Welcome to Episode 313 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 Cynthia Thurlow, author of Intermittent Fasting Transformation: The 45-Day Program for Women to Lose Stubborn Weight, Improve Hormonal Health, and Slow Aging.
Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:
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SHOW NOTES
1:10 - NUTRISENSE: Get $30 Off A CGM Program And 1 Month Of
Free Dietitian Support At Nutrisense.Io/Ifpodcast With The Code IFPODCAST!
3:30 - BEAUTYCOUNTER: Keep Your Fast Clean Inside And Out With Safe Skincare! Shop With Us At melanieavalon.com/beautycounter or beautycounter.com/cynthiathurlow And Use The Code CLEANFORALL20 For 20% Off PLUS Something Magical Might Happen After Your First Order! Find Your Perfect Beautycounter Products With Melanie's Quiz: Melanieavalon.Com/Beautycounterquiz
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21:15 - LOMI: Get $50 Off Lomi At lomi.com/ifpodcast With The Code IFPODCAST!
24:15 - Listener Q&A: Stephanie - I just recently trained and completed a marathon— can you discuss fueling for endurance in Perimenopause?
39:25 - Listener Q&A: Paul - How to improve REM vs deep sleep (as tracked on Oura)
54:45 - ATHLETIC GREENS: Get A FREE 1 Year Supply Of Immune-Supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE Travel Packs With Your First Purchase At athleticgreens.com/ifpodcast
SLEEP REMEDY: Go To melanievalon.com/sleepremedy And Use the code MELANIEAVALON for 10% Off!!
DRY FARM WINES: Natural, Organic, Low Alcohol, Low Sugar Wines, Paleo And Keto Friendly! Go To dryfarmwines.com/ifpodcast To Get A Bottle For A Penny!
Our content does not constitute an attempt to practice medicine and does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider for medical advice and answers to personal health questions.
TRANSCRIPT
Melanie Avalon: Welcome to Episode 313 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, biohacker and author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine. I’m here with my cohost, Cynthia Thurlow, Nurse Practitioner and author of Intermittent Fasting Transformation: A 45-Day Program for Women to Lose Stubborn Weight, Improve Hormonal Health, and Slow Aging. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and cynthiathurlow.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment and no doctor-patient relationship is formed. So, pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it’s that time and get ready for The Intermittent Fasting Podcast.
Hi friends. Have you ever felt ashamed or guilty when you eat certain foods? These are likely the "forbidden foods," that you can't touch and you stay away from them. We are constantly faced with societal pressure and judgment around what we eat and how we look. So, we often feel guilty when we eat something that we think is bad for us. Instead of falling for this, we need to shift our focus to thoughtful nourishment, where we are giving our body what it needs. You guys know we are obsessed with continuous glucose monitors, also known as CGMs. NutriSense can help you identify which foods are good for you and what you should eat less of.
They provide continuous glucose monitors, which track your glucose levels in real time. So, basically, you're able to see, okay, I just ate this, and this is what happened to my blood sugar. Once you're able to see the real impact of certain foods on your body, you can start making better food choices guilt free. The CGM is an objective tool through which you can see how your body reacts to different food. This is so important, not subjective, objective. And to make sense of all the data, because it can be a lot. NutriSense pairs you with an expert dietitian who will help you with personalized diet and lifestyle changes that are based on what works best for you.
And you just might be surprised to find that something you used to feel guilty about does not trigger blood sugar spikes after all. You can actually enjoy it in moderation. Maybe you don't need to avoid certain foods or feel guilty about it. Just sign up for the NutriSense program and start making correct food choices today. Curious how it works? A continuous glucose monitor is a small device that tracks your glucose levels in real time, the application is so easy, so painless. Check out my Instagram, I post videos all the time of putting it on.
Then there's the NutriSense app. With that, you can use the app to scan your CGM, visualize data, log meals, run experiments, and so much more. And then, of course, you get that expert dietitian guidance. Each subscription plan includes one month of free dietitian support. Your dietitian will help you interpret the data and will help you build sustainable healthy habits to achieve your goals. They'll guide you in creating a meal plan that suits your unique lifestyle and needs. I get so much feedback about how people love this aspect of the program. It's really personalized and it really helps you make sense of everything. Go to nutrisense.io/ifpodcast and use IFPODCAST to save $30 and get one month of free dietitian support. That's nutrisense.io/ifpodcast with the code IFPODCAST to save $30 and get one month of free dietitian support. I will put all this information in the show notes.
And one more thing before we jump in, are you fasting clean inside and out? When it comes to weight loss, we focus a lot on what and when we eat. It makes sense because these foods affect our hormones and how our bodies store and burn fat. But do you know what is possibly one of the most influential factors in weight gain? It's not your food and it's not fasting, it's actually our skincare and makeup. As it turns out, Europe has banned over a thousand compounds found in conventional skincare and makeup in the US due to their toxicity. These include endocrine disrupters, which mess with your hormones, carcinogens linked to cancer, and obesogens which literally can cause your body to store and gain weight. Basically, when we're using conventional skincare and makeup, we are giving these obesogenic compounds direct access to our bloodstream.
And then in our bodies, studies have shown they do things like reduce our satiety hormones, increase our hunger hormones, make fat cells more likely to store fat, and more resistant to burning fat, and so much more. If you have stubborn fat, friends, your skincare and makeup may be playing a role in that. Beyond weight gain and weight loss, these compounds have very detrimental effects on our health and they affect the health of our future generations. That's because ladies when we have babies, a huge percent of those toxic compounds go through the placenta into the newborn. It is so, so shocking and the effects last for years.
Conventional lipstick, for example, often tests high in lead and the half-life of lead is up to 30 years. That means when you put on some conventional lipstick, 30 years later maybe half of that lead has left your bones. On top of that, there is essentially no regulation of these products on the shelves. That’s why it’s up to us to choose brands that are changing this. The brand that is working the hardest to do this is Beautycounter. They were founded on a mission to change this. Every single ingredient is extensively tested to be safe for your skin, so you can truly feel good about what you put on. And friends, these products really, really work. They are incredible. They have counter time for anti-aging, counter match for normal skin, counter control for acne and oily prone, and counter start for sensitive. I use their Overnight Resurfacing Peel and vitamin C serum every single night of my life and their makeup is amazing. Check out my Instagram to see what it looks like. Tina Fey, even wore all Beautycounter makeup when she hosted The Golden Globes. So, yes, it is high-definition camera ready. They have so many other products, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner that I love, products for babies and so much more.
