Episode 140: Structuring Your Window, Confusing Messages about Fasting, Fasting Bloodwork, and More

<v Speaker 1>Welcome the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm
<v Speaker 1>Jen Stevens, author of the New York Times bestseller Fast
<v Speaker 1>Feast Repeat.
<v Speaker 2>And I'm Sherry Bullock, longtime intermittent faster and health and
<v Speaker 2>wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this podcast is
<v Speaker 2>for educational and motivational purposes only and is not intended
<v Speaker 2>to provide medical or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are
<v Speaker 2>not doctors, so make sure to check with your trusted
<v Speaker 2>healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes to
<v Speaker 2>any medical treatments or medications.
<v Speaker 1>Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an experienced intermittent faster,
<v Speaker 1>tune in each week to get inspired, to learn, and
<v Speaker 1>to have some fun along the way. Hi, everybody, we
<v Speaker 1>are so glad you're here today. Welcome to this week's
<v Speaker 1>episode of the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life Podcast.
<v Speaker 2>How are you doing today's Sherry, I'm doing wonderful. I'm
<v Speaker 2>the sun is shining and it is sixty six degrees outside.
<v Speaker 1>Ooh, that's really exciting. It is only fifty five here.
<v Speaker 1>We're recording this mid February, and I'm tired of the cold.
<v Speaker 1>I hear you.
<v Speaker 2>I hear you. Yeah, we're having a little bit of
<v Speaker 2>a warm spell this week. Oh, Thursday is going to
<v Speaker 2>be seventy five.
<v Speaker 1>We're not having that here. It's not going to be
<v Speaker 1>as warm. But by next week we're into the forties again. Uh. Well,
<v Speaker 1>I did enjoy my trip to Puerto Rico, like I said,
<v Speaker 1>and yes, it was like a shiny threes one day.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my god, it was fantastic. It felt so good. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I came back and I was mad that I had
<v Speaker 1>to put shoes on and jeans I would like had.
<v Speaker 1>My brain was like, all right, it's warm. I'm ready
<v Speaker 1>for summer. Yeah, all right.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I know we've like hinted at the crew at CAREW,
<v Speaker 2>you know, planning a cruise, and then some people have
<v Speaker 2>reached out to me followed to asking me if there's
<v Speaker 2>any more information on it.
<v Speaker 1>No, there's not.
<v Speaker 2>Planning a cruise for a large group of people is
<v Speaker 2>more difficult than you think it might be, it sure is.
<v Speaker 2>And finding the right crews and the right you know,
<v Speaker 2>options for a large group is not that someone to
<v Speaker 2>manage the group. Even getting cruise lines to email you
<v Speaker 2>back has been difficult. Yeah, so we are working on it.
<v Speaker 2>We would love to do it, we just haven't put
<v Speaker 2>the pieces together, so we will let you know when
<v Speaker 2>we have some solid information.
<v Speaker 1>The original one we got connected with someone who plans
<v Speaker 1>group cruises, but the crews she recommended ended up not
<v Speaker 1>being a very good fit. Let's just say, yeah, the
<v Speaker 1>all adult crews and the prices were really high when
<v Speaker 1>we saw them, and that, you know, once we got
<v Speaker 1>all the information, it just didn't seem like the right
<v Speaker 1>right fit for us. I mean, I know there are
<v Speaker 1>a lot of people who'd be like, yeah, all adults signed
<v Speaker 1>me up, but we also heard from people who said,
<v Speaker 1>if it's all adults, I can't come. So, yeah, all
<v Speaker 1>ships have an adult area, so you don't have to
<v Speaker 1>be right. We're definitely not going to take a Disney cruise,
<v Speaker 1>although that might be lovely. Yeah, and we're trying to
<v Speaker 1>keep it economical, right.
<v Speaker 2>Also, we don't want an economy cruise exactly, So we're
<v Speaker 2>trying to find that middle ground that you know, will
<v Speaker 2>fit all of our needs.
<v Speaker 1>And somebody who's really experienced with planning large group cruises.
<v Speaker 1>Because she kept asking how many people, how many rooms,
<v Speaker 1>We're like, I don't know, one hundred people or a
<v Speaker 1>thousand people. We have no idea. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>They wanted us to lock in a certain amount of
<v Speaker 2>people and we just can't.
<v Speaker 1>We can't do it, so we're working on it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And if you're listening and you are a large
<v Speaker 2>group cruise planner.
<v Speaker 1>And when you mean large, we mean you need to
<v Speaker 1>be comfortable with it could be anywhere from a hundred
<v Speaker 1>to one thousand. We don't know, right, Help us with that, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>send us an email.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, all right, Well we have a celebration from a
<v Speaker 2>faster in Ohio US for the encouraging podcast and special
<v Speaker 2>thanks to Jin for writing Fast Feast Repeat.
<v Speaker 1>I read it twice.
<v Speaker 2>I'm a thirty year old female and mom of two.
<v Speaker 2>I started dabbling with fasting in twenty twenty three, and
<v Speaker 2>I got serious later in the year, so much so
<v Speaker 2>that I had to stop for a long awaited and
<v Speaker 2>prayed for pregnancy. I've had issues with my weight since
<v Speaker 2>middle school, and I got up to the one seventies
<v Speaker 2>with my second pregnancy. At five foot three, that's hard.
<v Speaker 1>On the joints.
<v Speaker 2>I don't own a scale, but the last time I
<v Speaker 2>weighed at my primary care office, I was down thirty
<v Speaker 2>five pounds. I have a history of PCOS and I
<v Speaker 2>struggled with infertility in the past. My biggest concern was
<v Speaker 2>my risk for type two diabetes. At twenty one, my
<v Speaker 2>A and C was five point six, and now at thirty,
<v Speaker 2>my A and C has dropped to five point two.
<v Speaker 2>My cholesterol is better than ever and I have so
<v Speaker 2>much more energy. I can't believe how much better I
<v Speaker 2>feel physically and mentally. If absolutely changed my life.
<v Speaker 1>Thanks again, and you know what, I love this celebri
<v Speaker 1>and Faster in Ohio. Congratulations on being able to get pregnant. Struggling,
<v Speaker 1>you know, the fertility struggle we do. And this is
<v Speaker 1>why again the people who are out there and the
<v Speaker 1>naysayers in the world who are like, fasting is bad
<v Speaker 1>for women's hormones, but we have examples of the exact opposite.
<v Speaker 1>It's actually great for the hormones that are dysregulated in pcos.
<v Speaker 1>You know, you know, progesterone and estrogen are not the
<v Speaker 1>only hormones. Insulin is a hormone, and there's nothing better.
<v Speaker 1>And if you have PCOS, you probably have high insulin
<v Speaker 1>and that is related to the infertility. So fasting is
<v Speaker 1>great for hormones. And we've just heard so many times
<v Speaker 1>over the year's women who got pregnant after struggling with infertility. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So now we have a question from a listener. This
<v Speaker 1>question is from Tara of Boston. She said, Hello, I
<v Speaker 1>am reaching out to see if you would share what
<v Speaker 1>an average day of eating looks like for gin and Sherry.
<v Speaker 1>I have been fasting for about seven months and I
<v Speaker 1>love it. I have a five and a half hour
<v Speaker 1>eating window, and I am looking for ideas on how
<v Speaker 1>to structure my window. I know everyone's windows will be different,
<v Speaker 1>but I think it will be helpful to hear what
<v Speaker 1>other people are doing. Thank you, Well, I don't have
<v Speaker 1>a solid answer for you, because all of my windows
<v Speaker 1>look different, right. I can tell you that every day
<v Speaker 1>I look at my day and I decide when based
<v Speaker 1>off of that day's schedule, when I think I'll be
<v Speaker 1>closing my window that day, and I tend to open
<v Speaker 1>about four hours before that's.
<v Speaker 2>I maintain a five hour window boundary, but I wait
<v Speaker 2>and I open four hours prior, so that if life
<v Speaker 2>happens I'm cooking dinner and I don't have what I
<v Speaker 2>need and I have to pivot.
<v Speaker 1>I have like a built in cushion.
