Ep. 47 - Maintaining long-term weight loss | Weight regain, Breaking old food choice habits, Limited Willpower | Your WHY and Mindset Shifts | Lifestyle pivots to support weight loss | Free Intermittent Fasting OMAD Plan

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In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy examine a review study that analyzes weight loss and regain over 6-24 months. The alarmingly low success rate, even after just moderate weight loss, highlights the need for more comprehensive weight loss protocols that address lifestyle habits, making good choices, and being prepared for life's curveballs and how to adapt to them.

Lifestyle Habits Associated with Weight Regain After Intentional Loss in Primary Care Patients Participating in a Randomized Trial

Fasting For Life Ep. 47

[00:00:01] Hello, I'm Dr. Scott Watier, and I'm Tommy Welling, and you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast, and this podcast is about using fasting as a tool to regain your health, achieve ultimate wellness and live the life you truly deserve.

[00:00:15] Each episode is a short conversation on a single topic with immediate, actionable steps. We cover everything from fat loss on health and wellness to the science of lifestyle design.

[00:00:25] 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.

[00:00:40] Hey, everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Watier, and I'm here, as always, with my good friend and colleague, Tommy Welling. Good morning to you, sir. Hey, Scott. How are you doing? Doing fantastic coffees, kicking in.

[00:00:52] And we have a really cool conversation that I'm excited about today. I believe this could be the framework for a lot of almost the exact programs that we're trying to create in the conversations that we have with our clients and our listeners and the conversations that you and I have had in our story, really, in getting to this point and having success with fasting. The article we're going to reference and the articles that it references is it's just really powerful. And I'm excited about the conversation that we're going to have because I think it's going to be really impactful for people today.

[00:01:29] Yeah, I think we're we're going to be discussing some things that are often kind of overlooked when we talk about fasting and and how to get to that that optimal health level, how to get the weight where we want it, and then keeping it that way, too, right?

[00:01:46] Yeah, that's the big that's one of the biggest takeaways from here. So this is a study and we're just going to reference the study. And this was a cohort study. So it was looking at an analysis of all of the different randomized controlled trials. So it's really a secondary analysis. So we're not talking about direct causation, but there's a strong correlation here or causality that can be made and kind of looking at some of the factors that really were laid out here. And the biggest piece you just mentioned, one was the regain, but also the amount of weight lost and the kind of the habits and the lifestyle that came along with that and why we feel fasting was the key for us to not end up in the group of people that had the weight gain.

[00:02:34] Because if you're listening to this and you've heard our story, go back and listen to the first couple of episodes. Give us some grace when you do that, please. We were new to this podcasting thing, but we had this urge to share the struggle that we had been through and then the life that we had regained with fasting. And it's really just kind of cool how this this the secondary analysis of all these different studies lends itself to the things that we did to have success and that we've been sharing with you. So I'm excited to really dive in here.

[00:03:06] Yeah, me too. And, you know, when we read through a study like this, you know, I think back and and I kind of relive a lot of the things that I did, some of the things that I was doing right. Kind of knocking at the door, but just not quite there. And then going over time and and seeing the weight Rigau regain and the Yo-Yo and just kind of getting off the train and getting right back on over and over again. And it all starts to make sense why I was kind of in that cycle that I couldn't I couldn't break. So I'm excited to get into the details here.

[00:03:39] The regain train. I I'm this is this is now coming with us on our journey. That phrase, that concept. The regained train was just on the bus. Yeah. It's like I was the conductor of the train. I was the driver on the bus. I'm also. That was Nasier. Yeah. Engineer. There you go. That's so fitting. And yeah. That Yo-Yo, if you got I mean, that's that's the struggle. I mean, anyone I shouldn't say anyone, but majority of people that we talk to in ourselves included, they can do the 30, 60, 90 day like hard core willpower based. I'm going to get this done. I'm going to work out five days a week. I'm going to limit my calories. I'm going to cut carbs. I'm going to do macro's. I'm going to use my fitness pal. I'm going to count my steps like all of these things. They can do these for a short period of time. And what I liked about this study is they look at six months and then all the way up to twenty four months based on the randomized controlled studies that they were analyzing. And, you know, if you've yo yo, then we're going to be speaking to you and we're also speaking to ourselves because it is it's it's a struggle like keeping the weight off. Like how do you create that lifestyle? How do you create that habit that actually gives you the success and not having to rely on that. What's that TV show? The Biggest Loser, not having to rely on the Biggest Loser type mentality.

