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Feb 28

Episode 202: Caffeine Metabolism, Slow Eating, Hydration, Protein Intake, Insulin Resistance, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 202 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:

FEALS: Feals makes CBD oil which satisfies ALL of Melanie's stringent criteria: it's premium, full spectrum, organic, tested, pure CBD in MCT oil! It's delivered directly to your doorstep. CBD supports the body's natural cannabinoid system, and can address an array of issues, from sleep to stress to chronic pain, and more! Go To feals.com/ifpodcast To Become A Member And Get 50% Off Your First Order, With Free Shipping!

To submit your own questions, email questions@IFpodcast.com, or submit your questions here!! 

SHOW NOTES

FEALS: Go To feals.com/ifpodcast To Become A Member And Get 50% Off Your First Order, With Free Shipping!

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!

DRY FARM WINES: Natural, Organic, Low Alcohol, Low Sugar Wines, Paleo And Keto Friendly! Go To dryfarmwines.com/ifpodcast To Get A Bottle For A Penny!

Listener Feedback: Samantha - Eating with family

Listener Q&A: Christina - How much black coffee

Listener Q&A: sara - Black coffee

Listener Q&A: shelley - Podcasts....how do you listen to sooooo many??

Listener Q&A: Hannah - what if I don’t “Just Know”

The Melanie Avalon Podcast Episode #74 - Benjamin Bikman, Ph.D.

Listener Q&A: jessica - Q&A

The Melanie Avalon Podcast Episode #57 - Robb Wolf

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 202 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.

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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.

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Hi everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 202 of the Intermittent Fasting podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: [sighs] I'm in the stage of book writing, where one minute I'm like, “This is the best book I've ever written.” The next minute, I'm like, “This book is the worst book I've ever seen.” You know what I mean?

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: It's the love-hate relationship of the writing process. It makes you question everything, and then you find something-- You find things people are saying. Then, you're like, “Alright, let me find something in PubMed that backs it up” and that's not what PubMed says, you're like, “What? Are we all wrong about this?” Then you start digging some more. Anyway.

Melanie Avalon: I feel it's the perfect example of can't see the forest for the trees, because you've been writing it for so long, and it's all your words, and you can't get a perspective of what it looks like from the outside.

Gin Stephens: Right now, it's a big ol’ hot mess, but it's getting there. I'm getting there.

Melanie Avalon: A lot of trees.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. I like to just throw everything in a pile and then sort it. That's what I'm writing, like, it's a big, giant pile, and then I'm sorting it as I go.

Melanie Avalon: That's what I do. I like word vomit, write.

Gin Stephens: That's what I'm doing. I'm in the word vomit stage. That's a really good way of explaining it. Then you clean it up and make it tell a story and make sense. Right now, it feels like word vomit. I'm like, “How am I going to put that--” Anyway, I have the organizational structure obviously figured out, but it's a lot. You forget. It's like childbirth. Once you've had kids, you forget about the process. You're like, “Where’s my baby? My baby’s so pretty,” but you forget about all the hard parts. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I guess for me, it'd be like my septoplasty surgery.

Gin Stephens: There you go. It's worth it now, but going through it, you're like, “Why am I doing this again? I like my other book. That's enough.” [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I used to think I was original in saying this quote, and then I realized, I feel this is a really famous quote by somebody about writing with wine and then editing with caffeine.

Gin Stephens: I don't know if I've ever heard that.

Melanie Avalon: I always used to say I write with wine, and then I edit it with caffeine, but that's like a quote. Wait, let me look it up.

Gin Stephens: Well, it makes sense because you have to be in the flow. When you're writing and when you're in the creative process, you're in the flow, and you just let loose and you get out of your way. There's that word vomit that you talked about where you just put it all in there. Then, you go back, you're like, “What did I say?” That's when you need to focus and try to make it make sense.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, exactly. I'm sorry that you're off the wine train.

Gin Stephens: No, it's okay. Oh, sorry that I'm off the wine. Well, I am still a little bit salty about that. I must admit. The other night, I had a tiny micro-dose of wine. Chad can go through a bottle of Dry Farm Wines in two weeks. He drinks really slow. He's an original microdoser. He had some, so I poured a tiny little bit in my glass and had a little microdose, a little Melanie Microdose, and I was fine. Then, the next night I was like, “Well, I'm just going to have like an inch, an inch of wine. That's hardly anything.” Then I tossed and turned all night. [exhales] I know it really affects me.

Melanie Avalon: I've definitely learned with my Oura ring when wine does or does not affect my sleep and heart rate variability.

Gin Stephens: Oh, when does it?

Melanie Avalon: Normally, I usually have probably a glass, if that, before my one-meal-a-day dinner. If I do all that, I'm completely fine. Surprisingly, if I am at properly socially distanced gatherings where I'm drinking more, and even if it's not Dry Farm Wines, as long as it's earlier in the evening, and that's all I'm doing and then I come back, I'm actually still fine. It's only when I am drinking a lot more and I'm at home, so I think it's too close to going to bed, it's like the Oura ring knows, it's crazy.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it's interesting. I didn't realize it again, like I said before, until I started with my bed tracking. I'd be like, “Oh my gosh, look at how little I slept last night.” Just like the Oura ring, it let me know, it tells me my heart rate variability and all of that. The point of it is it's hard to undo the association that my brain has with, “Hey, it's Friday night and I'm going to unwind with a glass of wine.” Even just one glass I feel like, “No, I don't need to unwind with wine.” That's a tongue twister.

Melanie Avalon: I know. My dad actually texted me yesterday because I got him Dry Farm Wines for Christmas. He's been texting me every time he opens the bottle, like, “Love the Dry Farm Wines.” Finally, yesterday, I was like dad he could sign up for a subscription, and so he is doing that.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yay, Dad.

Melanie Avalon: I know my sneaky Christmas present maneuver because I want him drinking it because I think it's so much healthier. For listeners, if you'd like to get your own Dry Farm Wines, even if you just want to microdose it, like Gin, have a little tablespoon. Our link is dryfarmwines.com/ifpodcast and at that link, you will get a bottle for a penny.

Gin Stephens: I'm sure listeners are laughing because how many of the things that you say that you do. I'm like, “I'm never going to do that.” Then I'm like, “Guess what I'm doing now?” [laughs] Oh, that's funny.

Melanie Avalon: I have a really fun story.

Gin Stephens: Okay, I love fun stories.

Melanie Avalon: I was going to tell you this after we talked, but I just realized I could just tell it on the podcast. My new obsession is-- not my new obsession, but my new research obsession is deuterium-depleted water. I think I've been talking--

Gin Stephens: See, I don't even know what that is. You said, and I'm like, “Yeah, I don't know what that is.”

Melanie Avalon: I'm really shocked that people don't know more about it. In the past week, I have talked to basically two of the main figures in that-- it's not even a movement because people aren't really aware of it, but in that sphere, and talking to them and doing research, I am blown away, how we're not thinking about this more. Basically, what it is like really long story short-- and you can ask Chad this, since this is about molecules.

Gin Stephens: I'm sure, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Apparently there are three types of hydrogen. There's hydrogen, like hydrogen bombs that doesn't really exist anymore. There's proteome, which is the type of hydrogen found in normal water. Then there's deuterium, which is hydrogen with an extra neutron on it, so it's heavier than normal hydrogen, and so water can be made of both types of hydrogen. The heavier type, the deuterium-- because water goes into our mitochondria and is used for energy, the deuterium literally wrecks our mitochondria. It gunks up, which for listeners, if you're not familiar, our mitochondria are the part of our cells that generate energy in our body. When we take in high levels of deuterium, it literally slows down and impedes the entirety of our body's energy processes. I'm just blown away.

Gin Stephens: Was water naturally deuterium depleted or didn't have it? How's this happened?

Melanie Avalon: Like, why is it worse now?

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Well, yes, the water changes. It has changed throughout time. We naturally deplete it through healthy practices. What's interesting is one of the guys that I interviewed this week, which has to do with the story, he said he thinks basically, the reason everything is helping the way it helps us, fasting and cold exposure, sauna, exercise, is because it's depleting deuterium. He thinks it's the common factor. He actually thinks it's the common factor in cancer. Yeah, so fasting depletes deuterium. A lot of the lifestyle things that we do that are considered to be unhealthy encourage deuterium buildup. The story is, I first heard about this-- Gin, I think you were on the interview, because it was our interview with Joovv, or I don't know if it was my interview, or the one that we both did. Do you remember it coming up ever?

Gin Stephens: Well, it's been so long.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. When I interviewed Scott at Joovv, because I've interviewed him twice, and one of them was on this show. That's the first time I'd ever heard of deuterium. It was because I remember us both-- like I can see in my head, us both listening to him, talk about it. He had mentioned Dr. Que Collins, and this was literally like two years ago. I was like, “I’ve got to track down this guy, and bring him on my show.” A few months ago, I didn't reach out to him, his agents or his people reached out to me and asked if he could come on the show. I was so excited because I've been wanting to interview him for two years. We had the interview this past week. Gin-- Okay, so I got on the call and he started, freaking out, fanboying saying that he just realized this week that he was interviewing with me and how he's been a fan of me.

Gin Stephens: Oh, wow.

Melanie Avalon: For a long time.

Gin Stephens: That's so awesome.

Melanie Avalon: It was crazy. I was like, “What? People know about me?” People I really look up to and respect, but it was just really, really exciting because I always feel I'm looking from the outside in through a window into the biohacking world. So, it's really exciting to know that people consider me--

Gin Stephens: You're inside the house.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. [laughs] I always feel I'm like looking in the window.

Gin Stephens: I know. Me, too. I know exactly what you mean. “What do you mean you've heard of me? What? Huh?”

Melanie Avalon: What? He was legitimately excited, and I was like, “This is so wonderful.” I'm really happy. For listeners, I will report back because, not him, but the other deuterium figure that I talked to, they're going to send me two months of deuterium-depleted water. So, I'm going to do a deuterium depletion protocol and test my levels before and after, and see if it changes my life.

Gin Stephens: How do you test them?

Melanie Avalon: I'm not sure what the test is. I know there's a saliva test, a breath test, might be a blood test. I'm not sure.

Gin Stephens: Well, that's so interesting. I can't wait to hear. I'm not going to say I want to do that, as long as you don't have to do it while you're in the cold shower.

Melanie Avalon: No, the cold shower would help though. You do have to make all of your coffee with the deuterium-depleted water.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that makes sense.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Right now, what I'm doing is they want me to figure out how much water I drink per day so they can know how much.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that would be tricky, because I have no idea. I'm really bad at tracking and measuring things.

Melanie Avalon: Drink out of the Whole Foods liter, so I'm just seeing how many I drink per day.

Gin Stephens: Right now, I'm drinking a mug of hot water.

Melanie Avalon: You and your hot water, I don't think I'm ever going to do that.

Gin Stephens: I know, because I'm freezing. I'm so cold. It's so good, though.

Melanie Avalon: But I like being cold.

Gin Stephens: I don't.

Melanie Avalon: It's just hot water.

Gin Stephens: It's so good. I promise you. It's delicious.

Melanie Avalon: So is cold water. [laughs]

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I drink that too. It just makes me feel soothed from the inside out.

Melanie Avalon: Cold water on your body.

Gin Stephens: Hot water from the inside out.

Melanie Avalon: Yep. All right. Shall we jump into everything for today?

Gin Stephens: Yes, we have some feedback from Samantha and the subject is “Eating with Family.” She says, “I keep hearing about moms who are trying to IF having issues with family meals. That's definitely an issue for many of us. Today's question partially had to do with the family having to wait around while mom finishes her meal. One of my children and I had this discussion yesterday. Kids are conditioned to eat quickly at school. We need to teach them to eat slowly at home and away from school. It's healthier in the long run to eat slowly and hear your body's cues and savor your food. Let's encourage moms to teach this. It helps everyone with the dilemma.” Man, I love that that is so true, as somebody who was a teacher for 28 years. They have, in Georgia, I don't know what it is everywhere else, but in Georgia, at our school, where I worked, they had 30 minutes, these were elementary kids, 30 minutes in and out of the cafeteria. That didn't mean 30 minutes at the table, because if you were running a little late to the cafeteria, or if the person who was before you in the lunch line [clears throat] teachers who are always late, that's my pet peeve because I was always on time. They were late and they would get there and they would hold you up or the lunch line, if it was pizza day. Your class might take eight minutes to get through the lunch line. Then, by the time they're seated that eats into their 30 minutes, maybe that 10 minutes is gone. You only have 20 minutes, and maybe they get up 30 minutes early, so they're really cramming in the food.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I remember that from the entirety of my school. I remember it being very distressing to me, because I like to have plenty of time. I don't like being just, in general, I don't like being rushed. Yeah, by the time you get your food, it was very, very brief that you actually had to eat. I think that's a huge problem. I think kids having to go to school so early, the sleep deprivation and everything.

Gin Stephens: Right, and that might not be their typical circadian rhythm of stage of their life of when they would want to get up or eat. Yeah, I love that idea. Instead of feeling like you have to keep up with their fast pace, teach them to learn from you and slow down.

Melanie Avalon: We don't talk about it much. I think it's one of my favorite things about intermittent fasting one meal a day is just how incredibly long I take to eat my meal. I love it. I love savoring it. I don't miss rushing meals.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I don't like to be in a rush either. Absolutely not.

Melanie Avalon: All right, so now we have two questions about coffee that I'm going to read. The first one is from Christina, the subject is “How much black coffee?” Christina says, “Is there a limit to how much coffee you can drink? I'm in my second week of the clean fast. I'm not very good with water, so drinking a few cups of coffee in the morning. Thanks.”

Gin Stephens: Okay, you want me to answer that one now?

Melanie Avalon: Sure.

Gin Stephens: Okay, there really isn't an answer to that that would be universal. I've talked before about being a slow alcohol metabolizer. Meaning that the rule of thumb that we hear is that it takes an hour to metabolize one unit of alcohol, whatever that might be in terms of whether it's wine or beer, whatever. Well, that's not true for my body. My body clears alcohol more slowly, so I have to drink less alcohol than someone else. Then, you can also be a slow caffeine metabolizer. That's the thing. My DNA indicated I was not a slow caffeine metabolizer, thank goodness. So, I can handle caffeine better. Thank the Lord, I'd be so sad if I metabolized everything slowly, but coffee is not a problem for me. Wine is. I think you know when you're having too much, you can feel it. If you feel like it's affecting your sleep negatively, cut back on it. Our bodies tell us when we're having too much of something generally. When we look at long-term research on coffee, there is an association between longevity and coffee consumption. So, I wouldn't worry about, like, “Oh my gosh, is this bad for me?” If you feel great, you're probably fine.

Melanie Avalon: That was exactly what I was going to say was its individual, the caffeine metabolism rate. The half-life of caffeine-- I was thinking about this actually last night, because I was reading Shawn Stevenson's new book, Eat Smarter. He had a whole section on the half-life of caffeine and slow and fast caffeine metabolizers. He was saying the half-life of caffeine is about six hours, which means after you drink coffee, six hours later, half of the caffeine is gone. But that would completely depend, I think, on if you're a slow or fast metabolizer. In any case, I feel like just finding the amount that supports the best energy level for you without creating a slump or a drop, and also, which doesn't interfere with your sleep-

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I think that's great advice.

Melanie Avalon: -I think is huge, and that can be really different amounts for different people.

Gin Stephens: You know what really freaked me out when I realized I was a slow alcohol metabolizer, was the idea that maybe I accidentally did drunk driving the next day, without even meaning to. I would sleep all night and wake up. Let's say I'd been at the beach and then I had to drive home, was there enough alcohol in my system because I would never drive after drinking. Never, never, never. If I had one glass of wine, I wouldn't drive. But it's the next day, you're thinking, “I've been sleeping. It's 12 hours later, it must be fine.” Maybe I wasn't. Anyway, that freaks me out to think about because I'm such a law-abiding person. I would never-- I was like, the Uber girl, I would Uber everywhere the night of, but anyway.

Melanie Avalon: I do want to throw out there. I do think in general though, I go back and forth. I do a lot of research. Sometimes, I'm like, I want to drink no coffee, I want to be like no stimulants, no depressants, no, nothing, just water and fasting. The studies pretty consistently show that moderate coffee consumption tends to correlate pretty well to so many health benefits.

Gin Stephens: It's those polyphenols.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. I feel like it's that thing that if you like it, it makes you feel good, you should embrace it because it has benefits. Then maybe, occasionally, if you want to do a coffee fast where you're not drinking coffee to see how you feel, the self-experimentation that can be fun. I think this is just me speaking to my own insecurities. If it works for you, keep drinking it.

Gin Stephens: I also want to point out one thing that Christina said, she said, “I'm not very good with water.” I want to point out that there's a lot of guilt associated with water consumption these days. It's like a spin that's out there in society that you must force yourself to chug water all the time. Think back, Melanie, you follow the paleo lifestyle back in paleo days, were they carrying around jugs of water all the time?

Melanie Avalon: I highly doubt it.

Gin Stephens: Doubtful. We don't need to think of water consumption as guilt. There's also a mistaken truth, which means it's not true. It's a mistaken truth that people will repeat over and over-- because you know how when people just say things over and over again, you begin to accept it as it must be true, because I've heard so many people say it. They say, “Coffee doesn't count as your water.” I've looked into that, I've researched it, that is not true. Coffee is mostly water. The reason that whole thought comes from the fact that coffee maybe slightly dehydrating, but it's not more dehydrating than the amount of the water that you had with it. It doesn't make you have negative water balance. Let's say you have a cup of coffee, it doesn't suck out more than a cup of water from your body. You're still on the plus side. Would you be more hydrated if it were 100% water instead of coffee? Maybe. It's not going to be like negative hydration. Stop with that guilt.

Melanie Avalon: That's what I had heard as well, what you just said. Now I'm just thinking-- okay, follow this train of thought, let me know what your thoughts are on this. I wonder, however, that aside-- because one of the things I talked about in the deuterium interview was the potential ability of a given water substance to hydrate ourselves. There are a lot of factors that affect whether or not water actually is taken up by ourselves and hydrates us. I wonder if depending on context, it could be possible that coffee is dehydrating if the caffeine acts as a diuretic, so it pulls water out of the cells but because of the nature of water or your body or whatever, you're not necessarily getting the hydration benefits from the water.

Gin Stephens: Everything I've read says that it does not have a net dehydrating effect. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't deplete you. It adds water to your body.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I have to revisit all of that.

Gin Stephens: I've researched that because people ask that all the time, and so I'll be like, “Let me look again, see what I see.” It always reinforces that everything I've found.

Melanie Avalon: What do they measure?

Gin Stephens: I don't know.

Melanie Avalon: I'm wondering if they're measuring your-- I don't know the answer to this, I'm just thinking, is it they're measuring your total body water because that might not necessarily indicate hydration within the cell.

Gin Stephens: Well, here's the thing. We know that there are people out there that don't ever drink pure water by itself. Never. They always are drinking a fluid with something else. They don't drink water, they drink juice, they drink tea, they drink coffee, they drink soda. Those things are mostly water. They are liquids and they count. When you eat soup-- Actually, I've even read about-- you can actually get so much of your fluid intake through your foods, like that counts too. Like eating a carrot. Obviously, we're fasting during the day so that we would not be getting carrot fluid during your fast. But even just eating vegetation gives your body fluids.

Melanie Avalon: Most whole foods are mostly water, compared to processed foods which have no water. Even meat is extremely high in water. Which people, I think, find very shocking.

Gin Stephens: Well, our whole body is mostly water.

Melanie Avalon: Yep, exactly. I think we're 98% water.

Gin Stephens: I'm not sure, I can't remember. The point is, is that fluids are fluids. Don't be guilty about what your fluid is, whether it's coffee, whether it's tea, whether it's pure water. We're not that fragile. Some people have found that, “Hey, when I up my water intake, I do seem to have better weight loss.” All right, well, then nothing wrong with that, but stop with the guilt over it.

Melanie Avalon: I was just looking it up because I don't know why I have 98 in my head, something from our water conversation was 98% I the deuterium thing-- we're up to-- on average about 60%.

Gin Stephens: That's what I thought. I was thinking it was more like two-thirds.

Melanie Avalon: Muscles can be up to 79%.

Gin Stephens: It's been a long time since I've taught that lesson in the elementary science class but in my head, I was thinking two-thirds.

Melanie Avalon: Brain up to 85. I don't know what that 98 number was.

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Melanie Avalon: Shall we read our next coffee question?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: We have a question from Sarah. The subject is “Black Coffee.” She says, “Hi ladies, I'm about two weeks into IF. I'm trying to stick to 20:4. A couple times a week I end up at more like 16:8. I have found when I drink black coffee in the morning, I end up feeling so hungry, but when I skip it, I feel great. I love the taste and routine. So, I'm hoping that this is just part of the transition. Should I continue to skip it a few weeks, then try to introduce it again? I'm not adding anything to it. I grind my own whole beans, whole two shots of espresso, and add hot water to it. On a side note, I've been walking two to four miles each day while fasting and I love it. I listened to your podcast while I walk and it makes the time fly.”

Gin Stephens: All right. that's a great question. You're only about two weeks in. So, it's really, really hard to say whether it's the coffee or not, but you are right on target, Sarah, when you say that you need to experiment and see. You'll just need to try fasting without it. But give a solid try, a week, see what happens. Even maybe wait till your body adjusts because that is another factor the adjustment period. you'll just have to try it and see. Some people are awfully confused about coffee and whether it breaks a fast or not. Here are some of the common misconceptions people have. First of all, people think that when they drink coffee and then their stomach growls, that means it broke the fast. No. Stomach growling is a mechanical action that does not indicate your fast is broken. Also, some people think-- they'll test their blood glucose, and they'll say, “Oh gosh, every time I drink coffee, my blood glucose goes up. Coffee is breaking my fast.” Again, no, that's not what that means.

Coffee stimulates the liver to release stored glycogen. The glycogen is coming from inside you and being released into your bloodstream. Then, your body uses that glucose, that glycogen that was released and then your blood glucose goes back down. But remember, we want to stimulate or we want to deplete the glycogen in our liver over time, that's not a bad thing. Because once your body doesn't have that source of fuel from the liver, the glycogen, you can tap into your fat stores. Don't feel that blood glucose going up is a bad thing. Don't feel a stomach growl is a bad thing. Now, if you feel shaky or nauseous after coffee, that would be an indication that it's making you hungry, it might be dropping your blood glucose. Keep that in mind, keep those distinctions. A lot of people just are confused about all those concepts. What would you like to add, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: I thought that was great. I just put on my-- I don't even know what number continuous glucose monitor we're on now, but I just put a new one on. For listeners, if you have a continuous glucose monitor, it can be really fascinating to see how your blood sugar responds to things like coffee and how it responds throughout the fast and all of that. But yes, I agree.

Gin Stephens: Totally fascinating. It really, really is.

Melanie Avalon: I wonder if it's both caffeinated and decaf coffee that makes her feel hungry.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I don't know that. She said--

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wait, it's espresso.

Gin Stephens: You could have decaf espresso.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, true. I always associate espresso with caffeine. That just might be something to try, one or the other. The opposite of whatever you're doing.

Gin Stephens: Yep. We are very much an experiment of one. All right. We have a question from Shelley, and this is subject, “Podcasts. How do you listen to so many?” Therefore, we know this was for Melanie.

Melanie Avalon: [laughs] Because Gin does not listen to podcasts.

Gin Stephens: Even if people send them to me, they're like, “Please listen to them.” I don't want to listen to that one. I don’t have time.” Shelley says, “I started IF at the beginning of 2020, and pretty much stuck with the program for the entire year. This was the bright spot of my 2020. I lost 30 pounds and felt in control of my eating. I still have about 15 pounds to lose, but I'm confident that I can do it. My question, every time I hear Melanie say, ‘I listened to that on a podcast,’ which she says all the time. I always wonder what does she do when she's listening to all those hundreds of podcasts? I listen while I do my stretching, strength training, and while I do housework. If I sit down at night to listen, I fall asleep. It really is a burning question. What are you doing while you listen, Melanie? Thanks for all you ladies are doing in the IF world.”

Melanie Avalon: Thanks, Shelley, for your question. I basically have an audiobook or podcast going-- I'm just thinking about the phrase 24/7 because the phrase 24/7 means constantly, but technically, it's not 24/7, because we don't do anything 24/7 except be alive or breathe. I basically listen 24/7 and whenever I'm doing something that doesn't require concentration, so something I can multitask with, I just have it playing in the background all the time. Driving, exercising, working on website, blogs, it's just always playing. It's like the soundtrack of my life. If I need to focus, I listened to music instead.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I always listen to music, except for if I'm trying to focus, then I can't even listen to music.

Melanie Avalon: If it's something where I can't be distracted, I listen to instrumental music, movie scores.

Gin Stephens: I have to have quiet. I do much better with quiet.

Melanie Avalon: Have you ever tried the focus music with the specific binaural beats are like--

Gin Stephens: I've tried it even in my classroom with students. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Does that work for you, or no?

Gin Stephens: I do better in quiet. I just do. I do better in quiet.

Melanie Avalon: I go to the grocery store every single day because I must go to the grocery store every single day. On the way there and then while shopping and all that, I listen. There's so much to listen to. One of the most freeing decisions I made-- I feel this was right around the beginning of when the pandemic started, but I just had a moment where I was like you don't have to try to listen to every single podcast ever. If I saw any podcasts remotely related to something I wanted to know about, I would put it in this to-listen list, and it was getting so long and I was getting so overwhelmed. Then, finally, I just let it go and I was like, “It's okay. You don't have to listen to everything. You can listen to what you want to listen to.” That has been very freeing. I encourage listeners, if you have that trait at all, where you think you have to do all the things, you don't have to do all things.

Gin Stephens: That's very true.

Melanie Avalon: All right, so the next question comes from Hannah. The subject is, “What if I don't just know?” Hannah says, “Hi, Gin and Melanie. You always say that if something breaks your fast, you'll know. My question is that if I don't have a reaction to my fast being accidentally broken, does that somehow indicate that my body isn't really getting into the fat-burning state? I've been doing IF for nine months with an average one meal a day of 21:3, and an occasional meal-less Monday, thanks, Roxy.”

Gin Stephens: Roxy is one of my amazing moderators. She leads a thread called meal-less Monday, where people who are doing an alternate daily fasting approach and fasting on Monday, they fast together in the thread and cheer each other on one. Then, Tuesday is their up day.

Melanie Avalon: Very cool.

Gin Stephens: She's pretty awesome. She's also been on Intermittent Fasting Stories, and I consider her to be a great friend.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. Well, thank you, Roxy. She says, “I lost 20 pounds in the first four months that I am maintaining, which I am just delighted about. However, I still have at least 50 pounds to go and I've been stalled for several months. I know I'm insulin resistant because I was diagnosed with PCOS five years ago. Luckily, I was still able to have my two little ones. I recently had my fasting insulin tested and it was at 10. I keep telling myself that this plateau is just my body healing on the inside, but as I listened to your podcast, I'm also realizing that I don't have the same sensitivity to a broken fast that other IFers experience.

I've never felt shaky or hungry by accidentally licking a finger while cooking. I've had a sip of sweet tea before thinking it was unsweet and had no reaction. I've also tested myself by sipping something flavored on purpose and nothing happens. What could this mean? Am I not getting into the fasted or fat-burning state in the first place, and this is causing my plateau? Is my insulin resistance so severe that this is just going to be a very long road for me? Would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you so much for continuing to devote yourselves to spreading the word about IF. You two are truly a blessing to so many people.”

Gin Stephens: This is such a great question because it gets into the physiology of insulin resistance, high levels of insulin, and you've got the data there, which makes it, Hannah, your data shows beautifully what I'm going to explain. We've talked about chronic high levels of insulin, hyperinsulinemia are not good for our bodies. You've got PCOS, which is linked to high levels of insulin. Your insulin was tested, and it was at 10, which is higher than you want to have it when you're really metabolically in a good place. You know that you're insulin resistant. Hand in hand with high levels of insulin, we typically have high levels of blood glucose over time as well, because insulin resistance, it's that whole path you go down. Your insulin goes up, up, up, up, up over time. Then people generally start having more trouble with their blood glucose swinging up and being chronically high. Your A1c may be high when you have it tested. Then eventually, you may end up diagnosed as type 2 diabetic with the high blood glucose that's chronic.

