Ep. 59 - 30-Hour Fasting Magic | Embrace the Suck! How to Stick to your Windows | Fasting Hacks to Push past OMAD | Improving your Relationship with Fasting? | Less Thought, More Weight Loss | Free Intermittent Fasting OMAD Plan

Yoda | Magical Anchors | Fasting Ninjas

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss the finer points of the elephant in the room--what to do when the going gets tough. Sticking to our fasting windows is the key to long term success, so they zoom in on the decision to begin a fast, the motivating factors that drive us, and the decision to break the fast. Willpower plays a role, but it's a finite resource, so they give examples of how to create a system to get better results with less thought, energy, and effort.

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Show Transcript: www.thefastingforlife.com/blog 

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Fasting For Life Ep. 59 transcript powered by Sonix—easily convert your audio to text with Sonix.

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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 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.

Everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Watier. I am here, as always, am a good friend and colleague, Tumi Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir. Hey, Scott. How are you? Rock and roll, my friend. I am excited for today's episode. We have just come out of a challenge week and we're going to label today's topic as Embrace the Suck.

Embrace the stock, I like that you didn't know I was going to leave it that, did you? No, I didn't. I didn't know that's what we were calling it. But I think it's I think it's fitting. And I think anyone who's who's done any amount of fasting can relate to that feeling, at least at least on occasion. Right?

Yeah. So what does that mean? I mean, a lot of different things. So we're going to dive right in and hopefully give you some actionable things you can do to kind of break through, work through and shift the framework just a little bit, as we always talk, that we want to create a lifestyle, we want this to fit. We want this to get the results. And all too often, we have so many people that come to us that have had on and off relationships with fasting, just like they have with other diets that have failed in the past. They have ups and downs. They've tried it. They dabbled, they did some if they tried keto, they've done all these, whatever it is, low carb paleo diet. And they and they just haven't been able to get the process to stick, so to speak. And yeah, there's some sticking points there that I think we can help uncover and maybe frame the embracing the suck in embracing the process.

So I think it's going to be I know you and I work on this stuff personally in our own lives and with what we're building here and our communication and how we've had successes and failures with our health in the past. So I really think it's going to be pretty cool.

Yeah, absolutely. I think this stuff can come up regardless of where you are and your fasting journey. If you're in the beginning or what the middle are, you consider yourself a fasting ninja. It doesn't it doesn't really matter. These things can can always be points of improvement and can always come up for everyone.

And we want sustainability. We want long term results. Right. So we want something that is going to be successful. We don't want to. Have the ebb and flow and the ups and downs and the, you know, the the lack of long term result, you know, if if you've been on a weight loss journey, you know that losing 20 can be done. Sometimes it's harder than others, but gaining twenty five is pretty damn easy. Right. So it's we want to push it. Yes. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's very easy to do that. And if you're one of those five or ten percenters out there that can eat anything that you want.

And never see an adverse change. God bless you because you are a unicorn. So for us mere mortals, what does embrace the suck mean? I really want to start with a quote from Brendan Rishard. High performance habits. It's often not reaching the goal that matters, but who would become in the process? And to me, that's a little fluffy in nature, meaning it's a little kind of like abstract. Oh, yeah, that sounds great. You don't know my situation. You don't know my struggle. You don't know where I'm coming from. You know, we put up these defense mechanisms, like when you told me standing in your kitchen a couple of years ago, stop eating, you need to start fasting.

I was like, dude, I've spent tens of thousands of dollars. I have all of this clinical experience. I have degrees like, what do you mean just space out your meals and then you hand me a book. And then I went, OK, I was wrong. I'm sorry. I put up my my defense mechanism there, but yeah. Thank you. We've moved on. We've reconciled. So it's really focusing on what happens in the moment and what happens in a single decision and then really putting together a system or a jig or a framework that you can work off of to rely on the system rather than relying on your decision making, an emotional decision making in the moment.

I think that's a great point is, you know, some of this comes down to what are those what are those key things that you can rely on that instead of having to make dozens and dozens or even hundreds of decisions in a given day? How can you how can you bring that down to where a little bit of planning goes a long way and and kind of thinking ahead, like if you have something important coming up for the week or you have potential pitfalls, temptations in the pantry, whatever it might be, even insulating yourself from from some of those things. So you don't have to make all those tough decisions in the moment. And some of those things can become much more automatic. And that's but that's part of embracing the suck, too, I think.

Yes, it's so interesting, having failed, I like to say failed forward my whole life and still learning throughout the process is a lot of the times when we have these moments of clarity that you and I think it might be something of value to discuss or have a conversation about, which is always the whole goal of this is meeting people where they're at, where we were at, and then trying to shed some light on how we can move forward and fail forward, so to speak. It's it's we tend to get caught up in the suck and not the embracing part. So what I mean by that is in a moment, you have a decision where you can you know, you've had a relationship with fasting. Like I mentioned, it's work that hasn't worked, just like any other calorie restriction or diet or exercise program or personal trainer or South Beach book. You bought it.

But Barnes and Noble, whatever it is, we we we really want to focus on the decision in the moment when you go off the rails or you're about to go off the wagon or you're about to go binge crazy or you're about to indulge because you deserve it, because you've had a stressful day or whatever those situations are in that moment, there's a couple of realizations that we feel are important to possibly take place and hopefully let you reframe this in a failing forward, embracing the moment kind of situation. And it's really the two things to start with would be what happened yesterday does not matter.

And five minutes ago does not matter. So if you're in the middle of finishing the sleeve of Oreos, right then in the moment, what you just did really doesn't matter to the potential goal or future you that you want to become or outcome unless you make a different decision in that moment.

