Episode 82: Measuring Progress as an ADFer, Devices that Claim to Measure Fat Burning, and More

<v Speaker 1>Welcome the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm
<v Speaker 1>Jen Stevens, author of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast.
<v Speaker 2>Repeat, and I'm Sherry Bullock, longtime intermittent faster and health
<v Speaker 2>and wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this podcast
<v Speaker 2>is for educational and motivational purposes only and is not
<v Speaker 2>intended to provide medical or diagnostic advice. Jen and I
<v Speaker 2>are not doctors, so make sure to check with your
<v Speaker 2>trusted healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes
<v Speaker 2>to any medical treatments or medications.
<v Speaker 1>Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an experienced intermittent faster,
<v Speaker 1>tune in each week to get inspired, to learn, and
<v Speaker 1>to have some fun along the way.
<v Speaker 3>Hi, everybody, we are so glad you're here today.
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to this week's episode of the Fast Feast Repeat
<v Speaker 1>Intermittent Fasting for Life Podcast.
<v Speaker 3>How are you doing today, Sherry? I.
<v Speaker 2>I'm doing well, well good. It's the day after Christmas. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>feel a little bit of that. Yeah? Is that a
<v Speaker 2>kind of post holiday letdown you have? Do you feel that?
<v Speaker 3>No? No, Okay, I don't today.
<v Speaker 1>I mean I've heard people talking about it. I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>I'm a weirdo. I like everything about it, and afterwards,
<v Speaker 1>like I have the feeling of like job well done.
<v Speaker 3>Does that make sense?
<v Speaker 1>Like I don't feel the holiday letdown. Instead, I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>we did it well.
<v Speaker 2>And to me, it's more like it's been go go
<v Speaker 2>go all about the holidays, shopping, cooking, preparing, eating. I
<v Speaker 2>had the kids here, and now today it's like return
<v Speaker 2>to real life. And then I'm like, I don't know,
<v Speaker 2>it's kind of like it's just a weird just a
<v Speaker 2>weird feeling.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe I would feel the letdown more when I had
<v Speaker 1>to go back to teaching, like at the end of
<v Speaker 1>the holiday break, I might would feel it like sad,
<v Speaker 1>like the magic was over.
<v Speaker 2>But it's kind of like it's all been about holidays, holidays,
<v Speaker 2>and then today it's just like a normal, regular day.
<v Speaker 2>And then I'm like, okay, what now.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I've just I guess it's you know, thinking back
<v Speaker 1>now that I am a retired teacher and I get
<v Speaker 1>to I mean, I work.
<v Speaker 3>Hard, right, I didn't podcast, and.
<v Speaker 1>I'll run the community and all the things that I do,
<v Speaker 1>but it's all very much more on my own terms.
<v Speaker 3>That's probably a lot to do with it.
<v Speaker 1>But I actually, thinking back, do remember having that post
<v Speaker 1>holiday slum when it was time to go back to
<v Speaker 1>regular work, like when you have to be there on
<v Speaker 1>the clock, right right, Yeah, yeah, that.
<v Speaker 3>Was a different time.
<v Speaker 1>I spent twenty eight years teaching in that environment, though,
<v Speaker 1>And I'm trying to explain it. Will has a job
<v Speaker 1>now and he's working seven am to four pm, five
<v Speaker 1>days a week, and he's like, you don't understand.
<v Speaker 3>I'm like, oh, trust me. You know, when you're a teacher,
<v Speaker 3>you wake.
<v Speaker 1>Up with a temperature of one hundred and two, you're like, well,
<v Speaker 1>I got to be there today, or I take some
<v Speaker 1>talent all and go on in you know.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, not if you're like contagious, right.
<v Speaker 2>But.
<v Speaker 3>I get it.
<v Speaker 1>So I'm very grateful for the phase of life that
<v Speaker 1>I'm in now.
<v Speaker 3>But I get it.
<v Speaker 1>I know exactly what you mean when I think about
<v Speaker 1>it that way, because it's you know, you've got to
<v Speaker 1>go back to work. You've got to be there at
<v Speaker 1>a certain time where it's like here I am working
<v Speaker 1>with you, and it's like feels like fun.
<v Speaker 2>Right well, and then it's like my dog, I have
<v Speaker 2>something going on. One of my dogs that we discovered yesterday,
<v Speaker 2>and so I was like, didn't sleep last night because
<v Speaker 2>I was worried about her, And I ran her the
<v Speaker 2>vent and dropped her off this morning, and I was
<v Speaker 2>just like, we went from like la la la la
<v Speaker 2>la holiday to back to real life.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, we'll be back at work today.
<v Speaker 3>So I get it.
<v Speaker 2>Fantasy holiday world, yeah, where real life doesn't exist for
<v Speaker 2>some days.
<v Speaker 3>I get it. I've been there.
<v Speaker 1>But I'm just very grateful. Like I said that, now
<v Speaker 1>it feels like every day is like that anyway. Sorry, sorry, everybody. Well,
<v Speaker 1>think about all the work that I did over those
<v Speaker 1>twenty eight years of teaching. Oh my gosh, study on
<v Speaker 1>a rainy, wet day that could have been a snow
<v Speaker 1>day but wasn't.
<v Speaker 3>I'm standing out there in the rain, so I've had
<v Speaker 3>my shoes.
<v Speaker 2>Did your school have a circle drive? Do all schools
<v Speaker 2>have like a circle drive where kids get dropped off?
<v Speaker 1>Our school was set up the way the school was designed.
<v Speaker 1>The car line was supposed to be in the front,
<v Speaker 1>and then the bus line was in the back. But
<v Speaker 1>then they decided some of the people who were like
<v Speaker 1>in charge of things like the pe teachers and stuff
<v Speaker 1>like that they were like, we're gonna do it the opposite.
<v Speaker 1>So we had the bus line in the front and
<v Speaker 1>the car line in the back, and it was so
<v Speaker 1>very confusing because you know, obviously, at every school in America,
<v Speaker 1>no parents are allowed to drop their children off in
<v Speaker 1>the bus line, right, But because our car line was
<v Speaker 1>in the back and the bus line was in the front,
<v Speaker 1>the office was it got really confusing.
<v Speaker 2>Oh sure, because you'd have like parents need to come
<v Speaker 2>in to talk to somebody in the office.
<v Speaker 1>And they wanted to ride right through the bus line,
<v Speaker 1>and then they'd be really mad at me. I'm like, yes,
<v Speaker 1>my my joy in life is standing here and telling
<v Speaker 1>you you can't park here.
<v Speaker 3>It's where I get my power. I hated every minute
<v Speaker 3>of that. How I say, please just park where you're
<v Speaker 3>supposed to.
<v Speaker 2>Any parent or teacher I think knows that the drop
<v Speaker 2>off and pick up from elementary school is the most stressful.
<v Speaker 3>Part of the day.
<v Speaker 1>I feel, yes, yes, absolutely, And the teacher standing there
<v Speaker 1>on duty, I promise you, is not on a power
<v Speaker 1>trip about where you can and can't park.
<v Speaker 3>There is a rule.
<v Speaker 1>They're trying really hard to make sure everyone cheerfully follows it.
<v Speaker 3>So when you yell at that teacher on duty.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's anyway. I'm so grateful to not have to
<v Speaker 1>do that ever.
<v Speaker 3>Again.
<v Speaker 1>Let me just go, I got some really crazy me too,
<v Speaker 1>crazy stuff from parents over the years.
<v Speaker 2>So late at school was so crazy that parents just
<v Speaker 2>were like, forget this, and they started dropping their kids
<v Speaker 2>off like a block away from the school, oh yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and making them walk. But then there weren't enough crosswalks there,
<v Speaker 2>so then they were like, you can't do that, and
<v Speaker 2>so it was always a big to do but uh huh. Yeah, anyway,
<v Speaker 2>it's not easy anyway, which as life with kids.
<v Speaker 1>My teacher advice to everyone who's listening is know that
<v Speaker 1>the rules are there for a reason, and the teacher
<v Speaker 1>on duty is not the one who made the rules.
<v Speaker 3>If she tells you not to park there, don't park there.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's it.
<v Speaker 1>Anyway, Let's have a celebration.
