Welcome to Episode 389 0f 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.
To submit your own questions, email questions@ifpodcast.com, or submit your questions here!!
SHOW NOTES
Listener Q&A: Rebeca - Avocados, avocados, avocados
Listener Q&A: Shari - If I want more muscle definition, should I eat shortly after my weight lifting session or complete my 16 hour fast?
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 389 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 389 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I'm here with Vanessa Spina. Hi, everyone. How are you today, Vanessa? Doing great. How are you? I am good. I had the moment of all moments. You might have seen it on my Instagram, but I saw Adina Menzel live. Do you know her? I don't. She's the original. Do you know Wicked?
Vanessa Spina:
Oh, the musical. That was really popular.
Melanie Avalon:
She's the original alphabet and she's Elsa and let it end frozen. Oh, you must have loved that. She's saying, let it go, like live. And the whole audience was singing along and it was the most magical thing. My life is complete. I've been waiting two decades for this moment or a decade for that moment and two decades for the wicked moment. So that's amazing. Yeah. I'm like on cloud nine. And I also yesterday interviewed, very excited Dr. Naomi Parrella. She is the chief medical officer at the zero app, which have you ever used the zero app, the fasting app?
Vanessa Spina:
I have I remember using it when I was doing extended fasts I I used it a few times or more than a few times I used it regularly when I used to do inner extended fasting
Melanie Avalon:
Okay, how long ago was that?
Vanessa Spina:
Oh, before, I guess like before I had Luca, so like maybe 2018, 2019, 2020, I was doing a lot of extended fasting, but I, I really don't use it at all anymore because I'm not as much kind of stopped doing that.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, so that's also when I first used it was interesting. So I hadn't revisited it until prepping to interview her and it's changed a lot. Like it has a lot more features. It's really cool for like streaks and habit tracking and things like that with the calendar system and has a ton of resources. So like I opened it and on the homepage was a video with Peter Attia who apparently worked with them in the past. I was like, Oh my goodness. But it's super cool. I feel like I should be recommending it more, especially for people who are struggling in the beginning to stick to a fasting schedule or like get into, you know, really make it stick. It seems like a really, really great tool and resource for that, especially because we know, and I've talked about this on the show before, like dieting, for example, just the very act of monitoring what you're eating, like not even changing what you're eating, just monitoring what you're eating. It tends to create dietary change. Like there's something very powerful to tracking and accountability. So I think it'd be really helpful for people. And then she said she actually uses it in a, her own way as well, which is if she's wants to cut out a certain sort of food, like fast from like sugar or a certain treat, she'll use it that way. Um, which is really kind of smart, which I've actually, now I'm just thinking of all the ways I could use this app in the past. I've used an app where I was like, I'm not going to text this person. And it like, do you know how long you've gone? So maybe not for that reason. Well, yeah, you could, you could fast from people. Exactly. Yeah, but yeah, it's super cool. And listeners can get it. I guess I didn't even really see what it does. It tracks your fasting, but oh, and she said that the, the algorithm is very sophisticated and works with your personal data, like your, you know, your age and your sex, and then it integrates with your wearables and can take in data with the information that you tell it regarding your meals and such. And then from that, it generates when it thinks you're in certain fat burning modes based on the time and stuff like that. So I asked her about like, you know, the accuracy and she said there's, you know, a lot of, like they have a lot of science behind it. And so it was really, it was really cool. And we also, just as a side note, listeners, that episode will come out in a few episodes. And we went into a deep dive into ozimpic and semi-glutide. So I thought that was like really cool because her specialty is actually weight loss. That's like what she does. She is the medical director at Rush center for weight loss, actually. And so that's her specialty. So yeah, maybe we could actually talk about our updated thoughts on ozimpic and such, but in any case, before that, for listeners, you can go to ifpodcast.com/zero, and that will give you a free seven day trial to the plus version. And then it's always free regardless. So you can keep it for free or pay for the plus version. Yeah, it was super, super cool. So what is new in your life?
Vanessa Spina:
Just doing so much podcasting right now. I I have been recording four to five episodes a week I'm just really pumped by all the amazing people. I'm getting to talk to you and the podcast is just doing amazing and it's just like it's kind of a Lot right now doing so many interviews because it as you know for each one You know, you have to prepare quite a bit whether it's like reading the person's book or you know Reading at least a dozen studies or so that they've authored. So I feel like I'm constantly Shifting gears and I've got so many tabs on my computer open of different Different studies, but it's amazing. I mean I was just saying to Pete we had a date night because we had our eighth wedding anniversary On Saturday Oh anniversary. Thank you. We did a mini putt this amazing new place in the city That's kind of like Las Vegas, but it doesn't have all the casino the gambling It's just like a really fun place and we did mini putt, which is what we did on one of our first dates But we were talking at dinner and I was like, I just feel so blessed that I get to do what I love Every single day and I always dreamed when I was younger of being in a position where I would get to Read books and synthesize information and share it. I don't know why I've always wanted to do that and I find that's what exactly what i'm doing Every day and it's it's so rewarding and so fulfilling. I'm interviewing. Have you heard of timeline nutrition? No They are this incredible swiss company that has done Over a decade of research and they discovered this molecule. You've probably heard of urolithin a Yeah, they discovered it and it it generates mitophagy it generates autophagy, but mitophagy specifically the mitochondrial autophagy And i'm interviewing their chief medical officer. That's anurag sing the day after tomorrow. So i'm really deep in mitophagy Research and and just all the stuff that they've been doing. It's really amazing. I love whenever a company is research first, you know, they put all their time and energy into research and doing all the clinical trials and Coming up with things that can really improve people's lives and I felt the same way about Mimeo who you recently got to To interview is companies that are research first like that research forward and they're creating things That are related to fasting that benefit you Or that generate benefits similar to fasting You know, and I think there's a lot of interest in that at the moment just like there isn't, you know the zero app
Melanie Avalon:
I as well feel so, so grateful about the podcasting. I didn't have that as specific of an acute. Wait, how old were you when you decided you wanted to do that? Read books and I mean, it was.
