Ep. 57 - Lifestyle Design and Fasting | Telling your Family you're Skipping Dinner | Support via the "Marriage Merge" | Long-term Habits for Lifetime Results | Free Intermittent Fasting OMAD Plan

family lifestyle design long-term habits priorities Jan 26, 2021

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss the power of building sustainable, long-term priorities that lead to easier decision making and better results for health and weight. We are social creatures, and family and friends are very important in our lives, so helping them understand why we do what we do can have an incredible, positive impact on our results.

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

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

We started fasting for life because of how fasting has transformed our lives, and we hope to share the tools that we have learned along the way.

Hey, everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Watier, and I'm here, as always, a good friend and colleague, Tumi Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir. Hey, Scott, how are you? It is Challenge Week, my friend, and I am excited. I cannot wait. We are kicking it off in just a few days here. The twenty eighth at 11 a.m.. And man, I gosh, I feel like a broken record and I'm just going to say it again.

I think it's gotten better. I think it's we refine the process again. I'm excited for everybody that signed up. If you're not signed up yet, you still have a shot. And I think it's going to be the best one yet. OK, there I said it. I rip the Band-Aid off. I think it's the best one yet. And I'm just super excited that it's starting here in a few days.

So my I love broken records, especially when they're my favorite records, because challenge time is exciting. Like everything else in my house was kind of a challenge. Remember when I was in high challenge? I'm sorry. Go ahead. I try not to remember, but yes, I do. But I mean, they're just there's so much fun. They're so effective. There's so much energy in them. And I just I just love what comes out of the other side for for everybody you can like. You can see the eyes start to open because everyone starts to see that light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how many years of bad diet, lack of success and bad psychology. And wherever you're coming from, if you fasted before, you never have it. It doesn't matter. But just just seeing that you understand there's a plan and there's a method to the madness and that you can get to that that that goal spot that you've been searching for, like it's so cool.

Yeah. The realization that it's not fairy dust and unicorns and there's actually like a real thing that we can tangibly latch on to. Right. You're like, oh, that's me. It's like when you told me about fasting back in the day and then when I, I started reading all the books that you had read and then we've gone through how many episodes and programs and research and working on algorithms and customized plans and all that stuff.

But the juice is really in that. Wow. Like that. Ten days of guided one on one every single day. We're with you, you have a group, you have power in the peloton, you've got the community, the accountability, and you just start peeling those layers off the onion.

But in this time, it's not tears of pain and discomfort. It's tears of joy that we get to see in these people that are like, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe that I just lost twelve pounds in ten days. I've never lost this much weight in my entire life. I don't understand what is happening. And then, of course, setting the expectations of what to expect after that initial ten days and where you can go and what your options are and helping everyone set their goals for the future. I just cannot believe that in the last year I went from why would we do a challenge? Let's just make a course or, you know, start talking into a microphone.

Well, you know, I was wrong and I'm OK to admit that.

So I appreciate you saying no, no, no. I think we should do another one in the fall. OK, yeah. No, I think you should probably do one before the holidays because I see this problem. So we're always trying to add in and diversify and improve. And now we've realized that more people need this because there's such a huge request and demand for it. So we're going to start doing them our minimum, minimum, minimum this year. We're going to at least double our output from last year. So I'm excited. Few days here, we're going to get started. That's enough about the challenge. If you guys want to find it, go to w w w dot the fasting for life dot com forward slash live. If you're on our email list, you've probably been getting the emails. Don't miss out the best way we can possibly think of starting twenty, twenty one off on the right foot and saying bye bye to twenty twenty and just really ramping up here. So I am, I'm going to start looking because I can just feel like I'm, I'm just going to keep going and going and going. So let's talk about today's topic, which is going to be some of the fear that is built around doing a challenge like this due to the lack of support in your personal life or your home situation or work or spouse or all of those familial societal things that kind of can be roadblocks for people to really just jump in. And I think we should start with the first two rules of fasting.

Yeah, first two rules of fasting. If you're if you're new to the podcast or you haven't heard us say it in a while, don't talk about fasting, especially if you're due to fasting. Just about that. Rule number one. Yeah. Rule number one, don't talk about fasting. Rule number two, don't talk about fasting. No rule number three, slowly. But once you're at a certain point, then you can. Start strategically talking about fasting, but in the beginning, it's really easy when you have outside influences and you have friends and family, like you said, kind of going, are you nuts? What are you doing? Because why are you starving yourself? Right. Most people just haven't. You look like they're frustrated because they don't think that they think they are going to feel weird because they want to eat and you're not eating or there's some sort of social aspect that you're not participating in something along those lines. They just don't understand it. Or they think that you're going to hurt or slow down your metabolism like we hear constantly, you know, any number of fears, really.

So a couple that I really want to highlight would be something that we've seen pretty cool through the challenges this year.

And we get a lot of messages about this, too, is spouses. So being a spouse, I feel like I can speak to this. And also having taken care of hundreds of families over the years and I was in practice full time clinical practice, spouse dynamic is interesting and then family dynamic, meaning not just your spouse and your your kids and your immediate family, but your extended family, you know, across different cultures, across different traditions and etc.. There's a lot of moving parts here. And I remember having a consultation with a husband and wife at one point with our our FDN at that time, who is heading up all of our metabolic and weight loss programs and gave her some background. She went into the consultation and the wife looked at the husband. The husband went to the wife. And they both know they needed it. Right. And they both admitted it.

