Episode 16: Choosing Your Goal Weight, Eating to Satiety, Anticancer and Metabolic Effects of IF, and More

Welcome the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens, author
of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat, and I'm Sherry Bullock,
longtime intermittent faster and health and wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this
podcast is for educational and motivational purposes only, and it's 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'm doing great. I'm kind of like sad and happy. I stepped outside
and it kind of feels like a fall day, so that it makes me
sad sad, But at the same time, I have all these like outside
projects that I've been putting off until the heat of summer was over. So
I'm kind of excited because I get to tackle them now. Well that's good.
Yeah. Fall always makes me sad because of the less daylight. I
know. I'm always very surprised this morning, Sherry, guess how late I
slept? Tell it you're gonna die sad thing. Buck. Oh thatven's really,
really, really late. Yeah, I don't know how that happened.
I'm sleeping so great. But seven anyway, I don't know what's happening.
But it wasn't light enough. And then I got up and it was really
cloudy. So it's a cloudy day. It's cold. People are wearing sweatshirts.
I'm not ready for this anyway. No, well, you'll be proud
of me. We are trying to go to bed earlier. Well that's good.
Well, I mean, like my body wakes up around eight thirty most
days, no matter what time I go to sleep, So if we go
to bed at one, I was constantly getting my sleep short changed. Night.
We went to bed at ten thirty and I slept nine and a half
hours, and I feel it's ezing today. Yay, hooray for good sleep.
Thank you for the hormones that make it work. I know, and
I constantly coach people on how to get better sleep, and then I don't
take my own advice. So in that try trying to practice what I preach.
There you go, that's important. Anyway, I'm just not excited about
it. I've been so enjoying wearing flowy summer dresses, and like my big
goal has been what summer dresses that don't need a bra can I wear?
So now it's like real clothes. Back to the bra. Sorry guys,
you had to hear that, but I don't know. You still live in
a beechy area. Maybe you could put like a sweater. Are you a
sweater person? I gotta wear a bra under a sweater. I'll just say
you can put a sweater over your flowy dresses. Oh, turn your floating
dresses into f I like to have on pants, not a dress. Okay,
yeah, keep my legs warm. I was confused for a minute there.
I'm like, oh, is this going to solve my problem? No?
Anyway, So it's back to the real undergarments and real clothes. And
I got the jeans on today. Oh gosh, well, but they stay
fit. So I'm sitting here in shorts and a T shirt. But I
have my ug boots on so well. We have a great celebration today from
Jennifer. She shared, I could cry. These last thirty five pounds have
been a challenge per my all time chart on happy scale. I have not
been this low in as many years as I have been tracking intermittent fasting.
I love you. I'm be ungrateful for finding Jen's DDD book in December of
twenty twenty two while on vacation. My starting weight in December of twenty twenty
two was one hundred and sixty four point two pounds. My current weight is
one hundred and forty two point four. I had an original goal of one
hundred and thirty five pounds, but I have a new goal of one hundred
and thirty pounds. I really never believe that, as a Type two diabetic
that would ever see these numbers. My doctor is thrilled. My labs are
greatly improved. I'm feeling better than I have probably ever. I am completely
off meds, and I am beyond grateful for this new lease on life.
It looks like I should hit my goal before my daughter's October wedding. Not
setting the world on fire, but slow and steady is winning the race.
And the flexibility of the infant fasting life in my day to day realtor life
is so free. It really took twenty pounds for people to start noticing.
But now I'm getting asked frequently and I have bought multiple copies of both Fast
Feast, Repeat and Delay. Don't deny to lend to those who are asking.
I am finally free of diet brain and diet fads, forever free.
Here's to fifty one. Well, that is so fantastic, Jennifer, thank
you so much for sharing. And wow, type two diabetic off of her
meds. That is huge. Yeah, but I love here is amazing and
that she's feeling good. I wanted to talk for a minute about setting a
goal weight. I was going to say the same thing, are you.
I also gone on to talk about the fact that she says she's not setting
the world on fire, because I really think she is. I think so
too. But let's talk about goal weight for just a minute. And here's
the thing that I have learned so much over the years in the intermittent fasting
world is that our bodies are so different after fasting than they were when we
were doing other dietary methods. For example, when I took all those diet
pills that I got from my doctor way back in the early two thousands,
I got down the right around one hundred and thirty and that's pretty much where
I stuck as long as I could keep taking those diet pills one hundred and
thirty and so when I did intermittent fasting, I started at two ten.
