Episode 9: Sharing IF, Restarting After Time Off, The Importance of Community, Self-Talk, Self-Love, and More

Welcome to Fast Feast Repeat Intermitten Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens, author
of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat, and I'm Sherry Bullock,
longtime Intermitten 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 Intermitten fasting or an experienced
Intermitten Faster, or 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, Intermitten Fasting for Life podcast. How are you doing today, Sherry,
I'm doing fabulous. Well, I'm so glad me too. Do you
ever do wake up and think it's going to be a great day every day?
I really do? You know? You know me, I'm a slow
to wake up kind of person. I'll pop out of bed. Some days
I wake up and I'm just like not feeling it, and I'll be like,
I don't know how this day is gonna go. But I woke up
today and I was feeling really positive and well good. No, I wake
up every single day just mys pop open. I'm one of those people.
It's my biological clock. It's I'm a morning person. Well, my aura
ring only gave me a readiness score of fifty today. Basically they told me
that they'd actually prompted me, and it said, would you like to go
into a rest mode so you can concentrate on recovery. That's funny. Yeah,
I had a very long, hectic weekend at work and definitely feeling it.
But you know, life short. I'm glad you woke up with a
spring in your step today. Yep. Anyway, Well, I was going
to share something with you and I can't remember. Oh your book? Oh
oh, yes, you got an early reader copy, advanced reader copy.
They call it a Love twenty eight day fast start, Day by day.
It's sort of a not a rough draft on your end, but it's sort
of a rough draft on the publishers end. Yes, and they formatted it.
It's not perfect, it's got some some things that still made fixing up
and through the PDF of it, yep, well, I have not.
I did take it to work with me last weekend because I had high hopes
for my weekend at work that were quickly shot down when I found out it
was a full moon. And but I have them through it, and what
I've read so far looks amazing, and I wish your publishers could get that
pushed out. I know, I wish it was writing December twenty six,
twenty twenty three, that's when it'll be out. But I really, really,
really, you know, like I've shared before, I told my editor
She's like, what will your next interment and fasting book be? This is
back in like twenty twenty and I'm like, I'm not writing any more Fasting
books. But I felt I realized the teacher in me realized we needed a
little support for people who are starting out. So I'm glad that you haven't.
I can't wait to hear what you think when you've had time to dig
in more. Well, so far, I'm loving it. So they did
a great job with a design. Even Chad had positive things to say about
it. He's usually like super like, why is the prince so small?
Why does the paper feel weird? I mean this one. He's like,
oh, this looks really good. Did you designed this? And like,
well, I mean I had it on word and then they like, the
art person made it look a little better. So yeah, yeah, anyway,
it looks really professional, like a real book. So I'm excited.
I'm excited. Yeah. Well, now it's time for weekly celebration, and
today's celebration comes from fasting on the shore in Revere, Massachusetts. And that
sounds like a really old town, doesn't it It sure does? I mean,
like, I'm sure Revere. Yeah, yeah, she says. I
want to share that intermittent fasting has been a real eye opener for me.
I'm fifty three years old and I had participated in weight watchers for more than
thirty years. My daughter kindly pointed out that I had been doing weight watchers
since before she was born. That really gave me something to think about.
I never reached my goal weight or achieved lifetime status. I have battled with
my weight since what seems like forever. When I was a teen, I
was about a size fourteen and made to feel like I was fat. Years
later married. In having children, weight came on and didn't seem to leave.
I couldn't get below two hundred pounds to save my life. Over the
years, I was on again and off again with weight watchers. I was
never happy seeing myself in photos and always self conscious. About four months ago,
my second grandson was born. I barely had energy for the first one,
so I thought that's it. It was time to do something. A
client of mine told me about interimate fasting. She had been doing it for
about a year. She mentioned eating one meal a day, which felt really
scary, but she passed Jin's books on to me and I dove right in.
I decided about halfway through reading Delay, Don't Deny that this was my
chance. This was going to be my life saver. And boy was I
right. It's been almost four months and I have lost twenty three pounds.
