Episode 48: Building Muscle after Menopause, The Clean Fast Difference, 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've
done great, other than we're having weird electronics stuff in my house today.
That is weird. If something happens with my audio or whatever, just know
I'm living in some weird electronics snap food today. Well, hopefully that won't
happen. We had something weird out in the hall when it was vacuuming,
like twenty minutes ago, right outside of the window where I record. So
I'm like, well, I hope that's gone in time for me to record.
You're vacuuming, that's somebody in the hall anyway, So funny. Oh,
I was laughing because it was a couple of weeks ago we'd recorded the
episode where people were drilling yes and then how many Yeah, that's the drill,
and some lady said she thought somebody was like in her kitchen or something.
When it first started. She was like, I'm so glad you said
something because she thought somebody was in her house. Yep, we are love
as we record this and things happen. That is true. So we wanted
to take a couple of minutes at the beginning to talk about the surprising information
that we all just have found out about Beauty Counter. For those of you
who might be custom like we are. We're recording this on May seventh,
so by the time this episode comes out, it'll be May twenty ninth,
so three weeks from tomorrow, and people may already know this. If your
customer's a beauty Counter, but Sherry and I want to talk about it,
because look, I've been using Beauty Counter since gosh, was it twenty nineteen
or twenty twenty. Now, you used it for probably about a year before
me, and I started using it in twenty twenty. Okay, so I
probably started in twenty nineteen exactly. And you know, I've loved it ever
since I started using it. And so out of the blue we got an
email, probably just in very late April April, that said we'll go into
the specifics, but basically they're like, oh, we're only going to take
orders through the end of today and then we're reorganizing and things are happening.
So I was like, oh gosh, immediately placed a giant order of things.
If they never came back, I couldn't live without. Because even though
they said they would be back May first, I was like, what if
so I have like a ton of shampoo that's Cara, I got it stocked
away. But they were like, oh, we'll be back May first.
Well May first came and went and they were not back. So do you
want to share what's I wont or do you want me to I can just
share the gist of it. Apparently several years ago, twenty twenty one,
I believe the founder Beauty Counter sold from what I understand, the majority shares
of the company to an investment group, and from what I understand, she
was hoping to expand and get clean Beauty into more people's hands. Unfortunately,
that investment group, it sounds like, did not manage the company very well.
At one point they actually asked her to step down a CEO. I
suspect because her goals and their goals were not in alignment. And then this
year they asked her to step back in. I think it was a bit
of a hail Mary, and it comes to find out the company was not
being handled well and they're in foreclosure. She came into a mess basically,
yes, yes, and it was beyond her ability to fix. So the
bank owns Beauty Counter apparently at this point, and her goal was to buy
it back. She found some new investors that were like in line with her
vision and she brought them on board. And she has managed to buy back
certain aspects of the company. And we don't know all the details, but
she had hoped to reopen sales in May. That hasn't happened. I think
it's a lot more complicated than she thought it was going to be legally,
so at this point she's really hoping to be back by the end of twenty
twenty four. We just got an email yesterday saying her hope is to go
back live in the fourth quarter of this year. In the meantime, they
still are in Alta stores and some of the products, not everything, like
I don't have the shampoo and conditioner right until I believe July, and then
in July they're going to be available at Alta dot com. That is the
most current news that we have. You can I'm an Alta dot com I
think right this minute, everything like the limited product selection that they have right
you can find them online or if you have a store locally. Yeah,
yeah, I mean, this has been a shock to all of us,
for sure. You hear me rave about their products, how much I love
them, and they've been launching new products, so they had I had no
idea that this was coming, and we're as shocked as you are. I
still one hundred percent believe and Greg is the founder. I believe in what
she's doing. I believe in her mission, and I hope, hope,
hope that she is able to bring it back. How it comes back,
We're not really sure what that's going to look like, but I will continue
to support them when they come back. And in the meantime, I'm gonna
do some research and deep dives and see if I can find you another clean
beauty line out there that we can recommend. Yeah, so stay tuned for
that. But thank you to everybody who has purchased through Jen and I and
helped to support the work we do. That is really appreciated. Yeah,
and I really really love the product. I do too. And that's the
thing that's like the first thing I did. I didn't panic about oh no.
I was like you no. I wasn't thinking, oh no, our
beauty counter business is going to be gone. I thought, oh no,
I need the shampoo. And I'm like using my vitamin C serum. And
I found when you come to my house, I can never make my SELFTI
skin care regiment. Well, my skin has just so much better. It
has just ran in from twenty nineteen and my skin is awful compared to the
day you can have around vitamin C zero. I'm like, oh my gosh,
I need my beauty counter. If you give me your stash of shampoo.
I'll keep you all right, all right, all right, good right,
all right, Well, thank y'all. Now we're ready to get to
our celebration, all right. Soday's celebration comes from Emily in Saint Louis.
She starts with her stats. She says, my starting weight was three forty.
My current weight is to ninety. I have lost five and a half
inches around my waist. I am thirty nine years old with a two year
old. Keeping up with her is my biggest why. I'm five to seven.
