Episode 384: High Sugar Fruit, Artificial Colors & Flavors, Increased Anxiety, Mental Health, BDNF, Ketones, GABA Dominance, And More!

Intermittent Fasting

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Aug 25

Welcome to Episode 384 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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LMNT: For fasting or low-carb diets electrolytes are key for relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness, and dizziness. With no sugar, artificial ingredients, coloring, and only 2 grams of carbs per packet, try LMNT for complete and total hydration. Be sure to try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. Go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast to get a free sample pack with any purchase!

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BETTERHELP: Visit betterhelp.com/ifpodcast today to get 10% off your first month!

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The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #50 - Dave Rabin (ApolloNeuro)

Listener Q&A: Anon - Anxiety after starting IF?

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TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.) 

Melanie Avalon:
Welcome to Episode 384 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 384 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I'm here with Vanessa Spina. Hi, everyone. Vanessa, I saw you had your birthday party for Luke.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, two days ago on Sunday. And it was epic. It turned out so perfectly. And Luca just had the best day ever. We were at this really fun sort of like a somewhere cross between a playroom and an amusement park. And it just opened this brand new one in the city. And we took all of Luca's little friends and all of their parents who are our friends to this place for the afternoon. And it was super fun. I mean, the kids just had a blast. And by the end of it, we were all all the parents, we were all going down this huge slide landing in this giant ball pit. All together, we were all just like sitting in the ball pit by the end of the day towards early evening. And then just like going on the trampolines and everything. And it was like, everyone kind of cleared out and it was just us. It was really kind of magical. But yeah, thanks for asking. I had so much fun making the cake. My back actually hurts. I spent the entire day I should have split it up, you know, done it a few days ahead, but it didn't work out that way. So I spent the entire day Saturday into the night and then early morning Sunday also doing it. And my back is like, I thought it would be back to normal by now. But it still hurts.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, so many things here to dissect. One, I saw on the pictures, it looks so colorful and so magical. I was like, what is this? This venue? Like, what is this?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, the amusement park, the playroom. Yeah, it's really, really cool, really cool concept. So colorful, like you said.

Melanie Avalon:
It reminds me of you mentioned that the ball pit Scott and I on our recent mind blown podcast episode, we did things that vanished and we talked about we talked about like all the different things that are no longer around that kind of just people stopped using and one of them is ball pits like people here don't really at least well, I actually maybe I don't know the answer to that because I don't go on fast food anymore. But I don't I feel like those are not a thing anymore.

Vanessa Spina:
In my world with kids, they're very much a thing, actually, and actually, we have a giant ball pit that I just set up. I have to send you a picture of it because it's absolutely epic. Wait, I'm going to go take a picture right now.

Melanie Avalon:
Wait, I have to see, I have to see this. I'm like so excited right now. You have a ball pit.

Vanessa Spina:
so I set it up in the last couple weeks and okay I just send it to you it's like a candy land like pool

Melanie Avalon:
You know what's crazy? I was going to ask if the balls were gonna be like some school color combination. That's the best color combination.

Vanessa Spina:
Isn't it so pretty? I custom picked out all these colors.

Melanie Avalon:
I know you did. These balls are what I anticipated they were going to look like. Like I saw the colors in my head and it was this. It was literally this.

Vanessa Spina:
You will have to put a picture in the Facebook group or the on Instagram or something.

Melanie Avalon:
Are those slides on the side or no? Or that's just accent decoration.

Vanessa Spina:
Well, there's a slide that both Luca and Damien go on and then on the side, there's like these rims that you put the balls in and they slide around and then there's like

Melanie Avalon:
of the balls slide down.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, there's a candy. I mean, there's this candy cane like bridge or altar. And then there's also on the front, there's like these three candy loops that you throw the balls through. So I became obsessed with making a ball pit. At first I just wanted to get a bigger pool for outside when it, cause it's so hot. And then I was like, wait, I could just make a giant ball pit and it's just perfect for their ages right now. The only problem with it is the balls are everywhere. My, my pizza cousin was like, oh my God, that looks so fun. But what about the balls? And I was like, they're everywhere. Like every day I was spending 10 to 15 minutes just putting them back in there, but it's worth it. It's worth it. Cause it's so much fun. Anyway, all pits are very much still a thing in the world of little ones and toddlers.

Melanie Avalon:
I wonder if they are here in America or if safety rules have... I'm going to find this out.

