Episode 121: Fasting With an Underactive Thyroid, Suddenly Feeling Hungry, Snack vs. Meal, 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: Fast Safe Melatonin: https://amzn.to/3Km31e3 
For one on one IF coaching, you can email me @ [e-mail]
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https://crunchi.com/?als=SheriBullock 
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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.
How are you doing today.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Sherry, I'm doing wonderful. Crazy, busy, but wonderful.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, me too. Busy good, I'm so busy.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Busy is good.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Busy is good.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
I even got up early today, which is really hard
for me on a Tuesday morning, and I still feel
like I'm running behind them. So much to do today,
and I'm really trying to prioritize getting my workouts in
doing all the stuff I need to do for me
plus everything else that I do. So I'm like set
up for success. I'm wearing my workout clothes and ready

(01:25):
to roll.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Awesome. Yeah, I've went in the sauna this morning. I'm
doing better at that. I actually wrote the word sauna
in my daily list of things to do. Sauna is now.
That doesn't mean I have to do it every day,
but it reminds me because I keep forgetting that.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
But Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Yeah, my function labs came back
that I have a lot of inflammation, particularly joint inflammation.
So I've been trying to use it like three times
a week to really help with that. And there's actually
like a setting on the sunlight and sauna for inflammation.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
But I also decided to do it updates today. I
did down day last night, so eating breakfast took the
place of my suna time this morning. Oh maybe tonight.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah. Yeah. Actually saw something that it could help with
sleep if you do it for bed. I don't know
if I want to to in the.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
When I would do it. Yeah, I'm so like. I
go all day and then finally in the evening Eric
makes me sit down and like watch TV with him,
and then I get so lazy that I have a
hard time getting up to do anything after that. It's
like I'm fed, I'm I'm watching TV, and then I
don't want to get back up and do anything. I

(02:34):
have a couple of times try to get up and
get my work out in after he goes to bed,
because he goes to bed so early, But then I
am just wired.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
And I can't go to sleep. So yeah, all that
gonna work.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, but Hannah, I might able to get that in
the evening because that's pretty relaxing. Okay, well, let's just
jump into feeling free in Tennessee, who has a celebration
this week. She wrote, Jen and Cherry, thank you so
much for your consistency and conviction and clear communication about
the ins and outs of the Eye of Lifestyle. I

(03:08):
am five nine forty two years old, a mom of three,
and currently sitting around two hundred pounds. I first encountered
Jen's book Delayed on Deny after reading The Obcit Code
by doctor Jason Fung in twenty twenty two, I hopped
right into intermittent fasting and I loved it, doing a
five to seven hour eating window approach. I started at
two hundred and ten pounds at that time. I lost

(03:30):
twenty five pounds or so, and then life interrupted. I
got pregnant and had a third baby after a seven
year break from childbirth, and obviously my fasting practice had
to shift. Well. I don't know if it was a
sudden pregnancy meets post COVID career blaws or what the
boy did it shift Once I got pregnant, I just
ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, including but not

(03:51):
limited to chocolate, fast food, ice cream, fried foods, and bread,
and then I continued to do so. In the first
few months of postpartum, I was pressed, so I often
found myself snacking in the middle of the night, sometimes
on granola bars or even chocolate. Well before I knew it,
I had reached an all time non pregnancy high of
two hundred and twenty five pounds. I felt terrible. I

(04:12):
looked puffy and uncomfortable. Anytime someone pulled a camera out
to take a picture of me with the kids, I
felt full of shame. And discomfort. I don't know it clicked,
but one day I woke up and said to myself,
not today, Satan, and also never again. So in March
of twenty twenty five, I started listening to the Fast
Feast Repeat podcast. I refreshed my memory on delay don't

(04:33):
deny in the Beastie code, and I got started. I
fasted dirty for about a week, and then I began
clean fasting shortly thereafter, and I have not looked back.
I eat within a five hour window a lot of days,
opening somewhere around four pm, but sometimes I windows a
little longer, and sometimes it's more like an O mad day.
It just depends on life. I love the flexibility this

(04:55):
lifestyle offers, among other non skilled perks. I still enjoy
all the foods I love of, even the occasional fast
food drive through splurge, although thanks to all of the
other benefits of IF, I am losing my taste for
this over time. I don't feel restricted. When I have
a special occasion or a birthday, I simply get back
to it the day following. On the occasions where I've
failed to fast for a few days in a row,

(05:17):
it was harder to jump back in but never impossible.
My will and commitment to continue is growing as I
begin experiencing the many benefits of this lifestyle. Since March
first of twenty twenty five, I have lost thirty five
pounds and I'm still going strong. I have become much
more physically active, at least partially due to the energy
boost I get from fasting, but also due to the

(05:37):
helpful distraction that exercise can be from the normal, non
urgent hunger waves that can come and go throughout the day.
Sometimes at nine am, I feel super hungry all of
a sudden, but ninety nine percent of the time if
I go for a brisk walk, it passes some other
non scale victories. I'm loving right now. I am seeing
body recomposition changes, the appearance of cellulite, and my legs

(05:59):
is dramatic decreased. My jaw line is reappearing, and my
clothes fit so much better. All my old genes are
falling off as I've gone down at least two pant
sizes so far. I feel a lot of energy, and
to meet me in public, you would never know. I'm
still waking up two to three times a night with
a baby. I don't feel sleepy or fatigued most of
the time. One nonscale victory that surprised me recently. The

