Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - The Art of Intuitive Fasting – With Dr. Will Cole

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

// R E A D Y • S E T • R E S E T This episode is all about how effortless intuitive fasting can be and how we can use mindset tools to approach a fasting lifestyle. Dr. Will Cole is a leading functional-medicine expert who consults people around the world via webcam and locally in Pittsburgh. Named one of the top 50 functional-medicine and integrative doctors in the nation, Dr.Cole specializes in clinically investigating underlying factors of chronic disease and customizing a functional medicine approach for thyroid issues, autoimmune conditions, hormonal imbalances, digestive disorders, and brain problems.  He is the bestselling author of Ketotarian, The Inflammation Spectrum, and the New York Times Bestseller Intuitive Fasting in which he shows how to use the powerful benefits of flexible intermittent fasting to gain metabolic flexibility and find food peace. Dr. Cole is the host of the new podcast The Art of Being Well, and has co-hosted the popular podcasts goopfellas podcast and Keto Talk. In this podcast, we cover: What intuitive fasting means Why diet tribalism can turn toxic What actually will break your fast How fasting can be different for every woman Mindset tools to approach a fasting lifestyle // R E S O U R C E S  M E N T I O N E D Feel the impact of Organifi - use code PELZ for a discount on all products!  Fasting Cheat Sheet Book: Intuitive Fasting The Art of Being Well Podcast // M O R E  O N  D R.  W I L L  C O L E Dr. Will on Instagram Dr. Will on Facebook   // F O L L O W Instagram | @dr.mindypelz & @theresetterpodcast Facebook | /drmindypelz & /theresetterpodcast Youtube | /drmindypelz   Please note the following medical disclaimer: By listening to this podcast you understand that this video is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice. Always seek the guidance of your doctor with any questions you may have regarding your health or medical condition.  

You can't heal a body you hate. You cannot shame your way into wellness or obsess your way into health. To me, it's just, it's more than a talking point. It is, it is a genesis. It is the genesis of sustainable wellness. I am a woman on a mission that is dedicated to teaching you just how powerful your body was built to be. I like to do that by bringing you the latest science, the greatest thought leaders, and applicable steps that help you tap into your own internal healing power. The purpose of this podcast is to give you the power back and help you believe in yourself again.

My name is Dr. Mindy Pels and I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. On this episode of the Resetter podcast, we go back to my fasting roots. So you guys are in for a treat. This next episode, I got to pick the brain of Dr. Will Cole. Now, if you're not familiar with Will Cole, he just put, about a book, New York Times bestselling book called Intuitive Fasting. Now I want to give you a little behind the scenes on intuitive fasting. You'll hear it in this interview that when I first heard the title, I thought that is brilliant because there is a very intuitive part of fasting that

nobody's really talking about. And when it comes to fasting, we really need to be more in a cycling of fasting and not a rigidity of fasting. So I absolutely love. It. Now, ironically, and you're going to hear us talk about it in this episode, he got a lot of backlash for the title of this book from many of the different eating disorder communities and people who felt that his concept around intuitive was too difficult to achieve. Now, what you're going to hear in this episode is how effortless intuitive fasting can be. You're also going to hear what a gentle, kind man he is. and how we can use mindset tools, how we can listen to our inner voice when we approach a fasting lifestyle. We also go into some of my favorite questions I get asked all the time about fasting, what breaks a fast, what's more important, what you eat or when, how long you fast, what does it matter if you mix your fasts up? Do men and women need to fast differently? I mean, we went into it all and it was a really fun discussion for the

the two of us to have because we both have large communities that are practicing these principles. And I just enjoyed my time with him. And I think you guys that are fasting are going to find some incredible knowledge here to take your fasting to another level. I think you're also those of you that are new to fasting are going to find some really easy ways to approach a fasting lifestyle. So Dr. Will Cole, and we're talking everything you need to know about intuitive fasting, if you're not familiar with him. He is the best-selling author of Ketotarian, which we do talk about keto and vegetarian in this. And he wrote a book called The Inflammation Spectrum. So enjoy Dr. Will Cole. I really love this concept of intuitive fasting. And I would love to hear your description of it

because I can tell you in teaching fasting to my community, we really don't have a good sense of what intuitive means when it comes to food or no food. it. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a concept that's born out of my clinical work of really bringing a mindfulness practice to fasting and using fasting as a meditation and as a mindfulness practice. So it is when I wrote the book, it's just me trying to convey in literary form what I see clinically really work for people is to what I call in the book, I call them metaphysical meals. It's just like check in with your body, check in. with your energy levels, your digestion, your health goals, whatever they may be, your brain function, and bring in acts of stillness into your life as you're fasting to start to learn, like, have a renegotiate your relationship with your body because there's so much training, there's so much indoctrination when it comes to food and how we use food and our bodies and how we feel about our bodies.

So it's an exploration, introspective exploration, about our health and our body and a relationship of those over the course of the book. So I walk people through this experience, this protocol of learning about yourself, of learning about your health while at the same time building metabolic flexibility, but also growing that mindfulness muscle, which I think is really important. Because metabolic flexibility on a physical level is firm foundation for more mindful eating and intuitive fasting, not because you're restrictive or it's disordered eating, but you can go longer without eating when you're more metabolically flexible because your blood

triggers more stable because you're more metabolically flexible. So intuitive fasting will be an outpouring of that the more you get into the rhythm and the art of this of learning about your body. But also will have grown the mental, emotional, spiritual side of it as well. So I think the physical stuff's important to build because if someone's metabolically inflexible, it's really fasting will be anything but intuitive. It's paradoxical on purpose. I mean, it won't be intuitive. But the more metabolic flexibility you have, there will be a beautiful rhythm that you build for yourself over time.

And it takes time. It takes time. It's not a quick fix. But that mental emotional side of it is really important too, because that way you can see what's serving you and what's not serving you. And it's okay to be gentle some days. You may plan for that 18 hour fast or that old mad day. And you just show up for yourself and say, no, I'm going to, I need a 12.12.

I need like just a basic day of just refeating and taking it easy. So there's that analogy that I use in the book is sort of this proverbial yoga class for your metabolism. As somebody starts out yoga at the beginning, yoga won't be intuitive. Yoga will be very unnatural because maybe the person's inflexible. Same is too with someone's with metabolic inflexibility. Fasting will not be intuitive, but when they start getting flexibility on a metabolic level, just like that yoga becomes a practice, this fasting will become a, a practice and an art where you can ebb and flow and show up for yourself because you feel

great doing these things that really serve you. Do you think it's hard to learn that? Like, one of the things I, I mean, my kids are grown now, but when my kids were little, I really got a sense of what an outside in world we live in and that we have really been taught, if you're not feeling good, put something from the outside in. If your kid is not feeling well, you got to take a medication. and put something from outside in. And we really haven't been taught, even though we come pre-programmed with this intuition.

