Episode 26: The Healing Power of IF, Shakiness While Fasting, Changes as we Age, and More

Welcome to Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens, author
of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat, and I'm Sherry Bullock,
longtime intermittent faster and health and wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this
podcast is for educational and motivational purposes only and is not intended to provide medical
or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are not doctors, so make sure to
check with your trusted healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes to
any medical treatments or medications. Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an experienced
intermittent faster, tune in each week to get inspired, to learn, and
to have some fun along the way. Hi, everybody, we are so
glad you're here today. Welcome to this week's episode of the Fast Feast Repeat
Intermittent Fasting for Life podcast. How are you doing today, Sherry? I'm
doing great. Well, I am doing so great? Are you? Yes?
Because of the date that this podcast comes out of December twenty seventh,
so people who are listening, if they pre ordered twenty eight day fast Art
day by day, they have it. Yay, I've been waiting for this
book to come out. It feels like it's taken forever. It does seem
like it's taken a long time. It does take a long time. When
did you submit your March initial I thought it was March. March is when
I finished writing it. Yeah, I wrote it. I finished writing it
in March, sent it in And it just takes a long time to go
through the publishing process. And so hey, I only found one typo when
I was reading it for Audible. Really, yeah, only one? That's
pretty good? Like, had they already cleaned it up? You think,
oh, well, always we always do, okay, Yeah, oh,
it's goes through so many at the editing process. So but you are down
to like the final edit and you just found one one it. I don't
know when it got in line at the printer. The little thing about the
book industry, when they get in line at the printer, you can't take
it out of line at the printer. Fix one typo, put it back
in line. Yes, I found that out with fast Feast Repeat because the
original printing a fast Feast Repeat has some weird typos in it that I found
while I was reading it for the audiobook. I found the problems in March
when I was reading it for the audiobook. We reported them to my editor.
She said, we're already in line of the printer. There's nothing we
can do. I'm like, what, they hadn't been printed yet. They
just couldn't like fix it and re upload it to the printer. I don't
even that makes no sense. Wouldn't you think it was all like done digitally
at this point, Like it's like you fix the master file. I don't
know that's you feel like it would be easy, but apparently it's not.
But it was so frustrating knowing that it would. But what was weird is
some of it. It was like a whole section had gotten moved somewhere else
that hadn't been like that in the last version I had looked at. So
something happened to it between the last time I read it, because I went
back to the one that I had approved and it was different anyway. But
when you read something out loud, you find things that your eyes don't notice
when you're reading it. Yeah, it's true, is true, but only
one it's true. It's why a lot of books I like to read and
then listen to or I listen to it to get like the gist of it,
to have like a basic understanding of it, and then I'll read it
so pick up like the fine details. But every book that goes to print,
at least through my experience, is read by the author multiple times,
the editor multiple times. Plus they have a copy editor that reads it multiple
times. And then you keep going back through it. But every time somebody
goes back through it, there's the possibility that something gets out of whack,
you know what I mean. Right, everybody's working on a document, you
know, imagine what happens. But and there's also people who are designing the
pages. And there are a lot of hands on every book. So if
everybody you're forever reading a book and you find something weird in it, there's
just a lot of human hands. But I'm super excited the book is coming
out. Give it time. I bet with like all the AI and everything.
I really bet, like in five years, there's a program where they
put a book into it and it auto edits it somehow. Well, they're
already you know, even like word does stuff like that. Now it tells
you, like if you're you know, there's something I can't remember what it
was called. When I was teaching online at the master's degree level for an
online university, there was like grammarly, I think is the name of it.
Grammarly kind of does that for you, but it's not as good as
a human obviously, right. Anyway, for everybody who got the book,
I'm so excited that you got it. If you didn't get the book,
order it today. I'll talk more about that later about our community fast start
that's coming up very very soon. But anyway, I'm so excited that this
book is out. It's it's been a long time coming, and I hope
everybody really gets a lot out of it. Yeah. Well, I want
to share something that I saw in community this morning, like it really struck
me, and so I made a note about it. Somebody was disappointed that
they'd been eating really healthy for the last six months and that they had really
changed the way they were eating, and then that they caved and they ate
stobot pie and something else and they were feeling really like they'd lost the plot.
And somebody said, progress not perfection, feedback not failure. I love
that, and I really loved that because I feel like, so you ate
the pie, now you listen to how did that make you feel? Emotionally,
mentally, physically, And don't beat yourself up over your choices, Like,
just take that feedback that your body gave you and move forward from it.
And nobody expects anybody to be perfect, So if you're expecting that of
yourself, but set that aside, set that aside. Don't let perfection keep
you from like living a successful eye of lifestyle. Well, we've all done
that in the past, right, you know you're like, well, I
blew it. I might as well go eat a pizza, right, and
I'll start again tomorrow. Exact pizza is not going to help you when you're
starting again tomorrow. It's not going to help you with your goals. It's
like, you know, throw the baby out with the bath water. Yeah,
well, I mean, listen, I just had a revelation today.
