Episode 2: Non-Scale Victories, Setting Goals, Plateaus, Focusing on Your Eating Window, 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, tune in each week to get inspired, to
learn, and 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 am wonderful. I am so excited because here we are recording episode two,
and yesterday we got episode zero finished as far as like it was mixed
and all the stuff they do at the company. So I listened to the
whole thing. I never listened to my podcast, but I listened to episode
zero. Did you have a chance to listen? I listened to it this
morning. It might be the last one I ever listened to. But I
don't need to hear myself. We have some helpers behind the scene that often
help us listen to episodes as they come out, and you know, just
check for editing errors or whatever for us. So I have sent it to
those people and they have given me nothing but like wonderful, exciting feedback.
So makes me so happy. So by the time this one comes out,
hopefully everyone will have greatly enjoyed episode zero and episode one. And we've made
it to episode two. And what I noticed is when I was listening,
it just sounded like any other conversation that we've had. We don't have this
awkward get to know each other period, because we've already been podcasting together for
two and a half years. Yeah I did notice that as well. Yeah,
Well, anyway, so exciting. But welcome to everyone who's here listening
to episode two and many many more to come. Well, we're you going
to jump right into our weekly celebration, and today's celebration comes from Julie and
Oregon she wrote, my non scale victory. Other than the fact that I
got rid of my scale as well, there's so many really. I have
so much energy. I no longer need my blood pressure medication. My cholesterol
and triglycerides are greatly improved, and I have been able to get rid of
my size two X wardrobe. I can jump right up from sitting on the
floor, and my skin looks and feels amazing. And can I just talk
about that? Yes, being able to get up and down from the floor
is linked to longevity. Yeah. Have you tried that thing where you're supposed
to sit down across your cross your legs and try to get up without your
arms? Yeah, I can do it. Can you do it? Last
time I did it? I couldn't. H But see, I also have
weird joints. I have hypermobile joints, so it was like kind of weird.
I don't know. It was like my knees wanted to do things they
shouldn't be doing, Like like I can't do push ups because I've got double
join at elbows and my elbows go the wrong direction. Yeah. Well,
just getting up off the floor, whether it's that way or another way,
is still a great I remember not being able to get up off the floor.
Yeah, yeah, well just then getting up and down off the floor.
It helps you prevent you from like having falls and stuff later in life,
which we know is like deadly. So yeah, I think the vibration
plate helps with that as well. It does with the straalance appropriate reception.
Can we talk about a couple of her victories in there that I think are
important. One of them is the blood pressure medications. She's no longer on
blood pressure medication. We have heard from a lot of intermitting fasters over the
years that they may be on blood pressure medication for years, like they've been
taking it for you years prior to starting INTERMIT and fasting, and then all
of a sudden one day they come into you know, back when it was
the Facebook group or now it's the community, and they're like, all of
a sudden, I'm getting really dizzy and I'm lightheaded. And one of the
things we know to ask them is are you on blood pressure medication? Because
sometimes their blood pressure will go down and they no longer need the medication,
but they're used to taking it and their doctor hasn't adjusted their dose so well,
and it happens relatively quick. It does, like some people notice a
change within like a month. But I mean, high blood pressure is an
inflammation. Is a disease of inflammation and like so many metabolic diseases, So
you get that inflammation down and your blood pressure comes down. So anybody who's
on high blood pressure medicine be aware that your medication needs may change. Don't
go change in your medication without talking to your doctor, but just be aware
that if you start to feel dizzy, I'm lightheaded, you might need a
lower dose of blood pressure medicine. Yeah. The best thing to do is
just start taking your blood pressure at home couple of times a day, morning,
afternoon, evening, and keep a log so that when you contact your
doctor you can let them know. I mean sometimes you can just call them
and tell them you've been monitoring your blood pressure and ask them what they think.
