Ep. 213 - Fasting Focused Goals: Health, Mindset, Strength, & Routines | Building your fasting lifestyle with habit ladders | Break down large goals into smaller chunks | Atomic Habits & Power of Habit | Join the Fasting Challenge | Nutrisense CGM
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In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy explore habit ladders for long-term health and weight loss. They advocate breaking habits into manageable steps, emphasizing the connection to existing routines. They draw from habit formation research, debunking the 21-day myth, and stress the 6 to 12-month gradual integration approach. Also, discuss the cue-action-reward cycle and highlight the importance of consistency.
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Links to Articles:
https://betterhumans.pub/the-habit-ladder-how-to-make-a-new-routine-stick-45d2c4555b23
Fasting For Life Ep. 213 Transcript
Hello. I'm Dr. Scott Watier.
And I'm Tommy Welling.
And you're
listening to the Fasting for Life podcast.
This podcast is about using fasting
as a tool to regain
your health, achieve ultimate wellness,
and live the life you truly deserve.
Each episode is a short conversation
on a single topic
with immediate, actionable steps.
We cover everything from fat loss
and health and wellness
to the science of lifestyle design.
We started fasting for life because of how
fasting has transformed our lives
and we hope to share the tools
that we have learned along the way.
Hey Ron,
welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast.
My name's Dr.
Scott Walker and I'm here as always
on good friend and colleague Tom Welling.
Good afternoon to you, sir.
Hey, Scott,
how are you? Doing fantastic, my friend.
Happy New Year to you.
I was listening to your podcast
the other day and the gentleman
said, What's the window
for the wishing of the Happy New Year?
And he was like, January 2nd.
And I was like,
okay, well, happy New Year.
And it was like January 12th.
So right now to be the last one,
but it is 2024, it is January.
The gym is sadly slowly
getting a little less busy,
but nice for me,
who likes to go sit in the sauna.
I want to welcome
all of you new listeners in specifically
if 2024 is going to be your year
and you are going to adopt
a fasting lifestyle,
we want to welcome you in
to our humble opinion,
the best fasting podcast out there.
That's enough self-aggrandizing.
But yeah, we are a little biased
of course, but welcome in.
If you want to learn more about Tommy
or myself, head back to episode one.
Give it a listen.
I cannot believe that over 65,000
people have now heard our story
of how fasting has transformed our lives.
It's short, it's to the point relatable,
and we really just want to encourage you
that if we can do it, you can do it too,
if you're a long term listener.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you so much for continuing
to subscribe, rate review, download
whatever the metrics are that
tell the podcast, click the buttons.
All the little ones. Yeah.
Yeah. Subscribe Resubscribe on subscribe
save review.
I don't know. Do it multiple times.
I'm sure it'll help bookmark it.
Auto download right now.
All of those metrics
tell the podcasting world
that we are bringing value each
and every week to our listenership,
so we're just eternally grateful for you
all as it's just incredible,
timely that we continue to grow and reach
so many people.
But that is part of our mission
and our vision that we want to encourage
mere mortals like ourselves
that you can make sustainable lifestyle
change
with the tried and true art of fasting.
So as we come up
to the second half
or well into the second half
of the month of January,
so one, 12th of our year.
Right.
We're going to talk about a concept
and you've depending on how long
you've been in the health
and wellness space,
but if you've done any lifestyle change
or tried to do any lifestyle
change in the past, you've
probably come across some personal growth
books
or self-help books in the form of habit
formation, 21 days to make a habit,
which is not entirely true.
So we'll talk.
But if it's something
like putting a glass of water
in before your morning coffee, yeah,
probably in 21 days, that becomes
part of your subconscious operating system
and you don't have to think about it
anymore.
But lifestyle change
research shows 6 to 12 months, right?
Yeah.
But we also know that
by the end of January,
most of us mere mortals
that set resolutions fail.
And last week we talked about
some of the starting points
on your fasting journey or how to become
more consistent in your fasting journey.
So going back to the habit conversation,
what we're gonna talk about today
is what are called habit ladders.
You've heard of habit stacking?
James Clear atomic habits,
tiny habits creep.
All of these different books and resources
that are out there.
Incredible. But knowledge is not power.
Tony Robbins likes to say
the application of knowledge is power.
So we want to talk to you today
about what habit ladders are.
And then ultimately where
most people mess it up, and then how we're
going to apply this to a long term
health weight loss and fasting lifestyle.
So if you've ever tried to create
and you have it in the past,
especially if it was based
on a New Year's resolution or something,
something big at the beginning of the year
or in preparation for something big,
oftentimes that's accompanied by like
trying to change everything all at once.
Large overhauls
might be stopping something cold turkey
or bringing something brand new in
that it's not necessarily well thought out
or it's not necessarily done in a way
that can be like incrementally integrated
with your existing
schedule, way of life, etc.,
all that kind of stuff.
You try to change everything all at once.
It can feel like, Hey,
I just want to do everything now
and I want to get it all right
and there's nothing really wrong with it.
But that is the first step
of what could be, you know,
a failed habit change down the road.
So failed install,
you tried to install Windows ten
and it was like blue screen, right?