Do you think society knocks it out of us and it's hard to untrain what society's done? Yeah, I think that it's probably always been a human issue, right, with the way that we live our lives throughout history. But I think now more than never, we're so divorced from our roots and we're so divorced from checking in with our body. people think just because something's common, they equate that with being normal. Ubiquity doesn't necessarily equate with normalcy, and many people are so divorced from what's even normal. It's interesting, I started out the book with a quiz so they can kind of learn and be more introspective about their body, and that quiz is our questions that I adapted from questions

that I ask patients. So it's interesting how many times as a clinician when I'm consulting patients, or people say, whoa, like, I thought that was normal. And they just like, I thought that was just me. I thought that. And then they have this realization of saying, I was settling for not feeling good just because I thought that was the way it was quote unquote normal. And it's really amazing to see people check in with themselves.

And I, yeah, I agree with you. Like overall, we are, we don't realize like what our body's ability to do where it's not always adding more stuff from the outside. Sometimes it's allowing our body the chance to upregulate things from the inside out. Yeah. And tap into these pathways that are lying in a slumber, in dormancy, and we haven't given our body the chance to do what it's capable of. Yeah.

I mean, to me, that's what I love about fasting is you can take a person who is dubious and doesn't believe in the healing power of their own body or hasn't been educated. and you start to teach them how to fast and you reconnect them with this intelligence they didn't even know they had. And they don't have to believe in it. You just have to show them the way and the body does the rest. Yeah. You're absolutely right. It's so funny that when people say about any one of these tools that we have within health and wellness and functional medicine,

they'll say something like, well, do you believe in it or do you believe in this or do you believe in fasting? Do you believe in healthy? It's like this isn't a faith. This is just like, it's just, it's just a matter of belief or not believe. Try it. How does it serve you? Give your body the chance to lean into these pathways. But it's just, you're right.

You're going to notice it in your life. You don't have to believe in anything. You're just going to see it. The evidence will speak for itself. Yeah, which is what is so incredible. So, okay, so what does intuitive fasting look like? Because the other question that I had, when I, when I, your book first came out, I thought to myself, okay, well,

there's these days when I don't really want to fast, but I know it's 10 o'clock in the morning, and I know, hey, I'm not going to be able to get to some food till maybe two or three this afternoon. And if I just sit tight, ketones are going to kick in. I go along my way by two or three in the afternoon. I'm not hungry anymore. My body's in a rhythm. So when you have those moments where the body's like eat or eat chocolate cake or eat something,

is that how do we distinguish between what's intuitive in the moment and what's just my mind telling me, hey, I need a state changer. That's a big part of the conversation of the book because it's really nice for us to say I am an intuitive eater or like even saying I'm when I call the book intuitive fasting. It was paradoxical on purpose because if someone's in the throes of stress, right, if they're stressed out, are they a lot going on in their life or if a physiological, If they have blood sugar imbalances and, you know, hormone imbalances or hangariness or insatiable cravings, if they're stuck in that sugar burning mode, all of that stuff will disguise themselves as your intuition.

So I want people to grow in the mindfulness side of things and grow in the metabolic flexibility side of things to have that awareness on what worked for them and what doesn't work for them. So that goes back to that art and practice of really learning about your body and evolving. And at the beginning, I want people to follow the protocol in the book to learn that art of yourself and learn that rhythm of your body and what's serving you and what's not. That art of learning about yourself won't happen overnight. So I want people to cycle through that protocol as many times as they needed to to start to improve their health in a physical level, i.e. metabolic flexibility, which is that foundation for intuitive mindful eating. But also growing in that mindfulness awareness. So every day is going to be slightly different.

So there are days, like you said, where you know, if you lean into that deeper fast in the morning, you're going to feel fantastic, but you have the awareness to know that. You have that awareness to say, look, that initial hangariness or that initial craving isn't really going to serve me. And you have the agency over your health, not in an obsessive, restrictive way, but in a real, what I call in the book, food piece, you have this governing piece that allows you to make that rational, logical, a way. a decision for your body. Many people aren't at that point. You know this, but like many people are

just sort of completely enslaved by their cravings and enslaved with their hangariness and they confuse that stuff for themselves or in and then even today with the movement that's happening on social media with the intuitive eating community. They'll call that their intuition. I mean, hangariness is not your intuition. I mean, and blood sugar volatility is not your intuition. You can make it sound nice. You can put a nice filter out on Instagram. But when you look at labs and look at somebody's quality of life, it's really not anything intuitive because your intuition is never going to lead you towards a unhealthy body. It's just never going to do that. So your intuition is going to want to preserve you and make you feel healthier and vibrant

and make you live the most vibrant life you can live. So that's really that conversation that I'm having in the book is I wanted to have an authentic conversation about this idea of intuition and food and fasting, but to have that, we need to talk about the health stuff. And I think that it's good for people to use that protocol at the beginning to start to learn about themselves. But then later on, they can evolve that. And the protocol will look different intuitively as we are all different. We all are different. Right. How long do you think it takes if you're somebody who has been, I mean, I'll use myself as an example. My mom was the classic. You had a rough day. You're not feeling good. let's sit down and have a meal. And so I learned over the years that if you're not feeling good,

eat. So when I came to fasting, that was really hard to undo because what did I do when I wasn't feeling good? Now, when I first learned fasting, I could have said, hey, it's really intuitive right now. I'm not feeling very well. I'm going to need to break my fast. How long do you feel like it takes to get the rhythm? I mean, I know what it did for, it took me. And are there tools to help us bridge that place from where we used food to soothe our souls to really tapping into the intuitive part of us. It depends on our starting point. I mean, I know as a clinician, I mean, like, I'm meeting people at so many different points of their health journeys. Some people have been at this for a while and then are doing some good things that are improving their awareness, the body awareness and their metabolic

flexibility. Some people are not at all. So it depends on your starting point. But that's part of the reason why I put the quiz in the book so they can retake that quiz to kind of check in with their improvements. And maybe after every cycle of the four-week protocol, take it again. And you'll see your score come down. And that's a sign that metabolic flexibility is rising. Your health is rising. So I would say the average person, I mean, after one month, I want to see considerable change is moving in the right direction. After two to three months of cycling through, I think you should be solidly more aware of your body. That's typically the sweet spot.

Not that everyone's going to be 100% in that time, because we know this is a journey for life, but you'll continue to at least evolve to the place of evolving the protocol for yourself because you're going to be able to experiment each week is a different type of fasts with a different type of like goal that we're trying to achieve or support. So after two or three cycles. It goes on it. Yeah. Yeah, I really find that most people will say, oh, I felt really good doing this.

