Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Losing weight should't be expensive or complicated. The ideal process would reduce our stress while driving results. Dr. Z weaves together his perspective on physical and mental health and the powerful way that fasting can connect these two spheres of our lives. Let's move toward total wellness and a holistic vision of health and healing. Learn more at SimpleFasting.com
I want to help you realize today
strength.
That you have strength in the body.
If you are on a weight loss path,
a health path,
improving blood sugar, blood pressure,
weight, core metabolic problems
that we have in our society today.
Hey, you are not alone.
You have found your self here.
With me in fasting space.
This program I call fasting space.
It's an opportunity to explore the power
of fasting in the body, in our life,
in our mind, in our spirit of very,
very profound space and a profound
source of strength in the body.
I'm doctor Z, internal medicine physician.
Happy to be with you here.
Fasting strength.
Unlock it in the body.
Here is a problem
that we have, a problem that we perceive.
This is what we're going to get to.
Energy flows into the body.
Body stores it for us
and then it doesn't want to let go.
Have you experienced this.
So like it can get locked away in there.
The body cares for us.
I will tell you,
it can be very frustrating
to be in a space
where you say,
I don't have control of the body.
The body does not behave
or do things that I want.
I want to release energy from the body.
And it seems like
such a fundamental ability
that we should have to control
something like this.
The body stores energy for us
so that it is there for us in periods
without food.
And as we dig into the deep
history of human beings,
the struggle to stay alive,
you know, the body has developed.
It's it's almost hard.
It's it is hard to imagine in this Gilded
Age, the difficulty and the struggle
that people have gone through
and the suffering and the difficulty.
And I'll tell you the hunger.
And just to think of the experience
of our ancestors
through famine and war and strife
and the brutal winter and,
When we think about finding our strength,
recognizing our strength, I just,
I think it's really profound
to try to get into the deep history of,
you know, surviving on this planet
when we take away the industrial system,
you know,
and we actually even take away
the agricultural system
and, and all of a sudden we're back
and we are a hunter gatherer, tribe.
And we are doing our best
to keep our friends and family alive.
And this is the primary part of life.
And all of a sudden,
the things that strike us
as so frustrating
are difficult in our modern context.
They're just, gone.
We say first world problems, right?
There is so much strength.
I want you to feel it with me
as we get into these deep
thoughts, to help us to recognize
that there is so much strength
and power overflowing in the human body,
the human spirit.
And if we are sitting in a space,
we're trying to do something difficult.
We're trying to lose weight
in the midst of a culture and a society.
It's like a stream
that is flowing in the other direction.
And so taking a moment here, recognizing
our strength to me means digging
really deep, like reaching back,
even through time
into our ancestral lineage lineage
and finding this type of strength.
Want to unlock it, right?
If if energy feels like
it's locked up in the body,
we need the key we need to get into do it.
I'm going to give you some thinking
from this book.
The Obstacle is the Way
turning trials into triumph.
This is the type of strength that we want
to have the strength of doing that.
Maybe we have been in a situation
in the past.
Maybe our experience in health, in
our process
has been one difficult situation
after the other.
We have tried many things for many,
many years and we're in a place
where we have.
Maybe we'd say we haven't quite cracked
the code yet.
This is a process
fasting process in the body.
Is something that we give space
to learn to develop.
It's something we work at.
It's not something that we force,
but it is a very deep process.
And to me, it is the type of process,
as we're talking about
digging so deep, like into our essence.
What does it mean to be a human being?
What is this system capable of?
Who am I
and what does the future look like?
And if we are going to change,
if we are going to go through some sort
of transformative process,
we say everything that has happened to me,
all the history of it, successes
and failures, is culminating in a moment
where we are going to get that key,
maybe picture.
It's one of the big skeleton key
for some old scale prison,
and we are going to get it in there
and maybe it's rusted out
and we are going to turn it
so we can be like the butterfly, right?
Transforming in the cocoon.
Probably painful.
What does it feel like to be a butterfly
going through it?
Probably not. Nice.
We have strength.
We can go through a season
and do something difficult.
And this quote I want to give to you.
This is from Marcus Aurelius,
a stoic philosopher.
Maybe one of the most famous quotes
of Marcus Aurelius.
Choose not to be harmed
and you won't feel harmed.
Are you following it so far?
Choose not to be harmed
and you won't feel harmed.
Don't feel harmed and you haven't been.
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor.
Okay,
Take a minute and just sit with it here
and see what these words
that people have found
value from.
Centuries and centuries.
Have you been harmed in the past?
Do you feel that way?
Has a health path even been harmful?
Have you struggled with it?
Are you struggling with it now? It's okay.
Everything that I want on this channel,
no sugar coating anything,
no hype of anything,
only things grounded in reality.
And the reality is, I see it is that
we all have a powerful human spirit.
And in this moment right now,
the past cannot be changed.
It can only be learned from.
And we have the opportunity
to stand upon it
like boulders on a blown up building.
But we can climb up it and,
you know, look out and plot our course
forward.
Right.
