Ep. 208 - Can 5:2 fasting prevent holiday weight gain? | Fasting for mindset wins in 2024 & why we hate New Year’s resolutions | Early warning signs you're in fat storage mode | Why your liver health is crucial for fat loss | Nutrisense CGM
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In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy explore holiday weight management strategies. They discuss a pilot study on intermittent fasting, specifically the 5:2 diet, which suggests it helps prevent holiday weight gain. Setting realistic expectations, offering tips for navigating social situations, and encouraging fasting to maintain or lose weight during the festive season for a positive start to the new year.
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Articles For Reference
https://www.optimaldx.com/research-blog/biomarkers-of-blood-glucose-regulation-homa2-ir
Fasting For Life Ep. 208 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.
Hebron.
Welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast.
My name is Dr. Scott Water,
and I'm here. As always.
I'm good friend and colleague Tom Welling.
Good afternoon to you, sir.
Hey, Scott,
how are you doing? Fantastic, my friend.
Excited for the holiday season.
It is upon us.
We are smack dab in the middle
between Thanksgiving and Christmas
here in the States.
I want to wish everyone
a merry Christmas and a happy holidays
and an upcoming Happy New Year as well.
We are going to be discussing that
very topic today.
Tommy, in terms of holiday weight gain
and is it real
and what the heck
can we ultimately do with it?
And you're going to have
a little decision tree to make here
during this if you don't care and you're
just going to get back online in January,
then click next on the episode.
Numbers can stick around.
So we're going
to get something out of today.
But if you do want to learn
some of the things that we found
that have worked really well for us
and what some of the research says about
holiday weight gain
and ultimately what fasting can do
to get incredible results during these
is in 40 nights of the holiday season.
This episode is for you, Tommy.
So I want to
welcome in all the new listeners
and then we'll do a shout out here
to the remodeled homemaker
who dropped us a five star review
just recently and really appreciative
of all of the new listeners
giving us a chance
to be part of your fasting lifestyle
and part of your fasting journey.
A shout out to the OGs as well,
You long term listeners, we appreciate you
following, subscribing, reviewing
it tells us,
and the people that run the podcast world
that we're bringing value
each and every week.
And if you
want to learn more about our journey
and how fasting has transformed our life
and how fasting for life became what it is
today, head back to Episode one
and give it a listen.
Tommy So before we get into the holiday
weight gain and what we can do
and what we are doing successfully,
let's give a shout out to the role model.
Homemaker
Yeah, Remodeled Homemaker said finally.
This is working. Excellent, excellent.
So five stars.
I have fasted on and off for a few years,
but never regularly until listening
to this podcast.
So for five years been carrying around
about 40 extra pounds, tried everything,
and Nomad has finally been working
for the remodeled homemaker,
and we talked recently about Omar
on a couple of different episodes.
It's so simple that when I lost
the first £20, I could hardly believe it.
And yeah,
I know I'll lose the next £20 now
as I'm going to start including workouts
making some more diet changes.
Good for you. Remodeling homemaker,
Proud of you.
Keep up the good work here.
And they also said
thank you guys for all your hard work.
You're welcome.
And the knowledge of what this can do for
my health is beyond just the weight loss
is enough to motivate me to keep going.
That is incredible, especially
this time of year during the holidays.
So finding those things
that that are motivating to you
and continue to help you push forward,
that's exactly why we do this.
So congrats and thanks again
for for leading that awesome review.
Absolutely.
And that last part right there,
this was dropped right after Thanksgiving.
Right. So that review came in
and we do read them all.
We appreciate each
and every one of them. yeah.
And that last part right there
beyond just weight loss is enough
to motivate me to keep going.
So that's where we're going to connect
to the research article
that we're going to be talking about today
and this big picture conversation
about holiday weight gain and ten fasting.
This is the study we're going to look at.
Can fasting keep the holiday pounds off?
Right. So is fasting a viable method?
Is it something you want to be doing
during the holidays? Right.
So these 40 days and 40 nights
that we speak of is defined
as the holiday season, right?
So Thanksgiving is the start of the eating
season, which is that 40 day period.
It stretches
until the New Year's Day is over.
So despite constituting only 11%
of the entire 365 day
year, this period contributes
the bulk of yearly weight gain
for many people right now.
And this is where you get a decision,
right?
Do you ever gain weight that you didn't
want to during the holidays?
