Episode 56: Getting Sufficient Nutrients, IF and Metabolism, Finding Your Ideal Window, and More

Welcome the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens, author
of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat, and I'm Sherry Bullock,
longtime intermittent faster and health and wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this
podcast is for educational and motivational purposes only and 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. And hey, I just noticed the date that
this episode comes out, Sherry July twenty fourth. You will be here,
I will at the beach with me, and I will officially be fifty five.
What the heck? Oh gosh, I know that's a bit Do you
ever think how did this happen. Yeah, Like, I remember when my
dad turned fifty five, Cal was turning one, and I was pregnant with
Will and we were living outside of Atlanta. We had just this was the
first we hadn't been there long, not quite a year yet, and so
my family came and visited us for my dad's birthday and to celebrate Cal's first
birthday outside of Atlanta. And my dad was turning fifty five. And I
remember writing that card and I'm like, fifty five, that is so old,
and you don't feel old at all. Due No, I still feel
like I'm exactly that same girl who wrote the fifty five birthday card to her
dad. Yep, it's crazy, Yep, I know. Yeah. I
mean like I was telling my friend on vacation, who's turning forty five this
year. I said, gosh, I would love to go back and do
forty five again. And she said why and I said, I don't know.
I said, because I'm just I'm in my fifties and I'm not like
upset about it anymore. I just don't feel like it's possible to write ifty
one. It feels so weird. Yeah, She's like, well, you're
not your typical fifty one. She's like, I don't look at you and
go she's in her fifties. Yeah, it is a mindset thing. I
think it is. It is, and I still, like I said,
I feel young, But the number is. The number is fifty five as
of the day of the y'all listening to this anyway, Well, let's share
a listener celebration. And this comes from Kathy and she said, the scale
has settled for me over the last few months. So I made a list
of non scale victories to remind myself of all of the healing going on right
now, and I thought I would share. My swollen feet are gone.
My planter fasciitis is gone. Rotating all night with hip pain is gone,
ostio arthritis pain in the shoulder went from a pain level of six to seven
to one to two. My spider veins are getting lighter, my skin tags
are shrinking. Roseatia is gone unless I eat ultra processed foods. My heart
burn and indigestion are gone unless I eat right before bed, and that's because
I have a hayatel Hernia IBS symptoms are gone. Dizzy days, which I
used to think was just my cycle, are gone. Migrains. I have
not had to use my imatrex in six months, and they seem to be
gone. Time will tell. The heart fluttering in my chest gone, body
odors gone, My armpits don't stain my light or white shirts anymore. The
wheezing and morning cough that I used to have every day are gone. I
have not used my inhaler in six months. Food sensitivities that I thought were
allergies are gone. Seasonal allergies I was on four over the counter meds per
day in the spring for the last seven plus years are gone. My cesarean
section scar has faded so much it's hardly there, and I've had three C
sections. Involuntary urine loss gone. Unless you make me laugh too hard,
I get that a lot of this is due to the weight loss, but
so much is simply if Plus it's the simplest thing I've ever done to lose
and maintain weight in my life. I love it. Thank you so much
again for bringing this to the world. You have saved and improved so many
lives. Well, I absolutely loved this, Kathy, And you know,
I think this is a great thing for everybody to do. If you feel
like your scale is stuck and you're feeling down and you're like, I'm not
where I want to be. My weight is plateaued, I'm not where I
want to be. Take the time to do what Kathy did and write down
a list of non scale victories and recognize all the things that are changing in
your body. Would Kathy say that intermittent fasting is working for her? Did
it stop working because she's no longer losing weight? I mean, I think
that's a pretty good list of ways that it's working, right, absolutely,
yep. And that cesarean scar that's just wacky to me because you know,
the first time I heard of that. You remember Donna Doobie that came on
Dinnermitten Fasting Stories podcast. She was one of my first guests the first year
and she told that story and you know, with the clean fast and the
increased autophogy. She had had her kids like thirty something years before, and
she had a thick rope cesarean scar. You know, we've all seen those
thick ropey scars, and it faded away so it looked just like a pencil
mark on her skin. She said, I'm like, that sounds made up.
How could that happen, but we hear it. Yeah, that's the
clean fast autophogy difference. Yep. Can't make that up, and if you
didn't, no one would believe it. If I was going to make something
up, I wouldn't think to make that up. But right, so,
now we have a question from a listener. This question is from Missy and
Florida. She said, Hi there, I am fifty six years old.
I am five five, and I have been an intermitten faster for about one
and a half years. I originally started out doing a sixteen to eight,
then transitioned within three months to one meal a day, making a few shorter
fasts on weekends. My window would be about six hours or longer only for
special occasions. I started out at one hundred and sixty two pounds, then
dropped to one hundred and thirty three within six months. I've been stuck at
that weight since, unable to lose that last eight pounds. Missy, we
are so much alike. I have also five to five fifty five, as
you heard me say earlier. And guess what the last time I got on
the scale my weight was. It was one hundred and thirty. I'd expect
I'm probably I haven't weighed since what was at twenty seventeen. I think we're
probably probably around the same weight, So I mean I might even weigh one
thirty three now because I've both to say, I think you probably weigh more,
because I will tell you. Can you tell us? Look at my
arms? Yep? I bet if I got on the scale right this minute
away one thirty three, it wouldn't surprise me. Who knows what it would
say. You know where I'm going to go with that, so Missy continues.
