Ep. 194 - Carbohydrate truths, myths, & LIES | Are naked carbs & alcohol making your fasts harder than they should be? | How to get more fat burn by controlling blood sugar | Which diet style is best for fasting: Keto, Paleo, Vegan, Carnivore, or Whole30?
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In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy explore a balanced perspective on carbohydrates, emphasizing moderation and choosing the right sources. They advise reducing sugars, refined grains, and liquid carbs while opting for minimally processed carbs from vegetables and fruits. Strategies like aligning carb intake with individual responses, leveraging "fasting optimizers," and selecting appropriate carb swaps are presented.
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Fasting For Life Ep. 194 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, Ron,
want to hop on real quick
before we head to today's episode
and let you all know that the next master,
your fasting challenge, is upon us.
Yes, that is right.
It is coming up on September 13th
through the 19th and the last master
fasting challenge we did in July.
Man, what an absolutely incredible time.
The results were amazing.
Tons of testimonials, positive feedback.
So we decided that we're going
to run this back a couple more times
before, dare
I say the end of 2023 is upon us.
So we know that summer is over,
that we are back to school.
And I don't know about you,
but I've started to see some holiday
decorations and fall in.
The holidays are soon to be upon us.
So let's start the last quarter
of this year and end summer with a bang.
If you're new to fasting
or want to get back on track,
if you're struggling to break through
a plateau, if you're ready to finally stop
obsessing about your diet and your weight
loss and get off that roller coaster once
and for all, let's end
the summer with some intention,
some habit building, and fast
track your fasting results
as we head into the fall
and the upcoming holiday season.
So we want you to do
to get more information about the Master,
your fasting challenge
that's coming up on September 13th.
Head to the show notes.
Click the link for dates.
More information
frequently asked questions.
It's all there for you.
And we really, really,
really want to end this summer
with some intention
around our fasting lifestyle.
So we'll see on the inside.
Click the link for more information.
And now today's episode.
Everyone.
Welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast.
My name's Dr.
Scott Water and I'm here as always, my
good friend and colleague, Tommy Rowling.
Good afternoon to you, sir.
Hey, Scott, how are you doing?
Fantastic, my friend.
Looking forward to today's conversation
where we are going
to get into all things carbohydrates.
We yes,
we are going to talk about that tricky,
nasty little macronutrient called carbs.
We are going to uncover some truths
and some myths give you a little fasting
for life perspective
because it is absolute
be one of the most common questions
that we get
when somebody comes into our fasting
for a life ecosystem or into our podcast
or into one of our challenges.
What about carbs?
So we're going to break it down for you
ins and outs and give you some perspective
on things
that you can walk away with today.
So if you are new to the show, welcome in.
We want to welcome you in.
And we are so grateful that you decided
to give us a shot in becoming part
of your fasting journey, as we like to
say, part of the fasting for life.
Sam And we just want to welcome you in.
If you want to learn more about
our journeys with fasting going on 190
plus episodes once a week every week,
we have not missed why we do that.
We'll head back and listen to episode one
and how fasting has transformed our lives
and why we are going to continue to bring
value and content each and every week.
So Tommy, for all the OGs out there,
I want to give them a little love as well.
Thank you for continuing
to listen in, continuing
to write, subscribe, review, download
all of those wonderful podcast things
every time you leave us a review,
especially the five star kind
that tells you those are our favorite.
Not going to lie,
that tells the podcast gods and goddesses
that we are doing something good,
we are bringing value.
And I know we want to give a shout out
here to someone
that recently left us a five star review.
Yes, absolutely. Shameless plug. Right.
We want to give you some love, too,
because you've done some good work. Sorry.
Oh, man, it's incredible.
FFL Podcast leaders Dr. Scott and Tommy
changing lives.
Thank you so much. Five stars.
What can I say?
I've done everything to lose weight
and try to maintain the lost
failing each time.
Weight Watchers Jenny Craig Nutrition
counselors over exercise Center mean even.
But after listening
to 100 episodes of this podcast
and losing £25 over the last ten months.
All right.
Yes, I know this way as my freedom
to getting off the diet Ferris wheel.
Thank you, Dr.
Scott and Tommy, for changing my life
for the better and more pods to go.
And I'm sticking to fasting for life
as my lifelong plan.
Absolutely. Love it.
Congrats on the success
and thank you for the review.
And I just absolutely love that
inspiring as you go.
I'm inspired right now
from from that success right there.
So congrats again.
Ten months, £25. Some of you going now.
Not enough.
Two and a half pounds a month.
Nope. Too slow. Nope.
I got £100 to lose.
That's going to take me forever.
What I love about this sunshine
and about you is that this is your journey
and you have finally seen
that this is going to get you off the diet
Roller coaster.
You said Ferris wheels.
