Episode 33: "Carbs" vs. Ultraprocessed Foods, Shift Work and IF, and More

Welcome to Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens, author
of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat, and I'm Sherry Bullock,
longtime intermittent faster and health and wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this
podcast is for educational and motivational purposes only, and is not intended to provide
medical or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are not doctors, so make sure
to check with your trusted healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes
to any medical treatments or medications. Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an
experienced intermittent faster, tune in each week to get inspired, to learn,
and to have some fun along the way. Hi, everybody, We are
so glad you're here today. Welcome to this week's episode of the Fast Feast
Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life podcast. How are you doing today, Sherry?
I am cold, but I am good good. We're recording this in January
and people are really having like, it feels bad for you and you and
I to say that we're cold because some members of the community are like,
well, we had, you know, a million feet of snow and it's
negative a bazillion. I felt like it's twenty and we're cold. It's funny
because I have on my weather app on my phone. I have like all
of the cities that are important to me, so my house, right,
and then the city where I work, which is like seventy miles away,
seventy six miles away, and it can be total different weather there, right,
And then I have where my son lives in Colorado, and then I
have where my parents live, and then I have where Gin lives. And
yesterday Jin was the clear winner at fifty nine degrees. I know, but
I'm still cold. But it is warmer in Parker, Colorado, where my
son lives today than it is where I live. Wow, we did get
below freezing last night. And all joking aside, Yeah, and so you
know, you have to make sure they like, right now, it's thirty
nine and it's in the afternoon, so we are not the cold has made
its way to us. But thirty nine Yeah, I was like to say,
all summer day compared to what some community members are reporting. So yeah,
yeah, the Midwest right now is just frigid. Yeah. And the
day that it was really really bad everywhere else. It was sixty five degrees
and I was playing pickleball. Oh my god, I finally have played pickleball.
That sounds great. My husband, though, wants like snow, begging
for snow. We were supposed to have got some Monday night, and he
said, if it start snowing, I'm not going to bed until the snow
stops. Well, see, I likes to see snow too, so I
get it. Eric, I understraate, But listen, listen, I have
played pickleball after talking about it for years. I'm so proud of you.
Do you like it? I do like it. I'm not very good.
Sherry is probably not surprised because she's seen me play sports. I'm not good
at getting to go where I want them to go, whether it's a frisbee,
a bowling ball, anything. But I've wanted to do it for so
long, and I think it's something I could get better at, Like I
can serve it in the right place. Not every time she takes friend to
hit the ball, Not every time, you know it does I've done it
two times now. Alison and Shae, my sister and her husband, are
here for the month in rental house, and so we've been twice. And
where do you play there? Well, there are all sorts of places to
play, but the place we've played both times is right behind a library.
Here in Surfside, they have two tennis courts that are all so marked off
for pickleball and they're just public courts. Yes, first time, first serve.
Yeah, and your sister and shape play and they had never played before.
Oh, this is just something we had talked about that we were going
to learn how to play when they were here. So are there special pickleball
rackets? They're not. They're like tenaddles. No, they're like big paddles.
It's like a combination of tennis and I don't even know what else.
And the rules and I don't know. Some of the rules are really confusing.
I'm like them were like a ping pong paddle but bigger. Okay,
and the ball is almost like a whiffle ball. Okay, you have to
hit it harder than you thought. I got. So that's what I've learned
so far. I've learned so far, hit it harder than you thought.
And apparently look at the ball. I don't know. That's where I'm failing.
Keep your on the ball, do you have to run a lot.
Well, it depends not into running sports. It's not as much running as
tennis. Okay, if you're playing with two people, it's not as much
running. When Alison and I went, the two of us together, it
was a lot of running because we're all so really bad. She's she's played
one more time than me because they went and played. Our niece and her
husband were here and they went and played the day before the day before they
taught me, and so she had one more day. But do you do
a lot of times chasing the ball? So what you're doing right now?
Yeah, okay, chasing the ball trying to hit a ball that wasn't really
in the right place, but we're still just trying to hit. Yeah,
a lot of running. And I was sore from pilates because I told her
I was going to pilates on Friday, and oh my gosh, I love
reformer pilates machines. Yes, Like I was there and I was like,
this is nothing. I'm doing nothing. I feel it. And then the
next day I was like, ooh, I mean, let's just look at
Jennifer Aniston. She's a long time reformer. I didn't advocate, oh yeah,
yeah, okay, well that used to be feel better. Yeah,
she's gorgeous. I would love to look like her. We're the same age,
right, Yeah. Anyway, you know, I really like going to
the place that has the machines and right now I'm having private lessons right now,
until I figured out they also have group lessons, so we'll see,
all right, Well, I have a pilates chair at home. Yeah,
and I have like this big poster and takes you through some like poses and
stuff. But I get bored, like I don't know, see that's me
home. If I'm trying to do something, maybe I would do better in
a class with something like maybe yeah, like I do really really well.
And you know, it's really important to stay active, and you know,
we've been talking recently on the podcast about you want to keep your muscles strong,
and that's just so important. And I realized, yes, I jump
on my rebounder, Yes I use my vibration plate with weights here and there.
But I am just not disciplined, and I do get bored with an
exercise video and I think of something else to do, like I'll do like,
you know, five minutes, and I'm like, this is so boring.