[00:05:11] Yeah, yeah. And I used to watch it too. And I and that was before I realized. Yeah, yeah. I used to watch and I found some inspiration in there too. Like OK. Yeah, I mean they're doing it, they got three for ten times as much to lose sometimes. I mean there were some, there were some people with some serious numbers. Right. Right. Two, three, four hundred pounds, you know, that they needed to lose and you know, just, just watching what they were able to kind of muster up like like you're talking about that. That. That energy to to kind of roll up the motivation and just put the pedal to the metal and say, OK, I'm doing this, you know, like this is for this is for me, for my family. This is for my health, my life, like I'm doing it. And so you can kind of muster up that willpower to really kind of get the ball rolling. But then when you start to look at it over a six month and 12 and a twenty four month period to see if if you can maintain those results, that that becomes a very different struggle. That's that's oftentimes overlooked, I think.

[00:06:14] Yeah, I want to kind of reverse engineer this and just give a couple of details, so they were looking at a five percent weight loss and a BMI category of 30. So the majority of the people that were in the study and we didn't go through all of the studies, we just went through the the one the recap that they had done or the secondary analysis. So but when we're looking at it, the five percent weight loss is not a huge, huge number. But know, when we're talking about these numbers of BMI, thirty to thirty five, you know, I lived in that category my whole life. I was the big guy. I was the guy who put 20 pounds in the gym. I was the power lifter. I was the guy who had 20 inch biceps and a 20 inch neck. And I'm not saying this to, oh, hey, look at me. I was extremely unhealthy.

[00:07:01] The way I was eating was I was working out so I could go and enjoy the wings and the sun football and the the six chicken breasts and box of pasta day and then the ten hard boiled eggs and all that stuff. Right. And then as I tried to start to lean out, it was really hard to to get my number below 30. It took me until I found fasting and this I wasn't eating fast food and pizza every day. I was cooking at home most days, but I still couldn't get my number down. So the things that are associated, why we're talking about this and why it's so important and why it was important for our health journey is a BMI of 30 or greater is related to all of those negative health consequences that we see as a predominating factor in our health care system, in our family, in our in our older population and our parents and our grandparents and our neighbors. It's the cardiovascular disease. It's the high blood pressure, hypertension, type two diabetes epidemic. Yes. I'm going to use that word right now. Cancer, sleep issues, arthritis, pain, pain from the arthritis and the limiting ability of your day to day life, the hormonal disruption and overall just a crappy quality of life, reducing that quality of life. So it's like that five percent might actually get you under that number in BMI is not my favorite metric, but five percent is not a huge thing. But it can make a huge impact on all of those things I just mentioned in reverse engineering. This from the end is why did eight out of ten people fail? What what's the difference? Like you said to me, tell me between that those two or that twenty percent versus the eight or that eighty percent.

[00:08:34] Yeah. And just just to see that only twenty percent had maintained their weight loss. Their five percent. Yeah, yeah. Five percent. Five percent or more. They, there were a few studies that they looked at where, where some people lost eight and 10 percent but but five percent is where they had to put the cutoff there because you know, most of the studies just didn't find a lot of weight loss that went beyond that five percent, which is which is an important point in and of itself. But but just drawing the line, the difference between the 20 percent that maintain that loss twenty four months later and the 80 percent that regained it, I mean, that's that's an alarming statistic right there. So we need to understand what the difference is so that we can put ourselves in the right camp and set ourselves up for success to be that twenty percent, not the 80 percent.

[00:09:22] And that's what I liked about kind of a couple of the takeaways. And you had a really cool one about the fish example, which I I want to hold that one for just a second because it was so Eye-Opening to me, like, I love our conversations because there are some times where I'm like, bam, like you just you say something and I'm like, oh wow. Like that is so stinking true. And I've never thought of it that way. But for perspective here, this study was looking at the average. All of this this analysis, the average age of the person where they were talking about was fifty three years old. Seventy six percent were women, and typically the women are more proactive in wanting to lose weight and get healthy and take care of themselves more than men, I saw that in clinical practice to us not to to label stereotypes here. But most typically, guys will just put it off, put it off, put it off, put it off. Especially the baby boomer generation. My dad was like, nah, I'm fine. My dad. Your arm is literally dangling from your side. No, I'm good. I'm just going to go to work today, like that kind of mindset. So. Fifty three years old is the average age. The reason I'm saying this and talking about it why this stood out was let's as we get older is typically when we see all of those comorbidities and issues that we talked about above before just a few minutes ago about those comorbidities and cardiovascular disease, hypertension, those typically come in that 40 to 50, 50 to 60 decade of life.

