Episode 34: Weight Loss Expectations, Flipping Your Metabolic Switch, Measuring Ketones, 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 great well. I'm glad. It is sixty two degrees out there.
We have thawed from our seventeen degrees last week. Our pipes froze the
whole house, the beach house completely, nothing burst, so that was good.
I got up in the morning and no water. Yeah, I imagine
the way your house is elevated, that makes it prone to that. That
didn't happen last year when it was even colder, but I think we had
a few days of cold that were a little lower and so it was already
kind of cold. Luckily, it wasn't a big production, but it was
like, yikes, we are not built for this. How long were you
without water? It was back by the afternoon. I came over here to
the condo and showered and eased the water here. So no big deal.
Yep, I'm glad you had that backup. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing
worse than waking up and find out you don't have power, you don't have
water. I know, you're like, oh, no help, how do
I brush my teeth? Like literally, nothing came out of the fawcet,
but oh my god, I'm just so glad it didn't burst. That's yeah,
that would be the worst. That would be the worst. We're just
not set up far around here, you know. I assume they make pipe
insulation. Well, Chad did some extra insulating down in the park. It
was like right where it comes out of where the meter is to the house.
It was not insulated. That's where it froze. I gotcha. Yeah,
Well, maybe that cold spell is over and we'll have a I think
it is. I'm calling it. Okay, it's only January, January,
I know, I know. I would like this to be the end of
the cold No crazy snow in March or something. No, I'll eat that.
I'm sorry to all of you that live in the north and you get
snow all the time, and we're complaining one and about one week of cold
weather. I had to wear a coat everywhere I went. Oh well,
I wanted to just kind of explain something we really like. I go through
the listener submission form every week and I try to do a good job of
picking people's questions that I may not get to every person's question, but I
might pick somebody whose question is similar to yours, but maybe they gave a
little bit more details or whatever. That gives us more information to work with.
So, you know, if we don't choose your question when we just
know that we do, we do try to cover all the topics and make
sure that we get them. But recently we've had a pretty big uptick in
people who are using the podcast submission form to ask for help and how to
get started fasting, And that's a question we love. We want everybody to
begin a fasting lifestyle, but it's really that's not what this podcast is designed
for. There's too much information for us to give in an episode to tell
you how to get started. I mean, the best way to get started
really is to just wake up and find fast. Yeah, that's really it.
But if you haven't started because you're not sure how or what all the
rules are or whatever, my best advice is to get yourself a copy of
Gen's twenty eight day Fast Start day by day book as well as her Fast
Feast Repeat Book, because you're gonna want both of those books and they are
really going to be your fasting handbook. Everything you need to know to get
started, as well as a fasting plan for your personality is in both of
those books. And if you want personal help from us, Jena and I
do love to help people personally, join us in the DD community, where
we help fasters new and experienced every single day, all day. There's a
Lincoln Show notes every week, and the cost to join the community is just
pennies a day for an annual membership. And it's really well worth it.
It's a great community. I just did the math. Fifty nine ninety nine
for the year divided by three hundred and sixty five days, it's sixteen cents
a day. Yeah, you can't get coaching anywhere for sixteen cents a day.
Oh and we reply to you personally. And also you will save that
just if you stop buying coffee creamer exactly one hundred percent. Yes, you're
making money, yes, yep. And the link is really easy. It's
just Jen Stevens dot com slash community. Like Sherry said, it's in the
show notes every week. But yeah, I mean we do. We want
to help you. I don't want anybody to feel left out. I do
see your requests for help, and really that is the absolute best way to
get started and keep listening because you know we're gonna give you extra help and
tips along the way. And you know, once you get started, if
you have any other questions about what's happening or tweaks or whatever, feel free
to go ahead and submit another request for help and you know will help you
along the way. Yeah, and fifty nine ninety nine a year really is
such a bargain. Every year I think about raising the price, and I
just haven't done it because I want everyone to be able to join. But
another Fasting community that I'm thinking up, they're thirty nine ninety nine a month
or something. I don't know. You can a month join, Yeah,
you can join us for a year. I think their yearly cost is the
same as our lifetime cost. Okay, yeah, Well it really is a
great community. Everybody joins really after they've been there a week there, they
always come back and post about how happy they are to join. So we
would love to see you there and help you get started. And it's so
different from if you've been in any Facebook communities. Sometimes you can kind of
tell when someone is brand new to our community that they may have been burned
on Facebook before, uh huh, because they'll ask a question with kind of
like an apologetic tone or like they're expecting us to like jump on them.
We don't. We don't do it. No. Then people are like,
oh, I can really say anything, yes, I mean you know what
I mean, not really say anything. You have to be nice. But
we don't have problems with people not being nice. We don't. We do
people self select for this community, and they're awesome people. The people who
are there really want to be there, and they really want to help and
support and encourage others because I mean, I've just really learned through the years
that the more you're there and you're helping and encouraging and you're supporting others and
you're saying kind words to them, it really changes the narrative about how you
speak to yourself as well. That really is true. And for everybody who's
a lurker or a silent member, I know you're there, and I love
that you're there, and you're getting a lot out of reading the posts.
Break that seal going in there, start commenting to other people, give them
some advice. Cheer the one when you start giving advice to other people,
that helps you more than anything you can imagine, because you start internalizing it.