Which means you
may have done it when you didn't
have enough hard disk space available.
Right. When you try to change everything
all at once.
What would have been better
is if you could have installed it
piece by piece or maybe remove
some of the old nonsense, you know, back
from some of the archive folders.
Drag it then. Yeah, diffraction.
Maybe the computer guy. Where's right.
I'll stop talking. Right.
And then go through the necessary steps.
So when we talk about habit ladders,
one thing to think about is breaking
new habits up into digestible,
like smaller pieces
that we can kind of climb the ladder
up, climb the runs up towards
like a big, hairy, audacious goal,
if you will,
but breaking that up into pieces
so that we can successfully integrate
the smaller pieces and then work our way
up to the bigger one.
That's part of Habit ladders.
And then another piece that I like
to think about is just is like branching
off of existing things
that I'm already doing right now
instead of just trying to like,
install all new habits.
I want to kind of branch off things
that I'm already doing or I'm already
looking forward to and kind of connecting
these almost in a web fashion
so that I already have like
these preexisting anchor points,
which can be really helpful too.
And it doesn't feel like I'm necessarily
starting from scratch.
But then it also, if I need to scrap
part of it or scrap something,
then it doesn't feel like I'm
throwing the baby out with the bathwater,
if you will.
Yeah,
and where this came really clear for me
was when I read The Power of Habit
by Peter Duhigg
and he was talking about triggers
and if you've read atomic habits,
you'll know about the routine,
the cue that happens.
Let's say it's the time of day
and then the routine.
You do the thing, you go to work,
you get up, you make sure
whatever it is, and then you get a reward
for the thing that you did.
The action, the reward, like
the routine is the action.
The reward is that dopamine,
happy hormone, serotonin, right.
Like, yeah. Thing that you want, right?
So the cue, the routine, the reward
or the cue, the awareness, the action,
and then the reward.
And, you know, for instance,
you can look at things
like flossing right at the beginning
of every habit, there's a cue.
So this is
the thing that tells your brain, okay,
it's time to start this habit loop, right?
And that cue honest, Let's be transparent
here.
I suck at flossing.
It's not fun.
I don't enjoy it.
Okay.
On dopamine at the end part of my dental
routine, by the way, got the wifey
and I knew Sonicare.
If you're out there.
Sonicare toothbrushes.
Yeah.
From Costco.
Man, I'm suburbia living.
Yes, I buy clothes from Costco.
Don't judge me.
I got the two pack now I didn't get to.
There were four options
and the the premier option way over here.
This is an audio medium,
but in a visual way.
And from left to right,
I would have four boxes at Costco.
If you're been a Costco,
you know, talking about.
And I was like,
these are kind of the low level here.
And then you've got the intermediate and
you've got the all these are pretty nice.
And then you've got like the Cadillac
over here. Right?
And the only difference between the while
these are pretty nice in the Cadillac
was that the charging mechanism was an
actual it looked like a glass
just it was like radically pleasing.
It was boujee, right.
It was like a glass,
but it wasn't really glass.
And that you put it in there
and it stood up
and that was literally the stand
and it charged it.
I was like, I don't need that.
It's just going to get dusty for my kids
with hot water in it or something.
So I got the next level down from there.
By the way,
this is drastically change my desire and
enjoyment of my dental hygiene routine.
I know this is an aside from the point.
I can't believe I've been manually
brushing all these years.
Holy guacamole, just crazy.
Anyway, back on track.
So habit loop, there's a Q,
So you brush your teeth
and then the Q is,
you know, it's time to floss.
But once your brain spots
the Q, you go into zombie mode,
you're driven by your routine
rather than conscious thought.
Yeah.
So you do brushing
your teeth into the floss
and then the habit ends in a reward.
So the reason you're driven by the Q
in the routine in the first place
is really now this is a short term,
long term thing and we'll talk about that
in the habit later here in just a minute.
But it's when you floss, it's
a release of tension
knowing that you won't have that
awkward conversation with your dentist,
right.
Six months from
now when you go back in for another clean.
Have you been flossing?
Yeah, They always ask because they know
what the answer usually is, or that
if most people don't really want to admit
to the fact, you know, so
but that release of tension that,
hey, I'm not going to have to fudge my
my actual performance here
or have them see the lack of performance
anyway, you know, and go, Right, yeah,
I'm going to have a better outcome here.
So guys,
isn't this a fasting podcast? Yes.
So I want you to visualize
you've probably seen this meme or image
going around, just going around.
You've probably seen it
at some point where there's two ladders
and there's a ladder
that have these big rungs and there's
a little caricature stick
figure dude who can't reach it, right?
And the big hairy,
audacious goal lose £50 is £30, adopts
fasting lifestyle, reverse diabetes,
come off medications, get rid of my blood
pressure, whatever is at the top.
Right.
A very long term big result base goal.
But you can't even get to the first rung.
He's just putting his hands
up, can't even reach.
And then on the other side is a ladder
that has small steps.
Right.
So we're talking about
this is what we're talking about visually,
about the habit ladders.