But I really like to talk to people. So that's why I really
enjoyed the private Pilates reformer class, which is me and her. That was
it was nice to have somebody else there. But I also don't always want
to go somewhere. So you see, I've got a lot of right,
I'm the same way, and I write with my tonal because it's interactive.
My coach is there, she's talking to you. She's talking to you through
your form and the moves. Oh, it's like a live coach or is
it virtual? Well, it's like virtual, okay, but it's like she's
doing the moves with you. And like if you adjust your move and you
say I don't want to do that move because that hurts my foot or whatever,
and you choose a comparable move because that's what the tonal you can do.
If they tell you to do this and I'm like, yeah, I'm
not doing that, I can go in there and find a comparal move and
I can replace that move in my riyout and then so you might get like
a different coach that pops on for that one move because it's like a pre
recorded thing. Okay, But a lot of their classes on Tonal are live,
so they're done in live time and they can see who's working out and
they'll do shout outs to people that are participating in the life. Oh wow,
that's cool. That's kind of like a class at home, like a
virtual live class at home. And so I do fine with that, and
I do great with rebound. I can rebound for an hour because I just
turn the TV on and give me too. And same with rowing. I
can row and just turn the TV on. I just get my rhythm and
go. But when it comes to like following a routine or I start getting
bored because my brain's not busy. Yeah, and I could do it a
few times, and I've tried a few things. I'm like, well,
I enjoyed that, and I'm glad I did it, But then I'm bored,
and then I'm like not doing it. So but if I was doing
a class like Tonal, I would leave. I would be like, I'm
bored, I'm leaving anyway. I have a hard time. So hopefully you
have got my next three appointments scheduled, so you know, once you have
appointment, you're going to go right, so right, and you're doing one
on one to start right now, yeah, okay, they pretty much require
unless you're super experienced. And I've only done reformer applots one time ever,
and it was years ago. I'm definitely not experienced, and so they require
you to do three, but I might do more than that. We'll see.
The class that I might do is like an eight am on Friday,
so that's a time when I usually don't have something else going on. So
I could see how that might work really well for me. Yeah, we'll
see. Ideally, ideally, how many times a week do you think you
would want to do it? Well me and my schedule. If I can
commit to one a week, that's way better than zero, right, And
I don't think that I'm gonna realistically do two more or more than that.
I don't think so. But I feel like one the way that I was
sore for three days. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, it worked.
Muscles that the rebounder and the vibration plate and walking don't don't work.
Yes, Yeah, well that's good. I'm glad that you continue to try
to new things and you keep exploring seeing what's out there. I do.
I like to try things, and you know, sometimes things stick and sometimes
they don't write well Today we have a weekly celebration from Courtney. Courtney wrote,
today mark six months since I started interminfesting. I'm so grateful to Jen
and Sherry in the DDD community for their support. It has been a slow
and steady learning process. While I'm pleased with the twenty pound weight loss,
I mean twenty pounds and six months is great, so you should be pleased
with that, Courtney. I am even happier with the non scale victories,
which include reducing my blood pressure meds by half, eliminating skin tags, being
able to navigate work lunches, holidays, and special occasions with confidence and without
feeling guilty or deprived, decreased alcohol consumption, wanting to make healthier food choices
to fuel my body, actually wanting to go shopping, and being able to
buy clothes that are flattering, and most importantly, more peace and contentment in
my life. For those of you who are just starting this journey, make
sure you take the measurements I wish I would have. If you are weighing,
take your weekly average. This is a game changer. Get yourself a
good pair of honesty pants so helpful and seeing the big picture when the scale
is up and ask questions so that you can find the tweaks that best work
for you. I love that, and I love all the advice, like
seriously, we give you the advice to measure. And also I would add
progress photos that didn't mention cloth every time, so power I cannot, just
cannot and I get the same outfit. It can be really true, right
right, because sometimes people are like, can you tell the difference, and
I'm like no, because it's a completely different outfit. Right. Yeah,
if you have a pair of leggings and a tank top like sports bra that
you could wear in front of people, yes, yes, whatever it is,
wear the same outfit. And I don't care if you do not want
to see your before picture, just take them, put them away somewhere because
down the road, I promise you you want to see them. I cannot,
Like I say this all the time and people are like, I just
can't bring myself to do it. You are gonna want them. Just make
yourself do it, because you really a number on a scale is one thing,
but to see your body transforming is way more powerful than the scale.
Because well, some people only lose ten pounds, but there the way their
clothes fit and their pictures and they can go from not being able to button
a pair of jeans to wearing the genes in tenunds and that's so much more
powerful than a number on the scale. And there are also people all the
time who will show progress photos and say, I have lost zero pounds on
the scale this month, and I was feeling really discouraged until I took these
photos, like it's a difference. And so that was maybe a month where
they built some muscle and lost some fat, so the scale didn't change thanks
to body recomposition, their photos look really different. So I talk about this
in the Scale Schmale chapter of Fast Feast Repeat and at the end, and
I really emphasize it. If something is changing, your body is changing.
