Episode 4: Switching Things Up, Waist-to-Hip Ratio, Down Day Meals with ADF, and More

Welcome to Fast Feast Repeat, Intermitten 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 intermitten 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'm doing fabulous. I am so glad. That's kind of a mouth.
It is a lot, but it's all important. It all is important.
Yeah, we fast, we feast to be repeat. We're doing intermittent
Fasting for Life. Well, I'm doing wonderful, and I just want to
think everybody who we're recording a week four today, but episode zero, our
little introduction episode, came out last week and then it rereleased again this week,
and y'all are listening to it, and that makes me so happy.
Me too. I'm so excited. It is very exciting because you know,
that's the thing. There are a lot of podcasts out there, and I
don't take for granted for one little bit. Every listener that we have is
important, and I'm grateful for all of you who are listening, and I
love doing this podcast, but I also want people to listen because that's how
we change the world with people listening. So absolutely, yeah, it's been
really exciting to see, and you know, we act. It's a funny
story. People are like why episode zero, Like someone I know if somebody
asked, how can you be ranked number one this week in nutrition when you
haven't released an episode? Which was also very exciting everybody, because we looked
and we were ranked number one on Apple Podcasts in nutrition and so and I
about fell out of my chair. Yeah, number one. I mean like
Intermittent Fastening Stories was three and was number one, and so that was very,
very exciting, and that's just from episode zero. Services like one in
the world is episode zero? Well, it has to do with the way
podcasts get into all the directories whatever they're called. But you have them hosted
somewhere and then they have to This is what our team at Resonate Recordings does,
but they like send them out. What I understand is they put out
what is it, the RSS feed, so they put they put the podcast
out to the universe, and then the different platforms, the different podcast players
have to pick it up and add it to their players and it can take
you know, can take a week, it can take longer, and so
you want to put out. When I started in remitting fasting stories, they
said, all right, you start with the day you want episode one to
drop, and for us, we wanted episode one to drop on July fifth,
and then you backtrack from there and you have an episode zero. So
by the time episode one is ready, it'll be fully accepted to all the
platforms. So there's a lot of podcast platforms out there too, Sherry.
Yeah, and there's ones I never even heard of, And people keep asking
about pocket casts. I've never even heard of it. But just for the
listeners. I downloaded it and I have been watching and we are still not
in pocket casts. So if you listen on pocket casts, I don't know.
Maybe you can email them and ask them to add us. I don't
know how that. I don't know how it works either, but I just
listen to you. When I do listen to podcasts, it's on Apple Podcasts,
well see, and I'm an Apple girl, but I always listen on
Spotify, do you. I also have Spotify sometimes I'll listen on that to
different things, but it's just the media player of my choice, so that's
where I use it. Well, we're on both of those, and actually
anyone who's listening has found it, so if they're here are voices I found
us already. But anyway, so it was very exciting to hit the ground
running with episode zero already ranked number one in nutrition. So thank you everybody
for listening, and we hope you're still with us on episode four and into
the future. Every Wednesday, new episodes. Well, now it is time
for us to share a weekly celebration, and this one is coming from a
member of the Delay Don't Deny Private community. Karen wrote, I f has
literally saved me. I have lost one hundred and thirty five pounds in two
and a half years, which is amazing, Karen, that really is,
she said, I have reversed high blood pressure and non alcoholic fatty liver disease.
I feel so much more in control of my life and I am so
grateful. I feel best when I eat one meal a day, with having
a really short eating window during the week, and then on week I loosen
it up. I have a four five hour eating window when I'm with family
and friends on the weekends there's usually wine and cocktails and vault During the week
I eat pretty clean with grilled protein and tons of veggies and berries, and
that's the food that I crave these days, while weekends are a little bit
more loose. I'll never not fast. I love to hear that, Karen.
I feel the same way, she said. I just listen to Grace
and Beth on the intermitt and Fasting Stories podcast episode three seventeen, and Grace
spoke about if giving you a sense of control over your life. In early
March, I lost my only son. It is devastating and heartbreaking, But
if not for fasting, I don't think I would be able to move forward.
