Ep. 206 - Holiday fasting tips & tricks | Top 5 factors to control blood sugar & insulin | Balancing fasting, weight, & food relationships | Managing stress, sleep & food choices for better health | Extended holiday fast considerations | Nutrisense CGM
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In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy delve into the foundational principles of health and weight loss, focusing on blood sugar and insulin. Amidst the holiday season, they discuss five key factors influencing blood sugar: food choices, timing and frequency of meals, exercise, quality sleep, and micronutrients like magnesium. Emphasizing the importance of mindful eating during festivities, they provide actionable tips to optimize blood sugar levels. The hosts encourage a balanced approach to holiday indulgence while maintaining overall health goals. They highlight the significance of managing stress, incorporating exercise, and prioritizing quality sleep to navigate the season successfully.
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Articles For Reference
- https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(15)01481-6?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867415014816%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
- https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/36/10/3262/30770/Three-15-min-Bouts-of-Moderate-Postmeal-Walking
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5455070/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950738/
Fasting For Life Ep. 206 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 everyone, just want to hop
on real quick before we get into today's
episode and let you all know that
the final master fasting challenge of 2023
is coming up on December 13th
through the 19th.
That is right.
Perfectly placed
in between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
And we want to give you additional support
and encouragement this time of year
because no one likes to go off the rails
for a couple of months
and then come back in January going,
Oh man, I did it again.
And where there is no guilting or shaming
or wherever you are on your journey,
we want to meet you where you're at
and make this the best
holiday season when it comes
to your health and weight loss goals.
So if you want to end 2023
with massive momentum
and you want to start 2020 for ahead
of the game, then join us on December 13th
through the 19th for our final holiday
version of our Master.
Your fasting challenge.
Head to the show notes, click the link
and we'll see you on the inside.
Hey everyone,
welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast.
My name is Dr. Scott Water
and I'm here as always.
I'm a good friend. Colleague Tommy Wine.
Good afternoon to you, sir.
Hey, Scott.
How are you doing? Fantastic, My friend.
We are smack dab
right in the middle of the holiday season.
So happy Thanksgiving.
Just over a week passed.
It's just crazy how fast it goes.
Only a couple of Mondays left in the year.
Christmas
holiday here is right around the corner.
We got the new year and bam, it's 2024.
So want to slow down a little bit?
We're going to get back to the basics.
We want to highlight
some of the foundational principles
as we transition from 2023 to 2024.
But an incredible year
in the Fasting for Life crew
and the fasting for Life family.
So we're going to we're going to talk
about blood sugar and five factors
today, Tommy, that are going
to significantly impact your blood sugar.
We're going to remove some of the fear
and some of the myths around blood
sugar spikes
and talk about some physiology
and normalcy around it.
Hopefully bring some levity
to this holiday season as well
and also encourage you
to take some action.
So if you're new to the podcast
each and every episode,
we want to give you something actionable
that you can do, take away
and put into your day to day life
now to adopt the fasting lifestyle.
So thank you for joining us.
If you are new,
if you want to hear more about our story
and how fasting has transformed our lives,
you can head back and listen to Tommy and
I as two young bucks starting a podcast
a couple of hundred episodes ago, speaking
into possibly air pods at that time.
I don't even know.
Telling and sharing our story
of how fasting transformed
and helped us level up our health,
get the weight off for good.
And it's been a fun journey since then.
Sir, if you're an OG,
thank you for listening in.
Appreciate all of the downloads and the
reviews and the emails and the comments.
Just super excited
to have you with us on this journey.
Our mission is to reach as many people
as we can
and pull them out of the obesity,
diabetes, blood sugar epidemic
that we are currently experiencing
in this country and across globe.
So, Tommy,
with that being said, sir, we are smack
dab in the middle of the holidays.
And let's talk
about some foundational concepts
and some foundational basics
about weight loss and health.
And we're going to go right to the source.
We're going to go to blood sugar
and then we're going to go to
the upstream metric, which is insulin,
which is what we focus predominantly on.
I'm going to talk about
the five main factors
that significantly impact
your blood sugar. Yeah.
You know, so it's it's interesting
because blood sugars talked about a lot,
but I don't see a lot of proper
strategizing on blood sugar,
especially around the holidays.