I know, my husband started fasting a couple of summers ago, and
he was on three different blood pressure medications. Wow, and he has been
on blood pressure medications since he was about twenty two or twenty three years old,
And very quickly he started telling me that he was getting very dizzy and
if he would bend over and stand up. He thought it was going to
pass out, and I said, I think it's your blood pressure. And
I took it and it was like very low. And so we called his
doctor and talked to them, and he weaned off of one of them,
and within a couple of weeks he weaned off a second one. Yeah.
Well, I just wanted to bring that out because that's a real problem people
have. And the other thing I want to talk about real quick is cholesterol.
Because you know more about cholesterol than me. You always talk about the
ratios. I mean, I understand that, I just you always have the
link. But sometimes when people start fasting, they'll find their cholesterol goes up,
just a part the fat burning process, cholesterol will go up. It's
transient. Let's see if I can say this word transient hyper cholesterol emia.
I don't know if I said that right. Yes, temporarily high cholesterol basically
is what that means. But talk about the ratios for a minute. Well,
there are different ratios like formulas. Yeah, there's different there's a bunch
of different ratios. And anytime you get a total cholesterol with you know your
total cholesterol, your hdl LDL triglysterides, they are going to give you some
ratios, which basically, depending on where you fall on that ratio, it's
it's a risk factor, right, right, so you want it to be
lower, and the lower your ratio, the lower your risk of cardiovascular disease.
Now, there is also a calculator out there that a lot of people
don't know about. Even my doctor did not know about it. You can
look it up. It is from the American Heart Association and the American College
of Cardiology. They basically teamed up up and they created a formula that really
identifies a person's cardiovascular risk. It's not just your cholesterol. Your blood pressure
comes into play, your age, your cholesterol. You put it all in
this online calculator and it actually it's an assessment tool for physicians, but the
general public can access it and it actually will tell you like should you be
on a statin? Should you be on aspirin therapy? And it's really helpful
because my doctor for years now has wanted to put me on a statin because
my HDL is, which is your good cholesterol, it's really high and which
is good, that's very cardiovascular preventative. My triglys rides are very low,
but my LDL is higher. Part of it is just familial. My mom
and her dad both had really high cholesterol. So that makes my total cholesterol
high because I have high HDL and I have high LDL. Right, and
you add those together and now my total is higher. But just looking at
your total doesn't take an account that you have this really great HDL out there.
Well, when you put in this calculator, it's taking account for all
of this, right, So I was able to put all this information a
calculator and it absolutely said that my risk was like so minimal of having a
cardiovascular event in the next ten years. I think it was like point zero
two percent. And it said that there was no medication recommended for me.
So what would someone google if someone was trying to find that calculator, what
would they google? What would they look for? You know what? We
can drop a link in show notes. I actually have it saved on Okay
phone, and let's see for someone who might just be listening and wanting to
be able to find it later. Well, I can tell you right now.
It's tools dot ACC dot org. ACC is the American College or American
College of Cardiology Tools do ACC dot org YEP and it's the heart risk estimator,
all right, and uh yeah, it'll get you there. You can
run your numbers. And you know, my doctor had me really stressed out
and I was like, I don't want to take a statin, but do
I need to take I don't have a heart attack, you know, and
you're in that limbo where you just don't know what the right decision was.
And by running my numbers through this, I felt very confident and it was
able to really advocate for myself that no, I do not need to be
on medication. And I was actually able to show this and share this with
him and he didn't know about it. And now he has another tool.
Your doctor has another tool. I wrote it down for him. Yeah,
I hope he uses it. I hope so too. Well. Anyway,
I wanted to probe both of those from Julie's celebrations because you know, so
often people are upset about their cholesterol because they haven't looked more fully like you
did. Or also they may need to lurer their blood sugar or I mean
blood as your medication. So congratulations to Julie, and now it's time for
our first listener question today. This question is from Maria from Brooklyn, and
Maria has a great question. She says, how do I set a realistic
weight or size goal. I'm doing alternate daily fasting now and losing very consistently.
I actually enjoy the down days as well as the three meal updates.