The obstacle becomes the way the wall
that was there, we step up upon it.
If we have felt harmed, we can choose
our different response from it.
If we have difficulty in this moment.
What this is saying in this chapter
that we are going to get into
it is the power of our perception
is one of the powers that we have.
When I think about our strength
and what is the type of strength
that we have, sometimes I think, well,
I wish it was like a marvel movie,
you know?
And all of a sudden we realize,
oh, I have a
I have a magical ability,
like a superpower.
You know, wouldn't it be nice?
We can look out
at the world,
we can see things that we don't like.
We can see things that have happened.
We see things that we wish
we were different.
The real strength that we have,
the real power to change
is the power to change ourselves.
And isn't this,
a big enough ask?
Isn't this a difficult thing to do?
This is the strength that we have.
This is the strength that we can develop.
To me, fasting space is getting us
into the core of this space
because strength that we have
is a literal thing in the body.
The body stores energy.
For us, energy is strength.
It's power to do things,
to be, to exist in the world.
When we are fast, when we are saying,
I don't need anything else
externally coming into this system.
I have strength and energy, power, life
within me here in this moment
when we decide to turn to that,
can you
feel it, that there's an intensity
to it, right?
Part of it is the hunger. This is barrier.
We have been conditioned in our society
that hunger is always bad,
and this is something
that I would like to change.
For people, hunger is not good or bad.
Listen to what
the second quote from Shakespeare, okay.
He quotes Shakespeare.
Nothing. Eve.
Either good or bad.
But thinking makes it so right.
That's Shakespeare.
What a what a great follow up.
Nothing good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.
He takes this in the chapter
into all kinds of directions.
We get someone gets in a car accident,
they have a terrible injury
that leaves them
disabled in some fashion.
Okay, easy to feel terrible about that.
He's he's taking that analogy
and say it's not good or bad.
It's a thing that happened. It's neutral.
This is the stoic, you know, perspective
that I'm giving you. Now.
We take that into this space,
the core barrier to a fasting space.
And in a huge way, it's all of the weight
loss space that we're trying to unlock.
Say we feel an experience of hunger
and it is unpleasant,
and we are conditioned by culture
that you shouldn't feel that, okay.
Don't feel it.
And the thing of it is, it's so easy now
we can
stop feeling it anytime that we want.
We can reframe that
with the help of Shakespeare,
realize, hey,
isn't that good or bad, right?
Our thinking is bringing into the process
what is happening.
Culture tells us it's bad.
Culture wants to sell us a lot of things.
Culture doesn't want us to be
powerful, wants us to be dependent.
Fasting is showing us a pathway where
we start
digging into the power that we have
and say, I am strong.
I don't need you,
at least for a little while, right?
We all have to eat.
We are all ultimately dependent
on the society to some degree, right?
But if we tap into the strength
for just a little while,
feel energy in the body.
Feel that hunger space
from the opposite perspective.
Not good or bad,
but if we've seen the bad side of it.
I'm not saying that I like feeling hungry
any more than anyone else.
Is there a reflection?
Can we see the other side of it,
that there's a good side of it?
Right?
That this is like the purifying fire
that you pass through
that refines the silver, right?
The precious substance.
And we're refining
some fasting space process in the body
of burning through every barrier
to all the energy that is stored in there
body might have buried it really deep.
Maybe it has been carrying a burden for us
for 30 years.
Whatever it has been,
extra energy has been there.
That's that's
take a little bit to get it out.
You know, it's like sit in that space.
That's what I say.
All of a sudden we can see,
say there is strength here.
There really is some real power here.
No hype.
Right.
Real power in the body, not some
gimmicky thing they say.
Three easy payments of 1995.
Now just sitting in this space
by yourself,
with your own
human experience in the body.
And and so like here I am
in this moment right now.
And we are looking for the strength.
I say, just have a conversation
with the body about it.
Where is the strength here, you know,
where is the energy to power this system?
What if we couldn't, you know, recognizing
that we can recognize
the incredible blessing of being alive
in this moment, that we have a massive
industrial system supporting,
you know, the production of food.
We can go to the store
anytime that we want, but
now we are going to
if you feel called to it
and I'm I'm pushing you,
not even pushing, opening up the space.
If you feel voluntarily called into it
to bring a bit of intensity to it today,
to experience things
that have been a barrier,
the feeling of hunger see it as neither
good nor bad, see it as a neutral space,
see it as an opportunity,
and then not to end it
prematurely.
To see what happens in the body
and have a conversation with it.
Maybe ask the body,
why are you feeling this way?
Exactly. You know, just to sink.
Is it necessary
if it feels overwhelming, like,
is this the way that things have to be?
Maybe it's the thing, the way things are,
but it is not necessarily
the way things have to be.
In my experience,
a fasting space is the type of thing
that can bring a lot of things
into balance in the body.
Have you felt things out of balance?
Is hunger one of those things
that is out of balance?
Is it pushed far to a side.
It's hard to ignore it.
It's hard to stop it.
We have habits and cycles of patterns
that keep us going in a routine.
