Episode 5: 28-Day Fast Start Success, A1C and Fasting Insulin, Cognitive and Behavioral Techniques, Mindset, and More

Welcome to Fast Feast Repeat Intermitten Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens, author
of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat, and I'm Sherry Bullock,
longtime Intermitten Faster and health and wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this
podcast is for educational and motivational purposes only and is not intended to provide medical
or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are not doctors, so make sure to
check with your trust and healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes
to any medical treatments or medications. Whether you're new to intermitt and Fasting or
an experienced Intermitten Faster, or tune in each week to get inspired, to
learn, and to have some fun along the way. Hi, everybody,
we are so glad you're here today. Welcome to this week's episode of the
Fast Feast Repeat Intermitten Fasting for Live Podcast. How are you doing today's Sherry,
I'm doing wonderful. I'm even more wonderful because you're going to come visit
next week. I know, I'm so excited. I know, I feel
like I've been waiting forever and now it's finally here. We actually do have
one more episode that we'll record. We'll record next week on Wednesday, and
then you're coming on Friday. So I was thinking we would didn't have any
more in between what we do. We have one more in between. But
you haven't been here in a year since my birthday last year. Well,
well, awesome, so I haven't seen you in a year. I really
shouldn't be that excited. I'm turning the big five. Oh oh, fifties
are exciting. You absolutely should be excited, Jerry, because it's wonderful to
be in your fifties. I told my husband the other day he just turned
forty and I was complaining about trying fifty and he was like, oh no.
We were talking about his gray hair. All of a sudden, his
beard's getting gray. And then he looked and he said that he's getting gray
on his head and I said, yeah, I know. I noticed it
last time I used the clippers on your hair. And I said, does
that upset you? And he was like no, it's just part of getting
old. Well good for him. Yeah, he's got such a better outlook
on getting old and I do and I said, yeah, it's the guy
who's forty And he's like age is just a number, and I was like,
yeah, but I feel like I'm running out of time to do everything
I want to do in life. We got so much time, Sherry.
Fifty is the middle. That's the way I look at it. I'm really
thinking fifties in the middle. I'm like, I just want to slow down
time. No, we got so much more to still do and a lot
of time to do it. Intermittent fasting. He's gonna keep us healthy.
When you're young, time goes by so slow, though, and I feel
like the older you get, time just whizzes by and you blink and another
year has passed. That's why I can't believe I haven't seen you in a
year. I know, because I normally come out twice a year, but
we've just been so busy this year. Well, anyway, we're just halfway
there, Sherry. We're going to live to a hundred and plus. Yeah.
You know my neighbors, they moved here from Florida about probably almost two
years ago because his dad went into a nursing home up here, and so
he would go get them like twice a week and bring them to their house,
and then he would take them back to the nursing home at night,
and the other day they had a big banner and I knew they were having
a birthday party because all of a sudden that family coming in from all over
the United States. While on June the twelfth, he turned one hundred and
they had a big banner in the front yard that said Happy one hundredth Birthday.
And my husband said, I feel like, if you go order one
hundredth birthday banner, they should give it to you for free, because not
very many people make it to a hundred. And then just the other day
we found out he passed away, and I was like, well, I'm
like, you know, yeah, it's always sad when you lose somebody,
but this man lived to be a hundred. He had a hundred great years.
And then I said, I would really love to talk to him and
found out what his secret was. I love when it's like, well it
was Scotch and cigarettes or something, in which case we're doing it wrong.
Jen. You know, I don't know good good jeans. Yeah, I
don't know. Nothing got you first, I don't know, but yeah,
I want to see triple digit. That's my goal. On I would almost
one guess he had a physical job where he stayed active. Well, you
know, staying active really is key. I look at my grandmother on my
mother's side, and she did not stay active, and she went downhill really
really quickly. It was really really sad, and I really think it was
because she didn't stay active. You know, I loved my grandmother so much.
She was such an important part of my life. But you know,
if she had known about intermittent fasting, staying active, being physical, then
I think it was she might have had a whole different outlook. My parents
are seventy two and seventy three. My mom's a year older than my dad,
and it's crazy how much she's aging faster than him. But he always
had a very physical job, and you know, he worked until he was
sixty four or sixty five at the same place since nineteen sixty nine, and
he still goes out and he walks two miles every morning, where my mother's
always been more sedentary. She's the crafter. She sits and quilts and sows
and paints and bakes, and I just really think that has made an impact
on, you know, how she is aging now. But I do have
I bought her a vibration plate for Christmas, and she's worked up to using
it thirty minutes a day and she's noticing a different So I'm trying to get
her active and she really really is starting to pay attention to food quality and
well, I love that. But yeah, you're never too old to learn
and try new things. Absolutely Well, now it is time for our weekly
celebration. Today's celebration comes from Andrea Wakem. She wrote, Yay, I
have just completed my twenty eight day fast start. It was not as bad
as I was expecting, though I had a few bumps along the way.
