Episode 122: Lipedema, Food Quality & Satiety, Protein Timing, and More

Welcome to this week’s episode of Fast. Feast. Repeat. Intermittent Fasting for Life, with Gin Stephens and Sheri Bullock.
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to 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's Sherry?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm doing great.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
How are you meet too? Working on a brand new
project that I've never talked about.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, okay, let's hear about it.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm so excited. Well, I started writing a new book,
and really, honestly, I've been toying with this in my
mind for about eighteen months, would you say, Sherry, maybe longer,
Maybe longer, to the point that I even like floated
it with my literary agent and to my publisher. They
actually made me an offer for it last summer. So

(01:26):
summer of twenty twenty four, I had a publishing deal
offered to me for this book, and I just turned it.
I turned it down and decided I wanted to write
it myself. They didn't like the type the title is
eat like a grown Up, And both my agent and
my editor said, we love the idea, but work, of
course we're going to have to change the title. I'm like, well,
of course we're not, because that's the fight, all of it.

(01:49):
And you really don't have freedom when you go with
a publishing deal. So i'd you know, I've been taking notes.
I'm the kind of person like been gathering my resources
and taking notes ever since then, and had a file
with it, and I even started outlining the book and
I was like, Okay, it's time to write the book.
So and I guess it was August. I was like,
time to write the book. I started writing it, and

(02:11):
then all of a sudden, I realized this is not
a book. This is more than a book. So I'm
working on an app that is actually going to be
a learning app, and the whole Eat Like a grown
Up program is going to be in the app. It's
going to be a fifty two week sounds like a lot,
like it's kind of like a course, but it's going

(02:31):
to be video and each week is going to have
a focus, and it has like a little community component.
But it's I'm so excited about it. I've got the
whole thing mapped out in.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
No It's basically about creating small, sustainable changes over the
course of a year to improve you're eating exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
That's exactly what it is. And it's called Eat Like
a grown Up. Is the movement, Like I would like
this to get bigger than even intermittent fasting. I would
like Eat Like a grown Up movement to like take
hold with everybody. I was talking to my call dreammate about,
you know, the young kids these days that they might
be in their twenties, but they don't know how to
eat like a grown up. They're door dashing, they're ordering

(03:10):
chicken fingers. They don't know how to eat. And I
think a lot of us need a refresh when it
comes to food. You know, my first book about eating
was Feast Without Fear that I wrote in twenty seventeen,
and I think that since twenty seventeen we've only gotten
more confused about food, especially when we start, you know,
looking outward instead of looking inwards. So eat like a

(03:31):
grown up is the umbrella idea. But the fifty two week,
I guess course, I don't want to call it a course.
I think it's like a transformational learning journey. I'm still
working about how I'm going to describe it, but it's
the grown up year, fifty two weeks to listen, play,
and nourish. So every single week, every week there's a lesson,

(03:54):
there's something we're focusing on, but it and it builds
and you're applying it. But every week has a focus
for listening to your body, playing with your food. That's
finding joy. It's going to be fun and nourishment or
nourishing our bodies. So I'm so excited about it. I
got the whole thing mapped out, like I said, and
it again, it was way too much just to be
like a book that you read and then you go

(04:15):
on about your life. Because you have to implement it,
you need to do it. It's like, you know, this
week we're focusing on you know, maybe satiety, or maybe
this week we're focusing on your swaps. So this week
we're great journey. It's an exploration journey and it's in
six phases and I'm just really really excited about it.
Like we're focusing on cultural traditions. We're going to talk

(04:35):
about the blue zones.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
I don't think it is a coincidence that the health
of America especially has declined since the nineteen seventies, which
was when a lot of convenience foods started showing up,
which also happened to coincide with when a lot of
women started going back into the wor workforce, not being

(05:02):
at home latch key kids. We needed quick meals, kids
needed to be able to cook themselves dinner easily without
a parent supervise. Add to that, sports has no longer
become a recreational something you do on the weekends. To
people's lives are kids, sports, tournaments, travel, and you know,

(05:28):
just our entire lifestyle has shifted where I can see
how and why we've gotten away from eating real food.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
And then people don't know how to cook it right.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
And in order to really reclaim true health and vitality
and prevent you know, metabolic decline and metabolic disease, we
have to get back to eating real food.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yeah, and this is not going to be one of
those programs that were like at the end of it.
It's going to be seven days a week of perfection,
three hundred and sixty five days a year of perfection.
It's just asking yourself the questions which choice would serve
me best today and be more fitting with the idea
of eating like a grown up right, and little swaps,

(06:12):
little changes things that you can do. Maybe you just
only can sit down and have a mule together as
a family one night a week, and that's actually one
of the weeks, you know, that's your goal for that week.
And I'm just really really excited about the platform that
it's going to be on. And there's going to be
an iOS app, there's going to be an Android app.
You'll be able to access it from your phone or
from the website, and I'm really excited hopefully it'll be

(06:35):
ready to and I've been working so hard on it.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Excellent, excellent, all right. Oh, I've just noticed that you're
wearing your earrings I give you for your birthday.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Oh I am yeah, I love them, do you?

Speaker 2 (06:47):
I'm so glad.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yes, They're like one of my favorite pairs of earrings
now because they're light and airy. They're not heavy at all.
I cannot tolerate heavy earrings all throughout the day anymore.
Only wear heavy earrings if I'm going some more special.
But any they had like a little sea glass greenish
tinge to the little what would you just got a
little stone on the bottom their gold wire earring? Sea

(07:10):
anytime I've got any green at all in my outfit
orked aqua or and I have a lot of clothes
with those colors in there. Yep.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well, as soon as I saw them, I was like,
oh my gosh, there's a gin. But here's what you
guys don't know. I'm really bad at mailing things, really
bad at mailing things. Don't never ask me to mail
you anything. I bought these for her for her birthday
in July of twenty twenty four, and they did not
come in in time for me to take them to her.

