Episode 130: Focusing on Your Eating Window, Fasting Without Your Gallbladder, Migraines, and More

<v Speaker 1>Welcome the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm
<v Speaker 1>Jen Stevens, author of the New York Times bestseller Fast
<v Speaker 1>Feast Repeat.
<v Speaker 2>And I'm Sherry Bullock, longtime intermittent faster and health and
<v Speaker 2>wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this podcast is
<v Speaker 2>for educational and motivational purposes only, and is not intended
<v Speaker 2>to provide medical or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are
<v Speaker 2>not doctors, so make sure to check with your trusted
<v Speaker 2>healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes to
<v Speaker 2>any medical treatments or medications.
<v Speaker 1>Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an experienced intermittent faster,
<v Speaker 1>tune in each week to get inspired, to learn, and
<v Speaker 1>to have some fun along the way. Hi, everybody, we
<v Speaker 1>are so glad you're here today. Welcome to this week's
<v Speaker 1>episode of the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life podcast.
<v Speaker 1>How are you doing today? Sherry?
<v Speaker 2>Hi, I'm doing fabulous, me too?
<v Speaker 1>And this episode comes out on Christmasy.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, I feel like this happens a lot, that
<v Speaker 2>our episodes come out like the day before. Oh, because
<v Speaker 2>our old podcasts used to come out earlier. Anyway, what
<v Speaker 2>we found is that for whatever reason, you guys don't
<v Speaker 2>want to listen to us on Christmas.
<v Speaker 1>Just listen later.
<v Speaker 2>So by the time you hear this, Christmas will be over.
<v Speaker 1>Probably. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So I hope you all had a fabulous day and
<v Speaker 2>you have resumed fasting.
<v Speaker 1>If you stopped, exactly, get right back to it. Do
<v Speaker 1>not wait till January first, everybody, let's hearing this on
<v Speaker 1>January first, in which case, start now, whatever day you're
<v Speaker 1>hearing this.
<v Speaker 2>And if you're hearing this the day before Christmas and
<v Speaker 2>you're thinking, maybe you'll take tomorrow off, pretend like Jen
<v Speaker 2>and I are in the walls for watching.
<v Speaker 1>You have a window whatever.
<v Speaker 2>It is, all right, Well, you know the greatest thing
<v Speaker 2>about it being December twenty fourth, what that means winter.
<v Speaker 1>Is like the days are already getting longer.
<v Speaker 2>The days are starting to get longer again.
<v Speaker 1>Yea, that is true. The darkness is not my friend.
<v Speaker 2>My husband the other day asked me if I wanted
<v Speaker 2>to move to some place in Alaska that has like
<v Speaker 2>twenty three hours and fifty some minutes worth of darkness
<v Speaker 2>during certain days of the winter, and I said I
<v Speaker 2>would not want to live there during the winter time,
<v Speaker 2>but I would love to live there in the summertime.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you'll just have to switch hemispheres seasonally. That's a
<v Speaker 1>new definition of snowbird, exactly, exactly.
<v Speaker 2>All right, Well, we have a celebration from Julie in Vermont.
<v Speaker 2>Julie said, hey, ladies, Oh my goodness, I cannot wait
<v Speaker 2>to share this news with you both. I just got
<v Speaker 2>back from a nine day cruise of the Mediterranean with
<v Speaker 2>seven different stops in three different countries. That sounds so fun.
<v Speaker 1>It does sound fun.
<v Speaker 2>That's bucket list for me, right though. Yeah, it was
<v Speaker 2>absolutely the time of our lives. We are celebrating my
<v Speaker 2>semi retirement and our thirty third wedding anniversary. Both my
<v Speaker 2>husband and I have had excellent success with fasting. I
<v Speaker 2>am down over fifty pounds and he has almost reached
<v Speaker 2>that same mark. After a life of broller coaster dieting,
<v Speaker 2>this has absolutely been the answer. I have been fasting
<v Speaker 2>for one and a half years and he has been
<v Speaker 2>for about one year now. This was truly the test
<v Speaker 2>for me as to whether or not my metabolism was restored.
<v Speaker 2>I had a plan going in, but I knew I
<v Speaker 2>wanted to enjoy the food on the cruise. Ship as
<v Speaker 2>well as the food on land, and that our schedule
<v Speaker 2>would be different every day, so I just needed to
<v Speaker 2>be flexible. My primary goal was to fast as long
<v Speaker 2>as I could each day, but to enjoy myself and
<v Speaker 2>allow myself whatever it was that looked delicious. I would
<v Speaker 2>need to have self control and listen to society signals.
<v Speaker 2>I would also need to be able to refuse food
<v Speaker 2>that was there in my presence. Pretty much twenty four
<v Speaker 2>to seven. I ate lunch most days, usually while we
<v Speaker 2>were out and about on an excursion. These lunches included
<v Speaker 2>local foods like lasagna or other pasta, fish, salad, bread,
<v Speaker 2>red wine, all the Spanish and Italian favorites. There was
<v Speaker 2>absolutely no guilt as I indulged in the fresh local foods.
<v Speaker 2>Dinner was back on the ship and we would stay
<v Speaker 2>away from the buffet that was basically our only food rule.
<v Speaker 2>We ated a steakhouse restaurant, a French restaurant, the Italian restaurant,
<v Speaker 2>a noodle bar, a hibachi grill restaurant, four to five
<v Speaker 2>course meals with appetizer, soup, salad, main course, and dessert,
<v Speaker 2>also complete with beverages and freshly made cappuccinos and espresso.
<v Speaker 2>I was literally in heaven. Of course, we did a
<v Speaker 2>lot of walking on our excursion, a few days of swimming,
<v Speaker 2>an e bike tour, and we made a pack to
<v Speaker 2>never take the elevator. We did those stairs up and
<v Speaker 2>down all day long and all night long. I definitely
<v Speaker 2>felt bloated and off kilter for a couple of days
<v Speaker 2>for multiple reasons. But I'm happy to report that each
<v Speaker 2>of us gained only four pounds, and half of that
<v Speaker 2>weight was gone the next day. Can you imagine how
<v Speaker 2>thrilled I was two pounds gained. My body knew exactly
<v Speaker 2>what to do with the food that was put into it.
<v Speaker 2>Never in my life have I been on a diet
<v Speaker 2>that allowed my body to eat large amounts of food
<v Speaker 2>and not gain weight. Over the past year and a half,
<v Speaker 2>not only have I lost fifty plus pounds, but I
<v Speaker 2>have restored my metabolism. At the age of fifty six
<v Speaker 2>with the onset of diabetes, meaning that I was insolent
<v Speaker 2>resistance in just a few short months, fasting has allowed
<v Speaker 2>my entire body to heal. I am no longer afraid
<v Speaker 2>of going on vacation, having a weekend getaway, enjoying myself
<v Speaker 2>around food, and feeling confident in my choices. I'm truly
<v Speaker 2>feeling so much happiness as I returned from this trip
<v Speaker 2>of a lifetime. I am officiating my niece's big wedding
<v Speaker 2>less than a week after returning, and I had to
<v Speaker 2>trust that my dress would still fit upon my return
<v Speaker 2>and it does. Hallelujah. Thank you so much for all
<v Speaker 2>your work to help us make our bodies healthy and
<v Speaker 2>happy once again.
<v Speaker 1>That is so exciting.
<v Speaker 2>I love that.
<v Speaker 1>I love it, Julie. And you gained four pounds. Two
<v Speaker 1>were gone by the next day, and I bet you
<v Speaker 1>the other two were gone within a week. I bet yeah,
<v Speaker 1>because it takes a while to get all that out
<v Speaker 1>of your system. But yeah, that's how you do it.
<v Speaker 1>You do the best you can in you have a window.