It's December first. I have been saying, I really think it since we
first started the original DDD community on the original first platform, I have really
stopped my daily workouts. And I love to work out. It makes me
happy, it makes me feel fit, it makes me feel strong, it
gives me mental clarity, it's a stress reliever, it's a you know,
Endorphin Provider, and I love it, but I have just gotten busier and
busier and busier with you know, my regular job and then working with the
community, and then the podcasts and Life Lessons podcast first, right, yes,
which was very time consuming. So I'm always like, yeah, I
need to work out today, and it's always just gets shuffled later and later
and later in the day, and then it doesn't happen. And then you
know, it's like Monday and Tuesday are out, they're not good workout days
for me. And then Wednesday comes and it's like we've record in the podcast.
But then I'm suddenly like, oh, I've got all this stuff I
got to get done, so I don't work out. And the Thursday comes
and I'm running errand's catching up getting ready for the work weekend, and workout
doesn't happen. And then Friday, I'm like, well, it's not going
to do me any good to work out today because I can't work out again
until next Wednesday. And I just haven't done it. And today I just
thought, you know what, I'm gonna get up in the morning and I'm
gonna get my workouts done. It just has to happen. I want to
point back out what you just said. The things we tell ourselves, I
might as well not do it today because I can't do it tomorrow. Does
that even make sense when you think about it, It really doesn't. In
my head, I was like tomorrow on a consistency to make progress, but
you know what, not doing it at all. It's like helping. No,
it's not helping at all. So I'm just like, you know,
and I'm so dinghy. I use my air pods all the time, but
I just realized today that I can voice dictate while I'm rebounding. I can
do two things at once, get some movement in, get some steps in,
get my heart rate up, and work in community. So everybody,
if Sherry has a crazy sounding reply exactly your comment on the community, she
was probably voice texting. Nowadays, you just expect that, right. You'll
read something like I sent a text to Sherry and roxy Sherry knows this.
The other day I was voice texting and I like said quotation marks. Well,
apparently it doesn't turn that into quotation marks. It just had the word
quotation marks, then another word in quotation marks. But I said it anyway,
I said, I don't care. You have to say quote, oh
quote, yeah, you say quote, okay, okay, end quote.
See I didn't know. I just said quotation marks. But the word quotation
marks was in there when I sent it. So I voice text all the
time. Why I didn't think the voice text replies, I have no idea.
Apparently I'm slow. Well, if if Sherry's replies sound crazy, it's
because she's on the rebounder. And yeah, today it's sweet and it spelled
it s U I t E, which was not the right sweet. But
oh well, and perfectionist Sherry would go find that comment at it and fix
it. But I'm not going to do that, all right, So everybody
you've been warned. Well, we have a great celebration this week from Susan
in Tennessee. Susan says, I want to scream this from the rooftops.
Fasting is amazing. I've been doing sixteen eight on and off for at least
two and a half years. For the last few months, I've upped it
to eighteen hours in some twenty hours. This must be my sweet spot because
I am now losing about a pound a week. But let's talk non scale
victories. Can I interrupt you for one second, sheary, I really want
to emphasize that she had been doing sixteen eight for two and a half years.
She just upped it from eighteen to twenty, and now she's losing about
a pound a week. I just want everybody to hear that, because if
you're hearing about intermittent fasting out in the world, a lot of people who
talk about intermittent fasting in the world are men, and for a man,
sixteen eight is a grit eight weight loss approach, but not always for women.
So a woman can do sixteen eight and maybe maintain perhaps, but you
might need to do a little more. So I just wanted to point that
out for anybody who's doing sixteen eight, because you hear that's what everybody says.
If you're not losing weight, try eighteen to twenty like Susan did.
Right. Yeah, especially too, if you are like significantly overweight, or
you've battled with insulin you know, resistance or diabetes or whatever. You've got
to get those extra fasting hours for healing. So she says, so let's
talk about non scale victories. I crave healthier foods, I have more energy,
so I'm more active my blood work is all normal. I have always
had low iron, vitamin D, and B. My anc and fasting insulin
is now perfect. I used to have constant pain from old injuries in my
shoulder and feet, and I have little to none now. I had a
gynecology appointment yesterday and this visit confirmed I am doing what's best for my body.
I have endometriosis that has always given me very painful periods to where I'm
in bed with a heating pad and downing ibuprofen when it's my time of the
month. Now I have mild to no cramps at all. I told the
doctor that I am no longer taking the medicine they prescribed and instead have been
intermittent fasting with better results. At first, she just brushed it off,
probably just thinking here's another patient that thinks they know best. Well. When
she started doing my breast exam, she kept feeling and feeling with a puzzled
look on her face. This is because for years I've had a lump the
size of a golf ball on the left side of my breast. She asked
me if I got the lump removed. I said, nope. Fasting and
she's been doing my examed down there and she asked me where a fishhill I
had was. I've had it for years and did I get surgery on it?
Once again, I replied nope, fasting. She was shocked. This
just confirmed that this way of living is so good for our bodies and helps
to repair us inside and out. I strongly leave this is how we are
made to eat. The doctor wrote down my book recommendations for you Jin and
Jason Fung and now is going to do her own research. She is hoping
that this may be able to help some of her other patients. And I
know people will ask, and yes, I eat all the things dairy,
gluten, sugar, carbs. Like I said, I do make better food
choices, but I don't restrict anything because I know myself and I won't stick
to it. Thank you Jin for bringing if into my life. At forty
five years old, I have never felt better. Wow. I love that
one, Susan. That is just fantastic. You know, and these are
the kind of things we couldn't say, Well, you start fasting, you'll
lose a fistulla, you'll lose you'll lose a breast lump. But when people
report these things have happened me. Our bodies have amazing ways of cleaning things
up if we get out of the way and give our bodies time to rest
and repair, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just think
the current way of eating, the modern way of eating, has really shifted
our bodies ability from being able to self repair. I think so too.