<v Speaker 2>Some days I open with a full meal and then
<v Speaker 2>I might have a couple snacks after that. And when
<v Speaker 2>I say snacks, I'm talking like some yogurt and fruit,
<v Speaker 2>cottage cheese and fruit overnight oats, maybe some hands of
<v Speaker 2>air popcorn. Other times I eat more like two meals,
<v Speaker 2>two balanced meals. It just depends on the day. It
<v Speaker 2>depends on how busy I am, what's going on, what
<v Speaker 2>the meal composition is. So I don't have a clear
<v Speaker 2>cut answer for you because some days I do a
<v Speaker 2>one hour downish window day and then the next day
<v Speaker 2>do two full abundant meals on an uppish day. So
<v Speaker 2>I don't have a locked in way of eating or
<v Speaker 2>doing my windows.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, And I just wanted to address that last sentence
<v Speaker 1>where she said, I know everyone's windows will be different,
<v Speaker 1>but I think it will be helpful to hear what
<v Speaker 1>other people are doing. This is where community can be
<v Speaker 1>so helpful because you can see what everybody's doing because
<v Speaker 1>they post it. One thing that people post frequently is
<v Speaker 1>what they're doing for their day and how long their
<v Speaker 1>window was. People like to make accountability posts, So if
<v Speaker 1>you're in the delay on denight community, you could see
<v Speaker 1>what lots and lots of people are doing every single day,
<v Speaker 1>and also the tweaks that they're trying and what they're adjusting.
<v Speaker 1>So when it comes to how to structure your window,
<v Speaker 1>you want to structure it in a way that you
<v Speaker 1>feel satisfied and it feels easy, and it feels sustainable,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, like Sherry said, mine's not the same
<v Speaker 1>every day. I was really thinking about it, you know.
<v Speaker 1>When we were flying back from Puerto Rico, Chris and
<v Speaker 1>I were talking about testing because we'd a little more
<v Speaker 1>flexible and getting back to the mainland and back to
<v Speaker 1>regular life instead of eating at restaurants and all going
<v Speaker 1>all around the whole island. I was like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>if I had to tell someone, literally we had this
<v Speaker 1>conversation on the plane. I was like, if I had
<v Speaker 1>to tell someone what I do, I would probably just say,
<v Speaker 1>you know, at any point after two or a normal day,
<v Speaker 1>just a normal day, I can open at any point
<v Speaker 1>after two, and I just keep it open as long
<v Speaker 1>as I need to be satisfied. I mean, that's really
<v Speaker 1>pretty much what I do. Like today we're recording, We're
<v Speaker 1>not going to be done. I probably won't open un
<v Speaker 1>till maybe four today, but then and I also just
<v Speaker 1>keep it open until I'm sad. Fine, if I'm not satisfied,
<v Speaker 1>my window might be longer a day. So, and especially
<v Speaker 1>when we were traveling, that happens. But I tend to
<v Speaker 1>do better opening with a main meal now, So I
<v Speaker 1>might have a main meal at three and then a
<v Speaker 1>little something later, just whatever I need, or it might
<v Speaker 1>look like two meals, a big meal and then a
<v Speaker 1>small meal. It just really varies over time. And also
<v Speaker 1>the way I structure my window for maintenance might look
<v Speaker 1>different than the way someone who is in a weight
<v Speaker 1>loss phase would structure their window. That's something else to you.
<v Speaker 1>I have more flexibility. Yeah, And you know, Chris and
<v Speaker 1>I talked about him and when he gets to maintenance,
<v Speaker 1>because I mentioned on the last episode that he started
<v Speaker 1>intermitting fasting around Labor Day. He's down thirty pounds officially,
<v Speaker 1>which is very exciting. But he has about a five
<v Speaker 1>hour window every day, and he's like, I wonder you
<v Speaker 1>know what maintenance will look like. I'm like, well, you'll see.
<v Speaker 1>It'll probably be very similar to what you're doing now.
<v Speaker 2>Right. Yeah, I would saying I don't feel like my
<v Speaker 2>a window when I got to maintenance was any different
<v Speaker 2>than what I did to lose weight, other than occasionally,
<v Speaker 2>you know, when I was at my Goalway and Holden
<v Speaker 2>City there, I would have some days where I was
<v Speaker 2>like extra hungry, and so I would be like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>if it was like two days in a row. By
<v Speaker 2>the third day, I was like, I think I need
<v Speaker 2>a little bit of a longer window.
<v Speaker 1>Sort of a reefeed day today, And so I would have.
<v Speaker 2>A longer, more abundant window, and then I would feel
<v Speaker 2>great and I'd go right back to my five hour window.
<v Speaker 2>So I don't think it matters what anybody else is doing. Right,
<v Speaker 2>play around and see what feels good to you. You
<v Speaker 2>may be a person that you need to kind of
<v Speaker 2>wake your appetite up before you can drink or eat
<v Speaker 2>very much. I don't know why I said drink. My
<v Speaker 2>husband is one of those people. He's not a faster,
<v Speaker 2>but he doesn't eat until afternoon. You would say he's
<v Speaker 2>time restricted eater. He eats from about two to seven
<v Speaker 2>a day every day. He cannot eat very much when
<v Speaker 2>he first starts eating in the afternoon, but an hour
<v Speaker 2>later he's starving and he's ready for his meal. And
<v Speaker 2>you know, other people open if they open with something light,
<v Speaker 2>they're ravenous, So you're just gonna kind of have to
<v Speaker 2>play around and see what works best for you.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I actually do know that I ate more
<v Speaker 1>and I eat more and maintenance than I did when
<v Speaker 1>I was losing. My appetite guided me though. It's really interesting,
<v Speaker 1>you know, with Chris and I traveling all around Puerto
<v Speaker 1>Rico last week, and you know what was it one
<v Speaker 1>day we opened I can't remember. Oh, we had this
<v Speaker 1>great lunch in the Puerto Rican countryside at this restaurant,
<v Speaker 1>and maybe around two thirty I think we have been
<v Speaker 1>around two thirty something like that. We ate until satisfied.
<v Speaker 1>I was a little bit full even after that, but
<v Speaker 1>then later got into our Airbnb and it was later
<v Speaker 1>in the day and I'm like, I'm gonna need to
<v Speaker 1>eat again. That didn't do it for me. He's like,
<v Speaker 1>I'm stuffed. I'm perfectly fine. But he's in a weight
<v Speaker 1>loss phase. He's burning on stored fat. He has fat
<v Speaker 1>to lose. He you know, wants to lose. I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>twenty more pounds, I'm not even sure. But I am
<v Speaker 1>not in a weight loss phase, so my body needed
<v Speaker 1>more fuel we'd been very active. I needed to eat
<v Speaker 1>a little more. I eat more than he does, but
<v Speaker 1>it makes sense. He's getting some quote calories from stored
<v Speaker 1>fuel that I am not needing to do. So it's
<v Speaker 1>interesting to see it in real time because I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>I got to eat again. He's like I couldn't eat
<v Speaker 1>again if I wanted to, and like, well, you're fueled
<v Speaker 1>from your stored energy. I need a little bit more.
<v Speaker 2>So yep, all right, Well we have a question from
<v Speaker 2>Joe in London. She said, Hi, you too. I absolutely
<v Speaker 2>love your podcast and I've bought all the books and
<v Speaker 2>I'm now on week three of the twenty eight day
<v Speaker 2>Fast Start plan. I am clean, fasting and following all
<v Speaker 2>the rules.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like there's.
<v Speaker 2>Only two rules fast clean, fast, clean, and close your window,
<v Speaker 2>and it's time eat until you're satisfied.
<v Speaker 1>Yeahah.
<v Speaker 2>However, I read an article which that women over sixty
<v Speaker 2>five should not do prolonged fasting periods as it is
<v Speaker 2>bad for muscle wasting and hormones. I am now up
<v Speaker 2>to a nineteen to five protocol, sometimes a twenty four
<v Speaker 2>should I just carry on and ignore the article? I
<v Speaker 2>am sixty five, I weigh eleven stone two pounds and
<v Speaker 2>I am five foot four trying to get down to
<v Speaker 2>ten stone. I love how fasting makes me feel younger.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you, please write another book soon.
