.
You know, what I noticed
is that as I started to kind of dial
in on the hydration, I got to improve
some of my peaks that I was.
Yes. On the CGM, too. Right.
Which makes sense because as your
as your blood water and your blood sodium,
your blood potassium and magnesium
levels are better,
you're better adapted, your kidneys
firing better, your liver's working better
and you're able to adapt to,
you know, the foods a little bit better.
You know, like it's
just been a game changer
for like optimizing fasting lifestyle,
you know, weight loss, weight
maintenance and,
you know, tapping into visceral fat.
And like all of the things that we talk
about, like just just kind of dialing it
in another
notch has been like a game changer.
Yeah.
And if you want to get the, the ideas
and all that
and read that article link,
it's in the show notes. It's really cool.
But when we're looking at those,
those different products out there,
there's a ton, there's none.
There's re light,
there's elementi, there's Ultima,
there's liquid ivy, liquid ivy.
I mean you could just go to any store
right now, go to Costco, go to,
go to Target and go into
I mean, you're going to see these
at end caps on the aisles
because this electrolyte kind of world,
this electrolyte category of things
that are out there has really exploded.
And we always like to practice
the less is more.
And I've tried a lot of these.
Now if you want to make your own at home,
that's super simple as well.
It's a half a teaspoon of salt, 500
milligrams of potassium citrate powder,
a quarter teaspoon of magnesium and boom,
you've got your own homemade unflavored.
Not sure how
it's going to taste electrolyte.
But what I love about the element elements
is that you're going to get
the proper ratios
of sodium, potassium and magnesium.
And I like to stack this at the beginning
of my day to set my hydration.
I don't want to be drinking
the majority of my water
in the middle of the afternoon. Right.
So I waver just under two, around £200,
just a little bit over, depending on
I don't weigh all the time anymore.
So working on
those last few pounds of visceral fat.
So I'm not in a in a weight loss mode
or a fat loss phase or an advance,
you know, kind of big number weight
loss mode right now.
So I like using the elements
in the morning
and then I add some sodium to that.
So I'll do another half a teaspoon to a
teaspoon before my coffee in the morning.
And then that sets my stage where
now I don't have to rush
to get 128 ounces in to feel hydrated.
Right.
I can do 75 three Yeti's.
Right. So I have a 30 ounce yeti now.
I do three of those a day.
I sip on two of those in before noon
and then I sip on
one later in the evening, afternoon
into the evening.
Or maybe a mineral water like a Pellegrino
or Topo Chico
or some type of bubbly water
in the afternoon.
And I've got my hydration down
if I'm doing long, fast, short, fast, it's
just become more consistent
and it's allowed me to kind of systematize
it where I don't have to think
so much anymore. Yeah, yeah.
Decision fatigue is real.
So like getting
some of those little things
where, you know, it's,
it's kind of a habit or,
you know, you just keep that little
like that little checkmark in your head
where you go, okay, three of them,
this is how I get two of them in.
And like that's just kind of part
of my daily habits, daily rituals.
I mean,
it becomes a lot easier to kind of,
you know, piece
some of those things together.
So I feel like,
you know, we get a lot of questions, too,
that are that are very hyper specific.
Like, well, what about the coffee
I bring in?
What about the tea that I bring
in? Does this count as the water?
And like, I'm going to encourage
everyone out there to just like, you know,
bring bring down the perfectionism
a little bit
if you feel like that, that tendency
I know I've I can definitely feel
that way from time to time, too.
But just just focus on the number
of ounces for for just the water.
And if you're currently sitting
at like 20 ounces a day
or maybe a zero ounces
a day of intentional water,
but you're feeling
like you need to get to,
you know, 60, 80, 90 ounces
like we talk about that you can
you can still do it
kind of one step at a time.
And just you know,
you don't have to get there all at once.
It's progress, right?
Not perfection.
So from a fasting perspective, right.
God, listen to the salt episode,
eye opening.
We want to balance the primary
electrolytes, specifically
sodium, potassium chloride,
calcium and magnesium are we want to avoid
headaches, dizziness, brain fog, fatigue,
low mood, reduced alertness,
changes in blood pressure. Right.
All of those different types of things.
We want to balance our thermoregulation,
our physical performance, our cognitive
performance, our GI kidney, cardiovascular
function, as well as we can even do things
like improve our skin health
when you hydrate properly,
but when you fast, you're going
to have less opportunity to get food in.
So a lot of our minerals and electrolytes
come from our food supply.
So when you break your fast, that's why
we say it's a nutrition window, right
to healthy whole food sources
as much as you can.
And then when you look at supplementation
in terms of
how am I going to get my electrolyte
balance to where I want it to be,
you just going to have to try
some different things
and that's why we use element.
It taste super good. It's it's easy.
They come in these little packets
I've just
my wife's had in her clinic for years
and I never really used it
consistently until more recently.
But when you're looking
at some of these other ones
like the pickleball cocktail, the clean
athlete hydration, I mentioned them
earlier, none liquid is Pedialyte.
What's the one back in the day?
Gatorade, right.
Like I was at a basketball camp
back in the day and I was dehydrated.
I went to the nurse's tent
and I remember being like,
Hey, I've been drinking Gatorade.