I'm fasting to lose weight, but ultimately for health and wellness. Will I
eventually slow my weight loss with four to three when my body is at its
ideal weight? Or do I need to consciously change it up and eat more
such as move to five two or back to a daily eating window to slow
the weight loss. If I need to consciously shift, when and how do
I do that? Well? I just know I was about one hundred and
fifty five pounds sixteen years ago after running a marathon. I was fitting in
shape. I was one hundred and thirty pounds starting college and one hundred and
forty five at the end of college. I don't really care about the number,
so I plan on making my next ten weeks about added exercise and strength.
So what do you say to that, Sherry? First, I just
want to say a couple of things. People get up and down days confused.
So a down day, think down calories, right. So up days
is up calories, So down days are you either don't eat at all,
or you can utilize a down day meal of five hundred calories ish and you
eat it at one sitting. You open for a very short window of time,
eat that five hundred calories, close it back up, and you continue
fasting until your up day the next day. Oh, can I pop in
with something that people will ask Sometimes will be like, I don't understand how
the five hundred calorie meal doesn't break a fast. I'm like, it does
break a fast. You get fast clean, you have your fault, your
small meal, then you have another fast, so it's instead of one long,
thirty six hour fast, you're really having two little fasts or well they're
not that little, but with a little meal in between. Yeah, and
don't think it's like cheating or you're not strong enough or whatever. I'm gonna
tell you right now. When I'm doing up days and down days, I
almost always use the down day meal because for many reasons, Um, I
don't. I'm not a great sleeper anyways, I'm a pretty wired person.
I have ADHD and I have middle of the night anxiety anyway, so it
helps me sleep a lot. And I'm going to be honest, I just
like to eat and I don't want to go an entire day without eating.
And that's all there is to that, And it's it's not a lesser approach.
The research on ADF was done with the five hundred calorie down day,
so it's it's very well researched. Anyway, I just wanted to pop that
into Yes, eating a five hundred calorie meal does break a fast. So
basically she's wanting to know how will she know when she is well? I
mean, yeah, I think your body really just tells you. Yeah,
it tells you. Now. I guess there's a period where you're like,
Okay, am I there? Or am I at a plateau? And I
think it really comes to like, are you happy with the way you're close
fit? Are you happy when you look in the mirror? Are you confident?
Are you comfortable? Or you know? Are you thinking? Well,
you know, I still have a lot of pudge hanging over the top of
my jeans. I feel like I could lose ten more pounds. So if
you get into a period of time where you don't have weight loss, and
this goes on for about six weeks, then I would definitely tweak, because
when you get to the end of your weight loss phase sometimes you really do
have to make some changes and things happen a lot slower at the end.
And then outside of that, if you make some tweaks and your body's not
budging, it's probably just happy where it's at. Yeah, I think we
have to understand that we're not designed, nor are we supposed to have,
you know, an eighteen percent body fat. As women, we should not
have a six pack. So if that's your goal, it's time to like
reassess your goals. And yeah, I didn't change anything when I got to
maintenance. I just kept my normal protocol. When I did get to like
my regular old kind of set point weight, I really wanted to push myself
and see if I could get past it. This was just a personal thing
I wanted to do, and I did play around with my diet started restricting
excess dietary fat, and not just say I didn't eat any I just you
know, didn't put a quarter cup of siured cream on my burrito. I
didn't put cheese inside and outside the burrito. So I just was a lot
more mindful of dietary fat and I was able to shift my weight about eight
to ten pounds less than what I had maintained as a weight Watchers leader.
And just to put out there, we're not scared of fat. We're not
saying everybody you know don't eat fat. We're just saying that some bodies.
If you're trying to really dial down your weight a little bit more, if
you're eating too much fat for your body, or too much anything for your
body, you may need to be it's easy to overdo it. For me,
cheese, cheese, and butter are very easy to overdo. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm a cheese and sour cream girl, so yeah. But for
a lot of people, they like to snack on nuts, which are great.