And the more that we get back to eating real food and eliminating mostly processed
foods and we give our bodies time to rest and repair through fasting, I
mean, I really feel like if we could get the whole world to fast
even sixteen eight, yeah, we could heal so many health woes. I
think so too. And for everybody who's listening that you know, it's it's
the you're listening, it's the end of December. You probably have weight loss
goals. We want you to really hear about the healing that is possible.
Yes, Shery and I both have lost weight with it are bitten fasting.
I lost eighty pounds. Susan is losing weight. But if fasting is powerful
enough to take away what did she say? Did she say? Golf ball
sazed? That's what she said. Lump, Yeah, on the left side
of her breast, for years and it's gone. I mean, that is
remarkable. What is it doing in our bodies or what is it preventing?
That we will never know that it prevented? What to eat up? That
will never have an idea that it did. So anyway, that always gives
me goosebumps to think about. Yeah, I know, I'm like, it
is mind blown to me. I'm going to assume that it was probably like
a fiber ad noma in her breast. But yeah, when you rebalance,
like most people who have fiberadnomas as they go through menopause, it shrinks and
it's just a change in your hormones. And I'm going to guess that by
balancing her hormones through fasting, it's made it go away. Yeah. Wow,
that's so exciting. Well, Susan, thank you for sharing, and
we are all celebrating with you today. So now we have a question from
a listener. This question is from declined Declan. How do you pronounce that
declan? Oh, you're right, I've heard that before, declin. I
have a cousin named Declan named in books before, but I never knew how
to say it declan. All right. This question is from Declan from Dublin,
Ireland. Hello from Ireland. I am a forty six year old male
and have been doing intermittent fasting for about two months. A newbie, I
really enjoyed listening to Jen's audiobooks, especially the health benefits of intermittent fasting.
I am not overweight, but like most men my age, would like to
lose some fat around the tunny region and tone up muscle definition overall. I'm
currently doing sixteen to eight. I skip breakfast in the morning and do a
fasted one hour walk with my dog. I then open my window around one
pm. Coming into the last hour of my fast, I often suddenly feel
quite shaky and weak once I eat. This passes within a few minutes after
eating. I'm just wondering should I ride this out and let it happen,
or should I be opening my window a little sooner before the shakiness starts.
I understand from your books that my body probably hasn't learned yet how to use
my fat stores for energy, so perhaps a little shakiness is the point I
should go to before eating. Would love to hear Gins and Sherry's thoughts on
this well. I have. I have several thoughts on all of this,
I wonder if something in the same thing we are at the beginning. You
are forty six years old, and you say that you don't have weight to
lose. However, you have some fat around the tummy region and you'd like
to tone up muscle. So the fact that you have fat means you do
have weight to lose. I think we are so conditioned to seeing people overweight
that we are out of touch with what overweight looks like. So a person
at an ideal weight isn't going to have excess fat around their middle and that's
actually the most dangerous place to carry your weight, and that's where most men
carry their weight, is a visceral fat. That's what's packed around your organs.
That's what drives up metabolic disease. And the longer you hold it there,
the more weight you're probably inclined to gain because it's just driving up your
insulin, it's driving up your blood pressure, like all of that. So
I do feel you do have some weight to lose, so you say you
want to tone up muscle definition overall. Another reason like you may think that
you don't have weight to lose is if you're comparing like your weight now to
your weight in your twenties, you likely lost muscle mass. We all do
as we age. For women, they start losing testosterone in their thirties,
it, you know, just continues to decline. It's the same for men,
and so you likely don't have as much muscle mass as you had in
your twenties and that weight has been replaced with fat mass. Can I pop
in with something? He didn't say he didn't have weight to lose. He
said, I am not overweight. Well, okay, So I just wanted
to point that out because I think he recognizes that he has weight to lose,
because he said he wants to lose some fat around his tummy, but
he's not overweight. So I guess you like on the scale of like BMI
for example, which I know is odd. He's not overweight, but he
recognizes he has fat to lose. Okay, Well, I'm still going to
say. I just wanted to clarify that if you have fat to lose,
your overweight, well for your body, that's a better way of putting it
for your body, because if your body is at a good weight, you
shouldn't have fat around your timmy. Right. I was listening to the Zoe
podcast that just came out November thirtieth. We're recording this December first. Jonathan,
have you watched or listened to the Zoe podcast? Ever? Shared?
But I listen. I like to watch it on YouTube now since on YouTube.
About anyway, Jonathan, I think he's the CEO of Zoe or something.
Anyway, he does the interviews. He interviewed me when I was on
their podcast. But he was talking about when he first went through Zoe himself.