You want to take those small steps
that become like the cue for the floss
after the brushing your teeth
to reduce the tension
from that awkward conversation
that you have with your dentist.
It could be the same with blood.
Work with a provider
that routine yearly bloodwork right?
Yeah. But then that feeling goes away.
That icky feeling of like, man,
I got to do this again, right?
Because it's 12 months apart.
So we need to shorten that cue
action, right?
That cue routine cue action reward cycle.
Yeah.
With keeping that big result based goal
more present
time, more rather than often never,
never land.
It's here now in the way that we're
acting, in the way that we're showing up.
Yeah.
And like even a fasting example
could be we've seen a lot of pointing
to certain fasts as Holy Grail fasts.
Holy Grail type fast lately.
One example being a 42 hour fast
being like the Holy grail of fasting
for whatever reason.
And the thing about it is that
that's not an easy fast to just to get to,
especially to, to step into
from the beginning or to kind of master.
There's a, there's a lot of where
to really be consistent with
Yeah for sure doesn't leave a lot of like
life events to fit into a rolling
Yeah, there's a lot of room for error.
There's a lot of potential issues
that kind of come along with
with the mindset
and the physiology behind it
and the transitioning
into into more of a fat burning state,
metabolic flexibility, insulin resistance,
blood sugar levels, the list goes on.
So but the thing about that
is that's like one of those big rungs
that a lot of people can't reach.
You know,
if you just tried to jump into that,
you might be so uncomfortable
and out of your element that it feels like
that first rung is like unreachable.
Whereas if we go, okay, you know what,
let's go back to, to last week's
episode where we talked about a ten hour
nutrition opportunity window
and the extraordinary results
that that a large patient population
saw with with a 16 hour
excuse me, a 14 hour fast
with a ten hour nutrition opportunity
that was from 8 a.m.
to 6 p.m.
and that's a much more attainable
rung on the ladder.
So if you're getting started off
with fasting, finding that attainable run
and even if you go, you know what,
I would like to accomplish
a 42 hour fast or whatever
the case may be, for whatever reason,
then that's just that might be three
or four runs up.
It might be ten runs up.
But the point is that where you start
and what your first goal is
and whether that's achievable or realistic
or something
that could lead you to the next run
rather than just being this like,
it's there,
I know what I want, but I can't reach it.
And I've been trying
and trying and trying.
That can be a very frustrating
like negative
feedback loop versus the one where
I'm building one run on top of the other.
One of the most downloaded episodes
that we've done is is on discipline
versus willpower.
And discipline ultimately is not like,
you're a Navy SEAL.
It's really just the subconscious
wiring over time of things
that become part of your core values
on how you operate.
Yeah, right.
And what things do you really want?
Yes, I've recently stopped drinking.
Benson
September had a 50th birthday celebration
for some family up in Dallas
Fort Worth area.
And there was a shuttle bus.
The event was at the winery.
You know,
wine was like crazy, cool event, right?
Like Friday night at PGA of America.
Like Golf Days and all this stuff.
And there was always transportation
provided a lot of people.
It's a big party.
So it's it's like one of those
decade birthday celebrations.
Right.
So people are coming in
and just incredible, awesome time.
In leading up to that event,
there was a conversation on,
you know, us taking the shuttle
and we have kids.
We're like, well,
I don't know many shuttle busses
that have car seat hookups for one.
And number two,
shuttle busses don't typically leave
when our kids need to go to bed.
So there was like, well, you know,
maybe we can have cousin X drive you
because he doesn't drink.
And I'm like, Neither do I.
And this is new.
Is that four years? Right?
So there's just this like awkward
pause, like,
yeah, and I don't plan on it
going up until this party.
I don't plan on it
for the foreseeable future. Wow.
And it's just one of those things
now that is for some reason, over the last
since September 24th until till now,
has just become like a decision
that I no longer have to make.
I don't know if it's going to be like that
forever.
Our 20 year anniversary.
Maybe there'll be some champagne.
I don't know.
Yeah, but for now,
it's like that's become a part of my core
values is like, No, it's not a decision
I make anymore, because it's.
It's just not in the cards for me right
now, Right?
Yeah.
So we're talking about these things
that are far off.
It's not like
especially in this time of year right?
Where it's New Year's resolution,
New Year, new me, all of that kind of.
Yeah.
We try to hit these big home runs.
So one of the most download episodes
we have is about discipline
versus willpower.
So I don't have to have willpower to say
no at that event that had just become part
of my subconscious wiring.
Like, No, I'm just not interested, right?
Yeah, but the episode is episode 125
and it talks about the
I Will power and I Won't power versus the
I Want Power.
And what I heard you saying
there was talking about the what you want
at the end of the ladder like that
big hairy, audacious goal.
Yeah.
So most people think it's I get motivated,
I take an action, I get a result.
It's not a listening episode.
It's taking action,
get a result, continue to be motivated
when you have the right target.
Yeah,
and that's where I kind of want to start
unpacking habit ladders,
because if we use just an example of like
I want to work out the end of the sequence
triggers the beginning of the next.
So you wake up and you get dressed.
But now instead of putting on work
clothes, you put on running clothes.
