Welcome the Fast Feast Repeat Intermittent Fasting for Life.

I'm Jen Stevens, author of the New York Times bestseller Fast Feast.

Repeat, 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 any medical treatments or medications.

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, Sharry?

I am doing wonderful.

Good Meet how you?

I just had the best weekend.

Went to my thirty fifth college reunion in Winston Salem.

It was so much fun, Like from the minute I got there till the minute I left laughter or mostly laughter.

NonStop.

I love that.

Yeah, people that I've known for decades and people I hadn't seen for decades.

But it was great.

And also wake Forest pulled out the best football win I have ever seen in my life at the last twelve seconds.

And you were playing SMU, who had like apparently never lost an ACC game, and wake Forest is hit or miss, right.

We mainly just lose games at the last minute.

We do not win games at the last minute.

So we were joking about it the next day that SMU totally wake Forest did that game.

But anyway, it was so exciting.

I asked Eric when I woke up that day, because I knew it was an early day, and I got up about maybe two that afternoon, and he was watching Auburn football, of course, because Auburn is life for Eric, and I suh, did you watch the wake Forest game?

And he was like, I don't watch ACC games.

What are you talking about?

He's SEC all the way, so funny, and he's like, why I so because Gin's there and it's their anniversary read and whatever, and I said him coming, I think it was homecoming and I said so.

I just was hoping they pulled off a win and so I went took a shower and then came back out and he said, oh, by the way, He's like, apparently it was a pretty good win because he's like, I just saw a little blip on it between games, and it was amazing.

I went to a great game.

Could happen?

I mean, it was the most exciting finish to a football game I've ever been to.

It was amazing.

Usually like, we're like winning and we lose in the last twelve seconds, so I've never seen like Cal and I were texting each other when wake Forest was playing Georgia Tech.

Of course, Cal went to Georgia Tech and wake Forest was in the lead and was thirty seconds on the clock or something, and wake Forest was about to win, and Cal said, congratulations on the win.

I said, not so fast.

This is wake Forest Wait far as lost.

Yeah, so yeah, that's what I'm more used to.

But it was fantastic.

I mean, if the stadium went crazy, everyone went crazy.

Yeah, again, it was great.

It was just the cherry on top.

Honestly, if we had lost, I wouldn't have curred because every minute of it was just full of joy of being with my friends that I'd known for so long and I loved it.

Yep.

So being with your people so important, it really is.

And you know, these people have named me for a long time.

So we ate great food.

I was so sad at the reunion party there.

The food was totally not window worthy.

Yeah, I know.

We had a great lunch that day at a really great restaurant, so thank goodness, I had a good meal around two o'clock.

And at the reunion all the food was cold.

And also I don't think I like North Carolina barbecue.

It was like barbecue, you know how every state is different.

Yep.

But even if it had been cold South Carolina barbecue, I was not into it.

But then what's funny is I was starving at like ten thirty, because what did you do?

I kept my window closed.

Although it was really funny.

We got back to the hotel and I'd been thinking, you know, if someone had whipped out some pizza at that reunion, I would have eaten because I was starving.

But I just went fasted through the hunger.

No big deal.

But we got on the elevator going up to our room and it smelled like pizza and I'd just been talking about pizza and there was this one guy and who was holding a bag and I whipped around.

I said, is there pizza in that bag?

And I think I scared him because I said it with like this level of an intensity or something.

He like backed up and he's like, no, I do not have pizza.

I'm like, okay, I just was wondering.

Then we went to bed.

I'm like a huge barbecue fan.

It's like my favorite food in the world.

And of course I came from Kanas City, which is like the barbecue capital, and the United States North Carolina barbecue is more like vinegar base.

Well, I just looked it up.

There's two styles of the Western exactly.

Yeah, we were having this was Western.

We were having Western North Carolinia, a vinegar and ketchup based sauce not good, cold at all.

And the Eastern thin vinegar based sauce superis a dip with smoky noess.

Yeah, but the slaw was not good.

It was like a vinegar based slaw.

I'm like, nothing about this meals right.

And it's cold.

Also, hush puppies.

You know how much I love hushpuppies.

Oh yeah, they were cold.

Nobody likes a cold hush puppy.

Why would you serve a cold hush pup.

I don't know, everything was cold, but you know, I'm like, all right, I'm just not gonna be eating.

I like pushed my food away and I was like, I'm done.

I'm wasn't gonna eat that bad food.

But around ten thirty, like I said, I was starving.

But I bet you woke up the next morning and you were feeling great.

I felt great.

Yeah.

The football game started at noon, and so we had the alumni tailgate.

Everybody's eating at the alumni tail gate.

I'm like, I'm not eating any of this.

It's too early.

Then we were in the touchdown club for the game, which is like the little fancy area, and so by the time we got settled and decided to eat right around halftime, I don't know, it was like two o'clock.

Was there a good food there?

Oh, my gosh, yes, I would think.

So.

It was fabulous, Like everywhere you turned there was something different good.

It was really good.

So I had had a good meal, but a little bit longer to wait for it.

And then we went to my friend's house afterwards.

She had a bunch of us there and people brought something we had chili and it was so good, good, just different things.

I'm so glad you had a great time, finally had some good food.

