Fasting Space

Fasting can take us to a very deep and profound space.

It's sitting at the intersection of our body,
our mind, and our spirit.

And if we're open to it, can take us to a place

where our raw emotions deep in the center

can actually be brought to the surface and released.

Powerful space when we're

feeling hungry, is giving us an opportunity

to get into that space, to confront a barrier

and give us the opportunity to practice overcoming it.

Maybe something that takes time for us to work on,

but this is part of how we can bring healing to our metabolism,
how we can bring healing to our body,

and then healing to our relationship with food

to help us build a new, healthier relationship with food.

One where we are in control of the situation and we are not

at the mercy of the whims of the appetite,

can start to build a practice of doing that

right now, today, in the present moment, right here together.

Today I'm going to specifically be talking about anxiety around
fasting.

Fasting without an anxiety and a fasting space

can come in many forms,
and it could be from actual fasting itself.

Like how long? Am I going to fast?

Am I going to feel okay?

What is going to happen in this space?

What is someone else going to think about it?

You know there is something that can come into it.

And then there's all the other anxiety of life
that can be brought into a space.

And when we start opening up some space,
all of a sudden it can highlight emotions.

Many times we'll use food to overcome
and cope with other emotions that are coming in.

When we open up fasting space in the body,
its opening up also mental space in the mind.

We're not using food to cover over anything. So then anxiety.

If it's something we're struggling somewhere,
they cannot heighten it.

Even in a sense what I say,
if we're going to be very thoughtful about it,

it's an opportunity for us to actually confront

and do the work of overcoming something like that.

To me, it's a grounded, centered space.

And bringing every other process to it.

Take a deep breath and move toward it.

So if you're ready to move towards something, maybe moving

toward a mountain,
I'm going to take us another insight from this book.

The mountain is you today All right.

I hit this passage the other day,
and I've been thinking about it.

And I just am excited to

dive into this and do some thinking with you.

Listen to this.

I think this is a profound section.

You change your life
when you start showing up exactly as you are.

When you become comfortable with being happy here,
even if you want to go forward.

When you can love yourself,
even though you don't look exactly the way you want to.

That's just the intro little section of what
I wanted to talk about today.

But it was.

I think that those are just some beautiful thoughts.

How does that land with you?

Do you want to change your life,
or is there something in your life that you want to change?

We always think or we can think.

Perhaps the trap is to think, I'll be happy when you know.

I'll be happy when I buy this thing,
or I'll be happy when I get this, you know.

I'll be happy.

Like they say here.

When I look a certain way.

When I have accomplished a certain thing.

What a challenge us today to bring all of that right here.

Now, we don't have to wait so often.

The thing that we really want
is hiding under the thing that we think we want.

We think we want a certain thing that will make us happy.

And then a lot of learning that we have done
has shown us that underneath that,

our deeper desires, like just a space to find contentment

and to find love and acceptance for ourself.

We have a lot of surrogate markers
for things like that in our society today.

Status and power and possessions of things.

And these things can work for a while.

And maybe they are fun and you say they are entertaining,
but do they really satisfy

the deeper layer underneath that many times?

No. Has that been your experience?

I know it's been my experience.

They iterate basically the same sentence.

You change your life
when you start doing the truly scary thing,

which is to show up exactly as you are.

I just thought that was interesting.

They just added that truly scary words in their.

Do you feel that way?

Have you felt that way like to really show up as yourself?

Do you?

I mean, I know for myself you can I can bring all kinds

of feelings into a moment.

You know, when I read that sentence
the first time, thought this kind of imaginary scene

popped into my mind where I was going to a party.

you know, all kinds of people were there and
and in the thought,

I just told everybody, like, the honest truth
about everything that I really thought.

And I was like, oh, people going to think, man,
this guy is crazy.

You know, you see all odds.

We just not even feel secure in our own thoughts
showing up exactly as we are.

Okay.

And this I thought about not even saying that first part.

I just I really loved that phrase,

you know, about loving ourself
even if we don't look the way we want to, you know?