This whole like lay the clothes out
the night before thing, right?
yeah. Done. Now I'm dressed to go run.
Am I just going to.
I can't go to work now. I have to go
do the thing right.
Like you meandering out into the garage
to do a coat.
Yes, yes. Yeah.
And I've been working on that.
Have it in and of itself
over the last year.
But the cool thing
there is that, you know,
now that I kind of have ingrained that
and that's kind of become its own habit
ladder, I'm kind of branching off of that
and connecting pieces
like I mentioned,
like a kind of like a web, like web.
If you will, that now if I want to
do something new, like, like the sauna,
I put that stuff
next to the cold plunge, like,
so I know I'm going to meander out there.
I know it's going to be the first thing
I do in the morning, because you know what
I really would love to do
is just go grab some coffee.
You know, when I when I first wake up.
But at the same time,
what I know would be better.
And so what I do every day
is I grab some water, grab some salt,
shout out elements every day.
Yeah. Water and salt water every day.
Every day. I didn't start off like that.
That every day. Every day.
All right, I'm six out of seven days.
So just so everybody listening to me right
now is winning because I'm
a six out of maybe five and a half
out of seven day guy where I get it right.
I can't remember the last day
that I didn't do it.
I'm pretty proud of it.
But if I have an off day, I'm not going
to let that distract me on the next day.
Yeah,
and you know, I'm being cheeky
with you on purpose
because we have
this perfectionist mindset.
It does become every day.
Yeah,
it just takes the hats for value for me.
Now, it didn't used to be that.
So I'm not on a soapbox or pedestal
or anything like that, right.
Yeah. Yeah.
So like, but if I would have set out
like that to get every single day right,
that would have felt like an unattainable
first rung on the ladder.
But no, to felt like a New Year's
resolution.
Yes, I won't. Yes.
And so now branching off,
I can put gym clothes to go over
to the sauna after the cold plunge.
And then, you know,
so working on functional fitness,
working on some strength goals
for this year, and also having
some passive cardiovascular strain,
you know, through the sauna.
I like the mindset shift of cold plunge.
I mean, there's physiological benefits
as well that I love,
but I like just setting the intention
for the day.
Yeah, do the hard thing first. Yeah.
Three, 4 minutes and like,
just jumping in.
It doesn't have to be freezing cold,
but mine usually is.
The colder the better for me.
I just love that.
And it makes me feel like, you know what,
an additional rung on the ladder.
If there's something else
that I want to achieve, whether it's
correcting something on the blood work
or it's setting a new business goal
or a new financial goal or marriage goal
or parenting goal, whatever it might be,
each one of those rungs
now feels much more attainable
because I have a list of other successes
that I've kind of built
with small steps, like, that's
my favorite part about Habit Ladders.
It's like success leaves clues.
So I can
I could point to a whole bunch
of new habits that I have versus
a couple of years ago when I found it
very difficult to install any new habits,
eat less, move more.
Fasting is we hear this so often to heart.
It's the opportunity, the invitation,
the social circle,
the hallmark calendar, the life events.
Yeah, pressure at work, the
food trucks, the taco
Tuesdays, the, you know, food decisions
that are so much more difficult.
Right?
So asking is simple, but not always easy.
Right?
And we want to make sure
that we're not under nourishing long term.
We want to get the weight off quickly.
We want to put in install
some of these habits.
So to round out the whole waking up,
working out example that I was using is
wake up, put on running clothes or workout
clothes instead of the work clothes.
Right.
Okay, now I'm going to go work out a run
and then when you finish running,
you're already
not going to just go put clothes
on. You're going to go shower.
And then after the shower is like,
Ooh, I'm kind of hungry.
Okay, great.
This is the standard New Year, new
you kind of thing.
I'm hungry. All right.
Well, I just worked out, so most times
we're going to make a better decision
about a healthy meal rather than garbage,
breakfast, food or dessert for breakfast.
Okay, Good point,
because you just exercised all those undo
what I just did when I do it. Yes.
So you're stacking a habit.
You eat more
of a clean, more intentional meal,
and then you get the energy boost
from that and endorphins from running.
That's exactly what people need to do to
let's say you were saying, tackle
the hardest work first thing
in the morning, like eat the frog.
Right. Eat the frog. I love that. Yeah.
You don't think about eating the frog
all day. It's a down frog.
Yeah. Just do it
first thing in the morning. Right.
So when we're talking
about a fasting lifestyle
and death, by definition,
what are handed ladders?
They provide a structured approach
to building new habits
by breaking them down
into small, manageable eating.
The frog steps.
Okay.
My progressing
through these incremental stages,
we can gradually establish sustainable
and lasting behaviors.
And this literally
you said it focusing on the wins.
This method fosters a sense of achievement
and motivation,
facilitating personal growth
and improvement.
Absolutely.
Step one Identify the goal action
you want to automate and ingrained
into your daily life.
For example, if you have a low quality
diet or you're inconsistent
with your fasting windows, a goal behavior
might be to eat out one last meal.
A day
or week, or maybe it's to add more fiber
or to decrease the sugary carbs, right.
Or to cook a little bit more in house.
