Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Before we get started with today's episode,
I would like to quickly read you our podcast
disclaimer.
This podcast is for educational purposes
only, and it is not a substitute
for professional care by a doctor
or other qualified medical professional.
You should always speak with your physician
(00:27):
or other healthcare professionals before doing
any fasting, changing your diet
in any way, taking or adjusting
any medications or supplements, or
adopting any treatment plan
for a health problem.
The use of any other products or
services purchased by you as a result
of this podcast does not create
(00:50):
a healthcare provider-patient
relationship between you and any
of the experts affiliated with this
podcast.
Any information and statements
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been evaluated by the Food and Drug
Administration and are not intended
to diagnose, treat, cure, or
(01:11):
prevent any disease.
All right. And now we will get started with
today's episode.
Welcome back to another episode of The
Fasting Method podcast.
This is Terri Lance and
I am very excited about today's episode
because I am joined by Coach
Lisa Chance.
Lisa, how are you doing today?
(01:33):
Yeah I'm good Terri, thank you.
I'm honored to make another appearance
on this podcast.
Absolutely. We need to get you on here more
often, lots of good stuff that you always
share.
Lisa, I wanted to bring you on to
the podcast to talk about something
that I feel like you have such a wealth
of knowledge, and it's not an area that
(01:55):
I have a great wealth of knowledge on,
and so I really wanted to get to have this
conversation with you.
So I wanted to open up the topic of
folks using a plant-based
dietary approach in combination
with fasting.
When I think of that, I think
of your knowledge and I wanted to
(02:15):
get to pick your brain some today.
How does that sound?
Sounds like a good idea to me.
All right.
For those of you who don't know, I am
basically plant-based.
That's what I consider myself.
I used to be vegan, and I've
just found it easier to fast going basically
plant-based.
And that term - basically plant-based
or predominantly plant-based - is often
(02:37):
interpreted to mean that around
80 to 90% of your calories or
food choices come from plant
sources.
However, there isn't a strict,
universally-accepted definition.
I think that's really important, Lisa,
because, you know, we hear a
lot in lots of social
(02:58):
media and popular science
and things about plant-based
diets. And I think some of us
erroneously think that means nothing
but plants.
And I think you being able to define
it that way and then talk about some of the
things you're going to talk about today, I
think will be really helpful for listeners.
(03:19):
I have all kinds of clients.
I have clients that are carnivore,
keto, and everything in between,
but I would like to go over the different
types of vegans and vegetarians.
As a matter of fact, one of the ladies that I
used to watch, she used to have a show - Jazzy
Vegetarian - she has several cookbooks
out that I follow by an author
(03:40):
named Laura Theodore.
She actually had a show called Jazzy
Vegetarian. She has several cookbooks out now,
but they all say 'vegetarian' on
it. I just saw that one of her most recent
ones finally says Vegan-ease
because, back in the day, being vegetarian
could be what we typically know
as vegetarian now different
(04:01):
from vegan.
Her cookbooks are vegan cookbooks.
She does not have any egg or dairy
products in her recipes.
And so some people are lacto-ovo
vegetarians, where they do eat
dairy and eggs but no fish, no meat,
no poultry.
This is the most common one, especially in
Western countries.
(04:22):
There's lacto vegetarians.
Those do include dairy products,
but they still avoid the eggs and the meat and
the fish and the poultry. Pescatarians
follow a vegetarian diet, but also
eat fish and seafood.
And I do flip to that
every once well. I am flexitarian,
(04:43):
semi-vegetarian. I primarily follow
a vegetarian diet.
I sometimes do different days of the week
where I will be vegetarian on one day,
vegan on another day, and a pescatarian
on another. And then I do bring
in some meat and
chicken as well, on occasion.
(05:03):
One thing I never was was a raw
vegetarian. That was a little too hard for me.
They only eat plants that haven't been heated
above 115°F [46°C], believing
that this preserves the nutrients and
the enzymes.
There's a new term coming out too -
pollotarians - where they avoid
red meat and fish, but eat
(05:25):
chicken and other poultry.
So there's a lot of things coming down the
line here that people are getting--
what did you say? Niche?
Niche down, folks.
Niche down.
