Episode 118: Weight Regain While Fasting, Understanding Research Studies, and More

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:https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/features/is-intermittent-fasting-bad-for-heart-health 

https://www.fastfeastrepeat.com/episodes-and-shownotes/episode-58-digging-into-research-studies-blood-glucose-level-concerns-and-morehttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38695175/https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(24)00199-2/fulltext

To get the books, go to https://www.ginstephens.com/get-the-books.html. The second edition of Delay, Don’t Deny is now available in ebook, paperback, hardback, and audIo book.  This is the book that you’ll want to start with or share with others, as it is a simple introduction to IF.  It’s been updated to include the clean fast, a thorough description of ADF and all of your ADF options, and an all new success stories section.  When shopping, make sure to get the second edition, which has a 2024 publication date.  The audiobook for the second edition is also available now!

Want to learn more about BiOptimizer’s Magnesium Breakthrough? Visit www.bioptimizers.com/fastfeastrepeat and use code FFR15 to save 15% 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.


 

Episode Transcript

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. Hi, everybody, we
are so glad you're here today. Welcome to this week's
episode of the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
How are you doing today's Sherry, I'm doing wonderful.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'm glad. Anything new going on with you?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, let's see, my husband's had oral surgery last week
and he's on vacation for two weeks. This is his
final week. I'm going to need a vacation when he
goes back to work. Poor Eric. Yeah, I love my
husband dearly, y'all.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
I do.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
But he's a lot. He's on the spectrum. Communication is
not his strong point, so sometimes we struggle when we
spend a little bit too much time together. We're very different,
like we compliment each other, but we're so different, right,
high energy, he's low energy. I'm extroverted. He's introverted. He

(01:42):
doesn't understand my need to connect outside of the house.
He's very content to just sit here in the house.
So my salvation has been doing coaching because I get
to come into my office and shut the door and
talk to people. So anyway, yeah, he'll be back till

(02:02):
week work next week. And then he gave me for Christmas,
he gave me six do nothing days. It's September. I
have not used any of them because I'm not very
good at doing nothing. So, like, what does to do.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Nothing day for you? Like I do? I would say,
do you.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Want I had a day to do nothing?

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Like?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
No responsibilities? I don't figure out what he's gonna eat.
I don't like if I want to lay in bed
and binge to watch a TV. I want to lay
in bed and binge watch TV. I don't want to
watch what he wants to watch. My husband likes to
dictate every hour of the day what we're gonna do,
what's next, what's next? And I hate that more than
anything in the world. I do not like a really

(02:42):
structured day. I'm very go with the flow, do it
feels good. And so to me, that means he has
to stay out of my life. He has to wait
on me hand and foot, and I don't have to
lift a finger. And so that's what he gave me
for Christmas. Because I'm always like I wish I had
a day where I had nothing thing to do. I
can just turn my brain off and escape. And uh

(03:06):
so I told him, I said, just what, you know,
when you go back to work, I'm gonna I'm gonna
cash in one of I do nothing days.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
And they don't expire. I would assume you could save them.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yes, yes, I mean yeah, or I'm gonna have a
lot of do nothing days between now. The problem is,
last time I said I was gonna do a do
nothing day, I ended up cleaning out the hall closet.
M Because I'm not very good at doing nothing.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
I mean neither I would.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
I was like, that sounds Wait was that a gift
for Eric or a gift for you? My brain just
gets tired. I have a very busy brain, you know, questioner.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, and I'm constantly thinking of this or that, or
researching this or reading that, or you know, working in community,
and and then my brain just gets tired. And I'm tired,
especially after long weekends at work where I work really hard.
And uh I I'm just like I want to check
out from the world sometimes and just turn off my brain.
And the only way I can do that is just

(04:06):
to watch something mindless on TV. But I don't really
get that luxury and Eric and I don't watch the
same kind of TV. So I don't know. This is
my second marriage. Why do men always get to control
the TV remote?

Speaker 1 (04:22):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
I have never been allowed to have the remote.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
I would want to controlled it. That was That's always
been me.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, Okay, if I get the remote. He's like, you
can't have the remote. It's my remote. You don't even
know how to work it. And I'm like, well, I
don't know how to work it because I'm never allowed
to touch it. So yeah, I yeah, I'm gonna I'm
gonna cash in some you know. You know, I was
kind of inspired to s K and community was talking
about her kids were going back to school and she'd

(04:51):
had a busy season and she last week she took
like a week of just rest to recovery, and she
was gonna just do what she wanted to do and rest.
She was taking time off from the gym and kind
of just reset her mind and relax. And I was like,
you know, I need to do that. I've been on
the go since April. I feel like, so downtime's important.

(05:16):
We need it absolutely. All right, Well, let's celebrate. Well,
actually this is a triple celebration. This comes from Sarah,
a member of our DDT community, and it really goes
to the power of sharing. She said. Number one, my
mom just finished her twenty eight day fastart and she's
loving fasting. She's actually pretty healthy, but she's always chasing

(05:40):
that smaller number and has the biggest diet brain ever.
She said. She loves if she feels great and doesn't
feel like she is denying herself any foods that she loves.
She does eat much better than me in general. Number Two,
my dad, who is diabetic, has found great success lowering
his insulin resistance with the long fests. I listened to

(06:01):
Jin's book with them, and he is probably going to
use the eating window approach when he isn't doing down
days in order to heal his diabetes. What about me,
you ask, I am down thirty pounds since May the twelfth,
which is below my pre pregnancy weight. I gained a
good amount before pregnancy and breastfeeding, but this is a
huge goal. We are going to try for number two

