Episode 43: The Power of Community, Making Dietary Changes Slowly, Structuring Your Up Day, 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's Sherry,
I'm doing great? How are you? I am fabulous? It's finally feeling
like spring. It is a long time coming this year. I know it's
bringing you know, that typical spring weather. But I'm very perplexed because Eric
got a phone call from Avery School, saying school was canceled today due to
inclement weather, and she's been really sick with like stripped throat, so she
missed a bunch of last week, and she missed yesterday. She was going
to go back today. We are not having inclement weather till like ten o'clock
tonight, so I don't know. They missed the mark on that one.
Yeah, they'll probably be out tomorrow. I mean, who knows. I
don't know, or are they calling for like thunderstorms and tornadoes. I haven't
seen that. It was today inclement spring weather. I'm a Southerner and so
from what I saw, it was just strong wind advisory. Okay, So
yeah, I have no like weather alerts or anything. I don't know.
Maybe somebody who's in charge was looking at the wrong city and state. I
don't know. My husband was like, I don't know that we're supposed to
get bad weather, and I looked last night and didn't see any And I
woke up this morning and look thinking something changed. No, so they just
get a free day. Well, somebody didn't want to go to work in
the administration, who knows. It's it's hard to make those big decisions because
I guarantee if there was really terrible inclement weather and something went badly, and
they'd be in trouble for not rising right right, So you really can't win.
It's at the board office. You can't win. Why are we in
school today? The weather's so bad? Why are we out of school?
The weather's fine? Exactly and exact is not always going to do what you'd
think, right right? Yeah, Well, today we have a weekly celebration,
and this celebration comes from Rachel in Miami. She says, Hi,
Jen and Sherry, I was going to just post this as a response to
your last podcast regarding the lurkers in the community and encouraging them to post,
but I decided that what I have is more of a celebration. I started
with intermittent fasting May the second day. Yeah, that took me off off
guard. There she had wrote twenty four But that's she's not from the future.
We know that, and if she is, I want to know how
she came back in time. How did it go for the rest of the
year. So she says, I have never looked back. I have never
felt such freedom from food. I know you both say to not weigh all
the time, but to make sure to measure. I don't do either.
Can clarify real quick. As far as not weighing all the time, we
don't recommend that you weigh during your first month, obviously, that's in the
Fast Start and Fast Eat Repeat, and also in the twenty eight day Fast
Start Day by Day book. We are big fans of people that can use
weighing as data and weigh once a day, same time every day, like
first thing in the morning. So what I don't recommend is weighing all the
time, like first thing when you wake up, then again three hours later,
then again right before bed. That is counterproductive. You don't need all
that data because your body's going to do crazy things with you have to drink
your coffee or after you poop, or after you whatever it is that you're
doing after you eat your dinner. So I mean, if you want to
make yourself absolutely insane, go for it. But yeah, if your weight
is going to go up and down like all the time throughout the day.
But we do think that weighing daily and calculating your weekly average can be super
helpful if you're trying to lose weight, or if you're happy where you are
and you don't want to see the scale number and you've got diet brain from
the scale. That's another story. But we are not anti weighing. We
just want you to do it in a productive way and also intentionally. All
right, So I just wanted to clarify that, Yes, you know,
we do say if you choose not to weigh, you do need to have
I always suggest having two units of progress measurement, so measure and take progress
photos or what ms pants? That's something, yeah, because you can't you
can't I evaluate your progress if there's nothing to evaluate. Because sometimes there'll be
people in the community and they'll say, I haven't lost any weight in two
months, what's wrong? And I'm like, all right, tell me what
your weekly average is doing. They're like, well, I don't weigh,
and I haven't taken measurements and I don't have any photos. I'm like,
well, we can't help you if we don't know what's happening. And as
much as we say, like use honesty pants, if you don't have another
form of measurement, some people, depending on where you carry your weight,
you might not go down to pant size until you've lost forty pounds where somebody
else might be able to go down to pants size after losing fifteen pounds,
right, you know, so or house, That's why my pants are right.
That's why it's helpful to have two forms of progress of measurement. Anyway,
she says, I do not do either weighing or measuring. She says
intermitt fasting has truly given me the ability to just feel good. I don't
need weight or measurement to know I feel better. Last time I weighed,
which was December thirty first, twenty twenty three, nothing like setting yourself up
the new year, I was down eighteen pounds. I am five foot five
and one hundred and forty pounds, not a fast weight loss by any means,
but I am at a good weight for my height, so I'm not
looking to lose a whole lot more. But the fact is I don't even
care if I lose more weight. My body is smaller, my clothes fit
better, my stomach is no longer bloated, my legs are skinnier and firmer.
I do walk every day and do some body weights, but nothing crazy.
But the fact is I can see the changes, and intermint fasting has
given me the ability to not care about the numbers at all. I had
no trouble starting my fast at sixteen eight and then I moved to twenty four.
But I often shifted around depending on what is going on that week.
If we have an event to go to or are going out with friends,
I shift the window to where I need it to be. I never stress
out about it. On what diet were we ever able to quote not worry
about it. I don't do honesty pants or any thing. I just know
how I feel. If I'm bloated, I can feel it, and I
know I need to tighten my window up. I think the freedom that comes
with internt fasting is just unmatchable. It has changed my life for sure.
