Episode 6: Appetite Correction, Coffee and the Clean Fast, New Fasting Study, When Others are Eating, Uppish/Downish, and More

Welcome to Fast Feast Repeat, intermitt and Fasting for Life. I'm Jen Stevens,
author of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast Repeat, and I'm Sherry
Bullock, longtime Intermitten 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 intermitt and Fasting
or an experienced Intermitten 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, Intermitten Fasting for Life podcast. How are you doing today?
Sherry? I am doing fabulous and I just want to everybody to know
you might hear thunder as we're having a thunderstorm here afternoon, thunderstright. Everybody
was running off the beach. I was watching them through the window. They
like left their chairs and everything. It just came out of nobody. Can't
hear it. It was carrying on. Yep, we had that weather yesterday,
did you. Yeah, we had a thunder free fourth of July.
We're recording this on July fifth, but yesterday was thunder free. But it's
here today, so so and today is episode one release day, so that's
just exciting. Yes, it felt like Christmas morning when I woke up.
And technology is amazing, but I always worry that something weird's going to go
wrong. But I looked to see if my email had gone out right,
and it did so Anyway, all was well. The episode dropped like it
was supposed to, the email went out like it was supposed to. We
got a podcast. That's awesome. I have a busy week, have a
fun busy week. Yesterday was my wedding anniversary and fourth of July, and
then today was released day, and then Friday, I'm driving to Atlanta to
pick up a friend from the air and we are driving to see Gin.
I'm so excited. Yes, Saturday is my fiftieth birthday. Yes, I'm
trying not to be upset about that. Why would you be upset? Fifty?
The number I'm not ready. I just want to slow down time.
There's so much I want to do with my life. So we got so
much time. We're just halfway there. I know one of Eric's niece's wished
me a happy birthday yesterday on Facebook. I think she might have got our
anniversary and my birthday confused, and she wished me a happy birthday, and
I said, you know, thank you. I don't think i'm ready to
turn fifty though, and she said, well, you don't look fifty,
and that's all that matters. Now. I'm you know, of course I'm
fifty three, so I'm a little ahead of y'all. Turned fifty four later
this month. And I think that we have so much to look forward to
in our fifties and our sixties and our seventies, you know, watching the
people in our community that are in their sixties and seventies and seeing how full
of life they are. I know, you, you know me, We're
going to be out there swimming in the ocean in our seventies, and yes,
for sure, you won't be slowing us down at all. So embraced,
Sherry, I know I'm trying. I'm trying. You can do it
well, We're gonna celebrate and I can't wait. I'm really looking forward to
it. Well, now it's time for our weekly celebration, and today's celebration
comes from Anita from the Delay Don't Deny community. She wrote, I was
invited to a retirement lunch for a colleague this past Thursday, and I chose
to go, opening my window early and accepting that it might be longer because
of it, I did not stress about it. That was non scale victory
number one. What really sticks with me is non scale victory number two.
I ordered a ruben sandwich with sweet potato fries and a diet PEPSI. I
could only eat half the sandwich and maybe a quarter or a third of the
fries. Everything tasted delicious, but I was full. I honored my cues
that I was no longer hungry. I stopped eating, and when the server
ad stuff I wanted it wrapped up, I chose not to as I needed
to get back to my desk. Even if I had put it in the
fridge at work, it would have turned into a soggy mess, not window
worthy. Things are changing in my brain. This is a real place things
need to change for me, and I'm delighted that they are going in the
right direction. You know, people might wonder why did I choose that one
for this week's show, And it's because there's so much to celebrate in that
post from Anita, or that celebration from Anita. Because I don't know,
if you've been dieting for your whole life like I did for decades, you
did too right. Sharing decades, we were so used to you know,
I call it diet brain and fast feast repeede. I talked about it there,
and you know, we were so used to the thoughts of, oh,
I shouldn't order this right, feeling guilty. And so the first non
scale victory that Anita had was that she accepted, you know what, we're
going out for a retirement lunch. I'm going to open my window early.
I might have a longer window that day. She didn't beat herself up and
say, oh, I'm falling off the wagon, or oh I'm ruining my
diet, or no, she went She accepted that it was okay to open
her window early that day it might be longer, with no stress. Then
she ordered what she wanted right. She wanted a Reuben sandwich and sweet potato
fries and a diet pepsi, and that's what she got. And how many
times have we gone to a restaurant and thought, oh, I'm gonna be
good. You know it'd be good. I'll just get the salad with my
dressing on the side, exactly, and we equate like being good being bad.
But she got what she wanted, and then she listened to her body.