Right. Sometimes it's really easy to look and see what other people could
be doing or should be doing, But then we often have a hard time
like applying that to our own situation. But what you start to realize is
that we're all more like than we think we are. Yeah, I mean,
if you're struggling with something, there's one hundred people in the community who
are also struggling with that same thing. Yep, anything literally, whatever it
is. Yeah. So I mean by giving your ideas or what's helped you,
that's helping somebody else. And then you're also, you know, engaging
in that post and other people are sharing their ideas and their tips, and
we just learned so much from each other. Yeah. So well, let's
share our weekly celebration, and today's comes from I'm going to say it's Leanne.
Yes, Leanne. I've never seen it spelled that way. Leanne.
It's like lie, It's like Diane. It's like Diane with an L.
Yeah. I had a pause for a second. She says, the last
two years have probably been the worst two years of my life. It started
with me ending my marriage of forty three years because I simply wasn't happy.
He wasn't either. But I had debated leaving for a year. I finally
left and packed up and moved from Nashville, Tennessee, to Indiana. I
already had extreme stress and depression and thoughts of just ending at all. That
is why I decided I just had to go in order to save me,
I bought myself a tiny house and I started decorating it. How I wanted
to, but two months after moving out, I got really sick and ended
up with having bowel obstruction surgery. So finally, after slowly recovering and getting
my strength back, my stress levels were still pretty high. I thought,
Okay, it's my time. Alas that wasn't the case. I got the
worst news I could ever get. My son had taken his life. Needless
to say, the world came crashing down around me, and my guilt and
anxiety and depression took a major nose dive again. I went from not taking
any pills except for vitamins if I remembered to take them, to taking a
whole regiment of antidepressants, anxiety meds, blood pressure meds, stuff to help
sleep, pills to help with my terrible restless leg syndrome, iron meds because
I was anemic. Plus I was not leaving my house. My daughter gave
me a good talking to and begged me to start taking care of myself.
During all of this, I had gained about fifty pounds. I wasn't wearing
makeup, no hair color to cover the gray. She said, Mom,
this is your time. You have to start taking care of yourself. After
much research, I read fast feast, repeat, and I was totally inspired.
I started the journey about six weeks ago. I could feel changes in
my mental status slowly improving. I could feel my stress level going down and
my concentration going up. I colored my hair, I actually put makeup on
and left the safe environment of my little house. Since my start, I
have lost about twenty five pounds. I'm now off my blood pressure medication and
hopefully on my next doctor visit, I can start reducing the anxiety and depression
meds. I also add magnesium to my everyday routine. I'm cooking healthy foods.
I'm there? Am I there yet? No? I still have a
ways to go yet, but I can feel myself improving and starting to love
myself again. Then the weirdest thing I noticed was that my eyesight seemed to
be getting worse. I thought, I can't need a new prescription yet,
so I put on some older glasses I had from about five years ago to
compare how much worse my eyes had gotten. I couldn't believe it. I
could see better in the older glasses than the new ones. I know this
is my way of life now, because in just this short period of time,
the newer me is evolving. This is my time and it can only
get better. Thank you, Jen, you have literally saved my life.
Oh gosh, well what a story. I am so sorry. I can't
even imagine what you wouldn't have been, what you've been through with your son.
Oh my god, it's hard for me to just read. I know
it's hard for me to tear up my Kleenex. Yeah, but yeah,
I just six weeks and her life is already turning around, and we really
do see that. Yeah, it's a powerful it's a powerful shift when you
decide it's time to start taking care of yourself again. And even though you've
been through tragedy and the worst thing a mother can experience, you deserve taking
care of yourself this time. So thank you so much for sharing that.
All right, I have another brief celebration that I want to share. Jennifer
from the Delayed On to Night community shared this today in our Wednesday well thread,
and I said, please can I share this on the podcast? And
she said yes, So she's and this also goes along with something we talked
about in a past episode. So she said, I finally have a non
scale victory. I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me since
I was always starving by noon, even after several months of trying to push
my window. Later, well, it turned out the sneaky bottled cold brew
I was having in the morning had natural flavors included watch out for black,
unsweetened stoke cold brew. Jen pointed this out to me when I posted a
few weeks ago in frustration. I was skeptical after our conversation because I was
stuck in there must be something wrong with me space. I truly can't believe
what a difference it's made, and this is me popping in there. Sherry
and I both remember this post and we both said, what are you drinking?
Drink the fast because and when people say just black coffee, we've learned
to say, tell me about that black coffee because people think they're drinking black
coffee and they're drinking this brand specifically is one people have trouble with, but
because it has that natural flavor additive who knows what that is, but it
makes it extra delicious and has been the bane of our existence since we were
on Facebook years ago. I mean, because people that it's black coffee and
they don't notice the natural flavors because it's technically unsweetened. But I think whatever
their natural flavors are adds a sweetness. I think people are one is so
delicious, right, So you know, I love that. Jennifer was skeptical
because she's like, how could that possibly be it? But here's her update.
