Is Intermittent Fasting Right for You?

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Transcript: Is Intermittent Fasting Right for You?

Season 4, Episode 12  | November 30, 2021

Jamie Martin

Welcome to Life Time Talks, the healthy-living podcast that’s aimed at helping you achieve your health, fitness, and life goals. I’m Jamie Martin, editor-in-chief of Experience Life, Life Time’s whole-life health and fitness magazine.

David Freeman

And I’m David Freeman, Life Time’s national digital performer brand leader. We’re all in different places along our health and fitness journey, but no matter what we are working toward, there are some essential things we can do to keep moving in the direction of a healthy, purpose-driven life.

Jamie Martin

In each episode, we’ll break down the various elements of healthy living, including fitness and nutrition, mindset and community, and health issues. We’ll also share real inspiring stories of transformation.

David Freeman

And we’ll be talking to experts from Life Time and beyond, who’ll share their insights and knowledge, so you’ll have the tools and information you need to take charge of your next steps. Here we go.

[MUSIC]

in this episode, we’re talking about intermittent fasting with Paul Kriegler. You may remember him from our wine episode from two seasons ago, one of my favorites. I might like wine from time to time.

Alright. Paul is a registered dietitian and certified personal trainer as well as the Director of Nutritional Product Development at Life Time, and just a wealth of knowledge about all things related to nutrition and various approaches, including intermittent fasting. So David, do you do intermittent fasting?

I do it, and I don’t even know that I’m doing it, alright? That’s what I learned from this episode. And I think a lot of people around the world actually are going through it and not even knowing that they’re doing it. You’re going through this duration of not eating and allowing your body to recover. And just what Paul was able to deliver from the benefits and how it actually helps and heals certain things as well. So that was one of my big takeaways.

And then he also touched on how the right person and the right time. So it’s not just for everyone. It does have a lot of benefits, obviously, for a lot of folks. But depending on if you’re a performance athlete, if you’re a mother nursing or something along those lines. So it was so much, like you said, a wealth of knowledge that was dropped on us. So I mean, that was some of my takeaways. What about you?

Yeah. You know, there are so many different ways to do intermittent fasting. He mentioned the 16:8 protocol, the alternate day fasting, the 5-2 approach. And the reality is is that really, intermittent fasting can be as simple as waiting until that first hunger pang that we feel when we get hungry, right? So it doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s something that we can do from time to time when we feel like we need a reset. But it can also be a tool that we utilize to optimize our health, our performance, and all these things.

The other thing that he talked about — I think digestive health is so interesting. And he talked about how intermittent fasting really is an opportunity to give our digestive systems a break and help our bodies feel better, to just kind of give it time to reset. And so many people have digestive issues. Like that’s just something we know it’s on the rise and people have problems with.

So if there’s this tool that we can utilize — even if you use it for a period of time, it doesn’t have to be ongoing — but if it can help with some of those issues, it could be really life-changing for some people. So I just think there’s a variety of ways you can do it. And I’ve done it from time to time myself and have seen benefits. And then there’s times that it’s not right for me. And so it’s really, again, to your point, it’s the individual, it’s the right time, that kind of thing.

Well, you said time a few times, right? So I think timing is everything, and I think it’s time for us to get right into this episode. You ready?

Let’s go.

[MUSIC]

Paul, welcome back to Life Time Talks.

Good to be here.

Yeah. So the last time, we talked about wine, which is a huge passion of yours. But I’m guessing today’s topic is another passionate topic of yours as well. Before we get into that, I want to know how are you doing?

I’m doing great.

Yeah?

Thank you.

Yeah. My pleasure, my pleasure. So let’s kick things off, alright, by level setting and laying the groundwork around intermittent fasting. What exactly is it?

Gosh, there’s so many explanations for intermittent fasting. It’s basically the interval of time between your last meal and your next meal is the simplest way to think of it.

Just really basic.

Yep.

And it goes by a lot of different names, right? So if you’re out there and you’re reading different publications or media, how else might this be referred to?

You might see it referred to as just fasting, intermittent fasting, alternate day fasting, 16-8, 5-2, OMAD. There’s a bunch of different names for different methods of fasting.

