The Obstacle (to Weight Loss) is the Way
Have you ever or do you now face
any type of obstacle on your road to better health?
If you do, you might like some insights from this book.
The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday I read this
a few years ago,
and I've just been thinking so much about it lately.
If you've been following along with me on the channel,
you know I've been reading through a book.
The Mountain Is You, which I really have been liking,
and so many similarities between this.
The mountain Is You, the mountain is us.
We're trying to move toward an obstacle,
not around it, but like over and through it.
And that's the idea here.
What stands in our way?
We think, you know, society would tell us, okay,
we need to avoid that.
Take the easy way, get around and through.
Maybe sometimes that is the thing.
But what this, is showing us
as much as anything is many times in life.
The thing that we're afraid of, the thing
that feels overwhelming and impassable, in fact,
that there is a way to flip it and head straight through it.
The powerful, powerful thought,
I'm going to be giving you some reflections on this today.
Two big thoughts, that I have, and I would love to hear your,
reflections, on it as we head through, grab a coffee or tea.
Let's dive into this space.
Some big thinking.
Hopefully moving us powerfully in the direction of our goal.
today, I'm just going to look at the preface of this book.
Okay, preface.
Like, we could spend a lot of time
just diving in on the title, right?
The obstacle is the way. What comes to your mind?
Even hearing that I put in the title of this,
the obstacle to weight loss
is the way I dive in and think of that.
The foundation of this book is, writing from Marcus Aurelius.
This is how the preface starts in the year 170
at night in his tent on the frontlines of the war
in Germania, Marcus Aurelius, emperor of the Roman Empire,
sat down to write,
not to an audience or for publication,
but to himself and for himself.
If you read meditations, I've got a copy of meditations here.
I read meditations is where this is taken from.
It's like his personal diary.
Emperor of Rome, Roman Empire, writing to himself and somehow
I don't actually know the story of how this was preserved.
But, a lot of good advice he gave himself and reflections
that this gentleman who wrote this book, Ryan Holiday,
kind of a scholar on, Marcus Aurelius.
And he's giving us, like, the core advice from it, wrote
what is undoubtedly one of history's most effective formulas
for overcoming every negative situation
we may encounter in life.
How does that sound?
Would you like a path like that?
I think at the section session we did yesterday, that's what
inspired me, to dive into this section,
because we went through like list
after list,
all these negative emotions and experiences that we have.
And, Brianna, waste in
that book was showing us the inversion of it
that each of these negative emotions has the seed,
like we said, is like a trampoline
where we can spring out of it.
And that's the idea of this book
that the whole thing is based on doing that, he says.
A formula for thriving,
not just in spite of what happens, but because of it.
And that is it's hard to imagine sometimes.
That difficult things
and negative experiences can be like a trampoline,
like we're saying yesterday, that we can thrive because of it.
This is what the book is about.
In a scant 85 words, Marcus Aurelius
so clearly defined and articulated a timeless idea
that he eclipses the great names of those who came before him,
like Epictetus and Seneca.
Here is the writing. Here is what this book is based on.
And here is the powerful message
that I want to communicate to you
about this, that we want to take for our purposes
here, moving powerfully toward health.
This is what Marcus Aurelius, says to us.
Our actions may be impeded,
but there can be no impeding our intentions
or dispositions because we can accommodate and adapt.
The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes
the obstacle to our acting,
the impediment to action, advances action.
What stands in the way becomes the way.
That those powerful words to me, they're inspiring.
I find it inspiring.
Especially those two lines you say is inspiring.
Okay, then how do we put it into practice?
That's what the book is about.
Is it true?
This is what we want to try to prove in our own life, right?
This is the challenge that we have, the impediment
to action that, in fact, that advances action.
Whoa.
Not the impediment that forces us to take a different action.
Right.
We have our intention says here, we have our disposition.
We've made our mind up.
We have our intention. We know our goal.
Where we're going, and then the seeds of our vision here.
We can accommodate the things that happen.
See, we we only control our actions and our responses.
Our way of being, in the world.
We can't control
what happens to us as much as we wish that we could.
Don't you wish it?
The impediment to action advances action
because we can accommodate anything that we happen is
what a mind is, right?
