Episode 232: Politely Declining Food, Gain Health, Changing Mindset, When The IF Stops Working, Injury & Becoming Sedentary, And More!

Welcome to Episode 232 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Gin Stephens, author of Delay, Don't Deny: Living An Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle. 

Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:

BUTCHERBOX: Grass-Fed Beef, Organic Chicken, Heritage Pork, Wild-Caught Seafood: Nutrient-Rich, Raised Sustainably The Way Nature Intended, And Shipped Straight To Your Door! For A Limited Time Go To butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Free Ground Beef For LIFE!!

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 Month And Free Shipping!

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

SHOW NOTES

BUTCHERBOX: For A Limited Time Go To butcherbox.com/ifpodcast And Get Free Ground Beef For LIFE!!

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! Find Your Perfect Beautycounter Products With Melanie's Quiz: melanieavalon.com/beautycounterquiz
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!

The Diet Myth: Why the Secret to Health and Weight Loss Is Already in Your Gut (Tim Spector)

Spoon-Fed: Why Almost Everything We’ve Been Told About Food Is Wrong (Tim Spector)

To join the ZOE app and learn about your unique body!

Listener Feedback: Lorraine - I'm Impressed

Stay Up To Date With All The News And Pre-Order Info About Melanie's New Serrapeptase Supplement At Melanieavalon.Com/Serrapeptase!

Listener Feedback: Tracey - Listener feedback for ep. 227

Intermittent Fasting: Live ‘Fast,’ Live longer?

Clean(ish): Eat (Mostly) Clean, Live (Mainly) Clean, and Unlock Your Body's Natural Ability to Self-Clean

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

Listener Q&A: Jennifer - Gained a Few and Don't want to get derailed

Never Binge Again: How Thousands of People Have Stopped Overeating and Binge Eating - and Stuck to the Diet of Their Choice! (By Reprogramming Themselves to Think Differently About Food.) (Glenn Livingston, PhD)

The Little Book of Big Change: The No-Willpower Approach to Breaking Any Habit (Amy Johnson)

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 232 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 Fast. Feast. Repeat.: The Comprehensive Guide to Delay, Don't Deny Intermittent Fasting. 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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And one more thing before we jump in. Are you fasting clean inside and out? Did you know that one of our largest exposures to toxic compounds, including endocrine disrupters which mess with our hormones, obesogens which literally cause our body to store and gain weight, as well as carcinogens linked to cancer is actually through our skincare? Europe has banned thousands of these compounds for being toxic, and the US has only banned around 10. It's honestly shocking. So, when you're putting on your conventional skincare and makeup, you're likely putting toxic compounds directly into your body. These compounds can make you feel bad, can make it really hard to lose weight, can affect your hormones, your mood, your health. And ladies, if you're thinking of having kids, when you have a child, these compounds actually go directly through the placenta into the newborn. That means your skincare and makeup that you're putting on today actually affects the health of future generations. Did you know that conventional lipstick for example often tests high for lead, and the half-life of lead can be up to 30 years in your bones? That means when you put on your lipstick, 30 years later, half of that lead might still be in your body.

Thankfully, there's an easy, easy solution to this. There's a company called Beautycounter and they were founded on a mission to change this. Every single ingredient in their products is extensively tested to be safe for your skin, you can actually feel good about what you put on. And on top of that, their products actually work. That's because they're not “all natural.” They actually combine the best of both worlds, both synthetic and natural ingredients, to create products that actually support the health of your skin and make your skin look amazing. They have skincare lines for all your skin types, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner that I love, antiaging and brightening peels and vitamin C serums, and incredible makeup. If you see my makeup on Instagram, that's all Beautycounter. You can shop with us at melanieavalon.com/beautycounter.

And if you're thinking of making safe skincare a part of your future, like we have, we definitely suggest becoming a Band of Beauty member. It's sort of like the Amazon Prime for clean beauty. You get 10% back in product credit, free shipping on qualifying orders and a welcome gift that is worth way more than the price of the yearlong membership, totally completely worth it. Also, definitely join my clean beauty email list at melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty, I give away a lot of free things on that list and join me on my Facebook group, Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon. I do a weekly giveaway every single week for Beautycounter, people share their experience and product reviews, and so much more. And again, the link to shop with us is melanieavalon.com/beautycounter. All right, now enjoy the show.

Melanie Avalon: Hi, everybody and welcome. This is Episode number 232 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. Guess what I'm doing right now?

Gin Stephens: Recording a podcast. [laughs] Sorry, I had to.

Melanie Avalon: Guess what else I am doing?

Gin Stephens: No.

Melanie Avalon: You actually don't know?

Gin Stephens: No, I don't know.

Melanie Avalon: Because sometimes, you know. Sometimes, I ask you a question, you know. I am doing ZOE thing.

Gin Stephens: Oh, very cool.

Melanie Avalon: I am on day three. That is the Muffin Day.

Gin Stephens: Ooh. It's Muffin Day. How are you feeling on Muffin Day?

Melanie Avalon: I've been so nervous about this Muffin Day for three weeks.

Gin Stephens: And?

Melanie Avalon: I haven't had the muffins yet, but the issue, I am so comfortable with my one meal a day pattern, I want to do the muffins in my one meal a day, and-- I should backtrack. So, for listeners who are not familiar, ZOE is something that Gin and I have talked about a lot on this show. It's led by Tim Spector, who wrote, actually reading his first book right now, The Diet Myth, and what's the second one? Even though, I just read it.

Gin Stephens: Spoon-Fed?

Melanie Avalon: Spoon-Fed. So, he wrote those books and he started ZOE, which it was originally the PREDICT study which Gin took place in, correct?

Gin Stephens: No, I did not take place to PREDICT 1 or 2. By the time I did ZOE, it was technically PREDICT 3. Yes. So, my data, it will be in PREDICT 3. But I did ZOE as a consumer, and you had to opt in. So, your data may be in the study too.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, actually, is that I was opting in? Does that mean I'm actually part of the study?

Gin Stephens: Sounds like it, if you opted in. Yeah. Because they're still very much studying. That's why they keep changing things up, because the study continues. It's ongoing.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, gotcha. Is there a waitlist now? Do we know? I think they got rid of the waitlist now.

Gin Stephens: They were having trouble fitting in people, but then they opened up. They were able to handle more people now.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, gotcha. So, for listeners, it's a lot of stuff. I did the microbiome sample.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, that part was a lot.

