Episode 18: Bio-individuality and What Foods Work for Your Body, What's Your WHY? and More

Welcome to Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens, author
of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat, and I'm Sherry Bullock,
longtime intermittent faster and health and wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this
podcast is for educational and motivational purposes only, and is not intended to provide
medical or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are not doctors, so make sure
to check with your trusted healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes
to any medical treatments or medications. Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an
experienced intermittent faster, tune in each week to get inspired, to learn,
and to have some fun along the way. Hi, everybody, we are
so glad you're here today. Welcome to this week's episode of the Fast Feast
Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life Podcast. How are you doing today, Sherry,
I'm doing fabulous. I'm doing mostly fabulous. Fall is here? Know I've
said that sad voice. Well, listen when I said I'm doing fabulous,
this whole flash went through my brain about how cool it is outside and I'm
wearing long sleeves and yeah, but I was trying not to be an ere
I know. I even said that in my ear voice it's starting to get
dark early. But I had just shared with Jen before we started recording that
I just got a new fire pit and I love to sit out in front
of a fire pit, and I have not had one since I left Kansas
City in twenty ten. So I'm trying to use that as my motivation to
like fall there we go. That's a good reason. Hooray for a fire
pit. There's always something good, right. I got my jeans on today
and they fit from last year. They're loose. These they're very loose.
Yeah, you know. Now I'm plant based at home nowadays, and my
body feels so good that way, and my body loves it. So my
jeans are loose. I can tell your skin and your face is just like
vibrant. Well, here's something so interesting, puffy looking at all? I
am very puffy. I realized, you know, I had never changed what
I was eating unless the goal was I wanted to lose weight. And so
when I did my whole food plant based experiment in the end of twenty twenty
two for sixty days through it right after Christmas, and I stuck to it.
It was because I wanted to see how it impacted my gut, because
I was getting ready to do Zoe again, and so I was like,
I want to see what happens if I eat whole food plant based, what
that does with my gut, what happens when I'm wearing a CGM. It
was kind of experimenting for me, and I felt so good. Then I
reintroduced everything back and had you know, I realized that eggs made me sluggish,
dairy made me sluggish, meat made me sluggish. And I kept talking
about how great I felt back when I was the whole food plant based.
I'm like, well, wait, why did I quit doing that? And
it's because it's really hard to do when you're out and about. So I
kind of was like, I don't know, maybe I had my own kind
of diet brain, like, well, if I can't be whole food plant
based one hundred percent of the time, I just might as well not even
do it. But then I was like, well, that's really dumb.
So I can do it very easily at home, and then just when I'm
out and traveling, you know, if there's a little cheese, a little
egg, a little whatever. I'm fine. So when I went on hormone
replacement therapy, I started getting breakouts again. Like I used to have really
bad hormonal acne when I was in my twenties and thirties, and that all
went away. But HRT I suddenly was getting those chin things again. But
you may not notice. My skin is really really clear right now. Whole
food plant based, My body loves it. Yeah, and I'm tending a
little lower fat just because of that, you know, not eating dairy at
home and egg at home. That was a big source of well. I
know, like whole food plant based isn't exactly like vegetarian or vegan, but
I think of flexitarian and yeah, like where you're mainly this way but that
you may occasionally add in some meat or dairy. Yep, exactly. I
think Marian whole food plant based. Like for me, I would not be
like, oh, I can't have that potato soup at a restaurant because it
has maybe it has a chicken broth bas or dairy in it, right like,
so I don't worry about that. But at home, it's so easy
to do, and I feel amazing. I'm sleeping great, my skin looks
good, and like I said, my jeans are loose. So and I'm
like, let me ask you this, if you really want to go have
your favorite she crab soup, Oh, I have it right, yep.
When when our friend Sue was visiting, I had been eating plant based at
home and we went out and I had plenty of dairy but also, okay,
I'm gonna go to tell more about more information than I normally do.
I was so constipated, and I'm never constipated, you know how regular I
am. We went and I had you know, been plant based at home,
and then I had she creb soup and I had hush puppies and I
had the crab nachos down and rolls inlet and then I was like my whole
tummy was like bloated, and I was constipated. And then like as soon
as I was, you know, not going out anymore, as like I'm
having beans, I like made myself a huge pot of rancho cordo beans and
back to normal. But I just feel really great with a lot of fiber.
And it's funny, you know again, I never I never want to
diet again. To people might think it sounds like I'm not though, I'm
just eating in a way that makes me feel really good. And that's really
what it's all about. It really really is. And it's weird though,
Like I really, I've said it before. I need starches to be satisfied.
You know. We were recording two episodes today. We just recorded with
Roxy, which y'all listened to last week. But I just got back from
Arizona and the food there that they serve us at the conference that I went
to, I think you would call it Paleou imagine a buffet where I mean,
it's very clean food, the furs, like the beginning is like spinach,
and then you could put stuff on it like cucumbers and carrots and a
dressing, and then it's got broccoli and then I mean here on the buffet,
maybe a hot dish of broccoli, maybe some butternut squash, and then
a bunch of meat. Do you know how unsatisfying that was for me?
