Ep. 74 - Get the Scale UNSTUCK, Maintain your Fasting Weight Loss Results & Enjoy the Process | Getting back on track after falling off the fasting wagon | Cutting your losses & maintaining your gains | Free Intermittent Fasting Plan

In this episode, Dr. Scott and Tommy discuss a simple five-step method you can use to get back on track after a day, weekend, month, or even years since falling off the fasting path! We can use deliberate methods and cues to cut our losses, regroup, and start with small wins to set ourselves up for success and results.

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Fasting For Life Ep. 74

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 live 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 on 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: [00:00:40] Hey, everyone, welcome to be Fasting for Life podcast. My name is Dr. Scott Watier, and I'm here, as always, my good friend and colleague, Tommy Welling. Good afternoon to you, sir.

Tommy Welling: [00:00:47] Hey, Scott, how's it going?

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:00:49] Awesome, awesome. Awesome. I am excited for today's conversation that we are going to have. This is something that I I've lived the nightmare through. Know people say living the dream while this is one of those situations where, you know, it's it's a struggle point for some and I can definitely relate to it. You and I have had many conversations about it. And we've kind of come up with a new framework based on all of the conversations with our challengers and our community group and coaching and all that. That seems to be getting a good outcome for the majority of people that go through this simple step to really help get you back on track when the wheels have fallen off.

Tommy Welling: [00:01:34] Yeah, that can be a tough spot where where the first step is recognizing that that's actually happened. But then the next question as well, like, how do I pull myself out of that? How can I gain that level of control so that the next time it happens, I can actually pull myself out of the muck and get going on the right on the right track again.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:01:55] Yeah. So for Priefer, I mean, if you're new to the podcast, you go back and listen to some of the previous episodes. Give us a little grace. Back in the day when we started, just over probably a year and a few months ago, January twenty twenty. But there's been a lot of momentum since then. And if you have questions about what works faster, you know why we recommend that or comparing the different fasting windows. We've got episodes and tons of information about that. You can get the fast start got on the website. But for to kind of pre frame the situation that you just alluded to tell me is when we are fasting, you know, we're going to be using what's called fast cycling. So we're going to be using certain fasting windows to accelerate the weight loss process, undo the underlying issue of insulin and weight loss resistance, how balanced blood sugars, improve health metrics, et cetera, over the long term. But we need to take the macro approach first, which is now this is a journey a lot of people have found us or have related to our story because of the yo yo, the struggle. You're doing all the things right, but you're not getting the results. It doesn't stick. You gain twenty, lose twenty, gained twenty five, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So putting together a framework or a jig or a system to fall back on, you know, we take people through, we've been through more advanced, faster, more aggressive weight loss. And there's no point in doing all that hard work if you can't enjoy the process to a certain degree or get the results to stick. Like why why lose the 40 pounds if you're just going to go give it all back again? Right. Like nobody wants to live in that. So as a framework for this conversation, this little five step kind of action plan for when the weekend gets away from you or for when the holiday, the vacation turns into, well, there goes the diet when you get back from vacation. Right. Or the so-called I don't like the term binge, but the so-called like. Well, oops,

Tommy Welling: [00:04:04] Didn't mean to eat the whole don't know what happened there.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:04:05] Yeah. I don't know what happened or the cravings kick up because a high stress situation or a few nights of bad sleep or, you know, a monthly cycle or traveling or all these different life events that can happen. So we want to really give you some direct action steps on if you've been fasting for a while or if you're new to fasting. This is something that you can use to put a bow on the whips and start getting back immediately, get back on track and just flip that switch.

Tommy Welling: [00:04:35] Yeah, put it in a container, seal up the container, put the container behind you, and then start putting one foot in front of the other. Right back on track. And you know how this how this comes about sometimes is like if you have 50 pounds to lose and then you get on track with fasting, you understand it. It starts working for you quickly. You're enjoying the process and maybe you're down 10 or 15 or 20 pounds. And then all of a sudden a string of holidays comes up or there was a vacation or you kind of had it kind of experience fasting fatigue

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:05:09] Or you hit a plateau. Yeah, fasting fatigue is huge. Or that dreaded plateau that everybody hears about. Right.

Tommy Welling: [00:05:15] And then and once that happens, that can be just a little bit demotivating. Slow down the progress. You take your foot off the gas and you take your eye off the prize. And then next thing you know, you wake up and a few weeks later, habits are gone. You're not setting a fasting timer anymore. Scales ticking back up How do you get back on track?