All my lab work greatly changed for the better. When I was told that
my AWNC was one tenth of a point two high at five point seven,
I did not realize he was telling me that I was headed towards being pre
diabetic. But for me that meant game on. It was time to be
an adult and do what's right for me and my body. My AWENC is
now five point five, my fasting blood sugars are coming down, my blood
pressure is now normal, my knee pain from arthritis is gone. I am
sleeping better, and I eat so much better than ever before. I now
have an entirely different relationship with food than ever before. Thank you so much,
Jin for helping change my life. You are an inspiration, and I'm
grateful, truly grateful for your books, podcasts and for taking all the complicated
science out of it. Well. I love hearing that from fasting on the
shore in Revere, Massachusetts. And the thing that I love the most is
she's learning how to find freedom with trusting herself again. You know, when
we've been always counting things and you know, points and calories or macros or
whatever it is, we stop being able to trust ourselves. But with intermittent
fasting eating in your eating window, you learn to trust yourself again, and
you can enjoy food in a way that you weren't able to enjoy it before.
You don't have to do that math problem anyway. Well, I mean,
and not only do you start to like not trust yourself because you start
thinking I'm not doing it right, why can't everybody else do it? But
you also stop to trust that your body is even designed rights I know I
did. I was like, what is wrong with my body? Like why
am I struggling when other people don't struggle? And you start I mean,
I think that really contributes to being kind of down on your body. So
you know, if not only heals, you know in a metabolic way,
but I just really feel like it heals the way you look at your body
and the appreciation that you can give to your body. But I also really
took something from what she said shared. So many people are kind of afraid
to talk about IF for share IF, and I love that her clients was
not afraid and her client shared what she was doing, gave her the books
to read, and that changed this person's life. And so you know,
don't be afraid to share. And even if it's not received, it's still
there. That person hurt it, and you never know when they're going to
take that little seed you planted and grow it exactly. And I'm a big
believer in planning that even if at first you get pushed back, because sometimes
people don't they're not ready for it, and they give you a little pushback,
but you've planted that seed. And you know, I always say share
without fear because planning that seed, it might not be ready to sprout today,
but maybe in a few months. They'll hear about intermittent fasting again from
somebody else, but they're more receptive to it because of you. And you
know they might have been secretly watching you for all these months since you mentioned
it, and so yeah, never be afraid to share. And I love
so much that you know she shared that her A one sea is down,
her fasting, blood sugars are down, blood blood pressure normal, knee pain
gone, sleeping better. So much to celebrate in four months. I know
that's amazing. Yes, all right, So for today's question, we have
a question with some really good background information from a listener and the listener is
ready to come back in California. And we love to have all the background
formation because that really helps us. So ready to come back in California,
shares Dear Jen and Sherry. I was so happy to hear about your new
podcast. I listened to the first episode with a hungry Body and soul.
You asked for questions with a lot of details, So here you go.
In twenty nineteen, I lost about thirty pounds following to layd on DENI with
the old Facebook group between COVID and a terrible family tragedy. At the end
of twenty nineteen, I have gained back the thirty pounds plus another twenty.
I'm fifty seven, about five foot eight inches, and a community college teacher.
Right now, I think I'm about one hundred and ninety five pounds and
assize fourteen to sixteen, depending on the store. I went from being on
my feet most of the day teaching to being on my fanny most of the
day teaching on zoom. I've struggled with my weight since I was twelve years
old, and I've tried all that IET's out there. You gave me so
much hope back in twenty nineteen, I thought I'd found my way of life
for the future. The tragedy and COVID really hit me like a ton of
bricks. I was one hundred and forty when I got married, and I
liked the way I looked and I felt it that weight. Over time,
with working out, I could carry more weight and still be a size eight
to ten. I've only been successful on three diets in the past weight Watchers,
where I became a lifetime member. I was in the one forties to
one seventies. The other diet I did was take Shape for Life, which
used to be called metafast. I even became a coach. I got down
to one hundred and thirty three and kept the weight off for about three years,
hanging out around the one fifties. I felt great, but I knew
I couldn't keep it up, and the inevitable thing happened. I gained it
all back and ballooned up to one eighty eight. When I lost weight by
fasting back in twenty nineteen, I went from one eighty eight to one sixty
seven and was a size ten to twelve. That was fine. My goal
weight is now one sixty five to one seventy, but by March of twenty
two I had ballooned back up to two hundred and nine pounds. A friend
of mine told me she was starting weight Watchers, so I joined her.
