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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
Grab a coffee or tea or a water. Join me in a little
fasting space this morning.
Fasting space and opportunity. A program to help you bring some fasting space
into your life.
Some more of it. Everybody get a little fasting space overnight. We don't really appreciate it, but they're part of our resting overnight. It's actually resting from the consumption of food coming in, giving the GI system a chance to rest, too. You know, that's part of us. We need to give the body space to rest. So a fasting space right off the bat, you see, that's a resting space in the body.
That is a space to bring down stress. Recover from the previous day.
So when we're bringing in more fasting space into our life, you can see that's a wellness practice. That's a practice that is giving more rest and space to the body.
Sometimes I call fasting space a healing space because a lot of times
when you give the body a break, not so much work have to be done
processing all the food.
Body says, hey, we can get on to some other tasks. We can do some other things. Maintenance projects helps the system to work better.
So we're leaning in on that today.
Pat's got a beautiful comment here. I love this. I'm thinking about the holiday strategy at three food events coming up or planning for all of them. Eating lightly during them but indulging in one item at each event. Dialing in on what is the most important? What is the thing? Oh, it's a treat. It's bringing joy and meaning and connection.
Gotta have that. I love that
I get to have all my favorites.
Nobody even notice. That's exactly right. Tip. Find the plan that is not getting in the way of things. We flow through a holiday space. Find the foods that we enjoy and then balance it out. This is really what fasting is about. You know, in a broader thing.
Let go of everything that isn't serving us. If a constant consumption not serving us, we can let go of it. If some consumption serving us, of course we need it for many different reasons. Food and nutrition and nourishment also connection and enjoyment.
We're looking for the path that balances all of these, beautiful things for sure.
And today we're going to do a little thinking about shifting our perspective.
We did some talking yesterday, like getting ready for our breakthrough in 2026. And I was doing some thinking about that word breakthrough. And I was thinking like breakthrough. Breakout. And then I read an interesting little,
passage that I'll share with you. It was about breaking in.
It's it's like everybody wants to break out, but
maybe what we really need is to shift our viewpoints, a break in, we're going to think about that. I love, I love looking at things from a different perspective. And so,
we will float in that direction. Today.
Breaking in so that I started thinking about breaking in even a little bit. We were having a discussion the other day.
Last couple days, you know, we got the cell. Cell is in our body. And we're interested in especially this body fat cell. We say we don't like that one so much.
Want to, get rid of that one?
The interesting thing, about, a fat cell. Maybe people don't want to know this. You can never get rid of a fat cell. You know, maybe, like, some surgical procedure can maybe get rid of it. We try to avoid that. If possible.
We're born with a certain number of fat cells. Were born actually, with a certain number of muscle cells.
When we lift weights, when we get bigger muscles, we don't grow more muscle cells. We just make them bigger. The same thing that happens with a body fat cell. We don't get rid of these cells. We just fill them up with energy. They get bigger. So what we're trying to do, we're just trying to access the cell you can think of.
We're trying to break into it.
How do you break in? We say, I want to. It's a heist. Like a bank heist. You want to break in. We want to get that energy out. Take it and get rid of it.
Remember, I saw that there is like a Batman movie once where the Joker had, like, a whole giant pile of money and he just lit it on fire.
Joker didn't even care about money. He said, we're just going to burn that up, right? This is what we want to do in our heist. We want to just take that energy, get it out of the bank, like make the withdrawal, just burn it up right.
So we want to break in. We've been saying the last couple days
that that insulin, when we have constant consumption, when there's always food coming in at least every 12 hours, then we got like, force fields up over the cell and
body trying to get in there to get the energy.
Can't get in so easily, can get a little bit.
It's not like a impenetrable force, but it just makes it difficult, makes it very difficult. And so we can see that this is the type of thing that people often experience as you're trying to lose weight is difficult. Feels like it's really difficult to access that energy in there. What we're trying to do is create the experience in the body where it's easier to get at it.
This is what I'm referring to today as breaking in.
Lots of metaphors we can use. I've described fasting as like the doorway that we can walk through to get to a space that is easier to access. That energy. It's like a key that can open that space.
A really good way to think about it. Today, we'll think of breaking in as we think of, breakthroughs
opening our mind to, a path, like we said yesterday, 1% better.
Every day in January. We're going to really charge up. And, after we floated through this wonderful holiday space.
And, and we've enjoyed that. We've built our mental capital and then dialed in
in January
breaking in. So as we're thinking about this breaking in metaphor, breaking out, a really good thing to think about, breaking in, I shared, this book before.
Dear Artist, I'm, giving you, a metaphor or an opportunity or a suggestion that our weight loss journey can be an artistic path. We're creating a beautiful experience for ourselves. This is,
perspective that I have personally enjoyed.
Thinking about.