And we took them through the process and they literally couldn't pull the trigger because they said if we don't eat, because they live with their their mom. Right. So her mom actually lives in the house with them. She's like eighty five years old. And if they don't eat what mom cooks, it completely ruins Mom's day and she becomes like a monster. And the wife looked to the husband and was like, no, we can't do this because if mom's not on board, like we're going to absolutely just crush her and she's 80, whatever years old. And the literally reason why they didn't take their health back into their own hands was because, mom, they didn't want to disrespect mom. So there's some really deep rooted ties, you know, in this stuff. And, you know, in that situation, I just said, well, I mean, who's going to take care of mom if you guys get sick, like, you know, you know, so it's just this this big disconnect. So when we talk about the spouse piece, you know, my wife and I live differently in the world of food and consumption and tracking and what works for each one of us. But we also are cool dichotomy because you can get results a lot of different ways.

I've tried the way she does it, multiple different iterations. And so if you taught me and it didn't work for us and there's some reasons why, but on day five, you named it something really cool where we see people jump into the challenge, they start seeing results. Then all of a sudden we hear these whispers. On day four or five. There's been a change, right?

We we we lovingly termed it the marriage merge, where by day five of the 10 day ramp up, the the spouse tends to have have come on board at that point where somewhere in the background they've been seeing the videos and they've been hearing what's going on and they've been kind of seeing the change and the other one who's participating in the challenge. And they say, OK, well, I'm going to do whatever you're doing for the next few days. And usually by the end of it, we hear some kind of awesome testimonial and sometimes it's even bigger than the person who originally signed up. It's just it's really cool to to kind of see that and see that shift where somebody goes from just completely, you know, not being on board at all, having never tried it or or maybe they did in the past. But but within a period of just a week or so, having a completely new change of heart and the like you said, the power is in the peloton. Like there's there's so much power in having your spouse on board.

Like that's that that's a huge thing. That resistance can be the difference between success and failure. And having them on board can be just just the synergy that comes about within the household.

It's so much easier to follow anything that requires any sort of like, you know, understanding of a plan and sticking to it and and long term guidance and adherence.

That's so much easier when when your other half isn't kind of going in a different direction.

Well, yeah, you might have the people at work. I think you're crazy or your doctor that might not be in agreement with what you're trying to do because maybe it's the time for medication or you're on medication and you want to come off it and they're saying, well, you can't. And you're like, well, I can. This is what I want to do. Right. But having your spouse in your corner is huge. And we'll talk about family and. Kids in a minute, two adult offspring versus little offspring. Right, because we've had some clients that have had, you know, the the newlyweds living with them. And it creates an issue when so much is around the food schedule. Right. The family connection, having dinner together. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The mom in the example that I gave you that wants to cook three meals a day for the husband and wife, like that's our only purpose in life. Living with them is to provide like that's her. That's how she finds purpose. So there's so many different the different levels. And I will say this, that 80, 20, 80 percent of the time it's the woman who starts and then the guy follows suit. And I'm speaking from being a male.

And I can say this. We're stubborn. We don't typically tap into our emotions. We don't typically care as much when it comes to the aesthetics. Right. And we're just wired differently. Right. So a lot of the times it's the woman who starts. And then we hear about this great transformation of the husband coming on board reluctantly at first. But but then a lot of times willingly willing to support. And it reminds me of a situation where we got a Facebook message once from a gentleman who had been following us and gotten great results. But he's like, I don't know what to do. Like, guys, can you help me? My wife just doesn't she doesn't believe in it. She doesn't want to do it. She wants to go back to Weight Watchers. I'm like, we've spent thousands of dollars on Weight Watchers and it hasn't worked. She's like, I want to spend the money on a more it's like it's not working. He's like, I can't figure out how to get her to come on board. And they apparently were taking a road trip. And I was like, well, just play the podcast in the car like you're the driver, right? We have a rule. Whoever drives gets gets control of the playlist.

Right. So that's a rule. Yeah, it's a rule. So that's why I drive all the time.

So luckily my wife and I both like country music and well, now it's the kids. We have a kids playlist and I'm like, what are we listening to? Why are we listening to Elsah again? But you're not driving, right? How did this happen? No rules.

So anyway, he message back and he's like, my wife's on board after like the third or fourth episode, you guys were able to convertor. And I was like, well, it's not us. It's the third party authority. Right? Like, it's that third party authority. Use it in business, personal finances, whatever. When you bring that third party and you know, it allows for there to be some sort of justification and acceptance, rather it being that butting heads type thing. So it's really a no preconceptions. Yeah. Yeah.

Would that marriage merge that we've seen and I love that term but it yeah it's and I'm sure there's a lot more out there that don't want to tell us that their husbands doing the program do or their wives are doing the program too because the whole registration thing but. Right. Well we love either way we don't care like the results. Your whole family on board, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So really cool stuff. I think I want to transition Tommy into talking to about the little ones. Right. So you and I both have loved ones in the twenty month to four year old category, we've we've had multiple conversations.

Our moderator and our challenges as well has for kids all different ages, some of our our monthly coaching group, coaching continuity clients have expressed this concern. And it's really how to frame and I don't want to forget about talking about the older kids, too, but, you know, when the grown adults, the grown kids, but the little ones, it's like there's concern that we don't want to be showing them a poor way of looking at food or eating or we need to worry about nutritional concerns, et cetera. And the way you framed it the other day was really cool.

And then we had some feedback from one of our group coaching people as well that I thought was really, really, really cool and hopefully encouraging to you guys that are kind of on the fence about whether or not you should do this or whether or not this can work long term for you, that there are ways to do this in a healthy manner. And I'm going to push back on the whole dieting industry as a whole in terms of the philosophy behind it and how that has a negative impact more than what we're talking about here.