All of a sudden. Look what happens.
You open up this fasting space.
You're sitting in the middle of it.
Do you see that this is a force that is
pulling very hard in the other direction?
Do you think it's true that a human being.
Right.
Are there people in the world
who have an experience that is different
than what you're experiencing
is thinking about?
Are there people who are
finding contentment in a space
who don't feel an overwhelming hunger,
who don't find themselves
trapped in a cycle?
Of course, there are people
who are experiencing that.
I'll tell you that I have gone
from a space in my life
where I felt completely stuck in a cycle
like that, to a place now where
not all the time, but many times
I do feel separate from that,
and I do find a space of contentment
without food.
And the experience that I have
is the times when I forget about that.
I lean out of it.
I kind of get in a groove,
you know, where I say I was like, we can.
We don't need to be so dialed in on it
just fine.
Total grace, no rules.
Okay, it's fine.
But all of a sudden if I find,
oh, I've been out of this for a period,
it's like I see
all scale can start creeping up.
Okay, here is fasting as a tool.
There is a barrier to entry to it
even I've been doing fasting, I don't
know, 12 years.
It was this spring.
Back in April, I got out of a groove.
I spent a month.
I put on some weights.
I had think I was like, oh.
And then all of a sudden now it's bedtime
and I'm feeling, man,
I really need something.
I was like, man, I'm like,
I'm like snacking again.
I'm going through a thing. Like,
I need to stop this.
Then to stop it. And you feel it.
You feel like
it's like a it's a craving, right?
You have a craving, right?
Fasting is there.
That's what I realize. Like in the past,
I didn't know then.
I know I was like, well,
time to dig back in on the human spirit.
We're going to pass through.
It's like take off on the airplane, right?
I don't really like flying.
I don't know if you do.
Every time that plane takes off, right,
you hit that
parabolic point, you feel you're
kind of stomach a drop a bit.
I'm just like, oh man,
you're just
looking for that point
where you can take a deep breath in the
it kind of settles out and then you're
floating along again, right?
To me, that's like a fasting space.
You have to recognize strength
to get through that, right?
Do you see?
That's the point.
The take off on the fasting.
And then you get back into it
and just like the plane settles out
and then you hopefully have
smooth sailing, maybe some turbulence,
and we get through it again.
Right.
This is what fasting can be like
most people.
Do you think this is fair to say,
and has this been your experience?
Most people hitting
that point on the takeoff and like,
oh, I'm, I'm hitting the abort button.
Right. We are.
We're going back down and landing again.
And this is what
I want to encourage us all.
Fasting strength take off is happening.
Deep breath. Hang on. Sit with it.
Maybe that's where I grab my little
fasting stone.
If you're new to the channel, you go.
Way back when I started doing lives
like every weekday,
I told the story of the fasting stone.
And so here's something that I have.
Beautiful little stone that maybe
sometimes I'm really like, you know,
I'm just going to hang on to something
because fasting, not tangible.
It's nothing.
It's just the absence of a thing
that's a thing.
Total health paradox. We did that.
All right.
So taking
something is like just a tool, right.
That you can actually hang on to.
And if I'm on the plane I'll,
I'll just grab on to something sometimes.
Doesn't really help.
It's not stabilizing the plane, you know,
but it it helps you get through it
a little bit, you know, just feel like
I'm hanging on to something solid here.
It's not about stabilizing the plane.
It's about helping you get through it.
So here, do you have something
that you can actually hang on to help
you get through that?
Because have you experienced it?
We got this hunger experience going on
and then we hang on through it.
Deep breath.
We recognize hormones
happening in the body cycles.
Bodies communicating.
Hormones are communication in the body,
helping everybody understand
what is happening in here.
And how do we get this plane
flying in a smooth fashion.
Body wants to do it, you know,
Get into that cruising altitude.
Cruising speed is the experience of that
hunger experience diminishing, right?
I remember once I saw a Simpsons episode,
Homer was upset about something going on.
So he went on a hunger strike
and like, chained himself to something
and basically the cliche experience,
you know, Homer
giving us the cliche societal perspective,
you just get more and more hungry.
He's just he's getting it's worse
and worse the longer it goes.
But most people who actually practice
fasting,
who experience it, do not experience that.
Hunger comes in a wave that crests
and then comes down again.
And the strength that we need to lean into
is like the strength of riding the wave
and helping it to settle out again
and finding a space of peace with it.
And like I was saying, fasting,
a process of bringing things
back into balance,
what I really want for people so much.
Embrace struggle and difficulty
to find flow, which is the space
without struggle or difficulty.
And it's like passing through
the experience is the process
of like like getting to the other side
and finding it.
Because I do not want people.
I do not wish struggle or difficulty
on anyone.
But isn't life struggle and difficulty
like this is so much of it
and we cannot avoid it.
It's basically
like choose your difficult right?
What is the difficult thing
that you want to do?
Is it difficult to fast?
It certainly can be.
And there is the potential.
I don't want anyone to think
that it is always that way.
It is a skill.