My fasting insulin is nine. My short story, I've been overweight my
whole life, and I'm currently just below a set point that I've been at
many times. My current weight is also around my high school weight. I
suspect weight loss will be slower now, but it will continue my fasting protocol.
I averaged nineteen five with a variety from day to day, I have
almost cured my fatty liver. I have been clean fasting for ten months since
completing breastfeeding, starting in June of twenty twenty three. Pregnancy and breastfeeding was
hard on my body, and I gained a lot of fat inflammation. I
fasted before getting pregnant, and I knew I could go back to fasting right
after breastfeeding, so while being heavier was hard, I tried my best to
not beat myself up about the weight gain. Breastfeeding my child was most important
to me. A fatty liver was confirmed with an ultrasound in August of twenty
twenty two. I knew a Roxy story and I knew if could help clear
my fatty liver, but I forgot in important detail until you reminded me in
episode forty two that Roxy didn't lose any weight while her body was clearing the
fatty liver. I don't weigh often because the scale really messes with my mindset.
I weigh myself and take measurements about every six weeks, and I also
pay close attention to how my clothes fit. And this system is working well
for me. Between June twenty twenty three and February twenty twenty four, I
lost fifty pounds, and then between February and April at a doctor visit,
I didn't lose any weight. Que the mental scale drama, diet thoughts came
back and what did I do wrong? Guilt while waiting for my liver test
and blood work results to come back. It took me a few days to
remember that the scale was not moving, but I didn't do anything wrong.
Jen's helpful voice in my head said, if something is changing, if is
working. During this time of no weight loss. Between February and April,
my waist, bust, and calves all lost half an inch and my smaller
clothes are starting to feel loose again. I also have way more energy and
I'm sleeping better. My arms are stronger, I have more muscle definition.
My scan confirmed my fatty liver is getting better. The doctor predicts about five
percent more weight loss could completely cure it, and my blood work came back
great. Previously I had a few of the liver enzymes that were elevated,
and now they are all solidly in the normal range. I really impressed my
doctor. She is pro fasting and fast herself, but I suspect that she
is not clean fasting. I know I can cure my liver and we'll keep
losing. I just need to give it time. The magic is in the
repeat. I really love this podcast and intermittent fasting stories. Thank you for
what you do well. That is super exciting, celebrating clearing up or almost
clearing up that fatty liver, and so importing it really is. You know,
I just can't emphasize enough that if our only metric of is intermittent fasting,
working is the number on the scale, imagine what you could miss out
on. Because if you're like, well, I hadn't lost any weight,
it stopped working, I guess I'll quit, you would miss out on it
clearing out the fat from a fatty liver. Not yeah. And you know
a lot of people ask like, oh, I'm getting started or I'm going
to the doctor, I need to get blood work done. What should I
get done? And they ask all the time, And I have started telling
people to get a liver panel done because if you're somebody and you're just starting
fasting and you carry a lot of visceral fat, if you're kind of an
apple shaped person, you might be surprised that your liver enzymes might come back
elevated and you just don't know. And if you've never had problems that would
indicate any type of issue there, like red upro quadrant pain or something like
that, that's not just something that they customarily order. But if you could
get your doctor to order them. They can do them alongside your other annual
labs, and that might be a good metabolic marker for you. And it's
really important to know because liver health is so important to hormonal health, thyroid
health. I mean, like it all comes back to your liver. Yep.
Well that's great advice. All right. We have a question from s
see Funky Faster, and I love the name funky Faster, but I'm thinking
of like funky town, like in a good way. But I also wonder
is that sc or Is that South Carolina? I think it's South Carolina.
Okay, some reason if you're in South Carolina, I feel like maybe somewhere
She says she's in South Carolina, but I could be wrong. Okay,
Well, if you're sc hello, if you're in South Carolina. Also hello,
Funky Faster. All right. Funky Faster says, Oh, and it's
a woman I can tell from reading the next part of it. Okay,
she says, I am a forty year old who is forty days into ADF,
which is alternate day fasting with the Clean Fasting Protocol. Since buying Jin's
Fast Feast Repeat book, what an amazing difference Clean Fasting has made for me.
I was following another fasting protocol for over a year based on a woman's
minstrel cycle and hormones, and eating somewhat keto. But after happening upon your
podcast and also reading some of doctor Jason Funk's work, I realized I really
wasn't truly fasting for that entire year plus. I was adding mctoil to my
coffee, eating avocados, thinking I was fasting to extend my fasts, and
I was routinely doing three day fasts monthly while technically cheating by eating fats and
still drinking zero calorie beverages like Zvia or stir water enhancers. I had some
progress, but it was slow and not the body recomp I've seen since starting
my clean fasts and reading and rereading Gin's book. I've dropped six pounds in
my forty days clean fasting, and I'm seeing changes to my stomach area and
dropping fat clothes that are super loose when they weren't before, and measurement changes
across my body. And I feel a million times better than the year I
was in quotation marks fasting meaning not clean fasting and doing keto while also killing
my metabolism by only consuming between fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred calories per day.