(06:23):
starting in December, and I want to be a healthier
mama for my firstborn and fingers crossed the second. Thank
you all so much for your support and a place
for me to come to for advice. Thank you Jin
for bringing us all together and getting the IF word
out there in a fun and easy manner.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Well, Sarah, I love it, And congratulations to your mom
and your dad, and I love that y'all are getting
healthy together as you anticipate number two. So now we
have a question from a listener. This question is from
Wondering in Saskatoon, interested to know what you gals think
about L glutamine and slippery ELM supplements. Do they break

(07:04):
a fast? I'm only getting conflicting answers on Google. Yeah,
I would not google that. That would definitely not.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Google doesn't know this.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
No, No, Google's just fine and whatever somebody else has
said about it. And people say crazy things like you
know anyway. L glutamine instructions are to take in the
morning on an empty stomach for digestive support. Slippery Elm
says take three times a day, hard to do in
a four to five hour eating window. Other ingredients in
the slippery elm are hypermellos cellulose and magnesium sterrate. I've

(07:35):
just started taking these two to help with constipation issues
and still unsure if they will help, but I'm interested
to try thoughts.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Okay, yes, L glutamine is an amino acid, and amino
acids basically our food. They're a building block of protein
and they do stop atophagy. And also you should not
need digestive support why you're fasting, right, Like fasting is

(08:04):
digestive support. So I mean, I mean, acids are great,
but you definitely don't want to take it while you're
fasting because you're going to lose the benefits of your
fast And then slippery Elm is a fibrous plant and
it basically forms a gel in your bowels, much like

(08:27):
chia seeds do or cilium huskas, and all of those
are foods, and we don't want those foods during the fast.
You know, if you're having constipation issues and you want
to try the slippery elm in your window, go for it.
You Know, something else that I just feel like I
need to point out is I'm not sure how long
you've been fasting. A lot of people start to have

(08:50):
issues with constipation in the early days of intermittent fasting.
Your digestion runs on a circadian rhythm, just like your
sleep and every thing in your body, right, and so
when we adjust when we eat, then it takes time
for our bodies to catch up. We have a new
circadian rhythm in you know, applied to our digestion, and

(09:12):
so a lot of people notice constipation in the early
days as well. You know, katosis does pull excess fluid
out of our bodies, and so you know, if you're
having problems with constipation, this could be a fluid balance issue.
So you might try in the mornings, if you're not
a coffee drinker, for instance, try starting your day with

(09:35):
a big glass of hot water because that can help.
That's great for digestion. Make sure that you are taking
a quality magnesium supplement, one that has like magnesium citrate
in it is going to be helpful for constipation. And
you know, make sure that you're eating quality whole foods
in your eating window to help support that as well.

(09:57):
But yeah, to answer your question, both of those things
belong in the eating window.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, And you know, the tricky part is that supplement
dosages are assuming you're eating all day, right, and like,
for example, the elglutamine says take in the morning on
an empty stomach. Well, your stomach is empty toil way
later in the day. So even if you're opening at
two o'clock, you are having an empty stomach, so take
it to open and you're still following their directions. They

(10:24):
tell people to take it in the morning on an
empty stomach because that's the only time most of the
world has an empty stomach. So that in mind, And
if something is like a plant or food like, you
just know Google isn't going to give you the right
answers if it's food like, if it's protein, if it's
an amino acid, if it has fat in it, All
those things need to go in your eating window, and

(10:47):
it's once you realize you know that these are the
things that don't break a fast. Minerals, black coffee, plain
tea water. So when you're trying to figure out does
this break a fast? Is it one hundred percent minerals,
is it black coffee, plane tea, plaine water. If the
answer is no, and it's food like or it's giving
you nutrients of some sort, nutrients belong in the eating window,

(11:09):
the fast is something different. So keep all that in mind,
and that should really help because you can figure it
out yourself if you understand why we're fasting. And I
also wanted to just remind people that we have a
favorite magnesium and it's bioptimizers Magnesium Breakthrough. There's a link
in the show notes and we both really do take.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
It, Yes we do, and my husband too, And I
just wanted to throw this out there too. I just
looked up elg ludamine for gut health and it says
to take it on an empty stomach with meals. So yeah,
so basically take it and then yeah, take it on

(11:50):
empty stomach ten to fifteen minutes before you eat, so
open your window, take it while you're prepping your food
that's going to take you ten minutes or whatever, and
then eat all right.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Good to know. So yeah, again, it's most people the
only time they have an empty stomach is first thing
in the morning.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, and that's specifically for gut health. The elglutamine has
different benefits to it, so if you're doing it for
gut health, it's with meals, all right. So our next
question is for Melissa Hijen and Cherry. I'm writing from
San Jose, California. I'm forty five years old, five foot four,
and I've been practicing intermint fasting since March of twenty
twenty two. At the time, I weighed around one hundred

(12:29):
and ninety pounds. Over the following year, I played around
with different fasting schedules, and I successfully reached my ideal
weight of one hundred and thirty pounds by March of
twenty twenty three. Once I got to that goal, I
wanted to shift into maintenance and I began eating once
a day. However, by April of twenty twenty four, my
weight had crept up to one hundred and forty eight pounds.

