Fasting Space

I want you to zoom and imagine
that you are in a movie theater,

on the screen starts

playing the movie of you.

The movie of your life starring you
main character is happening.

And so you get to sit here
and you get to watch life moving forward

and like you sometimes do in a movie.

Have you seen a movie like this?

The show, like the flash forward, it's
like you don't quite know when it was,

but it's like now, you know, oh,
you know how it ends.

And then now we're going back
and filling in the details

so you know how the movie ends
and it's clear the protagonist,

you get the health
that you're seeking on the journey.

You overcome the barriers
and the obstacles.

You find happiness,
inner peace and contentment,

and you live happily ever after.

I give you a cheers to it.

But now we are back at the beginning,

in the present,
and we got to fill in the gaps.

What is the space between here and there?

What is the hero's journey
that you are taking to get it

is what I try to help you out with.

This is what I try to help
everybody out with in fasting space.

Is fasting part of the journey
that can help you on that path?

I would say the potential is there.

The potential is here with us right now.

If you're in a fasting space, grab
a coffee or tea, settle in, grab a water.

If you are exercising
and listening to this session, absolutely

a water over a sports drink
probably going to help you out.

On the journey. So.

Maybe in the hero's journey are we

are we walking through some type
of archetypal scene?

The protagonist has been stuck
in a difficult place,

and it's like,
you know, in a moment where it's like.

Things don't always go
according to plan in the script.

Do you turn off the movie?

It's like, no, this is bringing us
to a place where it's like,

you want to know, like, man,
look at all the adversity.

Many times, like a film is set up
this way, adversity has happened.

How does our hero navigate it?

How do they, against all odds,
does it ever feel like that in your life?

Find the path, the narrow way.

Climb the mountain.

Many plot twists make it interesting
sometimes.

We have mused in the past as we're talking
about our journey toward better health.

Don't we wish it was just a straight line
up the mountain or a gondola?

I remember that
take the gondola to the top.

We had one trip like that
and our North Carolina trip.

We did some arduous hiking like around
and around up to get there.

But then Mount Mitchell, you can basically
just drive right to the top.

We got maybe 0.2 miles up from the parking
lot to the lookout.

Maybe it has the best view.

Wasn't quite as exciting though.

After instead of hiking for half the day
to get up to it.

A big thing in a lot of movies
figuring out

right, who is the actual enemy?

Can you think of that?

Who is the antagonist in it?

Sometimes it's not clear.

It's like we're trying to figure it out.

You can imagine of a session that we are

having a struggle

with, say, is the struggle of food, right?

Is the struggle.

Sugar is the struggle. Carbs.

See, it's a slow metabolism.

Much more to come on that.

I'm putting together a talk on that.

Increasingly what I see.

Tell me if this is your experience.

Increasingly,
do you come to see that the

the real antagonist is the protagonist?

It's us.

We're having a wrestling match
with ourself.

Is this the hero's journey?

Overcoming the past,
the history, the habits,

the patterns breaking out of old cycles
that aren't serving us?

Is this the true hero's journey
that we are on?

This is what this book would suggest.

We're right
at the pinnacle of the mountain.

The very last pages.

I keep saying that
that they have packed in so many

good thoughts
in the last few pages of this book.

The mountain is you, the mountain is me.

To it's
the mountain is anybody who is trying

to embark on a hero's journey
and move forward in health,

in the midst of a difficult culture
that has stacked

the deck against us with food
that isn't even food,

by some definitions that no human beings
ever had to deal with in the past.

And now we're here in this modern moment,
with all the blessings of it.

We can be sitting here using technology
to connect

across vast distances,
but we have to also navigate

the aisles of the supermarket

where people are trying to sell us
things that aren't good for us,

as opposed to the past, where it's like
just some things grew and we went

and got them and ate them,
at least in one way that would be easier.

This book that we're looking at going
to share a little passage with you,

it's about self-sabotage.

It's getting deep

into psychology, in the mindset
why do we make the decisions that we do?

And how do we give ourselves every tool
to help us?

And I thought one of the most helpful
things has been

this idea that self-sabotage
is not some sort of error.

It's not even wrong in some sort of thing.