Yes. Not a race. Race affairs, right?
Not a race, right.
It's not.
No. A Ferris wheel is boring
and I never want to be on one.
Right. Okay.
At least a roller coaster.
Yeah. A race is, like, something short.
Like I want it to be over.
It's a race, like, going
get to the end. Yeah, right, right, right.
It's not that every day,
every hour of the day is on race.
So let's talk about carbohydrates then,
because for sunshine and maybe.
Q For me, for you, for my wife,
carbohydrates are a little bit different
now. We're not going to endorse the high
standard American diet consumption
of carbohydrates that can range anywhere
from 50 to 65% of your daily food intake.
We're not going to talk about the
the food pyramid
and how it should be inverse
and flipped on its head, in our opinion.
But, you know, when we look
at carbohydrates, it is everywhere.
It's around us.
It's the most readily available food
that we have in our food supply.
It's typically
the most affordable comes in bulk, right?
Big boxes of pasta,
subsidized, right, refined,
processed, enriched,
all of these different types of things.
What we want to really look
at carbohydrates in a way of like what
they are kind of compartmentalize them
a little bit, what foods contain them,
and then really go through some tips
for eating carbohydrates and optimizing
your blood sugar
in a way that will keep it more steady.
And we just recorded a podcast on this
where we talk about blood sugar
and how the volatility in the blood
sugar will directly increase cravings
and hunger.
And if you are trying to lose weight,
those are like the two like
words
that like you just want to cover your ears
and cover your eyes
and pretend you don't see it.
Like those are like the two worst things
you could experience, Right?
Right.
And how carbohydrates also relate
to successful fasts, extended fasts,
breaking your fasts
and or kind of strategizing
your fasting plan
along with your nutrition opportunities.
So carbohydrates overall,
they get a bad rap,
but there are a lot of bad ones out there,
refined, processed crap.
They're not they're not equal.
No. Yeah.
Oh, they are created equal.
Okay.
So when we're talking about carbs,
something each
and every one of you are going to have
a different perspective on this
and a different love for certain
ones. Right.
And a different affinity for others.
And that's where we talk about, you know,
salt, sugar, fat
and the satiety principles
and the hedonic food scales
and the affinity for certain foods
and all of these
different types of things.
You just mentioned so many
so many powerful things right there
and like that that we've talked about in
in different episodes.
So, yeah, absolutely.
Keep feeling sorry.
No, you're fine.
So when we look at the numbers,
the percentages, people are like,
Oh, what about net carbs?
And what about should I be under 150?
Should I be under 100?
Should I do carb cycling?
Okay, The reality here is should I do
ultra low carb?
Should I do KITO All right.
We've talked about you. Carnivore Right?
We've talked on all of those topics
throughout the episodes.
And what about me?
I'm like, naturally higher carb.
Like, what do I do then?
What do I do?
Yeah, Increase your protein, right?
And we'll give you some other things
you can do here as well.
But we always get the question,
especially if you've been tracking
and doing macros, what percentage?
Well, we say let's not be super,
super, super strict and get down to 5%
and then, you know, we talk about keto
and we did an entire episode on 90 day
cycles of Kido and how incredibly powerful
that can be for diabetes
reversal and blood sugar management
and metabolic disease reversal, etc..
Long term says keto
not really sold on that.
I'm not sold that as a long term solution
for most people.
Right?
And if you're a keto or out there
really long term.
Yeah. Right.
If you're, if it's working for you
and you're doing it
and you're fasting in your ideal weight
and you're doing keto, guess what,
keep doing, keep doing it right.
Who does the exception right?
It's great, right?
So not saying that we know everyone
in every situation out there
and I've looked at all
the research, right?
But it's not something
that I've experienced as long term
and what we've heard through thousands
and thousands and thousands
and now millions of downloads,
is that sustainably It's difficult.
It kind of falls into that dieting roller
coaster, that sunshine A.B.
Q was talking about. Right. The data.
Ferris Excuse me. Yeah, the Ferris wheel.
It's like if the passion for it,
like if it works, it's giving you results
and then it fits with your lifestyle
and it's the types of foods
that you typically really attracted to
and just the ones that kind of work
for your lifestyle and kind of fit things,
then it's going to stick around
like it might work for you
as a really long term solution.
And like, I don't I don't think there's
anything wrong with that at all.
It's just that's
definitely the exception for sure.
That's where that comes from, right?
So we want to look at that.
We like that 20%, right?
Because there was some of the research
we talked about previously,
about the long term diabetes studies.
You know, at the 18 month and two year
mark they once used were actually worse
when people were going
severe low carb right.
And restricting, you know, meeting
themselves from all of the air quotes,
enjoyable foods like I love bread,
I miss my pasta.
Right. Those types of things.
