Episode 47: Is Fasting Stressful?, Overeating, Fasting While Dating, and More

Welcome to Fast Beast 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 it's 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 Beast
Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life podcast. How are you doing today, Sherry?
I'm doing great. I'm so glad. Look I'm wearing my summary dress,
so you know I'm doing great. The weather, oh my gosh, yes
you are. The weather must be beautiful there. Yes, it's finally,
finally warm. We had a couple days of like crazy wind. It was
like warm but so windy. The wind coming off the ocean was freezing.
The hazards of living on the beach. I know you would I should not
complain about that, but it could be really cool. Anyway. I was
like having to wear jeans and a sweatshirt and I was mad. But now
I've got the summary dress on and it feels like, whoo, I'm so
excited. You know, I love summer, and yeah, you know,
I've just decided you have to celebrate every little thing that goes right in your
life because you can't control so much of life. And I've lived in my
house six years and I've never had it termite bonded or whatever it was when
I moved here, and it was just one of those things that I was
just like, I need to get a term bite person out here because I
never continued with the service that they had. Well, my husband's niece is
married to a guy who does pest control whatever, and he's like, oh,
yeah, my company does termites. I'll have this guy get a hold
of you. Well that's been going on for like almost a year now.
Wow. And so finally they have a new guy who does termite bonding and
inspections and stuff, and that guy got a hold of me and he came
out last week and I was just like, oh my gosh, please tell
me I don't have termites. I just couldn't even handle that right now.
I did not have termites. So Ye came over and did the whole termite
thing today, and I just thought to myself, I just have to celebrate
that I don't have termites, and absolutely, yeah, because I put it
off for so long anyway, so now I'm protected, one less thing to
worry about. That feels good. And when we moved to the beach,
I was like, do we need termite protection at the beach and they're like
yes. I'm like, okay, so we really yeah, they're everywhere around
here. So well, I really panicked when the guy came and he was
like, oh, I turned on your street and I realized I've been in
this neighborhood. A guy up the hill has really bad termites, and I'm
oh, lord, oh, like that's not what you want to hear.
No, And you know my house is made out of all that wood,
so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well good, I'm glad anyway,
So celebrating every wind just makes life feel easier and now we have all
A win. From a listener, Yes, so Nancy and Canada. She
wrote, thank you for your inspiring and informed of podcast. It helps me
to stay motivated and I listen to you lovely ladies while I hike this morning,
I listen to your podcast about cortisol, and I have an interesting perspective
to share. I'm a super complex health human. I have struggled with many
issues for most of my life. My adrenal glands don't function. I have
Addison's disease, and I take steroid replacement to live. I feel the effects
of any stress immediately, whether it's physical or emotional. I need to increase
my steroids for any significant stress. I also have diabetes, celiac, and
several food intolerances that all interact and can put stress on my body. Much
of my health feels out of my control, and so I work hard at
the things I can control. Eat really clean and healthy with a focus on
nutrition. I exercise every day. Last year, my A and C was
climbing once again, and I just couldn't get my fasting glucose numbers down no
matter how carefully I ate or how much I exercised. My endocrinologist wanted to
double my diabetes medications, and I begged him to give me three months to
try intermittent fasting. First. He was very hesitant because stress is such a
serious health concern for me. He believed fasting would put too much stress on
my body. But he reluctantly agreed to let me try for three months,
but he thought I would not be able to handle it and I would quit.
The next day, March thirty first, twenty twenty three, I started
IF. My decision was entirely about blood sugar reduction. Within three months,
I had lost fifteen pounds, and more importantly, my A and C went
from eight point two to five point eight, and it's still decreasing. I
also rave about the benefits of IF. Because of all the other benefits I
have had, I no longer have inflammation in my joints. My brain is
sharp and focused, I have so much energy. I sleep better than I
have in thirty years. My quality of life has dramatically improved. All of
these improvements are simply from changing when I eat. I already don't eat sugar
or refined foods. I already consume greens every meal. I already hike every
day, and now I simply only eat in a six hour window. Not
only has if not been stressful to my body, but it has maximized the
function of a body that doesn't produce cortisol. I'm a master listening to my
body and being aware of stressors. I tried various fasting schedules, and I
found the one that works for me and the window that works for me,
and I can easily maintain this for the rest of my life. Oh my
gosh, that gave me goosebumps. Isn't that great? Yeah? And you
know what it illustrates for me that there's so many I guess someone who use
the word misconcessions there, Yeah, misconceptions, myths, and you hear them,
and if you've heard them a couple of places, then you're like,
just take it like gospel knowledge on the you know, inscribed on the tablets,
like the Ten Commandments, right, Like her endochronologist had heard fasting is
going to put too much stress on your body. Like I've heard that myth
many many times. Oh, fasting too stressful for your body. And you
know, Nancy is a master of knowing when things are stressful for her body
because she has to supplement with steroids because her body doesn't make cortisol, so
she knows when she needs more cortisol to handle the stress, and she can
tell that this is not more stressful for her body. It probably reduces stress.
