Ep. 216 - Tommy’s 7-Day Fast, Pt. 2 | Breaking longer fasts, sleep, & energy | Fasting Exercise, Body Composition & Weight Maintenance | Clean Fasts for Blood Sugar, Therapeutic Ketosis, & Weight Loss | Reducing “food urgency” | LMNT | Nutrisense CGM
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In today’s episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy explore extended fasting, emphasizing its benefits beyond weight loss. The discussion covers personal experiences, planning, and tracking during a fast, including factors like sodium intake and ketone levels. They stress the strength in choosing to fast and maintaining routine activities.
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Fasting For Life Ep. 216 Transcript
[00:00:02] Hey everyone, welcome to the fasting for life podcast. My name is Doctor Scott Watier and I'm here as always. I'm a good friend and colleague. Tommy Welling, good afternoon to you, sir. Hey, Scott. How are you? Fantastic my friend. I'm excited for today's conversation. Yeah, because we get to dive back into the mind. Of a mr. Tommy Welling the mind of a madman, unpack his seven day fasting. Experience his seven day fasting. Extravaganza. I'm going to think of other e words that I can put in here descriptors, but we're actually recording this, uh, on your birthday, so happy birthday, sir. Thank you. Um, this is, uh, day one post seven day fast. Yes. So we're going to dive into the mind. Extravagant mind. There's another word for you. Of Mr. Tommy Wellings. Exorbitant seven day fast. Oh, man. Just kidding. I'll stop. Um. I'm excited. So when we prep for this, we really put some intention into what we're going to talk about. So before we get into it, I want to welcome everybody in. If you are new to the podcast welcome, head back and listen to the previous episode, which is part one, uh, that we recorded. Uh, I believe it was on day one of your seven day. Correct? I think so, yeah. Day one of your seven day fast. And now we're going to be kind of coming back around and putting a bow on it, talking through some of the things that you experienced. So if you're new, uh, head back, listen to part one. Uh, thank you for giving us a listen. Giving us a shot. Um.
[00:01:50] If you want to know more about our long Terme journey and how fasting and adopting a fasting lifestyle has transformed our lives, head back to episode one. We tell our story 30 minutes or less, I believe. Uh, and it gives you the ins and outs of why we do what we do, why we're on a mission to help people lose weight through the tried and true art of fasting to reverse diabetes, to decrease meds, to improve their quality of life and longevity. Um, through the tried and true art of fasting. So we're going to tackle a seven day fast, or you are tackled a seven day fast. We want to give you some perspective into what that looks like. If you're an OG or a long time listener, uh, we really appreciate you as well. Uh, appreciate all the five star reviews. Those are obviously our favorite kind. Thankfully, we have hundreds of them that tells. We're very grateful for that. Um, that tells the podcast world that we're bringing value each and every week. So rate, subscribe, review, download tat tag, share whatever the join follow, join whatever they call the metric. Now um, but we also if you do have a moment, we'd love to hear from you. Um, and give us, um, some feedback as well. So shout out to Edmund, who emailed in today at 1:46 p.m.. We're recording this at 2:21 p.m., so just within the last 30 minutes, in real time. What did he say? Um, he said, I want to talk about episode 189. In my resting heart rate, I'm 55 years old. 510, 121 was 188 now, 164.
[00:03:26] All right, let's go.
[00:03:27] Heck yeah. Started November 25th. Nice day after Thanksgiving, right?
[00:03:32] Wow, a month and a half.
[00:03:33] Yeah. Only did it because my wife was doing it, and I figured, why not? Why not? I'll join the fun. And it's been nothing but amazing success. I'd like to, uh, success. I'd like to send you the meter on my heart rate. It was shocking on how low it was after a month and a half of fasting.
[00:03:53] Wow. So, I mean, that's huge. Resting heart rate.
[00:03:57] Incredible.
[00:03:58] You feel it? I mean, you're just sitting there and, like, if you got some extra pounds and it starts to creep up, I mean, it's like, I gotta I gotta breathe more often. I just feel this kind of weight on my chest versus, you know, taking that off of there. I mean, that's incredible. That's, you know, I mean, you're you're starting to burn some of that fat around the midsection and some of that visceral fat, too, taking some of the pressure off of the organ systems right there. And it didn't didn't take all that long either. That's listen, Evan.
[00:04:23] You're one five ton, 188. Right. You're doing pretty good. Yeah. Right. Compared to the masses, man. And now you're healthier. Resting heart rate's come down. That's what we talked about. Moving the longevity metric. Moving the long Terme health metric. Um and we're going to talk about that with your, uh, intention of doing this seven day fast. We talked a little bit about it. What you were going to be doing, what you were expecting. Um, um, the mindset. But we'll go over today about the takeaways of the seven day fast. And we shared all of the benefits of, you know, hour by hour, right, of, you know, what happens at 15 hours, 17 to 18 hours, 24 hours, 72 hours. Um, so as you were nearing your 40th. Birthday in your fourth decade?
[00:05:12] Well, yeah, in going into my fifth, like closing. Closing for decade. For going.
[00:05:16] Five. Right? Yeah. Um, that's the whole question when you're born. Are you one. Yeah. Right. You don't get your first.
[00:05:23] You're no you're zero you're zero.
[00:05:25] Right.
[00:05:25] So you haven't earned it.