She ate half the sandwich, and then she heard appetite correction. That's
that terminology created by doctor Burt Hearing in his book Appetite Correction. She heard
that she had had enough, and she obeyed. She listened, she honored
her cues. As she put it, she stopped eating. And then here's
another victory. How many times have you can something home because you'd paid for
it? Right? You know, I paid for that ruben and those fries.
I better take it home and eat it later, even though it's going
to be a soggy mess and it won't be good because I paid for it,
I'm going to eat it. Yep, she didn't. She said,
nope, the sandwich is out of my life. I'm done with it.
And so the way she said, things are changing in my brain. You
know, I just thought that was worth highlighting because so much of intermitten fasting
is about changing that old programming that we've got, the guilt, the diet
brain, the on and off the on the wagon, off the wagon,
being good, being bad, and the freedom of intermitten fasting is learning to
let go of all of that, right, Yeah. Well, and then
two it's like you know, before you say you're on a diet and you're
like, well, I really want the ruben and sweeptato fries, but that's
going to take all my calories for today, right, So then you get
into this mindset too, where you're like, well, if I'm gonna fall
off the wagon, i'm gonna eat it all. Right. If I'm gonna
do it, i'm gonna do it up good. Yeah. Where it with
fasting that just changes. And then you're like, Okay, I tasted it.
It was delicious, and I'm full and I've had enough. It's kind
of like a double jeopardy right when you're dieting, and then you eat it
and you feel bad about eating it, so then you're like, I'm gonna
go all in. I'm gonna eat it all. With fasting, you're giving
yourself permission to eat it. It's completely okay. You know it's not going
to derail anything. You just opened your window early. Maybe you'll close it
early, and when you've had enough, you don't feel this like push to
keep indulging patitity. Well, I've ruined everything. I might as well eat
it all. No, because you didn't ruin anything, and you know that
if you want a Ruben sandwich next week, you can just have a Ruben
sandwich next week. Absolutely, Or maybe you'll be like, ah, I
didn't really enjoy that Ruben as much as I thought I did. Maybe today
I want to sell it and you order it because that's what sounds good,
right, not what you think you should have. Anyway. I just think
that is such a great mindset shift, And Anita, thank you for sharing
out with us. Because celebrations come in all different shapes and sizes, and
freedom from diet brain is it's a huge one. It's huge. So now
we have a question from a listener, and this question is from Mary from
Dallas, Texas. She says, I have been fasting for over five years
and absolutely love it. Lost forty two pounds and about eight months back in
twenty eighteen to twenty nineteen quick question about coffee. Of course, I do
not add anything to my coffee. I completely understand clean fasting. However,
I'm a little confused on if the coffee itself can have a flavor. I
think I heard someone on a recent intermittent fasting story say that her coffee had
like maybe a cherry flavor or something. I would love to be able to
drink black coffee with some flavor, if it's possible. I don't know if
it was in the roasting of the coffee or what. Hope this makes sense
and any clarification would be great, thanks. Well. Lots of things have
flavored notes. I mean, chocolate has flavor notes, wine has flavor notes.
Even tea has different flavor notes. You can get seven different green teas
and they're going to taste different. And it has to do with where the
coffee was grown, the soil it was grown in, you know, the
climate. All of that affects the flavor of the coffee. So it's not
flavor so much as just subtle difference in tastes. I've had coffee that has
hints of blueberry and you don't taste it when it's hot, but if you
get it cold, that little popa you actually get this little popa blueberry in
your mouth. Yeah, I don't ever taste it. Well, I don't
know. I think it comes from just trying different coffees. Maybe they're not
flavors per se. By choosing different coffees with different notes, you're not going
to break your fast. It's just a differ variety, I guess, is
the best way to describe it. Yea, And I want to clarify flavor
notes versus added flavors or two different things. So Cherry was talking about the
tasting notes, and you may see that now. It's I think of it
as kind of like marketing hype. They didn't used to put it on all
the coffees. But if you think back to wine, you know, if
you go to like a wine tasting, they'll be like, this wine has
hints of cherry and raspberry and tobacco. I don't know. Those are just
words they associate with wine. That doesn't mean they added cherry flavor. They
didn't add tobacco flavor. That's just the tasting notes, the flavor notes.
So they started doing that on coffee. Like the coffee might say hints of
caramel. Those are tasting notes. However, don't confuse that with caramel flavored
coffee. That is something completely different. So you can ignore tasting notes,
but you should not have any coffee with added flavor. You read the ingredients
list, and if the only ingredient is the coffee, you're in good shape.
