Episode 19: Celebrating Victories, IF as a Lifestyle, Eating Until Satisfied, and More

Welcome to Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens, author
of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat, and I'm Sherry Bullock,
longtime intermittent faster and health and wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this
podcast is for educational and motivational purposes only and is not intended to provide medical
or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are not doctors, so make sure to
check with your trusted healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes to
any medical treatments or medications. Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an experienced
intermittent faster, tune in each week to get inspired, to learn, and
to have some fun along the way. Hi, everybody, we are so
glad you're here today. Welcome to this week's episode of the Fast Feast Repeat
Intermittent Fasting for Life Podcast. How are you doing today, Sherry, I'm
doing fabulous. That's good. Anything new with you? No, not really,
I've just been working around my house. And my house I learned isn't
big enough when I bought it. You would think it would be. It's
just me and Eric and then Avery every other weekend. But I don't know,
I feel like we've outgrown the house. What's the square footage, it's
eighteen hundred square feet. Well, when you put my two my boy condo
in my house together, I live in eighteen hundred square feet, it's just
just a you get split a mile apart. Well, that's true, I
have eighteen hundred square feet, they're just separated. So we came from five
thousand square feet, So I get it. I've just gotten rid of so
much stuff. Well, when we bought this house, we had the boys,
and we had avery and whatever. And the boys have now gone on
their own, and so I converted their room to a guest bedroom. And
I just really realized I'm never having guests. Who's coming to Alabama? Nobody.
I liked it. One day, I might go visit you in Alabama.
I don't know. So I was just like, this is a complete
waste of space. So yesterday I rearranged like pretty much all the rooms in
my house, and I just suddenly feel like my house is more open and
spacious and everything's not like crammed into the living area. I moved all my
workout, no, all of it, moved some of my workout equipment into
my office and it's going to be good. It's once I get it all
done. So my mother in law was like, are you getting your sauna
out of your dining room? Like, no, I'm not. She hates
it in there. Oh it is what it is, certainly not because I'm
not taking it apart. And I had to have electrician come wire it to
the you know, I had to put a new outlet in. So I
was like, nope, it is where it is. And again, I
don't have a medium if you don't exactly who cares if my sauna is in
my dining room, right, you know, if you got to live in
the space that you've got, it's our space, not the guest space.
Yeah, Like it was so bad. I was thinking about like converting my
shed. I'm like a metal building behind my house and I was converted thinking
about converting my shed to like a she shed and making my office out there.
And then I was like, that's silly. I need to just get
that king sized bed out of my office and use that space more wisely.
So yeah, well, one thing you really learn when you're in a tiny
space, like you know, our house is like nine hundred square feet.
It's tiny. You realize what you absolutely have to have and what you don't
have to. So I've really pared down a lot of stuff. So it's
made a lot of difference. Well, and Avery now gets a king sized
bed, so she should love that. Oh yeah, so I mean I
can still have guests. I still have a king sized bed. They're just
going to have to sleep in a girly tween bedroom. Well, I think
they can handle that. So I have started tai chi. Did you see
my post about that on Canoe? I did not. I posted it yesterday.
I'm so excited. I'll I don't have to cand that. Well,
when I don't know, when I put something in my calendar like recurring,
you it's gonna happen. Yeah. I'm really good about things that are in
my calendar because I'm like, R, what do I have to owe?
Yeah? Tai chi? So I got a streak of two days? Are
you doing like YouTube tai chi? Yeah? Yeah, and it's not much,
it's not long. But I got inspired watching the Blue Zone documentary on
Netflix, and you know, the people in Okinawa are so active. They're
doing gardening and they do tai chi. And I'm like, I'm gonna just
do tai chi because I like a you know, gentle kind of exercise,
and there's so much on YouTube, so many things to do. You remember
that we interviewed that lady for the Life Lessons podcast but put her ms and
remission with tai chi. I do remember that. I do remember. She
was in my mind when I was thinking about that. But yeah, yeah,
I thought her name was Arlene. I just had to look back episode
seventy seven. Her name was Arlene Fulk. Yeah, I might re listen
to that, even though I never listened to Life Lessons ever, but I
might go back and listen to that episode. She was inspiring. But maybe
that planted the seed a little bit. I went to a taichi class at
the Y before I wrote Fast Feast Repeat. I stopped going to the why
because I we had the book deal for Fast Feast Repeat, and I knew
I didn't have time to go to the Y anymore because we were also managing
the Facebook community, so I had to write a whole book and manage the
Facebook communities. This was in like twenty nineteen. I guess there was a
brief period of time and I was doing plotis at the y and twenty nineteen.
It was right after I retired from teaching. Maybe it was even twenty
eighteen. I don't even know. But I went to Taichi like twice.
It was at seven in the morning or eight in the morning. It was
early, but the guy who led it was like late. Both times I
went. He was late, and so we're all just standing around waiting for
him. I don't think I could do that still of movement at that early
in the morning. Well, if he hadn't been late, I might have
kept going. But I liked the class, but he was like fifteen minutes
late. And it's like that early in the morning. If I'm will get
up and come over here. You need to get on an up and over
if you're teaching it, don't be late. Do you feel it afterwards?