I think the book should be called Fast Feast Freedom Repeat. If weighing and
measuring makes people feel good, great, But for the mental well being of
just knowing I'm doing the right thing and the freedom from worrying about anything regarding
food is amazing and it makes the weighing and measuring unnecessary. I know I
feel great doing if. And I want to thank you so much for bringing
so much knowledge and education to us in your podcast. Well, I absolutely
love that, Rachel. You know what if scales had not ever been invented
and we didn't have this measure what a concept? Or if people didn't have
skills at home, like if nobody had skills at home, like you can't
go certain measurements, you can't take it home. Still to this day,
what if we never could could have done that? We would just be going
through life how we feel. That's true. Wouldn't that be amazing true?
You know if you don't feel wait for so long in my life, I
can't even imagine going through life not knowing what you weigh. Well, I
don't know either. I haven't weighed me and Rachel. It probably actually would
be scary for me because I'm one of those people. The scale keeps me
honest. My clothes keep me honest. I can tell, well, when
you wear scrubs and yoga pants all the times, really let you know.
I thought they were like honesty. It depends on what kind of scrubs you
wear. Okay, Mine are like a stretchy fabric with a yoga waistband ah,
and my other ones are like baggy drawstrings. There's a lot of room.
I never warn them, No, they're not that forgiving. Well.
The key to all of this is this. You need to figure out what
works for you, and that's what you need to do, what gives you
the freedom. Sherry needs to see the number yep, and that helps her
feel like she's accountable, accountable, right, I don't need to see a
number anymore. It gave me diet brain when I was looking at it.
I can tell from my clothes. I know how I feel. I know
if I'm getting puffy. But it's all about trusting yourself and whatever measurement tools
are lack thereof. If your only measurement tool is how you feel, that
can be trusted, all right. So now we have a question from a
listener. The question is from Struggling in Illinois. Hello, ladies. I'm
thirty eight, one hundred and eighty nine pounds and my goal weight is one
hundred and sixty five. I'm five six. I started gaining weight after my
third child. The only other weight loss plan I've done was Keto and Carnivore.
I've lost thirty pounds so far. I started intermittent fasting to cure my
pre diabetes. I started fasting June eleventh of twenty twenty three. I've gotten
my a one ceed down to a five point seven from seven point three without
meds. I'm currently trying to force myself to eat healthier, more veggies to
lose more weight. Eating healthy is hard for me. I'm still waiting for
my taste in foods to change. Sometimes it's very stressful to continue because I'm
doing this new lifestyle alone. It's hard to eat healthy when everyone around me
my family is eating fast food. I do drink black coffee and I fast
twenty hours a day, but some days I do have longer windows, usually
on Saturday. I've cut pop from my diet. Mountain dew is my downfall.
Now I eat more vegetables and less meat, but I feel like I'm
forcing myself to eat healthy. I'm lost and don't know what to do.
Should I keep eating the way I used to eating fast food or should I
stick to my recent diet of forcing myself to eat more vegetables. Please help?
All right, have several thoughts. One right off the bat, you
said you feel that you are doing this lifestyle alone, and I want to
just let you know You're never alone. And I get that because when I
started fasting back in twenty fifteen, really was alone. I did not know
a single person in my personal life, at work, within my family who
did intermittent fasting. My husband certainly did not, and that is what led
me to the Delay Don't Deny community. That's how I found Jin, that's
where we met. And I cannot really express enough how important a fasting community
is to ongoing success. You're never alone there and it's so encouraging to just
be able to talk to other fasters talk about what's getting you down. The
DDD online community is so just supportive and encouraging and people have great tweaks and
tips and mindset advice. And I want to invite you to join us.
There's a link in show notes. Join us for a month and just see
what you think about the community. Really use the community, post daily,
ask for help if you need help, and really just immerse yourself in community
for a month and see how you feel, because I think you're going to
feel so much less alone doing this. Yeah, even when you're struggling,
it helps to know that you're not the only person struggling. It really does.
Yeah, if all you're doing is listening to this podcast and the intermittent
fasting stories, you might think everybody because intermittent fasting stories are people who've self
selected to come on the show and tell their story, right, And so
it's like success after success after success, and you think, well, I'm
the only one who's having a hard time. Then you join the community and
guess who else joins the community? Other people who need support, So you
realize you're not alone. Yep. Yeah. And the thing is is,
like you say, it's hard because everybody around you are eating foods that you
wish you could eat, is my take on this, And that can feel
like you're being left out or whatever. But when you're around people who are
constantly reinforcing the importance of a healthy diet and they're sharing the foods they eat,
I mean that alone can be inspiring when you can see people really making
a healthy diet fun and delicious, and you know, people share recipes and
they post pictures, and that alone inspires me to eat healthier. Some people
choose to post what they eat every day and that helps keep them accountable and
that's something that they enjoy doing. And the other thing is, you know
a lot of people really need a pat on the back, They need positive
reinforcement, and the community really gives you that. And if you're not getting
that at home. That could be the missing piece of the puzzle for you.
Congratulations on giving up soda, because that was not doing anything for your
pre diabetes, and that is huge that you have cut that out. I
wish I could get my husband to give up his daily mountain dew. Now
you say you feel like you're forcing yourself to eat healthy, But should you
go to the way you used to? You cannot out fast a bad diet.
You just can't. Your body knows. Your body knows the difference between
nutritious real food and ultra processed food fast food that's just not going to help
you be healthy. Is there room for some fast food in a healthy diet?
I believe so. I believe there's some balance in there. Once a
week, I eat what some people would just consider junk food. I mean,
I'm gonna be honest. I was exhausted yesterday. It was an upday
and we ordered Applebee's and I had boneless wings and some mazzarella sticks. And
it hits. It was easy, it was quick, it was delicious,
and emotionally I was like, I got that delicious fried food. Sometimes we
just want fried food, right, you know? I didn't beat myself up.