But I intermittent fasting fit right in.

You know.

We were there on Friday morning.

The hotel had a beautiful breakfast, omelets made to order everything, and I sat there with my black coffee like I'm going to eat later, and so I did.

No love that?

You love that?

All right?

Well, let's celebrate Jilie from Dmont.

Jili wrote, I'm just so excited to share my recent retirement from teaching after thirty four years.

Yeah, I did.

Congratulations, Yeah, she said.

I'm so excited to be starting this next chapter of my life with a healthy body, healthy mind, active lifestyle and know exactly how I can keep all of these wonderful things going in the right direction.

Intermittent fasting has allowed me to lose over fifty five pounds and keep it off with little stress.

I've heard so many people talk about lifelong struggles with weight, and I have my story as well.

Maybe I will be able to come on the show someday and share them all.

I stumbled upon interment fasting accidentally because I definitely have the wrong idea about how fasting worked.

Now, I shout it from the rooftops.

My husband is also on board with me, and between the two of us, we have lost one hundred pounds in about a year's time.

I truly think the most exciting part of this journey is that it works long term.

I can fit this into my lifestyle.

I could always lose weight, but could never keep it off.

And as recently scientifically proven, the yoyo that happens with dieting is so harmful to your health and metabolism.

I had literally sworn off diets because of this.

I just accepted the fact that I was going to be on the quote heavy side rather than continue to yo yo.

After realizing that my A and C had started to slip into the diabetic zone, I knew I had to do something.

Luckily, I inadvertently started fasting.

I feel amazing, energetic, powerful to control my hunger, eating, and my future health.

I cannot wait to start the next chapter of my life.

I love that, Julie, and you know you're so right that it works long term.

You know I wore my weak forest pants to the football game.

They're the same pants I only I haven't been to very many football games.

But I've been to a couple of bowl game, a SEC championship.

But I bought them ten years ago.

These pants, they're black and gold.

They're fun.

I wore them to the football game from my twenty fifth reunion and I'm.

Still wearing them same Awesome.

They're my football pants.

Long term.

I'm like, I think I'm just gonna wear these to every football game, even though I go to several years.

I'll just call them my life lucky pants.

So twenty fifteen was right after you really kind of got to your goalway after like really committing to internet fasting.

Yep.

I would almost bet that they fit a little different now than they did then.

Well, I've been through menopause, that's true, so your ch mid section has changed a little bit.

Like I was.

I think my leanest was around twenty eighteen, and when I was still teaching, and being a teacher is very active.

I was very active.

I was still teaching and I hadn't been through menopause yet, so you know, there might be a little maybe even a little bit of a muffin top tiny.

I mean, it's still fine.

It's not like I'm not like squeezed into them.

I can still wear them, but you know, my body's a little different after menopause.

But that's my goal to be able to wear the football.

I want to be eighty years old.

We're in my football pants.

I love it.

That's a great deal.

So now we have a question from a listener.

This question is from JP from Southern Illinois.

I've only been doing intermittent fasting for six weeks and I'm loving the lifestyle.

Thank you, Jen and Sherry.

I've learned so much from your books and your podcasts that have kept me super motivated.

I'm sixty six five four and after losing ten pounds and several inches so far, i weigh one hundred and fifty five pounds.

It feels really good to write that I started with the twenty eight day fast start, finding it so easy and empowering to fly through the day clean fasting that I quickly went from a sixteen eight to a nineteen.

Five or a twenty four.

I feel successful in what I have accomplished so far, but I worry that keeping my eating window around the same time every day so I can eat dinner with my husband will adversely affect my fat burning and weight loss.

What should I do?

FYI?

I cook all of our meals from scratch, and I'm glad that I don't struggle with eliminating ultra processed food from my diet.

I love good food and I don't want to settle for anything yet less.

Yes, yep, I bet she would not eat cold barbecue either.

I think every bite of food should be a lively party for my taste buds.

I recently did my first down day up day and it went well, but I'm still a bit unsure of how much I should really eat.

Is it okay to put an ADF into a week and use an eating window for the other days?

And I think she means one cycle of down up followed by eating window days.

And the answer to that is yes.

I would like to.

Get to around one hundred and thirty five pounds, but I've decided, after not weighing for twenty eight days, that I don't like the scale so much.

The daily weigh in has a negative effect on me, even when doing a weekly average.

In all honesty, I had been at one sixty five for several years, but in the last year I have felt fat and fluffy, and my clothes were getting tighter, even though my weight was the same.

I love that the fluff is deflating and appears to be melting off my body.

I'd like to shoot for a comfortable size ten pants, though the single digit of eight is secretly my goal.

Most importantly, my goal is to feel and look good in my clothes, reduce and eliminate the BP medsi'm on, and to be pain free of joint inflammation so I can enjoy spending time with family and friends, along with traveling to explore the world's culture and cuisine.

My last question is about travel.

My husband and I are getting ready to go on a trip of a lifetime to Vietnam and Cambodia in a few weeks, and I do not want to undo what I have already accomplished.

Help how do I handle this?

I am sure that I can forego breakfast daily and perhaps save a beloved chocolate croissant for when I open my window.

I'm wondering if it would help my metabolism to alternate days of having a light lunch and dinner with only eating dinner like I'm currently doing one meal a day.