Let's think about what would happen if we tasted something sweet and we were normal. My blood glucose is at normal levels during the fast. Melanie sees that with her CGM, I saw that when I wore mine for the Zoe test, my blood glucose was at a normal level. It ranged up and down a little bit, but it wasn't high, it wasn't low, it was just in that normal range up and down. Here it goes. If I had had something sweet, like a sip of sweet tea, and my body released insulin in response to that, the insulin would have cleared away some of my blood glucose and I would have had a crash. I would have felt shaky, I would have felt hungry. In fact, that's what happens to me when I have for example, Starbucks, that Nitro Cold Brew. It apparently tricks my brain into thinking that something sweet and creamy is coming, so I have a cephalic phase insulin response. I always get shaky and starving after having it. I think it makes my blood sugar crash because I've had an insulin response.

However, if my blood glucose was already high, and then I had whatever that is, the sweet tea, that Nitro Cold Brew, the sweet whatever it is, the licking your finger, my body can pump out a little insulin and bring down my blood glucose, but not enough for me to feel it as a low. I'm not going to be shaky because my blood glucose didn't go down into that shaky range. It just went down, maybe now it's a little more normal, if my blood glucose had been high before now it's normal, but I don't feel it. That's why you can't use the you'll know a thing. I actually don't always say that you'll know. In Fast. Feast. Repeat., I actually say this is not a foolproof way of telling. It just depends on what your blood glucose is doing. Did I explain that well enough, Melanie, did that make sense?

Melanie Avalon: That was beautiful.

Gin Stephens: I need people to be able to see me because I'm doing all these hand motions. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: That's funny, and just a reference for listeners for insulin levels, because Hannah said that her fasting insulin was at 10. If you'd like to learn all about insulin, like a deep, deep, deep dive, check out-- I'll put a link in the show notes to the interview that I did with Dr. Benjamin Bikman for his book, Why We Get Sick, really, really fascinating. That was actually I think, my first episode of the New Year and people just loved it. He talks about insulin in deep depth, and he recommends-- is it less than a 6, I think, insulin levels?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I think 6 is really good for metabolic health. 10, I was going to say this, and I'm glad that you mentioned it, because I forgot. 10 is “normal.” If you got a 10 and somebody was looking at it, who didn't really understand ideal. They might say, “Oh, 10, that's normal, you're fine.” Well, also, insulin resistance is sadly normal these days. Just because you're in that normal range, doesn't mean you're at an optimal, healthy level. Yes, 6 is a good something to aim for, or below.

Melanie Avalon: He said, ideally, your blood insulin levels should be less than 6 micronutrients per milliliter of blood. 8 to 9 is the average for men and women, but it's not good to be average. In this case, a person with 8 actually has-- this is interesting, a person with 8 actually has double the risk of developing type 2 diabetes as a person with 5. He recommends less than 6, the technical average is 7 to 17. Greater than 18 is considered conventionally an issue. But like he said, less than 6.

Gin Stephens: Mine was less than 5.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, mine was, I think, 4 or something when I got it tested, which made me really happy. I was like, “What if it's really high?” I just want to echo what Gin said about really fabulous that Hannah has done this testing and actually has these markers. Just out of curiosity, Gin, so let's see, we got this question from somebody else. They actually didn't have PCOS and their insulin was really good. They had this experience-- I don't know, have you come across have people have this experience where they don't perceive being insulin resistant?

Gin Stephens: We're all different in so many ways. We all probably are likely to have a personalized insulin response as well. My husband has very low levels of insulin. They were in the twos. That is very low. Here's something about Chad that I've said before, he's never struggled with his weight. He's always been very, very thin, the biggest his waist ever got was 32, for a man that's really small. Having low, low levels of insulin, could he drink diet soda all day long and probably be fine? I don't know, but he probably pumps out less insulin than I do. I think that we're all different when it comes to how much insulin we pump out. He might be able to “get away with it.” Obviously, that wouldn't be recommended, because I think over time, it's not going to have a good effect long term. But it would explain why people have different responses because we really do pump out different levels of, I mean, everything.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, with insulin resistance, one of the main issues is your baseline insulin basically has to be higher to keep everything at the same place that another person would be at. That person's body who's insulin resistant, in a way, they are experiencing the same effect and the same body processes as a person with lower insulin levels, but just the bar is all set up way higher.

Gin Stephens: It inches its way up over time.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, it definitely does, slowly. Dr. Benjamin Bikman talks about that. It doesn't happen overnight. It's not like you wake up insulin resistant and you were fine the day before. It's a slow, insidious creep, which is nice, because that means there's a lot of time to reverse that.

Gin Stephens: Well, one of the best articles I ever read was the one that talked about how are we testing the wrong thing with A1c. I can't remember the name of the article, but it was written, I think, by a nurse practitioner, I can't remember, but it was, we're measuring A1c and it would be much better if we measured insulin levels, fasted insulin levels, because that's the precursor to A1c going up. So, if we tested fasting insulin levels, if someone had high fasted insulin, but a normal A1c, we know that's, like, “Well, we're on the rise up.” Eventually it follows along.

Melanie Avalon: For listeners, A1c, it's a longer-term picture of how long and how often the extent to which your blood sugar levels are elevated, because when your blood sugars are elevated, it glycates your blood protein, so it's looking at how glycated are your blood proteins. The turnover for those is three months. It shows you in the past three months what has your overall blood sugar-- you don't get a blood sugar number, obviously, but it's showing how severe was your elevated blood sugar levels.

Gin Stephens: When you start fasting, it isn't going to affect your A1c that day, it takes time.

Melanie Avalon: Right, because like I just said, three months is how long it takes to-- I don't know if that's the half-life or the turnover. I'm not sure. I wish they did test insulin instead.

Gin Stephens: I want to get back to what Hannah said, “Is this just going to be a long road for me?” Well, yeah, it is more likely to be a long road, which I know is not what you want to hear. But if you know you have PCOS, you know you're insulin resistant, that is where strategy, more alternate daily fasting than one meal a day is what I would recommend. I would recommend more down days, maybe a 5:2 hybrid approach. Instead of just meal-less Monday, have Monday and Thursday. You're coming up with a hybrid approach, unless you want to do straight ADF, which is every other day, but that's pretty intense and it was a lot when I tried it. Of course, it's been years, five years ago since I did that. What I would probably start with for you is maybe Mondays and Thursdays, as meal-less days, you can also experiment with them as a down day with the 500-calorie down day approach, reread that chapter of Fast. Feast. Repeat. to remember, you know why to do it like that if you want or how to do it. Monday and Thursday down days, that would mean that Tuesday and Friday would be up days, those are metabolic boost days where you need at least two meals, three is also fine. Then you could do one meal a day the other days if you like it, that would be okay. Having those two longer fasts a week, that Monday and then that Thursday fast, 36 to 42 hours, two of those a week would really help bring down your insulin even more.

Melanie Avalon: One other thing I will draw attention to is-- this made me happy that she realized this, she said she knows she's insulin resistant because of her PCOS diagnosis. PCOS is considered-- definitely within the holistic health world, it's pretty much considered that insulin resistance is usually a, if not the primary cause of it. Actually, when I had Dr. Bikman on, I asked him, like, “Is it accepted now that that's basically the cause?” He said not conventionally, but usually basically that's the cause. I know a lot of women struggle with that. There’s been so many studies on-- I think when it comes to females and fertility and hormones and fasting, a lot of the studies on fasting females is often looking at PCOS. It's usually very beneficial, which does not come as a surprise, since we know how fasting affects our insulin sensitivity. It's very exciting.

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Gin Stephens: We have a question from Jessica. The subject is “Q and A.” She says, “Hi, Gin and Melanie. I love your podcasts. Thanks for everything that you do. I was just listening to an interview with Robb Wolf on another podcast and he was talking about how important it is to get enough protein. He was basically saying that while it is really important that we don't eat around the clock, so maintaining some sort of daily fasting protocol, it's also really important to get enough protein in and it's not easy to do that if you fast too much. He specifically called out one meal a day as being incompatible with sufficient protein intake.”

Melanie Avalon: He hasn't met me. [laughs] Wait, he has met me. Oh, my goodness, he has met me. Never mind.

Gin Stephens: Well, he also doesn't follow my definition of one meal a day. Hmm. [laughs] I'm sure he probably is thinking it's 23:1 because that's what people are nowadays, that just has become the definition of it. Even though back in 2015, when I started my one meal a day group, we were the very first one meal a day group on Facebook. We've never considered it to be 23:1. Ideas take root and now pretty much the idea is one meal a day is 23:1. It's hard to get that out of everybody's minds if they're using that terminology everywhere. I will never consider it to be 23:1. I know you don't do 23:1. I bet you, he's talking about 23:1. I have never one time in my life suggested that everybody do 23:1. I just want to say that.

Melanie Avalon: I feel this happens too often where ideas get crystallized about certain things and then they they're just spit out as fact. We were talking about this earlier in the show. Just today in my group, somebody was asking about one meal a day and then somebody commented and was like, they said, “You can't lose weight on one meal a day. It's just for maintenance.” Then they quoted somebody. I'm just like, “I don't know.”

Gin Stephens: That's just suddenly spouted out as truth. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: That's why actually one of the only rules of our group is phrase everything as opinions. It's so important with all of this that we say, I think it's the case that this is the way it is, because we realize we don't know anything and it's so easy to just spit out something as a fact and then once one person hears it, everybody hears it.

Gin Stephens: All those tens of thousands of people that have been in my groups that have lost weight with one meal a day, they didn't really lose weight. Okay. No, they did. They did lose weight. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I do not all like censorship or anything like that, but I do debate if somebody says something as a like straight-up fact, even if it's a fact I agree with, it's really important to me that we add, “I think,” because all it takes is people reading things as facts and then they run with it. It's like the telephone game where you whisper one thing, and then it changes. So, tangents. Shall we finish her question?

Gin Stephens: Yes. She goes on to say, “I found this a bit concerning as I have been fasting for almost a year now. For the last several months, I've been doing 20:4, which is pretty much one meal a day.” Well, yeah, as Melanie and I define it, yes. Maybe not as Robb Wolf defines it, that would be really important to know, maybe he was talking about 23:1, and I suspect he was. “I know you both follow a loose one meal a day protocol and I, of course, know how much Melanie appreciates the paleo lifestyle and Robb Wolf is a proponent of it. I thought you guys might have some helpful insights. Thanks again and keep up the awesome work you do. Jessica from Portland.”

Melanie Avalon: All right, Jessica. Thank you for the question. Yes, I'm a Robb Wolf fangirl, if there ever was one. For those who are not familiar, he wrote the New York Times bestselling which Gin is also a New York Times bestseller. He wrote The New York Times bestselling book, The Paleo Solution. He also wrote Wired to Eat. His most recent book called Sacred Cow, which is actually-- I had him on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast for that show. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. Yes, he is basically one of the founding father figures of the paleo movement. He is big, big, big on the role of protein and the importance of protein and diet. We actually talked about this in that interview that I did, I brought him on for Sacred Cow. The interview was about the environmental impacts, and the implications of having or not having animals and regenerative agriculture and the future of our environment. One of the most fascinating conversations and books I've ever read.

If I had them on the show, I obviously going to ask them all the other things. We did talk a lot about protein. It's funny, because, yes, a lot of people will say that you can't get enough protein in a short eating window. Actually, when I had Cynthia Thurlow on the show, she as well said, especially for women, that she finds this often to be a problem. I actually do think this might be a problem for a lot of women, because they don't have the problem that I have, which is I could eat-- I have the opposite problem. I can eat so much protein, animal protein which is the most complete form and dense. I can eat pounds and pounds of it easily. I don't have the experience of struggling to eat enough of it. When I aired the episode with Cynthia Thurlow-- listeners, if you're interested in this, also listen to that episode because we dive even deeper into protein. We did talk about this how much protein especially women need and how it might be a problem with fasting.

When I posted that episode, I was actually really surprised that that was the thing that my audience seemed to identify with, or it really hit home with him the most because I do a weekly giveaway in my Facebook group where you can comment what you learned from the episode and so many people said that hearing that about protein intake was a really big thing for them. I think we already said this, but no, I do not think one meal a day is incompatible with sufficient protein. I don't think that at all.

That said, I think there's nuances to it. I think some people if you're struggling to eat enough protein, which I recommend probably one gram per pound of body weight and that's on the high side compared to the conventional recommendations, because the conventional recommendations, the standard American recommendations, I think it's one gram, I could be wrong-- but I think it's one gram per pound of lean body mass, which ends up being less, but I like to aim for one gram per pound of body weight. I personally have no problem achieving that. If you do find that you can't really get enough protein in your one meal a day, I think there's nothing wrong with having a longer eating window to accommodate for that.

Also, if you're specifically looking to build muscle, you don't have to have protein throughout the day to build muscle to support muscle. Not at all. We talked about this so many times on the show. That said, if you're looking to make substantial muscle gains, I think there is a benefit to having punctuated times a protein intake set apart, because there is a cap to the amount of muscle growth that you can do at any one time. If you want to get a growth stimulus twice throughout the day, you'd probably need to have two separate protein meals, that might be more accommodated by a 16:8 approach.

Long story short, I think protein intake is key, key, key. Emphasizing it is super important for health, for bone health even. For weight loss, it's a highly thermogenic food. It supports body composition, it supports health, we need protein. Yes, I think you can get it in one meal a day, but if you're not, definitely be open to lengthening the window.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I think that's great. Also, don't forget our bodies are recycling protein during the clean fast. That's one of the things that happens with autophagy. Not all of our protein intake has to come from food you're putting into your mouth, just keep that in mind. One thing I love, and I actually learned it from you, Melanie, since you read more about it is Ted Neiman’s protein leverage hypothesis, which makes so much sense, because I don't listen to podcasts. I've never heard him on a podcast say it, but I've read about it since you mentioned it.

Anybody that's read anything I've written or listened to me on this podcast knows that I'm a big believer that our bodies communicate with us and want us to have what we need. We get signals like hunger, when we're not sending what we need to our bodies, if we're not sending enough nutrients down. The protein leverage hypothesis is that basically, protein is a need that we will meet and our bodies will say keep eating, keep eating, keep eating until you've met that need. I think that's true. Just with myself, I think it's really true. I think it's true for lots of nutrients, but protein specifically, because it's something we really, really need. I don't always eat meat. I had meat last night, let me think, am I going to have meat tonight? Yes, I'm going to have meat tonight, then the next night I won’t because I'm thinking about the meals I have in my kitchen, with my Green Chef meals.

Anyway, with the meals that I have coming up that I have in my kitchen, I'm not going to have meat every night. But if I go several nights in a row, and I don't have meat, maybe a week with no meat, my body is like have some meat. I think my body lets me know when I need more protein. Or maybe I'll feel like throwing eggs on something, or I'm just not satisfied. I really think it's true for me. My body lets me know when I need more meat or more protein, I also get a lot of protein through beans. I wouldn't worry about it. Unless you feel like you're hungry, if you are not satisfied, it might be that you don't have enough protein and consider having more.

Melanie Avalon: I 100% agree with the protein leverage hypothesis theory. I am not full in my one meal day until my body I think has received the protein that it needs. It's so interesting people often posit fat as being super key for satiety, but it doesn't create the same satiety effects that protein does, for example, it doesn't encourage longtime satiety. According to at least Ted's book, protein is the only macronutrient that encourages both short term and long-term satiety, sorry, that's a tangent, but I think we think protein is very important. It all comes back to what we always say, which is N of 1 and find what works for you. I'd be really interested to know what interview, Jessica that you were listening to where he said that, I just would like to hear what he said. Feel free to send it.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that would be great to know.

Melanie Avalon: Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions to the podcast, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. You can follow us on Instagram. I got sad because I checked to see when this was airing and I thought maybe this would have aired before Valentine's Day, but this will be after Valentine's Day. Friends, if you're not on my Instagram, get on it, because on Valentine's Day, I'm giving away so many epic things on Instagram.

This week we're doing a signed book giveaway for Dr. Alan Christianson’s The Thyroid Rest Diet. Yesterday, I put up a giveaway for $3,000 worth of blood tests from InsideTracker give away completely free. Then on Valentine's Day, Apollo Neuro, the sound wave therapy device that I have, that I'm obsessed with, they asked if I wanted to give away two on Valentine's Day.

Gin Stephens: Like for a couple?

Melanie Avalon: Because they were like, “Do you want to do giveaway?” I was like, “Sure,” they're like, “Do you want to do for Valentine's Day?” I was like, “Sure.” They're like, “Do you want to give away two?” I was like, “Sure.” [laughs] Basically, friends get it on my Instagram, because there're so many things.

Gin Stephens: If people, they're going to miss it, no, it's too late, because this will already come out, but you join today because you never know what's coming out tomorrow.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I'm on the giveaway rollercoaster now.

Gin Stephens: I'm not going to give you anything, you can look at my cat.

Melanie Avalon: [laughs] I know. Gin is not the giveaway. [laughs] You could give away signed copies of your book.

Gin Stephens: I could.

Melanie Avalon: I give away a lot of Beautycounter on my Instagram.

Gin Stephens: I'm going to show you my cat, and if I do something fun with beans, [laughs] and that's pretty much it.

Melanie Avalon: I think it's so fun. Check us out on Instagram. You can find all the stuff that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike. All right. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. 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 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. 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!

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review in iTunes - it helps more than you know! 

 

 

Feb 21

Episode 201: Blood Work, Lab Results, Fasting Support, Social Media, Overeating, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 201 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:

LMNT: For Fasting Or Low-Carb Diets Electrolytes Are Key For Relieving Hunger, Cramps, Headaches, Tiredness, And Dizziness. With No Sugar, Artificial Ingredients, Coloring, And Only 2 Grams Of Carbs Per Packet, Try LMNT For Complete And Total Hydration. For A Limited Time Go Tdrinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!!

To submit your own questions, email questions@IFpodcast.com, or submit your questions here!! 

SHOW NOTES

For A Limited Time Go To drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast To Get A Sample Pack For Only The Price Of Shipping!!

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!

Listener Feedback: Maria - Not A Question, Just Some Good Feedback

Listener Q&A: Beth - Blood Work

The Melanie Avalon Podcast Episode #23 - Gil Blander: InsideTracker

Go To MelanieAvalon.Com/GetInsideTracker And Use The Coupon Code MELANIE30 For 30% Off All Tests Sitewide!

Listener Q&A: Hannah - Q&A episode 200

IF Biohackers: Intermittent Fasting + Real Foods + Life

Clean Beauty And Safe Skincare With Melanie Avalon

Lumen Lovers: Biohack Your Carb And Fat Burning (With Melanie Avalon)

BIOPTIMIZERS:  Go To magbreakthrough.com/ifpodcast And Use The Coupon Code IFPODCAST10 To Save 10% Off Any Order.

Listener Q&A: Cindy - Which do you think has more of an impact on the body, IF or diet?

TRANSCRIPT


Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 201 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.

Hi friends. I'm about to tell you how you can get free electrolyte supplements, some of which are clean, fast approved, all developed by none other than Robb Wolf. Have you been struggling to feel good with low carb, paleo, keto, or fasting? Have you heard of something called the keto flu? Here's the thing. The keto flu is not actually a condition. Nope. Keto flu just refers to a bundle of symptoms. Headaches, fatigue, muscle cramps and insomnia that people experience in the early stages of keto dieting. Here's what's going on.

When you eat a low-carb diet, your insulin levels drop. Low insulin, in turn, lowers the production of the hormone aldosterone. Now aldosterone is made in the kidneys and it helps you retain sodium. Low aldosterone on a keto diet makes you lose sodium at a rapid rate. Even if you are consciously consuming electrolytes, you might not be getting enough. In particular, you need electrolytes, especially sodium and potassium, in order for nerve impulses to properly fire. Robb Wolf, who as you guys know is my hero in the holistic health world. Worked with the guys at Ketogains to get the exact formulation for electrolyte supplements to formulate LMNT Recharge, so you can maintain ketosis and feel your best. LMNT recharge has no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients, no junk. They're used by three Navy SEALs teams. They are the official hydration partner to Team USA weightlifting. They're used by multiple NFL teams and so much more.

Guess what? We worked out an exclusive deal for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast listeners only. Guys, this is huge. They weren't going to do a deal, I begged them. Here we are. We're not talking a discount. We're talking free. Completely free. Yes, guys, you can get a free LMNT sample pack. You only pay $5 for shipping. If you don't love it, they will even refund you the $5 for shipping. I'm not kidding. The sample pack includes eight packets of LMNT, two Citrus, two Raspberry, two Orange, and two Raw Unflavored. The Raw Unflavored ones are the ones that are safe for your clean fast, and the other ones you can have in your eating window. Word on the street is the Citrus flavor makes an amazing margarita by the way.

I am loving LMNT and I think you guys will too. Again, this is completely free. You have nothing to lose. Just go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast. That's DRINKLMNT dotcom forward slash IF Podcast. And I'll put all this information in the show notes.

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 201 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here with Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody. Oh, can I tell you something cool?

Melanie Avalon: Yes, that threw me off so much.

Gin Stephens: Episode 201 comes out on 2/22/21. It's a day of twos and ones.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. I'm looking at the numbers right now. That is a lot of twos.

Gin Stephens: And the one at the end. Yeah. 201 on 2/22/21. I don't know. I just like numbers.

Melanie Avalon: Happy February 22nd to you.

Gin Stephens: Awesome. Even though we're recording this in January. Yes. I wonder what life is like in the future. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Do you think so broadcasts-- okay, but this isn't broadcast. They say that radio broadcasts, aren't they just going out into space?

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I used to always hear that like if aliens got our broadcasts, depending on where they were, they might get broadcasts from the 1960s, so they would show up to Earth dressed up 1960s?

Gin Stephens: [laughs] I don't know. That's interesting, though. I guess the broadcast waves do make it out through the atmosphere and just keep going. I don't know.

Melanie Avalon: I guess our podcast is not broadcast, so I got really excited for a second thinking [laughs] we were going to live on the universe.

Gin Stephens: That's funny.

Melanie Avalon: Our podcast.

Gin Stephens: I love it. I do want to say one thing. I have just started doing something different with my eating window after all this time.

Melanie Avalon: What is that?

Gin Stephens: Well, it just suddenly hit me. Every day, I've been opening my window forever with a hearty snack and then later having a sit-down dinner with Chad. I just was getting to the point where every day when it was time to cook the big dinner, I was like, I'm doing a lot of things. I'm working on a new book. I had already eaten a little bit, or actually, I've been eating a lot with my snack. So, I have actually flipped my eating. I am opening earlier. Not earlier in the day, but I'm having my main dinner to open. Let's say it might be 3 o'clock, and instead of opening with a snack, I just go ahead and make dinner at 3 o'clock, and then I eat it the way I was eating my snack, but I also set aside Chad's portion. Then when he eats it, I have my something else. That's my snack. I've just flipped it.

Melanie Avalon: You eat the big portion alone?

Gin Stephens: Well, I am now because he works. Well, I was eating my snack alone. But here's what's so nice, it feels better. I was realizing that I was eating a lot in the earlier part of my window by myself. Yes, but it was because Chad's at work, but I was eating the snack and then I was eating a lot, continuing to snack till I felt satisfied. Then, by the time dinner rolled around, I wasn't as hungry. I didn't feel like cooking, like I said, because I'd already been so satisfied from before. I am loving cooking the main meal. It doesn't feel as much of a drag because I haven't eaten yet, I'm more excited. The anticipatory feeling is higher and I'm eating my main meal, and then he doesn't care that it's three hours ago that I made it. He's eating it, and I'm having a little snack at that time.

Melanie Avalon: Have you ever done just having the main meal with Chad and not eating before?

Gin Stephens: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, on many days when I've been busy, but that's not enough food for me over the course of long term. Just having one sit-down experience, it's not enough food for my body. I need more food. One plate a day, long term, that doesn't work well for me at this point, because I don't need to lose any more weight and I just can't take in enough food in that short of a time to sustain me day after day after day. Because I'm still a little hungry, I'm eating my main meal early now. Then when it's time for Chad to eat, I'm still eating a little bit and a little hungry at that point. I'm not done for the day.

Melanie Avalon: I feel that approach would apply to some questions we've had in the past from listeners.

Gin Stephens: I remember, we suggested that she flip it, I remember.

Melanie Avalon: One girl was saying that she didn't have enough time to eat all of the food with the family, because she ate slow, and she was eating a lot. Then another girl, I think wanted to eat earlier. She felt better eating earlier, but she also wanted to eat with her family. That would actually be a situation what you just stopped it.

Gin Stephens: It feels great. The main part about sitting with Chad is visiting with him. I'm still getting to eat the meal, but now what I've realized is, again, I'm not annoyed at having to cook later when I'm not as hungry, it was becoming a chore. Instead, it's exciting to cook again. Where was I going with that? Oh, I'm enjoying the meal more.

Melanie Avalon: Nice.

Gin Stephens: Not because I'm alone. Ideally, I wish Chad was at home ready to eat at that time as well, but he's not, but I'm enjoying the actual food because it's the first thing I'm eating.

Melanie Avalon: Very nice.

Gin Stephens: It really is. I don't know how long I'm going to do it. I'm lucky that I have a schedule that's so flexible, I can do what works for me back when I worked outside the home and didn't get home till 4:30 that obviously, I couldn't have this flexibility.

Melanie Avalon: Well, it's definitely a good motivation for listeners to tweak things around if it's not working perfectly.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. The other was working. Then I've just like, “Wow.” The other thing that I'm really enjoying is Chad gets home from work, and instead of feeling like I have to immediately go start cooking dinner, I don't have to do that. I've already done it. We just can visit and talk. I'm like, "Well, let me know when you're ready for me to put your plate on the table.” It's freed up my evening. It's hard to explain.

Melanie Avalon: Exciting.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. Anything new with you?

Melanie Avalon: I have something super random.

Gin Stephens: Okay, I love random.

Melanie Avalon: It's really, really random. I hadn't thought about it. Last night, I saw properly socially distance, of course, one of my friends from high school, I haven't seen her in a long time. We're catching up on everything that we're doing now in life. She says what I'm doing now is basically what I've always been doing. I forgot-- So way back in middle school, was in middle school? It might have been elementary school. Like back in the days of when it was like dial-up internet and AOL and everything, I started way back then like an email newsletter for all my friends. I taught myself HTML and I would do news stories and quizzes and polls. It's like what I'm doing now. I totally forgot that I've been doing that since I was a wee child.

Gin Stephens: That's so funny. Yeah, I did things like that. I always like would start clubs, and everyone would join them. I was like the president of the club, “You can be in my club that I just started, but I'm the president.” [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I guess like sharers of information and organizers of people and stuff.

Gin Stephens: Well, yeah, I always wanted to be a teacher, always. I played school, and all my friends had to also be in my classroom, I would play school and pretend to be their teacher and give them assignments. So funny.

Melanie Avalon: Good times. I just thought it was funny that that was the first thing she thought of. She's like, “You've always been doing this.”

Gin Stephens: I love it.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah, last announcement. I announced this last time, but I did start a new Facebook group for listeners who are interested in clean beauty and safe skincare, which is obviously a huge passion for me. It's called Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon. Gin, I'm continuing-- I just have to talk about it because I'm so obsessed. Have you tried yet the vitamin C serum by Beautycounter?

Gin Stephens: Yes, I have tried it. I actually had already tried it before. I have it. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Are you using it now every day?

Gin Stephens: Well, I cycled through things. I have a lot of the things and so I don't use it every day. I'm more of like, “I'll do this one today. And this one tomorrow.” I rotate it.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I wasn't just going to use it for one day, but I tried it and I have not stopped. Oh, my goodness, friends. If you want brightened skin-- I like going very minimal with skincare. Actually, with Beautycounter I thought I was just going to be using the makeup for a long time and not most of the skincare products, but I've been slowly wrapped in, mostly because I created this skincare group and everybody's talking about everything, and I'm like, “Oh, I want to try this now.” The vitamin C serum is changing my life. I just have to throw that out there.

Gin Stephens: Well, I'm crazy about the deodorant.

Melanie Avalon: I haven't tried it yet.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. I love it.

Melanie Avalon: I should pull it out. I have it.

