Ep. 54 - 2020 Year in Review: Past Reflections & New Directions | Most Downloaded Episodes of Last Year | Biggest Listener VICTORIES! | First 2021 Challenge Date Revealed!

Insights | Foresights | Highlights

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy look back over 2020 to reveal the most downloaded episodes, as well as the ones that resulted in the most listener feedback. They share a few of their favorite testimonials, and what they've learned over the year.  They also reveal the date of the next challenge and what's in store for 2021. Thank you for listening and for an unbelievable year!

Episodes referenced: 39, 25, 37, 29, 43, 33, 17, 30

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Show Transcript: www.thefastingforlife.com/blog

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Fasting For Life Ep. 54

[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] Everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast.

[00:00:42] My name is Dr. Scott Watier. I am here, as always, with my good friend and colleague Tommy Welling. Good. Happy New Year to you, sir. How are you doing? Well, Scott, how are you? Happy New Year. Awesome man. Happy New Year as well. Incredible that 12 months has gone by since you and I first, you know, decided to make the leap into the podcasting world and turn on the microphones and fell forward quickly. It's been an incredible year. So I'm just really excited about today's episode because we're on to do some cool stuff and also kind of set the launch pad for twenty, twenty one.

[00:01:22] Yeah, I'm really excited to like you said, it's just been it's just been a crazy year in some really cool, cool ways. Just a lot of things that we could have never predicted whenever we started about a year ago. And it's just been great. Yeah. We're just going to keep failing forward a lot and and making some impact along the way and having some cool conversations.

[00:01:44] Yeah, I think the biggest understatement of the year could have been it was a crazy year, right? So twenty twenty. See you later. Piss out. You're in the rearview mirror. Moving onward and upward.

[00:01:56] Obviously, lots of things that people have gone through this year that you never would have experienced. And some people still going through and just grateful and blessed that we've been able to navigate this year together with all of you guys as listeners, Tommy, with you and the friendship with you and your family. So just grateful for the opportunity over this last year. And just to start off on the highest note possible in terms of us being I think I don't know what episode this is. Fifty three fifty four right now, but makes sense. Fifty two weeks in a year, somewhere in that range. I can't keep track but two hundred and six thousand downloads.

[00:02:42] Wow. That's a cool number.

[00:02:45] If it was two hundred and four would be a cool number like one hundred and seventy five thousand would be a cool number.

[00:02:52] If we were saying one hundred thousand right now I would have been shocked from a year ago. And when you said it. Yeah, right. Like would you have known. I had no idea. No, I had no idea I had no no framework for predicting that number or how many people would find us and how many emails we'd get from around the world. So those are really cool. It's always pulled up to pull up the downloads and see what countries are downloading. And because it kind of starts in one spot, then you can you can kind of see it spread outward from there from the big cities and go into the more rural locations and things like there just there's just some stuff that we would have never predicted. It's really cool. And we appreciate everyone listening.

[00:03:38] Yeah, and it's it's. Don't worry, we're not going to talk just about us the entire time, I promise we're going to get some real some real cool topics today. We're going to do a year in review.

[00:03:47] We're going to highlight some of the episodes that we felt had the greatest impact based on the feedback that we got in the conversation it created. And honestly, looking at the the download numbers that we've been alluding to, which is just really, really stinking cool, I think back and compare it to, oh, I almost forgot. We're going to talk about what the heck we're going to do in twenty, twenty one. Right. You and I have taken ten plus hours over the last just two weeks just strategizing what we're going to do in twenty twenty once we're going to talk about what's coming and what we hope to be able to provide in terms of value to you guys, the listener. So to echo your sentiment on me, I'm just grateful. Thank you guys for being on this journey with us and we're just getting started, so.

[00:04:35] In.

[00:04:36] The essence of numbers reflecting back on two hundred thousand dollars in clinical practice for nine years, almost a decade, and I used to see four to five hundred patients a week, sometimes a little bit more, depending on the week.

[00:04:54] And that would be five hundred little conversations about health and wellness and longevity and weight loss and, you know, better posture and metabolic testing and cardiovascular disease and all these conversations about health that people were concerned about, right? Yeah, well, two hundred thousand divided by three hundred sixty five is almost five hundred and fifty a day. So that is like in one day with just us turning the microphones on, talk to you about research and having conversations about fasting, which is like simply not eating right for a certain amount of time. It's not within an entire week. Right. So it's just it's just cool perspective.

[00:05:36] Yeah, that is cool. It's it's it's great. How many how many individual conversations we can have on a grander scale, you know, through this medium. And then, and then the feedback that comes back is really cool too, because, you know, you guys are sharing a lot with us as far as your wins and your struggles and your questions and then on board in the challenges that that, you know, we kind of we've been doing over the last few months and started off at the beginning of last year with our first challenge. But. You know, some of the people who who've entered into the challenge coming back with stories from earlier in the year that they've been listening for a long time and that's been cool. So so we have a lot of threads that kind of go all the way back to the to the beginning of last year. So it's been cool to see.

[00:06:24] Yeah. And when you and I were in the end of twenty nineteen, just kind of tossing this idea around and then we kind of get into some of the highlights, you know, it was like, well why do you want to do this. Well I don't want people to have to do what I just did. Like you, you have a medical premed background, master's in physiology. I went to grad school and a health service, health care profession, biology undergrad.

[00:06:52] None of that matters now you and I look at each other and we're like, can we not have people like suffer and be frustrated the way we did? And for some reason, it just resonated with us. I think it might be our fixer personalities or I'm sure if it's the Kolby index or the disprovable or love languages, I'm sure there's something in there. Some explanation. Yeah, both feeds into you and I, your psychology interests and my wife, who has a degree in psychology and all this stuff like whatever it is, all that came together in this aggregate to be like, well, we have this desire to help and to fix and to reach more people.