She said, after just a few weeks, I am opening my window
between one point thirty and two without it feeling like torture. So I've been
easily doing nineteen five or twenty four. I'm so excited. Also, black
coffee finally doesn't taste like poison to me, she said. I've been a
little scared to measure myself since the holidays, but I feel like my clothes
are looser, so it might be time to go for it. But I
really wanted to put this out there because I know out there in the world,
you know, I am like the person who's like, please fast clean,
you know, out there saying it over and over because I genuinely believe
it makes a difference. And you know, someone else in the community was
talking to somebody on Instagram, I don't know, some influencer, doctor or
something or other, and I was trying to sell something that you could have
while fasting, and this person said, no, you can't have that while
fasting because of X, Y, and Z. And that doctor was like,
Oh, you're way too dogmatic. That's ridiculous. I was like,
well, you know, especially if someone's trying to sell you something. But
it does matter. It does matter, And you know, through the years,
we'll have people who are really resistant and they're like, nope, I've
always fasted with lemon in my water and it doesn't make a difference and whatever.
And for whatever reason, they usually it's they get a plateau or they
suddenly realize like sixteen eight is not their weight loss window, but they can't
push their window later, and then they finally are like, Okay, I'm
gonna try this. And then they always come back and they're usually like,
Okay, you're right. Yeah, it's so much easier since I gave up
my lemon water or whatever it is that they're easing in their window. You
can find somebody to give you permission to have whatever you want. Like,
honestly, there is somebody out there on YouTube or Instagram or somewhere in a
book that will tell you you can have whatever it is you want to have.
Almond milk cream in your coffee. Natural flavors don't matter. Put lemon
in, have the herbal tea that tastes like fruit. Someone will tell you
that is okay, but there is no confirmation like the clean fast to prove
to yourself that it really does matter. And like, there was a guy
I'm not gonna say who it was, but back when we had the Facebook
groups. He was a prolific YouTube creator and still is, but he had
this concoction he had people drinking. Didn't it have lemon in it and stevia
and maybe appleside or vinegar. I don't even know what all was in it.
It was like a tonic of some sort. But the same exact guy
said that didn't break a fast. But he also said it was really hard
to fast past sixteen hours, right, He's like, most people can't fast
past sixteen it's way too hard. And I'm like, maybe if you weren't
drinking that I wanted to say so bad, but I mean, drink it
through your whole window if you want to have it in an eating window,
you know. But yeah, And you know, the thing though, is,
let's pretend. Let's just pretend that these things didn't break your fast,
but they make you fast harder. Who wants a hard fast, right?
I mean, we want you to enjoy fasting as much as you enjoy feasting.
And it's hard to enjoy fasting if you're miserable and hungry day after day,
and that's not going to lead to a lasting lifestyle, no, So
I mean they're the magic is in the clean fast. It really is.
And that's why I put the Clean Fast Challenge in Fast Feast Repete when I
wrote it, because I understand it's really easy to pick and choose what voices
you listen to based on what you're telling you the thing that is what you
want to do. We often have done that. Well, I don't like
that advice, so I'm going to go to this other person and follow that.
But if you just take the Clean Fast Challenge, I bet it will
surprise you and you will not go back listening. We'll I don't know if
you heard like episode zero and we told my story, but I was already
faster when I met Jen, and I thought she was crazy and I left
her community. Okay, but then that's my favorite story of all time.
I did my own clean Fast Challenge realized there was really something to it,
started really investigating the research on cephalig phase insulin response. And I'm like,
okay, that check may know what she's talking about. And I came back
in and I'm not one to hide. I'm like brutally honest, and I
said, hey, by the way I left, I came back here I
am and okay, you're right, I'll give up my diet doctor Pepper while
I'm fasting. And guess what. It was so much easier from sixteen eight,
where I was hungry all the time, to nineteen five with no hunger.
Love it all right. So now we have a question from a listener,
and this question is from Kim in Iowa. Kim says, I am
fifty seven years old. I fasted January twenty second to mid April and felt
great, but only saw about a ten pound loss. I'm five three and
two hundred and sixty one pounds and clean fasted the whole time, with most
days nineteen to twenty hour fasts. She said, I'd take an anxiety pill
and an herb for my blood pressure first thing in the morning during my fast,
but save all other supplements until I open my window. I began to
wonder if I had too high cortisol and that this wouldn't work. But I
wasn't sure. I'm a highly anxious person. Anyway, I stopped and gained
the ten pounds back. In May, I began a high protein, slightly
lower calorie diet. I lost eight pounds from May to November and felt nuts
writing everything down. At that time, I realized I'm a slow loser and
I would rather fast and not write anything down. I gained that eight pounds
back again and began fastening again in December at two hundred and sixty one pounds.
I decided to start slower this time and started with a day or two
of fourteen hours than fifteen and I'm currently at eighteen hours. I'm three weeks
in and down two pounds. I got the Happy scale app and we'll use
that to try to avoid getting upset at the lack of loss. I have
a thought in the back of my mind that maybe I have too much cortisol
and we'll just never get this weight off. Can you talk about the effects
of cortisol and offer any tips that may help me with this so I don't
give up. I also have a mindset that I'm so overweight that the weight
should come off faster, and I really struggle with the slow weight loss.
I would appreciate your advice and what you think my windows should be. Also,
do I need to fast for longer? Okay, I have so much
to say. Let's start with the beginning. And you said you faster from
January twenty second to mid April. I'm going to guess Kim that you do
not have a copy of Fast Feace Repeat, because if you do, you
might remember that during the first twenty eight days, we don't expect any weight
loss whatsoever. That is just time for your body to adapt to fasting.