Right. And it's not about giving yourself an easy out and just not not setting up a boundary. Yeah. For the next time. Right. Right. It's not about that at all. But in that moment when you realize, you know, I really am doing something that's going against where I want to be going, that's that's taking me further away from my goals than not now is is right then is the perfect time to make a new decision. But what happens so often and what we've seen and what happens during the middle of a challenge sometimes is we can see some of that old bad psychology that those negative feedback loops coming back in and going, well, I didn't quite meet the window yesterday and I did X, Y, Z or I, I binged or something else that I was trying to avoid.

And but just bringing that along with us rather than making a new decision now and then moving forward towards our goals, if we hold on to those those things that we already, you know, those mistakes that we made in the past, that can just bring us way further away rather than moving in the right direction.

Yeah. And one of the pushback that we get from people that aren't familiar with fasting is, you know, some of those negative external connotations of what it really is.

It's not starving yourself. It's really just simply meal timing. You know, it's it's helping your body burn some of that stored energy that you have put on through the indulgences over the years. For me, it was the old indulgences, the old habits of working out. It was stress, it was medications. At certain points, it was put to sleep. There's all these other different things that can further the weight loss, resistance, struggle. But in the moment is really where we want to focus.

Because if you've been like me or you or the people that we talked to. Or the people that go through our challenges or programs or even just shoot us a message on Facebook Messenger or send us an email, is that decision in the moment? If you don't decide to make it or change it, then the pattern is going to pretty much repeat itself. So there's a few words that we want to focus on today that. That have been a personal struggle, but also we see as kind of a consistency in being able to make that decision to change the outcome for the next time it comes around. And I'll open that up for just a second time. The one thing I do want to clarify is this whole concept of of a of a system or a plan, having some structure to fall back on and not falling back into the category of just I didn't have enough willpower today or I wasn't strong enough or or anything else that comes along with that. We came across this new concept of a jig, which was I've heard of it in the past, like a jigsaw. But I didn't realize the purpose of a jig is to get reproducible results without having to increase the amount of work put out. It's also going to, you know, systematize the delivery of the result. So you're going to have less brain power, less energy put out. You're going to take that almost pressure off in the moment and just be like, OK, well, in the moment, does this align with my end goal? No, it doesn't. OK, well, now I need to make a decision. Well, no, you don't. You just go back to the plan.

Right. Right. It's it's it's meant to take something that's complex or has multiple moving parts and bring it into into a simple, formulaic, repeatable, sustainable either machine or formula that you can kind of fall back on, like you said, whether that's a consistent back up eating window, something that you fall back on normally, or or a typical way that you kind of lay out your meals or the kind of structure of it that, you know, works for you at least would maintain where you are so that you're not making steps backwards. You can make consistent progress or at least have a a fallback so that you don't run into those tough times in those tough decisions.

Right. Yeah. So there was about seven or eight minutes of abstracts. So let's get really granular. Right. So let's do the fasting podcast. Right. Fasting for life. Sometimes I forget and we just I honestly do. That was no shot at you. I'm the one who led the led the charge here in the abstract nature. So really how we want to apply this is staying consistent, relying on the system or plan like Tommy was just saying, but also show you how to push through the dreaded one meal a day or twenty four hour barrier. There's so many people that know the benefit of pushing the window but just can't seem to get through it. And the three words that we hear with people that have had an experience with fasting, that they've had a love hate on off relationship or they're new to it and they just can't get through it. They've hit a plateau. They're frustrated is the words try if and hope. And I want to start with try so Yoda has a really revolutionary, obviously a fictional character in some people's minds, a real one. But what he's wise, though, he's very wise, very, very good writers. Right. So there is no I'm going to butcher it now because I just put myself under the spotlight. Dang it. I can't even now just do or do not. There is no try or something like that. Right. And the word try it with fasting. It's so simple in the moment. If you if you shut your window or you didn't hit your goal or you ate something you didn't feel like you should have. Right in that moment, you have the ability to immediately start fasting again and set your timer and get back on track. And it's not like a setback. It's it's more of the mindset that, you know, when you use the word, OK, I'm going to try to stick to my window, I'm going to try to fast for 30 hours, you're immediately telling your brain and putting in a stop gap that you're inviting yourself to fail and then be able to say, well, it's OK. I tried, right.

You never you never use the word try like that in a context and see yourself actually succeeding. You're you're saying try because you're you're kind of protecting yourself from the emotional pain of that failure because you're you're a failure. You said avoidance of that. Yep. Right. And I've I've done it thousands of times in my life, but it's it comes down to one of those things where for and for an eating window or a fasting window. It's.

If you get in the practice of making the decision and making it a black or white thing and not using that word, try, but instead of instead of the word try using commitment words, I'm going to commit to a twenty four hour window or a 30 hour window right now. Not I'm going to try to do a 30 hour window then that's a more black and white decision.

That's something where there's there's less to think about in the moment. There's less room for temptation or for error during the next 30 hours, if that's if that's the period you want to stick to and much, much more likely to to succeed. And if for some reason you don't, much easier to do it again.

Yeah, I love the I will version of this, too, I will accomplish this, I will hit my goal. I will call you back. Right. So I don't know any any sons and moms out there that might be listening to this. But were you shocked when your son says in his twenties? Yeah, I will try to call you back. Mom, yell the word try's the problem there. If you actually if I say to my mom, I will call you back, you better darn well believe it that I'm going to be calling her back. Right. So I like I like the commitment portion, but I also like the will portion of it as well. And if you do say I commit to then also find a find somewhere, you can put that to reinforce that commitment with, you know, in the in the community group that we have. Send us an email. If you got somebody else that fast, you got a friend is on the journey with you. You know, that extra layer of you know, you're much more likely to disappoint yourself than you are, disappoint somebody else. So never mind just switching the word, but also that reinforcement there. And really, again, the framework of, you know, we hear like, oh, I'll try to keep up my I'll try to have one meal.

