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
Can you feel the winds of change blowing?
Is a blustery day
in Madison yesterday pretty warm?
Just that transition phase
in between fall and summer.
Where it was technically
it was like 70 degrees,
but the wind was strong
and it was bringing in a little chill.
And you could just see
the tops of these big trees swaying.
I went over to the park
and turned on the camera.
There's one red tree
and the rest are green still.
But you could feel the air
just bringing the fall in.
And I could just feel it
telling the trees, you know,
time to go.
It is time to go.
So fall to me.
It just has, you know, its own
unique energy.
Do you feel that way?
It's kind of.
It's an excitement to it. It's
also, I think, the leaves and the trees
and the changing temperature.
Just such a stark reminder of just changes
always around us.
And, to me,
it puts me in a mindset to say.
How do I mirror this?
How do I embrace this change?
Use it as a force, a powerful force
in my life during this season.
You know, it's like the home stretch
is going to be upon us.
And all of a sudden, 2026,
where did it go?
And a new year is going to be here
before we know it.
And I look at these last fleeting
bits of green hanging onto the tree.
And I just think deeply in this moment,
okay?
Our life here, in this moment,
we are trying to be healthy.
We are trying to hang on to every bit of
health and life and vitality that we can.
And to me, a season like this
is helping to really focus in.
So that's what I want to do here
in this session today
together, really focus in on this season.
How can we make it into the most powerful,
life giving season, charge
us up for the home stretch of this year
and everything that is beyond.
I want to share this quote with you.
Check out this quote I found.
The curious
paradox is that when I accept myself
just as I am,
then I can change.
Okay, then I can change.
Marie is here.
Good morning.
Happy to have you here. Live.
Absolutely.
So nice to be together here.
Pat is here. Yes.
Making it through the week.
My favorite time of the year.
Yeah, I would say, I don't know.
I love all the seasons in their own way.
But fall, you know, it's got a special
a special place.
Absolutely.
I loved just standing out in it yesterday.
Oh, man. Yesterday.
You know, we
I read a quote from this movement book
I started reading about this gentleman.
Was it Jason Lewis?
I think that, powered himself
all the way around the planet
with human
power and, is having some inspiration.
He was giving us his reflection on on
people always talking to him.
Oh, it's so difficult. So difficult.
How did you ever do it?
And he's like,
you know, it's more difficult just to sit
and stare at a screen all day
and try to write something.
I was feeling that yesterday.
I'm, I'm working on a writing project
for my diabetes project.
Doctor Z method.
And I was like,
I have just got to get outside
and look at, find a beautiful fall tree.
And, that felt like
the healthy thing to do.
This quote was making me think, dive
back into this book.
Radical acceptance.
I've been trying to charge up our thinking
for this season,
and I'll share some insights
from this session with you.
And as I think about it,
you know, feel free.
Let me know.
Questions thoughts you have yesterday.
Also, we hit a lot of interesting things.
Yesterday we were looking with that
Rick Rubin reading this
interface between scientific facts
and artistic expressions.
And I love that because that's kind of
right where we're sitting in this space,
we say we want to be healthy and there are
physical realities in the body,
but then there are
a mental states of thinking and
being that I think are the most important
thing to dial in on.
What is the thing that
is going to carry us through this season?
You know, is it another fact
or is it hopefully something like this,
how we bring a deeper level
of self-acceptance to our life, to help us
push forward through any barriers
that are blocking us?
To me, that's the energy I'm feeling.
You let me know.
Is there a scientific barrier
that you have?
I have a list of talks that I want to do,
but at least today the energy is flowing
in this way for me.
This author spends the beginning.
I'll just paraphrase, okay,
the tell a story about a tiger
that is kept in captivity at this zoo
in Washington, DC.
And this book, I think,
was written somewhere around 2000.
So it was a while back.
They kept for like a decade.
They kept this lion in a tiny cage,
12 by 12ft,
and it just paste in a circle and,
you know, lost its mind basically.
And finally they they got together.
All kinds of people said,
we got to get a thoughtful space.
And they made this huge,
multi acre tiger,
exhibit at the zoo.
And it was all beautiful.
And they, they finally had it ready,
and they let the tiger out into the thing
and it wouldn't go anywhere.
It just stayed in the corner
walking in a circle.
It was like trapped.
Okay.
Going on from there, they say perhaps
the biggest tragedy in our lives
is that freedom that is possible
is possible.
Yet we can pass
years trapped in the same patterns,
just like this tiger let out of the cage.