He had a dexa scan and he was a healthy weight and they found
he was shocked that he had so much visceral fat. He was not expecting
it. He thought he was a healthy weight and he had a ton of
visceral fat. So I just wanted to pop that in there. And he
said that really like opened his eyes to oh my gosh, I'm storing this
unhealthy fat. But this episode that came out November thirty, that's all about
how women and men store fat differently, right right? Yeah, So anyway,
so you want to tap into that fat and burn through it, and
the deeper fasted you get, also the more amped up your human great growth
hormone is. So it may sound backwards to you, but I actually think
you need a fast longer because you've been at it for two months. I
don't really know how you eat. I don't know like how much alcohol comes
into play into your weekly routine. All of those things can really set you
back a little bit. As far as shifting into fat burning. Daily you
do the one hour fasted walk with your dog. If you're not fat adapted,
you may not want to continue that fasted walk right now. You want
to really start to feel your body shifting into katosis every day. Now.
I'm not really sure when you sent this in, so maybe you're further along
now and you're starting to feel better. We do say if you feel,
you know, shaky and unwell, that it's time to eat. But sometimes
you have to just kind of push through it or you're not ever going to
get to the other side. So if you feel, I mean, you
know how you feel, If you feel it's something that you can push through
and see if your body can flip the switch, then that should go away
and you should feel great after that. You know. I feel like probably
as all of us adapt we kind of go through that weird feeling, and
some people more than others. Yeah, I would if you're still struggling,
I would move that walk to a different time of the day, like after
you're fed, and then I would start pushing your fasting out longer and try
to move into more of an eighteen six in nineteen five, so that it
forces your body to use it up any remaining glycogen and it forces your body
to get into that fat burning stage, and you also get to take advantage
of that increased human growth hormone. Yeah. I think that's a good point.
I also would this may have nothing to do with the situation here,
but when people have been fasting for a while, if you get shakiness out
of the blue, you may accidentally be breaking your fast. I had that
thought. You know, people think that, you know, they think they're
just drinking coffee or they think they're just drinking tea. And I'll be like,
what what do you having And They'll say, well, all I have
is is coffee. I'm like, tell me about your coffee. Then it
turns out they're drinking the brand that has you know, added natural flavor notes
or comma flavors or whatever. Right, or like there's like like Costco.
I love Costco. Costco has great things. But they have a cold brew
and one of the one of the ingredients in Costco's cold brew is what is
it coffee extract something like that. If my dad drinks that, what is
that that you're drinking? We don't know what that means. We don't know
if that breaks a fast. Don't drink that. Make your own cold brewer,
or find a brand that doesn't have anything like that. So what if
something accidentally breaks your fast? It could be even like vaping for example.
You know a lot of people vape and it's just one of those things that's
more popular these days. It could be you know, CBD gummies. I
don't even know. People are not thinking about supplements sometimes. But anything that
causes your body to pulse out a little insulin, a little bit of flavor,
pulse out that insulin, it's no big deal most of the time,
unless your blood sugar is already at the lower end of normal. If your
blood sugar is at the low end of normal, you're gonna feel fine.
And then you do something that accidentally causes your body to at least a pulse
of insulin. What does insulin do lowers your blood sugar? You suddenly feel
shaky. You know. I've experienced it when I'm about to open my window
and I'm at a restaurant and they get like, I'm order club soda with
lime and I'm sitting there and I haven't eaten yet, I'm about to eat.
I'm fine. I drink a little bit of that club soda with lime
because they of course bring your drink before your food. And then suddenly I
am shaky and starving because my body pumps it all sometimes and then I'm suddenly
like I've got to eat, so like I've gotten bed right. It Like
if I go to Trivia on Thursday nights and I haven't eaten yet, which
I do sometimes because i might be recording a podcast too late, so I'm
like, I'll just eat at Trivia. I always order a Heineken zero point
zero, no alcohol, and the waitress she is delightful, she knows me.
She brings it right to me now, she knows that's what I want.
But if I haven't eaten yet, I can't start drinking it till they
bring my food because it will lower my blood sugar too quickly because my body
pulses out the insulin. My blood sugar is on the lower end of normal
and then bam. You know, on the flip side, if someone had
a higher blood sugar all the time and the insulin, they're not even gonna
notice that insulin has pumped out, you know, and lowered their blood sugar
a little bit, No big deal. But you know, if you're really
insulin sensitive and your blood sugar's on the low end of normal, if you
start to feel shaky, think about what did I just have and could it
have caused my body to think, you know, food was coming in or
cause something and lowered my blood sugar and made me feel shaky. Just something
to think about. Yeah, and two there are other things too, like
that you could be drinking. I cannot drink green tea while I'm fastedt Oh,
yeah, that makes me so sick. Yeah it does. It makes
me shaky, it makes me really nauseous. I have to eat and I've
tried it several different times, thinking it was a fluke. It's not something
about the tannins or something. Yeah, now I can drink it after I
close my window. Like I have a decaff green tea that I drink but
when I close my window, but I cannot drink it. Before I open
my window. The other thing that too, like if I have a really
intense workout, before I open my window, I can get shaky, kind
of jittery and a little queen after I work out, and I'm convinced it's
usually takes about forty five minutes after I work out. As you work out,
you're pushing some stored glycogen out of your muscles. It gets your blood
glucose up, and you know, my body sends out a woosh of insulin
and then my blood sugar runs pretty low on a day to day basis,
and it just takes me out. So if I want to work out,
if I want to do an intense workout, why facet I have to do
it like first thing in the morning, or just be prepared to open my
window as soon as I'm done. And that's knowing your body and you know,
listening and understanding how your physiology works with what you're doing, and that's
something that you figure out over time. But again, anybody who suddenly starts
to feel shaky, really examine what happened in the thirty minutes leading up to
that and think what could have lowered my blood sugar? Is there anything that
could have caused my body to pump out some glycogen I mean some insulin and
lowered my blood sugar. Just something to think about, all right. So
now it's time for or what's your why? And you know most of us
start intermittent fasting with weight loss in mind. It's perfectly fine for that to
be part of your why, But there is so much more to what intermittent
fasting can do for us beyond weight loss, as we heard in Susan's Amazing
Story. So in my new book twenty eight Day fast start day by day,
before people even start intermittent fasting, I asked them to craft their why.