Having no control over what happened and what my grief will look like is
somehow eased by knowing I do have control over my eating. The rhythm and
routine of fasting is a constant, steady beacon. It gives me something to
help guide the jumble of hours that used to be days. If is as
much supporting my mental health as well as physical, and I am so grateful
to have it to sustain me as I try to navigate a new normal without
him. Fast on my lovely friends, and I just that hits me in
the fields. I mean too. I completely understand what she says about internet
fasting giving you some control of your life. There's so much in our life
that we just cannot control, right. We can't control our kids, we
can't control our husbands, we can't control what happens at work, we can't
control the drivers on the road. But there's this one little piece of your
life that you can be in charge of. You don't have to just let
food control you. You get to say when you're going to eat. And
because you start fasting and you start taking control when you eat, really over
time it starts to change how and what you eat too. You know,
Karen really made me think when she wrote that, because I'm imagining. You
know, you and I both have sons, and I imagine what if I
lost one of my sons. What would I do? How would I fast?
Would? Right? I don't know, and you know you don't know
how you're going to handle that kind of grief. I mean, I can't
imagine worse grief than losing a child. I don't think there is any I
know when I lost my brother, right, you know, I've been maintaining
my weight for years. At that point, I literally ate my grief.
I gained forty pounds within a period of gosh, probably four or five months.
That's how I dealt with my grief. I just stuffed it down with
food. And I feel like I have so much more control over food now
and just the skills and the and the knowledge and the power to make better
choices than I did back then. And that's all because of intimate fasting.
Well, you know that, like I said, that hit me in the
fields as well, just like you said, Sherry. But I do want
to go back to what she said about having lost one hundred and thirty five
pounds in two and a half years. That is amazing. And reverse high
blood pressure and a non alcoholic fatty liver disease. I mean, those are
some pretty amazing health victories. I just can't imagine how many years she has
added to her life and reversing those health conditions now are stopping her from having
worse health conditions later. Absolutely, And I also want to talk about what
she said about her schedule. She likes to have a really short eating window
during the week and a four or five hour eating window on the weekend,
and all of that is still considered one meal a day. She said she
feels best with one meal a day, but she structures it shorter during the
week, looser on the weekends, and that works really well for her.
And I think that's a great way to look at it. You know,
I have a blog post at Jen Stevens dot com that I wrote in gosh.
I think it was like twenty seventeen. It's a really old blog post
and in response to you know, our one meal a Day Facebook group started
in twenty fifteen, and we never defined one meal a day as twenty three
one or one plate of food a day. But as time went on and
intermittent fasting got more mainstream. Over those years twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen, people started defining things differently, and it came out that Jason
Fong, author of the Obesity Code, you know, big name in the
world of intermitten fasting, they were cautioning people against one meal a day,
but they were defining it as twenty three one. So you have to be
really, really careful when you think about one meal a day and how you're
defining it. I consider myself to live a one meal a day lifestyle,
but I do not do twenty three one, like almost never do I do
twenty three one everyt ever, that would not be enough food for me.
I mean there are times I have a one hour eating window because I have
a kind of rotating schedule, and I eat late into the night Sunday night
because I night shift. That means like I tried to fast sixteen hours on
Monday before I opened my window, and then I just usually it's like I'm
going to bed early that night, I'm turning around my sleep. I can
very easily eat thirty minutes, forty five minutes, I'm done and I go
back to fasting. But a lot of that is just because I roll my
windows around where I meet them and it just helps me. It sets me
up for the next day. But it's not something that I do day after
day after day. I mean, a one meal a day for me could
be anywhere from three to five hours, right did I for me? And
like like a great example of it was earlier this week, I went to
eat with a friend. We went to dinner. We went to the Chimmiychonga
Llama, which is right down the road from me, and we had chips
in Queso. I had a virgin margharita. Then I ordered a chimmie chonga
for dinner. I hadn't eaten before I got there, so I was still
fasted, sat down, started eating and I could only eat part of my
chimnie chonga and I was stuffed. So I went home and later in the
evening I got hungry again, so I ate the rest of it. You
know, I can't physically in one hour eat enough food really to satisfy my
body for the day, so I don't try. I mean, it was
still the same meal, I just spread it out. I think I ended
up with about a three and a half hour window that day, but I
didn't say, oh, well, I've already finished my meal. I closed
my window. No, I was like, oh, I still hungry.
