Ep. 219 - Overcoming Weight Loss Struggles with Fasting | Consistency Over Motivation | Keto & Extended Fasts | Healthier Scale Habits | Personalized Fasting Lifestyle | Join the Fasting Challenge | 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. 219 Transcript
[00:00:00] 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 doing? Fantastic my friend. Excited for today's Q and A session. It's been a minute since we've done one of these a couple of months. Um, the questions have not stopped. Uh, we just had so much end of year, beginning of year content that we wanted to deliver. Um, so we've been stockpiling these. We're going to go over 5 or 6 questions, uh, that we thought would resonate or we saw overlap, uh, from listeners messages, text messages, emails, DMs, all of those fun things. Facebook community, uh, if you are looking, I'll give a shout out to that because I want to start there in just a minute. Tommy, shout out to the fasting for life community on Facebook. Uh, if you want to join a community of like minded non-dogmatic fasters meaning we don't all have to be doing the exact same thing in a specific way to get the desired result. Meaning we might be a little open minded to doing it differently, but using the tried and true art of fasting, then come join the warm, welcoming community that we have. Uh, it's a free community inside of Facebook. Click the link in the show notes, um, and head on over. [00:01:21] We'll see you on the inside. Um, we love doing these Q&A episodes, Tommy. I love doing them, uh, because we see a lot of repeat, right? A lot of overlap. Beginners people fall, uh, on track, off track old, old dieting mindset. If you're new to the podcast, um, give you a shout out, uh, before we dive into it, if you want to learn more about Tommy and I and our journeys with fasting and how fasting has transformed our life, head back to the show notes. Uh, I mean, excuse me, head back to episode one where you will hear our, like, origin story, where we share how fasting transformed our lives. If you want to get to know the resources we have and those types of things, head to the show notes. That's where all the links live. Um, for you long time listeners, shout out to you all as well. We're extremely grateful to continue to be on this fasting journey with you. But the reason I bring up being new or an OG and experience faster with us, or having us be part of your weekly routine or bi weekly routine, and listening to the episodes we bring week in and week out, um, is because there's a lot of different ways to go about fasting. And our thing is, how do we adapt this fasting, um, this art of fasting to a sustainable weight loss and health plan. [00:02:40] Ultimately, that's what we want. We want this to become a lifestyle, and we find that these Q&A questions can be really powerful. Uh, beginner or, you know, og because, um, sometimes life happens and slippage takes place, and you find yourself no longer doing the things that were getting you the result, or you don't want to do those things anymore or the life situation has changed. So, uh, I really feel that, you know, I want to be this is us holding ourselves accountable and do more of these question and answer, uh, type episodes. Um, um, probably one every 4 to 5 or maybe 5 to 6 episodes like we've done in the past, because I really, truly feel that it connects us with you all. Um, and the best place to do that again is inside of the community group or send us a message. So anyway, that was a very long winded open, um, into where we're going to go today, Tommy, which is go through 4 or 5 main big picture type questions that we see that we get a lot of overlap with. And I want to start off with a shout out to Joseph, um, who posted a question inside of the community that said, how open is this group to honest questions? This was literally 20, 23 minutes ago. [00:03:58] Yeah, because we prepped for this episode and then you didn't even know. Like I literally ran downstairs, grabbed my AirPods, came back up. We're about to hop in. And he says, is there some book or method that you all follow that I'm going to get shunned if I question it, such as low carb, keto, mandatory electrolytes during a fast, etc.. Mhm. And within minutes, uh, there's already like 15 comments, right? No. The group here is pretty varied in opinions. This is music to my ears. Joseph says lol I'm so tired of some other groups that treat insert popular fasting expert doctor like he or she is the god or goddess of fasting. I just want a fast, dogmatic dogmatic to learn more about fasting and have a friendly and knowledgeable group to support me along the way. So we pride ourselves on our groups being incredibly encouraging and warm and inviting because I've been a part of. Intermittent fasting groups and I will not name them, but they're downright mean sometimes. And I'm like, I got some thick skin. Right. I get myself to do stuff by sometimes talking aggressively to myself. Need a little more self love, according to my wife. But, um. Women's infinite wisdom. She's right. But like, it can be rough out there. So we really want to embrace this community feel. [00:05:14] And then a couple other people came in and said, hey, do you listen to the podcast? You know, uh, Carol said, I'm on my fourth