Episode 198: Personal Health Wearables, Heat Stress, Training For Ironman, Sugar Vs. Sugar Substitutes, Vitamin Fortified Foods, And More!
Welcome to Episode 198 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle.
Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:
BUTCHERBOX: Grass-Fed Beef, Organic Chicken, Heritage Pork, Wild-Caught Seafood: Nutrient-Rich, Raised Sustainably The Way Nature Intended, And Shipped Straight To Your Door! For A Limited Time New Members Will Get A Rack Of St. Louis Style Ribs, A Pack Of Bacon, And A Pack Of Pulled Pork For Free In Their First Box By Going To Butcherbox.Com/IFPODCAST!
BLUBlox: Overexposure to blue light in our modern environments can lead to increased anxiety, stress, headaches, and other health conditions. Even a tiny exposure to artificial light can completely offset your circadian rhythm! Unlike many “blue light blocking” glasses on the market, BLUBlox provides glasses that block the exact blue wavelengths you need to regulate sleep, reduce anxiety, and much more! They also provide different types of glasses for the time of day, season, and your personal electronic and light exposure! Plus, for every BLUblox purchase, they donate a pair of glasses to someone in need! Go To bluBlox.com And Use The Code ifpodcast For 15% Off!
To submit your own questions, email questions@IFpodcast.com, or submit your questions here!!
SHOW NOTES
BUTCHERBOX: For A Limited Time new members will get A rack of St. Louis style ribs, A pack of bacon, and a pack of pulled pork for free in their first box by going to butcherbox.com/IFPODCAST!
BEAUTYCOUNTER: Keep Your Fast Clean Inside And Out With Safe Skincare! Shop With Us At MelanieAvalon.com/beautycounter, And Something Magical Might Happen After Your First Order!
SUNLIGHTEN: Get $100 Off The Solo Unit AND $99 Shipping With The Code MelanieAvalon At MelanieAvalon.Com/Sunlighten
FOOD SENSE GUIDE: Get Melanie's App At Melanieavalon.com/foodsenseguide To Tackle Your Food Sensitivities! Food Sense Includes A Searchable Catalogue Of 300+ Foods, Revealing Their Gluten, FODMAP, Lectin, Histamine, Amine, Glutamate, Oxalate, Salicylate, Sulfite, And Thiol Status. Food Sense Also Includes Compound Overviews, Reactions To Look For, Lists Of Foods High And Low In Them, The Ability To Create Your Own Personal Lists, And More!
Listener Feedback: Krishcea - What a life hack
Life lessons with gin and sheri podcast
Listener Q&A: Franchesca - Oura ring
The Melanie Avalon Podcast Episode #76 - Harpreet Rai (Oura Ring)
The Melanie Avalon Podcast Episode #74 - Benjamin Bikman, Ph.D.
The Melanie Avalon Podcast Episode #70 - Kara Collier (Nutrisense)
Listener Q&A: Vicki - Ironman training
Intermittent Fasting Stores Epsiode 121
For A Limited Time Go To DrinkLMNT.Com/Ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!!
Stronger By Stress: Adapt to Beneficial Stressors to Improve Your Health and Strengthen the Body (Siim Land)
BLUBLOX: Go To BluBlox.com And Use The Code ifpodcast For 15% Off!
Listener Q&A: Samantha - Whole food sweeteners, Sugar vs Aspartame & Rick Johnson
The Wahls Protocol: A Radical New Way to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions Using Paleo Principles (Terry Wahls M.D.)
Sari Foods Co Natural Non-Fortified Nutritional Yeast Flakes (24 oz.)
TRANSCRIPT
Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 198 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. This episode is sponsored by Butcher Box. As you know, both Melanie and I love Butcher Box and for different reasons. Melanie loves to grocery shop, but can't find the quality of meat she's looking for at our local stores. Butcher Box solves that problem for her. For me, there's nothing better than having it delivered right to your door, because you probably know that I hate to grocery shop. Butcher Box promises high-quality meat, delicious 100% grass-fed beef, free-range organic chicken, heritage-breed pork, and wild-caught seafood, all sourced from partners who believe in doing things the right way. It's also an unbelievable value. The average cost is less than $6 per meal. One thing you'll love about Butcher Box is its flexibility. Here's how Butcher Box works.
Butcher Box partners with folks who believe in better, going above and beyond when it comes to caring for animals, the environment, and sustainability. You choose your box and delivery frequency. They offer five boxes, four curated box options, as well as the popular custom box, so you get exactly what you and your family love. Butcher box ships your order frozen for freshness and packed in an eco-friendly 100% recyclable box. You enjoy high-quality meat delivered to your door and more time for amazing meals together. You feel good about your decision to believe in better with Butcher Box supporting farmers and partners who honor nature, the animals, and the environment. Get ready for game day with Butcher Box. Right now, new members will get one rack of St. Louis-style ribs, one pack of bacon and a pack of pulled pork for free in their first box by going to butcherbox.com/ifpodcast. That's butcherbox.com/ifpodcast.
Melanie Avalon: One more thing before we jump in. Are you concerned about aging? Well, thankfully, fasting is super incredible for its anti-aging benefits. It activates genes in your body called sirtuins, which repair your body and help extend lifespan. Also, during the fast, your body can clean up a lot of harmful chemicals which may be taxing your detoxification systems. In fact, the reason people go gray is because their detox systems start producing a lot of hydrogen peroxide when dealing with toxins. Do you know where a lot of those chemicals come from? Your skincare and makeup. As it turns out, there are 1000s of compounds found in conventional skincare and makeup that Europe has banned due to their toxic nature, and the US has banned less than 10. When you put these on your skin every single day through your skincare makeup, you're adding to your body's burden and likely aging your skin faster.
Thankfully, you can easily clean up your skincare with a company called Beautycounter. They make incredible products that are extensively tested to be safe for your skin. You can feel good about every single ingredient that you put on. They also have an amazing anti-aging line called Countertime. Friends, this is a game-changer. It's full of active ingredients which nourish and support your skin, reduce fine lines and wrinkles, and support a beautiful glow. It also has a safe alternative to retinol, so you can get all of the anti-aging benefits of retinol without any of the toxic effects of retinol, because, yes, that stuff is toxic. Guys, put it away now.
You can shop with us at melanieavalon.com/beautycounter. If you use that link, something really special and magical might happen after you place your first order. Also definitely get on my clean beauty email list that's at melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty. I give away so many free things on that list. So definitely check it out. Lastly, if you anticipate making safe skincare a part of your future, just like Gin and I do, definitely become a Band of Beauty member. It's sort of like the Amazon Prime for safe skincare. You get 10% back on all of your purchases, free shipping on qualifying orders, and a welcome gift that costs way more than the price of the membership. It's completely worth it. Friends, are you fast and clean inside and out? You can with Beautycounter. Again, that link is melanieavalon.com/beautycounter. And we'll put all this information in the show notes. All right, now back to the show.
Hi everybody and welcome. This is episode number 198 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: I am fabulous. Happy New Year.
Melanie Avalon: Happy New Year. How was your New Year's Eve?