(12:49):
I continued one meal to day, but by May of
twenty twenty five, I had reached one hundred and eighty
pounds again. That was the turning point where I purchased
Gin's book and I reached the podcast for support. In
June of twenty twenty five, I began a thirty six
hour protocol and then in July I transitioned into ADF
as recommended in the book. So far, I've lost about

(13:11):
five pounds. I understand that one meal day is considered
a maintenance protocol, but I'm struggling to understand why I
didn't maintain. One major change I made during the time
I was gaining was shifting towards a vegetarian lifestyle. I
significantly reduced my protein intake and focused mostly on vegetables.
I wasn't eating pasta or bread, and I thought I

(13:33):
was making healthy choices. I've decided to reintroduce me into
more protein into my diet. As for activity, I walked
for an hour every day and I recently joined a
gym to bring more variety and structure into my movement routine.
Health Wise, I'm generally doing well. I had a short
period of low iron and I was prescribed a supplement
which I no longer need. One thing that surprised me

(13:54):
was a shift in my insulin levels from the fours
in April of twenty twenty four to the ten in
June of twenty twenty five. I am not really sure
what caused that, possibly perimenopause. It's something I'm beginning to consenter.
My current PA is not very supportive of my fasting lifestyle,
but I truly believe in it. I just want to
understand my body better so that I can continue this

(14:16):
way of living in a sustainable and healthy way. I'm
not fixated on a specific number, but I know I
feel my best and I'm most comfortable in my body
around one hundred and forty five pounds, and that is
the general direction I would like to head towards again.
If you have any insights on what might have contributed
to the regain or ideas for how I can tweak
things to get back to where I feel my best,

(14:36):
I would be so grateful.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, I wish I could just look at that what
you've said and say, Okay, I know exactly what the
problem is, and it's this, Melissa, but I don't. Also,
I'm not really sure what you mean by one meal
a day exactly You know. Do you mean you were
having a one hour window and one plate of food.
If so, it would be very surprising to regain that

(14:59):
much weight eating in a very short tight window. When
we say that a short tight window can be more
of a maintenance protocol, that's because our body does tend
to slow down if you're having a short tight window
every day. But not eating enough would not make you
gain weight unless you started eating more. Like if you
didn't eat enough for a long period of time and

(15:19):
your body slowed your metabolic rate, then you started eating
normally again. Now you have a slowed metabolic rate, you
would expect your weight to go up. But if you
started eating less and you kept eating less and you
never started eating more, I don't know why you would
gain all of that weight. So I don't have enough
information here to know why. You did have a major

(15:41):
change in what you were eating. And you said you
reduced your protein intake. I don't know what you mean
by that. Perhaps you mean meat protein. Maybe you have
a body that needs more meat protein. Sherry does, she
needs more meat protein, and so I would just think
about that. Maybe how are you eating before you changed

(16:03):
your diet? Maybe that is the way your body thrives you.
We're not all the same. We have bioindividuality. So you
mentioned a vegetarian lifestyle, and one thing we might do
when we're not having meat, we might slip in more dairy.
Like for me, if I'm not having meat, I might

(16:25):
have more cheese, and so I end up eating more
fat because I'm eating high fat dairy. So you didn't
mention dairy at all, but dairy is one of those
things that whenever my dairy goes up, up, up, up, up,
so does my weight range. I can feel my honesty
pants getting tighter, and so I really have to keep
my eye on dairy just because it's really easy for

(16:50):
me to overdo it. So I'm not really sure if
your dairy intake increased during that time, But that's the
only thing I could really think of that might have
been it.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
I was gonna say too. I see a lot of
people when they switch and they stop eating animal protein,
then they start eating like lots of nuts, which are
very high you know, calorie dense food, avocados, oils and
that sort of thing. And you know, you don't really
you know, you said you switched to a mean we're

(17:23):
of a vegetarian lifestyle. But are you using any like protein,
like plant based protein powders right, that sort of thing.
Did you increase your nut intake? Are you eating a
lot of peanut butter? Now? Are you eating more grains
and pastasa?

Speaker 1 (17:42):
She wasn't.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Weren't But you know, like sometimes we do. See. I mean,
we have people come in the community who have been
long term vegetarians or vegans who have weight to lose, right,
So there's more at play than you know. I eat
mainly vegetables, and that doesn't necessarily mean that you're eating

(18:05):
in a balance that's going to produce weight loss. You
could still eat in excess of what you need. And
for me, when I don't eat meat, I can't get satisfied.
So I ended up having longer windows and eating a
ton just to try to get physical satisfaction. Which is
why I know for me, I cannot be plant based.

(18:26):
My body does not. It doesn't work for my body.
So those are just some things that think about. But
you know, the other thing too, is you are at
that age of perimenopause, so that does affect your body
and the way that you store fat, and it affects
your blood sugar and your blood glucose control. So you know,

(18:47):
it does not surprise me that you're insulin went up
because Jen experienced the same thing.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
I did when I went through menopause. My INFLUW went up,
and then after I got on bioidentical hormone replacement therapy,
it went back down.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
And really start paying attention to how food makes you feel.
Do you feel energetic after eating or do you feel
slumped and slow and sluggish after eating, because that'll give
you a good idea of you know, whether or not
that food's working for you. But if you have not
had your thyroid tested, I would get that tested as well,

(19:19):
just to make sure that you're not having some hypothyroidism
because that kind of tends to go hand in hand
with perimenopause as well.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yep. And again, you know, we talked about calorie density
and that can confuse a lot of people. They're like,
wait a minute, I thought you said calories and calories
out wasn't very effective. Well, we know that our bodies
don't work exactly like a calorie calculator. You know, you
can try to calculate calories in, but your body's going
to do all sorts of things with the on the
calories outside, so it's never going to be a perfect

(19:51):
math equation. But for satiety, you know that feeling of satisfaction.
Really calorie dense foods like nuts and cheese and cream
aren't going to lead to you feeling as satisfied as
these high fiber foods, and so you can eat like
I've realized, I don't do well opening with cheese and

(20:13):
crackers anymore because that doesn't give me any satiety. Cheese
is very, very calorie dense, and then the crackers are
a crunchy dry food, and dry foods don't give us
good satiety. I was just hearing Kevin Hall, who's a
science researcher, talking about satiety and also some other research
that's been done. Dry foods don't give us good society,

