Episode 184: Dual Sleep, Cold Coffee Causing Nausea, Vagus Nerve Toning, Biohacking, Protein Intake, Human Growth Hormone And More!

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 184 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you.

I'm Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. And I'm here with my cohost, Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ginstephens.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this podcast do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So, pour yourself a cup of black coffee, a mug of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody. I want to take a minute to tell you about one of our sponsors, Prep Dish. Prep Dish is changing the way thousands of families do mealtime. Here's how it works. Prep Dish thoughtfully crafts a week's worth of gluten-free and paleo meals that feature seasonal ingredients to make the most of your budget, save you time, and surprise your taste buds. You may be thinking, but we aren't gluten free or paleo. Well, when I have used Prep Dish, my family didn't even notice that the meals were gluten free because they are based on real food ingredients and the meals were delicious. There's also a keto plan if that's what you're looking for.

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Melanie Avalon: And one more thing before we jump in. Are you fasting clean inside and out? Did you know that what you put on your skin gets direct access to your bloodstream and in your body can do a lot of detrimental things? So, while you may be fasting clean, you may at the same time be infusing your body with endocrine disrupters, which can mess with your hormones, obesogens, meaning they literally cause your body to store and gain weight and even carcinogens.

In Europe, they've banned thousands of these compounds found in conventional skincare and makeup, and the US has banned less than 10. In fact, most conventional lipstick for example is high in lead. And the half-life of lead in the body can be up to 30 years. That means every time you put on some lipstick, you might be putting some lead into your bones, which might not leave for three decades. This is a big deal.

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All right, now enjoy the show.

Hi everybody and welcome. This is episode number 184 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: Well, I'm sitting here drinking hot water in a mug, so you know how I am.

Melanie Avalon: It's warm again, though.

Gin Stephens: It's not warm here.

Melanie Avalon: Really?

Gin Stephens: Well, okay, it's warmer, but it's very cloudy, and it is warmer than it had been. But my feet were cold. I'm wearing short sleeves and cropped jeans. And so, I guess I was walking around the house. Our house has a very cold floor. I think I said that last time. So, my feet got cold, so I was getting something to drink to take into the podcast studio, and I said I think I want hot water.

Melanie Avalon: I'm sorry that you're struggling.

Gin Stephens: That's all right. Yeah. Going to the beach next week and I think I'm going to take my Uggs.

Melanie Avalon: Oh my goodness.

Gin Stephens: I don't even know if Uggs are still in style, but I don't care because they're so cozy.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, see, I don't like shoes that are enclosed like that.

Gin Stephens: I don't like shoes that you have to wear socks with.

Melanie Avalon: Ugh, me neither.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, so I'm great with barefoot season. I'm great with flip-flops and sandals. I can wear Uggs because you don't have to wear socks, and I can also wear Mini-tonka, what are they moccasins? Because you don't have to wear socks. But I don't do well with socks.

Melanie Avalon: I don't like socks. We have something in common.

Gin Stephens: Yay! My feet like to be free. So, anyway.

Melanie Avalon: I haven't actually been outside yet today, so I don't know if it's--

Gin Stephens: We went and ran some errands. It just is the gross-feeling cloudy, fall day. It's not one of those beautiful, crisp fall days. It's just a yucky, kind of wet-- It's not cold, it's probably 78 degrees. So, people are going to be laughing at me. But it's dreary. 78 and sunny is very different than 78 and a wet, cloudy.

Melanie Avalon: This is true.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. It's very humid. It's very, very humid and cloudy. It's like a sticky kind of cloudy,

Melanie Avalon: I actually got happy that it was humid and sticky for a very random reason because normally I don't like that. Remember how I had the flood in my apartment?

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: The apartment people are just not pulling it together. They're not fixing it. They're not doing mold testing or whatever. So, I was like, "I'm just going to do my own mold testing." So, I had a service come and I scheduled it. And then for like, the two days before it was raining. So, I turned off, because I want it to come back positive.

Gin Stephens: So, they have to fix it.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, I was like, “What can I do to like maximize mold?" So, been turning off all my air purifiers and was like, “Let the moisture come.” So, they came, we'll see. They did air tests, which are apparently the most valid form of testing.

Gin Stephens: I would like you to have no mold and then not have to do any mold remediation.

Melanie Avalon: Right. That would be ideal. But I mean, either way, I'll get it dealt with. So, yeah. I will just say, friends, if you at all are suspicious about mold, please check for it. I lived in a moldy apartment for two years. And I think it like-- if you're susceptible to it-- if it has an effect on your body, it can really have an effect on your body.

Gin Stephens: I think so.

Melanie Avalon: Well, on that deary note, shall we-- just want to jump into everything for today?

Gin Stephens: Yep, let's get started.

Melanie Avalon: All right. So, to start things off, we have a slight follow-up, something that we said we would get back to last time, which I feel like every time we do that we don't always get back to it, but we're getting back to it. So, yay. Emily had asked us about her shiftwork weight loss, intermittent fasting, like crazy sleep schedule, where she would sleep from 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM, do a paper route from 2:00 to 4:00 AM, and then sleep from 4:00 to 7:00 AM, which was a very crazy sleep schedule. We had talked about the fascinating-- Was it mid-Victorian people?

Gin Stephens: I think in general just it being like the-- I've just read articles that indicated that's how they lived. Medieval times, or I don't know, that was the natural way to be.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, so they would go to sleep and then wake up and then go to sleep. So, I asked the resident sleep expert, Dr. Kirk Parsley, who I've had on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. I asked him about it, and he obviously knew everything about it. He said it was called dual sleep, and it occurred roughly 22 longitudinal above or below the equator. And it was because nights were 10 to 12 hours at night. The people would sleep in two halves of the night, and they would wake up in the middle to do activities and hang out while the kids were still asleep. So, that's different than today where we're only sleeping-- we're lucky if we're sleeping eight hours. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because I think we were contemplating that. We were like, “Oh, so maybe this is a good thing.” It's not an ideal situation. That situation would be if you were sleeping like-- if it was like a 12-hour night and you're waking up in the middle. I think our original answer still stands about that schedule.

Gin Stephens: Because they slept from dark to dark. That was the difference. Those people were sleeping from dark to dark and that was too much sleep.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, probably.

Gin Stephens: So, they would wake up in the middle and then have their second half of the--

Melanie Avalon: That makes sense.

Gin Stephens: But you know what, my body is still tuned to that. I swear, I could live that way because as soon as it starts to get dark, I want to go to bed. I don't care if that's 9:30 at night or 5:30 at night. If it's dark, I want to get into bed. I probably should start just doing that. Go to bed, wake up in the middle of the night, get up--

Melanie Avalon: [laughs]

Gin Stephens: --do some stuff, go back to bed. I think that might be my natural-- [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Let us know how that goes.

Gin Stephens: Might be my natural way of being.

Melanie Avalon: I might still be awake in that time when you wake up because you would go to bed-- so like when does it get dark? You would go to bed at like?