I have tried lots of different ways of eating in the past to lose weight,
but because I'm very impatient, I never stuck to anything. But there
was something different about fasting. I started to believe in myself and even though
the scale went down only two and a half pounds, I was okay with
it because there were no expectations. Thanks to the advice from Gin and all
of the great people in the DDD community. My message is to new people,
please don't give up. Despite not losing much weight yet, I have
never felt this good. I can go up the stairs without getting winded.
My resting heart rate has dropped about twenty beats per minute. I am rarely
hungry. My mood has improved drastically, and I can feel that my upper
stomach is softening up. Maybe I'm losing this real fat. The biggest non
scale victory is that I have been addicted to sugar for as long as I
can remember. I am embarrassed to say that I would drink about six regular,
not diet cans of soda per day. It's really no mystery why I
gained weight or now have diabetes. Jin says not to change your way of
eating during the fast start, but I was able to cut down to one
or two cans per day at first, and I can happily say that I
can easily go without soda now. I don't crave sugar at all. I
have no headaches or side effects from not consuming sugar. And honestly, if
I can do this, anyone can. And that I was just I love
this. I love that too, And I want to really highlight a lot
of the things that Andreas said that I think are important. And she started
off by saying that because she's impatient, she never stuck anything before, And
lord, do I get that. You know I was that same way for
so long. I would always have unrealistic expectations when I would start something,
because usually you would start and you'd get on the scale, that weight would
drop right off. Of course, a lot of that is inflammation way and
then it would slow way down and then wait fluctuates, and then I would
get on and my weight would be higher than it had been the day before,
and they'd be like, I quit, This is stupid. You get
two weeks in and you're like, well, I haven't lost ten pounds.
This isn't working exactly. So I would quit every single time because I was
impatient and I never stuck to anything. And so you know what, I
love that, Andrews said. She said there were no expectations, and that
I really think is the key. You know, in the twenty eight Day
Fast Start a fast feast repeat and then the new book twenty eight Day Fast
Start day by day. Oh, and Sherry, in the new book,
I actually have people check off every day what they do, Like there's a
box to check off that they fast and clean. There's also a box to
check off that they did not weigh, because honestly, do you know how
many people Sherry knows because she's there. But in the community, we'll have
people that are starting the twenty eight day fast start and they'll come in and
they'll be like Jen said, not to weigh, but then I weighed and
it's day fourteen and the scale was up two pounds, and now I want
to quit. And I'm like, that is why I don't want you to
weigh, because set yourself up for success exactly. Because if you have expectations
that you're going to lose a whole lot of weight and then you don't,
you're like, well, this doesn't work either. And the magic of Internet
and fastening is not found in the first twenty eight days. It comes with
practice, over time and as your body heals, and so it funny stories.
People may have heard me tell this on the Internet and Fasting Stories podcast.
I've mentioned a couple of times. But when I first was writing Fast
Feast Repeat and they were working on the marketing plan for Fast Feast Repeat.
You know you know how they sell books, right, They sell books by
making promises. So my agent said, all right, well, what should
we say and like the press release or whatever they do about how much weight
people could expect to lose you're in the twenty eight day fast start, and
I said, zero pounds and you might even gain weight. She's like,
well, we can't say that, but that is the realistic expectation that you
need to have because during the twenty eight day fast start, your body is
learning how to do something new. You're not fat adapted yet, your body
doesn't know what it's doing. You know. Sometimes people have they find their
over eating during the fast start because they're not fat adapted. So they're fasting.