(06:22):
other day, it occurred to me that I haven't had
one cold sore the entire time I've been doing IF
this time around. Normally I get one at least every
month or two. I lift it up in lo and behold.
It seems that managing and or preventing herpies out bricks
can be a benefit of IF. Who knew? Like most people,
I imagine, I started doing this primarily for weight loss benefits,
but I also knew that I'd be putting myself in

(06:44):
a powerfully healthy state, hopefully helping my body keep me
alive and thriving for many years to come. I plan
to continue forever, so I will hopefully live a vibrant
and vivacious life until I pass on. I am fully
in on cultivating the flexible rhythm of fasting, and I
am so happy I gave it another try.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
That is awesome. Yeah, I love that we definitely have
to take a break when pregnant and breastfeeding, but then
when you're ready to get back to it, your body
remembers what to do. What we've heard from so many
people sharing when they get back to it after a
break from pregnancy or an unexpected break that just whe
they stopped fasting for whatever reason, your body remembers. It's

(07:24):
not as hard to adapt as it may have been
the first time for a lot of people. Well, it
won't be a challenge.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
I was going to say. I think it's probably physically
still uncomfortable at first in the beginning, but like mentally
and the habit of fasting kind of is still back
in your brain, So it's not like a lot of
people have this sort of fear what if I get hungry,
what if I can't make it till my next fast?

(07:52):
But like you've already been through that experience, so like
that's no longer on your radar, which I think that
makes it easier to resume. And I've been that. You know,
if she takes a few days off from fasting, it
is harder to jump back in. You know, that's something
people do experience. But when you're dedicated and you're consistent
and you're like, yes, I know I took time off,

(08:13):
but I'm going to push through and it's going to
be easy again, then you can get right back at it.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, you don't have to get completely re metabolically adapted
every single time you take a couple days off, but
it does make it harder. You're right. We've talked about
that many, many times about when you go on vacation
or when you have holidays, you will thank yourself if
you stick to a window. No one has ever said, man,
I wish I had longer windows on vacage. Right. Yeah,

(08:38):
So now we have a question from a listener. This
is from Marie from Ireland. Hijen and Sherry, thank you
both for being so generous with your time and knowledge
with this podcast. It has already been hugely beneficial to
me and I look forward to listening each week. When
I first found the podcast, a nineteen five protocol sounded impossible,
but I decided to stick orn and apply the knowledge

(09:01):
you shared to the sixteen eight protocol I had done previously.
Like Jen says, it was difficult in theory but easy
in practice. Before long, I had bought Gen's books and
was doing the fast Start working up to nineteen five.
Aside from the initial few days, I found the clean
intermittent fasting lifestyle easy. I never really felt the waves

(09:22):
of hunger in my fast that other listeners mentioned in
their submissions. Finally, I had found a tool that would
work for me on autopilot. If you felt a butt coming,
you were right. I have recently been diagnosed with under
active thyroid. My low energy levels in the months before
the diagnosis meant that I didn't have the willpower I
needed to stay on my protocol. Suddenly, even fasting eight

(09:45):
to ten hours seemed like a mammoth task. My low
energy levels had me adding sugar and milk to my
coffee in the morning and kept me reaching for sugary
snacks just to get through the workday. It wasn't long
before I had regained the roughly fourteen hounds I had
lost between February first and June thirtieth. I have started
on the thyroid medication, and once my energy levels start

(10:07):
to return to normal, I plan to restart the twenty
eight day fast start like a new intermittent faster. I
was wondering if you have any experience with intermittent fasters
in the community with underactive thyroid, and could you share
if the lifestyle still works for them. I know that
I have to take the medication at least thirty minutes
before coffee or food. I understand from previous episodes that

(10:29):
coffee can help with pushing glycogen out, so I may
need to miss out on that push until I have
energy to begin my daily walks. Again, thank you so
much for all that you do, Marie.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
All right, so do we see people have success on
thyroid medicine. Absolutely, So it's interesting to me like that,
all of a sudden, it sounds like your thyroid just
kind of crashed, which makes me wonder if you had
some sort of viral or autoimmune issue with your thyroid.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
So I hope that.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
They're keeping track of that because sometimes you can have
a virus that causes your thyroid did not work really optimally,
but then it'll heal. This happened to my husband actually,
all of a sudden, he was really hypothyroid. They start
them on thyroid meds, and then he went back in
to the doctor like six months later, they drew his
labs and everything was suddenly like normal. And so when

(11:28):
he told them he'd been out of thyroid meds for
two months, they were like, you haven't been on your
thyroid medicine and he said no, because he's very non compliant.
But his labs were drastically different than when they were
like six months earlier, and so they were like, okay,
well maybe it's fluke whatever. They had him come back
in they read threw his labs. His thyroid has been

(11:49):
one hundred fine since then, So it was just a
weird thing. And like they said, you could have something
viral that's causing it to happen. So usually people start
noticing some of low thyroid like over time. I mean
I've even heard that before you are clinically diagnosed. Some
people are really truly like hypo subclinically hypothyroid for like

(12:10):
five to ten years. So anyway, definitely keep an eye
on that. What we notice is people once they are
on like people who are on thyroid medicine and they
start fasting, they often have to adjust their medicine and
start taking less of it because your body is using
thyroid hormones so much more efficiently. Part of that has
to do with your liver. The healthier your liver is,

(12:30):
the better it can metabolize your thyroid hormone. So definitely
keep an eye on that. You are right, you need
to take your medication at least thirty minutes before having
any food, especially fat. So I do hope that you
start feeling better. I really I think you should start
feeling better pretty quickly. I don't know when you started

(12:52):
on your meds, but definitely, you know, keep talking to
your doctor about that. And I'm going to be honest,
the clean fast is really going to help you with
your energy levels better than adding any sugar or anything
to your coffee. So if you're feeling sluggish in the morning,
really the best thing you can do is to do

