Episode 55: Why Am I Overeating?, A Powerful Why, Mindset, 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. How are you doing today's Sherry, I'm doing
great. I just got back from a wonderful trip to Colorado and saw my
son and my best friend from back home. She went out there with me
too, so it was the three of us. We ran around and had
a great time and it was nice. It was nice to get away.
I haven't gone anywhere since last July when I came to your house, and
it was great to see my son. We haven't talked in three weeks.
Yeah, we had two weeks that we didn't record. Yep. I was
like I was just counting back three weeks. So I know, it was
great to see your son. He's been the world traveler. Yes, he's
been in Ireland since sometime in May the end of May, and he's actually
back there. He flew home just to see me and went back again on
Sunday. So I left Friday night. He left Sunday to go back to
Ireland. I didn't know he was like permanently, like stationed in Ireland for
now. Well, originally it was like six weeks and so he was really
just coming back like I think a week early. But I don't know.
You know how projects go, they never run on time, and then you've
got the whole like us to Irish government, like you know, they're used
to working sixty and seventy hour weeks over here and they can only work forty
eight hours over there. So I don't know if their time schedule was based
off of really long work weeks or what. But yeah, he's so he
came back and he's now he's back over there to the end of July and
he's going back again like in October. So well, I know you are
so proud of him. Yes I am. And you know, I haven't
seen my son since November of twenty twenty two, so like a year and
a half ago. Every time I see him, I'm just so you haven't
seen like Cal, and you'd go periods of time without seeing him, right,
And they left us when they were relatively young, went to college,
and Cal moved to California. What he was like twenty one twenty two,
he had just turned twenty one. I think if you're a mom and you
see your kids a lot, you maybe don't notice it, but I just
see, like how he's really growing into a man, and he's just making
me really proud. He's upset. He's a good kid, and I can't
come with kid anymore. He's gonna turn twenty five this year, but yeah,
he's my kid. He's the same age as Will. Yeah, so
it's just good to see them really thriving and doing great and makes me proud.
Well, that's awesome. We are settled mostly in the house. The
first time we've recorded with me in the new house. So if the audio
sounds different, that's why. Well, your background is identical. I wouldn't
have even known you moved. Is that a different picture? Yeah, it's
I swapped them. Oh that's right, okay, side, I just swapped
him yesterday because we got a chair that has a lot of color in it,
and it looks better with the other one. So the same one is
more colorful. Yeah, so you'll see when you come to visit. I
know. I can't wait, very very soon. I'm excited. Yes,
well, anyway, let's celebrate a listener today, we have a celebration from
Mary. She said. Happy to stay fasting friends, she says, continuing
with my recent trend of gradually increasing my activity level. After being sick,
last night, I took my nine year old son over to the widest swim
from about seven fifteen to eight thirty. There were only a few swimmers,
The water was nice and the pool deck wasn't burning hot. This was my
first swim of the summer with my little guy. It took him a long
time for swimming to click, but last summer it did, and now he's
an amazing swimmer, and he asked me to swim to time him swimming a
lap, and he is fast, too bad. He has zero interested swim
team, and then he wanted me to race him, so I did.
My swimming is an ideal. I don't have the breathing technique down to be
able to do laps consecutively, but given that my lungs have just gotten over
being sick, I think I swam very well. It felt good to swim
and play and give my son some focus, relaxed one on one time.
Today, I'm returning to morning yoga practice with my friends, and the topic
came up is fasting working for me? And it is. I have faithfully
stayed off the scale during my twenty eight day fast start, and here are
some of the non scale victories I have noticed so far. I have better
sleep, more energy, sharper focus, a sense of inner peace and joy,
more patience with my family. I have reduced joint pain. I do
not need to take insets anymore. I had a quick recovery from pneumonia.
I've reduced cravings. I have better food choices. I have more appetite control.
I can try something tempting without eating too much of that thing. My
clothes are fitting better. Yesterday I wore a pair of shorts, but I'm
sure would not have fit a month ago. There is more time in my
day to do what I want and need to do, and fewer food decisions
and less clean up. This probably isn't even an exhaustive list. But fasting
is amazing. So even if I gained weight, I would say fasting is
doing great things for me. Fasting is working. I hope you all have
a lovely day. And that was Mary wrote that on a Tuesday. Yes
I came community. Yeah, all are listening on a Wednesday. But every
Tuesday we have Transformation Tuesday, where people share, you know, how fasting
is transforming their life. And she also, I can tell was working through
the twenty eight day fast start because one of the days the lesson top is
is fasting redefine working. You know, we tend to think if we don't
understand fasting, you might think, well, it's just a way to lose
weight. That's certainly what I thought when I started. Oh it's just going
to help me lose weight. But it does so much more than affect the
number on the scale. The thing I loved about this is she's in her
twenty at day fast art and she already has this long list of things that
have improved in her life. And so yeah, she's like, you know,
even if she gets to the end of her fastart and she weighs in
on day twenty nine and she is one of those random people that gained weight,
she still believes fasting is working. And that's a powerful message because people
come into the community a lot and they'll say, you know, I've been
doing this for three months and I haven't lost any weight. I don't think
it's working for me, or does fasting just not work for some people.
