Welcome to Episode 417 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.
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STUDIES
Identifying the relation between food groups and biological ageing: a data-driven approach
Health Effects of Alternate-Day Fasting in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
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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 417 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, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-host, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 417 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad, and I have an announcement to make. So listeners do not know when we are recording this, so it doesn't give away any incriminating details. But I just found out right now that it's Barry's birthday, and I kind of freaked out because I feel like I should have known this. Happy birthday, Barry Conrad. Happy birthday.
Barry Conrad
Thank you. Also, hey everyone, hope you're having an awesome day. It was really, really funny just before we started recording, Melanie was totally blindsided. She was like, what? What do you mean? She was like, it's totally fine that you didn't like, I'm not expecting anyone to know, you know? But thank you. I feel the love.
Melanie Avalon
birthdays are just so important to me. Like I just, ah, so if I had known, I would have, well, you just wait for next year, I'm going to do something crazy. How do you feel about birthdays?
Barry Conrad
You know what, I don't typically like pay attention to like numbers and things like that in terms of like birthdays because I don't, I feel amazing, but I do really like celebrating them. I think it's really special to celebrate with the people you love. I like the festivities, the trinkets, the food, the drinks, just hanging out with the people that I want to hang out with and I love celebrating other people too. So I do like birthdays in that way.
Melanie Avalon
I do too, I think it's so wonderful. See, I'm gonna take a gratitude moment right now for the world for giving us Barry Conrad. Thank you, universe.
Barry Conrad
That's very, very, very sweet. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Melanie Avalon
with you in it. Just saying.
Barry Conrad
Thank you. That's very kind.
Melanie Avalon
Question, do you change your fasting on your birthday, your fasting habits?
Barry Conrad
Full disclosure, I'm just going to let you all know just before I press, like, not I press record before I sign on for the episode today, I had a delivery of cupcakes and trinkets and things. So today I'm going to be a bit more lenient with my fasting window. Totally fine. Not phased. What about you when it's your birthday?
Melanie Avalon
Well, I will say just as a quick note on that, I think one of the things I love about intermittent fasting, like having it as part of your ongoing lifestyle is when you do have those indulgences or, you know, take it a little bit more lax, it doesn't completely derail you. Like it's so easy to have those moments, I feel, at least compared to the way it was for me before intermittent fasting, if that makes sense.
Barry Conrad
It makes a lot of sense. And I feel the freedom to do that because I know that tomorrow I just jump back straight back on again. It's totally fine.
Melanie Avalon
Yep. And to answer your question, I don't really change. Well, I typically go for my birthday dinner, but I don't, I don't eat anything I wouldn't normally eat. Right. It's not really any different. Like literally every meal, every dinner I have feels it's like the food I would want to eat anyways. It's like a celebration.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, which is what it's all about, right? And also, you wouldn't have your funfetti.
Melanie Avalon
No. It's funny how many people DM me Funfetti related content on the regular. I can't escape it. If Funfetti ever comes up in social media content, I get it from listeners.
Barry Conrad
It's sort of part of your, the Melanie Evelyn zeitgeist, like funfetti, intermittent fasting, wine, glow coffee, funfetti, intermittent fasting, funfetti.
Melanie Avalon
What's funny listeners is the other day Barry sent me something, it was a picture of a cake with like sprinkles all on the outside and he's like, is this Funfetti? I felt like you were like so proud of yourself, but this is the thing Barry, Funfetti is about what's inside the cake. So you have to see, this is what I told him, I was like, you have to see what's inside the cake because the inside might be just plain vanilla, in which case it would not be Funfetti, it would be a vanilla cake with sprinkles on the outside. But Funfetti cake has sprinkles on the inside.
Barry Conrad
I don't know how that would taste, but also you're right. I was super proud of myself. I was like, I totally found the thing.
Melanie Avalon
I was like, do I tell him?
Barry Conrad
just let me down easy
Melanie Avalon
Okay. So for your next birthday, I'm going to, I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do. I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do. You just have to wait and see. If you're still in Australia, it's going to require some, uh, it's hard to get things to you in Australia.
Barry Conrad
I'm pretty confident I won't be here my next birthday.
Melanie Avalon
well fingers crossed you have successfully gotten things from me before though right i sent you flowers you sent me
Barry Conrad
flowers when I had the ankle situation.
Melanie Avalon
I had to find an Australian flower shop, that was difficult.
Barry Conrad
I appreciate the, the commitment to getting them to me and also the shot, the shot glass. Tell them about the shot glass.
Melanie Avalon
Yes. So Barry loves saying, we're going to get lit or it looks lit, which was not a phrase normally in my common vernacular terminology that I use. So then I was in Austin and they had a shot glass. What does it say? It says, it's a light bulb, right?
Barry Conrad
It's a literal light bulb, like the shape of a light bulb, you open the top and that's the way you put the drink in. It's awesome. I need to get it and check it out again.
Melanie Avalon
Doesn't it say something about getting lit because it's a light bulb?
Barry Conrad
When i got that i'm like melody you're the best i can't believe you sent me this is awesome.
Melanie Avalon
I was like scrambling in the Austin airport, trying to get to my flight and saw it, and was like, must buy this right now. Well, happy birthday. I hope it is everything. I don't know. I hope it's everything you would want it to be and more and that you have all the celebrations and eat. Wait. So if people send you, do you just eat whatever they send you even if it's, yeah, do you eat everything that they send you?
Barry Conrad
Well, Melody, I'll let you guess the answer to that.