(13:12):
a light walk. It doesn't have to be a vigorous walk.
Just get moving because you're right, that will push glicogen out.
Like coffee, you'll push some glicogen out. So maybe take
your meds and then take a little walk and then
from then you can come back in and get your
cup of coffee. But yeah, we have people who have
loss of success with both thyroid or hashimotives.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
And if yep, I was just going to add the
whole idea that having the cream and the sugar and
the sugary snacks gives you energy. Actually that is what
gets you trapped on the blood sugar roller coaster where
you have more slumps. Right, if I think back to
my life before intermittent fasting, I was on that roller

(13:54):
coaster every day. I was constantly spiking it up and
crashing it down all day, and so I would have
the quick hause for a minute and then the slump
that was way worse in response to that. So if
you're not feeling better, then I would talk to your
doctor about your meds and your dacage level. But I
don't know why you would need to wait to get

(14:15):
back started clean fasting.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
I would say too, I know that she says she's
clean fasting. But then like you were on nineteen five,
and then suddenly you started having low energy and you
started feeling like you needed to add stuff. You're fast
and you couldn't fast as long. So one or two
things is happening. One of three things could be happening.

(14:39):
You could be inadvertently breaking your fast with some Yeah,
a lot of people like to use some electrolytes in
their fast that have additives that break the fast, such
as citric acid or fulvic acid or cubic acid. Some
people are taking like amino acids thinking that they're safe
for the fast because the company says they are so
one hundred percent. Make sure there's no, nothing that you're

(15:01):
ingesting in your fast other than black coffee tea that
you brew yourself or plain water, because those low energy
levels could be a result of, in evarently breaking your fast.
Like I said, the other thing could be, if you're
having low energy levels, you could need some electrolytes, particularly
like some extra sodium. People that are a little low

(15:24):
on sodium often have a lot, like really low energy feeling.
Your cells use sodium for energy, so you may need
to add some sodium to your diet. And the third
thing would be is if you are below goal weight,
like a good maintenance weight for you, and you are
fasting too long for your body, and or you're not

(15:47):
eating enough in your eating window, and then you're gonna
probably feel low energy and hungry during your fast. So
those three things kind of came to mind while we
were talking. Yes, I think that just here that people
don't feel well while fasting even.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
With low thyroid right, all right.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
So our next question is from Bonnie and Illinois. She writes,
does brushing my teeth in the morning break the clean fast?
I have been doing if since the end of July
twenty twenty five, I usually do a twenty four protocol.
I've lost seven pounds and I mostly feel great. However,
the last few days I've been really hungry, especially in
the morning. I usually open my window at noon and

(16:24):
close it between four or five pm. I am sixty
five five six. I started at one hundred and seventy
eight pounds. I'm now one hundred and seventy one. My
goal is one hundred and fifty for now. I am
hoping that one forty might be a later goal. I
have dieted my whole life and I finally feel in control,
but I am wondering about the tooth brushing. Otherwise, my

(16:45):
fast is totally clean, black coffee and tap water only.
I'm also considering ADF as a way to be less hungry,
but it feels confusing. I like the simplicity of what
I'm doing now, but I wonder about my metabolism getting stuck.
Sometimes on the weekends, I'll have a day off and
just eat normally. Is that a good idea? Thank you
for your important help, I am so happy to have

(17:05):
found if.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
All right, Bonnie, let's go to the tooth brushing question.
First of all, it's fine to brush your teeth morning night.
We brush our teeth. It's brief. We move on. Even
if brushing your teeth caused a short insulin response from
the flavor of your toothpaste, it's going to be over
very very quickly and won't have a giant impact. If

(17:28):
you contrast that with drinking a beverage that breaks the fast,
you don't just have one sip. It goes on and
on and on and on. So brushing your teeth, don't
worry about it, brush and move on, And that would
not all of a sudden start making you hungry if
it hadn't been before. But what will is if your
body is about to flip the switch. I'm not sure
when this question came in. We're recording this in September,

(17:51):
and you've been doing intermittent fasting since the end of July.
I think it was pretty recent if I remember pretty recently,
so best case scenario, you've been doing intermittent fasting for
less than two months. But even if it just came
in like today, you've only been doing intermittent fasting for
two months or less by the time you wrote this in.
And if you've been taking weekend days off and only

(18:16):
doing intermittent fasting for two months, it is very possible
that your body hasn't flipped the switch yet. You could
be just keeping yourself right on the edge of that
metabolic adaptation. And when you get to the point that
your deliver is running out of the readily accessible glycogen,
you're about to flip that switch. You can have a
little extra hunger for a few days. The fast gets

(18:38):
a little harder before you flip the switch. So for
anybody who's listening, if you're going along and it's easy
and all of a sudden it gets harder, think about
how long you've been doing it. Could it be just
that your body is just getting ready to flip the
switch through in your first couple months, that's likely, Or
have you been taking more days off that will make
you hungrier, Or as we said in the prior question, answered,

(19:02):
are you accidentally breaking your fast in some way with
something else, something that's new, something that you've introduced that
you hadn't been having before, a supplement, a vitamin, even
a new medication. And when it comes to medications, you know,
if you have to take it, you have to take it,
but you can always talk to a doctor about when
you need to take it. A lot of things say
take first thing in the morning, but that just really

(19:23):
means take before food, and since we don't open until later,
you could shift that later, but that would be always
something to talk to your doctor about. So when it
comes to ADF, you're still way too early for ADF
at two months in, and we really caution people to
stick to intermitt and fasting for several months before trying