[00:05:26] You haven't earned it yet, right. No. Um, so you shared a few things with me and that's what we're going to start. Then we'll go over, you know, some of the metrics you tracked, what was perfect, what wasn't perfect, where your highs and lows were, and your ketones, how you broke it, decisions you made, expectations of weight loss, staying vigilant. Your CGM, you did. No caffeine. Um, you worked out hard five of the seven days. So we're going to go through all of that. But you said a couple of things that were really interesting to me when you were, you know, going into because my wife says this and you mentioned it as well in terms of prep, um, you know, how you what you do on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day is the intention you're going to set and the things you're going to bring with you right throughout the year. Yeah. So as you were coming up on your fifth decade, right, um, closing out for the big four zero, um, what were some of those things that you were looking to do to bring that intention with you by doing the seven day fast, man?
[00:06:25] I mean, like, I always kind of looked at, um, when I, when I think of like, a lifespan, you know, kind of time frame, I just always had this number 80 in, in mind, like, since being a kid. So 40 feels like, you know, you talk about, um, like a midlife crisis or like, halfway, you know, like, like just just defining midlife to me, was just always kind of had this, this 40 number. Um, and I didn't really think about that too much. Um, but over the last few years, with fasting and adopting a fasting lifestyle, um, it it just felt like I really wanted to kind of do a deep cellular clean, like I've done a few, like five and seven day, uh, fasts in the past. Um, I do, you know, 1 or 2, usually seven day fasts each year for the last few years. Um, but, you know, just I like I have a lot of, you know, family history of of various things and young cancers and, and, you know, some heart disease and some heart attacks and things like that. So, um, anything that I can do to keep those things at bay or kind of optimize my quality of life as well as my likelihood.
[00:07:30] Mitigate, mitigate the mitigate. Right? Yeah. Because you had some stuff, you know, at a younger age with for sure, um, you know, inflammation and. Oh, yeah, uh, respiratory stuff. And it was, yeah, blood sugar and all of that. Right. So sleep.
[00:07:42] Apnea. Yeah.
[00:07:43] Sleep apnea. I always want to say COPD. But you were like.
[00:07:46] Yeah, well I, I was on track for early COPD. I'll say that even though I've never smoked um in my life. So um, but and that's mostly because of the family history stuff. So um, so going into, you know, like, like this birthday and, and just in particular, um, it, it felt like I wanted to set the intention with, what am I doing on the time? Not like a New Year's resolution. So not like I'm going to start January 1st, but I've been putting some intention behind the last month or two going, hey, you know, what is is are there some other habits that I want to stack on top of what I've, what I'm already doing consistently? What what else? Like I'd like to keep, you know, kind of pushing the boundaries of that, like expanding my, my comfort zone more and more and more. And, um, and that's part of where the caffeine came from to just kind of setting that aside. I wanted to be able to to kind of see what my energy levels were like and see what my body was doing through this seven day fast when there were very few moving parts, you know, like exercise was its own moving part. Uh, sleep is as well. But when, when you, you don't have food coming in all the time, um, it's like it's like the the waters get clearer, so you can, like, read the signals better. It's kind of like when I was eating three, four, five, six times a day. Well, maybe even 7 or 8 times a day, depending on how much I grazed one day. Then it's this is.
[00:09:13] Back in your calorie counting, tracking, weighing, you know, getting on the elliptical to burn some more. So yeah, eat less, move more days. Okay.
[00:09:20] Right. The the hunger waves and like the ups and downs and blood sugar and hunger signals and all of these kind of things were it was very difficult to read any signals that were actually like coming from my, my brain or the rest of my body as far as like true hunger, energy levels, how do I think my sleep is? It's like I was throwing in so many variables that it was really hard to to kind of, um, you know, figure things out.
[00:09:45] So what I heard there was you were, you know, in, in, you know, fasting for five years now. Right? It's a lifestyle. Right? So what I heard there was removing some of the static, right. And really trying to see at a baseline, you know, what your body would do with a seven day fast. Yeah. We are in the camp.
[00:10:04] Clean data.
[00:10:05] Yes. As clean as you can. Right. With some new metrics. And things that you were doing. Um, so we know the physiological benefits. We're in the camp of doing a 5 to 7 day fast, 1 to 2 times a year. Right. Valter Longo, senescent cells. Um. All of the cleanup right. And prevention category for longevity. So some of y'all are like, well man, I don't I can't even think about making it to 72 because I've got some fear or some some. Decisions that I've already made in my brain that I can't do it or I'm not going to do it, or there's no benefit to it. Right? So we're not saying that everybody needs to do a seven day fast. Sure. But there's some pretty powerful stuff out there that shows that a seven day fast is really restorative. Right. So we're in the camp that 1 to 2 times a year. And I'll keep my interpretation or my experience out of this because I did join you a day late. Yeah. So as we're recording this I'll be breaking my fast tonight. Seven days. That's awesome. Um, I did not go into this with, you know, since I'm already a couple of years your elder, uh, you know, a well, let me just clear out all the static. So I had the caffeine, my sleep was up. Like, I'm not even going to muddy the waters with bringing my dirty laundry into this. Um, we have one of those episodes right where I was on the couch already. We don't need. We don't need, uh, if I recall, it's in the 70s somewhere if you want to go back and look at it. So when we're looking at some of the metrics, um, and some of the expectations, let's talk about the expectation of weight loss. And then we'll go into some of the metrics okay.
[00:11:48] So so.
[00:11:48] Yeah. What were you thinking because you've been at. Working on body comp and pretty close to maintenance for a while, right?