My body changed so much. When I got to my original goal weight of
one hundred and thirty five with intermittent fasting, I was smaller at one hundred
and thirty five than I had been at one hundred and thirty before. So
I want people to rethink how to set their goal weight based on intermittent fasting
is going to have different results than anything you've done before. So let's say
that your goal she said her original goal was one thirty five and now it's
one thirty instead of setting that number goal, do you have some clothes that
you fit into when you felt your best. Luckily I saved a few things,
not very many, but I had a few. You want to have
goal clothes and when you get into them, you're there, no matter what
the scale says. Yeah, I agree, and I have. Like,
I was on weight watchers for years and years and years, and my weight
watcher goal weight was one hundred and seventy three pounds, which was the absolute
highest I could be for my height, and that was it. I struggled
to stay there. And I was about a size ten, maybe a twelve
and certain things size medium scrub pants. When I was fasting and I was
at one hundred and seventy three pounds, I was a solid eight. I
could fit into stretchy sixes and I moved down to small scrub pants. So
one hundred and seventy three pounds on a calorie restrictive diet where you are losing
muscle mass and you're not experiencing the body recomposition is not the same one hundred
and seventy three pounds of a fasting body, not at all. Yeah.
So yeah, I always caution people too. I think they think, oh,
this is working so well, it's working so much better than anything I've
ever done. I can get smaller than I was ever before, and you
can probably get smaller. So that doesn't mean that you're going to weigh less,
right, that's such an important lesson, and you know we're so tied
into that scale number. So again, I was smaller at one hundred and
thirty five than I had been at one hundred and thirty And the reason I
knew that is because I had some clothes that I wore before and they fit
me differently. So and when you only have you know, five to ten
pounds to go in your mind to get to a certain number, that's when
the scale is going to be the least reliable measure of your success. So,
really, getting those gold pants, a gold some goal item of clothing,
even if it's a brand new one, because you didn't say any of
the old ones. Get something new and say when I get here, I
will be at my goal and ignore the scale. Doctor Bert Hearing, in
his book Appetite Correction, phrased it as a goal body instead of a goal
weight. And that phrase, really, I think was powerful to me.
You want to have a gold body, a goal size that you want your
body to be, and it might be at a higher number than you think
it will be due to intermittent fasting and fast and clean you'll be maintaining muscle
mass while you lose fat so I'm glad, but great minds think alike on
that one, Sherry, And then I want to just address really quick she
says that how did she word that? Not setting the world on fire,
but slow and steady is winning the race. So I don't know exactly when
she started in December, and I don't know exactly when she wrote this,
but let's say she'd been fasting for forty weeks and she's lost twenty two pounds.
That is at a rate of zero point five five pounds per week,
which is one hundred percent in line with steady, consistent weight loss that we
would expect over time. So I mean, I would love to see that
on most I mean, there are people who truly are struggling, you know,
and they may lose twenty pounds in a year, and you've done that
in eight to nine months. So yeah, you're doing that. Great celebrate,
Yes, yes, Well thank you, Jennifer. All Right, so
now we have a question from a listener. In fact, we have a
few questions that kind of fit the same kind of theme of satiety and our
eating windows and how to make our windows work for us. So we're going
to answer a few. The first is from gin from North Carolina and she's
je n probably Jennifer. So she says, my question is, how do
I eat enough to feel full until the next window without overeating to the point
of feeling extremely uncomfortable. Well, do you want to answer these individually or
should we read them all and kind of answer them all? I think individually,
one, Bob one, Okay, So my answer is you're not supposed
to eat to stay full to your next window, because that's not really how
it works. You're supposed to eat for today and today's hunger. So when
you feel satisfied, and that is physically satisfied, sometimes it's not emotionally or
mentally satisfied, but when you are satiated, your hunger is no more.
That's when you stop eating. Because when you're fat adapted, your body has
energy to use. Unless you are at goal weight or under, your body
has fat stores it can use and mobilize for energy. So you're also going
to get into katosis, which when you're in katosis that really dials down any
hunger. So you're not eating for tomorrow. You're eating for today to get
your nutrition in today, and when you're satisfied, you stop. Yeah,
it's technically impossible to eat for tomorrow's hunger, right, we actually call that
eating for future hunger. And we don't want to do that because you are
not going to feel full until your next eating window. Because think about why
do you feel full? We feel full because literally we are. We have
food in our stomachs and our stretch receptors are activated. Our body is letting
us know, all right, it's full enough, this is enough, and
then we stop eating. We get the signal to stop, But that food
is going to move through your digestive system. It's going to go to your
small intestine, through your intestines, and then your stomach will no longer be
full, and that happens, you know, not too long after you eat.
