Ep. 197 - Clean vs. Dirty Fasting: Which is best for you? | What breaks a fast & why: supplements, LMNT, protein, meds, bulletproof coffee | 16:8 vs. 20:4 vs. OMAD for fat loss | Should you try dry fasting? | Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) for fasting
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In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy emphasize the importance of clean fasting, which entails consuming only unflavored water, unflavored black coffee, tea brewed from actual tea leaves, unflavored mineral water, and any prescribed medications while avoiding any additives, sweeteners, or foods during fasting hours. They delve into the physiological aspects, highlighting the significance of low insulin levels for effective fat burning and metabolic health. They also stress the need to maintain clean fasting habits as it enhances results and minimizes cravings. Additionally, they mention the influence of family and support systems on fasting success and suggest aligning your fasting goals with clean habits in your household.
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Article Links:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10061153/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33103448/
https://thebloodcode.com/homa-ir-know/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27126885/
Fasting For Life Ep. 197 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,
and with good friend and colleague
Tom Welling.
Good afternoon to you, sir.
Hey, Scott, how are you?
Fantastic. My friend.
Excited for today's conversation.
We're going to be talking
about clean versus dirty fasting.
And this is one of those moments
where we look in the mirror and go,
How in the world
have we not talked about this?
Almost 200 episodes in and 3 million down,
almost 3 million downloads later?
How are we not talking about this?
So don't know the I don't know,
maybe we have and I just we just didn't
see it right in our library of episodes,
but not an entire episode
dedicated to this topic.
And we're going to kind of put
some nuance to it
and a little bit of the fasting for life
perspective as well.
So if you're new to the podcast,
welcome in.
This is a great episode to start with.
If you want to learn more about us
and our journey with fasting
and how it's transformed our lives,
head back to episode one.
Give it a listen.
Now, a couple
hundred episodes later, we're going to be
talking about this foundational principle
and kind of walk through
and give you our perspective
and some insights,
as we usually do, into times
where clean versus dirty
has snuck into our own fasting habits,
as well as the thousands of people
we take into our challenges.
It's going to be a good conversation.
Tommy
So I want to start off with thanking each
and every one of you
if you're a long term listener.
We appreciate you.
We appreciate the follow, the subscribes,
the rates, the reviews, the downloads
that tells the podcast world that we are
bringing value each and every week.
So the conversation Tommy on the
what the SAS moment, we're like,
what how did we miss talking about this
big picture came from a review,
one of our five star reviews,
which is our favorite kind.
Yes, from Big Family
with two exclamation points.
I love that.
But it was interesting because they're
relatively new to the podcast now.
Like, I don't know
if you've talked about this before,
but the conversation around clean versus
dirty fasting.
Yeah, you know,
it was just cool to see that.
And so, you know, the review said great
podcast just found it a few weeks ago.
But if anyone else is struggling with
if please try fast
and clean for a few weeks,
see what happens.
I know these guys
don't push the clean fast,
but I just wanted to help anyone else
that's struggling.
So I absolutely love it.
Thank you for bringing this up
because honestly,
when we talk about fasting,
we don't necessarily define it.
Every time you know that we talk about it,
especially, you know, having
having talked about it for so many weeks
and years now at this point.
But this person also did highlight
some great recent accomplishments
and how clean fasting helped them
not feel hungry or grumpy or feeling
like they needed to start to binge.
And this is even after fasting
for a couple of years.
So, first of all, big family,
congratulations.
Thank you for the review
and thanks for bringing this up
because this is important
because we're going to go over some of the
some of the whys, some of the defining
parts of clean versus dirty fasting.
But then also like you mentioned,
where some things can kind of slip
in, you know, there's slippage points
and those affect things,
but also they build momentum,
whether positive or negative,
that lead to results as well.
So it's going to be good.
Yeah, it caused us to kind of
take kind of a little step back
and be like, okay, if we don't push
clean fasting, what do we push?
What are we pushers up?
Well,
we love the idea and the nuance in between
the lines
where fasting is a is tried and true art.
It's been around forever.
It has incredible healing properties.
It's found in tons of religions
throughout the world.
It's practiced by lots of different people
in different cultures.
But here in the States, it's
kind of like the you know, Oh, you fast.
Why would you starve yourself?
That doesn't make any sense.
Now, fasting over the last few years
has gotten a lot more mainstream
and a lot of people come to it for weight
loss purposes, and that's fine
as long as they're able to, or desperation
because they've tried everything else.
So I love this from from Big Family
where it was like, yeah,
I was about to give up.
You know, I've been dabbling for two years
and I was on the brink of giving up again
because I was after a month,
I was tired and hungry and grumpy
and starting to binge.
And then they heard about clean fasting.
So when we think about this
coming to fasting for weight loss, we're
going to talk a little bit about today
that there's so much more to it than that.
And we say this inside
of our coaching programs
and inside of our challenges
and often on the podcast as well.
But when we're looking at losing weight,
we tend to bring a lot of that
old dieting type stuff with us, right?
That dieting mindset,
the on off the dabbling,
the food choices, the I deserve this.
There's no good food or bad
food labels in our world.
So big picture
when we looked in the mirror and went
how come we haven't
settled on one side of the aisle here
in meaning clean versus dirty?