But if they've added natural flavors or artificial flavors or any kind of flavoring,
that's what you don't want. Yeah, I will say that, Like
if I drink a coffee and it said it had notes of caramel and chocolate,
and it tasted really delicious, and you know, it made me hungry
afterwards, I probably would not drink that coffee again because I mean, if
it's such a strong note and you have a delicate palette and you can really
pick those up, I mean, could you have a cephalic phase and culin
response. It's possible, entirely possible. But is it still a clean,
fast coffee. Yes, technically it is, but it just means it doesn't
work for you. Like the example of that for me is Starbucks the Nitro
cold grew. Yeah, the Nitro cold Brew, And I remember when that
first came out. I mean, the only ingredients are coffee and then that
night trow whatever gas that makes it all creamy. It gives it kind of
a creamy foam, but it's just made out of coffee and the nitrogen whatever
it is. But I remember when it first came out, the T shirts
that they were wearing at Starbucks said creamy without cream sweet without sweetener, and
I'm like, but it doesn't have anything in it that would break a fast,
so I can have it for my clean fast. I tried that multiple
times, and every time I could tell it broke my fast because it made
me feel starving, shaky, like like I had had a blood sugar drop.
So how would that happen? Will you taste it? Cephalic phase insulin
response? My brain said, oh, this is sweet and creamy, right,
we got blood sugar coming in. Our blood sugar is going to be
up because this has got something sweet in there. Insulin response crashes my blood
sugar. So I can't drink Starbucks nitro cold brew even though there is literally
nothing in it that would break a fast, because my brain perceives it as
sweet and creamy. So that's what you have to watch out for, right.
Yeah, Well, so this week we want to talk about a recent
study that came out. It came out on June the twenty seventh, and
the title of the study was time restricted eating without calorie accounting for weight loss
in a racially diverse population. We're going to go ahead and have a link
to that in show notes. I don't know if you'll be able to access
the full article or not. You can't access the whole article, just the
summary. You can access the abstract of it for free. You have to
sign up for an account. Like I got really excited because I was trying
to read the whole study and so they're like, you can sign up for
a free account with our journal. It's free and you can get free stuff.
So I'm like, okay, So I signed up for the free account,
but then the actual journal article was still behind the paywall and I couldn't
get it. But by registering for an account, I got a free access
to the summary for patients, which is even better because now I don't have
to try to interpret it. I can read the summary right, the summary
for patients. So y'all, the link in the show notes will send you
to the summary for Patients. You will have to create a free account if
you want to read the summary for patients, but it's free. But I
thought this was worth discussing. Yeah, So in the study, they took
ninety racially diverse adults with obesity and seventy seven ended up completing the study.
So what they concluded was time restricted eating is more effective in producing weight loss
when compared with the control group, but not more effective than a calorie restricted
group in a racially diverse population. So they had three sets of people in
the group. One was an eight hour restricted eating strategy, the eight from
noon to eight pm, they had no calori accounting. There was a group
that had calorie restriction of twenty five percent of their daily calories, and then
they had a group that had no change in their eating. Those were their
three control groups. They did this for twelve months and the biggest thing that
came out to me where it says time restricted eating was not more effective than
calorie restricted but when you really look at the data in it the calorie reduced
group, they reduced their calories by approximately eight hundred and thirty per day,
whereas the fasting group, just as a natural side effect of eating in an
eight hour window, they only reduced their calories by four hundred and twenty five
calories per day, So that's pretty significant. And the part that's the most
exciting is they didn't count anything. All they did was eight hour window.
The reason that I wanted to talk about this is it came out and they
were talking about it, like everybody in the community was like, oh my
gosh, they're talking about this new study on Good Morning America. And it's
all about how you spin it right, right, so you can spend this
study. That's what I want to teach people to do. Look at the
study. Ignore however the media is spinning it, because you could spend this
study as well. Time restricted eating was not more effective than calorie counting.
They lost the same amount of weight, or you could spend it as Wow,
these people were able to eat however they wanted in eight hours, and
they lost just as much weight as the people who were having to count calories.
Right, So the actual comparison was the time restricted eating group. And
I want to say too, this time restricted eating this isn't even like true
fasting. I don't. I don't think they were fast and clean. They
were just told that they weren't allowed to have any calories like they were told
that they could have fluids without calories, they could have been having diet.
So does Lord only knows what they were doing. Yeah, right, stevia
sweet and coffee. We don't know what they were doing before noon and after
eight pm. We know with clean fasting you're gonna see far more benefits than
not clean fasting. So this was just time restricted eating. So the time
restricted eating group, who just ate how they normally would in a smaller eating
window, they lost four point six one kilograms at twelve months, whereas the
calorie counting group lost five point four two So it was not statistically significant.