I lost ten pounds very quickly. I was humbled and happy to be back
with my old friend weight Watchers. What helped me lose forty pounds in the
past were the in person meetings. I realized I really liked the support and
accountability. When I first lost weight with weight Watchers, I was a stay
at home mom with a military husband who was always deployed, so I had
the time to check my points and go to meetings even with my two small
children. I exercised and did yoga. I'm not an athlete, that's for
sure, but I enjoyed moving my body. I have a long torso and
long legs, and I think I may be naturally small boned, although I
never liked to think that because it means I should probably weigh less than is
recommended for my height. When I was thin, I really looked good now
that I looked back at pictures, although of course at the time I had
terrible body dysmorphia. I've always been self conscious and hated my body. Such
a shame. We never love our bodies enough. And this is me chiming
in there, Sherry. I agree we can be so hard on ourselves and
our natural body shape and fighting against what nature gives us. Anyway, back
to the question, she said, I did a stint with counseling and intuitive
eating. I think that's what it's called, but as an emotional and addictive
eater. It did not work. I tried to love my body more and
buy bigger clothes that made me feel good. It helped, and I think
I've made some progress in loving my body. Now I'm fifty seven and I
just want to enjoy this chapter of my life. I've been divorced for about
eight years. I went back to school and started a new career. I
finally got a new full time job after hustling and teaching at several schools just
to make a living and being a single mom. My kids are mostly out
of the house. I still want to climb pyramids, explore the world,
bike, kayak, and hike with my friends. I've been sitting way too
long, and I feel like I've aged ten years since twenty nineteen. Weight
Watchers works when I do it, but I feel like I need more.
I gave up on fasting because it's just too hard to do when I'm at
home all day at the computer, But now I want to try it again.
I had just started searching for your podcast again and found a lot of
others, but you trained me well. I didn't like any of them.
I wanted more of you, Jen. I have read all your books,
but as you may also be able to tell I'm a bookish person who loves
to research, but I do need handholding and support to get over myself when
it comes to taking care of my body. This is my actual question.
Listening to Sherry's story and her journey with weight Watchers, I wondered if I
could combine weight watchers with fasting. I think I've heard that some people do
this. Is this a good way to start? Maybe have a longer eating
window and follow my weight Watchers points during that time, or should I just
go back to If I can reread your book and the twenty eight days start,
maybe joining your community jin would give me the handholding I realize I need.
I have no health problems except being overweight. My cholesterol is a little
high, but it's because of the good cholesterol, so I'm not on any
medication. My dad was a diabetic, so I've always checked my blood sugar.
I realize as I get older it's more critical that I keep an eye
out for this. My fitness level has decreased terribly. I only walk with
my dog, but as she gets older, my walks are getting shorter and
slower. I look forward to your thoughts, all right, Sherry, I'm
gonna let you get started. That's a lot. It's a lot to unpack
there. So she had prior success with IF, so she knows it works.
Right. She talks a lot about some prior restrictive dieting, but also
some struggles with emotional eating and food addiction. Intuitive eating didn't work for her,
and as we know, intuitive eating doesn't work for a lot of us.
If you're hunger and sotiety, sayinals are not in balance, and how
can they be when you're being told to eat five and six meals a day,
then intuitiving's not going to work for you. And she says she does
better with community support like weight watchers, and she likes a little hand holding,
and that's okay, honestly, I have several answers for her. Oh
and then she talks about fasting being too hard. Well, I'm sorry,
that is a mindset problem. Yeah, if you find that fasting is too
hard, if you've just decided that it's too hard and you can't do it,
then it's always going to feel too hard and you're never going to be
able to do it. So part of that is self talk and how you
talk to yourself. If you decide that you know, yes it may be
hard, and yes it's going to take practice, but that you are determined
to be a faster while sitting at your desk, then I one hundred percent
believe that you can be. We have thousands of people who are successfully living
in their pasting lifestyle who sit at a desk all day and it comes down
to deciding that you can and want to do it. As far as community
support, you cannot get any better community support than joining us in the DDD
community. As a former weight watcher, you know you go in for your
meeting, Well that's once a week and you're there for an hour tops,
and yeah, it's nice to check in and it's nice to be with like
minded people, But what do you do the other six days of the week
the community. One of the great things about it is that anytime that you
are feeling like unsure, or you're starting to question yourself, or you're just
having a day where you're feeling quote week, you can check in and get
so much encouragement and even just supporting others like makes you feel better. Can
I pop in something about that? I think that that weight watchers might have
a community well component on their app now, but lily a community. It's
sort of a message board, but ours is a much more community kind of
a thing. But the reason I wanted to bring that up is because their
monthly cost is like almost as much as a whole year of our community.