You can shop with us at beautycounter.com/melanieavalon or beautycounter.com/cynthiathurlow and use the coupon code CLEANFORALL20 to get 20% off your first order. Also, make sure to get on my Clean Beauty email list. That’s at melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty. I give away a lot of free things on that list, so definitely check it out. You can join me in my Facebook group, Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon. People share their experiences, ask questions, give product reviews, and I do a giveaway every single week in that group as well.
And lastly, if you’re thinking of making Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare a part of your future like we have, we definitely recommend becoming a Band of Beauty member. It’s sort of like 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. It is totally, completely worth it. So, again to shop with us, go to beautycounter.com/melanieavalon or beautycounter.com/cynthiathurlow and use the coupon code CLEANFORALL20 to get 20% off your first order. And we’ll put all this information in the show notes. All right, now back to the show.
Hi, everybody, and welcome, this is episode number 313 of the Intermittent Fasting podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I'm here with Cynthia Thurlow.
Cynthia Thurlow: Hey, Melanie. How are you?
Melanie Avalon: I'm good. I've had a crazy week. Well, two things. The first is that I had an article published in CNBC, which was crazy because it was an actual profile feature-type thing, not just a quote, but a funny story about it. [laughs] I've tried very hard to not talk about my age publicly just because of mostly it's from my acting background, like, you don't want people to know your age or whatever. So, I get questions all the time about how old I am. And so, when the reporter was writing the story, she sent me an email prior to it publishing with fact checking about some different things and sign-offs for the photos and all of that. She asked me if she could include my age in it. So, I was a little bit stressed, and I was talking to my publicist, and I was like, should I and we decided, presumably, hopefully, if I keep getting more articles, it's just going to happen someday, so I might as well just let it go out there.
So, when I told her, I sort of made it clear that I don't normally do that and I don't really want to, but if she wanted to, if she thought it was better for the article to go ahead, I was hoping she would either not do it or put it in somewhere on the down low. She literally made it the title. Did you see the article? [laughs]
Cynthia Thurlow: I did. I guess as middle-aged women where a lot of women are embarrassed to say their age, I think we should all be proud of our ages. Was it that you thought there would be some bias because you were a young woman?
Melanie Avalon: No, it really mostly goes back to the acting stuff, in which I'm not actively doing right now with the podcasting, so it doesn't matter so much. But like with acting, you could not get roles because of certain .
Cynthia Thurlow: Really? Okay.
Melanie Avalon: So, acting resumes, your age is usually not on there or anything.
Cynthia Thurlow: Interesting. Okay. That gives context, so at least that makes sense to why you would be averse to discussing that.
Melanie Avalon: Yes. It is kind of typical to in general how I am with transparency and all the things, I do have fears of aging. It was just funny, though, because it came out and I was like, "Oh, well." [laughs] Okay. And then the crazy part, though, the second part is that a reporter at Fox reached out about an article, and that was more like a quote-type situation. It was crazy because it was Fox Health, and it's about biohacking. And she also quotes Dave Asprey, so it's like me and Dave Asprey being quoted. And she quoted me like seven times, which is insane.
But then what's even crazier is yesterday, if you Googled-- it's probably changed now because news changes so fast. But if you Googled Biohacking and Google News, I was on the front page twice, which is crazy. I was the number one hit for the Fox article, and then CNBC was like a few down. I just say all this to say it's very surreal and exciting and I don't know what's happening, but it's exciting to see biohacking getting out there in the mainstream media.
Cynthia Thurlow: Absolutely. Well, and I think there aren't a lot of, like when I think about biohackers, I think it's very much a male-dominated field. I think it's certainly very encouraging that they're featuring more women.
Melanie Avalon: Oh, and actually both of the journalists were women, come to think of it. Although I actually got another reporter at Fox reached out. I don't know if he saw the Fox article. I'm guessing I don't know because it was not through my publicist. It was just random and so that was a male. But he said he's writing about biohacking [laughs] and wants to interview me, I was like okay.
Cynthia Thurlow: That's great. Congratulations.
Melanie Avalon: Thank you. So, what is new with you?
Cynthia Thurlow: Well, I literally just finished a podcast with Dr. Mark Hyman, which was really awesome. He is someone that I've really looked up to in the functional medicine space. I have lots of his books, really respect his work, and it was a lot of fun to record with him. We had a couple, like, technical glitches. I'm not sure where that was coming from. There was like of a bump to the beginning to the interview, not because of anything either of us were doing. I think there's just riverside gremlins, just like, you can have Zencastr and Zoom gremlins, just things that ensure technology is not working properly.
But yeah, that was a really cool win this morning. I just think it's important for more women to get interviewed talking about fasting and what is different about fasting for women versus men and how these hormetic stressors can help improve our health. And he was really interested in the supplements, and so we spent a good amount of time talking about creatine and also Myo-inositol. When you admire someone in the health and wellness space, to be able to connect with them and try not totally fan geek and be a spaz, because I think for all of us, it's the recognition like, this is amazing to have been able to interact with someone that I've admired for so long, but also just have a conversation and feel very comfortable being able to discuss how we look differently at health and wellness than we did during our training. And so that was really cool.
This is one of those days. Like, I was trying to explain to my mom, who is coming this afternoon, trying to explain to her, like, "Oh, yeah, I've got this podcast," and I have two with Melanie. I don't know if your parents understand podcasting. My parents just aren't into it. They don't really fully understand the utility and the amount of connection you can have with people. And so, you're trying to explain to my mom, this is a serious part of what I do. It's a wonderful thing that I do, but context of what these things represent, your parents are little bit younger than mine, so they may be more into the concept of podcasting.
Melanie Avalon: They definitely understand because what I'm hearing you say is that, does your mom not quite understand that it's like, career related, that it's very serious?
Cynthia Thurlow: Yes. She thinks it's like a hobby. Like, this is my hobby. I'm trying to explain to her, if you will arrive while I'm recording, you have to sit and be quiet. [laughs] You can't just come in and talk to me, that kind of thing. But I think my parents are of a generation, like, I love to read, but that's not the only way I learn. And so, trying to explain, like, you can listen in your car, and you can listen while you're at the gym, and you can listen while you're at grocery shop. There're so many ways to learn. It's not just being in front of a book. I think it's just this technology piece. I have aunts who are really into podcasts, so I know it's not per se a generational thing, but it just makes me laugh at my mom. I'll just send her a podcast and she'll be like, "When am I supposed to listen to this?" I'm like, "I don't know. When you're gardening, like, you're retired. You have all this time in the world to do these things." So, anyhow.