<v Speaker 1>Ah well, thank you so much, Joe. I didn't read
<v Speaker 1>the article that you're referencing, but that wording they probably
<v Speaker 1>did say it just like that women over sixty five
<v Speaker 1>should not do prolonged fasting period. So let's say that's
<v Speaker 1>what exactly they said. That is a very broad statement.
<v Speaker 1>And what do we mean by prolonged fasting?
<v Speaker 2>Me?
<v Speaker 1>It means multi day fasting. Yeah, like a seventy d
<v Speaker 1>met and fasting, right, so our you know, my daily
<v Speaker 1>fast and feast is definitely not prolonged fasting, right, So
<v Speaker 1>you know that being said, I know that the you know,
<v Speaker 1>Jason Funks fasting community, they do longer fasts than we do.
<v Speaker 1>But they have women of all ages. I think they're
<v Speaker 1>successfully doing different fasting protocols. So all of that being said,
<v Speaker 1>we do not consider nineteen five or even twenty four
<v Speaker 1>to be a prolonged fasting period. That's just a normal
<v Speaker 1>you're fasting, you're feasting, you're repeating, you're nourishing your body. Well,
<v Speaker 1>that being said, if you are under eating in five hours.
<v Speaker 1>That would not be the approach that we're looking for.
<v Speaker 1>You know, we see that if you are nourishing your
<v Speaker 1>body well and you're fasting clean, it's as you have
<v Speaker 1>fat to burn, and you have fat to burn. We
<v Speaker 1>actually see people preserving and building muscle because remember, you're
<v Speaker 1>likely to see increased human growth hormone, which is great
<v Speaker 1>for muscle building. So we are not going to be
<v Speaker 1>doing muscle wasting unless we are number one couch potato.
<v Speaker 1>Can we say still say couch potato? You got to
<v Speaker 1>be active, right? Sedentary? I guess we're not just saying sedentary.
<v Speaker 1>Don't be sedentary, be active and intentionally doing muscle building activity.
<v Speaker 1>If you're worried about muscle wasting, muscle activity is the
<v Speaker 1>number one thing to do, and you want to intentionally
<v Speaker 1>nourish your body well, you want to fasten a way
<v Speaker 1>that makes you feel good. And ignore broad statements like
<v Speaker 1>women over sixty five should blah blah blah whatever fill
<v Speaker 1>in the blank. They used to say women shouldn't run,
<v Speaker 1>or ride bicycles or wear pants. Right, All the experts
<v Speaker 1>agreed women should not wear pants, right, and then they
<v Speaker 1>said it's bad for your hormones.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, like what hormones, because we know fasting improves
<v Speaker 2>people's thyroid hormone status after Ohio got pregnant. Right, as
<v Speaker 2>I say, people who take thyroid hormones because they have
<v Speaker 2>hypothyroidism often have to decrease the amount of thyroid hormone
<v Speaker 2>that they take because their body is able to use
<v Speaker 2>it better when they start fasting and blood glucose, your insulin.
<v Speaker 2>Great for that female hormones. You're sixty five. The only
<v Speaker 2>female hormones being produced really are from your fat stores.
<v Speaker 2>So it's I mean at sixty five. Yeah, we want
<v Speaker 2>to support hormonal health, full body hormonal health. But I
<v Speaker 2>have never read anything that fasting is detrimental for any
<v Speaker 2>of that, So I don't like, I don't even know.
<v Speaker 1>Where that articles coming from. Yeah, I don't know where
<v Speaker 1>they're coming from on that. I do agree that we
<v Speaker 1>don't want to have muscle wasting, and again, right that
<v Speaker 1>happens normally in women. As we age, we do have
<v Speaker 1>muscle wasting, and that's why we have to be proactive.
<v Speaker 1>We're learning now to be proactive with it. You know,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not just doing intermittent fasting and just eating in
<v Speaker 1>a window and expecting muscle building out of nowhere. Have
<v Speaker 1>to work our muscles in order to make sure that
<v Speaker 1>we don't have muscle wasting. But that's whether you're fasting
<v Speaker 1>or not, So don't assume that fasting is going to
<v Speaker 1>cause increased muscle wasting compared to someone who's not doing fasting.
<v Speaker 1>But whether we're fasting or not, we need to be
<v Speaker 1>proactive with our muscle mass. That is really good advice.
<v Speaker 1>And you're right that we don't want to fast so
<v Speaker 1>much that it's too much, But we don't want anybody
<v Speaker 1>to do that, whether you're twenty five or sixty five,
<v Speaker 1>that's we don't want. We don't promote overfasting at any age. Right,
<v Speaker 1>and now it's time for our segment called What's Your Why.
<v Speaker 1>Most of us have weight loss in mind, which is
<v Speaker 1>a great reason to start intermittent fasting, but we know
<v Speaker 1>there is so much more that intermittent fasting can do
<v Speaker 1>for us beyond weight loss. I genuinely believe that when
<v Speaker 1>your why is deeper than weight loss alone, you're more
<v Speaker 1>likely to find long term success and view intermittent fasting
<v Speaker 1>as a lifestyle.
<v Speaker 2>This week, we have a why from Mandy. Mandy wrote,
<v Speaker 2>I was encouraged to write out my way and IF
<v Speaker 2>for about fourteen months, and I have never taken the
<v Speaker 2>time to write it out truthfully. Other than weight loss,
<v Speaker 2>I didn't really know what my why was until a
<v Speaker 2>couple of months ago when I talked with a friend
<v Speaker 2>I hadn't seen in a couple of years. It was
<v Speaker 2>through a conversation that I discovered what my why was.
<v Speaker 2>I do IF because I don't want to feel burdened anymore.
<v Speaker 2>Burdened by pre diabetes, burdened by achy joints, digestive issues,
<v Speaker 2>clothes not fitting and ruining my day, burdened by a
<v Speaker 2>lack of confidence, burdened by diets, failing over and over,
<v Speaker 2>burdened by depression. IF gives me freedom from all of
<v Speaker 2>these things. If gives me a reason to live my
<v Speaker 2>best life possible, because I know it's always working on something.
<v Speaker 2>It's either burning fat, cleaning up inflammation, or stimulating atophagy.
<v Speaker 2>So when I was talking with my friend I hadn't
<v Speaker 2>seen in a couple of years and she noticed my
<v Speaker 2>weight loss, she said, Mandy, yes, you look amazing because
<v Speaker 2>you've lost some weight, but you look so less burdened.
<v Speaker 2>As soon as she said that I knew that was
<v Speaker 2>my why I want to look and feel less burdened.
<v Speaker 1>I love that, and she didn't.
<v Speaker 2>It's funny when I was reading that, well, she said,
<v Speaker 2>I have gives me a reason to live my best
<v Speaker 2>life possible. Well, that's the name of my coaching business,
<v Speaker 2>your best life.
<v Speaker 1>I love it. That's awesome, And you know, I wanted
<v Speaker 1>to focus on something here. There's so many like things
<v Speaker 1>people say out there, like breakfast is the most important
<v Speaker 1>meal of the day, or festing is too stressful and
<v Speaker 1>will cause your cortisol to go crazy. It's too stressful.
<v Speaker 1>But then we hear things like this all the time
<v Speaker 1>from Mandy. She is less stressed as a faster than
<v Speaker 1>she was before. So that's another example of a blanket
<v Speaker 1>statement that we might read fasting is stressful and stimulates
<v Speaker 1>cortisol in a negative way, not if it makes you
<v Speaker 1>feel like your life is easier.