We'll talk about food swaps
here in just a minute.
But we've looked at that research
and how that doesn't seem sustainable
for most people.
And then we also talk about research
where as you get closer to maintenance
and your lean body mass increases
and your fat mass goes down,
that you actually need
more natural sources of carbohydrates.
Right.
And that blew some people's minds, right?
My wife was one of those people
where she operates at a very low body
fat, zero visceral fat
or darn near close to it.
And she can enjoy in
just a lot more carbohydrates than me.
Right. I'm a slow oxidizer.
I've got the metabolic dysfunction
in my history, in my past.
My body doesn't like carbohydrates.
I swell up like a tick
if I eat too many. I know.
I love that visual right.
Kind of like the blueberry kid
and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Yeah. You know, Gumby is great,
whatever his name was.
And he swells up and he, like,
gets rolled out of the factory at the end.
Right? That's me.
Anytime I look at,
I can have carbs now and be fine.
But if I eat them consistently over a few
days, I definitely feel the difference.
Right?
So when we're looking at carbohydrates,
it's like, wow,
you know, I'm speaking really quickly now
and it's probably causing
some of you a little anxiety
as you're listening, Right.
And I'm doing that intentionally
because there's
so many different conversations
that we can have around carbohydrates,
right?
Yeah.
So first and foremost, let's talk
about some of the categories, right?
So if you're looking at carbs,
the easiest way to reduce your carb
intake is to cut out the sugars,
the refined grains and liquids.
Right.
So breads, pastas, crackers,
dessert cereals, you know, liquid carbs,
sodas, juices, even alcohol,
that's a really, really easy
way to if you're like, all right, well,
I'm at 40 to 50%, or maybe I'm fasting,
but I haven't made any,
which is what we see is one of the bigger
mistakes of fasting is
I haven't made any intentional food
changes.
Sure, before I started fasting,
this is the easiest place
that's going to give you the biggest bang
for your buck. Yes.
When it comes
to changing your carbohydrates
or decreasing your carbs
as you start fasting.
Oh, man, I absolutely love that,
because then all of a sudden you start
to feel a little bit less of the cravings,
like those really
tough cravings that can hit you
during those blood sugar swings.
You get a little tightening up
of those blood sugar curves.
And then you also have
a little less of the lethargy.
And I just got smacked,
you know, kind of feeling
after a higher carbohydrate
or a more indulgent meal.
And because all of those things
make fasting harder,
like they make it harder than it needs
to be and harder than it should be,
because as we're we're feeling
these things physiologically and mentally,
psychologically, with cravings
and things like that, it can be tough to,
you know, listen, or at least, you know,
listen to myself or listen to the timer
that I set when this craving
is just like in my head, like the stronger
the worse my sleep is
and all of these kind of things
and the worse I ate during my last meal
before I started my fast, though,
guess what?
The more of a reminder
my brain and my stomach are sending me
with hunger, hormone cues,
and all of these other things going on.
Like you can fight it,
but you don't have to like it
doesn't have to be like that,
at least not all the time.
You know, it can really make fasting feel
a lot tougher or lead to fasting
fatigue a lot
sooner than I need to experience 100%.
I'm just I'm on I've done a few recent
three day fasts recently
and I've mentioned the previous episodes
and I'm always making sure
the night before
I do a longer fast than I am, decreasing
my carbohydrate, even natural ones.
Right.
And I'm not having the date night
with the one, you know,
craft beer or the you'll feel it
bloating of a dessert or the
because I know that the next day
when I need to be on my game on a monday.
Right.
Because typically I'll start these
three day fast on a Sunday night
sometimes the Saturday night,
depending on what Sunday looks like.
But I know I usually go more carnivore,
more higher fat, higher protein
than I before, and that just kicks
the fast off much better.
My sleep is better and more satiated, etc.
So just that thought process, you know,
the easiest thing to do is, is remove
those refined liquid sugary type stuff.
And some of you might be saying, well,
that's the stuff
I really struggle with, right?
So we're not saying never have it again,
but that's where we start to reduce.
So instead of
two nine ounce glasses of wine,
have one nine ounce glass of wine, right?
Or instead of night, Right. Yeah.
It's every other night.
Every other night.
Or find swaps. Right.
So we use bonds or pasta and bonds.
If you're listening, shout out.
We use bonds of pasta because
it has higher protein and more fiber.
Right.
And it's chickpea
rather than and we've looked at this and,
you know, three kids under six. Yeah.
There are nights
you're going to have pasta.
So this is what we use
because it's a better option, right?
It's not
the I'm never going to have it again.
And then two years later,
diabetes studies that show that their age
once is higher than when they went low
carb two years prior. Right.
So a lot of pent up demand,
a lot of things.
No, absolutely not.
Never A lot of willpower
are not going to do it. Right.