And when your why is deeper than weight loss alone, I really think
you're more likely to find long term success and view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle.
Today, we have a why from Kelly. Kelly writes, my why
has had to be more than weight loss since I've had a tough time of
it. I've been fasting since Thanksgiving of twenty seventeen, and I initially lost
forty pounds in six months, which was a miracle for me. Then it
stopped and I was stable until I found jin and went to twenty four and
I lost twenty five pounds more. Then it stopped working and I put a
bunch back on. So how many of us would have quit? I didn't
because my bood he had healed in so many various ways. I also feel
good when I fast as much as I have to lose. It's kept my
blood work in order. I hear of many people one hundred pounds thinner having
much worse going on with their blood work. It shocks my doctors because obese
people should be a wreck. After all. I used to have to eat
immediately upon rising, or I would feel terrible. Of course, that is
gone. Food is never an emergency, and I feel so much more in
control. I used to have to find food throughout the day to keep my
blood sugar stable. My blood sugar never takes a dive anymore, and I'm
so grateful to be fat adapted. My energy does not run out like it
used to. I can walk away from a full plate if I'm no longer
hungry. Often I just get bored of eating in the middle of dinner,
and when I am done, I'm done. It has moderated and eliminated many
allergies food and outdoor allergies. It controls my inflammation so well. If I'm
swollen and puffy for some reason, I just have to fast a bit longer,
including allergic reactions. I now eat freely without guilt. I harbored guilt
feelings about certain foods for many, many years. I now eat what makes
me feel good. Food is just food. And I have not given up
on tweaking. I just started ADF convinced I could not do it for all
these years. Yet I am doing it just fine. So weight loss will
finally come for me too. Well. I just am so inspired by Kelly.
She's in our community, and that's did she write this in the community
or did she send it in? She did, she wrote this in the
community. And you know, the thing about Kelly is again, she's been
doing this for a long time. She lost some weight, to gained some
back. She has one hundred pounds she said that she would like to lose,
and she hasn't been successful in losing all that weight, and yet she
doesn't quit. Yep, she still finds the you know, the good and
how she feels in her health. And you know she uses that every day
is motivation to continue. Yeah, and the why is her health and again,
this just goes back to the reality of the human body. Our bodies
are complicated. And when I first read Jason Funng's statement that OBC is multifactorial,
I was like, wow, you know, because everybody else always just
said it's not multi factorial, it's just calories and calories out right, it's
just you. You're the problem, right, And I'm like, no,
it isn't. And you know, Kelly is a testament just like you and
I. We've struggled all those years that I was eighty pounds overweight and struggling
so badly. We were just told if you just eat less, move more,
you'll lose the weight. We tried so hard. Kelly has tried so
hard decades. Kelly has tried hard and there's something going on in her body,
and we've just you know, society makes us feel guilty and like a
failure, and yet we're we always keep trying, and we're you know,
working on healing, and that's the only thing we can do is work with
the bodies we've got. You know, I thought of something the other day,
like I always say that everybody carries scars that we can't see, right,
Yeah, yeah, we all have scars in our life, whether maybe
you know, emotional scars or physical scars. But I just kind of started
thinking, and I thought, you know, we have no idea what our
life full of living, our exposure to chemicals or whatever different diets that we've
followed that have you know, rector metabolism or or whatever whatever genes we have
that have been altered along the way. Whatever our gut Bible, Yeah,
exactly, the gut is a huge one. And I started thinking the other
day, I was like, you know, if is healing, and we
always say it heals from the inside out, and I started thinking, like,
we don't know how many scars we are carrying around inside of us from
just life that if could be healing and reversing that you cannot see because they're
not on the outside. We're not all the same. So I don't feel
like anybody's weight loss journey's gonna be the same. Everybody's going to have their
own and some people may have an easy time of it, but maybe they
didn't carry as many skars inside their body as you did, and it's taking
you longer. But I, you know, I just believe with patients and
persistence in a positive mindset. Everybody can get there or eybody can get somewhere
right, and it's just depending on you know, figuring out what, like
you know, what is your why? Why are you doing this? And
like I said, if the only why Kelly had was weight loss and she
wasn't getting the way, she'd be gone. But she feels so good and
that's powerful, you know, I really really shifted, of course hearing what
Jason Funk said about a BCB multifactorial health. But in my personal life,
I've told this story before, I think on intermittent fasting stories. I don't
know if you've ever heard me tell it or not, but my friend that
taught with me, she taught both my boys. She was like the best
teacher they ever had. And she was a fifth grade teacher. And she
had some food poisoning when she went to I think she was in South America,
and she had always been a perfectly healthy, weight, lean, slim,
went to South America, had this food poisoning. All of a sudden,
she started losing weight, like crazy amounts of weight, losing, losing,
losing to the point that she could not maintain the weight. She could
not maintain at all. She got to the point she's wearing her like twelve
year old son's jeans. I mean, her body was just would not would
not hold on to weight at all. And it was because of the I
don't know what she had she worked with somebody, if something from this food
points might have been a parasite. But she worked for a long time to
heal her gut, and she was able to heal her gut. But then
after she healed it, she put on more weight than she ever had before.