Yeah. So we’re going to actually get into that because I think, like you said, there’s a variety of names. There’s a variety of ways to do intermittent fasting. So let’s talk about the various approaches as well as why some of us — we’re doing this to some degree already, right, in our daily lives.

Yeah. I mean, we always fluctuate, all of us do, whether we realize it or not, between a fed state, which means our body has recently consumed some calories and some nutrients and we’re processing that. And then the other state is a fasted state, which means our body is not metabolizing or absorbing or assimilating nutrients that we’ve recently consumed. But instead, we’re breaking down stored energy or stored nutrients from inside of our body for one of our systems to use.

Right. So let’s talk about some of the common approaches. You mentioned 16-8. You mentioned alternate day fasting. Let’s go into some of those and what that might look like.

Sure. Yeah, 16-8 refers to the 16 hours in a 24-hour period where you’re not eating, typically, and eight hours where you fit all of your meals in. So each 24-hour period, you’re consuming your meals within an eight hour period, and the 16 hours that you’re not eating purposely. So I’d say most people are very close to doing that without realizing it, unless they’re waking up super early and eating something or drinking something with calories in it from the moment they wake up, or very close to when they wake up. And then they’re going to bed super late.

So there’s certainly people that do that, and they’re existing more hours of their life and more hours of each day in a fed state, constantly processing energy and calories and nutrients, and not very much time in a fasted state.

You did another — I feel like there was another ratio. You said 16-6. Did you say 5-2?

Yep. 5-2 is another method of introducing some kind of eating pattern that involves fasting. So 5-2 is five days of the week, and it could be any five days, you’re consuming kind of a normal diet. No restrictions, no special rhythm to your eating pattern. And then two days, any two days, you’re eating less than 25% of your normal calorie intake is typically how it’s positioned in the research papers when researchers are trying to study this and explain what’s going on.

So 5-2 is you’re eating normally five days. Two days a week that you’re really restricting calorie intake.

As a registered dietician, just having seen what you’ve seen and the experience you have, what is your philosophy around intermittent fasting? Is it right for some people and not others? Just in general, is it something that you go to very often?

I think there’s tremendous merit to any and all of the different patterns in the right person at the right time. So I look at all these fasting methods as very beneficial tools in the tool belt, just like any other diet can be very useful for certain people at certain times at certain points in their journeys. So they’re really just part of the collection of methods that we should use to manipulate dietary variables.

And are they meant to be used long term?

I think so, yeah. I think dating back to the ancient Greeks, certainly in other world religions like Islam, there’s a very long, rich history of successful fasting rituals. And I think if we really take a historical perspective, we’ll see that it’s not bad to go through periods of time where you’re not eating even, if it doesn’t feel awesome to not eat for a long time. There’s something to be said from what your body goes through, what your mind goes through when you take a break.

Do we want to speak to that? Go ahead, David.

Yeah, I mean the things that you said just now that stood out to me was right person, right time, timing, keyword there. And then you just spoke on a little bit of the benefits for doing it for a long period of time. So when we talk about benefits, and we say metabolic health and exercise performance as examples, what are some other benefits that you have seen personally, and then also with individuals that you work with from this?

One of the major things — I think in modern society, one of the major benefits that I’ve seen work in clients — and even if it’s something as simple as we’re just waiting until their body tells them they’re hungry to eat the first meal of the day, it’s a tremendous lesson to learn in terms of recognizing hunger and satiety, which a lot of us in today’s modern food society, we get so far out of touch with those feelings and sensations that it’s an interesting experiment to implement into somebody’s plan, like, hey, let’s just wait until the first time you’re physically hungry to eat that first meal of the day.

And let’s talk about it next time. What did you feel like? What did you get done in that time, not having to worry about your meal prep and that sort of stuff? So that’s one of the more interesting things I like to introduce into clients’ protocols or programs.

We’ve heard of and seen elimination diets as well. And when you think of what’s happening when someone’s sleeping, essentially, you’re not eating, so you’re fasting. And then when you wake up, usually you eat. And that’s why they call it breakfast, Right breaking the fast.

So when you now just broke down what you just said, when it comes to weight loss, why would that benefit an individual who’s trying to lose weight?