It is just a misguided coping mechanism.

It's something that maybe even wasn't
misguided.

It's something that really did help

at a point in time,
but it is not helping us now.

Maybe it is helping us in some way, but
there are side effects that we don't like,

but we can see.

And especially food is a sort of place
that can do it.

We dove deep into that yesterday
in that beautiful poem on a diet.

Food is something that can soothe.

Remember those words?

The root of soups and the balm.

It's like a healing okay
that it can bring, at least temporarily,

some calming to some anxiety,
some comfort to a stress.

Right?
But we are sitting in this space now.

The hero is like,
we got to break out of that space.

Very important.

The scene in there's one of these.

I watched a Star Trek movie once where
like the the old Star Trek kind of crashed

with the new Star Trek was like
Captain Picard and William Shatner.

Kirk.

They, like, meet in some time
warp in space.

And Kirk had been,
like, trapped in this time warp.

But it's like this.

The space was like,
I don't know, it's like it

it creates this fantasy world of, like,
whatever you want and you can live in it.

You have anything you want.

And it was like,
and he's got to break out of it.

Like, it's not real, okay?

Like, like bad stuff's happening.

You got to come help me save the,
you know, galaxy or whatever.

I say be very hard.

Guys like this pretty nice.

I don't really want to go. Right.

Doesn't it feel like that?

It's like jumping into a cold pool.

This is part of the hero's journey.

He was a real hero in that movie, right?

He broke out of the things,
start to see reality again.

So I've been stuck in this space
comfort trap.

What was that book that I put on my list?

Comfort crisis.

We have a comfort crisis.

The trouble with it. Comfort.
Very appealing.

Works in the short term,
but then it comes around and it doesn't

really help us to be strong, you know,
doesn't build a mindset of resilience,

and staying in a place of total comfort
always is not the hero's journey, right?

Hero's journey in a film, in a book, in

any sort of good story
that we might be watching on the screen

right now, this is the idea
I want to get to us picture ourself in it.

Where is the place where we take a step,
where we step out of that space and say,

you know what, this has been comfortable,
this has been good.

But like, let's move in this direction
and actually make the move, you know,

with a plot twist where the hero gets it
and they're like, oh,

you see, and this is where I bring
in a fasting space to it.

If this is the type of thing
that you are called to because

people in society would say, well,
fasting is not the comfortable choice.

And from a certain point of view,
I won't argue with it.

Right?

I won't argue, but I will say,
let's open our mind a little bit,

because over time, fasting is a practice
we see.

Comfort itself doesn't necessarily
stay comfortable, does it?

You know,

because it can also be frustrating because
we see that it can also be a hindrance.

Fasting, the type of thing.

Just like many good things to say,
take a medicine.

I wasn't always taste good,
but might help the body.

Well, I'll tell you, fasting
can actually come to feel comfortable.

This is like the super unlock
what I really want for people.

There's a barrier to entry.

Hunger is a big part of that barrier.

Stepping out of a comfort space.
Big part of the barrier.

But have you experienced this?

That as you practice it,

that you get more in control of it,
you have more familiarity with?

It doesn't mean that it's all the time,
and it's not like you even ever,

I don't know, reach some perfect state
where things are always easy.

I don't say that,
but definitely a difference

between easy and comfortable.

I think to me,
I think I have definitely found a space

where I would say fast
and can feel comfortable,

and in other points where you say,
oh, is it?

I still feel some hunger,
which maybe we don't describe

as completely comfortable,
we say, or completely easy,

but even some comfort in there
where I feel like, no, I can feel that

justice system
shutting down a bit, you know,

and that can feel comfortable.

Very interesting space, you know, to find.

And I say that's it's a space
and attention to explore.

And that would be the part of a journey.

If you're starting to lean into a space

like that, you say,
then you're not feeling overwhelmed by it.

Now you can see you can start taking steps
forward through it,

opening up the space.

And to me,
this is the spot in the middle of a film

where it's like the hero is starting
to put the pieces together.

They're starting to believe.

Think of like
Luke Skywalker is like spending

the beginning of that first Star Wars,
like running away from it.

He's like, I am not this person.