Melanie Avalon: That was like nothing for me.

Gin Stephens: Okay. Well, it was different when I did the American Gut Project back in 2017. It was a simpler process, let me just say. The ZOE process was a little more hands all in now, I'll just put it like that.

Melanie Avalon: How was it for the American Gut Project?

Gin Stephens: It just involved. I don't want to get too detailed. Everyone if you're squeamish fluttered away for a minute, but [laughs] involved toilet paper and a Q-tip.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, interesting. Oh, wow.

Gin Stephens: Yes. As opposed to, we joked about it in the moderator group. We called it the poop sling. [laughs] The people that were going through it involved a poop sling and a scooper. Do you have a poop sling and a scooper?

Melanie Avalon: I have done so many poop tests as they're called. This one does use the sling contraption. I was like, “Wow, this makes it so easy.”

Gin Stephens: Oh, thank goodness for the poop sling.

Melanie Avalon: I've never done one with [giggles] a sling before, and what's so amazing is, you just flush it straight into the toilet. Normally, you're having to collect in a bucket or some sort of thing, and then you have to discard of that. Normally, there's a lot more to the process. This, I was like, “Wow.”

Gin Stephens: Okay, well, I'm very grateful. But it was still way more in depth than the one I'd done before. I was like, “Where's the Q-tip? What?”

Melanie Avalon: And only required a tiny, tiny sample. Sometimes, they require a lot.

Gin Stephens: Some of the moderators, I love my moderator family, but a couple of them that write little messages, whoever the guy's name was that he was addressed to, they're like, "Dear such and such," they wrote him a note, when they mailed it to him.

Melanie Avalon: Did it say who it's addressed to?

Gin Stephens: I'm pretty sure it does. It did back then. It had that a person's name that it was addressed to on the address label that they wrote them personal note. So, I thought that was sweet.

Melanie Avalon: I am very impressed with how streamlined it all is. I don't know how much has changed since you did it, but it's very--

Gin Stephens: They care very much about the user experience, and they also care very much about the research and the data, because that's really what they're doing, is they are pioneering this type of research, and it's always changing, and it's always getting better.

Melanie Avalon: They even call you when you first get your kit. They set up a call, which I was like, “That's very impressive.”

Gin Stephens: It was impressive. I have a link at ginstephens.com/zoe. I know you're going to have a link eventually too. But for now, if anybody wants to read more about it.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, they gave me a link and code. So, that's cool. I actually interview Tim Spector next week.

Gin Stephens: Oh, I’d love it.

Melanie Avalon: That's exciting. I have so many questions, though, about these muffins. I'm going to ask him so many questions. I'm very confused about-- So, the muffins. We haven't said what the muffins are yet. There are breakfast, lunch, and then the next day, lunch muffins. I don't know if I'm going to do the next day. They said it's optional. I might just do it today. But they're made of different calorie breakdowns of carbs, and fat, and calories. So, you take a blood test, and they analyze how you are reacting or how you're processing fat and sugar, because if you are opting into the study, you wear a CGM which they provide as well, which is super amazing. Although the one I'm wearing right now, I've been wearing so many CGMs. I can tell when it's off, and this one is off. I'm pretty sure.

I'm just very curious about what conclusions they draw, and this is what I'm going to ask him on the muffins with muffins being an ultra-processed food, how might the findings be different? This is really helpful, because I haven't vocalized this yet. So, this helps me when I interview him next week. How might the findings be different if it was the exact same calories, exact same macros, but whole foods?

Gin Stephens: I guess this would be worst-case scenario. The muffins are the worst-case scenario food you could eat. So, it's going to show you your worst-case processing scenario. Then obviously, it's going to be better with real foods. But it still will show the fat still as fat, sugar is sugar at a basic level. But they want to see what happens when they dump it straight into your bloodstream. What do you do with it? So, it's probably better that it's ultra-processed garbage food than a mixed meal, which is going to have so many other variables. This is the quickest way to get a whole big load into your system, right?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, what I'm also curious about, you do the breakfast muffin which, I think-- So, one of them is supposed to represent the standard American meal, which I think is the breakfast, and then the lunch one represents a lower everything meal, lower fat, lower calorie, and then you take the prick after-- which by the way, did you say it was difficult for you to do the finger prick?

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I didn't like the finger prick. I had to squeeze and I'm usually a pretty good bleeder, but I had to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze so much blood out of my finger that it hurt, bruised it.

Melanie Avalon: I'm nervous. I was reading now.

Gin Stephens: Oh, have you not done it yet?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. What's funny is it takes six hours from start to finish doing the breakfast and the lunch muffins. Because normally I don't start eating until way later. So, I keep thinking about it. But I'm going to start I think at 7 PM which means I will be doing the fingerpick at 1 AM.

Gin Stephens: [laughs] Oh, you're going to be a very interesting case.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I'm going to have to take off my blue light blocking glasses because I can't see the color red when I wear them so I won't be able to see the blood.

Gin Stephens: It will be okay. Take off your blue light glasses just for one day.

Melanie Avalon: The things I do. I scheduled a colonic tomorrow just in case it messes up my digestion. I'm taking this very seriously.

Gin Stephens: I wonder how that would impact things.

Melanie Avalon: Well, it shouldn't impact anything because it's going to be after the fact.

Gin Stephens: But I mean, in general.

Melanie Avalon: Well, it's just your large intestine that affects and all of the processing is in your small intestine. So, I don't think it would affect.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, I don't know much about colonics.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I do. [laughs]

Gin Stephens: I know zero. Yeah, I just learned more about a colonic than I ever knew. This does not seem like something I want to do.

Melanie Avalon: The small intestine is not really accessible by any means. That's why when you do a colonoscopy, you have to clear out your system from the top down. So, yes, I'm excited. We'll see. We shall see.

Gin Stephens: Oh, I'm glad you're excited.

Melanie Avalon: I was so nervous. I looked at the ingredients on these muffins. I just know they're going to taste amazing.

Gin Stephens: Okay, well, I can’t wait to hear from you how they were, because I was excited, because I like muffins in general, I'm a muffin lover. I'm like, “This is going to be delicious.” They were not, they were very hard to get down. By the time I got to the last one, I was like, “No more.” I've never heard anyone say they love the muffin ever yet.

Melanie Avalon: You're going to hear it from me.

Gin Stephens: Well, promise that you're going to not just say it to say. You have to be honest.

