Ep. 4 - Fasting Research, Reversing Diabetes, Blood Sugar, A1C, & Insulin Resistance | Low Carb, Keto, Carnivore, Hunger Cues | OMAD, Breaking a Fast, Eating Window, Free Fasting Plan

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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.

Everyone, and welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name's Dr. Scott and I'm here with my friend and colleague, Tommy Welling. How are you, sir? I'm doing great, Scott. How's it going? Awesome, man. This is Episode 4. We're recording late on this Tuesday evening. Got some awesome stuff go over tonight. So I'm excited. Me, too. Let's get right into it. Recap of last week's episode where we really wanted to focus on the benefits of fasting. Talk about insulin, its importance and why it's the key component to the fasting programs and what's made the biggest difference in our lives. I know that we asked you guys to go back and look at your wins and losses from the week and put in a couple habits or things that you really wanted to focus on as you planned out your week and when you were gonna be eating. So hopefully that went well. Hopefully there were more wins and losses. But regardless, if you have questions, you guys can always e-mail us at info at the fasting for Life.com. That's correct. Right? Yeah, absolutely right. Sure. Troublesome lines. And tell us about your witness, too, also. Yeah, good idea. Recap of what we're gonna be going over today. We're gonna be talking about the American Diabetes Association. I'm talking a little bit about Diabetes Australia and some of the guidelines and really their perspective on, you know, and their take and their recommendations and everything that's included in these massive websites and organizations.

And really how their outlook and guidelines differs from what the research says and also differs from what seems to work. So we're gonna go into that. And at the end, we are going to ask y'all to join us on the challenge that we have been talking about since Episode 1, and we've got a date set. So we'll give you the details for that before we finish up tonight. So good. Yeah. Stay tuned. Awesome. So let's jump right in with the American Diabetes Association and Diabetes Australia. These are two of the oldest organizations in terms of diabetes. They've been around since nineteen thirty seven for Diabetes Australia and nineteen thirty nine for the American Diabetes Association. And when you start scrolling around the websites and looking at the resources that they have, you know, there is a lot of good information on there. But there's also a couple things that are really left out. So you know, it's it's eye-opening when you look at it and you start thinking about, you know, reversing it, meaning, you know, insulin resistance, diabetes, blood sugar problems, excuse me, versus just managing it. So that's we're going to dive in, you know?

What did you see about reversing diabetes on either one of those websites?

If anything, so on Diabetes Australia, I saw a link to donate. Do research. OK. That was it. Is that how you reverse it? Make a donation? I'm not sure I did a search. And it was actually not reversing. The term they used was cure and it was a link to donate. And that was it. To answer your question.

Who? And what about American Diabetes Association? Anything about reversing? Just managing. So, yeah, I got the same feeling, I got the same feeling it. It seemed like they don't really talk about reversing.

I'm not sure if they believe in it or they think that it's possible or it goes against what they are and they don't wanna shoot themselves in the foot. Maybe not to be too conspiracy theories, but.

I didn't write about it. Right. And that's a good point. You know, the we we decided to talk about this is because, you know, if we're gonna be providing information to people, then what's the information that's out there and where do most people go? Especially if you've just been recently diagnosed and not everyone we're talking to right now has diabetes. You know, you and I don't, but we did have insulin resistance and it was starting in our 30s and before, but it was starting to escalate already. You know, in our mid 30s, we're we're like, wait a minute. We've we've got the signs and symptoms already. So it's time to take care of this now rather than waiting. But these are places that, you know, have all of the the the resources that people are given when they are diagnosed. And yeah, there was no talk of reversing or caring. And the only time I saw the word fasting was on the Diabetes Australia site, and it was in regards to religious purposes. And the first thing it really said was to hit a weight goal. Which is kind of not really the purpose of it, but.

It didn't give any insight to it. And then in terms of low carb or did you see.

Low carb, I basically saw a few recipes, a couple of them not being the best low carb recipes I've ever seen. Now what I'd really recommend to somebody if they asked me, hey, what's a good low carb recipe?

Some added sugar here and there and and a focus on.

Just I saw a lot of focus on a once see a lot of focus on blood sugar and control and carbs. Carbs equals blood sugar is what I saw.

So not a whole lot of good comprehensive information, honestly, and good information for understanding what it is. In terms of cause, all they talk about really all the resources show is talking about carbohydrates, which is the cause. One of the main causes. All foods do cause insulin spikes and be really clear about that. But processed foods, refined sugars, high carb foods for your diet is primarily carbohydrate driven. That is absolutely going to accelerate the problem much faster than if you were consuming less carbohydrates. But there is really no guide on how to do that. And it really just came back to the point of here's our position statement for Diabetes Australia. We believe that there is short term benefit to low carb, but that's about it.