Yeah, you know, I think I think I'm kind of getting to the root of it. If if you think of the typical kind of low and slow dieting and the small calorie deficits and. Well, let me say this. This this all came from a point of what your kids see and how they see you interacting with food and not wanting to kind of give them negative connotations about food or affect their their image with for a diet or, you know, the way you eat and the eating patterns and things like that. So if you know, most people who are doing low and slow dieting and doing things like that, they might find themselves on a on some sort of yo yo, some sort of kind of roller coaster where they're talking about being on a diet and talking about the frustration points and the struggles with. Food and things like that on a on a consistent basis. So even when we heard these questions, I think the people who said them, I'm not sure if they if they considered the fact that these children would be seeing and hearing that for for a long time. And so seeing the struggles and and the misunderstandings behind calories and and things like that and the struggles that can go along with it versus the simplicity and the control that you get with fasting. I think if you were already on a better track there. But when they were worried about about something like, let's say, skipping meal, like not having dinner with your family specifically.

But I just looked at my son the other day and he said he said that I eat. And I said, no, no, not right now. And he said that away. And I said, well, my question. Yeah, that is y y you know, he's he's what? Twenty six months now and it's just it's constant throughout the day that a y but I said because well actually that one wasn't for dinner. I think that one was for breakfast because what I said was breakfast is for is for growing kids like Dad's already grown. I don't need to grow anymore. I don't need breakfast like grow sideways when we have that big breakfast. Right. That that's not what I want to do. And he said, oh, OK, you know, and he just moved on to his next Y question like it was it was totally fine. But I thought I thought just just his understanding, his kind of natural intuition for that. And that that flew over well with my my three and a half year old as well. But we get that question a lot like, what do I tell my kids if I'm not eating a meal?

Yeah, and I think it was someone else who had mentioned it, and I love the fact, so I want to I want to talk about the discipline piece in a second, but I love the fact that my daughter will ask me, Dad, are you eating tonight? And I'm like, well, no, I'm not. Why wait earlier? So I'm not hungry. Right. So just a simple answer, giving them the the affirmation that, yes, you're still eating. But the problem is I made a whole bunch of lifestyle decisions leading up to this point where my body was metabolically unfit. It was not healthy. So my pushback on this is your health is your most important asset, especially as a father or a mother or someone that has the responsibility of offspring like you. You can't send them back like I want to some days, right? Like I can't return them like you are.

You are now their caretaker, right? Like nobody forced on this. Yeah. Twenty four. Seven. Nobody told me about that piece and how I thought I had no free time before. Right. Like nobody told us about that. So it's like oh yeah. You literally have the responsibility to, to do your best as a parent. So we don't my thing is like, well I need to be at my best, I need to be healthy. So what works for me? Will I fast? So framing it in the way of I've already eaten, I'm not hungry, you know, and typically they just kind of move on and they're OK with it. Right? We don't. I'd rather that conversation then. Oh, Daddy's on a diet. He's going to eat like a rabbit for the next six months and be angry about it and be angry about it. Right. And then when I and I'm going to see him yell at the scale. Yeah. Or be afraid of the Skellig. My daughter gets on the scale now and she's like three, two point five. Yeah. Right. Like there's just a level of it, like excitement about it. And we're not talking about, you know, situations where there's, you know, health concerns, childhood obesity. Like we're not talking about the outlying situation. We're talking about the majority of the day to day interactions with our kids and the people that we've that people have come to us and asked, what about the situation?

So I like that framework of, yeah, I already ate. I like your framework of like, well, no, breakfast is for growing kids. Like, I love that. I was so cool.

And then there was another good one about discipline. When you really like working on it from a discipline like like Watier a delayed.

Yeah. Like an almost type of thing, rather than always being able to consume, consume, consume. We're at the park the other day and then Tommy me I'm going to, I'm going to be quiet. I promise. I'm just so far down. So we're at the park the other day and we bring our dogs is a big fence and park. You've been there, the big blue park. Right. And these kids come over the hill and they said, oh, your dogs over the fence, right? Yeah, we know. And they're like, oh, by the way, there's coyotes out here. It's like middle of the day, right? We're not worried.

So they came over and they were just laying on the swings, basically. And I heard one of them say to the other one saying, hey, let's go back. I'm going to ask my mom if she can take us to the the the gas station because I want snacks and I'm like, OK, these kids are literally laying on the swings. They're not being active. They're not playing soccer. They're laying on the swings. They're going to walk back home, go ask mom to take them to the the gas station. Right. That I go to. It's right around the corner in a car. Yeah. And like, pick up what? Cheetos, BlueBell, ice cream.

And I'm like, OK, OK. What are we talking about here? Like a little bit of discipline and delayed gratification. I mean, I wish I to learn what the great gratification was a long time ago. I'd have a lot more of the money that I made in the restaurant industry like I went to just bought and spent the cash.

It was in my pocket so feverishly. Right. I realized on the food, on the food that you wish you could return as well. Right, right. I don't need the wings from when I was powerlifting back in the day. You can have those back.

Right. So I like this idea of discipline and how they were working on that as a family, which I thought was really cool.

Yeah. And she mentioned something like Welling in the challenge. We're working on seeing how disciplined we can be. And I think kids understand that, like from an intuitive standpoint, pushing yourselves to new boundaries and things like that is obviously depending on on what age the kids are. But she said that that resonated with them. And, yeah, let's get this clear.

The kid with the kids were not on a time restricted eating window. No, he was explaining it to her kids why she wasn't having the three or four. My my son is a perfect example. It's twenty four seven. Like hide the food. We like the cabinets and all of a sudden he's eating again. I'm like, how are you? He's also like massive. And I'm like, how are you doing this. Like why is this happening. So just for clarification, she, they were not doing this together as a family.