And it really came from this place of
I don't know if compassion
might be too strong a word,
but this place of understanding
where we had tried
so many different things without long term
sustainable success until fasting
and in the beginning, fasting
made big transformations within six months
for you and within eight weeks for me,
where lab metrics improve mood
and all that stuff,
that big, big family here mentioned
lack of hangry ness, better mood,
better energy, all of that, but some real
needle movers in terms of health.
So when we talk about this,
we really wanted to come
from a place of meeting
you where you're at.
And Dr.
Fong mentions this too,
about having the creamer in your coffee,
if that's the one bright spot in your day
is you tired and not feeling
sick and tired of feeling sick and tired,
then it's our air quotes.
Okay, so I want to start off
defining clean versus dirty,
and then I'll share a funny story
about something I came across
and then shared with you recently.
Tomi Mm hmm.
The difference what dry fasting is.
And there's actually levels
to that as well.
Home man.
There's a soft and a dry, hard soft
and a hard, dry fast.
So just for perspective here, we'll talk
through clean versus dirty and define it.
And you can Google it and there's
different approaches to fasting, right?
It's much more mainstream,
like I mentioned.
But I want to talk about the Yes column,
the maybe column and then the no column,
and then we'll unpack some of the science
and the nuance
in really just from that framework
to Big Families Review
and where he commented, he
or she commented that
if you've been struggling,
the call to action today,
the action step, as we say
today, is clean up your fast
and we're going to take them
a little bit farther
and share some stories along the way.
So, Tommy, let's go with yes,
maybe you. No.
Yeah.
Like, hey, clean up your act a little bit,
you know, So when we're defining clean
versus dirty and we're saying, like,
what is a clean, fast?
So like going into the Yes column,
which is the easiest
because it's only going to have, you know,
a couple of things in here, but where
we're going to be super strict about it
would be to say, okay, unflavored water,
unflavored black coffee,
unflavored tea, mineral water, sparkling
water, that kind of thing.
That's unflavored again, because as soon
as we start putting any ingredients in it,
then we start to open up the can of worms,
which is the insulin,
the blood sugar, the what else does
my body have to do to process that?
All of these kind of things,
physiological, downstream effects
that can affect my fast
potentially break my fast or slow it down
or decrease the efficacy of the fast
or lead to some psychological symptoms,
if you will, down the road
that can affect that fast or the next one.
Also, medications
potentially if they were prescribed
and they need to be taken at a certain
time, but not necessarily with food, then
those could be taken if they're important
enough and still be on track.
Have very clean lines for a clean, fast,
right.
Yeah.
So the yes forms pretty straightforward.
Sure. It's pretty sparse.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not allowed on.
What about that flavored water?
What about that cream in my coffee?
What about the sweetened tea?
What about peak
tea is one that we hear a lot about.
There's some some folks in the fast
food space
that have sponsorships
or partnerships with them.
Yeah,
even there's some electrolytes that have
like inhale a little bit of sugar here,
you know, few calories
just for some balance.
They're a little bit more physiologically,
you know, like they're more like I.V.,
right? There's liquid I.V.
kind of solutions and things like that.
And it's like,
yeah, we're going to talk about hydration.
Hydration is important,
but we don't need to be bringing in sugar
when we're fasting like that, Right?
Right into position.
Yeah, they're hot or maltodextrin,
which is highly insulin allergenic.
Right.
So so then we that there's
that conversation around element
which we love,
but there are flavors in that right.
Sure.
So the Yes column is pretty boring.
It's just it is what it is. Right.
But that is it's a really it's effective
and it's it it truly are focused.
Right. Right.
So let's take it
one step further for perspective
and let's talk about dry
fasting for a minute.
Okay.
And Yanick Wolf is someone in this space.
This is not something
if you're looking for dry fasting
help Yanick
Wolf great perspective more in his niche
love that right from the get go
If you read up on him
there's something called
the scorch protocol
you know on how what foods to eat
and supplements to take between
your dry fast about the feed
And this is just not an area that we are
purview to it's outside of our head right
so to speak.
I haven't dry fasted for longer
than probably an hour on.
Yeah.
And that's by accident
without the of water.
Right. So if you're looking into it
that's where I would go.
But this concept of a human
being can go seven days without food
but only three days without water.
That's really just been something
that's been set right.
Or maybe it's 14 days
without food and seven days without water.
Right.
There's this this idea that it's
that's a hard, fast rule and dry fasting.
There are people that do it
regularly and see amazing health benefits.
So I'm not going to speak to the lack
of expertise in that area that we have,
but I wanted to just use it as perspective
that inside of dry fasting,
much like inside of our fasting,
I don't call it wet fasting,
but I just would call it normal fasting.
I don't know, just there's regular,
there's soft and dry, soft and hard.
So soft, dry, fast is easier, cleaner,
less stressful on the body.
So a soft, dry, fast
you'd be able to do normal daily hygiene.
Things like brush your teeth
and you brush your teeth.
Okay. Yeah.
Take a shower. Okay. Go for a swim.
Do a cold plunge. You do a cold plunge.
All right.
Wear a hard drive fast that you are
subscribing to The purist idea
of zero water.
