Episode 206: Kreb’s Cycle, Fat Burning Vs. Ketosis, Obesity Epidemic, Fasting On An Odd Schedule, Non-Scale Victories, Heartburn, And More!

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 206 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. 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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Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is Episode number 206 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 doing great. How about you?

Melanie Avalon: I am great. How's your book coming along?

Gin Stephens: I think I've reached a turning point this week, it's very research heavy. A lot of research. In fact, it's harder to write than Fast. Feast. Repeat. was. I've just been bogged down with all the research, but I've turned a corner at the “putting it all together stage,” making it flow, and it's starting to really come together, so that's the good part.

Melanie Avalon: In a Word doc?

Gin Stephens: Oh, yeah. Doing it in a Word doc.

Melanie Avalon: I can't imagine a whole book in a Word Doc.

Gin Stephens: What do you do yours in?

Melanie Avalon: Scrivener. It will change your life.

Gin Stephens: Why is that?

Melanie Avalon: It's like this portal. You can keep all of your stuff in different sections that you can drag around. It's just so easy. Basically, any section of the book you want to work on, you have it there on the side, and you can go work on that, and you don't have to go through just one whole big document. You can just easily move stuff around. There's places for notes, and you can put notes directly into what you're writing, like little sticky notes on the side. It's just the most amazing thing.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I put them all in any way, just my own little way. I'll write a little note to myself and highlight it yellow, right in the middle of the document. I use the table of contents to get around. It's clickable, so it gets to move from place to place.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, is it on the side, the Table of Contents?

Gin Stephens: No, it's back at the beginning. I don't know, it's feels very intuitive to me. Maybe I would love the other. I thought about doing this one in Google Docs instead, and then I was like, “Nah.” [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: The reason I know about Scrivener is one of my best friends from LA, he's like a Wall Street Journal best-selling artist or artist/author, and he self-published all of his books originally and he was like, “Do Scrivener, don't look back.” So, I did Scrivener, I didn't look back. It's amazing. Then you can export it as a Word doc because publishers use Word docs.

Gin Stephens: Well, I'll see about that. I'm might look at it next time, we'll see. Right now, it's going. It's getting there, word count’s going up. [laughs] Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I have a sort of exciting announcement. I don't know if I said this on the podcast already. I know I told you. He officially scheduled last night.

Gin Stephens: Who is he?

Melanie Avalon: Gary Taubes.

Gin Stephens: Oh. I don't know that you said it on the podcast or not.

Melanie Avalon: I'm so excited. It's very surreal moment, because--

Gin Stephens: I think you did mention that. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I think so, because I think we talked about Good Calories, Bad Calories. He had said he wanted to come on, but he hadn’t actually scheduled. Last night, he scheduled, so it's in the calendar. I'm so excited.

Gin Stephens: Very cool. It is so amazing. I'm not connected to as many of the big names as you've been interviewing them. Tim Spector is somebody I really look up to. I was actually talking to the Zoe app people the other day, they have such a long waiting list. They have a special waiting list just for people who are in my audience, which is funny. You can be on the long waiting list or the special waiting list, but we were emailing and she's like, “I realized you, and Tim have not ever been connected officially. Would you like to do a Facebook Live together?” I'm like, “Oh my God.”

Melanie Avalon: Oh, are you excited? Are you going to do that?

Gin Stephens: Well, not until after I finish the book, because I've got too much going on. I don't have time to do anything else right now. I can barely do what I'm supposed to be doing, but it's just very exciting. When somebody you look up to-- because his research has shaped my thinking from earliest days.

Melanie Avalon: It's very surreal.

Gin Stephens: It is. I’m like, “He knows who I am. Oh my God.” [laughs] Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I think it's a really wonderful community to, all these people that I'm meeting and most people seem to know each other, but there's some really wonderful people.

Gin Stephens: It's true. It really is true. Yep.

Melanie Avalon: I'm now working my way through Marty Kendall’s book. Is his book out yet?

Gin Stephens: I don't know. Did he send you a PDF version?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: See, I don't know the format that he's doing it in. I don't know how he distributes it. Or, if it's going to be-- I don't really know. I just know he sent it to me and I skimmed through it in the format that he sent it. I don't know how other people get it.

Melanie Avalon: If it's available.

Gin Stephens: Right. I feel like it is though, maybe through his website?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I’ll have to ask him. I was so excited last night reading the section. It was what I've always wanted to know, I'm honestly embarrassed that I hadn't.

Gin Stephens: Is that the screenshot that you sent me with that?

Melanie Avalon: No, it was around that section. I'm embarrassed I haven't sat down and read about the-- what's the word, like the Krebs cycle basically. [laughs] I now understand burning fat, not in the context of ketosis and burning fat in the context of ketosis. I feel I understand it now. Can I very briefly say it?

Gin Stephens: Sure.

Melanie Avalon: It's so exciting. Okay, because they say when you teach it, that's how you learn it, and I'm still trying to learn it myself.

Gin Stephens: That's 100% true. From a teacher, let me tell you, one of my best strategies as a classroom teacher was having kids teach things.

Melanie Avalon: His second, Kito Lie, because his book is these keto lies. His second Keto Lie is you have to be in ketosis to burn fat.

Gin Stephens: Right. We know that's not true.

Melanie Avalon: Basically, the Krebs cycle, which I am so embarrassed, I hadn't sat down and tried to actually learn, but it's our normal way that we generate energy. When we're not in ketosis, we're using the Krebs cycle. It's using carbs, protein, and fat. I want to make this really simple. When we have fat, it forms a compound or it's broken down, I think, into a compound. It forms acetyl-CoA. Oh, and listeners, by the way, we have transcripts of this show. Those will be at ifpodcast.com/episode206. Okay, so fat is, I think, broken down into Acetyl-CoA. It condenses with oxaloacetate to form citrate. Okay, but the key thing is that oxaloacetate requires protein or carbs to be formed. Basically, you get a compound from fat. It combines or does something magical with this other compound that is made from protein and carbs. That's why they say-- have you ever heard the phrase like, “Fat burns in the flame of carbs,” or something like that? There's some phrase about that?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I feel like I have.