And so this book is meant to be an encouragement to people who are on an artistic path. I think it can be an encouragement to anyone who's trying to create something. And so as we're trying to create the healthiest, leanest, strongest version of ourselves, who is experiencing the most health and vitality and flourishing that is possible. I say,
let this word be an encouragement and an inspiration as we think about breaking
in or out.
This is how they describe it.
They ask, are you in the moment,
inside of the onion shell breaking out?
Or are you outside the almond shell and breaking in?
Do you see the sky
or the kernel?
What are your barriers?
From which side of those walls do you bang away or lightly tap?
I ask because your awareness of these things feeds these things. The questions do not belong to me.
Ask yourself about this experience you're having.
Your heart and soul are hungry. Your art is a way for you to feed your peace and cure your longings.
You crave this world and the world of spirit. You want to roll around in it like a child in a field full of flowers, feeling your existence, musing the feelings.
This is how you make your molecules dance and your cells serene.
So I thought that was a beautiful passage. So many vivid, and beautiful.
Images from it.
We're talking about Smith Island cake the other day. Say, trying to find a keto Smith Island cake. And so almond,
throws me in that way, because probably making a Smith Island cake with almond flour, you can probably make it pretty good.
I was saying we've made low carb versions of a lot of tree things using almond flour. You're replacing a lot of the carbs with some fat and proteins. It tastes good. We serve our keto waffles and people just say, man, these are good. People love it.
So an almond can give us great, physical health, very healthy thing. Low carb satiating means satisfying and, can help us keep the carbs down. Helps us keep the insulin level lower, meaning easier to break into the cell to get the energy because that insulin force field is dropping down from the cells.
Are you inside the almond breaking out? See, I really like that. Thinking of ourselves as like a seed.
I love that little talk we did on the squash and saving the squash seeds the most valuable part of it. Think of the almond, the seed of it to, you know, that's got all the nutrition. And then it's a almonds, like a fresh start on an almond tree.
Right? That thing is just ready to sprout. That's a beautiful metaphor for us as we're thinking, okay, breaking in or breaking out, we can be breaking out.
We're building up all these beautiful health thoughts, spending the time opening up the space for ourselves to process. What are all the barriers that have been the anchors, right, that have been weighing us down? How do we let go of them? How do we work around them, step over them every day? We are doing this process, taking the steps that we can every day think of ourselves like that little almond got buried in the ground and then now,
breaking out of the shell, growing the beautiful tree.
I love that that's one way to think about our future success.
Or are you outside breaking in?
This is where I want to think more today because we don't usually think of this we like. I mean, at least for me, I like the metaphors breaking out. We think of that a lot. Are we?
Breaking in today. The breaking in. When I read that last night, I'm like, oh, that's what we want to do in our cells. And I love how then this ends make the cells serene. So even in this artistic writing, they're talking about the cells of our body, the cells of our being.
Make our molecules dance, make our cells serene.
Love that word. So I'm breaking in that we're talking about
is beautiful. Like this light
that this light is breaking through, over the horizon comes out behind the tree, shining across this lake at us.
Beautiful music making our molecules dance. This is the type of space that we want to flow through.
Do you seek the sky or the kernel?
We can do. We can do both.
We can do both.
But today will seek the kernel, will seek to go inside. Maybe this will be like our mission for the day.
Yeah. I'm going to get in there. I'm going to get into this deeper level today. This to me, would be a way. Bring some intentional intensity, bring some verve and attitude to it. It's a heist. That's what I like to see. I'm going to go get some of that energy.
That is an attitude I would like. Got energy inside us.
Body knows where it is. We give it space to go get it.
I want it, bring some attitude to it.
What are your barriers? It asks.
Barriers are physical barriers. We're talking about the real physical barrier to the cell. It's actually their insulin. It's like the nemesis of weight loss. When I drop it out of the way can overcome that barrier. There's like a real physical barrier in the body. Sometimes we can't see it, you know, we can't see our insulin level unless, you know, we can go to a lab, we can get it tested,
but, we don't see it.
And so then we don't know it's there.
Does it ever feel like you've been trying to lose weight on some path? It's like you're fighting an invisible force. It's like, man, I just feel blocked. Like, where is the energy? Where is the flow? Why is it a struggle? Like, who knew we were fighting an invisible force? The hormones that are conflicted.
We're like fighting the physiology of the body. Very difficult to beat the body at its own game. But it's like, nah, that's not how it works. Okay?
Like you're eating food here. Like we don't burn body fat so. Well when, like, the food is here. Gotta burn that first. Like, it's just like.
Gotta do what the body knows to do.
That is saving that food for us, for the space. We gotta open the space to get at it.
I love this line. From which side of the walls do you bang away or lightly tap?
You
can be on either side of it, you know. And and maybe there are days I see I like that.
Maybe there are days to bang away, you know, maybe there are days to really go after it.