So the fact that we don't expect any weight loss for an entire month,
that really was mid February to April when we should see weight loss, which
is about eight and you've lost ten pounds, so you are above average weight
loss and you are doing great. I think you got caught up in thinking
that the weight should just be pouring off of you in you know, drastic
fashion. And this is not a crash diet. That's not what we see
here. You're not with a lot of these crash diets. You're losing tons
of water weight, but you're also losing muscle mass, and we're not doing
that with fasting, so it's a slower process, but you're preserving your muscle
mass, you're healing your metabolism, and you know it's going to This is
a long term solution, not a short term fix. So with that said,
I think you psych yourself out and you missed out on the magical phase.
You just got through the hard part. So with your weight, it's
you know, you're very clearly insulin resistant. Would be very surprised if you're
not. I would be more concerned about insulin than I would cortisol because actually,
you know, I just shared in a couple of weeks ago, there's
a research study that came out. I wish I could remember who did it.
I kind of wonder if it was doctor Verity that showed that cortisol is
actually lower in the afternoon for people who fat intermittent fast. So I wouldn't
worry about cortisol. I think that's one of those myths of the world.
I think, yeah, like out there there's some there's all kinds of things
that just get out there, and one of them is fasting. We'll make
you have high cortisol, and you hear it so many times you're like,
well, that must be true because everyone has just said that, And like
I had my cortisol tested one time at some routine blood work, and my
cortisol was on the very low end of normal. So fasting did not cause
me to have high cortisol. Now, can other things cause you to have
high cortisol? Yes? Can I high stress, unhealthy lifestyle lead to high
cortisol? Yes? Yes. Eating a diet full of you know, processed
foods where your liver cannot detox well, and you know all of that puts
stress on your body. But fasting itself, I've never once been concerned about
cortisol and fasting at all. And I have a high stress lifestyle, and
if anything, fasting removes so much stress from my life and it helps me
handle stress much better. So I'm going to advise you this herb for your
blood pressure. Herbs are food like substances. I'm going to advise you to
push that to the opening of your window, or even take it before bed
when you're not deeply fasted, because actually a lot of studies show that you
want to take your blood pressure medicine in the evening because usually your blood pressure
is highest in the morning, so it can help your blood pressure be more
stable overnight into the morning. But try not to take it in the morning
if you can. As for your anxiety pill most you know medications, just
take that as you need to. So my advice to you is really settle
in. Don't expect tons of weight loss early on. You're healing your body.
You're driving your insulin down by fasting, and focus on eating quality food
in your window. I think a five hour window is great for now.
Settle into a five hour window, see how that feels, assess your results
over time. Honor appetite correction. Once you get fat adapted, you should
start noticing that you know, you just don't have the appetite to eat a
large volume at a time. Your body's going to be giving you very clear
signals when you've had enough food. Really listen for those signals and honor them.
And I would really really suggest getting a fasting insulin test done just so
you know where your fasting insulin level is right now, and then you can
monitor that over time, because even if you're not having weight loss, that
could be healing and you can see that it's very, very encouraging because a
healthy body is a body that's primed for weight loss. And if you're still
really concerned about cortisol for some reason, I would speak to an indocrinologist.
Yep. And I want to talk about weight loss expectations for a few moments,
and that is a very big part of especially my new book, twenty
eight day fast Start, Day by day. You know, even in fast
feast repeat day zero, you can weigh, take your measurements, take your
photos, and then stay off the scale for the first four weeks, because
that is not the time to expect weight loss. So Kim has actually you
know she's down three you know she's down two pounds in three weeks during the
fast start, but I would not even weigh at all for the first twenty
eight days. Don't have that as an expectation. Your body is learning how
to do something new. Then after that day twenty nine and beyond, about
a pound per week is a good, solid, pretty quick rate of loss.
And as Sherry explained, you know I did the math too. The
first time Kim fasted twelve weeks, first four we don't expect weight loss.
Eight pounds would have been expected, but she was actually down ten, so
she was slightly ahead of pace. So when you're trying to really come to
terms with internate and fasting being like nothing you've done before. There's a chapter
in the new book. It's on day twenty four, the importance of realistic
expectations. And I think that is so important because I totally get that.
Kim thinks, well, I'm two hundred and sixty one pounds, this weight
should fly right off of me, especially fast. But it's actually, if
you've been overweight a long time, the longer you've been overweight or obese,
actually the longer it might take for your body to get really ready to start
releasing some fat. You know, I've talked about this analogy on intermittent fasting
stories that people may have heard it before. But imagine that you walk into
a forest. You're at the edge of the forest, there's a clearing,
you walk into the forest, you walk deep into the forest, and you
decide it's time to come out of the forest. You have to turn around
and go all the way back out the way that you came. Think of
your weight the same way. You know, if you've spent a long time
becoming metabolically unhealthy. Gosh, I sure was metabolically unhealthy when I was obese.
