Welcome to Episode 366 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 Vanessa Spina, author of Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight.
Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:
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SHOW NOTES
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LMNT: Go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast to get a free sample pack with any purchase! Learn all about electrolytes in Episode 237 - our interview with Robb Rolf!
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Listener Q&A: Sharon - s there a point where you can take in too much leucine?
Listener Q&A: Missy - Is [there] too much protein [for] a 6 hour window?
Listener Q&A: Karen - Melanie’s Weight/Normal Weight
Visual biases in judging body weight
Past visual experiences weigh in on body size estimation
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
(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)
Melanie Avalon:
Welcome to Episode 366 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, author of "What, When, Wine" and creator of the supplement line AvalonX. And I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Spina, sports nutrition specialist, author of "Keto Essentials" and creator of the Tone Breath Ketone Analyzer and Tone Lux Red Light Therapy Panels. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ketogenicgirl.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. To be featured on the show, email us your questions to questions@ifpodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. 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.
Melanie Avalon:
Hi everybody and welcome. This is episode number 366 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and I am here with Vanessa Spina.
Vanessa Spina:
Hello everyone. How are you today, Vanessa? I Am doing great. How Are you?
Melanie Avalon:
I AM SO GOOD. I feel like I'm at this point where there's like so many exciting things about to happen and it's just like the waiting game and then I felt like they're all going to happen at once. That's usually how it happens.
Melanie Avalon:
I know. I know it. It's, like, so, for friends, we're still launching Hope—I mean, maybe by the time this comes out, my third podcast, the Mind Blown podcast with Scott Emmons, my partner and Vanessa's partner at MD Logic.
Melanie Avalon:
So that would be really, really exciting. It's going to be really exciting to podcast about, I mean I love podcasting about health related things, but it'll be nice to podcasts about something completely random.
Melanie Avalon:
And so that's coming and then my avionics spirulina is coming soon. I'm so excited to see how the packaging manifests and the formulation is amazing. And then EMF blocking headphones. I promise they're coming.
Melanie Avalon:
I know I keep talking about them. I am just being really neurotic with the formation of them and I want to make some adjustments. to the actual product itself. So it's taking a little bit of back and forth.
Melanie Avalon:
And then I'm still working on the most exciting thing I've ever worked on. So, so many things coming. What is the exciting things you've worked done? I think I told you about it offline. Have I? I am sure I have.
Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I, I Think you have, but there's a couple things. I don't know which one. It's in the app sphere. Yes. Okay. With the person that you're really, really excited to partner with.
Melanie Avalon:
Yes, although it's changed a little, it has evolved. So listeners, stay tuned.
Vanessa Spina:
How are things in your life? Things are really good. I'm just, you know, happy to be getting back into, you now, the work stuff. Like I've been lightly working during the maternity leave, which was, you the last few months, but I didn't do any recording.
Vanessa Spina:
So I love recording, so it feels great to be back and doing it again and interviewing again even though my brain is kind of like not what it was before which is kind sad because a lot of my neurons have been reallocated to Buddha and now our second deviant so you know I feel like I'm not I am not always like feeling as sharp and fast as I used to but I think it'll come back and I was just talking to Dr.
Vanessa Spina:
Sarah Godfrey, who's also a friend that I was interviewing last week. And I told her, I'm just starting to like, feel myself again. And with Luca, it took like a year and this time it's only three months.
Vanessa Spina:
And i'm feeling like pretty again, and i' m feeling more confident and feeling that like sort of confidence and risk taking and she was saying, yeah, your hormone levels start to climb again, exactly around three months.
Vanessa Spina:
And I was like, Okay, that makes sense. You know, she was saying, we were talking a lot about estrogen, but she's saying testosterone is a lot of the reason or is responsible for why, you know we feel sort of like risk taking and confidence.
Vanessa Spina:
That's like a whole fascinating thing for women, because I'm just obsessed right now with learning more about hormones, and different, shifts and stages in women's lives. It's so fascinating. And they always say that, you know, we always hear, maybe not everyone's heard this, but I've heard it a lot that when women get much older, they start to care a lot less like about what people think.
Vanessa Spina:
And it's funny, because it actually because of testosterone, where like men have so much testosterone. It's easy for them to shrug off things that people say or think about them. but it's not easy for us as women.
Vanessa Spina:
So that feels like a superpower that like, I'm excited to have more of later in life. Anyway, that's a whole horrible thing. But overall, I am feeling really good. I was starting to feel like myself again.
Vanessa Spina:
And I m glad that it s like so soon after birth because last time it took a lot longer.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh my goodness. Okay, so many things. One, I re interviewing Dr. Gottfried next week, actually. I just love her.
Vanessa Spina:
She bought my program back in the day and my cookbook. And she had it the first time I interviewed her, she like pulled it up and she's like, I have your program book from all these years ago. And I remember talking to her back then, like it when I was like unbelievably honored that she, like even purchased my program or like knew who I what is like or what I did.
Vanessa Spina:
But she was just like the best. She's so knowledgeable and amazing. I adore her.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, we actually had her on this show, like forever ago. Let me see how long ago, let's see. So she was episode 101. Wow, that's really cool. So what, this is episode 366, so, you know, 260 something episodes ago?
Melanie Avalon:
It's like four years ago That's crazy. It was for her book, The Brain Body Diet, or Brain body diet. it. So I actually have not interviewed her since then. She was supposed to come on my show for her last book, not the new one that is either out or coming out, the one right before that.
Vanessa Spina:
The Women and Hormones.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. And I've actually read it and prepped it in everything and then we just never actually scheduled, like never got it the books. But then she came out with a new book. Is it out right now? Her book?
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, that autoimmune,
Vanessa Spina:
the autoimmune cure, autoimmune. She talks a lot about trauma, sort of like Gabor Mate style.
