Episode 50: Listening to Your Body, Inflammation, Too Much Coffee?, Summer, and More

Welcome the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens, author
of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat, and I'm Sherry Bullock,
longtime intermittent faster and health and wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this
podcast is for educational and motivational purposes only and is not intended to provide medical
or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are not doctors, so make sure to
check with your trusted healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes to
any medical treatments or medications. Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an experienced
intermittent faster, tune in each week to get inspired, to learn, and
to have some fun along the way. Hi, everybody, we are so
glad you're here today. Welcome to this week's episode of the Fast Feast Repeat
Intermittent Fasting for Life Podcast. How are you doing today, Cherry, I'm
hanging in there. Cherry's not at her best. Chrey's not at her best
today. Yeah. I've been back like a uti for two weeks and I
kind of thought I was going to go away and it did not hit me
really really hard today so I've only had one UTI ever. It was twenty
twelve, twenty thirteen, something like that. It was before I was an
intermittent, faster, only one I've ever had. Of course, I was
out of town, and of course, of course that's when they used to
hit me. I haven't had one. Probably. I was trying to think
of, like where I worked at the time when I last had one,
and it's probably been at least eighteen years since I've had one. I was
on a teacher trip, so like I was there with like friends and colleagues
that taught with me. We were at the University of Connecticut for a gifted
conference, and I was like, I don't know what to do, but
luckily the teachers that were with me do what to do. But they're miserable.
So anyone who has them a lot, I'm really oh, yeah,
I feel for you. Yeah. So anyways, hopefully they're kind of concerned.
It could be like maybe a little kidney stone, but we'll see.
I don't really think that's it. I've never had a kidney stone and I
will not excruciating pain. Good, So yeah, we're going to hope that's
not it. Well, I have exciting news and that is that I have
finally started revising Delayed on tonight. I know, I saw that news yesterday
the community. I was so shocked. Well, if needed to do it,
but it felt daunting. And you know, I had other books to
write because after I write Fast Us Repete, then I had a two book
deal and then I wrote Cleanage that I write twenty eight day Fast Art Day
by day. So I was like under contract to write those books, and
so delayed on Deny I just stay on the back burner because I had other
projects I was working on. So now that after I finished twenty eight day
Fast Art Day by Day, I keep looking at Delay Do Deny. And
people love that book. For some books their favorite one they do. Some
people don't want the science a fascinating so much. They just want to know
kind of the bare bones how to do it? Yeah, why to do
it? And they like to read the personal They like the personal connection of
that book. I think, well, it's still selling every day, people
are still buying it, and there's some stuff in there, Like every time
people are buying it, I'm like, oh, there's some advice that really
needs to be different, Like I was looking at it today you know,
we didn't use the words clean fast and like the fasting what to Drink while
You're fasting chapter is like a miss a train wreck. Yes, it is
a train right, because remember I wrote it in twenty sixteen, right,
and we continued to refine over the years based on feedback from people. It's
not we didn't just make it up. It's based on feedback and data becoming
battle thousands of people who have tried it all different ways, so we have
a lot of anecdotal data that we can use to figure out the clean fast
anyway. And the success stories, bless their hearts everyone who shared their success
story and delayed on Deny, I'm very grateful for that. But it was
before delayed on Deny I had been written. So it's just like a collection
of stories from people who were doing random kinds of fasting that may or may
not actually be what I would recommend. A lot of them are not what
I would recommend. So what I'm really excited about is before I wrote twenty
eight day fast Art day by day, we were thinking I was going to
do a book called Intermittent Fasting Stories that would just be a collection of stories,
and I don't know, I just was like, I don't know if
I want a whole book of just that, but I got to write another
book, and then twenty eight day fast Art Day by Day came to me,
and I'm like, this is what we need. This is the book
we need right now. And I'm really really glad because that is the book
we needed. But in the back part of Delight on Deny, I'm going
to call that section intermittent Fasting Stories. Love it. Yeah, So it's
going to have stories from people who actually fast and clean, followed good suggestions.
They're not going to give weird advice because they're just randomly fasting. So
and I know a lot more now. Well, you know, back in
twenty fifteen, that's really when intermittent fasting was really just kind of coming on
the scene, right and people really start talking about it. They started doing
it, but I feel like their exposure to it came from more extreme fasting
methods. There were extremes time, so these people were introduced it from these
kind of extreme fasting methods, but then like they knew in their heart that
wasn't like sustainable, so they were looking for a more sustainable version of fasting.
And then over time, I just felt like that's kind of evolved to
what we're doing today, right, sort of a daily intermittent fasting approach.
It's evolved, and it's been interesting to watch it evolve over that time.
It has been interesting to watch and to see people who were early on like
doing really extreme types of fascining. Peter Atilla comes to mind, right,
he was doing really extreme types of fasting and it was all in. People
were chasing autopogy back then, right, you know, because twenty sixteen is
when we all finally heard about autopogy, so everybody's chasing it there. Well,
if it's good, then I need to do a five day fast once
a month or something. And then over time people were really so good.
Yeah, no, maybe not. And you know, I was watching something.