A couple reasons. A major one is when you’re fasted, and you’re not taking on new energy or assimilating new energy from a recent meal, it forces your body to search elsewhere in internal stores to get the energy it needs to just keep going, or to repair tissues that have been damaged in the previous time period. So in a way, you’re feeding yourself from internal energy stores rather than feeding yourself at the dining room table. Right?

So it’s a great way to kind of clean out stored energy because we have this tendency to have our metabolic flux goes like — when we start to lose weight, when we start to lose fat, typically it’s last in, first out, right? So the last fat you accumulated tends to be the first fat that you take off when you enter that fat loss or fasted state phase again, which can be frustrating for people, too. Most of that happens in the liver. And you don’t see that change. So people get frustrated. They might see a little bit of it on the scale fluctuate, and that sort of thing. But they don’t typically see that visually, and that can be frustrating.

So some of the benefits for weight loss are you do kick start that internal fat breakdown. Lipolysis, it’s called. You’re breaking down lipids in your fat tissue to supply energy for your body to do what it’s doing to recover, to perform brain functions, keep your heart beating, that sort of thing.

Some other very interesting benefits are in that fasted state — and it doesn’t have to be an extended period of fasting to reach this — it can happen on a daily 16-hour fast that you can go through periods of this time where you’re basically cleaning out metabolically damaged cells. You’re cleaning out fat stores. You’re breaking down little broken pieces of cellular matter that need to be recycled.

So it’s actually healthy for our body to go through these periods of energy scarcity from an external source so that it can clean up and kind of recalibrate internal energy metabolism, if you will.

I like how you framed that up as far as metabolism. And the reason why I want to come back to that is usually you have these energy sources of fat and carbs. So I always map it out, whenever we were talking about metabolic back in the day, as far as you have a primary energy source and a preferred energy source by the body. So when it comes to performance or weight loss or whatever the ideal focus may be, can you break down to us what exactly fat is doing as an energy source versus carbs?

Sure. Fat is a very efficient source of energy. It’s an efficient way to store energy. It doesn’t take up a ton of space for a high energy density. Nine calories per gram is what we get from fat stores. When it breaks down and helps us produce ATP in the mitochondria of our cells, oxygen has to be present. So typically it’s at low intensity, your resting state. You’re not exercising at your peak performance.

It yields a ton of ATP per unit of fat. So it’s a very efficient, rich source of energy. It’s just slower to break down. Carbohydrates end up being a very rapid source of energy. You can produce a lot of strength and power if you’re in a carbohydrate metabolism.

So we need both. We need to be able to function in both major energy streams because our bodies hate to burn protein for energy. We can. We can metabolize protein for energy, but it’s a very dirty fuel. We can metabolize alcohol for energy. It’s a dirty fuel, lots of waste products, and kind of offshoot toxins that our body has to handle.

And with fat, your body can burn fatty acids directly, and then the glycerol backbone of that triglyceride fatty acid can be recycled or reformed into carbohydrates.

I want you to say what you just said again because if I heard you correctly, you were saying low intensities is what helps utilize fat, correct?

Yes. Low intensity movement, so moving around frequently during the day, taking a lot of breaks to get up from your desk, walk around the block, whatever, that is extremely helpful. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis is what can jump start fat loss especially if you’re also mindful of total carbohydrate intake, meal timing or spacing.

So we talk about potentially, some form of intermittent fasting or compressed eating window, that sort of thing. They can all work together to optimize not only metabolic flexibility, but also body composition remodeling, long-term metabolic health, controlling inflammation in the body because if we’re constantly feeding ourselves and constantly processing energy from the outside, there’s a lot of metabolic processes that create damage, internal toxins that our body has to handle at some point.

Right. Well, and that actually gets to the benefit, potentially, that I was going to bring up is digestive health. One of the benefits of intermittent fasting is it gives our digestive system a little bit of a break. Can you speak to that?

Yeah. Bowel rest is extremely important. The lining of our digestive system, so the enterocytes, super delicate, very delicate, very prone to inflammatory insult. IBS, IBD, they’re more prevalent than ever. Some modern food ingredients don’t help us in that regard, so even if we were intermittent fasting or doing some bowel rest protocols or something like that, but when we are eating, we’re eating highly processed modern foods, we might not make our way out of that problem.