Melanie Avalon: It's because in the Krebs cycle, you need protein or carbs to burn fat, you can't just burn the fat. On a normal diet and a non-ketogenic diet, you're burning fat, and you're using carbs or protein to burn it. In the Krebs cycle. I mean, my mind is just being blown. This is something I should have understood forever ago.

Gin Stephens: Here's what's so funny. I'm just like, I don't need to understand that. [laughs] I don't want to.

Melanie Avalon: See, I feel like I really need to understand this.

Gin Stephens: Oh, we had a huge argument. Can I just tell you a funny argument, we would get back to this real quick and let you keep telling us about it? We went out to eat a week ago and we had a heated argument about mercury in fish. It was huge. Here's why, because as I was saying, mercury, and he's like, “It's actually methylmercury.” I'm like, “I don't even care.” Then, he we had this huge argument about how I should care. I was like, “But I don't.” [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Because there are multiple different forms.

Gin Stephens: He's like, “Well, the chemists would know,” I'm like, “Well, that's like what, 10th of a percent of the people?”

Melanie Avalon: I would have been so engaged in that conversation. [laughs]

Gin Stephens: Well, I was like it doesn't matter because I was talking about mercury and fish. He's like, “Well, you need to specify.” I'm like, “I don't think I do,” because everywhere you read it, it just says mercury. I don't think anyone needs to specify. I don't need to prove that. Anyway, back to you.

Melanie Avalon: Unless you listen to episode of the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast with Chris Shade, the show notes are at melanieavalon.com/heavymetaldetox. We talked about mercury and methylmercury and the different forms of mercury in detail.

Gin Stephens: Well, Chad Stephens is very much interested in all that. I'm like, “Look, look, I am trying to get across this concept, mercury and fish bad.”

Melanie Avalon: Wait, what was the fish in question?

Gin Stephens: It doesn't matter. Just the fact that-- we were talking about the concept of bioaccumulation and how these things build up in the tissues of animals. I'm really trying hard to convince Chad. This is hard, that we need to buy organic everything, because he is very much price centered. I'm like, “Come on now, stop it. It costs more in the long run with our health.”

Melanie Avalon: In the long run, it's a huge difference, I think.

Gin Stephens: He's a chemist, so it's hard to convince him. Believe it or not, some of the scientists are harder to convince than just normal people. Anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt your story. I just had to say, this is just an example of that because Chad's like, “Everyone needs to know.” I'm like, “No, they don’t.” [laughs] Anyone who really wants to know can dig in.

Melanie Avalon: Was he saying that the form in fish was not the toxic form of mercury?

Gin Stephens: No. He wasn't saying that at all. He said that he thought I needed to take it-- instead of saying mercury, I should say methylmercury.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. Gotcha.

Gin Stephens: I was like, “I don't think so,” because I don't think that's the conversation that 99% of people are having about it.” People don't need me to go beyond, and he was saying that people did. Anyway.

Melanie Avalon: I'll put a link in the show notes. I have a blog post about mercury. I go into that in detail. If you do want to know about methylmercury and the different forms of mercury--

Gin Stephens: Talk to Chad, talk to Melanie.

Melanie Avalon: Yes, we'll put links in the show notes. That's why there's that phrase, “Fat burns in the flame of carbs” or something. I've always heard that. That's why you can ever be in ketosis and burn fat because you don't require ketosis to burn fat. Okay, I said that fat combines or condenses with this oxaloacetate to form citrate, to form energy. If we don't have oxaloacetate, which is created from protein and carbs, that's when the fat shuttles over to the ketogenic process. I relearned about the three types of ketones. Can I talk about it briefly?

Gin Stephens: It's very appropriate to talk about here, and it's why I was never a fan of blood ketone measuring. Actually, it was Marty that taught me that and it was a long time ago. His old blog post, not this book, but his old blog posts taught me about why blood ketones can be confusing. Anyway, go ahead.

Melanie Avalon: This is what happens. The acetyl-CoA doesn't have its little friend made from carbs and protein, oxaloacetate. It gets shuttled over to, like the whole ketogenic cycle. What happens is, acetyl-CoA, it gets converted into acetoacetate. Marty really explained it really, really well, because I had the Biosense people on the show, that's when I first learned about this, but he explained it really well. Acetoacetate is one type of ketone because there's three types. It's the usable energy form. What he compares it to is glucose in our bloodstream, because you know how blood sugar is instant energy in a way, like you can just burn it. That's what acetoacetate is. It's also the type that shows up in the urine. What's important about that is that when it's showing up in the urine, that's why we know it hasn't been used for energy because it is the energy form. It's not in the urine. It's like a byproduct of a ketone, it is the ketone.

Gin Stephens: It's more likely to show up in the urine, if your body is not efficient yet at using it, then you're peeing it out, sorry for my language, because your body isn't great at using it yet. That's why we have high levels of urinary ketones early in the process, not later.

Melanie Avalon: 100%, because when we first start this ketogenic process, we start creating all this acetoacetate, which we can either use and burn, in which case we wouldn't see it in the urine, or it can just go unused into the urine. But as we become more efficient, we're not going to see it in the urine, because some other magical things are happening to it, which are the acetoacetate, which is the one type of ketone, it can either become acetone or BHB, beta-hydroxybutyrate. A lot of listeners might have heard of BHB because people talk about it a lot. The acetone, that's what comes out in our breath. The ketone breath that people experience, it's from the acetone. What's really interesting is, it's a byproduct of burning acetoacetate for energy. What I mean by that, it's not like you had the acetoacetate, and it got converted to acetone and it's a new thing. It's when you burn the acetoacetate, acetone is a byproduct, and that comes out through your breath.