So we're not going to feel physically full until our next eating window because
that's just not how the digestive tract works. And so you really want to
get the idea of eating for tomorrow out of your mind. That being said,
you can set yourself up for a better day tomorrow based on your choices
today. For example, you know, when I was still drinking alcohol,
if I drank too much, I would find myself hungrier the next day.
Or if you don't nourish your body well and your eating window, then the
next day you might find that you're hungrier because your body wasn't well nourished the
day before. Yeah, and I want to say too, if you're eating
for future hunger, if you are satiated, but you're like, ooh,
I just need to eat one more snack because I don't want tomorrow to be
hard, you could actually be shooting yourself in the foot because all you're doing
is putting more food into your body that your body turns to sugar, It
goes to your liver, and it's going to take you longer tomorrow to flip
the switch to get into fat burning where fasting is easy. So if you
overcompensate and you overeat on one day, it's actually going to make the next
day harder, not easier. Right, we're relearning something that we learn wrong
our whole lives. Right, you know, keep eating so you won't get
hungry, But we're learning something new here. So trust your body that when
you eat until you're satisfied and you nourish your body well, that's enough and
you don't have to worry about the next day. And if the next day,
if you have a few waves of hunger during your fast, You're like,
all right, I feel that, and then you just keep going and
your body will handle it, all right. So the next question is from
fasting in Incinitas, California. She says, I'm fine when I cook for
myself at home, but when I go to a pot luck, I lose
control. I love eating foods I didn't make and the wide variety offered,
but I feel I ate and drank too much later and then I feel awful.
What would you suggest you do? Jin That is tricky because I've been
there. We've all probably been through a delicious pot look and had some delicious
foods in front of us. What I do is, I'm just really really
choosy because I have felt that way too. I have felt like I ate
and drank too much, and then I felt awful, and I don't like
that feeling. I want to feel good when I'm done, and so my
best suggestion is look good everything that's there, and think what is really going
to be window worthy? Like I'm right there with you. I enjoy eating
foods that I didn't make, and you know that's a special treat, but
I don't eat everything I think what is going to be the most satisfying,
What am I really gonna like? And I take a little bit and I
if something was absolutely amazing. I've been known instead of having like dessert,
I'll go back and get more of like something savory that someone made because it
was so good after everybody else had their chance obviously to go through. But
it's just a matter of a little bit of this little bit of that.
Because you eat too much and you don't feel good, then your body lets
you know. Yeah, I'm a big fan. I rarely eat it buffets,
they're not my favorite. But when I do, I'm the person that
I will take one little tiny bit of everything I want to taste right,
and I don't make it like a full plate. I just like have a
sample plattern and then I decide what I really really like, like what was
window worthy, and then that's what I go back and get absolutely So you
might just start with some little tastes of everything, figure out what you really
like, what's window worthy, and then go back and enjoy that. And
yeah, I mean I get it. I get it. I don't get
to eat out at good restaurants very often because I just don't have anywhere I
live, and there is something about sitting there and enjoying food somebody else prepared
food you don't get to eat. And I'm gonna be honest, there's times
where I'm like, I need to stop, but I don't want to,
and I don't and guess what, I do feel awful later. Yeah,
But if you don't want to feel awful, yeah, definitely moderate And hey,
if you love something, go ask the person who made it for their
recipe. They will make them so happy, and then make it in your
window at home. Treat yourself at home. Yeah. Yeah, that's a
great way to try new things and incorporate new menu items into your rotation.
I think we all have a rotation of foods we cook, so yeah.
I also really like the idea of just trying a little bit of everything,
because if you don't like it, there's nothing worse that. Like you've got
a big giant helping us something that you thought you would like, and especially
at a pot luck and bad right, and then you're like, oh,
that was really gross, and then like it feels wasteful because someone made it,
But then you don't want them to see the eat and eat it anyway.
Yeah, my husband, I'll get so angry when we go to His
dad loves a bufat, so occasionally I indulge him and we'll go and I'll
get a whole plate, and if I taste it and it's not window worthy,
I push it away. And my husband's like, you can't just leave
all that food on your plate. What's the waiter gonna think. I'm like,
I don't really care what the waiter thinks. Well, we wasted it
the minute you put it on your plate. It is wasted, and so
you can waste it by throwing it away, or you can waste it in
your own body. And we are night trash can exactly. We are not
human trash can exactly. And that's just something really important to keep in mind.
All right, Well, thank you for that question. All Right,
we have one called still plugging Away in California. Hello, beautiful ladies.
