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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
Today, we
are talking about what can be one of the most difficult parts
of a fasting process, or any type of health process.
Restarting.
If you've been in a great groove
and then lost it, to try to find it again
can really be a trick.
I was thinking about this
quite a lot in the context of that great book
we read back in the fall, thinking fast and slow.
When we're getting into how the mind works,
how our brain and thinking and memory works.
And do you remember that key insight that was about how,
you know, we don't
we don't record every moment that happens in our memory.
We tend to consolidate it with the peak experience,
good or bad, and then how it ended.
And tell me if this is your experience.
But if we are.
Going through a health process, isn't it like this
that the spot where it typically ends, it's like
right at the best part, it's like we just got into that groove
and things are moving in such a good way.
So many times I've even had it.
I've thought, you know, things are really going
well and that's the moment that life happens, right?
And so that's how we remember how it is.
And then so many times we have to reset a process
and then we're comparing it to like the peak that we were at.
And so getting back on track,
you know, really across all domains of life,
isn't it the case that restarting anything can feel difficult.
So we're going to dive into that today.
I think honestly as I was thinking about this,
the entire premise is really wrong.
The I, even the idea of getting back on track,
it implies that life
and any practice is just one straight shot,
no matter how it is,
and that if it doesn't go that way, that something is wrong.
We use words like this.
Oh, you fell off the wagon,
you know, just made me laugh thinking of that.
But the reality is we need to redefine the path.
And we need to redefine what success is
and what things are a big way that I approach fasting.
You know, I think online, you know,
you watch a hundred videos of fasting and it's
a very rigid and dogmatic process.
And I like fasting
to be openness and flexibility, and we fit it in.
And when we start to see it as just normal
that, okay, this can be shifting,
we can go in and out of this process, that there's a practice
even of that of moving in and out of
something is taking so much pressure off like,
oh my gosh, one day I didn't hit my window.
It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
We can be flexible and we can.
Build the practice of flexibility
into everything we are doing.
That's a process of grace and compassion that can help us move
through a space in a much more gentle way.
Many things in life, I will tell you, are a paradox to
and there is a great benefit from discipline
and staying in a routine.
And so I want to highlight that.
We always want to see both sides of it.
But you know, we can lean into that on a certain day.
And then here on this day we want to look at this interface
that things are changing
especially good day to do it today after a holiday.
So it's the day after Memorial Day.
If you're coming to this later while I'm recording this.
So we talk a lot about starting things,
but not a lot about restarting.
When we're battling the memory.
Of the best way things are the thing that we want to avoid,
especially ever guilt tripping ourselves.
And you know, we can do that.
Or say, have you ever thought something like this,
I should be better.
I should be doing better than this.
I've been better than this, and we can.
This is a space when we're restarting that we can start to
bring in negative emotions to what we're doing.
And this just isn't going to help what I say.
I say a lot of the weight loss industry,
a lot of things from dieting and exercise,
all these different things
is about punishing our way to health.
And this is something that perversely can work in the short
term.
Absolutely.
But it is not the way to enjoy yourself,
and it's not the way to set up
a sustainable process
that you want to stick with in the long term.
And this is what I want more than anything.
I want people sticking with a process that honestly,
they just love it.
I want you to love it.
And if that's not fasting, no big deal, okay?
I just want I want things that people love and that work.
That's the balance that we want.
Fasting is a practice.
And and I think many times and I know it was the case
for me, there is a high barrier to entry
for quite a few different reasons,
not the least of which it just isn't the culture.
So if we are going to try to overcome every obstacle
and barrier to restarting, you know,
we have to realize even if we have been in the groove of it
the past, we're interfacing with culture.
Maybe we spent some time
flowing in the direction of culture for a while.
Maybe that was a vacation. Maybe it was time with family.
Maybe it was just like,
you know, we get into a situation and we kind of
just adapt and mold ourselves to it, right?
But now we say, now I'm
getting into a space where we're trying to undo that.
We're trying to be back on our own path.
Charting our own course takes a lot of mental strength
and perspective to sit in a space like that and say,
you know what?
We're going to do the work of getting ourselves
back onto our own path, going to the place that we want to go,
not where my cousin is going or whatever,
you know, or my friend or everybody at the resort,
whatever it was.
You know, I say we are getting back on track here.
Found this great quote to center our thinking.
Start us out here.
And Luther King
Jr says, you don't have to see the whole staircase.
Just take the first step.
Maybe it's a windy staircase, one of the spirally ones.