Willpower stuff.
So, yes, all of the refined, processed,
sugary stuff.
But in this category, we don't need it.
We don't want it. Let's start
working on decreasing it. Right.
Fasting can help with those cravings, too.
So second thing I wanna talk about here
is the concept of minimally processed
carbs. Right?
So anything and so.
Well, what about, you know, among kiddo
I get to watch my broccoli intake
and I'm like, really?
We're going to worry
about the carbohydrates from broccoli.
Like, do you know anyone That's that's.
Was that the source of the problem?
You know, anyone that's gotten obese
by eating too much broccoli?
I know I'm being logical here, but like,
okay, so starchy veggies are good
and they're also great for what
the donut did.
Okay. I'm just going to. Right.
So you say one more time, stop
putting broccoli in the corner.
Don't blame broccoli for what
the donut did. Right?
Okay. Right.
Yeah.
Now, we don't hear this often,
but there are times where it's like,
oh, yeah, there are carbs in my veggies.
I'm like, Yeah, of course.
But that's not where
we need to be focused.
And even even my fruit.
Hey, fruit right, is not a bad word.
It's not.
It's like my friend here
in a second, right?
Yeah, It's not the word right.
My son the other day goes, Daddy,
you said the F word.
I was like fruit.
He looked at me.
He's like, No, the other one.
I'm like,
Oh, you weren't supposed to hear that.
All right, moving on to another.
Maybe he was talking about fast.
Maybe he said, Yeah, fasting. Yeah, that.
That's it. That's the F word, Right?
So we do have the family friendly logo,
so we're going to keep it there.
But you know, vegetables,
they bulk and fiber for satiety.
They also tons of minerals and vitamins
and antioxidants. Right.
So if you're a carnivore, you know,
I don't eat veggies.
Great.
You get all that stuff from your meat.
And if you're a vegan, you go, no,
I don't eat meat. Or you get great.
You got all those minerals and nutrients
from your veggies.
Perfect, right?
So you don't need to worry.
I'm not the problem.
They're probably not the problem.
Right. So. Exactly.
And then when we look at other
you know, you mentioned fruits, right?
So if you are a diabetic
and you're trying to reverse
and get off of your medications
and stuff like that,
then yeah,
we probably if you're going to do fruit,
you're going to want to do
Kiwis and raspberries and blackberries
and blueberries and strawberries
versus the,
you know, bananas and pears and high
sugar, higher sugar,
apple, syrupy, sugary.
Yeah, yeah. Or pineapples. Right.
But that's okay
because pineapple still has fiber
and it has, you know, great
digestive enzymes like bromelain, right.
So maybe your body will respond
to pineapple
in a way where it's a positive,
a net positive.
Right. Put it.
Yeah. Or at the end of the meal.
So again, just looking at this higher
fiber foods, you know, higher sugar,
lower sugar fruits where again,
if somebody telling you not to eat fruit
and like probably not
the place that we need to worry,
are they trying to sell you something
that's in a package right.
When and they're saying,
hey, don't eat the fruit over there.
Right. What are you trying to tell me
right now? That would be my next question.
And I guess that really comes down
to one of the points
you want to make today, too,
is like consider your unique response.
Right?
So, you know, you can have
a different response than the person.
I mentioned this in the opening,
a sitting across the table from you,
just like my wife
and I have a completely different response
when it comes to carbohydrates.
Right. We just we just have
a completely different response.
I want to give a shout out to
because you just completed her
first 19 and a half hour fast.
All right. It was supposed to be 18 hours.
And I just forget
I just grinned from ear to ear and smiled.
So I'm proud of you. Good job.
I didn't say I told you so.
You should have been doing it
because she's she's gotten great results,
you know, she's working.
She just she's like,
I need a new, fresh start.
Maybe I'll do some fasting.
And I was like,
Oh, you don't say Interesting.
Anyway, loving makes people do great work.
That's cool.
And then so to me, there's
this conversation about this
unique response, right?
Well,
one of the things that really stands true
for most people that have weight to lose
or have been on the dieting roller coaster
or the weight loss Ferris wheel, right.
As we mentioned earlier,
when we gave the shout out, is, you know,
everybody's
digestion is a little bit different.
Everybody's got a little different,
everybody's,
you know, lifestyle, cultural backgrounds,
a little bit different.
But there's a general rule like just don't
eat naked carbs, I guess, is the way.
So naked carbs.
I'm going to make you feel the awkward
silence.
Notice I just dropped.
Yeah. What is a naked carb?
So this would be carbs, that kind of
come in by themselves there alone.
Hey, so, especially, like,
if I'm thinking back to
do some of the grazing and donuts
that I've had as well.
It wasn't usually donuts,
but sure, I could have.