<v Speaker 2>All right, So we have a celebration from Jane in Newcastle, UK,
<v Speaker 2>And she said, hi Jen and Cherry and the podcast Gang.
<v Speaker 2>I have an unexpected success story to share. Just for background,
<v Speaker 2>I'm forty eight and I have been clean fasting for
<v Speaker 2>almost two years now. My usual schedule is eighteen six
<v Speaker 2>with some occasional twenty one to three when work is
<v Speaker 2>particularly busy. I haven't lost a ton of weight, but
<v Speaker 2>I do have slow progress in the right direction. So
<v Speaker 2>to my success story. I have recently visited Indonesia and
<v Speaker 2>had an amazing and very full itinerary. One such activity
<v Speaker 2>was an early morning two am visit to a volcano
<v Speaker 2>to see the sunrise. I'm not sure what I was expecting,
<v Speaker 2>but I was obviously fasting at that time. In the morning,
<v Speaker 2>I collected a breakfast box from the hotel with the
<v Speaker 2>idea of eating it when my window opened.
<v Speaker 3>Much later.
<v Speaker 2>We arrived at the base of the volcano in the
<v Speaker 2>dark and began our walk. I had been led to
<v Speaker 2>believe this was going to be a fairly easy walk
<v Speaker 2>up the volcano on a path created for tourists. How
<v Speaker 2>wrong I was. The climb was steep and in places
<v Speaker 2>we were scrambling up rocks. It was arduous in the
<v Speaker 2>valley heat and humidity. But I did it. I reached
<v Speaker 2>the top and I saw the most amazing sunrise, and
<v Speaker 2>I was in a fasted state. Now I usually do
<v Speaker 2>an hour of zumba online in a fasted state, and
<v Speaker 2>I manage that quite easily, So I'm confident I'm fat adapted,
<v Speaker 2>but I would never in a million years have thought
<v Speaker 2>I could scale a seventeen hundred meter volcano, never mind
<v Speaker 2>in a fasted state. I am so grateful for what
<v Speaker 2>my body has shown me it can do on this adventure,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm sure fasting has been instrumental in this.
<v Speaker 3>For those of you.
<v Speaker 2>Having slow weight loss progress, I hope this helps your
<v Speaker 2>motivation and determination. We don't all need to climb a
<v Speaker 2>volcano to feel success, but this little faster felt great
<v Speaker 2>when she did. Thank you so much, Jen, Sherry and
<v Speaker 2>all of you fasters out there. You are a mine
<v Speaker 2>of information, motivation, and joy. Bright blessings, Jane.
<v Speaker 3>I love that.
<v Speaker 1>I love that too, And for everybody who's listening, this
<v Speaker 1>episode comes out about three weeks into January. And if
<v Speaker 1>you started intermitten fasting in the new year, or right
<v Speaker 1>after the holidays, or you recently recommitted and you're feeling
<v Speaker 1>very sluggish and there's no way you could climb a
<v Speaker 1>seventeen hundred meters volcano or even do zoomba, or even.
<v Speaker 3>You can barely walk around, know that it gets better.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, you know, because Jane talked about being fat adapted,
<v Speaker 1>and that is when our bodies can switch fuel sources
<v Speaker 1>as necessary. So when you're first starting out, I would
<v Speaker 1>not think you could probably do it, But when you're
<v Speaker 1>fat adapted, it's such a different experience. Yes, it is
<v Speaker 1>all right. Now we have a question from a listener.
<v Speaker 1>This question is from Courtney in Florida. Courtney says, I
<v Speaker 1>am I in maintenance. I am forty seven years old.
<v Speaker 1>I started intermittent fasting in June of twenty twenty three,
<v Speaker 1>after nearly twenty years of dieting off and on. I've
<v Speaker 1>lost close to thirty pounds since starting IF and I
<v Speaker 1>look and feel so much better. Friends have said I'm
<v Speaker 1>aging backwards, which is my very favorite compliment. At the
<v Speaker 1>risk of sounding ungrateful for my progress, this still doesn't
<v Speaker 1>feel like where I need to be. I am five
<v Speaker 1>to one with a large frame, thick wrists and ankles.
<v Speaker 1>No matter how much weight I lose, I never struggled
<v Speaker 1>with weight growing up. I weighed less than one hundred
<v Speaker 1>and ten until I graduated law school. Long hours at
<v Speaker 1>the law firm with not much time for exercise or
<v Speaker 1>thoughtful meal planning, and by age thirty three, I had
<v Speaker 1>climbed to one forty five. I had two babies in
<v Speaker 1>my thirties, and a year after my second son was born,
<v Speaker 1>I weighed one sixty eight. I yoyoed between one forty
<v Speaker 1>five and one sixty five between ages thirty seven and
<v Speaker 1>forty six until I found IF Last year. I swiftly
<v Speaker 1>lost the first thirty pounds, but have been stuck at
<v Speaker 1>around one thirty eight for nearly a year. My goal
<v Speaker 1>weight is one twenty five. I thought that was a
<v Speaker 1>good realistic goal for my age. It just still feels
<v Speaker 1>like there is a little too.
<v Speaker 3>Much of me.
<v Speaker 1>Fortunately, I have zero health issues, except I'm prone to
<v Speaker 1>reactive hypoglycemia if I'm not careful with how I open
<v Speaker 1>my window. I have naturally low blood pressure and cholesterol
<v Speaker 1>labs always look good. My current protocol is nineteen five,
<v Speaker 1>though as I've gotten discouraged about my progress, I find
<v Speaker 1>I have more days with longer windows. I've had a
<v Speaker 1>few attempts at true ADF up down, up, down, and
<v Speaker 1>I like it, but when it doesn't move the scale,
<v Speaker 1>I get discouraged and go back to a daily window.
<v Speaker 1>I'm in the throes of perimenopause. My own doctor thinks
<v Speaker 1>I'm too young for HRT and instead changed my birth
<v Speaker 1>control pills to a more steady estrogen level throughout the month,
<v Speaker 1>which I think has helped with some of the symptoms.
<v Speaker 1>I had a consult with doctor Tabitha Barber's team and
<v Speaker 1>was told I'd have to be off birth control for
<v Speaker 1>three months before my hormone levels could be checked, which
<v Speaker 1>makes sense. But I'm terrified to get off birth control
<v Speaker 1>because when I got pregnant at thirty six and had
<v Speaker 1>the required genetic counseling, I remember they said I had
<v Speaker 1>the reproductive system of a sixteen year old. I plugged
<v Speaker 1>my numbers into the smart BMI tool and I'm in
<v Speaker 1>the green, so I know I'm healthy, but I'm still
<v Speaker 1>a bit uncomfortable at this size.
<v Speaker 3>But is this just the.
<v Speaker 1>Size I'm going to be now? I planned a practice
<v Speaker 1>IF for life. I love the health benefits, but I
<v Speaker 1>would just like to know what to expect.
<v Speaker 3>Thanks for all you do.
<v Speaker 2>I have so many thoughts around that.
<v Speaker 3>On every day.
<v Speaker 2>I also plugged your numbers into the smart BMI calculator,
<v Speaker 2>and you're right, you are in the green. You're kind
<v Speaker 2>of on the top end of green, so I'm sure
<v Speaker 2>you do have you know a little bit of weight
<v Speaker 2>that you could budge if you're wanting to get some
<v Speaker 2>more weight off. And one of the things that you
<v Speaker 2>don't really I mean like you talk about like not
<v Speaker 2>really having time for exercise. So I know we don't
<v Speaker 2>talk a lot about, you know, exercise and weight loss
<v Speaker 2>and all this, but once you get over we just
<v Speaker 2>start losing muscle mass. Women start losing muscle mass, even
<v Speaker 2>men start losing muscle mass. So it is really really
<v Speaker 2>important that we are working our muscles and we are
<v Speaker 2>doing strength training. The latest research I've really read says
<v Speaker 2>three days a week and if you have time for
<v Speaker 2>nothing else, you should be strength training three times a week.
<v Speaker 2>With that, I mean, that can look different. There are
<v Speaker 2>so many different ways to do strength training, but you
<v Speaker 2>should have a dedicated program where you are actually working
<v Speaker 2>to grow and strengthen your your muscles in your body.