I had been a runner, running between two to four miles per day,
three to four days per week since November, when the morning temperatures are
cooler, and because of my early work schedule, I stopped running. About
three months ago. I started working out in my home for thirty minutes three
days per week. Since I noticed, I started putting on a few pounds
five to be exact. Three weeks ago, I went from one meal a
day to twenty four that's a four hour eating window, thinking that would be
better for me than one meal a day, breaking my fast with fruit and
nuts, just fruit or maybe some greens. Then I close out my window
with dinner and dessert. During my fast, I do a clean fast with
black coffee, water, sand Pellegrino or club soda. The problem is those
five pounds won't budge. I feel it in my clothes, so it's definitely
weight gain and not body recomposition. I'm thinking of one reason I know why
I can't lose any weight. I love to bake and have desserts every day
after dinner. I can't shake my sweet tooth and I enjoy baking so much,
But in the past one and a half years, my dessert habit was
always there. Any thoughts, any ideas how to rid myself of this craving
and habit. Am I missing something somewhere else? Jen? I've read all
of your books and I love them. I recently found your podcast and I
love it. I want to get down to around one hundred and twenty five,
but I'm stuck now at one hundred and thirty eight and would love to
see my muffin top gone forever. Help. Thanks for all your support.
All right, so, first of all, I'm going to tell you I
thought I wanted to be one twenty five as well, because I remembered that
from the past. Prior to Intermitten fasting. When I was in high school,
I weighed one twenty five. That's what my first driver's license said,
so I thought that would be fantastic. And then after I got to my
goal. My initial goal was one thirty five, and then I kept losing
a little more weight, so I ended up around one thirty. Then I
stopped weighing. I didn't wait for an entire or a year, but over
that year I got smaller. I went down two gene sizes. So I
thought, surely, I'm one twenty five. I'm two gene sizes smaller.
It's been a year, I'm one twenty five or maybe even closer to one
twenty. So I pulled out my scale, got on it one thirty point
whatever, same as it had been pretty much before, even though I had
lost two gene sizes. So that was the moment I realized I didn't need
to weigh one twenty five and I was not going to weigh one twenty five.
And because I had lost fat and maintained muscle mass, my body was
different at one thirty than it had been at one thirty in the past.
I have some shorts that I wore back in the day from the gap that
I wore prior to having children, and I still save those shorts. I
don't know why. They're hideous, they're puffy, they're pleated. Nobody looked
good we're in those shorts, but I put them on and they still fit
me around the waist, even after having kids. But they're giant around my
butt. Now my butt is a lot smaller than it used to be.
My body has changed a lot, So it sounds to me. My guess
is you may be defining one meal a day as too short, like you
may be thinking of because the fact that you said you switched from one meal
a day to a four hour window makes me think that I don't know what
you were doing before, but what you were doing is like one play a
day, which is not what we would recommend. So I do think you
have been over restricting. What you were calling one meal a day is not
what we recommend, because twenty four to me is one meal a day because
you can't eat two full meals and four hours think of it as a multi
course meal. So you may have been over restricting, and your body settled
in and got used to that really really short window, and then when you
expanded to four hours, which I think four hours is still a little short
really honestly, for every single day, then your body gained a little weight
because you were suddenly eating more over a longer period of time. So now
you have game five pounds. So you are now at one thirty eight.
So I would like to encourage you instead of thinking as your goal of one
twenty five, think of your goal to get back to that one thirty three
where you felt so good. And I don't want you to feel stuck there
because I could be feeling really unsuccessful. I've been doing Amitten fasting for ten
years. I feel great in my clothes, I don't weigh, but if
I was trying to get to one hundred and twenty five pounds, I would
still be feeling like I'm failing. Am I failing? No? Do I
need to be smaller? No? This is where I can live my life
and be happy and eat the things I want to eat. I don't need
to see that smaller number. I don't need to. So what can you
do to lose those five pounds that you have gained? Well, I do
think that you may need to tighten up those desserts to get those five pounds
off and then once you get back down to that one thirty three, you
can maybe reintroduce them. You might also need a little bit of adf because
if you had been doing a really tight, shorter than four hour, one
meal a day and your body adapted to that, you're going to want to
boost that metabolism a little bit. So maybe add in a down day once
or twice a week, follow bay a full up day, and I'm talking
you having three meals on your upday and see if that'll boost your metabolism a
little bit. And I would really focus on I mean you said that your
your clothes are tighter. I would focus on the clothes instead of the scale,
because you know, I dropped two gene sizes in my scale didn't change,
so you'll know when your clothes fit better. You don't need the scale
to tell you. Your clothes will tell you. Focus on the change in
your clothes, and when your clothes feel better, you'll know that you're there.
And I would just get rid of that idea of one twenty five.
Again. I'm your same height and I'm pretty much your same age, and
I have that number in my head too from you know, when I was
in high school and that, you know, was my quote ideal weight.
But you're working out a lot, you are actually building muscle. So I
do want to point out one thing. If you have added muscle mass,
that really could be five pounds of muscle gain. And even if you haven't
put on any fat, I mean, muscle does take up space, so
it's possible your clothes are tight because you've added muscle. Yeah, a lot
of your thoughts were similar my thoughts. And I actually ran her figures through
the Smart BMI, and so her BMI following conventional BMI is twenty three,
which is a healthy BMI for a woman. However, if when I run
you through the Smart BMI, your score is thirty four out of seventy,
which is right in the middle of a healthy range, I put in one
twenty five, and that gets you to like really low, very very low
in the healthy range. And it really says as long as you have a
good balance of muscle to fat, that you're at a very healthy weight for
you know, health, for cardiovascular health, you know, for everything.