Melanie Avalon
That's a yes.
Barry Conrad
That's a yes. I mean, not straight away. I'm not eating it right now, but I'll, you know, in a couple hours or so, I'll get those cupcakes out and eat them. I'll probably have some wine first, like later on. So, you know, line that gut a little bit and then I'll have some cupcakes. Why not?
Melanie Avalon
actually related sort of, I think you would be proud. I thought of you. So Saturday I went out with actually a podcast guest from the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast, Dr. Eric Zielinski. He wrote like the healing power of essential oils. He's like the essential oil guy, like the essential oil guys. So we went out with him and his wife who they are so inspiring. She is having her seventh baby right now in like a month. And last time we met up with them two years ago, she was also pregnant. They're gonna have seven kids and she's like a, like a pageant woman. Like she doesn't look like somebody with seven kids, which would wear me out.
Barry Conrad
That's so impressive.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it's very impressive. And they have it like down to a system. It's, yeah, they're super cool. In any case, it was my first experience in a long time of we met them for dinner, we had dinner, and then my sister decided, my sister and I decided to stay and have drinks at the bar. So it was the first time in, I don't even remember the last time, where I had drinks at the bar, like on a full stomach. Normally I break my fast with wine. It was a different experience. I literally made the comment to my sister. I was like, this is my first time being at a bar with like a full stomach, having drinks in a while.
Barry Conrad
I'm impressed i'm proud of you because it is very like not what you normally do so that's a good thing right to enjoy it.
Melanie Avalon
Yes, but I don't like it as much because once I once I eat then I'm like in wind down mode and I'm like tired and you know
Barry Conrad
What did you have? What was the specialty menu item?
Melanie Avalon
I had lots of salmon. I tried to, they had a lot of, it was a Persian place and they had a lot of like lamb and steak and I literally tried to order everything on the menu and everything was pre-marinated. So they couldn't, they couldn't like fix it for me.
Barry Conrad
So give us an example of how you ordered it. What did you ask? How did you say it?
Melanie Avalon
I was like, well, I was like, can I get, you know, the lamb like completely plain and they're like, Oh, it's pre-marinated. And I was like pointing to like, obviously the lamb sirloin. They're like, it's pre-marinated. I was like, Oh, well, what about the lamb chops pre-marinated? What about the lamb neck pre-marinated? Okay. I was like, well, what about the steak? They were like pre-marinated. I was like, well, let's not pre-marinated. And then they were like the steak tenderloin. I was like, great, I'll have that rare. Like, Oh, we can't do a rare. I was like, okay. Oh, I got salmon.
Barry Conrad
It was fun. I'm not surprised that you asked for that. And also, I'm kind of like, come on, guys, why can't you prepare it rare? That's like the basic.
Melanie Avalon
Like they said it was like pounded very flat, so it had to be cooked. I don't know. I don't agree. Like I feel like they have the meat. They could have just not cooked it.
Barry Conrad
just seared it like for two seconds on each side and just, you know.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I should have been more, oh well, lessons learned, but it was really good. You would have liked it.
Barry Conrad
I think I would have as well. I'd be smashing that meat for sure. All the steak, all the lamb.
Melanie Avalon
the marinated
Barry Conrad
Mm-hmm. How are you other than that? You never told me. How's what's new with you?
Melanie Avalon
I am good. Oh, well, speaking of meat, something I wanted to tell the listeners about. So we have a new sponsor on the show and I am so, so excited. Have we talked about this? So have you had venison deer meat?
Barry Conrad
I have had venison deer meat and it's pretty delicious. High protein, succulent, easy to cook, so good.
Melanie Avalon
I had not had it as like a like a steak since I think honestly the only time I had deer meat have I told you this story from childhood my like being scarred so I just had this memory of being like five or six at my grandmother's house and she made some spaghetti and it was the most delicious spaghetti and she was like I'll tell you after why it's so delicious and we ate all the spaghetti and then at the end she was like it's deer meat and like when you're like a little five or six year old and you watch Bambi and stuff it was upsetting.
Barry Conrad
It's scarred you emotionally.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I freaked out. And I don't think I've had it since then. Now I have because we found what we found. They found us. I had heard them before on other podcasts. So when they reached out, I was so excited. Because I was like, yes, I'd actually been dying to reach out to them. So the brand is Maui Nui. And what is so incredible about them is, so they're in Hawaii. I don't know if you've been familiar with the access to your overpopulation problem there.
Barry Conrad
I've definitely heard about it, but tell us.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so they're an invasive species there, and they've actually taken over the island, basically. And it's doing damage to the ecosystem in Hawaii, so it's a problem. So this company is solving so many problems environmentally and health-wise. The deer, so you just mentioned, Barry, like the protein and everything. So it's pretty much like the highest quality protein that you can get with the least amount of calories. It has up to 53% more protein per calorie than grass-fed beef because it's so lean, like you just said. They're so sustainable with everything. They have this really cool video that I watched about how they actually source the deer responsibly. It's completely stress-free for the animals, and it's really delicious. And I'm so sad because I don't think they can shift to Australia, so Barry has not tried it.
Barry Conrad
I'll just have to try it. I'll have to try it when I come over there soon. So that's happening.
Melanie Avalon
Yes, yes. I tried it and it tastes absolutely amazing. It's so lean, so delicious, so good for you. So friends, check it out. So to secure your access, you can go to MauiNuiVenison.com slash iapodcast. So that's M-A-U-I-N-U-I-V-E-N-I-S-O-N dot com slash iapodcast, MauiNuiVenison dot com slash iapodcast. Barry, have you been to Hawaii?