(20:33):
and the cheese doesn't either. So by the time I've
eaten a whole plate of cheese and crackers, I've had
a lot of calorie dense food and very little satisfaction.
And technically that was a vegetarian meal, right, but I'm
not satisfied, and so I'm going to eat more and
the quantity of the food, the calorie density does matter,

(20:54):
so just because you know, we're not saying you should
count calories and you need to restrict your calories. We
can over eat and I set that in fast East repeat.
Just because we don't count calories, it doesn't mean calories
don't count in the way of if you put in
more fuel, your body's going to store it. Right, there's
no free fuel. None of them are free. You know,

(21:16):
we've had the periods of time where it's like, oh,
if you eat low carb, you can eat as much
as you want because low carb feods foods are free,
or the whole low fat era as long as you're
not eating fat, everything else is free. Or now it's protein,
eat all the protein you want, it's free. Nothing is free, right,
So you want to eat foods that make you feel
satisfied without those really calorie dempse foods. For me, it's

(21:39):
butter cream and cheese. Those are the ones that when
I freely eat too much of them. Ice cream, those
are the things that I can tell make a difference
for me, not in a good way. Right, Yeah, all right,
now it's time for our segment called what's your Why.
Most of us have a weight loss in mind when
we start intermitting fasting, and that is a great reason

(22:00):
to begin, But there is so much more to what
intermittent fasting can do for us beyond weight loss, and
I genuinely believe that when your why is deeper than
weight loss alone, you're more likely to find long term
success and view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
So this week we have a wife from Selene. Selene
wrote well. She titled her post or DDD plus if
plus me equals power potion love it. My why was
at first weight loss, like probably most of the people
who chose the I of lifestyle weight loss, not for

(22:36):
esthetic but for feeling better in my body. This tummy
I developed over the last two to three years and
not being able to move the same as when my
weight was kind of under control. That was my first why.
But after almost two months of living it, I must
say that this why has changed. I can see now
how much food was dictating my life. I was afraid

(22:58):
of food, and my diet brain would constantly direct my choices.
I was rarely eating guilt free. Looking back now makes
me realize how much I was chained by all of
the negative thoughts around feeding my body. My mind is
now unchained and I am back in charge. Knowing that
I could eat what I want during my windows has
been a real game changer. I choose real food because

(23:20):
I enjoyed them. Thank you to the taste buds for
resetting I eat the right quantity. Thank you for regaining
my ability to recognize satiety. I listen to my hunger calls,
which are always in line with my windows. Thank you
for having regained the capacity to recognize real hunger. Being
back in charge and knowing that I'm capable of making

(23:42):
the good choices for my body is actually my real
Why now? Thank you again and again for having shared
with the world the tools that make this possible for
me today.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
I love that fooling. That is beautiful, all right?

Speaker 2 (23:55):
So we have a question from D in Oklahoma. D wrote,
hygienis Sherry Briend recently guided me to the Fast Feast
repeat book and podcast. I thought I had been intermint
and fasting, but I learned that I had never done
a clean fast. After a little heartache that I could
no longer have my yummy bubble waters or Celsius to
get me powered up before my workouts in the morning,

(24:17):
I have accepted black coffee as my source of caffeine,
and I am trying to embrace the boredness. I feel
like the clean fast has been such a game changer,
and I'm eager to share and encourage everyone around me
about the health benefits of intermittent fasting. I'm a forty
year old woman who's five foot eight and around one
hundred and fifty five pounds. I have an athletic build,

(24:38):
and I live a fit and active lifestyle, working out
five times a week with high intensity interval training, spin, yoga,
and weight training. I also have two young children who
keep me running my question. After encouraging my husband to
join me in this healthy lifestyle with the benefits of
weight loss, he wanted to do some research of his own,
and he came across an article from twenty twenty four

(25:00):
or where the American Heart Association said it linked an
eight hour eating window slash intermint and fasting to a
ninety one percent higher risk and cardiovascular death. It did say
that short term there were health benefits to intermint fasting,
so he's not completely off board. This article is very
disheartening to me because ultimately I hope to live a
very long, healthy and mobile life, and I guess I

(25:22):
just wanted to hear your thoughts on the research and
maybe some encouragement. Thank you, ladies for all you do
to help guide all of us fasters on our intermint
fasting journeys.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
All right, so this is something we definitely talked about
a lot. Episode fifty eight, we went through it in
great detail. So we put a link to that in
the show note. So go to episode fifty eight and
listen to it. And I know this is going to
pop up, by the way, Sherry, I don't know if
you saw it in community yesterday, someone's made another paper
out of this data. Here's what's happened. Here's some data

(25:55):
that they gathered. Okay, they gathered this data like in
I don't know how long ago it was. It was
a long time ago. They gathered some data where people
did two surveys about what they ate the day before. Okay,
think about that for a minute. People did a survey
about what they ate the day before, and then they

(26:18):
did another one two weeks later. So they did two
surveys I don't know, fifteen years ago about what they
ate on the previous day. Now, think about how many
previous days you might have had. What day you're answering that.
But they took all that data and they followed these
people later to see what kind of health issues they

(26:39):
were having. And then they said, wonder if we could
make some connections based on what they ate two days
back fifteen years ago. And I could be wrong about
that the number of years I'm just trying to remember,
but let's see if we can find any commonalities. And
of course we all know intermittent fasting is getting a
lot of buzz. People are interested in it, like, oh, look,

(27:01):
we can see how much these people, how many meals
they said they ate, and we could use that. And
so that's what they did. And basically what they found
is the people who on the two prior days reported
they ate fewer meals had some sketchy health outcomes. But
I want you to understand something that is so important.
Skipping a meal is not the same as fasting. And

