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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
One summer when I was younger, I was at Boy Scout camp and working on sailing Merit badge our age. They got a little fleet of these little sunfish. Do you know these little sailboats go through, learn all the knots, learn how you position the sail, the rudder and, you know, has a lot to coordinate, especially when you're, like 12 or whatever.
Get the rudder in place, all these things, the dagger board. Finally. You know, if you're not lining everything up, the sail can swing around, smack you on the head. You got to watch out. Finally get everything going or catching the wind. But then it's like the boat is going sideways. It's like we're catching the wind because, like, what is going on to this boat in either the the chaos and the fencing around and all this stuff.
My, my fellow, sail boater knocked the anchor off the back of the boat. And so we're we're in this sunfish finally getting everything catching the breeze. And we're floating across the lake sideways, dragging this anchor across the bottom of the lake. Not working very well as, like now, one person's on the sail or trying to catch a sail.
Another person's trying to pull in the anchor, the pull on the boat. That way the sails go in. This way is like the forces. It's like an a flip. This little sunfish over.
Going to be talking about anchors today okay. An anchor anchor is a tool okay. Anchor. Very helpful to keep your sailboat in a place. You're trying to bring it back into the shore. You're getting out of the water. You don't want it leaving the anchor gonna help you out. So just like in any tool or at an anchor can be, helpful.
An anchor can be an impediment, an obstacle. I really like this analogy of sailing. As we're heading down a weight loss path, a weight loss journey heading toward a destination, a sailboat, I think, to me, is like a perfect, metaphor because especially for a fasting space, let's let fasting do the work. The wind is blowing and we want to catch that wind.
And we know our body is like the boat in the fast. And just pulling it along the journey, because I don't want people to be stressed out. I don't want struggle. Struggle is real struggle, like we can't really avoid it. But the big thing we want to move through struggle in as graceful away as possible. How graceful is a sailboat if you're not dragging an anchor?
If it's just slipping through the water and we're letting the wind take us to the destination. So sailboat or heading along. You like my story, right? We the anchors kicked off the back. Didn't even know it was there at first. I'm like, what is happening to this boat? It's like going sideways through the water. Do you ever feel like that?
It's like you're trying to sail through life and it's like, what is happening? Like it feels like I'm sailing a sailboat sideways. Like I'm not good. Like, is there an anchor that is dragging along? Maybe we're not even aware of it. This is something we've talked about a lot building awareness. Can there be an anchor? There's a dragging along the bottom of the lake.
It's creating counter forces to our purposes. It's like working against us. Maybe before we can keep going forward, we've got to turn around, right? We've got to pull in the anchor. That was me out in the little boat. Like, I'm. I'm trying to keep the sail going from club and everybody swinging around. And my friend is pulling up the anchor.
Eventually we got the anchor up and that boat just as soon as it got off the bottom, there's kind of two levels. Once we finally got it off the bottom, it's like, then the thing straightens out and we really start going. It's like, well, we're on the right now. And then that anchor, you know, I had this huge mass of seaweeds on it and we're just towing the anchor.
Then it's not so bad. This is showing us is like a process, right? Get the anchor off the bottom. Might take a while to reel it in. Still not perfect. And then you get the thing up onto the boat. You clean all the weeds off, and then we are really flying across the lake. Anchor can take a lot of different forms.
What comes to your mind when we think of anchors? I'll give you a list of just free form. You know what comes to me are have you already identified in your life as I'm talking about an anchor? You're like, oh, yeah, I know what we're talking about now. You know, anchor can be a habit. We can be anchored in habits and routines that are not really taking us in a direction.
You know, maybe it's something that served us at a point in time. It's like the anchor serves a purpose in the harbor. It's keeping us there, but it's like it's not helping us. Now. Anchor can be something that happened, and this is probably a big one. We all have traumatic experiences, things that happened to us that were damaging and hurtful.
And these things can be serious anchors that they were dropped say, we didn't even do it. Somebody kicked it off the back of the boat. We never wanted it to happen, but it is weighing us down now and we are trying to move forward, but we are dragging that anchor across the lake and it's ripping up weeds as it's going along.