Melanie Avalon: Yeah, well, my parents definitely understand that it's a career and they understand that it's well, actually-- they definitely understand because whenever I feel like I'll talk really casually about things, like if an interview gets rescheduled or something like that and they'll get worried, I'm like, no, I'm like, "Mom, it's okay." [laughs] Like it's all okay. She's listened to some occasionally, but definitely not regularly. Although, speaking of interviewing, well, first question, how did you get the interview with Mark Hyman? Were you introduced to him?
Cynthia Thurlow: Their team reached out, so that was nice. Yeah. I was like, yes. [laughs] When people like that reach out, you're like, clear my schedule to make that happen. I've had to kind of explain to my team that when those kinds of requests come in, they interrupt my workflow. Like, we remove things from our schedule. We make ourselves available. This is how this works. So, yeah, they reached out. But I had been in his newsletter earlier this year. The Creatine had been in his newsletter, so I assume that I was, like, on their radar, which I thought was really cool and I was like, if nothing more comes out of it, I'm so grateful for that opportunity to be part of his newsletter.
But yeah, he was a great interviewer. I think you probably know this. I think most people probably know this. There are people who interview at a level that you're just I hope to be at that level at some point and he really did an amazing job. Like, asked me things other people have never asked. Well, I don't think I know, I appreciate that.
Melanie Avalon: That's amazing. The reason I was thinking about it was, thank you for your intro to Gabor Maté because I interviewed him. Oh, and I was going to say, I feel like that'll be the one episode that my mom-- well, I don't know if she wants to listen to it because I talked about her a lot. Kind of like you said, it turned into, like, a therapy session.
Cynthia Thurlow: Totally. It's interesting. I don't know if you saw there was, like, an event where he was interviewing Prince Harry, and I feel so conflicted about-- I'm glad that Prince Harry's had so much success with that book and his message, but it's not a slight against him or Megan. It's not any of my business. I was like, I feel like it's so personal. [laughs] Yeah, he is probably one of my favorite interviews, because I think you have to have done the work to be able to interview someone like that, and it would be very inauthentic otherwise. I don't know if you feel similarly after interviewing him.
Melanie Avalon: That experience. I was like, I'm basically having, like, a therapy session with Gabor Maté, except, like, thousands of people are listening. It's fine. [laughs] Good thing I go to therapy every week anyways. Oh, we also had, like, three times, the call dropped out. Like, he just went away. And I was like my heart sank. At the very beginning, I was so nervous. I was just so nervous about it. I introduced him and I said his name, and then I said Dr. Maté to introduce him. He corrected me and he said it's Gabor because he was saying to call him by his first name. But I was so on edge that I thought he was saying that I mispronounced his name. It was like the most mortified moment I think I've ever had on the show and it wasn't even a real moment because that wasn't what he meant; it was incredible. My mom might listen to that was the whole point.
Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah. I sent the book to my dad. I'm not sure he'll ever read it, but I think that there are certain books that come along that you recognize how impactful they are on a very substantive level. It's a joy read. Some books are just fun to read and people are fun to interview, but that book, when I read it, I was like, wow, this is a book that took 10 years to write, and this is his life's work, and this is a book that is going to have a tremendous ripple effect for years to come. What a joy to be able to connect with someone like that. So, I'm so glad that you were able to interview him.
Melanie Avalon: And thank you because you made that connection, so I really appreciate it.
Cynthia Thurlow: You're very welcome. Well, you've done that for me many times.
Melanie Avalon: We have a nice little overlapping pool of guests. I have one more thing to touch on before we jump in. This actually well, it relates to one of our questions, so I'm trying to decide if I should talk about it now. I'll talk about it now briefly, and then I'll talk about it more in one of the questions. But today-- so hopefully listeners are listening today that this airs. If you're listening today, March 17, then this is your last day to get the launch special for my new Magnesium Threonate. So, I'm so excited about this magnesium. Basically, when I created my Magnesium 8, which is eight different types of magnesiums. I did not specifically include Magnesium Threonate because it's a special type of magnesium that specifically crosses the blood-brain barrier. It has that unique purpose, and then secondly, it requires a pretty high therapeutic dose to get the intended benefits.
If I had included it in the blend, it just wasn't feasible. Like, you wouldn't have gotten enough of it to actually get the effects that you wanted. So, I released it as a standalone, it's called the Magnesium Nightcap. You can take it to help with everything related to your brain. So, sleep, mood, memory, and this is why I'm going to talk about it, and a little bit about sleep. But so, specifically, if you'd really like to support your sleep, if you'd like to support your cognitive function, the studies have shown that Magnesium Threonate can help, like I said, with memory, learning, mood, it has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression symptoms, and it's also been shown to be neuroprotective. You definitely want to get my Magnesium Nightcap. So, again, today, the 17th, is the last day to get the launch special, and the launch special is 15% off, and the code for that is NIGHTCAP15.
However, some lucky people who got my Magnesium 8 special, so the people who grab that launch special, actually have a special code for 25% off, which is awesome. And that code was emailed to them. So, all the more reason if you didn't get that code to be on all the lists so that you don't miss the specials going forward. For that, it is avalonx.us/emaillist and you can text AVALONX to 877-861-8318. When you text that number, you'll also get a one-time 20% off code, which is great. So, yeah, those are those details. I'll probably circle around just a tiny bit to the magnesium in our sleep question, but I just wanted to get that in there. And we do have another sort of announcement we could share at the end of the show.
Cynthia Thurlow: Sounds good.
Melanie Avalon: It's like a teaser.
Friends, I am so excited to tell you about one of my new favoritest things ever. Okay, so you guys know I eat a lot of cucumbers. I don't think that this is any secret. I find myself throwing away pounds, yes, pounds of cucumber peels every single night. I felt so awful just throwing it in the trash. It seemed like such a waste. I'd always wanted to try composting aka a sustainable approach to turning food waste into healthy dirt. But it seemed really intimidating and not very practical. So, it was on the to-do list for quite a while. You can imagine how thrilled I was when a company called Lomi by Pela reached out to me, wanting to sponsor the show. Normally I have to think about all the brands that reach out to me. I was an immediate yes. I was so excited. I got my Lomi device, it is incredible.
Lomi allows me to turn my food scraps into the dirt with the push of a button. Lomi is a countertop electric composter that turns scraps to dirt in under 4 hours. By comparison, if you were to compost naturally, it would probably take at the shortest around six to eight weeks, and maybe even up to a year. But nope with Lomi, I can literally do it in 4 hours. There is no smell when it runs and it is super quiet. I've been using Lomi for a few months now. It is substantially reducing my waste. I was taking out garbage bags all the time. It's probably cut that down by about 30% to 50%. In fact, I love it so much that I bought another Lomi for my parents for Christmas. Now with my Lomi, I throw out weightless garbage. That means that waste is not going to landfills and producing methane. Instead, I turn my waste into nutrient-rich dirt that you can actually use to feed your plants.