<v Speaker 2>It makes you way more metabolically healthy. Your body's the
<v Speaker 2>more muscle mass you have. You know, when you have
<v Speaker 2>fat on your body, fat just sits there, okay, But
<v Speaker 2>when you have muscles on your body, the more muscle
<v Speaker 2>you have, the more calories your body burns. Like your
<v Speaker 2>metabolism is reveed up. Your daily catloric expended reped up.
<v Speaker 2>And I know we don't focus on calorie and calorie
<v Speaker 2>burn and that sort of thing, but it all sort
<v Speaker 2>of is nuanced and it comes into play. So the
<v Speaker 2>more muscle you have, the more metabolically healthy you're going
<v Speaker 2>to be, the better your body's going to be able
<v Speaker 2>to process carbohydrates. And we know that over forty women
<v Speaker 2>because of changing hormones, like our bodies become more insulin resistant.
<v Speaker 2>We don't handle some of the foods as well as
<v Speaker 2>we did prior to going into perimenopause. This is just
<v Speaker 2>a fact. It's just known. So the more muscle you
<v Speaker 2>have on your body, the more insulin sensitive you are,
<v Speaker 2>you're burning more. Right, your body's like a furnace, it's
<v Speaker 2>burning more. So I would really try to focus on that.
<v Speaker 2>It's also going to help just balance your hormones. As
<v Speaker 2>for your HRT, here's where you're really going to have
<v Speaker 2>to figure out what you want to do. Because if
<v Speaker 2>you want to switch to like conventional bioidentical replace MOE
<v Speaker 2>replacement therapy like Jen and I take, and like doctor
<v Speaker 2>Tabatha Barber's team prescribes, you're gonna have to get off
<v Speaker 2>birth control to do that you're concerned about pregnancy, I
<v Speaker 2>get it. I would be concerned too, So you know,
<v Speaker 2>that's like maybe a conversation you could have with your husband.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe he can do his part in that equation. But
<v Speaker 2>I definitely feel you know, just what I know about
<v Speaker 2>hormones and synthetic hormones is that your body just doesn't
<v Speaker 2>recognize and process synthetic hormones like in the birth control
<v Speaker 2>pill like HRT, and that can absolutely make a difference
<v Speaker 2>in your insulin sensitivity, and estrogen really affects our blood
<v Speaker 2>sugar control. And when I was in perimenopause before homeron
<v Speaker 2>replacement therapy, I was having severe hypoglycemia and the only
<v Speaker 2>thing I changed was going on the estratile patch. And
<v Speaker 2>I don't have this issue at at all. It's just
<v Speaker 2>not an issue for me at all. So you know,
<v Speaker 2>that's that's something I would really dive into see if
<v Speaker 2>that's an option for you to get off the pill,
<v Speaker 2>work with doctor Tabatha Barber's team, and then really I
<v Speaker 2>just think weight training you can only do what your
<v Speaker 2>body's willing to do. And then the other thing is
<v Speaker 2>is you don't talk a lot about like do I
<v Speaker 2>think you're in maintenance. No, I think there's things you
<v Speaker 2>can do to budge your weight a little bit. It's
<v Speaker 2>just like, how how much do you want to push
<v Speaker 2>for that? Are you comfortable where you're at or do
<v Speaker 2>you want to push harder? Because there's always like we
<v Speaker 2>can pay attention to our five hour eating window. Are
<v Speaker 2>you eating to satiety and not beyond? Is your food
<v Speaker 2>quality good? Could you work on adding healthier foods and
<v Speaker 2>kind of weeding out some of the less healthy foods.
<v Speaker 2>Can you increase your fiber? Like so there's little tweaks
<v Speaker 2>you can make within your window without just jumping to ADF.
<v Speaker 2>The last thought I had was what you said, You've
<v Speaker 2>had a few attempts at tree ADF and you like it,
<v Speaker 2>but when the scale doesn't move, you get discouraged. How
<v Speaker 2>long are you doing it? Are you giving it a
<v Speaker 2>solid shot sore? Are you doing it for three to
<v Speaker 2>four weeks and then looking at your average weight from
<v Speaker 2>the beginning of that month at the end of that month,
<v Speaker 2>and you know, are you truly not seeing a change
<v Speaker 2>after that long or are you not giving it that long?
<v Speaker 2>So those are kind of my thoughts. What do you
<v Speaker 2>have jin.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I wanted to emphasize what you said about
<v Speaker 1>dialing in your windows, like where she said, as I've
<v Speaker 1>gotten more discouraged, I find I have more days with
<v Speaker 1>longer windows. It's kind of like you're like, well, I'm
<v Speaker 1>just throwing in the towel, but that's not going to
<v Speaker 1>get you where you want to be. So you're definitely
<v Speaker 1>not satisfied with where your body is right now. And
<v Speaker 1>if you're at the higher end of the smart BMI scale,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, that makes a lot of sense. You would
<v Speaker 1>like to lose more fat, and it's a matter of
<v Speaker 1>figuring out what will help your body do that. You know,
<v Speaker 1>even for me, like I'm tweaking my window these days
<v Speaker 1>because I had gravitated to still a five hour window,
<v Speaker 1>but I was opening with legitimately a meal and then
<v Speaker 1>having a second full meal later in my window. I
<v Speaker 1>just kind of gravitated to that because it's just what
<v Speaker 1>had happened. And so now I'm waiting a little bit
<v Speaker 1>longer to open my window, and I'm opening with my
<v Speaker 1>dinner and then having more later if I need it.
<v Speaker 1>But the thing is I was eating a good amount
<v Speaker 1>of food at the beginning of my window and then
<v Speaker 1>making a whole other dinner just because that was the
<v Speaker 1>dinner I had planned. And then I was eating the
<v Speaker 1>dinner because I made it. So I found myself eating
<v Speaker 1>past satiety and I could feel it. I felt overly full,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm like, why am I doing this? So I
<v Speaker 1>have changed up my window and so it's working really
<v Speaker 1>well for me. I'm no longer feeling like I'm eating
<v Speaker 1>too much food. I'm no longer feeling overly stopped at
<v Speaker 1>the end.
<v Speaker 3>Of my window.
<v Speaker 1>So think about how you structure your window and get
<v Speaker 1>back to that five hour window. Now, I want to
<v Speaker 1>talk about how to measure your progress on ADF that
<v Speaker 1>Sherry also kind of hinted at.
<v Speaker 3>And you know, you said that you like ADF.
<v Speaker 1>That's huge that you like it, but it wasn't moving
<v Speaker 1>the scale, and so you got discouraged.
<v Speaker 3>Here's the thing about ADF.
<v Speaker 1>You are going to have bigger fluctuations because you're having
<v Speaker 1>up days. If you're doing it right, you're having full
<v Speaker 1>up days where you'll allow eight to twelve hours to
<v Speaker 1>nourish your body. And we know that food has weight,
<v Speaker 1>and our bodies also retain a lot of fluid to
<v Speaker 1>process the additional food. So you're going to see wider
<v Speaker 1>fluctuations or swings. Now, even if you're weighing daily and
<v Speaker 1>calculating your weekly average, Let's imagine you've been eating with
<v Speaker 1>a five hour window for a long time. Body is
<v Speaker 1>used to how much food you're eating in your five
<v Speaker 1>hour window. Now you're having those fluctuations where every other day,
<v Speaker 1>if you're doing down up, down, up, down up, you're
<v Speaker 1>having a whole lot more food than you were having
<v Speaker 1>in just five hours every day, and you're going to
<v Speaker 1>see bigger highs, like higher highs.
<v Speaker 3>Now that can mess up your weekly average.
<v Speaker 1>Because you've been going along with this, you know, pretty
<v Speaker 1>steady amount of food, and now you're like bam, having
<v Speaker 1>bigger windows because you're having up days. So you might
<v Speaker 1>initially see weight go up not because you just gained
<v Speaker 1>a whole bunch of fat because of your updays, but
<v Speaker 1>because you have higher highs. And then you might have
<v Speaker 1>those lower lows after the down days as well, but
<v Speaker 1>it takes a while for it to settle in. Now,
<v Speaker 1>I was one of those people that you know from
<v Speaker 1>reading my story or from hearing me, the scale going
<v Speaker 1>up gave me diet brain. Like when I would get
<v Speaker 1>on the scale after an up day, because I did
<v Speaker 1>in the right after I read the ABC code the
<v Speaker 1>spring of twenty sixteen, and that was when I started
<v Speaker 1>fast and clean after learning about the cephalic phase insulin response.