Lots and lots of different ways that a traumatic experience isn't. Maybe it's physical trauma. We were in an accident. We were hurt bad. Maybe it's an emotional, situation, an abusive, situation that happens. Who has someone who hurt us? This is the deeper layer of the type of work that we often need to do if we really want to get our boat sailing.
This is like the deep kind of emotional work we were saying on this session the other day as I was reading through our book on on our thinking, thinking Fast and Slow. It's like we have what they describe in the book as like heuristics. Mental mechanisms try to make life easier for us, and in many ways they do.
But one of the ways that these things work is by subconsciously even answering an easier question than the one we were asking. If we got an anchor dragon on the back of the boat, we got a lot of mental mechanisms to like. We bury stuff like that. We don't like to dig. Dig that up, right? You pull that anchor up off the lake all the muck and all of the weeds and the stuff.
You got to work on that. That's like the deeper layer to me. Like I've said, I think a lot on the channel. I really want to help people lose weight. I want people come into a space and say, hey, we're going to do that. But like, let's, let's go deep and say, like, how do we find a space of total health and wellness?
And a lot of times we to dive in, dive in deep to do that. So could be something emotional, could be a habit. Maybe it is like a food, maybe a let's go more superficial. Right. Let's just the the classic sort of things. Maybe it's a snack is an anchor a snack something you really like and something that is, all in and of itself.
It's not that it's bad in and of itself. It brings joy and happiness, but it's very hard to keep it in balance.
These are one type of anchor. And then I'm gonna give us some more thinking, from our book, which is kind of another type of anchor, something I haven't really thought a lot about, but it's called anchoring bias.
Are you familiar with an anchoring bias? We spend some time on all these anchors and think, okay, are we getting anchored in ways that we haven't even appreciated? So this section on anchoring bias, I give you just a couple interesting examples. I won't read through all of them. So there's a phenomenon of anchoring bias. It's like is pretty numbers related.
If you just ask someone a question, like in a survey, as thousands of people just straight off, like how old was Gandhi when he died? Okay, you'll get a pretty, accurate answer when you average it, apparently. But when you frame it in different ways, you can really push around the guesses that people make because you anchor it to a number.
So, for example, they they'll frame the survey. The last two questions first I'll say was Gandhi more or less than 144 years when he died. And then they'll ask, how old was Gandhi when he died? Now, the 144 years is nonsense. Nobody's nobody believes that. It's ridiculous. See, it doesn't matter if it's a true number, if it has any bearing.
In reality, you put a really high number there. It skews people's anchoring. Like in reality, basically, people guess on average 40% older when they have this number versus when they say, was Gandhi more or less than 35 when he died. So just putting that and then people guess, oh, maybe he was like 40 versus maybe they say he's like 90, you know.
So it's just showing they got a whole bunch of examples like that, that the context that we put our decisions and we anchor to certain numbers or certain experiences without our knowing it. Then they survey people while they do it, and they tell people, they even tell people about an anchoring effect. And then they do this and people still knowing it still guess way higher because these things are acting at at a sub level.
Think of our sailboat, the anchors down below. Right? We don't see it. It's down there dragging along the bottom. Just like in our mind. Anchoring effects can happen all over the place actually. And we don't. We aren't even aware of it. Another even interesting example. They do a same type of survey for people. They ask people are the tallest redwood trees more or less than 1200 feet tall?
And then in a separate group they ask, are the tallest redwood trees more or less than 180ft tall? So just huge an order of magnitude difference. And it radically skews, how much people guess. And then the real answer is that they're close to 400ft, just kind of like you know, in the middle, but people will guess way different.
And so this is something really interesting to dial in on in our type of space to realize, oh, like when we're talking about our environment, creating an environment, like look at the think of the anchoring effects of society that we're seeing now about establishing what is normal and what kind of impact is having on our thinking. They did a bunch of examples here on real estate, which you can probably imagine.
