December 31, 2024 • 31 mins
Episode #185
In this week's episode, Terri is joined by Coach Bethany to talk about the importance of establishing and returning to your fasting foundations or the framework structure you have put into place.
They emphasize that having strong foundations or a solid framework is integral to navigating life (stressful times, vacations, holidays, etc.) and your fasting lifestyle (fasting and eating healthy foods).
- Terri and Bethany use the analogy of building a house to illustrate this concept - starting with laying a solid foundation. [03:08]
- Then building a strong frame - TRE (time-restricted eating) [06:07]
- Go back to the fundamentals - focus on the basics first, such as making healthy food choices and establishing consistent eating and fasting patterns, before attempting more advanced fasting regimens. [08:15]
- Don’t try to "make up" for periods of going off track by drastically increasing fasting or using fasting in a punitive way as this can be counterproductive. Instead, go back to the fundamentals and rebuild the foundation. [11:18]
- Don’t try to out-fast a poor diet. [18:38]
- Balance and patience is important in developing a sustainable fasting and eating routine, rather than quick fixes or extreme measures. [22:32]
- Don’t compare your journey to other peoples’ experiences. Trust the process and take your time. [27:47]
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This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. You should always speak with your physician or other healthcare professional before doing any fasting, changing your diet, taking or adjusting any medication or supplements, or adopting any treatment for a health problem. The use of any other products or services purchased by you as a result of this podcast does not create a healthcare provider-patient relationship between you and any of the experts affiliated with this podcast. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Before we get started with today's episode,
I would like to quickly read you our podcast
disclaimer.
This podcast is for educational
purposes only, and it is
not a substitute for professional care
by a doctor or other qualified
medical professional.
You should always speak with your physician
(00:27):
or other healthcare professionals before
doing any fasting, changing
your diet in any way, taking or
adjusting any medications or supplements,
or adopting any treatment plan
for a health problem.
The use of any other products or
services purchased by you as a result
of this podcast does not create
(00:50):
a healthcare provider-patient
relationship between you and
any of the experts affiliated
with this podcast.
Any information and statements
regarding dietary supplements have not
been evaluated by the Food and Drug
Administration and are not intended
to diagnose, treat, cure,
(01:11):
or prevent any disease.
All right. And now we'll get started with
today's episode.
Welcome back to The Fasting Method podcast.
This is Coach Terri and I'm very excited
to be joined by Coach Bethany today.
Bethany, how are you doing?
Hey, Terri. I'm doing great.
How are you?
(01:31):
I'm great.
It's so good to get to be on here with you
again.
I know you and I have some plans
and thoughts for future episodes as well, so
I'm very excited to get to work with you
more.
So, Bethany, you and I were talking a little
bit about what to cover.
I think this topic that we want to talk about
is really important, regardless of where
people are in their journey and regardless
(01:53):
of where we are in the year.
So if you're listening to this and
it's during a holiday season for you,
or if you're listening to this and it's the
start of a new year, or
it's vacation time, or it's summertime,
there's always a reason why
what we're going to be talking about today is
(02:15):
so important.
So let's go ahead and dive in.
Bethany and I wanted to talk
today about foundations
of fasting.
We're going to use some different references
here and, as I just said to her
before we came on here, my hope is that
everyone listening leaves this
episode with some analogy
(02:36):
or image that helps them hold on
to this really important concept.
And what we're really talking about is
the basics, the skills
that you use to build your
fasting muscle, to get to
longer fasts, to do what's working
for your body in a healthy way, just
like you might think about foundations of
(02:59):
a house.
Bethany, I know you said that you often
talk about this in terms of kind of a house
analogy.
What does that sound like for you?
I do, Terri.
I have spoken about this in
various channels in the Community
and with my coaching clients.
And what I usually say to people
(03:20):
is, when you're beginning your fasting
journey, it is really
tempting to want to jump ahead.
Frankly, when you're starting any kind of
project, there are certain types
of people who, for whatever reason,
maybe they're just sick of being sick,
or they're sick of being overweight or having
diabetes, or maybe it's just their
(03:42):
personality, they want
to jump ahead and they want to get this
done as soon as possible.
The analogy I use is, if you
are building a house from nothing,
you have to lay the foundation first.
I mean, even before that, you have to have a
plot of land.
If you start that project
(04:04):
by, you know, really agonizing
over what type of window
you're going to have on the third storey
(Is that going to be a double-hung window?
Is it going to have an awning?
Is it going to be stained glass?), you're
never going to get the house built because
you're obsessing about that one window
way up there that's a months-away
(04:25):
problem for you.
So what I say to folks is to practice
laying the foundation because, without
that, you can't build on top of anything.
Bethany, I couldn't agree more.
I love this analogy and I love
your example of that third-storey
window because, oftentimes,
(04:46):
I hear people almost getting in their way
because they're thinking about, "In four
months from now, what will I do?"
We don't need to worry about that right now
until we build that foundation.
There's no sense in making that decision yet
about that window.
I'm glad they're creating the image of
what's coming, but we sometimes
(05:06):
get so caught up in those details that we
can't get started, we can't move forward.
And then the other thing that I think of with
something like you just described, it's
almost like then you get the delivery of
all these supplies. So you've got that
third-storey window, and you've got tons of
two-by-fours, and plywood, and
lots of nails, and staple guns and
things, but, if you don't have a
(05:28):
strong foundation and you just throw
all those things together, it's going to be
a very unstable house.
The walls are going to fall down easily, a
big wind comes through
and the whole thing falls down.
So going back to what you described, first,
you lay the foundation.
I grew up-- my dad was a carpenter and
(05:48):
I grew up around construction
sites a lot. He was a home builder and
we built two houses that we lived in.
And I remember as a kid loving the stages
of it because the first thing, like you said,
was having a plot of land, digging
the foundation, pouring the footers,
getting all of that solid.