We're going to go over a couple
of different options for you this year.
If you don't really want to focus on it
and you don't want to be thinking
about this or dieting through the
or fasting
through the holiday season, then
this might not be the podcast for you.
So I dare you.
How dare you, right?
Not just getting no shaming
or judging you.
We're going to meet you
exactly where you're at.
Share a little perspective
about our previous holidays
and how year after year,
the holidays shift and they change
and they become a lot better
and easier for me and more enjoyable.
But when we look at the statistics,
tell me, you know, 50
to 90% of an adult's yearly weight gain
right here in the States,
gain comes from this 11% of the year.
And the majority of the time
you don't lose it.
Once you gain it, you don't lose it
the rest of the year.
Everybody thinks I'll just start over
in February or in January.
The reality is the research shows
that in the obesity studies
that that does not happen.
So what is happening
during these 40 days, man, I'm going to go
as far as saying
I think that New Year's resolutions
almost set us up for failure in December
or in November.
Maybe if we're thinking about it like I'm
going to get back on track in January,
I got this big New Year's resolution,
like I used to said back in the day,
you know, we've talked in previous holiday
episodes about the fallacy
of New Year's resolutions, right?
But if we're setting our mind frame up for
I'm going to get back to it in January,
then that's almost like a reason
to kind of take our eye off the prize.
And the problem
there is that we can tend to accidentally
or subconsciously overdo
it during the Thanksgiving
or the Christmas or the New Year's time,
knowing that I have this big boost
of energy and motivation coming in January
that I'm kind of gearing up for,
Well, that's a problem because it would be
much better to think about.
Okay, well, if there are some days
that I want to overindulge a little bit or
I want to just
I don't want to worry about my diet
or my fasting or whatever,
then that's okay.
But it doesn't have to be
for multiple days or multiple weeks
or then potentially multiple months
at a time to where I have to then
claw myself back and undo everything
that happened there in the holiday season.
The point of this season for me
too, is not about the food
and all of the other stuff
that we're going to talk about.
It's really about getting to
what the holidays are truly about, right?
It's about the enjoyment with others
and getting together and the Christmas
celebration and,
you know, Thanksgiving and all that.
Now a lot of what's out
there is food focused, right?
Sure. So that's why I love this study.
And one of the graphs
we're going to mention here in a second
is we really want to empower you
this time of year.
And that's why
we added a challenge in December.
We squeezed the number
at the end of the year
because we feel
that people need more support
and encouragement,
not more accountability, or,
hey, you're going to be more stressed now.
Like you've got really two main options
when it comes to the holiday season.
You either practice good habits, right?
And you eat freely
on the day of the holiday
and then you just get back on track
the next day, right?
Or, you know, you can incorporate
some of the fasting things
that we're going to mention here
with the study, the five two strategy,
or we're going to recommend
even a little bit more than that.
And you change the way you eat
on the actual holiday itself,
or you just don't change anything,
but you just make some better food
choices, right?
So as a few different ways
that you can go through this,
the cool thing about this
study isn't even about the scale.
It really isn't even about the scale
changing.
It's out of the Cambridge University
Press, and it was avoiding holiday season
weight gain with nutrient supported
intermittent energy restriction.
So intermittent energy restriction
just means fasting.
And this is a pilot study and they did
the five two diet, which means five days.
You just eat like you normally would
and then two days you restrict
your caloric intake all the way down
to about five or 600 calories
for women, about 500 for men for 600.
Right.
So it's kind of like a little mini meal,
kind of similarly structured
to like a modified ADA, right?
Sure. Yeah.
For me, it would be just fasting
completely for those two days.
But what the study did is
they showed that it was 500 calories
for women, 600 calories for men.
So not even really like true fasting.
Like this isn't even in our blueprint
to fasting for fat loss,
which is the free 20 page pdf.
You can go to the show notes and grab
that will zoom it into your inbox.
We didn't even put it in there
because it doesn't really move the needle
that much when it comes to weight loss,
which is why most of us
found fasting in the first place, right?
Yeah.
So we're going to talk about
those strategies in a little bit, Tomi,
but let's talk
a little bit about this study, okay?
I like this study
because what they were looking at here
was, okay, if we
if we went across these like 40 or 50 day
span, could
could we prevent the holiday weight gain,
that 1 to £3 that are typically gained
And then also
what's happening under the hood.