(27:23):
I actually talked about this in twenty eight day fast
Start day by day in the negative Nelly's section, because
even when I wrote that, there were people using this
data set to say stuff about what that data set showed.
This was not a fasting study. They were not fasting.
And I tell this story in twenty eight day fast

(27:44):
start day by day. I have a friend who told
me she's like, I do that fasting thing like you're doing.
I'm like, oh, tell me about it. She's like, well,
I really just pretty much only eat dinner. Okay, So
if you asked her to fill out a survey, she
would say she didn't eat because she didn't eat lunch
and she only ate dinners. That sounds like she's eating
one meal a day, right, Well, guess what though, she

(28:06):
starts her morning with green juice. First thing in the morning,
she's drinking green juice. Then all day long she put
lemon in her water, she might have herbal tea, she
might have a smoothie, and then she only eats dinner.
So is she fasting sherry? Absolutely not, not even a
little bit. She's putting stuff into her body all day long.

(28:28):
But if she had done a survey about what she
ate the day before, she only ate one meal. So
that's why this is so confusing. You can only make
conclusions about fasting if someone is fasting, and if you're
not fast and clean, like you couldn't go in and

(28:49):
have fasted surgery after having green juice and smoothies and
lemon in your water. They would be like, you're not fasting.
And so I think it is really really doing a
disc nervous to the entire world to say that this
is anything to do with fasting because those people were
not fasting. Maybe they had coffee with creamer in it

(29:10):
all morning. They're not eating breakfast, but they're having coffee
with creamer. We don't know. Just because you're eating all
of your solid food within a window of time does
not mean you're fasting. And so take all of this
with the grain of salt when you see it, really
look at what they were doing and were they actually fasting.
Like if they said we randomized people too fasting and

(29:32):
told them to fast clean and eat one meal a
day and we follow them for eight years and they
all had heart attacks, well that would be a better study.
I mean, I don't think that's what would happen, but
that would have been you know, they were actually fasting.
But we don't even know if what those people did
the day before was what they do all the time, right,
I just don't.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Know that somebody decided and this was not a peer
reviewed research, This was like an.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Inhines data is what it called the n H A
N E S whatever that stands for.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
So basically what they asked people, what did you do
for these two days?

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Right?

Speaker 2 (30:11):
And then if these people said, oh, well, I didn't
eat all day until dinner time, they called that intermittent fasting.
But that's not intermittent fasting. That's more like intermint eating.
And you're missing all the benefits of fasting. I guarantee
you these people were not clean fasting all day. Right.

(30:32):
We also don't know what was their health to begin with.
Are they smoking all day? Are they smoking all day
and eating drinking sugary, creamy coffee all day? Because let
me tell you, I work with a girl. I watched
her the other day. I about fell down, like about literary,
just was like what is happening? Watched her put sugar

(30:53):
in her coffee. This is at three o'clock in the morning.
She's sitting at her desk at the Narses station. Got
a cup of coffee. She pulls a bottle of coffee
mate powder out of her bag and she puts in
like four heaping teaspoons into a little twelve ounce maybe
coffee cup. And then she has a container of sugar

(31:14):
that she just poured freely into the coffee and started
up and started drinking it. And I'm like, what are
you doing? I mean, so she doesn't eat all night
at work? Is she fasting? Absolutely not, But if you asked.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Her she would say she hadn't eaten, but she exactly eating, Yeah,
exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
And I also know, you know she's gone outside and
having smoke breaks too, so who knows what her metabolic
health looks like. And the end thing, I mean, the
takeaway is she's not an intermittent faster. But this study
would have said this person only eats once a day,
she's an intermittent faster, and that is that's false, right,

(31:59):
you know, it's just not accurate. So I put a
bunch of links in show notes and I added one
to Sherry awesome. And these are basically rebuttals from experts,
from cardiologists, from fasting researchers like Christa Verity, Jason Fung.
Christopher Gardner has a rebuttal in one of these, and

(32:23):
they really tell you the problem with this and how
people jump to conclusions, and you know how it's just
sort of a retrospective observational study and you cannot establish
causation with this. There's just so many flaws in this,
and so take a look at those that we've linked
in there. You can show them to your husband. Bottom

(32:46):
line is, if he doesn't want to be an intermittent faster,
he will find all the data out there that he
wants to that says why he shouldn't be one.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
So I mean just kind of take it with a
grain of salt. If he gives you pushback, he's probably
not really wanting to be an Internet faster. And unfortunately
that's not something that we can, you know, make people do.
If they don't want to, they have to buy in.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
And what I've added in the show notes was actually
not a rebuttal. It was a study from twenty twenty
four and it was an actual study where people were
doing intermittent fasting. They weren't just like looking at reported
data from sixteen years ago. And they found in their
study that intermittent fasting improves cardiovascular risk factors. So it's

(33:29):
in there. And this is a direct quote from the study,
directly from a study about cardiovascular help and intermittent fasting. Quote.
Intermittent fasting has shown positive effects on numerous cardiovascular risk factors,
and a second quote says the primary efficacy endpoint was
significantly greater in the intermittent fasting group compared with the

(33:53):
control group, So they were better at the end of
the study four weeks. They did it for four weeks.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Well, and what's funny is that the American Heart Association
released something in November eighteenth, twenty twenty one that said
intermittent fasting may protect the heart by controlling inflammation. Right,
so basically, whatever information comes out, they publish it. I

(34:20):
don't know that they have a solid stance on this,
So it's one of those things I just really would
encourage you to do your research and the methodology.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yes, how did they come to this conclusion? Was it
actually fasting? That's the main thing. And so I'm so
irritated that it's come back out again. They've published another
paper with the same data. Stop publishing got data again?
Right anyway, And then it gets a lot of attention
and they'd be like, oh my god, you're gonna die.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah. Yeah, it's frustrating, and it comes up a lot,
and things like this will continue to come up, and
you know, I also linked an episode of this podcast
where we really kind of dug into when this was released,
and then we talked a lot about how to dig
into research studies and determine how the research was conducted.