I mean it's hard to say, have done it twice? Okay, Well,
I'm assuming you use a lot of accessory muscles that you don't really use
day to day. It's the you're leaning and your I mean, look,
okay, I just leaned when I was like talking to you. I can
feel a little bit in my arms. It's different. Okay, you know,
I'm not trying to be like a you know, a bodybuilder. So
but you lean a certain way and you slowly move your arms and maybe one
day I'll be like on the beach dundai chi like a weirdo. Not that
it's weird, because the guy who I was watching today, he was doing
it all over the world. He was like in the UK and he's in
front of this monument in Scotland. That's fun. He just so confidently doing
it. I had a friend that did yoga, and she travels a lot,
and so wherever she travels, she goes out into nature and does yoga,
and well, see that. I want that kind of confidence. I
want to be able to go stand on the beach and not feel like I'm
a weirdo out here doing tai chi. I want to feel confident in my
ability to do that wherever I am. New Golf, all right, keep
us posted. Anyway, tai Chi is interesting to watch because it is so
slow and you're moving around. But anyway, I'm excited. But I've been
trying to get in more activity just in general, because it's easy to be
sedentary, it is. And you know, I'm looking at my dad and
he's in his chair and my mom is in her chair and here I am
sitting in my chair running the community and it's easy to do. So I
walked here today instead of driving. Oh that's goods if you work on the
beach, no, because I have to wear real shoes. It's like sixty
degrees and sometimes you have to wade through that. Like if these swashes on
the beach and you might have to walk through them. So I'm wearing like
jeans and real shoes. So I just walked on the sidewalk. But it's
about of mine and then I'll walk back home. Zero percent chance of rain.
So it's not hot, it's not cold. It's just like in the
sixties and it's very sunny. That's fun. It is fun. So I
just walked over here I am, and I'm going to walk back. You
know, I think part of the reason I used to walk a lot,
but I'm sort of a destination walker. So I'd be like, Oh,
I'm going to walk up to Target, or I'm going to walk up to
this restaurant have dinner. This is when you lived in Colorado. Yes,
I walked everywhere, but I had a place in mind that I was going
to, which is great incentive. Because you can't just give up halfway there.
You got to get there right right, I've got to walk back.
I have no choice. There is no place for me to walk where I
live right at all. So I mean I could leave my house and I
could go to the downtown area and walk up there. But I mean we're
talking it's three three city blocks. But I do miss that. I love,
you know, going out and walking and just people watching. Yeah.
I'm fortunate, you know, to have the beach as a place to walk,
because that's a nice It's always nice to walk on the beach unless it's
freezing cold, but which it does get in the in the middle of winter.
But you know, we can still walk to the restaurants if we want.
But I'm going to be more intentional about walking from how my house to
my work here and then from work back homes. That's two much. It's
good. Walking is really good exercise, especially as we get into the colder,
gray months. It's just good to get outside. I'll bundle up,
get out there. Even if you think you can't see the sun, you're
still benefiting from the sunshine. Yeah. So my message to everybody today is
get up and move around. If you're not doing that already. That really
after watching all the Blue Zones episodes, that's one thing that really struck me.
You know, there's so much to those lifestyles. It's community, it's
obviously they're eating high quality foods, but the movement is a piece that's it's
in all of them. You know, they're gardening, they're moving there,
they live in a hilly place, they're walking if they're in the ones in
Italy and Greece, and they're just not sitting around. I remember my grandmother,
you know, before she died, she was so sedentary for years,
and her health got worse and worse. Then she lost her balance, then
she couldn't walk, then she was you know, it just it just adds
up. You know, it's funny that you say that, because Eric and
I were just talking about our mothers, right, And my dad worked in
a factory until he retired, so he was constantly on the move working he
as an electrician and he still goes out and walks like two miles a day.
My mom, though she hasn't worked since we were kids, she worked
for the school district as a para professional, and so since then she's been
home and she does a lot of quilting and sewing and painting and baking,
but not a lot of really active work. And we just spent you know,
a week with them, and it really struck me how almost frail my
mom is. My mom and dad are a year apart. They're seventy two
and seventy three. And you know, my dad's up walking two miles every
day. My mom can't get up and down off the floor. She has
troubled navigating steps, she's constantly wearing a brace on some part of her body
or you know. And I really and I said something to Eric, and
he said, well, it's kind of like my mom and dad. His
mom just sits in a rocking chair and rocks all day and she's got terrible
pain and arthritis and she can't get up and down and move and keep a
house. And then there's dad, who's twelve years older than her, and
he's still out chopping wood and building fences. And I really just I truly
believe that the more active you are, like, the easier life is going
to be as you age, use it or lose it. Right, yep,
So you know, we're here as intermittent fasters and that's a good tool
to help us age well. But we got to stay active as well.
We got to preserve our muscle mouth and if you're just sitting around, you're
not preserving your muscle masks. You got to use your muscles. So jumping
on my rebounder and when I got here, I jumped on that for about
five minutes and rebounder vibration, play walking taichi. That sounds pretty good,
right, Those all sound great. Weight You've got weight bearing exercise, and
I'm trying to get Chad. I want us to do something together. So
pickleball is on my list. I know I've been talking about it ever since
we moved here and we haven't done it, but we're going to one day
be those people playing pickleball. Me and Chad like the fastest grime sport in
America. Well people love it, so there's got to be something to it.
I'm really bad at things with balls. You've seen me try to do
things with balls. I'm really bad at it, but we'll see. I
don't know we've played bachi ball on the beach on the beach yet to be
bad at all sorts of physical things though. Yeah, we went and played
darts and gins like I'm so bad at darts, I can't play darts.