Gin Stephens: Well, I spent it with my cohost of the Life Lessons podcast. She and her husband came to visit for a couple nights and we put together my new Sunlighten sauna.
Melanie Avalon: I am so excited.
Gin Stephens: Oh my gosh. Yes.
Melanie Avalon: I've been waiting for this moment, Gin, since I first got Sunlighten like, what, a year and a half ago, maybe? Oh, my goodness. Tell me everything.
Gin Stephens: It's kind of funny. Did I tell you how we couldn't put it together because my husband wouldn't make a decision about the garage? As soon as the box was delivered-- we talked about it all the way through the process like, “Okay, I'm going to get the sauna. Should I go ahead and get it?” And he's like, “Yes.” It took a few weeks for it to come. Now I got the mPulse cONQUER Sunlighten sauna which the three people. I'm not going to put three people in it, you'd have to sit really close together, but I can lay down on the bench. It's a pretty good sized-- it's 71 inches wide. It's a good size. Anyway, as soon as the box was delivered, it's actually three giant boxes that had to come special freight. They used a forklift to put it in our garage, that's how heavy the three boxes were. Okay, so I was like, “Oh, that's a lot.”
As soon as it was delivered, he's like, “Now we have to paint the floor of the garage and the walls of the garage before we can put anything up.” I'm like, “Well, okay, let's think about that.” We thought about thought about it, thought about it. He looked at paint chips. He thought about it, he never made a decision. It sat there for over a month, staring at me. Then finally, I was like, “Sheri and Eric are going to be here on New Year's Eve, what if we go ahead and just set up the sauna now?” He's like, “Okay, fine.” So, we did it. [laughs]
Melanie Avalon: The sauna I have for listeners, I've talked about it a lot, I have the Solo unit, which is it's great for people like me who live in an apartment, who don't have a lot of space because it's collapsible and you actually lay down inside of it. They actually have it at a lot of spas. Before I had one, I was getting sessions at different spas, so it's amazing for a little apartment dweller like me. Gin got the sauna sauna. Tell me about it.
Gin Stephens: Well, I'm really glad we waited till they were here to put it together because it really did, I think take three people. Now, Eric just had neck surgery, so he couldn't lift anything heavy, but he was the technical director, he read the directions to us and helped us know what to do. I mean, we did it. We just did it. It was pretty easy. The pieces were in there, you start with the floor and then you put it on the back and the side pieces and the front. Then, there's this little pin that just connects the front to the side and these little pins, they're just four. The whole thing was eight screws and four pins.
Melanie Avalon: Are you serious?
Gin Stephens: Eight screws to screw on the feet on the bottom, four pins, one for each corner, and then the roof just set into place. The hardest part was you have to undo the floor panels and then click together the electrical connections. A little tip, if anybody gets one, in the directions they have you put the bench in first and then do the floor connections. Don't do that. [laughs] Because Sheri and I were both in there like hunched under the bench, but we did it. Then, it all worked. It just all worked. Oh, and you can watch TV on the little panel.
Melanie Avalon: It has a TV?
Gin Stephens: Well, it has a touch panel that actually has a media-- it connects to your Wi-Fi, and you can watch like Netflix. I didn't know it was going to do that. It's an Android tablet in there. I had no idea. I'm like, “Oh my God, we can watch TV while we're sitting in here.”
Melanie Avalon: Does it have the chromotherapy, like the color lighting?
Gin Stephens: It has different color lights. Yeah.
Melanie Avalon: For listeners, just in case, they're not familiar, the Sunlighten saunas are infrared saunas. They don't heat up by heating up the air, they actually use infrared wavelengths that heat you up from the inside out. It feels warm, I assume, but--
Gin Stephens: The air goes up to 132 when I'm in there, 132 degrees. The air does go up, but it doesn't go up to the levels of 160, 170.
Melanie Avalon: Like traditional heat saunas.
Gin Stephens: Yes. I mean, it does go up. It's 131, 132 degrees in there when it's really going.
Melanie Avalon: Then you actually heat up from the inside. A way I describe it is, you can have a fever, but not-- you feel warm this on it, but you can have a fever and not actually feel that hot. That's how a sauna works. It gives you an artificial fever. People might be like, “Why do I want to have an artificial fever? The benefits are profound. There's so much clinical literature on the benefits of heat stress, because basically it activates something called heat shock proteins in your body. We're always talking on the show about how fasting activates things like autophagy and different cellular processes that support health. Just like fasting is a stress. sauna used as a stress. Well, A, it can have the cardiovascular equivalent benefits of working out for your heart. They started doing studies actually on sauna use as a veritable or a potential preventative measure for COVID. I was actually reading some studies on it.
Gin Stephens: Oh, wow.
Melanie Avalon: I'll put a link in the show notes to that. I did a really long blog post on this recently. That's why it's all at the top of my head. The conclusion of the study was that heat therapy might be something to consider with this pandemic, because the body's initial way that it combats viruses is with fever, with heat. Viruses are heat sensitive and COVID, the SARS strain is, so that's really cool if you can get in your sauna every single day and hopefully use it as a preventative for COVID.
Gin Stephens: I think I'm going to use it every single day. I don't know what will happen in the summer. We'll have to see, but right now, I mean, every day I've gotten in it because it feels so good. I wake up, drink my coffee, do my normal morning.
Melanie Avalon: You do it in the morning? Oh, that’s so interesting. I do it at night right before eating.
Gin Stephens: Before I get in the shower. Yeah, because I'm so sweaty.
Melanie Avalon: The way I describe it is you get in it and you just feel like your body just gives a sigh of relief.
Gin Stephens: I don't want to get out. I'm not kidding. I'm doing research for my new book, and I was doing research in the sauna. So, I think I stayed in there too long.
Melanie Avalon: It's amazing. A little hack for listeners, if you end up getting the Solo unit that I have, and you want to set it up inside, I'll put a link to the way I set it up because Amazon has a twin mattress frame thing that's all metal and black and it fits perfectly. Like you sit the Solo on top of it, and then I found this, also on Amazon, it's like an arm that holds your iPhone and I attach it to the frame, so then it holds my iPhone over my head, so then I can do work or read a book while I'm in it.
Gin Stephens: I'm finding that it just feels so great just to be in there that I don't want to get out, so I'm going to find ways to do my work in there, too. They technically say don't take your phone in there.
Melanie Avalon: They do? I was wondering if they say that.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, it does say that but I think they probably just say that to be safe. I did have my phone in there for a while with me this morning. Then I was like, “Oh, yeah, phone.” So, I took it out, but the unit that I have people are like, “Where would I put it in my house?” I have it in a corner of my garage that it fits in perfectly. We did have to have a new circuit put in.
Melanie Avalon: I was going to ask about that.
Gin Stephens: It was like 100 bucks. It was not expensive.
Melanie Avalon: Oh, really? Who installed it?
Gin Stephens: Our electrician. We just called, and he was doing some other work for us. We're like, “Hey, do you know how to do this?” He's like, “Yeah, that'll be very easy.” He just did it. It was very easy for him to do it. Just needed a special plug for it. You could have it done in like a spare bedroom, or they can even go outside, but you have to cover it with a special cover that they sell, so I would worry about the longevity of it outside. I feel like it's an investment I want to have protected, but you can put them outside.
