Fasting Space

Welcome to fasting space. I'm your host, doctor Z. So nice to have you here today.
Fasting space. An opportunity for us to come together and squash our weight loss obstacles. Every barrier that is preventing us from moving toward better health and well-being in our life. We want to overcome that together, and we're super moving forward in that way today with the help of a humble squash.
So one of my favorite things about fasting amongst so many facets that I like, is that you can apply it to any type of diet. So somebody is a big meat eater or even a carnivore. You can filter that perspective through a fasting practice and gain benefits. Someone is on a complete other philosophical dietary end of the spectrum.
They're completely plant based, eating no meat at all. You've filter all of that. Any dietary perspective
can be filtered through a fasting practice. And so I encourage people
find natural whole foods that come from the earth in a natural way and then filter that through fasting. So I don't spend a lot of time focusing, historically on specific foods because I want people to be free, pick the foods, the meals.
You know, it's it's not like you can only eat this type of exact, thing.
But to me, a fasting process and healthy eating, it's two sides of the same coin. They're the same thing. We need both, to bring them into balance.
So I thought in this session today,
I'll talk about one of my very favorite foods, which is a squash.
So we're going to do two things. We'll talk about the actual nutrition and eating a squash. And then we'll talk about the squash as a metaphor for our health, and our life and our,
practice of healthy, in general.
Check out the squash. Just thought I was tapping on it here. Hard, solid.
Say hard to get into. You got to cut into it to me, that's the first metaphor. I'll start us off with.
Like a fasting space can be a little hard to get into. You have to open it up. That's really what we're doing here.
In the fasting space,
opening up some space so that we can get through any difficulties, open it up and find the value.
That is inside. Like the golden interior of a beautiful squash.
All right. How do you learn to practice fasting? How do you practice fasting in, healthier,
more holistic
process full of wellness? I say one of the best ways to do it is just to focus on eating. Don't focus on fasting when you're fasting. Focus on the eating. That's a way to keep everything passive, everything moving forward. Not thinking about any kind of like, oh, am I cutting back?
Is this thing we just want to be floating through a space. I always say you distracted and you're doing things you enjoy that are bringing meaning and value to life. One of those things you could be doing is taking that energy and putting it into whatever the next meal is.
Squash, just like fasting, takes a little bit of work to to get at it.
Fasting. We say from one perspective it's nothing is doing nothing. So is it work or is it not work? Not really physical work, but it's mental work, right? You've got to do the mental work of.
Preparing the mind. Putting the mind in the right place. Really? That perspective. Putting the mind in the right place, that is finding a space of content isn't just something that I, I think is what we want most of all.
Focus on eating. So spend some time preparing food.
You can buy a squash already cut up at the store and if that helps you to eat it, I'll tell you to do it.
What are the most cost effective ways to get an actual squash? Prepare it yourself. Take the time that you're saving from worrying about other,
periods of eating in your day.
Use it to prepare a real, wholesome, healthy,
meal for yourself and then focus on that. Think how good it's going to be. Bring the enjoyment of it into the present moment that can help you flow through a fasting space. Everything looking forward,
centering on a healthy, positive relationship with food and eating, and how much we're going to enjoy it.
I am going to focus here on squash today for these, three primary reasons. Inexpensive. So one barrier is say, to eating healthier. Say, oh
is it is it going to cost so much more? So one of the benefits of fasting say we can save money. You know, food prices that are high and it costs money to eat healthy.
Absolutely. It does.
If the only compatible diet with a fasting process was like eating the organic grass fed beef, then you would say, this is going to break the bank. But we can get incredible nutrition from something as simple
as a squash, a couple dollars, you know, just packed with nutrition.
So inexpensive. Save money fasting, save money when we're eating.
But put all that money into things are giving us the most nutrition for, the dollar.
And so super nutritious. That's the other thing about a squash. I go through some nutrition facts with you. Squash is incredible. Fantastic nutrition in a squash, and then it's delicious. This is legitimately one of my favorite things to eat. And super, healthy.
I give you a little recipe that is the easiest way that I have found, to enjoy the full nutrition of a squash.
Yeah, I loaded up a bunch of nutrition facts for us just to run through, to appreciate.
Squash coming in two parts. We often think of scooping out the seeds. Right. Cut the thing open.
Get the seeds out. Peel it first. Right. Peel, cut and then scoop the seeds and get rid of them.
I say don't do that. You don't want to do that.
When you look at the actual flesh of the squash, what we normally think of, of the squash, so many good things in there.