Also, I've waight trained for many years, but only recently started to see
the definition in my arms and back. I know it is because of clean
fasting. Can I pop in something here? Sherry Sure? I want to
talk about that. You know, she's seeing that the definition is coming back
now that she started clean fasting. She's seeing muscle building, and there's so
much confusion out there. I'm like, y'all know how much I love Zoe,
and I was on the Zoe podcast. We love the Zoe team.
They had somebody on recently who was like an exercise expert, and she said,
people who are fasting lose muscle. I've seen it in my practice with
people. But were they fasting clean? I would bet they're not right.
So, if anyone tells me, are they doing forty eight seventy two hours
fast and not refueling properly and doing that repeatedly? Yeah, someone says,
well, I've worked with lots of people and they were all fasting and they
lost muscle. Well, if they are not fasting clean, maybe they're drinking
diet soda all day and spiking their insolin. We know that having high insulin
keeps you from tapping into your fat, so you might lose muscle. It's
like a low calorie diet. If you are not fasting, clean your low
calorie dieting. So basically, when someone says the people I worked with who
were fasting lost a lot of muscle, well, if they weren't fast and
clean, they weren't fasting. They were low calorie dieting. And we all
know that low calorie dieting leads to more muscle loss, right, So take
that all and filter it through. Just because someone said they were fasting,
that doesn't mean they were fast and clean. Be your own study of one.
Do not be scared because somebody on a podcast said, well, everybody
I worked with who was fasting loss of muscle. Were they fast and clean?
Probably not? But what's happening for you? Like I am now doing
pilates really once a week. I'm going to pilates, Sherry, look at
my muscle. I'm gon shut Cherry, Wow, sheer. I just did
flexed and showed it to Sherry. I am building muscle when fasting. I'm
fast and clean. And and if you're not forcing pe. You're in a
Clark deficit. It's not going to build muscles, not fast and clean,
right, Yeah, if you're not fast and clean, right, if your
body is thinking, it's in a chloric deficit, it's like a pan extarmination
mode. If you're low calorie dieting because you're not fast and clean, then
your body is going to perceive starvation. Anyway. I just wanted to pop
that in there because we get so many people who are panic because of what
someone else said, and it's all about the people think they're fasting, Just
like Funky Faster here, who was actually eating avocados right because she heard somewhere
that that was still fasting and we know that it's not. And she was
drinking diet sodas and she was putting water enhancers in her water. And so
I just want everybody to think about that really hard and filter that through.
Well. I know this person said that everybody they've ever worked with who was
fasting lost muscle where they fast and clean, probably not all right, So
I'm going to keep going. Funky Faster said, here's my question. When
I was doing Keto, I heard about Keto breath and Keto crotch sorry,
not sure if you can say that on the air, Yes, we can.
We can say it on the air. Remember that Cherry when we went
on the cruise in twenty nineteen. Yeah, that was when the whole Keto
crotch had just come out. I don't know what causes that because whatever,
but I have done some research and I will talk about that in a minute.
But I can remember somebody who was on the cruise who was like also
doing Keto, Like I said, yeah, I've got Keto crotch, and
I'm like, oh, dear Lord, I don't want that anyway. So
that just brought back those memories of the cruise, she said. But I
only ever experienced the breath changes, that is, until I've been doing ADF
with thirty six hour water only fasts three to four days per week, and
occasionally I will have a two to four hour eating window on Saturdays and Sundays,
so she's having a down day followed by an up day. But sometimes
she'll do eating windows on the weekends. She said. Generally, I stick
to true ADF, not using five hundred calorie meals. By the way,
just a little wording the five hundred calory Downday is really the more true version
of ADF because that's how it was originally designed, Like the original ADF was
five hundred calorie down days. So please don't think that you're not doing true
ADF if you're not doing the full fast both are legit. But she's sticking
to full fast version of ADF and not the down day version. So she
said, I've had three vaginal yeast infections in the past forty days. Granted,
I'm a runner and I do weight training, but my running or weight
training has not changed since clean fasting, or at all really in the past
two years. I run on my fasted days and lift on my up days.
I shower typically twenty to thirty minutes after I run, since I run
during my lunch hour and I don't want to work the rest of the office
day sticky and sweaty. I don't think it's hygiene, but I'm wondering if
ADF can have the same effects to our vaginal pH as following the keto diet.
Ketosis is still ketosis, whether I get there from fasting or following a
keto diet. Right, yeah, ketosis is still ketosis, although where the
energy for the ketones is coming from makes a difference. It's coming from your
stored body fat versus the fat you're taking in. But still ketosis is keytones
or ketones, she said, I still use a ketome mojo throughout the week
because I really like having that data. And I have noticed that since practicing
clean fasting, I'm able to get into deeper katosis really quickly. By about
twelve to sixteen hours fasted, I'm already typically in the moderate GKI katosis range,
and by the time I'm ready to break my fast during my updates like
this morning, I'm in the high to highest therapeutic level of GKI katosis.