Vanessa Spina:
I'll have to ask my mom friends at home, but so when we were in Denver last summer, we went to a couple places that had ball pits. Yeah, I think it might just be that you're removed from like, they might've all been moved to like kid zones, but yeah, I want to know now because they're huge here, like a lot of my friends have ball pits, a lot of parents do it just with these kiddie pools at home and a lot of like playrooms, like all the playrooms that we go to have them, but this one that we did, Luca's birthday, it has the like, I think the biggest one in Europe. It's like, it's like a sea of balls. It's just so many ball pits, so many balls in the ball pit. And like for 20 adults, we were all like sitting in this ball pit together with the kids and babies and everything. And it was just hilarious. It was so funny and so much fun. Yeah, I wish you could have come.

Melanie Avalon:
I don't know, cause when I was little, I would go in the ball pit, I was a little bit concerned. I don't know, I was a little bit suspicious. I wonder if I would get like PTSD, like, as like a child.

Vanessa Spina:
You just weren't a fan.

Melanie Avalon:
I just you can't see what's in there, you know, I used to think there'd be snakes because I think my mom told me a story when I was little about how they found some snake in a ball pit and I just.

Vanessa Spina:
No, that'll do it

Melanie Avalon:
That'll do it. Oh, speaking of, I don't know if you saw my story, but the other day, speaking of wildlife, did you see this on Instagram? I was in the garage and there was an opossum and it charged at me. It charged at my car, which was terrifying. Even being in the car, I've never seen one of those in real life and it was just like walking, doing his thing and then it literally charged. I'll send you the video. I was like, oh my goodness, it's unhinged. That is crazy. Yeah, I talked to chat GPT. It said they don't get rabies because their body temperature is too low. Fun fact. And it said that it was probably confused. I was like, oh, that's really sad. I know the wildlife.

Vanessa Spina:
I bet. Poor animals. The world is so scary and dangerous for them now, although it wasn't that safe when the dinosaurs were around either.

Melanie Avalon:
That's true. You know, that's true. That's another thing we talked about that has disappeared. We actually didn't say that ball pits have disappeared, although I do think they have. We said that bugs on windshields, that might just be a thing here in the US, like the bug population is really down. So like when you drive now, you don't really get bugs splattered on your windshield. You'll get like one. And it used to be like the whole windshield.

Vanessa Spina:
Oh my gosh, we had so many when we went to the lake last month. I always feel horrible. We had like a hundred or something.

Melanie Avalon:
In Europe? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I feel like you guys still have the bugs because you're not spraying everything with glyphosate. Yeah. It's a thing.

Vanessa Spina:
That's really interesting, because we don't have a lot of like mosquitoes and things, you know, in the summer, because I can't stand them. But I did notice, yeah, on the road trip that yeah, a windshield was covered.

Melanie Avalon:
So the bugs are still acts. Yeah, you guys. So it's like Europe's holding out for us. Ball pits and bugs over here. We're all sanitized and yeah.

Vanessa Spina:
Maybe that's why the possum attacked you.

Melanie Avalon:
probably. I know we've talked about this before on the podcast, but just for listeners who missed it, our last conversation, and I think it's really relevant. How do you handle, so like the cake you made, how do you handle the world of typically less than healthy food while raising your child?

Vanessa Spina:
I've been making this cake for the last three years for Luca's first, second, now third birthday and I always make the same one. I just do variations with it, but it's basically a gluten-free, sugar-free cake. So I make the cake itself with almond flour and coconut flour and I used erythritol and stevia for the sweeteners. So if we were back home, last summer I think I used alulose because I remember we were talking and we had talked about it. So I tried alulose last summer when I made it in Denver, but this year we're back in Europe and it's not approved here yet. So I made it with erythritol and stevia because those are the two that are approved here and I can use. And I just put the erythritol in the blender and it turns it into like confectioners. So I made the cakes, I made vanilla cakes and chocolate cakes and then slice them in half. And then I made the buttercream frosting just with the butter and the erythritol and stevia in that like powdered form. And I used some natural food coloring to make it blue because it was choo-choo themed. But it turned out this beautiful like teal blue because you know butter is not white, it's cream colored. So it made it actually into this beautiful teal. You can see it on my Instagram at ketogenic girl if you want to see the picture of it. And I put the recipe on my website because so many people wanted to try it out. And then I put those sugar-free sprinkles. My sister-in-law brought them from Denver. I used them last summer, we talked about them. And they're sweetened I think with stevia and the coloring is using natural food. So the yellow, they use turmeric, they use like beet juice for the pink, you know they use just food like natural food, actual food to make the sprinkles. So I had rainbow sprinkles around the bottom. You know, I serve that for Luca for us as a family and all of his friends and our friends, their parents ate it and loved it. And it was the same last summer. Like everyone was like, oh, I'm on flower grade, you know, like what's in it? And then I have a couple of people asked about the sweeteners and they were like erythritol, is that like xylitol? I was like, yeah, it's similar. And everyone ate it, thought it was great. So you know, I always say like, it's a cake that no one will really know is healthy because it tastes, it tastes just like a normal cake to me, especially because I haven't had sugar in a long time. I don't know what it tastes like to someone who eats sugar regularly and then has that. But Luca still hasn't had sugar. I don't know how long we can pull that off for, but I'm just trying to do it as long as possible. He didn't have any kind of reaction to the cake. I mean, like when he's had grapes before and become like possessed, Kara, I just had Kara Collier on the podcast and we were talking about grapes because she was like, they're the worst, especially now because they're so sweet and they have these cotton candy grapes now.