Gin Stephens: I've talked before on this podcast years ago about my struggle with natural deodorant.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Did this one solve that problem for you?

Gin Stephens: Yes. This one is fabulous.

Melanie Avalon: Which scent are using?

Gin Stephens: I really liked the coconut. Also, I like the lavender, but I'm using the coconut day to day, but lavender I like. Rose is not my kind of fragrance. I got the little sampler and the rose was in there and I gave it to my daughter-in-law and she was here. She likes rose, the smells. The smells are very much like if you like rose, you will like the rose. If you like lavender, you will like the lavender. They're very true to life.

Melanie Avalon: You like coconut. What's the fourth one?

Gin Stephens: The fourth one, actually, I don't know if the fourth ones in the rotation all the time because I don't think I could find it in the full size. The fourth one was a more masculine kind of fragrance. I can't remember what it was called. It wasn't my favorite kind of fragrance for me.

Melanie Avalon: I wish they would make a shaving cream. I thought about ordering the man shaving cream and using it on my legs.

Gin Stephens: I don't even use shaving cream. I just use water.

Melanie Avalon: I don't either, but I just realized, I think I want to start.

Gin Stephens: Okay. Yeah, I never have. I guess I did back in the day when I was starting off because you feel you need all the stuff when you're a kid. Not a kid, but preteen teen.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, man, I'm having flashbacks to when you first start shaving.

Gin Stephens: Like, well, I need it. They make it. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. [laughs] Good times. In any case, listeners, if you like to get any of the Beautycounter products, you can shop with us at melanieavalon.com/beautycounter, and something special may or may not happen after your first order.

Gin Stephens: It totally will.

Melanie Avalon: In any case, shall we jump into everything for today?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: All right. To start things off, we have some listener feedback, and this is from Maria. The subject is "Not a question, just some good feedback." Maria says, "I've been blessed with being thin all my life, but I have also had some kind of major exercising since high school. I walked to school. Yes, uphill both ways. 1.5 miles each way.” Is it possible at all to walk uphill both ways? Is it at all?

Gin Stephens: Well, you could have to go up a hill each direction. For example, if your house is up on a hill, and then you have to walk down that hill into a valley, but then the school's at the top of another hill--

Melanie Avalon: Oh, then you're up a hill again.

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: It was on two hills.

Gin Stephens: Uphill both ways. Yeah. You go down and then up, and then the other way-- Well, actually, okay, now, though, that was wrong. That was down and then up. If your house was at the bottom of valley, I said it wrong. If your house is at the bottom of a valley, and you have to go up a hill, and then down the hill to another valley and then your school is on another hill? Yes, you could have. It's not going to be 100% uphill both ways. That’s impossible.

Melanie Avalon: I just think about that piece of artwork. The one with--

Gin Stephens: Escher?

Melanie Avalon: The one with the water?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I love him, Escher. Yes. optical illusions.

Melanie Avalon: I stare at that picture for too long.

Gin Stephens: M.C. Escher is one of my favorite artists. I love his work.

Melanie Avalon: It's the one with the water, like the water’s flowing?

Gin Stephens: Yeah. He has one with water. Yeah, or several.

Melanie Avalon: Then there's one with stairs.

Gin Stephens: Yep.

Melanie Avalon: Good times. Okay. Back to the question. She says, “After having two children, I lifted weights or played racquetball three to five times a week. After the kids moved out, kayaked,” oh, wow “Three to five hours or long distance biked once a week. We moved and lived in our RV for a year and the exercising stopped. And then, menopause hit. I weigh more now than when I was pregnant. Hearing so much about IF, I decided to give it a try. I have been intermittent fasting several months on and off with really very little change. There is so much conflicting information out there. Milk, no milk, 50 calories okay, 100 calories okay. That is when I decided to read Gin’s book, Fast. Feast. Repeat. Wow. I will read it again and again and again. That's how I learned about a clean fast and not starving myself and enjoying eating again, and my glass of wine when my window is open.

My first aha moment was when I heard someone talking about chewing gum. I did not realize it broke my fast. Also, I had flavored chapstick, which broke my fast. So, I experimented. I decided to have a piece of gum during my fasting period. Immediately, I was hungry. Hmm. Anything with a flavor or a taste? Hmm. I've been clean fasting for three weeks now. Not seeing any weight loss, I am seriously thinking about throwing away my scale. I just listened to a podcast where Gin did the same because I feel amazing. I have so much energy. I'm driving my husband crazy. We are retired and I cannot sit still when I am at home.

Also, I've noticed some skin issues I had that have disappeared. Hmm. I'm attributing that to autophagy. I'd rather feel great than see that number on the scale. I'm 66 and don't exercise the way I used to, due to my husband having some health issues, but I've started walking. One mile, then two, then three. I feel great. Some days, I feel I can go forever. Then, my body reminds me not to overdo it. I love listening to Gin and Melanie's podcast. I feel like I have friends that are sharing with me. Please keep up the good work. God bless.”

Gin Stephens: Oh, I love that, Maria.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I thought that was a really wonderful email.

Gin Stephens: I have two things I want to say. One, I just feel so grateful, she mentioned that when menopause hit, she gained a lot of weight prior to starting intermittent fasting. I was worried about that. I was not in menopause when I started intermittent fasting. It was obvious I was perimenopausal and then I went through menopause and now I'm on the other side of it. 51 is the average age, and that's the age where I am. I hit did it at exactly the average time, but I didn't gain any weight. I was so worried. I didn't know because most women do gain weight over the transition. I didn't. It is so exciting, because I didn't know what would happen. I was like, is fasting going to protect me from the menopausal weight gain?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Yes. I'm confident now that it will and has. Anyway, I just had to throw that out there because that was something I worried about not knowing. Anyway, I also want to just say one thing, if you've been clean fasting for three weeks, Maria, and remember that in the 28-Day FAST Start of Fast. Feast. Repeat, I don't want you to expect to see any weight loss until after the adjustment period. I want you to give yourself you know, 28 days at minimum as the period of time you're not even expecting weight loss, but I'm glad you're feeling good. I would never stop. Even if I had gained weight during menopause, I wouldn't stop fasting just because I feel so good. Fasting just like you.

Melanie Avalon: I love it.

Gin Stephens: Yay. All right.  We have a question from Beth. The subject is “Bloodwork.” “Hi, ladies, and thank you for your podcast. I recently had blood work for my doctor. I was in a fasted state when I had it done. I'm just not sure how to analyze the results. What should my numbers be? Thank you for any help with this. I know you have recommended companies where you can send your blood work away, but I just can't afford that right now.”

Melanie Avalon: All right. I thought this was a really great question because I actually I think this is a really important issue to talk about that people don't talk about a lot, because we're often talking about the importance of getting bloodwork and different markers to look for. It actually can be really confusing, because when people get their blood work. There's going to be ranges, and those ranges are actually unique to the lab that you're using. Any given blood work marker, there's usually a typical range, but you actually have to look on your actual bloodwork results to see-- it's calibrated to the lab that you're using. All of that said, it's further confusing because the ranges that are determined to be what we're aiming for. They're not necessarily the ideal ranges. They're not necessarily based on healthy populations as well.

I had the founder of a company called InsideTracker on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, and his name was Gil Blander. If you're at all interested in the history of bloodwork and conventional ranges, and why they can be misleading, and why you should look for more ideal ranges and why what you're testing might not even be what you should be testing, it's a really, really fascinating episode. He also does intermittent fasting, by the way, which is really exciting. I think, Gin, you've had him on--

Gin Stephens: I did. I had him on the Intermittent Fasting Stories podcast as well, because a lot of times people want to come on my podcast, and they'll send me, “Can I come on your podcast?” I'll say, “Well, I interview people who do intermittent fasting. Do you do intermittent fasting?” And they'd be like, “No,” but he was like, “Yes,” I'm like, “Awesome.” [laughs] It was fabulous.

Melanie Avalon: Do you talk more about the fasting? Or, do you talk about all the bloodwork?

Gin Stephens: The point of my podcast is, really we want to hear your story about you as an intermittent faster. And he really impressed me with a statement that he made. I'm going to paraphrase because it's been a while and I don't have it in front of me. He said that intermittent fasting is the number one lifestyle recommendation he would make for someone who is wanting to be healthy and increase longevity.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow. That's incredible.

Gin Stephens: Yes. With his background and scientific knowledge, to say that really just blew me away. It was just really exciting.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, especially because the purpose of his company is analyzing health through bloodwork. They have their Inner Age platform. It's like they're trying to determine what your true “inner age” is based on the work they've done is, it's the blood markers that correlate to longevity, like in populations. That's how they determine what needs to be tested. David Sinclair is actually a partner in the company, I obviously love David Sinclair. I know that Beth is not looking for a service like that. I just wanted to bring it in for educational purposes, for people who do want to do that type of testing because they send blood work tests and then--

Gin Stephens: Analyses.

Melanie Avalon: -analyses. Yeah, it's really an amazing service. I'll put in the show notes a link to their services. For Beth’s question about if you're getting the conventional work from your doctor, first of all, you should be having a follow-up with your doctor where the doctor is going to go through your results. Right, Gin? I mean, that's pretty much usually always--

Gin Stephens: No, not all the time. Sometimes, they'll just send your results and say everything was fine.

Melanie Avalon: Well, yes, true.

Gin Stephens: I think that happens more often than anything else. I think they mainly only call you back in when there's a problem.

Melanie Avalon: There should be some level of communication from the doctor if everything is “fine.”

Gin Stephens: That's the part like you said, the part that's tricky is what is fine, because we know that there's the wide range like you were saying, and you can be “fine,” but really not fine, because optimal would be really different from what you are. Fine and optimal are two different things, and that's so important.

Melanie Avalon: Beth’s question is a bit vague in that we don't know anything about Beth. It's really based on the individual what you're looking for. Are you experiencing health issues? Is there something that you are looking to see if it might be off? Or, is something trending a certain way? In general, I think things that people might want to look at that might seem “fine,” but might indicate that you might want to dig deeper would be things like your cholesterol panel, the ratios and seeing if it's trending a certain way. Thyroid is a huge one. The thing is, I don't want people to feel they have to overanalyze everything if they don't sense that things are off and things do seem “fine.” I think it's a really good question.

I know it can be overwhelming, but you can find out a lot just self-researching. If there's some marker that you want to specifically research, if you research it, there's a lot of help out there. It can be overwhelming and there can be a lot of information. But if you really want to learn, there's definitely a lot to learn on the interwebs. You just want to make sure that you're vetting the sources that you're reading from.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's important.

Melanie Avalon: Do you have any other thoughts, Gin?

Gin Stephens: No, I think you explained it really, really well. Just, I want to reemphasize and reiterate, we both mentioned it already, but making sure that you're looking at and understanding what's ideal versus what is acceptable. Optimal health is very different than your levels are fine.

Melanie Avalon: I will say really quickly, just because I'm obsessed with bloodwork, as listeners might know, I talked about InsideTracker. Actually, my favorite thing on their platform is they have a lab test analyzer portal. Gin, it is the best thing ever. If you have a lot of blood work like I do, because any test that you get through them are automatically uploaded, but then you can upload your own blood test. It's easy.

Gin Stephens: Oh, I didn't know that.

Melanie Avalon: If you have your bloodwork from Quest, or LabCorp, or whatever, you just drag and drop it into the portal. They upload it, usually within a day, it's really fast. It is the most amazing thing, it keeps all of your blood tests all in one place, so you can see the trends over time and it analyzes it by their standards. It pulls in all of your blood work ever and you can see the trends and it makes graphs. Again, it's by their range rather than conventional range. It's a godsend. Every time I go to the doctor, they have an app, so I pull it up on my phone. Also, if you're going into your doctor, you can print out like the whole report, so it's all in one place. Friends, listeners, get this. I think you can actually get just that portal if you want.

Gin Stephens: Very cool.

Melanie Avalon: I get really excited about things that make me excited.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that is exciting. I didn't know it did that.


All right. Shall we go on to our next question?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: You know we did the Episode 200, where we did Ask Me Anything, we've been having lingering questions kind of trickle in, and ones that actually relate to intermittent fasting. I'm just going to pull them in, because I think they're fun. If that's okay with you, Gin.

Gin Stephens: I think it's fine. You know what? Even if we just pop them in, even if they don't relate to intermittent fasting, I'd be okay with that. I think it's fun.

Melanie Avalon: We have one from Hannah, the subject was "Q&A for Episode 200." She says, “Hi, ladies, I don't do Facebook. I've never been interested. I'm hearing you both talk about your groups. I wonder what am I missing out? What can Facebook groups offer me that can help me continue my IF lifestyle?" Actually, that does relate to intermittent fasting. Gin, what are people missing out with Facebook groups and how does that contribute to IF lifestyle?

Gin Stephens: Well, I've talked before about that period of time for me between 2009 and 2014, when I would periodically try intermittent fasting and it wouldn't work for me. I didn't give it time and I kept going on and off, on and off and also cycling and crazy diet at the same time. It wasn't until 2014, I did some things at the time that made a difference. For example, weighing daily and calculating a weekly average that helped me to see that it was “working.” But also, that was when I was fully involved in Facebook communities. I was in a few random communities where fasting was occurring. It was a long time ago, and it was the wild west, and it was before I had any of my own Facebook groups. The information could be spotty, but support was so helpful, because I could ask wacky questions and get answers and support from other people. I felt like I was part of a community instead of alone.

That was very, very helpful because everybody just thought it was wacky in my daily life. There was just another crazy thing Gin had done, and having a community of people who are trying the same stuff I was trying and we were trying to figure out, what about alternate daily fasting, what about 5:2, what about a five-hour window. We were experimenting, what about drinking broth. This is back in the day, when we didn't really even know about the hormonal and metabolic benefits. We just thought it was a way to eat fewer calories. Now, we know there's a lot more to it than that. I think having the camaraderie and just the idea that I was not in it by myself helped a lot. Now we have my small intermittent fasting group is over 30,000 members, that's my small one. There's a whole group of people and they've all read Fast. Feast. Repeat. if they've joined since Fast. Feast. Repeat. came out, part of that it was people who had read Delay, Don’t Deny, so they've all read something. We're all coming from a place where we understand there's a lot more to fasting than we used to think.

The support is amazing. We have people sharing their non-scale victories, people sharing their health benefits, people sharing their before and after. Also, people asking for troubleshooting, that can be really helpful. If you think everyone else is just having an easy time of it, and you're the only person who's struggling, that can be lonely and make you want to quit. Just having people share their struggles together is helpful. You realize, “Oh, other people do have to struggle and work through difficult things,” and just helping one another. I think that's what you're missing out on. Is there another place to find it other than Facebook? I don't know. My community is only on Facebook, although I've thought about going to a website, that's just my website. Yeah. I don't think I'll go to another social media platform, other than Facebook, and of course, Instagram, but maybe one day I'll have a support community that's just web based. I don't know.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I think the social community aspect, especially when you're doing something like intermittent fasting where it can be hard socially, because people are often suspicious or what's the word? I don't know. There's a lot of tension.

Gin Stephens: “I don't understand.”

Melanie Avalon: Having a community of support, I think can be so valuable because any dietary change support can be really, really helpful, but fasting specifically, I think the community is so, so key. That's why I really wanted to create still the dating app for intermittent fasters. Gin, I downloaded a dating app.

Gin Stephens: Oh, my gosh, are you going to--

Melanie Avalon: For research.

Gin Stephens: Oh, for research. I thought, “Well, you're going to have to go out on dates.”

Melanie Avalon: I made my profile and everything. I feel so-- I don't know. I was like, “What am I doing?”

Gin Stephens: Are you going to date people through your app? Or through that app?

Melanie Avalon: I feel like I need to go on one.

Gin Stephens: Well, you have to know what the pitfalls are.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. We'll see. I was thinking about it more, because I had a call with-- actually, well, you know him, Cal’s friend who has been doing the updates for my current app?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: Just to get an idea of the scope for the dating app. I think if I did it, it would be a huge project, like huge. I think it would be something I would need to, and I can change I to we, if you ever wants to join this project. [laughs] I'm not getting the sense that it's your cup of tea. I think it's something I would need to, what is it, crowdfund?

Gin Stephens: Maybe? Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Do you think we could do that through our podcasts? Do you think people would be interested?

Gin Stephens: Well, that's a great question. I don't know.

Melanie Avalon: Because I think the budget for is pretty big to create an app where there's a whole social network aspect to it. It's a pretty big project, basically.

Gin Stephens: It's not something your son home from college makes in his bedroom in the week that he is about [unintelligible [00:36:33]. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Right. Also, if it was crowdfunded, they would have an instant audience, like it would automatically have users once it was launched. I really want to do this, like, I really, really want to do this. I'm just putting it out there to the universe. Listeners, stay tuned. Oh, that's what I'm talking about, the importance of community.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Especially I think we're dating. In any case, and then my groups. The IF Biohacker is one that I have, we do talk a lot about fasting in there, but it's a wonderful place, because especially in the biohacking world, which is a very niche community. A lot of people often have really random questions about all these things Gin and I talk about, and the things I have on my other show, red light and blue light blocking glasses and saunas, and deuterium-depleted water, and all of these crazy things. Sometimes, you want to talk to people about their personal experience about it, and how else are you going to find people to talk to? You might, in the real world, the group is pretty amazing for that.

Then, the skincare one is really great, if you are trying to find the perfect products or want to know, it's not just Beautycounter, it's like any skincare and clean beauty. Then I also actually have the Lumen Biosense CGM Group. That's where people are experimenting, especially with their fasting, with different devices that measure your blood sugar, or if you're burning carbs, or if you're burning fat. Again, it's people who are working with these devices, but they want to also get feedback from others and they have questions. It's really great for instantly plugging into communities about content and information that you might not be able to engage with. You might not have anybody you can really talk to about it.

Gin Stephens: That's so true. For example, three of us went through the Zoe app testing the PREDICT study with Dr. Tim Specter’s work back in the fall. We were going through it together. We were on messenger, social media, obviously, small group, but we were able to talk about it with each other and support one another. Now, some of the other moderators are going through it together and supporting one another. But also, people in the big group have now started going through it, and so, they're taught well, it's the small group, but bigger than the moderator group, the 30,000 member group. They're all, saying, “Well, what did you do about the muffins?” Or, “What did you do about the poop sample?” It's support. Now, you don't necessarily want to call the customer service number, when you can ask people who are doing it with you in this community. It's so much fun, watching people help one another and bond over common things that we're doing.

Melanie Avalon: It's the best place to reach me as well if you have any questions about all of the really random thoughts that I have.

Gin Stephens: Best way to reach me as well.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and if I don't have the answer, because sometimes people will be like, the one to know, like, there was some episode where I talked about something-- I normally remember what it is, but sometimes I don't, and other people will remember. They'll be like, “Oh, it was this episode.”

Gin Stephens: See, they'll ask in the group, like, “What intermittent fasting story, did you talk to such and such?” I'm like, “I don't know.” There was one about something with water. It was today someone in the One Meal A Day Group was like, “What was that water thing you use?” I'm like, “I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't use any water thing.” [laughs] I never have, and then somebody else like, “Oh, that was the guest in episode whatever." I'm like, “Oh, that's helpful. Thank you.”

Melanie Avalon: That's amazing.

Gin Stephens: Isn't that funny? I love the community so very much. My brain is full [laughs] of all that information.

Melanie Avalon: I think we answered that question. She had a few more questions. She says, “Melanie, do you still wait tables? Still acting? Are you too busy with the podcast? Just curious what your day job is.” My day job is the podcasts. When I talked about that on the 200th episode, I don't think everybody realizes how much time everything takes.

Gin Stephens: I don't think they do. It does take a tremendous amount of time.

Melanie Avalon: It's literally what I'm doing 24/7 pretty much.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I love it so much.

Gin Stephens: I love it, too.

Melanie Avalon: Just perpetually grateful that this is my life, and that I get to do all this and, and share it and have such a wonderful community that we just talked about to share it with. But ultimately, I would, and I said this all the 200 show, but I would like to turn it into my other show into a TV show, and bring together my love of the entertainment industry with the podcasts.

Gin Stephens: That would be fun.

Melanie Avalon: Then she also says, “Gin, I would love to participate in an IF study, if you designed it. What would be the focus of the study? What would you like to prove?”

Gin Stephens: All right. Well, I can think of a bunch of different studies I would like to design. I would actually like to have a study comparing clean fasting to other styles of doing fasting, that would not be clean fasting, I'd like to see exactly what are the differences. The thing about studies, all the variables have to be the same, except for the one thing that you're changing. It's hard to do that with people. For example, let's say we did do a study where we compared the clean fast to, let's say coffee with butter in it. Okay. The variable is going to be what are you having during the fast. Well, okay, so that's one variable, but it also is going to change the amount of calories that you're having during the day. Are you going to control for that in the eating window, so that everyone in the butter coffee group gets fewer calories in their eating window to counterbalance the amount of calories they had from the butter? But then the amount they're having in the eating window is going to be different than the people who are-- You see, there's just so many variables with people. When you change one thing, it changes another.

Melanie Avalon: What if the setup was clean fasting? No restrictions on what you eat, but same eating windows. One group, they can have water, and black coffee and tea, but no sweeteners. The other one, they can have water, coffee, black tea, but they can have stevia.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's even better. Yeah, that's a better one. Yeah, that wouldn't have the calorie impact. That's a good idea. Also, I would like to see what happens if you do put the butter in, what if you did put the milk in? Again, like I said, that just shows how hard it is with humans, because the amount of energy you're taking in is another variable.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I would really like to see that. The one with the sweeteners.

Gin Stephens: I think so, too. I was going to say there's like a million. I could think of I'd also like to do one where we really compare time of day, but we would have to do it in a really robust way where they have a long enough period of time, and everything else needs to be the same. Other than the time of day, that would be a good one.

Melanie Avalon: I still want to do the one I've said multiple times on this show, where they don't know that it's a fasting study and they take a pill that they can't eat a certain amount of time around. They can't take with food, and they have to wait. Then it's actually a fascinating study, but they think it's testing the pill.

Gin Stephens: Right. That would be cool.

Melanie Avalon: I want to do it so bad.

Gin Stephens: It's not what would you like to prove, Hanna asked. Of course, everyone knows, I would love to prove that the clean fast is more beneficial. I would really just like to see, let's see what happens.

Melanie Avalon: I don't think I would ever want to prove anything. You're trying to learn.

Gin Stephens: There's very little proof in science, believe it or not, right?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I'm trying to think of anything that I would want to prove in a study, and I can't--

Gin Stephens: It's hard to-- I mean, really, you can't. That's one of the flaws right there, is the way the fact that we have interpreted.

Melanie Avalon: The study groups that are approved things like that their purpose.

Gin Stephens: Right. Oh, well, that didn't prove anything. It just showed that in these this situation. This is what happened.

Melanie Avalon: So many studies go unpublished because the findings aren't what they wanted to prove. It makes you wonder if we had all the studies ever, if certain ideas would be different.

Gin Stephens: Oh, probably. Yeah. They're like, “Oh, that's not what I expected,” and then they never tell anybody.

Melanie Avalon: It happens a lot.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. All the time. Although some are published-- I'm on a Listserv, do they still call them Listservs? Is that what it is? I don’t know, it's an email from some group in the scientific world, like obesity and whatever. I can't remember the name of it, but I get it periodically. It actually does have a section that shows where they got no results or the opposite of what they expected. I like to look at that section.

Melanie Avalon: I do love when I read studies, and it's different than what they thought, they'll talk about that, like in the intro or in the conclusion. They'll say while we anticipated finding X, Y, Z, we actually found whatever it was, and they often will propose the hypothetical mechanism of action for why that is. I was just reading a study last night-- Did I tell you I'm bringing Shawn Stevenson is coming on my show?

Gin Stephens: I think you did.

Melanie Avalon: He's at The Model Health Show, which is often the number one health show on iTunes.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, you told me that. Yeah, that rings a bell.

Melanie Avalon: I'm really excited. He has a book called I think, like Sleep Smarter. He has a new book coming out.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. Yes. I just read his book. That's why it sounds familiar.

Melanie Avalon: Sleep Smarter or Eat Smarter?

Gin Stephens: Eat Smarter.

Melanie Avalon: Eat Smarter. Yeah. His first book was Sleep Smarter, he has his new book, Eat Smarter. He pointed out a study that was comparing lean fish, fatty fish, and no fish, I think, and how it affected weight loss. I was trying to find the original study, and I went and read it. I don't mean this is a slight to him, but this was actually one example of going and reading the study, and it being slightly different than what-- He said it wasn't different than what he said, but in what he said, he said that it found the male population experienced, like more weight loss with the fish groups. Then when you read the study, that's true, but the females didn't experience any weight loss. That wasn't clear reading his interpretation of it and reading his interpretation made it same for everybody. Sorry, I'm on a tangent. That is an example of a really interesting finding like that it created weight loss and men but not women. Then, I was googling other studies about fish affecting inflammatory markers and weight loss. For example, I found one study, and this is why I'm talking about this. I'm so sorry for the tangents. I found a study that compared like meat diets to fish diets, and they expected to see a decrease in inflammation and all of these different biomarkers, and there was no difference. It was really well controlled. In that situation, they said that this was not at all what we expected. That was the point of that.

Gin Stephens: My favorite part of this Listserv that I'm on is they have a section called Headline versus Study.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. You've talked about that.

Gin Stephens: It's my favorite, because they'll show like, “Here's what the headline was reported.” It was like, “Here's what the actual study was.” You could compare the two and it's hilarious. It's like, the Saturday Night Live of the nutrition world, I guess.

Melanie Avalon: Even, like what I just said, with those two different fish studies, the one study that Shawn talked about was very favorable for fish and weight loss and inflammation. Then, I found another one that didn't show that at all, and it's really confusing, I think, for people. It's no wonder that we have such dietary wars, because really, if you want to try to-- it goes back to that word proof. If your goal is to prove something, you can probably “prove it” if you line up enough studies that show it a certain way, but you can also line up enough studies that probably show something different. So, it just comes back to bio individuality.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, absolutely.

Melanie Avalon: And doing your own research.

Gin Stephens: Yes. All right.

Melanie Avalon: One last baby question. She says, “How many siblings do you each have?” How many do you have, Gin?

Gin Stephens: I'm an only child and I'm one of four.

Melanie Avalon: Wait.

Gin Stephens: [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: You have step-siblings?

Gin Stephens: Half, I have half, but they're siblings, but I'm my mother's only child. My dad got remarried after my parents got divorced and had three other children. I'm an only child, so I was raised as an only child because I lived with my mother most of the time. But I would spend holidays and part of the summer at my dad's house with my stepmother and my sister and my two brothers. I don't say, “Hello, this is my half-sister.” I don't introduce her as my half-sister. I don't introduce them as my half-brothers. I don't even really think of them differently than you know.

Melanie Avalon: You think of them as normal siblings?

Gin Stephens: Yeah. I'm like, “Here's my brother. Here's my other brother. Here's my sister.” I don't use qualifiers there. But I was raised as an only child because I'm my mother's only child, like I said, and I'm also the oldest of four. But I never lived there all the time, day in day out, went to school in the household with siblings.

Melanie Avalon: Okay.

Gin Stephens: Well, I grew up in a different state. I was in Virginia with my mother and they were here. I'm in Augusta, Georgia. They, my dad, and my stepmother live just across the river in the South Carolina part of the area.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. How about you?

Melanie Avalon: I have a brother and a sister. I am very much the oldest. I'm just like the characteristics I feel of the oldest sibling.

Gin Stephens: Me very much, too, but then my sister got to be the oldest as well. When I was there. She's got a lot of the older child characteristics, too.

All right. And then, another question from Cindy. She also intended this for Episode 200. She says, “Which do you think has more of an impact on the body? Intermittent fasting or diet? So, high carb low fat, low carb, high fat, paleo, etc? Have you ever tried eating small meals a day? It's just that I've noticed when I do IF, I tend to overeat my meals during my eating window to an uncomfortable amount. Has this happened with you before and how did you deal with it?” I thought these are really great questions. For her first one, what do you think has more of an impact? IF or diet?