Gin Stephens: It's like where there's smoke, there's fire. That's the smoke.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, exactly. This is what I said, the screenshot to you last night was, that's why measuring breath ketones. It's a sign of burning ketones for energy because what you're measuring is the byproduct in a way. That's really interesting. Then, the other thing that can happen from acetoacetate, which again, acetoacetate is like the instant ketone energy glucose, is it can become a storage form, which I didn't really think of it as a storage form until I read this in Marty's book. BHB is also in the bloodstream, which is a little bit confusing, but he compares it to glycogen. It's like when we talk about glucose and glycogen, glucose being our instant energy, and glycogen being the storage form of glucose in our muscles. BHB is the storage form of ketone. It's in the blood. When we're measuring our blood ketone levels, that's a storage form, that's not actually an actively being used form, which is very, very fascinating to me. That's why he makes the case that we actually don't necessarily want high blood ketone levels, because that just shows that we have a lot of stored fuel. It's like having a lot of stored glycogen.

Gin Stephens: I love Marty. I was just going to say he really has a way of breaking it down.

Melanie Avalon: It was just so clear reading all of this. That's why he makes the case that high blood ketone levels-- because we can't actually really measure acetoacetate, that would be the ideal, I guess-- I mean we measure it in the urine, but not in the blood or anything like that. All we really measure on the blood is the BHB, the storage form. That doesn't really indicate how much you're actually using.

Gin Stephens: That brings me back to when we got the Keto Mojo, and we were testing our blood ketones, and you and I both had very low levels, but I had already read Marty's blog post that explained it. He's got this graph, I think he has the same graph in the book with the unicorns over on the left side, and what you really want is low levels of overall energy in your blood. I'm like, “No, we don't want them to be high.” Early in the process, you might see high levels in the blood. That's not our goal, to have high levels in the blood as we're living our lives. I love the phrase, he uses, ‘energy toxicity.’ It's high levels of any kind of energy in the blood are actually a sign of metabolic problems.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, actually, he has a graph.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about with the unicorns on the left, and the good side everything low. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I have so many questions for him, I'm really excited to interview him. I finally understand it, because I remember you and I were looking at it probably a few months ago, and we're trying to figure out exactly what it was measuring. But reading it in the context of the book, I now understand what the graph is showing. It's showing total energy of glucose and ketones and then what percent of that is ketones, what percent is glucose. What I want to ask him is none of the dots on the graph, none of them are super high ketone, low energy, none of them. I find that very shocking that out of 3000 data points. I have to ask him about that. It makes it seem all the people who are low energy were lower ketones as well.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's the sign of metabolic health, is having low levels of all of it, circulating in your blood, because you don't want it to build up. Problems occur when the energy builds up in your blood. No matter what that energy is, we don't want high levels of any of it. It's fascinating listening to Marty talk about or read. I interviewed him for Intermittent Fasting Stories, but reading his book, he talks about, it was in his kitchen, Stephen Phinney?

Melanie Avalon: Phinney, yeah.

Gin Stephens: Of Phinney and Volek of The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living. The whole idea that we needed to have high blood ketones came from a graph or a table.

Melanie Avalon: I just read this last night. It's really fresh on my mind. Two studies from the 1980s.

Gin Stephens: Also, they were from people who had just begun living a ketogenic lifestyle, and that's when the levels are high. In practice, they go down. People are like, “Oh, my God, something's wrong with me. My levels have gone down.” No, that's normal.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. nobody has really updated this. He even said that they've done-- what was it, the Virta study since then? Which actually did look at people on ketogenic diets for two years. I love what he said in the book, he said, that's what it found. It found that, I'm just going off of memory, but I think on average, after two years, people who have been keto for two years, their blood ketones were less than 0.27 millimole. That data was in the study, but there was no focus on that data. The authors didn't really draw attention to that.

Gin Stephens: It's such important data, especially with the fact that the way people are chasing ketones. When you hear about Marty's book and the title of it, Big Fat Keto Lies, is that what it's called?

Melanie Avalon: Big Fat, yes.

Gin Stephens: It may sound like he's against keto, and he's not. Not at all. He's not an anti keto person.

Melanie Avalon: The question I want to ask him, I have million, but the one I really want to know is, he does say that when we're on a lower-carb diet, and we don't have as much of the oxaloacetate, he said, the body can do one of two things. It can start ketosis, or the Krebs cycle can adapt to still run off of fat with less oxaloacetate. I'm guessing maybe we could generate that oxaloacetate from gluconeogenesis, or something. I want to know if that's a problem, is there any downside to just staying in the Krebs cycle and not going the ketosis route? I'm really dying to know. From an oxidative byproduct perspective, because I feel that's what-- I don't know, just intuitively, I just wonder if for years, that's what I was doing, never even really going into ketosis and just staying in the Krebs cycle.

Gin Stephens: Well, I know that I do go into ketosis daily. It's because-- I have the Biosense breath ketone monitor, and I do exhale ketones in my breath every single day.

Melanie Avalon: That's the other thing. If breath ketones are a byproduct of using acetoacetate for energy, it seems that the breath ketones probably would not go down the way--

Gin Stephens: No, mine do not. Mine have not. I have never stopped exhaling breath ketones.

Melanie Avalon: Because they are a sign of burning ketones for fuel. If that's what we're doing, it seems like BHB should go down if you're becoming more efficient, but breath acetone, it seems like should stay.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, in practice, that's what I have found to be true. I do want people to not get obsessed with measuring things necessarily just because, I don't know, there's a lot of benefit to it to. If you want to know what's happening in your body, but if you're going to measure anything, measure the breath ketones. I have to admit, I do pull out my Biosense and I'll blow and there they are. It's just confirming. I'm not chasing a high number, that's the fear I get to. People would be like, “I'm not going to eat until I blow a 20,” or something. Maybe the number is not even completely accurate. Instead of trying to chase a number, just you can say, “Yep, there they are.”

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, 100%. He also has an amazing chart. It charts like fat carb protein intake, over the years correlated to obesity, and it shows total energy. He talks about how carb amounts have changed, fat amounts have changed, but obesity continues to rise. The thing that correlates is total energy. We're eating more.

Gin Stephens: That was something I talked about in my book recently. We are actually eating more. The reason why is really complicated. For one thing, the nutrient density of our food has gone way down. We're eating basically nothing good. We're just eating all this processed food.

Melanie Avalon: So, we have to eat more.