Oh my god, I'm sure very unsatisfied because I didn't eat the meat because
I'm really I'm feeling better without means. They had beans a couple times,
but we went we went to the restaurant it was one one of the nights
or one of the days they had. Lunch was provided, but I was
like, I just cannot eat at this buffet another single time. I can't.
If they would have some potatoes or something, I would be so happy,
but I was like, I just can't. So we went to the
restaurant and I had this amazing sandwich. It was like a torta. I
guess they call it. I don't know Mexican for sandwich maybe, but it
had the most amazing bread and portabella mushrooms and it had roasted peppers on it
and some kind of aoli, which, of course you know that's not that's
got whatever it eggs didn't have it did not have any beans at all,
but that bread and I ate it and I was so satisfied. Oh I
had some Mexican street corn on the side, and of course that had dairy
and it was so good. And I was satisfied after that meal in a
way I had not been satisfied in five days. I have to have food
for society. Well, it's like you with meat, you know, when
we've been together and you haven't had enough meat. Because here I am eating
all these plant based foods and you're like, you got to have the meat.
But people just look at me like I'm crazy because they're all gluten free
and everything's dairy free, and I feel just I was so hungry. Yeah,
so once I got my bread, I felt better. If they would
serve potatoes, I would feel better. I gotta have the starchy carbs anyway,
bi own individuality. I was gonna say, I wonder if you couldn't
just like stop the hotel lobby and say, I'm part of this conference and
at dinner, is anyway that you could just bring me out of baked potato.
Oh my god, that would have made me so happy. If they
just had a baked potato, I would have eaten it right. But it
was really nice not to have to worry, you know, because I'm not
like, oh I have dietary restrictions. I can't eat this, I can't
eat that. I never want to be like that, but it's really really
easy for me to eat at home, plant based and then when I'm out,
no big deal, and my body loves it. Well, let's jump
into a celebration from a listener. This is from Carla Lun. She shares
I've been fasting for six months now. There are so many things I can
list as victories. During this time. I have lost twenty two point two
pounds and twenty seven point two inches. In the previous six months, I
had only lost one point four pounds and I was trying hard to lose weight.
I no longer think about food all day. I have more energy,
I sleep better. I usually walk three miles on my lunch. Today I
actually ran one mile and I haven't run since March of twenty twenty two.
I am now eight point two pounds away from my goal weight. I selected
this goal weight about eight years ago as it was the higher end of a
healthy weight for someone of my height. Then truthfully, I don't think I
ever believed I can achieve that weight, But here I am so close to
it, and honestly believe I can get lower as I still have plenty more
fat that my body can live off during my fasts. This has been the
easiest thing I have ever done for a weight loss, and I have had
two different gastric surgeries over the last eight years. This community has been so
helpful to me on this journey, and I'm truly grateful to jin Carla.
Thank you so much for sharing that. I love it. I think it's
so important to emphasize she had been trying really really hard to lose weight for
the previous six months and had even had different gastric surgeries over the past eight
years. And when we understand the way intermittent fasting works and why it works,
why different than calorie restriction or the other diets that we've done in the
past, or even just eating less because our stomachs are smaller after the surgery.
The clean fast has a power to it that you it's not just calories
and calories out as Carla is showing, right. Yeah, and I you
know, I get it. I was there when I found intermint fasting.
I had just been steadily gaining weight. My activity levels had changed, my
eating style had changed a bit, I had relocated across the country, I
had different stress and I was doing I was fighting tooth and nail to stop
weight gain, right, And I was counting points, I was counting macros,
I was counting calories. I was like doing it all, trying to
make sure I, like hit all these parameters to lose weight. And I
was not losing weight. And so many people ask me why I was one
of those people that gained weight initially when I started intermint fasting and people are
like, how did you stick with it? And I'm like, well,
nothing else was working, so it had to be my answer, like,
I just gave your body time. Did you gain like eight pounds when in
the first six weeks and you're like, well this doesn't work, But well,
I mean how long I'd been restricting, right, And so yeah,
I'm sure that my body was suddenly like, oh my gosh, what are
we doing with all this nutrition she's throwing at us in this eating window.
So yeah, it took my body a little bit to figure it out,
and I'm sure my body needed that little metabolic boost at the beginning, and
I was I mean, I would tell people I'm eating more than ever and
I'm losing weight. So well, I love that you gave at the time.
This is why in the twenty eight day fast Start, I really am
serious that I don't want people to weigh for the first twenty eight days because
it can really be discouraging and in the community, I actually feel kind of
bad shehring. Sometimes somebody will be in the twenty eight day fast Start group
and they'll say, well, I know Jen said not to way, but
I got on the scale and I'm down four pounds already, and I never
say, yeah, congratulations, obviously, stop weighing, get off the scale,
stop it, bry of the way. I'm like, well, I
know that feels good, but slip next week, so skype it, get
off the stop it. Because we've also seen the opposite. We've seen a
lot of people who are like, I know Jen said not to weigh,
and I felt so good. I got on the scale and I'm up four
pounds, and I'm like, I meant it. Don't get on the scale.