Melanie Avalon:
Cotton candy grapes. I was going to say, have you had cotton candy?

Vanessa Spina:
No, but Craig Emmerich told me about them.

Melanie Avalon:
They taste just like cotton candy.

Vanessa Spina:
Oh my God. I kind of just want to taste it just for, just to be like, cause I love, I used to love cotton candy when I was a kid, but that does not sound like anything that anyone should be consuming as like a fruit and vegetable. Like that's just so, that's not even natural anymore. But anyway, that's how we navigate it. And I thought about getting or making a regular cake for everyone else, but the last three years I've just been making this one and everyone enjoys it just fine. So, you know, that's kind of how we go about it.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, it looks really beautiful.

Vanessa Spina:
Tiffany blue

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. Oh yeah, it is. Kind of looks like a gender reveal cake with the blue and the pink. Yeah.

Vanessa Spina:
That's true. That's true.

Melanie Avalon:
No, it's so cute. I love it.

Vanessa Spina:
Thank you so much.

Melanie Avalon:
You should totally try a cotton candy grape.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, well, they definitely would not be allowed in Europe, but next time.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, yeah, I wonder if they're like super GMO.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, for sure.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I don't know how they meet them. Like, I don't know.

Vanessa Spina:
It was like, is it even a fruit anymore?

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, it's just a grape. So to clarify about like, it's literally still just fruit. I don't know how they made it. I'm assuming they bread it to get that flavor.

Vanessa Spina:
Is that something that you would eat because you eat like more high carb or?

Melanie Avalon:
I don't eat grapes, they are too sweet for me and they're not the best for my digestion, but back when I used to eat like a wider range of fruit, even higher carb than I eat now, I would occasionally have some cotton candy grapes, but they were so sweet tasting. What I'm curious about is I don't know if actually they're that, if they're sweeter sugar wise or they just taste sweeter because of the flavors and the aromas, be curious. That's another fun fact that I learned researching for the Mind Blown podcast plug again. Did you know? So you know like the banana flavor of although you're in Europe, but you remember like the banana flavor of things in the US? Yeah. So that flavor is based on the original or a more original version of the banana, which is now extinct. So when you taste artificially flavored banana things and you're like, oh, this tastes like over the top or like too banana-y or not like the real banana, you're actually tasting more of what the original banana tasted like. Isn't that interesting?

Vanessa Spina:
You know, that is because I don't like that flavor. I find it way too strong and last summer I was sampling all these different yogurts because I wanted to find like, what's my favorite fat free high protein yogurt. And there was one I tried that was banana flavor and actually ordered it by accident because I don't like the flavored ones. It's like, okay, I have this, let me try it. And one spoonful. And I was like, like, I just, it had that artificial banana flavor to me. And I was like, could they make this taste more artificial? So it's really ironic.

Melanie Avalon:
I know that that was my exact thought, I was like that's so ironic.

Vanessa Spina:
It just seems like we're trying to banana too hard, you know? It's like, relax. We don't need this much banana.

Melanie Avalon:
But apparently bananas in the past were, like, more banana-y.

Vanessa Spina:
weird. That's a really odd, er, what's the word for it? Esoteric piece of information.

Melanie Avalon:
I know, I know. Oh my gosh, how long can we talk about this?

Vanessa Spina:
Probably ours. I know, I know.

Melanie Avalon:
Don't tempt me. One other thing to talk about, this relates a little bit to a question we have coming up, but I'm so excited because we have one of my favorite products ever, ever in the biohacking product world, sponsoring the show, Apollo Neuro. Have you tried an Apollo, Vanessa?