And then she beat us like the first game, well that was just an
accident. That was like a total accident. And then when we went bowling,
you saw how bad I wasn't bulling. Okay, well you're not a
good pole. I'm not good at getty things to go where I want them
to go. Let me just put it that way. Well that's perfect,
I guess, So we'll see. Well, maybe you're joining us today to
learn more about an intermitt fasting lifestyle. Maybe you're struggling with your intermint fasting
lifestyle and you are looking for inspiration and more information regardless of where you are.
I think it's important to remember that while many people come to Aya for
weight loss, they are often or quick to notice other victories besides just scale
victories. And often it's those victories big and small that keep people fasting even
when the scale isn't cooperating. So today we're going to share several short celebrations
from listeners. So Sherry in Colorado, she said, I feel much more
in control of my day, and I am able to cook and prep meals
with joy and not feel a bit like I need to nibble as I go.
That feels like a huge, non scale victory, as chopping and prepping
and being in my kitchen is certainly a happy place. I'm originally from Kentucky,
so I have deep jeans wanting to love my family with food, just
better food. Now, Yeah, I think that's great. So many times
people worry about that with theirmitten fasting. They're like, well, how can
I prepare a food for my kids or a snack for my kids, or
lunch for my husband and not eat it? And like, well, you
can. It's just another task that you do. You can do all those
things without partaking part of its mindset but part of its habit. One hundred
percent. I agree with you completely. It's both mindset and its habit.
We're used to popping things in our mouth tasting. You know. Look,
if you've been cooking for a long time, you know how to season your
food without constantly tasting it. You have an idea and you can always add
more salt at the table, so you do not need to taste as you
go. You really don't. Eric will tell me sometimes you didn't season this
well enough, and I'm like, look, you can add more, but
you can't take it out. And I was fasting, I couldn't taste it.
There you go, all right. Teresa from New Mexico says I've struggled
to lose weight for twenty five plus years. I found intermittent fasting and lost
fifty pounds. My body is an experiment, and I've learned to tweak my
fasts to continue to feel good. Karen from Connecticut shared I have lost over
thirty pounds. I am now a normal BMI and I look forward to getting
dressed in the morning. Everything fits. I know if the scale is creeping
up, I can just tighten my window up a bit and delay alcohol or
sweets and it will come right back down. I think that's key what Kieren
said, that you know everything fits, but that doesn't mean it's always gonna
fit. In maintenance, we have seasons where the scale goes up, seasons
where the scale may go down. We have seasons where it's all the same,
but we have the tools to get those pants fitting great again. You
know, I'm at the lower end of my maintenance range right now. I
can feel it. You know, many a few things that I'm experimenting with
and doing just differently, but it's not a big deal. Yeah, And
I think it's what's key is to like never really stop experimenting and keep adapting
and changing and try new things. But also I was going to say,
you were talking about seasons, seasons that things fit since as they don't.
Somebody recently in community posted that her weight hasn't changed since. So she's in
Australia, so she's coming out of winter and moving into summer there, and
she had a dress that she had tried on at the end of last summer
and it fit great. And she tried the dress on and she says it
feels a little tighter, but that the scale hasn't changed. And something I
reminded her is that I think we see this. We've seen this time and
time again through the seasons. During the winter months and the summer months,
people eat differently, It's true, and like what you're eating can really affect,
you know, some inflammation and where you're holding on to a little bit
of extra weight or whatever. So I think that's normal. And then like
I know, for me, I eat a lot more fresh type food,
lighter fair in the summer, and then in the winter when it's cold,
I want heavier foods and more carbs, and you know, more potatoes and
breads than I do in the summertime. So as you go through the seasons,
you know, just kind of keep that in mind that the way you
eat kind of changes and it can kind of show up. But like you
know, once you resume kind of a lighter fair that your body will probably
change right back down and that dress is going to fit again. Yeah,
you know, maintenance, it's not a weight, it's a range. And
I don't know what my maintenance ranges because they haven't gotten on the scale since
twenty seventeen. But I know in my pants at the end of July,
after I'd had lots of visitors and lots of eating out, things were tighter.
And now here we are the end coming up on the end of October,
things are looser. And it's just it is what it is. It's
no big deal and I don't stress out about it. And that's the best
part about it. The longer you live an intermittent fasting lifestyle, the more
you know you've got the tools. Yeah, you're not looking for the next
plan, You're just taking what you know and tightening it up a little bit
and being a little bit more diligent about watching your windows. Exactly all right.
So Sarah from Castro Valley, California says, something that has amazed to
me since I started fasting is a positive change in the male pattern hair growth
I used to suffer from. I was diagnosed with PCOS at a young age,
and that's polycystic ovarian syndrome. I always can think I get those middle
ones a little wrong? Was that right? That's correct at a young age,
and it caused unwanted facial end body here. It's incredible how much time
I say, from tweezing, waxing, et cetera. That's fabulous, it
is, and it would be because PCOS is related to high levels of insulin
and fasting brings those down. So a lot of people with PCOS. The
improvement with fasting including improvements with fertility. Yes, yep. So Julie from
Northwest Arkansas, she shared food freedom is my biggest non scale victory and I
love that. It's so true. Well, it is because you know how
much time did we waste thinking about what diet am I going to go on?
Or counting my macros, counting my calories And now we just we know
it's a flexible lifestyle with intermittent fasting, and we've got the tools with our
fasting approaches and so much freedom. Then we have Della from Philadelphia. She
says, after only twenty three days, I can already tell a difference in
my upper arms. Blouses that have gotten uncomfortably tight fit nicely. Now.