Did I honor satiety? No? I did not, because it was
so delicious. I just kept eating. And that's the problem with ultra processed
food for me. I don't have a good off switch. That's why I
don't do it often. But don't think that every day has to be perfect
nutrition wise. The other thing I was gonna say, you said you've done
keto and carnivore before. I'm going to assume you didn't love it and that's
why you stepped away from it. It sounds like you're forcing yourself to eat
vegetables. Whether you choose to do a diet like keto or carnivore where you're
not eating vegetables or a lot of vegetables, or you choose to eat and
more well rounded diet, that's totally up to you. You don't have to
do like either end of the spectrum. There's kind of a happy medium in
between, and there's so many fruits and vegetables and plant foods out there that
you know, find the ones you really enjoy. Yeah, you know what
really helped me listening to you and what you're struggling with. Struggling in Illinois.
I used to be just standard American diet. When I started intermitten fasting,
that why I you, I ate a lot differently than I eat now.
But what really really changed the way I ate was the meal delivery kits
because I started getting out of my comfort zone and trying different things. Like
I started one I would not use right now that I liked the best.
At the beginning, I used home Chef. Do you remember when I used
home chef a lot? And I'm not knocking on home Chef. It was
more comfort food. It was more of what I was more used used to
eating. Yes, but that's why my husband prefers it. He likes.
Yeah, that's where I started. Now I'm on the other end of the
spectrum. I'm like, oh, purple carrot. They've got all these veggies.
It's you know, whole food, plant based, and I'm eating beets
that I'm cutting up and who am I? Right? So trying the meal
kits plated was one. They're no longer around, but that one really helped
me expand my horizons. Like I remember the first time I got rainbow shard
or something something like that came with one of their I threw it in the
garbage because I was like, I'm not eating these big old leafy greens.
I wouldn't eat kree it at least as I say. He didn't used to
eat kill either. No, none of that. But eventually I was like,
what if I just chop it up real fine and add a little bit.
So I just kind of like, piece by piece, little by little,
chop it up, grind it up, put it in there. It
happened over time, and then one day I found myself at a restaurant ordering
a beet salad instead of chicken fingers or whatever, and it just happened.
I didn't force it, so I think that word that you put in there,
forcing yourself. No, it's that exposure therapy. We know from research
on kids. Kids will reject foods the first x number of times. And
if you're a mother like I was at the beginning, I'm like, well,
cow didn't like carrots. He's four months old, he doesn't like baby
food carrots. I'll never feed him carrots again. No, that's what I
did, though, that was the wrong thing. We know that sometimes you
keep presenting the food. It might take fifteen dimes. Then eventually they're like,
well okay, so you know, try yourself with that, don't force
it. See how you can add it in. Try some of the meal
kits look at well. A nice thing about some of the meal kits is
they incorporate the vegetables into the meal. So you're not just eating a giant
side of kale. You're like chopping it up and adding it to some rice,
or you're chopping it up and adding it to a pasta bake or whatever.
And so when the vegetables are incorporated in the meal and not just like
all big honk of vegetables on your plate, right, You're you're getting them
in, but you're not sitting there forcing yourself to eat a cup of kale
by itself. I often am like what do I do with vegetables? Like
I'll buy them and then they sit in my crisper because I'm just not inspired
enough to figure out what to do with them. So I think meal kits
are a great idea and make these changes slowly. You're not going to do
everything all at once, or you won't be happy with that. It took
me a long time. You know, I'm ten years into my intermittent fasting
lifestyle, and the way I am right now is completely different than how I
was, But it didn't happen overnight. You will get there, and as
you start introducing different things. Starting with fruit is a great place to begin.
Most people like fruit. Start with berries. Berries are so good for
you. But as you add more plant foods in, you know, beans,
I bet you like beans. Corn, eat corn, eat the things
you like. Make a broccoli cheese casserole for goodness sake, right. You
know, as you start adding in more plant foods, more fiber, it's
going to encourage a different gut microbiome. And your gut drives a lot of
your craving. So the healthier your gut, the healthier craves. So it's
a process. I don't want you to force it, but have fun with
it, think of it in a different way. Yep, I agree.
So we have another question from frustrated farmwife in Kansas. She says, I
have a question about my plateau and how to get past it. I'm five
four fifty one years old and I've been fasting since October of twenty twenty,
starting at one hundred and eighty four pounds. Beginning, I lost twenty pounds
quickly, and over the years I have started to regain I have now since
started EIGHTF and by my happy scale, I can see that I'm slowly losing
weight, but I'm stuck again. I feel as though I'm at my set
point and I don't know how to break one seventy. When I first started
fasting, I lost down to about one sixty five and didn't go any further
than that, and I was happy there. But since put on fifteen pounds
and I've now lost ten of that. I think my question is what is
the purpose of the upday. I really need the science behind it, the
why I can fast easily for forty two to forty six hours and then do
a snack and one meal on the upday, and trust me, I can
put plenty of calories in. So I just don't know if I will ever
get past the set point of one sixty five or one seventy. It is
the lowest I have ever been able to get to in my entire adult life.