Yeah.
Whole Foods
rather than something more processed
or for fasting it's I want to consistent
my baseline for fasting.
Right. The goal
I want to become ingrained.
The foundation is I want to fast
for a minimum of 6 hours a day.
Yeah. Like put that in as a core value.
Yeah. Set that one floor
so that as a floor.
Yeah. Right.
And then putting a label on this target
in the beginning will help break
the stacking of habits into smaller,
more digestible steps.
So step two is break it down.
So break the goal action
into a series of stages, right?
So if you're like me
and say you want 20 hour
fast as your minimum
and you're consistently hitting 16,
well that's why the fasting,
the blueprint, the fasting for fat loss
that we have in the show notes,
you can click it for 20 page PDF
or send it to your email inbox.
It's a great restart for the year.
It's a great accountability partner.
It shows different fasting schedules,
but it breaks them down
and shows you
how to ramp up your fasting thing.
So if you if fasting works for you
but you're not consistent with it,
well then break it down into not all.
Let me do 72 hour fast
until I lose the weight.
Let me do Angus Barbieri and just fast
for 300 and I always forget the nine days
which is the exact amount he would lose
if he hadn't eaten based on equations
and math, which is not my thing.
So I'll stay in my lane.
But that's not giving you any opportunity
to build on those foundational habits
of breaking your fast
and how to break your fast.
And what is a sustainable
fasting window for you.
Do you like morning?
You like evening?
Does it affect your sleep?
How's your stress out?
Do you have relationship
things like non-negotiable date nights?
Right? So you got to break it down
into into progressive.
So step step to break it down
to progressive stages so smaller
more achievable actions that when combined
culminate in the end desired habit.
Okay, so taking that 20 hour fasting
goal minimum that I want to install
and then saying, okay, I'm at 16 now,
so over the next week, two weeks, months,
let me do 17 hours
and then let me, let me ratchet up.
Instead of going from
Let me install that
and let me let me see how that feels.
Let me try that on.
Let me let that integrate in
with my self-image at this point.
And then let me sit up a little bit more.
Go to 18, go to 19, go to 20. Right.
Rather than going from 16 to 20.
And then it's a big off
and on. It's a big switch.
Does this feel right?
It's a lot easier to just to go back
to what I was doing before,
which is exactly what I don't want to do.
Listen, this is where people screwed
up, let's be honest,
is where I've messed it up so many times.
Yeah, because some of you were thinking,
why do I need a month to go from 16 to 20?
But step
three and the habit ladder
creation is make it too easy.
And this comes from James Clears
atomic habits
propose the idea of starting small very,
very small.
Tell your ego to be quiet.
If the goal is to automate a behavior,
you should try and make the initial habit
so easy that it takes
no time or effort to do it all. Wow.
Make it easy. I just remember the story.
I've said this before. I'm not sure
if it's ever been on a pot episode.
Probably about.
I was at a conference
and this mindset coach was up on stage.
He was talking about one of his clients.
This gentleman had lost £75,
like 8 to 10 times, Lost and gained it,
lost it, gained it, lost it, gained it.
And he was like, All right,
now, my client for the first 90 days,
this is what you're going to do.
You're going to set out your clothes, talk
about habit ladder stacking,
you set out your clothes,
you're going to get dressed for the gym,
you're going to sell your water
and you pre-workout,
you're going to take it
on the way to the gym.
You're going to drink your container,
you're going to walk into the gym,
you're going to scan in, you're
going to go to the water fountain.
You're going to refill your water
container and you're going to leave.
And everybody in the room went like, what?
That's dumb.
Like, I could see it right?
Already rewiring it was so easy.
He would go to the gym and lose £75
in six months and then gain it back
six months.
He did this for almost a decade. Yeah.
These things aren't all false on off on.
These are now things
that are so subconscious
when you make it too easy to fail.
So let's step through some of you thinking
that's too easy, Right?
Right.
And then step four
is where most people fall off the wagon.
And here is where we talk about progress.
And it's different for everybody.
After a couple of weeks or months,
you want to progress
through the stages of progress, progress
the habit.
But wait until you're ready.
How do I know if I'm ready?
We got to try some stuff.
So it's crucial
that you don't rush this step
because many people want to move
to the next stage after a couple of days,
remember, I was like, Ooh, yeah.
Tommy's example,
that's going to annoy some people.
It's too easy.
Remember, we're trying to automate them.
It should become an almost unconscious
part of your day before progressing.
I will tell you this
with my cold plunging, I'm not doing it
for inflammation or recovery.
I'm doing it
for brown site activation or growth
so I can decrease my visceral adiposity.
That is why I'm doing it.
And the 2.5 x dopamine
because I'm a better dad.
But her husband, better parent, better
friend, I'm just a better,
more happy person when I do cold lunches.
Yeah, you come out
like feeling very different from when.
Yeah, but here's the thing.
I've never liked going
in, and I still don't to this day.
Yeah.
So when I started decreasing
my temperature, I was doing cold.
Okay, Low and slow.
And then I was like, I read some research
about That's a cold plunge,
not an ice bath.
I'm not getting the physiological response
I need.
