Ep. 184 - Fasting habit ladders to level-up your lifestyle | Using non-food rewards to rewire bad diet habits | Why patience is your superpower & how to increase it today | How to get more consistent & lose more belly fat | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan
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In this episode of the Fasting for Life podcast, Dr. Scott Watier and Tommy Welling discuss habit ladders and habit stacking in relation to adopting a fasting lifestyle. They stress the importance of finding the fasting schedule that suits your specific lifestyle and habits. The hosts break down the five steps of building habit ladders, which include identifying the goal action, breaking it down into stages, making it easy, progressing the habit, and staying consistent. They advise starting with achievable steps and gradually progressing towards more complex habits. Setting reminders, creating routines, and removing obstacles can help make the habit easier to achieve. They emphasize the need for patience and consistency in habit formation. The hosts also encourage finding non-food rewards to stay motivated throughout the process. They provide a free resource, the Fasting for Life Blueprint, and invite listeners to join the Fasting for Life community on Facebook. The episode concludes with a summary of the actionable steps discussed and a message of gratitude.
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Fasting For Life Ep. 184 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.
Everyone,
welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast.
My name's Art Scott Walker,
and I'm here, as
I always am, a good friend and colleague
Tom Welling.
Good afternoon to you, sir.
Hey, Scott, how are you doing?
Fantastic, my friend.
Excited for today's conversation.
We're going to be talking about habit
ladders and habit stacking
When it comes to adopting
a fasting lifestyle.
We're going to talk about
some of the most common
missteps and questions that we get.
It's not a Q&A,
but it is going to be focused on
the things that you can walk out
in your day to day
step by step, habit building,
fasting, lifestyle adaptation.
So we're expecting this
to be a very actionable episode for you.
Want to welcome you in
if you are a new listener to the show.
Thanks for giving us a shot.
If you want to hear more about Tommy and I
and how our fasting lifestyle
or how fasting has become part of our life
and how it's transformed our lives,
you can head back to episode one,
give it a listen.
If you're a long term listener,
We appreciate you tuning in.
If you'd be so kind.
Go ahead and drop us a review.
We, of course, prefer
the five star kind that tells the
podcast Gods and goddesses
or whoever controls, who sees what we do
and says, Wow, these guys are doing
great work, they're providing value.
So let's make sure
that people hear their message.
Whatever.
However that system works,
we know that it works better
and we can reach more people
by getting those five star reviews.
So appreciate y'all listening in
to this week's episode as well.
So, Tommy, when we
when we start off with fasting
similarly to our stories, right
where we started,
we were looking for a solution to this
tricky little lifestyle adaptation
that happens here specifically
in the States, but also worldwide.
As we get older, we get heavier.
I can say this about me.
I was getting fatter.
My visceral fat was increasing, my blood
work was changing, it was ticking up.
And I just noticed as I was going through
the mid thirties into my early forties
that I wasn't feeling is great.
And all of the efforts and hard work
and counting calories and tracking macros
and coaching and workout
plans and CrossFit and all the things
that I tried weight loss
in a box, programs that I only created
but also used to help people with
in my clinics weren't working for me
and I was just like,
what the heck is going on?
So a lot of folks
come to fasting to start or or restart
or look to fasting as a solution
to their weight issues,
to losing the weight, getting it off
and finally keeping it off.
But as we've talked over the last 180
plus episodes,
there's lots of nuance to the weight
loss game, to getting it off,
keeping it off and feeling excited
and energized throughout the process.
When we kind of hit
these little sticking points
where it's just not doing what
we expect it to do.
So today's conversation about habit
ladders is going to be a way
where we can provide a structured approach
to building new habits
by breaking them down
into small, manageable steps
because everybody, hey,
can fasting work for me? Yes.
Unless you're pregnant or breastfeeding.
Mm hmm.
Pretty much fasting can apply to anyone.
Yeah.
Okay. Number two, question.
What's the best fasting schedule?
Well, we need some context.
Like, how do you live your life?
What does your life look like?
That's like, what's the best food?
You know?
Yeah, that's the best vacation spot.
There's really no way to answer that.
Now we have texting.
Yeah, there's lots you can
you can listen to a lot of everything
we've ever talked about on the on
the podcast.
We talk about all those different types
of fasting schedules,
the Fasting for Life blueprint,
the free 20 page PDF that we have,
you can grab that in the show notes
that has different fasting schedules,
but there's always
but if it's not sustainable, right?
Or if you're not rewiring those habits,
then it's probably not the right
long term solution for you.
So if you're like, Man,
I want to lose £20, I'm going to run, I'm
going to just start running every day.
