July 30, 2025 • 53 mins
Welcome to this week’s episode of Fast. Feast. Repeat. Intermittent Fasting for Life, with Gin Stephens and Sheri Bullock.
To make a submission for the podcast, go to fastfeastrepeat.com/submit. We are a community-driven podcast, and we look forward to sharing your questions, success stories, non-scale victories, IF tweaks, motivational quotes (and more!) on each episode of the podcast.
Resources used in today’s episode:
Bed Jet: https://87bedjet.refr.cc/default/u/sheribullock
https://www.fastfeastrepeat.com/sheri.html
https://crunchi.com/?als=SheriBullock
Gin has a new YouTube Channel! Visit https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_frGNiTEoJ88rZOwvuG2CA and subscribe today so you never miss an intermittent fasting tip, a support session, or an interview with a past IF Stories guest or expert.
Want to learn more about BiOptimizer’s Magnesium Breakthrough? Visit www.bioptimizers.com/fastfeastrepeat and use code FFR10 to save 10% off any order.
Go to fastfeastrepeat.com to see Gin’s and Sheri’s favorite things, and to shop with us. Every purchase you make through links on our website help to support this podcast so we can keep bringing you episodes each week.
Are you ready to take your intermittent fasting lifestyle to the next level? There’s nothing better than community to help with that. In the Delay, Don’t Deny community we all embrace the clean fast, and there’s just the right support for you as you live your intermittent fasting lifestyle.
Connect with both Gin and Sheri in the community, as well as thousands of other intermittent fasters who are there to support you along your journey. If you’re new to intermittent fasting or recommitting to the IF lifestyle, join the 28-Day FAST Start group. After your fast start, join us for support in The 1st Year group. Need tips for long term maintenance? We have a place for that! There are many more useful spaces beyond these, and you can interact in as many as you like.
Visit ginstephens.com/community to join us. An annual membership costs just over a dollar a week when you do the math. If you aren’t ready to fully commit for a year, join for a month and you can cancel at any time. If you know you’ll want to stay forever, we also have a lifetime membership option available.
IF is free. You don’t need to join our community to fast. But if you’re looking for support from a community of like-minded IFers, we are here for you at ginstephens.com/community.
To make a submission for the podcast, go to fastfeastrepeat.com/submit. We are a community-driven podcast, and we look forward to sharing your questions, success stories, non-scale victories, IF tweaks, motivational quotes (and more!) on each episode of the podcast.
Resources used in today’s episode:
Bed Jet: https://87bedjet.refr.cc/default/u/sheribullock
https://www.fastfeastrepeat.com/sheri.html
https://crunchi.com/?als=SheriBullock
Gin has a new YouTube Channel! Visit https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_frGNiTEoJ88rZOwvuG2CA and subscribe today so you never miss an intermittent fasting tip, a support session, or an interview with a past IF Stories guest or expert.
Want to learn more about BiOptimizer’s Magnesium Breakthrough? Visit www.bioptimizers.com/fastfeastrepeat and use code FFR10 to save 10% off any order.
Go to fastfeastrepeat.com to see Gin’s and Sheri’s favorite things, and to shop with us. Every purchase you make through links on our website help to support this podcast so we can keep bringing you episodes each week.
Are you ready to take your intermittent fasting lifestyle to the next level? There’s nothing better than community to help with that. In the Delay, Don’t Deny community we all embrace the clean fast, and there’s just the right support for you as you live your intermittent fasting lifestyle.
Connect with both Gin and Sheri in the community, as well as thousands of other intermittent fasters who are there to support you along your journey. If you’re new to intermittent fasting or recommitting to the IF lifestyle, join the 28-Day FAST Start group. After your fast start, join us for support in The 1st Year group. Need tips for long term maintenance? We have a place for that! There are many more useful spaces beyond these, and you can interact in as many as you like.
Visit ginstephens.com/community to join us. An annual membership costs just over a dollar a week when you do the math. If you aren’t ready to fully commit for a year, join for a month and you can cancel at any time. If you know you’ll want to stay forever, we also have a lifetime membership option available.
IF is free. You don’t need to join our community to fast. But if you’re looking for support from a community of like-minded IFers, we are here for you at ginstephens.com/community.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm
Jen Stevens, author of the New York Times bestseller Fast
Feast Repeat.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I'm Sherry Bullock, longtime intermittent faster and health and
wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this podcast is
for educational and motivational purposes only and is not intended
to provide medical or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are
not doctors, so make sure to check with your trusted
healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes to
(00:30):
any medical treatments or medications.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an experienced intermittent faster,
tune in each week to get inspired, to learn, and
to have some fun along the way.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Hi, everybody, we are so glad you're here today.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Welcome to this week's episode of the Fast Feast Repeat
Intermittent Fasting for Life Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
How are you doing today, Sherry?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I am doing fabulous, but tired. Yeah, I'm still tired too.
So I was at Gin's last week with Froxy. We
had a great time. I don't even feel like we
stayed up late.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, we started up late for me because I, you know,
go to bed at nine o'clock, so for me, staying
up till ten thirty or eleven is late. And then
I still woke up at my normal time while y'all
were not waking up yet.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well that's true. You'm like, I can't figure out why
I'm so exhausted because I was going to bed very
early for me, and in a different time zone, which
made it even earlier for me, and then getting up
earlier than I normally get up. But man, I was
so tired at work, this traveling.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Traveling makes you tired in general. Just riding in a
car talking NonStop.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Five am both Sunday and Monday morning. I was sitting
at my desk and I literally is all I could
do to keep my eyes open sitting at my desk.
And I am never liked that. And I told Eric,
and he said, well, your schedule shifted. He's like, not
only were you going to bed really early, He's like,
you would text me and tell me you were going
to bed, and then he's like, it was so early
(02:04):
for you. He's like, Andy, you were in a different
time zone. And he's like, and then you were waking
up really earlier. He's like, I think you've thrown off
your normal rhythm. And it's crazy how just five or
six days will just really throw you off. And yeah,
so yeah, then I came home, went straight to night shifts.
So today I'm just like, whew, I feel like I
(02:25):
think a nap and it's eleven o'clock in the morning
and I don't nap.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, the time flew by. I can't believe it's already over.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I know.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
It was so loved to get together. We did such
a great job with windows, Yeah, we did. We had
pretty short windows. They brought. They were delicious, mostly kind
of short. We had like like a one meal a
day kind of a thing going on.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, pretty much. At one point, roxy average what our
windows were, and I think three and a half or
was it you the average them? I think we had
a half our windows all week. But yeah, it was yeah,
and we ate delicious food and we did for the
most part.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
You joined us at my trivia team. We came in third.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Third. Yes, third is not first, but.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Okay, when you play trivia every week, if you the
only metric is we have to come in first, you
would feel like a loser.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Well, that's true. You can't get first every week. You
can't that trivia too. They asked some of the most
obscure questions too, like things that have never I have
never like even studied or heard about.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So yeah, I think I'm a niche trivia player. I've
realized I don't have a broad knowledge about a lot
of things. I have a vast knowledge about a few things.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, like I know a lot of things, but I've
learned what I don't know. And But the cool thing
about having a trivia team is you need people who
have different types of knowledge.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
If it's movies, We're like, oh, gosh, I wish Megan
was here tonight. She knows everything about movies, right, boy,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Giant deficit with
I don't know sports.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Sometimes I'll get a sports question right, But usually if
it's sports, I'm like, all right, we wish Debbie was here.
Debbie knows that I don't know anything about professional football
like NFL.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I should know more. That's one of those things that
I learn it and forget it, I think, because I
constantly ask Eric questions about rules. Well, then my husband
watches college football in NFL, and then he watches that
you SFL and they all have different rules.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
So just when I think I've figured out the rules,
he's like, no, that's not the rule because this is
college football or whatever. And so then I just give
up because I'm like, I can't keep up with these
rule changes. So he uh, yeah, he'll say, I've already
explained this to you, and I'm like, yeah, but I
don't even remember which team we were watching when you
explain that to me. Now, I don't know if that.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
If the rules were different, I couldn't get it.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah. So, well, my husband should understand because he's all
of a sudden, he gets up in the middle of
the night and he'll sit there and watch TV until
it's time for him to go to work or whatever.
And he's been watching rugby. But he'll watch rugby, and
they call it different things in different parts of the country.
And y'all that are listening who live in different parts
of the country, maybe I'm gonna say this wrong, but
(05:22):
there's like the rugby in England, and then there's like
rugby in Australia. But when we looked it up, it's
called something if you play a certain way. But then
there's like Australian football or something right, and they're all
some form of rugby, but the rules are different, they
(05:43):
are scored different, and so Eric is trying to figure
it out, and I'm like, why don't you just get
like a Rugby for Dummies book and read about it
figure it out there. I don't know, but anyway, it's
fun to learn new things. But yeah, yeah, I'm pretty
sure I have forgotten more than I've ever learned about
(06:05):
some subjects.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Absolutely, that's what brains do. That's the part that's so amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Though.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Something will be way back in the back of your brain.
You're like, I don't know where that came from, but
I think that's the answer.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Well, yeah, yeah, I do that a lot, but it's
usually about health, nutrition, biology, science related.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And like one of the questions a couple of weeks
ago was what punctuation mark represents?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Factorial? It might have been the opposite way, what math.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Anyway?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I can't They might have asked what does an exclamation
point mean? I think that's what they said, what does
an exclamation point mean in a math equation?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And my brain went factorial? What do I know that?
I hadn't taken math since.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
See These are the things I always try to remember,
is when you are using parentheses in a sentence, where
does the punctuation go, Like, if there's a comma, does
it go outside or inside the parentheses? And if you
end a sentoms with like parentheses, does the period? And
here's I've looked it up probably twenty times, and there's
(07:05):
different rules for it, and then I can't ever remember it.
But I don't want to do it wrong. So every
time I type a sentence that way, I either just
retype the sentence and take the parentheses out quite again. Yeah,
And then I look it up again and I'm like, Okay,
I don't feel like that's what it told me last time,
but that's what I'll do, And yeah, I don't for whatever. Yeah,
(07:27):
stuff like that is like in one ear out the other.
I forget it as soon as you don't do every day.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
But it's all in the back of the brain, and
it just pops right out that our brains are amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
They really are, they really are. All right. Well, I
hope y'all had as good of a week last week
as we had. And this week we're going to celebrate
Julie in Vermont, which is a place I really want.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
To go, Julie, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Have you been up there? Jin?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I have?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, Okay, yeah, Roxy and I were just talking about
doing a road trip up northeast and just go up
the coast and into Vermont and Maine. So Julian Vermont said, Hi, ladies,
I have been intermittent fasting for just about one year now.
I've had great success and feel amazing. I started this
journey because my A and C had crept up into
(08:15):
the diabetic range and I refused to submit to traditional
protocols of medication. Through a nutritionist, I started to learn
more about a diabetic friendly diet. I already had the
regular exercise built into my lifestyle. I walk my dogs
every single day, no matter the temperature or the weather.