They took a whole bunch of veteran realtors, and then they showed them information about neighborhoods and houses, but they put fake initial offers like fake asking prices just randomly in the materials, and then they asked people to come up with estimates for fair value for the house. And then they'd put radically low estimates, radically high estimates. People swear this.
I wasn't influenced by anything in this, you know, materials. This is my honest, professional assessment, you know, of what the value of this house is. And they're totally skewed by this information of seeing a suggested value. People anchor to it. And then they randomized, professional realtors versus just college students. And they came to almost the same suggestion.
The only difference was the college students admitted to being biased by the information that they saw. Very interesting. And here they had one kind of food example that I thought was, especially pertinent. And they think of marketing. So like a big thing, think how much money is coming at us, trying to sell us all kinds of stuff, both, you know, supplements like health things and then just food, trying to get us to buy processed foods and other sorts of things.
The psychological mechanisms that produce anchoring make us far more suggestible than most of us would want to be. Or it meant anchoring explains why, for example, arbitrary rationing is an effective marketing ploy. It did this study with supermarket shoppers. Hey, and they took Campbell's soup cans with a 10% off regular price, and some days a sign on the shelf said limit of 12 per person.
And then and other days the sign would say no limit. What do you think? When did they buy more? Shopper shoppers purchased an average of seven cans when the limit of 12 was in place, and they bought an average of three cans when there was no limit in place. People got anchored to the 12 can deal. People said, oh, 12 like it anchors.
That's a number that I could buy. It's like they didn't want 12 cans, but they anchored to it and they ended up buying seven cans. This is the opposite. There's no there's no shortage of Campbell's soup. They're telling you like this limit and you think, oh, they're trying to be nice because they just want there to be enough for everybody.
Now they're just trying to sell you stuff and it works. It's crazy. Put the number there. So many examples they have of this where they put, you know, some sort of experience we have maybe created by marketing is anchoring us in a specific direction.
Once you kind of see that, then you start to see marketing all over it. You see, oh, I get what is going on here. People trying to prime our system. Right? We talked about in this book how our environment primes our thinking, sets us up to think in certain ways why we want to be really, really thoughtful and conscientious of all these effects.
And then especially I like it now thinking of anchors. Are there things in our environment and experience that are anchoring us into certain ways of being that are reinforcing and supporting our habits and patterns? If we we want to move away from that, if we want to pull up the anchor so our sailboat can just drift, you know, step one is awareness.
Step one is looking at our life honestly and as objectively as we can. And you know the first thing, how do you get rid of an anchor that is weighing us down? You have to be aware of it to start with. That is the first step. Always. Like, oh, I didn't even know there's such a thing as an anchoring effect.
You know? Here's how he closes out the chapter when we're talking about anchoring, have discussed the bewildering variety of priming effects in which our thoughts and behavior may be influenced by stimuli which we pay no attention to at all, and even by stimuli of which you're not completely aware. The main moral of the research is that our thoughts and our behavior are influenced much more than we know or want by the environment of the moment.
Many people find the priming results unbelievable because they do not correspond to our subjective experience. They're happening under the water anchors down under the water. Many find the results upsetting because they threaten our sense of agency and autonomy. Yeah, I really think about that. Like we like to think, oh, we're completely uncontrolled in control of ourselves, right? We're not influenced by, you know, our money and marketing and culture, right, where our own person.
But you dig in to some of these details, you say, oh, gets we want to really be thoughtful about it. Realizes so much influence. If the content of a screen saver and an irrelevant computer in the room, which was one of their studies, can affect people's willingness to help strangers without their being aware of it. Questions. How free are we really?
Very interesting question. Very deep question. Anchoring effects are threatening in a say as part of these priming effects you're aware of the anchor. You can even pay attention to it, but you don't know how it guides and constrains your thinking, because you can't imagine how you would have thought if the anchor had been different or absent. However, you should assume that any time a number is in your environment that it's having an anchoring effect on you, and if the stakes are high, you should mobilize yourself that system to to combat the effect of anchoring.