[laughter]
Right. Where I see-- when
I get a vegan that comes to me asking
for, especially dietary help-- most
(05:45):
people become very good fasters at TFM.
Where they struggle is finding out *their*
diet, what *they* need, *their*
food, that they love, that loves them
back. That's the hard part.
There is no 'one diet fits all'.
I love the book, Metabolical.
I highly recommend people read it.
And in that book, Dr. Robert
(06:06):
H. Lustig mentions that the
vegans and the carnivores need to join
together because they have more in common
than they realize, which is real
food, whole food.
That's the key.
You need to figure out your diet, but, believe
me, it doesn't include highly-processed
food. Mark Sisson talks about
(06:29):
how it's pretty hard to lose weight
if you go over 140 or
150g of carbs a day.
I know I eat, when I am
eating carbs, when I am eating plant-based,
I'm right around 100g of carbs
a day.
Nice.
So, as we continue
(06:49):
in this episode, I'm hoping we can
talk about some things that people
might want to take into consideration
in using any of these dietary
approaches that you're talking about.
But first, I want to ask you this based on
what you just said a moment ago,
that, let's say, for example, Tuesday, you
might-- your food might look very vegan,
(07:10):
on Wednesday it might be pescatarian,
and things.
Do you have a rhythm or a pattern
of deciding when you're going to do what?
Or is it just that, on certain days, these are
the foods that make most sense to you?
You know, I'm guessing you don't get out a
calendar and say, "Let's see.
Every third Tuesday it's going to be
pescatarian, and every fourth Friday it'll be
(07:32):
this." How do you make those decisions?
Yeah, that's an excellent question
because one of the things that I do do
is, if I'm going to do an extended fast,
like what we call an overnight fast, not just
an OMAD-- Several years
ago I did Whole30 vegan
for a month, the elimination diet,
(07:52):
and it was great, I
loved it. I got to bring back all
my old vegan recipes and use them.
I didn't lose any weight, but I felt great.
As a matter of fact, to the ounce, I weighed
the same at the end of the month.
Some days I was doing three
meals, some days two meals, some days one
meal.
But I have found, for me,
(08:13):
I don't need as-- I get a lot of
fat, don't get me wrong.
I eat a lot of fat and I always have.
I've always gotten criticized about it, you
know, decades ago, "You're eating too much
fat, Lisa." It's because I get migraines.
I needed that fat.
Our brain is 60% fat.
I needed that fat and it is very protective
for me, neuroprotective.
(08:34):
But I have found that, before I do a
fast, an overnight fast,
I need protein, and
that's when I have my fish, or
sometimes chicken, sometimes meat.
If I have that for that last
meal before I start the extended fast,
I do so much better.
(08:55):
And recommending that to my clients,
also, they do better.
It is one last step in conversion
of that protein, and you've got
it on board. It's just easier to do the fat.
We usually go up on our fat.
Most fasters will go up on their fat
before they do an extended fast.
That's what our fat fast is.
(09:16):
We're actually going up to 80 or 90% fat
at that time.
And we also, at TFM, have a 'Vegan
Fat Fast' Quick Guide, and that's
about 70 to 80%.
So it doesn't quite make it up as high as
our regular fat fast.
But for me, and for several of my clients,
it's not so much the fat we need to get on
board, it's the protein because
(09:38):
we're probably not getting enough earlier in
the week. So it kind of tides us
over.
Great.
All right. So let's say I
either already live
with a plant-based
approach or I
want to transition to that as
I do this part of my health
(10:00):
journey.
What are some of the key things that
you think people should be
mindful about in creating--
someone in one of my Community groups just
said this morning that they like to use the
word 'designing', that it takes creativity
and planning to design a well-balanced
(10:20):
dietary approach.
So if I'm plant-based already,
or transitioning into it maybe
(and I don't know if those are two separate
things), what important things should
I be paying attention to?
I think it's important that
you concentrate on the protein
and fat-rich sources.
(10:42):
So looking at your
raw or dried macadamia
nuts, right, you're going to have a much
higher fat-to-protein ratio.
I believe in Brazil nuts because they're
so good with it's selenium, and pecans.
Of course, all the oils that we normally
recommend, but also the
hemp seeds, mainly because
(11:04):
they're very good for zinc
supplementation.