Doctor E was being interviewed on a YouTube. The YouTube to me this
morning, they know what I like, but he was being interviewed about,
you know, satiety and all of that, and again he was talking about
the bulletproof coffee, the butter coffee, and like, oops, don't do
that. You know who was that Doctor E, diet doctor, and felt,
yeah, he's name I'm always say wrong, yes, but yeah,
he was talking about turns out that's like not low. I want this society
and actually right right because they take other things in mind, like calorie density.
For example, you want satiety, but not having five thousand calories to
get it right, right, right anyway, So I'm really excited about refreshing
this book. I'm not sure about the timetable's going to look like because I'm
giving my publisher first DIBs to think about publishing it, but I still might
keep it myself and re self publish it. Yeah, because they're saying things
like changing the cover and changing the whatever. I don't know what I think
about it having another cover right anyway, we'll see, and it takes a
lot while longer for someone else to do it versus Oh, it definitely does.
I don't know what will happen we're talking about it, but time will
tell. I'm going to start gathering the stories soon, so for everybody who's
on my email list, look for that. I'll be asking you to submit
your story. That's exciting anyway, I really really am excited because I was
looking at it today. I do love this book. The few parts that
make my friend. You've talked about this for years, but it's a year.
It's been on the back burner exactly exactly, and you know, it's
a lot of effort, and I have to rerecord the audiobook honestly, honest
to god, that's the main reason I haven't updated it because I have to
do both. Yeah, recording an audiobook is hard. I'm like, it's
really easy to update a paperback and the Kimbell version, but the audiobook takes
a whole lot of effort. Yeah, that's what's been holding me back because
recording an audiobook hard. Anyway. You know, you said something about satiety,
and it made me think I have had this experience for years. But
you know when like you think, oh, that can't be it. It's
got to be something different. But then you know it keeps hitting you in
the face over and over again, and eventually you're like, Okay, I
got to pay attention to this. Crazy I don't understand how the bodies work.
You would think that my body would recognize protein as protein as protein,
right. I made this beautiful dish this weekend to take to work, and
it was like wild caught sccky salmon and some whole grains with some chickpeas in
it. And kale, and I put some dates in it and some almonds,
and I made it all from scratch, kind of. Some of my
Green Chef Pass meals were inspiring it. And for years now, I'm like,
I can't eat salmon because it makes me hungry. Yeah, I'm not
satisfied after I eat it. But that's what I took to work this weekend.
And when I'm at work, I'm kind of captive. Whatever I take
to eat is what I have to eat. I have no other options.
And I was so dang hungry. You knew it weekend long that I never
do this, But when I got off work at seven o'clock in the morning
Sunday morning to go to bed, I was so deep in my soul hungry
that I ended up eating a handful of mixed nuts in the middle of my
fast. But I was like, I have got to sleep today and I
cannot fight hunger while I'm sleeping. And then, yeah, I woke up
at noon and I was starving, and of course what did I have to
eat that night the same meal? So yesterday I was starving, And yesterday
afternoon I opened and I had a steak. Like my body was just like
I need beef, and I had a steak and some broccoli and a salad,
and then I closed my window because I was very satisfied. But at
like seven o'clock last night, I was starving and I told Eric, and
I'm like, my window has been closed for four hours, but I'm so
tired of being hungry. I've been hungry for three days. Did you reopen
I did? I reopened. I ended up having like a six and a
half hour window yesterday because I reopened it. So my fasting has been like
a mess for the last three days. And it's all because I ate salmon.
And I don't know how to explain it, but now I get it.
For people who are new to fasting and listening to your body, it
sounds crazy, but that happened to me last week. Cherry. You know,
I go to Trivia on Thursdays, and I had been eating there,
but it's pub food, and I was tired of eating pub food, so
I was like, I'm just gonna eat before I go. So for several
weeks in a row, I just ate before I went. And I've been
eating mostly plant based, mostly not one hundred percent obviously, but mostly so
I had a lovely plant based meal. I mean, I had a full
meal at home, right okay before trivia, and then it was like some
kind of nochi with all these good vegetables in there. And then I was
going to have a soft pretzel, which you know that's usually enough for an
eating window. And so I get there and I ordered my soft pretzel.
Then I was like, oh, that doesn't sound like what I want.
But someone next to me ordered a patty milk, and I'm like, that
sounds like what I want. But I literally had not had beef in a
couple of weeks. So I'm sitting there and I ate my pretzel and I'm
like, I am hungry. I also am going to have a cheeseburger.
So I said, I will also have a cheeseburger, and I ate the
whole thing. And then my body went, ah, yeah, well that's
me after I had that stake yesterday, and you know, I've kind of
learned this lesson over and over again. But then I talked myself out to
it. I'm like, that's not possible. It's protein, it's right,
I should be fine, and it just doesn't satisfy me and stick with me
the way A heavier piece of meat does, and I like the last time
I made it, I actually had it kind of as a window opener.
I had like a piece of salmon with something maybe like a little salad or
something, and I treated it as a window opener instead of a meal.
And if I'm going to get my healthy omega threes in, apparently that's what
I have to do. It cannot be my main meal. So well,
this is just an example of listening to your body, right, because I
could have told myself I had plenty to eat. I had an entire full
meal and then I had a soft pretzel and then that was enough. That
was enough, But my body said, no, you are still hungry.