I'm kind of wondering. You were running like two to four miles per day,
three to four days a week. Now you're exercising thirty minutes a day,
three days per week. I don't know what you're doing for exercise,
but it's possible that all that running that you were doing was making it easier
for your body to shift into fat burning with all of your baking and desserts
that you have every day, and her window was really really short, right,
that could have been you know, really you were having a very short
window, so longer fasts, you were running a lot, so you were
really that glycogen that you were taking in from your desserts you were running,
you were burning it through running, and so you were spending probably more time
in a fat burning state at that time. But do you want to go
back to a shorter window. No, I wouldn't recommend it. I think
you're settling into a maintenance lifestyle now, and you could probably even open that
window up a little bit more like Jin said, But yeah, I think
you may have to scale back the baking and desserts after every dinner and you
know, allow your body to get your metabolism boosted through a greater eating window.
Eat more foods that are more nutritious, that aren't going to store as
much glycogen. So there's some room to tweak in your workouts. I don't
know. Like Jin said, if you're adding muscle mass, then you're going
to you're going to weigh more. I have pictures. I have a success
fixture that I took years and years ago, where I thought fascting wasn't working.
But when I took a picture of myself, my body was drastically different
and I weighed more. So I like Gin's idea of using your pants as
a guide rather than the scale. I would also say, I don't know
if you've ever taken any progress photos, but if you took them early on,
it might be time to retake them and really look at your body and
see how it's changed over the year and a half. It's really important to
wear the exact same clothes because you know, you mentioned that you'd love to
see your muffin top gone forever. Muffin top is a function of the way
your clothes are fitting. I could have a muffin top if I put on
clothes that are too tight. And so I was have you watched that Dallas
Cowboy Cheerleader Netflix? I have not limited but your Netflix. Okay, someone
was talking about it, So I'm like, well, I'm gonna watch it,
and then I like got hooked. I couldn't stop watching it. I
have so many thoughts about it, like positive and negative, but I won't
share all those now. But I was like, wow, it's quite the
life. Being a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader is quite the life. But these little,
tiny girls that have the perfect little physiques, we're talking about how they
have to do this certain thing so they don't have a muffin top because the
way their uniform fits, right, it's because it's tight, short and little
and it's just skin, and it's skin. A trainer had written and said
that, you know, basically, in order to women have muffin top,
it's lot were built, and it's where we were built. Carry our weight,
especially post menopause, did not have muffin top. You really have to
be underweight. Yeah, I mean, these girls are tiny little Dallas Cowboy
cheerleaders wearing the tiniest little uniform we've all seen them, and they had these
tricks so that they wouldn't have muffin top. And that is really like stuck
in my head as far as like, you know, look at what we
think we should be aspiring to have to be like, we can't be like
that. And then they had all the like they had a reunion with all
the cheerleaders who'd been cheering for the cowboys as like the sixties and the seventies
and the eighties, and they just look like normal women. Now they're grown
up women, you know. But when they were little bitty tiny Dallas Cowboy
cheerleaders, you know, they were teeny teeny tiny. But real women do
not look like that. As we age, we just don't. My body
is different at fifty five than it was it twenty one, so right,
yep, all right, So we have another question. This is from Lulu
in Virginia. She said, how do you make sure that you are getting
enough nutrients to thrive by eating two meals a day. I just started intermittent
fasting this year, and I'm so excited about it. I am five foot
three and two hundred and fifty five pounds. Oh, I would like to
get to a goal of one hundred and thirty five to one hundred and fifty
pounds. This is a great question, Lulu, and we get it a
lot. And this makes me think of a Jason fun blog post that he
wrote years ago. I don't know the name of it, so I can't
link it, but I just remember this stuck out to me. He said,
so many people are concerned about nutrients when they are fasting, but we
already ate the nutrients. They're on our bodies. We're trying to lose the
fat, so we want to access the nutrients that're already on our bodies.
Something like that. I'm just paraphrasing. So we have a lot of stored
fuel on our body that you're going to be accessing while you're fasting. Now,
we also want to put in vitamins and minerals and nutrients, and I
know that's what you're talking about also in this question. You know, you
want to make sure that you're having enough vitamins and enough fiber and enough phytochemicals.
But you don't need that in every single meal. You need it over
time. So a healthy diet is not what I did today, It's what
I did over the past week, over the past month. I know that
when you know, when my boys were little and they were very picky eaters,
and I was reading about, you know, making sure your kids get
the right amount of nutrients. A lot of the advice from the pediatricians was
make sure they eat a variety of things from day to day, they will
get what they need. And that advice also applies to us as adults.
We want to make sure we're eating a variety of things from day to day.