Vanessa Spina:
Yes, I have one.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, okay. They did send you one. Yeah. So for listeners and friends, I have used this every single day of my life for, wow, maybe four or five years now. I really credit it with being a key player and helping me, not so much my insomnia, like waking up in the middle of the night, but falling asleep at night. It got rid of that like issue and stress and fear I had about falling asleep. But basically what it is, is it's a wrist device that you put on your wrist and it uses gentle sound vibrations to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest mode in your body. It's really gentle, like you barely feel it. And it has multiple different modes, ones for like to wind down. It has a social mode for when you're talking to people, it has a recovery mode as a sleep mode. And basically, okay, I'm all about like meditation and breath work and all of these different tactics to reduce stress. Like, you know, use all of them, you do you find what works. I love this one, because you don't have to do anything. You literally just put it on your wrist, turn it on. And it does all the work for you. It's basically a bottom up approach to reducing stress. And the founder created it originally for people with PTSD. And they have a lot of really interesting research on that, you know, really addressing people's PTSD with it. But for me, it's a game changer for sleep and stress. I've heard that from so many listeners as well, because they've been talking about it for years and years and years. And so that's why I'm so excited that they're sponsoring the show. And they have a 15% discount for you guys. So if you go to ifpodcast.com/Apollo, that's A-P-O-L-L-O. You can use the promo code IF podcast and that will get you 50% off. Yeah, so I really, really can't recommend it enough. It also makes an incredible gift. I've given it to so many people. I've had the founder Dave Rabin on my show on the biohacking podcast, and I'm going to bring him on again. And I got to meet him in real life at the biohacking conference, which was really exciting. It's always really nice to, you know, meet and connect with these people in real life. So yeah, that is Apollo. Anything from you, Vanessa, before we jump into some questions?

Vanessa Spina:
I'm excited to get into these, actually, as usual.

Melanie Avalon:
I am too. I'm really excited. I found a lot of really good information for some of these. So would you like to read the first question?

Vanessa Spina:
So our first question is, Hey ladies, I hope that y 'all are both doing well. I just started IF in June after discovering your podcast and I have lost about 20 to 22 pounds. Woo-hoo. I am a 41 year old female that is six feet tall. I weighed 190, 190 pounds when I started and I would like to lose 15 more pounds that I weigh around 155. I started with a 16 eight window, but really didn't see weight loss until around seven to eight weeks when I changed my window gradually to one meal a day. I still have an eight hour window about two to three days a week. I fast clean. However, I have not yet given up fast food or pizza and I still have a Coke every now and then. Oh, and lots of dessert. So here is one of my questions to either of y 'all know people are here of people in your Facebook groups that have increased anxiety after starting IF like maybe it increases/purges and then gets better. My anxiety is crazy right now. I am definitely under a lot of stress, but stress has never affected me like this before. This brings me to my second question, Melanie, did you ever start meditating with the two 15 minute sessions a day by Emily Fletcher? I bought the book. You recommended stress less accomplish more and was all about it until she warns you about the increase in anxiety/depression, et cetera, at first while your body is purging. Just wondering if you had these side effects.