But what I want to
I want to start this conversation
with a little bit of encouragement that
a little bit of blood sugar optimization
and just keeping a mindful eye
and a target on it during the holidays
can go a long way towards, you know,
not feeling like you got derailed
during the holidays or like way off track
or like you have a lot of extra work to do
after the holidays are over.
Because I know
I went through a lot of holiday seasons
kind of feeling like that,
like working out and tracking things
very,
very diligently up until the holidays
because a lot of times
because of the social pressure,
like I knew I was going to be around
a lot of family and friends
who I hadn't seen for a while.
And I knew I was like a little farther
away from my weight goals
and my fitness goals than I wanted
to have to be from from the year prior.
And so that was like
that was pressure on me.
And then but at the same time,
going through the season was going to be
like I was probably going
to come out on the other side
a few pounds heavier, a little bit farther
away from my goals,
just as like we have a lot of holiday
celebrations, a lot of extended family.
There's just a lot to it.
And you know, I had some food relationship
stuff that that I hadn't even recognize
as an issue, but a little bit
of keeping an eye on the prize.
How can I optimize blood sugar
a little bit?
Can go a long way to feeling like you're
still on track during the holidays
and even
still making progress on the scale, if
that's your goal during the holidays too,
or just feeling better
throughout those holidays, less lethargic,
more energy, more confidence
and making better food decisions
that support your long term goals too.
Yeah, there are so many things
that go into the holidays, right?
So you've got more opportunity,
you've got chaos, you've got challenges
traveling, you've got you know,
we used to go to five houses, right?
So we'd go to grandparents,
aunts, uncles, friends,
you know, it was just this,
this never mind my dad's work stuff.
And so there was always
this additional opportune.
My sister used to bake like 100
dozen cookies, all different variations.
And how 100 doesn't a hundred dozen.
And I'm like, okay,
So I mean, we had the Hershey cookies
and the raspberry tarts
and the this and that, that.
And so there's nothing wrong
with any of it.
But what happens is,
is that we lack the intentionality.
And for me, I used to go into the holidays
with the same framework.
Let me work really hard.
I'll do good.
But I'm really expecting
to just kind of fall off or or, you know,
come back in January,
ready to ready to roll.
And that's what the diet culture and
the diet mentality myself during December.
Who would do that? Right. Right.
And there's the stigma
that comes with the holiday weight gain.
And we've we've talked through that.
And if you look at the research,
it really isn't tried and true in that,
you know, the weight
you gain during the holidays,
which depending on where you look,
can be anywhere from two up to £8.
That is not necessarily the weight
that you're going to keep with you
for the remainder of the year
and the weight
that adds on over the decades,
which then results in adiposity
and visceral fat and metabolic blood sugar
disorders, etc., that show up
not just this holiday season, but,
you know,
ten, 20, 30 holiday seasons down the road.
So we want to
we want to demystify it, too.
And really talk about the basics
of why we look at blood sugar.
And there's been some misinterpretation,
I feel, about blood sugar spikes
and the reality of it.
We've done
episode on Area Under the Curve.
CGM has become much more commonplace.
You know, people are using CGM, you know,
shout out to nutritionists or partner
to gain insights into our health
in terms of sleep and stress in our
our our relationship with food
and how our body is functioning
from a health perspective in real time.
So you're seeing it a lot more commonly,
but it's like, okay, but why?
Why does this stuff matter?
And then ultimately,
what can we do to control it, right?
So we want to empower you going through
this holiday season that it's okay
to enjoy the holidays, it's okay to enjoy
the family traditions in the foods
because big picture is just a small blip,
but ultimately underneath those energy
swings, those cravings,
those dysfunctional sleeping
nights,
the additional stress of the holiday,
all of that stuff can have
a massive effect on your blood sugars,
which is why you're feeling
some of those things.
Just think about Thanksgiving. You stuff
yourself. It's not the tryptophan.
You literally just wander into an insulin
coma.
Yeah. You don't normally eat 4000 calories
in a sitting.
Right? Right.
And then there are all of my grandpa
snoring in the chair. Right?