So your pumpkin seeds, your chickpeas, your
cashews, your lentils, you're steel-cut
oats, those are going to give you your
zinc. And also, you know, making
sure that you get your B12 in,
and your omega threes.
A lot of people that I found that
(11:25):
are vegan-- everybody does better with omega-3
foods, but especially vegans.
They might look at considering algae-based
supplements, or something, if they're really
looking into that before doing it.
And my sense is, partly because
(and we don't have to talk the details of
this) omega 6s are a little
(11:45):
more prevalent and needing to
balance that with appropriate levels
of omega 3s.
Yes, I've actually had a couple of vegans
who have come in and brought their lab
work (and, by the way, their lab work looks
beautiful), and usually
the only thing that's out of whack is their
omega-6 to omega-3 ratios.
(12:06):
And they're usually taking in a supplement for
omega 6. And it's like you don't need to do--
you're good. You're good.
And that's usually one of the few labs that
they do need to watch.
Of course, they check their B12.
But one of the things, if they're
transitioning to
intermittent fasting and they're typically
doing three meals a day, I have found
(12:27):
that vegetarians and vegans
do better, when they do eventually
get to a fasting protocol that is like
NoMAD, 3MAD, NoMAD, 3MAD,
NoMAD, 3MAD, NoMAD, 3MAD,
and they can gradually start reducing
their eating window if they're eating more
meals than 3MAD.
I would highly recommend they start with the
(12:49):
12/12 schedule first,
and then progress to the 16/8, and then
the 18/6.
Really watching their protein intake
ever, as I have mentioned.
They might even need to track their macros
carefully during the fat-fasting
stage.
They need to stay hydrated with mineral-rich
(13:10):
water.
They need to include the herbs
and the spices.
I am not a gardener *yet*.
I add that on the end because of Terri.
She always says, "Reframe--
Growth mindset. [laughter]
That's right, growth mindset.
Not a good gardener *yet*,
but I do have an herb garden, and I really
worked at the fresh herbs and felt so much
(13:31):
better from that.
It was one of the things I did do when I
switched to fasting, because
the freshness of those herbs
have so much more power with your electrolytes
and your minerals.
And of course, spices for flavor as
a vegan. You know, when I first started TFM,
I was a vegan.
Spices for flavor.
So it was all about the, you know, pumping up
(13:53):
with spices.
Preparing your meals in advance is
a must. You know, food prep, I
did that right away.
I still do that.
Fifty weeks out of the year, I'm prepping and
listening to a podcast on Sunday morning.
And there's things that you need to monitor
when you're doing this, when you're switching
over, if you are switching from omnivore
(14:13):
over to vegan.
You really want to monitor your energy
levels, your mental clarity,
your hunger signals, ketone
levels, digestive discomfort,
because you're still transitioning to that.
And I would go gradually, switching
over to plant based, if that's where-- because
I do get clients who come to me
(14:34):
because that's their goal.
They want to become basically plant
based, and they're not, currently not.
Where I see people struggle
is when they won't eat the fat.
They remain extremely low fat.
Those are the people who aren't getting
satiation, they're not getting satiety.
And everybody's fat level is different too,
(14:55):
just like everybody's carb level is different.
So slowly increase the protein.
See how you feel.
If you do do an overnight fast, see
which one benefits you the most.
Do you need to go up on your fat, or do you
need to go up on your protein?
Where are you more successful?
Keep the carbs low in
transition.
(15:16):
And when you break your fast, don't--
still, don't break with a carb.
Just like we say regularly, right?
Dr. Fung has some good resources
on resistant starches.
And can I tell a little story about
you Terri and resistant starch?
Of course.
So Terri was my coach when I started,
(15:37):
and she wanted me to try resistant starches,
and I did not want to try them.
I was out walking with my friend, who is
an astrophysicist, much smarter than me,
and we were out walking at like midnight at
night. I remember because we were both antsy,
both fasting.
And I told her that you wanted me to
try a resistant starch.
And I said, "If I'm going to try a carb, I'm
(15:59):
going to eat the carb I want." And she said
to me, "So let me get this straight.
You're paying somebody for advice
that you're not taking." So I
tried my first resistant starch,
and I woke up for the first time in decades
with my blood sugar at 70.
