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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
Sending you a big smile today
from by the lake here.
I hope you're well.
This is really nice to have you here.
Grab a coffee, gravity.
Grab a water.
Your favorite calorie
free beverage of choice.
Hang out a little bit
as we're moving toward.
Peace.
Finding our own peace.
Doesn't that sound good?
If you're on a health path,
a health journey.
That's what I'm on.
Moving toward
the best health that we can have.
Experiencing vitality
and flourishing in our being.
Strength in our body and peace
in our mind and spirit.
I put on a cover photo.
You'll smile.
I hope you will smile.
I send a smile to you today.
Genuinely.
I was thinking about it.
Don't
you need to be in some measure of peace
to send a genuine smile out?
You know,
if we're not at peace, aren't we?
You know.
And so I want a
journey of health for people.
We say find joy on the journey.
So that's what I want for everyone.
Find joy is like finding contentment.
And we've done a number of sessions
where we've talked.
Contentment and
happiness kind of sharing a same space.
And maybe on a certain day.
Contentment is the way to focus.
And happiness.
Maybe the
very positive side of that.
And maybe peace
is on other spectrum of contentment.
All good things.
Different flavors for our journey.
But finding joy on the journey.
Finding contentment on the journey.
This is where fasting space takes us.
So much pressure in society,
so much pressure
that we put on ourselves, especially
if we're on a weight loss journey.
It's something that
there are billions of dollars.
Just think about it.
Billions of dollars.
Trying to tell people
that this is an easy thing to do.
Just by my product,
you know, by my special supplement,
by my special food,
by my piece of equipment,
do this special thing that was so easy
that you just never missed it.
You'd be a fool not to.
But isn't it the
reality
that a path of health is difficult?
It is a challenge.
It is full of obstacles.
And so this space, fasting space.
I always like to say, eyes wide
open to the reality
of everything that we are experiencing.
And to take the difficulty, the challenge,
and reframe it as an opportunity.
And to see actually
as we keep our eyes open,
as we see the reality, we dig deep
into the actual physiology of the body,
how things work,
why things are the way they are.
That we can start
to see more clearly with it,
and that we can see in the midst
of all the hype cycles
and all the money and all the products
and all the things that in fact,
there are some very simple truths
about the body that we can hang onto,
like an anchor in the waves,
like a port in the storm.
And that's what we are
doing in a fasting space
to realize one of those practices,
not the only one,
but one of those practices
of fasting space,
profound space in the body.
Physiologically,
we looked in the talk yesterday
on the impact of fasting on mitochondrial
health, deep cellular health in the body.
This is the type of thing
that can bring energy and vitality to us.
That can be a renewing process
in our being
so that we can start to feel.
Energy. Right.
And so as we are finding peace.
We're trying to find a place like this.
Energy is in the body.
We can feel it.
This is what I want for you
in a fasting space.
I never want anybody pushing into fasting
from any place
of self-judgment, pushing through
something that doesn't feel good.
Finding a place of peace, body and mind
right in the body.
We need to be feeling energy.
And we discussed yesterday
the start of that process.
If we're not practiced in it,
we want to be very gentle
because if you are not experienced
with something, you don't want
to give yourself a bad experience.
That's why I said we can bring it
all the way down to five minutes of space.
Some simple place to start
just giving the body
one tiny breath
and then growing from that place.
Then we are starting to flow
through a fasting experience
in the body from a place of peace.
And this is what we want.
We want peace to be just pervading
our life the way we move forward.
No more punishing our way to
health, realizing
we can't really buy our way to health,
but we can peacefully flow
toward health.
Let's say let's do it together.
Fasting space. Weekday mornings.
We're coming together. We're doing it.
Not much to do.
Okay, this is the beauty of it,
the simplicity of it.
Don't
we need more simple things in our society?
I say
nothing really, to buy, you know.
You go simple fasting.com.
You can connect with me.
You buy some of my time.
I consult with people, help you to do it,
but I help you to do it
here in this space,
which I think is beautiful.
And I hope you do it a little more today
with some thoughts
from one of my favorite books.
Honestly, the mountain is you.
And here I put this mountain
lake to really dialysis in on the idea.
We are overcoming mountains and obstacles
together.
This section that I want to read
some little excerpts to you from
is about finding inner peace.
And we often think inner peace.
Okay, mind, spirit,
perhaps that's all fine.
And I think just body to, you know to me
fasting space, the actual practice
in the body is so profound
because it is bringing together,
you know, body, mind, spirit in one place.
We we clear out food out of the body.
That's what's happening
for a period of time.
And we recognize strength
within in that same place, mentally
clearing out the thoughts, the judgments,
the expectations.