Like for me, I know, I'm much less stressed out as an
intermittent faster than I was before intermitting fasting, when I felt like I was
fighting my body right right, well, and then when you're having blood sugar
fluctuations all day long, that's stressful, it is. And eating all day
long and keeping insulin up, that's just increasing inflammation in your body. And
inflammation is deadly. So that's hard on your body. But you know,
I always go back to, like the clean fast It's like funny because people
will be like, oh, diet, diet, diet restrict you're eating right,
Well, that's hard on your body, it is. Yeah, So
what I guess I don't understand. Once we're clean fasting and our body is
melobolically flexible and it has a fuel source, how is that stressful in the
body It has a fuel source, right, And that's you know, the
whole root of the phrase that I say all the time, tweak it till
it's easy, don't tweak it till it's harder, tweak it till it's easy.
And fasting should feel it. Really, if you're in a groove that's
working for your body, and you're nourishing your body well and you've got the
fasting schedule that feels right, it really does feel easy when you find it.
So I can't believe that something that feels so good would be adding more
stress. We know when we feel stressed, we feel it. So anyway,
I love that, Nancy. I love that you were able to talk
your doctor into letting you give it a try, because it's changed your life
and it has not been more stressful for your body. There's not a better
way of eating for a person who has to take steroids every day of their
life. We know that taking steroids is going to increase your chance of becoming
diabetic. So apparently you are diabetic at this point in your life, So
what better way to eat and get your insulin down and keep your blood your
blood sir, under control. Yeah, I just I'm so glad that she
found interment fasting me too. Well. Congratulations, Nancy. That is fantastic.
All right. So now we have a question from a listener, Aaron
in Colorado. She says, I am a sixty seven year old female.
I'm five five and I weigh one hundred and eighteen pounds, so I am
not looking to lose weight. In fact, I would like to gain a
few pounds. I am and have been very active in my life and would
like to stay that way. I've worked out, I've done yoga, hiking,
no more running, but I do walk and I love, love,
love to work in the garden in my yard. I also have been a
very healthy eater almost my entire life, not that I don't have potato chips
with a good sandwich or fries with my burger once in a while. I
buy organic when available and don't eat processed foods. I've been struggling with rheumatoid
arthritis since I was around forty and asthma since I was three, so I
have taken many steroids during my life and have been taking dangerous drugs for my
rheumatoid arthritis for over twenty years. I most recently have had a major flara
with my lower back. I have had back issues since I was thirty nine,
I was a hairstylist for forty eight years, which did not help the
back problems at all. In October of twenty twenty three, I could not
walk standing up straight. I had to use a walker. I started a
very aggressive program that entailed decompression IFC therapy, acoustic sound wave therapy, trigger
point injections PRP injections, and I did a twenty four day body and balance
program that included fasting until lunch. It wasn't a clean fast, while taking
supplements and eating two proteins, three to four vegetables, and two fruits,
all designed to reduce inflammation into detox, all to try to avoid having surgery
and to be able to continue my active lifestyle. Well, I am doing
much better and can walk and carry on with my life. I'm still in
some pain, but I will always have some. My cousin has been doing
your program for around a year or better now, and she suggested that I
try it to keep the inflammation down and help heal. Since I had been
eating in a window with my Body and Balance program and loving it, I
went ahead and went to the clean fast. It's been close to three months
now. I'm feeling good and sometimes great. But wanted to check in with
the two of you and see if you might have any suggestions. I listened
to your podcast and most of it has to do with weight loss rather than
weight maintenance, so I would appreciate any feedback you might have. It seems
as though I cannot eat as much as I used to before getting full,
and I tend to inadvertently overeat and then I'm miserable. I just need to
learn how much that right amount is. But then again, I do not
want to lose any weight. Any suggestions. One other question I have is
I am a scuba diver and when we went to Cosmo last week, I
did breakfast before diving, and when we returned home, I went right back
to my regular fasting program. Is this acceptable? Well, let me just
start with the last question. Is this acceptable? I mean, yes,
you can tailor your fasting to your lifestyle. Yep. And if you're not
gonna get penalized because you went on vacation and chose to eat breakfast for a
week or three days or ten days or whatever it was when you get back
home, can it make getting back to your regular fasting program more difficult?
Sure it can, but is it acceptable? Absolutely. This is a lifestyle
and you have to do what works for you. So I hope you had
a great time. And I think it's great that going from walking with a
walker a year ago to now you're diving diving, that's just amazing and fabulous.
As far as not wanting to lose any weight, you're just gonna have
to really play around with your window length and figure out what is a good
window length that keeps you feeling great and prevents weight loss. Now, I
do truly believe that the body's not going to let you get thinner than it
should get. The body likes to be in a healthy range. It wants
everything you know. Your body does, checks and balances, and it's like
is everything good? Is everything working well? And it's not going to let
you get too thin. That is a preventative mechanism the body has. The
body is designed for survival, so it's not going to let you get too
thin. Now, you may get thinner than you want to be, and
a lot of that could just be your age and the fact that it's sixty
seven. You don't have the muscle mass that you used to have, so
you may feel like you feel better with a little weight on your body and
that's totally acceptable, and you know, I think that's a healthy approach.