<v Speaker 1>But I had also had some weight regain after initially
<v Speaker 1>getting to my goal, and I mean I wasn't fast
<v Speaker 1>and clean. There are a lot of factors going on
<v Speaker 1>at that time. But I started doing ADF, but I
<v Speaker 1>really didn't like that fluctuation the up after having the upday,
<v Speaker 1>so I to save my sanity, I only weighed after
<v Speaker 1>down days, just because every time I would get on
<v Speaker 1>the scale and it would be up after an upday,
<v Speaker 1>it would make me feel like I had to like
<v Speaker 1>overcompensate for that, and I knew that I needed the updays,
<v Speaker 1>so I only weighed after the down days, and I
<v Speaker 1>used that weight to calculate my average. So if that
<v Speaker 1>will help you, give that a try. But we also
<v Speaker 1>just don't want to be too panic that it takes
<v Speaker 1>a while to see that downward motion, because part of
<v Speaker 1>ADF is not just that you're going to like suddenly
<v Speaker 1>start losing weight faster. You might not lose weight more quickly.
<v Speaker 1>You know, the down days are for the fat loss
<v Speaker 1>because there is no way that if you're eating five
<v Speaker 1>hundred calories on a five hundred calorie down day or
<v Speaker 1>doing the full fast for thirty six hours, there is
<v Speaker 1>no way your body is not clearing out some stored fat.
<v Speaker 3>I mean it is. If you're eating zero to five
<v Speaker 3>hundred calories, you are losing some fat, right.
<v Speaker 1>But the upday is where the metabolic boost happens, and
<v Speaker 1>that's what's so important. So you got to remember the
<v Speaker 1>point of ADF. I mean, you're not losing weight on
<v Speaker 1>the upday. That's not what the update is upday is for.
<v Speaker 1>So you have to understand that you're going to lose
<v Speaker 1>weight still, probably slowly, and the scale is gonna mask it.
<v Speaker 1>So gauging progress can be very very tricky as an
<v Speaker 1>ad effer, and it definitely takes time. So do you
<v Speaker 1>have anything you want to add to that, Sherry.
<v Speaker 2>No, I think that I think you really nailed it.
<v Speaker 2>It's funny the way you were talking about the weight
<v Speaker 2>and how you would only weigh after.
<v Speaker 3>Your down day down day.
<v Speaker 2>I could see some people seeing that that load number
<v Speaker 2>shows up there after your down day and then them
<v Speaker 2>being like, oh my gosh, I don't want this to
<v Speaker 2>go back up and then kind of trying to over
<v Speaker 2>restrict on their updates.
<v Speaker 1>Well, see that was me if I weighed, if I
<v Speaker 1>waighed after my up day and it went back up,
<v Speaker 1>I would try to overrestrict that.
<v Speaker 3>That was my issue the.
<v Speaker 2>Next up day.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yeah, yeah, My issue was I have this nice
<v Speaker 1>low weight after my down day, and I know I
<v Speaker 1>need to have an upday, but I don't want to
<v Speaker 1>see the skill back up, right.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So I think there's there is definitely kind of
<v Speaker 2>a learning curve there, which is realizing that your body's
<v Speaker 2>going to go up and down. It's going to do
<v Speaker 2>it regardless, and you, regardless or what the scale's doing,
<v Speaker 2>have your nice long upday. And you know, she does
<v Speaker 2>say that she's dieted twenty years off and on, she's
<v Speaker 2>lost thirty pounds. She's been doing this now for like
<v Speaker 2>about a year and a half. So it may be
<v Speaker 2>that she needs to do some EIGHTYF And it may
<v Speaker 2>not be Courtney. You may not need to do true ADF.
<v Speaker 2>It could be something that you just throw in some
<v Speaker 2>down days where it works with your schedule, right, and
<v Speaker 2>do some updays and you get some you know, extra
<v Speaker 2>long basting in there and then you get a little
<v Speaker 2>metabolic boost in there, and that could be enough to
<v Speaker 2>really get things going. But the first thing I think
<v Speaker 2>you need to do is really start to tune into
<v Speaker 2>satidy within your five hour window. Like tighten up that
<v Speaker 2>five hour window. Pay attention to satiety. It is possible
<v Speaker 2>to overeat in our window just mindlessly and not really
<v Speaker 2>paying attention. Like Jen said, I was doing it, and
<v Speaker 2>so really really tune into your true hunger, your true satiety,
<v Speaker 2>focus on food quality and get those windows closed in
<v Speaker 2>five hours. And then you know, if you want to
<v Speaker 2>throw in some down days and see how that feels,
<v Speaker 2>you know, start by adding one, then you can add two.
<v Speaker 2>If you really like that rhythm of up and down,
<v Speaker 2>you could do switch to a four to three and
<v Speaker 2>see how that works for you. But yeah, the body,
<v Speaker 2>the body's just different after forty and we do often
<v Speaker 2>have to tweak a little bit, change things up a
<v Speaker 2>little bit.
<v Speaker 1>Our next question is from Donna in Kentucky. I'm a
<v Speaker 1>year and a half into my fasting journey. At a
<v Speaker 1>year in I was down thirty five pounds and feeling
<v Speaker 1>like I might be able to be happy at that weight.
<v Speaker 1>Then I had a surgery that made it impossible to
<v Speaker 1>get any real exercise for about six months, and to
<v Speaker 1>be honest, to put me into a bit of depression
<v Speaker 1>because it was very painful and after a while, it
<v Speaker 1>really sucks the energy out of you to be in
<v Speaker 1>pain all the time. So I got messy in my fasting.
<v Speaker 1>I feel better now, but I'm struggling to get the
<v Speaker 1>ten pounds that I gained back off. I bought a
<v Speaker 1>Lumen to try to motivate myself to get back to
<v Speaker 1>good fasting habits, but it says I'm not burning fat
<v Speaker 1>as I get further into my fasts, and their advice
<v Speaker 1>is that as soon as it reads that I'm burning carbs,
<v Speaker 1>then I should break my fast and follow their macro suggestions.
<v Speaker 1>People seem to be having success, but I'm so far
<v Speaker 1>away from wanting to track my macros that I can't
<v Speaker 1>seem to make myself do it. Should I ignore the
<v Speaker 1>lumen and just get back to my twenty hour fasts
<v Speaker 1>more consistently, or is there any truth in there that
<v Speaker 1>I should break my fast if the lumen says I'm
<v Speaker 1>no longer in a fat burning state, any advice would
<v Speaker 1>be much appreciated.
<v Speaker 3>Thanks.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So I'm just going to start out by saying,
<v Speaker 2>Jenna and I both have some experience with lumen. When
<v Speaker 2>in twenty twenty one, I started having problems with rapid
<v Speaker 2>weight regain. It was COVID. I'd had COVID several times.
<v Speaker 2>I was working in healthcare and I was trying to
<v Speaker 2>biohack my body, and I'm like, okay, my regular fasting
<v Speaker 2>isn't working. What's going on. I was also having problems
<v Speaker 2>with hypoglycemia. So I was wanting to play a lot
<v Speaker 2>around with, you know, maybe some carp cycling. And so
<v Speaker 2>I was like, you know, I'm gonna give this a try,
<v Speaker 2>and I did. I tried to give it a fair shot.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't even tell Jen I was doing it because
<v Speaker 2>I knew Jen hated this device from her experience with it.
<v Speaker 3>So right now about.
<v Speaker 2>I have never told Jen that I did this.
<v Speaker 3>I still have it.