Melanie Avalon:
Yes, the auto immune cure. So that's what I'm interviewing her for next week. Yeah. I'm really excited for that. And she talks about so many different things. And like you said, she talked about the role of trauma and autoimmune conditions.
Melanie Avalon:
And I was interested to hear her thoughts on even like the psychedelic world and conditions? Mm -hmm.
Vanessa Spina:
I know it's like a part of her book. I didn't read it, but I knew it was like sort of at the end and part of the God -free protocol at end of book?
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. Yeah, so she talks about that a lot. Actually, I'm really excited. I connected – okay. This made me feel like I need to work on my travel skills. Turns out that mutual friend – well, a mutual I think you actually know him, but his daughter is a top 50 world model.
Melanie Avalon:
Like if you go to like models .com and look at like top -50 models, she's like there. Her story is crazy. I cannot wait to interview her. When she was, so she had never modeled or anything before and she grew up with like a lot of bullying and people weren't very nice to her and had a lots of mental health issues.
Melanie Avalon:
And when she was 19, her mom, she had a really bad breakup. Her mom took her to New York City for gay pride weeks, like, help her feel better. And she got scouted by a model scout. Within a few weeks.
Melanie Avalon:
She was on runaways for like Louis Vuitton and like all these brands in Paris. And now it hasn't stopped since and that was like four years ago. Crazy. No, I like blows my mind. The reason she wants to come on the show is she wants to talk about her mental health journey and this is how it relates.
Melanie Avalon:
She's started doing ketamine, which is an FDA approved psychedelic for certain issues if it's done in a clinical setting. And so she's starting doing that and it has been completely life changing for her.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, it is funny, we did a call to like meet each other and I was talking to her about scheduling for the show and she was like saying how she works like all the time which I obviously totally get. And she was like, yeah, they'll just call and be like you have to be in Paris right now And you'll have like get on a plane.
Melanie Avalon:
Like that's crazy. Can you imagine that sounds fun? That's what my sister said. My sister was, like that. Sounds like amazing. I was I can't I Could not I could not know you I Know I know so it's really interesting Oh, she's also she went viral at one point because some people might remember her from this.
Melanie Avalon:
She like took her shoes off one time because they weren't comfortable and everybody like freaked out because you can't take your shoes off like mid mid -runway. So I will be definitely looking forward to that.
Melanie Avalon:
I'm really interested in seeing the evolution of psychedelic assisted therapy for mental and physical health conditions.
Vanessa Spina:
Me too. I was reading a year ago maybe they're doing some big trials here in Europe and check specifically at this one center. I was like, maybe I should volunteer for this. It was like I think they were using MDMA in their trials.
Vanessa Spina:
And then I started reading the requirements of the participants. The requirements were so extensive, like the amount of follow up, and the number of detailed like records and things that you had to it was just it was having a job like that amount.
Vanessa Spina:
So I'm not going to do that. But it It was just really cool to see that they're doing these big studies and that it's becoming more and more accepted, and it could have a huge impact on the mental health crisis that we're dealing with.
Melanie Avalon:
I think it can be really profound and I mean it is still very controversial and its really, really interesting. I'll just say, because no pun intended, I just encourage people to have an open mind surrounding it.
Melanie Avalon:
Because if you look back at the history of basically why psychedelics were demonized or why, you know, why we have this vibe surrounding them, which may be very negative. A lot of it is very, well, it's a lot, a, lot factors, but a lot if it very political.
Melanie Avalon:
Like basically certain populations that would use psychedelic and certain political times, it was used as a way to like demonize a certain group for political incentives, like hippie culture and things like that.
Melanie Avalon:
It's really, really fascinating, the political history of it. And I also think I want to say I think there's a difference between, you know, using random things recreationally in a macro dosing situation at, without the right set and setting at like a party.
Melanie Avalon:
Maybe you'll still have, you know, profound things happen in a great time, but that's really different than what we're talking about here, which is like a micro dosing, sometimes macro dousing, a lot of times microdosing in clinical settings and, um, we know with assisted therapists and trained medical practitioners and yeah, it's really, really promising because basically, I don't want to make this a whole episode about psychedelics, but it really really interesting what they're finding about basically super fast charge rewiring the brain in a lot of conditions, like because we talk a lot about like the promise of neuroplasticity and a lot times when people have trauma and things like that they have certain brain patterns that are just kind of stuck a certain way and it can take a long time and lot therapy and practices to rewire the brain but it seems that some of these medications kind of open that up and let people have profound changes in their neurochemistry often for the better in a very short amount of time with these substances.
Melanie Avalon:
So those are my thoughts on that. I'm excited to talk to Dr. Gottfried about it. So wonderful. So I will make one brief announcement for listeners before we jump into more fun things. We are still running our giveaway for this show where you can enter to win a incredible gift bag of all the things.
Melanie Avalon:
So if you go to Apple Podcasts and you write a review for us on Apple Podcast and or if already wrote a new review in the past, which we super totally love and appreciate, just update that review so that it will pop to the top and be a more recent review.
Melanie Avalon:
Send a screenshot of that reveal. We would love to hear what you're enjoying about the show in that. Two questions at iapodcast .com, we will enter you into our giveaway. The end of the entry period is at the end of April.
Melanie Avalon:
You will be entered to win my entire avionics line, so that includes my serapeptase, which is one of my favorite supplements of all time. It's a proteolytic enzyme created by the Japanese silkworm. you take it in the fasted state, it goes into your bloodstream, it breaks down problematic proteins so it can help with inflammation, with allergies.
Melanie Avalon:
it's amazing for allergies, brain fog, so many different things that's been shown actually to break down amyloid plaque, speaking of the brain, as well as reduced cholesterol levels. You'll get that.