You know, the people at Zoe Tims Specter, their advice is try
to eat thirty different plants over the course of each week. Thirty different plants,
so you're not just eating the same thing over and over again. So
protein is another nutrient people worry about. When you're fast and clean, don't
forget that you are recycling old junkie proteins. You know that comment we made
before about that c section scar that went away, Well, how does the
c section scar go away? Because your body is having increased autophogy and it's
like, we don't need any that scar tissue, and so it recycles that
extra protein. And so when it breaks it down, like when you're losing
excess skin, for example, because you're losing weight and you've got all this
excess skin, your body breaks down that excess skin and that's the building blocks
of protein, and your body recycles it. So I think about myself,
you know, eating in my five hour daily eating window and the food that
I eat now in twenty twenty four and I compare it to gin from twenty
fourteen before I did intermittent fasting, when I ate from the moment I woke
up to the moment I went to bed and I was eating junk. I
get more nutrients within five hours then I used to get within any twenty four
hour period of time eating from sun up to sundown. So length of time
that you're eating isn't going to be a good measure of how many nutrients you're
getting. Quality of your food is going to be a better measure of how
many nutrients you're getting. And if you suspect you're not getting the right kind
of nutrients, get a blood test if you think your nutrient deficient, if
you think you have low potassium, like Sherry struggles with low potassium, but
she doesn't just guess, she knows, she's had it tested. But there
is no reason why you can't get enough nutrients if you're nourishing your body well.
And someone who's doing intermittent fasting with a five hour eating window, I
would compare them every day to someone who's eating the standard American diet in a
long period of time. And I guarantee the intermittent faster nourishing their body intentionally
is getting more nutrients than the person eating all day long. Yeah, and
I want to say too, you can eat all day long, but if
you have a really unhealthy gut, your body can't absorb the nutrients. So
when we're fasting, our guts are primed to take in the nutrients from the
food we eat, and our guts are healing. And the body of an
intermittent faster who's adapted to fasting and whose body is starting to heal through a
fasting lifestyle, their body is just better able to use the nutrients from their
food than a person who eats the standard American diet. So fasting itself is
healing. Our relationship with food changes, which is healing, and then our
bodies are primed to use the nutrients from the foods that were eating when we're
fasting. I mean like, it's just like this big circle and getting enough
nutrients isn't something I ever think about in my fast Yeah, me neither.
And you know, Tim Spector also told the story. When I was there
in March and we were having our Big Zoe dinner, he told the story
of the time that he lived with the hastas if I'm saying that right in
Africa. He went and lived with them and observed how they ate, and
they pretty much ate in about an eight hour eating window. Just naturally.
There are hunter gatherers who are still living the way that they traditionally lived.
They're not living the modern lifestyle that hasn't crept into their life. Yet they
eat within about eight hours. They have all of their nutrients within about eight
hours a day. And I thought that was so interesting. That is interesting
to their own devices eating the way they always ate. They tend to eat
within about eight hours, right, yeah, yep. I think your body
too is going to let you know, Lulu, if you are having like
me, if I don't eat enough vegetables, say I start like craving.
I'm like, I need a big green, leafy salad with some red bell
peppers in it and some tomatoes, and that is what I start craving.
And if I look back at what I've eaten the last couple of days,
I'll be like, oh, I really haven't eaten a lot of vegetables in
the last couple of days. Or if I don't get enough protein in my
I know, my body tells me because I'm not I don't really get that
full feeling, you're not stified. I'm kind of have this empty, hollow
feeling and I'm like, I'm not quite satisfied. And when I stop and
figure out what I need, it's usually some form of protein. So the
body is really great at letting you know what you need on a day to
day basis, and it's not you look the same from one day to the
other. So yep, now it's time for our segment called What's Your Why?
And we know that there's so much more that intermittent fasting can do for
us beyond weight loss. And I think it's important to craft your why statement
before you begin intermittent fasting. If you haven't stopped right now and do it
now, do it today. If you're already fasting, you haven't crafted your
why statement, take the time to do it because when your why is deeper
than weight loss alone, you're more likely to find long term success because you
view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle. So this week we have a y from
a new faster named Sally from Lincoln, UK. She said, my wife
is weight loss but more than that, it is befit and healthy. Is
I have become a grandma for the first time to twin girls, and I
would be looking after them one day a week, so I need to have
lots of energy and be ready to keep up with the two. I also
have a lot of medical issues such as menopause, non alcoholic fatty liver disease,
airedable bowl syndrome, fibermyalgia, and I have read that if can help
with all of these symptoms. I want to get my spice for life back.
So well, I'm just glicy grandmas. I love it. I want
to be a spicy grandma one day. Not yet. Will needs to find
a great girl first. Yeah, but you know, I wanted to pop
in there and say a couple of things about what Sally said menopause. She
mentioned that as an issue, and I'm going to say one thing about intermittent
fasting. While intermittent fasting can help with menopauseal weight gain, it will not
like cure menopause or heal menopause, or like make your hormones come. So
I just wanted to pop that in there. The issues that I started having
postmenopause were all related to decline in the hormones that our bodies naturally go through
as we age. It's totally natural we stop producing those hormones as we get
older. That's what menopause is. And that's why I needed bioidentical hormone replacement
therapy. And again I'm not a doctor. I'm also not a hormone expert,
but I'm a woman who has been through it. So I just wanted
to clarify that intermittent fasting will not restore the hormones, the sex hormones that
you had prior to menopause. You may be able to lose weight, but
you may need to dig a little deeper for those menopause symptoms. Well,
and with that said, what we do here though, is that women who
practice it rent fasting often do not have as severe of hot flashes through metapause
and that a lot of that has to do with just hormone regulation all over,
whether you know, we're talking like glucose and and it all's inter related.
So can fasting help make menopause more comfortable? Yes, it can,
and it can absolutely help with your fatty liver disease IBS, fibermalagia. We
hear it all the time. Have we heard I was thinking about fibermialgia.
Have we heard people with fibermyalgia? Well, so here's what I like to
say. Years ago in the DDD group, there was a study done on
fibrimalgen and it's sort of fibrimaloga is sort of like a cluster of symptoms.