I graduated high school at one thirty, quickly went to one seventy in
college and never got back. I have only been doing ADF for two months,
so maybe I just need to let it go longunger, Although one meal
a day is my sweet spot and ADF is truly hard, and our food
choices really where it ends up. I do notice that I don't like processed
foods as much as they don't taste as good. And I've started doing a
little bit of weight training, and I have a treadmill at work so I
get my ten thousand steps in daily. I've listened to all the podcasts and
I've read all the books. I just think I need to be told that
it does come down to what we eat. I really don't want to have
diet brain, but I have such a terrible time with binge eating, and
I feel so good when fasted that I just have trouble with the upday because
I think I do binge eat, and then I think I need someone to
draw a hard line and tell me that I can't have all the things I
know that are keeping me from losing weight. I think I pretty much answered
it myself, but the frustration is real. Also, I have given up
alcohol, I am on hormone therapy. I think the next step is to
try and control my binge eating. Someday I want to be an adult that
doesn't think about food. Twenty four to seven. If I could survive and
not ever eat. That would be my ticket. But once I open the
gate, it's game on, like Donkey Kong. I love listening to you,
ladies, and this is the healthiest I've ever been, so I know
fasting as a way of life. Thank you for all you do so to
close science behind the updates and tricks to stop binge eating is appreciated. All
right, First, I'm going to talk about the science behind why you might
be binging. And there are two reasons, and I think you've got both
of them. Okay, I bet you know what I'm gonna say, Sherry.
Okay, two reasons why you might be binging biologically. They're both biological,
and they both come from your body. One of them is over restricting.
If you over restrict your body is like you're going to die. You
need to eat a lot of food, get in a lot of calories.
Now, eat, eat, eat. And so see, you gave me
a lot of clues in your question that made me think that that's what you're
doing. You said you could survive and not ever eat, and you could
just fast forever and you would feel great. But no, that's actually not
true because your body is not going to let you do that. What it's
going to do is send you the signal to eat, eat, eat,
and then you're binging. Now I saw this in action. If we go
back to twenty fifteen, when I started my first online Facebook community, I
didn't know anything, right, I'm just a teacher of starting group for myself
for my friends. We just wanted a place where we could talk about fasting.
So people started to come in and this was the old original one meal
a day group and say people would come in and they were fasting. I
didn't know them, and they're like, I'm just going to fast forever till
I get to my goal weight. And this was the early days. Like
I said, I didn't know anything, but there were people who would say,
I'm going to just fast till I get to my goal and then I'll
stop. And they might do like a twenty one day fast for example,
or twenty eight day fast, and they felt amazing and they looked really good,
and they lost a lot of weight and they were able to do it.
Then every single person that did that, every single person who did that,
started to binge and they regained the weight rapidly, and they said,
what is wrong with me? I was able to fast for twenty one days
and now I'm binging every day and now it's out of control. Well,
that is because the long fast panicked their body into thinking we're going to die,
so then they're caught up in this cycle of over restrict binge, overrestrict
binge and ADF if done incorrectly, can be that cycle. And it sounds
like that is what you're doing, because it sounds to me like you are
not having a full up day because you're not convinced that the upday is necessary.
The whole key to the upday is so that your body doesn't think you
are starving. And if I could go back and revise fast feat repeat with
a snap of my thumb, which I can't do because it's traditionally published,
I would say for the upday to just wake up on the morning of your
upday and have three meals eight to twelve hours absolute minimum. In the chapter
on EIGHTF, I said six to eight minimum. And that's because you know,
we were having people in the community that were having about a six hour
window and they were doing a long term and they felt good. And maybe
there's somebody that can eat a lot in six hours. I don't know,
but in hindsight, six hours is not enough for most of us to sufficiently
fuel ourselves for an upday. So there might be the rare person that could
do a six hour upday and it is satisfyingly enough food for their body,
but most people cannot. Eight to twelve is really what I would recommend.
And it all goes back to the research on ADF. And in the research
on ADF, they were not having eating windows on their update. They had
the down day and then they had an eating day. They were not restricting
at all, and so they found that by having an unrestricted day, even
if they ate one hundred and fifty percent of their body's caloric needs, which
is more than you need, that they're slightly overeating on their updates, that
was enough to let their body know that they were okay. They weren't binging
throughout the upday. They just maybe over eight slightly, but it was enough
to keep their metabolism boosted and keep them from having the urge to binge.
So did you want to add anything about that before I get to the second
thing? And I kind of do, because she also says that she finds
ADF to be truly hard and if you do not feel sufficiently on your update.
ADF is going to be hard. YEP, it's going to be really
hard for the longest time. When I first started trying to throw some down
days, and I remember back in twenty nineteen, I decided I was going
to do eight weeks of ADF at the end of the year, and I
started in November, and what I figured out was that I could not do
update down day, upday, down day. I couldn't do it. And
I got to the point where I had to have two up days between a
down day, and what I realized over time, it's because I was doing
exactly that I was at six hours. I was closing that night down day,
and I thought that update fasting is or the upday you were limiting your
update. Yes, six hours, And in twenty nineteen, that is when
I was writing fast feast repeat, and people in the community were playing around
with that, you know, six hour to eight hour up days. But
it's in hindsight we've realized, oh that's not even enough. Yes, it
did not work for me at all. And I can tell you right now,
for me to do a sufficient update and be able to fast easily the
next day, I really need about ten hours to sufficiently refeed on an upday.
Yep. So the two clues that your update is not sufficient, it
gets harder and harder overtime. Again, that's your body letting you know,
or you have the urge to binge. So the other reason you might be
binging has to do, I think, with your food choices. And it
sounds like you already know that because you said someone needs to tell you that
you can't have all the things you know are keeping you from losing weight,
Well, those are also the things that are keeping you from feeling true satiety.