Vanessa Spina:
definitely was always knew that I wanted to do something involving books. Like it was more like a writing a book, which as you know I ended up doing. But although I did enjoy that, I way more enjoy reading, synthesizing, and sharing. I don't know why, but it was, I think it was in my early 20s. Like when I was in university and I started to think about doing a career and I was like, I need to do something where I can read stuff and then synthesize the key points and share it. And I was like, I need to become a professional speaker. So I thought, I thought that's what I should do, you know, because there's people who do that. Like people like Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins, like these were my heroes. I was like, I need to do that. So I did do that initially right after I left school, but podcasting is like a way better form, way better method for it. But yeah, in my early 20s, I kind of realized that. And so yeah, the fact that it's, it's what I get to do every day is amazing. Even no matter how busy it gets, and I'm sure you can relate, it's always so satisfying because you know you're doing what you were meant to be doing or what you're skilled or talents or, you know, you're kind of utilizing all of your skills and talents in a way living up to your full potential. I guess that's how it feels like.
Melanie Avalon:
I couldn't agree more. I guess I always wanted to have a show, so kind of similar. And then growing up, in high school, I was always like, I don't know if this was YouTube, but I was always the study guide girl. I made the study guides. I feel like that kind of relates to this, taking in all the information and, like you're saying, synthesizing. I think my favorite thing is just getting to learn these completely different but interrelated topics and do a deep dive into them. It's literally almost every day. So it's just constant learning.
Vanessa Spina:
Yes. And I, I always love, I don't know if it's Sun Tzu said, if you do what you love, you'll never work a job in your life. Yeah. A day in your life, a day in your life. And I, I also discovered that quote when I was in university and I was like, you know, I would just want to end up doing something that I love. And I, this definitely never feels like work. Although there are times where I feel exhausted mentally, especially recently feeling a little tired mentally, but I never feel like I'm working. I feel like I'm doing what I love and podcasting. I always feel like I get into the flow with most guests with, I would say with over 90% of the guests, I feel like I get into a flow state with them and that's the best. Like, yeah, I'm not surprised you feel that way too.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, that's so true. Yeah, I literally had a moment, I think yesterday, I just sat in my car and I was like, I'm so grateful. I get to just learn all this stuff, like just constantly new things.
Vanessa Spina:
Yeah. And I think about you sometimes with, when I see the different episodes that you come out with, because your podcast is more broadly like on biohacking, it's less focused on one thing. So you really have a nice like wide variety of different topics that you talk about on the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. And I always think when I see a new episode come out, I'm like, oh, she must have loved doing that one. No, because I can imagine you like preparing for it and really enjoying that person's book or yeah, that's fun.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, it's really great. We we share that in common. I love that so much. Oh Man, okay. Well speaking of studies Yeah, speaking of studies So I was looking up to see if there were any you know Cool fun new studies out about intermittent fasting I found for this episode and next episode some New reviews I thought we could talk about so the study for today it's called Impact Of Intermittent Fasting And Or Caloric Restriction On Aging Related Outcomes And Adults A Scoping Review Of Randomized Controlled Trials. So this study looks at 30 articles and 12 of them were about intermittent fasting 10 were about calorie restriction and 8 were combined and what they were looking at in general was to look at the Cardiometabolic cancer and Neurocognitive outcome differences between both of those and adults questions they were looking to ask were they wanted to know basically what were the Like within the study the different effects of those different outcomes and adults They wanted to know what were the differences between those and these different interventions or effects on health and what was interesting about it was I Thought it was going to find more Specific like I thought was gonna say that intermittent fasting was better for this and CR was better for this but honestly the takeaway about everything was they were pretty similar so basically, they were equivalently effective for all three of those outcomes and really the only Main difference was because they were also in addition to that They're both associated with weight loss which seemed to play a role and in all those health outcomes But I have tended to report greater adherence compared to calorie restriction So the long story short takeaway was that both of these have these incredible outcomes for our heart for cancer and our brain and they are Likely in part active acting through weight loss for that but intermittent fasting just seems to be more Doable so people adhere to it better has more long-term sustainability If you like I can go into some of the like specific things They found I don't know if I should go that route or talk a little bit about IF versus CR Do you have thoughts Vanessa?