So, yeah, just play around with your windows, play around with your
foods. Some foods are really volume foods, but are more low calorie foods,
and you may want to eat more foods that are not high volume foods
that have more like calories per ounce type thing, more calorie dnse, more
calorie dents. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and just kind of play around
with that, play around with your healthy fats in your window. And any
amount of fasting is going to be better than no fasting. But a good
eight hour window is a great maintenance range for a lot of people. Do
you have any other thoughts to that? Yeah, I was going to also
suggest an eight hour window, and I was gonna use Chad as an example.
My husband, Chad, he started intermittent fasting for the health benefits.
Never needed to lose weight. He's always been one of those. He is
very very lean, he's very late he is that's how he's built, right,
that's his body type. And he was convinced by the health benefits.
Like I said, so he just skips breakfast, that's it. He has
his first meal of the day around eleven, and then he doesn't eat again
until he'll start eating around five. He has like some little snacking and then
he has dinner with me. We usually done by around seven, so about
an eight hour window for Chad. But he also he is like a master
of being in tune with how much his body needs, because I watch him
when he eats is eleven o'clock whatever it is. He wanders around the kitchen
munching on this and that, and he might like have an egg sandwich and
then leftover from last night, and then a handful of peanuts, and then
he makes half of an almond butter sandwich or opens a can of tuna.
I mean he literally like is eating this and that and then all of a
sudden he stops eating. So he just really really knows. But like things
like egg sandwiches and almond butter and jelly peanuts, a handful of peanuts or
so he just needs that, you know, heavier more calorie dentse kind of
food like that. But what I would really focus on for you, Aaron,
especially since you've been struggling with your back, I bet that you need
to build muscle, and so I think you could gain some muscle mass,
and you could probably gain some weight if you intentionally work on your muscle.
And of course I know that with your previous back problems or you're current that
you probably still have them, but they're better. But you'll need to find
someone who is great at working with someone who's had back problems. But there
are definitely things you can do to build muscle, and at the age of
sixty seven, that's what you want to do. So focus on muscle building
activities and then that might increase your appetite just a bit, right, So
it's you know, the eight hour window is working really well for you.
Now you mentioned that you can't eat as much as you used to and you're
getting full and then you accidentally overeat and feel miserable. So that's something to
really pace yourself with. Like start at the beginning of your window, like
a little more like Chad, Like eat a little bit of this, check
in see how you feel you might need something a little bit later. You
may need to have you know, he bookends with his eleven o'clock and then
five to seven he eats. You may need to have three eating opportunities within
your eight hour window. Whatever feels right to you something at eleven, something
at two, something at six. I don't know. I'm just throwing ideas
out there, right, but tweak it till it's easy. So in summary,
really focus on building muscle in whatever way feels good to your body,
with your past complications that you've experienced, find somebody that understands what will work
for you with that, and focus on eating to satiety within an eating window
that is right for you. Because you're right, I mean, I'm five
to five and one to eighteen is very small for five to five, and
so building muscle, you're likely to go up on the scale with more muscle
mass. Did you want to add anything to that, Sherry, Nope.
I think that probably much covers it. So we have another question from h
K in Pennsylvania. They wrote, good day ladies. I wanted to reach
out with a struggle, I said they because I wasn't sure. I think
this must be a woman, because yeah, she says a little bit about
first, I am thirty five years old, I don't have many kids.
I am five to four. I'm a size eight. Current weight is around
one hundred and forty three to one hundred and forty six pounds. My heaviest
was a one to fifty to one fifty five. My finest was one fifteen
or so and a size four. I'm pretty healthy, but take low dose
lexipro for anxiety and depression, which I've been on for about two years.
I've never been one who regularly worked out, but I'm always doing physical work
as I have three horses on a small farm. I work from home now,
but every day I'm out doing barn work. My weight started becoming more
of a struggle in the last ten years, and I want to get ahead
of the issue. I've always been blessed with the good genes in my family
to the point where I feel guilty. My goal weight would be about one
twenty five and back down to a size four if I could, but that's
not set in stone. Even without a weight goal, I would like to
be an I effort for all of the other health benefits. But I do
have to say I'm really excited about the stories you have shared where you are
a smaller size now than you were before at the same weight. I started
fasting in November of twenty twenty three, doing just sixteen eight. I would
have a few cheat days, usually every other Sunday. I did note a
fast, clean right from the start, and it was all pretty easy.
I'm confident I'm fast and clean. I only drink black coffee. The only
ingredient is coffee. Can I talk about so that she has in her question
there that you haven't read yet that I wanted to say. She said she
only drinks black coffee, and she clarified that it has no notes or essences
of anything. I want to real quick talk about notes coffee notes, because
that makes people really confused. If we think back, we've always had this
kind of terminology when it comes to wine. You know, like if people
will describe wine and it's all fancy and they're like notes of jam or grassy
or whatever, all these words, and like it just tastes like wine whatever.
But they've always described wine with all these fancy words. Now they're doing
it with coffee. So there's something called taste notes. And Chad and I
went to a fancy coffee place in Charleston and they taught us to taste the
coffee, and here's all the notes that you might have, and it's just
playing coffee. So when you see someone talking about tasting notes or notes of
and they have the words and they're notes of chocolate, notes of whatever.