Fasting is what has kept the skill slowly moving in
(08:35):
a dadword trend. Your podcasts and books gen have supported
me immensely. I also am a teacher, retiring this summer
after the school year. I would love to share my
complete story with you, but today I wanted to share
the fact that intermittent fasting has allowed me the ability
to explore foods, bake and cook with such freedom. I
enjoy making sourdaugh bread, bagels and other pastries, and my
(08:57):
own yogurt. I am enjoying experiment with other delicious recipes
without the fear of having to eliminate certain foods for
my diet. Honestly, this is the first time in my
adult life that I have had that freedom. I share
my sourdough bread through selling it, gifting it, and hosting classes.
I look forward to retiring so that I can continue
building my knowledge and sharing this knowledge with friends and family.
(09:21):
I also share about intermittent fasting whenever people ask me
how I continue to look younger. I am fifty six
years young and I've taught for thirty four years. I
have three children and one grand baby, two dogs, and
a husband. They all love to eat, and I love
to cook for them. I have lost about fifty five
pounds and follow an average of a nineteen to five
(09:42):
intermittent fasting schedule. I love the flexibility. I love the
freedom from constant hunger. I love the improved health. My
husband has adopted the lifestyle alongside me and has seen
thirty five pounds lost as well. I now see a
number on the scale that I have never seen in
my adult life. I am constantly amazed at that progress
and the process. Thank you, thank you, thank you for
(10:04):
sharing this amazing lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Well, that is amazing, Julie, and that's what we like
to hear. I'm glad that you're doing so well, and
it really is an amazing lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
And I love that. It just shows your teacher at heart.
Here you are getting ready to retire from or by
the time we've read this, you probably have retired from
teaching school.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
But look at you.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
You're now you're teaching people how to make sardough bread.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
We can't stop teaching, No, that is the truth. If
you're a teacher, you teach people things wherever you go.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
It's just what you do. I was born that way.
So now we have a question from a listener. This
question is from Sally in Ontario. Hello, am I darlinks
She spelled it like darlink. Trying to do a justice.
Love you love the podcast. I was sixty eight when
I started IF and I'm sixty nine now.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
This is my fifth month.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
As weight loss programs or life styles go intermittent fasting
is the easiest thing I've ever done, bar none. Like
most of you, I too have done just about all
of them. I like that the hunger goes away once
you get used to if I never thought this could
happen to me. Yes, some days are harder than others,
but there are more easy days than challenging ones. I
(11:18):
am so proud of myself. Yes, at sixty nine you
can lose weight. My concern is that I'm starting to
get shaky and lightheaded by about one PM. My window
is normally between one thirty and six thirty. This is
something new, and it's not every day, but it's happening
more often than not. I'm five foot three and weigh
one hundred and forty seven pounds, down from one sixty three.
(11:41):
Why is this happening?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
All right? She's got more questions, but you want to
just do just one?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Okay, okay, couple things. Sally, you do not discuss whether
or not you're on any kind of medication. So if
you are taking any sort of medication, whether it be
something for blood pressure or for your heart rates, it's
very possible that due to fasting, that those medications maybe
may not be necessary or you may need a lower dose.
(12:09):
So this is something we hear from people after they
start fasting. They don't even think that their blood pressure
medication could be affecting them, but it does, and very
very quickly into intermittent fasting. A lot of people are
able to reduce or even stop taking blood pressure medication.
So if that is something that's going on with you,
(12:29):
I would start taking your blood pressure when you feel
that way, see how your blood pressure is, and then
talk to your doctor about an adjustment. Okay, so then
let's pivot. You don't take anything like that. You've never
had a problem with your blood pressure. Feeling lightheaded or shaky.
Two things. One, you could be inadvertently breaking your fast.
(12:51):
If you've been doing a five hour window for five months,
you should be metabolically adapted by now. You should be
shifting into fat burning and you should not be getting
shaky and lightheaded from that. If you are still in
your first four to eight weeks, I would say that's
kind of normal. As your body starts to shift into
(13:13):
fat burning, you feel that, and you're saying you normally
open your window about one pint thirty. But I would
not suspect this is happening for you. This should not
be happening for you unless there's something sneaky going on
in your fast that is causing an insulin response. So
pay attention to anything that you could be ingesting during
your fast, whether it's a medication, a supplement, a new
(13:37):
kind of coffee, maybe you're drinking a bottled iced tea,
or some people, as they become more insulin sensitive, just
find that they can't drink tea or coffee during their fasts.
You know, both of those things can give you a
little boost of glycogen, pushing it out from your liver,
(13:58):
and if you have a strong insulin response to that,
it could make you a little hypoglycemic, making you feel
this way. Then there's this whole other caveat. This is
why it's so hard for us to tell you exactly
what's going on. You're going to have to do some
problem solving on your own. I feel shaky and lightheaded
when I am a little dehydrod. When I see dehydrod,
(14:22):
I don't mean just water. I mean when my level
of electrolytes water, sodium, potassium are not in balance. I
get very lightheaded. It's something that happens to me when
I stand up, or if I bend over and then
I stand up, I'll get super light headed. Swimmy, everything
(14:42):
goes black for a second. I got to hold onto something.
If that's happening to you, that could be an electrolyte issue.
So make sure that you are not over hydrating during
your fast, and then during your window make sure that
you're eating lots of electrolyte rich foods. So you're wanting
to take food in that have a lot of potassium
and magnesium naturally in them, and then you know, if
(15:05):
it continues to happen, you're just going to have to
do some brainstorming. Talk to your doctor. He might suggest
a potassium supplement. Some people just feel better just from
putting some salt under their tongue. And I'm not talking
table salt. Gets you some good salt. There's one called
Baja Gold that is a good salt. I like it.
There's Redman's real salt, and you can actually just put
(15:26):
it sublingually under your tongue, suck on it. It gets
into your body really quick that way, and you can
try that now. Some people get really hungry when they
taste salt. Me Jin's one of those. I'm convinced it's
because your body thinks you're gonna eat something delicious like
French fries or potato chips. But I don't have the
real answer for why that promotes hunger like that and
(15:48):
some people. It does not happen to me, and it
actually helps me. So another way you can tell if
you're deficient in sodium is to put some salt in
like eight ounces of water, like a quarter teaspoon of salt.
If you can't taste that salt water, if it doesn't
taste like saltya water to you, you probably need some sodium.
(16:08):
And some people just need a little more sodium than others.
So those are some things to play with and to
kind of monitor you have an everything else on that, Jen, Those.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Are exactly the things I was going to talk about exactly,
except probably not electrolytes because I never think of that
because I got no electrolyte problem. Right, I was going
to talk about medication and also accidentally breaking your fast.
All right, So here's more, she says, another question, I
have gastritis. Apparently the recommendation is to eat several small
meals throughout the day. Coffee is acidic, especially decaf, also
(16:41):
carbonated beverages and some teas. I'd like to know what
you suggest getting around this by about noon, the acid
starts in my stomach and can get worse depending on
what I eat. I'm trying to stay off the meds.
Is they are terrible fear of microbiome. Now I'm confused
a little bit because she said by noon it gets
worse what she eats, but she still fasting at noon.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Well, I'm thinking that she starts feeling acid stomach around noon,
and then when she eats, the acid stomach feels worse.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Okay, Oh that makes sense. Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
So Number one, if you have gastritis, I hate to
tell you this, but there are some low acid coffees
out there. You can do a Google search for low
acid coffees and you could try that carbonated beverages. They
do change the pH of your stomach tease, you may
just not be able to fast with those things. With
(17:33):
that said, a lot of the way times the way
you brew your coffee makes it different as well. Cold
brew is the least acidic, so if you've not tried
cold brew, you might find a good quality cold brew.
There's two organic brands of cold brew I like. We
are not sponsored by them, but I'll tell you their names.
They are fast safe. One is Chameleon comes in a
(17:54):
little glass bottle. It is a cold blue brew concentrate
and you mix it with water to taste. The other
one is called Busy b Izzy. I like their espresso blend.
It's very smooth. It does not taste acidic to me,
and again you can cut it with water to taste.
So you might try cold Brood just because it is
known to be a less acidic coffee the way it's brood.
(18:16):
But other than that, yes, I would definitely just cut
out conventionally brood coffees and carbonated water up, sparkling water
or whatever from your fast. Try to fast with just
plain water, still water and see if that makes a difference.
You can also add some baking soda to your water.
(18:37):
I do not have the actual amounts that you're supposed
to use, but you can look it up. Look up
a baking soda and water for indigestion or heartburn or whatever.
Actually I have it right here. It is a half
a tea spin of baking soda in four ounce glass
of water. You can do it every four hours. This
(18:57):
will not break your fast. What it does it just
balances the pH in your stomach. So you can try
that all right.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
We have one more question, and I actually wonder if
this might be why she's feeling lightheaded and shaky.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
She said, does creatine break a fath?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
It absolutely does. That is not something you want to
take during your fast. That is something that you want
to take in your eating window. So yes, I had
not read ahead. That could be what was making her
feel poor if she's taking that during the fast.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
We had a community member who, just like last week,
misunderstood us on the podcast. I mean, it makes sense
you're doing other things, you're listening. You don't catch everything
if I'm cleaning the house, so while I'm listening to something,
I might miss it. But she misunderstood about creatine and
took some during the fast. And she's like, oh my gosh,
I took some creatine during my fast and then I
was shaky and I felt terrible.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I was starting. It broke my fast. We're like, yes,
it does break your fast.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
But she misunderstood us, And so if some bo is
having a supplement like that, it could absolutely lead to
you feeling shaky. And we appreciate the community member telling
us that that happened because it reinforces right, you know,
we say don't take this during the fast, and then
someone does and they're like, oh my gosh, I felt
shaky and awful.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
That's not how I normally feel.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
When you share that, that gives like reinforcement to the
idea that, yes, that is not something to have during
your fast. Keep that in your eating window, creating in
your eating window.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Absolutely. Yeah, all right, So we have another question from Annalie.
She said, Hey, ladies, I'm surrounded by friends who take
GLP ones and or have had weight loss surgery. I
don't want either, but seeing them lose weight is getting
harder to not want to cave in and use something
to help get a good foundation started. I found out
about Jen and the Clean Fast in twenty nineteen, and
(20:51):
after a few podcasts, I just knew this was the
lifestyle for me. Never once questioned the Clean Fest or
the science behind it. I don't know why, but I
can't seem to get my mindset in the right place.
I do really good for a very short time, usually
about a month, and then something will send me back
to eating all day. I know it's up to me
to get my mindset there, but I guess I'm writing
(21:12):
in hopes that for some encouragement directed specifically at me,
so that will finally push me over to success. Thank
you for all you do, and I look forward every
week to listening.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
All right, So let's look into those two options, golp
ones or weight loss surgery. You know, there are people
who lose a great deal of weight with both of those, right.
You know, I've had people in my Facebook timeline go
through both of those things, and you can really tell,
and they talk about their journeys and they lose a
lot of weight, and then what happens generally over time,
(21:45):
Over time, you see the weight starts to come back. Right,
So both of those strategies can lead to a great
deal of weight loss. But both of those strategies can
also lead to a lot of rebound weight gain. And
especially with weight loss surgery, you are permanently altering your body.