(07:38):
I thought they would. I had to have them special
order because they only came in silver, and she wears gold,
so I had to have them made in gold. They
came like while I was at her house, so for
a year I was like, Oh, I need to send
your birthday present. I need to send in your birthday present.
I finally just hand carried them to her this July
a year later. So it worked. But anyway, fun, I

(08:00):
like them, I love them, like you, all right, let's celebrate.
Darlene in New Jersey Darling wrote my celebration and success
story equals my why they all roll into one. I
started IF back in twenty twenty three for the benefit
of weight loss and to help with inflammation and GI issues.
When I started fasting, I weighed in at one hundred
and sixty five with a height of five five at

(08:22):
fifty two years old. My story begins in May of
twenty twenty three when I started with severe GI issues
of cramping, bloating, and violent vomiting. This would usually surprise
me in the middle of the night, and after a
few hours it would subside and I would fall back asleep.
The first time it happened, I chalked it up to
food poisoning, so I continued on with my regular eating habits.

(08:42):
Fast forward a few weeks while enjoying summer and of
course some over indulgence with beach food and drinks, and
I found myself waking up the same way again with
extreme dehydration. That called for a trip to the er.
They diagnosed me with a small ballo obstruction, placed me
on IV fluids for three days. The goodness no surgery
was needed. I followed up with a gastroenterrologist and went

(09:04):
in for a colonoscopy and everything came back normal. No blockage,
no inflammation, no ibs, no crowns. This was confusing and
I really just wanted a reason at this point. That
was when I found fast Feast Repeat and I started
my first day. I felt great. I followed the twenty
eight day fast start and I continued on for the
next year, adapting to an eighteen six or nineteen five routine.

(09:27):
My weight went down to one hundred and forty seven,
My belly inflammation disappeared, and there was no more waking
up with GI issues. Then the winter hit and it
was a long cold winter, and with that window creep happened.
The scales started creeping up and I was back to
my old habits and old weight. Fast forward again in
May of twenty twenty five, while enjoying my old habits,

(09:49):
and then one night, once again I woke up with
sphere cramping, vomiting and off to the er we go.
This time I told them what was going on with
my body and they diagnosed another small ballel obstruction and
treated me with fluids. So again I followed up with
a gastra enterlogist. This time they did an MRI because
they are convinced that I have Crones disease. Nope, no inflammation,

(10:11):
no IBS negative for crones. Everything negative. So back to IF.
Day one of intermant fasting was on June first, twenty
twenty five, starting weight of one hundred and sixty five
and now age fifty four, I had decided if has
got to be my lifestyle. It works for me and
I feel great. My weight has dropped to one hundred

(10:32):
and fifty as of today, September of twenty twenty five.
I am back to my eighteen six window. I don't
feel sluggish or puffy. I am my own study of
one and in my studies, I decided my tweak was
to remove gluten from my diet. The doctor's never found
a reason for my GI issues and never told me
to give up gluten. But I feel so much better
and I don't miss it. So I'm celebrating the success

(10:55):
IF has brought back into my life, not only with
weight loss, but also the I see and feel in
my body, and all of this equals my way. Thank
you IF Forever.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Wow, that sounds like a really hard thing to go through,
but digestive rest works for Darlene's body or whatever reason,
her body doesn't like that frequent eating, eating all day
it upsets her GI system. So hooray for digestive rest
and feeling better. All right, we've got a question from
a listener. This question is from Christy in Texas. Hey

(11:29):
you guys. First of all, I love listening. I am
needing some guidance back history. I have been overweight my
entire life. I have done all the diets. I even
had gastric sleeve surgery in twenty fourteen. My highest weight
was right before surgery at two eighty three. I was
able to get down to two fifteen, but then I
would hover around two thirty five with diet and exercise.

(11:52):
I started taking Manjaro in twenty twenty three and was
able to get down to about one sixty five. Then
I had shoulder repair surgery in twenty twenty four and
was off medication because insurance wouldn't cover it. I got
back up to one ninety five when my doctor was
able to get meds approved again. I'm currently taking zep
bound five point zero, which is the same as Manjaro.

(12:12):
It's the lowest dose other than the starter dose. I
got down to one eighty five with meds and then
started fasting about eight weeks ago. I am currently at
one seventy two. My typical fasting is nineteen five Monday
through Friday, and usually eighteen six Saturday and Sunday. I
am five foot seven, forty seven years old. I also
have lipadema, which is a fat condition that causes me

(12:35):
to store diseased fat in my legs, my arms, and hips.
This is typically not very responsive to diet and exercise.
My medication has seemed to help somewhat with that. My
question is will fasting eventually help with the lipidema and
will I be able to get off the meds. I
would like to be around one fifty five. Any thoughts
or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Thank you well so as you know, lipidae is a
fat storage disease, and like you said, it causes you
to store these fat nodules in your legs extremities. There's
different types of it. Different people have it in different
parts of their body, and it's there. You're given a

(13:17):
number basically based off of where your fat storage is.
What they do know about it is that this fat
is a very inflammatory fat and it can cause issues
with limp flow and causes inflammation, you know, in your body,
sort of a systemic inflammation in your body. So will

(13:39):
it help your lipiedema? They really haven't found anything that
helps lipidema other than really the only treatment for it
is liposection, a special kind of liposection to remove that
diseased fat, which can for some people if they are
able to maintain their weight and and eat, you know, nutritiously,