Melanie Avalon:
the good work girls. Thank you. Awesome. Well, so this listener did not provide her name, and I realized, does she say she's a woman? I guess it could be a man, in any case, for this listener. So thank you so much for submitting this. And I have so many thoughts. First of all, I would be curious if you started the, like the two questions, if they're happening at the same time. Like, I'm going to assume it's a woman because we get just so many women questions, because she says that, you know, she's asking about the increased anxiety from fasting, and also from this meditation, which she says she bought the book. So I'm wondering, did you start this at the same time? And maybe it is actually related to the Emily Fletcher piece, which I can come back to, as far as anxiety and fasting. So I can tell you anecdotally answers, I can tell you answers just from what I've seen in the community, and then what I found in the research. So for me, I did not experience any increased anxiety with fasting, I experienced the opposite, it really, really helped my mood. If anything, it reduced my anxiety. I can see how, if you have a tendency towards anxiety already, I could see how being in the fasted state with the increased neurotransmitters and the catecholamines, and things like that, that could maybe intensify those feelings. So maybe if you are already anxious, I could see how, you know, the feeling might feel more intense. That said, it's not been my experience and if anything, I feel like it would be the opposite, but I can see how that would be basically a mechanism of action. I found a few reviews on anxiety and IF. So there was a 2021 review. It was called Fasting Interventions for Stress, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptoms, a Systemic Review and Meta Analysis, and it was published in the journal Nutrients. And so they looked at 11 studies which covered 1 ,436 participants. They found that overall their conclusion was that fasting groups had lower anxiety and lower depression as well as lower body mass without any increased fatigue associated with that. The specifics of it, so five of the studies were Ramadan studies. In those studies, they found that fasting improved anxiety and depression. And then in the other studies, which were a collection of a lot of different approaches to fasting, so it included a calorie restricted versions. It included a lot of them were calorie restricted versions of fasting, which is interesting. One was something where they looked at eight weeks of one day per week fasting, for example. So in those studies, they didn't find any difference in anxiety or depression when they looked at all of them, but when they just looked at the randomized control trials, which are the most stringent analysis basically of the fasting protocol, they did find that the fasting led to lower anxiety and depression. So that's what that review found. And what was interesting is they were saying that basically they were looking at already, quote, healthy populations. So they weren't looking at people with already previously diagnosed anxiety or depression. And they actually hypothesized the opposite of what I just said, which was that if they saw this beneficial effect in a healthy population, it probably would help even more in people who had baseline symptoms. So that was promising. And then there was a 2023 study. It was a review as well, a systemic review. And it was called does intermittent fasting impact mental disorders? And it was published in critical reviews in food science and nutrition. And so they looked at a total of 14 studies, which covered 562 individuals. And they saw a moderate and positive effect on depression, and they didn't see any effects on anxiety. So basically, it didn't make it worse, but it didn't make it better. And then the last review I found was 2024. And it was called effect of time-restricted eating and intermittent fasting on cognitive function and mental health and older adults, a systemic review. It looked at eight studies, and it didn't talk about anxiety specifically, but it did talk about the findings on brain health, cognitive function, mental health, and wellness in general. And it found a lot of positive beneficial effects. Basically, intermittent fasting is just really great for the brain. And we've talked about that before in prior podcasts. That's because of how it affects glucose metabolism in the brain, inflammation in the brain, genes in the brain, oxidative stress in the brain, neuroplasticity, which is the formation of new brain cells, BDMF, which is this basically incredible miracle grow type substance in the brain that just really supports brain function. So all of that to say, my opinion and perspective is intermittent fasting is so healthy for the brain. I feel like anything that we're doing that really helps boost brain health, our health in general, our gut microbiome as well, basically a holistic approach to health that fasting can do, really should have a carryover effect with anxiety and mood and things like that. So to answer your question, I haven't seen a lot of people saying that they have increased anxiety. I would look more at other lifestyle factors in your life and how can you address them? You know, maybe cleaning up the food choices if that's something that you're open to, because we know that these processed foods that we eat today can have a major detrimental effect on our mental health and wellness. I would be curious again about the meditation. To answer your question about Emily Fletcher, her program is called Stress Less Accomplished More. And it's like this listener was saying, it's two 15 minute sessions that you do a day. I did do it regularly for, I think I went through the whole program. I feel like I learned a lot from it. It definitely taught me one of the primary skills of meditation. Not to say I'm like an expert at it or anything, but even in that short amount of time, I really retained that mental programming of noticing my thoughts. And you know, what is me versus what is the voice in my head? It was really helpful for that. Interestingly, and I'm just kind of like pausing and smiling right now, the reason I didn't continue it was because of how anxious it made me in the morning, which is ironic because it's like supposed to be helping anxiety. But it was because of I honestly, what I should do with it is do it at a different time, because she wants you to do it right when you wake up. And that is literally when I'm the most like productive and prime. I basically I got anxious about not answering emails and things like that. Like I think if I had done it later in the day, that would have been more beneficial. Like I think I could have fit it into my lifestyle better. And I understand how overwhelmingly ironic this is, because it's supposed to help you with those thoughts telling you that you don't need to check the emails. So there's a lot of irony here. But I do highly recommend the program. I did learn a lot from it. Like I said, skills that I maintain today as well. Another resource I will give you and listeners that I am so excited about. Another sponsor, new sponsor on the show we have now is Better Help. And I actually sought them out to sponsor this show because I know that I knew that they sponsored, we actually had them as a sponsor way back in the past, like when we first launched this show years and years and years ago. But I re sought them out because I hear them on a lot of podcasts. And I really, I cannot communicate enough how passionately I feel about therapy. I just, I'm, I can't communicate how important it is to me. I've been seeing a therapist since 2014. And I originally, I originally went in because I had, I was struggling with all of the fears surrounding my digestion, my digestive issues. So I went in for an acute issue because I think a lot of people think that you need to go to a therapist only if you have something specific to work on, which it's great for that. That's why I went in. I kept seeing a therapist and I have not seen, I have not stopped seeing a therapist since for a decade because of how valuable I think it is for your self care, your anxiety, your health and wellbeing, having somebody that you can go to once a week or however often you go and just be able to share everything that's happening in your life with this person and get it reflected back at you and break it down and find solutions. It's just one of the most helpful things for me. I just can't express enough how important it is. And I know there can be barriers to it because you have to drive somewhere, you have to find a therapist that you like. That's a big thing. If you go try to find a therapist and you have a bad quote experience in the interview, which I have had multiple of, don't give up. It's like dating. You have to find somebody who's the right fit for you. So that's why I'm obsessed with BetterHelp. What they do is they are an online platform that connects you with therapists. You actually take a quiz online, a questionnaire, and then they match you and it's all online, it's affordable, and you can switch therapists anytime you like. I do recommend once you find a therapist that you stay with somebody and build a relationship with them, but that's just so amazing because you can really work to find somebody who's really, really great for you. Listeners can get 10% off their first month. You just go to BetterHelp. So that's betterhelp.com/ifpodcast. So when it comes to stress and anxiety, to recap, I'm not so sure the fasting is, I doubt that it's creating that. I doubt that it's in and of itself creating it. I can see how it may be exacerbating it. Maybe that said, all of the literature that I've seen kind of says the opposite. And if you are dealing with stress and anxiety, definitely consider an Apollo neuro like I was talking about earlier and or checking out BetterHelp. So, okay, Vanessa, do you have thoughts?