Brianna Weiss says here,
finding inner peace isn't always so much
about just sitting
in a lotus position
until wisdom becomes you.
Okay?
Thankfully, it's
about making the uncomfortable decision
to stay with your discomfort
and to choose differently.
How does that sit with you?
When I read that,
I said, oh, I've got to sit just with that
for a little bit.
Uncomfortable decision
at first that that even sits.
Difficulty.
Oh difficult difficulty.
I want to be finding peace.
I don't want to be moving toward
difficulty.
Don't we think that this is the path
avoiding difficulty?
Isn't this how we go through processes?
Very difficult things
instead of sitting with them?
But isn't it?
How do you release some difficult
experience, some painful emotion?
Don't you need to
do this sort of thing
actually, to release it?
Isn't this the mirror?
Do you see the mirror in mind and body
fasting space
opening up a space
so that things that we don't want, energy
we don't want in the body can flow out
trying to create that space?
Body is always running.
So we stop consuming for a while.
The energy does not stop.
Same thing in the mind.
We want inner peace in the mind.
I thought it was so fascinating
in that talk yesterday.
One of those papers
I read that chronic stress actually
can feed
into the mitochondrial dysfunction
that is actually making the actual energy
in the body
that our feelings of fatigue.
Not that it wouldn't be enough
if it was just, you know, in our mind,
but it's just showing this profound
connection, mind, body the same.
We want to flow forward in a peaceful
and healthy direction in our body.
It's like,
see that the mind is right in it.
The uncomfortable decision
stay with the discomfort
and then choose differently.
I think is
showing us the pattern and the process.
Like we see these
tiny ripples on the water here.
We throw some stone out into the water.
It disturbs things.
These are like the events
that happen in our life, the challenges,
the things that we really wish
hadn't have happened.
Giving things the space and sitting with
it is like, let the ripples dissipate.
Get back to this beautiful,
peaceful scene.
She quotes another offer here.
Gail Brenner says
inner war.
Whoa.
Like, do you ever feel that inner war
perpetuated by resistance
that is not wanting to feel
the way we feel?
Do you ever experience that?
Don't want to feel the way I feel.
And then not wanting people
to do what they are doing.
I underline that one.
That was a big one for me.
I can,
I can experience
the opposite of inner peace very often
when other people are not doing
what I want them to do.
But we can see that
this is showing us that path.
That's not the health path, right?
That is not the way to bring body
and mind into a space of contentment
and start flowing forward.
Not wanting events to occur
as they are occurring.
Aren't these triggering
really the emotional spots?
And then I think this can get really deep
into our health path.
Like if we are in the journal,
if we are seeing
what are the things that are triggering,
right, emotional eating,
coping things like this,
if we're trying to unwind that,
putting our finger on it right here,
this resistance wants
to rewrite our personal histories, ensure
so that we can assure
that our plans materialize.
But inner peace, she says.
Really the only type of thing
that we actually control.
The only kind of peace that exists,
nothing else is in our control.
I say,
she goes on, realize that your
worries
are fabrications
of the mind's need to identify
threats for our survival.
And then I'm going to show
a couple little points
that she makes here.
True happiness,
she says, is being here in the moment.
If that's hard to believe.
Now she gives a list.
Make a list of the following.
Everything you have intensely worried
about in your life.
Go back as many years as you can
and be as detailed as you can.
Maybe you pull out a journal.
You know this type of thing.
Here I made a this is a custom.
I don't know if you can see it here.
Custom leather bound, simple fasting.
Journal de Boston.
They're very nice.
This is a type
of thing I like to write in.
Shoot me an email
if you would like such a thing
to take our thoughts and our experience.
Put them into something like this,
I always say
I get a real nice pen
if I want to be writing out a lot.
Like she is saying in this here,
you want to write out a lot of stuff
like this, help to really get things out
so we can peacefully flow forward,
get a nice pen so it just flows easily
and something that feels good to hold,
so you'll want to come back to it.
But what an exercise.
This is everything
you have intensely worried about.
I would be writing a long time.
Would you?
We're going to be burning some calories
just in.
Just from writing.
But what
a process to get it all out on the paper.
And then we move on.
Every difficult situation you swore
you would never get through
or never get over.
Whoa.
We are diving deep now.
I personally haven't actually done this.
I read this last night,
but I think I probably do
this exercise actually, after we're done
here,
actually write out
who could even write out
everyone
and then finish it off
with every time
you have genuinely felt happy
and at peace.
What a beautiful way to end a progression
like that.
Be difficult to list through that.
I think I was thinking through it
last night.
Big difference,
I say, between thinking through it
and writing it out,
but just thinking through, you know,
going back
last night of some of the things,
some of the difficulty
and then things
that we've made it through,
and then times of actual peace
that has been experienced.