You're gonna eat the rest of that. And I think a lot of that
too depends on how you eat. Like you know, there are some people
who are big volume eaters, but to eat volume, usually you're looking at
you're having a big salad, and that's a lot of volume, and it
fills you up, but it doesn't sustain you for a long time. So
then you're gonna be hungry later. And then when you're hungry later, it's
totally okay to go and eat a sustainable meal after that. Right, So
I really think of the idea of one meal a day as like a multi
course meal at a restaurant, you know where you go in. Let's say
you're at a really fancy restaurant, the fanciest restaurant in your town, and
you're there for an event, even or even at like a wedding reception.
Right, you're there, there's going to be hours, but it's still they're
only feeding you one meal. But you might have or derves with cocktails when
you first get there, and then later the main dinner is served and you
have like a salad and then the main course, and then an hour later
maybe there's the cake, right, so you know, you're that's still one
meal. They didn't feed you two meals. And there are countries that kind
of that's the way they eat. Like if you go to a restaurant there,
you expect to be there for a couple hours because it's not rush rush,
rush, They're not trying to get you in and get you out and
bringing your appetizers at the same time as your meal. Everything's spaced apart.
There's time to conversate and let your food digest before the next course comes out.
And that's the way we're probably really meant to eat. Well, it's
the way that works best for me. And so whenever anyone is thinking of
themselves as living one meal a day, you really don't want to be like
twenty three one every single day. You want to have some variety. So
I think that the way Karen does it with you know, maybe a shorter
window during the week and then longer windows on the weekends or however that works
for you. That's better than sticking to a very short window day to day,
because if you stick to a very short window every single day that's the
same. You're more likely to adapt to that and your body's like, oh,
this is how much we get now, all right, and then it
adjusts to that, and then you might plateau. And that was the whole
point of that blog post that I wrote in twenty seventeen was if you're doing
one meal a day or like twenty three one and it's the same every day,
don't do it like that. You need a little more flexibility, all
right. So now we have a question from a listener. This question is
from Tanya from Ohio. Tanya says, and this really fits in well to
what we just said. I've heard a lot about our bodies adapting over time.
Because of that, I've been hesitant to do one meal a day because
I don't want my body to get used to it, because I don't see
myself doing that forever. Do you think that's a valid concern or could someone
change back to sixteen eight or eighteen six once they hit goal without a bunch
of regain. I'm not stalled, but I would like to lose a bit
faster. What are your recommendations to increase the rate of weight loss. I
don't drink alcohol on a regular basis, maybe once a month with alternating between
eighteen six and twenty two two be enough of a difference to impact my rate
of weight loss. I've done a few mealless mondays. One time it felt
great and another time it felt awful. I'm not sure if it was related
to my cycle or something else. For reference, I'm five to seven and
currently two hundred and four pounds. I've lost twenty pounds and four months doing
a variety of windows. I started with fourteen ten and worked up to mostly
eighteen six two meals a day mostly. I know that that amount of weight
loss isn't slow, but just looking to tweak what I can well, I
have several thoughts. Oh yeah, I could say, if eighteen six and
eating two meals a day is working for you right now and you enjoy that,
then why change it. I suspect at some point you're going to plateau
doing that, though, and you're going to need to cut back from two
meals a day. This is just based off observation from what I've seen over
the years. I'm a big fan as if it's working for you, why
change it? But if you're looking to tweak I think I would just start
by shortening your window, keep more of a four to five hour window a
day, and try to whittle that two meals down to you a hearty snack
in a meal. As for alternating the twenty two two with eighteen six,
I don't know. I mean, that's totally up to you. If I
was going to keep a super short window every other day, I think I
would rather do a down day meal and an update to follow so that I
would get that metabolic boost of the longer healing fast. Yes, you break
it for your five hundred calorie meal, but then you get your two meals
spread out over the next day and it could potentially, you know, improve
your weight loss. If you started out two hundred twenty four pounds and you're
five foot seven, you're probably insulin resistant. Anybody with a significant amount of
weight to lose is, so that would help heal that. I don't think
there's a right or wrong answer. I think you have to decide what works
for you and what feels good to you. Yeah, and as Tanya mentioned,
she is doing great because you know, when we think about how much
weight we should expect to lose the first month, we don't really expect to
lose anything our bodies are adjusting, and then about a pound per week after
that, So she's a little bit how to schedule already. So twenty pounds
and four months is fantastic, and I can understand wanting to rush it and
speed it up. For me, the thing that the most difference with speed