[00:07:27] And, you know, the diabetes blood sugar epidemic is is manifesting itself in so many different ways and other health care issues from weight gain to access to everything in between heart disease and proliferations of certain cancers and all those different stuff that's out there. So, yeah, I just it's just crazy to think, you know, back in nineteen, it's like, all right, well, let's just go do it and see where it takes us. And I could not be more excited. Isn't even like like the tip of the iceberg. It's it's much more than that in terms of what this and what this can become and what this fascinating movement can become, because it's been around forever, but people just have been scared to do it or don't know how to do it. And hopefully we can provide that for you in twenty, twenty one.

[00:08:16] And I think that's that's exactly where the the power lies. And, you know, based on the individual feedback, we see how many people are are gaining that, that empowerment in their own lives, like, like we experience, you know, not not all that long ago, but we remember that feeling. That's why we wanted to come and bring that on on a wider scale to more people, you know, besides just just you in my kitchen, like not everyone's in my kitchen, you know, and everyone in the clinic or or wherever.

[00:08:46] And and so if you're you're on the drive home or wherever you are and here in the conversation, like we were right there with you, we remember the feeling, too. So that's cool.

[00:08:56] So a good segue into some of the highlights from the episodes that had the most impact. Most downloads, most conversation, most questions, most feedback. It's a good transition in that, you know, if you want to hear more about our personal stories and our personal journey of how we got here and how we started it and go back with a light hand and listen to Episode zero in episode one we had just started. Right. So we always ask for Grace and that. But go back and listen, get some perspective on what we're trying to do and where we're going. And again, we're just we're just glad you're here. But some of the episodes that.

[00:09:33] Tommy, a couple of the ones that I know, you know, after we posted, you were like, wow, like look at the response to this. And it had to do with one of the most common fasting acronyms out there, the ADF fasting method. And then there's a couple episodes, episode thirty nine, episode twenty five, where we both specifically talked about IDFC in the episode, but also comparing it to one meal a day, intermittent fasting, and then the five two method, specifically in episode thirty nine, which is the how to lose 30 pounds, fasting the fastest. And that episode got so much positive feedback.

[00:10:15] Yeah, that was cool and, you know, I think it's because because of that conversation, I hadn't heard that conversation anywhere elsewhere where, you know, people would kind of break down the calorie math and and putting the different fasting methods, putting the numbers to them so that you could have an actual tangible, you know, reference point to show you how to track your results and which one would be the best way. Because I think for a lot of people, especially getting started with fasting, it can feel like you're just throwing stuff against the wall, seeing what sticks. And I think when we when we really got granular with it and put those numbers to it, I think that started to have a big impact and resonate with a lot of people. We heard back from some engineers, some some people with more of a math background where it was like they were finally understanding where a lot of the power was, let alone everyone else to.

[00:11:09] And that was funny. That was episode thirty nine. Right. So we talked about it in episode twenty five. That was week thirty nine of the journey for that clarity came back right. But an episode twenty five, it was more like the trap of having a free eating day, almost the mindset behind that, the psychology behind that, comparing that to a one meal a day versus a warrior type diet, which is the the, the twenty hours of fasting with a four hour eating window.

[00:11:35] And it was interesting because we had a comment on one of the platforms where it was like we've assigned random numbers to these situations. When you compare ADA versus Iowa versus Omaha versus five, do you realize, you know, we took the average meal size and the average fast food size and we did some math and we created this framework where we can have a conversation where it could be actionable. And in that comparing green apples to read apples to apples, I don't know, another fourth apple type Honeycrisp.

[00:12:08] There you go, Chris. I thought that was a cereal. What Honeycrisp honey. Something I don't know. I had a flashback there but yeah. Honey smells or something like that. Yeah. I don't know somewhere that someone or somebody will tell us. Right. Somebody like it's Zubac. Oh that's right. That's it. But didn't just skip it either way. Just Skip. Yeah. Yeah just skip it. Yeah. Stick to the apple.

[00:12:30] So we did not plan that. So the format actually ended up showing to be but by just math, by just simple numbers, you know, the most effective way to get there, if you just stay simply consistent day after day and you don't have to worry about these longer fasts and all the considerations that come with that.

[00:12:47] So week thirty nine was like this. Aha moment where we're like, wow, OK, so this is why people are seeing the results. They are.

[00:12:56] Yeah, yeah, that was really cool because we hadn't actually gone through all the math until before that episode, so yeah, that was it. It shed some light and it made some things clear for us for for why this can be so effective. And especially starting with Mohmad. I mean, it's it's one of those things where keep it simple, but keep it simple, but highly effective as well.

[00:13:19] One point of clarification, clarification of your new I prefer do one meal a day, I feel better on it in a fat loss mode. One meal a day might get you there. For some people, maintenance, fat loss mode, these are two different, very different things.

[00:13:35] So what we're talking about specifically when we're comparing these different fasting strategies is we applied it to what most people come to fasting for, which is weight loss. So if you want to lose 30 pounds the fastest, then consistently do one meal a day and you'll get there compared to five to four, et, etc.. So just a point of clarification there. If you're in the fat loss phase, you're doing a little bit more aggressive fat loss versus the maintenance phase two totally different situations. Another really cool episode, which I think a lot of people resonate with, is the sugar addiction episode and the the eating habits and the willpower and where we reference the book Salt, Sugar, Fat, that was written by The New York Times best selling investigative journalist. That was Episode thirty seven. And the feedback on this one was just incredible.