And this is a fascinating exercise,
I think, to do
as we're
sitting here, say, find your own peace.
How do you do it?
Right. Well, look at this third point.
Has it happened before?
Have you experienced peace at some point?
Help us to see.
It's not so far away.
It's already happened.
Maybe we can find it again.
Absolutely we will.
And then that peace.
When we find it, we get into that space.
That is the space that can
that we can sit in that space,
see if we are finding contentment.
Joy on the journey, peace in a space.
This is a way to move
forward in the world.
This is a way of being. To me,
this is the way.
If you think physiologically
what is happening in the body.
In a state of
peace, when the mind is subtle,
even if the stress is here, maybe.
See, we can't change every external thing.
But we can change ourselves.
And isn't that enough?
And when we come to peace,
not that we accept things that are bad,
but we accept our place here with it,
that we don't give our power to it.
That in fact,
finding that calm and centered place
is the type of powerful mindset
that can help us approach things
difficulties
in the most powerful and sustainable way
so that we can be as healthy as possible
despite everything that is happening.
Blow through difficulty
in that state of peace
thinks what is happening
then the parasympathetic flow is going.
Adrenal glands are calmed down.
They aren't squeezing out the adrenaline
that is messing with our hormonal state,
altering our blood sugar, driving insulin
resistance, affecting our blood pressure.
Communicating danger signals to every cell
in the body that is in stress mode
space like that, not even that far away,
even within a single breath.
And then release within a single breath.
We're sending that message to the body.
That everything is okay.
We can put the guns down.
That's what I say.
When we're in chronic stress mode,
that is communicating danger
to the immune system, immune systems
like the standing army in the body.
And it's ready to fight off an invader
and thank God for it.
But if it's always on alert,
these things get trigger happy.
They'll start shooting off rounds.
And this is what is leading to damage.
We saw that yesterday.
Part of that mitochondrial damage.
This is a lot of energy in the body.
A lot of power is happening.
And if the system is not running smoothly,
all of a sudden electrons
is shooting off over things, is creating
free radicals causing damage to the body.
How incredible
actually that this physiology,
deep physiology, the reality of energy
in the body can be deeply connected
into our mental state and that something
is simple as taking a breath.
Altering that
physiology, giving space to the body
so that things can be operating
as they should be.
A breath
through the lungs like a fasting space
through the digestive system.
Do you see that?
It's like the same process.
And so it's giving space, allowing things
to settle,
finding peace and flow
like a meditation in the mind.
These are all like waves
flowing through the body a breath, a fast,
a meditation, a space.
Finding flow
throughout the body, the ideal existence.
I say, you know, what is the experience
that we want to be living?
The ideal space of flow
through everything.
Joy and difficulty.
You know,
these are both of the experience
being a human
being alive at this moment,
probably every moment, you know,
but something about this moment,
you know, it feels like.
I think the thing that is different
about this moment in the past
is just the sheer scale of
mass media, social media.
It's like all the problems of the world.
Can be brought to us at any moment,
and even within our own spheres,
the problems of every
friend and family member
and irritating person and click rage
baiter who's actually secretly getting
paid to stoke engagement for people.
And it's like,
do you ever feel like this?
Like just.
Societally,
we are not on a path toward peace, right?
Systems that we have in are developing,
not exactly
tuned to human well-being.
We want to tune our experience
to the frequency of wellness
and wholeness and thriving and vitality.
How do you do that?
The simple things, the things
that are free, the things that you can't
really hype or sell to anybody.
These are the things that I am
the most interested in.
I say we're doing it right now
to carve some space out of the day.
I have minutes, ten minutes
to see.
There is value here,
even in nothing to just pause
that space has value.
Might actually have the most value.
In fact,
I watched a
a video the other day.
I think it was called
something like How to Be Human,
and it was talking about how
our mental space has been taken over.
By financialization,
that every decision we make,
at least the drive of the system,
including how we think about ourselves,
it's like, what do we produce?
What do we make?
And that we don't value external things.
And it had this really
powerful video
that they took
of a gentleman
who owned land, I think, in Brazil.
And, and he was
he owns like the rainforest
and he's slashing
the whole thing to the ground.
And you're just watching him come in
with the chainsaws, these ancient trees,
and they burn it all to the ground.
I don't know that I've ever watched it.
Everybody says, oh,
we're clearing the rainforest
to make room for
cattle ranches and such things.
And saying, we don't value it
like nobody is putting a price on a tree
other than a dead tree.
Like we price a dead tree
because we can turn it into mahogany,
furniture or whatever we do with it.
These people just burned it up. Oh, man.
He was so happy.
That's the thing.
He was so happy about it.
He's gonna make more money.