We will be gone over three weeks.

Also, any suggestions for flying days, twenty four hours of flying time or travel time would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you both so much.

Well.

Number one, I love that you're thinking about your upcoming trip and you're trying to make a plan so that you do not get off course.

Because you know, we've talked about this before.

It happens a lot, so having a plan can be really beneficial.

The same time, I think not having a rigid plan is great for vacation as well, because you don't know what's going to be presented to you on a day to day basis, So I would just really play it by ear.

If you have a day where food is not like readily available, it's not delicious.

Maybe it's a travel day and you're on the go, you know, maybe that would be a good day to do more of a downish day, Have one really good meal, close that window up, keep it, you know, short and tight, and then the next day, if you're going to be somewhere where you're going to be exploring and out and about and you might want to have lunch and dinner, then have two meals over like a six day to hour window and kind of do a rhythm like that while you are traveling like overseas and stuff.

By remaining fasted, it can actually help with jet lag as well.

So if you're one that can fly fasted, just start your trip fasted like fly fasted.

That way, you know, you start out, your glycogen's all nice and depleted when you arrive, and you can have a really full, you know, eating day when you arrive, because you're going to be tired and you're going to be really you know, excited to be there and explore and stuff.

But just kind of play it by ear.

No, you don't want each day to be a long eating window.

You know, like you said, you only like to eat window worthy food.

So when you have window worthy food, enjoy it.

And when you don't find window worthy food, you know, that's a day that you could make it sort of a downish day or even a full down day if you want.

And then a great way to kind of wrap up vacation.

And something I like to do is once you have your final meal, like the night of your final day there, I usually start a fast and I do a good thirty six to forty hour fast just to deplete any glycogen that I may have stored up on the vacation because listen, I do.

I like to eat and explore cuisine places that I don't live, and then that gets me really, you know, it ensures that I'm shifting into fat burning and then I have a good update and I'm good to go after that.

So there's really like no right or wrong answer to how you do it.

I mean, I could say the wrong answer would be to forego fasting.

That is a wrong answer.

Yeah, that's start fasting completely.

Yeah, because you're gonna feel awful and you're not gonna be happy with that decision later.

I know.

I'm just gonna share without saying a name, but there's somebody in our community that went on a really long cruise, had been in a great fasting rhythm, great fasting rhythm when on a cruise for two weeks.

We said keep fasting on the cruise.

This person did not and has not been able to get back into it ever since.

And it's been months since that happened.

And so I'm just only saying that because I think if that person could go back in time, they would have maybe done make the differently and made different choices.

So what you don't want to do this early in you're feeling great now, you do not want to lose the plot, and then it can be really hard to get back on it.

I've just watched her struggle so much and it's hard to see.

And she knows she'll feel better once she gets back to fasting, but she's having hard time.

Making it stick.

So you don't want to lose it, right, And you think I'll just be able to get right back to it, but not always is it easy to get back to it?

So yeah, well, I would say we see that a lot.

We do feel really do struggle, and it takes a lot of willpower and dedication to get through those hard days of getting your body back.

And two, it's a habit thing, right, Like you know, you've gotten to this habit of eating in the morning and having creamy coffee again.

And if that was a hard struggle for you in the beginning, was to give up your creamy coffee, and then on vacation you're like, oh, my vacation, I can have creamy coffee.

I sometimes think it's harder the second time around.

I think you're going to give it up.

Yeah, So like cause you're like, oh, I really missed this, and it's back, and it's back with more of a vengeance.

Uh huh yeah.

And then another thing I wanted to say too was your sixty six.

So you have lost ten pounds and you said you'd really like to get down to one thirty five.

Well, I went ahead and ran your numbers through the smart Bmi.

At one fifty five, you are solidly in the green zone, which is the healthy weight zone.

A health the weight on the smart Bmi calculator is like it gives you a smart Bmi score of anywhere from thirty over seventy to thirty nine over seventy.

So you're at thirty seven over seventy.

You're like in the top three fourths.

If you got down to one fifty five you want thirty, sorry, you would be thirty three out of seventy.

So you're still in that zone, you know, right smack in the middle, would be about one hundred and forty five pounds.

If you don't want to weigh and you just want to go by the way your pants go, then just go by the way your pants go.

But I did want you to know that even if you were to never lose another pound on the scale, you are solidly in a healthy weight range, and you're getting to the age where, unless you have significant health issues that you are trying to reverse through weight loss, that you really want to be cautious about losing too much weight because for my longevity standpoint, you're better off not losing a lot of weights after the age of like seventy, they're saying, and rather focus on you know, your body composition and maintaining or building muscle mass and that sort of thing.

And as you do that, your body will change too.

You'll firm up and your clothes will fit differently.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point.

So you know, you asked also about ADF and you know what to do with that.

And you also asked if keeping.

Your eating window around the same every day would adversely affect your fat burning and weight loss.

And we've talked about before that your body does adapt.

I mean, this is just a fact.

Your body will adapt to what you're doing, and eventually you'll hit a weight where your body will maintain based on what you're doing.

Because we don't just keep losing losing losing losing forever.

Our body has to adapt, right or we would like die if our body didn't adapt.

And so our body will adapt.