I am so happy about this new podcast and excited about the opportunity to get
feedback from you both. And I just want to say we are so happy
about this new podcast. Two it still feels new, although I guess at
episode sixteen, how long are we going to call ourselves new? Sherry?
I don't know. I don't know, but I'm loving it and we're really
it feels new to me. I'm really appreciating the feedback, and I'm really
glad that the people are enjoying it because we are having so much fun doing
it all. Right back to still plugging away in California, says I discovered
fasting in Gin in December of twenty eighteen. I started with sixteen eight for
a few months, stopped and started many times, with little to no weight
loss or non scale victories during the starts, then went to eighteen six in
October of twenty twenty after feeling so heavy and unhealthy, then went to nineteen
five in October of twenty twenty one, stayed there on and off, and
am currently attempting to do one meal a day within a twenty one to three
for the last few months. Overall, I love fasting and know that I
will do it forever, even if I never lose a pound, which unfortunately
is what seems to be happening. In fact, since December of twenty eighteen,
I have gained ten pain. I can possibly attribute this to age such
as peramial pause as I am forty seven, but it is slightly alarming.
I do think what weight would I be if I wasn't an if For I
have had many non scale victories, no more plan or fasciitis, a more
even mood, no more acid reflux, no more swelling of my hands,
a great immune system, and most importantly, more hope for my future and
my help. Whenever someone asks about dementia or some worry when they get older,
I feel confident in my intermittent fasting lifestyle protecting me from some of that.
Anyhow, I definitely struggle with eating too much in my window, extending
them. Often I have Gen's voice in my head that it is good to
change it up, but then I go too far, eating processed foods and
not exercising enough. I have stopped drinking any alcohol unless it's a fun event
such as friends out or dinner out. My gut tells me that I am
just eating too much in my window, But how do I stop? I
know the advice to start with veggies or something with protein, but I seem
to struggle to do that. Could I have some other health concern? All
my blood tests they allow say I'm in the normal range. I gained hope
from your story, Gin about how you dabbled for four years, I think,
and that is totally me. I'm on again, off again and need
to And then she has a coll in there. She's like, I need
to stay consistent in the three hour eating window and make better choices. And
then she goes on to say, did I just solve this for myself?
No, because I struggle to do this. Thanks for any help and words
of encouragement. I'm forever grateful to have found you, Jin. You're a
beaconough hope for me in so many areas of my life. All Right,
that's a lot to unpack. Sheery, I have to say to still plugging
away in California, Okay, let's call her Callie. Callie. I like
that. Well, okay, so I'm just gonna say a three hour eating
window sometimes kind of gives you this sense of urgency that you need to just
hurry up and eat food and not take time to really appreciate it and taste
it and to actually give your body a chance to get in touch with satiety.
So while I think a three hour eating window, if it just happens
naturally, is fine, I often will have a three hour eating window some
days. There are usually days where I just have a heavier meal, or
I'm just really busy and I just all of a sudden realize, oh,
it's been six hours, and so I guess I'm just done. And I
look back and I'm like, well, I finished dinner three hours ago,
So I'm going to just close my window then. But I just think making
it a goal to try to eat every day in a three hour window might
be putting a little bit too much pressure on you. We've just seen this
over the years. That's why I really like to say, you know,
maintain like a three to five hour window. If it feels good at three
and you're satiated, and that extra two hours is just giving you permission to
snack, then close it. But if you find that there's a sense of
urgency to eat, and because of that sense of urgency, you're not taking
care with your choices, then the three hour windows not for you. Right,
I would say, you know that you overeat, what are the signs?
Start paying attention to the signs that you're feeling physically. When your body
is starting to give you cues that you're satisfied that you're full, You're going
to have to come up with some sort of strategy to walk away from the
food, and you know whether that is I'm going to wrap up this plate
and I'm going to put it in the fridge, and if at the end
of my window i feel like I'm hungry again, I'll finish eating it.
Then I think that's a great strategy. And then planning your windows, I
think is very very important. You say sometimes you overeat like processed foods and
that sort of thing. For me, having a meal plan is very very
helpful knowing at the beginning of the week what I'm cooking that week, what's
gonna be on the dinner menu, having the foods to prepare that is so
so helpful. And I don't know what your family situation is. If you've
got kids at home, if it's just you, you and a spouse,
you may really benefit from some sort of meal kit delivery like HelloFresh, because
it's pre portioned a service a serving. They're generous servings, they're pretty balanced.
