Ep. 200 - Fasting Q&A: Emotional food choices in a longer window | Can I train myself to say no? | Hunger is stopping me from going past 36 hours! | Breaking the habit of undoing your progress & self sabotage | Vacation planning | Fasting Challenge | Nutrisense CGM
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In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss various questions related to fasting. They emphasize the importance of reframing the mindset around fasting to make it easier to stick with. One question addresses making emotional food choices during extended eating windows, with advice on planning and incorporating nutritious choices. Another question deals with rewarding oneself with food after weight loss, suggesting alternative rewards and self-care. They also touch on maintaining fasting windows while on vacation and recommend planning ahead for better food choices. Lastly, they address feeling tired during extended fasting periods, highlighting the need for patience as metabolic changes may take time to manifest, and considering factors like sleep, carb cycling, and metabolic flexibility in the process.
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Fasting For Life Ep. 200 Transcript
Hello. I'm Dr. Scott Watier.
And I'm Tommy Welling.
And you're listening to the Fast
and 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 on 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,
welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast.
My name is Dr. Scott Water
and I'm here as always.
I'm a good friend and colleague,
Tommy Welling.
Good afternoon to you, sir.
Hey, Scott,
how are you? Fantastic, my friend.
Excited for today's conversation.
It's been a minute
since we have done a listener Q
and A, So we've had the team
and we've scoured the thousands
of questions that have been submitted
since the last time we did
this are ones that have been on our list
and haven't made the cut, but we've picked
a handful of good ones for today.
We're going to dive in
and what I love about doing Q&A
is, is that these are real life questions.
And that's not just one offs.
These are things that we consistently
talk about over and over again
in applying a fasting lifestyle.
So our podcast
aptly named the Fasting for Life Podcast.
If you are new welcome
in, we are excited to have you.
If you want to hear more about
our journey, head back to episode one.
You can get the details
on how Tommy's used fasting,
how I've used fasting, and how it's
completely transformed our life.
And what I love about
this is the conversations
and the questions
that we're going to go over today.
Speak directly
to one of our favorite things
to receive from y'all,
the listener is a five star review.
It's our favorite kind.
We'd love you to leave us a review
that tells the podcast world
that we are delivering value
each and every week.
So we have a fun shout out from Angie
Benji, 79 Tommy
And this speaks to why we do this week
in and week out.
Yeah, she says.
Still, after almost two years
of listening to this podcast,
I am still learning new things.
That's incredible.
I cannot imagine my life
without this podcast.
Thank you. That's so awesome.
Angie, I'm so glad that you're
you're still finding useful information
and have found it so impactful for you
because that's exactly
why we do this weekend.
And you are a true O.G.
Yeah, right, True. O.G.
From back in the day, right?
I absolutely love that.
What I find ironic is finally
some consistent, useful information.
Finally, after two years, who knows?
For two years, 200, finally these guys
have have hit have hit us, right?
You know, just useful information. Yeah.
All right.
But to your point,
if you're an OG and you've been listening
to this for a while or if you knew,
we appreciate you being here as well.
Incredibly grateful
that you guys continue to listen in
and we're going to continue to march on
and know pull people out of the Matrix
one download at a time and empower you
that fasting can work for any lifestyle,
any position that you're in,
and can actually be transformational
for your life as well.
So adapting this fasting lifestyle
is what we're all about.
And some of these questions
that we're going to talk about
are things that range tried and true.
And I would not have imagined
when we started the podcast
that would be 200 episodes later,
and we don't run out of things
to talk about when it comes to fasting.
And fasting is so simple in concept,
but not in applications sometimes.
And that's what some of these questions
are going to be discussing
today is the application of fasting
when in concept again, fasting is very,
very simple stop eating.
But it is more difficult in the execution.
We like to say
the first two rules of fasting,
unless you are a tried and true faster
or you're in a circle of friends
that fast is don't talk about fasting
and don't talk about fasting.
From my wonderful reference
back to Fight Club.