Barry Conrad
I actually have been to Hawaii, but only for a day, like only in transit. I really want to go to so bad, like to have a vacation. What about you?
Melanie Avalon
Where were you on the way to?
Barry Conrad
I was on the way to the States, actually. So it was via, I was on Hawaiian Airlines. And so I had to stop through there and I was like, I want to stay. Can I just like miss my flight? But got to do it. Got to make it happen next time.
Melanie Avalon
Would you believe I have been twice? Have you? Yeah, when I was younger, to Lanai and Kauai. But I have not been recently.
Barry Conrad
What did you think of it? It's beautiful.
Melanie Avalon
And there's, like, lays everywhere. They, like, greet you with lays. Like, all the stereotypes were true. I feel like it's very... In a good way. It's very... It lives up to its stereotype.
Barry Conrad
I feel like if you went there as an adult, you know how, listen, is how Melanie does. If you follow her on Instagram, she does the mirror selfies and the boomerangs and things. I feel like if you went as an adult now, Mel, you'd wear the laze and like do like a little shimmy in the boomerang, I don't know.
Melanie Avalon
Oh, yes. All the things. Oh, and I could find all the pictures. Oh, my goodness. I could find the pictures from when we went, when we were little and I could recreate them now and I could do a mashup. You could. Yeah. Well, we should go for your birthday.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, you know what, I'd be so down and then I can have all the Maui Nui I want as well.
Melanie Avalon
All the Maui Nui, yes, well, like eat the Maui Nui. All right, well, shall we jump into some fasting-related things?
Barry Conrad
Let's jump on in.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, so I am for this episode, I am we're starting off with a study that I found. So this study that I found actually, interestingly, remember Barry, I don't know if it was last week or two weeks ago, when I had the moment in real time when I realized that I read the wrong book for Stephen Gundry.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.
Melanie Avalon
Did I, I don't know if I actually said it on the podcast, I might've paused, but basically I was talking about Dr. Gundry's work and how I was about to interview him and I realized in real time on the podcast that I had read the wrong book because he has so many books. So I had to reschedule him. So in any case, I'm interviewing him this week, finally, and I just finished the correct book, which I can plug. It's called the Gut Brain Paradox and it was really fascinating about the connection between the gut microbiome and the brain. So many things, kind of crazy how our microbes really do control, I mean, our personality, our cravings, so many different things. But in any case, near the end of the book, he referenced a study and I was like, oh, that's interesting. I want to read that because he said it was a 2024 study that looked at food groups and how they affect biological aging. So I went and found the study and it's called Identifying the Relation Between Food Groups and Biological Aging, a Data-Driven Approach and it was published May 2024 in the journal Age and Aging. And what I thought was interesting was the foods that Dr. Gundry listed as pointing out of what it found with correlations and then also the foods that the study itself discussed in the conclusion about the connection between food and age compared to all the foods and the findings. Not that it's cherry picking, but they kind of like ignored some of the surprising findings in my opinion, which just goes to show, I think we, you know, we like to focus on things that sound good health-wise that support our theories about health, but people don't always talk about things that might be contrary to that. So in the book, for example, I'll read what Dr. Gundry says. In Dr. Gundry's defense, if you actually read just the conclusion, it kind of says the things that he pointed out, but I went and actually read the whole thing. So it says that a study published in May 2024 that followed 4,000 American women, and let me qualify about this. The study wasn't actually a study that just looked at 4,000 American women to find this. They actually just reanalyzed the data from the women's health initiative. So they just went back and looked at prior data to find these connections. So he said it looked at 4,000 American women listed the foods most associated with accelerated aging. Here's the rundown. Eggs, organ meats, sausage, cheese, legumes, starchy vegetables, added sugar, and lunch meats were what accelerated aging. The foods most associated with decelerated aging were poultry, nuts, peaches, nectarines, plums, and solid fats. And then he says that basically those first foods are high in a compound called NEU 5GC that he talks about in the book, which is this compound that's found in red meat only that is linked to a lot of health conditions that I had no idea about. So that was really interesting. Then he's saying that the good foods are high in polyphenols and things like on his plan. Biological aging is the idea that our bodies have an age that is not connected to our chronological age.
Melanie Avalon
Rather, it's how is our body actually aging independent of chronological age, which Barry, we still got to get you, speaking of birthdays and aging, we still got to get you to do some sort of epigenetic biological age test because I feel like you would be, I bet yours is like so low.
Barry Conrad
I was about to actually just say, yeah, I need to do one of those. Like for real, that's happening. I'm just curious to see what it would be.
Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. You probably like blow most people out of the water here. I have all the things they looked at Okay, do you want to play the guessing game? Do you want to guess if I know I read some of them just now? but do you want to guess if it I'll like say the thing and you can guess if it increased the biological age or decreased
Barry Conrad
Okay, let's go.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, although I did say some of these already, X.
Barry Conrad
increased the biological age.
Melanie Avalon
Yes. Organ week.
Barry Conrad
increased.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, which I want to circle back to like why this might be sausage.
Barry Conrad
Increase, but all of these as well just to say I'm really annoyed to hear this because I love all these so far So keep going
Melanie Avalon
I know. We're going to talk. We'll talk about it. Poultry. Decreased. Yes. Nuts. Decreased. Yes. Cheese.
Barry Conrad
increased.