If you like what you're doing and you feel good in your body, then it doesn't matter that your body has adapted.

That's the goal.

We want our body to adapt at a place where we feel good, but we don't want our body to adapt at a weight that is higher than we want to be.

And that's where the ADF can come in because ADF helps us mix it up with the down days for fat burning and the up days for the metabolic boost.

So if you're doing one cycle of down up followed by eating window days, that might be all you need if you want to keep your body from adapting, because that down up cycle throws that in.

You know, we call that a hybrid approach.

So if you want to do one down, one up, the rest eating window, go for it.

But you know, on your trip.

I have just a little slightly different answer than Sherry based on the flying because it depends on how you.

Said this, Sherry.

But I have to see how you go.

I can't.

Some people do do great.

I always personally like I'm going to San francisc go gosh.

In the week and a half with Will, We're going to see col and we're going to be flying across the country, and I always eat during the layover because I get queasy when we're landing.

I'm fine till we're landing.

When we're landing, I'm like, oh, I start getting that queasiness.

And then I go to the delta skyland and I eat, And so that's what I'm planning to do.

And then I just eat however I need to for the rest of that day, whatever that looks like.

If there's something amazing offered later, I will eat that, but if not, I'm fine.

But then I just adjust to the time zone that I'm in.

So, because someone was asking about that in the community, I am not sitting there in San Francisco trying to figure out what time it is in South Carolina or how long I've been fasted.

I don't do that.

I'm like, all right, I'm here in San Francisco, this is what time it is.

I'm going to open my window based on what time it is in San Francisco and vice versa.

When I travel back home, I eat however I need to on the travel day, usually when we're having the layover, and then when I get back home, I'm like back on my normal schedule.

I'm not thinking about how long is have I been fasting?

What did I do?

I'm like, this is a new day, I'm in this time zone, So I would adapt to the time zone that you're in, whatever that is, and do whatever you need to do on the flying day that works for you.

Yes, Cherry is correct.

If you can fast, it's better because there's some research that indicates it helps you adapt to your new time zone, that fasting as you fly, fasting across the time zones helps kind of reset that rhythm for you.

So but I couldn't do it.

It's just that my body likes to have a little something me too.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I think we got to everything.

I think we did.

Yeah, maybe we did all right, So let's move on to barb in Florida.

Hi, Jen and Cherry.

Like everyone, I have had a long, wait lost journey throughout my life.

I am currently seventy two and I started IF in September of twenty twenty, so I'm coming up on five years.

I'm five foot and I started at one hundred and sixty pounds.

I was gaining pretty much every year as I aged prior to IF, and I come from a family of overweight pear shaped women.

I walk every single day because I've a large dog, so I walked three to five miles a day, depending on the weather and his energy level.

I don't really do any other exercise except cleaning the house and tending to the yard.

Since twenty nineteen, my husband has been dealing with multiple health issues that have required me to become an unexpected caregiver.

He still gets around, but is in frequent pain, and we play whack a mole with his health as one thing gets dealt with and then something else seems to pop up.

He's had four big surgeries in the last eighteen months, with varying degrees of success.

I am very comfortable doing if.

I've cleaned fasted from the beginning, and once my digestive systems settled down after the first month or so, I had found it pretty easy.

Initially, I lost about forty five pounds and I went down to about one hundred and fifteen, which was very low for me I wanted to be in the mid one twenties, and I got to that point and maintained it for a while.

But now, over the last year I've noticed my weight has been creeping up and I'm currently at about one thirty eight.

I don't weigh myself regularly anymore, which may be a mistake.

The number on the scale doesn't concern me very much, but what concerns me is that I am a pear shaped woman, and as the weight has come back, it has settled firmly in my hips, thighs, and belly.

One of the best things about being in the one twenties was that I finally had a gap between my thighs that I had not had since I was a teenager.

I struggled to accept that on the smart BMI, I'm still in a normal weight range for my age, and that weight loss should probably not be my goal, but fat slash inches loss is what I'm looking for.

I would like to get my hips and thighs back down a couple of inches so that I can fit into some of the clothes that I was wearing a year ago.

I'm not certain what has changed.

I continue to have a four to five hour window every day.

My food choices have only improved over time.

With very little processed food, I tend to eat similar things most days.

I hate to cook.

I still have a very hard time stopping eating even though I feel very full after very little food that has not really changed throughout the five years of if.

I look at my body and I think not bad for seventy two and a little extra prodding is probably a healthy thing at this point.

But I miss the size sixes that I was wearing comfortably for a couple of years.

And I miss that feeling of anything I reach into my closet for I know will fit me.

I've never been interested in ADF at all, because I find when I hit about twenty one or twenty two hours fasted, I start getting headachy and a little shaky.

I'm not certain what else I can change.

The stress of my life continues with my husband, but I got through COVID years successfully, even working in a hospital and all of his illnesses prior to this, so I'm not certain why I can't keep doing it.

I work an emotionally stressful job part time, but that is not new.

I also find, and I think this is odd, that often after I break my fast, which I usually break with raw vegetables and hummus and then have a small meal of some sort and then end with yogurt and fruit, that I often have a headache for the past few months, not severe, but annoying.

It very distinctly appears after eating.