So I went ahead and I just ate a whole nother meal and then I
felt so good. I didn't feel overly full or stuff, and my body
was really really happy. So, you know, thinking back the NOOKI didn't
have a lot of protein in it. It was you know, these potato
pasta and then it had some vegetables in it. So I really hadn't had
a lot of protein that day, and my body let me know I didn't
have to count any protein. My body told me that that well, I
thought of you, because when I got up and decided to make something to
eat, I ended up making a baked potato. I was like, Jind
would be so proud of me. But I love it so great. Last
night I had the best sleep score on my oil ring that I've had in
forever. I think potatoes are like really, I'm not talking about French fries
or potato chips, but baked potatoes or I love to make roasted potatoes.
Cut them up. Oh, my new secret is I boiled them a little
bit first. Do you do that and I'm doing like potato wedges or something.
Nope, this makes such a difference. It makes them so much better.
There's sauce that takes the starch out of it. It makes the soft
so that they're soft inside. You know, if you ever had like thick
steak fries, you know they're nice and soft on the inside. I just
that, Oh I like it. That's what I want. Potatoes, Okay,
I like my crispy but soft in the middle. Oh no, so
what I'll like French fries? Okay, all right, So I cut mine
up to whatever shape I want them to be. It could be any shape,
whether you want wedges or like a French fry, and then you just
boil them, not till they're falling apart, but just boil them. Parboil
and I guess would be the word for it. And then you toss them
in olive oil and salt, put them on the pean, roast them in
the oven until they've got the right outside look that you want them to have,
and they're perfect. Okay. I just realized while talking to you,
this is the problem with potatoes in my house. What. I dice them
really small when I roast them, so they get crispy. Okay, and
Eric doesn't like roasted potatoes. But Eric doesn't like crispy food. He likes
soft food. So I just have this epiphany I should cook his one way
and mine a different. There you go, there you go. But boiling
them first to get them softened up and roasting it makes a huge difference.
I learned that from whatever they're like smashed. I can't remember what the wood
is, but when then they smashed me anyway, and I was like,
this is really gonna change everything, And it does anyhow, all right,
potatoes, So everybody, that was our lesson on listening to your body and
if you are starving, and your body is food focused like mine couldn't stop
looking at her burger and thinking about meat. Sherry knew she needed something else.
And I didn't say, oh I failed my window. Oh I write
No, I'd listened to my body and that was a victory. And you
did too, even though you had to have some I'd of been rigid and
then like, nope, my windows closed. I've already closed it. But
I mean, your body knows if you're starving, if you're hungry, you
know when you're really truly hungry. I closed my window pretty early. I've
had it, started having an earlier window. And there are times that I
go to bed hungry, but it's just kind of a dull like I could
eat, you know what I mean. It's like I could eat, but
I'm fine. But this was it's like true hunger. Yeah, oh I
have I get it. Don't ignore that. That's your body saying, hey,
remember me, I need some more nutrition right now. Yeah. And
if you're craving something, listen, especially if you're craving protein. If your
body is like all of a sudden craving meat or protein, that's a sign
you probably need more. That's the protein leverage hypothesis and listen to it.
All right, Well, let's move on to this week's celebration, and today
we have a celebration from Kathy in Alberta. She said, I want to
take a moment and thank you Bo so much for your passion and straightforward advice
on fasting. I am in my early forties and a healthy weight, but
like most people, maintaining a healthy weight seems to get harder each year that
goes by. I had closed the door on fasting for myself, having had
some negative experiences with it in the past, feelings of low blood sugar,
intense hunger, headaches, low energy, et cetera. I enjoy working out
in the morning, and I was convinced that would be impossible on an empty
stomach. Despite all the research indicating the benefits, I decided that fasting was
just not right for me. Fast forward a few years. I was recently
listening to Jen speak on the Zoe podcast. I listened skeptically, but your
enthusiasm kept me interested. One tip you gave would make all the difference for
me. While fasting, only drink plain water. This was new information to
me. I had been told that lemon water flavored water were fine while fasting,
but when I think back, these tended to trigger hunger for me in
the past. And can I jump in and say that she's meaning that if
you're gonna have water, of course what you are during fasting, your water
must be plain. That's not the only thing you can have all fasting.
Obviously you can have black coffee, plain tea, but your water must be
plain. I just wanted to re emphasize that. All right, no lemon,
no flavored, et cetera. Okay, So she says, you know
that that triggered hunger for her. She says, you also said, very
matter of fact that all of your workouts are fasted. That opened me up
to possibility. Inspired by your words, I decided to give I have one
more try. I started with a modest goal of a daily fourteen hour fast.
I was shocked to discover that fourteen hours easily stretched to sixteen hours while
keeping my workout routine the same. I have learned that water only is key
for me, because even black tea triggers hunger. So I gave up that
morning habit. It has only been three weeks, but I feel amazing.
I am blown away by the increase in energy, better focus, better sleep,
and much less hunger. Overall, I find I am checking the clockless
for when I can open my window, and I plan to stretch it to
eighteen hours, all in good time. Truly, I would not have ventured
back on this journey if not for Jin's simple and supportive advice. I can
definitely see myself doing this for life. Craving more conversation on the topic,
I was thrilled to find your podcast, Jin and Cherry. You are both
so fun and informative and keep me inspired. Thank you so much. Well
that makes me so kathy. Yeah, I love to be on the Zoe
podcast, even though watching it briefly, I look like my grandmother. It
was a bad angle. Did I tell you that already? No. I
saw a little bit of it on Instagram. I'm like, oh lord,
I can't look at that. But you know how you have like a good
angle to bad angle, and you know what it is. When they sat
me on that stage, I was like, all right, this is going
to be my bad angle. Oh well, that's so funny you say that
because I just saw a picture of my grandma from the early nineteen seventies and
when I saw the picture. It was this last night, and I was
like, oh, my gosh, do I look like her. I've never
found my grandmother to be an attractive woman. And I saw that picture and
I'm like, I feel like I might look like my grandma. And I
turned to Eric and I said, this is my grandma when she was about
my age. I said, I feel like I might look like her.