Yep, great minds gen cluster symptoms that they label as fibromyalgia. Is there
a true test for it, No, but it's increasingly prevalent in society.
And what this one study found was that when they gave fibrimalaga sufferers met Foreman,
which is a drug to balance and regulate blood sugars of blood glucose,
that their fibermialgia symptoms were greatly reduced and quality of life was improved. So
the thought is that fibrimalagia could very likely be a disease of insulin resistance.
And this was actually like probably seven years ago, and you know, people
were really just starting to talk about insulin resistance and you know sort of things.
So I'll be really interested to see what path fibermalagia goes down as far
as treatment. I hope they continue to look into that. But Yeah,
So what we know with fasting is that it often can balanced blood sugars and
you know, lower insulin, just like the drug butt Foreman does. And
we do indeed have a lot of people who come back and tell us that
their fibermalgia is like much better since they started fasting. I just couldn't remember
a lot of that one before I've heard, so I just found that so
fascinating. I've known several people in my life who've had fibermyalgia, so of
course when I saw an article, I was like, oh, I'm gonna
look at it. And I'm fairly certain my husband probably his mother was diagnosed
with fiber mamae. And I'm fairly certain he probably would have been diagnosed if
he's a type of person to go to a doctor. He always had muscle
pain and stuff. And my husband also has high blood sugar and high insulin
and eats a lot of sugar. He's not a faster, sad to say,
but he did start taking form in a year ago and his aches and
pains, joint pains, muscle pain has all gotten much better since he started
that. So I do believe there's a connection. Science just isn't there yet.
Okay, yep. So we have a question from Donna in Australia.
Oh, we don't get a lot of people that write in from Australia.
Yeah, we know there are a lot of people listening in Australia. I
know there are Australia listeners and New Zealand listeners and UK listeners everybody around the
world. Right in, She wants to know, does if affect your metabolism
negatively by slowing it down after years of losing weight and then just regaining plus
more? I do wonder what will happen to my metabolism? All right,
So the answer to that question is yes and no or not at all.
So can intermittent fasting slow your metabolism? Yes, if you overfast and do
not eat sufficiently, yes, that's play. Canast feast? Right on the
flip side, can intermittent fasting boost your metabolism? Yes, if you're choosing
an approach such as ADF, which is known for its metabolism boosting properties,
you can actually boost your metabolism while incorporating intermittent fasting. So metabolism is a
tricky thing because our bodies like to adapt to what we're doing, and if
we do the same exact thing every single day. Long enough, our bodies
reach a point of homeostasis and we adapt to it. And that's all well
and good. If you're at your goal weight, no big deal. My
body is adapted at this weight. It's a good thing. I'm on the
longest plateau of my life called maintenance. But if you are not where you
want to be, you don't want your body to do that. You don't
want your body to adapt and slow down. You also don't want your metabolism
to slow down if you're going to start eating more, because then you will
regain weight. Like if we go back to the question that we had from
Missy, she had been doing a very short window every single day. She
called it one meal a day, but it was less than four hours because
switching to four hours was longer for her. So I do think that having
a really really short window every day, plus she was running a lot,
I think that slowed her metabolism. But that's over restriction in general. So
can intermittent fasting be overly restrictive, Yes, if you practice it in an
overly restrictive way, But we don't want you to do that. We want
you to fast feast repeat, like Sherry said, and you maybe someone who
just naturally switches it up from day to day, and so you're less likely
to adapt, less likely to reach homeostasis. Maybe one day you're really busy,
you end up with a one hour window, but the next day you're
hungrier. It's your window is six hours. It all balances out. Your
body's not going to adapt to that. Or maybe you're someone like Donna who
has been losing weight and regaining for years. If you've got a long diet
history of yo yo dieting, then you can pretty much bet your metabolism is
slow. We know from the Biggest Loser Study. By the way, Sherry,
I didn't realize it until not that long ago. Kevin Hall, who
did all the ultra processed food research, he's the one who did the Biggest
Loser study too. He's one of my favorite science researchers. Okay, put
on my bulletimboard a favorite scientists. But he's the one who did the Biggest
Loser study. So they found the biggest losers who they were like the champions
have eat less, move more. They lost massive amounts of weight on television,
very very quickly. Years after the show had been over, their metabolisms
were lower than would have been predicted, and it was because of all the
dieting, and those who had successfully kept off the most had the slowest metabolisms.
But the even better news is that our metabolism is not static, it's
not stuck. You can boost it. And so we have seen people in
the community who have boosted their metabolism through ADF down days and up days.
The down days where you lose the fat. You either have a full fast
of about thirty six ish hours or you have a five hundred calorie down day
with a five hundred calorie meal, and then the next day is an upday.
In the research on ADF, the participants were instructed to eat one hundred
and twenty five percent of their caloric needs on the upday, so you can
see, you know, one hundred percent of your cloric needs would be like
a maintaining amount. They were instructed to slightly over eat on the update and
so that was the balance that was what boosted their metabolism. So the updays
are super important. So the down day is where you lose the fat.
The up day is where you boost your metabolism. So if you've got metabolic
damage. ADF is really what I would recommend for you. But what everybody
wants to avoid is an overly restrictive approach where you are just eating very small
amounts day to day to day. That's not going to be sufficient and our
body will slow down. Overfasting is never a good thing. Overfasting and under
eating is not what we want. And rigidity, yeah, don't be rigid.
If your body asks for more food one day, give it more food.