We're taking the things that happen processing,
sending it to our own purpose.
Right.
Something that is happening in the world,
we say didn't like it, but we adapt.
And then this would be the most powerful point,
making it the way, say, we didn't plan for it to be here,
but now that it's here,
we're using it as a tool along our path.
Can you think of ways already
that you could apply
this are areas where you're going to think about applying it?
I'm going to give you two, big thoughts that I had yesterday.
But listen to how,
he goes on for just a bit in the preface about it, in Marcus's
words, is the secret to an art known
as turning obstacles upside down
to act with a reverse clause
so that there is always a way out,
always another route to get where you need to go
at setbacks or problems are always expected
and never permanent.
Making certain that what impedes us can empower us.
Has it ever been your experience in life
that, anytime you're trying really to set out
anything of value, that there are obstacles to it
certainly is true in health, right?
You try to make a health change.
We experience obstacles and barriers to it.
This is, how so often
we can get stuck in cycles of complacency.
Like where we have ideas,
we try things, but we hit a wall and we bounce off of it
and to me, this is one of the most powerful mindsets
of how we break out of cycles, break over barriers.
Remember,
we talked about getting the demo crew the other week.
Building the most solid intention.
Our actions may be impeded,
but there cannot be any impeding our intention.
Love it.
Marcus truly saw each and every one of his obstacles
as an opportunity to practice some virtue.
Patience. Courage.
Humility.
Resourcefulness. Reason.
Justice and creativity.
I just love that list. Like how does it sit with you?
I love, even just thinking of these words
like the obstacle is the way.
Doesn't that just, impart an idea of courage
and don't we need, like, a boost
sometimes with our courage and patience?
Like, to me, in our space of fasting space
to me is a practice of patience.
It is a patience practice.
It's a practice of spending time without doing,
of waiting, of delayed gratification. So.
Here is an experience where we say, man, patience is a virtue
that we all need to build,
and we can build that in our life with,
just, you know, in our dietary nutritional practice,
it's a build patience here.
Fasting, great to do that.
And building strength, in the body for,
helping us with many metabolic things.
Right.
Many metabolic
things made better by practicing a virtue of patience.
And then, of course, that's a model for all of life.
Like, who doesn't, want and who wouldn't benefit
from some increased patience, in life?
And then I just love this list, too,
that he ends with creativity
because this is, this is a big part of the process, right?
How do you turn an obstacle, into the way, like,
and to powerfully go through it?
It's not always immediately obvious.
You have to be creative to do it.
And this is why I love, you know, the creative act
that we've been going through,
building out the creativity that we have to say, like,
how do we solve this puzzle?
That is my life.
I feel like we have these obstacles and barriers,
and to me, these are the things that are really help us
break through climbing the mountain. Right.
I want to add we add this thought in as we're,
climbing the mountain in the other book,
like more tools to break through barriers along the way.
Climbing up
I love, see, I love the thought most people going on
some weight loss process, losing weight and then plateau.
But we've flipped that.
We say we're climbing a mountain and we've reached the plateau
and now we're in a new plane.
You know, a new plane of existence.
And we are building the skills and collecting the tools,
the thoughts.
That will help power us on the next leg of our journey.
He says Marcus had great power,
but it never seemed to go to his head.
Neither did the stress or burden.
He rarely rose to excess or anger
and never to hatred or bitterness.
So I just underlined that when I was thinking about,
you know, some of the sessions we've done
letting go of regrets, letting go of anger,
like the whole piece, really, we say that we're trying
to, go for is it really weight loss or is something deeper,
right, to find a space of peace and contentment
in the body and the mind that's like, more important than what
any number on a scale says to me at least.
Okay.
And then the process of finding a space like that,
practicing our health practices are virtues.
Like they're saying, patience in these things is
actually the practice that would help us achieve that goal.
Ultimately, too, it's like,
I want everybody to hit any scale number.
They want you.
So you come in, you say, I want to lose 20 pounds.
Well, I of course I want you to do it.
You know, whatever the number is, you know, I'm
I'm not trying to sell anyone
on on
anything that it's going to happen on any sort of time frame.
Right.