So I just want to kind of go through this
with the perspective,
you know, and the overview of it
is we're going to talk about diet
and food choices, carbohydrate intake,
the combination of protein, fat and fiber,
talk about exercise by moving glucose in
and out of the cells, insulin sensitivity.
Ultimately, stress raises blood sugar
by releasing cortisol and adrenaline
that can lead to insulin resistance.
Sleep right around the holidays.
I know every year
I say I'm not going to stay up the night
before and build the kid's bike right
this past year, not this year.
The year before we went to see Santa.
And out of nowhere my daughter said
to Santa, I want a blue Elsa bike.
And we went,
That's not what you asked for, right?
And this was like a week
before she flipped the script on you.
I'm like, What are we going to do
with the Gabby Dollhouse thing we got?
Because we do Ford Yes,
you do want read, wear, need,
and then we do a Christmas tradition
the night before they get
a little Christmas Eve box,
and it's pajamas and snacks
and a book and nice.
Yeah, that's this year
we're starting it this year.
But every Christmas Eve,
I'm building something, too.
I am. And guess what? The next morning,
I don't want coffee.
I want the Starbucks frou frou coffee.
I want all the breakfast foods.
I want the fried baloney,
which is a family tradition.
If you don't know what that is,
just run and hide.
You don't need to know it.
Yeah, I don't know what that is.
I don't apparently,
I don't need to know my point
is, sleep affects glucose metabolism.
We're going to talk about micro nutrients
and a couple of supplements
that can really help combat
blood sugar swings and insulin resistance.
So Tommy, that was a big intro.
Yeah.
I mean, as far as levers go,
you know, when we get into the holidays,
I mean, let's just start with blood sugar
related levers.
The biggest one is going to be
what we're actually eating, right?
Like what's on our plate and how often
am I putting together those plates?
Right?
So there's a little bit of fasting time
involved with that lever,
but then there's also food
choices involved, too.
So you mentioned earlier,
holidays can have a lot of opportunities.
A lot of that can be get togethers
or people are making special stuff
that they wouldn't normally make,
like your sister making 1200 cookies.
And so the opportunity like,
hey, your house might smell like cookies
all of a sudden
or for the whole month of December,
I don't know how long it takes you
to make 1200 cookies.
That's got to take a while.
So just the the civil phases of hunger,
just smelling and being around
that kind of stuff is like an opportunity
for, you know, temptation or maybe
breaking a fast or maybe making some food
decisions I don't normally make.
So keeping an eye on that
where you don't have to say
no to everything throughout the holidays,
I would encourage you not to say no
to everything about the holidays,
but I would encourage you to go to kind of
I almost want to say pick your battles,
but like, you know, your plate's
not really a battle, but at the same time,
it's like, okay, is there something
that's that special or it's once a year
or it means something to me
or I connect with somebody over it.
Okay, well, maybe let me carve out,
you know, a time and a place for
that to where I don't feel like
I'm just saying no to everything.
But at the same time,
I've already said yes to that.
Or maybe not yet.
I know exactly when that's going to be
or the kind of the context.
And so I have a lot more like I can easily
get through some other moments,
some other temptation moments,
or some other things
that could also be tempting me
because I know I'm going to say yes
to what's really important to me.
You know, it sounds a little
it might sound a little silly almost,
but that only takes a couple of minutes.
But even just a little bit of forethought
about decisions like that can go a long
way to kind of setting yourself up
for success throughout the holiday season.
So let's talk about blood
sugar and glucose, right.
Just as a basis.
So glucose main source of energy,
a critical component to metabolic health.
Some comes from the food.
Your body can also create it and
tap into it right in the form of glycogen
that is stored
typically in muscles or liver.
And then when there's an overflow,
then it will be stored as fat cells.
So for metabolic health
and overall health,
we want to achieve a low
glycemic variability, meaning your blood
sugars remain pretty steady right now.
We just had a conversation
with one of our coaching clients
instead of our VIP coaching program
where she's using CGM to monitor,
as she is now in closer to maintenance and
has lost a considerable amount of weight
for the first time in a long
time, has been able to maintain
her weight loss
for the first time in decades, right?
Yeah, This is the first year
that has not gone back up.