Well, no, it's just have your meal and then, you know, this will allow you to have some type of framework to fall back on to push through those, whatever it is. Eighteen hours, twenty four hours, or in our case, we're going to use the 30 hour window. The second one is the word. If so, the word if connotates some insecurity. It underlined some self doubts, like if you kind to open ended. Right. So this one is difficult because it really has to come down to anchoring something greater than like I just want to lose weight or I just want to be healthy. There needs to be some. You said it beautifully. I remember when we had this conversation about the anchor and you need to actually, like, believe that you can do it. And I've never been a big positive affirmations guy. So even for me, just being called out, having an accountability partner like my wife is like, no, no, no. You don't say that. Like like you have big goals for your new business. Like you're not going to say if I achieve those goals, it's when you go get hit those goals, like, what is it going to look like when you get there? And I love the anchor analogy, too.

Yeah. For the anchor, we talk about anchoring to something that's that's more important.

Why are you why are you talking about or why are you doing fast and what is your ultimate goal.

And if you say it's to lose five or fifteen or twenty five pounds, that's, that's usually not going to be substantial enough to have made those decisions in the moment. Things can still come up. And it's easy to say, well, I want to I want to lose twenty five pounds. But but peeling back the layers of the onions and figuring out what's deeper than that, why is that so important to you? What does that look like for you? Is it is it time with your kids or your grandkids or quality of life with your spouse, things that you want to experience? Like what does that actually look like to you? That that's our anchor and the stronger and heavier that anchor is it it literally stays with us all the time. And it's it's it's with us in those moments when those tough decisions come up and the stronger your anchor, the stronger your why, the easier those those kind of decision points become.

And the third one is Hope so one of our one of the people in our network, in our fasting community actually said something really profound the other day. And it was it was that hope. When you use the word hope it.

It implies that it was. Like a helpless situation. Yeah, it tells your brain that you're out. You don't have control. Yeah.

I hope that I can do X, Y or Z. Well, this is a difficult one because it kind of it takes away that certainty and you really need to channel it with your intention. And this is where the affirmations really come into play. So it's not I hope I can achieve this. It's I can achieve this. I am in this I do this with my with my daughter. You know, I am strong. I am beautiful. I am smart. I am funny like these. I am statements. But the cool thing about this one with hope is you don't have to hope when you have a good plan you like, you immediately know, like I know that I'm going to achieve this because my plan says so. And this is where that scenario comes into play.

Yeah, I really like that a lot because if you're if we've we've seen that before where where someone says, I really hope I can stick to this eating window, said, no, no, no, don't start don't start the window just yet because you're you're you're not there. You haven't committed to it. So so let's go back. What are the what are the struggle points? What is the doubt? What do you see yourself you're already seeing yourself failing in that moment.

So if you've ever been in sales, it's like objection training with yourself. Right. You're like handling the object, the subconscious objections of your own mind.

It's like, wait, why wait a minute. Why am I doing this? Yeah, I've already lost the battle. I haven't even I haven't even started it. So. So go back a step, see why. See where that is coming in. Because for some people it might be taking too big of a step. And we've seen that before where someone tries to go to aggressively or to long of a fast and they're not quite ready for it because they haven't broken through some some earlier, some previous barrier. And even going from that twenty four hour mark up to the 30 hour mark or the thirty six hour mark, that can be big. A lot of people have never gone past twenty four hours on their own. But like just putting in a little hack, like going from a lunch one day to a dinner the next day, can be, can be a big, a big win, a big aha. Moment where that makes it much easier to get past that twenty four hour mark, but it can all of a sudden break through that kind of glass ceiling that a lot of people have for their their fasting duration.

And why are we talking about that 30 hour mark. So there's there's some important things, you know, this is a if you've been stuck and you know, you you're looking to maybe break a set point, break a plateau, you've you've got some fasting fatigue or you've been fasting for a while and you just kind of like over it. It might be a good place to start. And the framework for this is it's kind of a how do I say this? Like a springboard or a fasting hack almost where you time it in a way that you really don't feel like you fasted for that long.

Yeah, yeah. We do the same thing with with sleep, like timing your your fast make it make it line up with when you're going to sleep for the day and you can get through an additional eight hours, you might be able to push your longest fast by another eight hours just by doing strategic meal timing leading up to your fast.

Right.

Yeah. So it's if you're looking to push and you've struggled with making doing dinner or dinner or lunch to lunch and you can't seem to make it through that window or we found to work best. And again, blood sugar reversal, diabetes reversal, pre diabetes, insulin resistance that thirty to thirty six hour mark is really key where your insulin gets so low that your insulin sensitivity actually starts to increase and you start to reverse some of that insulin resistance is doing changing that that window and going from like an eleven or twelve o'clock lunch one day to a seven p.m. dinner the next day gets you to that thirty hours and you still have the ability to have meals each day.

That's right. That's yeah. It makes perfect sense. And because even even doing that and then and then going into the next day, that might be a shorter fast the following day. But that's OK. That that day where you had the, the 30 hour plus fast is is huge and it's beneficial. And it's it's.

It's much more positive than the fact that the next day will be a little bit of a shorter farce if you're still going to eat every single day, that's OK. It's it's still a big win and it's a big opportunity to regain some insulin sensitivity. And you start doing that on a regular basis. You're going to have cumulative effects to that are that are really powerful.

Yeah. And you could do like a lunch the following day, dinner and then the following day dinner, one meal a day. And then you could do a lunch the following day dinner. So, yeah, there's a shorter window in there from that one night dinner to the following day lunch to start the springboard. But the benefit of hitting that 30 to thirty six hour mark is going to outweigh that shorter window. If you're used to doing more of the one meal a day and you get to vary up your schedule. And it's more because we know that eating meals earlier in the day, the same meal earlier in the day, is the same meal later in the day. The later in the day meal typically tends to have more of an insulin response to it, where your body needs more insulin to process the same amount of food or the same meal. So some some little things you can kind of focus on as you pivot or break the plateau or undo the fatigue or are new to fasting. And you just can't seem to get it to stick or whatever it is. There's some non scale victories in the physical, emotional and kind of tangible arena in areas that we like to encourage people to look at that you might not be thinking about when you're at these points of embracing the suck. Right. So I love the fact that there's so many and this is just a short list and there's more because people always tend to share new ones with us from like, oh, man, I never even thought about that. But my favorite of the tangibles. So we'll save those for last. But in the physical category, one of the biggest things we hear a lot of times is more energy right off the bat. And after a couple of weeks of fasting, typically better sleep follows.