Melanie Avalon
Uh-huh, legumes increased. See, this is like, this is why we're going to talk about this because like legumes are the darling of the, you know, the, what's the word? Like the darling of the longevity, like blue zones, all the things. So it's okay, I'll stop. Starchy vegetables.
Barry Conrad
increased.
Melanie Avalon
Yes. Discretionary oil. Decreased? Mm-hmm. Discretionary solid fat.
Barry Conrad
Decreased
Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm added sugar
Barry Conrad
Decreased. No, no, no, no, increase, increase, increase.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Okay. Here's where it's going to get really interesting. So these are lifestyle factors. Are you ready? I'm ready. BMI. What's the... A higher BMI. So like higher weight.
Barry Conrad
OK, being greased.
Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm blood pressure
Barry Conrad
increased.
Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm systolic blood pressure
Barry Conrad
increased.
Melanie Avalon
Yes, diastolic blood pressure. Nope, it decreased, which is interesting. Okay, smoking.
Barry Conrad
increased for sure.
Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm education
Barry Conrad
decreased.
Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm osteoporosis
Barry Conrad
increased.
Melanie Avalon
decreased. Isn't that interesting? But they're not going to say that in the conclusion.
Barry Conrad
That's so surprising.
Melanie Avalon
Uh-huh. I have a theory about that though. Uh, well, maybe. Okay. Cardiovascular disease.
Barry Conrad
increased.
Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm arthritis
Barry Conrad
increased.
Melanie Avalon
HDL cholesterol. Decreased. Hmm. HDL is considered to be the good cholesterol though. So total cholesterol, total cholesterol. Increased. Decreased. Triglycerides.
Barry Conrad
Decreased.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, which is like shocking because trigs are always the thing that people are like, you got to get those low, like people argue about cholesterol, like every day, all day, LDL, HDL total, but trigs, everybody's like on the same page that you want those low. And yet, here it's saying that they like higher trigs decrease biological age. And then okay, they're racist, American Indian.
Barry Conrad
increased
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, Asian.
Barry Conrad
Decreased.
Melanie Avalon
increased.
Barry Conrad
Really?
Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm other race
Barry Conrad
decreased
Melanie Avalon
increased. I'm trying to find because they don't have Caucasian right there. Yeah. And then let's see if I did all of them. Oh, and then blood glucose.
Barry Conrad
increased.
Melanie Avalon
Mm hmm. And so pretty good. You did really good. You would have passed just then just just barely. But what's so interesting about this is honestly, I think it just okay, I do think probably certain foods are connected to aging and longevity as our lifestyle factors. But I think if anything is clear from this, it's that correlational data is just not good to go off of because you could cherry pick this and like pull out the really crazy ones. And it would just be contrary to everything we've been told. Like you could read the study and you can make the headline, which they didn't, but you could have made the headline osteoporosis and triglycerides. And oh, this is what they left out. This is not the whole thing. They also had pizza. What do you think pizza was?
Barry Conrad
Increase for sure. It has to be. Pizza decreased. What a farce. That's so crazy because we're always told pizza is one of the worst foods you can have. Carry on, Mel.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, and I do think it is. But the point is, they found this about pizza decreasing. Do they put that in the conclusion? No. It's like buried in the data, you know? But they're going to say in the conclusion, okay, let me read the conclusion of the actual study. So in the conclusion, they say, in conclusion, we identified several compelling associations between food groups and biological aging. Basically, they did exactly what Dr. Gundry said, eggs, organ meats, sausage, cheese, legumes, starchy vegetables, added sugar, lunch meat, and fat added after cooking, accelerated biological aging, while peaches, nectarines, plums, poultry, nuts, discretionary oil, and solid fat decelerated aging. But they didn't say that pizza decelerated aging. And they didn't say that fat in general, because then they had fat, it's just like a category, and it increased aging. Like they say fat increases, but butter decreases, which it's like, okay, well, what's happening there? My point is,
Barry Conrad
Seems contradicting.
Melanie Avalon
So my point is, I don't think we can look at these types of studies that are correlational and make any sort of causational claim. You just have to question everything. The type of people that are eating eggs, organ meats, sausages, cheese, they also might just be eating an unhealthy diet in general, which is different from somebody eating like a whole foods based approach on processed foods. It's just very different. So I do think there's important information in here. I also think it's a pretty good mirror into how studies can be misleading when it comes to this stuff.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, I 100% agree. I have a lot of eggs on the daily, sausage, lunch meats, if they mean, if that means like deli meat, is that what lunch meat?
Melanie Avalon
any sort of process meet.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, I have heard that's really bad for you, so I do avoid that a lot of the time, but eggs, I eat a couple dozen eggs a week at least. My biological age is going to be increased now.
Melanie Avalon
Well, if you just get yourself some osteoporosis and then you'll be good.
Barry Conrad
And you know, just a whole lot of fats, I mean, not fats, get some, yeah, some fats and some nuts and some chicken, you'd be fine, mitigate it.
Melanie Avalon
Do you know what my theory is for the osteoporosis? What?
Barry Conrad
I'm curious.
Melanie Avalon
I think it's probably that the people who don't have osteoporosis, I think the overweight and obese population are much less likely to have osteoporosis. So osteoporosis may be more likely found in people who have lower weights, and so maybe something's coming into play there.
Barry Conrad
That's an interesting theory. Imagine putting that as the headline. Get some osteoporosis and live longer!