And he said, oh, you do look a lot like her. Your
grandmother was really beautiful. Oh that's so sweet. Thank you for saying that,
because he thinks you're beautiful. Right, he thinks you're beautiful. You
look like her, She's beautiful. I love that. But yeah, funny,
my face is going to do just that's what my grandmama Calhoun's face did.
I mean, it's gonna do it. That is what it is.
We our faces, our jeans, it's our genes. And I saw it
just from the sun. I'm like, oh, that's my grandmama Calhoun's face.
Anyway. But I love being on that podcast because I do think there
are a lot of people out there that think they can't faster. They don't
like it because they were not fast and clean. I really think that's the
thing everybody, the more we can get that message out, that's the message.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the thing that's really interesting is
how many people will come into the community and they say almost the exact same
thing that she said. Is like, oh, I tried fasting several years
ago and it was really hard and I felt awful. And they were having
bulletproof coffee because they had read that that's good and it gets you into katosis
and it helps you burn fat and whatever, and nothing could convince them other
ways. So they kept the bulletproof coffee and didn't fast, and then they
for whatever reason, were swayed to clean fast and they tried it. And
what they almost always say is or the other thing is is they'll say,
I've continued to fast with bulletproof coffee, but I've seen this and that,
and now I want to try it clean. But it's harder. The clean
is harder. Yes at first, yes, yeah, a few weeks,
But then if you can commence them to push through that first few weeks,
then they're like, I mean, they're one over everybody who switches from not
a clean fast to a clean fast once their body gets in the rhythm and
adapts to it. That you were not fasting before you were having a liquid
meal. Bulletproof coffee is a liquid meal just because it's liquid and somebody says
they could have it. That doesn't make your body. You can't fool your
body anyway. Melted butter is still butter. So yeah, So if you're
listening and you have not been converted to the clean fast yet, just take
the clean Fast challenge. Yeah. Do It'll give yourself a month. Especially
if you feel bad at first, you'd be like, Oh, my body
really is learning how to do something new. That's a sign Ooh I need
to push through this. So all right, So now we have a question
from a listener. This question is from Lynn in Montana. She says,
I'm three months new to the intermittent fasting lifestyle and happy to be here.
I find the support community is essential in my journey, so hooray to all
of us. I have two questions. First, what is this inflammation you
mentioned so often? I understand fat loss and water loss, but I can't
get my brain around inflammation. Next question, what are the benefits of coffee?
I remember all the over the counterweight loss pills had caffeine as one of
their main ingredients with their claims of more energy and you won't feel hungry,
and then the prescribed diet pills went further down the speed lane. Don't get
me wrong, I love black coffee, and I know I'm addicted to my
morning caffeine. I just wonder if there are additional benefits to coffee when it
comes to fasting. I find I'm drinking more coffee now than before, and
I know eventually need to cut back. Spoiler alert, No you don't.
That was just me, You don't. We'll get to that. She said.
Love listening to your podcasts, and I love asking questions in the community.
All right, well I'm gonna tackle inflammation. I'll let you tackle coffee.
How about okay? Tag team this one? Perfect? Okay. So
inflammation, that's kind of my thing. I have really done a lot of
research and inflammation just because it's a driver of disease. So when you're sick
or you have an injury, your body creates inflammation as a way to heal
that. Basically, you know, think of covid. We know covid is
in a very very inflammatory illness, but that like the virus is causing all
this inflammation in your body. And then that inflammation just kind of stays there
and hangs around for a long time. We know that about that, but
there are people like I would love to see a percentage that are just running
around with low grade chronic inflammation all the time. And this is completely a
lifestyle issue. This is an injury, this is an illness, This is
just lifestyle as well as if you're overweight, this was a fun fact at
a post tissue, your fat actually releases pro inflammatory cydikins, which are molecules
that actually create more inflammation. So you're in this kind of vicious cycle where
you know, maybe you haven't made good lifestyle choices and then you are overweight,
and then being overweight causes more inflammation. So if you do nothing else,
even if you can change your lifestyle choices, then eventually that inflammation will
start to recede. Once you start to lose weight, then you can reduce
that inflammation as well. You know why is inflammation bad? Well, Chronic
low grade inflammation is linked to cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, cancer,
chronic pain, arthritis, type two diabetes, anxiety, depression, autoimmune disease,
dementia. The list just goes on and on. So factors you can
control include diet, smoking, exercise, sleep, alcohol, and then taking
care of any persistent viral and bacterial infections. And what comes to mind for
me is oral health. A lot of people have low grade kind of chronic
infections in their mouth or even in their sinuses, and those take a toll
on your body. Reducing allergens and environmental toxins from your environment, using an
air purifier in your house, that kind of thing, watching what you ingest
and put in your body, as Jin talks about, and cleanish and then
stress. When you can mitigate stress in your life, you can also lower
inflammation in your life. So that's where when we talk about changing your diet
over time, you can really help your body by increasing fruits and veggies,
eating high fiber carbohydrates because fiber helps lower inflammation, Choosing lean protein sources including
plant proteins, avoiding processed meats like salamis and bait that sort of yep,
avoid saturated fats, and reduce your omega sixes while increasing omega threes. We
all run around this is prevalent in society with way too many omega sixes in
our body and not enough omega threes and somebody I had seen on a podcast
once said, don't even focus on eliminating the omega sixes. If that's overwhelming,
just focus on increasing your omega threes because eventually you're going to help your
body balance that out. And then reducing sugar and alcohol while increasing daily activity
can help. So, yes, we all have come into this lifestyle with
high levels of inflammation. You see it in people's faces. I believe this
is why when we do like a face to face Friday, even a person
who's only lost five pounds, you can see a drastic difference in their face,
their eyes, even their noses. It's true, like the odds get
bigger immediately as the puppiness goes down. And you know, we need inflammation
a role, Like if you sprain your ankle, you're gonna have inflammation around
your ankle, the swelling right, that's doing something. It's serving a purpose.