And then the next part is the next thing
(06:11):
that's important, building a strong
frame.
And again, I feel like some people
come to us or report
in that they're struggling with something
about fasting and they don't have
a strong frame.
I have heard that many,
many times.
(06:31):
In fact, I heard not only
that, but also,
"Hey, I've gotten to my goal with fasting
before and then I regained the weight."
And the reason is always the same.
And I'm not even being hyperbolic.
It is universally
because the person never changed their
(06:53):
eating habits.
And I really think eating habits
are that foundation that we're talking
about. It's in the context
of what we are discussing - when you
eat, what you eat, and then,
secondarily, how much.
And then on top of that foundation, that
frame I look at as TRE,
(07:14):
those pauses that you take between
meals. That's the framework.
When I was a kid, I loved walking through the
house before the drywall went up
because you could walk between the walls and
things.
But if you don't have that all set up, like
you said, the foundation of your
eating habits and then the frame of
(07:35):
TRE, when you get up to that
third floor and put in that window, you're
going to be lucky if the builders don't fall
through back down to the ground.
So I love this - building on the foundation,
creating that frame.
Can we talk a little bit about then, Bethany,
of, okay, so, if I'm kind of newer to this,
I want to create this image - dig the hole,
(07:56):
build the foundation, get a strong frame -
but what if I've been doing this for six
months already?
Or what if I've been doing this
for two years and I'm in a vacation
season or I'm in a holiday season?
How is this house analogy
important for me? How does it fit in?
I think because you can always go
(08:18):
back to-- we've been using the
word 'foundation'.
We could also use the word 'fundamentals'.
You can always go back to the fundamentals.
I cannot tell you how many clients
I've had go on vacation,
come back, and say, "Bethany,
I'm shocked. I did not gain any weight
on vacation." And the reason
(08:39):
they didn't is because they were really
not eating between meals, they
were not overindulging in alcohol,
and they weren't having really high-carb
foods that wasn't warranted
by any movement that they were doing.
So just those things, as
you mentioned - TRE, food
(09:00):
choices, and allowing a pause
between meals so that you're
not constantly in a snacking
mood - is really conducive
to maintenance.
So you can do that really whenever
you want, even if you want to take a pause in
your journey and just scale back, but
certainly on a vacation or a
(09:21):
weekend away or something like that.
I love that. It reminds me, too, of, if
we're still talking about the house, when you
decide to do an add-on to the house
or you need to revise
something about the house, you still have
the frame, you still have the foundation.
And I think it's really important for all of
us to know we have those fundamentals
(09:43):
of fasting and eating that we
can always rely
on and also dial
back to.
Now, some people in our community have heard
here on the podcast or in our Community
meetings a lot of different references
for this.
Coach Nadia has often talked
about, here in the podcast, your holding
(10:05):
pattern, that safe place
that you come back to kind of in a storm,
that place that keeps you solid
in what you're doing.
Like you said, when your people go
on vacation and come back without gaining
weight, they maintained a holding pattern,
that safe space.
Some of us might refer to it as scaffolding.
(10:27):
You know that I like to use the term of
'the fasting dial'.
Sometimes you dial up the intensity on
the fasting dial and sometimes you turn that
dial down, you lower the intensity,
but we're always coming back to those
fundamental pieces.
And I think the importance of that is
that a lot of times people
(10:48):
lose sight of the fundamentals.
They get caught up in the details.
Like you said about the third-storey window,
we get caught up in, "I've got family
coming for this holiday," or,
"I'm going to be on this all-inclusive
vacation," or, "I'm having a
really tough series of deadlines
coming up at work." And what do any
(11:10):
of us say as coaches?
Go back to your fundamentals, get back
into that framework that you've already
established.
I really agree with you, Terri.
And, you know, similarly,
on the other side of that, let's say,
because it happens to most people,
let's say you've gone off track, whether
you've fallen off your fasting or
(11:32):
your way of eating has gone
out the window for a certain amount of time.
Some people will come to me
after such a time, whether it's been a
holiday, a rough time in their life, an
illness, whatever it is, and they'll
say, "You know, I really want to switch
gears and get back on track with
a five-day fast," for example.
(11:54):
And it's almost punitive to themselves.
And what I say is, "Why don't we, for
example, do some fat fasting this week,
get back into some 24s
for a week, then get back to alternate-day."
If you want to do an extended fast
and there are no reasons that you should not
do that, then, by all means, I will
(12:15):
support that, but it shouldn't be used as
a punishment or as a
way to shunt yourself back
on to the right track.
You should build back up the way you did
initially.
You're singing my song here, Bethany.
I am someone who really
cautions people about that and so I love
(12:36):
that you highlighted this so well.
That idea that, oftentimes, people
want to compensate for
a holiday meal, or a vacation,
or somehow being off track
by reining themselves
in to the other degree
of intensity.
So they go overboard and want to jump
(12:58):
into a really long fast to make up for what
just happened these last few days.
And often I see people kind of
get into more trouble because now not only
are they already in the place where they were
struggling, but now they've upped the ante,
they've made a harder goal to get
back in. And so, like you said, going
back, dialing back the intensity
(13:19):
a little bit, using some fat fasting first,
focusing just on getting back to whole
foods, no snacking,
no grazing.
And then maybe next week you can start to
increase your number of hours
of fasting again.
I had a Latin teacher in high school
and he used to say, "If you haven't
(13:40):
studied for the exam
prior to the night before the exam,"
he said, "Don't study at all.
Just go to sleep." And he said, "The reason
is-- it has nothing to do with, you know,
sleep and performance.
He said, "The reason is, you know, Michael
Jordan trains year-round." This
is when Michael Jordan still played in the
NBA. "Michael Jordan plays year-round.
(14:02):
He doesn't play seven hours
straight of basketball before
a big game and then go home and go to sleep."