But this is the section that I thought was the most profound,

most of the problems that exist in our lives

are distractions from the real problem, which is that

we are not comfortable in the present moment

as we are here and now.

How are you feeling with that?

Sit for that, sit with that for a little bit here.

To me, this is drilling down right into the core
of what we're experiencing in a fasting space.

We someone comes to fasting people coming to it
because they want something from it.

They say, I want to lose weight.

I want to get my blood sugar and blood pressure down.

I want my cholesterol in a better place.

I want to look a different way.

I want to, you know, fill in the blank.

Why are you approaching it?

You know, but most people approaching it for weight loss,
you know.

Which I really want to help people.

Do I really do?

I really want you to accomplish the goal that you seek.

You know, something really deep to think about.

I think now, okay, you're coming to it for weight loss
if that's your thing.

And that's a great thing.

Say, I want that.

But is it the real reason isn't even right?

Is there a deeper layer underneath it?

Here they are challenging us
and saying most of the problems we have.

We think we have a weight problem.

The real problem
is that we aren't comfortable in the present moment.

And can't that be one of the biggest barriers to fasting,

and is the real reason that fasting is difficult
because of hunger?

Or is it because it's opening up a deeper space in a body
where it can show us

what the real problems actually are,
and that we don't want to experience that?

And if we eat something, it's like,
put the cap back on the lens, you know,

put the magnifying glass, fasting like a magnifying glass,

like really look in there and see what is happening here.

And the emotional body.

This is where I was bringing with the title to anxiety,
because it's like when you start opening up

a fasting space, hunger can be like its own type of anxiety.

It is a real physical experience in and of itself.

Can we be comfortable in the present moment?

If you can fast and you can be comfortable in that space,

then it's like all of a sudden
like the window to a path forward to weight loss.

And wellness is like wide open, you know what I mean?

Like, it's like we are overcoming one of the primary barriers,

and then we're sinking into a deeper level

where if we can find peace and contentment in a moment,

all of a sudden we're pushing back against anxiety
more broadly,

we're opening up a space where joy can spring out of that's.

I did the video the other day.

Maybe it was one of the shorts, one of the many little ones.

Dietary path to joy I loved I loved that thought.

Okay, here they go on.

So we must heal that. First.

We must address that that initially,
because everything else builds from it.

We must be brave and confront our discomfort.

A really liked this line I want fasting.

To be clear. I want fasting to be comfortable for people.

If if fasting was nothing but a struggle

and a discomfort, I would personally not do it.

Okay, I'm interested in being comfortable like anyone else.

The the thing that initially inspired me so much, to dedicate

so much time to fasting, was when I personally realized

that the practice could become comfortable,

that it was a challenge to overcome that,
to get into the space.

There's a barrier to entry, many barriers
to entry, the fact that our culture does not support it.

We don't have a fasting culture.
We have a consumption cultures.

You're have to change your mind
to choose to do something different.

And then yeah, the first times you do it,
the first times you change anything in life isn't.

Don't you find that to be true?

Isn't the first time that you do something
new always a bit uncomfortable?

It's like taking a cold shower.

It's like, whoa, this is different.

Like it's like, oh,
but then you see, a cold shower can be good.

Like it's refreshing, right?

So it's a barrier to it.

Step out of the comfort zone a little bit.

Fasting space definitely can be like that.

Say we're not used to feeling hungry.

We have interpreted it as very negative thing in our culture.

I did the Hunger series on the channel.

If you haven't seen it, when you look,
one of those videos on Reframing Hunger is just to realize that

actually, as we start practicing, fasting helps us to see

that hunger is not as bad as we think it is, many times

recognizing that sometimes it can be very intense
and we can have a lot of compassion for that.

But when we start mapping it out on the big spectrum of life

experiences, it's not like breaking your leg, right?

Just like we can take a bit of hunger
and it will flow through it and it will go away.

Okay.

And we can start to take see it

for as it is and don't add everything else to it.