<v Speaker 2>Right, you moms have said I have more patience with
<v Speaker 2>my kids now that I'm so many Yeah, as easy
<v Speaker 2>to anger.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah. And the freedom and the feeling trying to
<v Speaker 1>white knuckle it with a low calorie eating all day
<v Speaker 1>long is very stressful.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, it is absolutely so. Our next question is from
<v Speaker 2>Kristen from the Midwest. I have a question regarding all
<v Speaker 2>of the recent food noise and experts stressing the need
<v Speaker 2>for protein thirty grams first thing in the morning, along
<v Speaker 2>with hydration and ten minutes of movement and natural light
<v Speaker 2>for hormone health and cortisol levels. You see, I read
<v Speaker 2>your Fast FeAs Repeat book and I did the twenty
<v Speaker 2>eight day journaling and I have my why. My why, yes,
<v Speaker 2>is to lose the ten pounds of stress weight I've
<v Speaker 2>put on from nursing school and being stuck in midlife, boredom, loneliness,
<v Speaker 2>loss of motivation, and now a bit of self doubt.
<v Speaker 2>But it's to feel light and energized again, keep up
<v Speaker 2>with my kids and be the natural athlete I once
<v Speaker 2>was before my chronic pain returned and limited my daily movie.
<v Speaker 2>So I successfully became an IF for a spring and
<v Speaker 2>summer semester and did slim down a few pounds and
<v Speaker 2>felt much better in my clothes. But then I stepped
<v Speaker 2>away to do the confusion on how to care for
<v Speaker 2>cortisol levels and even saw an increase in my LDLs
<v Speaker 2>for the first time in my life. All in all,
<v Speaker 2>I'm curious how women perimenopause and in their forties are
<v Speaker 2>navigating the desire to keep fasting. I like nineteen five
<v Speaker 2>because I too am a volume eater and I like
<v Speaker 2>to not have to think about packing a breakfast, lunch,
<v Speaker 2>and dinner during nursing shifts. But the weight on my
<v Speaker 2>backside and hips is just not me these days, and
<v Speaker 2>I'm curious if the black coffee and sparkling water for
<v Speaker 2>nineteen hours is putting my body into a panic.
<v Speaker 1>I like to open with a.
<v Speaker 2>Protein smoothie and I'm into fast like a girl and
<v Speaker 2>eat like a girl, plus the great work from doctor
<v Speaker 2>Will Cole, But now I'm just confused with the protein
<v Speaker 2>and creatine first thing in the morning, etc. Could you
<v Speaker 2>be so kind and walk us through your recommendations. I
<v Speaker 2>would just love to be me again and shed these
<v Speaker 2>ten to twelve pounds, and I love not counting calories
<v Speaker 2>or macros with IF, and I do believe strongly in
<v Speaker 2>the benefits. Thank you so much. My current height is
<v Speaker 2>five seven and my weight jumps between one forty to
<v Speaker 2>one fifty, which I know is fine, but naturally my
<v Speaker 2>body likes being closer to one twenty eight to one
<v Speaker 2>thirty two, as in right now, I can snap my
<v Speaker 2>snow pants and my underwear is too small, and I
<v Speaker 2>don't have the time to buy new clothes just because
<v Speaker 2>I've been eating peanut butter with a spoon out of
<v Speaker 2>the jar.
<v Speaker 1>All right, we got a lot to unpack here. First
<v Speaker 1>of all, Shary, would you run her smart BI? I
<v Speaker 1>absolutely will. I was working on that because I think
<v Speaker 1>that's really important. And did we know her age? Did
<v Speaker 1>she say it? So she's in her forties to just
<v Speaker 1>estimate maybe forty five and we'll see. So first of all,
<v Speaker 1>it sounds like you have just really jumped into all
<v Speaker 1>of the resources that are available out there to the
<v Speaker 1>point that you have got paralysis of analysis. Right, I
<v Speaker 1>am going to take a moment and be very, very
<v Speaker 1>very grateful that I started fasting when there was no
<v Speaker 1>information in twenty fourteen, and there was barely any information
<v Speaker 1>at all, And then I read the OBC code and realized, oh,
<v Speaker 1>keep insulin low, and that was all I needed. I
<v Speaker 1>had no protein stress, no one telling me to eat
<v Speaker 1>this and fast like however, I just was able to
<v Speaker 1>listen to my body and figure out what worked for me.
<v Speaker 1>And by the time that I lost the weight and
<v Speaker 1>knew what made me feel good. Then people started saying
<v Speaker 1>things that contradicted my experience, But I didn't have to
<v Speaker 1>listen because I already knew what worked for me. I
<v Speaker 1>already knew I didn't need to eat thirty grands of
<v Speaker 1>protein first thing in the morning. I already knew that
<v Speaker 1>fasting wasn't making me more stressful. I already knew that
<v Speaker 1>black coffee and sparkling water for nineteen hours did not
<v Speaker 1>put my body into a panic. But worrying about whether
<v Speaker 1>it's putting you into a panic might send you into
<v Speaker 1>a panic. Right, So I would step away from all
<v Speaker 1>of that. Stop reading books that tell you you have
<v Speaker 1>to fast a certain way like a girl, or eating
<v Speaker 1>like a girl, or whatever. I would stop reading all
<v Speaker 1>of that. I would stop listening to people who tell
<v Speaker 1>you what you have to do. Here's what I'm going
<v Speaker 1>to tell you have to do. If you're fasting, you
<v Speaker 1>have to fast clean, full stop. Another thing you have
<v Speaker 1>to do is you have to find an approach that
<v Speaker 1>makes you feel good as time goes on. So if
<v Speaker 1>nineteen five feels good and you're getting results from it,
<v Speaker 1>you like the way you feel you're fast and clean,
<v Speaker 1>it's working, then who cares what a book tells you
<v Speaker 1>you have to do. Put those books down, stop following
<v Speaker 1>all the influencers, and be your own expert on your
<v Speaker 1>body and what works for you. Okay, I think that
<v Speaker 1>is the main thing. The way to stop being confused
<v Speaker 1>about protein is to eat until you're satisfied and then
<v Speaker 1>stop eating and don't even worry about what anybody else
<v Speaker 1>tells you should be doing. I mean, Sherry and I
<v Speaker 1>have different protein needs. We have spent enough time together
<v Speaker 1>to know I'll be full and satisfied, and she's like,
<v Speaker 1>oh my god, I have a had any meat, and
<v Speaker 1>she's got to get some meat or she's not going
<v Speaker 1>to be satisfied. So listen to your body. If you're
<v Speaker 1>starving after you eat and you look back and realize
<v Speaker 1>you didn't have very much protein, then you didn't have
<v Speaker 1>enough protein. If you're full and satisfied after you eat,
<v Speaker 1>you probably did all right. What do you want to
<v Speaker 1>add to that about her?
<v Speaker 2>Smart BMI, it's interesting. I have two things well. First
<v Speaker 2>of all, okay, I put her weight in as one
<v Speaker 2>forty five. She said it Yoyo's between one forty one fifty.
<v Speaker 2>Put her agent at forty five that's right in the middle.
<v Speaker 2>She has a BMI conventional BMI of twenty three, smart
<v Speaker 2>BMI of thirty four over seventy, which is under the
<v Speaker 2>halfway point of a healthy weight range. Basically, it says
<v Speaker 2>the target weight of one point thirty would not be beneficial,
<v Speaker 2>will not benefit her health in any way. So, just
<v Speaker 2>out of curiosity, I've never really done this before, I
<v Speaker 2>asked Ai, why do some people say that you have
<v Speaker 2>to eat protein for a something in the morning to
<v Speaker 2>stabilize blood sugar, to boost satiety, to kickstart metabolism after
<v Speaker 2>an overnight fast. Okay, we're having stabilized blood sugars because
<v Speaker 2>fasting does it. Fast and clean stabilizes blood sugars. When
<v Speaker 2>we are shifting into ketosis, we have satiety. Yeah, we're
<v Speaker 2>not starving during the fast. We to kickstart a metabolism.
<v Speaker 2>What we're fast and clean, our our metabolism is not compromised.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 2>Also, protein consumption activates MTR to promote muscle protein synthesis.
<v Speaker 2>You know what else promotes and activates MTR fasting fasting? Right, So,
<v Speaker 2>if you were a person who ate a standard American
<v Speaker 2>diet and you were like a person who fueled up
<v Speaker 2>with a sweet, creamy coffee every morning and Louah breakfast. Then, yes,
<v Speaker 2>waking up and eating high protein when you wake up
<v Speaker 2>is going to be better than.