Melanie Avalon:
You get my Avalon X Magnesium 8, which is a full -spectrum magnesium blend for the body. You will get magnesium nightcap, a special type of magnesium that crosses the blood -brain barrier. And you'll my berberine, amazing for blood sugar control.
Melanie Avalon:
And then you will also get Vanessa's tone protein. Vanessa, would you like to tell listeners a little bit about your tone and protein? I would love to.
Vanessa Spina:
So, tone protein is absolutely delicious, but it also is enhanced with leucine and that means that it helps trigger muscle protein synthesis or building new muscle with every serving and it help you to get strong and get lean.
Vanessa Spina:
And it basically is one of the cleanest protein powders on the market. So there isn't really anything out there that is as clean and as high quality. And I absolutely love it. you can check out the reviews at MD Logic.
Vanessa Spina:
And yeah, it's a great addition, I think, to anyone's routine if they're working on getting healthy and re -composing their bodies.
Melanie Avalon:
So I'm actually going to ask you a curveball question about that. But before that, I will close this loop out. So you will get that my entire line, as well as a surprise supplement from MD logic as Well, so this is like a really good, really Good thing to win, you'll get so many things.
Melanie Avalon:
So again, to enter that, just go to Apple Podcasts, write a review on on Apple podcasts and or update your older review, and then send a screenshot of that to questions at iapodcast .com and we will enter you my curveball question.
Melanie Avalon:
Just because we're talking about the loose scene, Vanessa, I'll go ahead and read a question that we had. This is from Sharon, she wanted to know, is there a point where you can take in too much leucine?
Melanie Avalon:
Cause so she said that she takes amino acids every day, 15 pills a day five in the morning on an empty stomach and 10 more on empty stomache before dinner after working out. She's ordered your tone protein and is super excited and she's wondering if taking tone, protein and all those amino acid will add too many daily lecine.
Melanie Avalon:
She says, is their a cutoff point where leucine is concerned, can you take too much? I've heard that you can. For reference, she's taking perfect amino tablets by Body Health, which have per five tablets, their amino acid blend of five grams, and they have leusine, L -leucin, alvaline L isoleucan, l -lysine HCL, L phenylalanine.
Melanie Avalon:
L methionine and L tryptophan. And one more that has a typo. So can, you, take, too, much leuscine? Vanessa.
Vanessa Spina:
So it's really not something I would ever be concerned with. I don't think it is something that anyone has to worry about, but if you are taking a lot of supplements, you only really need three to four grams total, like at one meal.
Vanessa Spina:
So either at a conventional meal or taking a protein shaker supplement or adding tone protein or something like that to your yogurt, etc. you only need about three to four grams so that's gonna trigger muscle protein synthesis you don't really need to go over that you can take aminos they're good to take pre -workout for some people I don t necessarily think it's needed but it sounds like you know I know perfect aminoes are meant to be supplemental to having whole protein so you take the aminos pre workout and then have tone protein as a protein meal booster anytime like usually I would recommend taking it post workout and perfect aminos has about two grams of leucine for about 10 capsules so even if you're taking 15 capsules you'll have about four to six grams of lucin max so that's really not an amount to be concerned with it's basically just that it is a sensor in your body and once your body senses that you have, you know, above three grams circulating in your bloodstream, it triggers muscle protein synthesis.
Vanessa Spina:
So you don't need more than that, but having a little bit more that also is not a negative. There's also new research study that just came out saying that a hundred grams of protein continuously stimulates muscle proteins synthesis, so you really don''t need that much but it's not going to be detrimental at the levels that you're talking about Sharon.
Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. Perfect, perfect. Okay, great. Shall we jump into some more questions? Yes, I'd love to. So we have a question from Missy. Ok, this was smart. Missie made her title of her question. I have podcast era store.
Melanie Avalon:
Which I love, which is Taylor Swift store, it's clever when people put in titles that they know I will be like, what is that about? There's nothing about the era store in this question. So Missy says, Hi, Melanie and Vanessa.
Melanie Avalon:
She says she's enjoying this era of the podcast. Oh, my goodness. It's like I have podcasts is the era's tour. I love that. That's amazing. I loved it. Missi, you are clever. I Love this. Okay. She said I'm enjoying this area of the podcast, which has also turned me on to Vanessa's optimal protein podcast.
Melanie Avalon:
Thanks for providing such helpful information each week. That's awesome. Oh, and this also turned me on to more of Vanessa's like me personally, after we started recording, I was I've been listening to More and More of your of your show, I was familiar with you before, but I wasn't like, you know, on the regularly listening.
Melanie Avalon:
So it's been wonderful to dive into your work, Vanessa.
Vanessa Spina:
Oh wow, thank you.
Melanie Avalon:
So she said, I am looking to become more lean. And I'm having a really hard time accomplishing that. I'm hoping to try something different after learning so much from Vanessa about protein. Hoping to have a few questions answered surrounding my plan to achieve a more lean body composition.
Melanie Avalon:
I've been IF -ing for five years. I started for gut reasons. I found Melanie's magnesium, which fixed all my issues, oh my goodness, and stuck with IF because I enjoy the way I feel. That's amazing. I am really happy to hear that about the magnesium.
Melanie Avalon:
She said, I am 38 years old, 5 '4 and 130 pounds. I strength train five times a week. I run 14 miles a weak. Almost all my meals are cooked at home, protein and veggies. I have occasional dinners out.
Melanie Avalon:
Around two times the week, I will have a dessert slash treat after dinner. I drink wine socially on average one glass a weeks. Her plan is to count protein macros only, getting 120 grams a day. She will continue her current exercise.