She's like, No, here's some water.
And she gave me like a
like a saltwater concoction.
And they're like, If you don't feel better
in the morning, we'll do an I.V.
bag, right? Like, okay, sailing bag.
Yeah.
Mine ended up feeling fine, but
I didn't know I was going to those things.
But there's a ton of added chemicals
sucralose, ace, ks, artificial sweeteners.
Some of those have been shown to increase
your risk for insulin resistance.
And that's why we like the element
brand
because of the quality of the ingredients.
So compared to like a nun
or nun will have a magnesium oxide, right,
which is a less absorbable form of
I Newseum,
we want to just give you
the best recommendation possible
and then make sure that, you know,
we're going to try to get our water in
in earlier in the day
and during our nutrition window,
make sure that we're looking for
those whole food sources,
which I've said a few times now.
Yeah, I love the whole food sources.
You you have some of those products
out there that have, like you mentioned,
ask a couple of times, you know, it
literally has potassium in the name,
but you have certain products that are
even like flavor enhancers for water.
You know, there's there's the Milos
and other things like that
that are they're very popular,
you know, especially
like you hear this recommendation
like try to get more water in
and then especially
if you're used to highly palatable foods,
you know, and or maybe some sweeter foods
and you're not used to drinking
that much water, it can feel like, okay,
maybe this will help me get my water in.
But you're you're bring in this zero
calorie thing.
I mean, it's it's it's
definitely highly processed, right?
I mean, it's it's created.
And but when you put something in it
like an ace k,
the kidney has to literally excrete
that acesulfame potassium out.
And in order to excrete it out,
it has to actually get rid
of some of the electrolytes
that were in your your body to begin with
because you can't just excrete water,
you have to excrete other electrolytes
with it.
So in order to clear that ask,
even if it's not a whole lot coming
in, it's actually a dehydrating agent
in that regard.
So even though you brought in some water
for the lady, like the Gatorade situation,
lady is like,
no, no, no, no, that is a ton of sugar.
Don't do that.
Yeah, it's
the opposite of what you wanted, you know,
So like, if you have to,
you know, use something like, like let's
go to a more natural source to,
to actually do that, to kind of enhance
the flavor of the water.
And again,
like baby steps go, go a long way.
We don't have to, you know,
bring in a whole bunch of additional stuff
like sweeteners or enhancers
or things like that
so we can get in this higher volume
of water all at once.
And I just the elephant in the room
is the fact that that's a slippery slope
if you've been following us long enough,
you know, we always we always say
less is more.
So if you're extending
your fasting windows,
focus on your hydration,
focus on the loss of electrolytes,
That's going to happen
when you push your fasting windows
because insulin comes down
and your body is naturally going
to excrete that extra fluid.
So the easiest way to get that back in
is is, you know, having a hydration plan,
you know, salts in easiest,
the easiest way to do it
if you're working out elements again
our best recommendation
because they are paleo,
gluten free, sugar free keto low carb
friendly and they don't have any of those
artificial things in them.
But if you go down the artificial
sweetener conversation,
there's a lot of research on both sides
of the aisle for benefits and
and risks, right? For pros and cons.
So it's not something that we are going to
sit here and and preach from Mount High.
It's, you know, if you're having 12
Diet Cokes a day, probably
want to decrease that
to like maybe one or two over time.
Right. Or we're not going to be like,
don't ever drink.
It's the devil.
Don't ever drink something
that has fish or sweetener in it. Right.
Because the dose makes the poison.
So it's just our take on,
you know, simplicity, sourcing
flavor and the fact that we've tried
a lot of them.
I've even done things like,
Was that the snake juice, right?
Yeah, Yeah.
I mean, just
you can go down the rabbit hole.
I recommend you don't do it.
Okay.
So I'm just trying to help you guys
extend those fast, get more consistent
and feel good
and have fun during the process.
I had a family member once that recently
just sent me the liquid Ivy a picture.
Hey, I just picked these up.
This is what you're talking about, right?
And I'm like,
No, man, just go flip the label over
and just read the ingredients, right?
Yeah, You're doing probably with that one.
Probably doing yourself
more harm than good. So.
All right,
Tom, as you wrap up today, two things.
One, you can head to the show notes.
I almost forgot to mention it.
You get a free box element
by clicking the link on our show notes.
How did I forget to mention that
until just now?
School element Elementi.
We use them every single day.
I don't want to say this,
but I want to say this.
Is that it's summertime,
so the grapefruit flavor is out.
Oh yeah.
I want to tell you about it
and how amazing it is that.
But then I don't
because I want them all to myself.
Okay, But go click and get a free
free box.
Click the link.
Start putting a simple hydration
plan into your day to day life.
If you want to continue the conversation,
get some questions answered.
You can also click the link
for the Fasting for Life
community in the show notes where we break
the first two rules of fasting
each and every day
where we talk about fasting 24 seven.
You're in a private community
of like minded fasters.
It's a positive group,
it's an engaging group.
It's active every single day.
And you can continue this conversation
there with us.
Tommy, appreciate the conversation, sir.
Yeah, thank you.
Let's go drink
some water. We'll talk soon.
All right. See you.
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