Nuts are really healthy. Yep, to a point, but you can
overdo it, right. So we're not scared of nuts, we're not scared
of dairy, we're not scared of fat. We don't think it's bad.
But those are things that you can overdo. I just like, shaar,
Yeah, I'm not. I don't tend to be a sugar person. I'm
more of that savory, cheesy, creamy person. But you know, if
I was a person trying to get down to an extra, you know,
eight or ten pounds, and I was eating cookies at the end of every
window, I would have to say, hmm, I might need to back
off on eating cookies every day, right exactly. So I just wanted to
are that out there because people who are new to the podcast and don't know
it's yet be like what these people are they're going to tell me to be
I'm supposed to eat low fat. Note we're not telling you that at all.
Yeah, And part of it's just knowing your body. And I know
just over time that my body is more sensitive to fat. If I really
want to bust some weight loss, I cut back on some fat and it'll
start melting off. Yeah. Bioindividuality. I'll talk about this in Fast Feast
Repeat. And some of it is genetic, some of it's your gut microbiome.
But when I had my DNA analyzed, it had me with a very
high percent of carbs and a low percent of fat as far as like what
would be you know, ideal for my body. And there are people who
are the opposite. And you know, those are the people who do great
with low carbon keto and they feel great eating that way. That's how their
body responds, you can really trust your body and know which approach works for
you. But I'm the person that gains weight on keto, so that'll tell
you why cutting fat is helpful for me. Yeah, And she's talking about
the weight, like, you know what, way, I don't think you
settle on a weight. Your body is going to choose that, and your
body after intermittent fasting for a period of time may weigh more but be smaller
than it was with any other kind of weight loss plan you have ever followed,
just because we don't lose muscle masks like you do on a calorie restriction
diet. Right, Yeah, I was going to say that exact same thing,
you know, because Maria really her first question was how does she set
her goal for weight or size? And for me, when I was starting,
you know, I started at two hundred and ten pounds. I was
obese. I had a few claw items of clothing from when I felt good
in my body and they were like size six. So I was like,
I want to be a size six, and I think that'll be about one
hundred and thirty five pounds. I just thought that based on past and then
when I got there, I realized I did still have some fat I needed
to lose that wasn't quite where I wanted to be yet. But interestingly,
I wasn't a size six. I was a sigh four at one thirty five,
So my body got smaller thanks to body recomposition that I'd lost fat and
maintained muscle mass. So I would like to encourage everyone, instead of having
a weight goal, have a way you want to feel in your body goal
and also a goal lifestyle, because you know, I could probably lose you
know, let's just say ten more pounds and be less squishy. But I
would have to really I would have to diet to do it. I would
have to be really careful. I wouldn't be able to use butter in my
rice, I would have to watch what I was having. I don't want
to live like that. You know. We went out for ice cream after
dinner the other night. I enjoyed that. So I want to have this
is my goal lifestyle. I'm not, you know, competing in fitness model
bikini competitions. Right. I have the body I have, and so I
have a goal lifestyle that allows me to feel good in my body and wear
the clothes. You know, I want to keep my same one. I
want some flexibility and free them and that is what I Yes, I could
maintain that lower weight and I'm not gonna lie. Really liked my body at
that size. But I also don't want to worry about how many fat grams
I'm eating every day. I'm conscious about it, and I catch myself sometimes
scooping on the cyur cream and I'm like, don't do that, Sherry.
But I would rather have the flexibility and freedom and be a size eight instead
of a size six, right exactly. And that's where the gold lifestyle comes
in, because we just want to enjoy our life. I think that's super
important. I think so as well. So I think I think we got
that in there for Maria mostly she also wanted in a wind to change it
up. I think you'll really know when you like when Sherry said, if
you find yourself at you know, a six week plateau or something and you
feel or feeling good in your body, just experiment and see you know you're
it's it's just gonna you know what feels good. If you love ADF and
four to three and you think that might be a good maintenance lifestyle, then
maybe five two for a maintenance lifestyle with two down days each followed by an
up day, and then that would leave three days to be just normal eating
window days. Or you could go back to daily eating window every single day
and see how that fuels, or throwing a mealas Monday once a week.