So and if you do, don't tell me everybody, because I'm telling
you now. You don't had to tell on yourself, don't. I was
a believer like when I started, because I am a researcher, so I've
done all this research before I started, and I believed in the science of
it. But a lot of people haven't done that homework in advance, and
they're here and they're like, well, I don't know if this is gonna
work, but it works for other people, so I'm going to do it.
And all they see is, oh my god, this doesn't work.
Right, I'm getting bigger. Yeah, so it's really easier just to stay
off the scale. Don't say you're twenty eight, start eight. Stay off
the scale the first twenty eight days. I promised. We don't want to
celebrate or be at either way for the first twenty eight days. You have
one goal, and that is to let your body adjust to the clean fast.
And so Sherry's example of gaining eight pounds in six weeks is why.
But Carla, I love that you have great energy. That really is exciting
to hear because people think, well, if I don't eat all day,
I'm gonna you know, fall asleep. But you actually feel better after your
body adapts. But I wanted to talk about what she said at the end,
that she's eight point two pounds away from a goal that she had set
before because she she felt like that was her dream goal, like how could
I ever get there? If I just can get there, But now she
realizes she'll probably get smaller than that. Yeah, well, and or she
may get to that weight and kind of hover it that weight, but her
body she may end up a smaller size at that weight. That's what I
experienced, Like I can recomp to that weight, whereas before I fought tooth
and nail to stay at that weight. I could stay at that weight with
ease. I was an entire size smaller. Yep. So yeah, so
many good changes to still come, all right, So now we have a
question from a listener. This question is from Sarah in Ohio. Sarah said,
I am a thirty seven year old mom of a one year old,
and I've been intermittent fasting for about four months. I'm getting a bit frustrated.
I have only lost fourteen pounds and my blood sugar is still in the
pre diabetes range. I have a long term history of PCOS, which is
the insulin resistance form. She added, and I've been overweight since I was
approximately thirteen when I started gaining. I have been up and down since then.
I'm currently at two hundred and thirty pounds. My highest ever was two
hundred and ninety pounds, and I went to one hundred and ninety with Joel
Furman's Eat to Live and running. But I no longer have hours to run
each week. It just seems in the stories people always say it's easy and
weight just fell off. I still feel like it's hard, not as hard
as when I started, but hard. I feel like alternate day fasting would
probably help my blood sugar and depletion of my liver stores, but I'm nervous
or scared to try. I can do twenty four sometimes, but usually I'm
seventeen seven. Can you help with some motivation to get to alternate Dave fasting
or stories about how slow the process can be. I do know if is
helping, but it's also a struggle. I do fast clean, but eat
many carbs during my window. It's a little scary changing habits, but scarier
to go back to where I was. I know this is all over the
place. Thank you for all the support, and just know that even if
you don't talk about this, writing this to you has helped me. And
oh, Sarah, we have so many places to go with this, Like
I swear I have this to be an hour episode. Seriously, I've have
so many places to go with this that I actually jotted down some notes prior
to recording because I wanted to make sure that I really touched on every single
thing she asked on. Start with fourteen pounds in four months. Yes,
only, that is exactly what I wanted to say. Sarah, you're four
months in. We don't expect any weight lost in the first month. Okay,
So let's take the lat next three months, and you lost fourteen pounds.
That is greater than one pound per week, which is fabulous. Let's
get rid of that word. Yes, okay, So then I want to
go into a little bit of problem solving. So she said she can get
to twenty hours, but it's usually more of a seventeen seven. She doesn't
really say why per se she's going to seventeen seven. If it's because of
hunger, then I'm going to encourage you to push through that hunger because on
the other side of that hunger's katosis. So some of that hunger, though,
could be related to like what you're eating in your window. You say
you eat a lot of carbs. If I eat a lot of like processed
carbs, highlight you refined carbs in my window, that does make my next
days fast harder and I do have to really push through. Jin is a
person that could eat carbs all day long and she's gonna feel amazing and her
faster are gonna be easy. But I don't eat a lot of processed carbs.
That's also important to say, I eat really high quality carbs, like
I consider like a whole potato to be a really high quality carb potato chips,
No, right, right, I, but I do still have to
be a little more carb I'm more carb sensitive in the fact that you know,
I can eat some rice in my window now. For the longest time
I couldn't eat it at all. But it really matters, like how I
pair it, what I'm eating with it? Am I eating a lot of
fiber in that meal. So really take a look at the quality of the
carbs that you're eating and try to avoid the highly refined and processed foods.
Go more for your whole grain carbs and those extra few hours of fasting each
day. They are going to be really beneficial, you know, for your
licagen's doors and the insulin resistance that you're talking about. If you're struggling to
get to past seventeen hours, then I don't think you're ready for adf right
now. So for now, try to settle into like a four to five
hour eating window. No matter when you open your window. If you find
you open up at seventeen hours, try to close it within five. As
for food, Okay, so you said you were really successful when you were
doing Eat to Live and running, and now you no longer have hours to
run each week. And trust me, I get it. I've been there.