of loss is quality of my food. When I eat real food versus ultra
processed food, that makes a huge difference for me. Also, not eating
at restaurants as much makes a huge difference. So eating out and eating ultra
processed foods would slow me down, whereas eating real foods that eating at home
would be a really great strategy for me. But she talks about about not
wanting to get used to one meal a day, makes sense, but that
would be really only if you're like doing it like twenty two two every single
day. And I also want to say one thing that brought me back to
probably twenty fifteen twenty sixteen in my own life, and that is her wanting
to change back to sixteen eight once she gets to goal. And that made
me smile because I can remember early on, I remember actually sitting on a
table while I was monitoring children taking the standardized tests at the computers in my
classroom. I was a gifted teacher, and so I had a small group
that I was testing. They're taking the test on these computers, and I'm
sitting behind them watching to make sure they're all on task. But in the
meantime, I had a sticky note and I'm like writing down plans for what
I'm gonna do. I had hit my goal, but I how was I
going to maintain? And I'm like making plans for a while. I'm going
to do sixteen eight on this day and that day, and I'm like trying
to micromanage what my schedule was going to be because I thought that I wanted
to have the longest windows I possibly could. That was my goal. And
now I look back on that and that is so not what maintenance really is.
You may think, as a new faster that one day you're gonna want
to go back to longer eating windows. I don't want to eat sixteen eight
every day. I don't want to. I thought I did, but I
think she's still relatively new. But the longer you fast, the more you
really appreciate the fastest state. Yeah, and I feel and your energy and
you don't get that midday slump because you ate lunch and now you're groggy in
the middle of the afternoon, you're reaching for caffeine, which is probably going
to affect your sleep later because as we age, we don't metabolize caffeine as
quickly. So I mean, like, there's so many winds to not having
longer windows. But the other thing that I see a time and time again
is people who go to maintenance and they're like, yep, I can do
sixteen eight now. Well, suddenly when you have a little window creep and
you're maintaining a nineteen five, you'll notice in the way your clothes start to
fit. Wait, if you go to sixteen eight, no, say I'm
nineteen five and maintenance. But then they start to have window creep, okay,
and their windows start to get a little bit longer and a little bit
longer. Right, they start to see, my pants aren't fitting as well.
I need to tighten things back up. I've gotten loose. I think
when you go to a sixteen eight and you start eating two meals a day's
real easy to lose the plot. I feel like there's a slippery slope between
making this a lifestyle that's easy and you don't feel restricted, and it's kind
of sliding out of the lifestyle, right right, And you know what you
just said made me remember this idea that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
You know what is actually harder, sixteen eight or nineteen five. I
just, oh, I think nineteen five is easier, exactly. I told
somebody that in the community just the other day. Right. So, we
think that sixteen eight is going to be easier because it's less fasting. But
I think the fact that it's less fasting means you're less likely to flip that
metabolic switch day to day, and that's why it's harder. So when I
notice my windows getting longer I'm on a vacation, or I've got friends visiting,
I'm eating more restaurant meals, it gets harder to fast because I'm having
longer windows. And when I am in the groove and I'm really busy,
like when I was writing my new book and every day I was writing and
then I was opening later, it's like a breeze because I'm fat adapted and
it's easy peasy. So the reason I wanted to mention that again is because
Tanya thinks she wants to be able to go back to longer windows, and
she might not want to. So if you're early in your journey, like
I said, I remember myself making all these plans and schedules and what I
was going to do and when I was going to do this and that,
And now I just laugh at the younger me because I just live day to
day. Right, Yeah, it seems unfathomable to me to go back,
right, So yeah, just keep an open mind. You probably won't want
to, but yeah, I feel like Tanya, and you do lose us
over time when you start fasting. You do feel I mean like people kind
of go through a grief period where they are grieving not eating all day,
which is totally normal, and we see it in people. It's more emotional
than physical. It is it is, and so you often start when you
start fasting feeling like, well, houses different than restricting, But over time
you realize how it different is than just restricting food or calories. It's way
more free than that. So just keep an open mind and really focus on
the benefits of the fast rather than what's the word I'm looking for, the
fact that you can't eat right, the deprivation, the fact that you're denying
opening your window. You're delaying right, the hardship, that's the word I
was looking for. Don't think about being as a hardship of fasting. Like
flip the script and look at it as the positives you're getting from the fast
exactly. And again, Tanya, if you want to go to a gentle
nineteen five and then work on food quality within your window, I bet that
would speed things up. Real food. That makes such a difference for me.