She's using the holidays, right?
Yeah,
especially across the holidays. Right.
Like they might be a big shift now.
Used to be
where the slippage would start. Right.
So we want to look at, you know,
optimal ranges area under the curve.
We want to see a delta change
from when you are.
And we're just talking
we're going to apply this to real life
and not everyone using CGM
as a glucose monitors
here in just a second.
But talk about the levers
that we can pull.
So we want to be looking at this in terms
of staying
between the field goal posts
in a healthy blood sugar range.
And the reason is
because when you have elevated blood sugar
for a long period of time,
one spike is normal.
It's supposed to happen
when you're consistently spiking
it outside of a normal range, then
your body will become insulin resistant,
which is the hormone
controller of that blood sugar pathway,
either being burned or stored.
So insulin resistance,
which was me back in the day,
didn't have blood sugar issues, but
had an insulin number of 22 normal ranges
from like four or five up to 25 or 24,
depending on the lab you use.
We want to see stuff under seven
because higher insulin over seven
then can lead to type two diabetes,
which then leads to inflammation.
Oxidative stress, glycation, cardio,
metabolic issues,
Alzheimer's cancers, etc.
which is absolutely what we don't want.
We want to use fasting and the approach
of fasting to lower our blood
sugar, lower our insulin resistance
and get our body to tap
into our ability to burn the stored fat.
We have become more efficient
at burning the food that we eat right?
Right.
So the first thing we're in talk about one
of the five levers is your food choices.
Your food choices are the quickest way
to create a blood sugar response
or a glucose spike.
Yeah.
So as soon as we start eating,
we need to actually do something
with the macronutrients that come in.
So what we decide to put on our plate
and how many plates we actually go
for during maybe a holiday event,
these things are going to to matter.
They're going to add up.
So I like to go into the holidays
now being several years
into my fasting journey
with the idea that,
you know, I'm not going to try to do,
let's say, a,
you know, an overly long fast
or an extended fast
like right around the holidays
or when I have multiple kind of like
social avoidance.
Avoidance is like the solution
for long term sustainability.
Yeah, I don't want to become a holiday mom
and just try to say no to everything
and, you know, set
my fasting timer for the super long fast
and kind of set myself up for failure
because there's a low chance of success
for hitting overly
ambitious fasting targets or unrealistic,
unsustainable fasting targets
during an important time of year. Too.
So at the same time,
I don't need to take advantage
of like an opportunity or a temptation
every, you know, social invitation
during the holidays to say, you know what?
Yeah, I'm going to be eating
during that one and that one and that one.
Like I don't need multiple blood sugar
and insulin spikes, you know, during
multiple days during the holidays as well.
So I might use a one meal a day,
I might use a two or three or four hour
nutrition window on different days
during the holidays and kind of using
some of my different
fasting tools in my fasting tool belt.
And then I'm going to support
those decisions with mostly good
whole foods, nutritious foods
most of the time, and then go, okay,
if there something like,
you know,
maybe it's a dessert,
or maybe it's a little bit more indulgent
or a special food that I would only have
during the holidays,
then let me create some room for that.
I would like to sample
most of those things, so
go for a quantity,
a sampling of them, rather
than sitting down with a larger portion
of those more highly indulgent foods.
And that's going to lead to a lower blood
sugar spike.
And it's going to be easier
and take less time for my body to process
through what's going to ultimately
become a blood sugar spike.
And that's going to lessen
the amount of the issue,
which is then going to lower
the insulin spike,
which is good for how I'm feeling
and then for my overall health goals
as well.
Yes. What I just heard
there is like the food approach,
what you put on your plate, you order,
you eat it in
those types of things can really help.
And when we're looking at,
you know, blood sugar post meal,
there was a study, there was 800
participants, extremely different blood
glucose levels after the exact same meals.
Right. It was the majority
that fell in the middle of the bell curve.
Then there was the small percentage
that was on the high end
and the low end, and you're like,
Wait a minute,
how do we compartmentalize this,
you know, individually?
Like how do we make this work for us?
Well, that feeling or that craving,
that buzzy feeling,
you know, the feeling you get your stomach
right after a lot of sugar.