Yet you absolutely hate running.
Your knees hurt.
You don't even own a pair of running
shoes, right?
That's probably not the best place
to start for you.
Yeah, great point.
Even though you might feel like
it's a good idea.
Yeah, like, I've heard it.
I've heard people say that, right?
Yeah.
You see, it really come through.
You're like, Oh, look at that guy.
I he was overweight and he.
Yeah, if he can do it, I can do it right.
But maybe it's not the right strategy.
So we want to give you
some of that strategy in terms
of how we rewire those habits
because if we always think about the plan
and never execute the plan,
then then it's not the right plan for you.
Right.
And fasting for life has this connotation
that we want it to become a lifestyle.
And it's not as simple
as just drinking more water, right?
That's something
you can probably teach yourself
to do in a few days,
just like you teach a dog to sit.
If you have a little beef jerky
in your hand
by the end of one session, that dog's
going to know how to set.
It's not going to take very long, right?
Yeah, well,
we're talking about sustainable lifestyle
change and getting the weight off
and improving our health
and preventing disease and using fasting
or time restricted feeding or time
restricted eating patterns to do so.
Then there's
a lot of nuance levels in there.
So these simple five steps to build
your habit ladders.
And I like the visual
and set of stacking habits.
I like the latter visual because you're
climbing up the rungs, right?
We know that analogy.
And like the corporate world, right,
climbing up the corporate ladder.
So I like that framework
to be able to build out some of the stuff.
You know, habits are an interesting thing
because in order
to get a fasting lifestyle right,
or like, like build it over time,
there's there's different pieces to it,
you know, like we can talk about, you
know, how we're actually setting the fast.
You know, you mentioned schedule
just a minute ago.
What about,
you know, reflecting on my wins or on
what I've learned through the process?
The hydration piece is huge movement,
exercise, whatever that looks like,
and not in the sense of
I need to burns more calories.
Like that's okay.
But that's really not the focus.
One of the big focuses or, you know, focal
points for me I just did this yesterday.
We had a larger like like date night meal
and I made sure
like we got out for for a good walk
afterwards, like 30, 40 minutes.
And I mean and it's 450 degrees right now
in Texas.
I felt so much better right afterwards.
Like it's just sitting and melting.
Yes, right.
But it's just big like,
I probably didn't burn that many calories.
But, you know,
we know the research shows the Yeah,
not the point
that the decrease insulin response
and I could I could definitely feel
the before and after effect for sure
so that that movement piece is huge
even if you do have
a big hairy audacious goal of like,
I want to run a marathon or
I want to become a strong, strong man
or strong woman or, you know, do CrossFit
something like, like crazy, higher level,
ambitious, still breaking it down
into something
that we can like ascend through the levels
is just a really important piece of like
deconstructing the process
so we can plan to win long term.
So it's interesting you mentioned CrossFit
because I did it for years.
I participated in the Open, took care of
some of the local athletes here in Katy.
They made it to the games
one year and CrossFit.
You said the word crazy with CrossFit.
But you know what I love about CrossFit
is that you walk into the CrossFit.
Katie shout out to CrossFit.
Katy here,
the original CrossFit gym and Katie.
Now there's like 40 and there's like over
Katie was one of the original OGs,
one of the first five that opened in
Houston, 600 square miles, four point
however million people, right?
I've been around a long time,
but the cool thing is, is that you walk in
and not every CrossFit gym
is the right fit for everybody, right?
Depending on your skill level
and where you're starting
and what you want to achieve
by going that route.
But I remember walking back
into walking into CrossFit
and the trainer looked at me.
She's like, Oh, good morning.
I'm like, Hey, so, so glad you're here.
Tell me a little bit about what
you've been doing in terms of exercise.
I'm like, Well,
I do this, this, this, this and this.
And this was back in my powerlifting days.
So lots of squats, lots of deadlifts, lots
of bench press, lots of heavy weights.
I was carrying around over
£200 of lean muscle on me at one point
weighing £265, 20 inch neck,
while no dress shirt ever fit me
being a whopping five,
nine and a half on a good day.
So she looked at me like, Oh, okay, well,
not sure you should go into our advanced
snatch routine this morning.
She's like, Why don't you come over here
and try the beginner bootcamp class?
And I was like, okay, So they literally
walk you through like a ladder mentality.
Like they're like, Hey, all right, first
come in, free class, Let's go over here
and get you just in the basic movement
class, right?
And then I did that for a while
just to get the basic movements down
of the things that you were going
to be doing in the general CrossFit class.
Right?
I had never snatched before, like
I'd never thrown a barbell over my head.