So in this form of dry fasting,
this is the analogy they use.
You will treat water
the same way a vampire treats sunlight.
Right?
So someone doing a hard
drive for kryptonite.
Yeah. It means no brushing your teeth,
no showers,
no baths, and definitely no swimming.
So. Wow.
So it's just interesting
as kind of a parallel.
All right. Within dry fasting,
there's benefits, right? Okay.
We're not going to speak to those.
I've never researched it.
Not something we recommend.
You know what? Now I'm curious. Okay.
So coming back to our world
where we're talking clean versus dirty,
you know, when we go to the No column,
I wanted to compare it to the soft
versus hard.
You know, we're going to be talking about
no food, no flavored water, no flavored
coffee, no fruity, sweet or mature teas,
no diet sodas, no artificial
sweeteners, natural or artificial flavors,
no gums or mints,
you know, food like flavors of any type
fruit juices, fruit flavors, broths.
We get asked about this a lot, bone broth,
all the on those types of things.
Now, there is something called coffee.
Bulletproof Cop.
Yeah. Thanks. Dave Asprey shout out.
He claims that he created biohacking.
I find that interesting.
I agree with.
I love biohacking for a long time.
Just like that.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm just not sure.
He definitely popularized it.
Oh, he's the first one to package
it, right?
Absolutely right.
So brain octane
or whatever is his his line of products,
I can't remember in the moment,
but yeah, I double proof coffee
when I was doing Kito for a while.
Nothing like a 500 calorie caffeine
spike in the morning or I'll finish.
I slept on it. Right.
Cream in your coffee. Dr.
Fong, in one of his books
says, you know, 50 calories or losses.
Okay, well,
if you're clean fasting, that's a no.
And then supplements
because we know that protein breaks
the fast, causes
the growth pathways to turn on sugar.
So collagen pre workouts,
exhaustion is ketones.
That's a whole nother
conversation or bcaas spreadsheet
classes or essential amino acids.
Right. So pretty black and white.
But then there's this maybe column.
Tommy Yeah, on the maybe
when we're, we're looking at it like,
okay, we get this question a lot,
what about a aikido breath?
Or like I'm fasting for a while, my, my
breath, my, I just have this weird taste.
It's just me
and I just me. It gets you all right.
And a good thing for
that is like a peppermint essential oil.
But at the same time,
hey, couldn't make your stomach grumble.
Might it trigger another physiological
pathway that has to do with insulin?
Perhaps.
Maybe things are very interrelated
within your
your cravings and your connection
to your stomach and your brain.
So there's a lot going on there.
So that's why it's kind of in the maybe,
hey, a few drops to freshen the breath.
I'm not going to die on that hill.
I'm not going to, you know,
put that as a line of the sand
because I don't think
it's going to matter,
you know, as far as the scale goes.
And, you know,
it's kind of a comfort thing
where I can feel like it's just a fireball
and it's not really going
to make a difference.
So I use it on the. Yes,
but that's why it's in the maybe.
And then you have the same thing
with like, okay, an herbal tea
rather than just like a black leaf tea
because, you know, some of those are made
from different sorts of,
you know, plants and flowers.
They can be a little bit more.
They can have like a sweet aroma to them
that can hate, you know,
get the stomach juices flowing and,
you know, kick up potentially cravings
or stomach rumblings and things like that.
And then you have the same thing
with certain vitamins and supplements,
like could they be moved
over to my nutrition window,
my nutrition opportunity?
That would be better.
Do I really need them
just in the middle of my class?
Because, again, like you mentioned,
with other supplements, like, you know,
protein and a branching amino acids
and things like that,
your body
has to figure out what to do with those.
They have to go
through the digestive tract
and then you have to do other things
with them.
So it's mimicking
some of the food processing power
that we have, the machinery and you're
kicking on some of the same pathways
rather than just keeping them at zero,
which would be ideal.
We keep insulin low, we keep blood
sugar low, and we don't give the stomach
really like anything
that it needs to work on to figure out.
And then we have a lot more
we have faster progress through
some of the benefits of of fasting,
some of those kind of processes.
I want to go big picture
and kind of back out
from the nitty gritty of yes,
maybe no. Right.
So I do use a spearmint
or a peppermint essential oil, especially
if I'm speaking or if I'm in a small group
or if I'm seeing a client.
Right.
Like, yeah,
I'm going to date night, right?
Oh, no, no. I'm going to watch some.
Let's be fresh.
All right, let's be fresh. Right?
And then I've actually started
just recently to be putting my supplements
in my eating windows because the vitamin D
that we use from designs for health
is a liquid vitamin D, and it's sweetened
with stevia and actually tastes sweet.
Right? Right.
So big picture here.
We're coming up this idea of a clean fast.
This was apparently created by Jen Stevens
in her original fasting Facebook group.
And it's just something that kind of took
off into the into the fasting world now.
Right.
Like clean versus dirty, like same thing
happens in the Quito space, right.
Or the carnivore space.
Like what level of carnivore are you.
Doctor says are you one, Are you hardcore.
Yeah.
Are you level two
or are you doing the lion's diet,
which is literally just red meat and salt?
Right?
So where do you fall in the spectrum?
And that's kind of the nuance
that we wanted
to apply to the fasting lifestyle
when we started.