Yep. So you know, you can pay for one month of that app
or a whole year of our community where we're going to be giving you,
you know, different kind of support, you know. So she asks like
could she combine weight Watchers with fasting? I have several thoughts on this number
one, and this depends if you are a person that is really out of
touch with what should you eat? What does a healthy diet look like,
and you need some help gaining footing with that, then I feel like weight
Watchers can help you with that because they have this whole list of free foods,
right, and if you'd like to eat and if you like to be
a volume eater, you can go in there and use their free foods.
Free foods are all foods. We should all be eating vegetables, nonstarchy vegetables,
lean meats, eggs. So if you need that little component to help
you figure out how to eat healthy and you want to do that for a
couple of months. I'm not going to tell you know, but here's where
I don't like doing weight Watchers with fasting. If you're not a person that
eats super healthy and you're using all your points on something that is not really
nutritionally dense, you're going to run out of points very very quickly, and
you're going to under eat in your window. Because we know that fasting is
more than about calories in and calories out, we don't want you restricting your
food and your intake in your window. So that could very quickly become a
restrictive diet coupled with intermittent fasting. So for that reason alone, I would
say no, don't join a weight Watchers. Just really focus on filling up
your windows with really healthy, nutritious foods and learn to trust your body.
And with fasting, you're going to get in touch with your appetite correction,
you're gonna get in touch with your sotiety signals, and overeating really stops over
time, unless you are a person that just has binge eating disorder. I'm
gonna say ninety five percent, I'm just throwing this out there. Of people
who fast find that their ability to overeat is diminished over time. Ye wouldn't
you agree? I think so too. Yeah, because we come to the
point where we have the APTI correction our body's like we feel when we've had
enough. That isn't going to happen at first. Body has to adapt.
So I want to go back to something. She actually had success with fasting
in twenty nineteen, and that was prior to Fast Feast Repeat coming out.
So what I would recommend that ready to come back in California do is begin
as if you're brand new. Forget about everything you've done. Pretend like twenty
nineteen didn't happen. In you're a brand new faster and you've never fasted before.
Now this is different advice versus if someone had been continually fastening and had
never stopped, and they were just like, I've been a little slacked,
Do I start over? No, if you've been just a little slack,
you're not starting over. But if you have not been fasting, you stopped
fasting in twenty twenty, it is now twenty twenty three, Start as if
you're all brand new. I would get a copy of Fast Feast Repeat,
and I would flip right to the twenty eight day fast Start chapter. This
is where I wish the new book was out, because I would say started
with that one, but I would start brand new. There are three different
plans you can choose from in the twenty eight day fast Start chapter of Fast
Feast Repeat. Start with the easen play, the very easiest one of all.
If you want, start with the one in the middle. Start with
rip off the band aid if you think you're ready, but since you're feeling
hesitant about you know what it's going to be like to start. It's easy
to start with the easiest one and work your way up from there because I
know you can do it. You did it before, and I know you
can and if you did it before, there's no reason why you can't do
it now. Well. And two with that, if you start with the
eason approach, I mean, even if you just your first week, you
say I'm going to maintain a ten hour window, let's just throw that out
there, right. And if you're sitting at your desk and you just really
are like, I'm not gonna make it to this afternoon and I'm gonna eat,
just set yourself up up for success. Say I'm going to delay eating
or drinking creamy coffee or whatever it is until ten am. That's it.
Get to ten am and then that would take you to eight pm that night,
and then over time just start to slowly shrink that window up. And
nobody says you have to have an evening window. It works for a lot
of us, but it's not the only way to practice. If and there
are a lot of people who really do prefer a morning or midday window.
And if that's you, if you'd rather just have your eating done earlier in
the day because that's the way you prefer it, then that's always an option
too. I don't know if you remember this, Sherry, but in the
easy does it approach the first week you have a twelve hour window? Oh?