(14:02):
continue to be active, continue to you know, work on
strength training, it can hold it at bay. They do
think it's a hormonally driven disease. But I have researched
this extensively for myself because I'm kind of convinced I
have it in my legs. I thought so when I
was younger, but menopause has really made it kind of
glaringly obvious to me. Here's what fasting can do. It

(14:25):
can keep inflammation down. Can that help the lipidema? Maybe
because you're not compounding inflammation on top of other inflammation.
We know that fasting is really good for your detox
pathways and for healthy detox. You know, it yet to
be seen on you know what can help. It certainly

(14:46):
can't hurt you to do intermittent fasting. I don't have
any like fabulous success stories where somebody has reversed their
lipidema with fasting. I wish I did. But can you
get off the meds? I believe you absolutely can't get
off the meds. I think you can work with your
doctor to tyitrate your dose down. And if your doctor

(15:07):
doesn't know how to do that, I know that there
are some functional medicine doctors out there that can help
with that. So you know, one of the things that
you can do is just start slowly lower your dose
and then you know, this is where a really nutritious diet,
like Jen and I were talking about, everything I read
about it says, you know, really avoid ultra processed foods,

(15:30):
avoid sugar, avoid refined starches, eat real food, lots of fiber,
stay active, weight training is very important. Doing things to
help your detox pathways, rebounding, vibration plates, those sort of
things can be really helpful. So yeah, I would absolutely
say that it is possible for you to reach your

(15:52):
goal weight and get off the meds if you incorporate
fasting in all of the suggestions that I had.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, I wanted to talk about an episode of intermittent
fasting stories where I've talked about this before. It was
two friends from Australia and one of them had been
taking weight loss meds and had to go off of
them because it was no longer available the shortage, and
so she incorporated the clean fast, real foods and had

(16:19):
appetite correction. We know that the ultra processed food environment
and eating all day and all the beverages we're having
all the time, we know that that disconnects you from
your society's signals. And so this medication gives you like
a you know, superman size, don't even have any interest
in eating, no interest in eating, and so you'd lose

(16:41):
weight because you're you're basically on a starvation level diet
because you're not eating. But if you're choosing. If you're
fast and clean and you're choosing real foods, then your
body makes GLP ones naturally. And that's actually going to
be one of the weeks of the Eat like a
grown up, grown up year fifty two week program. We're

(17:02):
going to really talk about that and dig into the
science behind that, and you're going to focus on finding
some satisfying swaps that week, and you're going to, you know,
keep track of what you're eating and how your society
feels from that. And so I think that every single
one of us can reconnect with that, and the food
that we eat makes such a difference. Now to circle

(17:22):
back to the lipidema, somebody just emailed me about this
and I searched in all of the intermittent fasting stories episodes,
not a single one is someone with libantema, which means
that no one has ever written in and said I've
reversed my libanima with interimittent fasting. And so I think
that's really important to know that, Like Sherry said, this

(17:44):
is this is a condition that basically doctors don't know
how to reverse it right. They don't really know what
starts it, how do we stop it? How do we
reverse it? So it affects like something like thirteen percent
of women mm hm. And it's really just and I'm
going to say this is where I think social media
has been beneficial. I think there's been a lot of

(18:05):
women running around with this condition for years that we're
constantly like, I just need to keep dieting because my
legs are still too big. Well, if you have this condition,
you're not going to get your legs to be thin,
lean looking legs because it's just not it's just not

(18:27):
going to happen because of this condition. So you know,
weight management, yes, can help, and exercise can help. You know,
all of these can help, but you're never going to
get the legs that you think that you're striving for.
So I think it's important to have realistic expectations of
you know, are you metabolically healthy? Are you maintaining a

(18:50):
healthy body weight despite carrying extra fat in your legs
and arms or hips for you, and so that may
mean that you're body weight maybe a little heavier than
somebody who doesn't have this condition, who's your height and age.
Because this is fat storage, you just can't you can't

(19:10):
reverse it really without surgery. So you know, I think
it's important to have realistic expectations. And it sucks, like,
but everybody has things that you know, sometimes we can't reverse,
we can't do anything about. What we can do is
we can try to live with it in a way
that doesn't exacerbate it or make it worse. So yeah,

(19:34):
I think that's so important to recognize it's not because
you don't like, you can't diet it off, and it's
not your fault and it is a storage problem that
your body has. And if doctors can't tell you how
to reverse it, that says a lot.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yep. Yeah, but there are resources if you think you
may have this, and it can affect your lower legs,
it can affect your entire legs, It can affect your
hips and like butt area, can affect your arms, It
can affect all of those things. It's just different for
different people. But there are specialists out there that can
get you a diagnosis, and there are things you can do,

(20:11):
like wear compression clothing and that sort of thing. There
are like people who do lymphatic massage that you can
do to help, So there are things you can do
to help mitigate it. And it can also be very painful.
But then as you age and as it progress, if
you don't manage your weight, it can get even worse
to the where you start having venus problems in your

(20:33):
legs and that sort of thing. So it isn't something
important to know if this is something that you have,
so that you can address it appropriately and prevent it
from you know, worstening as you get older.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, one of my friends in my women's group is
actually an expert on this topic. We had lunch last week, Yeah,
and we had a little luncheon and she talked about
her She was a physical therapist and ended up working
with a doctor who would sense some people. There's some
people in Germany that we're doing. It was like lymphatic
massage and all of that work working on lipidema. And