Melanie Avalon: This is so exciting.
Gin Stephens: It is so exciting. I just really can't believe how much I love it because I like to be hot. [laughs]
Melanie Avalon: I was so excited. I was like, “I know when she gets it, she's going to go with it and she's going to love it.” I feel it's not exactly what you anticipate. It's not this miserable, sweaty, disgusting feeling. It's like the most pleasant feeling with so many health benefits. Like I said it, I think it pairs really well with fasting.
Gin Stephens: I think so, too. I'm doing it in the fasted state, so I feel it's accelerating, I don't know, maybe it isn't, but it feels like it would.
Melanie Avalon: Oh, well, to that point, because people often wonder about the metabolic benefits in weight loss and things like that. It actually does burn a substantial amount of calories by heating up your body. Most of the “weight loss” is temporary and it's water, but it actually can support weight loss as well. You can wear your Oura ring in there, in case listeners are wondering. I'm just so happy right now. So happy for you. For listeners. If you'd like to get your own Sunlighten sauna, I promise you, you will not look back it will be one of the best decisions you've ever made. We do have a link for listeners. If you go to ifpodcast.com/sunlighten and use the coupon code, IFPODCAST, there's some sort of discount that you will get at that link. So, that's pretty awesome.
Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah, I can't recommend it highly enough.
Melanie Avalon: I'm so happy.
Gin Stephens: I am so happy. My house was built in 1979, so I don't know why we have this little section in the garage. Maybe it's there a heating ductwork in there, I have no idea. There's this one little section where the ceiling is a little bit lowered. My sauna is exactly the right size to go in that section. I mean like exactly. The height of it was perfect. It looks it was designed for a sauna together. It was the 70s, they were wacky, maybe it was.
Melanie Avalon: Maybe it was. It would have been a probably a traditional sauna.
Gin Stephens: Well, that's true.
Melanie Avalon: Oh, that's the other amazing thing that I love about the infrared sauna is, it's like self-cleaning in a way because traditional heat, saunas can have a problem about mold growing in them. The infrared saunas, they pretty much take care of themselves. They're very low maintenance for cleaning, which is really, really awesome.
Gin Stephens: Yeah.
Melanie Avalon: Yay. I feel I'm slowly pulling you into all the biohacks world of things.
Gin Stephens: [laughs] These are easy ones. Oh, and I also started the Zoe eating from the PREDICT 3 study. I'm using the Zoe app. I'm just eating a lot of beans, beans and vegetables, mostly.
Melanie Avalon: How do you feel?
Gin Stephens: I feel so fantastic.
Melanie Avalon: Oh, really? Cool.
Gin Stephens: Yes. It's really, really hard to because my body clears fats really which I'm not [unintelligible [00:16:32] about. That's the only part that's hard for me is, I can have meals that score 100 as far as because it matches what my gut microbiome does well with what foods are good for me, but because I have an eating window, if I stack too many things in it, my body doesn't have time to clear the fat and my score goes down because of that. Like avocados and eggs, for example. They're great for me, but I can't have too much of it close together. That's the only hard part.
Melanie Avalon: That would make sense.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, I'm super bummed that my body clears fat slowly, but so not surprised.
Melanie Avalon: I'm sure I would bet that mine does clear slowly as well. I have a question for you. It didn't test your fat clearance in a non-paired with carbohydrates situation, did it?
Gin Stephens: They were separate. There were two different muffins. I'm not sure what the macronutrient ratio of each muffin was, so I can't tell you that. I know that one muffin was a high sugar muffin with low fat. The other muffin was a high-fat muffin with lower carbs. It tracked how your body cleared the fat after the high-fat muffin.
Melanie Avalon: I wonder if they did the same test on you, if you were doing a ketogenic diet, if it would be the same.
Gin Stephens: Well, I will tell you that I felt terrible all the time when I did keto, like it was inflammatory for me and this would explain why. They talk about in their research that if your body clears fat slowly, too much fat is inflammatory for you. That was like a light bulb of why I felt so inflamed on keto, well, that makes sense.
Melanie Avalon: That's so interesting.
Gin Stephens: It's very high in like I said, fruits and vegetables. Well, I could eat fruits, but vegetables, lots and lots of vegetables, and I'm eating so many beans.
Melanie Avalon: I'm just thinking about the digestive distress I would have.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, I feel great. My body's like, “Bring on the beans.”
Melanie Avalon: Oh, my gosh. That's so funny. I have one really quick update for listeners. I think it will be released by the time this comes out most likely. I should have recently just released an update to my app, speaking of food digestive issues. My app, Food Sense Guide, it did have 11 potentially problematic compounds that people react to in over 300 plus foods, things like FODMAPs and histamine and oxalates and lectins and gluten and all this stuff. I just added AIP, which is autoimmune paleo. A lot of people do that approach. Basically, now it says for each food if it is on the AIP protocol, or not.
Gin Stephens: Awesome.
Melanie Avalon: Very excited. Working still with your son's friend on that. He does my updates.
Gin Stephens: I actually saw Nate over at the Christmas holidays.
Melanie Avalon: That is so lovely.
Gin Stephens: And Nate's dog. I saw him from a distance. He waved at me, actually distanced. [laughs] They played frisbee in the front yard with their masks on.
Melanie Avalon: Oh really, I love it. Responsible.
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Shall we jump into everything for today?
Gin Stephens: Yes, let's get started.
Melanie Avalon: All right, so to start things off, we have mostly feedback but with one question. It is from Keisha. “The subject is what a life hack.” Keisha says, “My name is Keisha and that is pronounced Keisha.” She says, “I was introduced to IF in March of 2019 by my fiancé and just like the majority of the population, I was unhappy with my body. I'm five foot tall and I weighed 160 pounds prior to starting IF. In February of 2019, I was put on fenofibrate by my physician for my triglycerides were in the 400 range, and I was also prediabetic. Both of these conditions run in both sides of my family, combined with a poor diet, I was set to fail. I've been an intermittent faster since March of 2019 and my life was forever changed. My goal was to lose 50 pounds and I did. I lost five pounds in 10 months doing 16:8 for the first three months which was the adjusting period. I remember hitting a plateau and I took that as my body’s signal to change things up a bit. I combine 20:4 and one meal a day depending on my schedule and the activities I have planned.
After being fully adjusted to IF after the first three months, I noticed that my body was craving high protein, medium fat, low carb items. My attitude towards food changed. I do not look at food the same way as I did before I incorporated intermittent fasting into my life. I listened to my body and honored its wishes. December of 2019, right before the holidays is what I hit my goal. I cannot believe that I was capable of losing 50 pounds, when I couldn't even lose 10 pounds in the past without gaining it back, plus some. I was so proud of myself. The weight loss was the cherry on top.