[00:14:26] Yeah, this one, this one hit some emotional nerves because we were getting some some emotional feedback for sure in some emails, just some some really honest and powerful emails. So we appreciate the transparency. And and it was it was really cool to see because that that book really resonated with me. And I remember that kind of turning point. And just just finally seeing it from a different perspective, how I had developed these habits over the years and starting from early childhood. And they can be really, really tough to to recognize, let alone break out of. So kind of shining a light on that for everyone was was important for me. And it was it was cool to see that it definitely did resonate.

[00:15:14] I couldn't believe I had heard and seen excerpts of that in the past. But when you told me about the chemically engineered foods to have the right, what's the term not palatability, but the right, the mouth feel OK? I'm just saying that makes me cringe. Such a weird mouth feel like I don't know. So just that and then the engineering of like the stuff that's in the food and you know, less is more right. When it comes to sugar addictions and food, food, overeating and bingeing.

[00:15:50] And we're not talking about clinically diagnosed situations, but where you just have that Yo-Yo of that 20 to 30 pounds, you just keep putting the pounds on year after year. And you really can't seem to ever see yourself fitting in those, you know, size 12 jeans again or the tux on the wedding or whatever it is that I went back and read the excerpts again, and I was like.

[00:16:09] Wow, I found an online review rather than going and digging the book out, I actually think I, I, I had that book in my office and somebody borrowed and I don't think I ever got it back. But just incredible combining that with. So the stage is set against you right where you're set it like the convenience of the food that we have in the majority of the aisles, our grocery store combining that with the fact that willpower is a mythical creature and then it's finite. Willpower is not going to get you there. It was just a really cool impact from that episode.

[00:16:40] Yeah. And, you know, it even goes to the the situations where we had an email just last week from someone who realized that that they had these bad patterns and they were trying to put something else in to kind of fill that void and that that salt or that that sugar addiction and just the engineered nature of the foods can can get right into, like, filling in the blanks where where where someone was coming home from work. And instead of waiting for that family dinner at six p.m., it was it was starting at five p.m. and she was finding herself just kind of mindlessly snacking all throughout that that hour and probably taking in just multiple hundreds of calories before she even really wanted to eat and was able to sit down and enjoy that. Well, turned out it was it was just kind of habitual in nature, which is which is what so much of the salt, sugar, fat is, you know, explains and kind of gets to the root of. So it's it it has a lot of implications for for everyday habits and so good transition in a couple of other episodes that we've got a lot of feedback on.

[00:17:51] One was episode twenty nine. Hunger isn't real. And then what are their hunger cues? What's actually happening? What can happen to your digestion after you start fasting?

[00:18:02] And that one's really powerful for people along the lines of the sugar addiction thing and the willpower conversation is that once you know what hunger is the majority of the time and what's going on in your body, you can regain control and regain power over that decision. And we're going to go over some of the the winds from some of our challenges and coaching and podcast reviews and just hit some of the highlights of some of the great stuff that you guys have been so gracious with, your kind words and your feedback and results, most importantly, but not hunger. One was like huge, huge. Like even just going through it and putting it together and prepping for that one. I was like, oh yeah, I'm not hungry.

[00:18:40] I've got, you know, two hundred and fifty thousand stored calories around my midsection, like or I did like I'm good. Like I can run out of TP this year. I'm OK. Like I don't my kids can have my food like I'm OK for the next few weeks. I'm not at one hundred and sixty five pounds with a four percent body fat. Like I'm ok. Like it's going to be all right.

[00:19:01] Yeah. That's not crucial but but your body's yelling at you in that moment that it is crucial. So yeah I think that that one was huge too because just understanding that especially especially being new. But you know, even if you've been fasting for a while, just that reminder of why your body is going to continue to give you those those signals and those cues. And it's it's this it's this urgency that it's trying to give you. But with a little bit of patience and understanding, you can get past that. And usually it's it's ten or fifteen minutes and it might be even less. Just the other day I was on a seventy two hour fast and I started to feel nauseous. When we walked into a restaurant, the family was eating, but it only lasted about three minutes. I timed it this time and but but it was it was a rough three minutes, I mean, and it was out of nowhere because it actually started when we pulled into the parking lot in kind of one of those strip centers where there was a bunch of restaurants all all around each other. Well, you know, the neurons just are firing. I start remembering the food at all these different places. And immediately, you know, just my stomach started going crazy.

[00:20:07] It's a real phenomenon, right? But once you understand that, a lot of the time, it's just the external. It's a cue, it's the habit, it's the smell, it's it's the phallic phase of digestion. It just gives you that power back and a good way to transition into another. So we've gone from how to lose weight the best way possible to sugar addictions and willpower and the.

[00:20:30] You know, eating habits to what hunger truly is and how to regain control over it, what's happening to alcohol? Episode 30. We talk specifically about alcohol. This is a question we get a lot.

[00:20:44] There's different ways to be successful. Alcohol has some some things that it changes. It breaks down the barriers. Most people will typically be, myself included, speaking from experience, more apt to eat things that they typically wouldn't, you know, cravings, those types of things. But episode 30, we got some cool feedback on, too. And, you know, it's a question we get often.

[00:21:10] Yeah, because it's it's it's one of those things where it's easier to eat more and more of those foods that are packing in a high caloric density, more snack type foods, some sweeter foods, even if I think you mentioned that, where you wouldn't normally eat sweets. But but if you had had an alcoholic beverage or two, then then that might be the time when you actually had something sweet. But, you know, it tends to be a social lubricant as well, bringing people together and just giving you more eating opportunities. And those are those times when we're packing in those extra calories that that we don't need for that particular day. So we tend to hold on to them for a lot longer. And I think that one did resonate with a lot of people because the social aspect of the fasting is is one of those those big things that that keeps people from jumping in, I think especially at the beginning. And alcohol is a big part of that for a lot of people.