Gin Stephens: 5:00, if it's the wintertime.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, so you would sleep from 5:00 to like?

Gin Stephens: 11:00.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, and then you could wake up and then we could hang out.

Gin Stephens: And then, have my second night sleep.

Melanie Avalon: And then, we could both go back to bed at the same time.

Gin Stephens: I swear, I would probably feel great doing that.

Melanie Avalon: We could do the podcast then, in the middle of the night!

[laughter]

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I'd have to have an earlier window, I'd have to shift it.

Melanie Avalon: So, yeah.

Gin Stephens: Coming to you from Gin's biphasic sleep!

Melanie Avalon: And my normal sleep and my normal awake. That's so funny. But sleep is huge. And I will do a quick plug for Dr. Parsley’s Sleep Remedy. They have an unflavored version of it that is fast friendly, and it basically has all of the substrates that your brain naturally needs to fall asleep. So, it's not a pharmaceutical, doesn't knock you out or affect your sleep quality. It just makes your brain naturally fall asleep. I think you can get it for 10% off at sleepremedy.com/melanieavalon.

Gin Stephens: And the version of it that I have is a capsule.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it's a capsule. They have drinks as well. So, you can get it for 10% off at melanieavalon.com/sleepremedy with the coupon, MelanieAvalon. And then, yeah, they do have the drinks as well. And they're coming out with a kid's formulation soon. So, that's pretty exciting. But, yeah, sleep is super important. I feel I keep reading everywhere that, out of everything honestly, diet, lifestyle, exercise, sleep, sleep is probably the most important. It's hard to say one's more important than the other.

Gin Stephens: But sleep is so key. Like fasting is so good for us because it's healing, sleep is where, I don’t know it's where our brains are healing. Not sleeping is like eating all the time as far as the effects it has. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: It's where so many key processes happen that keep you functional okay and alive, and everything important really seems to happen while you're sleeping.

Gin Stephens: I'm realizing the importance of keeping it so dark. Now, we're getting ready to take another step in the bedroom. I mentioned recently how stupid it was that I didn't realize that our shades needed to be and our curtains need to be drawn. And that made a huge difference. But now, the light from the little satellite TV--

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, if there's just one little light, it's huge.

Gin Stephens: Well, I recently took away the alarm clock light because we had the dimmest one you could get. I would like someone to invent-- I've just invented it. But someone else can invent it and then just send me one. A clock that goes dark. I want to have be able to look over and see what time it is only if it is after 5:30 in the morning. I don't want to roll over and see that it's 2:00 AM. I want it to automatically be dark.

Melanie Avalon: I wonder if that exists, do you think it does?

Gin Stephens: I couldn't find one. I looked. I want it to automatically be dark. I've seen something like that for kids where they show a time when it's okay to get up, like you get a green light if it's okay to get up. But I want zero light, I don't want to roll over and see that it's 1:30 and then it's 3:00, and then it's 3:30.

Melanie Avalon: What if you do on that you've like-- it's always dark, but touching it makes it light up?

Gin Stephens: I don't want to touch anything. My phone does that. I can pick my phone up and look at the time. But I want it to just come on at 5:30 in the morning, then I can see its time and be completely dark after that. But now, since I turned the clock off, now, I'm noticing the satellite light is so bright. I think we're going to change our TV providers, so it's darker, and just go with a Hulu kind of streaming.

Melanie Avalon: Or you could just not have your TV in the bedroom.

Gin Stephens: Well, with that, my husband likes to watch TV before going to sleep at night. And I actually fall asleep with him watching TV, then he turns the TV off. So, that works really well. But he likes to wind down with that TV, and I fall right to sleep with the TV on while he's watching TV. And then, he turns it off.

Melanie Avalon: I mean I obviously have been saying from day one, like how important it is to be like all blackout. But I really, really, really realized the importance of that recently because when I had the surgery on my face, and I still can't wear-- so we're not sponsored by BLUblox today, but we talk about BLUblox blue light blocking glasses a lot. And they have a Sleep Remedy Mask, I think is what it's called. And it's the only mask I've had that completely blocks out like all light. It's incredible. And it doesn't touch your eyes. It's the most brilliant engineering.

Gin Stephens: It's like cups over your eyes. I cannot sleep with something around my head. I wake up in the middle of night and rip it off my head. I don't like hats. I don't like headbands. I don't like hair clothes. I can't wear my hair in a ponytail. I've got a head thing. I don't wear sunglasses. I can't wear anything on my face. I wear my blue blockers when watching TV, but I can only handle it for a short period of time.

Melanie Avalon: Well, for those who can handle it.

Gin Stephens: I'm a special snowflake.

Melanie Avalon: For those who can handle it. Yeah, it's what Gin said. There's no pressure on your eyes at all. It's soft and goes around your eyes and you can completely open your eyes when it's on, and it's completely blackout.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, the ones I had were like that, but I just couldn't have it on my head.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, so I couldn't wear them for quite a while after the surgery. And literally the first day, I could wear it again, I slept through the night for the first time in a long time, at least since the surgery and I was like, "Wow, this is huge." I have the really intense hotel blackout curtains, but there is a tiny bit of light that comes in that I can't quite get rid of.

Gin Stephens: Or under the door of our bedroom. We accidentally left the lights on in the living room. I guess I thought Chad was turning them off, he thought I was. We just had the door closed. And I woke up in the middle of the night. I think I thought it was sunrise coming under the door. But it was the lights in the living room. It is huge, my brain really, yep, I need to have it dark. So, I'm working on it, changing my TV provider to make it darker. But getting rid of the alarm clock made a huge difference, completely, but then I could see the other lights, but sleep is really that important.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it is. So resources for listeners, Sleep Remedy. That's at melanieavalon.com/sleepremedy with the coupon, MelanieAvalon. And for BLUblox, if you like the blue light blocking glasses or the Sleep REMedy Mask, they're two completely different companies but they both use the word sleep and remedy in the title, that is at blublox.com and the coupon, IFPODCAST, gets you, I think 10-- it might be 15%, it's 10% or 15% off. For everything that you buy there, they donate need a pair of glasses to somebody in need, which is pretty nifty. So, shall we jump into our questions?

Gin Stephens: Yes. We have a question from Megan. And the subject is "Iced Coffee Versus Hot Coffee." “Hi, M&G.”

Melanie Avalon: Oh, it's a new one.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. M for Melanie, G for Gin, in case people thought, they're like, “What's M&G?” Emoji.

Melanie Avalon: Like in the alphabet, elemenopee.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. There you go. “Love your work. I'm curious about whether you could offer some insight into black coffee served hot versus iced. I noticed that iced coffee, both cold brew and otherwise, makes me nauseous. I have tried making it myself and I've ordered it from multiple places. Don't worry, always black. But I really noticed I'm nauseous for it.” I can't say that word nauseous is really how you say it, but I always read it wrong. Naa-shus, nau-shus. “I have never had a problem with hot coffee. Thanks for your thoughts.”