But when you start talking to them and you ask them, well, what's
different, what's better, what's improved, they always have a long list of
things that they are seeing. So we are so weight focused and we need
to start really focusing on our whole bodies, our systems, because you can't
lose weight if your systems are out of whack. You can't lose weight if
you don't feel good, if you're not sleeping well, if you're in pain,
if you're hungry all the time. So I mean it all comes together,
it does. Weight loss is the effect of all of those good things
happening. Yeah, I agree, all right. So now we have a
question from a listener. This question is from Go Go Health in London.
Hi, I've been listening to your podcast for a while and am very motivated
by the science behind IF and success stories. By way of background, I
am an Asian girl living in London. I have a healthy weight and I
eat mostly clean. However, I bloat and get gassy easily, and I
have acne before my period. I do want to improve my gut, help
and balance my hormones, which are the motivation for IF. I found it.
When I fast for twenty four hours the following days, my appetite would
change, but not for the better. For example, even after a normal
lunch and or dinner, I would feel unsatisfied and want to eat, even
if it's eleven PM. When I abandon intermittent fasting and resume my three meals
a day, after a few days, my appetite would return to normal.
I really do want to incorporate IF into my life, but the change of
appetite really puts me off. Any advice on this please, yes, so
Go Go Health number one. I think your motivation's great improve gut health and
balancing your hormones. I think you're really going to feel a difference. Plus
fasting in itself is just really going to help your gut as for like you
say that when you fast for twenty four hours, So I'm not really sure,
you know, are you just randomly picking a day and fasting for twenty
four hours and then eating a dinner really quick and then closing your window?
And I don't know if you've ever consistently fasted like through a twenty eight day
fast start, like Jin describes in Fast Feust, Repeat, and like she
works through in the twenty eight day Fast Start Day by daybook. When you're
first starting, it is normal to have an increase in hunger because your body
is used to being fed constantly, and so a lot of that's clock hunger.
A lot of that is your circadian rhythm that needs to be reset,
and a lot of that is hormonal as well. But if you can just
really settle into a moderate fast and window and do that for twenty eight days
consistently, what you're going to find is that you are going to feel satisfied
and you are going to experience what we call appetite correction and you're not going
to be hungry forever. So it's really a process and the only way to
get there is through consistency. Yeah, I was going to say the same
thing. I'm not really sure how she has started off, but you never
have to fast for twenty four hours, and there's no protocol that recommends that
you do that. So think about again, like Sherry suggested, following twenty
eight day fast, art day by day and working your way in and also
working through the lessons, because that'll really help you understand the adaptation period.
Doctor Bert Hearing had a phrase for it in his book Fast five. He
called it compensatory over eating, and that is what you experience when your body
is not yet metabolically flexible and you're not fat adapted. So I want you
to imagine before and after. Before you're fat adapted, you really are not
well fueled during your fast. So at the beginning, you are not well
fueled during your fast. That's why it could be hard to exercise. Before
you're fat adapted, you might feel draggy. Then when your window opens because
you are not well fueled during your fast, you are starving and then you
overeat. It's so common that I have a saved note about it. And
when people are new in the community and they say, I'm binging, I'm
on day seven, and why is this happening, I just slap in that
shared note because it's so very And the difference comes once your body flips that
metabolic switch and you're metabolically flexible, Suddenly your body is able to tap into
your stored fuel while you're fasting. We've talked about this before. Sherry gave
us a number. It's like thousands and thousands of calories of stored energy.
I can't remember something, but there are a lot even you know, whether
it's your stored glycogen and your liver or your muscles or your fat stores.
We've got a lot of fuel on our bodies, and so when we're fast
and clean and we're fat adapted, our body can find all that fuel and
use it, and so you are well fueled during the fast. Then when
your window opens, you don't have that panic eating because your body hasn't been
just starving during the fast. Your body was well fueled. So if you're
just every now and then doing a little bit of fasting, or every now
and then you try to pop in a twenty four hour fast. I think
that's the hard part. You're doing over and over again, and you're not
getting to that metabolic flexibility that you want. So I would start with any
day fast art day by day. Pick the easiest ease in plan and ease
in if you want to, or the middle plan or whatever works for you,
but let your body adjust, and as you go through those daily lessons
in that book, you understand that there are a lot of weird things that
happen at the beginning that get better. If you always felt like that,
we would not be doing it as long as we're doing it and loving it.
You know, I'm ten years in now, and if it was miserable
and I felt like I had to binge every night, I would not be
living an enjoyable lifestyle. I would have quit nine years ago. Eventually,
what we hear is kind of the opposite of what you're experiencing and that you're
saying, like you when you eat normally three meals a day, just a
standard eating style that you don't really have issues with hunger or binging, especially
late at night. But what we hear a lot is people who while eating
that way, had issues with binging. Once they switched to intermitt fasting and
they get fat adapted and they really build up that fasting muscle, their desire
to binge actually goes away. And so that is something that you know,
Yes, in the early days, you're going to feel hungry. That's one
of those things you want to push through. I wouldn't structure super short windows.