Don't add the suffering to it.

Start to bring the intensity of it down.

But I still like this line.

You got to start somewhere, be brave
and confront our discomfort.

And this is something to ask ourselves if you're struggling
in that space to say, doctor Z, I don't agree with you.

This is terribly uncomfortable.

I can't make it through it.

Hey. That's okay.

I like this line be brave. Confronted.

And what does it look like to confront it?

This is why I like a dial.

Because a dial you can turn in right to the edge of it,
but you don't have to turn over it.

A dial can be turned up and back.

You know, it's kind of like the analogy I like.

You can walk along the river,
you don't have to ford the stream right away.

You can just dip your toe in the water. You can think about it.

This is a sort of space
that is like confronting the discomfort of fasting.

If you're experiencing that to me, and to ask deep questions

like, why do I feel this way?

They say, here, sit with it.

Even if it turns our stomach and pinches our face and makes us

certain will never find a way out to say we will.

And this is what I say.

If you're struggling in a space that is a health space,
if you need to lose weight

and you're approaching fasting,
let me tell you there is a path forward in that space.

Never want anyone fasting.

Every video I put the link contraindications to fasting.

When should someone when would it
not be okay okay, like if you don't want to do it,

if anything is forced, if you don't need to lose weight,
if you don't have like a reason

to do it, talk with your medical team about it.

I would say I'm not giving medical advice,
but I'm just saying if you need to lose weight,

look at the big picture of the human system,
the way the body works.

It is designed to store excess energy

that we encounter in our life
so that we don't die in the wilderness.

You know, when we are prevented from having food.

It's an incredible system.

And now we are living a very,
very different type of existence here.

And the body is not running the program for, you know, 2026.

As we're sitting here, it's running the program

from like six, you know, like way back.

And so we have a perspective.

If you look at the modern medical perspective of obesity

okay, we label it,
we give it a whole medical diagnosis, just a state in the body.

So the body is broken.

And everybody wants to say well this is a genetic disorder.

Now it's like, well we have genetics and genetics determine,
you know, how the body works.

And so I guess I kind of agree with it.

But from a certain point of view,
I don't like labeling people as diseased

who are just experiencing the normal physiology of the body.

To me, that doesn't feel compassionate.

Really,
the whole medical perspective is trying to be compassionate.

As I see and talk with obesity medicine specialists
and go to conferences,

they don't want people to feel shamed
or busy is not your fault, right?

And I say the way that it's not our fault
is just to realize, look, we are caught up in this gigantic

wave of history that is like, check out the sessions
I did, The Hidden History of Obesity, where we

we track the rise of this process back
hundreds of years into the Industrial Revolution.

And let's try to remember that quote.

What was that quote from that French philosopher?

I've lost it now, but it was like, basically
like we're all caught up in this, these waves of history.

You know, to me, if we can see ourselves

from that point of view,
we can bring a lot of compassion to ourselves.

Here.

They finish the section we must listen to what is wrong,

feel it and move through it and allow it to be.

This is what we can do in the fasting space.

I just feel like,
you know, this book is not written about fasting, but to me

it's just dialed in right on what we are experiencing, right?

We must listen to what's wrong, right?

If you get in a space or it's fasting space, a deep space

for contemplation and reflection,
it's taking every distraction out of the way.

So things that are wrong, you can more clearly focus

and assess them and feel it right.

Maybe our relationship with food
has some dialog that needs to happen.

Fasting is part of that dialog, right?

The conversation in the body is between

the energy that is stored in the body, the metabolism.

Like if we personify it, which is trying to figure out

how are we going to run this system here today,
you know, as like, where are we getting the energy from?

It's always assessing, like, okay,
it knows where the body fat is.

It knows the glycogen storage in the liver.

It's constantly assessing the blood glucose levels
and ketone levels and everything.

And then what is the digestive system doing.

Think of the integration
that is happening in this sort of space.

And the dialog that we're having
and that fasting is doing is helping the body

to access these different parts of energy.