(35:19):
You know, how valid is it, what parameters were used,
who was doing it, who paid for it, that sort
of thing.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Never read the interpretation of the study. Go read the study.
Read the study, see who funded it also. But when
you read the study, like I can remember when I
was teaching my fourth grade gifted kids about how to
do about the scientific method and how to ask a
question answer it. I was also doing some research for
I guess it was when I was writing. I don't

(35:47):
know what it was for, but anyway, I was doing
some research about food. I always say them, but this
is years and years ago. They did a terrible study
design where the groups were doing totally different things, and
I'm like, all right, fourth graders, let me tell you
these different groups. And I read to them about the
groups and They're like, what, they didn't control their variables?

Speaker 3 (36:07):
Right?

Speaker 1 (36:07):
See?

Speaker 2 (36:07):
I think were time third or fourth grade that you
have to control your variable.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Right, And they didn't, like, they did not control the variables.
And so the fourth graders were able to find the
flaws in the paper that I read to them, the methodology.
They're like, no, no, no, no. And it's really really,
really hard to control variables in people, right, because you
changed one thing and something else changes that you weren't expecting.

(36:31):
Like I was listening to Kevin Hall, he's the one
who did the ultra processed foods research. He did the
Biggest Loser study. He's done some really really good research,
and he was talking about all of his studies, and
he talking about his own studies tells you the flaws
in them, because unexpectedly here was another variable they trying

(36:51):
to control for these. But then oops, remember how I
talked a minute ago about how dry food isn't dissatisfying
in the ultra processed food research. Barbara Rolls, who's done
a lot of research on satiety, said, wait a minute, Kevin,
you gay you know where the ultra processed diets more
of the dry food. And he's like, well, I don't know,
maybe so, and said that's a variable that you can't

(37:14):
account for. So the best you try to do, you're
still going to have things that are confounding the results.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Well, and any nutrition research done like this is inherently
flawed unless you have your participants in a controlled environment
where you are feeding them.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
Which Kevin was doing. They were doing that.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Right, and they don't have access to food. When you're
just pulling people and you're asking to fill out surveys
and you're taking information that way, people inherently misreport what
they've eaten, how much activity they've done, the intensity of
their activity. You know, all of that is so variable.

(38:00):
And then there's just human flaw in there in that
people forget or they think they ate this much, but
they didn't really measure it, and they have no idea
what a serving of nuts is. You know, it's like
how many servings of nuts did you eat this week?
And this person thinks, okay, well I ate nuts three times,
so I had three servings of nuts. But were they

(38:22):
eating a cup of nuts every time they ate, because
I'd be twelve servings of nuts, right. So there's inherent
flaws built into so many research studies unless they're in
a controlled lab environment.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
And even Kevin Hall in the controlled lab environment can
go back and look at every study and say, here's
the little flaw there that you figured out As you
go you realize, oh, that was different even though we tried,
it's impossible to keep everything the same except for one
thing with humans. All right, we have a question sent
in by Beth. Hello, ladies. I have been a dedicated

(38:57):
intermitten faster since November of twenty twenty four, after discovering
your podcast on my loser app. Then I read Fast
Feast Repeat and delayed on tonight. I've lost and kept
off twenty five pounds since then. I am fifty five
years old, five foot five, and I currently weigh one
hundred and thirty nine pounds. I was a hardcore five
hour window for a year plus, but I've loosened up

(39:17):
a bit five to eight hours, and I've stayed steady
at one thirty eight to one forty two. I'd like
to be in the lower one thirties eventually, and I
know I need to tighten my window again to do so.
I've listened to every episode of this podcast, and I
don't think this question has ever been answered. You talk
a lot about the five hour window being the sweet
spot for weight loss, and that has certainly been the

(39:39):
case for me. What I don't understand is why you
are both still at a five hour window when you're
in maintenance. I guess I hope that when I get
to maintenance, I might enjoy six to eight hour window
long term, but that does not seem to be the
case for either of you, who have been doing this
for much longer than most of us have. Thanks for
all of your helpful info and for building a community
of intermittent fasters.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
For me, this I mean, I don't have a solid
answer for this. I can tell you my experience and
my hunch. Right, Okay, even though when we get to
our goal weight, we still have body fat. Everybody has
body fat, right, So if I wanted to have like
a six to eight hour eating window like you suggest,

(40:20):
I would have to be very, very regimented in my
eating to make sure that I was not eating in
excess of what my body could burn every day, and
I would likely not get into katosis every day, because
we know that you're not going to get into katosis
every day until you burn through all the glycogen from

(40:42):
the food you ate the day before. So the longer
your window and the more you eat, the more glycogen
that you are storing in your liver, and then you
want to fast sufficiently to clear that glycogen and you know,
get into fat burning that day. That's where you get
your good energy from. That's where you get your balanced
blood sugar from.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
And then you.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Eat in your eating window. And when you have a
long eating window, we see appetite correction goes away pretty
quickly for people. They start eating two big meals and
then those two big meals become a meal and a
snack and a meal, and they start eating more. They

(41:24):
lose touch with satiety. They start eating things that they'd
never even had a taste for before. While they were
having tighter windows, they start including more desserts in their
window because their window just gets to the point where
it's longer than it needs to be, and you end
up eating foods. When you have a shorter window, You're like,
I have five hours to eat and I'm going to