<v Speaker 1>That, right.
<v Speaker 2>But if your option is to not fast and pound
<v Speaker 2>protein and creatine in the morning, you're not going to
<v Speaker 2>achieve any benefits above and beyond the clean fast, right,
<v Speaker 2>Not that I can see.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>And as far as creatine, it does not need to
<v Speaker 2>be taken first thing in the morning. I've looked this
<v Speaker 2>up before for different people who've wrote in about creatine
<v Speaker 2>and working out, YadA YadA, and pretty much it just
<v Speaker 2>needs to be taken within twenty four hours of a workout.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, if we want to make life complicated, we
<v Speaker 2>can make all kinds of rules we have to follow
<v Speaker 2>every day. I don't know about You don't really like rules.
<v Speaker 1>No, That's why I like fasting.
<v Speaker 2>So you just have to make the choice of what
<v Speaker 2>works best for you, stay away from all the confusing messages,
<v Speaker 2>and be your own study of one and your own
<v Speaker 2>best expert.
<v Speaker 1>I do want to go back again to that weight,
<v Speaker 1>and I know that you're not feeling your best because
<v Speaker 1>you have gained ten pounds that you feel like is
<v Speaker 1>related to stress during nursing school and also midlife. But
<v Speaker 1>I would disconnect from the idea of that you have
<v Speaker 1>to be at a certain number and just live there
<v Speaker 1>amfasting lifestyle that feels good. You know, five hours you
<v Speaker 1>said felt good. Eat until you're satisfied, and then see
<v Speaker 1>what your body does. I think that's so important. And
<v Speaker 1>I know we all have different frames and different body sizes.
<v Speaker 1>And maybe you maintained one hundred and thirty pounds until
<v Speaker 1>you were the age of forty, and then suddenly your
<v Speaker 1>weights jumped up some and so I understand if that
<v Speaker 1>was your natural weight and now you're higher than that.
<v Speaker 1>But just really really be mindful of the fact that
<v Speaker 1>as we age, sometimes our bodies do change, and our
<v Speaker 1>set point might be slightly higher as we're going through
<v Speaker 1>perimenopause and menopause, and that is really just normal for women.
<v Speaker 1>So keep that in mind because you're at a very
<v Speaker 1>very healthy wait right now.
<v Speaker 2>And I did run her goal of one thirty and
<v Speaker 2>it's fine, it's still it's still in a healthy range.
<v Speaker 1>YEP.
<v Speaker 2>But it sounds like she's got enough stress going on
<v Speaker 2>in her life and she's worried about her cortisol levels, right,
<v Speaker 2>So just relax into fasting. If it feels good to you,
<v Speaker 2>if you're feeling great during the fast, if you're feeling
<v Speaker 2>great after the feast, if your body's responding positively, then
<v Speaker 2>it seems like to me it's working for you.
<v Speaker 1>And that's all you really need to know. I did
<v Speaker 1>see at the end she mentioned she's eating peanut butter
<v Speaker 1>out of the spoon with the jar, So if you're
<v Speaker 1>stress eating, it's definitely that's something to work on. Even
<v Speaker 1>in a window. Stress eating is not a good thing.
<v Speaker 1>Peanut butter out of the jar. It's a very calorie
<v Speaker 1>dense food, so that is something to keep in mind.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, confusing messages, man, I'm so glad I started
<v Speaker 1>when it was simple, there were no messages. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I hadn't been fasting very long before. I pretty much
<v Speaker 2>unfollowed almost every social media whatever health influencer because it
<v Speaker 2>is confusing when you keep getting mixed messages. Yep, I
<v Speaker 2>just learned about the fast, learn about the health benefits,
<v Speaker 2>learn about what happens in the body while you're fasting,
<v Speaker 2>and I was like, that's it. That's what I'm doing,
<v Speaker 2>and that's it. I've never given it another thought. And
<v Speaker 2>that's been going on eleven years. Yeah, exactly, all right.
<v Speaker 1>We have a question from Peg from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She said,
<v Speaker 1>Dear Jenn and Sherry. In May, I will begin a
<v Speaker 1>five hundred mile walk across northern Spain, WOW from May
<v Speaker 1>fifth to July seventh, called the Camino Francis. I have
<v Speaker 1>been intermittent fasting for four years, and I've easily maintained
<v Speaker 1>a forty pound weight loss. I'm a very healthy seventy
<v Speaker 1>three year old. I'm five foot three and I weigh
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and twenty seven pounds. My eating window is
<v Speaker 1>four to five hours. I'm told I will require three
<v Speaker 1>thousand calories a day, which will be impossible with fasting.
<v Speaker 1>The availability and timing of food will vary greatly from
<v Speaker 1>day to day. Having struggled with my weight since my
<v Speaker 1>early twenties, I'm terrified to stop fasting, even for this
<v Speaker 1>amount of time. I'm afraid I will return to struggling
<v Speaker 1>with my weight. Even if I return to fasting, do
<v Speaker 1>you have any thoughts on this? I have listened to
<v Speaker 1>your podcasts every week since I began. I find them
<v Speaker 1>full of both science and experience based information and guidance.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you, for all you do. It makes a difference.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So I have lots of thoughts, lots of them.
<v Speaker 2>So even I've shared this before on previous episodes. You know,
<v Speaker 2>we had a person who hiked rim to rim of
<v Speaker 2>the Grand Canyon completely fasted. I can't remember how long
<v Speaker 2>it took her, like twelve or fourteen hours, maybe completely fasted.
<v Speaker 2>And she can do that because she's metabolically adapted and
<v Speaker 2>her body has an energy source for her entire hike.
<v Speaker 2>Your body has an energy source, and the fact that
<v Speaker 2>you are metabolically adapted, your body can switch to fat
<v Speaker 2>burning for energy. It's not just a straight up sugar
<v Speaker 2>burner like most people who don't fast are. So your
<v Speaker 2>body can switch back and forth from both fuel sources.
<v Speaker 2>If you're very lean and you're very active, you may
<v Speaker 2>not be able to stick with a four to five
<v Speaker 2>hour window, and your body probably is going to tell
<v Speaker 2>you it doesn't want a four to five hour window,
<v Speaker 2>But that doesn't mean that you can't fast. You also
<v Speaker 2>don't have to eat three thousand calories a day because
<v Speaker 2>your body, like I said, is getting some of its
<v Speaker 2>caloric needs as energy needs. Because what is a calorie,
<v Speaker 2>It's energy it's getting some of its energy needs from
<v Speaker 2>the fat on your body.
<v Speaker 1>How long of.
<v Speaker 2>A window you need, that's you're just gonna have to
<v Speaker 2>play around with that. But you don't have to stop fasting.
<v Speaker 2>You can still fast from the time you eat dinner
<v Speaker 2>until sometime the next day when food is available and
<v Speaker 2>you're ready to eat. You don't have to wake up
<v Speaker 2>in the morning. I don't know where you're sleeping in
<v Speaker 2>between your daily walks or whatever. You don't have to
<v Speaker 2>wake up in the morning and immediately eat breakfast to
<v Speaker 2>fuel up for your walk because you have fuel. And
<v Speaker 2>then when it gets you know, maybe to lunchtime, maybe
<v Speaker 2>you decide to do lunch and dinner, lunch and a
<v Speaker 2>snack and a dinner. I don't know if you'll be
<v Speaker 2>carrying snacks with you, but just play around with it
<v Speaker 2>and see what feels good to you, and you're going
<v Speaker 2>to know within that first week, you know what you
<v Speaker 2>need to support your energy levels and to keep hunger
<v Speaker 2>at bay.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this is a real listen to your body moment,
<v Speaker 1>and we can't predict what that might look like because
<v Speaker 1>that's a lot of that's a lot of activity. I've
<v Speaker 1>never walked five hundred miles over a two month period.
<v Speaker 1>But I did walk seven miles around Puerto Rico on
<v Speaker 1>what day was it? Wednesday? In the fasted state, and
<v Speaker 1>I was fine now, And all I had that night
<v Speaker 1>was dinner. We walked all day up and down the hills.