(21:07):
they actually brought people over from Germany the help and
their practice. But they were experts in you know, lipidema,
and they did all those things that you said, the massage,
the compression garments. But either they're definitely.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
This is lip edema. It's different than lymph edema.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Right, and I'm talking about lipidema.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, So lymph edema is like a disorder of your
lymph system. For some reason, usually post surgical or post
radiation treatment for cancer. You know, lip edema has similar
type of symptoms and can cause stagnant lymphs fluid. Right,
it's a fat storage problem.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
And the beginning of the word gives you the clue
LiPo fat, right, lympho, lymphatic system. So if it's lip edema,
it's the fat. If it's lympho, it's related to your
lomthatic system.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah, all right, So we have a question from Becoming
a New Me in New Jersey and I love that.
Thank you, Hi, Jenny Sherry. I love your podcast and
congrats on hitting the one hundred episode mark last spring.
I've been internritten fasting since February of twenty twenty four.
Over that time, I've lost over thirty pounds and I
feel great. I am fifty two, and I feel stronger

(22:22):
and healthier than I felt in my thirties before I
had kids. My inflammation is down, I've lost a lot
of the fluff at my ribs and upper back. At
the same time, I feel like I'm still learning what's
the best fasting protocol or food choices for me. I
know you both have very different food preferences, so I
have a couple of questions that would help me get clarity.
I have been in a plateau or momentary maintenance, at

(22:45):
one hundred and seventy five pounds since March of this year.
I am five, 't five. It is now July. I
go back to what I was doing differently when I
was losing weight. I was doing one meal a day
with a two to four hour window, and being disciplined
to close my window. I would freeze and I would
know I was switching into fat burning. But lately I've

(23:07):
been eating past fullness some days and struggling to stop
myself from eating even though I'm not hungry. I would
describe my food choices as fairly healthy. I like high
protein meals with veggies, cottage cheese with fruit. I do
go off the rails sometimes I have ice cream, and
strangely enough, pita chips with red pepper Hummus is my kryptonite.
I don't feel that switch flipping, but that feeling was motivating.

(23:31):
So I do tests with my keto mojo, and I
get to point six keytones. On an ADF day, it
seems to take time to work through the food from
the up day.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Maybe that's my guess my question is even though I
balance protein and vegetables plus some carbs, sometimes I don't
feel great after I eat. I feel like my brain
is looking for something else. I felt gross after eating
fried eggs the other day, so I ate Greek yogurt,
and hours later at pilates, I thought I was going
to be sick. Ice cream tastes good, but it is

(24:00):
almost not the thing that hits. I could just eat
rice or potatoes and feel quite happy, but I'm trying
to watch my carbs. I miss oatmeal, but it's not
a great food for me. If I go buy my
blood sugar numbers. I think I'm a good candidate for ADF,
but I can really do some damage in a full nutrition.
In a day, I have about twenty pounds I would
like to lose, mostly in my hipster midsection. I work

(24:22):
out two times a week on the plates reformer, two
days lifting weights, one upper body day, one lower body day,
and lots of walking my dog every day with a
weighted best I love the sauna after some workouts, and
I feel great in my body. I feel like I'm
doing a lot of the right things like ADF, but
I give it back when I eat, especially not knowing
how to eat, satiation. What is the SI you talk about?

(24:46):
How do I get unstuck and find out what satisfies
me nutritionally? What are signs of food sensitivity. I'm definitely
still insulin resistant. My insulin is a twelve, but before
fasting it was twenty three. I am on a journey
to improving metabolic flexibility. I would really appreciate any insight.
It's not the fasting, it's the eating. I'm so close

(25:08):
to achieving my goals. Maybe just to tweak away again,
thank you for taking on this question. PS.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
I sleep great, eight to nine hours a night. I
use HRT and thyroid meds, so my hormones are under
control as I am perimenopausal. All right, Jen, what do
you say?

Speaker 1 (25:26):
All right, there's a lot there to unpack, a whole
lot to unpack, but all right, becoming a new me.
I think your semi thoughts, you're like stuck in diet brain,
and it's like going around and around and around, because
it seems to me like you are demonizing carbs but

(25:51):
yet having you know, Peeda chips with hummus right, and
ice cream and ice cream right. So I would like
for you to really think about. Instead of thinking about
foods as carbs, bad, protein, fat's good. I want you
to change it to real food helpful, ultra processed food

(26:12):
less helpful. Okay, And you know, like when we're thinking
about carbs, some carbs are real food, They're going to
be helpful. Other carbs are ultra processed and not going
to be helpful. Ice Cream is a giant load of
both carbs and fat both and also some protein. Carb

(26:35):
ice cream is a mix of all the macros, but
it's definitely not you know in the this is going
to really nurse your body well category, it's a treat food.
I am reading a book right now called food Intelligence. Sure,
I have you heard of that book? It just came out.
Kevin Hall wrote it. And do you do you know
what Kevin Hall did? What his research was, I mean,

(26:56):
I was name.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, you'll have to.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
He's one of my favorite science researcher. You know his work.
You know it, well, you just didn't know it's Kevin Hall.
And like he's one of my favorite researchers. He's the
biggest loser study guy. Okay, Yeah, the guy that did
the ultra processed work that found out that you know,
you put people in the metaboloc lab or the metabloc award,
and when they fed them ultra processed foods, they ate

(27:18):
five hundred more calories a day. He also did the
work on I don't know if you remember this way
back in the day when we were in the Facebook groups.
Do you remember what's his name, Gary Tobbs, Yes, and
all the work that he'd good calories, bad calories in
his theory about it was the whole carbohydrate insulin hypothesis
that talked about how certain foods made you get fat,

(27:40):
and it was carbs rights. Carbs were especially bad and
as long as you ate no carbs, you couldn't gain fat.
And that, of course is not true. But Kevin Hall
did some research and actually Gary Tobbs helped fund thinking
they were going to find one thing, and they did
not find something else. They found really really when they
compared low carbon low fat, turns out people lost slightly

(28:02):
more fat on low fat then low carb, not a
ton more. And so anyway, I'm reading this book Food
Intelligence right now, and there's a whole section I just
finished reading today in the sauna about you know macros,
you know, carbs and fat and protein and all of that,
and if you're over eating. Basically, here's the bottom line.