Melanie Avalon
Exactly, but they're not gonna you know, so I find it all really really interesting So we will we'll put a link to this in the show notes
Barry Conrad
I also found the compound, the NEU5GC situation, really surprising. I had never heard of that before and that's in, as you were saying, like beef and pork and lamb and that's a lot of what I eat weekly. So that's really kind of concerning, but also what you said, you got to just question everything and how's your lifestyle with that, you know?
Melanie Avalon
Exactly. Yeah. And it's interesting. I had never heard of this before. And he does. I'm going to talk to him about it this week. He dives deep into it basically. So there's NEU5GC. It's a sugar molecule along the gut wall and the blood-brain barrier. It's in beef, pork, lamb, and bison. And we have, we fish and chicken, humans fish and chicken have a similar one called NEU5AC. And so they're very, very similar. The only difference is one oxygen molecule. But because the 5GC version is so similar yet foreign, we can eat those foods. Our immune system sees it as foreign, makes antibodies against it. And then it just creates like an inflammatory response. But he says that actually having more of the 5GC protects you, sorry, having more of the 5AC protects you from the 5GC. So he says having chicken and fish actually helps protect that effect from red meat.
Barry Conrad
Wowzers, very interesting.
Melanie Avalon
So yeah, always something.
Barry Conrad
That's the thing as well that there is always new findings. It's like, well, I thought this one thing and now it's actually this. So it's like adapting to new research, but then also not treating that like gospel as well, because that could also be proven not necessarily wrong, but just different or nuanced. So it's like, it's a constantly evolving situation, everyone.
Melanie Avalon
Exactly. I feel like never treating it like gospel because, like I just said, and we just saw, some of the things are so contradictory and are just not, like, or just like the trigs, like it said, having higher trigs reduces your biological age. I mean, it's pretty much accepted that you don't want high trigs. So, triglycerides.
Barry Conrad
Awesome study Mel, it was great. Thank you.
Melanie Avalon
Thank you to Dr. Gundry. I can't wait to interview him this week and I want to ask him about this study and be like, what do you think about the pizza and the osteoporosis and the trigs?
Barry Conrad
That's a good leading question, especially those three.
Melanie Avalon
To start us off, I'm just wondering.
Barry Conrad
Is he on social media? Did you know Is he on?
Melanie Avalon
Dr. Oh, yeah, yeah, I think so.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, pretty sure. Imagine if people tagged him saying, oh, I'm just, you know, I'm baking my pizza right now. It's in the oven. You know, Dr. Gundry said it's all good. So, you know.
Melanie Avalon
Oh man, I actually, you know what? I actually am gonna, I'm gonna try to ask him about it. He's really great though. I really, this is my, I think my third time having him on the show.
Barry Conrad
And really awesome that he was able to reschedule so soon, right?
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I'm so grateful. Okay, shall we jump into some more fasting related things?
Barry Conrad
Let's jump all the way in. Let's do it.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, so we have a question from Alice. Alice says, I'm curious about ADF and how it affects muscle growth. I'm 67, 53, and weigh between 140 to 145. I've been doing IF for about four years now. I was originally down 30 pounds to 135 after the first five months of IF, but have slowly gained back 10 pounds. I resistance train two to three times a week, spin three times a week, yoga and Pilates once a week, and I like to get my 10,000 steps in when it's not too hot. Have we talked about 10,000 steps on here, Barry? I think we did. Have we really? I don't know if we have. We'll circle back. I have a fun fact about it. ADF really worked for me to lose weight, but I worry about losing muscle mass as I age. If I make sure to get enough protein on my up days, is that sufficient enough to prevent losing muscle mass on my down days? Thanks for all you both do to help keep us healthy and informed. You're both so inspiring. Okay, ADF. But do you want to hear the 10,000 steps?
Barry Conrad
Yes, tell me.
Melanie Avalon
Do you know where that came from, the idea to do 10,000 steps a day?
Barry Conrad
No, but I hope it's not a marketing situation like the Kellogg's breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Is it?
Melanie Avalon
in Japan at some point, whenever this became a thing, they were trying to encourage people to walk. And the character for 10,000 looks like a man walking. So they picked it.
Barry Conrad
So basically, every PT, every, you know, nutritionist, personal trainer, anything, it's like it's based on the story. That's what you're saying?
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, basically. Although it's still like a good, you know, still a good noble goal, especially walking. And since then they've done studies and like the perfect amount where basically you get the maximum bang for your buck. And then after that, it plateaus. It's somewhere I just, I'm reading a book right now called ageless aging. It's about aging and women specifically. It's like very tailored towards like women. But she said now it's somewhere around 8,000 something is like the ideal number. So it wasn't too off. But yeah, the original 10,000 steps was a marketing thing.
Barry Conrad
New it new it just like how logs you know we need to definitely get the links for that cuz i want to look more into it that's shocking and still good still a good noble goal to have.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, yeah, so I want to see what the character looks like. Let's see 10,000.
Barry Conrad
Same. I'm imagining like anime vibes.
Melanie Avalon
In any case, how do you feel about ADF and muscle?
Barry Conrad
Alice first of all you're killing it sounds like you're absolutely killing it and the fact that you you are doing IF for what you say four years and and training and spinning and Pilates side note Pilates is actually way harder than I thought until I tried it.
Melanie Avalon
I haven't tried it, actually.