And Lomi is super cool. It has three different settings. It has the Eco-Express setting, which is low energy consumption, provides the fastest results, and is good for your food waste. It has the Lomi Approved setting that's 5 to 8 hours. You can actually put in Lomi Approved bioplastics and other compostable commercial goods and packaging that are Lomi Approved. And then there's the Grow Mode that's 24 hours, it's low heat with a longer duration, and that actually preserves the microorganisms the most to help the soil and promote carbon storage in the soil. I am all about regenerative agriculture, so the fact that we can help put carbon back into the soil is so, so incredible.
Lomi is something I have instantly fallen in love with. If you guys are anything like me, I know you will as well turn your food waste into the dirt with the press of a button with Lomi, use the code IFPODCAST to save $50 at lomi.com/ifpodcast. That's lomi.com/ifpodcast with the promo code IFPODCAST to save $50. We'll put all this information in the show notes.
Melanie Avalon: Okay, shall we jump into questions?
Cynthia Thurlow: Absolutely.
Melanie Avalon: Okay, so to start things off, we have a question from Stephanie and this comes still from when we gathered all those AMA questions. But she says, "I just recently trained and completed a marathon. Can you discuss fueling for endurance in perimenopause?"
Cynthia Thurlow: I've thought about this question in the context of this is an Intermittent Fasting Podcast. But when I have women in perimenopause or menopause that are training for big events, I am not a fan of a great deal of fasting so, 12, 13 hours fasted or digestive rest, however, you want to reframe that, I think you have to not be afraid to have some carbohydrate. That doesn't mean overwhelming amounts of carbohydrates. I think the first thing that I think about is, are you sleeping? Are you recovering? Are you eating an anti-inflammatory diet? I find a lot of women in perimenopause do best really limiting or eliminating gluten and grains. I do have some very active women in some of my groups. And so, the way that we kind of dance around this is protein is consistent, cycling carbohydrates, depending on how you feel. Obviously, if you're insulin resistant, really being mindful of discretionary carbohydrates and making sure they're coming from real whole food sources.
Whether it's sweet potato or root vegetables or low glycemic fruit like berries and citrus fruit, I think it's very, very dependent. Stephanie, the way to answer your question is really, are you insulin sensitive? How's your sleep? How are you managing the volume of training? Because I find that a lot of women who've been avid endurance athletes in their 20s and 30s just don't recover quite as well. So, making sure you're getting enough recovery, making sure that you're eating enough food, and not over fasting, I think are the big kind of high points. Obviously, my area of expertise is not training high-level athletes. And if you look at people like Dr. Stacy Sims, she is anti-fasting for women and she is someone that works with elite athletes and individuals that are doing a high volume of training. So, I think it's very unique. But I would say really being cognizant of the lifestyle piece that goes along with that doesn't mean it's impossible just making sure you're getting enough recovery, getting enough sleep, making sure that you're getting your macros, and certainly not to restrict food, especially when you're doing a large volume. Like, I've had girlfriends that were training for Ironman races. Whenever I say that, I always feel like I'm like Ironman, Ironman.
Melanie Avalon: I guess it would be like, yeah, IRONMANs, I guess.
Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, like semantics in my brain. But I think it's really important to just make sure you're not overtraining. I think that's the big-- this role of hormesis, beneficial stress in the right amount at the right time, really important. I just see a lot of women that are still doing and I'm not picking on CrossFit, I'm just going to give that as an example. CrossFit, Orangetheory Fitness, really intense exercise, not enough recovery, and their cortisol just gets depleted. So, just make sure you're taking care of you while you're doing that high volume of training. Melanie, what are your thoughts?
Melanie Avalon: Awesome, that was very, very helpful. You definitely know a lot more about that than I do. It's not at all my forte, the athletic realm, but I will just echo some of the things that Cynthia said, which is that in general, I like to think that I am macronutrient agnostic and that I always want people to find what works best for them. I do think in general, a lot of people, especially not in our fasting and obviously keto community, will be in a place of really fueling endurance and a lot of activity on carbs and constantly doing the fuel-ups and stuff like that. And they can find great benefits from switching to a low-carb state to fuel endurance because it really pairs well with endurance because you have essentially unlimited fat stores, even people who are thin in any given race. You're not going to run out of fats compared to carbs, where that's requiring constant fuel-ups and things like that and it's more of a roller coaster-type situation.
In general, perimenopausal women aside, I feel like low-carb ketogenic diets can be really great for endurance once people's bodies adapt to them. That said, I think it's really important, especially for women, and I'm really just echoing what Cynthia said, the body can get too stressed from these types of things. So, that's were bringing in, I like how Cynthia was talking about carb ups might be really beneficial. So, basically finding the right approach to the macronutrients that will allow you to both fuel longer-term endurance-type activities on a lower carb approach while still making sure that you're getting in the carb ups in the way that you need to not be overly stressed. Do you like intense actual carbs-- because you normally eat lower carbs, right? Do you have like carb up days at all?
Cynthia Thurlow: I do. I always say in the context of this conversation, this is what works for me, because we get so many questions across social media, my teams like we have to just follow you into the gym so that people understand. I typically aim to do three strength training days a week and two of the three are legs and I do some combination of upper body. So, I try to be really efficient because I genuinely don't love the gym that we go to, but we don't have a lot of options because we're not where were before in our state. So, I'll just leave it there. So, I'm like very efficient, I get in, I get out. I also do a lot of Zone 2 Training, and I think Peter Attia does a really good job of explaining what Zone 2 Training is and that's just being physically active. It doesn't necessarily have to be like on a treadmill or a stairmill or elliptical trainer, but I do plenty of Zone 2.
One of the things that I think has been a needle mover for me personally is doing Pilates, largely because I recently learned on Hypermobile and it's really important for me to stretch. So, Pilates is an exercise for my brain. Although I'm working my core, I do find it challenging and those are the three things I try to really focus on and be diligent about and that works well for me. So, when I'm doing strength training. I'm trying to keep my heart rate up, so I'm not necessarily resting more than a minute in between sets. And that's with my trainer's approval. It's not like I'm doing anything to hurt myself. But I do like to get sweaty. And I definitely think that each one of us has to kind of find what works best for me, maintaining muscle is really important, and I'm at a disadvantage.