Vitamin A, vitamin C, all kinds of minerals magnesium, manganese, calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc
full of antioxidants, beta carotene,
tons of fiber.
Relatively low calorie, low glycemic index, all that fiber. And then, especially when you don't throw away the seeds, you save the seeds.
Then look what you're getting.
Protein and healthy fats significantly. All kinds of more minerals, especially the magnesium, vitamin K, folate, niacin, B vitamins, more antioxidants.
So you put the two together
is what is giving you the real, powerhouse,
the super combo of the macros, the fat and protein, along with the fiber, the carbs, the nutrients is just a wonderful food to eat. A wonderful pairing with a fasting space, giving this body, this gift, this whole open space where it can burn through all the unneeded things in the body, releasing everything that is not presently serving us.
And then you come into that eating space and you fill it with something like this. So good body is saying thank you.
before you scoop out the seeds.
You can. If you just scoop out the seeds with all that stringy stuff in the middle into a big goopy pile, and you try to get the seeds out, then it can you can take a lot of time, can be a little frustrating. The thing you want to do once you cut it open, the big secret. Take a fork first.
Wow, all that stringy stuff is still attached to the squash, and then just comb through with the fork and to the pan. And if you do it gently, you don't even really have to wash this stuff off. You. Can you watch, protocols online or, you know, read a thing about cooking squash seeds here? You got to, you know, wash them and dry them and just take all this time.
I find if you're very thoughtful, you can get all this stuff off. Just dumping a manual pan like this,
without having to go through the washing, the drying, all this. That's my practice. I will push them over in a corner. Also, I try to minimize dishes.
So the way to do, the seeds.
just a little bit of olive oil, a little bit of salt and pepper, and in 20 minutes, at 320 in the, oven.
And and they'll be fantastic. Sprinkle a little garlic powder if you really have the time, crush some fresh garlic on top of them and then roast it on there. So good. I do all that just on a baking pan because then I have not one extra dish, to clean. Can do it all on, one pan and then you can come back around.
You can put the squash at the same time, if you want. The temperatures get a little off.
But squash very flexible, I find for cooking.
There's. And I collect all the seeds and a little thing when I, eat them. Really nice snack. So satisfying. Or part of the meal can be snack or part of the meal.
Don't discard them, I say. And then here, here, after I cooked up the squash, you know, put it here. So I chopped the stuff in the cubes.
The squash and cubes.
You can mix them with the same thing, a little salt and pepper and olive oil. Mix it up, put it on a baking sheet. The squash. You can keep going at 320 if you want to have the seeds going. But the real recipe without the seeds just for squash cubes would be to turn it up to 400.
And then most things that I read say 35 minutes, but I tend to go for 45. I really like to, cook them good and get them nice and kind of caramelized.
So, but you can start out, you know, you can do 20 minutes at 320 and have the seeds on a different sheet, and then add on another, you know, 25 minutes or something like that.
Keep an eye on them. And then you get stuff like this. Beautiful.
beautiful seeds, beautiful squash. That's what I'm talking about when I had the squash. Now there's many other ways you can cook a squash. Of course you can just cut the thing in and bake it
and then, you know, dig it out of the little, shells if you're leaving it even in there. All kinds of different ways to do it.
This is the way I do it because, it involves,
in general, the least work chopping a little bit of work, but then you make it up on the back end because it's so easy to eat without scooping it out of things. So that's the way I like to do it.
a very, very healthy thing. Squash can be its own meal. It's complete macro and micro nutrients.
Simple and inexpensive. Tastes so good, so satisfying. See if you like that. Now, let me tell you about some great metaphors.
Okay? Of the squash that we can apply to our life. So big thing you see about the squash.
Thick exterior. Hard right. That this metaphor, the thick skin. We can take a lot from think of like resilience. Squash is resilient. Here's one of the things you know.
We grow up tons of squash. We got piles of them. It lasts through the winter.
It can be sustaining you all through because it's protected by this skin. One of the things we're trying to do in a fasting space, fasting isn't the easiest thing to start.
That's the barrier, right? So if you think of fasting like a barrier, hard to get in at a squash, got a cut into it.
Fasting if you're not used to it, a bit of a barrier to entry. So like we're used to consuming food all the time. Well, to get into a fasting space, to say that's kind of a protected space, that is a special space,
harder to get into it than something easy is not like an apple.
You can't just, like, bite into it.
Fasting. You have to have intention to really get into a thoughtful space like that. So think about the thick skin of a squash. Like the thick skin of fasting is protecting something very valuable.