I'm going to do more of that. I'm going to do less of that. It didn't work for me right now. So they'll evolve that protocol for themselves. It won't be a protocol. It'll just be their life. And then what's important for people to realize is what serves you today isn't necessarily what will serve you forever and ever.

So it's okay to pivot and evolve even as you lean into these practices. That's the art of it all, is that you'll be able to say, well, maybe this. this certain fast, this omad worked great for a season, but that season has passed. I need to like do something else. So I want people to be okay with adjusting things and being flexible with themselves because these are all amazing, beautiful therapeutic tools that will be dynamic as your health is dynamic. And your situations externally change too. Yeah. Do you think there's one fast that the human body benefits from the most? No, I think that there, I, what I love about the protocol in the book and a conversation that I am having in part is variability. I think variability

is a very powerful tool to keep people from being stagnant in that metabolic flexibility because I find that like these deeper fast and can be great therapeutic tools for some people, but then they do it for months and months and months and never deviate and then they think, wow, this isn't working for me like it used to work for them. So sometimes it's counterintuitive, especially for the fasting officiantado is to like loosen up and allow more of a refeeding time and shakes things up with leptin and shakes things up with the hormone system. So sometimes it's the expanding and contracting, the vacillating eating and fasting windows that keep things flexible just like that yoga class. It's like there's a time and place for holding that warrior too, but there's also a time

in place for that shavasana and laying your butt down and chilling out. So I want people to have that grace and lightness to this is they don't have to think more is better. And it's like constantly doing these deeper fast because I think the variability is really the spice of metabolic flexibility. Yeah, we have had such an interesting experience with our community. We do a five-day fasting challenge together every month and we throw out different fasts. And all the OMAD people came pouring on to my platform. And they were like, I was so great at fasting. I lost, I just talked to one this morning on Clubhouse.

They were like, I lost 44 pounds in nine months. It was amazing, and now I'm stuck. So in your opinion, why is that happening? Well, I mean, the diagnostician nerd in me wants me want to want to run labs and see where that's at. But oftentimes leptin, right, leptin's high for many people that do really, really well with fasting because they have leptin resistance. And intermittent fasting, time compressed feeding, different types of fasting protocols

will help to lower leptin, which is really a lot of the benefits. And it's also resetting the gut microbiome. It's, it's lowering inflammation levels. It's doing amazing things with insulin and blood sugar, doing all that cool stuff, right? But then you get to the point. And I talk about this in the book. It's in the week four of the book. It's the hormone rebalance week where we really talk about it's counterintuitive,

but like opening up that window and increasing clean carbohydrates too to support gluconeogenesis in a bigger way and support just glucose overall in a bigger way, I should say, by supporting thyroid hormone conversion, by boosting leptin up a little bit, by supporting progesterone more, depending on, you know, if you're cycling female or not. So I think that these are all things that's shaking things up and loosening up in some ways can be a great way to move past a plateau. So I know the OMAD person. I love you said the OMAD people. Like they're a tribe. They are a tribe. And they don't want to do anything different. They want to stay because they got great results with OMAC. Yeah, right. And then they hold into it like it's like a religion.

I mean, it's like anything, right? And the keto community has that any types of fasting, but like a subset community within the fast community, OMAT people are diehard. But the reality is loosening things up. I've seen this time and time again can be good. Experiment, see how you feel, run labs when necessary. And realize that it's served you for a time, but then long term, what does maintenance look like for me? So week three in the protocol is an almost. almost omad week. It's an amazing tool. I use that, but it's not, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, vacillating. It's not, we're not doing omad forever and ever. Right. Okay. What do you think is more important how long you fast or what you break your fast with? Oh, good question. I like this.

I would say, here's what I would say. You're going to get benefits from both the food and the fasting, right? You're going, and there's amazing studies to show this. And we all probably, we know patients and friends maybe in our lives that don't eat the best but fast and see amazing changes. So there's definitely fasting holds its own for having amazing benefits and you don't have to be perfect with your diet or don't even need to change much with how you eat to see some changes for many people. But I would say that the other side of the coin is food has amazing things. Even if somebody's eating big windows and they're not really fast, even if they're eating late at night, but they're eating healthy foods, you're still going to see amazing changes.

So I see them two sides of the same coin, but when you bring them together and improve the foods you eat and improve that way that you, your time, your way that you're eating and bring integrated fasting into your life, it's exponentially going to benefit both. So as a functional medicine practitioner, I'm not going to advocate somebody to fast their way out of a poor diet, just not going to. Does that mean you have to be perfect? No, there's no, it's not about that. It's about loving your body enough to do things that make you feel.

good and really having this paradigm shift because what I can see happening is some people, not to say that's a large group in the authentic fasting community, but there's a lot of people that aren't really new, they're new to the fasting world. They're coming in with a lot of dieting, dogma and food shame and all that stuff. And then they're not changing their foods. And then we're telling them to fast. Like this should not be a disordered eating disguise as a wellness practice. And I think a lot of times people think, I'm going to just like eat junk food.

I'm on really fast the next day because I just wasn't good eater. That's not healthy. So we need to reframe why we're even doing this. And these should be both acts of service for your health and service for how you feel. And I don't think someone long term should be like trying to fast their way out of a poor diet. Yeah, I love that. So do you think you should apply the same principle to eating as we do to fasting? So if we're going to vary our fast, should we vary?

our foods. And if we're going to vary our foods, do you think as somebody who wrote keto, ketotarian, is that how we said it, ketotarian, that you could be a ketotarian one day and a carnivore the next? Yeah. I mean, ketotarian, it's quite flexible. I mean, the title of the book, I just called it mostly plant-based. So it's actually more of a Mediterranean ketogenic diet because it has wild-caught fish and fresh seafood. And yeah, so that's the approach. and I talk about in ketotarian, which came out in 2018, that of a cyclical ketotarian approach. So I very much want the average person to do a cyclical because it or seasonally even, if that's what that looks like from an ancestral health perspective, like being more in ketosis,

deeper fast during the winter and then having more fresh fruits and tubers and lighter fast in the summer. I mean, there's many ways for you to do the variability thing. It could be around your menstrual cycle, it could be around the month, it could be around the week. It could be seasonally. I mean, I think the variability is a tool that people need to integrate and whatever works for you sustainably, you should experiment with these things. But there is a time in place for a carnivore protocol. I mean, I put patients on carnivore protocols, a well-formulated nutrient-dense, clean carnivore diet are things that I have to use clinically sometimes for people that have wild food reactions. They have reactions to just about every oxalate, lectin,

histamine salacillate thing you can think of. And we use that as an ultimate elimination diet for a time to untangle that. So, yeah, there's a time and place to use that as part of this variability. But then we lean them out of it. Then we lean them into soups and stews and pureade vegetables and low fodmap vegetables. And long term, I don't see anybody saying like pure carnivore forever and ever. But I think it's a tool to calm things down for a calm a wild. unregulated immune system down.