But bowel rest or fasting periods to just give your digestive system a chance to completely reset and recalibrate is extremely important. And it can be revolutionary for people that have struggled with some of those digestive upset disorders to go through a period where they’re not consuming calories. They’re just consuming hydration and maybe some electrolytes, and maybe some elemental amino acids. That might be all that your body can handle if it’s super inflamed.

Really interesting. And I want to kind of keep going down this path a little bit longer. So there’s some research around the benefits of intermittent fasting for people with cancer. So can you just talk a little bit about that, and why intermittent fasting has been a tool that some people have used to complement more traditional cancer treatments?

Yeah. I want to preface this with saying I’m not an expert researcher in this area. I’m familiar with some of the evidence there. But if somebody’s going through cancer and they’re thinking about intermittent fasting, they definitely need to consult with their care team before they embark on that by themselves.

But you’re absolutely right. Cancer, for lack of a better explanation, it’s altered or irregular cellular metabolism that leads to, oftentimes, unregulated cellular reproduction or growth, tumors and abnormal cell growth, right? You can kind of short circuit that if you stop the influx of energy into that tissue, in many cases. That’s where there’s a lot of excitement and promise to complementing more traditional or more modern treatments for cancer with dietary strategies that involve intermittent fasting.

Basically, can you starve the cancer? Can you switch into a more fat-based metabolism because we know that a lot of cancers depend almost exclusively on carbohydrate-based metabolism. So in a way, you might be able to short circuit the growth of the cancer or the proliferation of the cancer cells, which is kind of a cool prospect.

Obviously, more research needs to be done around that, but there’s still some interesting data so far.

Absolutely. And the cool thing is, most of the cells of the human body, brain, heart, muscles, they’re very good at using fat and ketones, which is a byproduct of fat metabolism for energy. They can actually thrive in that kind of milieu or soup of energy — fatty acids and ketones — in the absence or scarcity of carbohydrates.

Cancer cells don’t. They need carbohydrates to function. So it’s very interesting that a method like intermittent fasting or periodic fasting might actually help us clean out some damaged or broken cells, including some cancer cells.

So we hit on a lot of the benefits and all the perks behind intermittent fasting. What are some potential downfalls within the space?

Yeah. It’s not right for everybody. Especially I wouldn’t encourage people who are striving for peak performance in explosive sports to experiment with fasting, just like I wouldn’t encourage it for kids or pregnant or nursing mothers. There are certain phases of life or phases of your competitive season, for example, that just don’t match with fasting very well.

And then likewise, if someone doesn’t have a good handle on their sleep pattern and their stress management, introducing the stress of fasting in one or more of these formats can just be another stress on the system. And it might end up pushing them over the edge into some injury or illness, makes them more susceptible to whatever’s going around disease-wise, or communicable diseases. It might not be the magic bullet they’re looking for at that moment.

Right. So just really knowing where you’re at as an individual. And you can maybe try it, experiment. And actually, that’s what we’re going to get to next. So if somebody was saying, we know that there are probably minimal risks for trying this from time to time, or even in the long term. How would you suggest somebody start? Where would you have them start?

That’s a great question. Where I end up starting — and David, you can probably appreciate this — when you’re mapping out somebody’s fitness program, some of the first things you need to make decisions on based on whoever that person is, is how frequently are they training, what’s the intensity level, what’s the time they’re going to invest, what’s the type of exercise they’re going to be doing? So it’s the fit principles. There’s all these variables that are accounted for in planning a good, effective training program.

Well, any time you manipulate any of those, there’s also this other set of nutrition, or I call it nutritional lifestyle variables, that need to be accounted for on the other side of the coin. So it’s how many meals or snacks per day makes sense for that person to get a reasonable amount of nutrition in them in a consistent enough way that fits into a lifestyle. So how many meals a day are you going to get? And then within those meals how can you space out protein, fats, and carbs to best support their needs for energy and recovery and satiety?

So the easiest place to start for me is, if somebody is interested and they’ve got a good handle on their sleep and their stress patterns, and they’ve been consistently working out, and they haven’t tried manipulating their meal timing yet, start with just eating everything that you eat in a day within an eight- or 12-hour window. Just practice time-restricted feeding.