And he said, "You need to be putting in your
time every single day." Fasting
is no different.
There is absolutely no way around
it. It's a long haul.
I'm so impressed that you took Latin.
(14:22):
I'm still caught up on that detail, Bethany!
I totally agree.
And so many of us want to show up
for this big fast, but
it's what we do midday,
evening, and morning every day
that really makes the difference, not
showing up for that really intense one big
fast every couple of months or
(14:43):
in a compensatory way.
I think that is one reason that
people want to get
into alternate-day or
extended fasting right off
the bat. And I really do have
sympathy and empathy for people
who come to The Fasting Method
because they have tried every
(15:05):
other diet or way
of losing weight that they have been exposed
to. And so I completely
understand why someone
would think, "Well, I don't want to focus
more on my eating.
I can't fix my eating.
That's why I'm here.
I need to fast it off."
(15:26):
Now, the truth of the matter is fasting
is a therapeutic way
of losing weight, of losing fat.
You are not going to be doing (if you
do this correctly) therapeutic
fasting for the rest of your life, and
so there is no way around
learning to work with
(15:48):
your relationship with food, building
a healthy relationship with food.
So, as tempting as I think
it is for some people to try to
out-fast a poor
way of eating, it's the same
thing that the fitness industry has been
saying correctly (this is something they've
been saying correctly) for years, which is
(16:08):
you can't outrun a bad diet.
And the same is true for fasting.
Now, once you build up to the point
where you are able to do consistent,
alternate-day fasts and to sprinkle
in extended fasts, then fasting
really (in my experience and
that of my clients) really can seem a little
(16:29):
miraculous because it feels easy,
it's comfortable, and it works.
But you need to build up to that point
otherwise you're going to be setting yourself
back.
I think that's a good point, too, that, if
you find that you have been able
to do it well (you've been able to
therapeutically fast and
have good results and feel good doing it)
(16:51):
and then suddenly it's not working,
you're not getting results, or
you don't feel well, or
one of the favorite phrases I think of people
in our community is to say, "I'm on the
struggle bus." If you find
yourself on the struggle bus,
where are you going to go?
You don't need a different map.
(17:12):
You need to go back to the same map.
Go back to the fundamentals,
get yourself strong, get yourself--
you know, maybe there's some tension or
stress needs to be relieved in there,
but circling back to those fundamentals
is so important rather
than, "I'm going to jump to some other
fantastical kind of
(17:34):
fasting manipulation of this."
Nope! Go back to those fundamentals,
go back to your-- like you said, Bethany,
go back to eating well
in a way that serves your body, go
back to TRE, build
up to the fasts again.
The other thing that I hear so many people
talk about is they look a little
(17:56):
defeated when I say that because it feels
to them like they're going backwards.
And I know we talked about this before
in an episode with Coach Heather
about it's kind of like a video game.
You know, you don't start all the way over
again at the very beginning of the game,
you get to go back to the most recent
(18:17):
level of achievement.
And so, when we have to kind
of go to the fundamentals
again, it doesn't mean we're at square
one and we don't know anything, but
we do need to go and
rehearse them again, practice them again,
let them work again
before dialing back up.
(18:38):
I've had that same experience, Terri,
with people being disappointed or even
frustrated that
I'm not recommending that,
right off the bat, for example, they jump
into a 72-hour fast, which I would
not do because I don't think, for most
people, that it's safe, let alone comfortable
or conducive to wanting to fast
(19:00):
for months if that's what you need to do.
So it really is a mindset shift
and it does require a bit of trust
in the process that you build
up slowly over time.
You could also liken this to
any kind of physical training, you
know, training for a marathon or
(19:22):
training for a powerlifting competition.
There are tons of adaptations
that happen in the body that take
months to build up,
but if you start
your marathon training right out of the
gate with an 18-mile run, or
you start powerlifting and you want
(19:42):
to hit a one-rep max every single
day, you're more likely to get injured than
anything else. So it really is taking
a stepwise approach over time that's going
to be the most effective.
Absolutely. I love-- people who
come to my Community groups know that I love
a lot of sports analogies, even though I'm
really not that into sports.
(20:02):
But I think they're things that we all have
some familiarity with, even if we've never
done them.
Like, it makes sense to anyone, if
I say, if you decided tomorrow
that you wanted to run a marathon
and you wanted me to coach you on it,
you would look at me like I had four heads
if I said, "Great, go out and run 18
(20:22):
miles tomorrow." I mean,
I don't know, maybe you're really fit and
somehow you did it, but where is
that going to take you?
It's not going to help build what you're
working on building.
If you're like me and you're just starting
out, I started with that 'Couch
to 5K' program.
I think on the first day of that the longest
(20:43):
you run is something like 30 seconds.
I had to really build
up to the point where I could run
three miles at a time, and then
I could get further into my run,
and then, eventually, I could do a half
marathon.
But I guarantee you I didn't start it and
say, "Oh, I want to run my half marathon
next week so I'm going to have to train
(21:05):
hard this week." It's a really great
way for me to think about it is you
start slow and low and then you
build up. You build that stamina,
the knowledge, even the muscle
memory or the experience of it so that
you know how it goes as you get
into those longer
(21:25):
segments. Similar with fasting,
TRE is a short version of
fasting, and then you build your way up to
longer fasts.
You know, Terri, I likened this
process or this journey to a
marathon.
You know, this is semantic, but
I do think it's a little bit more
(21:46):
like a duathlon because you have the
eating and you have the fasting.
And so I don't know about you, but
I have had clients say
something to the effect of,
"Well, I didn't get my
three-mile run in yesterday,
and the reason I didn't not get my three-mile
(22:08):
run in yesterday is because I was
not asked to ride
40 miles on my bike." In other words,
they say, "Well, no, I did not do
TRE and no snacking
this week. And the reason is I
think I need to do more fasting."