Ironically, I was talking to Mark Hyman about this. Once you're in late perimenopause, early menopause, you're at a hormonal disadvantage about building muscle unless you're actively working against it. And so, that's why the strength training piece is so important. But I think, for me, I just stopped enjoying the CrossFit-type classes. I stopped enjoying those conditioning classes. I think there's a point to which you get the diminishing law of returns. And so, I think, for me, what I've learned is this is what works for me. I eat a carnivore-ish diet, so generally high in protein, lower in fat, so I do better with leaner meat and then the carbs. I've actually been experimenting more with low glycemic fruit and having a little bit more discretionary carbohydrates just to see how it impacts my sleep. And so, I've been pleasantly surprised.
This is the experiment of the N of 1. I'm not yet ready to say this applies to everybody, but I've been experimenting with more carbohydrates. Not a lot, but experimenting with more to see how it impacts my sleep quality and I've been pleasantly surprised, but not yet ready to share it's this much carbohydrate because I'm still experimenting. But I do find that when I carbohydrate cycle, I'm less likely to feel like I'm depriving myself. And I think everyone has to decide what makes them feel good. I don't do well with a high-fat diet. That's why traditional keto wouldn't work well for me.
I just don't feel good. I just recognize that I do better with leaner meat. And that's something that's been corroborated now by nutrigenomic testing, which is taking my genetics and looking at all the data, and ironically enough, without this person even knowing how I ate, she was telling me exactly my ideal way to eat. I was like, well that makes sense. At least that validates. I'm not crazy. [laughs] I know that you tend to be high protein, high carb, correct?
Melanie Avalon: Yeah. It's so interesting because, I literally-- one of my first memories of us doing this show, actually, I think, is when you were sharing your diet, it was probably on this show, and you made the comment about the leaner meat piece which I feel is sort of rare because there's always all this emphasis on the fat part of things because people are so anti-carb often that people don't normally say that they eat leaner meat when they're existing. Not that we're doing keto, but in this sphere, if that makes sense. If you're in the low fat, you know obviously, like more vegan camp, you would be all vegans, wouldn't be eating meat anyways. But point is, it's like a vibe that I don't hear a lot. And I remember you saying that, and I was like, "Oh, it's like, me too," because yes so historically, I did go through a period of keto and very high fat.
Although, interestingly, it was really plant-based fats. Like, I basically would eat tons of coconut oil and lean meats. And then I switched to leaner meats. I basically just took out the fat. And then I brought back the carbs in the form of low glycemic fruits like you're mentioning and what's really interesting hearing about your nutrigenomic experience. When I do those tests, they actually say that I'm better with low carb and keto rather than the carb side of things. But intuitively, I just looking back at my timeline and again, I'm all about people need to find what works for them. So, I'm always hesitant to talk about what I eat or my diet history because I feel like people want to do what I'm doing exactly, which is not the takeaway message here. But what's interesting is that I was low carb for I wonder how long? Probably three years, maybe. And then I brought back the fruit and I literally just felt like my body was coming alive.
I was like, oh, my goodness. What's interesting is I do remember the very first few days I did feel like I got back into a little blood sugary type feeling or blood sugar swing feeling, but I was still fasting. I powered through it and then I very quickly adapted, and then I realized I'm just so much happier, like, having my carb up essentially every night with fruit and filling up those glycogen stores and then I sleep better. This is going to sound like very vague, but I just feel more lighter and glowy. I like the way fruit makes me feel hydrated, I think. I don't really have to hardcore stress about electrolytes as much as when I was low carb. For me, it works really, really well. And I still stay with the lean meats, the high protein. I don't really ever add fat, but I do eat salmon few times a week and that's actually pretty fatty. Do you add fats?
Cynthia Thurlow: But this is the only time you'll ever hear me utter this phrase, plant-based fats. But this is where-- no, and I'm not being snarky, I feel like I have to preemptively say, I do well with macadamia nuts, which I'm obsessed with. I do well with MCT oil, coconut oil, butter. I tolerate ghee. If I want nut butter or extra virgin olive oil or avocados, I do really well with those. But again, that's the one lever that I have to be the most careful with. And it drives my husband crazy because leaner, like beef, is more expensive. Sometimes our grocery bills are mitigated by the fact that half the house likes fatty meat and the other half doesn't. So, it's just one of those things. I think for everyone listening, you might do well with low carb, you might not. I think it's all about a degree of experimentation and being open minded.
Even though I'm not a traditional keto person, I sometimes get accused of being one, which I'm really not. I'm too high protein to be keto. But I do find that everyone should be open minded. If something's not working for you, that's okay. Like for me, I'm also someone that needs more electrolytes. If I'm doing low carb and I can tell on days when I'm depleting glycogen stores so stored sugar because I'm urinating more and I'm like, okay, I need more electrolytes to kind of hold on to some of that water. But it's being depleted because you're going lower carbohydrates, your body's kind of breaking down this glycogen source and you're urinating out not just sodium, but other electrolytes. But yeah, definitely a good point to honor what works best for you and not feel pressured to do something that doesn't make your body feel good, because if I were fully ketogenic, I probably would not be feeling as good as I do. But that's okay.
Melanie Avalon: Yeah, exactly. And I really encourage people to not lump all carbs into one basket. Like for me, for example, I do really well with the fruit. Like starches? No, if I eat starches, I fill up like a balloon with water retention and it messes with my energy levels. But some people do great with starches. That's perfect for them. Some people fruit is not their thing. I understand that starches and fruit are all glucose, sucrose, and fructose, but the ratio of them and whether or not they're complex or not can affect how your body breaks them down and processes them and then of course, there's the gut microbiome aspect. It's just so individual and so unique. I as well like you and I think we've talked about this before, but I do prefer for me plant-based fats. Interestingly the animal fats are very satiating for me, which is a good thing. But they just feel-- I think we talked about this before they just for me, I feel heavier in my body or something. I feel like I process the plant-based fats better. They don't seem to slow down my system if that makes sense.
Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, I can't. The last time I had duck-fat fries, I just about vomited. They tasted delicious. Like 2 hours later I was like-- and let me just preemptively say my gallbladder is very healthy. My gallbladder, it's just the way that my body responds to animal-based fats. This is a perfect example of the N of 1 and experimenting to find what works best. If you're insulin sensitive, you have a lot more flexibility than if you don't. I think that's a big takeaway.
Melanie Avalon: Yes, definitely. Awesome. Okay. Thank you, Stephanie, for your question. Shall we go on to our next one?
Cynthia Thurlow: Sure. Next question is Paul. "How to improve REM versus deep sleep as tracked on Oura? Specific strategies or supplements to improve either depending on what we seem to be getting enough of on a regular basis."