[00:10:50] Right. So they take time to develop, right? Yeah. So let's not try to get the weight off there. First of all, let's do the things, you know, earlier in life that allow us to have control that we never end up on the regain train or the struggle bus or that typical four to six to whatever, eight pounds a decade as we age. So I just wanted to kind of set a couple of parameters of what we're looking at. But I like the idea that what we're going to talk about can be applied and prevent you from ever ending up in that category.

[00:11:21] Yeah, I agree. And I think it was interesting because the the main factor that was associated with keeping the weight off by six months was correlated with sedentary activity. And that one wasn't the big predictor at twenty four months, but at six months it was.

[00:11:43] And we were talking about why that may be because usually we talk about the fact that we don't have to just sit on on on a cardio machine or a treadmill in order to lose some fat or to keep it off necessarily. But at the same time, lifestyle wise, the longer the longer we spend in the sedentary position during the day overall, that that's normally going to lead to more snacking, more food intake, more just boredom eating and more marketing opportunities to blast your your your physiology, your food, food, food.

[00:12:22] Yeah, I mean, they're just cheap food restaurant advertisements that come on, especially during the day or late night TV and.

[00:12:31] Oh my gosh. Oh wow. It's sporting televised sporting events like they know what they're doing.

[00:12:38] You have to protect your inputs. And like one of those things is just I mean, literally in the study it has a picture of a couch because I mean, that's that's where we spend most of our time if we are being very sedentary. So it's not that you have to go out and train for a marathon, but just getting out of the house and even taking a slow walk around the neighborhood, casual bike ride, walk the dog project. Yeah, like, just just get up and get your mind on something else. Get moving and step away from the pantry and from the processed carbohydrates to put the put the bag of chips, keep it in the closet or don't buy it to begin with. And yeah. And then you're going to have a much easier time keeping that weight off.

[00:13:18] So I didn't take this takeaway point. So we're talking about the sedentary activity or the couch, so to speak. There was more of that that crept back into the six month mark, which was not allowing people to lose the weight or keep the weight off. Mm hmm. OK, so that is the that reminds me of what does that that mean initiative it the eat less move more initiative. Right. So which typically doesn't last or work long term for a lot of people. So that reminds me of of the the move more eat less. So you've got this grand idea that you're going to add working out five days a week into your schedule and you should shoot for that. Great working out is great. Exercising is great for you. It has so many health benefits, but it's hard to stick to that if that's not something that is a part of your life or a concrete habit that you have. So that's going to fall off quickly, just like the whole go join a gym in January. By February, the gym is empty. It's back to the regulars that go day in and day out. Right, right.

[00:14:27] So like, what is what is the reason behind that activity? So lucky, like I said, I mean, it's like we talk about two anchoring to a strong reason, a strong why. Why are you doing it? So if you're if you're, you know, dedicated to the gym and in January and you're going five days a week, but that's but you don't have a real reason besides just dropping a few pounds, if that's the only reason, it's probably going to fall off, like you said. But. But just getting getting up and getting out and getting moving and staying away from from the snack foods and things like that, that can be much easier to integrate into your life and and easier to to use as a long term habit without it falling off or without you burning out from it.

[00:15:16] And one of the things that we we talk a lot about is making sure that in the fasting for life mindset, in our in our journey, that we're on with fasting and just the challenges and the the success that we're seeing in our in our Facebook challenges, in our groups and our coaching clients like just. It it comes down to this mindset shift that I'm starting to see where it's like, OK, what is what game are we playing here and why? Right. So like you just mentioned, the why behind it and really looking at the not necessarily making your plan, your life, like having everything revolve around your air quotes, diet or your air quotes lifestyle. Right. But like figuring out what works for you and keeping it simple.