It is something that a strength that
you can develop so that it can get easier.
I don't want anyone to think like
if fasting was always like
level ten difficult and every day was just
hunger and struggle, I don't think I ever
could have stuck with it.
But you know, what is also
difficult
is trying to buy the next ten different
special things that everyone's
trying to do and spend tens of money
that is, keeps everything running a circle
and new exercise equipment
and new supplements and new this
and that and new special things
that are going to solve it.
And then they still don't, despite
all the commercials and all the things.
Okay, that is difficult and frustrating.
And so maybe I always say, you know,
some people say why fast
when every other type of diet,
you know, just works and doesn't research
show that every diet works?
I don't know if every diet worked,
then we wouldn't be in a situation
where the majority of people
are struggling with.
This issue is like a huge societal thing.
And this is why I want people
to take big ten zero zero
zero foot views, a hand
digging back into the human history
for 10,000 years,
and then a big look at society.
Because this isn't really just about us.
We are just one little molecule
in this ocean that is being pulled
along in this giant current.
And if we want our little molecule
to be taking its path
into a different place,
like we've really got to do some thinking
here, we've really got to recognize
some strength here
and some things that are different
that are going on and how things have been
so that we can make some different,
powerful choices
in our body that that move
ourselves forward, you know,
powerfully.
And this is what I'm saying,
making it through that wave.
Maybe it takes a little while
to do much grace.
So here is the thing.
I'm trying to walk this line with you.
This is like we do
every day, the intensity
and the power of the human spirit,
the strength to do difficult things,
and the grace
always never to force ourselves
into extra stress, pushing ourselves
beyond some toleration point
where we say, I'm done with it, okay.
I just want people to think
there is a very
beautiful, intense line
right in this space
where fasting is helping us to find it.
Where is the energy in the body?
Where is the strength in the body?
And how do we walk on that line?
I think of it like a mountain ridge.
This summer I was hiking in
North Carolina, and there was this trail
that was just walking
the top between two mountain points.
And it's like each side
you're looking down.
It's like we're trying to walk on a line
like that,
finding strength, power, intensity
while having grace and compassion
for ourselves.
Recognizing a path toward
better health is difficult.
Everybody trying to sell things,
that should be an easy sort of thing.
If you just buy my thing.
Easy street.
Okay, just enter your credit card.
Now when the reality is
this is like difficult.
And this is most people's
actual experience
is that man, this takes diligence.
This takes work, this takes effort.
This takes day after day.
This this is why we want to be really,
really thoughtful about some long term
thinking
and being kind to ourselves
so we can make something sustainable.
Something needs to be sustainable
in the long term,
otherwise there's no way that you care
going to make it, you know, on it.
And in order to do something like that
and to get on a really powerful,
sustainable weight loss path,
that can be the last thing that you need
for years and years ever to come.
Okay.
You basically have to enjoy it.
It has to make life better. Right.
And so a lot of people
taking a fasting space,
turning it into something
rigid and dogmatic, something that
people feel guilty
if they miss even a day on it,
they say, oh, I like I failed.
Okay. What?
I loved the analogy we said the other day
of like, trees in a hurricane.
Okay?
It's like you look at the trees that snap.
Are the rigid ones, like,
what are the trees that flow with the wind
and are flexible
are the ones that don't break, you know?
And so to me, a flexibility
is a strength.
It is a part of the process.
Being able to move in and out of something
and flow through things
is the way that you recognize
more strength in the body,
and you help to communicate with the body.
Here is a fine line, okay?
Hunger is a communication from the body.
We have to really get into the space
of being thoughtful of
what does this really mean?
Because we can say,
oh, hunger is a message from the body,
therefore I need to eat.
No, not necessarily. Okay.
I was like, if we're on a weight loss
path, like we've got a lot of extra energy
in the body and we are trying
to create space to help that to flow out,
and we need to have a space without that.
This is about
bringing things into balance.
This is about think of this communication.
Okay? You were hungry.
You you held on as the plane took off.
You made it through the start.
You got to the cruising speed
and the hunger went away.
Have you experienced this?
If you've experienced even one time,
then you can start to see.
Well, the message from hunger is
not always like you have to eat now
or something bad is going to happen.
Because clearly, like we've,
we've taken off the fasting plane before
and we made it through it
and then everything was okay.
And the body was like,
oh, actually we're good here, right?
Do you see?
Like so now
we're having some real communication
that is
like so some days you say, well,
how long should that be?
You know,
how long should a fasting space be?
You type in, you know,
intermittent fasting, something into
YouTube or some search
and you'll get people saying,
like, we've gone through the last weeks
where you're not really fasting
unless you make it to 36 hours and some
someone will say, this is the split.
I can't believe the saying
don't do all mad
like do alternate day
fasting or maybe 168.
But then OMD is like
as like listen,
there is strength in the body.
We do not have to get caught up
in weeds of all these sort of things.
We open up fasting space.
Maybe it can be even very small
for a period of time.
Someone says even 168 is too much for me.