But we just don't want to have chronic too much of it. Same
with insulin. Insulin serves a purpose. We don't want to have never ever
any insulin. We just don't want to have chronic too much of it.
We want balance, We want to be right in that sweet spot, all
right, so let's talk about coffee. So Lynn said, I know I'll
eventually need to cut back, and that's just coming from the idea of if
I really like it and it's got a lot of caffeine, it's coffee,
it must be bad. It's got to be something bad, I really should
cut back. And I don't think that there's any reality basis of thinking everyone
needs to cut back on coffee now, with one caveat, if you're someone
who doesn't clear caffeine well and drinking too much caffeine makes you feel jacked,
jit jitry, and you can't exactly not everyone clears caffeine at the same right.
I am a very quick caffeine metabolizer, and my DNA analysis shawed me
that I don't clear alcohol well. So I can drink coffee all the time.
I can't drink alcohol. But if you're someone who feels fine, you
don't get jitterate, you're able to sleep, then you probably clear the caffeine
well and it's not causing problems that you should worry about it. Think about
how you feel. The research on coffee is very interesting and if you google
it, if you just google coffee and longevity, and they actually have studies
where they followed people and how much coffee that they drink, and the people
who tend to drink more coffee tend to be healthier and live longer. So
in summary, the research shows increased coffee consumption tends to correlate with increased good
help and longer life. It's true. So the whole idea of well,
I probably should cut back. That's cool. Here's where I think it comes
from. People are like, coffee's addictive, it's a drug. Well,
you know, oxygen's addictive too, and I like to have it. We
do need oxygen. It reminds me of actually posted a meme on Facebook this
morning and it made me laugh so hard, and I'm gonna read it to
you. It says, I've heard people say that you don't need coffee to
wake you up. You also don't need a parachute to skydive, but it
helps whoop and listen. If you don't drink coffee, you do not need
to start drinking coffee. Okay, that's one of those things. Coffee.
Green tea has health benefits, right, but I hate green tea, so
I would never drink it. For some kind of theoretical health benefit. But
I do love black coffee, so I can feel good about drinking it,
So don't add it if you don't want to. If you don't like it,
there's no reason to have it. But if you do like it,
you should recognize that there are health benefits. And it's the coffee, not
just the caffeine. Decaf has similar health benefits. It's the polyphenols and the
coffee that are believed to be linked to the benefit. So it's a very
good for you thing to have if you like it. But if you don't
like it, don't like you. Know Sherry was talking about salmon. I
don't eat fish because I don't like it, and I know you know fish
is beneficial. I know fish is good for you, doesn't matter, I'm
still not going to eat it. So the same with coffee. If you
love black coffee, feel good about that choice. If you don't, don't
force yourself to have any coffee at all. And it also increases autophogy.
Yeah, and she was talking about how diet pills have caffeine or whatever,
and caffeine can stimulate your metabolism or help you to burn some more calories.
However, once you ingest it for a period of time, that benefit like
goes away because your body gets used to it, adapt to it. Yeah.
And for me, if you're like me and you have the ADHD brain,
coffee helps me focus. That is very true. Boothes my brain.
I'm the same way. All right. We have another quick question from Julian
Texas. She says, I've been doing intermittent fasting since twenty twenty. I
had about a year and a half stall slash regain because of unflavored collagen in
my coffee. Oops. My question is do you think people with addit no
immune issues should do longer eating windows so as to not cause too much stress
on the body. All right, First of all, let's address the collagen
and the coffee. I'm glad that you figure that out, Julie, because
collagen is food for the body. It's protein source, and so you want
to keep that in your eating window. I know a lot of people are
promoting collagen for many reasons, especially people who sell different types of collagen,
but it's definitely food for the body. Keep it in your eating window.
And I'm glad that you moved it there. And it makes me sad you
would ruin your coffee like that. Anyway, people like it though, I
know she was having unflavored collagen, But they make all this stuff that's like
basically it's creamer, right, collagen creamer is what it is because it's flavored
and sweetened instead of like coffee, mate, they're using their flavored, sweetened
collagen product. Anyway, don't do that, everybody, keep it in your
eating window if you need collagen. All right, So let's talk about again.