You can be vegan, vegetarian, carnivore,
protein pace, whatever, and fasting
can still have a really big benefit.
So the question we like to ask
when we're talking about clean versus
dirty is like,
why are we actually fasting?
That's a great because yeah, right.
It's like, well,
if you're fasting to lose weight,
increase autophagy, heal
from a chronic condition, reverse blood
sugar issues we can add
just continually add to this list,
help with hunger cravings,
improve your sleep, whatever it is.
Fasting is a lot more powerful than just
a means to eating fewer calories.
Yeah, like a little.
You don't need to burn calories. Yeah.
There's an easier way
to decrease your calories like.
And not not eat all day.
Yeah, right.
Like you could just cut your meals in half
and eat three times a day.
But there is
there's an insulin component to this
and a hormone balancing component to this
and a fat burning component to this
that many of us that come to fasting need.
We need the fat burning.
Once we get rid of the fat,
especially the visceral fat, our bodies
become more metabolically flexible,
we become fat adapted.
We can tap into those fat stores
rather than storing them for winter.
That's never coming, right?
And all those clothes
that are in our closet
that we're saving for that
one day that we can wear.
So fasting is going to
and we'll share some research here
in a minute, optimize that process.
And we really don't want to spike insulin
in any way.
It's not that blood sugar spikes are bad.
It's the consistent elevated blood sugar
over the long term
that creates the insulin resistance,
which creates the disease process.
Yeah.
And while we're fasting,
even if we're doing something like,
let's say, heavy whipping cream in coffee
and it's only 50 calories, right?
Sorry, I just stole your thunder.
No, no, I'll.
I'll tell you that a lot of times
it is a bit more,
especially if you're not measuring it.
But either way, get the scale out.
I want to see some.
I want to see that.
Yeah, exactly. One, huh?
Right. Uh huh. Yeah.
We know one tablespoon of peanut butter.
It's so awesome, right? Oh, my gosh.
All right, so if one tablespoon of heavy
whipping cream tastes good, probably
one and a half days even.
Maybe a little bit better,
or maybe even two or just,
you know, it's a little splash, right?
Like that's that's where
some of the slippage can kind of come in.
But the point being there,
that it can get talked about
just like with bulletproof
coffee, that, hey, it's ketogenic.
It's not really your fats.
Yeah, because
because the insulin is likely very low.
It's not kicking you out of ketosis. Yes.
That was a better
that's the frame I wanted there. Exactly.
And it's like, no, no, no.
We have to get we have to understand that
that's not the point of that
particular part.
So not only could you
be bringing in multiple hours
worth of fuel in the form of calories,
if you mess with the autophagy
that's happening with the physiological,
just like turning down
and almost off of some of the machinery
that is normally
when we're bringing in food
three or four or five or six times a day,
it doesn't get to turn off like ever.
And we have some amazing processes
that start to happen.
We're actually turning over
and we're regenerating some of the gastro
intestinal cells, like during
some of the initial phases of our fast,
like in the first 12 to 16 hours.
It's really cool
when we bring in anything.
And then that requires a slowing down
of those processes and that all adds up.
And then you also have just the fact that
if you are raising insulin a little bit,
it doesn't usually have enough time
to come all the way back down.
So the next time it raises again, it's
a little bit higher than the last time.
And so if we're doing that multiple times
over the day, even if it's in a within
the structure of a
of a good fast or a longer fast, it's
still we didn't get the maximum benefit.
We kind of cut off a lot of the power
of that fast right there.
And it was like, Well,
is that what I wanted
when I actually set out on that fast, I,
I would rather do a super clean
then like a blurry lines,
or even blurry lines 30 hour fast.
I think that the physiological
and the mental benefits
are better on that, on that clean fast.
So story
and then I want to talk about insulin
and make sure that we're talking
about the insulin response here.
If we're going to keep
fasting at the forefront
and not just using fasting to decrease
my calories, to lose some weight,
but tap into that stuff
you're just talking about.
And then we have that blurred line
conversation about our support system
and our plates and the food decisions
that we're making and our discipline
and our habits, which is why we called it
fasting for life.
It's a lifestyle adaptation of fasting.
Not I was for weight.
Yeah, fasting for weight loss. Right.
That sounds way worse. Like that
sounds painful.
Like, okay, terrible. Eat less,
move more. No, thank you.
So interestingly enough,
at one point early on
in my fasting journey,
I had lost the weight initially.
And then some of this, these blurred lines
started to come back in.
So I was using Xavier,
which is a stevia sweetener,
and I called them and asked a stevia
sweetened beverage.
And looking at stevia depends
on when you look at the research
and we'll share some research here
about the phallic phase
and and why, you know,
one of the studies that they did
about different flavorings, different
sweeteners, it was eight different things
that these participants switched around
in their mouth that actually resulted
in an insulin response.
And when I was looking at this stevia
thing, I just noticed that I was doing
one of these
during my tough time in the afternoon
when I was just like,
Man, I'm really struggling with this fast.
This was after I lost the weight.
Yeah, some of the habits came back,
some of the slippage came back,
those blurred lines came back
and I just wasn't
this is the first go round of me
maintaining the weight loss after fasting.