Vanessa Spina:
Yes. So the research that I did, first of all, I found the same systematic review and meta analysis, and I thought it was really interesting, the 2021 review, because one of the things that stood out was that they talked about how both rodent and human studies have shown that daily intermittent fasting can switch you from a glucose metabolism to a ketone metabolism, and that induces anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative and stress resistance effects that I think are responsible for a lot of that lowered anxiety that a lot of people experience. And that was actually from a paper that was done by Dr. Mark Madsen and Rafael de Cabo. I talked to Dr. Madsen about this when I got to interview him, and he talked a lot about how intermittent fasting showed in their research to raise BDNF, brain drive neurotrophic factor, which we talked about, I know we've talked about on other podcast episodes, but it's really interesting because when you are in ketosis, you do tend to be more GABA dominant. And people actually, GABA is sort of a, well, it's associated with slower neural activity. So people tend to get in a different sort of brainwave state where it's less anxious kind of hyperactive thoughts and more calm, it's more of a calm sort of disposition that your brain is in. And Dr. Dom D 'Agostino talked about how a lot of people who are in ketosis tend to love coffee because you kind of get so GABA dominant, you get so kind of mellow that it's almost like too much, you almost get too mellow. But that is if you are in ketosis, and a lot of people do make that switch, you know, the metabolic switch when they are doing intermittent fasting, especially OMAD. What was really interesting too is you mentioned this, some of the studies in the med analysis were done on Ramadan fasting. And that is very similar to OMAD, right? Because they fast from dawn until dusk, and then often feast after sunset. So very similar to an OMAD pattern. So it's interesting that because it sounds like that's, you know, well, what a lot of listeners, a lot of people in this community do, although there's lots of different approaches. So I do think that although, you know, the research definitely says that it is usually and commonly can be an effective intervention for lowering stress and anxiety. That doesn't mean that's going to be the case for everyone. I do like that you pointed out the actual nature of the diet and the composition because I do think there could be a connection there. For example, some of those foods that you mentioned eating, like lots of pizza, lots of fast food, lots of maybe very sugary foods if you're eating a lot of dessert could potentially be making it harder for you to get into that ketosis, that fasting ketosis the next day, which could be connected to why you're not experiencing that sort of GABA dominant, that GABA energetic, you know, feeling or dominant state. So that's just one, you know, hypothetical on what could be happening. There could be a connection with the types of food you're eating. And I know that a lot of people who do a mad they, they don't really need to change the composition of their diet or their macros. But I do think there is definitely a connection, you know, with diet and mental health and mental stages, as you mentioned, I love that you brought up all those resources. So I think there's definitely lots of different things to try to test out. You know, you could try doing more whole foods approach, maybe less processed foods, because, you know, processed foods are designed to be addictive and leave you unsatisfied. They're not designed for optimal nutrition. So I'm wondering if maybe there could be potentially a nutrient deficiency or something like that this that could be happening there. I don't want to make any, you know, presuppositions of Johnny conclusions about how you're eating because maybe you're getting all your nutrient needs met. But I'm just saying that could be a risk of eating a really hyper processed diet, is you might have some nutritional gaps. Maybe you're supplementing really well, so you don't have that issue. But just trying to kind of brainstorm and talk about different sort of causes. I do think that, you know, if you are experiencing anxiety, Like Melanie, I doubt that it's the intermittent fasting itself, but potentially it could be. And if it is something that doesn't resolve for you, then I would say maybe it's not the best approach for you because if you are maybe one of those people who, for them, intermittent fasting is not an effective intervention for stress, you know, it doesn't cause some hormesis, it doesn't give you the benefits that many people feel doing intermittent fasting where they feel more calm, then it may be that it's just contraindicated for you. It could be something related to any aspect of your lifestyle or, you know, just perhaps, you know, for some people, it just doesn't have that effect. There's no one at fault for that. It's just the way that it is. People experience things differently. So I would say there's a few things you could try. Some great resources that Melanie pointed out, you know, potentially trying to do a more whole foods approach and just see how you feel and, you know, take notes and maybe journal. But long term, if you're still feeling anxious, you know, it could just be that this lifestyle is just not one that is optimal for you potentially. So lots of things to consider there, I think.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. Okay. So many things for the piece about, you know, whether or not it's appropriate. I do want to emphasize, because I definitely agree. I guess what I want to emphasize is that there are so many different approaches to intermittent fasting. So if somebody, you know, feels like intermittent fasting isn't right for them, it may be they're just doing too extreme of a version of it. Like, there are, there's definitely different layers in the rainbow of fasting. And so, you know, just because if you find a certain type of fasting too extreme, like maybe you're trying one meal a day, and that's too much for you. That doesn't mean now you're destined to eat 24 seven. And similarly, even if you're not fasting, that also doesn't mean you're just eating constantly like we could, like we could, we could still make beneficial changes, I think, to the timing of our eating where we're still eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but not, you know, constantly snacking. I would really, really look at the other food choices, especially it can also be a thing where sometimes for fasting, it makes people quote react more strongly to food. And it's not because they're actually reacting more strongly. It's just because the fasting has allowed their body, like their digestive system to clean out and for them to become more aware of their reactions to food. So it could be that, you know, foods that seemingly didn't bother you before, now you're realizing their effects because you're having them after this fasted period. I think that happens a lot with people. Thank you for talking about the ketones and the, and the GABA and all of that. I, I love hearing about that. I, I know for me with fasting, one of my favorite personal beneficial effects of it is the stabilizing effect it has on my mood. Like honestly, honestly, before fasting, when I was eating throughout the day, it was like blood sugar swings and my mood was just, I mean, well, again, maybe it's because this is what, this is what I wonder. Cause I'm saying maybe it's because I was like a teenager or whatever, but maybe not. Maybe if I'd been eating, not necessarily fasting when I was younger, but maybe if I'd been making healthier food choices, I just wonder the effect that would have had on my mental health and wellness growing up that I mean, that's that I'm very much content with my, the way I grew up and everything. I mean, it wasn't like a, you know, I wasn't really crazy and I don't have a lot of regrets about how I acted or anything like that. I just know that once I started fasting, I really saw this beautiful mood stabilization that I, I'm honestly grateful for every time I think about it. Like I'm grateful for it right now. Vanessa, when you started fasting, did you experience any changes in mood?