Try not snacking. Eat more at your meals. And for a lot of people, I believe they will feel the best from a digestive standpoint, recovery, inflammation, energy flux, metabolic flexibility standpoint, on two, maybe three meals a day. So gone are the days of myself and other fitness enthusiasts recommending you eat every few hours to keep your metabolism going.

That’s false, flat out false. Your metabolism is just going to metabolism. You don’t have much power over it. What you need to do is when you eat, you eat good stuff. You eat enough to keep yourself full and energized until you’re planning your next meal. And for most people, I think two meals a day, maybe one substantial snack is probably enough for them to feel awesome and give their body enough break each 24-hour period to kind of clean house.

Well, and you just hit on this, it’s the quality — when you are eating, the quality of what you’re eating. Doing an intermittent fasting or time restricted eating, it’s not an excuse to eat whatever you want and those eight hours.

It’s a very effective tool to help manage calorie intake. But to your point, it’s not a pass to eat whatever you want.

What I’m curious about is when the start of the fast begins, because you know how you might have heard, you know, you shouldn’t be eating this late at night. So is it from me taking the last bite at 9:00 PM, or from when that digestion process because essentially, does the fast take place when you stop eating, or when the digestion is done?

That’s a great question. I don’t think anyone has a great answer to that. But for ease of management, I think it’s easy enough to just say, I had my last bite at this time, and that’s kind of when the clock starts because to your point, what you’re eating in that last meal before you stop eating impacts how long it takes for that meal to empty out of your stomach, make its way through the small intestine, large intestine, and then all the way out.

So who knows? It’s going to change with each person, and probably in different scenarios. So for ease of use, just count it as the last bite you take.

Alright. Well, somebody who wants to continue this, let’s say they’re having success with it, is there any supplementation recommendations that you would have to complement whatever it is that they’re eating?

Yeah. If people are eating fewer meals or they’re eating all their food within a shorter window of time each day, or they’re flat out skipping a day each week, essentially — whatever the fasting protocol is — it can be challenging to get all the nutrition that your body needs in a more limited approach to eating the food, especially if — I always use the example of people going from a standard American diet, relatively highly processed foods, to a more wholesome, unprocessed diet, which is going to be more satiating in the long run, and even in the immediate time frame. They’re probably going to cut out a ton of sodium. They’re probably going to cut out a reasonable amount of carbohydrates, moving to less processed food, certainly added sugars.

And when you do that, your body kind of eats through stores of glycogen, which is the stored form of carbohydrate in our skeletal muscle and liver. And when you do that, when your body depletes some of that, you offload a ton of fluid, so water goes with that carbohydrate, and a lot of sodium goes out through your urine and sweat.

So from a supplementation standpoint, people that go from kind of a standard American diet to a fasting, wholesome food protocol, modified versions of fasting, are probably going to need to supplement with some salty electrolytes, whether that’s eating pickles or olives with your meals, or being more liberal with the salt shaker at your meals or supplementing with electrolytes. It doesn’t matter. You’re probably just going to need it. If you don’t do it and you miss on those electrolytes, you’re going to feel flat.

Likewise, I think taking a good multivitamin is a great idea. There’s just no way to guarantee that your food is providing all the vitamins and minerals that you’re going to need to optimize your metabolic performance. So I’m a huge believer in just a good quality multivitamin, potentially extra magnesium, depending on what your food choices are.

So we could go down the rabbit hole of supplements pretty easily.

Just keep going. I want to just go back. You mentioned sodium. And just shameless plug, you’d actually had an episode in our previous season of Life Time Talks talking about sodium. And that can seem counter intuitive to people to say, add more salt. But again, it’s going from that SAD diet to more of this unprocessed whole foods, where you’re probably going to be needing more of that, and adding it instead of trying to keep it out or limit it.

Yep, absolutely. Usually when you’re onboarding more wholesome produce your potassium levels go way up. So your intake of potassium goes way, way up, which helps your body handle that extra sodium that you might have to go seek out and start putting on your food. So you end up balancing fluids, electrolytes, blood pressure, all those things start to improve, the more and more highly processed carbohydrates and inflammatory seed oils you squeeze out of your diet.