Yeah, I love that one because that one can be really kind of self-perpetuating because the better sleep you get, the less cravings you get, the better your insulin response, which tends to lead to more stable energy levels. And then thus it becomes easier to fast, even for longer and and less cravings means less temptation, then easier to stick to the windows. And I'm getting better sleep. It just it just keeps building on top of each other. So I love that one.

Yeah, the sleep one is big. And yes, in the beginning as you transition, there might be a couple of nights where you don't sleep as well, but it will get better if you've had sleeping issues and you really need to focus on getting that quality seven to seven point three hours, which is what the research shows, decreases the chances of what Tommy, you just mentioned on top of some of the physiological things where, you know, you just if you're up until the night, you dendi just something as simple as that to how your hormone levels will change. And your quarters will be higher, which will then tend you to have more to lend you, to have more cravings. So a couple of cool things in terms of non scale victories that we see early on and then some other stuff that in the physical category, you know, like loose clothing, loose rings, things are just fitting differently, even though you haven't seen or we're not weighing at this point in time because you needed a break. Right. If that's a negative reinforcement for you. But I love this. We had this one person that was like, I think I look younger. And they they took a picture from the year prior and put them side by side. And, like, my skin is definitely clearer and I can tell.

Yeah, absolutely, and less less like swelling and less pain in the joints a lot of times, and then these these lead to emotional non scale victories as well. So, you know, mood and confidence and start to hear and get compliments from other people. You're a lot of times your focus comes back, especially as the brain fog kind of kind of lifts.

And as we get into ketosis, that happens even more and more that that focus can just get really, really sharp.

And I love that. That's one of the most impactful things for me as I started to to get into fasting was was that extreme focus that I started to feel that on the on the opposite end of that, how I had been feeling was just like I needed a nap all the time. So going from naps to laser focus was was just a huge difference for me and I. That was one of my favorite parts about fasting, regardless of what the scale was doing.

Right. So if you're in these moments, again, we're talking about non scale victories, things you can focus on and that can help you push through the plateaus. And, you know, my wife was was one that was like, yeah, you're just happier. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. I am right. You know, just just. Yeah, I can't can argue with that. Less stressed. You have better resistance to foods. The cravings go away. So just some. Yeah. Some more interesting. We just had someone mentioned to us two and one of our lives might have been in our group coaching. I can't remember where they're like, yeah, I'm down four pounds and two people have already noticed. And that's really cool that you can get that positive reinforcement like you just start fasting and your energy changes. So the last category here is tangibles. And we just talked about naps, so I'm going to say this one, because I used to wake up prepping for like when I can get my nap in, sometimes it would be in the car. Sometimes it would be, you know, 15 minutes before a meeting. Sometimes it would be in between patients, like when I have a break or I have a gap in the schedule. But yeah, no naps as a tangible things, which means you have more time to get stuff done. And then that leads to some of the hacks that we have in terms of making a big to do list.

Yeah, that Knapp's was big. I basically had no evening time. It was like seven thirty to nine thirty pretty much. I was, I was, I was gone because that was, that was nap time. The insulin response was just so large, even after just eating a a relatively smaller dinner meal.

But a couple of the other things that I just loved about getting into getting into fasting and some of these tangibles for me, I was I started getting projects done that I never thought were going to get ticked off of my my to do list just the time and a little bit of extra money from from the the meals that I had basically pre eaten, pre paid for.

I started taking that money in that time and putting it over into projects that that I actually got a lot of enjoyment and fulfillment out of. So so that was huge for me. And if you're not sure what to do with with yourself and with the extra time for some of the longer, fast start getting creative with some of those projects, you'd be amazed that at what you can get done.

Yeah. And and with the with the less eating, less eating out, you know, that extra that extra dough can go a long way paying down debt. It can reward yourself. You can go get your nails done. You can go buy that putter you've been wanting to get. You can go go on the heck you can even just as practicals fill up the gas tank again. And I know it's kind of silly to think that way, but, you know, a non scale victory of pushing these windows and hitting your targets and, you know, the smaller you get, the more weight you lose, the more health benefit there is to getting the weight off. Plus health care costs, like there's so many different ways we can go with the tangible category. But it's just some things that people don't tend to think about. They they focus on, you know, I've got 18 minutes left until I can break my fast. I mean, that's no way to live like that. Doesn't sound fun. So to kind of wrap up your time, you're just going through the framework. You know, it's it's often not reaching the goal that matters. But who we become in the process and reframing that decision in the moment when you've had the.

The sticking point, you've had the tough moment, you've eaten the thing of Oreos, you've opened your window, you haven't stayed on track. You know, it's what matters in that decision, in that moment where you can rely on that framework, changing the words, try if and hope to. I will. I will commit. Not if, but when. And knowing that hope is really more not. I hope I can, but I know I can. And then using these little non scale victories and then the lunch to dinner framework can really help you kind of push through some of those sticking points and hopefully, you know, kind of kind of help you break through, re-engage, break the fasting fatigue and get back on track. So tell me. I feel sad there. I think I think that's probably a lot. If this is the first time listening to the podcast go back and listen to a few previous episodes, you can go to the Fasting for Life Dotcom. Download our Fast Start guide. We appreciate reviews and feedback. If you've got questions, give us a shout. Tommy, as always, sir, thank you so much. Thank you.