This morning, my keytnes were at one point six and glucose was seventy for
a two point four GKI. What does GKI stand for? I forgot something
katosis index. I don't know, glue bake glucose. I don't know what
it is. I don't know that's what it is? Is it? But
that's what it is, yep. It's where they like ratio between your glucose
and ketnes. Since I haven't eaten keto or done keto, or thought about
keto or tracked anything like that, I was saying, I've never went back
to anything like that. No, no, she said, I'm not following
a keto diet anymore, per se, and I don't limit myself on anything
other than highly processed foods and refined sugars. Do you think there is a
relationship between katosis, adf and changing pH down there? I can only find
info based on Keto diets. On her updates, she's taking a probiotic,
eating plenty of yogurt, limiting sugars. Now, this does sound pretty katosis.
She talks about that she's eating. She sounds like she's eating two eggs
fried in a little butter, bacon and cheese, keto, arnold bread,
avocado, and tomato. Her lunch is green alas, Greek yogurt, some
berries, chicken wraps, carb smart tortilla, hummus, spinach, feta,
dinner, protein and veggie closes her windows seven to seven thirty. She said,
When I asked my GP about it, she said, maybe stop fasting,
and went about the standard rhetoric of suggestions to avoid a yeast infection,
and she said, biggest eye roll. I can imagine your thoughts here are
a shaded I know you're not giving medical advice, but if you've seen a
correlation, or maybe it's popped up within the community. Any guidance would be
great. I hate thinking I'm alone with this odd side effect. Well,
I hadn't heard anyone talk about keto crotch since twenty nineteen, honestly, so
it's not something that pops up frequently in the community. Can you think of
that about community? Do you think we have a lot of keto laters?
True, we have a couple. We have a few people who are carnivore
and a few people who are keto or low carb or trend that way,
But the bulk of our community leans more towards whole food plant based, with
all foods, like, when we're eating plants, it's whole. I didn't
mean everybody's whole food plant based. What I meant is we're leaning towards eating
whole foods, whether that's plants and meat, protein and dairy and real food
like real food, yes, right, like me, I say, I'm
plant heavy with a side of meat. Yeah, well, okay. So
the thought with keto crotch is that it's caused by changes in the vaginal pH
level and the culprit really is saturated fats really and yes, and you do
have appears a lot of saturated fat in your diet. So here's where things
get a little complicated. Okay, So the other thing is is if you
have any handy to die off, that can cause yeast infections, but you
shouldn't be getting them over and over again. So here's where I really am
going. And I cannot believe your doctor didn't check for this, or maybe
you didn't, I don't know where that conversation with your doctor came up.
But you may not have a yeast infection. You could actually have a bacterial
vaginosis, which treating for yeast does nothing to help the bacterial overgrowth and it
can actually make it worse, like treating a yeast infection can give a person
bacterial vaginosis. So I really recommend asking your doctor to do a simple pelvic
exam with the wet prep. They can tell you whether or not you have
bacterial bagenosis. They can treat that. You can treat it orally, or
you can treat it locally. Because if you don't get rid of that bacterial
overgrowth, nothing you do is going to make it better. It is going
to keep coming back. If neither come back positive. We learned about this
on the Life Lessons podcast. We interviewed doctor Betsy Greenleaf. She's a pelvic
health specialist. You can use boric acids of positories which can rebalance vaginal pH
Some women claim it actually helps with bacterial vaginosis and you can do like a
weak treatment with it and then you can use it sporadically as needed. It
helps with odor, it can help with all sorts of things. So you
might give that a try, but you definitely if you have bacterial overgrowth,
need to take care of that problem. And from hearing you talk and the
fact that you say this keeps coming back, that's what I think you probably
have going on. If I had to guess, well, I just yeah,
I would be like yeah, And if it's truly bothersome, try cutting
back on the saturated fats. It seems miserable because I'm so you know,
I'm sorry that sorry that you're going to feel that not so fresh feeling down
there. No no, so so thank you for sharing all of the backstory
there, and also for sharing that you're enjoying the clean fast, And I
just would really think about what makes you feel your best as far as like
eating goes, and I think it's interesting that your doctor's like, that's from
fasting. I can't imagine. Well, I sometimes when people don't have the
answer, they just jump on the one thing that feels Yeah, it's easiest.
Yeah, exactly. So anyway, so now it's time for our segment
called what's your Why. Most of us have weight loss in mind, and
that is absolutely appropriate to have that as part of your why. However,
if the only thing you're coming to intermittent fasting for is how quickly can I
lose weight? How fast can I lose it? And I just want to
lose weight, then it can be frustrating because weight loss is not always quick.
It's not always right away, like we've already heard that. You know,
you could be clearing a fatty liver, for example, and not see
the weight loss. So when your why is deeper than weight loss alone,
you are more likely to find long term success and view intermittent fasting as a
lifestyle. So this week we have a why from Pamela. She says,
I have watched disease, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's control the
lives of various family members. My why is that I want to be able
to control what happens in my life rather than it being controlled by disease.
I think that is so powerful. Yeah, I want to be able to
do what I want to do when I want to do it. The best
way to do that is to have a healthy body. In mind, more
than eighty percent of the population is not metabolically healthy. Poor metabolic health is
linked to so many diseases that do not allow us to age gracefully. I
want to age gracefully and live my best life. If is not just about
weight for me, but a way to live a healthy life, lifestyle on
the outside and on the inside. I am so happy I have found this
lifestyle. So I'm very happy for you too. And it's true. I
try to get my husband to think that way too. Yeah, I mean,
it's not just about weight. It's fine for it to be about weight.