What do you say to clients-- I'm guessing
you've had clients ask the same of you.
(22:30):
What do you say to that?
In some way, Bethany, as I think about that,
I go back to our kind of topic
of this whole episode of
the foundations, the fundamentals
is about balance, it's about relying
on the two really necessary
aspects.
So it would be like
(22:51):
if someone doing a duathlon was spending
all of their focus on one
aspect of it and that
didn't lead them or allow them to
develop the other aspect, they're going to
have a tough time in that competition.
You've got to be kind of equally
trained, equally balanced
in those things.
(23:12):
And so often I see people
trying to do the fasting without being
equally balanced in the food
area, and they think the solution
will be, "Let me just fast more, let me do
some more fasts this week because that's how
I'll control this." And
really fasting and eating well, is not about
controlling yourself, it's about
(23:34):
doing what's healthy in a balancing
effort for your body.
It would be like that athlete saying, "Well,
let me just do the cycling." I could
see myself-- if I were training for this,
I enjoy the cycling part.
I do not enjoy the running part.
So my coach would be like, "Erm, Terri, I
notice you clocked a lot of miles on the
(23:56):
bike this week, but you haven't done any
of the running." Yeah,
because I feel better able to
manage what I'm doing when I'm on the bike
than when I'm running.
And that's what I see people doing - leaning
too heavily on the fasting and not paying
any attention to the eating are not paying
enough attention to the eating - they're
(24:17):
going to maybe their strong suit.
And, for some of us, that's the opposite -
we lean so heavily on, "I'm
eating properly, I'm eating foods
that work for my body," and they're not
ever leaning into that part
that seems more challenging for them of
getting the fasting going.
(24:37):
That was me.
That was me and my journey.
It took me six months
to be able to do an alternate-day fast.
And part of that was physiological,
but I think a large part of that was mental
as well. I spent a lot of time
eating a high-fat, low-carbohydrate
diet and doing 24-hour
(24:58):
fasts, three 24-hour fasts a week
and I started to feel better.
I had a slight fat loss,
but it wasn't until I got to that fasting,
that alternate-day fasting, consistently
(two or three times a week) that
I really started healing and
losing fat.
(25:18):
And it was frustrating but what I
say to people, even though that's not
what I recommend-- I don't recommend that
people take six months to build up to an
alternate-day fast because, for most people,
it's just not necessary and
you can lose motivation in that time.
What I do think it did for me is
I really built a new relationship
(25:38):
with food during that time.
I got lots of practice in
eating and preparing food, so I think
that was beneficial in that way.
It seems like that was part of you
developing the one side strong enough
so that, when you brought the other side in,
there was a good balance.
And I think that's, you know, another
(25:59):
important part of this whole topic
of fundamentals - we want
to have both of them be strong.
And, you know, we might,
for a while, lean too heavily on one
because we feel safer.
And I know this sounds surprising to some
people, but a lot of people report they feel
safer fasting, even though, for
(26:20):
many of us, that was the harder part
to begin.
They feel safer fasting because
they don't have to make decisions about food,
whereas once they're eating, it's all
kinds of decisions that need to be made.
So I think kind of just going back to, as
we're talking about, those foundations,
(26:41):
and the fundamentals of
fasting and eating, while they are balanced.
And whether you, as I
said, you're going through a
holiday season, or
some of us are coming into a
new season and a new time of year,
vacations, family stressors,
(27:02):
work stressors, balancing
your fundamentals is always
the best route to go.
And, unfortunately, I've watch so many people
feel the need to increase
the intensity - "Let me fast more.
Let me take five more things out of my diet
right now." It's not the best time to
do this while you're navigating
(27:24):
these other stressors in life.
So coming back to the fundamentals,
coming back to that foundation.
So, Bethany, I think that you and I have
covered a lot today in our thoughts
around this whole topic, and I
just wondered if you had any kind of
closing encouragement that you
wanted to share before we close out here.
(27:47):
I would share with people that, similarly
to whatever it is they're comparing
themselves to in other areas
of life, if you're starting out
with fasting, don't
worry that someone else in
the Community, or someone else on Facebook,
or who you know in your neighborhood is doing
(28:07):
a 48-hour fast
and you are eating six times
a day.
Focus on, first,
changing what you're eating so that you're
not hungry that often, that frequently,
then focus on eating square
meals, really taking a stepwise
approach. These are all examples,
(28:29):
but don't plan on jumping in.
It's paradoxical in a way - the
slower you try to go, the more you'll
probably be able to do more
quickly, as opposed to, if you just--
if you've never fasted before and
you dive right into a five-day
water fast, it's going to be really
uncomfortable and it might leave you with a
(28:51):
sense that fasting is not for you.
So I would just be prepared to
trust the process and
take your time with this.
You know, Bethany, as you were just talking,
it reminded me of one more thing I wanted to
share, and that is, when I was in
high school, I was a pretty bright student
and I really had horrible
(29:12):
habits.
I didn't study, I didn't do
the work, I would write all of my papers
the last night before they were due.
And I had a really good friend
who was struggling with
some of the academic knowledge
part, but she had such good
habits.
(29:32):
She worked on it every day, she got
support.
You know, she did all of the things that you
should do.
And I remember then kind of looking at
that and, you know, I think she was a little
bit like, "Oh, man, if only I
could tackle this information as
easily as Terri can," but by the time
we went to college and things, who do you
(29:53):
think was in a better place?
She knew how to work through
difficult content.
I only knew how to fly through
stuff that kind of just came easily to me,
and I-- you know, that didn't last very long.
And I really struggled then because I didn't
have the fundamentals.
I didn't have good study skills,
(30:14):
I didn't have good organizational
skills and things.
So I encourage people to keep
looking at this. There's no quick way to the
end of this race.
The fundamentals, the basics are really
the place to keep yourself going.