So tell me, let's set the stage today.
So here is question number one.
I find myself
making more emotional choices
when I have a one hour plus eating window.
I eat things I wasn't planning on eating
just because I'm allowed to eat
for a longer period of time.
Interesting wording there.
I tried to acknowledge it,
but it never fails.
There's always an extra
something I manage to eat
in between breaking fast
and ending a fast.
How do I train my mind to say no
to myself?
Good luck lol.
Yeah, that's it in a nutshell. All right.
Simple, simple answer. Right? Tell me.
Yeah, yeah. Simple enough. Right?
So I think referencing back to an episode,
I don't have the number in front of me
right now, but willpower
versus won't power versus I want power
is what immediately comes back.
Okay.
All right will verify that right
So when we're talking
about training myself to say no,
sometimes we think about that
as like being more disciplined.
And the thing about it is saying no
is like my toddler brain starts to like,
you know, get this pent up demand,
this pent up energy to just say no
and like, throw a tantrum.
But saying no is kind of
like a power struggle with myself.
So reframing it
so that I get a chance to say yes
to myself in a certain way
can be much easier to do
and to stick with and less difficult
in those moments of temptation.
So what is it that you actually want
besides just the restriction of it?
What is it that you want?
So if you're wanting to condense
your window a little bit, make it Well,
I'm sorry.
She's saying that when the window
is expanded a little bit.
And so that's already implying
that there's some consistency here
with a very short window.
Maybe it's like a 20 or 30 minute
for like a meal going into one hour plus.
And now I'm kind of considering it
a window versus a nomad.
When you're doing that,
I think it's important to use
some of those longer windows sometimes.
So I don't like just consistently
always having just like a 20 or 30 minute,
like a nomad window
every single day all the time
and feeling like that's
the only way that I can like trust myself.
Because the problem
there is it's hard to get a really good
amount of nutrition and satiation
and be able to enjoy life.
A lot of times, if it's only within a 20
or 30 minute time period during a day or
depending on how long those parts are.
So that can be tough.
So I really don't want to just
just be in that for my comfort zone.
We need some reps
with some longer windows for sure.
So then how do we feel like
we're staying in control
with some of those longer reps?
Well,
maybe a little bit more planning because
like if you're just going to sit down
for one meal and have one plate
and then you better
be looking forward to it right?
Yeah.
But you also might not have to plan
that much for that one plate
because you're not really scared of
how many calories you're going to take in
or how you're going to feel afterwards
or so on
and so forth.
But if you're expanding that window
a little bit more,
planning goes a long way.
So I would I would actually start off
with if you're worried about the amount
that you're going to consume in a one hour
window, start with something that's less
calorie dense
like some raw, crunchy vegetables like.
So for me, that might be like a
sliced cucumber with some salt and pepper
to kind of break that fast and cut down
on some of that ravenous hunger
because it's kind of similar
to eating right after working out
right after an intense workout
that can be like a ravenous time
where you might be scared
or hesitant how much you might intake
during that time.
So kind of being proactive about it,
I would do that.
I would say take the same plate
you used yesterday with like a 20
or 30 minutes
and then add those crunchy raw vegetables
and then just set a timer for another
that as just like a first step,
like a stepping stone
to going to being a little more
trusting of yourself with a longer window.
So interesting
that we always see these questions and we,
we don't talk about
are we agree on the questions,
but ahead of time
we don't talk about our responses to them.
Yeah, yeah.
And I'm going to take
a completely different approach to this.
Quite excellent.
Well, yeah,
so you just want really tactical, right?
So I'm sitting here going,
I didn't even think about that.
What I'm sitting here is tapping it
and thinking about that emotional choice.
So there's, I don't want to say mistake
number one.
There is a cue. Number one, right.
Is that you've identified
that this is an emotional choice.
Right.
In the couple of words in here,
you weren't planning on eating, right.
So you took the planning approach. Right.