I don't feel good, like
I don't eat a breakfast in the morning.
I'm like really struggling.
Hey, listen, you can bring this down
into something so small.
Like,
you could just take an extra five minutes
and open that up
and bring in some mindset.
And then maybe next week
you start pushing that out a little bit.
Maybe it feels better to explore
that space in the evening.
Probably the most powerful space
to clear out without food is before bed.
So if someone is struggling doing fasting
in the morning, they got to go to work.
They feel like they don't have energy.
I was like, maybe we need to flip that
into the evening.
Are you having a bedtime snack?
When do you have dinner?
Can we start pulling back that back end,
maybe
have a tea,
do some breathing, bring the stress down.
So many of these things
good for helping our sleep
which flows forward into our mood,
which gives us more strength
to help approach
our dietary process, our energy.
During the day,
we want to create cycles in our body
where every decision that we make
is mutually reinforcing the food
that we eat when we are eating
the most healthy, nutritious thing
so that we have energy,
so that when we are trying
to do a fasting,
that we have the nutrition
and the nutrients that we need
and we're strong.
Same thing with our exercise
and our movement,
so that our body is flexible
and strong and conditioned.
And so we want to be
doing all these things
so that we get into a fasting space,
that the body is primed
and the muscles are ready, and they're
like to serve us, you know, in everything.
And then we open up a fasting space
so that we have
periods of time where energy can flow out
without even having to do anything
right, where we can just take a deep
breath and realize, I don't have to be
on the literal treadmill
all the time for energy to be flowing out.
And you see, I just go like this because
do you see that all these things are like
energy flowing through the body, one
virtuous cycle supporting the other.
And I love that word we did on that
mitochondrial talk the other day.
Vitality.
What is it like to experience vitality?
Isn't it an overflowing of energy
where it's like if if our energy buffer,
our capacity is like,
we could probably make it up
two flights of stairs
and then we're toast.
It's like by the time we get up one
and we're like,
you know,
we've used half our capacity, right?
But if we have an overflowing capacity,
we could do 20 sets of stairs,
like doing one.
Then we say, okay, pretty good.
Then you would feel like, man,
I have so much energy here.
You know what I mean?
This is what I want for people.
I did, I did a little calculation once.
It was like something like,
if somebody has 20 pounds
they want to use,
like how much energy is in 20 pounds?
And I'm forgetting the thing, but,
you know, a pound of energy.
What is it, like 3500 calories?
And so what?
We're heading up towards 70, 80,000
some calories.
You think like like
this is a huge amount of energy, right?
It's an incredible resource.
We're going to flip it.
Oh I don't like it okay.
Nothing
good or bad from the Shakespeare quote.
Right.
Just our thinking makes it so we see
oh it's actually good.
I mean, I would say try to take something
we see bad or difficult,
make it good, see the resource.
See the power.
This is like a battery.
It's a fuel cell. It's an opportunity.
Holy smokes. If we don't want to
lean into
it, Hey, thanks for the chance.
I got to take a look at the chat.
Good morning.
Feeling slow and thoughtful today,
thinking about these words.
Awesome.
Such a powerful and accurate
reframing to move from.
I am hungry to I am experiencing hunger.
Allowing us to stand apart
in our identity from the experience
we are having.
Really powerful.
It's a really powerful thing to do
and I'm glad that
that is resonating
to see it right.
Just see the hunger as a neutral space.
Recognizing this isn't necessarily
so bad as we've been told.
It isn't necessarily
so bad as I've experienced it.
Just validate, right?
Maybe you have had really difficult
experiences with it, just validated.
It's okay. Right.
But that does not have to
define us in the future.
We can change our perspective on it
later in this chapter.
Let me show you how,
couple lines they see here.
There is no good or bad without us.
There is only perception.
There's the thing itself.
And then there is the story that
we tell ourselves about what it means.
And this is the thing.
What does hunger mean?
If hunger is an obstacle,
that means suffering.
That means we can never approach
something, okay?
That means that only struggle
and difficulty is present,
and that is a barrier
that is keeping us away from something
very,
very profound and powerful in the body,
which is the ability to recognize
metabolic independence,
to say, I don't need anything else
for this period of time,
and I am using this energy that I have
within me and like, you can't stop me.
You know what I mean?
Like, you cannot stop me
with all of your marketing and all of the
things you know.
This is a very empowering mindset to me.
Fasting is so empowering
because like literally, the definition of
it is like recognizing power in the body.
And this is the actual physical state
of what is happening here in the body.
There is power, literal energy
that we are using to power the body.
See, this is why I say it's profound.
This is like the core of
what a human being is to me.
It's like a
a creature
who has energy expresses it in the world.
Hey, happy Thursday.
If I give in and have a snack before bed,
suddenly I crave a snack every night.
I have sure experienced that.
Yeah, thank you for sharing.
That is the toughest battle.
Never give in to that one. I can't do it.
I agree, I, I agree and I just
this is that line to straddle
where it's like we have grace.
We say no good or bad, no rules.