[00:22:02] Yep. One hundred percent. And never mind the physiological thing that takes place where the alcohol actually directly can stimulate insulin resistance, you know, so it's like, you know, if you're undoing and you've had weight loss, resistance, you know, alcohol can actually and we're not saying if you are drinking to stop forever, but if you're trying to reverse diabetes or, you know, get your Enzyte liver enzymes in check or lose 30 pounds, lose ten pounds of visceral fat, decrease your cholesterol, blood pressure, whatever it is like, it's good to know what the alcohol is doing and then also how to put a game plan together on what to go to, which is better like, you know, a white spirit versus a two hundred and fifty calorie craft IPA porter, you know what I mean?

[00:22:46] So you've got questions on alcohol, which is a common question. We get Episode 30, I thought really hit home and then also re re anchored me to.

[00:22:57] Know sticking to something called dry farm wines, so I haven't had red wine that hasn't been dry, for instance, if you're not familiar with that, it's it's cool concept, keto friendly, low carb type wines that still give you the social aspects to give you a little bit of what you call a social lubricant. But don't kick you in the face from the insulin resistance side of things. Yeah, that's that's a nice balance right there. I like the social lubricant. I'm going to use a couple other episodes.

[00:23:24] So we're going to go introspective here for a second. Tommy episode thirty three highlighted your seven day fast in your journey with ketones and testing and then episode 17, which was how you guided me and how fasting guided me to forty eight and a half pounds lost in 50 days.

[00:23:44] And I'm happy to report that that was back in the summer and early fall of two thousand and nineteen. And since then I've kept 40 any given day. Forty to forty four pounds of that off. So episode thirty three. How to do a seven day fast. Your perspective on it, which I love that episode because the way you look at things and I know we joke around, if you guys been listening for a while how you land the plane on stuff. And then Episode 17 was like, wait, you did what in what? Yeah, and I didn't not eat for days. Like I ate pretty much other than the five day fast. I ate, like, every day or every other day. Right.

[00:24:26] You didn't you didn't really take too well to the like the 70 two or like a ninety six or something like that. That's not your wheelhouse, right.

[00:24:34] No.

[00:24:35] Tell me, sixty eight hours, tell me 96 hours, you say 72 and walking away, I'm not doing or yeah and you are definitely game for a seven day or even even longer if if the time would work out for it. But yeah, that's seventy two hours. Just not a lot of fun, especially if you're, if you're cycling in and out. If you did them back to back it would be, it'd be a little easier. But you have to kind of go through, do the transition into ketosis, then come out of it, go back to normal everyday patterns and then get back into it. That's, that's pretty rough.

[00:25:08] That's that's a little water torture for me, too. Yeah. I remember one of the episodes we talked about the fasting cure written by Upton Sinclair in 1911. And it's like no sane man or woman would would would fast would not eat for three days at a time and do that over and over and over again and remember how he articulated it.

[00:25:26] But he was like, nobody does that guy. So, yeah, nobody does that. And there's physiological reasons why. So I do not like that one. It's gotten easier, I will say, but yeah. So I'm still thirty seven day faster in episode seventeen, forty eight and a half pounds or will round up to fifty because it sounds cool. Fifty pounds in 50 days.

[00:25:46] And then a more recent episode, episode forty three where we realize we're about forty three weeks into the year and we haven't really gone back to like how to start fasting. Like we get a lot of new listeners and we're like, oh wait a minute.

[00:26:02] Yeah, we should probably go over that again, just like the most recent episodes of How to Break a Fast. Yeah, yeah. I think I think going back to to some of those those things are important for, you know, for new listeners, but also for for a long time listeners too, because just kind of going back to basics, it's like anything else where you can get kind of so educated and so sophisticated in your methods that that sometimes you kind of lose sight of of some of the core foundational things that that got you those results, especially from the beginning. But, you know, refocusing on those things can be a powerful way to to kind of get the ball rolling again or to break a sticking point or just just keep the momentum going.

[00:26:48] Yup, yup, yep. I love it. I think I want to so those are the episodes episode thirty nine. Thirty seven, twenty five. Twenty nine. Forty three. Thirty three. Seventeen and thirty.

[00:27:03] I think I want to go over kind of the new content before we go into some of the winds and deliver some value here.

[00:27:12] When we look at the year, you know, the conversational nature of this has always been something that you and I have loved and that's what started, you know, God bless you, man, for being able to do this on your own with just reading the books and researching your frustration point had gotten to the point where, like, I don't care what this takes, I'm doing this. And then you talked me into doing it, God knows how.

[00:27:36] And then I actually looked at the research and I was like, oh, yeah, this makes sense.

[00:27:39] Where exactly I was going to say it didn't it wasn't much talking. You you watched it happen over a matter of probably, I don't know, maybe like maybe like a three month time I was going to the bathroom, seems like. Right. And then and then at a certain point I was like, OK, wait a minute, what are you doing right now? Because I need that. What what are you doing?

[00:27:59] Tell me what if you were my daughter magic. Oh yeah. I remember that. That is what that is what you said.

[00:28:04] Stop eating. I'm like, what do you mean? I almost threw my weight at you. I did not have a white cloud in my hand. Maybe so new concept, new value for this year is that it's January 4th. And me, I will say this. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays.

[00:28:22] Not sure we did a great job in the last couple of episodes of wishing everybody that in the haste to just just create and create and create more like do we actually wish all of our listeners a Merry Christmas. Happy holiday. Happy New Year's. So owning up to that, we just did it. Moving forward for twenty, twenty one. You know, we started this last year with New Year's resolutions, and one of the things has been just become abundantly clear for everyone. That we've interacted with one hundred and thirty one hundred and forty people, that we've taken through challenges in the private coaching clients and all the emails and Facebook messages and everything is.