If we decide we got a lot of food here and we can eat it,

then we are making that determination for the body.

Body always going to burn the food energy first that we have.

But when we tell the body like, hey, either
we don't have access to it or we don't choose to, body's like,

okay, what's next?

And then we go on the triage list
and the body will always be choosing

what it deems to be the most appropriate way
to handle the situation.

People afraid, for example.

So if I start fasting, I'm going to burn up my muscle.

Now it's true.

In a tiny bit like you, you fast,
especially for a longer period of time, you can lose some lean

mass just like you lift a weight and you will break down

your lean mass, but then you will build it back better,

especially when you are nourishing the body
with healthy protein sources and nutrients.

Okay. I love the analogy.

I forgot where I heard it first,
but it's like if if you were fasting

and you just started fasting and you just burned up your muscle
and left all the fat there, like,

think about any hunter gatherer person in the wilderness
who just fast it a little bit.

They would just be a weak little blob,
but just by the first week, right?

But isn't this this is the opposite of what happens.

Have you seen pictures of any indigenous community
that hasn't been exposed to the West?

Like they are hunting and gathering
and they are working all day, and they are just absolutely lean

and strong and powerful, fearsome, strong people.

This is the natural state of a human being fearsome,

strong and powerful physical force on the earth.

And fasting is part of that. I did the session last year.

Fasting can make you strong
and it makes you strong in mind, body and spirit.

Absolutely it does, especially in the body

when you mix it with some physical activity
like resistance training,

then it is like these are just the most synergistic practices.

Because the fasting space is helping us
to fix the hormonal structure in the body

that is promoting the construction of lean muscle
mass is just is a very, very positive.

Feel it, move through it, allow it to be.

This is what they're saying.

The truth is this discomfort is the true problem.

We are running around trying to fix one thing after another

because all of these are just the symptoms.

The discomfort is the true problem.

Boy, I was thinking about this quite a lot yesterday.

Let's think about it.

This book right. It isn't a fasting book.

We can apply this to our fasting space, but like we can think

about everything else
that can come into a fasting space, right?

If fasting is like a vessel that is holding space

for the anxiety, for the problem,
the thing, we open up a fasting space

and we're experiencing
something comes into that space as the most important.

Maybe it is the hunger, right?

So maybe hunger is a surrogate for something else.

Maybe it's its own issue
because our hormones are out of alignment.

Hunger is a normal experience, shouldn't be overwhelming.

It should just feel like part of a natural process.

So maybe it's that hunger space that comes in,
or maybe we get in there and other things are coming in

that we're experiencing.

Maybe we are in a dark season in our life,
and we're experiencing dark thoughts and depression

and something like that.

Or it's an anxiety of some type grief that is coming in

that we haven't given space to be allowed to release.

The ideal state of our being.

We should be able to sit in a space and be good with ourselves,

to be comfortable in our own skin, you know,

to take some time to decompress.

And it should just feel like openness and positivity.

And if we can't do that, like this is like a thermometer,
it's like a check in, right?

Can we open up a space?

Can we sit in a space for a little bit and feel okay?

This is why the bridge
between fasting and meditation is so powerful.

The really the two sides of the same coin,
it's like the same thing really.

When you start to think about it, it's like we open up
a fasting space as a way to power up a meditation space.

Like, you can definitely practice a meditation without fasting.

You can have a meal and then go sit in a space
and have a reflection and a concept.

But like if you want to supercharge it,

you would open up fasting space in the body.

And now the body is not working.

Remember how much work the digestive system is doing for us?

Huge amount of work that it's doing is like,
we want to shut all that

down, open up all of our resources

and our being toward the deep mental work of.

The deep mental work, of doing nothing,

of just being open for a little bit.

But that's easier said than done.

Has that been your experience?

It's easier to say, oh, like,
how easy is it to do nothing but to actually do

nothing
actually be one of the most profoundly difficult things to do.

Ironically,
especially in a world where we are surrounded by screens

and stimulating things of all kinds, say,
actually, shut that off.