You know, you don't actually have to decide on a protocol. You just
switch it up and see what feels good right And you know, what feels
good in one season may not feel good in the next season. That's true,
And that's the great thing about an intimate fastening lifestyle is you can tweak
it ongoing. We've got all the tools in our toolbox, pull them out
as needed. So we have another question this week. This was sent in
by Sherry and Colorado. She said, I had plateaued for the last month,
lots of stress, etc. I have noticed that I am no longer
freezing before I open my window. I usually do three pm to seven or
eight pm. I am positive I am still clean fasting. I have double
and triple check that I am ten months into my IF journey and I am
down thirty pounds, but I have about twenty more to go. My BMI
is now in the overweight range. For my five foot to frame versus the
obese range, but I am nowhere near maintenance. I may begin ADF or
using ADF with a down day meal option as a tweak. I'm just curious
about not feeling cold anymore. I worry that may mean I am not burning
anything up anymore. I will say, with all the increased energy I have,
I am much less sedentary than I used to be, So maybe I
just don't notice the cold as much. I'm just curious if that is something
that lessens with time, or if I am missing something of late. I
thought that was so many answers to that. Well, good, good,
good. I know there's so many ways to go. First of all,
I don't think whether you're cold or not cold should like stress you out,
Like sometimes people think if I am cold, that must mean my metabolism is
going down, or if I'm not cold, maybe I'm we can really get
panicked about things that are not really that big of a deal. You know.
Also the time of the year when you when you sent this in,
you know it's we're recording this in June. But when this got sent in
a few weeks ago, maybe the weather's warmed up and you're just not as
cold for that reason, or it totally could be that you're you're less sedentary
and more active. So don't read too much into you know, feeling cold
all the time. It's very typical to plateau at a certain point along the
way. Plateaus are normal no matter how you're losing weight. And so Sherry
mentions that she's ten months in, she's down thirty pounds and still has about
twenty more to go, and it looks like she has about a four to
five hour eating window. Here's the thing about a very very consistent daily eating
window. You can plateau if you have a very consistent daily eating window over
time. And we are creatures of habit, so you may find yourself,
you know, with the I mean, I don't recommend you count calories,
but let's imagine that you did. You might find that you're in a very
very close similar amount of food day to day, and so your body can
be like, all right, I like it. Here. We call that
homeostasis. You've now adapted, and so you were at a perfect balance of
what you're eating and where your body is happy to stay. And so if
you think you may be eating the very similar amount every single day and you're
stalled. That could have something to do with it. I am the kind
of person shary knows this, you know, I have like wildly different things
day to day. Like one day I'll have like a really giant long window
of you maybe six hours, and I ate a ton, and then the
next day I'm really really busy and I have a two hour window. Just
it just happens that way. I think I naturally up and down right without
meaning to. And I always was the person who was like, it's the
weekend, I'm gonna have a longer window because it's fun and we're going out
to eat. So I never really fell on that trap of same day to
day. That's just not how I live. So if you do, think
you may have gotten into a point where you're very similar day to day.
That is when throwing in some eight f can really really help you. The
down day, whether you do a thirty six hour fast or whether you have
the five hundred calorie meal, that is a day where your body's going to
burn fat, and then the next day is the up day, and that's
where it's so important that you have at least two to three full meals in
a period of at least six to eight hours. And really in the research
on ADF, they didn't even have windows. They just got up in the
morning, they ate normally, quote normally, they weren't trying to have fasting
or an eating window. On the updates, that is where the metabolic boost
comes in. So that's where the power of adflies. You have the down
day, the fasting day, the down day with a five hundred calorie meal.