Like, this is pointless.

You've got to find somebody else.

Yoda is like coming along and being,
like helping the journey.

Help him through it, help him to see it.

This is what I hope
we are having an experience like.

Try to help you come along on your journey
to accomplish it.

Every hero in his story
has got a moment right there.

Isn't there a moment in the film
when the change happens?

The mental shift

isn't that as much as anything, it's
not about the external circumstances.

So much like if we look in Star Wars,
it's not like

something changed in the Empire
and Luke finally decided to do it.

It's an internal shift
where he realizes, like, this is who I am,

and and this is the type of thing,

of course, that we need the mindset shift.

Maybe it's like this book suggests
enough is enough.

We hit that point.

Sometimes that looks like rock bottom.

Like, this cannot go on.

Sometimes it's
just a logical mental decision

where we say
no, we are going in a different direction

and you are not going to stop me,
and we are going to approach things

with a human intensity
that is going to demolish our barriers.

And this is the point that I want to help
people gently but courageously

find the shift
that helps to propel things forward.

I always say, you know,
this book says most people change

at rock bottom,
and I think it's been true in my life.

I've tend to I tend to operate that way,

wait till I just can't take it anymore
and then then make the move.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

I don't want it to be that way
for anybody.

I say we got what
we got to be thoughtful to say.

We're really going to dial in the mindset

and make a move before that point.

I think thinking about the middle of the
film, the middle of the film, you know,

you already know the exposition,
you know the character development, right?

You know yourself
now we know the ending of it.

There's this whole middle
when we think about it.

And the movie I was thinking about,
it is like Rocky is at least one of them.

I don't I haven't watched in a long time.

One of these Rocky movies,
like Rocky, is going to fight like this.

This massive bodybuilder boxer guy
from the Soviet Union,

I think,
and the Soviet guy, for some reason

has all the high tech gadgets
and is all this funding.

And I don't know why the American boxer
has nothing and they just basically

throw him out in the woods and but you
know, he's carrying like logs around and,

you know, he's going through
a period of training for it.

You see, in the movie
and in extreme discipline,

he finally he gets the motivation.

He has the shift.

He goes through a period.

It's a transformational period, right?

He's transforming himself into like this
most powerful fighter.

Right.

Many things are like that.

You know, famous scripts.

This is the type of thing.

If we've made the mindset shift,
if we're seeing the film developing,

we say we are going through the process
like the butterfly in the cocoon.

We've got that transformational period.

Looks like doing the work.

We've caught the vision we are dialing in.

And every day, like Atomic Habits
says, 1% better every day.

We're not trying to win the whole life
battle in one day

or one week,
but we are bringing in the mindset.

To build the skills to do it.

You say, I like to tell people.

I like people to have a three year
plan, three year plan,

taking so much pressure off
and it's like year one.

It's like we're building
the foundation of it.

And then year two is like, man, we are now

we are really dialing in
and we are honing the skills.

And year three,
we have built up the momentum

and we are powering through it
and building, you know,

the compounding process, atomic habits,
showing us like health habits,

just like finances can compound
and this is what we really want.

But a compounding process,
it takes a little bit of time

and that is okay.

I was reading an article
the other day about a gentleman.

He was like 36.

He said my lifelong dream was always to go
to medical school, but he never did it.

And he's like, now it's too late.

And the author was saying, like,
too late for what?

Like he's like, it's
going to take seven years, though.

And by that time I'm going to be,
you know, whatever, 42 and whatever.

And the guy was like,
how old are you going to be

if you don't do it?

You know the same, right? Obviously.

Fasting to me today, at least the mindset
maybe this is helpful for you.

Have you watched a Rocky movie?

Have you just seen the resilience
of the character?

Right. This is the big point.

Not always the biggest,

not necessarily the strongest,
but definitely the most resilient.

Right?

You can hammer on this guy

for 14 rounds and then he's just going
to keep coming back.

And to me, a fasting space

is the way I would suggest approaching it
gently, thoughtfully.

Not any longer than you want it to be, but
it is a training program of resilience.

Much better
than getting boxed around in a ring.