(19:44):
to get to ADF. And it's because of our experience
with people who try it too soon and then they
lose the plot. You really want to be completely metabolically
flexible and established to the point that you can't even
imagine not having a daily eating window. It's your life now,
then you're ready to start maybe trying with some ADF,
but only if you need to. This is also why

(20:06):
we recommend that you weigh daily and then once a
week take the time to calculate your weekly average. If
you are losing weight from one weekly average to the
next at one half to one pounds per week, week
after week after week, then you know that you are
doing fine. Now, if you like go on a vacation
and you don't lose weight, you know why. If you
have a lot of holidays or you're a little bit

(20:27):
not quite sticking to it, and you don't lose weight.
You know why. But if you're sticking to your intermittent
fasting goals consistently seven days a week, you should expect
to see some weight loss one half to one pound
a week from one weekly average to the next. If
you are sticking to it, you are doing it seven
days a week, and your weekly average suddenly stops trending downward,

(20:51):
you're just stuck week after week after week for like
four weeks, for example. Then you need to like really
reassess and think about two things. Number One, am I
at a healthy weight now where my body can maintain easily?
This might just be your maintenance weight. Or Number two,
has your body adapted to your daily eating window, in

(21:11):
which case maybe it's time to consider some ADF. But
we don't need to do it just to do it,
And I don't want you to feel pressured into doing
it or feeling like you have to do it. I
want you to do it when you're ready, if you
need to.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
I wanted to say too, I wonder if she just
recently started to feel like what it feels like to
be fat adapted, And then if she is taking off
time on the weekends, right if, like she said, the
last few days that it.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Has felt harder.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
So I wonder if, like she wrote this in on like,
maybe it was a Tuesday and she took off, didn't
fast on Sunday, and so then Monday she was really
struggling to flip the switch. Maybe even Tuesday flips are
going to flip the switch because you're, like you said,
she's not been fasting that long and she's been taking

(22:06):
weekends off, so she's kind of riding that edge.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
So I would really think that if she can just
fast consistently seven days a week, that should probably go away.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
I really think that people don't realize how important that
actually is for your first few months. We talk about
intermittent fasting being really flexible, and when you have been
doing it as long as Sherry and I have, we
know what to expect. I could have a longer window
one day, and I know how to get back to
my normal routine. I know what it feels like. But
if you're new, that's not the time to experiment with

(22:39):
the flexibility. We'll have time to get there, right, But
people who experiment with flexibility too early are the ones
who end up stopping and it suddenly gets hard, and
then they're like, why did I quit? I haven't been
fasting for two months now, and though now I'm starting over.
So we want to stop that starting over mentality by
just really nailing that consistency until you know your body

(23:01):
has it down before trying to throw any other wrinkles
in there. Yeah, for sure, And now it's time for
our segment called What's Your Why. Most of us begin
intermittent fasting with weight loss in mind, which is a
great reason to start, but there is so much more
to what intermittent fasting can do for us beyond weight loss.
I genuinely believe when your why is deeper than weight

(23:23):
loss alone, you're more likely to find long term success
and to view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle. So this
week we have a.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Wife from Christine. Christine wrote, as Jen always asks what
brought you to intermittent fasting? For me, it's been a
long journey. I grew up dancing competitively, and I stayed
thin into my early twenties, even on a junk food
diet because I was constantly moving. But once I stopped
dancing and became an elementary school teacher. My activity level

(23:51):
dropped while my eating habits stayed the same. Over the years,
the weight piled on and I eventually accepted being plus size.
Over the years, I tried calorie counting. I would lose
five to fifteen pounds here and there, but could never
stick with it. Hunger and frustration always won. I discovered
IF in twenty seventeen, but I wasn't committed to the

(24:12):
Clean Fast. I thought calories in, calories out was the
only way, and fasting with flavored coffees and creamers made
it unsustainable and I never got results. A year ago,
my family lost a loved one to a lifestyle related illness,
and my mom, in her sixties, began weight loss injections
for pre diabetes that made her sick, and I realized

(24:34):
I don't want this to be my future. So I
went back to Jen's Fast peas repeat, reread it cover
to cover, and this time I fully committed to the
Clean Fast. Now it's black coffee, plain tobochico and water only,
no flavors, no creamers. It hasn't been a perfect road.
I've stumbled through the twenty eight day fast start before
quitting on day twenty nine when the scale didn't budge,

(24:55):
or when the adjustment period felt too hard. But each
time I've learned, and ea time I've come back stronger.
My why because I want to be healthy is I age,
because I don't want my life cut short my lifestyle
related illness, because I deserve freedom from diets, guilt, and frustration.
This isn't just about losing weight. It is about living
fully with health, strength and joy for the years ahead.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah, I totally get it. We're just so entrenched. We
want everything to be easy. But you know, as there's
a lesson and twenty eight day fast start pick your hard. Yeah,
it can be hard to sit around while everybody else
is having breakfast a to date in the morning and
it looks really good and you're like, I can't have that.
It feels like, you know, you're depriving yourself of something.

(25:40):
But when you realize that what you're depriving yourself of
by skipping that breakfast is metabolic issues being overweight, I
would like to deprive myself of those things. Suddenly I
no longer feel like I'm depriving myself of the breakfast.
It's just a mindset shift and mindset is that's important.