Vanessa Spina:
I mean, it's, it's, if there's anything specific you want to share, I found, you know, I wasn't surprised by the findings. This is something that I've, I always say is kind of funny to me because it's the whole reason why intermittent fasting exploded worldwide was because people found out that they could do caloric restriction without feeling like they were on a diet. That's really the whole thing. And then, and then people now critique it and say, well, it's the same as caloric restriction. Right. But that's the whole reason people got excited about it in the first place. And so the findings were not surprising to me because it is very, the results, the outcomes are equivalent between caloric restriction, intermittent fasting. I think that as the, so I'm interviewing a guest who actually specifically studied this in a couple of weeks. And it's really interesting. This topic, like comparing them. Yeah. He studied specifically, he got his PhD studying if there is a difference between intermittent fasting and caloric restriction. And it's yeah, it's really interesting because a lot of times like the studies don't equate the calories between the groups when that happens. But usually what happens spontaneously, people eat less when they're doing intermittent fasting, even then when they're doing caloric restriction. And it's like you said, the main takeaway from this review of the review, review of the men analysis is that it is more tolerable and people tend to stick with it more and are more successful with it. And there's something about just giving yourself this framework of being in a facet state, having a facet window for however long that is, that just works so well for people because you, you have this, it's like a psychological parameter around when you should be eating and when you shouldn't. And then you kind of go on autopilot after a while and you're just like, this is when I eat and this is when I don't eat. And when you have an open window all day, I don't know about other people are like this, but a lot of time there's that decision-making around like, should I eat now? Should I eat later? Should I have snack now? Or, and you almost sometimes feel hungrier just because you opened your eating window and you, you know, psychologically that you can eat. So it's such an effective tool for so many reasons. And like you said, a lot of the main cardio metabolic benefits, insulin sensitivity, improvement, et cetera, comes from the fat lost on either intermittent fasting or caloric restriction, intermittent fasting being a really effective form of caloric restriction.
Melanie Avalon:
It's funny. So yesterday when I was interviewing Dr. Perilla at the end, we were talking about if we could create any study, what would we create? And I said I would like to see more studies comparing intermittent fasting to calorie restriction and seeing what are the mechanisms there. So that's so cool. How did you find that guy?
Vanessa Spina:
I found him through Dr. Kurt Escobar, who's the PhD on autophagy that I recently interviewed. He's really interesting because he's a super sharp guy, but he's on this mission to correct a lot of the myths that are spread on the internet about autophagy and how it works. And he really thinks that a lot of people embellish or exaggerate some of the findings in studies because it gets, I don't know, he doesn't talk about this exactly, but I think it, he says it's usually because they want to sell you products or whatever. So they get your attention by embellishing or exaggerating what was found in a study and then they're able to get your attention so they can sell you products. That's his thing. And I understand where he's coming from. He's trying to set the record straight on what the truth about autophagy really is, like how much autophagy can you really get from different protocols? And I recently had him on the show and he interviewed this PhD who studied fasting and caloric restriction and compared it. And he believes that there is really no difference that looking at, I think he did a meta analysis looking at intermittent fasting compared with caloric restriction. And they found that ultimately if you equate calories exactly between the two, you're going to get the same results in terms of fat loss. If there's a caloric deficit, which there would be from caloric restriction, improvements in insulin sensitivity usually come from that and all the other associated benefits also come from that. But Dr. Sachin Panda, he did a lot of research comparing the two and he definitely found in his research that there were additional benefits from intermittent fasting. And one of the things that I tend to think about is ketones, right? If you get into ketosis, you're getting the signaling benefits of ketones. So I asked Dr. Kurt Escobar, is there a difference in autophagy between someone who fasts, for example, doing a 16, eight fasting period and an eight hour eating window with someone who does eats the same amount of calories in that 24 hour period? Is the autophagy the same? And he said, you might have a slightly higher increase towards the end of the fasting window, like right before you break your fast. And that's also where you would start to see that elevation in ketones, et cetera. But he said, in terms of autophagy, if you take both, it's a washout. They both will end up giving you the same amount of autophagy. But I do think that there is some benefits to the elevation of ketones. And he also talked about the timing. If you're measuring things in a study, when are you doing the measuring? Are you doing it during the fasting window? If you're doing it right before someone breaks their fast, there's probably going to be elevation in certain markers and autophagy proteins that you wouldn't see at other times of the day.
Melanie Avalon:
curious about, did he say anything about the difference in muscle preservation? Like a bolus of protein after a fasted state compared to small amounts of protein?