<v Speaker 2>It's sitting on my end table. I look at it
<v Speaker 2>all the time. So here's what lumen measures. Lumen measures
<v Speaker 2>CO two from your breath. Okay. So I did quite
<v Speaker 2>a bit of research in this because I was experiencing
<v Speaker 2>the same thing you were experiencing, and it did not
<v Speaker 2>make any sense to me that as a fat adapted
<v Speaker 2>person whose body taps into fat to burn for energy
<v Speaker 2>when it runs through it's glycogen storage, that all of
<v Speaker 2>a sudden, my body would switch from burning fat to
<v Speaker 2>carbs in my fast and I of course wanted to
<v Speaker 2>make sense of this. So the lumin cusmer support team
<v Speaker 2>actually says that at a biochemical level, the burning of
<v Speaker 2>ketones is not the same as burning fats. Okay, true,
<v Speaker 2>burning keytne bodies for fuel produces more CO two than
<v Speaker 2>burning faty acids. And for this reason, when you are
<v Speaker 2>a deep level of katosis, your lumin may not clearly
<v Speaker 2>indicate a state of fat burn, and you may see
<v Speaker 2>higher lumine levels indicating carb burn. So what you're getting
<v Speaker 2>is a false reporting of the fact that you are
<v Speaker 2>in katosis. And when we're in katosis, it's our bodies
<v Speaker 2>burning fats.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's changing the fat into ketone, body into keytones
<v Speaker 1>for in and then the keytnes are fueling you. And
<v Speaker 1>that is pre As lumin said on their own website,
<v Speaker 1>burning key tone bodies for fuel produces more CO two.
<v Speaker 1>So the burning of the fat is the reason your
<v Speaker 1>body is making the key tone. It's like a process.
<v Speaker 1>It's all works together.
<v Speaker 2>Right, And then I did just a little bit more
<v Speaker 2>digging around. There were some people who have like different
<v Speaker 2>biohacking websites or like diet exercised websites who also did
<v Speaker 2>their little experiments with lumin. And then so something I
<v Speaker 2>found said the challenge with lumin is that when you're
<v Speaker 2>in katosis, the CO two produced while burning key tone bodies,
<v Speaker 2>which come from burning fat, can make it seem like
<v Speaker 2>your body is burning carbohydrates even though your body is
<v Speaker 2>primarily using fats. So, I mean, does this work for
<v Speaker 2>people who are not intermittent fasting on a daily basis.
<v Speaker 2>Perhaps perhaps it's a good indicator of their body shifting
<v Speaker 2>back and forth from sugar burn into fat burning. The
<v Speaker 2>point of limin. What they're trying to do is make
<v Speaker 2>people metabolically flexible. And so we get this question. I've
<v Speaker 2>We've had several people ask about lumen and I kind
<v Speaker 2>of just your questions are sitting in the queue. I
<v Speaker 2>see them, and I kept trying to decide how to
<v Speaker 2>address this. But more and more people are seeing this.
<v Speaker 2>They're seeing it on Instagram, they're seeing that some other
<v Speaker 2>fasting doctors are you know, behind it or whatever. If
<v Speaker 2>you're fasting every single day, and you are metabolically flexible,
<v Speaker 2>and your body is flipping back and forth from carbohydrate
<v Speaker 2>burn to fat burn, and then you're going into a
<v Speaker 2>deep fastest state and you're getting into katosis every single day.
<v Speaker 2>Then I just you're not going to get accurate results
<v Speaker 2>from that. And unfortunately, if you get involved in their
<v Speaker 2>online community, which is primarily run by the members themselves,
<v Speaker 2>people will tell you, oh, you've shifted back into car
<v Speaker 2>burning because your body's under stress and it can't burn
<v Speaker 2>fat anymore. And that's just really not true. We know
<v Speaker 2>that when we are fat adapted and we're fasting every day,
<v Speaker 2>that is not a stress on the body. In fact,
<v Speaker 2>I was just reading an article yesterday about cortisol and
<v Speaker 2>DHA production, which is a hormone that is largely kind
<v Speaker 2>of from your adrenal glands, and there's been research trying
<v Speaker 2>to determine whether twenty four hour fasts affect that, and
<v Speaker 2>they aren't really finding that this is really stressful for
<v Speaker 2>the body and causing any kind of hormonal shift or
<v Speaker 2>change in that. So, I mean, I think you just
<v Speaker 2>put that lumine aside and you just return to your fasting.
<v Speaker 2>That you know has worked for you in the past.
<v Speaker 2>You know your body maybe holding on to some inflammation
<v Speaker 2>from your surgery. Pain is very You're right. Pain is
<v Speaker 2>exhausting and pain is stress on your body. And when
<v Speaker 2>your body I've said this before, I didn't even know
<v Speaker 2>this until the last year. I did some research into
<v Speaker 2>this and there is actually a research article that shows
<v Speaker 2>that when your body is under stress, your body downregulates
<v Speaker 2>your metabolism so it is not burn and fuel as efficiently,
<v Speaker 2>and it can lead to weight gain. This is all
<v Speaker 2>very real. It's your body, it's how it's a survival mechanism.
<v Speaker 2>So now that you're feeling better, hopefully your pain is
<v Speaker 2>better controlled. Focus on your good fasting habits. Focus on
<v Speaker 2>eating quality foods that fuel your body, that are not
<v Speaker 2>inflammatory for your body, and then just let fasting do
<v Speaker 2>the work. That's my best advice.
<v Speaker 1>I want to read this part one more time from
<v Speaker 1>the lumin website. When you are in deep levels of katosis,
<v Speaker 1>your lumin may not clearly indicate a state of fat burn,
<v Speaker 1>and you may see higher lumin levels indicating car burn. However,
<v Speaker 1>the challenge with both lumin and metabolic charts when you're
<v Speaker 1>in ketosis is that the CO two produced while burning
<v Speaker 1>ketone bodies, which come from fats, can make it seem
<v Speaker 1>like your body is burning carbohydrates even though it's primarily
<v Speaker 1>using fats. That is from the Luhman's own website. Now,
<v Speaker 1>I want to talk about my experience with this product
<v Speaker 1>back in the day. They sent me one for free,
<v Speaker 1>and I also at the time had a breath keytone
<v Speaker 1>analyzer that they sent me for free. You may notice
<v Speaker 1>that I never endorsed either of these products and tried
<v Speaker 1>to sell them to you. And there's a reason Sherry
<v Speaker 1>had the breath keytone analyzer that she did not get
<v Speaker 1>for free. Shery bought it, and we realized when we
<v Speaker 1>were together and testing them side by side that her
<v Speaker 1>device gave you a lower keytne reading than mine did.
<v Speaker 1>Every time I could blow on mine get a number,
<v Speaker 1>blow on Sherries get a number, they were always.
<v Speaker 3>Off I don't know, like a multiple of three or something.
<v Speaker 3>They were not. They were not giving us. It was
<v Speaker 3>like a multiple of three difference.
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, I cannot recommend a product that does not
<v Speaker 1>give you an accurate reading from one device to the next.
<v Speaker 1>If my device and Sherry's device gave us the exact
<v Speaker 1>same number every time. That would be different. I would
<v Speaker 1>have started endorsing that. And when we endorse products, they
<v Speaker 1>send us money, and so if we're not endorsing products
<v Speaker 1>for money, there's a reason that we don't like them.
<v Speaker 1>I would never endorse a product for money that I
<v Speaker 1>didn't think was valuable. So you never heard me recognize
<v Speaker 1>that breath or recommend that key tone breath monitor. Well,
<v Speaker 1>at the same exact time, I had a lumen, like
<v Speaker 1>I said, and I would use them side by side,
<v Speaker 1>and it was funny. I would get fat burning, fat burning,
<v Speaker 1>fat burning on my lumen. Then when my key tone
<v Speaker 1>meter so is showing high levels of keytones, my lumen
<v Speaker 1>would say carburn, and I'm like, well that's dumb. Well, now,
<v Speaker 1>understanding what Lumen has on their own website, we understand why.
<v Speaker 1>Because ketosis gives the lumin you're actually producing more CO two,
<v Speaker 1>and so the lumen interprets that as, oh, you're back
<v Speaker 1>to carburn, when Lumin's own website says, no, that's not
<v Speaker 1>what's happening. If you're so, I would get high levels
<v Speaker 1>of katosis on my breath keytone analyzer, and the higher
<v Speaker 1>my key tone Scot. Suddenly Luman would switch to carbburn
<v Speaker 1>and so I was like, well, this is not helpful.