You know, they she was talking about her and how she's getting her health back, explaining it. Right.

Right. Exactly why she was skipping that meal or why she had set a timer for the next time that she was going to eat.

But, you know, and even even for my three and a half year old using a. Phrase like, well, you know, we could go to the Chappellet or something like that, and she says, well, why are you eating lunch today? And I said, Well, I already had this meal. I already ate this meal. And, you know, it's expensive. That's right. Absolutely it is. And I'm still carrying some, you know, and she said, OK, you already ate this meal, OK? When she always asks when? And I said, well, I'm not sure exactly when. Probably like a few years ago. And she goes, OK.

And then just on to the next subject, like that makes sense to her. That is literally what happened to me. And and there's not this whole, like, negative image or explanation and kind of things like that. It makes sense to her and she can she can understand it.

I like the one. So I really like the discipline piece.

And then I also liked the conversations we've had lately around the older kids. So older kids, maybe they moved out, they've gone away to college. They come back for the weekend, do the dirty laundry, home cooked meals, pick up the another package of socks because they they ran out or they left them in the laundry, you know, all that college aged grown shit. Maybe they're newly married and they come back. We hear all these different conversations and it's like, OK, well, that is not a reason to not take control of what you can control, which is the most important thing you have in our opinion, which is your health.

So why not hop on board and learn how to make that non-negotiable?

Right. We we talk about non-negotiable as your date night, my date night, our family days are our celebrations for birthdays, et cetera. Those are non-negotiable. Right? So we put those into our schedule and then we learn how to work that schedule to make the life that we want.

So the social, the family, the the external forces are going to work against you when you start a new program like this, especially when you tell people that you're not eating for eighteen twenty four, twenty six, twenty eight, thirty six hours. They're like hot.

So don't do it when your kids come back on the weekend, like set yourself a window, give yourself four hours, they show up, you have a charcuterie board. That's a fancy word for cheese and meat and all that stuff.

I just learned that recently was like, oh, it's a code word knowing like you just can't call it cheese meat. But anyway and then you have it. You have a glass of wine, you have dinner, you hang out like you, you give yourself that ability in that flexibility. So if you're on the fence about.

You know, the challenge and whether or not sticking with fasting or doing that or pushing the window and going to longer fast is right for you. Well, if everything else you've been doing isn't working, the worst thing that happens with this is that it doesn't work.

But we're going to work our darndest and our hardest to make sure that we give you everything you need to make sure that it is the answer you've been looking for like it has been for us.

Absolutely. And I really love that example with the with the older kids, because that speaks to a few of the people that that had some some good success. But also, we're kind of struggling to find some of that balance that that kind of life balance on the longer term side, like after the challenge was over and and how to keep that momentum going and and understanding how to how to prioritize when when they're kind of social familial aspects changed because for a few people that look like grown kids coming into the house and being there all weekend or maybe all throughout the week, throughout the whole the whole winter break, I think is is probably what happened for a lot of people. And just understanding how to prioritize that and make those the special get togethers are non-negotiable. But then also setting up some of the the easy to follow boundaries for some of the rest of the time, because just because you have family in town for a whole weekend doesn't mean it has to be a binge off the rails kind of weekend. Right. Like you can you can really enjoy the time, but you don't have to set yourself back and you don't have to regret any of that time, too. And and that's part of what we go into in the challenge to how to make it real and sustainable.

And I just love the overlap that we've been experiencing with the challenges and the groups and the monthly coaching and just the conversations. Over the last year, we've really been able to hone in on the sticking points of why weight loss doesn't work right. And it literally very rarely has to do with the scale. Just leave it at that. There's a lot of other things and a lot of other pieces. And this is one of them. This is the big piece of family, friends and support. So if you are on the fence, it's time to act now. Get a few days left. It is not too late. You have not missed anything. Hop on. You can go to our website. The Fasting for Life dot com forward slash live. If you guys have been on the journey with us for a while, stick with us. We've got some really, really cool resources and things we're working on that we're going to be rolling out here in the next few weeks to months. Appreciate all of you that have listened to me. Any last thoughts or anything to add before we kind of hop off? And next next episode we record will be during the challenge. So we promise to bring you new content and new conversation, just like we always strive to bring you something that's impactful and actionable. But yeah, that'll be the next episode. So just just excited to make any last thoughts for a wrap up for today.

I think I think I just want to highlight what you said earlier, which was just that, you know, if if you're looking to regain control and take back control of your health, then then don't let the small obstacles stand in your way like that little question mark about how to talk to your kids about it. And if you have some point point of of struggle or discomfort, reach out like that's what we're here for. Reach out to us, bring it up during the Q&A session and the challenge. And that's the kind of thing that we do so we can get past it because that's what makes it real and that's what makes it consistent and being able to actually stick with it and do it. And that's why we're seeing results that that are unusual for full transparency.

Whatever you decide to do, if you have questions, reach out to us. That's why we started this. Yeah, we love it. We love the conversation. Let us help if we can. We don't have all the answers. If we don't have them, we'll work our our we'll work our butts off to find them for you. Point in the right direction with a lot of the stuff we hear from a day to day and week to week is stuff that we've struggled with and help people through as well. So, Tommy, as always, sir, appreciate you.

And I will see you on the challenge here in three days. Looking forward to it.

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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Fasting For Life Ep. 57

[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, a good friend and colleague, Tumi Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir. Hey, Scott, how are you? It is Challenge Week, my friend, and I am excited. I cannot wait. We are kicking it off in just a few days here. The twenty eighth at 11 a.m.. And man, I gosh, I feel like a broken record and I'm just going to say it again.