Either way, you want to look at it for burning the fat,
and then the update boosts the metabolic right, so it gets you out of
the rut that you may be in with the similar day to day daily eating
window. Yep, I agree. Okay, so I'm going to address her
feeling cold. And when we start out fasting, a lot of people say,
I'm so cold, why I'm fasting? And a lot of people really
notice that when they do an ADF they'll say, like the night day fasted
on their down day like that they're freezing. And I used to experience this
as well. Now here's my thoughts. I've several one we know from people
reporting back success stories that fasting is really healing for your thyroid and feeling cold
all the time can be a sign of a sluggish thyroid, and you may
have never been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, but symptoms can present for years before you
are ever diagnosed with hypothyroidism. So if you, over time are healing your
sluggish thyroid with fasting, then it makes sense that you're going to stop being
cold all the time. I never would have thought of that, but you're
right. Okay, So then here's my other thoughts. You've lost thirty pounds.
We know that visceral fat is one of the first things to go for
most people because that's the deadly is fat, and your body attacks it first.
So blood flow is pulled away from your extremities to your torso while you're
fasting, because it's burning and mobilizing that fat storage. Okay, now,
if you've burned a lot of that visual fat, it might be turning to
subcutaneous fat and you've got more blood flow going to your extremities now. And
then third thing, when we're first fasting, often our blood sugars aren't really
regulated still, and as you're tapping out of your glycogen and you're converting,
you know, getting ready to flip the switch to fat burning, a lot
of people do have a slump in their blood glucose, and when my blood
sugar is low, I get really cold. So if your hormones are more
balanced, you may not be feeling that cold sensation before you flip the switch
to fat burning. I love that, Zee. That was a whole perspective
I never would have thought of. My advice is don't worry about it so
much. But now Serry told you why we tend to their look for every
sign and think is this a bad sign? You know, like everything panics
us like I'm not cold anymore? Why am I not cold? And we
think it might be something bad, but it's really something good. Well,
And what's funny is people will panic either way, because we have people who
panic because they're cold, and they think that means that they've slowed down their
metabolism, right, and that you know, fasting is bad for them.
So we tend to like look for problems that don't exist in either direction.
Right, right, I'm too cold, I'm not cold enough. Either way,
I can feel like this is not right. Like I remember back in
the Facebook group, someone would talk about, you know, Ketosi's breath or
something and the way that they experience you know the taste in their mouth.
And someone said, oh my god, I don't experience that. Am I
doing it wrong? We're like, no, we compare ourselves to someone else,
and if we're experiencing it differently, we think it's it's something's not right.
I have a confession to make what I have always said, I don't
have keto breath. I'm like, I don't under to this keto breath thing.
I don't know what. My husband said one day and I said something
about I'd never experienced keto breath, and he said, what are you talking
about. You have keto breath every day? Oh my gosh, like and
he smells it. I was bad bride, I guess And I said what
and he's like, yeah, He's like, I can smell keytones on you
every day. And I said, why have you never told me that?
And he said, because you're an intermittent faster and that's just part of it.
Why would I tell you about it? And it's not a bad about
the keytones smell bad, No, he just he says he smells it like
if he comes in to give me a kiss, he can smell a metallic
smell coming from my breath. That you just don't feel it or tasted.
I had no idea. Well, everybody, I guess, I said,
I'm set now that you know, everybody's gonna worry that they're like spread and
keytone breath everywhere. No, but he did be careful how you kiss.
Yeah, no one has ever said to me, oh my god, your
breath is so bad. So and I told you kids for years as an
intermittent faster and I feel like they would have told me. I mean,
I know they would have told me. Yeah. I mean, I work
very closely with my coworkers and horror, and i'd worry. I mean,
we're pretty open when you work in healthcare. One of my co workers would
have been like, Sherry, you need a breath mint. So that's never
happened. I'm fasting no breath man. Anyway, That's funny. I love
that you didn't even know, but you have a metallic smell that you're given
off and you didn't even Yep. Love it all right. Well, that
was that was a great a great question. Before we get to our tweak
of the week, I want to take a minute to tell you about all
of the amazing companies that are featured at jin Stevens dot com slash Cleanish.