Melanie Avalon: Well, Megan, thank you for your question. So, my initial thoughts are that warm things, they stimulate digestion. Basically, cold can be a shock to your system. And that's really the only thing I can think of. I know it's not much help.

Gin Stephens: Well, I had a theory and it's not true.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, really? What was your theory?

Gin Stephens: I feel nauseated if I have tea on an empty stomach. I've heard people say it's the tannins in the tea. And coffee has tannins as well. So, my theory was that perhaps iced coffee had more tannins than the hot, but that is not true. Cold brew has fewer tannins than hot brew. So, my theory was nothing. Yes, fewer tannins. And really, that makes sense because the tannins probably add to the bitterness and we know that cold brew takes out some of the bitterness. So now, my theory, I understand why I was wrong.

Melanie Avalon: So, you learned something.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. I would just stick to the hot coffee. I don't know why.

Melanie Avalon: I guess the question would be, do other cold drinks make you nauseous? If any cold drink makes you nauseous, then it's the temperature, it's the cold. If they don't--

Gin Stephens: Then we got nothing.

Melanie Avalon: --then there's something-- and then some combination of the cold and the coffee.

Gin Stephens: I can think of one thing that is possible. I've talked before about how Nitro cold brew doesn't work for me because my brain perceives it as sweet. Maybe the cold brew is being perceived by your brain as sweet and you're having a blood sugar crash making you nauseous. I don't know. That's a bit of a stretch.

Melanie Avalon: I think it might involve the vagus nerve, probably. Megan, check out my interview that I did on the vagus nerve at melanieavalon.com/vagusnerve with Ami Brannon who's the creator of a company called Xen by Neuvana. They make a vagus nerve toning device, but the vagus nerve, it's also called the wandering nerve and it's this cranial nerve that extends to every single system in our body with the exception of our thyroid and adrenals, I believe. But it's super, super involved in digestion and it's interpreting things like temperature, food digestion, and it's attached directly to the brain. So, it's the reason that how anxiety or mood or all of this stuff so intensely affects our digestion. A lot of it goes back to that. And it's also involved in things like fainting, which is not different-- not the same thing as s being nauseated, but I would bet at the vagus nerve thing being activated by temperature, that would just be my guess.

Something you could try would be doing activities to "tone" your vagus nerve or tried the Zen by Neuvana device and see if that affects how you respond to the coffee if you're that-- if you're really invested. Fun times.

Gin Stephens: All right.

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All right, now back to the show.

The next question comes from Paula. The subject is "IF." Paula says, “I'm curious why intermittent fasting has very little impact on my weight. I do 16 hours' fast every day with calorie and carbohydrate restriction. It's not easy. I'm ravenous all the time.” She says, “I don't have energy and I feel depressed.” Thank you, Paula.

Gin Stephens: Well, there's two pieces of information I wish I knew. One, how long has she been doing this? That's so key because let's just forget about the part that I'm going to talk about in a minute, the calorie and carbohydrate restriction, pretend she didn't say that. And all she said was 16 hours is not working for her because she's not losing weight. It's not easy, she's hungry. If she's early in, then clearly, she's not fat adapted because that's how you feel before you're fat adapted. And 16 hours may not be enough fasting for people to become fat-adapted if they are eating a lot during their eight-hour eating window. So, you could do 16-hour fast every single day, never become fat-adapted and then, your fast is going to be harder. Because the reason my fast is easy, is because my body has flipped that metabolic switch. So, in Fast. Feast. Repeat., I really go into details about this. Look for that chapter in Fast. Feast. Repeat.

Now, Paula gives us a little bit of information there that she is also doing calorie and carbohydrate restriction. So, I think Paula is going through what would happen with someone on a low-calorie diet. She's not fasting long enough really with 16 hours to really get that metabolic boost from really tapping into fat stores efficiently. But then, she's not fueling up very well because she's doing calorie restriction during the feeding time. So, what I would recommend, Paula, first of all, I would maybe have a few refeed days, just no fasting, just eat. Because you should not be feeling ravenous, you should not be depressed, you should not have low energy. Those are all things-- being ravenous all the time, having no energy, feeling depressed, that's how the guys felt when they were going through the Minnesota Starvation Experiment when they were not well fueled. So, those are all key signs of overdieting. So, stop. Give yourself a week, two weeks, just don't count anything, don't fast, just eat, I don't know. You should want to get your body feeling it's feeling good again. Don't weigh yourself in that time.

Then, you might want to try-- maybe read the 28-Day FAST Start on Fast. Feast. Repeat and then ease yourself in. I would do the ease-in approach, take it gentle. You do not want to do calorie and carbohydrate restriction at the same time. I wouldn't recommend anybody do fasting and then also trying to do really low-calorie dieting at the same time, it's fast, feast, repeat. Not fast, low-calorie diet, repeat. We want our bodies to feel well fed, we want to be well nourished. Once you get past the adjustment phase, and you know your body is fat adapted, if you ever start feeling ravenous all the time, your energy is low and you're depressed, that's a sign that what you're doing is really, really wrong for your body. Also, carbohydrate restriction can lead to depression for some people. Carbohydrates, our brain serotonin, I read a book. Did you ever read Potatoes Not Prozac, Melanie? Have you ever heard of that book?

Melanie Avalon: I've heard of it. I haven't read it.

Gin Stephens: I might have mentioned it. I'm not sure. I can't remember the credentials of the person who wrote it. Maybe she was a psychiatrist. I can't remember, it's been a long time. She talked about having a hit of carbs, like a potato, at night before you go to bed and that really helped with mood. So, that could be a factor right there as well. What do you think, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: You basically hit on all of it. I was zoning in on the fasting, the calorie, and the carb restriction. All of that at the same time is not the game plan to take, especially when you're first starting intermittent fasting.

Gin Stephens: But we don't know she might have been doing this a long time, in which case her body is really fighting back.

Melanie Avalon: True. Very true. Yeah, because it's so key. One of the things that makes intermittent fasting so magical is that when you have the feasting period, that's sending all of the signals to your body that make the fast in a way work even better because you need that feast period to send those signals to start the repair processes, start the growth and recovery, and make the body not feel it's in a state of perpetual starvation. So, then it's more willing in a way to enter the fasted state when you do fast, because it's not-- what's the word when anthropomorphizing? I'm giving--

Gin Stephens: Anthropomorphism.

Melanie Avalon: I'm doing that right now, even though it is your body, but maybe somebody is following who's listening to me right now. So, then your body enters the fast. If you don't have that feasting period, it's going to think that it's in a perpetual state of starvation. And so, the fast metabolism is going to be massively downregulated, you're going to feel starving, you're going to feel ravenous, it's really, really important to have that feasting period. I mentioned it last time, I'm reading Joel Greene's The Immunity Code, which is just blowing my mind, blowing my mind! But he talks a lot about this as well. I like Gin's idea about having some refeed days, and then reevaluating your whole plan about all this. Ironically, maybe fasting longer, but when the eating window--

Gin Stephens: Alternate daily fasting.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Like a 36:12.