Yeah. And I think, again, just the feedback that I get from my community and listening to how people's mindset is around food is that we really want to put ourselves in one camp, kind of like the OMAD people. We have the vegan people. We have the carnivore people. And we find our camp. And we get really excited about that.

Do you think that we do ourselves a disjustice when, we decide I'm a vegan. I'm a carnivore. I'm whatever camp. That there really shouldn't be a one diet plan for any human. I think it can be good to find community. I think it could be good to find solutions. Like you said,

most of these people comes in with the best of intentions. Like when they clean up their diet and went plant-based, it changed their life. Or they love animals. like there's some good stuff to that. Like they want to like treat the earth better and like they're going in with really good intentions and they hear about all the environmental implications of like factory farming and they're doing that or their health improved because they got up tons of junk food and

it's like they that was their path to feeling better or the carnivore. Like we know the epidemic of autoimmune problems and the amount of reactions that people are having to even healthy foods. It helps people. So then they get super tribal about it. I think as long as you're trival. tribalism is open-minded and saying like this worked for me, but I still respect you. And I'm okay with pivoting and evolving.

If it comes to the point where I don't need to keep doing this all the time, I think then that's completely fine. The problem is when people, when you have this toxic tribalism, which I don't know what the heck we're having toxic tribalism in wellness. Like we're talking about health and wellness and food. Like leave that to the politicians. Like the strange political. political stuff. We should be like coming together and saying like, okay, that works for you.

That doesn't work for me. That's the bio-individuality. That's the heart of functional medicine. Let's be okay with differences. Yes. And be okay with a lot more in common than we have a difference. Because we all agree that factory farming isn't good. We all agree that process refined stuff isn't good. So let's just focus on that. And then the details of the types of macros we focus on or the types of foods that we eat, it should not create such a toxic tribalism. And I see, I saw it when intuitive fasting came out. I mean, I didn't realize that. I don't know if you saw like the craziness. I did. I did. I was going to ask you about it. Well, go ahead and tell it because I was like, oh, poor will. Yeah, it's like, you stepped into a was was nest. You didn't know was there.

Definitely not. I mean, talk about, I'm sittingly, I see patients 11 hours a day. I wrote the book at the end of 2019, over 2020, I wrote intuitive fasting. I thought this is going to be, because I knew it was actually in the book. I thought this is going to be such a new thing for the average person to learn that this is a mindful, gentle, flexible approach to intermittent fasting because I know it's important. And I was bringing a different perspective to the conversation, which a lot of times, it's just lost. The context is lost around this amazing tool.

And it's not a very restrictive fasting protocol. And I didn't realize that when the book came out, that they would be so twisted in this toxic tribalism. So this example, I mean, you could say anybody, there's so much of this going on. But like for me, it was like the eating disorder community, the body positivity community. And these people that, and a lot of RDs as well that are intuitive eating coaches, they like what like a pack mob mentality, these rabbi wolves of people that didn't even. even read the book. I mean, it's such a cliche of judging a book by its cover. You never even read the book. So it was a combination of me writing it. I'm sure like someone that's not, I don't even know why. So probably me, the fact that we called it intuitive eating, intuitive fasting,

and Gwana Thalcher with the forward of the book. So she's a lightning ride for many things as well. So I think that people just misunderstood it, but that's a good example of toxic tribalism. It's like you, because it's not your thing and you're not in your echo chamber and then you get riled up from your echo chamber, you're going to demonize somebody over a food book or a fasting book. It's like, there are big problems in the world. It's so odd. It's so odd. But look, I mean, the reality is, was way more positive than negative. And honestly, I got the same thing with ketotarian, to a lesser degree. It was like the keto world could have been offended. And then, like, the plant-based world was really offended because they had an egg on the cover. And I said,

mostly plant-based. Oh, no. Fensive, like eggs are very offensive to vegans. And then you, it just, I pissed off the keto and the plant-based community. So that was a good one with keto-charing. I'm used to the toxic tribalism within wellness, man. It is strange. It's crazy.

We, you know, we have a Facebook grip, the fasting group, and then we've got like 42,000 people in it. And I kid you not, at least once or twice a week, we have to break up a fight from the vegans and the carnivores. and take a post down, do something just because of the people really struggling to allow other people to express their food habits. And it's, you know, and then there's a lot of misinformation about like what's best for the planet, not for the planet.

And I really, in today's age, I feel like more than ever, we need to allow everybody to take their own health path. And to your point in the wellness world, let's just applaud the fact that somebody hopped on a path and they're trying to do something. That is amazing. Now, I think the next evolution is we have to help everybody customize their wellness path for them. And I would say that's what I really appreciate about your book is you took a giant step

forward instead of just saying, do this, don't do that. You're like, well, there's this intuitive spirit in you that you can tap into. So I'm a fan, Will. Thank you. I thought you did a good job. And I watched people. come at you and I was like oh my gosh I can't believe that well I think the last time we were we were supposed to talk originally we were supposed to talk that week that it was all going down and I yeah

got the time zones off and I apologize with having but it like that was a week it was going down so I was like oh my lord it just it was fine it was actually quite a good meditation to go through it because it was like all right yeah I just need to have non-resistance towards now and have compassion towards people that are really triggered by they're addicted to being triggered, let's be honest, and they're addicted to being offended, and then they're addicted to food probably, that is driving inflammation and they probably have brain inflammation to some degree. So you have to have compassion towards people that feel like crap, and they hurt people, hurt people, as they say.

So true. Do you think people with eating disorders should fast? Generally speaking, no. I make that very clear in the book that this is not a book for people with, with eating disorders, even current or the past. Now, I would like to have a nuanced conversation about this because I think they should get the go ahead from their eating disorder specialist. I think they should talk to their doctor.

