Ep. 64 - Tricks for closing your eating window before fasting | Curbing the sweet, salty, and savory cravings | Why am I really eating? | Multivitamins & supplements while fasting | Free One Meal a Day Intermittent Fasting Plan

    

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In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss the answers to recent listener and group coaching questions. Drawing the line in the sand between fasting and not fasting, how to curb cravings, understanding hunger cues, and vitamin intake are all discussed. 

Fasting For Life Ep. 64: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Fasting For Life Ep. 64: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Hello, I'm Dr. Scott Watier,

Tommy Welling:
And I'm Tommy Welling, and you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast, and

Dr. Scott Watier:
This podcast is about using fasting as a tool to regain your health, achieve ultimate wellness and the life you truly deserve.

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

Dr. Scott Watier:
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.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Everyone that's got here wants to hop on real quick before we start with today's episode and let you know that our next challenge event, registration link is live. It is in the show notes for the dates and additional information. You can also go to the fasting for likeme. Forgive the fasting for life dot com forward slash live. And now to today's episode. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott. I'm here, as always, with my good friend and colleague, Tommy Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir.

Tommy Welling:
Hey, how are you?

Dr. Scott Watier:
Rock and roll. And we are off and about to dive into a something we haven't done in a while, and I'm excited about it. It's been a minute since we've done a listener Q&A session, and I think it can be a really good conversation. So in our typical fasting for life fashion, we want to go through them, give you guys some conversations from real time perspective, and then some action on what we can do to answer the questions first and foremost. But then also go put this into our day to day. So, yeah, Tommy, which one do you want to start with?

Speaker3:
A question. And let's see, I think I think we should go with with one that I hadn't heard anybody bring up before until until recently. And it was

Tommy Welling:
How do I actually end my window? I thought that was an interesting question.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Yeah. And so, first of all, a couple of terms here. So eating window. So we talk about things in terms of, you know, your fasting period and then you're eating your open window or when you'd be eating period. Right. So during your eating window, during, say, for instance, there's this is a whole nother conversation when people bring up one meal a day, like, does that really mean one meal? Like, how do I if I'm doing one of the twenty twenty three hour fast? Is it how do I does that mean every night my meal gets later. Well know. And then the opposite side of that as well. OK, I have an eating window so I'm just going to eat whatever the heck I want. No that's not it either. There's a, there's a line in between. So how do you close your eating window after you've had your meal. You've had the glass of wine with dinner, you've planned what you're eating, right. You've had a balanced plate or you've had a you know, the family dinner, the spaghetti dinner that you do once a month with the family or whatnot, whatever the occasion is, special occasion, normal meal, lunch, business lunch. So how do you end the window? And this came up when people were actually saying that they're having trouble stopping it. So they open their window with a nice solid meal, but then they find themselves going to the cupboard or snacking or looking for more.

Tommy Welling:
Yeah. And sometimes that can be triggered from from that fear of missing out. You know, when you're you're kind of anticipating the window and you're like, oh, I know what I'm going to have whenever my window opens up. And then you kind of you have a little mental checklist of those things that that you wanted to include in your window. And so so coming up with with a cue or a ritual, some sort of habit to actually trigger that that's finite, that that defining. Now it's time to close my window, start my fasting timer and then get to my next fast, like instead of just that soft break that can tend to just trail on.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Ripping the Band-Aid off, you just spoke to me in the fear of missing out because back when I started fasting, it was always whenever I leave in the morning, I take a couple of protein bars with me, which are pretty much like candy bars. Even though I had the healthy ones, they still had there was still the big two. Yeah, it was like, yeah.

Tommy Welling:
Five hundred calories do. Yeah.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Not, not, not the apple pie special from GNC. These were the Kirkland Costco brand. So there were a little bit better, you know, had stevia and they had some fiber you know. So but anyway I would, I would look for that stuff during my window. This would be after we'd have a full a full dinner. Right. Right. So I like the idea of, you know, what is that thing that you can put in there? That will be your cue. So we talk a lot about habits, breaking the old diet mentality, the old habits that come along with that. And, you know, for some people, we had an interesting conversation with some of our group coaching people. And it was the this one person who just kind of been hanging out and after a fat loss phase and more of a maintenance situation, started renaming that meal my big meal. I joked it was like a Big Mac, even though Big Macs are to me are. I don't know. I don't know. I don't get it, but big meal, right? So if I'm going to pick the full transparency here, if I'm going to pick a cheap meal from a fast food chain, I don't even know if I want to say this. Should I say it? I don't know if I should say it. I would go with Taco Bell. How sad. So if you like the Big Mac analogy, great. I'm a Taco Bell guy. I can't even tell you the last time I ate it, but the big meal framework was kind of cool. So then after the big meal, you know, you have this queue is like, all right, I got a bottle of water after I eat. I got my bottle of water, I've got my cup of tea and I'm done.

Tommy Welling:
Yeah, yeah, and, you know, for some people, it might be a coffee if you if you really liked it and you don't want to mess with your sleep pattern, do a decaf or just a much smaller cup, something that that gives you something to do, something to look forward to. I like something that involves a physical action, too, like actually going over and making that that that glass of tea or that that cup of coffee or going over and actually getting that bottle of water or sparkling water or whatever it is, pouring it and then, you know, enjoying it. Or maybe you actually take it away from the table, too, physically removing yourself from where the big meal happened. And she she called a big meal because she didn't like the idea of of being pigeonholed into a certain time of day when she was going to eat that one meal a day. And so whether it was it was not usually breakfast, but even if it was breakfast or it was lunch or it was dinner, no matter what time it was, it was going to be big meal. So I thought that was a cool framework.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Yeah, I like the there was a couple other simple hacks here too, in frame and framing. It would be I like your idea of getting out of the kitchen, getting away from it, but you might have to walk by your pantry or your door or the wine closet, I don't know, maybe getting out like a post dinner walk with the family, maybe taking the dog out, maybe going out back, you know, throwing the tennis ball, maybe whatever it is, try to put something in there to be like, all right, this is it. This is my cue to end it. But I like this one even more, which was brush your teeth because I don't know about you, but I, I depending on the morning, depending on the coffee requirement. Right. There may be a time where I push the brushing of the teeth back a little until I had that first cup of coffee. Right. And it works because.