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:05:37] Yeah, how do you flip that switch? And it's interesting. That's come up a few times now. So to frame out a potential, we've given you the triggers. Right? We've mentioned a lot of the triggers that can happen, the happy hour that turns into the weekend, those types of things. So immediately when that happens, you just want to recognize that, hey, OK. Yup. My intention was to eat one of the Girl Scout cookies, Thin Mints, but I had the half a sleeve and then half the sleeve. Later I was like, well, I might as well just finish this off. So they're out of the house, right? All the there. Yeah. No matter how many times you put Peets in front of me, I'm going to have a struggle with it. And we want to create, you know, an end result, a life at the end of this this process where you enjoy the day to day, you're at a comfortable wait. You're confident you're healthy. So we want to enjoy it as we go. So we want to make sure we have the pizza nights and the Girl Scout cookies and those things worked into the long term plan because omitting and restricting those things from your life forever is miserable. And nobody has the willpower to stick to that. We've talked about that in previous episodes. So you fall off the wagon, happy hour turns into a weekend and the first thing you want to do is acknowledge it and immediately plan your next meal.

Tommy Welling: [00:06:56] Yeah, and with that acknowledgement mentally moving past it, so if you're if you're prone to kind of those those more like self-deprecating or like guilt, the feelings of guilt, acknowledge it, forgive yourself. And then let's go to the next step, which is, like you said, planning that next meal. What is that that next meal will look like when set the appropriate time or for it make a deliberate plan for what you're going to eat and when and then just get to the next step.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:07:26] Yeah. So it's the first is like I want to stay on this one for just a little bit longer. Is that acknowledgement that it happened and giving yourself a hug and saying it's fine, I'm going to start doing better right now. School five, four, three, two, one, boom. Here's my next plan. So that was fun. Now I know I may have a couple of days of not feeling great. I may have some more cravings, be mentally ready, but immediately. Just take a second. Thirty six seconds to a minute of intentionality in the moment of enjoying and accepting what just happened and then framing it with, OK, like you said, here's my next meal. I'm going to go until breakfast tomorrow. Right. It might be lunch the previous day or I'm not going to eat lunch today. I'm going to go to dinner, whatever it is, put some intentional thought behind it and take the pressure off of yourself, like relieve the pressure valve. Right. And just, you know, like acclimate to that moment and be like, OK, here's my plan. Here's where I'm going to do this. Step one, planet it. And then step two is do something active and it's kind of open ended. But avoid the boredom or avoid getting stuck in the mud in that moment. And it can be active either psychologically, physically or socially. Now, I know socially nowadays is a little bit different, depending on where you live and risk and all those different types of things. But getting out, doing something psychologically active, physically active or socially active. So for me, I like to stimulate my brain, like to read, go hop on the peloton. Right, do a twenty minute ride, get my butt kicked. That's a physical thing. Social, make a phone call, phone a friend. Right. Those are a few things that we can do that want to move you out of the that moment of and kind of take that next step after you set your plan.

Tommy Welling: [00:09:22] Yeah, I think that's a good one because remembering that sometimes, you know, the unhealthy eating or the snacking, the kind of mindless stuff, sometimes that's because we don't have anywhere else to put that energy or that that thought process right in that moment. So remind you to say don't eat, you're not hungry. You're bored, you're bored. Right? He was right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we've all we've all done that. And and just recognizing that that might be the source of that behavior that you you don't like and you don't want to repeat in that moment. So so take your mind off of it. Get get away from the kitchen, away from the pantry and go outside. Do do something, start a project and and set your timer along with it and you'll be you'll be much better off.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:10:09] Yeah. I had a conversation with with a one of our continuity members after the last challenge and we hopped on a call and I was like, OK, so what is that, what are the things that throw you off track? And he told me and I said, OK, now we need to replace that with something else. So something that you enjoy doing that would be your reward, not driving by the donut shop and then going home and working out like if you're not a big working out person, like don't don't be like go home. Like, I get to clean the bathroom, like, don't do something that you don't enjoy doing, like you need to replace it with something that I like. Right. So it's that swap of the Q that creates the habit. And then we try we always try to fix the actual physical manifestation of it. And stress is stress is one of those things that typically will cause a lot of the, you know, the the falling off the plan. So being being active psychologically, physically or socially is number two. And then Tommy, number three, get off of the social technology media. Don't put I could not remember the word commercial the other day, like because we don't have cable or TV.

Tommy Welling: [00:11:26] You blocked it.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:11:27] Yeah, I was. I got all Super Bowl commercials. Right. So, like, everybody loves the Super Bowl commercials, like millions of dollars are spent just to get this little minute in front of your face. And it's food and it's you know, I don't even know it's the Doritos. I remember that Pepsi, like all the stuff we get out of my face and then the social media side of it. You said something profound the other day where it's like it's not real life.