Is it a twelve hour window? Okay, I was thinking it was
fourteen ten. Now start with a twelve hour window, and you start with
a low carbas and breakfast, a low carbase and lunch, and a regular
dinner. And that's just to help you become fat adapted by I mean,
you know, I'm not low carb. I don't recommend everyone needs to be
a low carb, but low car breakfast call the eas and breakfast a low
carb ease and lunch and your regular dinner helps you become fat adapt And when
I say regular dinner, obviously if you're regularly low carb, that would be
low carbet for me, it would not be so. And then when you
get to day's eight to fourteen, that's when it shrinks to a ten hour
window, and then the third week is an eight hour window, and then
you end up with a six hour window. So that's in the twenty eight
day fast Start chapter a fast Past Repeat, So anybody can do that.
Yeah, you know Jin says, you know, the low carb breakfast and
then lunch and then dinner. I'm just gonna say, if you're gonna do
that, you know, ease an approach like that, I would really encourage
you not to sit at your desk and snack. Oh yeah, because the
whole goal initially is to get fat adapted, because that is when fasting gets
easy. We don't want you to struggle. We wanted to get easy for
you. So if you're just snack snack snacking all day, you're you're not
stopping that habit of eating throughout the day. So I would really if you're
going to do that approach, really stick with your low card, breakfast,
your lunch, your dinner, and not graze through the day, just to
get your your clock hunger, you know, readjusted, and just to get
that habitual snacking kind of under control as you progress. Yep, that's exactly
right, and that's why you know you're easing in, You're giving yourself time
to become fat adapted all of that. So again I would if I were
you, what I would recommend is start as if you're brand new and never
done it before. Get fast, feast, repeat, choose your plan,
stick to it, and I would join the community because, like I said,
you know, two months of the weight wa Watchers is going to be
more expensive than a whole year in our community, and we're going to give
you a different kind of support. And you know, you can connect with
me, you can connect with Sherry. We will walk you through it,
not just us, but everybody else in the community as well. So and
as far as me, I would not combine it with a with a diet
plan or even you know, weight Watchers. Now I never did White Watchers,
but you know, based on what I understand about the points, I
would I would just eat real food. If you're if you're interested in a
plan, how about plan? Eat real food. That's it, eat real
food. The more real food you eat, the more satisfied you'll be,
and the less you'll overeat. That is so true for me. Yeah,
I think that's true for anybody. I have one more thing I wanted to
say too. At the very end, she says that her fitness level has
decreased and that her activity levels have really gotten lower, and so she also
struggles with really like loving her body and accepting her body. And this may
sound kind of woo woo, but you mentioned earlier that you used to do
yoga. I have found that when you're doing yoga, it is impossible to
hate your body. If you want to increase your activity and you also want
to learn to appreciate and love your body, I'm going to encourage you to
pick your yoga practice back up, because Number one, while you're practicing yoga,
you are so focused on your muscles and your body, the stretch,
how flexible you are, and how much you know, how much flexibility you
gain over time, and you're thinking about your breathing, and you're so in
tune with your body. And I have never it helped me so much with
my body and kind of body shame. Doing yoga. You really nothing else
makes you love and appreciate your body more than a thirty minute yoga practice.
And I know that sounds crazy. And if anybody else is out there listening
and you really struggle with your body, anybody can do yoga. You can
start with chair yoga. There are videos on YouTube, there are apps out
there. I would encourage you for thirty days to practice yoga and you're gonna
love your body so much more after that thirty days. Yeah, there's yoga
with Adrian. I've never done it, but she's on YouTube and that's great.
People love her. I mean, like if I wake up in my
hips or low back or tight, She's like, got one that's just for
like low back and hip openers and it's ten minutes and you feel so much
better afterwards. So that's a great, great suggestion. So this week we
have a book recommendation to share from Diana and Columbus, Ohio. She wrote,
right now, I am reading the oldest cure in the world, Adventures
in the Art and Science of Fasting by Stephen Hendrix, and it is a
hoot. He uses a lot of big words but in a down to earth
way with a hilarious voice, which makes me wonder if she's listening to him.