(28:22):
If you're overeating, it doesn't matter whether it's proteins, carbs,
are fat, or what combination it is. Overeating means your
body is storing. And if you are eating less, then
it doesn't matter what you're eating less of. If you're
eating less carbs, if you're eating less fat, if you're

(28:42):
eating less protein, it doesn't matter. If you're eating less,
your body is using storage fuel. If you're eating more,
your body is storing. And you know, when we pull
in the research that he did on ultraprocessed foods, ultra
processed foods stimulate us to eat more. So if you're eating,
for example, peta chips and red pepper hummus, I could

(29:04):
literally eat through the entire container of hummus and never
feel satisfied the whole thing. That's one serving, right right,
never feel satisfied, and then I'm still hungry Versus if
I'm eating real foods, I get satisfied. And again, I'm
going to talk about all this in that Eat Like
a grown Up the grown Up Year fifty two weeks.

(29:25):
We're going to experiment with all sorts of things, and
you're going to figure this out for yourself. But like,
for example, you had what was it yogurt and then
you went to pilates and felt queasy. I would not
feel good if I ate right before pilates. I don't
care what it was, right, but definitely not like yogurt.
I would probably get that would not fuel me. I

(29:46):
would probably get like blood sugar weirdness. If all I
had was yogurt and then I went and tried to
work out, that feel terrible. So I want you to
put away your kito mojo. Put that away.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
I was going to say the same thing, put that away,
throw it away.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Ye don't throw it away. I mean, I'm not saying
throw it away, put it away. We are not trying
to get a certain key tone level. Here's how you
know that your body is not flipping the switch. You
just can tell by all the things that you said
about how you're feeling. You could tell when you were
flipping the switch before you would have a momentary feeling
of cold and your body would flip the switch. That

(30:20):
was your body's signal. You're not doing that anymore, right.
That's why you're in a plateau. You have extended your
eating window. You're eating more, and so I want you
to stop trying to focus on labeling the food as
carbs or fat or protein and think about it as
a satisfying combination of foods. What is going to be

(30:41):
a satisfying combination of foods that will make you feel satisfied,
and then you will know that you can stop eating,
like for example.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
And Jen, and I can't tell you what that combination
of foods is going to be, right because for instance,
Gen feels great when she's whole food plant based.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Now, actually, you know, I do feel great, but I
feel restricted.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Oh well, okay, physically, yeah, may feel good and satisfied, right,
I do, Okay, When I eat whole food plant based,
I am rabinous. I cannot get full. When I eat keto,
I cannot get full. I am deep in my pit
of my stomach hungry. I'm physically full, my stomach is full,

(31:32):
but I'm hungry and I want something to eat because
I don't feel satisfied. So you're gonna have to figure
out like what foods after you eat, after you eat
a meal, what food, what food combination? Whether you know
I would suggest adding some more fiber to your diet. Yes,

(31:56):
if fiber fiber, fiber really promotes to tidy and high
fiber foods are really nutrient dense foods when you're eating
real high fiber foods, so high fiber fruits and veggies,
high fiber grains. Look at your ancient grains. Those are
great high fiber foods and they have protein in them.
You know, you could be a person who doesn't digest

(32:19):
like hide protein meats and stuff. Well, some people don't
digest meat well, so start trying to see where you
can get some protein from some plant or grain sources.
But like what you're doing is not working, So now
it's time to just like throw that out and start
from cratch.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
I think I would toss all of the conceptions that
you have about carbs bad, protein good. And it's just
really interesting when we really dig into what the research says,
we really do better when we have some sort of
a combination of a well balanced meal. That doesn't mean that,

(32:57):
you know, Brashiri doesn't need more protein than I do
feel satisfied. She does. I can feel satisfied on less protein,
but I still need to have some protein to feel satisfied.
But I also I don't feel satisfied without starchy carbs.
Potatoes very important to me. You know you said you
miss oatmeal, but it's not great fit if you go
buy your blood sugar numbers. But what I would not
do is just have like oatmeal by itself with sugar

(33:19):
and sugar oatmeal. That would not be good for me.
And also, you know we talked about cottage cheese and fruit.
That's like a dessert for me. I have that later.
I wouldn't open with that like I have learned what
makes me feel satisfied. You said you ate fried eggs
and you felt sick. I wouldn't feel good if I
ate eggs by themselves. I need something starchy carbd to
go with my eggs, like some high quality toast with

(33:43):
my eggs. It makes a difference. I need my food
to feel really satisfying. So I don't want you to
even think about adf. Also, now, another part of that
diet rain that I read in there, when you said
you could do some damage in a full up day,
I mean we're supposed to slightly eat on an overeat
on an upday. So anybody who's scared a slightly overeating

(34:07):
should not be trying ADF yet until you're ready to
embrace the update, because you're supposed to slightly overeat because
that's what bevies sherm autabolic rate. But if you're eating
a lot of ultra process snacky foods, like if you
had peda and red pepper, hummus and ice cream and
snacky foods, and you're never letting yourself feel satisfied, then

(34:28):
you can overeat on an update even more than you're
supposed to be doing. Right, we're supposed to slightly overeat.
So I want you to focus on real food, real food,
and I think you need to tighten up that window.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
I think like you should just go like you said,
go back to basics, have a four hour window real food.
Eat food that is physically and emotionally satisfying. Don't eat
food because somebody said this is what you should eat
to lose weight, exactly right, because they don't know your body.
So eat food that feels good to you, that tastes

(35:07):
good to you, that leaves you feeling like really good
and satisfied emotionally physically, you don't feel the need to
binge pass satiety and try that. And if you love oatmeal,
but you know it's not great for your you know,
blood sugar. I like, I'm the same way I use it.