No, what's that point eight kilograms? Yeah, it was not statistically significant
difference between the two groups. They both groups lost weight, but the eight
hour window people lost weight without calorie counting or restricting on purpose. They naturally
ate a little bit less, they naturally lost weight. But what I would
like to see is what if they had fast and clean and or followed a
five hour eating window, right, I mean I would not to that yet,
but I would love to see. And that's what every time one of
these you know, research all comes out. I love that they're doing research
on time restrict eating, but I would like to see them do is start
doing research on clean fast yep, and maybe shorter window, because metabolically it's
different, it's just the same. So I just did the math at to
convert kilograms one point seven six pounds average difference. Right, And when you
think too that when you are fasting, you're preserving muscle. When you're calorie
restricting, you're not preserving muscle. So yes, they may have showed up
on this scale as one point seven six pounds, But again, how about
some measurements and body recomposition. Yeah, what was their lean mass, what
was their fat mass? How did that change over time? All those are
such important. So the point of bringing this up I want people to have
a critical eye for any kind of research and really dig in and ask questions
and look into it and what did they really study? What I would have
loved to have seen in a study or future study is Okay, the group
that has no changes at all, the control group. Then you've got maybe
an eight hour window group and a five hour eating window group, and then
compared to a calorie counting group. That's fine, and see what happen happens,
But I would like to see that kind of a thing, shorter window,
see what happens. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean again,
I think it's great that they're doing research, but yeah, always really look
into it because it may appear to show one thing, but when you really
dig into it and try to understand how it's done, it very rarely is
giving you the answer that it's portrayed to give. And you could spend it
so many ways. Yep, absolutely all right, So today we have time
for a second question, and this question comes from Debbie and Minnesota. She
asks what are some good strategies for eating with or not eating with someone who
doesn't completely support interim fasting. She says, I vary my windows, but
I feel better when I eat early till late afternoon issh such as one to
four, two to five, And the comments are always aren't you eating?
Why don't she just eat? I don't like eating alone? And these are
getting old. We're talking about a spouse of fifty three years who means well
but just doesn't get it. That's hard, doesn't it? That is hard.
You know. I'm a big person that's big on personal boundaries, So
to me, that's a boundary issue. When I eat does not affect you,
that is one hundred percent. I mean that's literally all right, Nothing
needs else needs to be said. That's it right. When I eat does
not affect you. You are free to eat whenever you want to eat,
and I won't tell you when or how to eat. I need you to
respect when and how I eat. It's really as simple as that. And
yet we're talking about marriages, which are rarely as simple as boundaries rights,
like when you've been married for you know, I've been married to Chad since
nineteen ninety one. That's a lot of years they've been married. Debbie's been
married for fifty three years. You know, your boundaries are all of the
gray areas there right. This makes me think of actually a conversation Chad and
I had a couple of weeks ago. You know, I'm really used to
eating or not eating in front of people, No big deal. I'm not
going to eat if if I don't want to. We're sitting there and it
was a beautiful day, and Chad said, do you want to go up
to like one of the bar near bar that we can walk to in your
our house and have a beer. And I said, oh, I would
love to go up there, said but I'm not drinking right now, so
I'll just you know, get something else, but you can have a beer.
And then he said, oh, well then let's don't go. And
I'm like, what are you talking about. He's like, well, I
don't want to drink if you're not drinking. I'm like why, you know,
it's very true in this nation. Okay, you would never say,
hey, I'm on pain pills. You take pain pills too, No,
I know, right, yeah, but we do say oh, I'm having
a drink, you have a drink too, or I'm eating you need to
eat too? Right? That needs to stop. It does need to stop.