Sure. Just feed your kids
some sugar and see what happens
if you don't want to.
We just
don't tend to run around and scream.
Yeah. So there are some universal truths.
So whenever possible, choose foods
that are unlikely to spike blood sugar,
Whole foods sources
rich in micronutrients, fiber,
healthy fats,
proteins, those types of things.
Right.
Or avoid the simple carbohydrates,
refined flours, highly processed foods.
It's okay every once in a while.
But if you're going to have them,
you know, fiber is a key component, right?
You were just mentioning, you know,
combining those with a healthy fat
protein or fiber, which will help blunt
that blood sugar spike.
So we're talking about the foods
on the plate, carbohydrates,
main protein, second, fat, third.
And you got to play around
with these things.
So I like to do the,
you know, the layout of the holiday party.
You've got everything laid out there.
You know,
you've got the appetizer area over here.
I like to even from a fasting perspective,
take a small plate of those things
and then put them with my meal
instead of getting the side salad,
the green bean casserole,
which both Sorry, everybody out there.
I will take that.
I'll take a sampling
and I'll put that with my meal.
And that way we're compartmentalizing it
and bringing it into a window as well.
So the second lever Tommy will talk about
is exercise.
So exercise overall obvious short
and long term metabolic health benefits.
Short term, it helps glucose in and out
of your bloodstream and into your cells.
So simply moderate exercise,
simply a walk, 30 minutes walk
after a meal can blunt the blood sugar
spike by up to 30%.
And then in long
term, regular physical activity helps
because it will increase
your muscle cells.
So we recommend hit couple times a week,
you know, resistance training,
weight lifting a couple times a week, and
then walking even a short interval of it.
Yeah, short interval zone training. Right.
That is going to prompt the liver
to metabolize glucose more efficiently
and clear
and reduce the insulin clearance,
which is going to improve your body's
ability to manage the blood sugar
efficiently.
My goodness, that was a mouthful. Yeah.
So what I just interpreted
there was instead of that like
post-Thanksgiving just crash that insulin
crash that for like,
yeah, go through the charts and then
you remember those the long dance.
Yeah, those are,
those are great for the charts.
I don't think metal missiles and pavement
those big liability dance for sure
you know like go take a walk
with some family or friends
that, that you know you can connect
with Like that's a great time
to do like an extended walk
even if it's chilly outside
whatever the case might be.
Avoid that temptation to just go into the
the hibernation state post meal.
That's going to go a huge way.
I mean, cutting that insulin and blood
sugar spike by up to 30% after probably
maybe the largest spike that you'll have
all year is like I mean, let's do that.
Like, let's just have a plan to do that.
There's no reason
not to to the football game.
Yeah, go play a little two hand touch,
come back in, you'll feel a ton better.
For me. It would be ping pong.
I could go play ping pong all day.
That's a good one at my aunt's house.
Oh, my gosh.
If I did that, I would be fine, right?
I would still feel a little fall.
But, you know, now it's of course,
we're talking years ago for this exercise
component is something we hear often,
you know, hey, I went for a walk.
Maybe you're on the the pre-diabetic range
or you worried about your blood sugar.
You feel these big craving swings
or energy fluctuations or nap post-lunch
nap at work type stuff.
The walk can be really positive,
but sometimes we hear this with exercises
like, Man, I check my blood
sugar and like, Wow, I was really high.
Like, what happened?
Well, exercise because there's different
forms of exercise, but aerobic versus
anaerobic, meaning oxygen versus
not, you're going to hit a threshold
where eventually
your body's going to run out of that short
term energy.
So it's going to dump blood sugar
into your bloodstream.
And just like the meals
can cause this very this wide
range of responses to the same meal
in that study with the participants.
Same thing can happen with exercise.
This is why I want to give a shout
out again to nutrition
because this was a huge part for me.
And then the next level
we're going to talk about is sleep.
So with nutrition sense,
which is why I use it consistently,
even though I'm pretty much
at maintenance,
I'm working on body composition
and some visceral fat
keeping my blood sugars in check,
managing my stress and sleep nutrition
combines the cutting edge tech
with the human expertise.
So you get a little CGM
on the back of your arm and it shows you
how to respond to different food,
exercise, stress and sleep in real time.