And getting a little bit more strategic,
whether it would absolutely
needs to be a part of it.
You can't forget the plan,
but the I'm allowed to eat
for a longer period of time.
And you've tried to acknowledge it. Right.
So that type of terminology,
that hope speak can be tough.
First of all, you're allowed to eat
whatever you want, whenever you want.
No one is
telling you you're not allowed to do so.
So for some reason, your brain is saying
red alert, red alert, red
alert, restrict, restrict, restrict,
restrict, deny, deny, deny.
And you're like, well,
now I'm allowed to do this
so well, dang right, I'm going to do it.
So if you're trying to acknowledge
and you are noticing that in the moment,
you're making an emotional decision,
are you hungry, angry, lonely,
tired, board or stressed,
then you have to ask yourself, We always
want to change the action, right?
We're going to rely on emotional food
choices to get the hormone hit right,
the happy hormone
hit to get that short term itch scratched.
But then long term,
it's never going to be scratched
because emotional relationships
with food or emotional cues
don't get served by the food itself.
It's the underlying reasoning.
So my question to you
is like what my four and a half year
old does to me is, But why, Dad?
But why? But why? Why?
Why the why?
So first and foremost, how do you break
that cycle where you identify it?
You've identified it,
but now you have to ask yourself
the question,
but why in a way to work yourself
out of that from an actual action
standpoint is exactly what me outlined,
which is putting in that little bit
more intentional planning
and making sure that you're putting things
into your eating window,
into your nutrition opportunity
that are satiating, that you do enjoy.
Now, I'm not saying eat
the special 1099 two
for one dessert box
from Domino's or whatever it is.
Put some intentional choices in,
but make it make it look forward to it.
Right.
Have the foods you enjoy and take that
pressure off of the allowing type verbiage
and really dive into why
and what what is underneath that feeling?
Because I believe that's
where the answer lies.
So yeah, I really like that.
That's good.
And doing some things that you enjoy
while you're actually fasting too.
So it's again
less of the denying and less the rewiring
to make sure to vary your windows too.
And that really speaks to
the other one of these questions here,
which was that came in, I said, my husband
really wants to really wants to want
to fast and interesting working fast.
Yeah,
but he admittedly has a writing mechanism.
If he loses £10, he emotionally
here we go again
feels the need to we need a better help
sponsorship, better health plan.
So if he loses £10, you know,
I've been here too.
I've been. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Oh, 100%.
The need to reward himself for a job
well done and on runs the £10 you lost.
Sure.
How can I help him?
Or what is the strategy for this? It's
definitely deep rooted.
Probably a whole.
A whole show can be done on this one
alone.
Yes, you're right.
So, first of all, he's really going
to need to figure this out on his own.
If I can just speak from a standpoint
in marriage,
when it comes to husband
wife accountability.
Yeah.
Like she won't be able to fix this for him
or direct them.
Yeah.
Notwithstanding
your actions can lead him through this.
So I like the concept of chunking, right?
Where you chunk down your goals
so that way you don't ever fall back
too far from the median. Right?
So if you lose 20, catch it at five
or £10, catch your habits of change
at five or £10, rather than catching
your habits back at 20 or £22.
True. Yeah, right.
So I like this idea of chunking it down,
but if he admittedly has
this writing mechanism, then
we don't have to use food as a reward.
That to me instills a man.
I'm really being super restrictive
and I'm really being really ometer of
of the things I like.
So maybe not as much of an aggressive fat
loss to.
Oh, I got a hit once I hit £10. Right.
Well how about you do things
that are good for your mental health
and you and make you feel good,
Like not only when you work harder
and it reach that goal and push more,
but how about because you deserve it,
because you feel better
and then you want to feel better
and you put yourself first
and it doesn't have to be a job well done.
Goldstar Man, I really worked hard
and restricted my way to this goal.
But you do it
because you deserve it more frequently.
So from a marriage perspective,
I would from wife to husband or husband
or wife, I would encourage him
to do things more that he likes to do that
make him feel good, that aren't food
related, encourage him to do those things.