And like you said, Bethany, even if you're
hearing, "Oh my gosh, this person's done that
(30:34):
achievement, lost this much weight, or did
this length of fast," stick with
your fundamentals because that's what's
actually going to carry you through.
Like you said, you're going to accomplish
more in the long run.
All right, folks, we have, I think,
dived as deep as we could dive on this topic.
I hope that you pull something from this
today to help you in your journey,
(30:57):
whether you're a beginner faster, whether
you've been doing this for years and you're
struggling, or if you're just somewhere
in between navigating different
things that life has brought you, to keep
working on your fundamentals and don't see
them as doing less-than.
You are succeeding when you're using your
fundamentals.
(31:18):
Until next week when there's another episode,
take good care, everyone.
Before we get started with today's episode,
I would like to quickly read you our podcast
disclaimer.
This podcast is for educational
purposes only, and it is
not a substitute for professional care
by a doctor or other qualified
medical professional.
You should always speak with your physician
(00:27):
or other healthcare professionals before
doing any fasting, changing
your diet in any way, taking or
adjusting any medications or supplements,
or adopting any treatment plan
for a health problem.
The use of any other products or
services purchased by you as a result
of this podcast does not create
(00:50):
a healthcare provider-patient
relationship between you and
any of the experts affiliated
with this podcast.
Any information and statements
regarding dietary supplements have not
been evaluated by the Food and Drug
Administration and are not intended
to diagnose, treat, cure,
(01:11):
or prevent any disease.
All right. And now we'll get started with
today's episode.
Welcome back to The Fasting Method podcast.
This is Coach Terri and I'm very excited
to be joined by Coach Bethany today.
Bethany, how are you doing?
Hey, Terri. I'm doing great.
How are you?
(01:31):
I'm great.
It's so good to get to be on here with you
again.
I know you and I have some plans
and thoughts for future episodes as well, so
I'm very excited to get to work with you
more.
So, Bethany, you and I were talking a little
bit about what to cover.
I think this topic that we want to talk about
is really important, regardless of where
people are in their journey and regardless
(01:53):
of where we are in the year.
So if you're listening to this and
it's during a holiday season for you,
or if you're listening to this and it's the
start of a new year, or
it's vacation time, or it's summertime,
there's always a reason why
what we're going to be talking about today is
(02:15):
so important.
So let's go ahead and dive in.
Bethany and I wanted to talk
today about foundations
of fasting.
We're going to use some different references
here and, as I just said to her
before we came on here, my hope is that
everyone listening leaves this
episode with some analogy
(02:36):
or image that helps them hold on
to this really important concept.
And what we're really talking about is
the basics, the skills
that you use to build your
fasting muscle, to get to
longer fasts, to do what's working
for your body in a healthy way, just
like you might think about foundations of
(02:59):
a house.
Bethany, I know you said that you often
talk about this in terms of kind of a house
analogy.
What does that sound like for you?
I do, Terri.
I have spoken about this in
various channels in the Community
and with my coaching clients.
And what I usually say to people
(03:20):
is, when you're beginning your fasting
journey, it is really
tempting to want to jump ahead.
Frankly, when you're starting any kind of
project, there are certain types
of people who, for whatever reason,
maybe they're just sick of being sick,
or they're sick of being overweight or having
diabetes, or maybe it's just their
(03:42):
personality, they want
to jump ahead and they want to get this
done as soon as possible.
The analogy I use is, if you
are building a house from nothing,
you have to lay the foundation first.
I mean, even before that, you have to have a
plot of land.
If you start that project
(04:04):
by, you know, really agonizing
over what type of window
you're going to have on the third storey
(Is that going to be a double-hung window?
Is it going to have an awning?
Is it going to be stained glass?), you're
never going to get the house built because
you're obsessing about that one window
way up there that's a months-away
(04:25):
problem for you.
So what I say to folks is to practice
laying the foundation because, without
that, you can't build on top of anything.
Bethany, I couldn't agree more.
I love this analogy and I love
your example of that third-storey
window because, oftentimes,
(04:46):
I hear people almost getting in their way
because they're thinking about, "In four
months from now, what will I do?"
We don't need to worry about that right now
until we build that foundation.
There's no sense in making that decision yet
about that window.
I'm glad they're creating the image of
what's coming, but we sometimes
(05:06):
get so caught up in those details that we
can't get started, we can't move forward.
And then the other thing that I think of with
something like you just described, it's
almost like then you get the delivery of
all these supplies. So you've got that
third-storey window, and you've got tons of
two-by-fours, and plywood, and
lots of nails, and staple guns and
things, but, if you don't have a
(05:28):
strong foundation and you just throw
all those things together, it's going to be
a very unstable house.
The walls are going to fall down easily, a
big wind comes through
and the whole thing falls down.
So going back to what you described, first,
you lay the foundation.
I grew up-- my dad was a carpenter and
(05:48):
I grew up around construction
sites a lot. He was a home builder and
we built two houses that we lived in.
And I remember as a kid loving the stages
of it because the first thing, like you said,
was having a plot of land, digging
the foundation, pouring the footers,
getting all of that solid.
And then the next part is the next thing
(06:11):
that's important, building a strong
frame.
And again, I feel like some people
come to us or report
in that they're struggling with something
about fasting and they don't have
a strong frame.
I have heard that many,
many times.
(06:31):
In fact, I heard not only
that, but also,
"Hey, I've gotten to my goal with fasting
before and then I regained the weight."
And the reason is always the same.
And I'm not even being hyperbolic.
It is universally
because the person never changed their
(06:53):
eating habits.
And I really think eating habits
are that foundation that we're talking
about. It's in the context
of what we are discussing - when you
eat, what you eat, and then,
secondarily, how much.
And then on top of that foundation, that
frame I look at as TRE,
(07:14):
those pauses that you take between
meals. That's the framework.