[00:01:10] I think it's gotten better. I think it's we refine the process again. I'm excited for everybody that signed up. If you're not signed up yet, you still have a shot. And I think it's going to be the best one yet. OK, there I said it. I rip the Band-Aid off. I think it's the best one yet. And I'm just super excited that it's starting here in a few days.

[00:01:28] So my I love broken records, especially when they're my favorite records, because challenge time is exciting. Like everything else in my house was kind of a challenge. Remember when I was in high challenge? I'm sorry. Go ahead. I try not to remember, but yes, I do. But I mean, they're just there's so much fun. They're so effective. There's so much energy in them. And I just I just love what comes out of the other side for for everybody you can like. You can see the eyes start to open because everyone starts to see that light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how many years of bad diet, lack of success and bad psychology. And wherever you're coming from, if you fasted before, you never have it. It doesn't matter. But just just seeing that you understand there's a plan and there's a method to the madness and that you can get to that that that goal spot that you've been searching for, like it's so cool.

[00:02:28] Yeah. The realization that it's not fairy dust and unicorns and there's actually like a real thing that we can tangibly latch on to. Right. You're like, oh, that's me. It's like when you told me about fasting back in the day and then when I, I started reading all the books that you had read and then we've gone through how many episodes and programs and research and working on algorithms and customized plans and all that stuff.

[00:02:50] But the juice is really in that. Wow. Like that. Ten days of guided one on one every single day. We're with you, you have a group, you have power in the peloton, you've got the community, the accountability, and you just start peeling those layers off the onion.

[00:03:04] But in this time, it's not tears of pain and discomfort. It's tears of joy that we get to see in these people that are like, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe that I just lost twelve pounds in ten days. I've never lost this much weight in my entire life. I don't understand what is happening. And then, of course, setting the expectations of what to expect after that initial ten days and where you can go and what your options are and helping everyone set their goals for the future. I just cannot believe that in the last year I went from why would we do a challenge? Let's just make a course or, you know, start talking into a microphone.

[00:03:39] Well, you know, I was wrong and I'm OK to admit that.

[00:03:45] So I appreciate you saying no, no, no. I think we should do another one in the fall. OK, yeah. No, I think you should probably do one before the holidays because I see this problem. So we're always trying to add in and diversify and improve. And now we've realized that more people need this because there's such a huge request and demand for it. So we're going to start doing them our minimum, minimum, minimum this year. We're going to at least double our output from last year. So I'm excited. Few days here, we're going to get started. That's enough about the challenge. If you guys want to find it, go to w w w dot the fasting for life dot com forward slash live. If you're on our email list, you've probably been getting the emails. Don't miss out the best way we can possibly think of starting twenty, twenty one off on the right foot and saying bye bye to twenty twenty and just really ramping up here. So I am, I'm going to start looking because I can just feel like I'm, I'm just going to keep going and going and going. So let's talk about today's topic, which is going to be some of the fear that is built around doing a challenge like this due to the lack of support in your personal life or your home situation or work or spouse or all of those familial societal things that kind of can be roadblocks for people to really just jump in. And I think we should start with the first two rules of fasting.

[00:05:15] Yeah, first two rules of fasting. If you're if you're new to the podcast or you haven't heard us say it in a while, don't talk about fasting, especially if you're due to fasting. Just about that. Rule number one. Yeah. Rule number one, don't talk about fasting. Rule number two, don't talk about fasting. No rule number three, slowly. But once you're at a certain point, then you can. Start strategically talking about fasting, but in the beginning, it's really easy when you have outside influences and you have friends and family, like you said, kind of going, are you nuts? What are you doing? Because why are you starving yourself? Right. Most people just haven't. You look like they're frustrated because they don't think that they think they are going to feel weird because they want to eat and you're not eating or there's some sort of social aspect that you're not participating in something along those lines. They just don't understand it. Or they think that you're going to hurt or slow down your metabolism like we hear constantly, you know, any number of fears, really.

[00:06:22] So a couple that I really want to highlight would be something that we've seen pretty cool through the challenges this year.

[00:06:27] And we get a lot of messages about this, too, is spouses. So being a spouse, I feel like I can speak to this. And also having taken care of hundreds of families over the years and I was in practice full time clinical practice, spouse dynamic is interesting and then family dynamic, meaning not just your spouse and your your kids and your immediate family, but your extended family, you know, across different cultures, across different traditions and etc.. There's a lot of moving parts here. And I remember having a consultation with a husband and wife at one point with our our FDN at that time, who is heading up all of our metabolic and weight loss programs and gave her some background. She went into the consultation and the wife looked at the husband. The husband went to the wife. And they both know they needed it. Right. And they both admitted it.

[00:07:20] And we took them through the process and they literally couldn't pull the trigger because they said if we don't eat, because they live with their their mom. Right. So her mom actually lives in the house with them. She's like eighty five years old. And if they don't eat what mom cooks, it completely ruins Mom's day and she becomes like a monster. And the wife looked to the husband and was like, no, we can't do this because if mom's not on board, like we're going to absolutely just crush her and she's 80, whatever years old. And the literally reason why they didn't take their health back into their own hands was because, mom, they didn't want to disrespect mom. So there's some really deep rooted ties, you know, in this stuff. And, you know, in that situation, I just said, well, I mean, who's going to take care of mom if you guys get sick, like, you know, you know, so it's just this this big disconnect. So when we talk about the spouse piece, you know, my wife and I live differently in the world of food and consumption and tracking and what works for each one of us. But we also are cool dichotomy because you can get results a lot of different ways.

[00:08:30] I've tried the way she does it, multiple different iterations. And so if you taught me and it didn't work for us and there's some reasons why, but on day five, you named it something really cool where we see people jump into the challenge, they start seeing results. Then all of a sudden we hear these whispers. On day four or five. There's been a change, right?