[00:29:06] New Year's resolutions and that mindset that you're just going to decide to to do a resolution and that it's going to stick. We know that that doesn't typically work. So it's January 4th and some of you don't even do it anymore. Like when you ask people like I did years resolutions, like now, like why? Well, they don't work. OK, good. We know that. Right. Right.

[00:29:24] So that's the first step. Yeah. First step yet.

[00:29:27] The first step of 12 steps like, OK, yeah, they're not going to work. So we really, really, really honed in on the fact that habits are really what you need to start with. And that's why we still believe that doing one meal a day for 30 days is going to create so many wins and so much momentum that the habit will be there. And then it'll give you back control. It'll give you back simplicity when you realize that you now have most of the tools you need to be successful.

[00:30:00] Yeah, I think that that's absolutely the case because of the simplicity in there and that they have it's just start building from day one, but it just starts reforming, you know, what's possible and kind of what you've you've grown up doing, which for most of us has been at least three meals a day, let alone four or five eating opportunities and a constant temptation and marketing for snacking and calorie dense foods. But those habits are huge. And, you know, if I look back at last year or a couple of years ago when I was more apt to do just New Year's resolutions, if I go back to look at those versus the the goals that I set forth for myself at any other point during the year, and actually they had an emotional tie to those something where I said, you know what, no, I'm frustrated or I want to see some sort of change or I definitely want this in my life. Those are the ones that actually gained the traction, started forming new habits with and then saw momentum and results later on in the year. Not the ones that were arbitrarily assigned arbitrarily. Yeah, it's January. I need to write some things down. Right. It's the new year. But but that that again, that's that's just kind of arbitrary. So it's it's looking for the why behind it and the emotional tie. And that's where we saw so many of the wins in twenty. Twenty.

[00:31:30] Yeah. Getting into your whys. I'm into it. Call it whatever you want. I was listening to a colleague of mine the other day actually earlier today. And he's like, yeah, I didn't post on January 1st because nobody would have listened. And if you did, you've already forgotten. He's like it's January 4th. The resolutions don't work. You know, you need to. And for me, it's framing it in the habits that get you the desired outcome, not focusing on the desired outcome, because that wears off quick. If everybody wanted to lose weight and be healthy, we wouldn't have, you know, seventy two percent of the population overweight and on track to be 50 percent obese in the next handful of years. Like it's not that it's so I like the way that it was worded. It was like for me, it's generational health. It's being healthy to show my kids that you have a choice. Right. And it's not that you're not going to follow the path that you know, the rest of my dad's brothers and uncles and grandparents, the majority of them followed.

[00:32:26] It's you have a choice and. It might take a little fell forward and tough love along the way, but focusing on the habit and not the desired outcome and like for him, it was, you know, I want to be healthier at 50 than I was at 40 than I was at 30 than I was at 20. Because you keep refining, you get better. You you learn as you go. And I just really like that perspective. So if you're sitting here listening, going. It's January 4th, already three days behind, just forget it, drop that drop that drop and leave it leave it in twenty twenty. Trust me, twenty twenty would love that negative thought. Just twenty twenty can have it right. Like go back to where you came from. Just leave me alone. Right. And just start looking at two or three different habits that you can put into your life. And we believe that one of those should definitely be when we all die and then we can talk about sleep or stress and have an argument about which one's more important.

[00:33:24] All right, yeah, totally, we didn't say exercise, we didn't say, yeah, exercise is cool, but it's not it's not the big piece of the puzzle here and it's not the main part of the conversation that will actually get you, you know, those fat loss wins that you're looking for most of the time. You know, speaking of the habits to when when I started doing one meal a day and started focusing on time restricted eating. You know, what it kind of opened up for me was like? There had been a lot of learned helplessness for me because I started dieting back in my teens, I remember picking up books on they were both on on muscle gain and fat loss. And back then they were selling things like Zentan, which was like aspirin and caffeine and something else I could at one point. Yeah, exactly. That was in it. So, you know, so taking things like that and just looking for something that was going to help me actually burn off that fat and going into the weight room and just crushing just lots and lots and lots of weight. I was never a runner but. But fasted cardio. Well, faster cardio, Yashar. Like get up early in the morning and just do a bunch of just endless time, right on the on the bike or the treadmill, the whatever cardio machine of the day.

[00:34:51] But you know, what I what I realized was that when I started actually seeing that I could get results without without tracking every single calorie, which is what I had basically done for 20 years, that's when the learned helplessness started just vanishing from from my own psychology, starting to see those results and start building on those. And then that allowed me to actually start making the smaller changes to change some of the other underlying habits, like the sugar addiction, like the just mindless snacking or that kind of emotional eating, which those things I had I had been able to stave off those things in the past for a finite amount of time. But when the scale wasn't moving at a certain point, I just threw my hands up and I said, well, what's the point? Why am I why am I putting forth all this effort without any results? Right. So so you kind of have to put the horse before the cart or however that that phrase goes to to kind of get the ball rolling in the right order. Right.

[00:35:53] Don't worry about the horse's load, the wagon. I don't know which one you said before, but I love that one. One of my favorites. But yeah, no, that's incredible perspective. And I will say this as a caveat. We're not saying that exercise isn't important. It's that you need to separate your exercise goals and your fat law schools and you can use them concurrently.

[00:36:11] But you don't need to if you've been on that treadmill and that merry go round before and you haven't been able to get off the results, like you said, time, you haven't been working. Why not try something new? Do 30 days? Yeah.

[00:36:25] Right, exercising make me crazy hungry, and the research shows that exercise makes you really, really hungry. So starting to separate those two out and understanding what their goals are.