Melanie Avalon: Awesome. Paul, well, thank you so much for your question. For people who don't have an Oura Ring, something that's really cool about it is you can see your different sleep stages throughout the night, like how long you spent in each stage. Again, it's using a lot of different data to determine that. It's not actually measuring your brain waves, but it does seem to have pretty intelligent AI in order to come up with those numbers. So, you might realize that you are lacking or that you might benefit from more of one certain type of sleep. So, REM sleep, I got a lot of information from this. I got a lot of information actually from Oura's website, appropriately enough. It's actually known as paradoxical sleep because it engages the body and the brain very similar to when you're awake, which is super cool. So, 80% of our dreams actually occur in REM sleep. I had written down the amount, it occurs every 90 to 120 minutes. Early adults should spend around 20% to 25% of their total time in REM sleep. The equivalent of that is basically if you're sleeping 7 to 8 hours, then you should have around 90 minutes in REM.
And the purpose of REM is that it seems to help with our brain health and our emotions and our mental wellness. It's basically like I said, it's when a lot of dreaming occurs. It's really important for-- if you have anxiety or emotional experiences during the day. It's when the brain basically deals with that and reduces the amygdala's response and can reduce your adrenaline. It can actually help you process the things that happen in our stressful life. So, it's really important for emotional balance. So, can you specifically increase REM? Yes and no. In general, stepping back, it's probably best to just focus on your entire sleep as a whole, rather than the very specific sleep stages, but I'm going to give a lot of caveats to that. And also, if you had some disorder understandably that affected a certain type of sleep, that would definitely be a different situation.
But in general, I think the best approach is just supporting sleep in general, which is a lot of the sleep habits that we talk about a lot on this show. I do all the crazy sleep things. But it's one reason I am so in awe, people like Cynthia traveling all the time because I need all of my sleep stuff to sleep well. So, things like a dark cool room and studies have actually shown, for example, that light exposure specifically affects REM and temperature specifically affects REM. So, specifically in REM, our core body temperature drops. So, already in general, having a cool sleeping environment is important for sleep, but especially for REM, it can be really important keeping it dark.
Blackout curtains can be game changers. I remember when Gin used to host this show, I would talk about blackout curtains all the time. The way it was with Gin was basically like, I would talk about something ad nauseam for weeks, months, often years, and then finally she would try it and totally be onboard. I remember the day she tried blackout curtains and she was like, why did it take her so long to do this? So, blackout curtains can be amazing. Sleep masks can be amazing. Speaking of the cooling piece, I use a cooling mattress. I use the OOLER. You use a cooling mattress, right.
Cynthia Thurlow: I'm embarrassed to admit to the community that I was gifted an OOLER. We like, complete quiet with sleep, and neither one of us could talk. It was just these consistent noises drive me crazy. And so, it was the noise, it wasn't the coldness. Like I appreciated and liked that. We both liked that. But we actually gave it to a family member who doesn't mind. I mean, I completely believe in them, and I think they're a wonderful option provided you don't mind the noise.
Melanie Avalon: How long ago was that?
Cynthia Thurlow: That was gifted to me in 2021.
Melanie Avalon: Okay. I'm just wondering if it's their newest one.
Cynthia Thurlow: I'm assuming they probably have consistently but I have friends who love theirs. They were like, oh my God, you're going to love it. And after a week we're like, no, [laughs] but I do keep my house very cold at night so that definitely helps.
Melanie Avalon: I will say the one thing when I travel, of the rare occasions, the thing I miss the most is the OOLER because it is a game changer for me. It's amazing because noise aside, I wear earplugs and I don't hear anything with those, I will make a recommendation because it can be hard to find earplugs, especially for women if you have small ears. It's the Howard Leight spelled, I don't know if that's how you say it, spelled L-E-I-G-H-T. Women earplugs. They're pink. I've been using these for years, years, years, years, and they are amazing. So, we can put a link to those in the show notes. But, yeah, when I travel, the heat retention, like all of that heat building up in the covers, I just feel like I'm suffocating and what's really cool about the cooling mattress is you're not freezing. It's not uncomfortable. It just basically really pulls the heat out of your body that's building up.
So, you still get to use the covers and feel all warm and snugly, but the heat is not building up. I just find it a game changer for me. And then, some of the other things for sleep, well, obviously nice sleep habits like hygiene, winding down every night, turning off social media. I use red lights to light my apartment. This is something I always leave out of my sleep routine. And I should remember to say it more. On YouTube I love the Hertz Therapies that they have. I play this one called it sounds really woo-woo, but it's called Love Energy Open Heart Chakra. But it's 528 Hz frequency. I just play that and it plays for a long time. It's like a two-hour track. And then it typically just goes into other tracks that are also playing similar things and having that ambient sound that is that therapeutic hertz sound is incredible for me for winding down.
The power of sound, I don't think can be underestimated with its digital health effects, can't be overestimated. [laughs] And then just some last few quick things going back to specifically REM sleep, alcohol has been shown to delay REM sleep and lead to less REM sleep overall. Drinking right before bed probably not a good idea. Marijuana use increases deep sleep, but it can reduce REM sleep, which I realized I never said what REM stands for. It stands for rapid eye movement, which people are probably familiar with it's because people's eyes move back and forth rapidly during REM sleep. And then also caffeine can have an effect. So, if you're having caffeine close to bed, it can potentially invert your sleep cycle, which is kind of crazy. It can actually make REM happen earlier and slow wave happen later. So that's really interesting to me. This is really important. So, obviously, we always want to be focusing on sleep quality. This also might be a thing where sleep quantity is also really important.
I just really want people to focus on sleep quality in general, but REM does occur during the last couple of hours of sleep, so it's a thing where if you are getting just quantity wise less sleep, you're not giving yourself ample time to even get to REM sleep and get enough of it. So, it's something where it actually really is important. Like time in bed might be really important. And then to circle back to what I was talking about in the beginning, magnesium. GABA is really, really important for sleep, as is magnesium in supporting that process. And then magnesium, just as a standalone, it's been shown to be calming, relaxing, to support sleep. So, magnesium in general does this. And then like I was saying before, magnesium threonate is if you want one type of magnesium to really really support sleep, you really want magnesium threonate.
It's going to cross the brain and it's going to help induce sleep and have a relaxing effect, especially for people who are struggling to fall asleep and not wanting to deal with pharmaceuticals and things like that. This can be a really powerful supplement to support your sleep. I say it's natural. It is modified to be in that form. Like, we make it to be in that form to cross the blood-brain barrier. But it is magnesium, it's not like a pharmaceutical. So, like I was talking about in the beginning, if you're listening today, it's your last chance to get 15% off my Magnesium Nightcap, which is the magnesium threonate, just use the code NIGHTCAP15 at avalonx.us. If you're one of the lucky people that got the launch special from my Magnesium 8, which is my full spectrum broad blend, they'll have a 25% off code that they were uniquely emailed. If you're listening past the 17th, use the code MELANIEAVALON to get 10% off. Or if you want a 20% off code, sorry for all the codes, text AVALONX to 877-861-8318. Okay, that was a lot about sleep. Cynthia, what are your thoughts on REM?