We've got this concept of we've talked about it before. Is fasting going
to cause stress on the body? And that is not a question that we
can give a universal answer to, Like here is exactly the amount of fasting
that becomes stressful versus not stressful. It depends on you. Fasting has helped
me feel less stressed. So for me, fasting decreases stress on me.
I know it from how I feel. Right, That's kind of a common
misconception people through out there fasting is going to cause stress on the body.
Well, you know what else causes stress on the body? Exercise? Right,
So there's a sweet spot, and it's not going to be the same
for everybody. If I do too much exercise, that is going to be
too much stress on my body, so I listen to my body and do
the amount that feels right. The same with fasting and having an autoimmune issue
doesn't necessarily mean that fasting is going to be extra stressful for you. We've
had people, you know, it depends on there's so many factors going on.
We've had people with hashimotos for example, which is autoimmune related to the
thyroid, and they will have amazing result it improves their hashi motos. So
instead of saying, well I have an autoimmune issue that means I can't do
longer fast, what if the longer fast was the thing that helped correct your
autoimmune problem. So you could be letting fear of well, this is going
to be too stressful, I can't handle it. Keep you from the thing
that might actually be the most healing. Now again, talk to your doctor
if you're not sure, because there are so many types of autoimmune issues,
you know, from alopecia to even to type one diabetes, hashimotos, so
many other things could be considered autoimmune issues. But you've got to decide if
fasting feel stressful to you or not. And remember we say tweak it till
it's easy. You want to find an approach that doesn't feel stressful. And
you might think that longer eating windows will feel less stressful than shorter but you
might be surprised the opposite is true for you. You know, at nine
hour window might feel more stressful than a four hour window, right because you're
like making so many more food decisions, Like to me, having to make
food decisions all day is more stressful. Do you have anything you want to
add to that, shearing, no, But it kind of goes back to
the first question about inflammation. And you know inflammation is a leading driver in
autoimmune diseases. So if fasting reduces inflammation, then by having short fasts and
you're not getting the benefit of that lessened inflammatory response, right, then you're
not benefiting your autoimmune disease. And notice we don't give blanket statements like yes,
you should fast less if because you're so unique, you're your own study
of one, and your body really will let you know after your body adapts
to fasting, if you keep feeling worse and worse and worse over time,
then that's a sign you need to change something, right, And there's so
many other things too that could benefit you. Know, a lot of people
notice that when they're timing of their window is affects their sleep. Well,
sleep is going to really affect stress on the body, right, Chronically,
sleep deprived is very stressful for the body. And so many people notice that
when they shorten their windows and they don't have them too close to bedtime and
they eliminate processed foods that they sleep like so much more soundly and better.
And so you know, by having a shorter eating window and letting your body
balance its hormones and not having blood sugar fluctuations through the night all that,
you know that's going to be a benefit too. So it's interesting because like
so many people want to say fasting and stressful on the body, but they're
not talking about how stressful it is on the body to eat all day,
right, that's a good point, yeah, because that is stressful on the
body, it is. So yeah, I'm with Jin. I think you
have to play around and figure out what makes you feel best, what timing
over your window, at length the window, what types of food, and
you know, be your own experiment of one. If only there was a
one size fits all that we could say here's the formula for everyone, it'd
be so nice. But there isn't well, and then how much of that
is mental stress? You know, if you're a person who is a big
emotional eater and that, you know, is what gets you through the day,
then when you take away food, now you don't have that coping mechanism,
and if that's causing you a lot of mental stress, then that's going
to have an effect, right, you know. So there's just too many
factors to say fasting itself is stressful, exactly. All right, Now it's
time for our segment called What's Your Why? And most of us start intermittent
fasting with weight loss as a very high up on our list of why,
but it is so much more than just a weight loss approach. In twenty
eight day fast start day by day, I ask readers to craft their why
statements before beginning, because when your why is deeper than weight loss alone,
you're more likely to find long term success and view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle.
So this week we have a wife from Gail. She said, my
why is that I didn't think I had many more starting overs left in me.
Fifty years of dieting, losing weight and regaining weight had worn me down.
I stumbled, across one meal a day in a magazine article and a
week later Jenn and Sherry's podcast, The intermittent fasting lifestyle fit into my life?
Which is such freedom? After all the years of me trying to fit
into different and restrictive diets, some with special foods and most with way too
many rules. Now instead of my why, I think why not? Because
if has afforded me so much freedom, non scale victories I never expected,
and a health plan that truly feels like a lifestyle. Well, I love
that. I love that too. Yeah, and I like the way that
she phrased that. After all the years of her trying to fit into different
and restrictive diets, now this fits into her life. Right. That is
the great thing about fasting is you can make it fit into your life,
no matter what you have gone on truthfully, yes, all right? Now
we have a question from Abby in Oklahoma. Abby says, I've been doing
intermittent fasting for two months, but only clean fasting for two weeks. I
listened to fast Feaes' repeat after my coworker told me how big the difference can
be. Thanks for being so clear in your book, Jin, I am
currently doing anywhere from sixteen eight to nineteen five, depending on my day and
how my body is feeling. I'm forty one five four one hundred and thirty
six pounds, and I've been very motivated to stay healthy with clean eating and
exercise since my twenties, through moderate workouts four to five times a week and
living low carb but not no carb. I was definitely at three full meals
plus two snacks a day kind of galvo. I am at a healthy weight,
but I'm starting to feel some effects of perimenopause. Both my parents plus
my older sister have either been through or are going through cancer diagnosis and treatment.