Some people like slip into something fasting very powerful.
They are able to use it to lose weight, faster
than other things that they have.
Okay.
But not everybody experiences that way
because we have many variables
and we have many, equations that we're trying to balance.
That's why I just say that fasting is about openness.
We want to be open to the experiences, the reality of life.
Try to build, mindset like Marcus.
Right.
Marcus Aurelius staying away from excess or anger.
Never hatred or bitterness.
Since one can trace the thread of this thought,
Marcus, his writings
through the Roman Empire to the creative
outpouring of the Renaissance,
to the breakthroughs of the enlightenment,
we see it in the pioneering spirit in the American West,
the perseverance during the Civil War
and the bustle of the industrial Revolution.
Now, I underline that too, because I'm like,
oh man, I haven't been so keen on the Industrial Revolution
lately because I've just, you know, been studying like,
obviously there's so many good things came out of it.
But then also it's
so is the seeds of so many troubles that we're having.
And so now we're in this space.
And, you know, he goes through in this book
how in each of these, you know, amazing epochs of time,
where people accomplish
so many things is this sort of mindset,
that has powered humanity for two millennia now,
this indomitable, unconquerable spirit, of people
and, you know, as reflecting on it as like, okay,
so these are powerful ideas and I really do believe that.
And we want to take powerful ideas like this,
bring them into our lives
so that we can accomplish every good thing that we want.
But I double underlined Industrial revolution
because it's like, okay,
the ideas are powerful, but like, we really have to be clear.
I think, what it is that we actually want, you know,
and because, you know, you take some powerful ideas
and you put some human spirit behind it, and,
and you might just create something different.
And, this is, I think, what we're doing right now, you know,
we did the talk on AI and, energy
usage and, the situation that we're at, right now
in this moment with energy
and that our bodies are mirroring society in so many ways,
so many things out of balance.
And so I think, you know, this is what I want to do.
A fasting space to me, okay.
Doing many things in the body,
clarifying things how to burn through
access, also opening up a space
that is a very deep space for contemplation
and, you know, to think about big issues.
What is the type of life that we want to create for ourselves?
What kind of life are we creating here in society too?
Like if, if we want to think a new thought
like, can fasting actually be a basis of that?
Like, I'm not opposed to technology.
Look how I am using technology to connect with you now.
And I love it.
And, I'm not opposed to it,
but I do sit here and think about how much energy I'm using.
And I look in a beautiful environment like the lake.
And I think, like, you know, it's there's gray area too,
you know, where it's like some coal plant.
You know, the coal plant just three blocks
basically from my house here at the University of Wisconsin.
So we're burning up, you know, stuff.
So that I can do this.
And fasting space is what I want to show
to help us to be very thoughtful,
think about energy and nature
and our connection to it in these cycles.
And then we want to think of thought can,
can a future doesn't have to be only technological.
You know, fasting has been a part of the human experience
for eons, right?
You go back to the original physician writings of Hippocrates.
They would help people fast and unleash
healing within the body.
You know, food is medicine
and fasting can be medicine in a certain way.
And so the type of innovation that I would like to see
both in medicine and society, okay, make every new technology
okay.
And let's try to make it as efficient as possible.
And hopefully someone can build us a fusion reactor one day.
And but like also let's like
not miss the the ground balls.
You know like the fundamentals in the basics.
Like just because we have technology now doesn't mean that
the rules have changed about how the human body operates.
And we need to reconnect ourselves.
I say as much as possible to the natural cycles
that have brought health and healing to the body.
And it's very clear, to me, that
the body thrives from some open space.
Our mental health benefits from that right
to shut the distractions down
for a while, disconnect from the technology
a bit, do some breathing and thinking in our body.
Certainly.
Which is the same right?
Mind body the same.
Certainly connects, with some space
where we can burn through the access center.
Things bring things back into a baseline.
He ends the preface here. Like this.
We are the rightful heirs of this tradition, our birthright.
That's bold.
Whatever we face, we have a choice.
Will we be blocked by obstacles,
or we will we advance through and over them?
Let us advance through and over them.
That's what I say.
I want any barrier that we face as say,
you know, let's do it together.