Melanie Avalon: I was going to suggest rather than start jumping into that, because I even get freaked out by that, and I've been fasting for a long time. And that's just me, I know some people do really well with it. I was saying, I feel like the first step would just be maybe fasting longer and not restricting calories in your window.

Gin Stephens: What do you mean by fasting longer? That's what I'm confused by.

Melanie Avalon: Instead of a 16-hour fast--

Gin Stephens: Oh, okay. I get it.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, so maybe doing a one meal a day, or feeling free to fast longer than 16 hours, so maybe fasting 18, 20 hours. But then, when you eat, no restriction, carb restriction maybe if those are the macros that your body does well on, but definitely not the calorie restriction.

Gin Stephens: And it really may not be. There's a common thought in many intermittent fasting communities that if you're not also doing low carb with fasting, you're doing it wrong, but that's not true. Both Melanie and I have shown with our own personal experience that we do great with plenty of carbs and the intermittent fasting. So, if you definitely don't do well with carbs, that's one thing, but if you just are avoiding carbs, because you think you should, that's a whole different thing.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. 100%.

Gin Stephens: I've got one of my moderator friends who was low carb for years and years and years and years and struggled, struggled, struggled. Before she was a moderator, she was just a person in the group and I gave her the advice, I'm like, “Well, then try carbs, experiment with carbs.” And she thought I was crazy. She's like, “Everybody knows low carb is 'better' for weight loss.” But she added carbs back, and then went on to get to her ideal weight very easily.

Melanie Avalon: 100%. Definitely check out the interview, and I'm not completely saying to do the diet they follow. But if you want more about the science of all of that, check out my interview that I did with Cyrus and Robbie who wrote Mastering Diabetes. It's a mind-blowing episode. It's at melanieavalon.com/masteringdiabetes. I know I told you, Gin, but I don't know if I said on the podcast that I'm bringing on Dr. Doug Graham, who wrote The 80/10/10 Diet. I told you that, right?

Gin Stephens: I can't remember.

Melanie Avalon: I'm really excited!

Gin Stephens: What are his 80/10/10?

Melanie Avalon: 80/10/10 is the macros that are 80% carbs, 10% protein, 10% fat.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I could not do that diet. I could not eat that way. No, no, no.

Melanie Avalon: And he's fruitarian, mostly.

Gin Stephens: I need fat. I need fat.

Melanie Avalon: I need protein. Actually, our next question is about this a little bit.

Gin Stephens: I need protein too, but less protein. I need adequate protein. Someone was asking about this today. I'm sure we'll get to that with the protein question, but my body lets me know when I need more protein.

Melanie Avalon: Me too.

Gin Stephens: And I really need starchy carbs. Yesterday, I opened my window with this veggie bowl, this harvest bowl, it was called from this company, I was trying their food, it was delicious. But I was so unsatisfied. It was a giant bowl of food. It was like Brussel sprouts and I don't even know and all of these great veggies, and then I was still starving. And then, I had a bowl of oatmeal and then I felt better. I've got to have starchy carbs.

Melanie Avalon: I do find starchy carbs really satiating, I just don't like the way they feel in my body. I don't feel well.

Gin Stephens: I feel fabulous after I eat starchy carbs. If I don't eat starchy carbs, I don't feel well, that is 100% true. That veggie bowl, it was a whole giant bowl of food, I ate the whole thing. And then, I was like, “I am still hungry.” So, I've got to have beans or something with grains, I have to. A potato.

Melanie Avalon: If I don't eat lots of protein, I don't feel full. But what I'm wondering-- so Dr. Doug Graham is pretty controversial, but reason I'm so excited about bringing him on is because I feel my show has been very--

Gin Stephens: Like keto, meat focused?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I mean, it's featured a lot of people in that world and I haven't had much on the flip side. I've had a few. But he's pretty much as far as you can go.

Gin Stephens: That's pretty extreme. 80/10/10 is very, very-- yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I'm so excited to bring him on!

Gin Stephens: I would never stop eating if I was trying to do that because I don't get the stop eating signal.

Melanie Avalon: There was a period of time where I was eating basically, really, really high fruit, which I'm still trying to get back to, but really, really high fruit, really high protein. I could have days on occasion where I did just fruit. I would do that occasionally for my one-meal day. When I would do that, the next day, my body would feel so like-- I don't know how to describe it, light and airy, and my eyes would be-- all inflammation will be gone. My eyes would be shining white. I just felt radiating. But I would be craving protein like none other that night. But I'm really on the fence. All the other research I've run the other side really, really seems to be in support of moderate or higher protein diets.

Gin Stephens: Well, the research on my body is, I need carbs, I need fat, and adequate protein. But my body tells me. Sometimes I'm like, “I don't want any meat. I don't want any meat. I'm just not going to have any today.” And then, other days, I'm like, “I really need to eat some meat today.”

Melanie Avalon: I crave meat so much. I'm actually pretty excited-- I haven't told you this yet, Gin, because I still have a lot of lingering things I'm trying to tackle health-wise and I got introduced to a doctor who is apparently the doctor to a lot of people in my sphere. All I've had so far is a brief consult intake with him, but I'm pretty excited because he's making me reevaluate a lot of stuff. He already said iron for example is never an iron issue, it's a copper issue. I was like, “What?” And he doesn't have any one dogma about any one thing. So, I'm pretty excited. We'll see how it goes. If it goes well, I'm going to bring him on the show as well. We had an intake. He doesn't like the whole biohacking concept or all of these different authors and books and ideas. So, I'm going to bring them on for an anti-biohacking episode to dismantle biohacking. I'm really excited.

Gin Stephens: To me, maybe I don't understand biohacking, okay, so tell me if I'm wrong. To me, biohacking is tweaking anything about what you do with your life or your body to maximize how you feel and your health, right?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. And this is what it comes down to because I actually had this conversation with two different people and it was the exact same conversation and I had my idea and they had their idea of what it was, and they were very much anti-biohacking because of the definitions, and it's so interesting how semantics are involved in.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. Semantics are huge.

Melanie Avalon: I think that was the conclusion. I literally got in an argument-- I don't really get in arguments, but I got into sort of argument about it and at the end, we were just like, “Semantics.” We can't really go beyond this because my definition of biohacking is-- in our modern world using tools, devices, supplements, things that we-- because some people say fasting is biohacking or--

Gin Stephens: Exactly. Putting on your blue blockers.

Melanie Avalon: I don't think fasting is biohacking because that's just something we do.

Gin Stephens: No, I think it is. I consider it a biohack.

Melanie Avalon: I consider the biohacks things that are using-- like I just said, devices, supplements, things we would not naturally be-- living our normal life, we would not be able to do unless we consciously secured them and implemented them into our routine. And then by using them, they hack our environment, they hack our bodies to either potentially function better or perform better. So, I consider biohacks, things like blue light blocking glasses, because the non-biohacking form of that would be you just turn off the lights and go to bed. Or like Joovv red light, the non-biohack version would be go outside and see the red light, but even then, you can't get in the concentrated form.