Well,
there's a lot of things that can go wrong
when your mobility sucks
and your shoulders are stiff
because of all the power lifting
from all those. Yeah.
Just like this single plane track.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, she just looked at me.
She's like, Oh, okay,
we got some work to do here.
And then progressively
I was able to go into the bootcamp classes
and then I started doing
the general classes
and doing a lot more mobility and pre
priest stuff before class and after class.
And after a while I was like,
All right, now I can do the majority
of the basic movements.
Now I could still never and have never
been able to do a ring muscle up.
Oh yeah, I can't do it
where you swing on the rings and you sweat
and you end up locking your arms out
and you're like literally in the air,
like with the rings down by your side.
I could never do it.
Yeah. Gymnast move.
Yeah, gymnast could never get that right
in the few years that I did it.
But I was able to progress through
those skills and those incremental stages.
So these habit ladders progress
through those similar
incremental stages
and adopting a fasting lifestyle.
Now, when we say lifestyle and fasting,
it's not just about the weight loss.
There's a couple other drivers of insulin
resistance that I want to highlight.
Tell me that are going to be able
to, as we unpack the five steps in
the first step
is the identifying the goal or the habit
behavior that you want to change.
So as we walk through these stages,
individuals can gradually establish
sustainable and lasting results.
So the method fosters
a sense of achievement and motivation,
facilitating personal growth improvement,
because this is what we hear.
I mean, it was working,
but then it stops, and when it stops,
you lose your motivation.
So it can't be willpower
in won't power to drive
you long term that work short term
activation, energy.
I'm motivated. I'm going to do it right.
But it has to be you take an action,
you get a result and then you're
motivated throughout the process.
So you need to have the big, hairy,
audacious goal down the line
for whatever that is for you.
Run a marathon, lose £50, reverse
diabetes, feel
confident around food,
fix my emotional eating behaviors, etc.
etc.. Are you going?
Yeah.
This method will foster
that building that habit ladder type
stacking mentality and that will allow you
to feel good about the process.
Because if you don't feel excited
about the journey that you're embarking
when it comes to weight loss or fasting,
guess what?
You're not going to do
it. It's just reality.
So when we identify step one, Tommy,
identify,
uncover, unearth whatever word
resonates with you here, right?
Yeah.
Identify the goal action
you want to automate and ingrain
into your daily lives.
So I know you have some idea, like
something simple, like a fasting time.
Unpack of the year and just a minute.
For example, low quality
that if you're eating a lot of convenient
foods, highly refined processed
foods, fast foods,
you're having trouble
closing your windows, right?
You're your eating.
We like to say nutrition window,
not eating window, not grace fast,
not feast, not used.
Kitchen
window sets your brain with the intention.
Oh, I'm getting some good nutrition
in here every day. Right.
So you want to be able to label
that target behavior, Right.
So if you're eating low quality diet,
a goal behavior could be to increase that
that food quality.
So you might want to eat more protein and
eat less refined processed carbohydrates.
Maybe it's maybe it's cooked more at home,
you know, or like control your plate
a little bit more, a little bit more.
Whole Foods, you know,
So identifying that that target action
could be like, you know,
making big improvements to my plate
or eating at home, like I said, or, you
know, having having a good hydration plan.
What like we talked a lot about,
you know, salt
and electrolyte supplementation recently,
but that can feel very different
from whatever I'm doing right now.
And if it does, then that means,
okay, let's just look, if if I could
fast forward, if I could snap my fingers
and all the right
habits would have just aligned
and I would already be there,
what would I want
my ideal day to look like?
Or what do I want my plate to look like?
Most of the time,
even if I do have the objection of Yeah,
but I have strong food cravings,
I can't seem to get a grip
on some of my emotional
eating or something like that.
Okay, set that aside for a minute and
just say, what would the ideal look like?
And then that will be the goal action.
And then we're going to reverse engineer
it from there, break it out.
Yeah.
And it could be something as simple
as like sticking to your fasting window,
right? You're like,
I need to stick to my fasting window.
Right?
So that's a that's a great goal.
But what are the small steps?
If you're having trouble
sticking to that window,
you start the intention of the day, Oh,
I'm going to set out
and I'm going to do a 24 hour fast today.
And then by mid-afternoon you're eating
and you're like, What the heck happened?
Yeah.
So maybe it's time to move that window,
shorten that window
and get good at hitting a shorter window
more consistently.
Guess what?
The two things I just stated
are later in the steps.
Okay,
so we're going to unpack this with you.
I mentioned insulin resistant drivers,
so I want you all to think about life,
your lifestyle. Right.
So things for me, Tommy,
I know you as well.
Stress, right?