[00:36:36] Yeah, right. If you're exercising, keep exercising. But like, if you're not, just start with Omak and then 30 days from now, then start doing some resistance training and then add in the walking and, you know, you can add all that stuff in because there's benefit to it. But just like it resonates with you than just just cut the cord, leave it's January 4th. Leave it behind. Twenty twenty can have it in the eternal flames of. You know what. Just keep it right. Move forward. Cut the cord. Let's start fresh. Sorry I cut you off there, but I just got really excited about that point.

[00:37:05] No, I love it. Great point.

[00:37:10] Transition next challenge, January 20th through February 6th, Tommy, is that correct? Can you give me a thumbs up? That is that is correct. OK, so we're going to drop that in because this is a long episode. We're going to we're going to be doing a long one today, folks. So buckle up. But I want to drop that in here before before before we got an hour and 20 minutes in or whatever. And it's like, do we consider the challenge yet? So we did for last year. We got to ask the question dozens and dozens and dozens of times of when's the next challenge? So we are committed to doing them more than we did last year. So we're starting we're going to let the New Year's resolutions wear off by January 20th. You'll be lost, cold, frightened and not really know what to do next. Maybe you need a little guidance, but we're going to crush January twenty eighth through February 6th with our next ten day guided fasting ramp up, where we're going to take you through a guided fasting, live training, et cetera. So we'll we'll talk more about that at the end. But I want to drop that in here now.

[00:38:16] Yeah, super cool.

[00:38:17] I'm excited because, man, the results that that some people saw through twenty twenty with those challenges, especially with with this format that we were doing at the end of the year, was just incredible. So I'm looking forward to to doing that some more.

[00:38:33] Absolutely. And good time to transition to some of the best.

[00:38:37] Wins, so we like to kind of categorize we use the hashtag wins in our Facebook groups and our coaching, we use we like to use non scale victories like things that just people have realized yaha moments labeled whatever you want. But we went back and we gathered the ones that we felt were the most impactful from the last year. And we're just going to do a little shout out here and kind of roll through some time. So I know you've got some on your end from some of the reviews that you've saved. And I went through and just scroll through some things. And I really want to start off with this one. And it's from October 7th that it says, I have hit hashtag wins. I've hit the lowest number on the scale since prior to tracking in 2014. Total win. This keeps me fired up and I could not agree more.

[00:39:31] Wow, I love that one.

[00:39:34] Yeah, right, like it just so like, wait, I've hit the lowest number on the scale since 2014 since I tracked everything and total win, this keeps me fired up. And so I'm going to do two here and now. My pass pass the baton back to you in the second one was from October 8th. So these are both from one of the challenges ran earlier in the year and it said hashtag wins losing more weight in one week at age 40 than I have lost in my entire life. Hashtag very thankful.

[00:40:04] Yeah, that's incredible.

[00:40:08] I mean, I, I like we didn't do it like this here, just go do these 10 days and this is what happens.

[00:40:16] So when you said to me, we're going to do two more challenges before the end of the year, we're going to squeeze another one in before the end of the year, I was like, no, we're not. We've done more than we said we're going to do. We're just going to plan for the next year. We'll start the next year coming out hot. And it was like, now we're going to do one more day. Damn, I'm glad we did.

[00:40:35] Yeah, I, I, I don't know, it's still, it's still like surprising because it's so impactful. But I mean that's exactly what we were seeing and how we were feeling and that's exactly why we wanted to kind of turn on the microphones was was we had a feeling that more people could experience the same like revolutionary ahar, like just these epiphanies that that we were having. And it's like, how do you have epiphanies like that in your 30s or 40s? I mean, we've had we've had some people in 70s. I don't I can't remember if we had anybody in their 80s yet, but we've gotten close if we have it.

[00:41:15] And just just some these realizations, like one of the reviews was, was basically if if I had known some of these things that I that I that I know now, 50 years ago, I would have been having just basically half a century worth of just such a such a better life and more longevity and and just just it's extremely impactful and empowering.

[00:41:41] It's the exact comment was on our most recent episode, which was what breaks a fast opinion piece. I like that we it was our opinion and it said had I known 50 years ago what I am now learning about intermittent fasting and carbohydrates, and I would be living a more healthy, longer life and it's like, whoa, like I saved that one, too. So it's cool that you were on the same page. They're like holy impact, right? Like, right. Cool. Like didn't know that was going to happen this year, but same realization that you and I had. So yeah. I really wanted to come here. Yeah.

[00:42:19] Yeah. I really like this one. This was from two challenges ago and and he said doing well, love the freedom. This is day twenty seven which was seventeen days after the challenge had ended. And he said I'm down twenty four pounds and and we, we kept in touch and he kept commenting back and he's still on the way down. But I mean this was, this was life changing for him.

[00:42:45] Twenty four pounds and twenty seven days, and it's on the weight of 50 and 50, right?

[00:42:52] Yeah, I was just going to say right. So it can be, you know, the one here pretty happy with my fasting success this past week. This is from our group coaching that's been spawned out of the last 30 days where we found out that there was a huge need in between these challenges for support. You guys were asking for it. So we created it.

[00:43:16] And it's our group coaching where we get on a call every 10 days and we walk people through challenges and wins. And there's weekly check ins and there's a group, not a Facebook group, but a private community in our website where you can actually log in and check in and converse with everyone. And this one came from which was yesterday. And we do have some older ones that we will go through to. And I know, Tom, you have some reviews as well, but this one said, pretty happy with my fasting success this week. I stuck to my plan. So from December 8th to January 1st, this person lost 12 pounds and forty four pounds in total and pair of size 12 jeans, which is the first major checkpoint fit, and she wore them out the entire day. So it's pretty crazy that most people from December 8th to January 1st put on, you know, maybe not 12, maybe maybe 12, but it could be 12. That could be around 12 now maybe. And that takes them the whole year to get rid of it where, you know, in this person I know wasn't 100 percent compliant, like gave herself freedom to enjoy the holiday. Like, I'm sorry, I was compliant to the plan and sticking to her plan that fit her life but wasn't like crazy strict diet or during the holiday and gave us the ability to actually enjoy it without the negative stress that comes with it and the guilty feelings. And she actually absolutely crushed it.