So if we were looking at fasting insulin,
if we're looking at home,
we're looking at some bloodwork
like some HDL, LDL, triglycerides, see
what's going on here.
And the cool thing is
that I would venture to say anybody
could implement
a52 diet like anyone who hasn't tried a52.
You wouldn't have to put a whole lot
of planning into it.
You know, you're doing a like one of those
mini meals in the study.
I think it was 700
or 750 calories that they use.
So, you know, roughly
and it was in the form of a shape.
So it was like super awesome. Yeah.
So one third to one
half of caloric needs on that day
and then they're putting two of those days
in per week.
Fairly easy to do as long as you're
thinking about the other five days.
I want to make this point
is that they wouldn't be feasting days.
Just treat them like normal.
Don't treat them like I'm going
to be missing out on any opportunities
or anything like that.
It's just a normal day without needing
to feel like I have to count calories too.
But I just want to make sure I'm
not overdoing it, you know, on those days
and that you're just tracking on
on those other two days.
So it was cool.
The couple of other things to note,
this was a clinical trial.
It was registered clinical trial,
but it was also
that this was a pilot study,
so not a very big study.
There was only 20 something
participants in the study, right?
Yeah, 22 and so the actual
statistical power was unknown.
They were working on figuring out what
that was going
to look like for a bigger study.
So when we look at the differences
between the groups we were looking at
some of the trends to not always finding
statistically significant differences
because the sample size was so small.
So we are looking for some trends
in this data as well.
But there were some statistically
significant results too.
Yeah.
The primary outcome, like you mentioned,
was the change in body weight between
the IFR group, which is the five two group
and the control group, which was just,
you know, told to eat normally.
But the secondary outcomes were
those things that we saw trends in, right?
The liver enzymes, the blood
lipids, fasting insulin and the HOMA air.
So when we looked at the holiday weight
gain graph, what we see is there's in here
there's three countries, Japan, Germany
and the United States,
and they all follow a very similar pattern
this time of year.
Then golden week in Japan shows another
spike very similarly like in May-June.
But what it shows is that there's
a little blip, an increased percentage
of weight gain from, you know, the day
or two after Thanksgiving.
Then it kind of levels out.
But then as Christmas parties
and social gatherings and, you know,
holidays spike up, then we see a peak
that comes all the way up
through the week after Christmas
and then peaks the day of New Year's.
And that's that's where it is.
So it's almost like,
that's interesting because in my head
I would have thought, well,
I mean, it's Thanksgiving, right?
Like, that's the feast day.
That's the big day, right?
Everybody just wake up and the scales up,
you know, after that, right.
Yeah.
I would have left shifted that
that peak as well.
Right, Right.
So when we look at some of these studies,
it actually some of the results
time you specifically show
that we are priming ourselves for weight
gain in the second half of this
Yeah it was interesting because
when I started looking at liver enzymes
and then the actual fasting insulin
and I'm seeing an increase in liver
enzymes control group,
that's not showing up in the intermittent
energy restriction group.
In fact, they have some decreases
going on there diverging here.
The same thing is happening
for the fasting insulin numbers
where the control group
is increasing by three or three
and a half points on the fasting insulin.
And then the control group is actually,
I believe, decreasing by half a point on
fasting insulin,
which again was not statistically
significant for this sample size.
But when we look at fasting insulin
and we want that number to be as low
as possible, typical reference range
usually says something like lower
than 25 to be within normal limits.
But we know that being less than five,
less than ten
is a heck of a lot better
than being less than 20 or less than 25.
And there's a bridge that connects
between five
or ten all the way up through 25,
which leads to predictable
and then ultimately later on diabetes,
which we obviously want to avoid.
But when we see
what the trends were within this study,
it's very,
very promising that when we implement
some compartmentalization
and fasting during the holiday season,
we can prevent this rise in these numbers
in the liver and in our fasting insulin.
Who are that are then going to set
the stage for that weight gain?
That's exactly
the physiological conditions that we would
need in order to actually gain weight,
which would be a stressed liver,
stressed, getting fat of your liver
and then higher fasting insulin
because it's having to chase after higher
fasting blood glucose predominantly.
And the problem there is that
that sets the stage for being more
spending more time in fat
storage mode than fat burning mode, then
that's leading to overfilled
glycogen stores in the muscle
and in the liver,
which then is going to lead to the need
to actually deposit more fat cells, which
then is going to show up on the scale
the way I'm feeling.