Yeah, we can get so caught up with what?
What am I restricting or how perfect
is my diet or exercise right now?
And then hanging my hat
every single morning
whenever I on the scale on
what the scale says.
So what if you even made that chunk
a little bit smaller?
So instead of looking for the next decade,
mark that £10 interval, you know what?
If you were just looking at four or £5
so that it didn't feel like
it took so long to get there
too, and like,
oh my gosh, I've been restricting myself
for three, four or five,
six weeks or whatever
it is to hit that mark.
Now I really feel like I missed out
on the last month
or month and a half of stuff,
and then I'm kind of
just ready to to go crazy
to bring it all back
with some emotional food decisions,
breaking it down, you know, a little bit
smaller and going,
okay, let me just hit the next £4 here.
And then my goal at that point,
let me just maintain it for a few days,
maybe a week.
I want to see it just steady
or bring in a little bit more food
and shorten up
my fasting times a little bit.
Let me just maintain right there.
Feel how that feels.
Before I head for the next leg down
because otherwise you're just back
and forth with this
yo yo cycle and it's really tough
to get out of that pattern, but it's bad
physiologically and then it's it's
bad for your reinforced
psychological habits as well.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, it's so cool
that you identified it, right?
Because we know we know her, right.
Has had great success with the right.
Absolutely.
So the marriage marriage, we've done
countless conversations on that.
Right. The marriage marriage of fasting,
different lifestyles.
My wife's a calorie counter way
or tracker CrossFit or horseback rider.
I'm a, you know, intuitive,
faster protein paced, very carnivore.
I like my zone to peloton
rides and golfer.
So it's like we are like
and you played on a track anything
Yeah no no no I've been there right now
periodically of course
you know with the CGM from nutrition
and with mosquito mojo
and you know with doing so you don't
you weighing every onion right now
like you did back in the day.
I need 200 grams of rice. Yes, I know.
That's one cup.
So the cool thing is,
is that we support each other
in the nights that I can she coach we
I know her numbers like how much you need
and she just sends me a rundown and it's
ready when she gets home from the clinic.
So it's cool
but I love that marriage merge.
So yes, you can show him,
you can lead there, you can encourage him,
but he's going to have to,
you know, do the work and feel like
he deserves it
outside of just adding that goal.
All right. Yeah.
Even you just and you may inspire him
by saying, hey, you know what?
I like this number right here.
I'm going to take the next.
Hey, you look good. Take it. Yeah.
Yeah. Hey, congrats on that.
That's pretty encouraging, right?
There it is.
And we're going to be dummies,
guys. We're going.
But now I don't want to hear it.
I don't need that.
We need words of affirmation
to even though we pretend like I'm right.
Of course.
Yeah.
I'm not crying. You're crying.
All right, so here we go.
Another question
about Nomad going into vacation
I need to do to man for a few days,
but don't want to regain
and have trouble getting back on track.
Suggestions.
That's a good one.
Because just like our first question about
those kind of habit patterns and like,
you know,
when you're doing 20 or 30 minutes
and you know, and that's a meal
and then you start
to open up that window or in this case,
bringing in a second meal,
it can be like, okay,
that fear of regain can kick in.
That can be a big point of fear.
You know, for a lot of folks,
especially if what you've been doing
hasn't worked for a long period of time
or you're relatively new to fasting
or for the first time
you're kind of seeing some results
and you're really scared
to kind of go backwards.
So when you start to bring in a second
meal and again, I'm going to reiterate
this is good to practice from time to time
and it's going to be necessary
because, you know, a lot of people
don't really maintain on Nomad.
Nomad can be a great tool for fat loss
and for maintenance.
But for a lot of folks will need
to bring in a second nutrition opportunity
that will just it's just part of the long
term sustainability plan.
So you never know a lot of people
that do that as a long term strategy.
Yeah, right.
So forever like these
and that's my yeah, that's my maintenance.