Like if I would I mentioned earlier, Yeah, if I went home
right now, it's one thirty and I went home and opened my window with
chips and cheese and crackers, I could eat so much chips and cheese and
crackers and never feel satisfied. Ever, I could just keep going and eat
and eat and eat, and I still wouldn't feel satisfied. I might feel
gross after a while, too much food in there. But what I eat
is so important to my satiety. And there's many reasons for that. One
is that our body is not counting calories, it's counting nutrients. But the
other is that high quality real food activates our bodies stretch receptors as the food
travels through our gut and it lets us know ope there's enough food in there.
So increasing the quality of your food can make such a difference. Now,
when you say that one meal a day is your sweet spot, I'm
also worried that you could possibly be defining one meal a day too rigidly as
like an hour a day or something. We don't want to do that either,
and again we have observed this over the years of watching people struggle.
So one thing people struggle with is having a too tight, too short one
meal a day. If you think of one meal a day as a multi
course meal that you have throughout a period of five hours where you're truly nourishing
your body, well, that is probably a great idea for long term.
But if you think one meal a day means that you have to be one
hour, one plate, sit down and eat and you're done again, your
body's going to fight back and that could also lead to more of a plateau.
Yep, yep. That was something that really stood out to me as
well. And then you say you've been doing ADF for two months and that
you feel like you're sold out. But then you also mention and that you've
started doing weight training and that you do a lot of treadmill work. So
anytime you start weight training, it makes your body hold onto water weight.
So you're going to see the scale go up a little bit when you start
that, so it doesn't mean that you're not losing body fat. Also,
if you're gaining muscle, then you're not going to see that reflected on the
scale. So measurements are really going to be your friend if you're starting weight
training. And I congratulate you for adding weight training because that's exactly what you
need to be doing, especially post mental puzzle. But yeah, I really
think ADF probably is what you need to do right now, because, like
Jin I kind of pointed out, I kind of, you know, picked
up that you might have been over restricting when you were doing one meal a
day, and you really probably need the metabolic boost. And I really think
you should do a five hundred calorie down day on your down day and then
do a full update, wake up in the morning, start eating, start
fasting again that evening. I know you're worried that you're going to binge eat,
and so maybe you're trying to keep your eating on your update really small,
but over time, while you're fueling your body, well, that's going
to get under control. And you can even think of it as like eat
stop eat on your upday, eat stop, eat again, stop eat again,
start your next fast right, So when you structure your upday planning is
going to make a big difference as well. Remember, you're trying to nourish
your body with food that's going to stick around and satisfy you. So if
you think about having three meals on your update breakfast, lunch, dinner,
so you really can get into trouble on your update. If you're like,
well it's ten o'clock, I had my breakfast and I'm going to drive through
Starbucks and get a latte Grande and also a scone. It's my update,
I deserve it. That's gonna set you up for not feeling satisfied and cause
you to have a blood sugar crash and then you're gonna be craven more junk
food that day. So can you, and I'm using air quotes, can
you on your update? I mean, of course you can have a lotay
you can, but you're trying to set yourself up for success. So when
you're thinking about what should I have for breakfast on the upday, you want
it to be nourishing and satisfying. Maybe it's avocado toast with an egg on
top. Maybe it's scrambled eggs and omelet with vegetables in there. That's going
to keep you full longer with maybe some toast doughnuts not going to keep you
satisfied. Right, have a good, nutritious, satisfying breakfast, and then,
like Sherry said, pause and then at lunchtime, have something that's gonna
again satisfy your body, nourish your body. Plan it, know what it's
going to be, maybe plan it the day before, have it ready to
go, then pause. Than dinner, have a nice, satisfying, healthy
dinner. We know what meals are healthy meals, We know it. You
know you don't need to count macros or count calories or read a diet book
to know if a meal is going to be nourishing and satisfying. You know
what when you see it, so you can do it, and then I
bet you're going to be amazing. Also, one other thing that's going to
trip you up is if you have unrealistic rate loss expectations for ADF. Neither
Shearing nor I have ever said ADF is your fastest weight loss ticket, it's
the fastest way to lose weight. Have we ever said that. Nope?
No, And if you do, you do experience that some people do.
It's good for getting off a plateau. The fastest ways you can lose weight
are probably the ones that are going to come back and bite you in the
long run. Like those people doing those twenty one twenty eight day fasts back
in the day. They lost a lot of weight really really fast. Did
it lead to long term success, Absolutely not. They struggled. They struggled,
they felt like a failure. They disappeared. We never saw them again.
And they were losing lots of muscle mass, Yes, lots of muscle
mass. And they didn't have that nice firm skin that you were seeing.
And people who are losing weight, you know, in a healthy manner,
so you know, how you lose weight matters. Yeah, So it's not
going to be the fastest thing you've ever done. And even you know,
one meal a day in a really short tight window might give you great weight
loss for a little while till your body adapts to that. Really short tight
window, so really, adf think of it like a thirty six twelve and
in that thirty six of the down day you can have a down day meal,
so you're not really doing a full thirty six hour fast. You're having
that down day meal in there if you want to. You don't have to,
but thinking of it like thirty six twelve could really help and the update
is required trust us. All right, now it's time for our segment called
What's Your Why? And you know most of us begin with weight laws in
mind. It's fine for that to be part of your why, but there's
so much much more to what intermittent fasting can do for us beyond weight loss.
That's why in twenty eight day fast Art day by day, I ask
readers to craft their why statement before beginning. When your why is deeper than
weight loss alone, you're more likely to find long term success and view intermittent
fasting as a lifestyle. So we have a wife from Edith today. She
says, not sure if anyone wants to hear this, but on Jen and
Cherry's Fast Fees Repeat podcast, Jen asked the question, what is your why
for if I love my new if lifestyle and I share it with anyone who
wants to hear it. I hope my why encourages just one person to change
their health trajectory. Thank you, Jen for changing mine. My why is
for several reasons, but most importantly, my why is for my family.
