#247 Intuitive Fasting and Eating - Dr Will Cole

Will Cole (0:00)

What we're calling our intuition isn't really our intuition, it's our hormone imbalance.

So is it intuition or is it hangriness? Is it intuition or insatiable cravings? I mean, emotional eating, stress eating, blood sugar dysregulation is not intuition.

Siim Land (0:15)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast, I'm your host Siim Land, and today we talk with Dr. Will Cole. Will is one of the leading functional medicine doctors in the US. He has his medical practice and has written many books, such as The Inflammation Spectrum and Ketotarian.

In this episode, we're going to talk about Will's latest book called Intuitive Fasting. This episode is brought to you by Kaatsu Training. Kaatsu Bands incorporate blood flow moderation training that tricked the body into thinking that it's lifting heavier weights than it actually is. When traditional weightlifting requires you to reach 70 to 80 percent of your one repetition maximum to stimulate muscle hypertrophy, then Kaatsu Bands achieve that effect only at 20 to 30 percent. So it's perfect for treating injuries or used when you don't have access to heavier weights. Research about Kaatsu Bands also shows it lowers blood pressure, speeds up recovery from injuries, releases stem cells, builds muscle, burns fat, and prevents injury and muscle loss. These things are amazing and I use them almost every day to recover from my heavier workouts. If you want to try out the Kaatsu Bands, then use the code SIIM for a 10% discount at kaatsuglobal.com. That's S I I M at kaatsuglobal.com.

Will, welcome back to the show.

Will Cole (1:21)

Yeah man, thanks for having me. Thanks for having me back.

Siim Land (1:24)

Yeah, we first talked, I believe it was like in the second half of 2020

And by that time, you didn't have released your new book yet, but you did come out with it like a few months ago, which is Intuitive Fasting. So maybe let's talk a little bit about like what is Intuitive Fasting and how does it work?

Will Cole (1:42)

So it's my made up phrase, like it's born out of my clinical experience, just like anything else that I'd write about, because that's all I know is my clinical work.

So it's a mindful approach to intermittent fasting. I think the context matters when it comes to many things within wellness. So how you do something is just as important as how and why you do something is just as important as the what. So or what you do. So I want people to check in with their body and have more of an intuitive relationship to things like intermittent fasting and to food. But I want to have an authentic conversation about it too, because part of the reason why I wrote it is because you see a lot of people on social media talking about this concept of intuitive eating, which was a book in the 90s, which I'm not jogging on in any specific book. So the capital I, capital E, intuitive eating, we're not talking about that book. What I'm talking about is a social media movement and a lot of people within even the body positivity movement. They talk about this concept of I'm an intuitive eater. And as somebody that consults people via webcam for 11 hours a day, talking to people when people are in the throes of chronic inflammation, they're in the throes of blood sugar problem and blood sugar dysregulation or insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, which is the majority of the human race. Their, quote unquote, intuition there, it's basically trying to normalize metabolic disorders, which I think is a problem. Or they're, they're saying, well, my body is just craving this food that's driving inflammation. Is that what we're saying? My body's intuitively wanting something that actually shortens its lifespan. So I want to have an authentic conversation about what we're calling our intuition isn't really our intuition. It's our hormone imbalance.

So is it intuition or is it hangryness is intuition or insatiable cravings? I mean, emotional eating, stress eating, blood sugar dysregulation is not intuition.

So I wanted to have a functional medicine conversation about this concept of metabolic flexibility because actual metabolic flexibility, physiological metabolic flexibility is fertile foundation for authentic, mindful eating and intuitive fasting. You'll be able to go longer without eating, not because it's some restrictive fasting protocol or some obsessive food protocol. You can just go longer without eating because your body is more metabolically flexible. So it's really a conversation on, OK, if we want to talk about intuition, I'm all for that. But you have to have metabolic flexibility to actually do that.

Otherwise, you're going to be gritting your teeth and you're actually going to be going towards your metabolism is going to be going towards things that are quick fix, that are that sugar craving, that hanginess, but it's really ultimately going to perpetuate you feeling miserable. So that's what intuitive fasting is all about.