I had never gotten all the weight off
before with any other of my
my attempts at being super strict.
Six months higher, nutritionist,
functional medicine, testing,
all of this stuff.
I had never gotten there,
so I finally got there
and then it was like, We I'm here know
that this is just the first step,
but at this time period I went and this is
when CGM were just starting out.
So and this is one of the reasons
why we partnered with nutrition.
And nutrition is a company that combines
cutting edge tech and human expertise.
So you can see how your body responds
to things like my stevia test.
And what I did was I tested coffee,
I tested stevia,
I tested coffee with cream.
Without cream, I tested back then.
This is when white claws had
just hit the market.
I could have a white claw,
but I couldn't have it truly.
And I would see my blood sugar change
based on my CGM.
So this allows you
neutral sense, allows you to combine
technology and human expertise.
So they have this CGM And this is my first
experience with CGM back in the day,
and I did a six month membership
and it was so incredibly impactful
to see how my stress
and my sleep and my exercise
and some of these foods
that I kind of crept back in affected me.
And what I realized was is that, you know,
you take a little CGM, it's a biosensor,
you apply, you might have seen it
for diabetics, but I like it.
And I think it's if you're in this weight
loss and health space, you should do this
for a minimum of six months
because it's so eye opening, right?
And you put the biosensor on the back
of your arm, it does not hurt you.
Do not feel it.
And then I think lives there for two weeks
and then you're able to take your phone
and monitor
your your blood sugar moment to moment.
And it significantly can impact
how your body feels and function.
Just like big Family mentioned
in the five star review
about his hangry ness
and his sleep and his mood.
So you get to see in real time
how your glucose levels
respond to the food exercise and stress.
So I did this with Xavier and I saw an
absolute rebound effect on my blood sugar.
And I also noticed that it made my evening
meals more difficult
to be able to have clean plates
and clean lines.
I had more cravings.
I wanted more of the homemade sour dough
and all of the things that I love to eat
and the cookies and crackers and pizzas
and sweet salty
that I used to have after dinner
chasing that sweetness a little bit.
Yeah. Nutrition.
So that's why we partnered with them.
It's absolutely incredible
because seeing this data in real time
makes it
easier to identify what you're doing well
and where there's room for improvement.
So weight loss, energy,
all of those different types of things.
So head to the show notes, nutrition start
i o forward slash fasting for life.
You get $30 off, there's a code,
it'll bring you right to it, $30 off
and you get one month
free of the dietician support.
So with me that made me realize, oh man,
what are those things that I'm doing?
What is the creamer in my coffee?
Which also different,
you know, like almond milk creamers,
Oatmilk creamers, all that kind of stuff.
Way different effect on me
personally than just
using either a kerrygold butter
or a bulletproof coffee.
But again, if we're looking at insulin
as the factor, Tommy,
I want to transition
into kind of talking about why
we need to keep insulin at the forefront,
especially if we're trying
to get fat loss to take place.
So there's this thing called lipolysis,
which is pulling the fatty acids
out of your fat cells.
Okay.
So the study
the research shows that there is an ideal
insulin level for the most amount of fat
breakdown to take place.
And this was from volvic at all.
And so if we want to
if we want to keep insulin low
and we want to increase
our insulin sensitivity
and decrease our insulin resistance, then
the idea here is to find that sweet spot
and every single time and the research
showed that even small increases
in insulin within the normal range,
well within the normal range, virtually
abolish lipolysis or the breakdown of fat.
Yeah.
And that just means each fast
that I'm doing has to be that much longer.
Again, going back to a previous point
about I'd rather do
as a 1617 hour clean fast
than a 23 hour dirty one
because I get full efficiency of that
lipolysis I didn't slow down the process.
Oh, look at you Mr. Perfect.
You do this all the time, right?
I'm just getting.
Yeah, right now, every every single facet
is my is my next perfect fast, right?
Every, every single time.
And it balances out your magnum opus.
Oh, what is that?
What's that phrase? Keep going.
Yeah, I don't know.
Look it up.
Yeah. No opus. Right.
So the great work, right.
It's like it's a great especially
of literary, artistic masterpiece.
The greatest single
work of an artist, writer or composer.
Right. So every one of our facets
are our magnum opus.
Oh, of course. Of course.
So, yeah, no, of course.
And I can't count how many perfect fast
that I've done where it's like,
not only is it clean, not only do
I go exactly to the predetermined time
as when I set my timer
when I started that fast,
but also I didn't have a single craving.
I didn't want any food
that was going to lead to my previous.
Perfectly right.
Yeah.
And, you know, that's one of the things
that definitely took some some time
and some reps.
CGM helped with that, figuring out
how to break those fast too.
But going back to the insulin
conversation, just understanding that
when we set out on a fast,
even if you don't have any fat to lose,
which most of us do, but
even if you don't, all of the processes
that are happening will in general
be slowed down by raising insulin levels.
And once you do it,
once they tend to continue to creep up,
you know,
even if it's spaced out over time.
So it's like it's taking so much longer
to get a similar benefit.
It's like,
so this is where I start thinking
about the psychological lines, too,
because when I go to break my fast,
I'm going to have to make some decisions
there too.