It takes time to reverse that. You have to come back out of
the forest. You don't just turn around and boom, you're out of the
forest. So if you've only gone into the forest a little bit, it's
going to be a shorter way out. But I really want you to be
patient with your body and don't be mad at yourself for the mistakes you made
before. You know, when I got to two hundred and ten pounds,
I know what I did to get there now. I understand now how taking
the diet pills and doing the crazy you know, those really fast diets where
you lose really quickly and then you regain it just as fast. I know
what that all did for me, and I know why that was the wrong
thing. So I'm not mad at my younger self for not understanding it,
but it took my body time to heal all that metabolic damage. Did you
want to pop something in their sherry? No, I just think that's really
true. I mean, we we do what we think is best at the
time, and for the longest time, it's been calories in colors out and
you know, it's only in the last probably five to ten years. That
not five, I'm gonna say the last ten years. I forget time is
flying goodness, it is fascinating. I'm in my ninth year, but it's
really only been the last ten years or so that you know, it's we're
really finding out that it's a lot more complicated than that. Your gut biome
comes into play, your liver health comes into play, insulin insulin resistance comes
into play. So there's so much more than how much you're eating every day,
right like if someone starts off. And really, the first time I
ever ever heard this concept was butter Bob. You've heard me talk about butter
before, Sherry. Butter Bob. He was a low carb guy in the
day, and he had a blog butter makes your Pants Fall off? What's
the name of his blog? And he had a blog post it was called
I can't remember something fasting in the fifty percent insulin problem or something like that.
I can't remember something along those lines. But he talked about how someone
who had really high levels of insulin was going to have a harder time burning
fat until they got their insulin down, and that I think that was even
before I had ever read anything by Jason Fung. Yeah, and just if
you have had chronic high insulin for decades, you've got to reverse that before
you're going to be very easily able to tap into your fat stores. Yeah,
and you might wonder why insulin is antilight polytics. So when your insulin
is high, it does not allow your body to burn fat efficiently. So
you've got to get your insulin down so that your body can burn fat.
So that's why I you know, that's why I said get your pasting insulince
so you know where you're at, because I really think seeing that number and
knowing like, okay, right now I'm babbling high insulin. I need to
get that down over time and then my body's going to release the weight.
Then you're setting yourself up for realistic expectations rather than why is my weight not
falling off? Right? And weight doesn't fall off? I talk about that
in the chapter in the twenty eight day Fast Start book. You know,
all those claims on the front of the magazines are crazy. Nobody loses weight
that fast or you don't lose fat that fast. Let me put it that
way. I mean, you can amputato a leg, but please don't do
that. No, that's the only way you're gonna lose ten pounds in three
days. Right, You're not going to lose ten pounds of fat quickly,
right, right. That's just such an important thing to understand, because if
we have unrealistic expectations, then we feel like we're failing even when we're doing
well, right, And you don't want to be doing really well and feeling
like you're failing. So realistic expectations are so so so crucial, and Maya
is so important. And that's a big reason why I want you to stay
out the scale for the first four weeks, because you've got a lot else
going on. You don't want to be poisoning your mind with thoughts of my
weight whe up a pounds a day? Right, This isn't going to work
so right? All right? So now it's time for our segment called what's
Your Why? And you know most of us begin intermittent fasting with weight loss
is a part of our why. Nothing wrong with that, But when our
why is deeper than weight loss alone, we're more likely to find long term
success and view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle. So Sarah said, I cannot
think of a better way to kick off not only what I'm calling my determination
year, but today is actually my fourth year IF anniversary. In twenty twenty,
I found and started intermittent fasting. It was a rough year. Not
only did COVID hit, but my husband moved to California for his job and
to set things up for us, me and our three kids. At the
time, I had a senior in high school. He and I just couldn't
get along, no matter what I think. World War three, Yes,
we've had high school kids. Yeah, my middle kid was in his tenth
grade year and my daughter was in the eighth grade and she had some bowling
issues going on. So I had already started homeschooling before COVID hit. May
I add, I've been overweight my entire life. May twenty of twenty twenty,
we all moved to California to join my husband. I didn't tell anyone
at all what I had found or what I was doing, but people would
ask because I was dropping weight and body recomposition was working its magic. I
dropped fifty point eight pounds and eleven months. May I add, I've never
been that size ever in my entire adult life. Fast forward to twenty twenty
one and twenty twenty two, and I had a couple of hiccups, but
for the most part, my clothes still fit pretty well, and even though
I was up and down throughout those two years, I managed to keep forty
six pounds off, sometimes a little more depending on the day. Three D
came, and it seemed for most of it it was the worst year in
my life so far. Even so I can say I made it through when
at the time I didn't think I could, and I learned a lot.
I definitely came out stronger. In the end. I did gain all but
ten pounds that I had originally lost. I am glad to say. I
started working on myself a little a time as of September eighteenth, and I
have managed to lose twelve point four of the twenty five pound gain as of
today. I write all this to let anyone who has read this far my
why. Originally when I started in twenty twenty, it was for weight loss,
like a lot of others, but also I liked having something of my
own, and it was the only thing that made sense to me, something
I could do for the rest of my life and truly make a lifestyle.