Melanie Avalon:
she says if I'm consuming 40 grams of protein at lunch around 12 p .m. 30 grams of a protein in a shake around 2 p m and 50 grams of proton at dinner around 6 pm are those servings of protein too large for my body to use all of it is that too much protein and a six -hour window do you think this will change my body composition so she doesn't say it but I'll recap so basically from 12 to six in a six hour window, she'll be taking in 120 grams of protein.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh, that is what she said earlier. She said, sorry for the long email. I just wanted to make sure I gave as much information as possible. Thank you for reading. Smiley emoji.
Vanessa Spina:
Oh thank you so much for your question and for all the kind words to both of us. I feel like super flattered right now and really, really appreciate the question. And the detail that you put into it.
Vanessa Spina:
So it sounds like you're targeting about 120 grams of protein per day because that's sort of the golden rule that a lot of us go by, you know, one gram of protein for a pound of optimal body weight is great.
Vanessa Spina:
I mean, there's a few different calculations that I use, but I think if you are strength training five times a week, it could be adequate for you, but I wouldn't be scared to go over 120 grams if you want to have more than that.
Vanessa Spina:
If you're satisfied with 120g, great. But if you not feeling fully satisfied, I would not be scared of going above that because strength training five times a week is a lot. And I'm not sure if it sounds like you already run, so it's not something new that you are adding in.
Vanessa Spina:
So, the only thing I'd question is, I think it's a great plan in terms of the protein, but if you want to get leaner, adding more protein definitely helps. It can displace calories from other foods, it keeps you fuller longer, helps your body build more muscle so you have more lean mass to fat mass in the ratio there.
Vanessa Spina:
But I do fundamentally believe that a caloric deficit should be created or should be in place if you want to lose some body fat. So sometimes you can just lose some fat from getting more muscle or at least the percentage of body fat will go down because you have a greater amount of lean mass.
Vanessa Spina:
So if we just want a lower your body -fat percentage you could accomplish that. But by getting lean if, you also want, to loose some of fat mass then I would recommend tracking also your fat and carb and making sure that you're going to be at some kind of caloric deficit when you are in that cutting phase.
Vanessa Spina:
So the protein will really help with feeling full and not feeling blood sugar lows, etc. But I do believe that if you want to shed some fat, like some actual pounds of fat then And creating a small caloric deficit, you know, around 25%, I think should be in place if you want my advice on losing some fat mass.
Vanessa Spina:
And I'm not sure, we might have different takes on this, Melanie, so I am curious to hear what you think.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I have the same opinion regarding the calorie deficit in that there has to be, in In the end, what ended up being a calorie deficit, I mean, that's just the law of thermodynamics. So it might not always present that way.
Melanie Avalon:
You might feel like you consciously made a calories deficit because you did factors that are affecting the calories out more than you realize. So things like, again, a high protein diet, we know that that has a really high thermogenic effect, meaning it actually burns calories more to digest it.
Melanie Avalon:
So you, you know, lose some calories in the digestion process based on your own gut microbiome that can affect whether or not you're absorbing calories more or not how your body responds to what you were eating.
Melanie Avalon:
It may upregulate or change your meat, your non -exercise activity thermogenesis. So basically calories that you are burning without even consciously meaning to. So my point of that is that it can look like on paper that you might not be in a calorie deficit, but you actually end up being in one or it could look on a paper like you You are in a calorie deficit, but you actually don't end up being on one for lots of factors beyond what you've actually put in your mouth.
Melanie Avalon:
So that said, I'm very similar. I do feel okay with like a two -pronged approach where like if a person has not purposely restricted calories yet to make a change, they also have a lot of other changes they're going to make.
Melanie Avalon:
And again, it's hard for me to know how much Missy's new plan is a deviation from what she was doing before. But let's say that it is a really big change. I, and not that you need my permission or anything, but I would be totally good with trying this first without looking at the calorie thing and just seeing what this does.
Melanie Avalon:
So kind of like phase one, try focusing on the protein, try having the more protein. Whatever windows you're doing, do that for a few weeks and see what happens. And then if you are not making the progress that you want, then maybe bring in the calorie restriction.
Melanie Avalon:
Or you can do them both at the beginning. But I also think it could be like a two -pronged approach. Also a little hack for people if they're intimidated or overwhelmed by or don't like the idea of counting calories.
Melanie Avalon:
So there's something called the Hawthorne effect, which is basically changes that can happen just on being observed. And the point of that, how it relates to calorie restriction is just starting by you might not even have to consciously calorie restrict.
Melanie Avalon:
You might be able to just start writing down what you're eating and calculating the calories without necessarily trying to restrict, there's a psychological thing that happens where when When people feel like they're being observed or writing down what they are doing and it's being seen, they unconsciously change their behavior.
Melanie Avalon:
So it is pretty consistent in a lot of dietary studies when people are asked to log their meal habits and their calories that they actually start eating less without even meaning to. So I'm not saying that that is always going to work, but that would maybe be even another baby step that you could take as well.
Melanie Avalon:
You could start with the change with a protein, and if that doesn't work, then you can try writing down what you're eating and calculating the calories without restricting. And then if you need to, go to that third step.
Melanie Avalon:
So yes, that's my choose your own adventure map approach.
Vanessa Spina:
I love that, and you brought up so many great points. I love now knowing the name for that effect because I never knew what it was. But it's such a good point that sometimes, you know, just tracking makes such a big difference where you kind of have this other dimension that you know that, that your sort of being accountable to yourself or you know to whomever and it makes a bit difference in terms of you know your choices and I love the idea of just starting out with adding the protein.
Vanessa Spina:
So I tend to also do that with a lot of the people that I've worked within the past is just have them displace a lot of calories or other calories by bumping up the protein percentage. But in this case, I don't know if that's something you've already been doing.