<v Speaker 1>You choose delicious food. And I also think that never
<v Speaker 1>taking the elevator strategy is a good one. Stay active,
<v Speaker 1>walk around absolutely mindfully, stop when you've had enough, Taste
<v Speaker 1>a little bit from each course. But you never want
<v Speaker 1>to feel overly full if you can help it.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 1>So, now we have a question from a listener. This
<v Speaker 1>question is from Jody from Minnesota. I am wondering if
<v Speaker 1>you have any advice for when it's that time of
<v Speaker 1>the month and someone is struggling with cramps. It's not
<v Speaker 1>every day of my period, but usually the first or
<v Speaker 1>second day. I need to take ibuprofen in the morning
<v Speaker 1>and perhaps even throughout the day. Obviously, I can't take
<v Speaker 1>that on an empty stomach, and by the way, she
<v Speaker 1>is right, that is not one you want to take
<v Speaker 1>on an empty stomach, she said. I tried it and
<v Speaker 1>that was horrible. So I will try to just have
<v Speaker 1>something small, like a cheese stick, so I'm able to
<v Speaker 1>take the ibuprofen and go on about my day. I'm
<v Speaker 1>wondering if it's one of these it is what it is,
<v Speaker 1>and you just do your best, or do you have
<v Speaker 1>any other recommendations. I'm thirty seven years old.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so interesting enough. Did you know that magnesium can
<v Speaker 2>help with minstrel cramps?
<v Speaker 1>I did not know that.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, so it helps relax the smooth muscles of the uterus.
<v Speaker 1>Actually it makes sense though, which.
<v Speaker 2>Can reduce the intensity of cramps. And it also reduces
<v Speaker 2>prostic landin's, which are hormones like substances that trigger uterine
<v Speaker 2>contractions and pain. It reduces pain perception by helping to
<v Speaker 2>regulate nerve signals and transmitters, which can decrease intensity of pain.
<v Speaker 2>It also helps to combat inflammation, which can help ease
<v Speaker 2>pain associated with period related inflammation. It supports hormone balance,
<v Speaker 2>so it can help balance estrogen and progesterone, which can
<v Speaker 2>reduce other PMS symptoms like mood swings and irritability. And
<v Speaker 2>also it can help with some of that water retention
<v Speaker 2>and food cravings around PMS, So that might be something
<v Speaker 2>to consider if you do not take a good quality
<v Speaker 2>magnesium Jen and I love bioptimizers magnesium Breakthrough. We have
<v Speaker 2>a link in our show notes always for that. That's
<v Speaker 2>something you could try. You might consider trying just like
<v Speaker 2>a more fast safe medication like tile and all and
<v Speaker 2>see if that helps you. Then you don't have to
<v Speaker 2>worry about eating with it. And then lastly, if you
<v Speaker 2>just absolutely need to take the ibuprofen, try it, like
<v Speaker 2>you said, with something small like a chees stick, maybe
<v Speaker 2>a hard boiled egg something like that. Stay away from carbohydrates,
<v Speaker 2>stay just and you don't need a lot. You just
<v Speaker 2>need to bite us something to coat your stomach so
<v Speaker 2>when you're fasted you do have a little bit more
<v Speaker 2>of a high acid content in your stomach just because
<v Speaker 2>there's nothing in there to dilute it. So by just
<v Speaker 2>having a bite of something it can help with that.
<v Speaker 2>It's kind of a pH thing.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing about tile
<v Speaker 1>and all because even though yes, maybe an iburprofen might
<v Speaker 1>be more effective for cramping, tile and al can still
<v Speaker 1>provide pain relief because it blocks those pain signals in
<v Speaker 1>your brain. So I alsoay that means been a long time.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know mite all, which is designed for PMS,
<v Speaker 2>it has a seed of benefit in it.
<v Speaker 1>Does it? I would always I found heat really helped me,
<v Speaker 1>like getting in a hot bathtub. Obviously you can't do
<v Speaker 1>that if you're working like a heating pad on your
<v Speaker 1>on your belly. That actually really helped me feel better
<v Speaker 1>with cramps. So it's been a long time though.
<v Speaker 2>All Right. We have a faster in Northern Minnesota who
<v Speaker 2>she wrote in and she said, first off, I want
<v Speaker 2>to say I am loving your podcasts. I'm caught up,
<v Speaker 2>but I go back and I listen to the ones
<v Speaker 2>I've already listened to all the time. I need some
<v Speaker 2>tips on moving from counting my fasting hours to counting
<v Speaker 2>my eating window. I'm sixty three, five foot four, and
<v Speaker 2>I hit my goal of one hundred and twenty five
<v Speaker 2>at four months in. I'm now in maintenance and I've
<v Speaker 2>done nineteen five or twenty four pretty much since i
<v Speaker 2>started in January of twenty twenty five. My window is
<v Speaker 2>mostly late morning or noonish to early evening. Any tips
<v Speaker 2>would be most appreciated. Thanks so much. I love everything
<v Speaker 2>you ladies have done getting everyday folks into IF lifestyle.
<v Speaker 2>Thanks Judy.
<v Speaker 1>All right, Judy, this is the easiest thing you've ever done.
<v Speaker 1>It's so much easier to track your eating window and
<v Speaker 1>so much more complicated to track your fast. And here's well,
<v Speaker 1>unless you're using an app, because the apps tend to
<v Speaker 1>be focused on tracking the fast, which is why some
<v Speaker 1>people get stuck tracking it because if the app is
<v Speaker 1>tracking the fast, now you're tracking your fast. So when
<v Speaker 1>we think about a twenty four hour day, I would
<v Speaker 1>like you just to imagine like a timeline that starts
<v Speaker 1>at midnight and goes till midnight. That's one calendar day. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>you're sleeping unless you're working nights or something. Most of
<v Speaker 1>us are sleeping throughout that night. As we transition from
<v Speaker 1>one calendar day to the next calendar day. So most
<v Speaker 1>of us have fasts that span the overnight period, and
<v Speaker 1>our fast is on two different calendar days. That's the
<v Speaker 1>typical way that it is. So you've got that fast over,
<v Speaker 1>there's two calendar days. So you have to like really
<v Speaker 1>think about when you close your window how much time
<v Speaker 1>has passed. And that's a lot of counting to when
<v Speaker 1>you open it the next day. Versus if all you're
<v Speaker 1>doing is thinking about your eating window. When you open,
<v Speaker 1>you start and then count to four or count to
<v Speaker 1>five and then close your window, there's no worrying about
<v Speaker 1>overnight changing and all that, and it's just such a
<v Speaker 1>shorter period of time to worry about. So I want
<v Speaker 1>you to go back to what I was saying, thinking
<v Speaker 1>about it like a timeline. Think about that one calendar
<v Speaker 1>day on a timeline, and imagine your four or five
<v Speaker 1>hour window as a sliding period of the day. You
<v Speaker 1>can slide it earlier, you can slide it later, but
<v Speaker 1>wherever you slide it, it's still four to five hours.
<v Speaker 1>And imagine on each side of it between the midnight
<v Speaker 1>and the midnight, because there's twenty four hours in a day.
<v Speaker 1>If you're sliding around five hours, there's still going to
<v Speaker 1>be nineteen hours of fasting in that calendar day. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>So if you have a five hour sliding daily window,
<v Speaker 1>your fast will always average nineteen hours because that's just math.