Melanie Avalon: I don't lie.

Gin Stephens: Okay.

Melanie Avalon: [laughs] If I don't like it, I'll tell you.

Gin Stephens: Well, it's like my niece's, they were like guaranteed. They would like coconut water. We were at the beach in June, they're like, “Can we try that, Aunt Gin?” I’m like, “You're not going to like it.” You just like the name of it. Coconut water sounds better than it is to a child. You're not going to like it. They're like, “We promise, we will.” Then I gave them each just a little bit, and they're like, “Oh, yum,” but then they didn't drink a second amount, and they didn't want anymore. I'm like, “You don't want anymore?” I said, “You don't like it?” They're like, “Oh, no, we like it.” One of them said, “We just don't like the way it smells.” I'm like, “Okay.” They would rather die than admit to me that they didn't like it after claiming they were going to like it.

Melanie Avalon: That's so funny. That's really funny. Especially, since so much of taste is smell, so if you don't like the way it smells, I highly doubt--

Gin Stephens: Well, they didn't like anything about it. I knew they weren't going to like coconut water. I love coconut water. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: That's funny. The thing I'm dreading I think the most about the muffins, this will be the first time Gin in-- I don't remember the last time, doing intermittent fasting, the way we both do it, it's very much understood in our feeding window that we don't have to stop eating. So, that's what I'm dreading. I know I'm going to eat those two muffins, and I'm going to be really hungry, and I have to wait four hours.

Gin Stephens: I was starving. That is exactly what happened. I was so hungry, and I wanted to eat something else, and I couldn't.

Melanie Avalon: I feel like I relate to all of these listeners that are dreading the fasting period, because, ugh, I have to eat the two muffins, and then I made a list of things to do for four hours. [laughs] I'm like, “What can I do? I can go run an errand? I could go talk to the Whole Foods guy, maybe?”

Gin Stephens: Oh, my gosh, that's hilarious.

Melanie Avalon: Because he works on Fridays.

Gin Stephens: Yeah? But yes, I definitely was hungry in between the muffins, and that was the hardest part. Even though they didn't taste good to me, I didn't like them, the hard part was literally not being able to eat.

Melanie Avalon: The big task I'm going to do though for reals and oh, this is just a really quick fun fact, you know my hydroponic cucumbers?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: I was feeling like such a failure because it started dying. I didn't realize cucumber plants, they're the type that just die. They don't come back. Their lifespan is only 70 days. So, it was time for them to die, but I had a moment where I was like, “Oh, my goodness. What did I do?”

Gin Stephens: You're a bad cucumber mama.

Melanie Avalon: But it's their time. So, I've got to deconstruct all that and start a new garden. Maybe that'll take four hours.

Gin Stephens: Well, that'll take a while.

Melanie Avalon: So, that's good.

Gin Stephens: Well, I'm home from the beach and it's so quiet in Augusta after being at the beach, because it's so loud. The shore, the waves, the wind.

Melanie Avalon: Are people loud?

Gin Stephens: Well, sometimes people are. Those jokers who were setting off fireworks outside my window at 4 AM one night, they were loud. I was not happy about that. [laughs] I woke up. I'm like, “What is that?” The teacher in me, I wanted to run outside and say, "What are you doing?" But I didn't because I'm like, I don't want these people to know where I live if they're the kind of people out there shooting off fireworks on the beach at 4 AM.

Melanie Avalon: I wonder if anybody-- I'm sure in the history of America this has happened, like somebody's showing off a firework and then shot it into a house.

Gin Stephens: Well probably. My neighbor at the beach was telling me about a time that one of their cousins or something was there and caught the dunes on fire with their fireworks. [laughs] Glad, they didn't do that while I was asleep.

Melanie Avalon: I know.

Gin Stephens: Anyway, it's nice to be home. Chad sure did miss me, though. [laughs] Yeah, because he's been eating-- he's not as cleanish as me. Let me just put it that way. So, he's been eating like fried chicken finger, frozen ones that he gets out of the freezer and then microwaves. I’m like gross.

Melanie Avalon: Sounds like my dad.

Gin Stephens: No, but he also has been eating Daily Harvest smoothies. I had like a bunch stocked up in the fridge, and he's like, “I ate all the smoothies.” I'm like, “What?” He's like, “Yep.” [laughs] That's the only nutrition I guess that he had. He was blending them up. At least, he got some nutrients in him.

Melanie Avalon: Well, welcome back.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, it's good to be back. Although I do already miss the beach, but [sighs]

Melanie Avalon: What are you going to do? Go back?

Gin Stephens: Eventually. Right now, the renter that's going to be there for the whole month this September, we're recording this on a Friday, should check in. She or he, I don't know, checks in tomorrow. My neighbors are there and I'm like spy on this renter and let me know. [laughs] Send me a text and let me know what's happening, because they're going to be there for a month. So, I'm very interested in supposed to be one adult. I hope that's true. One adult is likely to be pretty safe.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Sounds like it. Unless it's one crazy adult who throws the parties.

Gin Stephens: Well, I don't know. [laughs] Hopefully not.

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Melanie Avalon: Well, shall we jump into everything for today?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: All right. To start things off, we've got some listener feedback, and this comes from Lorraine. Lorraine says, "Hi, Melanie. I'm not easy to impress and not want to write fan mail, but I feel compelled to tell you, you are making an impact. I've been with you from the first IF podcast in the spring of 2017. I remember listening to you and Gin chatting about how great it would be to have a sponsor someday. Now, look at you. I am so happy for you both.

Gin Stephens: Isn't that funny? I remember that though. It was a long time before we had a sponsor like a year. It was like an insurance company. That was our first sponsor.

Melanie Avalon: That's crazy. And now there are brands literally every day wanting to come on the show. She says, how I found you was truly a moment of, wait, I don't know this word.

Gin Stephens: Kismet?

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. What does that mean?

Gin Stephens: It was just meant to be or something like that.

Melanie Avalon: How is that not in my vocabulary?

Gin Stephens: I don't know.

Melanie Avalon: Do you think it's an archaic word that's getting phased out?

Gin Stephens: I don't know. I've just always heard it. I don't know what the origin is. Let me look it up. Kismet, fate. Is that Yiddish? Actually, it was Turkish, it was Arabic.

Melanie Avalon: Oh.

Gin Stephens: Kismet.

Melanie Avalon: Anyway.

Gin Stephens: Fate or destiny.