If the scale is going down, well that's easy, we all know that
means something's happening, right, But if your measurements are going down, if
your clothes are fitting better, if your photos look different, if one thing
is changing, your body is changing, all right. So before we get
into our first question of the week, Sherry and I wanted to talk about
food and the confusion surrounding it and how we talk about food and what we
tell ourselves about food and One of the things we see all the time is
someone will say I'm having trouble with my eating window and I eat too many
carbs. And once I eat carbs, I can't stop, and I'm really
struggling with carbs. And every time Sherry and I, depending on which of
us gets to it first, we usually say what do you mean by carbs?
And no one ever says, you know, once I start eating zucchini,
I cannot stop. Never I make a bowl of barley with vegetables,
I cannot stop. Correct or like that quene waw, just I go nuts
on the quene waw and I eat too much of that. Right. Whenever
we ask what do you mean by carbs, it's always cookies, ice cream,
something like that, somethings chips, chips is a brackers crackers, And
I would like to have people really understand that you should not define those foods
as carbs. And that is I remember when cal was at Georgia Tech and
he was taking a nutrition glass that he had to take part of his requirements,
and he was telling me about it. He's like, I didn't know
vegetables were carbs, Like he had no idea. He a smart boy of
mine, and we have just gotten into the idea all bad foods are carbs.
Well, those foods that we just listed or A cabs are bad,
right, Both of those statements are not true. All bad foods are carbs
are all carbs are bad? Both are myths. And so all those foods
that people struggle with, the cookies, the cake, the chips, the
ice cream, every single one of those foods has carbs. It also has
a whole lot of fat. Those are high carb and my shat generally with
sugar exactly, and every single one of those tends to be ultra processed.
So we wanted to take just a few minutes to talk about should you feel
fear carbs or what's the real problem? Do you want to talk about it
for a minute? Sherry, Well, yeah, I mean let's just first
of all, let's let's just start with satiety. Okay. Yeah, So
real food carbs, they're full of good fiber. You know, you've got
your fiber that's gonna help control your blood sugar so that you're not gonna have
these blood sugar roller coasters, so you're not gonna you know, be ravenous
and then you get full really quickly. But then your blood sugar drops and
then you're starving again. And so then you are going back to the kitchen,
and what do you reach for? Probably the same thing you reached for
before because it tasted so delicious and but it has really low satiety because there's
no fiber in it. And I meant to look. When I was reading
Fiber Field, maybe you remember Jen he was talking about how to look at
a food and determine like if that's a good carbohydrate to eat, and he
gave a ratio of like, no, I can't fiber carbs. Do you
remember? I always ignore all that. Oh okay, I'm like, I'm
not gonna do a ratio. I always find that interesting because I think it's
a really quick way to just look at something and be like, oh,
yeah, that's a high fiber food if you're trying to increase your fiber.
But anyways, look like, really look at the ingredients and look at the
amount of fiber to carbohydrates, and you know, if you're eating something that's
forty grams of carbohydrates and nine grams of fiber, then that's a pretty good
high fiber ratio. It's going to satisfy you because it's going to satisfy you
stay differently right, and it feeds your gut microbiome and it adds bulk,
and the bulk is what adds satiety and your struct receptors. Like I could
inhale a bag of cheese puffs, like a giant bag, the jar largest
bag you could buy, it wouldn't initiate any of my struct receptors. It
would just like melt away inside my body, you know how, like like
starfham pellets. Yes, and it would be like I ate nothing right,
but it would be a whole hit of fat and carbs and r hit my
system and it's practically already digested because it's whereas like you know, if you
have a craving for a snacky salty you know something right. Somebody the other
day said, you know, I really need to address my windows. I
eat way too much popcorn in my window. I know that's not healthy.
Actually, popcorns are really healthy food if you make it correctly. Now,
if you're getting jiffy pop in your throne in the microwave, not your best
got away the ingredients. It's got weird stuff in it, right, right,
But they sell microwave popcorn cookers where you just put in popcorn kernels.
You can add your own avocado oil or olive oil or whatever oil you want,
or no oil if you just want it like air popped with oil.
And then the thing with popcorn is is you can eat quite a bit of
popcorn. I mean it's a high volume food, right. You can eat
a giant bowl of popcorn and the calories are relatively low. You've got some
fiber in there for satiety. So now are we telling you to count calories?
No? No, I don't want anybody to fill it like alget right,
it's hard to overdo popcorn. I mean, nobody's gonna sit there and
eat eight cups of popcorn unless you like put like eight table simoons of butter
on it. Then we got a different issue. So to say, like
I eat too much popcorn, I need to stop. I know that's not
healthy. And that depends on how you're making the popcorn. Are you eating
ultra process popcorn? Are you taking your own popcorn? I have like a
Pampercheff popcorn popcor and I have a mini one and a big one and I
get this organic, non gmo popcorn and I put it in there and I
use a little avocado oil and some sea salt, and you know I can
eat that whole bowl that it pops guilt free. It's satiating, it's good
fiber, it's you know, giving my good gut bugs something to chew on
and flourish. And you know that that's going to be a way better snack
than wheat thins. Right carta cheese and crackers are like zero satiety for me.
I love them. They're delicious. They do not satisfy me at all.