<v Speaker 1>I felt great, and then we had dinner and I
<v Speaker 1>felt fine, and then the next day. I mean, if
<v Speaker 1>I kept walking seven miles a day every day, maybe
<v Speaker 1>that would be a different story. But my body would
<v Speaker 1>let me know, listen to your body, eat when you
<v Speaker 1>need to, just like Sherry said, and you know, it
<v Speaker 1>really doesn't even make sense for you to plan it
<v Speaker 1>out right now and decide what you're going to do
<v Speaker 1>because you don't know how you're going to feel.
<v Speaker 2>I would did look because I wanted to know, like,
<v Speaker 2>what is the distance that she's going to be walking?
<v Speaker 2>And from what I've read here, it says a typical
<v Speaker 2>itinerary takes thirty to thirty five days and they walk
<v Speaker 2>twenty to twenty five kilometers a day, which is twelve
<v Speaker 2>to fourteen miles a day. Now, she did say that
<v Speaker 2>she was doing it in two months.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that sounds like eight miles a day. I just
<v Speaker 1>did a I divided it. I divided five hundred divided
<v Speaker 1>by sixty and I got eight point three, so eight
<v Speaker 1>point three miles a day. So I was able to
<v Speaker 1>walk seven miles and eat one meal and I was fine.
<v Speaker 1>But again I wasn't doing it day after day after
<v Speaker 1>day after day. So maybe you need two meals a
<v Speaker 1>day in eight hours. Yeah, yep.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, that's just like we said, just kind of
<v Speaker 2>tune into your body, you know, continue to fast. Tune
<v Speaker 2>into your body, adjust your window and your food intake
<v Speaker 2>is needed exactly. Our next question is for Martha from Kansas.
<v Speaker 2>She said, Hi, ladies. First off, I want to say
<v Speaker 2>that I'm a big fan. I've been following you since
<v Speaker 2>twenty twenty three when I found you. I appreciate all
<v Speaker 2>you do and have done to promote clean fasting. It
<v Speaker 2>has truly changed my life for the better. I am
<v Speaker 2>a forty four year old woman who has been fasting
<v Speaker 2>for almost three years. I started in May of twenty
<v Speaker 2>twenty three. I am five foot seven. I weigh between
<v Speaker 2>one forty five and one fifty. I can say since
<v Speaker 2>starting my fasting journey that I have not lost a
<v Speaker 2>lot of weight, but I have lost inches and I
<v Speaker 2>dropped a size. I went from a solid size eight
<v Speaker 2>to ten to a size six. I know that I'm
<v Speaker 2>at a healthy weight. I can now say that I
<v Speaker 2>fast for the health benefits and the food freedom that
<v Speaker 2>I have found, plus the mental clarity. I fast clean
<v Speaker 2>and I have a daily eating window of four to
<v Speaker 2>five hours. This is what I've always done since finding
<v Speaker 2>Jen's book Delay Don't Deny In twenty twenty three, I
<v Speaker 2>eat relatively clean, focusing on whole foods and minimizing processed foods.
<v Speaker 2>Although I don't deny myself treats in my window. I
<v Speaker 2>cook meals at home and I eat out only once
<v Speaker 2>per week on Fridays with my family. Also, I don't
<v Speaker 2>eat low carb or have any food restrictions. My question
<v Speaker 2>is regarding insulin levels and the timing of them in
<v Speaker 2>relation to food choices. I recently had my insulin level drawn,
<v Speaker 2>and I was appalled that it was twelve point seven.
<v Speaker 2>For reference, my glucose was eighty seven. I had both
<v Speaker 2>drawn at the same time that I could calculate my
<v Speaker 2>homa IR score, which was two point seven. This alarmed
<v Speaker 2>me because the cutoff is greater than two for insulin resistance.
<v Speaker 2>For background, I ordered the lab the day of the
<v Speaker 2>blood draw on kind of a whim, knowing that I
<v Speaker 2>was close to the lab and could walk over on
<v Speaker 2>my lunch break the same day. I realized later that
<v Speaker 2>the night before my lab draw, I had indulged in
<v Speaker 2>more than one.
<v Speaker 1>Or two sweet treats.
<v Speaker 2>I can't remember everything I ate exactly though my question
<v Speaker 2>could this have affected my insulin level?
<v Speaker 1>The next day?
<v Speaker 2>I closed my window between seven and seven thirty that
<v Speaker 2>night and had my insulin level drawn the next day
<v Speaker 2>between eleven and noon. For full disclosure, I had nothing
<v Speaker 2>but plane back coffee dating day and maybe a plain
<v Speaker 2>sparkling water the morning before the lab draw.
<v Speaker 1>So I'm just going to go stop right there, We're done.
<v Speaker 1>We got it. That's what we need. No, you don't
<v Speaker 1>want black coffee before your lab draw.
<v Speaker 2>You also don't want to exercise before your lab draw, yep,
<v Speaker 2>because both are going to push glycogen out into your body,
<v Speaker 2>which is going to slightly raise your blood glu close
<v Speaker 2>and in response, your body is going to release a
<v Speaker 2>little insulin to bring that blood draw down. So if
<v Speaker 2>you just walk to the lab and your body spurted
<v Speaker 2>out a little insulin in response to that walk, it
<v Speaker 2>could give you a falsely elevated insulin.
<v Speaker 1>Same with having coffee. Yep, yep. Could it have.
<v Speaker 2>Been in response to what you ate the night before, doubtful?
<v Speaker 2>Probably not. Now if you repeat this completely fasted, no
<v Speaker 2>exercise beforehand, first thing in the morning, and it's still high,
<v Speaker 2>then that's a different story, right, But I would maybe
<v Speaker 2>wait and retest later.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely, this is just really really important. Like Sherry said,
<v Speaker 1>black coffee is never what you want before blood work,
<v Speaker 1>and I actually had that happen to me. I didn't
<v Speaker 1>know I was going to be getting blood work, and
<v Speaker 1>I'd already had black coffee, and my fasting insulin came
<v Speaker 1>back higher than it had been. I'm like, oh, it
<v Speaker 1>must have been the black coffee, because we know that
<v Speaker 1>that causes your liver to push out the glycogen. So
<v Speaker 1>plane water only before blood work and no exercising before
<v Speaker 1>the blood work. What else were you going to add here?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Also, this doesn't biotin, which is B seven, and
<v Speaker 2>it's in a lot of multi vitamins or be complexes.
<v Speaker 2>It can and negatively impact a lot of labs. So
<v Speaker 2>that's another one that they tell you to withhold for
<v Speaker 2>seventy two hours prior to having blood work done. So anyway,
<v Speaker 2>She goes on to say, would what I had the
<v Speaker 2>night before, sixteen hours earlier have a strong effect on
<v Speaker 2>insult levels? Or am I just insulin resistant? I guess
<v Speaker 2>it's hard for me to believe my insulin is so
<v Speaker 2>high after fasting for almost three years, having good appetite correction,
<v Speaker 2>and having successfully lost weight and experienced body recomposition. Other
<v Speaker 2>information you may need. I have never been diagnosed with diabetes,
<v Speaker 2>and I have never had a high or abnormal A
<v Speaker 2>and C. However, since my insurance changed in twenty twenty,
<v Speaker 2>my de doctor won't check my A and C because
<v Speaker 2>my fasting glucose is always normal, so I've not had
<v Speaker 2>one since before twenty twenty. So yeah, she just wants
<v Speaker 2>to know how to prepare before getting insulin drawn again.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna tell you what A one C is so
<v Speaker 1>much more powerful than fasting glucose. Yes, I can't even
<v Speaker 1>understand why doctor would say your fasting glucose is fine.
<v Speaker 1>We're not even gonna look at your A one C.
<v Speaker 1>You could have good fasting glucose and a really high
<v Speaker 1>A one C depending on like I could envision how
<v Speaker 1>that would happen right, yep, yep, absolutely yeah. You know.
<v Speaker 1>For instance, my ex husband I knew.
<v Speaker 2>He was diabetic for years before he was ever diagnosed diabetic.