Yeah, so, she said. The book is full of both fasting
studies as well as his personal stories, and according to a few studies,
fasting maybe best for health when done at the end of the day, something
I've never tried, but will at least for a day or two. He
writes, eat like a king for breakfast, a prince for lunch, and
a pauper for dinner. Since I'm a female, I shall eat like a
queen, a princess, and a pauper. Who knows it may just be
the tweak I need. Regardless, I always find inspiration in books while fasting,
and that's really why I'm sharing. It's inspiring and motivating to read about
people that share my interest in fasting, and I hope you'll like it.
I have heard that quote before. I've heard that too. I you know
I would I have some what's the word? I'm looking for a bone to
pick with the whole It's better to fast it this time versus that time,
because we just don't have research comparing fasting periods of the day where the only
thing different is when the eating window was. And you know, so much
of the idea that oh, it's better to eat early in the day versus
later in the day with fasting comes from the research on early time restricted eating,
where the participants in those early time restricted eating studies had a morning eating
window, right, but they compared the people with the early eating window to
people who ate all day. They did not compare people with an early eating
window to people with the late eating window that was exactly the same other than
time of day. So not one of us is surprised that an early eating
window was better than eating all day. But you cannot say that that means
that an early eating window is better than any other time a day eating window.
And also, I think it's very important to define how we come up
with better For example, let's say we did have a study that proved we
don't. Let's say we had a study that proved that physiologically, it's better
to have your eating window first thing in the morning. If I tried to
force myself to have my eating window first thing in the morning, that would
not work well for me because of the way my body doesn't like to eat
first thing in the morning. I feel better when I eat later in the
day. So if I tried to force myself to have early in the day
eating window, I would end up with eating all the time. I wouldn't
do very well with that. So even if we had a study that proved
and we don't, if we had a study that proved that eating early in
the day was the ideal eating window time, the best eating window time for
you is the one that feels like a lifestyle. So I just wanted to
pop that out there because a lot of people use that early time restricted eating
research to say, oh, we know an early window is better, and
we do not have that data, so I have to pop that in there.
Well. I mean, there is a little bit of I think some
evidence out there that if you are a person who's struggling with blood glucose control
and diabetes, that eating the majority of your food earlier in the day is
better for blood glucose control and lower blood sugar levels in the morning. So,
if you're a person who struggles with really high blood sugar in the morning
and that's something that concerns you, by eating earlier in the day it could
help with that. But over time, with fasting, you're gonna heal that
anyways, So I mean, i'd say do what works best for you.
And also you have to think about the morning. How long has it been
since you ate last? Right, So if you ate last at seven pm,
by seven am, that's only twelve hours from when you ate last,
versus if you finish eating at noon, that's more time between when you wake
out. So early morning first thing. Blood sugar could also be a function
of just how long it was since you last date, because as I go
longer in de day, my blood sugar is lower longer in the fast.
So it just depends on what you're trying to do right well, And I
mean even earlier in the day doesn't mean you have to have a morning window.
It could just be like, rather than maintaining a four to nine window,
maybe you just want to back it up and you know, if you're
want to experiment, you know, switch it and make it like a one
to six window and just see if you notice a difference. Yea. And
if you don't notice a difference, go back to the window that works for
you. Yep. But anyway, the window that you're going to stick to,
that you're going to keep on as a lifestyle is the one that's the
best for you. That's what I really believe deep down. If you stick
to it, it's better than not sticking to it exactly exactly. Well,
before we get to our tweak of the week, I just want to take
a minute to tell you about a company that I really love that you may
not have heard of before. And it's called Wild Pastures. So if you've
been a faster for any amount of time, you'll know that window worthy food
matters. For me. Part of what makes a food window worthy is food
quality. I started buying bulk meat from Wild Pastures a little over a year
ago after using another bulk meat company for years. I was immediately impressed not
only with the quality and the taste, but the cost. I can get
quality grass fed and finished beef, pasture raised chicken and pork, and wild
caught not farmed seafood for substantially less than I can buy it at my local
store. Their meat is the highest quality and comes from regenerative American family farms
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to try them out, check out my Lincoln Show notes to save on your
first box. All right and now, it's time for our tweak of the
week. You know, I always say tweak it till it's easy. But
the tweak that works for me might not be the tweak that works for you.