And so this is hand, what, what thoughts come to you as you're hearing that? I'd be curious to know. I wrote down, a number of, things, the first of which is. Okay, what what are the really the anchoring effects that we're just totally not aware of, like, you think in a culture, it hasn't always been normal.
Like, here's a number. Like, how many times should I eat in a day? This is the type of thing that I really focus in on. And like our society in general, has the number three. We are anchored to three really big anchor. And so people say you eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and then, you know, maybe six is like another number.
Then we get anchored higher, like you should have snacks, right? Like you should have your meals and you should have your snacks to keep it going. These are there's a number where in counting that can be a serious anchor in trying to open up some fasting space, we got some serious anchors like just with these numbers. Like how many times should a human being eat in a day?
How many times should I eat in a day? It's like, well, everybody else eating at least three and maybe six. And so that is like really pushing the envelope up so hard to eat less when we're anchored to these bigger numbers. That's like one thought that was coming to me. I was doing a lot of thinking of just shopping too, and about how much food we buy and is it the stuff we really want.
I'm a big believer in let's go to a grocery store with a list, only get the things you want on the list. You know, if you bring something in to your house, you're going to eat it. You want to be very, very thoughtful about only purchasing when the battle at the grocery store. That's what I say. Make sure the things that are on your list are healthy, wholesome things that you want as you're going through a grocery store.
Really like the the story I read there are anchoring effects in the store trying to sell us all kinds of stuff that we don't need, and more. And this is the whole culture that is promoted. The anchoring is like more and more, you know, consume, right? Fasting, giving us the antidote. I say the other direction. Can we anchor ourselves in a different direction, realizing, okay, fasting is an open space, like the number of fasting is zero.
You know?
Doesn't mean we don't. That we have to fast for a long period of time or a whole day. But let's combat some of these anchoring effects of like bigger numbers with some smaller numbers, like there's like anchors out there for six. How about an anchor of zero that is pulling us in a direction to realize, hey, zero would be okay even if you don't do it?
Like just realize like, hey, I can see this is also a way of being in the world, right? As a way of being in the world where you're having continuous consumption, three meals, three snacks. So how is that working for people in general? Like it's like, well, okay. There's also a way in being in the world in which people fasting and like, how is that working for people like, oh, it's like to me, I say, well, here is a path is a little different.
If you don't like the path where things are going, say, seems like people really struggling along this path. We're working, working, working on it. But is it really going in the direction? It's like, maybe not. Maybe I want to try walking down this other path. Maybe an anchor of that can be helpful. This is where I'm going with like the other side of an anchor.
Anchor can be dragging along the bottom, maybe in a certain way we need an anchor gone. But like, viewer of the show was describing last year, like, fasting is like my anchor. So much confusion, so much, difficulty and understanding. Okay. How do we navigate the storms, the waves and an anchor can be something so very positive.
The storm is coming. If you got the anchor in place, it's going to keep your boat in the right spot. And I was thinking about that quote like preservation is progress just to ride out a storm. Do you ever have it you feel like you're in a storm, a stormy season, like if you're in a sailboat and it's a stormy season, but you got your anchor, okay, how can you get blown away?
You know, say it's going to keep you grounded, rooted in place. So anchor not always bad. Anchor is a tool. Let's think about the types of anchors that we have and whether they're good or the bad. Are they serving us? Are we in control of them? Are we using them in ways that are keeping us grounded and rooted and on a course?
Or are they the types of things that we're dragging around and keeping us weighed down, especially in a difficult time? I think about the most difficult times. You've got a loved one in the hospital, too, like it's a very stressful year going to this place hospital, ironically, and my experience, one of the most unhealthy places, cafeteria food. And, you know, there's not very good and, just to to navigate a space like that sadness, loss, stress, difficulty and then surrounded by unhealthy food.
Okay, there would be a space, whatever scenario we have like that, can we stay grounded? Anchored preservation is progress, right? Put the anchor down in the harbor and make it through a space like that. Use health practices like a fasting space to get through that. As best you can. And then we emerge on the other side, more gentle breeze coming in the future when we get through the storm.