(35:27):
When I want dessert, I have oatmeal because after I've
had a meal, my body handles oatmeal just fine. Right
to open my window with oatmeal, my body does not
handle that well.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
And also people are confused about what it means for
your blood sugar to not do the right thing right.
There's a book I'm not gonna mention it, and a
whole train of thought that any blood sugar RAS is
like bad for you, and you're supposed to eat so
that you have zero blood sugar RAS and it's supposed
to stay flat. That's not true. Healthy blood sugar responds
after eat. Eating is normal, We're going to go up.

(36:01):
You might even go up to one forty. You might
go up. You know, if you've been fasting, it's going
to go up more than someone who hasn't been fasting.
That's just normal because we've been artificially low. When we're fasting,
our blood sugar gets artificially low and stays steady because
we're running on store fuel, and so ours is going
to go up more from that baseline versus someone who's

(36:23):
going like if I'm starting at seventy two because I've
been fasting, Obviously, my blood sugar's going to go up
more than somebody who started at ninety nine. And that
doesn't mean it's bad.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Here's the other thing too, Like I was just wearing
a CGM for a month and I learned a lot
about myself, mainly that I'm not having the react of
hypodiesmia I was having several years ago, except for a
few occasions. And one day I got very alarmed. And
you would not even think that this would spike my
blood sugar to two twelve. Oh my Lord Sherry. Yes,

(36:55):
I had Kay Siberia tacos. Oh okay, three little k
Superia tacos, three corn tortillas, shredded beef and cheese. They're
all melty, They're delicious, They're goey. You dip them in
a nauseuw yummy. Right within thirty minutes, my blood sugar
was two twelve. I felt I felt goofy. My husband

(37:17):
asked me if I was drinking wow, and I'm like,
what snow? And I looked at my blood sugar and
it was two twelve and I was like, oh my gosh.
And I felt like spicy, weird for about thirty minutes,
and I thought I was going to crash after that,
so I was kind of just watching to see what happened.
I did not crash. It spiked up, came right back
down to my baseline, and it stayed there and it

(37:40):
did not stay up for very long. Within about thirty
minutes it was right back down into a normal range again.
But then I ate, what would you would think is
a healthy meal brown rice, roasted green beans, and salmon.
My blood sugar went up to like one eighty five
and stayed there for over two hours. Wow, where it

(38:01):
finally came down. I felt much better after it went
to two twelve and came right back down. Then when
it stayed steady at one eighty for hours, But then
after it was steady at one eighty for two hours,
it dropped into the sixties.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
So it's like my body was pushing, pushing, pushing insulin
out to try to get my blood sugar back down,
and then it finally just crashed. So what you think
might be a healthy meal may not work for your body.
So I would really go by, how do you feel
you're gonna know if your blood sugar's getting really high.

(38:40):
You're gonna know if your blood sugar is getting not
gonna feel good, You're gonna feel it. You're gonna feel
a difference. But yeah, definitely it's time to do some
exploring and figure out what foods make you feel good
and out of these ideas of I have to eat
high protein and I can't eat carbs or whatever.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
And the thing that really transformed my thinking was in
twenty seventeen. Again when it was when I was writing
my book He's Without Fear, and I stumbled upon the
work of doctor Aaron Segal. And this is the first
time I'd heard anyone talking about it was twenty seventeen.
This group was researching out of Israel, and it was
the idea of personalized glycemic response. They were testing people's

(39:19):
blood sugar and found that everyone had an individual response.
One person would have a huge spike too, let's just
say brown rice, because sure he had problems from the
brown rice, where someone else would have very steady results
from the brown rice, no huge spike. And they found
that it was not universal. And so that's why when
you know, when they came up with the glycemic index,

(39:41):
when I learned how they came up with the glycemic index.
It blew my mind. They like took ten people figured
out how they responded to brown rice, and then they
found the average. Right, So like one person might have
had a crazy high response, one person had none. But
they're like, Okay, here's the average. That's the number, that's
the glycemic index. But it really didn't apply to like anybody.
It was just the average. So trust how you feel.

(40:05):
You may be someone whose body doesn't handle brown rice
well like sherry, or maybe your body handles brown rice
beautifully like me. I feel great.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Hood I told you rice doesn't work for me.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
You've told me a million times.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
I mean back at your house in twenty nineteen. I
told you rice doesn't work for me, and I have
known it forever. But when you see it on a graph,
you're like, uh huh, this is why rice doesn't work
for me.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Right, But that doesn't mean everyone has that same response
to rice. And they proved that. We've proven it with
you know, looking at people's personal GLEISSMRIC response. It's not
all the same. And that's what's so fascinating. That's why
I want you to throw out the conceptions like if
I wrote a diet book about what works well for
me the food wise, and it's like, here's the Jim

(40:51):
Stevens diet. Eat these foods that would work really well
for Jim Stevens, but not for probably a lot of
people who have different responses to foods. That's why I
love Zoe because it helps you figure out your own
response to different things. And you know, wearing a CGM
can be really useful as long as you know, like, yeah,
going up to two twelve is not ideal. No, that's
not good. You don't want that to happen every time

(41:12):
you eat.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
I mean, it definitely made me think like, oh my gosh,
I'm not gonna now. I opened my window with that.
So maybe had I opened my window with a salad
and kind of you know, got things going with a
like an intro, like a open a window opener first,
I probably would have had better control right later in

(41:36):
my window.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yep, because I definitely have noticed that the order of
the way that we eat things does make a difference.
And so as an example, you wore this for the
cgym for a while. What was an example of a
meal that gave you a wonderful looking blood sugar response.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Oh chili. My body loves chili like.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
It's got beans in it.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Oh my gosh. Like it barely went up maybe fifteen
points and then and it stayed up for a little bit,
and then it just gradually came back down and it
was just lean ground beef, tomatoes, beans, little cheese on top.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Did you have any star other than the beans?