That's kind of the attitude I'm bringing today.
Bring some attitude into it. Bang away. Today's the day. But like,
you know, working at it but banging away also could have the connotation of like
like if you're just banging away.
See lightly tapping much more gentle. That resonates more with me.
Each of these attitudes we could bring, to a space, whatever is resonating with you.
This is the this is what we're saying today. Look at things from multiple perspectives
breaking out or breaking in, banging away or lightly tapping. You see, these are these are all good things potentially for the right day, for the right mindset. What does this step look like? What is the way we solve the the tiny little puzzle of this day?
What does this day look like
for our health journey?
Says our awareness of these things matter. Like we said yesterday, everything matters. I do believe that. I think everything matters.
I don't subscribe to any. You know, there's all this hollow philosophy of nihilism and people say like, oh, nothing matters. Everything is meaningless. Like I'm I'm completely on the opposite side of the spectrum.
Everything matters. Everything is filled with meaning and purpose. We're here in this incredible opportunity to be alive here on this planet. Just look at the sunset. Look at the trees. Look at the change of the seasons. Like, literally like, go out at night and looking into the sky and see the stars and and realize each one of these points of light is a sun like ours, an inconceivable and distance away.
And then, like,
who knows what is out in the universe, but out of everywhere in the entire universe that you could be.
You're here I go. Incredible. Almost everywhere else in the universe. You could be.
You would die instantly in the vacuum of space. But you know some. But. But yet here we are on this planet, everything finely tuned to support us right here.
It's just such a miracle that is not meaningless to me. That is great meaning. And it's the type of meaning that we can bring into our, life to help us in periods of difficulty, to overcome obstacles, to say there is meaning and purpose here and we can't see it necessarily, but we can feel it now. Today matters is what I tell you do today matters now matters.
This is the opportunity to take a step in health today, the only time we're ever going to get to do this day.
What an incredible opportunity. What a beautiful moment. Like you, he says, our awareness of this matters.
Take a moment and just sink into that awareness of the incredible opportunity we have right now to embrace health,
well-being, wholeness. We don't have to wait for it. It's here, right now, right here in this moment. Say I say health is a way of being. Health isn't a destination, right? We find joy on the journey because the journey is the present moment.
The destination is the future. We find joy and meaning in this moment. That's finding health in the moment. Even if someone says I'm not healthy and like health is a way of being, you can start being the most healthy possible. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to prime all the thinking, the healthiest
thoughts,
be healthy in this moment.
Let go of stress that is driving the inflammation, that is driving the insulin resistance that's blocking access to our beautiful, serene cells.
Ask yourself about this experience you're having to. Every sentence of this, to me, is just beautiful. It's just giving us
so many
good things to think about. Ask yourself about this experience you're having.
What is the experience that I'm having right now? What are we experiencing right now in this moment? Are we experiencing health? Are we on a path that is taking us in a direction of health and wholeness?
And if not, why? Why not? What is the barrier? This is the awareness. Like you see, we we build this awareness and this matters. Or are we say, no, I think I am
leaning into that. I think I am.
I know it.
But
your heart and soul are hungry.
Or there is a beautiful metaphor for us to write like we think about, okay, we're in a space fasting space,
fasting space, as much as anything that I'm trying to show people, is a space
that is flowing through.
Hunger without struggle.
Maybe in the long term, the practice is to the point where you you tamp it down enough. You don't even really experience it much,
and that when you do experience, it's more the experience of like talking with a friend than an enemy.
Whereas like,
I've got this, I know what this is. This is the feeling of my body becoming lighter.
This is the feeling of the autophagy recycling, cleansing pathways kicking in and where you feel like this is a gift to my body. You don't start at a place like that.
At least most people don't. But that is the potential. That's what we're practicing. That's what we're building.
But okay, physical hunger in the body. Look at this. That is.
How much do you think about this? I'm thinking not much for me. Your heart and your soul are hungry. Well, there's a whole different type of hunger, right?
Have you thought about that?
Do you experience hunger in your heart or in your soul? The core of your being? And what is that hunger like?
Is that getting to the question, like, what do I really want in this life, in this experience and this opportunity that we're having where we say, look at this miracle, where we're here and we hardly know why. And it's like we didn't pick it, seemingly, but here we are. And what is the purpose?
These are the deep questions that people have asked as long as there's been people.
And we sit here and we keep asking it and we see something like this. The heart and the soul are hungry.
Health, life. Meaning connection.
These are the things that we flow toward, especially in a fasting space, right where it's like we're stripping out, we're letting go things that are not serving us, things that we say.
This does not define my life.
My life is not like the culture anymore. I am not having to constantly consume things.
I'm going to give space to things, says art is a way to feed your piece.
And cure the longing.
I love the juxtaposition of these lines. We got hunger in the heart and soul.