And then frustration to try to,
you know, reverse
that trend maybe later on in January.
Hopefully not
waiting till later than that.
Yeah, So think about this,
because we set the stage
with like this big picture, right?
So first,
you know, certain things you can do.
You can use either an energy restriction,
intermittent fasting, you know,
on the days around the holidays and then
eat whatever you really want and be free.
Guilt and shame free
right on the actual holiday itself.
And then any safe way of moderating food
intake during
the holiday period would help
mitigate mitigate this weekend.
The second strategy is changing the way
you eat on the holidays themselves, right?
So still eat your favorite foods,
but load up on the appetite,
suppressing foods first, protein,
fiber, water, etc..
Right. Salt, hydration.
But then you could combine the two.
So what I love about this
study is that it was five two, right?
So it was 700 calories,
not a great caloric restriction.
Both groups saw weight loss point
four kilograms in the control,
but 1.3 kilograms in the air group
and the secondary outcomes like
So even if you were to do
five two, which is not significant
amount of fast, right,
you're going to see your air,
your insulin resistance
and your fasting insulin
and your HDL C ratio in proof.
So that's why I love remodeled Homemaker.
Right.
The other health benefits are motivating
enough for her to keep going.
Yeah. Even when the scale isn't moving.
But never mind.
If we look at the big picture,
the trend is 59% of people
that put the weight on during this holiday
season.
Don't ever lose it.
Yeah, so set the stage for it
and then it stuck around.
Right?
So even if the scale doesn't move
and we saw this in our group
in this last challenge,
so many people were like,
my God,
I can't believe I'm doing this right.
We got to talk about some
confounding social factors and foods
and all that stuff here in just a second.
But if you're looking for
fasting strategies, head to the show
notes, click the link.
The blueprint of fasting for fat loss
free resource.
to help you kind of implement this.
Five two is a good start,
but we can definitely do a lot better.
And that big picture I love
is because even though the scale
not statistically significant weight
loss rate from baseline during the study.
Right.
But all of those other metrics
move priming weight loss or weight gain
depending on which group you fall into.
Right? Yeah.
So what are dieting culture, right.
Weight loss culture.
We don't be the guy
bringing our scale to Thanksgiving dinner
unless you're prepping for the Arnold
or an IFB thing.
Right. Like us mere mortals,
we don't get to worry about that.
We want simplicity.
We want to know
that we're on the right track.
We want to know that
we're not starting over anywhere. Right?
So when you look at some of the studies
during the holiday season,
previous study, effects of exercise
during the holiday season on changes
in body weight, you know,
it showed that exercise alone 5 hours
per week does not prevent weight gain
during the holidays.
Young adults gained half a kilogram
over the Thanksgiving holiday alone.
And when we look at some of the IFR
studies and we've done individual podcasts
on these tummy,
there's one study looking at changes
in hunger and fullness in relation
to gut peptides before and after eight
weeks of alternate day fasting,
it's shown that there's significant weight
loss with AIDS
right over the course of eight weeks
in obese populations.
And then there was another ADF found
that five kg reduction after 12 weeks.
There's a systemic review and a meta
analysis that showed, you know, energy
restriction on weight loss
and of course cardiometabolic outcomes.
That was the big one that we did an entire
episode on that was 5 to 13%, right?
So the holidays may not be the time
to be the guy showing up
to the Christmas dinner
or to the Christmas party
or isolating yourself,
saying no to everything. Right.
It may not be the time of the year
to be strict dieting or strict fasting,
but that doesn't mean that what you do
during this 40 days and 40 nights, right.
Can't set you up for incredible success
and momentum starting the year
rather than being in the game group.
You're in the maintain or slightly lost
but better metabolic health group
going into 2024 is what really excited us
about having this conversation,
especially this time of year.
It was like, my gosh,
like when I when we found this articles,
they tell me
I got to write an email about this,
we got to blast this out.
We go tell her it's
not like I'm talking to family about it.
They probably don't want to hear it,
but that's fine
because there's so much potential here.
Yeah, yeah.
Your mindset is going to be so much better
too, coming from the holidays
into the next year.
Because if I didn't take my eyes off
the prize, there's no work to make up.
There's
no time lost, There's no like regrouping.
My motivation, trying to capture that,
that lightning in a bottle,
you know, kind of thing.
That is kind of what I used to wait for
after the holiday season
because it can be tough to do that.