[00:11:55] Correct. Yeah. So and the the other thing that I wanted to highlight that I forgot to mention was just the fact that I, I think coming off of a seven day fast or, or any, you know, extended fast if you will like, you know, anything more than a couple of days, um, your, your patience for food and food making decisions is going to be at an all time high because you've literally said no or not yet, or just kind of pushed aside the opportunity for eating and and making food related decisions for multiple days. That's that's a skill set. That's a muscle that you don't normally just flex all that often. So the, you know, you have a high level of muscle tone, if you will, on that ability coming off of a seven day fast. And I was really looking forward to that as I kind of come into this, into my birthday and, you know, a new year, I thought it was a cool time for it as well, just to have that, um, like a, like a lack of urgency as far as food making decisions, like, I like, I love food, I enjoy it, um, I make really, really good food, making our food decisions most of the time. And, um, but I just wanted to kind of separate some of the urgency. That's, that's really natural. You know, as far as, you know, it could be like an emotional relationship with food or it could be cravings or, you know, it could be salty, it could be sweet, it could be a time of day, whatever it is. But for me, overall, uh, just lowering that level of urgency was also a priority here, too, because I know my food choices throughout the year are are really going to be at the core of how does this year go? What is my health outlook and profile look like at the end of the year? It's going to be based a lot around what my food choices were all throughout the year.
[00:13:45] What is my blood work look like? What is my body composition at the end of the year versus the beginning of the year? All of these kind of things kind of factored into why do this as well? Because because again, it's not about the weight loss. The weight loss is not optimal. Once you get past around a 72 hour fast. That's just what the data shows. You have this this peak in growth hormone that that happens, you know, earlier on you have like this, this increase in adrenaline that, you know, it's it's theorized that it's it's food seeking, you know, related. But you don't necessarily continue to feel it doesn't just continue to grow infinitely, you know, throughout the fast. So a lot of things peak, you know, after, you know, 2 or 3 or maybe even five days fasted. But, you know, for me, I didn't expect very much to come off of the scale. And I was, um. Because I had a lot of, you know, food choices were were good. Fasting windows were tight. Um, I had even done like a burn day just a few days before the seven day fast, maybe like 2 or 3 days before that. So I didn't expect a lot of scale movement. The scale had been has been very stable. Um, you were pretty.
[00:14:55] Glycogen depleted, is what I'm hearing.
[00:14:57] Correct?
[00:14:57] You were coming off a holiday season where you're like, it kind of did okay, or kind of wishy washy or no, feel a little puffy, right? Like you were you were intentionally going into this cleanly.
[00:15:10] Yeah. And I mean, we did, you know, have multiple get togethers around the holidays, but that, that was, that was more than a week, you know, prior. Yeah. And even even then it was it was nothing crazy. You know I, I enjoyed it but I didn't really overconsume.
[00:15:27] So so your expectation coming into this in terms of so I heard, I heard I heard a, a multi-level discipline type delayed gratification. Right. Removing the urgency from the food choices. Mhm. Um, setting the intention for the fifth decade plus the remainder of the year, like right. Making progress on the goals that you're, that you're working on. Um it's cyclical right. You know six out of seven people can lose the weight. But we know 98% by the five year mark is giving it back. Right? So it's like really beginning with the end in mind. What's that sustainability piece. So when you say the expectation was not uh was was for not a lot of scale movement. Um, I have that same experience where past that 72 mark day 4 or 5. It kind of levels out because now you're in deep nutritional ketosis, or you'll share your numbers here where you got into like therapeutic gqi levels that you've never reached before for. Yeah, for sure. The body's not going to be focused on burning fat anymore, right? It's doing other stuff. So yeah. Um, your expectation for the weight loss was minimal. But then what was the actual result?
[00:16:35] Yeah. So the first couple of days, um, the result met my expectations where it was only like maybe 0.6 or 0.8 down the first day. And maybe I think it was another point two the next day. Um, but then going into like day four, um, I think that was when I had, uh, probably like a two, a like a £2 drop. And then it was, it was pretty much like £1 or a little bit more than a pound going every single day after that. So by by day seven, whenever I stepped on the scale, it was minus ten from the day before. And I was like, wow, this is this is pretty crazy. So, um, and I, I don't know exactly how to reconcile that. Um, because there's a lot of moving parts. I don't like to try to predict the scale. So this is one of those times when I did actually try to predict the scale, kind of, um, and I didn't really mean to. I just didn't have a big, you know, like, kind of weight loss expectation, like, basically, yeah.
[00:17:40] You weren't doing it for that either though for sure. Right. Yeah.
[00:17:43] So so it wasn't a driving factor. But I did definitely want to check in every single day. Um, I wanted to kind of document this. Yeah. Because I haven't done this in the past where I, where I documented each day of it. So.
[00:17:55] So what were some of the metrics then that you saw? Because you were because when we talk about like ketones, it's cyclical. We talk about blood sugar. It's cyclical. Nothing is black or white. It's always on a sliding scale of where are you on the fat burning fat storage? Where is your glycogen levels? Where is your insulin? How is your sleep? How is your stress, how's your activity level, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, we're a few of the big things in terms of high lows with ketones or metrics. Um, and what were some of the things that you were doing on a daily basis that you were tracking? Vigilant, diligent, vigilantly, vigilantly. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, with. I'll blame day seven of a seven day fast. Um, yeah. With, uh, less than perfect sleep. Um, what were some of those things that you were doing daily that you were tracking, and what were the some of the metrics that you tracked and saw changes in?
[00:18:46] Yeah. So I was I was looking at my blood sugar and my ketones with my keto mojo. Um, so I would do those in the morning, like upon waking. And then I would do a midday. And um, so sometimes the morning instead of upon waking, sometimes I did it just a little bit after, um, an intense workout. Um, because I was curious how that was affected. And, um, I was also wearing a CGM as well.
[00:19:10] So I you're wearing neutral sense as well, right? Yes, I was okay.