Vanessa Spina:
Like I know what your protein has been, but I love that you brought that up because sometimes just changing that, like you said, makes a big difference.
Melanie Avalon:
I find it so fascinating and I just said this, it is pretty consistent. Not that they'll even be testing the Hawthorne effect but just so many times in dietary studies it just happens because a lot of times, in order to do a study like a randomized controlled trial, they have to have everybody monitoring what they're eating but they will have like one arm of the group calorie restricting and like another arm not and they often find that the arm that is not restricting just because they had to write it all down and add it up, they start eating loss anyways, which messes with the study, but oh well.
Melanie Avalon:
I had one more one -more thought about it. Oh I was just thinking that it's so funny just how not relative it all is with with protein intake but she's talking about you know she consumes 40 grams at once and then 30 grams then 50 grams.
Melanie Avalon:
Like are those servings too large? That's just so small to me. If I just had 40 grams of protein, I would be starving.
Vanessa Spina:
It's also small for me. I think depending on where you're coming from, maybe it's a lot. But yeah, it is also so small to me in terms of what I eat per meal because I like to get in a lotta protein. I'm back to doing two meals a day now and I'd like get in enough protein that I wanna to put down my spoon or fork or whatever I'm using, and I am not interested anymore in food for at least five to six hours until it's time to eat.
Vanessa Spina:
Sometimes the appetite suppressing effect is so strong from the protein that it is hard to get a second meal. I had that effect today. I was like, Pete told my husband, you have to order dinner for you and Luca because I just wanted a protein shake.
Vanessa Spina:
it's just so satisfying but yeah I'm on the same page. I eat a lot more protein than that per meal and that's also why I started off by saying like if you are training that much and you feel like you want more protein like don't be afraid to have more because like I could easily do 200 grams of protein and all the researchers I've interviewed have said that you just burn more fat like there's no detrimental effects to eating more protein, even that much protein.
Vanessa Spina:
If you are fully healthy and don't have any kidney issues, etc.
Melanie Avalon:
I often think about, can you imagine, I just feel like there's so many different like relatively simple dietary paradigm shifts we could have where if everybody in the US just tried it, just the metabolic effects would be huge.
Melanie Avalon:
Like if, everybody just decided to focus on protein for the meal, as like the main macro, like, the effect it would have on people's satiety, on their muscle health, probably on fat loss, I mean.
Vanessa Spina:
I know. I think about it all the time, and I would think it'd be similar to what we've been seeing with the weight loss peptides. Like, it's would be having a similar, sort of massive effect for all these people that would suddenly be feeling full, because protein does stimulate GLP1.
Vanessa Spina:
So you'd be feeling full and be building more muscle and not losing fat and muscle. Like it would have a similar effect in the sense that it would be making headlines like the way that these weight loss peptides have been.
Melanie Avalon:
It's that so many things that if and then if people if everybody wore a CGM a continuous glucose monitor just for like two weeks like if everybody did that. That's my other thing also. I mean talk about the Hawthorne effect.
Melanie Avalon:
talking about being observed. Yeah, so many things. I remember I've read, I have never done this. I heard that if like speaking of the Hawthorne effect, like eating in front of if you were to eat in front of a mirror, that that would have like a massive effect on how people eat.
Melanie Avalon:
I'm never tried that though.
Vanessa Spina:
That would be really weird. I also, you know, heard it in respect to eating with family and friends is something that naturally encourages healthy eating behavior.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh, that's interesting.
Vanessa Spina:
I believe that. It's a big aspect of why the Mediterranean diet is so successful for people is because people in the mediterranean tend to eat a lot of meals socially with their family and friends as opposed to like alone.
Vanessa Spina:
And it encourages really healthy eating behavior.
Melanie Avalon:
That completely makes sense. Actually, one of the books it might have been Dr. Gottfried's book. One of The books I was reading recently was talking about I don't think And people replacing that, like not getting that social need, and so they're replacing it with food.
Melanie Avalon:
That completely makes sense.
Vanessa Spina:
I did a podcast just on that note, I didn't podcast. If you were to ask me what, what podcast interview blew your mind the most? In the last year?
Melanie Avalon:
Wait, wait, Wait. I have a question for you. What podcast will you remind the Most in the past year,
Vanessa Spina:
Melanie question like given asking seen this yet, Dr. Ahn, who's doing amazing, life changing transformational work with people who have disordered eating. And he found that there's actually genetic mutations associated with all the main eating disorders, and that he will test the genetics of families.
Vanessa Spina:
He's that's sort of like how he first started doing was like doing these huge data sets. And then seeing that those mutations that are affecting it. So like with bulimia, there was one example, the people who had the genetic mutations that had bulima, their genetic mutations were causing them to not be able to secrete GLP1 properly.
Vanessa Spina:
So that's like a situation for someone with a weight loss peptide, right? Cause you're then mimicking that GLT1 effect. And then with anorexics, he was saying that it was the situation where I have go back and listen to it, but it was that gaining fat was really bad for them because they can't actually process the fat in a way and the genetic mutation was preventing them from being able to burn fat.
Vanessa Spina:
So it gave them this underlying subconscious fear of eating fat or gaining fat, and he was working with all these people doing these tests and figuring out, well, it's not in his opinion because he also worked in psychiatry like he's an incredible doctor incredible pedigree just worked at all these amazing institutions with like household names and he said you know they always were sort of explaining these eating disorders through like a mental issue or some kind of like mental like say for example like it being about control or being this or that and And he was saying it's not.
Vanessa Spina:
It's just a genetic mutation. And once you figure that out, it is very easy to solve because in his opinion, you know, you just have to have the right strategy for it. But it blew my mind because then he would go back.