And I want you to think really, really long and
(22:07):
hard about that. You know, there are lots and lots
of negative long term effects, you know, dumping syndrome, nutritional abies, yeah, malabsorption, right,
so many things you you know can't eat, you know,
a large volume of food or it literally makes you
sick and you feel bad, like like shaky and it
(22:28):
affects your body and the way your body functions forever. Okay,
So I know it might seem like, well, there's my solution,
because I can't eat so much, I'm going to lose weight.
But then you know, people tend to find kind of
ways around it, right, There's something called slider foods where
you were like, you can't eat a lot, but you
could drink a milkshake. Or often people will become alcoholics
(22:51):
after weight loss surgery when they never had that problem
before and now they're suddenly turning to alcohol. We've heard
that so many times from people that have struggled with
so weight loss surgery is not a solution that I
would turn to without a lot of thought. Did you
want to add anything else about weight loss surgery, Shary?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I mean yeah, And you know a lot of times
people are prompted to have weight loss surgery because they
are having other health concerns. But really what you're trading
is maybe you know, high blood sugar or high blood pressure,
or you know, joint and body ache pain, just for
(23:33):
other medical issues down the line. And I recently saw
a research study about weight loss surgery and that these
can lead to severe liver dysfunction and even liver failure.
So you know, like I just think like this is
(23:54):
a temporary solution that may result in immediate weight loss,
but it's not a long term solution for health and longevity,
right where fasting can be all of that, all of that,
and weight loss surgery may seem easy, like, oh, I
don't have nothing to work, but it is not, because
you still have to. And this is why weight loss
(24:16):
surgery fails for so many people. You have to address
the reason behind weight gain in the first place, whether
it's psychological, emotional, or you know the fact that you
have past traumas you haven't dealt with then you use
food as a way to cope, or you just that
you have no nutritional foundation and you just don't know
(24:37):
how to fuel your body in a healthy manner, and
weight loss surgery doesn't take those things away. And unfortunately,
I mean, I personally think it's criminal to do these
surgeries on people and not provide therapy and not provide
nutritional counseling so that they can move on in a
(24:58):
different healthier manner than they were in prior to the surgery.
And I just see this time and time again, and
I have had so many weight loss surgery patients come
into the ear. They've got complications either immediately after or
years after the surgery, and they have told me that
nobody told them the risks. They only told them the benefits,
(25:21):
and they wish that they'd never had the surgery. And
it's one of those things. Once you have it done,
you can't have it undone.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
You permanently altered your body.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
And now let's move on to GLP ones. And I
know that's another one of those things that seems like
everyone's doing. It's got to be so easy, right, No,
there are definitely side effects that come along with this.
And basically, if you're taking anything that suppresses your appetite,
you're going on a starvation level diet. I remember back
(25:53):
in the day, for me, it was Fentermine got it
from a doctor, so I thought that was a good
thing to do. Watched a friend lose a lot of
weight on it, and the like, sign me up when
to my doctor got some And basically you're eating on
a starvation level diet that has metabolic consequences.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You know, if you've read Fast Feast Repeat.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
You remember I talked about the Minnesota starvation experiment I
talked about the biggest loser study. Starvation level dieting slows
are metabolic rate. You can barely eat, so you're barely eating,
and that is not a healthy way to lose weight
going on a starvation level diet. And also we know
from the research on these GLP ones a lot of
(26:30):
people lose a lot of muscle mass along the way.
And again, like Sherry mentioned, this is not teaching you
how to make changes. So you know, you said you
want just a little something to help you get a
good foundation started. Well what if this little something comes
with a whole lot of metabolic negative effects And now
you're going to try to go to fasting, But because
your metabolism is so slow, you're going to gain back
(26:53):
all the weight plus more. And also fasting is going
to be harder because your body is fighting back.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
So I would really.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Like to encourage you to focus on the clean fast
plus real food. You know, I think that all of
the ultra processed foods and the creamers, the flavored waters
that do everything that calls to us and makes us,
you know, cave in or think we can't fast clean,
or we just need a little something. It's it's those
(27:21):
ultra processed foods, the flavored foods, the sweetened foods, the creamers.
If you could focus on a clean fast, a window
that feels like a lifestyle, and then nourish your body
well within it. You know, we have natural hormones in
our body that tell us when we've had enough. You know,
I just did a YouTube video about this, you know,
(27:43):
asking yourself, am I satisfied? Food quality matters. You know,
we want physical satisfaction. That means eating you know, bulky
food that engage your stretch receptors and let your brain
know that you have a lot of food in there.
That's important. You know, we want to be nutritionally satisfied.
We also have in our digestive tract that let us
know what nutrients are like nutrients sensors. You want to
(28:06):
think about it like that. And so we need to
be nutritionally satisfied and also emotionally satisfied. We need to
feel like we've had something that was delicious. So if
you focus on nourishing your body, giving your body real food,
eating until you're physically and emotionally satisfied with this real
delicious food plus the clean fast, you know you're not
(28:29):
missing out on anything.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
You're able to have.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
The food that you want, you feel good, and you're
not damaging your body. You're not permanently changing your body.
I know that's what you want to do. So how
can you flip that mindset switch to doing what you
want to do? What's holding you back? And that's that's
what I'm not sure about, Annalie. Is it creamy coffee
(28:53):
That seems to be a big one. A lot of
people they want to fast clean, but I had a
hard day, that creamy coffee is calling.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
I deserve it, and then then you're eating all day?
So what is it? What is your stumbling block? What
gets you?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Figure out what gets you and then address that thing,
whatever it might be.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
That's exactly I was going to say, Like, until you
can figure out what that thing is that is that
is sending you back to all day eating, whatever it is,
whether it's emotional eating, whether it's a hard day, whether
it's stress in your life, whether it's creamy coffee, Like,
you've got to really sit down and figure out that
(29:33):
one thing is and solve that problem. Solve that problem.
If it's emotional eating, you know, figure out what you
can do to self soothe that doesn't include food. Maybe
it's time for some therapy, you know, maybe it's time
to work on your self esteem. Maybe it's time to
work on healing. Maybe it's time to work on getting
(29:56):
rid of of relationships that cause you stress or grief
in your life, you know, whatever that is. You know,
therapy can even just help you learn new coping mechanisms,
and they can help you learn, you know, when you
have these thoughts of I have a bad day, I
deserve x y Z, it's time to replace those thoughts
with I've had a bad day. I deserve to be healthy,
(30:19):
happy and achieve success. And so yeah, just figure out
what is derailing you from a fasting lifestyle. And once
you solve that, conquer that little hurdle, then you can
find the success you seek. And I also just wanted
to throw in there, once you can find consistency with
if you are going to achieve naturally the things that
(30:43):
your friends are achieving through artificial means. Fasting in itself
promotes GLP one, it promotes that hormone in your body.
Exercise does, Choosing whole foods does so if once you
can conquer them, ye, I'm going to wake up and
clean fast every day. The pieces really will fall into
(31:04):
place for you.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
And neither GLP ones or weight loss surgery solve the
underlying issues. And I get it because remember I just
talked about how I took all those weight loss drugs
from my doctor, and that didn't solve my underlying issues.
It like artificially kept my appetite low, right, That's all
it did.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
But you know what else does that?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
The clean fast without all of the side effects and
the metabolic problems, and I nourish my body well, I
feast in my eating window.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I feel amazing.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
So write us back and let us know how you're
doing anmily. All right, Now it's time for our segment
called What's Your Why. Most of us begin with weight
loss in mind, that's a great reason to start, but
there is so much more to what intermittent fasting can
do for us beyond weight loss.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
When your why is deeper.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Than weight loss alone, I genuinely believe you're going to
find long term success and you're going to view intermittent
fasting as a lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
So this week we have a why from great Pool
in California. My wife started as weight loss. It morphed
into health and then recently got even more specific and
hit me like a ton of bricks. Being here for
my children as long as I can. My seventeen year
old son struggles with so many different issues and will
probably live with us longer than the norm. I want
to be here to support him and help him thrive.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
He needs me.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
My twenty one year old daughter and I are very
close and we talk almost every day. She leans on
me for advice and just to be a listening ear,
and I want to be around for her. I also
want to know my grandchildren if I am so lucky,
and help my kids with them in any way I can.
So when it gets hard, I remember all of this
and it lifts me. Sending my love to both of you.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Oh, I love that all right.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
So we have a question from Jane in Denver. Jane
rates Hi. I'm fifty eight and five foot seven. I've
been doing intermint basting consistently for four years. I went
from the mid one eighties to the mid one fifties
easily and quickly. In the beginning, I would do a
five hundred calorie down day, two or three days a week,
and I lost weight fast. I sometimes would split my
(33:08):
five hundred calories into two meals as I struggled with
hunger getting through my workday. And after about three or
four months, I easily maintained not being remotely strict with
times or food choices. I constantly would reopen my window
if I felt like eating, and yet I still maintained
I like junk and alcohol and moderation, and I never
hesitated when I wanted something. A typical week on the
(33:31):
zero app of fasting may have been nineteen seventeen, eighteen, thirteen, sixteen,
twenty to twenty two, and another week might have been
anywhere from fifteen to twenty, and just for informational purposes,
I averaged those out, and those two weeks would have
averaged to like seventeen and a half hour fast to
(33:53):
just over eighteen hour fasts. Anyway, she says, I would
throw in the occasional down day if I was feeling thick,
if I was hungry, I opened my window at eight.
I always tracked the fast, never the window. I had
good energy and I felt like this was easy. But
earlier this year I went on vacation and I indulged
nothing crazy. Since then, five months later, I have about
(34:13):
five to seven pounds that I cannot seem to get
rid of. I've got as low as one fifty seven
after a lot of exercise, but then it pops right
back up to one sixty or one sixty one. In
the last month, I've gotten really strict with my windows,
going to four or five hour eating windows in the
hopes of losing this weight. But I am so hungry,
which makes me think I've lost my fat adaptation. The
(34:34):
hunger builds, it is not in waves. I get so
hungry I cannot think straight. I've also been lifting weights
since just recently my arms started to look untoned. I've
always been active, not much of a weightlifter, though I
have also felt very tired. I go to bed tired,
I wake up tired. I'm feeling tired all day. This
is how I felt in my forties when I had
(34:54):
a young child, a demanding job, and a soso marriage,
and an extra thirty to forty pounds. I feel like
maybe I need to cut out bread, ice cream, rice, etc.
But I've never had to cut those out in the past,
and I feel hungrier when I try to do low carb.
I have cut out alcohol, unless it's just one or
two went out with friends. My clothes fit but not
(35:15):
as well. My face doesn't look as pretty, and I'm frustrated.
I do try the five hundred calorie down days, but
I struggle to be consistent with them. Is I find
that after a couple of down days, I am hungry
all the time, like a bottomless pit. This was so
easy for so long, and now I'm really struggling. I
would love your insight. Thank you so much for all
you do. I am a big, big fan. Thank you
(35:36):
for listening.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Jane.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
All right, so, Jane, something that jumps out at me
is that you talk about your down day, but you
never mention up days at all. And you also are
doing something we don't recommend, and that is five hundred
calorie down days splitting it into two meuals.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
We don't recommend that either.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
We recommend that you have your five hundred calories all
at once, so like you would fast clean if you're
doing a down day, fast clean all day and then
have your one five hundred calorie meal and then start
a second fast. And I always recommend to have that
five hundred calori meal late enough in the day so
that you don't have time to be hungry again before bedtime.