I used to work out every day for hours, and then I moved,
I switched jobs, and that's no longer feasible for me. So you
can tweak your food though, and Eat to Live is a very restrictive plan.
It's a great plan, but it's very restrictive and I couldn't eat like
that long term. But it is a very nutrient dense way of eating.
So I wouldn't do anything that's not sustainable. But I what encourage you to
kind of shift to a more nutrient dense way of eating. Really think of
some of the principles of that plan and kind of incorporate them into your daily
eating window. And by adding in extra nutrient dense foods, it's really natural
that you start to weed out some of the less nutritious foods that might be
creeping into your windows. So really kind of focus on increasing your veggies,
lugumes, seeds, nuts, fruits, switch over to whole grain whenever possible,
and cut out your like refined starch, heat carbs, and focus on
you know, pole grain, whole grain pasta, potatoes, your starchy vegetables
and add some fruit. It makes a great dessert beans. Yeah, So
you don't have to It doesn't have to be all or none. You don't
have to like follow a really restrictive eating pattern. You can just incorporate parts
of that eating pattern into what you're doing now, and that can really help,
especially with your PCOS and insulin resistance. You have to. So I
want to talk about food, just like you did. And something I posted
in a community and it made one person really mad, so mad that they
left the community because I was talking about low fat eating and there was you
know, YouTube is now showing me videos. It's like, you might be
interested in this, you might be interested in this, And of course I
am very interested in all sorts of things. It knows I like food.
It showed me a video by someone named Denise Minger, who is big was
big in the paleo world, and she's someone who eats paleo and low carb.
So keep that in mind. You know, I actually heard someone say
something today. We tend to get stuck in our silos of what we believe,
like our echo chamber might be a better way of putting it. So
we tend to believe one thing. So the person who I guess got mad
at me for sharing this probably lives in the low carb silo and believes that
everyone. Well, if you've got insulin resistance and you're struggling, then your
answer is low carb fat, low carb bi fat, and there are definitely
that's the Jason Fung way, Megan Ramos, they were getting amazing results with
people. Denise Minger finds herself in that camp, but she did a talk
in front of her low carb friends at a conference where she explored the magic
behind the complete one point eighty degree way of eating. The lower fat approach,
but like the Joel Furman which is why I'm bringing this up, because
Joel Furman Eat to Live. It's whole food, plant based, lower fat.
So if you did great eating more of a Dol Furman way, your
body might really be more like mine, where we feel better with more whole
food, plant based and lower fat. I actually feel better that way.
I think back when was I at my lowest adult weight, smaller than I
am right this minute. It was when those crazy low fat diets of the
nineties. My body really liked that. I am not telling you to do
a low fat diet from the nineties. But watching that Denise Minger video on
YouTube, there's a lot of good research out there about this type of eating
style being very good for people with insulin resistance, and the Mastering Diabetes guys
are just one example of that. So it sounds to me like your body
really thrived when you were eating more whole food, plant based. That was
the lowest weight you got down to. Maybe you know you said you started
gaining when you were thirteen. If you listen to or read Mastering Diabetes or
even start watching their YouTube channel, they go into some of the science of
WHW. I'm actually right now in the middle of listening to a ritual podcast.
Sure, have you ever listened to a ritual I would listen to one
episode and I can't remember what the topic was, but it was a topic
that I was researching, and I came up with his podcast. Well,
I really like him. He seems like just a great guy. He's an
endurance athlete and he's whole food plant based. But the October ninth episode of
the ritual podcast, he has theologist Drew Harrisburg on and I'm only about halfway
through, so I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but his guest,
Drew Harrisburg, is somebody who basically had type one diabetes a lot like
the guys who wrote Mastering Diabetes. And so just like the Mastering Diabetes guys,
this guy, Drew, who's the physiologist on the episode, talks about
how he went paleo and then keto and then feeling like that was going to
be the answer to his diabetes because that lures your blood sugar because you're not
taking in any carbs. But he actually started to need more insulin over time.
So then Simon Hill from the Proof Is in the Plants or something,
I can't remember. He wrote a book, he's got a podcast, just
messaged him and said, hey, look at this study. Hey look at
some of this evidence. And so even though it went against everything that he
had been doing, he's like, well, let me try it. So
he tried whole food plant based and to this day he is whole food plant
based and it has changed the amount of insulin that he needs. It is
reversed his insulin resistance. And so I know, it's it's strange because you
might be in the silo and we've been into Silo. We love Jason fun
We love the work Meghan Ramos is doing love. We love how they are
helping people feel better. But some bodies, like the Mastering Diabetes guys and
this guy Drew Harrisburg and my body, we feel better on the opposite end
of the spectrum. And so I just think that's a really important thing.