[00:16:12] So then your life becomes the plan. Right. So the plan is a part of your life and not your life is like just completely revolving around how many conversations I get. So frustrated and I just kind of talk to in circles there and land the plane. Here is how many conversations at social gatherings or just go sit at a coffee shop and listen to people talk. They talk about their health. They talk about their diet, they talk about their restriction. They talk about how they they didn't eat the the pizza on Friday. And they're really they're really trying hard to lose that 20 pounds. And I encourage everybody to continue on this and and to keep fighting and keep working at it because it's so important in terms of your health. But there's there's a different conversation that we can be having. And I just think, you know, fasting was that light bulb moment for us and it's been that for so many people.

[00:17:01] Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think part of that is because in order to keep having that conversation, keep keep having the fuel to to keep the fight going, you need to continue to see results. So the really tough part, especially in the eat less move more, becomes when those results start to slow down. You still have the willpower. You still have the internal fuel, but then the scale stops moving. The clothes are fitting the same. Nothing feels like it's really changing that that can only go on for so long before things start to slip because there's not really a justifiable reason anymore to to kind of keep going. And you say, well, if I'm not seeing any results, kind of what's the point is what slowly starts to creep in.

[00:17:48] Right. Right. So at the six month mark, it was we had more sedentary activity. So people stopped their activity because they were a lot of these were looking at using steps or using a pedometer. And we did a whole episode on that in the past, about the ten thousand steps to nowhere. And was there signs really say behind it? The key concept is just move and it doesn't have to be crazy. Crosthwaite workouts like if that's what you love, great. You don't have to go run a marathon, I think is what you said to me telling me we were talking about doing this episode. Yeah, you just need to move, get away from the pantry, get outside, do something, go walk the mall, go. Just get out and move. Right. So that was the six month thing was the why people couldn't get to the five percent minimum weight loss or or more or keep it off. And then in the intermediate there was a few things that kind of crept back in that I believe were more lifestyle induced. And this is where you they found an interesting finding when it related to fish in the diet. And the way you explained it was perfect.

[00:18:52] Yeah. When we when we got to the twenty four month mark, the the the the correlations kind of changed a bit. They started to shift. And one of the interesting correlations with with keeping the weight off at twenty four months that we saw was, was more fish in your diet versus less fish in your diet and, and putting the weight back on. And we were we were really kind of speculating as to why this might be.

[00:19:20] And the the article actually made a good point about that and kind of the deliberate nature of eating more fish, because when most people make the choice to order fish in a restaurant, it's not being served the same way as as most other meats and most other protein sources. It's it's generally a fairly lean or healthy fat protein. And it's not being served usually in a highly breaded way, smothered in cheese with fries next to it. I mean, it's just usually it's it's fish and maybe some roasted vegetables, some rice. It's served in a much more deliberate, self-sustaining kind of way, right?

[00:20:06] Yeah, I think the way you put it. So we're talking about factors that predict weight gain. Right. So one of the factors at the six month mark was the couch, the sedentary living and in the intermediate up to the twenty four month from six to twenty four months. And at the twenty four month mark was the less fish. Right. So the way you explained it, you said, I don't know if it was the whole burger analogy.

[00:20:31] Right, where fish typically comes on the plate, it looks great, like you just mentioned, but then the alternative is the beef rides and compare those two.

[00:20:38] I just love the way you said it and I don't want to butcher it. Yeah, that was so moving. So, yeah, whatever. Whenever you order ground beef, you're not typically getting it, like just lean with with vegetables and rice. I mean it's typically lettuce wrap. Yes. It's served in the middle of two giant pieces of bread with some cheese, maybe some some dressing, some mayonnaise or something like that. Yeah. And then and then what's, what's next to it. OK, some some deep fried potatoes right next to it is to get the sweet potatoes because those are better.

[00:21:13] Those are the ones I get the tots and then half the time with the sweet potatoes they put cinnamon and sugar on them anyway and the salt. So, so it's just served in a very different way. So, so it starts to make sense why, why that correlation is there. But, you know, to go along with that eating at restaurants was one of the largest correlations with with the weight gain at the twenty four months with your restaurant.