Gin Stephens: Okay, intermittent fasting is a biohack, by your definition, let me explain because in the past, they weren't able to eat around the clock because food was not available around the clock. But now, food is available around the clock. So, we have to biohack by having time-restricted eating windows.

Melanie Avalon: But anybody can fast, and our bodies can fast, but you don't have to go buy something to fast.

Gin Stephens: Well, I don't think the biohack means you have to buy something.

Melanie Avalon: It's a thing that you go get and implement into your life that would make your body potentially better because I wouldn't consider following a low-carb diet biohacking. But I think if you consider fasting biohacking, you could consider that biohacking. But the bristling comes in, I guess, with the two conversations I've had with people who get very upset by it, they think it is pretentious because it's assuming that-- it was a few things, it's assuming that we know better than our bodies and we think that we can bring these devices or bring these things in and make our bodies do better than they would just naturally be able to do from life, which I was saying, “Well, you could extend that same argument to medicine and say medicine is us trying to do that.” That was the main idea, was that it was pretentious or thinking that we know better than our bodies.

Gin Stephens: Here's a definition I just found. I think this is a pretty good one. The attempt to manipulate your brain and body in order to optimize performance outside the realm of traditional medicine. See, that's why I think that intermittent fasting--

Melanie Avalon: Which, fasting is in traditional medicine, like--

Gin Stephens: Okay, I don't think that they're talking about ancient Chinese medicine or something. I think they're talking about go to the doc-in-the-box kind of medicine traditional. Go to your practitioner who's just practicing medicine like they have for the past 20 years. That definition of traditional medicine is not asking Aristotle or something. Anyway, I definitely think fasting is biohacking. I think that carnivore is a biohack and I think that 80/10/10 sounds like a biohack. All that does.

Melanie Avalon: It's interesting, though. I mean, a lot of people agree with you, because I'll do that poll a lot. I should do it now in my group, which everybody should join, IF Biohackers, speaking of, that's what it's called, IF Biohackers. I will often ask, “What's your favorite biohack?” And a lot of people say fasting. I wouldn't consider cold-- Okay, like cold exposure, I wouldn't consider going out--

Gin Stephens: That's a biohack. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Here's how I think about it. I wouldn't really consider like knowing, "Oh, if I go outside in the winter, it's going to be good for my body, it's going to activate sirtuins. It's going to have longevity-boosting benefits," can do all these things. I think just going out in the cold and experiencing that, I wouldn't consider that biohacking, but I would consider it biohacking if I buy a chest freezer, fill it with ice, and do an ice bath. Then, I would consider biohacking because I'm doing this, I'm creating this thing that is upgrading my--

Gin Stephens: But you could do that, absolutely, just like outside in the-- you don't need to buy something to do it.

Melanie Avalon: It's like a kid walking outside and--

Gin Stephens: I think the key for biohacking is that it's purposeful for a goal of your body. Like a kid who's outside playing in the snow doesn't know that there are benefits associated with that, but if you're like, “I'm going to go outside and get a lot of cold therapy because I'm hacking my body,” that is what by definition makes it biohacking. The purposeful pursuit of it, for the purpose of changing your body.

Melanie Avalon: But people do that following a diet, and I don't consider diets biohacking. Like paleo, I don't consider--

Gin Stephens: If you were doing a diet that you-- joined Weight Watchers or something, I wouldn't call that a biohack. But if you read about the science of calorie restriction, and the scientists who-- they eat like two almonds and one cashew, that calorie restriction is the biohack.

Melanie Avalon: Why? Why is one and not the other?

Gin Stephens: I really think the intent is the goal of it. I'm talking about Calorie Restriction, capital C, capital R, you know what I'm talking about, Melanie, we've talked about this before, that the science of calorie restriction for longevity because it's purposeful. You're like, “I am going to hack my body to live to be 120 by having this calorie restriction.” Versus somebody who's like, “I'm joining Weight Watchers because I want to lose weight.” That's totally different than the idea of doing calorie restriction for the longevity purpose and it's very intense. It's like more intense.

Melanie Avalon: So, here's a question. I have my Apollo Neuro device which I would hands down consider biohacking. It's one of my favorite devices on the planet. Listeners, if you want it, feel like I mentioned so many things this episode, but it's at melanieavalon.com/apollo, that's the interview. Melanieavalon.com/apolloneuro is to buy it and you get $50 off of that link. But it uses soundwave therapy. So, you put it on, and it activates a state in your body that is activated by human touch to have like a relaxing effect on the body. I definitely consider that biohacking. What if you go get a massage and you get it with the intent of stimulating human touch, so now is getting that massage biohacking?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, in that case, it would be.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. See, I would not consider that biohacking,

Gin Stephens: If you are attempting to manipulate your brain and body in order to optimize your performance-- If you're like, “Oh, I'm going to get a massage. I like that.” But if you're like, "I am going to get this special massage. I'm going to do this because of this, this, this,” I think it can be a biohack. I'm drinking a mug of hot water because I like it. But if I read something that said, “Having a mug of hot water does this, this, this for your body,” suddenly I'm using it as a biohack versus I'm just drinking hot water. I think it's the intent. I don't know, maybe people think I'm crazy. But drinking hot water just because I'm cold, it makes me happy is different than if Wim Hof said, “If you have a mug of hot water, it does this for your body,” and now, I'm purposefully adding that to my day for this biohack purpose.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I'm open to that.

Gin Stephens: Okay. [laughs] That's what I've always thought of. So, that's why intermittent fasting works for me. Grandma who just naturally ate that way, I don't think she was biohacking. She just naturally ate that way. Whereas those of us who are like, “I am doing intermittent fasting for health and longevity,” I think it becomes a biohack.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I think one of the problems is just-- it goes back to semantics. There's not really one accepted definition.

Gin Stephens: Well, some people don't think that time-restricted eating is fasting. A lot of it is semantics. We can get too caught up in that. But anyway, so your doctor doesn't like the word biohacking.

Melanie Avalon: Oh yeah, no. But it was crazy because I did the intake call, which was like 30 minutes, and we literally talked an hour and a half. And at the end, I was like, “We should have recorded this. This could have been an episode.” I'm really excited though. Actually, I can say his name because he's been on shows, Dr. Anthony Beck. I was listening to him on Ben Greenfield recently.

Gin Stephens: Well, keep us posted.

Melanie Avalon: I shall.

Gin Stephens: All right. Flowing into Carolanne's question, "Determining adequate intake and IF/HGH," which would be human growth hormone. “After listening to Melanie's podcast with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and your podcast.”

Melanie Avalon: I have not had a podcast with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. So, I don't know who she's referring to. I just want to interject that but go ahead.

Gin Stephens: “And your podcast of September 7th, an issue I've been pondering for quite a long time has come to a head. It's not simple to present. But I'll start with the question. How much protein does one need if one is intermittent fasting?”