I found your podcast around October 2019 and you guys have helped changed my life. After finding your podcast, I got interested in biohacking.” Yay, that's me. “And did my own research. I was so fascinated by you guys and all the health benefits that you talk about on the podcast, so I applied everything I learned from you two, and from doing my own research into my life. After my weight loss, my physician took me off of fenofibrate for a scheduled physical and my triglycerides were normal. I was no longer in the prediabetic range, and my IBS-C medication was also fully stopped by the fifth month of IF since I no longer needed it for regularity. My mood, mindset, and attitude was also improved by 50-fold. I no longer get frequent migraines, and I feel one with myself. The purpose of this email is to tell you my story and to show gratitude. You're changing lives, just like how you two helped change mine. The one interest I have is to be part of an intermittent fasting study. Do you guys know how I can go about this? Everyone needs to know what intermittent fasting is and we need to conduct more research about autophagy to really educate the community. Thank you, guys.” And then, she also attached photos to show the changes that she experienced. I really, really loved this email.
Gin Stephens: I loved it, too.
Melanie Avalon: Do you know how listeners can join studies?
Gin Stephens: Are you going to tell me?
Melanie Avalon: No.
Gin Stephens: [laughs] The way you said it sounded like, “I know the answer.” I have no idea. If you have connections, if you're in a research town where they're doing, I don't know. For example, the PREDICT 2 study was word of mouth. I don't even know who first told me that they were doing it. It might have been my friend, Sheri, the cohost of the podcast, Life Lessons, with me. Somebody was like, “Oh, look, they're looking for people to do the PREDICT 2 study.” I think word of mouth is one way a lot of these things spread through communities.
Melanie Avalon: I often see studies come across my emails occasionally. I actually the other day got one from my health insurer-- no, no, I think it was from Quest or LabCorp. I think it was Quest where you get blood draws. I'm on their email list and they sent out a thing where you could sign up to be in their pool for studies. I usually don't qualify for most of them because a lot of the times it's like you can't have had-- when they're like gut related, you can't have had like digestive issues or things like that. I'm like, “Oh, well, that's not me.” I will put links in the show notes, because there are some websites that you can go on, and you can sign up to potentially be matched to studies. I'll put links in the show notes to some of those links. Wait, how did you say, Gin, that you got the PREDICT study?
Gin Stephens: Well, I didn’t know that we were talking about it in the Intermittent Fasting group. I think it might have been my friend, Sheri. I don't know how she found out about it, but somebody was like, “Look, they're looking for people to do this study.” But I think it gets passed around sometimes in interested communities. I feel if there was an intermittent fasting study looking for participants that we would know in our communities.
Melanie Avalon: Yeah, for example, just briefly googling, and I haven't used these, so I can't speak to if they're good sources or not. There's a website called researchmatch.org that will match you to studies, there's a website called antidote.me that will match you to studies. If you just google like how to join research studies, there are quite a few websites that pop up. That might be a good way to go. I would actually love to hear from listeners, I wonder if any of our listeners have been in any of the intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating studies.
Gin Stephens: That would be interesting. I wonder what they told them to drink. I'm always so curious.
Melanie Avalon: Yes, listeners, if you have been in one, please write in and tell us. I'm dying to know what that was like. So, yeah, hopefully that's helpful.
Gin Stephens: All right. Are we ready to go on?
Melanie Avalon: Yes.
Gin Stephens: Okay. We have a question from Francesca, and the subject is “Oura Ring.” She says, “First, I wanted to know what you thought of the Oura ring. I'm debating whether or not to buy one and have read conflicting opinions and views about its degree of usefulness. I tried looking through your podcasts to see if the titles mentioned them, but there are so many. I have really been working on improving my sleep. I wear blue-blocking glasses after dinner, have a weighted blanket, wear a sleep mask, and keep my room cool. I still tend to wake up a lot. I recently started using the Nutrisense CGM and I have high blood glucose levels during the night, even after they had been low all day. Even when I stopped eating by 6 PM, though they are somewhat lower when I do, they still will go up into the 120s during the night, even though when I go to bed, it will be in the 90s. I go to bed around 10 PM, I eat low carb 30 to 50 grams, moderate fat, 80 to 100 grams, and higher protein, 130 grams. As I am still looking to lose 10 pounds and I lift heavy weights to build muscle and I also do HIIT, do you have some information as to why blood glucose levels can rise so much at night? By the way, I enjoy your podcasts and have learned many useful things to help me with my IF lifestyle that I've been doing on and off for two years. Mostly, the best tip I picked up was not too long ago when it was brought out in your podcast that just the taste of something sweet, even Stevia, could spike insulin as the body anticipates food will be arriving. I usually drink tea and coffee with Stevia while fasting. Now I'm trying to forego the Stevia and have noticed I have much less hunger on my fasts. Thanks so much.”
Melanie Avalon: All right. Thanks so much, Francesca, for your questions. A few things to touch on. Actually, on our website, ifpodcast.com, you don't have to go through and look through all the titles, there's actually a search bar at the top, especially now that we have transcripts and all the show notes. If you search in the search bar, it'll pull up specific episodes that talk about it. Like I said, because we have the transcripts now, it really should pull it up if we've ever talked about it. Well, we only started the transcripts sort of recently, so it'll only search for the transcripts for the past few probably months or so. We haven't talked about Oura ring lot, and that's because I just recently got one, but oh my goodness, I am so obsessed with it. I'll put a link in the show notes because it will have aired by the time this episode comes out, the interview that I did with the founder, Harpreet Rai, that I actually really, really do recommend it.
I was really hesitant to get one for the longest time because I'm hesitant about information overload. I didn't want something telling me all the time, like if I was failing, or I didn't want to always be so aware of everything all the time and get all in my head about my health biomarkers because basically Oura ring, it measures your sleep cycles, your heart rate, your heart rate variability, your body temperature, your respiration, your activity levels. But actually, this is what I talked about in the interview with the founder, it is so comforting, in the way that it talks to you, it basically just gives you the information about your body and makes recommendations for how to tackle your day, how to make yourself better, when you should rest, when you should go harder, it's very empowering. That's how I would describe it. If you are a night person like me, it's not going to try to force you to become a morning owl. It's going to recommend that you go to bed at times that are actually pretty late, which is really exciting. Mine tells me that I should go to bed at like 1:30 AM.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, it knows.
Melanie Avalon: It knows. Yeah. I think the software is designed to, if it thinks you should be going to bed earlier, I think it will try to gradually nudge you there by slowly encouraging you to go to bed early and earlier, but I'm pretty sure my Oura ring is never going to tell me to go to bed at 10 PM. Yeah, long story short, I really recommend it. Gin, maybe you can try one someday.
Gin Stephens: Maybe.
Melanie Avalon: Maybe, maybe.
Gin Stephens: When they come up with a smaller one. I don't like big rings. It's big.
Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it is big.
Gin Stephens: My friend, Sheri, has one that was here, and I kept staring at hers. I meant to try it on, but I forgot.
Melanie Avalon: I don't even really think about it, but people do ask me about it a lot, like, “What is that?” Does it look that strange? I guess so.
Gin Stephens: I don't think it looks strange. I think it's also the way my fingers are shaped, I have short stubby fingers and they don't look good with chunky rings. You know how some fingers look terrible with certain kind of rings? It looks too weird on my hand.
Melanie Avalon: That makes sense.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, I've short stubby hands.
Melanie Avalon: He said in the future-- I'm really excited, might start partnering with some jewelry companies to make branded ones.