Speaker3:
Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's gross.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Right. So I really like that is just a simple one to be like, oh I've never actually thought of that. So I don't remember. I think I might have been a listener. I don't remember who said that. But it was it was a really cool kind of like little quick thing you could do.

Tommy Welling:
Yeah, that's a good one. And I do like the one getting out of the house, taking the dogs on a walk, you know, family walk, something like that, even something as simple as just we're done eating and then now it's it's time to actually clean the kitchen, like put the kitchen away, all of the dishes and everything that it took to actually prepare the meal. You know, that's that's a project in and of itself sometimes depending on how intricate the dinner was. But that can be enough to get you away from the table and get to kind of a different kind of mode. And it becomes very clear in your mind that the kitchen is closing. We're done here.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Still can't believe I gave away my Taco Bell secret good. I like the other two, is this kind of transition in the second Q&A when you could even use this as your closing key to your closing window would be a couple of squares of like a dark chocolate? Yeah, because some people do struggle with the craving, especially if you're starting to eat different foods, you're changing your diet. You're having that sweet craving, which there's a subliminal mention here in just a minute or two that could possibly help. But as you make any change, the realization that it's going to be difficult and there's going to be setbacks or hiccups is a realization. So using the chocolate to close your window would be another one, which transitions us into the sweet craving type conversation. And there's a few a few conversations we can have around this. But typically, if you're having a craving, your body is telling you that it's undergoing a change or it's it's there's a few simple things or a few simple indications of what could be causing that.

Tommy Welling:
Yeah, and then, you know, for me, the sweet cravings, I mean, they were very real. I had you know, it was it was just like like candy and sweet things, like I had a sugar addiction that I didn't realize until until basically 30 years old that that I had that. And, you know, so so this week, cravings were were real. But, you know, as the insulin spikes, as I started to get a hold of those and the blood sugar spikes, those sweet cravings really started to go away very quickly. But so I just wouldn't keep those things in the house anymore for me personally. And I started I started like leveling up my the darkness of my chocolate, because the darker it gets, the less

Dr. Scott Watier:
It's the less enjoyable. Right.

Tommy Welling:
You know, you're kind of like you're kind of hacking that that dopamine response, making it a little less enjoyable. But at the same time, it still gives you some of what you're looking for, but not to the point where I need to eat a bar of dark chocolate, but like a little square or two goes a long way for that. And then it's just like, OK, like, you know, just just forming the boundary of it is much easier, I think, than, like a super sweet chocolate or a let alone like a commercial candy bar.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Yeah, the I love that one, another one that we we've seen a lot and we use Armin's as something as a precursor to, if you're starting to have digestive changes where you break your fast, you have to run to the bathroom doing a handful of almonds and slowly going into the meal is actually been really game changing for a lot of people. Yeah, but for cravings to almonds and like a handful of almonds and raisins together, almost like a little basic trail mix can be helpful as well. And physiologically, a couple of things underlying could be a hydration thing. So definitely want to stay hydrated, make sure you're taking in the basic trace minerals, or if you're doing a longer, faster, you're just started fasting. You want to be using the salt in your water. So a something like a Himalayan salt or a sea salt, not a basic iodized morten's table salt, but that's one thing. And then the second thing is your body could be going through the transition between being a sugar burner and switching over into ketosis. So it's going to be looking for that that quick hit. So underlying things would be look at put in some things that you could do, like the chocolate or the almonds and raisins, but know that you could be just pushing through a barrier. And the hydration is a key piece to.

Tommy Welling:
Yeah, I think you brought up a great point there that that switching over from sugar burning into ketosis and getting into the fat burning mode, that that craving can be can be kind of intense for a little while. So if if that hits you set a timer, you don't have to give in to it. You can push past that. So I recommend a small timer, 10, 15 minutes is probably all it's going to take. Take that time and have 16 ounces of water, grab a sparkling water or something. And that craving will probably pass, but especially if you're just starting off with fasting. If you haven't switched over into ketosis very often or very many times, that can be kind of a new feeling to try to trick you into bringing in a little bit more sugar to make the the transition a little more prolonged.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Yeah, yeah, I, I dealt with cravings a lot for me, it's stress related when stress goes up, I crave some of the more savory foods to begin with. But then I notice if I get into the savory foods, then like like a date night, the next day I'll be like, oh, my gosh, I woke up and I want like chocolate chip pancakes. I don't even like pancakes. And I'm like, I just want that sweet sweetness. So just learning over the time to learning those cues, which is which is really cool as you get more accustomed to fasting and putting some more solid boundaries around your windows and see your body underneath it trying to tell you something. So typically hydration, like we said, you're possibly going through a transition. You can use something like a super dark chocolate, a handful of almonds and raisins. So hopefully that is kind of kind of full picture of what a craving could be. One last recommendation would be using a magnesium supplement, which would also help with hydration side of things. The one that I use is bio optimizers. It's a it's a profile of all seven different forms of magnesium. So it can hit the muscle, it can hit the the electrolyte portion, it can help with the sleep, the mood, digestion. And then one of the things is magnesium is really great for cravings. So not bio optimises the one that I use. And I notice when I take that consistently at night, I have less cravings the next day. And the last thing, Tommy, I want to touch on with cravings is what is your previous meal look like the day before?