[00:19:13] Cool. And so so that was cool too. And I'll come back to that as well. But with um, with taking the blood and seeing what my blood sugar and ketones were doing, I mean, they kind of started off like, um, you know, day one, uh, I got into point seven on my ketones, and so, so you're starting to enter the nutritional ketosis side of things, which I wasn't all that surprised by. Um, about 24 hours in, uh, because I had made some good food choices the previous day and things like that.
[00:19:42] So what I just heard there is you for new, new people is you got into ketosis, ideal nutritional weight loss, ketosis pretty quickly. I did because that range goes from 0.5 all the way up to. It depending on the individual nutritional ketosis is, you know, 0.5, uh, up to about 1.5. And then optimal weight loss zone is 1 to 1.5, all the way up to 2 to 2.5.
[00:20:08] Um, yeah.
[00:20:09] So really you got into it quickly, which was cool.
[00:20:13] Yeah, it was cool. And, you know, um, blood glucose was 75. It stayed, uh, pretty stable. And again, I'll come back to that in a minute, but, um, usually around 70 to 80 was was most of the readings. Um, and then so, you know, next day I saw a peak ketones 0.9. Um, so, you know, this is, this is all to be expected by the by the next day, though, um, I think that was going into day, day three. Um, I saw 2.7 on my ketones, which is probably among my, you know, like most of my highest readings are somewhere in the 2.5 to, to like 3.2 kind of range. Um, and maybe, maybe some of my highest ones. Um, I don't know if I'd ever gone above like 3.2 or 3.4 before this fast, but then, um, by day. By day four, though, I saw glucose reading of 58 okay, feeling great. Glucose was 58 and then ketones had soared to 3.9 at this point. So now it's starting to give me a therapeutic range. Um, which again, that's that was the point of this fast. And so that was cool because I had I have never seen a 3.9 before that. Um, and I and I was also curious how I was going to be feeling as, as it started to climb, you know, like that as well, because you're not always going to feel 100%. You're not going to necessarily just feel like, oh, okay. Everything's everything's just, you know, great and perfect.
[00:21:39] You might it might feel a little bit weird. You could at 3.9 or at a higher level versus when they're in that, you know, just really strong, you know, nutritional range. Um, so and then by the following day, I actually saw in, in the sevens, I saw ketones in the sevens. And, and that one like really took me aback. But again, feeling great, feeling the same as, as the day before. So I couldn't tell a difference. And I would have I would not have predicted, um, that it was that it was that high at that point. So again, just like not trying to predict the scale, I don't like to try to predict like blood sugar, you know, is is a little less variable, I guess, whenever there's not food coming in. But ketones can be very tricky to try to predict. So anybody out there who's using a keto mojo or anything else to to track ketones, it's not always about that. Higher is better. And then it's also very difficult to, um, to kind of, you know, predict what that what that would be. And I have a feeling that going into some more intense workouts, uh, tends to make ketones climb as well, because you're putting a metabolic demand on the body. And if blood sugar is just nowhere to be found, all of a sudden it needs to rev up, produce some ketones and, you know, kind of fuel, fuel the activity in the moment.
[00:22:52] And there's really cool research. Uh, Doctor Ben Beekman, um, you know, his lab and his research on the protective nature of ketones, you know, for the brain, for Alzheimer's, dementia, Parkinson's, neurodegenerative conditions, etc.. Yeah. So therapeutic ketosis is really cool that our body has the ability to do that, right? Yeah. So I'm hearing a lot of positives like yep, rainbows and unicorns right.
[00:23:19] So it was not all rainbows right.
[00:23:21] So let's talk about what wasn't good. Right. Where were those times that weren't always comfortable for you. Yeah. During the seven days.
[00:23:29] Well, um, I'll, I'll start with sleep because I'm, you know, I've traditionally just had an easy time falling asleep, and I don't tend to wake up a lot in the middle of the night. It's not that my sleep is perfect or that I've always gotten enough. I definitely have have deprived myself of sleep for for many, many years. But I don't typically do that very often anymore. Um, but. I don't know if it was the ketones or maybe some adrenaline, or maybe my my workouts in in the morning or or what it was. And you know, it could have been hydration too, but I definitely had a harder time on a couple of the days with sleep. So I had like, I'm wearing a hoop. And so I was tracking that as well. And so it gives me a lot of good sleep data. And I noticed like more waking events on a couple of the days and then a lower recovery than what I had been expecting to, even though I was asleep for for more or for plenty of time. But it's like there was like some restlessness with that sleep. And a couple of times I was up at either, you know, 2:00 or 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning when, when the, the goal was five, you know, somewhere in the 5 to 6 kind of range. And sometimes it was tough to get back to sleep. So that was that was weird.
[00:24:47] Two nights out of the seven, it.
[00:24:48] Was, it was two nights where like like I would say poor sleep, you know, like five or lower. And then there was one other night that was probably like a six. That was like a, like a midpoint. And I think it was like, um, I think it was like good, good medium and then poor, poor and then back to back to medium. And then, uh, so last night, last night was was a good sleep, but but not but still like a yellow on the recovery side. So you know, first day first day back after, you know, breaking my fast. So, uh, hoping, hoping that tonight will be a little bit better. But that's an important thing because I know, like first coming into fasting even. It was tough.
[00:25:31] First night you go to bed without eating.
[00:25:33] Oh, man, that can be.
[00:25:34] The second night you try to extend do a third 24 plus hour fast. Those are typically the first few times you do it right.
[00:25:41] Yeah, yeah. That can be uncomfortable.