Vanessa Spina:
No, we didn't talk about that. We were talking more about exercise and fasting and caloric restriction. And he was saying basically that the autophagy is generated when you have an energetic crisis at the cellular level. And that usually happens through exercise, but it doesn't have to be fasted exercise. It just happens from exercise because exercise is when you create that intense demand for ATP. And that creates an energetic crisis for the cell. Whereas fasting, and this is something I've been talking about with a lot of scientists recently, fasting was believed to be doing that via this AMPK, PGC1 alpha axis, because they found that in mice. But then they recently found that that pathway doesn't exist in humans, which I think I was telling you about last week. So it doesn't mean that it's not there. It's just that exact pathway is not there as it is in rodents. So some things are there. As you know, some things you'll find in rodents just are not applicable to humans. But yeah, we didn't specifically talk about protein. And I think if I would have asked him that, he would have said he wasn't an expert in that area.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, because that's something I'm super curious about. I'm really, really curious about this question. I'm a bit haunted by it. In this review, the things they found that were similar between IF and CR, so they found that they better maintain blood glucose levels and lipid metabolism, so that's dealing with fats in the body, that they induce neurotrophic and autophagy responses, that they increase the production of metabolites like ketones and BDNF, that they may promote reductions in oxidative stress and inflammation. So those were the main things they were talking about as being similar. What was interesting about the review was they would look at different markers sometimes to draw similar conclusions. So for example, with managing cardiovascular risk factors, they were saying that IF showed positive effects on blood lipids and glucose metabolism, and then specifically CR reduced LDL cholesterol and the total cholesterol HDL ratio. So what's interesting to me is it's different. They're not looking at the exact same thing when they're making the comparison. They did both show reductions in oxidative stress and inflammation, as well as lower levels of CRP for both. Yeah, I just really want to know if it's, I don't know why I want to know so bad, but I really want to know. It kind of reminds me of, weren't we talking about something recently where, or now am I thinking of a podcast I was listening to? I'm having a memory of talking about something where we thought it was the same pathway, but it was actually different pathways. Was that me and you, or was that me listening to a podcast?
Vanessa Spina:
I mean, we were just saying that that AMPK PGC1 alpha axis was generated from fasting in mice, but it doesn't generate in humans. So in mice, fasting will generate mitochondrial biogenesis, but it doesn't in humans. The exercise does, but not the fasting. So that's why I've recently been playing around with doing a pre-workout meal. And I've been doing this now for two weeks and I've lost almost five pounds. Oh, wow. Yeah. So what I'm trying to figure out now is, is it the small meal is giving me more energy for my workout or is it the additional triggering of muscle protein synthesis from that other meal, which it could be, but it's really interesting because I didn't expect that I didn't expect that to happen at all.
Melanie Avalon:
How does that normally, because I know nothing about the general timeline of weight gain and weight loss with having a child. So like, is that the normal trajectory? I know it's all different and unique for individual people.
Vanessa Spina:
I mean, I'm already like at my goal because I didn't gain weight with my second pregnancy. I actually lost a little bit of weight when I was pregnant. Oh, wow. Yeah. I didn't gain weight. Like you lost weight, like my body fat, like when I was pregnant. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. Like at one point, I had really had to start eating more. It was just at one point in the pregnancy, baby was obviously like extremely healthy the whole time, but I didn't put on any additional weight during this pregnancy. So when I, after the baby, I didn't, like I'm not in like a postpartum like fat loss or weight loss journey or anything. It's just more what I'm always doing, which is optimizing my body composition, like wanting to be gaining muscle. And if I can lose, like I wanted to lose like between three to five pounds, like just overall, like not related to postpartum or anything, just in general, like the same as before I had the babies. And so I was pretty close to my goal, but yeah, it was really surprising because things could be different hormonally right now. Like the hormonal landscape could be different for me. I'm like about eight months out since having the baby, but yeah, it's, it's not really related to the, to postpartum weight gain or anything like that.
Melanie Avalon:
Wow. Gotcha. No, that's super cool. I love the, um, the self experimentation. How do you, how do you monitor your changes in your body composition?
Vanessa Spina:
So I use a scale at home and then I go for pretty regular DEXA body scans. I have a place near me, so I'm going to go for one pretty soon. But it was so interesting because you always think that adding more meals is not going to make you lose fat. That seems so contradictory. But now that I understand how muscle protein synthesis works and how much ATP and energy it requires, it does kind of make sense to me. And I have had people message me this in the past that it happened to them. And I thought, oh, they must be unicorns or something. Because usually, in a way, you would think this defies thermodynamics. But it doesn't because protein is so thermogenic and you burn about 30% of the calories, somewhere between 20% to 30% of the calories that you ingest because of triggering muscle protein synthesis. I think that it could either be that that meal, like I said, is giving me more energy to work out harder, which is what I was thinking at first. But it could also be that it's just generating a higher thermic effect from building muscle, from triggering muscle protein synthesis. But yeah, really, really interesting.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, when I first started doing my really crazy diet experimentations back in the day, and I've talked about this a lot before, but I basically went through a period of time where I was eating just, like, just lean protein. And it's because intuitively I was like, I feel like I can just eat this unlimited and probably the more I eat, the more weight I'm going to lose. And that's very not scientific, what I just said, but that was my experience. Because I just was looking at, you know, what you were talking about with, like, how thermogenic protein is and how it really does, you know, go into the pathway of often becoming muscle. And then the pathway to fat conversion is just, you know, much more longer and complicated. So basically, keep adding the protein, the lean protein, you think it can be really magical for people. Just, like, in the body composition world and muscle building. Whatever I'm thinking of with the different pathways is, I think it's from some podcast and it probably has nothing to do with what we're talking about. But if it comes to me, I will mention it.
Vanessa Spina:
Thanks for sending me that study, it was interesting. It was kind of like...
Melanie Avalon:
Not a let down, but I was excited. I was like, oh, it's going to be like, show some differences. But instead, it was kind of like they do the same thing.
Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, we could look at Dr. Sachin Panda's research on a future episode because he definitely, you know, really believes that there's a lot of additional benefits from time-restricted eating than, you know, versus caloric restriction. And he, you know, believes he's done the research to prove that.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, no, I would love to because yes, I want to know the differences.