I could have started the day off
with with a donut or three, you know,
or maybe a colossi here in Texas or,
you know, what a Clottey was
until a few years ago, right?
Yeah, but what's even even.
Yeah, not even walking behind
the pantry can be kind of tough
because the pantry most of our pantries
are full of naked carbs, like,
you know, processed things
that are mostly processed carbohydrates.
And the trouble there is
that the body has to immediately react.
And typically it tends to overreact
because the concentration
of the carbohydrates and the way
that it's actually broken down because,
you know,
most of our of our carbohydrate sources,
while they while we think that they're
a little bit more complex or, hey, it's
not just a spoonful of sugar, right?
Like it's a cracker
or it's a chip or it's,
you know, whatever,
it's some cereal or something like that.
A lot of that, it starts digesting
literally in the mouth.
We start digesting it
as soon as it touches our tongue.
And so that means when it gets to our
stomach, it's ready for the bloodstream.
Already.
It only took a matter of seconds,
So really,
there's like there's no resistance there.
And if if we don't sense fat and protein
in the gut
before that,
we have no almost no release of
digestion, slowing hormones
that go such a long way in
preventing these huge blood sugar spikes,
which then lead to huge insulin spikes.
And guess what? Spoiler of insulin.
Yeah. Cravings.
Insulin is is the gatekeeper for fat.
So if we're if we're doing that
to ourselves because of these naked carbs
and it's not like that's it's
not like we can never do that ever again
or that we have to be perfect with it.
But each time we do that, we have to
understand that adds up over time.
Yeah.
And what I heard there was eat
the carbohydrates or pair them
with a protein and fat
or eat them after a protein or fat.
Sure. Right.
That's going to be a lot better.
There's also that cool thing where you can
you do that the cold resistant starches,
where you can cook the sweet potatoes
and the rices and the white
and then get them cold
and then bring them out.
That'll also decrease
the carbohydrate load by about 30%,
which is really cool with the blood sugar
spike by about 30%.
Right. So, yes.
Yeah.
Cook them, cold them and then eat them.
Because here's the thing, especially
for sushi, for desserts, too, Like we do
a lot of this stuff in our house
when we make baked goods, right.
We'll make the simple mills banana
muffins, but we'll add collagen to them.
Increasing the protein.
Well, I college into our tomato sauce
when we do our Bonzo pasta nights.
Well, we'll sneak collagen in everything,
right?
Like, because it's adding to that
protein number and your ratio.
Yeah, you're pairing the carbohydrate
with the protein,
and then you know, you can even do that
with desserts, too, like making sure
that if you're going to eat the dessert,
then you can do something like a dark
chocolate with some nut butter, right?
Rather than just eating the dark
chocolate alone, I thought was really cool
because then you're pairing it
with a fat, right.
So, by the way,
nut butters are not protein.
They're not. They're.
They're a fat.
Yeah, it's a fact.
My wife and I, we banter about this.
My God,
just as nut butter has almond butter.
She's like, It's fat.
I know it's pretty.
Anyway, I want it to be a protein
because two tablespoons of nut butter
does not go a long way right now.
You've never weighed nut butter before.
Go do it
and you're going to be very disheartened,
so maybe you shouldn't do it.
Okay. Don't go do it.
Just live in ignorance. It's
fine. Ignorance is bliss. All right.
That's one of the times
we've had a lot of success stories.
And they were like, Yeah.
One of my first steps
I realized I had to do
was stop buying some nut butter
for a while because it's so dense.
But it's also craveable.
And but a lot of times
it's a reason for the carbs.
It's like a reason to bust out the,
you know, the cracker container
that all of the bread needs. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh huh, right.
You know, the recipe
for this deliciousness eats recipes.
All right.
Yeah.
Rice cake was only invented as a diet
delivery method
for peanut butter
or almond butter. I'm convinced of it.
Those things are terrible.
Need a little oil jelly on there, too?
Little strawberry jam.
All right, So one thing I do want to say
about carbohydrates do for women
specifically at certain times of your
cycle, specifically in the luteal phase,
after ovulation, after progesterone
spikes, you're going to need some natural
starchy vegetables and some non refined,
unprocessed carbohydrates.
You're going to need some carbohydrates as
your cycle ramps up for menses to begin.
And that's why I never mind you
burning more calories during that phase,
which is going to increase your hunger
and potentially your cravings.
You're going to need
some healthy carbohydrates in that period
because that's what helps progesterone own
and natural hormone cycles to complete.
So that's why your body's telling you
and having those cravings
because your body requires it.
So during those times you're going
to want to back off the intense
fasting times, the longer fast,
a longer duration faster.
You're going to want to increase
those natural carbohydrates.
So there's a direct application of men
versus women.
Well, it's different at certain times
during the luteal phase,
ramping up to menses,
you're going to want to
because that's
what your body's telling you to do.