Opened your mind up to those ideas. If you felt good on Eat to
Live, I'm not telling you to be whole food, plant based, low
fat, but start leaning that direction a little bit. Did you want to
add something seery? I saw you, like, get ready to say I
did. Okay. What's interesting is is there was a research article that came
out in April of two thousand and three, and it was about managing high
triglycerides and basically what they found was that triglysteride decline with low fat diets,
so higher carb, lower fat. Now, for the last several years,
really, I feel like kind of since the keto revolution, right, we
have really like made fat this wonderful food that everybody should include their diet and
it's supposed to reduce your you know, diabetes or help reverse diabetes or whatever
the argument is. And they'll tell you like, carbohydrates are bad, and
carbohydrates drive up your triglycerides, and if you have to hide triglycerides, you
need to avoid all carbs. But back in two thousand and three, they
found that a low fat diet actually you have better triglycerides then people who have
low carb, high protein, high fat diets. And if you're hearing this
and it's making you mad, think about you may be stuck in that silo
of that's not what my favorite person that I like to read said. Jen
and Sherry, y'all are just getting it completely wrong. So I'm gonna link
the Denise Minger YouTube in there, and I want everyone to really have an
open mind because just like this Ritual podcast that I haven't finished listening to,
they talked about the whole idea of getting in your nutritional silo and then thinking
the other side is wrong. And Denise Minger's presentation is so interesting because she
talks about the murky swamp land in the middle is where everyone is eating lots
of fat and lots of carbs and all of that, but there's magic on
either end, and so you know, we don't we would like to eat
all the foods. I would like to have a big bait potato with lots
of butter and lots of cheese and lots of bread. It's delicious, it's
delicious. But if you're medically metabolically unhealthy, and you have insulin resistance from
the age of thirteen, and you have been struggling, and you've been in
the you know, the two hundreds for decas aids or for a long time,
then you've got a metabolically unhealthy body. And I'm not blaming you for
that, because when I was two hundred and ten pounds, I had a
metabolically unhealthy body. And so when you have a metabolically unhealthy body, food
is medicine. And so I do think there you're like Deniseminger's talk, there's
one end, there's the other end, low carb, high fat that and
I believe in bioindividuality. So there are definitely people Shearing needs more meat than
I do, but there are people on the other end that may need less
fat. And I'm not talking about we're eating snack wells and spaghettios. I'm
talking about eating high quality, nourishing food, nourishing your body well, maybe
not having you know, cheese and butter or what you know, depending on
your body. So I have an open mind. Well, and you might
wonder why I write up tricholystrides, but they know that there's a connection between
high trichlycerides and an increased risk of diabetes an insulin resistance. So what was
really interesting too, is that the very final sentence in this research study says
furthermore, there are indications that higher fat diets may be associated with insulin resistance.
Yeah. So while high fat, low carb may look good on paper
and may make it look like your blood sugars and everything are under control,
the question is is it truly healing your body right? And if you're never
going to eat carbs again, then if you're going to be low carb forever
then and you're going to manage your blood sugar that way, that is absolutely
a perfectly fine option. I know there are a lot of people that have
chosen to live that way and they love it, and so I'm not encouraging
anyone to not do that. But for someone like me, I feel so
much better and do better with a more whole food, plant based approach as
I talked about earlier, with some flexibility in there. But I'm not trying
to reverse any kind of insulin resistance or anything like that. I'm at a
healthy weight, I'm healthy metabolically, my fasting insulin is low. My body
manages blood sugar well from the time that I've worn to CEGM. If you're
not there yet, then food really is medicine and you can think about you
know, you can change what you're eating. Alternate daily fasting is also an
option, but just as Sherry said, you know, maybe it's it's not
time for alternate daily fasting. I would dial in a nineteen five first,
focusing on what you're eating. You want to feel satisfied. You want to
feel good from the foods that you're eating, and find the foods that make
you feel great. Fasting needs to feel like part of your every day.
I feel like before you jump into ADF, absolutely because ADF does require more
effort and more mental work. Yeah, and I sure hope we haven't lost
anybody who's like, now, I'm really mad because I'm in the other silo,
and I believe I must. I think it's I think it's really important
to visit other people's silos. I think so too, And the whole idea
of bioindividuality. And like Zoe told me, I don't clear fatwell, right,
And you know that's that's proof, right, There was a blood test.
My body doesn't clear fat well. And so you remember Marty Kendall that
I interviewed years ago on intermittent fasting stories. He talked about the idea that
if we have too much fuel in our blood, it's not good for us,
whether that's high blood sugar or even high levels of fat circulating around.
And if your body doesn't clear one or the other quickly, then that is
a problem for your body. So for me, Zoe showed me that I
don't clear fatwell. I mean, I could be mad about it, but
it's the way my body works right right. And don't think that you cannot
heal your PCOS with daily eating windows, because I did. I used to
take met Foreman. I had PCOS, I had all the classic signs of
PCOS, and once I started fasting, within probably six to night months,
I felt a huge difference and a lot of the signs and symptoms of PCOS
went away and I no longer took met Foreman. And so you can do
it. There have been so many people in our community that have really feeled
their insulin resistance and reverse their pcos with fasting and just a daily eating window.