(26:00):
Oh my gosh, there were so many years from twenty
nine to twenty fourteen when I dabbled in fasting that
I would be like mad right that I just couldn't
eat all day. I had to get past that for
intermittten fasting to be a lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
I want to say to anybody who's listening right now,
if you are in your twenty eight day fast start,
if you are even in your first six weeks, if
it's feeling hard right now, please don't quit right because
I promise very soon your body's going to start flipping
the switch and you're going to feel amazing. And it

(26:35):
right about the point where you're like, this is hard,
I'm tired of struggling is usually about the point that
your body's ready to do something super.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
It gets harder again before it gets easier.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, keep pushing a lot of times people we've just
noticed during the first several days it's really hard, and
then all of a sudden they're like, oh, my hunger
is adjusting, I'm feeling better, And then they may have
an easy ten days, and then they might have some
hard days and it's gonna go like that. You're gonna
have some days where you're low energy, you're not gonna

(27:07):
be able to work out anymore. And this is where
Jenn's twenty eight day fastart book is so great, because
it's gonna walk you through all of this. But please
don't give up. Please please please commit to twelve weeks
at least because something magical's gonna happen in that time.
And then the other thing is set yourself up for
realistic expectations. You may not lose one single pound during

(27:30):
the twenty eight day fasttart, that's okay. That's not weight
loss time. That is habit building time. That is getting
your body fat adapted time. That is not weight loss time.
The weight loss happens, the fat loss happens once your
body is able to burn fat for energy. So keep pushing.
I don't want you to have to start over again

(27:50):
in three months when you're like, maybe I should have
stuck with it. You're doing it now, stick with it.
You'll get there, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
And I always like to remind people if this lifestyle
were miserable and you felt the way you feel on
your worst days every day forever, we wouldn't be doing
it this long. No, you know, I started in twenty
fourteen and haven't quit since. And it's because I feel amazing.
But yeah, that doesn't mean every moment is amazing, right right,

(28:19):
but there are a lot more amazing moments as an
intermittent faster than like prior to intermittent fasting.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Exactly exactly, all right, So we have another question. This
is from Nikki and Floras, Iowa. She said, Hello, I
love your podcast. I had a quick question for you guys.
For the last six months or so, I've been doing
daily eighteen to twenty hour intermittent fasting. I'm also going
through menopause, so I'm not sleeping very well. I just
started taking a fast dissolved melotonein tablet to help me sleep,

(28:47):
and it works great. I just realized I should probably
look at the ingredients and I'm hoping this is not
breaking my fast, but I have a feeling it may.
It's a five milligram tablet. Usually I break it in half,
but the ingredients include xylotol, dextrin, food starch and natural flavor,
steric acid, and all sorts of other citric acid, all

(29:08):
sorts of other ingredients here. She says, Uugh, that's a lot.
I guess I assume melotanin was all natural, and apparently
I was wrong. So Jen, do you have any suggestions
for her?

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Well, that is definitely not going to be the melatonin
that you're looking for. And there's so many different melatonin
formulations that you're not going to taste. You just swallow
it down like a capsule. They even have like slow
release ones like I saw some like I was having
some really some trouble sleeping at the beginning of August.
Of course y'all know now that was when I was
going through my the force early days and I wasn't sleeping,

(29:44):
like I literally did not sleep for a week. I
didn't sleep, I couldn't sleep. My mind was raising. I
couldn't sleep, which is not like me. But even with
the progesterone, I was waking up the melanite. I couldn't sleep,
and I'm like, well, I wonder if melatonin would help. Well,
melatonin makes me feel crazy. No meltone. It did not help.
But I went and looked for some melotonin and I

(30:05):
settled on one that had like layers to it. It
was like one that was quick release and then the
rest was slow release. And so I took that that
would not break a fast in the same way because
like you swallow it down and then the quick release
layer pops out and then the slow release layer. It'spos
to help you stay asleep anyway. I have thrown the
melotone in a way because it makes me feel like
I have a terrible hangover. It always has, but also

(30:29):
not sleeping well makes you feel like I have a
terrible hangover. Melotonin doesn't work for me, but I would
look for a different formulation of the meliton.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
And I was gonna say, and now, most sleep doctors
would would not advise taking five miligrams of melatonin. They
really advise if you're going to take it short term,
don't take it routinely, and take as low a dose
as possible, Like I've read anywhere from one to three milligrams.

(30:57):
But I did just find one that would be fine
for the clean fast, and it is time released and
it's three milligrams. So just to help you out, I'll
drop that in show notes for you.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, I just feel so terrible on it. But I've
also read the cautions about not taking it all the time,
but it did not make my sleep better. I don't
know if anything could have at that time dreams. It
just makes me feel weird in my head, like like heavy,
like not good.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
It's not sensitive though, like I mean when you take
your progesterone before bedtime, like.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Bam, you're goofy. I am, Yeah, my body reacts to
things differently than I'm like, I can't take benadrola to yeah,
I do. I get goofy. Bit it feels good. It
feels like when I take my progress throne, I feel like, well,
I feel so good. It doesn't affect you like that
at all? Does it?

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Nope? Not at all.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Like I didn't even realize it was doing that at first,
like the first few times when I was taking it,
and all of a sudden one day Chad was like,
are you okay? You see I'm like, what are you
talking about? Then I realized, actually I think I am.
Then I connected it. Obviously it's the progester. But it
feels like I've had like like a wine or something anyhow.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
And I'll be texting with Roxy and I and she'll
start getting goofy and she'll say, I'm sorry, I already
took my ground. She's like I can't find words anymore.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
True, And that just goes to show that we're all
different in our know a chemical makeup. I should like
take some progester and record the podcast. No, I won't
do that. It would be too goofy. All right, Our
next question. Our next question is from Wondering in London. Hello,

(32:45):
Jen and Cherry. I discovered your podcast via Zoe and
started intermittent fasting in January of twenty twenty four. I'm
thirty five one hundred and seventy five centimeters tall, and
I weigh about sixty five kilometers. I don't know why
I keep suddenly saying kilometers. This is the second time
I've done that. It's kilograms. It even has the kg.