We got fasting space like, if there are barriers,
that you have struggles, bring them to this space.
I'm just happy to have people, share
struggles and difficulty.
That's the thing I actually want the most.
You know, I'm not, the
type of person to say I'm not a big cheerleader.
Really. I'm not trying to hype anything. You know?
I'm not trying to say, like, look at fasting.
It's like the easiest thing in the entire world.
Like, you just do this and, like, your life
will never be the same, and I'll just be, you know, perfect.
And it's all rainbows and things.
The thing that is, from my perspective, it's, it's a real,
you know, it's like it's not some hype on some infomercial
somewhere.
It's like the real deep physiology of the body.
It's just completely connected
to the reality of existing in the world
is, to me, is very, very grounded.
And that means, that anything that is
real and grounded and present in this world
has, you know, both opportunity and struggle,
mixed, in it, you know, that's just the reality.
And, But it means that there's great opportunity.
And that's what I say about fasting is a great opportunity.
There are, health pathways that,
we have not really practiced in our, our lives,
certainly in society, in medicine.
And so we say here, like these little ducks,
in the cold, it's like, let's huddle up here a little bit.
You know, I think that's what they're doing.
They're trying to stay warm, in a space.
Sometimes I envision,
you know, trying to be healthy in the modern world,
like these little collections of these birds
kind of huddled up.
It's like there are winds blowing.
It's cold, that this is like the information landscape.
Everybody says this or that.
How do we even know what to think?
Okay, let's be grounded, centered,
collect with some thoughtful, people
and, look toward the light.
This is what the birds are doing, right?
They are migrating for spring.
They are, looking toward the light.
They are overcoming their obstacle, together.
This is giving us, like,
the natural metaphor of what we are trying, to do,
move toward every good and healthy thing
that creates, flourishing in life
health, joy, positivity, and lightness.
That's it.
And thinking of our trampolines yesterday, right?
Just a kid. I see a kid on a trampoline.
Just joy and presence, living in the moment,
just fully enjoying it.
Like,
this is the type of way we want to flow through something.
Floating through a space. You know, I've.
I've used the analogy a lot on the channel.
Like a sailboat. Right.
We'll see in the spring out here,
people will be getting their sailboats out on the lake.
Breeze will be blowing people through.
We can look at the birds right now
on the water and just see, okay, they're just floating.
They're right there floating along.
They are making it through this space.
See, this isn't a very nice day.
I think for the ducks out on this lake.
They came up here,
they thought, it's going to be beautiful Wisconsin spring.
It's going to be like 70 degrees.
And they just got it made.
And then they show up and it's like.
Look at the snow and the ice in the freezing wind. Okay.
But look how they're passing the time.
They're floating through it.
And this is the obstacle.
They're not running away from it.
Yeah I like this analogy today.
Floating through our obstacle.
This is the analogy. Maybe.
Do I like it the best? For fasting. Right.
Floating through, space and time
sometimes that put us, I done a couple
where I float us up in space, show the earth spinning around
and we sit in our little fasting space station.
Right then we're really floating in space right here.
We're just, like, floating in the water.
Floating in water for fasting.
So. Great.
As an analogy,
because the big trek, right, has been your experience.
Just stay hydrated here.
I'm drinking an herbal tea this morning.
You have a coffee, you have a sparkling water.
You think of ourselves
like floating ourselves through a space, staying hydrated.
What makes it easy? You.
You can, look up and view, YouTubes have different,
influencer type people telling you to do dry fasting
and how it is so much better.
I've I've read, I've studied,
you know, different people do this.
I'm just not really sold that.
It really, is is it really that much more helpful in any way?
And certainly it makes it more difficult.
And, everything that I am about trying to do
is to try to make a situation for people
in which they're floating,
toward weight loss and health and some process as easy
and pleasant as possible to minimize any bit of struggle.
And to me, if that's something someone has called to
and they find benefit, you know,
that's fine if you are in a health space
to do it and talk with your medical team,
certainly about that,
especially if someone has kidney problems or other things.
To me, I say, I don't want to mess around with any of that.
You say, what would be worst case scenarios
if someone is doing some sort of fasting,
or if you weren't staying hydrated,
could that exacerbate, could you become dehydrated?