Then you need to have a full up day and
(36:18):
eight to twelve hours really airing on the side of
three meals in twelve hours. So since you never mentioned
the word upday ever a single time, I'm wondering if
you are not having a sufficient upday, that would be
my number one guess. And if you are having down
days and then not having a sufficient update, that's going
(36:38):
to damage your metabolism over time, because the upday is
what gives you that metabolic boost. That's why ADF works
so well. So if you're just like having your five
hundred calorie down day, having it in two meals instead
of one, and then having I don't know what you're
doing the next day, but it's not really up, then
you're going to be hungry and your body is going
to send you the signal over time, it's going to
(36:58):
build and build and build, eat eat, eat, eat eat.
We learned that from the Minnesota starvation experiment. Over restriction
over a long period of time sends you extreme hunger.
That's what our bodies are designed to do, so that
might be what's happening. So I have some homework for you.
I want you to get a copy of the second
edition of Delay Don Deny. If you don't already have it,
(37:20):
make sure it's the second edition, and I want you
to read the ADF chapter and I want you to
see if that's really how you've been doing it. If
the answer is no, then that's the problem. That being said,
I don't want you to eat less less less right now.
You know you said you're trying to do, you know,
a four to five hour window and you're hungry all
the time like a bottomless pit. You need to have
(37:43):
some substantial refeeding in there so that your body knows
you're not starving. That's really really important. Whenever the urge
to binge starts increasing over time, that's a sign that
what you're doing is perceived by your body as overly
restrict Now, on the flip side, it's all so possible
(38:05):
that you are somehow accidentally breaking your fast and you
don't know it, like I'm going to throw out creatine.
Maybe you've just started adding a creatine supplement in the
morning because somebody told you it didn't break a fast,
and now you're starving all the time because you're accidentally
breaking your fast. Or it could be anything not just
creating any kind of supplement or anything that's different and so,
(38:26):
or maybe you started an electrolyte that has fast breaking
ingredients in it, whatever it might be.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Really examine your fast.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
If you're starving all the time out of the blue,
examine your fast or see if you've accidentally been over restricting.
Those are the two reasons that I can think of
that really might cause you to be starving all the time.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
What do you think, Sherry.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I just wanted to address too, that she said that
she feels like, you know, she can see a difference
in like her skin, and that she's starting to feel
like she looks old and untoned, and that she's, you know,
very very tired all the time, waking up tired, going
to bed tired. You're fifty eight years old, so you've
(39:11):
probably been in menopause for a couple of years at
least now. And you know, as we once we're postmenopausal,
our bodies do start to change, and our skin starts
to change because of the lack of estrogen, and you know,
our muscle tone changes. We do lose muscle. We have
to work harder to maintain and manage our muscle. But
it's the fact too that you're saying that you're really,
(39:32):
really feeling exhausted. And something that people don't often know
is that menopause can be a real it can really
throw us into hypothyroidism. And so if you're feeling very,
very tired and fatigued all the time, and you're feeling
really hungry, and you know, maybe time to go see
your doctor, have some you know, have a checkup, have
(39:56):
some basic labs drawn, have a full thyroid piano drawn,
make sure that everything looks good there. And then yeah,
just rule out that there's not something metabolically going on
with you that's making you feel so bad, because I
can't think of any reason why five to seven pounds
(40:16):
of weight gain is going to suddenly make you feel
so sluggish, tired and not feel great. And as long
as you're fast and clean every day and you're eating
in a four to five hour window, like you said,
you should absolutely be fat adapted and you should be
flipping the metal box switch and you should be having
energy and feeling good. So there's something going on if
(40:38):
you're not all right.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
We have a question from Ingrid from Amsterdam. Hi, ladies,
I started if in January of twenty twenty four, and
I was very successful with sixteen eight. I lost thirty
five pounds in about nine months and felt great. My husband,
who was very attached to his breakfast, as in get
up early to read the paper with a big breakfast
before work, figured out that was all in his head
(41:01):
and join me in fasting. It's clear to me now
that I never cleaned fasted, since I would drink bone
broth at night after a tough workout or have a
cappuccino in the morning at work.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Yet I still lost weight.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
In January of this year, I had a family emergency
and I was back in San Francisco, my home, for
three months. Due to stressful times and difficult situations in
the hospital, I completely fell off the wagon and I
ate all day every day. When I came back, I
had gained twenty pounds and none of my clothes fit.
I started IF again, bought your book Fast Feeus to repeat,
(41:34):
and started listening to your podcast. It's been three weeks
now and the scale won't move. Since I have always
been a fast loser and gainer, this is new. I
am playing with different fasting windows. Eighteen six, nineteen five,
twenty four. I won't give up. My question is is
it okay to switch daily depending on work schedules. I
do eighteen six as a minimum, but some days may
(41:56):
be very different. Any advice, I am clean fasting now.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
By the way, okay, Well, if you have Gen's book
Fast Peace repeat you said you bought it, go back
and review the fast start chapter and basically when you
resumed fasting.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Or started she started. I have to say the fact that.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
You never clean fasted before meant you weren't truly fasting,
not from like a metabolic standpoint, because if you were
taking in energy during your fast, then your body had
no reason to dip into your fat stores for energy,
(42:38):
and you were not keeping your insulin low and you know,
so basically what you were doing prior to coming back
to you know, Amsterdam and starting if again is you
are now fasting for the first time, and before that
you were doing a low calorie diet. And because of
(43:02):
the way you were doing that, it's going to take
your body time to like you're a brand new faster.
And this is why we tell people during the fast start,
follow one of the fast start I want to call
them programs, what do you call them? In the book protocols, Yeah, protocols, plans, protocols, yes, aproach.
So you know, it sounds like you're kind of doing
(43:23):
a little bit of this, a little bit that, But
really you want to work through the system so that
your body has time to become metabolically adapted to be
able to flip over into fat burning. That's not going
to happen in three weeks likely, especially if you had
three months of just all day eating, and then once
that happens, that's when your body starts shifting into fat burning.
(43:47):
That's when we see fat loss. So we would never
expect anybody to see the scale moving in three weeks,
and in some cases it can actually go up a
little bit. It did for me. I gained eight pounds
over my first six weeks of intermint fasting. So just
give it time. It's not going to happen fast, but
give your body time to adapt to the clean fast
(44:08):
to get your body shifting into fat burning, and you
will get there. And then as far as switching up
your protocols each day, here's what I would suggest. I
have a varied work schedule home in life, they don't match.
When I eat each day is not the same from
day to day. Rather than saying I'm going to do
eighteen six or I'm going to do twenty four, I'm
(44:30):
going to do nineteenth five. Take the fast out of
the equation. Don't even worry about the fast. Look at
that day based off of your work schedule, life schedule, whatever.
Settle into a boundary of I'm going to have a
five hour eating window today, and then look ahead at
your day and say, okay, today, realistically, I can close
(44:52):
my window it's seven pm, and then don't open your
window prior to two pm, and that is setting you
up for a very consistent eating window. If you are
satisfied and full and you're done at six pm, go
ahead and close your window. You had a four hour window.
If you need the full five hours, use the full
five hours. But just settle in that way, using your
(45:16):
body as a guide for when you've had enough within
that timeframe. And that just me. That's I think that
eliminates a lot of the confusion with trying to work
a window in around your work schedules. If they're buried
and congratulations on clean fasting.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yes, absolutely, And I wanted to address on one sentence
in there, you're talking about how what you did before
you were not really fasting because you were having bond
broth and cappuccinos in the morning. And then he said,
yet I still lost weight, And of course you did,
because we can lose weight lots and lots of ways.
Like I think back, you remember me talking about earlier
in this episode, how I took.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Finnermine, which crushed my appetite. I was not fasting.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
I was eating tiny little amounts of food and beverages
all throughout the day, all the time. I was basically
extreme low calorie dieting, and I did lose weight. Right
As long as I kept to that extreme low calorie dieting,
the weight stayed off. When I realized I felt like
crap having those diet pills and stopped taking them, I
(46:16):
gained fifty pounds in eighteen months.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
The weight just flew right on.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
And you think about that, you were gone for three months,
you gain twenty pounds in three months.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
That's what happens when we're doing a low calorie diet.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Whether it's because you're accidentally not fast and clean, or
you're taking thinner mean like I was, or whatever it is,
glp ones, whatever, that low calorie diet is when you
stop doing it, you gain weight so quickly. Like I said,
fifty pounds in eighteen months for me, and then I
was all screwed up. That's when I really started gaining
a lot of weight until I ended up obese. And
(46:49):
so it wasn't until fasting. Now fast and clean living
the intermitt infesting lifestyle, I have healed my metabolism and
I'm able to keep the weight off. But as Sherry said,
we don't expect weight loss in the first month, and
you've got to really give your body some time for
your metabolic rate to even out all of that. So
(47:10):
keep going. You've got this.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
All right. So before we get to the tweak of
the week, I just want to take a minute to
tell you about a device that is a lifesaver in
my household. My husband, I prefer to sleep at very
different temperatures, and I have learned that my body prefers
different temperatures over the course of the night. When I
go to bed, I'm always freezing, but then I wake
up in the middle of the night hot, but come
morning around six am, I get even hotter. And having
(47:37):
a dual zone bedjet, which where I can customize and
schedule our own sleeping temperatures. Even setting up bio rhythms
has been a huge lifesaver for us. This is just
a device that you plug in under your bed and
it blows air up through a special sheet to each
side of the bed and you get to set your
own temperature. It is clinically proven by to improve sleep.
(48:01):
My husband and I have noticed a big improvement in
the quality of our sleep once we added it. It
removes body moisture and sweat from the bed. My husband
is the sweatiest sleeper. It is gross. He does not
sleep sweaty anymore. We are also saving energy costs because
we don't have to heat and cool the entire house
while sleeping just to keep our bedroom at the preferred
(48:24):
temperature for sleeping. It's been a life saver year round.
We have noticed the benefits in the winter and in
the heat of the summer, and anytime that I travel,
like when I went to Gin's last week, or on
the weekends for work where I stay with a friend.
I miss my bedget so much. So if you are
tired of sleeping hot or cold, or your partner and
(48:44):
you just can't decide on a comfortable thermostat temperature for sleeping.
Stop the arguing, get yourself a Bedget it's just amazing.
I don't know how we live so long without it.
So I have a link in the show notes for
this episode, or you can always go to fast feast
dot com slash Sherry that's sah er I and you
can find a link there to check it out.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Yeah, it's miserable to sleep at the wrong temperature.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
It really is.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
I woke up this morning really hot because my thermostat
turned off. Got a service call, so I'm going to
come in and look at it. But I was like,
why am I so hot? I need a bedjet Sherry.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Well, you know what's funny is I can tell when
my husband gets out of bed to go to work
in the middle of the night because I get freezing.
Oh he is so hot. My husband puts out so
much energy that he makes me warmer in the bed.