I'm hoping that my IF lifestyle will change the trajectory of our family history.
We have a long family history of heart disease, diabetes, alcoholism and addiction,
and obesity. I am one of six children, and all of my
siblings have some form of diabetes and are dealing with obesity issues. All but
me. I was also on this path up until twenty twenty one, when
a stranger planted that IF sed in my head. She says, that's another
story, and maybe someday I'll be courageous enough to share my story with Jen
on Intermittent Fasting Stories podcasts. Please do, by the way, I would
love that. Email me Jen at intermittenfastingstories dot com. Sorry, go ahead.
She says, My sister was obese and had gastric bypass. She did
lose a ton of weight, but she also got quite ill. She became
so thin and frail and had serious malnutrition issues. She eventually passed away in
her early fifties. All my other siblings are dealing with obesity issues and borderline
diabetes. My father died at age thirty six from alcoholism. My mother died
one week shy of her eightieth birthday from heart disease and diabetes. But she
was diagnosed with diabetes in her early forties and then had a triple bypass at
age sixty two, which is my age now. She was never the same
after being diagnosed with diabetes and then worse after her bypass surgery. She was
never healthy, overweight and struggling to treat her diabetes. The physicians kept putting
the band aid on the problem, but didn't know to look for the root
cause those continuous small bials followed by more insulin, and the last two years
of her life was spent in a facility where I spent most of my time.
I wish I knew then what I know now. I know she would
have had a much happier life. I have been on if since that stranger
planted that seed in my head over two and a half years ago, I
have lost over thirty pounds and I'm close to my goal weight, shy by
about five pounds. But the better news is that all of my blood work
is excellent, including my A and C and my fasting glucose levels. I
feel healthy and so much happier in general. Again, my wife is for
my family. I never want my daughters to have to take care of me
and see me wither away like I had to watch my mother. It was
such a sad time in my life life to watch her die slowly. I
hope I am planting the seed so my family will follow in my footsteps,
both siblings and adult children. Some listen and congratulate me on my weight loss,
but have not shown any interest in if my hope is to finally change
the health trajectory of our family history by planting one small seed at a time.
Well, Edith, thank you so much for sharing that. I'm so
sorry to hear about your sister and your dad and your mom. And it's
really really hard to watch a parent struggle with poor health, right, Yes,
it is, yeah, and so much of your story. My dad
turns eighty in two days, so and his health isn't poor similar kind of
a thing. When he was the age that I am now, he was
already diagnosed with diabetes, so You're right that we want to look ahead at
what the generations that came before us went through, but we want to look
behind us at what we can teach the generations that are coming. So we
have another question from frustrated in Toronto. She says, Hello, I love
the podcast. Sorry for the length of this, but I'm trying to provide
as much info as possible and we do appreciate that. She says, I'm
fifty one, female in menopause since late twenty twenty two. No health issues.
However, my last doctor appointment in June of twenty twenty three, my
levels were nearing the pre diabetic range, which was shocking to me since I've
always been active and a quote healthy eater. I'm active, but not overly.
I like to walk or jog a few days a week, and I
mix in some at home yoga or short hi at workouts. No one could
accuse me of over exercising, but I do try to move my body most
days. I was raised in a home with a focus on real food,
so I've always eaten good proteins, whole grains, fruits, lots of veggies.
I do allow treats and I'll never say no to a small bowl of
ice cream or chips. I started intermittent fasting in July of twenty twenty three.
I'm five four and when I started, I weighed one hundred and sixty
two pounds. I'm not a person who struggled with their weight. I was
a skinny kid teenager, and through university and beyond, I never weighed myself,
but I guess I was always around one hundred and ten to one hundred
and fifteen in high school, well one twenties in university, one thirty in
my thirties. I had a child at forty, and at my six week
postpartum I weighed one fifty. I haven't been able to drop below one fifty
since that time, despite trying various diets, including mostly calorie counting and workout
regimens, and it's just been creeping up no matter what I do. My
goal weight is one thirty five to one forty, and my goal size is
a six. I am now a ten to twelve. When I started intermnt
fasting, in the first week or two, I built up to five hour
windows, and I have been doing that pretty consistently, sometimes less like three,
sometimes it's been longer like six. To eight, but I generally aim
for five hours. A handful of times in the last six months, I've
extended to ten to twelve. If I've been traveling or on vacation, I
generally open around two and close around seven. I have no issues with clean
fasting. I occasionally drink some green tea or water. I don't drink coffee.
Here's my problem. I haven't lost weight, and I haven't seen any
benefits yet. I started because our reg Gens books, listened to Intermittent Fasting
Stories podcast, and it all resonated and made sense to me. But I
read all the books and listened to as much as I could, and of
course we should be eating less frequently. Unfortunately, I find myself struggling even
after six months. I don't feel great in my eating window. I've always
been a small eater. Even as a child. My mom said I would
only eat small amounts and often. I've always had good appetite correction. For
example, I'll probably eat half the meal at a restaurant, but I'll also
be hungry a few hours later with if When I open my window and eat,
I am often full quickly but still hungry, which is a feeling I've
never experienced before, and that can make me feel weak and off, like
my body knows it hasn't had enough nutrients yet. I can't eat more.