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Fasting For Life Ep. 59

[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 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. My name is Dr. Scott Watier. I am here, as always, am a good friend and colleague, Tumi Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir. Hey, Scott. How are you? Rock and roll, my friend. I am excited for today's episode. We have just come out of a challenge week and we're going to label today's topic as Embrace the Suck.

[00:01:05] Embrace the stock, I like that you didn't know I was going to leave it that, did you? No, I didn't. I didn't know that's what we were calling it. But I think it's I think it's fitting. And I think anyone who's who's done any amount of fasting can relate to that feeling, at least at least on occasion. Right?

[00:01:22] Yeah. So what does that mean? I mean, a lot of different things. So we're going to dive right in and hopefully give you some actionable things you can do to kind of break through, work through and shift the framework just a little bit, as we always talk, that we want to create a lifestyle, we want this to fit. We want this to get the results. And all too often, we have so many people that come to us that have had on and off relationships with fasting, just like they have with other diets that have failed in the past. They have ups and downs. They've tried it. They dabbled, they did some if they tried keto, they've done all these, whatever it is, low carb paleo diet. And they and they just haven't been able to get the process to stick, so to speak. And yeah, there's some sticking points there that I think we can help uncover and maybe frame the embracing the suck in embracing the process.

[00:02:17] So I think it's going to be I know you and I work on this stuff personally in our own lives and with what we're building here and our communication and how we've had successes and failures with our health in the past. So I really think it's going to be pretty cool.

[00:02:33] Yeah, absolutely. I think this stuff can come up regardless of where you are and your fasting journey. If you're in the beginning or what the middle are, you consider yourself a fasting ninja. It doesn't it doesn't really matter. These things can can always be points of improvement and can always come up for everyone.

[00:02:51] And we want sustainability. We want long term results. Right. So we want something that is going to be successful. We don't want to. Have the ebb and flow and the ups and downs and the, you know, the the lack of long term result, you know, if if you've been on a weight loss journey, you know that losing 20 can be done. Sometimes it's harder than others, but gaining twenty five is pretty damn easy. Right. So it's we want to push it. Yes. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's very easy to do that. And if you're one of those five or ten percenters out there that can eat anything that you want.

[00:03:33] And never see an adverse change. God bless you because you are a unicorn. So for us mere mortals, what does embrace the suck mean? I really want to start with a quote from Brendan Rishard. High performance habits. It's often not reaching the goal that matters, but who would become in the process? And to me, that's a little fluffy in nature, meaning it's a little kind of like abstract. Oh, yeah, that sounds great. You don't know my situation. You don't know my struggle. You don't know where I'm coming from. You know, we put up these defense mechanisms, like when you told me standing in your kitchen a couple of years ago, stop eating, you need to start fasting.

[00:04:11] I was like, dude, I've spent tens of thousands of dollars. I have all of this clinical experience. I have degrees like, what do you mean just space out your meals and then you hand me a book. And then I went, OK, I was wrong. I'm sorry. I put up my my defense mechanism there, but yeah. Thank you. We've moved on. We've reconciled. So it's really focusing on what happens in the moment and what happens in a single decision and then really putting together a system or a jig or a framework that you can work off of to rely on the system rather than relying on your decision making, an emotional decision making in the moment.

[00:04:54] I think that's a great point is, you know, some of this comes down to what are those what are those key things that you can rely on that instead of having to make dozens and dozens or even hundreds of decisions in a given day? How can you how can you bring that down to where a little bit of planning goes a long way and and kind of thinking ahead, like if you have something important coming up for the week or you have potential pitfalls, temptations in the pantry, whatever it might be, even insulating yourself from from some of those things. So you don't have to make all those tough decisions in the moment. And some of those things can become much more automatic. And that's but that's part of embracing the suck, too, I think.

[00:05:37] Yes, it's so interesting, having failed, I like to say failed forward my whole life and still learning throughout the process is a lot of the times when we have these moments of clarity that you and I think it might be something of value to discuss or have a conversation about, which is always the whole goal of this is meeting people where they're at, where we were at, and then trying to shed some light on how we can move forward and fail forward, so to speak. It's it's we tend to get caught up in the suck and not the embracing part. So what I mean by that is in a moment, you have a decision where you can you know, you've had a relationship with fasting. Like I mentioned, it's work that hasn't worked, just like any other calorie restriction or diet or exercise program or personal trainer or South Beach book. You bought it.

[00:06:30] But Barnes and Noble, whatever it is, we we we really want to focus on the decision in the moment when you go off the rails or you're about to go off the wagon or you're about to go binge crazy or you're about to indulge because you deserve it, because you've had a stressful day or whatever those situations are in that moment, there's a couple of realizations that we feel are important to possibly take place and hopefully let you reframe this in a failing forward, embracing the moment kind of situation. And it's really the two things to start with would be what happened yesterday does not matter.

[00:07:05] And five minutes ago does not matter. So if you're in the middle of finishing the sleeve of Oreos, right then in the moment, what you just did really doesn't matter to the potential goal or future you that you want to become or outcome unless you make a different decision in that moment.

[00:07:23] Right. And it's not about giving yourself an easy out and just not not setting up a boundary. Yeah. For the next time. Right. Right. It's not about that at all. But in that moment when you realize, you know, I really am doing something that's going against where I want to be going, that's that's taking me further away from my goals than not now is is right then is the perfect time to make a new decision. But what happens so often and what we've seen and what happens during the middle of a challenge sometimes is we can see some of that old bad psychology that those negative feedback loops coming back in and going, well, I didn't quite meet the window yesterday and I did X, Y, Z or I, I binged or something else that I was trying to avoid.

[00:08:13] And but just bringing that along with us rather than making a new decision now and then moving forward towards our goals, if we hold on to those those things that we already, you know, those mistakes that we made in the past, that can just bring us way further away rather than moving in the right direction.

[00:08:32] Yeah. And one of the pushback that we get from people that aren't familiar with fasting is, you know, some of those negative external connotations of what it really is.