Let's say maybe they're eating in a six hour window this week of whatever
week of the fast start they're on, and so they're like white knuckling it
because their body's not tapping into fat stores very well. So then when their
window opens, they are literally starving, and so they just eat and eat
and eat because their body is like eat, we're not well fueled. That
settles down eventually by the time you get to you by the time you're fat
adapted, your body then is well fueled. During the fast the urge to
overeat goes away. But that is one reason why people might gain weight at
first. Well, and then I was gonna say the other reason is there's
two other reasons. A lot of times people have come from dieting and then
they're like, oh, I don't have to change what I eat. I
don't have to diet, I just have to you know, time restrict and
so a lot of people now start adding foods back into their diet that they
never ate before. And if you've come from really restricting your calories, and
then you come in and you just start eating, you know, to satiety
or maybe even beyond in the beginning, then of course you're going to gain
a little weight because you are taking in more, you know, calories than
your body is used to. And your body has a a set amount your
basil metabolic great is lower, right, so if you're eating beyond that,
then you you know, could potentially gain weight. And also people seem to
think the more I eat today, the less I'll be hungry while I'm fasting
tomorrow. It is true. We have people who think that, yeah,
and it doesn't work like that. There are a lot of people who are
like, well, I was going to have a six hour window, and
it was right at the end of the six hours and I wasn't hungry,
But then I thought I couldn't eat tomorrow till two So I better eat again,
and it's okay. I did that. I went through a period where
I always had yogurt to close my window because I was like, well,
I might need this extra protein to carry me through the tomorrow. And you
know, one day I just challenged myself to go without that yogur into my
window and it did not change my fast the next day. I also wanted
to point out something else that Andrea mentioned. She said she could feel her
upper stomach softening up. And we often find people they experienced that squishy fat
as you're losing fat. So I want everybody to think about something that's really
dense and packed really tight. You're fat. Imagine you're fat packed in there
all together, and now it's loosening up and you're losing it, so it
gets squishy and giggly. So that can like upset people along the way.
They're like, why am I so squishy and giggli? I look worse than
I used to. Well, that's that's because it's it's you know, some
of your fat is releasing in that area. Over time, it will tighten
up, your skin will get with the program and tighten up. You're not
always going to be so squishy and giggli. It gets better. But that's
a good sign. If your fat was really hard packed and now it's squishy
and giggly, feel good about that. That means it's you're losing fat in
that area. Well, I just I love that. Congratulations Andrea, and
I cannot wait to hear some future updates from you, Like I want to
hear you come back and tell us later that you've reversed her diabetes, for
instance. That would be a huge win. All right, So now we
have a question from a listener. This question is from Confused in Dallas.
This person, I don't know if it's a male or female, I'm said
she, but I'm like, I don't know, said, Please go into
more detail about the testing that you mentioned in episode zero A one C and
fasting influence. What is the purpose of these tests, what is the procedure
for finding and taking them, how to interpret the results, what factors can
influence the results, and any other related issues that might be helpful. Oh
good, Okay, now we're going to hear more about Confused in Dallas.
It's a she, she says my info, I am a seventy four year
old female five to six and around one hundred and forty pounds, and I
would like to lose a few more pounds and maintain I'm a retired educator.
I was an elementary teacher and librarian. I was diagnosed with lamatory arthritis about
fourteen months ago. So my biggest struggles are with flare ups and trying to
figure out this ever changing health challenge with the individual things my body brings to
the table, It's a delicate balancing act, for sure. I've been doing
IF with clean fasting for probably a year and a half. I don't know
my starting date, and I've dabbled with fasting a bit longer. I eat
cleanish, focusing on lower carb and no gluten. I currently see a rheumatologist
I like, but I'm very overwhelmed with testing and results, etc. And
I don't have the medical or science background to apply these things to my body.
I know, y'all are not doctors, but any basic information and resources
that would be more helpful and less overwhelming than doctor Google would be greatly appreciated.
I've listened to IF stories for a while and I'm excited about this new
podcast. This is important work, y'all, and I'm grateful for your dedication
to it. Thank you confused in Dallas for your question. All right,
well let's get you less confused. So it looks like you're pretty close or
should be right around maintenance. So I'm not sure what information you're using to
try to decide. You know that you need to lose a few more pounds
because that's a pretty good weight, you know. I could see you maybe
losing about five more pounds. So the biggest thing that stands out to me
is that you are diagnosed with inflammatory arthritis, which is an autoimmune disorder.
There's many forms of inflammatory arthritis. It's a little different than just your conventional
osteoarthritis. And the interesting thing about these inflammatory arthritis and other autoimmune diseases is
there is a connection with insulin and glucose regulation. So it's kind of like
what came first, the chicken or the egg. So what they do know
is that if you are diagnosed with an autoimmune disease like this, that you
are, like something like the numbers, very but something like sixty percent more
likely to be diagnosed with diabetes down the line. The interesting thing to me
is that when we know that people who are diagnosed with diabetes have high fasting
insulin for years before they're diagnosed with diabetes. So I'm really curious and I
would love I mean, over the years, research just keeps evolving. I
would love to know is insulin a contributing factor to these inflammatory diseases or does
the fact that you have an inflammatory disease just increase your ability your risk of
getting diabetes. But because you have this going on, I think you absolutely
should get an insulin a fast insulin test. Most doctors run a hemoglobe and
awency like every few years. I would kind of suspect your doctor should have
done this already. May be surprised if not, I know, so I
would first just check with your doctor, your regular family practice doctor, and
ask if you've had this test done, you know, in the last year.