Melanie Avalon: Learn something new every day. Lorraine says, "I've been researching natural remedies for healing diverticulitis. The only info I could find was ads for potions and brews that didn't have any science behind them. One morning, I thought if I had a broken arm, would I keep using it? Of course, not. So, I started researching, rest in the gut, and all kinds of fasting info came up. That led to intermittent fasting and I was hooked. It reminded me that in high school, I ate one meal a day." Interesting, she was doing that in high school.

Gin Stephens: I think a lot of people naturally get into that pattern.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's really interesting.

Gin Stephens: Until they're told you have to eat breakfast and then they start forcing themselves, and then they feel terrible. They think they have to do it. So, they do it.

Gin Stephens: She says when she was doing it in high school, it felt familiar and right. "That same week, my son suggested I listen to podcasts. He downloaded the app and said type in something you want to learn about. One entry came up for intermittent fasting. You and Gin were there with Episode number 1. I heard the lost episode."

Gin Stephens: We only had one episode at the time. So, this was May. We now know when it was, May of 2017. That's great. This is funny though. She's the second person to mention that episode to me today. I interviewed someone on my podcast today, and he was like--

Melanie Avalon: Had they heard it?

Gin Stephens: No. He was like, “I never got an Episode 1.” I'm like, “Yeah, sorry.” [laughs] The lost, episode, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: Do we tell our personal stories in it?

Gin Stephens: It was. It was our diet stories. But we've told our diet story so many times since then, y'all aren't missing anything, everybody.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. She says, for four years you and Gin have been with me teaching, encouraging, and sharing. In fact, you answered my email on Episode 64. You were both so concerned for me. So sweet, almost 10 whole minutes on my little-known condition. Since then, I have all your books, listen to all your podcasts, listen to the books from the people on your podcast, take serrapeptase, use red lights daily, have an Oura Ring, have tried Feals, I will give them a call to see about dosing, and wearing a CGM, I have SelfDecode, I take very cool showers which is huge for me, and most recently, I am a huge Beautycounter fan. I am super fussy, and each product I have ordered has surpassed my expectations. I love all the skincare. The mascara and lipstick are the best I ever used. Then came the shampoo and conditioner. Oh, my goodness, the washing experience is luxurious. My hair feels wonderful and my husband loves the way it smells.

You have brought so much amazing information to us all. While it may not be appropriate to say as I have had nothing to do with your development, but I am so proud of you. I see your dedication and all the work you put into everything you do, and I'm so impressed. It's strange to feel like I know you and know you have no idea who I am. But hopefully, knowing you are making a difference is a small payback for all you do. Thanks for everything, much gratitude, Lorraine."

Gin Stephens: Oh, I love that Lorraine.

Melanie Avalon: Well, I loved that as well. I love that she organically came up with the idea about resting the gut, and then came to intermittent fasting from that. She was like, “Hmm. Maybe this concept--

Gin Stephens: "A part of me is not working. I need to rest it."

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. I just thought that was really incredible.

Gin Stephens: Me too. And I love that she loves Beautycounter. I tell you, when Melanie, you first told me about Beautycounter, I was like, “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” [laughs] I don't know if I told anybody though, you forced me to try it by sending it to me.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I literally sent--

Gin Stephens: I was like, “I don't want to. I like what I use. I like what I'm using. I've been using it for years," and you're like, “No, really, you need to try it.” I'm like, “Okay, I'm not going to like it, but you can send it to me.” [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: I was sold more on the concept, like removing the endocrine disruptors, and then it was so nice. Their makeup is just amazing. So, I finally could just switch over my makeup, and it was epic makeup, but I wasn't using the skincare, and I have slowly come to the skincare because I've seen how everybody's obsessed with it.

Gin Stephens: Oh, like my friend, Sheri, that does Life Lessons with me. I can't think of the name of it. But she has-- Is it miasma, is that the name of it, the dark patches on your skin? I can't remember. But she had this dark, patchy, whatever it's called on her skin, and it has cleared it up.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow. Using what?

Gin Stephens: Whatever the one that's in the pink bottles.

Melanie Avalon: The Countertime.

Gin Stephens: Yes, she uses Countertime, because she was just at the beach house, and all of her stuff was lined up in there, and I was like, “That is so pretty.” She has the whole regimen. It was all lined up. I've got my whole set of it at the beach. Right before I left, I packed it all into the owner's closet. [laughs] You've got your owner closet and you lock it up. So, that thing was-- you couldn't have put one more thing in that owner's closet.

Melanie Avalon: The thing I'm obsessed with now of their product that I had been telling people to use because I knew it was great, and people were telling me, it was great. Oh, by the way, for listeners, I have a whole Facebook group for this called Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare. But have you tried their overnight resurfacing peel?

Gin Stephens: Yes.

Melanie Avalon: I'm obsessed. I use it every single night now.

Gin Stephens: And your face doesn't really peel. Mine didn’t peel. Does yours peel? It's not like a peel peel. It sounds like you're going to peel, because have you ever used a peel that you put on and then you peel it off? It's not that at all. I just wanted to clarify that because you may be expecting it to be different.

Melanie Avalon: It's supposed to do what those expensive peels do. Those peels that you might go get, it's supposed to do that. But it's just like more like a serum. I am obsessed with it and their new mascara, so, yes for listeners, if you'd like to get your own Beautycounter, you can get it at melanieavalon.com/beautycounter. Also, I just want to mention for Lorraine, she mentioned serrapeptase. For listeners, I am moving forward. Right now, what I'm working on is creating the logo, because the name is Avalon X, and I think I want to make the X look like DNA somehow.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's fun.

Melanie Avalon: I've been playing around with that. If listeners would like to get on the preorder list, you can go to melanieavalon.com/serrapeptase. Then one last thing, Lorraine mentioned Feals. I did not plan this. They're actually a sponsor on today's show. So, if you would like more information about them, they make an amazing, incredible CBD, which side note by the way, I cannot tell you how often CBD brands approached me.

Gin Stephens: Oh, all the time. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: All the time. I think two last week. I’m like, “I'm sorry, I love Feals.” So, listeners check out that ad for more information about them. They have an amazing offer with us. I'm not sure what the offer is right now, but the link will be feals.com/ifpodcast, and if you listen to the ad, you can get whatever the offer is.

Gin Stephens: Awesome.