But maybe we don't even see it.
Maybe we're stuck in habits of the past.
They say tangled
in a trance of unworthiness.
Have you ever felt something like that?
Are you feeling anything like that?
Those words hit me a lot yesterday.
I was reading this
while I was sitting out there
behind the camera looking at the tree.
And and it was sinking in a little bit.
We can grow accustomed to caging ourselves
in with self-judgment and anxiety,
with restlessness and dissatisfaction.
Like the tiger,
we grow incapable of accessing the peace
that is our birthright.
Doesn't that feel good just to hear?
Do you feel something like that?
Could peace
be a birthright that we have that
maybe we are not even aware of?
I gotta tell you, sitting outside
feeling this beautiful breeze,
trying to feel a connection
just with the wind and the tree
and the seasons in the world.
It was a peaceful place.
I encourage everybody get
outside and try to find a space like that
as much as possible.
We try to capture it and bring it here
into our digital moment
together.
She goes on
we may want to love other people
without holding back.
Doesn't
that just feel like such a beautiful goal?
Isn't that probably even a better goal
for our season and some number on a scale?
Some number on a blood sugar monitor?
These are things I want to help you with.
These are things we dive in on.
We keep stepping toward it every day. But
I read this and I say, isn't this
even a bigger and a better goal to do it
more deeply, love other people
without holding back and love ourself
that way, to show ourselves
that same kindness and compassion.
To feel authentic.
I mean, that's what I want in this season.
Authenticity
in a world.
I was talking with my kids yesterday,
we were just talking about
so many things that are fake,
which, you know, I think it's got to be
weird, I don't know, can you imagine?
Think back to your childhood.
Can you imagine a childhood
with a smartphone and social media?
And I can't really
I can't think it would be better.
And so try to help, help kids navigate it,
you know?
And authenticity is a word that,
that we were dialing in on yesterday.
To me,
that is the sort of thing I love that word
to bring it into this type of place,
you know,
where,
There's a million people
trying to sell everybody
every type of book and program and things.
I mean, I'm,
I'm kind of trying to sell you a program
if you have diabetes,
if it would help you,
but like in an authentic way because,
not too pushy about it
to breathe in the beauty around us.
I was reading this yesterday.
I was just sitting there with this tree.
This is what I think about
in a fasting space.
You know, to me,
fasting space is like the pinnacle weight
loss sort of space, you know?
And so maybe that means for anybody coming
in, say it's not necessarily
where you start.
You know, I say pinnacle space,
so many good things in health.
I think a lot of the fasting space
that is out there,
you know, videos
and things is so dialed in.
It's all good perspectives.
But it's like,
okay, it's not the only thing you know.
It is one thread
in the fabric of our health.
Balance every good thing.
And it may not be for every day.
This is a thing like the wind.
Like, just think of
what we're seeing in the trees.
Like, here's a moment of stillness.
And then the wind comes in a
a big gust
and you'll see the trees moving.
And to me, this is kind of how
a fasting space flows through my life.
I will lean into it like when the wind is
blowing, and then it just kind of comes.
And isn't that like the breath in and out?
And I want,
I want people to experience
a life in health like this,
not struggle. Right.
We have talked on this line
so many times, right, that
that life is struggle, but it's also we're
trying to mitigate the struggle.
And we're sitting in this space
that we really want
to find a space of flow with it.
And to me, standing out in a beautiful
natural space and watching the wind
helps us to get into the space.
Let's make our fall like this, you know.
That we can flow through it in a way
that feels grounded,
authentic, and peaceful.
Breathe in the beauty around us.
Dance and sing.
Many days,
they say we listen to inner voices
that keep our life small.
I was feeling this yesterday.
I read these words dance and sing,
you know.
Thank God.
It almost felt too happy.
You know, it's like, oh,
I'm not quite that happy standing here.
But I was content, you know?
I think I have the, I had the feeling
I wish I was
happy enough to want to dance and sing,
but I'll just be satisfied to be content
and breathe
in the beauty.
Unlike the tiger, however,
we can learn to recognize
when we are keeping ourselves
trapped by our own beliefs and fears.
Do you feel that?
Can you feel that? Maybe.
Take a moment here.
Grab a coffee.
Gravity ground into this
thought right here.
Are there ways in our life right now
that we are being like that tiger?
Can we actually just
walk out of it?
Maybe it's as simple as taking a walk.
Hopefully it is.
She says.
The way out of the cage begins
with accepting absolutely
everything about ourselves and our alive
and our lives.