Yeah, you don't always have to shake things up drastically. Sometimes just
little tweaks. I'll get you there. So we have another question, and
this was sent in from Terry in Pennsylvania. She said, I am five
years post menopause and her men fasting has been working really well. I feel
better and I have lost a lot of weight except around my waist. My
waist hip ratio is still zero point nine four, which is not good.
Do you have any advice? She says. This worries me as I know
that this means I have too much visceral fact and I want to know quick.
Make sure listeners understand what the waist to hip ratio means and what you're
looking for. It is a really good way of just getting a quick number
to see you know your overall linked to metabolic health. So to find your
waist to hip ratio, you measure your waist, then you measure around your
hips, and then you waist divided by hip and that gives you the ratio.
And if it's above zero point nine, that's a higher risk. So
Terry was point nine four, so she's up in the point nine is where
the higher risk begins. She's at point nine four, so she's a little
bit above the higher risk area. Zero point eight to zero point eight five
would be average, below point eight is good, and below point seven five
is excellent, So I can see why she would want to bring it down
a little bit. Absolutely. Here's the thing I don't know. Terry said
that if has been working really well and she's lost a lot of weight,
but she hasn't lost her on her waist yet. Here's the thing about that.
Your body loses where it loses. And I'm sure do you wish we
could decide where it's going to come from, But sometimes the place you want
it is the last place it's going to go. So really, what I
would say for Terry is just keep going if if has been working really well
and she's still losing, eventually it's going to get that visceral fat. Now
that being said, if she plateaus and the visceral fat is still there and
she's not losing anymore, that is when it's time to tweak. That's when
I'd consider getting a fasting insulin test to see what the fasting insulin level is.
Because we know that metabolic syndrome and a larger waist size are linked.
So it could be that you've got really high levels insulin and so that's why
you're not losing that visceral fat. And in that case, you may need
to focus on what you're eating. You may need to try some ADF alternate
daily fasting to get your insulin levels down. But if it's just a matter
of the weight is coming off, it's just not coming off your waist yet,
it may be a matter of patience. If you plateau, it may
be a matter of tweaking it to get your insulin down a little bit more.
What would you say to that, Sherry, Yeah, I mean to
me, we are talking about it could potentially be an insulin problem. But
what we don't know is whether or not she is on any estrogen replacement,
right, That's true, And you know it's really starting to come out that
estrogen really helps. There's a lot of studies out there that show that menopausal
women on hormone therapy tend to have less visceral belly fat than those who are
not on hormone replacement therapy. So I mean, like that's a factor that
we just aren't We don't never really know what she's doing with that, because
estrogen does help the body use insulin and glucose efficiently. But anytime you're looking
at visceral fat, it's usually hormonal, whether you know it's your female hormones
or it's insulin. I mean, I guess if she really wanted to get
that to Budge, I would probably suggest ADF and give that eight weeks and
see how you're feeling, and take your waist measurements and see if you notice
a difference there. And I really want to reiterate that if she's still losing
weight, even if the waist is losing slowly, Like if if you're not
losing anything around your waist and you're losing everywhere else, that's different. But
if your waist is slowly going down, but your ratio is still off.
I would you're still losing. I would give that time necessary, you know,
you don't have to necessarily think. And it's she doesn't really tell us
how long she's been fasting, or she said she were working well, but
I don't know what that means, like how far is she from goal?