Melanie Avalon: And Lorraine, thank you so much for your email. We're so happy for you, and it really means a lot. It's really, really wonderful to read that, and we're super happy for you. So, thank you.

Gin Stephens: Really it does. It makes me so happy to think of people who listen every week, and she said that she feels like she knows us. Well, she does. [laughs] We put it all out there. So, if you feel like you know us, you really do because we are not different in person than we are on the air.

Melanie Avalon: You know what’s funny? I was just thinking about that. We have shared so much of ourselves, we are our authentic selves on this show. So, people do know us.

Gin Stephens: They do. they do. [laughs] If you saw me in public, I'd be talking to you exactly the same way as I do on the show. Yeah, that's the thing. I can't be any other way than I am, [laughs] hard as I try. I've tried certain times. I'm like, “Don’t do that. Stop.” I'm like, “I can't help it.” [laughs] Sigh. It's good, and it's bad.

Melanie Avalon: Yes. I can attest that this is the way we are.

Gin Stephens: Yeah. Well, anyway, I love doing the podcast. It's like such a good--

Melanie Avalon: It's just so fun.

Gin Stephens: It really is. It is. But thank you, Lorraine.

Melanie Avalon: I learn a lot because people ask questions that make me think about new things. It's nice to hear what's happening from people in the intermittent fasting world. It’s just nice.

Gin Stephens: It really is. I love to think of people who have listened from the beginning.

Melanie Avalon: I know. Episode 1.

Gin Stephens: Now, we have a question from Tracy, and the subject is "Listener feedback for Episode 227." Tracy says, "Hello ladies, thank you for this show. I appreciate the weekly chats. When I listened to Sarah's questions at the end of Episode 227, I got the impression that her question about how to navigate non-window [unintelligible [00:32:59] offerings could use some sample language. Specifically, when a simple no thank you is not respected. I'm often invited to lunch by people who don't know that I don't eat that early. Here's what I say when offered to eat something that I don't want to eat. No, thank you. No, thank you, I'm not hungry. No, thank you. I'm not hungry. I'm really not hungry. No, thank you, I'm not hungry. I'm really not hungry. Trust me." [laughs] That's funny. I love that, Tracy.

She said, "I definitely tried to change the subject after each dismissal. But some people just don't take no for an answer. If they continue to press, I let them know that when I eat when I'm not hungry, essentially, force feeding myself, I get immediately queasy and will need to leave, and the rest of my day will be ruined. Then, my very clear subject change is usually accepted. The key is to not give in and to speak with courage. It takes a little practice but it gets easier.

Now, I have a quick note to Melanie about her Feals copy. I recommend googling the difference between robbery or burglary. Your apartment was burgled, you are not there. If you were there and threatened, then you would have been robbed. Another word for robbed is mugged. Both require your presence. I'm happy that you weren't there. So, I'm happy that you were not robbed, and I can only empathize with the violation of being burgled. Thank you, again for the show. You to make my Monday morning drive something to look forward to. Best, Tracy."

Melanie Avalon: I love this email from Tracy, and it's so interesting. People think that the most difficult thing about starting intermittent fasting will be the hunger or the actual fasting period. But for a lot of people that actually is not that difficult, and people are often very surprised by that. It can be hard and it can be a transition, but I think it often ends up being a lot easier than people expect compared to on the flip side, I think a lot of people don't anticipate dealing with a social aspect of it can actually be a difficult-- depending on who you're with a difficult environment to navigate more so than people often realize. It's just really interesting how people can get so invested or almost intrusive about your own personal eating decisions. So, I think it's really healthy to feel confident about why you're doing what you're doing, and also feel like you don't have to give in to pressure from other people, and to feel okay about that. I think it's really nice to have, go to actual sample sentences to give. It's funny. In What When Wine I give sample sentences. Do you have them in your books, Gin?

Gin Stephens: I don't think so. I'm more of like just tell him you're doing intermittent fasting. [laughs] Honestly, but I do talk about the topic. I can't remember how I what I said about it. But I think in this day and age, we should just tell people and plant that seed, even if they think you're crazy, you're not and just plant the seed, and maybe one day, they'll want to know more and want to do it themselves.

Melanie Avalon: When I first wrote the book and was coming up with that section, I feel like so much has changed. It is a lot easier now to say you're doing intermittent fasting and people will understand.

Gin Stephens: Every person you talk to about it has either tried it or they know someone who has. Most of them know someone who's had success with it. So, it's not out there and weird like it used to be.

Melanie Avalon: You could always do it. But you can say that that's what you're doing, and most people will understand.

Gin Stephens: To say, I follow an intermittent fasting lifestyle and my window isn't open yet. That's all.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, in the past, when it wasn't well known, it was just wasn't known, it came off as very strange. [laughs] Often, depending on who you're with.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, oh, it did. People will be like, “What?” Well, okay. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: They thought you were being way unnecessarily restrictive, or doing some crazy crash diet, or it seemed unhealthy. But now, it's pretty much understood.

Gin Stephens: Really. It's like that turning point was that New England Journal of Medicine article in December of 2019, and it was all over the media that next week. You could not turn the TV on without a news article.

Melanie Avalon: Which one was that? Who did it?

Gin Stephens: It was Mark Mattson.

Melanie Avalon: Was it, [unintelligible 00:37:22]?

Gin Stephens: No, it was Dr. Mark Mattson from Johns Hopkins. That article was the real turning point, because it was the first mainstream message about it for health benefits. It wasn't about losing weight. That was not an article about how to lose weight. I've said this before, I don't know if I've said it on this podcast but what really excited me after that article came out is, when people were joining the Facebook group, we ask why are you interested in intermittent fasting, the general answer had always been is, I want to lose weight. That's what most people said. But all of a sudden, people were saying, I want to get healthy. I was like, “This is the biggest thing that's ever happened,” because I've been saying for a long time, intermittent fasting is the health plan with a side effect of weight loss. But still the paradigm out there was, I do intermittent fasting to lose weight. That's what people would say. Not just me I but the generic I. When people were like, “Oh, I'm doing it to be healthy," I was like,” Now, you've got it. Now, we've reached a turning point," because it's such a healthy way to live. If you do intermittent fasting, you never lose a single pound ever. You're still a success, because you're doing something that's healthy for your body.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, actually, similarly to that like I said, I'm making my way through The Diet Myth, and what I was listening to right before we started recording, he was talking about the role of exercise and weight loss. He was saying, is it healthier to be lean and sedentary or not? I think, he says fat. Like fat and fit. Yeah, fat and fit. He was saying that it's healthier to be fat and fit, and the point of everything that I'm saying and the parallel to what you were saying is, there's so much more and things we do like exercise or intermittent fasting that affect metabolic factors, and health, and disease risk, and just so many things that are independent of the weight.