And we're not saying that, you know, we don't believe that low carb or Kito or Carnivore or any of these diets really need need to be the answer. But it's in the removal of the problem, which is the insulin stimulation or the insulin production itself. And there's just no talk of that, like you said. So, no, it is no wonder why it's not.

You know, it's not getting any better.

Yeah. I mean, they just seem to have resolved themselves to. This is a condition that needs to be managed. It's going to be a downward spiral, but hopefully we can slow it down. These are the numbers. These are the key markers that you're going to want to see. Again, a lot of talk about A1C. Where are the levels should be? Where they likely are. And then how to kind of control those. But mostly through insulin and potentially slowing it down with low carb. But that's about it.

Right. Right. So that if you get to the point of having to use insulin. My dad came to visit recently probably mentioned much more than previous episodes. And you could tell he put on weight. And I said, what's changed? Goes, well, I've been on insulin eight months ago. I could just take it seemed to get rid of the weight. And I'm like, well. OK. Now we're at the point where we really need to talk.

Because you're you're just speeding up that process and you're speeding up the problem where the only way to correct it is to remove the insulin. And you know, and that doesn't mean stop taking insulin, but it means putting a plan in place to say, OK, this is how we're going to get your insulin resistance improved and this is how we're going to get your insulins decreased. And so we're going to get your insulin sensitivity, which is the effectiveness of the insulin, to go back up and to get you off all that stuff. So just a completely different mindset. And, you know, looking at the resources that are out there in two of the biggest diabetes organizations there are and not seeing any real verbage or thought process on, like you mentioned, curing it, reversing it or even preventing it. You know, it's like this kind of, you know, mythical creature where it's like, you know, if you follow the standard American diet guidelines of the food pyramid, you know, you're gonna be ingesting lots of things that stimulate insulin and over a lifetime with genetic predispositions and all of these different types of foods. And the higher stress and the more stimulation we have and the less sleep and just the fast paced, you know, lifestyle that a lot of people are succumb to. You know, nowadays and in society, it's it's just not going to fix it. And that's the frustrating part, is that there's so much money out there, there's so much information, but it's not getting better.

Yeah. Let me underline a point that you just mentioned for your dad, too. So as soon as it gets put on insulin, that means that his trajectory is pointed towards getting that A1C down. That is that is the whole point of the insulin, because they're gonna be looking at the A1C probably two or three times a year. They're gonna take it. And for you guys who don't know and see, it's generally accepted as a good 90 day moving average of your blood sugar over that period of time. And as it comes down, that's good as it goes up. That's bad. It means you're you're hitting higher resting and eating. Blood glucose levels. But if if that's what you're aiming at through insulin, the only way to keep driving it down further is to keep upping the insulin dose over time. And that's going to force fat storage. That's going to force a higher weight, more visceral fat. And it's going to compound the problem, even though the key metric that they're going to be looking at, the blood work, they're going to say, OK, it's looking good. They once he's coming down a little bit, or at least it's not getting worse. And and that's not the right target.

Right. And that was the conversation I had with the patient a couple weeks ago where she has been implementing fasting and losing a ton of weight and decreased her insulin by 90 percent is off with her doctors supervision off metformin.

But her A1C did go up a little bit. And she was you know, the doctor went into a conversation of, well, if you don't follow my recommendations and I have to release you as a patient and you know, she got scared, you know, about. He was using some terminology that isn't even possible in her situation. And not to get into the nitty gritty details of it. But the bottom line is, is that her A1C number was better because of the insulin. So it's almost like she had the answers to the test going in to take it. She's like, OK, if because the insulin is almost like cheating the system, does that make sense? You know, where it's like, OK, you're using this sliding scale over the 90 days, but if you remove the insulin, then the number goes way up. If you increase the insulin, the number goes way down. So you're not really fixing the problem, you're just sliding and moving the goalposts. So I sit here as if this is. Yes, short term. It did go up a little bit. Keep tracking your daily numbers. Are they continuing continuing to go down? She said yes. So then you're making progress.

So none of that's out there, none of that thought process or that. That I can see from standard practice is that, you know, it's not going to be moving you towards fixing the problem.