How long has she been fasting? We just you know, we can't spot
reduce with intermitten fasting. And that's the thing to know. Our bodies take
it where they take it, boobs first, maybe thaws whatever, I mean,
your your body's gonna choose, and then hopefully eventually it gets to the
areas that you find are problematic. Well, and some people just carry their
weight differently. You know, some people just have more subcutaneous fat and they
lose their visceral fat quickly and then it moves to subcutaneous fat. Other people,
you know, they don't have a lot of subcutaneous fat. Most of
their fat is viscual fat. And that's what the boy, you know,
the body goes after that first. So it really just has to do with
your DNA and your body where you carry fat. That's so true, all
right, So before we get to our tweak of the week. I want
to take a minute to tell you about my new book that is coming out
in December of twenty twenty three. So if you're listening to this podcast when
it first comes out and it's prior to December of twenty twenty three, the
book is of a lable for you to pre order now wherever you buy books,
And if you're listening in twenty twenty four or beyond, because we know
podcasts are forever, then it's already available. So the new book is called
twenty eight Day Fast Start, Day by Day, the Ultimate Guide to starting
or restarting your interimit and fasting lifestyle. So it sticks. So here's a
funny story, Sherry, I have to share this. I shared it my
editor sent me, I don't know, like in March or something. It
was already available for pre order on Barnes and Noble and they were offering it
at a reduced rate. So I shared it on Instagram and then somebody said,
is this exactly like your other book? Like why would I release the
book that's exactly like my other book? I would not do that. So
no, everybody, it is not just like my other books. So you
might wonder why am I writing a new book, Why why is it coming
out? And the funny story is that after I write Fast Feast Repeat,
when it came out in twenty my editor said, all right, what's your
next internmut and fasting book going to be? And I was like, Nope,
I'm not writing any more Intermitten fasting books because I meant that because everything
you need to know is in Fast Feast Repeat. It's comprehensive, it's everything
you need. I don't need to write another one. It's all in there.
So I was done with fasting books and then I write Cleanish, but
never forget that I'm a teacher and so many things that I do have to
have that teacher background coming to play. So in the classroom we know that
not all students learn in the same way. Adults are like that too.
Some Intermitten fasters don't want Fast Feast Repeat because it's a lot of stuff.
It's a lot, it's comprehensive. So I think the fact that's comprehensive is
both its strength and its weakness. For some people, it's a lot of
information. And the twenty eight day fast Start is in Fast Feast Repeat,
but it's just one chapter out of this giant book, so you can lose
yourself in that book and never get to where you want to be. So
I realized that Fast Feast Repeat needed a companion book, and so the idea
for the twenty eight day fast Start day by day was born. So at
the beginning, before you get started, you know, you figure out how
you want to approach it. There's a place for you to craft your why,
which we know Shery and I both may so important. It's so important.
If your only why is because I want to see one hundred and twenty
five on the scale, you're going to have a harder time sticking to intermitt
and fasting. Weight laws absolutely can and should be part of your why if
you are at a weight that isn't comfortable for you. That was certainly what
brought me to Intermitten fasting, but it shouldn't be the only thing. So
there's a section where you figure out your why related to health, related to
everything, and then every single day there's something for you to read, like
day one, there's something of course, Day one is about the clean fast.
It's everything you need to know when you need to know it. You
know as you go through the weeks. One day is like why do I
feel so bad? So it's just a little snippet. It won't take you
long to read every single day, and there's also places where you write things
in the framework to focus on just that day at check in. Also,
there's a short inspirational story every day from a past intermitt and fasting stories guest
with their best advice for new intermitten fasters. So who wants this book?
Let's the book you're going to want to have on hand to give your friend,
your sister, someone in your life that's interested in intermitten fasting. But
maybe they need more structure than fast Feast Repeat gives them, or maybe they're
not going to read Fast Feast Repeat. This is the one you'll want to
give to them. It's also the book you need listeners if you're someone who
dabbles in intermitten fasting and has trouble making it stick. Because we know from
the science of habit creation you need to give yourself time and just committing to
working through this book can help you do that. So 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.