[00:08:42] It's not starving yourself. It's really just simply meal timing. You know, it's it's helping your body burn some of that stored energy that you have put on through the indulgences over the years. For me, it was the old indulgences, the old habits of working out. It was stress, it was medications. At certain points, it was put to sleep. There's all these other different things that can further the weight loss, resistance, struggle. But in the moment is really where we want to focus.

[00:09:10] Because if you've been like me or you or the people that we talked to. Or the people that go through our challenges or programs or even just shoot us a message on Facebook Messenger or send us an email, is that decision in the moment? If you don't decide to make it or change it, then the pattern is going to pretty much repeat itself. So there's a few words that we want to focus on today that. That have been a personal struggle, but also we see as kind of a consistency in being able to make that decision to change the outcome for the next time it comes around. And I'll open that up for just a second time. The one thing I do want to clarify is this whole concept of of a of a system or a plan, having some structure to fall back on and not falling back into the category of just I didn't have enough willpower today or I wasn't strong enough or or anything else that comes along with that. We came across this new concept of a jig, which was I've heard of it in the past, like a jigsaw. But I didn't realize the purpose of a jig is to get reproducible results without having to increase the amount of work put out. It's also going to, you know, systematize the delivery of the result. So you're going to have less brain power, less energy put out. You're going to take that almost pressure off in the moment and just be like, OK, well, in the moment, does this align with my end goal? No, it doesn't. OK, well, now I need to make a decision. Well, no, you don't. You just go back to the plan.

[00:10:42] Right. Right. It's it's it's meant to take something that's complex or has multiple moving parts and bring it into into a simple, formulaic, repeatable, sustainable either machine or formula that you can kind of fall back on, like you said, whether that's a consistent back up eating window, something that you fall back on normally, or or a typical way that you kind of lay out your meals or the kind of structure of it that, you know, works for you at least would maintain where you are so that you're not making steps backwards. You can make consistent progress or at least have a a fallback so that you don't run into those tough times in those tough decisions.

[00:11:24] Right. Yeah. So there was about seven or eight minutes of abstracts. So let's get really granular. Right. So let's do the fasting podcast. Right. Fasting for life. Sometimes I forget and we just I honestly do. That was no shot at you. I'm the one who led the led the charge here in the abstract nature. So really how we want to apply this is staying consistent, relying on the system or plan like Tommy was just saying, but also show you how to push through the dreaded one meal a day or twenty four hour barrier. There's so many people that know the benefit of pushing the window but just can't seem to get through it. And the three words that we hear with people that have had an experience with fasting, that they've had a love hate on off relationship or they're new to it and they just can't get through it. They've hit a plateau. They're frustrated is the words try if and hope. And I want to start with try so Yoda has a really revolutionary, obviously a fictional character in some people's minds, a real one. But what he's wise, though, he's very wise, very, very good writers. Right. So there is no I'm going to butcher it now because I just put myself under the spotlight. Dang it. I can't even now just do or do not. There is no try or something like that. Right. And the word try it with fasting. It's so simple in the moment. If you if you shut your window or you didn't hit your goal or you ate something you didn't feel like you should have. Right in that moment, you have the ability to immediately start fasting again and set your timer and get back on track. And it's not like a setback. It's it's more of the mindset that, you know, when you use the word, OK, I'm going to try to stick to my window, I'm going to try to fast for 30 hours, you're immediately telling your brain and putting in a stop gap that you're inviting yourself to fail and then be able to say, well, it's OK. I tried, right.

[00:13:31] You never you never use the word try like that in a context and see yourself actually succeeding. You're you're saying try because you're you're kind of protecting yourself from the emotional pain of that failure because you're you're a failure. You said avoidance of that. Yep. Right. And I've I've done it thousands of times in my life, but it's it comes down to one of those things where for and for an eating window or a fasting window. It's.

[00:14:00] If you get in the practice of making the decision and making it a black or white thing and not using that word, try, but instead of instead of the word try using commitment words, I'm going to commit to a twenty four hour window or a 30 hour window right now. Not I'm going to try to do a 30 hour window then that's a more black and white decision.

[00:14:23] That's something where there's there's less to think about in the moment. There's less room for temptation or for error during the next 30 hours, if that's if that's the period you want to stick to and much, much more likely to to succeed. And if for some reason you don't, much easier to do it again.

[00:14:43] Yeah, I love the I will version of this, too, I will accomplish this, I will hit my goal. I will call you back. Right. So I don't know any any sons and moms out there that might be listening to this. But were you shocked when your son says in his twenties? Yeah, I will try to call you back. Mom, yell the word try's the problem there. If you actually if I say to my mom, I will call you back, you better darn well believe it that I'm going to be calling her back. Right. So I like I like the commitment portion, but I also like the will portion of it as well. And if you do say I commit to then also find a find somewhere, you can put that to reinforce that commitment with, you know, in the in the community group that we have. Send us an email. If you got somebody else that fast, you got a friend is on the journey with you. You know, that extra layer of you know, you're much more likely to disappoint yourself than you are, disappoint somebody else. So never mind just switching the word, but also that reinforcement there. And really, again, the framework of, you know, we hear like, oh, I'll try to keep up my I'll try to have one meal.

[00:15:50] Well, no, it's just have your meal and then, you know, this will allow you to have some type of framework to fall back on to push through those, whatever it is. Eighteen hours, twenty four hours, or in our case, we're going to use the 30 hour window. The second one is the word. If so, the word if connotates some insecurity. It underlined some self doubts, like if you kind to open ended. Right. So this one is difficult because it really has to come down to anchoring something greater than like I just want to lose weight or I just want to be healthy. There needs to be some. You said it beautifully. I remember when we had this conversation about the anchor and you need to actually, like, believe that you can do it. And I've never been a big positive affirmations guy. So even for me, just being called out, having an accountability partner like my wife is like, no, no, no. You don't say that. Like like you have big goals for your new business. Like you're not going to say if I achieve those goals, it's when you go get hit those goals, like, what is it going to look like when you get there? And I love the anchor analogy, too.