Barry Conrad
It's actually so hard, Mel, like I had the first time I ever tried Pilates was on camera for like a gym and it was was a fail with such. I was shaking and trembling and all these females were kicking my, you know, it was crazy back to the question and you're aiming for 10,000 steps, which is awesome as we've just talked about. Honestly, that seriously solid Alice for what you're saying. And if you're thinking long term about muscle mass, that's it's even more important as we age, which is super important. And with ADF and for new listeners, that means alternate day fasting welcome and how to help you lose weight. Wondering how it affects muscle growth and maintenance is a really important thing to focus on and you're hitting your protein targets and you're eating days and you're training consistently and you're already doing a lot of the key things to protect yourself, which is great. Like muscle maintenance, one of my favorite topics, as you probably know by now, especially as we get older, it's going to come down to a couple things. So since since you're training a couple times a week, two, three times a week, you're giving your muscles that stimulus that it needs, but the next big piece of that is protein. And this is where things get really, really important, especially with ADF because on those fasting days, you're not actually like you're not taking in the protein on those days, which means your body isn't getting the like amino acids. It needs for repair and growth. And so the question then becomes, I reckon, can you make up for it on those eating days? And yes, and I would say hitting your total protein target over the course of those up days and making sure each meal is going to contain enough high quality protein is really important. So for someone in your age group, you're saying you're 67, the protein is going to have to go up because as we get older, our muscles become less sensitive to the muscle building signals from proteins. So the general RDA is 0.8 grams of protein per kg of body weight, but that's sort of the bare minimum to prevent deficiency. So I'd personally recommend 1.5 to double the RDA of that to build. And the quality also matters. So it's not just any protein. It's got to be, well, now I'm not too sure if I should say eggs, lean meats, fish, Greek yogurt, whey protein. They're all your friends.
Melanie Avalon
It's a Maui Nui venison.
Barry Conrad
Maui Nui Venison. And another thing to think about, Ellis, is I guess your total calorie intake over time. Because yeah, I do reckon ADF can be great for weight loss. But if you're in too much of a calorie deficit over the long run, the muscle loss can sort of become a bit of a worry if the protein, even if the protein is high. So you're active training Pilates walking, burning a lot of energy, just make sure like on those days you're eating replenish you properly. I mean, some people experiment with that modified version. So it's more like what, up to 500 calories more on the fasting days around that ballpark, just enough to maintain that muscle without breaking the benefits. That could be something to play around with. But overall, Ellis, from what you're saying, you're doing so much right already. And like the level of activity and dedication you have is, it's awesome. So keep doing what you're doing. No stress. Melanie, what do you reckon?
Melanie Avalon
awesome. Thank you so much for doing that. I found some good studies looking at actual fasting and muscle mass retention. And I found two meta-analyses that I think will be very helpful and then one that looked at specifically alternate day fasting and muscle and how it's affected if you are doing it with resistance training and it compared it to normal calorie restriction. So for the meta-analyses first, so there's one called the effects of intermittent fasting combined with resistance training on lean body mass, a systemic review. So this was eight studies and it looked at, so not just ADF but intermittent fasting in general. Let me see how many were ADF. So some of those were ADF, some were modified ADF, some were time-restricted feeding and some were diet breaks, whatever that means, and then others as well. So they found that lean body mass was generally maintained and one study actually saw a significant increase in lean body mass. And they also saw that body fat mass was significantly reduced in five out of eight studies. So the results suggest that IF paired with resistance training generally maintains lean body mass and can also promote fat loss. That's awesome. But like I said, this was not just ADF, this was all different types. Some of them were ADF. So that brings us to a meta-analysis called health effects of alternate day fasting in adults, a systemic review, a meta-analysis. So this looked at seven randomized controlled trials covering 269 people in total and it specifically looked at ADF. And what they found was that in animal experiments, weight loss can actually redistribute fat in ADF groups without losing lean muscle mass. So that's amazing. And then they said that new research showed that exercise plus ADF would experience the best effects and cardiovascular disease risk and also the least amount of muscle loss compared to ADF alone. And I'm going to talk about that study in a little bit. But in their analysis, they did find a significant reduction in lean mass in the ADF group. And they said this serves as a caution for patient populations at risk for sarcopenia because ADF could exacerbate muscle loss. They said some studies have shown that adequate or excessive protein consumption during weight loss can mitigate losses in lean mass. So basically with ADF, yes, there is the potential of losing muscle mass. You can possibly mitigate that if you have enough protein or excessive protein. And then that other study I wanted to talk about was called effects of alternate day calorie restriction and exercise on cardio metabolic risk factors and overweight and obese adults and exploratory randomized controlled trial. And this was really, really interesting because they actually looked at groups that did resistance training, anaerobic exercise. And they looked at people who were just doing calorie restriction versus those who were doing ADF.
Melanie Avalon
But what they did find interestingly was that the exercise plus ADF group experience some muscle loss, but it was less muscle loss than the group doing just calorie restriction alone, which supports the protective effective exercise quote, but shows it's not always foolproof. So basically takeaways from all of this are that calorie restriction definitely can lead to and most likely will lead to loss of muscle. Pairing, fasting with exercise can be protective, but you might still lose some muscle. Pairing it with adequate protein or excessive protein can be helpful, but you might still lose some muscle. That is different than that first study I talked about where they looked at all different types of fasting and didn't find the muscle mass loss. So what I think is that out of all the different approaches to fasting, ADF is probably the one that is going to be most problematic for muscle loss. I'm not as concerned with like the one meal a day or the time restricted eating like the 16, eight approaches. Those I feel pretty good about, especially if paired with exercise and protein that you're probably going to be fine with muscle. I would be cautious with ADF. So if you're doing ADF, have a lot of protein, like Barry was saying, pair it with resistance training and then just wait and then monitor, like, see, are you losing muscle? Maybe you won't, then in which case maybe it's fine for you. But if you are, then you need to reevaluate and see what are your goals, you know, what's important to you. Yeah, going into this, I didn't know what I was gonna find, I didn't, because I knew that pairing with exercise and resistance training and protein could be really protective. I wasn't sure what I would find for ADF, but it does seem like ADF might be an issue.