When I was a kid, I loved walking through the
house before the drywall went up
because you could walk between the walls and
things.
But if you don't have that all set up, like
you said, the foundation of your
eating habits and then the frame of
(07:35):
TRE, when you get up to that
third floor and put in that window, you're
going to be lucky if the builders don't fall
through back down to the ground.
So I love this - building on the foundation,
creating that frame.
Can we talk a little bit about then, Bethany,
of, okay, so, if I'm kind of newer to this,
I want to create this image - dig the hole,
(07:56):
build the foundation, get a strong frame -
but what if I've been doing this for six
months already?
Or what if I've been doing this
for two years and I'm in a vacation
season or I'm in a holiday season?
How is this house analogy
important for me? How does it fit in?
I think because you can always go
(08:18):
back to-- we've been using the
word 'foundation'.
We could also use the word 'fundamentals'.
You can always go back to the fundamentals.
I cannot tell you how many clients
I've had go on vacation,
come back, and say, "Bethany,
I'm shocked. I did not gain any weight
on vacation." And the reason
(08:39):
they didn't is because they were really
not eating between meals, they
were not overindulging in alcohol,
and they weren't having really high-carb
foods that wasn't warranted
by any movement that they were doing.
So just those things, as
you mentioned - TRE, food
(09:00):
choices, and allowing a pause
between meals so that you're
not constantly in a snacking
mood - is really conducive
to maintenance.
So you can do that really whenever
you want, even if you want to take a pause in
your journey and just scale back, but
certainly on a vacation or a
(09:21):
weekend away or something like that.
I love that. It reminds me, too, of, if
we're still talking about the house, when you
decide to do an add-on to the house
or you need to revise
something about the house, you still have
the frame, you still have the foundation.
And I think it's really important for all of
us to know we have those fundamentals
(09:43):
of fasting and eating that we
can always rely
on and also dial
back to.
Now, some people in our community have heard
here on the podcast or in our Community
meetings a lot of different references
for this.
Coach Nadia has often talked
about, here in the podcast, your holding
(10:05):
pattern, that safe place
that you come back to kind of in a storm,
that place that keeps you solid
in what you're doing.
Like you said, when your people go
on vacation and come back without gaining
weight, they maintained a holding pattern,
that safe space.
Some of us might refer to it as scaffolding.
(10:27):
You know that I like to use the term of
'the fasting dial'.
Sometimes you dial up the intensity on
the fasting dial and sometimes you turn that
dial down, you lower the intensity,
but we're always coming back to those
fundamental pieces.
And I think the importance of that is
that a lot of times people
(10:48):
lose sight of the fundamentals.
They get caught up in the details.
Like you said about the third-storey window,
we get caught up in, "I've got family
coming for this holiday," or,
"I'm going to be on this all-inclusive
vacation," or, "I'm having a
really tough series of deadlines
coming up at work." And what do any
(11:10):
of us say as coaches?
Go back to your fundamentals, get back
into that framework that you've already
established.
I really agree with you, Terri.
And, you know, similarly,
on the other side of that, let's say,
because it happens to most people,
let's say you've gone off track, whether
you've fallen off your fasting or
(11:32):
your way of eating has gone
out the window for a certain amount of time.
Some people will come to me
after such a time, whether it's been a
holiday, a rough time in their life, an
illness, whatever it is, and they'll
say, "You know, I really want to switch
gears and get back on track with
a five-day fast," for example.
(11:54):
And it's almost punitive to themselves.
And what I say is, "Why don't we, for
example, do some fat fasting this week,
get back into some 24s
for a week, then get back to alternate-day."
If you want to do an extended fast
and there are no reasons that you should not
do that, then, by all means, I will
(12:15):
support that, but it shouldn't be used as
a punishment or as a
way to shunt yourself back
on to the right track.
You should build back up the way you did
initially.
You're singing my song here, Bethany.
I am someone who really
cautions people about that and so I love
(12:36):
that you highlighted this so well.
That idea that, oftentimes, people
want to compensate for
a holiday meal, or a vacation,
or somehow being off track
by reining themselves
in to the other degree
of intensity.
So they go overboard and want to jump
(12:58):
into a really long fast to make up for what
just happened these last few days.
And often I see people kind of
get into more trouble because now not only
are they already in the place where they were
struggling, but now they've upped the ante,
they've made a harder goal to get
back in. And so, like you said, going
back, dialing back the intensity
(13:19):
a little bit, using some fat fasting first,
focusing just on getting back to whole
foods, no snacking,
no grazing.
And then maybe next week you can start to
increase your number of hours
of fasting again.
I had a Latin teacher in high school
and he used to say, "If you haven't
(13:40):
studied for the exam
prior to the night before the exam,"
he said, "Don't study at all.
Just go to sleep." And he said, "The reason
is-- it has nothing to do with, you know,
sleep and performance.
He said, "The reason is, you know, Michael
Jordan trains year-round." This
is when Michael Jordan still played in the
NBA. "Michael Jordan plays year-round.
(14:02):
He doesn't play seven hours
straight of basketball before
a big game and then go home and go to sleep."
And he said, "You need to be putting in your
time every single day." Fasting
is no different.
There is absolutely no way around
it. It's a long haul.
I'm so impressed that you took Latin.
(14:22):
I'm still caught up on that detail, Bethany!
I totally agree.
And so many of us want to show up
for this big fast, but
it's what we do midday,
evening, and morning every day
that really makes the difference, not
showing up for that really intense one big
fast every couple of months or
(14:43):
in a compensatory way.
I think that is one reason that
people want to get
into alternate-day or
extended fasting right off
the bat. And I really do have
sympathy and empathy for people
who come to The Fasting Method
because they have tried every
(15:05):
other diet or way
of losing weight that they have been exposed
to. And so I completely
understand why someone
would think, "Well, I don't want to focus
more on my eating.