Yeah yeah, all right, so WHI I'll put that. I'll put
that Lincoln there. So anybody who's feeling a little mad watched that Denise Minger
video, and remember she is a big proponent of a low carb lifestyle,
and she is like, wow, I was really surprised to learn all this.
So you know, open your mind and don't be afraid to learn something
different that wasn't in your silo. All right, So we have a new
segment that we're starting today called What's Your Why? And you know, I
think that's just such an important thing to consider for all of us. You
know, most of us have weight loss in mind. We came to intermitt
and fasting for the weight loss. We stick around for the health benefits.
It's fine for weight loss to be part of your why. There's so much
more, however, to what intermittent fasting can do for us beyond weight loss
that I actually have put in my new book, twenty eight day fast Art
Day by day. There's a section where I want you to craft your why
statement before you even begin intermittent fasting because 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 sure you want to share this? Why? Oh
sorry, Cherry's gonna read this. This was all you. No, I
was going dropping your Denise Minger video into show notes. Thank you for doing
that. I was like, Jid's got this. I'm going to go make
sure they have access to this. Well, thank you, reiver taking care
of all people, all right. So Shirley Jean from the Delay down to
Night Community. Under my why, she writes, Hmmm, well, most
everyone else, I want to have a smaller body, a healthy body,
one with energy and vitality, and I want to look cute in my smaller
clothes. But is that enough to keep me fasting every day? My biggest
why is to not follow in my father's footsteps. He was diagnosed with diabetes
not long after he retired from the Navy around age forty. He did not
lose his excess weight until he was in his seventies. Over the course of
his life, he had quadruple bypass surgery, prostate cancer, many many strokes,
and congestive heart failure. Multiple times. He developed kidney disease and was
put on dialysis for the last five years of his life. He was put
on a very, very strict diet, which took away any joy from eating.
The dialysis drained him of energy, and he napped a lot in his
early eighties. He didn't have much joy nor quality of life at that point.
And then he had to have one of his lower limbs i amputated,
He adjusted, he went through rehab, and then one year later he had
to have the the other limb removed too. My dad always had a great
attitude and rarely complained. He got around with his prosthesis and a wheelchair with
a smile in his face. But it wasn't over for my father. No,
he was diagnosed with stage four liver and lung cancer. Oh my goodness.
Well he decided at age eighty five he'd had enough. He chose to
stop all dialysis, which ended his life eleven days later, surrounded by his
loving family and friends. But it all started with diabetes. I refuse to
ever be diagnosed with this horrible disease. I'm sure I probably have or have
had pre diabetes, and that I have extensive damage to my heart and other
vital organs. But it all stops now. No more screwing around with my
health. No we're thinking I'll clean up my lifestyle choices tomorrow. No more,
I'll do it tomorrow because tomorrow's aren't guaranteed. So I'm fasting today every
day. It is my life medicine. I mean that, ChIL I know,
I know, And there's no more power powerful why than that. You
know, when we've watched family members struggle. Both my grandmothers had dementia,
my dad is struggling with the seventy nine, it's very, very much like
this story, and it's heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking. Yeah, it's hard
to watch your family members suffer for one thing, but you feel powerless to
help. So if you can do nothing else but to take lessons from other
people's struggles and live better and not have your loved ones watch you suffer the
way your you know your family has, that's a really great first step.
You know, we talk a lot about lifespan and longevity, right, but
it does it matter if you live to be ninety five, if you are
in poor health for the last ten fifteen years of your life. So I
want to encourage people to not only think about lifespan and longevity, but also
to think about your health span. How long do you want to be healthy
in your life? And I think that's really what's motivating Shirley Jean Yep.
Today I talked to someone for Intermittent Fasting Stories. The episode won't come out
till the end of December. Mollie. She's a registered nurse and she does
home health care and also hospice care. And she said something that really just
like stuck in my head. She said that with each generation, we're seeing
the diseases like twenty years sooner. So I'm like, wow, So,
you know, if my dad was diagnosed with type two diabetes in his you
know, fifties, but it got really bad in his seventies, then back
that down for me, if I had not found intermittent fasting, I'm fifty
four now, I feel like I would probably be typed too diabetic by now
had I not reverse it with intermittent fasting and paying attention to what foods made
me feel better. That's righting, So we've got it. I love how
she ended it. No more thinking I'll clean up my lifestyle choices tomorrow.
No more, I'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrows aren't guaranteed, so I'm fasting
today every day. It's my life medicine. I love that. Yeah.
Well, this week we're going to do another question from a listener, and
we have struggling in Arizona, and my heart goes out to her. She
says, I'm eighty four. I weighed two hundred and eighty nine pounds when
I started trying to lose weight, and now after some portion control and intermittent
fasting, I weighed two hundred and fifteen pounds. I lost thirty pounds just
balancing intermint fasting with portion control, but it's very slow, maybe a pound
every two weeks. In the past, I had bariatric surgery, but it
was a failure and it caused me to vomit every day. I did lose
thirty pounds, but I gained it right back. I would really like to
get to one hundred and eighty pounds. I eat breakfast at eight am every
day and dinner at noon, and then almost nothing till the next morning.