Thick skin of it, though it's not just about
keeping the things out. Think about protecting things inside, protecting the nutrients. Think of it like protecting that autophagy space, protecting these pathways in the body, the cleansing and rejuvenating pathways, fasting something very much that can be protecting us from
things that are damaging to our metabolism, constant consumption, damaging to the metabolism.
This is how we're flowing as a society in this space of weight gain and diabetes and blood sugar problems. Fasting like a thick skin that can protect us from many of these influences. Protect that space. Think of a squash and think of health. Think of the value inside it where we talked through all the nutrients inside it, and then come to see our fasting space
as valuable like that,
protecting our health.
That.
Metaphor number two, the seeds as future potential seeds. I like the future potential of the squash. Right. That's next year's squash. It's transmitting them into the future. Really? Is the potential
of the squash.
Gives us the metaphor to look at the value we see the skin, the fasting, protecting what is value, the future potential, the health that can come forth from this process, the growth, the flourishing.
Seeds. When you look at a squash
so easily discarded people making squash, they scoop them out and throw them away. I think the most valuable part of the squash or the protein, the fat, all these nutrients
there to serve the squash, there to serve us, you're going to eat it. So healthy is like in our society, so easy to overlook.
Fasting, to discard it, to say, oh, like, here's how you do health, diet and exercise. Okay, fasting is like just the seeds. We scoop it out, throw it away. So simple. You say, well, what is this? This is just the core is like the core of the apple. We don't eat it, you know, as we just get rid of.
It is so easy to overlook.
But just like fasting, the seeds have immense value. The seeds is where this future potential exists. We think when we're carving out the space, we're carving into the squash, we're carving out the space in our life.
To get that autophagy, to get the cleansing effect, to give the body space, to release resources, think of like planting seeds
of future health that are springing forth out of that. The weight loss that we want, the rejuvenation that we want, the better blood pressure and blood sugar and cholesterol and all these metabolic markers that are downstream
of getting our body running in alignment with all of the natural processes.
So you open up a fasting space,
planting seeds for future health. Think of a squash getting into that space, finding the seeds, finding the potential. A beautiful metaphor for us to think about, for our health.
We're not just eating for today. We're not just fasting for today. We're not doing all these things just for now. We're doing it for a healthier tomorrow, a healthier body that we're building in the future.
Day by day, as we do that, then we're storing up health for ourselves. Like we said, building that fasting wealth is like storing up health for ourselves. Like planting the seeds of our future growth
and progress and success.
All right, analogy three
cooking. It takes time.
It does. Cooking a squash, preparing squash in any fashion.
Is not fast food. Most things have value in life, real things of value in life. They take time and effort. A squash is like that. It's showing us, okay, there's real value here. There's simple, humble nutrition here, but it takes a bit of work to get at it.
It does and isn't fasting like that? Fasting takes a bit of effort and intention to get into that space. Ideally, you plan for it to be in the most thoughtful mindset with it. Just like a squash, you want to have a squash, it's noon. You want to eat. You say, what should I have? Oh, I'll have a squash.
Well, you know.
We'll see you at 1:00, right? It's going to take an hour. Maybe you don't have to be working on it that whole time, but you got to take ten minutes to cut it up, and you got to get it in the oven, and you got to get it going. The cooking takes time, just like a fasting process takes time.
Fasting is a process of passing time as comfortably and thoughtfully as possible. Without food, you can't short circuit it. There's there's no way to short circuit because by definition, that's just what it is. Just like you can't short circuit the the cooking of the squash, you're not going to want to eat this thing wrong.
Can't have fasting without passing the time.
So when we are dialing in intentionally and cooking something like a squash, cooking a squash.
This is giving us a great metaphor for our health process in general, that things of value take time, that we have to set aside time and space for it in order for the full process to really.
In order for it to be a sweeter process for you. You ever try this eating a raw squash? Okay. But then you cook it. Like I was saying, it kind of caramelizes a little bit. Get that natural sweetness comes out of it tastes so good. The cooking process of a squash brings out the natural
beauty and and taste of it.
The fasting process, say starting out. That's the hard part. You say, oh, you got to get through the wave, the hunger wave, okay? But you get through it. That's like the process
are cooking
through the fasting space.
So what matures the process brings out the sweetness of it.
Say we gotta let the heat in the oven do its work.
I've compared fasting to like a fire. We can say fasting like an oven. Fasting is energy. It's releasing even in the form of heat. Right? Our body's running. It's 98. In here, it's 70. Out here. The furnace is rather running. It's like an oven is running. And when we are not eating, that energy is coming from us.