[00:16:57] Yeah. For the anchor, we talk about anchoring to something that's that's more important.

[00:17:02] Why are you why are you talking about or why are you doing fast and what is your ultimate goal.

[00:17:09] And if you say it's to lose five or fifteen or twenty five pounds, that's, that's usually not going to be substantial enough to have made those decisions in the moment. Things can still come up. And it's easy to say, well, I want to I want to lose twenty five pounds. But but peeling back the layers of the onions and figuring out what's deeper than that, why is that so important to you? What does that look like for you? Is it is it time with your kids or your grandkids or quality of life with your spouse, things that you want to experience? Like what does that actually look like to you? That that's our anchor and the stronger and heavier that anchor is it it literally stays with us all the time. And it's it's it's with us in those moments when those tough decisions come up and the stronger your anchor, the stronger your why, the easier those those kind of decision points become.

[00:18:03] And the third one is Hope so one of our one of the people in our network, in our fasting community actually said something really profound the other day. And it was it was that hope. When you use the word hope it.

[00:18:25] It implies that it was. Like a helpless situation. Yeah, it tells your brain that you're out. You don't have control. Yeah.

[00:18:33] I hope that I can do X, Y or Z. Well, this is a difficult one because it kind of it takes away that certainty and you really need to channel it with your intention. And this is where the affirmations really come into play. So it's not I hope I can achieve this. It's I can achieve this. I am in this I do this with my with my daughter. You know, I am strong. I am beautiful. I am smart. I am funny like these. I am statements. But the cool thing about this one with hope is you don't have to hope when you have a good plan you like, you immediately know, like I know that I'm going to achieve this because my plan says so. And this is where that scenario comes into play.

[00:19:14] Yeah, I really like that a lot because if you're if we've we've seen that before where where someone says, I really hope I can stick to this eating window, said, no, no, no, don't start don't start the window just yet because you're you're you're not there. You haven't committed to it. So so let's go back. What are the what are the struggle points? What is the doubt? What do you see yourself you're already seeing yourself failing in that moment.

[00:19:40] So if you've ever been in sales, it's like objection training with yourself. Right. You're like handling the object, the subconscious objections of your own mind.

[00:19:48] It's like, wait, why wait a minute. Why am I doing this? Yeah, I've already lost the battle. I haven't even I haven't even started it. So. So go back a step, see why. See where that is coming in. Because for some people it might be taking too big of a step. And we've seen that before where someone tries to go to aggressively or to long of a fast and they're not quite ready for it because they haven't broken through some some earlier, some previous barrier. And even going from that twenty four hour mark up to the 30 hour mark or the thirty six hour mark, that can be big. A lot of people have never gone past twenty four hours on their own. But like just putting in a little hack, like going from a lunch one day to a dinner the next day, can be, can be a big, a big win, a big aha. Moment where that makes it much easier to get past that twenty four hour mark, but it can all of a sudden break through that kind of glass ceiling that a lot of people have for their their fasting duration.

[00:20:46] And why are we talking about that 30 hour mark. So there's there's some important things, you know, this is a if you've been stuck and you know, you you're looking to maybe break a set point, break a plateau, you've you've got some fasting fatigue or you've been fasting for a while and you just kind of like over it. It might be a good place to start. And the framework for this is it's kind of a how do I say this? Like a springboard or a fasting hack almost where you time it in a way that you really don't feel like you fasted for that long.

[00:21:29] Yeah, yeah. We do the same thing with with sleep, like timing your your fast make it make it line up with when you're going to sleep for the day and you can get through an additional eight hours, you might be able to push your longest fast by another eight hours just by doing strategic meal timing leading up to your fast.

[00:21:52] Right.

[00:21:53] Yeah. So it's if you're looking to push and you've struggled with making doing dinner or dinner or lunch to lunch and you can't seem to make it through that window or we found to work best. And again, blood sugar reversal, diabetes reversal, pre diabetes, insulin resistance that thirty to thirty six hour mark is really key where your insulin gets so low that your insulin sensitivity actually starts to increase and you start to reverse some of that insulin resistance is doing changing that that window and going from like an eleven or twelve o'clock lunch one day to a seven p.m. dinner the next day gets you to that thirty hours and you still have the ability to have meals each day.

[00:22:36] That's right. That's yeah. It makes perfect sense. And because even even doing that and then and then going into the next day, that might be a shorter fast the following day. But that's OK. That that day where you had the, the 30 hour plus fast is is huge and it's beneficial. And it's it's.

[00:22:56] It's much more positive than the fact that the next day will be a little bit of a shorter farce if you're still going to eat every single day, that's OK. It's it's still a big win and it's a big opportunity to regain some insulin sensitivity. And you start doing that on a regular basis. You're going to have cumulative effects to that are that are really powerful.

[00:23:14] Yeah. And you could do like a lunch the following day, dinner and then the following day dinner, one meal a day. And then you could do a lunch the following day dinner. So, yeah, there's a shorter window in there from that one night dinner to the following day lunch to start the springboard. But the benefit of hitting that 30 to thirty six hour mark is going to outweigh that shorter window. If you're used to doing more of the one meal a day and you get to vary up your schedule. And it's more because we know that eating meals earlier in the day, the same meal earlier in the day, is the same meal later in the day. The later in the day meal typically tends to have more of an insulin response to it, where your body needs more insulin to process the same amount of food or the same meal. So some some little things you can kind of focus on as you pivot or break the plateau or undo the fatigue or are new to fasting. And you just can't seem to get it to stick or whatever it is. There's some non scale victories in the physical, emotional and kind of tangible arena in areas that we like to encourage people to look at that you might not be thinking about when you're at these points of embracing the suck. Right. So I love the fact that there's so many and this is just a short list and there's more because people always tend to share new ones with us from like, oh, man, I never even thought about that. But my favorite of the tangibles. So we'll save those for last. But in the physical category, one of the biggest things we hear a lot of times is more energy right off the bat. And after a couple of weeks of fasting, typically better sleep follows.