Gin Stephens: Exactly, and for all those years when I was trapped in diet mentality, I only wanted to do things that would decrease the size of my body. That was it. That was my goal. Decrease the size of my body. Even if it was eating, drinking shakes, I got and eating this cardboard tasting diet food, it was just to make my body smaller. That stuff wasn't healthy at all. But when you start looking at your life, I want to be healthy. When I really made that mindset shift, “Oh, I want a happy healthy eat, and live a long time,” and that's when I really started changing what I was doing, and doing things that were high impact. So, I don't do intermittent fasting, because it helps me maintain my weight. I do it because it's healthy. I'm glad it helps me maintain my weight. But even if it didn't, I wouldn't stop doing it.

Melanie Avalon: For both of us, our journeys really did lead to that. Like with me, and my Biohacking Podcast, it's really all about, that's what it's about really is finding the different things that support health and longevity, and you with Clean(ish), you're exploring things in our environment, in our food, and everything that really do affect our health from that perspective.

Gin Stephens: I don't know. When we're trying to write the description for it, or wherever the conversation with the editorial team about, how do we want to describe it, and they really want to put weight loss in it, as far as like what should people expect as far as weight loss? I'm like, “No, that's not what this book is.” [laughs] I had a hard time convincing them. This is not a weight loss book. It's a health book. It's not a book, I'm not promising you're going to lose any weight at all. We're not getting cleanish to lose weight. I had to be really firm, and finally, they heard me and my editor loves the book, which makes me so happy. We had a phone conversation the other day. She really loves it. I had to fight for a lot of things, and luckily, they listen. I've got a great editorial team. So, that's good. But I'm like, “No, no weight loss promises. This is not a weight loss book.”

Melanie Avalon: When's the release date, again?

Gin Stephens: It's January 4th.

Melanie Avalon: When will you have the galley?

Gin Stephens: I have till Tuesday. They sent me the PDF of what the galley is going to look like. So, I have to give it a read, and let them know if anything needs to be changed before they print the galleys.

Melanie Avalon: I want to book you for my show. [laughs] Will you come back on my show?

Gin Stephens: I would love to come back on your show. This is all not new information for you obviously. I went down so many different paths with it, and it really just inspired me to make changes, and why it really is so important. Little changes. You don't have to change everything. It's impossible to change everything unless you live in a bubble. If you've lived in a bubble, what's that bubble made of? Is the bubble clean? [laughs] You can go down so many rabbit holes, but just knowing that little changes do add up to big changes.

Melanie Avalon: Super excited for you.

Gin Stephens: Well, thank you.

Melanie Avalon: And I'm grateful because it's really great that you can share this message because you have such a large platform, and I think it's such an important message.

Gin Stephens: Well, it is an important message. I think people are ready to hear it, and ready to make changes, but without getting crazy. That's the thing. So many of the books-- When I'm writing something, I like to look and see what's already out there about it. And so many of the books are so hardcore, and it's an impossible standard to live up to. Then, you feel like a failure.

Melanie Avalon: Mm-hmm, exactly.

Gin Stephens: But you can't. Even with intermittent fasting, you have to have flexibility in how you live your life, and know what makes the difference. So, hopefully, I'll inspire people to make some changes.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. All right. Then, last thing, I did not know that about the burglar versus robbery.

Gin Stephens: I did but then again, I was an elementary teacher. Things like that, I spend a lot of time on word meanings, and vocabulary lessons, and [laughs] things like that.

Melanie Avalon: I adore words. So, I love-- Anytime listeners want to tell me fun facts about words, I receive them with open arms.

Gin Stephens: Yeah, me too. I love that kind of thing too. That's probably why I became an elementary teacher because you've got to do stuff like that. But yes, you were burgled. Also, loved the sound of that word. I don't like being burgled.

Melanie Avalon: It sounds like muggle like oh, and then there's the word, mug. Yeah.

Gin Stephens: Or, burger. You are burgered, burgled.

Melanie Avalon: I don't know if this is word [unintelligible 00:43:52], but it doesn't sound like a very pretty word. Burgled.

Gin Stephens: Burgled.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. And I don't know. The G sound. It's like, I don't know.

Gin Stephens: Well, it's not a good experience. I've never been burgled or mugged. Well, that's not true. When I was 10-- this is a very sad story. Have I ever told you the story?

Melanie Avalon: No.

Gin Stephens: When I was 10, I would come visit my dad down here in the Augusta area. My mother was in Virginia. So, I would fly back and forth. But when I was 10, I was here for my 10th birthday, and they had a big birthday party for me at the Country Club, and all the neighborhood kids came, and I remember being there at the pool and getting all these presents. It was like a big deal because I 10, double digit. So, I got all these wonderful birthday presents, and then it's time to fly back to Virginia, I was flying out of Atlanta. So, they took me to Atlanta, and my dad and I went to Six Flags, but my dad and I went to a Braves game, just the two of us. This was in 1979, because that was the year I turned 10. So, we were at the stadium, we parked. All my luggage was in the trunk of the car. You see where I'm going with this. While we were at the Braves game, someone popped the trunk and stole all my luggage, and my back-to-school shopping. It was like everything. They took all my birthday presents. I was so sad. I guess I was burgled.

Melanie Avalon: That's traumatic for a little kid.

Gin Stephens: It was traumatic. I was so upset. Yeah, it was everything. I remember I had a pair of jeans in there. This was okay, 1979. A pair of jeans that were like on the on the back pocket was like a skate, and it had actual laces, like shoelaces, that you tied on your back pocket. If that doesn't scream 1979, I don't know what does. But my stepmother went out and found another pair and sent them to me in two weeks. I was like, “Oh, no, my skater jeans.”

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my gosh.

Gin Stephens: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I remember my mom used to tell me a story growing up that like scarred me for life about how when she was young, because they did not have a lot of money at all, and they would have Froot Loops, and she saved up. You know the little tickets on the back of the box? She would save all these tickets on the back of the cereal box, and she finally redeemed it to get a stuffed animal of the two can from Froot Loops, and then--

Gin Stephens: I remember stuff like that. I didn't need that kind of cereal. I didn't like it.