I want to come back. I mean, you said we could go down a rabbit hole. Let’s just get to the rabbit hole. When you said the multivitamin, I want to speak a little bit, or I want you to speak a little bit more behind the why. And I’m taking a page out of Annika’s book as far as ask the question why for our listeners to understand why a good quality multivitamin, and why you probably are not getting it from your foods. Can you explain that a little bit more?

Sure. Yeah. To get a reasonable amount of vitamins and minerals from produce today requires way more produce today than it did 25 or 50 years ago. And that’s because there’s been a severe degradation of our topsoil. So the soil that these foods are grown in is just less nutrient dense. On top of that, foods are grown faster. So they have less time to accumulate nutrition. They’re grown to be bigger. They’re bred to be bigger. So apples and tomatoes and that sort of thing, they’re bigger because we like to get value out of our purchases, right?

So you could argue that the nutrition in those things it’s more dilute, it’s less dense of a nutrient source than it once was. And most of our nutrient tables and RDAs and kind of nutrient databases is based on old food analysis. Those aren’t constantly updated. They are sometimes updated. But the RDAs are set at a point where the recommended dietary allowances for each nutrient, it’s set at a level that’s reasonably understood, or we’re very hopeful and confident that that amount is going to prevent a deficiency syndrome. It is not the amount of that nutrient that’s going to help someone operate at their fullest potential.

So they’re really two separate targets. So a lot of people think, oh, I’m getting my daily value, or even 200% of my daily value. Well, that’s 200% of what would keep you out of the hospital for a deficiency syndrome. So if you think about it that way, the better bet, the safer bet is to eat as nutrient dense as you can, as minimally processed as you can, and take a good insurance policy on top of it because no one knows exactly how much of every single nutrient we need to operate at our peak potential. It’s a sad fact, but it’s the fact.

Well, I was just going to say it’s just the fact that we’re trying to prevent a deficiency versus trying to optimize for our health. It’s just like, oh, it should be the other way around in our ideal world. Someday maybe we’ll get there. I don’t know.

That was good.

I know.

And to back that up, there’s very good evidence in clinical studies, randomized trials that show pretty significant and repeatable improvements in several areas of metabolism when someone does something as simple as take a multivitamin. In addition to no other changes, you can start to see these patterns where basal fat metabolism goes up a little bit. Carbohydrate metabolism tapers down. So you tend to be more metabolically flexible if you’re better nourished, even if all you’re doing for better nourishment is taking a multivitamin.

You see that people’s susceptibility for illnesses, seasonal illnesses, goes down. Alertness goes up. Violent behavior goes down. So some interesting stuff has come out of very well-controlled clinical studies on the simple act of taking a multivitamin. That’s why I’m such a firm believer, like how could you not have some minor increase in metabolic health by being better nourished?

And so if we’re going to do an intermittent fasting protocol, why not try to optimize — in those times we are eating — optimize in those windows.

Yeah. When you said violent behavior going down, so I’ve noticed a significant change in Jamie behind the scenes. She’s definitely taking her multivitamin, so it’s working.

Oh, thank you. Oh my goodness, because I was so rough before. So anyway.

Alright, Paul. Anything else you want to add about intermittent fasting before we get to the famous two-minute drill here that David always has?

I’d encourage people, if they’re interested in exploring this, don’t get lost in the weeds. You know, it doesn’t require some fancy protocol or some guru behind the protocol, necessarily. You can safely experiment, in most cases, with just waiting for your first meal of the day until your body tells you you’re physically hungry, for example, or just being firm about not eating after a certain time at night. That can be a simple, effective way of experimenting with intermittent fasting.

You know, I’ve done a bunch of different types of protocols. Every time I do an experiment on myself, I go into it knowing I can choose whether or not I continue this experiment. So if I was doing a 24-hour fast, which I’ve done several times, and during that 24-hour fast I get hungry, I’m not just going to muscle through it to finish the fast. I’ll just pick a different day to do that experiment again because maybe I didn’t sleep well and my ghrelin hormone is telling me I need to eat.

So be OK having some flexibility and give yourself some grace. Nobody’s perfect. It’s all about experimenting and kind of enjoying the journey along the way.