So it's super helpful to hear how other intermittent fastors are making intermittent fasting
work for them. So this tweak was submitted by Suzanne in New Zealand,
and she says, mindset, mindset, mindset. If you think it,
it will happen. Think you can't fast until five pm. You won't think
it feels hard. It will. My advice is fake it till you make
it, think it and say it over and over until it becomes true.
Your thoughts are what leads to your feelings. I had a hard time and
maintenance because somehow I'd gotten the idea that I could loosen up my window and
eat two meals a day. Well, that idea caused a fifteen pound weight
gain, and coming back down from that has not been easy because my inner
toddler really wanted a longer window. Once I told myself that the four hour
window is all my body needs, that it is plenty of food and enjoyment,
that my body is awesome in many ways, but that I just can't
eat two meals a day and maintain my weight, That fasting until five pm
each day was totally easy, that my inflammation felt much worse with a longer
window, Well then it got easy. Yep, I agree, Susi Ane.
We talk about mindset a lot, and I actually saw a quote yesterday
that I saved. It says, mindset. It's all about mindset. From
the moment you wake up to the moment you rest your head at night,
everything is up to you. Your emotions, your thoughts, your perception,
your reaction, every moment. And I just thought that was really powerful.
You know, we can control way more than we give ourselves credit for,
just by using our minds and choosing how we're going to react to things and
how we're going to address things. Yeah, I think that's really really true.
And you know that quote that you just read, Sherry. Your emotions,
your thoughts, your perception, your reaction, that's the part that's up
to you. See, you can't control what anybody else is doing. That's
the thing, and that's that's been my struggle. You know, I was
an elementary teacher for a long time, and you know, classroom management is
something we're taught and something that we like to really work on. Like we're
in charge of all those little bodies in the room and what they're doing and
how they're responding to things, and so we try to control everything in our
environment. So you know, when you're in your daily life, though,
you can't really control what other people are doing around you, Like you know,
I'm here with Chad, Chad's my husband. For anybody who's new to
this podcast and doesn't know that, I can't control his emotions, his thoughts,
his perception, his reaction. I can't control what he's doing, but
I can respond how I respond. I can control how I respond to it,
the way I feel about it, the way I perceive it. And
so that that's where our control really lies. And so you know, let's
go back to what Suzanne was talking about there. She was struggling. You
know, she got and got to her goal, she got to maintenance,
and she loosened up a lot, right, and she was like, I'm
going to have two meals a day. I can have a long window.
And she gained fifteen pounds and that was a struggle. And I think that
I think Suzanne is right. It's harder almost if you get down to where
you want to be and then you loosen up and you regain the weight,
it's almost like it can feel harder again to do it again. Whereas my
advice for maintenance is keep doing what you're doing right, and for the most
part, what you're doing is going to be your lifestyle, and you can't
loosen Yes, you can have a little more a little more flexibility, a
little more flexibility, but it isn't going to be a giant amount of flexibility
more so than what got you there. Well, and let's explain why.
And I think people kind of fail to see this. They think, oh,
I was only eating you know, this much while I was losing weight.
But I don't need to lose weight, So I'm going to open my
window back up and I'm gonna eat two meals instead of one. But if
you're eating more and your body can burn through in a day, you're going
to start to refill your glycogen stores and you're gonna get yourself out of that
fat burning mode. And that's where the weight gain starts to come back.
So we get to maintain our weight by eating, you know, a normal
amount of food in a window. And when I say normal, I mean
we're not a person who's dieting and having to restrict our food. Right,
we just get to eat freely in a window. But if you're eating freely
in a window and you're eating more than your body can burn through, you're
going to start to refill those glycogen stores and then yeah, fasting is going
to feel hard again. So yeah, to me, I want to tap
into fat burning to maintain my weight. So I would never think, oh,
you know, I'm going to reach my maintenance goal and then I'm gonna
eat two meals a day, because I know that doesn't work for me.
It may work for some people, and depending on how you eat and the
foods you choose, it may absolutely work for you. But if you notice
that you're in some you know, weight creep, it's not working for you.