So one of the things I didn't know--
(16:20):
for those of you don't know what a resistant
starch is, it acts as a prebiotic.
It bypasses the upper gut and makes it to the
lower gut. It feeds the beneficial bacteria
in the lower gut, and it does
so many things.
It increases the production of butyrate, which
is a short-chain fatty acid that
helps maintain your gut barrier function,
(16:42):
it reduces the inflammation in your GI tract.
They're looking at a lot of it now about it
may help prevent colorectal cancer.
It actually lowers the glycemic
impact compared to regular starches.
It lowers the carb count, it lowers the
calorie count, it does all sorts of things,
but what we really want it for is not so much
those things as how it's feeding
(17:03):
the gut. It increases your feelings
of satiety and fullness,
and it actually reduces your overall calorie
absorption, if you are a calorie counter,
and it *may* increase fat
oxidation.
So it's pretty interesting, all
the things-- I could go on and on.
They're looking at studies that it may help
reduce cholesterol levels.
(17:25):
There's all sorts of things, but do you want
to explain what a resistant starch is, Terri,
for people.
And by the way, I'll give Rachel
or Daisy the YouTube video of
Dr. Fung's 'Changing fast
carbs to slow carbs for weight loss'.
He has a video on that.
So I'm not going to sound quite
as advanced on this as you are,
(17:47):
Lisa, but the way I always describe it to
people is, basically, it's
cooking the starch,
refrigerating the starch, and then
reheating.
So for me, a great example of that would be
with a sweet potato.
If I cook a sweet potato and don't eat
it with that meal, but, instead,
put it in the fridge overnight, and
(18:09):
then, for my next meal, I like to make
a sweet-potato hash.
So I chop up that sweet potato
and I do eat animal protein so I might
mix it with sausage, I reheat it,
and then I put some eggs on it.
It is one of my favorite meals.
And who knew it had
all of those benefits packed in
(18:30):
just by not eating that sweet
potato right after I cooked it?
Refrigerating it and then reheating
it.
Yeah. It's amazing.
And there are some resistant
starches that are better than others.
I even have my vegetarians and
my vegans making quinoa
into a resistant starch.
(18:50):
Is it as good a resistant starch
as a sweet potato?
No, but it still makes
some. So it may only
become like 5 to
10% of a resistant starch, as opposed to
20 or 40%, but you're still making
that cumulative gain that we talk about
so much from Atomic Habits, right?
(19:13):
You're still making some dent
in it. And we used to eat-- the
American public used to eat about 18%
resistant starches, and we eat about 2%
now. So, you know, that could be
a lot of what's happening with our gut.
The other thing you want to do with a
resistant starch is you want to have it
with fat and fiber
(19:35):
(there's plenty in quinoa), and some
type of vinegar in that meal.
And you can have it anywhere along.
It's best to have it at the beginning, but, if
you forget, you can have
it at the end.
Also, you can use the apple cider
vinegar capsules that some people make.
Are they as great as the liquid?
No, but they're still adequate.
(19:56):
They do the job.
So you want to have that combo - fat,
fiber, vinegar - along with the resistant
starch.
Nice.
And there's other things you can use.
You can-- I'm probably not going to pronounce
this correctly. Amaranth?
Is that how they say it?
Teff, millet, sorghum, and
buckwheat - if you do do the ancient grains,
(20:16):
you can make them into resistant starch.
Are they as good as a sweet potato?
No, but they're still good.
Interestingly enough, with the reheating,
Megan talks about resistant starches
in podcast #37,
if you want to listen to what she says there.
Interestingly enough, your resistant starch,
if you can reheat it or not, or how high
(20:38):
you can reheat it, too, is dependent
upon the resistant starch.
I can't even remember which one it is, a sweet
potato or a red potato, which one can
be heated a little bit higher than the other,
but I usually have most of my resistant
starches cold now.
For somebody that used to never eat a French
fry if it got cold, back
(20:59):
in my youth, it's interesting that I'm eating
all these potatoes cold now.
Nice.
So, Lisa, I wanted to ask you a question,
and I know this is one for some people.
that could lead to another three-hour
episode here, but we're going to keep
this part of it contained.