Make sure that you're really eating to satiety and you're eating really satisfying foods
that are nutritious and fueling your body well for the fast as well. But
yeah, I think consistency is going to be the key for you. So
we have another question from Carolyn in Virginia. She said, Hi, ladies,
I have a question, and I feel like you love to get the
detailed submissions, so here it goes. I started intermittent fasting in twenty twenty
one, starting with a sixteen to eight schedule. I was one hundred and
fifty eight pounds at five foot three, and I fairly quickly. Within about
three months, I lost about twelve pounds and changed my eating window over time
to an eighteen six. Then life happened, vacations, celebrations and all kinds
of stuff, and I stopped fasting regularly. Still I didn't eat breakfast,
so I guess I was still fasting, but I definitely didn't watch what I
ate, and I ate anything and everything I wanted. I gained the weight
back. I am now back at it for the last two months, still
doing in eighteen six, but the weight is not coming off. I know
I need to give it time, and I'm okay with that. But here's
my one question. If you are fasting but you are not depleting your glycogen
stores, are there still good things happening in your body from the fast?
Thank you Jen and Sherry for all your great knowledge and sharing it with the
rest of us. All right, So the answer to that question, Carolyn,
is yes, there are great things happening. Even if someone does something,
as you know, it doesn't even seem like fasting to those of us
that practice fasting. But if you do something even like twelve twelve, you're
going to be getting benefits that the rest of the population who are eating from
sun up to sundown and late night snacks are not getting. So Yes,
with an eighteen six, even if you lose zero pounds with eighteen six,
you are having benefits that are occurring in your body, so the clean fast
gives you all sorts of benefits. I haven't looked at it. There's some
new study that just came out recently on five to two. I can't remember
the five to two approach, and I probably shouldn't be talking about it since
I don't have the details, but they had amazing benefits from five to two
health benefits from fasting twice a week for approximately thirty six hours exactly. I
don't remember the details, so I probably shouldn't have mentioned it, like I
said, But you know, even in the absence of weight loss, like
the Zoe study. For example, Tim Spector and the Zoe team they did
a big intermittent fasting experiment and they talked about it when I was with them
on the podcast in March, and they found that people who were doing intermittent
fasting very gently had health benefits. So people who study intermittent fasting, twelve
twelve is going to give benefits. And then you know, fasting more than
that, you'll still see benefits. Obviously, it's to fast longer, and
then you know your sweet spot for weight loss maybe different than a healthy intermittent
fasting routine, right, maybe twelve twelve is healthy, but that isn't your
weight loss sweet spot. Or maybe eighteen six is healthy, but it isn't
your weight loss sweet spot. And for me, there's just no getting around
it, especially as I've gotten older, what I choose to eat in my
eating window really does matter. And you know you mentioned three years ago you
were able to lose weight on sixteen eight, and I don't know how your
body might have changed, but I know once I went through menopause, my
body changed and the way I could eat before menopause is not the same way
I could eat after menopause. And I had several years as an intermittent faster
before I went through menopause, So I know it's just not you know,
fasting changed it. It was pre menopause postmenopause, that's where the changes occurred.
So I do have to be more careful with what I choose to eat.
That doesn't mean that I can't eat delicious food. I eat delicious food
every day, but I don't have ice cream as frequently. I no longer
drink alcohol, so right, and I wanted to say too. You know
a lot of times people ask, like, what is the magic window for
a weight loss but that's going to be different from everybody, so you really
kind of have to play around with that. And if you're a person that
you really really don't want to restrict your food at all and you just want
to eat everything that's delicious, you know there are things you can do to
get your body to encourage your body to flip the switch, and including activity
is one of those. You want to burn through some glycogen to get your
body to flip the switch, get more active, lift some weights, add
more muscle mass. So just adding increasing your activity, you cannot that old
say you cannot out exercise a bad diet. That's true to an extent.
But if you're hanging out around eighteen six nineteen five and you're content living that
lifestyle, but you're wanting to encourage more weight loss, I'm not saying exercise
for calorie deficit purposes. I'm saying exercise to burn up that glicogen from the
food you're eating so that your body can more efficiently flip the switch. And
again, food quality. I just wanted to pop that back in there because
you mentioned that several times that you have been eating anything and everything, and
so I would look to that because even if you go back to my first
book, Delayed on Deny, I talk in there about you can eat more
in your window, then we'll support weight loss even back then and now over
time. You know, obviously that message needs to get out there. Even
in Delayed on Deny, I didn't say you can eat as much as you
want, whatever you want, as long as you have intermittent fasting with this
length of a window. So we're all different, you know, think about
just your own self. I bet you were able to eat differently when you
were sixteen years old versus the way you can eat now, Or like you
look at a teenage boy and how much he can eat versus what happens when
he's thirty and forty. Right, So bodies changed. Lots of things happen
as we get older. Your mitochondria may not be functioning as well. I
mean, there's so many things that go on as we age, and so
things that worked for us when we were twenty or even five years ago,
our body does change. We have to respond to that. And now it's
time for our segment called What's Your Why. Most of us have weight loss
in mind, and it is absolutely fine and appropriate for that to be part
of our why, even the major motivation. I get it. If you
have a lot of weight to lose, that could be your main why.