You know, if you personally want to have a drink, have a
drink. If you personally don't, don't. Same with food, same with
everything. It was blowing my mind because I've been an Internet in faster since
twenty fourteen. He's never tried to make me eat with him. But now
we're like walking and he's like, well, you know, our anniversary's coming
up, and in a few weeks when we go out to dinner, are
you gonna drink wine with me at dinner. I'm like, well, I'm
not drinking right now. I probably won't. He's like well, then I
won't be able to enjoy my dinner. I'm like, what does what I'm
having have to do with you? And it's like just I was like,
this is shocking. Yeah, well, I mean I think like here,
her husband's is I don't like eating alone? Right? Well, I mean
I tell people all the time you can sit there with them and keep them
company while they eat. Now, if he doesn't truly like eating by himself,
I don't know that there's help for that. That's something he's going to
have to get over. That's a mindset thing that I have a hard time
wrapping my head around. If I'm hungry, I'm gonna eat. I don't
care who's eating with me. And if you don't want to eat because somebody's
not eating with you, you're probably not really hungry. That's true, That
is a very good point. But I was going to suggest what you just
said for Debbie to sit with him. You know, there's one thing like
having to sit by yourself at the table and eat. I could totally understand
maybe your husband doesn't want to sit at the table by himself and eat the
time together. To me, sitting at a table like I didn't want to
go have a beer at the bar. I wanted to go sit in the
afternoon sun and listen to music at a place where people were or were not
drinking, And it was to me, it was about the being together,
not about what we were consuming. Right. I would have that conversation,
Debbie with your husband and say, I would like to sit with you and
be with you. I've already eaten and I'm not hungry. I will sit
with you, and I will be with you, and I will enjoy watching
you enjoy the dinner. Right. And some people say, well, I
feel weird just sitting there. Whether I'm a fan of a big cup of
hot water and you can add salt to it and it's very satisfied. As
weird as it sounds, it's kind of like broth. I put my Redman's
real salt in a mug of hot water. You know, I struggle a
person struggles keeping my potassium up. So sometimes I just add my liquid potassium
to it, and I will sit there and sip it and it's satisfying.
And it's hot, and you're sitting at the table and you have something in
your hand, so you're not just sitting there twiddling your thumbs. You know.
I think that's the perfect solution. And I want to dig into one
more thing that Debbie said, And I'm not really sure how much to read
into this, but she said, you know someone who doesn't completely support IF.
And that is also a whole other issue, because we have family members
and friends who might make little dig comments at us, like implying we're starving
ourselves or they don't understand it. And I really think that it's important to
let them know why you're doing it in fasting, and it's the health benefits.
And if someone were criticizing me, I mean, of course I'm Jen
Stevens. I wrote the book right, But let's pretend I wasn't Jin Stevens.
I'm just a person doing intermitten fasting. And I've read Jen Steven's book
right, And someone's like, I don't agree with intermittent fasting. I think
it is wrong. I would say, all right, here's the book.
I would like you to read, hand them fast past repeat. Once you've
read it, I would love to discuss it with you. I think that's
a perfect answer. But until you've read it, I don't want to talk
about it with you. You're just like making your assumptions based on old information,
right, it's not an informed discussion, right. So in order to
have a discussion where you can even debate the points of if you have to
come from the same understanding exactly. And I can totally understand someone feeling uneasy
about the idea of intermitten fasting if they don't understand it right, it sounds
weird. If you don't understand it, well, you're gonna starve yourself,
You're not gonna eat, You're gonna eat in three hours only. That sounds
wrong. But when you understand the health ment that are associated with it,
when you look at the research and you look at the fact that you know
doctors and longevity experts are doing internet and fasting because they're so solid on the
health benefits, you realize there's a lot more to this. So well,
and I'll tell you too, confidence goes a long way. That's true too.
So when you believe one hundred percent and what you're doing, if somebody
said to me, oh, that's not healthy, and they have you know,
people tell me that, oh I've read that's not healthy, or that
you're not supposed to do that long term, or whatever people say to me.
Even my family doctor told me that one day after telling me all my
labs were amazing, said oh, I don't think that's healthy, okay,
Dick, And I said, well, you just told me that all my
labs looked amazing, and my weight's good, my blood pressure is good,
and I've done the research and I believe it is. You know, if
somebody kind of is trying to talk you out of fasting for whatever reason,
or tell you it's not a good idea or whatever, if you are confident
in your decision to be an intermittent faster and you are able to stand your
ground and say, you know, I am doing this for my health,
I'm doing this for longevity. I'm doing this because dementia runs in my family.
Whatever you're you know, Big hy Is and I have done a lot
of research and I have read about this, and you know, if you
ever want to learn more, I'm happy to point you in the right direction.
And you just leave it at that. You don't have to give any
further explanation or win them over to your side. Just state your case and
then change the subject. And that's your friend or family member who's going to
then send you those articles that pop up and say like, look, see
this article. It's said that an eight hour eating window was no more effective
than calorie counting. It's like, yeah, but I don't have to count
calories, buddy, and I'm preserving bon and muscle mass and I feel amazing.
My metabolism is revved up and I feel amazing and exactly, but those
are the people who are going to send you those articles and try to convince
you that there's something wrong with it, right, don't let it happen and
be strong. Go back and read Fast Feast, repeat again. Read the
parts about the health benefits and look at the studies in the back that really
will That's what convinced me, you know. And also how good you feel?