Gin Stephens: I talked about this in Fast. Feast. Repeat. that our bodies are not searching for calories, they're searching for nutrients. There's lots and lots of research that supports this. When you eat a highly nutritious diet and get what your body needs, it suppresses your appetite basically, because you've eaten the nutrients. I have one study that I just read yesterday that appetite-suppressing hormones went up with a nutrient-dense diet of real foods. It's all connected. The research that I'm doing for this new book, like I said, it's taking me down all these different rabbit holes, but really, we're in a wasteland. A wasteland of nutrition. We just keep eating and eating trying to find the nutrients and they're not there. Modern farming practices, even high yield crops, for example, the foods have been bred to yield more. It's like the nutrients are diluted. Like a tomato is not even a tomato anymore.

Melanie Avalon: That's one of the benefits of heirloom varieties.

Gin Stephens: Absolutely, 100%. You put them side by side, the nutrient density in the heirloom varieties that haven't been bred for yield, so many more nutrients. Anyway, [laughs] It's so complicated, but it makes you mad. Then, you understand the obesity epidemic, and you understand why we're eating more food, and then you feel sorry for yourself back in the day when you were eating all this food and trying to-- I'm talking about myself here when I was obese, and I understand why. There's a lot to it.

Melanie Avalon: Then, on top of that, what we talked about and what he talked about is there are so many benefits to being in a low energy state, which also further exacerbates the problem because ideally, you'd want to be a nutrient-dense low-energy state.

Gin Stephens: That's it. Yeah, that's really what he's doing with people. He is teaching people how to be in a low-energy nutrient-dense state. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I'm so excited to finish because I'm only on the-- like I said, the Keto Lie number two. I was just so happy last night, I was like, “This is the best thing ever.”

Gin Stephens: We don't need as much food as we think we do. But it needs to be full of nutrients, the end. [laughs] Thank you for attending my TED talk.

Melanie Avalon: I know, right. [laughs] That's so funny. Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you for entertaining that. I wanted to do that, learn it for myself.

Gin Stephens: Again, I don't need to know all those what's happening in the Krebs cycle, but it's fascinating.

Melanie Avalon: It really is.

Gin Stephens: Our bodies are so complicated, and then we really oversimplify everything. Every single conversation we ever have is an oversimplification of the complicated things that are going on in the body. We really don't even understand everything that's going on. Truthfully.

Melanie Avalon: I know.

Gin Stephens: When I say we, I don't mean me and Melanie. The big we. [laughs] Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Everybody wants to boil it down to it’s carbs or it’s fat. I'm pretty sure it's not just carbs or fats, so many things. I don't know if he talks about it more later in the book, but he did say that the thing that really hasn't been plotted, or he talks about Taubes a lot. I'm interviewing him before interview Gary Taubes. That'll be interesting. He talks about how Gary Taubes wrote Good Calories, Bad Calories, which really demonized carbs, and then had to reconcile the fact that there were high-carb populations without all of these issues. So then, he wrote The Case Against Sugar, which demonizes processed sugar, but then, Marty Kendall says the thing that's not being considered is refined seed oils, the PUFAs again, seed oils. I do think they are huge, huge factor.

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Gin Stephens: I have a little number for you. I wrote this today as well. I'm going to play the guessing game that you always play with me.

Melanie Avalon: Because I love the guessing game. I'm ready.

Gin Stephens: All right. In a normal population eating unrefined, just normal real foods, what percent of calories in just real foods when there's eating real foods like beans, grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, whatever, a natural diet, like a Western kind of diet, what percent would be from just naturally occurring polyunsaturated fats occur in foods?

Melanie Avalon: I love this question. Are you eating meat?

Gin Stephens: You're just eating all the foods, like you live in a natural place, that's not modern era. It's thousand years ago, you're just eating food. What percent of just real food that you're eating has polyunsaturated fat in it. What percent?

Melanie Avalon: I would say maybe, like, 4%.

Gin Stephens: It's 4%. Oh my God, did you just-- it's exactly for 4%. 4%.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah, I got it right?

Gin Stephens: You got it right. Well, what percent in the modern Western diet, the SAD diet, the standard American diet, what percent of our calories are coming from PUFAs? If you're eating a normal, standardized American diet full of processed foods, and normally 4% is what you would find just eating from nature. PUFAs are not bad in the form of like-- omega-6s are not even bad. Having too many omega-6s is the problem. So, what would be the percent that we've ended up with now? What percent of all calories-- and keeping in mind people are eating protein fat carbs, what percent of all the calories you're consuming in a modern diet?

Melanie Avalon: 26%.

Gin Stephens: 30%.

Melanie Avalon: Or, 27%? Okay.

Gin Stephens: It's 30. You were close. Instead of 4%, we're getting 30%. Well, tell me that's not going to screw up your body?

Melanie Avalon: Wow.

Gin Stephens: Clog things up.

Melanie Avalon: That's huge.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, if you're running your car and putting the wrong fuel in your car, your car certainly wouldn't function very well.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, because what I was thinking was I was seeing what percent of fat do I think the modern standard American diet is? We didn't talk about that. Is it around like 35% or something percent?

Gin Stephens: I don't know, it might be higher. I would think it's higher. If 30% are PUFAs, then clearly fat would be higher than 30%.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I wonder if it's a lot higher.

Gin Stephens: It might be 50%. Modern day people-- that's one of the things that bothers me when you read some of the rationale for why everybody should be low carb and why carbs are the problem. They say that we did a great job eating low fat. Well, we didn't.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, we just switched to PUFAs. We switched to vegetable oils.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I should have known that, because I think I did know that it was around that. Total fat percentage didn't change the composition did. We reduce saturated fat.

Gin Stephens: Right. Anyway, fascinating again. [laughs] I'm learning so much. It’s really again processed foods, bot good for our bodies in so many ways.

Melanie Avalon: Step away, friends.

Gin Stephens: The more you read, the more you're like, “Oh, my gosh, this is--” [laughs] Anyway, does that mean I'll never eat a Dorito again? No.