I came to Internet and fasting for the weight loss, but I stuck
around for the health benefits. Same same, same. Now we have another
question, and this question is from Leah in Pennsylvania. She said, Hellogen
and Sherry, my husband and I are about to embark on our IF journey.
I had been searching for a way to lose weight, boost our metabolism,
and have more energy. I stumbled upon your book Fast FEUs Repeat while
reading Goodreads book reviews about intermittent fasting. I immediately bought your book as the
reviews were phenomenal and everything aligned with where we want to be in our health.
I am halfway through Fast FEUs Repeat, have been listening to both of
your podcasts every day and I'm learning a ton. We are beginning are Fastart
in May, and I have a couple of questions. I haven't heard anyone
say anything about fruit. We both enjoy fruit as a snack or sometimes as
a dessert to finish our meal. Is fruit a good slash, okay snack
when our windows open? You want to just take that? Absolutely? So
this is a great question, and it illustrates how confused we are about food.
By the way, Sherry, I was at a conference this past week
Sherry knows about it, but with some of my friends that are in the
health and wellness community, and we were literally joking about how everyone is so
confused about food, Like fruit is one of those great examples, like you
can hear some people say fruit is amazing for you, And I'm a fruitarian.
It's the only thing I eat. Everyone should only eat fruit and be
a fruitarian. On the flip side, there are people out there who are
saying never eat fruit. Eating fruit is exactly like you're just pouring white table
sugar into your mouth, which is like, I don't think so that sounds
crazy, But there's so many different perspectives from eat only fruits to never eat
fruit. And so I want everyone to develop a balanced approach when it comes
to what foods are going to work for you, and that is listening to
your body. So I'm just give you an example about myself and fruit.
You know, I don't do well opening with fruit. Opening my window with
fruit doesn't work well for me. Doesn't make me satisfied. I get a
quick blood sugar drop from it. For whatever reason, fruit is not a
good opener for me, whereas some people, like if somebody who's a frugitarian,
they don't get a blood sugar drop from it, they feel amazing from
fruit. I can't even imagine just eating fruit. I would not like that,
but clearly our bodies are not processing it the same way. I can
have fruit later in my window, and I do I really enjoy fruit as
a dessert, as a window closer, as a snack in the middle.
So my personal decision to when to eat fruit and when not deep fruit and
if I eat fruit is based on feedback from my body. See I open
cottage cheese, I couldn't do it, and I love it, and afterwards,
see that would not work for me. And that is so funny because
I tend to have stronger blood glo those responses than you do. Yeah,
something about in general. I don't know what it is. I will say
this. One of my friends that was at this conference is from India,
a Raveda. How do you say it? Are Aveda Araveda? Ay?
I don't know Ada. Everybody, yes, yes, I don't know if
I ever said that I Veda Aravedic medicine is what they call it. She
looked at me and she said, your whatever, it is, your type.
I can't think of the name of that is this and this? She's
like, you should not eat salads. I'm like, that's so interesting.
I don't really like salads. That is so interesting. She said, you
need to eat warm food. I'm like, well, okay, isn't that
funny? And I love salad. Well, I don't really know and you
know that is, Senator. You and I eat very different. We eat
very differently. We like and what works for us. And I don't try
to get sherried eth the way I eat sherd and try to get me to
eat the way she eats. And so back to Leah. If you feel
great after you eat fruit, then you should totally eat fruit and feel no
guilt. It is a real food from nature, and our bodies know a
whole lot more about what to do with real food than ultra processed food.
But your body will let you know. And anybody who tells you that fruit
is just like eating table sugar doesn't sound very smart. Yeah, there's no
fun for all of ample sugar. That's right, that's right. Honestly,
fruit is nature's dessert. I would never feel guilty about having dessert to finish
your meal. Never. No, all right. Question two, she says,
I'm a Christian, I have fasted for spiritual reasons, but realize that
I have never done a clean fast. As a result of reading your book,
I am not a huge fan of black coffee, and I love fruit
flavored coffees such as blueberry and raspberry. I was wondering if you know of
anyone who when their window is closed, if they drink black coffee, but
when they open their window, can they occasionally have a latte from Starbucks or
a flavored coffee with oat milk? And if so, is it hard to
go back and forth or if they have found that they can switch, easy
peasy, and the advice would be super helpful. Happy fast, Leah.
That is another great question, and we get that a lot because you know,
we talk about not wanting to stimulate an insulin response while we're fasting.