Adrenals, cortisol.
The stress response was big for me
and driving insulin resistance,
the belly fat, that visceral adiposity
stress response and then sleep, sleep,
sleep was a huge one.
So we talk in the challenges
a lot about the things that are nonfood
drivers of insulin resistance
and those two are huge
and then certain forms of exercise, right?
So depending on your goal, right,
you just don't want to try to, you know,
do more cardio to lose more weight.
That is not a good strategy
for weight loss.
So identify the goal action.
You want to automate
and ingrain it into your daily life.
So a simple one might be hydrate, right?
Well, when we get to step three,
we're going to show you
exactly what that looks like to make it
super simple, right?
So step two, we already
kind of talked a little bit to now is
how do we break it down into break
that big goal action
into a series of progressive stages.
So the fasting window right.
Moving it earlier in the day.
So instead of going for 24 hours,
how about you just skip breakfast, right?
And instead of shoot for 24, shoot
for consistent
hitting 16 hours for an entire week,
just skip breakfast and start your open
your window with lunch.
Yeah.
Because if you,
if you can't consistently do that,
then like walk before
you can run. Right. Walk right.
But even like, crawl
before you can stand up.
Before you can walk, before
you can jog, before you can run, before
you can run a marathon
like there's even even just breaking up
in a few more sub
steps can be very, very helpful
because if you if you're not
consistently able to hit a a 16
or an 18 hour fast,
do you really expect yourself
are you holding yourself to the right
standard to be able to set a 23
or 23 and a half hour timer
for for a nomad right now?
So, you know, instead of
instead of giving myself lashings
for not hitting my fasting timer again,
let me let me go down
to a slightly simpler or a little easier
or lower threshold stage.
Let me let me get mastery there before
I before I start increasing the complexity
or the, you know, the mental
the mental aspect of it.
And I really feel like that's
that's important
because in our go, go, go society
and a lot of perfectionist tendencies
and, you know,
just wanting to check all the boxes
and all the,
all the social pressure that we see
from all this curated life,
lifestyle,
social media and stuff like that,
it can always feel like
we're kind of underachieving.
So giving yourself
permission. Yes, exactly.
You're giving yourself a little bit
of permission to to drop it down.
A step to downshift, if you will.
And let me get that step right
can be huge.
I mean, you're not you're not wasting
time. There's no there's no wasted time.
Just just go in so I can get that right.
And then I'll be off to the races.
We spend a whole day
talking about goals and habits
right during the seven day challenges.
And we talk about this concept
of standardize before you optimize.
Yeah. So it's the same thing.
You just standardize
your daily routine in the process
before you try to optimize it.
So I need to get a 90 ounces of water
in. Right.
We just did an episode on hydration.
Go listen to a really great salt
in hydration.
Well, if your goal is to drink
a gallon of water a day,
so you identified that as a goal.
Now you break it down
into a series of progressive stages.
It's probably not a good plan just to be
like, yeah, I'll get it in today.
No, get a special cup,
put it in a special place.
So we talk about this for me, I delay
my coffee 90 minutes in the morning now.
Nice.
So the first thing I do
is I make my morning water.
Before it used to be just drink
six ounces of water before I drink coffee.
Yeah.
Now I do 30 ounces in a yeti with a
teaspoon of Redman's and an element. Yep.
So now I've got 30 ounces of proper
hydration setting the stage
for the next step, which is okay,
in 3 hours I'm going to drink some more.
Know, right.
And you need to break it down,
maybe set a timer on your phone, etc..
So step one is identify the goal action.
Step two is break it down.
And then what I just alluded to there was
step three, which is to make it too easy
every night, right? Every night.
So it's it's that old adage, if you're
going to go for a run in the morning
or go to the gym, lay out
your workout clothes the night before.
Yeah, yeah.
Find your keys, put them in.
Put them right where you see them. Right.
Like, yeah, put the phone on the opposite
side of the room so you have to get up,
right.
Like there's all these things you would do
to make that activation energy simpler.
So every night before we go to bed,
the kids are in summer camp right now.
They had a few weeks off,
they finished school
and then they're in a camp
for a couple of weeks.
So last couple of nights it's breaking out
the lunchboxes, putting out their water.
Right.
And then every night, my wife and I,
we set out our stations
and it takes 2 minutes.
I don't care how tired we are,
how bad the night's sleep
was because of the baby
the night before or whatever. Right.
Or the big news like waking up
just wanting to play trucks another night
for no reason.
It's like, well now if if I have.
So her two big Stanley cups are there.
Her breakfast thing is set up
my coffee cup is there, my Yeti is there.