I am really looking for that health plan with the side effect of weight
management as I'm getting older, which Jen talks about cancer prevention and long term
health are my priorities from the book, I now realize fasting while drinking coffee
with a little monk fruit and a splash of creamer would not be part of
a clean fast. I've now switched to black coffee and unflavored and unsweetened tea
during my fast. Since I've switched to clean fasting, hunger surprisingly isn't the
issue for me, but instead a really bad acne breakout along my lower cheeks
and drawline, and then also generalized irritability. I am prone to acne from
time to time, but not like this with eight painful cystic acne sites at
once, and then my poor husband with my moods. Help. Could these
be detoxing or transitioning side effects of intermittent fasting? If yes, will they
pass? Is there something else I could be doing to help with these side
effects? In a nutshell, yes, this absolutely could be detoxing. You
know, your body hold on to so much toxins and stuff. We do
hear from people that during the first month or so of fasting, A lot
of people or like, help, all of a sudden, I have acne,
like I'm a teenager, and that's really your body just purging all that
junk and it goes away. And I guarantee that you will have more clear
skin than you've ever had. And we actually had a lady in community today
share say astonishing picture. When I saw that, I remembered, you know
question. She has struggled with sistic acne as an adult and she is one
month in and her skin is so clear. She showed before and after pictures
and she is so happy. About it, and I told her that she
was really lucky because some people do see an increase in the beginning and she
didn't experience that. So, yeah, just give it time, it'll pass.
You're only two weeks in, you know, to the clean fast.
To the clean fast, right, which you know, to me is almost
like starting back at square one. Yeah, from a reformed quote unquote dirty
faster. I definitely had to go through the fat audation process. And I
was eighteen months into fasting at the time when I switched to the clean fast,
So your body still has to figure out what to do and where to
pull energy stores from. And you know, I think that's probably where your
kind of irried ability is coming from. And as soon as your body figures
out how to tap into your fat stores for energy, your hormones are going
to be more balanced and you're not going to have any sugar dips, and
that irritability is gonna go away. I can almost guarantee you. Yeah,
I was going to say all that exact same thing. You're really that you
were doing fasting for two months, but you were not fast and clean.
So you're two weeks in and yeah, it's just typical adjustment. Period stuff.
All right, So we have a book recommendation this week from Too Comfortable.
The book The Comfort Crisis really resonated with me. She says. It
made me think about how being too comfortable, with food at our fingertips constantly
and physical activity becoming less of a necessity, that we are growing unhappy and
unhealthy. I enjoyed the author's quest to battle this. I think about this
during a longer fast. Then I think hunger is not an emergency. And
so I looked up this book, The Comfort Crisis, And basically the book
poses the question, could our sheltered, temperature controlled, overfed, under challenged
lives actually be the leading cause of many of our most urgent physical and mental
health issues. The author, Michael Easter, he interviewed experts from around the
world to try to discover the answer to this, and the book outlines a
blueprint to revolutionize your life by embracing discomfort. And it sounded really interesting.
And I have said this before. We're in this like instant gratification lifestyle.
You know, if we want it, we have it. If I want
pizza, I don't have to make dough and let it rise, I just
order a pizza and it comes to my house, I don't have to get
off my couch, right So anyways, I went ahead and put a link
in the show notes because I know sometimes people forget what we've said. So
it's there. You can go look for it yourself. Awesome, all right.
Sarah from Massachusetts shares my husband just came home from his dentist with a
handout about high levels of pfas in some brands of dental flaws. So I
thought pass along an article that links a study, and in the spirit of
trying to be more cleanish, here it is. And it is a study
called dental flaws Harmful Chemicals. I'm looking at the link there. We're going
to have it in the show notes. It's in the show notes. Yes,
So she said it would be great if more people knew this information.
I certainly wish I had known it sooner. My husband's dentists recommend switching to
Listerine, Ultra Clean, cocoa floss, Smart Floss, or generic waxed flaws.
And Sarah said she's having trouble finding unflavored versions, but a possible tiny
insulin release before bed while she's using flavored toothpaste. Anyway, it seems a
small price to pay for avoiding putting teflon in her mouth every night. And
I agree, you're brushing your teeth. If the floss is flavored, it's
going to be very very brief, short period of time. Yeah. And
I actually looked at the article and the brand I use is one that they
tell you not to you uh oh. And I floss constantly uh oh.
So definitely on the hunt for new dental flows. I've worked so hard to
eliminate teflon from my life. I never thought in my mouth. I never
thought about that for one second. As cleanish as I try to be,
I never thought of dental flaws Shery, I feel dumb. If I'm done
there, you're you're done too. Sorry, we're by dumb. Yeah,
neither of us are dumb, but I feel silly for not having thought of
it though. Really it just goes to show you how we are exposed to
toxins that we don't even know we're exposed to or think about. We don't
think about it. Yeah. So, but that's once you find the brand
that's not got that in there, you just make that change and you're done
making that change. It's easy. Yeah. So thank you, Sarah.
