Speaker 1: Welcome the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm
Speaker 1: Jen Stevens, author of the New York Times bestseller Fast
Speaker 1: Feast Repeat.
Speaker 2: And I'm Sherry Bullock, longtime intermittent faster and health and
Speaker 2: wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this podcast is
Speaker 2: for educational and motivational purposes only, and is not intended
Speaker 2: to provide medical or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are
Speaker 2: not doctors, so make sure to check with your trusted
Speaker 2: healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes to
Speaker 2: any medical treatments or medications.
Speaker 1: Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an experienced intermittent faster,
Speaker 1: tune in each week to get inspired, to learn, and
Speaker 1: to have some fun along the way. Hi, everybody, we
Speaker 1: are so glad you're here today. Welcome to this week's
Speaker 1: episode of the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life Podcast.
Speaker 1: How are you doing today.
Speaker 2: Sherry, I'm doing wonderful. Crazy, busy, but wonderful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. Busy good, I'm so busy.
Speaker 2: Busy is good.
Speaker 1: Busy is good.
Speaker 2: I even got up early today, which is really hard
Speaker 2: for me on a Tuesday morning, and I still feel
Speaker 2: like I'm running behind them. So much to do today,
Speaker 2: and I'm really trying to prioritize getting my workouts in
Speaker 2: doing all the stuff I need to do for me
Speaker 2: plus everything else that I do. So I'm like set
Speaker 2: up for success. I'm wearing my workout clothes and ready
Speaker 2: to roll.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah, I've went in the sauna this morning. I'm
Speaker 1: doing better at that. I actually wrote the word sauna
Speaker 1: in my daily list of things to do. Sauna is now.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean I have to do it every day,
Speaker 1: but it reminds me because I keep forgetting that.
Speaker 2: But Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Yeah, my function labs came back
Speaker 2: that I have a lot of inflammation, particularly joint inflammation.
Speaker 2: So I've been trying to use it like three times
Speaker 2: a week to really help with that. And there's actually
Speaker 2: like a setting on the sunlight and sauna for inflammation.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: But I also decided to do it updates today. I
Speaker 2: did down day last night, so eating breakfast took the
Speaker 2: place of my suna time this morning. Oh maybe tonight.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Actually saw something that it could help with
Speaker 1: sleep if you do it for bed. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I want to to in the.
Speaker 2: When I would do it. Yeah, I'm so like. I
Speaker 2: go all day and then finally in the evening Eric
Speaker 2: makes me sit down and like watch TV with him,
Speaker 2: and then I get so lazy that I have a
Speaker 2: hard time getting up to do anything after that. It's
Speaker 2: like I'm fed, I'm I'm watching TV, and then I
Speaker 2: don't want to get back up and do anything. I
Speaker 2: have a couple of times try to get up and
Speaker 2: get my work out in after he goes to bed,
Speaker 2: because he goes to bed so early, But then I
Speaker 2: am just wired.
Speaker 1: And I can't go to sleep. So yeah, all that
Speaker 1: gonna work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Hannah, I might able to get that in
Speaker 2: the evening because that's pretty relaxing. Okay, well, let's just
Speaker 2: jump into feeling free in Tennessee, who has a celebration
Speaker 2: this week. She wrote, Jen and Cherry, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for your consistency and conviction and clear communication about
Speaker 2: the ins and outs of the Eye of Lifestyle. I
Speaker 2: am five nine forty two years old, a mom of three,
Speaker 2: and currently sitting around two hundred pounds. I first encountered
Speaker 2: Jen's book Delayed on Deny after reading The Obcit Code
Speaker 2: by doctor Jason Fung in twenty twenty two, I hopped
Speaker 2: right into intermittent fasting and I loved it, doing a
Speaker 2: five to seven hour eating window approach. I started at
Speaker 2: two hundred and ten pounds at that time. I lost
Speaker 2: twenty five pounds or so, and then life interrupted. I
Speaker 2: got pregnant and had a third baby after a seven
Speaker 2: year break from childbirth, and obviously my fasting practice had
Speaker 2: to shift. Well. I don't know if it was a
Speaker 2: sudden pregnancy meets post COVID career blaws or what the
Speaker 2: boy did it shift Once I got pregnant, I just
Speaker 2: ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, including but not
Speaker 2: limited to chocolate, fast food, ice cream, fried foods, and bread,
Speaker 2: and then I continued to do so. In the first
Speaker 2: few months of postpartum, I was pressed, so I often
Speaker 2: found myself snacking in the middle of the night, sometimes
Speaker 2: on granola bars or even chocolate. Well before I knew it,
Speaker 2: I had reached an all time non pregnancy high of
Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty five pounds. I felt terrible. I
Speaker 2: looked puffy and uncomfortable. Anytime someone pulled a camera out
Speaker 2: to take a picture of me with the kids, I
Speaker 2: felt full of shame. And discomfort. I don't know it clicked,
Speaker 2: but one day I woke up and said to myself,
Speaker 2: not today, Satan, and also never again. So in March
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty five, I started listening to the Fast
Speaker 2: Feast Repeat podcast. I refreshed my memory on delay don't
Speaker 2: deny in the Beastie code, and I got started. I
Speaker 2: fasted dirty for about a week, and then I began
Speaker 2: clean fasting shortly thereafter, and I have not looked back.
Speaker 2: I eat within a five hour window a lot of days,
Speaker 2: opening somewhere around four pm, but sometimes I windows a
Speaker 2: little longer, and sometimes it's more like an O mad day.
Speaker 2: It just depends on life. I love the flexibility this
Speaker 2: lifestyle offers, among other non skilled perks. I still enjoy
Speaker 2: all the foods I love of, even the occasional fast
Speaker 2: food drive through splurge, although thanks to all of the
Speaker 2: other benefits of IF, I am losing my taste for
Speaker 2: this over time. I don't feel restricted. When I have
Speaker 2: a special occasion or a birthday, I simply get back
Speaker 2: to it the day following. On the occasions where I've
Speaker 2: failed to fast for a few days in a row,
Speaker 2: it was harder to jump back in but never impossible.
Speaker 2: My will and commitment to continue is growing as I
Speaker 2: begin experiencing the many benefits of this lifestyle. Since March
Speaker 2: first of twenty twenty five, I have lost thirty five
Speaker 2: pounds and I'm still going strong. I have become much
Speaker 2: more physically active, at least partially due to the energy
Speaker 2: boost I get from fasting, but also due to the
Speaker 2: helpful distraction that exercise can be from the normal, non
Speaker 2: urgent hunger waves that can come and go throughout the day.
Speaker 2: Sometimes at nine am, I feel super hungry all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, but ninety nine percent of the time if
Speaker 2: I go for a brisk walk, it passes some other
Speaker 2: non scale victories. I'm loving right now. I am seeing
Speaker 2: body recomposition changes, the appearance of cellulite, and my legs
Speaker 2: is dramatic decreased. My jaw line is reappearing, and my
Speaker 2: clothes fit so much better. All my old genes are
Speaker 2: falling off as I've gone down at least two pant
Speaker 2: sizes so far. I feel a lot of energy, and
Speaker 2: to meet me in public, you would never know. I'm
Speaker 2: still waking up two to three times a night with
Speaker 2: a baby. I don't feel sleepy or fatigued most of
Speaker 2: the time. One nonscale victory that surprised me recently. The
Speaker 2: other day, it occurred to me that I haven't had
Speaker 2: one cold sore the entire time I've been doing IF
Speaker 2: this time around. Normally I get one at least every
Speaker 2: month or two. I lift it up in lo and behold.