[00:24:49] Yeah, I love that one because that one can be really kind of self-perpetuating because the better sleep you get, the less cravings you get, the better your insulin response, which tends to lead to more stable energy levels. And then thus it becomes easier to fast, even for longer and and less cravings means less temptation, then easier to stick to the windows. And I'm getting better sleep. It just it just keeps building on top of each other. So I love that one.

[00:25:16] Yeah, the sleep one is big. And yes, in the beginning as you transition, there might be a couple of nights where you don't sleep as well, but it will get better if you've had sleeping issues and you really need to focus on getting that quality seven to seven point three hours, which is what the research shows, decreases the chances of what Tommy, you just mentioned on top of some of the physiological things where, you know, you just if you're up until the night, you dendi just something as simple as that to how your hormone levels will change. And your quarters will be higher, which will then tend you to have more to lend you, to have more cravings. So a couple of cool things in terms of non scale victories that we see early on and then some other stuff that in the physical category, you know, like loose clothing, loose rings, things are just fitting differently, even though you haven't seen or we're not weighing at this point in time because you needed a break. Right. If that's a negative reinforcement for you. But I love this. We had this one person that was like, I think I look younger. And they they took a picture from the year prior and put them side by side. And, like, my skin is definitely clearer and I can tell.

[00:26:23] Yeah, absolutely, and less less like swelling and less pain in the joints a lot of times, and then these these lead to emotional non scale victories as well. So, you know, mood and confidence and start to hear and get compliments from other people. You're a lot of times your focus comes back, especially as the brain fog kind of kind of lifts.

[00:26:47] And as we get into ketosis, that happens even more and more that that focus can just get really, really sharp.

[00:26:54] And I love that. That's one of the most impactful things for me as I started to to get into fasting was was that extreme focus that I started to feel that on the on the opposite end of that, how I had been feeling was just like I needed a nap all the time. So going from naps to laser focus was was just a huge difference for me and I. That was one of my favorite parts about fasting, regardless of what the scale was doing.

[00:27:21] Right. So if you're in these moments, again, we're talking about non scale victories, things you can focus on and that can help you push through the plateaus. And, you know, my wife was was one that was like, yeah, you're just happier. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. I am right. You know, just just. Yeah, I can't can argue with that. Less stressed. You have better resistance to foods. The cravings go away. So just some. Yeah. Some more interesting. We just had someone mentioned to us two and one of our lives might have been in our group coaching. I can't remember where they're like, yeah, I'm down four pounds and two people have already noticed. And that's really cool that you can get that positive reinforcement like you just start fasting and your energy changes. So the last category here is tangibles. And we just talked about naps, so I'm going to say this one, because I used to wake up prepping for like when I can get my nap in, sometimes it would be in the car. Sometimes it would be, you know, 15 minutes before a meeting. Sometimes it would be in between patients, like when I have a break or I have a gap in the schedule. But yeah, no naps as a tangible things, which means you have more time to get stuff done. And then that leads to some of the hacks that we have in terms of making a big to do list.

[00:28:37] Yeah, that Knapp's was big. I basically had no evening time. It was like seven thirty to nine thirty pretty much. I was, I was, I was gone because that was, that was nap time. The insulin response was just so large, even after just eating a a relatively smaller dinner meal.

[00:28:54] But a couple of the other things that I just loved about getting into getting into fasting and some of these tangibles for me, I was I started getting projects done that I never thought were going to get ticked off of my my to do list just the time and a little bit of extra money from from the the meals that I had basically pre eaten, pre paid for.

[00:29:14] I started taking that money in that time and putting it over into projects that that I actually got a lot of enjoyment and fulfillment out of. So so that was huge for me. And if you're not sure what to do with with yourself and with the extra time for some of the longer, fast start getting creative with some of those projects, you'd be amazed that at what you can get done.

[00:29:36] Yeah. And and with the with the less eating, less eating out, you know, that extra that extra dough can go a long way paying down debt. It can reward yourself. You can go get your nails done. You can go buy that putter you've been wanting to get. You can go go on the heck you can even just as practicals fill up the gas tank again. And I know it's kind of silly to think that way, but, you know, a non scale victory of pushing these windows and hitting your targets and, you know, the smaller you get, the more weight you lose, the more health benefit there is to getting the weight off. Plus health care costs, like there's so many different ways we can go with the tangible category. But it's just some things that people don't tend to think about. They they focus on, you know, I've got 18 minutes left until I can break my fast. I mean, that's no way to live like that. Doesn't sound fun. So to kind of wrap up your time, you're just going through the framework. You know, it's it's often not reaching the goal that matters. But who we become in the process and reframing that decision in the moment when you've had the.

[00:30:39] The sticking point, you've had the tough moment, you've eaten the thing of Oreos, you've opened your window, you haven't stayed on track. You know, it's what matters in that decision, in that moment where you can rely on that framework, changing the words, try if and hope to. I will. I will commit. Not if, but when. And knowing that hope is really more not. I hope I can, but I know I can. And then using these little non scale victories and then the lunch to dinner framework can really help you kind of push through some of those sticking points and hopefully, you know, kind of kind of help you break through, re-engage, break the fasting fatigue and get back on track. So tell me. I feel sad there. I think I think that's probably a lot. If this is the first time listening to the podcast go back and listen to a few previous episodes, you can go to the Fasting for Life Dotcom. Download our Fast Start guide. We appreciate reviews and feedback. If you've got questions, give us a shout. Tommy, as always, sir, thank you so much. Thank you.

[00:31:45] 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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