(33:05):
She does not weigh me that the other day I did.
It's like my hit. My eyes are a hit when
I read really fast, so I'm like looking ahead and
my mouth is just saying one thing in my brain anyway,
So she does not weigh kilometers. She has sixty five kilograms.
What I was thinking, Sherry, was I have no idea.
Would you do some calculation and figure out how tall?

Speaker 2 (33:26):
Right now?

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Pay good? She said, although I haven't weighed in a
while because I prefer to see how I fit and
feel in my clothes. I have no notable health issues.
I try to aim for nineteen five with some variations.
I keep track with a fasting app and my average
fast is seventeen and a half hours. My window is
usually between three or four pm and nine PM. I

(33:47):
never really struggled with my weight. My average natural BMI
sits in the healthy range around twenty one to twenty two.
But I struggled with fad diets, body image, and a
relationship with food since my teenage years. When I reach
to my lowest BMI of sixteen, for a year or so,
I had hypothalamic amin rhea. Did I say both of those? Right?

(34:08):
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Amen Aria?

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah? That lasted even with a healthy BMI, which was
frustrating because I was already following the general lifestyle recommendations,
plant based, whole though diet, low stress level, moderate daily exercise,
a mix of Pilate's yoga, et cetera. And exactly one
year into intermittent fasting, my period's finally resumed. I think

(34:31):
it's due to how much more relaxed I am around
food when I fast. Because I don't restrict anymore, eating
feels more intuitive and satiety is easier to reach. I
don't really struggle with waves of hunger, though I don't
feel as energized as i'd like to. Sometimes I feel
a bit lightheaded and tired. So did you get a
chance to pull all that together? I did?

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, I did so smart BMI. The ideal range is
thirty over seventy to thirty nine over seventy. She is
thirty three free over seventy, so she's on the low
end of the healthy.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yeah, mine, okay, okay. I think that's really really important
to know, she said. I know how important it is
to fast clean, so I only drink plain water and
black coffee. However, I wonder if the soluble powdered coffee
brand Es Cafe I drink two to four teaspoons per
day is combatible with clean fasting. The ingredient is one
hundred percent arabica, but as it is powder form, I

(35:28):
wonder if we should consider it like macha as food
because we do ingest a finely ground plant diluted in water.
Thank you so much for your help.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Well, there's sort of some mixed opinions on this. I mean,
you're not really ingesting the finally ground plant. Basically, what
they do is they make There's different ways to make
this instant coffee. I've researched it things I never thought
I would research. They basically like make coffee and dehydrate

(35:58):
it or freeze dry it. There's different ways to do it.
I will tell you that we have had fasters in
the community who did discover, whether it was accidentally, like
they always drink brood coffee, but they went on a
trip and brought an instant powdered coffee with them, or

(36:18):
they were vacationing somewhere and that's what they were offered.
Or sometimes people start out drinking that thinking they're great,
but you know, they're six months in and they are
still struggling with fasting, and so they give it up
and realize, like fasting is so much easier. Other people
drink it every day and don't have any problem with it.
So I don't have like a clear cut answer for you.

(36:41):
If you think that it could be contributing to you
feeling lightheaded and tired, I would go without it. That's
the only way you're going to know. If it's the coffee,
go without it, switch to a brood coffee, get some
cold brew, clean fast approved coffee, do something else instead
and see if that makes a difference. If it doesn't,

(37:05):
you may be somebody who needs electrolytes in your window
or in the fast. In your fast or your window,
it's really up to you when you take them. The
thing is, when you're eating in your window, you ask
where you should be getting your electrolytes from food. But
if you can find a clean fast electrolyte, it might
help you to take one when you wake up in
the morning. Alternately, you can just take like a quarter

(37:26):
teaspoon of some high quality salt, like a Celtic sea salt,
a Himalayan salt, and dissolve it in some warm water
and drink it like you would any other hot beverage.
You can also just put it under your tongue and
kind of hold it under your tongue sublinqually and let
it kind of dissolve there. That's like a quick way
to get in your body and see if that makes

(37:48):
a difference. I am one that just needs more electrolytes
and being lightheaded. That can be a sign that you
could need some electrolytes, but it also can be a
sign you're breaking your fast. So definitely experiment and see
what helps make you feel better, because you shouldn't be
feeling that like that why you're fasting.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, and I would have a couple of other things
to look at. If you're lightheaded, that can have to
do with blood pressure, So get your blood pressure checked
and see if your blood pressure is low. And again
electrolytes can make a difference there as well. And also
you know you could be low in iron, you could
be low in B twelve.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Oh see that's the other thing. Because she's said she's
plant based, Definitely get your twelve helve checked because like
dizziness or lack of feeling of balance, like feeling dizzy
going up the stairs, that can be a sign of
B twelve deficiency.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
And we know that a plant based diet you need
to supplement with BE twelve. And scientifically, I can explain why.
It's because we're so we're too clean. We're too clean now, right,
So when we used to eat food a long time ago,
it had like dirt, it was dirty. We ate dirty
food we didn't know and the dirty food we had
napped the B twelve from like the soil. Right, Like animals,

(39:01):
animals are a great source of B twelve because they
get it from the soil and so they pass it
on to us. But our plants are so clean we're
missing it. So anyone on a plant based diet needs
to supplement with B twelve. So check into that. And
as I have experimented with being plant based here and there,
my BE twelve was low. Then my doctor actually had