However, there is so much more to what intermittent fasting can do for us
beyond weight loss, and that is why in twenty eight day fast Start 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 if you intermittent fasting as a lifestyle. So today we have
a wife from Jen in Fairfax, Virginia. She said, I started IF
in August twenty eighth, twenty twenty three, and I've lost twenty five pounds
to date. I just read the fast Start chapter on crafting my why.
This is not something I could have done back in August. When I started.
I was in a bad mental state at the time, but intermitt fasting
has helped turn that around completely. For those of you just starting, it
really can be that amazing. I didn't believe it then, but I do
now. Here is my why. I choose to live an intermittent fasting lifestyle
because I want to be a healthy, vibrant person who my family can be
proud of. I want to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, improve my
strength and endurance during physical activity, reduce my thyroid medications, and stave off
diabetes and Parkinson's disease, both of which are in my family. I never
want to give up the energy that the clean fast brings. Intermittent fasting in
the mindset it has fostered in me, has made me a better, more
reflective, more self aware person. I want to age gracefully through menopause and
beyond, while maintaining and strengthening the health and personal growth that intermittent fasting has
gifted me. Intermittent fasting makes me feel joyful and alive. And I could
not love your why more Jen, I love it. I think that's great,
you know, and I really think so too. I loved it,
Jen, Thank you for sharing it. My why has completely changed. When
I first started in twenty fourteen. When I finally didn't quit, it was
I got to lose this weight. I was obese. I had to lose
the weight because I was just miserable. I knew I didn't have to be
obese. Forever. I knew there was a way I could not be obese
and intermittent fasting was going to be it, and that was true, but
it does so much more for me. You know, I moved through the
world feeling good in my body. You know, I'm able to go to
pilates. I want to be strong. My why has really evolved. And
again when I wrote delayed on Deny in twenty sixteen, and I keep coming
back to that because I'm revising it right now, so I keep going back
through it. You know, I didn't exercise. I was afraid it would
make me gain weight if I built muscle, which sounds so dumb. But
now I'm like doing pilates, swimming in the pool shere a year. We're
hot to try it when you get here. I've got my water rates yep.
Yes. And our pool is just small enough that it is really warm,
which is good because you know I like warm water. So Will came
over this morning and I got out my weights and he's floating around on the
pool and I'm doing my arms and it's so much fun. And I'm like,
I want to be strong, and I want to be capable, and
I want to age gracefully and just everything that Jim said, more self aware,
just so many positive things. It's really it's like it's transformed me into
a whole other person. Yeah, I think it does that. And I
was thinking while I was like reading and you were talking too, like I
also came for weight loss. I think probably ninety five percent of the people
that are in our community came to DDD for because they want weight loss.
And that's a great goal. But then once you start fasting and you start
noticing all the non scale victories, and you start noticing your energy increase and
how just vibrant and alive you feel and not weighed down by food all the
time. And I think your why continues to grow and evolve. And you
know, when I was forty, I wasn't thinking about aging gracefully. But
I'm running fifty one next week, I think, And suddenly I'm like,
I was out hiking in the mountains of Colorado last week, and you know,
I was able to keep up with my almost twenty five year old son,
And you know, I really think to myself, could I have done
this? And I've always had really sensitive lungs. When I lived in Colorado,
I cannot hike well. I was very physically fit, I was at
a goal weight. I worked out all the time. I was very muscular,
more so than I am now, but I had horrible lung capacity,
and I was just amazed at how well I could breathe out there hiking.
That was like mind blowing to me. So I believe I have gave me
that. Yeah. So really, beyond the weight loss, there's so much
more that fasting can do, and I'm so grateful. So we have another
question this week, and this was sent in by Jennifer and Colorado. She
said, Hi, I've been fasting for over two years now and I'm not
using much weight. My inflammation is so much better, so I don't intend
to stop. I am now fifty one and I started on hormone replacement therapy
in June this year due to starting menopause in the last year and a half.
I fast clean, black coffee and water only my eating windows on average
five hours each day. Fasting is not hard for me. I've been really
focused on eating something high protein and small when I open, than eating a
larger meal later without snacking in between. With that, I do see about
a half a pound of weight loss or less a week by averaging my daily
weight, but I have to really stay on top of it to see that
weight loss, So sometimes I might gain. If I don't stay on that
schedule, like a two meals a day with fasting, I will gain.
This has cumulatively come out to very little weight loss in two years, like
seven pounds. I finally went to a functional doctor to take a deeper dive
into the hormone replacement therapy and I have requested to have my fasted insulin done
and it resulted in a value of sixteen. I'm not sure what to do
with that knowledge, but it still seems high for someone who has fasted as
long as I have. I'm hoping to get some thoughts on that number and
if that could be an issue with the weight loss. Note I do eat
all of the things, and I try to make healthy choices. I don't
binge or eat sugar every day, however, I love food and cooking.