I have to be honest, it's changed somewhat now since May of twenty twenty
three. My mom called to let me know that my dad was in the
hospital and didn't look good. Next thing I know, I was on a
plane to go find out what was going on. At this time, I
wasn't aware of the actual problems that had been going on, and it had
been three years since I had seen my parents and in person. The man
I saw in the hospital bed was not the same man I recognized as my
dad. I couldn't believe in that short amount of time how he had changed
for the worst. It was then, for the first time in my forty
three years of life, I was scared to get old. My parents haven't
lived the best lives. They've had some addiction for most of my life,
and I swore growing up that I would never be like them, and I've
kept that promise. Don't get me wrong, I was a cigarette smoker off
and on for the past seventeen years. Just like that promise I made to
myself back then, I again have promised myself to not live my older years
like my parents. I'm going to make every possible choice for the rest of
my life to not deteriorate like them and pass away like my dad did at
seventy one on September first, twenty twenty three. That is why September eighteenth,
when I got back home from taking care of things from the death of
my dad and helping my mom get this straightened out, that I started making
better choices as well as becoming a non smoker. Intermittent fasting is the best
thing I've found and experience that will help me to not become them and to
be healthy with the side effective weight loss. Not only that, it's sustainable
for life and it allows me to enjoy life no matter what is going on.
Plus it lets me set an example to my kids and those around me.
Wow, Sarah, that is a powerful why I'm so sorry about your
dad. Yeah, that's hard. You know, I've talked about this before
on the show. Seeing our parents have health issues really is a wake up
call yeap of wanting things to be different. Yeah. Well, we have
another question this week from Jewels. I don't know if Jewles is male or
female. I think it can go either way. I think female. Is
it female? Okay? Jewels? Like Jeulie, I think so well.
I've known to jewles. Who is a man? Oh see, I haven't.
I was like, that's weird I have uh huh okay, So anyways,
I'm just gonna say they live in Devon, England. I've recently completed
the twenty eight day fast start and I'm loving the IF lifestyle. I do
not want to weigh myself ever again, as the daily fluctuations don't work well
for me in terms of motivation, and so I will be relying on body
measurements and how my clothes fit to measure progress. I did IF when Delay
Don't Deny first came out and I lost the ten pounds I needed to eat
needed to easily and I loved it, but then I allowed window creep,
so I'm starting again. Past successes means I'm sure I'm fasting correctly. These
days, I switch up daily between an eighteen six and a twenty two to
two, and I've been using urine keto sticks to see if I am depleting
my glycogen stores, but most days they show no signs of keytones. Even
when I'm deep into my fasted state and feel great, I am wondering if
fasting is working. Ridiculous question, really and I know I'm just being impatient.
I had a very healthy whole food diet, but I do have some
carbs and the odd dessert. Do I need to adjust what I eat to
assure I'm depleting my glycogen stores and flipping the motoblox switch? Or is it
likely okay? And the key tone sticks are messing with my head and best
avoided. Thank you for everything you do, Jewels. Yes, the keytone
sticks are messing with your head and best avoided. Here's why urine key tones
are the absolute worst measures because that's the last that's that's the place you're least
likely to have them. So even if you are making key tones efficiently,
you're fat adapted. You're flipping your metabolics, which if your body is using
those keytnes efficiently, they're not going to be peed out in your urine,
so there won't be anything to measure. So I am really not a fan
of trying to hit some kind of key tone number. And it really all
this. I learned about this back in the day when we were running the
Facebook groups, because people would get so, you know, we were very
like a lot of people were doing keto at the time, and that's when
these meters were just coming out, and breath meters and blood meters, and
everyone wanted to test, and the best information was coming out of the keto
community at the time because they were more interested in measuring key tones, and
there was a misconception that you needed high levels of key tones and you had
to be able to measure them. But what people in the keto world were
noticing is over time what they were measuring went down, like they might have
high levels and then they would go down and they're like, oh, no,
I'm not making as many key tones. Something's wrong, when really it
was just their bodies were more efficiently using them. So I don't think there's
really any need to measure key tones at all for any reason, or to
chase a measurement on a meter, whether it's a blood meter or a breath
meter or any kind of meter. You know, I have. I used
to, you know, I had a Keto Mojo because they sponsored intermittent fasting
podcast back in the day, and so I had tested just to see and
I did get some key tones in my blood. And you know, I
had a breath meter a couple times, and I would get key tones in
my breath but the level is not important that I would never use the urine
sticks ever. Yeah, those are the least the least accurate of all,
but I don't think anyone needs to use them at all. What I want
to add to home testing is kind of it's not going to be exact science
anyway. Jen and I played around with the breath keytne meter we did.
We had the exact same model and the exact same model Okay, this was
in twenty twenty. Yeah, and I every single day it told me I
was not getting into katosis okay. And I'm fasting like a champ and I'm
eating clean and every single day I'm fighting. I'm blowing key tones like crazy,
and I'm getting all the carbs, blowing key tones hoigh numbers all the
time. Yeah. Yeah. And then we vacation together and we brought our
meter. I brought meters, yep. And when I blew in Gen's meter,
suddenly I'm blowing like an eight or nine and I'm only blowing like a
one point one on my meter, and Jin, who's blowing a fourteen on
her meter, is now blowing like a three on my media. So when
you go have lab work done at a lab. They calibrate that machine every
day. You know, they're calibrating their equipment and what you have in your
hand, and it's being jostled around and moved and put in different temperature settings
and whatever. Those instruments are not calibrated. I wouldn't trust them for nothing.
And it was just really so it was almost hilarious because Sherry was complaining
that she was never getting into katosis and I'm like, well, I'm getting
in katosis beautifully, just like I ate one hundred percent carbs yesterday and I'm
a katosis at eight am. But really when I actually it was not eight
am. But whenever I felt like I was like I felt like the metabolock
switch had flipped. I would verify it. I would get breath keytnes.