Gin Stephens: All right, I could get behind on that.
Melanie Avalon: Yeah, for listeners, I'll put a link in the show notes to the interview that I did with the founder. Oh, that was something I meant to mention at the beginning of the episode. I thought about this with her questions about the CGM. I released this week that Gin and I are recording my interview with Dr. Benjamin Bikman all about insulin. I knew it was a good interview, but I'm blown away by the response to it. The amount of feedback I'm getting from listeners, they're just obsessed. So many people have told me they listened to it multiple times that they've gone on the website and read the transcript that they immediately bought his book. For listeners that are interested in insulin that comes up all the time on the show, definitely check out that interview. It's two hours, but it's all things insulin, so that's really great.
Then, the Nutrisense CGM, the continuous glucose monitor, that is something that a lot of people seem to experience when they get the CGM is surprises in what their blood sugar is doing that they might not have anticipated. I don't know if it was Francesca who asked this exact question in my group or on my Instagram, but somebody asked me this exact question really recently, I think it was a different listener. A lot of people have experienced this as well, where they get the rising blood sugars in the evening, like while sleeping. It's hard to know because there could be a lot of things causing that. It could be a hormonal thing. I feel like it's most likely, in my opinion, probably a hormonal thing.
My suggestion, though, and this is not specific, but play around with your eating window and what you're eating and see how it affects things. Also focusing on your sleep, but it sounds like she's doing a lot to work on our sleep. She does the weighted blanket, the sleep mask, and the room cool. Oh, and she says she tends to wake up a lot. Yeah, it could be a sleep issue. Really just anything you can do to continue to support your sleep and then play around the food and the timing and see what happens, it sounds like she's an experimenter like myself. I will also put a link in the show notes to the interview that I did with the founder of Nutrisense, Kara Collier, because we did a really deep dive into CGMs. That was a lot of information. Gin, do you want to jump in.
Gin Stephens: No, I think that's great. It is so interesting now that we have CGMS, people were not measuring their blood glucose all night long. People just weren't doing it. People didn't know what it was doing. Now we're seeing it, it's hard to know what's normal, you know what I'm saying?
Melanie Avalon: When I first started using it, I was surprised by the very severe drops in blood sugar that I was getting, and that's what I was talking with another CGM app, Levels, about it. They were saying there's not actually like a lot of literature or studies on-- we don't actually know what is normal for nighttime blood sugar levels. It's what you just said.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, because just thinking about it, when would they have been testing people's blood sugar? Well, not continuously during the night while you're sleeping.
Melanie Avalon: I think if there are surprises, I'm not 100% certain about this, but just from my conversation with Tom at Levels, it seems it's likely that if it does tend to be not what we expect, that people's levels might drop lower.
Gin Stephens: That's what mine did. Mine dropped lower than I thought it should, or would, or I was like, “Wow, that's a surprise.”
Melanie Avalon: That's the opposite problem that Francesca is experiencing. But, yeah, so definitely play around with things and see what happens, and definitely feel free to report back. I will say, though, she says it goes up to the 120s, which it's hours and hours after she's eaten, which is weird that it's going up that high, but that's not crazily high.
Gin Stephens: And she's eating low carb.
Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Which makes me think maybe it's a cortisol thing, because cortisol increases blood sugar and interferes with sleep, and she has trouble sleeping, so it could be that your cortisol is spiking at night, raising your blood sugar, waking you up. A lot of people find-- her doing low carb, they find when they bring back carbs, that they sleep better because of how it hormonally affects them. I know you're really liking doing the lower carb approach, but you might want to consider either trying carb ups, cyclical keto, so having a carb up day, or trying a higher carb, lower fat approach.
Gin Stephens: All right. Yep. Good stuff.
Melanie Avalon: One last thing. Also, she's doing a lot of exercise too. She's doing a lot, so she might actually benefit from some carbs is what I'm thinking.
Gin Stephens: Maybe so, yeah. All right.
Melanie Avalon: We have a question from Vicki. The subject is “Iron Man Training.” Vicki says, “I love your podcast and really enjoy listening to it on my long runs. I currently am doing 18:6 IF most days. I get up and ride my trainer from 3:10 AM to 4 AM.” Oh my goodness, sorry, this is just me. 3:10 AM, that's so early. She says, “I am at work at 4:40 and I'm off at 1 or 2. I work at Trader Joe's, so I'm always active. In January, I will start Iron Man training again, which means in addition to my short workout in the morning, I will be running, riding, or swimming for two hours after work, and one day a week will be riding for five to six hours and a long run, 15 plus miles one day a week. I've done seven Iron Man distances, so I am not new to the training, but I am new to IF during training, and I'm really not trying to lose weight as I am 5’4”, 125 pounds. Any suggestions? Should I eat something small before my afternoon workout? Maybe shorten my fasting to 16:8? I'm not really sure I can ride six hours losing lots of fluids with nothing but water. Maybe take that day off? I really love all the benefits of IF, but I'm not sure how I'm going to make it worthwhile training. I would love your thoughts, and if you do address this, can you please let me know what episode as I am only on episode 19. Thank you so much. You ladies are fabulous.” I will speak really quickly to her last thing. We don't email after when we have your question on the show, so I'm sorry, you have to keep listening to save-- if the question comes on. So hopefully, Vicki heard this.
Gin Stephens: All right, so I have an episode of Intermittent Fasting Stories for people to listen to if they're interested in long-distance endurance athletes who do intermittent fasting. I interviewed someone named Lisa Glick for Episode 121. If you just go to Google and type in Intermittent Fasting Stories Episode 121, or Intermittent Fasting Stories Lisa Glick, either of those will take you to where you can find or you can just go to any podcast app, find Episode 121. Lisa talks about how she trains and runs and how intermittent fasting fits in with all of that. She basically has found that she has better endurance and her recovery time is better, thanks to intermittent fasting. She talks about how she makes it work, so listen to that episode.
Melanie Avalon: What does she do?
Gin Stephens: I can't recall exactly step by step. That episode came out November 12. It means I talked to her in about probably August or September, so I remember that she talked about what she does, but I can't tell you specifically, exactly.
Melanie Avalon: Do you remember if she lengthened her window or anything like that?
Gin Stephens: I know that she does not use the goo and things like that. She does not use stuff like that. She runs and works out in the fasted state.
Melanie Avalon: Okay, awesome. I will speak really quickly to the fluids. If Vicki is looking for electrolytes, I really, really recommend-- and I don't know when this episode is coming out, we probably still have a code with them for-- I'm pretty sure we will, Robb Wolf makes LMNT, which is an electrolyte mix and their unflavored one is completely clean fast approved. It's just electrolytes and water and it was specifically calculated to address electrolyte needs for people fasting or on ketogenic diets. I really, really recommend it. This offer ended yesterday, but hopefully it's still up, I think it might be, I'm going to see if I can get it extended for February. The link is drinklmnt.com. D-R-I-N-K-L-M-N-T dotcom forward slash IFPODCAST. At least in January, you could get a free sampler pack which included eight packets of LMNT, two raw unflavored, that's the one that's clean, fast friendly, two citrus, two raspberry and two orange. By the way, the citrus one apparently is really great for margaritas as a mix. Also, you just pay $5 shipping, and you will get that all free. If you don't like it, they'll also refund you the shipping. If that offer is not still going, I'm sure there's probably going to be some sort of offer at that link. That's definitely something to try.