If it's tasting notes, you can ignore that because again, it's just coffee.
To me, like with the wine, same thing with the coffee.
Maybe my palette is not very developed. I'm not sure, but you can
absolutely ignore tasting notes. If the only ingredient is coffee, it is fine,
all right. I just had to say that because people get so confused
by tasting notes. I order pepper flakes from this company in Colorado, and
Eric and I have been watching all these cooking shows and they're always talking about
Collabrian chili's, which are in an Italian chili pepper. Well, you can't
buy them at the grocery store, not in Alabama. They sent me,
well, that's true. I started looking for that. I can get some
chili paste calabriat and chili paste off of like Amazon. But anyway, they
sent me an email just yesterday talking about they have this batch of Calabrian chili
peppers coming in and you can go ahead and pre order them, and it's
gonna be like a limited run of these Calabrian chili peppers. And I told
Eric, I was like, oh, look, I'm gonna have to order
these. Well, they talked about tasting notes on the chili peppers, and
they talked about the heat and how they're fruity tasting, you know, And
I was just like, everybody is talking about tasting notes for everything now.
It's like the new catchphrase. It's true, but you do not want coffee
that has added flavor or if they add something called essence. If they add
essence or any extract extract, those are the flavor. Look at the ingredients
lift. If it says flavor, extract, essence, then that is not
just coffee. But if it's just coffee, you can ignore those confusing tasting
notes. If they say, you know, this coffee tastes like chocolate and
blueberry, it has notes of pea can, yeah, you can just ignore
that. But if it says pea can flavor, you don't want that,
yes, Okay. So I got Fast Peece Repeat and the twenty eight day
Fast Art and fully committed to the lifestyle. January first, I also started
listening to your podcast, which I love. I knew if I wanted to
reap the benefits of this lifestyle, I couldn't just stay at sixteen eight.
I started the Fastart and I chose the steady build approach with an eight hour
eating window. The first week, well, day three came and I got
so busy that I fasted for about nineteen to twenty hours without even realizing it.
And then when I opened my window, I was ravenous and I ate
too much or too fast or both, but I got super sick to my
stomach. It took me days to get back to normal. My stomach and
a testa is just playing hurt for days. I know it's important how you
open your window. I do eat a lot of processed foods, but I've
been taking steps in the right direction. I was trying to follow what you
said, Jen, about how your body is already learning to adapt to a
new lifestyle, and don't bombard yourself with a totally new diet too. She
says, Cleanish is my next book purchase. I restarted the fast start later
in January with a better focused All was going great and my fast were fairly
easy. Then on day twenty three, with a five hour eating window,
I was really struggling to make it through my fast. I was happy because
I assumed I must be right at the tipping point where I was going to
become fat adapted. I wasn't shaky or anything. My stomach was just crying
for food. I was thinking, stomach, don't you come crying to me
for food? Tap into those fat stores. I made it through, but
when I opened my window, I was once again ravenous and I ate too
much, too fast. I was up for hours that night sick. The
next morning, my stomach and intestine still hurt. I figured I'd try and
repair my stomach instead of worrying about fasting. I opened at ten am with
some soft, warm oat meal. Lunch, I had soup, and by
dinner I was feeling better. Today, I fasted until one pm, and
I felt fine all day. Now it's two am on February the ninth,
and my intestine's hurt again, probably because the food is moving through again.
I know I don't have to stick to the middle of the road approach the
whole way through the fast art, But man, am I a rule follower,
and I really wanted to follow the plan for the rest of the fast
art. I'm going to take a probiotic and try for a six hour eating
window. Then maybe I can try five again. But have you ever heard
of anyone else having this issue. Do you have any words of encouragement.
I'm really sad that I wrecked my gut twice. Now. I thank you
both for your podcast, and Jen, I thank you for your books.
I love them and I've been referring them to my friends too. All right,
so let's talk about what's going on there and the curious thing that happens
when your body is adapting to fasting, and that is overeating, when you
are not quite fat adapted. It's so common that I have a saved note
on my phone way back from Facebook day, so I would share it.
It's like and I tweaked it over the years. But when anybody is brand
new and they start talking to this exact thing like, well, I'm binging
the minute my window opens. My window opens, and I just start eating,
and I eat and I eat, and I feel bad because I put
too much food in there really fast. It feels like panic eating. It
feels like binging. That is actually very common in the early days. And
here's why you are not fat adapted yet when you're starting, and so when
you are fasting, your body is not yet skilled and tapping to your fat
stores for fuel, so you are not well fueled during that part of the
day. Yet it's your body's like, where's the fuel, where's the fuel.