Speaker3:
Yeah, that's a good one. And I think that's where some of that pancake discussion came from. You right there. Right, right. Because the the the more kind of indulgent or restaurant more processed carbohydrates like the day before, like you talked about a date night dilator that is in the day is going to be it's just going to make you it's going to make you have a tougher time the next day, especially if

Tommy Welling:
You ended that meal and then jumped in to a longer, fast right after that. I mean, that's just going to be it's just going to make the transition back into the fast that much tougher. It's going to make it a little bit more volatile to get into ketosis where you're going to feel a little bit more of those cravings. Those hunger pangs are going to be more intense. I mean, those are hormonally driven as well as just recent volume of food. So the bigger meal, more carbohydrate rich is just going to make it that much tougher.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Everyone want to hop on here real quick and let you know what the next challenge event registration page is live the next 10 day, fasting for life ramp up challenge is live. Registration is open. You can go to the show notes for the dates in the link to get registered. You can also go to the fasting for life dot com forward, slash live and Tommy real quick. So we don't take away from today's episode why we created these challenges. And the results we've been seeing was very intentional. You and I, when we started fasting, we were looking for support. We're looking for people to talk to. We're looking for answers and research and guidance. And really we packaged it all into one. So tell everybody real quick what's on the inside and what's waiting for them.

Tommy Welling:
Yeah, during this challenge, I mean, the format that we figured out that that works so well for people, no matter where you are and your fasting journey, whether you're new to fasting or your experience faster, maybe you're stuck in a plateau or looking to reenergize the way that we've put together the schedule and the education and the resources along this 10 day timeline has just been incredible and delivering amazing results to so many people so far. So it's it's going to be another incredible challenge. And I can't wait to get started. So we'll see you on the inside. And let's get back to today's episode.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Yeah, for sure. And that was, I noticed, starting fasting. And we hear this from a lot of people that come in to the challenges or into the group coaching matrix where they've been on and off for it. It's like, what do I do to break my fast? Well, that's a whole nother conversation. We've done some episodes on it, but making sure that you're eating that balanced plate with more of the complex natural carbs, starchy veggies, that kind of thing, will also help with keeping those cravings over time. And just realize that over time, your your leptin resistance will come down is the insulin resistance comes down as well. As you lose the body weight, this stuff should decrease. And if it tends to increase and reach out to us, we can we can help you through that. There's a few things to look at there. But the next one is I really like this framework and it's. It was more of a realization from a listener than it was a question, but I really like it. And it was in a Facebook message and it was I was putting some thought to why am I eating? So and the way it was kind of laid out, would you say

Tommy Welling:
There's so many layers there, why am I eating

Dr. Scott Watier:
Right? So it's OK. Am I really hungry or is it one of the other one thousand reasons that could be telling me to eat the time of day. My habits, my spouse, the lunch, the lunchtime window. I drove by a fast food restaurant, all the social.

Speaker3:
Let me just heated something up in the microwave.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Yeah, I saw a commercial. So why are you eating? Or the person said, why am I eating right as a realization. And I just thought it was a cool kind of touch point or discussion point.

Tommy Welling:
Yeah, because on the surface, I mean, it sounds obvious Welling I'm eating because I'm hungry, but, you know, if if you've accumulated any weight, then that means by design, by definition, that you have eaten when the body didn't need further nutrition at that point. So you pre ate calories before you had a chance to expend them. So that means there must be something else going on here, at least some of the time. And like you alluded to there, there's so many other strong hunger cues, just just the hunger pangs we just discussed just from the night before, the more indulgent meals that can carry over to the next day. So if you did have those chocolate chip pancakes that you had that craving for because of the night before, you didn't have that craving because you were that much hungrier. But if you had chocolate chip pancakes, you could have had twice the insulin response than if you had your normal breakfast, if you even eat breakfast. But normally you would you would wake up and might not even be hungry for breakfast, let alone typical. Yeah. Yeah. Let alone eight hundred to twelve hundred calories worth of, you know, some, some syrup and some butter on some chocolate chip pancakes. And then you're going to be storing those is are going to take you 12 or 18 hours to burn off after that.

Dr. Scott Watier:
And that's one of the, the, the other cool realizations over time is knowing that the choice you're making could potentially have the known fallout that you would expect. So I know for me, if I eat something like that in the middle of the morning, I'm going to be dead tired between 2:00 and 3:00, I'm going to have more brain fog and I'm going to feel sluggish. So that for me is like, OK, I know I'm making this choice. I'm only going to hurt myself. But man, I don't have the afforded ability to have that most days with two kids under four in the business. And it's just I can't. That was the old life. Right. So knowing that, look, stopping and just taking that moment, being present in that moment, why am I wanting to eat right now? Why am I reaching for this can be really powerful.

Speaker3:
Yeah, I, I think there's there's so many examples. And if you, if you, if you really look at it the next time you kind of walk by the pantry or something sounds good. Or you say, oh you know what, I haven't had in a while and you just remember something or it was a commercial that you saw like think how easy it would be to to eat in that moment. But before you had that thought, you weren't you weren't hungry. You didn't need nutrition in that meal. And so some of some of what we're doing when we're fasting and we're we're losing some of the old weight, it's it's providing that time that we didn't.

Tommy Welling:
Utilized before whatever we ate those during those times and we took in the nutrition and the calories that we didn't have the time to burn just yet.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Yeah, I love that the stored weight that we have on our bodies is like a is a is a caloric pay down that needs to take place. We've got the stored energy. We need to burn it off. So stop putting more energy in. You said something about nutrition there, which really transitions into our fourth question from you guys, which was, do I need to take a moult, a daily multivitamin if I'm starting to fast? And there's going to be a lot of different perspectives out there. But this is I want to kind of walk through how we frame this.