You know, I did the session the other month on digital fasting.

That so many of these experiences can feed into each other.

Right?

Like when we are stuck on a device and it's like,

okay, it's like that's that's kind of hitting the same pathways

that are like a food craving,
craving for some sort of stimulation.

It's like if we're trying to unpack these whole situations,
just shut

the phone off is like heading us, you know, part of the way,
there is something to practice.

If you're having trouble getting into a fasting space.

You see, I just don't know that I'm. I can do this.

I'll tell you. You can do it.

There is a practice, a path to do it.

Maybe you need to start somewhere else first.

Maybe the unlock is just hitting
hitting the off button on this for a while.

You know many apps that you can lock lock stuff
down on the phone.

Say, I'm just going to leave the texting and phone on
so I can make an actual call with a phone like,

you know, but I'm not going to be sucked
into some social media rabbit hole if that's your thing.

Or you can you can silence anything.

You could silence the text messages and keep it.

Just the phone, you know.

I want fasting to be comfortable for you.

I want it to be a space that is ultimately free of anxiety.

Sometimes you have to go through a process to get there.

Those things of value in life
are on the other side of some type of barrier are obstacle.

You know, if you think just in a market, right,
there's just a cost to something

you want something of great value,
you're going to have to pay for it, right?

I want a new car is going to set you back,
you know what I mean?

And so anything of value
when we're bringing it down into the health space,

you want a strong body,
you're going to have to work for it, right?

You want muscles that are powerful, right?

You're going to have to lift something
or push something, right?

You have to train it like you can't sit in a space

and never move the body and and have a strong body.

There is a barrier to entry to have that right.

Fasting is just like that.

You want a strong, finely tuned metabolism.

Like you have to practice it.

You have to exercise it.

The metabolism is an engine, right?

Think of an engine in a car.

It's burning fuel
to provide the energy and motion to power things.

Right. And this is exactly what's happening in the body.

The metabolism is taking energy either from within ourselves
or from our environment that we're eating.

And it's running the systems that are powering things.

So we got an engine and, you know,

an engine needs to move to be lubricated, right?

It's like that.

If we're in our internal combustion engine,
you got to lubricate that system.

So everything keeps operating smoothly.

So what a fasting practice is, is lubricating

the systems of the metabolism.

If you never fast, right?

Isn't that the hardest to start doing it?

To say, well, like I picture a little cell in the body,
like you'd never practice fasting.

All of a sudden I watched a YouTube video.

It says, fasting is easy.

I'm just going to you just don't eat you, okay?

It's like, okay in the body.

The first time is like the little cells
I say are waving a white flag.

They're like, what are you doing to me?

Like, time out, you know, time out.

Like, we're not ready for this, you know,

especially if we haven't really been eating healthy
sometimes, you know,

we get a bug we want to, like,
just jump right in so many health things at all.

Once I'm going to overhaul my diet and start fasting
and do all these things at once,

I say, hey, just permission for me.

Not that I need it,
but I just slow down and give the body a little bit of grace.

You wouldn't run into the gym.

I mean, some people do, but this is how you hurt yourself.

You run into the gym, so you're not a weightlifter.

I'm going to throw 200 pounds on a rack,
and all of a sudden you're getting crushed, you know, by a bar.

You know,
I think you need to start with a smaller weights and, like,

lift them a little bit and rep it,
and then the body responds and gets stronger.

There's a much more gentle way to get into fasting.

To start with, show the body like, hey,
we're going to start to like lean into this space

a little bit and body's like, oh,
I think we've got some plans for that.

Like in the back room where we got to like
take some crates off it and dust it off, you know.

But you start wrapping.

The fasting is wrapping that process of okay, body is like,
oh, we know where the body fat is.

We can access that.

We know where these pockets of energy are, is start

building the highways, the metabolic highways to it,

and then we can start getting into that space
as you ease it in.

Then we take the way I started anxieties
that we can actually fear have about fasting.

How long will this go and how will we feel?