Yeah. I don't know. Are you eating enough?
Do you have enough opportunities
for satiety and all that kind of stuff.
So when we, when we bring it in,
especially on vacation though,
because think about it,
that second meal, I'm on vacation.
So that means new opportunities.
Maybe I'm going back to a hometown where
there's certain places, emotional cues,
maybe there's people who I'm hanging out
with, who I've overindulged
with in the past,
maybe that's our go to pattern
or my way of connecting
with with old friends or family.
It can be problematic.
So I'm going to say putting some thought
into where
you're going to be eating or maybe making
some food choices ahead of time.
Take a look at a menu.
If you're going to be going
to a restaurant and being okay,
making a few different choices
than what you've done in the past,
especially if you're like reliving
some of those old memories and rehashing
and things like that is really important.
So definitely want to compartmentalize
and make some nutritious food choices,
especially whenever possible.
When you're going into new territory.
Like.
Like new to me territory, right?
Yeah,
I really like that when it's a short term
thing like that that gives or it
like is a vacation, right?
Want to enjoy yourself,
but you don't want to go too far.
Rails.
This also primes us for repetitions
for maintenance in the future right?
Those reps are so important
because I can tell you after I lost
we did an episode on it
where Tommy put me on the weight
loss couch
their obsession, ask me about my journey.
My brother.
That's right.
And I lost all the weight,
almost £50, 40 and half pounds in 50 days.
I should just went to 50. And then.
So what if it was 52 days? Whatever.
Anyway, it was
that wasn't the recommended strategy.
Okay, Because it was really hard
to like my habits.
My lifestyle habits hadn't changed yet.
Yeah, you keep it off.
I didn't have enough reps.
So when I went to
Oh man, after that it was like,
Oh man, well, here comes the scale again.
Weigh what is going on.
I thought,
Oh, a man was going to be maintaining.
And so it's I love this fact
that it gives you those repetitions
and you absolutely want to enjoy yourself
because you are not on a vacation
going to put fat on.
It's physiologically impossible.
It's glycogen stores, it's water weight,
it's travel stress, it's lack of sleep.
It's it's all of that stuff.
It's the additional indulgences
on the scale and it will be volatile.
So, yeah, now the thing is, don't
weigh yourself when you get back.
Get back on track,
give you some sweet needs right now.
Give yourself a few days. Don't score.
Love that question, though.
We've talked about that inside
and out so many different ways.
All right. So a couple more here.
I'm having struggles going past 36 hours
and this came out during a challenge.
And I know I've also been battling
with the emotional eating component.
So you guys are seeing a trend here.
Where are you?
The poll's inside of our challenges.
are food or emotionally connected
to food related or fear around food.
Sometimes as high as 80%
or that fear of regain, etc..
Interestingly, that's what the research
shows, too, is the weight loss.
People that keep it off
and sustain it have a new identity around
the entire process, interestingly enough.
So a couple of things
I want to pull out here is this person
learned that my perfectionism
actually made me quit my fast
just because I didn't stick to the, quote,
clean fasting window.
Now, we just had an episode recently
in the last dozen or so on this concept
of clean fasting and the benefits
and the mindset behind clean fasting
and you know, these rules
that pop up around,
Oh, I'll put 50 cals a creamer,
I'll, I'll do a bold push coffee.
Oh, I'll have some bone broth. Right.
So what's the intention to fast
go back and listen to that.
But then on top of that,
this person feels defeated
when everyone else
seems to have all of these winds.
Oh, I'm fasting, I'm hitting
these windows, I'm in the community group.
I tell like I feel euphoria.
This is awesome.
Which is also going to connect
to the last scale.
Won't stop, right?
Oh, man. Scale went all over the place.
Right.
So how do it right? How do I draw?
Even the voice I was using was annoying.
How do I draw the line
where I can push myself a bit more
but not fall into the same loop?
How can I get more small wins
so I can build a stronger habit
framework that reconstructs
my old thinking?