So the exact stuff
that we're talking about here, right?
So nutrition says two parts.
It's the nutrition program
and then the CGM is the biosensor
and this thing gives you real time data.
It is absolutely transform
my concept of managing blood sugar,
knowing how I'm feeling,
getting some data in real time.
But for me, specifically with exercise,
the type of exercise I was doing
was actually not helping
my blood sugar response
when I started doing walking
and some more long zone one, Zone
two training, I started seeing better
results and feeling better.
So in real time
you get to see how your body's responding
and then the app
and the dietitian support.
Absolutely incredible.
So the key benefits, weight loss, stable
energy throughout the day, better sleep
foods cravings.
And really ultimately
what we're talking about
is that lasting, sustainable change.
So now is the time, this time of year,
head to nutrition, start
IO forward slash fasting for life.
You get 30 bucks off,
you get a month free of dietitians
and Tommy, it really taps into
you can see how
your body responds to the exercise,
which is the second lever we talked about.
And then incredibly for me
the next to sleep and stress.
So let's go to sleep first
and then we'll hit stress and how sleep is
so important in your day to day,
how you feel,
especially when fasting, because fasting
can help with the cravings.
But we talked about the hunger hormones
and all that stuff
that can happen when you have a couple
of nights of bad sleep
and I'm talking
just like less than six and a half hours.
Yeah, yeah.
Even just one night of poor sleep means
I'm going to have a less efficient blood
sugar and insulin response
the very next day, and
I won't be able to live, like, together
if you can avoid it.
Yeah, if you can avoid it. Right.
Or like do it a few days earlier,
you know, plan around like plan for it
if you can.
But, you know, if you can't try to get
as much good sleep as possible
because it's going to go a long way.
And you know, this isn't to say
that you're shooting yourself
in the foot forever,
but you have to wait until the next day
to to kind of recover from that.
And so getting a better night's sleep
the next day means
that you can be back to your insulin
sensitivity, that you should have been.
But even just that one day,
especially if it's a day that you're going
to have multiple opportunities or this is
the holiday, this is the celebration day.
Right. And guess what?
That stinks because you're already likely
to make food choices
that are going to have a more exaggerated
blood sugar and insulin response.
So to combine that 40% slower
in a type two
diabetic study of men, 40%
less effective man.
So to combine that
with suboptimal potential for food choices
or temptations or whatever
the case may be, just opportunities,
and that if you put the poor nights,
sleep with it, that really is going to hit
that area under the curve,
the blood sugar, the insulin response.
And then so
so it makes fasting more difficult.
Oh one it makes staying on the plan
more difficult.
It doesn't give you more flexibility.
It actually makes it more difficult.
And that's when the thoughts
and the holiday
and that's why we started the conversation
about that stigma that comes with that.
Right. I'll just start January one.
Yeah, let's reverse engineer
it a bit better this year.
Right.
So you don't have a temptation
to feel that way.
We definitely want to avoid anything
that sets us up towards feeling like that.
So protecting sleep as much as possible.
I'm not on a pedestal.
I'm not on a soapbox.
I know I'm not only the president.
I know what that hair club for men, right?
I'm not only a client,
I'm also the president of this club.
Yeah, right.
I've had thousands of bad sleep.
Yeah, exactly.
But doing as many things as you can
to protect it as much as possible means
you'll have a better time
with your food processing
and your blood sugar
and your insulin the following day.
So doing that, stringing together
as many sleep wins as possible means that
I'm setting myself up for more success
during this holiday season.
Yeah,
this should be a year round focus, right?
That's why I have a route.
That's why I use it.
That's why I focus on the stuff.
Still not great like I just said,
but basic physiology is that
cortisol is going to dip at night
which lower and stabilizes
blood sugar while you're sleeping.
But then when cortisol raises, it
rises and it's up in the morning,
you've more apt to feel frazzled
during the day, tossing
and turning all night,
increased adrenaline, cortisol.
So sleep, if you don't get enough, it
decreases and messes
with the hunger hormones.
We've done episodes on The hunger
and hormones ADF study that showed that
even more ghrelin goes up with fasting.