And you say, who knows where this is going up?
Hopefully.
Maybe we are presumably climbing.
I like I like that way.
We are heading up to greater levels, helping us
climb up the mountain on a spiraling staircase.
I like that taking that first step.
That's what we are trying to do.
We tend to get stuck in linear thinking.
I think this is what it is, a big part of it,
that everything is smooth.
Isn't this how we think that a weight loss
process is supposed to be a straight line
heading down this way,
but then we see the reality that it's more like this, right?
A wavy line.
We have plateaus, we have hills, we have valleys.
And really what we're trying to do, we're trying to get
this natural variation, the flow.
Trending in the right direction.
Isn't that what we want?
The trend.
We want to be our friend, as you see.
Stress happens.
Work happens.
Holidays and vacations happen.
All right.
This is part of it. And there are also seasons, right?
There's actual seasons in the world okay.
And then that can correlate with so many different things.
Our activity level
when it's getting nice out like it is here in Madison,
so much easier to flow through a space where we're more active
right when it's winter and it's cold and it's dark and okay,
so this can be affecting that line.
These things all feed together.
How much light are we getting?
I know I always think of myself like some kind of plants.
The sunnier it is, the more energy is happening for me.
And that can feed into different areas of our life.
You know, we we tend to have waves.
I know I do anyway, waves kind of energy,
a creative sort of space, feeling like leaning into something.
And then here this is just like the breath.
The breath.
Such a grounding thing for our process.
I say breath, a great thing to think about
as we're getting back into a space.
If we are moving into something.
Okay. What if you don't find it easy?
If you are not off track
or if you're off track, you say, hey, I don't have a process.
Hey. That's beautiful.
Share your experience with it.
Find gratitude for it.
Charge up the battery because maybe sometime you come into it
and then it's not as easy as it was like.
To me, a fasting space.
What we're trying to do,
I always say, okay, fasting is in the body.
Fasting is also in the mind.
It's also in our emotional space.
And that emotional space also is different.
So sometimes we come back to a fasting process.
It's like the ground is shifted underneath us, right?
Life has happened.
There's emotional spaces here getting into a very deep
and interesting space,
because food is like sitting right at the middle
of all of these kind of centers, emotional, physical centers
in the body, food, this paradoxical, complex
sort of entity
because we need it for energy, for the physical body.
Absolutely.
Then we use it as an emotional tool,
which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Hopefully you've had a great holiday recently.
Connect with friends and family.
Food is often like a part of a part of that, if you like.
Dig deep really on that. You think you know.
I think our culture in general has missed
just the importance of food,
and good food is just it is becoming a part of us.
We're building our very body out of it.
And so to share that together that we are collectively
being built together out of the same stuff, you know,
I think this is why, you know, sharing a meal,
you know, is, is actually really profound.
You know, when you think about it, that's very special.
And we have, you know, we have so much technology,
so many exciting and flashy things in our society
that we've kind of like something like sharing a meal
and taking a breath.
These simple practices.
I said, let's get back on track with that, too.
It's like recenter and ground ourselves on
just some of these very basic things.
If you're feeling stuck in a space, if you say, I need help
getting through this, just returning to these very simple,
basic things don't necessarily cost a lot of money, right?
You can build a very healthy, simple meal.
Nourishing to the body.
Connect with friends and family.
Some rice and beans
and some spices, you know, gets you a complete protein.
Fiber complex carbs,
you know, can be very simple and add in some vegetables.
And like here we are set with just solid nutrition.
I think another thing I know, here's something
that I have certainly struggled with.
Have you ever experienced this all or nothing thinking right.
And this is something I switch in and out of.
I'm either 100% into something or nothing.
Very hard to find.
A middle ground
sitting in a middle ground with anything is like just
finding this space omen.
Sitting in the space between.
This can be the type of space where we really end up in.
If we're trying to restart something
where it's like we were 100% into something,
we make that our baseline, then we were at zero.
We're like, we aren't doing it.
It's like we forget that whole course of steps
that we went to to get to that place.
And so we kind of have to hang out in there for a little while.
Being okay with being halfway to a place again, you know.
That's all right.
Sometimes I've talked to people who've been,
you know, practiced and fasting and then out of it
and it's like the temptation
you say is like jump straight back
into like the most intense part that you were.
That would be one example.
So I was like, I, I did 48 hours of fasting before
I should just dive right into it.
It's like, well, you could do it.
I don't want to discourage anyone from doing it.