Gin Stephens: They both have an impact. You can't untangle the two, because your diet is so important. What you eat is so important. The older I get and the more I've learned, the more I’ve realized, “Yeah, what you eat really does make a huge difference because the nutrients are important.” I was raised in the era of, “Just eat your Flintstones vitamin and have your fortified cereal, and you're getting all that you need.” That's what we were taught. But now, everything I've read since I've been in the health and nutrition world, I'm like, “Oh, that is all a lie. That's not true.” We were so confused. I talked before and I might have talked about this in Fast. Feast. Repeat., I think I did. I gave my children chocolate-flavored beverage that was fortified with vitamins and nutrients instead of actual chocolate milk because I thought it was a healthier choice because had more vitamins in it. I've learned a lot more. Food is information. Real food is powerful, and you can't get what you need from these supplements versus food. I think that real food diet is key, and it has an amazing impact on the body.

Intermittent fasting also is so important. I guess it would depend on, what are your needs at the time. Food has more of an impact when you're talking about providing the nutrients that you need to build a healthy body. Intermittent fasting has more of an impact when we're talking about cleaning things up, autophagy, letting our body heal, you're bringing down insulin levels. It's impossible to claim that one has an impact that is necessarily more than the other, I guess. It just depends on what you mean, because if you said, which has the greatest impact in letting your body rest and repair? Well, that's going to be intermittent fasting. What has a greater impact in building a healthy body as far as nutrition? Well, that's going to be your diet. They each have an important role to play.

Melanie Avalon: I thought what you said was really great. I like what you said about the qualifying, like resting and repair would, well, I suppose obviously, intermittent fasting would have more of an impact compared to the nutrition building or other things. If I had to answer it, and I'm hesitant to answer it, because I don't want to give the wrong impression about anything, but if I had to answer it, I would say diet. The analogy I'm thinking of is, say that you have a house, and the diet is like the stuff in the house, the furniture and the objects, and then the fasting is having a maid come to the house. What affects that house the most? They're both really important, but the stuff in the house, so the diet is what is forming the foundation of the house. I also think that what-- she was talking about diet, like high carb, low fat, low carb, high fat, paleo, but say you're doing standard American diet-- it's like the, “You can't out exercise a bad diet.” Depending on how “bad” it is, I think there is a certain point where you can't out-fast a really, really bad diet. You might mitigate a lot of the damage, but if you're putting in things that are just attacking your body in a way and really inflammatory every single time, then the fasting will be amazing for you, because it's helping mitigate the damage and cleaning up things, but you're still having that damaging effect.

Gin Stephens: What's really funny is, when you read that I didn't even think about, when I think of diet, nowadays, I didn't even think about paleo, low carb, high carb, whatever, I just thought real food, fake food. That's it. That's my only distinction now. When I think of diet, it's like food and then not food.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, actually, because another way we could interpret her question would be, what has more impact for weight loss, IF with fake food or, not IF with a restricted protocol, so like high carb, low fat, low carb, high fat.

Gin Stephens: Like going on a diet, as opposed to the diet that you eat day to day.  

Melanie Avalon: Somebody might practice intermittent fasting and eat, doesn't even have to be “super.” I don't like using the word ‘bad’ because I don't like attaching morality, but might not even be really processed, refined inflammatory food. It might just be more normal sort of healthy food, IF compared to like really low fat, high carb, but not IF or really high fat, low carb, but not IF. I think that's a really interesting comparison.

Gin Stephens: I think it would depend on what your issues were. If you were someone with insulin resistance, I think that intermittent fasting might be really a tool that you need that might have more of an impact on the body.

Melanie Avalon: That kind of goes into her second question. It might depend on how you're eating because she says her second question to recap was, “Have we ever tried eating small meals throughout the day?” She says when she does IF, that she tends to overeat to an uncomfortable amount. Gin, has this happened with you before?

Gin Stephens: Well, I talk about this in the past Fast. Feast. Repeat. That is that during the adjustment period, when your body is not well fueled during the fast, and therefore your body is learning how to tap into fat stores, but hasn't done it yet, you open your eating window, and you tend to overeat because your body really is not well fueled, and you're like, “Oh, my gosh, I’ve got to eat.” Then when your body adjusts to intermittent fasting, that takes care of that for most of us, probably many of us. We are well fueled during the fast. We don't have that same urge to overeat because our body is not as panicked because we have been well fueled.

Cindy, I'd be very interested to know that because you said when you IF, you tend to overeat. That implies to me that you go back and forth. It used to be back and forth, back in those years from 2009 to 2014 and it was a nightmare because I lived in the adjustment phase and I never got beyond it. If you'd never get beyond the adjustment phase, you're living in the hard part. The hard part where the fasting is hard and then the eating window is hard because you're overeating, and it's uncomfortable. The idea of appetite correction is that your body adjusts, and then you are less likely to overeat to an uncomfortable amount. Will you still do that from time to time? Yes, just because food is delicious. Sometimes, you're like, “Well, I'm just going to keep eating this.” Then you're like, “Oh, I should have stopped five bites ago.” You get way better with that issue, most of us do.

We both have tried eating small meals all day, I would-- I think probably everybody has tried that, because that was the conventional wisdom for so many decades. All that did was made me hungry and kept me on the blood glucose rollercoaster, where I was never satisfied, ever, and always hungry, and always thinking about, “Is it time to eat that next small meal, or do I need to wait for 30 more minutes or can I eat it now?” Never being satisfied. I think we've all tried that. If eating the small meals all day, had worked for me, I would probably still be doing that, but it didn't.

Melanie Avalon: I think the most unpleasant-- I don't know, I did a lot of unpleasant dietary things. I think when I tried the Atkins fat fast, and I was eating like, five macadamia nuts every so many minutes or hours. Oh, my goodness.

Gin Stephens: [laughs] Yeah, and cream cheese. I remember, I tried them.

Melanie Avalon: I did the cream cheese fat fast. Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. It was so hard. It was unpleasant. I never felt good. When I did the small meals, I never felt, “Now I'm satisfied.” I never felt that. Whereas every day with intermittent fasting, I feel, “Now I'm satisfied.”

Melanie Avalon: The reason I was saying that was that her second question kind of related is, well, I'm really glad that you picked up on the- that she says when she does it, that's a really nice clue that you picked up on. If there was a person though that had been doing IF for a long time, but did have a tendency to overeat, I do think honestly, there are some people who think it's rarer, but I do think there are some people who actually do better with small meals throughout the day, just because of how they are.

Gin Stephens: I know somebody, she's a friend of ours. Her husband works with my husband. She's a grazer, and she's small and she just eats a little bit, and she eats a little bit, then she eats a little bit. That's how she eats, and she feels good. She's healthy. It obviously works for her. She's not going to do intermittent fasting, but she feels good. She's satisfied. I never felt satisfied and good.

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. If you'd like to submit your own questions to the podcast, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com, or you can go to ifpodcast.com, and you can submit questions there. The show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com/episode201. We will put links to everything that we talked about, and there will also be a full transcript there. Definitely check that out. You can get all of the stuff that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike. You can follow us on Instagram, my new favorite place. I'm MelanieAvalon, Gin is GinStephens, and I think that is everything. Anything from you, Gin?

Gin Stephens: No, but you saw those beans that I bought the other day, I saw that you liked that. I was like, “Oh.”

Melanie Avalon: I first I thought a random bean company had been listening to our show, and was like, “They're going to send--"

Gin Stephens: [laughs] No, I just bought all those beans. If you spend $50, you’ve got free shipping. I'm like, “Well, I'm not going to pay for shipping, if I can get it for free.” That's how they get you.

Melanie Avalon: I got really excited for a second. It was like a random--

Gin Stephens: About $50 worth of beans. I posted it and then I'm like, “This looks like an Instagram ad,” but it's not an Instagram ad. I went back and edited it and [laughs] part about, they don't even know who I am. I'm just really excited about these beans.

Melanie Avalon: It's so funny. If listeners are curious though, random brands send us random stuff.

Gin Stephens: They do sometimes do that.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I would not at all be surprised, especially now that we've put it out there if some bean company sends you.

Gin Stephens: Well, I would take all the beans. Send me the beans. Send me the beans.

Melanie Avalon: Send Gin the beans. Don’t send them to me. No.

Gin Stephens: Just to me.

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

Gin Stephens: All right.

Melanie Avalon: Bye.

Gin Stephens: Bye.

Melanie Avalon: 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. 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!

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review in iTunes - it helps more than you know! 

 

 

Feb 14

Episode 200: AMA: Music, Hobbies, Dating, Future Plans, Dreams, Personality Types, Travel, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 200 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:

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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 2 free steaks and bacon in your first box for FREE at butcherbox.com/ifpodcast!

Join Melanie's Facebook Group Clean Beauty And Safe Skincare With Melanie Avalon To Discuss And Learn About All The Things Clean Beauty, Beautycounter And Safe Skincare!

Listener Q&A: Crystal - Maybe you guys have mentioned this, but do you talk via zoom or Skype?

Listener Q&A: jackie - Melanie, do you date, and is that person a science nerd like you? Gin, do you listen to music while jumping on your rebounder?

Listener Q&A: Nicole - What kind of music do you both like to listen to? What is one of your most favorite songs?

Listener Q&A: Sonia - What’s your favorite taylor swift’s song?

Listener Q&A: Michelle - If you never had to worry about money, where in the world would you live?

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!

Listener Q&A: Erin - What are your Meyers Briggs personality letters?

Listener Q&A: Nicole - Would you guys have been friends in high school?

Listener Q&A: Katharine - What are your favorite podcasts?

Listener Q&A: Ritu If you and Gin had to lose about 10lbs what protocol would you use?

Are You Ready For Personalized Diet Advice? Here's Zoe!

Listener Q&A: Laura - When you were a kid, what did u want to be when u grow up?

Listener Q&A: Susan - What’s both of your favorite Happy Songs?

Listener Q&A: Lucy - Who are your role models?

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Listener Q&A: Theresa - If you could invent a product, what would it be?

Listener Q&A: Rose - how did you get into biohacking and what brought you here?

Listener Q&A: Brooke - Gin often speaks of her IF journey, but Melanie, why did you start IF? Autophagy, weight loss, or health reasons? I what would you have told your younger self to optimize what you have today? would you consider having an exercise expert on?

Listener Q&A: Angelo - Was IF something you ever used to lose weight? How many hours a day do you spend reading and studying in order to be prepared for a new podcast interview? Gin sometimes mentions that she takes breaks on IF on special occasions, what about you? Is there any special occasion where you take breaks from everything you do on daily basis?

Listener Q&A: Melanie - What is the one super-power you would love to have?!

Listener Q&A: Lindsay - Do you have a personal motto or mantra? What is it? If you could share a meal with anyone, who would it be? If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability what would it be?

Listener Q&A: Durita - Why in the world have you two never met?

Listener Q&A: Samantha - If the 2 of you finally met in person but had to pick a mutually agreed upon meeting place/destination, where would it be?

Listener Q&A: Anna What/who would you give up fasting for?

Listener Q&A: Nathalie - What would be your last meal ever, if you could choose, with no consequences?

Listener Q&A: Charlotte - Have there been times where one of you has to back down because you disagreed?

Listener Q&A: Trisha - Gin how long do you stand on your life pro/turbo boost? best go to FAST but healthy meal for on the go that is truly filling?

Listener Q&A: Michelle - do you plan to go back into acting? With that, what would your dream role be?

Listener Q&A: Christina - Are you still acting or do you consider podcasting your new career?

Listener Q&A: Theresa - When & Why are you moving back to LA? Will you go back to waitressing post COVID?

BLUBLOX: Go To BluBlox.com And Use The Code ifpodcast For 15% Off!

Listener Q&A: Marion - What are the best and worst things resulting from this pandemic for each of you? What is your greatest asset?

Listener Q&A: Lisa - what is the no.1 burning question you would want to know the answer to to solve either all your problems, or just give you peace of mind?

Listener Q&A: Miranda - How would you handle being on set since you’ve changed your skincare and makeup to clean ingredients? Would you take your own or just roll with it?

Listener Q&A: Denielle - I know you are both avid readers of health related books, but do you enjoy reading for pleasure and if so, what types of books do you choose or what authors do you gravitate towards?

Listener Q&A: RC - If you could go to any concert-dead or alive whom would you go see?

Listener Q&A: Amy - Do you listen to each other’s podcast?

Listener Q&A: Sarah - What opinions have you completely flipped on since starting the podcast?

Listener Q&A: April - What does Melanie eat in her window?? Are you a good cook? What do eat out at restaurants?

Listener Q&A: Chantel - I would love to know what’s each of your FAVORITE kind of exercise!

Listener Q&A: Lauren - Who would each of you cast as yourself and the other in the epic movie of your lives?

Listener Q&A: Emmy - How have your thoughts regarding fasting evolved and changed over time?

Listener Feedback: Sarah - Favorite duo and favorite podcast. The perfect pair because your goal is the same and thoughts and ideas differ. I can only imagine how many people you have helped. I don't have a question I'm just so happy you guys found each other even if you haven't met in person. Wow.

Listener Feedback: Linda - do you each realize how you've improved the lives of thousands of people. talk about having a purpose, an impact on human kind? Ha.

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 200 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 ecofriendly 100% recyclable box. You enjoy high-quality meat delivered to your door and more time for amazing meals together. And 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. Right now, new members will get two New York Strip Steaks and one pack of bacon for free in their first box by going to butcherbox.com/ifpodcast. That's butcherbox.com/ifpodcast. Now back to the show.

Melanie Avalon: Hi everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 200 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. How are you?

Melanie Avalon: I'm good.

Gin Stephens: That's good.

Melanie Avalon: Episode 200.

Gin Stephens: Hooray. I'm really looking forward to this one today. I've been looking forward to it. I'm very excited.

Melanie Avalon: Me too ever since we decided to do it, 200 is a lot of episodes.

Gin Stephens: It is a lot of episodes. It's remarkable, I'm already on the 130 something of my other podcast.

Melanie Avalon: I'm on like 70 something.

Gin Stephens: Isn’t that amazing?

Melanie Avalon: This is crazy.

Gin Stephens: I was chatting with a friend of mine-- Well, someone I've met through podcasting and it's someone who has a podcast. We were talking about numbers. We were talking about downloads. Do you realize that-- Okay, between the two of us, let’s see, we've got four podcasts between the two of us.

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: All four of our podcasts are in the top 5% of all podcasts by number of downloads.

Melanie Avalon: That's crazy.

Gin Stephens: Isn't that remarkable?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: My new one that I just launched in December with my cohost, Sheri Bullock, we're still a baby podcast, we've done 12 episodes recorded so far. Even that one, we’re in the top 5%.

Melanie Avalon: Exciting.

Gin Stephens: It's so exciting, and I'm like, “That's kind of remarkable.” There's a lot of podcasts out there. Listeners, thank you. I do not take your listening for granted and I'm glad you keep coming back.

Melanie Avalon: I do not either. I love our audiences. I guess, our audiences.

Gin Stephens: They are, because I know there's overlap, but not everyone listens to all four, obviously.

Melanie Avalon: I actually have a really related announcement really quick, really brief.

Gin Stephens: I think I know what it is.

Melanie Avalon: Probably. I decided to start a new Facebook group. You've had an effect on me with the Facebook groups.

Gin Stephens: Well, it's addictive because you want to focus your conversation in a place.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. 100%. I have my IF Biohackers as my main group, and then I have my Lumen Lovers, and I don't even know what it's called now. It's for people who use Lumen. It's like Lumen Biosense CGM, something else, I don't know.

Gin Stephens: Wearable Device Peeps.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, for all related to fat or carb-burning though, or ketone burning. That's not the new group. The new group is for Clean Beauty. I asked in my group if people would like it, and everybody was like, “Yes.” I just made it right then. Feel free to join me, it's called Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon. It's all for any discussions about safe skincare, non-toxic beauty products, diet, reviews, all of the stuff. Of course, I love Beautycounter, so there's a lot of talk about that there, but it's really anything related to clean beauty and safe skincare.

Gin Stephens: You know I'm researching for my new book that I'm working on now. It's just reinforcing that this is even more important than I like to even think about, it's so important.

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: What we put in is so important. What we put into our bodies.

Melanie Avalon: For listeners who would like to purchase Beautycounter through us, the link for that is melanieavalon.com/beautycounter, and something special may or may not happen after your first purchase.

Gin Stephens: It will. It will happen. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: In any case, so today's Episode 200, we decided to do something-- actually, it's what we did for Episode 100, which is an Ask Me Anything episode, so we asked for questions. There might have been some questions about fasting that I included but in general, most of these questions are not about intermittent fasting. Some of them might be, but they're just random, fun things. I'm really excited. This'll be fun.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I'm excited, too. Lots of fun. Are we ready to get started?

Melanie Avalon: I think so.

Gin Stephens: Okay. The first one, this is from Crystal. She says, “Maybe you guys have mentioned this, but do you talk via Zoom or Skype? Can you both see each other when you talk? I've always wondered.” I think we should talk about our evolution of all the platforms we've used and why. We started with Skype.

Melanie Avalon: Uh-huh. First, it was Skype.

Gin Stephens: And why we stopped using it. This is the kind of thing that a lot of people are starting podcasts and wondering what platform do you use. People like that are very interested in platforms.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, it's definitely been a journey. We've evolved and done a lot of different things. We used Skype, and then did we go Zencastr or anything in between?

Gin Stephens: The reason we used Skype, I mean it was something that was available, and it was free. We use the voice recorder app also to record our conversations for that. It got glitchy, especially with guests. It was hard to use. We could see each other. Then we moved to Zencastr, and we could not see each other. Zencastr worked great for a while. Then, it started getting so glitchy.

Melanie Avalon: I actually still use Zencastr though. We think it was something between Gin and I's computer. It would only mess up for us. I use it for my other show, and it's usually fine. We're not really sure, our computers hate each other or something.

Gin Stephens: It might have had to do with the fact that we both had accounts.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. Instead of just being a guest. Anyway, it also started to get glitchy for me with guests. It was always a crapshoot as to whether or not somebody would be able to log in. I troubleshoot it with-- troubleshot, what's the word? Troubleshooting? I did a troubleshooting with one person for over an hour before she was able to get on. She finally could, but it was like, now try this browser, now try to unplug this, now get it-- It was hard.

Melanie Avalon: I will say just really quickly, I do still use Zencastr and in general, I don't have issues.

Gin Stephens: I think that's likely because you're dealing with professionals who probably do a lot of interviews, and they have different equipment. Whereas I'm interviewing just a standard person who's cobbling together whatever they can find from friends and family, a lot of them. Whenever I interview somebody who, like I just interviewed someone who has a podcast and I'm always excited because I know they'll be able to log in immediately. It'll be easy. Yeah. that could also be something to do with it. Now we use Squadcast. Squadcast allows you to see each other if you choose.

Melanie Avalon: But Melanie doesn't like to see herself. [laughs]

Gin Stephens: So, we'd turn it off. I use it with every other guest and including with Sheri Bullock for Life Lessons, and we do use the video, and we look at each other.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, so listeners, probably the reason I chose Zencastr to do my second show, the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, was because I knew there wasn't a video option. I can't think if I can see my face. It throws me off, and especially on that other show--

Gin Stephens: It distracts you.

Melanie Avalon: Also, this is just me being completely insecure, but it's oftentimes me connecting with people I really, really respect and admire and want to make a really good impression. I'm very much image conscious, not in a-- I don't know, I just get really--

Gin Stephens: It would distract you.

Melanie Avalon: It would distract me. I would be worried about what I look like. It's just really wonderful for me to have no video, and it's even easier for me with this to do in a video. Gin and I, in the beginning, we saw each other.

Gin Stephens: We did. That time I fell off the stool and you could see me fall off. Remember that?

Melanie Avalon: I forgot about that? [laughs] Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Such good times.

Gin Stephens: Yep.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, Shall we-- the next one?

Gin Stephens: Yep.

Melanie Avalon: This is from Jackie. She says, “Melanie, do you date? And is that person a science nerd like you? Said with love.”

Gin Stephens: Hey, I'm married to a science nerd. I love science nerds.

Melanie Avalon: I do love science nerds.

Gin Stephens: Oh, can I tell you this? I'm whispering it into the microphone. He's upstairs doing research for me for my new book. [laughs] I was like, “I need some stuff on obesogens.” He's like looking in the journals for me. [laughs] Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: You can see my blog post about obesogens. It has a lot of studies referenced.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, thank you. I'll pull that one out and I'll ask him to find them for me. I also asked him to find some studies on earthing/grounding.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, love it.

Gin Stephens: Yep, because I've got a book about it. I was like, “Read this and tell me what you think?” He's like, “This sounds like mumbo jumbo,” some of the way that it's worded because he's a chemist. I'm like, “Well, find me some studies,” and so that's what he's doing. They're out there. There's good science behind it. It's just the way you present it is important.

Melanie Avalon: I actually. I just interviewed Joseph Mercola. His newest book is EMF*D. We talked about that. He said that the main concern with earthing especially people using the biohacking type earthing devices, is that it, it's not properly grounded. It might make things worse.

Gin Stephens: Well, the only type of grounding or earthing I do is walking outside barefoot. That's it. I'm not going to buy a device.

Melanie Avalon: I think that's completely legit.

Gin Stephens: Exactly. Yes.

Melanie Avalon: To answer the question, I actually hadn't thought about this before. In general, I don't really date that much. When I have, a lot of them have been science nerds, for sure.

Gin Stephens: I love science guys. Bill Nye the Science Guy, love him. Although here's something funny. One of my fifth-grade gifted students, one year, I was talking about Bill Nye. They always said that he looked like my husband, Chad. They look a little bit alike, they kind of do. One of my students, probably was Abby. She said, “Chad, Chad, the Science Lad.”

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. I love it.

Gin Stephens: I'm like, “Yeah.” [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I love Bill. It's actually so I have a dream list now of people I want to bring on my other show.

Gin Stephens: Is Bill Nye one of them?

Melanie Avalon: I have three people that are, I think can be really, really hard to get. He's one of them.

Gin Stephens: I love him.

Melanie Avalon: Yep. I date my career and my audience. Oh, I do want to create a dating app though. I've said this before, and I asked in my group about it, and everybody is so obsessed with the idea. The Window Dating?

Gin Stephens: Right. That's funny.

Melanie Avalon: I'm going to do it. The last thing is, I guess, I do like science nerds. “Gin, do you listen to music while jumping on your rebounder?” She says she has a rebounder playlist only 20 minutes. The first song is Jump by Van Halen.

Gin Stephens: I do sometimes, not all the time. I tend to be the person who's watching TV and jumping on it at the same time, so instead of listening to music. I love music in the background, if I'm doing a task like cooking, or cleaning or putting on makeup, or taking a shower, but when I'm on a rebounder, I need a little more mental engagement, so that's why I have the TV on.

Melanie Avalon: We see a lot of questions in the groups about rebounders.

Gin Stephens: I love my rebounder. Yeah, I have a Bellicon and I love it. All right, Nicole asks, “What kind of music do you both like to listen to? And what is one of your most favorite songs?” I know what Melanie likes. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, The Killers.

Gin Stephens: I also like The Killers.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, you love the-- Wait.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: We connect on something? [laughs]

Gin Stephens: We do.

Melanie Avalon: I love The Killers. Oh, my goodness, this is so exciting. Those four, and I'll say my favorite song, but Gin, how about you?

Gin Stephens: Well, I listened to a lot of classic stuff. My favorite group is probably U2. I love U2. I like so many different artists.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: I've got a big wide range of things, things that were popular in the 80s. I like 70s, 80s. What I like to do is, I'll find a song that makes me happy, and then I'll make an Apple Music-- like Siri can create it. Like, for example, one summer I listened to Son of a Preacher Man Radio, because she could make a radio station and I'm like, “Siri, create a radio station inspired by Son of a Preacher Man.” I listened to that and they just pull-- she'll pull in songs you didn't even know you liked. Then I'm like downloading all of them to my Apple Music list. This is a weird one, you probably don't even know the song, Chevy Van.

Melanie Avalon: I do not.

Gin Stephens: Okay, it's from the 70s. I had a playlist, Chevy Van songs. It was all songs that had that same 70s kind of vibe. I listened to a lot of different things. I have some country in there, Violent Femmes. I mean, I've got a lot of music in there, but I have zero Taylor Swift. [laughs] Zero.

Melanie Avalon: I think I showed this to you. Or, I might have said this, but my Spotify year in review this year for 2020, it said I was in the top-- on all of Spotify, top 1% of Taylor Swift listeners. I feel like you have to listen to a lot of Taylor Swift to be in the top 1%.

Gin Stephens: Probably so, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: My most favorite song though, is actually Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley.

Gin Stephens: I like that one, too. That one is also on my Apple Music list.

Melanie Avalon: Yay. What's your favorite song?

Gin Stephens: I don't have a favorite song. It's just like, I don't have a favorite color. It depends on the context. I might have a favorite song for when I'm going to the beach. I like to listen to Carolina Girls, which is a beach music song. Or I might have a favorite song if I'm-- for different events. I don't have a favorite color. I have a favorite color for cars. I have a favorite color for home décor. They vary. I can't just pick one.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Runner up for me is-- do you like Trans-Siberian Orchestra?

Gin Stephens: No.

Melanie Avalon: [gasp]

Gin Stephens: Not at all. When I'm listening to holiday music, if that comes on, I'd say, “Hey, Siri, next song.” [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: No. Trans-Siberian Orchestra is my favorite. They have this one song called Epiphany, it's not Christmas. It's like 11 minutes of epicness.

Gin Stephens: No. Falls on The Gong Show, I would gong them.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. What's your favorite Killer song?

Gin Stephens: I like Mr. Brightside. It depends on the mood I'm in. I don't know, I can't say. I really only have that one Killers album that Mr. Brightside was on. I haven't kept up with their latest. When I say I like the Killers, I like the songs that I have that are Killers.

Melanie Avalon: Try their Battle Born album. It's one of my favorite albums of all time. Okay. Oh, and this was a related question, so I threw it in. Sonia wants to know, to me, “What's my favorite Taylor Swift song?” She says she really wants to know. [sighs] I’d have to be All Too Well, which is a giveaway but I feel like a cop-out answer, but it is. According to Rolling Stones, it was the best song of the decade, the decade that it came out, All Too Well.

Gin Stephens: Well, that's cool.

Melanie Avalon: So, I feel validated.

Gin Stephens: All right, the next one is from Michelle. “If you never had to worry about money, where in the world would you live? Love you both, your books and podcasts have been a life infusion for me.” Thank you, Michelle.

Melanie Avalon: She has a little leaf emoji, which is very random. I would want to have a place in Los Angeles, a place in Atlanta, and then a getaway place out in the middle of-- actually probably Aspen. A place in the mountains where I could disconnect. Yeah, probably Aspen out of those three. How about you?

Gin Stephens: Well, for me, it would be the beach. I love the beach. In my head thinking which beach would it be because right now I go to Myrtle Beach and we have a place there. Yeah, I have to admit I have my eye on beach houses right now. We have a beach condo, but that's a lot of investment and not knowing what the economy and what's going to happen with the rental market. My ideal if I had all the money in the world, I'm not sure what beach I would live on, but I would buy a house on the beach somewhere, but I feel like it would be in the Southeast United States just because I love it here. My family's close by, and my friends that like to come and visit me. I would like to be somewhere where people that I love would be able to come and visit me in a few hours. Probably somewhere on the Georgia or South Carolina or North Carolina coast. I also wanted to have access to great restaurants, an airport and shopping. That's one reason I like Myrtle Beach, people sometimes knock it. I grew up going there with my grandmother, I love Myrtle Beach. There are great restaurants there. There's also super cheesy stuff there, but I like cheesy because it's fun. It makes me go back to my childhood. There's a good airport people can come to. I'm not that sophisticated.

Melanie Avalon: If it was like unlimited money thing, a lot of the money focus would be into the construction of the house, like the biohacking house..

Gin Stephens: Oh, I bet you would have a biohacking house.

Melanie Avalon: Crazy. I would want like an organic farm and a winery, there’d be so much.

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Okay, next question from Erin, “What are your Myers Briggs personality letters?”

Gin Stephens: All right. This a great question. I actually do know mine, but I have to look it up every time. I am an E-N-F-J.

Melanie Avalon: E-N-F-J.