You are speaking to the absolute
crux of the problem and like great nation,
great question.
Yeah.
So, you know, starting to rewire
some of those thought patterns,
look for some small wins,
you know, find some ways that you go,
wait, wait a minute.
They I wouldn't have.
Yeah, I wouldn't have made that decision
yesterday
or a week ago or a month ago
or maybe a year ago and then go, okay,
so if all we're celebrating,
our scale wins, because that's
the only tangible thing I have, then
I really only have one opportunity a day
and maybe only a few opportunities
in a week.
If you take into account scale volatility,
hydration, like you just mentioned,
and all those kind of things they make
for big swings in that on the scale.
And it's not always just trending down.
Even if I'm going on a longer fast
or even a multi day fast,
the scale doesn't just always trend down
and that can be frustrating
or demotivating.
So looking for some of those small wins,
some of those non scale victories
and like taking a second to reinforce
them, acknowledge them, reinforce them,
maybe tell somebody about them
like a coworker or know family member
a friend and go, Yeah, I'm proud of myself
because of X, Y or Z, which can feel
a little bit strange at first,
kind of like journaling,
but even journaling,
even just for a couple of minutes
and a day and writing down something that
that happened that you're either grateful
for or that you noticed as a win
can be a big way
to reinforce some of those things.
And you'll start to find some of those
small wins
more intuitively
without having to look as hard or as long.
That feeling of defeat is self-inflicted
and we tend to do that towards.
So you tend to what's your failure reflex?
Do you negotiate up
or do you negotiate down? Right.
And we tend to negotiate down
based on our patterns and our subconscious
where we just like to beat ourselves up.
Right.
Can you explain that the negotiating down
like, like an example?
Yeah.
So if you have a feeling in the moment
where we don't
so you're your goals, your targets,
your long term wins, your forever
number, your health goals, all that stuff
that is far off in the future.
So we need to do things
strategic and strategic,
and we need to take daily actions
that move us towards our long term goals.
But the problem is, is
that we get stuck in these emotional fight
or flight, these emotional states
where we're making our decisions
based on the emotion of the moment
and how we feel.
And 95%, according to Mel Robbins,
our decisions are made based on feelings.
So we make a decision based on a feeling,
and it goes against our plan,
our perfectionism, as she said
here, Right.
Ah, I got to get it right.
I got to do a clean I got to do this.
Then our brain goes, okay, well,
you have a choice in this moment.
Do I stick to the plan and negotiate up
or do I deviate from the plan
and negotiate down
in our failure reflex,
which is that pattern of negotiating down?
Like how do you show up when you are
about to fail or you actually fail?
Do you just let it snowball or do you
gather yourself say, okay, made a mistake?
Totally fine. I'm an adult about this.
Not a big deal.
It's not part of my identity.
It was just a hiccup.
Pat yourself on the back
Virtual hug high five.
Okay. Got it. Regroup and then go. Right.
Because that self-love component,
that self-talk component,
really needs to be in a positive way,
which is where we would negotiate.
So in the moment, you have this emotional
feeling about this is what I want to do,
and you can rationalize any excuse
or reason into this moment.
Yeah, for sure.
But finding a way to stop the action,
being stopping the reward,
being the food, inserting something else
in there to break that pattern.
And that's
where that negotiate up comes into play.
So a little bit of
if then planning goes a really long way.
If this happens,
then I'll do this instead.
So you don't have to make the decision.
It's already preplanned. A second part of.
Does that explain it?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
That's for sure does.
It's like
it's like when you're feeling down,
you tend to by default, negotiate down,
which means I'm lowering the bar
for myself.
Yeah, but because I'm lowering
the expectation for myself, which.
Which then puts myself
into like a negative, lower performing.
Yeah. Have it cycle to a second thing
out of this question.
We've got one more after
this is I'm having so many struggles going
past 36 hours
and then and how do I get more small wins.
You mentioned this in the beginning,
right?