Speaker 2: It seems that managing and or preventing herpies out bricks
Speaker 2: can be a benefit of IF. Who knew? Like most people,
Speaker 2: I imagine, I started doing this primarily for weight loss benefits,
Speaker 2: but I also knew that I'd be putting myself in
Speaker 2: a powerfully healthy state, hopefully helping my body keep me
Speaker 2: alive and thriving for many years to come. I plan
Speaker 2: to continue forever, so I will hopefully live a vibrant
Speaker 2: and vivacious life until I pass on. I am fully
Speaker 2: in on cultivating the flexible rhythm of fasting, and I
Speaker 2: am so happy I gave it another try.
Speaker 1: That is awesome. Yeah, I love that we definitely have
Speaker 1: to take a break when pregnant and breastfeeding, but then
Speaker 1: when you're ready to get back to it, your body
Speaker 1: remembers what to do. What we've heard from so many
Speaker 1: people sharing when they get back to it after a
Speaker 1: break from pregnancy or an unexpected break that just whe
Speaker 1: they stopped fasting for whatever reason, your body remembers. It's
Speaker 1: not as hard to adapt as it may have been
Speaker 1: the first time for a lot of people. Well, it
Speaker 1: won't be a challenge.
Speaker 2: I was going to say. I think it's probably physically
Speaker 2: still uncomfortable at first in the beginning, but like mentally
Speaker 2: and the habit of fasting kind of is still back
Speaker 2: in your brain, So it's not like a lot of
Speaker 2: people have this sort of fear what if I get hungry,
Speaker 2: what if I can't make it till my next fast?
Speaker 2: But like you've already been through that experience, so like
Speaker 2: that's no longer on your radar, which I think that
Speaker 2: makes it easier to resume. And I've been that. You know,
Speaker 2: if she takes a few days off from fasting, it
Speaker 2: is harder to jump back in. You know, that's something
Speaker 2: people do experience. But when you're dedicated and you're consistent
Speaker 2: and you're like, yes, I know I took time off,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to push through and it's going to
Speaker 2: be easy again, then you can get right back at it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't have to get completely re metabolically adapted
Speaker 1: every single time you take a couple days off, but
Speaker 1: it does make it harder. You're right. We've talked about
Speaker 1: that many, many times about when you go on vacation
Speaker 1: or when you have holidays, you will thank yourself if
Speaker 1: you stick to a window. No one has ever said, man,
Speaker 1: I wish I had longer windows on vacage. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So now we have a question from a listener. This
Speaker 1: is from Marie from Ireland. Hijen and Sherry, thank you
Speaker 1: both for being so generous with your time and knowledge
Speaker 1: with this podcast. It has already been hugely beneficial to
Speaker 1: me and I look forward to listening each week. When
Speaker 1: I first found the podcast, a nineteen five protocol sounded impossible,
Speaker 1: but I decided to stick orn and apply the knowledge
Speaker 1: you shared to the sixteen eight protocol I had done previously.
Speaker 1: Like Jen says, it was difficult in theory but easy
Speaker 1: in practice. Before long, I had bought Gen's books and
Speaker 1: was doing the fast Start working up to nineteen five.
Speaker 1: Aside from the initial few days, I found the clean
Speaker 1: intermittent fasting lifestyle easy. I never really felt the waves
Speaker 1: of hunger in my fast that other listeners mentioned in
Speaker 1: their submissions. Finally, I had found a tool that would
Speaker 1: work for me on autopilot. If you felt a butt coming,
Speaker 1: you were right. I have recently been diagnosed with under
Speaker 1: active thyroid. My low energy levels in the months before
Speaker 1: the diagnosis meant that I didn't have the willpower I
Speaker 1: needed to stay on my protocol. Suddenly, even fasting eight
Speaker 1: to ten hours seemed like a mammoth task. My low
Speaker 1: energy levels had me adding sugar and milk to my
Speaker 1: coffee in the morning and kept me reaching for sugary
Speaker 1: snacks just to get through the workday. It wasn't long
Speaker 1: before I had regained the roughly fourteen hounds I had
Speaker 1: lost between February first and June thirtieth. I have started
Speaker 1: on the thyroid medication, and once my energy levels start
Speaker 1: to return to normal, I plan to restart the twenty
Speaker 1: eight day fast start like a new intermittent faster. I
Speaker 1: was wondering if you have any experience with intermittent fasters
Speaker 1: in the community with underactive thyroid, and could you share
Speaker 1: if the lifestyle still works for them. I know that
Speaker 1: I have to take the medication at least thirty minutes
Speaker 1: before coffee or food. I understand from previous episodes that
Speaker 1: coffee can help with pushing glycogen out, so I may
Speaker 1: need to miss out on that push until I have
Speaker 1: energy to begin my daily walks. Again, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for all that you do, Marie.
Speaker 2: All right, so do we see people have success on
Speaker 2: thyroid medicine. Absolutely, So it's interesting to me like that,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, it sounds like your thyroid just
Speaker 2: kind of crashed, which makes me wonder if you had
Speaker 2: some sort of viral or autoimmune issue with your thyroid.
Speaker 3: So I hope that.
Speaker 2: They're keeping track of that because sometimes you can have
Speaker 2: a virus that causes your thyroid did not work really optimally,
Speaker 2: but then it'll heal. This happened to my husband actually,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, he was really hypothyroid. They start
Speaker 2: them on thyroid meds, and then he went back in
Speaker 2: to the doctor like six months later, they drew his
Speaker 2: labs and everything was suddenly like normal. And so when
Speaker 2: he told them he'd been out of thyroid meds for
Speaker 2: two months, they were like, you haven't been on your
Speaker 2: thyroid medicine and he said no, because he's very non compliant.
Speaker 2: But his labs were drastically different than when they were
Speaker 2: like six months earlier, and so they were like, okay,
Speaker 2: well maybe it's fluke whatever. They had him come back
Speaker 2: in they read threw his labs. His thyroid has been
Speaker 2: one hundred fine since then, So it was just a
Speaker 2: weird thing. And like they said, you could have something
Speaker 2: viral that's causing it to happen. So usually people start
Speaker 2: noticing some of low thyroid like over time. I mean
Speaker 2: I've even heard that before you are clinically diagnosed. Some
Speaker 2: people are really truly like hypo subclinically hypothyroid for like
Speaker 2: five to ten years. So anyway, definitely keep an eye
Speaker 2: on that. What we notice is people once they are
Speaker 2: on like people who are on thyroid medicine and they
Speaker 2: start fasting, they often have to adjust their medicine and
Speaker 2: start taking less of it because your body is using
Speaker 2: thyroid hormones so much more efficiently. Part of that has
Speaker 2: to do with your liver. The healthier your liver is,
Speaker 2: the better it can metabolize your thyroid hormone. So definitely
Speaker 2: keep an eye on that. You are right, you need
Speaker 2: to take your medication at least thirty minutes before having
Speaker 2: any food, especially fat. So I do hope that you
Speaker 2: start feeling better. I really I think you should start
Speaker 2: feeling better pretty quickly. I don't know when you started
Speaker 2: on your meds, but definitely, you know, keep talking to
Speaker 2: your doctor about that. And I'm going to be honest,
Speaker 2: the clean fast is really going to help you with
Speaker 2: your energy levels better than adding any sugar or anything
Speaker 2: to your coffee. So if you're feeling sluggish in the morning,
Speaker 2: really the best thing you can do is to do
Speaker 2: a light walk. It doesn't have to be a vigorous walk.