time through. Oh, wow. Carol, Carol, we gotta send you something because that's incredible. Um, and then he said he'd never heard the podcast before. He's mostly followed some of the, like we say, standing on the shoulders of giants in the fasting space. Doctor Fung and Jen Stevens. Not that we agree on everything because we have different nuanced perspectives on it. Again, though, with what we want to do is the science of lifestyle design. How do we get you to apply this in a way that is fun, enjoyable most of the time, sustainable, repeatable, and delivers long terme success? Right? So a couple other people said, you know, do they do extended fast. And this other woman, Candice, comes in. So it's just really cool. This is the essence of what we want. And this is why I really love these Q&A, these Q&A episodes. Wow. Yeah. Because basically that allows us to say yes to the fact that, like, this is an open ended conversation, everyone is welcome. Although not all methods are created equal. Of course, like we, we have ones that we prefer over others. But this is a this is a forum where where we're able to kind of. [00:06:30] You know, lay out some of that nuance that can be really helpful because there were definitely times, um, in my fasting journey where, you know, a couple of questions led to a little less confidence and not knowing where to go next, you know, and that can. Right. That can be a real that can put a real damper on on progress and on mindset and all that kind of stuff. So I think that this is this is going to be good. And I'm looking forward to more of these this year too. So, um, where do you want to start? [00:06:59] Yeah. Little, little self-doubt along the way can create a lot of of delayed or never attained results. Sure. Yeah. You know, so recent Dexa, recent RMR numbers, um, progress in, in all areas, but not as fast as I wanted. Right. Mhm. Right. Okay. Congrats on the progress though. Thank you. Um so it's like man I want to go faster. Okay. Well sure. Can I just stop eating for you know I don't know six weeks and then go get retested. Maybe. But that's not sustainable because then you're avoiding all the food decisions and the life and the stress and the sleep and the kids and all that stuff. So, sure. Um, let's start with this question because I think it's it was really good. Um, and it was here's the question. Why is it so hard to do what I know I should do? Um, and they go on to say, I've read and listened to just about everything from these fasting greats. Right. Um, the Jason Fung's at all. What the heck is wrong with me? Um. [00:08:08] Nothing. You're human. [00:08:10] First and foremost. Abso stinkin lutely nothing is wrong with you. Yeah. [00:08:20] Although it can certainly feel like it at the time when you're like hitting your head up against a wall, not able to kind of, you know, seemingly pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just go, come on, I know what I need to do. Why am I just not doing it? Um, and, you know, and we might hear explanations about discipline or about willpower or potentially episode 125. [00:08:41] If you're new, go back and listen. One of the most downloaded episodes we've ever done. [00:08:45] Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed that one. Um, so I think just understanding it is part of human nature. It's part of how we're wired. And sometimes we can know what the solution is or what we need to be doing, but that doesn't always make it intuitive or easy to get to get the flywheel kind of started, you know, especially when you're trying to install some new behavioral pattern. So I, I like to remind myself of why I'm finding that it's going to be important to me to start something new, because even just that connection point to why I want to get started can be enough to, you know, help you take take maybe the first small action, like we talked recently about habit ladders and kind of lowering that first rung. And, you know, sometimes it has to do with that where I'm trying to install some new process into my routine that's so much different from what I've been doing that it can it can be like too high of a of a bar initially, like, oh man, it's just like like it feels exhausting because I haven't done it before or it feels like a lot of new steps. Right? [00:09:52] Yeah. And when I, when I hear some of the stuff that's in between the lines here, um, I'll take a couple of liberties, but. We think of this motivation and discipline as these finite things. And they're not they're very dependent on the surroundings, the situation, your mindset, your stress levels, um, etc.. So we think bias, recency bias. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's a second question is we're going to get into the scale. How often do you weigh yourself. Because I think that's a great question. Mhm. Um motivation. You get motivated, you have the epiphany, the frustration, right? You get motivated. I'm going to do. Here comes where the rigidness comes in. I'm going to work out every day. I'm never going to sniff a carbohydrate again. I'm done. Right. And you're motivated and you can ride that wave of activation energy for a little bit. Right, you got momentum and then you start taking some different actions. And then the results are either supporting those actions or not. And doesn't really matter either one, because motivation or discipline can in an instant vanish, typically due to an emotional stimulus or a life event or stress, or heck, even poor sleep was a big driver for me. It's so much harder to make better food decisions or choices, or stick to fasting when you're exhausted and your stress response is high. Because we know your blood sugar, um, modulation is decreased dramatically 30 to 40% with just a couple nights of bad sleep. Right. So talking all the parents out there. So when we look at this motivation action result, it's it should always be taken action. Get a result and that result should motivate you. Mhm. And when we think about this mood concept, I think of two people. I think of Mel Robbins. Just incredible. If you don't know her. Powerhouse. Right. The The High Five habit is one of her books. Simply just high fiving yourself in the mirror every day, like talk about a simple thing you can do. And I'm probably bastardizing her entire construct, right? I'm not giving TEDx. [00:12:13] Or great TEDx talk. Um, yeah. Everything that you know, so much. There's so much out there. Google, YouTube. I mean, yeah, she's just she's awesome. [00:12:22] She's fantastic. Right? So, um, when we're talking about this, this, uh, you know, a lot of her background is in, in research and procrastination and, you know, obtaining the things we want in life and improving your quality of life. And she talks about, you know, we don't do the things we don't want to do because we attach a feeling to that situation. And when you don't feel like doing something, guess what? You're not going to do it. Just ask any toddler. Hmm. If you have kids, they don't want to do something. It's like, can I drown the horse in the water? Not just lead the horse to water? Like, come on, like, come on. This isn't difficult, right? So we are very bad at being our own self motivators. Um, but it really comes down to those day to day habits. And I want to talk about activation in just a second. So your mood is a reflection of your daily habits, your relationships. Are a reflection of your daily habits. Your weight is a reflection of your daily habits. Your mindset is a reflection of your daily habits. Your health. Ultimately, then, is a reflection of your daily habits and your future. And your future results will be a reflection of your daily habits. Wow. So how do we get into the practice of doing the thing we don't want to do? For instance. Today. Real life. I've been getting up. One of my things for 2024 was same bedtime, same same wake up within 30 minutes. [00:14:02] Yeah, that's a big one I. [00:14:04] Have not been able to check out. Check the same wake up box like very often 24 days into the year when we're recording this. Mhm. Right. Like not doing great in that box. So on Sunday decided all right Saturday night into Sunday I'm getting up tomorrow. It's the only time I can get to the gym and get the sauna in and do my thing. And so I was like, great, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday was great. Like, guess what? Last night was not. Um, so I was a little delayed today. Didn't really feel like doing it. Didn't want to hang from a bar. Try to deadlift my body weight ten times. Didn't want to do it, so I didn't do that strength stuff that it was one of my goals for this year. Oh, okay. But what I did was still get there, I still went. [00:14:54] Lowered that activation energy. [00:14:56] Yeah. My bag was packed. My clothes were in the bag. My keys were there. The truck was already moved out because we've had a ton of rain, so it was already off the fence. So I didn't have to do the backup thing to get out like I was. It was like I removed because I knew me. I'm like, I need to remove all resistance, so we need to lower that activation energy. To make it easy to do the the hard thing because we try to just be so rigid and absolute. I'm going to work out five days a week. I'm going to run five miles a day. I'm going to never eat a carbohydrate again. I'm going to do 24 hour fast until I lose the weight. I'm going to do 72 hour fast or rolling 48 until. Until I reach my goal. And that's just not real life. [00:15:39] Yeah. Wow. I what I heard there too was defining what what are the what are the important boxes for you? And then how can I actually check those boxes. So when, when, when I hear a question like, why is it so hard to do what I know I should do? Well, but. [00:15:57] Why? [00:15:58] Yeah, yeah. But why if, if you, if there's only like one big box and it kind of encompasses all of the things that you should do, it's unlikely that on any given day you're going to be able to do all of those things. And so that you only had you only had one opportunity to, like, check the box or don't check the box like it's very it's very black and white, literally. But if you if you broke it up into two or 3 or 4 separate boxes where it's like, yes, there's, you know, sub goals in here, it's not all just off or on, but if I, if I can get to the gym, like in your example, you were able to check some of the important, the really important boxes that are going to matter for your momentum. And even if you didn't check all of them today, which. [00:16:42] I didn't, there. [00:16:42] Were still a