Well,
why are you trying to go past 36 hours?
Why is that like your
your your need to your bar back
the truck up?
Beep, beep, beep.
Terrible sound effects by letting
if do that time is looking like,
what are you doing
these sounds that sound boring.
I just play with that the whole time.
Back it up and pick a window
that you know, no matter what happens,
the sky is falling around you
that you can stick to
and do that until it becomes subconscious.
It's called habit stacking.
Don't move on from it
until that window becomes second nature
and that it will break you
out of your funk.
So taking yourself to the point
where you beat yourself up, it's now,
yeah,
there's no need to steps and reinforce
the habits that need to be there already
before getting to that point, right?
Yeah.
And if you're using 36 hours
is like a insulin reversal strategy.
Well, consistent 20 hour fast versus
I would much rather
you see that consistent 20 hour fast
without this same pattern versus
pushing to hit this one thing
because it really moves the needle
for insulin sensitivity.
So does consistency. Sure.
Great point. Yup.
All right. Last one.
And I love this one.
What are some reasons I don't feel
all the positive things that people report
more energy, mental clarity, etc.
when in an extended fast I feel so good.
I'm euphoric. Oh everybody look at me.
I feel tired most of the time
with my longer fast and just train me too.
Most not any more, but for a while there
most of my fasts have been nomad
a few 48 a couple longer 172
I checked my blood ketones.
They range from point 8 to 1.8.
She gets into all these numbers
staying away from processed
foods, limiting carbs, clean fasting,
using some trace minerals and elements.
By the way,
you can click the link at our notes
if you want to get a free sample pack,
forget to mention that more often,
sometimes from coffee, hitting the water,
doing the 7 hours of sleep,
and just keeps waiting for that
good feeling I hear so much about.
But I never really experienced.
And this can happen.
You know,
the crazy thing is here is the weight loss
is actually taking place consistently.
But really wants to see the other
additional benefits from fasting.
Sure. Yeah.
I mean, I want to encourage you,
if the weight loss is happening,
you know, you're seeing some ketones
or some evidence of getting into ketosis,
even if you're not feeling great,
which you expected, right.
Like it doesn't feel great
usually to be putting on weight.
Usually you just feel like and like tired.
I get an insulin coma a lot of the time.
I feel like like I don't want
to look at myself in the mirror.
My clothes don't feel great.
Like nothing really feels good
except for the in the moment
that kind of like the dopamine,
especially if I'm eating certain foods.
Right.
Like that might be the only thing
that really feels good in the moment.
And sometimes it could be social
connection and things like that too.
But a lot of the physical,
the physicality of it feels bad already.
So I'm hoping that if I get this right
or if I start fasting
consistently like other people have said,
then that will feel better.
So it can be a little frustrating
if there's a mismatch there
with your expectations.
So I want to encourage that our fat cells
are hormonally active.
They are sending mixed signals all around.
So as our fat cells grow
and get bigger and expand
and multiply, that means worse and worse
hormonal signals.
So it can take some time
to rebalance those and reverse
that and shrink those and kind of downplay
the hormonal dysregulation
that's been going on for so long.
So that can take some time.
So I'm going to encourage you, be patient.
Also, it might not be
until you hit a certain point of fat loss.
There might be a lot of visceral fat
going on.
There might be some
some other metabolic dysfunction going on
that could be throwing a wrench
in things too.
And disturbing sleep.
When you start seeing ketones like that
in ketosis, that can increase adrenaline
which can disturb sleep.
So there's a lot of like
there's a lot of factors, a lot of arrows
moving in different directions.
So I'll say that I'm staying away
from most processed foods, she said.
Limiting carbs
except for veggies in my eating window.
You know, sometimes
being overly restrictive for too long on
carbohydrates can also lead
to some frustration not feeling great.
So, you know, we've talked about keto
cycling and carb cycling in the past,
so hey, maybe it's time to introduce,
you know, like have some like natural,
unprocessed carbohydrates,
especially as long as you know,
it's even if it's dinner, it's
not too late in the evening.