Speaker 2: Just get moving because you're right, that will push glicogen out.
Speaker 2: Like coffee, you'll push some glicogen out. So maybe take
Speaker 2: your meds and then take a little walk and then
Speaker 2: from then you can come back in and get your
Speaker 2: cup of coffee. But yeah, we have people who have
Speaker 2: loss of success with both thyroid or hashimotives.
Speaker 1: And if yep, I was just going to add the
Speaker 1: whole idea that having the cream and the sugar and
Speaker 1: the sugary snacks gives you energy. Actually that is what
Speaker 1: gets you trapped on the blood sugar roller coaster where
Speaker 1: you have more slumps. Right, if I think back to
Speaker 1: my life before intermittent fasting, I was on that roller
Speaker 1: coaster every day. I was constantly spiking it up and
Speaker 1: crashing it down all day, and so I would have
Speaker 1: the quick hause for a minute and then the slump
Speaker 1: that was way worse in response to that. So if
Speaker 1: you're not feeling better, then I would talk to your
Speaker 1: doctor about your meds and your dacage level. But I
Speaker 1: don't know why you would need to wait to get
Speaker 1: back started clean fasting.
Speaker 2: I would say too, I know that she says she's
Speaker 2: clean fasting. But then like you were on nineteen five,
Speaker 2: and then suddenly you started having low energy and you
Speaker 2: started feeling like you needed to add stuff. You're fast
Speaker 2: and you couldn't fast as long. So one or two
Speaker 2: things is happening. One of three things could be happening.
Speaker 2: You could be inadvertently breaking your fast with some Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of people like to use some electrolytes in
Speaker 2: their fast that have additives that break the fast, such
Speaker 2: as citric acid or fulvic acid or cubic acid. Some
Speaker 2: people are taking like amino acids thinking that they're safe
Speaker 2: for the fast because the company says they are so
Speaker 2: one hundred percent. Make sure there's no, nothing that you're
Speaker 2: ingesting in your fast other than black coffee tea that
Speaker 2: you brew yourself or plain water, because those low energy
Speaker 2: levels could be a result of, in evarently breaking your fast.
Speaker 2: Like I said, the other thing could be, if you're
Speaker 2: having low energy levels, you could need some electrolytes, particularly
Speaker 2: like some extra sodium. People that are a little low
Speaker 2: on sodium often have a lot, like really low energy feeling.
Speaker 2: Your cells use sodium for energy, so you may need
Speaker 2: to add some sodium to your diet. And the third
Speaker 2: thing would be is if you are below goal weight,
Speaker 2: like a good maintenance weight for you, and you are
Speaker 2: fasting too long for your body, and or you're not
Speaker 2: eating enough in your eating window, and then you're gonna
Speaker 2: probably feel low energy and hungry during your fast. So
Speaker 2: those three things kind of came to mind while we
Speaker 2: were talking. Yes, I think that just here that people
Speaker 2: don't feel well while fasting even.
Speaker 1: With low thyroid right, all right.
Speaker 2: So our next question is from Bonnie and Illinois. She writes,
Speaker 2: does brushing my teeth in the morning break the clean fast?
Speaker 2: I have been doing if since the end of July
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, I usually do a twenty four protocol.
Speaker 2: I've lost seven pounds and I mostly feel great. However,
Speaker 2: the last few days I've been really hungry, especially in
Speaker 2: the morning. I usually open my window at noon and
Speaker 2: close it between four or five pm. I am sixty
Speaker 2: five five six. I started at one hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: eight pounds. I'm now one hundred and seventy one. My
Speaker 2: goal is one hundred and fifty for now. I am
Speaker 2: hoping that one forty might be a later goal. I
Speaker 2: have dieted my whole life and I finally feel in control,
Speaker 2: but I am wondering about the tooth brushing. Otherwise, my
Speaker 2: fast is totally clean, black coffee and tap water only.
Speaker 2: I'm also considering ADF as a way to be less hungry,
Speaker 2: but it feels confusing. I like the simplicity of what
Speaker 2: I'm doing now, but I wonder about my metabolism getting stuck.
Speaker 2: Sometimes on the weekends, I'll have a day off and
Speaker 2: just eat normally. Is that a good idea? Thank you
Speaker 2: for your important help, I am so happy to have
Speaker 2: found if.
Speaker 1: All right, Bonnie, let's go to the tooth brushing question.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's fine to brush your teeth morning night.
Speaker 1: We brush our teeth. It's brief. We move on. Even
Speaker 1: if brushing your teeth caused a short insulin response from
Speaker 1: the flavor of your toothpaste, it's going to be over
Speaker 1: very very quickly and won't have a giant impact. If
Speaker 1: you contrast that with drinking a beverage that breaks the fast,
Speaker 1: you don't just have one sip. It goes on and
Speaker 1: on and on and on. So brushing your teeth, don't
Speaker 1: worry about it, brush and move on, And that would
Speaker 1: not all of a sudden start making you hungry if
Speaker 1: it hadn't been before. But what will is if your
Speaker 1: body is about to flip the switch. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: when this question came in. We're recording this in September,
Speaker 1: and you've been doing intermittent fasting since the end of July.
Speaker 1: I think it was pretty recent if I remember pretty recently,
Speaker 1: so best case scenario, you've been doing intermittent fasting for
Speaker 1: less than two months. But even if it just came
Speaker 1: in like today, you've only been doing intermittent fasting for
Speaker 1: two months or less by the time you wrote this in.
Speaker 1: And if you've been taking weekend days off and only
Speaker 1: doing intermittent fasting for two months, it is very possible
Speaker 1: that your body hasn't flipped the switch yet. You could
Speaker 1: be just keeping yourself right on the edge of that
Speaker 1: metabolic adaptation. And when you get to the point that
Speaker 1: your deliver is running out of the readily accessible glycogen,
Speaker 1: you're about to flip that switch. You can have a
Speaker 1: little extra hunger for a few days. The fast gets
Speaker 1: a little harder before you flip the switch. So for
Speaker 1: anybody who's listening, if you're going along and it's easy
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden it gets harder, think about
Speaker 1: how long you've been doing it. Could it be just
Speaker 1: that your body is just getting ready to flip the
Speaker 1: switch through in your first couple months, that's likely, Or
Speaker 1: have you been taking more days off that will make
Speaker 1: you hungrier, Or as we said in the prior question, answered,
Speaker 1: are you accidentally breaking your fast in some way with
Speaker 1: something else, something that's new, something that you've introduced that
Speaker 1: you hadn't been having before, a supplement, a vitamin, even
Speaker 1: a new medication. And when it comes to medications, you know,
Speaker 1: if you have to take it, you have to take it,
Speaker 1: but you can always talk to a doctor about when
Speaker 1: you need to take it. A lot of things say
Speaker 1: take first thing in the morning, but that just really
Speaker 1: means take before food, and since we don't open until later,
Speaker 1: you could shift that later, but that would be always
Speaker 1: something to talk to your doctor about. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to ADF, you're still way too early for ADF
Speaker 1: at two months in, and we really caution people to
Speaker 1: stick to intermitt and fasting for several months before trying
Speaker 1: to get to ADF. And it's because of our experience
Speaker 1: with people who try it too soon and then they
Speaker 1: lose the plot. You really want to be completely metabolically
Speaker 1: flexible and established to the point that you can't even
Speaker 1: imagine not having a daily eating window. It's your life now,
Speaker 1: then you're ready to start maybe trying with some ADF,
Speaker 1: but only if you need to. This is also why
Speaker 1: we recommend that you weigh daily and then once a
Speaker 1: week take the time to calculate your weekly average. If
Speaker 1: you are losing weight from one weekly average to the
Speaker 1: next at one half to one pounds per week, week
Speaker 1: after week after week, then you know that you are
Speaker 1: doing fine. Now, if you like go on a vacation
Speaker 1: and you don't lose weight, you know why. If you
Speaker 1: have a lot of holidays or you're a little bit
Speaker 1: not quite sticking to it, and you don't lose weight.