Speaker3:
Yeah, I really like that question because, you know, that's one of those those kind of initial hurdles that that we hear a lot. We're just getting started with. Fasting can be can be just several layers of mental hurdles and question marks and fear that kind of keep us from taking the first steps or hitting the gas. Whenever we really feel like we're on to something and something's starting to work, maybe we're starting to feel better. The scale starts to move. But these little questions and little fears can kind of come in. And the daily vitamin and am I getting enough nutrition? Don't I need to be eating throughout the day to make sure I'm getting enough nutrition? That's one of the big ones.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Yeah, two things here for me, one, this is a really easy fix, if you're concerned about it, then take a multivitamin. Right. There's really no sure, go right ahead. It's not going to hurt you, do you? Do we feel you have to know, but it's not going to hurt you, right? Longest recorded fast. Three hundred eighty two days, doctor supervised. And he took a multivitamin. Right. In that case, which leads me to the second thing would be, depending on your diet, if you are a you know, if you are a someone who needs out a lot, that does fast foods, that does process foods, has a lot of sugar in their diet, just removing some of that from like let's say you eat that stuff, two meals out of the three meals a day, just removing one of those. So now you have a 50 percent reduction in the standard American diet or the sad diet type food. Right. You have. So you're doing the bad oils, the processed stuff. Right. And you're switching over. You're just removing it. You're not even improving your diet. You're just removing it. That's going to be a net net positive win for your body in terms of nutritional intake.

Dr. Scott Watier:
You're taking even less of the bad stuff. You are removing that additional increase. Right. Or that that that that that intake of that stuff. So in my opinion, you are going to be winning by just removing or replacing one of those meals with no meal or eating at home, right? Absolutely. So the the nutrition thing is when we're looking at your plate, you want to keep the balanced plate. You want to have a good source of lean protein. You want to have some good, healthy fat you want to have if you're going to do the carbs, the starchy veggies, veggies, the natural carbohydrates, the less processed and refine carbs, sweet potatoes, et cetera. And you're going to be I mean, if you got some substantial weight to lose, you're going to be making massive progress in terms of overall health, where the daily multivitamin should just be kind of a small little afterthought. So just a couple of different things there that when that question comes up, that's where my brain goes to.

Speaker3:
Yeah. And I remember we've had a few people who who expressed concern about doing any sort of longer, fast, even going beyond maybe 18 hours, let alone twenty four or thirty six hours, because they kind of had that idea that, well I'm going to be going past the twenty four hour mark and I don't want to miss my, my vitamin dose because. They're concerned with going too long without that vitamin intake, but the the way to think about that is that, you know, when you're when you're eating, if you're taking a multivitamin most of the time, if you're eating nutritious foods, some of those things are going to go beyond one hundred percent. And the benefits of the benefits of that longer, fast going to that 30 or that thirty six hour mark are going to far outweigh the the precise timing of the intake of those micronutrients, vitamin level. So I, I feel like that's that's a good one to, to kind of really think through critically. If you feel like that's one of your your stopping points or your your mental hurdles to getting to your next longest pass, because you could be missing out on a very, very good opportunity to to make substantial progress.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Yeah. And I, I it's for me. I use a athletic screen's powder, I used to have another multivitamin that I use on my fasting days on my not on my pretty much unless I'm doing an extended fast. I use this almost every day and I use it because I feel better when I take it. Like, I just feel it doesn't have any caffeine or anything in it. I just feel like it's like an infusion of nutrition, like I like it. I'm not a big vegetable guy. I like fresh cooked vegetables. I don't like reheated vegetables. I really don't like being in the kitchen. Very often. Fasting is simplified that for me. So I like using this as my multivitamin. But really from the perspective that it's giving my body some additional nutrition and getting my migraines and veggies. And so just another little different perspective to possibly look there. But really good questions. Tell me anything else to add on any of these before we kind of wrap up?

Speaker3:
Yeah, I would just I would just add that if you are used to having a lot of processed foods or fast foods, having adding in a food or adding in a few additional servings of veggies that you can prepare at home is going to be a great way to ramp up the amount of vitamins and micronutrients that you're actually bringing into your overall diet. So taking those those eating opportunities as a chance to bring in really, really good nutrition and focusing on on that as a way to kind of reframe what you're eating when you are breaking your fast can be a great way to bring in the nutrients that you need and keep reinforcing the really good habits that are going to accelerate your fasting results. Do.

Dr. Scott Watier:
Cool announcement here and a shout out to you guys as the faithful listeners, I can't imagine, Tommy, that we just broke three hundred thousand downloads. Yeah, over the last 14 months. It's absolutely incredible. So shout out to you all much love and appreciation to you guys that keep chiming in and keep giving us the positive feedback. Fasting isn't for everybody. The fasting lifestyle isn't for everyone. Do we believe that there's benefit for everybody if you do it? Yeah, absolutely. It's been game changing for us. So for each one of you listeners that download an episode and listened, we appreciate you. We love doing these Q&A sessions. We get away from them for a little while, but we are back. So keep sending in your questions. Let's keep this conversation. Let's keep it actionable. You can go to our website, Deforesting for Life Dotcom. You can download the Fast Start guide. If you have any questions, reach out to us at info at the Fasting for life. Drop us a message on Facebook. We appreciate all reviews, mostly the five star ones. Tommy, thank you as always, sir. We'll talk soon.

Tommy Welling:
Thank you. 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. Why are there

Dr. Scott Watier:
Your three 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.