By embracing with wakefulness
and care, our moment to moment experience
everything that is happening
within our body and within our mind
at every moment.
Accept it without trying to control, judge
or pull away.
To me, a fasting space
like what we're doing
now is the type of space
that helps me to do that.
If you want to accept things
within the body, okay, a fasting space,
you can really start to feel
it, you know what I mean?
And especially hunger.
Hunger the barrier.
If you're feeling hungry
in a fasting space, we see,
oh, does that feel unpleasant to you?
You know, certainly it can,
Two ways.
I've come to see that
we can experience hunger
and how we think about it
really frames it.
Sometimes it can feel,
you know, like anxiety.
Like,
I need this experience to end.
And sometimes it can come
from a standpoint of feeling the body,
feeling energy flowing in the body
that the body is trying to understand
what is happening.
I think we can have a conversation
as long as there is no suffering in that
space, as long as you are understanding it
and you are in a thoughtful,
contemplated space.
To me,
this type of acceptance can be part of it.
That we accept hunger as a type
of strength flowing into the body.
If you can have that kind of mindset,
that is a very, very empowering mindset.
And maybe it doesn't
have to be a long time.
I never have people force
anything like that.
Everything I'm trying to communicate
in this session, the wind and the trees
is like a breath and a flow,
and this is what we want to experience
with energy moving through the body.
And talk about barriers
to weight loss, barriers to health.
To me, think of fasting like a liquid.
It's like we're opening up a place
to dissolve
things,
dissolve the barriers,
and by doing it, nothing required
other than just sitting in a space.
Find a beautiful space.
Ideally,
I say music to as I put the tiny little
calm sounds behind the wind.
Music.
The type of thing do you experience
that dissolve any stress?
Take the struggle. Give it space.
Except our
actual present moment
to moment experience.
Feel sorrow and pain without resisting.
Feel, desire
or dislike from someone or something,
without judging ourselves for the feeling
or being driven
to act on it.
To me,
such a powerful mindset,
that mindset that they're describing there
to have these experiences,
a range of experiences from bad to good,
without being driven to act on it.
There is a grounded and content space.
Is like this quote
that we're seeing here, right?
Isn't that the type of space
that they're getting into,
excepting myself
just as I am, and not driven
to act out of any space
to say that I am not good enough,
or things have to be different,
or my life is not good enough, how it is
from that space,
then we can move forward, right?
Really thoughtfully. Right?
This is what I want.
Don't get lost in our own story.
They say,
don't lean into the future.
Don't rehash the past.
Get rid of statements
like I have to do more to be okay.
I need to do more to be happy.
These can become mantras
that reinforce the translated belief
that our life should be different
than what is.
She says.
No sooner do we take a bite
of our favorite flavor of ice cream,
than we start calculating
how much more we can eat without feeling
too guilty.
We may stand in a beautiful landscape
and worry because we've run out of film.
We start thinking,
perhaps I should move to the country.
We're practicing meditation.
We experience a delicious stretch
of tranquility
and peace, and then begin
wondering how to keep it going.
Our enjoyment becomes tainted by anxiety
about keeping what we have,
and our compulsion to reach out
and get more.
Is how they end this session section.
I really loved this sentence.
How does that land with you?
Our enjoyment is tainted by anxiety
about keeping what we have
and our compulsion
to reach out and get more to me.
I think this is one of the reasons
why I resonate
so deeply with the fasting space.
Fasting space is like an antidote to this.
It's just showing us,
at least for a brief moment,
you know, even ten minutes
right in a day to say.
I have enough here.
You know, this is there is a word that is
not uttered much in our society, right?
Enough
that we have enough in a space
that we don't need more,
at least for a period of time.
Obviously, you can't fast forever, right?
But in a space, it's showing us
space of contentment.
Push back against that cycle.
This can bring a health to the body.
This is what is so amazing about it.
Another paradox like the the quote health
comes to the body through nutrition.
Absolutely it does.
I love that quote.
Who who said it I should know about,
you know, food as medicine.
Hippocrates. Right.
Food healing.
Especially real wholesome food
from the earth, like it's always existed.
Not a factory. Food, some created product.
Health
comes from food and from its absence.
Everything in balance to me, fasting space
bringing balance to our life.
Showing a.
Really
the pattern of balance across nature.
And we're seeing this seasons
to everything.
Yeah, absolutely.
Even the space between the meals
I consider fasting now.
I think that's the way to think of it.