[00:08:50] We we we lovingly termed it the marriage merge, where by day five of the 10 day ramp up, the the spouse tends to have have come on board at that point where somewhere in the background they've been seeing the videos and they've been hearing what's going on and they've been kind of seeing the change and the other one who's participating in the challenge. And they say, OK, well, I'm going to do whatever you're doing for the next few days. And usually by the end of it, we hear some kind of awesome testimonial and sometimes it's even bigger than the person who originally signed up. It's just it's really cool to to kind of see that and see that shift where somebody goes from just completely, you know, not being on board at all, having never tried it or or maybe they did in the past. But but within a period of just a week or so, having a completely new change of heart and the like you said, the power is in the peloton. Like there's there's so much power in having your spouse on board.

[00:09:52] Like that's that that's a huge thing. That resistance can be the difference between success and failure. And having them on board can be just just the synergy that comes about within the household.

[00:10:03] It's so much easier to follow anything that requires any sort of like, you know, understanding of a plan and sticking to it and and long term guidance and adherence.

[00:10:16] That's so much easier when when your other half isn't kind of going in a different direction.

[00:10:22] Well, yeah, you might have the people at work. I think you're crazy or your doctor that might not be in agreement with what you're trying to do because maybe it's the time for medication or you're on medication and you want to come off it and they're saying, well, you can't. And you're like, well, I can. This is what I want to do. Right. But having your spouse in your corner is huge. And we'll talk about family and. Kids in a minute, two adult offspring versus little offspring. Right, because we've had some clients that have had, you know, the the newlyweds living with them. And it creates an issue when so much is around the food schedule. Right. The family connection, having dinner together. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The mom in the example that I gave you that wants to cook three meals a day for the husband and wife, like that's our only purpose in life. Living with them is to provide like that's her. That's how she finds purpose. So there's so many different the different levels. And I will say this, that 80, 20, 80 percent of the time it's the woman who starts and then the guy follows suit. And I'm speaking from being a male.

[00:11:17] And I can say this. We're stubborn. We don't typically tap into our emotions. We don't typically care as much when it comes to the aesthetics. Right. And we're just wired differently. Right. So a lot of the times it's the woman who starts. And then we hear about this great transformation of the husband coming on board reluctantly at first. But but then a lot of times willingly willing to support. And it reminds me of a situation where we got a Facebook message once from a gentleman who had been following us and gotten great results. But he's like, I don't know what to do. Like, guys, can you help me? My wife just doesn't she doesn't believe in it. She doesn't want to do it. She wants to go back to Weight Watchers. I'm like, we've spent thousands of dollars on Weight Watchers and it hasn't worked. She's like, I want to spend the money on a more it's like it's not working. He's like, I can't figure out how to get her to come on board. And they apparently were taking a road trip. And I was like, well, just play the podcast in the car like you're the driver, right? We have a rule. Whoever drives gets gets control of the playlist.

[00:12:15] Right. So that's a rule. Yeah, it's a rule. So that's why I drive all the time.

[00:12:20] So luckily my wife and I both like country music and well, now it's the kids. We have a kids playlist and I'm like, what are we listening to? Why are we listening to Elsah again? But you're not driving, right? How did this happen? No rules.

[00:12:31] So anyway, he message back and he's like, my wife's on board after like the third or fourth episode, you guys were able to convertor. And I was like, well, it's not us. It's the third party authority. Right? Like, it's that third party authority. Use it in business, personal finances, whatever. When you bring that third party and you know, it allows for there to be some sort of justification and acceptance, rather it being that butting heads type thing. So it's really a no preconceptions. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:02] Would that marriage merge that we've seen and I love that term but it yeah it's and I'm sure there's a lot more out there that don't want to tell us that their husbands doing the program do or their wives are doing the program too because the whole registration thing but. Right. Well we love either way we don't care like the results. Your whole family on board, right?

[00:13:22] Yeah, absolutely. So really cool stuff. I think I want to transition Tommy into talking to about the little ones. Right. So you and I both have loved ones in the twenty month to four year old category, we've we've had multiple conversations.

[00:13:40] Our moderator and our challenges as well has for kids all different ages, some of our our monthly coaching group, coaching continuity clients have expressed this concern. And it's really how to frame and I don't want to forget about talking about the older kids, too, but, you know, when the grown adults, the grown kids, but the little ones, it's like there's concern that we don't want to be showing them a poor way of looking at food or eating or we need to worry about nutritional concerns, et cetera. And the way you framed it the other day was really cool.

[00:14:16] And then we had some feedback from one of our group coaching people as well that I thought was really, really, really cool and hopefully encouraging to you guys that are kind of on the fence about whether or not you should do this or whether or not this can work long term for you, that there are ways to do this in a healthy manner. And I'm going to push back on the whole dieting industry as a whole in terms of the philosophy behind it and how that has a negative impact more than what we're talking about here.

[00:14:47] Yeah, you know, I think I think I'm kind of getting to the root of it. If if you think of the typical kind of low and slow dieting and the small calorie deficits and. Well, let me say this. This this all came from a point of what your kids see and how they see you interacting with food and not wanting to kind of give them negative connotations about food or affect their their image with for a diet or, you know, the way you eat and the eating patterns and things like that. So if you know, most people who are doing low and slow dieting and doing things like that, they might find themselves on a on some sort of yo yo, some sort of kind of roller coaster where they're talking about being on a diet and talking about the frustration points and the struggles with. Food and things like that on a on a consistent basis. So even when we heard these questions, I think the people who said them, I'm not sure if they if they considered the fact that these children would be seeing and hearing that for for a long time. And so seeing the struggles and and the misunderstandings behind calories and and things like that and the struggles that can go along with it versus the simplicity and the control that you get with fasting. I think if you were already on a better track there. But when they were worried about about something like, let's say, skipping meal, like not having dinner with your family specifically.