I'm so excited about this book. I think it's really going to fill a
need and you need this one and Fast East Repeat. It's not just because
I want to sell you two books. I see this as we like all
the information. Jin and I are like information sponges. We want to know
everything, right, Some people just want to know the basics. They want
to dive in, and then once they get their feet wet and they're comfortable
and they kind of feel like they know what they're doing, then they start
asking questions. So start here and then you'll be ready for a Fast Feast
Repeat exactly. And there are times in this twenty eight day Fast Start that
I point you to Fast Feast Repeat, like I might say, all right,
now, I want you to know for a deeper dive, go read
this section of Fast Feast Repeat. And so when you're when you're ready for
that. So you haven't had a chance to look at the new Behalves,
No, I haven't wait, and I haven't seen a copy of it yet
either. I've just seen the electronic version. All right, So now it's
time for our tweak of the week. You know, I always say,
tweak it till it's easy, But we know the tweak that works for me
might not be the one that works for you. So that's why it's super
helpful to hear how other intermitt and fasters are making intermitt and fasting work for
them. Tweak was submitted by Sharon from Cambridge in the UK. She says
adding the five hundred calorie down day meal has helped me stick to my down
days. And I thought that one was so important, and she he probably
knows why. Oh yeah, well, so much of eating as mental.
It's something we do. It's a habit. Every day since we were born,
we've eaten. So it can feel really weird and really intimidating to not
eat one day. So if the only thing that is like preventing you from
trying to do a down day is the fact that you're like, I don't
know if I can go an entire day without eating, perfect, that's what
the five hundred calorie down day meal is for. You get to eat,
You get the sensation of eating, Your taste buds get to be happy,
your belly gets to be happy, your brain's happy emotionally, you feel fed,
and then you just go on back into your fasting and you go about
your day. So often people think it's all or nothing, and they'll say,
I tried it. I tried it. I got to dinner time and
I was so hungry and my family was eating, and I failed. I
caved. They'll say, yes, And that is where just knowing in advance
that you're going to use the five hundred calorie day, or maybe you don't
think you want to use it, that's fine, but planets know what it
is. And there's so many people who are like, well, I don't
know if this is five hundred calories, y'all. There are free calorie counters
out there everywhere. Find one. I mean, you can just literally you
can go to Google and say calories in a chicken breast and it'll do a
breakdown for you. So get a piece of paper out and start writing it
down. I mean, it is best to know. You don't want to
guess, because number one, if I'm going to break my fast and then
I found out I on late three hundred calories, I'm gonna be mad.
I could have had another two hundred calories. And also, people really underestimate
sometimes how much they eat or how much you know, is on a plate.
Some food is small, but it's really calorically dense, right, so
versa. I really suggest that if you're going to do the five hundred calorie
day, do calculate it. I mean, you don't have to be exact.
Don't be like I got to five hundred and fifty I failed. No,
you're fine. Sometimes my down day is six hundred calories. I'm not
beating myself up. It's a down day. And even all calorie counts or
estimates anyway, right, So the one that you thought was six hundred might
have only been five hundred or might. I mean you just because there's a
variety in the in the food, it's all an estimate. Like chicken breast,
even if you weigh it, there are differences from one chicken breast to
another chicken breast. And the reason I wanted to really talk about this one
is because some people have the mistaken idea that the full fast version of the
down day, and we're talking about alternate daily fasting. Some people think that
the full fast version is the one they should aspire to, and that is
not true. So the search on alternate daily fasting, most of it has
been done with the five hundred calorie down day, so you're not failing.
It's not lesser. It's not something that you have to do or you're caving.
It is a valid option, and if it makes it easier for you
to do down days, you should totally do it. Without judging yourself as
well. I'm not as good as the people who do the full fast,
you know. Wrong. It's a great strategy to incorporate, and you might
sleep better if you have the five hundred calorie down day meals. So that
is a big reason why I do it. I'm a bad sleeper anyway.
If I do the five hundred calorie meal, I usually try to have it.
I go to bed pretty late. I don't go to bed before midnight,
so I usually try to have it between seven and eight only because I
don't sleep well if I've eaten within about two or three hours of bedtime,
my body is working on digestion rather than sleep and recovery. But also having
some complex carbs can help you sleep. Do remember that book? It came
out a long time Potatoes not Prozak. Did you ever hear a book?