[00:21:38] One hundred percent. Those those foods are so like laden with hidden calories and oils and what they're cooked in. But so what you're saying is I can't go order a fish burger or that just that's not how it works. No fish comes out like a cedar. Salmon comes on like a hand. Cedar collected Himalayan salt rubbed cedar plank with like grape like people come out like fanning it with like grape leaves. Right. Like it's it's this profile of of fish equals health. Now, we're not talking about the fish and chip special at the local diner on Fridays. Right. Like right. That's that's not it. But I just I just love that visual. Like, OK, where's my fish burger. Well now fish comes out on this like pristine like presentation. Right. So the restaurant piece not to not to go beat that into the ground, but the restaurant piece is huge too, because you're so much you have so many more temptations in that setting and it's convenient and the drive through. And so. No, no kidding. Right. That more eating at restaurants is going to predict the weight gain to come back in. And that's lifestyle. That's that's habits and that's lifestyle. And that's I mean, that's that's the struggle bus right there.

[00:22:52] Right. And, you know, a point of encouragement. If you've if you've dropped a few pounds and then you had trouble making the right decisions at the restaurants, especially as the energy and the momentum started to wane after the New Year's resolution or whatever.

[00:23:08] The last time you kind of got onto the diet train, that's pretty typical as the results start to slow down. So as you as you learn and practice using fasting to go along with that and to to keep the momentum going and you keep seeing the wins, it gets much, much easier to make better choices at a restaurant like, you know, it's the restaurant menu is is designed to be tempting towards the things that are going to keep piling on the pounds because the the more processed carbohydrates and the more that they can pack into it. Those are those are the cheapest things. So when you're looking at a menu, those are those are almost the ones with the neon lights around it. Like if you're if you're not looking to just break the bank, if you want the cedar plank salmon, that's going to be a lot more expensive than than the just the bar burger or or whatever. It's just those things are cheap.

[00:24:01] Right. And I think it's it's it's one of our wonderful wives that that loves to look at the pictures on the menu right now. I'm not going to say I'm just going to stay out of it. But the picture is an OK, go to any menu and grab the picture and it's going to be the loaded plate of nachos. It's going to be the the like the biggest eighteen ounce state that's just drenched in the garlic butter and comes with a big stack of mashed potatoes and the broccoli, okra and. Right. Like those are the photo of man, I'm hungry. Those are the photos that are going to be the ones that like draw your attention. So eating at restaurants is a huge Q And then just again, less physical like physical activity was shown at that intermediate and up to that twenty four month mark as well. I think one when you were just talking about the, the habits and like, you know, a word of encouragement, I think that's one of the biggest things that I've seen in our challenges and the reason why we're continuing to do them.

[00:25:01] We didn't think we'd be doing challenges multiple times a year, but there's so much fun and they're amazing because of the results that happen. Yeah, like I've never lost more weight in one week in my entire life doing intermittent fasting for ten days like I lost fourteen pounds, fifteen pounds. I've got my maintenance weight. You know, we just had a woman recently. It was like, should I leave the group because I'm at my maintenance weight. Like, Thanks guys. I'm like, no, no, no, stay encouraged. We have a challenge coming up on December 3rd to December 12th and.

[00:25:30] We're starting to ramp up for it and energy has already come in, and so one of the coolest things is, is that, you know, one of the one of the first things that we talk about in every challenge or every conversation or a lot of the questions that come in from you guys, the listeners via Facebook or the email info at the Fasting for life dotcom, drop us a question or a message. If you have anything, we'd be happy to to engage and have a conversation, you know, is one of the first conversations or one of the first things we talk about is cravings. And hunger is is what is physiologically happening with that craving? Is it really hunger? And now what you can do to suppress that? Well, guess what? That conversation doesn't happen with a high success rate at a restaurant. I don't care who you are. I'm sorry, it just doesn't happen, so it's just it's just cool to see that things are all kind of piecing together.

[00:26:27] Yeah, it is very tough to get off of that that craving vicious cycle train and be constantly eating at restaurants. They don't want you to you know, they're not encouraging you to make the right choices. You know, it's it's it's hard to pick the right thing on the menu. Sometimes it's even harder just to say, no, I'm not eating when you're in a social group at a restaurant. And we talk about that, too, because being able to do that is sometimes what we need to do to stay on track and and hit our fasting goals, too. So I love I want to start it's. Yeah, no, I'm just I'm sitting here and I'm like, I just want to go do the challenge now so. Right. I'm just I don't know, we need to talk about this like this.