bunch of wins there. Oh yeah. And so you wouldn't leave that day feeling like, oh man, I just, I just can't I just can't do what? [00:16:49] I still walked on the treadmill, got some steps in. I still sat in the sauna, which I love to do. I still read 20 pages in the sauna with the the book melting, the binding melting in my hands. Um, but like, I was still able to get three out of the four. Awesome, right? Yeah. Not saying every day is going to be like that. Yeah. [00:17:09] But but that's part of it. That's real life. But if you extrapolate that right there, what you did today over like there's no way every day this year is going to be a ten. It's impossible. No, but a lot of the days that aren't tens don't have to be zeros either. A lot of times they might be a four or a seven. And to so to get a little bit more granular with what are the things that you are wanting to be doing, then you have the opportunity to like to be a little bit more, um, to get a little bit more precise with how well are you doing or staying on track. And then you can judge yourself more accurately like that. Right? [00:17:45] So the big the second biggest thing would be like, really be present in the feeling of that moment when you make the decision or don't make the decision and ask yourself the question why? There's something there's some form of self-sabotage, uh, you know, delayed gratification. Yeah. There's something there where you're like, okay, you're just not addressing the root cause you're you're looking at it like as just, I got to check the box. I got to do the thing. But why are you not doing it? Like if you were to say to me, my wife's like, yeah, we're gonna run A5K and I'm like, no, this was in our marriage agreement on our certificate in the fine print that said, if you're marrying me, we will never be the family that does the Turkey Trot. Okay? Right. Not happening. You want to do it? Cool. Have fun. I'll support you. I ain't doing it. I hate running, so maybe it's the thing you're trying to do. But ultimately, it's that feeling that we attach to the thing. That's there's something there that we're not addressing. So if it's your fasting window, I could never do a overnight fast. I could never do. I know that the research says 30 to 36 hours increase insulin sensitivity. Really tap into the glycogen stores are. But I just it's so hard. I just can't do it. Or you're going to wake up and say, yeah, I'm going to fast all day today. [00:19:06] Next thing you know, you're eating a breakfast burrito at Starbucks. I don't even know if Starbucks has breakfast burritos, but you get my point, right? Probably, yeah. Probably. So. Like, really think about the why behind it and drill into that. And that's where a lot of the results will live. So this also lends to the second question, Tommy, is this, you know, the holidays kind of happen happened. I was doing really great coming up into the fall. Did pretty well, made a lot of progress. You know, I was working from home, you know, less less, uh, you know, less, um, opportunities. Right. And office lunches. Yeah. Pretty predictable. And then the holidays hit and the work kind of decreased and we, you know, more Christmas parties and family and a little bit of travel. Sure. Um, so the question really is. The concern is I've not been able to get back to my focused approach that I was doing. So how do you have any suggestions that can help me get back on track? I've gained about 15 to £20. Um, and I'm afraid I will keep gaining. Um, so I want to first of all say, great job identifying this before you gained all of the weight back. Yeah, before you went back, because the research says that 80 to 95% of weight loss attempts gained the weight back in two thirds of those. Regain more. Mm. [00:20:36] Yup. Been there. [00:20:37] So it's. Congratulations on trying to slow down the the the runaway bus. Hmm'hmm before it is, you know, before it completely gets away from you. This guy. Guess what I'm trying to say. So this again though, comes back down to like we're looking at the wrong thing. So we should be looking at what you were doing successful. And then how do we make little baby steps to start getting back to the level of confidence and consistency that you once had? Yeah. [00:21:06] Using the things that we, we just addressed in the previous question, for sure, all of those things still apply. Um, and then going back and going, okay, what was I doing 2 or 2 months ago, four months ago, whenever it was, what did what did my day look like? Can I can I go back to certain things, like was it starting off a little bit differently in the morning? Was I using a different morning routine. So kind of going back into that, that comfort zone of whatever you were doing in the past, wherever it kind of started, if it was first thing in the morning, were you going to the gym or were you focusing on good hydration? Were you, um, were you at that point eating more breakfast rather than less breakfast? Like, were you practicing more of an earlier nutrition opportunity window? Um, rather than, you know, maybe, just maybe an omad like you've been leaning towards now, I, you know, it just kind of depends. And sometimes omad can be tough to pull off where it's like, man, I'm struggling just to get 15 or 16 hours in. Right? You