I love this question.
An anchor is something. Fasting is nothing. How do I anchor to nothing? I like that and it's a great question. Yes, fasting is nothing.
Also it is something. So this is a thing. Fasting is nothingness. I call it applied nothingness. You apply nothing to your life for a period of time. And so you say it's ethereal or whatever. The word is ephemeral. It's like.
Very hard, you see, is not a tangible thing. But yet here we are. It is a thing because it has a name and it has a, an existence. And we talk about it as a thing. So it is a practice. Think about other practices like, let's put it in context, like take some sort of exercise practice. Exercise practice is something you do.
It's so an exercise is a way of being in the world. And you say, hey, I'm grounded. Like I'm taking a walk, right? Like a walking practice would be as a simple, example, you can't go by a walking. You can't, you know, really see it other than someone is doing it. Look at fasting in a similar way to taking a walk.
It's a way of being in the world.
It is something you do say fasting. Here's a paradox. It's something you don't do. It's something you do by not doing right. It's like a paradox. Fasting as much as it is something that you do. It's something that you experience. So you do experience it. So when you think about what are the things that are grounding you, anchor is something that is grounding.
I'm trying to stay on a path. That path is moving. Say, if that's the goal toward a weight loss goal, what does it feel like to move toward a weight loss goal? What is the experience of it? Fasting is a big part of it. It's in different ways of moving toward a weight loss goal. Some person wants to exercise their way.
They're very intensely. You're going to have a certain feeling of doing that. You're going to be a walk or you're just going to walk, walk, walk can to take a lot of walking. And I'm totally open to it. If that's someone's path, it's really great. I've met a couple people who walked themselves to profound weight loss, people who were retired.
They kind of always wanted to do it. They'd like devoted their whole life to it, basically had incredible results can be done. You're going to feel a certain way doing that. It's going to be a certain experience. Someone else say, hey, I'm going to dial in, you know, on the other practices, healthy eating, they're going to be so dialed in on it.
Fasting is a different path. You're going to feel a certain way. Someone says, I'm going to choose a fasting path to weight loss. And you can, of course, like I suggest, mix and match all these different things in the amounts that you want. It's not one of the other, of course. Do some fasting and some exercise and choose healthy foods.
Do all the good things. But like let's just experience it here. There's going to be a physical, human experience of what it feels like to move toward a weight loss goal through a fasting space. The barrier to entry to fasting for many people is we've been conditioned and anchored through our society that that is not that. It can't be pleasant, actually, that it's awful, really, that people who are experiencing that are suffering and that it should be avoided.
And by my product now limit of 12 per people, but by them, you see what I'm saying? And they'll solve that problem to you. Hunger is a problem in our society. I did a series two summers ago on reframing our hunger experience.
Hunger is, in large measure, an experience of what it feels like to bring the body back into balance when we reframe it and see as not so bad. One of the videos I did was like comparing fasting on a spectrum of human experience. The experience of hunger, compared to somebody falling off a ladder and breaking multiple bones.
Right. Truly terrible suffering. The versus not eating for a little while. You know, like when you put it on the spectrum, you realize, oh, isn't that so bad? Right? Voluntary hunger, not someone who is existing in true poverty and depravity. Someone who is in a situation where they can eat whenever they want, but are choosing to say, hey, this is an experience.
You start to see it as a grounding experience when you are feeling some hunger. This is an experience is moving you into the body. This is a core function and feeling of the body. See? That's tangible. That is a tangible experience. So it's not just nothing. The only time that you're going to feel that is in a fasting space, the only time you have that experience say, I'm feeling some hunger here.
This is a communication. The hunger experience is communication inside of the body. The body is coordinating processes hormonally is why we feel hungry. The brain is communicating with the GI system. It's communicating with everything is communicating with the cells of the body about what the current energy state is in the body. We interpret that experience as hunger, but the body is experiencing it as an energy coordination, saying like, hey, this is the scenario is going on.