That's what I say, very clear in the book within the first couple pages of the book. So this is not for that. But I will say, and I'm sure you know this because you, this is like you're part of the fasting community in a big way. There are many people that got the go ahead from their eating disorder specialists. They got to go ahead from their doctor. and they feel better than ever when they got their health in order and they used to have any disorder, but they feel better than ever doing intermittent fasting because they're not starving

themselves. They feel a lot healthier because a lot of times people that have eating disorders, a, i.e., there could be obviously trauma from the past and a lot of different reasons why someone could have any disorder or the sense of control and obsession. But when you start feeling healthy and you get blood sugar balanced, you get inflammation levels lowered, you get their gut healthy, I'm telling you, when people, many people I've seen that that were just had such an unhealthy relationship with their body and such an unhealthy relationship with food to start find that food piece for themselves through intermittent fasting in part,

I think it can be an amazing tool for people, but they need to do it. I don't know where they're at on their recovery. I don't know where, what their specifics of their case. I don't know, they need to look at what type of intermittent fasting would be right for them. So I think it can be amazing tool. You just have to be judicious and get the go ahead because I have many patients that love it and they feel better than ever because they're not out of control. And by that, I don't mean that they're now in this obsessive control that they used to have with the disordered eating. I'm saying they have this resolute awareness of what works for their body and what doesn't. And they're not clinging to this sort of unsustainable, unhealthy relationship. They just have a peace and they can intuitively fast

and use it as an active service for their body. I love that. And I would absolutely agree. We've worked with a lot of people who have had eating disorders, and I've seen it like break them free from food when they do it right. And I so am in alignment with bring your whoever's helping you through that process, bring them into this conversation because there is something on the other side of that, which is incredible.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great way of putting it. You're breaking free. I've seen people break free from that because they're not addicted to food anymore. They're not bound by that addiction and then they can have this like this, they've made peace with all of it. I think it's really cool to see. But yeah, we're normally as like functional medicine practitioners, we're working with in combination with their eating disorder specialists. So they're looped in and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the way we've been taught nutrition actually disconnects us from our principles. design and what fasting does all versions of is it reconnects you. So when you get reconnected,

that inflammation comes down, you make better decisions. You see things a little clearer. So I think it's a great tool. And that bridge can be tough. So involving all your practitioners is great. Yeah. Okay. I have to ask you all the questions that I get. And I'm so curious your opinion on this. Okay, what breaks a fast? I love that. That's a comment. I probably get. ask that every day, right? Me too. Yeah. Can I say add one more thing to what you just said?

I would say this. Through all the hubbub of the book when it came out, I can't tell you how many people that were part of the eating disorder community can't message me by the hundreds that said, I can't even say this publicly because I will be attacked by the eating disorder community and the body positivity community by even saying the intermittent fasting improve my health and improving it. Like there's such a fear of that weird cancel culture within wellness that they can't even speak what they have gone through their own experience.

That's crazy. So, yeah, it's really crazy to see that. But there's an outpouring of people that I think that are looking to feel good. And a lot of times people within the eating disorder community and the body positivity community are told, eat whatever you want. Like have that donut, have that cake, have all that stuff. And could you imagine someone with autoimmunity, people that have blood, the sugar problems, that diabetes, that have anxiety issues, feeding them with these inflammatory

foods, it's not working for them. It may work for some people and that may be part of their recovery, but there are many people that it's just, that's not working and they need to find their true north and they need to calm that stuff down so they can actually hear what their body truly needs. So I think that's an important point too. Yeah, no, I thank you for pointing that out. I really, because there is, there is this genre of people that we can really help with fasting if they're doing it with the style and approach like you're teaching. Absolutely. So what breaks so fast?

This is like the age old question. So you're never going to get an agreed upon answer on this. So right, I think there's a spectrum, a gradient of things that are erring in the side up. I want this fast to be as pure. And I want to get all the benefits as possible. And then I think there's a gradient of area of fasting,

mimicking things that you're going to get most of the benefits of fasting, if not all of them, but you could be downregulating some of the benefits, but you're not canceling out your fast. You're not breaking your fast. And then there's things that break the fast. Namely, I would say higher, obviously eating more food, like above a certain calorie threshold or specifically things that could impact insulin, really impact digestion, or impact mTOR in a considerable way. So I think that the safest bet is water or liquids that don't have any calories. I think coffee and tea is in that state too. We know that cortisol could be impacted.

And some people within the keto and the fasting community that say coffee can impact insulin and all that stuff. But the reality is, look, what's happening in this hormetic effect of this hormesis of fasting? Cortisol is coming up some too. Just because something raises cortisol doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Coffee also can increase lipolisus and fat burning can increase satiety levels to make your fast easier. So I don't, I think that coffee and tea are, are a great tool to consider. And you can do caffeine free tea if you do caffeine, if you are sensitive to caffeine. But as a general rule, if you're not sensitive to caffeine, if you're a fast metabolizer

of caffeine, I think coffee and tea are like pretty solid. You're cool. I think the next step over is adding the healthy fats into the coffee and tea or water. So like the MCT oil, the coconut oil, the ghee even, where it's just. just fat. You're not getting protein. So you're not impacting insulin. It's such a negligible amount. You're not having copious amounts of these. It's just a spoonful. So calories are pretty low. You're not really impacting things one way or the other too much. If you're having multiple cups of those, I think that could be a little bit not ideal during the fast. So maybe

just do one of those and then the rest just having without the fat in it. And then the next question that people ask is, can I add the almond milk creamer? Can I add? the collagen. So like at that point, the almond milk creamer or the coconut creamer or coconut milk, the small amounts of protein, probably not that big of a deal. It is calories that are having some carbohydrates in there too, such a small amount. But if you even look at what Volta Longo is doing at USC when it comes to the fasting mimicking approach, you're having pretty significant amount of calories and proteins and fats and carbs. And the research shows you're still in a fasting mimicking state. You're not.

not breaking your fast totally, it would just be under that gradient of fasting mimicking. You're still going to be in ketosis. You're still going to be getting a lot of the benefits of it. Once you start adding in scoops of collagen protein still, calorically, not that much, really not the big of a deal. If you look at what the research on what Volta Longo is looking at, I still would say, more or less, you're going to be in a fasting mimicking state. But for me, I think erring in the side of the fact that mTOR pathway is sensitive to protein, I would err on not adding higher amounts of protein in, even if it is just a scoop of collagen, and use that collagen as the break the fast meal, like towards the end of your fast is what I would say,

because it is very gentle on the gut. It's very bioavailable, a great source of a complete protein. But I would have more of the collagen and even like soups and stews and bone broth towards the end of the fast as the break the fast meal. That's not to say that there's not a place for brothing and souping. I just think it would be more of like that fasting, mimicking state. So that's my overall thoughts on it. Yeah. Yeah, no, well said.

I think that's really well said. What do you think of the measurement of like measure your blood sugar, drink what you're going to drink, hour later, measure your blood sugar again, you know, what's that doing? Do you think that's helpful for people when they're first learning this? Oh, yeah, yeah. I think that's great. I think that at the beginning, too, metrics like that, like getting a glucoment or getting a ketone meter can be a great way to see how your body reacts.