Cynthia Thurlow: When it comes to sleep support? There's a lot I remind my patients to be thinking about sleep when they wake up in the morning. We know that even if you're not tracking sleep, it's helpful to just kind of lean into a lifestyle. A lot of things that Melanie did a really nice job explaining. Getting sunlight on your retinas, getting sunlight on your eyes first thing in the morning, usually within the first hour, getting five to ten minutes. You can sit outside and drink your coffee, walk your dogs, etc. That can be very beneficial. It helps suppress melatonin and increase cortisol. I think about the things that are lifestyle mediated, so getting physical activity every day, all of us would probably agree if we're sedentary all day long, you're not going to get as good as sleep. Our bodies are conditioned to move, even if that means you do water aerobics or you do Zone 2 training and just walk. Definitely very beneficial. In fact, sometimes I feel like my less intense workouts are the ones that help me sleep best.
In terms of things that I think are the greatest needle movers at night, I would concur a cold dark room. I wear a silk sleep mask every night. It's not sexy, but guess what? Light exposure on your eyes in the middle of the night can actually cause some wakening up. I think for many women, they sleep really well until 35, 40, and then all of a sudden, sleep starts to become a little bit more elusive, and you start to think about hormonal fluctuations, things that are changing in the body, less progesterone, which can impact sleep quality, certainly onset of sleep, certainly anxiety and depression, waking up anxious, waking up with your heart pounding. So, before I talk more about lifestyle things, I want to just mention if you're 35 or 40 and you're starting to see your sleep quality erode or you're 45 or 50 and you've been there for a long time, get your hormones checked.
Progesterone can be life-changing for a lot of people. Actually, I'm in the midst of doing a program through A4M and they validate a lot of things that I tell women. Oral progesterone is going to be sedating. It's going to help with sleep onset. It upregulates GABA, it upregulates this inhibitory neurotransmitter, which can be very, very helpful for sleep onset. The other piece is for a lot of women, and there's still a great deal of fear-mongering about hormones in general. I do find that for those that it's appropriate for, estradiol replacement can help with sleep duration. So, you fall asleep with progesterone and all the lifestyle things and then estrogen can help with kind of buffering that waking up in the middle of the night.
The other thing I would say is, if you're waking up and you're not getting good sleep quality and your REM and deep sleep are not ideal based on WHOOP band data Oura Ring data, I start to think about is it a blood sugar issue. There are a lot of women who are not insulin sensitive in their perimenopausal years into menopause. Glucometer CGMs can be very helpful for teasing out what's going on in addition to HRT. And then in terms of supplements, the supplement that has made the biggest net impact in my sleep quality is Myo-inositol. I know that we talked about that a few weeks ago when Scott and I did a podcast. It really has made such a huge impact and we know that helps with sleep architecture, both with falling and staying asleep.
It's actually part of Dr. Huberman's Labs, Andrew Huberman's Sleep Stack, which I think says a lot. It works for men and women, but that in and of itself, it also helps with insulin sensitivity, helps upregulate GABA, dopamine, serotonin, all these neurotransmitters that can help us fall asleep. And then beyond that, I would say, if appropriate melatonin could be very, very helpful for sleep. When I look at my sleep metrics on my Oura, and so I've been able to track two years' worth of metrics. The things that have been the needle movers are the things that Melanie and I have kind of talked about, but also the use of HRT and Myo-inositol for me personally I would say. I would also kind of tag in there other things that are helpful, soaking in magnesium. Usually, I do a magnesium soak, you can soak your feet, soak your body. There are ways to increase the absorption of magnesium through your skin.
I think many people remember I've talked extensively about the fact that I have this whole arrhythmia background in cardiology. And so, we were constantly tinkering magnesium levels, potassium levels with patients to lessen the likelihood they would go back into arrhythmias, dysrhythmias, etc. And so, magnesium is really important. There're different types of magnesium, as I know Melanie has talked about, but I like to use transdermal magnesium. The product Ancient Minerals does a nice job. I have no affiliation with them. They just have a nice high-quality product. You can buy it on Amazon.
Taking oral magnesium, I think can be very very helpful. I have like a sleep stack with Myo-inositol and then also magnesium L-threonate because that crosses the blood-brain barrier. But I would say those are good things to start with. But if you don't have great sleep metrics, I think it's more important that you reflect on how you feel and not get caught up in the metrics because I think some people live and die by their data and I just kind of look at it and go, oh, that's great. I had 3 hours of REM sleep, I had two and a half hours of deep sleep, that's fantastic. That's really good, especially for someone at my stage of life. But I think kind of being cognizant of the things that are going to be the big needle movers are important, but don't get caught up in the metrics. Just like, I would say that people shouldn't get caught up, like if they have a blood sugar spike on a CGM, like, you just look at and go, okay, that's good data to have. Let's not do that again. So, I think that that could be very helpful.
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Melanie Avalon: Yeah, you touched on so many good things. I'm so glad you brought in all of the physical activity piece, so much of supporting sleep at night is like being active during the day and with the early light exposure. I'm so glad as well what you just said, I think is so important because I think there's one thing that's really going to not help your sleep. It's going to be really stressing about your sleep. Ironically, all of this self-data quantification can sometimes have the effect of not helping because people are so stressed about the numbers. So, a reason I do like Oura's, I feel like it's very encouraging in how it talks to you. It doesn't really make me stressed. I was worried that it was going to make me stressed about things sleep wise, but it really doesn't seem to have that effect on me. I will say if there is like a crazy night where I know that it's going to be really bad and I have to do something the next day, which is a rare occasion, but it does happen. I just don't look-- Mostly this is like traveling, I just don't look at it that day. And then I did think of like two other things that made me think of, so I recently posted actually a poll on my Instagram about what were people's favorite sleep hacks. I wish I could remember what the results were. People did really like different supplements, sleep remedy. So, Dr. Kirk Parsley's sleep remedy is really amazing. That's the one supplement where people where when they did that poll, they were like messaging me that one specifically.
It's basically a combination of different, all-natural precursors to what your brain needs to fall asleep. It works synergistically to help you fall asleep. So, definitely check that out. You can go to melanieavalon.com/sleepremedy, the code MELANIEAVALON will get you a discount. And then also going back to the alcohol piece, I do think it's really important. I can't emphasize enough the importance of, if you are drinking alcohol to drink like, Dry Farm Wines. It's funny because people will say, I actually had this conversation on Instagram with somebody the other day.