Melanie Avalon: Doesn't mean I won't. Probably not. [laughs] I mean, probably will not. I just go down a rabbit hole. I'm very much like, if I have one, I can't stop. I just have to say no. I'm an all or none. person.

Gin Stephens: They're engineered to be that way.

Melanie Avalon: I know. Well, that was a wonderful intro. Should we answer a listener question or two?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, let's do that.

Melanie Avalon: All right, so to start things off or continue things, we have a question from Samantha. The subject is “My Lifestyle.” Samantha says, “Hello, my name is Samantha. I'm a 53-year-old 5’2” lady who owns and works in a couple of fish and chip shops in Torbay, South Devon, UK. I'm overweight by about 30 pounds, which isn't a huge amount, I admit, but it's still unattractive. My issue is, I usually start work at 2:30 and finished by 9:30. I don't have breakfast, and my main meal is around 1:30. Whilst working, I never eat chips, etc. But when I get home, I am very hungry, and given to whatever I can find. I've tried black coffee, but I'm still hungry. I don't see how I can change my eating window due to business commitment as even if it is open for five to six hours, my eating downfall still falls outside of the allotted time. Please can you give me some advice? Many thanks, Samantha.”

Gin Stephens: Yeah, this is tricky because it sounds to me, Samantha, you're eating before you go to work if you start work at 2:30, and you're eating at 1:30, and then you're done by 9:30 PM. The problem is, I'm not sure if you have time to eat at work, but it sounds like you'd probably don't, you're busy working while you're at work, so you cannot eat between 2:30 and 9:30. You're solving the problem by eating before you go to work. But then, when you get home at 9:30, you're starving. That's because of the way your body-- you've worked and so now you've finished processing that 1:30 meal, and your body needs some more fuel, but you're not far enough along to really be deep in the fat-burning state and you're hungry. I sleep through that part of my fast. The part that you're having trouble with, I'm asleep.

Melanie Avalon: It's like the transition part.

Gin Stephens: Right. That's why you're hungry. Honestly, I don't know what time you go to bed. I really would shift it. If it were me, I would eat later after 9:30, after your shift is over, and work in the fasted state. You're just shifting your window, that's what I would do. I wouldn't go to bed at 10 PM, obviously eating at 9:30 going to bed at 10. I would stay awake a little longer. That reminds me, Melanie, of your schedule, when you were working in the restaurant, and wouldn't you eat after you got off work?

Melanie Avalon: I always ate at night. I tried to get home early, but sometimes I wouldn't get home till like 11 PM.

Gin Stephens: That's when you would eat?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. Honestly, I think that if I were you, Samantha, and I ate my main meal at 1:30, then I went to work from 2:30 to 9:30 and then I came home, I would be starving, starving, starving. I don't have a solution for, if you're eating at 1:30, I think you're going to continue to be hungry other than you're just going to have to change your window and try that. Unless you want to have a really long window, eat at 1:30, then eat a little something else when you get home, and if you're not snacking, or eating at all from 2:30 to 9:30, maybe that'll work. It's a longer window, but you're not eating constantly. Eat at 1:30, your main meal, and have a little something when you get home. I don't think you're going to be able to do a five- to six-hour window and not be hungry when you get home.

Melanie Avalon: That was really great. You interpreted it different than I did, but I think you interpreted it correctly.

Gin Stephens: Oh, what were you thinking?

Melanie Avalon: I was thinking that she can't change due to business commitments. I was thinking that she ate with people during that work period.

Gin Stephens: I feel like she doesn't. If you're hungry after your window closes, you need to arrange your window, so it closes to encompass your hungry time.

Melanie Avalon: There are two options basically. Keeping the same window and just saying no, kind of like the Glen Livingston, Never Binge Again, pig approach. For him, he has a book on nighttime overeating, and he talks about ways to just not eat at night, having kitchen closing rituals where don't go in the kitchen after eating, or he says some people like to have actual rituals, like you say, “Kitchen closed” out loud. Basically, just not doing it, or the second option, which is what I think is more appropriate, is making your eating window cover when you're going to be hungry, which is later. I was thinking she was able to eat during her job, so I was going to suggest not having the 1:30 meals, eating later and just having those hours cover when she gets home. But if she can eat at all during her meal, then it would be sort of like a Melanie approach, which I still eat really late. I eat really late. If I was doing her schedule, I rarely eat before 9:30.

Gin Stephens: Really?

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm.

Gin Stephens: I'm usually in the bed at 9:30.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. The only time I do is really if I have getting dinner with people. I might be having a drink at 9:30, but usually really late. It works well for me.

Gin Stephens: We ate late the other night. We went out with friends and it was like 9:30 we were on our way home. I'm like, “What in the world is happening? Why is it so late?”

Melanie Avalon: I should live in Europe.

Gin Stephens: Like Spain. Dinner's at like 9 PM, right?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Like Germany, I remember growing up because we have family in Germany and we traveled there all the time, I hated going to dinner because you would get at the restaurant at 8:30, and then you'd be there until 11:00. I mean it was late. Maybe it wasn't that late, but it's very normal there to eat late. So, I like your suggestion, which was what I agree with.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, eat late, which sounds crazy because we just are so used to being told not to eat late. Really, I still feel the idea of don't eat late is in the paradigm of eating all day. If you eat all day and eat late, that's a problem.

Melanie Avalon: I still think if all things were controlled, and it was equally easy to do, and you had to choose between having all of your meal at night or all of your meal in the morning, I think there might be some benefits to the morning. But in a real-life, practical situation, I think the majority of the things that they demonized late-night eating has nothing to do with it being late, late at night, it's you've been eating all day. By the time you tonight, you're not insulin sensitive, you've been eating all day. We were talking earlier about the high fuel state, you're in a high energy state and then you're eating on top of that. But if you haven't eaten all day, you're in a low energy state, your insulin sensitive, eating tends to make us tired, so that's why a lot of people who do the one meal day at night actually sleep well.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. I talked about this last time, I think it was last week, that I've now shifted my window back to later because I wasn't sleeping with the earlier window.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Sleep is important. [laughs] I feel so much better with the later window.