Like, let's coordinate our resources and move forward in this space in the best way that we possibly can is bodies trying to figure out we're going to be eating. We need to be running this stomach. We need stomach acid. We need all this stuff going on. We need all the hormones, all these hormones, amylase and lipase and all this stuff and breaking up food.
Body has to prepare all of that has to do it ahead of time. It's trying to predict when are we going to be using this stuff. It's actually dangerous chemicals. It backs up proteins. And all this stuff has to be very tightly controlled.
So brain sinking might be eating, but now we say we're going to practice some fasting. All of a sudden the body gets an opportunity to practice putting all that stuff away, say, okay, like we were going to be eating. We're getting the whole system ready to be eating. But look, now we're not eating. Now we're having a tangible experience in the body.
The only time you're going to have that experience where you feel, what is it like to get to that place and find a space of peace and contentment without eating? Because it can be done right. This is the practice to say, hey, I was feeling hungry and then I didn't eat and then everything was okay. Actually, we passed through an experience.
The body communicated, worked within itself to figure out the situation. Body said, you know what, I am going to just put these hormones away, put these chemicals back in their little containers, save it for later. Let's shut this GI system down. Don't need it right now. Let's run off the reserve system. That's a very, very tangible process. The only way you can experience that.
And then that is taking a step toward the goal. The goal, like I said, sometimes, you know, I I've been in debates with doctors about like fasting. People say, well, fasting only works because it helps you eat less. And then this is like one of the most common, you know, critiques or criticism of fasting. But I never argue it.
I just always say, like, so what? You know, like like it's not true. I mean, it isn't true. And there's fascinating studies we can get into that. I've shown that, but even if it was true, I would say it's not really easy to eat. Less is most people's experience. And when you start eating a little bit, you want to eat more.
Because the human body is designed to eat meals, the human body isn't designed just to really eat a little morsel. You got to, like, turn this whole system on. It's meant to like, have a meal, process it, and then shut it down. So like, we create an experience where the experience of eating, it's like we're always eating. And then the body, we get the system going.
You want more and more frequently people eating in general, the more they want to eat. And so this is why we are on a path that makes it so difficult for people to lose weight. You see how how do we get on a different path? Well, it's like we're eating less frequently. We're teaching the body. This is a practice how to put those hormones away.
And then so you say, then we're in that space. That's the feeling. And what I want to reframe for people is that we can come to experience that feeling as a grounding space that it doesn't have to feel bad, that it can feel like, oh, I know it is happening. I've been here before. This is what it feels like for the body to go through the process of putting all this stuff back away and getting better, more skilled, more practiced, more fluent at accessing the stored energy you want to lose weight.
That means you're going to be taking energy from within you. Stored energy. The body has saved it for you for a period of time when you don't have food available. And so the practice of fasting as a practice is opening up space and giving the body the opportunity to use that energy. The only way you can have that experience, you have to do it right.
So then that feeling, that feeling that people say is the barrier that becomes the grounding experience to say, hey, I know what this feeling is. I know I'm going to be okay. You come to appreciate it the more you practice it. I mean, my my experiences, you realize I'm I'm giving my body the opportunity to turn on this autophagy effect.
You know, like, what does it feel like to activate a cellular cleansing and recycling system in the body, like. Well, you start to see. Well, hunger is like the feeling of that system turning on. You come to see like, oh, this is good. This is an experience that is bringing health and rejuvenation to the body. That is my answer.
How do you anchor it, anchor to that feeling and experience, reframe it into a thing to realize the good in it and that is how you start flowing through that space without struggling. Take the obstacle. The thing that seems intimidating. Approach it in a very kind, gentle, thoughtful way. Use every fasting aid and tool to make it as gentle and easy as possible, and then practice it that practice.
Just like taking a walk. Like I was saying, it's like someone never walked before said, I don't really feel good when I walk that far, where you start walking on one block and then you start walking to and you build up your ability to do it. Okay. Fasting is like building any type of health practice. You start small and you give the other body the ability to expand and develop and strength.