And if you haven't read Cleanish yet, I know a lot of you are
here because you're an intermitten faster, and probably all of you since this is
a fasting podcast. But you know, when I wade Cleanish, I wanted
to venture out away from intermitten fasting. There's a chapter on intermitten fasting in
there, but it's not an intermitten fast book. The subtitle of Cleanish is
eat mostly clean, Live mainly clean, and unlock your body's natural ability to
self clean. And one of our bodies self cleaning mechanisms is of course intermittent
fasting. But it's not an intermittent fasting book. But when I was writing
Cleanish, I realized I still needed to make some changes in my life.
You know, I was doing the intermitten fasting. That part was down,
but I did need to improve when it came to eating mainly clean, and
also in my housekeeping, I found out thanks to greenwashing, a lot of
the products that I was using were not as green or as clean as I
thought that they were. So and when it comes to eating mainly clean,
I rely on meals from green Chef, I rely on daily harvest clean wines
from dry farm wines. When it comes to when I'm using on my body,
beauty counter works great for me and I don't have to even worry about
it and around the house, I really rely on branch basics. So to
Jin stephens dot com slash Cleanish for links to purchase Cleanish if you haven't read
it already. You can make a few changes here and there and it's not
as hard as you think. There are also links for special offers to all
of my favorite clean companies Jin Stevens dot com slash Cleanish. And now it's
time for our tweak of the week. You know, I always say tweak
it till it's easy, but it's really important to know the tweak that works
for me might not be the one that works for you. Like earlier Sherry
was talking about one of her tweaks is don't go back for a second scoop
of sour cream, right, And the tweak that works from me and might
not be the word one that works for you and vice versa. And that's
why it's super helpful to hear how other intermitt and fasters are making intermitt and
fasting work for them. So this tweak was submitted by Kim Moss from Texas,
and Kim says Jen has said not to focus so much on the length
of the fast, but to focus on the eating window, and the fast
will work itself out. I don't know why, but it took me a
while to understand that I get it now. In the past, I would
open my window at the same time every day and would allow it to stay
open longer if we had things going on that evening. I was experiencing window
creet without recognizing it. But now that I understand, I can plan accordingly.
For instance, yesterday was my twenty seventh wedding anniversary. In the past,
I would have opened my window after nineteen hours of fasting and kept it
open longer to accommodate our dinner at the restaurant that evening. That could have
led to a six to eight hour eating window. However, I like for
my eating window to be five hours. I planned for it to be open
for three hours prior to our dinner reservation time and two hours after, for
a total of five hours. This allowed me to go out to dinner with
my husband, not watch the clock, and to close my window at five
hours. Success I'm so grateful for Gin and the delight on Tonight community.
The education, support and encourage is invaluable. I love my internet and fasting
lifestyle, and I'm so grateful to never have to diet again. Fast On
friends, I love that I do too, And I really don't want to
talk about about that for a minute, about the keeping your eye on the
eating window, because you know, I've really figured out why so many people
are so focused on the fast. Have you heard me talk about what that
is? Why that is? It's fasting apps? Well, I think it's
that, but it's also the idea that we're only going to benefit of fasting
if we reach X amount of hours of fasting every single day without failed,
right, and we get in that perfection mindset. But I really think the
fasting apps have trained people to shoot for a fasting goal over anything else because
almost all the fasting apps that's what they try. They track how long you've
been fasting, so well, my app, you can change your length of
fast and I change mine day to day yep, yep, because you don't
want to get stuck in that rut. But yeah, for me, I
always had I always focused on the boundary of the eating window, and so
that confuses people. It's because like for me, five hour daily eating window
is a great length for me for weight loss, when I was losing weight,
and now for maintenance. It feels good to me still. But I
would slide that five hour eating window or round within my day where I needed
it to be. I could open a little earlier, no big deal,
But I still tried to close within five hours. Was saying, you know,
she would open it at the normal time, but then keep it open
longer than she intended. But she just slid it a little later. So
people are like, yeah, but what how does that affect my fast You
know, maybe if I open early, I only fasted for sixteen hours.