And it's not telling you that
just because you crave dark chocolate.
Right?
It's telling you that because it needs
some natural carbohydrate building blocks.
So that's a great point, though,
because if you didn't really, like,
give yourself that little bit of bandwidth
right there
like that, permission to you know,
bring up, you just push harder, right?
Yeah, you just push harder.
You might find yourself, like, hate
sneaking into the pantry
or into the fridge or,
you know, having some of those
those naked, processed carbs
that really aren't helping you
in a whole lot of different ways
because you were trying
to push off everything and then just
didn't win that craving battle that time.
And I mean, we
we hear that from women all the time,
that that's a tough cycle to break with
or without fasting.
Another one that you can do to help with
the carb craze
is the word I'll look for is protein
earlier in the day.
Mm. Versus
and or minimizing carbs at night.
Yeah.
So if you're going to eat carbs
them earlier in the day prioritize protein
early today what's prioritizing protein
early in your day
how does it relate to carbohydrates.
Well it actually is going to help satiety
and limit those carbohydrate
rich cravings. Right.
And then minimizing the carbs at night is
a way to decrease your insulin response.
So moving the meals earlier in the day
or moving the carbohydrates
earlier in the day,
you're going to have less of an insulin
response in the evening, up to 30%.
And I know for me,
if I'm going to eat a carbohydrate
or let's say
I'm going to go on a date night,
I'm going to want to get
if I'm going to have a drink,
I'm going to want to get
that in earlier in the day,
because alcohol can be tracked as either
carbohydrates and or fat or both,
depending on how you want to do it.
You can track it as a clock number
or you can track it as a carbon fat.
And I know that that is going to
the carbohydrate
is going to actually affect
my sleep as well.
So moving the carbs farther away
from your bedtime routine in your sleep
is actually a much better way
to prioritize
when I can have the healthy carbohydrates
rather than just willy
nilly kind of putting them in
and all over the place.
Yeah, that's another one of those spots
where a little bit goes a long way.
Like it doesn't have to be the perfect,
you know, nighttime routine,
just like we joke about
sometimes the perfect morning ritual.
Sometimes you see these,
like ultra ambitious morning routines
and things like that
that make me feel like,
oh, I could never get it right
because I can't do the 25 things,
You know, first thing in the morning.
I might not have the perfect nighttime
routine either, but if you can
just added an extra 30 or 60 minutes
between that that evening or,
you know, your last ingestion of food
or alcohol or carbohydrate, you know,
between then and your rest, your sleep,
it makes it substantially better.
It's a big impact.
It really is. It's a huge impact.
And so you go through it
a couple of times,
you're
not going to really feel the difference.
But once you do
and you make a couple of those changes,
yeah, you notice it pretty quick.
Okay.
A couple of things
we like to call optimizers
because I don't like the word hack, right?
Hacking biohacking. Right.
We're going to talk about fasting,
optimizers.
We talked a lot about this
so you can actually use apple cider
vinegar before ingesting carbohydrates.
One ounce excuse me, one tablespoon
and about eight ounces of water
that can actually blunt blood
sugar response
from the carbohydrates up
to, you know, 25 to 30%.
And the second one would be walking
after a meal.
Any meal, walking after any meal blunts
the blood sugar response.
But it's super beneficial postprandial
when you've had carbohydrate ingestion.
So typically it goes on hundred percent.
So especially in the evening after date
nights,
my wife and I will go
we'll go to our favorite restaurant
couple times a month and then we'll
literally go somewhere just to walk around
rather than just getting in the car
and driving home.
It's like, no, we go somewhere to move
like one of the outdoor we have
these are outdoor kind of mall things
here, or they have like,
you know,
there's one called loss of terror
and it's like just a bunch of shops
and restaurants and stuff.
Go grab a, you know, a decaf coffee
or tea or something or, you know,
just get up and move
right after the carbohydrate
because it's actually going to help
open up your muscles
and then your body,
your muscles are going to absorb
that glucose,
get it out of the bloodstream quicker.
It's going to help with digestion
and really blunt that blood sugar spike,
which is then gets you
on the rollercoaster of the crave after
dinner snack, salty, sweet type behavior.
Yeah, back on that Ferris wheel, right
that right around and around and around.
Hopefully you can hear that
coming through the mic
as I was moving my head around there.
Yeah, visual audio medium,
but I was doing a visual trek.
So the last one I want to talk about here,
there's two Tommy,
but the main one is the swaps, right?
So we want to talk about swaps.
Already mentioned one for pasta, but
there's also swaps out there for breads.
There's swaps out there for ice creams.
There's Quito ice creams.
Now you can change your condiments.
Sugar hides and a lot of things
like ketchup and salad dressings.