Melanie Avalon: Somebody stole it.

Gin Stephens: Oh.

Melanie Avalon: I was so sad hearing that story.

Gin Stephens: Do remember Green Stamps? You're way too young for Green Stamps.

Melanie Avalon: What were they?

Gin Stephens: It was like you would go to certain grocery stores and you would get Green Stamps, and you would save them, and put them-- It depended on how much you spent. Then, you would put them in these little booklets, and you'd have your whole booklet full of Green Stamps, and you could redeem them for prizes.

Melanie Avalon: From different products?

Gin Stephens: It was all sorts of things you could get depending on how many Green Stamps you saved. It was not just one store. So, it wasn't like you went to one store, and it was like their rewards program. You got them at multiple places. It was like a big program. Oh, my gosh, that was fun. I remember licking those Green Stamps and sticking them in the little booklets. I got to save them, and my mom just was like, “I'm not doing that.” So, I was doing all that, and [laughs] I would go through to took a look at catalog and pick out what I wanted. Good times. You never got to like collect those Green Stamps?

Melanie Avalon: I don't think so.

Gin Stephens: No, you would remember, S&H Green Stamps.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, definitely, I never did it. I'm just wondering if I ever saw the concept.

Gin Stephens: You probably didn't. I don't know when the program ended. You were born and I know you don't want to say. [laughs] It is probably over.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness.

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Gin Stephens: Now, we have a question from Jennifer. The subject is "Gained a few and don't want to get derailed." Jennifer says, "Hi, Gin and Melanie, I have listened to every one of each of your podcasts." That is a lot of shows. She says, "They have been a gift. You have answered a question of mine before, so I don't want to take anyone else's place. But if you have time to answer this, I would be appreciative." I'm just going to make a quick comment about that. When we get the questions, I don't check if we've answered a question before from the person, I just really go off of the questions. So, if you've had a question on here answered before, feel free to keep submitting, because I don't really take that into account when looking through the questions.

She says, "I started clean fasting on January 6th, 2020, and lost 44 pounds by my first fastaversary." Oh, I've never heard of that word before.

Gin Stephens: Oh, that's so funny, fastaversary.

Melanie Avalon: I like that. "In January 2021. During that time, I fasted between 16 and 20:3 hours. But I would say my average daily fast was 17 to 18 hours. I was holding steady for six months by fasting 16 to 19 hours daily. But pretty much all of a sudden, even though I didn't change anything except a bit less exercise due to a fractured toe, I put on four to five pounds. Since my toe has begun healing, I have resumed my exercise and upped my fasting to an average of 17 to 19 hours a day for the last four weeks and the scale is not budging. Melanie, I'm guessing you would say, I should change up what I'm eating in my eating window. Ever since I started IF, I've pretty much eaten what I wanted but not low carb or low fat. I'm scared that the four pounds I have gained will morph into more, but I'm hesitant to change what I eat too much, because I get fear of missing out and then I want to eat all the things.

I have listened to Glenn Livingston. So, I know about never binge again. I am postmenopausal and finally in the normal BMI range, but at the very highest weight for my height. I'm determined to get to the goal I set originally, which is 10+ pounds from where I am. But I'm concerned that the number and the goal is creating a scale, diet, weight loss mentality. So, in a nutshell, I am determined to lose those last 10 pounds but worried that I will sabotage myself or create undue anxiety in doing so. Thoughts from you two amazing gurus. PS, fast longer than 19 hours give me panic and anxiety for some unexplained reason."

Gin Stephens: Yep. It's just so funny that this question came in today, because before we recorded today, I recorded with Paul Goodyear, who will be on Episode 178 of Intermittent Fasting Stories, which comes out December 16th. So, we have a while before his episode comes out, but I just recorded with him this morning. Here's something funny, Melanie. It was his one-year fastaversary today. We actually talked about fastaversary while we were recording the word ‘fastaversary.’

Melanie Avalon: Oh, you did?

Gin Stephens: Yeah. My phone now recognizes it. It's learned it as a word now. So, took me a while to teach it that word. Here's something about Paul. He talked about his weight. In February of 2020, he weighed 226 pounds. By June of 2020, he had gained three pounds. So, he was at 229, up three pounds. But he went from 19.3% body fat to around 16% body fat during that period of time. So, his scale went up three pounds, but he decreased his body fat. Actually, according to his data, he lost 6.87 pounds of fat but gained nine something pounds of lean mass. He was exercising, he was cycling.

So, I say that to tell you that, you say you put on four to five pounds on the scale. That might be inflammation due to your fractured toe. Because when we're healing, our bodies retain fluid. We have an increased inflammation that's part of the healing process. Things swell up. So, I wouldn't really put too much stress into that unless your clothes are getting too tight. I would really think about, am I gaining fat? Have I gained fat or is this just part of the healing process? You've just resumed your exercise for four weeks, and again, you said the scale's not budging, but when we increase our exercise that can cause also inflammation and water retention as we're working our muscles more. So, I wouldn't stress about it at this point. You're at the point, you only have 10 pounds to go to get to your goal you said. What I would do is, completely stop letting that number on the scale stress you out, and I would focus on honesty pants, measurements, and progress photos. Because I would bet you did not put on four to five pounds of fat, and I would bet that you just need to know the healing process is going to continue, and use those other measures and trust those.

Now, if your honesty pants are getting tight, they continue to start getting tighter, and if your progress photos show that, yeah, you're getting fluffier, that sort of thing, okay. Then, you need to think about art. I'm going to have to change something up, and work on the way. If you find your body doesn't like for you to fast more than 19 hours, because you don't like the panic feeling that it gives you, then it's going to have to be what you're eating. You're going to have to tweak that. That's it. We have several tools we can tweak. When we're eating, we can tweak what we're eating. If you can't tweak when you're eating, because you're fast is already at the max that it feels good for you, the only other option is tweaking what. So, that's all I have to say about that. [laughs] It's my fault. My Forrest Gump quote for the day.

Melanie Avalon: What's interesting about the toe, I was just thinking a little bit about this. If the weight gain was from lack of exercise due to the toe, which I doubt, if it was, it probably wouldn't even be the lack of concentrated acute exercise sessions. I would hypothesize, and this is literally just a hypothesis but I would hypothesize, it would be from the effect on your natural daily movement from the toe rather than not doing the exercise sessions, if that makes sense.