If if something you say
the snack is really going to
bring joy and meaning to my life, it's
not like you can't do it.
It's not like the end of the world.
But then on the other side
is something like this.
And I know I don't do it anymore
because of this.
And I just take a deep breath
and I think, like, what?
I want to eat this.
Now.
Yes, I would want to do it.
I was like, do I want to fight the battle
tomorrow to not to do it?
You know, I was like, no, I don't,
I just want to sit in a space
and not feel that, you know,
I don't want to feel these cravings
where I have to go through it.
I was like, I'm already at cruising speed
here, you know, like,
I just want to float in that space
and, as well,
we'll just keep the eating at the meals
in their place that is working.
That's what I like.
There's just things that work
and things that don't know.
Rules were not trapped in some space,
you know, fasting
as freedom, not as a restriction.
Meaning that we are not stuck in cycles
that maybe other people are stuck in
or that we have been stuck in in the past.
So you say do what you want,
but maybe what I'm showing is the process
as we practice
it, as we dig deep
into sources of strength that we have,
like philosophy and the
the hopefully we keep trying to find it
the pinnacle of thinking
for thousands of years of human culture
to give us these beautiful phrases
centering, finding strength, changing
the way we see things
so we can't change reality,
but then we can change how we see it,
which changes how we act,
which actually does change things.
Right?
So it's like
we're trying to use the power of the mind
to shape our reality and experience.
And wouldn't the best case scenario be
that the things that are actually
the practices that move us forward
are the things that we really do
want to do?
You know, because now
everything is coming into alignment.
Now we are not forcing ourselves
into a path, and now
we are finding a space of flow to do
you feel it?
You know, where it's like
in the first
state, we're stuck in a space,
we have the bedtime snack.
We we want it.
We've always had it.
We don't have it. Then we feel bad.
We feel a craving. Okay?
But then we make it through it
and we start to feel like,
oh, there's a different way of being.
There's in a different experience.
Now. The hunger isn't so intense now.
I sit and I breathe
and things are more at peace.
And that's why, you know, we've done
some sessions that are even like,
is happiness
even like a thing that we should even,
you know, shoot for
and isn't just a space of contentment
and neutral good enough because then it is
just keeping us from the wanting.
And it's like the wanting
that is even the worse.
And so to find a space
of not wanting anything.
Very neutral,
it's like, oh, we can flow through that.
And that's a space like,
isn't the space of not wanting anything?
Isn't that the feeling of like,
hunger has diminished?
Like like we're hungry, we want something.
All of a sudden now the hunger is down
and we realize
this is like a very golden space.
People spending thousands of dollars
on medicines to help them
get into a space like that, recognizing
that it's actually in the body,
the process of flowing through it,
excepting some amount of it,
is how we get through it and naturally
bring things back into balance.
And like, whoa,
you see how much value is there in it?
Anybody take any medicine that helps them?
I'm not telling anybody not to do it,
but I'm just saying,
like when you look physiologically
in the body and the fact that human
beings, you can have an existence
in the world where you're not experiencing
compulsive cycles of hunger
and, and stress from it.
I think, isn't
that actually profoundly valuable?
And to think, can you access something
like that for free and what we call free,
maybe not a financial cost,
but certainly an emotional cost.
There's an emotional investment
in order to take off the fasting plane
off the runway, you have to experience
those G forces, right?
You get through it.
It's like, I mean, I
don't know about you, but like,
I was never told in my life that that's
something that you can or should do.
Like, I mean, culture just says like,
don't do that.
Right.
And so all of a sudden to experience,
okay.
There is a strength. You mean, okay.
Like this is like to me realizing
an ability like I never knew I had.
You mean I can be experiencing
something like that, and I can
I can get tools and things and breathe
and lean into the body and and start
to feel the flow and the body be like,
oh, I see what we're doing.
We're maybe, we put these hormones
back away, maybe not going to be
doing the food processing.
Hey, we can shut down the GI system here
a little bit.
Take a break.
That's good.
Rebuild that.
You know, mucus lining helps.
So many good things for the stomach.
Maybe help acid reflux.
I did the talk on that.
It's like,
oh, I get so many things. Help.
The microbiome,
the beautiful micro species
helping to digest our food and making
all these incredible substances for us.
Sarah Tonin helping us to feel good, like
all kinds of incredible things happening.
Fasting like a
breath for the body,
a breath for the metabolism,
for a period of time.
Here's
how Ryan Holiday ends this chapter.
Just because your mind tells you
that something is awful, or evil,
or unplanned or negative, doesn't mean
that you have to agree with it.
Just because other people say
that something is hopeless,
or crazy or broke into pieces, doesn't
mean that it is.
We decide what story to tell ourselves
or whether we will tell one at all.
Welcome to the power of perception,
applicable in each and every situation.
Impossible to obstruct.
It can only be relinquished.
And that is your decision.
I say do not relinquish
your power of perception.
What story
are you telling yourself about yourself?
You know right now
and the strength that you have.
How much strength did you do?
You have,
you know, metabolically, physically,
in the body, in your human spirit, right?