Then, just my thoughts about it is, I definitely think Iron Man or really intense marathons and all of these athletic endeavors can be paired with fasting. I think fasting is really supportive to these type of things because of the fat-burning state that you are put into. I think most people don't need to pre-fuel with food. That said, I think if you are doing that, a lot of people probably will benefit what Vicki was thinking of extending the eating window, you might find it's just not possible and one meal a day to adequately support yourself based on your own personal needs. Then also, this is a little bit-- I don't know if this is controversial, but I do know a lot of people in the Ketogains community, when they're doing really intense specific training, they actually will take a tiny bit of pure dextrose before. I can't really speak to that, but if you go on Facebook and join the Ketogains Facebook group, there's a lot of talk in there about that. And that's if you're specifically ketogenic, I think.
Also, I actually really recommend Siim Land’s book, Stronger by Stress. I think it's that one that has a really good overview. One of his books, I'm pretty sure that one did, had a really good overview of how to with training and muscle building and different things, how to work with that with fasting. So, yes, we can put links to all of those resources in the show notes, but I think the biggest idea to tackle, is that you can definitely do stuff fasted, but you might need to adjust your eating window and everything surrounding it and your carb levels and definitely want to make sure that you're taking care of electrolytes.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, and you can figure out what feels right to you. Listen to Lisa Glick’s episode, see what she does, tinker around with what you're doing, too. Maybe what works for Lisa is going to feel wrong for you. You’ve got to see.
Melanie Avalon: Also, I am just super in awe of Vicki. I was reading that question, I was like, “Oh my goodness. This is so much stuff.” Awesome.
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Gin Stephens: We have a question from Samantha Tuff, and the subject is “Whole Foods Sweeteners, Sugar versus Aspartame, Rick Johnson.” She says, “Hi ladies, I am still loving the podcast, the discussions and the banter. Thank you for educating me in such an enjoyable way. I'm so glad I stumbled into the IF lifestyle. I listened to Episode 149 on fructose and upon your recommendation, listen to Peter Attia’s interview with Rick Johnson. So much good info, but I was curious about your thoughts on his comparison between Coke and Diet Coke. His personal recommendation, including his choice for his own children, is diet soda over regular soda. This surprised me. We are a fairly antisugar family. We limit and restrict sweet intake as much as possible while still enjoying holidays and birthdays. At parties, our children choose cake as they understand it's a treat or an indulgence, but on the off chance that we indulge, I like to choose the best option possible. I was surprised to hear a doctor prefer the diet product. I would think that all of those sugar is not ideal, it is still a more natural option than aspartame. Your thoughts?
He also compares maple syrup to high fructose corn syrup. I thought it would be a more natural sweetener, therefore a better option for sweetening or baking. Do you have an opinion on honey? Basically, I want to educate my children, but still give them treats now and again, but with the best possible options. I would love your thoughts on different sweetener options used for baking special occasions, or heaven forbid everyday use. Thanks in advance for your time. All the best to you both. Thanks, Sam Tuff.”
Melanie Avalon: All right, Sam. Thanks so much for your question. Rick Johnson, he is one of the major figures really in the anti-fructose movement, so he's very much not a fan of fructose.
Gin Stephens: Is he like never eat fruit also?
Melanie Avalon: Yeah, he's not a fan of fruit much either. I actually really do want to interview him, because I'm like, seriously, I don't know why I'm so obsessed with fructose and fruit and think about it way more than I should. I feel the fructose studies are, I don't know-- I want to read his book and interview him and flesh out some of his thoughts. It's been a while since I've listened to that interview but I think I do remember him talking about that, so I'm just going to tell you my personal thoughts on everything and then you can do what resonates with you. In general, I think that I'm not a fan of artificial sweeteners at all.
Gin Stephens: Ditto, ditto, ditto.
Melanie Avalon: For a lot of reasons. By artificial sweeteners, I'm not including in that stevia, or monk fruit. I'm also not actually including like xylitol or erythritol. I'm talking about aspartame, saccharin.
Gin Stephens: NutraSweet is aspartame. Splenda is-- what is that one?
Melanie Avalon: Sucralose?
Gin Stephens: Yes, it's sucralose.
Melanie Avalon: And saccharin. Those three I'm not a fan of. I think the biggest problem with them is what they do to our gut microbiome potentially, just how they're processed by the body, they're not natural. They tell your body that sweet’s coming in, but then you're not eating sweets, so it's confusing. I just do not advocate those at all.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, I agree to the point that there are very few things that I will not put into my body. If I know something has aspartame or sucralose, I will not put it into my body. I'll eat a Dorito, but I will not drink a diet soda.
Melanie Avalon: I'm not advocating this, because I don't think it's the ideal option. If I was forced for some reason, the only time I would choose maybe the artificial sweetener over sugar would be if I had just eaten a super, super high-fat diet. Maybe I was trying to do keto and I was eating all the fat, and then I was like, “Oh, I just need something sweet,” and I had to choose between something with sugar or something with an artificial sweetener, I think in that situation, I might choose an artificial sweetener just because I'm super concerned about combining all of that fat and sugar at the same time. Either way, they're not ideal and if that were the case, hopefully, I would choose something like stevia or monk fruit which in the eating window. I don't personally really eat stevia or monk fruit or xylitol or erythritol. For some people they can work, as far as honey and maple syrup and things like that. If I had to choose something to sweeten food with, I would you sweetening it with honey, maple syrup, coconut sugar, especially if it was a baked good situation where you're making your own-- and that's what she's asking about making treats and things like that. That's definitely what I would choose. Actually, because right now I'm reading Terry Wahls’ book-- was it in her book? I think it was. Some book that I was reading really recently, it was actually talking about the potential benefits of maple syrup. I don't remember if it was--
Gin Stephens: And raw honey. I eat raw honey.
Melanie Avalon: When it comes to honey, there actually are potentially a lot of benefits to honey. I think it depends on--
Gin Stephens: Like manuka honey.
Melanie Avalon: Manuka honey has potentially a ton of benefits. Most “normal honey” gets its benefits from the way that it creates hydrogen peroxide, I think, which is like an antiseptic in your body, so it can be antiviral and antifungal. Manuka honey in addition to that actually has some property that also does all that stuff, but it's not by the hydrogen peroxide. That's why it's called the-- what does it the non-hydrogen peroxide potential? It's called the non-peroxide antibacterial activity, which I always think is funny. Yeah, basically, everything I just said. I would choose when baking and things like that, the honey and the maple syrup, coconut sugar, I would just avoid artificial sweeteners at all costs. If you want to go the sweet route that doesn't have actual sugar, I would choose-- not while fasting, but in the eating window, I would choose stevia, monk fruit, potentially erythritol or xylitol, those last two can create GI distress in some people.
Gin Stephens: Oh, yes. The sugar alcohols. Yes, they did for me. [laughs] Oh, yeah.