The elements already out, the salt out
like it's literally ready to go.
So when I wake up in the morning
on a poor night to
I don't reach for the coffee first.
Like I didn't make my coffee
the night before.
No, the iced coffee is in the fridge.
I'll make that later. Like.
Yeah.
You're not gonna forget about that part.
No, I got that one down. Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it right.
Yeah.
It's setting, it's lowering the threshold,
lowering the activation
energy that it's going to take to do
the things that you really want to do
when you're making those smart,
long term decisions,
when you're in a good, clear
state of mind, but you're not having
to take the action right?
Then you take one small action
and it's like the night before, but
it's getting you prep
because in the morning or in the moment
or like hitting the snooze button again
or whatever,
like in the morning, it's so easy to go,
Well, I'll, I'll do it tomorrow.
I'll get to it tomorrow.
Today's not really the right day to do.
It's not the perfect time.
I woke up a little bit late,
not feeling 100% right.
I mean, I heard excuses, right?
Yeah, we could do those.
Like, we can come up with
a thousand of them, like Rapid Fire two.
Yeah. So step one is identify.
Step two is break it down.
Step three is make it too easy.
So, for instance,
my wife and I are getting back on track
after having a baby when she had the baby.
After I've been in the support role
for the last 14 months, right?
Yeah.
We're getting back into the morning
routine where
we're getting up a little bit earlier.
So she's like, Well, what do you
what do you set your alarm for tomorrow?
I was like,
well, 10 minutes earlier than I did today.
I said, Oh, yeah, that's a good idea
to like wade back into it
rather than being like, I'm going to start
getting back up at 530 at off
when I've been sleeping in until seven.
Right. Let's say for the last.
I mean, I wish it was seven,
but it's usually around 630.
If I'm going to go back to 530.
The pain of waking up the next day,
an hour earlier,
especially if I went to bed at the same
time, is going to be not sustainable.
Okay, so we need to make
for us easy to motivate.
Yeah.
So the same thing if you're
working on your sleep habits, right,
and you go to bed wired and tired,
you can't fall asleep while you,
you went downloaded our sleep guide
and you're like, All right,
I need to focus on sleep because I know it
increases my blood sugar variability.
I know my cravings go
up. I know I'm more hangry.
I know it leads to insulin resistance,
like all of these things.
But the night before, you like. All right,
I'm going to shut off the wi fi.
I'm going to put my phone in a MF bag
and keep it in the kitchen.
I'm going to TV's off 2 hours before I'm
going to read journal, blah, blah, blah.
And you have this complete text like night
routine that you've never done before.
The complexity will kill the action.
Yeah, the perfect, the picture.
Perfect. Yeah.
So it's like, okay, how about instead of
staying on your phone, let's say
this I'm speaking from experience,
you know, looking at pictures
of my wife of the kids before bed.
Now we do that at our lunch dates.
I want to show these pictures
rather than, oh, let's look at the day,
because then you're on your phone
and the blue light and the dopamine.
Right.
And the scrolling
and the next thing you know, it's
a couple of hours later
and you're still there.
So how about just 30 minutes earlier?
Or how about I'm going to do that
in a different place?
I'm going to do that in the living room,
standing in the kitchen
rather than laying in my warm, comfy bed.
So now that I've done that,
I've checked the box.
Now I go to bed, phones down, phones off,
and you can prioritize that sleep.
So whatever that goal is, step
three is to make it easy, make it too easy
where you don't have to think about it.
Because once we start thinking,
that's when we open our mouth
and insert our foot.
So step one, identify.
Step two, break it down. Step three,
make it too easy.
You know,
a couple of two easy things that we did.
One was we got ourselves a little smart
plug that connects to the little echo dot.
You know,
you said a little Amazon thing, you know,
So you can say you can say, Alexa
set a sleep timer for 20 minutes,
you know, so you can you can insert
asleep, asleep timer, you know, for the TV
or whatever device you want to shut off,
even if you don't have one built into it.
So that's kind of cool.
Little smart plug hack there.
And then another one is
I replaced my alarm clock.
So I got like a little like a little sleep
in a little sleep
watch sleep band
that will vibrate to wake me up. So.
So my wife doesn't have to be frustrated
with my wanting to get up earlier.
And it also helps me actually get up
besides, you know, just a blaring,
you know, loud, high
pitched noise or something like that.
So yeah, that that was like a game changer
for helping me to be able to
to get up,
you know, find, find some more time,
but also prioritizing the sleep and,
and my nighttime habits
because I know that alarm
is going to be effective in the morning.
So it's like it's
automatically motivating me to get better
sleep and control my sleep hygiene
at the end of the day, too.