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: Mine actually changed. It used to be something very consistently, but then when we got this question, I retook it. One of the quizzes, it had changed, and then for the other quiz, it was 50-50 split. I think I'm moving-- It used to be I-N-T-J. Now, it might be I-N-F-J. The T is changing to an F and that's the thinking and feeling, and I wonder if that--

Gin Stephens: Chad is I-N-T-J. You used to be I-N-T-J?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, but now it looks like the T, the thinking, I'm moving a little bit more towards Feeling. I wonder if that's just like an evolution of me as a person.

Gin Stephens: That's just really funny. Well, you started off the same thing that Chad is, I-N-T-J.

Melanie Avalon: The person I dated the longest in my life ever, who was a very big science nerd, he was also I-N-T-J.

Gin Stephens: I-N-T-Js can be difficult. Sorry. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I feel I'm not that difficult.

Gin Stephens: Right. I could see the F coming out.

Melanie Avalon: Like changing over?

Gin Stephens: Personally, it can be easier to deal with an F than a T, for me.

Melanie Avalon: That's interesting.

Gin Stephens: The T and the F, I think, those are the two things, for me, and for Chad, where I think that we butt heads.

Melanie Avalon: There's a difference.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, because that's the thinking feeling.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I think I used to be a lot more rigid in my head, and I can see how that would be a little bit difficult.

Gin Stephens: It can be difficult. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I feel I've really changed. I used to be more bossy and really intense about being rules oriented and all of that. Now, I'm very much--

Gin Stephens: You're mellowing into an F instead of a T.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and so you were E-N-F-J, so extrovert. What's the N?

Gin Stephens: I can't remember.

Melanie Avalon: That's where we're the same.

Gin Stephens: Every member of my family is an N. Chad, Cal, Will, whatever that is, we're all N.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, that's why it's not intuitive because N stands for intuitive.

Gin Stephens: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: I as introvert, that's the alternative option.

Gin Stephens: No. E and I are the first ones.

Melanie Avalon: Sorry, we get the wrong thing. N is intuitive, the alternative is S, which is sensor.

Gin Stephens: Okay. I just think it's interesting that my whole family we're all N.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that is really interesting.

Gin Stephens: It's so clear, both Cal and I have the E, and both Chad and Will are the I, which not shocking. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Wait, I thought you said Chad was an I.

Gin Stephens: He is an I. Chad and Will are I. Cal and I are E. Which is why when we would go on cruises as a family back in the day when the boys were little, Cal and I were yucking it up and meeting people, and Chad and Will were sitting in the room. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I am not an extrovert at all, at all. Yeah. Okay, next question.

Gin Stephens: The next one is from Nicole. “Would you guys have been friends in high school?”

Melanie Avalon: That's so interesting. Well, I feel like we probably would have because I think we would have been in the same classes.

Gin Stephens: Yes, I think we would have been in the same classes.

Melanie Avalon: We would have been doing a similar thing? Well, I don't know. Actually, I was doing theater.

Gin Stephens: My mom's a dance teacher and my stepfather at the time was the technical director of a theater, so I was in plays as well and of course, always danced.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, then probably. We'd be in the same classes.

Gin Stephens: I was such a weirdo.

Melanie Avalon: How so?

Gin Stephens: I was not the least bit cool. I just always did whatever I felt like doing.  I don't know, I've always had that same kind of exuberant personality. I don't know that I fit in. I also was young, because I skipped a grade. I graduated high school at 16, so I was young. I don't know. Not very focused on clothes. I don't know. It's hard to explain. I wasn't trendy. I had a weird haircut.

Melanie Avalon: I was in the smart people group, because there are cliques in high school and there are different types. There was the smart, nerdy-type group, but I wasn't in that. I was in the smart, just people doing things.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I was, too. Thinking back, you can think about who did you eat lunch with? My lunch table-- We always we sat at the same lunch table. My high school started 8th grade, so 8th to 12th grade. I sat at the same lunch table from 8-12th grade, and every year, the people would come and go, and it was a big lunch table. It was the kids that were like in the college prep classes. Some of us are nerdier than others, but some played football. We had people, the class president.

Melanie Avalon: That's the same actually. That's like the group.

Gin Stephens: Then, yes, you would have been sitting at my table.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, we would have at the same table because there were some people that were more “popular” that were in that.

Gin Stephens: The cheerleading-- we had some cheerleaders, but then there was me. [laughs] They let me sit there.

Melanie Avalon: I will say though, this is just confession. I want it to be popular so bad. My mom would always say like, “You just walked to the beat of your own drummer and you don't care what other people think about you. That's so great.” I was like, “Mom, that's not me at all. I care so much.” Not proud of this. Yeah. It's pretty interesting. I'm not very confident.

Gin Stephens: Oh. See. That was the difference. I was so confident that I didn't really care that I was a weirdo. I don't know. Does that make sense?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: I was like, I'm just a little different and that's all right. It wasn't like the kind of thing that was prized by other high school-aged boys. They weren't like, “I love your free spirit.” No. They're like, “You're so strange.” [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: We talked about this. You don't know your anagram?

Gin Stephens: No, I don't know my anagram.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. Mine fits me, I'm a three, which is achiever and very image conscious and it explains a lot. Also, why I can't stand selfies.

Gin Stephens: I'm just bad at selfies. I can't do it. I don't know what to do with my hands or my face or whatever.

Melanie Avalon: So funny. Okay, so Catherine wants to know what are your favorite podcasts?

Gin Stephens: Well, I don't listen to podcasts. I do like Stuff You Should Know, is that what it's called?

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: If I'm driving and riding in the car, I don't really listen to podcasts. I like to listen to books, like Audible books. I almost said books on tape, that's how old I am.

Melanie Avalon: Oh goodness. I have a lot of favorite podcasts. I love Robb Wolf's Healthy Rebellion Radio. That's the one I've been listening to since day one. Love Noelle Tarr’s Well-Fed Women, which I've also been listening to since day one. That's also with Stefani Ruper. Paul Saladino’s Fundamental Health. I love Ben Greenfield’s Fitness. I like Dave Asprey, Bulletproof Radio. I love The Drive, Peter Attia. FoundMyFitness, Rhonda Patrick. I love Joe Rogan when he's interviewing people in the health and wellness sphere. Love Rich Roll. Oh, I love the ATP Project, Body Mind Empowerment with Siim Land.  Those are my favorites. I've recently started listening to Inglorious Treksters, all about Star Trek. It's my first non-biohacking podcast and it's fabulous. I love Star Trek.

Gin Stephens: That is so funny. I do like the original Star Trek.

Melanie Avalon: The Original, I've seen every single episode. If you tell me the plot of one, I can probably tell you the title of the episode.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's funny. Now I haven't watched one in decades, but I love them.

Melanie Avalon: Do you remember any of them?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, like the Tribbles.

Melanie Avalon: I was going to say if you tell me the--

Gin Stephens: I remember the Tribbles one.

Melanie Avalon: Trouble with Tribbles?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I'm so surprised, we're not beaming ourselves anywhere yet.

Melanie Avalon: I know. How upsetting. That could go so wrong, though.

Gin Stephens: Beaming people places? Well, it never did on Star Trek. They had it figured out.

Melanie Avalon: Mostly.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I loved it The Starship Enterprise. I loved. You know my love of Leonard Nimoy. I've shared that.

Melanie Avalon: Wait. Are you sure?

Gin Stephens: You remember, we've talked about this. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Have you watched the documentary on Netflix? This is-- or Spock.

Gin Stephens: No, I didn't even know there was one. Oh my God.

Melanie Avalon: I just watched it. It is so good.

Gin Stephens: We talked about that we both loved him.

Melanie Avalon: I guess so.

Gin Stephens: I always knew he had that show In Search of... remember, we talked about that?

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Gin Stephens: I always had a crush on Leonard Nimoy.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, right, because me, too. My first crush, legitimately.

Gin Stephens: Because he's a smart science nerd. Right?

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: Then, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Chad. Chad the Science Lad.

Melanie Avalon: I think I had a crush on Bill Nye as well. I was too young to register it as a crush, but I was obsessed with him.

Gin Stephens: Well, I was already teaching school, and so we would watch them. My students would watch them.

Melanie Avalon: I'm putting it out to the universe. If anybody knows Bill personally, will you please introduce me to him so I can invite him on to the show? Please watch the Spock documentary and let me know what you think. It's so good. It's so good.

Gin Stephens: All right, we have a question from Ritu. Ritu asks, “If you and Gin had to lose about 10 pounds, what protocol would you use, given both of you are at maintenance and on one meal a day for a long time?”

Melanie Avalon: We've talked about this before on other shows. I'm just going to approach this like crash diet, you want to lose 10 pounds fast and the healthiest way possible, PSMF, protein-sparing modified fast. It's basically just protein. It's really high protein, low calorie, I think it's the safest way to lose fat quickly while maintaining muscle. I would do it in junction with one meal a day. Eating your entire PSMF in the one meal day, and it's not meant to be long term. It's only meant as a crash diet, but that's what I would suggest.

Gin Stephens: I would 100% follow my Zoe recommendations, based on the PREDICT 3 study that I went through. Just based on the one week that I did it, it was astonishing how deep into ketosis I got while eating a ton of carbs every day. It was foods that are supposed to work the best for my body, and I just can't believe how deep my ketosis was. Every day I was blowing high on the Biosense versus now that I'm back to eating like I normally do, I'm getting up to like a 7 even right before I open my window. I was blowing over 40, it was remarkable how much my body loved it. That's what I would do. I have information at ginstephens.com/zoe. By the way, they have a waiting list right now, so many people signed up that they now have a waiting list.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, and for listeners, we'll put links to all of that in the show notes. The show notes will be at ifpodcast.com/episode200. Okay, we have a question from Lara. She says, “When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grow up?”

Gin Stephens: Well, I wanted to be a teacher. Always. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. Then, I was a teacher. I think I'm still a teacher, just with a different classroom.

Melanie Avalon: I wanted to be an actress. I think I still do want to act, but I think everything is sort of-- I actually-- this sounds awful. I want it to be like a legend. I want to be like change the world and be like Oprah or something.

Gin Stephens: You sound like Will. Will wants to be a legend also. He was so good, and first chair, Allstate orchestra good, and so good. The best trombone player in the entire state of Georgia for his age group. I'm not just saying that he was. I was like, “Will, you're so good.” He's like, “Mama, I'm state class. I want to be world class.”

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness, yes, I identify.

Gin Stephens: You're the best trombone player in the entire state of Georgia. I think that's pretty good. “Well, no, I'm just state class.” That wasn't good enough for him.

Melanie Avalon: I always just assumed everybody wanted to be a legend. Wouldn't everybody want to be a legend?” Then, so on the occasion that I do date, I was talking to somebody and we were talking about this, I was like, “I want to be a legend.” He was like, “I have no interest in being a legend.” It blew my mind. I was like, “I thought everybody wanted to be a legend.”

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I want to be a teacher. I want to teach people things. I want to help people. That was my job as a teacher, but I like to do it at a smaller scale, but, okay, now we're doing it in a really huge scale. I don't know. It's hard to explain.

Melanie Avalon: That’s so interesting.

Gin Stephens: I've never pursued like, “I want to be famous.” No.

Melanie Avalon: I think I want to be remembered.

Gin Stephens: Well, I think we're both going to be remembered. Isn't that interesting? I told you when we have the same literary agent, when they called me the day that I made the New York Times Bestseller list. They said, “For the rest of your life, and after you're dead, you will be a New York Times Bestselling Author.” I'm like, “Oh my God.” That's so weird. The way she phrased it, “For the rest of your life and after you're dead.”

Melanie Avalon: That would just lighten me up for a year.

Gin Stephens: It's very cool. Oh, and then Cal was home. I told you at Christmas that they came and visited. He's like, “I think it's probably easy to be your New York Times Bestseller. That's not very impressive.” I'm like, “Uh, okay, thank you.” [laughs] He's like, “There's a lot of them, right?” Well, my child is not impressed by it. Well, I think it's hard. Anyway.

Melanie Avalon: I think it's really hard. It does make me realize how far we've come because I remember when I first started the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, I thought bringing on a New York Times bestseller would be-- which is amazing. I was just like, “Wow, if I brought on a New York Times bestseller, that would just be like--”

Gin Stephens: A million people are going to listen.

Melanie Avalon: Well, no, not much that. Well, that, and then also, I just thought that that would be such a stamp of success with the show if it had a New York Times bestseller on it. Now I feel like, I mean, it's amazing, but I don't think about it as much anymore maybe because we're just surrounded by them, and you are one. Congrats.

Gin Stephens: Thank you. You're like Cal, it's not that impressive anymore.

Melanie Avalon: I feel like I'm coming off as really pretentious. I'm not meaning to at all. I'm constantly in awe and in shock of everything. I'm so grateful. [sighs] That's crazy.

Gin Stephens: I get what you're saying. All right. Susan wants to know, “What's both of your favorite happy songs?”

Melanie Avalon: We sort of touched on that earlier. What's yours?

Gin Stephens: I don't have one. Again, it just depends on the mood that I'm in. It could be a different song at any time. Really though, all the songs that make me really happy are the ones that make me think back to happy memories. There's so many songs that do that.

Melanie Avalon: It depends like what you're wanting to be happy about. Is it love? Is it energy? Actually, I got one. I recently found Run by Delta Rae. Oh, my goodness, listeners. Listen to it. It'll just make you want to just run with happiness.

Gin Stephens: I feel bad that I can't just come up with one, but I just like so many songs.

Melanie Avalon: The songs I walk around belting are all musicals or Thumbelina, Swan Princess, something like that.

Gin Stephens: No, none of those are on my list.

Melanie Avalon: No Swan Princess?

Gin Stephens: Zero. [laughs] We [unintelligible [00:40:12] The Killers, though.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. If we meet in person, that can be our soundtrack that we play. Okay. Lucy wants to know, “Who are your role models?”

Gin Stephens: Again, this is a question that I can't just say there's one. It depends on what you're talking about. For example, for so many years, Oprah was a role model. I watched her show every day. I loved the message she was putting out in the world, health and wellness. There are other different people that are role models for me. Mark Mattson is one of my researcher role models. He's from Johns Hopkins. I think it just really depends, if you're talking about in what regard. I love Maya Angelou. She was at Wake Forest as a professor when I was there. I wish I'd taken her class. I've talked about that before. That's one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't really know who she was back to--

Melanie Avalon: She was teaching?

Gin Stephens: Yeah. I could have taken her class. It was the late 80s. She wasn't as well known, maybe everybody knew who she was, but I didn't. It was the late 80s. People were talking about it, but I didn't understand. I would like to go back in time and say, “What is wrong with you? Take her class.” I hadn't really discovered her as a person yet.

Melanie Avalon: Well, the first person I think of is my dad usually. I've always just looked up to him so much. I have so much respect for him. Then, Robb Wolf and David Sinclair in the whole health, biohacking research world, like Gin was saying that category. Then this sounds crazy, but I really, really think everything Taylor Swift has done is amazing. Watching her documentary, I feel I'm very similar to her personality wise, so I'm very much in awe of her work.

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Teresa wants to know, “If you could invent a product, what would it be?”

Melanie Avalon: Do you have one right off the bat? I was thinking about this.

Gin Stephens: I actually did invent a product. It was for teachers and it was sold and I got a royalty for a while. It was a pocket chart for classroom management and behavior. I got a royalty for 10 years from that product, isn’t that fun?

Melanie Avalon: Wow.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: It was an actual physical product?

Gin Stephens: Yes, it was a physical product.

Melanie Avalon: Did you produce it?

Gin Stephens: No, I what I did, it was a pocket chart, and I had one that I made in my classroom that I was using. My principal was sending other teachers into my classroom to learn how to use it. Then, everyone on my grade level had one, but we'd all made them ourselves. It was like clothes, pins, and character education. It was whole thing, and then everyone was doing it. Then someone said, “You should market this.” I'm like, “I don't know how to do that.” This was in the early 2000s. I was like, “Well, who makes all the pocket charts?” There was a company, Pacon, P-A-C-O-N, who made them. I just reached out to them, and I said, “I have a product I think that people would buy it.” They're like, “Okay,” so it was fun. I got to design it and sketch it. They manufactured it in China, and they sent it to me and the prototype. It was really fun. I didn't make a fortune from it. Sometimes, the cheque would be $400. Sometimes, it would be $30, but I got those royalty checks for 10 years. I was really proud. At one elementary school where I worked, the principal bought one for everybody.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow. Yeah. That's so cool.

Gin Stephens: It was really fun. The little pamphlet that came with it, I'm like, “I wrote that.” That was really my first-- I was published in that little pamphlet. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: It's not really a product. I created the Food Sense app, if an app is a product. Like I said, I want to create the dating app for intermittent fasting. Then if I could invent any product, it probably would be something from Star Trek. Maybe that-- wait, I forgot what it's called. The Trans-- what we just talked about it.

Gin Stephens: Transporter?

Melanie Avalon: Transporter. Yeah. That'd be so amazing.

Gin Stephens: That would be fun. I'm not sure that it's going to be able to be possible. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I'm just thinking back. I remember when I was little, I would try so hard to make the Flintstone car thing where they use their feet to make it move. I would try so hard to make that. I don't think I ever really succeeded. Would you, Gin? Would you do crazy inventions in your room?

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I feel we were similar in that way.

Gin Stephens: Probably so. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: All right. We have a question from Rose. She has a question for each of us. She says, “Melanie, how did you get into biohacking and what brought you here? You're a thin person. I can't imagine that IF brought you to a weight loss program.” Then, Brooke had a similar question. She said, “Gin often speaks of her IF journey. But Melanie, why did you start IF, autophagy, weight loss, or health reasons?” Yeah, long story short was, I initially did start intermittent fasting to lose weight in college. I kept it for the lifestyle benefits, because once you-- you just don't want to go back once you start. It just frees up your life so much, especially with acting and LA and everything, it was really fabulous to have no feelings of restriction and just eat whatever I want and maintain a body composition that I was really happy with. Then for biohacking, honestly, it came about because I had different health issues. Well, I just went into the rabbit holes of trying to find answers for things relentlessly. When you're not feeling your best every day and you feel something is off, you try so, so hard to find things that will make your body feel better. The more I learned, the more I learned.

Honestly, the other show, the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast just came out of that. Me, going on all these tangents and finding things that really did radically change my life and wanting to research and share what I found with others.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I think I think that's true, wanting to share with others, is so much a part of why we do what we do.

Melanie Avalon: If I learned something, I just have to tell everybody. I just have to tell-- and it's not me trying to sell things. It's me just being like, “Guys, you have to know about this.”

Gin Stephens: Just this morning in my moderator group, one of the moderators is buying a new house, and she was furniture shopping, and she shared some pictures of a bedroom set that she was going to buy. I'm like, “Let me tell you my furniture buying trick.” [laughs] I'm not making any money from it. I'm just sharing it.

Melanie Avalon: We're sharers, we're tellers. The question for Gin from Rose is, she says, “I am a 50 something. What would you have told your younger self to optimize what you have today?”

Gin Stephens: I don't know, I've thought about this before. Would I go back in time and hand myself a copy of Fast. Feast. Repeat. so I could avoid the mistakes that I made? I think the answer is no. I think I needed to go through all of that being obese, having the problems to appreciate where I am now. If I had always been my ideal weight and never struggled, I wouldn't appreciate what it feels like to be my ideal weight as much as I do after having been obese. I don't know if I would go back and tell my younger self anything because I think the whole journey was important.

Melanie Avalon: I love that so much. That's sort of the way I feel. Would I go back and tell myself, “Oh, don't go to that restaurant,” which was on a date with a science person when we got food poisoning and started this crazy gut issues,” like, would you go back and not go to that restaurant? I wouldn't have everything I have right now. I don't think.

Gin Stephens: See, that's the thing. If it had just been easy, and who knows what I would be doing, but it wouldn't be this. Maybe it would be better. I don't know. It's hard to say. But I'm grateful for all the lessons I've learned.

Melanie Avalon: Me, too. Then she has a question for both of us. She says, “I know that neither of you guys exercise.” Well, I do.

Gin Stephens: I do too.

Melanie Avalon: We can put that myth to rest. She says, “So, as a part of the overall picture of health and longevity, would you consider having an exercise expert on in particular to address the physiology of exercise and its impact on overall health and longevity, like yoga, HIIT, strength training? Thanks, and much love.” We do exercise. Well, I actually do now go to the gym and walk on the treadmill for a long time. I hope we don't ever come off as anti-exercise. I personally think exercise is so important. Actually, more and more each day, I'm realizing how important it is as far as, like maintaining muscle mass is so key for longevity, it's so important. And insulin regulation, I think moving and lifting heavy things is so key. I can't emphasize this enough.

Gin Stephens: I think the misconception is that you have to do a formal program. If you're not lifting a weight, for example, that doesn't count as strength training. I actually have some research on this in Fast. Feast. Repeat. in the Exercise chapter that we really can-- What are they called, functional movements? We really do get a lot of benefit out of those because the gym is a very recent invention, and yet people managed to be strong for all of history. It wasn't like people never had a muscle until Gold's Gym came along.

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. I'm never going to be doing CrossFit, for example.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. No, me neither. If you see me doing CrossFit, something's up with me. I'm not against CrossFit. I love those of you that love it. I still pull out my hula hoop, I get on my vibration plate, I jump on my rebounder. I dance.

Melanie Avalon: I think for the question about having a guest on, I think it probably would be more appropriate for me to have somebody on the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, and then we can refer listeners over there. We do that a lot.

We have a question from Angelo. She says, first question, “Was IF something you ever used to lose weight?” Yes.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. You know the answer is for me. Yes.

Melanie Avalon: She says, “How many hours a day do you spend reading and studying in order to be prepared for a new podcast interview?”

Gin Stephens: I think she's talking to you about that for Melanie Avalon Biohacking.

Melanie Avalon: I guess for both shows, but yeah, for me, all day. It's literally hours and hours and hours.

Gin Stephens: If they have a book, you read the whole book.

Melanie Avalon: Right now, I'm a little bit overwhelmed. Right now, I have five really big dense books that I'm prepping, that all need to be prepped within like a month. I'm always listening to a book on Audible. Then I'm usually reading two books as well. Then as far as actually prepping the shows that takes-- I have these really elaborate prep documents that I make, they're really elaborate. I have the best assistant ever. She goes through and cleans them up for me.

I was thinking about this, pretty much every waking hour is mostly spent doing stuff for the shows with the exception of when I'm getting a massage or eating, but I love it.

Gin Stephens: With my podcast, I don't do any prep for it, other than scheduling the guests, because we just talk and the conversation unfolds and they're real people. For the Life Lessons Podcast, we do prep for that.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and for this show, it used to be a lot more prep work. Now, we've been doing this for 200 episodes, so we have a pretty good flow of everything. For this one, it is more like I do prep when there are questions that require research, but it's definitely a lot less on my plate compared to the other show. I'm so grateful. I'm just grateful I get to do this, because I love it. Then she says, “Gin sometimes mentions that she takes breaks on IF on special occasions.” What about me? “Is there any special occasion where you take breaks from everything you do on a daily basis?”

Gin Stephens: I just want to jump in right there. It's not that I take breaks, I just don't fast as long. I consider every day I wake up I'm in the fasted state. Some days my fast, I just break it earlier. Like Christmas Day, I break my fast at 9 AM. Was that really a break? I don't know, because I never eat for from the minute my feet hit the floor, till the minute I go to bed ever. There's always a period of the time of the day where I'm still fasting.

Melanie Avalon: I really don't. I experimented with trying taking a break and doing more eating throughout the day, it just doesn't. It doesn't make me happy. Then, as far as taking breaks from everything you do on a daily basis, that's really hard for me. I find so much joy in my “work” and all of my habits and the way I've structured my life. I find so much joy in it that, the closest I come to taking a break is slowing down maybe.

Gin Stephens: Well, I mean, it's like you don't take a break from brushing your teeth or washing your face. It's just your routine.

Melanie Avalon: I definitely don't take breaks from the biohacking stuff, like using Joovv and my BLUblox glasses because those they only add good things to my life. The closest I come to break is all like, I've said this before, I'll scrapbook while watching TV or something.

Gin Stephens: All right, Melanie wants to know, “What is the one superpower you would love to have?”

Melanie Avalon: What's yours, Gin?

Gin Stephens: I thought and thought and thought about this, and everyone I could think of I kept rejecting it. Like the ability to know the future, I'm like, “I don't want to know the future.” All right, the ability to read minds, “Well, no, I don't really want to read people's minds.” The ability to fly, “I don't want to fly.” [laughs] The Wonder Twins, they were able to turn things in the states of water. I don't want to do any of that. I don't want to have a superpower. Is that weird?

Melanie Avalon: I mean, I would love like 100 superpowers. That's so funny.

Gin Stephens: I can't think of one. Name a superpower you think I would like to have.

Melanie Avalon: I would love all of those that you just said.

Gin Stephens: You would like to know the future? Gosh, no. I think I'd have crippling anxiety if I knew the future. If I could read people's thoughts, I don't want to know what they're thinking.

Melanie Avalon: I would like to selectively read people's thoughts. My superpower sort of relates to the future. It's not knowing the future, but I would like to know what to do at every given moment, to manifest the best possible future for my life.

Gin Stephens: See, I don't. I just want it to unfold, isn’t that weird. I don't know. I can't think of any superpower.

Melanie Avalon: What about being invisible?

Gin Stephens: I don't want to be invisible. Why am I invisible? Tell me why. Why am I invisible? What am I doing that I need to be invisible?

Melanie Avalon: Because then you can go places and see things you might not have access to otherwise.

Gin Stephens: I don't want to do that. [laughs] I'm such a weirdo. I can't think of a single superpower I would like to have.

Melanie Avalon: How about this one? I think this would be great. What if you had the power to whenever you engage with somebody, you automatically lift up their spirit? You're the type of person that--

Gin Stephens: If that's a superpower, I'll take it.

Melanie Avalon: Whenever you engage with somebody, they're going to feel so much love, and they're going to feel better, and they're going to like you and like themselves.

Gin Stephens: I'll take that. I'll take the love superpower. All right, that's the only one I would like. I didn't know that was a possible choice. [laughs] There were no superheroes that did that.

Melanie Avalon: Time to have one. Lindsey says, “Do you have a personal motto or mantra? What is it?” Do you have one Gin?

Gin Stephens: No. [laughs] Really, it is just to keep a positive attitude and that. I don't really have a mantra. I think a lot of people use Delay, Don't Deny as their mantra. Maybe that's it, or Fast. Feast. Repeat. might be my mantra or Feast Without Fear might be my mantra. Yeah, they became book titles because that's the way I live my life. I guess those would be my three mantras. I don't really have a motto, but as I said, I try to live with positivity and childlike excitement.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, mine is live vicariously through yourself.

Gin Stephens: Okay. I don't know what that means.

Melanie Avalon: Because most people try to live vicariously through other people or other things. But if you live vicariously through yourself, then it's like you are so enraptured with the experience of your life that you live vicariously through yourself.

Gin Stephens: Isn't vicariously though by definition that it's not you?

Melanie Avalon: Exactly.

Gin Stephens: Okay. [laughs] Okay, all right.

Melanie Avalon: If you could share a meal with anyone, who would it be?

Gin Stephens: Didn't you ask me that on the episode where you interviewed me, and I couldn't think of anybody.

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: It's so funny how opposite we are. Mine’s Taylor Swift.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?

Gin Stephens: The ability to make everyone feel loved. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: The mine is the ability to know what to do at every given moment to manifest the best possible life.

Gin Stephens: All right, we have a question from Darita. She says, “Why in the world have you two never met?”

Melanie Avalon: It probably would have made sense in the beginning. Now, it's like we've just come to know each other so well that-- I don't know.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, we just haven't been in the same place at the same time. I haven't been to Atlanta in ages, probably since before you moved back.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, because for a substantial part of this, I've been in LA for it.

Gin Stephens: I've never been to LA.

Melanie Avalon: I am in Atlanta now. How far is Atlanta from Augusta?

Gin Stephens: It's just like two and a half hours.

Melanie Avalon: Well, maybe we should make that happen.

Gin Stephens: Next time I come to Atlanta, but I don't know when that'll be.

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: That does kind of flow into Samantha's questions.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Which is, “ff the two of you finally met in person but had to pick a mutually agreed upon meeting place or destination, what would it be?” She says, “Melanie, it can't be in Georgia. You have to travel a bit.” She says, “Pretend COVID doesn't exist,” which would be nice.