I think that is the perfect way
to think of it,
because.
So many pieces of dietary advice
in this culture
is like, add the snacks,
like you have the meals and the snacks.
And there's this subtle implication
that if you that that our body is like
a, a steam engine,
and then you have to stand there
with a shovel and keep
shoveling the coal into the things.
And if you stop, the whole thing
is going to grind to a halt.
And so we get pushed,
you know, eat your meals and your snacks.
So if we think, fasting space,
even in between the meals,
even if we aren't doing
what people would say, oh, is it fasting?
You know, like 16 hours?
If you haven't hit 16 hours,
you're not fasting.
No no no no no, no
space.
Even good between the meals.
Sometimes I have people come in,
you know, everything to me is a spectrum.
Some people come in for a weight
consult and,
you know, they're eating 6 or 7 times
a day.
That's very common.
You know, have breakfast, snack, lunch,
snack, dinner, snack, a bedtime snack.
It's like food is always coming in.
It's like, you know,
before we get into some fasting space,
like a classic sort of thing.
What if we just start
dialing out the snacks?
You know, focus on meals?
Historically, people have eaten meals.
You know, a meal is what a people eat,
like snacking, even as a thing
is kind of a modern phenomenon.
So I really love I really love that.
That's like a dial.
We're just bringing in
elements is what I tell people.
Bring in elements of fasting space
into your life
just in so much as they serve you.
Never in any stressful way.
I always tell people,
what if you just dialed out the snacks
and you balance it with, you know,
some movement practice, some mindfulness
practice, make those meals
the most nutritious thing?
What if that is,
everything that you ever needed?
Nobody have to practice
any amount of fasting beyond that.
But it's always there. That's the thing.
Sometimes that works for people.
You know, I,
I certainly don't,
care from a certain perspective.
Right.
But the thing of it is many
people need more power, you know, and,
usually people dying
into a space like that, and if they aren't
getting what they need, then
the next step becomes some other thing,
like a medicine or a surgery.
And of course, this is fine
for anyone's path if that's the thing.
But the thing that I really want to see
is for many people,
the fasting space is the missing piece,
the missing step before some more drastic,
measure that can be expensive and have
significant risk associated with it.
Here is another natural tool
that really our
society,
unlike many other societies, is missing.
You know, many other societies
throughout history
have recognized this.
And, you know, I think codified it
in different cultural traditions.
And,
so this is actually the big thing
that I just want to share, like,
don't miss it, you know, if you need it,
if it is the thoughtful space,
let it blow in to life
like the fall breeze.
Let it help you
let space for the energy to flow out.
Space for the body,
the metabolism to just settle,
you know, space for the GI system
to settle and rest and repair.
Such a beautiful space.
Probably the best part of it to me.
Nothing to do,
absolutely nothing to do.
Fasting space, I say,
is the the work of it
is the work of doing nothing.
And,
That is a trick in our society, isn't it?
That is a trick in our society.
Because,
We see
and we experience
and we perceive from society
our value what we do, who we are,
what we produce.
What we can seem.
All these things define.
They don't really define us.
But people can think that they do.
Fasting.
To me, stepping outside of that,
think of our discussion yesterday,
this health in society.
Think of it
less as dis health in the body.
We say I want things different in my body.
I want I'm experiencing some dis health.
How much of that is actually
just mirroring the society?
Fasting space, like the
boundary is just cutting this off
for a bit.
It's recognizing health exists in the body
if we give it space
so often.
At least in our metabolism, right?
At least in our metabolic health.
Nothing hyped.
It's not like, fasting,
not going to cure every ill.
Okay.
I'm not trying to sell it in
something bigger than it is,
but in its very simple, grounded state,
just getting out of the way of the body
for a while.
So much work the body does for us
processing all this food, running,
running it.
Give it a break.
Use the energy within it to me.
It's at least one
small part of the answer to me in my life.
It has been a great benefit
and I am very grateful for it.
I hope,
I hope that you are
finding a space like that.
Thank you so much
for sharing this space with me.
I hope these are helpful thoughts.
I hope that you're able
to find a beautiful space this fall.
Get out and feel that, breeze
stand in the beauty
of this earth, in this moment.
Find some gratitude,
you know, for our opportunity
to be here in this moment.
And I look forward to diving in with you.
Throughout this season,
every day,
try to sharpen our mindset and.
Dial in, try to
live and be
a very healthiest season that we can
this fall.
Wish you a beautiful day.
We'll see you back here soon.