<v Speaker 1>And in the calendar day, if your eating window was
<v Speaker 1>five hours of the twenty four in that one calendar day,
<v Speaker 1>nineteen of it was fasting, some before you opened, some
<v Speaker 1>after you opened. So it really does work out. If
<v Speaker 1>you just keep your eye on your eating window, the
<v Speaker 1>fast takes care of itself.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And you know, I'm just going to tell you
<v Speaker 2>I am not a follower. I kind of do my
<v Speaker 2>own thing. Jin told me for a long time just
<v Speaker 2>track your window, and I'm like, no, that's not going
<v Speaker 2>to work out because I moved my window all over
<v Speaker 2>the place. And so if I don't close my window
<v Speaker 2>till two am on a Sunday night and then I
<v Speaker 2>just open up in the at three o'clock on Monday,
<v Speaker 2>I'm only going to fast thirteen hours. And I can't
<v Speaker 2>just fast thirteen hours. And I would make myself crazy
<v Speaker 2>tracking both my fast and my windows. And literally it
<v Speaker 2>was probably twenty twenty three when I was like, I'm
<v Speaker 2>just going to try it Gin's way. It is so
<v Speaker 2>much easier, Yeah, so much easier, just to track your window.
<v Speaker 2>It's all going to work out, So don't be like me.
<v Speaker 2>Give it a try out. As far as physically doing it,
<v Speaker 2>you may be kind of hungry and your body may say, hey,
<v Speaker 2>it's time to eat if you always eat at eleven am.
<v Speaker 2>But from a physical standpoint, you should be able to
<v Speaker 2>push through relatively easy. If you're wanting to move your
<v Speaker 2>window permanently, then just kind of push it a little
<v Speaker 2>bit at a time until you get there. If you
<v Speaker 2>don't want to have a few hard days, or you
<v Speaker 2>might just have a few hard days where you're gonna
<v Speaker 2>want to eat. A lot of that's going to be habit,
<v Speaker 2>a lot of that's going to be clock hunger. But
<v Speaker 2>you can get your body to adjust pretty quickly. And
<v Speaker 2>then if you're like me and you just move your
<v Speaker 2>window all over the place, you don't even think about
<v Speaker 2>it anymore. You just figure out when do you want
<v Speaker 2>your window that day, and then you open your window
<v Speaker 2>when you want it, and time stops kind of really
<v Speaker 2>meaning anything because your body doesn't get in a rhythm
<v Speaker 2>of oh it's one o'clock. This is what time we
<v Speaker 2>eat exactly. It's just so much easier.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, loss math to do, and now it's time for
<v Speaker 1>our se called what's your why. Most of us begin
<v Speaker 1>intermittent fasting with weight loss in mind. That is a
<v Speaker 1>great reason to start if you need to lose weight.
<v Speaker 1>But there's so much more to what intermittent fasting can
<v Speaker 1>do for us beyond weight loss. And I'm a big
<v Speaker 1>believer that if your why is bigger than weight loss alone,
<v Speaker 1>you are more likely to find long term success because
<v Speaker 1>you're more likely to view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle.
<v Speaker 2>All right, So this week we have a why from
<v Speaker 2>Tanya from White Deer, Texas. She wrote, weight loss isn't
<v Speaker 2>one of my wives. I am six foot and naturally leanish.
<v Speaker 2>I do carry a bit of menopausal tummy weight, but
<v Speaker 2>that is slowly going away with fasting. My body functions
<v Speaker 2>extremely well so that the extra wee bit of weight
<v Speaker 2>doesn't bother me. My why is a healthy and active
<v Speaker 2>older me. Sixty is knocking on my door, so future
<v Speaker 2>proofing is my why. I was very ignorant of how
<v Speaker 2>my body functions before this journey. I have a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more knowledge, but I have a very long way
<v Speaker 2>to go. I already know that fast FeAs repeat will
<v Speaker 2>help with that knowledge.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I love that when we understand her body works
<v Speaker 1>and how fasting helps it work better. In so many ways,
<v Speaker 1>we wouldn't stop, right, no matter what our weight is doing,
<v Speaker 1>we wouldn't stop.
<v Speaker 2>That makes me think some people are like, why do
<v Speaker 2>I need to read a book? Just tell me what
<v Speaker 2>to do. Yeah, but when you understand what is going
<v Speaker 2>on in your body and you understand why you're doing
<v Speaker 2>what you're doing, it, I think makes it way easier
<v Speaker 2>to adjust to the lifestyle and to stick with the lifestyle.
<v Speaker 2>And with that said, even when you're starting fasting, there's
<v Speaker 2>some people who started a long time ago and then
<v Speaker 2>they drifted away from fasting, and then they drifted back.
<v Speaker 2>We have these people who come in and out, in
<v Speaker 2>and out, and somebody came back in and they said,
<v Speaker 2>they don't know why, but this time they just can't
<v Speaker 2>get going. And I said, you know, you know, I
<v Speaker 2>really think you should get Jen's twenty eight day fast
<v Speaker 2>Art book and just work the program. Start with day one,
<v Speaker 2>do every day, do the reading, do the self reflections,
<v Speaker 2>do the end of day reflections. I think it'll really
<v Speaker 2>make a difference, and I think she was a bit skeptical,
<v Speaker 2>but she did it, and by the time she got
<v Speaker 2>done with her twenty eight days, she talked about how
<v Speaker 2>helpful it was to do that process because sometimes we
<v Speaker 2>can't make things really stick because we just haven't built
<v Speaker 2>a really solid foundation and understanding of not only fasting,
<v Speaker 2>but a lot of it is just our thoughts, our feelings,
<v Speaker 2>the stories we tell ourselves, our mindset. And so if
<v Speaker 2>you take twenty eight days and you invest into yourself,
<v Speaker 2>and you really focus on your why, and you really
<v Speaker 2>focus on what is holding you back, where are your struggles,
<v Speaker 2>and you take the time to reflect every evening on
<v Speaker 2>what did go well, what didn't go well, rather than
<v Speaker 2>just oh, well, that didn't go the way I wanted it,
<v Speaker 2>let's try again tomorrow. There's so much to be gained
<v Speaker 2>from taking that time and reflection and writing it out
<v Speaker 2>that you can learn about yourself that can help you
<v Speaker 2>make a fasting lifestyle exactly.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, and just taking that time to really just
<v Speaker 1>day after day you're just doing it. You're not starting
<v Speaker 1>over because the day doesn't go well. You just keep
<v Speaker 1>going and you're learning and you're reflecting. I think that's
<v Speaker 1>an important part of the process.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yep. And it's just some internal self to really
<v Speaker 2>look deep in yourself because sometimes we're so used to
<v Speaker 2>telling ourselves the story. Yeah, we do it automatically without
<v Speaker 2>thinking about it. But now when you're challenged with a
<v Speaker 2>question and you have to stop and you have to reflect,
<v Speaker 2>and you have to think about, well, why why am
<v Speaker 2>I struggling with that thing, or what could I do differently?
<v Speaker 2>It really helps get you out of that sort of
<v Speaker 2>rut that you've just automatically fallen into. Right, all right,
<v Speaker 2>So we have a question from Struggling in Washington. Hi,
<v Speaker 2>Jen and Sherry. I have been successfully fasting for the
<v Speaker 2>past four years. I grew up with a mother that
<v Speaker 2>was always battling her weight and on every diet out there.
<v Speaker 2>I think we all have some experience with that. Oh yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I sadly took on that battle early on in my
<v Speaker 2>teens and thereafter. But what's really interesting is I've only
<v Speaker 2>battled with ten pounds to lose, put it back on,
<v Speaker 2>and then lose it again. I will be turning seventy
<v Speaker 2>years young this December twenty twenty five. I'm five foot
<v Speaker 2>six and I keep my weight around one hundred and
<v Speaker 2>thirty five to one hundred and forty ish. I know
<v Speaker 2>this doesn't sound like a big weight problem, but it
<v Speaker 2>was no different for me if it was ten pounds
<v Speaker 2>or one hundred pounds. When I look back at my
<v Speaker 2>pictures as a young girl and older, I wasn't overweight
<v Speaker 2>at all, but I definitely had that terrible body image,
<v Speaker 2>and growing up with a mother that was constantly dieting
<v Speaker 2>influenced my thinking. In my early thirties, I vowed I
<v Speaker 2>would never turn out like my mother. She had gallbladder
<v Speaker 2>surgery in her forties, hormone issues, a hysterectomy after seven children,
<v Speaker 2>and was in her fifties with diabetes. She lost her
<v Speaker 2>vision and kidney function, and she passed in her early sixties.