That's a brilliant point because that bio, individuality is we're all different. And these foods are going to interplay different, how what your activity level, how you slept, all these other variables are going to play a part of it too. And that goes back to that. Use it for a time to check in with your body and to learn how your body interacts with these things. But over time, that art, that intuition, you won't necessarily have to keep measuring over and over again. Unless you're a super mega, mega biohacker and you really love that stuff, keep doing it. But many people, they don't want to be super like granular and that, you know, mired down with these the metrics all the time. So keep it simple if you want to, but at the beginning,

it could be a good learning experience about your body. Well, and that's why I think the title intuitive fasting from a fasting perspective is brilliant because I would say I know that moment where it's almost like there's switch flips. And I'm like, oh, okay, I'm in ketosis now. I get it. Like there's like a weird switch that happens. And once you've been fasting long enough, you aren't necessarily using the glucometer. You're not leaning into that. But in the beginning, you're learning your, it's like learning to ride a bike. And you're just learning that process.

And once you get it down, it becomes very intuitive to your point. Yeah. Yeah. It's a beautiful rhythm. And it's the art of it. So there's like, it's the science and the art of it. The science is all the stuff, the cool stuff. The research of how to do these things.

But the art of it is how do you translate that to you. your real life, be your own end of one experiment, and evolve that over time as your health changes. Yeah. Do you have something that you, do you strategically think about what you want to break your fast with? I actually had this conversation with Thomas Daylauer, and he, you know, buff, bodybuilding guy, he likes to work out in a fasted state and then break it with protein so that he goes from a state of autophagy to mTOR and he starts to build. I know that some people are now saying, gosh, you should think about eating your carbs earlier in the day because you're more sensitive. I know some people love to break their fast with fat.

Do you have a theory or a personal value system around what you break your fast with? I do. I do. And a little fun side note, Thomas DeLauer and I were friends. And he people, I'm like the thin version of Thomas DeLauer. People are like, you guys could be brothers. You do look a lot of like. Yeah.

Yeah, we were at some keto event. He was at a different one. We were in the same hotel at the same time for two different events. We got to hang out. He hung out with my son. My son was probably 13 at the time. He's a really cool guy. But it's funny.

Every time I post a picture, it's like I see someone in the comments section. That looks like Thomas DeLau. Well, I had to laugh because I, you know, a lot of our resetters are metapausal women. And I'm like, I had to go and interpret what Thomas said because he came to my community. And I'm like, okay, let's just look at Tom. Thomas. Thomas is like, what, a 40-year-old bodybuilding guy. Now let's apply it to a menopausal woman. What do you see? What did he say? Yeah. But, you know, he, yeah, so my thoughts on that

is that break the fast meal in the in the book, which I talk more about in week three, which is the almost omad day, right? It's the almost omad week. Because I think the once you get 18 and beyond on time compressed feeding, I think that's when the break the fast meal means the most because like the vital eye is going to be shorter, the cortisol is going to be a bit higher. You're in that deeper ketosis, more of that hormetic effect. I don't know if some people need to be that concerned with the 14, like, in below, even the 16 and below, like just eat healthy food and lean out of it. I don't know if it has to be that granular and that specific.

But I do think that the 18 and beyond and obviously multiple day fasts should have a proper break the fast meal. to me, I think that soups and stews are really helpful in that way because you're getting the protein through the broth. Like we're talking about bone broth-based things. And I think it's a great, easy-to-digest protein, very gentle on the gut. The vegetables are cooked and purified and soft, and it's sort of just gently leaning the body out of that healing state. So I think, and then about an hour, an hour and a half later, you can have your regular meal. So I think that broths and soups and sues are an easy thing to do. Other things could be, I think protein can be fine. I don't think having

too much fat at the beginning is a great idea because it could be really disruptive to your digestion earlier on. I don't think you should have lots of raw vegetables or anything that's hard to digest. I think it should be soft cooked, gentle in the gut. Smoothies, I think could work, depending on how you do them. I think smoothies could be an easy transition too. What do you think about breaking your fast with dry farm wines. Well, they will dry farms to tell you. Asking for a friend. Yeah, asking for a friend.

Well, the people at dry farms will tell you that it's not throw you out of ketosis. So, you know, that has its place. I don't drink wine, but, you know, I love dry farms for people who do for sure. Right, right, exactly. Okay, I have to ask you this question, men versus women with fasting. This is something that I spent a lot of time talking about. What are your feelings on the differences for fasting for men versus women? So I spent a lot of the book talking about that because, I mean, 90% of my patients are women.

So I would say this is that reducing women into one group is like an interesting thing. And I know that you guys, you know this already because you're in the fasting group. But like for people that are maybe new to this, like saying fasting is not good for women is very reduction. Like who is she and how is she fasting? Those are two really important things. So instead of saying fasting is not good for women, ask who is she and how is she fasting? Because there's a lot of different types of women. I know that's maybe breaking news for people, but they're all going through different things in

their life and how fasting interplays with their health and where they're at on their health journey is going to be different. And then how she's doing the intermittent fast. So I generally think that people need to, and that goes back to that intuitive fasting component of it checking in with your body because I find that therapeutically the average menstruating woman could do moderate fast for a while time compressed feeding for a while and therapeutically is going to get way more good things out of it but then there's going to from what they're going to hit a maintenance mode where leptin starts coming down and inflammation starts coming down their

guts improving their blood sugar is more balanced at that point their metabolic flexibility is improving at that point, their maintenance mode is going to find more, they're going to have to do more of a cyclical fast around their menstrual cycle. Not everybody has to, will hit that maintenance mode that quickly. Sometimes they can go months and months before they ever need to worry about doing any moderation around their menstrual cycle because they're getting so much amazing therapeutic benefits from the intermittent fast that they're still riding that high of health

improvements. Yeah. But depending on where their starting point is, when leptin starts coming down, a lot of menstruating women will do better with the lighter fasts around their period and around ovulation. And that's not just fasting,

that's also looking at your macros too. So increasing those clean carbohydrates around those days too can be one tool to consider. Or you may be lower carb and keto the other days of the month, but you're increasing their clean carbohydrates around your period and around ovulation.

Now, I'm not talking about that high of carbs either. It's how I say it in the book is 75 grams, 150 grams of carbohydrates. That's not high carb. And we're talking about increasing fruits and sweet potatoes and starches and things like that, like nothing out of the ordinary. But it's enough to shake things up, like I said, to maintain that proper balance for their hormones.