<v Speaker 2>Funny thing, every time he was hospitalized, which was often,
<v Speaker 2>he had genetic peripheral neuropathy, so he was constantly getting
<v Speaker 2>foot infections much like a diabetic. Right, His fasting blood
<v Speaker 2>sugar is in the hospital at the sky high, but
<v Speaker 2>he was never diagnosed diabetic because his A and C
<v Speaker 2>was always below the limit that they call you as diabetic.
<v Speaker 2>But here's what happens. If you're having high blood sugars,
<v Speaker 2>but you're also having low blood sugars in response to
<v Speaker 2>those high blood sugars, those are going to average out
<v Speaker 2>and your A and C may look normal, but it
<v Speaker 2>doesn't mean that you're not having impaired glucose metabolism, right.
<v Speaker 1>Or you could have. Every time you check it in
<v Speaker 1>the morning for your fasted blood work, you're catching it
<v Speaker 1>at a good point, but then after you eat it
<v Speaker 1>goes sky high and stays high for hours. Right. And
<v Speaker 1>so that's why you really need the whole complete picture.
<v Speaker 1>And here is the best news of all when you
<v Speaker 1>talk about this a lot. You can order your own
<v Speaker 1>blood work and Kansas. Martha's in Kansas. Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Walk is a walk in lab. Yeah, and it sounds
<v Speaker 2>like that's probably what she did. But yeah, walk in lab.
<v Speaker 2>We have a link on our.
<v Speaker 1>Website and I would get fasting glucose, fasting insulin and
<v Speaker 1>get your own a one C. You can do that
<v Speaker 1>at the same time. And like we said before, nothing
<v Speaker 1>but plain water prior to the blood work.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and when you go to the lab, like if
<v Speaker 2>you go to walk in Lab and you go to
<v Speaker 2>order your own lab, there's a little like tab you
<v Speaker 2>can click on that lab that says like more information
<v Speaker 2>or something, and it tells you exactly how to prepare
<v Speaker 2>for the lab test. And if you print out your instructions,
<v Speaker 2>it also will tell you how to prepare for the
<v Speaker 2>lab test. And it tells you all of that like fasted,
<v Speaker 2>no black coffee, no bio ten for seventy two hours.
<v Speaker 1>It's all on there. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And even if let's just say your insulin came back
<v Speaker 2>at twelve point seven, let's just say that was real.
<v Speaker 2>If you've never done a fasting insulin before, you have
<v Speaker 2>no idea what it was. Right, that's a good point
<v Speaker 2>prior to starting. If we see people's fasting insulins up
<v Speaker 2>in the twenties forties right when they start, so don't panic,
<v Speaker 2>wait a couple months and retest.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that is a very good point. And you know,
<v Speaker 1>we do. I know that people have different levels of insulin.
<v Speaker 1>Some people secrete a lot more insolent than others. So
<v Speaker 1>you may be someone who naturally, I mean, twelve point
<v Speaker 1>seven is not appalling. I mean, yes, that hr the
<v Speaker 1>homer Ir score was high, and that did look like
<v Speaker 1>insulin resistance. But again, get a clean test with no
<v Speaker 1>coffee and no exercise before, and you may find that
<v Speaker 1>it's not as bad as it looked on that day.
<v Speaker 1>So now we have another question from a listener. This
<v Speaker 1>question is from Leah from the Sunshine Coast BC. Hi, Jen,
<v Speaker 1>and Sherry. I've been clean fasting for over three years now.
<v Speaker 1>I'm forty two years old, five foot one. I guess
<v Speaker 1>that's what that is, because now she's talking about kilograms.
<v Speaker 1>I haven't weighed myself for years, but my guess is
<v Speaker 1>that I am about sixty five kilograms. I got five
<v Speaker 1>point one. Would that be five foot one? I think
<v Speaker 1>she means five foot one. Yeah, okay, she said, I
<v Speaker 1>don't weigh as it puts me in a bad place
<v Speaker 1>in my mind. I have gone down sizes from a
<v Speaker 1>fourteen to a ten, but I can't make it to
<v Speaker 1>my goal size of eight. I have lots of clothes
<v Speaker 1>that still don't fit me. I see, is that British Columbia.
<v Speaker 1>Mm hmm, okay, she said. I haven't had a good
<v Speaker 1>night's sleep for about four years now, since the birth
<v Speaker 1>of my second child, and I know that's definitely a
<v Speaker 1>big problem. I started fasting for weight loss, but also
<v Speaker 1>for keeping myself healthy and letting my body rest. Even
<v Speaker 1>though I don't sleep, I feel great with my fasting lifestyle.
<v Speaker 1>My eating window is usually eleven AM to three pm,
<v Speaker 1>but a couple of times a week I switch it
<v Speaker 1>to three pm to six or seven pm. I'm flexible
<v Speaker 1>and adapt is needed with my busy family life, so
<v Speaker 1>some days it's two hour windows and others six. I
<v Speaker 1>feel my best with the afternoon window, as when I eat,
<v Speaker 1>I eat a very well balanced, yummy, homemade big meal
<v Speaker 1>and a homemade dessert daily. So when I eat later,
<v Speaker 1>I steal full full when I'm in bed, and that
<v Speaker 1>does not feel great for me. So here comes my
<v Speaker 1>question in my pursuit for a better night's sleep. I'm
<v Speaker 1>exploring all kinds of things, and one of them is cortisol.
<v Speaker 1>I am wondering if because I usually finish eating early
<v Speaker 1>in the day, my cortisol is high at night and
<v Speaker 1>weaken me up. I will say that I don't sleep
<v Speaker 1>better with a later meal, as I feel too full
<v Speaker 1>getting in the bed, and when I do, I'm often
<v Speaker 1>up to use the bathroom. I think you answered your
<v Speaker 1>own question with that, right. We'll dig in more to it.
<v Speaker 1>But she that I've thought about maybe eating some fat
<v Speaker 1>before bed to see if that's helpful, But if I'm
<v Speaker 1>being honest, I really don't want to. As for the
<v Speaker 1>weight loss, probably ADF would be good for me, but
<v Speaker 1>I can't do that at this stage of my life
<v Speaker 1>and lack of sleep. And I also do eat a
<v Speaker 1>very healthy dessert daily and I know if I drop
<v Speaker 1>that I may be able to get where I want
<v Speaker 1>to be. But I love my food style as it
<v Speaker 1>is and I don't want to restrict. So my question
<v Speaker 1>is really sleep. Any thoughts. I do take magnesium breakthrough
<v Speaker 1>from by Optimizers, and I haven't noticed it making a
<v Speaker 1>difference for me. I practice yoga, I weight train, I
<v Speaker 1>spin I eat healthy and balanced. I'm very active in
<v Speaker 1>good shape, but I don't sleep. Falling asleep is no problem.
<v Speaker 1>I get into bed at around nine pm, but around
<v Speaker 1>one am I'm up tossing and turning until six am,
<v Speaker 1>when I get up and start my day. Thank you
<v Speaker 1>for your help. I listen to you daily when I'm cooking,
<v Speaker 1>and I love it.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Well, a couple of things. You move your window around,
<v Speaker 2>and sometimes you close it in the afternoon and sometimes
<v Speaker 2>in the evening. I would keep a journal and notate
<v Speaker 2>when your window was, how long it was, and when
<v Speaker 2>it ended, and see if you can make a correlation
<v Speaker 2>between short windows versus longer windows, and early windows versus
<v Speaker 2>late windows in.
<v Speaker 1>How you sleep.
<v Speaker 2>The next thing I would do is you say that
<v Speaker 2>you eat a homemade dessert daily. If it's a blood
<v Speaker 2>sugar dysregulation issue, I think you'll know pretty quickly if
<v Speaker 2>you forego the dessert. It is not uncommon for people
<v Speaker 2>to have a hypoglycemic response around two am or so,
<v Speaker 2>depending on what they had for what they ate like
<v Speaker 2>for their final meal of the day in the evening,
<v Speaker 2>and when you have If your body is having a
<v Speaker 2>hypoglycemic response, what happens is your body does push out
<v Speaker 2>cortisol to raise your blood glucose, and it could be
<v Speaker 2>cortisol keeping you awake, but it's in a response to
<v Speaker 2>the food that you're eating in your window likely, right,
<v Speaker 2>So you're gonna have to be your own detective and
<v Speaker 2>figure out what's doing it.