You know, if you have the right mindset.
And this is the key mindset, the key to everything I say.
And so if it really is the mindset,
if because there is this space where it's like,
have you experienced it, where you fasted for a longer
period of time, you went through a hunger experience,
and then you watched the hunger
go away again,
and then you are actually in a very content space.
There is physiology in the body.
When we shut down the hunger cycles at fasting paradoxically
makes hunger diminish over time
once you pass through that space.
And so I don't want to discourage anyone
from using that physiology that can be very positive,
but also like fasting as a practice and a training
process, the line where you want never forcing anything
if you feel called to it and excited about it
and you're up for the challenge, absolutely.
It can be the thing to do,
but then you're not going to be stuck for very long.
And so so that's fine.
If you're in a spot where you are stuck
and you're struggling the other side of it,
and which is more my default
and definitely in line with a practice here today,
find the gentleness moving up to the edge and saying,
that's enough, you know.
And you say, I was fasting 18 hours before,
but 14 feeling like,
oh man, I think we can call it here, right?
14 a lot more than eight.
So if you are moving in a direction,
you know, that's why I like to use the analogy of a dial.
We can slowly turn that dial over time.
We're not in any rush. Right.
We got plenty of time.
We have plenty of time. Even if we don't.
That's what I would say. You're in a rush.
You say I have to lose this much amount of weight
by this sort of thing.
Okay, listen, let's just take the pressure off a bit.
That's what I say.
Take the pressure off so that we can get into a flow state.
What is the quote?
There's like a some sort of, you know, Navy Seals
or someone has a quote that is like
slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Okay.
It's like some military unit want to be fast, right?
Lightning fast, but slow down just to take no errors.
Right. Everything just flowing.
And then as we're getting in the right groove again
in the flow, have you experienced that with any health
practice, be it fasting or exercise, getting in a groove
where it's like everything kind of clicking.
My experience is you don't want to force that, that you want to
just give the space to it to happen naturally.
These things can happen naturally, which is absolutely
the space that we want that way.
We're not using up the willpower, right?
We're using it as a wellness practice
so that our actual willpower can increase.
This is what we want.
So I say think more like a gentle reentry than a
a smashing into it is my general.
Preference.
Don't worry
about hitting a specific amount of hours right away.
So this is the next mountain that we're trying to climb.
Just start the process.
Like our quote from Martin Luther King Jr. Right.
We don't have to see the whole process.
We don't have to get overwhelmed
with the whole staircase of climbing.
But we can just take one step today.
This is the way we start one step today,
and we'll let tomorrow take care of itself.
Is this real value in the fasting space? Right?
Creating an eating window spaces
where things are put in their proper place.
Here is where eating happens and here is where it doesn't.
That's why this can start very small.
Where is the spot where you struggle with it?
This is what I would say.
Is there a specific time of day, a specific place or location?
Feel free to share in the comments.
What is it for you as you're getting back into something
that is the typical sticking point?
If you're not struggling with it now, maybe
just spending some time doing the thinking ahead of time.
Hey, if I'm ever having trouble, here's
how I'm going to help keep myself on a path that is working.
Try to be very proactive with it.
But we've got spaces. Say we're reestablishing boundaries.
Isn't this the key?
In most areas of life, when we're getting into emotional space,
we need our boundaries, right?
We can't let people walk all over us,
just like we can't let food walk all over us, right?
Have you ever felt like that? Like food cravings? It just.
They can be controlling, right?
We can feel overwhelmed by them.
A big process of getting on the right health track.
A better health track is about being firm on our boundaries.
So much benefit.
So here we're at the paradox again, always recognizing
there's no rules, there's only grace and openness.
But here we're trying to get back on track from this side.
We say oh we see there is the benefit to it.
This is my best choice right now.
I'm going to choose to define these boundaries
so that health can flourish out of that space.
Another way to approach it,
if you want to take a totally different approach
for the right person, you know, how have we gotten off track?
Is it the windows?
Is it also just the food choices? Maybe you are on a cruise.
Maybe you were having, you know, some travel somewhere.
It's lots of eating out or you got enough space where
we just flipped into the actual food
that we're eating isn't so good.
And then here's the connection.
When I'm talking about fasting, I'm meaning fasting and healthy
eating at the same time because these two things together,
it isn't one or the other.
What are we eating in those windows?
Maybe you say, I'm struggling to get back into a fasting space.
Okay, this is try to flow in the path of least resistance.