Yeah. How important do you think macros are, since you brought it up? Do you think there's something we use when we first come to these principles and then we break free from them after a while? Or do you think there's something we always want to look at? I think that's a therapeutic tool to use at the beginning to learn about your body and to physically improve your health. So I think a ketotarian or a clean ketogenic diet is a great tool. It works really well with intermittent fasting. They're both supporting beta-hydroxybutyrate. So you're mimicking

fasting even when you're not fasting. You're supporting beta-hydroxybuterate and getting a lot of the benefits of fasting without actually fasting. So I think congruantly, they will, they exponentially enhance the benefit of both, but also they make your fast easier because you're eating nutrient dense foods and you're stabilizing your blood sugar with this food. So just removing ketosis from the from the picture, you're eating really satiating foods that will make your fast easier as you're leaning into this. So there are many reasons for this. And so over time, I think as someone gains metabolic flexibility, they can adjust and intuitively adjust their macronutrients. They don't always as being ketosis, and I wouldn't recommend that for the average person.

I think a cyclical approach is how I advocated for most people. With that said, do I think that everybody has to be eating a clean ketogenic diet to intermittent fast? No, but I do think that it could be a therapeutic tool to improve how you feel in the short term. Yeah, and probably going from the standard American diet, mixing that with fasting. If you combine those two, that might be the most difficult way to fast. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, that's kind of what I've seen. Go ahead. Yeah, because your blood sugar is all over the place and what's that 18-hour window going to do? It's like you're going to have to really look at what you're doing. Are you going to see some changes? Probably. Is it, are you giving your body a break from all the crap? And your body's probably thanking you for that housing window, probably, because you're giving your body more of a time to repair. But I wouldn't recommend it long term for just someone's health.

Right, right. Yeah, okay, so I've got five rapid fire questions for you, but I'm going to add a sixth one in because I'm curious about this one. So let me start with the sixth one. If there is like one fasting hack that everybody wants the one little cool trick that makes fasting easier. Do you have one? And if so, what would it be? Yeah, two come to mind. One is so simple, but I just think it's important saying is make sure you're eating enough food during your eating window. Many people make that mistake. They're just hypochloric and they're just not eating enough. Or they think that fasting equals chronic caloric restriction. No, I want your eating window to be good.

It doesn't mean that there can't be a slight caloric deficit, but we're not dramatically lowering calories during that eating window. So make sure you're eating enough food. And number two, electrolytes, I think are talked about a lot in the community, but they're probably not given enough attention. So I think that blend, making sure you're supporting your body, especially at the beginning with sodium, magnesium, potassium, chloride, whether you make your own like saltwater elixir or you're buying like a supplement pack. I like the element. I'm sure you

yeah, we do too. Yeah. So I think those can be good and sipping on that throughout the day. It can be a great way to help your energy levels and you don't get the brain fog or like you're helping to stabilize just feeling good throughout the day, especially at the beginning. So those are my two hacks. Yeah, I love though. Those are both really great. And the minerals, you know, I never really realized how depleted our soils were until I started teaching people about fasting. And then you start seeing how those mineral deficiencies really reveal themselves. And then you go, wait, everybody's got this. Okay, if everybody has it, what's missing in our environment?

And that led me to regenerative agriculture. It's just crazy. Yeah, so good. Yeah. If we let regenerative farmers take over the government, we'd be like, we'd be doing pretty good when it comes to our problems in the world. Yeah. My brother is, my brother-in-law is one. Oh, is he? Yeah. I like that idea. Let's let them take over the world and then actually maybe we'd get out of the pandemic a little sooner because they'd be growing us food that would

actually support a healthy immune system. Yeah. Imagine that and the environment. That would be incredible. Okay. You have an awesome podcast. You've interviewed a lot of people. What's the most interesting interview that you've done that stands out for you? I talked to so many cool people, and I would love to have you on if you come on. Oh, thank you. I'd love to come. Yeah. I loved the conversation with Nicola Pera, the holistic psychologist.

She's so smart. I love her so much. She's so sweet. And that's a cool conversation. So I love that about childhood trauma and the impact that could have on people's health today. In fact, the connection between trauma and autoimmunity and inflammation, I think that that's really interesting with my work and in the research around that. El McPherson, it was her first ever

podcast. So I had to get, I was excited about that. She'd never done a podcast before. So she did it for me. And Gwyneth Paltrow was cool too, like the talking about the book. But people within the health world, Nicole the pair probably was up there, Dr. Caroline Leaf, neuroscientist, super smart. We talked about toxic thoughts and the impact that could have on our health too. So those are some of my favorite. To me, that's the most fun part about podcasting is you sit back and you go, who do I want to have a conversation with? Yeah, right. And then you get to have a conversation with them, so which is really cool. Okay. What is the one book outside of your own book that you think everybody needs to read, either in the mindset arena, mindfulness, health, but what's the one book that really

changed your life and you think could impact everyone? Yeah. I honestly think, Nicole La Pera and Caroline Leaves' work are amazing works. And I tell you how many patients, since that episode aired, since the episode aired, how many people said, I read that book and it's changed my life. So how to do the work by Nicola Pera, Dr. Nicola Pera, and then cleaning up your mental mess from Caroline, Dr. Caroline Leif, those are two amazing books that I would say in that space to consider reading. I love it. Okay. What about when you go to look for, I mean, we're all on this journey of health and learning as along with everybody else. So when you go to look for somebody that inspires you in the health world, that you love their teachings. Do you have

anybody right now that you find is just really inspiring your health brain? I don't want to keep going back to those same people, but I think Dr. Nicole in Perra is doing some really cool things. So I'm not just saying that because she's on my mind. I think she's doing some amazing stuff within the health world as far as the mind-body connection. Yeah. Because she struggled with autoimmunity and different inflammatory issues and she talks about it and dealing with that mental emotional side of physical health. So she's doing really cool things.

I'm so in my bubble. Right. I know. I know. I just like I don't get up from this. I just, I'm obviously getting up. I see patients 11 hours a day. I'm not the best for that question.

And there's so many people doing really cool things. What about your dad? Is your dad inspiring? Or you inspire him? Yeah. Well, hey, look, it's a little bit of both, maybe. But yeah, my dad, of course. Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. My dad and Dr. Pompa, I think they're doing really amazing things too. And we're coming out. We talked before we started recording. Yeah, talk about your hair product because I think this, my resetters will love this. So I'd love to hear about it. Yeah.

So it's a whole system that really Dr. Pompa put a lot of the legwork. And I'm there to. educate and to teach people about the science about it and the functional medicine side of it and how these different nutrients work. But largely that was a passion project from Dr. Pompa. And we've all seen clinically over the past years that that hair loss is one of these really sticking points where especially even in fasting community where people can have it and they're not properly supported and they don't have any direction or like it's generally

just labeled things like T.E. or alopecia and they're or that's normal. and they don't even get any direction, even though they know it's not normal. So I think giving people a very comprehensive training, but also the supplement support and even a hair serum, a probiotic hair serum, that Dr. Pumbo worked on. So it's out now. So I'm really excited for people to try it. Yeah, I'm really excited as well because that is next to what breaks a fast. How long should I fast?