I can't fix my eating.
That's why I'm here.
I need to fast it off."
(15:26):
Now, the truth of the matter is fasting
is a therapeutic way
of losing weight, of losing fat.
You are not going to be doing (if you
do this correctly) therapeutic
fasting for the rest of your life, and
so there is no way around
learning to work with
(15:48):
your relationship with food, building
a healthy relationship with food.
So, as tempting as I think
it is for some people to try to
out-fast a poor
way of eating, it's the same
thing that the fitness industry has been
saying correctly (this is something they've
been saying correctly) for years, which is
(16:08):
you can't outrun a bad diet.
And the same is true for fasting.
Now, once you build up to the point
where you are able to do consistent,
alternate-day fasts and to sprinkle
in extended fasts, then fasting
really (in my experience and
that of my clients) really can seem a little
(16:29):
miraculous because it feels easy,
it's comfortable, and it works.
But you need to build up to that point
otherwise you're going to be setting yourself
back.
I think that's a good point, too, that, if
you find that you have been able
to do it well (you've been able to
therapeutically fast and
have good results and feel good doing it)
(16:51):
and then suddenly it's not working,
you're not getting results, or
you don't feel well, or
one of the favorite phrases I think of people
in our community is to say, "I'm on the
struggle bus." If you find
yourself on the struggle bus,
where are you going to go?
You don't need a different map.
(17:12):
You need to go back to the same map.
Go back to the fundamentals,
get yourself strong, get yourself--
you know, maybe there's some tension or
stress needs to be relieved in there,
but circling back to those fundamentals
is so important rather
than, "I'm going to jump to some other
fantastical kind of
(17:34):
fasting manipulation of this."
Nope! Go back to those fundamentals,
go back to your-- like you said, Bethany,
go back to eating well
in a way that serves your body, go
back to TRE, build
up to the fasts again.
The other thing that I hear so many people
talk about is they look a little
(17:56):
defeated when I say that because it feels
to them like they're going backwards.
And I know we talked about this before
in an episode with Coach Heather
about it's kind of like a video game.
You know, you don't start all the way over
again at the very beginning of the game,
you get to go back to the most recent
(18:17):
level of achievement.
And so, when we have to kind
of go to the fundamentals
again, it doesn't mean we're at square
one and we don't know anything, but
we do need to go and
rehearse them again, practice them again,
let them work again
before dialing back up.
(18:38):
I've had that same experience, Terri,
with people being disappointed or even
frustrated that
I'm not recommending that,
right off the bat, for example, they jump
into a 72-hour fast, which I would
not do because I don't think, for most
people, that it's safe, let alone comfortable
or conducive to wanting to fast
(19:00):
for months if that's what you need to do.
So it really is a mindset shift
and it does require a bit of trust
in the process that you build
up slowly over time.
You could also liken this to
any kind of physical training, you
know, training for a marathon or
(19:22):
training for a powerlifting competition.
There are tons of adaptations
that happen in the body that take
months to build up,
but if you start
your marathon training right out of the
gate with an 18-mile run, or
you start powerlifting and you want
(19:42):
to hit a one-rep max every single
day, you're more likely to get injured than
anything else. So it really is taking
a stepwise approach over time that's going
to be the most effective.
Absolutely. I love-- people who
come to my Community groups know that I love
a lot of sports analogies, even though I'm
really not that into sports.
(20:02):
But I think they're things that we all have
some familiarity with, even if we've never
done them.
Like, it makes sense to anyone, if
I say, if you decided tomorrow
that you wanted to run a marathon
and you wanted me to coach you on it,
you would look at me like I had four heads
if I said, "Great, go out and run 18
(20:22):
miles tomorrow." I mean,
I don't know, maybe you're really fit and
somehow you did it, but where is
that going to take you?
It's not going to help build what you're
working on building.
If you're like me and you're just starting
out, I started with that 'Couch
to 5K' program.
I think on the first day of that the longest
(20:43):
you run is something like 30 seconds.
I had to really build
up to the point where I could run
three miles at a time, and then
I could get further into my run,
and then, eventually, I could do a half
marathon.
But I guarantee you I didn't start it and
say, "Oh, I want to run my half marathon
next week so I'm going to have to train
(21:05):
hard this week." It's a really great
way for me to think about it is you
start slow and low and then you
build up. You build that stamina,
the knowledge, even the muscle
memory or the experience of it so that
you know how it goes as you get
into those longer
(21:25):
segments. Similar with fasting,
TRE is a short version of
fasting, and then you build your way up to
longer fasts.
You know, Terri, I likened this
process or this journey to a
marathon.
You know, this is semantic, but
I do think it's a little bit more
(21:46):
like a duathlon because you have the
eating and you have the fasting.
And so I don't know about you, but
I have had clients say
something to the effect of,
"Well, I didn't get my
three-mile run in yesterday,
and the reason I didn't not get my three-mile
(22:08):
run in yesterday is because I was
not asked to ride
40 miles on my bike." In other words,
they say, "Well, no, I did not do
TRE and no snacking
this week. And the reason is I
think I need to do more fasting."
What do you say to clients-- I'm guessing
you've had clients ask the same of you.
(22:30):
What do you say to that?
In some way, Bethany, as I think about that,
I go back to our kind of topic
of this whole episode of
the foundations, the fundamentals
is about balance, it's about relying
on the two really necessary
aspects.
So it would be like
(22:51):
if someone doing a duathlon was spending
all of their focus on one
aspect of it and that
didn't lead them or allow them to
develop the other aspect, they're going to
have a tough time in that competition.
You've got to be kind of equally
trained, equally balanced
in those things.
(23:12):
And so often I see people
trying to do the fasting without being
equally balanced in the food
area, and they think the solution
will be, "Let me just fast more, let me do
some more fasts this week because that's how
I'll control this." And
really fasting and eating well, is not about
controlling yourself, it's about
(23:34):
doing what's healthy in a balancing
effort for your body.