And so when when we are talking about
cleaning up the time between our meals,
going into clean fasting
rather than dirty fasting, then there's
also a matter of cleaning up your plate.
The less insulin spikes, the better
your macronutrient profile,
the better the quality of the foods
on your plates are.
The lower
your insulin spike is going to be.
Whenever you do go to break your fast.
So now you're supporting your previous
fast with your food decisions,
which is then going to lead to less
cravings and less FOMO of certain foods
and feelings
of those sort of phallic phases
where you can feel your stomach
just start to grumble just out of control.
Like tends to be worse whenever you first
get started with fasting, tends
to get easier over time,
but usually only once you start
to make some better decisions
and kind of stack those things on
top of each other, can you kind of start
to feel a difference there?
But that makes it easier
to set my next fasting timer to right?
And then so so now I start to see some,
some momentum like that and it's,
it's crazy.
But all of those pieces are linked
together.
And I want to mention this now.
So, you know, insulin, low lipolysis,
fat burning.
We know that I'm still going to
brush my teeth.
I'm sorry. I do it twice a day.
I'm not going to stop brushing my teeth
because there might be some you know,
we use natural dentistry and I can't think
of the other word base toothpaste.
Right.
But there's a lot of stuff out there
that has sweeteners and chemicals
and things in it
that gives us a lot of stuff
is, yeah, if you're in the
in the more healthier aisle or the section
rather than the Colgate and all that stuff
because my dental health is important.
So yes, I'm going to continue to do that.
But, you know,
when they looked at that study,
the sucrose saccharin, acetic acid, sodium
chloride, quinine, which is in tonic
hydrochloride, distilled water
starch and sodium glutamate,
you know, when they spat them out,
they found that sucrose and saccharin
specifically increased
that plasma insulin level.
So there's an interesting study. Dr.
Ted Naiman Niman
I'm not sure about pronunciation,
but he found this
the sweet spot for fasting, right?
So you're talking about
the timing of your fast, but then
obviously we want to translate that habit
and that mindset of clean versus dirty
and bring that into our plate.
But this is why we've seen some people
that do intermittent fasting.
They come to intervene, fasting,
maybe they're doing it dirty to start
or maybe they're doing it clean to start
and they're doing that 6 hours
right to this, get breakfast and then
they have an eight hour eating window.
What the research showed was
of the total increase in lipid kinetics.
So that lipolysis process, 60%
occurred between 12 and 24 hours.
The greatest interval change occurred
between 18 to hours, more than 16 and 24.
So plasma insulin
decreased by 50% between 12 and 72 hours.
Right.
And of the total decline in plasma
insulin, 70% occurred
in the first 24 hours of fasting. Wow.
So hence
why our first resource was one meal a day.
Fasting if I start God right?
And we rarely recommend O'Malley. Yeah.
And the rule
and we rarely recommend it once a year.
Do a 5 to 70 fast. Great.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Valter Longo Right.
Awesome research,
body healing, regenerative properties,
anti-aging stuff, all that, right?
For sure.
But the results from this research
showed that the mobilization of adipose
tissue, triglycerides that lipolysis
increase markedly between 18 and 24 hours.
So why would we want to be now
we're going to meet you.
We're at we're going to have some love
and compassion for you.
Cream in your coffee. Got it.
But the next level up
is going to be cleaning that up
so you can get to this sweet spot
more consistently
to see more consistent results.
Then we can go into the habit
building
formation of making better decisions.
Never mind during your fast,
but also the other part of the equation,
which is when you break your fast time,
which is when you were talking
about your plate composition.
Yeah.
You know, even if I'm doing a dirty fast,
most of the things that are involved in
that are in the kitchen
or somewhere near the kitchen,
which means that not only am
I decreasing the effectiveness
and the efficiency of my insulin decrease
and my autophagy and other
beneficial physiological processes,
but I'm also reminding myself of
what's in the pantry or what's
in the cupboard, what's in the fridge.
I'm going to the kitchen more often.
I'm interacting with the spot
that it would be better
psychologically
to have better boundaries right there.
And it's like, I don't need
to make the process more difficult.
I don't need to feel like I'm pushing
the boulder up the hill.
So the cleaner I set out on that fast,
the more that I can stay focused on things
that are important during
my fasting period rather than kind of
dipping my toes in into the kitchen
and just kind of seeing it.
Because sometimes if the craving is real
or I'm feeling the craving at this point
or the Chef Alex's,
maybe I just smelled some food,
somebody is cooking in my house,
then it can be tough or it can make that
temptation a little bit more.
It can make fasting frustrating.
Or We got kids, man.
Concentration of the kids food
and those yummy little sausages
and all that stuff
that. I'll just have a bite. It's okay.
Yeah, well, that's not
that's not clean habits, right?
Your subconscious is going.
I thought you were fasting right now.
You're like, Oh, creamer
in the coffee by the sausage is fine.
Yeah. Left over a piece of cheese.
It is an opportunistic
shrooms are wonderful.
We just started getting raw dairy
in the house again.
I'm like, Man, that raw milk.
Every time I open the dang fridge,
I'll just take a swig.
Right. Like when I used to live
by myself, right? I just.
Who needs a glass?
Right? So, yeah, I love that idea.
Keep it in the fridge. Door closed,
just like a little bit.