know, rather than, you know, being able to I'm. [00:22:09] Not going to eat till dinner and then you're eating breakfast or lunch or both. Yeah. [00:22:12] Yeah. Right. And it was only a couple hours into the day. It's like, oh man. Like I'm basically just fasting when I'm sleeping, you know? And it's tough to, to gain traction. [00:22:21] My wife says, I did a seven hour fast. I'm like, you were in bed. Yeah. [00:22:25] That doesn't count. Yeah. So, you know, like, yeah, I didn't I didn't, uh, accidentally break into the mini fridge, you know, next to the bed last night. So. So that's a win. But if, if, if what you can do is go back to that previous mode that you were in in the previous season and then recreate some of that, it can kind of put the context together that might be very comfortable to kind of, you know, go back into pretty quickly. [00:22:51] Yeah. Just one question to think about is like, um, if it was the holidays, right. What were the things that you've brought with you that you did during that time? To the first person's question, why am I doing the things? Why is it so hard to do what I, uh, what I know I should do, or why am I doing the things I know I shouldn't be doing is another way to say it. Um, so what are the things that you brought with you? Like, what are those food choices? What are the what's the intention? What's the fasting schedule? Are you doing clean fasting. Dirty fasting. Where's the slippage. Right. Yeah. What situations have changed? Just some questions to think about. You know, because no one's coming to save you, right? It's up to us, right? Yeah. And hopefully we can help you on this journey, which is why we do this week in and week out. Mhm. Um, and why we have the groups and coaching and all of that is because it transformed our lives and fasting simplified the equation so much, and we gained consistency and confidence over the weeks to months to years. So just some questions to really stimulate some thought there. So um the work again is going to is going to, is going to really come to fruition when you're able to isolate that feeling in the moment in both of these situations and isolate some of those simple things and bridge the gap between where you were, where you are now. And again, congrats on catching it. Now, before the runaway bus gets completely away from you, 1,000%. [00:24:12] Agreed. I want to add one last point, which would be you might be tempted to jump into a longer fast to like try to accelerate the process as much as possible, or maybe even to give yourself some lashings for, you know, for previous regain and things like that. I'm going to encourage you that if you feel tempted to do that, err on the side like lean towards the the the shorter consistency. It's like a tortoise and hare situation. [00:24:39] Grab the blueprint. Right? That's what I'm hearing is we've got different ramp up schedules in the blueprint. Right. Join the challenge. We got a challenge coming up. Yes. Right. Head to the show notes. Click the link for the free blueprint. Grab it. It's yours. 20 page PDF gives you some fasting schedules, some who, what, when, where and why. A little bit of motivation, right. Um, to to to get back on track um or join one of the challenges because this is literally like the breadth of what we talk about is not the schedule that you get or the choice of schedule that you have. Right? But it's this stuff, the life stuff, the application stuff that really where we see the biggest thing. So you can head to the show notes, uh, click the link for more information on the upcoming challenge as well. Um, Tommy, a couple more quick hit questions here. Okay. Um, do I need to eat ketogenic before starting a longer fast? [00:25:33] Maybe it will help. [00:25:36] It could help. You don't have to. Yeah. Um. I like to say yes. But you don't have to. [00:25:46] Yeah, that's a good answer. I think it it makes things a little bit easier because that metabolic transition, depending on how long you've been fasting and what what were you doing leading up to that extended fast. Like we talked a bit about this on the recent episodes where we went into my seven day fast. Well, and yours a little bit too. Um, and so that that can be helpful as far as that, that transition goes. Absolutely not required. But if you if you are a planner, um, it wouldn't hurt to do. Uh, for sure. [00:26:22] If you are good at keto then I say yes. Mhm. Because it's going to physiologically help you you're going to have less cravings. My wife just recently did her first uh extended fast. Mhm. Um yeah. So 36 plus. Awesome. Can't remember exactly how long but um. It was interesting because the night before we were having a conversation, I remember it. I was like, hey, what's for dinner? Because our week had kind of shifted, you know? And I just remember there being a reason why I think maybe the store didn't have the thing we needed for the thing. And then we moved breakfast night to a different night. I can't remember the logistics, but I just remember being like, hey, what are you thinking for dinner tonight? And this is the night before we were going to, you know, fast through the following day. Mhm. Um, and then halfway through that next day and break at lunch. Um, and so dinner to the following skip a day