<v Speaker 1>And what's interesting also shary if you'll notice she hasn't
<v Speaker 1>had a good night's sleep for four years since the
<v Speaker 1>Birther was second child, but she wasn't fasting when those
<v Speaker 1>sleep problems started, which is an interesting variable. So something
<v Speaker 1>started the sleep problems then she started fasting. It's really
<v Speaker 1>helpful to keep a journal. Like anytime you go.
<v Speaker 2>See a sleep specialist, they'll tell you to keep a
<v Speaker 2>sleep journal. So kind of just keep a journal. It
<v Speaker 2>doesn't have to be elaborate, just kind of keep track
<v Speaker 2>of your like I said, window length and time and
<v Speaker 2>how you slept. You know, you might really look into
<v Speaker 2>seeing a sleep specialist because you're right, sleep is very
<v Speaker 2>important and if you're constantly having lack of sleep that
<v Speaker 2>is a stress on your body, getting that sorted out
<v Speaker 2>can be really really important. And then I was going
<v Speaker 2>to say, there's actually a great app I found recently
<v Speaker 2>called Rise Science and it's basically an online almost like
<v Speaker 2>CBT therapy designed to improve sleep. So there's resources out
<v Speaker 2>there like that that could help you as well.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I just want to go back to the
<v Speaker 1>point that you made about you already know that having
<v Speaker 1>the later meal did not help you sleep because you
<v Speaker 1>felt too full. So keeping your own study of one,
<v Speaker 1>as Sherry said, this is where taking the notes, really
<v Speaker 1>experimenting to see what helps. And again, like she said,
<v Speaker 1>a sleep specialist could really be helpful because it might
<v Speaker 1>not be any of these things. Right all right, Before
<v Speaker 1>we get to our tweak of the week, I want
<v Speaker 1>to take a minute to tell you about the new
<v Speaker 1>Fast Feast Repeat app and website. If you are struggling
<v Speaker 1>with food confusion or diet brain when it comes to
<v Speaker 1>what to eat in your eating window, or if you
<v Speaker 1>know that you need to make changes but you don't
<v Speaker 1>know where to begin, that is where the Eat Like
<v Speaker 1>a grown Up program comes in. It's a fifty two
<v Speaker 1>week learning journey that helps you finally build a peaceful,
<v Speaker 1>confident relationship with food without dieting, guilt, or overwhelm. And
<v Speaker 1>it's only available in the new Fast Feast Repeat App,
<v Speaker 1>So join me in the app for the grown Up
<v Speaker 1>Year fifty two weeks to listen, play, and nourish. Each week,
<v Speaker 1>you'll watch a short video lesson and download a simple
<v Speaker 1>and practical mission designed to help you listen to your body,
<v Speaker 1>play with your food in a joyful way, and nourish
<v Speaker 1>yourself with calm intention. You'll learn how to move past
<v Speaker 1>emotional eating, understand your hunger cues, make meals deeply satisfying,
<v Speaker 1>and fall back in love with real food, all while
<v Speaker 1>connecting with a community that's growing right alongside you in
<v Speaker 1>the app. So if you're ready for transformation that unfolds
<v Speaker 1>gently but meaningfully over time, this is where it begins.
<v Speaker 1>Go to app dot fast Feast Repeat dot com to
<v Speaker 1>join app dot fast Feast Repeat dot com, or you
<v Speaker 1>can find the fast Feast Repeat app in the app
<v Speaker 1>store that works with your phone and along with they
<v Speaker 1>eat like a grown up fifty two week program, you'll
<v Speaker 1>find an ever growing library of intermittent fasting resources as well.
<v Speaker 1>Go to app dot fast Feast Repeat dot com to
<v Speaker 1>join us or download the Fast Feast Repeat app today.
<v Speaker 1>There's also a link in show notes and now it's
<v Speaker 1>time for our tweak of the week. You know I
<v Speaker 1>always say tweak it till it's easy, But the tweak
<v Speaker 1>that works for me might not be the one that
<v Speaker 1>works for you. And that's why it's super helpful to
<v Speaker 1>hear how other intermittent fasters are using tweaks to make
<v Speaker 1>intermittent fasting work for them. Olivia and Oregon said, for
<v Speaker 1>mamas with littles who are always wanting and needing to eat,
<v Speaker 1>it can be hard to be around that and not
<v Speaker 1>want to eat as well. So I've been making him
<v Speaker 1>very simple breakfasts that do not tempt me. Thankfully, he's
<v Speaker 1>not a picky eater. One meal that doesn't tempt me
<v Speaker 1>in the least and doesn't even require cooking time is
<v Speaker 1>rolled oats Quicker regular, mixed with plain yogurt and some
<v Speaker 1>apple sauce for a little sweetness. Stir and let's set
<v Speaker 1>for a few minutes and serve. If I were to
<v Speaker 1>make him a cooked breakfast eggs or something savory, I
<v Speaker 1>would likely be fighting a wave or two of more hunger.
<v Speaker 1>But this kind of meal is not what I would
<v Speaker 1>want to eat for breakfast.
<v Speaker 2>We'd love to leave you with inspirational motivational quotes, and
<v Speaker 2>this week we have a Crook quote that was shared
<v Speaker 2>from a listener. They wrote, although this book has nothing
<v Speaker 2>to do with if, I found this passage takes on
<v Speaker 2>a new meaning when relating it to planning one's weekly
<v Speaker 2>food and prepping to eat better.
<v Speaker 1>The quote is.
<v Speaker 2>The whole secret of freedom from anxiety over not having
<v Speaker 2>enough time lies not in the working more hours, but
<v Speaker 2>in the proper planning of ours. Set aside just one
<v Speaker 2>day per week to plan and prep your meals, and
<v Speaker 2>you'll have less temptation to eat just anything spontaneously, like
<v Speaker 2>fast food. The quote is from How I Raised Myself
<v Speaker 2>from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Betcker.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I really love that. That is not a
<v Speaker 1>fasting book. It's not a fasting quote, but it applies
<v Speaker 1>to so many things. I'm going to read it again.
<v Speaker 1>The whole secret of freedom from anxiety over not having
<v Speaker 1>enough time lies not in the working more hours, but
<v Speaker 1>the proper planning of ours. I had a principle who
<v Speaker 1>used to say the future belongs to those who plan.
<v Speaker 1>He said it all the time, whatever you're doing, having
<v Speaker 1>a plan can make such a difference. Yep, planning what
<v Speaker 1>you're going to have. That's where those meal kits have
<v Speaker 1>been so helpful for me. I know what I'm going
<v Speaker 1>to eat today because I know what's coming in my
<v Speaker 1>meal kit, right, so I know now I don't have
<v Speaker 1>to think about it. So whatever you can do to
<v Speaker 1>make it easier for yourself such a big difference. Thanks
<v Speaker 1>so much for listening today. We would love to have
<v Speaker 1>you join us in the Delayed on Tonight community, where
<v Speaker 1>you can interact with both me and Sherry, plus the
<v Speaker 1>most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere. Go
<v Speaker 1>to Jenstevens dot com slash community to join us.
<v Speaker 2>Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to your favorite
<v Speaker 2>podcast app, and if you haven't already, please leave us
<v Speaker 2>a five star review that helps new listeners find the
<v Speaker 2>show and we really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 1>We are a community driven podcast, so to submit your
<v Speaker 1>success stories, your questions, your favorite tweak it till It's Easy, moments,
<v Speaker 1>or anything else you want us to share on the podcast,
<v Speaker 1>go to fast Feast Repeat dot com slash submit and
<v Speaker 1>then listen each week to see if we share your
<v Speaker 1>submission or answer your question.
<v Speaker 2>Until next week. Thanks for listening. This podcast was edited
<v Speaker 2>by Resonate Recording Things