If not, ask them to do one. You can ask them to
do a fasting insulin. Some doctors will, some doctors won't. Personally,
my doctor will not. And that's fine because you can order it on your
own. There are a few states in the United States where you cannot do
this. New York and New Jersey, I believe, have some rules about
you know, ordering your own medication and labs online. They can't participate in
ZOE for instance, they can't do DNA testing even really yes, oh my
gosh, I didn't know that because you can't send bodily fluids through the mail.
So it's very interesting. I don't know. I'm sure there's some work
around, but that's what I was thinking. That's exactly what I was thinking.
Take a weekend trip to Connecticut. I don't know user neighbors address,
I don't know anyway, So yeah, I would go get a fasting insulin.
What a fasting insulin is going to show you is, you know what
you're circulating insulin is at the time of your blood draw. You know,
we are learning that even what conventional medicine says is an appropriate fasting insulin labs
have different values a little bit. They can vary a little bit, but
around twenty. Usually if they say it's under twenty, it's good. But
what we're really learning is that you want it closer to five and that is
really going to give you like the best metabolic health and prevent these inflammatory type
diseases, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, you know, lowers your risk of kidney
disease, and it's better for your brain. So knowing that number would be
really helpful for you, because even though you don't have a lot of weight
to lose, it could potentially affect how you to structure your fasts or your
foods that you eat. What do you think, Jen, yep? And
I think she's already she's cleanish in her eating. She's focusing on a lower
carb, no gluten, and so I think she's probably doing all the right
things. And I do want to dig in. I just pulled up a
resource. I can't remember if we've talked about this already on this podcast or
not, the smart BMI calculator. Have we talked about it? We have?
Oh no, we haven't talked about it on this podcast. I talk
about it sometimes on intermittent fastening stories. Everybody, listen up. This is
a fabulous resource. Just go to Google and type in smart Bmi calculator and
then it'll take it to their website. And it's got like all these workday
ads, like I get an ad on mine for fasting. I don't know
why don't click on those? Can you imagine what kind of crazy fasting plan
you'd beginning an ad for? But anyway, so, the smart Bmi website
has a calculator for you to put in, and I just put in confused
in Dallas's stats and age as a factor for our BMI, And like I
said, this is the smart BMI. So I put in five six,
one hundred and forty pounds female seventy four years old. And then it gives
you a little graph, so share. I'm showing it to Sharry. Nobody
else can see. But it shows you where you are in the range as
far as like green for healthy and going too low is bad, going too
high is bad. And so confused in Dallas, you were actually like if
I were to draw a line halfway in the green zone, you are closer
to the too low side than to the middle. So, believe it or
not, age age is a factor because as we get older. It actually
we want to have some a little more stores as we age. According to
you know what, it's protective. Yeah, having a little bit. You
know, the amount of fact you have in your body at seventy four,
we want to have a little more than at twenty four, just for health
purposes. So you are really add an ideal weight and if you lost much
more, you would venture down into the more of the like worries some like
a little a little bit a little lower than maybe would be ideal for your
body. So I just wanted to pull that out. No matter what BMI
you're looking at, you're in the normal weight category, but on the smart
BMA BMI you're a little bit low. Did you want to add something to
that, Yeah, I actually had two things too that I wanted to add.
You know, if you come back and your insulin is higher than you
would like it to be, one thing you can do and this is actually
really good for your arthritis as well. A lot of times people have arthritis
and they think, you know, they can no longer be physically active,
but actually, by doing some strengthening and some weight training, you're going to
support your joints and you can actually get a lot of relief because you take
pressure off of your joints and the muscles help support your joints better. The
more muscle you have, the better your body can use glucose as well.
It helps you know with your glucose levels and it helps keep them more level
so that your body doesn't have to spit out as much insulin. So I
know you're seventy four and maybe you've never lifted away in your life. But
there are some great videos on YouTube for people like with limited mobility. Even
where there's like chair yoga, there are chair weightlifting videos. Ti chee would
be amazing for you. There are a lot of Tai Chee programs that start
where you can do it sitting down, and you know, I would really,
you know, recommend that you kind of explore those and look into it.