If you need less food one day, listen to your body. I
mean, no day is the same. No day do you actually do exactly
the same thing every day, take the same number of steps, have the
exact same number of stress. Your nutrition in your window should reflect life and
it's not rigid, and it shouldn't be rigid. And also I want to
point out what you just said. Some days you're hungrier, you need to
eat more. That's the flip side of appetite correction that people forget about.
We talk about appetite correction meaning your body tells you when you've had enough and
you're able to stop eating, but it also is your body telling you you
haven't had enough and you need to eat more. That is also appetite correction.
Like if I go to pilates and work out real hard, and then
I come home and I'm really busy and I don't eat a lot. The
next day, I might wake up and be starving and need like a longer
window, and that is appetite correction. My body's like, hey, you
didn't fuel me enough yesterday. Eat some more food today. Yep, yep,
all right. We have a question from Lisa in Nevada. I am
fifty five years old and have been dabbling with fasting for a few years.
When I first heard about if, I had gotten a copy of Delay,
Don't Deny and I read it in a couple of days. I then bought
Fast, Feast Repeat, and the Obesity Code. I've been overweight since puberty
and was diagnosed with PCOS. My blood work has always been good, no
diabetes or high blood pressure or cholesterol, though I have a family history of
type two diabetes and high cholesterol. I started write out clean fasting sixteen eight
with no trouble, but just not consistently and had a bit of weight loss.
I started seriously fasting in January of twenty twenty four. I have had
my initial fasting insulin done in March of twenty twenty four, and it was
thirty two. I am scared to think what it might have been before if
and I'm looking forward to my next test in June. I recently heard on
your podcast that sixteen eight wasn't enough to flip the metabolic switch, so I
shifted to eighteen six and now to nineteen five most days, and while things
started happening. Yeah, I'm just applauding. That's exciting. I started at
three hundred and thirty one pounds in January of twenty twenty four and am five
six. I have only lost three pounds since January, but I am now
down two sizes and even my shoes are getting big. Body composition changes are
very noticeable. I have noticed a few other changes, like more energy and
clarity, and my eating choices are naturally getting better. My question is this.
I know autopogy is amazing. I have scars that are almost invisible,
and my allergies have improved already. I'm wondering if anyone has had any improvements
in arthritis symptoms. I have had a lot of issues with my right knee
as of late, and was just told I have a lot of arthritis in
it and will likely need a total knee replacement. I am hoping that as
I continue fasting and the autoplogy continues working its magic, maybe it will slow
or reverse some of the arthritis issues and I can delay or remove the need
for the knee replacement. Also, I know as I lose weight it will
help with my knees, taking all that extra pressure off of them. Well,
so I have a couple of thoughts here. Your insulin is relatively high,
but that goes right hand in hand with your diagnosis of PCOS, because
you know, we do know that PCOS is a disease of insulin resistance.
So, like you said, you don't know what your insulin was when you
started, and insulin itself can be Having high insulin levels leads to a high
state of inflammation in your body. So yes, your weight may have contributed
to the arthritis in your knee, but so could the high insulin levels.
So as you continue to get that down, and you continue to get inflammation
down, which you're clearly seeing a change in because your shoes are getting looser,
you may feel relief and symptoms. Because with arthritis, what we want
to do is we want to try to keep weight off, we want to
reduce inflammation, and so I have can help with both of those things clearly.
Now here's what's interesting. I did a little research. I found a
research article titled the Role of autophagy in Osteoarthritis, and in it they report
that autoplogy has been shown to restore the function of damage chondrocytes, those are
bone cells, alleviating the occurrence and progression of osteoarthritis. And they went on
to say that more research is needed to be done, and they were talking
about looking at drugs that stimulated autophagy to help with arthritis. We don't need
to wait on some drug to come out because we have intermint festing and it
helps with autophagy. So to answer your question, we I mean, just
from the community, we have people that comment all the time that their knee
pains resolved, their hip pains resolved, their foot and ankle pain has resolved
since fasting. So yes, I believe it's possible. You know, once
the damage is done to the bone, can you ever get your total knee
function back and have the function of the knee and the structure of the knee
returned. To normal. Probably not, but can you get a lot of
relief from symptoms and stave off a knee replacement? I believe one hundred percent.
So oh yes, all right, that's great. I agree with all
of that. I did link that in show notes, so if anybody wants
to read that, you can. So we have a question from Kate and
Seattle. She says, Hello, I am fifty nine a woman, and
I've been doing IF since June twenty twenty three. I had cancer. It's
gone now in twenty twenty, with treatment consisting of chemosurgery and radiation through twenty
twenty one. I was forty pounds overweight when diagnosed, and I gained forty
pounds from steroids during the treatment heavy in twenty fourteen, and then I lost
weight through calorie restriction which was unsustainable and very fit and at target weight from
twenty fifteen to twenty nineteen. The protocols I follow are either sixteen eight or
eighteen six, depending on what happens in my daily life. I was losing
weight steadily, averaging about a pound a week until September, when I had
several bouts of food poisoning followed by COVID. I could not exercise during that
time. My usual routine is about an hour a day of either aqua exercise,
swimming, or walking. I'm back to exercising, ramping up slowly and
steadily so I don't get an injury. I kept my eating and fasting windows
intact the entire time I was ill. Let me clarify, I do not
eat continually. During my eating window, I have one or two meals of
mostly plants with a serving of lean protein. Because I've been a lifelong dieter,
I can eyeball it and tell you it's under two thousand calories, probably
closer to fifteen hundred. Now that I'm feeling better, I am seeing weight
loss begin again. But I wonder if I need to tweak things a bit.