Could you have electrolyte problems?
Could you have kidney problems?
Of course you could.
And so I say let's just stay away from anything like that.
I want nothing to do with problems. Right?
The things that I want things to do with
are just flowing through a space.
Trying to be mindful and focusing on today,
instead of focusing on and weight
loss goals, has been a major change to my thinking.
I am getting there. Hey, thank you so much for sharing that.
I'm really happy to hear that the,
you know, that that is probably one of the biggest insights
I've taken away from Atomic Habits
so far as we've been stepping through it is to,
to just see our goal as one point.
And this graph and then think of all the points,
all the days, like on that journey,
and that we can get overwhelmed by that.
Amazingly, it can take us off course
if we're so focused in on that,
it can take us out of this present moment,
make it more difficult to do the actual fundamental
things that are moving us on that path.
And that when we take that pressure off,
we start living in the present,
bringing things here, into this moment.
It opens up the possibility that that something else happens.
You know, that
it doesn't look exactly the way we thought it might.
And when we focus here in this moment, in this space
that like, okay, I think it's good to have goals.
And you know part of that
and he he doesn't say it necessarily.
It's not like there can never be any value to having a goal.
We said we want to climb a mountain, but
we're getting on the path and the way you get to that goal,
like once you've set it,
the intention is just to bring things in
and find a way of being, you know, it is harder.
Do you think this is true?
It is harder to have a way of being that is calm
and content and centered, grounded, joyful.
If we're always worried about the future
and thinking about it, you know.
If we can, I like to say a template day.
What is the template day?
What is our ideal health day look like? Maybe.
Ideally, it's a day where we don't even think about it
that much, because we have put in the work
and we have built and shaped and crafted the actions.
Remember all the talking we did on thinking fast and slow
about priming the environment,
all the cues that are, shaping the subconscious decisions
we make.
It's like we have to bring awareness.
So we see times where we're automatically flowing
through spaces, and it's not not really optimal.
So we do the work of optimizing those things.
The ideal future is to say,
okay, I'm just stepping through a day
where I don't really have to make that many decisions.
And what feels natural, because we've made it normal,
we've made it
a part of our routine, are actually the processes
that help us take today's step
so that over time, as we're flowing through that space,
like that goal that we have,
it's just one point on the curve, and then we're compounding,
and then that's just the launch pad.
From that point.
And then on that path, that's where we're sitting today.
I'm Stickles going to come on that path.
We say, oh, well, every day
could just be the same. I just do this.
I just do this, okay? But then life happens, right?
And then we have to do
isn't it enough really to deal with today's issues today?
And we'll deal with tomorrow's issues tomorrow?
Here are the two things I wrote down from this mindset.
Obstacle to weight
loss is the way I'm going to read this book again.
I'll read through it, step through it, live.
And you know, when I read this before, I wasn't,
you know, dialed in completely, you know, and saying,
how do we squeeze every little weight loss, thing out of it
to now we will do it with the rest of our things.
Merge all this thinking together as best we can.
I do have, I do.
I did do one video. It might have been two years ago.
Should look up what it is.
It says joy on the journey, on the thumbnail image.
And it shows me hiking up.
I hiked up this mountain in Yellowstone
when we were out there, and I was reading this book.
I was doing like a vlog.
Did you see it? Where I was holding the camera?
I was talking to the camera,
reading Marcus Aurelius as we walked up the mountain.
Like overcoming our obstacle.
I really, I really did like that.
I think I read this same quote in that video.
It's just such a such a powerful frame of mind.
Okay? The obstacle is the way.
Listen to, this perspective.
Just to to me, this is a powerful insight.
I don't I don't know how other people see it.
We are here.
Okay? Moving toward better health.
I want people to lose weight.
Okay?
Anybody who is here who wants to lose weight,
I want you to achieve your goal.
Okay? So.
And then I want broader health
beyond that metabolically mentally.
Okay.
Everything holistic well-being I want for people.
But if, if you stay one part of that process, lose weight.
We say body fat is here.
It is an obstacle
hard to get rid of right, is people's experience.
People say, I've wanted it gone for years and years and years.