It's so interesting. It was really after I watched that video I've talked
about before. Andreas einfelt. I never know how if I'm saying it's same,
right, he's the diet doctor. Did I talk last week about how
he's eating potatoes? Now? Did I tell you this already? No,
we talked about that after we recorded. Okay, I couldn't remember if I
said it on the episode. But no, I love the work that he
is doing right now. And you know, for anybody that I haven't hasn't
heard me talk about this before, doctor Andreas, I n felt if I
don't. If I'm saying it incorrectly, I apologize. But he is known
as diet doctor, and he's got a website and he has been low carb
for a long, long long time, talking like when I did low car
back in twenty fourteen and didn't lose any weight. He was He's been around
since those days a long time, so I've known who he was. And
he is now working on satiety and so he they have an app and it
like calculates the satiety of the foods and it does have you know, it
takes caloric density in mind when it's calculating these things. So, for example,
a giant baked potato is going to have very high satiety because of how
it activates your stretch receptors. It's low calorie, Believe it or not,
everybody's probably like a baked potato. That's like, doesn't a baked potato just
make you fat automatically? No, we've been so confused by that. And
so he is now monitoring his satiety. I don't know if they call it
the satiety index. I'm not sure I think that's what it is. He
is now eating potatoes right, and he is like I am doing just as
well as and I'm like, it's blowing my mind and it's making me super
excited because I think that I wasn't satisfied on Keto, Like it never made
me feel so inside. And now that I look back thinking about what I
was choosing, I was you know, I was counting macros and so probably
I was not choosing like he talks about, like bulletproof coffee is very low
satiety, right right, that kind of thing, whereas you know, like
raw spinach as a high satiety score, and it just kind of you know,
it's thinking about food in a different way and how it gives you satiety.
And I really think that this could be transformational because if you eat and
again, you know, we don't want you to count calories, and he
doesn't either, because we know the body is a lot more complicated than calories
and calories out. I could eat a lot of calories of cheese puffs and
not feel satisfied, and that's going to be very easily stored because my body
doesn't have to do any work to break it down. But he is talking
about how it revolutionizes what we're doing if we eat high satiety foods with the
eye on not having them be super duper energy dent, right right, Yeah,
And I think it's some of this stuff is just really easy swaps.
Like right, you know, it's kind of like I think we all know.
I think we've all heard and I've experienced this iceberg lettuce. Really a
lot of nutritional value happened in there, or satiety. So simply like change
out your iceberg lettuce for a you know, a spring green blend with some
span. So I really like the half and half blends that have with the
blend different like baby spring greens and raw spinach, and that's going to give
you way more satiety than a bowl of iceberg sad white lettuce. Yeah,
it's mainly water. That's what I spared lettuce really is. It's mainly water.
And so you know, just really thinking about that and when you really
start thinking, like, you know what lends to satiety and fiber is a
big part of what leads to satiety, Yeah, because for many reasons,
because of the food volume, because it takes longer to digest, and too,
you know, the transit when you add fibers much slower. And then
add to that, it's going to help control your blood sugars. You're not
gonna have that rebound hunger after you eat it. Well, just everybody imagine
you know, again, like how calories and calories out is flawed. But
when you're thinking about satiety, I want you to imagine a scenario where you
have on one in one bowl, let's say an amount of potato chips,
right, and on a plate you have a baked potato with whatever you want
to put on their butter and sour cream. Let's just say, let's imagine
they were exactly equal number of calories. Right. To illustrate the calories are
not equal. You add an equal number of calories with your baked potato and
whatever toppings versus your bowl of potato chips. If you ate the exact same
number of calories of those foods, which one would make you feel full and
satisfied versus which one would send you back to the kitchen? Right, And
they probably have a very similar similar macro picture as well. Wow, and
maybe the and your baked potato, well, that's fiber's not a macro.
So I'm just thinking about carbs and fat, right, they probably have similar
carb, similar fat. Maybe the panagents have a little more fat, I'm
not sure. Depends on what you put on your potato, but we all
instinctively know how full we would be from a giant baked potato, and we
know you're not going to go back and eat a second and a third baked
potato, right, but you might eat all those chips and now you're eating
the cookies and a lot of that is because your body is also not satisfied
because you haven't gotten those nutrients because they're so highly processed. Anyway, that's
just something to think about. We want to change the way we talk about
food and not demonizing carbs or fat or and it's okay if you want to
think about you know, my body doesn't do well when I eat a lot
of ultraprocessed foods. That's still not demonizing it. It's just truth. We
know that that's true for it. Literally no human body works its best on
ultra processed foods, right yeah. And you know I like to look at
it too, you know, Like I mentioned calories a little bit ago,
and Jen's like, well, you know, we're not saying count calories,
and I'm not, but I will tell you what I do look at when
I look at calories, most bang for the buck, right Yeah, I'm
looking at the most bang for the buck, because I mean, in the
end, at the end of the day. Do calories matter to a degree.
Sure, If you constantly are over consuming calories because you're not eating nutrients
ins foods, so therefore you're not satiated, so therefore you keep eating,
then yes, that's going to matter. You're going to over consume in your
window and it's going to make it harder for you to shift to fat burning
tomorrow. So yeah, I do kind of look at calories. If I'm
like, do I want to eat this or do I want to eat that?