Melanie Avalon: I bet it was Cynthia Thurlow.

Gin Stephens: Okay. Did she talk about protein?

Melanie Avalon: She did. Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Okay, that's got to be it. “Assuming a fasting window of at least 16 hours, how much daily/weekly protein should we be eating? Another question goes along with this before I even get to the issue of the impact of intermittent fasting on adequate protein intake, and that is, how do we determine how much protein to get? If it is grams per pound of bodyweight, is it the whole body or lean body weight? Then, what does lean body weight mean? Is it muscle tissue alone? Or does it mean muscle and bone tissue? Muscle, bone, organ tissue or everything but fat tissue?” Wait, Carolanne, your question is making me crazy. I love you, but-- [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: This is a question that Melanie would ask.

Gin Stephens: Melanie loves this question. And I'm like, “Eat your food.”

Melanie Avalon: This is literally like me.

Gin Stephens: Eat your food, stop eating your food. Boom. Okay, sorry. All right, Carolanne. I love you anyway. All right. Then, to make it even harder, “How do we know what those weights are? And of course, outside of professional health methods of measuring our body weight, that seems to leave only a scale that is able to measure all of that. Which brings up another question, how accurate are those scales?

Now, to the issue of the impact of intermittent fasting on how much protein to consume, I often hear the great advice to eat to satiety each day, assuming a refeeding that does not limit calories in order to lose weight. And that statement seems to be an implicit belief that doing that will provide quite adequately for the body's needs. And that mainly seems to be as far as I understand it, due to the stimulation of growth hormone due mainly to autophagy.” And I also think I'm just going to interject here real quick, Carolanne, I wouldn't say it's the stimulation of human growth hormone due to autophagy but the recycling of protein due to autophagy. Is that what you think she's asking you, Melanie? The protein for your body's needs, that's because it's recycling it due to autophagy. She's saying stimulation of human growth hormone, that's the rebuilding phase. Autophagy is the breaking down phase.

Melanie Avalon: When you're fasting, human growth hormone is going up.

Gin Stephens: Right. But my point is that's not because of autophagy making human growth hormone go up. I think she's talking about the recycling of protein due to autophagy. Anyway, I'm going to keep going. That's where we have our protein needs met during the fast because our bodies are literally recycling it. The human growth hormone comes into play when you're rebuilding.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, so the human growth hormone is stimulated, it's going up while you're fasting. So then, when you start eating, it's really high and then you're at a prime state for growth.

Gin Stephens: And your body has recycled all those proteins during the fast and now your body can use those too. So, it's not just the protein you're eating, is what I'm trying to get across here. Yeah. You don't get all your protein just from protein that you take in through eating. She continues, “It is an uncomfortable place to be in. For me, it's really important that I make sure I get adequate nourishment so that my adrenals and thyroid can heal. When I began intermittent fasting in July of 2018, I already knew my adrenals weren't producing enough energy for me and doing fasting more than 14 to 15 hours was not the thing to do. I didn't know then that it was too stressful for my body. After listening to Dr. Lyon--”

Melanie Avalon: It was definitely Cynthia Thurlow.

Gin Stephens: She's actually not a doctor. She's a nurse practitioner. “I really got to wondering and having a lot of anxiety over how much protein should I be getting.” I'm going to stop right there again, and I have to interject this because 100 years ago, nobody had anxiety about this. They just ate their food. It's so interesting how we're like-- the more we know, the more we're learning, the more anxious we become. If you went back in time and said to somebody, they would look at you like you're crazy, that we're worried about-- Anyway, I'm just going on. We have knowledge overload. All right.

"So, I live a quiet lifestyle, low demand, because that's what I need to do right now, to lessen the stress in my life. I know these aren't simple questions, but I greatly respect the thoroughness of your research and your approach to difficult issues. And just to add here, because it's already way too long, and what will one more sentence be? Thank you immensely for keeping your podcast free of politics. It's like an oasis of peace and calm and encouragement. And I treasure it and you guys. With highest and warmest regards, Carol." Yep. Carol, you will never hear us talk about politics. Never.

Melanie Avalon: Nope.

Gin Stephens: Nope. We've never even talked about politics. Melanie and I have never talked about politics. We could be the complete opposite. We'll never know, and we're not going to tell you.

Melanie Avalon: We wouldn't even know. That’s so funny.

Gin Stephens: Not going to tell you because that's personal. All right, and it's irrelevant.

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Melanie Avalon: Well, thank you, Carolanne, for your question. Love it. Really appreciate it. And it flows perfectly with everything that we were talking about before so-- Oh, and yeah, it was definitely Cynthia Thurlow. And the reason-- I totally forgot. It's always interesting to see what resonates when I release an episode, like what part of the episode people really resonate with because for every episode, if you do join my Facebook group, IF Biohackers, there's an episode giveaway each time and to enter, all you do is comment on the post about the episode, something that you learned or what resonated with you. And when I released that episode with Cynthia, which was a few weeks ago, or maybe last week, everybody was like protein. I totally forgot that we talked about that because it was just a tiny bit of the whole conversation. But that's what really stuck out to people was because she was saying for women-- One of the reasons she advocates longer eating windows as she thinks for most women, it's almost near impossible to get enough protein.

My answer was, I'm definitely the exception, because it's shocking how much protein I eat in a one-meal-a-day situation. But, yeah, she was saying that for women, specifically, how important it was to get enough protein. As far as how much protein is enough, this is ironic-- I don't know. I was talking before about, one side of the camp of things people like Dr. Graham, fruitarians, the load protein camps, saying that all we need is like 10% of protein.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, there's actually a book called Proteinaholic that talks about that we're eating too much protein.

Melanie Avalon: I've also had James Clement on the show, and we talked about protein as well. I'm really, really fascinated by it because it is such a polarizing thing. On the one hand, we have people saying, “Oh, we're fine with 10%, that's actually ideal.” Then, on the other hand, we have people saying the complete opposite. Probably the episode I went deepest into protein would be the one I did with William Shewfelt and Ted Naiman. I think that's literally at melanieavalon.com/protein. So, people like Han[?], people like Robb Wolf, my recent episode with him, we talked about protein. They point out how direly important protein is, like a moderate, if not high protein intake for health, for our bodies, for satiety, for longevity.

Gin Stephens: Can I pop in a theory that I have?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: You know how we talk all the time about how we're all different when it comes to what foods work for us? I wonder if some of us are better at recycling protein, so we need to take in less. And so, we naturally gravitate towards eating less, and then we assume everyone should eat less, because that's how we feel great. Whereas the people like maybe, the people who feel best when they eat 90% protein, maybe their bodies aren't good at recycling protein, and they need to take in more.