Speaker 1: You know why. But if you're sticking to your intermittent
Speaker 1: fasting goals consistently seven days a week, you should expect
Speaker 1: to see some weight loss one half to one pound
Speaker 1: a week from one weekly average to the next. If
Speaker 1: you are sticking to it, you are doing it seven
Speaker 1: days a week, and your weekly average suddenly stops trending downward,
Speaker 1: you're just stuck week after week after week for like
Speaker 1: four weeks, for example. Then you need to like really
Speaker 1: reassess and think about two things. Number One, am I
Speaker 1: at a healthy weight now where my body can maintain easily?
Speaker 1: This might just be your maintenance weight. Or Number two,
Speaker 1: has your body adapted to your daily eating window, in
Speaker 1: which case maybe it's time to consider some ADF. But
Speaker 1: we don't need to do it just to do it,
Speaker 1: And I don't want you to feel pressured into doing
Speaker 1: it or feeling like you have to do it. I
Speaker 1: want you to do it when you're ready, if you
Speaker 1: need to.
Speaker 2: I wanted to say too, I wonder if she just
Speaker 2: recently started to feel like what it feels like to
Speaker 2: be fat adapted, And then if she is taking off
Speaker 2: time on the weekends, right if, like she said, the
Speaker 2: last few days that it.
Speaker 1: Has felt harder.
Speaker 2: So I wonder if, like she wrote this in on like,
Speaker 2: maybe it was a Tuesday and she took off, didn't
Speaker 2: fast on Sunday, and so then Monday she was really
Speaker 2: struggling to flip the switch. Maybe even Tuesday flips are
Speaker 2: going to flip the switch because you're, like you said,
Speaker 2: she's not been fasting that long and she's been taking
Speaker 2: weekends off, so she's kind of riding that edge.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So I would really think that if she can just
Speaker 2: fast consistently seven days a week, that should probably go away.
Speaker 1: I really think that people don't realize how important that
Speaker 1: actually is for your first few months. We talk about
Speaker 1: intermittent fasting being really flexible, and when you have been
Speaker 1: doing it as long as Sherry and I have, we
Speaker 1: know what to expect. I could have a longer window
Speaker 1: one day, and I know how to get back to
Speaker 1: my normal routine. I know what it feels like. But
Speaker 1: if you're new, that's not the time to experiment with
Speaker 1: the flexibility. We'll have time to get there, right, But
Speaker 1: people who experiment with flexibility too early are the ones
Speaker 1: who end up stopping and it suddenly gets hard, and
Speaker 1: then they're like, why did I quit? I haven't been
Speaker 1: fasting for two months now, and though now I'm starting over.
Speaker 1: So we want to stop that starting over mentality by
Speaker 1: just really nailing that consistency until you know your body
Speaker 1: has it down before trying to throw any other wrinkles
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, for sure, And now it's time for
Speaker 1: our segment called What's Your Why. Most of us begin
Speaker 1: intermittent fasting with weight loss in mind, which is a
Speaker 1: great reason to start, but there is so much more
Speaker 1: to what intermittent fasting can do for us beyond weight loss.
Speaker 1: I genuinely believe when your why is deeper than weight
Speaker 1: loss alone, you're more likely to find long term success
Speaker 1: and to view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle. So this
Speaker 1: week we have a.
Speaker 2: Wife from Christine. Christine wrote, as Jen always asks what
Speaker 2: brought you to intermittent fasting? For me, it's been a
Speaker 2: long journey. I grew up dancing competitively, and I stayed
Speaker 2: thin into my early twenties, even on a junk food
Speaker 2: diet because I was constantly moving. But once I stopped
Speaker 2: dancing and became an elementary school teacher. My activity level
Speaker 2: dropped while my eating habits stayed the same. Over the years,
Speaker 2: the weight piled on and I eventually accepted being plus size.
Speaker 2: Over the years, I tried calorie counting. I would lose
Speaker 2: five to fifteen pounds here and there, but could never
Speaker 2: stick with it. Hunger and frustration always won. I discovered
Speaker 2: IF in twenty seventeen, but I wasn't committed to the
Speaker 2: Clean Fast. I thought calories in, calories out was the
Speaker 2: only way, and fasting with flavored coffees and creamers made
Speaker 2: it unsustainable and I never got results. A year ago,
Speaker 2: my family lost a loved one to a lifestyle related illness,
Speaker 2: and my mom, in her sixties, began weight loss injections
Speaker 2: for pre diabetes that made her sick, and I realized
Speaker 2: I don't want this to be my future. So I
Speaker 2: went back to Jen's Fast peas repeat, reread it cover
Speaker 2: to cover, and this time I fully committed to the
Speaker 2: Clean Fast. Now it's black coffee, plain tobochico and water only,
Speaker 2: no flavors, no creamers. It hasn't been a perfect road.
Speaker 2: I've stumbled through the twenty eight day fast start before
Speaker 2: quitting on day twenty nine when the scale didn't budge,
Speaker 2: or when the adjustment period felt too hard. But each
Speaker 2: time I've learned, and ea time I've come back stronger.
Speaker 2: My why because I want to be healthy is I age,
Speaker 2: because I don't want my life cut short my lifestyle
Speaker 2: related illness, because I deserve freedom from diets, guilt, and frustration.
Speaker 2: This isn't just about losing weight. It is about living
Speaker 2: fully with health, strength and joy for the years ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally get it. We're just so entrenched. We
Speaker 1: want everything to be easy. But you know, as there's
Speaker 1: a lesson and twenty eight day fast start pick your hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it can be hard to sit around while everybody else
Speaker 1: is having breakfast a to date in the morning and
Speaker 1: it looks really good and you're like, I can't have that.
Speaker 1: It feels like, you know, you're depriving yourself of something.
Speaker 1: But when you realize that what you're depriving yourself of
Speaker 1: by skipping that breakfast is metabolic issues being overweight, I
Speaker 1: would like to deprive myself of those things. Suddenly I
Speaker 1: no longer feel like I'm depriving myself of the breakfast.
Speaker 1: It's just a mindset shift and mindset is that's important.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, there were so many years from twenty
Speaker 1: nine to twenty fourteen when I dabbled in fasting that
Speaker 1: I would be like mad right that I just couldn't
Speaker 1: eat all day. I had to get past that for
Speaker 1: intermittten fasting to be a lifestyle.
Speaker 2: I want to say to anybody who's listening right now,
Speaker 2: if you are in your twenty eight day fast start,
Speaker 2: if you are even in your first six weeks, if
Speaker 2: it's feeling hard right now, please don't quit right because
Speaker 2: I promise very soon your body's going to start flipping
Speaker 2: the switch and you're going to feel amazing. And it
Speaker 2: right about the point where you're like, this is hard,
Speaker 2: I'm tired of struggling is usually about the point that
Speaker 2: your body's ready to do something super.