Yep, we see that a lot, you know. And it's funny because
sometimes people will come in and they've been fasting for like five six weeks,
baby, and they're already getting sad because the scale's not moving like they think
it should. But if you ask them to share, like a face to
face photo or like an upper body photo, you can tell a huge difference.
So people are like, well, I haven't lost any inches in my
waist, but when you look at them, their faces already slimmed down.
Their necks are slimming down, like their shoulders and arms have slimmed down.
So like, that's why I cannot express enough like how important pictures are.
And I know we hate to see pictures of ourselves. Do it anyway,
Just do it, stick it in a private folder in your phone, never
look at it again until you're three six months into the lifestyle and you're be
so glad you took pictures. Wear the same clothes again. And I talked
about this in Fast Feast. Repeat. Don't just wear your underwear because you
are gonna want to show That's true. We're gonna want to show up to
people. So we're like a sportspra maybe and you know, like leg leggis
or something, and whatever you wear, we're that same exact thing again exactly
next time. Try to recreate the photos. Put them side by side.
It's amazing you. People will just often say they'll say, like I'm on
a plateau, and I'm like, all right, well let's talk about what
that is. And like, you know, you weigh. You're like,
no, I don't weigh, but I don't feel different. I'm like,
ookay, you're not going to feel the changes. You're going to have to
have some sort of data. And I understand not wanting to weigh. I
just finished saying I haven't weighed since twenty seventeen, although I did weigh while
I was losing weight in the first year of maintenance. But you got to
have something because if you just go by how you feel, you know,
I'm you know, almost ten years in in a gold wardrobe, I can
trust how I feel. But if you're new and you have a lot of
weight to lose, you really can't. So you got to have something besides
just how you feel photos the scale. Yeah, And the other thing too,
is just because we all carry our weight so differently. Some people will
get hung up and they'll say, well, somebody has lost forty pounds and
they've already gone down four sizes, and I've lost forty pounds and I'm wearing
the same clothes. But it really just depends on where you carry your weight,
how tall you are. You know, if you're a person who the
first thing you lose is your booty and your hips, then yeah, you're
probably going to be changing, you know, your pants size sooner than somebody
else who maybe carries all their weight and loses it up top first, or
visceral fat, you know, with the fat around our internal organs, fat
from a fatty liver. There's all sorts of places that can come from,
and it might not affect your clothing size yet. So you know, I
talk about this also in Fast Fast Repeat. If something is changing, it's
working right. If you look different in your photos, or if your clothes
are fitting different, or if the scale is moving. But if only one
of those things is changing, it's still working. The others will catch up.
I mean, you know, I didn't lose eighty pounds and still was
the same size clothes. Right, Eventually the other things are going to change
too, But focus on the things that are changing, all right. So
now we have a question from a listener. This question is from Margie from
Olive Bridge, New York. Margie says, Hi, I am beyond grateful
that you've started this podcast at exactly the moment I decided to give myself one
more one last try with if. I've read both Delayed on Tony and Fast
Feast Repeat, listened to the podcasts I Have Stories and the one with Melanie,
and started intermittent fasting a few different times. I've dropped about ten pounds
of the forty I really need to drop. But I've not been able to
adopt this as a lifestyle yet. I've tried fast apps and timers, and
it almost seems like the more I focus on it, the more my ability
to stick with it eludes me. Then I get frustrated and feel defeated.
Then I neither delay nor deny, and I'm creeping up to be the heaviest.
Yet I'm sixty five years old, very healthy and active, a performing
musician, and I know that my ability to stay active and healthy depends on
keeping out of the obesity range. That knowledge, however, doesn't seem to
be enough to keep me on track. Do you have any words of wisdom
to help me shift my frustrating stuckness. I've been an ethical vegetarian since age
fifteen. I don't care what anyone else eats. My husband and cats eat
meat, and I don't judge, so I mostly eat a whole food's plant
based diet. I avoid dairy, no eggs, fish, or meat.
I do all my own cooking, and I'm good at it. If I
do say so, myself too good. I love good food. One last
thing I to test the way I feel and the fluffiness of my I detest
the numbness on my outer thigh due to a pinched nerve because of the excess
weight I'm carrying. But I'd rather drop the weight, not because I hate
my appearance, but because I love myself unconditionally. It's just words now,
and I'm struggling to make it real in my heart. Well, I think
she's identified maybe her biggest setback, and that is her inability to love herself
unconditionally. So, Margie, if I had to give you one real task,
sit down and really think about why you deserve to be a healthy weight.
And I say deserve because we all deserve to be a healthy weight.
But something is keeping you from achieving that. And it might take a lot
of really like internal work and processing and thinking, but something in you is
stop yourself from achieving success. And if you can figure out what that is
and create some goals, I believe that you can be successful. As far
as not sticking with it again, you're only cheating yourself. It's hard for
me to give you the will. But if you have a hard time making
a commitment to yourself, which some people do, see if you can somehow
make a commitment to somebody else that involves fasting and I don't know what that
looks like for you. There are apps out there. I mean, yeah,
it's apps, it's websites. There are some websites and apps out there
where you can actually create a personal challenge and you do a daily check in
and if you do not meet your personal challenge. You pay a charity that
you don't like, that app would motivate me so mad I would delete it
after one day. You would not motivate me. So yeah, do you
understand why that would motivate psychology, Well, you're like, I don't want
to pay this this charity that I don't like and I don't support, So
I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do. And it works for some
people. I have heard people say this has helped them. Yeah, well
it's got to or it wouldn't exist. Yeah. So I mean, if
you're a person that just you really struggle to commit to yourself. And I
talked about this a couple of weeks ago, actually was on the episode that
came out today with Gretchen Rubens her four Tendencies quiz, And if you are
an upholder. Upholders tend to honor their commitments to other people and struggle to
uphold their commitments to themselves. And if that happens to be you, then
somehow making a commitment that involves fasting to somebody else can really be beneficial.