I'm not seeing the changes in my heart
rate variability with an episode on that.
If you're new
and you want to go back and listen,
that is a health metric that I'm trying
to move the needle on, right?
And it's been painfully slow.
Sleep's another one, stress,
another one, etc..
So there's a very distinct reason
why I'm doing this, two reasons.
So I decided that, you know what, I'm
just going to start doing
sub 40 cold plungers.
Yeah.
Know how many of those I did
consistently seven out of seven, No one.
And I was like, That is awful.
How is ten degrees that much worse?
It's different.
It is. And I was like, I'm just I'm not
I didn't do it.
I just stopped for a whole week.
I was just like, thinking about it
and I'm like, not doing it.
I was awful, terrible.
Let me turn that one off.
So I had to go back and I was like,
Okay, let me do this every two days.
I'll drop it two degrees.
So about a degree a day.
Okay, So I did 48, I did 46.
It wasn't perfect.
Maybe one day
I negotiated down with myself.
I was like, I'll do one degree today.
Not sure,
but it was still progressing through.
Yeah, the too easy to fail.
I can do one at one degree.
Come on, one degree difference.
Come on. Like I'm going to come.
Ometer probably is even is accurate enough
to make it one two.
Right. Right.
You need it to be the frog in the boiling
pot of water.
You need to make yourself
the frog in there.
You know, earlier we're eating frogs now
we're boiling them. So.
Yes. Yeah.
No, no, I'm freezing them. I don't know.
I've lost the I don't know where we are.
But anyway, I got to sub 40
and guess what?
It's still terrible
getting in. Just as terrible.
It was a 50. Yeah.
I might even dare say
because it's been early.
It's still new
that it's a little bit easier to get in.
The colder
it is now because you go numb faster.
Maybe yet maybe I'm numb faster,
maybe I'm not staying in as long.
I don't know yet.
I did it. I was like,
you know what? I can do this.
I'm doing this for long enough.
I can go straight to sub 40 wrong.
And I'm watching these guys
and gals on socials.
Like there's
a couple of guys that I follow.
They're like 430 in the morning.
They live in Manitoba, Alberta,
like Yukon Territory,
and it's minus circle 48
and they've got a hat and gloves on
and they're going
and they've done this for years.
These aren't just new,
you know, influencer type guys.
Yeah.
And they're out there
like the guy sent his dog inside
one day is like, It's too cold, buddy.
Go inside.
And I'm like, okay, I can do 40 degrees.
And I couldn't
I couldn't stick with it right away.
So I had to progress up the smaller step.
Remember that visual
We talked about the ladder
that has a lot of tiny steps
or the ladder that the little guy,
the little caricature guy
or gal can't even reach the first round,
just can't reach it. Yeah.
Which leads to step five of habit
ladder construction, which is not magic.
It's not unicorn pixie dust.
Right.
My kids still believe in the tooth fairy.
So we have this little glitter while
my son doesn't, but my daughter does.
My son's younger figure that out.
He hasn't lost edge yet, so maybe he will
sprinkle a little dust right?
Well, it's not magic.
Step five is stay consistent.
Consistency is is a tricky one.
It's a tricky one.
The like.
But, you know, as you kind of construct
your your own habit ladders, you know,
you probably end up with
with a few different ones maybe
I like to think about it as one for each,
you know, specific area of life.
You know, that
I want to build new habits on top of.
But the consistency portion of it
is like what I what I alluded to
earlier was taking a look,
taking stock of your winds, you know,
kind of like write a few of them down
or maybe take a picture
every once in a while,
like something to kind of see.
Is that so you can keep it front of mind
because it's easy to forget the winds.
I mean, we're we're wired for,
you know, fear and pain avoidance.
So we we tend to dwell on the negatives
or when we didn't quite do very well
or perfectly so, you know, taking taking
stock in the winds is really important.
Sticking around like minded
people is also really important to kind of
build some environmental game,
if you will.
Your environmental game. Exactly.
and I forgot we were supposed to mention
this the beginning of the episode.
We have a challenge
coming up January 31st.
What's next for accountability?
Yeah, come on down.
Go to the show
notes, click the link times,
dates, information, see on the inside.
Okay. Sorry,
I totally forgot to mention. Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, we're going to crush
some new habit ladders in there.
We're going to start building them
and reinforcing them.
It's going to be awesome. So join us.
So getting to
the consistency of it is like,
how do I make those rungs
so close together that the consistency
is fairly easy
without requiring big activation energy
or big bouts of like discipline
or willpower?
Kind of If it is
if it feels like the old way, then it's
probably going to go by the wayside,
just like the old stuff did.
Whereas if I do this differently
and I make it feel a little bit different,
that kind of puts me into a new
subconscious mode, like a new operation
mode, if you will, which means
that as I'm kind of progressing
through this incremental habit ladder,
then I can keep advancing,
even if I've thrown a bunch of old like
New Year's resolutions away in the past.
Like this
kind of gives me the mental permission
to do differently
and to achieve them differently too.
So it's really cool that the dichotomy
of doing it this way versus
kind of the more intuitive way
that typically just doesn't work out.