I've experimented with opening with lots of different things, salad, soup, protein,
carbs, smoothies, and I still have this issue. I'm often hungry
throughout the five hour window, and sometimes hungry in the evening afterwards. I
usually have two meals and a snack, and meals, according to me,
are soup, crackers and an egg, an apple, and nuts or veggies
and hummus as a snack at some point, and then my dinner last night
was a homemade pizza with broccoli. I don't feel like I'm eating too much
in my window. If anything, maybe I'm eating too little. I can't
have a huge meal and be done because I can't eat that much at one
time. Should I eat more, eat less? Extend my window to seven
or eight hours? I've been thinking maybe because I've gone from eating three meals
to two, I just haven't been getting enough nutrients because my meal size has
likely stayed the same. Do you want to take that there's a lot here
already? There is a lot there, So much here all right. First
of all, I want to back up to something that's really really important.
That's at the very beginning. You're fifty one, you've been in menopause since
late twenty twenty two, and then June of twenty twenty three, your levels
were entering the pre diabetic range. Well, guess what. After I went
through menopause. My levels, which had been great, even though I hadn't
changed my omitten fasting, hadn't changed what I was eating, my levels got
worse. My fasting insulin went up, my A and C went up.
I was almost at that pre diabetic range for my A one C, even
though I was fasting clean, nourishing my body well. Menopause. Menopause causes
most women to gain belly fat most women, almost all women, almost one
hundred percent. I don't know the number, but most women gain weight over
the menopausal transition. And it sounds like that happened for you. Most women
have impaired blood glue cooase control, and it shows up in our A one
C going up and our metabolic markers getting worse. Sounds like that's true for
you. I'm not sure you haven't mentioned hormone replacement therapy. But that's what
turned it around for me. After my good friend, doctor Tabitha Barber,
talk to me about it. She put me on hormone replacement therapy, and
guess what, My A once c came down, my fasting insulin came down,
I was sleeping better. That made such a difference. If your hormones
are not where they need to be, you can do all the things and
still struggle with losing that weight. That's just a biological fact of menopause.
So all of this other stuff, it's hard to say, like you're not
feeling good in you're eating window. I don't know you mentioned some of the
things you're eating, like hole we pizza with broccoli. If I had a
pizza with just broccoli on it, I would probably feel hungry too. I
need some beans, some potatoes, you know, for satiety. Maybe you're
not eating enough protein for your body. You know, you didn't mention meat
at all. You know, I don't need to have a lot of meat
for society, but maybe you do. Maybe you need some chicken or some
bee for some eggs. I don't know. You mentioned you might have soup,
crackers and an egg to open. I don't know if that's enough enough
protein to satisfy you. You know, I'm a big fan of the protein
leverage hypothesis. I'm not a fan of universal protein recommendations where they say things
like everyone must eat xyz protein. But I believe that our bodies let us
know when we're not having enough protein, Sherry, Have you ever heard,
gosh, I can't remember who it is, the scientists who wrote the first
paper about the protein leverage hypothesis. You ever heard him talk about their research?
I have not. It was so interesting, Gosh, I'm I'm going
to see if I can remember it. It was something I remember his name.
No, that's what I can't remember. But the research was because they
were changing the diets. I swear it might have been fruit flies. I
don't know. I could be getting this completely wrong, but they were with
animals and they were changing their diet and changing their amount of protein they fed
them, and they basically kept eating until they met their protein needs. When
they decreased the amount of protein they were feeding them, they ate more to
make up for it. Whatever the animal was they were doing this with,
And so you know, we're going to eat till we meet our protein needs.
According to the protein leverage hypothesis, So that could be what you're missing.
If you're not eating the foods that satisfy your body, whatever those might
be, you could change your window seven eight two one five three. It's
not going to make you feel satisfied because you're missing something that your body needs.
Yes, and we've talked about that a lot. My protein needs are
different than gins, right. I can eat and be physically full, but
starving if I don't eat enough protein in my window, which is what she
describes. That sounds like exactly what she said. Yes, so I would
really recommend playing around with the foods you are eating in your window because she
says protein in there, but she never really mentioned like meats. Some people
need meat protein to feel satisfied. Yes, I'm not one of them.
I definitely am one of them. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, definitely
play around with the foods you're eating because feeling hungry all the time. I
did that when I was doing true keto for a while. True keto is
less than twenty percent protein, and I was physically starving on keto. It
was not for me. So that's the only way I could describe it,
is deep in my soul hungry when I don't eat enough protein. She says
she's not seeing any body recomposition yet, and that can be meniplecause that her
size may have gone up. I think once you are able to address your
satiety in your window, because also if you're not getting satisfied, you could
be overeating. You could be eating more than you need but just not the
right foods. So yeah, just keep tweaking what you eat now, she
says, I've never felt myself switch into fat burning as others discuss. I
generally feel the same when I'm festing. Maybe a little extra hyper edgy,
but nothing dramatic. I do feel pretty shaky and crappy if I let my
fast go too long. I wonder if she's accidentally breaking her fast with like
a supplement or a vitamin or something like that. I don't know, and
I might suggest you cut out your green tea sometimes. I think you're the
one that said she did say green tea. Green tea make some people feel
lucky. It really does. Try to fast for like a week without the
green tea and see if that helps. Let's see. Oh. She says
she tried adf on a five to two schedule for three weeks and she hated
it because she was so hungry even with the five hundred day down day meal,
and she found it hard to sleep. I don't mind the updays at
all. I just eat my three meals and all feels normal. I also
don't like the diet mentality it comes with the down days for me, but
I'm willing to give it another try if that will help with results. I
don't think you should jump to that right now, No, I think you
need to conquer feeling satiated on your regular eating window days. And she wants
to know if she needs to go look carb again. Nope. Now there's
something she says. She doesn't love meat or lots of fat, but she
feels good with legome, sweet potatoes, whole grains and fruit. I just
wonder if she's her body is telling her that she might need Okay, if
you don't love meat, if you don't love it and you don't want to
eat it, then really focus on your high protein plant foods. So try
adding some tofu, yeah, or some tempe in your window, because maybe
that's enough to help you. I wonder if she could add some meat that
I know she says it doesn't love meat. And again, I'm somebody who
doesn't eat a lot of meat, but some meats make me feel better than
others, like a ground beef, for example. I can add ground beef
to something and I feel fine versus having a giant steak. I don't really
love chicken. So there might be some meats that she could add in,
or maybe fish or something like that, some salmon, some seafood you say,
you know, are there people's small appetites have found success. I'm not
a person who eats a lot at one time, and I have found success.