[00:16:22] But I just looked at my son the other day and he said he said that I eat. And I said, no, no, not right now. And he said that away. And I said, well, my question. Yeah, that is y y you know, he's he's what? Twenty six months now and it's just it's constant throughout the day that a y but I said because well actually that one wasn't for dinner. I think that one was for breakfast because what I said was breakfast is for is for growing kids like Dad's already grown. I don't need to grow anymore. I don't need breakfast like grow sideways when we have that big breakfast. Right. That that's not what I want to do. And he said, oh, OK, you know, and he just moved on to his next Y question like it was it was totally fine. But I thought I thought just just his understanding, his kind of natural intuition for that. And that that flew over well with my my three and a half year old as well. But we get that question a lot like, what do I tell my kids if I'm not eating a meal?

[00:17:24] Yeah, and I think it was someone else who had mentioned it, and I love the fact, so I want to I want to talk about the discipline piece in a second, but I love the fact that my daughter will ask me, Dad, are you eating tonight? And I'm like, well, no, I'm not. Why wait earlier? So I'm not hungry. Right. So just a simple answer, giving them the the affirmation that, yes, you're still eating. But the problem is I made a whole bunch of lifestyle decisions leading up to this point where my body was metabolically unfit. It was not healthy. So my pushback on this is your health is your most important asset, especially as a father or a mother or someone that has the responsibility of offspring like you. You can't send them back like I want to some days, right? Like I can't return them like you are.

[00:18:07] You are now their caretaker, right? Like nobody forced on this. Yeah. Twenty four. Seven. Nobody told me about that piece and how I thought I had no free time before. Right. Like nobody told us about that. So it's like oh yeah. You literally have the responsibility to, to do your best as a parent. So we don't my thing is like, well I need to be at my best, I need to be healthy. So what works for me? Will I fast? So framing it in the way of I've already eaten, I'm not hungry, you know, and typically they just kind of move on and they're OK with it. Right? We don't. I'd rather that conversation then. Oh, Daddy's on a diet. He's going to eat like a rabbit for the next six months and be angry about it and be angry about it. Right. And then when I and I'm going to see him yell at the scale. Yeah. Or be afraid of the Skellig. My daughter gets on the scale now and she's like three, two point five. Yeah. Right. Like there's just a level of it, like excitement about it. And we're not talking about, you know, situations where there's, you know, health concerns, childhood obesity. Like we're not talking about the outlying situation. We're talking about the majority of the day to day interactions with our kids and the people that we've that people have come to us and asked, what about the situation?

[00:19:27] So I like that framework of, yeah, I already ate. I like your framework of like, well, no, breakfast is for growing kids. Like, I love that. I was so cool.

[00:19:36] And then there was another good one about discipline. When you really like working on it from a discipline like like Watier a delayed.

[00:19:47] Yeah. Like an almost type of thing, rather than always being able to consume, consume, consume. We're at the park the other day and then Tommy me I'm going to, I'm going to be quiet. I promise. I'm just so far down. So we're at the park the other day and we bring our dogs is a big fence and park. You've been there, the big blue park. Right. And these kids come over the hill and they said, oh, your dogs over the fence, right? Yeah, we know. And they're like, oh, by the way, there's coyotes out here. It's like middle of the day, right? We're not worried.

[00:20:10] So they came over and they were just laying on the swings, basically. And I heard one of them say to the other one saying, hey, let's go back. I'm going to ask my mom if she can take us to the the the gas station because I want snacks and I'm like, OK, these kids are literally laying on the swings. They're not being active. They're not playing soccer. They're laying on the swings. They're going to walk back home, go ask mom to take them to the the gas station. Right. That I go to. It's right around the corner in a car. Yeah. And like, pick up what? Cheetos, BlueBell, ice cream.

[00:20:45] And I'm like, OK, OK. What are we talking about here? Like a little bit of discipline and delayed gratification. I mean, I wish I to learn what the great gratification was a long time ago. I'd have a lot more of the money that I made in the restaurant industry like I went to just bought and spent the cash.

[00:21:00] It was in my pocket so feverishly. Right. I realized on the food, on the food that you wish you could return as well. Right, right. I don't need the wings from when I was powerlifting back in the day. You can have those back.

[00:21:11] Right. So I like this idea of discipline and how they were working on that as a family, which I thought was really cool.

[00:21:18] Yeah. And she mentioned something like Welling in the challenge. We're working on seeing how disciplined we can be. And I think kids understand that, like from an intuitive standpoint, pushing yourselves to new boundaries and things like that is obviously depending on on what age the kids are. But she said that that resonated with them. And, yeah, let's get this clear.

[00:21:40] The kid with the kids were not on a time restricted eating window. No, he was explaining it to her kids why she wasn't having the three or four. My my son is a perfect example. It's twenty four seven. Like hide the food. We like the cabinets and all of a sudden he's eating again. I'm like, how are you? He's also like massive. And I'm like, how are you doing this. Like why is this happening. So just for clarification, she, they were not doing this together as a family.

[00:22:07] You know, they she was talking about her and how she's getting her health back, explaining it. Right.

[00:22:12] Right. Exactly why she was skipping that meal or why she had set a timer for the next time that she was going to eat.