Like, let's just be honest
and this way has a much,
much higher chance of success,
that's for absolutely certain.
So peek behind the curtain,
Tommy Never having this conversation
about goals
for 2020 for personal business.
What are we doing for fasting, for life
or resources at once?
We've got all this incredible stuff
that we want to do
keep providing value
and helping people and etc.
So we started having this conversation.
I remember you bringing it up.
I don't remember how my wife got involved,
but she did.
So now it's competitive, which I love.
You're welcome. For It's.
Yeah, yeah, you're welcome.
But sharing what my goals are for 2024
and this is a weekly thing
that I'm focusing on this year.
So fasting is predominantly
become consistent throughout in my life.
Carnivore Consistent.
Now we're talking 80% rule.
We're not talking perfection.
So you should be if you look at a 30
day map, 30 days in a month,
no less than six of those days
or no less than just over three weeks.
Right.
That I should be checking
all of the weekly boxes
for what I'm about to share here.
Yeah, that makes sense
the way you explain that to me. Okay.
So if you looked at, you know,
just one of those old school paper
calendars, right, of a month
and you just had a green checkmark
or a red X
and you would just put a green checkmark
for, yes, I accomplished it,
or green acts day by day.
Or if you did it for the week,
it would be a green checkmark
at the end of the week or red X
if you didn't hit that 80%.
Okay, so every week I'm doing three
peloton power zone training rides.
So this is something
that my wife's got me into.
I love it. Zone to training.
Great for fat burning,
great for cardiovascular,
great for hormone balancing, etc..
Nice.
So that is three t
ftp is the test power zone trainings
for soreness at 180 or above
or 175 or above for 30 minutes a week.
Seven ice baths, 3 minutes
sub 4007 out of seven.
Wait a minute. Yeah,
I know you're going to call me out.
I said it earlier. A little foreshadowing.
y because I see people have done it 2150
something days in a row.
And I'm like, okay,
they're farther along in areas of life
that I want to be farther along in.
So I'm just I'm going to do it
and I feel a lot better when I do it.
Plus, it's 3 minutes.
Like it's hard to be freakin minutes,
right?
Like that.
Wrong is so low
that 11 minutes a week total.
So if I do just 3 minutes,
I'm clear, right?
Yeah. Not going to say
I'm never going to miss a day. Right.
We're going to travel.
Am I going to have let's
say we go on an anniversary trip.
We don't have one plan. Honey,
if you're listening, I'd love one.
Am I going to ask, you know,
am I going to raid the hotel
fridge, ice and fill up the bathtub
that maybe that would be hilarious.
Now, maybe you probably should, like,
bring a big, like, Rubbermaid.
You know, we're out here. I'm No,
put it out.
Yeah. Okay.
And then here are some longevity strength
metrics I've noticed with my previous.
Have you guys been listening for a while
with my biceps tendon rupture surgery?
My other arm had a partial tear,
a shoulder injury,
Valentine Day of 2023,
which I rehab thankfully
without surgery base
even I had a complete rupture of a tendon.
I decided to go non-conventional route.
So I've noticed
I've lost a lot of strength
and I don't do powerlifting anymore.
That does not serve me or my joints
or my spine or my injuries.
So a lot more functional type stuff.
So these are the things I've been working
on for days and these are going to concur
with the four days of the sauna
because the sun is at the gym.
I don't have a sauna at home.
So dead hanging, so hanging from a bar
for 2 minutes, air, squat,
anything in the air for 2 minutes.
FARMER Carry body weight, 2 minutes,
ten deadlifts to the body weight,
which is a lot harder than it sounds.
It's a lot harder. Yeah.
That's motivating for me
to get into the next decade of weight,
like the next decade down
because it's so much easier.
Yeah. There you go.
Ten deadlifts of your body weight.
I can already do that.
Do some VO2 max testings.
My wife and I are going to get
that scheduled.
We've got a DEXA scan scheduled
for visceral fat and an update from
I think it was.
She has the date.
It was in the fall last year.
I can't remember nutrition.
I'm doing 90 days minimum of the CGM.
Read 20 minutes
or bible study 20 minutes a day.
Here's a kicker for me.
Wake up and bedtime
within 30 minutes every day.
because what I found is that woop.
That's the biggest thing
that impacts my positive recovery
and heart rate variability.
And then you guys fasting podcast
I know 124 hour fast
minimum 24 hour fast a week, 130 hour
fast a week and a minimum
Okay. Okay.
Baselines. Yeah, No alcohol.
I'm sticking with it.
For how long?
Not sure for now.
Sticking with it.
And then Carnivore,
because I feel so much flippin better
living a corner carnivore lifestyle.
And I'm not talking lions diet.
I'm talking carnivore, dairy, eggs,
all that kind of stuff.
So that is now some of these things,
if I'm looking at habit ladders
to apply it dead hang for 2 minutes.
Yeah I can't just go 2 minutes. Right.
I need to break this up strategically.
And by the way,
if I'm doing sort of back to back days,
which on Wednesday, Thursday,
that happens.
I can't I could do dead
hang practice, grip, strength, practice.