[00:27:08] This is a new topic like we always want to put in new content. We're like this is something we're definitely talking about.

[00:27:14] So I just totally stepped on you there. Sorry, second limit. So this is literally the study. This is what the study is saying. People were modifying their answers to something more socially acceptable. Example, quote, I've been going to restaurants a bit too much. As opposed to I've been missing the all you can eat buffet after a night out like that's the reality. I've been ransacking the all you can eat buffet after a night out. I crushed the pantry. I hit the leftovers. I got the five dollar Little Caesar's pizza with the crusty bread or whatever it's called on the way home, like.

[00:27:54] Yeah, I've done that after we had our second baby and came over to help Ista, I saw Little Caesars I like, oh man, we don't have anything for dinner. Boom. Hit the Little Caesars. And guess what? I fasted for the next twenty four hours after in the first half of the day was awful because my cravings are through the roof because of that wonderfully palatable, cheesy, bready, saucy heaven that I call pizza. So this is literally coming from the study. Like this is the behavioral stuff that we love to talk about and the stuff that we love to see in that twenty four month mark, I mean, was pretty much going back to the old lifestyle, right. So it was less low fat foods and more sugary drinks and desserts.

[00:28:31] Yeah. And the sugary drinks and desserts is huge because, you know, that's another one where it's it's easy for that stuff to just kind of creep. But, you know, when you when you start fasting, you start those things, those things naturally start to go away.

[00:28:48] And even if you even if you bring one or two of them back every once in a while, you you typically don't don't enjoy the results. They don't make you feel great. You notice it and you kind of feel that that insulin rush and that that just that volatility in the energy and in your mood, you're much more sensitive to those sugary like influxes after you begin fasting. So it's easier to just stay away from those things over time when you've been practicing fasting. But if you if you got a few pounds off and it was through a different method, it's easier for those things to creep back in over time. But they're definitely going to be one of the reasons why people put that weight back on, especially over a two year period. Just a couple hundred extra calories every day or every couple of days is going to really add up.

[00:29:46] Yeah, it's going to add up. Yeah, it's crazy. And just just look at. So I went to work at the Starbucks yesterday around the corner as the house was alive and awake and little kids running around. I was like, OK, I need I just need a couple of hours to get a little bit of work done.

[00:30:02] And it was happy hour apparently, which I didn't know that this is a thing that it's like the I didn't show right, though, like the horn and everybody comes running like I don't know if there's I'm sure there's hundreds of movie references where that happens. We're like I mean, it was probably 40 cars in the drive thru, out the driveway, up the street. Like I had to go around the back, way through the parking lot to park. And there was nobody in the parking lot. So I knew I was going to be OK. Then I walked in and there's ten or twelve people standing, waiting for their drinks. And I walked up and ordered my tea, my own sweet tea and was like, hey, what is happening? And the ladies like, it's happy hour. And I'm like, what does that mean? She goes here and I know her. And she handed me the sign and I read it. And it was like all the the pumpkin spice lattes and the froufrou whatever frozen feigenbaum.

[00:30:55] Yeah.

[00:30:56] And I'm like, yeah, the unicorn, the, the unicorn frappuccino, whatever they have. Like I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm like this, this is the, the sugary drink thing. So if you just did that every Starbucks happy hour, that's still going to add up over the course of two years. So.

[00:31:13] Oh yeah. One of the biggest AHA's for me was once I started fasting is the cravings for that stuff went away. Yeah. Even in a ten day span. We hear it in the challenges. Mm hmm. Yeah. Finally broke my my addiction to sugar, things like that. That's huge because the more of those you have, the more that you want and the more you think about it, it's it's so much dopamine. It's, it's like it's a drug like response. You as soon as it's over, the only thing that will make you feel better is to have more of it. Like there's a sadness, there's a vacuum that that happens when when it's over. Like there was this one episode of King of Queens and and the main guy. Yeah. And it was like he he shoveled his his pudding cup into his mouth. And then he looked in the bottom of it and he was just sad that it was gone. It's that that's what the sugary drinks and the desserts like. That's that's what's happening in the brain. And that's that's hard to fight. But when you when you start fasting, it gets very, very easy, much easier for that stuff. For just you stop thinking about that stuff so much.