Okay, a gentle resilience program
training the specific type of resilience

that is helpful for someone

who is trying to lose weight
and improve insulin resistance,

and the training program to train the body
to burn the energy within it

instead of the energy that is coming
in, takes practice to train that.

And so this is the thing to train.

This is the type of resilience that can
bring a type of metabolic strength.

That is exactly the type of thing
that is needed in this modern moment.

So just acknowledge let's acknowledge
this middle part of the movie.

We're not at the ending yet.

We're in this middle zone.

We are making our way through it.

Acknowledge right in your life as we're
watching it on the screen mentally, right?

We say, oh, the character right now,
they're in the difficult part, right?

This is the hard part, the middle
where it's like the challenges are coming

and we are stepping over and struggling
and working with them.

And and so this brings
us really to the core question,

which is like, what does your character
do at this point in the movie?

And so that's the open question.

That is the golden question
at this moment.

What does the hero do in this moment,
this scene of your life?

Maybe it's this day, this season,
and I just open that up.

Maybe it could be something
as simple as this

gravity and flow through an extra space
and lean into it.

Maybe it's diving in on the exercise,
the extra exercise.

They weren't going to do what you're going
to do what you're doing it right.

Give yourself a pep talk.

Maybe it's bringing the two together
in a gentle fashion and leaning into it.

So you say we've unlocked
that fasting space.

All the other energy is cleared out,
and now we are

putting a load of resistance on the body.

And the body has to respond to that by

releasing the energy
within it to power that space.

That is a hero move. It is a hero move.

Listen to how Brianna Weiss describes it.

If you listen to the stories of many of
the most successful people in the world,

they often begin
with unimaginable hardship

in the face
of the most unlikely situations.

These people are forced into action.

Comfort and complacency is not an option.

They realize
they must become the heroes of their own

lives, the creators of their own future.

And then they do it.

And this is my call to us that we do it,
that we make the decision to do it.

And hopefully I say we are not like
the first part of this sentence.

Hopefully
we are not facing unimaginable hardship.

But when we look at it and we see it
and we think of stories of people

who have that,
that can be an inspiration to us

and to say, to say thank God
that we do not have some other challenge.

And isn't it
enough with the challenges that we have?

And I would say never forced.

I don't like things forced into action,
but sometimes people are forced into

action by life.

Wherever we are at, maybe
we are being forced into some action,

but hopefully what we say
voluntarily chosen.

That's what I want to take. Ideas
like this.

Powerful mindsets of incredible success
and accomplishment.

Archetypal stories of the hero's journey
bring them into our life.

See the potential.

Look at the situation
that we have like the hero

facing it in a movie to vision it.

I'm a big believer.

Can you create a vision
of what it looks like?

You have a health goal.
It's a weight loss goal.

It is something like that.

You say, can you actually see it?

And can you start to envision
the steps between it, like you would see

if you were writing it
on the screen as a script,

how would the script go,
and can you start to enact that?

I think it's a very,
very powerful process.

Two paragraphs I wanted to share with you.

This is the first paragraph.

Here's the second one,
which I struggled with a little bit.

Let's struggle with it.

She says.

At the end of your life,
your purpose will not be defined

by how you struggled, what circumstances
you were in,

or what you were supposed to do,

but how you responded
in the face of adversity,

who you were to the people in your life
and what you did each day

that slowly, in its own unique
way, changed the course of humanity.

Now I struggle with that.

I don't know how it lands for you,
but I do have

some thoughts about it for sure.

Hey, I like this.

I can stay here or be a day
closer to my goal.

That is absolutely the case.

Maybe that's as much as we can
possibly do in one day, I love that.

Yeah, a few things that I would comment on
on this last thing.

I think it is really good.

I decided to share it because I do
like it, but it is a tough little passage.

You know, at the very premise

your purpose like to me, I'm like,
I don't know, like.

Trying to think like,
what is our purpose like?

And then tying it into a thing like,

oh, we're going to change
the course of humanity.

These are like big things.

And I'm like, sometimes I think, like
our purpose might be like,

you know, something less grand than that.

And isn't it enough

just to, you know, be here
and just the fact that we have value apart

from accomplishing anything
that's like a thought that comes in and.