Many people who we work with
at TFM, Community members,
(21:20):
clients come to us
with some awareness of
a lower-carbohydrate approach.
I know some people it's all the way to keto,
for some people it's lower carb,
and then all definitions in between.
I think one of the challenges some people
have when they're focusing on a more
(21:42):
plant-based approach is,
how do I navigate
that protein and carbohydrate
balance? Because more of the protein
sources that I might be eating
also contain some carbohydrates.
So how do I balance making
sure I get enough protein without
(22:03):
making my dietary approach
high carb? And I know you mentioned earlier
a certain number, but do you have
any tricks of the trade
as far as how to prioritize
protein while not, in the
same token, prioritizing
carbs?
(22:23):
One of the things that I do (which is
not plant-based, okay) is
I have collagen about 30
to 60 minutes before I have
my meal.
It works for me because it coats the lining of
my stomach.
I get a good 20g of protein that
way. I usually-- somebody asked me
how often I use beef as opposed
(22:45):
to fish collagen or marine
collagen. I probably use the
fish collagen twice as much as I do the beef
collagen.
There are some groups, of course, that may
not need to take collagen, but
I do know CollagenMax by
Dr. Jockers.
He has a product that, I will be honest
(23:05):
I have not tried but some of my clients
have, contains a choline-stabilizing
orthosilicic acid,
OSA, which can be
beneficial for people who are following a
plant-based diet who are looking for support
in their body's natural collagen production.
And there's a whole list of reasons about
(23:26):
why it helps promoting your skin
in your hair and your nail growth.
And that's what happened to me, when I started
fasting and I was vegan, is I lost my hair.
I was losing my hair, and so that
was one reason why I brought collagen back
in. And, as I said, I have not tried this
product, but it is very highly
bioavailable and can
(23:47):
really help your body make its own
collagen.
There are other ways to support your
collagen on a plant-based diet.
Vitamin C, right?
You can get that from vitamin-C vegetables,
bell peppers are very high in vitamin C.
I'll throw that out there.
Plant-based proteins, especially the ones
that are lysine, or proline rich.
(24:08):
Zinc, which we mentioned earlier too.
A lot of times you will get those from nuts
or seeds or legumes.
By the way, Megan taught me long ago
not to eat like a handful of
nuts or a bowl of nuts or to eat the nuts
out of the bag, but to sprinkle them in,
mix them into my dishes
(24:29):
so that they were, like, camouflaged.
Otherwise, I do that thing where I'm just
popping them in my mouth.
Nuts are also very high on copper, which you
need to make your own collagen,
as well as zinc.
And you want to look at your
protein-rich foods.
Your amino acids, that are needed for
collagen, are going to be like tempeh
and tofu. Tempeh is arguably higher
(24:51):
than tofu just because it's fermented, so it's
going to be better for your stomach than
regular tofu. And of course, non-GMO
tofu.
Quinoa is a complete protein.
Lentils and beans, especially
lupini beans, are very high in fiber and
very high in protein, and
so, consequently, they're not as high in the
glycemic index.
(25:13):
Copper-rich foods are going to be the things
that you want as like your condiment or
sprinkled on top, sesame seeds, sunflower
seeds. I use a lot of those.
I go through phases of using shiitake
mushrooms. If you don't have an oxalate
problem, you can do spinach, that's going to
be very high in copper.
Otherwise, use kale.
And then getting your vitamin
(25:34):
E, your sulfur, your antioxidants
from green tea, berries, pomegranates,
things like that.
Those are going to be good.
You might have to watch your--
if you use nutritional yeast,
they sometimes-- if you get
fortified nutritional yeast, that
has triamine in it, and it is
(25:54):
often one of those things that
can trigger a migraine.
So that's why I don't use nutritional yeast.
It also has glutamic acid
in it, which is very similar to MSG,
which also is a trigger for me.
Even though they say it's not a trigger,
I'm like, "Yeah, well, I got an
n=1 sitting over here that tells you that it's
(26:15):
a trigger for me!".
So, yeah, I would try those
things and I would test your sensitivity
to it slowly with a small amount
and see how you do.
Keeping a food diary is probably the best
thing for you to do to see
which ones you feel better on.