Vanessa Spina:
I mean, it always makes me feel great. If it didn't, then I wouldn't do it, to be honest, because to me, you know, although there are a lot of additional benefits that you can get from intermittent fasting, it really is just a great way of doing caloric restriction, you know, in terms of the outcomes that you get from it. And so if I didn't feel good doing it, I would just do regular caloric restriction, you know what I mean? Like it just, I would just eat whenever I wanted to. And right now I'm super flexible with my approach because I'm breastfeeding. I'm in different phases. I'm optimizing for different outcomes. And I think you should always be making sure that what you're doing is optimizing for whichever outcome you're currently, is currently sort of your goal. But yeah, I mean, to answer your question, I always felt really great. For me, it improved my mood, lowered my stress because it enables me to get more done in my day. And for me, action is always sort of the cure to any kind of stressful feelings. Usually if I feel stressed, it's because I feel overwhelmed. Like I'm, there's too many things I want to get done. And so it gives me so much time and energy back to be able to get things done. But I also find like if I do two meals a day and I'm doing 60 and eight, that it's similar. I just have a lot more time freed up. Whereas when I used to eat sort of around the clock, you know, it just took so much time and energy to be constantly thinking about meals, doing meal prep. I mean, it's similar to people who do like bodybuilding competitions and stuff. Like so much energy goes into that, but that's literally your job. But when you're, when it's not your job, then you shouldn't be spending all day, like working on it, you know what I mean? Like, if that makes sense.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, no completely. I cannot agree more. And oh and speaking of the ketones, I tagged you on this on Instagram.

Vanessa Spina:
I know I'm so I like I saw it and it was like during all of the birthday prep and then I I was like gonna go back and it was gone.

Melanie Avalon:
I'll post it again. Thank you.

Vanessa Spina:
I was like I was like it was literally I was I just had five minutes of downtime and I was like oh my gosh I think Melanie posted something about the tone device and it said 26 and I was like did I dream that no I think it really happens like

Melanie Avalon:
Let me look up the picture. I think it was a 26 or 28. Yeah, I was so excited. I love that. And the picture I posted was blurry. And I'll post it again. It's because I was so not expecting it. And I was so frantic. I was like, God, I take a picture. And it was like going away.

Vanessa Spina:
But then if you turn it back on and you press the power button twice, it'll show it again.

Melanie Avalon:
What oh my goodness, okay

Vanessa Spina:
So it just won't show the context. You know how it says like fat burning zone or like burning. It won't show that message, but there's a 64 spot memory. So it saves like your last 64.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, and then you can look through them?