Speaker 2 (42:13):
They probably knowing me, I always throw in a few,
like organic tostito chips, the blue corn ones. I like
a little crunch in my chili. When I say a few,
I mean like maybe four or five. But yeah, I
mean that was it. I had a big bowl of that,
and I think I sent Jenna a picture and I
was like, my body loves chili like my body loves

(42:34):
taco salad, you know, a steak and a potato and asparagus.
My body loves that.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
You know that chili with the beans has a lot
more fiber than those that corn tortilla taco that you
would have.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
I mean, you would think I took what I learned.
Really for me was it's that pairing too high a
fats elevates my blood sugar. Well we think fat. It's like, oh,
it's fine. It's great.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Well, when I talked to Cyrus, you know he knows
because his second PhD, Cyrus of Mastering Diabetes has two PhDs.
But first of all, he's like a rocket scientist. Literally.
The second PhD was in insulin resistance because he had
type one diabetes and wanted to understand insulin in the body.
We know that a lot of fat keeps your body
from clearing the blood sugar out and putting it away.

(43:24):
If you just think about this is over simplification, but
think about the fat gunking it all up, right, gunking
up the transport. The sugar needs to leave, your blood
needs to go into storage, but there's so much fat
gunking it up. We've all had like a time when
we deep fried something on our stove and it gunked
up the whole kitchen with the gunky. You know, think
about how sticky that is. Imagine that in your body

(43:47):
and you can see that fat like keeps the sugar
trapped in your blood. I found that to be true
when I was doing whole food, plant based low fat,
My blood sugar was beautiful. That mean I want to
eat that way? Do not? Anyway? So now I have
time for our segment called What's Your Why. Most of
us begin intermittent fasting with weight loss in mind. That

(44:09):
is a great reason to begin, but 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 (44:21):
So this week we have a why from Bonnie in
Central Illinois. Bonnie wrote, I want to get off my
blood pressure and clexterra mets. I'm also helping to raise
my granddaughter, and I want to be healthy and strong
and stick around long enough to see her graduate college
and launch successfully into adulthood. I also want to be
able to play with all my grandkids, feel confident in

(44:43):
my body, and enjoy wearing smaller clothes. Again. I love that,
all right, So we have a question from Elizabeth in Virginia.
Hello ladies. First of all, thank you for being the
voice of reason in these confusing times. I feel like
every time I open Instagram or YouTube, some implant her
as yelling at me about stopping intermittent fasting and increasing
my protein. I will admit I felt victim to this

(45:06):
and tried it for a few days. Not surprisingly, I
did not feel that well opening my eating window earlier
and eating more protein. Then I heard your episode specifically
addressing protein needs. I think maybe it was episode ninety five,
and I was so happy to hear reasonable advice and guidelines.
Thank you for busting the popular protein myths. Y'all reminded
me it's okay to listen to your body and do

(45:28):
what feels right. I actually listened to that episode twice
because it is chocked full of great information. But I
am left with a question I would like to ask.
I like to do fasted workouts and I always feel fine. Recently,
my schedule changed. I am now able to work out
in the morning. Do I need to eat within a
certain amount of time after working out or is this
just another myth? For reference, I am a fifty one

(45:51):
year old female and at a happy wait. I've been
fasting for about five years, and I used to do
my workouts late afternoon, just before opening my eating window.
My workouts are not super hard, charging or lengthy. I
just work out at home with ten to fifteen pound
dumbbells and do some strengths training for about twenty to
thirty minutes. My friends tell me I actually be eating

(46:11):
within one to two hours after working out. I'd love
to know your thoughts on this. Thank you again so
much for this honest, genuine podcast that isn't trying to
sell me something.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Well, I have some really good news, Elizabeth, and that
is that you do not have to eat within a
certain amount of time. And I am not making this up.
I really have done a lot of research on this
and listen to a lot of voices and I'm not
talking about the influencer voices right, and again, Sherry and
I are influencers. What do you think about that? But

(46:41):
I am not getting my advice from other influencers. I'm
going to the scientist. What does Kevin Hall say about it?
What does doctor Christopher Gardner who's at Stanford say about it?
He was on the Zoe podcast maybe last year. Then
this year on the Zoe podcast they had another scientific
researcher on the podcast. And this is a guy who
is like literally the most famous protein researcher in the world.