And just to add, I mean, there’s a lot of really great articles at our website, Life Time’s website, experiencelife.lifetime.life, on this. I think you’ve been involved in some of those articles, Paul. So there’s more details there, and we’ll include those in the show notes as well.

Absolutely.

Awesome. Without further ado, is the time?

Go for it.

You ready for it?

Yeah.

Alright. So this is certain things that I create, usually in my lab at night. But they’re always fun, engaging, entertaining.

Expect no less.

Yes, alright. So here we go. You got 10 questions, two-minute drill. Sometimes, like we said before, we go into overtime, but you try to answer your question in less than 10 seconds. Sound good?

Sounds great.

Rules of engagement? We’re ready?

Ready when you are.

Would you rather have Hulk strength or Iron Man swag?

Swag.

1. Alright.

Gluten free or dairy free if you had to pick only one?

Gluten free.

1. He’s ready. This one’s going to be a good one. Bath full of leeches that you would have to lie in, or would you fight an ostrich to its death?

Ostrich.

No hesitation.

You’re so definitive. I love this. I want to know why.

If you had to take one of your senses away, which one would it be?

Sight.

Oh, you would take sight away? I had to take a little moment to take that in. I have to ask why? Can we get a little time out here?

Yes, time out. Time out. We need to know.

Yeah, why sight?

I don’t know. I have no experience with it.

Right. Just close your eyes real quick.

I’ve seen enough amazing things, but I still want to hear things. I still want to taste and smell and feel. Yeah.

OK.

Yeah.

That’s powerful. I like that. I like it. OK. Alright. If you can transform to any sea animal, which one would you be?

Probably a tuna.

Not at all what I expected, but I love it.

Oh, my.

Do you eat tuna?

They’re fast.

Do you eat tuna? Alright.

Yes.

Be aware. Be aware. Might have a little tuna later. Alright, here we go. If you were a car, what type of car would you be and why?

Toyota 4Runner.

OK, why?

Yeah. Rugged, outdoors, built for the mountains.

Hey.

Yeah.

Ford tough.

Here I am in Minnesota.

Alright.

Oh, yes.

Now this might be — you had to watch this when you were younger. And if you didn’t, we’re going to have a talk after this. But Teen Witch or The Goonies?

Goonies.

Do you remember Teen Witch?

No.

We’re going to have a talk.

OK.

Just remember this, top that. Just remember that, OK? I’m gonna come back to that later. Squats or dead lifts?

Dead lifts.

1. And what do you want to leave as a stamp of impact in the year 2021?

Ooh. That’s a big question. I want to help people find their way out of their biggest health challenge.

Love it.

Yep. I think empowering other people to take more confident responsibility for their health, that’s a big return on all the energy invested that it takes to get there.

I love that. That’s a mic drop right there for sure.

There it is. Paul, where can people follow you, find you? Are you on social media? I know you have articles, like I said, at our experiencelife.com.

Yep. I’ve got some articles there. What is my Instagram handle? I think it’s cafe pk.

There you go.

Underscores on either side, I think.

I feel like it’s underscore, yeah.

Cafe pk. Paul Kriegler at Facebook.

Awesome. We’ll be sure to include those as well so people can follow you. Paul, thanks for being back with us again.

Thanks, Paul.

Thanks for having me.

[MUSIC]

David Freeman

Thanks for joining us for this episode. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts on our conversation today, and how you approach this aspect of healthy living in your own life. What works for you? Where do you run into challenges? Where do you need help?

Jamie Martin

And if you have topics for future episodes, you can share those with us, too. Email us at lttalks@lt.life, or reach out to us on Instagram, @lifetime.life, @jamiemartinel, or @freezy30, and use the hashtag #LifeTimeTalks. You can also learn more about the podcast at el.lifetime.life/podcasts.

David Freeman

And if you’re enjoying Life Time Talks, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to rate and review, and share on your social channels too.

Jamie Martin

Thanks for listening. We’ll talk to you next time on Life Time Talks.

Life Time Talks is a production of Life Time, healthy way of life. It’s produced by Molly Schelper, with audio engineering by Peter Perkins, and video production by Kevin Dixon, Coy Larson, and the team at LT Motion. A big thank you to the team who pulls together each episode, and everyone who provided feedback.