So I want people to think about the fasting time of a day differently.
For a second, I want you to think about twenty four hours. And
every day, every day, every calendar day has twenty four hours. It's
math, right from midnight to midnight. You got twenty four hours in there.
Now imagine like imagine your little eating window is something you can slide up
and down. No matter where you put that five hour eating window. You
can add together the period of time before you ate and the period of time
after you close, it's still going to equal nineteen hours of that twenty four
hour period. That is true. So, no matter where you put your
five hour eating window in that twenty four hour period, if you ate for
twenty four hour, I mean, if you ate for five hours out of
that twenty four hour period, nineteen of them were fasting, some of them
were before you're eating window, somewhere after you're eating window, because that's how
a calendar day works, right, But if you keep to the boundary of
your eating window mathematically, the fast will average whatever's left over, right,
maybe one day day that sixteen. Some people think that your fast and your
window has to add up to twenty four but it doesn't, and it does.
It does within that paradigm of twenty four hour calendar day, but it
doesn't if you're doing it sequentially, like I closed at eight pm and then
now I'm going to another calendar day overnight. Right, So I mean,
just because you fast for twenty one hours one day, doesn't mean you have
to close it in three hours, right. You can still use your five
hour window. Yeah, if you're wanting to delay your window because you have
an anniversary dinner and you can still use your full five hours, so you
can fast for it twenty three hours in a row. Some of those were
on the prior calendar day because the midnight came around. So you're faster for
twenty three hours in a row than you had a five hour eating window.
And then you're going to fast till tomorrow. But that's when it gets really
confusing, and why I'm like, stop making it so hard. Just focus
on the eating window and the fast will even itself out. Now, I
will say, if you are new too fasting, until you're really fat adapted
and your body is really acclimated, it can be a little bit harder to
delay your window, but it just takes practice and time and really determination.
I mean if you once you're fat adapted, and you might think I always
open at one, there's no way I can wait till five. I guarantee
you if you just get busy, you stay busy, and you're fat adapted
and you're metabolic switch flips and you shift into fat burning, you're going to
forget that you did not eat at one o'clock. It's true, it's staying
busy is the key. My very first summer after i'd been intermittent fastening as
a teacher, and I'd gotten into a great routine at not eating at work.
I would eat when I got home from work. In the summer,
though, I had to have more strategies because I was home all day,
so I would run errands in that that little witching hour part of the afternoon
when I would be tempted to open my window earlier, I would just leave
the house run errands, and that kept me busy, and then I didn't
even think about eating. Right yep, I love it. This week's message
comes from Sarah in Hawaii. Sarah says, I like the Maya Angelo quote
do the best you can until you know better, and when you know better,
do better. I like it because it celebrates self improvement without shaming our
past selves. I have a sign up in my office that my husband made
of one of my mantras. Base your goals around your behaviors. You can't
control outcomes, but you can control behavior. Focus on what you can control.
It is empowering as a mantra because it reminds me that I do have
control over the choices that I make. But that's about it. I shouldn't
waste energy on trying to control things that I cannot, and instead I should
focus on living my best version of myself through the choices I make. I
love that so much. Behavior based goals versus outcome goals, that is really
really huge. Yeah. On the first quote that do the best you can
until you know better, and when you know better, I love it.
I love that quote. I have used this quote before. I think people
come into fasting and they're really down on their bodies and their selves, and
they like failures because I haven't been able to stick to other diets and whatever.
But once you understand the science of fasting and you understand why you couldn't
make diets stick, and you understand that it's it wasn't your failure, it
wasn't bodies failure, it's the failure of diets. Yeah, then you can
forgive yourself and now you know better. Now you fast and you move forward.
I really love that. And it's just about finding that lifestyle where you,
like you said, you forgive yourself and you base your goals around your
behaviors and now you know better and you're doing better. Yep, 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 Sherry, 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.
Ask 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