It's just going to be either maintaining or slowly moving you towards the problem, getting worse. Absolutely. And that seems to be where most people are aiming. Because, I mean, it's going to start with the large associations, government, you know, dictations. Then what people are being taught in school and what the practitioners are advising. So it it's. It's it's a problem at the foundation of it.

Yeah, and that and that's where fasting comes in.

You know, and that's why fasting is so powerful, because it is the easiest way to stop the problem. It's the easiest way to to get the problem to reduce to to no longer put gasoline on the fire, but to actually get the fire to go out. However, you want to put whatever analogy you want to use, it's that it's the fastest way. A lot of the information on the Web sites that you see will be OK. Eat healthier, get a better lifestyle, lose the weight and move more. Right. So eat less, eat better, move more. There's a lot of that information on the website. The problem is, is that that model has been disproven over and over and over again without people that are diabetics. Never mind people that are on medications that are furthering the problem. So. Right. Not to just continually repeat the same issue. The frustration level, obviously you can cry here to my voice. Tell me, you know, I get a little fired up about this stuff because that's the path I was on. That's the path my dad is on. Well, not anymore. So really using fasting as a tool to set yourself up for success. And that's what you want to talk about as the next kind of action step is, you know, how are you going to set yourself up for success in when you start the process of fasting or if you already are fasting, how you can navigate it and make it easier, more enjoyable and really know what to expect?

Right. And there are some key things that go into that. And that's one of the ones one of the things that we wanted to talk about, because before your first fast, there's always some questions that come up. We had questions. Everyone we talked to, they say, OK, what are you guys doing? Well, we're fasting. OK. Well, what does that mean? Don't you get really hungry? I get headaches. I could never do that. And. You know, we we hear the same the same concerns coming up all the time.

Right. And those are the same things that I said to you. Oh, yeah, absolutely. As I speak excuse me. Like you have done some I.F. before, intermittent fasting before. But you just want me to go from dinner to dinner. OK. I know that dinner is a great place to start. Yes. Or a fast one meal a day. It's simple. Like talk about simple. You know, I got a dinner signed. OK. And a mini dinner tomorrow. As my stomach is growling because I'm in the middle of two and a half hit on that. Probably about a two and a half day. But the hunger, which is the first point people get so hungry. It's not real.

No, we're conditioned to those different times. You know, most of us are pretty conditioned for three, four, five eating times in a day, usually to the morning, maybe eight, nine o'clock something twelve, one o'clock. Then again, you know, maybe a snack later or wait till dinner. Probably seven, eight o'clock. It's kind of pushing back further and further these days and, you know, maybe something else before bed. And then do it all over again. So that might be the longest amount of time you get is eight to 10 hours without eating in there.

And that's probably even kind of stretching it a little bit, in my opinion, just from seeing, you know, the thousands of patients and concerts over the years is that people start the day with their coffee. They usually put stuff in their coffee and then they have something before they go out the door and then they get to the office or wherever they're going and their snacks around or somebody brings in donuts. And then there's lunch and then there's the meetings.

And then the school reduced to do corporate wellness workshops. There was about Bhola Candy on every conference table. And I'm like, what? So there's this additional stimulation and then it's the grab something at the gas station before you have to commute home and you get home and have dinner and then you have a snack before bed. So eight to 10 hours, I think would be, you know, very generous for for a lot of what could possibly be out there. But the point is, is that you don't ever really get a break and your body doesn't ever get down to the bottom out. So that hunger is not real. It's timing, it's habit. And then it's also stress.

If you have a stressful situation, come up. If you are bored, if you're looking for comfort. And a lot of the times it's as simple as hydration. So the rule is give it some water. Fifteen, 30 ounces of water. I typically drink water in 30 ounce increments because I have a bottle that's about 30 ounces. Give it 15 minutes. And a lot of the times the hunger goes away.

Yeah. And if it doesn't, that's a great time to have a cup of coffee. I love a cup of black coffee that will usually help and figure out something important that you want to get done.

You know, take that take that energy and that focus and put it on something useful. Because, I mean, generally speaking, you know, within the next 15, 20, 30 minutes, like you said, you're not even going to remember that that temporary stomach rumbling that you had.

Yeah. And that's a huge point is you said, you know, when I started doing some of the longer fast in the beginning with your guidance, you said get some projects because it just helps to put that energy toward something. It helps to distract you. And you know that hunger, the hunger pain does go away. Pretty quickly, the second thing would be the dawn phenomenon to some that happens in the a.m. hours, 4:00 to 6:00 a.m., usually where you're going to a lot of people will have breakfast and they're not even hungry. Right.