Like she didn't get overweight, but she wasn't the same like she had
been maintaining at a very nice weight. Had the issue lost to a point
that was alarming to her, and she couldn't help the losing the weight.
Or she was eating like crazy, she was eating so much. She's like,
I'm eating so much food, you would not believe how much I'm eating,
and I'm losing weight, losing weight, losing weight. Then after she
healed her gut, she went the other direction, like I said, and
gained more weight. And then she's like, now I've got this belly fed
I never had before. And so it wasn't because of anything she was controlling
or doing. And so we have been conditioned to believe that you could just
consciously will your way and do this and do that and your body will lose
the weight. That's easy. But when I watched my friend go through that,
I'm like, this is completely out of her control. Yeah, And
I also just thought too, you know, people often think, oh,
you know, I do I do anything to lose the weight. Oh,
you wouldn't, because there's a lot of people who are running around sick,
who are unable to maintain their weight. It was sick. Yeah, there's
so much this out of our control, and if nothing else gets out there,
it's one of the messages I really want. And this is not the
same message I had in twenty sixteen when I was just like, yeah,
I lost a lot of weight. Delay, don't deny, right. But
the new message is our bodies are complicated and we need to, like with
curiosity, think about why is my body hold one too this weight? Wonder
what it could be and instead of like it's my fault, it's all me,
I'm I'm bad, I'm making bad choices. Even if you're craving you
know, ultra processed foods and you somehow can't stop eating them, you then
could feel like, well, that's my fault. Well, that could be
your gut too. Your gut could be sending you those cravings. You've got
to put your detective hat on and really assess your body and listen to the
feedback it's giving and make some changes and see how that affects you. I
just want everyone to have permission to lose the shame. Give yourself permission to
those feelings of shame, because whatever your weight is doing, it might not
reflect at all how hard you're trying. Right, So anyway, thank you
for coming to my ted talk. Well that's come from years and years of
I mean, somebody just posted the other day that they went into their doctor
and they had lost significant amount of weight since last year, and they were
really upset because the doctor told them, well, you know, you'd be
healthy if you lost some weight and hadn't even looked and seen how much weight
they had lost in the last year. That is so rude, and I'm
like, you know, unfortunately, doctors don't look back at your history like
that. They just don't, and they have been taught to tell people.
I mean, as far as preventative medicine goes, about the only thing that
we're doing is telling people to lose weight, but we're not telling them how
unless it's you know, eat less and exercise more. And then when it
doesn't work, the doctors just keep repeating that message, lose weight, lose
weight, lose weight. Well, you know, think about it like this.
You got to know the cause before you can find a solution. Like
imagine you've got a fire in your house. You know, some types of
fire, if you put water on it, the fire will go out.
But other types of fire, if you put water on it, it makes
the fire worse. So if you just say no, all we've got is
you just put water on it and cross your fingers. I mean, that
might be the worst advice in the world. So when it comes to our
bodies, there are literally thousands of reasons why we might be struggling with anything
in our bodies, from like you said, genetics all the way to you
know, history. So everybody have some grace for yourself and we know you're
trying. If it doesn't seem like like you're getting the results you want,
know that some good things are happening. Yeah, I agree. Well,
we have another question today, sent in by Dez Dinkle in Baton rouge.
She said, I picked up Delay, Don't Deny, and fast fees Repeat,
and I read them and I've been living in IF lifestyle since June of
twenty twenty two, so just about a little over a year and a half
in. She said, I literally lost twenty pounds right off the bat,
and that shocked me to no end and made a believer out of me.
Initially, I would have never agreed to this as a lifestyle. I would
have said I want to live my life. But I felt very inspired by
this success. My mom's generation was very health conscious. I remember they get
me together and having black coffee. And I have been a prisoner of food
almost all of my life, feeling guilty every time I ate the quote no
no foods. I have felt like life was I have never felt like life
was fair. Since starting IF, I have maintained an eighteen to twenty four
hour window except for those events that throw you off. But unlike anything I've
ever done before, I have hopped right back on and feel fantastic. I
have not gained any weight back, but I have not been able to drop
the last ten to twelve pounds that I desperately want to get off. I
have not had any other non scale victories other than feeling good. I have
added one or two days of thirty six hour fasts and dropped two more pounds,
but I waiver right there now within three pounds. My history, I
have been like eu jen. I am sixty six and five two and one
hundred and fifty eight pounds. I have been on every diet under the sun
for four decades, and I lost maybe eight pounds at a time. Would
get frustrated and quit. I killed my metabolism with diet pills and all the
fat free food products. I am not where I used to be. I
walk every day and I try to avoid processed foods and sweets. I drink
water, but maybe not enough. I do take thyroid medication, but that
is it. I don't have a huge appetite, and sometimes I may not
eat enough. Can you give me an idea what up days look like and
down days? I was just doing a Lotte at twenty two hours, but
when I heard you say that you ate rice and black beans, now I'm
doing that. I don't want to start counting calories again because I love this
freedom. I'm not going anywhere My husband wanted what I have, so now
we do this together, and I am very blessed. I love the DD
community as well as the IF lifestyle. I listen to this podcast and I
love your ideas. I need a tweet please. Now. I would like
to challenge you from saying you haven't had any non scale victories, because you
have. You enjoy the lifestyle, and I think that's huge. If you're
feeling good and you enjoy your life, you are having non scale victories,
right, That's what it is. And you've had scale victories. You lost
twenty pounds right off the bat, and then you haven't gained any back,
so that's also a victory that you're maintaining. Now here's the thing that is
probably gonna be a little frustrating, but I have to say it. You're
sixty six and I am listening right now. I haven't heard the whole thing.