<v Speaker 1>I have thrown both of those devices in the garbage
<v Speaker 1>because they were not helping me. And like Sherry said,
<v Speaker 1>they may be very very helpful for some people, but
<v Speaker 1>if they're telling me I'm burning carbs when Luman's own
<v Speaker 1>website says well, if you're in katosis, it might accidentally
<v Speaker 1>or tell you you're burning carbs when you're not. Really,
<v Speaker 1>I don't see value in that. So if I thought
<v Speaker 1>this was a tool that would be very helpful for you,
<v Speaker 1>I would recommend it, I would endorse it. I would
<v Speaker 1>become an affiliate like other people do, and they would
<v Speaker 1>send me a check every month.
<v Speaker 3>But we do not think that this is a tool
<v Speaker 3>that is going to help you.
<v Speaker 1>It's more likely to confuse you, especially when you get
<v Speaker 1>into the communities and they tell you things that actually
<v Speaker 1>don't line up with what Luman says on their very
<v Speaker 1>own website.
<v Speaker 2>Right. And here's where I applaud what they're doing, which
<v Speaker 2>is they are bringing the discussion of metabolic flexibility into
<v Speaker 2>the world, right because we know that this is very,
<v Speaker 2>very important. Most people are sugar burners, right, they are
<v Speaker 2>burning glycogen twenty four to seven. That's what they're burning.
<v Speaker 2>But once we become fat adapted and we become metabolicly flexible,
<v Speaker 2>our bodies can shift back and forth from burning glycogen
<v Speaker 2>to burning fat. We are doing that without the aid
<v Speaker 2>of a lumin. The lumin is trying to get people
<v Speaker 2>to do this based off of carb cycling and eating
<v Speaker 2>just the right amount of carbs for their body, and YadA, YadA, YadA.
<v Speaker 2>The end result is we're both trying to be metabolically healthy.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>But it is not a good aid in my opinion
<v Speaker 2>for people who practice intermittent fasting, especially anybody who's practicing ADF,
<v Speaker 2>because the last thing you want to think is that
<v Speaker 2>you are twenty four hours fasted and you're not burning fat.
<v Speaker 2>That's just going to lead to so much confusion.
<v Speaker 1>Because it's measuring, as they say on their own website,
<v Speaker 1>it's measuring CO two levels, and as you get deeper
<v Speaker 1>into ketosis, your body is going to produce more CO
<v Speaker 1>two and that's why it shifts back and says, oh,
<v Speaker 1>you're burning carbs now, when really that's not what's happening.
<v Speaker 1>You just have more CO two coming in out because
<v Speaker 1>of the key tones.
<v Speaker 2>The key tone mood meter that we were using, that's
<v Speaker 2>what it was measuring with CO two.
<v Speaker 1>So if why, I'm I'm sure if I do two,
<v Speaker 1>I don't think it was because here's why. If I
<v Speaker 1>drank alcohol and blew through it, it would go sky high,
<v Speaker 1>and I.
<v Speaker 2>Think it would key I think it is measuring not accurate.
<v Speaker 3>If you've tried drinking.
<v Speaker 1>I think I don't think that the You don't think
<v Speaker 1>that meter was measuring CO two.
<v Speaker 2>No, I thought it did. Okay, I don't think that.
<v Speaker 1>You don't have to look at I don't think it
<v Speaker 1>was measuring CO two because otherwise it would have.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that doesn't make I don't know. Look at how
<v Speaker 3>you're burning fat, you feel.
<v Speaker 2>You feel great? Yeah, you have mental clarity, you have energy,
<v Speaker 2>You're not having low slumps through the day, and the
<v Speaker 2>scale's going down, or even the scale's not going down.
<v Speaker 2>Your waist is getting smaller, or your pants are getting looser,
<v Speaker 2>or you you know your next circumference. People, if I'm
<v Speaker 2>gonna tell you right now, start measuring your next circumference.
<v Speaker 2>You will be amazed at how much your next circumference changes.
<v Speaker 2>And that is really attributed to so many like metabolic
<v Speaker 2>health winds. When your next circumference decreases.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so so y'all save your money. You don't need
<v Speaker 1>any of those gadgets. You don't need to test your
<v Speaker 1>breath keytones. You don't need to test how much CO
<v Speaker 1>two you're putting out right fast. If you're able, here's
<v Speaker 1>how you know. If you're able to feel some hunger pangs,
<v Speaker 1>keep fasting, feel better within an hour or two, keep fasting,
<v Speaker 1>and you're able to do that consistently, then you know
<v Speaker 1>your body is doing what it needs to do. If
<v Speaker 1>you're able to hike around like Kama, right, you know
<v Speaker 1>that your body.
<v Speaker 3>Is doing what it's supposed to do.
<v Speaker 1>But if you feel you know, as you keep going
<v Speaker 1>into the fast, you feel draggier and dragger and worse
<v Speaker 1>and worse, and that always happens and you never get
<v Speaker 1>past that, that would be an indication that you're not
<v Speaker 1>fat adapted.
<v Speaker 2>So okay, well, so uh.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, we're gonna flag this website or this podcast episode
<v Speaker 4>because I know we get a lot of repeat questions,
<v Speaker 4>but I'm just gonna say right now, this is probably
<v Speaker 4>the one annoying time you're gonna hear us talk about
<v Speaker 4>the lemon.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I did think it was great to clear this up
<v Speaker 2>because you know, everyone's to sell you something. Yeah, and
<v Speaker 2>Jenna and I don't want to sell you anything.
<v Speaker 3>We don't want to sell you anything you don't need. No,
<v Speaker 3>absolutely not.
<v Speaker 1>And I love that you said, Sherry, that there are
<v Speaker 1>people that this might be a real benefit for. But
<v Speaker 1>I just don't think it's for people who are intermittent
<v Speaker 1>fasting and getting into katosis.
<v Speaker 2>No. It just really confuses everything and sort of muddies
<v Speaker 2>the water, and it starts making you question what you're doing.
<v Speaker 2>And I've seen so many people who tried to switch
<v Speaker 2>to this from fasting and then they started fasting less
<v Speaker 2>and less and less to try to get their numbers
<v Speaker 2>to be correct, But then that didn't result in any
<v Speaker 2>success for them.
<v Speaker 3>Right, So that's when I threw mine in the trash.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, all right, now it's time for our segment called
<v Speaker 1>what's your Why.
<v Speaker 3>Most of us have weight loss in mind, so it's
<v Speaker 3>fine for that.
<v Speaker 1>To be part of your why. It's the reason that
<v Speaker 1>I started, after all. But there's so much more to
<v Speaker 1>what intermittent fasting can do for us beyond weight loss,
<v Speaker 1>and I believe that if your why is deeper than
<v Speaker 1>weight loss alone, you're more likely to find long term
<v Speaker 1>success and view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle.
<v Speaker 2>So this week we have a wife from Anna and Alabama.
<v Speaker 4>Hello neighbor.
<v Speaker 2>She says, Hi, I am twenty eight and I originally
<v Speaker 2>began IF in August of twenty twenty three. I followed
<v Speaker 2>a sixteen eight and a twenty four protocol until January
<v Speaker 2>of twenty twenty five, when I found out I was pregnant.
<v Speaker 2>It was a bit of an adjustment going back into
<v Speaker 2>eating all day long. I had only lost about five
<v Speaker 2>to ten pounds overall using IF prior to getting pregnant.
<v Speaker 2>I was very discouraged and hard on myself throughout this
<v Speaker 2>IF journey. My why was weight loss, and it didn't
<v Speaker 2>seem to be working as fast as I had hoped.
<v Speaker 2>I wasn't able to notice my non scale victories. Believe me,
<v Speaker 2>I know that I felt better overall and even had
<v Speaker 2>a more positive relationship with food, but at the time
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't see past the lack of weight loss. My
<v Speaker 2>starting weight was around two hundred and thirty two and
<v Speaker 2>I weighed in at two hundred and twenty three the
<v Speaker 2>day that I discovered I was pregnant. I remember thinking
<v Speaker 2>as soon as I read the word pregnant that I
<v Speaker 2>needed to eat breakfast, and that felt strange. Flash forward
<v Speaker 2>to today, I am six weeks back into the IF lifestyle.