They made a black and white blanket statement like; you can't sleep well and drink alcohol. I know for me that's not a true statement because if I drink Dry Farm Wines minimal to moderate consumption, not directly before bed, I sleep fine. Like, I can see it on my Oura Ring. I think if you are drinking alcohol, doing it in a way that is not detrimental to your sleep. Not drinking right before bed and a lot of the conventional alcohol and wine in the US is just not good. It's high in sugar, high in alcohol, high in additives. I've said this a lot. But if the wine is making your teeth red, that is not from the grapes. That is because there is a dye added to the wine called Mega Purple.
So, we do not want this stuff in our body and I think it can have a pretty detrimental effect on our health. That's why I personally love dry farm wines. They are low sugar, low alcohol, and I found that having them I can sleep well, I can have my drink and drink it too. Our link for them is dryfarmwines.com/ifpodcast and that will get you a bottle for a penny, which is awesome. Anything else about the sleep thing?
Cynthia Thurlow: No, I think we've got it. Do we have time for one more?
Melanie Avalon: Or we could share our announcement.
Cynthia Thurlow: Sure.
Melanie Avalon: How should we share the announcement? We did not plan this.
Cynthia Thurlow: Maybe I'll just say it.
Melanie Avalon: Okay. Sure.
Cynthia Thurlow: Well, Melanie knows what I'm going to share next, but I preemptively want to thank Melanie and Gin and the IF podcast team and the IF podcast community for an amazing last 10 months of being a cohost and welcoming me so graciously and so openly. My business is kind of shifting in a different direction and so I will be stepping down from the cohosting duties with IF podcast at the end of April. And we already have another cohost and I'm going to let Melanie share that news next week. But I wanted to make sure that listeners heard it from me directly. I haven't talked about it on social media, I won't talk about it on social media until after the announcement comes out, but I want to just wholeheartedly thank everyone for so much love and support. My team and I have been really overwhelmed with wonderful messages and lots and lots of support and it's been a really fun last 10 months.
Melanie Avalon: I know that's a big announcement for listeners, but I just wanted to emphasize how wonderful this whole journey has been. I feel like it really took the show in a new direction. I so love the-- Well, first of all, our friendship. I really appreciate your support and friendship and everything and so it was just really thrilling to do the show together. I really love the clinical perspective that you have brought to everything. I feel like we had a lot of questions building up that, honestly, we just wouldn't really touch on the show because prior to you being on the show, we didn't have knowledge or expertise to really talk about all of these things that women experience so much with their hormonal issues and perimenopause and menopause and all of this stuff. So, it was really exciting to really be able to provide that resource to listeners. I just really want to thank you for everything that you brought to the show. It's been really amazing. You'll be so missed, but it'll be open door. You'll have to come back for like a reunion episode at some point.
Cynthia Thurlow: And I would love that. I hope listeners know that Melanie and I are genuinely good friends and super supportive of one another and none of that will change. That was one of the first things I said to Melanie when I shared this news that this is not a breakup. This is just a pause. I know that the new cohost, I was really delighted to hear who the new cohost would be. I think you all will be very, very pleased with who this is. I'm not going to give any more details than that because it's not my place to share, but I wanted to make sure that everyone knew this is not a breakup. This is just a pause. I think that one thing I've learned in the past two years is that I have to really hold true to the direction my business is going in, and I think with the book last year, things were a whirlwind, a wonderful whirlwind.
But now things have kind of settled back down. It's like, okay, what are the things I need to be focusing in on? My kiddos are getting older and I have one who will be heading to college, gosh, in just over a little bit of a year and another in three and a half years, so getting really deliberate with my time. But thank you, Melanie. It's been such a pleasure to be able to cohost with you and be able to interact with these amazing, amazing listeners and community that you and Gin built.
Melanie Avalon: No, thank you. Thank you, really. I was thinking about it just now with Gin, she's not really in the biohacking sphere, so she has her fasting community, but it's a massive community. It's more a bubble that I'm not in quite as much because it's a slightly different audience, whereas I think you and I were in a very similar audience. The point of that is I think we're going to be talking all the time and we'll be running into each other probably a lot.
Cynthia Thurlow: Yeah, absolutely. That's what we keep saying eventually we're going to meet in person, but that hasn't happened yet. [laughs]
Melanie Avalon: I'm sure we will in some conference or something. I need to start going to things more.
Cynthia Thurlow: Yes, you do.
Melanie Avalon: I'm working on it. [laughs] Give me your travel skills, please.
Cynthia Thurlow: Oh, I love to travel. Let's just put it this way. We have a trip coming up next week and then I have another trip right after for business. And I'm always planning the next trip. Like, I just planned a trip for next November for my family, like, over a long weekend. It's like, that's just my mentality. It's like, let's keep traveling. So, it's fun.
Melanie Avalon: I'm very jealous like I said. If I didn't have the stress aspect that I get with disrupting my life because I love actually being at the places, it's like everything surrounding it. So yeah, listeners, stay tuned. Hopefully, if you're on the email list, you might have actually already received the announcement about the new cohost, but make sure you get on our email list. If not, you can get on that at ifodcast.com for listeners. You can get everything that we talked about in today's show in the show notes at ifpodcast.com/episode213. The show notes will have a full transcript, so definitely check that out. They will have links to everything that we talked about. We talked about a lot of things, so that will be very, very important. You can submit your own questions for the show by emailing questions@ifpodcast.com or going to ifpodcast.com and submitting questions there.
Like I said, we're not mentioning the cohost now, but I do think it's out there. If you already know who the cohost is and you'd like to submit specific questions for that person, feel free to do so. Yeah, I think that is all the things. Oh yeah, you can follow us on Instagram. I am @melanieavalon. Cynthia is @cynthia_thurlow_ and we are @ifpodcast. So okie-dokie. Well, anything from you, Cynthia, before we go?
Cynthia Thurlow: No. See you on our last episode.
Melanie Avalon: I know, crazy. Well, I will see you next week.
Cynthia Thurlow: Sounds good.
Melanie Avalon: Bye.
Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice and no patient-doctor relationship is formed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing your review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team, administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, transcripts by SpeechDocs, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and re-composed by Steve Saunders. See you next week.
[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]
Check out the Stuff We Like page for links to any of the books/supplements/products etc. mentioned on the podcast that we like!
LINKS
BUY:
Melanie's What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine
Cynthia's Intermittent Fasting Transformation: The 45-Day Program for Women to Lose Stubborn Weight, Improve Hormonal Health, and Slow Aging
The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast
More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com
More on Cynthia: cynthiathurlow.com
Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com
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