It would be like that athlete saying, "Well,
let me just do the cycling." I could
see myself-- if I were training for this,
I enjoy the cycling part.
I do not enjoy the running part.
So my coach would be like, "Erm, Terri, I
notice you clocked a lot of miles on the
(23:56):
bike this week, but you haven't done any
of the running." Yeah,
because I feel better able to
manage what I'm doing when I'm on the bike
than when I'm running.
And that's what I see people doing - leaning
too heavily on the fasting and not paying
any attention to the eating are not paying
enough attention to the eating - they're
(24:17):
going to maybe their strong suit.
And, for some of us, that's the opposite -
we lean so heavily on, "I'm
eating properly, I'm eating foods
that work for my body," and they're not
ever leaning into that part
that seems more challenging for them of
getting the fasting going.
(24:37):
That was me.
That was me and my journey.
It took me six months
to be able to do an alternate-day fast.
And part of that was physiological,
but I think a large part of that was mental
as well. I spent a lot of time
eating a high-fat, low-carbohydrate
diet and doing 24-hour
(24:58):
fasts, three 24-hour fasts a week
and I started to feel better.
I had a slight fat loss,
but it wasn't until I got to that fasting,
that alternate-day fasting, consistently
(two or three times a week) that
I really started healing and
losing fat.
(25:18):
And it was frustrating but what I
say to people, even though that's not
what I recommend-- I don't recommend that
people take six months to build up to an
alternate-day fast because, for most people,
it's just not necessary and
you can lose motivation in that time.
What I do think it did for me is
I really built a new relationship
(25:38):
with food during that time.
I got lots of practice in
eating and preparing food, so I think
that was beneficial in that way.
It seems like that was part of you
developing the one side strong enough
so that, when you brought the other side in,
there was a good balance.
And I think that's, you know, another
(25:59):
important part of this whole topic
of fundamentals - we want
to have both of them be strong.
And, you know, we might,
for a while, lean too heavily on one
because we feel safer.
And I know this sounds surprising to some
people, but a lot of people report they feel
safer fasting, even though, for
(26:20):
many of us, that was the harder part
to begin.
They feel safer fasting because
they don't have to make decisions about food,
whereas once they're eating, it's all
kinds of decisions that need to be made.
So I think kind of just going back to, as
we're talking about, those foundations,
(26:41):
and the fundamentals of
fasting and eating, while they are balanced.
And whether you, as I
said, you're going through a
holiday season, or
some of us are coming into a
new season and a new time of year,
vacations, family stressors,
(27:02):
work stressors, balancing
your fundamentals is always
the best route to go.
And, unfortunately, I've watch so many people
feel the need to increase
the intensity - "Let me fast more.
Let me take five more things out of my diet
right now." It's not the best time to
do this while you're navigating
(27:24):
these other stressors in life.
So coming back to the fundamentals,
coming back to that foundation.
So, Bethany, I think that you and I have
covered a lot today in our thoughts
around this whole topic, and I
just wondered if you had any kind of
closing encouragement that you
wanted to share before we close out here.
(27:47):
I would share with people that, similarly
to whatever it is they're comparing
themselves to in other areas
of life, if you're starting out
with fasting, don't
worry that someone else in
the Community, or someone else on Facebook,
or who you know in your neighborhood is doing
(28:07):
a 48-hour fast
and you are eating six times
a day.
Focus on, first,
changing what you're eating so that you're
not hungry that often, that frequently,
then focus on eating square
meals, really taking a stepwise
approach. These are all examples,
(28:29):
but don't plan on jumping in.
It's paradoxical in a way - the
slower you try to go, the more you'll
probably be able to do more
quickly, as opposed to, if you just--
if you've never fasted before and
you dive right into a five-day
water fast, it's going to be really
uncomfortable and it might leave you with a
(28:51):
sense that fasting is not for you.
So I would just be prepared to
trust the process and
take your time with this.
You know, Bethany, as you were just talking,
it reminded me of one more thing I wanted to
share, and that is, when I was in
high school, I was a pretty bright student
and I really had horrible
(29:12):
habits.
I didn't study, I didn't do
the work, I would write all of my papers
the last night before they were due.
And I had a really good friend
who was struggling with
some of the academic knowledge
part, but she had such good
habits.
(29:32):
She worked on it every day, she got
support.
You know, she did all of the things that you
should do.
And I remember then kind of looking at
that and, you know, I think she was a little
bit like, "Oh, man, if only I
could tackle this information as
easily as Terri can," but by the time
we went to college and things, who do you
(29:53):
think was in a better place?
She knew how to work through
difficult content.
I only knew how to fly through
stuff that kind of just came easily to me,
and I-- you know, that didn't last very long.
And I really struggled then because I didn't
have the fundamentals.
I didn't have good study skills,
(30:14):
I didn't have good organizational
skills and things.
So I encourage people to keep
looking at this. There's no quick way to the
end of this race.
The fundamentals, the basics are really
the place to keep yourself going.
And like you said, Bethany, even if you're
hearing, "Oh my gosh, this person's done that
(30:34):
achievement, lost this much weight, or did
this length of fast," stick with
your fundamentals because that's what's
actually going to carry you through.
Like you said, you're going to accomplish
more in the long run.
All right, folks, we have, I think,
dived as deep as we could dive on this topic.
I hope that you pull something from this
today to help you in your journey,
(30:57):
whether you're a beginner faster, whether
you've been doing this for years and you're
struggling, or if you're just somewhere
in between navigating different
things that life has brought you, to keep
working on your fundamentals and don't see
them as doing less-than.
You are succeeding when you're using your
fundamentals.
(31:18):
Until next week when there's another episode,
take good care, everyone.
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