Oh, I got a salad
while your salad dressing is 400 calories
and a bunch of bad oil in it. Like,
Oh, crap, what did I do right?
I had salad, But yeah, we want to avoid
those sneaky little places
where some of those
the air quotes bad carbs can hide.
So looking at alternate
is for higher carbohydrate, more indulgent
foods is a great place to start.
Yeah, even pizza.
Pizza was a big one for me
that it was like Friday night pizza.
And that was a very craveable long
term pattern
that I had done so many, so many times.
And you know, the blood sugar spike,
I knew how I was going to feel afterwards
and it didn't really matter.
It was still like very craveable for me.
I still did that into fasting, at least
like in the beginning it was very tough.
It would make the next day very,
very difficult.
Cravings would be through the roof.
So doing a pizza swap was one of my
my first big wins as far as this goes.
And like, you know, these days,
we oftentimes do either
an almond crust pizza, which we can get.
It's pretty readily available
or we'll make our own like a simple mills
or but what I like
even better is like a chicken crust pizza.
The crust tastes a little bit better,
but the chicken crust,
like the blood sugar
difference is I mean, it's substantial.
And I mean,
the protein is through the roof.
The ratios are just great.
You can make it taste just ultra delicious
and it brings down the crave ability.
It also brings up
the lack of the enjoyment for sure.
But it's going to take
a little longer to prepare,
which I find to be a really good thing
for something that has like
if something has that like Crave ability
hold over you or it's tough or
you have like strong emotional ties to it,
bring it in house,
make it take a little bit longer
to prepare,
make it cost a little bit more,
you know, make it taste better,
but with better ingredients,
you know, And it's
okay if it costs a little bit more,
I do it a lot less.
And then it also makes me like I'm
no longer
tempted to just like snap my finger and,
you know, get a pizza from the fast
food place,
you know, kind of down the road,
which is what we used to do for years
and years.
Yep, Yep.
Whenever my wife or I would travel
before we have kids, we would always do
the indulgent.
I would always go to local sports bar,
get some wings.
Right. Indulge, have a couple beers.
Right. Enjoy.
Go home, go to bed, sleep in life.
Always ordered the pizza
out of the Domino's box that came with
like a cookie pie and the whole man
and the pizza and the breadstick.
Right.
So yeah, it just it fasting changes
food over time.
So the more you fast, the more you don't
you don't have the capability
or the, the hormone response to it.
So that at home pizza thing for me
is yeah, we still do pizza nights but
it's a lot more controlled and that's why
I love that concept of swapping.
So the last one here,
and then there's one main takeaway point
that I want to exit the conversation today
with is considering the net carbs.
Tommy So we think about this where,
you know, if you're on ketone, you've done
keto, you think about oh, net carbs,
it fits in my net carb equation.
I want to do more at 30 net carbs
or less. Right?
But really it's more like don't fall
for the marketing B.S.
that might be out there.
Yeah.
When we talk about net carbs,
we'll get those questions for sure.
I mean, I remember like on the hold
on, if you're doing net carbs
and you're losing weight and you feel good
and it's working, keep doing that.
Okay, Carry
on. That's a great disclaimer, though.
It's like the more choices
that I'm making with Whole Foods, things
that don't have a nutrition label
like that, like you remember
earlier in the conversation, I said, Yeah.
My next question becomes,
what are you trying to sell me?
So like, if I'm looking at a label
and it's talking about net carbs, yeah,
I mean, you can inject any food
with more fiber, right?
That just like you can enrich
any stripped down grain or naked carb
that's in the pantry, You can enrich
those things with like injected vitamins
and stuff like that and net carbs
is kind of in a similar bucket to me
where it's like just increasing the fiber
doesn't really have a big benefit.
If I want the blood sugar
response slightly,
but at the same time,
most things that are focused on net
carbs are really like full of things
that I can't control the response.
They're going to take over a lot of liver
processing that has to go on,
which is going to take away from the fat
burning process that I don't want.
It's also like there's
a lot of unpredictability in there.
So I'm not saying
that food labels are bad for sure,
but the more that we can make
whole food choices more of the time,
the better off we're going to feel and be
and have blood sugar.
Responses that are more like in line
without getting kind of like I can
I can almost get tricked
into some of those things like,
like the net carbs because when low carb
kind of became the craze,
because people were seeing
they were seeing results from it
and things like that,
then it kind of became like,
Ooh, maybe we can design some things
that like hit that crave ability,
but still fit within the box.
And then I'm like trying to find ways
to like, trick different things to fit
into my diet.
You know, fasting
should simplify this equation.
Yeah, it should simplify.
It should make it easier.
Total carbs than minus fiber,
minus ighalo's minus
a residual minus one half of the sugar
alcohols equals net carbs.
I don't want to be standing
in the grocery store doing Mass
And you know, this
is this reminds me of another one.