Vanessa Spina:
I mean, the last closing point on this, I would say on this study, is to me, it's an amazing way to do caloric restriction. And I do firmly believe you get some additional benefits. I do believe autophagy and fat loss could be similar, but I think you get additional benefits from ketosis because you start generating ketosis, most people, if they skip breakfast and you start getting into that state of ketogenesis around like seven, eight, nine in the morning if you've been fasting since dinner the night before. So if you delay breakfast, you're definitely getting some ketones on board and they have amazing signaling properties, I think, that are understated because they have epigenetic signaling qualities they have signaling on the HDAC inhibition, histone deacetylase inhibition, which is something that drug companies are spending billions to try and replicate. You can get that naturally from ketosis. So I think there are longevity benefits from the increase in ketones, especially towards the end of the fast, that are not being accounted for enough.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. I mean, that's what that's what would make sense to me. It just seems like you would create a different metabolic signature, eating the same amount, like same amount of calories, but eating them throughout the day versus this fasted fed state differentiation. You just see, I don't know, just, it seems like there would be something different, but yeah.
Vanessa Spina:
We can do Dr. Panda's studies next time.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, that'd be great. Should we answer some listener questions? Yes, I would love to. All right, would you like to read the question from Rebecca?
Vanessa Spina:
Yes. So our first question today is from Rebecca and the subject is avocados, avocados, avocados. Hi, ladies. I love the podcast. Thank you for all that you do. I recently started working from home and I realized that I don't get a lot of steps in a day. So I now take a walk every morning to get a coffee and listen to your podcast every day. I'm slowly catching up on all the podcasts that I missed. I'm also doing a slow transition back to IF. I was doing awesome with 18 to 20 hour fasting leading up to my wedding and then a series of life events hit, new job, new city, new house, family member fell ill with cancer, on and on and on. And while I fell off the wagon, I am slowly climbing back on and getting at least 16 to 18 hour fasts in with a 20 to 23 hour one in here and there. No changes yet, boo. But I am committed for a few months. All this to ask my question. I tend to open my window with an avocado with sea salt. It is so good. And now I absolutely crave it. I wake up thinking about it and there are days I would probably eat three to five avocados a day if I could. My question is why Google tells me that it could be a deficiency in essential fatty acids, low iron, or the whole what you eat you crave based on your gut bacteria. Well, I don't think avocados are bad and having one a day isn't super stressful to me. I do think that the urgency with which I crave them is causing me to pause and wonder what is going on. Other things I crave are coffee. Admittedly, I have a pretty bad caffeine addiction that I am just not interested in changing once in a while chocolate mainly because I am trying to mostly follow paleo and allow myself some dark chocolate once in a while carbs and salt. Thanks for any tips that you might have. Awesome.
Melanie Avalon:
First of all, avocados, do you like avocados, Vanessa?
Vanessa Spina:
I love them and they are full of potassium, which I just had to say because it's the first thing that came to my mind.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh my goodness. I remember avocados were one of those foods that did not taste like what I thought it was going to taste like. Like I didn't have one for the longest time and then I have one for the first time and it was like, oh, it's like, when is this?
Vanessa Spina:
magical. It is magical. It's funny because it reminded me when I was in university, I used to also have an avocado every day and it was the first thing I ate every day. And I would actually, this is really funny, but I would slice it in half and put it in a container overnight with an open lemon that I would also slice in half. And in the morning, it would make the avocado taste lemony. And it was amazing. Also with a bit of salt on it, there was something about it that was just insanely delicious. It would get infused with the lemon and I would have that every single day. And I remember my mom, she would be like, aren't you worried about cholesterol?
Melanie Avalon:
Oh man. I used to put the lemon on it too. I used to do, okay, I used to do lemon pepper and lemon on the avocado. Oh my goodness. There was something about, I remember my friend Jason was like, you have to try lemon pepper on avocado. It's going to change your life. And it did. There's something about the lemon. Oh man. You should try the lemon pepper. Like try it, try it and report back. It's going to change your life. It's going to change your life.
Vanessa Spina:
change your life? Yeah, avocados are magical.
Melanie Avalon:
I just remember though it not tasting like what I thought it was going to taste like. I think because I associate it with guacamole, which I never had, and guacamole you kind of associate with Mexican food, so I thought it was going to be like Mexican food tasting. I don't know. It was not what I thought at all.