What are the foods that you're eating?
You know, before we introduce more fasting space,
can we just clean up the diet first?
You know, if there's a lot of processed food there
that can make it very hard, especially if there's a lot of
simple carbohydrates spiking our blood sugar,
insulin going up
and then crashing is like that sort of experience.
That's a hard place to fast out of.
It's possible for the right person and the right time.
That's the way to do it.
You know,
you pick the avenue that feel where the energy feels best.
Some people say it's overwhelming to think of changing my diet
significantly, and that's actually the benefit of fasting is
I don't even have to worry about it, you know?
So if that's you, then just flow in that space.
Just opening up that space is like helping get control
of the dietary planning and all these things at the same time.
Another person says, for me, it's the fasting space.
That hunger barrier is the hardest.
Dialing in on some really minimal processed food space
help to stabilize blood sugar and hormonal space
for the right person, a situation that's the unlock.
That's
what can help us flow back around, over into the fasting space.
Hey, from that space is actually much easier to get back
in the groove and start in on a fasting routine.
So to me, these two things flow together.
The fasting space, the dietary choices,
and the healthy eating is all the same to me,
but they're kind of different sides of it.
We can use them together as powerful tools
that advance our practice.
And then, of course, we add in every other
good thing on top of it, the movement
and the mindfulness practices that move us toward
total wellness.
That's what we want.
So I guess as I'm thinking about it, you know, all these
things are tools.
These are the big four that
that I have identified as key practices
fasting practice, healthy eating practice,
movement practice, and mindfulness.
All of them reinforce each other.
Think of it like a four legged chair.
So I think, you know, we can move.
We can move our way into this space,
you know, and we can mind our way into the space
if we're having trouble getting back on track.
Where is the energy flowing?
Say, look, it's summer. It's nice, it's bright.
You say,
if I'm struggling, getting back on track in my fasting space,
maybe the body is saying,
hey, let's move in a different direction here for a little bit.
Let's dial up the
the exercise space, you know, if you're feeling called to it.
And in a season,
if you can be moving the body and practicing that strength,
you know,
we're just interested in the health practice in the body here.
And so maybe when you're in that space
you say have gotten moving, maybe we're helping to reset
some insulin resistance, get things in a better flow,
and maybe you find then a couple weeks from now.
Now we can start opening up the fasting space again,
using the movement
as the unlock to get things unstuck in the body.
Love that beautiful way to do it.
And then leaning into the mindfulness practices
I was talking to someone I don't know is a month or two ago.
I don't know if it was a video that they had.
But it was kind of making fun of
like a millennial mindset of like,
like all the wellness practice.
Like,
I got to get up and I got to have my specific green smoothie,
and then I got to take this, and I got to do my yoga,
and then I got to do my things.
And it's like,
you know, as like my morning routine was like three hours long
and we're saying, oh, there's so many things to do.
It's like one of the things I like the most about a fasting
process is like, it's
nothing like it doesn't get in the way of anything.
Like it's like just opens up more time.
So here's a wellness process
that isn't like another thing to do
can open up some space to get done
the other stuff that we got to do.
Okay, I love that.
Do you ever struggle with that as like,
all the things I have to do, even just to be healthy.
I got so many different things to do.
Okay. Fasting, take the pressure off.
But a mindfulness practice of some type,
be that journaling,
be it a breathing practice, a meditation practice,
like here's another unlock for that space,
potentially another thing that takes an investment.
So you say, trying to get back on track into a fasting space.
Maybe the mental path is the way there for you.
And this is highly encouraged.
I say, okay, we've talked through the fasting path itself.
Dial in slowly to it, gently, thoughtfully
the eating path that we're going to focus on the diet
first, help all that is, dial in on the movement practice.
Maybe that can be the unlock.
And then here we're sitting in the mindfulness practice.
Journal our way there.
See, maybe in a day you don't even take the step.
Say I'm trying to get back into the fasting process,
but like, let's take it to the journal
first and start answering some deep questions like why?
You know, why am I trying to do
this is a pressure that someone else is bringing to me on.
It is a pressure that I'm bringing to myself.
Is this something I really feel called to,
or am I guilt tripping myself to it?
Like what is the reason?
And hopefully say if you're going to move forward with it,
you see, no, it's because I feel good.
You know, it's because this is something that I really want
and value in my life.
And maybe you are writing about it like,
do you remember the time when I was into it
and I felt lighter and I actually was helping
and all these things
and really having that conversation
with usually journaling as a tool to get back.