I never eat fast food or drink soda. I do drink alcohol once or
twice a week, so I'm trying to cut down on that. I'm five
foot and one hundred and ninety pounds in a size twelve larch, the same
as when I started. If I've always carried more weight than recommended and I've
done all of the diets. Thank you so much. I love listening to
you both, all right. So I know it's frustrating to not see the
weight loss that you're hoping for. And I think it's interesting that you do
see about a half a pound a week if you have a snack and a
meal in about I guess probably a five hour window or so. I think
that's what I took from that. But if you're having two full meals the
day, you gain weight. And I'm gonna be honest, if I had
two full meals a day, I would gain weight too. And my body
doesn't need two full meals worth the food today. A hearty snack and a
meal is what works well for my body. And that was also, you
know, while I was losing weight, that's what I did. So I
understand. I know that maybe sometimes we wish we could eat more and still
lose the weight, but maybe that might not be the reality of what we
can do. I really think we need less food than we think. You
know, we're so used to giant portion sizes. You know, you go
to restaurants and you see how much food is there, and then you like
you might go out with like your grandma, and she like is always a
tiny eater, and sheats like a bird, and you see the little tiny
amount of food she eats. I just really think that we're in a culture
of eating too much and that just feels normal, Like it feels normal to
eat a lot, so we're not really supposed to be eating that much anyway.
I kind of got off the topic a little bit. But if you
don't like the idea of a snack meal and that feels too restrictive for you,
then you may really love ADF. Alternate day where you think in ADF
because you know, if you're stuck and you mentioned that you have always carried
more weight than recommended and you've done all of the diets and your fasting insulin
is still sixteen. By the way, I wanted to focus on that for
a second. You don't know what it was before, so it might have
come down dramatically. What if it was forty and now it's sixteen. I
mean, I don't know. I don't know what it was before, but
it could have been really really high and now it's sixteen, and that could
be huge improvement. So you may do really well with ADF where you think
about it along the lines of like a thirty six twelve thirty six hour fath
than a twelve hour eating window, or you could do the five hundred calorie
down day option that still would be over that thirty six hour period. You'd
have that one five hundred calorie meal, you know, around dinner time,
kind of a thing on the down day, and then the next day and
up day with three meals. And you might enjoy that better because it sounds
like you enjoy having days where you eat more, so you might really love
the up day, and then the down day would be just enough to get
the fat loss started. And also ADF is fantastic for continuing to bring down
insulin, which it sounds like you need, right, And I was going
to say too. You know, sometimes when people say they average five hours
a day, it's kind of like not tracking your weight but jumping on the
scale every once in a while and then saying you're not losing weight. But
then we encourage people to weigh every day and track their weight and they find
out that, oh, they really are losing weight, but they weren't really
getting the clear picture. Might just wighing sporadically. And I feel that way
about windows a lot when people are like I average five hours, Like,
how many times does that window really end up a lot longer than five hours.
So that's another thing I might really focus on is really track your window.
If you want to stay on a daily eating window approach, really keep
an eye on that, because it's really easy to have it in your head.
Oh, I do a five hour window, and that five hour window
is really closer to six most days, and then you're cheating yourself out of
an hour of fat burning every day. And it's also really possible to just
really eat beyond tiety if your window is longer than it needs to be.
So I would encourage you to really kind of hone in on that, make
sure you're not having window creep as well. Yeah, that's what happens to
me. If my window is too long, I overeat full stop. That's
it. I eat too much. It just happens, you know. That's
why I can't have an early window. And then I get hungry again,
and then my window's nine hours, you know, and I've eaten too much
that I ate more than my body needed. So I just really do better
even now, even in maintenance, I do better with most of the time
stick into a five hour window. But if I wanted to lose weight,
I mean I don't need to lose weight, but if I wanted to lose
weight, I would need to really keep my eye on it. Yeah,
five hours or less pretty much every day. I want to add one other
thing too that I've just been reading a lot about, and that is how
beneficial increasing dietary fiber post menalpozzle. Man, it's great for anybody, but
postmentalpozzle, and especially if you're having some high insulin. I don't know what
your humiglomity would see is, but fiber just is really really great at helping
our bodies use the hormones more efficiently and helping our livers work optimally, helping
your digestion, your blood sugars, like all of that helps your gut microbiome,
which helps your hormones. So I'm not sure. You know, you
say you love food and cooking, but I'm not sure like what that entails,
like how do you cook? So like, if you want to make
another tweak, really start focusing on adding high fiber foods to your window and
see how you feel and how that benefits you. Because I'm a blo in
that. Yeah, at those beans, but slowly at them. Slowly,
Yeah, don't if you'll only eat ten grams of fiber, now, don't
try to hit thirty grams all of a sudden. You're gonna do You're gonna
feel Barbara that was in the advanced group so many years ago. She did
a podcast with me early on. She's like, og, yeah, remember
her, she was great, and she I just remember when she added a
prebiotic at some point. Do you remember this? She added a prebiotic,
which is fiber that's supposed to feature gut microbiome, and then all of a
sudden, she like gained ten pounds and she was having horrible gastric that distressed
it. And she's like, oh no, what's happening. But she didn't
know it was the prebiotic. She's like, I just gained ten pounds and
I feel terrible and I'm all bloated. And we drilled down and we figured
out it came from her starting the pre biotic. But she's just like it
was I think it was right after I wrote Feast Without Fear, which was
twenty seventeen, which was focused on healing your gut and the gut microbiome.