Melanie Avalon: Some people tolerate them really well, and especially in baking, I think they can be subbed out-- one of them, either both of them or one of them is like a one to one sub out for sugar.
Gin Stephens: I think erythritol is.
Melanie Avalon: Erythritol? Yeah. There's also some blends that are like erythritol, monk fruit. There's a lot of different, if you go to Whole Foods, there's an array of options. I think it's really just about finding what works for you. Also, that you might find the benefit of if you're baking, having some of the honey and maple syrup, but then maybe also getting some of the sweet potential by baking with substitutes as well. I'm just so haunted by this fructose question, I think, because the Ray Peat people are so like pro fructose, and I'm opposite ideas.
Gin Stephens: I just have a really hard time with anybody who claims that real foods are so terrible, like fruit. I have a really hard time with the claim that humans are not supposed to eat fruit, or any other real food that people have been eating for thousands of years. I have a really hard time with that. Maybe in the modern world where everything is crazy, but there's a lot of difference between high fructose corn syrup and an apple.
Melanie Avalon: Huge difference.
Gin Stephens: There's so many comments. I was reading something today, and it talked about-- I mean, we know about vitamins, we know about certain phytochemicals, we know about certain things in foods, but we know so little about what's really in that apple that's good for us. We haven't isolated and identified all the things. There are thousands of compounds in that apple that are doing things in our bodies that are positive. You can't be like, “Well, that compound is the one good one and that's the one bad one,” no. It's synergistic. It works together. Dr. Fung says it really well in The Obesity Code. He says the antidote is packed in there with it, the antidote to the poison. Your body knows what to do with the whole apple. Whereas if you just give it high fructose corn syrup, your body's like, “What is this nonsense?”
Melanie Avalon: I think probably the reason that fruit gets so demonized is because the studies on high fructose corn syrup are-- what it does is really, really terrible. I think it's really easy to want to extend that to fruit because we think fruit and fructose, but it's just not the same in real food form. Send me one if you find one, I have not found a study showing problems with fruit, in its natural form.
Gin Stephens: To be honest, if I was going to give what something to my child right now in 2021, if I had a kid over and wanted to give them a soda, I would actually choose-- instead, I would just give them a flavored sparkling water. They have so many of those now. A good high quality or a kombucha. Something like that.
Melanie Avalon: A nonalcoholic one.
Gin Stephens: Well, definitely, I would not choose an alcoholic kombucha, but I think there's so many things like that you can give them. I would not give them either a regular Coke or a Diet Coke. If I absolutely wanted to give them something like a Coke, it would be like a Mexican Coke because they have real sugar, not corn syrup.
Melanie Avalon: The Ray Peat people, they're actually really pro-fueling on sugar. They actually drink Mexican Coke.
Gin Stephens: Pepsi Throwback, I don't even know if they still make that. It was Pepsi Throwback, and you could buy it everywhere. It was made with real sugar. I bought that for years. I haven't bought it in years now though, but for a period of time that's what I chose when I wanted to have a soda, Pepsi Throwback.
Melanie Avalon: I remember listening to that interview with Rick Johnson. One of the most fascinating takeaways that I took from it was-- that's where I learned that fructose is the only sugar that actually costs calories to use because it has to be converted to something and then converted again, and then there's like an energy loss in that process. Which was really interesting. Which I remember he said that, and I was like, “Well, that makes me feel like a really high fruit diet.” [laughs] -the way to go.
Gin Stephens: Especially if it's real fruit. You're eating the whole fruit, I think. I think that's important. That's what another thing I got out of The Obesity Code, eat the whole fruit.
Melanie Avalon: There was also something about, if you just immediately burn sugar or carbs, it releases or provides X amount of energy, but if you convert it to glycogen and then burn it later, both of those conversion processes burn energy to do.
Gin Stephens: Okay, [unintelligible [00:57:50] That makes sense. But, yeah, I actually use maple syrup and honey in baking. My bread recipe has honey in it. I use raw honey, and I made these amazing pecan bars for-- Oh, by the way, how do you say that? I bet you say pe-caan, do you say pee-can?
Melanie Avalon: Yes.
Gin Stephens: I made pecan bars that were sweetened with maple syrup over the holidays. They were so good. They were on like a shortbread crust, instead of like a pie. It was like pecan pie, but instead it was bars, and it was on a shortbread crust with maple syrup instead of corn syrup. Lots and lots of pecans. It was absolutely delicious.
Melanie Avalon: I'm just searching through Terry Wahls’ book. I don't think it was in her books. So, I don't want to misquote her. I don't remember-- It was something I was reading recently about maple syrup. It's probably going to come to me once we hang up, but it was some unique benefit in it.
Gin Stephens: I will say that Christmas morning, we were at my dad's and my stepmother had made breakfast and she had this orange juice. One of my nieces was like, “This orange juice tastes really different.” Chad had some and I tasted it and I was like, “Oh my God, what's wrong with this juice?” It was the diet juice, and it was sweetened with artificial sweeteners. I was like, “Stop drinking that, Chad.” [crosstalk] Yeah.
Melanie Avalon: It was orange juice. Do they take out the sugar and add in?
Gin Stephens: I don't know what they do but it was diet orange juice. Oh my God, it tasted like poison.
Melanie Avalon: That is crazy.
Gin Stephens: I don't drink orange juice. We don't have it in the house. For example, if I was really sick, when I'm sick, I crave orange juice.
Melanie Avalon: Maybe it's because of the vitamin C?
Gin Stephens: Probably. I crave orange juice with pulp. If I had a sore throat, I would send Chad to the grocery store to get like a high-quality orange juice with the pulp in it and I would just drink it. That just makes me feel so much better. That stuff, it was orange watery grossness with artificial something.
Melanie Avalon: I think we talked about this before.
Gin Stephens: What?
Melanie Avalon: The one fruit that like I loathe.
Gin Stephens: Is it oranges?
Melanie Avalon: Like instant headache. I cannot even.
Gin Stephens: Oranges gives you a headache? I don't remember that.
Melanie Avalon: I remember growing up, I didn't understand how people could eat oranges because you know when you're a kid, you feel like if you're reacting that way other people must react. In my head, it was oranges, headaches. Instant headache. If I think about an orange, like I'm thinking about orange right now and I'm getting a headache. There must be some compound in it that my body hates.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, there must be.
Melanie Avalon: Like loathes. Oh, I thought what I was going to say really quick, I have a theory that I want to share with you.
Gin Stephens: Okay.
Melanie Avalon: It never occurred to me, but I'm wondering if this is the case. Often, well, not all the time. I have seen people report and somebody reported this in my Facebook group the other day, which is what made me think of it. Sometimes, people will do like whole foods diets and they'll feel they aren't ever really satisfied and then they'll binge on conventional food, they'll feel full for the first time. Have you seen that? I see that a lot.
Gin Stephens: No. You're saying that they switch over to a whole foods diet, they don't feel satisfied?
Melanie Avalon: They don't even have to binge, but they'll eat like-- usually it's like a flour-based thing, like cake or cookies or something, and then they'll feel full.