[00:25:44] You got for me every time I get to that three day 2 to 3 day mark every time.
[00:25:49] Yeah. That's like your your no man's land. Like your danger zone one.
[00:25:52] Of these days. One of these longer fast. Right.
[00:25:55] I mean, you know, keep pushing because like every, every facet is different for sure. And, you know, I'm just like talking to you across this seven day fast versus the last time that you did a longer fast is like I mean, it's it's very different, right. Like like this one's smoother. It's it's easier than the than the last one. Yeah. But uh, so you never really know how it's going to go. I mean, of course, preparation goes a long way, but, um, the commitment to the Y is kind of what kept me going, like, okay, let me observe what's happening during this fast rather than, like, living and dying by how I'm feeling in the moment, you know? And I mean, there was there was probably like six ounces of pickle juice that I drink as well, you know, from time to time it was like, so would that.
[00:26:42] Be one of the times when it wasn't fun or not always great? Yeah. 100 or a little uncomfortable because you didn't really give us any of those. You're like, well, I had a couple nights of sleep that were like, meh. And then overall it was good. You know, I was rested, had lots of energy. Right? So I'm just I'm trying to like, all right, come on, air the laundry.
[00:27:00] Air the laundry. Okay. So like there there were.
[00:27:03] Teeth over here.
[00:27:04] Right? Yeah. Sorry. Um, I had to, you know, I well, I had to. I went with the family to a mediterranean, like an all you can eat kind of place. Thank you. So here we I was there, I was there fasted. And, you know, I walk in and I go, hey, I'm not eating.
[00:27:21] You know, you text me all you can eat Mediterranean. I'm like, why are you doing this to yourself? I think.
[00:27:25] You said Godspeed or I.
[00:27:27] Did. I said, Godspeed, sir. And then in the back of my head, I'm like, you idiot. Yeah.
[00:27:33] So, I mean, my my stomach was going wild in there, you know, but I didn't I didn't walk out and, you know, hey, sometimes I've done that in the past where I just, you know, took a walk, like, like left a restaurant before because I was fasting.
[00:27:44] Okay, stop. Hold on. If you are committed to doing a seven day fast, there's never a perfect time.
[00:27:53] 100%.
[00:27:54] There's never a perfect time because there's always something. Yeah, you're a little monkey brain is going to say, well, guess what? You can do the same damn thing with a three day fast.
[00:28:04] Mhm.
[00:28:04] Ah, there's never a perfect time. Right. I got this work thing. I got this thing. So that's the big takeaway here that I just want to highlight. Yeah. So when you said y you can say the.
[00:28:13] Same thing about skipping dinner though you could. Hey I got dinner with the family.
[00:28:16] Well dinner is important because of my family my husband, my kids, whatever. Yeah. Okay. Well, I already ate. Sorry. I got blood work tomorrow. You're not going to eat dinner that night, are you? All right?
[00:28:23] It's okay. You can still sit and connect. Like you don't have to be chewing during that. I mean, like, if saying saying no to one dinner once in a while might be the difference between your health and living in the muck. You know, where you where you where you feel stuck.
[00:28:40] So. There was another day.
[00:28:44] Mhm.
[00:28:45] Sunday. Family day. Yeah.
[00:28:47] Family day. Yep yep. That was it. So I mean they were coming over full force. Full effect. And uh like, you know, trays of food. We were making a taco bar and like, I, I, uh, I knew that this was happening before I scheduled the fast, you know? But, man, I wanted to participate in this. It sounded like a lot of fun. It smelled delicious in there. Um, you were grilling.
[00:29:11] You were cooking?
[00:29:12] Oh, yeah, I was. I wasn't.
[00:29:13] Avoiding drinks. You were doing it all. Yeah.
[00:29:16] And everyone's like, uh. What? Like, as soon as they. They walked in because they didn't know walking in, they just thought I was going to be partaking in, in the food and the beverages and just kind of the all day, you know, grazing that they kind of had set up. We had some home projects and getting ready for a freeze. And, um, you know, it was just it was a nice get together, but and I was I was present in all of it. Enjoyed the heck out of it. Right. But but, you know, uh, I didn't I had some pickle juice because, again, my stomach was just kind of going wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it feels it feels a little uncomfortable, but it still, looking back, it was definitely worth it. Although I'm never going to say like it was easy in the in that moment, you know. But it didn't last all that long. You know, maybe like ten, 15 minutes. So.
[00:30:03] Yep. And that was like over my birthday. Um, I checked my wife made sure we didn't have plans, and she's like, what do you want to do? I'm like, well, I kind of want to do a longer fast. So I fasted over the birthday, right. Like nice. Yeah. People are like, what do you mean? Like, what are you doing that I'm like, it's I just, I want to write. Like I'm doing it for me, right? So I love that. All right. Um, let's talk about we talked about sleep. Um, and then a couple other notes here that I have is you worked out hard five of the seven days, and then you were also doing plunges, workouts and saunas. Right. Um, and then we're going to talk about how you broke your fast. So you worked out hard five of the seven days you did your new needle moving heart rate variability, increasing visceral fat, reducing body composition, optimizing, optimizing things. Some of you going I this is the first time I've ever listened to a podcast like, can you go back to the whole ketone thing? All right. What was that? What's a gki? Okay. It's all in the episodes, I promise you. But you were doing working out hard. You were doing these other things. So talk about those and staying vigilant. During this process.