Gin Stephens: Well, I think it would be Atlanta. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: But it can't be in Georgia.

Gin Stephens: I know. Okay.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, so practical realistic answers, Atlanta.

Gin Stephens: You could come to the beach with me.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. What about Sanibel?

Gin Stephens: I’d go there. I'll go anywhere that's the beach.

Melanie Avalon: I love Sanibel. It brings me so much happiness, and it has a beach, so maybe that should be it.

Gin Stephens: All right.

Melanie Avalon: Perfect. Oh, my goodness. I'm excited.

Gin Stephens: All right. Anna says, “What or who would you give up fasting for?”

Melanie Avalon: I would give it up if it was no longer what I perceive to be the most helpful, healthy choice for my body.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I think so. I can't imagine that being true. That's the only thing.

Melanie Avalon: I would never give it up for a person. If it was like, “Oh, you have to--” No. [laughs] No. Yeah. Only I would give it up for myself, basically, if it had.

Gin Stephens: I agree. Yep.

Melanie Avalon: Natalie wants to know, “What would be your last meal ever if you could choose with no consequences?

Gin Stephens: You know what I always really like is a good cheeseburger and fries that are very high quality, but it's hard to get. Hard to get high-quality fries because I don't like fries made in really low-quality oil. That always makes my stomach hurt. It would have to be like some amazing fries and a really high-quality burger. I can have that all the time. [laughs] That is one of my favorite things to eat. Super-duper good quality fries, and a great burger.

Melanie Avalon: Mine would be probably Chili’s Cajun chicken pasta.

Gin Stephens: Really? You would go to Chili's for your last meal?

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I would get that Cajun chicken pasta. I probably wouldn't go there. I probably get it-- Well, I don't know, I might go there. I would have funfetti for dessert, and more funfetti and a cookie cake, and more funfetti.

Gin Stephens: If you like tried to make me eat funfetti, I would not eat it. I just don't like it, but we've talked about that before. Last night I made black bean brownies and they were so delicious.

Melanie Avalon: I saw your picture on Instagram.

Gin Stephens: They're so good. I mean, I don't make them because I'm like, “Oh, these are, like--” I mean, I would also eat regular brownies, but I just like black bean brownies better.

Melanie Avalon: They looked yummy. They're so good.

Gin Stephens: All right, Charlotte wants to know, “Have there been times where one of you has had to back down because you disagreed?” Yeah, we've had disagreements.

Melanie Avalon: I think probably stuff we've talked about, like grains and stuff like that. But I think we do a pretty good job of agreeing to disagree about things.

Gin Stephens: I think so too. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: We got some intense listener feedback about one of our grain discussions, which was really interesting. I think what's really important is we both understand people that different things work for different people. We understand that people have different opinions. I think we can empathize with the other person's perspective. I was thinking about this a lot recently. As long as you can understand that people have different opinions or empathize with other people, there's really no fear of disagreeing about anything.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's true. Yep.

Melanie Avalon: Like, what does it matter? What does it matter? It doesn't.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. The people who get all been out of shape because of the way I defined the clean fast, for example. I'm not coming to your house and forcing you to do anything. I genuinely believe this is the best thing to do, but if you don't, just go do you.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, the concept of being offended, I've just been thinking about this a lot recently, if you're offended by something, it means that somebody did something that is imposing upon-- it can't really be about the other person, because you could choose not to be offended by anything. I think just food for thought.

Gin Stephens: If you don't like-- for example, we do promote the clean fast in my Facebook group, but people get so mad sometimes. I'm like, “There's so many Facebook groups. Go find one that follows what you think you should be,” and be in that one, and you don't need to be upset with me.” That's the thing.

Melanie Avalon: I'm trying to think of things that might be offensive to you. I think, for me, at least the appropriate response would be-- if it's something where I think it's wrong, and it's a bad thing, that would just make me sad, or it would make me want to put forth the alternative or why it should be a different way.

Gin Stephens: I really think that the more intelligent a person is, the more willing they are to understand how little we know, and that there are so many-- there's so much more you don't know than what you do know. It's when you start thinking everything and can't possibly have another way of looking at it that you fall into trouble.

Melanie Avalon: It's like if we just know that we don't really know anything, and we know that other people have different opinions, everything's fine. Okay, Trisha, says, “Gin, how long do you stand on your LifePro/Turbo Boost?”

Gin Stephens: All right. 10 minutes. I do it for 10 minutes.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. She says, “Ladies, what is the best go-to fast but healthy meal for on the go that is truly filling?” I used to always get frozen veggie pasta with cheese sauce.

Gin Stephens: I've got one that is really works for me. I just open a can of black beans, organic black beans, rinse them off, heat them up, and put whatever you like to put on them. For me, it's sour cream and cheese. You can have some organic tortilla chips on the side. That's what I would put on the side and munch them with it or like an avocado. Slice up an avocado and throw that on there. Oh, you really want to be full? This is a meal that Zoe liked for me, black beans, avocado, and also a couple of eggs. So filling.

Melanie Avalon: I'm just thinking about how that would just sit in my stomach and maybe never come out.

Gin Stephens: It makes me so full and satisfied. Honestly, beans are my favorite thing. Like I just said, I made black bean brownies.

Melanie Avalon: So funny.

Gin Stephens: I eat a lot of beans.

Melanie Avalon: I don't really eat fast on the go. That would stress me out. I would just not eat. But if I was on the go, I would probably concoct something from the whole foods.

Gin Stephens: You could take a can of beans on the go. Just heat them up anywhere.

Melanie Avalon: I feel a sense of stress when it's like fast meal on the go, I'm like, “Oh.” I have to have my long meal, my setup.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that makes sense.

Melanie Avalon: I would say nuts if they didn’t sit in me.

Gin Stephens: Nuts?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. If they didn't sit in me for nuts eons.

Gin Stephens: We have three questions together that are the same topic. Michelle says, “Melanie, do you plan to go back into acting? With that, what would your dream role be?” Christina says, “Melanie, are you still acting or do you consider podcasting your new career?” and Theresa, “When and why are you moving back to LA and will you go back into waitressing post-COVID?”

Melanie Avalon: Acting is honestly still my passion. It's the thing that makes me feel the most alive while doing it. My career has evolved into something I obviously didn't foresee at all, which is podcasting, which is my career right now. I think the ultimate evolution and hopeful metamorphosis of it all is, I would love to turn basically the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast into a TV show format, and kind of bridge together all of that, the entertainment industry and the film side of things with what I'm doing right now. Then ultimately, I would love to produce my own movies, and cast myself in them. The dream role would be a Disney Princess or something, like a live-action version of the Swan Princess. Oh, my goodness, especially because I feel I am a swan. Like you know, she gets stuck in a swan body?

Gin Stephens: No. [laughs] I do not. Uh-huh, I don't know anything about the Swan Princess. No.

Melanie Avalon: She's a princess, and then she gets turned to a swan and can't get out of the swan. I felt with my health issues, for the longest time, I was like stuck as this swan, and I just want to turn back into the princess like a metaphor for my life. I'd love to do a live-action version of that. I'll be moving back to LA probably this year. It kind of depends on the COVID situation. Actually, I don't mean for this to sound pretentious at all, but one of the best things that happened to me with COVID was-- I don't know if I would have quit my serving job if that hadn't happened, because it felt like security to me, like clocking in somewhere, so that forced me to not do that job anymore and see how I was without it. The crazy thing is I want to go back to it because it's an outlet for me, like exercise and forces me to-- I'm not very social, so it forces me to put on makeup and talk to people, but I don't think it's the best use of my time now.

Gin Stephens: I get it. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. When they were like we have to let you go, “I was like okay, I guess that's how that's going to happen.”

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Gin Stephens: Marian wants to know, “What are the best and worst things resulting from this pandemic for each of you? What is your greatest asset? Thanks for all of your hard work on the podcasts. I love listening every week and learning new things.” Since I've been retired from teaching, I realized pre-pandemic, post pandemic, my day looks very similar before and after. My routine hasn't changed a lot except that one of the worst things is my Saturday coffee group had to stop. I really missed that, seeing people every Saturday over coffee, so we had to stop doing that. The worst thing is not being able to do all the things like that we used to do, all the restrictions on all of us. I don't like any of those obviously. And not being able to travel to San Francisco to see my son and his wife and not being able to travel freely, I think we would all agree. But day to day life, for me hasn't changed that much other than wearing masks when you go places. That's just so weird and sometimes it still feels like I'm living in a movie.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I've been talking to a lot of my friends in California, and it's made me realize, I think, depending on where you live, how different the experience of the pandemic might be, because for us in the south, the restrictions are not that intense.

Gin Stephens: I just talked to one of my friends, she came over for coffee yesterday, and we sat socially distanced, but she's a teacher, and they still are teaching in person.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: They go to school. The children are there, but some places have not been in-person school since early 2020. Well, almost a year now, they haven't been in person.

Melanie Avalon: Like I said, I've been talking to a lot of friends in California, I think it's a very different experience there.

Gin Stephens: I think so, too. Yeah. What is your greatest asset, that Marian asked? What would you say is your greatest asset?

Melanie Avalon: Well, really quickly for the worst and best for me, I already said that the best which is I think it forced me to quit my serving job. Then, the worst is-- so my one phobia, it is the claustrophobia but related to suffocation. Just the experience of wearing a mask is a little bit distress-- I wear it, but it's just not ideal.

Gin Stephens: Oh, and I never said what the best thing was. The best is that it helped me realize priorities, like what's really important.

Melanie Avalon: It's definitely given me a lot of gratitude.

Gin Stephens: Me too. I mean, gratitude for things like toilet paper, honestly.

Melanie Avalon: Yep. 100%.

Gin Stephens: All right. what is your greatest asset, Marian wants to know?

Melanie Avalon: I think it's my brain.

Gin Stephens: I was thinking that, too. For me, also, I've learned to be a good listener. I wasn't always a good listener. I think that's a good asset that I've got now.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I think that's huge.

Gin Stephens: It's a skill.

Melanie Avalon: Also, I don't like saying these assets because it sounds like you're bragging or pretentious, which is not how I mean it at all, but I feel I typically relate to people in a kind way. You don't have to worry about-- I’m not going to hurt you. Those both tie into empathy. I think that is something to probably, especially interviewing Dr. David Perlmutter for his book Brain Wash. It's very much a thing in your brain. Some people, their brain can't empathize with other people. It just doesn't, and it can't. So, I'm really grateful for that, it goes back to the brain. Ashley has a question. She says, “Where do you see yourself in five years personally and professionally?”

Gin Stephens: I want to write children's books. I may have said that before. The genre will be nonfiction science.

Melanie Avalon: Which is awesome. Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Gin Stephens: That's right. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I would love to have, yeah, the TV show type thing.

Gin Stephens: Also, I want to be a grandmother.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah, personally.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, personally. Cal and Kate, when they were here, I said, “So, what are y'all thinking about kids?” And they said, “We haven't decided.” I'm like, “What?” That's the part that's so strange to me because I can't imagine not-- I always knew I would be a mother and my sister always knew she wouldn't. We didn't have to think about it. It just like, “Of course, I'm going to have children.” My sister was, like, “No, I'm never having them,” but we never wavered. Will, he knows he wants to be a dad, but Cal and Kate are not sure. I'm like, “I don't even know what to do with that.” I want to be a grandmother eventually.

Melanie Avalon: Well, I guess you have Will.

Gin Stephens: I've got Will, thank goodness. Everybody have two children, at least because you never know if they're going to give you grandkids. My friends who are grandparents talk about how it's like nothing else. The love is so different from the love you feel for your children. It's like multiplied.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, really?

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. Man, I love my children so much, and every parent, of course, loves their children. But what I understand is that the love of a grandparent is just different, because you love them, but then you're not like making every decision. It's like less pressure kind of love.

Melanie Avalon: Like, there's not the stress and the--

Gin Stephens: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Melanie Avalon: I don't think I will have children.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, you don't have the burning desire to do it.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm. I would want to have accomplished a long laundry list of career goals, which comes off as pretty selfish, but I would have to have accomplished those first. By the time that happens, I don't know if I will be of childbearing age anymore.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that makes sense.

Melanie Avalon: Lisa, she says, “What is the number one burning question you would want to know the answer to, to solve either or all of your problems or give you peace of mind? And who would you ask?”

Gin Stephens: I don't know. I don't feel like I have any. I'm like the worst. I'm like, I don't know, nothing. I really don't feel like I have problems. Does that make sense? I've got like normal problems, like my cat is a little bit incontinent, and I have to deal with that. Did you know that about Elly, did I tell you that?”

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: After she got hit by the car, and she had the nerve damage? Sometimes she has bladder infections. My biggest problems are that. I'm very fortunate and I know it. I have a good life. I'm happy every day. My biggest problem right now is my computer is slow. I don't have life difficulty problems that keep me from having peace of mind. I have a lot of peace of mind. I guess that's a way of putting it.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I think I have peace of mind as well.

Gin Stephens: I want to know are aliens real? I'm interested in that. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I would want to know what to do to resolve lingering health issues. I don't know who I would ask because if I knew who I would ask, I would’ve probably already asked htem.

Gin Stephens: You would have, you totally would have exactly. That's also the thing, the questions, burning questions, either you and I both know how to find the answer or they're unanswerable. I guess that's why I couldn't-- like I came up with the idea of, “Are aliens real?” We know there's nobody I can ask.

Melanie Avalon: That was a really beautiful concept that you just shared.

Gin Stephens: What?

Melanie Avalon: That we know who to ask or they're unanswerable.

Gin Stephens: Yep. Even a lot of the questions that you do ask are still unanswerable. [laughs] Anyway, I think a lot-- I don't know. I've got a lot of peace of mind. I worry about the future. I think all people do right now. There's a lot of unknowns in the future, but I also don't live worrying about the future to the point that because I can't control it. I have peace of mind knowing that no matter what happens, we'll just deal with it.

Melanie Avalon: Yep, I have a lot of peace as well. I just love my life. I love life.

Gin Stephens: We have a question from Miranda. She says, “I would love to know how you would handle being on set, since you've changed your skincare and makeup to clean ingredients. You may have already navigated this or not. Would you take your own or just roll with it?”

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's a really great question. I would take my own and see if the makeup artists are receptive to using it, but if they had to use something else, I would let them.

Gin Stephens: Good question.

Melanie Avalon: I do know, my foundation-- especially when I was doing a lot of background TV work--I promise you I've been in most shows that were filmed between certain few years. I would just bring my own makeup and the makeup artists would always comment on how perfect it was for camera, so that really worked well.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's good.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Danielle, she says, “I know you're both avid readers of health-related books, but do you enjoy reading for pleasure? And if so, what type of books do you choose or what authors do you gravitate towards? A reading teacher has to know.”

Gin Stephens: That's a great question. I've been reading for pleasure a lot less than I used to. For example, this summer on the beach, I read-- I mean, I read Atomic Habits, I read that for pleasure. I do read fiction. I'm reading something right now that someone gave me. I can't remember the name of it, but it's set in Atlanta. I like to read southern fiction when I'm reading fiction. I don't read a lot of fiction but someone, like I said, gave me this book. I love Maeve Binchy, is that how you say her first name? M-A-E-V-E? I love Maeve Binchy.

Melanie Avalon: What does she write?

Gin Stephens: She is Irish. She died. She's not alive anymore, but I will read any of her books at any time. I will reread them. She might be my favorite author. She is, she's totally my favorite author. I love Maeve Binchy.

Melanie Avalon: I used to read a lot for pleasure. I mean, that's all I did, basically.

Gin Stephens: Me too. All I did, I read fiction all the time.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, all the time. I loved mysteries. I love Stephen King.

Gin Stephens: Oh, me too. Mysteries and Stephen King. Yeah, I read a lot of mysteries.

Melanie Avalon: I read all the Twilights, Harry Potter.

Gin Stephens: Yep.

Melanie Avalon: Now, if I had time, I probably would reread the Harry Potter series. Now, the stuff I read is usually like-- I will spend hours-- this is going to come off as crazy, I shouldn’t even say this. I will read reviews of Taylor Swift albums [laughs] for a long time.

Gin Stephens: Well, you're in the 1%.

Melanie Avalon: I am in the 1%, or Lana Del Rey. The good thing is, I do get a lot of pleasure out of the majority of the stuff I read that are health related.

Gin Stephens: All right, so yeah, I think so too. I get pleasure out of that. I'm researching right now for my new book. I'm reading a lot of nonfiction again. I really love-- you do too, we both love reading scientific journals.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Oh, I love it. For some [unintelligible [01:24:14] the title, it's something I'm really excited about.

Gin Stephens: I love critiquing them in my mind, because I'm like, that's not very good variable controlling. That's not what this says. [laughs] Anyway.

Melanie Avalon: I do love reading those.

Gin Stephens: RC asks, “If you could go to any concert, dead or alive,” I guess that's meaning the artist is dead or alive, “of course, pre-COVID, whom would you go see?” I'm going to use the words post COVID instead of pre-COVID because we're not going to be trapped here forever. There's going to be a post-COVID world where we're going to concerts again. If we're 10 years from now, listening back on this and go, “Wasn't that funny? Ha, ha, ha,” then I will probably not be happy, you know how we said we have peace? We don't get to a post-COVID world one day I will not be as happy, but I know that we will.

Melanie Avalon: I would go to Taylor Swift, obviously.

Gin Stephens: How did I know you would say that?

Melanie Avalon: I will say which album I would go to, Red or 1989 and then Reputation.

Gin Stephens: All right. I would love to go see U2 again. I've seen them twice before. I love U2. They've got great concerts. I've seen Billy Joel and Elton John. I've seen Elton John twice. I would go see him again. I love Billy Joel. He was great in concert. I've never seen James Taylor and I would really like to. I would also like to see Paul Simon. If I could travel back and see the Beatles, I would love to do that.

Melanie Avalon: Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Gin Stephens: Ah, no.

[laughter]

Gin Stephens: If you made me go to that, I don't know. I might suddenly start listening to podcasts. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Crazy. Crazy. All right. Amy says, “Do you listen to each other's podcasts, IF Stories and the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast?”

Gin Stephens: I'm going to answer that for Melanie. I know she does not listen to IF Stories. [laughs] I don't listen to the Melanie Avalon Podcast. I don't think we either of us do. Am I right?

Melanie Avalon: You're right.

Gin Stephens: I don't listen to podcasts.

Melanie Avalon: I listened to the first Life Lessons.

Gin Stephens: Oh, good. I'm glad.

Melanie Avalon: I've listened to at least one IF Stories.

Gin Stephens: Well, good, so you know what it's like.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: I'm just not a podcast listener. A lot of the moderators listen to the Melanie Avalon Podcast and so they will-- [crosstalk]

Melanie Avalon: Oh, really?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, because they love podcasts and the ones who love podcasts listen to it.

Melanie Avalon: Podcasts.

Gin Stephens: Yep.

Melanie Avalon: All right. Sarah says, “What opinions have you completely flipped on since starting the podcast?”

Gin Stephens: Well, I don't know that either of us have completely flipped on anything, just that we've learned more. Maybe we weren't as certain about what we thought. I can remember I was thinking about this recently, the first time we got a CBD oil question, we're like, “We don't think it's legal, probably mostly.” We didn't know, because it was weird and people weren't really doing it. [laughs] If someone listens to that will sound crazy, that old episode, but I'm not sure that we've really flipped on anything, have we?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I haven't flipped, I've just evolved.

Gin Stephens: Yes, that's it. We've evolved and we've learned more. Maybe some of our earlier ideas were less sophisticated than they are now. We understand the nuances better.

Melanie Avalon: I think the two biggest things for me in this shift is when we first started this is when I was deep, deep in the SIBO rabbit hole and my world was consumed with trying to kill small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in me and now I'm much more lax about that. I don't focus on it as much. Then, also-- this is a big evolution, I felt the need to do a lot of pharmaceutical chelation for heavy metal toxicity, and I now would very hesitantly recommend that for anybody. I think I did a lot of damage to my body. I think I pulled out nutrients out of my bones, in my body. I think when you pull out a lot of those nutrients, it's really hard to get them back in.

Gin Stephens: I know what you mean. Yep.

Melanie Avalon: On a cellular level, like the level of the bones.

Gin Stephens: I was just reading about that today.

Melanie Avalon: I'm grateful for that even because I can tell people now and if they're contemplating doing pharmaceutical chelation for heavy metals, that there's a lot they should consider.

Gin Stephens: We have a question from April. “What does Melanie eat in her window? I know she's paleo, but I'd like to know more details. Are you a good cook? What do you eat out at restaurants?” Kangaroo. Right? [laughs] Meat. “Always interested because she talks like she eats a lot.”

Melanie Avalon: I think we can probably both answer this just because listeners might not know. Yeah, I pretty much rotate between very simple foods, and I find that I crave certain proteins at certain times. Right now, I'm in a scallop phase. I'm eating tons of scallops, but usually scallops or shrimp or turkey or chicken or steak, no seasoning, nothing like that. I don't really add oils, a lot of cucumbers. If I'm doing high carb low fat, I eat a lot of fruit with it. If I'm doing low carb, high fat, a lot of MCT oil with it. At restaurants, I usually get like rare steak with green veggies and wine. Oh, and there's wine with all of that. Low FODMAP. Everything is low FODMAP for me.

Gin Stephens: I eat all the things. I was thinking, “Is there anything I won't eat?” Well, I don't eat things I don't like. Well, I don't like fish. Other than that, if it's something I like, and someone's offering it and I want to eat it right then, I'll eat it. But the definition of what I like has changed. For example, if I go back to 1992, I loved to eat at Pizza Hut. I'm just throwing out an example. Their pan pizza, I loved it. But now, I don't think I would eat that if you paid me to eat it because I don't like it. It would make me feel sick.

Melanie Avalon: That's how we're so different. I still love all of those things. All of them. All of them. I can't think of one, like a “fast food,” or like a process-- I can't think of one standard American diet meal that I enjoyed in the past growing up that I'm like, “Oh, yeah, I wouldn't like that now.” No, I would love all of it.

Gin Stephens: Well, like macaroni and cheese. I love macaroni and cheese, but if you tried to make me eat Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, I'll be like, “No, I'm not eating that.”

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I would love it.

Gin Stephens: No, I wouldn't eat, but I would like to make my own macaroni and cheese that starts with a Béchamel sauce with butter and flour and you make a white sauce with the milk and good quality, sharp, sharp cheddar cheese. Oh my gosh, I would eat that. 100%. Yeah, my tastes have really changed. My taste buds have changed. When I go to restaurants. I gravitate more towards the vegetable type things just because that's what I'm going to enjoy the most. A lot of things at restaurants are just too processed and heavy that I don't enjoy them. I cook at home a lot, pretty much every night. Last night, I had chicken and I had broccolini and I made biscuits. They were so good.

Melanie Avalon: My taste buds have changed as well in that I love foods that I didn't used to like, so vegetables and I’ll crave things that I wouldn't have ever liked before. I still would adore all of that processed stuff.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I just don't. Except for Doritos, I've never lost my taste for those. Doritos and crackers. I like crackers. I like Doritos. I like chips.

Melanie Avalon: I don't really like crackers.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I love them. I love crisp crunchy things.

Melanie Avalon: All right, we have a question from Shantelle. She says, “I really enjoy your podcast. I'm a personal trainer in California. I would love to know what is each of your favorite kind of exercise, aka soulmate workout. Lol, keep up the outstanding work.”

Gin Stephens: My vibration plate is my favorite exercise to do. I really love it. Then second would be my rebounder. Third would be hula hoop. I also like swimming. When I say I like swimming, I don't swim like a lap. I get in the pool, I jump around, and I have fun in the pool, but it's a lot of exercise.

Melanie Avalon: Mine would be waiting tables if that counts.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it would, it absolutely does.

Melanie Avalon: Because I love not thinking about the physical activity, just having to do it out of the need of accomplishing a task in the moment. And if you're especially-- because I used to work at like different fine dining steak houses, and we would have to carry trays, those plates were so heavy.

Gin Stephens: Oh, they were heavy.

Melanie Avalon: Like so heavy. I loved it because--

Gin Stephens: Lifting that big tray up on your shoulder.

Melanie Avalon: -at no point you're like, “Oh, this is a workout. I have to lift this tray.” It's like, “No, I have to lift this tray because I have to carry it over here.”

Gin Stephens: Did anybody ever come up to, while you were waiting tables and say, “Oh my God, you're Melanie Avalon?”

Melanie Avalon: No, no.

Gin Stephens: That would have been fun.

Melanie Avalon: I don't think so. I also wouldn't tell them my last name, because I have a different legal last name.

Gin Stephens: Now, you've just blown people's minds that didn't know that about you. I knew that about you.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yes.

Gin Stephens: People are like, “What?”

Melanie Avalon: It comes in handy.

Gin Stephens: If I could [unintelligible [01:33:37], would I use a different name? I don't know. I just put it all out there with my real name. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I've been using Melanie Avalon for--

Gin Stephens: It was your stage name.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. It's my SAG name, it's my Screen Actors Guild name. I started using it once I graduated from college. It feels like me. It's weird when people say my other last name. I'm like, “What?”

Gin Stephens: All right. We have a question from Lauren. “Who would each of you cast as yourself and the other in the epic movie of your lives?”

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I missed the other.

Gin Stephens: I know who I would cast as myself but not for you.

Melanie Avalon: I know who I'd cast as myself but not for you.

Gin Stephens: Well, go ahead. Who, for yourself?

Melanie Avalon: That’s what you just said. I would want to play myself.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's cracks me up. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Right?

Gin Stephens: Okay. I see it. You're an actress. That makes sense. I guess I would cast you as yourself then. There you go. For me, I actually have had people say more than once that they would cast Reese Witherspoon as me.

Melanie Avalon: Interesting.

Gin Stephens: I've heard that multiple times.

Melanie Avalon: Is it something about your personality?

Gin Stephens: Maybe, she's also a southerner.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, so Reese. Then, if I'm not playing me--

Gin Stephens: Taylor Swift could play you.

Melanie Avalon: No. Well, what's really funny is, this has happened historically all the time. People will always come up to me, especially when I was doing acting, and they'd be like, “You look just like, fill in the blank. Do people tell you this all the time?” and it was always a different name.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's weird.

Melanie Avalon: There was never one name that people would tell me all the time. It would always be a new name. I was like, “Okay.” I don't know why. I don't know if I give off different vibes.

Gin Stephens: Well, you're a good actor. You're good at acting. An actor can be a chameleon. That's the true test. If you're the same exact character in everything you do, you're not really acting.

Melanie Avalon: I guess I would probably choose my girl crush, Blake Lively. I don't think I look like her, but I love her. Blake Lively and Reese Witherspoon.

Gin Stephens: All right, I guess so.

Melanie Avalon: Amy says, “How have your thoughts regarding fasting evolved and changed over time?”

Gin Stephens: When I first started fasting back in 2014, really, everything I read, talked about just that it was a way to eat fewer calories. I saw it as a diet, a way to diet and eat less food. Now, I've understood over-- first reading the obesity code, and then reading Mark Mattson’s work, and then reading all the research that I've been reading over the years. I understand that it is a lot more than just a way to “eat fewer calories,” it actually has metabolic and hormonal effects on our bodies. I like to say the health plan with the side effect of weight loss. It's a healthy lifestyle. It's not a temporary thing you do. It's a lifestyle. I didn't understand that at the beginning, but I do now. Also, of course, the importance of the clean fast, and that evolved over time as well.

I go back to even when I wrote Delay, Don’t Deny back in 2016, I deferred to people I respected rather than challenge their thoughts. Like Jason Fung said, “Put cream in your coffee.” I'm like, “Well, okay. I love Jason Fung. He says put cream in your coffee, it must be okay.” But now I've evolved to the point that I am confident in my own opinions. “No, you really don't want to put cream in your coffee. That's not really fasting.” I can still respect Jason Fung and love him and his work and have a different thought, and that's okay, too.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I love that. I think my biggest thing is kind of a fluctuation in a change. It's my thoughts surrounding fasting for women specifically, and concern surrounding over-stressing the body or hormonal health or paying attention to women's reproductive health. I think when I first started, I didn't think it was an issue. Then, I started thinking, “Oh, maybe it is more of an issue than I’m realizing.” Now, I'm at a place where I actually am more comfortable now with females fasting rather than less. I think if you had asked me maybe a year and a half ago, where did I anticipate my thoughts going on female fasting, I might have expected that I would increasingly become nervous or wary of it more than less. But I actually think for most people, fasting is usually a very healthy thing. I think oftentimes the problem is not the fasting. It's not having adequate eating.