Have you even thought about it?
These are not things
we usually think about,
but my suggestion
is that we really start thinking about it,
and we really start telling ourselves,
you know what?
I am a powerful person here.
I have significant energy within my body,
within my mind, within my spirit.
I am not going to be looked down
upon by society.
I'm not going to be told that I can't
do the things that I want to do.
You know, I'm
going to take charge of this right now.
I am going to
take the most powerful steps
that I can in this day and listen,
look at the line that we're walking.
Maybe that most powerful step
is actually doing nothing at all.
This is the thing
we got hustle culture
going on in this society.
We got people burning themselves left
and right in every direction,
people working themselves to the bone,
because then I think
I'll have enough money to be happy.
We got people
trying to exercise themselves,
like almost to death,
because they're like, you know,
we're trying to look a certain way
or do something, okay?
And I was like all the time,
like yesterday.
We're saying like that example
of like building the structure.
Whereas like
sometimes the most important thing
is just taking a part out,
nothing else to do.
Take away the part that isn't fitting.
Do you see that people say,
well, fasting can be very intense.
Yes, it can be right.
But it can also be approached so gently.
And when you think about the intensity,
like I was like getting fired up of like,
oh, exercise a thousand miles an hour
every single day, burning out at the gym.
I have had seasons like that.
I've talked about that
when I was trying to lose weight
before I learned about fasting.
I mean, I was running ten miles a day
some days, you know, I just hit 70
miles a week.
I was burning myself out on something.
I really loved running that.
Then I was like, could hardly stand it.
And then it wasn't working.
And it was so frustrating.
And all of a sudden I was like, man,
I can stop working so hard.
Like I just lean into the fasting,
which is nothing.
Do you see?
Like there's intensity
taking off the fasting clean,
getting through a hunger wave
where it's like, whoa, hang on.
But then it's like,
if we say that's really intense.
Like, well,
you know, you can exercise very intensely.
You can go really intense on super intense
diets and like ultra planning as things.
Okay.
Like, what does fasting
intensity really look like in the context
of every other type of thing
that is intense that somebody can do?
I would just propose that
when we really come back and look at it
and we take some deep breaths,
that the intensity of fasting
relative to the amount of power that is
present
can be pretty gentle, right?
Because it is actually nothing.
It is like an abstract concept
of nothingness
that we can bring into our life.
Nothing to do, actually less to do.
Perfect thing for busy people.
Say I can't fit another thing
on my checkbox.
What if instead of planning all the meals
and getting to the gym
and all these sort of things,
you just made a coffee or tea
and we just sat for a little while
and took a break
and then just hung on
to some beautiful natural object.
And if we felt hungry,
we had a conversation with the body.
Is that intense?
What is your perception of it?
You know,
how do you how do you perceive it?
Cinnamon, clove, ginger and peppercorns.
This tea before bed distracts me
enough to get through it.
Helps with colds to.
Hey, thank you so much. Hey,
we say it's intense.
Okay.
I think definitely the hardest part.
I don't know what is a hardest part,
but it was is so hard.
Because I ate a bedtime snack for me
basically my entire life until I was.
When did I start learning about fasting?
I don't know, I was 30 something.
Try to go to bed
when you like, feel hungry.
I'm like,
I can just get up and walk to the fridge,
eat something, say,
that's just that's intense. It is.
But you grab some
cinnamon, clove, ginger, peppercorn tea.
It's also a total relaxation, right?
This is like we're trying
to blend these things together.
Recognize the intensity, recognize the
nothingness.
Nothing to do.
Actually the difficulty of fasting
if there is such a thing and there is,
I guess
is just the difficulty of doing nothing.
But that is a strength
that we can train,
just like lifting a weight.
Maybe we always have our plan B
say, hey, I'm going to go into a little
strength training here,
going to open up some more space
where usually it wouldn't
be the case
just recognizing within a human body.
Marie was telling us yesterday about this
gentleman, finally fasting,
who I went and watched the channel
and I sent an email.
Hopefully they swing, my way.
I'd love to chat with them.
Yeah. Super intense. Holy cow.
You know, just
go in 72 hour fasting and then, you know,
having a meal or three in a tiny window
and then just doing it again.
Okay.
And then if you want to just have
an example of like the type of thing
that is possible, this person did this
over the course of months
and you know, they lost 70 some pounds.
A very intense person.
Okay.
So that person brought a lot of intensity
and had incredible experience
and seems to be so far
having a mental space
that they had tolerating it. And,
and then I watched their live yesterday
and they're kind of ramping that down.
Like they're getting pretty close
to like a goal, right?
This has been my experience.
I lean super hardcore
into fasting for a while.
I wrapped it up.
I didn't overclock myself.
I just leaned into it.
This whole thing was like a breath.
And then now that I'm, you know,
lean sort of space,
now I just maintenance mode, you know,
and when I get out of it a bit,
then I hit it a little harder,
and then I bring things
back into a stable place
that I want for people.
I want people to find stability,
not stressing about things,
just things that are combining
gentle strength.