[00:31:18] So staying vigilant to me means like what? What can I control? What can I put into more like a, like a sustainable routine where I kind of have a time slot open for something that I know I can do that I want to commit to. So like the cold plunge now is like over the last year. That's just how I kind of start the day. Um, but. We like adding in, going and doing heavy weights, and then ending that with a sauna session is again all about, you know, optimizing body composition as well as decreasing visceral fat, as well as making making intentional, deliberate choices that I can kind of put into my routine that also support healthy lifestyle choices throughout the day. It's it's not that I have to be going into the gym or doing a class or something hardcore in order to like, earn my my next, you know, cheat meal or indulgent meal or something else like that. But I like it because when I make decisions early in the day, even if they're not easy ones, um, they can help carry on through like food choices later on in the day. It makes more sense to make good food choices and good fasting choices. After I made good first morning, you know, early in the morning choices too.
[00:32:42] So how did those workouts feel? Because now, see, there is something, you know, fed fasted workouts versus fed workouts. Fasted cardio versus fed cardio. Um, cold plunge before after working out. It shows that it can cold plunge after working out. Can actually attenuate muscle growth, right? Yeah, it can decrease inflammation, have a great effect on immune system and dopamine. But slow down those gains. It can slow down those gains. Right. So if you do it before there's some research that just came out that you actually see a major increase in testosterone. Right. Which then can potentially increase muscle growth with, you know, adequate protein consumption, etc.. So working out hard, you've never done a long, fast and worked out hard right. No. Mhm. Right. So why.
[00:33:30] Um.
[00:33:31] And you felt great.
[00:33:32] I felt awesome, and not not to sugarcoat it. Um, uh, the day my my day one and day two were like, good. And then day three was like, awesome. You know, it felt like I upped the weights and my, um, my endurance was higher for sure. And then it even it even, um, it even lessened the effect or like it required more sauna time to get my heart rate as high. So it's like my, my resting heart rate was lowering, my heart rate variability was was fairly high, you know, throughout the fast um, as measured by my woop. It wasn't always like at top level, although I did hit a new like peak level. Um, but it was. It was good to the point that going into the sauna was like, um, was easier. Bye.
[00:34:25] How was your energy without the caffeine? Yeah. These workouts, it was.
[00:34:29] It was just super stable, which is what I was kind of hoping for, because what I had realized making just good intentional food choices kind of in preparation for this, but also just kind of coming off of the holiday time. Um, I had I had only had maybe 1 or 2 days where I had caffeine in the, the week and a half or so leading up to the starting this fast. So it just made sense to keep it out of the equation until, um, so I did have caffeine on day seven, because what I also wanted to do was track on my nutrients on my CGM to see what the what my blood sugar range was as as I went throughout the fast, because what I assumed is that the range was going to tighten up, you know, so normally, you know, meal time, I might have a 30 point spike and then it's always a matter of what were my food choices, what was the time of day, and did I go for a walk afterwards to see what that area under the curve like? How long does it take to come back to normal levels? So I expected that range to tighten up. But the cool thing was day day 1 to 3 was kind of the same range. And then and then it really kind of shifted where it kind of, uh, it tightened up after that and all through the rest of the fast, instead of being maybe a 20 or 25 point range, it kind of tightened up to maybe a 12 to 15 point range. So that was cool because what I.
[00:35:51] Also 30 to 40 is yeah, what really normal. But you were really dialing it in. Sure. Right. It's like the insulin resistance level. Some labs say five, some say seven all the way up to 24. Right? Yeah. Well, anything under seven we know decreases your insulin resistance risk, which then decreases your metabolic syndrome risk, which decreases your diabetes and heart disease risk. Right. All cause mortality risk goes down. So when we're looking at area under the curve, you know you saw some numbers that were below the meter being like hey like hey you got to get this checked out over here. Red alert. It's too.
[00:36:25] Low 58.
[00:36:26] Yeah. Yeah it doesn't like 58. Right. But your body is such a high level of ketones that it's going through that healing process and that therapeutic gki number. Right. So your energy levels.
[00:36:35] Lower numbers than that in, in fast, fast in the past. But um, you know, for whatever reason, I think 58 was or 57 was, was the low this time. So felt felt.
[00:36:46] Great. Good energy felt great, workouts were good. The reason we're talking about these things specifically is because, see, there's some of the rate limiting steps or the hurdles that people shy away from doing longer fasts. Right? So I really want to make sure that we highlight those. All right. Let's talk in the last couple of minutes here, um, how you broke it and the decisions you made when you broke it.
[00:37:06] Uh, one more note about the caffeine. I also wanted to feel like what are my energy levels upon waking? And then what is that? What what's the natural fluctuations of that without, again, putting in more variables? So I and you're not a.
[00:37:21] Huge caffeine guy. Like, if we were going to raid our caffeine consumption like I'm, I'm probably no, I know I'm higher on that level. Um, working on it. Um, right. You know, so alcohol is gone for me. Um, caffeine is next. Um, yeah. It's a love hate. So I love that you're like, yeah, I want to know what normal what baseline. Yeah. Feels like. Right. Baseline.
[00:37:43] I shouldn't.
[00:37:44] Need caffeine. Right. But I also have a. You know, less than two year old.
[00:37:50] Yeah. Yeah, I don't have I don't have one of those anymore.
[00:37:53] Right. So, you know, it's like different variables. But my point of bringing that up was, um. Your baseline energy levels like we should feel good on any given day. Yeah, we shouldn't feel like we slip in most of the time. We shouldn't feel like we slip into a food coma every day after lunch, right? We shouldn't feel tired or have sleep disturbance like we should feel good. Our body is designed to heal. It's designed to have natural energy fluctuations. It's designed to be tired after a stressful mental or physical day. Yeah. So I just love that.
[00:38:28] That you can interpret.