Speaker 1: It gets harder again before it gets easier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, keep pushing a lot of times people we've just
Speaker 2: noticed during the first several days it's really hard, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden they're like, oh, my hunger
Speaker 2: is adjusting, I'm feeling better, And then they may have
Speaker 2: an easy ten days, and then they might have some
Speaker 2: hard days and it's gonna go like that. You're gonna
Speaker 2: have some days where you're low energy, you're not gonna
Speaker 2: be able to work out anymore. And this is where
Speaker 2: Jenn's twenty eight day fastart book is so great, because
Speaker 2: it's gonna walk you through all of this. But please
Speaker 2: don't give up. Please please please commit to twelve weeks
Speaker 2: at least because something magical's gonna happen in that time.
Speaker 2: And then the other thing is set yourself up for
Speaker 2: realistic expectations. You may not lose one single pound during
Speaker 2: the twenty eight day fasttart, that's okay. That's not weight
Speaker 2: loss time. That is habit building time. That is getting
Speaker 2: your body fat adapted time. That is not weight loss time.
Speaker 2: The weight loss happens, the fat loss happens once your
Speaker 2: body is able to burn fat for energy. So keep pushing.
Speaker 2: I don't want you to have to start over again
Speaker 2: in three months when you're like, maybe I should have
Speaker 2: stuck with it. You're doing it now, stick with it.
Speaker 2: You'll get there, absolutely.
Speaker 1: And I always like to remind people if this lifestyle
Speaker 1: were miserable and you felt the way you feel on
Speaker 1: your worst days every day forever, we wouldn't be doing
Speaker 1: it this long. No, you know, I started in twenty
Speaker 1: fourteen and haven't quit since. And it's because I feel amazing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that doesn't mean every moment is amazing, right right,
Speaker 1: but there are a lot more amazing moments as an
Speaker 1: intermittent faster than like prior to intermittent fasting.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, all right, So we have another question. This
Speaker 2: is from Nikki and Floras, Iowa. She said, Hello, I
Speaker 2: love your podcast. I had a quick question for you guys.
Speaker 2: For the last six months or so, I've been doing
Speaker 2: daily eighteen to twenty hour intermittent fasting. I'm also going
Speaker 2: through menopause, so I'm not sleeping very well. I just
Speaker 2: started taking a fast dissolved melotonein tablet to help me sleep,
Speaker 2: and it works great. I just realized I should probably
Speaker 2: look at the ingredients and I'm hoping this is not
Speaker 2: breaking my fast, but I have a feeling it may.
Speaker 2: It's a five milligram tablet. Usually I break it in half,
Speaker 2: but the ingredients include xylotol, dextrin, food starch and natural flavor,
Speaker 2: steric acid, and all sorts of other citric acid, all
Speaker 2: sorts of other ingredients here. She says, Uugh, that's a lot.
Speaker 2: I guess I assume melotanin was all natural, and apparently
Speaker 2: I was wrong. So Jen, do you have any suggestions
Speaker 2: for her?
Speaker 1: Well, that is definitely not going to be the melatonin
Speaker 1: that you're looking for. And there's so many different melatonin
Speaker 1: formulations that you're not going to taste. You just swallow
Speaker 1: it down like a capsule. They even have like slow
Speaker 1: release ones like I saw some like I was having
Speaker 1: some really some trouble sleeping at the beginning of August.
Speaker 1: Of course y'all know now that was when I was
Speaker 1: going through my the force early days and I wasn't sleeping,
Speaker 1: like I literally did not sleep for a week. I
Speaker 1: didn't sleep, I couldn't sleep. My mind was raising. I
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep, which is not like me. But even with
Speaker 1: the progesterone, I was waking up the melanite. I couldn't sleep,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, I wonder if melatonin would help. Well,
Speaker 1: melatonin makes me feel crazy. No meltone. It did not help.
Speaker 1: But I went and looked for some melotonin and I
Speaker 1: settled on one that had like layers to it. It
Speaker 1: was like one that was quick release and then the
Speaker 1: rest was slow release. And so I took that that
Speaker 1: would not break a fast in the same way because
Speaker 1: like you swallow it down and then the quick release
Speaker 1: layer pops out and then the slow release layer. It'spos
Speaker 1: to help you stay asleep anyway. I have thrown the
Speaker 1: melotone in a way because it makes me feel like
Speaker 1: I have a terrible hangover. It always has, but also
Speaker 1: not sleeping well makes you feel like I have a
Speaker 1: terrible hangover. Melotonin doesn't work for me, but I would
Speaker 1: look for a different formulation of the meliton.
Speaker 2: And I was gonna say, and now, most sleep doctors
Speaker 2: would would not advise taking five miligrams of melatonin. They
Speaker 2: really advise if you're going to take it short term,
Speaker 2: don't take it routinely, and take as low a dose
Speaker 2: as possible, Like I've read anywhere from one to three milligrams.
Speaker 2: But I did just find one that would be fine
Speaker 2: for the clean fast, and it is time released and
Speaker 2: it's three milligrams. So just to help you out, I'll
Speaker 2: drop that in show notes for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just feel so terrible on it. But I've
Speaker 1: also read the cautions about not taking it all the time,
Speaker 1: but it did not make my sleep better. I don't
Speaker 1: know if anything could have at that time dreams. It
Speaker 1: just makes me feel weird in my head, like like heavy,
Speaker 1: like not good.
Speaker 2: It's not sensitive though, like I mean when you take
Speaker 2: your progesterone before bedtime, like.
Speaker 1: Bam, you're goofy. I am, Yeah, my body reacts to
Speaker 1: things differently than I'm like, I can't take benadrola to yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. I get goofy. Bit it feels good. It
Speaker 1: feels like when I take my progress throne, I feel like, well,
Speaker 1: I feel so good. It doesn't affect you like that
Speaker 1: at all? Does it?
Speaker 2: Nope? Not at all.
Speaker 1: Like I didn't even realize it was doing that at first,
Speaker 1: like the first few times when I was taking it,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden one day Chad was like,
Speaker 1: are you okay? You see I'm like, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? Then I realized, actually I think I am.
Speaker 1: Then I connected it. Obviously it's the progester. But it
Speaker 1: feels like I've had like like a wine or something anyhow.
Speaker 2: And I'll be texting with Roxy and I and she'll
Speaker 2: start getting goofy and she'll say, I'm sorry, I already
Speaker 2: took my ground. She's like I can't find words anymore.
Speaker 1: True, And that just goes to show that we're all
Speaker 1: different in our know a chemical makeup. I should like
Speaker 1: take some progester and record the podcast. No, I won't
Speaker 1: do that. It would be too goofy. All right, Our
Speaker 1: next question. Our next question is from Wondering in London. Hello,
Speaker 1: Jen and Cherry. I discovered your podcast via Zoe and
Speaker 1: started intermittent fasting in January of twenty twenty four. I'm
Speaker 1: thirty five one hundred and seventy five centimeters tall, and
Speaker 1: I weigh about sixty five kilometers. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I keep suddenly saying kilometers. This is the second time
Speaker 1: I've done that. It's kilograms. It even has the kg.
Speaker 1: She does not weigh me that the other day I did.