Vanessa Spina:
texture.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh man, I'm craving an avocado. So, well, first of all, I'm really sorry Rebecca about, although this is kind of an old question. So hopefully things are doing well with your family member and all of the things. And like, this is a really old question. So I really am curious where she's at now with her job and her life and where she's living and, and everything. So sending love there as far as, okay, my first initial thought, interesting that your thought was about potassium. Mine was that this is a habit craving thing, because we know, we know our brains release dopamine based on habits. So you can actually, it's really interesting. You can create dopamine releases from things that don't even really mean anything to you, but the brain likes patterns, especially if you think that these patterns are keeping it alive. So it's quite possible that, and this is just me like, just hypothesizing. It could be a lot of different things and I don't know the answer, but it could be that there were some or are some nutrients and avocados that you did really need. And since you started opening your fast with it, it was a high reward situation where you're looking forward to it. You're opening your fast with it. You're getting all these nutrients. So it's like good, good, good. It's signaling good things to your brain. And then if you repeated that and you're like opening the window with it every time, you're going to probably quickly start really looking forward to that. And I mean, I think that could happen with almost, I mean, a lot of foods. I mean, I even do it because I open my window a very specific way and I definitely, I don't say not necessarily that I crave it, but I really, that's like what I need to open my window. And I would feel very weird not doing that, which is like my cucumbers and my wine. And we do know, so she mentioned the whole eat what you crave thing with the gut based on your gut bacteria. We do know that's a thing. So basically what you eat influences your gut bacteria and then your gut bacteria crave that thing you're eating. And that can be a reason that can be actually pretty hard to get off of like the processed food train, for example, because you start cultivating these not so good gut bacteria that are craving that not so good food. And on the flip side though, when you change your diet, you can actually start slowly craving the foods you're eating, which is very, very cool. So the reason I'm thinking it's more habitual now is that if you've been doing this, I don't know how long she said this has been happening, but if it's been a substantial amount of time and you're still intensely craving the avocados, I think you probably would have received the nutrients that you were deficient in by now. I mean, I guess it's possible not. To me, it sounds more like a habit driven thing, especially because you also know you admit that you crave and have quote addictions with other things like coffee. It doesn't sound like you actually have like a habit or an addiction around chocolate, but you do talk about craving different things. Yeah, I will put my money on it being a habit thing. What are your thoughts, Vanessa?
Vanessa Spina:
That was the first thing I thought of as well is, you know, it being a habit, sorry, the first thing I thought it was actually potassium because avocados are really high in potassium. And I'm always really interested, you know, by things like cravings, like dark chocolate. Could it be that you're low in magnesium? Like if you're craving bananas or potatoes or avocados, which are all high in potassium, could it be that you're low in potassium? You know, it's interesting to consider. I'm not saying that that's what's happening, but it's just what came to my mind because those foods are high in it. So sometimes cravings can be associated with that. I would think that it's probably just because it's so amazing because as we were talking about avocados are magical and delicious. The only thing that I would say is, and we probably won't have the same opinion on this, but if you are waking up already thinking about your meal way later in the day, that to me doesn't sound like a fun day. So, you know, and I found that like I have done intermittent fasting for so many years. And like I would say, most of the time that I was doing it, I was enjoying it because I didn't have any thoughts of food during that time. And that's what I enjoyed about it was the freedom from thinking about food or meals. And then I would usually think about food around the time, you know, that it was opening my eating window. I'm sure that's not the case for everyone, but to me that feels more, I wouldn't say white-knuckling it because it's not like you're saying in your question that all day long you're like tormented by the thought of this avocado, but it does sound like you're thinking about it quite a lot. So, you know, I don't know if maybe your eating window is too long. As we were just talking about, there's quite a bit of research showing that intermittent fasting and caloric restriction can produce the same results. So what if you had the avocado a little bit earlier in the day, and then you wouldn't be thinking about it all day. It's just something that I would maybe try experimenting with. I've tried with so many, I've experimented with so many different kinds of fasting approaches. You know, I've done, the most recent one I was doing was circadian rhythm fasting. So I was having a breakfast every day and then having dinner, and I would fast between breakfast and dinner. And I really liked that. That could be something you could try. There's having breakfast and lunch and then fasting until breakfast the next day. I tried that one, probably the one I struggled with the most, so not one that I would recommend. But that's because, not because I was hungry at dinner, but because I wanted to partake in the social activities, like with friends or with family of having that meal, which dinner usually is a more social meal. So I would just play around with your fasting window. If you're really, really wanting to do intermittent fasting, you know, I doubt it's related to a deficiency because you're eating it every day. So if you're having it every day, then you're probably not deficient in that thing. I think it's probably more maybe around the fact that you're just waking up and you're hungry and you want to have something. So you know, there's lots of different ways to approach whatever it is that your goal is. If it sounds like you would like to potentially lose some body fat and improve your body composition, you can still achieve that by having the avocado or having your first meal earlier in the day. You know, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to do an 18 or 20 hour fasting window to achieve your goal. Some people do that because they find themselves free from thinking about food all day. But if you are thinking about food all day, then I would think that would defeat the purpose.
Melanie Avalon:
I also have a wild card suggestion, this total wild card. This might just be something to try out of curiosity and experimentation, but I remember when I was going down the fasting mimicking diet rabbit hole way back in the day and contemplating doing it. That's Dr. Valter Longo's basically approach to creating the metabolites and effects of intermittent fasting, but you do it for like five days. There's the DIY version where people kind of just create a meal that, oh, wait a minute. No, because his is low. Wait, his is... Oh man. Now I'm trying to remember. I just remember there was a DIY version online where people were eating avocados, but now I'm wondering if that matches up with the macros of his diet because his diet tends to be low fat. So I'd have to revisit that. Basically, well, FMD or not. I know there's a community out there where they do this avocado fast thing. You could just try that out of curiosity. She said, I could eat three to five avocados a day if I could. You could try an experiment where you eat like five avocados for a few days. Just out of curiosity, I'm not prescribing this as like a diet to follow long term, but if you are into self experimentation, I think it could be interesting. It'd be really... It'd probably get you really deep into ketosis. I don't know what you think about that crazy idea, Vanessa.