So if you were to help struggling in Arizona get her scale to move,
where would you start to Well? I think you and I would start at
the same place. Two words. There are two words in there, and
they are almost nothing till the next morning. I don't know what that means,
but that doesn't sound like fasting. So it sounds to me, struggling
in Arizona, that you are I mean, you're still I mean if you
eat at eight am and then you have you know, you're a bigger meal
at noon. You're saying you're eating almost nothing if you're still eating and not
fast. Like, eating almost nothing is not the same as fast and clean.
So if you stop eating at noon or whenever you're finished with that meal,
then you fast clean until the next morning. That is a very different
experience than eating almost nothing till the next morning, because eating almost nothing till
the next morning is a low calorie diet, and we don't get the benefits
from the clean fast if we're doing a low calorie diet. That's why the
clean fast is so important. Now I know myself, I would not be
able to eat breakfast at eight am and then have a big meal at noon
and then fast until eight am the next day because I get hungry again about
eight hours after I eat. So if I had a big meal at noon,
I would be hungry, legitimately hungry before I went to bed and would
have a hard time sleeping. So that's me. There are people, however,
who do very well with the early in the day eating window, and
this might be you. Maybe you would do very very well with your eight
am breakfast and then your big meal at noon and then you close that window
and you fast clean until the next morning. If that is something you can
do, then that is the change I would make. But if you're more
like me, see if you can push back that eight am breakfast, take
it slow, no need to rush it. But if you're you know,
eating from eight am and then almost nothing till the end of the day when
you go to bed, that's a low calorie diet and not fasting. So
I would really think about shrinking that. However, you can do it,
Shrink it either direction, Shrink it one way or the other. So you
know, see what happens if you put it all within eight hours, just
eight That's what I was gonna say. Yeah, like right now, you're
trying to eat in a four hour window, but it sounds like maybe you're
having a snack or something later, So just move into an eight hour window
right now. For a while and really conquer that, and then start shrinking
the window on both ends or one end wherever you decide that you want your
window to be. Yep, all right, you look it to you.
Yeah, if you've been adjust right now and switch to like a nine to
five for a little while, I'll maybe try that exactly. But kudos to
you for for not never giving up. I love it, That's true.
I love it too. Eighty four trying to restore your health. So good
for you. All right, Before we get to our tweek of the week,
I want to remind you about my new book, twenty eight Day Fast
Start, Day by Day, the ultimate guide to starting or restarting your intermittent
fasting lifestyle so it sticks. Oh, Sherry, I have a funny story.
What's that. I had a meeting with a team at McMillan and we
were talking about pre orders, because pre orders are super important, y'all,
so please pre order because if it's if we have a lot of pre orders,
you might think it doesn't matter, you're gonna order it later, or
maybe you're thinking I'm already an intermittent faster I don't need this book. Here's
why the pre orders matter. The pre orders matter because if we have a
strong pre order, then like Barnes and Noble is more likely to pick it
up and have it in the store. So if you would like to see
intermittent fasting getting out there and having a wider audience, then pre orders really
make a different. So even if you are like, well, I don't
need twenty eight day fast ourt day by day, I'm already intermitting faster,
I don't need it, if you would pre order it just to help out,
that would be amazing because you know, that might determine whether Barnes and
Noble puts it in their store and that sort of thing. But anyway,
we were having a meeting with the mc millan team about you know, what
they were going to do. They had like a publicity plan. By the
way, I have said no to those ladies magazines at the checkout, if
you know what I mean. They had that as number one on the listen.
I said, I'm never going to do those again. I'm not going
not going to be in those magazines. I'm ethically, I just can't do
it. So that felt really really good because you know, they promised,
you know, like lose fifty pounds by Halloween. No, you're not going
to do that. It's impossible anyway. But they said you E were noticing
your pre orders have a really interesting pattern. Every other week they're higher.
I'm like, well, that's because every other week on the podcast I talk
about it. So thank you to everybody who's listening and pre ordering. But
if you haven't done it yet, stop or you're doing pre order. Twenty
eight Day Fast Art Day by Day. It's a companion book for Fast Feast
Repeat. And I wrote it because I realized some intermittent fasters don't want to
read Fast Feast Repeat straight through, or maybe they get it and it's just
so much information. It's too much information. So it's twenty eight day Fast
Art day by day. Every day you have a framework to focus on for
that day only. It's a quick check in, a lesson from me,
a short inspirational story from a past intermittent fasting stories guest. So even if
you you know, don't need to start again, or you don't need a
twenty eight day fast Start, I bet you would like to read those those
stories from the people that you've already known love from the podcast, and it's
got their best advice for new Intermittent Fasters. This is also the book you
gonna want to have on hand to give to your friend, your sister,
the person in your life who's interested in intermittent fasting but needs more structure than
fast feast Repeat gives them. It's the book you need, Listener, if
you're someone who dabbles an Internet and fasting and you have trouble making it stick,
So go to your favorite bookstore today and pre order twenty eight day fast
Art day by day. It should arrive December twenty sixth of twenty twenty three,
just in time for the new year. All Right, it's time for
our tweak of the week. And you know, I like to say tweak
it till it's easy. But the tweak that works for me might not be
the one that works for you. Just like we were talking about before with
food bioindividuality, you could eat just like me and it isn't the right way
to eat for you. You could eat like Sherry. That's not the right
way for your body. You know, in the last episode we talked to
Roxy. The way Roxy eats not the way we eat. So you need
to figure out what works for you. But it's also super helpful to hear
what other intermittent fasters are doing to make intermittent fasting work for them. So
this tweak was submitted by Sarah from Massachusetts, and she said, the order
in which I eat makes a big difference for me. For instance, if
I sti art a meal with simple carbs, I will most definitely crash.