Vanessa Spina:
If he found someone that had an eating disorder, he'd go and he test the family. And the families would all have these same mutations in most situations. So it was just amazing what we can learn from testing our genetics and the things that we don't know because we have these, you know, the future of medicine is this like precision medicine that's personalized based on knowledge.
Vanessa Spina:
For example, of your things like people call SNPs like your single nucleotide polymorphisms, like these are some examples that could have like huge effects on your life, on someone's life without them knowing, so yeah, that blew my mind the most of all the interviews I've done this year.
Melanie Avalon:
No, no, That's so amazing. How did you find him again? Did you find Him?
Vanessa Spina:
So there's a podcast I listen to called The Lab Report and I think it's maybe Genova Therapeutics and they do like a lot of metabolomics and all kinds of stuff and so they have they interview guests on their podcast and they talk about you know metabolomics and the different studies that they run so he was using at one point their labs to run some of these studies so they interviewed him so it was kind of like very random sort of thing but I I love finding guests like that who I haven't heard of before, I hadn't seen their work before and I'm just like, oh my gosh, you're doing amazing stuff.
Vanessa Spina:
And no one really knows about it.
Melanie Avalon:
That's amazing. That something actually I wanted to comment on about your podcast that I loved is, you bring on people like so many, you brought on a lot of researchers and scientists and you find all these people.
Melanie Avalon:
And I find it really interesting Because when people have a show, it's like their baby and you get to choose who you have on and showcase what you want to showcase and explore what to explore and I just appreciate your guest lineup.
Melanie Avalon:
I like what your choose for it.
Vanessa Spina:
Aw, thank you. That's the best compliment. Thank you so much. I'm serious. I could compliment your podcast all day long but we'd be here for another hour or something. Stop it! We're like 30 minutes.
Vanessa Spina:
were just like, and then you had this guest and you guessed.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh my gosh, that's so funny. I had one more comment about that. Oh, I'm actually interviewing, I am excited. Next week, I m interviewing Matt and Wade from Bioptimizers. Do you know them?
Vanessa Spina:
I know all of them. Yes, I've been working with them for years and I just think they are amazing. I think I first, first heard about them through you. We had a podcast years ago with them about digestive enzymes, and I had never heard of them before and it got me into digestive enzymes like a huge way and still use them every day, so.
Melanie Avalon:
That's amazing. Yeah, I love them. I think they've actually, they hold the record for being collectively on my shows the most of any, when they come on next week, it'll be like maybe their sixth time collectively, but their new book is massive.
Melanie Avalon:
It's so big. I'm really excited to interview them. The reason I bring it up, though, is I am almost done with it and one of the last chapters is all about nutrigenomics and all the connections between all these different genes and dietary effects and lifestyle effects.
Melanie Avalon:
They're talking, for example, about fasting and bringing it back and how basically certain genes can make fasting more appropriate for certain populations. So like the Mediterranean diet, like people who live like in a Mediterranean culture, this is not to scare anybody away from fasting.
Melanie Avalon:
I think fasting can work for most people, but people with like a mediterranean background like that population was eating more abundantly, more consistently compared to like Caucasians coming from like, you know, places with winters and who went through more periods of food scarcity, they might be more adapted to fasting.
Melanie Avalon:
So I thought that was like genetically. Yeah, it's fascinating. It totally, totally makes sense. And then there's so many different genes involving like muscle and all right. Shall we go on to our next question?
Vanessa Spina:
Yeah. This question from Karen, actually I saw this pop up in the emails because I was reading the giveaway entries, and I remember, I think it was a few weeks ago or something, and i saw this woman's email too, so I'm glad you included it in here.
Vanessa Spina:
Okay, Karen Lesko says, here is my updated review.
Melanie Avalon:
I'll just clarify really quickly so that they haven't understand. I know you just said it. So basically Karen, she submitted a review for that giveaway that we mentioned earlier. So friends just another plug to enter that giveaway.
Melanie Avalon:
So she sent the review and then she Added this little note.
Vanessa Spina:
Yes. Okay. Thank you for yeah for clarifying that So here is my updated review as part of updating my review I could not help but see a bunch of new one -star reviews claiming that Melanie is anorexic Melanie, I feel that you should address this somehow.
Vanessa Spina:
You don't have to acknowledge the reviews, but you could address the perspective that people are used to seeing overweight people and think normal weight people are too thin. Melanie if you think that you are to thin you can address that as well but you seem to have a similar body type to Maria Emmerich and she has mentioned that people think she is too thin and that she talks about it.
Vanessa Spina:
This is just my perspective.
Melanie Avalon:
Awesome. Thank you, Karen, for writing this in. Same as Vanessa. I saw this and I was like, oh, this is something... I'm really glad that she added this. And I really would love to talk about it a little bit.
Melanie Avalon:
So I've been a very similar way for about a decade, probably over a decade. It's really interesting in social media how... And, I think we might have talked about this before on the show, but for whatever reason, like sometimes people will latch on to a picture or something and make a comment like this and then start a train of people making similar comments and it's always very interesting to see how people approach other people about body weight related things, just in society in general.
Melanie Avalon:
I remember though at one point there was one picture and for what ever reason lots of people were getting a little bit intense about it and one person commented and they were like they said like that they were thinking the same thing about my weight but then they went they said they wouldn't scroll back through all my pictures like the beginning of my Instagram and they realized I actually had been the way for like, that long.
Melanie Avalon:
So yes, so this is me like the song by Kesha. I love what Karen said about the perspective of everything and I actually went and did some research on this and i found so there's actually a lot of research on this.
Melanie Avalon:
It was a thing where I was like, I wonder if this is a topic where people are talking about it, or if just this just in my head. So I found a lot of research articles, I'll put links to them in the show notes.