And then the other thing is you say you eat gluten free, and
I don't know what that means to you. For a lot of people who
eat gluten free, that means they're eating gluten free processed foods like you know,
gluten free pasta which is made with like a lot of rice flour sometimes,
and then gluten free treats and gluten free cook ease and whatever, gluten
free breads. The problem with that is so many of those foods drive your
blood glucose up. So if by gluten free you just mean you avoid grains,
that's fabulous. But if you're adding in gluten free foods that are me
manufactured, I would really look at reducing those. Yeah, that's a really
good tip. I love that, but and I one hundred percent agree with
you sure, because muscle mass is so important as we age. You know,
I've started Everybody's always heard me say I don't work out, but I've
actually started doing more with weights just because in like, you know, I
want to age well, I want to maintain muscle masks. So I'm working
on that on purpose. I'm glad to hear that, Well, it's time
for me to start doing it, because at fifty three, I want to
be you know, when I'm seventy four, I want to have maintained my
muscle mass. I want to be strong. And I would like to recommend
a resource for you confused. In Dallas, you know, you talked about
why do we care? What's the purpose of having the fastest insulin test?
And really I would read, if you haven't read already, the book Why
We Get Sick by doctor Benjamin Bickman. That is a powerful book. He
is a researcher and an expert on insulin and how it relates to so many
issues, like literally every issue of everything we look at is like issues of
aging and lifestyle. He links them back to how insulin excess insulin is a
factor and why we care about getting our insulin down and we know fasting is
one of the best things you could do, but he also has some other
actionable tips in there as well. But you know, if you wonder why
do we care about fasting insulin, especially if you're already you know, like
confused in Dallas, if you're already at at what maybe an ideal weight for
you? Why do you care? We care because it's linked to so much
of our health. That's why we want to know. So this week we
have a book recommendation to share and this was sent in by Martin and Alabama.
He highly read commends a book called The Beck Diet Solution Train your Brain
to Think like a thin person. Martin wrote, this is a very old
book, but one of the best, and it's written by doctor Judith Beck.
This book helps people with eating behavior and mindset. Doctor Beck is president
of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and she uses CBT techniques to guide
the reader through a six week program, helping them to learn how to think
differently about food and eating using different tools and exercises. There's also a six
week workbook that goes along with the book, but readers can use And I
knew some of you would be coming back and asking what was that book again?
So I actually went ahead and added it to show notes. So if
you want to check it out, go to show Notes. There'll be a
link there where you can look into it. And again it's called the Beck
Diet Solution b Eck Beck. And I want to talk about it a little
bit. I actually had this book years ago, sheiary or I know you're
not surprised because I had all No, I'm not surprised. You know.
I talked earlier about how I would go to Amazon and look for the books
there. You know, it was in the diet section. I also would
go to the used bookstore and just or the regular bookstore and just look at
the diet section and I would pick up anything I hadn't seen before, and
I would read the back. Does it look interesting? But the Beck Diet
Solution is one that I had. I'm guessing you liked it because it sounds
like an actionable book. Yes, And also you know, for me,
I'm really into mindset and you know, this is cognitive and behavioral techniques to
teach you how to think differently. And I think this is you know,
like Martin. I know Martin, he's in our community. He also was
on to remitten fasting stories. He's lost a lot of weight. He's also
he runs his own Facebook group. He's great at motivating people. But to
motivate yourself is you know where you might have to change your thinking. So
I want to read a little bit of the description of this book that really
resonated with me. It says, based on the premise that many dieters are
able to make short term changes in their behavior but then end up gaining the
weight back, the Beck Diet Solution teaches dieters to change their thinking so they
can change their behavior for the long term. And see, I know we
don't think of intermitt and fasting is a diet. We're not doing the interimt
and fasting diet. It's the intermat and fasting lifestyle. We're not thinking of
ourselves as dieters. Forget about that word for a minute. You know,
if you're thinking of interimant and fasting as a short term change in your behavior,
you might struggle. So the Beck Diet Solution teaches you to change your
thinking so you can change your behavior for the long term. So the description
goes on to say, by following the cognitive therapy techniques, dieters learn to
think differently and overcome common pitfalls and sabotaging thoughts. They can eat their favorite
foods while steadily losing weight, feel in control of the most challenging situations,
feel confident their ability to follow a healthy plan, remain motivated to maintain weight
loss for life, and doctor Becky Laws as tools such as hunger monitoring scales,
daily planning schedules, weight loss graphs, and motivational cards to facilitate the
process. And for me, I really think that that that is key.