[00:38:29] Give you your hunger and sleep cues. Yes, your circadian rhythm cues like, oh, I'm tired, maybe I should go to bed and not scroll Netflix or whatever until 1130, right? So I just love that, that that final point on caffeine. Yeah.
[00:38:43] Well, what was your what was your previous question? Was it how.
[00:38:46] You we're gonna we're gonna wrap up with how you broke it and some of the decisions that you made when you broke it.
[00:38:51] Mhm. So, um, I think I mentioned it last time we talked that I didn't want to spend too much time thinking about food, you know. So again, barring the exception of, you know, being the grill master or you know, serving, you know, during the, during the family times. Um, for the most part I wasn't thinking a lot about food. Um, so that's, that's definitely a good thing. And, um, served me well, so I didn't I didn't put any thought to it until maybe, like, day six. Really, um, about how I was going to break the fast. And so, um, I started off with some bone broth, um, and it was, it was intentionally chosen, um, it was one that was mostly protein. And so it was a kettle and fire. It was their turmeric ginger one, which I hadn't actually tried, but I was just going based on macronutrient ratios because I wanted it to be mostly protein. Um, because as you, as you get into deeper levels of ketosis, then the body's really, really tuned to burn fat at that point. So carbohydrates, um, are metabolically a bit tougher. You're not going to feel quite as well. They're going to slow you down a lot more like like slamming the brakes when you're cruising down the highway kind of thing. Um, so I didn't want to do anything high carb. And then but I also didn't want to, like, overload my stomach that hasn't been moving around or doing anything for for a full week. So I also didn't want to put a lot of heavy fats on. Yeah, don't.
[00:40:15] Eat a giant 20 ounce ribeye to break your fast. Yeah, I.
[00:40:18] As as as good as that would have sounded right at the moment. I wouldn't have felt great afterwards. So I also put a few cucumber I mean uh, excuse me, pickle spears with it. We didn't actually have any cucumbers, uh, at the time, so I grabbed some pickle spears. Um, I measured out my almonds, which I never do. So I did an a, uh, a fourth of a cup. Excuse me, of almonds. Um.
[00:40:39] Ate some cardboard. Good for you.
[00:40:41] Yeah. I didn't particularly enjoy them, but. Yeah. You know, it's, um. I'm just trying to give give the body deliberate signals that. Hey, we're working again. Okay, get back to work here. And, um, and then I put a cheese stick, like a, um. I can't remember the the brand right now. What's the, um, like the Irish butter organic valley.
[00:40:59] Oh. Oh. Kerrygold.
[00:41:01] Kerrygold. Yeah. They have some good cheese sticks, so I put a cheese stick on there. Kerrygold has cheese sticks. Oh, yeah. And they're, they're incredible.
[00:41:08] So for their $8 a cheese stick. But I haven't seen those yet.
[00:41:10] Yeah. Not not quite but but they are here. They are better than your average cheese stick. If you can if you can find one. And then I put a few, uh, deviled eggs. Me deviled eggs. I had made them the night before in preparation because I, because I knew well, my my family loves them, too. But, um, I was like, yeah, you know what? I'd like that on my fast breaking plate. So, so I had, uh, four, uh, maybe five, um, like half, half of an egg. And so I, I ate that over, like a 45 minute period, like nothing.
[00:41:38] And you had a date night? Yes. And a birthday pre-birthday kind of little celebration, right. Mhm.
[00:41:44] That was, that was later. So there was a, there was a few hours in between. Got it. And. Yeah. So I just, I just kind of spanned that out. And then when I went later for the date night that was there was no alcohol there. It was basically like keto choices. And I went easy on the volume of food too, because I'm still I'm still easing back into this like, don't there's there's no need to rush getting back to eating.
[00:42:10] Why no alcohol?
[00:42:14] Uh, why no alcohol? It's a great question. Now I feel like I'm on the couch. Um, because. Because it's like it's a whole separate job for the body to start focusing on detoxification, because when you bring alcohol in that that's job number one, that your your body has to go into detoxification mode. So nothing else is a priority. But again, the whole intention of this fast is it's autophagy. It's healing, it's longevity, it's quality of life. Um. I wanted to to come into the end of that fast and going into my birthday with very clear signals that I was sending to my my brain, my subconscious, my my decision making and my my like, behavior patterns that this fast was about health, health and life quality. And I don't need to bring in alcohol as, as like a celebration of ending this like high quality, high intention fast. I almost wanted to protect protect it from that a little bit, even though it like, it sounded like a little bit of fun. Kind of nice in the moment. Uh, like, you know, relax on a date night after, you know, after after that. Yeah. My birthday. Um, but the the, the cons definitely heavily outweighed the pros. And I'm glad I made that choice because, um, I, you know, it's a it's a lot to kind of get your body back into gear, into food processing mode after it's been off for seven full days.
[00:43:49] I mean, that's that's a long time when, when normally, you know, it would be it would be processing food a couple of times every single day consistently. So I didn't I didn't need to distract it from any of the important work that that it was already, you know, doing and kind of getting back into the mode for. Plus, I imagine I would have felt probably pretty, I would have felt fuller and. Worse or like I wouldn't have felt as well. I would have felt like. Uh, like like in a down, a down shifted state for a while because until detoxification actually happened, then most of that food processing kind of goes on pause at that point. So it'll take me a lot longer to get through even the relatively small amount of food that I had had to break the fast and the date night food, I probably wouldn't have slept very well. And, um, that didn't sound like, like a good way to, to end, you know, such a such a good fast, you know?