Right. But as soon as you start eating, I mean, if you think you're going to have breakfast and you start eating. Think how often are you hungry? Very quickly thereafter. Whereas if you ever just accidentally skipped breakfast or you're in the habit of skipping breakfast, you'll know you're usually just not all that hungry. And then by the time lunch time comes around, like you're you're fine. But if you had a breakfast, then the insulin comes up, the blood sugar ends up coming down. And you feel it. You feel different in a couple hours. And the main thing that you're going to point to is a, well, I guess I'm hungry again.

Yeah. And your body is programmed to you know, it's pretty smart. You know, fat storage and fat usage is, you know, governed and run by a hormone called insulin, which we talk a lot about. And your body is smart in the morning to wake you up, your adrenaline goes up, your growth hormone goes up, your quarters or goes up. It's all based on that circadian rhythm to get you ready for the day. So brookfield's you asked? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now, if you work third shift, different situation.

But you know, it's just it's there as a as a as a guide as is doing what it naturally does.

So by eating, by stimulating, you know, you're setting yourself up for failure because now you're like, OK, well, I'm starting my day going against what my body actually wants to do naturally.

Yeah, it's it's meant to fuel you up. You should have your highest levels of energy at that point, assuming you've got a good night's rest. But if you've ever felt that been woken up and then deliberately gone back to bed and then noticed when you woke up 30 minutes or an hour or two later and you're like exhausted because you hit sleep again and you overrode that dawn phenomenon that was supposed to be your body's way of telling you it's time to get up.

And your blood sugar is normally a little higher in the morning, too, because, you know, your body is gonna be using that short term energy storage to get your body up and get it ready for the day. So I know when I used to work late in school and all that, my my system was pretty messed up. But now that I'm back on a really good routine and not every night, I'm not hungry in the morning. And if you are really hungry in the morning, again, sleep stressed. Couple things to look at. But also, what did you eat the night before? Would you eat the day before? Did you have a lot of carbohydrates? Because if you did, your bodies would be looking for that short term energy source. So just, you know, hunger not not real. Most of the time, the dawn phenomenon, it is something that we should work with, not against. That's why a lot of people have success with intermittent fasting. And they will do a, you know, a. Sixteen. Eight. Window. Meaning they will fast for 16 hours. Eat for eight. And they typically will start eating at 10 a.m. or a lot of people do noon to 8 just to keep it simple. Doncha not going on. Yeah, exactly. Lunch and dinner. Super simple. We're talking about a dinner to dinner situation and that mid-afternoon time is typically when we'll see some people have some more concerns there.

Yeah, mid afternoon. You know, things tend to slow down. Energy might dip. That's a great time for a cup of coffee. Some water and just a little bit of refocussing. And just. No. OK. Well, couple more hours and I'll be eating dinner. And usually after you've done it a few times, everything's fine. You don't even worry about it. But but again, we're talking about especially before your first fast or as you're kind of getting into this process.

Right. And then 14:00 time has always been tough for me because that's usually the opposite when insulin is at its highest. So it's usually when insulin is at its lowest. But typically, if you have a big lunch, then you are stimulating it again. You get foggy, you get that post-lunch drain where you just feel like sluggish. So for me, when I started doing the the dinner to dinner fast or the 24 hour one meal a day fast, I noticed that was a time where I would get like. Tired. But then if I increase my water and I was using trace minerals for the first week or two. Put them in my water jug the water 50 minutes later, I felt great, like almost euphoric. After a while, I was like, man, I feel like I just woke up again. Like you could just feel the body switch that quickly. Yeah. So that time period was tough for me. You know, just speaking from experience when I first started.

Yeah, that euphoric feeling is interesting. And we'll talk a lot more about that as we talk about longer fasts and making the switch from the glucose heavy pathways over to the ketogenic pathways. And as we we kind of switch the metabolism, we feel some of that euphoria, which is pretty cool. And and usually we feel a spike in energy at that point, too. So.

Right, right. So when you're coming off the fast, couple things you want to talk about here. When you are getting ready to set your eating window of one hour or two hours, in the beginning, I personally would do a two hour window where I would have a little almost like ease into eating. I didn't do that in the beginning. The first time you told me not to do what I ended up doing and what I ended up doing was having two 5 ounce grass-fed cheeseburgers with raw cheese in lettuce wraps. I had a cup of brown jasmine rice. I had a bunch of veggies. We had some almond flour, cracker and cheese with some nitrate free pepperoni appetizers. What else did I eat that night? I don't know. That sounds like a lot already, though. No. Hold on. I'm not done. I had a couple of protein bars that I used to always eat. The Kirkland Costco brand protein bars. So I had like a chocolate one. I think I think I had a cookies and cream was my two favorite. I had some popcorn, some skinny pop popcorn. This is all in two hours, guys. My recommendation again. Yeah. Yeah. I know you're saying. I know. We we got that on the record. Making sure. And so that's not what you want to do. So Tommy, tell them what they should do because I learned my lesson the hard way and I felt awful.