(47:03):
I can't remember his name, but he's the one that
has done the most research on protein. And everyone who
understands it from that deep of a level all says, no,
you do not need to eat right after working out.
When we eat, our body breaks down the protein, right

(47:24):
and then it divides it up into the little amino acids,
all the little pieces, and then that circulates around and
our body rebuilds with it. But it's the whole twenty
four hour period that matters. So don't take my word
for it, don't take Sherry's word for it, don't take
any other influencer's word for it. The researchers who research this,
that are the world's biggest experts on protein all say

(47:47):
the same stuff.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Something I have read that was explaining this based off
of research that was done was basically, like your body
is it Like, oh, I just worked out, I need
to take this she just fed me and send it
to my muscle's stats. Like it doesn't work like that,
Like your body breaks down the protein and your body's

(48:10):
gonna do what it does with it. And there's not
like a specific time frame that that has to happen
in or that it does happen in. And really most
of your muscle repair happens like while you're sleeping, like
overnight and stuff. So as long as you're eating within

(48:30):
like you said, twenty four hours of a workout, then
you're giving your body the protein it needs to rebuild
and support muscle growth.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yeah. I also think that influencer culture is like a
big game of telephone. Remember that that game telephone where
you pass the word around in a circle. But it's
like the same information is getting the more times we
say it, the more people just believe it's true. A
lot of people are now saying it's well, I've I
heard fourteen people say it, it's got to be true.

(49:01):
But that doesn't mean it's true just because a lot
of people are suddenly saying it. Like one thing in
that book Food Intelligence that I actually heard people debunk
this before. You know, the whole idea that thirty five
hundred calories equals a pound of fat, And I've heard
people like try to get to the root of the
science of that. No, it's someone just made that up.
Like somebody made that up, and we know that the

(49:22):
calorie math doesn't work like that in our bodies. We
know that it would be nice.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
I think it has a lot to do too with
the individual's own like metabolism and thermogenic burn. And like probably.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Ninety percent of people in the world think it's true. Yeah,
if you said how many calories do you have to
cut to lose a pound? People say thirty five hundred,
Like it's like gospel. There's that influencer game of telephone,
and I mean that one goes back to like I've
heard that my whole life. You probably have to Sherry.
Anyone who kind of calories has heard that and you
got to drink eight ounce glasses of water a day.

(49:56):
That's also someone made that up. And so I just
I think we need to really look at who we're
listening to. And again, I'm not making this stuff up either.
I'm looking for people that I trust, that have done
the research, that understand it. What are they saying about it?
You know, if someone is like on YouTube and they're
telling you you need to eat two hundred grams of
protein today, If I eat two hundred grams of protein today,

(50:19):
I would gain so much weight and I would feel terrible,
not be good.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Well, here is the great thing about twenty twenty five.
Anything that you hear, you can go research and you
can find facts that either support what they're saying. I
mean and be like, Okay, what they said, there's facts
to support this, or you can find facts that does

(50:48):
like you may not be able to find facts to
support that, or in some cases you can find facts
to go either way. Because it's ambiguous. These are designed
differently and they get different outcomes. Yeah, and so that's
where I just really I think it comes into tuning
into your body and you know what's working for you

(51:09):
and how you feel and that sort of thing. But
I guarantee you, if you're worried about muscle mass and
maintaining or adding muscle mass, the amount of weights that
you're using matters more than when you eat your protein.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, that is one hundred percent true. So before we
get to our week of the week, I want to
take a minute to tell you my books. And we're
almost out of time, so I'm going to do it quick.
You know, I've got a wide variety of resources available,
but for anyone just starting out, you want to start
with Delayed on Deny. I think it's the best quick
introduction to intermittent fasting out there as we start approaching

(51:45):
the holidays. If you have someone in your life who
you know is interested in intermittent fasting, that's the book
to recommend to them or get for them. Delayed on
Deny the second edition and you know, obviously we have
other resources. We have Fast Feast Repeat for the Deep
Dive twenty eight day fast start day by day if
you need some help during your first twenty eight days,
but definitely start with Delayed on Deny. It's the original,

(52:07):
but it's been revised and it's the one that I
would recommend. All right, now, it's time for our tweek
of the week. This is from Janelle from Lower sackvill Nova, Scotia.
She said, I know one of the hardest things for
many people when starting fasting is the clean fast and
black coffee. I definitely googled Intermitten fasting coffee recipes in
my early days before I came across Gin and the

(52:29):
Clean Fast. I started with a really long eating window,
ten hours, than eight hours, then six hours. Once I
read about the clean fast and black coffee, I was
determined I could do it. However, I really enjoyed my
coffee with cream and honey, and I didn't want to
give that up. Ever since we've been together, my husband
and I also had sort of a ritual of having
coffee together when we get home from work every day.

(52:52):
Since at the beginning of my fasting journey, my window
opened relatively early. Around ten, I had a coffee with
all the fixings in my window every day. Even as
my eating windows shortened, I still had that special coffee daily. Eventually,
I found that having a coffee later in the day
started to affect my sleep, so I still had that coffee,
but I had decaff instead. It was like my little

(53:14):
daily treat. I just passed my two year fastiversary about
a month ago, and I did this daily up until
only a few months back. I still sometimes have a
coffee when I get home, but it's not always necessary
and I don't feel any sadness about not having it.
Allowing myself to have that in my window made the
morning black coffee so much easier to get used to now,

(53:35):
it's a no brainer. My cousin has been toying with
the idea of starting fasting again, and she struggles with
the black coffee. I gave her this tip as something
to try so she doesn't have to feel like she's
missing out. I figure it helped me to get past
the black coffee thing, so maybe it will help her,
and sharing it here might help others. It's so simple,
and I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this,

(53:56):
but I thought i'd share my tweak. I love you
both so much and I'm great you two or doing
what you do. Fast on.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Well, thank you, Janelle. All right, well, we're going to
leave you with an inspirational quote from Ruth. The quote
is how to bring a little peace to your mind.
Reflect more on what you learned than what you regret.
Focus on what you can control and what actions you
can take right now. Remind yourself often that you're strong

(54:24):
and capable and no matter what happens, you can make
the best of it.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
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 2 (54:47):
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 (54:58):
We are a community drive 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 (55:19):
Until next week. Thanks for listening.