Barry Conrad
Mmm, but super interesting. I could talk about this all day, like muscle and fasting and protein and exactly what you said, Melanie, sounds like it's the one that's going to probably lead to more muscle loss than the other protocols, which is who wants that? No one.
Melanie Avalon
I think because I think the problem with it is it's not like because we know when you do an extended fast, like days and days, yes, you lose muscle, but you definitely go into a protective mode. But it's like with ADF, you're having these days where you're, you're having like a little bit of calories. So you're, you're not, you're kind of, in my opinion, you're kind of stopping your body from staying in a slightly protective state because you're going into the feeding state, like the anabolic state by eating, but you're not having like barely anything. So you broke down muscle throughout the day and then you're not having enough in that window to build it back up again. But like a little bit to like get you there. But I just think it's not enough support for the muscle for a lot of people.
Barry Conrad
I just don't think a lot a lot of people can eat enough protein anyway generally so i think that's that's a big part of it because even on that five hundred ish calorie day. For example you could have four hundred twenty five grams of. What you know official or what not and that's gonna that's gonna give you more than enough protein but it's still a lot to eat even though it's five like less than five hundred calories for that. So it's just i think it's being able to digest it all as well i don't think a lot of people can do that. You know so.
Melanie Avalon
So yeah, so definitely keep us updated, Alice, and thank you for your question.
Barry Conrad
Thanks, Alice.
Melanie Avalon
Do we have time to do our restaurant?
Barry Conrad
Let's do it. Time to break out fast. How do we say it?
Melanie Avalon
It's time to break our fast, our hypothetical.
Barry Conrad
a simulation.
Melanie Avalon
our simulated hypothetical meal to iterate the purpose of this friends is so we can focus on how important the eating window is. The fasting is not just about the fasting, it's also about the eating window. And you can hear about how we order when we're out. You can hear my way of doing things. If you have dietary restrictions, I want to empower you to make choices and you can still go out and have all the fun. Or you can be like Barry, also really healthy and also not as intense as me.
Barry Conrad
No, it's not intense. It's just different. There's no rules when it comes to that. I think it's a good thing we're different. I agree. Okay, so the restaurant I've chosen for this week is called Logan Brown. So friends, Logan Brown, I'm going to send you the link. So Logan Brown, it's based in New Zealand. So my family live in New Zealand. I love New Zealand. It's in Wellington. It's this place in a beautiful restored like banking chamber from the 1920s.
Melanie Avalon
Oh, I love that. I love one. Oh, yes, I love when things are in like, things like that.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, it's there all about sustainability, you know, none of the it's, it's all fair trade free range organic produce as well as like responsibly caught seafood. They've got amazing dishes. They're incredible hospitality and the co-founders Steve Logan and L Brown have been featured on the TV series hunger for the wild where they explore local food sources and cooking tradition. So it's a super interesting place. And I can't wait to get into this menu, Melanie.
Melanie Avalon
Awesome, we pull, okay, dinner menu.
Barry Conrad
Turn the menu.
Melanie Avalon
Oh, I love it. Yeah. It says, we are proud to represent the best of what our people and country produce ethically and sustainably. Love that.
Barry Conrad
I reckon, Melanie, I'm going to throw the ball to you to go first.
Melanie Avalon
So, well, bread to start. I'm gonna pass. Are you gonna have any bread?
Barry Conrad
I'm gonna go with the Logan Brown sourdough bread to start there.
Melanie Avalon
They do for listeners have a gluten free loaf available on request. Which is good. Yep. Oh my goodness. And it's speaking in your language. Entrez wait, the entrez is the appetizer, right? The starter, right? I cannot.
Barry Conrad
Thank you Logan Brown. You know what? We see each other. They get me. It's good.
Melanie Avalon
Oh, this is a set menu too, so you pick one of each thing.
Barry Conrad
So Melanie, what would you have for your entree slash starter?
Melanie Avalon
Okay. If it was a small, I would see if they could do the snapper crudo, like very plain. I'd have to check the mercury levels of snapper, but if it was like a small little bit, I might have like a little bit of that. So, oh yeah. And it is snapper crudo with pickle, rock melon, citrus, labna, caviar. Oh, caviar. Gonna have the caviar. And puffed rice.
Barry Conrad
I'm going to go the same for sure and I'm going to ask them to put like extra TLC in mine so give me a little bit more than what they normally give people.
Melanie Avalon
You can have some of mine too.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, because you might see it and go, I'm just going to have a bite of this.
Melanie Avalon
I would want, I would want a bite. It's mostly, I'm worried about the, the mercury, but okay. The, the main dish. Oh, okay.
Barry Conrad
That looks good. That looks real good.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I am getting, I'm torn between the pork and the lamb. I think I'm going to get the lamb, the coastal lamb loin, which comes with Aberdeen duck bolognese, spiced pumpkin mousse, and roast grapes. And I'm going to get it completely plain, please. Rare.
Barry Conrad
I'm going to get the miso glazed high grounds pork.