And fasting is a strength. And if we've never practiced it, then that ability can atrophy. And so the more we practice it and the more thoughtful we are about it, and we lean into it gently over time. Then you say be centering, grounding. Practice not stressing us out, helping us get through a stress where we realize, oh, like all this stuff is going on, have all these demands look, look, just as an example, in a fasting space, it's an example in the body, a metaphor for everything else.
But it's also true. Like I'm strong, resilient, powerful, doing something difficult. I never you know, I didn't call it easy fasting. Like I say, our goal is to as thoughtfully as possible, make fasting as easy as possible. Some people do experience it as as easy at certain times. You know, I've had an experience where it has just totally been in a flow is no struggle.
And then later I've come back and found it difficult again. And so, you know, and then I've been in that space where I've been like, whoa, like I'm supposed to be good at this. Like I say, like I'm like a fasting guy. Should be easy by this point, but then it isn't. But then it's like it's like a continual process.
We embrace seasons. If it is easy, if we find a place of ease with it, have gratitude for that, he said. That's incredible. Realized struggle is like a part of life fasting, getting very deep. You know, in our relationship with food, it's an emotional space. It's a it's a physical, emotional space. How is our body doing? It's like a touch base.
Just because you fasted at a certain level before, maybe you got to dial it back. You don't want to push things. That's how people stress themselves out. You never want to burn yourself out. You can burn yourself out trying to do fasting. That's why I keep telling people, hey, like be very thoughtful and gentle, very powerful. Practice physically and emotionally.
Never force yourself into anything. It's like a a relationship, right? Is fasting is part of a conversation that we're having with food. Food so essential to our body and life? Fasting like a mirror. It's like opening up a space for us as a space to reflect, really be thought for. How is the body doing? A lot of things can open up.
How is the mental space doing? How is the strength, the resilience? These are the types of thoughts. How do we anchor to nothing fasting as all of these things. This whole practice and the whole experience of doing it, and then the conversation that we have with ourselves about what we're experiencing and why is maybe the biggest, you know, part.
Really dial in, dive deep. Why am I feeling the way I'm feeling? Is this good or bad? Is is it somewhere in between? Can I reframing in a way, and does this process help to reframe it? Where we build out the experience of it being such a positive thing, you reframe it in a way where you're seeing it in this positive way, make it much easier.
Not necessarily easy. Read me, but like much easier. We say this is that feeling. I feel that autophagy kicking in. Come to like it, I like it, I feel it kicking in. I'm like, oh, this is good. You know, this is like this is like medicine. You know, sometimes I say, gotta take the medicine right? Think like mom with the cough sirup when you're little or whatever it tastes terrible like, but then the cough is better, right?
Fasting a little bit, maybe. Like, that's like a little bit of a wave. You kind of get through, but then you realize, oh, have you experienced it before? Like where you had it, you were hungry, but you made it through and then you felt better. Also was like, oh, I was feeling like really hungry. And then I was feeling kind of tired and I was feeling like, oh, maybe I need to eat something.
But have you made it through? And then you were like, I feel actually better. I have more energy now. And sometimes you have this where it's like, you know, it happens by accident. You got super busy and then you were going to eat lunch, but then you didn't. And it is like, now it's 3:00. You're like, oh, like I'm fine.
Like I'm feeling great. Like I didn't need the energy after all, right? Body very, very strong. If we're in a situation where well nourished, we're not, you know, in some malnourished state, anybody who is fasting not for, anybody who is underweight, malnourished, any sort of problem, fasting voluntary in a situation, say I have a specific need for it.
I want to lose weight. I want to give my body space to use this energy. Then it is like a gift to the body. Give the body the opportunity to rest. And if we think of a relationship like we have with our body, our mind, our body, it's all one thing. It's not different. But you know, it can help to talk about it that way.
Like we have our thoughts, body has its needs. What kind of relationship do we have with our body? This would be a really deep way to go if our body and our mind, we think of them as separate things for a little bit. We have our goals, desires, thoughts, ways we want it to be. Body has needs, desires, ways that it wants things to be, ways that it operates.