Melanie Avalon: That's what I was going to ponder. So that and then I also wonder, though, how much of it is you and your genetics, your epigenetics. What are you thinking about is, reading this 80/10/10 book, and dancing around the communities and seeing what people say it's like, lot of people say that your body adapts. So, it starts working just fine on the lower protein intake. So, I don't know how much of it is genetic versus epigenetic from the diet that you're following for a certain period of time. All that said, I think there could be a case to be made for lower protein for longevity, especially while you're young. I'm not so much sure after you hit a certain age-- I think it's around 60 or so, I don't know the exact number, there's a point where low protein-- the relationship changes.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I've read that to you. I think Dr. Fung talks about that.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and it's pretty well established. Once you reach a certain age, you need more protein.

Gin Stephens: I really believe our bodies are going to tell us. I know how I feel like if I'm one day, I'm craving more protein and I look back and I think, “Yeah, I didn't really have much protein in the past few days.” And then, I'm like, “Now, I'm going to have this big piece of chicken.”

Melanie Avalon: The thing I wonder is, I've been so high protein for so long, I'm like, “What if my body is just-- that's what it's accustomed to?” But to answer her specific questions. The grams?

Gin Stephens: Oh, don't ask me. I don't know any of those recommendations because I would never be able to follow them.

Melanie Avalon: So, the official dietary recommendations are 0.36 grams per pound.

Gin Stephens: And who's that recommendation coming from?

Melanie Avalon: The dietary reference intake. Yeah, 0.8 grams per kilogram. What I see most in the communities that I-- is communitize in, a word? No-- that I live in.

Gin Stephens: You commune in them. You commune in those communities. I just made that up. I don't know if that's right. But you commune with them.

Melanie Avalon: I like going by what Siim Land talks about just if I have to pick one person, and William Shewfelt and Ted Naiman’s book. I don't have that book with me right now. I'm just looking at Siim Land’s book and he advocates 0.6 to 0.8 grams per pound of lean body mass on rest days, and 0.8 to 1.2 grams on workout days. That is often what I see because that averages to around one gram per pound of lean body mass. So, I'm just going to throw that out there as something to consider. And so, what that would look like would be-- because she asked how do you know what your lean body mass is? You can get it measured. A lot of gyms have machines that will measure your-- they'll show you your composition of everything. And you don't have to worry about tissue, muscle, bone, organ tissue, it's going to show you fat, muscle, and that's what you need to know. There are the scales, I don't know how accurate they are. I read things all over the board about them. Do you have thoughts about the accuracy of those scales?

Gin Stephens: Yeah. I've heard a lot of negatives about them because they work with bioimpedance. And a lot of it has to do with your body water and they all claim they're great, but they're really, I think, not all that great. I don't know.

Melanie Avalon: What I would advocate just to be safe is you could just go for around, and I know this seems like a lot-- But if even though I talked about the low protein before, I think if you're not purposely trying a low-protein diet for that reason, I would err on the side of more protein. I don't really measure or count or anything, I just do what Gin was saying. I eat to satiety, but you could aim for like a gram per-- I would say even like per normal body weight, in that ballpark. Especially if you're trying to like lose weight, maintain weight, have satiety, things like that, which I don't know that she necessarily was asking about that. But if that is the case, protein has the highest thermogenic effect of any food, although I don't know if alcohol might have more but of food. Meaning, you burn calories, just processing it. It's very satiating like I said, and it does support your muscle.

There's even been studies, and I think we've talked about them before, they have found studies where they didn't change exercise protocols-- I'm not saying that you can just eat like tons of protein and gain muscle, but they have found that, that overeating protein can lead to more muscle growth, even without necessarily doing a workout to create that, which is pretty shocking. She says she has a lot of anxiety over wondering about the protein. I think it all goes back to what Gin said in the beginning, try not to have the anxiety part of it. The fact that you're trying to get enough protein, I think, is a good thing. I think the problem-- a lot of people get overly focused on fat or carbs, they're not even thinking about the protein, so I feel you're one step ahead with all of that.

And it sounds you are pretty intuitive with your eating window. You said that you found originally that fasting for more than 14 to 15 hours wasn't working for you and you did realize it was too stressful for your body. So, it sounds like you're really in tune with your body. I would encourage you to eat protein to satiety. Out of curiosity, maybe you could eat to satiety for a while and then retroactively look at how much you ate and see if it does sort of line up to that one gram per pound. I'm saying normal weight because the recommendation is technically less, but yeah. Gin, do you have other thoughts?

Gin Stephens: Well, I kind of have already said mine during the-- while I was reading it. I just never want to stress about macros, or what I'm eating and even-- I talked about this on the podcast when I was doing the PREDICT 3, and I had to enter exactly what I was eating into the app. I wasn't even trying to eat to targets, I just had to put it in. That was too much for me. I was like, “I don't know, what am I eating? I don't know how to put this in.” I don't want to count, track, manage, measure, worry, do a math problem, I don't want to do that. In fact, I refuse to do that, ever again. I'm just going to eat food that is delicious.

Even when I was experimenting-- Melanie and I've talked about this, I was experimenting with eating less fat, just to see how it felt after reading Mastering Diabetes, and seeing their recommendations matched what that one DNA analysis told me, I was like, “Well, I'm just going to try it and see.” Even then, I couldn't count, I just had to eyeball it. So, I just never want to count anything again. I just want to eat food until I'm satisfied. I genuinely believe that our bodies are not going to let us be deficient in protein without sending us craving for more protein. I think that's one of those things we have that, that signal. Because just listening to my body and knowing how it varies from day to day, I get that signal very, very easily. I'll be like, "Ooh, I'm going to add an egg on top of this. I just feel like I'm craving it." Actually, that sounds really good, I'm thinking about having an egg when I open my window. I love to have some days eggs on toast to open my window. You would not have eggs or toast, would you?

Melanie Avalon: Oh, no. I would have the egg whites, and I might have egg yolk. I don't like having like them together. I might use the egg yolk as part of my supplement for a multivitamin-type thing with my food. Or I might have a lot of egg whites.

Gin Stephens: All right, I like a runny egg on top of toast. First, I put butter on the toast. Then, I put it in the toaster oven and toast it. And then, I fry up the little eggs till they're runny on the top. I'm really good at making fried eggs running on the top. Low and slow, that's the key. And then I get it all in there and let the egg run all over the toast, so it's drippy. Now I'm starving. I think I'm going to have that. What time is it? [laughs] But like I said, my body lets me know. So, I beg of you not to get all stressed out about that because that's not how we're meant to live.

Melanie Avalon: On the flipside, I do want to say though because I love everything you just said. And on top of that, that's a reframe I'm starting to do in my life, Gin.

Gin Stephens: What's that?

Melanie Avalon: Say somebody says something and you acknowledge to their point, and you're like that’s valid.

Gin Stephens: Right.

Melanie Avalon: Not making the conjunction that follows, but. Because if you say but, then it's like saying, “Oh, that's valid, but.” So, you have to say and. Everything that you said, and.

Gin Stephens: But. [laughs] Now, I'm going to know that's what you mean though.

Melanie Avalon: No, no! [laughs]

Gin Stephens: It's okay to disagree. That's okay.