Hasn't happened. Is like an obstacle.
Think about this message.
The obstacle is the way.
Okay, body fat is the obstacle.
We're trying to get rid of it.
Overcome it. Okay.
What is it?
Actually, it is fuel that powers the body.
The body is storing it for us to power
our body and life in the absence of food.
So the obstacle, quite literally, is the way we use
the body fat in order to get rid of it.
Like the obstacle is the way
we use the obstacle, you know, against itself.
And that is the pathway through it.
Really. There's there's no other way to do it.
You know, any weight loss process is utilizing this resource,
whether it is, you know, exercising it out, burning it up.
That way or, you know, or taking some medication.
This is the, the way of the day, right?
You say, well, what does the medication do?
Helps you to eat less so that you can access
and use this energy like you have to use it?
The obstacle is the way in the broader, space.
Here in this space,
the fasting space is like easier to see directly,
I say, whereas like, oh, like the actual purpose of it
is to power the body in the absence of food.
And so fasting is the pure physiology where like,
this is literally
the most important physiologic space for body fat.
This is what keeps people alive. Like this is the purpose.
The obstacle really is the way through it.
So to me, I find that to be, a profound connection to this.
Book.
And then the second, thought is like, okay,
so if we understand that and we say, okay, that's easy to see.
All right.
And I mean, would you agree is the easier to see, okay.
Well what is the obstacle to actually doing that? Okay.
The primary obstacle to doing that,
telling me if you agree is that we feel hungry.
Okay.
So like, eating, is very present
and it helps us avoid hunger.
Especially our bodies are in cycles.
When we're used to eating, then we feel hungry.
Amazingly, as we practice fasting is often
the remedy for excessive,
hunger that we pass through it.
So hunger is the obstacle.
Okay?
Passing through hunger,
like, is the way to resolve that obstacle.
In most cases,
what fasting is, is bringing things into balance.
You see, so many times we see we're trapped in a cycle
because we don't want to experience any hunger.
So we always eat.
We've we've interpreted hunger as so negative and so bad.
We've created so much stigma around it, like something
terrible is happening to the body in with condition.
People like you should always eat if you're feeling hungry
because we need to listen to our body, right?
It's like, well, that is a sight
can keep us trapped in a cycle
where actually the more we eat, we're communicating patterns
to the body that, hey, we need to keep this digestive
system running because we seem to be eating all the time,
and we can trap ourselves in hunger cycles.
People end up feeling hungry all the time.
And then now we have situations where eating three meals
plus four snacks throughout the day,
food is coming in all the time and people wonder is like,
okay, always.
The energy is flowing in.
No space to flow out, people afraid of feeling hungry.
I have the Hunger series on this channel is like 7 or 8 videos
all on hunger, and one of those is reframing hunger.
We've got to like, change the way we see it and think about it
and realize the obstacle is the way.
Actually, no real way, to move toward fasting
without experiencing any type of hunger ever, right?
You've got to pass through it.
The obstacle is the way you pass through it,
and then you come to see, oh,
there's like clarity on the other side.
Has this been in your experience?
You go through a fasting space,
you experience some hunger, but it's not permanent, right?
Hunger is not permanent.
It comes in a wave.
That wave might last longer than we want.
Usually it's 60 to 90 minutes.
It has a peak intensity of about ten minutes.
That can feel very intense.
And that wave crests and that wave diminishes
and then it goes away.
And have you experienced this in your life?
If you haven't, I mean, I want you to experience it.
You have gone through a process and felt hunger
and made it through it,
maybe using a fasting aid,
you know, staying hydrated, using any of the fasting aids.
Watch my fasting aids video, right?
My my beautiful Chia Line drink using a fiber supplement.
With or without juice, using broth like
such, great, aid.
Okay, so so we flow through that space or just pure
water, like the ultimate space,
and you get to the other side of it.
Or maybe have you had this experience where you
you were planning on eating, but we're just distracted.
You got busy at work.
You got busy with this or that, you got stuck in traffic.
You were here or there and it was like all of a sudden
you went through that space.
You were so distracted by something.
And now it was hours later and you're like, I'm not hungry.