I look at the nutrition label and I do look at the calories,
and I look at the fat, and I look at the fiber. I
don't even really look at carbs. I'm gonna be honest. I go straight
to fiber and added sugar. See, I don't look at any of it.
I look at ingredients only, Okay, like I literally only I do
look at that too. That's the only thing I look at. I do
not look at number of grams of anything or calories. I only look at
ingredients when I'm deciding what I want to eat or what I want to buy.
Yeah, it's just so interesting. But you know, I did talk
about in fast Easter peaks. We don't count calories, but that doesn't mean
calories don't count, right, And so that's the thing. How can you
live a life where you're free of counting calories? And it's by focusing on
foods that give you high satiety and you stop eating, then you don't need
to count the calories because you've had enough. Anyway, I hope that this
has been a helpful conversation. Yeah, I mean, and I think it's
really a time that we just stopped thinking carbs are evil because car they've just
got a bad rap over the years, and carbs are not evil. Carbs
are actually very healthy when eating in the right form. Well, there are
a lot of people that have been low carb people for a long long time
who are now coming out and saying, oh, I now cycle carbs in
or I've realized that, you know, I need more carbs form my thyroid
hormone production for example. I mean, this is not Jen Stephens saying this.
This is people who were hardcore everyone should be low carb five ten years
ago who have now realized oh maybe not. I mean I can think of
it for mental health. Five people at least that are big names that have
made the shift. So ye, Anyway, we don't want you to demonize
face. Now that are we saying that every single person does the same with
the same amount of carbs. Note, there are definitely people who feel better
when they eat fewer carbs of any kind, right, And that's okay too.
It's just learning to listen to your body and not demonizing macros. Right.
I agree. So, now we have a request from a listener in
Ohio. Can you please discuss how to transition from an eight hour window to
a shorter window and changing times and links to shake things up, especially for
someone who thinks they can't do it because they get lightheaded or get so hungry
and given too easily to hunger. Well, I think we've probably kind of
brought this up before, but this is a big kind of question that's happening
right now in the community too. As people are a lot of people started
at the beginning of the year when Jin's book came out, or they are
restarting after you know, stepping away for fast from fasting for whatever reason,
and they get to this point where they're like, I can't shorten my window
because when I get to sixteen or seventeen hours, I get you know,
I feel shaky, and I feel low energy or I get a headache,
and so there's no way I could ever fast for longer. And really the
reason you feel that way is because your body is not making them metabolic flip.
You're not burning any fat at that point for energy. Right, so
you have fasted sufficiently to where you've you know, depleted your glycogen storage and
then you're hungry, just about right right on the edge. But then you're
hungry or you don't feel your best and you think, I have to eat,
and you eat, and then you just refilled your glycogen storage again.
And you're doing this day after day after day, and you're never tapping out.
So are you going to have a few days that are going to feel
really uncomfortab. Yes, might you feel a little shaky or even sometimes some
people say they feel a little like queasy. Yes, it's possible. But
if you can really push through those days, you're gonna get to the other
side, and you're what you're gonna find out is that you're gonna push through
that little phase of not feeling well, and then when that body learns how
to flip the switch, then all of a sudden, you're gonna feel great,
and then once you get through those you know first, I don't know.
I think for most people it takes around three or four days when they
hit that stage. And if for three or four days you can really push
through that just a couple more hours, then from there on out, it's
gonna be so much easier, and it's gonna be easier forever at that point,
rather than just getting stuck in that sort of hard sixteen or seventeen hour
time. And I'm kind of like, I don't want to prolong the hard.
I want to push through. Yeah. So if my body was really
struggling to flip the switch and I just was not, I didn't like the
way I fell at that point. I'm gonna be honest, I probably would
We just talked about carbs, but I probably would go like, probably ultra
low carb. I was just gonna suggest that before you brought it up.
Sherries, two or three days, ultra low carb, stick with some good
you know. I'm like salads, and I'm gonna tell you I'm not counting
carbs in my salads. I'm gonna go with a good salad and I'm gonna
throw some protein on there, and I'm gonna throw a little chick and eggs
on there, and I'm gonna make a really beautiful satiating salad, or I'm
gonna have you know, some meat and veggies, and I'm gonna skip the
rice and the carbohydrates the extras for a couple of days just to really force
my body to use up the rest of that glichagen and flip the switch.