to the following day, lunch, whatever number that was I think was her original plan. Anyway, I'm getting in the weeds. This is supposed to be a quick explanation, and, um. I, she said, I think I want pancakes. And I said, okay, so breakfast for dinner. Great. That's not a problem. I said, open to feedback and she said no. I said, okay, um, and we had pancakes. Now we make moving on. We use a Bob's Red mill gluten free pancake mix. [00:27:50] We add the egg, we add a little bit of avocado oil, and then we add collagen, you know, flavorless bub bubs or whatever the heck it is. Collagen to it. Right? So we have protein pancakes, load them up with kerrygold butter, little drizzle of either honey or the, you know, kerrygold, uh, the, um, Kirkland maple syrup. Right. For the kids. I was thinking, well, I ain't gonna eat those because I eat a lot more carnivore these days, right? Mhm. Mostly carnivore. Occasional little piece of sourdough. Some yogurt here or there, some raw dairy etc.. Mhm. Um and I'm like well if I did that my goodness I'd be hungry in the middle of the night and so much more hungry the next day because I would have this influx of carbs. Right. Mhm. But she for her I was like just so you know that can make the next day a little bit more difficult. And she's like yeah I know she goes but I've got my hydration, I'm gonna get up, do my workout etc.. Um and she had a really busy day like left the house when she dropped I dropped one. She dropped two that day I remember or no, I had two, she had one I don't know. We divide and conquer I can't remember. Mhm. But she's like I won't be home until like after dinner. I was like, okay. [00:28:57] Okay, so about less less to. [00:28:59] Think about. So that's a good day to, you know, be able to be a little bit more lenient with your food choices. So carbohydrates especially refined processed carbs, highly palatable, highly insulin, energetic foods and alcohol the night before you want to start to do a long fast will absolutely make your first transition into ketosis and that first 18 to 30 hours ish, depending on where you are. So much more difficult. [00:29:25] Wow. Yeah. So true. And you if you if you do it like that, you might be thinking, why? Why did I make this harder for myself, you know, so, uh, all, all good things to, to consider, you know, for it. Um. [00:29:41] I changed my answer. Yes. Should you eat ketogenic before starting a longer fact? Yes. Why would we want to make this harder on ourselves? [00:29:48] Yeah, yeah, less likely to enjoy the process, that's for sure. [00:29:51] Yeah. And prioritize protein too, because you're going to get that satiating effect. So all right um next question. How often and last question how often do you weigh. And this came from a comment from our Facebook community as well. I may have been doing it every day in my first week I lost weight. Second week nothing eating after even after extending my fasting time. So this goes back okay to the motivation. Action result versus. Action. Result. Motivation. Right. So the scale is a fickle beast. For sure. Some people have a healthy relationship. A lot of people don't. But we need to see it as what it is, which is literally the gravitational pull. On your meat sack, your bag of bones. Like, literally. That's what it is. It is not part of your identity. Even though so many of us have the husky, the big boned, the. You know, we came from the larger framed, you know, um, all those loving terms that come with that as we grew up. Oh, look at his cheeks. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, thank you. Cut your hand off. Um, not just bite it. Chop it off. Um, all of that stuff. Right. All of these imbalanced, you know, generational things that may have been passed down in verbiage and all this stuff. Right? So. Not saying we have to be so sensitive, but the scale is at the center of a lot of that stuff. So the scale is a metric. That's all it is. So if it derails you, you got a couple of options. Either take a day, take a weekly average, or only set yourself up for success by doing it weekly or bi weekly, or like in Madagascar, the animated Movie. We watched that as a family recently, like, pack it up in a wooden box on a cargo ship and ship it to Africa, right? Like, get it out of the house and just focus on the sustainable habits every day. [00:31:54] Yeah. So what I heard there is if it's not doing good things for your mindset, do less of it. Right. And, uh. Yep, I it's hard to justify doing more of it. Um, unless you find that it's one of the big things to keep you on track, like, keep you honest, that kind of thing. Then that's the situation that I say, okay, I mean, more than a couple of times a week might be okay if, if, if that's the main, the main gravitational pull for you is, is towards Self-accountability. And it's not messing with your mindset as long as you're taking the actions like you don't want anything to interrupt the process of you taking deliberate, consistent action if it's messing with your mindset and getting in the way of that, then it's take a break. It's wrong. Yeah, take a break from it because that's the most important thing to protect. [00:32:44] Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. And it was really cool to see, um, that this post