I probably get my hairs falling out. What should I do? That's definitely in the top five. Yes, 100% right. Okay, five habits that you do every day for your health. You may realize you do it or don't do it. I mean, you're working 11 hour days. What are those five habits and which ones are non-negotiable?

Like, I'll always do this. This shows up in my daily habits every day. Yeah. So I would say like get optimal sleep. That's definitely, I'm not, I'll be honest with you. I'm not the best at it. So these are habits I know are important because I know research and I see patients for a living. So I know that it's such an important thing. I know for my body

intuitively, I need to give myself a little bit more sleep. So that's the thing I'm working on. And we're all works in progress for these things. So I have a lot going on. And sometimes it's hard for me to wind down. So I know all the hacks. Like I have the blue light blocking glasses. I have the weighted blanket out of the essential oil. Oh, me too. Yeah. So I'm doing it. Do you have a chili pad? Oh, no. I don't. I, if I needed one, I would take it because I recommend a chili bad. And people on my team have chili pads. But no, I don't sleep too hot at night. So, but yeah, I've heard the chili pads a game changer for people.

It is a game changer. That are like get hot night sweats and things like that. So sleep optimization, work in progress, but it's definitely not horrible. It's just could be better. And gratitude practice majorly important to me. And that's not just one thing. Like I'm doing it throughout in between talking to patients. I'm using mindfulness practice and gratitude practice.

It's nothing big and fancy and esoteric. It's just sort of like breathing and checking with my body and just being thankful, being in a state of gratitude towards the people that I'm honored to be a part of their health journey or my team or whatever that I'm thankful for at that time. Eating healthy foods, I think is non-negotiable for me. So like this stuff that we, it's not even, it's so intuitive to me that I don't even think of it as a thing, but this is definitely a non-negotiable. I'm just going to eat healthy foods, and it's just part of my life.

So that's a non-negotiable for me. Flexible intermittent fasting isn't non-negotiable for me. I just feel so good when I do it. So it's going to look different depending on the day, but it's part of it isn't unnegotiable. And I don't know if that's enough, but. Yeah, no, that works. One thought I had, this comes up a lot is where do you feel supplements? Do you think if you have a good lifestyle and your.

feeling healthy and you're on a good track, do you think you need supplements? Yeah, I do. I think most people could benefit from some, not that they would be on a lot, but food is first, just like you can't fast your way out of a poor diet. You can't supplement your way out of a poor diet for either. So I think that people should focus on food as medicine first, eating nutrient-dense foods. But there's some things that you and I both know that you're not, even just back to the mineral argument. Like, they're not getting the nutrient density that we once were. So I think behooves us, even if we are eating healthy foods to supplement with some extra things that probably were a part of the food supply at one point, but now are in less amounts.

And then also, like things like vitamin D were inside a lot. So unless you're in a loincloth in Miami for 10 hours a day, you probably have to be vitamin D deficient. And for those people that are, have fun. Like, go for it on South Beach. But I see so many people that are even in Miami that are in Los Angeles, in Texas, in the sunny areas that are still vitamin D deficient because they're inside. So, or they're covered up or they're wearing tons of sunscreen, which is needed, but sunscreen is needed, but they aren't getting the vitamin D. Yeah.

So vitamin D, B vitamins, I think are good things to consider like a methylfolate, methylcobalamine. Many people have because of our environment, they're having these methylation impairments in the body, just not methylating very well. So those are like the two basic ones that most people could benefit from. Agreed. Okay. Last question. If you had one message for the world that you could get into everybody's brain, what would

that message be? It's a true central cornerstone part of my work. Part of my work, it's you can't heal a body you hate. You cannot shame your way into wellness or obsess your way into health. Like to me, it's just, it's more than a talking point. it is a genesis, it is the genesis of sustainable wellness because most people, they can come in with like really bad relationships with themselves and with food. And then they try to like take something amazing like fasting and then abuse it by trying to shame their way out of it or try to like punish their

body with this, this fast. So I think that that has to start to be, not that you're going to be a master at this overnight, but start to recalibrate your perspective and say, how can I love my body enough to do things that make me feel good. And avoiding things that don't make me feel good isn't restrictive. It's self-respect. And you like feeling better more than you thought you missed something that made you feel really lousy. And it's just a bad trade-off. Why would you want to bring something in and it's going to dim your light? So I think that that's the biggest thing that I wish people got because that's freedom. You're not in a restrictive thing anymore. It's like, no, it's common sense. You want to do things that improve your quality of life. And I would say from a functional medicine perspective, do things

that improve your labs. Yep. Like your labs aren't lying. So when I see labs improve over and over again, it's like we're back to what we earlier said. Like I believe, like it's a belief. It's not a belief. This isn't a faith that you can actually see the fruit of these amazing tools.

Yeah. I love that. I quote you all the time on you can't heal a body that you hate because I think it's, it's so true. In fasting, we take the rigidity of what we did with eating and we bring it to fasting, which in some sense is even more. self-damaging. So I love that, just creating the mindset. So incredible. Well, thank you for letting me pick your brain. And I know, I hope everybody runs out and gets your book. Where can people

find you? How can they dive into your information? Thank you so much. Again, everything is at Dr.willcoll.com. So it's DR, W-I-L-C-O-L-E.com. I'm on Instagram at Dr. Will Cole. The podcast is called The Art of Being Well, a new episode every Thursday, so they can check that on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Hey, Resetters, I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews and those of you that have left me comments on iTunes. I just greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and how much you guys are enjoying these episodes. And it seems like you're enjoying them as much as I am enjoying. doing them. One of the things that I've learned in just interacting with so many people is that we've really lost the art of deep conversations. And for me, the Resetter podcast stands for having

meaningful conversations with people who are thinking about health, about life, about mindset in a way that we may not be getting on social media or in mainstream media. And so I just want to say, give you guys a shout out and just say thank you for participating in this process with me. Because as much as I absolutely love delivering the information to you, I love even more knowing that it's impacting your life. So please let us know if there's anything we can do to make this podcast more customized to you, to make it better. We are now officially in season two and we are working to bring you the best conversations that health influencers have, that mindset changers can give and to really deliver you something that you're not able to get anywhere

else. So from the bottom of my heart, as I always say my YouTube, from the bottom of my heart, I am deeply appreciative of you. I am deeply grateful to be on this journey with you and let's get healthy together.