And again that's not because not because carbs are bad or we'll keep you from
losing weight. It's because you're trying to deplete glycogen stores so that your body
has to flip the metabolic switch. And so by taking a little bit of
time to put less in less carbs, because carbs turn their their glycogen,
that's what refills your glycogen. It's the carbs, so put less in so
your body can flip that switch. And with that said, another thing that
I just came to mind too. Alcohol. Oh yeah, if you can
cut alcohol out while you're trying to shorten your windows and you know, lengthen
your fast or while you're trying to get you know, through fat adaptation and
you're trying to become metabolically flexible, that's going to help you so much,
because when you are drinking alcohol, your body has to burn that alcohol before
it ever touches the glycogen in your liver, so that that can really make
that shift difficult. Yeah, And I want to also make one other point
that I think somebody probably you know, I've got my school teacher had on
and I know what people probably might be thinking that, like, well,
okay, well, Gin and Sherry just said to try the low carbs because
we don't want to put glycogen in. So shouldn't I never eat carbs because
I never want to put glycogen in. No, And that is really important
to understand. Like Cherry and I both eat carbs. I had a lot
more carbs than Sheerry does. Like my my food is a higher ratio of
carbohydrates probably than anything the Maximi plate if you looked at it just on a
macro level. And then how in the world am I able to, you
know, get get down through my glycogen because aren't I just putting it all
in? I'm not. So it's very important to understand whatever you put in
is fuel for your body. Whatever it's made of is going to be fuel
for your body, whether it's carbs, fat, protein, your body's going
to do something with it. So you can't just put in you know,
well, I'm never gonna eat carbs again. I'm only gonna put in protein
and fat, and then I'm gonna You might not be storing any glycogen,
but that doesn't mean you're burning your body. Fat. Well, in an
over abundance of protein still can convert to lecogen. That's true. Yeah,
that is true if you're eating a hundred Even if you're eating one hundred percent
fat only, you could still Yeah, your glycogen stores are going to go
down. Yeah that's true, but you're still that doesn't mean you're going to
tap into your fat stores for fuel. Plus, that wouldn't be very delicious.
So the way it works is you put the fuel in, you use
it, and store some away. Whatever it is, whatever's extra over and
above gets stored away, whatever you don't need that moment. And like,
for example, when I eat dinner, my body stores some glycogen a way
that it didn't need right at that moment to fuel me. When am I
using it all throughout my fast until it's depleted sufficiently and then bam, my
body switches over. But let's imagine that instead of eating carbs, you over
ate a bunch of protein and fat. Your body would store that away,
So it's always going to burn what you have stored, whether that's extra,
whatever it is. If that's making sense. So I still don't want you
to fear carbs, because if you're fasting and feasting in a good balance for
your body, then your body will deplete the glycogen sufficiently. You'll get into
that balance. It doesn't happen right away, but the low carb period,
like in twenty eight day fast Art day by day and in the twenty eight
day Fast Art chapter of Fast Feast Repeat, the easiest ease in approach has
people starting with the low calorie breakfast, low calori I mean low carbs,
sorry, low carb breakfast, low carb blunch. For that very reason,
it's letting you transition to fat burning. So and then they'll get caught up
in count if you feel like this says you know, if you can't do
it because you feel like you get lightheaded or get so hungry, something that
can help. And this is a trick I've used. I don't drink coffee
in the afternoon. I'm pretty much caffeine free after about noon or one o'clock.
But if I will drink a cup of decaf coffee, why because that
pushes some glycogen out of your liver. If you have some glycogen hanging around,
that coffee is going to push that glicogen out. It's gonna get your
blood sugar up. Yeah, you're going to feel better. You similar if
you don't drink coffee whatsoever, Get up and do some jumping jacks, march
in place for ten minutes, you know, get on your vibration plate,
take a walk around the block because you've got you get moving, You've got
glicogen your muscles, and you can get some glicogen out. It's very normal
for your blood sugar to raise when you're exercising. So if you you know,
if you're feeling bad because you know, you feel like your blood sugar
is a little low, rather than eating, move your body. Yep,
that's a great tip. And I also want to say, if you're lightheaded,
double check you might be on two much blood pressure medication. We hear
that all the time from people who you know they now need less because of
fasting, So check with your doctor. Or if you naturally have low blood
pressure, like I do I have. I just I just naturally have very
low blood pressure. You may really need some sodium, and some people do.
Some people just need some and adding So for me a lot of times,
if I'm feeling a little just like even kind of brain foggy, sometimes
if I just add like a half a teaspoon of red Men's Real salt to
a cup of water and I drink it, I get kind of a natural
energy boost from it, and I get really clear headed, and I feel
I feel better, And I think it's because it gets my blood pressure up
a little bit. That makes sense. Yeah, And also always check your
fast and make sure it's squeaky clean, because that can be a problem if
you're drinking like bottled coffee or bottled tea, especially So now it's time for
our segment called What's Your Why? And I get it, it's weight loss.
We come for the weight loss, But when weight loss is your only
why, you're more likely to get frustrated along the way. So if you
have crafted a why statement that is deeper than weight loss alone, you're more
likely to find long term success and view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle. This
week, our why is from Casey. She says, in order to slow
my sugar intake, I need a fast because it helps me think more critically
about the foods I do eat and to become more disciplined. The more I
learn, the more I believe if will save my life. I lost my
mother to cancer twenty two years ago. She had a very high sugar intake,
and I now believe that sugar is one of the causes of cancer.
I stopped eating M and m's when I read that yellow five and some red
dyes may be carcinogenic. Now I'm starting to come across more information about sugar
in general. I could not have figured this out without Jen's books. It's
painful to think that if I had had my mother around all this time,
how different life would be. And I want everyone I know to be healthy
and happy eating the best foods possible. And I agree. I think when
we fast, food quality suddenly just becomes so much more important to us.
We really start thinking about, Okay, well I fasted for my body for
health. Do I really want to eat this? Yeah? And I think
that's just a natural transition that happens over time, and just ultra processed foods
in general, because really. I mean, sugar is an ultra processed food,
and so I do know some people have more susceptibility to wanting to overdo
sugar than others. Like some people really like like an alcoholic has to cut
out alcohol. Some people are are you know they respond that way to sugar.