And I was thinking that a great thing for Margie to do might be to
join the community if she's not in it already. If you go to Jen
stevens dot com slash community, we also have a link in show notes to
it. But come to the community and you just feel that accountability and when
you feel like you're part of something, it just changes the way that you
experience it. You know, when you're in the community, everybody's working to
have an interimint and fasting lifestyle for multiple reasons, and so you're like,
Okay, I am not alone. It's when you feel like you're alone that
it can be hard. I also want to talk about what Margie is eating.
I'm doing a personal experiment. Sherry knows about this. I've pulled on
my put it back on a CGM this week and I have two weeks of
this monitor. I'm experimenting with the Mastering Diabetes way of eating, which is
a whole food, plant based way of eating. With one difference, it's
also lower fat. And you know, again, I don't need to lose
weight. Not doing this for a weight loss. I'm doing it because I
want to see what happens with my blood sugar. Because you know, I've
been watching a lot of YouTube, because YouTube keeps showing me things it's like
you would like this. I'm like a dude like this, you would like
this. Okay, So it's showing me a lot of stuff, a lot
of content from them, but I'm actively just experimenting to see what happens with
my blood sugar with a whole food, plant based diet, not adding the
fat, and it is. I've shared some of these screenshots, so the
results was Sherry, It's blowing my mind. Honestly, I'm just not cooking
my I'm using my same meal kit meals, but instead of using olive oil
to saute in my vegetables, I'm using vegetable broth. The food is just
as good. Chad can't tell difference. It's actually easier to sautet with vegetable
broth. It doesn't get gunky. Who knew. But my blood sugar is
like so in control. And you know I already know from Zoe my body
doesn't clear fat. Well. I'm not saying everybody needs to go low fat,
but we talked in the last episode about that. Denise Minger a video
with a lower fat, plant based approach on one end and a you know,
high fat, low carb on the other, both having really great benefits.
For our bodies metabolically, it's that swamp land in the middle. So
you could be eating a whole food plant based diet that's really really high in
fat. And you know, I experimented with a whole food plant based about
a year ago, but I was not limiting my fat at all, and
I'm not even sure I hadn't well. I had a CGM one while I
was doing the Zoe program, but this is the first time I've ever really
experimented with this with a CGM on and the last eight I have is from
June. What my blood sugar was doing in June and then what it's doing
now. With this approach, it is, like I said, blowing my
mind. So Margie, I would encourage you. You're already whole food plant
based, so it is not going to be hard for you to make a
few changes. I would get Mastering Diabetes and I would read it, or
they have a lot of content on YouTube, and you may find that just
making those few changes make a dramatic difference for your body, and then when
you feel better. There are also proponents of fasting, so their approach includes
fasting, so when you feel better, you're more likely to stick to stuff
but so good. It's like shocking. But my blood sugar is like after
I eat, you might think, oh, I'm just gonna have a spike.
I'm not spiking and I'm not, you know, staying high. When
I was eating all the foods, carbs, fats, proteins, lots that
my blood sugar would not spike, but then it would just stay up all
night while I was sleeping, and in the morning it would still be up.
But it's not doing that anymore. Yeah, that's very telling. Yeah,
seeing your graphs and stuff is just really mind blowing. It's mind blowing.
It is literally everything Cyrus said would happen. Cyrus is one of the
mastering diabetes guys. So I'm like testing it. I'm like, all right,
I'm testing it. So I'm having you know, sourdough bread but no
butter on it, and it's still delicious. But I'm like, all right,
let's see what happened. My blood trigger's going to go up and it's
gonna crap. But it's not. It's doing exactly what he said. And
he talks about how it's the high fat and the high carb together is what
can keep us stuck in insulin resistance. So it's really like, you know,
there's a paradigm on either end that can work very very well. A
low carb, higher fat approach can work very very well because you're not putting
the glucose in. But you know, the higher carb, lower fat,
whole food plant based approach works really really well because the fat is not causing
you to have the insulin resistance that the fat can cause. That Cyrus explains
very very well. That's what it's PhD is in. Anyway, It's fascinating
and I'm having fun. You know, I've always been interested in foods,
but it's fun to experiment with foods. Not for weight loss. I'm not
trying to lose weight. I just am like, look what my blood sugar
just to see how your body reacts. Yeah, like Sherry and Rocks,
you're probably sick of it. I'm like, look what I just ate?
Look at my blood sugar? Did? It's like blowing my mind anyway.