I'm just halfway through the Zoe podcast that just came out on November thirtieth,
and it's an expert on women's hormones and menopause, and she's talking about
what happens to women's bodies after menopause and belly fat and how we change and
how we are going to change after menopause, and I haven't gotten to the
whole end yet, but I think she's talking about how we actually do need
to have on a little more weight. I think that's where she's going with
this conversation. And so I just really want all of us to rethink what
we think we need to weigh and what we think we should weigh, and
also what we want to weigh. And we think that we need to have
the same body, you know, post menopause, that maybe we had in
our twenties and thirties. And look, I am fifty four. I went
through menopause at fifty one, so of course I'm experiencing, you know,
the changes that come along with being post menopauseal and you really can't appreciate it
until you go through it, that your body does change. So all that
to be said, you know, you said that you are desperate. I
am going to tell you that you might not get off any more pounds,
and look what kind of weight loss expert tells you, Well, you just
might not. And because that we're not supposed to do that, I'm supposed
to tell you how to drop two dress sizes by next whatever, you know,
but by New Years, by New years, two dress sizes bine years
but in reality, as we're learning, and it was so interesting what I've
listened to so far about this expert on the Zoe podcast talking about postmenopausal women.
So Jonathan posed a question. This is the same episode I just talked
about before, but Jonathan posed a question about you know, hormones and women,
and she said, we don't know yet about the answer to his question.
And I thought that was so interesting to not even know. We don't
know all the answers, but we do know that women's bodies are different after
menopause. We do know that women put on weight differently after menopause, and
that's biology. And we do know that it tends to be a little better
if we have a little extra weight as we age, like maybe there's a
biological reason for this that is actually we should not be fighting anyway. That's
just something to think about instead of desperately fighting against your postmenopausal body, maybe
say, huh, my body is doing this for a reason. I don't
know what it is. I'm eating well, i'm fasting, I'm nourishing my
body well, my body doesn't want to release these pounds for whatever reason.
Maybe my body knows something I don't know. Well, imagine if you get
really sick, yep, and you don't have any weight on your body,
and you know, with a lot of us illness is weight loss occurs.
But if you're already really thin, you know, and then you and you
don't have any weight to lose, you know, that's not going to help
you in fighting a serious illness you're because you're not going to have any energy
reserves. So, I mean, I think it's kind of important to think
of the big picture. And I actually just ran her through the smart BMI
calculator and does so you are in green, which basically is the weight is
healthy weight. It means you are at low risk for health, you know,
conditions. It basically says that your weight is like marginally elevated. However,
if you maintain a good balance of body fat and muscle mass, that
your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar values shall remain at more or
less moderate levels, and you will be protected against heart attack, stroke,
and diabetes. And it basically suggests that you maintain your weight that if you
were to lose two pounds, that that would be sufficient for you to reach
a target weight of one hundred and fifty six pounds in your optimal weight range.
They just say to focus on healthy food and increase your fitness. Yeah,
work on building muscle. I get it, though. Look, I
know it's probably frustrating to hear us say you're at a healthy weight. If
I suddenly gained ten to twelve pounds and felt it all around my belly,
I would not feel my best. I understand. But it's all a matter
of just thinking what is my body doing and why and can I get it
off? Can I or should I be trying to? It's just it's asking
different questions. You know, we've been trained to think one way about losing
weight and the you know, how our body's supposed to be, and just
like reframing how we think about ourselves. Yeah, and I did just want
to throw on One other thing too, is that she says she takes thyroid
medication. You know, I don't know, you know how on top of
your doctor is with testing it. I had a friend whose mom's thyroid medication
was really out of whack, and they found out she had not had her
thyroid hormones checked in several years. That's the only other thing I would throw
out there is to make sure you have a current you know, levels of
your thyroid hormones so that you know whether or not you are taking the right
dose of medication. And then also you know, just by eating real foods
trying to stay away from processed foods and sugar, then you're going to help
support your liver so that it can use that thyroid medication. Well yeah,
so anyway, sending you a big hug, Daz because our days, because
I get it, I would be frustrated too. But thinking differently about our
postmin apausal bodies, I think is something that we need to do. It's
a conversation to have and to really think about and not feel like we must
go back to our premenopausal size necessarily. Right, Yeah, yeah, I
think we have to balance our weight goals and our overall health and longevity goals.
Yeah. All right, So we have another question that it says I
just listened to the latest podcast about clean fasting, and I have a question.