Speaker 1: It's like my hit. My eyes are a hit when
Speaker 1: I read really fast, so I'm like looking ahead and
Speaker 1: my mouth is just saying one thing in my brain anyway,
Speaker 1: So she does not weigh kilometers. She has sixty five kilograms.
Speaker 1: What I was thinking, Sherry, was I have no idea.
Speaker 1: Would you do some calculation and figure out how tall?
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 1: Pay good? She said, although I haven't weighed in a
Speaker 1: while because I prefer to see how I fit and
Speaker 1: feel in my clothes. I have no notable health issues.
Speaker 1: I try to aim for nineteen five with some variations.
Speaker 1: I keep track with a fasting app and my average
Speaker 1: fast is seventeen and a half hours. My window is
Speaker 1: usually between three or four pm and nine PM. I
Speaker 1: never really struggled with my weight. My average natural BMI
Speaker 1: sits in the healthy range around twenty one to twenty two.
Speaker 1: But I struggled with fad diets, body image, and a
Speaker 1: relationship with food since my teenage years. When I reach
Speaker 1: to my lowest BMI of sixteen, for a year or so,
Speaker 1: I had hypothalamic amin rhea. Did I say both of those? Right?
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Amen Aria?
Speaker 1: Yeah? That lasted even with a healthy BMI, which was
Speaker 1: frustrating because I was already following the general lifestyle recommendations,
Speaker 1: plant based, whole though diet, low stress level, moderate daily exercise,
Speaker 1: a mix of Pilate's yoga, et cetera. And exactly one
Speaker 1: year into intermittent fasting, my period's finally resumed. I think
Speaker 1: it's due to how much more relaxed I am around
Speaker 1: food when I fast. Because I don't restrict anymore, eating
Speaker 1: feels more intuitive and satiety is easier to reach. I
Speaker 1: don't really struggle with waves of hunger, though I don't
Speaker 1: feel as energized as i'd like to. Sometimes I feel
Speaker 1: a bit lightheaded and tired. So did you get a
Speaker 1: chance to pull all that together? I did?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did so smart BMI. The ideal range is
Speaker 2: thirty over seventy to thirty nine over seventy. She is
Speaker 2: thirty three free over seventy, so she's on the low
Speaker 2: end of the healthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mine, okay, okay. I think that's really really important
Speaker 1: to know, she said. I know how important it is
Speaker 1: to fast clean, so I only drink plain water and
Speaker 1: black coffee. However, I wonder if the soluble powdered coffee
Speaker 1: brand Es Cafe I drink two to four teaspoons per
Speaker 1: day is combatible with clean fasting. The ingredient is one
Speaker 1: hundred percent arabica, but as it is powder form, I
Speaker 1: wonder if we should consider it like macha as food
Speaker 1: because we do ingest a finely ground plant diluted in water.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your help.
Speaker 2: Well, there's sort of some mixed opinions on this. I mean,
Speaker 2: you're not really ingesting the finally ground plant. Basically, what
Speaker 2: they do is they make There's different ways to make
Speaker 2: this instant coffee. I've researched it things I never thought
Speaker 2: I would research. They basically like make coffee and dehydrate
Speaker 2: it or freeze dry it. There's different ways to do it.
Speaker 2: I will tell you that we have had fasters in
Speaker 2: the community who did discover, whether it was accidentally, like
Speaker 2: they always drink brood coffee, but they went on a
Speaker 2: trip and brought an instant powdered coffee with them, or
Speaker 2: they were vacationing somewhere and that's what they were offered.
Speaker 2: Or sometimes people start out drinking that thinking they're great,
Speaker 2: but you know, they're six months in and they are
Speaker 2: still struggling with fasting, and so they give it up
Speaker 2: and realize, like fasting is so much easier. Other people
Speaker 2: drink it every day and don't have any problem with it.
Speaker 2: So I don't have like a clear cut answer for you.
Speaker 2: If you think that it could be contributing to you
Speaker 2: feeling lightheaded and tired, I would go without it. That's
Speaker 2: the only way you're going to know. If it's the coffee,
Speaker 2: go without it, switch to a brood coffee, get some
Speaker 2: cold brew, clean fast approved coffee, do something else instead
Speaker 2: and see if that makes a difference. If it doesn't,
Speaker 2: you may be somebody who needs electrolytes in your window
Speaker 2: or in the fast. In your fast or your window,
Speaker 2: it's really up to you when you take them. The
Speaker 2: thing is, when you're eating in your window, you ask
Speaker 2: where you should be getting your electrolytes from food. But
Speaker 2: if you can find a clean fast electrolyte, it might
Speaker 2: help you to take one when you wake up in
Speaker 2: the morning. Alternately, you can just take like a quarter
Speaker 2: teaspoon of some high quality salt, like a Celtic sea salt,
Speaker 2: a Himalayan salt, and dissolve it in some warm water
Speaker 2: and drink it like you would any other hot beverage.
Speaker 2: You can also just put it under your tongue and
Speaker 2: kind of hold it under your tongue sublinqually and let
Speaker 2: it kind of dissolve there. That's like a quick way
Speaker 2: to get in your body and see if that makes
Speaker 2: a difference. I am one that just needs more electrolytes
Speaker 2: and being lightheaded. That can be a sign that you
Speaker 2: could need some electrolytes, but it also can be a
Speaker 2: sign you're breaking your fast. So definitely experiment and see
Speaker 2: what helps make you feel better, because you shouldn't be
Speaker 2: feeling that like that why you're fasting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would have a couple of other things
Speaker 1: to look at. If you're lightheaded, that can have to
Speaker 1: do with blood pressure, So get your blood pressure checked
Speaker 1: and see if your blood pressure is low. And again
Speaker 1: electrolytes can make a difference there as well. And also
Speaker 1: you know you could be low in iron, you could
Speaker 1: be low in B twelve.
Speaker 2: Oh see that's the other thing. Because she's said she's
Speaker 2: plant based, Definitely get your twelve helve checked because like
Speaker 2: dizziness or lack of feeling of balance, like feeling dizzy
Speaker 2: going up the stairs, that can be a sign of
Speaker 2: B twelve deficiency.
Speaker 1: And we know that a plant based diet you need
Speaker 1: to supplement with BE twelve. And scientifically, I can explain why.
Speaker 1: It's because we're so we're too clean. We're too clean now, right,
Speaker 1: So when we used to eat food a long time ago,
Speaker 1: it had like dirt, it was dirty. We ate dirty
Speaker 1: food we didn't know and the dirty food we had
Speaker 1: napped the B twelve from like the soil. Right, Like animals,
Speaker 1: animals are a great source of B twelve because they
Speaker 1: get it from the soil and so they pass it
Speaker 1: on to us. But our plants are so clean we're
Speaker 1: missing it. So anyone on a plant based diet needs
Speaker 1: to supplement with B twelve. So check into that. And
Speaker 1: as I have experimented with being plant based here and there,
Speaker 1: my BE twelve was low. Then my doctor actually had
Speaker 1: me on BE twelve shots for a while. I was
Speaker 1: given them to myself share And I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel bad, I didn't feel better, but my
Speaker 1: levels were low, Like I never couldn't tell they were low.
Speaker 1: But being lightheaded or tired.
Speaker 2: Can be an indication, all right, So we have a
Speaker 2: question for Marissa in Pennsylvania. She said, I want to
Speaker 2: make sure our tweek I'm considering doesn't break a fast.