was from Lindsey. And you know, other people came in and said weighing every day can be frustrating. I weigh in on Saturday, take measurements once a month. Right. So this person, Robin, figured out a way that works for her, right. And then Lindsey was said, I know, but I just want to see the changes every day. Sure. Well, maybe it's time to look at. You know, getting a CGM or a neutral sense where you can shift the focus, keep the same long terme target, but shift the focus to something else, right? Maybe you can actually control to. [00:33:22] Yeah, yeah. Getting your basis. There's a lot of fluctuations in the scale. Yep. [00:33:26] Maybe, uh, a non-scale victory would be like a certain outfit you could try on once a week. Right. So we want to focus on the downward trends and not that short terme gratification because that's the same potential bad habit. Serotonin dopamine happy hormone cycle that it that can come to play when we make food decisions that we know we shouldn't be making. Right. Yep. And we're not going to say abstain from everything all the time. We're more in the balanced approach. Right. Mhm. Um, you know I like to say if pizza nights not part of the process with my kids, then I don't want that process to be part of my life. Right. I don't want that. I don't want that air quotes fasting or diet plan. Yeah. Right. So um, and then other people said, you know, you could do more advanced type scans like Dexa, um, and then I only weigh on, uh, days that, you know, I did, um, you know, a longer fast I weigh on a certain day, um, you could do the weekly average, write down all the weights and then add them up and divide by the days. Right. And then watch those trends. Someone said I threw my scales away, and now I use retail therapy, so I use clothing sizes. My favorite brand of jeans. Mhm. Right. That's I want to get down to the next size. Some people use like decades with the scale. I want to get to the next decade right. If you've got a considerable amount of weight to lose. So great question but so many different nuances and applications to the individual, which is why I really like that we were going to bring it up today. [00:34:53] Yeah, I like it because um, at at some point or another, um, we hear that question a lot how often to weigh. And it might be different during a fat loss phase versus a maintenance phase, um, as well, because the the farther you get, the closer you get towards a maintenance goal. Um, usually the slower the scale is moving. And if you're new to fasting, that that tends to be the fastest that you're going to see the scale move. So just have some perspective. Don't live and die by that dang thing because it's it's not it's not giving you the whole story, that's for sure. It's a very superficial measurement. [00:35:27] Yeah, absolutely. Um, so. Tommy. Lots of overlap in today's, um, questions. Right. So there was there was lots of mindset, lots of overlap, lots of potential, um, AHAs to be had. But as we wrap up today's episode, uh, I know we mentioned the blueprint. We got a challenge coming up. You can join the Facebook community, but when it comes to your long terme success or your long-term plan, we have to. I want to encourage you to find a way to make it yours. Not someone else's. Not your husband's or your wife's or your doctors. But you need to find a way to make it yours. And that customization and personalization, um, that science of lifestyle design, as we coined, you know, a few years back in our podcast intro. Right. Like, how are we going to how did we do it? What did it look like for us? And now that we've taken thousands of people through our challenges and hundreds of coaching clients, um, it's really that customization and that personalization to you. And that takes repetition and that takes support. So however, the action step for me today, Tommy,, for the listener would be, however, you can create and find the encouragement and the accountability that you need in those moments of decision where we don't maybe want to feel like doing it or we know we shouldn't be doing it, but we're doing it anyway. Um, look for those little moments or AHAs, because those are going to be the things that create the sustainability long term. [00:36:53] Hmm, I love that. And then. Remind yourself on a recurring basis so that you can actually do it again tomorrow too. So you can. Yeah, don't forget consistent focus, right? Yeah. It's so easy. We get so distracted so easily now. Yep. [00:37:08] Don't forget. Yes. In the world of distractions, please don't forget the success, the small success, the 1% thing that you did yesterday that you can continue into today. And that's what will ultimately get you long-term success with a fasting lifestyle. So Tommy, as always man, appreciates the conversation. Head to the show notes. Grab the blueprint. Join the Facebook Fasting for Life community. Click dare I even say click the link and join the next upcoming challenge. It's going to be absolutely incredible. The new format, new new, new bunch of new stuff that we've been working on. New year, new you. Just kidding. Um, but we are going to continue to promise to bring value each and every week. So appreciate you listening in, Tommy. Appreciate the conversation. We'll talk soon. [00:37:49] Thank you. Bye.