Melanie Avalon
Can I taste a bite of it? Oh, wait, but does it come with stuff on it? Oh, me so glazed. Never mind.
Barry Conrad
Well, I was thinking because, you know, whenever we order and we both like kind of want I would kind of want what you have as well So it's like if I get this and she gets that maybe we can kind of taste Each other's you know, I mean like have a bite
Melanie Avalon
Well, the problem you can taste mine because mine will be deconstructed, but yours won't be so I might have to like if you can like cut into the middle and like cut out some of the middle that hasn't touched any of the outside
Barry Conrad
I'll do some surgery on the table. It's like, what's happening over there? Table number three. It's like, she has to eat the centers. She can't eat the.
Melanie Avalon
I hope to have this inter, please. Oh man. Awesome. And then dessert. I'm going to see for dessert if they will bring me some pork, if they'll substitute.
Barry Conrad
That's so funny. It's hilarious, Mel.
Melanie Avalon
I'll pay an upcharge, what would you get?
Barry Conrad
I'm going to get the pomegranate and dark chocolate mousse, which is red velvet sponge. Delicious. Salt, caramel, and black Doris plum. That sounds like a me dessert. I'm going to go for that one.
Melanie Avalon
That does sound like you.
Barry Conrad
I also do on cheese though.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I was gonna say, I feel like, oh wait, oh perfect. I'll get the cheese and you can have my cheese and you can get the mousse.
Barry Conrad
a lot though because you know like you're going to probably have like a real little bit and have it slowly and like a civilized way and I'll be like smashing it, you know.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, well, but yeah, but we're going to work on that. This is going to be exercise in eating slowly.
Barry Conrad
Okay, I need to work. Actually, you know what? I take that back. In a restaurant like this, I'm gonna keep it together. Don't worry about that.
Melanie Avalon
I have faith in you.
Barry Conrad
I feel like I'm painting myself to be this like savage when it comes to eating like a barbarian or something. It's probably more in your head. Also, Mel, there's a beverage list. Oh, let's-
Melanie Avalon
Let me look.
Barry Conrad
This looks good.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, I love this. It's like organized by like light-bodied red, medium-bodied red, full-bodied red. Okay. So friends, I would have to look these up to see if they were organic or not. But since they have a light-bodied red, I'm definitely going to go from there because those tend to be lower alcohol and lower sugar because the sugar and the alcohol, a lot of that is what contributes to the the fuller body. So we're already winning. They have a gamay, which is one of my favorites by the glass. I probably do a lot more expensive. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, this winery is they're in transition to organic and they're sustainable. So I might get the Esthe two terraces vineyard gamay or one of the Pinot Noir's. They're all New Zealand though. So I would have to look them up and see which ones are organic. But this is a really great list.
Barry Conrad
I knew you'd like it, and listeners, if you haven't been to New Zealand, the wine there is delicious. It's so good. It does taste different to what you get in America and even in Australia. It's very, very, very good.
Melanie Avalon
I want to go here for the wine alone. What would you get?
Barry Conrad
I would get a glass of the medium bodied red Muriel Creanza Rio de Tempranillo to start. I think that'd pair really well with what I'm ordering and then of course I gotta do a if they have, do they have like a margarita type situation? Let me have a look here. No, these cocktails are merely a guide. Okay, so I would, don't see anything tequila. I would ask them to make me a, I'll pull a melody. I'm gonna say, can you please do me like something that's not on the menu and just make me a margarita with your special touch? I'll do that. I'll, I'll, I'll augment it. There we go.
Melanie Avalon
Although I feel like the good thing about that is it's a very common request, you know, to just have like a margarita or like a martini and not going rogue like me.
Barry Conrad
oh wow thanks mel on my birthday well you know just basically there you know you're not really doing it
Melanie Avalon
Okay, wait. Okay, I take that back. Okay, when you ask, you could be like, can I just make up something? Oh, ask for like a margarita with that rock melon because I saw that on one of the dishes. That sounds cool. Because you could get the watermelon margarita.
Barry Conrad
That could be good.
Melanie Avalon
Okay. One time, Barry and I were doing a call and he was at a restaurant and they had a watermelon margarita and I was so excited. I was like, you have to get that. Get it now.
Barry Conrad
And Melanie hasn't reciprocated that yet like she has and she's like yeah i'll make sure that i'm out and i'll you can be there in real time while i order that has to happen i will do it.
Melanie Avalon
for your birthday.
Barry Conrad
Great. Sounds good.
Melanie Avalon
So awesome. Well, thank you. Great find. Happy late birthday. No, no, no, happy birthday for you in real time. Happy early birthday from me in the U.S.
Barry Conrad
Thank you so much. I really, I'm feeling the love and I really appreciate the kind of words. Mel really, really, really do. Thank you.
Melanie Avalon
Of course, I really appreciate you. And this was super fun. And listeners, if you would like to submit your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions at iphodcast.com, or you can go to iphodcast.com and you can submit questions there. These show notes will be at iphodcast.com slash episode 417. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. And you can follow us on Instagram. I am Melanie Avalon. Barry is berry underscore Conrad, right?
Barry Conrad
That's right.
Melanie Avalon
And we are, I have podcast. So yeah, anything from you before we go?
Barry Conrad
Thank you guys for tuning in and we'll catch you next week. Talk to you next week. Talk to you next week. Bye.
Melanie Avalon
Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice, and no patient-doctor relationship is formed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing 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. See you next week!