Melanie Avalon: Let us know, Samantha.

Gin Stephens: Yep. All right. We have a question from Ellie. Ellie is my cat's name. You knew that. Yeah. My cat-- Oh, and my neighbor is named Ellie. We had a new neighbor move in. She's like, “Hi, I'm Ellie.” I'm like, “There's my cat. Her name is Ellie too.” All right, lots of Ellies. It's a beautiful name. By the way, do you know what my cat's name really is? What her full name is?

Melanie Avalon: Isn't she named after Eleanor Rigby?

Gin Stephens: Yes, because we've got the Beatles theme going on with our pets, but she's Eleanor Rigby. All right, so Ellie's subject is “Non-scale Victories.” “Hi, Gin and Melanie. Thank you both for being such an inspiration. Since I started intermittent fasting in June of 2020, you have both been instrumental to my success. I'm an avid listener of the podcast as well as IF Stories and Melanie's Biohacking Podcast. I've read all of Gin's books, as well as What When Wine, and I'm always eager to learn more.

My question is about non-scale victories. In the forums, it seems that many people seem to struggle with weight loss but stay with it because of all the non-scale victories. I seem to have the opposite problem. I have had amazing success with weight loss. Since June, I have lost 50 pounds, and am now at my goal weight. This is truly incredible, considering my lifetime of struggles with weight. Fasting has been effortless, unlike anything I've ever done, and I am so grateful that I found this way of life. I can't imagine ever stopping. Despite my success, I have not seen a lot of changes other than my weight. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining and am so grateful, but I really had hoped to have improvements in other areas. My heartburn is still just as bad, my skin condition, psoriasis, is worse than ever. Most importantly, I'm still extremely fatigued and lack energy in my daily life.

Some background. I have a daily eating window of anywhere from one to six hours. I like to switch it up and sometimes eat lunch so that I can have a longer fast the next day. I always fast clean, consuming just water and black coffee. I eat anything I want in my window and would resist changing this given my lifetime of diet mentality. I have found that I have slowly been gravitating toward more whole foods and my tastes have definitely changed. However, I will admit my diet is far from perfect and I do indulge in desserts and occasional processed food. I rarely drink alcohol. I do lead a stressful and hectic life, although less so since the pandemic. I am generally healthy and have had comprehensive bloodwork recently, including a full thyroid panel that has all been normal. Is there any chance that I will start to experience some of the benefits that others are always talking about outside of weight loss? Really appreciate your insight. Thanks, Ellie.”

Can I say one thing just real quick, Melanie, before you start? You're still so new Ellie, I know that June of 2020 sounds like it's been a few months, but it's only been less than a year. We're recording this in February. It took me over a year of being at goal before my seasonal allergies went away. It didn't happen right away. That's all I want to say. You’ve got so much time. There's some other things I will say later, but I'll let Melanie go in first.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. Ellie, thank you for your question. I love that she's read all of our books and loves all of the things. As far as fasting and non-scale victories and seeing improvements in other areas besides weight loss, well, first of all, to Gin's point, yes, there's definitely a lot of potential, the more you do, you will see changes. That said, I think there are a lot of health conditions and issues and challenges that we experience that you can't necessarily fast away.

Gin Stephens: Yep, that was my other thing I was going to say. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: So, depending on your environment and the food that you're eating, those factors are huge, and they're going to play a huge role and different things that you might experience. For example, the three that she listed were heartburn, psoriasis, fatigue, and lack of energy. Heartburn, for example, there's something happening with the food that you're eating. If the food you're eating and your digestion surrounding that food is leading to heartburn, it's very unlikely fasting is going to change that. If you keep eating the combination of foods in the context that creates heartburn, it's probably going to keep creating heartburn. That's just something that has to be addressed. I really caution against what a lot of people think that they should do for heartburn, which is PPIs, protein pump inhibitors, because those reduce stomach acid, so people take them because heartburn seems to be excess stomach acid, it's usually not that. It's usually a lack of stomach acid, so your food doesn’t digest, so your food builds up and comes up your throat, and there is some acid in there, so you get the heartburn.

A lot of people actually really, really can tackle heartburn by taking stomach acid in the form of HCL, which can seem counterintuitive, but it can really, really work. Also, using digestive enzymes possibly and looking at the food choices to make sure there are food choices that you do digest well, that can really help with the heartburn. Psoriasis is generally-- it's an autoimmune condition, I believe. If it's an autoimmune condition and it's reacting to something that you're either putting on your skin or eating, fasting is not going to change that. As long as you're being exposed to that trigger, which starts the psoriasis cascade, maybe it calms down during the fasted state, for example but if you keep putting on something into your skin that's starting it, or eating something that is exacerbating it, that's probably going to keep happening.

Then, for fatigue and lack of energy. So many people experience that, that thing that I think will be most likely to improve with the fasting. It is possible that if it is related. If your fatigue and lack of energy is completely a fuel processing thing where your body just is not adequately fat burning, or switching into ketosis or something like that, that is something that maybe the fasting could address. That said, there are so many factors that can create fatigue and lack of energy. She got a thyroid panel, but thyroid, anemia, iron levels, your gut microbiome, infections, heavy metals, there's so, so many things. This is a thing where I know she says she resists changing her food choices because of her diet mentality. Choosing whole foods that are nourishing and lead to health, that's not a diet and the diet mentality sense of things. It can seem like it because you are restricting other foods you would want to be eating, so it can harken to that and definitely I can see how it could tap into diet trauma from past diets. But if you can reframe and see it as choosing the foods that are supporting your health, and focusing on what you can have rather than what you can't have, I think that will make hands down the biggest change in conditions that you are experiencing. Gin, what are your thoughts?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, and I also want to say, there's not a single food out there that you can't make a good version of and enjoy it. There's not a single thing. Let's say you love Big Macs. I've been known to love a Big Mac. I could make organic version here at my house that has only nutritious foods in it. I could even make [unintelligible [00:52:52] dressing that was nutritious, depending on what my start-- there's mayonnaise, you can make homemade mayonnaise, I'm not making homemade mayonnaise, I'm buying mayonnaise, but I've just started buying a brand that doesn't have all those PUFAs in it that we talked about earlier. You can absolutely do it. I'm never going to give up delicious foods or desserts. I enjoy-- for dessert, I still want to have a little something sweet. Maybe I'll have a couple of organic dates or smoothie from Daily Harvest that are made with whole foods that come frozen, I grind them up in my blender and put in a little organic almond milk. It's delicious.