(41:45):
choose my foods mindfully. I'm gonna choose foods that make
me feel good and support my fast the next day
and whatnot. When you get a longer eating window, it's
just like that more's more kind of thing. You've got
a longer eating windows, so you eat more, but do
you need more? And then you're not flipping the switch,
and then you're more hungry during your fast.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
And what ends up.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Happening is eventually that eight hour window becomes a ten,
becomes twelve, and then pretty soon people aren't basting anymore.
And I firmly believe it's because they're not flipping the switch. Yep,
And it gets hard. So when you stick with a
five hour eating window, Now, can you eat more bountiful
in a five hour eating window when you're not in

(42:28):
weight loss mode? Absolutely, but you're still giving your body
time to burn through it and to get takatosis.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Each day.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
You're still getting the benefits of, you know, keeping your
insulin low so that you're not battling with insulin resistance,
and that you're having good, you know, maintained blood sugars
for the majority of the day. So you're getting the
benefits of fasting. There's a little more flexibility. You might
have room for dessert more often, you might have more
room to have two meals in a five hour window

(42:58):
some days. So there is flexibility with a five hour window.
And I'm gonna say there's probably more flexibility with a
five hour window than there is an eight hour window.
That is why I shifted to a five hour window.
I originally lost my weight with about an eight hour
eating window. I was dieting a night eight hour window.

(43:18):
When I got to maintenance, I started to see some
weight regain, and I shifted to a five hour eating window.
What I found out was that is where I got
food freedom. That is where I got to stop, you know,
really having stress over can I eat this, is this
going to cause me to gain weight? Or whatever I
eat in my five hour window, I eat to satiety.

(43:39):
I choose great whole foods most of the time, and
then I don't worry about it and I let the
fast take care of my body.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Yeah, and I have two things I want to say
about it. First of all, the one thing is you
say I hoped that when I get to maintenance, I
might enjoy a six to eight hour window long term.
I thought the same thing, Beth, if you had asked
me when I'll on the weight loss phase. I thought
that my goal would be to have the longest possible
window that I could to still maintain my weight. And

(44:08):
I could not even imagine being happy with a five
hour window. But the truth of the matter is I
feel better with a window that is five hours or less,
seven days a week. Than I do when I have
a six to eight hour window. I feel better with
a five hour or less window even now. And it
has to do with, like Sherry said, flipping that metabolic

(44:28):
switch and having the mental clarity. And here's where I
think you might be getting a little confused. You know,
if I continue to just every single day while I
was fasting, lose more and more and more and more fat,
eventually I would have zero body fat and I would die.
And clearly that's not what's happening I'm maintaining. So how
can I possibly flip be flipping the switch to fat
burning every day and still maintaining that might sound impossible

(44:53):
or like a mystery. Well, it's because of my eating window.
When you eat within your window, Let's say I have
a five hour window and I eat with in it.
My body processes the foods that I ate in my
five hour window. It uses some of the carbs for
quick fuel or you know, I'll I'll just ate it.
There's that fuel. It's my blood sugar circulating in my blood,

(45:13):
but all of it can't be used immediately, and so
it puts some stored glycogen. So some of the meals
that I ate in my window are stored as glycogen
and my liver and my muscles wherever they might be needed.
And how about the fat that I ate? What does
my body do with that? Well, if I have more
fat than my body needs right this minute, it puts
it away for later. That's fat I'm going to need

(45:36):
to use tomorrow. So when you're fasting, you're using the
fuel that was stored during your eating window. You know,
when you're losing weight in the weight loss phase, you
might be using the fat that you stored five years
ago or whatever. But from now I'm in balance. The
amount that I put away after eating into storage is

(46:00):
already balanced with the amount that I use during the
fast to fuel my body. That's why I'm wheat stable.
So you have to find that balance when you get
to maintenance.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
And it sounds like, you know, she's having a five
to eight hour window and she's staying steady. However, it
looks like she'd like to lose somewhere between eight and
twelve pounds to get to what she would like to
be her goal weight. So I think what you're finding
right now is that having a variable five to eight
hour window is a maintenance plan. For you.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yep, from one thirty eight to one forty two, right, right.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
So if you want to get to the lower one thirties,
you're going to have to tighten things back up. Once
you get there, you can play around with the five
to eight hour windows. You know, maybe two days a
week you have an eight hour window, and that's working
for you. But the goal and maintenance is to really
balance the fasting and the feasting to prevent weight regain.

(46:59):
To also make sure that you maintain flip in that
metabolic switch because that's where the benefits are really coming from.
That's where you feel so good, right, and that's where
you maintain you know, your appetite correction and you know
you're not prone to overeating and you don't have hunger
during the fast. If you have a bunch of eight
hour windows back to back to back, you're gonna feel

(47:20):
it pretty quickly. You're gonna feel the difference. You're gonna
be hungry, you're gonna be a lethargic, You're not gonna
be motivated to continue your fast. You're gonna want some
quick energy, and that's what leads people to stray away
from fasting. Yep.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
We've just seen it a lot, so yeah, and again,
like you, I never dreamed that I would be daily
five hours or less this many years in and love it.
But here I am, so before we get to our
week of the week, I want to take a minute
to tell you about my books and what you need,
and if you are new to intermittent fasting or if
you would like a refresh, I recommend starting with Delay

(47:53):
Don't Deny, which I think is the best quick introduction
to intermittent fasting out there. It explains the clean fast,
it tells you what to do, and even if you've
read Fast Feast Repeat, if you're interested in ADF, I
want you to get Delayedn't Deny the second edition. The
ADF chapter has updated recommendations, and I really want you

(48:14):
to read that before you try any kind of ADF.
And Delay Don't Deny second edition can be found only
on Amazon if you're looking for the paperback or the hardcover,
and if you want the ebook, you can find it
wherever you buy your ebooks, and the audiobooks should be
wherever you get your audio books. Now, if you want
to dig in a little more into the concepts, if