But it was the meters being the problem. And the same you know with
blood meter blood meter, your body's going to snatch those key tones up once
you're adapted, and there'll be There was a guy that in some blog post
I read, there was some guy who was a famous keto athlete, and
it was like he was eating like almost one hundred percent fat and exercised a
lot, and his blood key tone level was very very low. That sounds
awful, well, it does sound awful, but one hundred percent fat.
He was eating meatally fat. But look, the point was that his blood
key tone levels were not like that high number that people like think there should
be shooting for, right, because he was a very metabolically healthy guy.
Anyway, we don't want to have a lot of key tones hanging around,
We want to be using them. I wanted to take a minute, and
I have linked this paper because a lot of people keep talking about, you
know, flipping the metabolic switch, maybe because I talked about it in the
new book for a couple of days of the study. So people are really
concerned with when does it happen, is it happening? How could it happen?
And so I have linked to paper in the show notes. It's doctor
Mark Matson's flipping the metabolic switch paper, and it is just the paper that
really taught me. Let me click on it and see what year that was.
I have it in the show notes. This paper came out in twenty
seventeen. Okay, so that was right in the height of everybody like what's
going on. Remember when we had that nurse Sharry, she was a nurse
in the advanced group who got so mad and left because she said it was
impossible to get in kotosis if you were eating any carbs and you're eating window.
She was so mad. She's like, I'm a nurse and that is
impossible. I'm like, I promise you, it is not impossible to get
into kotosas even if you're eating carbs and you're eating window. So this is
a quote from doctor Mark Matson's paper Flipping the Metabolic Switch, and he worked
at Johns Hopkins. He's a premiere expert on intermittent fasting. I interviewed him
for intermittent fasting stories. Here's what qu out of that paper. The metabolic
switch typically occurs between twelve to thirty six hours after a cessation of food consumption,
depending on the liver glycogen content at the beginning of the fast and on
the amount of the individual's energy expenditure or exercised during the fast. Lipids,
meaning fats, are then metabolized to free fatty acids, which are released into
the blood. Simultaneously. Other cell types may also begin generating ketones. Free
fatty acids are transported into hepatocytes, which are cells in the liver where they
are metabolized to produce the ketones. So he gives a range twelve to thirty
six hours, and he says it depends on your liver glycogen content. So
he actually is the one who taught me that reading this paper and then I'm
like, oh, it can happen at our twelve, but it might not
happen till our thirty six. And it really depends on your over glicogen.
So what you're eating, and we talked about this last week when we talked
about carbs and ultra processed foods. But if your eating window is short enough,
like my five hour window, I don't put in enough glycogen in my
eating windows so that I don't flip the switch the next day. If I
started having really long windows like eight hours, ten hours, wan on vacation,
ate a lot more than usual, then my body is going to store
extra glycogen in my liver. But day to day it's not going to be
a problem. If you're fasting like a nineteen five and you are eating just
till you're satisfied, yeah, your body will be flipping that switch and you
don't have to stress about it. Maybe it'll only make it a little bit
of keytnes. We're not trying to get like nutritional ktosis levels of key tones
like they're doing in the keto world, where they're making the key tones from
fat that they're eating. You're not going to get the same level of keytnes
that somebody who is opening or they're starting drinking bulletproof coffee and they're eating one
hundred percent fat and they're burning all that fat that they've eaten and making that
into key tones. You're just burning a little bit of body fat. You
might just have a little bit of key tones, but we're not trying to
hit high numbers. Well, and there was that one video that came out
like probably twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, was it like Science direct or something,
And they actually had some research in it and like some charts if I
remember right, And what they shared in the video was that you can actually
get into deeper katosis deep in your fast than a person eating keto can.
Yeah, so we're not in katosis all the time, but when we are
in katosis, we can get into really deep katosis. Yeah, but we're
not trying to hit a certain number. That's what I really want to emphasize
and especially not on the urine sticks. All right, So we have a
book recommendation this week from Michelle in Iowa, and she said, I just
want to give a shout out to I was a member of Jen's online group
back when it hit only fifty thousand. As she said, I ran across
her and doctor fun in twenty eighteen, and as of today, I am
down roughly ninety pounds and have cured my insulin resistance and many other health concerns
I was encountering. I will be sixty seven this October, and I feel
better today than I ever did in my forties or fifties, and I'm back
to a weight and size of clothes I haven't seen for over thirty six years.
I'm also more fit and stronger than I was in my thirties. Thank
you Jen and Sheriff for your continued support and education to the fasting community.
You two rock. Recently, I've gone down the rabbit hole of learning more
about insulin and the effects of high insulin on the body. Mine was seventeen
point seven after three years of fasting, and year four I got it to
seven point four and lost forty two pounds. That year by eating lower carb
and prioritizing more protein, and hopefully it will be under this year. I
would like to recommend Why We Get Sick by doctor Benjamin Bickman. Wow,
what an eye opener on how much insulin affects so many things health wise.
Insulin needs to be put on the regular blood test list as it's a shame
doctors ignore it. And you know that's true. Sometimes doctors will even like
mock a patient. Now, I'm not criticizing doctors here. I love doctors.