So she like went all in, added plant foods and the prebiotic, and
she was super bloated and put on ten pounds. But she traced it back
and she's like, oh, that's what it was. It was too much.
It was more than her g could that her gut couldn't handle her gut.
I couldn't handle it. So that just popped into my head. Is
something to think about. You know, you can read fiber fueled or get
really excited and you may be like, oh, no, this was terrible.
I shouldn't have done it. It was just too fast for your body.
So she scaled back. She introduced things more slowly. Yes, took
it a little more slowly, and then she got back to normal and even
better after that. But I just wanted to pop that in there because I
just remember, we've been doing this a long time. But ye, take
it slow when you're adding that fiber in. We have a book recommendation this
week. I'm really excited about. This is from Kate in Seattle. She
said, I am reading Mindset by Carol Dweck, and so far it seems
very helpful. It's about choosing a growth mindset over a fixed mindset or limited
mindset, basically believing that it's okay to ask questions and to fail because then
you can learn something and do better. She says. Another book that talks
about similar ideas is Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better by Pima Kodrin.
I'm not sure how to say that I like the audiobook because it's in her
voice. The book is very short, and it's actually a commencement speech that
she gave, but so much of it is applicable to how we approach challenges
in our lives and how to make the most of them. And Katie,
thank you for sharing that. People who've been listening to me for a long
time and reading my books know that I highly recommend the book Mindset. It
really changed the way I parented and the way I was as a school teacher.
After I read it, I actually heard her speak at the National Gifted
Conference and she was great. But when we talk to children, for example,
the way that we talk to them can foster either a growth mindset or
a fixed mindset. Like if you say to a kid, you're so smart,
then they just internalize, hey, i'm smart. It's a characteristic of
me. It's fixed, I'm smart and then when something's hard for them,
they then they feel like an imposter. Well, if I was smart,
this wouldn't be hard. And then they like they don't want to do the
hard thing, or they resist anything hard because I'm smart. If this is
hard, I might not be smart. But instead, if you talk to
them, you sure worked hard. You're working so hard on this, then
they recognize that the characteristic is working hard and that they're growing and that they're
able to do hard things by working hard. And the experiments that she did
have ever talked about this with you share the puzzles. No, they gave
them puzzles like they gave the kids. They told them they were really smart,
and then they gave them the puzzle, and when they did the puzzle,
they're like, you're really good at puzzles, which is the fixed mindset,
you are good at puzzles. Then they gave them increasingly harder puzzles,
and then the kids who they told they were good at puzzles, when the
puzzles got harder, they resisted them. They suddenly weren't feeling good at puzzles
because they were afraid they weren't going to be good at puzzles. Well,
I'm not good at puzzles. That's a lot. But on the flip side,
when they told the kids doing the puzzles, you sure worked hard on
that puzzle. Here's another puzzle, Well, you worked hard on that puzzle.
Those kids were willing to try the harder puzzles because they were told they
worked hard on the puzzle. So I was like, okay, never tell
a kid they're good at math. Never tell a kid they're pretty. I
mean, those are all fixed characteristics. You know, tell a kid you
really fixed yourself up great today, you're feeling good in that outfit or something.
You know. Focus on things like that instead of like things that are
fixed, like you are smart, you are pretty, you are good at
that. It's okay to tell them when they're good at something. You know.
Don't get me wrong, but say you have a real talent for math,
and when you work really hard at it, you get even better.
You know, think about it just like that. Yeah, I was just
gonna say too, Like it's that whole negativity breeds negativity type thing. Positivity
spreads positive. You know, it's it's catching. They whether they say a
smile is catching. Like whatever you focus on, that's all you're going to
see right. So even if you're struggling, if you can look at the
things you're doing really great, then I don't know, I just feel like
it changes everything from oh my gosh, the scale's not moving, this isn't
working, I'm not doing well. I must be doing something wrong, to
I'm fasting really clean every day, you know, choosing healthy foods for my
body, and I feel great. Like that's just a whole different message,
whether you say it in your head or you say it out loud, or
even my body is broken, I can't lose weight. Something's wrong with me
versus huh. I've been overweight for a long time. My body has some
challenges, but I've got some tools that I can use to work with my
body and things can get better. Right. So we have a question from
a long term faster well. I wouldn't say she's long term. I misread
that twenty twenty three is not well. Goodness less than a year seear okay
Struggling in Spokane, she says, Hi, I'm a thirty eight year old
mother of two young daughters. With my youngest daughter, I was diagnosed with
gestational diabetes and I struggled with a healthy ae C post pregnancy. IF has
been my lifestyle choice since August of twenty twenty three, and during that time
I have lost weight from one hundred and fifty three pounds to one hundred and
thirty eight pounds. I'm five foot three and I would like to get down
between one point thirty to one thirty five, but I am comfortable with my
current weight. A huge good job, she says. I fast clean,
and I give myself a four to six hour eating window every day with no
dietary restrictions. After my daughters were born, I tried many different methods to
lose weight and get my A and C and fasting insulin and healthy ranges,
but intermittent fasting is the only thing I have found success with. Lately,
though, I've been struggling with heartburn around the sixteen hour mark of my fast.