I don't feel as energized as I used to with IF, but fasting is still easy for me.

I mostly eat a Mediterranean diet, not a lot of meat, but I am not vegetarian.

I eat low fat or fat free Greek yogurt.

I'm not sure if I'm an anomaly or if there's something else I need to look at.

I'm not trying to be thin.

I just want to be more comfortable in my body and keep debating whether I just have to be satisfied where I am and focus on not gaining any more weight.

Interestingly, when I first started IF, my goal was to get from one sixty to one forty, and I flew by that effortlessly back in twenty twenty, but now at approximately one forty, I miss being one twenty five and having thinner body and fitting into smaller clothes.

My health in general is good.

I have a mild cardiac issue that I take half a pill for, and I get occasional migraines, but other than that, I'm in good shape.

I've been thinking of submitting this for months now and decided I'm interested enough in your expertise to throw the question out there, although I'm afraid there's not much you'll be able to recommend.

I will always continue this lifestyle for the health benefits, but I would like to get back to looking and feeling a bit better, regardless of the scale number.

Any help is appreciated.

I've read all the books and listen repeatedly to your podcast.

Thanks.

All right, Well, we have a lot to unpack, Barb, but I want you to really focus on the fact that you're seventy two and I ran your smart Bmi.

Which you knew that I was going to.

You are exactly in the middle of the healthy weight range for your height at one exactly in the middle, and so I want you to think about how you have described yourself.

A couple of times you said you come from a family of women.

The women in your family are generally overweight and generally pear shaped.

So there's genetics, right, You've got those genetics.

And if we go back in our family tree for generations of women and all of them are overweight and all of them are pear shaped, then we can be assured that that is genetically what our body gravitates to right, so you are actually not overweight.

You are at a very healthy weight, but you are still pear shaped.

So I have a hunch that you don't want to be pear shaped, and I get it as someone who is more pear shaped as well, that you know I've got the hips.

I'm curvier, right, and I understand.

It felt amazing to have that the thigh gap that everyone celebrates.

Maybe we should stop celebrating that, but I know that felt good.

You recognize one fifteen was too low, you gained some weight back to one twenty.

You felt good, but now your body had another plan, and now you have settled one thirty eight ish at a very healthy weight.

So it sounds like to get lower and stay lower, you would need to fight those genetics.

Could you do it?

Yes, you would need to do.

Something different than what you're doing, because what you're doing right now seems like it is going to allow you to maintain at one thirty eight and you're eating healthy foods.

You're not over eating, you're eating in a window.

So if you really did determine, I absolutely must lose this weight back down in order to be happy in my life.

ADF is what we would recommend, but I would not recommend that.

I would recommend that you recognize that at the age of seventy two, that it is so important to have good days where you love how you're living your life, instead of forcing yourself to do a protocol that you don't want to do so that you might have smaller pants on again.

And I know that we have been raised for decades of our lives, Barb.

And I'm only fifty six and you're seventy two, but so you've got more decades of this programming in your head to always want to be a certain thing.

And if we're not at that thing, but we've been at that thing, we want to get back to it right.

And I understand that you've got the clothes in your closet, but there would be a lot of peace in saying, you know what one thirty eight is where my body is going to be now, and maybe I have to get some new clothes, and I need to settle here and let my body do what it's doing and be at peace with that, you know, body acceptance, having the peace with what your body wants to do, I think is powerful if you can let that go, if you can't let it go.

I understand that too.

You've been there, you have the clothes, you want to get back to them.

ADF is what I would do.

You need to read the ADF chapter of the second edition of DDD.

But I just want you to just be happy with your life.

Do not discount your husband's health issues and the stress associate with that as having.

Something to do with it.

Stress is a big deal in our bodies, and so I wouldn't also let intermittent fasting be one of those things that stresses you.

Yeah, And you know, I have two little thoughts too that I was coming up with as I was reading through that.

Yeah, like she said, she starts her window with some raw veggies and hummus, and then she has a small meal and then ends with some yogurt and fruit.

That doesn't seem like a lot of food.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like a lot of food.

And so you know, I kind of wonder if perhaps, in an effort to try to change your body, maybe you are inadvertently under eating in your window.

And the other thought I have is you mentioned that you have a slight cardiac issue and that you take half a pill.

You don't mention what it is.

But there's a lot of cardiac meds that can cause a little dehydration, and if you're slightly dehydrated from them, then that would kind of explain why, like maybe you're having some changes in your fatigue.

And then you also mentioned that you were having headaches after eating, and so being dehydrated can cause headaches after eating.

And then if you're on a cardiac med such as a beta blocker for instance, it can cause you to have some low blood pressure.

And post prandial hypotension is a thing that happens to some people.

So after eating, your blood pressure can drop.

And a lot of this has to do with just like your blood flow being redistributed, Like your blood flow is now going from all over your body to your stomach and your gut for digestion, and so then that can reduce you know, not a blood flow to your brain, but it can lower your blood pressure and make you feel like dizzy or make you have a headache after eating.

And so one of the things that you can do is to spread your meal out a little bit, so like eat something, pause, let your body kind of work on digestion there, eat something and kind of more spread your meal out across your window and just see if that helps.

And then also make sure that you're not dehydrated, like make sure that you are drinking water, but not too much water.