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, unfortunately it doesn't have, there's no space for like time and date. Unfortunately it doesn't have the time and date, but it does save the last 64 readings.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh, and you're right, it was 26. Tell me again, I turn it on and then I...

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, you turn on the power button, or if it's already on at any time, whether it's counting down or showing the results, you just press it twice and it goes into memory mode and it shows you. And then if you keep pressing it, it'll go back through all the memories and then you press it twice again and it turns off.

Melanie Avalon:
Very cool. Okay. Yeah. And interestingly, I'm pretty sure that was a day after a day that I had done low carb the night before. I'm pretty sure. And for listeners, Vanessa's tone device, it actually measures the level of ketones in your breath. So you can see how many ketones you're burning. And if, you know, if you're in a ketogenic state, a fat burning state, so it's very cool. Now I have my system of how to do it. So if I have to make sure that I'm like really still, I have to make sure my lips are really all around it, and then I'm breathing the same way. And then I get the numbers. But if I'm like slightly off with some of that, it'll say zero ketones. But I'm not sure if that's like user error.

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, it could be. Some people also don't blow vigorously enough.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It might be something about how I'm blowing into it, I think. So, because I get, I get scared still about blowing too much because of what it says about not taking a breath, but so I can blow vigorously. Yes. Okay, I'm going to try that because I think I approach it like really hesitantly because I'm like, don't, don't breathe. Okay, so blow strongly into it.

Vanessa Spina:
Yes.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, cool.

Vanessa Spina:
until the end of the b-

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, yes. Okay. That's why I'm saying that's why I think sometimes it's sometimes it doesn't beep When I'm blowing

Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, if it doesn't beep, usually it's not registering ketones. So the beep means that it's registering some level of ketones.

Melanie Avalon:
So maybe, okay, so I'm gonna try this to report back. Maybe I'm not blowing hard enough. But it's only on times that it doesn't do the beep that it does the zero. But then if I can get the beep, I'll like get a number. So that's why I'm like, I feel like I'm doing something not correct here. Okay.

Vanessa Spina:
Right and then what did you do with the day that it showed twenty six.

Melanie Avalon:
I did it again and then it said zero and it wouldn't be that's why I was like something

Vanessa Spina:
Usually if you do two readings right after the other, the second one either shows lower or no ketones because you've just blown most of them out in your breath. So usually like I wrote in the manual, like take, wait five minutes, at least you take, take the next reading. But if you wait like half an hour, it'll be more accurate. But there's only a certain amount of acetone, like in your lungs. This is how the engineers explain it to me. And so when you breathe out, then you've like just expelled it all. So then usually if you do a reading right after that, it'll show like half as much or next to nothing, which sometimes is zero.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, so even though we're breathing constantly, it's the fact that you are purposely like breathing a long stream that kind of like goes through some of your breath ketones.

Vanessa Spina:
Yes, that's, I mean, yeah, that's pretty much how they explain it to me.

Melanie Avalon:
So the engineers you worked with, were they health keto people?

Vanessa Spina:
Not really. They're more just like scientists who study gases, breath gases. That's so cool. Like CO2 and methane and acetone.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh my goodness, that is so cool. Okay, so how can people get this device?

Vanessa Spina:
That's so sweet of you to ask. You can check out the tone device at ketogenicgirl.com if you're interested and you can read your ketones and see what rate of fat burning you're in. And I just launched the brand new second generation of the tone device, which is the one that Melanie has. And she has it in black and rose gold, which I made sure to get to her because I know she loves rose gold like I do.

Melanie Avalon:
Rose gold is the best. Oh my goodness, awesome. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. So a few things for listeners before we go. If you would like to submit your own questions for this show, you can directly email questions at ifpodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. You can get all the stuff that we like at ifpodcast.com/stuff we like. And then as a reminder for those two things which really, really help mental health and wellness, you can get an Apollo neuro. If you go to ifpodcast.com/Apollo and use the coupon code ifpodcast, that will get you 15% off. And then you can get 10% off betterhelp. If you go to betterhelp.com, that's H-E-L-P/ifpodcast. All right, I think that is all the things. Anything from you, Vanessa, before we go?

Vanessa Spina:
I don't think so. I had so much fun. This is such a great episode and I loved today's topic as always.

Melanie Avalon:
Me too! Well, have a beautiful evening and I will talk to you next week.

Vanessa Spina:
Sounds great. Talk to you then.

Melanie Avalon:
Bye. 

Melanie Avalon:
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 a review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.

Check out the Stuff We Like page for links to any of the books/supplements/products etc. mentioned on the podcast that we like!

More on Vanessa: ketogenicgirl.com

Original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.

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