So I don't want anyone
to feel pressured by that.

But I do like the idea.

It's not not about how we struggle,
not about anything else.

Our circumstances.

I really like this point.

Who were we to the people in our life say,

I'm huge lover of that.

And I do like this last line.

What did we do each day that, in its own
unique way, change the course of humanity?

So like the way I would connect
that in is from this session

just the other day, did I title it
Your Health Really Matters.

Like I kept I all capitalized,
really like it really matters.

The big idea there.

You know,
sometimes I read a course like this

on changing the course of humanity
and I'm like, really?

Like, I don't think that I am doing
that, you know?

And I think most people
are we really doing that?

You know,

I can see a thing like that and say, well,
it would be nice, like if it was good.

But the thing that, that,
that our talk last week said was like,

we don't see how interconnected we are,
both with each other and with the world.

And this existence, just like the bee
doesn't understand that it's intrinsic

to the life of a flower.

It's just trying to eat some stuff,
you know, and

so there can be more going on
and that actually it really does matter.

And so when we look at the world
and we look at the dysfunction of it

and the conflict and stress,
and we can feel powerless by it,

that to me, the antidote to
that is to focus internally

first to make sure that we are healthy.

And it's
because our health really matters.

Our health is connected to the broader
health of these things.

Say, I want the world to be healthier.

I want other people to be healthier.

But we can't change other people.

We can only change ourselves.

And isn't that hard enough?
It certainly is.

Does actually changing ourselves
as going on this hero's journey?

Look how they're connecting
these two ideas.

Just going on our hero's journey,
accomplishing our thing, having better

health.

Does that actually

change the course of humanity
in our own unique way, like they say?

I think it does.

And whether it does or it doesn't,
who is to say exactly?

Maybe we find out someday,
but I think it's an helpful idea,

even just to live as if it were true,
even if you don't believe it.

I think it's likely that it does.

My just belief
would be that it really does.

I think it does matter.

This would be the ultimate ending
of the movie.

They say here at the end of our life,

what are the things
we're really trying to accomplish?

You know, what would be the good end
of the story that we can see coming?

And then now we are here
in that critical space.

We're going to do the work to enact it.

I hope you find this
to be a helpful thought.

I found it to be an encouraging way
to think about it.

I am going to take some time before
I dive right into the next things on my

to do list and really, you know, do

some personal diving in on this.

What does it look like
if I see the end of it?

The end of the story?

What do we want that to look like?

Weren't we thinking about this idea?

Was it just with the poem yesterday?

Living a long

life, living to a very old age

where we can look back
and just say like, hey, that was good.

Living without regrets. What?

How do we help ourselves
to have that experience?

The health experience
really about it, right.

Trying to keep ourselves as healthy
as possible to avoid illnesses

of all kinds, so that we are able to flow
through this entire story.

The scene, the movie is few
health barriers as possible.

We have enough other barriers
to deal with.

Don't we try to take the health
ones off the table?

At least limit the probability.

There's only a certain probability.

You know, we're trying to stack the odds
in our favor.

Try to create the vision and see it.

Sometimes I like that
looking off to the mountains.

The big picture goal.

Sometimes it's enough
to forget about that.

Just look at one day,
wherever you're feeling right

now, one day closer to the goal.

That's probably the place to stick
most of the time.

Set the big vision.

Have some big visioning days.

Most of the days, like Pat is saying,

one day closer to the goal.

Are we going to stay here?

Are we going to dial in?

How do we just take this one step?

I know I can get overwhelmed
by the future too.

Is like, oh, there's so much to do so far
away from where we want to be.

It's like, look.

But when we start to see that vision,
we can see the way to get there.

It's going to take however many days.

That's however many steps we've really got
to dial in the process on one day.

First, it's like,
how do we take one step in this day

that is actually moving
as the needle toward it,

and then we start replicating
and building it.

So now we're starting to see the vision.

Now the days we start
stacking up the successes and then flowing

through that sort of space
to where we are ultimately

finding our success.

The climax of the film.

Excuse me,
really nice to share this space with you.

I hope you have a beautiful day

and I will look forward
to seeing you back here soon.