I hesitate to take any medication because I don't want to break my fast
and I love that, but the sixteen to twenty four hour fast high.
I have tried cutting down on coffee and other acidic foods, but this has
not seemed to help. Do you have any suggestions and is this a common
eye of problem? Well, it's actually a common problem in society just in
general. Here's some statistics about that. I just googled it up real quick.
More than sixty million Americans this is as of twenty twenty, experience heartburn
at least once a month. Here's another statistic. Acid reflux affects nearly a
third of US adults weekly, and twenty percent of the people in the United
States actually have gird It's the most common gastro intestinal disorder in the United States
twenty percent. So if we think about that and how prevalent it would be
in the population as a whole, and that's just everybody, then we would
expect that it would also show up in intermittent fasters. So this would be
a conversation to have with your doctor. It's just really a very common problem
in general, and fasting make it worse. I mean, it would just
depend on what's going on with you. We have so many people in the
community who have struggled with reflux for a long time and they say that it
improves with fasting. But on the flip side, it sounds like for you
you're fasting, it tends to happen and get worse at a certain point of
your fast. So this is where I would like, I said, talk
to your doctor, see if you can figure out what's going on. As
far as what wouldn't break a fast. Baking soda doesn't break a fast.
That might give you relief, but if it's happening every day, this is
a conversation to have with your doctor to see if there's something going on that's
physiological, like maybe your esophageal sphincter isn't working properly or something you might before
you talk to a doctor. You say you've cut down on coffee. There
are a lot of people who just cannot drink black coffee on an empty stomach.
It really just is too acidic for them. Now, there are some
low acid coffees out there, and I've heard from people in the community who
switch to them and their reflux and heartburn or in their fast completely went away.
So I don't know if you want to investigate that and find a low
acid coffee to try, or just remove it for a while and see how
you feel, because then you're going to know this is a coffee issue and
not you know, a fascining issue like you're asking about. But here's some
other things I want your keep in mind and think about too. Stress can
really really affect reflux, any heartburn, reflux, stress can really greatly affect
that. So I don't know what part of your day sixteen hours falls in
and what's going on in your day at that time, but you might look
and see is there a connection between stress and when your heartburn comes on.
Another thing you might take a look at, is where are you at in
your cycle? Because hormones can affect reflux and heartburn, and like it's known
that like progesterone is a relaxing hormone and it can relax your sphincter, so
it could be if it's only happening during parts of the month, it could
be hormone related as well. So anyway, those are just some thoughts and
you might kind of jot down and see if you maybe keep a little journal
of when it happens and what helps it and what doesn't and you can take
that to your doctors who So anyway, good luck with that and I hope
you get some relief. Now, I just want to take a minute and
share. You know, we talk a lot about internet fasting simplifying life and
making life better. And when I started fasting I found out to be true
in so many ways, and the first thirty years of my up until I
was forty one, when I found fasting, every day I was thinking about
diet, what I was going to eat, how I was going to eat,
And then once that all went away with fasting, I'd really just started
looking at other areas of my life that I wanted to simplify or improve.
And over the years, I've just found things that make life easier or healthier,
keep me feeling great or sleep being great. From meal delivery to skipping
the doctor and ordering my own labs like my fasting insulin, to eliminating artificial
sense in my home and using essential oils instead. I have found some favorite
companies that really do improve my life. My latest favorite is my climate controlled
bed. So if you're interested in cleaning up your eating windows or your home,
or you just want to sleep in comfort, visit my favorite things at
fastpeasrepeat dot com, slash Sherry that's sah ri I and there's discounts for all
of the products that I love. And now it's time for our tweak of
the week. You know, I always say tweak it till it's easy,
but the tweak that works for me might not be the one that works for
you. And also the tweak that works for you when you are a premnopause
might not be the tweak that works for you post metapause. Right, so
it's super helpful to hear how other intermittent fasters are making intermittent fasting work for
them. This tweak was submitted by Jessica in Denver. She said, I
started with a nineteen to five fasting schedule, which pretty immediately was apparent was
the right eating window for me. The thing I struggled with the most was
what I was eating. There were just so many foods that didn't make me
feel super great, even when I was fasting and feeling good most of the
day prior to eating. I've learned to pay much closer attention to what I
eat and how I feel the next day when I wake up, Am I
bloated? Am I sluggish? Et cetera? And I make sure that I
don't eat those foods too often. As we all know, it's a lifestyle,
not a diet, and I love to splurge on things that I know
my body doesn't love once in a blue moon, but on the whole.
I'm starting to eat more foods that my body loves and that keep me fueled
and happy for my busy life. And I love that. Just the motivation
to feel good is a really strong motivation to eat foods that make you feel
good. Yeah. Oh, and I have to share this on the podcast.