So, no, you know, the kids don't see.
You got to put one of those like, ratchet
locks on it that has a code. My.
Well, you have to go do it
because I just want my water
and that, that proximity thing
is, is, is really important as well.
Tommy So I love bringing the, the habit
forming like that
discipline,
that structured discipline. Yeah.
With you into the second half
of the fasting equation.
Right.
And you should be wanting to make better
choices.
Now again, we are perfect.
So we do this perfectly every single day,
every single time.
Just recently I've noticed
that some of the stuff
was creeping back in and I'm like, Okay.
Mm hmm.
Like, we had some stress, some sleep,
some family stuff.
We had some some visitors.
And I'm like, now, like I said, I'm
going to do this, so I'm going to do it.
So it's like reminding yourself
of the why, which is why I love that
where we started the conversation
in the beginning of today's topic
was like, So let's think about
why we're fasting, right?
And I love that,
you know, Big Family was like,
Yeah, if you haven't done it, do it.
And then the research shows, yeah,
if you're not really doing it,
you're not getting to the sweet spot, so
you're not seeing all the benefits, right?
Yeah.
They even mentioned I'm
not at Euphoria yet.
I'm like, well, this whole
idea of euphoria, I'll be happy when.
Right? Yeah.
Where's the finish line?
Yeah. There's nothing.
I know it's not real. Right?
So the last piece of today's conversation
taught me that I really thought was cool
When you came up with us
while we were prepping for today's
conversation, was the support
from the circle of friends,
the household and family.
Right.
So this is one of the biggest things
that we hear.
And this this came out of the 221 research
Maurice Broccoli
and her team did where they showed
weight loss managers and people that kept
the weight off and maintain the weight
loss and were successful in their weight
loss goals.
There was these categories
of of derailment.
Right.
We call it the stop to gone where life
Nipsey in the bud
and gets in the way right
and we we justify it we rationalize it
we make excuses
or either have results or reasons
we make reasons as to why we can't
or we won't or we shouldn't.
Yeah.
And one of the biggest things that we saw,
one of the underlying outcomes
that a lot of people mentioned
that wasn't even part of the study
was that they re invented themselves
and had a new identity
around themselves about how they looked,
thought and acted around food and health.
But one of the biggest things
that jumped up and nipped
people in the bud
was the support of their family.
So it was the social, the date nights,
the support of the spouse, the friends.
And what I was listening to a podcast,
I think it was Mel Robbins
other day she had an expert on and it was,
well, people don't intentionally
want you to fail, but they don't want to
they don't want you to change
because they don't want to lose the person
that they love subconsciously.
Yeah, that's scary, right?
Like, well, no, we've been doing this.
We were married 20 years and
all of a sudden you're going to go change.
No, I love like this. You like don't.
Please don't do that. Right.
Like, don't, don't make me do this.
I don't want to do this right.
So there's an act until as if or no,
what does it tell me?
What's your phrase?
Yeah, I like I like act as if rather than
say something to make it right.
So if there's nothing worse than you,
give yourself your word
that you're going to do something and
then you back away from it right again.
I've never done this.
And yeah, right.
I think today already don't even realize.
And then, you know, oh, honey, we're going
to we're going to do this thing.
And then one of you caves.
This happened during the second pregnancy.
It's like every Friday
we just starting out of this routine pizza
ice cream, right?
It was like.
And then we had was like,
Oh, we'll get a Caesar salad to start.
Okay, that's great. I need that.
The original plan was
we already prep for Friday, right?
We have food in the fridge. Yeah.
All right, we're prepped.
We're going to do it.
So this idea that keeping your fast
clean will be seen by your friends
and family,
that you're committed in serious to it
rather than watching you do a dirty fast,
which reinforces their belief
that maybe subconscious or conscious
in certain situations that you're really
not that serious or disciplined.
Wow. And that can create cracks.
Yeah, it really can, because when you have
the support of the people
who are around you, which is why we spend
time in our coaching group,
why we do challenges, there's a reason
why those things are very helpful.
But even in your own household, it's
like if you live alone, it's
all about trusting yourself
and building that confidence in yourself.
You're kind of like you're sitting there
with the angel
and the devil on your shoulder. You know,
sometimes if there's a temptation or,
Hey, what was my original plan?
Maybe I forgot it, or maybe an invitation
came up or an opportunity,
or maybe I'm just feeling hungrier
than I thought I would at this point.
But if you have other people
in the household that can see your
your behaviors and hear what you say
and see what you do,
they're processing that
and they have a confidence level
that's kind of a rolling barometer
of how likely you are to stick with
with what you said.
So the dirtier you're fast,
the more time you're spending in
and around the kitchen
ingesting different things
or you're having to
maybe they're asking questions.
Oh, I thought you were fasting.
Oh, yeah, I am fasting.
But it's okay if I just put a little bit
of creamer in my coffee.
Well, you know, whatever the case may be
that you're kind of letting slip in,
that's like, Oh, okay.
So they're taking your fasting
and potentially your long term
goals a little less seriously because it's
a little less black and white to them.
They can't define it as well.
It's getting a little it's getting
a little messy, a little blurry, you know,
But you're going to need their support
at some point.