We don't want the sweetener, we don't want the oat milk, we don't
want the flavored coffee during the fast. But when your window is open,
you're in a higher influent part of your day because you're eating, You've got
nutrients coming in, Insulin's going to be up. So for me, nothing
that I want is off limits during my window. I can have it whenever
I want to. So if I enjoyed flavored coffee, I would not hesitate
to have it during my window. If I enjoyed a latte or something with
oat milk, I would not hesitate to have it during my window. Now
that being said, you know how I talked a minute ago about I can't
open with fruit. I also can't open with something like a flavored coffee or
a latte. I just liquid calories. I can't open with liquid calories,
right, Yeah, that's what it comes down to. I can't open with
anything sweet. I think sherry from my entire life. I'm just guessing here
because you know, obviously we don't have continual insulin meters. I wish we
did. I think my body hyper responds to sweet tathe like from fruit or
from sweetened beverages. Even as a kid, I didn't want to eat like
cookies because it made my blood sugar crash. So I think I must pump
out extra influin in response to sweetness. So I just can't. Maybe you're
sweet receptors or extra maybe amplified my pancs just like have a ton of insulin
gin crash that sugar down. I don't really know. But I can have
something like that after eating a savory meal, Like I could have a latte
after eating a savory meal, but not to begin. But this is the
kind of stuff that your body will teach you over time. Yeah, let's
say. The only caveat I have to that is if you are finding that
you are struggling to drink black coffee in your window, yeah at the beginning,
and this is really holding you up or delaying your progress or keeping you
from being consistent. I am a fan of taking it out of your window
for a while. Don't have that creamy flavored coffee that you like, just
so that your body, so that your tastes can get acclimated to black coffee,
because if you constantly drink it flavored and sweet and creamy in your window,
you may really struggle to develop a taste for black. And that's a
good point. So that's the only thing I say, is like, maybe
I'm not saying don't ever have it, but maybe during the first several weeks
while you're trying to acclimate to black coffee, just leave it out of your
window. And so many people find that when they go back to drinking it
the way they think they love it, they don't even really love it that
way anymore. That's a really really good point. Kind of take a break
from it so you can have a palette cleanser. Okay, the next question
is really funny, Shery, because I already talked about this. Jerry does
the prep y'all shery press ups. So I didn't look ahead. I just
read it as we can to it. So I did not know this question
was in there. I already talked about this exact topic. So funny,
all right, So we have a submission from confused in Tennessee, and it
says my question concerns fasted exercise. I was a high end athlete in my
younger days and continued to exercise quite regularly and vigorously as life changes allowed.
I recently heard on a podcast by a noted menopause doctor and researcher that the
postmenopause woman should not engage in fasted exercise as this pushes the hypothalamus to break
down lean muscle tissue before fat tissue. She said that almost all of the
fasted exercise studies were done on men who do break down fat first for energy
during fasted exercise. If this is true, this would seriously affect when I
fast and when I exercise. Is I have a morning exercise routine and a
late afternoon eating window. What are your thoughts on this? Thank you for
your continued work in this area of health and nutrition. I'm truly grateful that
I found books and your podcast. Okay, Well, like we talked about
earlier, the clean fast, that changes everything. Okay, because your body's
metabolically flexible. The average Joe who they pull in and they're like, here,
we're going to have you do faster workouts. I'm honor to you,
they're likely not metabolically flexible, so their body is not able to tap into
fat for energy. That's gonna make a huge difference. Like we're talking two
different scenarios there. So if you're metabolically flexible and you're fasted, and you
run out of glycogen for energy, your body knows to turn to fat for
energy, Why would it break down your muscle. That's a way more complicated
process rather than use the fat on your body for fuel. So then you
know, like with most things, you can find difference in opinion and difference
in research. So I actually took some time. I looked this up.
I found research that shows women actually burn fat much easier than men during exercise,
and an increase in growth hormone that we see in fasting increases the use
of fat for fuel. Some research has shown that women are more responsive to
the hormone epinephrine, which stimulates fat burning, and research has shown that during
exercise, certain receptors in the body that stimulate fat burning are more responsive in
women than in men. So again, my best advice is exercise during the
time that feels best for you, provides you with consistency and makes you feel
best. Yeah, and I would absolutely believe somebody like this doctor who said
I have known lots of women who were quote fasting and they lost a lot
of muscle. I believe that she probably believes that experience to be true.
But I would bet money that if you dug in, they were not fast
and clean. So many people think they're fasting and they're not fast and clean.
I would love somebody come into our community and do research on our members.
I would love it too. I would love to have some clean fast
research as well. So, I mean, let's think about being metabolically flexible
and what our body's going to burn. You know, Jason Fung talks about
this. He's got a great blog post about it, and it's about,
you know, the body and what we've got stored on our body. We've
got a lot of stuff making up our body. One of the things we've
got is fat, and we've also got muscle, And so what fuel source
is there for your body to get to when there's not enough fuel coming in?
What is going to keep you alive? Burning your muscle or burning your
fat. I mean, if your body went straight to muscle and burned it
up, we would die big giant fat blobs with zero muscle. We'd be
dead. But what's the fat there for? That's our stored energy. Our
muscle is valuable tissue. So I want you to think about history of the
world, before the modern day, before diet sodas, before this ultra processed
food, before everything. Was there ever a time in the history of the
world where people are running around with high insulin levels but also starving to death.
Never so, when we've got food coming in, our body knows to
stimulate insulin response. We're in storage mode, storage mode, storage mode,
and when food is not coming in, insulin falls and our body is like,
ooh, we can get to all this stored fuel that's already there.