I haven't shared it yet. I shared it in the community. I
drank champagne. Oh yep, I'm sharing it with the world now. You
know. I went over a year without drinking any alcohol at all and pretty
much thought, yeah, I'm not going to drink any more alcohol. I'm
done with it. Then when we bought the house, the realtor gave us
a bottle of dom par and Yon at closing. Wow. Yeah, that
was a very nice closing gift, nicest one we've ever gotten. He is
a fabulous realtor. And so I was like, well, I love champagne,
but I don't drink anymore. So what do you do when you are
presented with a bottle of dom per and Yon? You drink it? Anyway,
So Chad and I shared it one of our first nights in the in
the new house, I cooked dinner, we shared the bottle of champagne,
and I had half of a bottle of champagne, so that's two glasses of
champagne. And I slept like crap. My heart was pounding one in the
middle of the night and I woke up and I said, this is why
I do not drink. So once again, my body confirmed. Just as
we were, I heard from Jessica, listen to your body. My twenty
four year old son is in Ireland and he has nothing to do over there,
and he said, yeah, we just spend most of our nights sitting
in a pub drinking guinness or Irish whiskey. And when he got when I
was with him, he said, I don't think I'm gonna drink anymore.
And I said, really, why tell me about that. He said,
it's making my anxiety really bad. And he said, I wake up the
middle of the night and I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack,
and my heart's beating out of my chest. And he said, and
I feel awful, and then I don't sleep well, and then I wake
up the next morning and I feel like I haven't slept and I still feel
anxious. And I said, that is a really good reason to not drink.
In the evenings. Yeah, that's exactly how it makes me feel.
It doesn't do that to you, or does it. It really doesn't.
Yeah, I'm a fast alcohol metabolizer. Though he must be like me,
slow alcohol metabolizer. He may be. Yeah. Yeah. And even while
we were out there, and he drove a couple days and I drove a
couple of days, and we were in Denver, which is like beer capital
of the world, and I said, we were getting something to eat and
he said, if you want me to drive, I'll drive so you can
have a beer, because I know you don't really drink except you're on vacation.
And I said, no, I'm good, I'm fine. You know.
I said, do you want to have a beer? And he said
no, Like it took him like five weeks in Ireland and he's like,
I don't think I want to drink anymore. Yeah, well, do I
regret having the don Perignon? No, when I do it again, because
I had never had it before. It's one of those like mythical experiences.
Yeah, you like grow up hearing all like Champagne don Perignon. It's the
fanciest thing. And so I look around at people drinking around me, and
I don't feel even a little bit wistful or sad. But I would have
felt wistful and sad had Chad been sitting there drinking a bottle down there,
And was it really delicious? It was fine, It was fine, it
was good, it was light, it was it wasn't like, it wasn't
offensive it anyway, it had a good taste. I do love the taste
of champagne. But it just reinforced why I don't drink anymore, and so
I'm less likely to be wistful about other people drinking. Like literally, just
a few days before, I had friends that were visiting and we were at
Brookgren Gardens eating at the restaurant there, and someone next to us was drinking
this crisp looking white wine, and I'm like, oh, I miss white
wine. It's so delicious. Then I was like, okay, I really
don't don't miss the way it makes me feel anyway. I mean, I
don't sleep great after a night of drinking. And I have found now like
if I want to enjoy margarita, I need to do it at three o'clock
in the afternoon, so it's like out of my system. By Betty If
I had a margarite at three o'clock in the afternoon, I would have to
go to bed at like five o'clock. That's so funny. It would absolutely
put me out. I think it energizes me. Oh oh, no,
alcohol only energizes me as long as I keep drinking. See that's the problem.
It's me not processing it. Well yep, anyway, yep, it's
just as your system down. Yeah, well, all right. We love
to leave you with inspiration or motivational quotes, and this week we have a
message from Katrina and it's a quote by Anne Mather and I look she Ashley
has a Facebook page. It's just full of really great things. You might
look her up and follow her. It's m A t h u r' is
how you spell her last name. The quote is Gratitude is simply adding an
and it's overwhelming and a privilege. It's tiring and incredible, it's monotonous and
wild. Gratitude increases your peripheral vision. Instead of focusing on the heart,
the bad, scary, you also see the good, privilege, wonder,
and joy. Katrina shared, I don't remember when or where I first heard
the idea of two things can be true. But I know it has helped
me think and respond to others in a way that feels strong and empathetic.
I'm always looking for ways to tune into gratitude. When I read this quote
the other day, I wanted to share it because it was a beautiful expression
of the two things can be true idea. I hope it can resonate with
others the way it has with me. And I tell you what, it
just made me think of being a mom that whole like it's overwhelming and a
privilege. It's tiring and incredible, monotonous and wild in that parenthood in a
nutshell. Yep, yep, I'm the see. I just got back from
vacation, so I was thinking vacation. Vacation is always tiring, but it's
so incredible, so that's why you keep doing it. Yep. Well,
thank you for sharing that, Katrina. 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 to Jen Stevens 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,