Gin Stephens: Yes. When people ask me about women, I say the problem is not the fasting, it is over-restriction. Over-restriction is not good for women. I do not recommend that you treat fasting as something with over-restriction. Over-restriction is bad, whether you're eating 10 times a day or once, and you can over-restrict in a 10-times-a-day model as well.

Melanie Avalon: I think if a female is living a restrictive diet and/or lots of exercise and coupling it with fasting, in that context, it's quite possibly an issue. It depends on where you're at, and the personal female, but I think fasting in general, if practiced “correctly” in a nourishing way, and having the eating window, having ample nutrition-- maybe it's a longer eating window that you need, if the fasting is creating a lot of problems, I don't think it's just the fasting.

Gin Stephens: 100%, and it makes me really frustrated when people continue to say that anything about women just as a general blanket statement.

Melanie Avalon: The reason that's a big change for me is I think I did anticipate not-- I don't know. I was anticipating maybe not thinking that, but yeah. Then I'm just going to throw in, we’ve got two really quick things. They weren't questions but they were for this episode and they were just some kind words.

Sarah said that we are her favorite duo and favorite podcast, “The perfect pair because your goal is the same and thoughts and ideas differ. I can only imagine how many people you have helped.” She says, “I don't have a question. I'm just so happy you guys found each other, even if you haven't met in person.” Then Linda said, “Do you realize how you've improved?” This kind of is a question, but not really. She says, “Do you realize how you've improved the lives of thousands of people talk about having a purpose and impact on humankind?” Wow.

Gin Stephens: Wow is right. That's just amazing.

Melanie Avalon: I thought that was really beautiful, and they said in their words, I think what Gin and I experience and feel a lot, which is we're just so grateful for this show and fasting and the audience, they're the best and I'm really happy. Episode 200.

Gin Stephens: Yay. Thank you everybody who submitted questions, and everyone who listens. I hope that you've enjoyed this. I feel like I'm the most boring person ever though.

Melanie Avalon: Cracks me up.

Gin Stephens: [laughs] I'm just over here with my cat. If I had a superpower, it would be that I would restore that she would no longer have-- [laughs] There's my superpower. My cat would not have nerve damage anymore. That would be my superpower. That would be something I would-- I’ll be able to just heal with the touch of my finger. Okay, that's my superpower. I got it.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, see, yeah, that's a great one.

Gin Stephens: I want to heal with the touch of my finger. The first thing I would heal is my cat.

Melanie Avalon: You could heal me. My health, my issues.

Gin Stephens: With a touch of my finger.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. All right. That's brilliant. Well, for listeners, thanks for being here. I wonder how many listeners have listened to every single episode? Probably a lot, because a lot of people tell us that they binge-listened and then they catch up.

Gin Stephens: That's a lot of Gin and Melanie. I bet it's funny to hear us evolve, like I was just thinking about.

Melanie Avalon: I know. It's crazy. For listeners, the show notes for this episode will be at ifpodcast.com/episode200. There will be a full transcript there. You can submit your own questions. If this was your first episode listening, which would be a little bit crazy, normally we answer listener questions about intermittent fasting and diet and lifestyle and all of that, so you can directly submit questions to questions@ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com, and you can submit questions there. You can join all of our many Facebook groups. You can follow us on Instagram, which is my new favorite place to be. I'm MelanieAvalon, Gin is GinStephens.

Gin Stephens: I'm trying.

Melanie Avalon: I'm trying, too. It's a struggle. It's such a struggle.

Gin Stephens: You seem like you've just really jumped right in. You don't seem to be trying. You seem to be rocking it.

Melanie Avalon: It's requiring a lot of effort and energy and insecurities, but I'm having a blast.

Gin Stephens: Well, good. That's how it's supposed to be.

Melanie Avalon: It's fun. All right. Well, anything from you, Gin, before we go?

Gin Stephens: Nope.

Melanie Avalon: 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 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. 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!

More on Gin: GinStephens.com

Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review in iTunes - it helps more than you know! 

 

 

Feb 07

Episode 199: Personalized Diet Plans, Combination Fasting, Infrared Blankets, Toothbrushing, Kids Eating Habits, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

Welcome to Episode 199 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:

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To submit your own questions, email questions@IFpodcast.com, or submit your questions here!! 

SHOW NOTES

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Are You Ready For Personalized Diet Advice? Here's Zoe!

Listener Q&A: Katie - PLEASE HELP!

Listener Q&A: Nancy - Combination of IF lifestyles

Listener Q&A: Frances - Infrared blankets?

Sunlighten: Get $200 Off and free shipping With The Code iFPODCAST At ifpodcast.com/sunlighten

IF Biohackers: Intermittent Fasting + Real Foods + LifeJoin Melanie's Facebook Group For A Weekly Episode GIVEAWAY, And To Discuss And Learn About All Things Biohacking! All Conversations Welcome!

Listener Q&A: samantha - Trying to catch up as fast as I can

Listener Q&A: Timothea - Changing my eating window on the weekends/menopause/bloating

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TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 199 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.

Hi friends. I'm about to tell you how you can get free electrolyte supplements, some of which are clean fast approved, all developed by none other than Robb Wolf. Have you been struggling to feel good with low carb, paleo, keto, or fasting? Have you heard of something called the keto flu? Here's the thing. The keto flu is not actually a condition. Nope. Keto flu just refers to a bundle of symptoms, headaches, fatigue, muscle cramps and insomnia that people experience in the early stages of keto dieting.

Here's what's going on. When you eat a low-carb diet, your insulin levels drop. Low insulin, in turn, lowers the production of the hormone aldosterone. Now, aldosterone is made in the kidneys and it helps you retain sodium. So, low aldosterone on a keto diet makes you lose sodium at a rapid rate. Even if you are consciously consuming electrolytes, you might not be getting enough. In particular, you need electrolytes, especially sodium and potassium in order for nerve impulses to properly fire. Robb Wolf, who as you guys know is my hero in the holistic health world, worked with the guys at Ketogains to get the exact formulation for electrolyte supplements to formulate LMNT Recharge, so you can maintain ketosis and feel your best. LMNT Recharge has no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients, no junk. They're used by three Navy SEALs teams. They are the official hydration partner to Team USA Weightlifting. They're used by multiple NFL teams and so much more.

Guess what? We worked out an exclusive deal for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast listeners only. Guys, this is huge. They weren't going to do a deal, I begged them. Here we are. We're not talking a discount. We're talking free. Completely free. Yes, guys, you can get a free LMNT sample pack. You only pay $5 for shipping. If you don't love it, they will even refund you the $5 for shipping. I'm not kidding. The sample pack includes eight packets of LMNT, two Citrus, two Raspberry, two Orange, and two Raw Unflavored. The Raw Unflavored ones are the ones that are safe for your clean fast, and the other ones you can have in your eating window. Word on the street is the Citrus flavor makes an amazing margarita by the way.

I am loving LMNT and I think you guys will too. Again, this is completely free. You have nothing to lose. Just go to drinklmnt.com/if podcast. That's D-R-I-N-K-L-M-N-T dotcom forward slash IF Podcast. And I'll put all this information in the show notes.

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 and 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. So friends, are you fasting 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 199 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I'm here Gin Stephens.

Gin Stephens: Hi, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: How are you today, Gin?

Gin Stephens: I am doing great. How are you?

Melanie Avalon: I am good. How is the weather?

Gin Stephens: Well, it's cold. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I know.

Gin Stephens: I also want to talk about my inability to track my food on an app.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. How is that going?

Gin Stephens: Seven days. I made it seven days.

Melanie Avalon: Did you stop?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: You gave up?

Gin Stephens: Okay. The give up is the wrong word.

Melanie Avalon: I know.

Gin Stephens: Rejected the experience. Better way of putting it. No, I just cannot track using an app. Man, it was fascinating. I'm so glad I did it. I would 100% do it again, and I would 100% recommend it to everybody, but I just can't do it. I'm going to say this though, it is amazing to eat according to those recommendations if I needed to lose weight, if I was struggling with that, if I had health issues, I would 100% follow it. I still don't know that I'd like to put things into an app, but I learned a lot. Even in those seven days, I learned a lot about how to tweak what I'm eating to fit within their parameters. I know exactly what foods would work well for me now. Of course, it's beans, beans, and more beans. With lots of veggies. It's beans, it's veggies. I can have fat. I just can't stack it too close together if I'm trying to follow their guidelines, that sort of thing. Did I talk to you about my ketone level while I was doing it?

Melanie Avalon: I don't think so.

Gin Stephens: Oh, my God. I have the breath ketone meter that we got, you should try out, from Biosense. Every day, after I'd been doing it for a couple days, after I think two days of following this, I was blowing the highest level of ketones you can blow, like it said high. When I got to hour 14-- I mean, I was like not that far into the fast blowing high.

Melanie Avalon: It sounds like you're on a really high carb diet.

Gin Stephens: Yes, I was eating really high carbs, and I wasn't even really succeeding with the low fat because every day I got a message that my score was lowered due to the quantity of fat. I can tell you, for example, I wasn't low carb or low fat really. Day six, for example, I got a really good score for the day. 87 out of 100. I had 114 grams of carbs and 50 grams of fat. That's not low carb, and it's not low fat. I was blowing huge ketones. The day before that, I had 136 grams of carbs and 66 grams of fat, 72 grams of protein, 76 grams of fiber. The day after eating 136 grams of carbs and 66 grams of fat and 72-73 grams of protein, I had 1700 calories that day, and I was blowing high ketones by hour 13-14. It blows my mind.

Melanie Avalon: That's really cool.

Gin Stephens: It really is so cool.

Melanie Avalon: Even though you're not using the app, are you going to exist within this dietary paradigm for--?

Gin Stephens: No. Here's why, because I'm healthy, and I'm happy and I like to just eat food when I want to eat food. I'm going to keep in my mind, if I ever found my Shapa turning gray meaning, I was gaining weight, I would be, like, “Oop, let me think back if I've been having too many refined carbs.” I don't score high on refined carbs. One day I ate a baked potato with butter, and my score was high for that meal. Baked potato with butter and beans, and I think avocado, too, but then later, I couldn't find any fats. They're like, “Sorry, you already ruined it.” I didn't say it like that, but it was already too much fat for the day for me. I had a hard time finding other things. If I found I was gaining weight, then I would 100% use what I learned about my body not clearing fat well. That right there was worth the cost of admission. Learning, yes, too much fat is inflammatory for my body, and I always felt that. That was huge, that confirmation. Knowing that beans worked well for me, that's huge.

Melanie Avalon: I guess you probably would have said before, you don't have like ApoE4 or anything like that, do you?

Gin Stephens: I don't know. It's been so long since I've looked at any of that stuff.

Melanie Avalon: That'd be interesting.

Gin Stephens: My genetic stuff?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I think the other one is the FAO gene, what is that?

Gin Stephens: Is that the one that they say that you developed as we became farmers, is that the one that lets you eat carbs, processed carbs better?

Melanie Avalon: No, I think the FAO gene is also related to fatty acid oxidation.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I don't have them all in my brain as far as what they are.

Melanie Avalon: The ones they throw around a lot are the APOE variants because that's related to saturated fat and Alzheimer's. Then, FAO is something about fat. I just wonder-- It sounds like that. I'd be curious, if you ever look up your data, what you have on that.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that would be interesting. It's been so long, like I said, I don't know. Anyway, I'm so glad I did it. For the same reason, I stopped weighing myself, but I could do the Shapa with no problem and see my color, the same reason tracking food. There was one day when I tracked my food, and I was like, “I haven't had enough calories.” [laughs] And saw, ate more food. I'm like, “Wait, now I'm really full. Why'd I eat that?” Then other days, I'm like, “That was a lot.” Anyway, I don't like the tracking, but it's so valuable. A week was long enough for me to know how to combine the foods. If I wanted to really eat what was ideal for me, I could do that.

Melanie Avalon: Are they collecting the data?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: Are they going to be upset you're not using the app?

Gin Stephens: Oh, no, no, no, they're not collecting data from this part. No, no, no. That's the first part of the study. They're collecting data from that.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, they're not collecting data from--?

Gin Stephens: I don't know, well, they got a week of data. But I'm not wearing a CGM for this part. You only wear the CGM during the initial part. The only data they have is the food that I ate for a week.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, gotcha.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: It's exciting.

Gin Stephens: It is very exciting. I actually set up-- if you go to ginstephens.com/zoe, I have a link to it there. You can find out more and you can join yourself. Even if you don't want to, don't let me say the tracking part, you don't have to track your food long term. It just gives you the idea of what would work.

Melanie Avalon: For people who haven't done the study.

Gin Stephens: They will start completely from the beginning. The way it's set up right now, you join, you pay a certain amount, but they divided up over six months, whether you do-- they have one plan, you do the testing, they send everything to you. The CGM, if you're eligible.

Melanie Avalon: But this is different than the study that you did.

Gin Stephens: It's all connected.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. My mind is being blown. Okay.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it's the same people. It's the PREDICT people. Yeah, it's Dr. Tim Spector and his group are part of the Zoe app too. It's all the same thing. Yes. It's all based on their PREDICT 3 studies, I was part of PREDICT 3, which I guess everyone is if they opt in. You can opt in or opt out. If you decide you want to do it, if you opt in with Zoe, you're opting into the PREDICT 3 study, I guess. Maybe it's PREDICT 4, I have no idea. You opt in and if you qualify, they send you as part of the whole thing, it’s the same price, they send you the CGM and also where you do your poop sample and the muffins that you have to eat. They send you a box with food in it, that that food and then you have to test your blood after you eat those different muffins that I've talked about before. They see how your body clears the sugar from your blood. They see how your body clears the fat from your blood, which as I said, I did not clear it very well. Then, they take all that data, especially the poop sample, that's really important, and about six weeks later, you get your report. At that time, you get four months with the app. You can use the app, whether you want to or not. Don't feel like a failure. If you're like me, you're like, “I just can't talk about food.” But you have up to four months. And then I think you can subscribe to the app going forward if you want to, you can continue it past the four months. They also have a plan that costs more, but if you do the higher plan, you actually get to work with a nutritionist that you get to talk to and they guide you through it.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, yeah. I didn't realize. I was thinking this whole time that you did the study and then the Zoe app was something they were using to monitor and then people could use the Zoe app for their own dietary choices. I didn't realize it was--

Gin Stephens: No, everybody has different numbers in their Zoe app. That's what’s so cool. A couple of the moderators in my group, they went through it right when I did, and they have different scores for the same exact foods. They can put a meal together in their Zoey app and get a totally different score than I get on mine. Isn't that interesting?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Like the moderator, Roxy, she clears fat great, so she can have more fat, according to her Zoe app. I'm like, “That's not fair. That's not fair.” [laughs] because it made me start thinking diety things. I'm also really good at getting a high score. Then I'm like, “Wait a minute, I just want to eat a meal.” Again, if I were struggling with losing weight, oh my gosh, this is the golden ticket. The way that my ketones went up, oh my gosh.

Melanie Avalon: I'm going to have to look into this. To do it-- Oh, you have to eat those muffins.

Gin Stephens: Well, you do have to eat the muffins. Yes, you otherwise you eat what you normally would eat.

Melanie Avalon: How many days do you eat muffins?

Gin Stephens: It was one day of muffins.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, it's all one day.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, you do all the muffins in one day. You eat them, then you wait some time-- or it might have been two days. I can't remember, now I'm all-- I can't remember, isn’t that sad? It felt like a lot of muffins. It was either one day of muffins or two days of muffins, but I think it was one. You ate them, then you waited and then you ate some more.

Melanie Avalon: Do you have to do it at a certain time? Or could I make--

Gin Stephens: Better do it in the morning.

Melanie Avalon: Will it know if I do it like in my one meal a day instead?

Gin Stephens: You have to give it a certain number of hours, and you have to enter the time. So yes, it will know, [laughs] because you have to scan it and enter a time and just tell yourself you're doing scientific research. You're eating for science.

Melanie Avalon: I'll let this stew over in my mind a little bit.

Gin Stephens: It was really worth doing, and I'm really glad that I did. They know so much more about the gut than they did even when I had my gut analyzed in 2017 with the American Gut Project, which also is partnered with the British Gut Project, which is also Tim Spector. He's the main guy doing this in the world.

Melanie Avalon: What's the link for that for listeners?

Gin Stephens: Go to ginstephens.com/zoe. Then from there, there's information and you can figure out what to do. But man, it's valuable, such a valuable tool. Again, like I said, if I were struggling with weight loss and couldn't figure out why I wasn't losing weight and struggling, not feeling great, I tell you, I was so full the whole time. It's just the tracking, that's really--

Melanie Avalon: Not your cup of tea.

Gin Stephens: Not my cup of tea. Yeah. I've just been living in freedom for so long with the whole intermittent fasting, eating, how my body feels great, whatever feels right to me, that it's hard for me to track on an app. Even if you don't want to track on the app at all, I would encourage everyone to do it, at least for a week once you get your results. That was very valuable.

Melanie Avalon: Perfect. Well, for listeners, the show notes for today's episode will be at ifpodcast.com/episode199 and we'll put links to all of that there.

Gin Stephens: Did you have anything new going on? You haven't shared anything or, I talked a lot. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I'm good.

Gin Stephens: All right. Well, we have got a question from Katie, and the subject is “Please Help.” She says, “Good afternoon, ladies. First of all, I love listening to you both on the podcast. I have also read Delay, Don't Deny, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I need help, and I am having a hard time isolating individuals in my similar situation. All right, be prepared for some rambling.” That was Katie talking, not me. [laughs] Just to be clear. That would be rude if I said that, but that was Katie. All right.

She said, “I started IF three and a half weeks ago after reading Dr. Fung’s Obesity Code. I immediately fell in love because of the ease of delaying and not denying. I was hoping it would be my trick to lose my 15 pounds of squish and I lost the first 7 within my first 10 days. Then it stopped. For two weeks, I have not lost any more weight. I go up two pounds and down two pounds, but never below that 7 pounds I initially lost. I do eat whatever I want during my window. My typical window is 4 to 8 PM.” I don't even want to read the rest of this, Melanie, I just want to say, Katie, you're in the first 28 days. That is not the time to expect weight loss. I'm going to keep reading it, but [laughs] I want to say that right now. All right. So back to this.

“I do eat whatever I want during my window. My typical window is 4 PM to 8 PM as I do not want to miss suppers with my family. I'm married and have three kids and I am unwilling to lose the supper family time. Okay, back to my problem. I am concerned that my issue was stalling out is my running. I am an avid long-distance runner and was nervous about trying IF because I'm so accustomed to eating during my exercise. I run 7 miles every weekday and 13 to 15 on the weekend. Most runs are first thing early in the morning. On my three workdays, I do 7 miles on my lunch hour. I do feel pretty good during my runs despite being fasted. I do feel a bit slower but no weakness or inability to complete the workout. Could my exercise be the reason I cannot lose these last 8 pounds? The exercise is not new. I've had the same routine for years.

My question is, should I give up on IF? Should I clean up my diet in the four-hour window? I do not want to lose muscle or jeopardize my running. I am so hungry all the time. I cannot imagine eating less. Please let me know what you think. Thanks for reading. Again, I have spent lots of hours listening to you girls during my runs. I feel like I know you both. Happy Wednesday. Katie.”

Melanie Avalon: All right. Not Wednesday for us, but Happy Sunday, Katie. Yeah, I love this question from Katie. I know Gin already weighed in with some thoughts.

Gin Stephens: I’ve got so much to say, I'm sitting on my fingers.

Melanie Avalon: Do you want to go first? You can.

Gin Stephens: Can I?

Melanie Avalon: Yes, you can. Please do.

Gin Stephens: All right, Katie. You said you read The Obesity Code. I want you to get Fast. Feast. Repeat. because it doesn't sound like you've read that. What you said, you read Delay, Don’t Deny, but not Fast. Feast. Repeat. Then, I want you to flip to the chapter on the 28 Day FAST Start and you have my permission to read that first. In the 28 Day FAST Start, I very, very clearly say weigh on day zero, then don't weigh again until day 29. You're not weighing during those first 28 days, that's four weeks of letting your body settle in. Then on day 29, you start weighing every day. Then once a week, you calculate a weekly average, and you only compare the weekly averages. If you've already lost 7 pounds in three and a half weeks, first of all, that isn't going to be 7 pounds of fat, because we don't lose fat that quickly. But that would still be pretty remarkable. That's an amazing amount to have gone down. I imagine it's fluid, water weight kind of thing, but that is a lot to lose within the first 10 days. That's not nothing. I'm sure you've lost some fat. But also, sounds like you are doing a whole lot of physical activity. You also need to really turn right to the Scale Schmale chapter of Fast. Feast. Repeat. and you're going to not want to even rely on the scale at all.

Actually, you only want to lose 8 pounds, you would be a good candidate for smashing your scale with a hammer and never getting on a scale again for the rest of your life, because if you're doing this much exercise, and fasting, and exercising during the fasted state, you're going to burn fat and build lean muscle like crazy. I want you to use measurements and progress photos to track your progress, not the scale. No, you don't need to worry about troubleshooting, you're not having trouble. It feels like you are because you're probably used to a “diet plan” where you see slow and steady weight loss for a while or maybe fast weight loss and it's slow and steady. Then, you plateau and then you regained the weight. This is not like that at all. This is not like anything you've done before. Get all those expectations out of your mind.

I really think that Fast. Feast. Repeat. could help you because you need to understand what's going to be going on in your body and why the scale is not going to be your best measure. But it's way too soon to tweak anything. Even if you had been steadily gaining weight for three and a half weeks, I would not be worried. That's why I don't want you to weigh at all at first.

For anybody listening, it is not the time to troubleshoot this early. I'm serious, and I promise it. All right, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon: I loved that.

Gin Stephens: Also, she says she's hungry all the time, well, then eat, Katie, eat more food. You should not be so hungry all the time.

Melanie Avalon: The only thing I will say because I thought that was wonderful, the only thing I'll say is this is not her situation, but let's say this is still the situation, she's not losing weight and it's been three months, the thing I would focus on, like she says, is, “cleaning up the diet.” I don't really like the word ‘clean’ but what Gin and I were just talking about right before this question, the magic of finding the foods that work for your body. That's what I would turn to first, rather than giving up on IF or potentially blaming the exercise as the cause. If you have not made any concentrated tweaks to your diet, there is massive amount of potential that can be made doing so.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. She also might need a longer window with that amount of physical activity. Maybe a four-hour window is not long enough for that. If you're doing seven miles, if you're running seven miles on your lunch hour, you're going to need more fuel than you could possibly get. I couldn't get enough fuel in a four-hour window. I have a hard time getting enough fuel in a short window and I run zero miles. Fuel that body, open that window up littler wider, Katie. Really, if you'll send me your address, I'll drive over to your house and I'll bring my hammer, and I'll smash your scale, [laughs] because it's not going to be a good measure, especially 8 pounds. You may even gain weight but shrink.

Melanie Avalon: You know what I was just thinking about?

Gin Stephens: What?

Melanie Avalon: You saying that. I wonder out of all of our listeners, like which listener lives closest to me and closest to you.

Gin Stephens: Well, my next-door neighbor listens. Remember that story when we moved?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: She was a listener. [laughs] Hello, neighbor. They're great. We have great neighbors.

Melanie Avalon: I wonder if anybody in my apartment complex listens.

Gin Stephens: That’d be funny.

Melanie Avalon: That’d be crazy.

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Melanie Avalon: Well, shall we move on to the next question?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: This question is from Nancy. I have a sidenote something, I have to say. Were you aware? Did we talk about this that Nancy Drew, Carolyn Keene was not one author?

Gin Stephens: I did know that. I don't know if we talked about it, but I knew it. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I'm currently reading another Melanie, Melanie Dale, she has a book called something like, I think it's Calm the H*ck Down. It's about parenting. I'm bringing her on my show, even though I know nothing about parenting, but it's not my expertise, and so I'm going to feel super awkward in the interview, but their publicist pitched it to me, and I asked my audience if they would like that episode, and everybody was like, “Yes.” So, we're doing it. In any case, I learned in her book that Nancy Drew, Carolyn Keene is not one author.

Gin Stephens: That's true. So many things are not true. There is no Little Debbie. [laughs] Captain Kangaroo was not a kangaroo. Do you know who that is?

Melanie Avalon: Captain Kangaroo? I know the cereal box. Right?

Gin Stephens: Captain Kangaroo is a TV show in the 70s.

Melanie Avalon: He wasn’t a kangaroo?

Gin Stephens: No one thought he was a kangaroo, that was just a joke. [laughs] Sorry. No, it's not a good [unintelligible [00:28:23].

Melanie Avalon: No, but you said Captain Kangaroo, and I initially got this image of a cereal box with a kangaroo on it. Oh, because of Cap’n Crunch, that's why.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. That's Cap’n Crunch.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, so on that note, we have a question from Nancy. The subject is “Combination of IF Lifestyles.” Nancy says, “Hi, Gin. Hi, Melanie.” This is the first time we've got two separate--

Gin Stephens: Maybe.

Melanie Avalon: Maybe. She says, “I recently discovered your podcast and started listening to it from the beginning. I'm in Episode 30. I've already read your books and did some research about IF which looks like everything I've been looking for. I'm also new with this lifestyle. I got 20 pounds to lose, but a lot of time. Above everything, I want to be safe. I started doing 16:8, maintained it for a month and upgraded to 18:6, I have already maintained it per month, I would like to switch to 5:2 combined with 16:8. I'm very busy with college, so I've noticed that it's easier for me to fast an entire fast day, 36 hours and would like to do it twice a week, but at the moment, I don't feel good eating all day long, three times a day. So, the other days I would like to do 16:8. I've read in a book that in 5:2, it is strictly prohibited to overdo the fast. I'm worried about harming my body. What do you think? Is it safe for me to combine 5:2 and 16:8? Or, if I do 5:2, must I eat three times the other five days? Thank you very much in advance. I really appreciate your work. You're my inspiration.”

Gin Stephens: All right. Well, Nancy, good news. No, I don't believe that it is prohibited for you to do 16:8 on the days following your full fast. In fact, in Fast. Feast. Repeat., I talk about this. You'll be doing a hybrid approach, like I talk about in Fast. Feast. Repeat. In Fast. Feast. Repeat., I do make it very, very clear that after a longer fast, like a 36-hour fast, for example, that you're talking about, you do want to have an up day. For an up day, you just want to make sure that you're not restricting. Our rule of thumb is eat at least two meals, three would be fine. What you don't want to do is fast for 47 hours, eat one meal, start fasting again 47 more hours, no. That's not ADF, that would be every other other day or something. [laughs] We're not doing that. If you want to do, a down day with the full fast day and then the next day have at least two meals, you're going to have that in an eight-hour window. That sounds fine. Then if the next day was another 16:8 day, that's great. I don't see any over restriction happening there. Unless you're also really super dieting within that 60 days, which we wouldn't recommend, you want to give your body the signal that there's plenty of food. It's absolutely fine to combine two down days a week and the other days being 16:8. Sounds good to me. What do you think, Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: I think you answered the question.

Gin Stephens: As long as you have an up day after every down day, and we say at least 6 to 8 hours for an up day, 12 is fine as well, but I think six is a little short, but 8 to 12 should be fun.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. All right. Shall we move on to the next question?

Gin Stephens: Yes. All right. The next question is from Frances and the subject is Infrared Blankets. “Hi ladies, I've been listening to your show from almost the beginning. I've been enjoying a daily eating window of about four to six hours a day since 2018. I have loved implementing a lot of your life hacking advice along the way, which has helped with a lot of issues like sleep, mindset, and inflammation. I have all three of the BLUblox glasses, and I love my infrared device, not to mention the life-changing P3-OM enzymes and magnesium supplements I use daily after learning about them on your show. I have found that near-infrared light helps with inflammation, arthritis, scars, sinuses, etc. I am 46 and do hot yoga about three to four days a week. I just heard about the infrared blankets. Is this legit? I love my small unit, but I would love to lay down in a warm blanket that would treat my whole body. I look to you for vetting everything from diets to products, and admire the hours of research that you put into this forum.