Vanessa Spina:
Yeah, I mean, this is not a nutritional advice podcast because we are not qualified to do that. So definitely not any kind of, you know, recommendation, but it does, it does sound like something fun to do being as avocados are so delicious. And like you said, you could have three, three to five a day. You probably could have three to five a day and still get to your goal. So I totally get where you're coming from on that.
Melanie Avalon:
It reminds me of the fat fasting that people would do. It would be a way to get an extended amount of time. This is going to sound counterintuitive to everything that we've talked about, but the Dr. Valter Longo FMD thing, a lot of the benefits that he finds comes from the really low protein intake. So it could be interesting. Maybe we could do it for like a day. Maybe we could have like an avocado day and see what happens. I know Dave Asprey.
Vanessa Spina:
An avocado day would probably be fun. If you are looking for body re-composition, yes, I agree, you'd probably get into ketosis because your protein would be so low. But avocados actually have a lot of carb, so avocados are mostly carb and fat. So I wonder, probably even with five, you probably would be low enough, but I'd have to look it up to see. But you probably would be low enough just on calories, although it depends on the size of the avocados because I think some of them are like 300 calories each.
Melanie Avalon:
Now I'm craving avocados.
Vanessa Spina:
Now you wanna do an avocado date. I wanna do an avocado fast day, yeah. You should do an avocado date and report back.
Melanie Avalon:
sounds really miserable to me. I can't do the like day. I can't do like the eating throughout the day. For your OMAD.
Vanessa Spina:
to see the avocados, avocados for, you know, for, for a fun experiment, you'd probably be in ketosis, although I'm gonna see how many carbs are in an avocado.
Melanie Avalon:
I think it's only like three or four. I don't think it's that much. 13.
Vanessa Spina:
Is some of that fiber? Yeah, 10 grams of fiber, but I never did like the net carbs thing. So if you're doing net, then it's probably three. If you don't do net, it's 13. So you probably could have two and being ketosis or three maybe, but that's really not your question. I know. But yeah, for body composition, ultimately you, you want to have some protein in there, I would think. So, you know, I, I think the reason avocados are so attractive, just like nuts is that, you know, they have lots of amazing nutrients in them. They have lots of energy, lots of carb and fat, and they taste so, so delicious. And that that's what makes them so magical, but they only have three grams of protein. So if you had five of them, you'd be getting like 15 grams of protein, which like you said would probably put you in ketosis, but it won't help with long-term body re-composition and gaining more lean mass.
Melanie Avalon:
I know Dave Asprey has his low protein days as well, so it'd be like a therapeutic approach type thing.
Vanessa Spina:
Yes. I've totally been changing my thinking lately on, on protein restriction. Oh yeah. And mTOR and everything, which is like a much larger conversation, but it was really interesting because I know it's a topic that we both love. And, you know, how do you balance all of that mTOR activity with AMPK? And it really, it really is interesting because Dr. Kurt Escobar was talking about how the mTOR that people talk about in a negative light is actually dysregulated mTOR. And that's something you don't want to have a lot of, but the mTOR that you get from eating protein and doing resistance training, you never want to really avoid that. And you can get autophagy from mTOR, which is so counter to what I used to think, because once in autophagy, once the lysosome fills with enough amino acids, it actually triggers autophagy. And the metabolic autophagy that you trigger from exercise triggers that housekeeping, that cellular housekeeping autophagy. So I used to always think for autophagy, you needed AMPK, you needed fasting, you needed to avoid mTOR with protein, et cetera. But you actually get autophagy from mTOR. Like the whole system is so much more complex than we often make it seem like AMPK fasting autophagy versus mTOR protein muscle building. And you can actually get a lot of autophagy from mTOR, which the whole point of that being you don't have to do protein restriction to get autophagy and to kind of balance things out. So I've been changing my thinking on that lately, but I know it's something that a topic that we're both interested in.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah i remember when i was talking with my friend james climent who wrote a book called the switch he does a lot of studying on blood work of longevity and. He's talking about how long in tour stays on and that's what that's when i realized that i know nothing about him to her.
Vanessa Spina:
and the different mTOR complexes, mTOR1 and mTOR2.
Melanie Avalon:
He was talking about how, and I don't want to get this wrong, but basically like, and I don't know what the exact experiment he was doing or what he was testing, but he was talking about a situation where protein or whatever or something was stimulating mTOR and it was still on like, you know, 30 hours later or something. And I was like, okay, nevermind, I don't know anything, like, I don't know what's happening here. Did you listen to that interview? Peter Attia interviewed a woman and like her thing was mTOR.
Vanessa Spina:
don't know. I'd love to get their name and go look it up. It was a really deep dive. I'll have to find it. You know what's blowing my mind lately is the podcast transcripts on iTunes. Oh, I listen on Spotify. I don't know if Spotify has this, but iTunes now has transcripts for every podcast. And so you can search the transcripts on the app. So if I want, like, if I want to go back and find that interview, I can search in the transcript just when they talk about mTOR. For us too? Yeah. And you can search specific terms, but you can also watch the words as you're listening, which is a new thing that I love to do because it's like subtitles. So it kind of helps me to deepen my understanding when it's something really complex. I can listen to it and I can also watch the words as it goes through the transcript.