<v Speaker 2>I have been married for forty four years, mother of
<v Speaker 2>two adult daughters and six grandchildren that keep this grandma
<v Speaker 2>happy and fulfilled. I have been mostly on a plant based,
<v Speaker 2>low fat lifestyle all of our married life. I love
<v Speaker 2>the food, and I grow a huge garden and can
<v Speaker 2>freeze all of our own veggies and fruits. I love
<v Speaker 2>plant based cooking and this is my passion. Anyone that
<v Speaker 2>knows me knows that I've always been super healthy and
<v Speaker 2>an advocate for plant based cooking. The first week of
<v Speaker 2>October I had five gallbladder attacks in one week. I
<v Speaker 2>went to the walking clinic, I had blood, working an ultrasound,
<v Speaker 2>and then off to the er for an MRI. It
<v Speaker 2>showed I had a block duck, but passed it. I
<v Speaker 2>did the follow up and also did a deep dive
<v Speaker 2>into the gallbladder and felt, after reading the horror stories
<v Speaker 2>of all the issues of having it removed, with digestion,
<v Speaker 2>diarrhea issues and having to take medication, that I wanted
<v Speaker 2>to try to keep mine. And then finally came to
<v Speaker 2>the conclusion that I couldn't live like this, wondering when
<v Speaker 2>it would happen again, and I didn't want to be
<v Speaker 2>hiking three hours away and have an attack and have
<v Speaker 2>that to be a constant worry. What makes me really
<v Speaker 2>grumpy is I've eaten a low fat diet for a
<v Speaker 2>long time, and everything points to too much fat in
<v Speaker 2>the diet for gallbladder issues. At the appointment with the surgeon,
<v Speaker 2>my husband brought up that I eat one meal a day,
<v Speaker 2>and the doctor said, because of my lifestyle and fasting,
<v Speaker 2>that has probably prolonged. Having had issues earlier, and I
<v Speaker 2>could thank my mother for passing this problem on to
<v Speaker 2>me through genetics. The attacks always would happen about thirty
<v Speaker 2>minutes after I would eat dinner. So on the November third,
<v Speaker 2>I had gallbladder surgery and I am on day four
<v Speaker 2>post surgery as I write this. He has told me
<v Speaker 2>I'm supposed to eat a mini meals four to six
<v Speaker 2>times daily and is not recommended to eat one meal
<v Speaker 2>a day. I usually swing back and forth with one
<v Speaker 2>meal a day and sometimes a snack earlier before dinner.
<v Speaker 2>My eating window is two to five and since I
<v Speaker 2>have been intermint fasting, I have gotten rid of all
<v Speaker 2>my diet mentality and I have happily found food freedom.
<v Speaker 2>My question is do I need to give up if
<v Speaker 2>because of not having my gallbladder. I know I'm early
<v Speaker 2>on in my recovery, but what I've been reading is
<v Speaker 2>it's best for the mini meals because the gallbladder stores
<v Speaker 2>the bile to help digest facts. Thank you for listening
<v Speaker 2>to me. I look forward to any suggestions.
<v Speaker 1>All right, Sherry, this sounds like it's going to be
<v Speaker 1>a good shary question. But here's the thing. Though she's
<v Speaker 1>had her gallbladder out right, So if your gallbladder is out,
<v Speaker 1>you're not trying to work with your gallbladder anymore. So
<v Speaker 1>why would I'm trying to understand why someone would make
<v Speaker 1>I'm not a doctor, so as a lay person, you
<v Speaker 1>have no more gallbladder, right, So why would it be
<v Speaker 1>better to eat four to six meals since you don't
<v Speaker 1>even have a gallbladder? So why would that even matter?
<v Speaker 1>Am I off with my thinking?
<v Speaker 2>So? I mean yes, No, I mean I'm gonna tell
<v Speaker 2>you right now. I have my gallbotder taken out when
<v Speaker 2>I was eighteen, right, I have never once in my
<v Speaker 2>life since then ever contemplated adjusting my food or eating
<v Speaker 2>because I don't have a gall ladder. Right now, there
<v Speaker 2>are some foods I cannot eat since I don't have
<v Speaker 2>a gall bladder that I found out right away. When
<v Speaker 2>I say some, it's really one.
<v Speaker 1>But also, you wouldn't do that within small meals. It's
<v Speaker 1>not the number of meals or the timing. It's good food, right.
<v Speaker 2>I can't eat iceberg lettuce, okay, period, stop, cannot eat it.
<v Speaker 2>If I eat it, I will be revisiting it in
<v Speaker 2>about five minutes in the bathroom. It guys ride through
<v Speaker 2>you absolutely. Iceberg lettuce doesn't pass my lips. So I
<v Speaker 2>do not have a problem with fatty foods. I do
<v Speaker 2>not have a problem with reflux. I don't have a
<v Speaker 2>problem with any of this. Now, what some people can
<v Speaker 2>have a problem with is dumping syndrome. I do struggle
<v Speaker 2>with this a little bit. If I do a really
<v Speaker 2>long fast, anything in excess of about twenty three hours,
<v Speaker 2>I will get diarrhea. That's what happens. So when you
<v Speaker 2>don't have a gallbladder, you don't have a storage facility
<v Speaker 2>for bile. So what happens is bile just flows into
<v Speaker 2>your small intestine and instead of it kind of being
<v Speaker 2>released a little bit at a time, it's just sort
<v Speaker 2>of a steady stream of bile is being released into
<v Speaker 2>your small intestine. And this can cause some issues for
<v Speaker 2>some people, but for the majority of people, they don't
<v Speaker 2>tend to have issues. When your body right after surgery,
<v Speaker 2>you may have some issues for a short time as
<v Speaker 2>your body adjusts, but most people go on to not
<v Speaker 2>have any issues. As I said, there are some people
<v Speaker 2>who just do have chronic diarrhea when eating after have
<v Speaker 2>their goloplader removed. There are medications you can take to
<v Speaker 2>help that. Funny enough, they also help with high cholesterol.
<v Speaker 2>So listen to your body, figure out what works well
<v Speaker 2>for you. Maybe you need to have more of a
<v Speaker 2>four to five hour window and open a little more
<v Speaker 2>gently to sort of wake up your digestion gently and
<v Speaker 2>then have a big meal. But you're just gonna have
<v Speaker 2>to play around with it. We have so many people
<v Speaker 2>in our community that don't have gall bladders and it's
<v Speaker 2>not an issue for them. We have people who have
<v Speaker 2>diarrhea after opening their window after a long fast, who
<v Speaker 2>have gallbladders, and who don't have gall bladders. So our
<v Speaker 2>systems are unique for many reasons. If you find that
<v Speaker 2>you have diarrhea with eating when you open your window,
<v Speaker 2>you can try my trick, which is to open my
<v Speaker 2>window with silium husk and then I wait about twenty
<v Speaker 2>to thirty minutes before eating a meal. That helps me.
<v Speaker 2>It takes care of the problem. It's take care of
<v Speaker 2>that problem for a lot of people. But I don't
<v Speaker 2>want you to be scared thinking that you can't eat
<v Speaker 2>a large meal or that you can't eat in a
<v Speaker 2>window every day just because you don't have a call better,
<v Speaker 2>because I don't foresee you having a problem we just
<v Speaker 2>don't hear about.