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Fasting For Life Ep. 64

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:00:01] Hello, I'm Dr. Scott Watier,

Tommy Welling: [00:00:03] And I'm Tommy Welling, and you're listening to the Fasting for Life podcast, and

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:00:08] This podcast is about using fasting as a tool to regain your health, achieve ultimate wellness and the life you truly deserve.

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

Dr. Scott Watier: [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

[00:00:30] Along the way.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:00:41] Everyone that's got here wants to hop on real quick before we start with today's episode and let you know that our next challenge event, registration link is live. It is in the show notes for the dates and additional information. You can also go to the fasting for likeme. Forgive the fasting for life dot com forward slash live. And now to today's episode. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott. I'm here, as always, with my good friend and colleague, Tommy Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir.

Tommy Welling: [00:01:16] Hey, how are you?

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:01:18] Rock and roll. And we are off and about to dive into a something we haven't done in a while, and I'm excited about it. It's been a minute since we've done a listener Q&A session, and I think it can be a really good conversation. So in our typical fasting for life fashion, we want to go through them, give you guys some conversations from real time perspective, and then some action on what we can do to answer the questions first and foremost. But then also go put this into our day to day. So, yeah, Tommy, which one do you want to start with?

Speaker3: [00:01:59] A question. And let's see, I think I think we should go with with one that I hadn't heard anybody bring up before until until recently. And it was

Tommy Welling: [00:02:11] How do I actually end my window? I thought that was an interesting question.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:02:17] Yeah. And so, first of all, a couple of terms here. So eating window. So we talk about things in terms of, you know, your fasting period and then you're eating your open window or when you'd be eating period. Right. So during your eating window, during, say, for instance, there's this is a whole nother conversation when people bring up one meal a day, like, does that really mean one meal? Like, how do I if I'm doing one of the twenty twenty three hour fast? Is it how do I does that mean every night my meal gets later. Well know. And then the opposite side of that as well. OK, I have an eating window so I'm just going to eat whatever the heck I want. No that's not it either. There's a, there's a line in between. So how do you close your eating window after you've had your meal. You've had the glass of wine with dinner, you've planned what you're eating, right. You've had a balanced plate or you've had a you know, the family dinner, the spaghetti dinner that you do once a month with the family or whatnot, whatever the occasion is, special occasion, normal meal, lunch, business lunch. So how do you end the window? And this came up when people were actually saying that they're having trouble stopping it. So they open their window with a nice solid meal, but then they find themselves going to the cupboard or snacking or looking for more.

Tommy Welling: [00:03:40] Yeah. And sometimes that can be triggered from from that fear of missing out. You know, when you're you're kind of anticipating the window and you're like, oh, I know what I'm going to have whenever my window opens up. And then you kind of you have a little mental checklist of those things that that you wanted to include in your window. And so so coming up with with a cue or a ritual, some sort of habit to actually trigger that that's finite, that that defining. Now it's time to close my window, start my fasting timer and then get to my next fast, like instead of just that soft break that can tend to just trail on.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:04:20] Ripping the Band-Aid off, you just spoke to me in the fear of missing out because back when I started fasting, it was always whenever I leave in the morning, I take a couple of protein bars with me, which are pretty much like candy bars. Even though I had the healthy ones, they still had there was still the big two. Yeah, it was like, yeah.

Tommy Welling: [00:04:37] Five hundred calories do. Yeah.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:04:39] Not, not, not the apple pie special from GNC. These were the Kirkland Costco brand. So there were a little bit better, you know, had stevia and they had some fiber you know. So but anyway I would, I would look for that stuff during my window. This would be after we'd have a full a full dinner. Right. Right. So I like the idea of, you know, what is that thing that you can put in there? That will be your cue. So we talk a lot about habits, breaking the old diet mentality, the old habits that come along with that. And, you know, for some people, we had an interesting conversation with some of our group coaching people. And it was the this one person who just kind of been hanging out and after a fat loss phase and more of a maintenance situation, started renaming that meal my big meal. I joked it was like a Big Mac, even though Big Macs are to me are. I don't know. I don't know. I don't get it, but big meal, right? So if I'm going to pick the full transparency here, if I'm going to pick a cheap meal from a fast food chain, I don't even know if I want to say this. Should I say it? I don't know if I should say it. I would go with Taco Bell. How sad. So if you like the Big Mac analogy, great. I'm a Taco Bell guy. I can't even tell you the last time I ate it, but the big meal framework was kind of cool. So then after the big meal, you know, you have this queue is like, all right, I got a bottle of water after I eat. I got my bottle of water, I've got my cup of tea and I'm done.

Tommy Welling: [00:06:17] Yeah, yeah, and, you know, for some people, it might be a coffee if you if you really liked it and you don't want to mess with your sleep pattern, do a decaf or just a much smaller cup, something that that gives you something to do, something to look forward to. I like something that involves a physical action, too, like actually going over and making that that that glass of tea or that that cup of coffee or going over and actually getting that bottle of water or sparkling water or whatever it is, pouring it and then, you know, enjoying it. Or maybe you actually take it away from the table, too, physically removing yourself from where the big meal happened. And she she called a big meal because she didn't like the idea of of being pigeonholed into a certain time of day when she was going to eat that one meal a day. And so whether it was it was not usually breakfast, but even if it was breakfast or it was lunch or it was dinner, no matter what time it was, it was going to be big meal. So I thought that was a cool framework.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:07:19] Yeah, I like the there was a couple other simple hacks here too, in frame and framing. It would be I like your idea of getting out of the kitchen, getting away from it, but you might have to walk by your pantry or your door or the wine closet, I don't know, maybe getting out like a post dinner walk with the family, maybe taking the dog out, maybe going out back, you know, throwing the tennis ball, maybe whatever it is, try to put something in there to be like, all right, this is it. This is my cue to end it. But I like this one even more, which was brush your teeth because I don't know about you, but I, I depending on the morning, depending on the coffee requirement. Right. There may be a time where I push the brushing of the teeth back a little until I had that first cup of coffee. Right. And it works because.