But I will wake up and all of a sudden,
I'll be freezing and I'll ask him later like what
(49:41):
time did you get up? And he'll tell me and
usually within about twenty to thirty minutes of him getting
out of the bed, you're cold. I'm cold, and I
sleep with my little remote from my bedjet in the
bed and I just tick notch up the temperature a
couple degrees and then I'm back to sleep.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
Awesome fy. So well, 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 intermittent fasters are making intermittent
fasting work for them.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
This is from Angela in Omaha.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Angela says, I struggle to stop eating when I am
satisfied in my window. I came up with a new
visualization that is helping me that I wanted to share
with others. We would never overfill our gas tank in
our cars. It would be terrible to have gasoline overflowing everywhere.
Why then do we overfill our body's gas tank. I
hate the idea of waste and the environmental impact of
(50:38):
gas flowing everywhere, so this idea has helped me try
to avoid waste and overfilling myself. Thanks for all you
both do.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
I love the podcast and Angela, that is an amazing
analogy that is almost verbatim and analogy that I use
in the community. People said, well, I hate to throw
away food. It's so wasteful, and I'm like, you know,
that's like over inflating your tires in your car so
that you don't have to inflate them a year from now,
(51:06):
or you know, like you said, letting gas overflow because
you want it so full, but then it's just a waste.
And it's the same with our bodies. Once you're satisfied,
you're satisfied, you don't need any more. So well, we'd
love to leave you with inspiration or motivational quotes, and
this week we have a quote from Janet in College Station,
Texas and the quote is from Nick Saban, a former
(51:30):
head coach for Alabama football. The quote is, there are
two pains in life. There's the pain of discipline and
the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain
of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the
pain of disappointment. And I just think that is so powerful.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
Discipline is required, right, anything worth doing, flossing your teeth,
anything that's good for you. Thanks so much for listening today.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
We would love to have you join us and the
Delayed on Tonight community where you can interact with both
me and Sherry, plus the most supportive bunch of intermittent
fasters you'll find anywhere. Go to Jenstevens dot com slash
community to join us.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
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.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Until next week. Thanks for listening
Welcome the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life. I'm
Jen Stevens, author of the New York Times bestseller Fast
Feast Repeat.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I'm Sherry Bullock, longtime intermittent faster and health and
wellness advocate. Please keep in mind that this podcast is
for educational and motivational purposes only and is not intended
to provide medical or diagnostic advice. Jen and I are
not doctors, so make sure to check with your trusted
healthcare professionals before making changes, especially when it comes to
(00:30):
any medical treatments or medications.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Whether you're new to intermittent fasting or an experienced intermittent faster,
tune in each week to get inspired, to learn, and
to have some fun along the way.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Hi, everybody, we are so glad you're here today.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Welcome to this week's episode of the Fast Feast Repeat
Intermittent Fasting for Life Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
How are you doing today, Sherry?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I am doing fabulous, but tired. Yeah, I'm still tired too.
So I was at Gin's last week with Froxy. We
had a great time. I don't even feel like we
stayed up late.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, we started up late for me because I, you know,
go to bed at nine o'clock, so for me, staying
up till ten thirty or eleven is late. And then
I still woke up at my normal time while y'all
were not waking up yet.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well that's true. You'm like, I can't figure out why
I'm so exhausted because I was going to bed very
early for me, and in a different time zone, which
made it even earlier for me, and then getting up
earlier than I normally get up. But man, I was
so tired at work, this traveling.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Traveling makes you tired in general. Just riding in a
car talking NonStop.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Five am both Sunday and Monday morning. I was sitting
at my desk and I literally is all I could
do to keep my eyes open sitting at my desk.
And I am never liked that. And I told Eric,
and he said, well, your schedule shifted. He's like, not
only were you going to bed really early, He's like,
you would text me and tell me you were going
to bed, and then he's like, it was so early
(02:04):
for you. He's like, Andy, you were in a different
time zone. And he's like, and then you were waking
up really earlier. He's like, I think you've thrown off
your normal rhythm. And it's crazy how just five or
six days will just really throw you off. And yeah,
so yeah, then I came home, went straight to night shifts.
So today I'm just like, whew, I feel like I
(02:25):
think a nap and it's eleven o'clock in the morning
and I don't nap.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, the time flew by. I can't believe it's already over.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I know.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
It was so loved to get together. We did such
a great job with windows, Yeah, we did. We had
pretty short windows. They brought. They were delicious, mostly kind
of short. We had like like a one meal a
day kind of a thing going on.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, pretty much. At one point, roxy average what our
windows were, and I think three and a half or
was it you the average them? I think we had
a half our windows all week. But yeah, it was yeah,
and we ate delicious food and we did for the
most part.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
You joined us at my trivia team. We came in third.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Third. Yes, third is not first, but.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Okay, when you play trivia every week, if you the
only metric is we have to come in first, you
would feel like a loser.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Well, that's true. You can't get first every week. You
can't that trivia too. They asked some of the most
obscure questions too, like things that have never I have
never like even studied or heard about.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So yeah, I think I'm a niche trivia player. I've
realized I don't have a broad knowledge about a lot
of things. I have a vast knowledge about a few things.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, like I know a lot of things, but I've
learned what I don't know. And But the cool thing
about having a trivia team is you need people who
have different types of knowledge.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
If it's movies, We're like, oh, gosh, I wish Megan
was here tonight. She knows everything about movies, right, boy,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Giant deficit with
I don't know sports.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Sometimes I'll get a sports question right, But usually if
it's sports, I'm like, all right, we wish Debbie was here.
Debbie knows that I don't know anything about professional football
like NFL.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I should know more. That's one of those things that
I learn it and forget it, I think, because I
constantly ask Eric questions about rules. Well, then my husband
watches college football in NFL, and then he watches that
you SFL and they all have different rules.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
So just when I think I've figured out the rules,
he's like, no, that's not the rule because this is
college football or whatever. And so then I just give
up because I'm like, I can't keep up with these
rule changes. So he uh, yeah, he'll say, I've already
explained this to you, and I'm like, yeah, but I
don't even remember which team we were watching when you
explain that to me. Now, I don't know if that.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
If the rules were different, I couldn't get it.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah. So, well, my husband should understand because he's all
of a sudden, he gets up in the middle of
the night and he'll sit there and watch TV until
it's time for him to go to work or whatever.
And he's been watching rugby. But he'll watch rugby, and
they call it different things in different parts of the country.
And y'all that are listening who live in different parts
of the country, maybe I'm gonna say this wrong, but
(05:22):
there's like the rugby in England, and then there's like
rugby in Australia. But when we looked it up, it's
called something if you play a certain way. But then
there's like Australian football or something right, and they're all
some form of rugby, but the rules are different, they
(05:43):
are scored different, and so Eric is trying to figure
it out, and I'm like, why don't you just get
like a Rugby for Dummies book and read about it
figure it out there. I don't know, but anyway, it's
fun to learn new things. But yeah, yeah, I'm pretty
sure I have forgotten more than I've ever learned about
(06:05):
some subjects.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Absolutely, that's what brains do. That's the part that's so amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Though.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Something will be way back in the back of your brain.
You're like, I don't know where that came from, but
I think that's the answer.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Well, yeah, yeah, I do that a lot, but it's
usually about health, nutrition, biology, science related.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And like one of the questions a couple of weeks
ago was what punctuation mark represents?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Factorial? It might have been the opposite way, what math.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Anyway?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I can't They might have asked what does an exclamation
point mean? I think that's what they said, what does
an exclamation point mean in a math equation?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And my brain went factorial? What do I know that?
I hadn't taken math since.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
See These are the things I always try to remember,
is when you are using parentheses in a sentence, where
does the punctuation go, Like, if there's a comma, does
it go outside or inside the parentheses? And if you
end a sentoms with like parentheses, does the period? And
here's I've looked it up probably twenty times, and there's
(07:05):
different rules for it, and then I can't ever remember it.
But I don't want to do it wrong. So every
time I type a sentence that way, I either just
retype the sentence and take the parentheses out quite again. Yeah,
And then I look it up again and I'm like, Okay,
I don't feel like that's what it told me last time,
but that's what I'll do, And yeah, I don't for whatever. Yeah,
(07:27):
stuff like that is like in one ear out the other.
I forget it as soon as you don't do every day.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
But it's all in the back of the brain, and
it just pops right out that our brains are amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
They really are, they really are. All right. Well, I
hope y'all had as good of a week last week
as we had. And this week we're going to celebrate
Julie in Vermont, which is a place I really want.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
To go, Julie, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Have you been up there? Jin?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I have?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, Okay, yeah, Roxy and I were just talking about
doing a road trip up northeast and just go up
the coast and into Vermont and Maine. So Julian Vermont said, Hi, ladies,
I have been intermittent fasting for just about one year now.
I've had great success and feel amazing. I started this
journey because my A and C had crept up into
(08:15):
the diabetic range and I refused to submit to traditional
protocols of medication. Through a nutritionist, I started to learn
more about a diabetic friendly diet. I already had the
regular exercise built into my lifestyle. I walk my dogs
every single day, no matter the temperature or the weather.
Fasting is what has kept the skill slowly moving in
(08:35):
a dadword trend. Your podcasts and books gen have supported
me immensely. I also am a teacher, retiring this summer
after the school year. I would love to share my
complete story with you, but today I wanted to share
the fact that intermittent fasting has allowed me the ability
to explore foods, bake and cook with such freedom. I
enjoy making sourdaugh bread, bagels and other pastries, and my
(08:57):
own yogurt. I am enjoying experiment with other delicious recipes
without the fear of having to eliminate certain foods for
my diet. Honestly, this is the first time in my
adult life that I have had that freedom. I share
my sourdough bread through selling it, gifting it, and hosting classes.
I look forward to retiring so that I can continue
building my knowledge and sharing this knowledge with friends and family.
(09:21):
I also share about intermittent fasting whenever people ask me
how I continue to look younger. I am fifty six
years young and I've taught for thirty four years. I
have three children and one grand baby, two dogs, and
a husband. They all love to eat, and I love
to cook for them. I have lost about fifty five
pounds and follow an average of a nineteen to five
(09:42):
intermittent fasting schedule. I love the flexibility. I love the
freedom from constant hunger. I love the improved health. My
husband has adopted the lifestyle alongside me and has seen
thirty five pounds lost as well. I now see a
number on the scale that I have never seen in
my adult life. I am constantly amazed at that progress
and the process. Thank you, thank you, thank you for
(10:04):
sharing this amazing lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Well, that is amazing, Julie, and that's what we like
to hear. I'm glad that you're doing so well, and
it really is an amazing lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
And I love that. It just shows your teacher at heart.
Here you are getting ready to retire from or by
the time we've read this, you probably have retired from
teaching school.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
But look at you.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
You're now you're teaching people how to make sardough bread.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
We can't stop teaching, No, that is the truth. If
you're a teacher, you teach people things wherever you go.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
It's just what you do. I was born that way.
So now we have a question from a listener. This
question is from Sally in Ontario. Hello, am I darlinks
She spelled it like darlink. Trying to do a justice.