Way back, I heard about perfect aminos. I thought from gen and
it was my understanding at the time they would not break my fast. Okay,
I've never recommended perfect aminos. No, no, no, So you
must have heard somebody else, another podcast, someone not me. I've never,
never, never, recommended any kind of aminos during fasting. I mean,
if you go back as early as Delayed on Deny that I wrote in
twenty sixteen, we were already talking about you know, the clean well,
we didn't use the words clean fast, but I've always understood that we did
not want to have amino acids. So I don't know who you heard it
from, but it was definitely not me. But yes, if you've been
taking perfect aminos, even the tablet form, you have been breaking your fast,
taking them first thing in the morning. Because amino acids do halt autophogy,
so we do not want to have any kind of protein if we want
to have increased autophagy. So just shift them to your eating window, easy
fix, yep, yep. And I actually went ahead and linked a research
article in show notes, so if you want to dive in a little bit
deeper into that, you can. There's a lot of available articles out there.
I picked what I thought was the best one, and not only does
it inhibit autophagy, but there's also some evidence to support that it induces insulin
secretion. So yep, definitely move those to your window. Yeah, oh
yeah. Protein. That's one interesting thing about you know, for some reason,
people think that protein doesn't cause us to have an insulin response. People
people think that only carbs cause your body to have an insulin response, and
that's not true. You know, when I was researching in twenty seventeen for
Feats without Fear, there was like some meats cause your body to release more
insulin than some carbier things. That it shocked me, Like there was something
called the insulin index, and I I had no idea because we were like,
a, well, protein, only carbs make you release insulin. Not
true anyway. So before we get to the tweak of the week, I'm
want to remind you that my new book is out. It's called twenty eight
Day Fast Start, Day by Day, The Ultimate Guide to starting or restarting
your intermittent fasting lifestyle. So it sticks. So if you're listening to this
podcast near or on the day that it comes out, it is the end
of December. Even if you've been a long time intermittent faster or maybe you've
had some lucy goosey holidays, we probably all have. So we're doing something
really fun in the community. From January fourth through thirty first in twenty twenty
four. In case you're listening way in the future, this is twenty twenty
four we're talking about. So we're going to have a twenty eight day fast
Start or a twenty eight day Fresh Start, if that's what you need,
from January fourth through thirty first. So you're going to need a copy of
twenty eight day Fast Start day by day. If you already have it your
set. If not, order it now. Order it right now through your
favorite book retailer. You also want to join the community by going to Jenstevens
dot com slash community. Between now and January third, you're going to read
the first part of the book. It's not that long, it's not much
at all. You're going to craft or why you're going to get ready for
the fast Start. January fourth is going to be day one of a community
fast Start, and we'll go through those first twenty eight days together of your
fast or fresh start. Then from February first to January third of twenty twenty
five, we will go through that first year together, and on January fourth,
twenty twenty five, we will celebrate your first fastiversary. I'm so excited
about this this is going to be exciting. I think so too. So
go ahead, twenty eight day fast start day by day, get it now,
join the community Jen Stevens dot com slash Community January fourth through thirty first.
And doesn't it feel like not real to be talking about twenty twenty four
and twenty twenty five. I'm like, do we live in the future?
Yes, I know. I know. Well, for anybody who's read James
clare Atomic Habits, you know, he really supports the idea of, you
know, building a community or being part of a community when you're trying to
establish a new habit. So I think like this goes hand in hand with
starting a fasting lifestyle and or restarting a fasting lifestyle. So it sticks.
So I'm excited to be part of that. So now we have our tweak
of the week submitted by Amy and she said, anyone who is rethinking their
maintenance plan, regrouping it to get back on track, or diving into their
first cup of black coffee, you might appreciate this tweak of the week recommendation.
After listening to episode eleven, with a great discussion on how to make
the critical decisions daily to choose well I thought I would share that I recently
decided, after reading Atomic Habits, great book supports what Sherry just said,
that I wouldn't make it a habit to always have a cup of black coffee
first. I usually have two cups of coffee a day. I've taken the
stress of the decision about whether to add cream that I wrestled with off and
on during times of less or more stress, and just decided that cup one
would always be black coffee. That way, if it really should be an
upday or I just know I need to break my fast, by listening to
my body, I will have extended my fast a bit and really made sure
I need to break it. I hope this helps the community you've created.
Thanks to you both for your inspirational work. I salute you. Yeah,
have that black coffee. Just make that decision. It's non negotiable. Yep.
Thanks Amy. Well, this week we are going to leave you with
a motivational quote from Beth and Boise. I love that alliteration, Jenny,
and I love literation Beth. That made me happy to read the quote is
don't be afraid to go where you've never gone, and to do what you've
never done. Because both are necessary to have what you've never had and to
be who you've never been. Oh, I love that. I do love
that. It's true. Thanks so much for listening today. We would love
to have you join us in the Delayed On Tonight community, where you can
interact with both me and Sherry, plus the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters
you'll find anywhere. Go to Jenstevens dot com slash community to join us.
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to your favorite podcast app, and if
you haven't already, please leave us a five star review that helps new listeners
find the show and we really appreciate it. We are a community driven podcast,
so to submit your success stories, your questions, your favorite tweak it
till It's Easy moments, or anything else you want us to share on the
podcast, go to Fast Feast Repeat dot com slash submit and then listen each
week to see if we share your submission or answer your question until next week.
Thanks for listening,