I really think that once you figure out what foods lead to satiety,
then like that's the missing key to the puzzle for you. So you may
hear Jen and I refer to fasting insulin and knowing what it is, and
you may not really understand the importance of a fasting insulin well. Fasting insulin
is important to know because insulin resistance and high insulin levels can absolutely contribute to
type two diabetes down the road if not controlled, and it also creates a
cyclical effect on inflammation in the body. Inflammation alone, left unchucked, can
contribute to so many diseases, not only diabetes, but cardiovascular disease, malignancy,
autoimmune disease, and chronic kidney and liver disease. So one of the
reasons why we tell you to get a fasting insulin when you start is so
that you have a good baseline. If you haven't done that, I would
really suggest you do it now. And then it's also another we talk about
measures of success. If you get a fasting insulin, it's high your goal
over the next six months is to get that fasting insulin lower through fasting and
often exercise and your diet choices, because the lower your fasting insulin, the
healthier you're going to be, and the healthier you are, the more able
your body is to release the weight that you want to lose. So I
have a link in show notes that you can visit. You can get your
fasting ENLCIN drawn all on your own. You do not need to go to
your doctor. We hear all the time that doctors don't understand why you need
it or won't order it, so you can skip them. Just do it
yourself. It's very inexpensive, check it out and then you know there's no
questions. All right. Now it's time for our tweak of the week.
This tweak was submitted by Hayley. She said, if you have a specific
time of day that you know is hard for you to stick to your fasting
goals, I have a recommendation, if your schedule allows, turn that time
into coffee hour or tea time. Here's a bit of my story. I
work part time. The days I go into work, fasting is easy because
I'm busy. I have a clear routine and I just power through it without
thinking. Twice on the days that I am home, my husband leaves for
work around seven am, and I think that first hour or so of the
day feels overwhelming to me. There are many things around the house that I
want to do. I might have errands to run, etc. I would
often hit the ground running and start knocking out chores right away. I'm a
morning person, and this made sense. I used to eat breakfast around eight
am, and it helped me slow down and gave me a chance to think
through my day. This meant that breakfast became a reprieve from that feeling of
overwhelm, which meant that breakfast might turn into a three course meal because I
was craving that moment of rest. Once I started fasting. I found that
this time was the hardest for me in my fast not necessarily because I'm hungry,
but because I'm warning that opportunity to sit and organize myself for the day.
All that to say, I am working on slowing myself down in the
mornings. There is no need for me to jump out of bed at five
am and immediately start vacuuming or cleaning the bathroom. Enter coffee hour. Instead
of immediately busying myself, I make my coffee, sit down on the couch
and do something totally fun and frivolous. I check in with the community here
or read once my coffee is And by the way, she chipposted this in
the community and she said we could share it. Once my coffee is gone,
it's time to organize myself for the day and get started on whatever tasks
I have planned. I cannot tell you how much this little routine has helped
me stick to my fasting goals. It's been a great tool in my self
care toolbox. I used to guzzle my coffee or take shots of it between
tasks. Now I sit down and savor it. So if you see me
active in the community around seven am Central time, you know it's coffee hour.
I know that I still miss the ritual of eating. I miss the
rest and relaxation that comes with sitting down to a meal. If you're someone
who struggles to rest or feels like they must constantly be doing something, maybe
this will make sense to you. That was a great strategy. Thank you,
Yes, I love that. What we love to leave you with inspirational
or motivational quotes, And this week we have a message that is a passage
from a book by Brianna Weist called Pivot shared by Amanda h Temporary everything,
all of it, even the best of it, especially the best of it.
We only have so many years to know human love and do human things.
Love them, all of them, even the painstaking ones. They too,
will not last. They are human. They are the experience, the
insecurity, the experienceperience, the heartache, the experience, the confusion, the
experience, the joy, the experience, the risk, the experience. There
is nothing lost if we learn something from it. Your willingness to fail is
proportionate to your potential to gain and to grow. The timer never stops running.
All you will regret is not reaching harder for the things you actually wanted
while they were still in front of you, and I went ahead, And
there's a link in show notes because people always reach out to us, so
if you go to show notes you can actually read that for yourself. Thank
you, thanks so much for listening today. We would love to have you
join us in the Delay Don't Tonight community, where you can interact with both
me and Sherry plus the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere.
Go to Jenstevens dot com slash community to join us. Don't forget to subscribe
to this podcast to your favorite podcast app, and if you already, please
leave us a five star review that helps new listeners find the show and we
really appreciate it. We are a community driven podcast, so to submit your
success stories, your questions, your favorite tweak it till It's Easy, moments,
or anything else you want us to share on the podcast, go to
Fast Feast Repeat dot com slash submit and then listen each week to see if
we share your submission or answer your question until next week. Thanks for listening.