All right? So I hope that that helps Debbie, because all of
us have been faced with that situation at least once. Before we get to
our tweak of the week, I want to take a minute to tell you
about my new book coming out in December of twenty twenty three. If you're
listening prior to December, it is available to pre order wherever you buy books,
and if you're listening in twenty twenty four or beyond, because podcasts are
forever. It is already available. The new book is called twenty eight Day
Fast Start Day by Day, The Ultimate Guide to starting or restarting your intermitt
and fasting lifestyle. So it sticks. And you know why this new book.
Some intermitten fasters don't want to read Fast Feast Repeat straight through from start
to finish, and I get it. It is a lot of information.
I realized over the years that Fast Feast Repeat needed a companion book, and
the idea for the twenty eight Day Fast Start Day by Day was born.
So when you get this book, every day, you have a framework to
focus on for that day only. You have a quick check in, you
have a daily lesson from me, you have a short inspirational story from a
past intermittent fasting stories guest with their best advice for new intermitting fasters. And
this is the book you're going to want to have on hand to give to
your friend or your sister, or that person in your life who's interested in
intermitt and fasting. But maybe they need more structure than Fast Feast Repeat gives
them, or they're not quite ready to read Fast Feast Repeats straight through.
It's also the book you need if you're someone who has been a intermitten fasting
dabbler and you've had trouble making it stick. You know, I'm a teacher,
and I thought about, what are all the things that make people kind
of go astray as intermittent fasters. What are the common stumbling blocks? And
you know, it might be how you're feeling during the adjustment period, or
it might be your friends this article saying intermitten fasting is dangerous, or it
might be that you're not losing weight and it's day seven and you are up
a pound. So all those common stumbling blocks to addressed. And I pretty
much take your hand and walk you through the first twenty eight days. So
if you're listening right now, go to your favorite bookstore today and pre order
twenty eight day fast start day by day. It should arrive on December twenty
sixth, just in time for the new year. And now it's time for
our tweak of the week. You know, I always say tweak it till
it's easy, But the tweak that works for me might not be the one
that works for you. That's why it's super helpful to hear how other intermitt
and fasters are making intermitt and fasting work for them, and today's tweak was
submitted by Ruth from the Delayed on Tonight community. She said, I thought
I would share as it might help others. I've been doing intermitt and fasting
for almost three years. I am now postmenopausal and have been struggling with losing
weight and cravings. Lately. I have tried alternate daily fasting or ADF,
which really felt too hard for me. I am now trying a new uppish
and downish day approach and a snacking bright line rule, which I do really
well with. I think snacking was really getting in my way. By not
snacking, I have eliminated ultra processed foods, frequent insulin hits, and my
hunger isn't getting activated mid afternoon. After one week of no snacking and two
twenty four hour fasts and the rest two meals a day, the weight is
releasing, cravings are down, and I am no longer struggling. As Jen
always says, tweak it till it's easy, it feels easy, and I
am now feeling more encouraged. Goal for now will be two to three twenty
four hour fasts a week, two meals a day on the other days and
no snacking. Well, I think there's a lot to be said for that
number one. By not snacking, you really do eliminate ultra processed foods,
because what are snacky foods When most people are craving a snack, they're not
running to the veggie drawer. Chips, yeah, rights, chips, crackers,
cookies, nuts, things that are easy to consume that often pack in
a lot of fat and calories and just inflammatory things as well. Yeah,
and they're just going to drive your hunger and the other thing that can happen
too. I think we see this with people who have longer windows. If
you just continually kind of snack and graze your way through a long window,
you really can impact your ability to flip the switch the next day and to
get into the fat burning mode. I mean, it is possible to start
to refill your glycogen stores while fasting, depending on how you're eating and what
you're eating and how long your windows are. So if you're somebody who's been
fasting for a while and maybe you've had window creep or you're starting to see
the scale and jump a little bit, really look at your windows and see
what you're doing in them. Because you could be assuming more energy than you
can deplete during your next days fast, and that's going to make fasting feel
hard. You don't want to be refilling your licagen stores. I absolutely feel
like I did that during COVID at one point. Your window creep, well,
not window creep. I never really had window creep. I was fasting
still. Well, my windows were good, they were just more processed foods,
were comfort foods, more desserts. You know, we were all looking
for stress relief and we're alcohol and you know, all of a sudden,
fasting got really hard. I was waking up hungry. I was, you
know, watching the clock. It was like a battle to get to nineteen
hours, and I thought what am I doing? And I really had to
take a look at and clean up my windows. And then it's like,
ah, yeah, there's that catosis again in my mouth. I missed that.