Gin Stephens: I wonder if someone has-- if they're limiting natural starches. For example, for me, I talked about that I'm doing the Zoe from PREDICT 3, I'm eating according to my recommendations. If I don't eat something starchy, I don't feel satisfied. Beans, that's why I'm eating so many beans because I feel so full from beans. If I were eating everything else, but no beans, I think I'd be hungry.
Melanie Avalon: I'll have to see. I feel like sometimes this also happens with people who are eating sweet potatoes and stuff like that. It could be that. My initial theory used to always be that it was a stress response thing. Maybe they're doing low carb, and then they have this high carb, like floury-type thing and they finally feel full. It's an insulin and a stress response thing. I was thinking about it, I wonder if it's because flour is fortified with vitamins. Maybe if sometimes we're not absorbing nutrients, we're not getting enough nutrients, and maybe that that high dose of vitamins. I know they're synthetic, but in a concentrated form. I wonder if that hit temporarily makes you feel full. Nobody's ever brought this up, but I was just thinking about it that maybe that's the case.
Gin Stephens: The vitamins, because you weren't absorbing that? That’s an interesting theory.
Melanie Avalon: Fortified foods.
Gin Stephens: I don't know. I am very skeptical about the fortification itself of those things, because I'm not sure it's a good quality fortification, you know what I'm saying? I'm not sure our bodies can really absorb them.
Melanie Avalon: I don't think it's a good thing at all.
Gin Stephens: I don't know that your body's like, “Oh, good, the vitamins and nutrients I was looking for.” I'm not sure those are well absorbed and utilized.
Melanie Avalon: I'm just wondering if maybe sometimes if people have been following a whole foods diet for a long time, if they're lacking in one of the vitamins and if their body is really craving that vitamin, if there is the potential that when they eat this floury food that they are actually-- because of gut issues and nutrient depletion of modern food, if they're just able to temporarily maybe absorb that vitamin and they get that.
Gin Stephens: Definitely is filling some kind of void, obviously. For me, it's that my body has to have starches for satiety, like I have to. The starchy beans. By the way, guess how many grams of fiber I ate yesterday? I hate to count anything, but you have to put it in the app to get your score. I want you to just guess how many grams of fiber I ate.
Melanie Avalon: It's probably the grams of protein that I-- was it like 200?
Gin Stephens: No, it was 73. I was like, I wonder what the recommendation is, I don't know. The recommendation is 35, and it's like, “Be cautious if you go over 70, that could be too much fiber.”
Melanie Avalon: I wonder how much I eat every day because I eat so much fruit. I feel I probably eat 40 or 50.
Gin Stephens: Well, 73. I ate 73 grams of fiber yesterday. I had lentils at one point, then later I had black beans.
Melanie Avalon: I love it. We are so different.
Gin Stephens: Yeah, I feel so full and satisfied. It's really important. It's weird that I'm not having-- it because my body doesn't clear the fat well, so I'm not having-- I would normally throw some cheese and some sour cream on there, but it's always like, “Nope, too much fat.” [laughs]
Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. Is that app-- Is it just for the study? Can anybody download it?
Gin Stephens: You have to have done the study because that's how it does. Yeah, because it doesn't know what to recommend. It's personalized to me. That's what's so interesting. A bunch of the moderators have done it as well and we're comparing our scores and they're different. My score for an avocado might be different than my friend, Roxy's, score for an avocado, or also, how much fat my body can handle is different than how much, because Roxy is-- she clears that well, so she gets different scores. She can put more avocado and eggs and whatever on her whatever it is she's eating, than I can. I can eat it, it's just a matter of the way I combine it and stack it. Like last night, I was having black beans and I wanted to put a whole avocado on top, and the meal scored high. When I put it into my day, it lowered my whole day score because it was too much fat all stacked together. I had to go in and instead of a whole avocado, I just ate half of the avocado, and then it was higher.
Melanie Avalon: Have you had nutritional yeast?
Gin Stephens: I have.
Melanie Avalon: That's why I thought about the fortified thing because I recently bought it and I am blown away.
Gin Stephens: Do you feel good eating it?
Melanie Avalon: Well, yes and no. The thing I'm blown away by is the nutrient panel. I'm just blown-- I'm like, “This is the highest source of all of these vitamins that I think I've ever--" I think it might be the most nutrient-dense food that there is, now that I think about it. I might research this. It's just vitamins, it's like all it is. It's like these yeasts just crave vitamins.
Gin Stephens: It really adds a great, like umami flavor to thing.
Melanie Avalon: Tastes divine.
Gin Stephens: Yep. I had it recently when Cal and Kate were here. Kate's vegetarian and one of the meals that I got from Green Chef, it was a vegetarian meal and the nutritional yeast was in something,
Melanie Avalon: It's been making me feel a lot fuller. The thing is, I feel I get a little bit of brain fog from it. I know it's a deactivated yeast. It's not like candida or anything like that. People can still react to it as if it were an active yeast. I feel it might give me a little bit of brain fog, but I will say for listeners, I'll put a link in the show notes to the brand that I've been buying because you want to make sure that you don't get the fortified version because most nutritional yeast, like almost all of it, is fortified because it's basically super high. Like I said, I'm blown away. All the B vitamins except B12, iron, molybdenum, selenium, one serving is like 40% of your iron. It's crazy. They're usually fortified with B12, because they want it to be a complete B supplement thing for vegans. I really, really don't recommend fortification with B12, which is folic acid, because it's not properly used by the body, it can interfere with their own use of B12 or folate. There's two brands. Well, the brand I really like is [unintelligible [01:07:33] I'll put a link to it in the show notes. Sorry, that was a tangent. That's why I thought though that maybe there was something to do with vitamins and fortified foods.
Gin Stephens: Maybe that's an interesting theory. I don't know. I just know that. If I don't get--
Melanie Avalon: Starch.
Gin Stephens: Yeah. I just can't be satisfied.
Melanie Avalon: Have you seen Hamilton?
Gin Stephens: I have not. [unintelligible [01:07:53] said that before. I have not seen Hamilton. I don't like musicals.
Melanie Avalon: I know there's a song called Satisfied. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. The show notes which will have a full transcript will be at ifpodcast.com/Episode198. You can submit your own questions to the podcast. Just go to ifpodcast.com and submit questions there. Or, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com. You can follow us on Instagram. I saw that Gin put a picture of her sauna on Instagram. I am about to upload today a video. I'm going to do a video on how to do Wim Hof breathing. So I am loving Instagram. It's so fun, so you can follow us there by our names. I think that is everything. Anything from you, Gin, before we go?
Gin Stephens: No, I think that's it.
Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, I will talk to you next week.
Gin Stephens: All right. Bye-bye.
Melanie Avalon: Bye.
Thank you so much for listening to The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember that everything discussed on this 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. Theme music was composed by Leland Cox. See you next week.
STUFF WE LIKE
Check out the Stuff We Like page for links to any of the books/supplements/products etc. mentioned on the podcast that we like!
LINKS
BUY Melanie's What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, Gin's Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle, Feast Without Fear: Food and the Delay, Don't Deny Lifestyle and/or Gin's Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Clean Fast Protocol for Health, Longevity, and Weight Loss--Including the 21-Day FAST Start Guide
The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast
More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com
More on Gin: GinStephens.com
Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com
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