It's nice to have encouragement around you
rather than, you
know, temptation or doubt or something
else.
Yeah.
Doubt like crack that creeps in.
Yeah, right.
So when it comes to the clean versus
dirty, yes,
we talk about the physiological lipolysis.
Yes. We want to keep the main thing,
decrease our insulin resistance, increase
our fat burning
and increase our metabolism
and our body's ability
to be metabolically healthy.
Right.
And be it a healthy way and reduce disease
and all of those important things.
But if you've tried fasting
and you're not exactly sure
why it's not working,
this may be the missing piece.
And I can't believe we've never drawn
a line in the sand or talked about it from
this way.
Tommy Like, I was like, Man,
we talk about this all the time.
Instead of coaching
inside of the challenges, like,
what are you guys think about lemon
in your water? What you think about this?
But what about my sister?
What about medications? Right.
So we're looking at clean versus dirty.
It's just to recap, it's pretty basic
unflavored water, unflavored, black coffee
and tea brewed from actual tea leaves,
unflavored mineral water, club soda,
sparkling water, unflavored minerals,
electrolyte salt, no additives or flavors.
So go straight.
Redman's right
And then obviously any medications
that your health care provider tells you
and then know it's any food,
any broth, any flavorings,
any sweets, any diet sodas.
Now, if you're drinking ten diet sodas
a day, just don't get quit cold turkey,
right?
Like go to five, then go to two,
then go to one and and kind of like level
up through the process,
gums, mints, you know, brass bulletproof
coffee creamer in your coffee. That's all.
You know, supplements is all that stuff
that's on the no list.
And if you do need a fresh breath,
a breath freshener, brush your teeth, use
a peppermint essential oil.
Okay, let's not. Don't be scared.
Stuffy heathens here. Right.
Let's not go into the hard
drive fast, Right.
I can't even look at water.
Never mind. Be near it.
Time again. I'm sure there are benefits.
Just not a lot of expertise.
But the clean lines there
then turn into clean lines
on your plate, Then turn in the clean
in your support system.
So to me, the call to action
today, you know, is
is really right from the review anyway.
If anyone else is struggling with
I ask please
try fasting clean for a few weeks
and see what happens.
Clean up your act, you know.
And so you know so.
So what does that mean?
That means if if your fasts aren't usually
clean, do your next clean fast today.
And it doesn't have to be
as long as your fast
yesterday necessarily
if you're if you're apprehensive about it.
But I think with a committed going
into that fast, you'll be able to do it.
But even if it's a little bit shorter,
that's a win.
It's going to be a win.
You're going to have the best efficiency
and results from that,
that actual fast right there,
which is awesome.
And if you've already been doing
clean fast,
you know, most
or all of your fast or very, very clean,
then take a look at your next plate,
because now it's time to level up
on your food decisions,
because the cleaner your food decisions
are, the less of an insulin spike,
the less of a blood sugar spike,
the less craving inducing.
Like, are you bringing in things
that your body doesn't really need
or that are kicking up,
you know, feelings of FOMO or like food
related dopamine hits?
Because if your meal is perpetuating
some of the relationship
with foodstuff or potential
like food cravings that you have,
those can be helped
by making a better food decision.
So start
stacking up a few really clean plates.
I go for the next five plate
st or ten plate streak where you just go.
Yeah, you know what?
I'm just going to eliminate all the fluff
here.
Let me just focus on super,
super nutrient rich foods.
Good stuff
that's going to keep my blood sugar
and my insulin in check
and support my ketosis from my fast.
And then that's going to
that's going to lead to better results
and better consistency with my next fast.
So so clean up your act start today
take some action on that
and and see how you feel
and see how your next face goes.
I bet it'll be good.
I couldn't agree more. Let's go clean.
You need some support.
You're like,
Oh, I need to get rid of this thing.
Right? The coffee, the diets or whatever
it is.
Yeah.
Head to the show notes, click the link,
join our Facebook community.
It's where we break
the first two rules of fasting.
Consistently,
we talk about fasting 24 seven.
You'll be in a group
with like minded individuals.
You can share your stories,
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You can also head to the show notes,
grab the Fasting for Life Blueprint,
which is our PDF, our 20 page PDF
that guide you through some of the what,
Why, who, what,
when, where and why of fasting,
looking for some fasting schedules
or things like that.
But keep it simple. Just like the review.
If you haven't been clean fasting the call
to action for today's episode
is to take that action step as cleanly
and as simply as it is.
You can go back and start removing
those things and give it some time.
Don't expect the magic genie
show up overnight and you're like,
Oh, here's my epiphany right now.
Euphoria has arrived,
but the concern that we win
in the consistency, we win in the margin.
So Tommy, can't believe you've never
talked about this big picture before.
I'm hoping it's an impactful conversation.
I enjoy really having come out of it
better late than never.
downloads, 100, almost 200 episodes in.
But we got it done.
We can check the box now.
We have some place that we can reference.
So a big shout out again
to Big Family for the folk here.
This is this is why you got to leave
a five star review
and, you know, drops as you're doing
shameless.
All right. Right.
And that's going to be in today's episode.
Tommy, as always,
thanks for the conversation, man.
We'll talk soon. Yeah, thank you. Bye.
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