Yeah. One more thing that I was thinking of too, Margie, is
you said that you've just not been able to adopt it as a lifestyle,
and that you've tried apps and timers and whatever. What if you just wake
up every morning with the intention to clean fast. Yep, as long as
you can that day, and as long as you clean fast as long as
you can, that's a success. Count that as a success, and you
just build one day on another on another, and eventually you won't have to
wake up and think, I'm going to wake up and fast today. You're
just going to wake up and fast because that's just what you do. So
it really is Fasting really is a habit, and you have to actually acquire
the habit. And I also wonder if she's focusing too much on the length
of the fast and not just the eating window, because you know, like
sometimes people will focus on the fast and then like if they're like, okay,
I must fast for eighteen hours or I'm not doing it right, and
then they'll be hungry or whatever, they'll open at seventeen and then they're like,
well, I blew it again. Instead, if you just focus on
how long you're eating window is, who cares what time you opened? Say
all right, whenever I open, I will close within five hours or six
hours or whatever it is. Work your way up, maybe it's eight hours.
When you're first starting, I will close within eight hours, and that's
it. You just make that shift and focus on the boundary of your eating
window and see if that makes a difference. And you know, if the
apps are not working, get rid of those apps. Yeah yeah, or
I mean even make it more simple. Don't even look at hours. Just
say I'm gonna eat two meals today. Yeah, period. Just turn your
three meals and snacks into two solid meals, and after you've had your second
meal and you're satisfied, start fasting again. Make it as easy as you
can. Absolutely all right. So most of us, you know, came
to intermitt and fasting with weight loss in mind, and it's fun for that
to be part of your why. But there's so much more to what I
have can do for us beyond weight loss that In my new book The twenty
eight Day Fast start day by day, I ask readers to craft their why
statement before beginning, and Margie, you might want to do that as well.
Come up with your powerful why statement and like read it to yourself maybe
every morning when you wake up, like why. It's not just the way,
aus, it's more than that. You're more likely to fund long term
success and view Intermittent fasting is a lifestyle when you have a powerful why.
My why is shifted now. My why is longevity and health and being active
and feeling good and avoiding diabetes, all of those things. So we have
our segment. It's called What's Your Why? This is our new segment.
I didn't really get into that, but now so today we have a why.
From ty to Teasley, she wrote, I've dealt with severe stomach pain
for several years, with many procedures to confirm diverticulosis, gastritis, and then
ulcers. This year I was miserable. I never felt like doing anything because
my stomach stayed so bloated and hard I literally look pregnant at times. I
was fed up with my body feeling so sluggish every single day, and the
pain, bloating and inflammation from diverticulosis was awful. Four months in and I
cannot believe how great I feel with a sixteen eight and every couple of weeks
I found myself just moving to a smaller window. I was one that ate
breakfast, lunch, and dinner, sweet tea, cream and sugar in my
coffee, and I love chocolate. I now do mainly one meal a day.
I cut out the sweets and I just do black coffee and water,
and for dinner, I eat the same thing I've always cooked. I just
stop before I'm stuffed. I still go out to dinner and I eat what
I want, but again, I know when I need to stop. Lately,
I've tried tracking what I eat for dinner to look for patterns, and
I noticed I can't eat a lot of fried foods anymore. They are not
my friend. Everything changed for me after I was into intermintfasting. Within two
weeks, I haven't had one episode of pain, floating, et cetera.
I am no longer experiencing swollen legs, and the energy I have is crazy.
I have not experienced real energy in quite some time. I no longer
want to come home from work and just lay down, and my mood is
even better, probably because I'm not constantly planning about my stomach. That's awesome.
I love that. That's a powerful why feeling better, having more energy.
If that's the only thing evermitten fasting you ever did, I almost wish,
But like we never told anybody, you might lose weight. No,
but just the way you're gonna feel great, You're gonna feel amazing. You're
gonna feel like a million bucks and then when they lose weight, they'd be
like, oh, that was a surprise. I mean, listen, we
all want to lose weight. We're want to be healthy, and we want
to fit into that you know, size that we've always dreamed of wearing.
But at the end of the day, we just want to feel good.
Because if you don't feel good, everything in life is harder, and it's
harder to get joy from life when you're not feeling well. Yep. And
I did not feel well when I weighed eighty more pounds than I weigh now,
that is for sure. Yep. Well, this week we have another
question that was sent in by Jeanie and Colorado. She wrote, I first
became overweight when I was about thirty, and I am now sixty two.
I've been on love and lots and lots of diets. I usually succeeded at
losing most of the weight I wanted to, but not all, and then
would quickly regain all and then some. I'm now about sixty pounds overweight.
I have lots of experienced dieting, and I am familiar with calories and macros
and the many popular types of diets that have come and gone. I'm new
to if though, I'm finding some difficulty with knowing what and how much to
eat when my window is open. I'm so used to knowing exactly what to
eat and how much that I seem to need some guidance. I enjoy cooking
and making healthy food. I stop eating when I'm full. I have a
big sweet tooth. I'm allowing myself one serving of something sweet after my meal
because I have huge cravings. If I try to stop sweets altogether, I
just don't know if I've stumbled onto a reasonable plan to start with. At
my age and the amount of weight I have to lose, is it reasonable
to do an eating window instead of one of the other styles? Do I
need to cut out sweets entirely if I expect to lose weight? Are there
approaches that you've seen in your community that might work better for my situation.
There's a lot to unpack there. So Genie Sherry and I get it.