But it would be really
probably disheartening for me to do that
the following day.
Yeah, right. Because my hands suffer.
It's going to be, yeah, my performance
and that's going to be a setback.
So that literally goes directly
to stage three and stage four right.
So I'm going to go through these
real quick again,
Step one, identify the goal action
you want to automate and ingrain, right?
Step two, break it down into smaller
progressive stages or parts.
Step three make it too easy.
So am I going to start off
with 2 minutes of dead hang? No.
I set a goal of 30 seconds.
And guess what?
The first time I did it,
I hit it right. Nice.
Then I was like,
All right, I'll go to a minute.
Guess what?
Out of the next four times
I've tried, I've only been able to do it
one out of those four times.
So I'm not going to say,
All right, I'm going to a minute.
I'm going to work on it until I can get
consistently hitting that minute. Yep.
So my first goal was too easy
because I hit it.
So now about one where it's just easy
enough to push me outside of my comfort
zone, which is step four progress
through the levels of the habit.
Yeah, until it becomes automated,
there be no shame in,
you know, if you've never done a dead hand
before, set a goal of 5 seconds.
If you hit it, great.
Go to ten. Go to 50. Right.
Like you want to be able to dial it
up. Yep.
And then step five, stay consistent.
Right?
So consistency is there and that is where
now that my wife's involved,
I will have utmost accountability
because now it's competition. Yeah.
And I know I have you Who's Mr.
Competitive as well. Seven for seven.
Yeah right.
So I know doing CGM here that we're going
to have a lot of progress here.
But when it comes to fasting, I mean this
habit stacking this habit ladder is truly
one of the things that we found personally
and also professionally with coaching.
So many people now.
And so 5500 to 600 people
going through our challenges
coming up on January 31st, we found that
this is the stuff that moves the needle.
So if you want more stuff
like this, these are the types of things
that we go over day one through seven,
because we can give you
a fasting schedule, we can say fasts
for 48 hours and help you and guide you
and you'll be in part of our inner circle.
You'll be inside of our coaching group
and it'll be great.
You'll get great results. But ultimately
we want to teach you how to fish.
We want to teach you how to build
and adapt this lifestyle.
And that's our end goal. Yeah.
And as you kind of like connect these,
you know, your important fasting
or your important habit ladders
to each other to include your your fasting
habit ladder, then what you can do
is, is understanding that
if you have some other fitness or health
related goals in 2024 and beyond,
connecting those to your fasting habits,
like actually setting your time
or making a better food decision
or one better food decision today
and maybe a few this week,
things like that that are going to lead
to better sleep, which means
less cravings tomorrow, a little easier
to set my next fasting timer.
These things are kind of work together
to build momentum.
You can start to understand how really
your habits and your lifestyle is.
Like you have infinite potential for it
because it can it can really feel like
before you start to stack these wins,
like I've mentioned a few times today,
it can feel like I'm kind of stuck in
the lifestyle that I'm leading right now
or my particular choices or habits
or cravings or things that are like
drawing me towards them that I really wish
I could cut out or do differently.
Timing.
And we didn't talk about this,
but the sun sun fast.
For me, I used to do no food on Sundays.
Yeah, now used to just be my day to fast
because my money's so busy.
That's gone.
It's back now. That used to be my no food.
Like I just didn't eat Sundays.
I would have dinner and whatever we did
Saturday and Saturday night
and then I would just go all the way
until lunch time on Monday.
Yeah. Then I went away for some reason.
Yes. Time.
So your point that you were just saying
sometimes something really good
just kind of falls by the wayside.
Like out of sight, out of mind sometimes.
Right.
And so keeping
keeping up with that consistency
and kind of connecting it to other things
that are important means that
that's one of those ways to kind of short,
short circuit and insulate yourself
with your environmental game
right there,
connecting those habits together.
So absolutely do something today
to kind of level up your your habit
stacking, level up.
Your decisions are
that you're actually making today,
whether that's like getting started
with a nomad one meal a day,
like to download the fast hour
guide or leveling up your your fast
and go get the
the blueprint of fasting for fat loss
like or sign up for the challenge
if you feel like you've been kind of
I've already done those things right Yeah
yeah yeah
I've been stuck in a rut or need to boost.
Yeah whatever the case may be like
do something to rocket yourself
out of your comfort zone a little bit
and like, take some new action.
And that way we can start
building the consistency on top of that.
So recap.
Step one Identify the goal.
Action.
Step two Break it down into progressive
stages.
Step three Make sure to make it too easy.
Step four Progress through those stages.
Step five stay consistent.
And I'm going to end Tommy
with a couple of key statements and things
that we kind of say often
inside of coaching is consistency
or the definition of consistency,
the ability to replicate a process
or activity with the same level or quality
over and over and over again,
the adherence of the same principles
in a steadfast way.
Consistency is what transforms average
in to excellence.
Absolutely.
That, my friend, is an incredible
way to end the podcast.
But you say so myself. All right, tell me.
I just show notes, click the links,
sign up for the challenge.
You know what to do. As always.
Sure appreciate the conversation.
We'll talk soon. Thank you. Bye.
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