And I would definitely tell your doctor like if this continues, because you know, it could be the medication causing it, and there could be a different medication that you could use instead.

It could be causing a little bit of electrolyte imbalance where maybe you could just take in some extra salt which would help.

So you kind of have a mixed bag of stuff going on there.

Yeah, there's a lot going on.

Definitely make sure you're fueling well in your window, don't.

She has a diet a four to five hour window.

So what's interesting is we she mentions headaches twice once that when she said she didn't want to do ADF because when she hits twenty one or twenty two hours, she starts getting headache.

But that's also would be right on a normal day.

Let's say she's doing a nineteen hour fast after eating, she's like getting headaches at the same time every day, right, whether she's trying to fast longer or not, she's getting headaches if she's fasting.

She's also getting headaches after she eats, so.

It feels like almost like an electrolyte.

Yeah, maybe, so dehydration issue to me, yep.

And so back to the ADF.

You know, there is no reason to do more than twenty one or twenty two hours with ADF.

You just have your five hundred calorie Downday meal, right, so you do not have to fast for thirty six hours to do ADF.

You fast for twenty one, have a five hundred calorie meal.

Now you've done it.

So as far as the headaches after eating, that is definitely.

You know, Sherry mentioned a bunch of things that can cause that, but also you know there are food triggers that can cause it, like certain cheeses and meats and you know, chocolate.

But it also can be blood sugar changes, reactive hypoglycemia.

So try eating different things and seeing and then of course we've got the dehydration.

Also, one of them is starting with something cold.

Eating or drinking something very cold can cause a headache after eating, and you're starting with hummus and carrots, so maybe you need to start with warm food.

So there's like a ton of different things that can cause it, and just to figure it out, you can just google post prambile headaches or headache after eating and go through the list.

This is where you have to be your own study of one to see if you can figure out what it is, because there's so many different things.

And I also one hundred percent agree with Sherry that talking to your doctor is important, especially since you're taking medication could be somehow related to that.

But I just want to go back and say, when you started, you weighed one sixty and your goal was to get to one forty.

And so you know, we always say comparison is the thief of joy.

I know you're comparing to when you got down to one fifteen one twenty and you liked it, but it sounds like your body may have decided that's not where we're going to maintain.

We're going to maintain at one thirty eight because bodies want to protect us and want us to maintain in a place that is your body feels as safe.

So maybe your body perceived when twenty was too small, and so now you've gained the weight back up and now your body's like, okay, we're fine, We're at a good place now.

And so I would really encourage you to do some deep thinking on that.

If when you started at one sixty and your goal was one forty, you had gotten to one thirty eight and you stayed there all the time, you would probably be thrilled.

But I know you had that taste of being smaller and that is what is making it hard to be back to to one thirty eight.

So just something to ponder.

And again, if you absolutely want to try, eightyf is what I would recommend.

Well, and you know I was going to say too.

Metabolism naturally declines.

This for everybody for the age of sixty.

They estimate that it declines by point seven percent per year, and that if you want to stop that from happening, that the best way to do that is to incorporate weight training and increase your muscle mass because that will boost your metabolism and keep your metabolism repped up good.

And she said she's not doing that right right, So that would be another thing to keep in mind.

Oh, I've read something, surey, this is so funny, So we all need to incorporate this into our live imagining that you're doing weightlifting could have your weight you have your muscles grow.

By thirteen percent.

Really to the.

Study, Yeah, if you ah, I think I took a screenshot and I saved it.

I was like, oh my god, I've got to share this, and then I never did.

But it was hilarious because I was like, my new workout strategy is going to be I'm imagining that I'm lifting weights.

I don't know where, I can't find it, but anyway, I just remember thirteen percent.

So, oh my god, my new strategy is I'm just going to sit there and imagine.

That I'm lifting weights.

See if that he it can't hurt, right, Also do some real weight stuff.

I wouldn't do it in only.

But well, what would happen if you were lifting light weights but you were imagining that you're looking heavy heavyweights?

Oh I don't know.

Oh that's fascinating.

I'm not re mind is powerful.

Well, you know, the mind really is powerful.

So you know, imagine that you're doing the weight training.

Oh here, we you all found it.

Studies have revealed that our brains are so powerful that simply visualizing weightlifting can increase muscle strength, sorry, muscle strength by over thirteen percent.

Visualizing weightlifting can increase muscle strength by creating neural adaptations or cortical synchronization where the brain sends more effective signals to muscles.

So it improves muscle activation technique, neuromuscular efficiency, recruits more muscle fibers, strengthens the pathways.

It says, while not a replacement for physical training, mental imagery enhances workout outcomes.

Okay, so you can't do it.

Instead add it to But I was like, that is wild.

So it says basically, imagining a movement causes the brain to emit neural oscillations or brain ways that activate the same motor cortex areas used during actual lifting.

I also just read you must be in good physical condition for mental imagery to be effective.

Okay, so add that in later, do some work.

Now add the mental stuff, get a little stronger.

That's fascinating.

So now it's time for our segment called what's your why?

Most of us begin with weight loss in mind.

That is a great reason, but there's so much more to what intermittent fasting can do for us beyond weight loss, And I genuinely believe if your why is deeper than way loss alone, you're more likely to find long term success and view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle.