Like, if you had been standing in the fridge or in the kitchen
staring at the fridge, you would have gotten hungry.
You would have ate something, but you were distracted.
All the hormones
that can control how we feel hungry based on our patterns.
They still came out, but it didn't raise to the level
of consciousness of whatever was important.
And then the hormones went away.
And then you're not hungry anymore.
Like, how wild is that?
This is what I want people to see.
People feeling like trapped in cycles of hunger.
And then many people have had that.
Oh, yeah.
There was that one time, you know, I was doing this
and then I wasn't able to eat, and then I wasn't hungry.
But then we got hungry for dinner again. Right.
Because the brain's trying to figure out
when do we need to fire up the digestive system.
Right.
Body would always prefer to do that.
Like if we have access to food.
I just think about it.
If we have access to food and we can eat food now,
why would we burn the reserves?
This is what the body's thinking reserves are for the time
when we really need it,
when we don't have the food,
everything in the body about being as efficient as possible.
And so that is like we got access to food we're going to eat.
Hunger helps keep that system going, right.
And then we're going to eat it.
But we say, well, we want to change that situation.
We want to flow.
We want the energy flowing out of the body
pass through some amount of hunger.
This is the practice of patience. To do it.
And then we see, okay, the obstacles,
the way hunger is an obstacle, we practice flowing through it.
You can practice just a few minutes of it
and then you can stop.
Right. And then you can journal about it and reflect on it.
And then maybe tomorrow you lean a little bit more into it
and you see how we're mirroring
the process of weightlifting, right?
You understand weightlifting.
You want to get big, strong muscles.
You start lifting a little weights
until they're feeling better,
and then you grab some bigger weights
and the body will respond, right.
You will strengthen.
This is what I want people to think of in a fasting space.
Fasting space. It can be just a few minutes.
You know, we can start at somewhere, think of atomic habits.
We can start at the smallest place.
So it doesn't matter where you start.
You know,
a compounding curve can start at a tiny little space.
I'm just going to take one fasting minute.
Normally I hit the alarm at six and I get up
and I eat something at 605.
You know, we did, wasn't there something in atomic Habits
where he was talking about his one minute meditation
in the kitchen?
Right.
So maybe 605, you know, whatever your experiences,
you do your one minute meditation, what a beautiful thing.
And then 606, you do it, you know, or set the alarm a minute
early, shift everything and just start the habit.
Say, hey,
I my way of being in the world is I do a one minute meditation
and I just realize, okay, I opened up that tiniest space.
Everybody can make it through a minute.
And what if you even cares how long you took?
You could take weeks of doing it.
And you say, what if it was two minutes?
You know what if it was three
and you just start building from any tiny space a little seed
and that can sprout and grow into the biggest tree, right?
This is what the fasting, is.
Think of fasting like weightlifting.
You start the little morsel of it, you know,
tiny little amount, and then you let that grow.
And as you strengthen the body, this is obstacle is the way.
That is how you navigate and move through hunger.
If hunger is like the key obstacle, you say, okay,
we can break it down into the tiniest parts.
We've got a lot of time on our hands
and meaning a lot of days, right?
And we don't have to solve.
Think of if we've been struggling with a situation
with, weight for decades, however long it has been, say,
well, let's not crank up the intensity on ourselves.
Let's not overwhelm ourselves.
If we have multiple decades of a process,
we don't have to solve it all in a couple weeks.
Okay, but can we start the process like a time?
I can, it's showing us.
To starts and compounding and bring that process along.
Then bring in this mindset. See, the obstacle is the way.
They're just giving us a powerful, intentional space
to say,
you know, this thing that has kept me locked in a cycle
for so long that I've been afraid of,
remember the virtues you're showing us, courage
that can give us courage
to take some steps in a direction right through the obstacle.
I really, I hope we can get into some spaces like that.
Let me know if you think that is happening
or if you think it is not.
And I'd be happy.
I'd be happy to take the thinking,
you know, let's let's approach it
all and learn and grow together, in this space.
Thank you so much for sharing, the space with me today.
Really great to have you here.
I hope you have a really, really grounded, thoughtful, day
today.
And I will look forward to chatting with you again tomorrow.
Have a great day, everybody.