The body is. There's only you can take the energy from within us.
Let the heat do its work. Let the energy do its work.
See the metaphor of cooking the squash is like a metaphor of our fasting, releasing the energy.
Practicing patience with it. Got to be patient to cook a squash. Got to be patient. Practicing patience, fasting about practicing patience in our lives. An excellent metaphor.
Metaphor number four. That I came up with density within limits. You continue a squash and you realize the thing is just loaded. I mean, you feel it. You know, there's there's a weight to this. This is a dense object
and, just packed with nutrition
and, defined limits in this defined space. Think so much when I think of what we're trying to do, balance fasting with healthy eating.
Fasting. Giving us a space to keep processed food out of our life. Like we're saying, it's a thick skin. It's a protected space. We're trying to keep
damaging things out. It's like processed food. Squash giving us a metaphor of what is good, what is natural
density. It's not hollow. It's not like a bag of chips. Right? This is like substantial, loaded with nutrients and fiber and health.
This is so many good things for us to think about in a fasting space.
Fasting space. We saying, well, that that is limits. So say we're putting limits on eating
just like the squash has limits to itself. But then within this space, look what is in it.
Dense nutrition, flavor, just the enjoyment of this health giving substance.
just like our fasting, we can see.
Okay. From the outside you say, well, is this limiting me? Is this rigid? Is this rules? But then see within it
is this health and this vitality.
The structure that actually gives freedom to our eating, where we don't have to be just restricting ourselves all the time in some sort of oppressive dietary framework where we're, we're just eating little bits and never having something satisfying. Squash a very satisfying thing to eat.
A lot to it.
You need something like that. You could fill yourself up on a squash.
Feel totally satisfied. So that was a wonderful meal.
Density within limits
is such a great metaphor. I say
that a squash can give us for a fasting practice and a healthy eating practice. That is the balance that we want. In everything.
Metaphor number five. Is that a metaphor I just came up with? This is just a play on the words squashing old habits.
If you are not in a routine of eating something like this, I say, here is an opportunity with a literal squash. Squash out any sort of extra processed food that you can
dial in, and the simplicity and the beauty and the just.
The raw natural nutrition of, squash. Right. And then squash is just one thing, of course, so many other things that we can be eating. But here's just one example. It can be this simple.
This is a staple, you know, staple food, for me, is why I dial in so much on it.
You can clean up any of this stuff.
All you want you can is so many recipes. You can add so much to it, and you shouldn't have more veggies and more anything. Or you can pair it with some meat if you want to. But I'm saying just like fasting can be so simple, squash so simple, we can stamp out so much else. We had the great analogy as someone had on the channel.
Making a change in any area of our life. Help
to make changes anywhere else is kind of loosening things, opening things up. So is there a habit you're trying to work on? Is it a food habit? Is it a new habit you're trying to get? Say, I'm trying to get into a fasting space, make a change
with a squash and squash it out, say, I'm going to have some squash and then bring in all these metaphors.
so we've got this whole list, five or more metaphors of how a squash can be showing us the ways to protect,
the valuable space, in our life. And we use that
to
help us move past things that are no longer serving us down in on corn nutrition. And then balance that out in a fasting space that we can move forward in the healthiest, way that we can
feel like, some sort of salesman, like
it's squash.
Go buy it. Go buy it today.
Save money now. Buy your first squash. Get the fifth free.
Not going to cost so much money. That's what I love so much. Staple food.
Keep the costs low. It's like you can't. You just can't do better than that.
Those are my thoughts of the day and really of yesterday, because I spent yesterday thinking about squash.
And the many ways that it can serve us and move us forward in health. Do you have a favorite food that is like that? Are there other things that you, like? Feel free to share in the comments. Or if you have recipes, favorite ways that you cook it?
I shared my little, practice. Don't throw the seeds away. That's the top one. My kids love the seeds. There's a great, snack if you're trying to cook healthy stuff for kids. You know, kids always say they want, you know, some snack or something and hit them with the squash seeds. Don't throw it away. Squash seeds. You know, if if you do have a natural foods market, buy you very expensive actually to turn around and buy.
You know, pumpkin seeds, squash seeds, very expensive
you know, but not so expensive to buy, just the actual squash. It would take a bit of work, save those things. I was at the co-op. There was it was like $14 a pound or something for these pumpkin seeds, but it's like the same thing. So I say, don't throw them away.
So much value. There. Thank you. I love, love these metaphors.