Speaker3: [00:08:17] Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's gross.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:08:20] Right. So I really like that is just a simple one to be like, oh I've never actually thought of that. So I don't remember. I think I might have been a listener. I don't remember who said that. But it was it was a really cool kind of like little quick thing you could do.

Tommy Welling: [00:08:33] Yeah, that's a good one. And I do like the one getting out of the house, taking the dogs on a walk, you know, family walk, something like that, even something as simple as just we're done eating and then now it's it's time to actually clean the kitchen, like put the kitchen away, all of the dishes and everything that it took to actually prepare the meal. You know, that's that's a project in and of itself sometimes depending on how intricate the dinner was. But that can be enough to get you away from the table and get to kind of a different kind of mode. And it becomes very clear in your mind that the kitchen is closing. We're done here.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:09:13] Still can't believe I gave away my Taco Bell secret good. I like the other two, is this kind of transition in the second Q&A when you could even use this as your closing key to your closing window would be a couple of squares of like a dark chocolate? Yeah, because some people do struggle with the craving, especially if you're starting to eat different foods, you're changing your diet. You're having that sweet craving, which there's a subliminal mention here in just a minute or two that could possibly help. But as you make any change, the realization that it's going to be difficult and there's going to be setbacks or hiccups is a realization. So using the chocolate to close your window would be another one, which transitions us into the sweet craving type conversation. And there's a few a few conversations we can have around this. But typically, if you're having a craving, your body is telling you that it's undergoing a change or it's it's there's a few simple things or a few simple indications of what could be causing that.

Tommy Welling: [00:10:22] Yeah, and then, you know, for me, the sweet cravings, I mean, they were very real. I had you know, it was it was just like like candy and sweet things, like I had a sugar addiction that I didn't realize until until basically 30 years old that that I had that. And, you know, so so this week, cravings were were real. But, you know, as the insulin spikes, as I started to get a hold of those and the blood sugar spikes, those sweet cravings really started to go away very quickly. But so I just wouldn't keep those things in the house anymore for me personally. And I started I started like leveling up my the darkness of my chocolate, because the darker it gets, the less

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:11:10] It's the less enjoyable. Right.

Tommy Welling: [00:11:13] You know, you're kind of like you're kind of hacking that that dopamine response, making it a little less enjoyable. But at the same time, it still gives you some of what you're looking for, but not to the point where I need to eat a bar of dark chocolate, but like a little square or two goes a long way for that. And then it's just like, OK, like, you know, just just forming the boundary of it is much easier, I think, than, like a super sweet chocolate or a let alone like a commercial candy bar.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:11:43] Yeah, the I love that one, another one that we we've seen a lot and we use Armin's as something as a precursor to, if you're starting to have digestive changes where you break your fast, you have to run to the bathroom doing a handful of almonds and slowly going into the meal is actually been really game changing for a lot of people. Yeah, but for cravings to almonds and like a handful of almonds and raisins together, almost like a little basic trail mix can be helpful as well. And physiologically, a couple of things underlying could be a hydration thing. So definitely want to stay hydrated, make sure you're taking in the basic trace minerals, or if you're doing a longer, faster, you're just started fasting. You want to be using the salt in your water. So a something like a Himalayan salt or a sea salt, not a basic iodized morten's table salt, but that's one thing. And then the second thing is your body could be going through the transition between being a sugar burner and switching over into ketosis. So it's going to be looking for that that quick hit. So underlying things would be look at put in some things that you could do, like the chocolate or the almonds and raisins, but know that you could be just pushing through a barrier. And the hydration is a key piece to.

Tommy Welling: [00:13:04] Yeah, I think you brought up a great point there that that switching over from sugar burning into ketosis and getting into the fat burning mode, that that craving can be can be kind of intense for a little while. So if if that hits you set a timer, you don't have to give in to it. You can push past that. So I recommend a small timer, 10, 15 minutes is probably all it's going to take. Take that time and have 16 ounces of water, grab a sparkling water or something. And that craving will probably pass, but especially if you're just starting off with fasting. If you haven't switched over into ketosis very often or very many times, that can be kind of a new feeling to try to trick you into bringing in a little bit more sugar to make the the transition a little more prolonged.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:13:56] Yeah, yeah, I, I dealt with cravings a lot for me, it's stress related when stress goes up, I crave some of the more savory foods to begin with. But then I notice if I get into the savory foods, then like like a date night, the next day I'll be like, oh, my gosh, I woke up and I want like chocolate chip pancakes. I don't even like pancakes. And I'm like, I just want that sweet sweetness. So just learning over the time to learning those cues, which is which is really cool as you get more accustomed to fasting and putting some more solid boundaries around your windows and see your body underneath it trying to tell you something. So typically hydration, like we said, you're possibly going through a transition. You can use something like a super dark chocolate, a handful of almonds and raisins. So hopefully that is kind of kind of full picture of what a craving could be. One last recommendation would be using a magnesium supplement, which would also help with hydration side of things. The one that I use is bio optimizers. It's a it's a profile of all seven different forms of magnesium. So it can hit the muscle, it can hit the the electrolyte portion, it can help with the sleep, the mood, digestion. And then one of the things is magnesium is really great for cravings. So not bio optimises the one that I use. And I notice when I take that consistently at night, I have less cravings the next day. And the last thing, Tommy, I want to touch on with cravings is what is your previous meal look like the day before?