Both of us have tried so many diets over the years where they told you
exactly what to eat and when to eat it and how much? And these
are your macros? Which foods were off limit? Which did you could eat
as much as you want? Yeah? So we understand completely because we have
been trained by diets to not trust ourselves anymore. Like that's it. And
you know, the whole diet industry tells us, well, if you're not
successful, it's just because you can't follow the plan right. And you know
the thing about intermittent fasting is that I want it to empower you to be
your own study of one as you go through the process, because there is
not one exact way to eat, or eating window to have, or intermittent
fasting approach that is going to be universally. This is how everybody's going to
fee their best depends on so many different factors. You've got to figure out
what will allow you to regain trust with your body. Now, you said
that you're new and that you have about sixty pounds to lose, so I'm
not really sure exactly when you started. So in your first month or so,
you are not going to be connected to what we call appetite correction,
which is when your body's really telling you, you know, time to stop.
You're not. So a lot of people overeat at the beginning, and
that also scares them. Now, you did say that you stop eating when
you're full, that word full has a little bit of I want you to
think about that for a minute, full versus satisfied. You know, we
can be full or we can be satisfied, and there's like a little bit
of difference between the two. Sherry always shares this Burt Hearing blog post that
he wrote years ago, and the difference between full, what's what's the name
of it, The difference between something about let's see, I've got it's saved
in my phone, not hungry versus full. The difference can cause relentless weight
gain. Right, So if you're struggling to know when to stop eating,
we're used to thinking about stopping when we're full, and I always encourage people
to stop when they're satisfied. But if you think about it in this new
subtle way, you want to stop when you're no longer hungry, right,
And that could make a big difference. Just I was talking about the blue
zones and they open now ones and they have a saying called hero Hotchi Boo,
which is stop when you're about eighty percent full. And that might be
something to work on. If you have dieted your entire adult life, which
is what it seems like, and you've depended on a diet to tell you
what and how much to eat. Your hunger and satiety signals are really out
of whack and it's going to take a long not a long time, it's
going to take a while. I can't tell you how long. Some people
really start to notice appetite correction within the first eight weeks, and some people
it might take them four or five months for that to really kind of be
like, oh wow, I felt it today. But until those hormones rebalance,
you may not even recognize what full is until you're too full, because
you may not get that signal to stop eating, especially if you've been in
a constant like restriction deprivation type eating style. So I think it's important to
eat slowly and sort of pause and assess your hunger while you're eating. And
Jen gives a great tip, which is when you when you feel or hear
the sigh, put your fork down. It's there. Everybody does it because
you have to pay attention to it. You'll notice you're eating something and all
of a sudden, you sigh, and that is your body's sign that you
have had enough yep, and you can feel it, and sometimes you're like,
wait, no, I don't want that to be I don't want to
be full yet. I think I've told you my my mother in law's sign
that she's had enough to eat. She'll sneeze. That's snatiation. That's a
thing. Is that a thing? Snatiation? Yeah, that is a thing.
Never heard that. But yeah, we'll be out to dinner and she'll
sneeze. Yeah, we had a question about that on Internet and Fasting podcast.
That means she's overeaten. Well, that's what she said. She said,
once she sneezes and she stops, then she realizes that she ate too
much and she cannot eat another bite. That is so funny, but yeah,
that is a real thing. Janine, I would just stick to a
daily eating window. Because you asked about what approach you should do. I
would do a daily eating window of five hours or less for now. Way
daily calculate your weekly average or use an app like happy Scale. You got
to know what your overall trend is doing. You know, because if we've
we've been on diets for a long time, we're used to using the scale
as positive or negative feedback. The scale fluctuate, so you've got to look
at your overall trend, go back to fast feat repeat, reread the scale
Shmaiale chapter. I promise daily weighing and calculating your weekly average will really make
a big difference because your scale weight is not just going to go down down
down, down, down down down. Wouldn't that be nice. No,
it's going to go down down, up, up, up down, up
down down down, up down up. I mean, it does crazy things.
So if you're just looking at the fluctuations, you will not feel successful.
You'll think, well, here's just another thing I tried. It didn't
work. But instead your overall trend is probably going to be going down.
So try a five hour daily eating windows see what your weekly average is doing.
As far as the sweets, I was just going to address that.
Yeah, you know, sweets and sweets are not just sweets. Sweets are
a big category of things, like, for example, I have recently rediscovered
fruit. Like I never eat fruit. Back in the Facebook days, i
would share my meal and people say, do you ever eat fruit? And
I'm like, Nope, don't eat fruit. But I've started eating navel oranges
and bananas. And I bought a bag of free and cherries. I had
one frozen cherry after dinner last night. One, isn't that weird that is
doing it? Was my window was so good, it was like so heavenly.
So that's one kind of sweet. But then we've got cakes and cookies
and ice cream and anything that is high fat, high carb, lots of
sugar, that's weight and gain promoting brownies, things like that. You can
meet that sweet craving with something that is not going to be likely to cause
weight gain. So the craving for sweets is not bad, it's not wrong.
We're born with that, but you just have to figure out a way.
Like I'm really enjoying having a navel orange. I use sweets friends are
a lot. Chop up an apple, mix it in some Greek yogurt,
sprinkle sim cinnamon on top of it. I do sprouted oatmeal, and I'll
put those frozen cherries in it. So even like a teaspoon of cocoa powder,
and I'll have like chocolate Harry oats for dessert. And it's very satisfying.
And you get that, my body feels like it got its little sweet
kick and I'm happy. I'm satisfied. Right, So you can have the
sweets you're craving. But without having the ones that are more likely to keep
you from losing weight. Because we know that dessert the traditional you know,
high fat, high calorie, high sugar, those traditional desserts are not really
going to be associated with extra weight loss. So if they were, I
would eat cheesecake every day. Just loves cake. Yeah exactly. That doesn't
mean you cannot ever have cheesecake. I want to get that out there.