Love you love the podcast. I was sixty eight when
I started IF and I'm sixty nine now.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
This is my fifth month.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
As weight loss programs or life styles go intermittent fasting
is the easiest thing I've ever done, bar none. Like
most of you, I too have done just about all
of them. I like that the hunger goes away once
you get used to if I never thought this could
happen to me. Yes, some days are harder than others,
but there are more easy days than challenging ones. I
(11:18):
am so proud of myself. Yes, at sixty nine you
can lose weight. My concern is that I'm starting to
get shaky and lightheaded by about one PM. My window
is normally between one thirty and six thirty. This is
something new, and it's not every day, but it's happening
more often than not. I'm five foot three and weigh
one hundred and forty seven pounds, down from one sixty three.
(11:41):
Why is this happening?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
All right? She's got more questions, but you want to
just do just one?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Okay, okay, couple things. Sally, you do not discuss whether
or not you're on any kind of medication. So if
you are taking any sort of medication, whether it be
something for blood pressure or for your heart rates, it's
very possible that due to fasting, that those medications maybe
may not be necessary or you may need a lower dose.
(12:09):
So this is something we hear from people after they
start fasting. They don't even think that their blood pressure
medication could be affecting them, but it does, and very
very quickly into intermittent fasting. A lot of people are
able to reduce or even stop taking blood pressure medication.
So if that is something that's going on with you,
(12:29):
I would start taking your blood pressure when you feel
that way, see how your blood pressure is, and then
talk to your doctor about an adjustment. Okay, so then
let's pivot. You don't take anything like that. You've never
had a problem with your blood pressure. Feeling lightheaded or shaky.
Two things. One, you could be inadvertently breaking your fast.
(12:51):
If you've been doing a five hour window for five months,
you should be metabolically adapted by now. You should be
shifting into fat burning and you should not be getting
shaky and lightheaded from that. If you are still in
your first four to eight weeks, I would say that's
kind of normal. As your body starts to shift into
(13:13):
fat burning, you feel that, and you're saying you normally
open your window about one pint thirty. But I would
not suspect this is happening for you. This should not
be happening for you unless there's something sneaky going on
in your fast that is causing an insulin response. So
pay attention to anything that you could be ingesting during
your fast, whether it's a medication, a supplement, a new
(13:37):
kind of coffee, maybe you're drinking a bottled iced tea,
or some people, as they become more insulin sensitive, just
find that they can't drink tea or coffee during their fasts.
You know, both of those things can give you a
little boost of glycogen, pushing it out from your liver,
(13:58):
and if you have a strong insulin response to that,
it could make you a little hypoglycemic, making you feel
this way. Then there's this whole other caveat. This is
why it's so hard for us to tell you exactly
what's going on. You're going to have to do some
problem solving on your own. I feel shaky and lightheaded
when I am a little dehydrod. When I see dehydrod,
(14:22):
I don't mean just water. I mean when my level
of electrolytes water, sodium, potassium are not in balance. I
get very lightheaded. It's something that happens to me when
I stand up, or if I bend over and then
I stand up, I'll get super light headed. Swimmy, everything
(14:42):
goes black for a second. I got to hold onto something.
If that's happening to you, that could be an electrolyte issue.
So make sure that you are not over hydrating during
your fast, and then during your window make sure that
you're eating lots of electrolyte rich foods. So you're wanting
to take food in that have a lot of potassium
and magnesium naturally in them, and then you know, if
(15:05):
it continues to happen, you're just going to have to
do some brainstorming. Talk to your doctor. He might suggest
a potassium supplement. Some people just feel better just from
putting some salt under their tongue. And I'm not talking
table salt. Gets you some good salt. There's one called
Baja Gold that is a good salt. I like it.
There's Redman's real salt, and you can actually just put
(15:26):
it sublingually under your tongue, suck on it. It gets
into your body really quick that way, and you can
try that now. Some people get really hungry when they
taste salt. Me Jin's one of those. I'm convinced it's
because your body thinks you're gonna eat something delicious like
French fries or potato chips. But I don't have the
real answer for why that promotes hunger like that and
(15:48):
some people. It does not happen to me, and it
actually helps me. So another way you can tell if
you're deficient in sodium is to put some salt in
like eight ounces of water, like a quarter teaspoon of salt.
If you can't taste that salt water, if it doesn't
taste like saltya water to you, you probably need some sodium.
(16:08):
And some people just need a little more sodium than others.
So those are some things to play with and to
kind of monitor you have an everything else on that, Jen, Those.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Are exactly the things I was going to talk about exactly,
except probably not electrolytes because I never think of that
because I got no electrolyte problem. Right, I was going
to talk about medication and also accidentally breaking your fast.
All right, So here's more, she says, another question, I
have gastritis. Apparently the recommendation is to eat several small
meals throughout the day. Coffee is acidic, especially decaf, also
(16:41):
carbonated beverages and some teas. I'd like to know what
you suggest getting around this by about noon, the acid
starts in my stomach and can get worse depending on
what I eat. I'm trying to stay off the meds.
Is they are terrible fear of microbiome. Now I'm confused
a little bit because she said by noon it gets
worse what she eats, but she still fasting at noon.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Well, I'm thinking that she starts feeling acid stomach around noon,
and then when she eats, the acid stomach feels worse.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Okay, Oh that makes sense. Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
So Number one, if you have gastritis, I hate to
tell you this, but there are some low acid coffees
out there. You can do a Google search for low
acid coffees and you could try that carbonated beverages. They
do change the pH of your stomach tease, you may
just not be able to fast with those things. With
(17:33):
that said, a lot of the way times the way
you brew your coffee makes it different as well. Cold
brew is the least acidic, so if you've not tried
cold brew, you might find a good quality cold brew.
There's two organic brands of cold brew I like. We
are not sponsored by them, but I'll tell you their names.
They are fast safe. One is Chameleon comes in a
(17:54):
little glass bottle. It is a cold blue brew concentrate
and you mix it with water to taste. The other
one is called Busy b Izzy. I like their espresso blend.
It's very smooth. It does not taste acidic to me,
and again you can cut it with water to taste.
So you might try cold Brood just because it is
known to be a less acidic coffee the way it's brood.
(18:16):
But other than that, yes, I would definitely just cut
out conventionally brood coffees and carbonated water up, sparkling water
or whatever from your fast. Try to fast with just
plain water, still water and see if that makes a difference.
You can also add some baking soda to your water.
(18:37):
I do not have the actual amounts that you're supposed
to use, but you can look it up. Look up
a baking soda and water for indigestion or heartburn or whatever.
Actually I have it right here. It is a half
a tea spin of baking soda in four ounce glass
of water. You can do it every four hours. This
(18:57):
will not break your fast. What it does it just
balances the pH in your stomach. So you can try
that all right.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
We have one more question, and I actually wonder if
this might be why she's feeling lightheaded and shaky.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
She said, does creatine break a fath?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
It absolutely does. That is not something you want to
take during your fast. That is something that you want
to take in your eating window. So yes, I had
not read ahead. That could be what was making her
feel poor if she's taking that during the fast.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
We had a community member who, just like last week,
misunderstood us on the podcast. I mean, it makes sense
you're doing other things, you're listening. You don't catch everything
if I'm cleaning the house, so while I'm listening to something,
I might miss it. But she misunderstood about creatine and
took some during the fast. And she's like, oh my gosh,
I took some creatine during my fast and then I
was shaky and I felt terrible.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I was starting. It broke my fast. We're like, yes,
it does break your fast.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
But she misunderstood us, And so if some bo is
having a supplement like that, it could absolutely lead to
you feeling shaky. And we appreciate the community member telling
us that that happened because it reinforces right, you know,
we say don't take this during the fast, and then
someone does and they're like, oh my gosh, I felt
shaky and awful.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
That's not how I normally feel.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
When you share that, that gives like reinforcement to the
idea that, yes, that is not something to have during
your fast. Keep that in your eating window, creating in
your eating window.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Absolutely. Yeah, all right, So we have another question from Annalie.
She said, Hey, ladies, I'm surrounded by friends who take
GLP ones and or have had weight loss surgery. I
don't want either, but seeing them lose weight is getting
harder to not want to cave in and use something
to help get a good foundation started. I found out
about Jen and the Clean Fast in twenty nineteen, and
(20:51):
after a few podcasts, I just knew this was the
lifestyle for me. Never once questioned the Clean Fest or
the science behind it. I don't know why, but I
can't seem to get my mindset in the right place.
I do really good for a very short time, usually
about a month, and then something will send me back
to eating all day. I know it's up to me
to get my mindset there, but I guess I'm writing
(21:12):
in hopes that for some encouragement directed specifically at me,
so that will finally push me over to success. Thank
you for all you do, and I look forward every
week to listening.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
All right, So let's look into those two options, golp
ones or weight loss surgery. You know, there are people
who lose a great deal of weight with both of those, right.
You know, I've had people in my Facebook timeline go
through both of those things, and you can really tell,
and they talk about their journeys and they lose a
lot of weight, and then what happens generally over time,
(21:45):
Over time, you see the weight starts to come back. Right,
So both of those strategies can lead to a great
deal of weight loss. But both of those strategies can
also lead to a lot of rebound weight gain. And
especially with weight loss surgery, you are permanently altering your body.
And I want you to think really, really long and
(22:07):
hard about that. You know, there are lots and lots
of negative long term effects, you know, dumping syndrome, nutritional abies, yeah, malabsorption, right,
so many things you you know can't eat, you know,
a large volume of food or it literally makes you
sick and you feel bad, like like shaky and it
(22:28):
affects your body and the way your body functions forever. Okay,
So I know it might seem like, well, there's my solution,
because I can't eat so much, I'm going to lose weight.
But then you know, people tend to find kind of
ways around it, right, There's something called slider foods where
you were like, you can't eat a lot, but you
could drink a milkshake. Or often people will become alcoholics
(22:51):
after weight loss surgery when they never had that problem
before and now they're suddenly turning to alcohol. We've heard
that so many times from people that have struggled with
so weight loss surgery is not a solution that I
would turn to without a lot of thought. Did you
want to add anything else about weight loss surgery, Shary?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I mean yeah, And you know a lot of times
people are prompted to have weight loss surgery because they
are having other health concerns. But really what you're trading
is maybe you know, high blood sugar or high blood pressure,
or you know, joint and body ache pain, just for
(23:33):
other medical issues down the line. And I recently saw
a research study about weight loss surgery and that these
can lead to severe liver dysfunction and even liver failure.
So you know, like I just think like this is
(23:54):
a temporary solution that may result in immediate weight loss,
but it's not a long term solution for health and longevity,
right where fasting can be all of that, all of that,
and weight loss surgery may seem easy, like, oh, I
don't have nothing to work, but it is not, because
you still have to. And this is why weight loss
(24:16):
surgery fails for so many people. You have to address
the reason behind weight gain in the first place, whether
it's psychological, emotional, or you know the fact that you
have past traumas you haven't dealt with then you use
food as a way to cope, or you just that
you have no nutritional foundation and you just don't know
(24:37):
how to fuel your body in a healthy manner, and
weight loss surgery doesn't take those things away. And unfortunately,
I mean, I personally think it's criminal to do these
surgeries on people and not provide therapy and not provide
nutritional counseling so that they can move on in a
(24:58):
different healthier manner than they were in prior to the surgery.