I think what you said is key, and it's really how you choose
to eat and what a meal is to you. Right, if you're a
volume eater, you know, I like to eat a substantial amount of food
in my window. So if I had two full like think about a restaurant
meal. If I had two full restaurant meals a day, that's too much
food for my body. So somebody else, though, you might be someone
who eats a lighter meal, maybe what I call my snack you would call
lunch, in which case, you know, maybe someone who followed me around
might say, jin you're eating two meals every single day based on how you
define you're eating experiences. So that's why we can't really say everyone must eat
one meal, everyone must eat two meals. No one can do this or
everyone can do that. There is no universal here are the goideline. So
somebody might be eating two meals a day and because they're light eaters, because
they're meals are not like mine, right, it's working really well for them,
right right, Yeah, that's just really important. But I love that
Suzanne tweaked her mindset and she you know, she said her inner toddler wanted
a longer window. And I never feel as good when I started having a
longer window. For me, it's more of the time. You've probably heard
me say that before four to six hours is really my maintenance sweet spot.
So if I if I find that I'm you know, not feeling my best,
feeling a little sluggish, it's probably because I've had a little window creep
and I need to tighten it up again, push it a little later.
Well, and she said that her inflammation got worse with a longer window.
I don't think the inflammation got worse from a longer window. I think when
you have a longer window, you tend to eat, you know, a
good portion of nutritious food. But then a longer window often just gives you
time to eat snacky foods that aren't serving your body. Well yeah, highly
more highly processed foods, or more show or whatever that inflames you. So
I don't think the timing affected her so much is the fact that that long
window was just probably a little bit more indulgent than a for our window,
where she was focused on getting some good nutrition in that for our window.
Yeah. Well, we love to wrap up and leave our listeners with an
inspirational or motivational quote, and this week we have two inspirational quotes from Susan
in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Both are from the book Lucky Bitch, A
Guide for Exceptional Women to Create Outrageous Success by Denise Duffield Thomas. The first
quote, total self love is your birthright. It's about you living your best
life, feeling healthy and confident and knowing one hundred percent that you deserve it,
no matter what that means for you, whether it's creating a really fit,
athletic body or dressing beautifully for your figure. It's not about losing weight
or not losing weight. It's about loving yourself unconditionally and then consciously choosing what
you want to create in your life. I love that, you know,
because when we love our bodies, we know that our body is not fighting
against us. We learn to work with our body, and that, I
think is the transformational mindset shift that changes everything. When you realize your body
is not fighting you, how can you work with your body? That's when
you really feel empowered to make changes that make you feel your best. The
second quote is you can't hate yourself skinny, and you certainly can't hate yourself
rich or happy. Trust me, I've tried that and it didn't work.
I used to think that if I wasn't super critical and hard on myself,
I wouldn't be motivated to try harder. But that's not true. Real deep
transformation can't come from a negative place ever, and Susan shares intimitt fasting was
the beginning of my amazing personal growth journey with I f I achieved a goal
I had had since high school. I achieved it, and I have maintained
my weight for nearly five years. With that inspiration, I wanted to push
the boundaries that had subconsciously confined my potential. I continued my journey by clearing
limiting beliefs, negative thought patterns, and opening myself up to all of my
potential. I found my dream job. My husband and I are now living
in our dream home in the most perfect location, and I'm about to start
a side business which I know will thrive. Do not hold yourself back with
your own limitations, and don't wait for the myth of a rival to enjoy
all of your potential today. And I just love that. I think it
just shows how much intermittent fasting can heal us beyond weight and health. And
I was struck when on that second quote where she says, you can't hate
yourself skinny and being super critical and hard on yourself. If she wasn't,
she wouldn't be motivated to try harder. The author wrote that, and I
was It took me back to when you and I interviewed the person that helps
people with overeating and binging and food addiction. When we interviewed her on the
Lift, and I can't think of her name, but she, you know,
one percent flat out said that she was an overachiever, super critical of
herself her entire life, and you know, just so hard on herself,
expecting herself to be perfect, and that when she started working with other women
that she found out like ninety percent of them are the same way. And
so I think there's just a lot to be said in just loving yourself,
you know, try loving yourself. Then. Yeah, well I love the
quote. Real deep transformation can't come from a negative place ever, It's true.
Yeah, thanks so much for listening today. We would love to have
you us and the Delayed on Tonight community, where you can interact with both
me and Sharry plus the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere.
Go to Jen Stevens 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.