<v Speaker 1>That, right, And of course we know would ever tell
<v Speaker 1>anyone ignore your doctor's advice. But this is where your
<v Speaker 1>doctor might just not know about intermittent fasting. And if
<v Speaker 1>you'd asked a different doctor, you would have gotten a
<v Speaker 1>different answer.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Like, let's think about diabetes. What do they tell
<v Speaker 2>you to do eat frequent meals all day long? Well,
<v Speaker 2>that's not helping anybody's insulin resistance or diabetes.
<v Speaker 1>Right, That's the standard advice though, right, right.
<v Speaker 2>And so yet people are trying something different with fasting
<v Speaker 2>and reversing their insulin resistance and diabetes. So there's sort
<v Speaker 2>of standard advice that's given. That is sort of the
<v Speaker 2>standard advice that's giving. I would tell you to play
<v Speaker 2>around with your eating window length and composition and go
<v Speaker 2>from there.
<v Speaker 1>Be your own study of one. Yep, yep, all right.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Concerned and Confused in Atlanta. I'm often
<v Speaker 1>concerned and confused when I'm in Atlanta. It's the traffic.
<v Speaker 1>It is the traffic, the roads, the traffic, Sorry, Atlanta.
<v Speaker 2>And then I have the whole time zone thrown in,
<v Speaker 2>so the mat confuses me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, all right, Sorry, I can't stop things from coming
<v Speaker 1>out of my mouth. Sometimes we all love Atlanta, just
<v Speaker 1>not driving in it. All right. Hello to you both,
<v Speaker 1>Thank you for reading and taking the time to answer
<v Speaker 1>my question. My background leading to intermitten fasting is fairly straightforward.
<v Speaker 1>I'm a thirty five year old female currently weighing one
<v Speaker 1>hundred and seventy three pounds, with my goal weight between
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and forty five to one hundred and fifty.
<v Speaker 1>I'm five foot six and I've been practicing intermitten fasting
<v Speaker 1>since February of twenty twenty five. Prior to IF, I
<v Speaker 1>never tried to my weight before, except in annual exams. However,
<v Speaker 1>in twenty twenty three I was around one hundred and
<v Speaker 1>ninety pounds. I didn't go and twenty twenty four, and
<v Speaker 1>then by January of twenty twenty five, I was at
<v Speaker 1>my highest weight of two hundred and seventeen pounds. I
<v Speaker 1>started with the twenty eight day fast start the rip
<v Speaker 1>off the bandaid approach, and I moved to a five
<v Speaker 1>hour daily eating window pretty soon after that. I moved
<v Speaker 1>to a true ADF approach in June through September, and
<v Speaker 1>in October I went back to a daily eating window
<v Speaker 1>and the five hour window. Now to my question, I'm
<v Speaker 1>currently experiencing what I can only describe as migrain symptoms,
<v Speaker 1>and I wonder if it's fasting related. I have had
<v Speaker 1>two MRIs brain and neck in the last month or so,
<v Speaker 1>and they came back mostly normal. My primary care physicians
<v Speaker 1>specifically used the term migrain after seeing the results of
<v Speaker 1>my scan for my brain, saying there were these spots
<v Speaker 1>that appeared on my scan that can mean migrains. She
<v Speaker 1>advised me to see a neurologist. My neurologist did not
<v Speaker 1>specially state my symptoms as such, though he also can't
<v Speaker 1>say what is causing my symptoms either. My symptoms started
<v Speaker 1>at the end of July. I would get a tingling
<v Speaker 1>on the top right side of my head and it
<v Speaker 1>would then spread down to the right side of my
<v Speaker 1>face and a little of my right arm, similar sensations
<v Speaker 1>to when your footfalls asleep. The symptoms would last about
<v Speaker 1>ten seconds and then go away, but they would happen
<v Speaker 1>at all times of the day and night. My neurologists
<v Speaker 1>put me on gabba pentin at a three hundred milligram dose,
<v Speaker 1>which seemed to help for a bit but made me
<v Speaker 1>really nauseous, so I've cut those back recently. In the
<v Speaker 1>last week or so, my symptoms have increased and more
<v Speaker 1>traditional migraine symptoms, such as long headaches, sudden sharp pain, etc.
<v Speaker 1>Do you have any idea if fasting can cause migraines.
<v Speaker 1>I'm getting conflicting advice from friends and family saying fasting
<v Speaker 1>for long periods can fuel migraine symptoms. I never have
<v Speaker 1>had a history of migraines in the past, though, I
<v Speaker 1>am coming to learn that migraines are experienced in so
<v Speaker 1>many different forms for people and not really understood. Thank
<v Speaker 1>you for your help and guidance.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I have several thoughts on this. First of all,
<v Speaker 2>it is really really common for women to start getting
<v Speaker 2>migraines in their mid to late thirties, and it's because
<v Speaker 2>of hormonal fluctuations that start to occur. They really say
<v Speaker 2>that perimenopause probably starts much sooner than really that we've
<v Speaker 2>ever thought. You know, many, many women start having changes
<v Speaker 2>in their period links, heaviness, that sort of thing by
<v Speaker 2>their mid to late thirties, and they know it's hormonally driven,
<v Speaker 2>and migraines is one of those lovely things that presents
<v Speaker 2>in perimenopause for a lot of women, so you know,
<v Speaker 2>not to scare you. It doesn't mean that you're going
<v Speaker 2>to be in full blown menopause in a couple of years.
<v Speaker 2>This could take years. But what happens is you start
<v Speaker 2>to have an imbalance in progesterone and estrogen. And so
<v Speaker 2>if I was you, I would start tracking your migraines
<v Speaker 2>along with your menstrual cycles and see if you can
<v Speaker 2>find a connection between when the migraines are presenting in
<v Speaker 2>correlation with your cycle, and then the other thing. If
<v Speaker 2>I thought it was fasting specific related, I would actually
<v Speaker 2>think that you would have seen this pop up when
<v Speaker 2>you were doing ADF. Yeah, but it sounds like it's
<v Speaker 2>kind of been since you were doing ADF that this
<v Speaker 2>has popped up, and so that's why I just don't
<v Speaker 2>think it's fasting related. What we often see with fasting
<v Speaker 2>is sometimes when people have history of migraines, when they
<v Speaker 2>first start fasting before they're fat adapted, we can see
<v Speaker 2>an increase in migraine symptoms, but it's also normal for
<v Speaker 2>people just to have an increase in headaches during that time.
<v Speaker 2>But then usually what most people report to us, and
<v Speaker 2>this is just antecotal. This is what we have heard
<v Speaker 2>from people through the years is that they have a
<v Speaker 2>lot of relief in their migraines and they have far
<v Speaker 2>less migraines once they adopt in their mint fasting protocol.
<v Speaker 2>So I can't tell you one hundred percent is fasting
<v Speaker 2>effect in your migraines. Could it be an electrolyte issue?
<v Speaker 2>Are you taking a good quality magnesium every day? Magnesium
<v Speaker 2>is often used to help mitigate migraines. There's numbers out
<v Speaker 2>there that say something like seventy some percent of the
<v Speaker 2>world is magnesium deficient, so you might consider taking magnesium
<v Speaker 2>for your headaches. A lot of neurologists even there's like
<v Speaker 2>a migraine there's a website whatever, the Migraine Council, Society,
<v Speaker 2>whatever is, They have information there about magnesium for migraines.
<v Speaker 2>I would look into that, and then lastly, make sure
<v Speaker 2>you're not overhydrating in your fast, that you're not flushing
<v Speaker 2>out your minerals. And then the other thing that I
<v Speaker 2>would suggest is to monitor your blood pressure when you're
<v Speaker 2>having these migraine symptoms. And then also food sensitivities. When
<v Speaker 2>we're fasting, a lot of times people start to realize
<v Speaker 2>that there are foods that trigger them in different ways.