So, I'm still having delicious foods every day. I don't feel I'm dieting, because I never want to do that again. I don't think that there is any such thing as a perfect diet, but you want to enjoy yourself, I do too. I'm not going to live a life that keeps me from enjoying myself. I just refuse to do it. Find foods that you love, gravitate towards real food versions of the foods that you want. Even if that's recreating and making a grass-fed beef Big Mac at your house, do it. [laughs] We've actually started to realize, Chad and I have, that the better versions that you make at home are actually more delicious. We went out--our food box didn't come one night, and so we had to go out to eat. We went to Five Guys, which is actually a higher quality version of burger and fries than a lot of places out there. We both used to love those fries and we were like, “Ugh.” [laughs] They were not delicious. Whereas if I take a potato and cut it up and toss it in olive oil and pop it in the oven, you don't feel gross after eating it, but you have the same experience of delicious potatoes.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. 100%. It can be a fun thing because some people might see it as daunting, but I like to see it as all of these wonderful new things you get to experience taste-wise that ultimately-- She even said that she felt like her tastebuds were changing, and I think they'll continue to do that.

Gin Stephens: Slowly. She is still so early on, I cannot express that enough. I've been living this lifestyle for years. I started in 2014, it's 2021, I didn't have all of my non-scale victories all in the first six months. It took years for my taste buds to change and for me to prefer homemade oven fries made from a potato that I tossed in olive oil to fast food fried fries, it's taken a long time.

Melanie Avalon: You've got this, Ellie.

Gin Stephens: You do, you've got it, Ellie.

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They have clear computer glasses that you can wear all day while looking at the computer. They have their SummerGlo lens that block the draining form of blue light while still allowing in some of the energizing wavelengths. They're also tinted with a special yellow color, scientifically shown to boost mood. And, of course, they have their Sleep+ lens, you can put those on a bed and it's just like, bam, tired. At least that's the way it works for me because actually blue light can block melatonin production, which helps us naturally fall asleep. Also, get their Sleep REMedy Mask. Oh, my goodness, I use it every single night. It gives you complete blackout while still putting no pressure on your eyes. Like you wear it, and you can open your eyes completely, and it's completely black. It's mind-blowing. In case you're wondering, I'm still not supposed to be wearing glasses, but I ordered this weird contraption head thing to hold the glasses over my eyes because I just really need the blue light blocking glasses in my life.

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We also have a question from Sandy. The subject is “Heartburn.” She says, “Four days ago, I completed Gin's book Delay, Don't Deny. Gin’s story was my story, same age, two kiddos, diet roller coaster, photo of me I didn't recognize, etc. The clincher was the T-Factor Diet. That too was my very first diet.” Wait, what was the T-Factor Diet?

Gin Stephens: It's the fat one. It's low fat. T means thermic effect of food or something and I can't remember, something like that, but it was low fat.

Melanie Avalon: Okay. She says, “I've been struggling with getting if just right for about a year with starts and stops, knowing it was perfect for me. Gin story and book were the final puzzle pieces. The insulin and window information or my aha moments. Podcasts are my jam, and I was thrilled to discover yours. I have one question so far. What do you recommend for heartburn while I am in my fasting state? Typically, I take the chewable Tums, but they are sweet flavored. I'm happy to suffer with heartburn to lose weight but for public situations, I will need something. The wave of peace and relief that washed over me after starting your book, you will never know. I slept like a baby that first night knowing I could and would reach my ultimate goal of throwing away my scale. Gin, I love your no-nonsense approach and attitude that you expertly convey on the podcast. I know this will be my year. Thank you, Sandy.” This was a great to have this because this is actually a condition-- She's talking about having heartburn during the fast which we don't know when she was having the heartburn, but I was assuming it was probably during the fast after eating but I did want to make a little qualifier here. Well, first of all, I don't think, Sandy, that you need to suffer with heartburn to lose weight. Heartburn is not a mandatory for losing weight. If you're having heartburn, there's something going on, which I talked about earlier. Adding HCL, adding enzymes addressing your food choices, you can solve the heartburn question.

If you are experiencing heartburn during the fast-- okay, so I don't recommend PPIs. I don't recommend doing anything to reduce stomach acid while you're eating because you want stomach acid while you're eating. However, if you're in the middle of your fast and you have heartburn, and you're still trying to figure this out, you can experiment with taking baking soda to minimize the acid during the fast, but don't do it close to your eating because you don't want to reduce your stomach acid prior to eating. But I would not take Tums.

Gin Stephens: I was going to say the same exact thing. A lot of people use a little bit of baking soda for that. There's an article that I always share. It's from the Houston Heartburn and Reflux Center, Does Fasting Increase Heartburn? They talk about how when you're adjusting to fasting, sometimes it's because you've had those symptoms all along because you kept frequently eating, it kind of masked them. Now that you're fasting, they suddenly are like popping up, if that makes sense. Yes. It seems like you're suddenly having symptoms you hadn't had before but it's because you were constantly soothing it, and now you're fasting. A lot of people then mistakenly think that the fasting causes the heartburn when really it's just allowing you to experience it.

Melanie Avalon: I think that's the case with so many things with fasting.

Gin Stephens: What's GERD stand for?

Melanie Avalon: It's like gastroesophageal reflux something,

Gin Stephens: I can actually be mechanical in nature, and not a sign that you are missing any kind of acid or have too much acid or whatever, it can be a mechanical problem. They actually have surgery they can do in certain situations that you're not going to be able to take anything that's going to solve the problem if you've got the mechanical issue going on.

Melanie Avalon: That's really good to note.

Gin Stephens: It's not always something we can medicate away.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Which is why PPIs are rarely the answer.