Yep, what you eat really can affect the next day. That's really
really true, And it is those snacky things for me. You're exactly right,
Sherry, the snacky foods. But I have a daily harvest bowl to
open my window and then a real meal later. I feel so satisfied.
I don't feel like I need to snack my way through and then the next
day the fast is easier. So really that's key nutrients, right. And
if you're a person who tends to be a snacky person because you don't feel
like you can eat like a lot of food volume at once, but like
your goal is one meal a day, I think we kind of get hung
up sometimes on the whole one meal thing, but you would be better off
having two highly nutritious light meals at the beginning and end of your window,
then opening with a snack and then having another snack, and then having your
meal and then having another snack. Ye, So you know, redefine what
you're labeling, you know your fasting style. It doesn't have to be one
meal a day if that's not what works for you exactly. Yeah, I
love that you've said that. So just to summarize what Ruth is doing against
she has two to three twenty four hour fasts a week. Twenty four hour
fasts. You're still eating every day, so you're not having to follow that
with an up day because you only need an up day. If your fast
spans two overnight periods like two sleeps, you need an update, or if
you have the five hundred calorie down day, you need an update, but
she's having She's waiting twenty four hours having a window. It's not a down
day. And then the next day she has two meals. On the other
days, it sounds to me like maybe she's been doing two meals a day,
like in maintenance or something, and then she's added in these two to
three extra long fasts during the week. I think so too. I'm just
guessing that from what she wrote, she doesn't exactly say what she was doing
priors and now. And she also mentioned that her cravings have gotten better,
and again that is probably also having to do with what she's choosing. Exactly,
if you're choosing ultraprocessed foods, you're gonna want more ultraprocessed foods. It's
such a vicious cycle. And you know, a lot of that goes back
to your gut microbiome. Whatever you eat feeds your gut. And if you're
somebody who's eating only ultraprocessed foods, I mean, you know, most people
are not only eating ultraprocessed foods, but most people in America sixty percent plus
of their diet is ultraprocessed foods. So you might be surprised. But if
you're eating, you know, the traditional way with sixty percent ultraprocessed foods,
you have a gut microbiome that craves those foods. So to break that cycle,
the more real food you eat, the less snacky food. Now you're
feeding a bunch of different gut bugs who when you like beans or whatever,
you're eating instead, And so the composition's going to change, and then what
those gut bugs crave will change because so many of our cravings are driven from
the gut. It's not like gin and craving those chips. It's the gut
bugs who are used to those chips sitting down the chips, right. Yeah,
the better choices make you want to have better things because it's changing the
biology of your body. Yeah, you know that. The whole ultra process
thing just came to mind. Somebody said something about ultra processed food the other
day and they mentioned yogurt. And then somebody said, like, asked yogurts
ultra processed yogurt, and I said, some yogurt is yes. So you
can't just say, oh, this food is an ultra processed food. It's
how is it made and what does the ingredient lists. Look like that's the
key. The key is on the ingredient list. If I'm eating whole fat,
organic Greek yogurt, that's a whole lot different than the old school Dannon
strawberry yogurt that's got thirty grams of sugar in it and hardly any protein,
and artificial colors and artificial sweeteners. The quality of the food really can determine
is it ultrasprocessed or not. Did you see the book recommendation that I made
yesterday in the community. I did. Yes, I'm reading ultra processed people,
and I actually learned some things that I didn't know that we're interesting,
Like the researcher on ultraprocessed foods, it was fascinating. I talked about it
in Cleanish the study. Kevin Hall is the name of the researcher, and
it was fascinating, Sherry, Like, I learned the whole backstory, the
whole idea of ultraprocessed foods versus just processed foods and real foods whatever, is
really relatively new. The definition ultraprocessed food didn't come about until like twenty seventeen.
That terminology. They invented it down in South America as a way to
try to explain the difference in these foods, and so the way that the
author of Ultra Process People tells the story, Kevin Hall, who did this
study, he did not believe that the processing made a difference. He's like,
that's not true. It's all about number of calories, it's all about
the mac ros, it's all about whatever. But it's definitely not having to
do with the processing. So he designed a study and it's the study I
talk about in Fast Feast Repeat, where they have people eating a completely unprocessed
diet compared to people who are eating an ultraprocessed diet, and then they swap
them like they have I don't know, I can't remember the details, but
like two weeks on the ultra process, then they swap and have two weeks
on the other one, and vice versa. They get to experience both.