You're going to get you know, they're minimally processed foods, and you
don't have to think so hard. You just sit down, pick out what
you want to eat next week, and it comes to your house and then
stop buying the other things that are a temptation to you. I don't know
what that is. I don't know if it's chips or snacks or whatever it
is. Just don't bring it into your house. Set yourself up for success.
But yeah, correction will occur, but it takes practice. And when
you hear that you're satisfied, when your body's giving you signs that it's satisfied,
you have to walk away from the food. Part of that comes to
you making that choice. Yeah, because we can hear it, but do
we obey it, right? I have many times not obeyed it. That
happened. I hear it and I'm like, well, my body's had enough.
But man, this is good. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, sometimes
it's hard to hear it. But if you hear it right, obeying it
is not always easy, and it does take practice. It's a new skill.
You're learning that skill. And I was on vacation with my parents last
week. I make these hot Italian beef sandwiches that are amazing. I don't
make them very often because my husband and I just cannot eat a big roast
by ourselves. So we had these sandwiches and they were so delicious and my
brain wanted a second sandwich. I mean, like I could have got up
and made a second sandwich, but I was full, and I knew I
and I knew I would be absolutely miserable if I ate a second sandwich.
And even me, I mean, I've been fasting for eight years. I
have to tell myself, Okay, Sherry, look there's a lot left over,
and you can have a sandwich tomorrow. You don't have to have that
second sandwich today. So I just delayed my second sandwich. It was just
as delicious the next day, probably more so because I was hungry. Yeah,
I think so too. Now I have another take on part of this.
And I just kept seeing the same words over and over again from Calli,
and it was dabbling and starting and stopping, and she's attempting. I'm
not sure, Cally, you have ever really been consistent. Now, when
you were doing sixteen eight for a few months back in twenty eighteen, starting
and stopping, sixteen eight is really not a weight loss window for most women,
so that's totally normal. And then you were doing eighteen six, and
then you did nineteen five. But then again you said staying there on and
off, and you're currently attempting to do one mil day, so it doesn't
sound like you're actually doing it. It sounds like you're on and off,
on and off. And that is the solution. If I'm interpreting this correctly
from your wording, your solution is consistency. I would one hundred percent just
tell yourself, okay, here I am. I am going to commit to
nineteen five, and I'm going to use that boundary of the five hour eating
window, and I'm going to close my window after five until the next day,
and I'm going to get up and do it again the next day.
And I'm going to do that every single day. And you're just going to
be consistent, because appetite correction did not happen for me without consistency, right,
I didn't. You're not tapping into your stored fat. You're not going
to be fat adapted if you are not consistent. You are living in the
hard part and that is where the struggle is. And you're not going to
find the appetite correction, and you're not going to know when to stop eating.
And your body is not well fueled in the fast and so no wonder
you're starving when you open your window and you overeat. So if you don't
think that you have fasted consistently enough to be fat adapted, then your struggle
is that the struggle is the consistency, and you know you may find I
would go back to the mindset chapter of Fast Feast, repeat and read that
mindset chapter of Fast Feast. Repeat one more time, and then I want
you to I'm gonna give you some homework. I want you to sit down,
and I want you to craft three to five statements things that you believe
and repeat these to you, Like, for example, I can stick to
a five hour daily eating window. I can learn to listen to my body
and stop when I've had enough. I can be consistent with intermittent fasting.
Just things like that. Those are just some examples. And really believe that
you can do that because what you tell yourself is important. And so I
want you to shift the idea that you're a dabbler no more. You are
no longer a dabbler. You are now someone who is going to do intermittent
fasting consistently. And that is where I think you'll find what you're looking for.
Yeah, that's a great point, because you know your grellin and Leptin
are your hunger and so tiety hormones, and when you don't eat in an
eating window, they get really out of balance. And once you start eating
in an eating window consistently and you're fasting every day, then it helps rebalance
those It kind of resets everything to the way it should be. So yeah,
it can take people several months of consistent internet fasting before they really start
to appreciate appetite correction, and a lot of that is landing in the right
window length for them as well. Right, So, if you are a
part of the Lens and I community on Circle, check in with us.