Yeah. I did the same thing after a seven day fast. I came off it without giving it a whole lot of thought. But it's a very quickly self-correcting problem. So if you do it once or twice, you probably won't continue to do it because it's uncomfortable. It doesn't take too long to feel that distention when you put in some serious food volume after you've been fasting, especially on the longer fast. So definitely recommend breaking a fast, especially when you're you're first starting out. Just be conscious of it. You know, a handful of nuts. Something else. You know, like that can be can be good. A little bit of fruit. Give it a little bit of time. Don't just necessarily jump right into a meal, especially not a big one. Right. And this goes even more so the longer the fast was correct.

And we'll talk about that when we get into extended fast. Now come off a five or a seven day, which I've learned on a handful of. But when I do that, even like a three day, I'll have a couple of small handfuls of something or a few bites of something or even just some come bruja before we actually have a smaller meal. And it's just you just feel a lot better. You figure it out. And, you know, that's part of the mastery of this is when you start figuring out what works best for you and you figure it out pretty quick to you.

Do you do? Yeah. It's nice to hear from somebody who's done it. Because it's it's one less thing to kind of fear or worry about or think of as a potential hurdle and something that can kind of slow you down. Which is which is what we're trying to do. Trying to accelerate it. For you guys. Lessen the learning curve for you because we've already been through it. You don't have to wait or worry. Like we did in the beginning, which is exactly why we're we're going to go into the challenge. We've been talking about that. And we're ready to finally give you guys a date. Scott, what's a date?

Oh, you're going to ask me. OK. I look at my notes and I'm kidding. It is the day after Valentine's Day. It's February 15th, 2020. We are going to be starting the seven day twenty twenty vision challenge. And it's going to be a fasting challenge where we lay everything out for you. We're gonna make this super simple, super easy, and we're going to accelerate that learning curve, like Tommy said. Sounds awesome. I'm excited. Yeah, I'm you know, I've kind of been following, you know, my one meal a day, 36 hour, maintaining the weight loss still around forty forty two, forty three, forty five, thirty eight around that 40 pound weight loss mark. Been maintaining it for going on eight, nine months now and it's been working. But I'm really excited about seven day challenge. There's gonna be a closed Facebook group, there's gonna be a lot of resources and we're just gonna lay everything out for you. We're going to do some some live teaching, some videos, emails. It's gonna be awesome. So I'm super excited.

Awesome. So we have two things for you guys to focus on this week. The first one we talked a lot about starting your first fast, getting into it. What do you need to do? Well, that's why we developed the fast art guide. So head on over to the website. The fasting for Life.com. Download the fast start guide. It will help answer those questions that we all have getting started. And so it's a great place to start. So head on over there, the fasting for life.com, get the fast archi and the next thing to do is make a commitment to yourself. Commit to the challenge. If you're going to be part of it, make that mental leap. Get yourself prepared mentally for it so you can jump in. You want to see results in twenty twenty. You want to expand what you know and is possible for yourself to see the best version of yourself. Then join us. Join us on the challenge.

February 15th. And the reason one of the reasons I'm glad we we picked this date is because at this point, ninety seven percent of you all that, you know, started off with started out of the gate, taught four to 20, 20 with New Year's resolutions or call calm, whatever you want them to start going to the gym five days a week on my starting low carb Kito paleo whole thirty, whatever it is that you decided to do. Ninety seven percent all by February 15th. Well, I've already fallen off the wagon. So we're gonna be there to pick you up and give you something that is sustainable throughout the rest of the year. That's easy to maintain. And we are ready to rock and roll. Super excited, Tom. Anything else for we close it up. Yeah, absolutely. No. See you guys in the challenge. Get your fast. Our guy sounds good. Don't forget to subscribe to the Fast Food Club podcast wherever you get your podcast. Apple podcast, Spotify, etc.. Head over to the website and we will see you all next week. See you.

See you. So you've heard today's episode and you may be wondering, where do I start? Head on over to be fasting for Life.com and sign up for our newsletter where you'll receive fasting tips and strategies to maximize results and fit fasting for your day to day life.

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