<v Speaker 2>I weighed two hundred and forty four pounds currently after
<v Speaker 2>gaining weight during pregnancy. What prompted me to return to IF,
<v Speaker 2>you might ask, well the ants her at first was
<v Speaker 2>that I wanted to lose weight. I wanted to at
<v Speaker 2>least get back to my pre baby weight. But now
<v Speaker 2>looking at my why, it's changing. Of course, I want
<v Speaker 2>to lose weight, and it is the primary goal, but
<v Speaker 2>my reason also includes my three month old baby girl.
<v Speaker 2>I want to be healthy enough and have enough energy
<v Speaker 2>to enjoy life with her as much as possible. I
<v Speaker 2>want to be a good role model for her and
<v Speaker 2>to teach her to have a more positive relationship with food.
<v Speaker 2>I grew up feeling very poorly about my body image,
<v Speaker 2>and I had guilt frequently about the types of food
<v Speaker 2>I ate. I don't want her to feel this way.
<v Speaker 2>I want her to few food in a more positive
<v Speaker 2>light and to also feel better about who she is.
<v Speaker 2>I never did the weekly weight average but I'm starting
<v Speaker 2>to do it this time. I want to help myself
<v Speaker 2>see the trend of my weight rather than viewing each
<v Speaker 2>day and feeling as if I had eaten something wrong
<v Speaker 2>the day before. I am doing this now for both
<v Speaker 2>myself and for my daughter. Thank you so much, Soon
<v Speaker 2>and Cherry for all of the story is an advice
<v Speaker 2>you provide us through this podcast. I'm so very thankful
<v Speaker 2>that my severe case of diet brain is a thing
<v Speaker 2>of the past.
<v Speaker 3>Well, I love that so much me too.
<v Speaker 2>That made me very happy to read. All Right, so
<v Speaker 2>we have a question from Erica in Wisconsin. She writes,
<v Speaker 2>Hygen and Sherry. First of all, thank you for all
<v Speaker 2>that you do. I love listening to the podcast every week.
<v Speaker 2>I was wondering if you had any thoughts to share
<v Speaker 2>about the mental aspect of losing weight and adjusting to
<v Speaker 2>your new body. I'm thirty five and five four. I've
<v Speaker 2>always been overweight. In high school, I was two hundred
<v Speaker 2>and forty pounds on a five foot four frame, and
<v Speaker 2>I settled into two hundred and seventy to two hundred
<v Speaker 2>and eighty pounds for my adult life. My first year
<v Speaker 2>fastniversary will be December twenty seventh and I am the
<v Speaker 2>smallest I have been as an adult at two hundred
<v Speaker 2>and ten pounds. As you can imagine, I'm reaching a
<v Speaker 2>point where I need to update my wardrobe. I'm really
<v Speaker 2>finding this to be a big mental hurdle. I still
<v Speaker 2>see myself in my two hundred and seventy pound body,
<v Speaker 2>and I have to retrain my brain that the weird
<v Speaker 2>fit is more often because I need to size down.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for your time, and I would love to
<v Speaker 2>hear your thoughts on this.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so much of this is mental, so much more
<v Speaker 1>than we even realize. And keep in mind that it's
<v Speaker 1>going to continue to change as you progress, because you
<v Speaker 1>will mentally adjust to being two hundred and ten and
<v Speaker 1>then you'll probably lose more weight, and then you'll continue
<v Speaker 1>to have to mentally adjust.
<v Speaker 3>You know, I was one of those people.
<v Speaker 1>That didn't really know two hundred and ten was my
<v Speaker 1>highest weight, and I didn't realize until I saw myself
<v Speaker 1>in photos, like I could look at myself in the mirror,
<v Speaker 1>and I didn't really see the reality of my weight,
<v Speaker 1>and it took me a long time to really get,
<v Speaker 1>you know, what I saw in the mirror to what
<v Speaker 1>I really am.
<v Speaker 2>It's my whole self.
<v Speaker 3>I did it is it is, it is.
<v Speaker 1>And I remember how weird it felt, you know, like
<v Speaker 1>and as I was using weight, and I remember the
<v Speaker 1>size that felt amazing was when I got down to
<v Speaker 1>a tin as I was losing ate, Like when I
<v Speaker 1>got down to a size ten, I started in a
<v Speaker 1>really tight sixteen wide really needed an eighteen. When I
<v Speaker 1>got down to size ten, I suddenly felt really good
<v Speaker 1>in my body. So I went crazy buying clothes at
<v Speaker 1>that size. So I didn't fit in those clothes very long.
<v Speaker 1>So I would like to encourage you, number one, don't
<v Speaker 1>be so caught up as you continue to lose weight,
<v Speaker 1>as your your body continues to get smaller. Disconnect from
<v Speaker 1>numbers on the clothing labels for one thing, because you
<v Speaker 1>know that can very fa They really can.
<v Speaker 3>They really can. To store to store brand a brand.
<v Speaker 1>I want you to focus on finding clothes that fit
<v Speaker 1>you well, whatever your body is that day, that you
<v Speaker 1>feel good wearing. And if you're having a hard time
<v Speaker 1>seeing yourself in the mirror, that was me. I never
<v Speaker 1>saw myself really as I really was in the mirror.
<v Speaker 1>Take a photo of yourself and look at the photo
<v Speaker 1>and compare it to an earlier photo. That's why you know,
<v Speaker 1>I talked about taking the photos. You've got photos, you know,
<v Speaker 1>from your whole life when you were two seventy to
<v Speaker 1>two eighty, and you don't feel the difference from day
<v Speaker 1>to day. You may not see it in the mirror,
<v Speaker 1>but when you take the photo of your current body
<v Speaker 1>and compare it to the two hundred and seventy two
<v Speaker 1>hundred and eighty pound body, you're going to be like, Wow,
<v Speaker 1>I have changed a lot.
<v Speaker 2>It can really take time. I mean, I think Jen
<v Speaker 2>probably remember as a conversation I had. I was at
<v Speaker 2>work one night and I came out of a room
<v Speaker 2>and there was like a glass window in the hallway,
<v Speaker 2>and I saw this reflection of this really thin, tall
<v Speaker 2>woman in the hall in the hallway like glass in
<v Speaker 2>this window, and I actually turned around a look to
<v Speaker 2>see who was in the hallway with me. While I
<v Speaker 2>work in them all the night, I was the only
<v Speaker 2>one in the hallway, and I had to look again,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm like, is that what.
<v Speaker 3>I look like?
<v Speaker 2>And it was so weird because I mean I had
<v Speaker 2>probably been at my maintenance wait for maybe nine to
<v Speaker 2>ten months at that point, and I thought, is that
<v Speaker 2>what I look like. Huh Like, I had no idea,
<v Speaker 2>and I still, for years bought the wrong size clothes
<v Speaker 2>because I just couldn't comprehend that I wasn't, you know,
<v Speaker 2>a size larger extra large shirt anymore. I'd never worn
<v Speaker 2>a medium top in my life, and I still kept
<v Speaker 2>buying clothes and I'd be like, oh my gosh, this
<v Speaker 2>is too big. I'm going to send it back. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and it is. It takes time. It takes time, and
<v Speaker 2>it takes work. And for me, pictures were very, very helpful.
<v Speaker 1>And if you're used to, you know, always wearing the
<v Speaker 1>same size, holding that up like Sherry's that, and you're like, well,
<v Speaker 1>you got the smaller size, it's actually what you need.
<v Speaker 1>You're going to hold it up and think there's no
<v Speaker 1>way I can fit in this.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, so try it on. You're going to be.
<v Speaker 2>Amailing a pair of jeans out of the dryer. And
<v Speaker 2>I finally went and bought a pair of jeans in
<v Speaker 2>my goal size, and I pull them by the dryer
<v Speaker 2>and I literally was like, whose jeans are these? These
<v Speaker 2>are so tiny, They're tiny, And then I realized there
<v Speaker 2>were my jeans, and I'm like, ahh, I fit in
<v Speaker 2>those that's so weird, but it does. Your brain is
<v Speaker 2>so funny and it does take some work. But I
<v Speaker 2>was gonna say too, as you start, you know, getting smaller,
<v Speaker 2>I'm not gonna tell you go update your wardrobe every
<v Speaker 2>twenty pounds or whatever. But I don't know what I
<v Speaker 2>like if you can wear stuff that changes with your body,
<v Speaker 2>so like stretchy clothes, but also that are kind of
<v Speaker 2>form fitting. You need to see your body as it's
<v Speaker 2>getting smaller. And I know when we're larger we often
<v Speaker 2>try to hide our body in big, baggy clothes or whatever.