That might be,
that might be sleep stabilizing.
So you might want to play around with
what's on your plate a little bit too.
And it might be some of the fast are going
a little bit long do that that might be
having a kind of kind of a frustrating or
a negative physiological effect as well.
What it sounds like to me, too, is
we don't really know
some of the specifics here in terms
of how much weight loss
there's been, how much weight
you have to lose, your age, your demos,
all that kind of stuff.
So there is something else that happened
where you get stuck in this fat adaptation
phase or this metabolic switch phase
where if you start doing the keto diet,
you'll get something
that's called the keto flu
and you feel all of these symptoms
of this transition where your body is
getting used to going from sugar burner
to fat burner, right?
For when you decrease the glucose
and the insulin in the glycogen short
term glycogen stores
and then your insulin excuse me,
your ketones will start to rise.
When you get stuck in this transition,
your body's not used to flipping that
switch quickly.
You can get stuck in this period
where you're like,
you just kind of feel air right through.
And that can take
usually takes a couple of weeks.
But for some folks
it actually takes a little bit longer.
So for me, when I notice that my ketones
get higher during my longer fast,
when I've done the handful of five day
fast or a couple of seven day fast,
sometimes even happens
when I'm when I'm wanting to do my one
time a month, three day fast.
I notice that when I hit that time period
where my ketones get higher
out of the point five to like 1.5 range,
I start to feel,
yeah, like I just want to rest.
My body is no longer in the ideal fat
burning phase, it's
now in the therapeutic ketone level phase
or it's moving towards that.
And my body is telling me, Hey,
rest your repairing,
so you got to find the sweet spot.
So nothing's broken here.
It just depends on where you are
in your journey.
And then obviously everything else
that Tommy mentioned
and we mentioned from the start or levers
that you can pull to try
to get these extended benefits,
I guarantee you that they're happening.
You're just not feeling them yet.
And it's just going to take a little bit
more time and repetition.
Yeah, that's a great point.
Metabolic flexibility happens
incrementally and it does take some time.
And I remember I remember being like
£30 down and having a lot of those times
where it was like, man, I just I just feel
like I need to lay down for a minute.
Yeah, it didn't have to be for that
for that long, but it was like,
ooh, I'm exhausted from, you know,
like I'm fasting
and I'm not like, over exercising
or anything else, but all of a sudden
I just feel I feel tired.
But, you know, I would rest for,
you know, maybe 10 to 30 minutes
and feel much,
much better coming out of that.
So it's interesting.
But if you think about it, repair
like if you're sick
and you have an immune response
and your body's in repair mode,
that's exhausting, You know, so so again,
realizing that and having some patience
with the process and just again,
a word of encouragement,
you're making progress,
you're doing the right things
and just just building
in a little bit of patience is going to go
a long way for you, for sure.
Like like keep on the right track
here. Yep, absolutely.
I love it.
I love it.
All right.
That is today's Q&A session.
Lots of cool talking points,
lots of things that we felt
that we're going to relate to
so many listeners, depending on
if you're new, old,
you've been away from it,
you're back to it.
You're on this journey of of adapting
a fasting lifestyle and truly making it
a fasting for life way to get the results
that you've been looking for.
So if you're looking for more support,
you can head to the show notes.
There's a fasting for life community
if you want to come in and continue
the conversation.
Super encouraging, uplifting group
inside of our Facebook community
where you can talk all things fasting 24
seven Break the first two rules of fasting
consistently because that's what we do.
We talk fasting
and being in a like minded group.
Great, great recommendation.
Head on in. Check it out.
We'll see on the inside.
You can also grab the blueprint
of fasting for fat loss.
Yes, it's a 20 page PDF.
We've got our element link
that's all there in the show notes
for you as well.
All right, Tommy, Cool.
Great conversation.
Just sure appreciate it as always.
Thank you.
And we'll talk to you. Thank you. Bye.
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