Check your satiety.
Like, "Oh, I'm going to do a fast.
(26:37):
Let me increase my fat or increase
my protein or change up my protein,"
and see which one makes you feel better
through the fast, through the rest of the
fast.
Very good.
Anything else you think or
want to give a shout out to about
balancing a plant-based diet
(26:58):
with fasting, or
navigating this in this health journey?
I would say-- I think we were talking
right before we turned on, you know, the
struggle is real.
You know, practice, not perfection.
Just keep at it.
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and go
at it. You're going to learn a lot about
(27:20):
yourself if you're trying to switch over
to plant-based, or you're trying to see if
you need other proteins in
order to be able to do fasting.
You're going to learn about yourself and how
you feel about your foods finding
that out.
We listen to a lot of the old narratives that
we 'have to be perfect' and, just remember,
(27:40):
we can create something new.
That's what I have found.
Fasting has helped-- sometimes they tell you
not to fast if you have a
food issues-- eating disorders, I think,
is what they say.
I always kind of smile over that because
fasting has helped me more with
my food issues than anything else,
because I realized right away
(28:02):
how good I felt when I fasted,
and the foods that I ate enabled
me to fast, you know, another
day. So that
got me to change my
eating.
That's good.
I love how you highlighted again
the importance of what you're learning about
yourself in this journey, and learning about
(28:25):
your relationship with food, and finding
the foods that work well for you.
There's not one size fits all how
we all should eat the same things.
So when you listed earlier
all of the different types of
plant-based approaches-- you know, it used to
be just vegetarian, and then,
okay, yes, we see and part of that is vegan,
(28:46):
but now all of these different options.
It reminds me, as you said, that you can
create your own.
You don't have to find one of these
definitions and hang your hat on it and
say, "This is me." As you
highlighted, you take a different
approach on different days depending on
what's going on. Maybe it's a heavier-workout
(29:08):
day or it's the, you know, meals right
before a longer fast.
And so my hope is that, by talking
about this today, people also can be more
open to the idea that I don't
have to just find a word or
a way to define it, I just need
to figure out how it works for me.
I'm creating something new.
(29:28):
That's right.
And I really believe in treating
your eating days as rebuilding days
and your fasting days as healing
days. I am amazed-- I got
a food sensitivity test done
last year, and I used to
light up the board when I did a food
sensitivity. Everything was red and orange and
(29:48):
yellow and everything else [laughs] and I had
very little green. And this time my
panels showed almost all green.
I had one red, I had like seven
yellows, but everything else was green.
Green, green, green. It even said I could have
dairy, which I'm not going to have because I
know it causes me to have a migraine,
but I was surprised.
(30:09):
I was so surprised.
I was like, "Wow, you really have healed
your gut." And I know the collagen
and the resistant starch have contributed to
that because I know how I feel better.
Very good.
So, Lisa, one of my takeaways from this
conversation is going to be however
you want to explore this or wherever you are
already on this continuum of a plant-based
(30:32):
diet, that there's room to
define it for yourself, not to
just have to fit some label
or some definition, but to define
it for yourself by
exploring what works and how
you feel doing it, and
where it moves you to.
You know, for example, does it move
(30:53):
you toward a healthier gut?
Does it move you toward some
decreased fatty liver?
You know, all of these things that we might be
looking at versus did I
follow the rulebook properly.
This isn't about a rulebook, this is about
finding what nurtures you and supports
you.
So I really appreciate your
(31:14):
coming on here today and talking with
me about all of this. It makes
me feel a little less nervous when I
have an intake with someone who
is using a plant-based approach.
I feel even more able
to support them in that, so thank you for
this.
Thank you for the resistant starch tip.
(31:35):
[laughs] And just remember, regardless of
which diet you use, real food, whole food.
That's what Megan Ramos and Jason Fung
want you to eat is real food, whole food.
So if you're doing 80% real food, whole
food, you're doing a good job.
Very good.
Well, until next time, Lisa,
I will hopefully get to talk with you soon.
(31:56):
It's one of the reasons I like having you on
here, is I get to have lots of time to talk to
you, but, everyone out there, take good
care and we will be back next week with
another episode.
Bye, everyone.
Thank you.
Take care.