It's running on the stored glycogen. But as you start getting to the
end of your stored glycogen, now your body really isn't well fueled because you
don't have the stored glycogen. And your body's like, I don't even know
how to tap into fat. I haven't had to do that. So your
window opens and you're panicked by body eat like sends you to eat, and
then you just start eating and eating and eating, and it can feel like
a binge. And if you put too much food in you think about your
digestive tract. If you put too much food in, it can cause pain
because it's like crammed in there. And so it sounds like that's what you're
feeling. So what do you do when you're in those early days. Well,
two things. One you suggested backing off a little bit. That's a
good idea. Your body is saying, oh, this is just a little
more restrictive than we're ready for it right now, and there's that urge to
binge. So you back off a little bit, like you said, you
ease in a little bit more. Maybe it takes you thirty five instead of
twenty eight to adapt, Maybe it takes you forty two days instead of twenty
eight. We're not in a hurry. We want to adapt at the pace
that's right. Another idea is to really plan for how you're going to open
and don't let your body panic send you into the kitchen over eating. Serve
yourself food on a plate, make yourself check in for thirty minutes. Say
okay, here's how I'm going to open my window with whatever feels good to
you. Maybe I'm just talking before about Chad and his egg sandwich. Make
an egg sandwich, right, whatever it is, something that will satisfy you,
eat it, stop, pause. Thirty minutes later, say am I
still hungry? You might be. Then have something else that you have planned
that's ready. What you don't want to do is just have that binge feeling
like you're out of control, and you can really force yourself to wait,
like, don't give into it. Just say okay, I'm going to let
this settle. I'm gonna let my body acknowledge that this food has come in
before I put any more food in. Set a timer, go outside,
walk around the block, do whatever you need to do to wait. Yeah.
I have a couple thoughts too. And now, okay, we talked
about having window openers and whatever. I don't know what you're opening your window
with, but you also say that you eat a lot of processed food.
Yeah, and we've talked before. Process food is really easy to overeat.
So I would really really suggest having a plan and opening your window with like
a small meal when meal components not snacks. Don't grab a snack of this
and a snack of that or whatever have in your head, Like Jin said,
an egg sandwich. So maybe you're gonna have an egg sandwich and a
salad and that's gonna be your window opener. Maybe you want to make a
bean burrito, eat that, like eat something that is like real food where
your body gets the signal like oh I have had nutrition, or like that
day when she was sick. She said she woke up feeling sick, and
she opened with soft, warm oat meal, and then later she had some
soup, and then later she had dinner. Structure you're eating window like that,
it's every day, yeah, m hm. And sometimes waiting too late
in the day can cause a panic eating response in some people. Maybe you're
not better waiting till three. You're somebody who's always going to need to open
at eleven. Perhaps it's hard to know, we can't predict yet, but
you might be a middle of the day window girl. Well, so then
the other thoughts I had are, first of all, like your digestion,
your bowels are intestines, they all run on a circadian rhythm, just like
I mean, all body processes do. And so while you're fasting and you're
getting adapted, that kind of circadian rhythm is getting adjusted as well, which
can affect your digestive enzymes and all of that. And so it's possible that
while your body's trying to adapt your circadian rhythms trying to adapt, your body's
trying to figure out how much bile and digestive enzymes doesn't need to digest the
food that you're eating. That could be a little bit of it as well,
kind of an adjustment process for you. And we're all different, so
maybe this is just a little bit harder for your body to adjust to,
especially if you've been an all day eater. But my other thought too was
we often see really really early into fasting if they're foods that just don't agree
with us. And we hear this all the time. People are like,
I've always eaten this, and all of a sudden, I can't eat this
without running to the bathroom or having stomach pain or whatever. And whether it's
a food intolerance or whatever, when you eat all day and you're just eating
a little bit of this all day and you kind of just you're not eating.
Maybe you're a snacker or a grazer or whatever. Maybe you're just eating
a little bit of this or that throughout the day and you're not in that
fasted state, so you don't know how it feels to be in that fasted
state, and so maybe you just always kind of feel a little bit off.
But then you're fast and your stomach is empty, and then you add
this food and that response to it is so much stronger because you don't always
have that kind of low level response happening. So if it continues to bother
you when you eat certain things, I would suggest a food journal and really
see if you can make a connection between Oh, is that every time you
eat the certain food that you feel bad afterwards? Yep? That's really good
advice. All right, Now it's time for what's your why. And we've
just really found over the years that when your why is deeper than weight loss
alone, you're more likely to find long term success and view intermittent fasting as
a lifestyle. Today, we have a wife from Jasmine. She says,
I started I HAVE fifteen months ago, and I lost thirty pounds in about
ten months, and then I plateaued. I was frustrated and mad at myself,
and yet I was finally under two hundred pounds of maintaining for the first
time in seventeen years. I should have been proud of myself. I decided
to stop letting the scale determine my mood. So two months ago I stopped
weighing. But I knew I wasn't going to stop this lifestyle. Why Because
I feel good. I have energy all day, I have more time in
the morning. I don't have to worry about prepping, cooking, or cleaning
up after breakfast. I don't even have to worry about packing anything for lunch.
I know I'll be okay until I get home. Not thinking about food
all day freeze up so much mental space. More importantly, I want to
be a good example to my family, especially my children. I want to
keep avoiding disease and prescription medication as long as possible. I just turned forty
seven, and I don't want to be afraid of turning fifty. In fact,
I'm going to embrace the fabulous fifties, feeling better than my thirties,
all thanks to intermittent fasting. I love that, Jasmine, And what I
really love is this. You were under two hundred pounds and maintaining for the
first time in seventeen years. That is huge. And you could have told
yourself this is not good enough, I'm a failure. But instead you flipped
it and you said, wait a minute, I have all these things that
are going well. I'm at a weight I haven't seen in seventeen years,
and I'm maintaining it, and I have energy all day and I feel good.