(39:22):
me on BE twelve shots for a while. I was
given them to myself share And I mean, I don't know.
I didn't feel bad, I didn't feel better, but my
levels were low, Like I never couldn't tell they were low.
But being lightheaded or tired.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Can be an indication, all right, So we have a
question for Marissa in Pennsylvania. She said, I want to
make sure our tweek I'm considering doesn't break a fast.
Lately I've been hearing about perfect aminos and how they
are great to take during a fast. They come in
an unflavored powder or pills. Looking at the ingredients, they
don't seem to have any food like items in the pills,
but the powder has stevia, so I know the powder

(39:57):
is a no. They advertise that they don't break a fast.
Can you tell me if the pills are okay in
the fast or should I take them in the eating window?
Thank you, and I love your podcast. Well, they absolutely
do break a fast. Sorry I hate to tell you that,
but just put them in your window. And here's how
you can ask yourself this question and figure it out.
You're right about the stevia. You got that. So we

(40:17):
have our three fasting goals. Number one, keep insulin low,
and that's why we would avoid the stevia. We don't
want to have this a fallat phase insulin response, so
you're right on that one. Clean fast goal number two
is we want to burn our stored fat for fuel,
so we're not putting things in there like butter in
our coffee, oil in our coffee. We're not having any
source of fuel.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
But clean fast goal number three is we want to
experience increased autophagy, so we avoid anything that is like
protein or the building blocks of protein. And the perfect
amino is you amino acid, that's the building block of protein.
So during our fast, we want our body to be
breaking down and recycling our own protein. That's our body's

(40:58):
clean up time. So we put protein in during our
eating window, and that would include any supplements that have
any sort of protein or that's going to help us
with building up, so that the eating window is our
building up time, the fasting is our cleaning up time.
So anything that is a nutrient, put it in during
the during the eating window, keep it out of the

(41:19):
fast so you can ask yourself that in the future,
you can say, Okay, amino's building block of protein, I
want to have increased autology during the fast. I'm going
to save that for my eating window. Hopefully that helps.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yep. All right, So before we get the week of
the week, I just want to share about the success
some of my coaching clients are having since we started
working together. And I just want to remind anyone who's
needing a little one on one troubleshooting to bust a plateau,
or just some problem solving to figure out how to
balance fasting with life, please reach out to me. We
can work on all of this. We can work on mindset,

(41:52):
we can work on setting personal goals for motivation and
just accountability to yourself. So one of my weekly clients,
I'm so proud of her. She's having huge success in
all of the above. After just three sessions, she is thriving.
She has busted a multi month plateau and she's feeling great.
Another client was really struggling to shorten up her fasting

(42:13):
window in order to see her weight loss goal. She
was closed, but she just couldn't get there. And with
some consistent work and weekly sessions and some daily check ins,
she is now nailing her eating windows. Even with a
vacation and a very pesky kidney stone that she suffered
after vacation, she has still been doing great. So you

(42:36):
would like some help, I do book out several weeks
in advance, so don't wait reach out today. Just email
me at Cherry at fast feastrepeat dot com. And once again,
Sherry has one R sh E R I.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
I love that you're doing this because people need all
levels of support. I keep bringing this back to my
life as a teacher. I got the kid in the corner.
You could just hand on the copy of the math
book and say go, and that kid could teach themself
math or her self math all day long. They don't
need any support from you. They just they got it right.
That would be like someone who just can read the
books about fasting and they're on their own they go,
whereas other people need a little more help. We've got

(43:12):
these podcasts. They help people the community another layer of support,
and then some people need that one on one. They
just need it. Just like in the classroom, some kids
needed to come sit with me and go over the
math a little bit before they could get it. And
there's no shame in that. And different phases of our
life we might need more support in other ways.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Well. And what's interesting too is like sometimes people think
they're doing things right, but then when they start telling
me what they're doing, I can identify, like instantly, like
what is holding them back? Or it's just sometimes people
like to tell themselves stories like I'm doing all I
can do. But then when I really we sit and
talked about it and I'm like, well, tell me why

(43:56):
you feel that way, we can really figure out like
their holding themselves back out of fear or they don't
they're afraid to be a little uncomfortable, but if we
can work through that together and they know they have
somebody supporting them, or sometimes they just need somebody to
tell them what to do.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yeah, there are.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
People out there who just really like to follow instructions right.
They don't want to think, they don't want to. My
husband's one of these people. He doesn't want a problem solve,
he doesn't want to have to use his brain too hard.
He's got a busy brain anyway. He just really wants
it lined out, do this and this and check back
in with me. And if I want him to do chores,
I just make him a list and he's going to

(44:37):
do it. If I say, hey, if you don't have
a thing to do today, why don't you do some
work around the house, Nothing's going to happen because he
doesn't know where to even start. So sometimes you just
need that person to help you identify where to start,
what to tweet, what next. And I'm having a lot
of fun helping them and really seeing their success.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
So yeah, and we know from all these years we've
been working. When did you start? Was it twenty sixteen?

Speaker 2 (45:00):
So I started?

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Did you start alriting twenty eighteen?

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Well, okay, like January maybe January of twenty eighteen, because
we went on the first cruise in June of twenty eighteen,
and I'd been moderating for.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
A while before then. Yeah, so yeah, so twenty eighteen.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Think asked me to be your roommate for the second
cruise that we hadn't even taken the first cruise.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
We hadn't even met yet. I was like, I can
tell I really like Shary. Yeah, just from interactions behind
the scenes and in the community or in the Facebook group.
It was the Facebook group then, but yeah, So we've
been helping people since Sherry, since twenty eighteen as a
moderator in the Facebook groups back then, and so we
really know we've seen it all and don't be embarrassed.