Here's my questions. Do I need to try to increase my fasting time
to twenty hours or so? Is it eighteen hour fast long enough to trigger
autophagy or ketosis? Or do I give my body time to get back into
exercise and just keep plugging away with a combo of sixteen eight in eighteen six
It seems like those things were working before. But I'm wondering if I could
feel even better, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I very
much appreciet your podcast in the book is also great. Thank you, Kate.
All right, so I want to answer this one question. First,
is an eighteen hour fast long enough to trigger autophogy or katosis? First of
all, I want to say, autoplogy is not something that goes on and
off like a light switch. It's on or it's off. It actually is
more like a dimmer switch. It ramps up as you are deeper into the
fasted state. It even ramps up when you're exercising. It ramps up when
you drink black coffee. All sorts of certain foods stimulate autophogy, certain phytochemicals.
So autopogy is something that we're not just triggering it at a certain point.
If you ever see on an app or on a graphic, this is
when autopogy begins. No, that is not how it works at all.
Think of it as a dimmer switch. Fasting turns it up, eating turns
it down. All right, So let me just focus on the katosis part
of that question. Is an eighteen hour fast long enough to get into katosis?
The answer is yeah, and the answer is no. It depends you
could be in katosis twenty four hours a day if you're eating a KTO diet
and also eating twenty four hours a day. Like for example, if I
just ate butter and I ate it around the clock, I would be in
very deep katosis because I'm just eating butter, but it would be katosis from
I'd be making ketones from the butter, not from stored fat. So you
know there is no fast link required to get into katosis. Now, let's
imagine that you are eating all the foods as I do and Sherry does.
Is an eighteen hour fast long enough to get into katosis if you eat all
the foods and you're eating window The answer could also be yes if you're a
very very light eater, like for example, when I followed the Zoe recommendations
and ate less fat and more plant based, I actually get deeper into katosis
earlier. When I am whole food plant based, I feel katosis earlier.
I feel koto is deeper. I know that if you've been brought up thinking
about low carb is the only way to get at katosis. That might sound
like nonsense, but I just know from my own experience. When I eat
less fat and focus on whole food plant based, I get deeper earlier katosis.
So you can see that there is no answer to that question really either,
because it depends on what you're eating, how much you're eating, and
also your body, how active you are, all of that. So an
eighteen hour fast absolutely could be enough to get into katosis, but it absolutely
you may never get into katosis with an eighteen hour fast. If I eat
all the foods in a six hour window, I would never get into katosis.
Whole food plant based in a six hour window easily getting into katosis the
next day. It just really really depends. So your question is what do
you do now? You know, should you get back into the exercise and
keep plugging away. See, this is where you're going to be your own
study of one. I can't tell you whether you need a twenty hour fast
and a four hour eating window or if sixteen eight or eighteen six will get
you there where you were before. I don't know. This is where you
have to try it and see what happens. You know, think like I
said the study of one. You adjust a variable and then you see what
the results are. Give it time, adjust another variable, see what the
results are, give it more time. You know, don't discount all that
food poisoning and COVID that you experienced, becausexactly your gut had some changes.
You know, we're seeing evidence that COVID changes your gut, and not for
the better. It also changes, you know, your inside of response to
foods exactly. Also, food poisoning can totally shift your gut to a different
kind of gut. So you're just going to have to try and see.
You know, I've told this story before on Intermittent fasting Stories and also probably
on this podcast by now, But I have a friend who had severe food
poisoning. She was on a trip in South America, and she came back
and lost a tremendous amount of weight uncontrollably over a period of time, to
the point that she was emaciated and could not gain weight no matter how much
she ate. Her gut microbiome had some kind of shift from that food poisoning.
She was eating and eating and eating and having sorry this is gonna be
TMI, but constant diarrhea and her food was just going straight through her.
And so our gut microbiome can affect whether we lose weight or gain weight or
what happens, So I would keep nourishing your body well, be your own
experiment, your study of one. Use the data to see what's working,
and then tweak it till you get the results that you're looking for. Yeah,
and I wanted to say too when she asks, do I give my
body time to get back into exercise or just keep plugging away. Before you
got sick, you were doing awqua exercise, which is great if you're like
using your muscles and working on building and growing muscles. Swimming and walking,
while very healthy exercises and great for cardiovascular health, are not great for adding
or maintaining muscle mass. And you're fifty nine years old, So I really
cannot stress enough that as we get older, we need to shift the type
of exercise that we're doing. And so when you're doing a lot of cardio,
your body's just different than when you're doing more strengthening exercises. It works
differently. The efficiency of how your body can use carbohydrates and your blood glucose
control and all of that is really affected by the type of exercise you're doing
and your body composition through exercise. So I want to ask you, like,
do you want to do a lot of exercise because you're like, should
you just get back into doing more exercise and have longer eating windows. To
me, life's a balance, So should we be exercising, Yes, it's
great for our bodies. Worried about efficiency with exercise. We need to make
sure we're doing the right kinds of exercise that support our health goals and longevity,
and as we get older, that's going to be strength training. So
if you add in some exercise, you might find that you're shifting into katosis
earlier, and that might make you feel good and you might want a little
bit longer window with more exercise, or you may not want to feel like
you have to exercise every day, in which case you might just want a
shorter eating window. So, like Jin said, you'll have to figure out
kind of what your goals are and what makes you feel great, and really
keep track of, you know, what affects your body shifting into katosis each
day. I know for me, during COVID, I was working a lot
at the hospital. They were bringing us food. We were busy, we
weren't getting breaks, so when they brought us food, we ate, and
during that time, for about four months, I was shifting to more to
a six to eight hour window instead of my regular five hour window, and
I was putting on weight, and I at at some point was like,
Okay, we got to rain this in and I had to shift back.