[00:44:45] Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I love it so. People are out here listening to Tommy's. Extravagant seven day fast, right? Wasn't all bells and whistles. I really had to dig for that, right? You had to block that stuff out? Um.
[00:45:03] Yeah. Pulling out the dirty laundry.
[00:45:05] Action step for those folks, listening for why we felt it was good to talk about, you know, part one, part two of a seven day fast. Yeah. Well, one, I don't see it done often or talked about a lot, maybe on YouTube, but we're not big on YouTube. So maybe there's a bunch of seven day fasters out there. Sure. Um, but I also like the fact that you stripped it down, right? In terms of your baseline, your metrics, the workouts, the all the stuff that you're working on. Um, but what's an action step that we can leave everybody with? Uh, if you're looking for more guidance on what we think and how we process and what we think about fasting, or you need a reboot or a reset, head to the show notes. Click the link for the blueprint to Fasting for Fat Loss. It's a free 20 page PDF. It's got different fasting schedules, how to ramp up your fasting, how to increase your fasting times. The basics the who, what, when, where, why and how. Pretty much of how to apply fasting into your day to day life and to make a fasting lifestyle, but specifically for these longer fast. Tommy. Um, what's the action step that you think we should leave with today?
[00:46:10] I think for anybody listening, um, setting a goal for your next long fast your next long, longest fast. So, you know, book.
[00:46:20] It, put it on the calendar.
[00:46:22] Yeah, yeah. Carve out a little, carve out a time for it. Maybe. Maybe this week is a is a good time. And if it's not, maybe next week is a is a really good time. And it it doesn't have to be seven days. And you know if you're just jumping in it probably shouldn't be seven days all of a sudden. But at the same time your, your comfort zone is, is built around what you've done in the past and what you expect that you can achieve right now. So you need to kind of push into it, because as you push into it, you see different results than what you've gotten in the past too. So whatever that looks like for you take, you know, take a minute and, you know, set set an intention. What what would you like to see for yourself? Is it is it your first overnight? Is it your first like going without dinner so you can push into the next day? Is it pushing to 30 hours or maybe 40 hours, whatever it might be, you know, set, set a time for it and don't let it just kind of sit in your brain as like, oh, I'd like to do something like that, but then you kind of forget about it or other things get get reprioritized.
[00:47:25] So, um, if you can actually take the first step or two to, to put it in a, to put a plan into action, then you're much more likely to see yourself through the end of it. And then the next step after planning the time for it, would be to just come up with a few reasons why. Like, why is that so important to me? Why do I want to do this and then write those down? Because those are going to be important and they'll stick with you during some of those tough times when when things don't feel like ten out of ten, because it's certain that you'll have some times like those, but that doesn't mean you can't get through them. But remembering why you started can be a really big way to kind of pull you through some of those tough times and see it to the finish line.
[00:48:07] I love it, so book it, put it on the calendar. Just like if you have a goal, you got to write it down. Yep. Right. You don't believe the research? Don't believe the hype. Well it's true. Write it down. Put it in front of your face. So book it and then think of why you want to do it. Right. Yep. Because there is no ideal time. There is no ideal, you know, schedule. As you know, all you can eat Mediterranean all day barbecue bonanza.
[00:48:37] Yeah. Taco bar. Yeah.
[00:48:39] Taco bar. Right. But you did it because you had intention. You had expectations. Uh, and I just love that, you know, this seven day fast, you would say this is your most successful yet, right? Oh, for.
[00:48:50] Sure, it was. I mean, it's it's the one with the most experience behind it, though, you know, it's the one with the most experience, the most intention, all of these kind of things. So don't, don't, don't necessarily expect it to be, you know, maybe quite as smooth as as mine sounds. Um, and plus I tend to kind of quickly forget some of the, the less fun parts, you know. Right, right. That that's just kind of that's just kind of how I am. But, um, love it. But either way, it's it's it's definitely it's definitely worth the effort and and worth the time spent on it for sure.
[00:49:27] Love it, love it. Absolutely love it. All right. Head to the show notes. Grab the blueprint. Head back to part one if you haven't listened to part one as well, book and schedule your next long fast. Maybe it's not seven days, maybe it's three. Mm. Maybe it's a 72 hour fast. You've heard about rolling 48. Maybe it's a 48 hour fast. Yeah. Maybe it is a five day. Maybe it is a seven day. Go ahead and. Put it on the calendar. And then sit down and write out your why and your intention for putting it on the calendar. And then you just have to go execute, right? I always remember I was listening to this pod the other day. Uh, it was from his wife, David Goggins wife being married to David Goggins. Oh, man. A day in the life of being married to David Goggins. Uh, apparently, he woke up one day. He's like, hey, uh, at noon, I'm gonna run a 100 mile race today. Oh, my gosh. And she was like, okay. And she's recording, like, in the middle of the night. And she's like, it's just us out here. Because that day he decided that he was going to go run 100 miles.
[00:50:27] Oh, wow.
[00:50:28] He just did it. So I'm not saying David Goggins level for us mere mortals. Put it on the calendar. 4872, three five day, seven day, whatever it is. Let us know if you're going to book it. Tell us when we want to be along this journey with you. Whole point of why we do what we do. Adopt a fasting lifestyle. Improve your quality of life. Lose the weight for good once and for all. Tommy. Appreciate you sir. Appreciate you driving the seven days. Appreciate you getting me on board. My mind was not nearly as extravagant as yours, so I will. I will not air my dirty laundry on my seven day fast here. We'll keep it clean. Maybe next time. Maybe next time. Uh, we'll talk soon, sir. Thanks. Cool.
[00:51:10] Thank you. Bye.