It's like,
oh, it's gluten free pizza, right?
But it's still pizza.
So some of those cauliflower crust
and stuff
have more calories and more fat
than the actual pizza.
Adding cauliflower, you know, eats
the whole foods source of it.
I eat the cauliflower,
not the cauliflower rice. Right.
So it's just one of those things
where we find
this is a really big sticking point
when it comes
to the conversation of carbohydrates.
It should help you simplify,
not complicate,
and then watch out for those marketing
claims as well.
So as you wrap up today's episode, me,
we started this with a conversation
of all things carbohydrates, right?
And we shared some research on long term
low carb
versus, you know, standard American diet,
shared some statistics.
And there's one last thing
I want to mention
in terms of kind of the big picture
when it comes to carbohydrates
is just like we say, you don't have to eat
a certain way for fasting
to be effective because fasting can fit
any and all lifestyles.
It's tried and true.
It's been around since the dawn of time
where we've had fasting
as a tool that we can use.
But in today's eat frequent
stock your metabolism, you know, don't
leave your house without your water snacks
type dieting culture.
You don't have to be strict
low carb or keto to get results,
especially when you're fasting.
It's tempting
because it's all around us and it's easy
to just say up, no more carbs, right?
And that's going to get you more balanced
blood sugar
and better metabolic health more quickly.
But we don't really need
to be looking at the short term.
What did the scale say from day to day?
We want to be looking at the big picture.
So a couple of things to consider,
like very low carb diets for long
periods of time can affect leptin,
which regulates satiety.
So in the short term,
that might be a good thing.
But if you have leptin resistance
and it can confuse those signals, much
like thyroid T3, it's an active thyroid
hormone plays a key role in metabolism.
So very low carb diets can also have an
effect on those numbers long term as well.
Yeah.
So when we look at leptin
triggering the fat cells
and then responding to changes in
blood sugar, so someone that has low body
fat will most times
from a moderate carbohydrate diet
or lifestyle
or fasting approach because that's going
to help curb their hunger levels.
If you're constantly fighting hunger
and cravings, it's
going to be really difficult.
And carbohydrates
are typically the main driver
of those hunger cues in those cravings.
Right.
Because you talked about in the beginning
about that quick
absorption, quick blood sugar spike
and then quick blood sugar rebound.
Right.
So we want to make sure
that when we're talking about strict low
carb taquito, that you're applying it
to the current situation.
Now, if you've got 50 or £100 to lose.
Yeah, the quickest path for success
for you is to limit
the refined, processed carbohydrates.
But what does that long
term plan look for look like for you?
So you want to be supporting your
metabolic health long term and not just
creating a dieting kind of short term
answer like, yeah, cut out carbs.
You're going to see that scale number
go down quick.
But then what happens when it stops?
What's that sustainability piece
look like for you?
And that's really what we help people
uncover during the Master,
your fasting challenges as well.
And that's
what we've put into some of our guides,
especially the blueprint
of fasting for fat loss.
So we want to give you the tools,
but we also want to look picture.
What is your sustainability plan
look like?
Are you going to be able to avoid
all of the wonderful carbohydrate foods
that our society lives in,
which, well, initially it might be,
but then what happens?
What's your plan?
What is your ideal day to day look like?
And that's
why we talk a lot about these types
of conversations and macros and calories.
And we meet you where you're at
when we take you through the seven day
mass, your fasting challenges.
Oh man, it's so cool because sometimes
I remember times where I didn't
even really realize what the missing piece
was, you know, at the time.
It's like if I
if I had all the answers, then
I would already be at the solution, right?
I'd be at the finish line.
But, you know,
sometimes it's a little missing piece.
You're there with real time guidance
and it just
it makes for a really cool environment.
And it's where we see a lot of people
level up, whether, you know,
you've just gotten started with fasting
or you've been doing it for a while.
Maybe your next level is nomad
or maybe it's like tightening up to an 18
or 20 hour fast, or maybe it's trying
to hit your first 30 or 36 hour fast.
Like it's
just a really cool ecosystem for success
and we see a lot of cool breakthroughs.
Our and, and just like incredible stuff
during that challenge.
So it's really cool. It's going be great.
I can't wait for this next
one coming up here.
Yep, I love it.
So head to the show
notes. It's not too late right?
You can still get in, right?
Take action. You heard something you like.
You're like,
I just want to see these guys.
They're real people, right? Yes.
We exist.
We go live every single day
inside of the Challenge Group.
Just incredible.
The last challenge was amazing.
I can't believe that it was already,
like seven weeks ago.
Like, it's just time flies.
I just show notes, click the link.
We'll see on the inside.
Tommy, thank you
so much for the conversation today
and we'll talk to
you next week. Thank you. Bye.
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