All right, So this week we have a wife from Catalina from Alberta.

She wrote, I feel tired and bloated much of the time.

So I want to feel healthy and feel good about myself.

I would love to be able to fit into my clothes better, I would love to be able to lose weight, and overall I want to feel healthy and energetic.

And this was somebody who wrote in and they just started fasting and this is their initial why, and I would not be surprised Catalina if six months to twelve months from now your why changes a lot.

Yeah, we don't want to feel tired and bloated and we don't want to feel unenergetic.

So those are all great reasons to start, but then you'll start to notice all these other things.

Yep.

All right.

So we have a question from Anita and Bob, a couple.

You are happy fasting in Florida.

We have been ifing for about two and a half months, with the last twenty eight days a very clean fast we think, okay, with plain water, black coffee, and Elements, which is an electrolyte Productyou vince that element is clean, but my husband says it is, So that's my first question.

All right, you, I'm going to take that one.

It's lmnt pronounced element and it's an electrote mix.

If it's a flavored version of element, it is absolutely not part of a clean fast.

If it's the raw and unflavored.

That's a little trickier because I have actually seen people share that.

They've added citric acid.

Sometimes it has citric acid.

I don't even know, but not everywhere does it show citric acid, but some people have seen it.

So if it's got citric acid, it would not be part of a clean fast.

And there was also something I'm not even sure where they were adding something and not disclosing it, like there was something in there.

There was some kind of a big contra wory about it.

I would probably choose a different electrolyte just because once I have that, huh, I'm not sure anymore, I would choose something different.

I would get like, Shery, what's the one you like?

We're not sponsored by anybody for electrolytes, by the way.

I'm gonna be honest.

I just started mixing my own because then I know exactly what's in it.

So what do you put in it?

I mean, like, okay, here's the ingredients for elements salt, magnesium mallee, and potassium chloride.

Those are your three ingredients.

They actually have a recipe on their website to make your own.

I personally, for me, they have way too much sodium in their formulation.

For a person who has pots or something and needs a lot of sodium, it's probably perfect for me.

It just causes me to retain fluid.

For some people in our community, they noticed their blood sugar was going up because it doesn't have a great potassium to sodium ratio.

And so I just started making my own because then I can control how much potassium I'm getting in relation to how much sodium I'm getting.

I use a salt called Baja Gold.

It is lab tested for purity and it has more trace minerals in it than most salts.

As such, it's kind of a damp salt.

It's kind of weird to explain.

It is not a dry salt.

You can't.

It's even the fine ground is kind of of kind of like to sounds like beach salt.

It's if you were to pinch talcium powder you can.

It's kind of got a weird feel to it, like you definitely can't just like sprinkle it on your food.

But that's what I use, just because it has other like essential minerals in it.

And then I just have a gigantic tub of potassium chloride and I think it was twenty dollars for like fourteen hundred and fifty servings.

So you can make a lot of electrolytes for cheap at home, and so for me, I use like an eighth of a teaspoon a potassium chloride, which is around I think three hundred something, which is like equivalent to what element has in theirs.

I just don't take in the thousand milograms of sodium, and so I just make my own and I just put it in a cup of water.

I start my day with it.

If I'm doing a down day, I end my day with it as well.

And that's working great for me.

But all the I mean, listen, I have looked high and low.

I wish I could find one that I could just say one hundred percent, this is great for you.

But even the ones that look good on Amazon, I have ordered them and get them and the label does not match what's on Amazon.

So it's hard.

They're out there, but you have to look high and low.

I decided just to make my own, and I also.

Would make sure you really need it, you know, like right, there's a lot of people out there trying to convince us we need something, and also they sell it to you like I don't need electrolytes.

I've never needed electrolytes.

And also salt makes me hungry when I'm fasting, even though technically it's a mineral and that shouldn't break a fast.

Makes me hungry.

So first of all, like say it something in your brain.

Yep, they know that salt can light up some makes me.

Hungry brain, So say why am I taking this?

Am I taking it because I heard somebody say you should take a lotual lize?

Well, then stop taking it and see you might not need it?

Right, Yes, I don't need it.

Now here's something that's really interesting.

I've been doing deep dives and potassium for a couple of years, and the American Heart Association is finally getting on board.

There has been information coming out of Australia for years about the need for people to use salt replacement because it is potassium chloride and it is really great for keeping blood pressure under control.

And the big problem that they think with blood pressure these days is that we eat a very high sodium, low potassium diet.

It's out of balance and it's a balance.

And the reason why low sodium diets work it's a lower people's blood pressure is because it gets their potassium and sodium and balance.

That may not the magic of low sodium.

It's the magic of adding the potassium.

Well, it's not adding the potassium.

If you just take a person and say only have a thousand milligrams of sodium that can control their blood pressure, it gets the balance back, but it gets the balance, okay, So by increasing your potassium intake, you get that balance right, And it has to do with your body cannot use sodium without potassium.

Your sodium channels cannot be unlocked for your body and your cells to use sodium without potassium.

So what happens is that that fluid You start to get fluid in your interstitial spaces, which puts pressure on your vessels, which increases your blood pressure.

And the potassium helps with that.

And very few people eat enough high potassium foods to balance out the sodium in our diets.