Yeah me too, Sara, Like, I can't start with like a cookie
or something no, or like a white bread roll, absolutely not, that
would not work well. So Sarah says, I love Jesse the Glucose Goddess's
recommendation to eat fiber rich vegetables before eating your protein and apple cider vinegar mixed
in water. If I know I'm about to eat a lot of carbs,
I'm looking at you spaghetti. So just to clarify, this is Gin speaking
you or not, Sarah, but apple cider, vinegar and water is not
part of a clean fast. So if you have that before you eat,
that is opening your window. And plus it's going to act on the food.
So you don't want to have that while you're fasting anyway. Right,
So she said, I don't do these things all the time because I do
not enjoy micromanaging my plate that much. Amen on that one, but when
I do, it really does help prevent post feeding crashes. My biggest advice
is to go slow when you're first starting. I know too many high achievers
who ripped off the and started at twenty four, only to give up shortly
after. It's a marathon, not a sprint. I love the quote that
Jin uses, which I think someone in the community said to her, and
the quote is you have the rest of your life to get this right.
So true. And you know what's funny is I have naturally eaten the glucose
goddess way my entire life. But it's a food preference. Who wants cold
vegetables? So I've always eaten my veggies first on my plate, I've always
eaten. I've always eaten veggies and then meat and then whatever the starche side
is. And I have funny. Isn't that funny? I wonder though,
if it is your body intuitively knowing that it's best for you. Well,
I don't know, because like when I was a little girl, I've said
this before, I did not like to eat candy, or like if someone
just tried to hand me a cookie, I didn't want it because I didn't
like the way simple carbs felt coming into my body just on their own,
like I could feel the crash. I didn't know was happening, but I
knew I didn't feel well eating that way, so I just naturally didn't.
I couldn't have told you why, but I always would eat like savory things.
Yeah, it's possible, But when I read that, I was like,
well, that's the way I eat. And if I'm gonna eat a
salad, I'm gonna eat it before my meal. So that's my veggies plus
my vinegar. Yeah, there's a lot to be said for just the natural
way. If you go to a fine restaurant, they give you your salad
and then you have the vegetables with your meal, and then dessert is not
till the end. Don't give you the dessert first, right, the natural
wisdom, there's a lot of science in there we might not have understood well.
Rather than sharing a listener's favorite inspirational quote or message, today, I
want to share a fun story from a listener that she shared on our podcast
submission Form. We talk a lot about planting seeds wherever we go, hoping
that one of those seeds will take root and we will gain another faster in
the world. But this one faster took it a step further. She shared,
I just wanted to share that we have just been to Greece for two
weeks. I took my copy of the Fast Piece Repeat book. I read
every bit of it. I've always listened to the podcast and I feel I
know everything I need to know to be a successful faster. I have been
at my goal weight since October of last year, but because I had time,
I took the book with me to reread it in case I had missed
anything. When I had finished it, I decided to put the copy on
the bookcase in the hotel. I wrote on the inside page. Hi,
my name is Suit Jukes. I am from Warwick, England, and I
have been intermittent clean fasting for a couple of years. I am at my
goal weight now. I thought I would leave this book in the hope that
it would help somebody else like it did me. And the very next day
the book was gone. How exciting. I really hope that it helps someone
PS. Thank you jin Oh that just gave me the goose bombs. I
love that. I love that too, and Suit, what I really like
the teacher in me. I love that you read it again before you get
gave it away, because you know, I swear if I read the OBCD
code again right now, I would learn something new. Heck, i'd probably
learn something new if I read Fast Feast Repeede again. I mean it came
out and learning something you forgot. Well, I wrote it in twenty nineteen,
and you know, when you're writing a book, you know, think
about your knee deep in the resources. But I haven't looked at them since
then, you know. Anyway, it's been a long time since I wrote
that. So I love that you shared that, and again that's that's a
good reason to pre order twenty eight day Fast Art Day day by day as
well. Pass that on. But I love that you've wrote a message in
there to the next person. Yeah, so they'll be inspired by you,
Sue. I love that. Thanks so much for listening today. We would
love to have you join us and 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 pot 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 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,