Melanie Avalon:
But they're basically about the psychology of how we perceive body size. And before I go back into that, I will say yes, I am very thin, and I'm a very similar type to Maria Emmerich. But I'm not anorexic and I, I am very open with what I eat and my fasting pattern and everything.
Melanie Avalon:
And that's like what i've been doing. It's what been I've doing for years and years. I love it. That's my answer to that. But for these psychology, different articles that I read. So basically to summarize all of them, like one of the I really like the way it started like, the very beginning of it is said combating the current global epidemic of obesity requires that people have a realistic understanding of what a healthy body size looks like.
Melanie Avalon:
And then it went in and they basically asked people of different genders and different races to rate people with different sizes about whether or not they were underweight, normal weight, overweight, obese.
Melanie Avalon:
And they found that it was specific to gender and races as to how people perceived people, which was interesting. And that specific study, for example, they found that people tended to make more errors for male bodies between leaner to bigger, particularly they often would underestimate.
Melanie Avalon:
So basically with males, if males were overweight, people would think that they were more of a normal weight. And then they said that basically overweight male bodies are now perceived as part of an expanded normal.
Melanie Avalon:
I wish there had been females because that would have been in my favor with this question, but it was not. It was the males where they found that. But basically that the perceptual boundary of normal weight has become wider than the recognized BMI category for males.
Melanie Avalon:
They found for females, participants consistently miscategorized underweight bodies as normal while still accurately categorizing normal female bodies. So again, this is actually does not support the idea that we see normal people as underweight.
Melanie Avalon:
This is a little bit different, but I think it still speaks to how we basically see weight differently based on society and culture. And another really, really interesting article, the way I found that one was linked through another one.
Melanie Avalon:
And the one that was before that, was basically they did a test where they had people look at lineups or like lots of different images of people and they had them rate them if they were, again, they dragged a slider.
Melanie Avalon:
Like they drag the slider more towards the underweight side or more toward the obese side to categorize the image. And they found it was highly affected by the image that was shown right before. So if you saw a overweight person before, and then you also saw an overweight person, but the person before like was more overweight, they would possibly categorize that second overweight person as like a normal weight.
Melanie Avalon:
So basically like what you just saw can influence what your seeing in the world. And it went all different directions as far as what they had just seen. They still found that people were like in a ballpark, correct?
Melanie Avalon:
But it affected like the subtle nuances of it. And then I found another study that found that people's weight actually affected how they perceived other people weight. And just going in all different directions, like basically, there's so much literature on this where it makes you really question reality and how we see everything.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh, then, I got into rabbit tangent hall just because it was related topics that came up. This was not related to the question. Then I found a study talking about people who are overweight actually have different site perception for space, which I thought was interesting, but that might be a completely different mechanism.
Melanie Avalon:
Point being, bringing it back. I do think that because the resting point of weight today in society, like we do have an obesity epidemic. So like the current obesity stats, well, this is going back to 2016.
Melanie Avalon:
So, I probably need to find something more current, but like in 2016, there was more than 1 .9 billion adults that were obese, sorry, that we're overweight and 650 million obese. At that time, around 40% of adults were considered to be obese in the US, 40%.
Melanie Avalon:
And that was like a while ago. That's almost half of people. And then childhood obesity, in 2016, there was 41 million children under the age of five who were overweight or obese, and then, you know, it's just continued to rise since then.
Melanie Avalon:
And it is really interesting to look back at the patterns and see what the average weights were, like in the 1920s, 1930s ,40s and 50s up until today. And to looks at those charts is, really really, interesting.
Melanie Avalon:
And its really interested also to go, I know we've talked, we might have talked about this before, but I've heard lots of people talk about it on different shows. Like, if you go Google, like, beach photos of people in prior decades, like 20, you know, 30s, well, maybe like 40s?
Melanie Avalon:
50s. 60s even. People just look different. Like people look different and this is not, this, none of this is judgmental. I'm just trying to, it's interesting because I actually did an episode recently on my show with the author of a book, Christian Madsberg was his name.
Melanie Avalon:
Mad, Madspie? He's Danish. He wrote a all about like how can we actually see the world and perceive data without preconceived notions and biases, it was really, really fascinating. But basically, the people in the word looked, when it comes to weight, they look different today.
Melanie Avalon:
The normal set point for weight is significantly higher than it used to be. And so I don't find it at all surprising, again, yes, I know I'm very thin. I don't find it all surprising that I probably look, I might look even more than compared to how people, because of how, people see the rest of the world as far as our current obesity epidemic.
Melanie Avalon:
And I know, yeah, and I think Maria has talked about this as well, but, uh, do you have thoughts on it, Vanessa?
Vanessa Spina:
I mean, i know Maria struggled with that a lot as, well because she always says when she was overweight or obese, that she was often criticized for her appearance. And now that's she's sort of at the other end of the spectrum of weight, I guess, she gets also criticized quite a bit for being very, very lean.
Vanessa Spina:
And I think it's definitely a North American thing. And it is because rates of obesity are so high. It's a full out epidemic. in Europe I find that people here are just a lot leaner like I know the the statistics I don't know what the exact statistics are but it's just easy to see when you walk around you most people are normal weight I would say and I'm talking about like body fat percentage in terms of being like either athletic or lean category, maybe a little overweight but not obese.
Vanessa Spina:
It's really rare to see even one obese person. Actually, when we were in Spain last month, I saw more obese people than I had seen in a while and I was surprised because it just used to be in Prague and you really don't see it much.
Vanessa Spina:
As a contrast, it's the same thing because I grew up in China. China, everybody was lean. It's different now. But when I was growing up in China everybody was very lean and then when we would go back to North America, I would always have this like reverse culture shock.
Vanessa Spina:
So like you said, wherever you're coming from, I used to seeing only lean people and people were not affluent or wealthy there. A lot of that was a product of poverty in in china, but seeing people who were overeating and overweight was like shocking.