And if you're trying to get back on track
or you're starting out with fasting,
you just can't seem to get the result
or the scale.
Stop moving or you're just having trouble
closing your window
or sticking to your window.
When it comes
to the fasting side of things,
make it too easy at 30 minutes
from yesterday.
Yeah, at 15 us make one.
So at one minute, right. Never.
Yeah.
Just make it so easy
that you can consistently hit that target.
Okay. So step four is progress.
This is where most people screw up
because they try to go
too fast
after a couple of weeks or months.
Progress the habit,
but wait until you're ready
and you're going to go along long is
I don't know what you're going to know.
I don't know when I'm ready.
Go too fast,
because you're not going to keep doing
the habit that you're working
on. You're going to fall off.
A week goes by and Oh, man,
I only did it once today.
Right?
So it's crucial
that you don't rush this step.
This is the standardized
before optimize conversation.
So many people want to move
to the next stage.
After a couple of days,
we are creatures of habit.
So remember,
we're trying to automate these and rewire
these neural pathways
so it should become almost unconscious.
Part of your day before you move
to progressing forward to the next step.
This is where most people fly
the nest too soon
and they go fall back into those old habit
patterns quickly
because they didn't sit in this stage
long enough.
So it's almost like you need to be
at the point to where you don't
even really think about the current rung
on the habit ladder where you are, right?
Like and it it feels natural.
You're doing it
without thinking about it very much.
And then it's like after sitting in that
and then that becomes
very comfortable to where I'm really
not thinking about that step anymore.
That's kind of how, you know,
you're ready to wade into the next step
at that point,
you know, where the the next ascension.
And the cool thing is trial
and error, right?
That's all it is. You're not going to die.
The world is not going to end.
Right.
Like if you try it
and you're not ready yet, it's fine.
Yeah, right. It's changing.
As long as as long as you don't give
up, though, Right.
If you fail at the next step.
Right. Right.
Because that can be like that.
Perfectionist. Oh, so this step is tricky.
Well, we had a question come up recently
and we're on a advanced coaching
call and woman had asked, well,
you guys mentioned after the challenge,
don't
go back to
just doing like an nomad schedule.
And I was like, yes, She's like, Why?
And I was a great question said,
So tell me about your own experience.
How's it been going?
Has it been getting results for you?
Has it been moving the needle?
And she went, No, but while I do it
for a few days and then I don't do it
a few days and then the weekends and,
and all this stuff.
And I was like,
so you want to go to the next level
or you want to go back to doing
what you were doing that wasn't working.
That's why we don't recommend doing that,
because it's not working for you.
Yeah, it doesn't work long term.
So that's just the right
rung of the ladder.
It's not the right rung.
It's not wired yet. Right.
So the weekend warrior thing here is
I love the idea of the weekend warrior
fasting type, right?
Where a lot of people I'd say about 60,
that we've gotten,
say that they have a weekend warrior
fasting habit where fasting type, Right.
So this is a habit,
behavioral pattern where you fall off
track Friday, Saturday and Sunday, right.
And then you have to restart again
on Monday.
It's very common. I've worked hard.
I deserve it. I'm tired.
More social engagements, date nights,
dinners, church, family, all this stuff.
Kid stuff. Right on the weekends. Yeah.
So when you are trying
to stay in step four,
right
where you want to progress the habit,
you want to build on the habit,
you want to make that progress.
In the long term sustainability,
you have to standardize
before you optimize, right?
So in this stage,
when it comes to the weekend, Tommy,
you had a really good idea on
how to kind of compartmentalize
that and live in this step
for a little bit
while longer before you feel ready to say,
you know what,
I'm going to do a weekend
and I'm going to stick to my my plan 100%.
Yeah, this is a big one,
I feel like, because when the weekend
starts, it can be like,
okay, the ball starts rolling.
And especially if that happens on Friday
afternoon or Friday evening,
I mean, you literally might have a solid
you know, that that this could be
even if even if I am diligent
with my fasting during the week,
I'm committed to it.
It can still be like
my head goes in the sand a little bit.
I don't set a fasting timer
or maybe I kind of say yes
to anything that that pops up or,
you know, whatever the case may be.
It can just be a slippery slope.
And if it if that happens very often,
it can be hard to maintain control
over the scale.
How I feel recovering on Monday,
the morning routine
that we just talked about everything
because if I lose momentum on that Monday,
Tuesday goes by
and maybe it's not until Wednesday
that I get started on my morning routine
and then I might have
three good days in there.
And then here comes the weekend again.
And it's all like kind of off the rails
again.
It's really hard to maintain high levels
of motivation and keep going with that
to make real progress.