And why you know, I haven't looked at this book in years, but
when Martin recommended, I really remember that. I liked all that that thinking,
the way it teaches you to think about it, you know, because
sabotaging thoughts are real. We see that all the time in the community.
People sabotage themselves with their thoughts and they might even realize they're doing it,
but they don't know how to stop. We see it a lot too,
and people who are approaching maintenance or they're like so close to getting there and
then for whatever reason, they suddenly just I don't even know, like I
said, they kind of lose the plot and I think a lot of it
is a lot of people they've never been at that weight before, they've never
maintained that weight before, and so rather than just like being in the mindset
like I've worked for this, I deserve this, I know what to do,
I'm gonna keep doing it, it's almost like they talk themselves out of
being proud of that and accepting that they've made it there, and then they
start to slide back. And there's so many sabotaging thoughts just in general.
And you know, you can talk yourself out of anything. You know,
you could start finding resources that don't recommend intermitten fasting and talk yourself into it,
and people do do that. They do. If you want to quit,
do an intermitten fasting, I could send you some youtubees and you would
be like, oh my god, I don't want to do this anymore.
You've got to learn to trust yourself though. Like somebody I follow on Instagram
for hormone stuff just posted something about how they don't like intermitten fasting, and
I was like, what. I didn't say a word because it's it's their
page, you know, I'm not I don't want them coming to my page
to tell me it's something anyway. I didn't go to. I didn't say
a word. Sure, I know which page you're talking to, old right
on, Bob. But they had some misconceptions about They said some things like
intermitten fasting and eating disorders, disordered eating, and that we're just like overrestricting
and binging and that's not what intermittent fasting is. And if you are an
intermit faster, you know that, you do, you do know it,
And so it was like, well they really just don't understand it. They're
basing it on just some misconceptions and some thoughts they have. But you know,
if I were someone who was fragile and new and I wasn't really sure
I liked intermitten fasting anyway, and that might be any all the only excuse
I needed to quit, and then I would miss out on I mean,
I've been living this lifestyle since twenty fourteen without stopping. That doesn't mean I
hadn't had longer eating windows. And you know, I have a day that
someone else might have considered a day off. I just considered that a really
really short fast that day. But I've never stopped since twenty fourteen. But
in my early days. If I were feeling down and the scale wasn't moving
like I wanted, and I came across some negative information, I might sabotage
myself and quit. So if your friends send you a YouTube video, don't
watch all whatever that quote is. If you think you can, you can
try four think whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're
right right, that's it. So all the tools you can have. But
again, your friend who likes to send you YouTube video is telling you not
to do it. You can talk yourself out of it very, very easily
if you want to. And you know there are a lot of resources out
there that don't understand and remittent fasting, and they're going to give you that
Debbie down reviewpoint. So don't let it happen. Trust how you feel.
If you feel better, then you're doing something that's good for your body.
Before we get to our tweak of the week, I want to take a
minute to tell you about beauty Counter. They are my go to for all
my makeup, skin and bodycare needs. Nearly two and a half years ago,
I started transitioning my beauty products over to beauty Counter, and within six
weeks I was sold. I had started the transmition and then Gin released her
book Cleanish, and after reading it, I was like, Okay, you
know, this is a really easy way that I can clean things up.
And so basically, when I started running out of products that I had,
I would replace them with Beauty Counter as an easy way to transition over.
And within six weeks of starting using their anti aging line, I started getting
so many compliments on my skin. And I've always suffered from melasma and sun
damage due to all the years I spent in the sun as a sunshine lover.
If anybody who knows me knows that I love the sun, Gin and
I love the sun, but I had an allergy to chemical sunscreens. I
still do, and so I just couldn't ever wear them. And I was
a lifeguard and my water skied and I was always outside and my face really
was showing it. I had tried so many products over the years to fade
my dark spots, which have always sort of been a source of embarrassment for
me, and none of them were active. It didn't matter how much I
spent on it, they just didn't work. When I started using Beauty Counters
anti aging Counter, Timeline. I also started using their Allbright c serum every
morning, and over the years they've added more products to their all Bright line.
They have a toner with kombucha, a daily brightening facial oil that is
amazing, and most recently, they're All Bright dark Spot Minimizer. It is
formulated with the most effective form of vitamin C, nice cinamide and pomegranate extract.