You ladies are delightful, and I can't imagine my life without your curiosity and wisdom. Please keep on keeping on. Can you imagine what we will learn even five years from now? Thank you for everything you do. Sincerely, Frances.” And you know what? She's right. A lot can change in five years. When I was talking to the Zoe people after I went through it and we were going over my results, I talked about that my gut looked different than it had in 2017. They're like, “Well, in 2017, we couldn't see what we can see now. We can see so much more now.” They know more now than they did just in 2017.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and to date this podcast, but five years ago was 2016. Think about how much has changed.

Gin Stephens: I know.

Melanie Avalon: So many fronts since then. All right, so I love this question from Frances, and I'm so glad all the things are helping. The infrared blankets, I personally don't recommend them, and the main thing for me is I actually get nervous about the EMF exposure, putting that directly onto your body. I would recommend if you're looking-- well, this is not the same thing as a blanket at all. The infrared therapy treatment that I do-- there's two things here she mentions-- I'm assuming it's probably a Joovv device, the infrared light that she uses because the Joovv device lets out red and near-infrared light therapy and that doesn't heat you up or anything like that. It's for treating things like she said, like inflammation and joint and muscle pain, and it can help your skin, it can help your mood, the color of the red light. The heat aspect comes from far-infrared wavelengths. That would be what would be found in an infrared blanket. Also, in Sunlighten saunas, for example, which by the way, Gin, how's it going with your Sunlighten sauna?

Gin Stephens: Oh, I love it. I love it so much.

Melanie Avalon: I saw your picture today.

Gin Stephens: I love it. Two days this week, I didn't have time to get in there. One day, I had to go to the dentist at 8:30 in the morning, I had to shower, I don't want to get in after I've showered. Then another day, I had a 9 AM podcast and I like to shower before I'm on the camera with people. Those two days I didn't get in and I was so sad. Oh, then one other day I didn't get in, yesterday because I was getting ready to get in, and my husband said, “Let's go--” I can't remember what he want-- we went and did something. I'm like, “But I was going to get in sauna now.”

Melanie Avalon: It feels so good. Of course, you and I have completely opposite routines. It's like the last thing I do. Well, before I eat-- It's the last thing I do every day before stopping work and all of that. I still read in it and so I'm still doing work in it.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah, I'm reading in mine. I'm working in mine, but I get up do my morning coffee routine, and then I moderate the Facebook group for a while. Then I get in the sauna, and I'm reading in the sauna, researching for my next book. Then, I go get in the shower and get dressed for the day.

Melanie Avalon: It's so good. Yeah, I can imagine how starting the day, it would feel really good.

Gin Stephens: It does feel good.

Melanie Avalon: It helps me wind down for sleep.

Gin Stephens: I can imagine that, too. Then, do you shower, are you sweaty?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I just rinse off in the shower. And then, I end with a cold blast.

Gin Stephens: No, not me. But, yeah, I get so sweaty. Since I like to get ready for the day early on, and I put my makeup on and do my hair every day. I do it every day.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I don't do that. [laughs] I do it on the days when I need to make all my Instagram content now, which I do. Oh, Gin, you didn't know this. We mentioned it last episode, but we just assumed we were going to be able to get the link. We do have a link and an offer, and I have all the details now, which is exciting. If you go to ifpodcast.com/sunlighten and use the coupon code, IFPODCAST, or if you're talking to a rep, tell them you were sent there by us, The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, you get $200 off their devices and free shipping.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I love it. It was so much easier to put together than I thought. When it was delivered in the big ol’ boxes, I was scared. I was like, “Oh my gosh, what--” but it all just unpacked easily, went together well, you just need three adults, and you can do it.

Melanie Avalon: Then I have the Solo which you lay down in, which is great for people in apartment situations. It's super easy to set up. I don't know if we have it yet. We'll put all this on ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike because I also have a really good-- if you want to get the Solo unit, the way I set it up, I have my whole setup thing. In any case, I don't have an infrared blanket, I did have some of the infrared mats that have the jade stones that they use to create the warmth. I'm not super against them, I just am hesitant about the EMF exposure. The Sunlighten units have been tested to be low EMF. I just feel there might be something different about putting it directly on your skin because in the infrared saunas, it's letting out the rays through the air into you. I'm assuming with these blankets, it's through touch because you're not going to sit by the blanket and be warm. You're going to have to actually put it on your body. Not a lot of help there, but I would definitely look into an infrared sauna, which I know is a little bit bigger than a blanket, but yes.

Gin Stephens: Yep, I love it.

Melanie Avalon: Although I will say, Frances, if you're not in my Facebook group, IF Biohackers, join me there and ask this question, because I'm sure a lot of people will weigh in with their opinions. Our only rule by the way in that group is that all opinions are welcome, and you have to be kind. Shall we go on to our next question?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: This question is from Samantha. The subject is “Trying to catch up as fast as I can.” Samantha says, “Hi, ladies. Just this week, I began listening to your podcast and started my own IF journey and I can't get caught up fast enough. I love it. I really enjoy learning about different topics, but I don't do well with research. Thanks for spoon-feeding it to me. I've learned the basics so far, specifically to avoid triggering insulin production while fasting. No gum, mints, etc. When do you brush your teeth? At the very end of your window makes sense. What about the AM on a typical 18:6 IF schedule?”

Gin Stephens: So, I can go ahead and answer that Samantha. Here's the thing about teeth brushing, it's really, really brief, within two minutes of tasting sweetness, your body releases the insulin. The amount of insulin peaks at about four minutes and then returns to baseline levels. It's only going to be a little 8- to 10-minute blip of your day, and I wouldn't worry about that for brushing your teeth. Of course, that also explains why we don't drink like a diet soda because every sip is a new exposure. You don't want to do that. Brushing your teeth is very brief, and then you go on with your day. I wouldn't worry about that. I have been brushing my teeth every day, the whole time.

Melanie Avalon: You can also get brushing options that don't have a sweet taste. The one I've been using recently because I've-- we've talked about Dr. Bronner's in the past. It's not sweet. The one I'm using right now is a tooth powder.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I got one of those charcoal tooth powders, it was hilarious.

Melanie Avalon: Because it made your teeth black?

Gin Stephens: And it's such a mess. I was like, “No.” [laughs] Reject.

Melanie Avalon: Of course, I didn't reject it because Gin and I are always opposites. I am using Dirty Mouth Toothpowder for teeth whitening, the peppermint flavor, and it has no sweetener in it. I'm really, really loving it. It's really great. They also have a spearmint flavor. I've also used in the past Redmond, they have an unsweetened spearmint flavor. That's really great. If you just want to avoid the sweet thing entirely, you can go that route. Then her second question, she says, “Also, my eight-year-old son has little desire for breakfast. I tend to force him to eat something as I was always taught, we need to, for “the most important meal of the day.” Otherwise, he is a great eater. At what point do you let a child have a shortened eating window? Is it too early to let his body dictate his schedule? Thanks.” I will say this really quick sidenote, I do think when I bring on Melanie, the other Melanie on my show, I feel like I'm definitely going to be talking to her about stuff like this.

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah, I think that's important. The question about a kid is important. Ideally, we would always let our children's bodies dictate their schedule honestly. What do you think about that statement, Melanie? That we would always let a child's body dictate what and when they eat.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I actually-- I know I'm not a mother and I don't have experience, but I do have thoughts about how I think I would go about this. I feel I would make the food choices that I think are healthy available.

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: But if they don't want to eat it, that's fine. Then, if later, they'll probably eat more, when it's available.

Gin Stephens: Exactly. It does get trickier with an eight-year-old in school. I don't know in this day and age, he may not be going to in-person school and maybe he does have a flexible time that he can eat but that's the problem with-- you go to school and you have a set schedule. It's not like he could just graze on food whenever he feels like it. Maybe he can though. Our kids, when I taught, they were allowed to, in my classroom, to pull out a snack and eat at a time of the day. We didn't have a set snack time. I was a gifted teacher, even when I was the third-grade teacher, I was a third-grade teacher for years before being the gifted teacher, but I was just like, “Look, you want to bring snacks, bring snacks, I don't care, eat whenever you feel like it. Don't bother me. Eat when you want to. They had water bottles on their desk. You don't have to ask me if you can eat your snack. Just don't get in trouble with it. You can eat it.” Not all classrooms are obviously are going to be like that. I believe in letting kids eat when they want to eat and not forcing them because that's how they lose touch with their satiety signals.

Melanie Avalon: I find it also really interesting how growing up, kids rejecting certain foods, often things like vegetables when they're young, but then liking it when they're older.

Gin Stephens: I was the pickiest eater. As for my children, well, Will was not as picky. Cal was terrible. When he was little, he only ate things that were beige. I've said that before. He would eat chicken nuggets, vanilla pudding, crackers, apple sauce. Everything seemed to be beige. Now, he's a vegetarian.

Melanie Avalon: Wow.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. Well, he's not completely a vegetarian. I take that back. Kate's a vegetarian, his wife. So, they're mostly vegetarian, but he eats everything.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Did I tell you he stopped fasting? He doesn't do that anymore.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Okay. I thought I did, but I couldn't remember.

Melanie Avalon: Do we answer our question, then?

Gin Stephens: I wouldn't say you're fasting, there's your window. I wouldn't use that terminology with kids. That's the thing that's different. You don't say, “Oh, look, you're fasting. What's your eating--?” No. Offer food, make it available. If he's like, “I'm not hungry,” then say, “All right, you need to take a snack for school. Make sure you have enough lunch,” and let them eat when they're hungry later.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I feel the problem more is not letting a kid eat when hungry. That's a big problem compared to them not wanting to eat.

Gin Stephens: I think forcing them to eat when they're not hungry is also a huge problem, though. That creates disordered eating.

Melanie Avalon: I guess I didn't say that right. What I meant was in relation to, is it a fasting thing or not, but just as far as potentially problematic messaging that is sent, both physically through the body and just surrounding food.

Gin Stephens: There's no better gift that we can give our kids than the gift of exposing them to a wide variety of foods and teaching them to listen to their body as to whether they're hungry or as to whether they're not, but I also wish-- one thing I did wrong, not understanding, I didn't understand is that I didn't continue to offer the foods. I offered one time. “Oh, he doesn't like carrots. Alright, carrots are out.” No, you have to offer foods to kids-

Melanie Avalon: Multiple times.

Gin Stephens: -like 10 times before they might eat it. I would have kept offering if I could go back.

Melanie Avalon: Did we talk about that on this show something about, literally, it was like the number 10 that you have to--? I think it was a book I was reading, and I was talking about how to change your taste buds, and you introduce it to yourself. I wish I could remember what it was from, but I feel like it was saying, this is ringing a bell, that if you make it 10 times and you still don't like it, then it's probably not for you.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. Well, I think that's true. It's just like people who say, I can't get used to black coffee, your taste buds can get used to black coffee.

Melanie Avalon: I know who it was, it was Dr. Cate Shanahan’s Fatburn Fix.

Gin Stephens: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: She has a whole section on cravings and food tastes and all of that, and it's really, really fascinating.

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All right. Shall we move on to the next question?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: We have a question from Timothia. The subject is “Changing my eating window on the weekends/menopause/bloating.” Timothia says, “Hi Melanie and Gin, I love your podcast, but just started listening so I'm only on episode 15. Looking forward to binge-listening to more episodes. I started IF one month ago with a 6 AM to 2 PM eating window during the week and I took the weekends off, no fasting. I lost 5 pounds in two weeks and was thrilled. When I gained back 2 pounds the third week, I decided to modify. I've kept the same fasting schedule as above during the week, but I shift to dinner only a five-hour window on the weekends. This is so I can enjoy a glass of wine Friday/Saturday night and also eat dinner with my family. Have you seen this type of pattern work for people?”

Gin Stephens: This goes right back to what we had at the very beginning of the show with Katie. Timothia, you just started a month ago. So, you’ve got to come up with a way to track that's not just, “Oh, I've lost 5 pounds, oops, I've gained back 2,” because that's not really what's probably happening. Fluctuations confuse more people than anything. You get on the scale, it's up 2 pounds, does that mean you've gained 2 pounds? No, it means your scale has fluctuated upward, you might have gained two pounds of fat, but maybe you've lost fat, but you have to poop. It's hard to know. All the reasons why your scale could be up. I would like to beg the entire world to weigh daily and use some kind of app that does the trend for you, like Happy Scale on iOS or Libra on Android. I don't know anything about Android, but I've just heard that one's good. I know Russ Shanahan, who made the Happy Scale app, he's awesome. That's the one I recommend for iOS, or just do it old school like I did. At the end of the week, you add it all up, divide by seven, or get a Shapa a scale that shows your overall trend, ginstephens.com/shapa. Any of those things, but you cannot let those fluctuations get in your head. If you lost 5 pounds in two weeks and gain came back 2, you're still down 3, that's a great rate of loss for three weeks. But also, that first month, you should not expect to lose any weight because your body is adjusting to intermittent fasting. I'm so emphatic about that, because the early days, you'll be like, “Oh my gosh, it's not working out. I just gained 2 pounds.” That's not what's really happening.

Melanie Avalon: I know we sound maybe like a broken record, but I do think it's really valuable-- because we just got a question from one person asking this, but I think it is very comforting to listeners to hear it coming from so many different people and slightly different tweaks on it, slightly different versions of it.

Gin Stephens: We've had hundreds of thousands of people come through my Facebook community.

Melanie Avalon: I just love that we're on the same page. I was going to say that saying what I just said might sound like, “Oh, well, maybe things are not working for people and we're just giving the same answer.” Gin, there's hundreds of thousands of people if you'd like to continue that thought.

Gin Stephens: Well, it's also I've talked to 130, 140 people now on Intermittent Fasting Stories, and it's common, over and over and over again. That's one reason why I didn't just slightly revised Delay, Don’t Deny and rerelease it, but I wrote a whole new book, with Fast. Feast. Repeat. because people really need to understand that this is not like other things and that there are common things that you're going to go through. If you think about it the way you've thought about other things you've done, you're going to feel like you failed. Again, that's why I kept starting and stopping all those years. From 2009 to 2014, I started and stopped intermittent fasting so many times, I couldn't believe it. I never stuck with it. I never lost weight. Finally, in 2014 when I stuck with it, that was the time I was weighing daily and calculating my weekly average and that was when I could see, “Oh, look, even though my Friday weight is higher than last Friday's weight, my weekly average is down. This is working.”

Instead of like saying, “Well, this isn't working. I'm going to quit. I weigh 1 pound more than I did last Friday. I'm gaining weight.” No, I wasn't. I wasn't gaining weight, but my fluctuation was up. Our bodies don't just linear go down, down, down, down, down, down. Wouldn't it be nice if they did, but they don't.

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. Her second question. She says, “I've also been on medication for four years to prevent a recurrence of breast cancer. This medicine keeps me artificially in menopause. Most of my weight gain has occurred since being on the medication. Until my mid-30s, I'm 43 now, I generally ate anything I felt like and maintained a healthy weight. But now, I'm about 50 pounds overweight. My question is do you find IF works less well, the same, or better for postmenopausal women than premenopausal women? I've heard it doesn't work as well. I continue to gravitate towards carbs such as pasta, chips, popcorn, and one to two glasses of wine in my eating window. But this is what I've eaten until late at night, almost every night for 20 plus years. I'm a definite night owl. You say to change not what you eat, but when you eat, but I feel like I'll have to change both. This is another reason I decided to eat 6 AM to 2 PM during the week because I rarely overeat for breakfast and lunch. I'm also at work during those hours, so I have less time to overindulge.” Thoughts on that one.

Gin Stephens: Well, first of all, I would like to say part about postmenopausal, premenopausal and we've heard it didn't work as well. We've got women of all ages in these groups. Women in their 70s, 80s even, not as many, Lots of women in their 50s and 60s, lots of postmenopausal women. I will say that when I was going through menopause, the year when I was waiting for that year, to now I'm postmenopausal, but I did have a little, I think, I wasn't weighing but I think my honesty pants got a little tight. So, I'm sure if I had been weighing daily, I would have seen weight gain, but I wasn't weighing, my pants were a little tight. Now, I'm on the other side, and my honesty pants are once again as loose as they ever were. I am now officially postmenopausal and maintaining great in the range at the low end of what I would guess is my maintenance range. I do not buy into that once you're postmenopausal, all bets are off, I don't think so at all, just from watching the wonderful women in the Delay, Don't Deny Facebook communities. While you're going through the change itself, maybe you might not lose weight that year. What were you going to say?

Melanie Avalon: It's like how things are phrased, but I think there's a difference between saying, IF doesn't work as well, compared to in a certain hormonal state you might be up against hormones that are a larger challenge. It's not that IF is not working or not working as well. It's still doing the same thing, it's just-- I don't want to say fighting because it's not like it's a negative thing. If your body is in a hormonal state that is not that receptive to weight loss, it could be a lot of things. It could just be your personal hormone chemistry. She's on medication, which by the way, we're very happy for you that you got through the breast cancer the first time. Especially if you're on medications that are messing with your hormones, it can be really hard to make at least fast progress when you have hormonal signals that are sending an opposite signal to your body. I don't think it’s that IF is not working or can't work. It's just that it might be perceived as a more concentrated effort, or it might seem harder.

Gin Stephens: You’ve got to something that I wasn't stressing, but it's important. She said, “Do you find that IF works?” It's how are you defining works. IF is always working. In your body, it's always doing positive things. If we're talking about does it work for weight loss, I was interpreting it that way, working for weight loss, but really, IF is always working, even if you're not losing the weight. Also, I like to think about it like this. The average weight gain during menopause, I just looked it up real quick, and according to this one source that just came up when I googled it, this is not scientific rigor. When I googled it, there was an estimate that the average weight gained during menopause maybe 10 to 15 pounds. Let's think about this. Let's say that you're going through menopause, and you aren't losing any weight. Well, if most people going through menopause gain 10 to 15 pounds, but you are staying the same, that's actually working really well.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's a really great point.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. Also, there's something that she said you say not to change what you eat, but when you eat. Well, I do say that during your first 28 days, in the 28 Day FAST Start, I want you to not try to do intermittent fasting and change everything you're eating all at the same time, while your body adjusts to fasting. It's wrong that, Melanie and I, don't say to change what you eat, because what I've eaten has changed a lot over time. If the foods you're not eating don't work well for your body, I do think you should change them. Your body will let you know over time. If you went back to 2014 me and said, “Here's a box of Pop-Tarts. Do you want to eat them?” I would be like, “Oh my gosh, I love Pop-Tarts. Yeah, I'm going to eat them.” If you handed me a box of Pop-Tarts today, I'd be like, “Uh-uh, no, I'm not going to eat that. I don't like it.” It's not because I'm on a diet or they're wrong. They're not good. I don't like them anymore. Most people do change what they eat over time, because their body directs them towards the foods that are more nutritious. It just happens naturally. When you get more in tune with your body thanks to fasting, you feel so good that you realize, “Ooh, if I ate a box of Pop-Tarts, I would feel awful.” So, you just don't do that anymore, because you don't like them.

Melanie Avalon: To that point, and I'm grateful I don't have to make this decision, and this isn't a decision that is honestly, that I can think of ever realistically. Well, it might be, I won't say that. If I had to, for some reason, choose between food choices that serve my body and not fasting compared to fasting and food choices that don't serve my body, I would actually choose food choices that serve my body and not fasting. I think Gin and I are different on that.

Gin Stephens: We've talked about that. Thank goodness we don't have to choose.

Melanie Avalon: I know, it's like almost not. The only reason I say it is to draw attention to it how important I do think food choices are, which Gin obviously just said, because it is similar to the whole hormonal signal thing that I was just talking about. If you're going up against hormones that aren't working, it can be difficult. If you're putting in food choices that are inflammatory or encouraging weight gain, or-- I mean that is a thing, IF does not magically erase anything and everything that you eat. What you eat in that window is going to have a massive effect on going back to “works.” It’s going to have a massive effect on how well you perceive IF is working.

Gin Stephens: Also, she said she has one to two glasses of wine every day in her eating window, I would not lose weight doing that. I wouldn't. I didn't start drinking a glass of wine at night-- I was, when I wrote Delay, Don’t Deny, but I was also in maintenance at that point. I delayed wine when I was trying to lose weight even prior to writing Delay, Don’t Deny, I delayed wine. I delayed the overly processed foods. Melanie, here's what's really funny, I was thinking about this. That period of time that I talk about in Delay, Don’t Deny when I delayed ultra-processed foods and alcohol, I bet if I went back and scored those meals using the Zoe app, I bet they were super high scores because I was eating in probably a one to two-hour window every night, so I didn't have time to eat like overdo the fat. I was having butter and sour cream on my potato, with my beans, a little cheese on there, and I was eating a lot of veggies. It was really all those things that would create a high-scoring Zoe meal for me.

Melanie Avalon: I will say for those who do want to attempt wine in their weight loss protocol, definitely check out my book, What When Wine. Gin and I have talked about this before. For some people, alcohol actually works pretty well in weight loss plan.

Gin Stephens: It does. I clear alcohol slowly.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, and some people don't. It is entirely possible. Even in that situation if we’re talking about choosing between two things, I think in the greater context of like alcohol and the food choices, it's not the alcohol that's becoming fat ever. I think I can say that as a blanket statement. That said, the food choices can become fat eaten with alcohol, and then depending on how the alcohol is affecting your metabolism, it can be making it harder to lose weight. For some people, it actually is making it easier to lose weight. That sounds crazy but check out What When Wine, I have a whole chapter on it.

Gin Stephens: For me, it all goes back to measuring my ketones has really with the breathalyzer has really helped me see the alcohol. My ketones were low, low, low, low, low. But eating like the Zoe, my ketones were through the roof high. My body doesn't clear things quickly is what I realized. [laughs] Whether it's fat, whether it's alcohol. [sigh]

Melanie Avalon: I do have to do a plug every time we talk about wine. Friends, Dry Farm Wines. If anybody's curious, while Gin is not currently drinking wine.

Gin Stephens: Well, I'm having my little micro-dose, did I tell you that?

Melanie Avalon: Oh yes.

Gin Stephens: Every now and then I'm having a little micro-dose, not enough to feel it. Not enough to have a buzz. Chad's drinking his that I got him for Christmas. I'm like, “Pour me a tiny little bit.” A tiny bit to Chad is little, it's a little, little bit. It's probably a Melanie Avalon micro-dose. Yeah, I've turned into you.

[laughter]

Melanie Avalon: I know.

Gin Stephens: I'm not getting a buzz. I'm not drinking like a whole glass.

Melanie Avalon: For listeners, Dry Farm Wines, they are sort of like a wine investigator. They go to the wineries and they test the wines and then they find the wines that are tested to be low alcohol, low sugar, free of toxins, free of mold, pesticides, organic, etc. If you want to have wine in the healthiest way possible, at least how I believe and possibly not have things like hangovers and such, I cannot recommend enough, Dry Farm Wines. You can get a bottle for a penny at dryfarmwines.com/ifpodcast. I think that's the link. I don't think there's a code, but if there's a code, it's IFPODCAST. My favorite thing actually about it, it lets you try all these different varietals that you might not have tried normally because it's like a shipment, so you get a box of like-- you can pick red, white, or both. You get all these different varietals. I always listen to my Lana Del Rey and open a bottle and do a wine tasting with myself. I think it's the Vino app. Oh my goodness. It's like the coolest thing ever. Have you used it, Gin?

Gin Stephens: I don't like to track things. Do you think I'm going to track my wine in an app? I know. I know. It's recording it and keeping up with what you buy.

Melanie Avalon: You scan the label and it comes up, it finds the wine every time. You can put in reviews if you want, but it pulls it up. You get all the information about it and you get the reviews. It's like tasting notes.

Gin Stephens: Okay, yeah, I'm going to do that.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I think a lot of Dry Farm Wines people use it because--

Gin Stephens: It sounds cool.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. A lot of people getting Dry Farm Wines. It's not like we went and sought out that bottle, you're getting what you get. The reason I know a lot of people are using it is a lot of the reviews mentioned Dry Farm Wines.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's great. I love it.

Melanie Avalon: It's great.

Gin Stephens: I just want to make it through my life easy. I want the easy button. I don't want to read about it. I just want to open it and drink it.

Melanie Avalon: I review them now when I taste. You might see my reviews. Last night, I tried one and it had-- it was a blend from Italy. A four varietals, sorry, I'm going on a tangent. One was Cabernet, which people are familiar with one was Primitivo, I think that's how you say it, which is like a Zinfandel. Then the other two I'd never heard of in my entire life. It was so exciting to learn.

Gin Stephens: Wow, you're a wine girl.

Melanie Avalon: I don't know really any of the-- there's a ton of varietals out there. My point is it's really exciting to be exposed. If you're a wine fan, it's really fun, Dry Farm Wines. Okay.

Gin Stephens: All right, we got a little bit more from Timothia.

Melanie Avalon: She has one more question. She says it's about bloating. “When I've gone on calorie restricted diets in the past or change the type of foods I eat¸ I'm usually very bloated for the first few days, but it passes by the second week. After four weeks on IF, I'm bloated almost every night, no pain. Any suggestions?”

Gin Stephens: Well, I was just going to say that it sounds like that Timothia’s body responds to change by her digestive system gets a little sluggish, and that seems to be something that's happened all the time. But it's continuing for four weeks, I don't know, what would you say?

Melanie Avalon: It sounds to me like a food combination overload situation, because in the past, you weren't doing IF, but you were eating foods. When you would change the type of foods, you would get bloating, but it would pass by the second week, so within days. That indicates to me that it was microbiome shifts that were happening because it is very common for people's microbiome to change. If they're changing their foods, they get bloating. But the fact that it would resolve makes me think that your microbiome was adapting. The fact that now with IF, you're bloated and it's not going away and it's been four weeks, I would hypothesize that you're probably overwhelming the system. It's probably not-- it could be a microbiome thing, but it could be like the shortened eating window and the foods that you're eating, you're not going to be able to have that-- either quantity or combination and resolve the bloating.

What I would recommend is a few different things. If you do just want to go the supplement route, Atrantil can be a game changer for bloating. Helps me so much, help so many people that I know in my Facebook group. It's completely natural and it targets a type of bacteria-- it's not a bacteria, it's actually an organism called archaea. It's often linked to bloating in people and it specifically targets that type of entity in your stomach. The link for that is lovemytummy.com/ifp for 10% off. That said, for the food route, I would recommend a few different things. I'd recommend maybe-- I feel like you're going to have to look at your food choices and the quantity/types of food you're eating. You might just need to eat different foods. Low FODMAP helps a lot of people with bloating. You could try that for a few weeks. If that resolves the bloating, that would indicate to me that it is a microbiome issue that's being exacerbated or created by overeating in your window or the food choices. I would definitely try low FODMAPS. You can get my app, it's called Food Sense Guide. It compares over 300 foods for a-- well, when this comes out, probably 12 potentially problematic compounds that create distress and GI issues and other food sensitivity issues in a lot of people, and it includes FODMAP content for over 300 foods. So, that'd be really valuable. That's at melanieavalon.com/foodsenseguide. Those are my recommendations.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I think those are great because when I first started responding to it, I had forgotten the fact that she's four weeks in. Then as soon as I read that, I was like, “Oh, yeah, this should have adjusted by now.” Good stuff.

Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, I feel like we tackled a lot of content today. This has been absolutely wonderful. So, a few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions to the podcast, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com, or you can go to ifpodcast.com, and you can submit questions there. There will be a full transcript in the show notes, those will be at ifpodcast.com/episode199. Exciting announcement, next week is Episode 200. Guys, tune in because it's going to be a super fun special episode with Gin and I answering random crazy questions.

Gin Stephens: Don't get too crazy. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: We should record it at night and drink wine. Oh, wait. Oh, you don't drink.

Gin Stephens: Oh, I'm not going to drink wine enough to be crazy. Sorry. I'm crazy without it. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness, I'll drink wine.

Gin Stephens: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: Follow us on Instagram. Gin is GinStephens. I'm MelanieAvalon. I think that's 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.

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. Theme music was composed by Leland Cox. See you next week.

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