So in order to compartmentalize it,
like think about it in, in segments
like Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
So if, if typically your weekend basically
starts on Friday, then, you know,
setting your first target of like of
just pushing that off until Saturday
Saturday afternoon rather than Friday
afternoon is a big part where you took
control over one third of the weekend
if you think about it like that, right?
Yeah.
Or, you know, maybe it's
maybe it's 20% of the weekend.
If things are happening Saturday morning
and Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning
and Sunday afternoon as well.
Either way, you kind of split it up
into buckets and like,
hey, just gaining control
over one of those buckets
to push it off
and just say not now is a big part.
Yes. Yes.
And that's a win.
Like we get dopamine hits from
from doing that as well.
And that that Saturday afternoon
feels even better
because I maintain my control longer.
The scale is not going to tick up as much.
I'm not going to feel as off track, you
know, come the end of the weekend, too.
And we'll we can work on it from there.
But that's that's a big first step
towards towards progress of the weekend.
You have a habit of this
falling off the wagon on the weekend.
Right. Or when stress hits or when you.
So for me, if I did a big date
night on a Friday night
and then I indulge had a couple of drinks
and maybe had a dessert,
a big meal, maybe going to the movies,
and I got popcorn or something like that.
Then the next morning
my sleep is going to be affected.
My craving is going to go
through the roof.
My blood sugar is going to be more
volatile.
I'm going to have less blood
sugar control, I'm going to eat more,
and then Saturday
is going to be more difficult.
And then at some point I will
power is going to tank and then, you know,
blah, blah, blah.
You know the story, right? It's only me
up. That's a slippery slope.
So not right.
So it should almost be unconscious.
So then.
All right.
Well, let's move to Friday, like you
said, move Friday to just 12 hours ahead
or 16 hours ahead.
The Friday thing that you normally do,
move it to Saturday.
And that's literally you said
This is step four progress to habit.
Don't try to just blow through this step.
This is the one where we need to stay here
until it becomes unconscious.
It might be weeks to months
where you're like, Oh, you sure?
We used to do that on Friday.
Yeah, Now we don't.
You almost don't even remember.
Yeah, that's right. Or maybe it's Sunday.
Breakfast is now move to Sunday brunch
and you get a bigger fasting window
in there on the weekend.
We don't know what that is for you,
but that's why there's step one,
two and three.
So then step five, Tommy.
And this is,
you know, the one key thing, right?
And it's not
there's not going to be confetti
dropping from the ceiling or balloons
being released, Right.
Or or some big like, wow, this is like
some like this is some cool stuff.
You got Peyton.
This this is like, wow,
you just invented the new light, right?
Like the LED.
I wish that was me.
Step five is stay consistent.
So consistency is key and habit formation.
Commit to practicing your new habit daily
or weekly like we talk about the weekend,
even if it means repeating a step
multiple times
before moving on regular repetition
reinforces
neural pathways, making the behavior
more automatic over time.
So this is not some grandiose aha.
It is the reality of the situation
and that to rewire habits,
we need to stay consistent and timely.
This is no more evident
than my daughter learning.
My wife would say, finally learning
how to ride her bike.
Right? She's six.
She didn't really show
much interest in it.
She didn't really care.
She's really fast. She loves running.
So it was like, Oh, a bike
and then whatever.
No urge to ride.
It just didn't really want do it.
And then my grandma
grandpa came into town.
It was like my dad was like,
Oh, I'll teach you how to ride a bike.
And three days later
she was riding her bike.
Training wheels are off.
She's zooming around the cul
de sac up the driveway over the grass,
like down the trails, like moving around,
leaning into corners or.
Right.
But she literally was like practicing and
practicing and practicing and practicing.
And then a week went by
and she didn't ride it because it was like
And it was just too hot.
So she's like, I you know, I just didn't
really want to ride the bike, right?
So she got on it
and then she was a little wobbly.
She's like, Daddy, I'm a little wobbly.
What happened?
I was like, Well, you haven't practiced
in a week in like I saw the light bulb go.
She goes off.
So she went inside,
grabbed a piece of paper,
and she wrote down the days of the week
and she was like, I'm going to ride
my bike on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
And I was like, Wow, okay, cool.
I go, How many minutes? She goes, 30.
I said, Okay, that's a lot.
Because I was just thinking
about our schedule, right?
And now that's right in the habit letter,
I was like,
How about to loops around the cul de sac?
Yeah. And I was like, Next week
we'll do three. So yeah.
So when we pull back the layers,
the simplicity is there,
but it's the consistency that matters.