And if I'm fairly balanced
but slightly compartmentalized
with my fasting through the holiday
season, I got some of it right during the
what could be
the toughest part of the year.
So then that means when January, February
come around, it feels more like,
okay, wow, like this is even easier
than it was last month
when I had all the different things
going on with the different moving parts,
all that kind of stuff, right?
Yeah.
And I want to talk about that stuff
like the foods and the social pressure
and alcohol and, you know, the joke
of bringing the food scale, right?
Or maybe eating a little more mindfully
or fasting a little more mindfully
or some strategies around that
and why it is set up the way it is
and why the research
and the big picture that we shared earlier
is the way it is,
and that's the reality of the situation.
But I want to give a shout out first
to neuroscience.
You know, I'm back.
I took a break for a little bit.
We're not a CGM,
but we've partnered with them.
And nutrition combines the cutting edge
tech with human expertise.
You can see how your body responds
to these things.
We're about to talk about the food
and the stress and the lack of sleep
and the more opportunity
and the less exercise due
to these increased crazy schedules
this time of year.
So by pairing the neuroscience app
and the dietitian support with the CGM,
which which is the little biosensor
that you stick on the back of your arm,
completely painless takes just a second.
Click, click, boom, it's on.
And then within a few minutes, in a couple
of hours, you're getting real time data.
So this Thanksgiving
was incredibly powerful and impactful
because it was the most enjoyable
Thanksgiving that I've had in a long time.
And I can attribute it to the fact
that I've been wearing a CGM
for months and months on and off
throughout my health and weight
loss journey
and comparing it to previous seasons.
I remember when I used nutrients
for testing, whether or not how I
my body responded to coffee
and whether or not
I was getting a blood sugar response
because coffee was starting,
it was something I wanted to change
and in real time
I could see my blood sugar change
and I was like, man,
that means I need to give it a break
for a little while.
Or my wife's and the pecan pie, right?
She made these pecan pie bars
and it was like she had hers on
and she was like, my gosh,
what did I just do?
And it wasn't like, guilt, shame.
It was like I had no idea that pecan pie,
which is like high fat, high sugar.
And she's an incredibly metabolic,
inflexible individual.
Like it was just like,
okay, I can do that once on the holiday,
but then I don't need to eat them either.
Let me freeze them.
Let me donate some. Let me bring a couple
to the office. Right.
Because as many as last year.
Yeah, don't need as many as Ashley. Right.
So that's why I'm back on CGM
for the next three months.
I'm going to encourage all,
if you're looking for real time data,
you want to get a handle on kind
of how your body responds in real time
to the holiday season, to the stress,
to the sleep, to these foods
that we're going to talk about here
in just a second.
Then I would head to nutrition.
Scott i o forward slash fasting for life.
You can go to the show
notes, click the link, you get $30 off
and a month free of dietitian support.
I encourage you to sign up
for one of the longer plans
because you're going to be able
to get kind of perspective on how you ebb
and flow throughout the different seasons.
Specifically, this holiday season.
Tommy and I know you have had different
experiences from previous holidays
to this holiday, and I really want to hit
on the types of foods and the social
because you said you shared them
when we're prepping for this
so that there were
some social interactions, right,
that you hadn't experienced in a while.
And then when I would talk about alcohol
just a little bit
and I want to talk about
a couple of strategies
in terms of things
you can do from an action
based standpoint,
in terms of making better decisions
and some fasting windows as you navigate
the rest of this holiday season.
Yeah, we were fortunate.
We got to take a road trip
and see some family this year
that we haven't seen in a long time,
so that was cool.
But we hadn't really observed each other's
eating habits and things like that.
And you know, of course there were
some questions for me about fasting.
It was really, really great connection.
But what I wasn't really used to,
what I hadn't had happen
in a while was, Hey, hey,
are you not eating right now
or like, Hey, did you not like the food
or did you try my.
And it was like,
Did you try my mac and cheese casserole?
Did you try my green bean casserole?
It was like all these different things,
you know, a lot of which you know,
I like a sampling
and I wanted to kind of sample everything.
Ding, ding, ding.
That's one of the strategies.
Keep going. Yeah. So that was
that was definitely a good thing.
But I wasn't used to like having
all those questions.
I just haven't had all those questions
really, like in a while
around, like a holiday,
you know, get together.
So when you're around your family
that you haven't seen or been around
the holidays in a while too.