[00:22:17] But, you know, and even even for my three and a half year old using a. Phrase like, well, you know, we could go to the Chappellet or something like that, and she says, well, why are you eating lunch today? And I said, Well, I already had this meal. I already ate this meal. And, you know, it's expensive. That's right. Absolutely it is. And I'm still carrying some, you know, and she said, OK, you already ate this meal, OK? When she always asks when? And I said, well, I'm not sure exactly when. Probably like a few years ago. And she goes, OK.

[00:22:53] And then just on to the next subject, like that makes sense to her. That is literally what happened to me. And and there's not this whole, like, negative image or explanation and kind of things like that. It makes sense to her and she can she can understand it.

[00:23:09] I like the one. So I really like the discipline piece.

[00:23:13] And then I also liked the conversations we've had lately around the older kids. So older kids, maybe they moved out, they've gone away to college. They come back for the weekend, do the dirty laundry, home cooked meals, pick up the another package of socks because they they ran out or they left them in the laundry, you know, all that college aged grown shit. Maybe they're newly married and they come back. We hear all these different conversations and it's like, OK, well, that is not a reason to not take control of what you can control, which is the most important thing you have in our opinion, which is your health.

[00:23:48] So why not hop on board and learn how to make that non-negotiable?

[00:23:56] Right. We we talk about non-negotiable as your date night, my date night, our family days are our celebrations for birthdays, et cetera. Those are non-negotiable. Right? So we put those into our schedule and then we learn how to work that schedule to make the life that we want.

[00:24:14] So the social, the family, the the external forces are going to work against you when you start a new program like this, especially when you tell people that you're not eating for eighteen twenty four, twenty six, twenty eight, thirty six hours. They're like hot.

[00:24:32] So don't do it when your kids come back on the weekend, like set yourself a window, give yourself four hours, they show up, you have a charcuterie board. That's a fancy word for cheese and meat and all that stuff.

[00:24:46] I just learned that recently was like, oh, it's a code word knowing like you just can't call it cheese meat. But anyway and then you have it. You have a glass of wine, you have dinner, you hang out like you, you give yourself that ability in that flexibility. So if you're on the fence about.

[00:25:02] You know, the challenge and whether or not sticking with fasting or doing that or pushing the window and going to longer fast is right for you. Well, if everything else you've been doing isn't working, the worst thing that happens with this is that it doesn't work.

[00:25:16] But we're going to work our darndest and our hardest to make sure that we give you everything you need to make sure that it is the answer you've been looking for like it has been for us.

[00:25:25] Absolutely. And I really love that example with the with the older kids, because that speaks to a few of the people that that had some some good success. But also, we're kind of struggling to find some of that balance that that kind of life balance on the longer term side, like after the challenge was over and and how to keep that momentum going and and understanding how to how to prioritize when when they're kind of social familial aspects changed because for a few people that look like grown kids coming into the house and being there all weekend or maybe all throughout the week, throughout the whole the whole winter break, I think is is probably what happened for a lot of people. And just understanding how to prioritize that and make those the special get togethers are non-negotiable. But then also setting up some of the the easy to follow boundaries for some of the rest of the time, because just because you have family in town for a whole weekend doesn't mean it has to be a binge off the rails kind of weekend. Right. Like you can you can really enjoy the time, but you don't have to set yourself back and you don't have to regret any of that time, too. And and that's part of what we go into in the challenge to how to make it real and sustainable.

[00:26:38] And I just love the overlap that we've been experiencing with the challenges and the groups and the monthly coaching and just the conversations. Over the last year, we've really been able to hone in on the sticking points of why weight loss doesn't work right. And it literally very rarely has to do with the scale. Just leave it at that. There's a lot of other things and a lot of other pieces. And this is one of them. This is the big piece of family, friends and support. So if you are on the fence, it's time to act now. Get a few days left. It is not too late. You have not missed anything. Hop on. You can go to our website. The Fasting for Life dot com forward slash live. If you guys have been on the journey with us for a while, stick with us. We've got some really, really cool resources and things we're working on that we're going to be rolling out here in the next few weeks to months. Appreciate all of you that have listened to me. Any last thoughts or anything to add before we kind of hop off? And next next episode we record will be during the challenge. So we promise to bring you new content and new conversation, just like we always strive to bring you something that's impactful and actionable. But yeah, that'll be the next episode. So just just excited to make any last thoughts for a wrap up for today.

[00:28:00] I think I think I just want to highlight what you said earlier, which was just that, you know, if if you're looking to regain control and take back control of your health, then then don't let the small obstacles stand in your way like that little question mark about how to talk to your kids about it. And if you have some point point of of struggle or discomfort, reach out like that's what we're here for. Reach out to us, bring it up during the Q&A session and the challenge. And that's the kind of thing that we do so we can get past it because that's what makes it real and that's what makes it consistent and being able to actually stick with it and do it. And that's why we're seeing results that that are unusual for full transparency.

[00:28:43] Whatever you decide to do, if you have questions, reach out to us. That's why we started this. Yeah, we love it. We love the conversation. Let us help if we can. We don't have all the answers. If we don't have them, we'll work our our we'll work our butts off to find them for you. Point in the right direction with a lot of the stuff we hear from a day to day and week to week is stuff that we've struggled with and help people through as well. So, Tommy, as always, sir, appreciate you.

[00:29:08] And I will see you on the challenge here in three days. Looking forward to it.

[00:29:13] 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.

[00:29:29] While you're there, download your free Fast Start guide to get started today. Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to leave us a five star review and we'll be back next week with another episode of Fasting for Life.

Ep. 57 - Lifestyle Design and Fasting | Telling your Family you're Skipping Dinner | Support via the "Marriage Merge" | Long-term Habits for Lifetime Results | Free Intermittent Fasting OMAD Plan

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