Vanessa Spina:
It was very shocking to me. So it feels like you probably stand out a lot more if you're on like sort of the leaner side in a society or culture where like a Lot of population is avoid or obese so like you said it depends where you are looking at it from like if you were walking around or existing in Europe I don't think you would ever get those kinds of comments so it is like the the frame of reference right because you're like, not that far removed from the average, lean person here, you probably look pretty similar, but you are very far -removed from like someone who's obese.
Vanessa Spina:
So it just creates like a really big contrast. I know you, that you eat tons of protein every day, and you ate tons food every day. You nourish your body really well. You know, you also do other things, lifestyle, a lot of lifestyle interventions, you know, that puts you in a really healthy place, like in a small percentage of the population.
Vanessa Spina:
You know that that is really, really like on the leaner side and very metabolically healthy. You're measuring all your biomarkers and all of that. So, it's unfortunate that people make that assumption about you.
Vanessa Spina:
And like you said, you've been very open about like how much you eat in -a -day and you know, all the different lifestyle things that you do. I mean, I know that you're someone who, like you said, has maintained similar weight for like a decade, you know?
Vanessa Spina:
And that, if you are very healthy and you really take care of yourself. So I'm sorry that have to experience that kind of, I don't know what you call backlash or criticism, because I know Maria really struggles with it.
Vanessa Spina:
And you don t want to be judged for your body, the way your body is, or the way body looks. Like if it feels good to be in your body the way that it is then that's all that should matter. So yeah it's unfortunate but it' s really interesting that you found so much research on it.
Melanie Avalon:
No, well first of all thank you yeah thank you for saying all of that and sharing that perspective and it it yeah, it''s so interesting to hear about it differently with the European perspective which I have thought about before.
Melanie Avalon:
And just going back to like the, it's interesting because the comments and stuff are presented as an objective observation comment about my weight or whatever it may be. But oftentimes, there's probably a lot behind why that person is expressing what they're expressing.
Melanie Avalon:
That's probably not even related to me per se, especially if it gets like super personal. Like I got a comment yesterday, like this week actually, where a person said like, no amount of like makeup or hair, whatever, could make me look, you know, beautiful because of my weight or something.
Melanie Avalon:
And I was like there's a lot there. Like, that's not even a weight comment. You know? Like that s not even so, and my heart goes out to everybody, especially with like Maria talking about how she got backlash on both sides of the spectrum.
Melanie Avalon:
It's like you just can't win. It's like society today, you just can't win when it comes to weight and then it gets further complicated because it is tied to health. Being severely underweight and being obese is tight to help conditions and that shouldn't be a judgment or a moral issue or an emotional issue, or anything like that.
Melanie Avalon:
But it's hard to even talk about it because its all so intertwined.
Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, it feels like a minefield. That was one of the questions I was asking Dr. Gabrielle Lyon when we did the last interview. I asked her, what are your thoughts on, was it health at every size or something movement?
Vanessa Spina:
And she was like, she's just talking about the data. We have objective data showing that being obese is not healthy and especially not for metabolic health and for all your disease risk when it comes to cardiovascular health, for cardiometabolic health for mental health.
Vanessa Spina:
She talked about studies where the brain's health and size was affected by waist size. There's a lot of statistics and figures that we have on this, so it is kind of confusing and I think detrimental to overall society when we We are not able to talk about it openly and plainly because we have the data, and it's not about judgment.
Vanessa Spina:
It's like because, we don't want there to be an obesity crisis or epidemic. We don�t want to have children who are dealing with late onset diseases because their health is declining already so rapidly.
Vanessa Spina:
like we don't want to have a society that's like sick and unhealthy. We want people to be well and healthy and able to pursue their lives goals and also live their life to the fullest. So yeah, it's really unfortunate that it is like a political minefield when it comes to just talking about basic health.
Melanie Avalon:
I could not agree more. That sums it up so well. So, yes, but thank you, Karen, for your review and for asking about it. And thank You, Vanessa, for the wonderful open discussions surrounding it and everything.
Melanie Avalon:
I really appreciate it,
Vanessa Spina:
really, really do. I applaud you for addressing it's not easy to address comments like that.
Melanie Avalon:
Well, thank you. So only good things around here, friends. Love and support. Good vibes. Good fives. Speaking of good vibs, what would be a really good vibe is if you guys win our giveaway. So make sure that you enter to win.
Melanie Avalon:
Go to Apple Podcasts, write a new review and or update your old review. Send a screenshot of that to questions at iphodcast .com. You can get the show notes for today's show at iphodcast dot com slash episode 366.
Melanie Avalon:
All the stuff that we like at I have podcast comm slash stuff we like. And you can submit your own questions on that website, I have podcast .com or you can directly email questions at I have podcasts.
Melanie Avalon:
com. Well, this has been absolutely amazing. I just so enjoy my conversations with you, Vanessa. Just the most fun time. I can't wait to talk to you next week.
Vanessa Spina:
Me too. I had the best time with you. We could talk for days on end. This podcast is only an hour. So it's so great to be here with you again and with all of our listeners and so appreciate all the questions, the giveaway contest entries, and everything.
Vanessa Spina:
And can't wait to be back here with you again next week.
Melanie Avalon:
Yay. I will talk to you next. Talk to then. Bye. 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.
Melanie Avalon:
Thank you so much for listening to the Intimation 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 a 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, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.
STUFF WE LIKE
Check out the Stuff We Like page for links to any of the books/supplements/products etc. mentioned on the podcast that we like!
LINKS
BUY:
Melanie's What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine
Vanessa's Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight
The Tone Device Breath Ketone Analyzer
The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast
More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com
More on Vanessa: ketogenicgirl.com
Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com
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