That's huge and you should celebrate that, because you know, getting frustrated
or getting mad at your body or whatever, that's the quickest way to rebound,
to get frustrated, to quit to whatever. But just accepting how far
you've come and settling in and then taking the time for your body to adjust
to that new weight, and you'll tweak. You'll figure out the tweak that
works for you, and your body will go on to release more weight.
I feel very certain. So we have a question from Questions in Michigan.
My question is not fasting when you have to take medication twice a day every
twelve hours with food for life, how can I handle this? The longest
fast I can do is twelve hours. Because of this, sometimes I stretch
the time to about fourteen. But I do need to take medication with food.
I normally drink some almond milk, and I'm pretty sure that breaks the
fast. Someone suggested cream cheese, but I think almond milk would have less
fat. I am seventy years old and I really want the health benefits from
fasting. I have autoimmune liver and thyroid disease right now to restrict what I
eat, and I'm basically counting calories. I'm sure others must have the same
issue with medications, so I'm hoping you can use something to do about the
clean fast. I plan on asking the doctor and next visit if there is
a medication for the liver that can be taken once per day, but I
am doubtful. I've been fasting for about three months. I do feel better
I stop eating about seven PM in the evening, and since food stays in
the stomach for a while, I hold off on the medication until about seven
thirty and then I don't take the next one until about eight thirty am.
That is about the best I can do to get a clean fasten. Do
you have any other suggestions. It's great to ask your doctor like you're going
to do, to see if there is a way you can structure your medication
differently. You definitely don't want to do that without your doctor telling you you
can, so always have that conversation with your doctor, and you may be
surprised to find that there is something that you can go to once a day
and then that problem would be solved. But I want to tell you that
if the best you can do is twelve to twelve, because you need to
have food with your medication, that is going to come with health benefits.
Twelve twelve is going to have more health benefits than if you only were fasting
for the eight hours that you were sleeping, for example, and eating over
sixteen hours. So eating over a twelve hour period is going to be better
than eating over a sixteen hour period, So you can be confident that even
twelve twelve is going to have some health benefits for you. So now let's
think about what you could have to eat with your medication, and it just
really depends on why you need to eat with that medication. There are some
things that you shouldn't have on an empty stomach because they're really hard on your
stomach, Like, for example, advil. We can't take advill on an
empty stomach. It's really hard on your stomach. It can damage your stomach.
So you have to eat something with that that's going to coat your stomach
and keep the medication from damaging your stomach. So I don't know what medication
you're taking and why it should be taken with food, but that's important to
know, like what is the food doing. Does it need to be taken
with food? So ask your doctor that does it need to be taken with
an entire meal or you know. I think the idea of having some cream
cheese. I do think cream cheese is probably a better choice than almond milk
because if it's because it needs to coat your stomach, cream cheese is going
to do that a little bit better. It's got a little more to it
than the almond milk would, and I think almond milk is more likely to
cause you to have a blood sugar response that you don't want, meaning like
a crash, because you got your almond milk coming in but really not anything
else solid food with it, so it's likely to make your blood sugar go
up quickly. Plus now you've had an insulin response, and you're going to
have more likely to have a crash from that and feel worse. I wouldn't
have anything that would cause your blood sugar to go up and down pretty quickly.
Cream cheese is going to be better than that. You can have a
handful of leafy greens. I've seen doctor Jason Fung recommend that, but you
really could just that's when you open your window. Maybe you open your window
at eight thirty, and if you're going from seven thirty at night until eight
thirty in the morning, that's actually you're only having an eleven hour window,
so you're fasting for thirteen Yet I'm not sure it sounds like maybe she's hoping
to lose weight, because she said that she's basically counting calories right now and
trying to restrict what she eats. So the only other suggestion I had is
I would talk to your doctor because I don't have no idea what medication you're
on. But some medications you need to eat because of the mechanism of action
of the medication. So it's possible that that almond milk is not sufficient,
right, and you may just be like Jinzad, a person who needs a
twelve hour eating window. Now, if it doesn't have anything to do with
the mechanism of the medication, and it's there to coat your stomach so that
you don't have nausea or anything like that with it, then like the cream,
cheese or even just some cream or leafy greens. I've seen doctor Funk
say, dip some like a handful of spinach and some olive oil and eat
it. Then you could just pretend do this every morning and then just pretend
like that didn't happen and still eat in a window. Right. It does
break the fast, but sometimes you have to do it. You like,
have to just do what you have to do for your meds. Right,
So rather than feeling like you have to restrict your eating because you need a
twelve hour window and you think you're going to overeat in your twelve hour window,
break your fast, take your meds, and then kind of like Chad
does, don't eat anything else until it's later in the day, and then
eat in your window even though your window's open, have that sliding door kind
of close it. Yep. And then eat in a window and try that
for a while. Yep. And even if the best you can do is
ever twelve twelve, know that you're going to have health benefits from that,
and that you're still doing something good for your body. You don't have to
just say well, I just can't do fasting, because you can do it.