There are many amazing doctors. But some doctors don't understand and they will
like mock a patient who's asking and say, that's not what you want.
You don't really know. You just want the blood glucose or like they'll say
they're going to order it, or they'll tell the patient yes, and then
they order the blood glucose, and I think in their head they're like,
this person doesn't know what they're talking about. They make blood glucose, yeah,
but they have not been trained to do this time. It's not their
fault. I'm not criticizing the doctors. But if your doctor argues with you
and tells you you don't need it, and doesn't seem to understand it.
Don't be mad at your doctor. Your doctor just doesn't know. It doesn't
mean your doctor's a bad doctor. They just don't know about this. They
certainly trained on this in med school. Maybe you could send them a link
to why we get sick? You could, you know, nicely suggest they
read that. Yeah, because doctors want to help you. They would like
to learn and help you how you need to be helped. But you can
get your own fasting insulin test for very low priced from Walking Lab. Yes,
all right, Before we get to our tweak of the week, I
want to talk about my books real quick and which ones you need if you
are new to intermittent fasting, restarting after a break or just in need of
a refresh, you're going to want twenty eight day fast start day by day.
And I really didn't realize, Sherry, how many people who maybe had
gotten a little, i don't know, lax in their intermittent fasting lifestyle,
maybe had some window creep, maybe hadn't been making the best choices, and
just felt like they were just a little out of say, coasting along.
Those people were not who I originally thought I was writing the book for but
it has really helped those people a lot. So if you're one of those
people, you never quit, but you're not brand new, but you're just
kind of like kind of lost my mojo, yep, maybe you're not feeling
really inspired, right. This book has been great for people who have lost
their fasting mojo. And you Also, this is a companion book to Fast
Feast Repeat, so you need that one as well if you're brand new,
twenty eight day fast Art day by day, and Fast Feast Repeat. If
you're restarting, if you need your fasting mojo again, twenty eight day fast
Art day by day. And if you're a settled, intermittent faster and you
know you want to clean up what you're eating, clean up your personal care
products and the cleaning products you use in your home, then I think you'll
enjoy cleanish. I don't talk about that one as much, but I wrote
it so that the process of cleaning up would feel less daunting. It's also
I wrote it shurey because I wanted to learn more about it, right,
it was something I wanted to do. So I was like, I really,
you know, I've been kind of taking these steps myself, and so
I really wrote the book to support myself was going through the process. But
it's, you know, a step by step approach that you control every step
of the way, and you can change what you're ready to change when you're
ready. So now it's time for our tweak of the Week. This tweek
was submitted by Lost in al Paso. Hello, beautiful ladies. I got
so excited when I heard my question being answered by you ladies on episode twenty
five. I felt very special. I wanted to give you an update on
my previous email that was sent to you last summer. So her backstory was
after life changes, her fasting fell by the wayside, and her A one
C that she previously controlled with fasting had risen drastically and she was started on
a GLP one medication to control it. So she goes on to say,
thank you Sherry for explaining what ozempic medication is and what it does in the
body. I stopped the injection of ozempic back in July of twenty twenty three
and maintained my weight for a couple of months. Around September twenty twenty three,
I listened to one of Jim's Stories podcast where she mentioned the book Mastering
Diabetes. Well, of course I was going to read up on this new
diet management of diabetes. I started changing my diet around October, not completely,
but the seed was already planted, and by November I went completely whole
food, plant based, low fat diet. Well, I have to tell
you that it has completely changed my life. My sugar levels are excellent even
after eating a healthy high card meal. I stopped eating all animal foods and
oils and started eating more vegetables of gooms, grains, and fruit. I
have lost another eight pounds and feel amazing. I did get another complete blood
work and fasting influin. I'm still a work in progress, but I wanted
to share my new numbers with no medication. A one C is now six
point one. It was six point four before. My fasting insulin is eight.
I had never done this one before, but we'll ask for this test
from now on. Cholesterol levels are normal, and all the other tests came
back normal as well. I just wanted to thank you both for all your
knowledge and time that you both put into helping people like me. Sincerely,
Elizabeth not lost in El Paso anymore. I love that, and I really
believe The mastering diabetes method is a powerful approach for so many bodies. It's
the one that works better for me if I needed if I found my A
one C being too high or was suddenly diagnosed with diabetes, this is what
you know. I never had better blood sugar control wearing my CGM than when
I was doing whole food plant based low fat. Now I've got good blood
sugar control even without doing whole food plant based low fat. So I enjoy
my meat and dairy. But if I ever had metabolic problems, this is
what would work for me. Right well, We'd love to leave you with
inspirational or motivational quotes, and this week's message comes from Michelle from Saint Charles,
Missouri. The quote is your attitude can either be your best friend who
has your best interests at heart, or your worst enemy who wants to see
you fail, destroy your life and be miserably unhappy. It is imperative that
you check your attitude, make sure that your attitude is working for you,
not against you. There's limitless value in having a positive, empowered, and
optimistic attitude. Choose wisely which attitude you give life to. And that is
by Stephanie Lahart. I don't know familiar with her, but those are pretty
powerful words. I think so too. 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 Jenstevens dot com slash community to
join us. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to your favorite podcast app,
and if you haven't already, please leave us a five star review that
helps new listeners find the show, and we really appreciate it. We 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 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.