You don't actually crave more or binge
more or overeat more,
you have more satiety,
which is incredible.
So, you know, when we're talking
about prioritizing sleep,
the research is pretty clear.
Less than six, six and a half hours
for most people,
detrimental to long term health
increases, obesity, diabetes, etc.
The research is pretty clear,
which is still banging my head
on the cement wall with this.
That 7 to 8 hours is optimal. Hmm.
Some of you are going, oh, okay.
Pillar four stress
directly related to sleep stress hormones.
Right?
So stress is a normal
hormonal response,
but it also can affect glucose levels.
So excited, panicky feeling,
fighter flight.
What's the thing at night
when you're awake
and you can't fall asleep wired and tired?
That's what I was looking for,
which are my kids?
If we get make it past 830,
they become wired and tired
and then I just want to wrap them
in duct tape and tape their bed.
So what happens is
when you're in that state to increase
blood glucose, your body pumps out
adrenaline and glucagon and constantly.
Consequently,
your cells will become insulin resistant.
So I was insulin resistant
because of my sleep and my stress.
And it necessarily wasn't a food
because I was counting calories
and tracking macros and doing it amid
fasting, doing. KITO Mm hmm. Right.
So these two things were increasing
my blood sugar levels,
which was increasing
my circulating glucose,
which is then
ultimately messing with all of it.
My cravings, my mindset,
my like those feelings, the caffeine,
all of those things.
You're chasing it with more caffeine
because you're you're feeling lethargic.
Yeah. So guess what? Spiking the problem.
Yeah. Holiday season
typically more or less stress.
Oh, yeah.
Thousand percent more.
That's why we're talking about this
now. Yeah.
So whatever it is for you,
I do call plungers.
I just joined a gym here.
I'm not going to say the name,
but they have a sauna.
My wife's like 20 bucks
a month for a sauna.
I'm like, I'm not going to a workout
room. We've got a home.
I don't need a workout room.
I just want the sauna.
I'm like the sauna.
I want is expensive.
Okay? Right. Like I want a real one. So.
Yeah, Yeah. So this is the solution.
This is nice. Actually,
that's how I manage more stress.
You know what else I do?
I take the dogs to the park, I walk,
I get out from in front of my screens.
Right.
So, yeah, management and stress
there is that crazy, that awesome diabetes
study that showed 7 minutes of meditation,
guided meditation day, decreased
blood sugar response in diabetics
by up to 30% breathing exercises.
Right? Yeah. All of these things.
So you think you have to do
like these crazy or like
I need a rigorous exercise routine.
I need a self-care day.
No, literally just 7 to 10 minutes a day.
You need a few small,
consistent levers is what you need.
And you don't want.
When we talk about stress,
just understanding that the stress
response mimics the insulin response.
And that's where the parallels come in.
And this is part of starting
to get this process
right, is to understand that diet culture
and yo yo dieting and
and all of these things
can lead to stress of the season.
Yeah, but we're we're oftentimes
misinterpreting,
you know, the signals and the levers
that we should be using here to start
to get this stuff right. Right.
Yeah. 100%.
The last one, the fifth lever.
So we're going to talk
about micro nutrients.
So macros, carbs, fat, protein.
I like to also add alcohol in there.
And it's fourth
own little category micronutrients.
So typically we focus on carbs,
fat, protein.
That's what we've been taught.
That's what's out there.
So micronutrients have really been linked
to better metabolic health overall.
And specifically, we're going to talk
about trace minerals and magnesium.
So magnesium goes hand-in-hand
with insulin resistance.
Magnesium is linked to hundreds
of metabolic processes.
There's many forms of magnesium. Right.
Which is why people say, oh,
I tried magnesium for this.
Okay, well, it didn't work. Well,
try a different form, right?
Try a different brand,
try different formulation. Right.
Because there's hundreds of metabolic
pathways that magnesium is part of.
So that's why we recommend
using a formulation
that has multiple different forms in it
and less for overall health and for blood
sugar and insulin resistance.
That's the plan.
If you're looking for digestion,
then obviously use citrate.
If you're looking for sleep,
then just listening, right?
All that stuff.
I don't have
the magnesium conversation now.