[00:32:26] Right. Right. And it the there is there's been so many things in my life that have been kicked to the curb. There's still a few that kind of pop up. Right. Which are my staple, my staple things that will pull me off track. Like pizza's a big one. Like that's hard for me. So I just we don't we don't stop and get it. We don't order it. We don't keep frozen ones in the house like I know I'm going to eat it. So but most of the. Things that like I used to like a Hertz donut, right, which was something that was local here or Krispy Kreme, wherever you're from, like I used to do that pretty consistently. And now you show me like a Krispy Kreme. And I'm like my stomach instantly turns and I'm just like, oh, like I just don't want it because I know what I feel like after now that I've seen the other side and I've actually been able to, like, feel what it is to have freedom from that. So it's all part of the process. It's not going to all happen overnight. The last thing here is the the less low fat food. So when you remove the whole low fat diet movement did not result in improved health metrics of our population. There's a lot of factors to unpack there. So I'm not going to go into it and say I'm a research scientist that understands all the different levers that could be pulled for that outcome. But the low fat movement did not work in terms of lessening the burden on the health care system and all of those comorbidities and things we talked about.

[00:33:55] So what we think is happening and what I see with a lot of people we talk about and what happened with myself is you remove the fat or the higher satiety foods and you're going to fill it. Most people go to those more carb dense, calorie dense foods rather than going to lean protein. It's hard to get a ton of calories from eating just chicken breasts like you have to eat a ton of chicken breast, like a pound of chicken breast to fill that void. So you need those higher fat foods, those more healthy fat excuse me, foods to fill that void or else you're going to fall back into filling that low fat or that calorie window. Right, because you're pulling out those those those higher caloric foods, which is the fatty foods. You need to fill that with something. So healthy fats would be a great thing to add. And then lean protein. Right? Of course. And then reducing those those more processed carbs and and simple carbs and refined carbs and those types of things. And that's really what's going to maintain the changes. I'm like in this study where, you know, low, less low fat foods. It was it was almost like an opposite effect in my brain when I was looking at this. I'm like, wait a minute, how did that happen?

[00:35:08] Yeah, and I think that goes right along with the eating at restaurants. And that's why that's one of the things that we talk about in the challenge, like what are some good alternatives there? Because for some for some people, it's just a matter of it not feeling easy to cook at home or it feels like, I don't know, I don't know what to cook or I don't know what to make. I'm not sure what food choices to make. And that's that's a big one.

[00:35:33] Yeah, that's that's something that I didn't really think we'd be talking a lot about with fasting because I didn't think much about that when when you showed me kind of the roadmap to losing all the weight and more importantly, getting the health metrics back and get my life back, it was like, yeah, I didn't really think too much about that. But it's on the minds of everybody. And just looking at this this this recap analysis of all these different studies, it was it's really just comes back down to that, you know, anchoring to something greater, having tools that that get you the winds faster, getting you into that caloric deficit with fasting. You're going to see those changes a lot quicker than than a low and slow 90 day. You lose ten pounds in three months type program, and that's going to give you the fuel you need to keep going. You have a decent Y, you're anchored to something greater than the scale. I mean, you're going to get there. And that's that's what I love about the challenges and why we're going to start doing a lot more of them and why we did for this year is just because they're such a want and a desire for it. But, you know, I just love that it comes back down to the habit and not all of those other details like the macros, et cetera, and all that. So if you guys are looking for a little boost, the holidays are coming up. Yes, I said it.

[00:36:52] It's November. November. December is right around. We've already hit Halloween, which is the start of the holiday season. We're doing the challenge. We decided to one more before the holidays, steal your motivation.

[00:37:06] And they creep in and they they throw you back on the regain train or back on the struggle bus. We want to help you not have that happen. So December 3rd to December 12th, you can go to our website, Deforesting for Life dot com forward slash live. Is that correct, Tony? Yes. OK, it's up on the top. You'll see it. Shoot us a message. You have questions. We are super excited. We're gearing up. We got a lot of new stuff we're going to be talking about. If you're new to fasting, could be a good place to start. You can also download our fast start guide comes with a little twenty minute mini video masterclass to show you how to put one meal a day and fasting into your day to day life. Tommy, as always, I appreciate your time, sir, and we'll talk to you. Yeah, thank you. Bye.

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