Speaker 2: Lately I've been hearing about perfect aminos and how they
Speaker 2: are great to take during a fast. They come in
Speaker 2: an unflavored powder or pills. Looking at the ingredients, they
Speaker 2: don't seem to have any food like items in the pills,
Speaker 2: but the powder has stevia, so I know the powder
Speaker 2: is a no. They advertise that they don't break a fast.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me if the pills are okay in
Speaker 2: the fast or should I take them in the eating window?
Speaker 2: Thank you, and I love your podcast. Well, they absolutely
Speaker 2: do break a fast. Sorry I hate to tell you that,
Speaker 2: but just put them in your window. And here's how
Speaker 2: you can ask yourself this question and figure it out.
Speaker 2: You're right about the stevia. You got that. So we
Speaker 2: have our three fasting goals. Number one, keep insulin low,
Speaker 2: and that's why we would avoid the stevia. We don't
Speaker 2: want to have this a fallat phase insulin response, so
Speaker 2: you're right on that one. Clean fast goal number two
Speaker 2: is we want to burn our stored fat for fuel,
Speaker 2: so we're not putting things in there like butter in
Speaker 2: our coffee, oil in our coffee. We're not having any
Speaker 2: source of fuel.
Speaker 1: But clean fast goal number three is we want to
Speaker 1: experience increased autophagy, so we avoid anything that is like
Speaker 1: protein or the building blocks of protein. And the perfect
Speaker 1: amino is you amino acid, that's the building block of protein.
Speaker 1: So during our fast, we want our body to be
Speaker 1: breaking down and recycling our own protein. That's our body's
Speaker 1: clean up time. So we put protein in during our
Speaker 1: eating window, and that would include any supplements that have
Speaker 1: any sort of protein or that's going to help us
Speaker 1: with building up, so that the eating window is our
Speaker 1: building up time, the fasting is our cleaning up time.
Speaker 1: So anything that is a nutrient, put it in during
Speaker 1: the during the eating window, keep it out of the
Speaker 1: fast so you can ask yourself that in the future,
Speaker 1: you can say, Okay, amino's building block of protein, I
Speaker 1: want to have increased autology during the fast. I'm going
Speaker 1: to save that for my eating window. Hopefully that helps.
Speaker 2: Yep. All right, So before we get the week of
Speaker 2: the week, I just want to share about the success
Speaker 2: some of my coaching clients are having since we started
Speaker 2: working together. And I just want to remind anyone who's
Speaker 2: needing a little one on one troubleshooting to bust a plateau,
Speaker 2: or just some problem solving to figure out how to
Speaker 2: balance fasting with life, please reach out to me. We
Speaker 2: can work on all of this. We can work on mindset,
Speaker 2: we can work on setting personal goals for motivation and
Speaker 2: just accountability to yourself. So one of my weekly clients,
Speaker 2: I'm so proud of her. She's having huge success in
Speaker 2: all of the above. After just three sessions, she is thriving.
Speaker 2: She has busted a multi month plateau and she's feeling great.
Speaker 2: Another client was really struggling to shorten up her fasting
Speaker 2: window in order to see her weight loss goal. She
Speaker 2: was closed, but she just couldn't get there. And with
Speaker 2: some consistent work and weekly sessions and some daily check ins,
Speaker 2: she is now nailing her eating windows. Even with a
Speaker 2: vacation and a very pesky kidney stone that she suffered
Speaker 2: after vacation, she has still been doing great. So you
Speaker 2: would like some help, I do book out several weeks
Speaker 2: in advance, so don't wait reach out today. Just email
Speaker 2: me at Cherry at fast feastrepeat dot com. And once again,
Speaker 2: Sherry has one R sh E R I.
Speaker 1: I love that you're doing this because people need all
Speaker 1: levels of support. I keep bringing this back to my
Speaker 1: life as a teacher. I got the kid in the corner.
Speaker 1: You could just hand on the copy of the math
Speaker 1: book and say go, and that kid could teach themself
Speaker 1: math or her self math all day long. They don't
Speaker 1: need any support from you. They just they got it right.
Speaker 1: That would be like someone who just can read the
Speaker 1: books about fasting and they're on their own they go,
Speaker 1: whereas other people need a little more help. We've got
Speaker 1: these podcasts. They help people the community another layer of support,
Speaker 1: and then some people need that one on one. They
Speaker 1: just need it. Just like in the classroom, some kids
Speaker 1: needed to come sit with me and go over the
Speaker 1: math a little bit before they could get it. And
Speaker 1: there's no shame in that. And different phases of our
Speaker 1: life we might need more support in other ways.
Speaker 2: Well. And what's interesting too is like sometimes people think
Speaker 2: they're doing things right, but then when they start telling
Speaker 2: me what they're doing, I can identify, like instantly, like
Speaker 2: what is holding them back? Or it's just sometimes people
Speaker 2: like to tell themselves stories like I'm doing all I
Speaker 2: can do. But then when I really we sit and
Speaker 2: talked about it and I'm like, well, tell me why
Speaker 2: you feel that way, we can really figure out like
Speaker 2: their holding themselves back out of fear or they don't
Speaker 2: they're afraid to be a little uncomfortable, but if we
Speaker 2: can work through that together and they know they have
Speaker 2: somebody supporting them, or sometimes they just need somebody to
Speaker 2: tell them what to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are.
Speaker 2: People out there who just really like to follow instructions right.
Speaker 2: They don't want to think, they don't want to. My
Speaker 2: husband's one of these people. He doesn't want a problem solve,
Speaker 2: he doesn't want to have to use his brain too hard.
Speaker 2: He's got a busy brain anyway. He just really wants
Speaker 2: it lined out, do this and this and check back
Speaker 2: in with me. And if I want him to do chores,
Speaker 2: I just make him a list and he's going to
Speaker 2: do it. If I say, hey, if you don't have
Speaker 2: a thing to do today, why don't you do some
Speaker 2: work around the house, Nothing's going to happen because he
Speaker 2: doesn't know where to even start. So sometimes you just
Speaker 2: need that person to help you identify where to start,
Speaker 2: what to tweet, what next. And I'm having a lot
Speaker 2: of fun helping them and really seeing their success.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and we know from all these years we've
Speaker 1: been working. When did you start? Was it twenty sixteen?
Speaker 2: So I started?
Speaker 1: Did you start alriting twenty eighteen?
Speaker 2: Well, okay, like January maybe January of twenty eighteen, because
Speaker 2: we went on the first cruise in June of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: and I'd been moderating for.
Speaker 1: A while before then. Yeah, so yeah, so twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: Think asked me to be your roommate for the second
Speaker 2: cruise that we hadn't even taken the first cruise.
Speaker 1: We hadn't even met yet. I was like, I can
Speaker 1: tell I really like Shary. Yeah, just from interactions behind
Speaker 1: the scenes and in the community or in the Facebook group.
Speaker 1: It was the Facebook group then, but yeah, So we've
Speaker 1: been helping people since Sherry, since twenty eighteen as a
Speaker 1: moderator in the Facebook groups back then, and so we
Speaker 1: really know we've seen it all and don't be embarrassed.