<v Speaker 2>So you might also when you get a migraine, look
<v Speaker 2>back and see what you've eaten that could have potentially
<v Speaker 2>triggered it. And that's the only thing that comes to
<v Speaker 2>mind as to why maybe you may have noticed it
<v Speaker 2>after ADF is now that you're eating every day. Is
<v Speaker 2>if you're eating foods that are known to trigger migraines,
<v Speaker 2>maybe you're getting them in your system more often since
<v Speaker 2>you're not eating, since you're eating every day instead of
<v Speaker 2>every other day. So that's all the little pieces that
<v Speaker 2>my brain pulls in on that. Do you think of anything, Jen, Well,
<v Speaker 2>you know.
<v Speaker 1>If you really want to see you're your own study
<v Speaker 1>of one here. You could say, I'm going to stop
<v Speaker 1>doing it ormitt and fasting for a month and see
<v Speaker 1>if I have no more migraines. But if you continue
<v Speaker 1>to have migraines, then you know it's not the fasting
<v Speaker 1>that you need to change variable to see otherwise we're
<v Speaker 1>just guessing, right, we don't know. And again, like Sherry mentioned,
<v Speaker 1>it could be hormonal. So that would give you one
<v Speaker 1>month of all the hormone fluctuations of the month, and
<v Speaker 1>you could kind of see. But again I want to
<v Speaker 1>reiterate what Sherry said, and that is, if fasting caused
<v Speaker 1>most people to have worse migraines, we would see a
<v Speaker 1>lot of that, and we don't. We see the opposite people.
<v Speaker 1>We see people saying I used to have a lot
<v Speaker 1>of migraines and now I don't. So anecdotally that's more common,
<v Speaker 1>But that doesn't mean maybe something's happening with you. Our
<v Speaker 1>bodies are unique. But the only way to test it
<v Speaker 1>would be to be your own study of one and
<v Speaker 1>do an experiment and see and if the migraines continue,
<v Speaker 1>you know it's not the fasting.
<v Speaker 2>I was gonna say too. I talked about you know
<v Speaker 2>sometimes food sensitivities can trigger migraines, and so maybe something
<v Speaker 2>has changed there for you. But then also, what have
<v Speaker 2>you cut out any foods? Have you changed the way
<v Speaker 2>you're eating where maybe you are missing some sort of
<v Speaker 2>nutrient or mineral because you've decided not to eat it anymore.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know how you eat so but like for me,
<v Speaker 2>I can just tell you I never had a migraine
<v Speaker 2>in my life until I was in my mid forties
<v Speaker 2>and I started having optical migraines. And what's interesting is,
<v Speaker 2>once I talked to my mom and told her I'd
<v Speaker 2>been having these migraines, she told me she was also
<v Speaker 2>having optical migraines in her mid forties, and they blamed
<v Speaker 2>it on hormones. And two things happened. One I started
<v Speaker 2>taking magnesium every night before bed, and two I started
<v Speaker 2>on hormone replacement therapy for my perimenopause symptoms. And since then,
<v Speaker 2>I have never had a migraine. So I one hundred
<v Speaker 2>percent believe it was hormonal slash potential electrolyte issues for me.
<v Speaker 2>So those are just some things to explore. Yeah, that's important.
<v Speaker 1>I'm glad that you brought that up because there's just
<v Speaker 1>so many variables at play, and it just coincidentally has
<v Speaker 1>started while she's fasting. Right, But maybe that's not related
<v Speaker 1>to it, because your mom wasn't fasting when she was
<v Speaker 1>having them in her forties, right.
<v Speaker 2>And See, I never even knew my mom had had migraines.
<v Speaker 1>And she didn't talk to you about it. I've never
<v Speaker 1>I don't think I've ever had a migraine. I did
<v Speaker 1>used to get headaches maybe in my late teens, very
<v Speaker 1>early twenties like cycle. Like around my period, I would
<v Speaker 1>get like.
<v Speaker 2>No, and I lie. I'm gonna lie. I lied, I do.
<v Speaker 2>I'm a liar. I didn't mean to. I will say.
<v Speaker 2>I do get migraines. I have not lost my vision
<v Speaker 2>with the migraines. I no longer have the shoes, I
<v Speaker 2>don't have auras anymore. I do get some migraines that
<v Speaker 2>take me, knock me out. I had one actually last
<v Speaker 2>week that was so bad I couldn't sleep. Now here's
<v Speaker 2>what I can pinpoint when I'm having one. I have
<v Speaker 2>been remiss in keeping up with my electrolytes, and I'm
<v Speaker 2>a person that needs a lot of electrolytes. So I
<v Speaker 2>look back and I'm like, ah, I've been really busy.
<v Speaker 2>I haven't kept up with my electrolytes this week. Your
<v Speaker 2>body lets you know, yes, absolutely so. My body is
<v Speaker 2>just so happy. I don't need cilium, I don't need
<v Speaker 2>a lunch. I did like my magnesium though.
<v Speaker 1>So all right, before we get to our tweak of
<v Speaker 1>the week, I'm really excited to talk about the new
<v Speaker 1>Fast Feast Repeat app and website. And I called it
<v Speaker 1>Fast Feast Repeat because I plan for it to be
<v Speaker 1>a library of ever growing intermittent fasting resources that I
<v Speaker 1>will consistently be adding to and updating, Like Sherry, did
<v Speaker 1>I tell you already. I'm going to eventually add a
<v Speaker 1>twenty eight day fast start to it so people can
<v Speaker 1>work through the twenty eight day fast start. So I
<v Speaker 1>know that's coming. That's later on my agenda. It's not
<v Speaker 1>there yet, But I am most excited about the eat
<v Speaker 1>like a grown up program that's in there. So if
<v Speaker 1>you're somebody who struggles with eating, if you think there's
<v Speaker 1>some room for improvement in how you're eating, or you
<v Speaker 1>know that there's room for improvement but you don't know
<v Speaker 1>where to begin, or if you are super confused about
<v Speaker 1>what to eat in general, then to eat like a
<v Speaker 1>grown up program is absolutely for you. And if you
<v Speaker 1>know me, you know that dietary perfection is not required
<v Speaker 1>because who could do that?
<v Speaker 2>Not me?
<v Speaker 1>Who wants to definitely not me? Grown Ups have dessert sometimes,
<v Speaker 1>they don't need a pint of ice cream every night. Right,
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna eat our vegetables like Grandma did. We're going
<v Speaker 1>to make home cooked meals, and we're going to do
<v Speaker 1>it in the format is such that for the grown
<v Speaker 1>up year fifty two weeks to listen, play, and nourish.
<v Speaker 1>Every week you have a video and the video gives
<v Speaker 1>you the focus for the week. We talk about science,
<v Speaker 1>I pull in the research why we're doing this, and
<v Speaker 1>then every week we have a mission and in the mission,
<v Speaker 1>we have a place where we're going to listen, we're
<v Speaker 1>going to play, we're going to nourish. We're listening to
<v Speaker 1>our bodies. We're playing with our food. We're nourishing our
<v Speaker 1>our bodies, and yes we're eating like a grown up,
<v Speaker 1>but we're also playing with our food and having a
<v Speaker 1>lot of fun. So you complete the mission, it might
<v Speaker 1>be just you know, like one week we're adding it.
<v Speaker 1>We're trying to get to thirty plant foods that week,
<v Speaker 1>which is also an ongoing challenge that you could continue
<v Speaker 1>to do. There's a community component. It's not quite as
<v Speaker 1>robust as our regular delayed on Tonight community, but it's
<v Speaker 1>a place for you to go and share your mission,
<v Speaker 1>share what you're doing, share your recipes, interact with one another.
<v Speaker 1>I'm really expecting it's going to be a lot of fun.