Tommy Welling: [00:11:53] No, it's not, and we heard it we heard it described as a curated life, it is a curated life. It is like the best of the best of the best real. Yeah, it's the highlight reel. It's what everybody wants to show off, but it's not indicative of real life. So it's really hard to to go on to social media, scroll through, see these beautiful pictures of people and food and experiences and houses and cars and all this stuff. And then

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:12:21] He a few years out in a bikini and you're like, OK, that makes me want to go eat the rest of the Thin Mints,

Tommy Welling: [00:12:27] Right? Absolutely. Like, it's really hard to see that stuff and feel great about whatever in the moment you have going on. Like it's almost never going to compare to what you see on social media. So it's it's tough. So getting away from that and knowing that that can be can trigger things that that we don't want and it can take our eye off the prize. So let's just let's just minimize some of that time and and stay away from, you know, avoid some of that negative input.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:12:57] Yeah. And I love, though, like the active thing. So get active. You're going to you're going to boost your endorphins while sitting in front of the TV. For me, I, I definitely tend to want to snack more bingeing a Netflix show. I can't even think of where we used to watch back in the day like. Yeah, Breaking Bad. Like that was. Oh my gosh. Right. But I'm, I'm much more likely to indulge watching Breaking Bad than I am reading a book or doing something physically active. Right. Or making a phone call. Right. I'm not going to be crunching on a bag of cheesy popcorn while I'm on the phone. Grandma shouldn't be able to hear me. So I like that framework of getting away from the social media, the TV, that kind of stuff. So you don't have that extra, you know, potential make you feel bad or potential to open up that window again. So and then the fourth one is something that we've talked a lot about back in the day when it comes to body image and, you know, being realistic with the fact that that moment or that indulgence or that falling off of the wagon, the happy hour that turned into the weekend, whatever it is, is recognizing that that is not going to have a noticeable net negative effect on the long term plan for your body, your weight in your health.

Tommy Welling: [00:14:13] Right, right. The magnitude of the quote unquote mistake or whatever, whatever the situation was that just happened is is going to be a drop in the bucket long term. It's not going to be worth your mental energy to be frustrated with yourself or or to carry guilt around for the next few minutes or let alone few hours or or days. This is going to be you know, this is getting back to the first point of just acknowledging it, understanding it happened. What can I learn anything from it? Can I avoid whatever trigger was there that kind of led me to that behavior? And then let me let me just put one foot in front of the in front of the other and then go to the next step

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:14:55] And to apply it to fasting, specifically the difference between, you know, a twenty three and a twenty two hour window. Oh man, I didn't make it OK. Well, great do twenty two hours for the next two weeks and see what happens, right? It's just a man. So I'm looking at like a compliance thing. It's like, all right, if I hit my fastening windows 80 percent of the time, you're going to have an incredible amount of victories and wins under your belt. So being realistic with the fact that that one situation is not going to have a dramatic effect on long term, you're not going to put on two pounds of fat overnight or over one vacation. It's draw a line in the sand, put a plan B active, get off the tech and then just have that realization once, like, OK, yeah, I got this. I'm back on track, you know, being realistic with hitting your windows, too. So don't I mean, really just this isn't really one of the steps, but be less hard on yourselves. Sometimes it creates almost like a stress response, because if we want this to be enjoyable and it can be something that you can see that the light is at the end of the tunnel where it's going to get you results where you haven't gotten them before. So just be realistic, be a little bit more relaxed. And sometimes, you know, we've been programmed to be when it comes to the whole weight loss thing.

Tommy Welling: [00:16:23] Yeah, this isn't about perfection, right? This is about progress over perfection. If if you if you find yourself setting the timers and consistently missing them consistently, not being able to hit them, maybe they're a little too far off right now. Maybe it's time to to to back that off just a little bit. If you're if you're failing consistently at a twenty three hour timer, well, maybe it should be a sixteen or an 18 hour time or for for the next week or so. Right. So do that for a little while and and then find yourself hitting those wins, getting the mental reps and building up that fortitude and then behind it.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:17:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just like we're in an audio medium but I was like just moving my hands like yeah. And then you just continue, you start at sixteen, you at an hour or so on and so forth. So being realistic with you and then also the situation a little bit and then the last one is don't compensate or pile it on. Right. So going through, you know, don't be too I guess what I how I want to word this one is on the fly here tell me is don't be too drastic. Like don't compensate with over dramatizing the situation. Don't feel like oh man I'm going to set a timer for seven days and you've never gone past thirty six hours before. Right. Right. So there's no setting yourself