(48:35):
you want to do a book study, for Delay Don't Deny.
You can get the Delay Don't Deny Digging Deeper. It
matches the second edition of Delay Don't Deny. And we
all know reading a book is one thing, but to
actually apply the concepts from the book something else. And
so Delay Don't Deny Digging Deeper helps you apply the

(48:55):
concepts from Delay Don't Deny in a meaningful way. And
my school teacher really comes out in that book. If
you're looking for somewhere to keep track of things such
as your daily fast, you're eating window, your daily weights,
your weekly averages, goals, victories, etc. Daily reflections, daily accountability,
then you need the Delay Don't Deny Life Journal. It's

(49:16):
a six month journal and some people love it and
they just keep going back to it over and over again.
Every six months they get a new one and you
can find that only on Amazon in paperback. And now
it's time for our tweak of the Week. And this
is from Michelle in New Jersey. She's in our community.
We love her. She says, turns out my updays needed

(49:36):
a glow up. So earlier this year I had one
of those aha moments that made me stop mid scroll
and go, wait a minute, am I doing this whole
adf thing wrong. I had just posted a pic of
one of my upday feasts, feeling kind of proud, not
gonna lie, and then Jim popped in with a comment
that was basically, hey, Michelle, maybe check out chapter nine

(49:57):
of the revised Delay don't Denny and make sure or
you're really up on your up days. Translation, girl, your
metabolism is waiting for a party, and you've got it
standing awkwardly in the corner like it's waiting to be
asked to dance. Then Roxy and Sherry jumped in like
the adf Avengers, backing her up and reminding me that
the feast is just as important as the fast. And

(50:19):
just when I thought I'd heard it all, Roxy dropped
a post on February fourth, called The up Day that
hit me like a truth bomb. I was like, okay, okay,
I get it. I might have been slacking on the
feast part homework time chapter nine and a reality check.
Jim's advice was clear, three meals eight to twelve hours
metabolic boost go. So I cracked open chapter nine like

(50:41):
it was a survival manual and I realized I had
some serious homework, not just reading but doing Roxy's let's
be real post and Sherry's pep talks lit a fire
under me. No more halfway up days, no more metabolic confusion.
Let's feast like it's our job. However, at first there
was panic, and yes, I had a mini freak out.
Three meals every upday? What if I lose control and

(51:03):
start eating like that every day? But then I gave
myself a pep talk, Michelle, don't talk yourself out of
progress just because it's scary. You've got this. I wanted
the metabolic boost. I wanted results, so I put on
my big girl pants, the stretchy ones obviously, and committed
next up day. I kicked things off around eight thirty
or nine am, way earlier than my usual newness start.

(51:25):
Why because I needed a full nine to twelve hour
feasting window to get that metabolic engine reving. Was it easy? Nope?
Was I hungry every time I sat down to eat?
Also nope? Did I do it anyway? Heck yes? And
once I started eating, I actually enjoyed it. I started
calling it my f shot, like a B twelve shot,

(51:45):
But for my metabolism, it is energizing, empowering, and honestly
kind of fun. Some days I'd look back and think, dang,
I ate a lot today, But I didn't feel gross
or over stuffed. I wasn't binging. I was fueling. Turns out,
eating fifteen to twenty twenty five percent over the recommended
calories on up days is totally fine. It didn't feel
like Thanksgiving. It felt like I was giving my body

(52:06):
what it needed to thrive. So here we are, seven
months later after course correcting. Note I reinstituted this hybrid
tool protocol on January first. However, my course correction started
in February, so overall, as today, after taking measurements, I've
lost eight inches total. This includes two and a half
inches from my waist. I ditched the scale a while ago.

(52:28):
I measure progress by how I feel, How'm a clothes fit,
and how many times I actually give myself a wink
back at myself when I look in the mirror. Here's
what I've learned. ADF isn't just about restriction. It's about rhythm.
The upday is part of the dance, not a break
from it. Fear likes to dress up as logic. I
almost skipped to the feast because I was scared, but

(52:49):
intension beats restriction every time. Mentors and community matter, and
this community helped me course correct. Community wisdom is gold.
Metabolic health takes time, inches lost, energy gained, and consistently
built over months. That's the real glow up. Sorry for
the book, but so many thoughts. If you're stuck in
a stall or wondering why things aren't moving, ask yourself,

(53:11):
are you really feasting on your updates or just kind
of nibbling and hoping for magic? Because sometimes the breakthrough
isn't in doing less, it's in doing more with purpose,
joy and maybe a little mac and cheese.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Love it? Yeah, Well, we love to leave you with
inspiration or motivational quotes, and this week we have a
message from sk sk wrote Progress is different for everyone.
It isn't a straight line or a one size fits
all journey. For some, it might be hitting a major milestone.
For others, it might be simply making it through the
day without giving up. What looks like a small step

(53:48):
to one person might be a giant leap for someone else.
Progress is personal. It doesn't just reflect where you are going,
but where you've come from and what you've had to overcome.
Measuring your off by someone else's timeline can make you
forget how far you've come on your own. Growth is
growth no matter the pace, So whether you're sprinting ahead

(54:09):
or taking cautious steps, you're still moving and that is
all that matters.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
I love that. Thanks so much for listening today. We
would love to have you join us in the Delayed
on Tonight community, where you can interact with both me
and Sherry, plus the most supportive bunch of intermittent fasters
you'll find anywhere. Go to Jenstevens dot com slash community
to join us.

Speaker 4 (54:33):
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Speaker 1 (54:45):
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Easy moments, or anything else you want us to share
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Speaker 2 (55:06):
Thanks for listening