And then a journal can be of many different types.
Maybe you keep two journals,
one can just be like a fasting journal
that is just writing down the mechanics of it.
Like what time did I eat
and how did I feel, and how long was the fasting space?
You know, that's kind of an analytical sort of journal, but
but a really nice way to see what is happening.
I like doing it on paper.
If you like doing it in Excel or something online,
that's fine to me.
If you struggle,
you know, sometimes tracking stuff and numbers,
I'm not too keen on taking things out of a computer
and putting it on
paper seems a little gentler to me, you know?
And you know everything.
You know, there's benefits of doing it on the computer.
You can graph it if you want.
All that is great.
I don't want to criticize it for the right person.
I've seen it be just incredible. Okay, incredible.
But if that's not you and I say most people
who are not actuaries and accountants and things to say,
I want to just write some of that out,
get the general gist of it.
To me.
I say always, you know, good enough or looking for
you know, what is good enough here don't have to be perfect.
And having a paper
record is just kind of a gentle way to do it.
So you can mix that stuff into like a regular journal.
Like the regular journal, in my view, is like more open.
It isn't just tracking numbers and things,
and you maybe just bring a little more of life into it.
Answering these questions like, remember
we had the first questions of what do I want and why?
And then the deeper question
that Atomic Habits was helping us to see, like,
who am I? Anyway?
And if we can get into this like deep layer of our identity,
there's something to journal about.
Like how does fasting relate to who I really am?
This sort of thing can be a really big unlock, you know,
it's like, no, like who I am
as a person who has changed from who I was.
And what is really important to me is giving space to my body.
And I see that there is energy in here.
This is why I want fasting to be such an empowering process
for people to realize there's actual power here in the body.
I want to use it.
I want to give a gift to my body space so that the body doesn't
have to carry so much of this burden anymore, so release it.
This is what a fasting process is for weight loss.
Release the energy that the body is storing.
It takes space to do that, say different ways
to get energy out of the body,
exercise it out, change the eating.
Okay.
When we change the eating, we're also just,
you know, say trying to create a calorie deficit.
This is the standard dieting paradigm.
Fasting takes that and puts that calorie deficit
in a place that the body really understands.
It's like a little difficult space when we say
calorie restriction without fasting,
it's like there's still food here.
Body wants to run off the food.
But then what do we do with body fat?
We're trying to save that for times
when there's no food can work
can also be tricky, as anyone who has tried to do it knows.
Open up some fasting space.
Not that there isn't tricks to that, okay,
but look at the space we've created in the body.
Body saving body fat for times when there's no food.
Now there's no food. Is there less calories?
Of course there's less calories here.
But now the body is like, well, we got nothing here.
We got to turn to the storage.
Okay, see, I want to give that space to the body.
Beautiful thing to journal about.
Maybe just meditate on it.
So as we flow through our mental practices
here, our checklist, journaling out about what we really want.
Meditate on that.
Maybe just put it as a centering thought
and see where the mind goes.
Shutting off the distractions, focusing on it.
Maybe this is part of the practice of doing it.
If you have the time to do it, say,
I'm trying to push this out an hour.
I'm struggling.
Okay, can I take some amount of time in that space?
It just meditate, meaning just open up the mental space,
focus on it, actually give space for the emotions to come out.
Why am I struggling with it?
What am I trying to accomplish?
And mind will start popping stuff in there, right?
The stressful things kind of pop up as a space,
you know, get those out.
Are those the barriers that we need to actually get rid of?
Physical barriers
to our fasting practice, mental and emotional barriers.
If we are trying to get back on track
and we're only focused on physical
barriers,
maybe we're missing the things that are really holding us up.
If our barriers are just
I get hungry and I'm looking at the clock
and it's just a number, okay, but what's underneath it?
You know, what is the emotional situation?
The stress, the difficulty, the anger, the things that we need
to get to the other, the deeper layer.
Do some thinking on these processes, on these practices.
These are my thoughts of the day. On getting back on track.
Let's advance the discussion.
What has worked for you?
Are there other processes that you have found
and do you take these and does it help?
So come in the future.
If you are interacting with this video
at any point in the future
and you have ongoing questions about it,
I help you brainstorm on it.
And if you have experiences in the future, come share them here
and we have a conversation in this space.
Over time, all your comments will come to me on the channel,
and I'd love to have
an ongoing discussion with you about it.
Hope you have a great day. Thank you for being here.
I connect with you again soon.