And after two years with the Albright serum, I only had a few
stubborn dark spots left, and in about four weeks of using this product,
I am seeing a difference in those stubborn spots. And of course, since
I have worked so hard to reverse the damage to my skin, I don't
go a day without beauty Counter nano zinc mineral sunscreen for the face. So
if you want to learn more, visit beautycounter dot com slash Sherry Bullock those
Beautycounter dot com sh r I b U l O c K. Yeah,
it's finally see the season for me to pull out my sunscreen. Now that
I'm swimming in the ocean, my face was starting to get a little I
was like, all right, time for my sunscreen. Pulled out my beautycatter
sunscreen and put it on. It's just a habit I do every morning now
when I brush my teeth, I put on my face sunscreen. All right,
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 is
why it is super helpful to hear how other intermitten fasters are making intermitt and
fasting work for them. This tweak was submitted by Pam in Rent and Washington.
She says my tweak is a mindset tweak most of all. After listening
to Linda Burke's intermitt and Fasting Stories episode that was number three hundred and fourteen
of intermitt and Fasting Stories, she said, I was hit with the thought,
what if I stopped looking for weight loss right now and just kept fasting
and tweaking until I was Linda's age? So in tis years or so,
where do I want to be health wise? And just like that, I
let go of my angst with the scale. I'm still weighing daily, but
I simply enter my weight in a happy scale and I don't look at the
trender graph until the last day of the month. That is when I will
look at the graph decide if my latest tweak to my if schedule is working,
and if I need to make another tweak. I can't tell you how
much more peaceful I feel about my weight and size now. It has been
truly freeing. I love this because when number one, I love Happy Scale.
If you are an iOS user and you don't have Happy Scale, it
is so easy to average your weight in a Happy scale, especially if you
have a Bluetooth smart scale. I literally get on my scale every morning.
It sinks to my phone and then it just automatically updates into the Happy Scale
app. And I have been using this technique for years now. And for
me, I look once a week. And since i work wends and I'm
not eating out and I'm usually eating really healthy on the weekends, my way
day is Monday. That's the day that I look at my Happy Scale.
I look to see what my week's average has done. So you weighed every
day, you got on every day, but you didn't look. You only
look every Monday. Correct, Because what happens from day to day really doesn't
matter. I mean, I look and I notice, but it's just a
number anymore to me. I know that the scale is going to go up
and down. You know. It's like I did a down day Monday.
I was kind of hoping that the scale was going to be down on Tuesday,
but it was actually up two pounds, and I'm like, well,
that's weird, Like, you know what's going on. Well, I looked
at my aura ring, and an Aora ring can predict your menstrual cycles,
and it told me I was on day twenty eight of my cycle. And
I was like, oh, okay, well that makes perfect sense that the
scale is up two pounds. My hands are puffy and whatever. But I
know when I look back on Monday, this coming Monday, five days,
it's not going to matter that the scale was up because it's averaging it out
over the week for me. And the other thing that I really love is
that she says she will look at the graph at the end of a month
and decide at the end of a month if she needs to make a tweak.
And I think that's a great way to make tweaks. Too often people
make a tweak, they don't see immediate results, and they start making other
tweaks and then you have these people who are really they're chasing a number,
and they're tweaking so much they don't even give their body time to adjust to
the tweak and start to show results from it before they decide it doesn't work
and they start tweaking again. So anytime you make a tweak, I say
three to four weeks minimum. If at three to four weeks you're not seeing
the changes that you want to see, then tweak again one hundred percent.
Because every tweak you make, you might see a little weight gain at first,
and that doesn't mean it's fat like for example, this might sail on
the counterintuitive, but sometimes people will start one meal a day. They've been
doing sixteen eight and now they're doing one meal a day and their weight all
of a sudden goes up. For the first couple of weeks, they're like,
what, that's what mine did well? Instead of it makes sense physiologically
because if you've been eating in eight hours, you probably had smaller amounts all
spread out and your body's like managing that food. Maybe you were eating from
twelve to eight. By the time eight o'clock it's been eight hours since you
ate, your body's processed more of that so when you wake up in the
morning, you're farther away from that food you eight yesterday at twelve versus now
you're trying one meal a day. Maybe you eat a lot of food at
six pm, and now you wake up in the morning, your weight is
up because that food, more of it is still in your system, if
that makes sense. So you might be like, well, I started one
meal a day and I gained four pounds in one week. But it's very
unlikely that we gain or lose that much fat. I think two When people
move from two meals a day to one meal a day too, there is
a lot of compensatory overeating that happens initially, but I think a lot of
water balance too. Yeah, once you settle in and you're like, okay,
like this is actually easier, not harder. I don't need to eat
this much, And then you know, you kind of your mind adapts,
your habits adapt you know, and then you start to see your weight shift
again. If you start a new tweak and the weight pops up several pounds
all of a sudden, that does not mean the tweak does not work,
not even close. And the same with ADF. You could start alternate daily
fasting, and now you're having updates where you're supposed to slightly overeat. That's
the whole point of the updates. And then your weight might go up for
a couple weeks in a row. And there could be really if you are
if you're someone who's has a damaged metabolism because you've been doing low calorie dieting,
or maybe you were doing twenty two two for a year and then you
were like, oh, I should not Jen and Sherry say I should mix
it up. I'm going to do ADF. You might have a slightly slowed
metabolism. When you start throwing in up days true update with two to three
full meals, you may actually gain a little fat at first. There's something
called reverse dieting. I was just gonna say, you're gonna talk about that.