Set some goals, Let us help you be accountable, give you encouragement whatever
it is you need. Sometimes just checking in every day and saying, you
know, I clean fasted for X hours today and I closed my window at
X hours. That helps you build a practice and makes it a routine part
of your day. So, if you're not in this circle community, come
join us. And I also had one of the love to help you there
popped up in my mind is that we don't really have a context for how
much weight she needs to lose to be at a healthy weight, because she
says, well, yeah, she said, she's gained ten pounds, And
it depends on where you start it. Like, if you were at a
really healthy weight for your body and then you gain ten pounds and you're still
at a healthy weight but slightly feeling over where you would like to be,
that's a different story than if you'd need to lose one hundred pounds to be
at a healthy weight. So that makes a great deal of difference, because
if you're in a healthy weight range and you have gained that ten pounds,
then you know, that's a whole different situation. But I really think if
you just stick with the consistency, focus on foods that make you feel great,
and release the expectations of anything other than you're going to be consistent with
this, I think that would make a lot of difference. All right,
Well, this week we have been sent a great article by a listener.
Angela Eckhart sent us a research article. It's titled intermittent fasting from dawn to
sunset for four consecutive weeks induces anti cancer serum protium response and improves metabolic syndrome.
So what does that all mean? Jen, We're going to talk about
that together and we're going to have a link in the show notes to this
study and so you can look at it yourself. But probably as soon as
I read that title, I knew that they had found some Ramedan fasters because
the dawn to sunset that's Ramadan fasting, and so that is such a great
group for intermittent fasting research because it's part of their religious practice and it's a
consistent group of people following a consistent pattern. So when you look at this
study, yes it was Ramadan fasters, and they unpack it a little bit.
They talk about, you know, it mentioned metabolic syndrome, which so
many people have if you look around this in society, many people have metabolic
syndrome now. And what you're looking for there is if you have visceral fat,
you know, obesity around the middle. Insulin resistance is a hallmarker of
that your blood pressure might be high, overweight. And I think most people
are familiar with metabolic syndrome as affecting like high blood pressure and heart disease and
insulin resistance diabetes. But I don't know how familiar people are with metabolic syndrome
actually being a precursor to a lot of cancers, right especially like hormone driven
cancers. It is definitely a risk factor for several different cancers like liver cancer
or colorectal cancer, breast cancer, pancreatic cancer. So they go together,
and the current treatments for a metabolic syndrome thing the pharmaceutical route. The current
standard of care for this has not really made much of a difference in the
development of cancer when people have the metabolic syndrome. So they've done testing on
mice, and based on testing with mice, they have found that cancer has
slower progression when they do not consume food during their daily activity phase. Now,
people and mice have different daily activity phases, so it's not always easy
to draw conclusions from mouse studies. But when you're looking at a Ramadon study,
they're doing fasting during the daylight hours. So they did this study for
four weeks and they were fasting during the day and at the end of the
four weeks they found a significant increase in the levels of several tumor suppressors and
DNA repair gene protein products, which is huge an increase in tumor suppression just
after four weeks of Ramadon fasting. They also found a reduction in levels of
tumor promoting gene protein products, so cancer suppressing was up, in cancer promoting
was down. And they also found that fasting from dawn to sunset with these
Ramadan fasters for four weeks, they also had an anti diabetes type response with
their insulin signaling. All these very complicated science ye words that you might read
and go, what is that, But it's good. We want to see
that. So basically they had reduction in their body mass index I, meaning
they lost weight, their wastes went down, and improvement in blood pressure,
so basically their metabolic syndrome showed improvement as well. So this was a really
good study and I loved that it was people and they were seeing positive results
in people. What would you like to add to that, Sherry, Nothing.
I just I have always said that if we could get the world too
fast, we would have a healthier world. Yeah, and all of these
research studies that come out are just showing that it's so beneficial in so many
ways. So many people come to fasting for a weight loss, but what
they don't understand is just how good it is for their body system as a
whole in preventing disease. Reversing disease and longevity. Yeah. And you know,
we can't prove in a person that you didn't get cancer because you did
it aitten fasting, right, because we don't have the alternate life where you've
did it the other way. But when we see that tumor suppressing genes go
up and tumor promoting markers go down, that is powerful, you know,
that is measurable, and we can then assume that we would be less likely
to have cancer. Well. And there's so much in our life that we
just really cannot control. Our exposure to toxins environmentally and what's in the air,
and I mean even sometimes what's in our food and packaging and our clothing,
and so there's a lot that we can't control. But there's one thing
we can control, and that is we can wake up every day and decide
to fast for health, right, And that's really you know, my motivation
changed over the years. Obviously I came for the weight loss, but I
stick around for the health benefits. If there was a way that I could
eat all day long whatever I wanted and still maintain my weight, would I
change. No, I would still do intermittent fasting because of the health benefits,
right, So that's how much I believe in it. I agree,
I would not stop all right, Before we get to the tweak of the
week, I would like to remind everyone about my new book, twenty eight
Day Fast Start, Day by Day, the ultimate guide to starting or restarting
your intermittent fasting lifestyle. So it sticks. As I've told you before,
it's a companion book to Fast Feast Repeat, And the reason I wrote it
is because I realized that there are some new intermittent fasters who do not want
to read Fast Feast Repeat straight through from start to finish, or maybe read
Fast Feast Repeat straight through, and you're on information overload. It's more than
you need to know to get started. It's a lot of information. So
in twenty eight Day Fast Start Day by day, every day you have a
framework to focus on for that day only there's a quick check in a daily
lesson from me and also a short inspirational story from a past intermittent fasting stories
guest with their best advice for new intermittent fasters. So this is the book
you're gonna want to have on hand to give to your friend, your sister,
the person in your life who's interested in intermittent fasting but needs more structure
than fast feast Repeate gives them. It's also the book you need, listener.