Now we have more from honey, we haven't read that's your.

Little thing for that.

I am seventy two years old.

I'm down three.

My husband is sixty nine five nine one pint eighty.

He's down five pounds.

We've gone from fourteen hour fasting.

We're now at eighteen.

I think we're on the right path, but neither of us want to lose a lot.

We just want to feel good.

We want to stay on our six hour eating window, which is noon to six pm, but sometimes we're crazy busy and we don't eat a lot during that window.

I start with a shake that has collagen, benafiber, MCT oil and slim fast ketoshake with eight ounces of protein soy milk and some fruit, and this keeps me full until about four PM, which is usually when we try to have dinner.

My husband starts with a snack and a load car protein bar, then lunch sometimes when he gets home, and then our four or five o'clock meal.

We've done keto for years to tend to stick with that, but we also cheat with potato or high fiber bread.

Now that we are doing if, how can we make sure we are eating well enough in our eating window to make a difference.

So do you just want to go on that.

Yeah, So I feel like I would instead of having a shake or a slim Fast Keto shake, I might would just have some real food open with a meal.

I'm always going to recommend real food versus replacements.

You do not need to have emptyt oil.

You don't need a slim Fast Keto shake, the bene fiber.

I would just eat some real food.

You know, you're having some fruit in there, so you're not like terribly low keto or a terribly keto if you're having fruit, right, And you mentioned that your digestion is not very regular, So I would start gradually adding in more vegetables, high fiber foods, high quality foods.

And that Keto shake is an ultra processed food, so our body is always going to be happier when we have real food.

And again, you do not need empty to oil.

That's a Keto things.

They sold it to you.

So it also helped me understand the electrolytes a little bit more because the keto community is big on like, we've got some electrolytes for you, We've got some shakes for you, We've got some MCT oil for you.

Well, here in the intermittent fasting world, we have nothing for you.

We want you to eat real food and that is it.

That's all.

Keep it simple.

Try to add back some real foods and focus on that.

See what happens now with that said.

Benefit of her is a great prebiotic.

Yeah, and it helps your gut, but it's best when you take it before you eat so and then you eat real food, not the shake.

Right.

All right, Well, before we get to this sweak of the week, I just want to talk about the personal i of coaching that I am doing a few days a week with people just like you.

And a fellow faster I met with a few weeks ago shared this.

She wrote, Hello, all, I just have to rave about the coaching I got from Sherry.

It was about two weeks ago I met with her for an hour.

I really needed a booster shot kind of lift.

I have been fasting for over a year and a half and all of a sudden it just became hard and the weight was creeping back up.

Then I heard on the podcast about her coaching.

I thought about it for a week or two and I decided it was worth the money.

It is not super pricey and I hope that investing the money would be a good reminder that I am worth it, that fasting is worth it.

If you have read this far and you wonder if I am a real person because I sound like an infomercial, it's only because I got my groove back.

I'm back to the magical world where fasting is easy and the weight is slowly melting back off.

When I think of how fasting is free and I have not had to spend a dime to get my mental health back.

About food, I just wanted to share my highest endorsement of sharing.

She is worth every penny, and I want to share.

I don't share this to pat myself on the back, but to share the importance of her message.

If you are struggling to get started, or you need some troubleshooting help, or maybe you've just lost your way after years of fasting, I would really, really love to help you get back on track.

You are worth the time and investment.

And nothing makes me more happy than when people contact me and tell me after a few weeks that the tweaks that we make and the action plan we make is working for them.

So feel free to reach out to me at Sherry at fast feastrepeat dot com and let me know that you're interested.

I'll send you some information.

And again, Sherry is one R s h E RI.

I Yeah, that is awesome, So I definitely I've heard people in the community talking about good things about working with Sherry, so I highly recommend Sherry.

All right, so we have a tweak of the week from Windy in Oakland.

Hey everyone, I've been doing intermittent fasting since January of twenty twenty five.

The weight loss has been slow but steady, about three tenths of a pound per week.

It's been a bummer that my weight isn't coming off more quickly.

Fast forward to recently, when I started using electrolytes.

I bought constant Trace drops.

Again we're not sponsored by anybody about this from Amazon, which are just electrolights.

I love what it did to the water I drink.

It made it more satisfying.

But this translates to less hunger, zero cravings, and my weight loss average is now one.

Point three pounds a week.

Curious about this, I've done a little bit of research and while electrolytes don't cause weight loss directly, balanced electrolytes absolutely do indirectly support weight loss by preventing grellin, the hunger hormone from spiking.

So I think that's interesting.

She has found that adding electrolytes has helped her have less hunger.

And that I could see that if your body was searching for electrolytes, it would prompt hunger because it wants you to.

Get the minerals to get them back.

That makes a lot of sense biologically.

So if you do need electrolytes, and you provide your body what it needs, then I can see how that would make a difference.

So I'm really glad to hear it.

All right, Well, we love to leave you with inspiration our motivational quotes, and this week we have a quote from a longtime DDD community member, Nancy in Fairplay, Colorado.

The quote is the soul always knows what to do to heal itself.

The challenge is to silence the mind, and that is attributed to Caroline.

Miss 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.

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.

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.

Until next week.

Thanks for listening,