Well, you know, I bought everything I would. I would go to
the Amazon diet section and say what's out today, and I would just look
for it anyway. Potatoes, not prozak. Obviously it was about mood,
yeah, because prozak is a drug that's for depression. Right. But the
premise of this book was that you needed carbs. I was at serotonin.
I can't remember, Yes, I have to do with serotonin. Yeah,
so at night, before you went to bed, you were supposed to eat
a potato. Like the premise of that book just stuck with me. But
like, for well being and for serotonin and for all you know, the
good, feel good hormones, eat a potato before bed. So I'm like,
huh, you know, if I'm ever going to do a five hundred
calorie down day, and you know, I would probably want to want to
eat on my down day because I liked eat every day, but I would
really think about potatoes. You know. It's funny. I had one of
my best nights of sleep in months last week, and I had a potato
with some pulled pork on it and some barbecue sauce, and I had like
a little barbecue potato was my down day meal? Yes, And that doesn't
sound like a deprivation, right, that's not deprivation. That's not You can
really fill up with a five hundred calorie down day meal if you're strategic,
or you could have like some I mean, I could think of a lot
of things that would be five hundred calories, like five hundred calories and potato
chips or something. You would be like miserable and it would not satisfy you
at all. Yeah, I mean I would love to sit down and eat
a five hundred calories with ice cream, but I'm a sleep awful and I'm
not going to be satisfied and then I'm going to be hungry later. So
so I mean what you eat does matter. And the more you can eat
that's real food, the more satiating that five hundred calories is going to be,
and you're going to go to sleep happy. And I'm all for the
five hundred calorie down day meal. I love that your potato was a good
night fleet. Yeah, so everybody that knows jenas she loves potatoes, I
do. I have been struggling with really unstable blood gloo post for the last
couple of years and having like some hypoglycemia. I'm one convinced I've been struggling
with some premenopause symptoms for the last two years as well, and since starting
on hormone replacement therapy in December, my blood sugars are so much more stable
and now I am able to eat a potato without crashing. See this is
so important because we've learned you and I lately, because we're in the premenopause,
postmenopause. I'm postmanopausal, you're you're going through the process. But we
have really learned thanks to the interviews we've done on the Life Lessons podcast talking
to harmone experts, our female hormones are not just related to whether you have
a period or what's happening in your lady parts. It has to do with
your blood sugar control. You know, we talked before about your waist measurement
all of that. So you were having unstable blood sugar control. Now you're
on hormone replacement therapy and you're ledge sugar is not doing that anymore. Right,
I'm no longer crashing on the couch after eating. That's huge. Yeah,
So you know it's our bodies are not the same all the time.
The body that I have at fifty three is not the same body I had
at thirty three. It's got different needs, it's got different hormones. And
so if something all of a sudden changes, you haven't really done anything different.
But all of a sudden, your blood sugar's crashing, all of a
sudden, you're gaining weight. Something's changing in your body, something's going on
in you. It's just a matter of figuring out what it is. And
sometimes people will ask me, why did I suddenly gain five pounds. I'm
like, I don't know, we can't there's so many Yeah, it could
be like so many things, but it absolutely could be what your hormones are
doing. Yeah, that's when you have to play sleuth. Then you have
to really like start paying attention to your body. Keep a log, you
know, record how you feel, record how you feel after eating, how
you're sleeping. I mean like, and then you got to put the pieces
together absolutely well. We love to leave you with inspirational or motivational quotes from
listeners, and this week we have a message from Sherry in Colorado. If
it is meant to be, it is up to me. I had a
hundred and two year old neighbor that had this on her fridge. She said,
an old neighbor of hers told her this when she was a child living
in a home where she wasn't provided well for by her father. That gentleman
told her she could have anything, but it would be up to her to
make it happen. She was a very successful homemade candy store owner and a
real blessing to have known. We all have control of a great deal of
our outcomes. We just have to want it bad enough and set some reasonable
goals and move those goals along as they are met. Well. I love
that if it is meant to be, it is up to me. I
love that so much. Absolutely, 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 Sharry, 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 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, m