Melanie Avalon: No. That's the thing, though. That’s the reason I said this, just now is I agree. I do agree with what you said.

Gin Stephens: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: And on top of that, I think there's some people, they do like tracking and measuring and I just want to say that if they do like it, I think that's okay, too.

Gin Stephens: Oh, definitely. If you'd love it and want to, yes. Oh, yeah. I'm not saying that you can't if you'd love it. But Carolanne sounds a little stressed out about it, almost it's making it worse. I'm going to weigh myself, but what weight do I use? And what scale should I be on? And how do I calculate my muscle mass? And I really think that it doesn't sound like something that's enjoyable. It sounds like something that's stressing you out.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, exactly.

Gin Stephens: So, yeah, you're right though. If someone loves to do that, and they're biohacking through math of-- you would say that's not biohacking, but if that's what you want to do, and it feels good and you love doing it, then do that. But I don't. I'm never going to do it again. Never again. I whispered that into the microphone.

Melanie Avalon: Both are okay.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, they are.

Melanie Avalon: In our nonpolitic world of ands.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: All-inclusive.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Any definitions of biohacking, welcome.

Gin Stephens: Exactly. Do it or not. What's a biohack for me might not be one for you. I'm not getting in a chest freezer. But I might go outside without my coat to check the mail and think, “Look, I'm biohacking! I'm biohacking!” I got cold on purpose, right?

Melanie Avalon: I feel like a cold shower might be on the fence for biohacking.

Gin Stephens: Oh no, that's a biohack, I'm sorry. But I don't agree with that.

Melanie Avalon: Actually, I would consider it a biohack because it's like using technology to--

Gin Stephens: Exactly. See, that's a biohack. Speaking of which my upstairs bathroom, we can end on this note-- we have plumbing in the upstairs bathroom.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, congratulations.

Gin Stephens: The only thing we don't have now is like you could actually go up there and take a shower, brush your teeth, and use the bathroom. But what you can't do is have lighting, unfortunately. We're waiting on the electrician. In the meantime, we thought it would be a great idea to also have them redo all the faucets and fixtures in our master bath. So, they came on Thursday and I'm like, “This is great. They're going to be done.” Because they tore our bathroom over-- this is our master bath, they tore it apart a couple months ago because it was dripping. And then they had to cut out the part of the wall. I mean, it's dramatic. So, I haven't been able to use my master bathroom shower since, I don't know, July. Here it is September. I've been walking across the house to the other bathroom. So, they came on Thursday, and I was so excited. But, oh my Lord, the amount of plumbing they've needed to do to just to switch out the faucets on our tub and our shower and our two sinks. It's very elaborate. Plumbing is not easy. They're still not done. Two guys were here all day on Thursday. One guy was here half the day on Friday, and everything's still torn apart.

Melanie Avalon: I feel like plumbers are people that like-- there are few professions in this world that you're just so grateful for them. I'm just really grateful for plumbers.

Gin Stephens: I'm grateful for all the professions that do things I don't know how to do. Plumbers are one of them. But watching them do it is-- it's a lot of work. It's hard. But also, I don't know what's up with the plumbing industry, but if anyone's in the industry, y'all are ridiculous because here's what I'm talking about. Did you know the fixtures are not interchangeable? You just want to change things out, you can't. No, I can't just get a different brand shower handle. They have to cut the whole fitting out of the wall to replace it. Moral of the story is, don't buy fancy plumbing fixtures. Do not get fancy high-end crazy faucets because then when you need to get a new one because something's wrong with it, they're going to have to cut holes in your wall and replace the inside parts. Everything should just be universal. It's 2020. Hello.

Melanie Avalon: Well, on that note.

Gin Stephens: Don't you think it should be universal?

Melanie Avalon: I think they should be switch-outable universally, yes.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. At this point, it should not be that hard, that they should not have to cut the hole out of the wall in order to put in a new shower thing. Anyway, one day, we will have all the working bathrooms and I'm going to use them all and there will be a nice warm shower in all of them. No cold showers.

Melanie Avalon: If I'm ever a guest at your household, I'll take a cold shower.

Gin Stephens: You can take as cold of a shower you want to.

Melanie Avalon: I love my cold showers.

Gin Stephens: That is okay. I don't have a freezer for you, but we could fill my bathtub up with cold water. I got new faucets and they're beautiful. They just aren't attached yet. You can't actually put water in my tub because it's not attached. The faucets are lovely. They just don't work yet.

Melanie Avalon: Do you like baths?

Gin Stephens: I love baths. I'm a bath taker. I heard Oprah one time say-- this was in the 90s when her show was on every day, when she had the afternoon show on NBC or whatever it was. I watched it every day. And one time, someone asked her what her hobby was, and she said bathing and I'm like, “I get it. I get it.” Getting in the tub with a book, staying there for three hours, that's me.

Melanie Avalon: Maybe if it's an ice bath, yeah.

Gin Stephens: No, no. Hot. It's got to be hot.

Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, this has been wonderful. For listeners, I feel like we talked about so many things. The show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com/episode184. If you'd like to submit your own questions for the podcast, directly email questions@ifpodcast.com. Or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. You can get all the things that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike. You can follow us on Instagram, we are @ifpodcast. You can follow me, I'm @MelanieAvalon. Gin is @GinStephens, and I think that is it. Anything else from you, Gin, before we go?

Gin Stephens: Nope. I think I said a lot of things but I'm waiting for the plumbing industry. Give me a call. We can have a chat.

Melanie Avalon: Let me know if that transpires.

Gin Stephens: Really though, my advice for people really is, keep it simple and pick a brand. The plumbers in Augusta, for whatever reason, they love Delta. Pick a brand and stick to it.

Melanie Avalon: You're like really my advice is for listeners to-- I was like, “Is it going to be a fasting thing? Or is it going to be about the plumbers?”

Gin Stephens: It's plumbing because, right now, I'm living it. Don't buy fancy plumbing fixtures!

Melanie Avalon: And don’t let mold be in your apartment.

Gin Stephens: Either one, they're both bad.

Melanie Avalon: This is true.

Gin Stephens: If you buy fancy plumbing fixtures and they leak, you're going to have mold, and then you can't switch them out because it's too hard.

Melanie Avalon: That's a problem. Now, I'm invested. Now, Melanie is invested. Okay.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. See, that was what was happening. Ours were dripping and you couldn't buy replacement parts because first of all, you couldn't tell what brand they were because they're so fancy. People that had our house before us, they were fancy people, and they bought fancy things. And so, we're like, “We're buying Delta, and they're going to work and if they don't, we'll just get a new one.” And the plumbers are like, thumbs up on that.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I'm invested now.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful, and I will talk to you next week.

Gin Stephens: All right. Talk to you then.

Melanie Avalon: Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember that everything discussed on the show is not medical advice. We're not doctors. You can also check out our other podcasts, Intermittent Fasting Stories and the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. The music was composed by Leland Cox. See you next week.