Speaker 1: Also like say, you know what, I'm not nailing the
Speaker 1: clean fast, help me or whatever it might be. So
Speaker 1: now it's time for our tweak of the week. I
Speaker 1: always say, tweak it till it's easy. But the tweak
Speaker 1: that works for me might not be the one that
Speaker 1: works for you. And that's why it is super helpful
Speaker 1: to you. How other intermittent fasters are making intermittent fasting
Speaker 1: work for them. This is Sally from Aliston, Ontario. She said,
Speaker 1: for me, when I open my window, I have to
Speaker 1: have a good amount of protein twenty five to thirty
Speaker 1: grams or I am grazing all afternoon unsatiated. I cannot
Speaker 1: get by on a snack. I tried it. This sustains
Speaker 1: me until dinner and dinner has become a smaller meal
Speaker 1: than it used to be. Another pleasant surprise, saving a
Speaker 1: lot on groceries. And I want to talk about that
Speaker 1: for just a minute if I could, Uh, I wish
Speaker 1: I could go back and revise. I often wish I
Speaker 1: could go back and revise things. Book books that are
Speaker 1: out in the world that have a recommendation in both
Speaker 1: Fast Feast Repeat. And then when I wrote twenty eight
Speaker 1: day Fast Start day by day, I followed the same
Speaker 1: format for the fast start that I had in Fast
Speaker 1: East Repeat, and I recommend a snack and a meal.
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of people like Sally
Speaker 1: who need to open with a meal. And I think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people trying to open with
Speaker 1: a snack and then finding that that's not satiating. Then
Speaker 1: they overeat, and then they end up eating a whole
Speaker 1: second meal because it's dinnertime.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it depends on what you define a
Speaker 2: snack ass Well, that's true. Like if you're eating snack foods, yeah,
Speaker 2: and you're not gonna have a lot of nutrition in there.
Speaker 2: If you're opening with veggies and grapes and a handful
Speaker 2: of almonds, that may not be really satisfying. That's not
Speaker 2: a lot of food, so it really depends on That's
Speaker 2: why for me, I can't even tell you do I
Speaker 2: open with a snack or do I open with a
Speaker 2: meal because my snack could be somebody else's meal, And
Speaker 2: for me, hot food makes all the difference. Opening with
Speaker 2: something hot after over eating something cold makes a lot
Speaker 2: of difference. And how satisfied I am through the you know,
Speaker 2: up until my main meal.
Speaker 1: But it goes back to that, the recommendation snack and
Speaker 1: then meal. People lock into that and think that is
Speaker 1: what they should be doing. So I wish I had
Speaker 1: written it more flexibly and even said snack, meal, meal, snack,
Speaker 1: think about it like that. My whole point was that
Speaker 1: for weight loss for me, two full meals was not
Speaker 1: a weight loss approach for me, no matter how long
Speaker 1: my window was. If I tried to squeeze two full
Speaker 1: meals in five hours, that was not a window weight
Speaker 1: loss window for me. Two meals and eight r two meals,
Speaker 1: two full meals. And like I'm a volume meter, so
Speaker 1: what I considered to be a meal someone else, what
Speaker 1: I considered to be a snack might be someone's lunch, right,
Speaker 1: But I wish that I hadn't put it that way
Speaker 1: and said, be flexible with it and figure it out.
Speaker 1: So if when you open your window, this is for everybody.
Speaker 1: If when you open your window you're locked in on
Speaker 1: the idea, well, Jen said, start with a snack and
Speaker 1: then you're starving, and then you keep eating. Then what
Speaker 1: you're opening with is not sufficient. Now that I am
Speaker 1: by myself and I am not sitting down at a
Speaker 1: meal time with Chad, and bless his heart, we know
Speaker 1: one thing about Chad was he was original meal times.
Speaker 1: Like literally the clock didn't say five o'clock. He wasn't
Speaker 1: going to have it by food till it's aid five o'clock.
Speaker 1: So we were having our dinner around six. So I
Speaker 1: had to or even after that, I had to schedule
Speaker 1: my window around when Chad wanted to have dinner. But
Speaker 1: now that I am free to do what I want,
Speaker 1: I am opening with my main meal whenever that might be.
Speaker 1: I start cooking, I have my main meal, I eat it,
Speaker 1: and then later I'm not having a second main meal.
Speaker 1: But maybe like five thirty six o'clock, like maybe I
Speaker 1: open it two thirty, maybe I open at three thirty,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, have my main meal and maybe
Speaker 1: six o'clock I need a little something else. I mean,
Speaker 1: just whatever it might look like. But it really that
Speaker 1: is what's working really really well for me. And I
Speaker 1: think back to when I was so successful as a teacher,
Speaker 1: and it was so easy to fast till I got
Speaker 1: home from work and I didn't even think about eating
Speaker 1: at work. I got home and I would start making
Speaker 1: dinner and so I would have my main meal. Right.
Speaker 1: So once I retired and started, I would want to
Speaker 1: eat around two and I would have like a full
Speaker 1: meal and then have to have another full meal. So
Speaker 1: that was just really too much for me. So keep
Speaker 1: experimenting with what you call it and how big it is,
Speaker 1: and even if you have to feed a family. I
Speaker 1: finally got to the point where I realized that wasn't
Speaker 1: working well. And if you need to open with something hearty,
Speaker 1: even if you're eating by yourself, and then later you
Speaker 1: have to put a full meal on the table for
Speaker 1: your family, have a snack sized portion of that full meal.
Speaker 1: Just really really think about what suits you. But it
Speaker 1: probably won't be having one full meal at two o'clock
Speaker 1: and then another full meal later with your family's probably
Speaker 1: not going to be it, but anyway, I just want
Speaker 1: to take it.
Speaker 2: Yet I would have to. That is, if you were
Speaker 2: like plant based, Yeah, oh that's true. You may absolutely
Speaker 2: need two full meals eating one.
Speaker 1: You know, because of the calorie density of those plant
Speaker 1: based foods, especially if you're a low fat, whole food
Speaker 1: plant based and that that's the concept of calorie density
Speaker 1: that really makes a difference. And I tend to eat
Speaker 1: very colorically dense foods because I love dairy, I love cheese,
Speaker 1: and those are more colorically dense and they're also more
Speaker 1: satisfying over time. But I also pair that with a
Speaker 1: whole lot of veggies.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, all right, Well, we love to leave you
Speaker 2: with inspirational motivational quotes, and this week we have a
Speaker 2: quote from Denzel Washington that was shared by Vivian. Dreams
Speaker 2: without goals are just dreams, and ultimately they feel disappointment.
Speaker 2: On the road to achieving your dreams, you must apply discipline,
Speaker 2: but more importantly, consistency, because without commitment, you'll never start,
Speaker 2: but without consistency you'll never finish. That is so good,
Speaker 2: and that applies to fasting so much. I always say
Speaker 2: it takes like discipline, dedication, consistency, to really build the
Speaker 2: habit and like that quote, just nailed it.
Speaker 1: The magic is in the clean fast, the magic is
Speaker 1: in your eating window, but the magic is also in
Speaker 1: the repeat.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening today. We would love to
Speaker 1: have you join us in the Delayed on Tonight community,
Speaker 1: where you can interact with both me and Sherry, plus
Speaker 1: the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere.
Speaker 1: Go to Jenstevens dot com slash community to join us.
Speaker 3: Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to your favorite
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Speaker 3: a five star review that helps new listeners find the
Speaker 3: show and we really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: We are a community driven podcast, so to submit your
Speaker 1: success stories, your questions, your favorite tweak it till It's
Speaker 1: Easy moments, or anything else you want us to share
Speaker 1: on the podcast, go to Fast Feast Repeat dot com
Speaker 1: slash submit and then listen each week to see if
Speaker 1: we share your submission or answer your question.
Speaker 2: Until next week. Thanks for listening.