And what I realized was fasting was feeling hard. I was not getting that
mental clarity, and I had to have a little talk to myself and realize
I was not getting into katosis. I was not getting that clear brain and
the energy and the easy fasting and the appetite correction. I lost it somewhere
along the line, and I really had to dial it in and get back
to that five hour eating window for me because that's my sweet spot where I
can balance food, exercise and fat burning time. So you'll just have to
kind of figure out what works for you. Yeah. I wish it was
so easy. We could just say here's the answer for everyone, But finding
your ideal window is such an experiment and it just depends on so many factors
that are going on all Right. Before we get to our tweek of the
week, I want to take a minute to talk about my books and which
ones you need. As I said in the previous episode, I'm working on
revis delayed on tonight, and I'm really, really, really excited about bringing
it back out and be on the listen for when that one will be ready,
because that's going to be the one I'm gonna recommend that people start with
once that one is refreshed and revised. But for now, what book do
you need? If you're new to intermittent fasting, starting after a break or
in need of a refresh you're going to want twenty eight day Fast Start,
day by day. You also need a copy of Fast Feast Repeat because it
is a companion book for twenty eight day fast Art day by day, and
it's also where everything is located. That's the complete god for delayed on tonight
intermittent fasting. And if you're a seasoned intermittent faster and you're just ready to
clean up what you're eating, you want to focus on you just living a
healthier lifestyle beyond just what you're eating, your personal care products, the cleaning
products you use in your home. Then I think you'll enjoy cleanish. Now
it's time for our tweak of the week, and this tweak was submitted by
Grateful in the Bay Area. Hello, Jen and Sheery. I have been
fasting since December of twenty eighteen, but I have not lost a pound.
I am a slow learner and I'm needing to tighten my window up and make
better food choices. Even though I am an experienced intermittent faster. I wanted
to support gen and bought the new twenty eight day Fast Art day by daybook.
I am blown away. Even though I know all about the clean fast,
autophagy and slen et cetera. I'm getting so much from this book.
For me, I am using it as a way to get grounded in the
habit of a four hour window. The daily support along with the inspirational stories
are helping me so much. Jen. I am forever grateful for your guidance
and nack for connecting with us all. I am so happy to be on
this planet at the same time as you. I've told you this before,
but it is truly how I feel, and I will keep repeating it now.
I had not read that Sheery Sheery puts the show the show's stuff together,
and oh, thank you so much. Grateful in the Bay Area.
I love that so much, and I want to just say, you know,
sometimes it takes us a while to get get where we want to be
and it is what it is. It took me from two thousand and nine
to twenty fourteen before I finally got in the right place for intermittent fasting.
But I didn't talk about this earlier. But I'm also going to revise the
delayed on too. My life journal great. It needs to be like professionally
designed inside, not just look like a schoolteacher Manda on her computer, which
it's got valuable tools in it. I'm really proud of the tool it does.
I recommend it. I recommend it all the time. But people who
have used the twenty eight day faster ar at day by day needs a lot
of them want something else. They want a continuation and what that next step.
Yeah, so I'm gonna work on having it designed a little better so
it looks a little a little nicer. Well, we love to leave you
with inspiration our motivational quotes, and this week we have a message from Kate
and Seattle. The quote is never never, never, never give up.
She says. Winston Churchill said that during World War Two, always found it
inspirational. What he was going through in the war was so much more than
anything I'm facing with weight loss, and I still draw strength from it.
And as I was reading that reminded me of another quote. And you might
not be familiar with Bear Bryant. Do you know who Bear Bryan is?
Of course I do, Okay, As I say, if you aren't from
the South, you don't eat, sleep, and breathe college football. Even
though I'm not an Alabama fan, we still know who Bear Bryant is.
Well, we are not Alabama fans in our house, even though you live
in Alabama. But my college roommate, Melissa, two of her daughters.
She lives in Virginia, but two of her daughters went to the University of
Alabama, so she is now we went to Wake Forest, So you're not
going to be excited about football. I mean, you might love football,
but we're not known for the winning. So she's now a really excited Alabama
fan because she can root for a winning team. Well, when I moved
to Alabama to start a life with my husband, it was like I didn't
have a choice. He's Auburn, He's Auburn, got one or the other
the other. So I tell Eric that I like Alabama just because my calle
droom mate and are girls. So we're gonna have to have a feud.
Well, so some say that Bear Bryant was one of the greatest college football
coaches of all time, and he was just very inspirational to a lot of
people. And there's a quote from him that says, if you believe in
yourself and have dedication and pride and never quit, you'll be a winner.
The price of victory is high, but so are the rewards, and I
truly believe that he nailed that. First, you have to believe in yourself.
So if you're struggling with consistency or fear or failure, or even fear
of success, the first thing you need to work on to overcome that is
to learn how to believe in yourself. Yeah, thanks so much for listening
today. We would love to have you join us in the Delayed On Tonight
community, where you can interact with both me and Sherry, plus the most
supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere. Go tojins 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,