Gin Stephens: Oh, no, I wouldn't take one if they try to give me one. Just from what I've read, I think it leads to so many problems. It leads to a lot of problems with digestion and also small intestinal bacterial overgrowth because your food is now going down into your small intestines. In a way, it's undigested.

Melanie Avalon: You don't want to be shutting down your stomach acid production, we need that stuff. We need it so bad.

Gin Stephens: It might solve that problem, but it's going to create another one.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, and actually, I didn't even think about this. We often are supported by BiOptimizers. They're not a supporter of today's episode, but they actually have HCL Breakthrough, which is their stomach acid supplement, and it also has other digestive components to it, so it might be something to check out. It's a really great product, I've used it a lot. If you go to our show notes, you can usually find a coupon code that we have for them. If you dance around the most recent show notes and find the most recent episode that had them on it, there's usually a code. Because often usually our code applies to all of their products, not always, but you might be able to use it on that one.

Gin Stephens: I want to read the last little bit of this from the Houston Heartburn and Reflux Center. This is important. This is like the medical advice straight from them. “If you constantly experience heartburn during intermittent fasting, we recommend a comprehensive GERD evaluation to stage your disease and tailor treatment accordingly.” So, if it's continuing to happen, then you need to have that looked at. Don't just keep taking baking soda.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, yeah, I'm glad you said that.

Gin Stephens: Here, it has to do with-- your esophageal sphincter could be damaged from years of-- anyway. There's a lot that can go on in your body.

Melanie Avalon: Just to iterate, I already said this, but don't take the baking soda right before eating, please.

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions@ifpodcast.com, or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. You can get all the stuff we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike. You can follow us on Instagram. I am MelanieAvalon, Gin is GinStephens. I think that is everything.

Gin Stephens: Oh, can I say something funny about Instagram?

Melanie Avalon: Yes.

Gin Stephens: Every time I post a picture of a cat, my number of followers briefly goes down.

Melanie Avalon: Down?

Gin Stephens: It is so funny. It's happened twice now. [laughs] Yeah, I guess both times I noticed it just because I crossed over a new threshold because I don't really notice what's happening. But a couple days ago, I posted a picture of my cat and I was like, “Oh, look, I have 26,000,” that was a new number. Then I looked and, it was 25.9. A few weeks ago, I had posted a picture of a cat, and it was a similar kind of threshold. I had posted the cat, I'd got down. [laughs] People like must be dog people, or-- Look, I have always said, if you follow me on Instagram, there will be cats.

Melanie Avalon: It's one of the few things. Well, I don't post my pictures of cats, but I love cats. I think cats are great.

Gin Stephens: Well, I'm just living my life on Instagram. I'm not trying to influence you.

Melanie Avalon: I'm posting all of the crazy things that I just need to share with everybody. It's funny, like whenever I meet somebody new, if I'm having a conversation, I feel like oftentimes something will come up really soon in the conversation that I have a link for. I'm always self-conscious about it because it's like I've just met this person. I'm like, “Oh, if you go to this link, there's a coupon code.” I feel like it comes off like I'm trying to sell something and from the first conversation. It comes up with wine, for example, because wine is often the first topic of conversation with random people. Dry Farm Wines will come up and I’ll be like, “Oh, if you go to dryfarmwines.com/melanieavalon, or, by the way ifpodcast.com, they can get a bottle for a penny. We're not trying to sell it to you. I just--

Gin Stephens: It's really good, you're going to be glad you got it.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I know. I just feel the need to share everything.

Gin Stephens: Well, let me ask you this. Have you always done that from the time before the podcast. Before we had coupon codes, weren't you always telling everybody everything you did anyway?

Melanie Avalon: Yes, I just now have coupon codes and links for all of them.

Gin Stephens: Malcolm Gladwell talks about it in his book. I can't remember which one. We're mavens. We're the people who try stuff and then tell everybody.

Melanie Avalon: I must tell the people.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that's what I always did. Going back, way before this, I can remember my friend was reading whatever that book was that he talks about that in. She was reading it for a graduate-level class, and this is way before I had books and podcasts. She came to work one day and said, “Oh my God, you're a maven,” because I just always tell people everything that I was doing and make suggestions. That's why we have a podcast.

Melanie Avalon: It's why we have these shows. [laughs]

Gin Stephens: This is how we can just be our mavenly self, but we just can't help it, but tell you about stuff.

Melanie Avalon: The disclaimer I realized I just need to have with these people at the beginning is, I need to say, “I'm really passionate about a lot of things. I do a lot in the biohacking sphere. If there's ever any product or something related to health, wellness, biohacking, I probably have a link for it that I can give you a coupon for,” which is very true.

Gin Stephens: When I first started a new job when we moved to Carrollton, Georgia, I was a new third-grade teacher there, several years after I'd been there. We were all at lunch one day, and they talked about how I annoyed them when I first got there. They thought I was just over the top with all of my excited ideas. They're like, “Yeah, one girl, she was like, ‘yeah, you came in, you were like 90 miles an hour.’ We were like, ‘Oh my God. Who is this girl?’ With all of your ideas.” She's like, “Now, once we got to know you, we're like, “Yeah, whatever Gin said.” [laughs] That was really good that they told me that because it helped me realize that I needed to not go into new situations 90 miles an hour. After a few years, they were like, “Okay, whatever Gin says, we'll do that.” But prior to that, they had to get to know me.

Melanie Avalon: It is really nice to have built the trust in the community. People do want to know now my recommendations, so I still don't hold any liability and I don't guarantee that anything will. You’ve got to find what works for you.

Gin Stephens: That's true.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I'm just telling you about things that worked for me personally, and they might bring joy and wonderfulness to your life as well.

Gin Stephens: Or feel free to say, “No, I don't want to learn about the Krebs cycle. Thank you.” [laughs] All righty. Well, that was a really loud long epilogue at the end here, but I will talk to you next week.

Melanie Avalon: Likewise.

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, Interments Fasting Stories and the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. Theme music was composed by Leland Cox. See you next week.

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