But let's imagine we're now in this modern world where insulin is high because we
are not fast and clean. We are having diet sodas, we're having food
answers, we're putting cream in our coffee. Even if we think we're fasting,
we might be having some avocado or diet soda and all of that.
So insulin is high. Insulin is high, and so your body is in
storage mode, yet you're not taking in sufficient fuel. So what is your
body going to burn? Well, it can't get to your fat because insulin's
high. So it's going to possibly burn some muscle because that's what it can
get to. So back to Jason Fung's analogy. If you are in a
house and the powers out and you have to burn wood in your fireplace because
you have to have the heat to survive, are you going to chop up
your sofa and burn it in your fireplace? Not if you've got a woodpile.
If you've got a woodpile, you would not chop up your sofa and
burn that. You are smart enough to go to the woodpile. But if
there was no woodpile, obviously you're going to chop up whatever you can to
survive. Your body is like that. Your body. If you can't see
the woodpile, get to the woodpile, find the woodpile, You're going to
burn something. If your body can't see the fat stores, get to the
fat stores. Because your influence high, your body's going to burn what it
can to keep you alive. Yeah, let's think about hunters and gatherers too.
Yeah, from you know, way way way back, right, and
there was food scarcity, right, but they couldn't go to the grocery store.
They had to go out and hunt their food. They had to throw
their crops whatever. We would not have survived if during famine their muscles were
all eaten up and they didn't have the strength to go out there and chase
down a bear or an antelope or whatever and hunt it and harvest it for
their people. They would all be weak, sick, laying around, and
human population would be extinct. It's true. And you know, I also
thought about I would love to see someone do a study comparing clean fasting to
not clean fasting. But it would have to go on for a significant enough
period of time so that people became fat adapted, because I do think during
your first twenty eight days, when you're not fat adapted, you could see
some muscle loss because you're not a tapping into your fat stores very well.
You're not metabolically flexible. So when someone's like, oh my gosh, I
did a DEXA scan before I started. It's one month later, I've had
some muscle loss. I'm like, well, you're not fat adapted that whole
time. But once you're fat adapted, that's when your body. Jason Fung
always says, your body's not stupid. Your body is not stupid. It
is not going to burn valuable muscle tissue unless it can't get to your fat.
And that's where the clean fast really makes a difference. So confused in
Tennessee, I want you to be your own study of one. My study
of one shows that I am fantastic at building muscle when I exercise in the
fasted state, and I am fast and clean. You know, I showed
sharing my muscle earlier. My calves are bigger, my plates. Teacher is
like, wow, I cannot believe you're building this much muscle with once a
week coming to pilates. I'm like yeah, And I'm fast and clean,
and I am post menopause. So based on my study of one, I
am having no trouble building lean tissue in the fasted state as opposed to menopausal
woman. And I also am eating very little meat. I'm mostly plant based
at home, so I'm not following those you know cram in as much protein
either, and my body is building muscle. So you are your own study
of one fast clean experiment. See what your body does. I would be
a pile of goo right now if women could not build muscle while fasting.
So but trust yourself and what your body does. If you are fast and
clean and you're nourishing your body well and you're working out to build muscle,
I would bet you're going to build muscle all right. Before we get to
our tweak of the week, I want to take a minute to talk about
my books and which ones you need if you are new to intermittent fasting,
you're restarting after a break, or if you're just in need of a refresh,
maybe you're fasting has kind of fallen by the wayside. You're going to
want twenty eight day fast start day by day. And I want to encourage
you to get the paperback edition. It's got a write in component. Although
somebody in the community sharey did you see the post? Someone just said she
loved the audio edition, she did not get the paperback. She loved listening
to it and then journaling in a notebook, so that worked really well if
whatever works for you, So you might be someone who can listen and then
write in your journal if you have a strong journaling component. But we don't
have like a paper companion to the audio. That's the paperback. There's not
like a downloadable PDF. No, it's either the audio version you're journaling on
your own or you're getting the paperback. I'm not a journaler, so I
need it as easy as possible. Yeah, but if you're already a skilled
journal or then maybe the audio will work really well for you. Anyway,
I just wanted to throw that out there. So now the twenty eight day
fast at Day by daybook is a companion book for fast feast repeats. You're
going to need that as well. And if you're a settled, intermittent faster
and you know you want to clean up what you're eating, your personal care
products, and the products you use in your home, like your cleaning products,
then I think you'll enjoy cleanish. And I wrote that so that the
process of cleaning up would feel less daunting with a step by step approach that
you control every step of the way. If you're not ready for natural dealgorant,
you don't have to switch or whatever. Insert your favorite product that you're
not willing to switch yet. All right, now it's time for our tweak
of the week. And you know, I always say tweak it till it's
easy. But the tweak that works for me might not be the one that
works for you. And that is why it is super helpful to hear how
other intermittent fasters are making intermittent fasting work for them. This tweak was submitted
by Tim. I'm so happy to see Tim sharing this, like I literally
had joy saying that this was from Tim. Tim said, I stopped fasting
when I decided that I couldn't live without cream in my coffee. And I
also want to pop in here because I know Tim. He's been in and
out of our community. He just joined as a lifetime member, and I
wanted to congratulate him on that because Tim has been in multiple fasting communities,
listen to other voices and has really struggled. And I hope Tim that you
don't mind that I'm sharing that because I think that it's an important lesson for
so many of us, because just like you know, we can listen to
the lady who said don't don't do fasting after menopause, you're gonna burn all
your muscle up. Well, that's not been my experience. Or you can
listen to someone say, oh, put cream in your coffee. It's perfectly
fine that our whole community fasts with these fasting aids, and it's okay.