Speaker3: [00:15:36] Yeah, that's a good one. And I think that's where some of that pancake discussion came from. You right there. Right, right. Because the the the more kind of indulgent or restaurant more processed carbohydrates like the day before, like you talked about a date night dilator that is in the day is going to be it's just going to make you it's going to make you have a tougher time the next day, especially if

Tommy Welling: [00:16:03] You ended that meal and then jumped in to a longer, fast right after that. I mean, that's just going to be it's just going to make the transition back into the fast that much tougher. It's going to make it a little bit more volatile to get into ketosis where you're going to feel a little bit more of those cravings. Those hunger pangs are going to be more intense. I mean, those are hormonally driven as well as just recent volume of food. So the bigger meal, more carbohydrate rich is just going to make it that much tougher.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:16:37] Everyone want to hop on here real quick and let you know what the next challenge event registration page is live the next 10 day, fasting for life ramp up challenge is live. Registration is open. You can go to the show notes for the dates in the link to get registered. You can also go to the fasting for life dot com forward, slash live and Tommy real quick. So we don't take away from today's episode why we created these challenges. And the results we've been seeing was very intentional. You and I, when we started fasting, we were looking for support. We're looking for people to talk to. We're looking for answers and research and guidance. And really we packaged it all into one. So tell everybody real quick what's on the inside and what's waiting for them.

Tommy Welling: [00:17:22] Yeah, during this challenge, I mean, the format that we figured out that that works so well for people, no matter where you are and your fasting journey, whether you're new to fasting or your experience faster, maybe you're stuck in a plateau or looking to reenergize the way that we've put together the schedule and the education and the resources along this 10 day timeline has just been incredible and delivering amazing results to so many people so far. So it's it's going to be another incredible challenge. And I can't wait to get started. So we'll see you on the inside. And let's get back to today's episode.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:17:57] Yeah, for sure. And that was, I noticed, starting fasting. And we hear this from a lot of people that come in to the challenges or into the group coaching matrix where they've been on and off for it. It's like, what do I do to break my fast? Well, that's a whole nother conversation. We've done some episodes on it, but making sure that you're eating that balanced plate with more of the complex natural carbs, starchy veggies, that kind of thing, will also help with keeping those cravings over time. And just realize that over time, your your leptin resistance will come down is the insulin resistance comes down as well. As you lose the body weight, this stuff should decrease. And if it tends to increase and reach out to us, we can we can help you through that. There's a few things to look at there. But the next one is I really like this framework and it's. It was more of a realization from a listener than it was a question, but I really like it. And it was in a Facebook message and it was I was putting some thought to why am I eating? So and the way it was kind of laid out, would you say

Tommy Welling: [00:19:07] There's so many layers there, why am I eating

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:19:10] Right? So it's OK. Am I really hungry or is it one of the other one thousand reasons that could be telling me to eat the time of day. My habits, my spouse, the lunch, the lunchtime window. I drove by a fast food restaurant, all the social.

Speaker3: [00:19:27] Let me just heated something up in the microwave.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:19:31] Yeah, I saw a commercial. So why are you eating? Or the person said, why am I eating right as a realization. And I just thought it was a cool kind of touch point or discussion point.

Tommy Welling: [00:19:44] Yeah, because on the surface, I mean, it sounds obvious Welling I'm eating because I'm hungry, but, you know, if if you've accumulated any weight, then that means by design, by definition, that you have eaten when the body didn't need further nutrition at that point. So you pre ate calories before you had a chance to expend them. So that means there must be something else going on here, at least some of the time. And like you alluded to there, there's so many other strong hunger cues, just just the hunger pangs we just discussed just from the night before, the more indulgent meals that can carry over to the next day. So if you did have those chocolate chip pancakes that you had that craving for because of the night before, you didn't have that craving because you were that much hungrier. But if you had chocolate chip pancakes, you could have had twice the insulin response than if you had your normal breakfast, if you even eat breakfast. But normally you would you would wake up and might not even be hungry for breakfast, let alone typical. Yeah. Yeah. Let alone eight hundred to twelve hundred calories worth of, you know, some, some syrup and some butter on some chocolate chip pancakes. And then you're going to be storing those is are going to take you 12 or 18 hours to burn off after that.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:21:09] And that's one of the, the, the other cool realizations over time is knowing that the choice you're making could potentially have the known fallout that you would expect. So I know for me, if I eat something like that in the middle of the morning, I'm going to be dead tired between 2:00 and 3:00, I'm going to have more brain fog and I'm going to feel sluggish. So that for me is like, OK, I know I'm making this choice. I'm only going to hurt myself. But man, I don't have the afforded ability to have that most days with two kids under four in the business. And it's just I can't. That was the old life. Right. So knowing that, look, stopping and just taking that moment, being present in that moment, why am I wanting to eat right now? Why am I reaching for this can be really powerful.

Speaker3: [00:22:00] Yeah, I, I think there's there's so many examples. And if you, if you, if you really look at it the next time you kind of walk by the pantry or something sounds good. Or you say, oh you know what, I haven't had in a while and you just remember something or it was a commercial that you saw like think how easy it would be to to eat in that moment. But before you had that thought, you weren't you weren't hungry. You didn't need nutrition in that meal. And so some of some of what we're doing when we're fasting and we're we're losing some of the old weight, it's it's providing that time that we didn't.

Tommy Welling: [00:22:39] Utilized before whatever we ate those during those times and we took in the nutrition and the calories that we didn't have the time to burn just yet.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:22:51] Yeah, I love that the stored weight that we have on our bodies is like a is a is a caloric pay down that needs to take place. We've got the stored energy. We need to burn it off. So stop putting more energy in. You said something about nutrition there, which really transitions into our fourth question from you guys, which was, do I need to take a moult, a daily multivitamin if I'm starting to fast? And there's going to be a lot of different perspectives out there. But this is I want to kind of walk through how we frame this.