If you're someone who's dabbling and having trouble making it stick, this is
the book I think that will really help you because it sets you up for
success by crafting a powerful why, reminding yourself of why you're doing this.
What are some of the common roadblocks? How can you prevent those from happening
to you? Go to your favorite bookstore today, don't forget do it today
and pre order twenty eight day fast Art day by day. It should arrive
on December twenty sixth, twenty twenty three, just in time for the new
year. Okay, well, I'm very excited to tell you. I haven't
told you this what. We took a five hour road trip last week,
which gave me time to finally read the book. Yay, I'm so excited,
and I think that I'm glad you think it's going to be helpful with
your DDD journal that you made years ago. And this is like a more
I want to say intense, but not in a bad way like intensive.
It's more directive, and it really makes you think, and I love it.
I love so glad. Yeah, we needed it. I didn't know
we needed it till it popped into my head. Well, and I kept
thinking of atomic habits while I was reading it. Good because I felt like
there were so many great elements to the book that really helps people develop a
fasting habit. Yeah, I feel like only a teacher could have written it.
Doesn't it just feel like a teacher wrote it it? Did? You
know? All these years, in with my own experience as an intermittent faster
and managing Facebook group since twenty fifteen, seeing the struggles that people have,
knowing the roadblocks, knowing the questions that people are going to have on day
seven and day fifteen, and knowing what you're going to be struggling with at
each point along the way, I couldn't have already anticipated in yes, yeah,
and the answers are there before they know they have the question exactly exactly,
So I really, you know, I keep saying this is my last
book, but I don't just want to write books to write books. I
want to only produce books that are going to be useful, helpful, and
give somebody something that they need. So I hope that this book does that
for people. All right, So now it's time for our tweek of the
week, and this tweek was submitted by Karina Austen and our community. Right,
this came in the community, Sherry, Yes, I thought so,
I thought I remembered reading it there. She said, My September tweak is
working. The scale is finally moving in the right direction. I noticed that
I would graze during my entire four hour window. So what changed? I
now have a six hour eating window. I open my window around eleven or
noon, have my first meal or heavy star, and then wait at least
four hours for my second meal. I structure it like I'm having a mini
fast between my two meals. It's working so well for me. Hello's satiety
and my grazing tendencies are gone, y'all. That's great. She's doing a
Chad fast, Chad. I think I said that to her in the community,
because you know, we joke around about a Chad fast because my husband
Chad, and if you haven't listened to my other podcast, you don't know
what I'm talking about. But my husband Chad is hilarious because he does his
own thing, but he has just like Karina does. He has something to
eat, usually around eleven or noon, then he closes his window. He
says, like, if I'm eating something at four, I'll say you want
some of this? He'll say, no, my windows closed. And I'm
like, well, okay, you ate already. But whatever. He thinks
of it as two windows and sherry. He cracks me up because he will
not eat till five. Oh. I know, like I've seen, we're
sitting at the table. I had to go somewhere. We're always going a
trivia I guess, so I'm cooked a little early. And it was like
four fifty eight. We're sitting at the table, and he stared at the
clock for two minutes. I'm like, what is wrong with you? I
thought to myself. But he has not found the freedom I will. But
that's his own little whatever. Whatever. We're getting older. I don't know.
He hadn't done that yet. The four tendency scratus quiz. I don't
really know. He's super rebellious about things. He might be doing it just
despite me. He's more revel than he's like, I'm not going to be
till five, just because Jen's sitting there. I don't know. Bless him.
That's funny. It is really funny, but there's a lot to be
said for that, you know, not snacking your way through your eating windows.