And you can hear what you want to hear different places, right. You
can hear things that confuse you. You can hear things that send you down
the wrong path that doesn't work for you. So I would encourage every ever
to really lean into your personal study of one. But I would also trust
yourself and what feels right to you, and stop looking to others and their
advice, even mine, even Sherry's right. And of course I hope you
follow my advice. I hope you follow Sharry's advice. But you know,
you are your own trusted expert. You are your own study of one.
You know, if I let someone tell me I couldn't build muscle because I'm
a menopausal woman, I shouldn't be fasting, I mean that's not true.
I'm doing it right. So for Tim, Tim heard the message from other
communities that cream in your coffee is just fine, and because he really liked
cream in his coffee. He was like, I'm going to follow that because
I like that advice. Sometimes we'd lean into advice that we want to hear
exactly exactly. But I just wanted to put that out there because I could
find advice that would support literally anything I wanted to do. But that doesn't
mean that that is good advice that I should be following right right, And
So if fasting is really hard for you, and you've been following other fasting
communities who talk about things like fasting aids and fasting crutches, that's the terminology
they use. We don't use that terminology in our community. And if you've
been hearing avocado as part of a fast, I mean, obviously it's not
part of a clean fast. But if you've been hearing, you can have
avocado, you can put all this in your coffee, you can have these
drinks. But if you're really struggling, it's because those things are not working.
The reason you're struggling is because you really can't cheat your body, right.
So, if you're struggling and you're not fast and clean, I don't
care how many people say this is fine for fasting. If you're struggling.
Your body is telling you it isn't fine because it takes the clean fast challenge.
Absolutely, when you fast clean, you are not going to believe the
difference. I really promise. I promise we wear it every day from people
in the community. Yeah, we don't make the stuff up. We're not
making it up. No, when you really embrace the clean fast, it's
going to make such a difference. A right, So back to Tim and
I'll read that first sentence again. He said, I stopped fasting when I
decided that I couldn't live without creaming my coffee. I haven't been able to
get past the bitterness of black coffee. I've tried multiple times. So today
I'm going around that wall instead of running into it. I bought Starbucks iced
coffee. The ingredients are water and coffee only, and I like it.
It's not as bitter happy days. I love that. I love it so
much. Tweet, you know, figure out what works for you. I
just want to say too, I'm a big fan of iced coffee. I
like it so much that I drink the calf in the afternoon. Shar I
like iced coffee. I don't think you do because you don't like cold stuff
in that wild But if you have across Busy organic brand coffee, it's in
the refrigerator section. It's really good. If you get the caffeinated, it's
super concentrated, like two hundred and seventy milligrams and twelve hours old. I
never drink it straight. I always have the decaf on hand as well.
It comes intocaf and I mix it half and half where I go straight decaf.
It's smooth, it's delicious, and you can add water to make it
like the strength that you like. That's a great thing about it, and
it's a great way to expose your palette to coffee if you just don't really
like it, because you can start making it a little bit stronger and stronger
if you're trying to get away from the creamy coffee. And Tim, I'm
just so glad to see you sharing that and all from the very beginning with
Tim in our community and that challenges with you and not liking the coffee,
not wanting to have the cream in his coffee and quitting I know Tim from
the beginning. I was like, I can't wait to talk to Tim on
intermittent fasting stories as a fastening success story because I know that that day is
going to come, so I had Tim to share, and it's going to
be a story of struggling and then overcoming it because I know that Tim's got
it in there to overcome it and he's doing it. So cheering you on
today, Tim, Well, we'd love to leave you with inspirational or motivational
quotes, and this week's sich comes from Amy in Florida. She says,
one thing that has been my mantra for years in relation to exercise is the
quote something is better than nothing. It keeps me from being critical of it
not being more or bigger or more fantastic. And I have come so far.
I went from a couch potato in my mid forties at two hundred and
twenty pounds in an unhealthy body, who really didn't think there was a hope
of having a different, healthy, fit body, to someone now who has
run a half marathon a few months before turning fifty and who has lost sixty
pounds. I still struggle to call myself an athlete, but I am not
a couch potato either. Overall, I am pleased with the condition of my
body now at age fifty five and I'm sorry. If you have run a
half marathon, you're an athlete. I was going to say the exact thing,
Amy, you are an athlete. I'm so impressed by that. Yeah,
you know, I was actually in a fitness community, a Belicon community
today and I saw this quote and I thought, you know, this is
so true. And the quote is don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Yeah, do what you can do when you can do it, and
like she says, something is better than nothing. Absolutely, Thank you so
much, Amy, 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 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.