Gin Stephens: Becoming more sedentary, because you can't get around.

Melanie Avalon: If you were doing acute exercise sessions before, and then not doing them, the body, it tends to adjust to that and compensate with changes in hunger, changes in metabolism. So, probably the more implications that are having more of an effect would be from what Gin just said, being more sedentary. All of that said, what I hear the most in your email, Jennifer, is I hear a lot of fear, actually. I actually think the most thing to analyze and look at in yourself with all of this is the fear surrounding changing what you're eating. I'm not even going to try to convince you to change what you eat. I'm down for everybody figuring what works for them.

But if you do come to a point where-- because Gin just said, basically, you can't really change the fast anymore, because you're at the place where you are with the fast. So, it really would be changing your food, and if you want to make changes in your food, because right now, it sounds that you said you're basically just eating whatever you want, it seems to be an anticipatory fear of falling off the rails. It's not even a fear about something that's actually happening. It's how you anticipate that you might react, and I'm guessing, I don't want to make assumptions, but I'm guessing you might have a history of “falling off the rails,” or bingeing, or something. You probably have had an experience in the past where you felt not in control around food, and probably going back to that is terrifying to you, and you are feeling that it would be a trigger to clean up your food, and it is just not even worth it if that manifest. So, what I want to tell you to make you feel a little bit better about that is, that does not have to manifest. It just doesn't. There's a possibility where you make changes, and that doesn't happen. It is not an inevitable response to cleaning up your food choices, or trying low carb, or trying low fat.

You've already read Never Binge Again, that would have been one of the things I would have suggested for the mentality surrounding that. But some things I wanted to encourage you about and these are some just practical things you could literally try with this is, if your fear is that you're going to feel deprived, you're not going to get to what you want, a few different ways you could approach that. One, you could reframe and get excited. These things that you like, I don't know what these things are that you like. I don't know if it's baked goods, or cake, or chips, or cookies, or I don't know what it is, but the paleo or the whole foods world, there are an unending list of recipes to basically make any standard American processed concoction that you have right now, you can make a “whole foods” or “healthier version” of it. So, you could get excited. You could get excited and see it as a fun thing to do or you get to try to make all these things that you love. I can say, honestly, they end up tasting pretty amazing, especially when you clean up your-- If you do switch over to more whole foods and less processed foods. your taste buds really do change, and you really do start loving food in a different form that might seem surprising if you haven't tried it, but it can really, really happen. So, that's one option is reframing that way.

Another option is, it sounds like maybe you're worried about trying, committing to low carb or committing to low fat, and then just feeling restricted and deprived, and then probably getting into this a few days, or I don't know how long, of falling off the wagon. If you can try to see it as not low carb for life or not low fat for life, literally just one day, whichever approach you're trying. Maybe one day this week, you have one day, where in your eating window, you eat low fat or you eat low carb. If you can make it that one day, and you can go back to your normal, what you were doing the next day, I think doing that and then going through that and then realizing that you can do that and not fall off the wagon will give you so much power. You will feel so empowered to do it again. Then, maybe next time you do it again, maybe you could do it more than one day. But I think knowing that you can do it is really, really nice, because that will change that fear you have about falling off the wagon if you can do it one day and be successful in it.

Another thing I would like to share, another little thing. If the fear is that if you go low carb or low fat that you will feel not satisfied, and will overeat, and overcompensate, and gain weight, one of the nice things about existing in a low carb or low fat paradigm is, it's less likely that you will gain weight or do “damage” still eating all you want if you're staying in that macro paradigm within that eating window. So, I know you feel like you might be deprived about a specific food that you're craving. But as far as just like eating food, there can be a sense of abundance with it. It doesn't have to feel like restriction, trying low carb or low fat. It can still be abundance. It's just existing within this paradigm while you're playing with that window, with that approach to those macros. So, those are some things to try.

I do want to echo what Gin said, because Gin did outline a good example of how maybe this is just inflammation or that it might not have anything to do with the scale number, and so, you might not even feel the need to approach the food choices although that said, I'm always for making a shift to more whole foods, more natural foods that are really going to support your body. So, I would support that either way. Just as far as if you do feel the need to make changes within your food choices, it will be okay. I completely hear the fears you have. They're completely warranted, they're completely valid, but they don't necessarily have to be real, and you can definitely, definitely tackle them. I don't like making promises, but I can pretty much guarantee that in the future, if you have slowly come to this place where you're eating foods that are not sparking these cravings, and are not having an addictive effect on you, I feel like you probably feel more at ease and more comfortable with your food choices, and the ironic thing about it is, you might feel more free now because right now you're eating whatever you want. So, that feels really free. But in a way, it's not that free because you're scared about being controlled by your food cravings. Whereas there could be a place where maybe you are not eating these foods anymore, but you're also not feeling controlled by those cravings. So, I just think there's a lot of potential. There's a lot of mindset work to do. I know you read Glenn Livingston's, Never Binge Again. I would revisit it, I would also recommend Amy Johnson's work, The Little Book of Big Change is amazing, and I'm also bringing her on for her new book, Just a Thought, I think that's coming out in October. I'm really excited for you. So, feel free to let us know what you try and how it goes.

Gin Stephens: Yep, absolutely. I think we covered everything there was to cover there.

Melanie Avalon: I know. I was thinking about this question. I'm like, “This is perfect,” because the fear that she is feeling right now in a way is really similar to the fear I'm feeling right now about the muffins. like, it's the same thing, and really is the same thing. I'm like, “Oh, I'm going to have those muffins,” and then what I am so scared of is that wanting, that craving. In a way, it's less scary with the muffins because I'm very much protected in a way because I have to not eat anything after I eat the muffins. For science. If it wasn't for that, and it was just something similar to what Gin is doing where she is wanting to make the change, and trying something new, and is worried about it sparking this craving, I feel you. It's very real. You just have to know that it's doesn't have to control you, even though it seems like it is.

Gin Stephens: I think we got it. We got it everywhere you could possibly be on that one.

Melanie Avalon: [laughs] I've been thinking about this question for a long time. All right. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. So, 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 that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuffwelike, and you can follow us on Instagram, we are @ifpodcast, I am @melanieavalon, Gin is @ginstephens, and I think that is everything.

Gin Stephens: Yep.

Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, anything from you, Gin before we go?

Gin Stephens: As usual, nope. That was it.

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

Gin Stephens: All right, talk to you then. 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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