(45:43):
Also like say, you know what, I'm not nailing the
clean fast, help me or whatever it might be. So
now it's time for our tweak of the week. 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. And that's why it is super helpful
to you. How other intermittent fasters are making intermittent fasting

(46:03):
work for them. This is Sally from Aliston, Ontario. She said,
for me, when I open my window, I have to
have a good amount of protein twenty five to thirty
grams or I am grazing all afternoon unsatiated. I cannot
get by on a snack. I tried it. This sustains
me until dinner and dinner has become a smaller meal

(46:26):
than it used to be. Another pleasant surprise, saving a
lot on groceries. And I want to talk about that
for just a minute if I could, Uh, I wish
I could go back and revise. I often wish I
could go back and revise things. Book books that are
out in the world that have a recommendation in both
Fast Feast Repeat. And then when I wrote twenty eight

(46:46):
day Fast Start day by day, I followed the same
format for the fast start that I had in Fast
East Repeat, and I recommend a snack and a meal.
I think there are a lot of people like Sally
who need to open with a meal. And I think
there are a lot of people trying to open with
a snack and then finding that that's not satiating. Then

(47:07):
they overeat, and then they end up eating a whole
second meal because it's dinnertime.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Well, I think it depends on what you define a
snack ass Well, that's true. Like if you're eating snack foods, yeah,
and you're not gonna have a lot of nutrition in there.
If you're opening with veggies and grapes and a handful
of almonds, that may not be really satisfying. That's not

(47:34):
a lot of food, so it really depends on That's
why for me, I can't even tell you do I
open with a snack or do I open with a
meal because my snack could be somebody else's meal, And
for me, hot food makes all the difference. Opening with
something hot after over eating something cold makes a lot

(47:55):
of difference. And how satisfied I am through the you know,
up until my main meal.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
But it goes back to that, the recommendation snack and
then meal. People lock into that and think that is
what they should be doing. So I wish I had
written it more flexibly and even said snack, meal, meal, snack,
think about it like that. My whole point was that
for weight loss for me, two full meals was not

(48:22):
a weight loss approach for me, no matter how long
my window was. If I tried to squeeze two full
meals in five hours, that was not a window weight
loss window for me. Two meals and eight r two meals,
two full meals. And like I'm a volume meter, so
what I considered to be a meal someone else, what
I considered to be a snack might be someone's lunch, right,
But I wish that I hadn't put it that way

(48:44):
and said, be flexible with it and figure it out.
So if when you open your window, this is for everybody.
If when you open your window you're locked in on
the idea, well, Jen said, start with a snack and
then you're starving, and then you keep eating. Then what
you're opening with is not sufficient. Now that I am
by myself and I am not sitting down at a
meal time with Chad, and bless his heart, we know

(49:06):
one thing about Chad was he was original meal times.
Like literally the clock didn't say five o'clock. He wasn't
going to have it by food till it's aid five o'clock.
So we were having our dinner around six. So I
had to or even after that, I had to schedule
my window around when Chad wanted to have dinner. But

(49:26):
now that I am free to do what I want,
I am opening with my main meal whenever that might be.
I start cooking, I have my main meal, I eat it,
and then later I'm not having a second main meal.
But maybe like five thirty six o'clock, like maybe I
open it two thirty, maybe I open at three thirty,

(49:47):
whatever it might be, have my main meal and maybe
six o'clock I need a little something else. I mean,
just whatever it might look like. But it really that
is what's working really really well for me. And I
think back to when I was so successful as a teacher,
and it was so easy to fast till I got
home from work and I didn't even think about eating

(50:09):
at work. I got home and I would start making
dinner and so I would have my main meal. Right.
So once I retired and started, I would want to
eat around two and I would have like a full
meal and then have to have another full meal. So
that was just really too much for me. So keep
experimenting with what you call it and how big it is,

(50:29):
and even if you have to feed a family. I
finally got to the point where I realized that wasn't
working well. And if you need to open with something hearty,
even if you're eating by yourself, and then later you
have to put a full meal on the table for
your family, have a snack sized portion of that full meal.
Just really really think about what suits you. But it

(50:50):
probably won't be having one full meal at two o'clock
and then another full meal later with your family's probably
not going to be it, but anyway, I just want
to take it.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Yet I would have to. That is, if you were
like plant based, Yeah, oh that's true. You may absolutely
need two full meals eating one.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
You know, because of the calorie density of those plant
based foods, especially if you're a low fat, whole food
plant based and that that's the concept of calorie density
that really makes a difference. And I tend to eat
very colorically dense foods because I love dairy, I love cheese,
and those are more colorically dense and they're also more
satisfying over time. But I also pair that with a

(51:29):
whole lot of veggies.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Right, yeah, all right, Well, we love to leave you
with inspirational motivational quotes, and this week we have a
quote from Denzel Washington that was shared by Vivian. Dreams
without goals are just dreams, and ultimately they feel disappointment.
On the road to achieving your dreams, you must apply discipline,
but more importantly, consistency, because without commitment, you'll never start,

(51:53):
but without consistency you'll never finish. That is so good,
and that applies to fasting so much. I always say
it takes like discipline, dedication, consistency, to really build the
habit and like that quote, just nailed it.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
The magic is in the clean fast, the magic is
in your eating window, but the magic is also in
the repeat.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
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 3 (52:37):
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 (52:48):
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 (53:09):
Until next week. Thanks for listening.