So again, you know, when we talked before about Kelly from earlier
struggling with her windows and then getting shorter and shorter and shorter, when now
she's having a three hour window, the answer is not always going shorter shorter,
and I just want people to really hear that. So Karina went from
a four hour window to a six hour window and is finding success with a
longer window because she's bookending her window with her eating opportunities and she's not grazing
her way through it. She doesn't feel like she's got that panic eating going
on. So that's a great tweak to try. Yeah, I'm gonna guess
I don't know, but maybe Karina is a light eater in that maybe she's
a person that eats and she feels full, but then she gets hungry again.
Maybe that's why she was a snacker. But maybe by having you know,
two light meals, that's really helping her more. And some people get
hung up on well, how is she losing weight eating two meals? But
again, her meal may not be like your meal. Right. So anyway,
well, if you wondered what Jenna and I were talking about with the
whole upholder rebel thing, there's a book by Gretchen Rubin called The Four Tendencies,
and there's a quiz you can take online. And I'm bringing this up
because I did the quiz and my husband did the quiz, and boy,
I learned so much about my husband after they did that. Suddenly I was
like, Oh, this is why he is the way he is. Yeah,
And as I was reading it, there's one personality type called the obliger,
and this is a person who's really good at sticking to their commitments to
other people, but maybe not so good at sticking to their commitments to themselves.
So they're going to go out of their way to do anything for you,
but they're not going to honor their own needs. And I bring this
up because in the community a lot people will say they're really struggling because of
food pushers, or they don't know how to have people know, or it's
their down day and they didn't want to eat, but then other people were
eating and they were, you know, forcing food on them, and they
didn't feel like they could tell them that it wasn't their eating day. And
one person in particular, I was talking this book and she kind of popped
in, and I always kind of thought she's an obliger. And then she
took the quiz and she came back and she said, I'm an obliger,
and I said, this does not surprise me at all. See, I
am not an obliger. Does that either? No, I'm a questioner.
You me too. And so if you take the quiz and you read the
book, she really gives you strategies because every personality diet has like their kind
of strengths and weaknesses, and so she gives you strategies to help you overcome
your weaknesses or to not make them be weaknesses anymore, make them work for
you. And so I was just thinking, if you're a person that you're
really struggling to stay consistent or to really stay consistent to the commitment you make
to yourself, that might be a book you might want to check out and
see if you can learn something about yourself strategy for making it work for you.
Yeah, that's a great suggestion. It's been years since I took that.
I should take it and I should have Chad take it. And you're
probably a questioner as well. I took it before, and I'm pretty sure
I'm a question and I think he's probably a question or too, with a
little side of rebel. Well, I see, I think I'm probably a
questioner with a little side of rebel as well. What's the fourth one upholder
on that? Yeah, my husband's an upholder. And when you decide something,
you're going to stick to it. Well, no, you basically outside.
If there's a rule, you're just going to do it because that's the
rule. Oh see, I uphold the rule. Once I decide, I
might question the rule, but once I decide the rule is valid, I'm
going to uphold it. But if you don't think it's valid, what are
you going to do? I'm not going to do it exactly. You're a
questioner. That's me is that I'm going to work to change that rule.
If it doesn't make sense to me, I'm like, that doesn't make any
sense. That rule does not apply to me. But then if it's important,
I'm going to work to change that rule. An upholder is not going
to question it. We're just going to follow it because somebody said to.
So that also goes to fast a lot of people come in and they want
to know. They want us to give them exact parameters of what they're fasting
should look like, and what should they eat, and what should they eat
to open their window. If that's you, you might be an upholder and
you really look to outside sources to sort of guide you with your daily decisions.
So it's fascinating. So anyway, so as we wind down today,
we have a beautiful message from Beth and boise and Jen and I love alliteration,
so we do that make me smile just hearing Beth and Boisey. Yeah,
we're goofy like that. Oh. My book is called Delay Don't Deny
exactly. The quote is don't be afraid to go where you've never gone and
to do what you've never done, because both are necessary to have what you've
never had and to be who you've never been. And I love that.
Thanks so much for listening today. We would love to have you join us
and the on Tonight community, where you can interact with both me and Sherry,
plus the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere. Go to
Jenstevens dot com slash community to join us. Don't forget to subscribe to this
podcast to your favorite podcast app, and if you haven't already, please leave
us a five star review that helps new listeners find the show and we really
appreciate it. We are a community driven podcast, so to submit your success
stories, your questions, your favorite tweak it till It's Easy, moments,
or anything else you want us to share on the podcast, go to fast
Feast Repeat dot com, slash submit and then listen each week to see if
we share your submission or answer your question until next week. Thanks for listening,