I am not one of those people. But give me a bag of
cheesy, crunchy things and you see, I'm the salty, crunchy, savory
person. But I get it. You know, I now understand after working
with so many people in our community, I understand that sugar is one of
those ultra processed foods that lights up some brains to the point that they just
you really have to make a change with it. So I get it.
And if you're one of those people, you may just have to stop having
it. Well. I recently received an email from a listener, and while
Jen and I don't respond to personal emails, I did let her know to
listen to this episode as this is a subject I have been meeting to bring
up myself, and this listener wrote, Hi, Sherry, I've been doing
IF for five years. I started during perimenopause at fifty after having gained five
pounds per year for five years when none of my old weight loss strategies were
working. I love it and I will never go back. I feel decades
younger. I currently live in nineteen to five lifestyle. My son and husband
occasionally practice IF to address weight gain, but my daughter, who is a
shift working sonographer, believes it cannot work for her because they were constantly changing
work schedule. I wonder if there are any stories you can share about how
healthcare workers like her with changing shifts have made IF work for them. She
has had success with Weight Watchers in the past, but has recently really been
struggling. FYI also has ADHD and struggles with impulsive eating, so I actually
can address this really well because I am a healthcare Every one of those is
true for you. You are a shift worker, I have ADHD, and
you did Weight Watchers watch. I don't know that I've ever had any problem
with impulsive eating, though I feel like I've always pretty been much been in
tune in my eating. And you know, as much as I hate that
I was on way Watchers at the age of twelve, it really did give
me a good foundation for making healthy food choices for my body and knowing what
serving sizes are supposed to be and you know, choosing choosing healthy foods.
So number one, let's just go back to the ADHD. We did an
episode, episode twelve where we actually talked about ADHD and the struggles that ADHD
people have with their weight and eating. So you might find it beneficial to
listen to that and potentially forward it to her, and you know, maybe
wait Watchers helped her because it's very cut and dry, it's very regimented,
and you know, with ADHD sometimes you just need a program to follow.
So if you can sell this to her as the program is you're either fasting
or you're eating. To me, that takes away a lot of the impulsive
eating because your window is either open or it's closed, and if it's closed,
you're not eating. So if you're disciplined enough to say I'm not eating
that right now because my window is closed, I'm fasting, then that just
cuts down your impulsive eating to a very short period of time during the day.
And I wanted to pop that in just echo that you're right. I
was somebody who I would eat if I was like impulsively eating. But I
guess yes, like if I was at school, and I was when I
was a teacher. I could be not even thinking about food, but if
I walked into the teacher and it was there, you would eat it.
And there was pizza, I would eat it. So is that impulsive eating?
Well, I mean, now that you put it that way, I
guess maybe. I mean there have been a lot of times before fasting when
I would go in the breakroom and there'd be food and I would eat it
because it was there, right, because I was hungry. Right? Is
that I think that might be impulsive eating. I guess maybe that's But now
I would look at it and think, well, my window is closed,
right, So having the window be closed means I don't just eat that pizza
because it's there and it looks good. I'm like, well, when I
walk in the breakroom and there's food there and I just look at I'll be
like, oh, what do they have today? And I just walked back
out, and it never crosses my mind to eat it because it's not a
bedding time, right. So I think I was, I guess, definition
and definition wise, an impulsive eater because I would eat it if it was
there and it looked appealing. Yeah, even if it didn't look appealing.
Honestly, it was. Yeah. And you know, we have a lot
of people in the community, and one of the things they said that helped
that. Why fasting helped them is they no longer have to sit there and
be like, should I eat this? Should I not beat this? You
know it to them, it's either their windows open or the windows closed.
That's it. And if they think they want to eat it, they take
it and save it for their window. And then sometimes they get to their
window and realize that's not really what they want to eat anyway, and they
end up not eating it. I've done that myself, so I mean with
that in itself, I think fasting is just like a no a no brainer
as far as you know curbing impulsive eating. It does it require some discipline,
of course, it does. Everything requires discipline that you know is worth
doing. I think as for ADHD, a lot of our members have said
that fasting really helps their ADHD because a lot of things, like with my
ADHD, I'm very highly distracted, and I'm definitely the person that has fifty
things going on in my mind at one time, and I you know,
walk into a room and don't remember why I walked into the room. I've
done that my whole life. A lot of people say that happens to the
mementopause. That's been happened to me since I was a kid. My dad
would say, you would lose your head if it wasn't attached to your body,
and fasting gives you so much clarity. It really just my brain works
better when I'm fasting, and I think a lot of that is just hormone
balance, and your blood sugar fluctuations aren't happening like that are making your symptoms
of ADHD worse. So again, I just really feel like fasting's going to
help her with her ADHD, her impulsive eating. Now let's talk about shift
work. There are a billion ways to do this. Over the years,
there seems to be kind of a few different ways that people manage this.