Remember what they're seeing here.

The real problem that we get into
is so many places in our life,

the discomforts that we're actually feeling
are the barriers in the obstacles

and the way I'm framing this here, what fasting is helping us

to become comfortable in the present moment, right in
this space is a practice to do it

and think about how that can flow out
in so many different ways in our life.

How are you feeling about this?

How is it landing today?

Let me know. I'm happy to hear your thoughts.

Throw them into the comments always.

The comments on this video come to me.

And so if you are even here later on the replay
diving into this topic, throw your thoughts and reflections.

We have an ongoing conversation about it

throughout time, even years into the future.

Come back into this session and we'll dive deep

on finding contentment in this present space.

Thinking of a fasting space like water, like a liquid water

called the universal solvent,
to to dissolve anything over time.

Think of taking problems that we have,
especially emotional problems,

but also physical problems in the body,
problems in our spirit.

Okay.

Is fasting the liquid that can start to dissolve
some of that, that can eat away at it?

There's a great irony.

We're not eating like,
what are we eating right in the fasting space?

Autophagy eating ourself. Right?

I think in the autophagy space in the cell,

the body doesn't go in and chew up the DNA.

It doesn't go in and destroy the functional parts.

It destroys the stuff that we don't want there.

The stuff that is just clogging up the space.

Okay.

And things are happening on many levels in this.

And so in a fasting space,
you know, it's happening at the level within the cell,

like micro autophagy
effects is happening on the level of a whole cell.

The body can just demo a whole cell and get rid of that.

And then we can bring this up in a layer.

The body can do tissue remodeling, right.

Just like just on a large scale is like what
a weight loss process is.

And then we can scale that up further in this kind of metaphor,

like fasting, a space to dissolve some bigger things run

emotional autophagy, if we can call it that.

Dissolve some bigger problems and processes.

Really love that thought.

That's that's kind of what's happening.

And as we do that, say, okay, there's this object here is
I don't like this in my life.

That object of the anxiety is here.

I'm opening up some fasting space.

Maybe you can't dissolve that all at once.

Just like water isn't going to dissolve an iron bar,
you know, instantly.

That's going to take some years, you know,
but it will happen eventually.

Hopefully.

The problems in our life aren't iron bars,
but maybe they even are.

Okay, so let's start a process.

I think maybe this isn't a bad process.

People come into a weight loss process, a health problem

process, and we are on an instant on demand culture

and we want a problem solved yesterday, you know,
and we especially want to wait.

Problem solved by three months from now.

And I always want to tell people it's like,
let's take a deep breath.

Let's try to lower the expectations a little bit
because we don't want to be disappointed.

We don't want to set ourselves up for disappointment. Right.

We're trying to bring everything into this present moment.

Like the book said, can we find happiness
and contentment here now so that we can start?

Not not.

I'll be happy in three months
when I've done this incredibly intense thing, okay?

Because that's just one point in time.

And usually the thing that is more likely to happen

when we set up a dynamic like that
is that we snap back because we have not done

the grounding work of creating a strong and stable foundation.

Think of atomic habits.

We're not trying to pound our way there.

We're trying to build the daily practices and routines

so that we can start compounding this over time.

Just like investing, right?

We're not trying to buy a lottery ticket.

It's not a get rich quick scheme. We're seeing.

We're trying to be a saver,
and we are trying to get compounding

working in our favor
so that this can be the last health practice you ever need.

I want this sort of experience. Simple fasting.

This sort of process can be
the last thing you ever have to need.

I don't want you to have to spend thousands of dollars on

health gurus and people who are trying to sell you stuff.

You know, the only thing I sell you personally is my time.

I spend some time with you and we just walk on the path

together of doing the deep work

of integrating these concepts.

Simple, basic processes really
bring them into the core of our being

so that they can become really a part of us,

and that we can get the most value from them in the long term.

So really happy to have you here with me doing that process.

Love it and I hope you have a great day.

I will look forward to connecting with you again soon.

Be well everybody!