[00:44:56] Yeah, it's not like she was trying to do a 72 hour fast over Christmas or Christmas Eve.

[00:45:01] Christmas Eve. Through the day after Christmas. No, thank you.

[00:45:05] No, no. That be horrible. You know, I like some of these these reviews, too, from from newer listeners or people who are kind of just getting started or just got the fast start guide and are starting to see the winds like this one on day three and day three of no pop. So no soda for for those of us in the south sleeping better fog is lifting and can't wait to watch the physical changes, too. And, you know, so this is somebody struggling with with other things like hypothyroidism, gestational diabetes and things like that, too. And just to start seeing those those winds and start to see that that fog lifting and the the the paradigm shifting is is amazing.

[00:45:48] Absolutely love it, love it, love it, love it. A couple more here from Facebook Messenger, new to the podcast. I was three hundred and thirty three pounds, started fasting, did a forty six hour, down 16 pounds in just about a week when this message was sent.

[00:46:06] Blood sugar is down in half and just feels wonderful and hasn't seen that sixteen pound weight change in over fifteen years and just asked us that we wish them luck and we followed up along the year and just, just killing it. Just doing, doing incredible. And then this one last one from Facebook is game changing info. Jump right on in. And this is I call one of our transparent enough is one of our raving fans. Right. Like she's been with us since the beginning. But just just really, really, really, really, really, really thinking cool to have to have all that feedback.

[00:46:43] I like this one too. This one recently came in and said two hundred eight pounds to one sixty five over the last 11 months here. So that's almost forty five pounds. I am in the eleven now. One. Wow. Yeah. Off my cholesterol medication to know prescription meds at all at age fifty seven. So that's awesome.

[00:47:04] Way to crush it. Thanks for sharing with us because that, that's amazing man. If that doesn't embody.

[00:47:13] Man, if that doesn't embody how do I say this, I'm just going to say it, it may not not the plane right away. So Tommy, help me out here if I don't. But if that doesn't embody the fact that you have a choice when it comes to your health care and that you don't have to follow the status quo and you don't have to fall into the category of being on medication at the age of fifty seven, which people think is normal. In my opinion, medication is not a normal thing. It's a common thing. Like we should be trying to look at these things and prevent these things and allow the body to do it is designed to do in a natural health care reform before we start adding in, you know, pharmacological agents and treating symptoms and all that kind of thing. And, you know, I took pharmacology back in the day. That course was incredibly hard because everybody's thinking different. So never mind. You have the risk reward with the medication. But once you get on it, the problem is, is that OK? Well, hey, doc, when do I get off it? Well, when your numbers are normal, we'll know. But when you actually make a change and that what you just read is the epitome of making a change, you know, in the fact that you have a choice, you don't have to be in that group that is on the medication. And that is the normal air quotes were in an audio medium. The normal right statistic like you don't want to be the statistic. You want to be the outlier in this case. So I could I could end it right here. Like, I know we have a couple more things to go over, but like that. That's it. I'm done. White flag. I'm out happy. Happy New Year. Let's rock and roll. We got some stuff to do. All right. Twenty twenty one is going to be great. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Peace out. And I'm all right. You nailed it. Dismount. All right. Back on it. A couple more here. I just these are all the ones that we highlighted.

[00:49:03] So I didn't want to I don't want to miss them, but I just love this today. I'm feeling like a million bucks knowing I kicked I kicked ass yesterday and today I'm going to go even farther, like, just really cool and apologize if your kids are listening. We don't typically do that. But I felt like that was a warranted one. That's one this far year to read that one and then.

[00:49:28] The support of the group and the fact that this woman posted that I've been consistently losing a pound a day since I started. Like, just my attitude's better, she feels great, she's less bloated, she's happier and she's getting better sleep. This might be a he. I don't know. I can't I can't tell. It's blacked out. Right. But again, just speaks to the power in the fact that you guys have a choice.

[00:49:58] And it goes back for me personally that when we turn the mikes on last year, I never had any idea that you and I talking about fasting would ever have the effect with these kinds of feedback and encouragement.

[00:50:15] And, you know, I didn't know if we were going to do it for a whole year.

[00:50:19] But I can tell you this as we transition into what's coming in to twenty, twenty one and we're going to go over kind of what you and I have planned and what we want to do challenge on January 20th, if I haven't mentioned that already. Kidding, we want to transition them like a dead room. All right, we want to transition into kind of what we're going to do in the fact that, yeah, we're not stopping.

[00:50:44] We're going to double down. Right. Like I've got I don't know. I don't know the blackjack term. Some you play blackjack. What's it when you, like, split and you double down. What's that called?

[00:50:54] Double down, double down, man, so I totally stole your thunder there, so I'm sitting on like, I don't know, it ends and I split them. Is that good or no, you can do that. OK. What do you tell me?

[00:51:08] Ok, what the assassinates. OK, so if you're sitting on two aces, then you're going to split them and then if you. Yeah. And then yeah. You would definitely want to split those.

[00:51:18] Ok, and then double down. Right. So you double your bet.

[00:51:22] That would be a different situation. Most likely. Oh come on. All right, fine. I'm gonna use that analogy that I know. So I'm playing hold'em and I'm going all in. OK, ok, it's coming. I'm going all in. All the chips on the table at the final table.