So it's a different environment
and you just don't
realize that it's different until you're
there going, Wait a minute, this is weird.
Yeah, it's great, but it just
feels different if you're not careful.
A little bit of pressure
from family can be like, okay, well, yeah,
I'll just have another serving of that.
Or Yeah, let me go back
and I'll try the other dessert too.
Or the other thing of like candied yams
or whatever it might be.
And if you're not careful, yams,
I don't even know what that is.
Whatever the case may be, everyone,
you know, kind of might want you to
to try,
you know, everything that they brought.
So just being prepared
for a little bit of social pressure,
having a little bit of like, no, yeah,
I'm definitely going to get to it.
You know, whether you do or you don't
is not the important thing.
But it's like not letting the kind
of subconscious behaviors
kind of overreach and find their way
into your actual food decisions.
Because the more people were around
during the holiday seasons,
the more of those subconscious cues
and kind of pressure can kind of feed
into whatever we're doing.
And that's what the research
shows, too, is that when you eat alone,
you tend to eat less, and the bigger
the group gets, you tend to eat more
because it's just mimicking
its behavioral mimicking. Right?
So then you were just talking
about the pressure.
So a couple of ways to stymie
that pressure or
one of the strategies is just like, Man,
I am so excited for the meal later.
Like I'm going to grab a little bit,
I'm going to sample a little bit.
Right now I'm just super excited for X, Y
or Z that's coming up for dinner
in a few hours, right?
Yeah, You can also protein pace, right?
So start with lean proteins.
When you get there, hit the cheese
and charcuterie board over the.
What we typically find around the holidays
is this more calorically dense,
low fiber, high fat, high sugar type foods
that we find around the holidays.
Right.
Especially
a lot of the traditional things.
And don't even get me started on the
desserts already talked about the bacon.
Luckily I don't like not
so I don't have to worry about that.
But I do have a couple other things.
If they were around like my sisters
Christmas cookies, it'd be really hard to
be like, man,
I say no to that.
Right?
So the compartmentalization of it,
because remember big picture here,
you got two options
you can eat differently
around the days, i.e.
energy, restriction, fasting,
which hopefully most of us are doing,
and then eat
whatever you want on the holiday itself.
That'll work
for a small percentage of people
or making some intentional decisions
about the way you eat on the holidays.
So that compartmentalization,
so saying, Hey, you got a Tupperware
like I am stuffed, but I would love
to take a piece of that home for later.
And guess what? You don't have to eat it.
It's okay.
You can say no. Right?
There is this correlation we found
in looking at some of the research as well
that a lot of people
that have these relationships with food
when it comes to this time of the year
or throughout the entire year
when it comes to a certain hedonic food
scale on the hypertonic foods,
the more the more alluring foods,
the foods that you crave more right.
You know, there's an underlying people
pleasing personal
identifier as being a people pleaser.
Like because you hate to say no, right?
You want to upset, Hey grandma.
Yeah, I'll take a little piece
of the chocolate pie
and then she cuts you a quarter of it
and you're like,
What the bloody heck,
I didn't sign up for this.
I wanted a little bit, right?
So I like to do that.
Yeah, I'm super looking forward to this.
Yeah, I'll get to it
and then just move on. Right.
So we talk about the different types
of foods this time of year.
So protein pace.
And then the last thing I want to mention
and then we'll talk about a couple
of fasting strategy strategies
is the alcohol component, right?
Even if you do clean alcohol like tequila
and you just have
I mean,
I don't know why you want to be taking it,
you know, sipping on shots
at the holiday table right.
But if you just say straight booze, right.
Even just two or three
drinks is a few hundred calories.
Right. And it's empty.
Like those are just going to shut down,
fat burning, increase,
decrease your resistance to those really
enjoyable foods that you love.
And it's going to create a void. Right.
And it's going to make the next day
that much more difficult
when it comes to food cravings.
It's going to affect your sleep,
which is going to affect your food
and your blood sugar ability for your body
to manage that blood sugar.
So we don't want to be the crazy guy
showing up with the scale
or the person abstaining from everything
and just living on their own.
But we want to just think through this
a little bit differently and use I.R.
or A.K.A fasting as a strategy
to not only maintain or lose a little bit
during this holiday season,
but set ourselves up for that
metabolic state that we are primed,
prepped and ready to roll
when the holiday season is over
and we can instantly
just keep that momentum going.