You know, you cheesecake last night. Yeah, but it's like a once
every three month event. And then I sit there and is perfect silence and
savor every bite of it so good. Well, before we get to our
tweak of the week, I want to take a minute to tell you at
a company that Jen and I both recommend, and that's walk in Lab.
It's convenient, affordable, and confidential. We highly recommend that faster is of
all experience. Get a fasting insulin test as both a baseline and on an
ongoing basis to evaluate your level of insulin resistance and healing. Sometimes, until
a person can get their fasting insulin levels down, weight loss can be slow,
But that doesn't mean that fasting isn't working. As we know, fasting
helps us heal our bodies from the inside out. Just because the scale isn't
showing you quick results like some crash diets, it doesn't mean that it isn't
working over time. It's really exciting to see how your fasting insulin decreases and
moves into a normal and then optimal level. Many doctors, however, don't
understand the importance of knowing what your fasting insulin level is, as it's just
not a common blood test that they have been taught to perform, and if
your doctor's like mine, he won't order one because he is afraid the insurance
isn't going to pay for it. I'm not worried, though, because I
know I can always trust walk in Lab to run any lab tests that I
want. I simply place my order, pay for it online, print my
order, and take it to any quest or lab coort facility for my blood
draw and testing. You can get a fasting insulin drawn for as little as
twenty five dollars and you can use your flexible spending account or your healthcare savings
account to pay for it. And it's just a really great number to know.
I have a link in show notes that you can use and it should
save you ten percent awesome. Yeah, walk in lab is such a great
resource. And I realized I've always said it wrong the whole time. Oh
you have. I've always said walk in labs with an s Oh you know,
I do that as well, But it is just walking lab and with
walk in labs every single time. In fact, when you said walk in
lab, I'm like, that's not right, and then I just looked it
up. It is walking lab. Every time I've ever said it, it
was not correct. So but I'm pretty sure that people could figure it out
either way. But it's such good data to have, and you know,
baseline data. The sooner you can get it, the better I actually have.
That as a is a suggestion in the new book twenty eight day fast
Art day by day to get some baseline data because you're gonna want to have
it. I wish I had mine me too. So now it's time for
our tweek of the week. You know, I love to say tweak it
till it's easy, But the tweak that works for me might not be the
one that works for you. And that is why it is super helpful to
hear how other intermittent fasters are making intermittent fasting work for them. So this
tweek was submitted by Patricia Cherry and Plymouth, UK, and she is a
member of our community. Hello Patricia, and she said, I mean everyone
is. Every person who's submitting questions is part of our podcast community, right
right, But I actually can I know it. I can picture Patricia in
my head, so I can't as well. She said, I have been
dieting on and off for sixty years, alternating my weight between about eighty pounds.
Now, at age seventy nine, I have last found freedom from binging,
starving, guilt, weighing, and all the angst that goes with it.
I don't know if I remember she was seventy nine. Did you remember
she was seventy nine. I knew she was in her seventies, but I
don't know that I knew she was seventy nine. That's just amazing. So
she yo yoed about eighty pounds and now it's seventy nine. She's found the
freedom. I love that so much. So, she says, my latest
non scale victory is increasing mobility. And just a few days ago, I
realized that I haven't had the fatigue that my liver disease gives me for about
six weeks, I haven't lost any weight, but with Jen's guidance, I've
found out about the smart BMI calculator and realized that I don't need to lose
weight at last, I've shed the need to lose weight mindset. Can I
just stop? We're not done reading what she said? But that is so
huge, y'all Smart Bmi we talked about it on this podcast. Go to
the smart BMI calculator. Ia. Patricia has been dieting for sixty years,
so you can be like just in a perpetual mindset of I need to lose
weight, when really she's realized she doesn't. Right, Yes, what freedom?
Yeah, And something that a lot of people don't know or recognize is
that as you get older, you don't want to be your thinnest. Right,
It is actually healthy and it actually promotes longevity to have a little bit
extra weight over what you carried when you were in your twenties. Say,
yeah, the needs for someone who's seventy nine are not the same as you're
twenty nine your old needs. That's right. So and smart the smart being
my calculator takes your age into consideration. So all right. So, but
Tessia says, I've had to tweak several times, from finding that there was
artificial sweetener in a medicinal or in a medication that I took while fasting,
to cutting down on portion sizes. I've learned to concentrate more on what I'm
eating in my eating window and stop eating when satisfied rather than stuffed. Also,
I have learned to stop filling up before a fast, just in case
I might get hungry during the fast. And we call that eating for future
hunger. And you don't need to do it. I just love all of
that. I love that she is seventy nine and she has finally found freedom.
I know it's never too late, but how about all of y'all that
are in your twenties and thirties and forties and fifties and sixties that are listening.
You don't have to lift through that. Yeah, yep, And she
used that word freedom again. That comes up so often. Well. To
close today, we have an inspirational message from Lynn in Central Oregon, and
I think it goes hand in hand with an eye of lifestyle. The quote
is every day is a new opportunity to make the right decisions. Absolutely,
I love that you forget about what happened yesterday. It's a fresh, new
day, New day, New fast Thanks so much for listening today. We
would love to have you join us and the Delay Don't 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're 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.