<v Speaker 1>So there are two ways you can find us. You
<v Speaker 1>can go to app dot fast Feast, Repeat dot com
<v Speaker 1>to join it. That was appapp dot fast Feast Repeat
<v Speaker 1>dot com, or you can go to the app store
<v Speaker 1>and download the Fast Feast Repeat app, which is available
<v Speaker 1>now for both iPhone and Android. There's also a link
<v Speaker 1>in the show notes. And again, I am really excited
<v Speaker 1>about this. This is not just something for people who
<v Speaker 1>are in a and fasters. This is for everybody. And
<v Speaker 1>you can also, Sherry, I'm like, with Circle, you can
<v Speaker 1>buy gift subscriptions for people, gift members show love that
<v Speaker 1>I know, and that's right there on the website. It's
<v Speaker 1>really easy to do. It's down there, I think, at
<v Speaker 1>the bottom, and it's just it's so much easier to
<v Speaker 1>manage your subscription. Just say I don't I'm not saying
<v Speaker 1>that out loud. Ignore that. But that's a whole different platform.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, think about it as like a little
<v Speaker 1>Netflix kind of streaming site, because that's really the platform
<v Speaker 1>that it's built on. Is designed to be kind of
<v Speaker 1>like that. Lots and lots of videos. Every video I
<v Speaker 1>ever make will be on there. And so, like I said,
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to be continuing to add intermittent fasting resources,
<v Speaker 1>but I think everybody could benefit from the grown up
<v Speaker 1>Year fifty two weeks to listen play in Nourish. And
<v Speaker 1>it's not like we're going to have a starting point
<v Speaker 1>in a stopping point. We're all going to be in
<v Speaker 1>a different place, but you'll be able to connect with
<v Speaker 1>people all along the way. And I'm really excited about it.
<v Speaker 2>I'm excited too.
<v Speaker 1>So it's time for our tweak of the week. I
<v Speaker 1>always say, tweak it till it's easy, But the tweak
<v Speaker 1>that works for me might not be the one that
<v Speaker 1>works for you. That's why it's super helpful to hear
<v Speaker 1>how other intermittent fasters are making intermittent fasting work for them.
<v Speaker 1>And this is from Christy in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She said,
<v Speaker 1>you might not believe that people like me exist, but
<v Speaker 1>I assure you we do. I have never put myself
<v Speaker 1>on a diet in my life. I've never counted a
<v Speaker 1>calorie in my life. I've always had a healthy relationship
<v Speaker 1>with food. My favorite foods are mostly Mediterranean diet style meals,
<v Speaker 1>but I indulge in richer foods when I want to,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't feel bad about it. I've never felt
<v Speaker 1>a moment of guilt about anything I've ever eaten. And oh,
<v Speaker 1>my Lord Christy, I love that. I wish that was
<v Speaker 1>true for me. As you can see, I don't have
<v Speaker 1>a lot of the initial hang ups of diet brain
<v Speaker 1>that many intermittent fasters do when they're first starting. My
<v Speaker 1>weakness tends to be that I have a fatalistic approach
<v Speaker 1>to my health, that I do what I can, but
<v Speaker 1>some things just can't be helped. I started gaining weight
<v Speaker 1>the quickest after I returned to work at a full
<v Speaker 1>time desk job a couple of years after my youngest
<v Speaker 1>was born. I was forty one at the time, so
<v Speaker 1>on top of suddenly becoming very sedentary, my metabolism started
<v Speaker 1>slowing down because of my age. I sat at a
<v Speaker 1>desk for nine hours and then spent most of my
<v Speaker 1>evenings driving my four kids to their various evening activities.
<v Speaker 1>I had no idea where I was supposed to squeeze
<v Speaker 1>in some exercise. I think sometime in twenty twenty or
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty one, our health insurance offered a free program
<v Speaker 1>for people who were at risk of developing type two diabetes.
<v Speaker 1>Since both of my parents have type two, and since
<v Speaker 1>I was slightly obese by that point, I applied to
<v Speaker 1>the program. And was accepted. The program puts you into
<v Speaker 1>a community and assigns a coach to your group, who
<v Speaker 1>sends you weekly classes and will answer your questions and
<v Speaker 1>give you advice. When I introduced myself to the group,
<v Speaker 1>I remember telling them that my one and only concern
<v Speaker 1>was how to fit exercise into my day. I was
<v Speaker 1>disappointed when almost the entire coaching lessons were about eating
<v Speaker 1>healthy food, something I was already doing. In fact, I
<v Speaker 1>don't even really have much of a sweet tooth, and
<v Speaker 1>I actually had a sugar aversion during my last pregnancy,
<v Speaker 1>which has stayed with me to some extent thirteen years later.
<v Speaker 1>I don't crave sugar. I eat it minimally. Sometimes the
<v Speaker 1>thought of it makes me feel sick. Anyway, I would
<v Speaker 1>send pictures of my meals to the coach, who told
<v Speaker 1>me everything I ate was wonderful and the only suggestion
<v Speaker 1>she could think of was to maybe switch to a
<v Speaker 1>cauliflower crust on the few times I ate pizza, which
<v Speaker 1>will never happen, especially if I'm sharing the pizza with
<v Speaker 1>other family members. You know what, though, I'm with you
<v Speaker 1>on that, Christy, I'm not going to eat a cauliflower
<v Speaker 1>crust pizza so let's see where was I To me,
<v Speaker 1>this clearly meant my food was not the issue, but
<v Speaker 1>rather the lack of exercise. Fast forward to ga January
<v Speaker 1>of twenty twenty three, I was diagnosed with early stage
<v Speaker 1>breast cancer. I had a lumpectomy and continue to be
<v Speaker 1>cancer free since then, Thank the Lord. The cancer was
<v Speaker 1>hormone fed, not a genetic issue, so I'm on an
<v Speaker 1>anti hormonal pill for five years, one of the side
<v Speaker 1>effects being weight gain. Also, my oncologist kept emphasizing the
<v Speaker 1>importance of exercise in helping to keep myselves healthy. So
<v Speaker 1>if there was ever a time to figure out a
<v Speaker 1>way to exercise, now was the time. I figured it
<v Speaker 1>was the only way I'd ever lose weight. I started
<v Speaker 1>with small things. I'd use the furthest away restroom at work,
<v Speaker 1>which had me walking five hundred steps rather than the
<v Speaker 1>fifty steps to the closest ressroom. I'd also drink more
<v Speaker 1>water so that I had to use the restroom more.
<v Speaker 1>If I was in a waiting room, I'd pace rather
<v Speaker 1>than sit. I would take the stairs instead of the elevator.
<v Speaker 1>I walked during my lunch break. Still, the weight crept up.
<v Speaker 1>In January of twenty twenty five, I realized I had
<v Speaker 1>to do more. I bought my off a gym membership,
<v Speaker 1>and I did water aerobics three to four times a
<v Speaker 1>week for an hour after work. In the summer, I
<v Speaker 1>found an outdoor pool near my work, so I'd go
<v Speaker 1>five days a week during my lunch hour and then
<v Speaker 1>an hour after work and do more water aerobics. I
<v Speaker 1>know there was some mild body recomposition going on because
<v Speaker 1>of this, but I actually refused to step on the
<v Speaker 1>scale through the following eight months because if weight loss
<v Speaker 1>was happening, I wasn't really seeing it, and all of
<v Speaker 1>my clothes were still fitting. The one stupid change I
<v Speaker 1>noticed was that I had to take a link out
<v Speaker 1>of my watch, exactly what I was going for a
<v Speaker 1>skinnier wrist hop. I complained to my sister about it
<v Speaker 1>one day, and she asked me if i'd checked the
<v Speaker 1>scale since January, and when I told her I hadn't,
<v Speaker 1>she said that I should because she thought she could
<v Speaker 1>see improvement. Well, I followed her advice, and indeed the
<v Speaker 1>scale had changed. I was two pounds heavier than I
<v Speaker 1>had been eight months prior. Muscle always more than fat
<v Speaker 1>YadA YadA, who cares. I was five foot two and
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and ninety one pounds and only getting heavier
<v Speaker 1>in spite of a good diet and exercise. I was
<v Speaker 1>walking back into work one day from my lunchtime pool
<v Speaker 1>workout and complained to a coworker about my issue. Then
<v Speaker 1>I asked, what did you do to lose your weight?