Yeah, I think that that's a good point
about the alcohol
because remember what we said
about setting the stage for the weight
gain, that peak that was like right around
January 1st, January, right from before.
That's that's only exacerbated
by more alcohol intake
because what we want is our liver
to be able to be very flexible,
very highly functioning,
which means it needs to be efficient.
And so lower or
or fewer days with alcohol consumption
will mean over the holiday season,
I'll have a more highly effective,
highly efficient liver processing system.
So I think that's a really good thing
to keep in mind.
And as we kind of compartmentalize
our food choices and what we're doing
during the holiday season, avoiding
some of the social pressures and things
like that, that can that can be more,
more prevalent during those times.
You know, also just remembering that, hey,
okay, what what are my fasting goals
going into 2024 because I don't want to
wait until 2024 to start working on them,
but I can put them into place right now
during the holiday season within 2023.
Okay, So what does that mean?
Well, that means at least
if if you're having a crazy busy
or stressful or low sleep season,
then maybe it's not the best time
to expect
huge scale wins or huge, Huge. Yes.
Managing expectations
and manage expectations.
Just just like my kids
with the Christmas tree.
You know, like I don't want to be like,
you know, Big Santa promises to go
sit on Santa's lap and get, you know,
promised a you know, a pony or whatever.
My daughter is going to ask Santa
for an elf this year, and I'm trying
to just manage temper her expectations
that this house doesn't have elves.
I'm sorry.
Yeah. Please don't visit this house.
They just don't.
We have three dogs.
The dogs would eat them.
That's what I'm going to do right now.
Yeah, my dogs would eat the elf.
Do you want the elf
to be eaten by our dog now?
Okay, this is an elf free house,
so please ask Santa for something else.
Please. Yeah.
Anything. Temper.
The expectations are totally,
totally derailments.
All right, Now you have to.
You have to do so.
So be easy on yourself
during the holiday season for sure.
Temper your own expectations.
And I don't want to set the bar low
for myself.
I just want to remember
there are a lot of things
that can happen during the holiday season
that kind of work against your fat loss
especially.
But if we keep our eye on the prize
and go, okay, let me stick to the basics,
let me make sure I'm at least getting
the basics right of my fasting right.
So setting an intention for the day
or when are my my times
that I really want to be like, okay,
less restriction on these couple of days.
What are the most important days?
And then not just saying yes to absolutely
everything or every eating opportunity.
I don't want the actual holiday days
themselves to become like a nonstop
grace fest because for me that's
going to be that's going to be tough.
It's going to show up on the scale.
I'm not going to have a great day or two
the next couple of days,
and I can avoid that
by going into those days with a plan.
So I like personally,
I like to do a two mad.
I like to do a two meals
a day on the actual holidays themselves
so that it doesn't turn into a slippery
slope kind of grace fest.
That's that's my
my action plan for those days.
What about you? Yeah. No, I love it.
I like to give myself a window, like a
two, three or maybe four hour window maps.
And I like to protein pace.
I like to also take a little plate
of all of the things
that I love from the spread
and put a plate and put it aside.
And then that plate comes
with me to the dinner table.
Okay.
So when I sit down to eat the main meal,
like I have
my little assortment of things
that I enjoy as well as my plate.
Therefore
I am not grazing and being mindless
and I'm being intentional
because for me it's all about a feeling.
I don't like feeling full and then
listening to your hunger and satiety cues.
Stop eating when you're done right.
Deferred delay the gratification,
Take the pie home.
Right.
That's something that I would do as well.
I'm very particular about my desserts.
I'm not a big dessert guy.
So if it is something I enjoy
and I already feel kind of like I'm
right there, you know what?
I'm just going to wait.
And it's not about perfection, but
that intentionality and that awareness.
So if you're looking for more guidance,
head to the Shownotes
click the link to download the blueprint
to fasting for fat loss.
It has a bunch of different defined,
different fasting strategies,
different fasting schedules.
If you just want to take
the thinking out of it
because the additional stress
this time of year,
lack of sleep, more opportunity and just,
you know, we want to bring it back to
what the holiday season should really be
about is getting together with loved ones,
enjoying each other's time in company
and celebrating the stuff
and being grateful
for the things that we love.
We want to empower you.
You can still make incredible change
this time of year and Tommy,
hopefully we did that today.
I appreciate the conversation, sir,
and I'll talk to you next time.
Cool. Thank you.
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