And I just see this time and time again, and
I have had so many weight loss surgery patients come
into the ear. They've got complications either immediately after or
years after the surgery, and they have told me that
nobody told them the risks. They only told them the benefits,
(25:21):
and they wish that they'd never had the surgery. And
it's one of those things. Once you have it done,
you can't have it undone.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
You permanently altered your body.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
And now let's move on to GLP ones. And I
know that's another one of those things that seems like
everyone's doing. It's got to be so easy, right, No,
there are definitely side effects that come along with this.
And basically, if you're taking anything that suppresses your appetite,
you're going on a starvation level diet. I remember back
(25:53):
in the day, for me, it was Fentermine got it
from a doctor, so I thought that was a good
thing to do. Watched a friend lose a lot of
weight on it, and the like, sign me up when
to my doctor got some And basically you're eating on
a starvation level diet that has metabolic consequences.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You know, if you've read Fast Feast Repeat.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
You remember I talked about the Minnesota starvation experiment I
talked about the biggest loser study. Starvation level dieting slows
are metabolic rate. You can barely eat, so you're barely eating,
and that is not a healthy way to lose weight
going on a starvation level diet. And also we know
from the research on these GLP ones a lot of
(26:30):
people lose a lot of muscle mass along the way.
And again, like Sherry mentioned, this is not teaching you
how to make changes. So you know, you said you
want just a little something to help you get a
good foundation started. Well what if this little something comes
with a whole lot of metabolic negative effects And now
you're going to try to go to fasting, But because
your metabolism is so slow, you're going to gain back
(26:53):
all the weight plus more. And also fasting is going
to be harder because your body is fighting back.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
So I would really.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Like to encourage you to focus on the clean fast
plus real food. You know, I think that all of
the ultra processed foods and the creamers, the flavored waters
that do everything that calls to us and makes us,
you know, cave in or think we can't fast clean,
or we just need a little something. It's it's those
(27:21):
ultra processed foods, the flavored foods, the sweetened foods, the creamers.
If you could focus on a clean fast, a window
that feels like a lifestyle, and then nourish your body
well within it. You know, we have natural hormones in
our body that tell us when we've had enough. You know,
I just did a YouTube video about this, you know,
(27:43):
asking yourself, am I satisfied? Food quality matters. You know,
we want physical satisfaction. That means eating you know, bulky
food that engage your stretch receptors and let your brain
know that you have a lot of food in there.
That's important. You know, we want to be nutritionally satisfied.
We also have in our digestive tract that let us
know what nutrients are like nutrients sensors. You want to
(28:06):
think about it like that. And so we need to
be nutritionally satisfied and also emotionally satisfied. We need to
feel like we've had something that was delicious. So if
you focus on nourishing your body, giving your body real food,
eating until you're physically and emotionally satisfied with this real
delicious food plus the clean fast, you know you're not
(28:29):
missing out on anything.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
You're able to have.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
The food that you want, you feel good, and you're
not damaging your body. You're not permanently changing your body.
I know that's what you want to do. So how
can you flip that mindset switch to doing what you
want to do? What's holding you back? And that's that's
what I'm not sure about, Annalie. Is it creamy coffee
(28:53):
That seems to be a big one. A lot of
people they want to fast clean, but I had a
hard day, that creamy coffee is calling.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
I deserve it, and then then you're eating all day?
So what is it? What is your stumbling block? What
gets you?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Figure out what gets you and then address that thing,
whatever it might be.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
That's exactly I was going to say, Like, until you
can figure out what that thing is that is that
is sending you back to all day eating, whatever it is,
whether it's emotional eating, whether it's a hard day, whether
it's stress in your life, whether it's creamy coffee, Like,
you've got to really sit down and figure out that
(29:33):
one thing is and solve that problem. Solve that problem.
If it's emotional eating, you know, figure out what you
can do to self soothe that doesn't include food. Maybe
it's time for some therapy, you know, maybe it's time
to work on your self esteem. Maybe it's time to
work on healing. Maybe it's time to work on getting
(29:56):
rid of of relationships that cause you stress or grief
in your life, you know, whatever that is. You know,
therapy can even just help you learn new coping mechanisms,
and they can help you learn, you know, when you
have these thoughts of I have a bad day, I
deserve x y Z, it's time to replace those thoughts
with I've had a bad day. I deserve to be healthy,
(30:19):
happy and achieve success. And so yeah, just figure out
what is derailing you from a fasting lifestyle. And once
you solve that, conquer that little hurdle, then you can
find the success you seek. And I also just wanted
to throw in there, once you can find consistency with
if you are going to achieve naturally the things that
(30:43):
your friends are achieving through artificial means. Fasting in itself
promotes GLP one, it promotes that hormone in your body.
Exercise does, Choosing whole foods does so if once you
can conquer them, ye, I'm going to wake up and
clean fast every day. The pieces really will fall into
(31:04):
place for you.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
And neither GLP ones or weight loss surgery solve the
underlying issues. And I get it because remember I just
talked about how I took all those weight loss drugs
from my doctor, and that didn't solve my underlying issues.
It like artificially kept my appetite low, right, That's all
it did.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
But you know what else does that?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
The clean fast without all of the side effects and
the metabolic problems, and I nourish my body well, I
feast in my eating window.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I feel amazing.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
So write us back and let us know how you're
doing anmily. All right, Now it's time for our segment
called What's Your Why. Most of us begin with weight
loss in mind, that's a great reason to start, but
there is so much more to what intermittent fasting can
do for us beyond weight loss.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
When your why is deeper.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Than weight loss alone, I genuinely believe you're going to
find long term success and you're going to view intermittent
fasting as a lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
So this week we have a why from great Pool
in California. My wife started as weight loss. It morphed
into health and then recently got even more specific and
hit me like a ton of bricks. Being here for
my children as long as I can. My seventeen year
old son struggles with so many different issues and will
probably live with us longer than the norm. I want
to be here to support him and help him thrive.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
He needs me.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
My twenty one year old daughter and I are very
close and we talk almost every day. She leans on
me for advice and just to be a listening ear,
and I want to be around for her. I also
want to know my grandchildren if I am so lucky,
and help my kids with them in any way I can.
So when it gets hard, I remember all of this
and it lifts me. Sending my love to both of you.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Oh, I love that all right.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
So we have a question from Jane in Denver. Jane
rates Hi. I'm fifty eight and five foot seven. I've
been doing intermint basting consistently for four years. I went
from the mid one eighties to the mid one fifties
easily and quickly. In the beginning, I would do a
five hundred calorie down day, two or three days a week,
and I lost weight fast. I sometimes would split my
(33:08):
five hundred calories into two meals as I struggled with
hunger getting through my workday. And after about three or
four months, I easily maintained not being remotely strict with
times or food choices. I constantly would reopen my window
if I felt like eating, and yet I still maintained
I like junk and alcohol and moderation, and I never
hesitated when I wanted something. A typical week on the
(33:31):
zero app of fasting may have been nineteen seventeen, eighteen, thirteen, sixteen,
twenty to twenty two, and another week might have been
anywhere from fifteen to twenty, and just for informational purposes,
I averaged those out, and those two weeks would have
averaged to like seventeen and a half hour fast to
(33:53):
just over eighteen hour fasts. Anyway, she says, I would
throw in the occasional down day if I was feeling thick,
if I was hungry, I opened my window at eight.
I always tracked the fast, never the window. I had
good energy and I felt like this was easy. But
earlier this year I went on vacation and I indulged
nothing crazy. Since then, five months later, I have about
(34:13):
five to seven pounds that I cannot seem to get
rid of. I've got as low as one fifty seven
after a lot of exercise, but then it pops right
back up to one sixty or one sixty one. In
the last month, I've gotten really strict with my windows,
going to four or five hour eating windows in the
hopes of losing this weight. But I am so hungry,
which makes me think I've lost my fat adaptation. The
(34:34):
hunger builds, it is not in waves. I get so
hungry I cannot think straight. I've also been lifting weights
since just recently my arms started to look untoned. I've
always been active, not much of a weightlifter, though I
have also felt very tired. I go to bed tired,
I wake up tired. I'm feeling tired all day. This
is how I felt in my forties when I had
(34:54):
a young child, a demanding job, and a soso marriage,
and an extra thirty to forty pounds. I feel like
maybe I need to cut out bread, ice cream, rice, etc.
But I've never had to cut those out in the past,
and I feel hungrier when I try to do low carb.
I have cut out alcohol, unless it's just one or
two went out with friends. My clothes fit but not
(35:15):
as well. My face doesn't look as pretty, and I'm frustrated.
I do try the five hundred calorie down days, but
I struggle to be consistent with them. Is I find
that after a couple of down days, I am hungry
all the time, like a bottomless pit. This was so
easy for so long, and now I'm really struggling. I
would love your insight. Thank you so much for all
you do. I am a big, big fan. Thank you
(35:36):
for listening.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Jane.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
All right, so, Jane, something that jumps out at me
is that you talk about your down day, but you
never mention up days at all. And you also are
doing something we don't recommend, and that is five hundred
calorie down days splitting it into two meuals.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
We don't recommend that either.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
We recommend that you have your five hundred calories all
at once, so like you would fast clean if you're
doing a down day, fast clean all day and then
have your one five hundred calorie meal and then start
a second fast. And I always recommend to have that
five hundred calori meal late enough in the day so
that you don't have time to be hungry again before bedtime.
Then you need to have a full up day and
(36:18):
eight to twelve hours really airing on the side of
three meals in twelve hours. So since you never mentioned
the word upday ever a single time, I'm wondering if
you are not having a sufficient upday, that would be
my number one guess. And if you are having down
days and then not having a sufficient update, that's going
(36:38):
to damage your metabolism over time, because the upday is
what gives you that metabolic boost. That's why ADF works
so well. So if you're just like having your five
hundred calorie down day, having it in two meals instead
of one, and then having I don't know what you're
doing the next day, but it's not really up, then
you're going to be hungry and your body is going
to send you the signal over time, it's going to
(36:58):
build and build and build, eat eat, eat, eat eat.
We learned that from the Minnesota starvation experiment. Over restriction
over a long period of time sends you extreme hunger.
That's what our bodies are designed to do, so that
might be what's happening. So I have some homework for you.
I want you to get a copy of the second
edition of Delay Don Deny. If you don't already have it,
(37:20):
make sure it's the second edition, and I want you
to read the ADF chapter and I want you to
see if that's really how you've been doing it. If
the answer is no, then that's the problem. That being said,
I don't want you to eat less less less right now.
You know you said you're trying to do, you know,
a four to five hour window and you're hungry all
the time like a bottomless pit. You need to have
(37:43):
some substantial refeeding in there so that your body knows
you're not starving. That's really really important. Whenever the urge
to binge starts increasing over time, that's a sign that
what you're doing is perceived by your body as overly
restrict Now, on the flip side, it's all so possible
(38:05):
that you are somehow accidentally breaking your fast and you
don't know it, like I'm going to throw out creatine.