Twelve twelve is better than nothing. But I think you can figure out
away with some of these suggestions, and so we wish you the best of
luck with that, and I love that you are seventy and looking for those
health benefits. All right, we have a question from Katie and sugar Land,
and she said, hello, I started IF last year and I did
so great. I was doing thirty six hour fasts with a day in between,
so I'm just gonna that's good like down day updates. So she was
doing probably like thirty six twelve thirty six hours of fasting and then a twelve
hour upday, so she said I started at two hundred and ninety five pounds
with high glucose which was three hundred plus, and fasting. She said she
had out of control hormones, skin issues, and frequent yeast infections. In
five months, I was down to two hundred and forty five and all of
those noted issues were resolved. I was feeling so amazing. My confidence led
me back to the dating game. In June of twenty twenty three, I
met an amazing man that I really believe is the love of my life.
But oh, and I'm already in my mind predicted where this is going.
He loves to eat, He loves to take me out to eat. He
is blessed with a high metabolism and good genetics. Unfortunately I have neither.
I fell off completely around the time we met, and I gained all of
my weight back. My glucose is out of control. I'm moody, sluggish,
sleep is off, and I just look unhealthy in my skin, my
hair, my eyes. I'm trying to get back to intermittent fasting. He
is supportive, but he indulges. I love to cook for him, but
it's so hard when I can't taste test along the way, any advice for
dealing with the temptations and the disconnected causes when we don't eat together. Well,
First, I think you need to have a really solid way, And
it sounds like for health reasons alone, that should be easy to come up
with. I mean, if you have found the love of your life and
you want to spend the rest of your life with this man, you don't
want to do it sick and not feeling well and sluggish, and that's no
way to live. So really sit down and fabricate your why, Like why
do you want to be an intermitt faster, Why do you want to get
healthy? Why do you want to get your blood sugars under control? And
really keep that front and center. Whether you type it out and you save
it as a screen saver on your phone or you have it on a post
it note on your desk or whatever. Really really keep that front and center
because that can really motivate you to stay strong and to honor your fast.
You don't have to fast, you don't have to do adf If that feels
like you cannot eat with this man that you love and you cannot cook for
him, do a daily eating window. It is a very very manageable way
to live. And you can cook, you can taste in your window,
you can eat together. He can take you out to eat. You don't
have to worry about whether it's a fasting day or not. You just fast
up until it's time to eat with him, and then eat in a window.
I get it that it's hard when you are around an eater. My
husband's an eater, but I have to just really realize that my body's not
built like his. This man can eat whatever he wants and his cholesterol is
amazing, and I eat super healthy and my cholesterol is not amazing. I
can be mad about it, but that's just the way it is. So
I have to do what's best for me. You know, you said that
he's supportive, and I mean that's great because there are a lot of spouses
and significant others out there that are not supportive. So take his support,
ask him for help, share your concerns, you know, tell him what
you'd like to do, and see if you can get him on board with
doing a daily eating window. I think that's going to work really well for
you, Katie. Yeah, and you know what, the phrase that comes
to my mind here and that I've said it a million times. Comparison is
the thief of joy. Right, So you're in this new relationship and one
little part of that where you said he indulges, and I look, I
get it from back in my earlier days, prior to the present. You
know, when I was dabbling intermittent faster, or even when I was early
and intermittent fasting, I felt resentful of people who could eat when I couldn't.
I'm making air quotes around could and couldn't. Why can he indulge but
I can't? You know, why can Chad eat what every wants and never
have a weight problem but I can't? And that was the whole, Like
I said, the comparison is the thief of joy. You've got a different
body than he does and a different metabolism. Although it might catch up with
him eventually exactly. You know, when you're with him before you can look
healthy on the outside and not be healthy on the inside. Well, that's
true, and it also could catch up with him later and then maybe one
day he'll have a weight problem even though he doesn't now. But if you're
watching him indulge and feeling resentful, that is something you have to work out.
Because I used to feel like I was restricting myself from this eating experience.
But instead I've realized what I'm doing is giving my body the rest from
eating that it needs to be its healthiest every day. And so am I
really missing out on anything while I'm missing out on worse health outcomes? If
I were going to be eating all day so doctor visits medications, You're always
going to have to give something up. There's always a trade off. You
just have to decide what are you going to give up? Are you going
to give up eating with him every time he indulges so that the trade off
is you're healthier and you feel better in your body. I think that's a
pretty good trade off. Or you can give up fasting and the trade off
is what you're finding right now. Your glucose is out of control, your
moody, your sluggish, your sleep is off. You don't look healthy.
You said, so just really think about what are you willing to get up?