So if you have 100% perfect plan
but you only execute it 50% of the time,
you're not going to get there.
But if you have a 50% perfect plan
and you execute it 100% of the time,
you are going to absolutely skyrocket
your results.
Wow. That's a that's a great analogy.
One thing you just reminded me of,
it's like breaking back,
peeling back the layers when
when your daughter is is looking at,
you know, learned to ride the bike.
There's an inherent like, I'm
going for something,
there's an excitement,
there's a new possibility.
There's,
you know, like a mode of transportation.
There's a freedom component.
Yeah.
Part of as an adult that can be
that can be a tough part of the equation
where we're trying to motivate ourselves
into something really important.
Thinking, logical, rational. Yes, Yes.
But that's not how we act.
We act based on feelings and emotions.
So we need we need something.
Yeah.
And so and that can be
that can be part of the tricky part of it
is that a lot of us
only think in food rewards,
you know, for, for things that are like
that's immediately like,
oh man, I had a rough time
or I have a craving or I'm feeling
stressed or whatever it might be.
A lot of times we go to to food and
or drink to kind of balance those emotions
or to hit our our dopamine centers
with with a feeling of reward.
So what's an important part of habit?
Ladders and long term success
is going to thinking outside the box
for things that excite us, motivate
us, that are nonfood related.
We don't need to be rewarding ourselves
in the kitchen for things that we're doing
for our fasting lifestyle.
Like it's just at least not all the time,
not most of the time anyway.
So let's get a little bit creative,
you know, like pulling up.
You can go,
you know, Google these kind of things,
non-food rewards and stuff,
but things like an at home spa day
or a bubble bath or reading a book or,
you know, like there's adult coloring
books and like different activities.
Go into the library,
watch your favorite show on Netflix,
get a massage,
you know, just you know, you can
you can kind of rattle off these things.
But in the in the moment, they don't
necessarily come to you very easily.
So writing a few of them down,
pick out some of your favorites.
Yeah, but but write them down
so that when you take the action,
not waiting for the number on the scale.
Not that I'll be happy when,
but when you take the action
that's going to lead you there,
then reward yourself with something
that's nonfood related.
It's going to go a long way
towards rewiring some of those habits
that are going to get you closer
to your long term goals.
I love it.
So what are habit ladders?
So we've got step one.
Identify the goal action.
You want to automate.
Step two,
break it down into progressive stages.
Right?
So you want to do a seven day fast? Well,
I wouldn't recommend just starting.
If you've never fasted
before you want to run a marathon,
you should probably learn how to run
a5k first, right?
Yeah. Want to learn how to bike?
Learn to ride a bike,
get out there and practice right with the
how to fall maybe training wheels.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh, yeah.
Step three Make it too easy.
So make that activation energy
super simple, right?
The water analogy moving the fasting time
or 15 or 30 minutes.
You can do anything for 30 minutes,
anything.
Okay.
Just make it so simple
where your brain goes.
Oh, yeah. Got it.
Okay. Step four Progress or progress?
The habit.
This is the progress step.
But you need to progress
through the habit.
You have to wait and be patient here.
Okay? Yeah.
Now, if you've been waiting for six years,
it's time to poop or get off the pot.
Okay, Let's go. Be a little impatient.
Yeah, let's go.
Let's have a little impatience here.
But you will know when you feel ready.
And then step five.
The magic step is that consistency.
So tell me as you wrap up today,
talked a little bit about our journeys,
talked about this habit ladder, which
I love the visual that comes with that.
If you're looking for more support
on this journey,
head to the fasting for life community.
So this is our private Facebook group.
Well, it's our public Facebook,
but it's private
because you have to request access to it.
We just don't let anyone in.
But if you're a podcast listener
and you want to come join a community
of like minded folks
that break the first year
rules of fasting, talk about fasting
and we talk about fasting
and get your questions answered.
Or just be in an environment
where you're around like minded people
to work on things like this.
Head to the shownotes, click the link.
We have someone that lets you in.
There's a couple of questions we ask
you will send you a free resource
and it's just a really great place
to be around like minded people
and to continue to build
and walk out this fasting lifestyle.
If you want to look for that pdf,
The Fasting for Life Blueprint
that is also in the show notes,
you can click that link.
Tommy As we wrap up today, sir,
I think there's a lot of actionable
things here that people can do.
So first and foremost,
walk through the five stages, pick
that goal, make it tangible, visualize it,
feel it, and then you got to walk it out
and do the work.
So as we wrap up, Tommy,
we appreciate the conversation.
Hopefully inside of Facebook group,
let us know if you have any questions
and we'll see you next up. So thanks, sir.
Thank you. Bye.
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