I mean, that is a strategy. I didn't make it up.
Sure, it didn't make it up. It's a true strategy that's around.
Like if someone has been overly restricting for a long long time, they'll do
something called reverse dieting where they purposefully eat more to rev up for like eight
weeks. Yeah, and you're gonna gain weight, and but it revs up
your metabolism. Like I literally think that I accidentally reverse diet when I back
in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, before I started intermitten fasting, I had
given up after you came off hCG. Yes, it was after because I'd
been doing the diet. My diet pill years were from probably two thousand and
three to two thousand and five, and so I was restricting. I'm sure
that was terrible for my metabolism. I quit doing that and gained fifty pounds
a year and a half. Then I started dabbling in the hCG diet,
which is it's basically nothing but down days one after the other with no up
ever. So of course you lose a lot of weight, but it slows
your metabolic and I would dabble in that back and forth, and finally though,
I was like forget it and I was just eating whatever, and I
put my scale away and I was calling it intoit of eating. But I
was gonna say, is that when when you were doing intuitive eating it was
and you know, because I was like so weary from having to restrict.
So I gained a lot of weight really really fast over those years. And
I wasn't weighing, and so then when I was two hundred and ten pounds
in twenty fourteen, you know, I ended up with intermittent fasting lost the
weight fairly quickly. But I really think that I had boosted my metabolism through
those few years when I was just like I give up, I quit.
So the moral of that story is if someone starts an ADF tweak, especially
if they did it because they think their metabolism might be slow, you really
might see a little fat gain at first, because the purpose of the updates
is to rev your metabolism and your metaball right, so you might just have
to be patient. And I see how that could be really really scary to
see you moving in the wrong direction. That doesn't mean it isn't working.
It might be exactly what your body needs. It is scary, though.
I think when you make a tweak, you really just have to be all
in and commit and just be like, Okay, this is what I'm doing.
I'm going to commit. I'm not going to let the scale, you
know, sway me. You could even treat it like the twenty eight day
fast start. You could say I'm gonna do ADF for a month and I'm
not gonna start weighing again till next month. That's a good idea, and
just put the scale away. If you're a person who is really swayed by
what the scale is doing, just be all in recommit like you did when
you first started fasting, and give it four weeks and then start assessing and
tweaking is needed, because you might give up on the one strategy that your
body really really needs because you have deemed too early that it isn't working right.
And I think we see that a lot people are like I tried ADF.
I did it for a week, but I gained three pounds, so
it's not for me. Well, we love to leave you guys with listeners,
inspiration or motivational quotes that they sent to us, and this week's motivational
message was set in by Maria from Brooklyn. These three words progress not perfection
are a much needed reminder in all areas of my life. These words kept
me going when I started INTERMD fasting in January of twenty twenty, and then
when we pivoted due to COVID in March of twenty twenty. Later with my
mom's cancer diagnosis and decline, in twenty twenty one. Through it all,
intermin fasting is always there. It's never about perfection. The longer I keep
at it, the more progress I see in every aspect of my life.
I love fasting the lifestyle, and I love sharing with others how it works
for me. That's a powerful quote. Progress not perfection. Perfection is an
illusion, Yes it is. Thanks so much for listening today. We would
love to have you join us and the Delayed on Tonight community, where you
can interact with both me and Sharry plus the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters
you'll find anywhere. Go to Jen Stevens dot com slash community to join us.
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to your favorite podcast app, and
if you haven't already, please leave us a five star review that helps new
listeners find the show and we really appreciate it. We are a community driven
podcast, so to submit your success stories, your questions, your favorite tweak
it till It's Easy moments, or anything else you want us to share on
the podcast, go to Fast Feast Repeat dot com, slash submit and then
listen each week to see if we share your submission or answer your question until
next week. Thanks for listening,