Like we're looking at a hunger that is beyond food. And then here
art is feeding the piece. Maybe the longing. Like what the heart and soul want is peace. We were trying to find is where I say a lot. Find a mental space of peace and contentment without food. That's a fasting space to me.
Art is a way to feed your peace. Think about not feeding ourselves. We say, okay, fasting. We're not eating right. We're not feeding the physical body.
Physical body may be saying in that space, hey, we got other types of food that we need. Other types
of peace that we need to find in the body. Food can give peace in a certain way, right?
When you're hungry, when you need food. I'm not saying, see, there's a balance to everything. It's not that we don't fast forever, we're just bringing some amount of it. So we're balancing the healthy eating,
the fasting space. Sometimes we do. We feed the physical body. Like Pat was saying yesterday is like there's like hunger. That's like real hunger and there's hunger.
That's not so much
you feed that real physical hunger. You're you're reaching the end of the line where you say, hey, this is taking me out of space on that flow and so peacefully here anymore. And then you experience that you eat something. It brings some peace to that situation. Absolutely. It does.
Everything in life is a balance. I mean, almost everything is dual in our life. Light and dark, black and white.
Eating and fasting
both have value. Right? And there's a time and a place for all of it.
You crave this world and a world of the spirit. You want to roll around in it like a child in a field full of flowers. It.
What a beautiful, innocent, thoughtful perspective. We're sitting here, flowing through all these ideas which could could be intense. You know, it's like, man, we're looking at big, deep things.
And then this is what we want to bring to it an innocent, joyful perspective.
Like a child.
Child not really stressing out about too much. Hopefully, unless they're put in a difficult situation right.
Child not bringing judgment. Child can be full of joy. Just rolling around in a field full of flowers. Wouldn't you like to find a space like that again? I would just carefree.
This is the type of space I want us to find in, life as we flow through it,
feeling our existence
and then thinking about these feelings.
That might be feeling of hunger, right? That would be part of it. That's part of the experience.
Just like our joy with food, right? We're finding joy with food.
That's a feeling of our existence.
This is how you make your molecules dance.
And your cells serene. Just
love that. I want my molecules dancing. I want them feeling good.
I want that energy flowing through the body. That's what I want for you, is what I want for me. I want us all in this beautiful, healthy space. Molecules dancing. No internal conflict. Cells are serene. Means cells are happy. Everything in the body in alignment. Energy flowing energy. Positive mindset. Excellent.
This is exactly the type of thing we are stepping toward.
Every day,
man. We're just, like, two weeks left here in 2025.
We're bringing the end of this year to a beautiful conclusion. The best. Let's make it the best ending to a year, like ever. Maybe since we are a child, maybe it's harder to get a better ending then. Then if, if you're a kid at Christmas or whatever, and it's just family and good memories, we want to make memories like that for as many people as possible.
And then we try to get into that state ourselves. Like.
Let the stress that is here in this moment, the division, the conflict of people, this is the season to say, hey, there are things that are so much bigger than this, okay? Just look at the sky, look at the stars, embrace the wonder and the miracle of this opportunity right now that we have to,
To let go of all that
I was thinking overnight. I was thinking I kind of woke up. I was having a stressful. I don't know if it was a dream or a memory.
About especially it was about the pandemic and how I think, you know, in my experience, counseling with people coming through my medical practice.
That's that's when the division really ramped up, when I saw it really hitting families, you know, like I never experienced so much division in families, you know, and people coming in about medicine. And this is what was so hard about it. In my view, medicine should be a unifying force for
us, our families, our communities, society on every level,
people now hating people about different opinions about medicine.
This is so crazy. Someone wants a medical product. Someone doesn't. Someone like some medical policy? Somebody doesn't. That's when that division really got launched in through the
pandemic. Say, we got to heal from that type of thing. We gotta undo that impact. This is the season to do it right. A holiday season.
Any division or conflict we have in this season, let's just get change our perspective. Like we're saying in this whole session, let's change our perspective, realizing what are the things of true value. The most important things are connections, family,
friends, health. Okay. These are the types of things that we need to be focusing on. I'm thinking, what was that a movie of it?
Did you ever see it? The incredible,
was it World War One or something where like, the German and Russian troops are, like fighting and then they, they just call like a truce, like during Christmas. And they, they got together and hung out. And then,
you know, you wish something like that could have stuck didn't end so well.
But there's a beautiful moment.
I'll say lean into that sort of thinking, a different perspective, realizing we can let go of conflicts, all these things that are not serving us, just like we can let go and overcome barriers that are blocking us.
Break into a space. That's where I'll, send us for our day. Break into a beautiful flow space,
a wellness space, health space. Breaking into the energy that we need, getting that energy to release it, make the molecules dance, make ourselves, serene.
Let's do it. Let us do it.