You know,
I think that you think about an athlete
aren't the most incredible athletes,
the people who are so strong that
that they do
just do some simple thing
that you couldn't do,
like think of some gymnasts,
like grabbing one hand and they're just
like hanging on something,
but they make it look effortless, right?
We have like a type of strength
that we train it and build it where we do
something that the average person is
say, like,
I mean, you just you, you grab a coffee,
you don't have this or like,
you have a tea before bed,
you're not eating this
or that feels impossible
or I couldn't do it, okay.
But like like, look,
we have so much strength.
It's easy.
We flow through it now
because we wrapped it
and we built the sustainable process.
Yeah.
If you never did a fasting like you are
feeling food cravings all the time.
We have, you know, like people say, food
noise is like always there.
You can't in my view, just flip to that
and then say, oh,
I'm just gonna sit in a space
and just feel peace and contentment
instead.
It's not it's not an instant thing.
I think this is the huge draw
of taking a medication
that can kind of take someone there,
okay, say, oh, if you take a medication
and all of a sudden it's like we're
sending hormonal messages to the body.
It's like, I think there can be
obviously there can be benefit
for people to do that.
And the way I usually tell people
is, can you use something
like that to start a cycle?
Train it and then back off?
Is that like something to get through
that take off?
You know, that's what I like.
The message from society is today
is that you you you should
and you have to do something like that.
And that's the point
that I want to push back on.
People have been existing
in metabolically healthy ways
without experiencing that for millennia.
People have had all kinds
of other things to deal with,
but it is our culture
that has pulled people in a direction
where they're experiencing a lot of,
you know, misery
and discomfort from
modern food and modern food cycles.
We are the same people.
This is I really want to tell people this.
We are the same as our ancestors
who have gone through this.
We are not genetically different.
We haven't evolved into some other type
of, you know, somewhat subhuman species.
You know, I think there's the implication
people in the past were strong
people in the past,
you know, could do things like this.
But like, I don't know,
we've been damaged in something.
I don't think we have been damaged.
I think we are the same capable, strong
human beings that have ever been.
But we are in a very, very difficult time.
It is a type of time
that has never existed with things
like this fake food that probably isn't
even technically real food.
If we were to define it
in a more thoughtful way, like the type
of thing that actually brings a health
and nourishment to the body instead of
diabetes.
Should not happen.
Food should not give diseases
like if a food that is constantly consumed
give you a disease
shouldn't really be called a food.
That's what I say.
Food is the type of thing
food is supposed to be medicine.
Food is supposed
to bring health to the body.
Okay, there has not been a time like that.
So that's why we can have a lot of grace
with ourselves.
This is what I want to see for people
just recognize
strength is here and we can access it.
And I hope this thinking
is helping in that
regard.
Hey, I had this exact experience.
That one with a bunny, right?
The quick bunny, right?
I remember that we would mix.
We would mix some of that up,
you know, and, maybe it's not so bad.
You know,
I don't know, for a young growing person
going to tolerate it better
if they are active and strong.
You know, I just I'm thinking here in
the space of how many kids are struggling.
With obesity and insulin
resistance
and juvenile diabetes and things now.
So, you know,
we got to be really thoughtful about
what we are giving to kids, I think.
But I certainly had that experience.
If a kid is active
and they're lean and growing, well,
if they have a chocolate milk here
or there,
you know, it's
like whatever they're going to do, okay.
But, you know,
if a kid is having trouble
and we don't want
to train people in patterns,
even if people doing well,
we don't want to set people up in cycles
that aren't going to serve them so well.
Once the incredible
growth spurt is over either.
Okay, big deep breath for me.
I felt really,
fired up on this topic today.
I don't know, I like this book.
I like, a lot of the philosophy that,
that comes out of it and just, you know,
because a lot of it is just trying
to build strength in our mind especially.
And it's
this book is full of stories of people
who overcame really difficult things.
And that's, to me, the type of thing
I want to help people overcome
difficult things. To me,
it's difficult to be healthy.
It is something that we just have to
continually rededicate ourselves to.
I know that's my process.
Keep keep the mindset positive.
Keep doing the best things that we can
to take care of ourselves
and just recognize
that that is a difficult thing to do.
So to me, thinking like this
helps me personally dial in.
It inspires me.
I hope that you find inspiration
and benefit from it.
Food is how we connect with people.
Food is often
how we show kindness to people.
And you know, food is one of the most
enjoyable experiences we have.
And sharing food with people,
you know, it is just
there are cycles of kindness through it.
And it's, you know,
this is why the space
we are in with food and eating can become
so difficult and complex.
Because it is.
In the middle of relationships
and emotions and, habits and patterns
and feelings and physiology
and all these sort of things.
That's why I think we need to be really,
really thoughtful
to get into the middle of it.
Thank you for sharing that.
Really nice
to have you all here with me today.
I hope you have a beautiful day.
I hope you find strength in this day.
Be encouraged in your health journey,
and I will look forward
to seeing you back here tomorrow.
Be well everybody.