<v Speaker 2>But really start to wear some kind of form fitting
<v Speaker 2>clothes so that you can start getting used to your
<v Speaker 2>body looking smaller as you continue to shrink. I think
<v Speaker 2>that's really helpful.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I think that's really important.
<v Speaker 1>And also consignment stores thrift shopping, they can be your
<v Speaker 1>best friend. Again, though those stores have the craziest sizes
<v Speaker 1>because people have cleared out closed from like years ago
<v Speaker 1>that when the sizing was different. So just really don't
<v Speaker 1>put too much stock in what the label says and
<v Speaker 1>find things that fit you.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Before we get to our tweak of the week, I
<v Speaker 1>want to take a minute to tell you about my books.
<v Speaker 1>I am still a teacher at heart, and I always
<v Speaker 1>will be, so it makes me very happy to have
<v Speaker 1>a wide variety of resources for you no matter where
<v Speaker 1>you are in your intermittent fasting journey. I would recommend
<v Speaker 1>that you start with Delayed on Deny, which I think
<v Speaker 1>is the best quick introduction to intermittent fasting out there.
<v Speaker 1>The updated second edition is available in paperback and hardback
<v Speaker 1>only on Amazon, and an ebook and audiobook format wherever
<v Speaker 1>you find your ebooks or audio books. The new edition
<v Speaker 1>has been updated with a comprehensive ADF chapter. The wording
<v Speaker 1>clean fast has been added. You'll find updates throughout the
<v Speaker 1>whole book, and my favorite part, there are all new
<v Speaker 1>success stories, all from inspirational members of the DDD community.
<v Speaker 1>I do want to take a minute to talk about
<v Speaker 1>ebooks and where they are legitimate and where they are not.
<v Speaker 1>Chad was searching somewhere I don't know. He found someone
<v Speaker 1>selling a PDF of something of mine. There are no
<v Speaker 1>legitimate PDFs anywhere, and I'm just telling you this as
<v Speaker 1>a reader and as an author. If you're buying PDFs
<v Speaker 1>on places like Pinterest or eBay or any kind of
<v Speaker 1>random website, those are not legitimate copies. So you should
<v Speaker 1>not be buying PDFs of any book anywhere unless like
<v Speaker 1>it's the author's own website and they're selling it directly
<v Speaker 1>to you on their own website.
<v Speaker 3>The only people who are authorized.
<v Speaker 1>To sell PDFs of books would be the author themselves.
<v Speaker 1>So I just wanted to put that out there because
<v Speaker 1>Chad's like, what do we do?
<v Speaker 3>I'm like, there's you know, scammer's gonna scam right.
<v Speaker 1>So when I say that any ebook you're finding it
<v Speaker 1>would be jgitimate ebook retailers like Apple Books, Kindle, Nook, Cobo,
<v Speaker 1>your library. Okay, those are legitimate sites, but if it's
<v Speaker 1>from something weird, then you're probably getting a pirated copy.
<v Speaker 1>And when I realized how deep the book pirating went,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you're the author who wrote that book. Is
<v Speaker 1>basically people are stealing the book and giving it away.
<v Speaker 1>So just something to think about. So now it's time
<v Speaker 1>for our tweak of the week.
<v Speaker 3>You know, I.
<v Speaker 1>Always say tweak it till it's easy, But the tweak
<v Speaker 1>that works for me might not be the one that
<v Speaker 1>works for you. And that is why it is super
<v Speaker 1>helpful to hear how other intermittent fasters are making intermittent
<v Speaker 1>fasting work for them. This is from Althea in Hartford, Connecticut.
<v Speaker 1>When making appointments, the question is always asked, do you
<v Speaker 1>prefer morning or afternoon? When I was working, the answer was.
<v Speaker 3>Always as early as possible.
<v Speaker 1>When I retired, I tried to leave the earliest possible
<v Speaker 1>moments for people who were working, and I choose late morning.
<v Speaker 1>I'm fourteen months into intermittent fasting and my eating window
<v Speaker 1>is usually five hours from three to eight. After a
<v Speaker 1>motorcycle accident this year, I had a lot of appointments
<v Speaker 1>that had to be fit into the doctor's schedules. Mornings
<v Speaker 1>were often already taken. I've also been talking to or
<v Speaker 1>taking a friend to some of her appointments, and she
<v Speaker 1>likes afternoon appointments. I've realized that when I am keeping
<v Speaker 1>appointments in the two to four range, keeping my window
<v Speaker 1>closed is simple. Eating before the appointments is not an option.
<v Speaker 1>So I simply don't open my eating window until after
<v Speaker 1>my appointments and I'm home now. The answer to do
<v Speaker 1>you prefer mornings or afternoons? Is afternoons, life happens, and
<v Speaker 1>intermittent fasting works really well with it, you know, I
<v Speaker 1>love that althea. I'm glad that you're healing well from
<v Speaker 1>your accident. She's in our community, so we've had a
<v Speaker 1>chance to watch her go through all of that. And
<v Speaker 1>you just think about an accident just changes everything like
<v Speaker 1>a blink of an eye, right, Sherry.
<v Speaker 2>It does.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, But when I retire, well, when I would be
<v Speaker 1>a teacher on summer vacation or when I retired from teaching,
<v Speaker 1>I scheduled a lot of errands for the that witching
<v Speaker 1>hour when I would be more likely to want to
<v Speaker 1>open my window earlier until I kind of got you
<v Speaker 1>trained into doing it. So that's just a strategy to
<v Speaker 1>keep in mind. Have those appointments later, schedule those errands
<v Speaker 1>later if it helps you delay.
<v Speaker 2>All right. So we have a inspirational quote from Apple,
<v Speaker 2>and Apple's in our community, and she's just a joy.
<v Speaker 2>She every day leaves a quote for our community and
<v Speaker 2>it's always something really that makes you thinks about just life.
<v Speaker 2>I love I love that. That's how she contributes to
<v Speaker 2>our community. So the quote is change, but start slowly
<v Speaker 2>because direction is more important than speed. And I love
<v Speaker 2>that so much. And you know, Jen and I you
<v Speaker 2>might have heard us share you know multiple times. We
<v Speaker 2>love the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. It is
<v Speaker 2>a great book, and that is like right in line
<v Speaker 2>with his teachings, is that you know you have to start,
<v Speaker 2>you have to start slow. Maybe you don't go work
<v Speaker 2>out five days a week when you're starting to work out,
<v Speaker 2>maybe you just do it ten minutes, ten minutes, three
<v Speaker 2>days a week or whatever. Start slow because those little
<v Speaker 2>slow changes they really add up and they build to
<v Speaker 2>a consistent habit.
<v Speaker 1>So absolutely, I was so excited when I learned that
<v Speaker 1>James Clear is an intermittent faster himself, and the first
<v Speaker 1>time I read Atomic Habits like it all just like
<v Speaker 1>I was like, oh my gosh, this all fits beautifully
<v Speaker 1>with intermittent fasting and really any habit. But it's such
<v Speaker 1>a good book and you can just open it literally
<v Speaker 1>any page in it and read some wisdom.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Thanks so much for listening today. We would love to
<v Speaker 1>have you join us in the Delayed on Tonight community,
<v Speaker 1>where you can interact with both me and Sherry, plus
<v Speaker 1>the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere.
<v Speaker 1>Go to Jenstevens dot com slash community to join us.
<v Speaker 5>Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to your favorite
<v Speaker 5>podcast app, and if you haven't already, please leave us
<v Speaker 5>a five star review that helps new listeners find the
<v Speaker 5>show and we really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 1>We are a community driven podcast, so to submit your
<v Speaker 1>success stories, your questions, your favorite tweak it till It's Easy, moments,
<v Speaker 1>or anything else you want us to share on the podcast,
<v Speaker 1>go to fast Feast repeat dot com slash submit and
<v Speaker 1>then listen each week to see if we share your
<v Speaker 1>submission or answer your.
<v Speaker 2>Question until next week. Thanks for listening,