Melanie Avalon:
I had a moment, sorry, just speaking of this week, because like one of my best friends ever, shout out to Carmen and me, he's directing his first feature film with a really incredible cast. And I was watching his producer cut, so there's no subtitles, obviously. And I was like, whoa, this is like a whole new experience. I forgot what it was like to watch something without subtitles. I think it made me watch it a little bit better. I used to think it was the opposite, the subtitles were helping me, but now I'm wondering if I'm becoming reliant on subtitles, well, like for videos, like for movies and TV, because you watch with subtitles, right? I love them.
Vanessa Spina:
but also I have two kids that are constantly making noises, so I can't really watch anything without subtitles now.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. So that was a moment. I was like, I don't know what to do with myself. I have to like, listen. Oh my goodness. Love it. Awesome. Well, this was super fun. So if Rebecca is still around, definitely let us know how it went with the avocados, which I am now craving.
Vanessa Spina:
I was going to say if we want to do this last question, it's kind of related, like we could answer it pretty quick because it's kind of related to what we've just been talking about.
Melanie Avalon:
This is from Sherry. She says, if I want more muscle definition, should I eat shortly after my weightlifting session or complete my 16-hour fast? Should I break my fast and take collagen and creatine right after my session and then eat a meal after I have fasted 16 hours? I am 59 years young and could stand to lose a little fat on my arms and belly around three to five pounds.
Vanessa Spina:
That was some alliteration. Should I eat shortly after my weightlifting session? It's very poetic writing. So, I would say that, in my opinion, it probably just comes down to what feels best for you, and we might have different opinions on this. Being as what we were just talking about with the studies and the meta-analysis talking about chloric restriction and intermittent fasting, basically generating the same amount of fat loss between the two, I think it really just comes down to how you feel best. If you like to eat right after your weightlifting session, you can do that. If you want to break your fast and have collagen and creatine, and also have a meal right after your workout, then you can definitely do it. I don't think you need to get to a certain goal, especially with the hours, and if you want to lose some body fat, like three to five pounds you were saying, ultimately if you were doing chloric restriction and you were doing any kind of intermittent fasting, according to the definitions we were recently covering, at least 14 hours of fasting, you're doing intermittent fasting. So, I would say just however it works best for you. I like playing around with different things. I recently started doing a meal before my workouts, and I've been losing, it was about three pounds now, almost five pounds in the past couple of weeks. So, I think it's worth experimenting and finding whatever you feel best doing, because I did my workouts fasted for so many years because I thought I was getting more mitochondrial biogenesis from that. When it turns out, it's really just the exercise that's doing that. Personally, I've been finding it fun to play around with that and to experiment. Ultimately, I've been having better workouts, having a small meal, not a huge meal, just a small meal before working out. I'm still doing intermittent fasting, according to those definitions, and I'm getting better results, which for me, I'm trying to focus on what the outcome is. It sounds like you are also interested in three to five pounds of fat loss. So, it made me think of my personal experience, but I think it really will just come down to what kind of caloric deficit you're creating, whether you're doing a 16-hour fast or longer or shorter. As long as the calories are equated, you're going to get the same amount of fat loss, whether you eat right after or if you fast longer during the day. That's my take on it. What about you, Melanie?
Melanie Avalon:
Before that, what do you think about the collagen and creatine specifically for taking those?
Vanessa Spina:
in terms of the fat loss.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, she should break her fast with collagen and creatine right after her session and then eat a meal.
Vanessa Spina:
I mean, I think those are probably great for boosting. I mean creatine has been proven in the science to help boost lean body mass. And there's lots of meta-analysis showing that it increases fat loss in women. So it definitely can help, including that in your routine. Having it right after a session, I don't think it matters when you take it. If you have it right after your session, in terms of the timing, I don't think it matters. And the same with collagen. As long as you have it sometime during your eating window. But I can't really speak to the specifics with regards to fasting for 16 hours or not.
Melanie Avalon:
And I think we've talked about it a lot on this show about there's this idea that you have to have the protein right after the exercise and that's not necessarily the case. And I really think it's about what works best for you. I would have a little bit of a different approach if I was a professional bodybuilder or that's my job and then it would be a little bit more specific. But for the everyday person just wanting to exercise, maintain and gain muscle, follow the healthy diet that works for them, I really would do the window that feels the best for both the exercise and the hunger overall and all the things. So I eat regardless of whatever activity I do during the day, I always eat way later at night. And that's worked even with doing M-sculpt where I go in and do these sessions earlier in the day where it's creating really intense muscle proteins, synthesis, signaling in my muscles and I don't eat until later that night. Well, this was absolutely wonderful. A few things for listeners before we go. You can submit your own questions to the show at questions at ifpodcast.com. If you would like to come on the show as a featured guest, we are going to start having some guest interviews. So for that, go to ifpodcast.com/submit and then you can fill out a form there to submit to share your story on the show. These show notes will be at ifpodcast.com/episode 389, they'll have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. And then you can follow us on Instagram, we are @ifpodcast, I am Melanie Avalon, Vanessa is @KetogenicGirl. And I think that's all the things. Anything from you, Vanessa, before we go?
Vanessa Spina:
I had so much fun and really enjoyed the questions and the study that we talked about, so looking forward to our next one.
Melanie Avalon:
Me too. I will talk to you next week. Okay, talk to you then. Bye. 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!
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
Original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.
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