<v Speaker 1>She had returned from COVID with some significant weight loss.
<v Speaker 1>That's when I heard the magic words intermittent fasting. She
<v Speaker 1>loaned me fast feast to repeat and told me that
<v Speaker 1>weight loss had been easy doing if I started that
<v Speaker 1>same day. In all truth, I skimmed over the chapter
<v Speaker 1>that talked about ADF because I couldn't imagine what kind
<v Speaker 1>of idiot would choose to not eat for a whole
<v Speaker 1>day when they could eat every day instead. I get
<v Speaker 1>it at the beginning that sounds crazy, So she said,
<v Speaker 1>I figured I'd start easy with sixteen eight. From there,
<v Speaker 1>I found it quite easy to switch to eighteen six
<v Speaker 1>or even twenty four. I was really trying to listen
<v Speaker 1>to my hunger and satiety signals, which usually ended up
<v Speaker 1>being more of a one meal a day protocol rather
<v Speaker 1>than an eating window. One meal would fill me up.
<v Speaker 1>In September of twenty twenty five, we took a vacation
<v Speaker 1>with my sister and her husband to the UK. I
<v Speaker 1>fasted for the first four days, but then I found
<v Speaker 1>myself wanting to enjoy the foods everyone else was having
<v Speaker 1>in the morning think scones, strawberry jam, clotted cream, British
<v Speaker 1>sausages and eggs and toast. Plus the timing of when
<v Speaker 1>others were eating didn't line up when I wanted to eat,
<v Speaker 1>so I decided to stop fasting for the rest of
<v Speaker 1>my vacation. My sister told me two things. One we'd
<v Speaker 1>be doing a lot of walking, and two I would
<v Speaker 1>probably lose weight even with eating normally because of all
<v Speaker 1>the walking. Well she was right about one of those things.
<v Speaker 1>We did do a lot of walking. We averaged over
<v Speaker 1>one hundred thousand steps a week. My dear husband, when
<v Speaker 1>we got back, said, well, I think I probably lost
<v Speaker 1>five to ten pounds on that vacation. How much did
<v Speaker 1>you lose? I looked back at him after stepping on
<v Speaker 1>the scale and exclaimed almost one pound. Darned those anti
<v Speaker 1>hormonal pills. Well, I wasn't concerned about those two weeks
<v Speaker 1>because I knew I would start right back up with
<v Speaker 1>fasting again. One thing we learned in e was that
<v Speaker 1>the Brits enjoy their Sunday roast meals, and I decided
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to start adopting that into our lives. The meat,
<v Speaker 1>the roast of potatoes, the veggies, the Yorkshire puddings, the
<v Speaker 1>red onion gravy. I decided I was going to shift
<v Speaker 1>my window on Sundays so that the family could all
<v Speaker 1>enjoy a Sunday roast together. The Friday before that, we
<v Speaker 1>were having a pot look at work, which I knew
<v Speaker 1>meant I couldn't wait until my normal two PM to eat,
<v Speaker 1>and it was important to participate for team bonding. So
<v Speaker 1>that week I decided I would try ADF. I feasted
<v Speaker 1>at work Friday for the potluck, I fasted on sund
<v Speaker 1>on Saturday, and then I had my Sunday roast. So
<v Speaker 1>EIGHTYF the section of the book i'd skimmed over before,
<v Speaker 1>the idea that had been addressed on the Fast Seat
<v Speaker 1>Repeat podcast that I was listening to every day on
<v Speaker 1>my lunchtime walks. Suddenly I understood how and why it worked.
<v Speaker 1>A light bulb went off in my brain and I
<v Speaker 1>realized that with my one maial of a day protocol,
<v Speaker 1>I really wasn't eating enough calories every day, usually five
<v Speaker 1>hundred or less day after day, because I really wasn't
<v Speaker 1>feeling hungry. Well. When I finally realized what ADF was,
<v Speaker 1>it became obvious that this was going to be the
<v Speaker 1>choice for me. For three weeks now, I've been doing
<v Speaker 1>the five hundred calorie down day, and then I follow
<v Speaker 1>it with a full feast day. When I get up
<v Speaker 1>and eat in the morning, it's much easier to wake
<v Speaker 1>up my appetite to continue the rest of the day
<v Speaker 1>and get enough calories so that I'm not stalling my metabolism.
<v Speaker 1>Yesterday I completed my first down day. I woke up
<v Speaker 1>this morning three point three pounds lighter than the day before.
<v Speaker 1>I had a delicious latte, the best sour dough, toast, avocado,
<v Speaker 1>fried egg, arugula. So now I'm counting calories for the
<v Speaker 1>first time in my life, not to restrict them, but
<v Speaker 1>to make sure I'm getting enough. I feel downright euphoric
<v Speaker 1>about this. Feast days are a joy, and fast days
<v Speaker 1>are their own kind of joy because I know the
<v Speaker 1>good it's doing my body. I bought my first pair
<v Speaker 1>of next size down pants yesterday. I've lost twenty pounds
<v Speaker 1>in three months, and I've lost two inches, and now
<v Speaker 1>I know that intermittent fasting is apparently the only way
<v Speaker 1>I will ever lose weight. There is no stopping me.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure I'll wake up tomorrow and my weight will
<v Speaker 1>be slightly increased from my feast to day, But since
<v Speaker 1>I'll be fasting again the next day, I'm not the
<v Speaker 1>least bit concerned. Changing to Ada has been the tweak
<v Speaker 1>that has worked for me, and I absolutely love it.
<v Speaker 1>I love it me too.
<v Speaker 2>This week, to close, we have a motivational quote from
<v Speaker 2>Mickey in Colorado. Mickey wrote, have you heard of the
<v Speaker 2>turtle theory? Turtles don't rush, Turtles don't panic, Turtles don't
<v Speaker 2>care who's ahead of them. They just keep swimming when
<v Speaker 2>stroke at a time, through chaos, through calm, and somehow
<v Speaker 2>they always make it to shore. Because speed means nothing
<v Speaker 2>when your journey is built on patients. You don't need
<v Speaker 2>to sprint, You just need to stay in motion. Slow
<v Speaker 2>progress is still progress, and peace will always outlast pressure.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not sure who the original author is, but I
<v Speaker 2>read this on a Facebook page and I wanted to
<v Speaker 2>share it.
<v Speaker 1>I love that, and you know it makes me think
<v Speaker 1>of that fable we've all heard so many times, the
<v Speaker 1>tortoise and the hair. That tortoise wins that race while
<v Speaker 1>the hair is all screwing around over there. Yep, thanks
<v Speaker 1>so much for listening today. We would love to have
<v Speaker 1>you join us in the Delayed on Tonight community, where
<v Speaker 1>you can interact with both me and Sherry plus the
<v Speaker 1>most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere. Go
<v Speaker 1>to Jenstevens dot com slash community to join us.
<v Speaker 2>Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to your favorite
<v Speaker 2>podcast app, and if you haven't already, please leave us
<v Speaker 2>a five star review that helps new listeners find the
<v Speaker 2>show and we really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 1>We are a community driven podcast, so to submit your
<v Speaker 1>success stories, your questions, your favorite tweak it till It's
<v Speaker 1>Easy moments, or anything else you want us to share
<v Speaker 1>on the podcast, go to that Just Feast Repeat dot
<v Speaker 1>com slash submit and then listen each week to see
<v Speaker 1>if we share your submission or answer your question until
<v Speaker 1>next week.
<v Speaker 2>Thanks for listening. This podcast was edited by Resonate Recordings