Speaker3: [00:23:22] Yeah, I really like that question because, you know, that's one of those those kind of initial hurdles that that we hear a lot. We're just getting started with. Fasting can be can be just several layers of mental hurdles and question marks and fear that kind of keep us from taking the first steps or hitting the gas. Whenever we really feel like we're on to something and something's starting to work, maybe we're starting to feel better. The scale starts to move. But these little questions and little fears can kind of come in. And the daily vitamin and am I getting enough nutrition? Don't I need to be eating throughout the day to make sure I'm getting enough nutrition? That's one of the big ones.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:24:07] Yeah, two things here for me, one, this is a really easy fix, if you're concerned about it, then take a multivitamin. Right. There's really no sure, go right ahead. It's not going to hurt you, do you? Do we feel you have to know, but it's not going to hurt you, right? Longest recorded fast. Three hundred eighty two days, doctor supervised. And he took a multivitamin. Right. In that case, which leads me to the second thing would be, depending on your diet, if you are a you know, if you are a someone who needs out a lot, that does fast foods, that does process foods, has a lot of sugar in their diet, just removing some of that from like let's say you eat that stuff, two meals out of the three meals a day, just removing one of those. So now you have a 50 percent reduction in the standard American diet or the sad diet type food. Right. You have. So you're doing the bad oils, the processed stuff. Right. And you're switching over. You're just removing it. You're not even improving your diet. You're just removing it. That's going to be a net net positive win for your body in terms of nutritional intake.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:25:19] You're taking even less of the bad stuff. You are removing that additional increase. Right. Or that that that that that intake of that stuff. So in my opinion, you are going to be winning by just removing or replacing one of those meals with no meal or eating at home, right? Absolutely. So the the nutrition thing is when we're looking at your plate, you want to keep the balanced plate. You want to have a good source of lean protein. You want to have some good, healthy fat you want to have if you're going to do the carbs, the starchy veggies, veggies, the natural carbohydrates, the less processed and refine carbs, sweet potatoes, et cetera. And you're going to be I mean, if you got some substantial weight to lose, you're going to be making massive progress in terms of overall health, where the daily multivitamin should just be kind of a small little afterthought. So just a couple of different things there that when that question comes up, that's where my brain goes to.

Speaker3: [00:26:16] Yeah. And I remember we've had a few people who who expressed concern about doing any sort of longer, fast, even going beyond maybe 18 hours, let alone twenty four or thirty six hours, because they kind of had that idea that, well I'm going to be going past the twenty four hour mark and I don't want to miss my, my vitamin dose because. They're concerned with going too long without that vitamin intake, but the the way to think about that is that, you know, when you're when you're eating, if you're taking a multivitamin most of the time, if you're eating nutritious foods, some of those things are going to go beyond one hundred percent. And the benefits of the benefits of that longer, fast going to that 30 or that thirty six hour mark are going to far outweigh the the precise timing of the intake of those micronutrients, vitamin level. So I, I feel like that's that's a good one to, to kind of really think through critically. If you feel like that's one of your your stopping points or your your mental hurdles to getting to your next longest pass, because you could be missing out on a very, very good opportunity to to make substantial progress.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:27:45] Yeah. And I, I it's for me. I use a athletic screen's powder, I used to have another multivitamin that I use on my fasting days on my not on my pretty much unless I'm doing an extended fast. I use this almost every day and I use it because I feel better when I take it. Like, I just feel it doesn't have any caffeine or anything in it. I just feel like it's like an infusion of nutrition, like I like it. I'm not a big vegetable guy. I like fresh cooked vegetables. I don't like reheated vegetables. I really don't like being in the kitchen. Very often. Fasting is simplified that for me. So I like using this as my multivitamin. But really from the perspective that it's giving my body some additional nutrition and getting my migraines and veggies. And so just another little different perspective to possibly look there. But really good questions. Tell me anything else to add on any of these before we kind of wrap up?

Speaker3: [00:28:42] Yeah, I would just I would just add that if you are used to having a lot of processed foods or fast foods, having adding in a food or adding in a few additional servings of veggies that you can prepare at home is going to be a great way to ramp up the amount of vitamins and micronutrients that you're actually bringing into your overall diet. So taking those those eating opportunities as a chance to bring in really, really good nutrition and focusing on on that as a way to kind of reframe what you're eating when you are breaking your fast can be a great way to bring in the nutrients that you need and keep reinforcing the really good habits that are going to accelerate your fasting results. Do.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:29:35] Cool announcement here and a shout out to you guys as the faithful listeners, I can't imagine, Tommy, that we just broke three hundred thousand downloads. Yeah, over the last 14 months. It's absolutely incredible. So shout out to you all much love and appreciation to you guys that keep chiming in and keep giving us the positive feedback. Fasting isn't for everybody. The fasting lifestyle isn't for everyone. Do we believe that there's benefit for everybody if you do it? Yeah, absolutely. It's been game changing for us. So for each one of you listeners that download an episode and listened, we appreciate you. We love doing these Q&A sessions. We get away from them for a little while, but we are back. So keep sending in your questions. Let's keep this conversation. Let's keep it actionable. You can go to our website, Deforesting for Life Dotcom. You can download the Fast Start guide. If you have any questions, reach out to us at info at the Fasting for life. Drop us a message on Facebook. We appreciate all reviews, mostly the five star ones. Tommy, thank you as always, sir. We'll talk soon.

Tommy Welling: [00:30:39] Thank you. 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. Why are there

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:30:55] Your three 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.

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