They found that they didn't tell people how much to eat, They just offered
them the food and said here's the food. They found that when the people
were on the ultra processed time the ultra process part of the study, they
ate five hundred calories more per day. Nobody was counting calories, but they
just ate more and they gained weight. And the people who were served the
real foods ate five hundred calories fewer than the other people just from the real
food. And so the researcher was like, huh, I was not expecting
that that. I think it gives some of the most powerful type of research
when the researcher comes in with a bias like this is not going to make
a difference. But then he found the opposite to be true. Huh.
And you know, the more they research ultraprocessed foods, the more they fund
that there are a lot of reasons why they're not as good for us.
The gut is one. The fact that they're so easily like they're predigested right
exactly. I was going to say that your body doesn't have to work to
digest them. Not only that, so you know, they're not hanging around
your stomach giving you a sense of fullness. But the faster your food digests,
the more your regular your blood sugar control is going to be. Yep.
You want food to digest slowly. You want to have that fiber in
there, you want to have the healthy fats in there, because all of
that's going to keep your blood sugar more balanced, which is going to help
you, you know, feel satiated when you eat, you know, if
you eat something and immediately it's funny. My husband brought home some nybuns from
work the other day and he said, I'm hungry. I don't know what
I want to eat, and I'm offering him like real food, right,
and he's like, I don't want that. I don't want that. I
don't want that. I think I'll have a honeybun. I would be literally
hungry. Five minutes later, I said to him, I said, a
honeybun is not food. It's not food, and he said, yeah,
it is. It's food, you eat it. And I said, yeah,
but that's not what you eat when you're hungry. That's not going to
do anything for your hunger. You're not getting any nutrients from that honeybun.
And he's like, well, you can eat a honey bun for breakfast and
be fine all day. Well, he ate the honeybun, and thirty minutes
later he was in there making himself something to eat, and I said,
how'd that honeybun do you? And he's like, I never realized that a
honeybun makes you hungry. It makes you hungry. Well, that's why they
made the honeybun, because they know it made you hungry, because then you
have to eat a second honeybun. That's the whole cycle. Also, you
know, we didn't even talk about the chemicals that are in these foods.
You know, you mentioned the artificial sweeteners, the artificial colors. What are
they doing in our body, you know, to our gut microbiome. They're
certainly not good for us in any way, shape or form. It was
really really interesting the book I'm It's my Beach read yesterday and I got to
the point where I was like, okay, okay, I've had enough of
this, so I put it down. But it was just really interesting.
It's it's like our bodies are not designed to run on not food, right,
Yeah, the more real food you can eat. I always say,
eat is close to nature. Eat your fruits and veggies rather than drinking juice.
I'm really pretty much trying to eat beans every day now. My husband
just told me last night we went to a barbecue and I said, oh,
Mary's beans were amazing. Well, I have eaten beans like every day
for the last five days. I love beans and He's like, you're the
biggest bean eater I've ever met. Beans are so satisfying, Like I am
so satisfied if I eat beans. And just today on Instagram, Dan Buttner
is that he says, last name, the guy who did the research on
the blue zones. He had a post on Instagram today about beans and longevity
and it's like the number one food linked to longevity. But yet, you
know, if you're a dieter, you've been told, you know, beans
or a carb, and carbs make you gain weight. Instead, you're going
to have a protein shake because that's healthy, but which is really going to
feed your body better? Beans which are like now demonas because they got carbs,
or a protein shake which is got the sheen of health and is ultra
processed. That is an ultra processed food very much so real food for the
wind. Well, we like to leave our listeners each week with inspirational or
motivational quote to carry them into the next week, and this week's message comes
from Marguerite, who goes by Peggy and she lives in Texas. She says
the quote is don't let what you know get in the way of what you
can learn. She said this just reminds me to listen with an open mind,
and this has become my mantra as a daily reminder to myself. And
this takes me back to our conversation we've just had about people telling us we
shouldn't be fasters for X y Z reason. Oftentimes they're closed minded. They
don't want to hear all the benefits of fasting. Yeah, they're getting in
their own way of what they can learn. It's true, closed mind.
Don't let what you know get in the way of what you can learn,
because if we never learn new things, we would still think the earth was
flat. Thanks so much for listening today. We would love to have you
join us in the Delayed on Tonight community, where you can interact with both
me and Sherry, plus the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters you'll find anywhere.
Go to Jen Stevens dot com slash community to join us. Don't forget
to subscribe to this podcast to your favorite podcast app, and if you haven't
already, please leave us a five star review that helps new listeners find the
show, and we really appreciate it. We are a community driven podcast,
so to submit your success stories, your questions, your favorite tweet, 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
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Thanks for listening.