Now, when you say changing shifts, I'm going to assume that she has
maybe a rotating shift, or is it that she works a shift that's not
her norm when she's home. That's what mine is. So I work overnights
on the weekends. Overnights on the weekends, my windows look different than my
windows when I'm off work. So for me, this is what it's worked
for me for eight over eight years now. If I am working a night
shift and I work like six pm to seven am, Number One, I
don't want to eat when I wake up, so I'm never going to eat
before work because it takes me. That's when I'm drinking my coffee. I'm
waking up. I'm not interested in food, so I do not open my
window until late. You know, when I get to work, it's usually
chaos for a couple hours, and once things start to settle down a little
bit, I'll grab a snack normally eat my meal around midnight, and that
is what works for me. I simply shift my window and then I fast
all that whole day while I'm sleeping and until I get to work again the
next night, and then I have a late night window again. When I'm
off, I simply move my window back to the evening so you cannot get
hung up. A lot of times people are like, well, I don't
understand to do that because then I'm going to have a short fast. I
don't really look at that. I do, personally try to fast sixteen hours
before I open my window on my first day home, just for glycogen storage.
Reasons. I want to make sure that I've you know, depleted my
glycogen before I eat. That's that's what I do. Is it necessary?
No? And then I tend to usually have a little bit of a shorter
window on Monday because I've had a shorter fast. But then I just roll
into my regular weekday fasting schedule and I keep an evening window. Why this
works for me, I do not have to worry about getting to work,
like eating before work, getting to work with a closed window, having temptations
at work, having you know, a stressful night and being tired and being
like, you know what, forget it. I don't want to deal with
being hungry on top of work stress on top of being tired, and potentially
caving. So I just like, I just take that out of the equation.
That's my fail safe plan. My window is open while I'm at work
until it's not, and by then I'm satisfied and I never ever think,
oh, I want to reopen my window. There are other people who just
cannot eat while they're at work, and so some of them choose to just
have their window before they go to work and then potentially close it at work
with a snack, so they might have a big meal before they get to
work and then they close their window at work with a snack. If you
know there's no right or wrong way to do it, make it work for
you. I have seen people who could not figure that out how to do
this, and then they just don't fast on the nights they work, which
that is that's not going to be a good scenario for you because you're probably
not ever going to get fat adapted if you keep doing that, and it's
going to make it really hard, and then you're not going to see results
and you're gonna think fasting doesn't work for you. But it's really the fact
that they're taking days off when they're working. So I would really encourage her
to try it, to try this to figure out, you know, when
she really wants her window. If she wants it, you know, in
the evening, Try it in the evening for a while. If she's working
overnight shifts and that doesn't work for her, ask her to just bump that
window later and even keep a longer window if necessary at first. But it's
totally workable, and I don't I don't want somebody to think they can't do
it. Because they have an irregular schedule and I have nothing to add because
Sherry got to it all well. Before we get to our tweek of the
week, I want to take a minute to tell you about a company that
Jen and I both recommend, and that's walk in Lab. It's convenient,
affordable, and confidential. We highly recommend that fasters of all experience get a
fasting insulin test is both a baseline and on an ongoing basis to evaluate your
level of insulin resistance. Sometimes, until a person can get their fasting insulin
levels down, weight loss might be slow, but that does not mean that
fasting isn't working. As we know, fasting helps us heal our bodies from
the inside out. Just because the scale isn't showing you quick results like some
crash diets, it doesn't mean that you are not healing your body and priming
your body for weight loss down the road. And so rather than get discouraged,
keep an eye on your fasting insulin level and you can see the healing
that is occurring through that number. You can also calculate your insulin resistance score
with a homa IR calculator, and homa IR stands for homeostatic Model Assessment for
insulin resistance, and it basically gives you a score that tells you how insulin
resistance you are. Many doctors just don't understand the importance of knowing what your
fasting insulin level is. It's not a common blome tests that they have been
taught to perform. And so if your doctor's like mine and you'll want order
one, I'm just not worried about it. You don't have to worry about
it either. You can go to walk In Lab to run any lab tests
that you want. I simply place my order, pay for it online,
print my order, and I take it to a quest. But they also
work with lab Core. It's convenient, affordable, and confidential testing. And
you can get a fasting insulin drawn for as little as twenty five dollars and
you can also use your FSA and HSA to pay for it. Unless you
live in New York. Yeah, the New York States, I'm sorry,
New York and maybe New Hampshire, Massachusetts, one of those states up there.
New York, Yeah, starting up there. If you work up there,
I'm sorry. If you live up there, I'm sorry. Talk to
your legislators. Yep, yep. So now it's time for our tweak of
the week. This tweek was submitted by Lynn in Savannah. She said,
one of the biggest helps for me to stay committed during the fasting period is
the idea that I can have it later. I'm not saying no to myself.
I'm saying just wait a little while. If there's a craving that's just
making me crazy, I'll probably get some wrap it up and set it aside
for later, then enjoy it during the window. So simple and yet so
powerful. And that is the delay delay, don't deny in action. And
I know Lynn, I know who this is. Hello Lynn, Hi Lynn.
I've met her in person and she's spent on my other podcast two times.
Yeah. Well, we love to leave you with inspirational or motivational quotes,
and this week's quote comes from Sharon in Cambridge, UK. The quote
is simple, do it afraid. She writes, the absence of fear does
not make things easier. Sometimes we have to push through the fear and forge
ahead anyway. Yep, do it all afraid. Things I've ever done,
I did them afraid. Yep. It's true. Thanks so much for listening
today. We would love to have you join us and the Delay Don't 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.