What is the relationship that we have? Do we love our body?
Are we caring, kind, compassionate, thoughtful to it? And what does it need? We think about our needs and wants, and then we think about body's needs and wants. Sometimes we think like, you know, what I need right now is a chocolate cake, and maybe you do, right? And I never tell anybody they can't have some sort of treat, some sort of treat special thing.
Getting into an emotional space more than a physical space. But it's fine. It's just fine. Maybe that is the thing that helps you connect with a friend, celebrate a birthday, or like whatever. It is beautiful. Really beautiful. But if if the celebration becomes like all of a thing, then it becomes a problem and it could be an anchor.
And then we think about, okay, what does the body need? Body never really needs a chocolate cake, right? And so if the body is in a scenario where are we saying. And that's just an example or food. You say the body's in a situation. It has more energy than it needs. Actually we start to look at it and we start to realize the body is doing the best it can in this situation, but then we say, oh, insulin resistance is developing.
Other medical problems are happening because the body is trying to compensate for an energy imbalance. This is the reason why we're trying to lose weight can bring things back into balance. So wouldn't it actually be kind to the body? This is why I say is giving it a gift. Be kind to the body to give it a break from the food intake and so we think if we have a loving relationship with a body, what does that look like?
You know, what does it look like to have a loving relationship with anyone in a in, in life? If it doesn't mean that you might actually be open to sacrificing something for them? And so this would be another way to reframe our experience with hunger. If hunger you come to see in a situation is actually the path that helps you do something loving and thoughtful to your own body and is actually kindness, even if it never, you know, I'm I'm painting for you the most optimistic scenario and something that is within the realm of possibility that that fasting can come to feel good and, positive and, and health promoting and life giving.
But it can take a while to get to that level. That's like an advanced level, you say, like there be a period of time as you're learning, to do it or experimenting, you know, with and practicing it where you say maybe it doesn't feel it's not like this is an experience. It's not like you're some like master faster, you know, it's like, no, I'm a novice, you know, like, I'm just, like, trying my best, you know?
I'm. But do you see the value in it? If you see the value in it and then you realize like, oh, this is something that can actually be kind and loving. Here's another way. How do I anchor myself to something that is nothing is not nothing is the only way to give an autophagy effect to the body. No, really, no other way.
And do you want to give like a real gift to your body? Right. Give it an autophagy effect. What if you had to sacrifice to do that? Would it be worth it? If you have a loving relationship to your body and it's what it really needed, what if it was what it really needed right? Try to answer that for yourself.
Does your body really need an open space to really thrive and flourish? Does it need a break to let the energy level come down? Let the insulin level come down so that the energy can start flowing back out? Is that a process that would benefit you? And if you come to the space to say like, yeah, that is something that really would have great value to my body.
Then you can kind of get in a mindset to say, well, I'm open to passing through a space of a little bit of difficulty to do that, or maybe even moderate or significant difficulty, like it would be actually valuable. You know, most most things have that value in life. They take effort, they take a struggle of some kind to do, and they take practice.
And there are often barriers and obstacles to do that. And so if you're feeling like, oh, I'm here, I'm listening to doctor Z, I'm, I'm seeing it, okay. You're doing the work right now. Even if you're not doing the practice a C, it's all okay. Because like, it's a lot of mental work, right? Is what I'm doing with the book is like getting in.
How does this mental processes happening? You're trying to unpack the experiences that we have so that we can flow ultimately in, the best direction, I think I did, I say yesterday.
Like water flowing through a stone right over time. Have you gone in a spot? You see that where the river's carved through the canyon doesn't happen instantly, but can flow through that space.
Water not struggling, water flowing. And, This is what I want for everybody. Getting into a mindset, getting into a space where we're flowing in a direction like our sailboat being carried in the breeze like a river carving through the canyon. Fasting has nothing yet. It can be everything in the body. I will be thinking more, about that.
Today. Really appreciate that comment. Really nice to have you all here with me today. I hope you have a beautiful day, a health filled day. I will look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow. Have a good one, everybody.