So before we get to our tweek of the week, I want to talk
about my books and which ones you need. If you're new to intermittent fasting,
or you're restarting after a break, or you feel like your fasting's gotten
a little sloppy and you need a refresh, then you're going to want twenty
eight day Fast Start, Day by day, the ultimate guide to starting or
restarting your intermittent fasting lifestyle. So it sticks. And this is the companion
book for fast feast repeats, you're going to want to have that one as
well. It is the comprehensive guide for delay don't tonight intermittent fasting. It
literally has everything you need when you have a question or you need a refresher
on a topic. And if you're a settled intermittent faster and you know you
want to clean up what you're eating, your personal care products, your dental
flaws, and the cleaning products you're using in your home, then I think
you'll enjoy cleanish. And you know it might feel daunting at first, but
if you take it step by step, make little changes here and there,
before you know it, you'll be living a more cleanish lifestyle yourself. So
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 one that works for you. And that's why it is so
helpful to hear from other intermittent fasters as they share how they are making intermittent
fasting work for them. And this tweak was submitted by Nancy in fair Play,
Colorado, and we love Nancy. She's in our community too. Nancy
said, happy scale, change the grash callers to all green for losses and
gains. The red always mocked me and brought out diet brain. But everything
green, it becomes just data and doesn't cause me to feel bad or beat
up on myself. It's just a fluctuation that might be a silly tweak,
but it's made all the difference for me. I love that. I love
it too, and it's really it's all just the mental game and knowing what
you need for yourself. Right. Well, this week we have a message
from Mandy from Atlanta. She shares a quote she says Henry Ford said failure
is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. I have never once had the
thought of falling off the wagon when it comes to IF. But I have
made mistakes along the way. I've just recently gained fifteen of the thirty two
pounds I lost due to window creep and over indulgence during the holiday months.
I thought for sure IF would make me bulletproof during the holidays. Unfortunately did
not. After the holidays were done, I ran across this quote by Henry
Ford, and the timing could not have been more perfect. Instead of looking
at my quote failure during the holidays is a bad thing, I am simply
looking at it as a way to move forward more intelligently. I am not
bulletproof. Put in the work every day. I need to be careful about
window creep and over indulging too much during my window I've learned something from my
experience, and instead of feeling like a failure, I feel better equipped to
handle holidays or any special event in the future. And you know, we
all make mistakes in life. It's how you learn from them, right,
and how you move forward stronger from them that turns that negative event, if
you want to call it that, you know, into a positive. If
we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. We're not growing.
But if you take your mistakes, you'd learn from them. I mean,
like me and salmon. How many times do I have to eat salmon before
I realize it's a bad choice for me but for society. How many years
did it take me to realize, Oh, you know, alcohol really doesn't
work for me. You're not going to sleep gin, You're going to be
awake at three in the morning going what did I drink that wine? Anyway,
but it also made me think about you know, we've got summer coming
up, and it never fails. Come Labor Day, we have so many
people come into the community and they're kind of beating themselves up because they had
too much summer in their summertime. Right, So as this podcast comes out,
it is June the twelfth, So all you teachers, you're out of
school for the summer. We got vacations, travel, camping, whatever.
I want to encourage you to not treat summertime like one big special occasion.
Yeah it's hard. I love summertime. JIN love summertime. I love summertime.
But this is a time to really realize, like windows still need to
be closed or you're going to be sad on Labor Day. So that's my
summertime warning for you. Summer happens every year. That's right. Let fasting
help you get through it and enjoy your vacation. But you might not want
to have twelve hour eating windows every single day of a seven day vacation.
You're not going to feel your best if you do. I wouldn't feel good
doing that. You know. Maybe if you normally have a five hour window,
have an eight hour window, or some days have five, some days
eight. If I ate two restaurant meals in a day, I would feel
terrible. Yeah, And there's no good hotel breakfast out there. I mean
there might be a few, but they're far and few between. So I
mean, I'm not going to say I've never eaten a brunch on vacation.
I have, but it's better be window worthy. Exactly. If it's a
free breakfast from the hotel, skip it. Maybe one day, let yourself
have it and then be like, yeah, that would not good. Do
it the first day so you can get it out of your system and say,
oh, yeah, that wasn't worth it. But worse than your pants
feeling tight, Here's what I hate to see people go on vacation, they
have long windows, or they have no windows. They're like, I'll just
set fasting aside for this week. But what I see happen and it makes
me really sad, is they come back and then it's really hard to get
started, and sometimes they don't restart until months have passed and their pants no
longer fit. Yeah, so that's what I don't want to see happening.
I hate to see people put a pause on fasting and then forget to come
back to it, right, That does happen a lot. Yeah, So
with love, close those windows this summer. Great advice. Thanks so much
for listening today. We would love to have you join us in the Delayed
on Tonight community, where you can interact with both me and Sherry, plus
the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere. Go to Jenstevens dot
com slash community to join us. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to
your favorite podcast app, and if you haven't already, please leave us a
five star review that helps new listeners find the show, and we really appreciate
it. We are a community driven podcast, so to submit your success stories,
your questions, your favorite, tweak it till it's easy, moments,
or anything else you want us to share on the podcast. Go to Fast
Feast Repeat dot com slash submit and then listen each week to see if we
share your submission or answer your question until next week. Thanks for listening.