And I think you're probably willing to give up the uncontrollable glucose, the
moodiness, the sluggishness, Give those things up and lean into fasting. I
do think a daily eating window might be the best option for you and don't
feel that resentment because I get it. I get it. Chad's sitting over
there eating some ice cream and I'm like, well, I'm having a banana
tonight or whatever. I could feel resentful, or I can just be like,
well, my body is different and I've got to do different things for
my body. And I promise you that once you get back into fasting and
you really get some fasting under your belt, and you start feeling better and
you start sleeping better, yep. That I mean. I can just tell
you right now. My husband sits in bed next to me at the end
of the day. We spend like the last hour sitting in bed, winding
down, watching our favorite shows together or whatever. I asked him where something
was the other day and he said, it's on my snack table in the
bedroom, And I said, some people call that a night stand. My
husband's nightstand is full of snacks, oh gosh. And he sits there and
snacks the whole time we're sitting there watching TV, my windows closed by then
I can tell you it is not tempting to me whatsoever to sit there and
snack with him. It's just not. Once upon a time it was right
early on, but it's just not desirable to me anymore. And I know
I don't sleep well if I eat too close to bed, and my sleep
and feeling good and having energy is so important to me that I'm not going
to do anything to disrupt that. And you totally could. You could make
the choice that you were going to have a snack table on your side of
the bed, but you would be giving up the great feeling you have the
next day. Yep. It's all about those trade offs. And you know,
Katie, you might really benefit from twenty eight day fast start day by
day, going through it day by day, and also share it with your
new guy and show him what you're doing and how you're working your way through
it and why show him your why make him a part of it. I
bet he'll support you. I bet so. So there are lots of things
that I've discovered along the way that have benefited my health and wellness journey,
or that just make life easier or more fun. And I love to share
these things with others. You've heard me talk about Beauty Counter a lot and
how much I love it. But then there are also companies like Walk and
Lab where I check my fasted insulin, and I have had a cardio IQ
blood test run, which is an advanced slipid panel where you can check your
APPOA and B which are lipoproteins. I've checked my apple lipoprotein and those if
you know any thing about them, can be way more accurate predictors of cardiovascular
disease than just your total cholesterol and your HDL and LDL, and so I
have done that. My doctor absolutely would not order them for me, so
I did it on my own, and surprisingly it was not very expensive.
And when I told him I had it done, he actually had it done
through a cardiologist. His insurance declined it paying for it, and he paid
more than I paid for it through Walking Lab. So that's a company that
I love. I love to share about. There are meal delivery companies that
I love that make planning my windows and having healthy food on handsuper simple,
whether it be window openers, window closers, or just having a meal plan
for the week. So if you're interested in learning about these companies and more,
you can check them out on my favorite things page at fast feasrepeat dot
com. Slash Sherry that's s H. E. Ri I and now it's
time for our tweak of the week. You know that I always say tweak
it till it's easy, and I do mean that. But the tweak that
works for me might not be the one that works for you, and vice
versa. And that's why it is so helpful to hear how other intermitten fasters
are making intermittent fasting work for them. This tweak was submitted by Anne in
Maryland. She says, mindfully trust the process. I have learned that blind
trust means trusting something completely without bothering to assess whether it is working for you
personally, for example, going in with your eyes closed. On the other
hand, mindful trust means trusting a process with your eyes open, assessing what
is working for you and letting go of what is not right for you without
self judgment or self recrimination. Not everything will work for everybody in the same
way or on the same timeline. Don't be afraid to make your own path
in the world. After all, you are the one to walk it.
And I love that because I feel like we always say trust the process,
especially in the early days, we always say trust the process that requires blind
trust. But then along the way, mindful trust, I think is required
because you have to really start to learn to trust in your body and that
sort of thing. So I love that share and I always like to emphasize
that when we say trust the process. The process is not just you start
fasting and then you do the exact same thing and you never change anything.
Tweaking it till it's easy is part of the process. Tweaking until you see
the weight loss you're looking for. Finding what your body needs is the process.
That's the process. You don't just start fasting like you could follow me
around. I've said this before and do exactly what I do and eat exactly
what I eat and have different results. The process is making it work for
you. Trust the process and the tools, but you have to assess whether
it's working for you, and then you have to try something else. There's
the tweaking exactly. And I just want to take a minute to tell you
guys. As I go through the podcast submission forms and I look for shares
and questions and that sort of thing, I am out of tweaks. I
mean, need more tweaks. Please please send me your tweaks. There's a
link in show notes every single week where you can click to you know,
fill out the form and it just takes a minute. We would love to
hear your tweaks. I know so many of you have found tweaks that work
for you along the way, so please send those in and you know we'd
love to leave you with inspirational or motivational messages. And this week we have
a message from Karen and San Diego. She starts with the following quote,
Discipline is the strongest form of self. Love is ignoring something you want right
now for something better later on. Discipline reveals the commitment you have to your
dreams, especially on the days you don't want to. The future you is
depending on the current you to keep the promises that you made to yourself.
Yesterday Karen wrote, I love that last line. When I get tempted to
eat something after I've closed my window, I try to think about how I
will feel in the morning when I wake up. It is such a great
feeling to wake up knowing that I stuck to my plan, and the opposite
is true on the mornings when I don't. Of course, every day is
a new day and it's not the end of the world if the day before
didn't go as planned. But it's always a good feeling to keep the promises
we have made to ourselves. I love that, and that really is so
true. The future you now, everybody listen, this is school teacher jin.
The future you really is depending on the current you to keep the promises
you made to yourself yesterday. Yep, 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.