[00:51:37] There's three people left. I'm going all in. So for twenty twenty one. What does that look like man. I butchered the hell out of that. So we talked about the challenge date. But things that are coming are going to be more podcast's, more challenges, more digital resources like white papers and recipe guides and. Just I my God, the list never ends and I just want to that's all I want to do is create refining of our courses. So I attended Ten Day Die or twenty eight day transformation. We're working on it done for you. We've got group coaching. I'm just going to list them all off that you can fill in here. A group coaching matrix now that we have, which is a recurring kind of group coaching where you get a customized plan. Customized plans are being refined and just taken to another level with the algorithm and how we're calculating like what you can expect to lose and different touch points and metrics and and how to put with you whatever, whenever, you know, something changes with your schedule or you go off track or all those kind of things.

[00:52:40] And then as far as the customized plans, like just developing more. More advanced tools to to kind of follow along with you and to keep growing with you because, you know, when you when you get a plan and 30 days from then you're at a different point. Right. You have a different weight. You have a different number of total calorie surplus in your schedule. Your mind sets different, right. Your scheduling is different, all that stuff. So just working on tools to kind of grow with you to help keep you reaching and maintaining the goals and the momentum that you've been getting, keep you fired up and and get all the way to where you want to go.

[00:53:22] Love it. Absolutely love it. And, man, I think that's it. I mean, what else could we talk about? This is one of the longest episodes we've done a long time. So with that all of that being said, a couple of things for you guys we're going to ask you for in the next year is to continue on this journey with us. If you have fallen off track and you want to get back on track, your mark the date, January twenty eighth for the next challenge. It's the last two times. It's just been incredible. We've refined the process, refined the experience and the results have been incredible. The results in the beginning of the year with our challenges were good, but it's just getting better as the year goes on. So earmarked that date re-engage with the fast start guide, reengage with us, send us a message, ask us a question, tell me if I'm wrong here. But there's two different ways, new ways that they can.

[00:54:18] You know, we we are the podcast numbers are cool.

[00:54:21] Like two hundred thousand downloads. Like, that's really freaking cool. Right. But like, I don't know, like, OK, what, what can we do next. Right. So, you know, in our goal of trying to spread the word and impact, you can either reach out to us. There's a voicemail snippet right. Where you can actually, like, send us a message. And there's also a share opportunity for the podcast. Correct.

[00:54:45] Yeah, you can you can definitely do both of those things, and for the voicemail you have to do is go to the fasting for life dotcom, go to the contact page, and then you'll see a link to leave us a voicemail. And we don't have to air it. But if you if you would like us to and it's clear and concise, then we can definitely do that, too. But we love answering questions like that. We get plenty of emails, too, for things like that and and definitely share. Because, you know, one cool thing that I heard recently was that a few people who I had introduced, I had given them a plan. They were asking and how to lose, you know, somewhere in the fifteen to twenty five pound range.

[00:55:24] And it turns out what they ended up doing was kind of starting like a little bit of a book club almost, where they were actually waiting for the next episode. And then they were discussing it like amongst themselves. And so they were like, yeah, they were they were kind of building on the conversation. And there's a reason why, you know, your results started with our conversation and then why we wanted to expand the conversation. So so just keeping it going and referring it, sharing it and finding ways to build out on those conversations. Like a lot of people who go through the challenges with us end up being kind of a local authority point in their own social circles and getting their own family and friends and co-workers on board where, you know, a few people we've introduced have kind of been the trailblazers for their offices. And some of the other ones had actually been the laggards where there wasn't a lot of open conversation. But then they saw what we were talking about in and got on board and they were kind of like the late, late to the party once. So keep the conversation going and share it and, you know, just continue to see the winds for yourself and and for those you care about, too.

[00:56:34] Man, that is so cool. I don't even know that was happening. Like, keep it keeping these cards close to your chest. They're telling me I'm like, what's like what a cool idea. Right.

[00:56:44] I absolutely love that. So one last statement here is from one of our our challengers back in the day. And I didn't read I read part of her testimony earlier, but if there's anything worth doing is doing well. And the fasting for life community, this conversation that we're talking about is really what we started out to create. So go back, earmarked the challenge date, listen to the episodes. If you want to get a a restart for the year, start a podcast club. Didn't know that was a thing. Download the Fast Start guide, reach out to us and share it with someone. Really just do something in terms of what we were talking about earlier in the middle of the podcast, when it comes to creating a new habit and not focusing on the desired outcome, but focusing on those day to day habits that can consistently move the needle. And I know if you do that one percent better every day, you're thirty seven times better by the end of the year. So encouragement each and every one of you, if you feel inclined, please drop us a review for the five star kind, leave us a message and let us know if there's anything we can do to help Tommy to you, sir, it's been an absolute pleasure on this roller coaster of a ride of twenty twenty. Excited to be sitting here on January 4th. Twenty twenty one and ready to rock and roll.

[00:58:01] Yeah, likewise sir. Could have set up by myself and I appreciate the conversation and, and everything that we're doing. So looking forward to a great year. Awesome. Awesome.

[00:58:11] Oh I forgot to share a cool thing. I'm not going to share it now. I'm going to dangle the carrot. You're going to have to listen to the next episode. There's a cool little research study I'm doing with some technology. We're going to leverage technology in twenty twenty one. So with that being said, commercial break coming up. This episode is over. Tommy, have a great day and we'll see you on the other side.

[00:58:30] Thanks.

[00:58:30] But so you've heard today's episode and you may be wondering where do I start? Head on over to the Fasting for Life Dotcom and sign up for our newsletter, where you'll receive fasting tips and strategies to maximize results and fit fasting into your day to day life.

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