Maybe you've just started adding a creatine supplement in the
morning because somebody told you it didn't break a fast,
and now you're starving all the time because you're accidentally
breaking your fast. Or it could be anything not just
creating any kind of supplement or anything that's different and so,
(38:26):
or maybe you started an electrolyte that has fast breaking
ingredients in it, whatever it might be.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Really examine your fast.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
If you're starving all the time out of the blue,
examine your fast or see if you've accidentally been over restricting.
Those are the two reasons that I can think of
that really might cause you to be starving all the time.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
What do you think, Sherry.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I just wanted to address too, that she said that
she feels like, you know, she can see a difference
in like her skin, and that she's starting to feel
like she looks old and untoned, and that she's, you know,
very very tired all the time, waking up tired, going
to bed tired. You're fifty eight years old, so you've
(39:11):
probably been in menopause for a couple of years at
least now. And you know, as we once we're postmenopausal,
our bodies do start to change, and our skin starts
to change because of the lack of estrogen, and you know,
our muscle tone changes. We do lose muscle. We have
to work harder to maintain and manage our muscle. But
it's the fact too that you're saying that you're really,
(39:32):
really feeling exhausted. And something that people don't often know
is that menopause can be a real it can really
throw us into hypothyroidism. And so if you're feeling very,
very tired and fatigued all the time, and you're feeling
really hungry, and you know, maybe time to go see
your doctor, have some you know, have a checkup, have
(39:56):
some basic labs drawn, have a full thyroid piano drawn,
make sure that everything looks good there. And then yeah,
just rule out that there's not something metabolically going on
with you that's making you feel so bad, because I
can't think of any reason why five to seven pounds
(40:16):
of weight gain is going to suddenly make you feel
so sluggish, tired and not feel great. And as long
as you're fast and clean every day and you're eating
in a four to five hour window, like you said,
you should absolutely be fat adapted and you should be
flipping the metal box switch and you should be having
energy and feeling good. So there's something going on if
(40:38):
you're not all right.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
We have a question from Ingrid from Amsterdam. Hi, ladies,
I started if in January of twenty twenty four, and
I was very successful with sixteen eight. I lost thirty
five pounds in about nine months and felt great. My husband,
who was very attached to his breakfast, as in get
up early to read the paper with a big breakfast
before work, figured out that was all in his head
(41:01):
and join me in fasting. It's clear to me now
that I never cleaned fasted, since I would drink bone
broth at night after a tough workout or have a
cappuccino in the morning at work.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Yet I still lost weight.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
In January of this year, I had a family emergency
and I was back in San Francisco, my home, for
three months. Due to stressful times and difficult situations in
the hospital, I completely fell off the wagon and I
ate all day every day. When I came back, I
had gained twenty pounds and none of my clothes fit.
I started IF again, bought your book Fast Feeus to repeat,
(41:34):
and started listening to your podcast. It's been three weeks
now and the scale won't move. Since I have always
been a fast loser and gainer, this is new. I
am playing with different fasting windows. Eighteen six, nineteen five,
twenty four. I won't give up. My question is is
it okay to switch daily depending on work schedules. I
do eighteen six as a minimum, but some days may
(41:56):
be very different. Any advice, I am clean fasting now.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
By the way, okay, Well, if you have Gen's book
Fast Peace repeat you said you bought it, go back
and review the fast start chapter and basically when you
resumed fasting.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Or started she started. I have to say the fact that.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
You never clean fasted before meant you weren't truly fasting,
not from like a metabolic standpoint, because if you were
taking in energy during your fast, then your body had
no reason to dip into your fat stores for energy,
(42:38):
and you were not keeping your insulin low and you know,
so basically what you were doing prior to coming back
to you know, Amsterdam and starting if again is you
are now fasting for the first time, and before that
you were doing a low calorie diet. And because of
(43:02):
the way you were doing that, it's going to take
your body time to like you're a brand new faster.
And this is why we tell people during the fast start,
follow one of the fast start I want to call
them programs, what do you call them? In the book protocols, Yeah, protocols, plans, protocols, yes, aproach.
So you know, it sounds like you're kind of doing
(43:23):
a little bit of this, a little bit that, But
really you want to work through the system so that
your body has time to become metabolically adapted to be
able to flip over into fat burning. That's not going
to happen in three weeks likely, especially if you had
three months of just all day eating, and then once
that happens, that's when your body starts shifting into fat burning.
(43:47):
That's when we see fat loss. So we would never
expect anybody to see the scale moving in three weeks,
and in some cases it can actually go up a
little bit. It did for me. I gained eight pounds
over my first six weeks of intermint fasting. So just
give it time. It's not going to happen fast, but
give your body time to adapt to the clean fast
(44:08):
to get your body shifting into fat burning, and you
will get there. And then as far as switching up
your protocols each day, here's what I would suggest. I
have a varied work schedule home in life, they don't match.
When I eat each day is not the same from
day to day. Rather than saying I'm going to do
eighteen six or I'm going to do twenty four, I'm
(44:30):
going to do nineteenth five. Take the fast out of
the equation. Don't even worry about the fast. Look at
that day based off of your work schedule, life schedule, whatever.
Settle into a boundary of I'm going to have a
five hour eating window today, and then look ahead at
your day and say, okay, today, realistically, I can close
(44:52):
my window it's seven pm, and then don't open your
window prior to two pm, and that is setting you
up for a very consistent eating window. If you are
satisfied and full and you're done at six pm, go
ahead and close your window. You had a four hour window.
If you need the full five hours, use the full
five hours. But just settle in that way, using your
(45:16):
body as a guide for when you've had enough within
that timeframe. And that just me. That's I think that
eliminates a lot of the confusion with trying to work
a window in around your work schedules. If they're buried
and congratulations on clean fasting.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yes, absolutely, And I wanted to address on one sentence
in there, you're talking about how what you did before
you were not really fasting because you were having bond
broth and cappuccinos in the morning. And then he said,
yet I still lost weight, And of course you did,
because we can lose weight lots and lots of ways.
Like I think back, you remember me talking about earlier
in this episode, how I took.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Finnermine, which crushed my appetite. I was not fasting.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
I was eating tiny little amounts of food and beverages
all throughout the day, all the time. I was basically
extreme low calorie dieting, and I did lose weight. Right
As long as I kept to that extreme low calorie dieting,
the weight stayed off. When I realized I felt like
crap having those diet pills and stopped taking them, I
(46:16):
gained fifty pounds in eighteen months.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
The weight just flew right on.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
And you think about that, you were gone for three months,
you gain twenty pounds in three months.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
That's what happens when we're doing a low calorie diet.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Whether it's because you're accidentally not fast and clean, or
you're taking thinner mean like I was, or whatever it is,
glp ones, whatever, that low calorie diet is when you
stop doing it, you gain weight so quickly. Like I said,
fifty pounds in eighteen months for me, and then I
was all screwed up. That's when I really started gaining
a lot of weight until I ended up obese. And
(46:49):
so it wasn't until fasting. Now fast and clean living
the intermitt infesting lifestyle, I have healed my metabolism and
I'm able to keep the weight off. But as Sherry said,
we don't expect weight loss in the first month, and
you've got to really give your body some time for
your metabolic rate to even out all of that. So
(47:10):
keep going. You've got this.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
All right. So before we get to the tweak of
the week, I just want to take a minute to
tell you about a device that is a lifesaver in
my household. My husband, I prefer to sleep at very
different temperatures, and I have learned that my body prefers
different temperatures over the course of the night. When I
go to bed, I'm always freezing, but then I wake
up in the middle of the night hot, but come
morning around six am, I get even hotter. And having
(47:37):
a dual zone bedjet, which where I can customize and
schedule our own sleeping temperatures. Even setting up bio rhythms
has been a huge lifesaver for us. This is just
a device that you plug in under your bed and
it blows air up through a special sheet to each
side of the bed and you get to set your
own temperature. It is clinically proven by to improve sleep.
(48:01):
My husband and I have noticed a big improvement in
the quality of our sleep once we added it. It
removes body moisture and sweat from the bed. My husband
is the sweatiest sleeper. It is gross. He does not
sleep sweaty anymore. We are also saving energy costs because
we don't have to heat and cool the entire house
while sleeping just to keep our bedroom at the preferred
(48:24):
temperature for sleeping. It's been a life saver year round.
We have noticed the benefits in the winter and in
the heat of the summer, and anytime that I travel,
like when I went to Gin's last week, or on
the weekends for work where I stay with a friend.
I miss my bedget so much. So if you are
tired of sleeping hot or cold, or your partner and
(48:44):
you just can't decide on a comfortable thermostat temperature for sleeping.
Stop the arguing, get yourself a Bedget it's just amazing.
I don't know how we live so long without it.
So I have a link in the show notes for
this episode, or you can always go to fast feast
dot com slash Sherry that's sah er I and you
can find a link there to check it out.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Yeah, it's miserable to sleep at the wrong temperature.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
It really is.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
I woke up this morning really hot because my thermostat
turned off. Got a service call, so I'm going to
come in and look at it. But I was like,
why am I so hot? I need a bedjet Sherry.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Well, you know what's funny is I can tell when
my husband gets out of bed to go to work
in the middle of the night because I get freezing.
Oh he is so hot. My husband puts out so
much energy that he makes me warmer in the bed.
But I will wake up and all of a sudden,
I'll be freezing and I'll ask him later like what
(49:41):
time did you get up? And he'll tell me and
usually within about twenty to thirty minutes of him getting
out of the bed, you're cold. I'm cold, and I
sleep with my little remote from my bedjet in the
bed and I just tick notch up the temperature a
couple degrees and then I'm back to sleep.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
Awesome fy. So well, 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 intermittent fasters are making intermittent
fasting work for them.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
This is from Angela in Omaha.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Angela says, I struggle to stop eating when I am
satisfied in my window. I came up with a new
visualization that is helping me that I wanted to share
with others. We would never overfill our gas tank in
our cars. It would be terrible to have gasoline overflowing everywhere.
Why then do we overfill our body's gas tank. I
hate the idea of waste and the environmental impact of
(50:38):
gas flowing everywhere, so this idea has helped me try
to avoid waste and overfilling myself. Thanks for all you
both do.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
I love the podcast and Angela, that is an amazing
analogy that is almost verbatim and analogy that I use
in the community. People said, well, I hate to throw
away food. It's so wasteful, and I'm like, you know,
that's like over inflating your tires in your car so
that you don't have to inflate them a year from now,
(51:06):
or you know, like you said, letting gas overflow because
you want it so full, but then it's just a waste.
And it's the same with our bodies. Once you're satisfied,
you're satisfied, you don't need any more. So well, we'd
love to leave you with inspiration or motivational quotes, and
this week we have a quote from Janet in College Station,
Texas and the quote is from Nick Saban, a former
(51:30):
head coach for Alabama football. The quote is, there are
two pains in life. There's the pain of discipline and
the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain
of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the
pain of disappointment. And I just think that is so powerful.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
Discipline is required, right, anything worth doing, flossing your teeth,
anything that's good for you. Thanks so much for listening today.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
We would love to have you join us and the
Delayed on Tonight community where you can interact with both
me and Sherry, plus the most supportive bunch of intermittent
fasters you'll find anywhere. Go to Jenstevens dot com slash
community to join us.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
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.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Until next week. Thanks for listening
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