Forest right now
isn't making him that much money.
He's gonna sell cattle.
It's gonna help him
provide for his family.
He's are the economic incentives.
Do you feel ever in your life
things like that, where it's like
there are incentives, that we have.
Aren't necessarily
lining up with things of true value.
You can't really. How much can you value
a forest?
You know, how much is a living tree worth?
People don't ask questions like this.
To me,
this is analogous to what we are
getting at here,
that actual experience in our life
that to actually be something has value.
Meaning to just sit here.
I am not what I produce or create,
I'm not how much money I make.
I'm not the things that I do.
Actually, to just sit here in
this moment has great value
and look at the things
that we have talked through.
How do you bring peace into the body?
How do you bring peace
into the very cells of our body,
the trillions of these things that are us
and make us up,
that they are
actually experiencing peace?
He pretty much have to say
no to this entire system
for a period of time to say,
I'm not going to click on the next thing,
I'm not going to read the next thing,
I'm not going to buy or consume
or even think the next thought.
I'm going to be content
here in this moment and say,
this is enough, you know?
This is enough for me right
here, right now.
Maybe something as simple
as a cup of coffee
or tea, some water,
or even nothing to say right now.
In this moment, I have enough.
Is the type of words you do not hear
in society, in our culture,
pretty much anywhere in the world
these days,
I have enough fasting
showing us that pattern
that actually we can find contentment.
In fact,
with nothing. Nothing else to buy,
nothing else even
to do say like is fasting
something you do?
It's like
there's kind of an interesting paradox.
It's like we do it by doing nothing.
Like kind of.
Paradox,
the act of doing nothing but
but then it's profound
and deep
and free.
That's why I think, you know, fasting.
Some people would say,
oh, here is a discipline, very strict,
very restrictive,
and people talk about things that way.
I see it totally in the opposite.
Perspective fasting.
Much more like freedom than restriction.
That's the way that I want people
to approach it.
It's nothingness. It's open.
That's why
I give pictures of this mountain range
in this lake, in a vast space and expanse.
Because it is, it is
it is an open space to explore.
Restriction, to me
is feeling like you have to keep eating
all the time.
Like, to me that can be a burden,
especially if you need to lose weight.
Oh my goodness.
Think of the burden
that is created in our society
by saying, oh, you have to lose weight.
You have to lose weight.
You have to do it.
But don't dare stop eating.
You have to keep eating,
you have to keep eating,
but you have to lose weight is like,
do you see the pressure
and the force?
Do you see
the reading that we went through today?
About finding peace,
about not wanting to feel differently?
Did a session once from Atomic Habits
find that playlist?
Forget your weight loss goals.
Do this instead.
That's what the thumbnail was.
Forget the goals, okay?
Just center in the present moment.
Goals can be good.
I love a view like this.
Looking off into the horizon.
A beautiful and inspiring practice.
But also it can leave us living
so far in the future
that we don't come into the present space.
We want to take all the pressure off.
To have to do or accomplish anything.
I love.
This quote reminds me of the quote
the dude abides.
The phrase means to go with the flow,
stay calm, and accept life's challenges
instead of fighting them
through him
in calm, in a place filled with peace.
Hey, I like that.
Thank you for sharing that.
I hope you are well today.
Yes, that is a beautiful.
I say, let's,
let's have that be
our centering thought for the day.
Find a calm,
centered space filled with peace,
I love it!
Hope these thoughts
have been helpful to you.
Hope you can find a place like that
in your day.
I if you need to go back in the video,
you can see
the list that we went through.
Maybe find a little time
to break out the journal
and go through that.
Activity.
Hopefully.
Oh, I didn't
I was going to share her thoughts on it.
Before we wrap up,
listen to how she frames
this activity here.
I throw it back up here.
You go through these steps,
write out the things that you've intensely
worried about,
the things you thought
you'd never get over,
and the times of peace that we found, say,
guaranteed.
Your response to the first
will bring a smile to your face,
and that they will remind you
that you have worried
constantly in your life.
And yet they were mostly unfounded.
Mostly, I would say,
in your response to
the second will also be relieving,
even if it's difficult to go through
because it will show you
just how much pain you thought
was insurmountable and how in retrospect,
you don't ever really think
about these things anymore.
And finally, your answers
to the last question will remind you
that your happiness has never come from
the things being perfect on the outside,
but from being present
and open and connected to yourself
and to the moment.
Think that is beautiful.
See if you feel that way going through
that and leave a comment.
Come back to the video. Leave a comment.
Do you feel that way
or do you feel some other way?
I'd be happy to hear
we have an ongoing conversation about it.
Have a beautiful day
and nice to share this space with you.
I look forward to chatting with you again
tomorrow.
Be well everybody.