Tommy Welling: [00:17:54] Up for

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:17:54] Failure. Yeah. There's no need to, to have reparations for, for, for that one little situation that you're trying to frame and come out of. So I really like the end result here, which is these, these four or five things. However you want to, however you want to number them. I say I should say it gives you an idea of where to go in with the next part of this conversation, which is if you've been kind of stuck or you've been kind of fatigued with it or just not really engaged, this can allow you to flip the switch and get back into kind of pushing the envelope and maybe breaking through that plateau or reengaging in your why you started this process of using fasting as a way to lose weight, regain your health, etc.. So I really like that framework to.

Tommy Welling: [00:18:45] Yeah, and that's a question we get a lot is is OK. Well, I was I was hitting it hard for a little while. They're getting good results and then I just kind of felt myself back off or slow down or it kind of became a little tougher to maintain hitting windows over and over again. But like, how do I flip it back on? Like, I just I'm having trouble kind of getting back on track and getting back into that more vigilant kind of fat loss mode. And I think getting getting into the framework that we just laid out, taking those those little pieces of control back, just those little steps, and then maybe backing off, backing off the levels of the window, making a little easier for for maybe a week or two to hit those wins and get the confidence and just get in those the wins and the reps. Yeah, makes it makes it that much easier to kind of flip the switch back on.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:19:42] Yeah. And as I typically do, I'm very bad at paraphrasing, so I'm probably going to bastardize this quote, but it's like ten thousand hours to mastery or something like I can't remember who wrote the concept but it's like those repetitions get you get you that long term result. So we've talked many times about the research, about habits versus goals and all those different. Layers that come with it, but, yeah, if you're finding yourself repeating the same mistakes, then I like using this framework to potentially pull you out of that, get you unstuck, and then also allow you to kind of flip the switch if you've been fasting for a while with some substantial weight loss. So it's all part of the process, all part of the journey. I like the way that one of our calls ended recently where the the feeling of needing to always be improving and always be pushing so hard sometimes can also create an issue. So we really want everyone to enjoy this process, be happy through the process. And that's one of the coolest things that I've seen in the Fasting for Life Community Group. So if you guys are listening in your new or if you need a place to be in a like minded arena with other people that are on a similar journey, that are uplifting and encouraging, we have the Fasting for Life Community Group on Facebook. You can just request access, you can post questions, you can look for accountability partners. If you want to do a longer, fast, get some cool basics, get some great moderators. It's a really great close knit place where you don't have to worry about getting the. You're not writing your response when you tell somebody you're fasting, right? So you knew or experienced. You're welcome, Tom. Any final thoughts as we wrap up today's conversation around kind of, you know, the five ways, four or five ways to kind of get back on track after some form of indulgence or life event, the kind of kicks you kicks you off the rails?

Tommy Welling: [00:21:47] Yeah, I think I think especially if you're if you're newer to fasting or if you haven't seen a whole lot of success just yet because you're kind of just getting going with it. You haven't really found your groove yet. It can be easy to bring over some of the the need for that perfectionist mentality that goes along with the diet struggles and the Yo-Yo and the weight loss roller coaster. So leaving some of that stuff at the door and remembering that this is about progress over perfection and, you know, there will be some of those struggle points and there will be times when when you kind of need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps a little bit. The these little things, these little takeaways, these small wins ways to kind of pause, reset, mentally separate for a second and then get going in the right direction again are going to be really important as as part of the journey and just another tool in your tool belt to keep the momentum going and keep getting results.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:22:47] Great, if you've been fasting for a while and you've fallen off or you want to get back into it, we have a free resource on the website. It's the Fast Start guide. It's a six six step guide. That's six simple steps to put one meal a day fasting into your life. If you are more on the intermittent side with a 16 eight window or somewhere in between, you can simply use those same six steps. Just pick your fasting window in step one, and then you slowly increase those hours until you get to a level of comfort and result that you've been looking for. So if you want to get that head over to our website, be fasting for life dotcom. That is the fasting for life dotcom download, get out, sign up for our newsletter and hopefully we'll see you in our fasting for Life Community Group as well. Thank you, sir, for the conversation. Thank you for your time and we'll talk soon.

Tommy Welling: [00:23:39] 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.

Dr. Scott Watier: [00:23:55] While you're there, download your free Fast Start guide to get started today. Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to leave us a five star review and we'll be back next week with another episode of Fasting for Life.