The point is, is that the auto
phosphorylation process for insulin
sensitivity is governed for blood sugar
management is governed through magnesium.
So you need these minerals.
And what happens is when we eat less food
supply, subsidization of food, soil
quality, etc.,
we are going to be decreasing
our trace mineral consumption
and our movies in consumption, right?
Ultra processed foods are notoriously
missing micronutrients.
So how do we get them
a good quality magnesium?
And then tell me, are proper
hydration protocol, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
So talking about trace minerals,
talking about L.A.,
talking about using supplemental Celtic
or like a good sea salt.
And we're doing that
because these things are very important.
But as we stay
prioritized on compartmentalizing
how often we're bringing in food
and what our fasting and our nutrition
windows look like, well then we're going
for extended periods of time
here, hours to half a day
to maybe a full day or so
without bringing in food
and these trace minerals
and these electrolytes
will be coming in naturally on my plate.
But if my plates are spaced out
as they should be, as I make,
my choices aren't exactly dialed
in the holiday season as well.
That's yeah, that's true, too.
Maybe I'm not.
Maybe I'm not in the kitchen controlling
my own food supply as much either.
I'm going to somebody else's house
and things like that.
Well then let me keep an eye
on supplementing these things
and keeping the electrolytes and the trace
minerals coming in on a regular basis,
even though I'm compartmentalizing,
you know, my food opportunities.
SALT So Redmond's not Redmond's
my favorite Redmond's
teaspoon Every morning my water doesn't
taste good, but I know I'm
setting myself up for proper
hydration and nutrition that day.
So that's a great source, you know,
mineral rich foods, you know, real foods
that are grown out of the ground, green,
leafy vegetables, all that kind of stuff.
And then I definitely supplement
with magnesium
because I just feel better
when I do that. So nice.
Those are the main five levers.
Tommy, As we're coming up on our last
challenge of the year, I want to encourage
everyone this is the time of year
that most people need more support
and our challenge is coming up on December
We do one every December,
even though we kind of had
to squeeze it in because of the earlier
Thanksgiving this year.
This is the time of the year where we feel
that people need more support.
Right.
This is always
the busiest time in our clinics.
This is always the busiest time with
the most stress and the most opportunity.
So we want to encourage
you step out of your comfort zone
if you prioritize it
now during the busy season.
Right. And we're going to have fun.
We always do.
Then it will absolutely become
a lot easier to stick to
when things calm down and it's not as busy
and it's not the holidays.
So if you can do it now, you can do it
any time. Agreed.
And plus you get us live every single day.
If you want to do that,
send it to show notes.
Click the link for more dates, times
and information.
Tommy,
as you wrap up today, take a minute.
This is what I want to encourage you.
Take a minute and think about your plans
for this holiday season.
Think about how Halloween
went through Thanksgiving.
Think about how Thanksgiving to now
when when are you hearing this?
When you're listening to things went good,
some things went bad, right?
Long term. Begin with the end in mind.
What can you do to move the lever today
when it comes to glucose?
We've got the five things right.
You've got the food on your plate,
you've got sleep, you've got stress,
you've got exercise, you're walking and
you have micronutrients, proper hydration.
Which one of those things
got no big levers
And each one of them
can make a substantial impact
on controlling that area under the curve,
that blood sugar, that insulin response,
even if you're not monitoring your numbers
from moment to moment,
you can still make an impact on
what's going on under the hood.
That's going to lead to feeling better,
a smoother holiday season,
and be more on track
as you come out of the holiday season.
So if you feel like you're waiting
for the perfect time
where you tend to wait until the beginning
of the year to kind of get back on track
or to like hit the gas or whatever,
I am going to strongly encourage you
that if you hit the gas now,
you are going to be going
so much faster with so much more momentum
going into 2024.
And that's exactly why I am pumped
about the upcoming challenge.
So that's going to be great.
And just do something, plan
a little bit for the holidays ahead
and do something for yourself
and to prioritize yourself going into it.
I'll be in that sauna.
Oh yeah, it's open
and the cold plunge and the cold plunge.
Yeah. Yep.
I love it.
Tommy, as always,
thank you for the conversation.
Sure.
We'll talk soon. Yeah, Thank you. Bye.
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